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How did a young graffiti rebel go from selling drawings for 50 in 1980 to having a painting come up for auction this week at a staggering 60 million? Update: The painting sold for 110.5 million at auction The answer to this remarkable trajectory of Jean Michel Basquiat, who died at 27 of a drug overdose in 1988, lies in the art market's unpredictable but powerful alchemy: a combination of raw talent, compelling biography and limited supply. "And then, on top of that, the cool factor and the mythology," said Franklin Sirmans, the director of the Perez Art Museum Miami, an expert on Basquiat. "It's a great success story that also comes along with a lot of the tragedy people can relate to and what we look to see in our artists our Kurt Cobains and our Janis Joplins." On Thursday night, Sotheby's will offer Basquiat's 1982 painting of a face in the shape of a skull, "Untitled," with a guaranteed price of at least 60 million, an auction high for the artist. And given the current international appetite for his work, that figure could go higher in a bidding war. Such eight figure sums are a stunning jump in value for a piece that sold for just 19,000 in 1984 to two collectors of emerging artists, Jerry and Emily Spiegel. The work hasn't been on the market since. High prices are hardly new for Basquiat, art experts note. Last year, he became the highest grossing American artist at auction, generating 171.5 million from 80 works, according to the Artprice database. The auction high for Basquiat has increased at least tenfold in the last 15 years, soaring to 57.3 million in 2016 with Christie's spring sale of a 1982 "Untitled" Basquiat owned by the New York collector Adam Lindemann, in which the artist depicts himself as a horned devil amid orange, red, white and black brush strokes. "As the market was accelerating, you had distinguished connoisseurs of modern art who had no hesitation about putting Basquiat beside Picasso," said the dealer Jeffrey Deitch, who gave the eulogy at the artist's funeral. "Already he was in a different league than almost any other contemporary artist." The question is whether price levels will remain this high. Typically, people in the auction world say, a surge in prices prompts collectors to jump on the bandwagon, consigning their works by the same artist. Indeed, after Christie's success with its Basquiat last spring, it seemed as though everyone wanted in on the action. But most of the Basquiat works to come to auction in the near future are likely to be of lesser importance, auction experts say, which may or may not benefit from the latest Basquiat price. "There will be a large number of people wanting to sell and most of what they want to sell will be inferior," said Brett Gorvy, Christie's former chairman and international head of postwar and contemporary art, who this year became a dealer. "You can have a big high and then weaker paintings will pull down the market to a more sane level." When it comes to the best of Basquiat, however generally, works produced between 1981 and 1983 at the start of his short career (though there are also good later pieces) the demand remains high. Collectors who own top Basquiats don't want to sell, and museums can't afford them, so few of his paintings are in major institutions. "It's a bit like the Warhol Marilyns," Mr. Gorvy said. "Something huge would have to happen for those to come to market." And few other artists, he added, "are creating that sort of buzz in the marketplace." Though Basquiat might be the darling of the market and have a grass roots popularity, there has been a paucity of big retrospectives in major international museums like the Tate Modern in London or the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A large show, "Basquiat: Boom for Real," opening at the Barbican Center in London on Sept. 21, will be the first large scale British exhibition of his work. The 60 million painting at Sotheby's on Thursday, the most highly valued of New York's May auction season, has been consigned by Lise Spiegel Wilks, the daughter of Mr. Spiegel, a real estate developer and art collector of Kings Point, N.Y., and his wife Emily. The elder Spiegels both died in 2009, leaving their collection to their daughters, Ms. Wilks and Pamela Sanders. Ms. Sanders has consigned 107 works from her parents' collection at Christie's, for a guarantee of more than 100 million, according to Bloomberg but none of those works are at the value of her sister's inherited "Untitled." "It's a showstopper," the Paris dealer Christian Ogier said of the painting. "Basquiat is always good, but here he is at his strongest in color and edginess." People are also drawn to Basquiat's personal story: a young black man in dreadlocks from Brooklyn who died just seven years into an exploding career. Then, too, there was Mr. Basquiat's artistic talent and historical significance. "He is one of the great artists of the second half of the 20th century," said Dieter Buchhart, a curator based in Vienna and New York who has organized Basquiat exhibitions around the world. "The way he worked with words, the line and how he soaked up all the information surrounding him." The collectors Herb and Lenore Schorr were among Basquiat's earliest supporters. In 1981, they bought the artist's eight foot wide painting "Poison Oasis" from the New York dealer Annina Nosei for 3,500. Just two years later, they purchased another painting for 10,000 at the Fun Gallery's one man Basquiat show in New York. "He had the natural skills of drawing and painting, he used words, and he represented New York, which appealed to us," Mrs. Schorr, 75, recalled. "He was a very brilliant, charismatic young man." Artists' flames have died out in the past. The question is whether this one will continue to burn. "The dimensions of Basquiat are more apparent in the world today his impact on music, lyrics, dress even hair is totally integrated and embedded in our culture," said Larry Warsh, a longtime Basquiat collector. "Jean Michel is now connected to the greats of art history. So what do you pay for that?" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
Early Wednesday morning, if you live in the United States, the moon will bloom red, like a giant rose in the predawn sky. If you live in the western part of the United States, the eastern part of Asia or in Australia, you can watch the show unfold better than anywhere else. The celestial event is known as a "blood moon" and it occurs as the moon slides behind Earth's shadow during a lunar eclipse. Unlike last summer's solar eclipse where the moon momentarily blocked out the sun a lunar eclipse is when Earth moves in between the sun and the moon. For half the planet, the cosmic alignment will turn the moon a coppery color for just over an hour. Lunar eclipses are not uncommon, but the coincidence of Wednesday's blood moon with other astronomical events is what makes this event special. First, because it is a "blue moon" that means it is the second full moon to occur in a month. Also, it is a supermoon, meaning it will be closer to the Earth than usual, but the difference in size is hardly noticeable. Here's what you need to know to catch this lunar trifecta some are calling the "super blue blood moon." When can I see the eclipse? It takes several hours for the moon to pass through the Earth's shadow. First, it dips through the penumbra the outer, lighter part of the shadow and then the umbra which is the darker portion that creates the reddish glow, known as totality. For people living in New York and other parts of the East Coast of the United States, the moon will begin entering the penumbra at 5:51 a.m. local time, according to Gordon Johnston, a program executive at NASA. Then it will plunge into the umbra at 6:48 a.m. But because this occurs around the time the sun is rising, you might have trouble seeing much of the eclipse before it drowns in the dawn light. Midwesterners are a tad luckier as they will be able to see more of the event. For them, the moon enters the penumbra at 4:51 a.m. Central Time and starts to turn reddish around 6:15 a.m. Central Time. Between 6:15 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. local time will be the best chance for anyone living in the Midwest to see the spectacle before the sun rises, according to Mr. Johnston. The show starts to get good for people in the Mountain States. The umbra kisses the moon at 4:48 Mountain time. Its red lipstick becomes most visible around 6:30 a.m. local time, until it gets washed away by the sun around 7 a.m. Viewers on the West Coast will have the best seats in the continental United States. They will be able to watch the eclipse from start until finish, unabated by sunrise. The blood moon portion of the eclipse will enter totality at 4:51 a.m. and peak at 5:30 a.m. It will end about 6:05 a.m. local time. Skygazers in Australia and eastern Asia will be able to watch the event on Wednesday night as the moon rises. However, only some parts of Australia will experience the lunar triple threat, according to Tanya Hill, an astronomy curator at Museums Victoria in Australia. Writing in The Conversation, she noted that Australia's eastern states will not experience a blue moon because those areas observe Daylight Saving Time, which pushes the full moon and the lunar eclipse to Thursday morning on Feb. 1 and thus the next month and out of blue moon territory. Still, they will have a front row seat as the moon goes red. READ: Debunking the Myth That Earthquakes and Full Moons Are Linked Western Europe, western Africa and most of South America will all miss out. Where should I go to watch the eclipse? The best tip for anyone trying to see the eclipse is to get a clear view of the horizon and look in the west northwest direction. "The farther west you are, the higher in the west northwest the moon will appear, the darker the sky will be," said Mr. Johnston, "and the longer you will be able to view the eclipse before sunrise and moonset." You can leave those fancy eclipse glasses from summer at home. You can watch this safely with your naked eyes, though using a telescope could make for a fun experience. What does it look like on the moon? Perhaps the best view of Wednesday's celestial activity is from the moon itself, according to Mr. Johnston. Standing on the lunar soil looking back at Earth, you would see quite the sight as the planet's shadow consumes you. No need to fret if you can't see the eclipse. NASA will be showing the event online beginning at 5:30 a.m. Eastern Time. You can also catch a broadcast by the Slooh Community Observatory, a telescope service, starting at 5:45 a.m. Eastern Time. READ: If No One Owns the Moon, Can Anyone Make Money Up There? When is the next lunar eclipse? The next total lunar eclipse will be on July 27 of this year, according to Mr. Johnston (Sign up here for The Times Space Calendar to get a reminder). That one won't be visible from the United States, but Africa, the Middle East and India will get eyefuls. The United States will have to wait another year to see one, and that will be on Jan. 21, 2019, though it will not be a blue moon, only a super blood moon. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
We take the weekend to highlight recent books coverage in The Times: In their best selling new book, "She Said," the Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey recount how they broke the Harvey Weinstein story, work that earned them the Pulitzer Prize and helped solidify MeToo as an ongoing national movement. They discuss the book on this week's podcast. And Ian Urbina's new book, "The Outlaw Ocean," began as an investigative series for The Times about how the unregulated seas allow for corruption, violence and lawlessness. This past Tuesday was a particularly star studded release day for publishing, with highly anticipated new books by Margaret Atwood, Malcolm Gladwell and several others. Stephen King's latest novel, "The Institute," was one of those books. The story is a return to one of his ongoing subjects: terrible things happening to children. Our review is by Laura Miller, who says King's new novel is "as consummately honed and enthralling as the very best of his work." (Don't miss our interview with King about the book and what scares him these days.) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
NoMad Las Vegas A hotel within a hotel, the NoMad Las Vegas, which is scheduled to open on Nov. 14, is situated in the recently opened Park MGM and has Art Deco inspired interiors designed by Jacques Garcia. The 293 rooms have oak hardwood floors, beds with leather headboards, original vintage artwork and minibars that were constructed from steamer trunks. Nightly rates from 199. Six Senses Bhutan Six Senses comes to the kingdom of Bhutan with five lodges set in the western and central valleys of the country. Three Thimphu, Paro and Punakha will open in November while the other two Bumthang and Gangtey will open in March 2019. In total, there will be 82 rooms and each lodge offers its own activities. In Punakha, for example, guests can meditate at a prayer pavilion overlooking the giant Buddha statue across the valley and go on hikes; in Paro, they can have a private dinner in the middle of 15th century stone ruins. Nightly rates from 1,500, all inclusive. The Hoxton, Chicago A growing chain with global ambitions that's already a huge hit in its home base of London, the Hoxton, Chicago, scheduled for a spring opening, is being constructed in Fulton Market on a site that was formerly home to a car maker and meatpacker. It's the brand's third United States outpost (the others are in Williamsburg and Portland, Ore.) along with branches in Paris and Amsterdam. The 175 room Chicago property will be home to a still unnamed restaurant and bar, a rooftop pool that's open to the public and lively public spaces. Guests will get free Wi Fi and one hour of free international calls. Nightly rates are still being determined and will include breakfast. Nobu Los Cabos Robert DeNiro's and the chef Nobu Matsuhisa's fast growing hotel collection is finally expected to make its Mexico debut in the summer of 2019, after first being announced for 2018. The Japanese beach house style property will have 200 rooms, all with ocean views and an aesthetic that's a combination of contemporary Japanese minimalism and touches from Mexico (think wood soaking tubs, shoji inspired closet doors and Japanese lanterns). On site will also be a branch of the Nobu restaurant and a farm to table restaurant called Malibu Farm, as well as an Asian influenced spa. Nobu Hotels is also scheduled to open a location in Riyadh next year, though recent events involving Saudi Arabia may complicate that development Nightly rates still being determined. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
Just how easy is it to make a deadly virus? This disturbing question has been on the minds of many scientists recently, thanks to a pair of controversial experiments in which the H5N1 bird flu virus was transformed into mutant forms that spread among mammals. After months of intense worldwide debate, a panel of scientists brought together by the World Health Organization recommended last week in favor of publishing the results. There is no word on exactly when those papers withheld since last fall by the journals Nature and Science will appear. But when they do, will it be possible for others to recreate the mutant virus? And if so, who might they be and how would they do it? Scientists are sharply divided on those questions, as they are on the whole complex of issues surrounding the mutated virus known as mutH5N1. On the question of who, while terrorists and cults have long been a concern in biosecurity circles, some scientists also fear that publication may allow curious amateurs to recreate the mutated virus raising the risk of an accidental release. Over the past decade, more amateur biologists have started to do genetic experiments of their own. One hub of this so called D.I.Y. biology movement, the Web site DIYbio.org, now has more than 2,000 members. "I worry about the garage scientist, about the do your own scientist, about the person who just wants to try and see if they can do it," Michael T. Osterholm of the University of Minnesota said last week at a meeting of biosecurity experts in Washington. Dr. Arturo Casadevall of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, who along with Dr. Osterholm is a member of the scientific advisory board that initially recommended against publishing the papers, agreed. "Mike is right," he said in a telephone interview. "Humans are very inventive." Advocates of D.I.Y. biology say such fears not only are wildly exaggerated, but could interfere with their efforts to educate the public. "I am really sick and tired of folks waving this particular red flag," said Ellen D. Jorgensen, a molecular biologist who is president of Genspace, a "community biotechnology lab" in Brooklyn. There are many ways to make a virus. The simplest and oldest way is to get the viruses do all the work. In the 19th century, doctors produced smallpox vaccines by inoculating cows with cowpox viruses. The viruses replicated in the cows and produced scabs, which were then applied to patients, protecting them from the closely related smallpox virus. By the turn of the century, scientists had discovered how to isolate a number of other viruses from animals and transfer them to new hosts. And by midcentury scientists were rearing viruses in colonies of cells, which made their study far easier. (Viruses have to infect host cells to reproduce; they cannot replicate on their own.) More recently, scientists discovered how to make new viruses or at least new variations on old ones. The biotechnology revolution of the 1970s enabled them to move genes from one virus to another. Flu vaccines can be made this way. Scientists can move some genes from a dangerous flu strain to a harmless virus that grows quickly in chicken eggs. They inject the engineered viruses into the eggs to let them multiply, then kill the viruses to prepare injectable vaccines. Scientists have also learned how to tweak individual virus genes. They remove a portion of the gene and then use enzymes to mutate specific sites. Using other enzymes, they paste the altered portion back into the virus's genes. Another way to make altered viruses is to harness evolution. In a method called serial passage, scientists infect an animal with viruses. The descendants of those viruses mutate inside the animal, and some mutations allow certain viruses to multiply faster than others. The scientists then take a sample of the viruses and infect another animal. Viruses can change in important ways during this process. If it is done in the presence of antiviral drugs, scientists can observe how viruses evolve resistance. And viruses can become weak, making them useful as vaccines. At the biosecurity meeting in Washington last week, Ron Fouchier, who led the Dutch team that created one of the mutant H5N1 viruses, described part of the experiment. The scientists used well established methods: First they introduced a few mutations into the H5N1 flu genes that they thought might help the bird flu infect mammals. They administered the viruses to the throats of ferrets, waited for the animals to get sick and then transferred viruses to other ferrets. After several rounds, they ended up with a strain that could spread on its own from one ferret to another in the air. If trained virologists could see the full details of the paper, there would be several ways they could make mutH5N1 for themselves. The most sophisticated way would be to make the viruses from scratch. They could take the publicly available genome sequence of H5N1 and rewrite it to include the new mutations, then simply copy the new sequence into an e mail. "It's outsourced to companies that do this for a living," said Steffen Mueller, a virologist at Stony Brook University on Long Island, who regularly synthesizes flu viruses to design new vaccines. A DNA synthesis company would then send back harmless segments of the flu's genes, pasted into the DNA of bacteria. The scientists could cut out the viral segments from the bacteria, paste them together and inject the reconstructed virus genes into cells. If everything went right, the cells would start making mutH5N1 viruses. The synthesis companies are on the lookout for matches between requested DNA and the genomes of dangerous pathogens. But some experts say such safeguards are hardly airtight. "You could imagine a determined actor could cleverly disguise orders," Dr. Casadevall said. "I have a lot of respect for human ingenuity." Synthesizing viruses has a high tech glamour about it, but trained virologists could use a simpler method. Knowing the mutations acquired by mutH5N1, they could simply alter ordinary H5N1 viruses at the same sites in its genes to match it. Virologists might even be able to figure out how to make mutH5N1 from the few details that have already emerged. According to reports, there were only five mutations in the Dutch viruses, and these were most likely at key sites involved in getting viruses into host cells. Matthew B. Frieman, a virologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said that a review of the scientific literature could point to where the mutations were inserted. "It's not like nuclear fission," he said. Some of the equipment that scientists use to work on viruses has grown so inexpensive that it is no longer limited to university labs. Devices for duplicating pieces of DNA sell for a few hundred dollars on eBay, for example. Those falling costs have spurred the rise of the D.I.Y. biology movement; they have also generated concerns about what a do it yourselfer might be able accomplish. D.I.Y. biologists sometimes laugh at the sinister powers people think they have. "People overestimate our technological abilities and underestimate our ethics," said Jason Bobe, a founder of DIYbio.org. Todd Kuiken, a senior research associate at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington who specializes in the movement, points out that typical D.I.Y. projects are relatively simple, like inserting a gene into bacteria to make them glow. Producing viruses involves much more expensive equipment to do things like rearing host cells. "It's not going to happen in someone's basement," he said. Nor do these amateurs have the years of training it takes to grow viruses successfully. "It's like I say, 'I want to be a four star chef,' " said Dr. Jorgensen, the president of Genspace, who worked with viruses for her Ph.D. "You can read about it, but unless someone teaches you side by side, I don't think you're going to get far." It is hard to predict how the future evolution of biotechnology will affect the risk of homegrown pathogens. "There ought to be oversight down the road," Mr. Bobe said. But he and others question whether holding back scientific information can reduce the risk. While it might be challenging to make one particular flu virus, like mutH5N1, it is not hard to try to breed new flu viruses. "If you are a farmer somewhere in China, you could do it," said Dr. Mueller, the virologist at Stony Brook. All that would be necessary is to bring some sick chickens in contact with ferrets or other mammals. "Without knowing what you're doing, you could do it anyway." Of course, someone trying to make a new flu this way might well end up its first victim. And some experts say that regardless of how a lethal virus might arise, the important thing is to be able to defeat it when it appears, so that we can avoid a global catastrophe like the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed 50 million people. "The only thing that can be done, and to my mind should be done," said Ron Atlas, a University of Louisville microbiologist and expert on bioterrorism, "is to have a vaccine that protect against this. We need an urgent program for a generalized influenza vaccine. We would take off the table another 1918 type event." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Online stages have the spotlight now that real ones are dark. The following companies enable children to watch, perform or learn about theater remotely. ArtsPower National Touring Theater: For 15, families can stream a show from the company for an unlimited time as part of its new on demand service. All based on children's books, the hourlong musicals include extras like author interviews and how to dance videos. The service's first title, "Chicken Dance," adapts Danny Schnitzlein's comic barnyard tale. artspowerondemand.teachable.com Beat by Beat Press: This theater publisher has created two musicals for ages 7 to 14 that camps, schools and youth groups can rehearse and present virtually. After buying a license ( 149.50 until Sept. 1, but organizations with low funds can pay less), the group downloads scripts, recorded accompaniment and other materials. Actors individually record and upload their numbers, which, when viewed successively, coalesce into a show. The choices: "The Show Must Go Online!" or "Super Happy Awesome News!" bbbpress.com | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
KIA would never admit it, even if executives in Seoul imbibed too much soju one night. But they have to be thinking that maybe this recession isn't such a bad thing. With American car sales sputtering like an old Chevy Citation an appropriate reference, given that the numbers have tumbled to 1980s levels only three major brands managed increases in 2009. One was Subaru, and the others were the South Korean tag team of Kia and Hyundai, whose specialty is tailored for hard times: cutting competitors off at the knees with lower prices and long warranties. And, just as important, they are selling vastly improved cars that more Americans are starting to view as interchangeable with highfalutin' Hondas, Toyotas and Nissans, not to mention the wares from Detroit. That competitive strategy continues with the Kia Forte (pronounced for TAY). At first glance, it's another unassuming compact front drive sedan with four doors, 4 cylinders and a trunk, the kind of car you'd barely notice if it ran you down in the street. That describes most cars in this practical class, but the Forte butts bumpers with two of the toughest, longest running rivals in autodom, the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla. There are other formidable opponents, too. The Ford Focus is an old reliable. Mazda aims its terrific 3 at the sporty set. Chevy is preparing to switch out its creaky Cobalt for the all new Cruze, and Nissan has its Sentra. And don't forget the Forte's sister car, the better known Hyundai Elantra. Yet despite its underdog status, the Forte cedes nothing to its brand name rivals in styling, price, performance, fuel economy or features. For the value buyer including parents whose patronage allows their offspring to drive a new car Kia's warranty is another comforting point. The Forte comes with bumper to bumper protection for five years or 60,000 miles, powertrain coverage for 10 years or 100,000 miles and roadside assistance for five years or 60,000 miles. In comparison, the Honda Civic has bumper to bumper coverage of three years or 36,000 miles, a powertrain warranty of five years or 60,000 miles and no roadside assistance. One goal of any economy car should be to look more expensive than it is. The Forte succeeds handsomely, with broad, tailored shoulders and the modern wedge shape of small cars in Europe. Credit for the confident shape goes to Kurt Kahl, a designer at Kia's California studio. As on the two door version of the Forte, called the Koup, the exterior pays mild homage to the Civic. Yet inside, the Kia actually improves on the Honda's too precious futurism with a more straightforward ergonomic layout and more standard goodies. Materials, except for distressingly vinyl esque leather that is, thankfully, an option, are average to better for the class. The back seat is spacious for two tall adults, with a center perch for a third that's more useful than in some rivals. The trunk, with capacity of 14.7 cubic feet, is the roomiest in its competitive set. Storage is generous, with bottle holders in the front doors, a deep center console and the kind of large, open central cubby that some larger cars overlook the perfect resting place for keys, BlackBerries and what have you. Standard hookups include a U.S.B. port for an iPod, an auxiliary jack and two 12 volt outlets. Even the least expensive sedan, the 14,390 LX, comes with a free three month subscription to Sirius Satellite Radio. Even the bargain basement LX has six standard air bags, electronic traction and stability control; antilock brakes with brake assist and electronic force distribution; active front head restraints and seat belts in all five positions, with belt height adjusters up front. But air conditioning is part of a 1,500 package that includes a split folding rear seat and a rear armrest with cup holders. For any model, add 1,000 for an automatic transmission either a 4 speed on the LX and EX or a 5 speed with manual shift function on the SX. (The SX's standard gearbox is a 6 speed manual rather than the 5 speed units on other versions.) I first drove an EX automatic, which started at 17,690 and reached 19,490 with the 1,000 leather package (which included heated seats, steering wheel and shift knob) and an 800 sunroof. A 2 liter 4 cylinder engine with variable valve timing gives the LX and EX models a solid 156 horsepower and 144 pound feet of torque. The motor is workmanlike, though it doesn't rev like Honda's silken 4 cylinder engines. And it is good for 25 miles per gallon in the city and 34 on the highway with either transmission. An optional 600 fuel economy package adds gas saving tricks like electric power steering, an intermittent alternator, low rolling resistance tires and aerodynamic tweaks. It lifts the EX's mileage to a class leading 27/36 m.p.g. But there's an interesting player in the lineup: The SX, which brings a touch of sport to a largely plain vanilla class, but costs thousands less than true performance oriented compacts like the Mazda 3 s or Honda Civic Si. The SX's 2.4 liter engine spins out 173 horsepower and 168 pound feet of torque, more juice than the Mazda's optional 2.5 liter (167 horsepower), but less than Honda's 2 liter (197). That larger SX engine gets somewhat raspy in its highest registers, but the useful midrange torque and passing power more than make up for the added sound. The throttle feels sluggish off the line, but the engine will yank the Kia from a standstill to 60 m.p.h. in 8.6 seconds, according to Edmunds.com, which is just 0.5 second behind the peppy Mazda. For its 18,190 base price, the SX also comes with a firmer suspension, larger front brakes and sportier 17 inch wheels and tires. Edmunds also reported that the Forte SX ran through its slalom course at a surprisingly brisk 67.6 m.p.h., just 1 m.p.h. slower than the Mazda 3 s; the Kia also pulled an eye opening 0.86 g's of lateral cornering force on a skidpad. But track numbers don't necessarily translate into action on the street. In real world driving, the SX is reasonably fun to toss around, but when speeds really climb the Forte's chassis isn't as impeccably composed as the Mazda's. But while the Kia can't match the Mazda's handling or the Civic Si's high revving refinement, those cars can run into the mid 20,000s, a whole league above the Forte. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
