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A month late and right on time, Willy Chavarria's men's wear collection reminded anyone with an interest in men's wear of how essential a talent is this designer who follows nobody's schedule but his own. Sure, the last men's wear show of the official fashion week cycle was in late June, yet Mr. Chavarria chose July 24 for its nearness to his Cancer birthday. And, as in the past, he used the occasion to embrace the political. Mr. Chavarria is no stranger to issues like exclusion, racism, gender inequality and the unacknowledged restrictions of mainstream fashion. Unlike other designers who may sample but seldom engage with the rich aesthetics of marginalized communities and fringe cultures, Mr. Chavarria celebrates them. In the past, Mr. Chavarria has offered sweatshirts and polo shirts embroidered with phrases like "capitalism is heartless," "savor kindness" and "born of an immigrant family," a reference to his background as the child of migrant workers in the Central Valley of California. He has staged shows in which models from across the spectrum of gender identity stood caged as though in internment camps. He has mounted a tenderly sensual presentation inspired by the visual codes of Chicano gang culture, set in one of Manhattan's last gay leather bars. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
Whether Schwab's new service, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, is free or just meant to appear to be is a matter of debate. Charles Schwab is poised to introduce an investment service for consumers who crave low cost personalized advice but do not have a lot of money to invest. And it is dangling an attractive lure in front of investors, in a way that its competitors have not: It says its service is free. But whether it is truly free, or is just intended to seem that way, is up for debate. The program, called Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, is the company's response to the rise of so called robo advisers. These are largely upstart companies that rely on software to create customized portfolios of low cost investments, often for a small fraction of the cost of human financial advisers. Schwab, which revolutionized the brokerage world nearly 40 years ago with its concept of discount brokerage, is coming to automated investing well behind some smaller but aggressive firms. They include Wealthfront, which has collected 2 billion in customer assets over its three year existence, largely from people under 35, and Betterment, which has collected 1.55 billion since it opened in 2010. Collectively, these companies are providing a much needed service to people with thousands, not millions, to invest and little to spend on investment advice. "They promise to solve a serious problem in a compelling way," said Sophie Louvel Schmitt, an analyst at Aite, a research and consulting group, in a note. Schwab, with 2.46 trillion in assets, has the potential to trounce the competition given its established brand name and size. Vanguard's version, Vanguard Personal Advisor Services, which has been in pilot mode since 2013, is managing 10 billion, in part because it moved some existing customers to the program. Naureen Hassan, an executive vice president of Schwab, explained that the firm was trying to minimize paperwork and fees that deter many investors, while structuring portfolios that minimize risk. "We wanted to create a product that would appeal to the masses and get more people into well diversified portfolios," she said. Although the program does not officially become available to customers until later this month, its federal regulatory filing and website contain many of its details. Many robo advisers charge 0.15 to 0.50 percent of assets under management, plus the cost of underlying investments. Live advisers, who offer a wider range of guidance, generally charge 1 percent or more, while others working on commissions may offer far more expensive investments. The Schwab Intelligent Portfolios will include any of 54 exchange traded funds from 11 fund providers. (That includes 14 of Schwab's proprietary funds, 12 from Vanguard and eight from BlackRock's iShares). Even though Schwab will not charge investors directly, that does not mean it will not be paid. It will make money from some of its exchange traded funds both from the funds it manages and from exchange traded fund providers who pay Schwab to gain access to its program. The company said that compensation did not factor into the exchange traded funds it selects, which must meet a long list of criteria. Schwab will also earn money by selling its trade orders to other firms that will execute them. That is not much different from the way many other large financial services firms generate revenue, but it stands in stark comparison to the robo advisers who simply charge one transparent fee for their advice. Perhaps the biggest source of criticism is the company's decision to allocate significant parts of the portfolios at least 6 percent and as much as 30 percent of an individual's money to cash, held in an Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insured account. The cash allotment will often be larger than many financial advisers recommend. The cash component will make money for Schwab, which will earn revenue on the difference between the interest it pays to customers (currently 0.10 percent; it will fluctuate based on a national average of money market accounts calculated by RateWatch) and what it can earn on that money invested elsewhere. Under the new program, Schwab might recommend that a 40 year old investor saving for retirement hold 7.3 percent of her portfolio in cash. But it suggests only 1.9 percent in cash for someone the same age whose portfolio is invested in its target date mutual fund. Schwab said its target date funds were built only around a person's age, whereas Schwab Intelligent Portfolios used several criteria, including emotional and financial capacity for risk. Many financial planners recommend keeping roughly six months' worth of expenses in cash, but say a portfolio should be fully invested in a mix of stocks and bonds. Beyond the cash recommendations, several financial planners took issue with the way certain portfolios were constructed. In one hypothetical portfolio provided by Schwab to demonstrate how the program would work, a 40 year old investor saving for retirement would put about 77 percent of her money in stock funds. Eleven percent would be held in fixed income exchange traded funds, including high yielding corporate bonds and emerging markets. About 4.7 percent would be held in gold and other precious metals, while the remaining 7.3 percent would be held in cash. "This is a portfolio with thin shock absorbers," said Milo Benningfield, a financial planner and lawyer in San Francisco, who said he would lump the commodities and risky bonds in the same risk bucket as stocks, making it an aggressive mix. "It doesn't seem a stretch to guess that Schwab's been driven to the riskier bonds by their insistence on using the large cash position as a way of getting paid, while looking cheaper than their robo competitors. In other words, just like many other fund managers, they need to try to 'juice the returns' by dipping into riskier assets in order to solve the fee equation." Schwab said it had nothing to hide, and would post more information about the portfolios when the service starts this month. "We are all about transparency," Ms. Hassan said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Your Money |
Abortion in the United States has decreased to record low levels, a decline that may be driven more by increased access to contraception and fewer women becoming pregnant than by the proliferation of laws restricting abortion in some states, according to new research. "Abortion rates decreased in almost every state and there's no clear pattern linking these declines to new restrictions," said Elizabeth Nash, senior state policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, which issued the findings in a report and policy analysis on Wednesday . The institute, which supports abortion rights, periodically compiles abortion data by surveying hospitals and abortion clinics, and by reviewing information from health departments and other sources. The institute estimated that there were about 862,000 abortions in 2017, nearly 200,000 fewer than in 2011. The abortion rate the number of abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age dropped to 13.5 in 2017 from 16.9 in 2011, the lowest rate since abortion became legal nationwide in 1973. The report suggests that one reason for the decrease might be the growing use of long term contraceptive methods, like intrauterine devices and implants, which are now covered by insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Birthrates have also declined. "If restrictions were the main driver across the board, we'd expect birthrates to increase," said Ms. Nash, a writer of the policy analysis. She said that in four of the states that enacted new restrictions between 2011 and 2017 North Carolina, Mississippi, Wyoming and Georgia abortion rates actually rose. More than half the decline in the number of abortions during that time happened in states that did not pass restrictive abortion laws, she said. The research does not cover the period from 2018 on, when several conservative states passed especially stringent laws that would effectively ban most abortions laws that are being challenged in court. But during the time frame of the research, 2011 to 2017, 32 states passed a total of 394 new abortion restrictions, the authors say. The authors said that one category of state restrictions those that create hurdles for abortion providers by requiring hospital affiliations and other criteria did result in many clinics closing in states like Texas and Ohio. But because new clinics opened in the Northeast and the West, the overall number of clinics in the country grew slightly, Rachel Jones, the Guttmacher Institute's principal research scientist, said. And even in states where the number of clinics increased, abortions declined. Ms. Nash said that might be because "in some of the states that opened new clinics, there are simultaneous efforts that support access to health care, including reproductive health care and sex education." The authors said the abortion ratio the number of abortions out of 100 pregnancies that ended either in abortion or live birth was 18.4 in 2017, down from 21.2 in 2011. The researchers did not explain whether that drop reflected an increase in the number of women who wanted to give birth or who wanted an abortion but did not have access to one, or a combination of both . The research also found that medication abortion a nonsurgical method that allows women who are 10 weeks pregnant or less to induce an abortion by taking two medications is transforming the abortion landscape. An estimated 60 percent of women who were early enough in pregnancy chose to use abortion pills in 2017, the authors reported, and the pills accounted for 39 percent of all abortions that year. Nearly a third of clinics in 2017 offered only medication abortion. The researchers also tried to assess the phenomenon of women ordering abortion medications on their own, without seeking it from clinicians in the United States, as is currently required by the Food and Drug Administration. The drugs are available online from places like Aid Access, an international organization that will send pills by mail order. The researchers found that 18 percent of nonhospital facilities reported that they had treated at least one patient for a failed attempt at a "self managed abortion." "There has been an increase in self managed abortion, but we don't think it's been a big contributor," Dr. Jones said. The Guttmacher Institute would not allow journalists to share the actual research with anyone before publication, but people on both sides of the abortion divide commented on the overall conclusions. Clarke Forsythe, senior counsel for Americans United for Life, an anti abortion organization, called the research "a patchwork put together to serve an agenda, and I don't give any of it any credence whatsoever." He said that he believed the institute's agenda was "abortion is good, abortion should be legal and state laws that try to limit or regulate abortion are ineffective." "I'm sure that there are many factors that have contributed to the decline," Mr. Forsythe added. "Some state laws do contribute to a reduction in abortion." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Port Chester Wants to Grow, but Exactly How Is the Question PORT CHESTER, N.Y. The mayor of this compact, working class village bordering Connecticut can't resist the comparison. Like so many boosters of their own towns, he invokes a New York City borough's name as he describes changes to Port Chester over the last few years. Yes, he calls it "the Brooklyn of Westchester County." Downtown has become a magnet for food, with upscale eateries like Bartaco and Tarry Lodge, a Mario Batali restaurant, competing with a Brazilian steakhouse, a Peruvian cafe and many other ethnic restaurants. A refurbishment of the Capitol Theater music hall has kick started village night life. And a rezoning of the area several years ago helped spur development of new apartment buildings aimed at young professionals, who can walk to the village's Metro North rail station and get to Manhattan in about an hour. "Millennials are moving here from the outer boroughs and other places because of the bang for the buck," said the mayor, Dennis G. Pilla. "The village is going through a transformation." But the gentrifying of this former industrial center is also generating tension, particularly as the village considers its biggest development proposal yet. Starwood Capitol Group, of neighboring Greenwich, Conn., wants to build a 300 million, mixed use development on an abandoned hospital campus at the edge of downtown and near Interstate 287. The project, which is nearing the end of its environmental impact review process, is to include 90,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, 217,000 square feet of office space, about 700 housing units aimed at millennials and those 55 and older, and a 135 room hotel, all around a large public square. Starwood purchased the 15.4 acre property about 10 years ago, but put off development when the economy plummeted. It is seeking a zoning change that would double the allowable density on the site. "This is a gateway project for Port Chester, which is really an up and coming urban place in the county," said Ken Narva, a managing partner at Street Works Development, Starwood's lead consultant on the project. While many residents are eager for redevelopment of the site that has been largely dormant since the hospital's shutdown in 2005, the proposal has also led to a coalition of labor unions and community groups, the Sustainable Port Chester Alliance, which is calling for Starwood to commit to a community benefits agreement. Such a deal might include a labor agreement with the construction trades, standards for local hiring, and a mandated percentage of affordable housing. "We say, 'If you want to be able to double the size of your project, what does the community get out of it?'" said Christopher Calabrese, an organizer for the Communications Workers of America Local 1103, based in Port Chester, and a founder of the alliance. Among the group's other members are the Metallic Lathers and Reinforcing Iron Workers Local 46, the Building and Construction Trades Council of Westchester and Putnam Counties, the local chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. and a local Presbyterian church. Community benefits agreements, or contracts between a developer and community based organizations, are more common on the West Coast than the East, but they have been tried with varying degrees of success in New York City. Julian Gross, a lawyer in San Francisco who specializes in community benefit agreements, said they are becoming more common in urban areas in blue states. He recommended that they be broadly beneficial to be effective. The city of New Rochelle, N.Y., recently adopted a community benefits policy for development in its downtown. The policy grants building height bonuses to developers that provide public benefits like arts and cultural space, community facilities, open space or affordable housing. "Cities are completely within their rights to decide what kind of project they want to see if they're going to be giving tax breaks and increasing density," said Mr. Gross, who advised New Rochelle. "The density is a tremendous increase in concrete economic value for the developer." Mr. Narva of Street Works Development said that in his experience, separate agreements usually become unaffordable for the developer. In this case, he said, he believes the alliance "is pursuing a goal that is focused on the needs of one segment of that population, which most likely isn't even Port Chester based: organized labor." Starwood has not yet agreed to meet with the alliance. In the meantime, the group has been pressing its case for stronger community benefits in public hearings and written comments on the plan. As part of its development plan, the company has proposed a one time, upfront payment of 1 million to a fund for job training, housing or some other community need in return for the density increase. A consultant hired by the village to review the plan has recommended 2.4 million to 3.4 million. Also proposed are reimbursement fees to the school district if the number of school age children living in the development exceeds the number projected. The company is seeking some tax breaks from the village's industrial development authority, including a 20 year payment in lieu of taxes program to help compensate for what it has said are "extraordinarily high" redevelopment costs. The village's consultant agreed that some reduction in property tax payments is warranted for the project to be financially feasible. Starwood estimates the project will generate some 1,800 construction jobs, and after completion, 970 continuing jobs. That could be a much needed boost for Port Chester, which has a population of 29,000 and has struggled for several decades. The median household income is around 56,000 less than half of that in neighboring Greenwich and about three quarters of the students in the Port Chester Rye School District participate in the free lunch program, according to the village's comprehensive plan. (Port Chester is within the town of Rye.) Once home to major manufacturers like Life Savers and Arnold Bread, Port Chester began to decline in the 1970s as the factories moved out. "In the 1980s, urban decay set in," Mr. Pilla said. "A lot of storefronts closed." A new wave of immigrants subsequently poured in, mainly Hispanic, and their influence now defines Port Chester's downtown, which is dominated by restaurants serving Central and South American cuisine, as well as salons, small groceries and fish markets. As revitalization has become more evident, outside investors have become increasingly interested in Main Street property, but many longtime building owners are holding out, said Michael Rackenberg, a commercial broker in the Rye office of Houlihan Lawrence. "The building owners think they're sitting on gold, and the investors, while bullish, are not going to pay exorbitant amounts," he said. "So there's kind of a stalemate there." Looming in the background, toward the southern end of Main Street, along the Byram River, is the Waterfront, a large complex of big box stores and a cineplex that represents an earlier effort at revitalization. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the village used eminent domain to condemn dozens of properties and free up land for the project's developer. Joan Grangenois Thomas, an alliance member and spokeswoman who has lived in Port Chester for 27 years, said she regrets that she did not pay attention when that project was under discussion. Now, she said, she is concerned that the focus on creating housing to bring in millennials is overshadowing the housing needs of existing residents. "We don't want Brooklyn," she added. Geoffrey D. Smith, a lawyer in White Plains and a consultant for the alliance, noted that tenants who were still living in an affordable housing development for hospital workers on Starwood's project site were relocated by the developer to allow for demolition. Given the loss of those units, he said, and the village's "serious problem with overcrowding and substandard housing," it is reasonable to ask Starwood to include some below market rate units in its project. The village board of trustees has ultimate approval authority over the project, but has been advised by legal counsel to stay out of the discussion about a community benefits agreement, said Mr. Pilla, who sits on the board. However, he said, he has been talking with alliance members and thinks that some of their ideas, like local hiring and work force housing incentives, are worth considering adopting as village policy for future projects. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
A wagon train of American homesteaders moves westward across the open plains, circa 1885. In recent years, fewer people are picking up stakes to seek fresh opportunity, a factor economists say may be weighing on the recovery. By covered wagon and jetliner, from East Coast to West, Rust Belt to Sun Belt, Americans' propensity to be on the move to new jobs and new places has historically provided the economy with a critical dose of oomph. But as fewer and fewer Americans are loading up the moving van in search of opportunity, that advantage may be slipping away. In recent years, economists have become increasingly worried that a slide in job turnover and relocation rates is undermining the economy's dynamism, damping productivity and wages while making it more difficult for sidelined workers to find their way back into the labor force. "It's possible that one reason people aren't changing jobs is because they've all found jobs that are great for them and they're happy," Betsey Stevenson, an economist at the University of Michigan and a former member of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, said. "But the other possibility is that people stay in jobs that aren't as good for them because they're terrified of changing, and that's bad for the overall economy." Staying put can mean that workers are not moving to jobs where they would be more productive. At the same time, many are forgoing the raises and ascents on the career ladder that often come with a job switch. Fewer openings can also have a ripple effect, shrinking the bargaining power of workers in general, making it tougher to ask for a bump up in pay. "It also stinks if you lose your job," Ms. Stevenson said of reduced turnover. "It's like a game of musical chairs where only half the people get up." The declining churn in the labor market may surprise those who assumed that the era of lifelong employment capped by a gold watch had given way to serial job hopping. But the reality is more complicated, said Abigail Wozniak, an economist at the University of Notre Dame and one of the authors of a new report on the subject. While it is true that fewer people have very long tenures at a single company, she said, that trend has been swamped by a countervailing one: People are not moving as much out of what used to be entry level and temporary jobs. Such road testing of jobs was once very common, particularly for young workers. But now, "quick turnover jobs are declining across the board," Ms. Wozniak said. "It's not as easy to try things out." A new analysis by Ms. Wozniak and economists at the Federal Reserve Board to be published soon by the Brookings Institution used a combination of factors job shifts, movement in and out of the labor force, interstate migration, job creation and destruction, among others to measure what they called fluidity or dynamism in the labor market. Mobility normally drops during downturns, and that was the case during the Great Recession. Millions of jobs vanished, and those fortunate enough to be working were less inclined to give up the one they had. But even as much of the wreckage wrought by the crash has been cleared, fluidity has not bounced back to prerecession levels. Although there was a common perception that the mortgage crisis had stranded many Americans in place, economists found scant evidence to support that notion. Moving declined similarly among both renters and homeowners. Something else appears to be going on. Moreover, when it comes to mobility, figuring out which is the chicken and which is the egg is not so easy. Is a less fluid labor market causing the economy to be more sluggish or is a sluggish economy causing the labor market to be less fluid? Certainly, movement has declined as the population ages. Older people are less likely to switch jobs and resettle than younger people. The addition of career minded women into the work force may also make it harder for couples and families to move if only one spouse can find a new job. In addition, fewer new companies are being created over all, and the ones that exist are growing more slowly on average. Still, those explanations don't account for the steep drops in mobility and job turnover found across every age group, educational level and industry. One of the more intriguing findings was the role of declining social trust and what is known as social capital the web of family, friends and professional contacts. For example, the proportion of people who agree with the statement, "Most people can be trusted," has been shrinking for more than three decades. Researchers found that states with larger declines in social trust also had larger declines in labor market fluidity. The lack of trust may increase the cost of job hunting and make both employees and employers more risk averse. "The cost of conducting these kinds of checks has declined," said Steven J. Davis, an economist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, who has separately researched fluidity. Employers may like it because it helps them more efficiently screen candidates, but it also can make it harder for some potential workers. "You get fewer second chances now," Mr. Davis said. "If you screwed up in a way that's out there, it follows you around for life." That can particularly hurt young black men, he said, who have disproportionate contact with the criminal justice system. (Offering a second chance is why President Obama recently proposed barring federal agencies from asking applicants for many jobs about their criminal histories until the end of the process.) Mr. Davis also argued that an increase in government regulations, including varying licensing requirements that prevent workers from setting up shop in another state, have made the labor market more static, though the evidence is mixed. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
Verizon Communications, the wireless powerhouse that was a cluster of local phone companies when two Stanford University graduate students began compiling the Yahoo web directory in 1994, completed its purchase on Tuesday of Yahoo's internet business for 4.48 billion. Yahoo, which once had a market value of 125 billion, will be combined with AOL, another faded web pioneer it bought in 2015, into a new division of Verizon called Oath. Oath, headed by AOL's chief executive, Tim Armstrong, will have about 1.3 billion monthly users, and Verizon hopes to use its range of content and new forms of advertising to attract more viewers and marketers as it competes against Google and Facebook. The company also intends to cut costs, with plans to lay off about 2,100 people, or about 15 percent of Oath's staff. Oath's strategy will be to place the same content whether articles, videos or ads in multiple locations to reach the widest possible audience, said Marni Walden, the Verizon executive vice president who oversees its global media businesses. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated islands in the Caribbean last September. Six months later, how are they recovering? To find out, writers for Travel spent time in Vieques, St. Martin, St. John, Dominica (below) and San Juan, P.R. The hike to Middleham Falls took precisely 45 minutes, just as my guide, Dylan Williams, had predicted. In that time, Dylan, his girlfriend, Miriam Ormond, and I had marched a mile and a quarter up and down (and up and down) the hills of Dominica's Morne Trois Pitons National Park, starting on a well cleared trail through rain forest brush tree ferns, rubber trees, shaggy epiphytes and finishing with moderate scrambles over damp rock and down slippery wooden stairs. But finally, we stood on a sturdy platform gazing at the island's highest waterfall as it thundered 200 or so feet down into a broad, inviting pool. Between us and the pool, however, stood a field of water slicked boulders. Suddenly, I felt every drop of my trekking confidence evaporate. I wanted nothing more than to bound over the rocks, as dreadlocked Dylan was doing in Converse low tops, and dip my feet in the pristine water, but those feet, I was now irrationally sure, would fail me, and I'd slip, fall, dash my brains out below. Nature, until a moment ago so lovely and generous, had turned threatening and dark. Who was I to risk her wrath? And then it was all undone overnight. On the evening of Sept. 18, 2017, Hurricane Maria hit Dominica with 160 mile per hour winds, damaging or destroying the roofs of an estimated 90 percent of buildings (including the prime minister's residence) and toppling not only power lines but some of the thickest, strongest, oldest trees in the forests. Maria's rains triggered landslides and transformed the island's 365 rivers into raging tendrils that washed away bridges and crops and slashed deep cuts along what had been well laid roads. At least 31 people were killed, and thousands more left homeless. Everything lay in shambles. Five and a half months later, I arrived in Dominica, my flight from Barbados banking down the steep slope of a lush hill to land at the brief runway of Douglas Charles Airport. I was there for five days to find out how the island was recovering, and frankly, I didn't know what to expect: My pre trip research kept hitting dead ends websites not updated since before Maria, emails and WhatsApp messages unanswered, Google Maps now outdated. Secret Bay and Rosalie Bay Resort, beloved by friends who had visited, were closed. Would I discover an island back on its feet or struggling through each day? Immediately after I left the airport in a minivan taxi driven by Daniel Didier, a seen it all 69 year old the scale of the devastation was obvious. The winding road across the island to Roseau, the capital, was generally excellent, but there were sudden patches, some a couple of yards, others much longer, where the smooth surface gave way to rocks and rubble. Windowless, rusted out cars and piles of thick logs dotted the roadside. Blue tarps covered the holes in roof after galvanized steel corrugated roof. One huge fallen tree hovered nearly horizontal, high in the air across the road, propped up by its fellows, ominous. Mr. Didier, however, saw bright spots reasons to be proud of Dominica's resilience. He pointed to a river where two women were bathing and washing clothes the water all over the island was still that clean. And the government, he said, was starting to require builders to use heavier roofing material, at a steeper slant, to protect against future storms. When he heard the squawk of a parrot from the forest, he stopped the minivan and squawked back parrots, he said, had been rarely seen since Maria. Still, challenges popped up everywhere. On the way to Roseau, we stopped at the boxy little Rosie's A Cuisine for lunch: stewed pork, fried fish, rice, yams, salad. But when I asked for pepper sauce, the woman behind the counter threw up her hands. "Ration, ration everything rationed!" she said. Dominica, once known as the breadbasket of the Caribbean for its exports of bananas, mangoes, citrus, taro, guavas, now barely had pepper sauce. (It took many market visits to find a bottle of local Big G "Fireball" sauce which airport security, deeming it dangerous, eventually confiscated.) Not helping matters was the sea itself, where big swells were keeping cargo ships from docking with supplies. Still, those crashing waves looked awesome outside my balcony at the waterfront boutique Fort Young Hotel, which has reopened 41 of its 72 rooms since the storm. (The hotel's reservation system said no vacancies, but Hotels.com let me book.) In my room, or with a nutmeg fragrant rum punch in my hand at the hotel bar, I was hypnotized by the sea, by its barely contained violence: the vast spray of foam across a wooden walkway, the thunder of rocks slammed together by unimaginable forces. In dense downtown Roseau, normalcy was gaining ground. An old man strummed a guitar on a street corner. Uniformed schoolchildren strolled past the dilapidated childhood home of Jean Rhys, whose novel "Wide Sargasso Sea" reimagined the "madwoman in the attic" in "Jane Eyre" as a Dominica born Creole. At the Musik Land bar, soccer fans drinking Kubuli, the local beer, and rum spiked with the aphrodisiac bwa band e cheered Juventus over Tottenham. When night fell, the city calmed. I ate grilled snapper on the terrace of the Great Old House, with a pina colada because they were out of rum punch, and though the streets below were black (electricity remains unreliable) the only danger I felt was that I might stumble on an unseen cobblestone. If I was going to stumble, though, I wanted to do so not in the urban grit of Roseau but out in the green backcountry. So I hopped into Dylan Williams's red jeep and headed for the hills. Dylan who had been recommended by the Experiences Caribbean tour company was a man of many talents, a 26 year old at ease discussing the power of essential oils and the correct way to build a plasma capacitor. A vice president of the Dominica Organic Agriculture Movement, he lived with Miriam at the edge of Harmony Gardens, her parents' farm 30 minutes southeast of Roseau. (I slept in a tent on their property.) More important to me, Dylan had been contracted to help clear Segment 3 of the still mostly closed Waitukubuli National Trail, and I was going to help him out, as a way to both get some hiking in and give something back to this island. As it happened, however, Dylan had, just before I got there, fulfilled his contract, lugging a chain saw and 150 pound pack back and forth along the first quarter of the six to eight hour hike. (A contract for the remainder had yet to be drafted.) By the time he brought me with cans of blue and yellow paint to mark the trail Segment 3 was in decent shape, though obviously storm damaged. I'd hoped to see Dominica as described in "Wide Sargasso Sea": "Too much blue, too much purple, too much green. The flowers too red, the mountains too high, the hills too near." No longer. Floods had torn new ravines, toppled trees and washed away a bridge, and the mere fact that we could see through the denuded forest to the other side of the valley was evidence of Maria's destructive power. It might be years, Dylan estimated, before the foliage fully recovered, though man made projects were moving speedily. "With all the help that's coming in, with all the money that's coming in ha! it won't be long," he said. I'd never marked a trail before (nor wielded a machete like cutlass), but I loved the process. More than repainting old marks, we were seeking new ones, on trees and rocks, that would not only be visible from every direction and limn tricky routes but would also provide essential comfort: Relax, they'd suggest, you're on the right track. In the evenings, we'd hang about their house, drinking mint and lemongrass tea and cooking vegan feasts of rice, beans, salad, fritters. One night, we drove out for a soak in the sulfurous, open air Ti Kwen Glocho hot springs. The darkness was deep, and a light rain sprinkled off and on, and I gazed at the stars, about the only things unchanged here since Maria. Maria, Maria, Maria. Everywhere I went, Maria was there. Up north, on a quiet boat trip to Indian River, where parts of "Pirates of the Caribbean" had been shot, I saw juvenile blue herons and gargantuan coconut crabs and so many Maria felled trees that the river was closed off above the "Banana Hut " bar. Maria has even found its place in calypso music: At least 15 of the songs in a national competition here referenced the storm, including "Maria Why You Do That to Us" and "Ave Maria." When I asked Dylan and Miriam whether Maria had become the catchall excuse for anything and everything, they burst out laughing. It was ridiculous, but it was also reality. You can't escape from it you can only deal with it. After the boat trip, I had a long lunch next to the docks, at the bare bones Indian River Bar Grill. As I drank a Kubuli (or three), and ate chicken and rice (with spicy creamy house made pepper sauce!), I observed the scene. One man asked the young bartender so many questions about the soup of the day turkey, with optional pig snout that she teased back, "Why you so troublesome?" An American who had fled to Bolivia during the Vietnam War attempted to download the movie "The Last Castle" on his laptop. The chef responsible for the pepper sauce, Kim Mandy, told me she planned to bottle and sell it to cruise ship visitors. People came, people went, and for a couple of hours, Dominica seemed to relax. This new normal felt ... normal. "Is there anywhere better than this?" asked a man named Rickson, sitting to my right. There was, of course, no need to answer. If You Go Dominica is still in recovery mode, and with no single, definitive source for information, figuring out what's functioning and what is not remains a challenge. Plan on arriving with plenty of time to explore, and an abundance of patience. Getting to the island, however, is increasingly easy. Although there are no direct flights from the continental United States, six regional airlines provide service from other Caribbean islands, including Barbados, Saint Martin, and San Juan, P.R. While many of Dominica's hotels remain out of commission, the Fort Young Hotel is open during reconstruction, and offers a five night voluntourism package ( 837 per person) that includes trail clearing. Secret Bay and Rosalie Bay Resort hope to be operational by fall 2018, with the Cabrits Resort Kempinski and Marriott's Anichi Resort Spa to follow in 2019. Many popular tourism destinations, such as Boiling Lake, the Emerald Pool and the trails one takes to reach them, are open and accessible. The Division of Forestry, meanwhile, is hard at work restoring the Waitukubuli National Trail. A spokeswoman for the division, Marcy Gachette, said by email that "work is active" on Segments 6, 7, 11, and 13, with Segments 1 and 3 near completion. With 115 miles of trail to restore at roughly 2,000 per mile, she said, it's going to be a financial and logistical challenge. Although road conditions vary, getting around the island is straightforward. If you're comfortable driving on the left, up steep, rough hills, rental cars are available at the airport and in cities. (Best to be familiar with standard transmissions and four wheel drive.) Private taxis are on call for trips both short and long. And major routes in and between towns are plied by minivan taxis, which can be hailed from the road and cost very little. Matt Gross, a former Frugal Traveler columnist for The New York Times, writes about travel, food, parenting, running and many other things. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
STABLE CHIC A stable repurposed as a residence in Matinecock is on the market for 3.999 million. The property includes original features like intact stalls, seen here in the kitchen. THIRTY years ago, desiring more space than their Manhasset Tudor provided, Steve and Helene Kosoff bought a stable, an unfinished carriage house and two outbuildings on five acres of a subdivided Gatsby era 65 acre estate in Matinecock known as Farnsworth. Mr. Kosoff, a marketing executive, did a retrofit but maintained the essence of the stable's original look. "I shoveled out the stalls," he said. "I built a new house inside the old shell. Starting with a clean canvas was very appealing to me at the time, while still maintaining the charm and character of days gone by." Mr. Kosoff replaced the electric, plumbing and heating systems but retained the "character and the charm of the wainscoting and wrought iron," leaving stalls intact to define the living and dining rooms and the kitchen. He mounted iron horse heads on the antique newel posts of the staircase, fashioning it to look as though they had always been there. Upstairs, he turned part of the hayloft into the master bedroom and, by incorporating the grooms' quarters, carved out five other bedrooms. Antique French dry sinks and dining room servers became vanities for the stable mansion's four and a half baths. Outside, in place of a paddock, Mr. Kosoff built an in ground pool and a koi pond with a waterfall. Earlier this summer Mr. Kosoff, who became a builder in 2000 and was widowed at the end of 2009, listed the repurposed stable residence with Lynx Realty of Roslyn for 3.999 million. It is one of several one of a kind Island homes that previously served various idiosyncratic functions. There is an Amagansett windmill, an East Hampton barn, a stagecoach tavern in Matinecock, and a boathouse in Huntington Bay. The houses' past lives tell a story powerful enough either to seduce buyers, or persuade them to keep shopping. "Unique houses certainly take a different approach to sell," Brian Buckhout of Prudential Douglas Elliman said in an e mail. He counts the 2.895 million retrofitted barn among his East Hamptons listings. "Everyone who enters the house absolutely loves it, but loving it and buying it are two different animals." That said, however, "the current owner walked into the house when it first came on the market in 2005 and bought it on the spot," Mr. Buckhout recalled. "Certain people will find an immediate emotional attachment to spaces like this and will just have to have it. Others might be looking for something completely different until they see something with this kind of character." He said several buyers had expressed interest in the centuries old three story barn, a purchase from the New Jersey Barn Company that was moved to East Hampton in 1985 and expanded with a sunroom and a separate wing with a billiards room, a guest suite and a two car garage. "One of the most dramatic spaces in the house is the original hayloft, which overlooks the massive hand hewn beams below and is now used as a fifth bedroom," Mr. Buckhout said. "According to the owner, that is the space where virtually all of his guests choose to stay." In Amagansett, sea breezes whoosh up the hill to the 1,300 square foot three bedroom one bath windmill house on 5.5 acres, which Bobby Rosenbaum of Prudential Douglas Elliman listed five weeks ago for 7.9 million. Built in the 1850s, the windmill is one of three remaining in the area (though two contemporary homes on the market also have their own). It performed the function it was designed for until a century later, when a new owner, Samuel Rubin, the creator of Faberge cosmetics, converted it to a guesthouse on what was then his estate, Quail Hill Farm. Instead of the mill mechanism, the first floor has the living room. "It's a delightful property," Mr. Rosenbaum said. "It is unique, like the 'Old Lady Who Lived in the Shoe.' It's the man that lived in the windmill." Over the years, celebrity tenants have included Kurt Vonnegut, Terence Stamp and Ralph Lauren, he said, adding that Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller were said to have spent a weekend there. Mr. Rosenbaum says he thinks the novelty appeals to celebrities (Alec Baldwin has viewed the property, which borders a 100 year old apple orchard) and will make the sale very easy. "We are asking a lot of money for a very small house that is really just a trophy property," he said. "Someone who has everything but doesn't have a windmill home is the person who is going to buy it." Susan and Thomas Miller's converted boathouse overlooking Huntington Bay was originally built on stilts in 1908 for the dock master at Wincoma, the estate of the industrialist and philanthropist August Heckscher. In 1933, the boathouse was moved 30 feet up an embankment and raised onto a brick foundation, which allowed for even more spectacular views. The Millers renovated and opened up the interior and enlarged the deck across the back of the house. But on the outside, they were "historically attracted" by the eyebrow windows, a clerestory and a wooden roof. "You can certainly see the original house," Mr. Miller said, citing the "waviness" in the glass of the original living room windows. Mr. Miller's "restored cottage" was recently listed for 1.699 million with Maria Boccard of Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty. He described the house, which sits down a hill on half an acre, steps from a residents only neighborhood beach, as "a great place to end the day and enjoy the sunsets." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Salma Hayek, 50, may have broken into Hollywood via "hot girl" roles, but she long ago left them in the "Desperado" dust. These days, she has become quite the powerhouse: producing TV shows, running a skin care and makeup label called Nuance, investing in the company Juice Generation and acting. This month, she'll appear in the action film "The Hitman's Bodyguard," in theaters Friday. Here, she reveals how she keeps her skin sane and why a particular Japanese masseuse is the woman to know. I never cleanse my skin in the morning. My grandmother taught me that at night your skin replenishes all the things you lost during the day. Also, if I cleanse very well at night, why would it be dirty when I wake up? It's for companies to have you use more products. I spritz rose water it's so gentle and wakes the skin up. Then I apply moisturizer. I have an oil from my line Nuance that I love. I don't do sunscreen unless I'm going to be out in the sun all day. Why? I don't think the chemicals in sunscreen are good for your skin. I believe in using it when you need it. At night I take off my makeup with coconut oil. Then I use rose water to take off the residuals. You can use a hot towel with the rose water you put a wet towel in the microwave to do a little steam. I'll use the chamomile cleanser from Nuance. Then I splash with cold water. I have an edible mask with Juice Generation that has hibiscus in it that I might use. Or you can use a little bit of oatmeal and then some water or almond milk, and a little bit of honey. You let it soak, and it's a great cleanser that makes your skin very soft. But I don't overexfoliate. Exfoliating a lot may make you look good in the short term, but not I think in the long term. I see many women in L.A. who have exfoliated so much they look shiny. I'll use a mix of serums and oils depending on my skin that day. I love the Biologique Recherche Grand Millesime serum. Or I use the Anne Semonin Serum Precieux. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
It was cocktail hour on a recent afternoon, and the comedian Chelsea Handler, her brother Glen, and a publicist sat at the bar in Trump Tower, the gilded home and workplace of Donald J. Trump, the building's namesake and the country's Republican presidential nominee. This part of the building is billed as "a stylish and welcoming respite from the bustling Midtown crowds." But the maroon drapery, dim lighting and fading carpets did not impress Ms. Handler. Nearby, a man with a ponytail sipped a beer, and a small gaggle of tourists wearing sequined tops poked their heads into the bar. "I feel like we're at an airport lounge," Ms. Handler, 41, said in a deadpan. "Like a really bad airport lounge." This backdrop is not the most obvious of meeting places for a woman who has used her many platforms Twitter; her Netflix talk show, "Chelsea"; and, occasionally, her body to warn the public against Mr. Trump's presidential ambitions, often in language that can't be printed here. Ms. Handler was in town for only a few days last month, and she wanted to squeeze the trip to Trump Tower in between interviews for her show and rehearsals for the Global Citizen Festival. "I thought it might just be a nice change of pace," she said, "to see if everybody here is as pumped up about their candidate as he thinks they are." Although the building has become the site for rowdy protests in recent weeks, the energy inside during Ms. Handler's visit could not be described exactly as "pumped up." Around 5 p.m., shortly before Ms. Handler retired to the bar, the basement food court began to close down and people drifted through the halls, peeking around corners and hovering near the basement bathrooms. Ms. Handler lingered at the gift shop in the basement, a labyrinth of gold toned mirror panels and rust colored marble. "Anytime you use that color marble, you're covering up for something," she said. She perused crystal cuff links (made in China) and candy bars. A shopper in an oversize T shirt and glasses stood close by, unable to place Ms. Handler. In fact, few people seemed to recognize her. "You don't know who that is?" a shopkeeper, Alicia, whispered to the T shirt woman. "That's Chelsea." Ms. Handler has been in show business for over a decade, with much of her time focused on a celebrity driven talk show. With "Chelsea," she has pivoted, in an effort to discuss politics at a time when people's attention spans are fractured, in part by this bruising election cycle and in part by social media. She is about halfway through making 90 more episodes ordered up by Netflix. She has used the show not only to explain modern politics to her viewers, but also to explain United States election history. "I can talk about politics, science and health," Ms. Handler said at the bar. "About things that actually matter and impact someone's information in a more palatable way." I think that's what I set out to do, and like this is what I've wanted to be doing for a while." But tonight is about relaxing and enjoying a Handler family pastime: cocktails. You may recognize Ms. Handler's brother from a recent profile of The New York Times's most prolific internet commenters. He writes under the handle Socrates and likes to talk about death, spirituality and politics online. He seems to enjoy these topics in person, too. "He always makes sure that I don't believe in God," Ms. Handler said of her brother. Mr. Handler said, "We're all a bunch of ants marching on this planet, and we're all about to kill each other." The bartender, also named Alicia, told Mr. Handler that Mr. Trump comes here often for interviews and does not drink. Anyone who has read her books or watched her TV shows will know that drinking is a major tenet of Ms. Handler's comedy. Is it just a comedic device? "There's no lore: I love drinking," Ms. Handler said. "I'm always up for working longer or staying longer or having a longer dinner or having a longer meeting if there's a cocktail involved. It's like my Ritalin." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
One of the world's oldest films, "Sneeze," is a gift that keeps on giving. Shot in 1894 and about as long as an achoo, it shows a mustachioed gent emitting a single sneeze, a kerchief clutched in one hand. The film was made by W.K.L. Dickson and the sneeze delivered by Fred Ott. Working in Thomas Edison's New Jersey studio, they gave us the first celluloid sneeze, an open mouth exhalation that was meant to be humorous but today seems ominous. Cover your mouth! I yelled when I looked at it again. "Sneeze" is just one of many films that you can watch for free online courtesy of the Library of Congress, which partly acquires deposits through the United States Copyright Office. The biggest library in the world, it has an extraordinary trove of online offerings more than 7,000 videos that includes hundreds of old (and really old) movies. With one click, you can watch Buffalo Bill's Wild West show parade down Fifth Avenue in 1902; click again to giggle at Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse in a 1916 cartoon. And while the library is temporarily closed to the public, its virtual doors remain open. It remains one of my favorite places to get lost in. The Library of Congress was created in 1800 by the same act of Congress that moved the federal government to Washington, with a 5,000 budget for books approved by John Adams. The library was originally meant for the sole use of Congress and its role was debated over successive administrations and crises, including several catastrophic fires. By the time its first dedicated building opened in 1897, though, its status was settled: It was "the book palace of the American people," as one librarian of Congress called it, a classification that expanded when it began adding films. You can sample this bounty on the Library of Congress website or through its more limited, curated selections on YouTube, where loading times seem faster. On each platform, the films are organized into playlists like the National Screening Room, a catchall that includes everything from educational films to slapstick comedies. Here's where you can watch "Mabel and Fatty's Wash Day" (1915), which was co directed by one of its stars, Mabel Normand, or dive into Pare Larentz's "The River" (1938), a classic about the Mississippi made for the Farm Security Administration. Here, too, is where to find Edward O. Bland's "The Cry of Jazz" (1959), a political scorcher about jazz that has bad acting, searing documentary imagery and terrific music (from Sun Ra, among others). The aesthetic quality of the titles varies, but that's to the point of the library's democratic mandate. Not all the films on deposit are exemplars of the art although greatness abounds here but they nevertheless have cultural and historical value. Some are flat out weird and wonderful, while others seem like souvenirs from a distant land. That's true of "Television," a 1939 curio that opens with an audience seated in the dark before a tiny glowing screen that abruptly grows larger, a stark encapsulation of TV's challenge to moviegoing. "Television now takes its place," the narrator promises (threatens!), "as a new American art and industry." One of the library's best YouTube playlists gathers together a small selection of titles from the National Film Registry. The registry is part of the library and new titles are added to it annually with the help of the National Film Preservation Board, an advisory body. The library also invites the public to nominate titles for the registry, so if you'd like to endorse Robert Aldrich's 1964 freakout "Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte" you have until Sept. 15. To be eligible, a movie must be at least 10 years (so hold off on nominating "The Last Jedi") and be "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant." Some of the registry titles online are in so so shape, but many look great and the painstakingly refurbished ones probably look better now than when they first played in cinemas. Most are short, which is useful if you're having a tough time focusing on anything for very long. Mervyn LeRoy's 10 minute nugget "The House I Live In" (1945) finds Frank Sinatra breaking up a gang of peewee thugs chasing a Jewish boy. Sinatra calls the bullies Nazis and lectures them about being good Americans. (The writer Albert Maltz, one of the Hollywood Ten, was soon blacklisted in Hollywood.) The film's piety feels even more canned when viewed next to "In the Street" (1948), a lyrical slice of New York life from James Agee, Helen Levitt and Janice Loeb. Among the most beautiful films in the registry playlist is the Fleischer Studios cartoon "Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor" (1936), a gorgeous example of the work produced by this onetime Disney competitor. The story is simple it's the usual smackdown with boasts, quips and a can of spinach but the film is a Technicolor marvel with liquid animation, vibrant critters and wittily choreographed bits. It's also predictably antediluvian. "Bring me the woman," Sindbad says with a leer to a giant purple bird, which snatches Olive Oyl from Popeye's ship. She gets a few good licks in, which is delightful, and delivers ringside advice ("Give him the twister punch!"). But the victory belongs to the spinach fortified Popeye. Clocking in at just over three minutes, "Jam Session" (1942) is badly scratched but is very much worth a watch and listen because it features Duke Ellington and his band Ben Webster and Ray Nance are among its cool cats playing "C Jam Blues." The film set looks like an unused studio storage room, but the music is heavenly. The number ends, soon after Sonny Greer's drum solo, with Ellington ambling over to join some female visitors. The film was produced as a Soundie, a musical movie that was shown jukebox style in machines called Panorams, which were found in bars, nightclubs and the like. Patrons could summon up Ellington for a coin and start jitterbugging. Among the features on the registry playlist are a pair of shoestring classics from very different filmmakers. Written, directed and produced by Oscar Micheaux, "Within Our Gates" (1920) is a melodrama about black sovereignty and white racism that plays like a direct rebuke to D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation." By turns touching and gravely disturbing, "Gates" is a passionate declaration of independence political, cinematic, existential from Micheaux, the first African American filmmaker. Micheaux found his voice despite Hollywood and became a legend. The same holds true for Ida Lupino, whose taut, tense film noir "The Hitch Hiker" (1953) is also available. Both movies are essential holdings in America's greatest library. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
There are two remarkable scenes in "Pieces of a Woman," though the first an almost 30 minute, largely unbroken opening shot of a home birth seems set to divert critical attention from the second. That scene, arriving about halfway through the movie, feels at least as radical and courageous as its precedent. In it, we see the central couple, Martha and Sean (Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf), try to have sex. Both are grieving the death of their child; but while Martha has turned inward, Sean is reaching out with visible aggression. The tussle teeters on the verge of force; what deflects that impression is our knowledge of the couple's closeness (beautifully established in the opening scene) and Kirby's intensely physical performance. Using chiefly body language, she conveys Martha's desperate need to match her husband's desire, to feel something other than emptiness. It would be regrettable, therefore, if the current allegations of abuse against LaBeouf were to distract from her skill. Piercing an intimate, natural tone with almost soapy slivers of melodrama, "Pieces of a Woman" comes close to wringing you out. The English language debut of the Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo (best known for his jaw dropping 2015 drama, "White God"), the movie doesn't always gel: The couple's pursuit of legal action against their seemingly blameless midwife (Molly Parker) feels at odds with the movie's dense emotionalism. Yet when everything clicks, the screenplay (by the director's wife, Kata Weber, drawing on memories of a similar experience) lucidly shows how an unimaginable loss can spark a cascade of atrophy. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
The Big Ears Festival is turning 10 years old in March but it's using the opportunity to celebrate a more senior institution. The annual experimental music festival announced on Monday that it will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the trailblazing label ECM Records with 20 separate performances across its four days. This is set to be the largest single convocation of ECM related artists in the United States. Like the rest of Big Ears, these shows will take place March 21 24 at a variety of venues throughout downtown Knoxville, Tenn. Since 1969, ECM has been devoted to publishing music at the crossroads of contemporary Western classical, jazz and experimental music. This puts it roughly in line with the programmatic mission of Big Ears. ECM's founder and director, Manfred Eicher, will be on hand at the festival, although he has not yet announced plans to participate in any official events. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
I am not surprised by the Wisconsin Legislature, but I expected common sense and decency from the U.S. Supreme Court. Let's see. Affix mask, pull on plastic gloves, take my virus free black ink pen ... All ready to go do my civic duty. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