A yard sign in Wellington, Kan., where some parents and students have rebelled against a web based education program from Summit Learning. WELLINGTON, Kan. The seed of rebellion was planted in classrooms. It grew in kitchens and living rooms, in conversations between students and their parents. It culminated when Collin Winter, 14, an eighth grader in McPherson, Kan., joined a classroom walkout in January. In the nearby town of Wellington, high schoolers staged a sit in. Their parents organized in living rooms, at churches and in the back of machine repair shops. They showed up en masse to school board meetings. In neighborhoods with no political yard signs, homemade signs with dark red slash marks suddenly popped up. Silicon Valley had come to small town Kansas schools and it was not going well. "I want to just take my Chromebook back and tell them I'm not doing it anymore," said Kallee Forslund, 16, a 10th grader in Wellington. Eight months earlier, public schools near Wichita had rolled out a web based platform and curriculum from Summit Learning. The Silicon Valley based program promotes an educational approach called "personalized learning," which uses online tools to customize education. The platform that Summit provides was developed by Facebook engineers. It is funded by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician. Many families in the Kansas towns, which have grappled with underfunded public schools and deteriorating test scores, initially embraced the change. Under Summit's program, students spend much of the day on their laptops and go online for lesson plans and quizzes, which they complete at their own pace. Teachers assist students with the work, hold mentoring sessions and lead special projects. The system is free to schools. The laptops are typically bought separately. Then, students started coming home with headaches and hand cramps. Some said they felt more anxious. One child asked to bring her dad's hunting earmuffs to class to block out classmates because work was now done largely alone. "We're allowing the computers to teach and the kids all looked like zombies," said Tyson Koenig, a factory supervisor in McPherson, who visited his son's fourth grade class. In October, he pulled the 10 year old out of the school. "Change rarely comes without some bumps in the road," said Gordon Mohn, McPherson's superintendent of schools. He added, "Students are becoming self directed learners and are demonstrating greater ownership of their learning activities." John Buckendorf, Wellington High School's principal, said the "vast majority of our parents are happy with the program." The resistance in Kansas is part of mounting nationwide opposition to Summit, which began trials of its system in public schools four years ago and is now in around 380 schools and used by 74,000 students. In Brooklyn, high school students walked out in November after their school started using Summit's platform. In Indiana, Pa., after a survey by Indiana University of Pennsylvania found 70 percent of students wanted Summit dropped or made optional, the school board scaled it back and then voted this month to terminate it. And in Cheshire, Conn., the program was cut after protests in 2017. "When there are frustrating situations, generally kids get over them, parents get over them, and they all move on," said Mary Burnham, who has two grandchildren in Cheshire's school district and started a petition to end Summit's use. "Nobody got over this." Silicon Valley has tried to remake American education in its own image for years, even as many in tech eschew gadgets and software at home and flood into tech free schools. Summit has been part of the leading edge of the movement, but the rebellion raises questions about a heavy reliance on tech in public schools. For years, education experts have debated the merits of self directed, online learning versus traditional teacher led classrooms. Proponents argue that programs like Summit provide children, especially those in underserved towns, access to high quality curriculums and teachers. Skeptics worry about screen time and argue that students miss out on important interpersonal lessons. Diane Tavenner, a former teacher and Summit's chief executive, founded a series of public charter schools starting in 2003 called Summit Public Schools and began developing software to use in the classrooms so that students could "unlock the power within themselves." The resulting program, Summit Learning, is spinning out into a new nonprofit called T.L.P. Education. Ms. Tavenner said the Kansas protests were largely about nostalgia. "There's people who don't want change. They like the schools the way they are," she said. "The same people who don't like Summit have been the sort of vocal opposition to change throughout the process." Summit chose not to be part of a study after paying the Harvard Center for Education Policy Research to design one in 2016. Tom Kane, the Harvard professor preparing that assessment, said he was wary of speaking out against Summit because many education projects receive funding from Mr. Zuckerberg and Dr. Chan's philanthropic organization, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Mr. Zuckerberg backed Summit in 2014 and assigned five Facebook engineers to develop the software. In 2015, he wrote that Summit's program would help "meet the student's individual needs and interests" and that technology "frees up time for teachers to do what they do best mentor students." Since 2016, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has committed 99.1 million in grants to Summit. In a statement, Abby Lunardini, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's chief communications officer, said, "We take the issues raised very seriously, and Summit has been working with school leaders and parents on the ground to address them." She added that many schools that used Summit "love and support the program." Few places better illustrate the reaction to Summit than the central Kansas towns of Wellington (population 8,000) and McPherson (population 13,000). The towns are surrounded by wheat fields and factories. Residents work in farming, at a nearby oil refinery or at aircraft parts manufacturing plants. In 2015, Kansas announced that it would support education "moon shots" like "personalized learning." Two years later, it picked school district "astronauts," including McPherson and Wellington. When parents received brochures promising "personalized learning," many were thrilled. The school districts' leaders selected Summit. "We wanted to get every kid on an even playing field," said Brian Kynaston, a dentist in McPherson and school board member, adding that it helped that Summit was free. He said he liked Summit's program. His daughter, Kelcie, 14, said she felt self directed. "Everyone is judging it too quickly," he said. Mr. Koenig, the factory supervisor, said: "You want your kids to be innovators. You want them to be on the cutting edge of what's next." If you are a parent, teacher or administrator who has experience with the Summit learning platform and want to discuss it, reach us confidentially here. When this school year started, children got laptops to use Summit software and curriculums. In class, they sat at the computers working through subjects from math to English to history. Teachers told students that their role was now to be a mentor. In September, some students stumbled onto questionable content while working in the Summit platform, which often directs them to click on links to the open web. In one class covering Paleolithic history, Summit included a link to an article in The Daily Mail, the British newspaper, that showed racy ads with bikini clad women. For a list of the Ten Commandments, two parents said their children were directed to a Christian conversion site. Ms. Tavenner said building a curriculum from the open internet meant that a Daily Mail article was fair game for lesson plans. "The Daily Mail is written at a very low reading level," she said, later adding that it was a bad link to include. She added that as far as she was aware, Summit's curriculum did not send students to a Christian conversion site. Around the country, teachers said they were split on Summit. Some said it freed them from making lesson plans and grading quizzes so they had more time for individual students. Others said it left them as bystanders. Some parents said they worried about their children's data privacy. "Summit demands an extraordinary amount of personal information about each student and plans to track them through college and beyond," said Leonie Haimson, co chairwoman of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, a national organization. Collin Winter, the eighth grader in McPherson, said he had joined the January class walkout with about 50 other students. "I was scared a little bit," he said of participating. "But I still felt good to be doing something." One recent evening in Wellington, a dozen parents and students held an organizing meeting in the back of a machine workshop owned by Tom Henning, a local parent. Chris Smalley, a machinist with two children, ages 13 and 16, attended. Mr. Smalley had put up bigger and bigger yard signs in front of his house, even though he knew Mr. Zuckerberg was unlikely to drive by and see them. They were red, with a slash across the word "Summit." "It sounded great, what they sold us," Mr. Smalley said. "It was the worst lemon car that we've ever bought." Deanna Garver, a church secretary whose sons are in second and eighth grades, had also made a yard sign. It read: "Don't Plummet With Summit." After the fall semester last year, about a dozen parents in Wellington pulled their children out of public school, said Kevin Dodds, a city councilman. In McPherson, Mr. Koenig and his wife, Meggan, enrolled their two children in a Catholic school, using money saved for a kitchen remodel and vacation. "We're not Catholic," Mrs. Koenig said. "But we just felt like it would be a lot easier to have a discussion over dinner about something that they might have heard in a religion class than Summit." Nearly 40 more families plan on taking their children out of public school by this summer, Mr. Dodds said. "We're out in the middle of nowhere," he said. "So we're the guinea pigs." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
President elect Donald J. Trump has vowed to protect and create American manufacturing jobs, even threatening high tariffs on imports to help achieve that goal. So far, though, his plan seems to lean heavily on one at a time deals, like the one struck late last month to save jobs at the Carrier plant in Indianapolis. But proponents of a more far reaching approach say it could achieve many of Mr. Trump's goals without tariff walls or presidential jawboning: a sweeping overhaul of the corporate tax system that embraces a concept endorsed by House Republican leaders in their blueprint for tax reform, announced in late June. "It would be the biggest change in business tax law ever in the United States," said Martin A. Sullivan, the chief economist at Tax Analysts, a nonprofit tax research organization and publisher. "It might actually work, and I don't think it's a partisan issue." A central idea is that goods would be taxed based on where they were consumed rather than where they were produced, meaning that imports would be taxed by Washington while exports would not. Tax experts call this a destination based consumption tax. This would be a sharp departure for the United States in a number of ways, but taxing imports but not exports is in step with nearly all of America's trading partners, which have so called value added taxes. The import and export tax treatment is known as border adjustment. The proposed overhaul would have other changes. The cost of capital investments would be deducted immediately rather than depreciated over years, but interest costs would no longer be deductible. The package of ideas has evolved over years, mainly in academic circles. Its principal intellectual champion in the United States is Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley. Mr. Auerbach's goal, he said, is to transform the economics of the corporate tax system so that "incentives will align with the national interest." The destination based concept, according to Mr. Auerbach, is an adaptation to the modern economy of open borders and advancing technology. Much business value is now in intellectual property like patents and software. Multinationals are adept at shifting these intangible assets to low tax nations as a way to shelter profits and avoid taxes. A destination based system, focusing on where a product is consumed, would be much simplified, eliminating incentives to game the system, Mr. Auerbach said. By not taxing exports, he said, it would "strongly encourage American companies to locate activities in the United States." But critics say this is wishful thinking, divorced from the reality of international trade laws, Washington lobbying and corporate financial engineering. Major features of Mr. Auerbach's design, they say, will probably be jettisoned to appease domestic interests or conform to trade rules. A new system might curb some tax gaming, they say, but not stop it. What will remain, they predict, will be the House proposal to sharply reduce the corporate tax rate. "The result will be a giant corporate tax cut that benefits the rich because most of the owners are rich," said Robert McIntyre, the director of Citizens for Tax Justice. "Everyone loses except those at the top." Mr. Auerbach, 65, became fascinated by the mechanics and impact of tax policy while pursuing his doctorate at Harvard, encouraged by his thesis adviser, Martin Feldstein, a chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Reagan administration. Mr. Auerbach was an adviser to John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president in 2004. But Mr. Auerbach has long been a registered independent. "I like to keep conversations open with both sides," he said. "I think of myself as an economist first, and that the evidence should dictate the policy." His research on tax policy has increasingly focused on the global context. So has the study of other economists. In 2001, in a conference at Berkeley, Michael Devereux was the co author of a paper with Stephen R. Bond that introduced the term destination based corporate tax. What happened on Day 2 of Elizabeth Holmes's testimony. Kevin Spacey was ordered to pay 31 million to the 'House of Cards' studio after sexual harassment allegations. In recent years, Mr. Auerbach and Mr. Devereux have cooperated in developing the idea and working through how it might be put into effect. "We're kindred spirits, for sure," said Mr. Devereux, a professor at the Said Business School at the University of Oxford. For years, Mr. Auerbach has been making that case on trips to Washington. There has been some interest at times. In 2005, a bipartisan presidential advisory panel on tax reform included his idea as one option, but it went nowhere. In 2010, Mr. Auerbach laid out the destination based system in a paper for the liberal Center for American Progress and the Hamilton Project, a middle of the road research group within the Brookings Institution. But the real political endorsement came this year, when Representative Kevin Brady, a conservative Texas Republican and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, introduced corporate tax overhaul proposals. His blueprint includes most of Mr. Auerbach's recommendations. The House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, now vows to pursue tax legislation that would cut both business and personal taxes. Mr. Brady's plan calls for lowering the corporate tax to 20 percent, from 35 percent. Mr. Auerbach, who has met with Mr. Brady, did not advocate a specific rate, but he said 20 percent was a "solid rate that is often discussed." (Mr. Trump has proposed lowering the corporate rate to 15 percent.) In an interview, Mr. Brady said a destination based system would "level the playing field for made in America products." He added, "It removes all the incentives to move jobs, research and headquarters overseas." Mr. Brady and his staff have met with Mr. Trump's advisers. "I'm convinced the Trump team will want to work with us," he said. But they may not agree with the entire House package. Eliminating interest deductions would hurt businesses that rely heavily on debt financing, like real estate developers and Wall Street financiers, many of whom have been Trump backers. And the plan is already stirring resistance elsewhere, dividing business interests even more than experts who split along ideological lines. Companies that import goods or import a large portion of the parts and materials that go into their products will most likely be worse off, at least initially. Many retailers fall into that camp. David French, the senior vice president for government relations at the National Retail Federation, said his group, while still studying the plan, considered it "an exotic economics lab experiment." Retailers, he added, were "very concerned about practical effect of this on profits, jobs and operations." Mr. Auerbach said the retailers' worries were misplaced. If, in the short term, exports rise and imports fall, the value of the dollar should increase in step with the higher demand for dollars. Retailers, he said, will "make up in a stronger dollar what they lose in higher tax payments." Mr. French, of the retail trade group, is unconvinced, saying it would be a risky bet to be making with the nation's 2.6 trillion retail industry. At the National Association of Manufacturers, which counts 14,000 members from corporations and private companies, Dorothy Coleman, the vice president for tax and domestic economic policy, called the initial Brady plan a "thoughtful attempt to break out of the gridlock" on tax simplification in recent years. But even some manufacturers have concerns. Last week, Koch Industries, a private industrial corporation run by Charles G. and David H. Koch, prominent Republican supporters, said the "border adjustment" provision of the House plan could be "devastating" to the economy. In a statement, the company said it would "greatly benefit" in the short term as a large exporter, but warned that the American economy would suffer from less free trade and higher consumer prices. Mr. Auerbach's approach, embraced by the Brady proposal, will also face a hurdle at the World Trade Organization. Among its provisions is to allow American companies to deduct domestic wages from taxation, which makes it less costly to employ workers and helps them offset the higher price of imported goods. A wage deduction is not currently permitted under W.T.O. rules, and is likely to be seen as an unfair subsidy to American companies and a trade barrier. But Mr. Auerbach replies that his system is the "economic equivalent" of policies that comply with W.T.O. rules a value added tax that is border adjusted, combined with a reduction in payroll taxes and lowering income taxes. Michael Graetz, a tax expert at the Columbia Law School, said he doubted that argument would prevail in Geneva. "W.T.O. lawyers do not take the view that things that look the same economically are acceptable," Mr. Graetz said. "They don't behave the way Alan might like." To explain how a destination based tax system like the House plan might affect different kinds of companies, Mr. Auerbach co wrote a recent paper with Douglas Holtz Eakin, an economist and the president of the conservative American Action Forum. "Economists don't rule the world; I understand that," Mr. Auerbach said. "You never know when or if your policy ideas will have an impact." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
PARIS If the appointment of Demna Gvasalia, 34, the upstart designer of Vetements, as artistic director of Balenciaga was the surprise of the last Paris fashion season, it has been the toast of this most recent one. His debut collection for the landmark French label was met with raves from nearly every corner. (The all white cast of models received harsher reviews, especially online. Asked about the matter, Mr. Gvasalia declined to address it directly, saying, in part, "What does attitude look like? Is it in the body, the clothes, the mind?") Balenciaga, formerly stewarded by the American designer Alexander Wang, was in need of a refresh; Mr. Gvasalia, a Sukhumi, Georgia born, Antwerp trained alumnus of Maison Martin Margiela and Louis Vuitton, provided it. In short order Mr. Gvasalia has shot from an unknown to man in high demand, dividing his time between two collections and the demands of a new swarm of interested retailers, members of the media and fans. It's been 24 hours since the Balenciaga show. How are you feeling now? I'm starting to feel the exhaustion, actually. I worked on two shows in four days. It was so much adrenaline and so much excitement about it, I didn't really feel tired. Now I'm start to feel that. At Vetements last week, I asked you if you were feeling the pressure and you said: "No, I love it. It's like a drug." It is. I'm starting to feel depressed today, I think. It wasn't really pressure. It was the dynamic of every day doing this thing. The last 10 days, every single day I worked on a show. From Thursday to Thursday, then it was Vetements. Then I said, how lucky I am that there is Balenciaga show coming on Sunday. It's not over yet. I felt like I want more. That's why I put that song at the end of the show: "More," by Sisters of Mercy. Was there ever a question of not doing both? For me, no. The question was how. Tell me about your relationship to Balenciaga before you arrived. Everything I knew about Balenciaga was really linked to the fashion history books where I saw those amazing, beautiful pieces that he created, but I didn't know much more than that. And of course the period of Nicolas Ghesquiere , which was the period where I was studying fashion, so it was something that I had to be aware of. But the things that I discovered when I went... when I started to read about Cristobal and his way of working, and then I saw the archives, very importantly what I discovered was actually his business vision. He wasn't only a couturier, he was also a businessman, from the beginning. Having other lines in Spain, for example, that were more accessible in pricing. They were more industrialized, less couture. When I found that out, it was very exciting for me to understand how product oriented he was as well. Is that how you think of yourself as a designer: as product oriented? I'm completely product oriented. I only design and I only make clothes in order for them to be worn by someone, meaning that they have to be sold. It's never done for the show or to be in a museum or anything like this. There is no point to make pieces for the show because... because there is no point. People need to be able to go to the store in six months and find what they have seen. Do you think you are well understood? There were quite a lot of people who came backstage after the show, and told me: "I want to buy that, I want to wear that." That's the biggest compliment, I think, and that's the most important thing. In terms of the way I work, I'm not sure that I'm fully understood. But that's because I'm extremely technical in my design approach and at the same time extremely commercial and product oriented. It's not about creating the dream or theatrics or making a "beautiful show." It's probably pragmatic and boring, the way I approach it all, but that's the way I am. When I went backstage after the show, I was struck by how many people were there. You were literally backed into a corner by people wanting an explanation. I'm wondering how useful you think that is. I realize more and more that it's so important to explain what you do. Because I'm very much about the construction of the garment. I don't tell stories: "Oh, my woman, she went to the forest," or that sort of thing. I basically need to explain the clothes. Otherwise they might have thought it's just styled that way. People didn't get it. Because it's really constructed into the garment. The attitude of wearing it this way is part of the construction. For me, that's the most interesting challenge of design. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on styling. Styling has taken over a lot of fashion: There's a lot of design that only looks good for a photograph, professionally tweaked. Yet you have a very close relationship with your stylist, Lotta Volkova, and there is a lot of styling in your shows and collections. With Lotta, it's less a styling relationship, it's a friendship. She's more someone I project on. I'd love to wear thigh boots in here, and a miniskirt. I can't. So she is someone who does it, and when I see her, there's something that really inspires me. Sometimes I hate what she wears. I also love that. She definitely has a point of view. I couldn't just hire a stylist to put the clothes together. It's really this exchange that makes our collaboration work. I don't hear you being terribly respectful of styling. I don't believe in it. Styling... of course it's important to make a show, to style it. But when I think of a collection, I think so much of it in separate pieces. I care about the parka, I care about the pants. I never think in terms of the silhouette. The fun part is, when you receive all those pieces, it's a little Christmas moment in fashion: They all arrive, and the boxes open. That's when you start playing with it. That's when you actually discover the silhouettes. And it always works. Was there a lot that was rejected from the show, a lot we didn't see? The only part that we didn't really show is the wardrobe part, Le Garderobe. It's a capsule that I started this season which includes very, very classic wardrobe pieces like a normal trench coat with a perfect fit, a slim pant, all the classics. These will be available continuously. When I read what's been written about your work, the word that comes up often is "underground." I'm curious how you feel about that. This whole underground thing ... people brand you as "underground" if you make a show in a sex club. It's underground for Paris. Because Paris has been kind of stagnant for a very long time. I think it's about a certain mood and energy, that underground label. I don't consider myself underground. I go to squalid parts outside of Paris, but that doesn't make me underground. It's just my lifestyle. I think underground itself is over. It doesn't really exist today. I wonder if that term effectively takes away from the amount of technique and design in your work whether it becomes a way to dismiss it as, "Well, that's just a hoodie." The hoodie is a very complex garment, I would say. In my last show in Vetements, I did a hoodie. When it arrived and I saw it on the hanger, I told my team, 'What is that hoodie?' It looks like Uniqlo or whatever. I really forgot what we did with it. But when you put it on, with the hood on, the whole thing moves up. It gives you that attitude. That kind of easy twist, something very simple that makes it a basic, almost mainstream hoodie into an almost attitude garment, that's the challenge today. That was exactly the way I approached this collection. I've been struck by the continuity between your two collections even the use of Eliza Douglas to model the last look of one show, and then the first of the other. That was a message. I wanted Eliza to close on Thursday and to open yesterday because I wanted to show the transformation from what they call underground into the power look. The same person can be both. And she actually did feel it. She was like, "I feel like I'm on the Forbes list!" It's a very important part for me to have that exchange, and have that circle around. Do you think there's a flavor of Paris in what you do? Balenciaga is so associated with Paris, it's almost a shorthand for Paris fashion. Yes, but it's this kind of Paris that people don't really think of. People think of Paris like this movie: romantic, sitting in the cafe in the rain, Rive Gauche, Cafe Flore. For me, Paris is a completely different thing. The area where I live, it's around Barbes. It's quite rough. There is no chic, polished thing. It's very real. I go to the supermarket to shop and I make so many pictures and write things I see people wear. There are so many crazy people in Paris, all grumpy but very inspiring. How do you develop this from here? How do you take it forward? I think I found the base for what I want to do at Balenciaga. It's really to build in the certain refined attitude and the modern couture element into wearable clothing, and to work quite architecturally with garments, because that's for me what Balenciaga stands for. Once you have this recipe, I think it's quite easy. How similar or different does this look to your initial proposal for Balenciaga, when you were being considered for the job? You know, I showed 10 images that explained, more or less, my vision. Most of those images were a series of photographs of kids in New York on the street being shown an old couture picture by Irving Penn or whoever, all those images we know from the couture books and they had to mimic the same attitude. I found this extremely beautiful and inspiring. That was the attitude. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
The Kushner Companies' purchase in 2007 of 666 Fifth Avenue, an aluminum clad office tower in Midtown Manhattan, for a record price of 1.8 billion is considered a classic example of reckless underwriting. The transaction was so highly leveraged that the cash flow from rents amounted to only 65 percent of the debt service. As many real estate specialists predicted, the deal ran into trouble. Instead of rising, rents declined as the recession took hold, and new leases were scarce. In 2010, the loan was transferred to a special servicer on the assumption that a default would occur once reserve funds being used to subsidize the shortfall were bled dry. But the story may yet have a happy ending for Kushner, a family owned business that moved its headquarters from Florham Park, N.J., to 666 Fifth, its first major acquisition in Manhattan. Instead of foreclosing on the 39 story building, which stretches from 52nd Street to 53rd Street, the lenders agreed last month to reduce the principal and defer some of the interest payments on the interest only loan and extend its maturity for two years, until February 2019. In exchange, Kushner and its powerful new partner in the deal, Vornado Realty Trust, agreed to pour tens of millions of dollars into the building to improve its leasing prospects. The 1.5 million square feet office building is currently 30 percent vacant. The modification of the Kushner loan reflects a larger confidence in the city's long term future as a financial center. While many commercial mortgages across the country are still in trouble and more distress is expected those in New York City are in better shape. Of the 11.8 billion in commercial loans in Manhattan that were classified as troubled since 2008, just 3.4 billion, or 29 percent, remains in distress, said Ben Carlos Thypin, the director of market analysis for Real Capital Analytics, a New York research firm. About 3.5 billion in loans covering 14 buildings, including 666 Fifth Avenue, 3 Columbus Circle and 280 Park Avenue have been restructured. Borrowers who default are in a much better position today than they would have been in the last downturn, when regulators forced banks to take their losses and swiftly dispose of their troubled loans, said Alexander Goldfarb, a managing director at the brokerage firm Sandler O'Neill. During the last cycle, loans for large office buildings were packaged into securities and sold on Wall Street. Now, the bondholders have a strong incentive to modify their loan terms, often with existing borrowers. "In the early '90s, people knew that real estate was going to be purged at so many cents on the dollar," Mr. Goldfarb said. "This time around, the borrowers know the regulators and the government are on their side, so they can put up a substantial fight." In states like New York, a foreclosure risks being tied up in the courts for years. In the recent restructuring of 666 Fifth Avenue, Kushner and Vornado promised not to contest a foreclosure in the event of another default. In the near term, office tenants may not be easy to find. Brokers say large financial institutions are reluctant to make long term commitments right now because of uncertainty over the European debt crisis and the lingering economic downturn. "We're in a period of anxiety," said Mitchell S. Steir, chief executive of Studley, a brokerage firm that represents tenants. Though 666 Fifth Avenue has some of the most lucrative retail space in the world, the restructuring applies only to the office building. In 2008, Kushner sold a 49 percent stake for 525 million in the building's retail space which became a separate condo to the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, and Crown Acquisitions. Some of the proceeds were used to pay off Kushner's 355 million mezzanine loan, thereby enabling the company to hold on to the building. "It was a very savvy move," said Howard L. Michaels, the chairman of Carlton Advisory Services and the adviser on the retail sale. In 2010, the Japanese retailer Uniqlo agreed to open a flagship store at 666 Fifth for an eye popping rent of 20 million a year. Last year, the partners in the retail space sold one piece of it to the retailer Zara for 324 million, or 8,300 a square foot. Some of those proceeds were used to pay down a separate mortgage they had obtained for the retail condo. But while the value of the retail space was soaring, the office tower was losing tenants because of its precarious financial situation. Attempts to get the loan restructured began well before the loan was transferred to the special servicer, said Mr. Kushner, who is also the publisher of The New York Observer. He has been the public face of Kushner Companies, since his father, Charles, was released from federal prison in 2006 after pleading guilty to witness tampering and other charges. The lengthy restructuring process may have worked to Kushner's advantage. "The deal they cut now is probably better than the deal they could have cut two years ago," said Manus Clancy, the senior managing director of Trepp, another New York research company. Under its terms, the existing 1.215 billion office loan was divided into two pieces a senior loan of 1.1 billion, representing the current value of the building at 835 a square foot, and a subordinate loan for 115 million. These subordinate loans are called "hope" notes since they may never be repaid. Vornado, which received a 49.5 percent interest in the building, and Kushner agreed to invest 110 million to provide incentives for tenants, pay brokers' commissions and refurbish obsolete space. Kushner's 30 million share will come from a modified "air and light" agreement pertaining to a planned hotel for 53rd Street; the hotel's developers will no longer be blocked from using their own air rights to build extra stories on 53rd Street. In exchange for putting fresh cash into 666 Fifth Avenue, Vornado and Kushner will have the right to recoup this money (with interest, in Vornado's case) before the subordinate loan is repaid. "By all appearances, it seems like a fantastic deal for Vornado," said Robert M. White Jr., the chief executive of Real Capital Analytics. Vornado has taken an ownership stake in several troubled Manhattan properties. But the 666 Fifth deal raised some eyebrows because Vornado is also a part owner of the special servicer on the loan, LNR Partners of Miami Beach. Vornado did not respond to a request for an interview. Kushner was advised by Robert Verrone, who was known as Large Loan Verrone at Wachovia Bank because he financed such large deals as the 5.4 billion purchase of Stuyvesant Town Peter Cooper Village, the giant housing complex in Manhattan. Mr. Verrone has a new business, Iron Hound Management, and has done 5.5 billion worth of recapitalization and restructuring deals, he said. Though the 666 Fifth bondholders are worse off now, because the principal is smaller and some interest payments will not be made, they too benefitted from the restructuring, said Frank Innaurato, a managing director at Morningstar. "This mitigates the longer term loss potential for the deal," he said. "The lenders are not losing as much as they could have." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