THIN BLUE LIE The Failure of High Tech Policing By Matt Stroud Over the past two decades, technology has taken over policing. Officers wear body cameras to record their encounters and carry newfangled weapons like tasers that seem to come straight out of "Star Trek." The police patrol criminal "hot spots" identified by big data. Suspects are tracked with GPS, cell site simulators and video surveillance enhanced with facial recognition software. Has all this costly technology made us safer? Not likely, according to "Thin Blue Lie: The Failure of High Tech Policing," Matt Stroud's incisive, muckraking expose of the "police industrial complex" the web of law enforcement agencies, for profit corporations and politicians who increasingly exalt technology as the way to reform American policing. Although innovative tools can help solve crimes, police departments often embrace new technologies without adequate testing or input from affected communities. The result is that "fixes" can aggravate the very problems they were designed to remedy. Stroud, an investigative journalist with an eye for detail, begins the book with a bang or rather a zap. Volunteering to be tasered, he describes an extraordinary pain that lasted only five seconds, he writes, "but felt like an eternity." Felled by the weapon, Stroud's own experience is a metaphor for the troubling tale of how tasers became standard equipment for cops. Developed originally as a nonlethal alternative to the gun, tasers were relentlessly marketed to police departments by Taser International, a hungry start up that stirred demand through celebrity cop endorsements and dramatic demonstrations of burly volunteers being dropped. Company trainers touted the tasers as safe, encouraging officers to use them early and often to prevent bad situations from escalating. Major police departments bought in and Taser International became a Wall Street darling. Then the bodies began to mount. Tasers did not lead to a decline in gun use, as marketed; they became instead a new tool for police abuse, employed against nonthreatening people for failure to follow officers' commands. And some taser victims did die deaths for which Taser International publicly denied responsibility, citing autopsy reports that, according to Stroud, did not support the company's claims. Indeed, Stroud insists the company never even rigorously tested the safety of tasers. According to Stroud, Taser International's executives, in an effort to keep sales and stock prices high, cut corners, misled the public and the police and in the process made millions. Meanwhile, taxpayers, who foot the bill for police misconduct, have paid out more than 172 million in taser related lawsuits. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
In Showtime's new crime drama "City on a Hill," Jackie Rohr is a cocaine snorting, corrupt and racist F.B.I. veteran who longs for the days when the "bad men" were in power, and Decourcy Ward is a principled new assistant district attorney from Brooklyn, determined to "rip out the expletive up machinery" in 1990s Boston. The characters played with flamboyant vigor by Kevin Bacon and simmering fortitude by Aldis Hodge shouldn't like each other, or even be able to work together. And for much of the pilot episode, they don't. But one morning last April, as Bacon and Hodge filmed a scene for a later episode in Decourcy's office actually a set at Steiner Studios in Brooklyn the mood was different. The characters were on good terms, maybe even kind of pals. Decourcy shared his uneaten eggs with Jackie. (In between takes, Bacon joked about being too full to partake in the handsomely stocked craft services.) Both sported shiners on their faces but they didn't give them to each other; Decourcy's came from a confrontation with a church minister, Jackie's from an "alcohol induced haymaker" at the V.F.W. When their easy chatter was interrupted by a distressing call Jackie received on his period appropriate oversized mobile phone, Decourcy expressed concern and moral support. Decourcy and Jackie "don't trust each other, but kind of need each other," Hodge said later during a phone interview. "They both represent two sides of the same coin. One is a dark looking into the light, one is a light looking into the dark." That could be the tagline of "City on a Hill," which takes place during a time when crime rates and racial tensions in Boston were exceedingly high until a coalition of community groups developed an anti violence mission that would prove successful in the late '90s. Read our review of "City on a Hill." The show was created by the relatively unknown writer (and Boston native) Chuck MacLean , but it sports an impressive pedigree of Hollywood veterans, including the executive producers Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Barry Levinson. It's a sprawling ensemble piece that's part procedural and part machismo fueled interracial buddy tale: Decourcy and Jackie are brought together through their mutual interest in taking on a family of armored car robbers in Charlestown led by Frankie Ryan (Jonathan Tucker). By the end of the pilot, they're swapping personal stories and strategizing how to build a potentially career defining case over drinks in a bar. Their dynamic may call to mind Tibbs and Gillespie or Murtaugh and Riggs, but the show's origins lie in "The Town," the 2010 crime thriller Affleck co wrote, directed and starred in, which also centered on criminals in the working class, heavily Irish Charlestown neighborhood. Affleck tapped MacLean, a self described "bum from Quincy, Mass." with an unmistakable accent to match, who had worked with Affleck's brother, Casey, on a script for a movie about the Boston Strangler that never got made. The veteran writer and producer Tom Fontana, who specializes in character driven dramas set in distinct environments ("St. Elsewhere," "Homicide: Life on the Streets," "Oz"), was impressed by the pilot and came on as the showrunner and an executive producer after "City on a Hill" was picked up by Showtime. While this high wattage project is MacLean's first foray into TV, his fascination with Boston history his home in Los Angeles contains "wall to wall" crime and newspaper memorabilia stretching back to the 1930s made him a good fit for Affleck's vision. "I didn't want to spend five years talking about bank robbers and I don't think he did either," MacLean said. "So we started talking about the different things that were going on in Boston in the early '90s." A lot was going on. The city was plagued by violent crime and racial tension, generating plenty of headlines that the series occasionally rips from, a la "Law Order." It begins by citing the notorious case of Charles Stuart, a white Bostonian who in 1989 claimed that a black gunman attacked him and killed his pregnant wife. More than two months passed during which the police went on a manhunt and Stuart eventually identified someone as the attacker from a lineup before Stuart's story fell apart. His brother Matthew went to the police and outed him as the real killer. The incident exacerbated the already tense relationship between law enforcement and the black community. "The Boston police and the city of Boston from the end of World War II, there was at least one time in every decade where they became a national embarrassment," MacLean said. "The Stuart one was the first time that I think the circumstances lined up that it was particularly bad, but then in the aftermath of it, it allowed for a lot of good to happen," he added. "That's the theme that I wanted to look at." MacLean, 33, was a child during the era of "City on a Hill." But the journalist and author Michele McPhee, a writer for the show, was then a young investigative reporter at The Boston Globe, and recalls well the city's struggles during those years. "A little girl gets shot off a mailbox," McPhee said. "Jermaine Goffigan whose face I'll never forget he's counting Tootsie Rolls from Halloween, still in his costume, when he gets hit by a stray bullet." "The city had had enough," she added. Jackie and Decourcy serve as the thematic entry point, their unlikely partnership an explicit allegory for the Operation Ceasefire program also known as "The Boston Miracle." Black clergy members, police officers, probation officers and outreach workers once unaligned with one another joined forces under the direction of the Harvard University criminologist David M. Kennedy to focus on black youth in high crime areas. After it was carried out in 1996, Boston began to see a decline in homicides, and similar programs were replicated in other cities like Cincinnati with success. "These two characters are polar opposites," Fontana said. "But for at least a period of time, they need each other and are willing to overlook certain things in an effort to achieve something greater." The show's creative team is primarily white, a liability for a story that aims to authentically portray a time and place defined largely by racial tension. (This season there was one black writer, J.M. Holmes, and one Latino writer, Jorge Zamacona.) But "City on a Hill," doesn't shy away from depicting its setting's deeply ingrained racism: Within the first minute of the first episode, Jackie flippantly slings around the N word. "That was the world I grew up in," MacLean said. But, he added, he spoke frequently with Hodge and Lauren E. Banks, who plays Decourcy's wife, Siobhan, about their perspectives. "As much as I wanted my story told correctly, I wanted everyone else's involved in this to be told correctly," he said. Hodge said he "chimes in quite a bit" when it comes to the show's depiction of Decourcy, who is partly inspired by Boston's first black district attorney, Ralph Martin. "That's something that's a priority going forward, just to get more black voices in the writer's room," he said. "Unless you've actually been the victim of racism , you actually don't know what it is." Stories about such fraught but fruitful partnerships risk turning a racist like Jackie into a sympathetic figure by having him work well with Decourcy. But in the early episodes, at least the first 3 of 10 were made available in advance the show is less about Jackie learning to not be a terrible human being than Decourcy's struggle to take down the (white) status quo without becoming like it. "I was getting ready to eye roll and say, 'Oh God, we're never going to get Boston,'" she said. But she was impressed with the attention to detail, adding, "There's a set that represents the Bromley Heath apartments that I felt like I was walking through the halls of Bromley Heath." It's too early to know whether there will be a second season of "City on a Hill," though MacLean said he's plotted out five seasons' worth of material for the leads. According to Affleck, the plan is to move the action from Charlestown to Roxbury if the show gets renewed, and then to a different neighborhood each season, similar to the "The Wire" and its thematically distinct chapters. "You meet two people from Boston who talk, they never talk about Boston they talk about the neighborhood where they're from," MacLean explained. "The neighborhood is their vision of what Boston is." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
The flashbacks occur at intervals throughout the episode. They take us to the trenches of World War I still without its even more savage sequel by the time "Perry Mason" takes place where our title character is an American military officer, leading his men in a charge over the top. In the chaos of the no man's land, the charge breaks down. Those who've survived German machine guns and flame throwers now must contend with a huge wave of enemy troops mounting a counterattack ... and the lethal poison gas clearing their way. As Perry flees, ordering his men before him, he sees that some are too badly wounded and maimed to move. Unwilling to let them suffer or leave them at the mercy of the gas, he takes his handgun and shoots them to death himself, one after another. When one of them begs whether for death or a reprieve from it isn't entirely clear Mason murmurs, "Forgive me," and pulls the trigger. If it accomplished nothing else, this week's episode of "Perry Mason" established why the private detective seems so perpetually ground down. With memories like that playing in your head every time you take a cigarette break, wouldn't you look and feel exhausted? Moreover, it accounts for his dishonorable discharge from the military and, according to his wealthy backer Herman Baggerly, his bloody nickname: "The Butcher of Monfalcone." Even for a private eye, a career for which an unsavory reputation kind of comes with the territory, it's a lot of weight to bear. But Perry is now on a different kind of mission than the one he was on in the trenches: Clearing his client Matthew Dodson of the kidnapping of his own infant. Suspicion falls on Mr. Dodson when District Attorney Maynard Barnes (Stephen Root, who, as always, seems to be having the time of his life) uncovers a secret of Dodson's own: He's Baggerly's son from a one night stand, back before the magnate found Jesus. Suddenly it makes sense why someone would try to extort a grocer for 100,000 and who is in a better position to do so than the man who knows best that Baggerly would pay on his grandson's behalf? The story, of course, stinks, and only partially because the murderous Sergeant Ennis (Andrew Howard), who killed the kidnappers himself, is on board with Dodson's arrest. For one thing, Dodson has an alibi, though not the sort that would necessarily hold up in court: He was out gambling that night, and there are eyewitnesses to that effect; the witness who placed Dodson at the scene of the murder of the accomplices was coached by Ennis and his partner, Detective Holcomb (Eric Lange). The two men also tamper with the findings of a beat cop, Paul Drake (Chris Chalk), a black officer forced to change his observant report on a blood trail at the scene to fit his white superiors' preferences. Perry, meanwhile, is poking at loose ends of his own. His suspicion falls on Mrs. Dodson rather than on her husband when he learns from a nosy neighbor that she spends hours on the phone when her husband's away. A little skulduggery with the phone company after tailing the bereaved mother lands him in hot water with Della Street, the legal secretary for their mutual employer, E.B. Jonathan. But it also leads him to a house were he finds a dead body, its head blown to gory, 1980s horror movie mush by a shotgun ... and a cache of love letters from Mrs. Dodson. Now an alternate theory of the crime develops, thanks in no small part to Perry's distaste for Mrs. Dodson's cheating ways. It now seems likely that her lover, George Gammon, helped set up the kidnapping after finding out from the missis that her husband had a rich dad, and that the baby's death was a horrible accident. (It's implied, but not stated outright, that the killer stitched the child's eyes open as a macabre way to indicate a wish that the boy was still alive.) Everything comes to a head at the baby's lavish funeral service, held before an audience of Los Angeles luminaries should the mayor get an aisle seat, or should it be reserved for Clark Gable? at the temple of the evangelical preacher Sister Alice. As played by Tatiana Maslany, Alice is not at all what I expected her to be: She seems to be a true believer rather than an obviously hypocritical mountebank, and her style of speaking is down to earth as well as passionate. A lot of characters of this sort are so flagrantly unappealing that it's impossible to sympathize with anyone who follows them; Sister Alice (whose business affairs are run by her mother, played by Lili Taylor) is a more convincing shepherd of her flock. That said, she sure throws a monkey wrench in the political feasibility of any attempt to strike a plea deal when she delivers a fire and brimstone sermon about the need to execute whomever killed the Dodsons' baby. ("Blessed be the hangman," she thunders in an inversion of Christ's Beatitudes). In a pair of private moments, she also seems to "hear" a baby crying, though whether these are memories or reveries is unclear. In the end, Perry's suspicions win the day, somewhat to his own chagrin. Mrs. Dodson is arrested as her baby's coffin is loaded into a hearse on its way to burial, in full view of all the gathered mourners and bigwigs and news media. Turns out Mason and Jonathan ratted Emily out regarding the love letters, and the cops inferred that she and her dead lover, George, were in cahoots on the kidnapping. But when push comes to shove, Perry backs down off his righteous rage against her: "Infidelity isn't murder," he says, repeating what his colleagues had already told him multiple times. In a closing musical montage, Della delivers a blanket to Emily Dodson in jail. Officer Banks returns to the scene of the crime and discovers half a set of false teeth in the alley below the rooftop where the blood trail ran cold the other half of which is lodged in the "suicidal" George Gammon's mouth, indicating the body was moved. And Perry, his memories still consumed by his wartime trauma, is drawn to a singer on a street corner (Tunde Adebimpe, vocalist for the art rock band TV on the Radio), performing the Washington Phillips gospel song "Lift Him Up That's All." It's a note of uplift that seems almost ironic. Mason has spent this episode wrestling with his wartime demons and with witnessing Emily Dodson in the throes of absolute grief first when he brings her news of the death of her lover, then when she is pulled away from her baby's coffin during her arrest. It's too much misery for a song or a cigarette to salve. A whodunit with a severe emotional palette commensurate with the tragedy and atrocity uncovered by the investigator? That's a rare and valuable thing we've uncovered. None If you're not familiar with Adebimpe's work with TV on the Radio, might I suggest "Province," the band's duet with David Bowie? None After her hang 'em high sermon, Sister Alice exchanges a pointed, prolonged glance with Perry. Her mother, Birdy, asks her, "What was that?" about the sermon; I'm wondering the same thing about the stare down. None "We do what we don't like when there's a greater good to be served," E.B. tells Perry after they draw the heat off Mr. Dodson by blaming his wife. "You more than anyone should know that." This apparent reference to Mason's wartime mercy killings indicates that his boss is somewhat less troubled by Perry's past than Perry is. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
MIAMI The San Francisco 49ers relied on the N.F.L.'s best tight end, its highest paid fullback and a cadre of productive receivers to reach the Super Bowl. But while other teams might strive to get those players into the end zone by any means possible, San Francisco has adopted the opposite strategy. The 49ers rarely let them touch the ball. Across their playoff victories against Minnesota and Green Bay, the 49ers deployed their quartet of catalysts tight end George Kittle, fullback Kyle Juszczyk and receivers Deebo Samuel and Emmanuel Sanders as decoys in a two pronged attack to manipulate the defense. Before the snap, they engage in what amounts to an elaborate game of hide and seek, darting around in an attempt to confuse defenders and foster miscommunication. Afterward, they block (and block, and block) so San Francisco's fleet of swift backs can run (and run, and run). Those four players have touched the ball a total of 14 times eight by Samuel in San Francisco's 126 offensive snaps this postseason, according to Pro Football Reference. The 49ers averaged 5.3 yards per carry in their two games with Jimmy Garoppolo throwing all of 14 passes over the final six quarters and won each by 17 points. The 49ers' unconventional dominance reflects both an organizational ethos and a schematic triumph. Ever since Coach Kyle Shanahan and General Manager John Lynch took over three years ago, they have prioritized a specific type of player to make it work. Just as essential as Kittle's ability to block defensive ends and outside linebackers is his embrace of that role: telling coaches he didn't want any passes thrown his way, that they should just keep running behind him. As more and more teams shunned fullbacks, the 49ers coveted Juszczyk, both for his relevance in the two back sets Shanahan favors for their unpredictability and for his versatility. Juszczyk might line up out wide, near the sideline, then suddenly end up behind the quarterback at halfback or along the line at tight end, deceiving defenses before clearing space for backs to run. The former N.F.L. offensive lineman Brian Baldinger called him the most valuable player in the league without the ball, the football equivalent of another Bay Area maestro: Draymond Green, who facilitated Golden State's dynasty with his rebounding, energy and defense. "How many players in the N.B.A. have a huge role but don't score?" Baldinger said. "In the framework of how they play the game, they're as valuable as the leading scorer. With Kyle, it's not about stats. It's how he affects the game." None Week 11 Predictions: Here are our picks against the spread. N.F.L. Tightens Covid Protocols: As cases rise and Thanksgiving approaches, the league is requiring masks inside team facilities and increasing testing. The Packers' Defense Is Their M.V.P.: Green Bay's oft overlooked defense has kept the team from falling out of the Super Bowl chase. The Long Path to the Super Bowl: With 18 weeks in the regular season and fewer teams earning byes in the playoffs, the Super Bowl is still a long way off. Playoff Simulator: Explore every team's path to the postseason, updated live. The defining characteristic of Shanahan's offense is how running and passing plays look exactly alike, but the most recognizable aspect is its pre snap movement. It is subterfuge loaded with exotic nomenclature, like "orbit" and "jet" and "ghost." No team came close to shifting or motioning as often as San Francisco (79 percent of its plays), according to the analytics website Pro Football Focus. "The only time we don't motion is when we coach the Senior Bowl," the run game coordinator Mike McDaniel said, referring to the annual college all star game that borrows N.F.L. coaches, "because it's against the rules." When the five time most valuable player Peyton Manning played, he didn't want any of his players to motion, because the defense would reposition. But the 49ers welcome that chaos across the line. Behind every movement, there is a very precise reason. "We don't just do it since it looks cool," Juszczyk said. But generally, realigning can aid the 49ers in identifying a defense's intentions, from the nature of its pass coverage to its vulnerabilities in run support. It can help them outnumber defenders with blockers. It can make opponents hesitate or doubt their instincts. Tyrann Mathieu, the Chiefs' star safety, characterized all that motion as "extremely stressful." "It's all meant to basically to take your eyes off what's really going on," Baldinger said. "They throw a lot of cheese at you and anticipate that the defense is going to be looking in the wrong place. It's a Fifth Avenue game of Three Card Monte. Where's the card?" Kittle said he loves being that card. Also, he hates it. Let him explain. On some plays, he might start outside of the field numbers on one side of the field, run to the opposite numbers, then slide all the way back. Sometimes, he said, he complains about how much he runs before the snap "My Fitbit goes off the charts," Kittle said but he is rewarded when defenders grumble about the same thing. Also, and perhaps especially, when he flattens them. Only two players gained more yards after the catch this season than Kittle, but he believes there is no greater feeling than moving a player against his will. "You take a guy, you drive him backwards, you put him on his back and you feel the exhale of his breath and he loses his wind," Kittle said. "It's kind of snatching his soul." Shanahan likes saying that a team's physical identity is defined not by its offensive line or tight ends, since they bulldoze anyway, but by its receivers. The receivers coach Wes Welker tells his charges that blocking is more important than catching, that their willingness to crack safeties and impede cornerbacks on the edge can turn short gains into long ones. "It's the only way they'll play, honestly. That's one of the reasons why he's had offensive success everywhere he's gone," Welker said of Shanahan. "A lot of people have the same plays in the N.F.L., but when the boss of all bosses is showing in front of the team the standard and what's acceptable and not, guys either do it, or they don't want to play and then they're not there." Every Friday, the 49ers hold run meetings where they discuss that week's plan and review highlights from the previous week. By the end, Kittle said, he feels invincible. But as a rookie in 2017, receiver Kendrick Bourne never enjoyed going, he said, because he would wonder why they didn't just pass the ball more. As the 49ers' offense has evolved, so has he. "We don't mind catching the ball," Bourne said, "but ain't no reason to put the ball in the air and ask for those risks when we can just hand it off and get the same amount of yards." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
Huawei Said to Be Preparing to Sue the U.S. Government SHANGHAI The Chinese electronics giant Huawei is preparing to sue the United States government for barring federal agencies from using the company's products, according to two people familiar with the matter. The lawsuit is to be filed in the Eastern District of Texas, where Huawei has its American headquarters, according to the people, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential plans. The company plans to announce the suit this week. The move could be aimed at forcing the United States government to make its case against the Chinese equipment maker more publicly. It is part of a broad push by Huawei to defend itself against a campaign led by the United States to undermine the company, which Washington sees as a security threat. Executives have spoken out strongly against America's actions, and new marketing campaigns have been aimed at mending the company's image among consumers. For many years, United States officials have said Beijing could use Huawei's telecommunication equipment to spy and disrupt communication networks. The company has denied the allegations, but major wireless carriers such as AT T and Verizon have effectively been prevented from using Huawei's equipment as a result. Over the past year, Washington has ramped up its pressure on the firm, which is preparing to take a major role in the construction of next generation wireless networks around the world. American officials have urged other governments to ban the use of Huawei's products. This year, the Justice Department filed criminal charges against the company and its chief financial officer in connection with evading American sanctions on Iran. A hearing that is set to begin this week in Canada will determine whether the company's finance chief, Meng Wanzhou, will be extradited to the United States to face charges. Ms. Meng's lawyers have sued the Canadian government and police, arguing that the circumstances of her arrest and detention in December violated her rights. Many Canadians see Ms. Meng's case as an example of foreign money's influence in Vancouver. The criminal case against Ms. Meng in the United States could be complicated by comments from President Trump as the White House has engaged in trade negotiations with China. While criminal cases have traditionally been independent matters, Mr. Trump indicated that Huawei's fate could be a bargaining chip. During a meeting in the Oval Office with a delegation of Chinese officials last month, Mr. Trump said, "We'll be making that decision," when asked if he would drop the criminal charges against Huawei as part of the trade deal. He added, "We'll be talking to the attorney general." A lawsuit by Huawei against the United States is expected to challenge a section of a defense spending authorization law that was approved last year. The provision blocks executive agencies from using telecom equipment made by Huawei and another Chinese company, ZTE. According to one of the people familiar with the matter, Huawei is likely to argue that the provision is a "bill of attainder," or a legislative act that singles out a person or a group for punishment without trial. The Constitution forbids Congress to pass such bills. Huawei's plans are not final. It could still decide to change course, or to not file a lawsuit at all. The United States Embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A call placed outside business hours to the United States Court House in Plano, Tex., where Huawei's American headquarters are, was not answered. China announced espionage accusations against a former Canadian diplomat on Monday, days before Ms. Meng's extradition hearing was set to take place. In many ways, the Huawei case echoes that of another company that has aroused security concerns in the United States: the Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab. Around two years ago, American officials began expressing worries that Moscow could use the company's software to gather intelligence. The company denied the allegations. But in September 2017, the Department of Homeland Security directed federal agencies to begin removing the company's products from government systems. Congress then codified the ban in a spending law. Kaspersky filed two lawsuits in response, arguing that the prohibition amounted to a bill of attainder. In May, a judge in the District of Columbia dismissed the suits, ruling that Congress was motivated by the legitimate desire to protect government computer networks against Russian intrusion. The judge also said Kaspersky's sales to the American government were such a small fraction of the company's business that the ban was not especially harsh. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
The Tokyo bound flight, NH175, was interrupted on behalf of a single mixed up passenger, who had boarded the incorrect flight. "As part of the airline's security procedure, the pilot in command decided to return to the originating airport, where the passenger was disembarked," the airline said in a statement. It may seem outrageous, but it is surprisingly common for planes to return to their point of origin midway through a flight, analysts said. "It happens more often than people think," said Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for the global flight tracking service Flightradar. ABC reported that the man in question was one of two brothers who had planned to fly to Japan, and that he had booked a flight with United. All Nippon Airways said that it was working to figure out how the mistaken passenger had made it onto the plane and apologized to the others on board. Ms. Teigen, who commands a Twitter following of more than nine million thanks partly to her irreverent sense of humor, narrated the ordeal she experienced along with her husband, the R B singer John Legend, and hundreds of other passengers. Ms. Teigen said that she was not as upset by the decision to turn around as might be expected. But she did raise some obvious points: "Why did we all get punished for this one person's mistake? Why not just land in Tokyo and send the other person back? How is this the better idea, you ask? We all have the same questions." Bad weather and mechanical and medical problems are the main reasons that planes turn around. Mr. Petchenik said that airlines were increasingly citing unruly passengers to justify flights being diverted as well. But he did not recall another instance in which a passenger had boarded the wrong plane and was not discovered until after takeoff. Asked whether he had any other thoughts on the matter, Mr. Petchenik paused a moment. "No just that you know, poor guy," he said. "And poor however many other people there were on the flight. But they're on their way now, so that's good." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
WASHINGTON For another year, the annual spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund ended with a single, strong message aimed at Europe: Do more. Yet in a change, signs suggested that European leaders were starting to agree, with more high ranking ministers and officials talking up the need to slow the pace of budget cutting and bolster growth on the Continent. At the outset of the gathering of finance ministers and central bankers last week, the I.M.F. lowered its global growth forecasts, again citing weakness from Europe. And Christine Lagarde, managing director of the fund, separated nations into three groups that might be described as strong, trying and laggards. In the first group she placed the developing and emerging economies that are the engine of global growth. In the second she put countries that are gaining momentum in their recoveries, like the United States. The third group, she said, contains countries that continue to struggle with their policy response to the crisis not growing, and hindering global growth. That group includes many countries in high income Europe, including Britain, Germany and Italy. At a news conference during the meetings, Ms. Lagarde said such countries should try "anything that works" to create jobs. That starts "with growth and a good policy mix, which relies on not just one policy but a set of policies that will include fiscal consolidation at the right pace," she said, also citing structural changes and loose monetary policy as necessary. The debate at the meetings focused on helping to identify that right mix of policies, with officials from the fund and countries including the United States arguing that austerity had sapped too much demand, too soon, from the Continent. In the past, European officials tended to brush off such advice. And some powerful officials continued to do so last week, instead emphasizing budget cutting to soothe financial markets. "Fiscal and financial sector adjustments remain crucial to regain lost credibility and strengthen confidence," said Wolfgang Schauble, the finance minister of Germany and a powerful voice promoting austerity in Europe. "At the current juncture, it is in particular the responsibility of the advanced economies, including Japan and the U.S., to follow through with ambitious fiscal consolidation over the medium term." George Osborne, the British chancellor of the Exchequer, echoed that sentiment, even as high level officials at the fund repeatedly criticized the government of Prime Minister David Cameron for its campaign of budget cuts. But the fund downgraded its growth estimates for several large European economies, including those of France and Germany, last week. Many have re entered a period of economic contraction, with their unemployment rates continuing to rise. In light of that, other European officials said a renewed focus on growth by slowing budget cuts, changing deficit targets or taking other measures might be appropriate. Kevin Spacey was ordered to pay 31 million to the 'House of Cards' studio after sexual harassment allegations. Netflix buys a visual effects company in a move to support its global ambitions. "They are preaching to the converted," Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, was quoted by Reuters. "In the early phase of the crisis, it was essential to restore the credibility of fiscal policy in Europe because that was fundamentally questioned by market forces," Mr. Rehn added. "Now, as we have restored the credibility in the short term, that gives us the possibility of having a smoother path of fiscal adjustment in the medium term." In a communique, the finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of 20 large economies said: "We have agreed that while progress has been made, further actions are required to make growth strong, sustainable and balanced." They urged a closer banking union in the euro zone and for "large surplus economies" to take "further steps to boost domestic sources of growth." In her opening remarks, Ms. Lagarde also cited Japan as having continued to struggle with slow growth. But at the spring meetings, Tokyo won plaudits for its ambitious new campaign of fiscal and monetary stimulus to bolster demand and end the deflation that has plagued the economy for more than a decade. Some finance ministers had questioned the Bank of Japan's aggressive easing of monetary policy, arguing that it was aimed at pushing down the value of the yen and as a result unfairly favoring Japanese exports. If other countries followed suit to try to devalue their currencies, it could set off a round of "currency wars," some warned. But the Group of 20 communique stated that "Japan's recent policy actions are intended to stop deflation and support domestic demand," a tacit nod to the recent round of easing. And the I.M.F. raised its estimates of Japan's growth on the back of the government's new policy moves. At the meetings, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, the new president of the World Bank, also outlined his policy goals: the effective eradication of extreme poverty in a generation. The world has achieved the Millennium Development Goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015. To cut the rate to 3 percent by 2030, Dr. Kim said, would require strong, inclusive growth. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Global Business |
49 33 31st Place (between Hunters Point and Borden Avenues), 31 35 Borden Avenue (at 31st Place), 31 30 Hunters Point Avenue (between 31st Place and Van Dam Street) A five to 25 year lease is available for three interconnected vacant industrial buildings, also available separately, with up to two drive in doors and ceilings ranging from 16 to 21 feet. These three buildings, previously occupied by Linear Lighting, a lighting fixture company, consist of No. 49 33 31st Place, a 1962 single story warehouse, with 50,000 square feet, plus a 3,000 square foot mezzanine; a 1979 two story at No. 31 35 Borden Avenue, with 29,000 square feet and offices on the upper floor; and two story No. 31 30 Hunters Point Avenue, built in 1962, with 22,000 square feet, including a 4,000 square foot mezzanine. A local real estate investor bought this 9,105 square foot 1925 mixed use building in Manhattan Valley with 10 apartments eight three bedrooms and two one bedrooms as well as two retail spaces, currently occupied by Latino Express Travel and Sammy's Barber Shop. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC at David Geffen Hall (Feb. 22, 7:30 p.m., through Feb. 24). The Philharmonic's assistant conductor, Joshua Gersen, leads as American a program as it is possible to think of, at least in one particular idea of what American music might be. Barber's "Adagio for Strings" leads off, followed by the Symphonic Dances from Bernstein's "West Side Story," before Copland's Symphony No. 3, with its rousing "Fanfare for the Common Man." 212 875 5656, nyphil.org EMMANUEL PAHUD AND ALESSIO BAX at the 92nd Street Y (Feb. 17, 8 p.m.). Mr. Bax is a strong pianist in his own right, but Mr. Pahud is the real attraction here, perhaps the world's most distinguished flutist, and the principal of the Berlin Philharmonic. Flute Sonatas by Bach and Poulenc come with transcriptions of Schubert's "Arpeggione" Sonata and Mendelssohn's F major Violin Sonata. 212 415 5500, 92y.org CHRISTOPH PREGARDIEN at the 92nd Street Y (Feb. 16, 9 p.m.). Long one of the most insightful interpreters of Schubert, this tenor sings "Winterreise," accompanied by the pianist Julius Drake. 212 415 5500, 92y.org 'SEMIRAMIDE' at the Metropolitan Opera (Feb. 19, 7:30 p.m., through March 17). Although controversy surrounds the firing of the Met's director John Copley late last month, this revival of his 1990 production of Rossini's bel canto feast goes ahead regardless, for the first time since 1993. Maurizio Benini conducts a cast that includes Angela Meade in the title role, Javier Camarena as Idreno, Ildar Abdrazakov as Assur, Elizabeth DeShong as Arsace and Ryan Speedo Green as Oroe. 212 362 6000, metopera.org | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
TO begin a seduction, a couple could do worse than flirt in a 1935 Duesenberg. Clark Gable, known for his cars and his flirting, attended a celebrity gala held by the actress Carole Lombard on the evening of Jan. 25, 1936. Before the night was over, she and Gable went out for a ride in his rare Model JN Convertible Coupe, beginning one of the most famous affairs in Hollywood. There are a lot of myths about the couple, but the way this story goes, they ended up a few miles away at the Beverly Wilshire hotel, where Gable had a suite, and he invited her up for a visit, according to Gooding Company, which is now selling the car. She famously replied, "Who do you think you are? Clark Gable?" (Another version of the story has her delivering the line on the dance floor that night). Nevertheless, a scandalous affair ensued. Gable, still married, was often spotted in the Duesenberg with Lombard, driving from her bungalow on Hollywood Boulevard to night spots, restaurants and hotels all over town. "I've never seen a car with a history behind it like this one," said David Gooding, president of auction company, which is selling the car on Aug. 19, the day of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance near Monterey, California. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
Additional charges were filed in Chicago on Thursday against the R B singer R. Kelly, increasing pressure on the entertainer who was arrested in February on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Mr. Kelly was charged in Cook County Circuit Court with 11 new counts, including aggravated criminal sexual assault, which can carry a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. The charging documents describe sex and oral sex with a minor "by the use of force or threat of force." The incidents took place between 2009 and 2010. A person with knowledge of the case said that the accuser, who is identified in documents as "J.P.," is Jerhonda Pace, one of the four women Mr. Kelly was charged earlier this year with having sexually abused. Ms. Pace first told her story publicly in a BuzzFeed News article written by the music journalist Jim DeRogatis. Mr. Kelly's lawyer, Steve Greenberg, said in a text message on Thursday, "These 'new' charges are not really new they are the same conduct, just charged differently, same alleged victim, same time frame, same facts. There are still four cases, not five. And we still expect the same results." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
THE TRIALS OF NINA McCALL Sex, Surveillance, and the Decades Long Government Plan to Imprison "Promiscuous" Women By Scott W. Stern 356 pp. Beacon Press. 28.95. One October morning in 1918, an 18 year old named Nina McCall walked out of the post office in St. Louis, Mich., where she lived with her widowed mother. Waiting for her on the sidewalk was the town's deputy sheriff, who ordered her to report to the local health officer for a medical exam. Why he singled out McCall we may never know, but the exam left her bleeding, traumatized and outraged. When the officer declared her to be infected with gonorrhea, McCall protested that she had never been intimate with a man. At which point, as Scott Stern writes in his impressively researched book, "The Trials of Nina McCall," the doctor "turned on her and thundered, with all the authority of his position and his gender, 'Young lady, do you mean to call me a liar?'" Stern's is the first book length account of the "American Plan," a government sponsored "social hygiene" campaign under which thousands of American women between the early years of the 20th century and the 1960s were forced to undergo gynecological exams, quarantine and detention, all in the name of protecting the country's citizens from sexually transmitted infections. Stern was a freshman in a lecture course at Yale when his professor mentioned that government efforts to combat sexually transmitted disease had included confining prostitutes to concentration camps. As Stern recounts, he stopped taking notes and turned to Google: "I typed in 'concentration camps for prostitutes.' Nothing. I went to Wikipedia and entered the same search. Nothing. This was strange." Stern, now a law student at Yale, went on to spend years examining records, including administrative notes, century old news stories and social workers' field reports. The book he eventually pieced together, which in earlier form earned him an undergraduate thesis award, is startling, disturbing and terrifically readable. Using McCall's saga as a narrative spine, Stern chronicles the nationwide network of laws and policies targeting prostitutes and any other woman whose alleged sexual activity made her a potential carrier of venereal disease. No proof that a woman was selling sex for pay was required in order to haul her in for testing. Local police and health officials targeted women who in their view acted too flirtatious, enjoyed themselves too much around soldiers or simply worked as waitresses. In one Louisiana town near an Army installation, a woman was forcibly examined because she'd been spotted dining in a restaurant alone. Women of color were rounded up in especially high numbers; Stern cites officials who "enthusiastically warned that nonwhite women were less moral, intent on infecting soldiers and that blacks in particular were a 'syphilis soaked race.'" On paper, the laws of the American Plan were gender neutral, applicable to "any person reasonably suspected by the health officer of being infected with any of the said diseases." In practice, the laws targeted women, and those judged to be infected were quarantined in jails, converted hospitals and former brothels fitted out with barbed wire topped walls. Breakouts and rebellions were common: In Los Angeles, women hacked through a fence with a stolen butcher knife; in Seattle, they tied up the guards in sheets and busted through plate glass. "In one wing of the horribly overcrowded Louisville jail," Stern writes, "quarantined women staged a riot about once a week." American authorities didn't invent the blame loose women approach to stamping out venereal disease; they imported it from Europe. In 19th century Paris, Stern reports, under what was known as the French Plan, prostitutes were made to bare their genitals before health inspectors. Those found to be infected could be jailed and compelled to undergo mercury injections, then the standard, if mostly ineffective, treatment for venereal disease. ("Throbbing pain, kidney damage, inflammation or ulceration of the mouth and terrible skin rashes" were typical side effects, Stern writes.) It wasn't until the 1940s that doctors understood that penicillin could knock out syphilis and gonorrhea. When Nina McCall was quarantined in 1918 bullied into three months inside a Michigan "detention hospital" she was injected with the toxins then still in fashion: mercury and, Stern surmises, remedies based on arsenic. Her teeth loosened. Her hair started falling out. She pleaded to go home. She insisted she'd been falsely suspected of consorting with "soldier boys"; Stern found evidence suggesting that she may never have had a sexually transmitted infection. We know all this now because after McCall was finally allowed to leave, she was sought out by a woman of means who hated the American Plan, had heard about her case and proposed that McCall sue the government for damages. Stern presents an intriguing cast of characters and ratchets up the tension as McCall's lawsuit materializes: Her benefactress is a Christian Scientist opposed to government mandated medical treatment; two of the lawyers on either side are bitterly combative rivals. The trial transcripts supply fine courtroom drama, but the story doesn't end there. McCall lost her case, and Scott relates both her troubled adulthood and the fascinating debates over the American Plan that continued to roil for decades, both inside and outside the legal system. "The Trials of Nina McCall" is a consistently surprising page turner, and at times I found myself wishing Stern had lingered over particular details. He notes that some of the laws that made up the American Plan are still on the books today; it's the interpretation of these laws that has changed, beginning in the 1960s, amid increasing litigation and evolving sexual mores. What kinds of public mandates are justifiable in combating contagious disease? Is involuntary quarantine ever acceptable? I would have welcomed Stern's views on such questions. Even so, his book is a brilliant study of the way social anxieties have historically congealed in state control over women's bodies and behavior at times with the complicity of medical authorities. It should come as no surprise, but appalls nonetheless, to learn that more than one government enforcer of the American Plan also played a key role in the notorious Tuskegee syphilis study, in which infected black men were deliberately denied treatment and left to sicken and die. Unchecked power over those who have little, Stern warns, is a peril that should keep us on high alert today. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
Yet this extraordinary woman, seemingly incapable of despair through roughly two decades of struggle, remains elusive. There's something daunting about this degree of implacable selflessness, and it has a curiously flattening effect on a movie that feels less emotionally complex less enraged than it ought to. By the end, I worried mainly about Sotoudeh's children, enduring yearslong separations from one or both parents. And when a prison visit showed her son laughing delightedly at his mother through a glass partition while her daughter wept quietly nearby, it felt like the most painfully human moment onscreen. Nasrin Not rated. In English and Farsi, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
The director Steven Soderbergh summed it up in a tweet on Thursday night, calling the latest episode of the FX show "Atlanta" "the most beautifully photographed half hour of TV I've ever seen. In addition to being COMPLETELY BANANAS." Another bottle episode in a show made up almost entirely of narrative detours, the sixth chapter of the show's second season, titled "Teddy Perkins," was written by Donald Glover, the show's creator and star, and directed by its visual mastermind, Hiro Murai. It centers on Darius (Lakeith Stanfield), who had thus far been mostly relegated to eccentric sidekick status, as he rents a U Haul to pick up what we come to learn is a free piano (with multicolored keys) from a dimly lit Southern mansion. A horror movie in miniature, eerie and tense throughout, "Teddy Perkins" reveals itself slowly as a musing on generational trauma and artistic genius, heavy on allusions and eventually, explicit references to Michael Jackson. But while the King of Pop is most fully embodied through the character of Theodore Perkins, Darius's diminutive and creepy host, whose bleached skin and distinctively molded face could be a nod to no one else, Jackson is far from the only cultural touchstone driving the episode to its violent conclusion. Below is a (surely incomplete) list of the other Easter eggs, obvious and not, scattered throughout the episode. For a show and episode about music, "Teddy Perkins" is most effective, tonally, with silence. But the episode is book ended by two songs, both from Stevie Wonder, beginning with "Sweet Little Girl," the side one closer from his 1972 album "Music of My Mind." Upon arriving at Perkins's mansion, Darius initially bonds with his bizarre host over their shared love of the album. But later, after all variety of increasingly menacing behavior by Perkins, he and Darius disagree about the source of the music's spiritual might. Debating the necessity of the abuse Perkins and his brother, the ailing pianist Benny Hope, suffered at the hands of their hard driving father, Perkins says: "Stevie had his own sacrifices. He was blind." Darius counters: "Yeah, but he wasn't blinded. He saw through his music," to which Perkins says: "That's beautiful. But wrong." Also name dropped in the episode are these titans of black music, who serve to cement the bona fides of Benny Hope, the fictional charge and onetime virtuoso who looms over the entirety of "Teddy Perkins." Allegedly friends and collaborators of Hope and his brother, these stars of jazz and R B are referenced or seen in vintage photographs, including one that seems to have been altered from an actual photo of a young Michael Jackson. (Another features Bill Clinton.) In one of the episode's carefully deployed comic relief moments, Perkins also plays a voice recording reminding himself to "finish that hat for Dionne Warwick," bizarre headgear being another recurring motif in the episode. (Earlier, Darius, frustrated by a Confederate flag cap reading "Southern Made," buys it and uses a red marker to make it read "U Mad.") In another back and forth about the merits of certain music, Perkins and Darius spar over the validity of rap, with Darius offering that sometimes "people just want to have a good time." Perkins contends that the genre "never quite grew out of its adolescence," adding, "Don't you find it insufficient as an art form?" Darius shoots back: "We got Jay Z he's like 65," a rare light moment in this episode where it feels O.K. to exhale. When Darius calls his friends to alert them to his peculiar situation before laying eyes on the reclusive Benny Hope himself he posits that Perkins and his brother are one in the same. "I think Benny created Teddy to make up for the fact that he made himself look like a ghoul," he says, before offering a topical example: "He looks like somebody left Sammy Sosa in the dryer." Since his retirement, Mr. Sosa, the former Chicago Cubs slugger, has become an object of derision online as his skin has appeared lighter and lighter. (Mr. Sosa has said he uses a bleaching cream, but insisted, "I don't think I look like Michael Jackson.") After Googling "Sammy Sosa hat" go ahead, try it Darius's friends participate in a mini roasting session that will ring familiar to anyone who's read a tweet about Sammy Sosa in recent years. As for Perkins's own apparent skin bleaching, many viewers have guessed that the character is played by Donald Glover himself in whiteface and, despite his Jackson like high pitched voice, the vocal patterns do match although the end credits list, in a final punch line, "Teddy Perkins as himself." Darius is right to worry that Perkins seems "like he wanna keep me here," as he relays in his phone call. It also happens that Lakeith Stanfield, who plays Darius, played a similarly captive role in the similarly unsettling, race oriented horror film "Get Out." When Perkins snaps a Polaroid of Darius entering the peculiar gift shop he has dedicated to his brother, Darius says, "I'm not a big photo person," recalling his brainwashed character Logan King in Jordan Peele's "Get Out." The stack of books lingering near Darius's head during a crucial moment was probably not arranged haphazardly, given the attention to visual detail throughout "Atlanta," and especially this episode. Among a pile that also includes Joseph E. Stiglitz's "The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them" are a few books by Stuart Woods, a novelist from Georgia who happens to have created a recurring villain named Teddy. In the scene that cracks open this often befuddling episode, Perkins, who aims to turn he and his brother's mansion into a museum, shows Darius a faceless mannequin in a suit a stand in for the father that drove the siblings to musical greatness. "He wanted the best out of us," Perkins explains, stating plainly that there would be physical punishment if they failed. "Dad used to beat you to be good at piano?" Darius asks. Perkins responds: "To be good at life," adding, "To make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs." (This metaphor is particularly rich given the earlier, ominous scene of Perkins picking at an oozing soft boiled ostrich egg.) He goes on to say that he wants the museum dedicated not only to his father, but also to Marvin Gaye Sr., Tiger Woods's father, Serena Williams's father and "the father who drops Emilio Estevez off in 'The Breakfast Club.'" While Darius contends later that "not all great things come from great pain sometimes it's love," Perkins has a catchall retort in defense of his own suffering and what it wrought: "Most people wouldn't understand." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
A Red Sox Yankees game in Boston earlier this month. Sports radio's audience skews male and is still a niche segment when compared with the rest of radio, but it is of increasing interest for advertisers. Sports programming isn't the most popular stop on the radio dial in Portland, Ore. The top sports radio station in June, KFXX AM, ranked 21st out of the market's 35 stations, according to Nielsen. Its biggest competitor, KXTG AM, ranked 22nd. A third, KPOJ AM, was 25th, just ahead of a jazz station. Yet the Goldberg Jones law firm in Seattle advertises on all three sports stations. Rick Jones co founded the firm in 1996 and helped it establish a niche by providing divorce services for men. At first "the big game was yellow pages" when it came to marketing, he said. Soon, though, the firm turned to radio, which was appealing for both its price and its reach. "When deciding at that point which stations to target, sports radio stations were a no brainer because of the demographic," Mr. Jones said. "The cost per relevant person was manageable and within our budget." More than 20 years later, sports radio's audience remains largely the same. Entercom, the parent company of KFXX, says that the roughly 40 sports radio stations it owns average 11 million listeners per week. Of that audience, 71 percent is male. Ads for Jones' law firm on KFXX are often bookended by commercials for a chain of testosterone therapy clinics and for a shaving supply company called Harry's. "Given the male skew for sports radio, those advertisers may find the format suitable," says Jeff Sottolano, senior vice president of radio and Radio.com programming from Entercom. None Week 11 Takeaways: Here is what we learned this week. N.F.L. Tightens Covid Protocols: As cases rise and Thanksgiving approaches, the league is requiring masks inside team facilities and increasing testing. The Jets Lose Again: Falling to the Miami Dolphins, the Jets' receiver Elijah Moore offered consolation. The Long Path to the Super Bowl: With 18 weeks in the regular season and fewer teams earning byes in the playoffs, the Super Bowl is still a long way off. Playoff Simulator: Explore every team's path to the postseason, updated live. Traug Keller, senior vice president in charge of ESPN Audio and Talent, noted that between 80 and 90 percent of the audience listening to ESPN Radio's more than 400 affiliates throughout the United States is male. Combined with ESPN's satellite radio and streaming audio stations, Mr. Keller said ESPN radio reaches one in every five sports radio listeners ages 13 and older in the United States, and accounts for nearly half of all sports radio listening nationwide. "You start to extrapolate out: Half of all sports talk radio listening, 1 in 5 Americans listening to us, 80 to 90 percent male," Mr. Keller said. "Sports talk radio is probably a good place to go to find men." When compared with the rest of radio not to mention streaming audio and podcasts sports radio is still a niche, but one of increasing interest for advertisers. John Fitzgerald, vice president of ESPN's multimedia sales for audio and ESPN Deportes, said that ESPN Radio had about 30 advertisers when he began working with the company 20 years ago. It has more than 300 now, and the field of advertisers has diversified. "One of the things that advertisers are starting to understand is that sports radio is not your grandfather," Mr. Fitzgerald said. "We do well with 18 to 49, we do well with 25 to 54, and we do well with 35 plus, but there's this idea that, this old white guy and I can say this as an older white guy and they're now trapped in what they do and they're going to do that forever." While ESPN Radio's listeners are largely male, Mr. Fitzgerald said they vary in race and ethnicity. Fitzgerald also noted that ESPN Radio also has a high number of listeners making between 150,000 to 1 million a year, while Entercom's Mr. Sottolano said Entercom sports stations and the company's CBS Radio Network affiliates tend to skew toward the college educated and households making more than 75,000. They're also more engaged than the average radio listener. "It's the relationship that a fan has to a sports radio host who, on Monday morning after a big game, is as upset or as emotional as they are," Mr. Sottolano said. "When they build that kind of relationship and feel that individual is one of them someone they could have had on the couch on Sunday and been sharing a plate of nachos with there's a natural opportunity for us to leverage that trust." As a result, sports radio hosts are often enlisted to do endorsements or events. At Entercom's WFAN FM in New York, Mike Francesa has a longstanding relationship with the electronics retailer P.C. Richard Son. Angelo Cataldi at Entercom's WIP FM has not only endorsed the Philadelphia jeweler Steven Singer on air, but has introduced them as the sponsors of the station's annual Wing Bowl, a pre Super Bowl bacchanalia at Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center arena featuring exotic dancers, professional eaters and WIP listeners in various states of sobriety. ESPN's Mr. Keller said sports radio advertisers once fell into male focused categories like grooming and beer, but that has changed. The ESPN Radio hosts Dan LeBatard and Jon Weiner, for example, became pitchmen for Zebra pens. "They did these live reads and all of a sudden, they're selling a ton of Zebra pens because these knuckleheads said, 'Hey, this is a good pen,'" Keller says. That connection isn't always immediate. Mr. Keller said that ESPN brings many advertisers to its Bristol, Conn., headquarters to sit down with hosts and explain their businesses. The Portland based Alpha Media, meanwhile, brought representatives from Mr. Jones's law firm to its KXTG studios to discuss sports related family law issues, including Tiger Woods' extramarital affairs. "Things like that are gold because it's an implied endorsement and you're welcomed into the family a bit," Mr. Jones said. "Especially when you're in a business like divorce lawyer, the implied endorsement is the one you're looking for. Nobody wants to be the show host who says "when I went through the worst period of my life, here's who I used.'" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