The Boston Symphony Orchestra performing at Carnegie Hall in April. The orchestra's principal flutist says she is paid less than her closest comparable colleague, who is a man. The top flutist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra has filed a gender pay discrimination suit against the ensemble, claiming that her compensation is only about 75 percent that of her closest comparable colleague, the orchestra's principal oboist, who is a man. The suit, which was filed on Monday by Elizabeth Rowe, the orchestra's principal flutist and one of its most prominent musicians, appears to be the first under a new law in Massachusetts that requires equal pay for "comparable work." The law was passed in 2016, but it did not go into effect until Sunday, after employers had two years to rectify disparities. Ms. Rowe's complaint also appears to be the first pay equity lawsuit brought by a leading orchestral musician, suggesting that the debate over gender equality in the historically male dominated classical music world may be moving into new territory. Half a century after the introduction of blind auditions, in which candidates are heard from behind a screen, women make up just over 47 percent of players in American ensembles, according to a 2016 report by the League of American Orchestras. But according to Ms. Rowe's lawsuit, which seeks 200,000 in unpaid wages, pay disparities can be significant. Ms. Rowe, 44, is paid about 70,000 less each year than John Ferrillo, 62, the principal oboist, based on data in the lawsuit and tax records. That is despite the fact that they play next to each other and are both "leaders of the orchestra in similarly demanding artistic roles," according to the lawsuit, which was first reported by The Boston Herald. Ms. Rowe, who previously held positions in Baltimore, Washington and Indiana, joined the Boston Symphony in 2004. She has been a featured soloist with the orchestra 27 times, more than any other principal musician, according to the lawsuit. Critics for The New York Times have called her playing "ravishing" and "splendid." She has also been a "face of the orchestra," the lawsuit says, frequently featured in marketing campaigns, donor relations events and tours, like last year's visit to Japan, when she and the principal harpist Jessica Zhou the only other female principal player were the only musicians from the orchestra featured as soloists. Setting pay for orchestral musicians is complex. Collective bargaining agreements guarantee a minimum base salary, but principal players and others generally negotiate significant "overscales" based on solo fees, costs of instrument ownership, promotional duties and other variables. Drew McManus, an arts consultant who has advised musicians on contract negotiations, said that many orchestras fail to be rigorous in quantifying a musician's value, allowing room for bias. Ms. Rowe's suit claims that in addition to being paid less than Mr. Ferrillo (who made 286,621 in 2015, according to tax filings), she was also paid less than the orchestra's principal trumpet, viola, timpani and French horn players, all of whom are men. Even after adjusting for seniority within the orchestra, the lawsuit claims, Ms. Rowe was still paid only about three quarters of Mr. Ferrillo's compensation. The suit also claims that Mr. Ferrillo and some other male players got automatic pay increases each time the base pay was increased, while Ms. Rowe did not. A spokeswoman for the Boston Symphony, Bernadette Horgan, said that the orchestra could not comment on pending litigation but said that it "is committed to a strong policy of equal employment opportunity and to the practice of comparable pay for comparable work, as well as abiding by the Massachusetts Equal Pay Act." Mr. Ferrillo expressed support for Ms. Rowe's claims about their comparable value to the orchestra. "I consider Elizabeth to be my peer and equal, at least as worthy of the compensation that I receive as I am," he said in a statement to The Boston Globe. According to the suit, Ms. Rowe made several previous attempts to have her pay adjusted, beginning in 2015. The orchestra not only declined to equalize her pay with Mr. Ferrillo's, the suit claims, but also retaliated against her for trying to discuss the issue publicly. Last December, according to the lawsuit, the orchestra's management asked her to appear in a National Geographic documentary about gender equity hosted by Katie Couric. But when Ms. Rowe told the orchestra's administration that she planned to talk about current gender issues, including "known salary discrimination," the lawsuit says, the invitation was "immediately rescinded." Central to the suit is the issue of salary history, which it calls a "tainted variable." Laws forbidding employers from asking job candidates about previous salary have been passed recently in Massachusetts, Delaware, California, New York City, Philadelphia and elsewhere. "There's a growing recognition that an obvious source of perpetuating the pay gap comes from relying on past salary," said Gillian Thomas, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union's Women's Rights Project. The new Massachusetts law, like others, also says that salary history cannot be used as a justification for gender disparities. According to the lawsuit, Mr. Ferrillo, who was hired in 2001, had his compensation set at 200 percent of the orchestra's base rate, to match his previous pay at the Metropolitan Opera, where he was principal oboist from 1986 to 2001. The suit says Ms. Rowe was hired in 2004 at 154 percent of the base rate. Her current salary, the suit argues, fails to take into account her "accumulated experience" since joining the orchestra, which it calls "substantially equal to what Mr. Ferrillo had when he was hired." Elizabeth Rodgers, Ms. Rowe's lawyer, said in an email that her client hoped to reach "an amicable resolution" with the orchestra, which will hold its annual trustees and overseers week later this month at Tanglewood, its summer home in the Berkshires. She added that Ms. Rowe "sees this as a wonderful opportunity for the B.S.O. to make a positive stand on the right side of one of the most critical social issues of the day." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
Mark Ruffalo as Dominick Birdsey, who is the twin brother to Thomas (also played by Ruffalo) and the generally beleaguered figure at the heart of HBO's "I Know This Much Is True." The new HBO mini series "I Know This Much Is True" takes a character and puts him through a wringer that is so unforgiving, you'd expect it to flatten him completely, to squeeze out everything but the allegory of suffering. That it doesn't that there's enough juice in him to keep you moderately interested for most of the six hour plus story is almost entirely thanks to the man playing him, Mark Ruffalo. It's hard to imagine anyone else who could find this much life in the show's modern day Job. The director and primary writer, Derek Cianfrance, working from a 900 page best seller by Wally Lamb, wastes no time getting to the myriad misfortunes of Dominick Birdsey, a small town Connecticut house painter. "I Know This Much Is True" begins with Dominick's schizophrenic twin, Thomas (also played by Ruffalo), chopping off his hand in a public library. While that grisly (though not exceedingly graphic) scene is the catalyst for a tragic family saga, it's only one item in Dominick's catalog of grief. In addition to his brother's condition, which irradiates Dominick with both guilt and self pity, he's haunted by the deaths of close family members, a heartbreaking divorce, his hatred of his strict stepfather and his rage at never knowing who his biological father was. He is his brother's keeper and, of course, his alter ego, with a hair trigger rage that's the purportedly rational counterpart to Thomas's involuntary darkness. It's a lot, and it plays out in 1990 against the backdrop of the first Gulf War, the big story on the television sets before which the characters are often slumped. Thomas, whose schizophrenia entails hearing messages from God, cuts off his hand as a sacrifice to prevent the war. It's just one of the story's many futile gestures. There's more melodrama than genuine tragedy or social commentary in this material, but Cianfrance and his cinematographer, Jody Lee Lipes, give it a convincing, seductive fabric of lower middle class, Northeastern naturalism. And the Sturm und Drang are enlivened by elements of mystery and suspense: whether Dominick will identify his father, and whether he'll get Thomas released from a harsh psychiatric prison, a quest in which he's helped by a sympathetic social worker played by Rosie O'Donnell and a watchful psychiatrist played by Archie Panjabi. Cianfrance artfully toggles between past and present, as events constantly cast Dominick into reveries or nightmares about his and Thomas's childhood and college years, when Thomas slowly progressed from sensitive child to mentally ill adult. Less artfully, he incorporates a major subplot from the book, involving a memoir written by the brothers' Sicilian immigrant grandfather that parallels and prefigures the bitterness of their lives and hints at supernatural causes for the family's calamities a curse that Dominick needs to break. These early 20th century flashbacks, while competent enough, don't add much; they feel like outtakes from a Taviani Brothers movie. Ruffalo is dependably good throughout, delineating Dominick's anger and weariness while making him more than just an avatar for them, and, without much help from the script, getting across Thomas's helpless pain. The playing twins trick doesn't often enter your mind, partly because the story is so focused on Dominick but mainly because Ruffalo's work is so unobtrusive. Cianfrance has shown before, in his film "Blue Valentine" with Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, that he knows how to get out of the way of good actors. He does it here with Ruffalo, and with John Procaccino, who plays the stepfather. Other excellent performers, like Panjabi and Kathryn Hahn, as Dominick's ex wife, don't have a lot to work with; even at more than six hours, Dominick takes up so much of the show's air that other characters fight to register. The one exception to that is Juliette Lewis, who's funny and vivid in an oddly limited role as a grad student who translates Dominick's grandfather's manuscript, and then tells him that perhaps he shouldn't read it. She has one great scene, a drunken nighttime visit to Dominick's house, but then mostly vanishes. It's the series's one really lively scene, but even there Cianfrance and Lipes's tastefully off kilter, hand held aesthetic maintains a mood but doesn't do much for the energy level. And while "I Know This Much Is True" pulls you along on the strengths of its soap opera mechanics, its smoothly downbeat vibe and Ruffalo's performance, it promises more than it delivers eventually the story collapses in on itself, settling for the sentimental formulas it's been pretending it was above. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
The Justice Department sued Google on Tuesday, accusing the company of illegally abusing its dominance in internet search in ways that harm competitors and consumers. The suit is the first antitrust action against the company, owned by Alphabet, to result from investigations by the Justice Department, Congress, and 50 states and territories. State attorneys general and federal officials have also been investigating Google's behavior in the market for online advertising. And a group of states is exploring a broader search case against Google. Here is what you need to know about the suit. What is really happening here? This is one step against a single company. But it is also a response to the policy question of what measures, if any, should be taken to curb today's tech giants, which hold the power to shape markets, communication and even public opinion. Politics steered the timing and shape of this suit. Attorney General William P. Barr wanted to move quickly to take action before the election, making good on President Trump's pledge to take on Big Tech. Eleven states joined the suit. What is the Justice Department saying Google did illegally? This is a monopoly defense case. The government says Google is illegally protecting its dominant position in the market for search and search advertising with the deals it has struck with companies like Apple. Google pays Apple billions of dollars a year to have its search engine set as the default option on iPhones and other devices. The Justice Department is also challenging contracts Google has with smartphone makers that use Google's Android operating system, requiring them to install its search engine as the default. The Justice Department also investigated Google's behavior and acquisitions in the overall market for digital advertising, which includes search, web display and video ads. Online advertising was the source of virtually all of Alphabet's 34 billion in profit last year. But the search case is more straightforward, giving the government its best chance to win. To prevail, the Justice Department has to show two things that Google is dominant in search, and that its deals with Apple and other companies hobble competition in the search market. What will be Google's defense? In short: We're not dominant, and competition on the internet is just "one click away." That is the essence of recent testimony in Congress by Google executives. Google's share of the search market in the United States is about 80 percent. But looking only at the market for "general" search, the company says, is myopic. Nearly half of online shopping searches, it notes, begin on Amazon. Next, Google says the deals the Justice Department is citing are entirely legal. Such company to company deals violate antitrust law only if they can be shown to exclude competition. Users can freely switch to other search engines, like Microsoft's Bing or Yahoo Search, anytime they want, Google insists. Its search service, Google says, is the runaway market leader because people prefer it. What is the consumer harm when Google's search service is free? Consumer harm, the government argues, can result in several ways. Less competition in a market means less innovation and less consumer choice in the long run. That, in theory, could close the market to rivals that collect less data for targeted advertising than Google. Enhanced privacy, for example, would be a consumer benefit. Goods that are free to consumers are not exempt from antitrust oversight. In the landmark Microsoft case of the late 1990s, the software giant bundled its web browser for free into its dominant Windows operating system. Microsoft lost because, using restrictive contracts, it bullied personal computer makers and others to try to prevent them from offering competing web browser software competition that could have undermined the Windows monopoly. What happens next? Unless the government and Google reach a settlement, they're headed to court. Trials and appeals in such cases can take years. Whatever the outcome, one thing is certain: Google will face continued scrutiny for a long time. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
Despite the loud Instagram makeup trends that continue to rage, a lot of women are feeling a disconnect. They simply want to make it out the door feeling as if they are relatively put together. Because, let's be honest, who has the time? "I'm not someone who loves to be glammed up," said Simone Dufourg, who for years helped run the Prive salon in Manhattan. (Her father in law is the Prive owner, Laurent Dufourg.) She describes her aesthetic as "very natural," but after becoming a mother and getting older, she realized that "natural beauty actually took a lot of work." A couple of months ago, Ms. Dufourg made an appointment with Dominique Bossavy, known for her skill in semipermanent makeup. She had heard about her through friends in Beverly Hills, Calif., where Ms. Bossavy has her main office. ("Many, many women I knew were doing it, but they were not telling," Ms. Dufourg said.) But she went through with it after reading on Vogue.com about Lena Dunham's visit there to have her brows done. "I am through the roof with my results," she said, adding that recovery took three or four days with no scabbing and that she expected the results to last about a year. "It's so subtle it enhances my look without adding a lot of extra. My husband still doesn't know exactly what I had done. When he came home, he asked if I got Botox." (Ms. Bossavy, whose prices start at 1,500, sees clients in New York twice a month at Dangene: the Institute of Skinovation). As it turns out, Ms. Dufourg is participating in an Instagram trend after all. Spurred by hashtags, inked brows, particularly those created from microblading, have become hip. And if the thought of tattooed eyebrows conjures images of the ill done sea gull wings of the 1990s (they faded to a "Hunger Games" blue), know that needles are finer now and inks more nuanced, to complement skin tone. There is some confusion as to what exactly microblading is. Ms. Bossavy, who has been plying her art since 2001, insisted she did not practice microblading. She sketches the desired shape with a makeup pencil, hand mixes custom color for each client, then uses a single, very fine needle to create shape or fill in the brows with small amounts of pigment. In microblading, the technician uses a pen that has nearly a dozen tiny needles in a row to form a "blade," the idea being that the blade can replicate the actual brow hair. Ms. Bossavy considers the method less precise and makes fixing mistakes more difficult. "You're cutting the skin more with microblading," she said. "The more you injure the skin, the higher the chance you have of scarring." Piret Aava, who calls herself the Eyebrow Doctor, begs to differ. Originally a makeup artist, Ms. Aava learned microblading for clients who had lost their brow hair. She then built her business through Instagram, eventually opening her own office in Manhattan, where she has worked on such celebrities as Serena Williams and Malin Akerman. Ms. Aava said a single needle method could create "powder brows" that looked as though the arches were filled in with brow powder. Cosmetic tattooing is not the only semipermanent makeup with newfound popularity. To streamline her everyday routine, Clemence von Mueffling, founder of the site Beauty and Well Being, has her lashes tinted and permed at least twice a year. Ms. von Mueffling lives in New York but grew up in Paris, where her mother and grandmother were beauty directors for Vogue France. "Every neighborhood in Paris has these small beauty institutes, in the way that New York has nail salons," she said. "I started eyelash tinting at one of them probably when I was 19." In the summer, she swipes on Comodynes self tanner, and is out the door. "These are little tricks to make you feel good and look good," she added. In Brooklyn, the Gimme the Good Stuff blogger Maia James, who indulges in lash extensions despite a minimal beauty routine, noted that for many in her social circle, the switch to semipermanent solutions came with having children: "The look at school pickup is all about Lululemon, no makeup and yet fake lashes literally, every single mom." It must be said, the popularity of semipermanent makeup is not wholly about doing less. There is also a drive for everyday glamour. "All the lash extensions out there, it's not just about looking natural," said Soo Young Kim, a fashion and beauty editor. "It's because they look amazing in photos and really make your eyes pop." Ms. Kim pointed out that many of the semipermanent beauty options today derive from South Korea, where her cousins have indulged for decades. Soul Lee was one of the early practitioners of eyelash extensions in New York, opening the Shu Uemura shop in SoHo in 2004. Initially, she said, clients came for extensions for weddings or special events. Only lately have women begun to make them a regular routine. Her own applications tend toward the natural and believable, and she avoids styles like the currently popular "Russian technique," or "volume lashes," which involves gluing three or four extensions for each natural lash. ("It can put a lot of stress on your natural lashes, especially if they are thin to start with," Ms. Lee said.) "People ask for the Kim Kardashian look, and I don't even have the size of lashes to make that happen," she said. "I want the results to look like you're wearing mascara, instead of your eyelashes touching your eyebrows." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
Every day is a curly hair day for sheep. Those curls and kinks are part of what makes woolen sweaters so cozy the maze of fibers helps trap warm air, keeping it close to the body. But wrapped up in those curls may also be answers to a longstanding mystery: exactly how a strand of hair winds itself into a curl on the cellular level. For many years, there were two competing theories to explain what makes hairs curl in sheep. Research by scientists in New Zealand and Japan published Thursday in the Journal of Experimental Biology finds that neither theory is exactly correct. But it remains likely that differences between certain cells on a hair may explain what makes a sheep's wool curly. And while human hair has some crucial differences from wool, understanding why curls happen in one mammal's hair could eventually shed light on others, including ours. At first, the cells that will make up a strand of hair are soft and squishy, like little round bags of fluid. But as they grow longer and get extruded through a hair follicle, they get thinner, harder and full of keratin, a protein. In human hairs, the cells end up winding around one another in complex tangles, which makes it difficult to draw conclusions about how they contribute to curl. So researchers led by Duane Harland, a scientist at AgResearch in New Zealand, clipped samples from six New Zealand merino sheep, whose wool cells are much more tidy. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
When the question "what do you do?" comes up with people I've just met, I know it won't be long before I need to make a delicate calculation. I usually explain that I'm a dance critic, and that I used to dance professionally. "Oh, what kind of dance did you do?" they'll ask. Or, "Who did you dance with?" Do I tell them? Is it worth it? If I'm feeling resilient, ready for any of the reactions that might come next laughter, surprise, feigned admiration, real admiration, an impression of Michael Flatley I brace myself and dive in: "Did you know I was in 'Riverdance'?" I said. I understand that many people feel this way especially those from outside the Irish dance world and I don't entirely blame them, even as I want to leap to the show's defense. Therein lies the problem. It doesn't really matter how my revelation is received, or precisely what "funny" might mean; I've entered the maze of my own uncertainty about "Riverdance." As the production's 25th anniversary tour hurtles toward New York, stopping at Radio City Music Hall March 10 15, I realize I've been in a nearly lifelong relationship with this strange cultural phenomenon, one that I struggle to elucidate even for myself. The mere sight of a "Riverdance" billboard and they're everywhere in New York right now, that buoyant line of dancers in iridescent greens and blues, arms by their sides and feet lifted in perfect unison fills me with an uneasy mix of affection and anxiety, embarrassment and pride. How did I get here? Will it always be this way? Will I ever feel fine speaking the words "I was in 'Riverdance'"? As someone who began Irish dancing in the early 1990s, just before "Riverdance" emerged and turned the once provincial dance form into a global craze, I've become accustomed to public perceptions of the show as both an impressive spectacle, requiring real skill, and something to joke about. In its 25 years, the commercially successful enterprise which began as an intermission act at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, starring Jean Butler and Mr. Flatley has been mocked and spoofed as much as it's been celebrated and more earnestly imitated. "His legs flail about as if independent from his body!" shouts a disturbed Chandler in a 1998 episode of "Friends," explaining why Michael Flatley "scares the bejesus" out of him. A 2001 New Yorker cartoon depicts a judge addressing a lawyer and his client: "No, it's either community service or jail time, counsellor," the caption reads. "Attending 'Riverdance' is not a sentencing option." In a 2005 episode of "The Simpsons," Marge dreams of a "Catholic heaven," filled with rows upon rows of angels hoofing to the "Riverdance" theme song. "Now dance, ye heavenly gobs!" exclaims their Flatley esque leader. There was a time before I knew that "Riverdance" could be considered anything but flawless, when I myself viewed it as the pinnacle of artistry. I first saw the show when I was 9, during its Radio City debut in 1996. I had been introduced to Irish dance on a family trip to County Kerry, Ireland, through a friend who lived down the road from where we were staying. Three years my senior (I was 4), she gave me lessons in the farmhouse driveway, showing me how to cross my ankles and stay up on my toes as I executed the basic step known as a jump two three. Closer to home in Massachusetts, I started taking formal lessons and, like most young people who want to excel in Irish dance, training for competitions. One day my mother, a travel agent at the time, found herself on hold with Aer Lingus, listening over and over to an ad for an Irish dance and music sensation that was coming to New York. Intrigued by the endlessly looping excerpt from Bill Whelan's "Riverdance" score (it was, she tells me, "magical"), she decided we had to go. The show captured my heart. Compared to the steps I was learning in class, with a teacher who once Scotch taped my wrists to my sides to correct my posture (it didn't work), the choreography was modern, alluring, cool. The dancers used their arms and swayed their hips, both off limits in the traditional style, a folk form that became rigidly codified during Ireland's nationalist revival of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I didn't quite understand it at the time, but this was one of the production's chief innovations: making Irish dance sexy or at least, sexier. The choreography also put Irish dance into dialogue with other percussive and rhythmically intricate forms: flamenco, tap, Russian folk dance (or some semblance of it). I think people forget, or just don't know, that "Riverdance" is essentially a variety show; the Rockettes like lines of Irish dancers are the main event, but there's so much more. "Riverdance" and the many spinoffs it inspired also created new career paths for Irish dancers. Whereas before a dancer might compete through her teens, then earn her teaching certificate and open a school, she now had more opportunities to make a living performing. The relentlessly entrepreneurial Mr. Flatley, who left "Riverdance" after less than a year (he was fired over contractual issues), went on to develop and star in "Lord of the Dance," "Feet of Flames" and "Celtic Tiger." I'd always had reservations about him too much ego and these ventures struck me as increasingly tacky. As a senior in high school, looking toward my dancing future, I figured that if I was going to take Irish dance any further, it would be in "Riverdance" the original or not at all. I sent in an audition tape and, for months, heard nothing. By the time I was invited to audition, during the spring of my freshman year of college, my once unfettered enthusiasm for the show, and for Irish dance in general, had waned. Not only did I feel out of shape, having stopped competing, but my tastes were changing. My first semester in New York had exposed me to the work of avant garde choreographers like Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham, and to the academic conversations around them. In jazz and ballet classes, I was finding more freedom in my torso: progress. Did I want to go back? On top of all this, the show had changed. When I saw it the week of my audition in Philadelphia, it looked (and sounded) like a low budget version of its former self. The cast and band had shrunk, presumably for financial reasons, and because of the downsizing, the sound of recorded taps, amplifying the rhythms of the Irish dancers' feet, was more obvious than ever. I put aside my aesthetic critiques, along with my insecurities, and went through with the audition. That fall, enticed by the promise of a new experience and a decently paying dance job I left school for a semester to join the 10th anniversary North American tour. Our work, which started most days around 6 p.m., didn't feel like work at first. I looked forward to the evening rituals of doing my makeup, warming up onstage and waiting in the wings at the top of the show. The dancing itself could be exhilarating. In the beginning, I thrived on the extreme precision it demanded, and the challenge of delivering this before so many expectant eyes. I had never performed for such large crowds or received such ecstatic applause. Yet after powering through eight shows a week for a couple of months, the repetition began to wear on me, more psychologically than physically. Pounding out the same steps night after night, as part of the smiling chorus line, I found myself feeling deflated, reluctant to do it again and again. Recently I found a note to myself from what must have been a desperate moment: "A revelation today about getting through Riverdance: Act it. Perform it. Ham it up. Be a big, huge cornball." When I learned that my contract wouldn't be renewed, ending after about three months, I was more relieved than disappointed. In the next few years, I returned to the company periodically when a substitute was needed. I enjoyed seeing old friends and new places, but I never longed to do a full fledged tour again. In retrospect, I realize that I was craving more room for self exploration as a dancer. I eventually found this in much smaller, scrappier projects in New York, mostly outside of the Irish dance world but with choreographers who appreciated my eclectic training. Working in these environments felt more like dancing with my friend in the driveway in County Kerry. If dancing and watching dance have taught me anything, it's to be comfortable with ambiguity, and not to always seek a tidy resolution. As I anticipate being in the audience at Radio City soon, and the tangled feelings that are bound to come up, maybe I need to apply those lessons here. "Riverdance" has been many things to me: a dream, an adventure, a job; a source of joy and disillusionment; an experience I sometimes miss. I was in it, and I may never get out. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
History has not been kind to the elephant bird of Madagascar. Standing nearly 10 feet tall and weighing up to 1,000 pounds or so researchers believed this flightless cousin of the ostrich went extinct in the 17th century, thanks in part to humans stealing their massive eggs, either to feed their own families or to repurpose them as giant rum flasks. Or both. More recently, the bird's designation as the heaviest in history was challenged by the discovery of the slightly larger, unrelated Dromornis stirtoni, an Australian flightless giant that went extinct 20,000 years ago. But a new study seeks to restore the elephant bird's heavyweight title. After taxonomic reshuffling and examination of collected elephant bird remains, researchers say that a member of a previously unidentified genus of the birds could have weighed more than 1,700 pounds, making it by far the largest bird ever known. Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. Over the centuries, scientists have competed to collect and display the largest elephant bird bones. But, " nobody's done any real cohesive research on these birds ," said James Hansford, a paleontologist at the Zoological Society of London and lead author of the study, resulting in a taxonomic muddle for the feathered giants. As a result, more than 15 elephant bird species had been identified across two genera (the plural of genus, the name for a group of closely related species). | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
A roundup of motoring news from the web: Mercedes Benz saw deliveries of its compact cars rise 44 percent and deliveries of its flagship S Class rise 43 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013. Strong sales have meant that demand has overtaken supply, and accordingly, the automaker says it will curtail sales incentives and raise prices on some models. (Automotive News, subscription required) One of the toughest things about off road driving is that it is often difficult to see what obstacles lie ahead. Renault tackled this problem with a companion drone for its Kwid concept, a scissor door diminutive off roader aimed at grabbing the attention of India's younger buyers. (Wired) Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, called for auto manufacturers to set in car technology standards more quickly to combat what he sees as a growing problem: technology related distraction among drivers. Senator Rockefeller said that although infotainment systems had, in some ways, made driving better, too much emphasis had been placed on smartphone connectivity and distracting social media functions that lead to traffic accidents. (Bloomberg) A number of new cars were introduced this week at the Auto Expo, near Delhi, India, with subcompact cars a primary focus. Among the small cars unveiled at the show were the Maruti Suzuki Celerio, the Mahindra Halo concept E.V., the Gio Explorer hatchback, which is really more of a golf cart, the Skoda Yeti, the Ford Figo concept and the Honda Amaze. (CNN) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
Credit...Jake Michaels for The New York Times Is there such a thing as an Eric Andre aesthetic? Can we speak of a governing set of principles in the work of someone who has surreptitiously recorded himself while disguised as a delivery person and riding his bicycle right through the glass window of a cafe, or while hiding in a salad bar only to leap out and startle patrons with carrots on his fingers? Are there any rules or boundaries for a man who, in his recurring role as a shabby talk show host, has appeared to vomit in front of an unsuspecting guest and then eaten what he just regurgitated? What motivates an artist who does all this and also constantly gets naked in public? These are not questions that Andre, the comedian and playful provocateur, spends much time thinking about; more often he is concocting plans for his next hidden camera prank or still escaping from the last one he pulled. But there is a common element in the cringe inducing stunts and half assed interviews he has perpetrated on his long running Adult Swim series, "The Eric Andre Show": it's a certain appetite for confrontation that drives him to even more outrageous heights in the upcoming narrative prank comedy, "Bad Trip," and that is also evident in his new stand up special, "Legalize Everything," which Netflix will release on June 23. As for himself, Andre said, "I'm a benevolent attacker. There's no malicious intent." What is consistent in the different kinds of comedy he puts out, he said, is "an element of a sleeping danger you want there to be something at risk." Andre's pursuit of the precarious has led him to a somewhat comfortable place in his work. His cult status allows him to focus full time on the adversarial and unpredictable comedy that most appeals to him (with the occasional forays into the mainstream, like a role as a hyena in Disney's remake of "The Lion King"). He is sufficiently recognizable to young audiences now that he has to be careful about where he chooses to film his pranks. "I can't go to a skate park or a college campus and do them there, I'll tell you that," he said. For all of his experiences, Andre still regards stand up the format he began with when he started in comedy as perilous and he returned to it for that sensation of jeopardy. Here are more fascinating tales you can't help but read all the way to the end. None Getting Personal With Iman. The supermodel talks about life after David Bowie, their Catskills refuge and the perfume inspired by their love. A Resilient Team for a Broken Nation. With the Taliban in control, what, and whom, is Afghanistan's national soccer team playing for? The Fight of This Old Boxer's Life Was With His Own Family. A battle among Marvin Stein's family over his fortune broke out, and he suddenly found himself powerless to fight for himself. "I think stand up might be the hardest thing ever," he said. "You write a joke and if it doesn't work, you throw it out, which is like 90 percent of 'em. The 10 percent that do work only work for a little bit and then they get stale and moldy and they're done." "Legalize Everything" is an hourlong showcase for what Andre calls his "absurdist, psychedelic" stand up style, blending stories about his misadventures while high on LSD, MDMA and Xanax with the occasional, friendly dive into his live audience. He also shares personal tidbits about being "blewish," the son of a black father and a white Jewish mother. ("My dad looks like Arthur Ashe and my mom looks like Howard Stern," he says in the special.) It was only as he approached graduation in 2005 that Andre reconsidered his professional aspirations. In music, he said, "you have four good years and then you peak and then that's it. There's way less competition in stand up than in music." While Andre worked regularly as a stand up, he also started figuring out the elements of what would become "The Eric Andre Show," which combines talk show satire with aggressive practical jokes perpetrated on unsuspecting onlookers. From the show's debut in 2012, Andre has always felt a certain anxiety about eliciting the reactions of strangers while he is, for example, chasing a bassinet being lifted away on balloons and screaming, "My baby!" "We look for trouble," he explained. "It's a career where you're purposely trying to get a rise out of people. You end your day feeling like you did something wrong and it's not until you see the footage edited together properly that you're like, OK, I have a funny bit in here." Kitao Sakurai, who has been a director on "The Eric Andre Show" since its pilot episode, said that over time, they have learned how to manage the most crucial elements of these pranks. Sakurai said Andre and his co conspirators have learned "how to be present in a situation and be really engaging, but also be pulled back enough to know how the prank is going, to intuitively know where the cameras are and what the good angles are, and what to get out of a mark what to do within legal bounds and what not to do." What cannot be completely controlled, he said, is "this added layer of intense adrenaline that makes things so nervous." "That period of time before the prank starts is like hell," Sakurai said. "And it's something that you have to get used to." In his downtime between seasons of his show, Andre played supporting roles on network sitcoms like "Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23" and "2 Broke Girls." Though they didn't always reflect his comedic sensibilities, Andre said he had to pay his dues (and his bills). "At the beginning, you don't have the option to be picky," he said. "I was like, yeah, I'll do whatever I'll do a snuff film if you pay me." He did, however, speak highly of his time on the surreal FXX relationship comedy "Man Seeking Woman," which he said was "smart without being pretentious and struck the right tone." Andre was also keeping tabs on the success of movies like "Borat" and "Bad Grandpa," which make hidden camera pranks part of feature length narratives, and devising a similar film of his own. His entry into this genre is "Bad Trip," in which he plays a lovelorn schmo on a journey from Florida to New York with his best friend (Lil Rel Howery), who is being pursued by his sister (Tiffany Haddish), a pitiless prison escapee. "The buddy comedy is essentially a love story," Andre explains. "Two buddies go on the road and one falls in love, but the love interest is a red flag. The real love is by the protagonist's side the whole time his best friend. Because it has such a classic structure, it allows us to take liberties with the genre." The set pieces in "Bad Trip" are as ambitious as anything Andre has attempted on his TV series but were at times more dangerous. On one early day of filming, Andre and Howery tried to approach a barbershop while pretending their penises were caught in a Chinese finger trap and they were chased away by a man wielding a knife. Howery ("Get Out") said that he considered quitting "Bad Trip" after that incident. "I called my manager like, 'Look, I'm an actor this movie is too much. If this is what it's going to be, I am done,'" he recalled. But Howery said that Andre took his concerns seriously and persuaded him not to walk away. "I'm not an easy dude to budge, but he's funny, he's charming," Howery said, slipping into an affectionate imitation of Andre's bro speak: "Come on, man, this is going to be crazy, man. I'm telling you, from this point on, we can talk about everything." Despite Andre's well earned reputation for unruliness, Howery said that "Bad Trip" also revealed his artistic temperament. "You go to his birthday party and you're like, OK, this dude is insane," Howery said. "And he wasn't he was way more sensitive and serious than I thought he would be." Haddish, who has known Andre from their time as struggling stand ups, said that she never considered his stunts exploitative and felt that they always revealed the "innate empathy" of the bystanders caught up in them. Describing a scene from "Bad Trip" in which it appeared she was dangling Howery off a roof, Haddish said, "People could have been like, 'I see that happening but I'm not going to respond to it.'" Instead, she said, "People are like, 'You don't got to do that! What are you doing?' It was beautiful to see people have real hearts and really care. That to me was beautiful." That cloud lifted a few weeks later when Netflix acquired "Bad Trip" for its streaming platform. An exact release date has not yet been announced, but Andre was hopeful that "Legalize Everything" could provide an entry point for viewers who are not yet familiar with his worldview. (A new season of "The Eric Andre Show" is also expected to have its debut on Adult Swim later this year.) In the spirit of his other projects, "Legalize Everything" opens with Andre roaming the French Quarter of New Orleans dressed as a police officer, offering bong hits and other drugs to perplexed bystanders. While this prank is similar to others he has pulled on his TV series, Andre said that he was not inclined to cut it amid recent protests against police violence and a broader reconsideration of how police are portrayed in media. "I don't think now is the time to self censor," he said. "If someone doesn't get it, they don't get it. It's the plight of the comedian." (He also has a prescient routine about the now canceled TV series "Cops," which he derides for using a mellow theme song to introduce its oppressive subject matter. "You can't slap reggae over police brutality footage and call it a day," Andre says in the bit.) On a milder note, Andre concludes "Legalize Everything" by asking audience members to volunteer their cellphones and then uses the predictive text feature to send bewildering messages to their mothers. As Andre explained, "A lot of the bits in my special are very hard R, edgy, loud and violent." But when it came to that segment, he said, "Bob Hope could have done that joke. I like a G rated dismount after a ton of chaos." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
On the morning of March 25, the high school baseball coach pulled out his phone and reached out to his players, because that is what he has always done early on a game day. He reminded them that it was opening day of their season, against Clarkstown North. They needed to be ready. The weather was going to be 50 degrees and cloudy, a decent day, he said. Let's go win the game. It didn't take long for the players to text him back, reminding him that their season had been postponed indefinitely because of the coronavirus pandemic. There was no game. I know, he told them. But as always, Coach Mike Chiapparelli had a plan. "I'm playing the whole game in my head," said Chiapparelli, who has been coaching baseball, hockey and football at Mamaroneck High School in the New York City suburbs for the better part of 40 years. "And they should, too, because that way when we get back we'll be ready." The pandemic has killed thousands, turned arenas and parks into temporary hospitals and sent the world's financial markets crashing. It has also upended lives and schedules in countless ways, with effects that range from the deadly to the more mundane. The people who have dedicated their adult lives to coaching know where their problems fall on that scale. But those "lifers" the high school baseball coach who has been at it since the Carter administration, the lacrosse coach who started the program in 1976 are also suddenly doing something that they have not done in decades, which is to say, almost nothing. They're not teaching all day and then throwing batting practice, or raking the infield, or running stick handling drills, or dispensing unspoken life lessons, all afternoon. Their lives are fairly simple to understand. Bankers make money. Lawyers make arguments. Novelists make stories. Coaches teachers, too make people, and without all those practices and games that were supposed to unfold over the next couple months, it doesn't feel like they are making much of anything right now. "The hardest thing is giving up the relationships you build and what you give the girls, the confidence," said Kathy Jenkins, who has been teaching and coaching at St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School, in Alexandria, Va., since 1971. "I keep telling myself thank God I didn't decide to retire after this year." Jenkins will turn 70 in October. She started out as a basketball coach, then began the girls' lacrosse program in 1976, half a lifetime ago. Last year she won her 800th game, more than any other girls' lacrosse coach. "I have more time than I have ever had in my life now," she said. "I don't like it." On March 13, the governor announced he was closing the schools and ending scholastic sports. Her girls came out to the field in their uniforms that afternoon anyway. They played music, and the underclassmen gave roses to the veterans, so the seniors would have something resembling a senior day. "That's when I began knowing in my mind we probably weren't going to be together like this again," she said. Jack Radovich, the 17 year old center fielder for Chiapparelli's Mamaroneck Tigers, said after baseball practices got shut down on that same Friday the 13th, he and his teammates tried to gather in small groups to throw and swing. One of them even has a batting cage in his backyard. Those gatherings got shut down pretty quickly by parents and school administrators. "For me, it's not so much a team or a season that we've lost, it's more of a family," said Radovich, bored at home on another recent baseball free afternoon. "Coach creates this team dynamic, this bond, and for that to be broken, I'm getting kind of choked up talking about it." Chiapparelli, 64, who has a mop of shaggy curls on his head and still wears those tight, mid length gym teacher shorts nearly every day, even in the winter, didn't plan on any of this when he was starting out in coaching and teaching physical education 40 years ago. He spent 32 years coaching three sports, then dialed it back to just hockey and baseball after his wife asked him to, though he still helps out on the sidelines of varsity football games on Saturday afternoons in the fall. The programs were fairly mediocre when he took them over, but he joined the board of the local Little League and tried to make it a little more competitive, encouraging better players to play in older divisions. He also started after school floor hockey and baseball programs in the district's elementary schools, giving him an early look at the best athletes in town. He paid his high school players to coach the children and used the rest of the money to help improve the facilities and opportunities for his high school teams. They got batting cages and bullpens and spring trips to tournaments against other nationally ranked teams, plus some sweet swag batting gloves, polo shirts, sweatshirts. His players also do off season weight training and conditioning in the mornings before school. He joins them for five mile runs several mornings a week. His team is the grounds crew. They rake the infield and manicure the pitching mound and home plate and roll out the tarp when bad weather is coming. In the early 1990s, he started scheduling games against the best teams in New York, teams that battered his Tigers at first. Now his teams regularly contend for state championships. "I'm not afraid to lose, and that's what I tell the kids," he said. "When you put yourself up against the tougher challenge you get used to having tougher challenges." Since the season got put on an indefinite hold, he has cleaned up his yard and done all the early spring chores around the house. He usually works Sunday nights tending bar at a local tavern, but that isn't happening either. Now he's just bored, a guy who is used to having five jobs, who now barely has one. He should be throwing a thousand pitches a day for live batting practice, because hitting a ball out of a machine just isn't the same, but he's got no one to throw to. And nothing fills the hole of what's really missing. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
This is the year of the niche athlete, the retroactive sport, the shirtless uniform. It's an opportunity to travel to remote destinations to watch those who believe that competing with the elements, as well as with one another, makes for a neat challenge. Since its public outing as a demonstration sport at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, competitive ice climbing has hit new highs with spectators, which the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (U.I.A.A.) hopes to parlay into a bona fide slot at the 2018 games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Ice climbing is no gradual ascent up Everest. It's a test of speed and agility, during which climbers scale slick 75 foot multitowered ice structures with 70 degree overhangs using nothing but crampons, ice axes and their own strength. You can catch the U.I.A.A. Ice Climbing World Championshipslive in two chilly but intriguing destinations: first, in Rabenstein, Italy (Jan. 30 to Feb. 1), and later in Kirov, Russia (March 6 to 8). And in between there's the French World Cup in Champagny (Feb. 5 to 7). Though most know it as a misfit fusion sport for millennials, stand up paddle boarding has been doggy paddling toward legitimacy as a competitive sporting event for the last three years at the International Surfing Association's annual World StandUp Paddle and Paddleboard Championship. The fourth annual (May 10 to 17) moves from Nicaragua to Sayulita, Mexico, an easy to reach destination that the I.S.A. hopes will draw more fans and provide choppier waters for competitors. The true test of legitimacy? If Hawaii, which competes separately from the United States and is considered one of the best teams in the world, joins in to give the reigning Australian champs a run for their money. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
'APOLLO'S MUSE: THE MOON IN THE AGE OF PHOTOGRAPHY' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Sept. 22). This exhibition is a journey through an uncommon history, that of representations of the moon across four centuries. An outsize and beautifully installed revelation of persistent astronomical searches, it is a trailblazing marriage of science and art 300 images and objects (a telescope, a photograph used as a fire screen, two moon globes, Hasselblad cameras used by astronauts), plus film excerpts. The images shine a bright light on astronomers' unstoppable pursuit of knowledge as well as on technological advances, artistic responses and fantasy, and also a generous serving of unabashed cuteness. The show amounts to a testament to the human drive to know and explore, and it quietly affirms the growing influence of visual representations of the moon from the invention of the telescope through the Apollo 11 moon landing 50 years ago. (Vicki Goldberg) 212 535 7100, metmuseum.org 'ARTISTS RESPOND: AMERICAN ART AND THE VIETNAM WAR, 1965 1975' (through Aug. 18) and 'TIFFANY CHUNG: VIETNAM, PAST IS PROLOGUE' (through Sept. 2) at Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington. Everything in "Artists Respond," a big, inspiriting blast of a historical survey, dates from a time when the United States was losing its soul, and its artists some, anyway were trying to save theirs by denouncing a racist war. Figures well known for their politically hard hitting work Judith Bernstein, Leon Golub, Hans Haacke, Peter Saul, Nancy Spero are here in strength. But so are others, like Dan Flavin and Donald Judd and Barnett Newman, seldom associated with visual activism. Concurrent with the survey is a smaller, fine tuned show by a contemporary Vietnamese born artist, Tiffany Chung; it views the war through the eyes of people on the receiving end of aggression. (Holland Cotter) 202 663 7970, americanart.si.edu 'AUSCHWITZ. NOT LONG AGO. NOT FAR AWAY' at the Museum of Jewish Heritage (through Jan. 3). Killing as a communal business, made widely lucrative by the Third Reich, permeates this traveling exhibition about the largest German death camp, Auschwitz, whose yawning gatehouse, with its converging rail tracks, has become emblematic of the Holocaust. Well timed, during a worldwide surge of anti Semitism, the harrowing installation strives, successfully, for fresh relevance. The exhibition illuminates the topography of evil, the deliberate designing of a hell on earth by fanatical racists and compliant architects and provisioners, while also highlighting the strenuous struggle for survival in a place where, as Primo Levi learned, "there is no why." (Ralph Blumenthal) 646 437 4202, mjhnyc.org 'BRAZILIAN MODERN: THE LIVING ART OF ROBERTO BURLE MARX' at the New York Botanical Garden (through Sept. 29). The garden's largest ever botanical exhibition pays tribute to Brazil's most renowned landscape architect with lush palm trees and vivid plants, along with a display of paintings and tapestries. In the late 1960s and early '70s, Marx (1909 94) planted bright bands of monochrome plants along Rio's Copacabana Beach and the fresh ministries of Brasilia, the new capital. For this show, the garden and its greenhouses synthesize his achievements into a free form paean rich with Brazilian species, some of which he discovered himself. (Alcantarea burle marxii, one of many thick fronded bromeliads here, has leaves as tall as a 10 year old.) Check the weather, make sure it's sunny, then spend all day breathing in this exuberant gust of tropical modernism. (Jason Farago) 718 817 8700, nybg.org 'CAMP: NOTES ON FASHION' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Sept. 8). Inspired by Susan Sontag's famous 1964 essay, "Notes on 'Camp,'" the latest spectacular from the Met's Costume Institute attempts to define this elastic, constantly evolving concept, which leaves taste, seriousness and heteronormativity in the dust. The show researches camp's emergence in 18th century France and 19th century England, examines "Sontagian Camp" and culminates in an immense gallery of designer confectionaries from the 1980s to now that calls to mind a big, shiny Christmas tree barricaded with presents. (Roberta Smith) 212 535 7100, metmuseum.org 'LEONARD COHEN: A CRACK IN EVERYTHING' at the Jewish Museum (through Sept. 8). The curators of this show, John Zeppetelli of the Musee d'Art Contemporain de Montreal and Victor Shiffman, commissioned artists of various disciplines to develop pieces inspired by Cohen. Some are simple and quiet, like "Ear on a Worm" from the film artist Tacita Dean, a small image playing on a loop high in the space that shows a perched bird, a reference to "Bird on the Wire" from Cohen's 1969 album "Songs From a Room." Some are closer to traditional documentary, like George Fok's "Passing Through," which intercuts performances by Cohen throughout his career with video that surrounds the viewer, suggesting the songs are constant and eternal while the performer's body changes with time. Taken together, the layered work on display has a lot to offer on Cohen, but even more to say about how we respond to music, bring it into our lives, and use it as both a balm and an agent for transformation. (Mark Richardson) 212 423 3200, thejewishmuseum.org 'CULTURE AND THE PEOPLE: EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO, 1969 2019' at El Museo del Barrio (through Sept. 29). This golden anniversary survey of wonderful art from the collection of a treasured East Harlem based institution sounds a political note from the start, with works by figures who were crucial to the museum's earliest years, like the street photographer Hiram Maristany and the great printmaker Rafael Tufino. Throughout the show, whether in abstract paintings or sculptural installations, art and activism blend. And there's joy: A 2006 collage called "Barrio Boogie Movement" by Rodriguez Calero generates the elation of the sidewalk it depicts, and Freddy Rodriguez's homage to the Dominican catcher Tony Pena a gold leaf baseball nestled in a mink lined glove is a rush of pure fan love. (Cotter) 212 831 7272, elmuseo.org 'CYCLING IN THE CITY: A 200 YEAR HISTORY' at the Museum of the City of New York (through Oct. 6). The complex past, present and future roles of the bicycle as a vehicle for both social progress and strife are explored in this exhibition. With more than 150 objects including 14 bicycles and vintage cycling apparel it traces the transformation of cycling's significance from a form of democratized transportation, which gave women and immigrants a sense of freedom, to a political football that continues to pit the city's more than 800,000 cyclists against their detractors today. (Julianne McShane) 212 534 1672, mcny.org 'DRAWING THE CURTAIN: MAURICE SENDAK'S DESIGNS FOR OPERA AND BALLET' at the Morgan Library Museum (through Oct. 6). Drawn from Sendak's bequest to the Morgan of his theatrical drawings, this succinct yet bountiful exhibition offers an overview of a dense, underappreciated period in this artist's career, undertaken with his most celebrated books well in the past and his life in uneasy transition. "Fifty," Sendak said, "is a good time to either change careers or have a nervous breakdown." The new midlife career he took on in the late 1970s was that of a designer for music theater. His rare ability to convey the light in darkness and the darkness in light brought him to opera. It's the focus of this show, which is aimed at adults but likely delightful for children, too. Five of his productions emerge before our eyes from rough sketches to storyboards, polished designs and a bit of video footage in those unmistakably Sendakian colors, watery and vivid at once. (Zachary Woolfe) 212 685 0008, themorgan.org 'THE JIM HENSON EXHIBITION' at the Museum of the Moving Image (ongoing). The rainbow connection has been established in Astoria, Queens, where this museum has opened a new permanent wing devoted to the career of America's great puppeteer, who was born in Mississippi in 1936 and died, too young, in 1990. Henson began presenting the short TV program "Sam and Friends" before he was out of his teens; one of its characters, the soft faced Kermit, was fashioned from his mother's old coat and would not mature into a frog for more than a decade. The influence of early variety television, with its succession of skits and songs, runs through "Sesame Street" and "The Muppet Show," though Henson also spent the late 1960s crafting peace and love documentaries and prototyping a psychedelic nightclub. Young visitors will delight in seeing Big Bird, Elmo, Miss Piggy and the Swedish Chef; adults can dig deep into sketches and storyboards and rediscover some old friends. (Jason Farago) 718 784 0077, movingimage.us 'ILLUSTRATING BATMAN: EIGHTY YEARS OF COMICS AND POP CULTURE' at the Society of Illustrators (through Oct. 12). Batman turned 80 in April, and now the character is being celebrated with this visual feast of covers and interior pages, teeming with vintage and modern original comic art that shows the hero's evolution. The exhibition includes "Bat Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan," a display devoted to a Batman story originally printed in Japan, and "Batman Collected: Chip Kidd's Batman Obsession," featuring memorabilia belonging to the graphic designer Chip Kidd. (George Gene Gustines) 212 838 2560, societyillustrators.org Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead. 'ALICJA KWADE: PARAPIVOT' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Oct. 27). This shrewd and scientifically inclined artist, born in Poland and based in Berlin, has delivered the best edition in five years of the Met's hit or miss rooftop sculpture commission. Two tall armatures of interlocking steel rectangles, the taller of them rising more than 18 feet, support heavy orbs of different colored marble; some of the balls perch precariously on the steel frames, while others, head scratchingly, are squinched between them. Walk around these astral abstractions and the frames seem to become quotation marks for the transformed skyline of Midtown; the marbles might be planets, each just as precarious as the one from which they've been quarried. (Farago) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'LIFE: SIX WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS' at the New York Historical Society (through Oct. 6). In the three decade plus golden age of Life magazine, only six of its full time photographers were women. On the face of it, this exhibition at the historical society is half an excuse to air some gorgeous, previously unpublished silver prints, half a broad hint about how much talent we've lost to discrimination over the years. But cheery photo essays, produced by professional women, about other women hesitating to join the work force make a subtler point: that the actual mechanics of discrimination tend to be more complicated than they appear from a distance. (Will Heinrich) 212 873 3400, nyhistory.org 'NOBODY PROMISED YOU TOMORROW: 50 YEARS AFTER STONEWALL' at the Brooklyn Museum (through Dec. 8). In this large group show, 28 young queer and transgender artists, most born after 1980, carry the buzz of Stonewall resistance into the present. Historical heroes, including Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, are honored (in a film by Sasha Wortzel and Tourmaline). Friends in life, Johnson and Rivera are tutelary spirits of an exhibition in which a trans presence, long marginalized by mainstream gay politics, is pronounced in the work of Juliana Huxtable, Hugo Gyrl, Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski and Elle Perez (who is also in the current Whitney Biennial). (Cotter) 718 638 5000, brooklynmuseum.org 'OCEAN WONDERS: SHARKS!' at the New York Aquarium (ongoing). For years, the aquarium's 14 acre campus hunkered behind a wall, turning its back to the beach. When aquarium officials last year finally got around to completing the long promised building that houses this shark exhibition, maybe the biggest move, architecturally speaking, was breaking through that wall. The overall effect makes the aquarium more of a visible, welcoming presence along the boardwalk. Inside, "Ocean Wonders" features 115 species sharing 784,000 gallons of water. It stresses timely eco consciousness, introducing visitors to shark habitats, explaining how critical sharks are to the ocean's food chains and ecologies, debunking myths about the danger sharks pose to people while documenting the threats people pose to sharks via overfishing and pollution. The narrow, snaking layout suggests an underwater landscape carved by water. Past the exit, an outdoor ramp inclines visitors toward the roof of the building, where the Atlantic Ocean suddenly spreads out below. You can see Luna Park in one direction, Brighton Beach in the other. The architectural point becomes clear: Sharks aren't just movie stars and aquarium attractions. They're also our neighbors as much a part of Coney Island as the roller coasters and summer dreams. (Michael Kimmelman) 718 265 3474, nyaquarium.com 'PLAY IT LOUD: INSTRUMENTS OF ROCK ROLL' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Oct. 1). Presented in collaboration with the Rock Roll Hall of Fame, this exhibition offers a vision of history in which the rock music that flowered in the 1960s and '70s sits firmly at the center. The format of the rock band provides the structure of the show, with one room given over to the rhythm section and another showcasing "Guitar Gods." Yet another room has a display highlighting the guitar's destruction, with pieces of instruments trashed by Kurt Cobain and Pete Townshend. To the extent that it shifts focus toward the tools of the rock trade, the show is illuminating. Of particular interest is the room set aside for "Creating a Sound," which focuses on the sonic possibility of electronics. The lighting in "Play It Loud" is dim, perhaps reflecting rock music as the sound of the night. Each individual instrument shines like a beacon, as if it's catching the glint of an onstage spotlight. It makes the space between audience member and musician seem vast, but that doesn't diminish the wonder of browsing the tools once used by pop royalty. (Richardson) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'CHARLOTTE POSENENSKE: WORK IN PROGRESS' at Dia Art Foundation in Beacon, N.Y. (through Sept. 9). This Hudson Valley institution continues its satisfying enlargement of its roll call of Miminalists and Conceptualists with a major showcase of this German artist, who showed her modular, industrially inspired sculptures alongside Donald Judd and Frank Stella in the late 1960s, but then abandoned art for sociology. Posenenske's most important works were free standing pipes, made of sheet steel or cardboard, that look almost exactly like commercial air ducts. Unlike some of the control freaks whose art is also on view here, Posenenske made her art in infinite editions, out of parts that can be arranged in any shape you like: a generous distribution of authorship from the artist to her fabricators and collectors. (Farago) diaart.org 'PUNK LUST: RAW PROVOCATION 1971 1985' at the Museum of Sex (through Nov. 30). This show begins with imagery from the Velvet Underground: The 1963 paperback of that title, an exploration of what was then called deviant sexual behavior and gave the band its name, is one of the first objects on display. Working through photos, album art and fliers by artists like Iggy Pop, the New York Dolls, Patti Smith and, yes, the Sex Pistols, the exhibition demonstrates how punk offered a space for sexual expression outside the mainstream. In the story told by "Punk Lust," much of it laid out in placards by the writer and musician Vivien Goldman, one of the show's curators, graphic sexual imagery is a tool for shock that frightens away the straight world and offers comfort to those who remain inside. While some of the power dynamic is typical underage groupies cavorting with rock stars images from female, queer and nonbinary artists like Jayne County and the Slits make a strong case for sex as an essential source of punk liberation. (Richardson) 212 689 6337, museumofsex.com 'SCENES FROM THE COLLECTION' at the Jewish Museum (ongoing). After a surgical renovation to its grand pile on Fifth Avenue, the Jewish Museum has reopened its third floor galleries with a rethought, refreshed display of its permanent collection, which intermingles 4,000 years of Judaica with modern and contemporary art by Jews and gentiles alike Mark Rothko, Lee Krasner, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman and the excellent young Nigerian draftswoman Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze. The works are shown in a nimble, nonchronological suite of galleries, and some of its century spanning juxtapositions are bracing; others feel reductive, even dilettantish. But always, the Jewish Museum conceives of art and religion as interlocking elements of a story of civilization, commendably open to new influences and new