How to watch: 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Tennis Channel; streaming on the Tennis Channel app. After many crowd favorites like Daniil Medvedev and Alison Riske lost in the first round of the French Open, Wednesday offers an opportunity for stability. The two main courts, Philippe Chatrier and Suzanne Lenglen, will be primarily populated by familiar faces, with five former major champions and two more tour finals champions on display. But the outside courts may provide some of the more interesting matches because they are less likely to be one sided affairs. Here are some matches to keep an eye on. Because of the number of matches cycling through courts, the times for individual matchups are at best a guess and are certain to fluctuate based on the times at which earlier play is completed. All times are Eastern. In the first round, Dominic Thiem dispatched the former U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic in three sets. It helped allay questions about whether Thiem's lack of preparation on red clay would harm his ability to perform after acclimating to hardcourts during his title run at the United States Open. Thiem, who finished as the runner up at the past two French Opens, is using the first few rounds at Roland Garros as training fodder. On the other side of the net, Jack Sock is still working on bringing himself back to his highest level. In 2017, Sock was a semifinalist at the ATP Tour finals, an impressive feat for a player who had never reached the quarterfinal of a Grand Slam tournament. But Sock has struggled with his singles game since then, and he seemed to enjoy himself much more on the doubles court, winning a pair of Grand Slam titles and the ATP Tour finals alongside Mike Bryan. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
When they're not punching each other in the face, the ice hockey players in "The Russian Five" seem a lot like chess grandmasters. They're that steeped in strategy. This documentary, directed by Joshua Riehl, recounts the story of the Detroit Red Wings of the 1980s and the early to mid 90s. The team was a study in calamity. It hadn't won a championship since 1955, and morale was abysmal, hence its nickname, the Dead Wings. The franchise was sold in 1982 to Mike Ilitch, the founder of the Little Caesars pizza chain, and the team's management moved forward with a risky plan: To recruit star athletes from the Soviet Union. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
Kahlil Joseph's New Film Is Steeped in Harlem's History. And His Own. It was Kahlil Joseph's brother who made him an artist. Or at least that's one way to describe how Mr. Joseph, a successful director who has worked with Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce, came to premiere his film "Fly Paper" at the New Museum this fall. An impressionistic collage of Harlem's past and present, "Fly Paper" is being shown continuously in a new ground floor gallery space at the museum as part of the exhibition, "Kahlil Joseph: Shadow Play." The film's title evokes one of Mr. Joseph's critical influences: the photographer Roy DeCarava, renowned for his chiaroscuro images of Harlem life and culture. Mr. DeCarava, who died in 2009, collected some of his photographs in a best selling book, "The Sweet Flypaper of Life" (1955), with text by Langston Hughes. This New Museum show is Mr. Joseph's first solo exhibition in New York. That would be a milestone for any artist but it may be especially significant because Mr. Joseph first showed his work in a gallery a mere three years ago. That was at the urging of his brother, Noah Davis, a contemporary artist who founded an influential exhibition space in Los Angeles called the Underground Museum. Mr. Joseph was a successful filmmaker at the time, directing music videos for artists like Flying Lotus, and was later nominated for an Emmy as one of the directors of Beyonce's visual album "Lemonade." But in 2014, Mr. Joseph had just completed a 14 minute film that he couldn't release. It was based on work he'd done for Mr. Lamar, after the release of his album "Good Kid, M.A.A.D City." Blending home video from Mr. Lamar's family with original footage filmed in Compton, Calif., Mr. Joseph had made something new. But it was not a traditional music video, and Mr. Lamar was not interested in putting it out, Mr. Joseph, 36, recalled in a recent interview. Among the transfixed viewers was Helen Molesworth, the chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. "I literally drove back to the museum and put it on the schedule," she said. The film's triumphant run at the Museum of Contemporary Art was followed by more work, including "Lemonade" and "Music Is My Mistress," a project for the fashion house Kenzo. Then, last year, came the invitation from the New Museum: Could Mr. Joseph create a new film, a sort of New York based companion piece to "m.A.A.d."? For the first time in his career, Mr. Joseph faced a blank slate. There was no song, no album, no core material to draw on. But he quickly found that "it's impossible not to think about all your heroes and references when you write," he said. In addition to Mr. DeCarava, the photographer, Mr. Joseph drew on the work of Chris Marker, whose film "Sans Soleil" offers an extended meditation on memory and time. With "Fly Paper," Mr. Joseph pays homage to a host of literary and cultural figures, splicing and mixing in references among its scenes of fictional characters. Some figures skate away, while others recur. The film builds in layers, with verite footage from the street interspersed with elegant, vividly staged scenes. A woman places a handbag on a bed; an elegant gentleman (Ben Vereen) climbs a set of stairs, then reclines, fully dressed, in a bathtub. He visits an art gallery. He dances in an empty room and with the Brooklyn born flex dancer Storyboard P. The soundtrack leaps, too. Music collides with the sounds of the city: drums, bass, an ambulance, a train. "I wanted people to feel like they saw a Harlem that they can't see," Mr. Joseph said. "You can take a tour bus around Harlem and see the exterior." His hunt for the heart of the neighborhood also shows the influence of Sharifa Rhodes Pitts, author of the 2011 book "Harlem Is Nowhere" (its title is from a 1948 essay by Ralph Ellison). The neighborhood's role as a capital of American culture, and exuberant celebration of African American life is a voice in his work, which includes a passage read from Ms. Rhodes Pitts's book. But some of the ghosts are his own. A middle aged man in an overcoat gets into a cab. He's on a gurney, proceeding down a hospital hall. He's in a chair, head shaved, a surgical scar circling one side of his skull, watching ESPN. That would be Mr. Joseph's father, the sports and entertainment attorney Keven Davis, who lived in Harlem until his death in 2011 at 53. That shock still reverberates for Mr. Joseph. "I remember having no concept that my parents could ever pass away," he said. "They seemed like these eternal experiences." The next shock came in 2015, when Noah, his brother, died at 32. "You think you have a lot of time with people, when you're young," Mr. Joseph said. "They're going to live until they're at least 70. Right?" It was a struggle to edit "Fly Paper," because of its deeply personal nature, and only late in the process did Mr. Joseph decide to include footage of his family. Searching through video he had shot in 2011 during his father's last months, he said, "led to a wormhole, all this stuff that I totally forgot I shot, because I was in such automatic mode." Again, he was inspired by Mr. DeCarava's work, noting how the photographer included portraits of his wife and daughters in his 1996 MoMA retrospective, alongside his depictions of jazz greats like Billie Holiday and Miles Davis. "He was able to not compartmentalize," Mr. Joseph said. "That's why I started to include my family. That's my big reference to Roy. That was his big genius." The loss of his father and brother also contributed to the erosion of Mr. Joseph's sense of time, he said a huge preoccupation for a filmmaker. "Our understanding of time as linear is completely false," he said. In the film, it's rarely clear whether everything is happening in the same period, across generations, or in a kind of eternal loop. Visitors at the New Museum show wander in, not knowing quite what to expect. But that kind of serendipity is fine with Mr. Joseph, who compared it to his youthful experience of flipping TV channels, only to happen across a movie in progress. "The likelihood that I would finish the film was probably increased by coming in somewhere in the middle, not knowing where I am," he said. A sense of dislocation defines the film, which slips from one visual format to another from 35 millimeter color film to coruscating black and white to bleary hand held video in a way that recalls the rapidly shifting frames of a dream. In the coda, just after the final shot of Mr. Joseph's father, there is a sequence of video clips from the 1990s, highlights from the career of the former Detroit Lions star running back Barry Sanders, who abruptly retired before the 1999 season. Mr. Joseph warmly recalled that during his father's final months they would bond over sports, and Mr. Sanders, a particular favorite. "I've always been drawn to the ballet like nature of his specific play," Mr. Joseph said. He also praised the athlete's decision to step away from the sport at the peak of his powers. "It was like a Zen samurai principle thing, right?" In the clips, which last a minute or so, the football star streaks across the field, again and again, a flash of joy that sharply contrasts with the painful hospital scenes. It may seem like a jarring shift in mood, but it is in keeping with the film's essayistic form. "I really love filmmaking, to be honest," Mr. Joseph said. "More than plot." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
The opening nights of Danspace Project's "Platform 2016: Lost and Found" stung like a bandage ripped off an open wound. The first programs of the six week platform, an exploration of the effect AIDS has had on artists, made clear that the trauma this epidemic wreaked on the dance world is far from over. "It's been rough when you lose your soul mate like that?" Bill T. Jones said of Arnie Zane, his professional and personal partner, who died of AIDS in 1988. It was a contemplative moment from Mr. Jones, who on Oct. 13 participated in an evening of conversation and video, showing his early duets with Mr. Zane. The program ended on a more raw note as Mr. Jones rose from his chair, wailing while leaping from side to side onstage. His landings reverberated throughout the space like explosions, and his jumps brought him closer to the audience seated in chairs around the performance area. Instead of exiting through the crowd, he squatted in front of me, leaned in close and said, "I won't be angry anymore!" It wasn't entirely clear if the declaration was about AIDS, a provocative gesture to get the crowd excited, or a more pointed comment directed toward a critic. But it did convey the emotionally charged even uncomfortable tenor of the evening, which, given the subject matter, seemed fitting. In a catalog accompanying the platform, Ishmael Houston Jones, who programmed the series with Will Rawls, wrote that when AIDS hit New York in the 1980s, he and other artists, "wary of sharing a glass of water," made art: "Those of us who were dying and those of us who survived. Surviving love and death. Clearly, in the end, no one survives either of these. We all surrender to both." That was tangible during the platform's opening stand alone programs. After Mr. Jones came Neil Greenberg, whose "Not About AIDS Dance" (1994) is as much a classic of contemporary choreography as it is a document of the AIDS epidemic; and Archie Burnett, the vogueing artist, who celebrated the life of Willi Ninja, who died of AIDS related heart failure in 2006. "He was one man," Mr. Burnett said proudly and on the verge of tears, "that brought both fashion and real life all together." After a vibrant performance that featured 17 dancers, including Mr. Burnett all silky strength, with a ballerina worthy high kick and the promising but brief "Immersion of Vogue," by Jason Rodriguez, or Slim Ninja, Mr. Burnett discussed the state of vogueing, regretting that dancers today can't experience the clubs of the 1980s and '90s. "You cannot teach somebody something real through the television or through the internet," he said. "You've got to be in the room." In his inspiring evening, Mr. Greenberg deftly crystallized a period. The program began with "Solo for Lost and Found," a quietly searing work in which he drew material from "Not About AIDS Dance" the piece in which he revealed he was H.I.V. positive and "The Disco Project" (1995). During an onstage interview, he discussed preparing for "Lost and Found," explaining how he "woke up one morning and started writing, and all I wrote about was pain." In "Lost and Found," Mr. Greenberg's eloquence, not just as a speaker but also as a choreographer, set him apart; vogueing is extraordinary, but its choreographic potential is limited. And though Mr. Jones has created many dances and won many awards since, it is those early duets with Mr. Zane that still seem the most powerful even on grainy video. "Lost and Found" is not just about the effect of AIDS on one generation. It also explores the influence of John Bernd, perhaps the first choreographer to refer to the disease in his work. Like Mr. Zane, he died in 1988. (Next month, Mr. Houston Jones will direct a collage of Mr. Bernd's work.) What has his loss meant for younger artists? On Friday night, the focus was on a group billed as "queer emerging artists of color": Jonathan Gonzalez, Jasmine Hearn, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko and Ni'Ja Whitson. This overlong program leaned more heavily on ideas about race than about AIDS, but that made sense; both prompt thoughts of loss, identity and grief. The bigger problem was self indulgence, though Mr. Kosoko, whose mantra is "more is more" he nimbly layers props, costumes and text showed an excerpt from "Seancers," a tantalizing glimpse into disenfranchisement by way of an exorcism. On Saturday, the notion of a ritual continued with "the skeleton architecture, or the future of our worlds," a two hour improvisation organized by the writer Eva Yaa Asantewaa, in which 20 female dancers responded to written prompts. It lagged at times, but whether succumbing to a moment from the past or the present, the performers showed grief and celebration, the body and the spirit, and how friends become family. It was a strange and bold experiment held together by a shared bond: dance. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
When I worked as a book publicist, my boss told me that the blessing and curse of our industry is that "everyone thinks they can do what we do, even though no one has a clue what we do." This comment was prompted by a marketing meeting during which we were lauded for glowing review coverage that no reasonable person could attribute to our efforts, while simultaneously being asked whether we had "tried the 'Today' show." Because pitching the "Today" show is just the kind of thing that would never occur to a book publicist. I often revisit my boss's assessment of our world not as an author myself but as a person who watches an obscene number of shows and movies. Hollywood's love affair with book publishing has been long and varied, touching every cinematic genre. And yet it is a love that dare not spell its name correctly. Despite decades of sending emissaries back and forth from coast to coast, swapping mediums, one side looking for money, the other for legitimacy, we remain strangers to our cousins in storytelling. To be fair, any story set in an industry other than filmmaking is bound to incur infelicities when being handled by people who think filmmaking is the noblest cause. However, because book publishing is a comparatively niche business, the inaccuracies prick the ears. Films about publishing put too fine a point on our role as narrative mulch. In the romantic comedy "The Proposal," Sandra Bullock plays a big shot book editor. Early in the film, they (one imagines a producer consensus being reached) have her refer to Don DeLillo as Don "De lee lo." The actor playing the head of the publishing house echoes the pronunciation back to her. De lee lo. Light of my airborne toxic event, fire of my nuclear war. "The Proposal" was released in 2009 but was apparently filmed in a bunker with no internet access. If this sounds nitpicky, I might remind you that I was not the one who decided Don DeLillo was famous enough to plop into a major studio script. More recently, in the charming series "Younger," Miriam Shor plays Diana Trout, the head of marketing at a boutique publishing house. Diana has an award on her desk from "the London lit fair," which absolutely no one calls it. As the seasons unfurl, the nonsense piles up: Someone from publicity asks what "PEN" stands for; editors have publicists; publishing houses sell books to other publishing houses; authors take editors with them when they switch publishers; a small company with a "Game of Thrones" level franchise is somehow in constant danger of bankruptcy; and members of the editorial staff spew impossible commands like "We're on tight launch for the fall ... so I will need marketing and cover artwork by the end of this week." Have these people met a managing editor? They'd be lucky to walk away with some of their fingers. Happily, once realism has been pulped like the first print run of a fraudulent memoir, the fun can begin. In "Younger," as in "Fifty Shades of Grey," a woman who looks as if she couldn't legally rent a car is given her own publishing company; Joan Didion is allegedly spotted "hoarding gift bags"; there's concern an author will be "scooped up by those mouth breathers at Little Brown"; and the (actual) host of "Bookworm," a nationally syndicated radio show, grills an author about her sex life. Meanwhile, the series is not without its flashes of spine chilling verisimilitude: "Black tie means black tie," Diana says before an awards ceremony. "No color. This isn't the Grammys!" Historically, book publishing works best on film when it functions as a springboard to a different world. "Fatal Attraction" is about a book editor but, well, is it? A children's book is intentionally printed with pages missing in "Elf." But, well, Santa. "The Last Days of Disco" is partially set at a publishing house. We easily forgive the film's suggestion that one needs a best seller to be promoted to associate editor in fact, the job title is a stopgap, a means of promoting an assistant while taking away her overtime because "The Last Days of Disco" is not about publishing. It's a comedy of manners about New York in the early 1980s, not "The Last Days of Carbon Copies." Few movies really succeed as both realism and entertainment. One is "The Scoundrel," starring Noel Coward as a pretentious publisher. It's filled with jabs like "I refuse to make money improving people's morals, it's a vulgar way to swindle the public," and "This anteroom is fairly quivering with outraged geniuses." But it was released in 1935. And while plenty of movies and shows since have done well by the actual writing life ("The Ghost Writer," "Wonder Boys," "Bored to Death"), "The Scoundrel" is a rare bird. The closest approximation of it I've seen is "Wolf" (1994), a campy film in which an editor, played by Jack Nicholson, and a marketing director, played by James Spader, turn into werewolves as Michelle Pfeiffer looks on, blondly. "Wolf" does wonders with the publishing world before it starts howling at the moon. The desks are messy, the offices are quirky, Time Warner is derided as "a multinational media conglomerate," Nicholson uses his newfound wolf powers to edit without his glasses and a publisher is advised never to "stint on review copies." It's rarely said that Hollywood is coming from a good place, but in the case of book publishing, I believe it is. Its skewed depictions often seem careless or condescending, but they stem from a healthy desire to superimpose tension. No one wants to read about grass growing but what they really don't want to do is watch grass growing. So what's a little blackmail between editors? At least Hollywood's version of book publishing is consistent in its warped ideas: Every company is publicly owned, and there is zero padding between a junior copy editor and "the board" or "the shareholders." And everyone's jobs are completely interchangeable. So long as you have the capacity to leave the office and come back, you can acquire a book, start an imprint, poach an author, triple a budget or sell movie rights (the irony!). You don't have to tell anyone you're doing it, either. Make like you're in "Good Will Hunting": Scribble the answers on the chalkboard and run. But by far the strangest and most glaring commonality is the presumption of glamour. This stems from a conflation with magazine publishing along with a belief that an audience will tune out unless glitter is sprayed in their eyes. Story lines are chock a block with perks like fashion fittings, "company seats" and name brand coffee. Central to the ethos of book publishing is the notion that everything cool is being pushed out, nothing cool is coming in. This is what binds us, publishers and writers alike. We try to sneak books into your house and under your pillow. We crumble them over your food when you're not looking. In return? Bupkis. Only after you've worked at a publishing house for so many decades you literally can't walk do we let you take an Uber home. So why does Hollywood keep trying if publishing is such a tough code to crack? Perhaps it's because everyone likes a challenge. More likely, it's because they know we have a secret. They know there's something lasting and human and world changing and completely bonkers that we're hiding behind our molasses like culture and confounding royalty statements. At the end of "The Last Days of Disco," after everyone's been laid off from their respective industries, Chloe Sevigny's character is the only one left employed as an associate editor. "I don't envy her though," says Kate Beckinsale's character. "Stuck in book publishing." Oh, it's not as bad as it looks. One can't believe everything one sees on screen. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
Lockdown weary Europeans have sought out nature in record breaking numbers this year, putting sudden and substantial pressure on national parks and other natural areas across the continent. "You could see this increase in irresponsible behavior, and in a lot of parks it felt like this was out of control," said Nikoleta Jones, a principal research associate at the University of Cambridge and an author of a recent study of the pandemic's effect on protected areas in Europe. "The resources they had were not enough. It was just so much more than what they had experienced in the past." A telling episode occurred in Germany in November, not long after the country had gone into a partial lockdown. Three young adults went on a day trip to the Bavarian Forest National Park, 60,000 acres of woodlands, bogs and boulder fields about an hour's drive from their home in Straubing. As they neared the end of their hike, a young man in the group realized that he had left behind his smartphone. The sun was low on the horizon, but they all turned around to look for it and ended up lost in the dark, and very cold. The incident was typical, Ms. Schreib said, of what the park's employees had seen since the pandemic hit: a new crowd of people many of them young city dwellers visiting for the first time, and often unprepared and uninformed. It was, she said, a challenge to manage all of these new visitors, some of whom were aggressive toward rangers and other guests, while also allowing for social distancing and protecting the health of the park's small staff. If the trend of nature seeking tourism persists after the pandemic and there's evidence that it will then experts say the continent's protected areas will require a significant increase in investment to deal with a surge in nature based tourism that could bring jobs and income into Europe's rural areas, which have been steadily emptying out for more than half a century. The trick will be accommodating all of those visitors sustainably and finding a way to finance the work. "We have more than doubled the amount of fines this year compared to other years," said Sonja Wipf, the Head of Research and Monitoring at the Swiss National Park, who noted that the fines were primarily for bringing a dog into the park, leaving marked trails and disturbing wildlife with loud noise or unruly behavior, including flying drones. Overcrowding, irresponsible behavior and parking issues were among the top challenges identified in the study, led by researchers at the University of Cambridge, that analyzed the experiences of 14 European protected areas during the coronavirus pandemic. All of the areas saw an increase in visitors from the previous year, especially during the summer. The study identified some of the most effective responses to the year's challenges, including public information campaigns, online education programs and careful planning of visitors' movements. But finding the time and money to implement those responses is another matter, especially given that, unlike in the United States, very few national parks in Europe charge visitors an entrance fee. "I think in the early days we were simply coping," said Sarah Fowler, the chief executive of England's Peak District National Park, an expanse of limestone gorges and moorland plateaus within an hour's drive of more than 16 million people. Ms. Fowler added that the park has a ranger team of about two dozen to cover 555 square miles. The park normally relies on a broad network of volunteers to supplement the rangers' work, Ms. Fowler said, but this year the volunteers' contributions were reduced to meet government requirements on Covid 19. It was a similar story in France's Parc National des Ecrins, home to nearly 25,000 acres of glaciers, as well as some 150 peaks that rise above 9,800 feet. "The context is that we've been losing staff for the last 10 years or so," said Pierrick Navizet, the park's head of tourism and communications. The park's budget has been finalized for next year, and its staff will be reduced by one. He wasn't optimistic about the odds of getting more reinforcements down the line. "The French government is trying to control public spending, so I don't think there will be job creation in national parks," he said. "But if there were, that would be good news." In Finland, Sipoonkorpi National Park, a forested area outside Helsinki that is popular with hikers, will probably end up with a 200 percent increase in visitors this year, said Henrik Jansson, the regional director for coastal and metropolitan areas for Metsahallitus, Finland's parks and wildlife service. Mr. Jansson said that the parks system got new government funds even before the pandemic hit, which helped them respond to the year's challenges. But it was still a sprint, especially at the beginning. "For two weeks we were working almost 24 hours a day and weekends to get things right," Mr. Jansson said of the early stages of the pandemic, adding that now they have settled into "a kind of new normal." The Finnish government has allocated some of its Covid 19 funding for the construction of parking areas at the national parks, Mr. Jansson said, adding that proposals are now being drawn up for the creation of two new national parks in Finland. He said that any new funding would more likely be used to engage external service providers, rather than hire a lot of new staff. "We can't employ too much," he said, "because we know that at some point, this funding will end." "We've really seen, post lockdown, that hunger to get outdoors, to reconnect with nature," said Ms. Fowler, of the Peak District National Park. "There's a huge realization that it supports our mental well being, our own recovery." A continued influx of nature seeking visitors may be good news for humanity, but it will no doubt continue to strain the protected areas they are visiting. James Hardcastle, director of the Green List program at the International Union for Conservation of Nature, described national parks and other conservation areas as "a vital service," and said that governments across Europe need to support them "in a much more deliberate way." "It's an area that's being overlooked completely, across the board," Mr. Hardcastle said. "Even before Covid, most countries were rolling back the allocation of resources to the nature conservation sector, to parks in particular." But funding national parks and other highly controlled natural areas is an expensive proposition, said Frans Schepers, co founder and managing director of Rewilding Europe, an initiative that aims to promote "rewilding" as a new approach to conservation across the continent. He argues that policymakers and land managers need to embrace less intensive and more cost effective ways to manage and generate income from the continent's many natural areas, not just its national parks. In 2016, Rewilding Europe launched its own travel business, the European Safari Company, which aims to bring tourists and their money into rural areas, primarily in Southern and Eastern Europe. The company works with local guides and tourism operators in places like Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Italy to help them develop wildlife watching tours, bison and wolf tracking escapes and other diversions. The goal, said Mr. Schepers, is to make nature and wildlife the basis for a new economy in these rural areas, where populations have been on the decline for decades. "This is how new life can be brought into these areas that are suffering," Mr. Schepers said. "We just need to make sure that nature based tourism is done in the right way and that it will support conservation and not just exploit it." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
Fast on the heels of mourning Donald B. Marron after his abrupt death in December from what appeared to be a heart attack, auction houses started competing for his impressive art collection, which includes two major Picassos, as well as works by Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly and Willem de Kooning. But in a highly unusual development on Tuesday, the auction houses were thwarted entirely when three major galleries announced that they would share the sale of the collection. The galleries Acquavella, Gagosian and Pace will jointly organize a New York exhibition in the spring, dividing the works into three significant phases of Mr. Marron's collecting: the 1960s and 1970s; as a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art since 1975; and in building the collection of the investment bank Paine Webber while he was chief executive between 1980 and 2000. The decision by Mr. Marron's widow, Catherine Marron, is a blow to the auction world, particularly when it is coming off lackluster sales in London last week, inventory is low and Sotheby's is trying to establish itself under new private ownership. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
WASHINGTON Elizabeth Warren is playing a game of dare with Facebook. The Democratic presidential candidate bought a political ad on the social network this past week that purposefully includes false claims about Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and President Trump to goad the social network to remove misinformation in political ads ahead of the 2020 presidential election. The ad, placed widely on Facebook beginning on Thursday, starts with Ms. Warren announcing "Breaking news." The ad then goes on to say that Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg are backing the re election of Trump. Neither Mr. Zuckerberg nor the Silicon Valley company has announced their support of a candidate. Related: What the 2020 candidates' spending on Facebook political ads reveals about their campaigns. "You're probably shocked, and you might be thinking, 'how could this possibly be true?' Well, it's not," Ms. Warren said in the ad. Ms. Warren's actions follow a brouhaha over Facebook and political ads in recent weeks. Mr. Trump's campaign recently bought ads across social media that accused another Democratic presidential candidate, Joseph R. Biden Jr., of corruption in Ukraine. That ad, viewed more than five million times on Facebook, falsely said that Mr. Biden offered 1 billion to Ukrainian officials to remove a prosecutor who was overseeing an investigation of a company associated with Mr. Biden's son Hunter Biden. This past week, the Biden campaign demanded that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube take down the ad. Facebook refused, telling the Biden campaign that it would keep the Trump ad up because of its belief that statements by politicians add to important discourse and are newsworthy, even if they are false. Twitter and YouTube have also kept the ad online. Ms. Warren's false ad on Facebook is now set to escalate her growing feud with the world's biggest social network. Ms. Warren has turned into a vocal critic of tech companies and their power. She has called for behemoths like Facebook and Google to be broken up. In a leaked audio recording published this month of a meeting that Mr. Zuckerberg had with Facebook employees, he was heard saying that Facebook would sue if Ms. Warren were to enact the breakup plan as president. In response, Ms. Warren doubled down, saying that America needed to "fix a corrupt system that lets giant companies like Facebook engage in illegal anticompetitive practices, stomp on consumer privacy rights, and repeatedly fumble their responsibility to protect our democracy." This month, Ms. Warren's campaign also sent an email seeking donations with the subject line "re: Mark Zuckerberg." And at a rally in San Diego, as she talked about the power of huge corporations, she told the crowd, "Break them up. And yes, Mark Zuckerberg, I'm looking at you." For Facebook, the situation is tricky. The social media company has struggled in recent years with what to allow and disallow on its site, especially after revelations that Russian operatives used the platform during the 2016 presidential election to post disinformation to inflame the American electorate. Facebook has moved to clamp down on false content. Yet when the company removes or buries messages, ads, photos and videos, it is often called out for bias and censorship. Facebook has faced particular wrath from conservatives, who have said the social network intentionally suppresses what they say. "Facebook believes political speech should be protected," a spokesman for Facebook said on Saturday. "If Senator Warren wants to say things she knows to be untrue, we believe Facebook should not be in the position of censoring that speech." Truth in social media advertising is likely to become a bigger issue ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Zuckerberg is scheduled to speak about Facebook's political speech policies this coming week at Georgetown University. Presidential candidates have been spending huge sums on ads on Facebook and other social media platforms to reach voters. Some campaigns have focused on advertising specifically on Facebook given its sheer size it has more than 2.2 billion users worldwide and the ability to spread ads and content cheaply and quickly across the platform. Like her rivals for the Democratic nomination, Ms. Warren has spent a significant amount of money on Facebook advertising, which is a crucial way to reach potential grass roots donors. Over all, her presidential campaign has spent more than 3.3 million on Facebook ads, according to numbers disclosed by the company. Unlike the social media companies, some cable outlets have refused to run the false Trump campaign ad that said Mr. Biden acted corruptly in Ukraine. CNN and NBCU, which declined to run the ad, said it violated their standards. Some broadcast networks across the nation have run the ad, including in early voting states. Late on Saturday, Facebook tweeted a response to Ms. Warren. The company said that broadcast stations had aired the Trump ad about 1,000 times as required by law and that the Federal Communications Commission didn't want broadcast companies censoring speech. "We agree it's better to let voters not companies decide," Facebook said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
Nadia Shira Cohen for The New York Times For Ralph Lauren , it was a wide necktie and an outsized vision that set in motion a five decade career in fashion, one that would eventually render a house painter's son from the Bronx a multibillionaire and a globally legible brand. For Brunello Cucinelli, a farmer's son from a rural backwater in Umbria, the path to international success and a great fortune began almost as improbably with a single sweater. Nowadays, it is too little appreciated how out of the devastation of World War II came a great reconstruction in Italy, one largely fueled by funds from the Marshall Plan. The small scale industrial capacity that remains a linchpin of the "Made in Italy'' brand substantially originated in the late 1940s, with individual regions developing specific manufacturing specialties: woolen mills in the north, shoemaking in the Marche region and factories producing specialty knitwear in the central area where Mr. Cucinelli got his start. It was 40 years ago that a 25 year old Mr. Cucinelli scraped together a grubstake to pursue his notion of updating the high quality, although staid, knitwear made in factories around his hometown. "I decided to produce women's cashmere knitwear in pop colors and not the boring grays and tans that used to happen at that time,'' Mr. Cucinelli said recently by phone from Solomeo, near Perugia, where the designer still lives full time although in a manner far removed from that of his childhood, when the family home lacked plumbing and electricity. Lost, perhaps, amid all the jollity was the story of how a single cashmere sweater was eventually transformed into a lifestyle brand presciently pitched at a population whose growth could hardly have been predicted when Mr. Cucinelli started out. Not only are there more billionaires now than at any time in history, according to a 2018 Forbes ranking of those who have managed to summit capitalism's Everest, but they are richer than ever before, with an average wealth of 4.1 billion. Almost from the start of his career, Mr. Cucinelli decided they would be his clientele. "He became the uniform for the cool C.E.O.s of the world,'' said the designer Michael Bastian, who, as men's wear director of Bergdorf Goodman in the early years of the century, was instrumental in helping Mr. Cucinelli shape his overall vision and his retail offering. "That kind of guy Barry Diller, David Geffen guys cool enough that they didn't have to wear a suit to work,'' he added. There is slightly more at work than cool, however. Mr. Geffen, Mr. Diller and their fellow moguls have deep enough pockets that they are unlikely to experience the sticker shock that would afflict an ordinary mortal when faced with the price tag on, say, the reversible baseball bomber sweater by Brunello Cucinelli offered at Bergdorf Goodman for 3,095. "Brunello's always had everybody but the ultracool, low key C.E.O.s like Steve Jobs,'' Mr. Bastian added. In fact, Mr. Jobs's distinctive uniform of anonymous looking cashmere mock turtlenecks was quietly produced in bulk for the Apple founder by Mr. Cucinelli despite the latter's distaste for both that particular style of collar and his hatred of black. In certain ways Mr. Cucinelli's Italian success is also an American one, since not only is North America his largest market, it was retailers in the United States who first urged the designer to expand beyond sweaters into the broader apparel offerings for which he eventually became known. Had Gene Pressman, the visionary merchant who once headed Barneys New York, not pushed him to create a full collection, Mr. Cucinelli said, he might happily have rung changes on the same cashmere sweater for the rest of his life. The one shade no one will ever spot in a Cucinelli collection, Mr. Bastian added, is green: "He hates green. He wants to make green gone. Apparently, his mom forced him to wear a green sweater when he was a kid and he buried it in the backyard.'' In Mr. Cucinelli's idiosyncratic and yet disciplined approach to business, analysts see a model for other major carriage trade labels that appear to have lost their way. "His vision has always been unwavering and unapologetically for the moneyed,'' said Robert Burke of Robert Burke Associates, a New York luxury goods consultancy. "He is not going after the latest, greatest influencers and bloggers, and I don't think he has any particular high regard for an aspirational customer,'' Mr. Burke added. "He's definitely for the wheels up crowd.'' | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
MUCHO MUCHO AMOR: THE LEGEND OF WALTER MERCADO (2020) Stream on Netflix. Made in the months before his death, this documentary chronicles the larger than life existence of the Puerto Rican television and radio astrologer, Walter Mercado. Mercado became an icon for his elaborate costumes, focus on positivity and as a gender nonconforming entertainer and his show was broadcast to millions of viewers every day, until he somewhat mysteriously disappeared from public view. But the directors Cristina Costantini and Kareem Tabsch were able to sit down with Mercado, as well as Lin Manuel Miranda, the actor Eugenio Derbez and the television host Raul de Molina to discuss the entertainer's life and legacy. THE PROPOSAL (2019) Stream on Topic; Rent or buy on Amazon Prime, iTunes, Google Play, Vimeo, Vudu. Who owns an artist's legacy? That's one of the central questions in this documentary, which follows the conceptual artist Jill Magid from Brooklyn, to Mexico and Switzerland in her attempt to confront the couple who own the archives of the Mexican architect Luis Barragan. After Barragan died in 1988, his professional archive and the copyright to designs and images of his work were passed from his business partner and then sold to Rolf Fehlbaum, the chairman of an international furniture company, and his soon to be wife, Federica Zanco. Throughout the documentary, Magid writes to Zanco, requesting to view and study the archive without luck and those letters wind up becoming an integral element of her own exhibition about Barragan's legacy. But the focal point of the project lies in the proposal Magid dreams up for Zanco. With the approval of Barragan's surviving relatives, Magid transforms some of the architect's remains into a diamond which she sets into a ring, and presents to Zanco in exchange for her promise to move the archives back to Mexico. "Detailing at once an art project and a rescue mission, a love triangle and an elaborate, outlandish bargain, the movie has a surface serenity that belies its fuming emotions," Jeannette Catsoulis wrote in her New York Times review. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
SAN FRANCISCO After a string of scandals this year, Uber has rushed to repair its corporate culture. The ride hailing company has started an internal investigation into workplace practices, issued apologies for some of its behavior, and has had several female executives and a board member speak up on its behalf. On Tuesday, Uber continued its mea culpa tour by releasing its first report detailing the composition of its work force, which depicted an overwhelmingly male employee base and showed that the largest ethnic group is white. In addition, the company forcefully repudiated its past, saying that its intense, masculine culture went too far. "Every strength, in excess, is a weakness," Liane Hornsey, the recently appointed chief human resources officer, said in an interview at the company's headquarters in San Francisco. "What has driven Uber to immense success its aggression, the hard charging attitude has toppled over. And it needs to be shaved back." Fixing Uber's culture and image has become a top priority for the privately held company, which is valued at nearly 70 billion. Last month, Uber's dysfunctions were thrust into the public eye after a former engineer detailed her experience with sexual harassment and a lack of support from human resources at the company. Employees have described a cutthroat, political environment among some managers. Scrutiny has fallen on Uber's chief executive, Travis Kalanick, who helped found the company and has set its tone. Ms. Hornsey, a former executive at Google, has also moved into the hot seat. She joined Uber late last year from SoftBank and has essentially been given a blank check money, head count, resources to revamp the workplace processes and managerial styles put into place when the company was still a fledgling start up. Along with resources, Ms. Hornsey has embarked on a "listening tour" with employees who wish to share grievances. She is reworking the human resources structure and how Uber rates employee performance, long considered a problem area for insiders. And she spoke on behalf of the company about the diversity report, which covered full time employees but not drivers, who work as freelancers. The report's numbers were stark. Only 36 percent of Uber's work force is made up of women, while the technology jobs at the company some 85 percent are overwhelmingly held by men. In terms of racial composition, 50 percent of Uber's employees in the United States are white and 31 percent are Asian, while 9 percent are black and 6 percent are Hispanic. "We have to build more trust with our employees, and transparency will build that trust," Ms. Hornsey said of the report. In the past, Mr. Kalanick has resisted publishing a diversity report, current and former employees have said. In a statement on Tuesday, Mr. Kalanick said, "I know that we have been too slow in publishing our numbers and that the best way to demonstrate our commitment to change is through transparency. And to make progress, it's important we measure what matters." Compared with statistics at other technology companies, Uber's diversity figures are not that different and are modestly better than some. According to Google's most recent diversity report, for example, just 31 percent of its work force are women. Google also said 81 percent of its technical jobs were held by men, while 1 percent of its employees in the United States were black and 3 percent were Hispanic. Many of the numbers stack up roughly along the same lines at Apple and Facebook. Many of the diversity issues at Uber are also endemic to Silicon Valley. The venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers was sued over gender discrimination in 2012 by a former partner; it won the case in 2015. The software development start up GitHub has also dealt with allegations of sexism and harassment. At Uber, issues of internal culture may have been compounded by its dizzying growth over the past few years. The service is available in hundreds of cities across more than 70 countries and completes hundreds of thousands of trip requests a day. In the last year alone, the company's employee base has doubled in size to more than 12,000. Top performers were rewarded and promoted into management positions. Some 63 percent of managers had never previously held a leadership position, and Uber did not provide much training for new managers, some said. "For the first several years, we had to just focus on executing our operational goals, and that was kind of the be all, end all," said Nicole Cuellar, an operations and logistics manager who has worked at Uber for nearly four years. "There was never the need to think about our culture like that. And I don't think it sunk in until we all had this really gut wrenching experience." Among the things that Uber now has on the table to change are its list of 14 corporate values, which include being "super pumped" and "always be hustlin'." Mr. Kalanick is open to revising or adding new values, Ms. Hornsey said. She added that Uber was creating a task force to pinpoint major human resources failings, aided by Frances X. Frei, an adviser from Harvard Business School who has helped companies through organizational change. Uber also pledged to donate 3 million over the next three years to groups working on bringing women and underrepresented minorities into the tech industry. Some current and former employees have expressed concern over whether Uber will be able to change, given the deep seated trait of aggressive individualism that Mr. Kalanick has fostered. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
The moment Bob Moran received word that the professional tennis tournament he runs in Charleston, S.C., was being called off because of the coronavirus pandemic, he halted construction on the grandstands being erected just outside his office. "They had put the first layer in place, and then that same day they were taking it right back down again," said Moran, the tournament director for the Volvo Car Open, a women's clay court event that was scheduled to begin on April 4. "Everything counts." With professional tennis on hold until at least June and perhaps much longer the sport's administrators and players are scrambling to cut their losses as tournaments are postponed or canceled en masse. "This is real," said Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA. "The events are taking significant hits by not operating." The size of the hit for each tournament depends on numerous factors, including the timing of a postponement, the operating budget, sponsorship agreements and the agreement with the venue. Insurance largely will not help. Wimbledon, which is considering cancellation, is one tournament that has some coverage for a pandemic. The vast majority of tour events have none. In fact, many WTA and ATP events have skipped full cancellation insurance altogether, with annual fees that can range from 200,000 to 700,000, depending on a tournament's revenue. "We have insurance against an earthquake or an act of terrorism and stuff like that, but no tournament I know of has insurance against this specific virus, so the insurance is gone," said Edwin Weindorfer, whose company operates grass court events in Majorca and the German cities Berlin and Stuttgart. All three events are at risk of being canceled in June. Without insurance relief, tournaments will have to absorb losses on their own unless the tours or national tennis federations choose to offer financial assistance. "The tournaments are taking tremendous hits and obviously the players will take a tremendous hit because they are not having the opportunity to compete for multiple weeks," Simon said. "I think that's one of the challenges everyone is working on. How do we balance the significant losses all members are taking as well as the losses the tour is going to take?" Gerard Tsobanian, the chief executive and president of the Madrid Open, a men's and women's clay court event scheduled for May, does not believe the tours can provide broad relief. "I don't think they have enough funds to help players and tournaments together," he said. "No chance." The losses will depend on how long the sport is widely shut down. The professional game has halted all play until June 8, when the traditional grass court season is scheduled. But with Britain on lockdown, Wimbledon leaders are meeting this week to make a decision about the tournament scheduled for June 29 to July 12. "If Wimbledon would cancel, I think we will follow very fast with canceling our grass court tournaments," Weindorfer said. Because of the particularities of the playing surface, grass court tournaments are less likely than others to be rescheduled later in the season, if and when the tour resumes regular play. The men's and women's tours have made broader contingency plans to play their seasons later in the year, packing their schedules and continuing into late December while skipping what would have been their off seasons. "The players will have to create their own spacing in the calendar, but for the tournaments' and players' sake you have got to utilize all the weeks in the calendar that are available," said Jim Courier, a former top ranked men's player. The French Open, the Grand Slam tournament that precedes Wimbledon, already announced that it would push its dates back to Sept. 20 to Oct. 4 from its scheduled May 24 start. The move has generated widespread anger in the sport because the French Open leaders announced their plans publicly without discussing them with others. The backlash could lead to more shifts for the French Open to account for other scheduled tournaments, compensatory payments to tournaments that would be disadvantaged or even to a punitive reduction in ranking points allotted to the French Open by the tours. The uproar is the latest demonstration of the deep divisions in tennis, a sport with multiple governing bodies and agendas. "This was a golden opportunity at a difficult time to show our small tennis community is not that fragmented and that the leaders can make a decision together and cooperate. And we ended up showing a very selfish image of who we are," said Tsobanian, whose Madrid event was postponed with no guarantee of finding another date in 2020. Some in the game view the extreme situation presented by the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity for the tours to streamline a cluttered calendar by finding ways to buy out dates from small, struggling events and focusing more on larger events that are more likely to attract top players and television viewers. "Maybe we have to come to chaos so a new order comes about," Tsobanian said of the tennis calendar. "But for now, everybody is afraid." The profit margins for the lowest level men's tour events are often slim, even during more normal socioeconomic times. The tournaments, known as ATP 250 events because of the 250 rankings points awarded to the singles champion, make up a majority of the tour 38 of 68 events. The higher ATP tournament categories are ATP 500 and ATP Masters 1000. Bill Oakes, a former tournament director of the Winston Salem Open and the chairman of the group representing the ATP 250 tournaments, said the average net profit was "about 125,000" for such events, with average operating budgets at about 4 million. The margins are similar at that level on the women's tour, said Moran, who runs the women's tournament in South Carolina. Oakes said profits averaged about 1.1 million for ATP 500s and 6 million for Masters 1000s. "The average 250 is one medium sized sponsor from being in the red," Oakes said. "I think every tournament needs to be very concerned about what is going to happen." Any tournaments facing financial ruin could be forced to sell their ability to host an event sanctioned by the tours tennis's version of a franchise fee in order to salvage some value. The sanctions, as they are called in the sport, vary widely in value depending on the week on the calendar and geography, but can be worth anywhere from about 1 million to more than 10 million for ATP 250 events. "They can make quite a bit of money when they sell their sanction to other cities, that's kind of where the value comes as opposed to year over year cash flow," Courier said. "They are scarce in the way real estate is scarce." In 2018, 13 ATP 250 events lost money, Oakes said. That figure is likely to soar in 2020, but Oakes said that canceling an event with sufficient notice allows it to cut its losses significantly by allowing it to reduce expenditures on infrastructure, catering and security. Prize money and player appearance fees, which are permitted at lower tour levels, are also eliminated. Tournaments could also be exempt from playing their annual fees to the tour, although that is not yet certain. The biggest expenses that would remain are year round staff, venue contracts and other fixed costs. Weindorfer's three tournaments, for example, collectively spend about 600,000 annually for maintenance of the grass courts. Timing is a major factor for all tournaments, including the BNP Paribas Open, the prestigious men's and women's event in Indian Wells, Calif. It was called off on the eve of qualifying at great cost with its infrastructure and most of its staff already in place. The tournament's leadership, which includes the billionaire Larry Ellison, declined to comment on the economic impact, but there is still hope it can be rescheduled in 2020. "If you are Indian Wells and Larry Ellison is your bankroll, that is a very different situation than if you are the Winston Salem Open and you're a 501(c)," Oakes said, referring to a nonprofit organization. Tournament directors at all levels, like business executives worldwide, are constantly doing math and searching for ways to limit damage. Pete Holtermann, the media director of the ATP 250 event in Houston that was scheduled for April, was able to cancel the printing of the tournament program. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
If you sat through Sunday's football related entertainment, you could be forgiven for swearing off Super Bowls forever. That might be too precipitous. Quite a few recent games have been thrillers with lots of touchdowns and exciting moments. Just last year the Philadelphia Eagles won their first championship in half a century in a 74 point classic. The year before the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons battled into overtime. In the last 10 years, we have had Patriots 28 Seattle Seahawks 24, Baltimore Ravens 34 San Francisco 49ers 31 and Giants 21 Patriots 17. Sunday was more of a throwback to the late 1980s and early '90s, when the Denver Broncos or the Buffalo Bills were getting demolished year after year and Super Bowls let the public down as frequently as Star Wars prequels. And come on now. Was Sunday's game even really all that bad? But with the help of a time machine, or something, maybe we can tweak the past just a little and make Sunday's game just a little more like the recent squeakers. The New Orleans Saints brought the N.F.L. title to Bourbon Street with a 49 41 victory over the New England Patriots destined to be a modern classic. Drew Brees led New Orleans's high powered offense, which scored 40 or more points six times this season, to one of its most potent results, throwing for six touchdowns. The Saints had found their way into the Super Bowl after Los Angeles Rams cornerback Nickell Robey Coleman was called for eight different penalties after his helmet to helmet hit on Tommylee Lewis in the N.F.C. championship game. The Saints scored on the next play, giving the Rams too far to come back. Brees showed veteran poise on Sunday by repeatedly finding Lewis and Michael Thomas. "When you're a young quarterback who has never been to the big game before, you will make mistakes against a great defense," Brees said. "Thankfully no one like that faced the Patriots today." At 41, Tom Brady defied his years with an aerial show of his own that fell just short, taking advantage of a Saints defense that almost seemed to want him to score, just to get the ball back in Brees's hands. Only special teams fans were disappointed, as neither team ever sent out the punting unit. Here are the fans celebrating: The halftime show by Taylor Swift also got great reviews. The Kansas City Chiefs won their first title since the days of Len Dawson with a 54 51 triumph over the Rams. Patrick Mahomes threw for five touchdowns and ran for one more. The Chiefs had made it into the big game after an overtime victory in the A.F.C. championship; they won the coin toss and marched down the field to score, never giving the Patriots a touch. Every time Mahomes got the ball on Sunday there was a sense that something exciting was about to happen: a no look pass, a rocket fired into a tiny space, an improvisation that made something out of nothing. About the only thing you knew you weren't going to get was a punt. The Rams gave as good as they got, with Jared Goff picking apart the unheralded Chiefs defense for three touchdowns of his own. Todd Gurley provided fans of the running game something to cheer with a 100 yard effort. Chiefs Coach Andy Reid kept things interesting, nearly throwing the game away late with puzzling clock management, repeatedly going into full huddle despite trailing with time expiring. But the error just made Mahomes's eventual touchdown scramble with zero seconds on the clock all the more thrilling. The Chiefs now look poised to become the sport's new dynasty with the 23 year old Mahomes ready to star for years to come. But the ageless Brady and the Patriots, the resurgent Eagles or Steelers, the Saints and Rams will have something to say as well. It looks like a golden age of Super Bowls is upon us. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