interpretations. (Farago) 212 423 3200, thejewishmuseum.org STATUE OF LIBERTY MUSEUM on Liberty Island (ongoing). Security concerns stemming from the Sept. 11 attacks led the National Park Service to restrict the number of people who could go inside the Statue of Liberty's massive stone pedestal and up to the crown. So the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Foundation wanted to offer something more for visitors who found the outdoor view less than satisfying: a stand alone museum on the island that would welcome everyone who wanted to hear the story behind Lady Liberty. Going beyond the vague and often dubious ideal of American "liberty," the museum's displays highlight the doubts of black Americans and women who saw their personal liberties compromised on a daily basis in the 1880s, when the statue opened. These exhibits also spotlight a bit of history that is often forgotten: that the French creators intended the statue as a commemoration of the abolition of slavery in the United States. (Julia Jacobs) statueoflibertymuseum.org 'STONEWALL 50 AT THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY' (through Sept. 22). For its Stonewall summer, the society offers a bouquet of three micro shows. One is devoted to relics of L.G.B.T.Q. night life, from the 1950s lesbian bar called the Sea Colony to gay male sex clubs like the Anvil and the Ramrod that sizzled in the 1970s. Another documents the founding in 1974 by Joan Nestle, Deborah Edel, Sahli Cavallero, Pamela Olin and Julia Stanley of a compendious and still growing register of lesbian culture called the Herstory Archives. And a third turns a solo spotlight on charismatic individuals: Storme DeLarverie (1920 2014), Mother Flawless Sabrina/Jack Doroshow (1939 2017), Keith Haring (1958 90) and Rollerena Fairy Godmother. (Cotter) 212 873 3400, nyhistory.org 'TOO FAST TO LIVE, TOO YOUNG TO DIE: PUNK GRAPHICS, 1976 1986' at the Museum of Arts and Design (through Aug. 18). Many of the objects on display in this exhibition were first hung in record stores or in the bedrooms of teenagers. Posters promoting new albums, tours and shows are mixed in with album art, zines, buttons and other miscellany. Most of the pieces are affixed to the walls with magnets and are not framed, and almost all show signs of wear. The presentation reinforces that this was commercial art meant for wide consumption, and the ragged edges and prominent creases in the works make the history feel alive. (Richardson) 212 299 7777, madmuseum.org 'T. REX: THE ULTIMATE PREDATOR' at the American Museum of Natural History (through Aug. 9, 2020). Everyone's favorite 18,000 pound prehistoric killer gets the star treatment in this eye opening exhibition, which presents the latest scientific research on T. rex and also introduces many other tyrannosaurs, some discovered only this century in China and Mongolia. T. rex evolved mainly during the Cretaceous period to have keen eyes, spindly arms and massive conical teeth, which could bear down on prey with the force of a U Haul truck; the dinosaur could even swallow whole bones, as affirmed here by a kid friendly display of fossilized excrement. The show mixes 66 million year old teeth with the latest 3 D prints of dino bones, and also presents new models of T. rex as a baby, a juvenile and a full grown annihilator. Turns out this most savage beast was covered with believe it! a soft coat of beige or white feathers. (Farago) 212 769 5100, amnh.org 'WALT WHITMAN: AMERICA'S POET' at the New York Public Library (through Aug. 30), 'POET OF THE BODY: NEW YORK'S WALT WHITMAN' at the Grolier Club (through July 27), and 'WALT WHITMAN: BARD OF DEMOCRACY' at the Morgan Library Museum (through Sept. 15). "I am large, I contain multitudes," Whitman wrote in "Song of Myself." And this summer, New York has been hosting an unusually large and varied selection of artifacts of its most celebrated literary son in honor of his bicentennial birthday, which was on May 31. The public library's exhibition surveys the landmarks of the poet's public career, drawing in large part from its rich holdings. The Grolier show takes a more intimate look, with items such as his season ticket for the Brooklyn Marine Swimming Bath from 1852 and a gold friendship ring from 1881 that contains a lock of the poet's hair, while the one at the Morgan features objects from its collection alongside loans from the Library of Congress, including an errant 19th century butterfly with a back story as colorful as its wings. (Jennifer Schuessler) nypl.org/waltwhitman 212 838 6690, grolierclub.org 212 685 0008, themorgan.org '2019 WHITNEY BIENNIAL' at the Whitney Museum of American Art (through Sept. 22). Given the political tensions that have sent spasms through the nation over the past two years, you might have expected hoped that this year's biennial would be one big, sharp Occupy style yawp. It isn't. Politics are present but, with a few notable exceptions, murmured, coded, stitched into the weave of fastidiously form conscious, labor intensive work. As a result, the exhibition, organized by two young Whitney curators, Rujeko Hockley and Jane Panetta, gives the initial impression of being a well groomed group show rather than a statement of resistance. But once you start looking closely, the impression changes artist by artist, piece by piece there's quiet agitation in the air. (Cotter) 212 570 3600, whitney.org | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
"It's annoying to be in a great destination and not enjoy it because your body isn't adjusted to the current time," said Michael Holtz, the founder of the New York City travel consultancy SmartFlyer, who makes more than two dozen international trips a year. Hotels, with new jet lag specific treatments, aim to help globe trotters like Mr. Holtz recalibrate their body clocks. Spa Nalai at the Park Hyatt New York recently introduced the 90 minute jet lag therapy intended to combat the swelling and shoulder tension that can result from long flights. The service includes the application of a gel to relieve water retention, a body massage to promote circulation and a re energizing scalp massage with peppermint oil. The price is 350. Even longer is the two and a half hour Jet Lag Travel Prescription at the new Guerlain Spa at the One Only the Palm in Dubai. Travelers begin with a 90 minute facial that includes acupressure of meridian points for relaxation and then are given an hourlong body massage to induce sleep ( 413). | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
The architecture was neoclassical. The tone was neoapocalyptic. Donald Trump appeared twice on the first night of the 2020 Republican National Convention. But the star, in terms of screen time, was the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. Its gold lit columns, dripping with flags, provided an imperious background for a string of angry, strident, fear stirring speeches, which were aimed squarely at the party's base and often required a Ph.D. in Fox Newsology to decode. It wasn't just the auditorium's grandeur that made a statement though all that stately masonry, dwarfing the speakers, echoed Mr. Trump's culture war fixation on tradition, heritage and monuments (and whatever political attitudes those may be code for). There was also the simple fact that most of the Republican National Convention took place in a location at all, a single, physical place on Earth locatable on Google Maps. The message the party wanted to send, after a long wrangle over changed and re changed plans, was: We showed up, somewhere, anywhere. Last week's Democratic National Convention, stitching together dozens of locations into a virtual idea of America, was surprisingly polished by pandemic production standards. But it also sent a message through that necessity: We aren't physically together because we can't be, it said, and we can't be because the Trump administration has botched the coronavirus response so badly. Having a physically present, anchored R.N.C. attempted to send the video message: Things aren't bad well, they're not that bad. (Masks were much less prominent.) It visually echoed much of Mr. Trump's messaging on reopenings: That he wants to get on with life, while the Democrats want to keep things "closed down," as the actor Jon Voight charged in an introductory video. But in its own way, the first night of the R.N.C. also took place in a virtual space: the political augmented reality of President Trump. In this America, the convention told us, only Mr. Trump took the coronavirus (or in the night's preferred xenophobic language, the "China virus") seriously early on; the real plague threatening America was "cancel culture"; and his real opponent was not Joseph R. Biden Jr. but a multiheaded amalgamation of Bernie Sanders, the Squad and Fidel Castro. Two of the night's prime time speakers, Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, who is Indian American, and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican senator, gave tempered, hopeful addresses that seemed to endorse the Republican Party generally more than Mr. Trump specifically. Mr. Scott closed the last speech of the night urging voters to support "the Republican ticket." But if they were the night's superegos, most of the night either spoke to the Trumpist id, with its red meat culture war overtures, or to Mr. Trump's own ego. Speaker after speaker launched into attacks and grievances steeped in the language of conservative culture and meme making. Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida denounced the "woketopians." Natalie Harp, a cancer survivor, likened Mr. Trump to George Bailey of "It's a Wonderful Life," a character who famously battled a greedy real estate developer. Other speakers insisted that Mr. Trump had a hidden caring side, or suggested, like the party's chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, that a "tough" man like Mr. Trump could get more done than "nice guy" Mr. Biden. Donald Trump Jr., his tone jittery, called Mr. Biden "basically the Loch Ness Monster of the swamp." The president's son used his remarks at the Republican National Convention to suggest that Joe Biden would damage the economy and that Mr. Biden was part of the "swamp" his father aimed to drain. Biden's radical, left wing policies would stop our economic recovery cold. He's already talking about shutting the country down, again. It's madness. Democrats claim to be for workers, but they've spent the entire pandemic trying to sneak a tax break for millionaires in Democrat states into the Covid relief bill. Biden has promised to take that money back out of your pocket and keep it in the swamp. That makes sense, though, considering Joe Biden is basically the Loch Ness Monster of the swamp. For the past half century, he's been lurking around in there. He sticks his head up every now and then to run for president. Then he disappears and doesn't do much in between. So if you're looking for hope, look to the man who did what the failed Obama Biden administration never could do and built the greatest economy our country has ever seen. The president's son used his remarks at the Republican National Convention to suggest that Joe Biden would damage the economy and that Mr. Biden was part of the "swamp" his father aimed to drain. Pete Marovich for The New York Times But the decibel champion of the night was Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former Fox News host whose delivery threatened to Make America Deaf Again. In a tinnitus tempting, five alarm blare, she warned about enemies who "want to enslave you to the weak, dependent, liberal, victim ideology, to the point that you will not recognize this country or yourself." The speech might have been better delivered to a roaring rally crowd, or maybe at an altar in front of an exploding volcano. The content aside, the production mostly avoided the potential glitches of pandemic TV, though it was also more visually static than the geographically hopscotching D.N.C. Without crowd or scenery changes for variety, viewers got very familiar with the same four or five camera shots. (There was also a persistent echo, underlining the speakers' loneliness.) The occasional remotely taped segment broke things up, like Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who brandished guns at passing Black Lives Matter protesters marching and chanting past their house. And, of course, there was Mr. Trump. The camera hungry president appeared in two segments taped at the White House. In the first, he chatted briefly with Covid 19 frontline workers, neither masked nor observing social distance. In the second, he met with American captives whose release his administration secured, in a kind of diplomatic talk show format where he collected thanks one by one. With pre taping, Mr. Trump could benefit from editing and be framed as a benefactor, the way he did for years on "The Apprentice," where many Americans met him. (Two "Apprentice" producers are working on the convention and a "Celebrity Apprentice" contestant, the former N.F.L. player Herschel Walker, contributed an endorsement.) But the raw video Mr. Trump that Americans have known in the White House appeared earlier in the day, addressing the vestigial Charlotte, N.C., convention meeting that renominated him. (The roll call, very white and very male, contrasted sharply with the Democrats' virtual travelogue, which doubled as a tribute to diversity.) Mr. Trump's talk, rambling and filled with misleading attacks on the mail voting that he sees as a threat to his chances, pitted TV networks' appetite for live news (especially the president's eyeball grabbing unpredictability) versus their responsibility not to amplify disinformation from a president they know, from experience, they can't trust to tell the truth. Guess which one won out. Chuck Todd of MSNBC said afterward that the speech was "filled with so many made up problems about mail in voting that if we were to air just the truthful parts, we probably could only air maybe a sentence if that much." But the network aired it anyway. On Monday night, the networks relied on fact checking and commentary, which the R.N.C. left extra time for, finishing several minutes early. The challenge has just begun, though. The convention still has three nights to fill, and a president producer performer eager to fill it, be it with reality or fiction. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
Does anybody need two movies at the same time about the same music festival fiasco? I don't. Yet in keeping with the excess unspooled in both, here they are anyway: two documentaries about the Fyre Festival Netflix's "Fyre" and Hulu's "Fyre Fraud" an event for which lots of young people paid lots of money and got nothing in return but international mockery. The movies have footage, guests, formal devices and sneering in common. Releasing one within spitting distance of the other is like opening a Walgreens across the street from a CVS. They're different and the same. Even so, "Fyre" is fine. "Fyre Fraud" is better. "Fyre" hurls the swindle at its center like a bowling ball. The movie, which Chris Smith directed, finds the players in and around a 2017 scheme to pull a music festival out of thin air: software programmers, marketing people, expert event planners, laborers, the bilked. They make it clear that Fyre probably never could have been a success, and even if you know the story of how it wasn't, nothing stops you from rooting against it anyway. It was conceived in both bad faith and bad taste, as part of a collaboration between Billy McFarland, a 20 something con man from New Jersey, the beached middle aged rapper Ja Rule, and a fleet of Instagram influencers. Read our inside account of the Fyre Festival. Hundreds of people bought tickets to a party on an island in the Bahamas promoted, fictionally, as once belonging to the drug lord and murderer Pablo Escobar. They were promised a luxe weekend and got soggy mattresses instead. Each movie consists of talking head interviews. But the meat of Smith's movie is the footage, handsome footage of meetings, conference calls and promotional shoots; of what happened when all those kids sought food, water and a desperate exit. You watch both movies in a kind of fascinated horror at how easy it was for McFarland to create a network of what appears to be unwitting co conspirators to help him plan an experience that wound up losing 24 million. So many people mention how seductive and magnetic McFarland is that you also watch both movies expecting them to inspect his magnetism. To see him in Smith's film, reveling in footage taken by other people this chubby, gangly, awkward but not not handsome slouch who himself seems attracted to fame, power, wealth and sand is to wonder whether those same people needed a magnet in their lives, especially one who could make them some money. "Fyre" needs another layer. You can locate in it this national moment of brashness and effrontery. (Even after McFarland has been arrested, as he was in June 2017, and released on bail, he cooks up another sham business. As you read this, he's serving six years in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud.) But the Hulu documentary, by Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason, does more than locate. It unpacks, analyzes and jabs. "Fyre" is an ethics thriller. "Fyre Fraud" is a behavioral farce. It has arguments to make about the insecurities of millennials and the perniciousness of social media. And the arguments don't feel like blather. The sharpest parts of Smith's "Fyre," which is a co production of Vice Studios and, apparently, Jerry Media, the marketing bros who helped sell the festival in the first place, are throwaway observations, like the one someone makes about how a single tweet of a sad sandwich demolished the image of a hot event that it took an armada of supermodels to help sell. Smith's movie does have a devastating moment with a Bahamian woman still recovering emotionally and financially from the compassion she showed the Fyre flies who swarmed her poor restaurant. Both do a fine job of having Ja Rule incriminate himself on calls and in the media. But the Hulu movie is more comprehensively damning, in part because it goes farther with the cultural story and in part because the filmmakers have access to what's missing from the other film: McFarland, who stonewalls and swivels through the tougher questions. The filmmakers reportedly had to pay him to do it. So the bad judgment extends even to the movies about the bad judgment. Nonetheless, reconstructing how Fyre burned a lot of people is not a small thing. I left Smith's movie irked that it doesn't attempt to show who McFarland was or to explain him as fully as it could. (His participation, paid but preferably otherwise, wouldn't have been necessary.) I suppose it's hard to get to the bottom of these pathological seducers. The makers of that trashy but effective new R. Kelly documentary series certainly had a hell of a time. In "Surviving R. Kelly" and Smith's film, that void could just mean the real story is about the victims, enablers and suckers or even about us. But when people in both Fyre movies say that they're positive McFarland will strike again, what's in order is the deeper, more cautionary examination of him that's in "Fyre Fraud." Not because that prediction is wrong. But because I wouldn't put anything past this country. McFarland really might have another act. Maybe as a con artist. Maybe as someone more, I don't know, elected. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
The recent State of the Unions column, "Happily Ever After Doesn't Exist," was a vivid account from a couple about the ups and downs of their 20 year marriage. The column sparked an outpouring of comments on Facebook and Twitter. Readers shared their own experiences and opinions, along with their secrets to a successful marriage. Below are some of the highlights, edited for space. Marriage isn't easy, and then sometimes it is. I have often reflected on what a wise woman told us at our wedding: Love is more than just a feeling; love is a commitment. Sometimes, when the feeling fails you, remember your commitment. Isn't that effectively saying "stay together even if you're unhappy because you said you would, regardless of the subsequent changes all people go through over a few decades"? THIS is what marriages are made of...not CHEMISTRY as my ex would like to say. The chemistry is just the easy way out. It is WORK and persistence and respect and love. That is IT. Been married 40 years, it's a give and take, picking your battles, knowing when to not sweat the small things, it's ups and downs, but for me I wouldn't have done it without my husband, growing old together, knowing each other so well, no turning back now 34 years, 9 homes, 2 countries, 3 states, plenty jobs, budget travel, one child, joy and heartache. Tons of humor. Communication and honesty to the point of vulnerability is crucial. Vulnerability builds courage. Be a team always. Gratitude 52 years, 3 homes, several rentals, a few jobs, 2 sons, 5 granddaughters, one great grandson, too many deaths of family and friends, incredible joy and horrid tragedy, forced retirement (too early), 7 years in a travel trailer, 2 years in Mexico, life us unpredictable so toll with the punches, adapt, be honest and understanding, be happy with what you have. What makes you think you would be happier with more? Married 50 years November 11th. Ups and downs are inevitable. Respect for each other is KEY! Continuing to grow is absolutely necessary. Not being possessive is essential. Trusting each other is something you both do if you love each other and want it to work . Be loving and supportive, place each other FIRST always, do not forget the chemistry that attracted you in the beginning, forgive, forget and carry on. Life is not perfect and neither are we! Commitment, acceptance, respect, love and faith are some of the ingredients. A sense of humor makes marriage work. I would not change a thing! Feeling lucky and extremely blessed! Happily ever after does exist for some people. Its special when it happens, but it happens. I knew from a very young age that marriage was not for me. With every passing year I feel more certain it was the right decision. Especially given the index of narcissism growing increasingly rampant. Many people get married without accepting that it is truly an eternal commitment. I saw a few people get married out of reflex and/or sense of obligation or for lack of better ideas. I see a lot of people ruining each others' lives because they never learned how to be alone. Marital blitz! Hahha. Shows the most important trait...a sense of humor.(in November it's 47 years here) Someone told me once that the key to marriage success is to pretend all the time. Well, getting married a bit later was the key for me. It helps if you married a solid guy too. He treated his Mother and others with respect. The best guy with our child and my own Mother. He has always put me before others. I'm beyond lucky | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
As coronavirus cases increase across the country, the Smithsonian will once again temporarily close eight of its Washington area institutions on Monday. "The Institution's top priority is to protect the health and safety of its visitors and staff," the Smithsonian said in a statement. "We will use this time to reassess, monitor and explore additional risk mitigation measures." Seven museums and the National Zoo, which had all reopened by Sept. 25, will be shutting again, the statement said. The decision came as a second wave of closures is being announced by museums in a number of states around the nation. In recent days, officials in Oregon, Illinois and several other states announced new virus restrictions that will require museums to close once more, and several prominent institutions in Philadelphia, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, announced plans this week to close again. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
Back in December, after a series of homophobic posts on her defunct, decade old blog resurfaced on social media, the MSNBC host Joy Reid apologized for them. But this week, when Ms. Reid was confronted with a new batch of homophobic writings from that same period, she said she had been the victim of hackers. That claim was called into question on Tuesday, when the Internet Archive, the meticulous online record keeping nonprofit that hosted the archived version of her site, said it had found no evidence to support her claim. Late Tuesday night, MSNBC provided documents that show Ms. Reid's lawyers alerted Google and the Internet Archive to the alleged hacking in December, shortly after her public apology but long before the latest batch of posts appeared on social media. The latest group of alleged blog posts includes a great deal of material that might embarrass a prominent liberal figure like Ms. Reid, including expressions of disgust at the thought of homosexuality, opposition to gay marriage, claims that gay men prey on "impressionable teens" and criticism of political correctness. "Most straight people cringe at the sight of two men kissing," one post said. It concluded: "The nature of political correctness is that gay people are allowed to say straight sex is gross but the reverse is considered to be patently homophobic." One of the posts also criticizes Rachel Maddow, who is now the most watched host on MSNBC, as being "at the left most end of the political spectrum" when it comes to gay rights. (Ms. Reid hosts a weekend morning show on MSNBC, but at the time she kept her blog active neither she nor Ms. Maddow had shows on the network.) Ms. Reid did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday, but MSNBC provided a statement from Jonathan Nichols, a cybersecurity consultant working on her case. He said her blog was "breached" in December and that "fraudulent entries" were posted "with suspicious formatting and time stamps," including "text and visual styling" that was not consistent with the rest of the blog. He said Ms. Reid's team also had "significant evidence" that some of the posts circulating online he did not say which ones had never appeared on the blog and were instead doctored screenshots meant "to tarnish Ms. Reid's character." The archive said it was warned by Ms. Reid's lawyers that "'fraudulent' posts were 'inserted into legitimate content' in our archives of the blog." But an investigation found that claim to be untrue, according to the archive. "When we reviewed the archives, we found nothing to indicate tampering or hacking of the Wayback Machine versions," the statement said, adding, "We let Reid's lawyers know that the information provided was not sufficient for us to verify claims of manipulation." The Internet Archive said it declined the request to remove Ms. Reid's blog from the archive "due to Reid's being a journalist (a very high profile one, at that) and the journalistic nature of the blog archives." Ms. Reid appeared eager to blunt the statement by the Internet Archive. Her security consultant, Mr. Nichols, said on Tuesday that "at no time has Ms. Reid claimed that the Wayback Machine was hacked" with an intention to alter her blog. Instead, he said Ms. Reid's team detected a "breach" of the site that it thought may have been related to the posts on her blog but that it determined was unrelated. But it appears Ms. Reid may have taken matters into her own hands. The Internet Archive said that at some point during its correspondence with Ms. Reid's lawyers, a robots exclusion protocol specific to the Wayback Machine was activated on her old blog. That protocol sends a signal to the archive, which the archive chooses to abide by, that can be used to get around the Wayback Machine's policies and remove pages from the archive of the internet. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
In the wake of complaints that "Spotlight on Plays," a benefit series of Zoom readings, included work only by men, its lead producer announced on Tuesday four more planned shows, all written by women. They are "The Ohio State Murders," by Adrienne Kennedy; "The Thanksgiving Play" by Larissa FastHorse, a recently named MacArthur fellow; "Dear Elizabeth" by Sarah Ruhl; and "Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous," by Pearl Cleage. Jeffrey Richards, a veteran Broadway producer, introduced the readings series soon after the pandemic shut down Broadway. Last week, he announced seven shows for this fall, featuring such big name cast members as Morgan Freeman, Patti LuPone, Laura Linney, Phylicia Rashad and Laurie Metcalf in works by David Mamet, Robert O'Hara, Kenneth Lonergan and others. The series, of one night events that benefit the Actors Fund, begins on Wednesday night with Gore Vidal's political drama "The Best Man." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
LORD OF ALL THE DEAD A Nonfiction Novel By Javier Cercas An individual subjected to traumatic stress will often involuntarily suppress the memory of the event that caused it. Something similar happened to Spain in the 20th century, but the loss of memory wasn't unwitting; it was enforced. After the country's brutal civil war, which lasted from 1936 to 1939, the victor, Generalissimo Francisco Franco, did his best to eradicate all trace of his Republican enemies. Those who died in the conflict or the "White Terror" the campaign of extermination that followed were mostly slung into unmarked mass graves, where around 100,000 bodies still lie. The only commemoration Franco allowed was of the heroes and victories of his own side. The return of democracy after Franco's death in 1975 took place in the shadow of an army that was loyal to his dictatorship to the end. So the "transition," as it was called, was underwritten by an unspoken pact in which Franco's opponents agreed to draw a veil of forgetfulness over his reign. There were to be no reprisals, no recriminations; much less a Truth and Reconciliation Commission of the sort that did so much to heal South Africa's wounds. It wasn't until much later that voices were raised in support of a more open reckoning with the war and its aftermath, and not until 2000 that the first of those humiliated corpses were exhumed and given a decent burial. The following year, Javier Cercas made himself the bard of this movement for the recovery of Spain's suppressed memory. His semi fictional work SOLDIERS OF SALAMIS (Vintage, paper, 16.95), which has just been republished, chronicles the search for an anonymous Republican hero: a soldier who saved the life of a leading member of the Falange, the Spanish fascist party that provided Francoism with its earliest ideological underpinnings and then gradually lost influence. Though of exceptional literary merit, it was the kind of work to be expected of a writer who is also a columnist for the center left daily El Pais, but who, like so many other Spanish progressives, comes from a middle class family that took Franco's side in the civil war. "Lord of All the Dead," Cercas's "nonfiction novel," first published in Spanish in 2017, presents an altogether more unsettling challenge for politically correct readers as it must have done for the author himself. Early on, Cercas quotes a remark made by a friend, the filmmaker David Trueba: "In 'Soldiers of Salamis' you invented a Republican hero to hide the fact that your family's hero was a Francoist." "Now it's time to face reality," Trueba replies. "That's how you can close the circle." 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. "Lord of All the Dead" is the result. The hero of the author's family was Manuel Mena, a man Cercas's mother remembered as "the youngest, the most cheerful, the liveliest" of all her uncles. Mena was a provisional second lieutenant in Franco's army. It is hard to overstate the importance of the alfereces provisionales in Francoist mythology. They were young men who volunteered to leave their usually comfortable surroundings to go to war after a minimum of training. One in every 10 met his end on the arid battlefields of the Spanish meseta. Jose Maria Peman, the poet laureate of Francoism, had one of them soliloquize as follows: "Here I am, offering you, Spain, / my twenty years, as if they were / twenty fresh dahlias, / and Death / the gardener." Mena, wounded five times and lauded by his superiors for his "daring and bravery," finally ran out of luck in the early hours of Sept. 21, 1938, when he died of an unattended bullet wound in a makeshift hospital near the Ebro River. Cercas likens his family's view of Mena's fate to what the ancient Greeks called a kalos thanatos: a beautiful death, that of "a pure and noble young man who, like Achilles in the 'Iliad,' demonstrates his nobility and purity by risking his life for all or nothing ... falls in combat and leaves behind the world of the living in the fullness of his beauty and his vigor and escapes the usury of time." But what of the man himself? The task of finding the real Manuel Mena could scarcely have been more daunting. His relatives burned his effects, including his papers, after his death. Cercas managed to find a couple of elderly ladies whose memories suggested that as a boy Mena was a "heartless brat." But then he interviewed some classmates who described how, under the influence of a local schoolteacher, Mena developed a passion for knowledge and turned into an altogether more reflective and responsible adolescent. Cercas gives himself some postmodern leeway in this narrative, every so often speculating on how, if he were to throw off all pretense of not being a novelist, he would fill in the gaps in his story. But his reconstructions are tied pretty closely to known historical fact, and there's no question but that he invested a staggering amount of time and effort in digging up what little there was to be known about Manuel Mena. Yet, halfway through the book, his subject remains "a blurry, distant, schematic figure, without humanity or moral complexity, as rigid, cold and abstract as a statue." Things start to change when he is given the notes for a speech Mena gave on leave from the front. Cercas's great uncle was a fascist, a devotee of the Falange. But, as Cercas shows with a quote from its founder, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, that Mena had written down, the Falange held views not so very distant from those that would ignite the passions of a post 1968 generation of young Spaniards, those valiant successors to Achilles who battled Franco's riot police with rocks and Molotov cocktails: "There is a capitalist system with expensive credit, with abusive privileges of shareholders and bondholders, without working, that takes the greater part of production and sinks and impoverishes employers, businessmen and workers alike." What finally brings Mena alive to his great nephew is a family member's recollection of what the by now battle hardened alferez provisional told his brother on one of his last furloughs: He was fed up with the war and wished he didn't have to go back to the front. Suddenly, he "had become a man of flesh and bone, a simple self respecting muchacho disillusioned of his ideals and a soldier lost in someone else's war, who didn't know why he was fighting anymore." Manuel Mena was not Achilles. Or, rather, he was not the Achilles of the "Iliad." As Cercas notes, Achilles also makes a brief yet memorable appearance in the "Odyssey." When Odysseus visits him in the house of the dead and hails him as the greatest of all heroes, Achilles replies: "I would rather toil as the slave of a penniless, landless laborer than reign here as lord of all the dead." The book that takes its title from that infinitely sad affirmation of the value of life is not as readable as "Soldiers of Salamis." Non Spaniards will likely want to skip its more detailed accounts of the war. But Cercas keeps his readers curious to the end, and "Lord of All the Dead" is arguably even more important than its predecessor as a contribution to healing the wounds that remain open in Spain to this day. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
"The Morning Show," the flagship offering of the new Apple TV Plus streaming service that arrives Friday, looks like good TV. Directed by Mimi Leder, it gleams on the screen. It sounds like good TV. It's well timed and brimming with serious purpose. It's certainly cast like good TV. It collects Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell and Reese Witherspoon and a passel of fine character actors, and then just lobs Mindy Kaling and Martin Short at you like it's not even a thing. But after three episodes, this tech company's first venture into TV is good only at appearing to be good. It's like something assembled in a cleanroom out of good show parts from incompatible suppliers. Under the gleaming surface, as sleek and anodyne as an Apple Store, it is a kludge. For "The Morning Show" (also the name of the show within the show) you can read, sort of, "Today"; for Mitch, sort of, Matt Lauer. The series is loosely inspired by Brian Stelter's 2013 book "Top of the Morning," which focused mostly on the cutthroat battles of breakfast time TV. After Lauer's ouster for predation ever worse reports of which are still coming out the series's new showrunner, Kerry Ehrin ("Bates Motel" ), overhauled it with a MeToo story line. But "The Morning Show" feels caught between the old and new versions of itself. Much of the focus is on office politics, as the question of replacing Mitch threatens Alex's standing and draws in Bradley Jackson (Witherspoon ), a folksy reporter the kind of "independent" conservative that a certain breed of progressive ish show loves who goes viral for aggressively fact checking a protester . At its core, "The Morning Show" suffers from the flaw of many a media workplace story: the belief that white collar workaholism is inherently interesting. Its critique of morning talk guess what, it's too fluffy and driven by ratings could have aired any time in the Bryant Gumbel era. ("You remember truth? Journalism? We're newspeople!" Bradley helpfully reminds her boss.) You could call this program Sorkinian, partly because it shares a TV news premise with Aaron Sorkin's "The Newsroom," partly because of the walk and talk scenes that tell you, "These characters are smart and busy!" It's Sorkin minus the sanctimony, but also minus the playful wit. Which leaves you with what? Exercise. The sexual harassment story line provides "The Morning Show" with greater stakes than whose name ends up on the multi million dollar paycheck. The show avoids easy posturing, instead exploring Alex's upheaval after learning "My TV husband is a sexual predator." (Mitch complains, self pityingly, that his offenses weren't as bad as Harvey Weinstein's and that he's the victim of a social overcorrection, though it's unclear how credible he is.) But while that story is the igniting event, it doesn't feel integrated with the original premise so much as jury rigged onto it, like an ungainly adapter plugged into an outmoded jack. Because we begin with Mitch's firing, he can't be part of the action; but because he's played by Steve Carell, he needs his screen time. So he's mostly left to bluster and primal scream on the periphery, like a windup toy wearing itself out in the corner of a playroom. Mind you, Carell is good in his role, as are his co stars. But they're appearing in different shows. He's in a bleak toxic masculinity drama. Aniston is in a cutting corporate satire. Witherspoon is in an inspiring underdog story. Billy Crudup, as a lizardy media exec, is in an off brand "Succession." Aniston is the standout, as a woman with a reputation as "difficult" that is, a woman who's looked out for her interests, surrounded by men who either want to oust her or leave messes for her to clean up. (A possible exception is her producer, played by Mark Duplass, a perma stressed zombie trying to keep the glass house from collapsing.) Alex is sympathetic but complicated. She may have enabled Mitch. As we see when the network recruits Bradley, she is not always a great ally to other women, because she has come to feel she has no allies in this world. She lives in a state of constant high alert, which she can only release at the rare blissful moment that an elevator door closes. Late in the pilot, she shows up at Mitch's house to rage at him and confide in him. "I live a really strange existence, Mitch," she says. She's "isolated" and alone, unable to have a real off camera life. (Is the speech meta persuasive coming from Aniston, with her decades under the tabloid microscope? It doesn't hurt.) This feels like the material of a more distinctive series, about how the deforming requirements of TV perfection turn you into something both more than and less than human. This show could use more of that strangeness, more idiosyncrasy, more mess beneath the glossy shell. Instead, "The Morning Show" is a hard worker with a good resume, too dutiful to be awful. It's familiar, which is no sin, but it's unmemorable, which, amid a TV glut that Apple is now adding to, is no asset. The Apple founder Steve Jobs was fond of the line, "Good artists copy; great artists steal." Thus far, "The Morning Show" is not worth calling the cops on. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
SAN FRANCISCO Facebook said on Friday that it had suspended tens of thousands of apps for improperly sucking up users' personal information and other transgressions, a tacit admission that the scale of its data privacy issues was far larger than it had previously acknowledged. The social network said in a blog post that an investigation it began in March 2018 following revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a British consultancy, had retrieved and used people's Facebook information without their permission had resulted in the suspension of "tens of thousands" of apps that were associated with about 400 developers. That was far bigger than the last number that Facebook had disclosed of 400 app suspensions in August 2018. The extent of how many apps Facebook had cut off was revealed in court filings that were unsealed later on Friday by a state court in Boston, as part of an investigation by the Massachusetts attorney general into the technology company. The documents showed that Facebook had suspended 69,000 apps. Of those, the majority were terminated because the developers did not cooperate with Facebook's investigation; 10,000 were flagged for potentially misappropriating personal data from Facebook users. The disclosures about app suspensions renew questions about whether people's personal information on Facebook is secure, even after the company has been under fire for more than a year for its privacy practices. Facebook apps can take on a variety of forms, from music apps like Spotify to games like Candy Crush. Some apps use Facebook simply so that people can log in to their service or product, which otherwise has nothing to do with the social network. The common denominator is that these apps want access to information about Facebook members so that they can add new users. As the world's largest social network, Facebook has data of more than two billion people. But it showed that it had failed to safeguard some of that information when Cambridge Analytica took some of the data without people's permission in 2016 and built voter profiles from it for the Trump presidential campaign, which The New York Times and The Observer in London reported on last year. Facebook said that as many as 87 million users' information could have been retrieved. The social network has since faced lawsuits, regulatory scrutiny and the ire of lawmakers around the world over whether it can safeguard its users' data trove. The Justice Department and the F.B.I. are investigating Cambridge Analytica. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, has appeared in Congress to testify on the matter. Mr. Zuckerberg, who visited Washington this week and met with President Trump, has also apologized for the improper handling of user data and vowed changes. That included auditing all of Facebook's third party apps to make sure they were not abusing people's information. "Every company, and especially the app developers involved, needs to understand that there are consequences for abusing consumer data," said Jules Polonetsky, chief executive of the Future of Privacy Forum, a nonprofit organization focused on issues of data privacy and scholarship. "If these apps escape legal penalty, developers are left thinking there is no legal risk, privacy is solely a platform responsibility and a terms of service agreement with Facebook." Mr. Polonetsky called for the Federal Trade Commission to act quickly against developers who broke Facebook's terms of service around customer data. The latest revelations follow a settlement that Facebook struck with the F.T.C. in July over privacy violations, in which the company agreed to pay a record 5 billion fine and to increase oversight into its data handling practices. Some critics claimed at the time that the F.T.C.'s settlement did not go far enough in protecting consumers and the agency faced new calls to take a harder line on the social network. "Facebook put up a neon sign that said 'Free Private Data,' and let app developers have their fill of Americans' personal info," Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said on Friday. "The F.T.C. needs to hold Mark Zuckerberg personally responsible." The F.T.C. said in a statement that it was "aware of a widespread problem involving app developers on Facebook's platform and that's why the agency obtained the relief it did." The agency said its settlement required Facebook "to do more to enforce its platform policies and to ensure that app developers are complying with them." The F.T.C. is also investigating the social network for potential antitrust violations and has started interviewing former employees from companies that Facebook has acquired. In Facebook's blog post, Ime Archibong, a company executive, said the suspensions of so many apps were not "necessarily an indication that these apps were posing a threat to people." Some of the apps had not yet been rolled out, while others were suspended because they did not respond to the company's request for information, he said. Mr. Archibong added that Facebook had banned some apps, including one called myPersonality, which declined to participate in the company's audit and had shared information with other parties with few protections around the data. He also said Facebook had sued a South Korean data analytics company, Rankwave, in May for refusing to cooperate with the investigation. Facebook said that only 400 developers could be associated with tens of thousands of apps because developers often created apps for multiple clients, and built test versions of their products that were not deployed. The investigation is ongoing, the company added. "We are far from finished," Mr. Archibong wrote. "As each month goes by, we have incorporated what we learned and re examined the ways that developers can build using our platforms. We've also improved the ways we investigate and enforce against potential policy violations that we find." The Silicon Valley company has been dueling with the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office to keep documents related to its app investigation out of the public eye. The state prosecutor began examining Facebook's data sharing practices in early 2018 after the Cambridge Analytica revelations broke and issued several civil subpoenas to the company for information. Last month, Facebook had petitioned a judge in Boston to seal the records. The seal was lifted on Friday. "For nearly a year, Facebook has fought to shield information about improper data sharing with app developers," Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, said in a statement. "If only Facebook cared this much about privacy when it was giving away the personal data of everyone you know online." According to the court documents, Facebook told the attorney general's office that it had identified approximately two million apps that required a close examination to determine whether they had misused people's personal data. The investigation narrowed to focus on a group of 10,000 apps, one document said. Of the 10,000 apps, 6,000 were flagged because a large number of people installed them, which could expose them to data misuse. Facebook conducted a "detailed background check" of developers behind 2,000 apps to determine whether they had connections to "entities of interest" or revealed any signs of fraud, according to the court documents. Another group of 2,000 apps received a technical review from Facebook, which looked at internal records to determine whether the apps had made broad data requests that could indicate misuse, the documents said. The Massachusetts prosecutor said in a court filing that it sent Facebook a demand to reveal the names of the apps involved in the investigation. The company declined to identify them. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
A roundup of motoring news from the web: The BMW M235i came out ahead of the Porsche 911 and the Chevrolet Corvette in the most recent Consumer Reports road test report. The 50,000 Bimmer scored a 98 out of a possible 100 points, while the 911, which costs 60,000 more, received a score of 95. The Corvette, which is about 23,000 more expensive than the M235i, received a score of 92. (The Detroit News) Chrysler says it will offer fuel saving start stop technology, which shuts off the engine when a vehicle is stopped and normally idling, on its 2015 Chrysler 200 sedan and 2015 Jeep Cherokee crossover. The feature will be offered as standard on 2.4 liter 4 cylinder engine equipped 200 sedans and on Cherokees with the 3.2 liter Pentastar V6. (The Detroit Free Press) Alan Mulally, Ford's soon to retire chief executive, said this week that he would remain "close to Ford going forward," making himself available to Mark Fields, the company's next chief executive, as an adviser. Mr. Mulally has not said what he plans to do after leaving Ford July 1. (Bloomberg) A report submitted at the annual shareholders' meeting for the Nissan Motor Company shows that Carlos Ghosn, its chief executive, made more than 10 million in salary and benefits. Mr. Ghosn is also chief executive of Renault and has been among the top paid executives in Japan for several years. (Bloomberg) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
Since inflation is a composite indicator of many prices, the few items that are going up because of supply bottlenecks and rising demand (including medical supplies and food, because of stockpiling) are not sufficiently significant to push up the overall inflation numbers, which will remain subdued. We could be heading for deflation, but if the government gives working people a tax cut and provides transfers to those losing their gig and other incomes, as it should do, that would sustain demand. Justin Le, Mountain View, Calif.: How will this affect Generations Y and Z? Millennials are scarred by years of economic downturn, job insecurity and financial instability. We're just now recovering from losing money and opportunity as a result of the Great Recession. My fear is that this coming recession will cause permanent damage to our finances and spending power. And that Generation Z will suffer, as younger millennials did, with high student loan balances while they enter a hostile and competitive job market. I.G.: You are right to be concerned about this. The elderly are becoming a larger share of the population and the vote. The median age in the country is rising about two years every decade, because of increasing life expectancy and falling fertility. Given the rising costs of retirement and health care, this causes growing strains on family, state and other budgets. There will be less money to transfer to children, and as life expectancy increases, children will be older and older before they inherit anything from their parents, if indeed they are lucky enough to have parents who have sufficient wealth and savings. Economic crises exacerbate these tendencies, as do pandemics. Lincoln Shlensky, Victoria, British Columbia: Is this epidemic a product of our times in some unique way, or is it just that the botched response to it is characteristic of the new political landscape you mention in your piece? I.G.: The pandemic is a product of our times in the speed and intensity of its rapid spread. The super spreaders of the good aspects of globalization, such as major airports, which facilitate business and leisure travel, are also the super spreaders of the bads, like disease. The rapid growth of cities and rising incomes in many places is also relatively recent, so more people live in concentrated centers close to major hubs. There have been pandemics before, and the Spanish flu of 1918 is estimated to have infected around a third of the world's population and led to the death of more than 50 million people. This time is different in terms of how quickly and how far the pandemic can spread quickly. This is a feature of the growing complexity and interdependence of the world, but it also reflects the failure of politics to understand how the systems have developed and how to respond. The failure of politicians to understand and act on this, even after the financial crisis of 2008 and the growing evidence of climate change and other risks, is what worries me most, as I discuss in my books "The Butterfly Defect," which looks at systemic risk, and "Age of Discovery," which compares current challenges with previous ones. Thomas Marini, Aptos, Calif.: I was mesmerized by a Times animated graphic of airline flights over a map of China. As the effects of the virus on air travel kicked in, the red swarm of flights dwindled into a scattering of individual red airplanes. It occurred to me that the coronavirus pandemic could inadvertently have a large impact on carbon emissions. Does the coronavirus, with its collateral damage to the world economy and corresponding reduction in worldwide carbon emissions, give us a model for the kind of tremendous dislocation and change that will be necessary to save us from climate catastrophe? | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
This article contains spoilers for Season 2 of "Mindhunter." The second season of Netflix's "Mindhunter," which debuted Friday, offers viewers more of what made Season 1 so memorable: big fonts, creeping dread, moody cinematography and unnerving crime scene photos. And once again, it has the F.B.I. special agents Holden Ford ( Jonathan Groff ) and Bill Tench ( Holt McCallany ), supported by their in house psychologist, Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), facing down mass murderers in a series of tense, probing interrogations and investigations inspired by the early profiling work of Special Agents John E. Douglas and Robert K. Ressler. In Season 1, Ford and Tench sat across the table from fictionalized versions of Richard Speck , Edmund Kemper , Montie Rissell and Jerry Brudos . Here's a closer look at the real life killers they meet in Season 2, along with links to press coverage of their crimes, mostly by the The Times. The primary focus of Season 2 is a series of murders, mostly of African American boys, in Atlanta between 1979 and 1981. Twenty two of the unsolved cases, known as the Atlanta child murders, were closed after the arrest and conviction of Wayne Williams, a local man who described himself as a music promoter and talent scout. But Williams was tried only for the murders of two adults, and he was never charged in any of the other killings. Nor was anyone else. Williams, who has maintained his innocence, unsuccessfully appealed his conviction and requested a new trial; he remains in prison. Some of the victims' families have stated that they don't believe Williams is the killer, citing a theory (explored in "Mindhunter") that the murders were racially motivated. Earlier this year, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta announced a multiagency effort to reopen the cases, in hopes that DNA testing and other new technology might provide some answers. A major presence in Season 1, Ed reappears in Episode 5 this season to give the agents advice for their Manson interview and for the B.T.K. investigation particularly on the subject of souvenirs, on which Kemper was an expert. Known in the press as the "Coed Killer," he killed his grandparents at age 15, served six years in a mental facility, and went on to kill eight women, including five college students; he removed their body parts for post mortem sex acts. After killing his mother on Good Friday in 1973, he called the police to turn himself in and was sentenced to multiple life sentences. He has been denied or waived his right to parole hearings several times, and he was most recently denied in 2017, not long after the debut of "Mindhunter." Kemper will not be eligible again until 2024. B.T.K.'s professed admiration for David Berkowitz, better known as "Son of Sam," leads the agents to interview him in Episode 2, where they get him to recant his claims of being controlled by a demon posessed dog. Demons or not, he cast a spell of fear and paranoia over New York City in the mid 1970s, thanks in part to his frequent communications with local media. Initially called the ".44 Caliber Killer" (after his weapon of choice), Berkowitz killed six people and wounded seven more, his victims mostly women and young couples parked in cars. He was finally apprehended by the New York police in August 1977 and sentenced to 25 years to life for each of his six victims. In prison, Berkowitz proclaimed himself a born again Christian, and before his first parole hearing in 2002, he wrote to Governor George Pataki, "In all honesty I believe that I deserve to be in prison for the rest of my life." He remains behind bars, calling his work as a "caregiver" there to be his "life's calling." Interviewed by Carr and Agent Gregg Smith (Joe Tuttle) in Episode 6, Paul Bateson has a particularly twisty history. New York police arrested him in September 1977 in connection with the murder of Addison Verrill , a film reporter for "Variety"; he confessed to the crime in a phone call to the Village Voice columnist Arthur Bell, who reported on the city's gay scene. When he was convicted in 1979, prosecutors said Bateson had boasted of killing several other men he had picked up in local gay bars a series of grisly slayings also tracked in Bell's column. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
George Etheredge for The New York Times After Nancy Kerrigan's star turn at the 1994 Winter Olympics, she declared, "I'm going to Disney World!" Gus Kenworthy has been living it up his own way since this year's Pyeongchang Games. The 26 year old freestyle skier, who came out as gay in 2015, has appeared on the covers of Out magazine and Gay Times; crowd surfed at Miami Beach Pride, where he was celebrity grand marshal; and attended Elton John's Oscar party with his boyfriend, the actor Matthew Wilkas. On Tuesday night, Mr. Kenworthy and Mr. Wilkas were in an S.U.V., on their way to a different sort of freestyle event: the opening of a Nordstrom Men's Store on West 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan. Nordstrom had outfitted Mr. Kenworthy in snake embroidered Gucci sneakers, Acne jeans, a Comme des Garcons sweatshirt and a Moncler jacket. He added his own Denver Nuggets cap, a gift from the rap battle show "Drop the Mic." ("I rap battled Lindsey Vonn, the downhill skier," he said.) Mr. Wilkas, 39, wore Polo Ralph Lauren swag borrowed from Mr. Kenworthy. "Gus is sponsored by a whole bunch of people, and I'm sponsored by Gus," he said dryly. The couple met in 2015, the same year Mr. Kenworthy came out in ESPN the Magazine. Mr. Kenworthy had seen Mr. Wilkas's movie "Gayby" and messaged him on Instagram. "He was, like, the first gay person that I ever followed," Mr. Kenworthy said, "because I was always very in the closet and scared that even following a bunch of hot guys would let everyone know that I was gay." Mr. Kenworthy divides his time between his home state, Colorado; New York (where Mr. Wilkas has an apartment); and Los Angeles. He and Mr. Wilkas just got a rescue dog, a Great Pyrenees and Korean Jindo mix named Beemo, after a character in the cartoon series "Adventure Time." "She's confident and cute and she doesn't give an F," Mr. Kenworthy said. As the car lurched through Eighth Avenue traffic, he spun his head around and shouted, "Look, there's Adam on the side of that building!" He had spotted a screen showing the figure skater Adam Rippon, Pyeongchang's other gay breakout star. The two Olympians had met at the opening ceremony, where they bonded over "RuPaul's Drag Race" and became "fast friends," Mr. Kenworthy said. At Nordstrom, Mr. Kenworthy and Mr. Wilkas were greeted with white wine and photographers. Upstairs, they browsed windbreakers and talked to Stefano Celsi, the salesman who had dressed Mr. Kenworthy that morning. "I'm obsessed with this jacket," Mr. Kenworthy told him, flipping through a Dior rack. "It's honestly the sickest thing ever." Partygoers included Ice T and Coco Austin, but Mr. Kenworthy was more excited about another celebrity guest. "He's obsessed with Mark Ruffalo," Mr. Wilkas said. Mr. Kenworthy said, "Yeah, he's weirdly one of my main celebrity crushes. I think he's even sexy as the Hulk." They vowed to meet him before the night was through. Across the room, they spotted some friends: the model Eric Rutherford and Tan France, the fashion expert from the Netflix show "Queer Eye." "Was this meant to be unbuttoned?" Mr. Kenworthy said, fixing a button on Mr. France's shirt. "You're the style police." Mr. France said, "I was miked earlier. You know how it is." Mr. Kenworthy expressed envy for Mr. France's salt and pepper pompadour. Then the athlete removed his cap, and Mr. France ran his fingers through his hair. "Use pomade," he said. Mr. Kenworthy surveyed the crowd. "I'm really happy to be here, but this is so strange," he said. "I've never been to a store opening. I guess it's just like a party. It's mingling. But it's mingling among clothes racks." Growing up in Telluride, Colo., he went on, he mostly wore hand me downs from his two older brothers. But his mother owned a consignment shop, and he'd get dragged along to thrift stores. "Now that I'm able to afford stuff, I love buying my mom things. I did a promo thing with Moncler this year. They gave me this big shopping spree, and I took my whole family." As the store filled up with fashion editors, actors and social media influencers, Mr. Wilkas ran over and yelled, "Mark Ruffalo is in the corner." They found him in the Calvin Klein area, surrounded by photographers and publicists. Mr. Kenworthy handed off his empty wineglass. "Is it happening? It's happening," Mr. Wilkas said nervously. Mr. Kenworthy steeled himself, as a half dozen friends, publicists and Nordstrom executives looked on; the atmosphere took on the jittery excitement of a middle school dance. Mr. Kenworthy edged closer, but Mr. Ruffalo was stuck doing an interview, so a Nordstrom official introduced him to the actress Rashida Jones. "You're an Olympian?" she said. "That's really cool." An agonizing two minutes passed. Finally, Mr. Ruffalo came closer and shook Mr. Kenworthy's hand. But before they could talk, the actor was yanked away for a photo op with Ms. Jones. Mr. Kenworthy asked about taking a photo with him, too, but a woman from Mr. Ruffalo's entourage waved him away. Mr. Kenworthy's publicist tried to intervene, but Mr. Ruffalo's representative cut her off, saying, "We're done here." And just like that, Mr. Ruffalo was gone. "Did it happen?" Mr. Wilkas said, as a rebuffed Mr. Kenworthy stood among the Calvin Klein racks. He shook his head and mumbled, "It's all good." He shrugged and suggested that they go down to the shoe department. On his way, he was approached by Nina Garcia, the editor of Elle. She beamed and told him, "If my son knew I met you, he would be like, 'Mom, you're so cool!'" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
The Walt Disney Company reported weak quarterly results Tuesday, the result of escalating streaming service losses, underperforming 21st Century Fox assets and lower than expected theme park attendance. In its first full quarter since closing a 71.3 billion deal to acquire most of Rupert Murdoch's Fox entertainment businesses, Disney had a profit of 1.44 billion, a 51 percent decline from the comparable period a year earlier. Disney missed Wall Street's revenue expectations by roughly 1 billion. Disney shares fell more than 3 percent in after hours trading, to around 137. Robert A. Iger, Disney's chief executive, said the difficult quarter was part of a "strategic transformation" underway at Disney, the world's largest entertainment company. Disney is trying to become less dependent on cable channels like ESPN, which are in decline because of cord cutting, and move into the rapidly growing realm of online video, a direct to consumer business defined by Netflix. Disney bought certain 21st Century Fox assets to enhance its streaming plan, which includes a subscription service called Disney Plus. Disney Plus is to arrive in November and feature movies and shows from Disney, Pixar, the "Star Wars" franchise, National Geographic and Marvel. Disney also owns the majority of Hulu and the ESPN Plus sports streaming service. Disney said Tuesday that it would offer a 12.99 bundle package of the three services. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