LEAVENWORTH 9:30 p.m. on Starz. This new five part true crime series explores some of the same military themes the "Serial" podcast examined in its Bowe Bergdahl investigation. It follows the life of Clint Lorance, a former Army lieutenant who ordered his men to fire at three Afghans while in Afghanistan in 2012. Lorance is now serving a 19 year murder sentence at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and trying to navigate the military justice system in an attempt to overturn his conviction. The series raises questions about Lorance's case, as well as the system at large in a way that echoes Netflix's "Making a Murderer." ON BECOMING A GOD IN CENTRAL FLORIDA 10:30 p.m. on Showtime. In her covert attempt to tear down a multilevel marketing scheme from the inside, Krystal Scruggs (Kirsten Dunst) has been swallowed up in Founders American M erchandise (otherwise known as FAM ), the same organization that left her nearly destitute. By the final episode, Scruggs has peeled back the layers of the group, uncovering the forces that keep its members in line and the major players at the top who profit the most. But with Krystal's new love interest, Cody, onto her ruse, it's not clear if his allegiance to the organization will hinder her attempt to expose it for what it is. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
A passenger stretches on the balcony of the quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess, where at least 218 people have contracted the coronavirus. For the cruise industry, the coronavirus is a public relations nightmare. For more than a week, the world has watched as the Diamond Princess ship has been quarantined in the Japanese port of Yokohama, its 3,600 passengers and crew stuck and the number of people infected by the coronavirus climbing to 218. A second ship has been sailing the South China Sea like a modern day version of the Flying Dutchman, turned away from five ports over fears that a person onboard was infected. Even thousands of miles from the outbreak, in Bayonne, N.J., four Chinese passengers aboard a cruise liner were briefly quarantined after health officials screened more than two dozen passengers. They turned out not to have the coronavirus. The cruise lines have faced crises before, from their ongoing battles with the norovirus, which can tear through an entire boatload of passengers causing gastrointestinal problems, to the 2012 sinking of the Costa Concordia, whose captain ran it aground off the coast of Italy, killing 32 people. But COVID 19, as the disease has been named, and whose ultimate worldwide spread is still to be seen, could be its biggest challenge yet. "The longer ships like the Diamond Princess stay in the press, the more people who have never taken a cruise before think of cruising as a less than ideal vacation," said James Hardiman, the managing director of equity research for Wedbush Securities, who follows the industry. The cruise companies have been reluctant to release any data about whether there has been any impact on bookings in the 45.6 billion global industry in the weeks since the outbreak began in the Chinese city of Wuhan, but some travel advisers say they are off by 10 to 15 percent. The companies, including the biggest lines like Norwegian Cruise Lines and Carnival Corp., which includes Princess Cruises, have either declined to comment or have released statements reiterating that their priority is passenger safety. Each cruise line also listed the precautions it is taking to keep passengers safe: Because they typically have thousands of people in a small space over an extended period of time, cruise ships are known to be incubators for illnesses. Royal Caribbean offered a glimpse into the situation in a Feb. 4 statement, but would only go so far as to say, "the Wuhan Coronavirus and the efforts to contain it are expected to negatively affect our results." The company, whose ship was briefly stopped in Bayonne, announced that no one with a Chinese passport would be allowed to embark on a Royal Caribbean cruise, a decision later rescinded after an outcry. But Erika Richter, the senior director of communications for the American Society of Travel Advisors, an industry group, said that demand for cruises, which had been on an upward trajectory before news of the coronavirus broke, was off from 10 to 15 percent according to some advisers. Not surprisingly, cruises in Asia and the Pacific were especially hard hit. Alex Sharpe, president and chief executive of Signature Travel Network, a consortium of 7,000 travel advisers said, "New demand for these cruises is very low currently" and that spring sailings were "unlikely to sell from our market." "If the industry doesn't get its arms around this it could affect customer confidence in China toward cruises for a very long time," said Mr. Hardiman, of Wedbush Securities. China has been one of the travel industry's biggest growth markets in recent years, and, trips in the Asia Pacific region make up about 10 percent of the industry, according to the Cruise Lines International Association, a trade group. Between 8 and 9 percent of passengers on cruise lines represented by the trade group are from China, Macau or Hong Kong and the number of ships deployed in Asia grew 53 percent between 2013 and 2017. A growing number of ports across the Pacific, from Busan, South Korea to the New Caledonian ports of Lifou, Mare and Isle of Pines, are banning cruise ships. Hong Kong has been closed since Feb. 6. Passengers say that rather than trying to accommodate them, the cruise companies have been uncommunicative and unhelpful. Maranda Priem, 24, of Washington, D.C., and her 53 year old mother, from Minnesota, were supposed to be aboard the Norwegian Jade, a 2,200 passenger ship operated by Norwegian Cruise Lines, which was originally scheduled to depart from Hong Kong on Feb. 17 for a cruise stopping in Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand. As her concerns about the coronavirus grew, Ms. Priem repeatedly emailed and called the company asking if she could switch to a different cruise or receive a refund or future credit. Her requests were denied. In an email on Feb. 4, Roxane Sanford, coordinator of guest relations for the cruise line, reminded Ms. Priem that "mainland China does not include Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan," and added that, "Regrettably we are unable to proceed with cancellation and refund." When the Hong Kong port closed, the company moved the sailing to Singapore, a change in itinerary that required Ms. Priem and other passengers to rebook their flights and absorb any extra costs. On Wednesday she decided to cancel, without knowing if she will get the nearly 1,700 she paid for the cruise back. "It's been a bit of a nightmare dealing with Norwegian," she said. "Norwegian won't tell us what they will reimburse and they haven't been helpful." Norwegian Cruise Line did not respond to requests for comment. When a ship's itinerary is changed, "passengers have little recourse as a practical matter," said Jim Walker, a maritime lawyer who represents people suing cruise lines. "Cruise lines are able to freely alter their itineraries and if you don't have insurance you're just stuck, and the trouble with insurance is it often has exceptions for pandemics and things like this." Mr. Walker said that he has received a "significantly higher" volume of calls from travelers looking for guidance on how to deal with cruise lines changing itineraries without offering refunds or the chance to reschedule. Cruises tend to be expensive, with an average nine day sailing in Asia running about 1,800, travel advisors said, and booked long in advance. Angela Jones, 56, from Canton, Ga., a passenger on the MS Westerdam, the Holland America ship that was stuck in limbo looking for a port that would take it, booked her trip a year and a half ago. When news about the coronavirus broke, her daughter, Jordan Jones Dorman, said on Tuesday, "She considered canceling, but the company said repeatedly that they'd be OK and wouldn't offer a refund if she canceled. She'd been saving up for this trip. Hindsight is 2020, but why was the cruise still happening?" Sihanoukville, in Cambodia, finally agreed to let the ship dock on Wednesday. Holland America Line said that it will arrange and pay for all passengers' flights home, in addition to giving a full refund for the cruise. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
Thanks to savvy marketing on the part of one Ralph Lauren, the popular image of polo in the United States is just that: an image. Specifically, it's a logo a static tableau of rider, horse and mallet that is a mixed blessing for the actual sport. For all its ubiquity, Lauren's insignia misbrands polo as an exclusively genteel, polite pastime a kind of equestrian croquet. In reality, polo is much closer to hockey on horseback, as a recent scrimmage between Alfred State College and the Western New York Polo Club made thrillingly clear. Alfred State's women's team set the pace in the opening minute, when Abigail Campbell, a freshman, broke through a scrum of horses to drill in a goal with an echoing boom. Western New York, an interscholastic youth team based in Piffard, N.Y., soon answered with a fast break of its own. From there, the two teams checked, jostled and scrambled their way through a series of frenzied five minute chukkers, as quarters are known. The final score: Alfred State 19, Western New York 8. Since last year, Alfred State has shared a small riding arena with the team in Piffard, a horse country hamlet an hour's drive from campus. The hay and corn farms that surround the town have little of the champagne soaked ambience of polo meccas like the Hamptons (spectators at the Alfred State scrimmage drank lemonade and ate chili off paper plates). But that's not a concern for the sport's governing officials. In an age when formerly obscure sports like lacrosse have grown in popularity on American campuses, the United States Polo Association is counting on newly formed college teams like Alfred State's to expand the sport beyond its traditional moneyed enclaves. "College is the most accessible, the most affordable way to play polo," said Duncan Huyler, the association's chief executive. Most students pay only a few hundred dollars a semester, versus the thousands it can cost to keep one's own horses. Mr. Huyler believes that if he can just find ways to get students exposed to polo, they'll be hooked: "You can't get the same adrenaline rush, the same level of satisfaction from hitting a ball with a tennis racket that you can from climbing on a 1,200 pound animal going 30 miles an hour." Shotmaking, while holding your horse with just one (or no) hands on the reins, is often compared to hitting a golf ball in an earthquake. It was the pursuit of that rush that drove Anna Campbell, Abigail's older sister, to push for a team at Alfred State, one of the State University of New York's technology colleges, before she had even enrolled. The two girls grew up in a large Irish Catholic family with eight siblings, four of them adopted. During the day, they would do their schoolwork (their mother home schools the children) and ride horses around the family farm near Piffard. In the evenings, they played on the Western New York Polo Club's youth teams. "We found that polo made them the best riders," said their father, David, an equestrian enthusiast and project executive for a construction firm (Abigail is following suit, majoring in construction management). Problem was, only a few dozen colleges nationwide offered the chance to play polo. In the Northeast, that meant winning admission to elite private colleges like Yale and Harvard, or getting recruited by one of the perennial title contenders University of Connecticut, University of Virginia or Cornell, the current women's national collegiate champion. Ms. Campbell wanted to stay near home, and decided to start a team at whichever SUNY campus accepted her transfer application. That meant winning administration support for a new club and attracting at least two teammates; indoor polo, what colleges play in a season that runs September to April, has only three to a side. Not insignificantly, Ms. Campbell would also need access to 12 to 16 well cared for horses for regulation games. Established programs often subsidize their horses through alumni donations. (Tommy Lee Jones, the actor and polo player, helps support the team at Harvard, his alma mater.) Former coaches at Western New York agreed to host a college team and supply it with tack and horses. SUNY Geneseo told Ms. Campbell the approvals process would be long and complex. She got a more eager reception at Alfred State, which has a longstanding equine studies program. Her tenacity surprised even her horse loving parents. "I didn't think it was even possible," said her mother, Nancy. "It's not like starting a book club." As an added stroke of luck, Anna Campbell's high school teammate Kasandra Wohlschlegel was planning on attending Alfred State. Ms. Wohlschlegel, now 19 and a sophomore, found her way to horseback riding through her family's passion for Civil War re enacting. "I've always been a bit of a daredevil," she said. "I can kind of take my aggressiveness to a new level when I play polo. I don't get in as much trouble playing polo as I did when I played soccer and basketball." Ms. Campbell, by contrast, is calmer in the arena. Polo, she said, "is personally very therapeutic and a good outlet for me to just relax." Her composure, on and off the field, makes her an ideal ambassador for the sport a fact that the U.S.P.A. recognized this year by awarding her one of six new scholarships. This spring, while in her senior year as a business major, she will intern for the office that oversees the development of the college game. The scholarships are part of a wider effort. As the U.S.P.A. marks its 125th anniversary this year, it has committed to growing the game as a youth sport. For high schoolers, this has meant establishing summer leagues and a varsity letter program. Between 2011 and 2014, the number of high school riders playing in tournaments grew 44 percent, to 300. For college students, the association is offering training seminars, internships and grants for equipment purchases. "Polo's still niche y and whatnot, but it's a lot more mainstream than it used to be," Mr. Huyler said. "I think kids are going to look at it and go: 'Oh, it's available to me, it's affordable for me, it's pretty cool. I've got a chance at a scholarship and varsity letter, and I have a chance to go to some great schools.' " The result has been a 12 percent increase in intercollegiate players since 2012. In that time frame, the league has added teams at the University of the Pacific, University of Miami, University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Princeton as well as Alfred State for a total of 53 teams at 37 campuses, up from 44 teams five years ago. Especially noteworthy, more than 60 percent of the players are women, which officials attribute to young girls' delight in horseback riding. Some of the new teams have been instantly competitive, because players have prior experience in the beefed up high school league. Last year, for example, Alfred State won a regional qualifying tournament by beating Yale, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. (The team had to withdraw from further tournament play after a member sustained a concussion while riding recreationally.) Among the other new teams, Princeton's presence is significant; the Tigers' re emergence last year marked the return of the nation's first official college team (Harvard claims the first collegiate polo program). Founded in 1903, the team was a frequent champion during college polo's golden age before disbanding during World War II. That earlier heyday offers a vision of the mass entertainment polo might have been, had trends in consumer taste and mechanized warfare not changed in the latter half of last century. In the 1920s and '30s, the Army subsidized and promoted polo at American colleges as part of its recruitment strategy. The government offered students free use of the military's polo ponies in exchange for joining the Reserve Officer Training Corps. Military brass believed that polo provided tactical training at a time when horses still played a role in combat. As a result, polo became a fixture in the college scene. But after World War II broke out, the government withdrew its support, and the game never regained its popularity. Nowadays, the Princeton Tigers play for love of the game more than the prestige of it. "We kind of market the team as a classic Princeton thing to do, but also and almost paradoxically a way to get involved with an up and coming team," said Valeria Ibarcena, Princeton's captain. "And also, this isn't something you can do at any other time in your life. After you graduate, you're probably going to be busy." This year began with 17 interested freshmen, double the size of the team. Barring another government takeover, it's unlikely college polo will reach the heights it enjoyed almost a century ago. But the players are working to see polo grow. "We're kind of hoping that our team is going to help other SUNY schools realize they can start teams as well," Ms. Wohlschlegel said. "Because a lot of people are like us. We didn't go to Cornell or to other schools that already had polo, but we wanted to continue playing." To that end, she and Ms. Campbell recruited two classmates who'd never played polo but had experience with competitive rodeo. The hope is that the newbies' cowgirl flair will translate to tactical finesse on the field, and to more victories at regional and national tournaments. Polo's small team size makes it feasible to start a new squad from scratch, but it also makes teams vulnerable to folding when one or more players leave. "We want to create a team that's going to stick around. I think we've found that," Ms. Campbell said. The recruits' lack of polo pedigree doesn't concern her. "The Alfred State brand of polo," she said, "is for anyone who's willing to work hard." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Education |
One of the stickier problems facing galleries and museums these days is how to give more attention to marginalized voices without letting the marginalization itself dominate the conversation. Arden Sherman, director and curator of Hunter East Harlem Gallery, found a simple solution in "Queenie," a group show of overlooked works by Latin, Latin American, and Caribbean women from the permanent collection of El Museo del Barrio: staggering variety. With the help of Elizaveta Shneyderman and Olivia Gauthier of Hunter, on Third Avenue at 119th Street, and El Museo's permanent collection manager, Noel Valentin, Ms. Sherman has assembled about as wide a range of genres and approaches as you could fit into a single room. Carmen Herrera, the Cuban American abstract artist, has a starkly handsome 1978 painting "Diptico," which hasn't been shown in decades: it is a simple black and green design of plunging angles across two canvases. Maria Fernanda Cardoso and Ross Rudesch Harley's 1997 video "Cardoso Flea Circus (Circo de pulgas Cardoso)" is a confident bout of high concept silliness. And the East Harlem painter Nitza Tufino's fabulously trippy "Pareja Taina (Taino Couple)" depicts a buoyant pair of bug eyed figures, their features inspired by artifacts of the indigenous Taino people of the Caribbean, using a thin mix of acrylic and charcoal that leaves them wavering like an underwater mirage. Not every piece in the show is equally strong, and not every strong piece is necessarily well served by even a discreet use of gender and ethnicity as an organizing principle it risks reducing distinctive and distinctively self sufficient artworks like Ms. Herrera's painting into mere specimens of type. Two works from the Italian born Brazilian artist Anna Maria Maiolino's wonderful "Codicilli" series, sand colored concrete panels covered with embossments that look like a rain of tiny potatoes and a stately river of baguettes, seem to chafe against their company. But altogether the work in the show significantly amplifies the force of its handful of explicitly political pieces, reflecting and expanding each declaration of female experience. The piece the show is named after, a bubblegum pink horse skull adorned with nine point epoxy antlers by Alessandra Exposito, is a good precis. Mounted on a lavender wall, the skull is decorated with Swarovski crystals, painted flowers and a cute oval funerary portrait of the mare itself under an ornate rendering of its name. Such a concatenation of conventional gender markers can't help but feel like irony, and inscribing the picture of a living animal on a gaudily decorated bit of its carcass seems like a bitter joke about the price of being a woman. It suggests a kind of psychic death going unacknowledged, even as its victim is held up as a trophy. Of course, it isn't exactly irony, because it's certainly not a joke but it neatly conveys a painfully exaggerated anxiety about social cues and gender roles. An even more jarring, joke like incongruity characterizes four placemat size "arpilleras," the colorful wall hangings documenting everyday brutalities, made by anonymous Chilean women during the Pinochet regime. Their naive style enabled many of the works to be smuggled out of the country, though these four were collected in Chile. One shows a family of three seated around a table set for four under a portrait of the disappeared father; the best of the group elegantly depicts a group of protesters gathered around a body on fire. 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. A large documentary color photograph of the Cuban artist Tania Bruguera's late 90s performance "The Burden of Guilt," in which she swallowed balls of dirt while wearing a flayed lamb as a breastplate, takes the shock of dissonance in a more intentional direction. (Some Taino supposedly killed themselves by eating dirt rather than submit to the Spanish.) If there's ambiguity about whether the artist herself is playing officiant or sacrifice, her self possessed expression makes clear that the performance itself is a way of taking control of the story. The video opens on Ms. Mendieta, in nondescript clothing and with her long black hair hanging loose, pressing herself against a blank white wall. She could be trying to make an imprint on it or disappear into it. Then she reaches down into a painter's tray of animal blood at her feet, wets her hands, and carefully traces a palm thick line around her body and over her head. When she steps aside, she reveals a hollow column with a curved peak that could read as a phallic herm, an extended tombstone, or an emphatic cartoon of her own long hair. Inside this fiery but ambiguous picture, Ms. Mendieta writes the phrase "There is a Devil inside me;" her brief glance at the camera as she walks out of frame is the only glimpse the viewer gets of her face. It's a total exposure of the self that reveals nothing. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
In October, the Philharmonic named Chad Smith, its widely respected chief operating officer, as its new chief executive. Mr. Smith has a long association with Mr. Dudamel: In a statement, Mr. Smith noted that the two men had planned Mr. Dudamel's American debut at the Hollywood Bowl together, 15 years ago. Mr. Dudamel who was born in Venezuela and trained there by El Sistema, the free music program that teaches music to children, including in some of its poorest areas occupies a unique position in music. He is sought by leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic, which he will conduct for two weeks beginning Wednesday evening. But he also appeared in a Super Bowl halftime show; is billed as Trollzart in the upcoming animated film "Trolls World Tour"; is conducting the music for Steven Spielberg's film version of "West Side Story"; and inspired a messy haired main character in the Amazon series "Mozart in the Jungle." He was just 28 in 2009, when he led his first performance as music director in Los Angeles. He continues to also hold the post of music director of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, but after he criticized the Venezuelan government in 2017, the country canceled his planned international tour with that ensemble. While he has not been able to perform with the Simon Bolivar since then, he still works with the ensemble remotely and sometimes meets outside Venezuela with groups of its players. In Mr. Smith's statement, he praised Mr. Dudamel's "expansive vision of what an orchestra can be and what it can mean to its community." Mr. Dudamel said that he was particularly proud of the Philharmonic's educational outreach, especially the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, a program inspired by El Sistema that was founded in 2007. The Philharmonic is currently building a new center and concert hall for the youth orchestra designed by Frank Gehry, the architect of the Philharmonic's acclaimed Walt Disney Concert Hall; it is expected to open in the fall and cost 23.5 million. By the end of his contract, Mr. Dudamel will have been at the Philharmonic's podium for 17 seasons, the same as his predecessor, Esa Pekka Salonen. Before that, the conductor with the longest tenure at the orchestra had been Zubin Mehta, who held the post for 16 years. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
"It takes 20 years to make an overnight success," as Eddie Cantor, the old vaudevillian, put it. And judging by the acclaimed careers of Viola Davis and Edie Falco, he wasn't far off. Interestingly, neither of the actresses would have had it any other way. Ms. Davis, a Juilliard graduate, was in her mid 30s by the time she won her first of two Tony Awards in plays by August Wilson. Seven years later, she was nominated for an Academy Award as best supporting actress for a single, intense scene opposite Meryl Streep in "Doubt." Three years later, she was nominated for a best actress Oscar for "The Help." And this year, at 50, Ms. Davis became the first African American woman to win an Emmy Award for lead actress in a drama series for her performance as a steely, manipulative and wounded defense lawyer in "How to Get Away With Murder." This week, she was nominated for a Golden Globe for that performance. Ms. Falco, 52, followed a similar path of building slowly on each success. She had a small speaking part in Woody Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway" in 1994. Three years later, she played a beleaguered prison guard on the HBO show "Oz," before landing her breakthrough role as Carmela Soprano on "The Sopranos." Over afternoon drinks at Ai Fiori in the Langham Place Hotel (red wine for Ms. Davis and sparkling water for Ms. Falco), the two discussed acting as a tonic for their harsh childhoods, how their slow ascent prepared them for success, the pleasure of playing "difficult" characters and the plight of women, particularly women of color, in film and TV. Philip Galanes: Thanks to celebrity magazines, I know that you ... Oh, look! You both grimaced simultaneously. PG: You'd rather be struggling still? Viola Davis: I look back on those early days in the theater like the beginning of a love affair, when you're totally in love with the work, and that's all there is. None of the outside effects, no celebrity or interviews no offense ... VD: I had an agent, but there weren't a lot of roles that fit my type. So I didn't even audition much. EF: I had nothing else to do. No Plan B for that. VD: I'm glad she said it. Whenever I'm in the room with another actor, I think: Maybe she could have been an astrophysicist, but I had no choice. Jane Fonda once told me she stopped working for 15 years because she was depressed. She said, "Can you work when you're depressed?" Sure, there have been times when I've been depressed: A guy dumps me, no money to eat. But I worked because I had to. EF: I have so much fondness for that kid I was. It wasn't just the rejections. People said horrible things about my body and the way I looked, which seemed within the realm of acceptable because I was an actor. But I got up and went out to another audition the next day. I had a fortitude then I don't have now. PG: You both had rough childhoods. Viola lived in extreme poverty, and Edie's parents kept marrying and divorcing, lots of family instability. Why choose careers that put you right back in that place? EF: It seems cuckoo, doesn't it? I haven't seen Robert Iler , who played my son on "The Sopranos" since the show wrapped. We come together so intimately as actors, then break apart, which was the exact narrative I grew up in. VD: I stumbled onto the best profession to heal my childhood. The only one that lets you release and express whatever is ugly and messy and beautiful about your life. We're in the business of creating human beings. The more we spew, and the more honestly we do it, the better. Try that on Wall Street. It's why they throw all the kids with bad behavior into drama. We don't care how screwed up you are. We actors love it. You can use it. VD: I was bullied at school. The black girl in Central Falls, Rhode Island, in 1973. There'd be 8 or 10 boys, I would count them as I was running. They'd pick up stones and sticks from the side of the road and yell, "Ugly black nigger!" Always those three words: "ugly black nigger." Will Smith said: "There's always one incident that defines you. I will always be the kid whose girlfriend broke up with him when I was 15." And I am always that 8 year old girl, running and running and running. I wore a mask because I didn't want to show them that they hurt me. And I still do. I feel like the voice for all women of color sometimes. I don't want to let them down. Let them see I don't always feel attractive or strong. EF: The freedom of acting was not having to be in my own life. PG: Your expression "wear the mask" reminds me of a killer scene in your show when your character sits at her vanity, wiping off her makeup like war paint. VD: So many women characters are extensions of male fantasy. They're all coming out of the same factory, but I don't recognize them from my life: skinny, young, cute. They drink like fish, have sex with 10 men in one day, but they've never been sexually abused or had any obstacles. So, when they gave me a character whose adjectives were hard, manipulative, sexualized, it said something to me about trauma. It said: When she walks out the door, she has to have her hair and makeup perfect. She has to be three times better than anyone else. But I needed a moment when she wasn't those things, when she takes it off. That's what makes people lean in. They can see themselves putting a retainer in their mouth at night to keep from grinding their teeth ... PG: You two are on the front line of new women on TV: leading characters with terrible flaws. VD: Who doesn't have a flaw? If they were men, we'd just call them interesting human beings. You know what I'm saying? Being likable is way overrated. If that's your main goal in creating a character, you're just building a Mr. Potato Head. Who's going to be interested in that? EF: I'd rather be interesting than likable. PG: You're both so direct. I'm having a hard time believing a story I read. Before your show goes into production, Shonda Rhimes, the executive producer, says: "You're going to have a lot of weight on your shoulders, Viola. Make a list of things we can give you to make your life easier." And you couldn't come up with a list. Why? VD: What do I need? I'm getting a very good salary. I can take care of myself. EF: But there's always that, "What dressing room do you want?" "What stuff do you want in it?" P.A.'s running around. It creeps me out. Not to mention that I'm the same person who, 15 years ago, couldn't get an audition. They're trying to make you think you're something you're not. That's what I worry about when kids get success early on. EF: The first script about Jackie had nothing to do with drugs or alcohol. And when it came up, I fought it. This was supposed to be a comedy, and there's nothing funny about addiction. But as they worked material in, I said, "As long as it's accurate to what I know." And the producers honored that. PG: Before "Nurse Jackie," I'd never heard of high functioning addicts. VD: We have a lot of secrets as people. PG: How well did you know your character, Annalise? VD: When it comes to women of color, especially women of darker hue, there's a limit to the pathology that people are willing to explore. That's why we play caretakers, judges. You don't see their personal lives. Their vaginas are cut out, so you don't know if they're sleeping with anyone. And if they are, they're hookers. It's very specific. But I didn't want to limit Annalise's humanity. I like that she's a mess. But the foundation of who she is, I give to creator Pete Nowalk. She comes from sexual abuse and she's had to work harder than everyone else to get where she is. PG: Tell me about the "paper bag test." Were you aware of that at Juilliard? VD: Absolutely, it's historical. Hold up a paper bag to your face. If your skin is lighter than that, you're all the good things: smarter, prettier, more successful. If you're darker, you're ugly. That's been working its way through our race for hundreds of years. I'm dark skinned. You can't compare me to Taraji P. Henson , Kerry Washington or Halle Berry, the other black women on TV. I wanted to play a fully realized, dark skinned woman, and just doing that alone could be revolutionary. PG: There's been lots of talk about unequal numbers of roles for women and their pay. Have you been stung by that? EF: I don't know why I don't feel it personally. I'm tempted to judge myself harshly for it. But I can't get past the gratitude of doing something I love. It doesn't mean there aren't steps to take to make things better. Maybe it's a poverty mentality thing? I walk past seven homeless people on the way home, and I'm going to complain that I'm not getting paid as much as a man? I'm going to get my butt kicked for saying that. PG: Is it fair to say you took your stand in your moving Emmy speech, Viola those beautiful lines of Harriet Tubman? VD: I don't want people to confuse lack of opportunity with lack of talent. There are great actors out there who will never have the chance to show what they can do. Being the first black woman to win in the category, I was thinking of the Mary Alices of the world, women I know are great actors, but who haven't been given the chance. The idea that they could pass, go to the grave thinking they weren't good enough, that killed me. PG: Do you consider producing content for yourselves? EF: It's a piece of the business I don't understand. I also don't have an interest in it. Send me the script. I love doing my job, which is: You come up with the story, and I will take it and filter it through my experience and perform that person. As of now, I'm pleased that there's still exciting stuff coming my way. VD: I've got to seize this moment because not a lot out there is written for someone like me. And I need to do something with this leg of the race I'm running. So I created a production company with my husband. We've got a Harriet Tubman project at HBO. And a Barbara Jordan project that Tony Kushner is writing. VD: Necessity is the mother of invention. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
TULSA, Okla. The landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh is a diviner of places, a city whisperer. Though he had never set foot in Tulsa, he was coaxed to a flat, ho hum stretch of land overlooking the Arkansas River by the billionaire philanthropist George B. Kaiser, who was bent on building a park. Confronting this hodgepodge site with killer views of an oil tank farm and a power plant, Mr. Van Valkenburgh, who created Brooklyn Bridge Park, Maggie Daley Park in Chicago and other celebrated cityscapes, responded the way he typically does. "A limitation," he will say about challenging terrain, "is the beginning of a gift." Seven years later, the Olmsted style transformation of 66 acres in the central city is now Gathering Place, a much anticipated 465 million park that opens Sept. 8 as one of the largest and most ambitious public parks ever created with private funds and the latest example of deep pocketed citizens rebuilding cities through projects they perceive to be in the public good. He is part of an expanding coterie of American tycoons who are forking over big philanthropic dollars for high profile civic spaces by star designers among them "Diller Island," an off and now on again performing arts center on a Hudson River pier in New York underwritten by the billionaire Barry Diller and his fashion designer wife Diane von Furstenberg. On a recent sultry morning, Mr. Kaiser, 76, was walking the park in a hard hat and a shirt with a plastic pocket protector for leaky pens, spouting statistics on dew points, quoting Monty Python and angsting about whether spending millions on a park best furthered equal opportunity for young children ("I feel guilt about everything I do," he allowed). "We got more and more divided over time by geography, race and class," he said of this city of 400,000. "So getting people together is step number one." The name "Gathering Place" intentionally addresses the city's need for inclusion. Dubbed "The Oil Capital of the World" by 1920, Tulsa became the scene of a devastating race massacre, known as the 1921 Race Riot, in which white mobs burned the thriving, traditionally black Greenwood district "the Black Wall Street" to the ground. An estimated 300 black residents were killed. Reverberations persisted for decades, and the events were long concealed. Brady Street, which runs through the vibrant downtown arts district, was named after Wyatt Tate Brady, a Tulsa founder and member of the Ku Klux Klan, until 2013, when the City Council voted to keep the name but transfer the honor to Mathew Brady, the Civil War photographer. Greenwood is part of North Tulsa, which, like the heavily Latino east side of town, continues to struggle with economic and social mobility. "The park has the opportunity to bridge the physical divides and heal some of the wounds of history that have festered for so long," said Hannibal B. Johnson, an attorney and the author of "Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District." Like many cities, Tulsa reserves its budget for fire, public safety and other nuts and bolts concerns, not elaborate parks. The Gathering Place evolved from a more modest proposal to build small sites along the river between the city and the Tulsa county suburbs with public funds matched by private donations, a prospect that was defeated by county voters in 2007. "That caused us to rethink," said Ken Levit, the George Kaiser Family Foundation's executive director. "The result was a better thought out plan in the core of the city with community input at the outset." The site consisted of four disparate parcels, including a 35 acre estate with a replica of Jefferson Davis's house, since demolished. The foundation launched an international competition, winnowing 99 candidates to four. In 2011, Mr. Van Valkenburgh and his team touched down on an unplowed runway with over a foot of snow (still, it beats a tornado). The firm had just been awarded the commission for St. Louis's Gateway Arch Park, which included a grass covered land bridge over the interstate. Since the opening of Teardrop Park in Battery Park City in 2006, a mini version of upstate New York nestled amid skyscrapers, Mr. Van Valkenburgh and his partners have challenged prevailing notions of what an urban park can be. At Brooklyn Bridge Park along the East River's edge, the site included rotting piers, defunct warehouses, land that flooded and an excruciatingly loud expressway. Mr. Van Valkenburgh and his team created a place, as he observed during walks, "where quinceaneras in orange taffeta dresses with Christmas lights on them stand in the archways of the ruins of a tobacco warehouse and a strange guy with a miniature Chemex and a demitasse cup sips coffee at dawn while looking at Lower Manhattan." Three buildings by the architects Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam include a lodge that will serve as a living room for park visitors. The Great Hall includes a massive circular stone fireplace and a vaulted ceiling composed of thousands of variegated cedar and maple planks. A boathouse pavilion on a Van Valkenburgh made pond will house cafes and a "Cabinet of Wonder" by the artist Mark Dion. The oppressive Oklahoma heat defined water as a park priority and pushed Mr. Van Valkenburgh toward his thorniest task: connecting Gathering Place to the Arkansas River by extending the park in two places over a busy roadway. This technical derring do also involved an ecological mitzvah: 450,000 cubic yards of river silt formed the park's "hills" as well as an expanse of lawn planted with cedar and ginkgo trees that may become the Tulsa equivalent of Central Park's Great Lawn. But it is the landscape of fantasy and play where fanciful castles rise to the tree canopy, and hidden kaleidoscopes and fun house mirrors lurk in the boxwood that seems most likely to bring the community together. Part Lewis Carroll, part Brothers Grimm, its eight and a half acres of playgrounds are geared to specific ages and abilities. In this somewhat madcap environment, it's possible to climb inside a bear, slide through a tulip, hang out inside a giant paddlefish, and dream up a play on a stage with a velvet curtain. There is a major BMX and skate park for teenagers. The significant difference between designing a park for an enlightened billionaire, rather than a public agency, Mr. Van Valkenburgh said, was the Foundation's willingness to embrace play structures with moving parts that involve a manageable risk. A water zone invites children to operate dams and pumps, and think like a pint size Army Corps of Engineers. Children can direct some of the water into a huge sandbox, creating sand castles and tunnels. "It's really about being able to make a complete mess," Mr. Urbanski, the firm's playground czar, said. "It's going to make control freak mothers crazy." For Mr. Kaiser, a lifelong Tulsan, the park projected at 100 acres, with a children's museum is furthering his goal of drawing entrepreneurs and young professionals who could make his city the next Austin. Although, he points out, Austin does not have the Woody Guthrie Center or the Bob Dylan Archive (both Foundation initiatives). But are cities best served by having parks and other amenities initiated and subsidized by powerful billionaires? To Aaron Dorfman, president of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a Washington based watchdog group, "private citizens getting to decide which 'common good' ideas get funded is a worrisome trend." "They are stepping into the holes because of government underfunding," he said. This question is likely to arise more frequently as the rich get richer and as the nation's parks assume the kind of cachet that museums and performing arts centers have long had, said Adrian Benepe, a former New York City Department of Parks Recreation commissioner and now a senior vice president of the nonprofit Trust for Public Land. The watershed moment may have been 2012, when the hedge fund manager John A. Paulson donated 100 million to the Central Park Conservancy. Parks, Mr. Benepe noted, have become "economic development magnets" Millennium Park in Chicago, for instance, is now one of the city's most heavily visited attractions. "There is a peacetime arms race as cities compete with each other," he said. "Having a great public amenity like a park helps draw residents and investors to a city." Park construction has typically been financed through municipal bonds. Mr. Kaiser may be committed to ensuring that Gathering Place is publicly owned in perpetuity, but there is no guarantee the next billionaire in the next city will be. "You're relying on someone's good will," said Galen Cranz, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and author of "The Politics of Park Design." In Tulsa, a further question will be, how much can a park do to create community and advance equality? Distressing statistics abound, include a 12.8 year difference in life expectancy between certain ZIP codes in North and South Tulsa, according to the Tulsa Health Department. The city lacks extensive mass transit so the foundation plans to run free shuttle buses to the park. Educational programming for young visitors will incorporate bird watching, tree and plant identification and the ecology of the river. State Senator Kevin L. Matthews, founder and chairman of the Tulsa Race Riot Centennial Commission, whose district encompasses both Greenwood and downtown, said that the park would create an opportunity for cultural tourism. "I want people to learn about our story," he said. "A park can draw people and where people are drawn, they're in closer proximity to things that will educate them." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
CARS and trucks powered by natural gas make up a significant portion of the vehicle fleet in many parts of the world. Iran has more than two million natural gas vehicles on the road. As of 2009, Argentina had more than 1.8 million in operation and almost 2,000 natural gas filling stations. Brazil was not far behind. Italy and Germany have substantial natural gas vehicle fleets. Is America next? With natural gas in plentiful supply at bargain prices in the United States, issues that have limited its use in cars are being rethought, and its market share could increase, perhaps substantially. According to Energy Department price information from July, natural gas offers economic advantages over gasoline and diesel fuels. If a gasoline engine vehicle can take you 40 miles on one gallon, the same vehicle running on compressed natural gas can do it for about 1.50 less at today's prices. To that savings add lower maintenance costs. A study of New York City cabs running on natural gas found that oil changes need not be as frequent because of the clean burn of the fuel, and exhaust system parts last longer because natural gas is less corrosive than other fuels. Today, those economic benefits are nullified by the initial cost of a natural gas vehicle 20 to 30 percent more than a comparable gasoline engine vehicle. But were production to increase significantly, economies of scale would bring prices down. In an interview by phone, Jon Coleman, fleet sustainability manager at the Ford Motor Company, said that given sufficient volume, the selling price of natural gas vehicles could be comparable to that of conventional vehicles. It may be years before the economic benefits of natural gas vehicles can be realized, but the environmental benefits appear to be immediate. According to the Energy Department's website, natural gas vehicles have smaller carbon footprints than gasoline or diesel automobiles, even when taking into account the natural gas production process, which releases carbon rich methane into the atmosphere. Mercedes Benz says its E200, which can run on either gasoline or natural gas, emits 20 percent less carbon on compressed natural gas than it does on gasoline. The United States government appears to favor natural gas as a motor vehicle fuel. To promote the production of vehicles with fewer carbon emissions, it has allowed automakers to count certain vehicle types more than once when calculating their Corporate Average Fuel Economy, under regulations mandating a fleet average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Plug in hybrids and natural gas vehicles can be counted 1.6 times under the CAFE standards, and electric vehicles can be counted twice. Adapting natural gas as a vehicle fuel introduces engineering challenges. While the fuel burns clean, it is less energy dense than gasoline, so if it is burned in an engine designed to run on conventional fuel, performance and efficiency are degraded. But since natural gas has an octane rating of 130, compared with 93 for the best gasoline, an engine designed for it can run with very high cylinder pressure, which would cause a regular gasoline engine to knock from premature ignition. More cylinder pressure yields more power, and thus the energy density advantage of gasoline can be nullified. "Whenever you have the opportunity to run 130 octane fuel, a lot can be done to optimize engine operation," said Gregg Black, Chrysler's senior manager for advanced engine systems, in an interview by phone. Currently, there are no dedicated and fully optimized natural gas vehicle engines produced for the United States market, although vehicles capable of burning the fuel are available. Ford sells the most domestically medium and heavy duty vehicles prepped for natural gas with some special engine parts on the assembly line but outfitted later by secondary suppliers with compressed natural gas hardware. Because refueling stations are few and far between, all of the Ford offerings are bifuel and can run on both gasoline and natural gas, a capability that requires compromises. GM has similar offerings but also offers one dedicated natural gas vehicle a work van. When asked if the van's engine was modified to take advantage of the 130 octane of natural gas, Dick Kauling, engineering manager for gaseous fuels at GM, said, "We haven't at this point done all the optimization that's possible to take advantage of the octane that's available in natural gas." Chrysler produces a version of its Ram pickup fully prepped for natural gas, but it is a bifuel model too, and, according to Mr. Black, it is engineered to be at its best when running on gasoline. Honda sells the only natural gas passenger car available in the United States. A version of its Civic subcompact, the car has a revamped version of a gasoline engine that has been prepped for natural gas with a higher compression ratio and modified control systems. Produced in small numbers, it is 8,000 more costly than a comparable gasoline engine Civic. In brief, little effort has been expended on the optimization of natural gas engines, and that probably will not change unless demand and volume justify the expense. Until the pressurized fuel tanks of natural gas vehicles can be easily and quickly refueled, the fleet cannot grow substantially. The number of commercial refueling stations for compressed natural gas has been increasing at a rate of 16 percent yearly, the Energy Department says. And, while the total is still small, advances in refueling equipment should increase the rate of expansion. Much of the infrastructure is already in place: America has millions of miles of natural gas pipeline. Connecting that network to refueling equipment is not difficult. Although commercial refueling stations will be necessary to support a substantial fleet of natural gas vehicles, home refueling may be the magic bullet that makes the vehicles practical. Electric vehicles depend largely on home charging and most have less than half the range of a fully fueled natural gas vehicle. Some compressed natural gas home refueling products are available, but they can cost as much as 5,000. Seeking to change that, the Energy Department has awarded grants to a number of companies in an effort to develop affordable home refueling equipment. Among them is Eaton Corporation, which announced in July 2012 that it was developing a compressed natural gas home refueling station that would be available "before the end of 2015, with a target production price of 500." When asked how that figure might translate to a selling price, James J. Michels, Eaton's communications manager, said in an email that the company had not established a selling price. If Eaton can offer it at a reasonable price, it could be a game changer. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
The boat ride on the Mae Klong River in central Thailand was billed as a firefly cruise, but there was no sign of the blinking bugs a half hour into our nighttime ride. We were on a narrow, wooden craft in Samut Songkhram , a small province about an hour southwest of Bangkok with a dozen other tourists in pairs on wooden benches. The engine roared as we plowed through the glossy, black water. The only lights came from the balconied hotels and elevated pagodas on the shore, and from a temple with a startlingly large and hunched black Buddha, in a golden robe with glinting white eyes. Then, as we rounded a bend and the skipper cut the engine, we drifted toward a twinkling stand of trees, the spindly limbs seemingly strung with strands of white Christmas lights. The fireflies weren't floating around, but were parked on the branches, flickering in unison. For the next 20 minutes, the boatman steered us from bank to bank, drifting past the silent light shows, the stars so bright it was hard to distinguish their twinkle from the luminescence of the insects. Thailand may be famous for its tropical isles and aquamarine seas, but select rivers and canals in the country's core offer opportunities for some astonishing adventures as well. Perhaps because Thailand's rivers are not as legendary as, say, the Nile in Egypt, where a significant sector of travel is built around tourist ships, there are only a few companies booking cruises with overnight cabins. Mostly the options are hourlong or half day trips, so we put together our own tour. When my wife, Susan, and I arrived in Bangkok in January, I must admit that my uninformed image was that of a chaotic city rife with red light districts. There are indeed some seedy strips and at times overwhelming traffic and crowds. But we found a well organized, vast metropolis, with a calming Buddhist vibe. Snaking through this land of ornate temples with golden Buddhas, soaring condo towers and endless street markets, gleaming malls and moldy tenements, is one of Thailand's most important waterways. Although people have lived along the Chao Phraya and its tributaries for centuries, the river powered Bangkok's evolution from a small settlement in the 1400s, to the nation's capital in 1782 and to one of Southeast Asia's dominant economic centers today. Plowing through the wide, brownish gray river from morning to night in central Bangkok are duck billed ferries, jam packed water buses, private tour boats and dinner cruise yachts. Slicing through it all are Thailand's most ubiquitous and distinctive crafts long tail boats, like big canoes powered by diesel truck engines with protruding drive shafts tipped with propellers. We hired one at the pier of the Millennium Hilton, where our room on the 12th floor overlooked the river, and launched into a riotous ride, rising up in four foot waves and slamming down. The motor screamed like a supersonic jet. The propeller blasted out a fan of white froth. The boats dock at the city's most famous temples like Wat Pho, where we entered shoeless into a massive pavilion containing a 150 foot long reclining Buddha and a steady flow of shoulder to shoulder gawkers. On the passage along the golden figure's backside, Thais filed by plinking coins into a row of metal bowls, creating a musical drizzle. When Tom Praisan returned to Bangkok a decade ago from Los Angeles, he wasn't satisfied with the hurried and hectic long tail rides. So he started Pandan Tour, offering full day and three hour canal cruises in Thonburi west of the river. We started on the calm and narrow Khlong Dan, the boat's Toyota car engine emitting little noise or fumes. The banks were thick with banana and mango trees and towering coconut palms. We passed shack after wooden shack perched on the dark water. Their front porches were furnished with pedestaled shrines like dollhouses to keep ancestral spirits content, washing machines and gray cooking pots hung on faded brown boards, and families looking up from supper to smile and wave. Around a bend was a rare two story house with two Mercedeses parked in a garage. A large monitor lizard flitting its tongue swam near the bank. We stopped at Wat Pak Nam, where Buddhist nuns chanted in a hall and we marveled at a green crystal pagoda several stories high. At the dock, a man and a boy tossed colored corn puffs into a mass of catfish so thick they were rolling on the surface. It's taboo in Buddhism to kill, so the fish are safe at temples. "They tell their friends and family to come over," Mr . Praisan said. On one of our nights in Bangkok, we caught a water bus on the river for 20 baht (about 64 cents) each to see where it took us. The floodlit hotels with sky bars and the sprawling Disneyesque Grand Palace gave way to darkness on the banks as we headed north. We didn't realize that it was the day's final run. The pier we were stranded on had an outdoor nail salon, street carts grilling squid and bagging rice and pork slice s, and a barnlike building at the end. Inside, locals were shooting pool on a massive table and drinking whiskey (I lost several 20 baht bets on shots before we hailed an Uber for the half hour drive back.) After our firefly cruise from the Amphawa Floating Market in Samut Songkhram, we shuffled through the throngs of international tourists past stalls loaded with T shirts, coconuts, dried fish, Thai boxing shorts, fried quail eggs. We perched on concrete steps leading to three boats on the canal, where a woman grilled large prawns on a fire in a metal box in a boat and a man in the prow mixed papaya salad in a wooden bowl with a pestle. As we feasted on those and drank local Chang beer, Thai songs floated from a karaoke setup across the water. Long tails growled slowly along, stuffed with tourists in orange life jackets. We stayed a mile upstream at a seven room guesthouse tucked in the trees along a muddy bank. Simon Sriganta, a 28 year old entrepreneur, built the River Jam with an open air dining room and Singer sewing machine stands for tables. He opted for seclusion over a site on the broad Mae Klong. "It feels so relaxing when we sleep," he said. "This size is O.K., you can see everything, you can look to the coconut tree." He let us rent his car one day for the two hour drive northwest to a section of the Mae Klong called River Kwai. Nearly 7,000 Allied prisoners of war who died during the construction of the Thailand Burma railway in World War II are buried across the street from the town's Death Railway Museum. As you walk the cemetery's rows of bronze plaques you can almost hear the Colonel Bogey March whistled in the 1957 movie "Bridge on the River Kwai." In fact, the tune pierces through the museum on a video with interviews of English veterans who survived tropical diseases, meager rations and the brutality of their Japanese captors. The museum has an impressive narrative of the railway covering the walls with facts like how P.O.W.s secreted details of their ordeal in coffins. Walking over the steel bridge, the forested hills in the distance, I imagine d the prisoners on the structure as Allied bombers attacked in 1945, severing the span and clouding the water with blood. The bridge was rebuilt after the war, and now you can watch a regional train pass over from restaurants on floating docks, and notice that the engine on the tethered long tail is Isuzu, the Japanese brand. Another train worth seeing is back in Samut Songkhram at the Maeklong Railway Market . Eight times a day, tourists with cameras and smartphones pack a railroad crossing that has a train depot on one side of the road and what looks like a permanent market on the other. Awnings and big umbrellas stretch 100 yards along the line, concealing the track. Underneath, visitors and merchants crowd tables loaded with tubs of silver fish, slabs of raw pork, and bushels of spices. Every couple of hours, the awnings are retracted, the metal tables are rolled back, and a giant locomotive crawls through, parting the souk like Moses at the Red Sea. The train cars passed by just inches from our bodies squeezed against the stalls. Then the awnings were tilted back down, the tables pushed forward and the crowds filled the rails. There's no better way to end the journey than back on the water on what may be the only boat in Amphawa that offers a Thai foot massage. We stepped onto Hatthatara' s boat sinking into sturdy deck chairs with wide, cushioned seats and footrests. Those were the workbenches of the Thai masseuses who, equipped with bottles of coconut oil and years of experience, kneaded, poked, rapped and wrapped our feet and calves. After that, walking through the throngs never felt better. Pandan Tour offers several full day canal rides for about 2,495 baht per person and a three hour sunset cruise for 1,695 baht. Asian Oasis and Anantara Cruises run restored rice barges from Bangkok up the Chao Phraya River to Ayutthaya, the former capital that is a Unesco World Heritage Site with remnants of Buddhist temples dating back more than 600 years. Anantara Riverside Bangkok Resort also offers a Manohra Cruises dinner on a restored, antique teak boat in Bangkok for 2,500 baht per person, not including drinks. One of the best views of the city and the river is from the rooftop bars of the State Tower, where the prices are sky high, too. The Sky Bar's Hangovertini, named after "The Hangover Part II," shot in Thailand, costs about 750 baht. And a bottle of Perrier Jouet blanc de blancs at Flute sells for 59,000 baht. River Jam's wood planked rooms overlooking coconut palms on the Wat Julamanee canal cost about 1,500 baht a night, and a delicious dinner of green curry soup and minced chili pork costs about 300 baht. Hatthatara offers 90 minute Thai massage cruises for 350 baht, as well as foot and full body massages on the Amphawa Floating Market dock. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
Ric Ocasek was a versatile singer, songwriter, guitarist, keyboardist and producer with a vast array of interests, from high art to lowbrow trash. Few rock stars succeeded so well at sliding fringe ideas and sounds into the popular mainstream. His heyday ran from the Cars' 1978 debut until the late 1980s, when the band broke up and Ocasek focused on being a producer and helping new bands find their sound. His increasingly rare solo albums felt indifferent until 2011, when he reformed the Cars (minus Benjamin Orr, who died in 2000) to compete with a new generation of bands influenced by the Cars' sleek brand of social alienation. Here are 11 of his essential songs. When the first Cars album came out, Ocasek was already in his thirties, a veteran of several also ran Boston bands. The most important skill he'd learned was concision: The first two Cars albums have an almost Motown like sense of efficiency and purpose. The name of their self titled debut's opening track dates back to R B romps of the '40s and '50s, but as usual, Ocasek's goal was to undermine a familiar conceit. "Let them brush your rock 'n' roll hair," he sings in this steely song about insouciance. And with "If the illusion is real, let them give you a ride," he foresaw everything to come in the 1980s. The group's debut single, which has been made ubiquitous by its use in Circuit City ads, established a trademark sound based around Ocasek's clicky, eighth note rhythm guitar parts. This dynamic track, sung by the bassist Benjamin Orr, who had a smoother voice, opens with a guitar lick Ocasek nicked from the Ohio Express' 1968 bubble gum hit "Yummy Yummy Yummy," a song that was big when Ocasek and Orr met in Cleveland in the mid 60s. The Cars, 'It's All I Can Do' (1979) Ocasek wrote about love with an outsider's skeptical view, and he liked to hide dark or funny ideas in songs that seemed as romantic as prom themes. "When I was crazy, I thought you were great," Orr sings on this track from "Candy O," giving Ocasek's lyrics a knowing, stoic delivery. The Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker makes the song gleam, and the riff genius Greg Hawkes brightens the track with skittering synthesizer chorus hooks. This stomping track opens with a typically biting but melodic guitar solo from Elliot Easton, who propels it through an action packed, under three minute length. Ocasek sounds agitated about his puzzling love life, which he sums up at the end of a final verse with a question for his devious partner: "How can I hold you when you're waving goodbye bye?" The Cars were one of the few American new wave acts that could fill arenas. But Ocasek was drawn to musical extremes ("I loved the Velvet Underground and the Carpenters," he once said), and he championed the confrontational New York electronic terror duo Suicide by producing their second album and perversely anointing them as the Cars' opening act each night, hostile fans pelted Suicide with garbage. Suicide's influence is also obvious on the Cars' frosty third album, "Panorama," and "Misfit Kid," about a rebel who baffles even himself, might be Ocasek's ode to the notorious duo. The Cars, 'I'm Not the One' (1981) After the commercial failure of "Panorama," the Cars retrenched on their next album, "Shake It Up," though they couldn't recover the melodic inspiration of their flawless first two records. Years later, Ocasek even renounced the album's title song, calling the lyrics "crap." But "I'm Not the One" is one of his best melancholy ballads, and Easton's spectacular guitar fills accent the melody like he's channeling George Harrison. Ocasek wanted Boston to have its own version of Andy Warhol's Factory, so the Cars built a state of the art recording studio on Newbury Street, where local bands could record at under market rates. Then he brought the San Francisco band Romeo Void to Boston, and co produced their four song "Never Say Never" EP. On the kinetic, not safe for work dance track "Never Say Never," the singer Debora Iyall sneers at an admirer, while the orderly bass guitar and the chaotic saxophone fight for domination. They'd drifted away from the mainstream, but in 1984, one of pop music's greatest years, the Cars released an album with five hit singles, making them bigger than ever. The creamy ballad "Drive," crooned by Orr, hides sinister feelings inside a romantic facade: "Who's going to plug their ears when you scream?" indeed. Working with a new producer, Mutt Lange, a controlling taskmaster, exhausted the group and left them estranged. Though "Drive" went to No. 3, the end was near. Some of the songs on the meandering pre breakup album "Door to Door" had been around for years, but never seemed good enough to record. On the bustling "Leave or Stay," which had been the Cars' frequent opening song 10 years earlier as a Boston club band, Ocasek returns to a sour vision of love he'd grown away from: "Well, I could leave or stay/Makes no difference either way." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
Historians of the first half of the 20th century take little pleasure in today's renewed interest in their subject. We don't like the parallels between the West then and now: the rise of intolerant nationalist right wing parties; the loss of faith in democratic institutions and the longing for a strong leader; the demonization of minorities like Jews or Muslims; or the unwillingness or inability of democracies to work together. We are living in dangerous times, Timothy Snyder argues forcefully and eloquently in his new book, "The Road to Unfreedom." Too many of us, leaders and followers, are irresponsible, rejecting ideas that don't fit our preconceptions, refusing discussion and rejecting compromise. Worse, we are prepared to deny the humanity and rights of others. In his chilling "Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin," Snyder explored the ghastly consequences of tyranny and the breakdown of human values and norms in the center of Europe. The road to unfreedom, as Snyder sees it, is one that runs right over the Enlightenment faith in reason and the reasonableness of others the very underpinning, that is, of our institutions and values. Recent examples, found around the world, demonstrate both how important conventions and mutual respect are as a way of maintaining order and civility and how easily and carelessly they can be smashed. Just think of President Trump's regular impugning of the loyalty of those who work for the American government, in the F.B.I., for example. Snyder makes a valuable distinction between the narratives of inevitability and those of eternity. The former are like Marxism or faith in the triumph of the free market: They say that history is moving inexorably toward a clear end. The latter do not see progress but an endless cycle of humiliation, death and rebirth that repeats itself. Not surprisingly these often draw on powerful religious iconography. Both, as Snyder points out, produce intolerance of those who disagree. By questioning the narrative's supposed truth, you are removing yourself from the community of true believers. Liberal democracy is being undermined from within, but not only from within. In addition to the general malaise Snyder identifies, "The Road to Unfreedom" also points to human agency in particular that of Vladimir Putin. At home and abroad Putin has willing collaborators and "useful idiots," as Lenin supposedly called them, who think Putin means well or can be won over. Yet the evidence is that Putin is ruthless in his determination to hang on to power and destroy those he perceives as enemies of Russia, a large group. He has used covert and not so covert means (think of the "volunteers" in eastern Ukraine who drove Russian Army trucks) to destabilize neighboring governments and to stir up dissent in countries from France to the United States. Within Russia, as recent elections illustrate, he bends the Russian people to his will through a mixture of coercion and persuasion. As Snyder says in one of his incisive comments, Putin's dominance is based on "lies so enormous that they could not be doubted, because doubting them would mean doubting everything." To understand Putin, Snyder argues persuasively, you must understand his ideas. On examination these are a strange and toxic mixture of fascism, religion and 19th century notions about race and the struggle for survival. His pronounced use of sexual imagery would also interest Freud. There is a stress on power and virility and corresponding fears of sexual nonconformity. Putin and his obedient press regularly attack gays and gay rights as part of a Western conspiracy to destroy Russia. When Ukrainians turned out in massive protests in 2014 against their corrupt pro Russian dictator Viktor Yanukovych, the Russian press claimed that behind the organization there was an L.G.B.T. lobby and warned of a "homodictatorship." One of the key thinkers venerated by Putin and his circle is a hitherto obscure Russian fascist, Ivan Ilyin, whose views are absurd but terrifying in their implications. God, Ilyin says, made a mess of the world but fortunately there was one pure and innocent being the Russian nation. Whatever Russia did, and does, to defend itself is legitimate. One day it will find its redeemer inevitably a strong and virile man and triumph. (As Snyder points out, there is an insuperable dilemma: What happens when the redeemer dies?) Wearing the mantle of the redeemer, Putin will wage war on Russia's enemies: namely, his own citizens who want democratic rights; Ukrainians and other neighbors who want independent states; or the European Union and the United States because they offer the temptations of another way of life. Fortunately (this theory goes) both the great rivals are decadent and worn out and doomed to vanish, with some help from Russia, into the dustbin of history. In 2013 Russia's foreign minister unveiled an official "foreign policy concept," which foretold a bitter competition for resources and space across the world. Eurasia would emerge as a "unified humanitarian space" from the Atlantic to the Pacific and at its core would be the great power of Russia. In the words of another of Putin's favorite thinkers, Lev Gumilev, Russia possesses a vital energy, "passionarity." Here we get into L. Ron Hubbard territory. Each nation in the world, as defined in the discredited 19th century racial sense, is the product of cosmic rays. Since the Russian ray came late in time, Russians are young and brimming with energy. Knowing relatively little about Putin's private views or about who really has influence over him, it is hard to tell if he actually believes such stuff or whether he uses it as compensation for Russia's many and manifest weaknesses. What is clear is that he is prepared to inflict as much damage as he can get away with on Russia's enemies and he has had considerable success. Snyder set out to write a book about Russia and its relations with Ukraine and Europe, but he found the trail led to Western Europe and the United States as well. Russia spreads false information, like the story that never took place of a German schoolgirl's gang rape by Muslims, or Obama's supposed birth in Africa. It gives financial and other support to right wing parties or, in the case of Britain, to those supporting the Brexit campaign. Putin no doubt sees it as payback, since the West promoted dangerous ideas about democracy and human rights in his own country. Russia has honed its cyberwar skills, shutting down communications and financial networks in Ukraine and Estonia and, now, as recent reports say, penetrating the systems that control American power stations. Surely, though, the reader wants to say, Snyder must be exaggerating and jumping to conclusions when he calls Trump "Russia's candidate"? Yet it is unsettling that so many people near the president or his campaign have links to Russia and that the president himself has been so reluctant to comment publicly on Russia's more egregious moves. So what can the concerned citizen do about the decay in our public life? We must, Snyder says, keep digging for the facts and exposing falsehoods. As Thucydides, the father of history, said, "Most people, in fact, will not take trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear." We should mistrust one sided accounts of the past or the present. "The Road to Unfreedom" is a good wake up call. You don't have to agree with all of Snyder's conclusions, but he is right that understanding is empowerment. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
Kings Crescent Estate in the Hackney borough of London. Hackney has been upgrading its public housing stock or what in Britain are called council housing estates. LONDON Is there a better way to do public housing? That's the 32 billion question facing the federal monitor appointed to oversee New York City's dysfunctional Housing Authority, fresh from its recent lead paint debacle. Estimates say the still rising costs for repairs to all Nycha properties are now approaching the annual gross domestic product of Bahrain. Few cities in the world face housing problems as big as New York's. That said, New York might learn a thing or two from the East London borough of Hackney. Hackney has been upgrading its public housing projects or council housing estates, as the British call them. The approach entails a combination of new construction along with renovating some existing buildings, everything underwritten by the addition of market rate apartments. It matters here that the council itself, not some private developer, is in charge. The council represents the residents already living on the estates, who are its constituents and have the most reason to fear displacement. It also matters that Hackney has a young design conscious mayor, Philip Glanville. He and his district colleagues have enlisted a London firm, Karakusevic Carson Architects, known for working closely, and well, with council residents. Its goal: producing homes that these tenants desire, in newly mixed income neighborhoods where everyone reaps the benefits. I visited a couple of estates in Hackney one named Colville, the other, Kings Crescent both in the midst of transformation. It will be some time before they're finished but the results so far look good. They're in different parts of the district. Colville Estate, from the 1950s, is in an area of Hackney that has been changing. The estate is wedged between a canal that has become home to a variety of upscale restaurants and fashion studios, and a park that remains surrounded by council housing estates. Where Colville abuts the park, two new apartment towers replace a parking lot and a smaller, dilapidated estate housing block that was demolished some years ago. Austere and vaguely Brutalist, at 16 and 20 stories the new towers are clad in handmade water struck Belgian bricks, one tower red, the other a smoky gray (the darker color a result of firing the same bricks another time). Hoxton Press is an all market rate development. The old Colville consisted of some 430 subsidized apartments in aging, inward turning housing blocks on narrow streets. All of those old buildings are now coming down. Those 430 odd apartments are being replaced by 925 new apartments, in phases, in the coming years. The new apartments built so far occupy a mid rise complex of mixed income, red brick buildings around a network of playful, richly detailed open spaces. Hoxton Press, which acts as a signpost and gateway to the new Colville Estate, is the only all market rate part of the project. All in all, the Colville makeover produces more subsidized units than before, including apartments for middle income tenants. Roughly half the estate will become market rate, half subsidized. Construction is being done in phases to prevent displacement. Every resident of the old Colville who chose to remain on the estate has been guaranteed a new, better home. A similar makeover by Karakusevic Carson, working with HHBR Architects, is refashioning Kings Crescent Estate, from the 1970s, in a different part of Hackney. There, changes involve renovations to older, existing buildings as well as the construction of sleek new mid rise gray brick apartment blocks that fill in stretches of long vacant land where poorly maintained council towers were demolished in the early 2000s. More than a hundred older apartments are now fitted out with features residents requested, like winter gardens and balconies. Another 170 will be refurbished soon and 200 more new apartments built. New and old buildings have been seamlessly integrated. Together they define new courtyard blocks along a grid of streets and open spaces that weave Kings Crescent into the surrounding neighborhood. How did Hackney pull all this off? Back in the 1980s, under Margaret Thatcher, the British government (like Ronald Reagan's administration in the United States) wanted to get out of public housing. It offered council housing tenants an opportunity to buy their own apartments, and turned management of estate properties over to independent housing associations. In retrospect, the offer of ownership seems a fairly progressive idea. But it ended up reducing the number of subsidized units at the same time council housing services were declining and new units weren't being built by the government to replace the ones being bought out. Skip ahead to 2007. Gordon Brown's Labour Party came to power. A new regulation was passed. Now district councils, on their own, were permitted to borrow large enough sums to build or renovate council projects without having to partner with private developers, as had been the case before. The global market collapse obscured the rule's effect for a while. But Hackney and other local districts saw its implications. In 2010, the Hackney Council enlisted Karakusevic Carson. Hackney was then one of the few London districts that had not, over the years, jettisoned its staff of in house urban planners. Architects and council leaders in conversation with residents began to imagine upgrading various underserved sites. The accelerating gentrification of East London meant rising land values in Hackney. Those land values underpinned the loans that would help pay for improvements. Here in Hackney the process hasn't made everyone happy, but the majority of tenants got what they wanted: new or renovated apartments, homes with gardens and terraces, buildings that felt solid and were made of brick, not concrete or glass. They wanted to remain together, as communities. And they wanted to live in low and mid rise blocks, between three and 12 stories, not skyscrapers. Towers, for poor tenants, conjured up failed public housing projects of the 1960s and '70s. For wealthy residents, towers provide lofty views from which to look down on neighbors. Navigating the conflicting semiotics, Hoxton Press, at Colville, with its involvement by Chipperfield, wears its luxury lightly. Its exceptionalism is expressed in subtle ways, via the eloquent craft of the brickwork, the depth of windowsills, the quality of light in apartments and geometric arrangement of wraparound balconies that turn the buildings' envelopes into stacked bands, like thick, hexagon shaped pancakes, poised above elegantly vaulted lobbies sheathed in clear glass. Those hexagons were conceived to be good neighbors letting sunlight more easily reach the adjacent mid rise buildings on the estate. Hoxton Press also shares with the rest of Colville a material language and open space. Cobbled granite floors run from inside the tower lobbies across a sculpted plaza to the mid rise buildings. Some of the subsidized apartments I saw in those mid rise buildings were bigger and hardly less luxurious than the ones I toured in Hoxton Press. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
EISENHOWER VS. WARREN The Battle for Civil Rights and Liberties By Illustrated. 427 pp. Liveright Publishing. 35. The Supreme Court first heard argument in Brown v. Board of Education in December 1952. The issue before the justices for the first time was whether segregation of black and white students in separate public schools violated the Constitution whether white people could treat blacks as their subordinates. The justices took no vote at their conference after the argument. Several wanted to delay judgment about this momentous yet perilous matter. A memorandum in the papers of one justice recorded the likely vote as 5 to 4 in favor of upholding segregation. After dithering for three months, they decided to ask the parties for more guidance through re argument of the case the following fall. At the beginning of September in 1953, Chief Justice Fred Vinson died of a heart attack. From Kentucky, with almost 30 years of service in the three federal branches, he had been a well liked but overpowered chief on a court that was fractured when he arrived and even more so when he departed. To take his place, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed California's Republican governor, Earl Warren. The announcement came on Oct. 1. He was sworn in four days later. The court heard re argument that December. In May 1954, with Warren writing a startlingly short opinion for the court, it ruled that segregation by race in public schools was unconstitutional because it deprived black students of equal opportunity. The decision was unanimous. 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. As , the dean emeritus of New York Law School, recounts in his enjoyably readable, thoroughly researched ninth book, the chief was the only new justice among the nine on the court from one argument to the next: "Warren had proved to be the consummate politician as governor of California, and he applied the same skills as chief justice." He lacked legal erudition, but he brought feuding justices together with "qualities more valuable in his new leadership role: an open, unpretentious manner, a quiet dignity and a palpable sense of fairness." In a letter to one of his brothers, the president called Warren "a man of national stature" who was "of unimpeachable integrity" and "middle of the road views." The new chief, in other words, was similar to the new president. Both were moderate Republicans with wide appeal to Republicans and Democrats. Eisenhower called Warren "a statesman," which is how the president saw himself after leading the Allies to victory in Europe in World War II and being acclaimed a hero ever since. They admired and liked each other. Eisenhower had beaten Warren for the Republican presidential nomination in 1952; Warren had campaigned for Eisenhower in the general election. When Eisenhower won and chose a top campaign adviser over Warren to be attorney general, the president elect called Warren to tell him personally. He said, "But I want you to know that I intend to offer you the first vacancy on the Supreme Court." In "Eisenhower vs. Warren," Simon answers three related questions: Why didn't Eisenhower endorse the ruling in Brown? Could Eisenhower have made the South more receptive to desegregation of public schools if he had endorsed Brown? Why did Eisenhower become embittered about his chief justice, one of the court's most influential? His biographer Stephen E. Ambrose wrote that he told friends his biggest mistake was appointing "that dumb son of a bitch Earl Warren." Two days after the Brown decision, Eisenhower said at a news conference, "The Supreme Court has spoken and I am sworn to uphold the constitutional processes in this country; and I will obey." Simon writes that Eisenhower's ambivalence about Brown "may have been based in part on a residual racism, rooted in his segregated upbringing and his career in the segregated military." But the "most plausible explanation" for the president's "minimalist response to Brown," he says, was "his fear of the consequences of the decision in the Deep South." Eisenhower didn't criticize Brown publicly. As Simon reports, "there is no written evidence that he disapproved of the decision." But the president straddled irreconcilable positions. He believed that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. He also believed in states' rights and felt sympathy for Southern whites being asked to make what Simon calls a "historic change in both custom and law." A year after the ruling, the court issued Brown II, which told states how they had to comply with Brown I. The oral argument about compliance included ominous confirmation of Eisenhower's fear. A South Carolina lawyer said "the white people of the district" where he lived would not "send their children to Negro schools." Lawyers for Southern states said it could take up to 90 years for desegregation to happen. Every justice understood that desegregation would require huge social change. None wanted to trigger massive resistance. In May 1955, Warren issued an even shorter opinion for a unanimous court. It called for desegregation "as soon as practicable." It gave school districts responsibility for desegregation and federal district judges authority to supervise them. The court did what Eisenhower's attorney general told the president was "almost exactly" what he had wanted. Yet the president remained unenthusiastic. Simon's answer to the second question is yes: Eisenhower could, and should, have made the South more receptive to Brown. He writes: "When the president refused to openly endorse the court's decision in Brown II to desegregate public schools in the South, he missed a critical opportunity to persuade law abiding white Southerners that the court's decision was constitutional and its implementation feasible." The president's approval rating had soared to 79 percent. By then, he had called for or accepted desegregation of institutions under federal control including the public schools in Washington, D.C., and the schools on military bases. If Eisenhower had backed the court's judicious order and the Southerners who supported it, Simon contends, he could have reduced the amount of violent resistance to Brown. Instead, "he left the Warren court, moderate white Southern leaders and hundreds of thousands of black schoolchildren isolated and vulnerable to the rising storm of resistance from hard core segregationists." Simon is right about the costs of Eisenhower's evasion of his duty to fully enforce the law of the land, by not putting the presidency's prestige as well as its legal power behind Brown. But he probably overstates the impact the president would have had in checking violence and resistance. "From Jim Crow to Civil Rights," Michael J. Klarman's revisionist history of Brown, documents that the clash it precipitated between Southern white supremacists and Northern integrationists became an inferno much fiercer than Eisenhower, or any leader, predicted. Brown fomented bombings, burnings and other brutal violence. As the scholars Randall Kennedy and Eric Foner observed, the decisions "marked only the beginning of a new phase of struggle." Eisenhower became embittered about Warren, Simon explains, because the chief justice expanded the court's power beyond what he saw as its proper limits in civil liberties as well as civil rights cases. Warren became embittered about Eisenhower, too for not understanding what he saw as the court's proper role in defending those rights and liberties, and for not supporting Brown. Both men became captives of their divergent jobs as leaders of different branches of government. Each was egotistic, certain about his judgments, and wrong in the severity of his criticism of the other man. On that insight, Simon builds an absorbing book about a saga in American law and politics that remains centrally important. The repercussions of the Brown decision are still intensely contested, especially by the liberal and conservative justices on the current Supreme Court. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
It was the stuff of a great pop song: On a sunny Saturday afternoon earlier this month, Taylor Swift, one of music's biggest stars and a notorious romantic, joined an unsuspecting couple's wedding in Long Beach Island, N.J. "I apologize for wedding crashing," Ms. Swift said to the couple, Max Singer and Kenya Smith, and about 100 guests, before sitting down at a piano and performing her hit song "Blank Space." Judging by the reaction shocked gasps, shrieks and one man repeatedly shouting "Oh, my God!" her unannounced entrance was quickly forgiven. The groom's sister, Ali Singer, said in an interview that the couple decided to marry quietly last year, in a hospice care center with Mr. Singer's mother. There were no rings exchanged and no walk down the aisle, but there was music. The groom and his mother danced to "Blank Space," one of his favorite songs. The bride's father and stepmother watched on FaceTime from home in Iowa City. Mr. Singer's mother died days later. "Her selflessness," Ali Singer said of her new sister in law, "to take a day where it's all about you, and drop it all to get married in a room so my mom could be there, was incredible, and really showed their true partnership together." The pandemic has been a time of renewal and reinvention for Taylor Swift. After releasing two quarantine albums, the singer is in the process of releasing the rerecordings of her first six albums. None A Fight for Her Masters: Revisit the origin story of Swift's rerecordings: a feud with the powerful manager Scooter Braun. Pandemic Records: In 2020, Ms. Swift released two new albums, "Folklore" and "Evermore." In debuting a new sound, she turned to indie music. Fearless: For the release of "Fearless (Taylor's Version)," the first of the rerecordings, Times critics and reporters dissected its sound and purpose. Reshifting the Power: The new 10 minute version of a bitter breakup song from 2012 can be seen as a woman's attempt to fix an unbalanced relationship by weaponizing memories. It was not the wedding the couple had envisioned, and they wondered if they should keep their original plans for a June wedding as well. Ms. Singer, who works in advertising at Facebook, helped take over the planning from her mother, and said she was inspired by words of support given to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, after Ms. Sandberg's husband died last May. "Option A is not available," a friend had said to a grieving Ms. Sandberg, before suggesting she enthusiastically embrace Option B. The couple decided to continue with the June 4 wedding. The couple's ceremony was held Saturday at the Brant Beach Yacht Club on Long Beach Island, about two hours south of New York City. The bride, 26, was escorted down the aisle by her father, Brian Smith. The guests dined on a raw bar, ate a surf and turf dinner and enjoyed music from a D.J., who was definitely upstaged. The plans for the surprise began when a family friend heard that Mr. Singer, 29, had read his graduate school application essay to his mother weeks before she died. An Army captain who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan and an unapologetic fan of Ms. Swift's Mr. Singer decided to break up his essay into themes, each related to song titles from Ms. Swift's "1989," an album about the myriad ways a heart can break. The family friend asked Mr. Singer for a copy and, unbeknown to anyone, sent a batch of letters to people she hoped could help reach Ms. Swift. Ms. Swift, whose career suggests she knows a good love story when she sees one, was a last minute R.S.V.P., approving the request days before the wedding. But her appearance, which included a handmade picture for the couple, "restored everyone's faith in humanity," Ms. Singer said. In a video of the surprise performance, Ms. Swift, dressed in a strapless dress covered with florals in sunset colors, paused briefly to say that she never thought she'd be singing the song, about many loves gone sour, at a wedding. But, she said, "what Max and Kenya want, they get." Despite the attention, the couple have largely shied away from the media attention surrounding Ms. Swift's visit. In an interview, Mr. Smith, 53, stressed that his daughter, a teacher originally from Sigourney, Iowa, was a private person who "doesn't want to be bugged" about her wedding, the details of which have been splashed across the internet by relatives, friends and Ms. Swift, who posted pictures of herself with the couple on Instagram. But Mr. Smith did have this to offer about the love story behind the wedding seen around the world: "The first time she brought him back to Iowa to meet us, we knew right away that this would be the one." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
The future of a tuberculosis vaccine and research into other neglected diseases is in limbo after a Seattle institute abruptly laid off about one third of its researchers, citing a financial crisis. The sudden staff cutbacks late last month at the Infectious Disease Research Institute have baffled many of the scientists who were also working on a vaccine for leprosy and research into tropical diseases. The layoffs on the day before Thanksgiving also put in jeopardy federal grants for the scientists' work. This fall, the National Institutes of Health awarded a contract of up to 45 million to the nonprofit and other collaborating institutions to study the body's immune response to tuberculosis over several years. Developing an effective vaccine against tuberculosis, the world's deadliest infectious disease, has been elusive for decades. The only existing vaccine is decades old and is not effective in preventing the most common form of tuberculosis infection, in the lungs. A new vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline has proved promising in early clinical trials, but public health experts said there was a need for a healthy pipeline of additional vaccines to fight the disease, which kills about 1.5 million a year. The 26 year old Seattle research institute has often struggled financially. It has scrambled to close a gap between research grants from federal and private sources and its overhead costs, and has operated at a loss for years. The founder, Steven G. Reed, stepped down earlier this year from his role as chief executive after years of turmoil in which executives and board members resigned over their dissatisfaction with his leadership. Dr. Reed has defended his work, and is now rushing to raise money to resuscitate the organization. In an interview, the institute's acting chief executive, Dr. Corey Casper, said he inherited the crisis when he took the job in February. He said he had tried for months to save the programs, and had kept senior scientists abreast of the nonprofit's status. Thirty three of the institute's 108 employees, who are mainly researchers, were let go. "These were not easy decisions, but they were decisions that had to be made for the continued existence of the organization," Dr. Casper said. Research into drugs and vaccines is notoriously risky, and biotechs often shut down when a clinical trial fails or investors do not materialize. But scientists and other experts in public health said the sudden end to the programs was unusual. Dr. Mel Spigelman, president and chief executive of the nonprofit TB Alliance, described the landscape for tuberculosis research as "precarious." He said that organizations face an annual shortfall of about 1.5 billion to finance new drugs, tests and vaccines for the disease, a bacterial infection that mainly attacks the lungs and can lie dormant for years. "New investments are urgently needed to build on the progress we've seen to date." The potential success of the institute's TB vaccine is unknown. Early stage clinical trials have begun, and others are planned in a number of countries. Dr. Emily Erbelding, the director of the division of the N.I.H. that oversees the Seattle institute's tuberculosis contract, said that her office had been in "near daily" communication to sort out how the research could continue, and that it would depend on what happens to the institute in the next few weeks. Several researchers are trying to relocate their work to new institutions. The scientists said they had not been told whether the institute, which owns the rights to the vaccines and other experimental products, would allow them to continue their work. "We're a little bit in the dark right now as to how we are going to do this," said Tanya Parish, who oversaw the institute's research into new treatments for tuberculosis. Her research staff was laid off in November, and she said she has been told her own job will end later this month. "It sets us back at least six months," she said. "We have a lot of ongoing work that's been disrupted, and some work will have to be redone." Dr. Casper said that the institute was also speaking to research institutions to relocate the work, and was also looking to license technology like the vaccines to ensure the research could continue elsewhere. "We've made it very, very transparent to all of our investigators in our departmental programs that we want to do everything we can to enable their work," he said. Since its founding in 1993, the research institute has positioned itself as a nonprofit that operates like a biotech company, with a mission to bring new products to market for neglected diseases like tuberculosis, leprosy and leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease found mainly in the tropics. Early in the institute's history, Dr. Reed and Rhea Coler, the head of the tuberculosis vaccine program, played a role in the development of the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine. The institute also focuses on developing adjuvants, which are used in some vaccines to stimulate the body's immune response. But like many nonprofits, it has struggled to stay afloat. With revenues of 23.6 million in 2017, it operated at a loss of about 4 million in 2017 and 2016, according to Internal Revenue Service filings. In 2018, its filings showed, it operated at a smaller loss about 47,000. Former executives and board members at the institute pinned much of the blame on Dr. Reed, whom they described as a passionate scientist but expressed concerns about his financial stewardship and potential conflicts of interest, including ties to for profit companies to which the institute had licensed some of its technology. In the spring of 2018, the institute's chief financial officer, general counsel, board chairman and two of its other board members resigned. "One of the concerns was that nobody really seemed to understand how the money was coming in and how it was being spent," said R. Douglas Bradley, the general counsel who stepped down. He said he did not see evidence that Dr. Reed misused funds. "There was a moment where it was just clear that his behaviors were not going to change." Dr. Reed said he never did anything improper and acknowledged that keeping the organization going had "been a challenge for many years, but we've always met the challenges." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Walking out in the middle of a performance, as some audience members did while watching Ballet Preljocaj at the Joyce Theater on Wednesday, is a relatively mild form of protest. It may be a little disruptive, but it hardly compares to what happened on Dec. 2, 1977, at the Teatro Lirico in Milan, when spectators caused a heckling uproar in response to John Cage's "Empty Words." That performance in which Cage intoned deconstructed text from the journals of Henry David Thoreau, producing an array of seemingly random sounds and syllables was recorded, jeering and all. Decades later, the recording inspired "Empty Moves: Parts I, II III," by the French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj, who has brought the full trilogy, created between 2004 and 2014, to New York for the first time. (Parts I and II came to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2010.) At nearly two hours, with no intermission, the work is a test of endurance for both the audience and the four striking dancers of Ballet Preljocaj. But not an unpleasant one (though Wednesday's deserters might disagree). What's fascinating is how Mr. Preljocaj, exploring his own modes of deconstruction, resists repeating himself over such a long and movement dense period of time, while also developing a contained, coherent world. The dancers (Nuriya Nagimova, Yurie Tsugawa, Fabrizio Clemente and Baptiste Coissieu) rarely rest; even their water break is choreographed. Yet they keep going like Cage through the gathering storm of whistling, chanting, hooting and stomping immersed in discovering what comes next. Crisp and clear, the choreography echoes the disjointedness of Cage's text, yet it's also rich in chain reactions, one move propelling another, like a game of pinball. One dancer's outstretched leg, bent at the knee, sets another dancer hinging backward, where another, without us noticing, has already arrived to catch her. To describe these events obscures how swiftly and efficiently they happen. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
The Golden State Killer Is Tracked Through a Thicket of DNA, and Experts Shudder Genetic testing services have become enormously popular with people looking for long lost relatives or clues to hereditary diseases. Most never imagined that one day intimate pieces of their DNA could be mined to assist police detectives in criminal cases. Even as scientific experts applauded this week's arrest of the Golden State Killer suspect, Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, some expressed unease on Friday at reports that detectives in California had used a public genealogy database to identify him. Privacy and ethical issues glossed over in the public's rush to embrace DNA databases are now glaringly apparent, they said. "This is really tough," said Malia Fullerton, an ethicist at the University of Washington who studies DNA forensics. "He was a horrible man and it is good that he was identified, but does the end justify the means?" Coming so quickly on the heels of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which Facebook data on more than 70 million users was shared without their permission, it is beginning to dawn on consumers that even their most intimate digital data their genetic profiles may be passed around in ways they never intended. "There is a whole generation that says, 'I don't really care about privacy,'" said Peter Neufeld, a co founder of The Innocence Project, which uses DNA to exonerate people who were wrongly convicted. "And then they do, once there is a Cambridge Analytica. No one has thought about what are the possible consequences." The trail of the Golden State Killer had gone cold decades ago. The police had linked him to more than 50 rapes and 12 murders from 1976 to 1986, and he had eluded all attempts to find him. In the years since, scientists have developed powerful tools to identify people by tiny variations in their DNA, as individual as fingerprints. At the same time, the F.B.I. and state law enforcement agencies have been cultivating growing databases of DNA not just from convicted criminals, but also in some cases from people accused of crimes. The California police had the Golden State Killer's DNA and recently found an unusually well preserved sample from one of the crime scenes. The problem was finding a match. Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested in Sacramento, Calif., and charged with several counts of murder. But these days DNA is stored in many places, and a near match ultimately was found in a genealogy website beloved by hobbyists called GEDmatch, created by two volunteers in 2011. Anyone can set up a free profile on GEDmatch. Many customers upload to the site DNA profiles they have already generated on larger commercial sites like 23andMe. The detectives in the Golden State Killer case uploaded the suspect's DNA sample. But they would have had to check a box online certifying that the DNA was their own or belonged to someone for whom they were legal guardians, or that they had "obtained authorization" to upload the sample. "The purpose was to make these connections and to find these relatives," said Blaine Bettinger, a lawyer affiliated with GEDmatch. "It was not intended to be used by law enforcement to identify suspects of crimes." Let Us Help You Protect Your Digital Life None With Apple's latest mobile software update, we can decide whether apps monitor and share our activities with others. Here's what to know. A little maintenance on your devices and accounts can go a long way in maintaining your security against outside parties' unwanted attempts to access your data. Here's a guide to the few simple changes you can make to protect yourself and your information online. Ever considered a password manager? You should. There are also many ways to brush away the tracks you leave on the internet. But joining for that purpose does not technically violate site policy, he added. Erin Murphy, a law professor at New York University and expert on DNA searches, said that using a fake identity might raise questions about the legality of the evidence. The matches found in GEDmatch were to relatives of the suspect, not the suspect himself. Since the site provides family trees, detectives also were able to look for relatives who might not have uploaded genetic data to the site themselves. On GEDmatch, "it just happens they got lucky," said Dr. Ashley Hall, a forensics science expert at the University of Illinois in Chicago. 23andMe has more than 5 million customers, and Ancestry.com has 10 million. But the DNA in databases like these is relevant to tens of millions of others sisters, parents, children. A lot can be learned about a family simply by accessing one member's DNA. "Suppose you are worried about genetic privacy," Ms. Murphy said. "If your sibling or parent or child engaged in this activity online, they are compromising your family for generations." DNA profiles can be held indefinitely, and the data can be handed over to police who have warrants or subpoenas. You may never commit a crime. But how should you feel if your DNA was used to locate a distant relative who did? On a Facebook page dedicated to genealogy, hobbyists debated this new use of DNA data. "I'll volunteer to give my DNA and out any of my cousins who may be rapist/murderers. So much drama over nothing," wrote Stu Pike, who said he had used GEDmatch to track down relatives. But others expressed outrage. "My relatives consented for their data to be used for genealogy but not for criminal investigations," wrote Leah LaPerle Larkin, who adjusted her settings to make sure her family's data was private on the GEDmatch site. "I've had many sleepless nights the last few years, realizing that it's coming," CeCe Moore, a genetic genealogist, said of the possibility that an online site might be used to identify a suspect. The founder of DNA Detectives, a group that helps adoptees find their biological parents and reunite long lost relatives, Ms. Moore said that she has been approached numerous times by law enforcement asking her help in solving murder and rape cases. She declined, she said, "because I was still wrestling with the ethical questions of using genealogy databases for criminals." It's not clear how often law enforcement turns to burgeoning DNA databases. Andy Kill, a spokesman for 23andMe, said the company has "had a handful of inquiries over the course of 11 years," and that no data were "given out in any circumstance." It is unlikely that the apparent success of the method in the Golden State Killer case will spur a rush to use genealogy databases to solve crimes. "Using a database of this kind will generate an extraordinary number of leads, and running them all down using both nongenetic and genetic information requires a lot of police power," Ms. Murphy said. "So I doubt it will be run of the mill any time soon." But it clearly is time for a wider discussion about law enforcement access to stored DNA, Mr. Neufeld said. "What really needs to happen is for ethicists, lawyers and minorities likely to be disproportionately affected to think of the unintended consequences of this genetic data." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Roosevelt Island was terra incognita to James and Tanya Starace when they learned eight years ago that they could move into a rent regulated two bedroom there. Ms. Starace had never even set foot on the island before then, and Mr. Starace, who grew up in Staten Island, could only remember going to visit a grandfather in the hospital. But there was no doubt they'd take the apartment because their growing family needed the space and the suburbs were an unappealing alternative. "I was afraid I would lose my career if we went to the suburbs," said Mr. Starace, a journeyman actor. "I wouldn't be able to work as an actor or work at night with little kids in the house in New Jersey. Or if I did, we'd never see each other." "And I just love living in the city," said Ms. Starace. "I always knew I wanted my kids to grow up here." For years, the couple had happily shared a series of very small apartments. After they started dating, she moved into his 380 square foot Greenwich Village one bedroom, where they frequently hosted dinner parties for up to 30 people. Then, when she was pregnant with their first son, they moved into a 690 square foot one bedroom above John's of 12th Street, the East Village Italian restaurant where they met and where Mr. Starace has worked on and off since 1987. "I've lived in small spaces all my life," said Ms. Starace, who shared a studio apartment in Elmhurst, Queens with her mother until she was 15, at which point they upgraded to a one bedroom, dividing the living room to create a bedroom for her. But by the time the couple's second son was born, and their bedroom was crowded by a double bed and two cribs, the couple agreed that if one of the affordable housing units they had applied for didn't come through soon, they would have to leave New York. Their current 1,200 square foot two bedroom is in a Mitchell Lama building on Roosevelt Island and is almost twice the size of the East Village walk up they left; and rent was only 25 a month more. The building also has a doorman, elevators and striking views of the Manhattan skyline and the East River. If Ms. Starace at first sometimes pined for the island of Manhattan, she admitted that Roosevelt, quiet and residential, "was a soft landing from the East Village when you have kids." Their daughter, Eliana, was born in 2013. Occupation: Mr. Starace is an actor and a waiter at John's of 12th Street in the East Village. Ms. Starace is a senior manager at a global packaging company in Midtown. Their children: James, 11, Luca, 9, and Eliana, 5 Mr. Starace first applied for affordable housing in 2004: "We knew we were going to get married and I knew I wanted to stay an actor." Restricted sale: Per their purchase agreement, the Staraces are limited in how much they can resell their apartment for, and buyers must also meet certain income limits. Acting jobs: Last year, Mr. Starace had a small role in Martin Scorsese's upcoming film "The Irishman." "My role was nothing glamorous, but it was like a dream come true to be on set with three legends I've always wanted to work with," he said, referring to Mr. Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci. Like many buildings in the Mitchell Lama program, the Staraces learned shortly after they moved in that theirs was reaching the end of its affordability agreement with the city, and negotiations to convert the building to a co op had been underway for some time. If residents voted to go co op, the Staraces and other tenants would be able to stay in their apartments as rent stabilized tenants, but they would not be able to move to a different apartment; some units would also go market rate. The Staraces felt that the conversion presented a tremendous opportunity. The "insider" price for their apartment, set at 35 percent of market rate, was 243,000 a deal they knew they'd never see again. And if they bought, they'd be able to make improvements like adding a shower to the half bathroom that would help better accommodate a family of five. But they decided that they'd only buy if they could work out a monthly payment that was similar to their rent. They didn't know if they could afford the down payment to make that possible or find a bank to give them a mortgage in the allotted time period. "It was cheap, but it's still New York real estate," Mr. Starace said of the purchase price. When the math worked out, they were delighted. While their rent had been 1,875 a month, their monthly mortgage and maintenance fees add up to about 2,000 a month. "We just walked into an opportunity that was long in the making by other people," said Mr. Starace. "We just went with the momentum. We knew we were in a sweet spot." Since purchasing the apartment in 2015, they've made a number of changes: putting up molding, renovating the kitchen Mr. Starace loves to cook and making the hall closets more functional. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
As the Texas Legislature moves to uproot the state's standardized testing program amid an outcry from parents and school leaders, state lawmakers have focused their criticism on Pearson, the publishing and testing company that develops the tests. Pearson holds a five year, 468 million contract through 2015 to provide the state assessment tests that students begin taking in third grade. While policies that led to the contract won unanimous approval four years ago, some lawmakers now say Pearson exerted excessive influence in the policy making process. "Testing companies are in the business of making a profit, but let's not confuse their mission their mission is to create as many tests as they can and then grade them at as little cost as possible," the chairman of the Senate Education Committee, Dan Patrick, Republican of Houston, said Tuesday at a hearing on a comprehensive education bill that would reduce the number of high stakes tests students must pass to graduate. Since the current legislative session began, members of both chambers have made their hostility to the testing industry clear. In their initial appropriations bill, House budget writers eliminated state spending for student assessments. More recently, members of the lower chamber passed amendments to limit political contributions by testing lobbyists, and to ban them from serving on state education advisory committees. And Mr. Patrick has repeatedly called Pearson officials before his committee for sharp questioning. When Michael L. Williams, the new Texas Education Agency commissioner, made his first appearance before a Senate finance panel in January, members jumped at the opportunity to lodge their concerns. Dissatisfied with responses from Mr. Williams during one exchange, Senator Jane Nelson, Republican of Flower Mound, demanded, "Are we testing these children too much, and are we spending too much money?" Concern over the new assessment system started well before public school students began taking them last spring. For the first time, they linked student performance to diploma requirements and final grades, generating widespread confusion among school districts about how to apply the new rules, and anxiety among parents about how their children's performance on the exams would affect their prospects at graduation. Moreover, lawmakers decided to move forward with the standardized tests in 2011, at the same time they enacted a record 5.4 billion reduction in state financing to public schools a fact that did not ease outrage from school leaders when low passing rates last June landed hundreds of thousands of students in summer classes at school districts' expense. But if lawmakers are looking for answers, said former Representative Scott Hochberg, Democrat of Houston, who retired after the 2011 session, they should first look at themselves. "As far as I know, Pearson doesn't vote in the Legislature," he said. "Pearson didn't decide how many tests there would be. They didn't decide how many tests had to be passed." Mr. Hochberg said Pearson was "a convenient target," but not an accurate one. "If they have too much power, it's because they've been given that power," he said. The state has had a contract with Pearson since Texas began requiring student assessments in the 1980s, according to Debbie Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency. Ms. Ratcliffe said Pearson, which holds assessment contracts with several other states, provides a service that few others can. "There aren't many testing programs left that can handle a program the size of ours," she said. Asked about the backlash Pearson faced in the Legislature, Susan Aspey, a spokeswoman for Pearson, said in a statement that the company's goal was "fair and accurate assessments that help educators and parents know that all children are learning." Ms. Ratcliffe said she did not understand criticism that the company was driving policy in the state. The testing company provided technical consultants, she said, but the education agency also accepted input from committees of teachers and policy experts from around the country. Nontheless, ethics amendments in the House were aimed specifically at the activities of one Pearson lobbyist on those committees, Sandy Kress, a former adviser to President George W. Bush and Dallas Independent School District board member. He was an architect of the No Child Left Behind federal education act, which mandated standardized testing as a way to hold states accountable for students' achievement. Mr. Kress first served on an agency committee in 1996, Ms. Ratcliffe said, before his association with Pearson began. She said he had continued to be appointed because he brought the perspective of the business community, as well as experience as a former school board member and federal policy maker. When legislation aimed at raising the number of public high school students graduating from rigorous, college preparatory programs passed during the waning days of the 2009 session, it did so with little controversy even though it grew more complicated after legislators went into to conference committee to work out their differences. Every member of both chambers voted in favor of the bill. "Parents liked it because it was getting rid of TAKS," the state's previous assessment system, Mr. Patrick said. "Educators liked it because student performance would be tied into exams." But other lawmakers have acknowledged they did not fully realize at the time the implications of the legislation. Former State Representative Jim Dunnam, a Waco Democrat who served seven terms until he was defeated in 2010, testified at a 2012 interim hearing about his concerns over the bill, which he had backed. Mr. Dunnam's daughter was in the first high school class affected by the new system, and he was puzzled to discover at midyear that she did not have a grade average or class rank on her report card. He called a colleague. "Tell me I didn't vote for this," he said. Legislators may not have recognized the influence of testing companies, he said. "There is just an inertia to not appreciating the money being made by private industry in public education." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Education |
BERLIN One Saturday morning in February, about 100 protesters marched loudly through Berlin's streets to the Humboldt Forum, a new museum rising beside the River Spree. Wrapped in scaffolding, the Forum, one of Europe's most ambitious current cultural projects, loomed above them as they gave speeches and held up signs that said: "Tell the Truth About Germany's Colonial History," "Clear Out the Colonial Treasury" and "It's Your Duty to Remember." One protester, Christian Kopp, bellowed into a microphone, saying that, no matter what the founders had intended, the museum would forever be associated with the blood of empire. "This," he said, pointing to the grand stone facade of the Humboldt Forum, "will be a memorial to the colonial era!" Another protester, Marianne Balle Moudoumbou, said, "Think about the spirits of those who are still roaming here." The Forum, which cost 595 million euros (almost 700 million), is being housed in a rebuilt palace, a fixture of the German and Prussian imperial past that was bombed during World War II. The prospect of objects gathered during the colonial era moving into Kaiser Wilhelm II's domain has focused further attention on the period, which the nation has never properly processed. Many of the ethnological materials that will be in the museum's impressive collection were amassed during that era, under circumstances that aren't altogether clear. Maybe it was never going to be easy to build a major new museum in a country with such a freighted history as Germany. But the Humboldt Forum has upset a lot of people. When it opens, there will be huge wooden boats from the South Pacific, a Buddhist temple from 5th or 6th century China and a royal throne from Bamum in western Cameroon decorated with glass beads and shells. A new museum crammed with jewels of non Western art and culture in the center of the reunified capital seemed a good idea: It would show Germany as confident and open to the world. It would also give the country another world class institution it could be proud of, comparable to the British Museum or the Louvre. The disagreements also provoked the resignation of a well regarded advisory board member, Benedicte Savoy. "The baby is dead on arrival," she said in an interview, denouncing the museum as a conservative project that does not reflect a modern Germany changed by immigration and crying out for new thinking. In the era of a divided Germany, a Parliament building was erected on the same ground. It was torn down a decade ago to make way for the rebuilt palace. This irritated those Germans who thought that you couldn't rewind history, and that the architecture of their capital should be more forward looking. It saddened Easterners who were aggrieved that their story was being literally erased from the landscape. Nearly 30 years after East and West Germany were reunited, there is a longing here for an identity that goes beyond the Holocaust and World War II, postwar division, reconstruction and reunification. As modern Germany seeks to define itself in a more complex way, the urge is surfacing to discuss past glories of scientific achievement, history, art and exploration as well as to confront an uncomfortable part of its past. At the center of these convulsions, the Forum has pitted those who want to move on and celebrate national accomplishments against those who caution that Germany risks forgetting what it was. Germany has addressed World War II and Nazi atrocities, although these achingly difficult parts of its history may be impossible to atone for fully, but it still has not even begun re examining its colonial era properly, critics say. "For too long the colonial period was a blind spot in our culture of remembrance," Monika Grutters, Germany's federal culture minister, said in a statement. Jurgen Zimmerer, a University of Hamburg professor and expert on African history and colonialism, said, "There is a lot more at stake than just the museum." Professor Zimmerer, who is a critic of the museum's approach, said, "The political colonial debate has become the defining debate in Germany," adding, "and the Humboldt Forum is at the center of it." Build it up, tear it down The centuries old Schloss, the original building at the heart of the debate, is seen as a link to an era of philosophers by its supporters; to its critics it symbolizes a seat of imperial power from a time of militarism and national expansionism traits that ultimately brought down the Allied bombs on the castle in 1945. Then there was a worry, made more sensitive by the far right's recent inroads into German politics, that recreating the Schloss signaled a concerning nostalgia for an age when Germany was great, a view of the past that skimmed over the horrors of the 20th century. In another sense, the project, which will be completed soon, will make the center of Berlin aesthetically whole again, Wilhelm von Boddien, who helped raise the money to rebuild it, said. As he spoke, standing beside the Forum, he gazed out at the Greek colonnades of the nearby Altes Museum and the giant cathedral where the emperors lay in their crypt. At the other end of Berlin's central boulevard, Unter den Linden, stood the Brandenburg Gate. The Forum's central place in the historic cityscape was clear. The East German Communist authorities gleefully demolished the war damaged Schloss in 1950. In its place, they constructed a stark, smoked glass and steel Parliament building, the Palast der Republik, which opened in 1976. It was a Parliament for a regime without true debate, but it also housed concert halls, theaters, an ice cream parlor and a bowling alley. Many East Germans had fond memories of a visit there. At a recent exhibition at the site, Iris Weissflog, 58, a bookkeeper from near Dresden, was studying an old photograph of the Palast der Republik with her 8 year old granddaughter. Ms. Weissflog, who grew up in the former East Germany, began to weep as she recalled how she sang onstage at the Palast when she was 14 years old. "I know it's good to move on, but it means leaving the past behind," Ms. Weissflog said. The idea to use the Schloss as a modern museum and a home for the non Western art collections in Berlin finally gave the project the political momentum it needed to get built. The collection from Berlin's Asian Art Museum and the non European collection from the city's Ethnological Museum form one of the world's richest holdings of non European art and artifacts. Displaced by war and the division of the city, the two museums had homes for decades in the suburb of Dahlem. Germany lost its overseas territories in the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I, and so it was not swept up in the great postcolonial self reckonings of other European nations after World War II. By then, it was confronting the aftermath of its more recent history. "The public historical debate in Germany was completely absorbed by consideration of the Nazi past and of the ramifications of division," said Nicholas Thomas, director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge. "There has been much more discussion of empire in Britain, France and the Netherlands, where people in museums have thought much more about where collections have come from, and there is a deeper awareness of the sheer historical complexity." Many of the objects in the Prussian heritage foundation's massive collection were gathered in a spirit of scientific inquiry as explorers brought objects back from around the globe to preserve them and learn from them, Professor Bredekamp said. But countless others, according to the critics, were seized by force, or given by people who had no choice. Human remains and sacred religious objects, which collections in Berlin contain, would hardly have been surrendered willingly, the critics point out. Among the most prominent objects in the Prussian Foundation's ethnological collection are several hundred sculptures, Benin bronzes (actually made of brass), created in an ancient kingdom that is now part of Nigeria and borders on the modern nation of Benin. They were purchased on the open market but only after they had been looted by British troops. Mnyaka Sururu Mboro, a civil engineer, teacher and anticolonial activist in Berlin, wants the skulls of ancestors he says were executed by Germans in Tanzania returned to Africa. In an interview, he said the collection contains thousands of disputed objects from Africa alone. "The shelves are totally full," he said. "The people there are still in sorrow," he added. "They have not buried their own people." Amid the backlash against the Forum, the biggest blow came last summer when Professor Savoy, an art historian, resigned from its advisory panel, announcing that she wanted to know "how much blood is dripping from a work of art" and comparing the museum to Chernobyl for the tendency of its leadership to erect a roof over its problems. The heritage foundation and its president, Hermann Parzinger, agree that the provenance of objects in the forum's collections needs to be more fully researched, and some things should eventually be returned. But he proposes a gradualist approach that requires first a broader European rethinking of the principles of restitution. "It makes sense to give some things back," Professor Parzinger said in an interview. "But we should not say everything has to go back." He added, "We have to see if we collected them in a legal way. History," he said "is not just black or white. There are also gray areas." The heritage foundation returned nine artifacts it said had been taken from graves of indigenous communities in Alaska in the 1890s, and in August, several skulls and other human remains were given back to representatives from Namibia. Professor Savoy said in August that the new willingness to admit even just the need for provenance research and consider restitution is important progress. Germany may now be starting to catch up with other countries, experts say. The gradual approach, however, does not satisfy those who demand a greater admission of culpability in colonial crimes, a fuller inventory of colonial era artifacts and a more rapid return of objects. The right wing party Alternative for Germany has also finally entered the debate, asking questions in the German Parliament about the cost of provenance research, raising fears among the Forum's critics that the party could hinder the return of objects. Those on the anticolonial side continue to regard the forum as reflecting an affliction of Germany's history. In February, the angry protesters marched from what they consider one historical sore to another from the site of the 1880s conference convened by Otto von Bismarck to coordinate claims on central Africa to the grassy space in front of the forum. Their anger was palpable, but nevertheless many here welcome the debate that encompasses the Forum. "Without the Humboldt Forum" said Friedrich von Bose, a curator in the new museum beside the Spree, "the debate would not be" where it is today. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
"The Nutcracker," though such a familiar fixture in the calendar, is among the most layered of all works of art. Yes, it contains kitsch and cuteness and adorability. Yes, it's surrounded by merchandising. Even so, this ballet is larger, stranger, more moving than all of that and more unknowable. There are mysteries at its heart that don't vanish and wonders that don't diminish. Much of the layering derives from E. T. A. Hoffmann's original 1816 German story "Nussknacker und Mausekonig" ("Nutcracker and Mouse King"). Its narrative is like a Russian nesting doll: It houses another story, which in turn houses another. Hoffmann's story was adapted, lightened and popularized by the elder Alexandre Dumas, whose 1844 French adaptation "L'Histoire d'une casse noisette" ("The Tale of a Nutcracker") became the basis of the Russian two act ballet of "The Nutcracker," first staged in St. Petersburg in 1892. Since then, there have been innumerable other versions, especially in America. One answer is that the narrative itself is different in each production. (Most of the choreography changes, too.) This week in New York brings both "George Balanchine's 'The Nutcracker'" at New York City Ballet, celebrating with classicism and innocence, and, at the opposite end of the spectrum, the sexed up burlesque of "Nutcracker Rouge" with Company XIV. December will bring other local productions, among them Mark Morris's "The Hard Nut" and "The Yorkville Nutcracker." With every new production I've seen maybe 50 over the years I sit and watch with the same question: How will it end this time? "Nutcracker" narratives tend to fall into three main categories. In traditional ones, the young heroine (named Clara in some after Dumas's heroine, Marie in others after Hoffmann's) joins the young Nutcracker Prince; he, thanks to her bravery in the battle with the Mouse King, has shed his Nutcracker form. Together they voyage to realms of snow and sweets where ballet is dominant. When they reach the Realm of Sweets, they're welcomed by its monarch, the Sugar Plum Fairy who, when she dances, becomes the ballet's pinnacle, its transcendent revelation of the sublime. (Some critics of the original production called her the Electric Fairy; her radiance matched the turning on of electric lights during special czarist events.) But even traditional "Nutcrackers" tend to choose between two endings. The cuter of the two in which the young heroine realizes she's been dreaming and is safe back at home is not quite satisfying in musical or dramatic terms. The ballet ends with an echo of the travel music that began Act II; and the more judicious ending shows Clara/Marie and the Nutcracker Prince leaving Candyland, together, on the next leg of the journey, to places unknown. The disconcerting implication that she may never see her mother again is both heartbreaking and right. The second main trend of "Nutcracker" stagings derives from Soviet Russia. Here, it's the young heroine (sometimes called Masha) who, played by an adult and gaining maturity before our eyes, delivers the climactic Sugar Plum numbers with the young ex Nutcracker. Because she was a good girl, her reward is romantic love, on a heroic scale; so "Nutcracker" becomes yet another ballet love story. Yet every "Nutcracker" really is an alternative one. No staging follows the full scenario of the 1892 St. Petersburg original. Some otherwise traditional ones are set in San Francisco or New London or New York or Nashville. Plenty try to use more of Hoffmann's story than the Russian prototype. The best reason for choreographers to reimagine "The Nutcracker" is also the main reason I revisit the ballet: its music. Tchaikovsky feasted on all the layerings and contrasts that the ballet offered him; his score is a cornucopia of color, rhythm, scale, melody. In the famous overture, the high, small, short, quick notes create a sound world of childhood enchantment but there's a section where the rhythmic accentuation of the pizzicato under the main melody suddenly turns syncopated: a wonderfully disorienting effect. Twenty minutes later, the magical ascent of the Christmas tree produces a slow surge of utterly dissimilar invention: a colossal, awe inspiring crescendo. At the zenith of his powers, Tchaikovsky was flexing his muscles, showing just how consummate his art had become. No one production can ever show how much is going on in this music; he seems always to be showing other levels. And listening to it is never the full experience; this score is the very stuff of theater. Sometimes dance is not its best answer. Perhaps the most overwhelming music in the ballet comes in Act I, when the scenery changes from the indoor world to a faraway land, outdoor and snow clad. Tchaikovsky never meant this change to be danced to but it's so rapturous that most choreographers can't resist. Usually it becomes some kind of pas de deux. Only the version by George Balanchine the choreographer most famous for ballets that are all dance and no story has this scene pass with no dancing. In his version, the world onstage changes before our eyes; magically the Nutcracker is metamorphosed into a boy prince. And while snow falls there's an extraordinary recognition scene between him and the young heroine, after which, hand in hand, they walk ceremoniously offstage into the unknown. They're just children, but they've come a long way. The aspects of heroism in their actions make this one of the great scenes in world drama. The Balanchine "Nutcracker," made in 1954 for New York City Ballet and danced each year by the company, has its imperfections. It cuts one number from the score, moves a second to a different place and interpolates a third from another ballet. Important details in the music are better honored in many other productions, from the Colorado Ballet to Mr. Morris's "The Hard Nut." Still, the Balanchine version, in most respects the one that best shows the ballet's dimensions, is a growth industry. In 2015, it will be danced by City Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen and six other American companies. (Entering the lists for the first time on Friday, Nov. 27, is a Pacific Northwest Ballet production with new designs by Ian Falconer of "Olivia" the pig fame.) With its kaleidoscopic changes, Tchaikovsky's score seems both abundant and perfect. Yet many versions of it are played around the world; Balanchine's is by no means alone in adding, cutting and moving numbers, and most Russian productions have used post Tchaikovsky editions with changed orchestration. Before the St. Petersburg ballet production, Tchaikovsky, in concerts, conducted an earlier version of the score. This contained at least two items that were cut for St. Petersburg, as well as a more surreal and Hoffmannesque entrance for the magician Drosselmeyer. There has never been a scholarly edition of the score; if we live to hear one, we will have more "Nutcracker" surprises in store. The greatest mysteries, however, remain in the music we already know. What does the Sugar Plum's adagio express? We can say it's about the sublimity of a perfect being; we can say its huge, cascading scales are liturgical, Tchaikovsky's requiem for his beloved sister (who died while he was preparing the ballet); it contains both glory and tragedy. Different stagings have taken me into different layers. As much for its audiences as for its central characters, "The Nutcracker" is a journey into revelation. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
"Art is itself embodied in each curve! The sculptor chisels life down to its core. We know he's found the germ, for we observe That it is but an egg and nothing more." That little poem was written by a critic for The New York Sun, waxing satirical after a visit to the 1913 Armory Show, which gave Americans their first taste of modern art. Now, a version of Constantin Brancusi's egg like bust is on display at the Museum of Modern Art in "Constantin Brancusi Sculpture." The show is built around 10 works by the Romanian modernist (1876 1957) that are longtime highlights of the museum's own collection, in what the curators Paulina Pobocha and Mia Matthias refer to as a "focused presentation." Packaging these MoMA treasures as a special exhibition is a way to get them seen by today's audiences, who don't know from permanent collections but flock to any shareable event. Given all the chestnuts in this show, the challenge is to see if we can still find a way to be astonished by them, as we were when they first appeared. In 2018, can Brancusi still release our inner poetaster? | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
It's the financial riddle of the 30 something years. How does anyone, even those with a stable, upwardly mobile job, let alone a family, afford to live in places like New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco or Washington, D. C.? The answer: Many are bankrolled, to varying degrees, by their parents. Hold the eye roll and exasperation about millennials and their failure to launch or the gushing of financial resentment for a moment, and consider the unforgiving economics of trying to make it in this country today. Wages have stagnated, while real estate, medical and child care costs have skyrocketed. As one economic analysis concluded recently: "For Americans under the age of 40, the 21st century has resembled one long recession." Kimberly Palmer, a personal finance expert for NerdWallet, a consumer finance company and app based in San Francisco, said, "A lot of 30 somethings are still getting financial help from their parents, if they are lucky enough to take advantage of it. Incomes today are lower than they were for Gen Xers and boomers at the same point in their lives. Plus, many of the millennials graduated into the recession, and when you hit your 30s, there are a lot of lifestyle changes and expenses, like having kids, getting married and buying a house." Then there are the free services. Ms. Palmer, who is 39 and lives near Washington, D.C., said that the free 20 to 25 hours of child care she receives every month from her parents contributed to her family's decision to have a third child (Dylan Palmer Dave arrived on Feb. 9). If she were to pay a babysitter, Ms. Palmer estimates it would add up to around 6,000 a year. On average, each millennial parent receives 11,011 per year in combined financial support and unpaid labor, the 2017 TD Ameritrade Millennial Parents Survey found, for an annual total of 253 billion in America. That assistance is crucial for many, according to the study. A quarter of millennial parents receive hourly support from their parents, in the form of child care or household help, and 18 percent of those receiving financial support say they couldn't afford their current lifestyle without it. Over half of these millennial parents (remember that more than a million are becoming mothers every year) say they have a generalized anxiety about not earning enough to support themselves and their families. In cities like New York, where private preschool can cost over 30,000 a year, families need special help footing the bill. "Education is incredibly expensive and keeps going up, but grandparents feel very strongly about their grandchildren having a good education," said Dana Haddad, who runs New York Admissions, an education consultancy that works with children starting at 10 months. In her practice, Ms. Haddad, a former admissions director at Horace Mann School, estimates that 10 to 15 percent of checks come from grandparents. What it all amounts to is a much different picture, at least in middle to upper class America, from how this age cohort has been viewed in the past. On the television show "Thirtysomething," which aired from 1987 to 1991, the all white cast of characters seemed to be economically emancipated from their parents, who rarely factored into the story lines. Today's series about 30 somethings portray a decade that seems far less adult, at least by traditional standards. (Think "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" or "New Girl.") Behind the jokes about "adulting"; the new fashion for referring to male children as "buddy" instead of "son" (as if still a kid oneself); the performative generational cluelessness about basics like how many towels to own, is a more serious and divisive question: How they answer portends very different economic outcomes, career paths and life choices. That's if they answer. Despite how common it is for a certain set of affluent millennials to be getting help from their parents at an age when many of them are themselves parents, it's still the last taboo of finance that people don't want to admit, according to Ms. Palmer. "It's easier to talk about saving more or being frugal," she said. "There's not as much shame around those topics." While it's true that families with means have always helped their children (discreetly or not), what's different today is that as the economy has more extreme gyrations and wages flatten, family wealth plays an outsize role in helping people get ahead, said Chuck Collins, a scion of the Oscar Mayer food corporation and the author of "Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good." Those who do not have parental assistance in their 30s, however, continue to be at a disadvantage. "They are grappling with paying off student loan debt, their savings might not be as strong because of that, and many are taking care of other family members," said Iimay Ho, 32, the executive director at Resource Generation, an organization that works with people ages 18 to 35 with wealth or class privilege to engage on issues of inequality. Ms. Ho said there was no way she would have been able to amass the 200,000 she has in net assets if her parents, both of whom immigrated from Taiwan to pursue advanced degrees, hadn't paid for tuition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, given her close to 100,000 toward buying a condo in Washington, D.C., and continue to give her about 10,000 a year. For those without parental cash at the ready, there's often some kind of debt hangover that holds them back in significant ways. Roger Quesada, 34, calls his 65,000 of student loan debt to Sallie Mae, which incurs 400 a month in interest payments alone, "a jail sentence." A lapse in his payments ruined his credit, he said, and has hampered his financial and career aspirations. "It's been trying to navigate our economy without one of the most important components good credit that provides enormous advantages and privileges," said Mr. Quesada, who grew up working class in West New York, N.J. "That's something many in my generation take for granted graduating debt free." They also take for granted, he said, financial advice that "native parents with an upper hand economically have. I couldn't rely on my mother for anything after I left home. She is retired, disabled, barely scraping by, and depends on Social Security. If anything, I need to be helping her." It was important to Mr. Quesada that whatever profession he chose would offer a steady income and growth potential for the future. Settling on e commerce, he is now a merchandising manager at New Avon, earning six figures, he said. "I'm the son of an immigrant," Mr. Quesada said. "My life would have been that much harder in Cuba. I feel happy with the success I've had." He lives with his partner in North Bergen, N.J., where his home cost a fraction of what a comparable property would have in New York City, but came with a commute of over two hours to his office in Manhattan. Those who do receive parental assistance often do not fit neatly into the stereotype of lazy, entitled millennial. Susan Alvarez, 32, makes over 75,000 as the associate executive director at the Y.M.C.A. of San Diego County. "That is a really decent salary, but it's still not enough to cover a condo," she said. So last year Ms. Alvarez's parents surprised her with a 50,000 cash gift to help with a down payment on a 435,000 condo three blocks from the beach in San Diego. "I grew up middle class, and my parents immigrated from Cuba," she said. "They saw that I've worked hard but also that I had the bad luck to graduate into the 2008 recession. I didn't get a job that paid well enough and had benefits until I was 23, which meant I missed out on almost two years of earning." Evidence suggests that purchasing a home, a life event that many hope to reach in their 30s and one of the primary ways people build wealth, is essentially out of reach in most major cities unless your family has generated a good deal of wealth. (Nationally, homeownership rates are falling for millennials, and only two in 10 have a mortgage or home loan.) Mary Wallace, a real estate agent with Unlimited Sotheby's International Realty in Boston who works primarily with first home buyers (and is married to Mr. Collins), said that in 20 years she has rarely seen anyone in their 30s who did not have family help or an inheritance for their down payment. "In our market a buyer is expected to have 20 percent down to compete that is between 80,000 and 100,000 to become a homeowner," she said. Jessicah Pierre, 27, a media specialist at the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, has felt she is on unequal ground. "A friend was telling me how it wasn't that hard to purchase a home. She was like, 'Do this, do that,'" said Ms. Pierre, who lives in the Dorchester section of Boston. "But she wasn't considering the fact that she graduated without any student loan debt, came from a two income household, as opposed to me. I am starting with negative wealth because I have loans to pay off and was raised in a family with only one income." Ms. Pierre's father was an accountant in Haiti and became a cabdriver after immigrating to the United States because his degree wasn't recognized. (She fully expects that she and her two siblings will take care of him in old age.) No one, as Tom Postilio, a real estate agent in New York at Douglas Elliman, put it, wants to post on Instagram: "'So glad I could move into this apartment that I don't make enough money to buy, but thanks Mom and Dad for the cash.'" Mr. Postilio estimates that a quarter of his 30 something clients who are buying larger apartments (over two bedrooms) receive money from their parents, whether it's in the form of a gift, a low interest loan or co purchasing. But there's a danger in not acknowledging the transfer of wealth (one estimate predicted the boomers will ultimately pass along 30 trillion to their millennial children, whether it's monthly help with living expenses, free child care or receiving the annual gift exclusion of 15,000 from family members). It creates a distorted idea of what it takes to attain success and what financial milestones are actually achievable if you are starting from zero or less. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
NEW DELHI After years of intense debate, India's government agreed on Friday to open the country's retail sector to global behemoths like Wal Mart and Ikea, pushing for a profound shift in India's economic and political direction. India is still mostly a nation of small shopkeepers and farmers, and its economy is heavily controlled by the government, a legacy from decades of socialist policies. But a sharp slowdown in economic growth and a sense of impending political collapse prompted the government to finally act on long pending proposals to loosen market restrictions in hopes of luring more foreign investment and expertise. "The time for big bang reforms has come," the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, said, "and if we go down, we will go down fighting." Mr. Singh is widely credited with helping bring about India's first great bout of economic changes in 1991, when he was finance minister and India's economy was in a crisis. But his reputation ebbed in recent months as the government's economic agenda stalled and a growing chorus of critics described him as feckless, and worse. A recent coal corruption scandal has also tainted Mr. Singh and led the country's leading opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, to shut down Parliament in recent weeks with calls for his resignation. "The cabinet has taken many decisions today to bolster economic growth and make India a more attractive destination for foreign investment," Mr. Singh said in a statement. "I believe these steps will strengthen our growth process and generate employment in these difficult times." But the plans will continue to stir controversy, and it was not clear whether the government's shaky coalition would hold together long enough to carry them out. Balpir Punj, a spokesman for the Bharatiya Janata Party, told a TV news channel that the measures passed Friday by the governing United Progressive Alliance were "a very cheap attempt by the U.P.A. to divert attention from the 'coalgate' scam." "We are totally opposed to it and we are going to fight it tooth and nail," Mr. Punj said of the economic measures, despite the fact that his party had proposed some of them itself when it was in power a decade ago. Chandrajit Banerjee, the director general of the Confederation of Indian Industry, welcomed Friday's policy changes as well as a measure announced Thursday to reduce government subsidies for diesel fuel. He said the government's policy paralysis had led to despondency among many business leaders, but Friday's announcement was "a tremendous boost not only to the sectors in question, but is a huge mood lifter." Today in On Tech: Imagine not living in Big Tech's world. Dollar Tree will raise prices to 1.25 by the end of April. India's retail sector is dominated by small shops, and its wholesale distribution networks are disastrously inefficient. More than a third of the fruit and vegetables grown in India rot or perish between farms and stores, increasing hunger and impoverishing farmers. Anand Sharma, India's commerce minister, said in a news conference that foreign retailers would bring vital investments in such areas as refrigerated trucks and modern sorting and processing facilities. The measures require foreign retailers entering the Indian market to put at least half of their investments during the first three years of operations into processing and other back end facilities. In another compromise aimed at deflecting domestic opposition, only cities with populations of at least one million there are 53, census records show will get the stores. Given the continuing constraints the new policy places on major retailers, it was still unclear how aggressively they would seek to enter India. The policy also allows state governments to block major retailers from setting up operations, and includes a requirement that retailers buy 30 percent of their supplies in India, which could prove difficult for some. Still, the plan was widely welcomed by most economists and big business executives, who have been urging the government to open the economy further to competition and consolidation. "These measures are clearly positive and if not rolled back bode well for all asset classes," Rohini Malkani, an economist at Citibank India, wrote. Mr. Singh is taking a big political risk with the economic proposals, which could end up breaking up his governing coalition. Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal and a crucial partner in the coalition, has announced that she is opposed to allowing major foreign retailers to operate in India. "We are totally against these decisions," Kunal Ghosh, a spokesman for Ms. Banerjee, said Friday. "We were not consulted by the government." Asked whether Ms. Banerjee would leave the coalition and effectively topple the government as a result of Friday's measures, Mr. Ghosh refused to answer. "If we withdraw support, the main problem will not be solved," he said. The measures announced Friday would also allow foreigners to own up to 49 percent of the value of domestic airlines, a policy that is considered a sop to Kingfisher Airlines, which has been struggling financially. "Denial of access to foreign capital could result in the collapse of many of our domestic airlines, creating a systemic risk for financial institutions and a vital gap in the country's infrastructure," a government statement said. Foreigners would be allowed to own up to 49 percent of exchanges for trading electric power, and foreigners would be allowed to own up to 74 percent of broadcast services like TV channels under the new policies. The government also announced that it would sell 10 percent of its stake in Oil India, 12.5 percent of its stake in the aluminum maker Nalco, 9.59 percent of its stake in Hindustan Copper and 9.33 percent of the Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation of India, a crucial source of foreign exchange in India. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Global Business |
In the fall of 2016, the German actress Nina Hoss followed the American presidential campaign up close: She was in New York, shooting the sixth season of "Homeland," in which she played a fan favorite, the intelligence agent Astrid. It was time to go home to Berlin, where she was scheduled to return to theater; she was considering performing "The Human Voice," Jean Cocteau's 1930 monologue that consists entirely of a woman pleading on the phone. But the election of Donald J. Trump changed Ms. Hoss's plans. "I thought, I can't really spend three months, now, with a character who wants to get her lover back with all the different ways a woman has," she said during a visit to Brooklyn last fall. In barely accented English, she added, "God, who wants to see that?" The election brought about "a strong shift" in her thinking, she said. "I heard a lot of New Yorkers say, 'How could they do that to us?' the people who voted for Trump. But I thought, It's not that easy, you know? They must be in a state of desperation. I ask myself, am I political enough? Don't we all have to get involved more? I wanted to ask myself and the audience: What happened, and what are we going to do now?" So Ms. Hoss made the kind of hairpin turn the new world order demanded. She and the German director Thomas Ostermeier came up with a new work, "Returning to Reims," for the prestigious Schaubuhne Theater in Berlin. The production, which had its premiere in Manchester, England, last July, then moved to Berlin, is now being presented in English at St. Ann's Warehouse, where it opens on Feb. 4 for a run that ends on Feb. 25. The play is based on the French philosopher Didier Eribon's 2009 memoir about growing up gay and intellectual in a homophobic working class family that went from voting Communist to supporting the far right National Front. (Some of the themes will be familiar to readers of J. D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy.") The book was a best seller in Germany, where it bitterly resonated in the new political climate, both international and domestic. "I think it has to do with the fact that Germans are, due to our terrible history, very sensitive to developments on the new right," Mr. Ostermeier said by telephone from Berlin. "They're desperately looking for explanations to understand that phenomenon." There was just one hitch in moving the story to the stage: It had no role for Ms. Hoss. So she and Mr. Ostermeier whose explosive "Richard III" was at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in October devised a radical adaptation. In the play, Ms. Hoss, 42, takes center stage as Katy, an actress recording the voice over for a documentary based on Mr. Eribon's book. About 45 minutes in, she starts questioning the decisions of the film's director (played by Bush Moukarzel), who has been hovering in the sound booth. The book, the fake movie (which includes footage of Mr. Eribon chatting with his mother, filmed by Mr. Ostermeier and Sebastien Dupouey) and Ms. Hoss's own life merge as she brings her father, Willi Hoss, into the story. A key difference between Mr. Eribon's upbringing and Ms. Hoss's is that his was miserable, and hers decidedly less so. "I had a fantastic childhood," she said. "I had two parents who had a lot of belief in humanity and people, and always fought with enthusiasm never for themselves but always in a group." Her father started as a welder and trade unionist, then was elected to Germany's Parliament and was a founder of the Green Party. Her mother, Heidemarie Hoss Rohweder, ran a theater company. In the play, Ms. Hoss makes this activism come to life by showing pictures and home videos of her father, including some from trips he made to help save the Brazilian Amazon's rain forest. In a recent telephone conversation, Ms. Hoss described spending several summers there as a teenager, watching her father take measurements for pipes or wells. Eventually, though, she took her mother's route and attended drama school. Her association with Mr. Ostermeier dates to 1999, and "Returning to Reims" is their third collaboration at the Schaubuhne, following Yasmina Reza's dark comedy "Bella Figura" and a revival of Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes." In a move indicative of Ms. Hoss's process, a mix of research and intuition, she tweaked her take on the wicked Regina Giddens nightly in "The Little Foxes." "Sometimes I felt the world is really mean to her," Ms. Hoss said with a chuckle she laughs a lot in conversation, as if happy to be taken on a ride by her own quicksilver mind. "Her brothers treat her horribly, so she becomes a horrible person. Other nights, she's like the men: She just wants it the way she wants it, and that's horrifying. Women can be horrible, too, and they should be allowed." One of Ms. Hoss's greatest strengths as an actor is a deceiving calm that somehow suggests both confidence and vulnerability. "Even when she whispers, she captures the audience," Mr. Eribon said by telephone. Early in "Returning to Reims," he said, "she speaks low to herself, rehearsing the reading, yet we're fascinated." This quality allows Ms. Hoss's presence, at once cryptic and warm, to resonate even in small roles. It was such a supporting part, in fact, that led to "Homeland." That series's showrunner, Alex Gansa, first spotted her alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman in the spy thriller "A Most Wanted Man" (2014), then confirmed his hunch by watching her carry the period melodrama "Phoenix" (2015), and cold called her. "One of the things Nina loved about Astrid, more than anything, is that she had a sense of humor," Mr. Gansa said by telephone. "We spent a lot of time in the writers' room giving her that color because she can be so wry and funny in the most understated way. Being grown up never seemed so sexy." The "Homeland" job has opened doors for Ms. Hoss, who recalled, with a smidgen of incredulity, being recognized by passers by in New York. Because the Schaubuhne runs on a time consuming repertory model, with yearlong commitments, she's decided to put the stage aside for a while after this summer, and focus on her screen career. "I've done theater for a very long time," Ms. Hoss said, "and I feel more and more these two systems just don't work with each other, especially if I want to work in the U.S. So now I'm available." She laughed, again. "But I'm always going back to theater, I know that." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
After months of having players compete before cardboard cutouts and empty seats because of the coronavirus pandemic, Major League Baseball announced on Wednesday that it would sell tickets to the National League Championship Series and the World Series this October. Both series will be held at the Texas Rangers' new retractable roof ballpark, Globe Life Field, in Arlington. The league said it would make about 11,500 tickets available per game, with 10,550 fans spread out through the stands and another 950 in suites. Tickets will go on sale on Tuesday through the league's website. Globe Life Field which sits beside the Dallas Cowboys' AT T Stadium seats 40,300 fans and will be the first neutral site in World Series history. The Cowboys' stadium seats 100,000 and drew 21,708 fans for the team's home opener on Sept. 20. The percentage of fans at the N.L.C.S., which begins Oct. 12, and the World Series, which starts Oct. 20, would be a bit higher than the percentage allowed to see the Cowboys. The 11,500 tickets represents 28.5 percent of Globe Life Field's capacity. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
Mahendra Agrawal never imagined he would have a heart attack. He followed a vegetarian diet, exercised regularly and maintained a healthy weight. His blood pressure and cholesterol levels were normal. But when Mr. Agrawal experienced shortness of breath in June 2013, his wife urged him to go to a hospital. There, tests revealed that Mr. Agrawal, who was 63 at the time, had two obstructed coronary arteries choking off blood flow to his heart, requiring multiple stents to open them. "I'm a pretty active guy and I eat very healthy, my wife makes sure of that," said Mr. Agrawal, who lives in San Jose and worked in the electronics industry. "It makes me wonder why this happened to me." Despite his good habits, there was one important risk factor Mr. Agrawal could not control: his South Asian ancestry. Heart disease is the leading killer of adults nationwide, and South Asians, the second fastest growing ethnic group in America, have a higher death rate from the disease than any other ethnic group. People of South Asian descent, which includes countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives, have four times the risk of heart disease compared to the general population, and they develop the disease up to a decade earlier. "Every South Asian has a very common experience unfortunately, and it's that we all have someone in our first degree circle that has either died suddenly or had premature cardiovascular disease," said Dr. Abha Khandelwal, a cardiologist at the Stanford South Asian Translational Heart Initiative. Experts are only now beginning to uncover why rates of heart disease are so high in this group. For the last seven years, a team of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and Northwestern University has followed more than 900 South Asians in Chicago and the Bay Area. Their ongoing study, known as Masala, for Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America, has found that South Asians tend to develop high blood pressure, high triglycerides, abnormal cholesterol and Type 2 diabetes at lower body weights than other groups. South Asian men are also prone to high levels of coronary artery calcium, a marker of atherosclerosis that can be an early harbinger of future heart attacks and strokes. "South Asians represent almost 20 to 25 percent of the world's population, and this is a major public health problem in this huge population," said Dr. Alka Kanaya, a professor of medicine at U.C.S.F. and one of the Masala principal investigators. Born in Mumbai and raised in California, Dr. Kanaya was inspired to launch the Masala project after seeing many of her friends and family members die from heart disease at relatively young ages. In November, the American Heart Association and other medical groups issued updated cholesterol guidelines that, for the first time, urged doctors to consider ethnicity when determining a patient's cardiovascular risk and treatment options. Citing studies by the Masala researchers, the guidelines identified South Asians as a "high risk" group and "stronger candidates" for statin medications when other risk factors are present. Some of the most striking findings to come out of Masala relate to body composition. Using CT scans, Dr. Kanaya and her colleagues found that South Asians have a greater tendency to store body fat in places where it shouldn't be, like the liver, abdomen and muscles. Fat that accumulates in these areas, known as visceral or ectopic fat, causes greater metabolic damage than fat that is stored just underneath the skin, known as subcutaneous fat. Studies show that at a normal body weight generally considered a body mass index, or B.M.I., below 25 people of any Asian ancestry, including those who are Chinese, Filipino and Japanese, have a greater likelihood of carrying this dangerous type of fat. Despite having lower obesity rates than whites, Asian Americans have twice the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes, which promotes heart attacks and strokes. Heart risks tended to be greatest in South Asians, the Masala researchers found. In one recent study, in the Annals of Internal Medicine, they found that 44 percent of the normal weight South Asians they examined had two or more metabolic abnormalities, like high blood sugar, high triglycerides, hypertension or low HDL cholesterol, compared to just 21 percent of whites who were normal weight. The Masala researchers also found that using the standard cutoff point to screen for diabetes, a B.M.I. of 25 or greater, would cause doctors to overlook up to a third of South Asians who have the disease. "Many of them may never get to that B.M.I. and they will have had diabetes for years," Dr. Kanaya said. The findings helped prompt the American Diabetes Association to issue updated guidelines in 2015 that lowered their screening threshold for diabetes, to a B.M.I. of 23 for Asian Americans. A public awareness campaign, organized by the National Council of Asian Pacific Islander Physicians, called Screen at 23 has drawn attention to the issue, and a.t least three states, including California, Massachusetts and Hawaii, have enacted policies to promote more aggressive health screenings of Asian Americans. Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the first Indian American woman to serve in the House, recently introduced a bill to provide more funding for South Asian heart health awareness and research. Most of the participants in the Masala study are first generation immigrants, and the researchers found that their cultural practices also impact their disease rates. Cardiovascular risks tended to be highest in two groups: those who maintained very strong ties to traditional South Asian religious, cultural and dietary customs, and those who vigorously embraced a Western lifestyle. Those with lower risk are what the researchers call bicultural, maintaining some aspects of traditional South Asian culture while also adopting some healthy Western habits. This discrepancy plays out in their dietary behaviors. Almost 40 percent of Masala participants are vegetarian, a common practice in India that is widely regarded in the West as heart healthy. But vegetarians who eat traditional South Asian foods like fried snacks, sweetened beverages and high fat dairy products were found to have worse cardiovascular health than those who eat what the researchers call a "prudent" diet with more fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans and whole grains (and, for nonvegetarians, fish and chicken). People who eat a Western style diet with red and processed meat, alcohol, refined carbohydrates and few fruits and vegetables were also found to have more metabolic risk factors. Dr. Namratha Kandula, a Masala investigator at Northwestern, said she hopes to study the children of the Masala participants next because they tend to influence their parents' health and lifestyle habits, and the researchers want to understand whether health risks in second generation South Asians are similar or not. But for now, some experts say their goal is to increase outreach to South Asians who may be at high risk and neglecting their health. "As a South Asian Bay Area resident, I see that we focus a lot on success and academic achievements in our families," said Dr. Khandelwal at Stanford. "But we don't necessarily look at our health success, and your health is something that you can't easily get back." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Well |
Aretha Franklin's funeral, and a tribute concert the night before, demonstrated how many communities are eager to claim the "Queen of Soul" as their own. DETROIT Everybody wants a piece of Aretha Franklin's artistic legacy. Church, state, activism, tradition, innovation and celebrity all vied for recognition in back to back marathon homages to the universally admired "Queen of Soul," here in her longtime hometown. Ms. Franklin belonged to the gospel church; she belonged to the pop public; she belonged to the civil rights and women's rights movements; she belonged, emphatically, to Detroit. At her funeral on Friday, the mayor of Detroit, Mike Duggan, made news by announcing a plan to rename Detroit's city owned riverside amphitheater, Chene Park, as Aretha Franklin Park. "The mayor just got re elected," quipped the officiant, Bishop Charles H. Ellis III. Yet being a member of her communities of faith, of politics, of geography wasn't enough to define Aretha Franklin. She also belonged to her family, to her era and to the utterly singular gifts, discipline, ambitions and regal impulses that make her irreplaceable. Our full report from Aretha Franklin's funeral and its most memorable moments. On Thursday evening, a concert called "A People's Tribute to the Queen" was presented free at Chene Park, with its 6,000 tickets snapped up online in 10 minutes. It stretched to nearly five hours, presenting impressive Detroit locals all of whom, it seemed, had been nurtured from birth on Ms. Franklin's music alongside nationally known singers. On Friday morning, invited guests and members of the public packed the Greater Grace Temple megachurch for Ms. Franklin's funeral, billed as "A Celebration Fit for the Queen" and lasting eight hours with music, preaching, reminiscences and testimonials. There were speeches from the former president Bill Clinton, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Cicely Tyson, Smokey Robinson, Clive Davis, Tyler Perry and the governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, among others. And there was music from Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan, Jennifer Hudson and gospel stalwarts like Shirley Caesar and the Clark Sisters. Both the tribute and funeral were live streamed worldwide. Chaka Khan reached higher and higher notes performing "Going Up Yonder" at Ms. Franklin's funeral on Friday. Together, they honored an artist whose roots were deep, widespread and thoroughly acknowledged, but whose vision and achievement were entirely her own: not a template to copy, but an example of hardheaded freedom from an African American woman who would not be held back by race or gender. "She was black without apology or excuse," the professor and preacher Michael Eric Dyson said at the funeral. "And she was American without argument or exception." The tribute concert was divided into genres: classical music (reflecting Ms. Franklin's latter day dabbling with opera), jazz standards (the beginnings of her major label career, on Columbia), gospel songs complete with a 25 member choir and, of course, the pop and R B hits Ms. Franklin made on Atlantic and Arista Records. The performances were fervent, eager and sometimes spectacular, like Regina Belle's rowdy "Rock Steady," Johnny Gill's aerobatic "Ain't No Way," Dee Dee Bridgewater's boldly declaimed "Skylark" and Tasha Page Lockhart's spiraling, improvisatory "Amazing Grace" and later, on the secular side, "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)." At the funeral, classic gospel songs that Ms. Franklin had recorded on her albums shared the lineup with a few pop songs, including "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," deferentially performed by the pop singer with America's current No. 1 album, Ariana Grande. The finale was also a secular song: Stevie Wonder vowing eternal love with "As." A funeral is a ritual, not a concert, but with cameras running and a worldwide audience, the performers poured it on: Chaka Khan gliding higher and higher in "Going Up Yonder" (while reading lyrics off a strategically carried fan); Shirley Caesar and Tasha Cobbs preaching and exulting in "How I Got Over," Yolanda Adams and Bishop Paul Morton riding oceanic surges in "Mary Don't You Weep," Jennifer Hudson belting and shouting "Amazing Grace." The church claims Ms. Franklin, rightly, as the preacher's daughter who brought everything she had learned from gospel music the timing, the dynamics, the ornaments, the vocal tones, the call and response with her backup singers, the way she played piano into the hits that would make her a star for the next five decades and into her countless live concerts. When Ms. Franklin hit an artistic impasse she would reinvigorate herself by returning to church and recording albums of gospel standards. Ms. Franklin sang gospel at the funerals of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968, and of Rosa Parks in 2005; Ms. Parks's funeral was also held in the Greater Grace Temple. The continuity was symbolic and unmistakable. Never miss a pop music story: Sign up for our weekly newsletter, Louder. But the church was only part of Ms. Franklin's education and of the style she would forge. She also grew up hearing jazz, blues and R B in a home that welcomed visits from touring musicians. And in the 1950s and 1960s her father, like other preachers nationwide, was a civil rights leader, an ally of Dr. King. Growing up in a segregated era, Ms. Franklin absorbed not only the tenets of faith but also a determination to make earthly life more equitable. At her funeral, there was as much praise for her civil rights advocacy touring to fund Dr. King's payroll, posting bail for Angela Davis in 1970 as for her music, while some speakers, like Ms. Franklin's longtime friend the Rev. Jesse Jackson, used the pulpit to get out the vote for this year's midterm elections. Ms. Franklin had to move outside gospel music to become a superstar. Her 1967 breakthrough, after years of working in and out of gospel and jazz, was to bring pop concision and impact "Think" runs just 2:20 to songs that didn't confine her voice or constrain her pride. Through the decades, she kept finding them, writing them, or (as with "Respect" and "I Say a Little Prayer") seizing them to make them her own. She sang about pain to exorcise it; she sang about strength to spread it. She also made herself an example as a tough businesswoman. Eulogies at her funeral made clear that Ms. Franklin, unlike some superstars, did not isolate herself from the city where she had grown up. She flaunted furs and gowns onstage, and red soled Louboutin shoes in her coffin, but she understood what others were going through. A Detroit radio personality, Mildred Gaddis, recalled that Ms. Franklin used to call up a local TV news anchor after seeing segments about families in trouble, then quietly send them a check. Ron Moten, a neighbor, said he had asked Ms. Franklin to visit his mother in an assisted living home on her 90th birthday; Ms. Franklin told him, "I'll think about it," then showed up with her band to play an hourlong concert for all the residents. Beyond charity, many of her friends affirmed that with Ms. Franklin, politics was always a topic of discussion. And while direct protest songs are a tiny part of her huge catalog, there was no mistaking in her voice, her lyrics and her entire public presentation her bedrock message that, as she famously said, "Everyone wants respect. Everyone needs respect." There's no formula, no simple set of demographics or allegiances or parameters, to create an artist like Aretha Franklin. Imitating the notes she sang as some of her admirers did onstage is just technical mimicry, far from her true lesson of creativity. Understanding what shaped Ms. Franklin only underscores how completely she synthesized and then transcended it all. But let the sacred and the secular, the idealistic and the hedonistic, the political and the aesthetic, the local and the global all affirm their part in her music. There's enough for everyone. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
BRUSSELS The lawmakers of the European Union gave austerity a poke in the eye Wednesday by overwhelmingly rejecting the bloc's proposed budget of EUR960 billion in its current form. E.U. leaders deadlocked over the seven year plan in November but finally reached a deal last month after a 24 hour marathon of talks that resulted in spending cuts for the first time in the Union's history. Lawmakers at the European Parliament cast doubt on that plan Wednesday, casting 506 votes in favor of a resolution demanding significant changes to the way the money should be spent and the option to raise the overall sum in the coming years. There were 161 votes against the resolution and 23 abstentions. The Union's budget for farming, transportation and other infrastructure, and big research projects amounts to about 1 percent of the bloc's estimated gross domestic product over its seven year span. But it involves furious horse trading as leaders focus on getting the best deal for their own countries, rather than putting the emphasis on pan European considerations. The opposition from the Parliament, which was given the formal power to veto budgets under the Lisbon Treaty of 2009, presents a significant hurdle. As a result of the vote Wednesday, the governments of the Union's 27 member states must now work out another compromise this time with Parliament. The process could take months. "It was foreseeable that the European Parliament would refuse," Martin Schulz, the president of the legislature, said at a news conference shortly after the vote. "We don't want to see the European Union going in the direction of a deficit union." Mr. Schulz was referring to resistance by some national governments to allocating more money at the start of each year to ensure that projects are fully funded from 2014 to 2020, the period of the budget. The Parliament's resolution called on E.U. governments to settle their outstanding bills and to give scope to the Parliament and to E.U. governments to move funds among different areas of the budget to meet needs as they arise. That means money that might ordinarily go unspent would be spent, but without changing the overall budget figure. But the resolution also called for a review of the budget with the possibility of increasing spending. Many members of Parliament said that raising the overall amount of the budget should be an option, particularly if the economic crisis now gripping the Union tapered off. The decision about who would conduct the review is likely to be an important part of the negotiations in coming months. "The E.U. 27 have set a credit card limit, and that is the right agreement," said the spokesman, referring to the budget ceiling for 2014 20 agreed to at the last summit meeting. He asked not to be identified, in line with British government policy. The European Parliament has increasingly become a force to be reckoned with since the Lisbon Treaty. Most notably, in early 2010, it rejected an interim agreement with the United States on sharing information about bank transfers that was intended to help in tracking suspected terrorists, partly on the grounds of privacy concerns. Kevin Spacey was ordered to pay 31 million to the 'House of Cards' studio after sexual harassment allegations. Netflix buys a visual effects company in a move to support its global ambitions. The Parliament later voted to resume the system on condition of guarantees to ensure protections of citizens' personal information. Mr. Schulz said he would formally present the resolution voted on Wednesday to E.U. leaders when they gathered in Brussels for a two day summit meeting on the bloc's economy starting Thursday evening. Austerity also could be a core topic at the meeting if leaders of countries like Spain and France seek to emphasize the need for measures to support growth against calls by leaders of countries like Germany and Finland for budgetary discipline. Another focus of the meeting is expected to be Cyprus, the latest euro zone country to require a bailout. The leaders of the 17 countries of the euro area will hold a separate meeting on Thursday night that is to be attended by the newly elected center right president of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades. Then, on Friday, euro zone finance ministers are expected to assess ways of overcoming the remaining obstacles to a deal. Cyprus may require about EUR17 billion, or 22 billion, in aid from the so called troika the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank of which up to EUR10 billion is needed to shore up the banking sector. That is a small amount compared with what has been pledged to Greece but a huge sum for Cyprus, which has a gross domestic product of only about EUR18 billion. The scale of the country's needs has prompted concern about how it could ever repay the money. There are also acute concerns over money laundering. Another contentious issue is whether troika members will force Cypriot bank depositors to take losses in order to make the country's debt more manageable. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Global Business |
Condiments are becoming weapons in the fight to save malnourished children. Efforts to add iron to fish sauce in Vietnam and bouillon cubes in West Africa, and vitamin A to cooking oil in Senegal, are examples of a new trend: Nutrition experts are branching out from fortifying dry staples like rice, corn or wheat flour. Salt with iodine has been used around the world for decades; it prevents goiters in adults and mental disability in developing fetuses. Salt has been a vehicle for other medical interventions, as well: During Mao's reign in China, fortifying salt with a deworming drug helped eliminate elephantiasis in farming villages. The idea of bolstering the nutritive power of other condiments was pioneered about 10 years ago when iron was added to soy sauce in China, said Marc van Ameringen, the executive director of GAIN, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, a foundation based in Geneva that starts micronutrient supplementation projects. The most important micronutrients are vitamin A, iron, zinc, iodine and folate. "A lot of research went into making sure that doing it didn't change the color or flavor," he said. For example, iron had to be encapsulated when it was added to salt so it did not discolor it. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
The worsening of tidal flooding in American coastal communities is largely a consequence of greenhouse gases from human activity, and the problem will grow far worse in coming decades, scientists reported Monday. Those emissions, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, are causing the ocean to rise at the fastest rate since at least the founding of ancient Rome, the scientists said. They added that in the absence of human emissions, the ocean surface would be rising less rapidly and might even be falling. The increasingly routine tidal flooding is making life miserable in places like Miami Beach; Charleston, S.C.; and Norfolk, Va., even on sunny days. Though these types of floods often produce only a foot or two of standing saltwater, they are straining life in many towns by killing lawns and trees, blocking neighborhood streets and clogging storm drains, polluting supplies of freshwater and sometimes stranding entire island communities for hours by overtopping the roads that tie them to the mainland. Such events are just an early harbinger of the coming damage, the new research suggests. "I think we need a new way to think about most coastal flooding," said Benjamin H. Strauss, the primary author of one of two related studies released on Monday. "It's not the tide. It's not the wind. It's us. That's true for most of the coastal floods we now experience." In the second study, scientists reconstructed the level of the sea over time and confirmed that it is most likely rising faster than at any point in 28 centuries, with the rate of increase growing sharply over the past century largely, they found, because of the warming that scientists have said is almost certainly caused by human emissions. Here are more fascinating tales you can't help but read all the way to the end. None 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. Taylor Swift's 'All Too Well' and the Weaponization of Memory. The new version of the bitter breakup song luxuriates in its details and its supersize length, correcting a power imbalance in the relationship it describes. The Crypto Capital of the World. Ukraine has an ambitious plan to both mainstream the nation's thriving trade in crypto and to rebrand the entire country. They also confirmed previous forecasts that if emissions were to continue at a high rate over the next few decades, the ocean could rise as much as three or four feet by 2100. Experts say the situation would then grow far worse in the 22nd century and beyond, likely requiring the abandonment of many coastal cities. The findings are yet another indication that the stable climate in which human civilization has flourished for thousands of years, with a largely predictable ocean permitting the growth of great coastal cities, is coming to an end. "I think we can definitely be confident that sea level rise is going to continue to accelerate if there's further warming, which inevitably there will be," said Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor of ocean physics at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in Germany, and co author of one of the papers, published online Monday by an American journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In a report issued to accompany that scientific paper, a climate research and communications organization in Princeton, N.J., Climate Central, used the new findings to calculate that roughly three quarters of the tidal flood days now occurring in towns along the East Coast would not be happening in the absence of the rise in the sea level caused by human emissions. The lead author of that report, Dr. Strauss, said the same was likely true on a global scale, in any coastal community that has had an increase of saltwater flooding in recent decades. The change in frequency of those tides is striking. For instance, in the decade from 1955 to 1964 at Annapolis, Md., an instrument called a tide gauge measured 32 days of flooding; in the decade from 2005 to 2014, that jumped to 394 days. Flood days in Charleston jumped from 34 in the earlier decade to 219 in the more recent, and in Key West, Fla., the figure jumped from no flood days in the earlier decade to 32 in the more recent. The new research was led by Robert E. Kopp, an earth scientist at Rutgers University who has won respect from his colleagues by bringing elaborate statistical techniques to bear on longstanding problems, like understanding the history of the global sea level. A motorist driving through seawater in Charleston, S.C., last year. In the decade from 1955 to 1964, Charleston registered 34 days with flooding; in the decade from 2005 to 2014, the number jumped to 219. Based on extensive geological evidence, scientists already knew that the sea level rose drastically at the end of the last ice age, by almost 400 feet, causing shorelines to retreat up to a hundred miles in places. They also knew that the sea level had basically stabilized, like the rest of the climate, over the past several thousand years, the period when human civilization arose. But there were small variations of climate and sea level over that period, and the new paper is the most exhaustive attempt yet to clarify them. The paper shows the ocean to be extremely sensitive to small fluctuations in the Earth's temperature. The researchers found that when the average global temperature fell by a third of a degree Fahrenheit in the Middle Ages, for instance, the surface of the ocean dropped by about three inches in 400 years. When the climate warmed slightly, that trend reversed. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
The first word, Black, was designed by Tijay Mohammed, a Ghanaian born artist, and used vibrant Kente fabric design and Adinkra symbols, which represent concepts like royalty, unity and legacy. Sophia Dawson, a Brooklyn based visual artist, took the second word, lives. The "L" contains the faces of the mothers who have lost their children to police killings. The "I" uses imagery inspired by Emory Douglas, an artist for the Black Panther Party; the "V" highlights the culture of the African diaspora; the "E" contains faces of Black Panther Party members who are currently in prison; and the "S" carries a passage from the Bible. The street painting at Foley Square resembles many that have been done around the country in its word choice and placement, but part of what has been lost in the national debate over the art and the political statements they make is the logistical care, intentional placement and artistry that went into the creation of many of them. This month, the Foley Square street art in Lower Manhattan and the one in Harlem were unveiled, with the multicolored letters of Black Lives Matter replete with imagery related to Black people who were killed by the police, as well as vibrant symbols of freedom, hope and joy. In Cincinnati, the art appears in the red, black and green of the Pan African flag, with silhouettes, phrases and textured designs filling the letters. In Jackson, Mich., it was designed it in a graffiti style font. In Portland, Ore., the letters contained a timeline of historical injustices in the state. The purpose of the Fifth Avenue project at Trump Tower was clear: to rile up the president, who called it a "symbol of hate." The street painting was intended to get the message up quickly; the stenciling and outlining was done by the Department of Transportation, and roughly 60 volunteers helped lay down 100 gallons of traffic paint. The other artworks in Manhattan were intended not as a political statement meant for President Trump to see but as an opportunity for local artists, community togetherness and discussions about race and policing. The outlines of the enlarged "Black Lives Matter" letters are filled with intentionally placed symbols and colors. "I wanted the design to embody our experience as a whole as a Black community and what we strive for," said Patrice Payne, one of the artists involved with the work at Foley Square. Justin Garrett Moore, the executive director of the city's Public Design Commission, said that there is a clear difference between the street paintings borne from mayoral decision making, which serve as an acknowledgment that public officials have heard the calls of racial justice protesters, and the community driven murals, where there's a deeper connection to the space and the message. After the Washington painting made the news, an organization representing small business owners in Harlem, called Harlem Park to Park, started discussing what their version of a Black Lives Matter artwork would look like. There was a certain expectation that Harlem, known as the epicenter of Black culture, needed to take the trend a level up, said Nikoa Evans Hendricks, the group's executive director. The result was two sprawling sets of words on either side of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, between 125th and 127th Streets. On the northbound side, eight artists had creative control over two letters each. The southbound side was painted red, black and green by a collection of community groups. "We wanted to make sure the mural didn't just represent words on the street but embodied the Harlem community," Ms. Evans Hendricks said. Within the outlines of several other letters, the artists painted images associated with the outrage over the treatment of Black people by the police: The faces of Ms. Taylor and Sandra Bland and Mr. Floyd's daughter occupy the two "T"s in the word "matter." The "I" in "lives" contains the badge numbers of the four police officers charged in connection with Mr. Floyd's death. The artists received advice from the city's Department of Transportation on what materials to use on the asphalt. They took the agency's recommendation of using road line paint used for markings on streets and sidewalks, which many artists right now are doing to make the street art more durable. The act of painting the work in Harlem was designed as a community event, with catering from local restaurants and help painting from the Boys and Girls Club of Harlem and Harlem Little League. "Every day we were out there, hundreds of people wanted to be involved," Mr. Wilson said. And after the unveiling, the space became a gathering place for people, as well as a space to appreciate art at a time when museums are shut because of the pandemic. The creators are hoping that the city agrees to a request to keep the street closed to traffic until the end of the summer, as the city did with a street painting in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, which was created with the yellow traffic paint and contains the names of Black people killed by the police. The location for the Harlem work was chosen because it was at the heart of a Black community. In Lower Manhattan at Foley Square, it was because of a nearby cherished national monument: It draws meaning from its proximity to the African Burial Ground, which contains the remains of New York City's colonial African American community. Amina Hassen, an urban planner with WXY, an architectural and urban design firm that worked on the project, said that the location along Centre Street, near the state and federal court buildings, was also significant because of its connection to the policing and incarceration of Black people. As with the Harlem work, the artists of the Foley Square project had control over the designs within the outline of the "Black Lives Matter" letters, but the city still had to review the designs to make sure they complied with safety standards. (This time the artists were chosen by the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the project was shepherded by Gale A. Brewer, Manhattan borough president, and Black Lives Matter of Greater New York.) They first blocked out the artwork in 3 D software, carefully avoiding any street features that the Department of Transportation said they couldn't paint over, said Jhordan Channer, the architectural designer for the project. When it came time to install the 600 foot long painting, they first painted a white canvas and a drop shadow to make sure the letters stood out. Tats Cru, a group of professional muralists in the city, executed the artists' designs with heavy duty traffic paint, exterior grade enamel paint and spray paint. They were assisted by youth from Thrive Collective, an arts mentoring program that works with New York public schools. For the last word, "matters," Ms. Payne started in the "M" with the image of a Black woman as an ancestral figure and nurturer. The design progresses to images of broken shackles, a raised fist, a sun peeking out behind storm clouds, with a tattered American flag at the forefront. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
MUMBAI In a bid to rein in persistently high inflation, The action, which caused the country's stock market to close 2.4 percent lower, will make it harder for India to achieve the 9 percent growth target set by the government for the current financial year, which ends in March 2012. The central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, acknowledged that concern but said it had to act to make sure the economy did not suffer long term damage from rising prices; the central bank said it expected the economy to grow 8 percent, down from 8.6 percent in the previous year. That slower growth will make it harder for India, the second fastest growing major economy in the world, behind China, to pull hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. And it will most likely worsen the Indian government's already large fiscal deficit. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Global Business |
High strung emus are among a vet's patients in "The Incredible Dr. Pol." And "Say Yes to the Dress" returns for its 16th season. THE INCREDIBLE DR. POL 9 p.m. on Nat Geo Wild. Don't expect your usual cats and dogs; this reality show follows a veterinary clinic in rural Michigan whose patients often include livestock. This premiere of the 12th season includes a horse with teeth troubles, chickens whose clucks have turned to gurgles and some high strung emus. EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING (2017) 8 p.m. on HBO. Stella Meghie's adaptation of Nicola Yoon's young adult novel stars Amandla Stenberg as a girl with an immune system disorder that prevents her from leaving her house. She finds a boy outside the bubble, and they strike up an unlikely relationship. The film "scores a direct hit on the teenage girl market," Neil Genzlinger wrote in his review for The New York Times. "Others might find it pretty enjoyable as well." SAY YES TO THE DRESS 8 p.m. on TLC. After 15 seasons, there's still something endearing about the format of this wedding reality show, in which brides try on dresses in search of the perfect match. You might find yourself with a renewed appreciation for wedding dresses, and how they can reflect the people inside of them. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
The Federal Communications Commission is set to propose about 200 million in fines against four major cellphone carriers for selling customers' real time location data, according to three people briefed on the discussions. The penalties would be some of the largest the agency has imposed in decades and represent the first action it has taken on the issue, though privacy advocates and critics in Congress say even that response is inadequate. The amount is not final, and the companies AT T, Sprint, T Mobile and Verizon will have the opportunity to respond and argue against the fines. The trade in location data has emerged as a sensitive privacy issue because it affects hundreds of millions of people and can reveal intimate details about their lives, including personal relationships and visits to doctors. "It puts the safety and privacy of every American with a wireless phone at risk," Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democratic commissioner at the F.C.C., said in a statement last month about the agency's investigation. Sale of the data is widespread among app makers and other technology companies, but the telecommunications sector is subject to more stringent laws protecting customers' confidentiality. Ajit Pai, the F.C.C. chairman, said in a letter to the House Commerce Committee last month that "one or more wireless carriers apparently violated federal law," but it was unclear at that time what penalty his agency would suggest. The F.C.C., scheduled to have a public meeting on Friday, has not yet made its proposal official but has the necessary votes, said the three people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Agency officials declined to comment until the final vote was announced. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the F.C.C. would be seeking fines in the case. The investigation began after articles in The New York Times and elsewhere showed how carriers' deals with companies called location aggregators posed privacy risks. The Times in 2018 reported that the data was eventually making its way to law enforcement, including to an official who was charged with using it to track people without a warrant. Location data from cellphone carriers proved valuable because it was consistently available and included almost every American with a mobile phone. Carriers sold access to it for marketing purposes and services like bank fraud protection, under contracts that required location companies to get customers' consent, for example by responding to a text message or pressing a button on an app. But the companies did not always obey those contracts and the carriers had little way of enforcing them, allowing troves of personal information to be used in ways consumers had never intended. The F.C.C. found that the cellphone companies had broken federal law by being negligent with the data. After the 2018 article and questions from lawmakers, the carriers pledged publicly to limit sales of the data, saying they would wind down their existing contracts with location aggregators. But a report in 2019 showed the data was still available to bounty hunters and others. Later that year, the companies said in response to questions from an F.C.C. commissioner that they had stopped the practice. The continued sale of data was the impetus behind the penalties, which amount to tens of millions of dollars for each carrier, people familiar with the matter said. The F.C.C. is fining companies based on the number of days the practice carried on. "I am committed to ensuring that all entities subject to our jurisdiction comply" with the law and the F.C.C.'s rules, Mr. Pai said in his letter to lawmakers. But the time between the initial 2018 report and the proposed penalties, and the expected size of the fines, has raised the ire of privacy hawks. One Democratic commissioner, Geoffrey Starks, wrote an opinion piece in The Times last year complaining that "nearly a year after the news first broke, the commission has yet to issue an enforcement action or fine those responsible." Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who first raised concerns about the data sharing and has repeatedly questioned the companies and the F.C.C. over the issue, said in a statement on Thursday that the chairman "only investigated after public pressure mounted." He said the fines were "comically inadequate" to deter future privacy violations. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
In 2015, the Oscars handed all 20 of its acting nominations to white actors. The ensuing controversy, coined OscarsSoWhite by the activist April Reign, was a blow to the reputation of Hollywood's biggest awards ceremony and in 2016, it happened again. After those back to back blunders cast a renewed spotlight on an Oscar voting membership mostly made up of white men, the academy set inclusion goals to double the number of women and voters of color in its membership by 2020. On Tuesday, as it unveiled a new class of 819 artists and executives invited to become members this year, the academy announced it had met both goals. The number of active female members has doubled, from 1,446 to 3,179, and the number of active members from underrepresented ethnic and racial communities had tripled, from 554 to 1,787. "We take great pride in the strides we have made in exceeding our initial inclusion goals set back in 2016, but acknowledge the road ahead is a long one," the academy chief executive, Dawn Hudson, said in a statement. "We are committed to staying the course." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
Lecturing in Buenos Aires two years ago, the novelist J.M. Coetzee born in South Africa, now a citizen of Australia, and teaching regularly in Argentina argued that the southern hemisphere has a big problem: Its artists and writers can only win global attention by pleasing "the cultural gatekeepers of the metropoles of the north," who "decide which stories by the south about itself will be accepted." It's exactly these contesting gazes on the spaces of the south, by colonizers and colonized, that animate a rich exhibition staged by the Brazilian gallery Mendes Wood DM at its New York outpost. I had the chance to see "Landscapes of the South" in person, and online Mendes Wood offers a dozen installation views of the presentation and images of 23 Brazilian landscapes, spanning four centuries. The earliest is a 1659 view of a convent in Pernambuco by the Dutchman Frans Post, the first landscape painter in the New World. Landscape painting was long an act of colonial mastery slaves congregate in front of the stolid white abbey, yet the tropical landscape has the same coloring as any view of Delft whereas, by the early 20th century, Brazilian artists were using landscape to forge a new national identity out of European, African and Indigenous influences. Check out three beautiful biomorphic drawings here by Tarsila do Amaral, the leading artist of Brazil's interwar avant garde, whose lumpy cows and spiky cactuses marry folky, vernacular traditions with the imported forms of French experimentalism. New paintings by young Brazilian artists like Lucas Arruda, the author of a tight and textured jungle scene here, update these landscape traditions for an age of ecological disquiet. I've always thought of these Brazilian artists as no more foreign than my neighbors, and when I saw their paintings in person a few weeks ago, I idly wondered if later this year I might hop a cheap flight to Sao Paulo. Now housebound, flicking online, I have rediscovered the meaning of distance, ruing how far I am from southern climes. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
As Big Retailers Seek to Cut Their Tax Bills, Towns Bear the Brunt WAUWATOSA, Wis. With astonishing range and rapidity, big box retailers and corporate giants are using an aggressive legal tactic to shrink their property tax bills, a strategy that is costing local governments and school districts around the country hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue. These businesses many of them brick and mortar stores like Walmart, Home Depot, Target, Kohl's, Menards and Walgreens that have faced fierce online competition maintain that no matter how valuable a thriving store is to its current owner, these warehouse type structures are not worth much to anyone else. So the best way to appraise their property, they contend in their tax appeals, is to look at the sale prices on the open market of vacant or formerly vacant shells in other places. As shuttered stores spread across the landscape, their argument has resonated. To municipalities, these appeals amount to a far fetched tax dodge that allows corporations to wriggle out of paying their fair share. Either way, homeowners and small businesses will have to pay more or live with smaller budgets for police, schools, garbage pickup and road repair. Businesses, of course, appeal property assessments as routinely as coaches work the refs. But this approach labeled dark store theory by critics significantly broadens the basis for those appeals while threatening to undermine municipalities' ability to raise operating funds. "The potential for a domino effect of property tax appeals across the commercial and industrial portions of the tax base, which, were it to occur, could have a much more profound effect on some governments' ability to levy" property taxes," S P Global Ratings concluded in a report last year. For a smaller town or school district, "the financial impact could be devastating," said Scott Nees, a co author of the report, noting that it could also threaten localities' ability to borrow money. And in Wauwatosa, a shopping polestar in Wisconsin where chockablock malls attract families in the market for 4,000 sofas, Adidas NMDs and a Cheesecake Factory pig out, the city is fighting property tax appeals in court dating back to 2015 from Lowe's, Nordstrom, Best Buy, Meijer and United Healthcare. It recently settled with Target, Walgreens and a KFC franchise. "It's like a virus," said Kathleen Ehley, the mayor of Wauwatosa. In the Lowe's case, the company spent more than 16 million to buy the land and construct its 140,000 square foot building less than a dozen years ago. The city assessed the spot in a bustling retail hub right off Highway 41 at 13.6 million. The company's appraisal was 7.1 million, based on sales of empty and once empty buildings in other neighborhoods. Lowe's declined to comment because the case is being litigated. But the city's assessor said Lowe's had partly based its analysis on stores that were more than 25 years old and in economically declining neighborhoods. Another store was listed as comparable in part because of its "proximity" to a shopping mall, although instead of the booming center near this Lowe's, that mall had closed 15 years earlier. City officials estimate that the current string of dark store lawsuits alone would require it to refund 4.1 million of tax payments the equivalent of about a tenth of its total property tax revenue this year. "Either my property taxes are going to go up or my schools are going to suffer," said Lisa Williams, who lives in a classic Craftsman style bungalow a few minutes' drive from Lowe's in Wauwatosa, a comfortable suburb of Milwaukee. "The stores want to get all the benefits of being here without any of the costs." Ms. Williams, 53, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee who has three children, added, "Everybody in the neighborhood shops there." Efforts to reduce tax assessments on the local level are continuing even as businesses are seeing hefty reductions in their federal taxes from last year's tax overhaul in Washington. 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 dark store argument started to gain traction in a few states in the mid 2000s, but has snowballed in the last year. After retailers won some influential legal decisions, thousands of similar appeals from other commercial taxpayers from manufacturers to owners of corporate office buildings have followed. The judicial victories have elbowed the issue into the political arena. Several states, like Alabama, Texas and Indiana, have considered legislation that would curb the tactic. "Local governments want to exclude vacant buildings because a lot of retail has gone vacant in recent years," said Scott Manley, the group's vice president of governmental relations. "Retail property is less valuable today, and they don't want to acknowledge it." Appraisal guidelines vary from state to state. But mega retailers argue, in essence, that traditional approaches that look at land and building costs or how much income the property can generate are not relevant. Instead, they say, appraisals should primarily rely on comparable sales, and the only sales that are comparable are of other big box stores that have been vacated. Empty commercial buildings often go for bargain basement prices because the structures football field size stores or factories were developed for specific purposes and, therefore, attract few, if any, buyers. "These warehouses are obsolete pretty much from the moment they build them," said Robert Hill, a lawyer in Minnesota who has represented Walmart, Menards, Walgreens, CVS, Sturm Foods, United Healthcare and other companies. "It doesn't matter whether they're for sale in a suburb of Virginia or Nome, Alaska." This is not an entirely new idea. In 1921, the New York Stock Exchange appealed its property tax assessment, arguing that because its building could not be adapted for any other use, it should be considered only a "tear down proposition" that decreased the value of the land. A State Supreme Court judge disagreed. Sales comparisons often make sense for homes, experts say, because they can estimate what a willing buyer would pay by looking at recent sales of similar houses or apartments on the same block or in the neighborhood. Appraisals can be much more complicated when it comes to a specialized commercial property, where adjustments have to be made for location, condition, size, the incomes of area residents, traffic flow and much more. Is the property on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan or in a dead suburban mall? Is the building three years old or 30? Restrictive clauses in leases that companies themselves impose such as prohibiting its use by a competitor can further depress a property's value. Sales comparisons are reliable benchmarks but only when there are lots of substitute properties and data, the International Association of Assessing Officers concluded in a 2017 report. "Using vacant sale comparables (without adjustment) to value an occupied property is not proper appraisal practice," it said. What constitutes a fair comparison and adjustment, however, is open to debate. "Courts are grappling with the meaning of market value," said Joan Youngman, chairwoman of the Department of Valuation and Taxation at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Mass. "We are in the early stages of the issue working its way through the higher courts, and we don't have the answers to some of these questions." In Manawa, a town about 130 miles north of Milwaukee that has a population of 1,294, the mayor is carefully monitoring snow plowers' overtime after settling a yearslong tax dispute with Sturm Foods, the largest local employer. The appeals began a couple of years after Sturm was bought by TreeHouse Foods, a multinational conglomerate, for 660 million in 2010. Sturm initially argued the factory's property was worth less than half of its assessment. In 2017, when they finally settled, property taxes for everyone else rose by 12.4 percent 300 per homeowner, on average while the city's borrowing ability was curtailed. "We have to be much more careful with services," said Mayor John Smith. "It also reduces our ability to borrow." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
It is too soon to know whether the unexpected outcome of Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy will inspire more women to run or dampen their aspirations. But either way, it is clear that she has, through her campaigns and career, helped create a political environment in which a woman could come so close to winning the presidency. What is less known is that Mrs. Clinton started changing that political culture for women as far back as the early 1970s not through a candidacy of her own, but through a series of small, but crucial, networking moves. The number of women who labored in basement meetings, in consciousness raising groups, in boardrooms, in unions, in news organizations and in their own kitchens to expand possibilities for women are far too many to count. Far fewer, however, worked specifically to put women into elected office. Prominent among those who did were a few key friends of Mrs. Clinton whom she helped find paths to the cause, including a Texan political player named Betsey Wright, who Mrs. Clinton introduced to a classmate of hers from Wellesley College, Jan Piercy. "In 1972, I was working at a temporary job at Filene's Basement, trying to figure out what I was going to do next, when I got a call from Hillary," recalled Ms. Piercy, who had devoted herself to antipoverty work at Wellesley, but not to feminism, per se. "And Hillary said, 'We have to go to Washington tomorrow.' So we jumped on a plane, and I'm ushered in to the National League of Women Voters headquarters, and Hillary tells them, 'This can be your youth director.'" Ms. Piercy, representing the league, went on to attend the Republican and Democratic conventions in 1972, a key inflection point for female activists. "We realized that the only way we could be accepted as equals was to be in office," she said. "But the parties were not interested in cultivating women. So we realized we would have to train them ourselves." Ms. Piercy was too inexperienced to do that; so was Elisabeth Griffith, another friend of Mrs. Clinton's and Ms. Piercy's from Wellesley, who had joined Ms. Piercy in the early stages of a project with that ambition. But while Mrs. Clinton was a law student supporting the presidential candidate Senator George McGovern in San Antonio, she met Ms. Wright, the person she thought could galvanize and prepare potential female candidates. She soon became close to Ms. Wright, a seasoned political operative whose experience of sexism on the McGovern campaign was having a somewhat radicalizing effect on her. Often when Ms. Wright tried to raise an issue with a male staff member on the campaign, "It elicited some kind of crazy response about hormones," Ms. Wright, now 73, recalled. "I was already a feminist, but that turned me into a raving feminist. I would go home and play Helen Reddy and go to sleep." Bill Clinton, who helped coordinate McGovern's Texas campaign, had his own feminist aha moment while working on the race, when McGovern's staff did not pursue Mrs. Clinton for a job for which Mr. Clinton had recommended her. "But she's better than me," he told Ms. Piercy at the time. In meeting Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Wright said, she no longer just imagined a woman could be president, but believed she had met the very woman who would first reach that milestone. Many friends tried to talk Hillary out of marrying Bill for the sake of her political future; Ms. Wright went so far as to try to talk Bill out of marrying Hillary, for the sake of the feminist cause. "I told him it was always going to be a struggle for her to carve her own political direction," Ms. Wright said. Ms. Wright had previously worked on individual women's campaigns. Yet it was Mrs. Clinton who suggested that Ms. Wright move to Washington to spread her expertise, by joining Ms. Piercy and Ms. Griffith to work for what would become known as the National Women's Education Fund, an unofficial training arm of the National Women's Political Caucus, with no formal affiliation. "Hillary was saying they really did need to get somebody who understood local races," Ms. Wright said. "And she strongly urged me to go." It was not an easy sell: Mrs. Clinton was asking Ms. Wright, a Texan, to move to Washington for a job that did not yet have the funding to support it. But persuaded by Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Wright ultimately accepted the position of executive director, backed by a national board of women working in politics. Ms. Wright recalled driving around a frigid Midwest in the winter of 1973, "sleeping in bunk beds at Y.W.C.A.s, with the bathroom down the hall," trying to recruit women from local churches, gardening clubs and political caucuses for seminars and training sessions that Ms. Wright created to teach women how to maneuver within the political process. She also formed a powerful partnership with Ruth Mandel, who had recently created the pioneering Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. It was not just that they needed to train women, Ms. Mandel said; they needed to "help women overcome their own resistance to gaining political power in their own right." Ms. Wright knew that revolutions start with pragmatics: She created a training manual that the Education Fund and the Political Caucus relied on heavily for years, a guidebook that broke down the logistics of opinion polling, reaching the news media and recruiting a staff. The training sessions offered advice on every aspect of campaigning, including details specific to women. "We told them, 'Put your name tag high up on your right lapel, so people could see your name without staring at your chest,'" said Ms. Griffith, who was associate director under Ms. Wright. They also told women, Ms. Wright remembered, "Never to say anything in a ladies' bathroom you don't want to see in a newspaper." Vivian Houghton, now a 74 year old Democratic political activist in Delaware, attended a training session in the mid '70s that gave her the confidence, she said, to run several women's campaigns at the state and local level. Eventually, in 2005, she ran for attorney general of Delaware, for the Green party. "From that training, we carried out a message that women were just as competent or even more competent than men to run for office," Ms. Houghton said. "And it gave us the instructions on how to do it, because we were at that point completely uneducated about it." Judith Lichtman, a senior adviser to the National Partnership for Women and Families, recalled that in 1974, "the N.W.E.F. was already an important presence on the scene." She credited Ms. Wright for that: "She turned the glimmer of an idea into an institution that catapulted untold numbers of women into public life." But she credits Mrs. Clinton with pairing the right political powerhouse with the right cause. "She had a light bulb moment," Ms. Lichtman said. "That was pretty early for that light bulb not a lot of people were thinking about women in politics." Ms. Wright's political talents were such that she became the chief of staff for Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas. "In the Capitol, you had to go through Betsey if you wanted to drink a glass of water," said Sara Ehrman, the Clinton friend who famously drove Hillary Rodham to Arkansas. But the role Ms. Wright played in Mr. Clinton's 1992 presidential primary has largely overshadowed the work for which she was once well recognized within the women's movement. It fell to Ms. Wright, the proud, self described raving feminist, to squelch what she once called, dismissively, the "bimbo eruptions" that threatened to derail Mr. Clinton's candidacy. "It was my job to defend the Arkansas record and Bill Clinton personally," Ms. Wright said. As for the derogatory phase she coined, she said, "That was just a brain freeze, and it's something I'll go to my grave regretting I ever said." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
The printed page has seen better days. To improve their chances in a struggling industry, two of the largest companies in the business of printing and distributing magazines, books and catalogs last year agreed to a merger deal that was expected to close in the next few months. Not so fast, the Justice Department said. In a lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Chicago, the Justice Department asked for a halt to Quad/Graphics's planned 1.4 billion purchase of LSC Communications. Lawyers in the department's antitrust division argued that the merger would decrease competition and drive up prices. Quad publishes every Conde Nast title, including The New Yorker and Vogue, most publications from Hearst Magazines, including O: The Oprah Magazine, and Scholastic books. LSC Communications publishes two magazines from AARP that claim to have the largest circulations in the world, Penguin Random House books and more. Makan Delrahim, the assistant attorney general in charge of antitrust, said in a statement that a combination of Quad and LSC Communications would "raise prices and reduce quality at the expense of publishers, retailers and, ultimately, American consumers." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
On Tuesday evening, a sign was placed in the window of Lost City Arts, a high end vintage design store in Lower Manhattan, saying the shop was closing early. Inside, 30 of the city's top antiques dealers had gathered for a tense, hastily arranged meeting. Other dealers dialed in from Texas and California to hear the proceedings. The topic: the online antiques marketplace 1stdibs and its new approach for enforcing commissions. Jim Elkind, Lost City's owner, addressed his colleagues, who sat amid the kind of 4,000 Italian floor lamps and 2,800 midcentury modern low tables that are routinely sold (or just ogled) on 1stdibs. "This sort of reminds you of that moment in 'The Godfather' when all the heavyweight bosses from the mafia show up to the big party," Mr. Elkind said to laughs. "I think we are a formidable group here." But as the dealers began to voice their concerns and frustrations, it became clear they view themselves not as powerful figures but as little guys being pushed around and financially squeezed by an influential company they have come to rely on. Under its new guidelines, which are to take effect April 4, 1stdibs requires that all sales resulting from what it calls a "1stdibs lead," or interaction generated on the site, be processed through the company, so it can charge a commission of as much as 10 percent. The move effectively closes a loophole whereby dealers could finish a negotiation offline, thus avoiding the fee. The company will also start monitoring and recording conversations that take place over a message center and dedicated phone number where dealers and buyers interact. "The idea of them having a recording of all of our phone calls, it feels Orwellian," said Paul Donzella, owner of Donzella in TriBeCa and a 1stdibs dealer for more than a decade, who attended the meeting. "If I ask the buyer for their phone number, the site's detectors will pick up those keywords and shut the communication down." Some dealers (though not Mr. Donzella) have already experienced such a rebuke from 1stdibs. And they said they are troubled by the way, in their view, 1stdibs is prizing revenue growth over dealer relationships, and increasingly removing the ability for them to work directly with clients or be forthright. For instance, since 2014, dealers have been forbidden to tell buyers that 1stdibs charges transaction fees or refer to "1stdibs fees of any kind." Guy Regal of Newel, a decorative arts store on the Upper East Side, told his colleagues at the meeting that it puts dealers in a difficult spot both financially and ethically. Other dealers present, including Eric Appel and Dobrinka Salzman, said they would most likely have to raise prices or reduce or eliminate the discounts they routinely give to interior designers and architects. Yet they can't tell their clients why. "Do you understand the politics of that?" Mr. Regal said in a phone interview later, explaining that the antiques business is based on relationships. "You don't spend 60,000 on something without seeing it, talking to the dealer and getting a sense of who they are." Indeed, the old school way of selling rarefied objects face to face is clashing with the culture of a tech company focused on growth. Once an exclusive club for a few hundred tastemakers to sell their curated wares, 1stdibs now has more than 2,000 dealers. For all the complaints about 1stdibs and talk among the dealers about staging a walkout, many acknowledged its crucial importance to their business, as well as the site's ability to expose their goods to a global clientele. Founded in 2001, 1stdibs basically pushed the antiques business into the 21st century, allowing dealers to rely less on costly brick and mortar stores and reduce the amount of time and money they spend on marketing. In recent years, the company has aggressively ramped up its staff and marketing in its ambition to become a major global brand such as Christie's or Sotheby's. David Rosenblatt, the chief executive of 1stdibs, defended the new policy as necessary for the company's continued growth, saying that when he was hired five years ago, the site began transitioning from a place for dealers to advertise their goods to an e commerce platform. The improved site, he said, has resulted in favorably negotiated deals with shippers, programs like fraud protection for dealers and online sales of 150 million so far. "Like any company, we need to see a return on our marketing investment," Mr. Rosenblatt said, explaining the reason for the dealer commission, which was introduced three years ago but difficult to enforce. (The site also generally charges dealers a fixed monthly fee and per item listing fees that are credited back to them if the item sells through 1stdibs.) Mr. Rosenblatt added that the new monitoring system was needed to prevent dealers from steering buyers offline to avoid paying a commission. Those dealers, he said, "reduce our ability to market on their behalf. We wake up every morning thinking about how to grow their business." While some dealers feel the fees are excessive ("They're triple and quadruple dipping," one exasperated dealer said at the Lost City meeting), others say the potential for profit and prestige is worth the cost. "If you are providing me with a top notch clientele all over the world, I am not going to be questioning the fees," said Jimmy Lam, owner of Antique Textiles Galleries in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "I am selling double or triple what I was selling three years ago," before joining 1stdibs. Mr. Rosenblatt said the customers will ultimately decide and they are choosing to shop online. "If the dealers are not comfortable," he said, "they have the ability to move their business elsewhere." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
MELBOURNE, Australia After a fraught lead up to the Australian Open, with concerns about the tournament's ability to handle Melbourne's worsened air quality because of nearby bushfires, the first four days of play offered clear air and straightforward matches that let the top women breathe easy. For the first time at a Grand Slam since Wimbledon 2009, the top 10 seeds in women's singles all reached the third round, a surprising success given the tumult atop the women's game in recent years. And they did so with little turbulence, dropping only one set between them. That stability quickly crumbled. Six of the top 10 seeds lost third round matches on Friday and Saturday, including several leading contenders. Nearly all lost against opponents they would have been expected to easily dismiss, and several with lopsided scorelines, clearing paths for several new and resurgent faces to contend for the first Grand Slam title of the decade. The first leading contender to fall on Friday was the betting favorite, Serena Williams, the eighth seed. Williams lost 6 4, 6 7(2), 7 5 to Wang Qiang, whom she had thumped 6 1, 6 0 four months ago at the United States Open. No. 3 Naomi Osaka lost 6 3, 6 4 to 15 year old Coco Gauff, who she similarly had handled 6 3, 6 0 last year in New York. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
In fashion there are "mom jeans." So, too, there is a counterpart in beauty: "mom hair." You've likely seen it at suburban malls: the longer in back, slightly shorter in front bob that should read sleek but is inescapably frumpy. And even the city dwelling mom isn't immune. Perhaps she has added her own twists like blunt bangs or extra layering, but the 'do still falls short of flattering. "I see it all the time," said Juan Carlos Maciques, a stylist at the Rita Hazan salon in Manhattan. "The first thing new moms want to do is cut their hair off. They're feeling lousy about their bodies, and they just want to get some sense of self again. But, usually, to cut off your hair is a big mistake." It isn't simply want of a new look that spurs many new mothers to the salon. Rather, they are experiencing real physical changes that can be terrifying. Often the mom bob starts as a convenient solution to hair loss after pregnancy. "Anywhere from four to six months postpartum, women can start to experience shedding," said Francesca Fusco, a dermatologist in Manhattan, adding that it's because of a change in hormone levels. "It can be really scary because it may feel like it'll never stop. But for the most part, the situation will correct itself. You just have to stick with it." Indeed, Mr. Maciques recommends that new mothers wait about a year before they make any drastic changes. "By then, you'll know what you've got," he said. "It's not just your hair that's changing. Your body is, too. You might not be at the weight you really want to be yet. And the truth is, long hair can be a little bit of a distraction. When you go short, you are more exposed. There's less, literally, to hide behind." That's partly why Katie Hintz Zambrano, a co founder of the website mothermag.com based in San Francisco, maintained her long locks. Despite a hairline that receded for an entire year after giving birth ("I looked like a vampire," she said), she steered clear of the salon. "For me, it was also about maintaining my identity," she said, adding that she has always had long hair and felt most comfortable with that style. Ms. Hintz Zambrano did pick up a few styling tricks to cope with those more difficult hair months. Through fellow mom friends, she learned the benefits of dry shampoo. "It offers a little bit of plumping," she said. (Mr. Maciques recommends Alterna Bamboo mousse as a volume enhancing alternative.) When fine new growth started to sprout, Ms. Hintz Zambrano used a Bumble and bumble cream to tame the "stick ups, so I wouldn't look totally crazy." There is also the Kate Middleton path: Keep the overall length but cut bangs to help camouflage fuzzy hairline regrowth. (The Duchess of Cambridge debuted a flop of long bangs after Princess Charlotte turned four months old.) Dr. Fusco also encourages good nutrition, plenty of protein and a hair nail skin vitamin during the regrowth process. Otherwise, "stick to your usual routine," she said. "You may not want to shampoo as much because you're seeing so much hair in the drain, but it's going to come out anyway." Regardless of the method, Mr. Maciques stressed that strategies can be plotted well ahead. Here's when a stylist or colorist who knows your hair well can help you through the speed bumps. Moreover, not all mom bobs deserve a bad rap. The above the shoulder cut can be a chic solution for certain hair types. Svenja Parotat, a jewelry designer and former model in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, experienced only mild shedding, but after giving birth to her now 2 year old son, she was bored of her long pin straight hair. "I didn't know what to do with it, and it kept falling in my face," she said. "And I wasn't getting a lot of sleep, and the long hair was making me look more drained because it was pulling my face down." She graduated to a lob before finally going for a blunt bob that just scraped her earlobes. "I felt fresher, and it would literally take me only 10 minutes to blow dry," Ms. Parotat said. Kenna, the founder of the Kennaland salon in Greenpoint, said that for Brooklyn moms it's not so much about rejecting the bob as it is about changing the details. (Ms. Parotat's crisp, shorter style had clean lines, which read modern rather than mumsy.) "There's quite a lot you can do with the jaw length bob," he said. "We're encouraging moms to embrace their natural texture and get that wild, youthful feeling back again." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Here are some of the top business stories to pay attention to in the coming week. MORE TURBULENCE POSSIBLE After a testing start to the year, global markets face the prospect of more turbulence this week. Investors will weigh any statements or moves by Greece's new government, which vehemently opposes the terms of the country's bailout. The stock market will also be examining fourth quarter earnings releases from corporate giants including General Motors and Exxon Mobil. In this nervous environment, investors will also sift United States economic releases, including the jobs numbers on Friday, for any signs that the economy is slowing. Peter Eavis JOBS FIGURES ARE DUE The big kahuna of monthly economic data will come out Friday, when the Labor Department reports the latest figures for hiring and unemployment in January. Payrolls surged in the final quarter of 2014, with employers adding an average of 289,000 workers a month, significantly more than the 246,000 monthly rate for the entire year. The consensus expectation on Wall Street is that payrolls jumped by 235,000 last month, but some optimists are looking for a considerably larger number if the momentum carried over into 2015. The unemployment rate is expected to fall by 0.1 percentage point to 5.5 percent, but just as significant for economists and traders will be the change in average hourly earnings. Most workers have had very slight wage growth since the recovery began in 2009, despite the falling unemployment rate, and the Federal Reserve is keeping a close tab on whether wages are finally rising. In December, wages actually fell slightly, but economists are looking for a slight increase in average hourly earnings this time around. Nelson D. Schwartz TWITTER EARNINGS Twitter, the popular short form message service, will report fourth quarter earnings on Thursday. Investors will pay close attention to the company's user growth numbers, which have paled in comparison to rival networks like Facebook and Instagram, and have not lived up to analysts' expectations over 2014. And after a year of dismissing important executives who have failed to attract newcomers to the service, Dick Costolo, the company's chief executive, is likely to stave off questions from analysts as to whether he is the right person to lead the company. Mike Isaac AUTOMAKER RESULTS Two domestic automakers, General Motors and the American division of Fiat Chrysler, will report fourth quarter earnings that should benefit from strong sales of new vehicles in the United States. Fiat Chrysler, which announces results for its United States unit on Tuesday, is the hottest carmaker in the market and earning big profits from its Ram pickups and Jeep sport utility vehicles. 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. G.M., which reports earnings on Wednesday, will cap a tumultuous 2014, in which it spent heavily to recall about 30 million cars and trucks in the United States and compensate victims of a defective ignition switch that set off the biggest safety crisis in the automaker's history. Bill Vlasic BP AND EXXON MOBIL RESULTS Exxon Mobil and BP are the next two major oil companies to report in an earnings season that has been unusually painful because of the collapse of oil and natural gas prices in recent months. Exxon Mobil, which reports on Monday, is expected to still eke out a profit mainly because its refinery and chemical businesses are likely to show strength. The earnings report for BP on Tuesday is particularly important because the company still faces legal challenges related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill in the Gulf of Mexico and risks for its Russian business because of Western sanctions. Clifford Krauss OPEN INTERNET RULES A step toward open Internet, or net neutrality, rules will be made this week. Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, must present his proposal to the other commissioners by Thursday. Mr. Wheeler has already suggested that he favors regulating Internet service like a public utility. But the details of how will be crucial. His proposal will be grist for further debate and lobbying. The commission is scheduled to vote on Feb. 26. Steve Lohr AUTO SALES NUMBERS After a blockbuster year for auto sales, the industry will announce its first monthly numbers of 2015 on Tuesday. Analysts predict that it could be a strong start, with many companies expected to post double digit increases over January 2014. Automakers recently gathered for the annual Super Bowl of cars, the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, where lavish displays and muscular vehicles had many in the industry feeling the wind at their backs, especially with gas prices lower than in recent memory. Aaron M. Kessler INDIA BANK REVIEW The Reserve Bank of India releases the result of its next monetary policy review on Tuesday. Governor Raghuram Rajan had been expected to begin cutting rates next Tuesday but made a quarter point reduction on Jan. 15, between formal policy reviews, and hinted then at further rate cuts. Economists are uncertain if he will act again on Tuesday or wait until after the government unveils its next budget on Feb. 28. Keith Bradsher BANCO SANTANDER EARNINGS Banco Santander will report its fourth quarter results on Tuesday as Ana Patricia Botin continues to put her stamp on the Spanish lender, which her father ran for three decades until his death in September. In November, Ms. Botin replaced the bank's chief executive and reshaped its board of directors. Last month, the bank raised its capital by 7.5 billion euros, or 8.5 billion, and cut its dividend sharply to ease investor concerns about the strength of its balance sheet. Santander, one of Europe's largest banks, has benefited in recent quarters from an improving Spanish economy and a decline in provisions for delinquent and defaulted loans. Chad Bray LVMH RESULTS LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world's largest luxury goods group, will report its financial results for 2014 on Tuesday. As demand for high end leather handbags, watches and jewels has slowed with the cooling economies of China and Russia, analysts will be interested to hear what executives are expecting for 2015. Led by its new head of women's wear, Nicolas Ghesquiere, the group has spent the last year revamping the image of Louis Vuitton, its most valuable and recognizable brand, which accounts for about a third of its sales and almost half of its profits. The company may also indicate its plans for the 2.8 billion euros in proceeds that it booked in December from the distribution of its 23 percent stake in Hermes, a rival French luxury house, to the group's shareholders. Nicola Clark SONY PICTURES EARNINGS With many of Sony Pictures' computer applications still down after November's crippling hacking attack, the company will be trying to return to normal with a Wednesday earnings call. It probably will not have final results for the quarter that ended in December 2014 because of continuing efforts to repair its networks. Still, many will be waiting to learn what impact the cyberattack had on Sony. Perhaps just as important, it may be revealed what the next step is for Sony's beleaguered mobile unit, which recent reports said could shave an additional 1,000 jobs soon. Paul Mozur | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
What books are on your nightstand? My nightstand is crowded. It holds books I've recently read, partially read, am waiting to read, and occasionally consult: "The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr," Ken Gormley's exhaustive study of the controversial and historic Whitewater and Lewinsky investigation by special counsel Kenneth W. Starr; "The Line of Fire," a memoir by Adm. William J. Crowe Jr. (written with David Chanoff), the underappreciated chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Reagan, who took bold and secret steps to avoid accidental war with the Soviet Union; "Alfred Kazin's Journals," by the postwar intellectual and great literary critic, edited by Richard M. Cook; "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar," the biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore that holds little back about Soviet brutality; "Traps," MacKenzie Bezos' novel on the struggles of four modern women; "Genius," short essays by Harold Bloom on 100 creative writers from Tolstoy to Henry James; the galleys of Steve Luxenberg's forthcoming book "Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America's Journey From Slavery to Segregation," to be published in February; "Once an Eagle," Anton Myrer's massive 1968 novel of 20th century war; "All the King's Men," Robert Penn Warren's epic 1946 novel about a cynical populist Southern governor in the 1930s narrated by a former reporter (my first read in college helped draw me to journalism); "Crossing to Safety," Wallace Stegner's 1987 novel showing the lasting power of long term friendships between two couples in academia; "Cutting for Stone," Abraham Verghese's 2009 novel on empathy as a necessary force in the practice of medicine and life; and, lastly and valuably, "Muscle Pain Relief in 90 Seconds," by Dr. Dale L. Anderson. What's the last great book you read (or reread)? This summer I reread "Night of Camp David," the 1965 novel by Fletcher Knebel (co author of "Seven Days in May"). A United States president is thought to be mentally unbalanced; the book ends with some compelling twists. "The Other Woman," by Daniel Silva. A classic international spy mole hunt cerebral and muscular. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
There are CBD massage parlors, CBD bakeries and even CBD cafes. So it was only matter of time before a bar would join this bandwagon. Adriaen Block, which opened in August, bills itself as the first CBD restaurant and bar in New York City, with four lower alcohol cocktails infused with cannabidiol derived from hemp. Zsolt Csonka, 41, who owns the bar, said he wanted to create a more good humored joint, without the usual "cursing and screaming" of drunk patrons. "People feel just wonderful, chilled, relaxed, calm, mellow," Mr. Csonka said, regarding the effects of CBD on his patrons. "Then, everyone is able to get up and walk home in a decent manner." Close to Astoria Park, it straddles the quiet, almost suburban corner of 21st Street and Ditmars Boulevard on a stretch that's less commercial and bustling than the blocks near the subway station. Outside, there is a mural of the Hell Gate bridge with the bar's namesake, a 1614 Dutch explorer who discovered the area. Inside, the neutral decor is dominated by large windows and a colorful projection of blooming flowers against exposed brick. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
"We're always looking for a good story to tell that becomes better if you put an audience in the middle of it," says Alexander Wright, who adapted "The Wolf of Wall Street." In This 'Wolf of Wall Street,' You're Part of the Debauchery LONDON The office buildings around Liverpool Street in Shoreditch here are generally known for housing investment bankers and financial professionals. Over the last few months, a new occupant in the neighborhood has been racking up trades, though some are most certainly illegal. That would be Jordan Belfort, the disgraced 1990s stockbroker canonized by Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2013 film "The Wolf of Wall Street," Martin Scorsese's biggest international box office success to date. A hotel in the middle of construction on Sun Street serves as the home for an immersive stage production of "The Wolf of Wall Street," opening soon after a rocky period of previews . Scheduled to run through January, it is not adapted from Scorsese's film, but rather from three of Belfort's books, including his first memoir and a follow up self help volume, which capitalized on the success of the film. (Now 57, he works as a motivational speaker and sales instructor. ) The theater piece, which spans four floors and 25 rooms, is the creation of Alexander Wright, a 31 year old writer and director. He is perhaps best known for a long running London production of "The Great Gatsby," staged as if a party at Jay Gatsby's mansion. Originally presented in a pub in Wright's hometown, York, in 2015, "Gatsby" has since held over a thousand performances around the world. In mid October, it moved to Immersive LDN, a new West End space devoted solely to choose your own adventure work. Wright started to make immersive theater with friends at the University of York, "because we were bored of sitting in the dark with people, and we were 19 and didn't know any better." Now immersive theater is fashionable and popular in Britain. "Mamma Mia! The Party," a kind of "Tony n' Tina's Wedding" set on a Greek island to an Abba soundtrack, opened this fall at the O2, an entertainment complex in Southeast London. "We're always looking for a good story to tell that becomes better if you put an audience in the middle of it," Wright said. "And to do this in the banking district is really exciting." "I was stunned by how abhorrent and honest it was," said Hook. He saw it in the continuum of traditional theater pieces about the temptations and pitfalls of economics, business and greed, including David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross," Lucy Prebble's "Enron" (a hit in London that had a brief Broadway run), and more recently, "The Lehman Trilogy," which will return to New York next spring. "I could see this world in front of me and I could see how our form could be really important to telling and exploring those stories," said Hook. Wright, Hook and Hook's producing partner, Louis Harshorn, met with Belfort in 2017. He suggested they adapt "Wolf" into a stage musical. (Despite several requests, Belfort declined an interview.) But the trio explained that they felt an immersive dip into his universe was a better way in. "He really got it, and we kind of did the deal there and then," recalled Hook. Then Wright had to figure out how to stage it. An impish figure in a black bowler hat and red sneakers, Wright once developed a site specific "Romeo and Juliet" that unfolded over 36 hours at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. With this new project, he said he began by "storyboarding the dominant narratives." There was Belfort's story; the story of how the F.B.I. caught him; and many smaller moments in between. "After that, you start to join the dots," he explained. During an early rehearsal, a huge wall of the green room in the hotel turned theater was devoted to color coded note cards featuring the main movable "beats" in the show. Though Wright's "Wolf of Wall Street" tells Belfort's narrative chronologically in just over two hours, it actually encompasses 30 hours of content in total, staged vertically and horizontally over the various rooms and floors of the space. The script, Wright said, runs 700 pages. Tickets start at 60 pounds (about 77) and a s many as 300 guests a night enter as first day employees at Stratton Oakmont, Belfort's former firm. "They're new fish," said Wright. After that, "there's no set journey. It's about who you make pals with and who you follow," he explained. With one actor for every 16 audience members, "most everyone is guaranteed an individual narrative." Construction delays and cast illness led to more than a few hiccups, with performances postponed several times. An official press night for critics is now planned for later this week; early internet reports have been mixed. "Was ripping us off the ultimate immersion?" wrote one attendee, while another maintained, "I had the time of my life." Wright said that Brexit and Britain's uncertain economic future make Belfort's story especially resonant. Putting the audience in the middle of it forces them to be complicit in the character's "ruthless and reckless decisions" and asks them to confront their own feelings about money in 2019, he explained. "You kind of have to remind yourself of the scale of this fraud and the people it has affected," added Hook, who hopes to bring this "Wolf of Wall Street" to New York. "It's a gorgeous story to tell, but it's not a gorgeous story," he said. "It's a love story with money where the money doesn't reciprocate." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
Kemp Powers had no film credits in 2018, when he was summoned to Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif., to give notes on a secret work in progress. During the flight from Los Angeles, the playwright and former journalist reviewed 40 minutes of rough storyboard footage sent by Pete Docter, the Oscar winning director of "Up" and "Inside Out." "It was very cloak and dagger," Powers said, adding, "You sign a whole ton of N.D.A.s." Three years into the making of "Soul," the movie's lead character, Joe Gardner, had evolved from a white actor to a Black jazz pianist who with his life hanging in the balance discovers his reason for living. Docter and the screenwriter Mike Jones are white, and they needed help: The first Black protagonist in the studio's 34 year animation history had to feel specific and authentic. Powers eventually left Emeryville as the only Black co writer and co director of a Pixar film to date. Meanwhile, "One Night in Miami," using a script he wrote based on his own play, was charging into production, with Regina King making her feature directing debut. Now both films are opening on Dec. 25 "Soul" on Disney , "Miami" in theaters before streaming next month as an Amazon original and both are awards contenders. But Powers's collaborators are still learning just how much of himself he put into the movies. "Some of my idiot friends have been jokingly calling it Kemp mas," said Powers, 47, wearing a mask in his new backyard in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. Later that week, he would meet a writing deadline for Barack and Michelle Obama's Higher Ground Productions and Netflix, then resume meetings about a film he's directing for the "Lego Movie" team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. AT THE CENTER of "Soul" and "Miami" are men reborn once they stop hiding parts of themselves from the world. During his 17 year media career, Powers distanced himself from his harrowing past by telling other people's stories. Then he distanced himself from colleagues ridiculing the creative writing that occupied his nights and weekends. To find his voice, Powers had to cover his ears. Sharing a name with his grandfather and great grandfather, Kemp Willis Powers was born the fourth of five children, and the eldest son, growing up in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Coney Island, Kensington and Flatbush. When he was 4, his parents separated and the kids stayed with their mother, Evelyn, a full time retirement home nurse and a captain in the Army Reserves. His father, James, drove a chartered bus for tourists and aging rock stars. (He died of lung cancer in 2003.) The much older sisters started enough trouble that one summer a Molotov cocktail exploded on the family's doorstep. Still, Powers, who dreamed of growing up to be a firefighter and worked on a "Soul" shot recalling that dream, treasures the borough of his youth: Chinese handball games before school, kung fu movies at the drive in. He might have remained a lifelong Brooklynite if not for a tragic accident on April 14, 1988. Against his mother's wishes, Powers brought two friends home from school while she was at work. In his bedroom, he showed the boys Powers calls them Chris and Henry a .38 caliber revolver she kept in an armoire. As a joke, Powers mimed inserting a bullet and aimed at Henry, firing off an actual shot. Powers ran to a neighbor for help, but the man refused, and it was too late. Both Henry and Powers were just 14. Henry's grieving parents declined to press charges, and a judge sentenced Powers to a year of counseling. He became obsessed with honoring Henry's memory by achieving enormous success. On his 16th birthday, his criminal record was erased. Powers finished high school in Virginia, attended Howard University and worked jobs without mentioning Henry to his peers. During college, he helped create the short lived publisher Flatline Comics. The first comic he wrote, "Flatbush Native," starred a superhero who could activate his powers only by ending a life. In 2000, a comment by the city's mayor at the time, Rudolph W. Giuliani, motivated Powers to write about Henry. A police detective, Anthony Vasquez, had recently killed a 26 year old father, Patrick M. Dorismond, outside a bar on the West Side. Dorismond's arrest for robbery at age 13 prompted Giuliani to say the victim was "no altar boy," even though Dorismond had been an altar boy. He became another dead Black man with a record, Powers wrote in his 2004 book, "The Shooting: A Memoir." "I could one day unwittingly find myself on the receiving end of some misunderstood person's knife, bullet, or worse. If that happened, would the people having those post mortem conversations describe me only as a juvenile felon?" After publication of "The Shooting," Powers began researching a second book based on a historical tidbit: Immediately after winning his first world heavyweight championship in 1964, Cassius Clay spent the evening secluded in a hotel room with Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown. Each titan found himself at a major crossroads: Malcolm X was preparing to leave the Nation of Islam, Brown was readying to depart the National Football League, while Cooke and Clay were primed to emerge as public activists. As Powers fantasized about eavesdropping on their conversation, he realized he could do just that with a play. "One Night in Miami" has been staged on three continents, garnering prizes and an Olivier Award nomination. Powers's agent sent the text to Pixar, along with a script he had since written for "Star Trek: Discovery." At the same time, two companies, ABKCO Films and Snoot Entertainment, partnered to produce an adaptation and Powers wrote the screenplay, encouraging producers to seek out a new or first time director. King had been accumulating television directing credits ("Scandal," "This Is Us") when she read the script. When it comes to representation in cinema, "we don't get the opportunity to see our men, Black men, shown the way we see them so often in our family members and friends," King said by Zoom, adding, "Like every other human being, they're layered. They are vulnerable, they are strong, they are providers, they are sometimes putting on a mask. They are not unbreakable. They are flawed. They are beautiful. And just Kemp captured all of that in, you know, less than 110 pages." She started video conferencing with Powers while she shot "Watchmen" in Georgia. "I told him that I felt like you've written a love letter to Black men." Powers braced for King to lose interest after her Oscar triumph for "If Beale Street Could Talk." That didn't happen. "Talk about salt of the earth," he said. "She could have done, God knows, anything." (King ultimately made history with "Miami," becoming the first Black woman to direct a Venice Film Festival selection.) When a character designer asked Powers about hairstyles for the female employees at a tailor shop, "I pulled up a picture of my mother wearing a bob wig," Powers said. When he saw the scene later, "I was like, 'Oh, my God, you made that character look like my mom.'" "He's got a razor sharp mind for specifics of actors and directors and roles," Docter said, noting that Kemp recommended hiring the "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" actress Rachel House, "The IT Crowd" star Richard Ayoade and the Roots bandleader Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson to provide voices for the film. "He's also a guy who's not just going to talk to hear himself talk," Docter added, explaining that the writer saves his feedback "to really pack a punch." Powers spoke up early when Docter said "Soul" was not about the Black experience but about issues of mortality. The director's concerns were centered on potentially upsetting people from religious backgrounds, Powers explained. "I was like, 'I don't think you have to worry about the religion, it's race,'" Powers recalled. "The wonderful thing is, you know, they listen." Docter said he wanted to focus the movie's narrative on a man in his mid 40s because that's a time when the feeling you can't change careers sets in, and you're "stuck for the rest of your life." Powers had similar anxieties upon entering his fifth decade. Despite a reporting career that included stops at Newsweek and Reuters, Powers's last journalism position was thankless and mostly invisible front page senior news producer at Yahoo. After his dismissal, he did contract work for AOL, fulfilling the same responsibilities without the benefit of health insurance. All along, "Miami" the play was progressing, and its first Equity production was scheduled in Baltimore. But Powers found himself in the hospital, "fighting for my life" after having an allergic reaction to Tamiflu. He learned that he had rhabdomyolysis, a deadly syndrome that causes muscle tissue to disintegrate, filling the bloodstream with harmful protein that can cause organ failure. "I had a very terrifying week when I was prepping to write notes to my kids, who didn't know that I was ill because I didn't want to tell them," he recalled. Instead of celebrating the play, in January 2015, Powers's mother and siblings kept a bedside vigil. Not long before, his eldest sister, Sheila, had collapsed and died from an untreated ulcer. To lose another family member so soon would be shattering. Powers remembered calling AOL to explain "I'm in the hospital. I can't work today,'" and the company responding that it would find someone to cover his absence, adding, "just let us know when you're done." As Powers tells it, he thought at that moment, "I would not be missed." All his hard work, his years as a loyal journalist "and no one would miss a beat, no one would even know." Powers decided to tell the stories he wanted to tell as a full time artist. Soon his observations as a Black man, a father of two and a survivor of a traumatic childhood will usher complex Black characters into millions of homes. And his home corresponds with that of a mover and shaker a stone fireplace gazing up at beamed ceilings, a kitchen blue screen for video interviews, a magnificent vista of a canyon and hiking trail. In Pittsburgh, the City Theater just announced the Kemp Powers Commission Fund for Black Playwrights. As an entry in the Pixar canon, "Soul" will probably be watched for years to come. He's found a level of success befitting Henry's memory, yet he winces when his friend is mentioned. "I collapsed under the pressure of that," he said, explaining, "I was killing myself. Quite literally killing myself, emotionally and physically. And I failed. And the me that emerged from that failure I'm still a tightly wound, determined guy but I kind of emerged from it fearless." He came to a realization: "I know that my life and my opinion have merit now." Then he goes inside his beautiful home and takes off his mask. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
The richest man on earth accused the nation's leading supermarket tabloid publisher of "extortion and blackmail" on Thursday, laying out a theory that brought together international intrigue, White House politics, nude photos and amorous text messages. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and the owner of The Washington Post, made his accusations against American Media Inc., the company behind The National Enquirer, in a lengthy post on the online platform Medium. Last month, The Enquirer published an expose of Mr. Bezos' extramarital affair with Lauren Sanchez, a former host of the Fox show "So You Think You Can Dance." The headline of Mr. Bezos' post "No thank you, Mr. Pecker" targeted David J. Pecker, the head of the tabloid company. In the sometimes digressive text that followed, he accused American Media of threatening to publish graphic photographs of Mr. Bezos, including a "below the belt selfie," if he did not publicly affirm that The Enquirer's reporting on his affair was not motivated by political concerns. "Well, that got my attention," Mr. Bezos wrote of the threat. "But not in the way they likely hoped." The inciting event in this battle of American titans was the Jan. 28 edition of The Enquirer, which hit supermarket racks on Jan. 10, one day after Mr. Bezos and his wife of 25 years, MacKenzie, announced that they would be getting a divorce. The tabloid devoted 11 pages to the story of Mr. Bezos' affair with Ms. Sanchez, calling it "the biggest investigation in Enquirer history!" Who Is MacKenzie Bezos? Her divorce has made the novelist, and her private life, a public fascination. The Enquirer boasted that it had tracked the couple "across five states and 40,000 miles," furtively observing them as they boarded private jets, rode in limousines and repaired to "five star hotel hideaways." The article was illustrated with paparazzi shots of the unwitting couple as they stepped onto a tarmac and arrived together at what the tabloid called "their beachfront love nest in Santa Monica." The tabloid also published amorous text messages that Mr. Bezos had sent to Ms. Sanchez. "I am crazy about you," he wrote, according to The Enquirer. "All of you." Tech executives are not the usual subjects of Enquirer covers, and the story set off speculation in Washington and New York media circles that the tabloid's aggressive coverage of Mr. Bezos was tied to the closeness of Mr. Pecker, The Enquirer's chief, and the White House. That alliance came fully to light last year in the legal drama involving hush payments to women alleging affairs with Mr. Trump. Our media columnist examined the unlikely power of The National Enquirer in December. Mr. Trump and Mr. Pecker were longtime friends but the relationship between the two was said to be frayed in recent months, when American Media's leadership entered into a deal with federal prosecutors looking into the company's role in the hush payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign. Mr. Pecker and his associates had helped orchestrate the deals involving two women who alleged past affairs with Mr. Trump in "catch and kill" deals: the former Playboy model Karen McDougal and the porn star Stormy Daniels. After The Enquirer made his private life public, giving Twitter wags and late night hosts the chance to weigh in on his high flown texting style, Mr. Bezos sprang into action, starting his own investigation of the tabloid's motives and how it had come to possess his texts to Ms. Sanchez. The Amazon founder, who at last count was worth 136 billion, suggested that he would spare no expense in taking the fight to the tabloid publisher. Leading the investigation was Gavin de Becker, Mr. Bezos' longtime security chief, whom Mr. Bezos said he had instructed "to proceed with whatever budget he needed to pursue the facts in this matter." It was a bold move for someone who has often tried to evade the spotlight, even amid the frequent insults hurled his way by Mr. Trump, who has labeled the newspaper that Mr. Bezos purchased in 2013 as "The Amazon Post" and recently called him "Jeff Bozo" in a tweet. Mr. de Becker has advised celebrities on threats for decades. Mr. de Becker confirmed to The Daily Beast on Jan. 31 that he was leading the investigation into the matter of how the Enquirer had obtained the text messages. Not long afterward, The Post prepared an article exploring competing theories about the motivation behind the publication of the tawdry tale. American Media made the next move, offering Mr. Bezos an offer that it wrongly assumed he could not refuse. And if he did say no? A future issue of The Enquirer would make him very unhappy, with the selfies and more of the steamy texts it had apparently obtained. "Of course I don't want personal photos published, but I also won't participate in their well known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks and corruption," Mr. Bezos wrote. "I prefer to stand up, roll this log over and see what crawls out." On Friday morning, the company said in a statement that although it stood by its actions, for now, its board was starting an investigation into the matter. "American Media believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr. Bezos," the statement said. "Nonetheless, in light of the nature of the allegations published by Mr. Bezos, the Board has convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims. Upon completion of that investigation, the Board will take whatever appropriate action is necessary." The statement was certain to intensify speculation around the future of Mr. Pecker and his top news executive, Dylan Howard. But American Media is privately held, and its board has been steadfast in its loyalty to Mr. Pecker through the most tumultuous year of his tenure with the company. The board made no statements and took no action to investigate American Media's role in acting as an arm of Mr. Trump's campaign, even after the company signed a non prosecution agreement with the authorities. The board consists of two partners from Chatham Asset Management, a financial backer of the company, and David R. Hughes, the former chief financial officer of Trump Entertainment Resorts. By using Medium to reveal The Enquirer's backstage maneuvers, Mr. Bezos one of the world's most powerful tech titans and the owner of one of the country's most influential newspapers showed the best means of communications can be a simple blog post. Sometimes rambling while also showing the occasional flair of tabloid columnists of yore the Bezos post pulled together random strands of the yearlong legal drama involving the president, American Media and the allegedly illegal payments to women. That federal inquiry resulted in a guilty plea from Mr. Trump's former attorney and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, who said he had paid Ms. Daniels 130,000 and asked American Media to pay Ms. McDougal 150,000 at the president's direction, to protect his election prospects. Federal prosecutors with the Southern District of New York determined that the American Media payment was an illegal corporate contribution. Because the company cooperated with prosecutors, the authorities did not bring charges. But they made American Media sign onto a non prosecution agreement, in which it affirmed that it had made the payment to "influence the election." That agreement, signed in September, stipulated that A.M.I. "shall commit no crimes whatsoever" for three years, and that if it did, "A.M.I. shall thereafter be subject to prosecution for any federal criminal violation of which this office has knowledge." If American Media's threat to publish the personal photos of Mr. Bezos is determined to have been criminal, it would find its deal with federal prosecutors in jeopardy. "One thing we can be certain of is these allegations will be looked at hard by the federal prosecutors," said Jeff Tsai, a former federal prosecutor. "The nature of that non prosecution agreement to not commit any crimes was to give A.M.I. the opportunity to really think hard about the nature of its practices." He added, "You can sometimes get a pass from federal prosecutors; it's much harder to get two passes." The agreement put American Media, Mr. Pecker and Mr. Howard at odds with Mr. Trump, which served to tamp down speculation that the Enquirer had somehow pursued the Bezos story in alliance with the president and his allies. On Feb. 5, though, that possibility surfaced in The Post. Mr. de Becker told the paper that the Enquirer story had begun with a "politically motivated'' leak. Mr. de Becker has served as a protector to Olivia Newton John, Michael J. Fox and friends and family of Ronald Reagan. He declined to comment. American Media appeared to warn Mr. Bezos away from raising any political speculation in an email to Mr. de Becker's attorney, which he shared on Medium. In the letter, which he quoted in full, a lawyer for the company, Jon Fine, demanded that Mr. Bezos state publicly that he had "no knowledge or basis for suggesting that" American Media's "coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces." Mr. Fine has worked as a lawyer at Amazon. In his post Mr. Bezos also appeared to imply that the tabloid company was doing the bidding of Saudi Arabia, quoting from a New York Times report last year: "After Mr. Trump became president, he rewarded Mr. Pecker's loyalty with a White House dinner to which the media executive brought a guest with important ties to the royals in Saudi Arabia. At the time, Mr. Pecker was pursuing business there while also hunting for financing for acquisitions." The Post has been reporting determinedly on intelligence assessments that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the grisly murder of the Saudi dissident and Post global opinion contributor Jamal Khashoggi. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
THE turn of the automotive model year usually brings a host of discontinued cars, and this go round is no exception. As 2011 winds down, some 17 models have gotten the ax, from market weaklings to long running strong sellers. Here are some of the dearly departed: BMW ACTIVEHYBRID X6 Two years after its debut, this slow selling, expensive hybrid ( 89,775) withdraws from the United States market, though overseas sales will continue. WHAT WE LOSE: Another iteration of the clever two mode hybrid system jointly developed by BMW, DaimlerChrysler and General Motors. BUICK LUCERNE As Buick chases younger buyers, this retiree friendly sedan, first offered as a 2006 model, dies for the cause. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
On a November afternoon, seven young students twirled, hopped and lifted their chests to the sky, as Waltz of the Snowflakes from "The Nutcracker" played through their computer speakers. Gathered for a weekly Zoom class, they had arrived at a part of the lesson that one of their teachers, Jenny Seham, called "freestyle snow dancing": a moment to channel, through improvised movement, the wonder of Tchaikovsky's music and the freedom of swirling snow. "You guys really captured the feel for me," Ms. Seham said when they had finished. "The important thing is that you're listening to the music." This year, for the first time, the music school which serves students of all ages with vision loss is offering a five week "Nutcracker" appreciation course to bring to life the holiday classic in a multisensory way. Led by Ms. Seham and Dalia Sakas, the music school's director of music studies, the course provides background in the story, history and cultural context of "The Nutcracker" (presented a bit differently for children, teens and adults). Each student also receives a package of "Nutcracker" artifacts: a pointe shoe, a candy cane, a long stretch of tulle (from which tutus are made), a story synopsis and glossary in large print or Braille, sheet music with sections of Tchaikovsky's score, and, of course, a nutcracker. Perhaps most importantly, the class allows students to imagine the ballet through movement to experience aspects of the work through their own bodies. "They can't sit in the audience and see the snow, but they can be the snow," Ms. Seham said in a phone interview. "For me this class is about being dance." While the course is new territory for the music school a "beta tester" for teaching ballet appreciation, Ms. Sakas said it also builds on existing programs. Founded in 1913 (and formerly part of the larger organization Lighthouse Guild), the school has a history of illuminating visual art through music. Since 1997, it has held an annual concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, pairing pieces from the museum's collection with "music that enhances the spirit of the artwork," Ms. Sakas said. In recent years, students have written poetry that informs the selection of music and art. The "Nutcracker" course extends this idea to dance, opening up a fantastical world that students may know only by name. "Even though they can't see, they're aware that there is a 'Mona Lisa,' they're aware that these paintings exist," Ms. Sakas said, "so why shouldn't they be aware of dance as well?" Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the music school moved its classes online, a shift that has been limiting in some ways but also "allowed us to dream a little bit" and try new things, Ms. Sakas said. Before the pandemic, children and teens from the school met for weekly in person classes with Ms. Seham and volunteer alumni from National Dance Institute, who served as movement partners, guiding and collaborating with the students through physical touch. (The program is one of many facilitated by the dance institute, which was founded by the New York City Ballet star Jacques d'Amboise in 1976 to make dance more widely accessible to children.) "When we were able to meet in person, tactile teaching was a really important element," Ms. Seham said. "Obviously online we can't do that, so we're left with audio description" describing the steps in clear, direct detail "and finding that we can do it, it's just a little bit slower." To acquaint students with the traditional music and story of "The Nutcracker," Ms. Sakas and Ms. Seham have been sharing excerpts from a 1993 video recording of the standard bearer: George Balanchine's 1954 version for New York City Ballet, in which a young girl, Marie, journeys with the Nutcracker Prince to the Kingdom of the Sugarplum Fairy (the Land of Sweets). But Ms. Seham said she also wants students to know about more contemporary takes on the classic with varied characters, settings, music and styles of dance and to envision their own. She has introduced them, for instance, to Donald Byrd's 1996 "Harlem Nutcracker," featuring jazz arrangements of Tchaikovsky by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Students are asked to consider: "What would your 'Nutcracker' be? What would your magical journey be?" she said. "And how would that encompass what's happening now and who you are?" Those questions reflect Ms. Seham's general approach to teaching at the music school, where she often connects dance with themes of social justice. Many of her students, she said, are children of color who confront multiple forms of discrimination in their daily lives. "When we talk about systemic racism and lack of access and lack of inclusion, they're in the middle of it," she said. "And so I want through the arts for them to be able to express themselves and show themselves." For the "Nutcracker" course, Ms. Seham has been teaching some basic ballet steps, while also leaving room for personal interpretation. "How you interpret it, how you feel the rise and fall of it, that's up to you," she told a group of students, ages 12 to 17, referring to the back side side footwork of a pas de bourree, a structured preface to "freestyle snow." "You can't really mess up," she added. In the absence of physical touch as a teaching tool, the items in the "Nutcracker" package offer a different kind of tactile experience. Daniel Gillen, 26, a pianist and longtime student at the music school, said the texture of the tulle surprised him. During the adult class, he danced with the wafting fabric wrapped around his waist. "I didn't think that it would be so porous," he said in a phone interview. "Because all the air gets through, it almost becomes lighter than air." Opening the package, some students encountered a pointe shoe for the first time. (The shoes were collected by Daniel Ulbricht, a New York City Ballet principal, and are signed by members of the company who wore them.) "Honestly, I'd never seen or heard of one," Matthew Herrera, 12, said by phone. "It's cool to see what real professionals wear." Matthew, who is visually impaired and has taken Ms. Seham's classes for six years, said that as a musician who studies piano and voice, improvising is one of his strengths and the same goes for dance. While dancing like snow, he said, he tried to think "about how it moves in the wind." "I feel like everyone, once in a while at least, should kind of just let themselves go, especially through art, dance included," he said. "It's fun to do it. It's a beautiful thing." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
The new Brooklyn home of the Center for Fiction will open in January 2019, the nonprofit organization announced Friday. Construction on its 17,500 square foot space in Downtown Brooklyn began in late April. When it is complete, the three story facility at 15 Lafayette Avenue will include a bookstore, a cafe, a library, classrooms and a 160 seat auditorium. "Brooklyn is home to so many wonderful writers and devoted readers and we are very much looking forward to serving them and all New Yorkers in this beautiful new building," Noreen Tomassi, the center's executive director, said in a statement. The Center for Fiction describes itself as "the only organization in the U.S. solely devoted to the creation and enjoyment of the art of fiction." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
In "Private Domain" the autobiography, not the dance the choreographer Paul Taylor divulges that most of his works begin as a swamp. "The only firm ground seems to be a certain craft that I've learned by trial and error, handy to fall back on a roller to help squish the path dry," he writes. "But craft is never the heart of the matter. No craft, however finely honed, can disguise a passionless base." Just as Mr. Taylor's choreography celebrates the power that emanates from a trained dancer's body the sharp undulation of the torso, the spiral of the back, the grounded pressure of the muscular thighs and articulated feet it also contains an intangible spiritual essence. Watching his dances isn't like taking a vacation from life, it's a reflection of it: the pretty, the ugly and, always, the weird. As the Paul Taylor Dance Company's season continues at the David H. Koch Theater, what stands out is an urgency of ideas tethered to flesh. Mr. Taylor, as he has shown throughout his long career, lets us laugh, but he's not the entertainer he pretends to be. It would probably work his last nerve if audiences loved everything. He's that perverse. Watching the company in two programs on Tuesday and Wednesday is a reminder of how expansive Mr. Taylor's definition of modern dance is; it's as much a physical practice as it is an extension of nature and secret thoughts. In "Private Domain," Mr. Taylor's 1969 dance about voyeurism, the performance is something of a tease. Alex Katz's set, pushed to the front of the stage, features panels with three openings that resemble windows in a high rise. Dancers flash by or linger with strange seductiveness; Michelle Fleet darts across the stage guided by the graceful stretch of an arm, while Eran Bugge, swaying from side to side, is withdrawn, lost in the reverie of her own sensuality. Laura Halzack, more animated, ripples her body as her arms roll in front of her torso. Robert Kleinendorst leans against a panel, his head in profile as his body faces the back of the stage, and his arms dangle somewhere in the vicinity of his crotch. Is he being watched or is he doing the watching? Skin is shown the dancers wear vintage briefs and bikinis by Mr. Katz but it's not the exposed flesh that makes you feel that you should turn away. In this airtight world, with eerie music by Iannis Xenakis, Mr. Taylor choreographs heat. The idea of a voyeur returns in "Fibers," a bewitching, rarely seen work from 1961 featuring a winding, towering tree made of pastel colored piping by Rouben Ter Arutunian. Set to music by Schoenberg, this dance for four is strongly connected to Mr. Taylor's roots as a dancer for Martha Graham in both its mythical set and the movement, which calls on sideways jumps, falls to the floor and walks guided by the toe. He also has some twists of his own. The women are almost entirely in white, including their painted faces. Ms. Roehl is the first to let loose, bending forward and back while feverishly winding her arms. Mr. Novak, shooting across the stage in jumps with his front leg pointed like an arrow or stroking his thighs with clipped efficiency, performs his solo with searing focus and then retreats behind the tree. His mainly white mask blends in with its trunk. This time the voyeur, or spy as Mr. Taylor has been known to refer to himself is in the dance. Strangely, two of Mr. Taylor's comic works, "Troilus and Cressida (reduced)" and "Funny Papers," don't read from the Koch stage. Better suited was the romantic, pastoral "Perpetual Dawn." Here, tenderness makes a link between 2013, when it was choreographed, and 1975, when Mr. Taylor created "Esplanade." In that masterwork, one of sunshine and clouds, the movement vocabulary is constructed from simple pedestrian steps: walking, skipping, running and sliding. In both, Ms. Fleet, one of the company's most natural, fluent dancers, finds herself without a partner. In "Perpetual Dawn," Mr. Novak comes to the rescue, but in the third section of "Esplanade," she dances alone, lapping up the stage in skittering runs that curl around edges as if guided by wind. In a recent interview, Carolyn Adams, a Taylor veteran, shared a story about the role. The company was working in Lake Placid, N.Y., where Ms. Adams spent her free time at the skating rink. "Paul said to me: 'You could hurt yourself. You could get injured. Why do you want to skate?' " she recalled. "I said, 'Because I like moving backwards in circles.' That turned into the 'Esplanade' solo." Throughout his career, Mr. Taylor has been thought of as and, in some circles, condemned for being a traditional choreographer. But Ms. Adams's recollection proves that one of his greatest abilities is how he sees dance in everything. It's too soon to predict what will happen as the Taylor company morphs into Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance, though the question of new choreography is a big one. At a recent news conference, Mr. Taylor said that he would be picking choreographers "that I know and ones that I'll investigate through videos." Are your palms as clammy as mine? The Taylor dancers, above all, need to be challenged with choreography that doesn't merely echo Mr. Taylor's workmanship in reductive ways, but also shows their range and imagination. It's slippery, but as someone wise once said, you can't hide a passionless base. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
Mike Bibby, the former N.B.A. player, is being investigated by the police over accusations of sexual abuse. Mr. Bibby, now a high school basketball coach in Arizona, was accused by a teacher who works at the same school, The Arizona Republic reported. The episode that prompted the accusations was said to have taken place in 2017. The Republic, citing a restraining order granted last week, said that Mr. Bibby had been accused of grabbing the teacher by the waist and pulling her into a car, then groping her and rubbing his genitals on her. After the woman left the car, the order said, he followed her and made sexual remarks. The woman said she did not know Mr. Bibby before the incident. The restraining order quoted the teacher as saying she was "in shock, in fear, intimidated by his actions, afraid of him as he smelled of alcohol." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
When people tell you, "wake up and smell the roses," they might be giving you bad advice. Your sense of smell may fluctuate in sensitivity over the course of 24 hours, in tune with our circadian clocks, with your nose best able to do its job during the hours before you go to sleep, according to a study published last month. The work, reported in the journal Chemical Senses, is part of a larger push to explore whether adolescents' senses of taste and smell influence obesity. Rachel Herz, a sensory researcher at Brown University, and her colleagues designed this study to see if there might be times of day when the sense of smell was more powerful perhaps making food smell particularly inviting. For the experiment, 37 adolescents ranging in age from 12 to 15 came into a lab for a very long sleepover party. For nine days, they followed a strict schedule to allow researchers to focus on the circadian clock, which helps control wake and sleep, but also influences other processes in the body, including metabolism. While more research is needed to test whether the results fully apply to adults, Dr. Herz says that as you grow up, the makeup of the smell receptors inside your nose doesn't seem to change, although there is evidence your body clock may. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Prince was a frequent subject of coverage in his local alt weekly, City Pages. And he didn't hesitate to let a journalist know how he felt about her opinions. When a young music journalist moved to New York in 2006 looking for work, she didn't quite grasp the power of her resume. Noticing that her most recent job was as music editor for the Minneapolis alternative weekly City Pages, the editor interviewing Lindsey Thomas for a position at MTV News playfully dropped a phrase she'd never heard: "So you're part of the Minnesota music critic mafia, huh?" Since the days when Prince vaulted to stardom and the Replacements and Husker Du established the gold standard for raw indie rock, Minneapolis has always punched above its weight, musically. And City Pages, the free weekly that documented those artists, developed an outsized reputation all its own. While it outlasted many of its kin, including the Village Voice, City Pages was shut down suddenly last Wednesday by its current owner, the Minneapolis daily newspaper the Star Tribune, which said challenges brought by the pandemic made the paper "economically unviable." Throughout its four decade run, a disproportionate number of City Pages alumni went on to work at national musical magazines, to publish definitive books of music history and criticism, and to foster a tone that was envied and emulated throughout the industry. Even City Pages' readership proved influential. "It was absolutely essential as a local road map to arts culture," said Ryan Schreiber, the founder of the music website Pitchfork, who grew up in the Twin Cities suburbs. "City Pages led me to weird places where I made weird friends, and it taught us about all the weird art that brought us together. Its 2006 cover story on Pitchfork is the only press that's ever meant enough to me to have framed." Before the web made every publication instantaneously available to every reader, a newspaper assumed its audience was primarily local. But media on the coasts kept tabs on City Pages especially its music section. The rock criticism pioneer Greil Marcus, who published his "Real Life Top 10" column in City Pages from 2003 to 2004, once called it "the best alternative weekly in America." Talented writers from out of town sought to contribute (a young Ta Nehisi Coates unenthusiastically reviewed Ghostface Killah's "Supreme Clientele" in 2000) and even moved across the country to work there. (I relocated to Minneapolis in the late '90s and was the music editor from 2000 to 2001 and again from 2017 until they shut off the lights.) "Reading City Pages was the first time I realized music criticism didn't have to be about, 'Is this album good or bad?'" said the writer Melissa Maerz, who worked there in the early '00s and later was a staffer at Spin and Rolling Stone. "The writing could be kind of experimental, almost novelistic, and it could be funny or high concept." The City Pages story began in 1979, a decade after the births of the music magazines Rolling Stone and Creem, when the publisher Tom Bartel started a music paper called Sweet Potato that was written almost exclusively (and often pseudonymously) by the editor Martin Keller. Rechristened as City Pages, the publication added arts and news coverage, but its main draw remained its music reporting and criticism, including some of the earliest published stories on the Replacements and Husker Du and, of course, Prince, who Keller once offhandedly referred to as "His Royal Badness" in a column, an epithet he was shocked to hear the VJ Mark Goodman use on MTV a short while later. City Pages' local connections gave it an unexpected leg up on its competitors. After Keller wrote a piece about the childhood Bob Dylan friend Larry Kegan in 1983, the grateful Minnesota born rock legend reportedly asked Kegan, "What's a nice thing we could do for Marty?" The answer: a long interview. A music critic, Steve Perry, took over as editor in chief in the late '80s. "All I ever wanted to do was surround myself with smart, interesting people," he said. To handle music and arts coverage, Perry brought in Jim Walsh and Terri Sutton, two writers whose styles focused on their personal reactions to the music they heard, and he gave them free rein. "We were let loose to follow whatever passion we wanted to follow," Sutton said, though Bartel had one request: "He asked if I could just swear less." (She couldn't.) In the early '90s, Sutton wrote the first positive stories on Babes in Toyland, at a time when the all female trio were mostly mocked by the male dominated local scene, and she also both documented and inspired the riot grrrl movement. "Reading Terri Sutton as teenage music fan and burgeoning feminist effectively gave me a path in life," said Jessica Hopper, a writer and book series editor who contributed to the paper over the years. "Because City Pages had a feminist critic, I assumed, mistakenly and blessedly, in those pre internet days, that every town had a feminist rock critic at their paper." Will Hermes, a transplanted New Yorker who helped consolidate City Pages' reputation as a home of great music writing when he became arts editor in 1993, said, "Minneapolis was such a hot music town that you could have almost justified focusing on what was happening locally, but they were ambitious." (As Perry put it, "We thought of music criticism as a community having a bunch of conversations, and even though we were the No. 2 paper in a No. 15 market, we wanted to be part of that conversation.") In the '90s the paper paid attention to alt country bands like the local group the Jayhawks and the frequent Minnesota visitors Wilco before the larger media caught on, and also charted the rise of the independent rap label Rhymesayers, which would have a national impact. The Village Voice was the model for Hermes, now a Rolling Stone and NPR contributor. "But the Voice could veer into critics writing for each other," he said. "You couldn't really get away with that, you had to communicate with a broader readership. My ideal was write something that is supersmart but try to hook somebody who might not even be interested in reading about music." Hermes pointed to a cover feature dedicated to Kurt Cobain after the Nirvana leader's death that collected thoughts and remembrances from Twin Cities musicians who knew Cobain, but also from local fans. "It was basically Facebook before Facebook," he said. Under Hermes, City Pages established a culture of rigorous editing that continued after he left. "The editors had standards," said Jon Dolan, a City Pages music editor in the late '90s who now works at Rolling Stone. "There was no wannabe Lester Bangs going off on crazy rants." Michaelangelo Matos, a regular contributor whose work included vital documentation of the Midwestern electronic music scene, said, "You couldn't get an unnecessary sentence in that paper." There was also always the sense that Minneapolis's most famous artist was looking over your shoulder. Maybe it was just a legend that Prince read everything written about him in town. But you never knew when he might respond to criticism as Maerz found out when, shortly after becoming music editor in 2001, she criticized some of his retrograde statements on gender roles. The 22 year old Maerz was summoned to Paisley Park for an off the record one on one with the incensed star. "We had a pretty heated debate that ended with him storming out of the room," Maerz said. "I was terrified, but also kind of thrilled." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
Seth Meyers Says El Paso Should Put the Boot on Air Force One Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night's highlights that lets you sleep and lets us get paid to watch comedy. If you're interested in hearing from The Times regularly about great TV, sign up for our Watching newsletter and get recommendations straight to your inbox. President Trump went to El Paso on Wednesday to visit survivors and emergency responders after last weekend's shooting there. Late night hosts were quick to point out that he still owes the city more than half a million dollars for security during a campaign rally in February. "Man, going back to El Paso when you owe the city half a million dollars is a bold move. They're going to have to put the boot on Air Force One." SETH MEYERS "Trump owed an initial fee of about 470,000, but the city tacked on a 20,000 one time late fee in June. And of course Donald Trump has incurred a late fee. That's so him. I'm surprised his Oval Office desk isn't covered in unreturned Blockbuster DVDs." SETH MEYERS "Trump's off to the Hamptons tomorrow. He has a fund raiser with a top price of 250,000 a head. I'm guessing none of that will go to El Paso." JIMMY KIMMEL The hosts also took the president to task for bragging about how many people had attended the February rally. "A local television station released video today showing President Trump bragging about the crowd size at his rallies while talking to medical staff treating victims of the El Paso shootings. Said one doctor, 'That's very interesting. Have I shown you our psych ward?'" SETH MEYERS "Presumably, he was there to give comfort to victims and families and those who helped save lives after the shootings over the weekend, but somehow, once again, he managed to make what should have been a day about others all about him." JIMMY KIMMEL "Trump is supposed to be consoling people in a hospital, and I think we all know nothing says 'I'm sorry for your loss' quite like the double thumbs up." JAMES CORDEN "We've spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks talking about Trump's racist rhetoric. But there's one race Trump dislikes more than all the others, and that's the race for the Democratic nomination." STEPHEN COLBERT "Starting today, all the Democratic presidential candidates are visiting the Iowa State Fair. Yep, it's the time of the year where they all pretend to be relatable by wearing jeans." JIMMY FALLON "This is that very stupid time in American politics when the presidential hopefuls have to impress Iowans by posing next to a farm animal sculpted out of butter." JIMMY KIMMEL "But the fair is a huge event featuring deep fried Twinkies, bacon wrapped sausage, and brownies on a stick. Or as one guy put it imitating Trump , 'Wow, it's just like the White House.'" JIMMY FALLON "The fair can be rough, though. It's basically the time when a candidate is cruising in the polls and then there's an unfortunate photo of them eating a corn dog." JIMMY FALLON Will Ferrell's "Anchorman" character, Ron Burgundy, was the surprise special guest on several late night shows Thursday, performing stand up and promoting his new podcast. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
When I tell a close friend that I am reading a book by Bret Easton Ellis, he makes the face I made when I tasted kombucha for the first time. "Isn't he ... bad?" I imagine that Ellis would find this reaction delightful. That it is uttered by a purebred coastal elite with a crush on A.O.C. and a refrigerator full of overpriced organic produce would make it all the more delicious. Because here is the caricatured target of Ellis's new book: a millennial who borrows many of his cultural opinions from woke Twitter; who experienced something close to shell shock when Robert Mueller's report was finally completed and impeachment proceedings did not immediately commence; and who sin of sins, as far as the author is concerned confuses aesthetic differences with moral failing. Ellis has been a public bad boy since 1985, when his debut novel, "Less Than Zero," was published while he was still a college student. In those days, the author's vices were obnoxiousness and large quantities of cocaine. Now he is sober. And the obnoxiousness has migrated, naturally, to a podcast and a Twitter feed. If the author's name rings a bell for the members of "Generation Wuss," as Ellis has dubbed millennials, including his longtime (and surely long suffering) boyfriend, it is likely because of one of his various headline making tweets. Perhaps you'll recall the one about the Oscar winning director of "The Hurt Locker": "Kathryn would be considered a mildly interesting filmmaker if she was a man but since she's a very hot woman she's really overrated." 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. Now, at least in theory, snowflakes on both coasts in withdrawal from Rachel Maddow's nightly Kremlinology lesson can purchase a whole book to inspire paroxysms of rage. "White" even the title is a trigger is a veritable thirst trap for the easily microaggressed. It's all here. Rants about Trump derangement syndrome; MSNBC; MeToo; safe spaces. He thinks "Moonlight" only won the Oscar for best picture over "La La Land" because voting for it could be seen as a "rebuke to Trump." He thinks that Black Lives Matter is a morally significant movement, but says its "lurching, unformed aesthetic" is why it never reached a wide audience. Had the "millennial mess" mimicked the look of the Black Panthers, he suggests, it would have taken off. I'm not exaggerating. Speaking of Black Panthers yes, you guessed it the author thinks that movie was insanely overhyped. It will not escape reader notice that the author of a book called "White" happens to be particularly fixated on black culture. Oh, and in case you were wondering: Ellis didn't vote in 2016. "Not only because I lived in rest assured California, but also because during the campaign I'd realized I wasn't a conservative or a liberal, a Democrat or a Republican, and that I didn't buy into what either party was selling." I put the book down after that particular riff. (I did the same after his take on the tragic case of Tyler Clementi, the gay Rutgers student who killed himself after he was bullied online by his roommate.) Ellis recently told The Times that "this is kind of a book for a Bret Easton Ellis completist." Perhaps he is right that superfans will love to hear him go on for pages about "American Psycho" being transferred from page to stage, where it closed after two months and lost 14 million. I did not. But one suspects that his editor must be one. Nothing else justifies seven pages on Charlie Sheen's 2011 breakdown. Ellis summons more detail and color about Alex Gibney's 2015 HBO documentary about Frank Sinatra (three pages) than he does in the two paragraphs he dedicates to snorting coke and talking about race with Jean Michel Basquiat on a random October afternoon at the Odeon in 1987 an anecdote that any person with a pulse would be interested in. Ellis told The Times Literary Supplement that this book was "a lament from a disillusioned Gen X er" and I think to read it as anything more than a sustained wail would be a waste of energy. That is not to say that I don't share some of Ellis's bugbears. I think those writers who boycotted PEN for honoring the surviving staffers of Charlie Hebdo are moral midgets. I think it's a very bad sign about where we are as a culture when friendships are unable to survive elections or the appointment of Supreme Court justices. Indeed, many of the topics Ellis blithely skates over in this ranting, stream of consciousness book would be rich fodder for a real analysis of the Great Awokening and its excesses. On the face of it, it would seem Ellis would be the ideal person to write it. He was canceled decades before canceling became a thing. It was November 1990 and Simon Schuster was set to release "American Psycho," Ellis's anticipated third novel, until it caved in the face of criticism, much of it internal. "The noise from the offended was too loud," Ellis writes of the episode a concise phrase diagnosing our current cultural malady. Back then, outrage had not yet become our dominant mode. A more prestigious publishing house swooped in within 48 hours and "American Psycho" became a best seller. Today, young adult novels deemed politically or culturally insensitive are pulped before they are even put out. And one of the earliest casualties of our fun deficient, conformist age (Ellis is entirely right about this) has been the intellectual gadfly. Ellis is one of them. Yet he refuses to own the role he has chosen. "I was never good at realizing what might offend someone anyway," he writes. And you want to throw the book across the room because you know that the very reason it was written was to offend. This move starting a fire and then feigning surprise when people accuse you of being an arsonist is like a boxer slipping to avoid the counterpunch. It's particularly grating when plenty of others more driven, more disciplined, more principled are in the ring. If Ellis wants in, he would do well to follow his own advice: "It was time for everyone to pull on their big boy pants, have a stiff drink at the bar and start having true conversations, because ultimately we shared only one country." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
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