Offer the coziness of a library, a cup of coffee or an Art Deco fireplace in a ladies' lounge as a gateway to a shopping spree. That's the new vision for Club Monaco, which is opening a sprawling flagship store on Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron district on Monday. It will feature the first Manhattan outpost of Toby's Estate Coffee, the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, mainstay, and a bookstore operated by the Strand, the eclectic New York literary shop, with more than 700 titles. Club Monaco's specialty Manhattan store will also include a 1920s haberdashery display within the men's store, a conservatory with a barrel vaulted ceiling, and decorative hints reminiscent of the retailing era when the neighborhood was known as Ladies' Mile. "We wanted to create a space where you don't just come to buy a sweater, but are getting an education on art and culture," said Allison Greenberg, Club Monaco's director of marketing and communications. "You can have a cup of coffee or sit in the library and read a great book that is relevant to the Flatiron district." The 20,000 square foot store, a renovation and expansion of a previous Club Monaco location, is part of a larger strategy to expand the brand. The clothing retailer has been branching into accessories, including a recent partnership with Jane Mayle, the handbag designer. This summer, it produced its first shoe line. In addition, Club Monaco recently opened a shop on Bleecker Street, is converting its location on Prince Street in SoHo to a stand alone men's store and is opening a second women's location on Broadway, also in SoHo. It recently opened its first free standing shop in London, with plans to add more locations next year, and is renovating its stores in Seoul, South Korea, and Hong Kong. Club Monaco is not the first retailer to try to drum up foot traffic by teaming up with ancillary businesses. This year, Rag Bone opened in the meatpacking district with a beverage station operated by Jack's Stir Brew Coffee, and Shinola in TriBeCa shares its space with the Smile cafe. The design at the Fifth Avenue Club Monaco, which was overseen by an in house team, drew inspiration from the neighborhood's past, when department stores like B. Altman and Best Company were popular shopping destinations. It has a mostly white palette, with Venatino marble flooring and Ionic columns on the ground floor. Floor to ceiling drapery, vintage furniture and silk rugs adorn the rooms. The bookstore and coffee shop are efforts "to bring our blog to life," said Ms. Greenberg, referring to Culture Club, which was started two years ago and has more than 260,000 followers. "We wanted to reinforce our status as a true lifestyle destination," she said. Club Monaco teamed up with the Strand, which opened in 1927 and is famed for having 18 miles of used and new books, "because it is iconic to New York City," Ms. Greenberg said. The bookstore, whose other locations are the main store on Broadway near Union Square and a kiosk that abuts Central Park, will have 2,500 books jointly selected by Club Monaco and the Strand. Tucked inside the store's so called library, the bookstore will have armchairs for customers to peruse the offerings, and it will hold events like authors' readings. As for Toby's Estate Coffee, "we are big fans of the brand internally and we wanted to offer coffee who doesn't want coffee on a Sunday afternoon as they shop?" Ms. Greenberg said. Toby's, originally from Australia, had been looking for a Manhattan location for nine months "when we got a call from Club Monaco saying they had this opportunity for us," said Amber Jacobsen, one of the owners. "Here at Toby's, we don't want to be a chain retail store and we are not looking to replicate what we have in Brooklyn," she said. The Brooklyn location includes a roasting plant and a slow bar, where coffee is allowed to brew for several minutes before being poured. The Club Monaco site in Manhattan will offer a slow bar, but will not have a roastery. Its decor, designed by Club Monaco, is intended to match the store's palette, with custom made espresso machines that are powder coated white with walnut wood paneling. Retailing experts see these partnerships as a way for the store to set itself apart from competitors by attracting a variety of customers. "Club Monaco is starting to follow trends that are emerging from more specialty brands," said Lisa Weiss, the owner of a wholesale showroom and a former retailer. "They typically compete against the likes of the Gap and J. Crew, so this is a way for them to differentiate themselves." Also, retail rents in the neighborhood have risen rapidly, and sharing a space can offset some of those costs. Asking rents in the Flatiron district now run as much as 500 a square foot, up from just 175 a square foot five years ago, said Joanne Podell, a vice chairwoman at Cushman Wakefield. While Club Monaco declined to discuss the specifics of its lease or how the deals with the Strand and Toby's were structured, typically stores like Club Monaco will be paid some compensation. "Most retailers are trying to be very effective in their use of space right now, especially as rents continue to rise," Ms. Podell said. But there are risks inherent in separate companies' sharing a common retail space, cautioned Robert Cohen, a broker at RKF, a retailing real estate brokerage firm. "Over the life of a lease, say 10 to 15 years," he said, "a lot of things can happen." Still, more retailers are betting that the strategy will pay off. "Right after the recession, everyone was scaling back and going to smaller footprints," Mr. Cohen said. "Now, we are seeing the opposite, that companies like Club Monaco are willing to take bigger spaces, but they have to do something extra, something interesting to entice consumers to go in." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Robots Will Take Jobs, but Not as Fast as Some Fear, New Report Says The robots are coming, but the march of automation will displace jobs more gradually than some alarming forecasts suggest. A measured pace is likely because what is technically possible is only one factor in determining how quickly new technology is adopted, according to a new study by the McKinsey Global Institute. Other crucial ingredients include economics, labor markets, regulations and social attitudes. The report, which was released Thursday, breaks jobs down by work tasks more than 2,000 activities across 800 occupations, from stock clerk to company boss. The institute, the research arm of the consulting firm McKinsey Company, concludes that many tasks can be automated and that most jobs have activities ripe for automation. But the near term impact, the report says, will be to transform work more than to eliminate jobs. Globally, the McKinsey researchers calculated that 49 percent of time spent on work activities could be automated with "currently demonstrated technology" either already in the marketplace or being developed in labs. That, the report says, translates into 15.8 trillion in wages and the equivalent of 1.1 billion workers worldwide. But only 5 percent of jobs can be entirely automated. "This is going to take decades," said James Manyika, a director of the institute and an author of the report. "How automation affects employment will not be decided simply by what is technically feasible, which is what technologists tend to focus on." The report, a product of years of research by the McKinsey group, adds to the growing body of research on automation and jobs. Conclusions about the relationship between the two vary widely. Examining trends in artificial intelligence, Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, researchers at Oxford University, estimated in a widely cited paper published in 2013 that 47 percent of jobs in the United States were at risk from automation. By contrast, a report published last year by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development concluded that across its 21 member countries, 9 percent of jobs could be automated on average. Differing assumptions, and sheer uncertainty about the future, explain the conflicting outlooks. Throughout history, times of rapid technological progress have stoked fears of jobs losses. More than 80 years ago, the renowned English economist John Maynard Keynes warned of a "new disease" of "technological unemployment." Today, it is the rise of artificial intelligence in increasingly clever software and machines that is stirring concern. The standard view is that routine work in factories and offices, like bookkeeping or operating basic machinery, is most vulnerable to automation. But A.I. software that can read and analyze text or speech so called natural language processing is encroaching on the work of professionals. For example, there is a lot of legal work that is routine, said Frank Levy, a labor economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But that routine work, sifting through documents for relevant information, is wrapped in language, which had protected lawyers from the effects of automation. But no longer. "Natural language processing opens the door to doing more and more work that was beyond automation until recently," Mr. Levy said. The McKinsey report cites natural language processing as a key technology: The faster it develops, the more that tasks can be automated; a slower pace means less automation. The economic cost of automation is another concern. People see advances in self driving vehicles, and think that the jobs of America's 1.7 million truck drivers are in imminent peril, said Michael Chui, a partner at the McKinsey institute and an author of the report. Yet replacing America's truck fleet would require a trillion dollar investment, Mr. Chui said, adding "if you could buy a self driving truck, which you can't." Such uncertainties led the McKinsey researchers to calculate the pace of automation as ranges rather than precise predictions. The report's multifactor scenarios suggest that half of today's work activities could be automated by 2055. That threshold could be reached 20 years earlier or 20 years later, the report adds, depending on economic trends, labor market dynamics, regulations and social attitudes. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
Like a golden wedding anniversary, the 50th anniversary of a dance company is an achievement that deserves a celebration more so, since far fewer dance companies than marriages last that long. In both cases, though, you don't go to the party expecting surprises. The 50th anniversary season of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, which opened at the Joyce Theater on Tuesday, includes one premiere, "Something About Night." Like all the works by Mr. Lubovitch that I have seen, it is a piece of fine craftsmanship. Set to beautiful music several Schubert songs for male chorus it matches that music's mood and attentively flows along its contours, rising and falling like breath. In group sections, a duet and a solo, it shows off the technical finesse of the company's excellent dancers. And also like every work by Mr. Lubovitch that I have seen, it made little impression on me. There's something about Mr. Lubovitch's choreography that makes it difficult to say what's wrong. The style is attractive; a 1960s compromise between ballet and modern dance, it has a middle of the road mellifluousness, full bodied yet careful. The structures are solid, even classical in their adherence to the rules of some old choreographic handbook. It isn't a question of what's there, but what isn't: the mysterious quality that makes you feel that the top of your head has been taken off or any of the other metaphors that try to pinpoint the difference between verse and poetry, between admirable craft and inescapable art. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
With travel restrictions in place worldwide, we've launched a new series The World Through a Lens in which photojournalists transport you, virtually, to some of our planet's most beautiful and intriguing places. This week, Benjamin Lowy shares a collection of photographs from Easter Island. Some 2,200 miles off the coast of Chile, Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is among the world's most remote inhabited islands. When I visited in 2008, it took nearly 20 hours of travel to reach its shores. Much of the history of the island including that of its sculptures and the Polynesians who discovered it 1,000 years ago is shrouded in mystery. Many of the descendants of the Polynesian settlers have fallen prey to tribal fighting, European disease and the Peruvian slave trade. Who were these ancient craftsmen, and why did they build these human figures? How did they transport massive stone figurines, some weighing nearly 14 tons? What happened to their ancient civilization? No archaeologist has been able to answer all these questions definitively. I spent a week on Easter Island, exploring the awe inspiring moai, whose long faces look out across the landscape. They were made in ancient quarries: gigantic factories where the stones were mined and carved. When European settlers arrived in the 18th century, there were hardly any trees; one prevailing theory suggests that they were all harvested in efforts to move the moai from the quarries to the seashore. (There are certainly other theories, too.) Though beautiful, the island faces its share of challenges. Fishermen use huge numbers of rocks to sink their nets, contributing to the erosion of the shore. Garbage is often left to wallow in giant pits away from tourists' eyes. And the ocean, with its rising levels, is swallowing up the island inch by inch. Nearly half of the island's population considers itself to be native Rapa Nui. Many islanders are mired in poverty and receive little support from the Chilean government. The chasm between their daily experiences and those of the island's tourists many of whom withdraw to high end secluded resorts ensconced in dense rolling valleys has led to tensions and standoffs. Still, the moai continue to attract visitors en masse. They have long inspired outrageous tales of U.F.O.s, ancient magic and secret societies. And it's easy to understand why. As the sun set in the Southern Hemisphere, with warm golden rays burning off the moisture of the rainy season, I stood before head after massive head. Dwarfed by history, I was left to grapple with archaeological mysteries that no one can or likely ever will fully explain. But perhaps the explanations don't matter. Perhaps here, as with the great pyramids and other ancient human endeavors, what matters is that we bask in the beauty of their mystery. Benjamin Lowy is an American photojournalist based in New York, N.Y. You can follow his work on Instagram and Twitter. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
A few years ago, on their wildly popular podcast "Bodega Boys," the comedians Desus Nice and Kid Mero coined the term "caucacity," which was essentially a portmanteau of Caucasian and audacity. They employed it to marvel at the baffling behaviors of white folks, like a predilection for pumpkin spice anything. Over time, it became widely used internet shorthand for the ways in which white entitlement, flagrant displays of privilege and exceptions that eluded other groups weave their way through our society. The thing about caucacity is that there are levels to it, and it is safe to say we are at an all time high. Take, for example, everything about Elizabeth Holmes. The college admissions scandal. The desire to blame anything other than racism for the terror of the El Paso shooting. Caucacity isn't just something for Desus, Mero and their fans to process alone anymore. Lately, I've been noticing a steady stream of cultural properties addressing whiteness either head on, as in the case of the period drama "The Nightingale," or sideways, with a surrealist, abstract bent, as in the horror tale "Midsommar," both made by white filmmakers. And what a relief. As a friend put it to me recently, "This is white people's job now," meaning that it's time for white people to start helping one another see themselves in terms of their race and all the undeserved, inherited privilege that comes with it. It's a self examination that knows the difference between "woke" and self awareness, and leans toward the latter. It's not easy work. "White progressives can be the most difficult for people," Robin DiAngelo writes in her groundbreaking book, "White Fragility," because she and others "do indeed uphold and perpetuate racism, but our defensiveness and certitude make it virtually impossible to explain to us how we do so." Kent said in an interview that she felt it was her duty as a filmmaker to "face these terrible things that happened, to move forward." She added, "We see in our modern lives what happens when people don't." Kent, an Australian best known for her 2014 domestic horror film "The Babadook," explained that the same violence that created colonialism is the same violence scarring the world "left, right and center" today. Kent's film isn't perfectly rendered. It centers on the terror and rage of a white woman whose own bondage and subsequent trauma let her ignore the abhorrent racial hierarchies (and her participation in them) that allowed for the decimation of the indigenous histories and cultures of Tasmania. For help on her quest, she hires an indigenous man called Billy (Baykali Ganambarr) and can barely contain her self absorption and contempt. In one scene, the two sit by a fire and Billy describes being chained and beaten as he was taken from his family; watching as his loved ones are murdered; and the painful alienation that ensues from the erasure of the rituals and cultures of his people. "Poor you," Clare sneers. "You think you're the only one with problems?" Sure, her story is tragic orphaned at a young age, living on the streets but on the same level as the genocide of an entire people? In many ways, Clare's fury is her privilege. She can move through the country relatively easily, whereas the man she paid to help her navigate the unfamiliar terrain vanishes each time white men appear, fearing for his life. He knows what she may never grasp: that despite the cruelty that she and her family endure, he and his people suffer more. When an indigenous woman experiences the same brutality that sets the film in motion, it happens offscreen, demoting its importance. (For all of the outrage this movie has sparked, only the attacks on Clare seem to be mentioned.) Colonizers, of course, experienced their own cultural conditioning that few popular historical narratives have tried to explore. The film doesn't so much try to understand their pathology as it does silently and methodically tally the damage, allowing the horrors to haunt and metastasize within the characters and presumably, the generations to come after them. Nonetheless, "The Nightingale" is still effective: It unearths the root of settler mentality and violence that so much of history has effectively wallpapered over. The film points a finger directly at the greed of empire, and at the deliberate and elaborate social construction of whiteness to oppress, to ravage, to raze, to devastate, to occupy and to conquer. Kent doesn't try to rationalize she simply shows all this in a horrid light, allowing viewers to understand the high cost of their modern day lives. In a way, the descendants of those characters take up metaphorical residence in the eerie utopia of Ari Aster's "Midsommar," the colorful fun house of a film about a group of friends who travel to a remote area in Sweden for a festival that turns out to be more Marilyn Manson than Joanna Newsom. As the group arrives in the village of Harga for the midsummer celebrations, they're ushered into a sun dappled paradise by a swarm of pink cheeked, smiling blond people. The scene is supposed to read as idyllic, a reprieve from the gross American capitalism and modernized world. But the homogeneity of the people seethes with a dormant violence. That area of the world had an indigenous population, too, now known as the Sami , whose story echoes all of the stories of peoples who lived on land usurped by colonizers. As it turns out, paradise is expensive, and the cost in "Midsommar" includes incest, torture, ritual sex and senicide. Although audiences are supposed to recoil as each fresh hell is revealed, no one in the village ever seems perturbed. After all, this is how things have always been done and nothing is too expensive if it means the preservation of their village's purity, their rituals and their way of life: a perfect metaphor for the historical violence and legacy of whiteness. Both of those films contain graphic violence that I don't entirely recommend to anyone. But I preferred their bloodiness to the Krispy Kreme soft focus glaze that coated the indie darling "The Last Black Man in San Francisco," a film by Joe Talbot (also white), about the economic tides eroding communities of color in the Bay Area , and the efforts of a character named Jimmie to reclaim his childhood Victorian home (reminiscent of the one the lead actor, Jimmie Fails, lived in until he was 6). The movie has been heralded as a searing portrait of gentrification, of the brutal ways that black people have been disenfranchised to make way for white progress. But the film suffers from the same unexamined beliefs informing our racial realities that DiAngelo writes about in "White Fragility." One of the film's most triumphant scenes revolves around an interaction between the lead character, Jimmie, and a group of tourists floating by on Segways past his childhood home. The scene reads as grotesquely comic. They can't even be bothered to walk, you guys! Jimmie watches calmly as the tour guide says the "before the black thing," this area was largely inhabited by Japanese Americans until the 1940s, when they were forced into internment camps during World War II. Jimmie interrupts this history lesson to inform them that the house was in fact built by his grandfather. The exchange is meant to paint Jimmie as our unlikely hero and establish his rightful place in the landscape, no matter how many Google busloads of tech bros arrive. But it also has the unfortunate effect of limiting the ownership struggles in the Bay Area to a black white binary, continuing the grotesque erasure of the stories of the Japanese, Chinese, Latinx and Native communities that have suffered, and still do. The investment in aesthetics over ethics in "Last Black Man" is perfectly captured when Jimmie and his friend Montgomery make a cake in the Victorian's kitchen. The scene itself looks as delicious as a pastry warm lighting and the decadent backdrop of a Pinterest worthy space. The two share a heartwarming moment as they stir the batter. But they never bake the cake. These are men who need actual nourishment, who need actual meals, and warmth and love. Not just the performance of it. The film has a noble cause but after a while, the loving gaze of the camera starts to feel perverse. The film is way more invested in empty caloric scenes like these than in diving deeper into the complicated entanglement of ownership, inheritance and entitlement for displaced folks like Jimmie and Montgomery. The final scenes include a startling revelation about the house that undermines Jimmie's entire motivation, leaving the story arc as unfinished as that cake. Aesthetics as activism can be dangerous. And it's wholly unsatisfying, too. In an interview with Deadline.com, the director said that he was a fifth generation San Franciscan. "On my dad's side, he came with that great wave in the '60s. People that just wanted something to believe in." Talbot found Fails's story worthier than his own. That was a miscalculation. And as grateful as I was to see Danny Glover (as Montgomery's father) and Tichina Arnold (as Jimmie's aunt) in, well, anything, I wonder if Talbot would have been better served trying to parse his own family's role in the gentrification of San Francisco, which accelerated during the wave that Talbot's father participated in and contributed to the technological boomtown that now consumes the region. What was Talbot's father looking for? Did he find it? Who were his neighbors? What were their lives like? Where are they all now? Those questions and pursuits are as fascinating as anyone else's, and the antidote to this moment that we're in is not continuing to ignore that. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
Volvo returns to its wagon roots with style. This time, there's no looking backward. Say "Volvo," and what image springs to mind? A station wagon, right? And not just any wagon, but one as square and imperishable as a Saltine, and as much a staple of the suburbs. So when Volvo stopped selling wagons in America, it was a seismic event. Like many automakers, Volvo saw the writing on the family wall. With its S.U.V.s exponentially outselling traditional wagons, Volvo slammed the tailgate shut in 2011 as the V50 waved goodbye to America. Now the Volvo wagon rides again, joining a band of outliers including the Audi Allroad, BMW 328i Sports Wagon, Acura TSX Sport Wagon and Cadillac CTS wagon. And though this lovely 2015 entry looks nothing like Swedish Conestogas of yore, the V60 has the familiar Volvo attributes of safety, ease and practicality and a new bonus of class leading fuel economy. Like its sibling, the XC60 crossover S.U.V., the V60 heralds the downsized Drive E powertrains that will soon be offered throughout the Volvo lineup. (Despite the E name, the cars do not have electric propulsion, although hybrid versions are planned.) The V60 gets a 2 liter direct injected turbo 4 cylinder that produces 240 horsepower and a rich 258 pound feet of torque. Coincidentally or not, the BMW 328i xDrive Sports Wagon makes the same 240 horsepower, with 255 pound feet, from its 2 liter turbo. But with the identical 8 forward speeds as the BMW (in a smooth shifting automatic transmission), the Volvo's outstanding economy rating of 37 miles per gallon on the highway, and 25 in town, actually tops the BMW by 4 m.p.g. on the highway and 3 in the city. As you'd expect, the Volvo also costs less. The T5 Drive E test car started at 36,225, about 6,000 below the basic Bimmer, and reached 42,225 with options. The V60 has shed Volvo's square chrysalis and emerged as a Swedish butterfly. This is the prettiest wagon to come down the turnpike in some time. Even busy New Yorkers took time to pay compliments. The roofline drops to a rendezvous with the rising flanks. Volvo's signature flowing taillamps, which recall a pair of high back Lucite chairs, draw the eye to a saucy, forward leaning hatch. This sporty, compact design takes a toll on utility: If you're expecting a furniture warehouse on wheels, like the defunct war horse V70, you'll be looking elsewhere. Dropping the rear seats opens a modest 43.8 cubic feet of storage. The similar size Audi Allroad and BMW Sports Wagon manage a respective 50.5 and 53 cubes, though I found the Volvo's hatch nearly as practical in real world use. It is far smaller, however, than the 67.4 cubic feet of cargo space in the midsize XC60 crossover. Consider the Volvo more of a sporty grocery getter for couples or families who travel light. The rear seat is split in a 40/20/40 arrangement, and folding the center section creates a generously wide pass through for long gear. The leather wrapped armrest with cup holders and storage, roughly a foot wide, is perfect for keeping children apart and cooties at bay. In Scandinavian fashion, the cabin design is minimal yet stylish, including Volvo's falling waterfall console, brushed metal trim and a kind of elephant hide grained plastic on the dash. Front or rear, the seats are magnificent (including optional white stitched sport seats), so luxuriously stuffed yet supportive that they should win some orthopedic seal of approval. My test car's 1,500 Sport package added to the looks and performance, with those white stitched seats, smoke finished 19 inch alloy wheels and a set of surprisingly robust and tactile metal paddle shifters on the steering wheel. A central infotainment screen greatly improves on Volvo's usual stingy units, but still trails other systems that are easier to use. My test car, thankfully, came without the optional navigation system. Geely, Volvo's Chinese owners, might bolt in a counterfeit hand held from a Beijing alley that would do a smarter job. Volvo needs no such help on safety. Its standard, pioneering City Safety system, now mimicked by some competitors, can automatically stop the V60 at speeds up to 31 m.p.h. if it detects potential collisions with cars or pedestrians. The 900 B.L.I.S. package added the radar based Blind Spot Information System, rear cross traffic alert and parking sensors front and rear. Drivers can reconfigure the digital driver's display, switching a central speedometer for a tachometer or adjusting colors and effects: If you toggle up the teal colored Eco display, then press too hard on the gas pedal, the screen glows red like an angry blister. The display is attractive and momentarily diverting, though it's mainly for show it is not linked to actual performance settings. Consider it Volvo's mood ring. A separate Eco switch does change the car's behavioral mind set. Like a Porsche system, its eco coast function uses a clutch to fully disengage the powertrain and save fuel when you're not pressing the accelerator. But I found myself switching off Eco mode because of its obtrusive engine start/stop function, which unfortunately defaults to "on" each time you start the car. Even without Eco mode, I managed 35 m.p.g. on a long highway cruise. That's 2 m.p.g. shy of the federal estimate, but still outstanding mileage for a wagon with so much power, aided by the discreet shifting transmission. Labeling a 4 cylinder car a T5 may be confusing. But clarity comes with a 6.1 second sprint to 60 m.p.h., plenty quick for a family wagon. That time lengthens to 6.8 seconds for the T5 AWD model, a 37,725 version that does have 5 cylinders: Volvo's older 2.5 liter engine that makes 250 turbocharged horses. Owners who insist on shaking up the neighborhood can have the 45,225 T6 AWD R Design, a sport tuned version with 325 horsepower from a 3 liter in line turbo 6. When pushed, the V60 will give chase, with a linear wave of turbo power and surprisingly ample grip from its fat 19 inch tires. The chassis also strikes an equitable balance between ride smoothness and control, though body motions could be more tamped down. Undulating high speed pavement, especially, begins to unsettle the V60 like a storm tossed rowboat. For all types of driving, the main demerit as in some other Volvos are brakes that feel mushy and less than powerful. For a brand whose reputation rests on safety, these wimpy binders should prompt engineering meetings in Gothenburg. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
While the United States is preparing for a total solar eclipse in a few weeks, most of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia and Antarctica will receive their own celestial show: a partial lunar eclipse on Monday night. (It will be Tuesday in East Asia and Australia.) Lunar eclipses are basically the opposite of solar eclipses. Rather than the moon moving in between Earth and the sun, as will happen Aug. 21, during a lunar eclipse it's Earth that plays "monkey in the middle," casting its shadow on the moon. Earth's shadow has two parts: the umbra, which is the darker inner portion, and the penumbra, the lighter outer part. Their interactions with the moon can create three types of lunar eclipses: partial, total and penumbral. During a partial lunar eclipse, only part of Earth's umbra covers the moon. This is because the alignment of sun Earth moon is not perfect, and Earth's shadow instead appears to take only a bite out of the moon rather than engulf it completely. Sky gazers will notice that a portion of the moon's face has turned dark as it enters the umbra. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Scientists have long labored to explain what appeared to be a slowdown in global warming that began at the start of this century as, at the same time, heat trapping emissions of carbon dioxide were soaring. The slowdown, sometimes inaccurately described as a halt or hiatus, became a major talking point for people critical of climate science. Now, new research suggests the whole thing may have been based on incorrect data. When adjustments are made to compensate for recently discovered problems in the way global temperatures were measured, the slowdown largely disappears, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared in a scientific paper published Thursday. And when the particularly warm temperatures of 2013 and 2014 are averaged in, the slowdown goes away entirely, the agency said. "The notion that there was a slowdown in global warming, or a hiatus, was based on the best information we had available at the time," said Thomas R. Karl, director of the National Centers for Environmental Information, a NOAA unit in Asheville, N.C. "Science is always working to improve." The change prompted accusations on Thursday from some climate change denialists that the agency was trying to wave a magic wand and make inconvenient data go away. Mainstream climate scientists not involved in the NOAA research rejected that charge, saying it was essential that agencies like NOAA try to deal with known problems in their data records. At the same time, senior climate scientists at other agencies were in no hurry to embrace NOAA's specific adjustments. Several of them said it would take months of discussion in the scientific community to understand the data corrections and come to a consensus about whether to adopt them broadly. "What you have is a reasonable effort to deal with known biases, and obviously there is some uncertainty in how you do that," said Gavin A. Schmidt, who heads a NASA climate research unit in New York that deals with similar issues. Some experts also pointed out that, depending on exactly how the calculation is done, a recent slowdown in global warming still appears in the NOAA temperature record, though it may be smaller than before. "These trends are very sensitive to the time periods you use to compute them," said Gerald A. Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. Scientists like Dr. Meehl never accepted the notion, put forward by some climate contrarians, that the slowdown disproved the idea that global warming poses long term risks. But they said they believe it is real and demands an explanation. A leading hypothesis to explain the slowdown is that natural fluctuations in the Pacific Ocean may have temporarily pulled some heat out of the atmosphere, producing a brief flattening in the long term increase of surface temperatures. NOAA is one of four agencies around the world that attempts to produce a complete record of global temperatures dating to 1880. They all get similar results, showing a long term warming of the planet that scientists have linked primarily to the burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of forests. A huge body of physical evidence notably, that practically every large piece of land ice on the planet has started to melt suggests the temperature finding is correct. Yet the temperature record is plagued by many problems: thermometers and recording practices changed through time, weather stations were moved, cities grew up around once rural stations, and so on. Entire scientific careers are devoted to studying these issues and making corrections. In their paper published online Thursday by the journal Science, and in interviews, scientists at NOAA said that in coming months they would roll out new versions of their temperature record that incorporate numerous improvements. The previous record showed that temperatures from 2000 to 2014 had warmed at about two thirds the rate of temperatures from 1950 to 1999. In the new analysis, the rate of warming in those two time periods is basically identical. NOAA said the improvements in its data set included the addition of a huge number of land measurements from around the world, as a result of improving international cooperation in sharing weather records. But the disappearance of the slowdown comes largely from adjustments in ocean temperatures. The ocean covers 70 percent of earth and thus the temperature at its surface has a huge influence on the overall record. Yet ocean measurements in particular are rife with difficulties. For many decades, into the mid 20th century, the main measurements came from sailors hauling up buckets of seawater and plopping thermometers into them. The buckets varied, the thermometers varied, and some of the sailors were more diligent than others about following instructions. On average, scientists believe, the water tended to cool off a bit before the temperature was recorded. NOAA had long believed the data glitches from the buckets had largely disappeared after World War II, but new information suggests that bucket measurements continued on some commercial vessels long after the war. The new NOAA data set attempts to correct for this and other problems in the ocean records. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington that is critical of climate science, issued a statement condemning the changes and questioning the agency's methodology. "The main claim by the authors that they have uncovered a significant recent warming trend is dubious," said the statement, attributed to three contrarian climate scientists: Richard S. Lindzen, Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. Knappenberger. However, Russell S. Vose, chief of the climate science division at NOAA's Asheville center, pointed out in an interview that while the corrections do eliminate the recent warming slowdown, the overall effect of the agency's adjustments has long been to raise the reported global temperatures in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by a substantial margin. That makes the temperature increase of the past century appear less severe than it does in the raw data. "If you just wanted to release to the American public our uncorrected data set, it would say that the world has warmed up about 2.071 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880," Dr. Vose said. "Our corrected data set says things have warmed up about 1.65 degrees Fahrenheit. Our corrections lower the rate of warming on a global scale." Even if the warming slowdown in the early 21st century was real, there seems to be little question that it is ending. By a small margin, the global temperature hit a record in 2014, and developing weather patterns suggest that record will likely be broken by a larger margin in 2015. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Where the Clothes Do Most of the Work I do not think that I was prepared for the mannequins. Earlier this month, I did a crawl of recently opened flagship spaces for the two largest athletic wear companies in the world, beginning with the new Adidas Midtown location and ending at Nike's SoHo outpost. It was a symphony of stretchable, moisture wicking fabrics and complicated looking footwear, items designed for maximum visual impact and, one imagines, some function, too. These two constantly warring titans have different approaches to expressing their bona fides: Nike is brash and attitudinal, Adidas is relaxed and slightly cozy. The stores captured that to a degree but, more intriguing, also highlighted the ways in which athletic performance is sold to those of us who sweat just by watching others work out. But then Nike strikes you with the cold slap of your inadequacy. On one of the building's middle floors there are five total was an array of lower half mannequins that were, I would have to guess, based on Odell Beckham Jr., or maybe Adrian Peterson. Mannequins where the muscles on the front of the thigh and the ones in the back were so far apart that they probably couldn't hear each other speak in a crowded room, and so big that if they did speak, they would undoubtedly get into a fight. They were encased in compression tights ( 90) designed to accentuate every glorious curve, and perhaps remold some of the less glorious ones. A mannequin is, by definition, a blank template. It isn't necessarily supposed to tell us about ourselves. But in regarding these wonders of, I assume, fiberglass, I learned a tremendous amount about who I was not. There were sections of both stores dedicated to those concerned with performance, like enclosed patches of fake turf on which you could boot around a soccer ball. Nike also had a basketball half court (or almost half) on which employees were attempting (and missing) three point shots; and at Adidas, I was handed a basketball to dribble as I tried on a pair of low top D Lillard 2.0s ( 105). There were military grade treadmills at both stores, though I didn't witness anyone or aspire to become someone brave enough to try them out. They felt like exhibits you might see at the U.S.S. Intrepid, tools of a war you've heard about but not been called upon to fight in. For the most part, people were not in either of these stores to sweat. The Adidas flagship is on a meh stretch of Fifth Avenue in Midtown, right where the luxury strip turns midmarket. It was filled with tourists. On bustling Lower Broadway a better heeled tourist strip, yes, but also close enough to places where the creative classes might live the crowd was younger, more diverse, more interestingly dressed. The evening I stopped in, I saw the stylish rapper ASAP Nast buying some Air Jordan XVs ( 190). Nike's style swings are bolder and brighter. You could identify the floors there by use of color: red and black in the Jordan section, rich teal and purple in soccer cleats, stoic gray and black in leisure wear. Its attempts at casual fashion were more thoughtful, like the deep green water repellent zip up windbreaker with angled zipper ( 375), like something you might see on a Tim Coppens runway. Adidas, by contrast, offered a shrug worthy mesh zip up hoodie made in partnership with Reigning Champ ( 225). Both places offer a version of customization. At Adidas, classic silhouettes Gazelle, Stan Smith, Superstar are available to be reimagined with a range of alternate fabrics. (The finished product takes three to five weeks, a clerk said.) At Nike, you could on the spot customize a handful of items with designs by three artists: Grace Miceli, Daniel Zender and Jon Contino. I ordered one of Miceli's sweet, angelic T shirts ( 50), which was ready for me by the time I was finished browsing. You could also customize a pair of Air Force 1s (with designs by the same artists) and a deubre a lace tag that slides onto the part of the lace closest to the toe box. It's a clever frill I have a few somewhere in a box I will probably never be able to find and a steady reminder that even in the most athletic environment, vanity matters. The woman in front of me was having her deubres customized to read "Bad Bitch." I hope she ends up walking, not running, slowly enough that everyone can read them. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Shot in black and white, with that startling shift to color after a tornado, the episode follows Milligan and Satchel, who are definitely not in Kansas (City) anymore. The two hole up at the Barton Arms in Liberal, Kan., "the pancake hub of the universe," for a couple of days so that Milligan can find his bearings and figure out where they should go from there. As Satchel stays in the room, bonding with a stray dog of Toto like proportions, Milligan heads into town to retrieve 5,000 in ill gotten cash that he had tucked in the walls of a feed shop. Only the feed shop is now a catalog store, and the wall is gone, leading Milligan to conclude that the new proprietors have his money. The episode builds to two crackerjack suspense sequences. The first has Milligan trying to get his money from the catalog store, which is never a situation he doesn't have entirely in hand. But outside the shop, Satchel faces the much more dangerous prospect of a conflict with a white police officer, who basically eyes him for the crime of Sitting While Black. Milligan gets back in time to defuse the situation, but for Satchel, it underlines an essential difference between him and his "guardian": They may both be orphans, but in reference to the monologue about the Goldilocks story back at the Barton Arms, Satchel will always be the "outsider in search of himself." He has no home that could ever be considered safe. The second set piece is much showier, landing Milligan in the middle of a gunfight between one of Loy's henchman, Omie Sparkman (Corey Hendrix), and the wraithlike Constant Calamita. Sparkman has set a trap for Calamita at the only filling station for miles around one that happens to be eight or nine miles away from the Barton Arms but when Milligan turns up looking for a treat for Satchel's birthday, he gets roped into a conflict. To this point, only the Kansas setting, the black and white photography and the little dog have suggested "The Wizard of Oz," but it's enough to justify the tornado that wipes all three characters off the map. The switch from black and white to color after the tornado isn't as revelatory as when Dorothy opens the door to Oz what could be, really? but it does mark Satchel's transition to another world, one where he is truly orphaned, without his real or surrogate father. Perhaps some version of the Scarecrow, the Tin Man or the Lion await him on the lonely highway that stands in for the yellow brick road, but it's been made perfectly clear to him, outside the catalog store and inside the Barton Arms, that he's not welcome anywhere. He can't click his heels three times. In Kansas, there's no place called home. None Welcome back, Coen references! The Barton Arms is a nod to the Hotel Earle, the purgatorial dump where John Turturro struggles to script a wrestling picture in "Barton Fink." Touting the pancakes of Liberal, Kan., honors Peter Stormare's Gaear Grimsrud in "Fargo," a man who speaks of little but his desire for pancakes. (The Coens and Stormare also call back to the pancakes during his appearance as a nihilist in "The Big Lebowski.") And it may be a stretch, but the old man strapped to a machine at the Barton Arms sounded a little like the retired TV writer in the iron lung in "Lebowski." ("He has health problems.") None Back to less expected references, the episode features a straight faced telling of "Yertle the Turtle," the classic Dr. Seuss story about the vain turtle king who makes a throne for himself atop a stack of other turtles. On systems of oppression, you get your choice of Bertrand Russell or Dr. Seuss. I choose the latter. None Love the scenes with the billboard and its maker, who isn't in a hurry to finish up lest he be unemployed. Milligan has no idea what "The Future Is Now" is supposed to mean, and it's especially perplexing because the billboard's image of white suburbia seems so far removed from the snow dusted plains of rural Kansas. But Satchel appears to recognize that the future isn't his, at least not now. None Apologies to Milligan, but the finders keepers rule does apply here. When the owners of the catalog store bought the feed shop, they got everything that came with it. "Leaky pipes, bag of money, what have you ... that's the American way." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. The cleanup system is supposed to work like this: After the boom detaches from the towing vessel, the current is expected to pull it into the shape of a "U." As it drifts along, propelled by the wind and waves, it should trap plastic "like Pac Man," the foundation said on its website. The captured plastic would then be transported back to land, sorted and recycled. The boom has an impenetrable skirt that hangs nearly 10 feet below to catch smaller pieces of plastic. The nonprofit said marine life would be able to pass underneath. But the ocean can be unpredictable, and simulation models are no guarantee of future performance. "There's worry that you can't remove the plastic without removing marine life at the same time," said George Leonard, chief scientist at the Ocean Conservancy. "We know from the fishing industry if you put any sort of structure in the open ocean, it acts as a fish aggregating device." Small fish, drawn to a new structure, can attract bigger fish, he added, creating an "entire ecological community." It is unclear how well the boom would fare on the open ocean, where it faces high winds, corrosive salt water and other environmental challenges. And then there's the question of whether it is possible to clean half of the garbage patch in just five years. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Aaron Rosand, a leading violinist who closed out an astonishingly long career with a dramatic, emotion filled gesture, selling his beloved rare violin for some 10 million and donating 1.5 million of that to a music institute, died on July 9 in White Plains. He was 92. His wife, Christina Khimm Rosand, said the cause was pneumonia. He lived in Scarsdale, N.Y. Mr. Rosand made his orchestral debut with the Chicago Symphony when he was 10 and was still performing until just a few years ago. In the intervening years he was nothing if not consistent. In 1948 The New York Times praised his debut recital at Town Hall in Manhattan, citing "a tone of unusual quality and a technique of near perfection." A half century later, when he released a recording of Brahms and Beethoven concertos, the notices were much the same. "Rosand has lost none of his fabled technique," Richard Dyer wrote in The Boston Globe in 1999, "and plays both pieces with secure intonation, a sound that grows ever sweeter as it ascends, a directly communicative warmth of feeling, and a swashbuckling dash that has always characterized his playing." Mr. Rosand performed with major orchestras all over the world, for much of his career playing an instrument made in 1741 and known as the ex Kochanski Guarneri del Gesu (because it was previously owned by Paul Kochanski, a Polish virtuoso, and was made by Giuseppe Guarneri, known as "del Gesu"). Mr. Rosand acquired the violin in 1957 for about 50,000, financed with a loan that he said took him about a decade to pay off. That was the instrument he sold to a well heeled Russian in 2009 for 10.1 million, thought to be a record for a violin at the time. He handed the instrument over in a London hotel suite. "I just felt as if I left part of my body behind," Mr. Rosand told The Times shortly after. "It was my voice. It was my career." He gave 1.5 million of the proceeds to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, from which he graduated in 1948 and where he taught for 38 years. But the gift was only part of his legacy, the institute said in a tribute on its website. Mr. Rosand was born Aaron Rosen on March 15, 1927, in Hammond, Ind. His father, Allen, and his mother, Ida (Rubin) Rosen, were both musically inclined; in a 2014 interview with violinist.com, Mr. Rosand said that when they met, his father was singing in a cabaret near Hammond and his mother was playing piano to accompany silent movies. They used to perform together and would take him along when he was a toddler. Once, when he was about 3, his father was to sing a Schubert lieder. "I ran up to the stage and said, 'I want to sing, too!' " Mr. Rosand said. "To their amazement, I sang it in German." He had been listening to his parents practice. "That's when they realized that maybe they had a musical monster on their hands," he said. He took up the violin after the family had moved to Chicago, where he studied under Leon Sametini, a noted violin teacher, at the Chicago Musical College before taking his degree at Curtis. Early on, Mr. Rosand developed a reputation for playing the somewhat out of fashion Romantic repertoire and for programming seldom played composers like Jeno Hubay and Joseph Joachim. It was a trait that, as The Times put it in a 1982 article, "marked him as a specialist in the arcane and overly sentimental." Mr. Rosand, though, was unapologetic. "If performing 'Romantically' means projecting yourself into the period in which the music was written," he said in an interview for that article, "and then injecting your own personality to show what that music means to you, then Romanticism is for me." An early benefactor, the philanthropist Max Adler, supplied Mr. Rosand with a Stradivarius to play. But when Mr. Rosand began to date and then married the pianist Eileen Flissler early in his career, he said, it "did not sit very well with Mr. Adler, who felt that my total dedication must be to the violin." "I suddenly found myself in New York without a violin, with a wife and no means of support," he said. That led to his acquisition of the ex Kochanski. Mr. Rosand struck up an arrangement with a New York violin dealer, Rembert Wurlitzer: Mr. Wurlitzer would lend him instruments to play in concerts, and, in exchange, Mr. Rosand would play those instruments in demonstrations for potential buyers. "But there was one violin that he could never allow me to take out of the shop, and that was the 'Kochanski' Guarnerius," Mr. Rosand told violinist.com. It was kept at the shop by a private owner who was in failing health but would stop by once a week to visit it. "I played on that violin in the shop," Mr. Rosand said, "and I realized that this is my voice." When the instrument became available, he was given six months to raise the money to buy it. He did that in part by taking a job at CBS, playing on radio shows. And, he said, there was the Chock Full o' Nuts connection. At the time, the brand was opening a lot of coffee shops, the Starbucks of the day. "Those stores were like mushrooms," Mr. Rosand said. "They were all around New York, and then they came out with a stock, at 16. Whatever work I did, whatever money I had, I bought stock. Don't ask me why, I didn't know anything about stocks at that time, but I thought, every time you turn the corner, there's a new Chock Full o'Nuts, so I kept buying stock." The stock price soared, and he used his shares as collateral for the loan that bought him the violin. From 1962 to 1975, Mr. Rosand played that violin primarily for European audiences. He struggled to get top notch engagements in the United States, something he later attributed in part to the violinist Isaac Stern, a power in the classical music world. In an eyebrow raising essay he wrote for the music site Slipped Disc in 2014, Mr. Rosand recounted several instances in which he said Stern, who died in 2001, had sabotaged his career. Stern, he wrote, objected that he had "gone commercial" in taking the CBS job. There was what seemed to be professional jealousy too, he wrote, as when Mr. Rosand played a Samuel Barber concerto with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein in 1960. Mr. Rosand intended to record the piece with the orchestra a few weeks later. "A fuming Isaac Stern was waiting in the wings when we walked offstage after the first performance," Mr. Rosand wrote. "He never shook my hand, grabbed Bernstein and took him to his dressing room. I walked out alone for the bows, and from then on Bernstein's attitude towards me changed." Years later, he said, Bernstein told him that Stern "had threatened to cancel his five concerto recordings with the NY Philharmonic if he recorded the Barber concerto with me." By the late 1970s, though, Mr. Rosand was performing more often with American orchestras, and in 1981 he joined the Curtis faculty. Mr. Rosand also taught for years at the Summit Music Festival at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y., where Christina Khimm Rosand, also a violinist, directs the festival's Aaron Rosand Intensive Violin Program. Mr. Rosand's three previous marriages, to Ms. Flissler, Maree Macpherson and Monica Woo, ended in divorce. In addition to his wife, he is survived by three stepdaughters, Suzy Khimm Sarlin, Mia Khimm and, through his second marriage, Dierdre Regina Shula. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
Credit...Chad Batka for The New York Times Michael Moore Says He Wants to Change Minds. So Why Is He on Broadway? What the hell does Michael Moore want now? Is it not enough that for nearly 30 years, this cinematic provocateur has used his movies to harangue us about gun control, the George W. Bush administration, single payer health care and his myriad other bleeding heart causes? Didn't we just spend an election season enduring this man a bold truth teller to some, a tedious self promoter to others and his Cassandra like warnings that President Trump was going to win? Now Mr. Moore, this willfully disheveled, 63 year old hybrid of Noam Chomsky and P. T. Barnum, expects theatergoers to pay Broadway ticket prices to watch him in a one man show, "The Terms of My Surrender." After his previous documentaries, books and television shows, does he have anything left to say, and does he really believe it will make a difference? "I am not going to take up people's time or this valuable space to lecture people," Mr. Moore said, sitting in the orchestra level of the Belasco Theater. "I'm not coming to this stage every night to conduct a political rally." Instead, he said, he wants to tell stories that will make audiences feel better about this fractured nation, in a show from which they will emerge rejuvenated after a monthslong period of feeling beaten down. "This is not a kumbaya piece of theater," he said. "I'm not looking for everyone to hold hands. I want people to leave with a sense that they've been moved in a profound way." In some ways, his timing couldn't be better. His show arrives amid a period of liberal soul searching, when any vaguely oppositional voice, whether a left leaning columnist or late night host, has gotten a second wind in the Trump era. Perhaps Mr. Moore, with his rumpled baseball hat and Midwestern bona fides, can offer some answers. But why take his act to Broadway? If it's true that he preaches to the choir as his detractors on the right and the left say speaking to a self selected group of New York theatergoers seems to restrict his message to a rarefied bubble. What does Mr. Moore, who is known for a biting, sarcastic politics of outrage, think he can do differently, talking to about 1,000 people who have paid as much as 149 a seat? He has made big promises, but sometimes it's hard to determine if he knows what he wants to do and just won't reveal it in advance, or if he's still figuring it out as he goes along. The stage was dominated by a gigantic structure made to look like an American flag, painted white, a la Jasper Johns. At various moments, video from that day's news, usually involving Mr. Trump, was projected on it. Though he is known principally for his politically pointed nonfiction films, like "Bowling for Columbine," his Academy Award winning exploration into the 1999 high school shooting, and American gun culture, Mr. Moore has past experience with solo stage shows. In 2002, he brought a cantankerous, post 9/11 monologue to London's Roundhouse Theater. In October, he gave a more urgent performance at theaters in Ohio counties that were strongly pro Trump. That show, recorded in his documentary "Michael Moore in TrumpLand," was not so much a screed against the Republican presidential nominee as Mr. Moore's attempt at a positive argument for why voters should choose Hillary Clinton. Despite the fact that he ended that show with a vow to hold Mrs. Clinton accountable if she did not fulfill her promises in the White House, Mr. Moore (who supported Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary) said he always expected Mr. Trump to win the general election. The "TrumpLand" film and show, he said, was his best effort at staving off what he believed was inevitable. "If you were in a leaking lifeboat and all you had was a Dixie cup, would you just sit there, or would you at least start bailing?" he asked. Mr. Mayer, a Tony Award winner known for musicals like "Spring Awakening" and "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," said he and Mr. Moore had been discussing a collaboration for about three years but were unable to align their schedules. Over the summer, the two have been shaping Mr. Moore's material and anecdotes, trying to determine what belongs in the show and how to segue from segment to segment. "Very little of it is written where it won't change night to night," said Mr. Mayer, who called Mr. Moore "a natural raconteur." "What he wants to say and the things he has witnessed are so familiar that he has 30 different ways of telling the chain of events and drawing conclusions from them," Mr. Mayer said. If Mr. Moore decides one morning that he wants to respond to news developments in his show that night, Mr. Mayer said, "We will do everything we can, with the handful of tools we have at our disposal, to be as responsive as possible." Mr. Mayer added, "It's going to be a challenge." "The Terms of My Surrender" is one of a few post Trump theater projects that have come to New York stages this year. There was the Public Theater's controversial production of "Julius Caesar," with a Trumplike title character, which conservatives condemned as a near literal wish for the president's assassination. Elsewhere, a Broadway adaptation of "1984" is doing modest business, while Robert Schenkkan's "Building the Wall," set in a time after Mr. Trump's imagined impeachment, closed quickly Off Broadway. It's hard to gauge how much of Mr. Moore's show will be on the nose Trump critique or address broader ideas. On a recent visit to his rehearsal space at the New 42nd Street Studios, he was sitting in a recliner in the center of the room. In a corner was a bulletin board with index cards bearing the brief, tantalizing titles of potential segments: "Dead Peasants"; "Soccer vs. Football"; "What I Got Past the T.S.A." He was working on a routine about Mel Gibson and a series of interactions they have had over the years, beginning when Mr. Gibson's company withdrew from financing his film "Fahrenheit 9/11" and ending when Mr. Moore voted for Mr. Gibson for best director at this year's Academy Awards. (Mr. Moore said he plans to project his Oscar ballot onscreen to prove he did it.) Later, Mr. Moore practiced a bit in which he will invite a conservative theatergoer from each show onto the stage to talk with him, with Mr. Mayer standing in for the audience member. Speaking to Mr. Mayer in this capacity, Mr. Moore told him not to be afraid of liberals: "They wouldn't even know how to hit you, if they could throw a punch." Mr. Mayer gave Mr. Moore instructions on how to use his hand held microphone. "Let him lean in if he has to," he said. "You are in control of this." At the Belasco, Mr. Moore described his lifelong appreciation for the theater, going back to his upbringing in Flint, Mich., and his brief time as a student at its University of Michigan campus. On summer trips to New York, Mr. Moore said he and his family often attended Broadway shows, including the original 1964 production of "Fiddler on the Roof," and that he got mugged outside "No, No, Nanette" in the early 1970s. In the same way he hopes viewers approach his films, Mr. Moore said that when he goes to the theater, "I want to go and be challenged. I want to leave better, smarter, angrier, happier than when I came in." But political conservatives have long argued that in his films and other media, Mr. Moore seems less interested in getting to the truth of a matter than inserting himself into the middle of it. "His role is to scold and discipline," said S. E. Cupp, the conservative commentator and HLN host. "If you were truly interested in any of the causes he supports, you could find truer heroes who are less self absorbed and self aggrandizing." Matt K. Lewis, a conservative columnist for The Daily Beast, said that while Mr. Moore was once a prominent lightning rod for hostility directed at the left, he has been eclipsed by figures like Mr. Sanders and Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, who wield actual political power. Chris Lehmann, the editor in chief of The Baffler, a left leaning publication, said that Mr. Moore had provided "a necessary voice" and credited him for being an early, prominent critic of the Iraq war. Mr. Lehmann, who has known Mr. Moore since they worked together at Mother Jones in 1986, described him as "a person who, almost by virtue of his temperament, is a true outsider and can hold up a mirror to the powers that govern our world." "The problem with being an outsider," Mr. Lehmann added, "is you can sometimes confuse truth telling with self indulgence." Mr. Moore made no apologies for his subjective documentary style "as a filmmaker, my first job is to make a great film," he said or for frustrating his opponents on either side of the aisle. "I don't come from the Church of the Left," he said. "I come from the Midwest." Though he splits his time between homes in New York and Traverse City, Mich., Mr. Moore said he still shared the values of the people he believes are his audience, and could be their avatar. "I've been given a peek behind the curtain that I wasn't supposed to have, whether that's in Hollywood or in politics," he said. "I want the average Joe and Jane to know I'm really just their stand in and we're all in this together." Mr. Moore would not disclose how much he is being compensated for "The Terms of My Surrender," except to say, "I thought of taping off the 12 seats each night that are my pay." Asked whether he ran an ongoing risk of having his celebrity overshadow his message, Mr. Moore did not exactly plead humility. "That's a question you should ask Hamilton or Washington or Jefferson," he answered. "As great and as smart as they were, they could only convince 25 percent of the colonists to support the revolution." (Some sources put the number of pro revolution colonists much higher, while others say the figure is essentially unmeasurable.) So what is the aim of his show? If Mr. Moore believes he is calling for radical action in his own time, what does he want his audience members to do when they leave his show that they can't do already? "They will, I think, realize that they can do it and feel empowered to do it, and I will help create some pathways to that," he said. "Not just with rhetoric." But what is it, exactly? Mr. Moore turned coy, saying that these elements were "part of the show" that he didn't want to give away. Mr. Mayer said there was a unifying theme to the segments in the show, "which is that one person can make a very big difference, by doing something that isn't necessarily tremendous small, individual actions can have very large reactions." After "The Terms of My Surrender" concludes its limited run, Mr. Moore has his new documentary film, which he is calling "Fahrenheit 11/9," a reference to the day after the 2016 election. (He would not describe the film, except to say, "I don't think the question of how did this happen has been answered yet.") He is also preparing a new nonfiction television series for TNT this fall. For all the opportunities that the new Trump era seems to have created for him, Mr. Moore said he would have much preferred an alternate scenario. "If I could just sit in my La Z Boy and watch ESPN and not have to do any of this?" he said, incredulously. "Are you kidding me?" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
A dead caiman on a highway in Brazil's Pantanal region. Twenty percent of the world's biodiversity is found in Brazil, where economic development is rapidly expanding the road network. Whenever Wagner Fischer drives, he notices the roadkill. As a graduate student in the 1990s, Dr. Fischer, now a biologist with the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, traveled through Brazil's Pantanal, a tropical wetland the size of Wisconsin, and the largest freshwater wetland in the world. From his motorcycle, he saw monkeys swinging from roadside trees; capybaras slept on the shoulder. He was looking for fishing bats, the subject of his graduate research. But he was fascinated and appalled by the roadside carnage: caimans, anacondas, giant black necked storks called jabirus and, once, a dead giant anteater with her cub, still alive, clutching her back. The region's main road, the BR 262, is a long thread of tarmac through the carpet of green, connecting the growing cities of Campo Grande and Corumba, 430 miles apart. Dr. Fischer began taking photographs, thousands of them, and tallying the species along the road. He shared his unpublished results with other researchers and government officials. "Everyone from the scientific community kept asking me, 'When are you going to publish that?'" Mr. Fischer recalled recently. Two decades later, he finally has. His paper, published on Oct. 19 in the online biodiversity journal Check List, is a grim tally. From 1996 to 2000, Dr. Fischer counted dead 930 animals representing 29 reptile species and 47 bird species. A separate tally of mammals, to be published soon, includes more than 2,200 specimens. But even in its unpublished phase, his study inspired others like it, all of them confirming Dr. Fischer's initial conclusion: that for wildlife, BR 262 is the deadliest road in Brazil and one of the deadliest in the world. The Pantanal is filigreed with rivers and streams that flood during the rainy season. Much of it is enclosed in the southwestern state of Mato Grosso do Sul, which increasingly is quilted with cattle ranches and soybean farms. Over the years, Dr. Fischer's colleagues began noticing a steady rise in the roadkill figures. In 2014, a team led by Julio Cesar de Souza, of the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, took another look at roadkill on the BR 262. Over 15 months, they found 518 carcasses from 40 species, and noticed a roadkill site every four miles a tenfold increase since 2002, when Dr. Fischer presented some of his findings at a transportation conference. That study, as well as a study in 2017 that counted more than 1,000 large mammals killed in one year on the BR 262, prompted Mr. Fischer to finally publish his data. By contrast, on California's Interstate 280 in the Bay Area, the state's deadliest road for animals, 386 creatures died in collisions between 2015 and 2016. In Britain, more than 1,200 animals died in road collisions across all major highways in 2017, according to a recent report. Throughout Brazil, roads are littered with carcasses representing the country's 1,775 bird species and 623 mammal species. Large mammals are at greater risk in southern Brazil, including the Pantanal and dry savanna, whereas birds are at higher risk in the Amazon, according to Manuela Gonzalez Suarez, a biologist at the University of Reading in England. In a study published in August, Dr. Gonzalez Suarez and her colleagues built a computer model to predict where animals were most likely to be struck by vehicles. Using existing roads and roadkill counts, including Mr. Fischer's data, her team found that as many as 2 million mammals and 8 million birds may be dying on Brazilian highways each year. "When I got the total number, I was just completely blown away," Ms. Gonzalez Suarez said. "Out of these 8 million birds, maybe some of those are fairly common ones, where maybe this is not a problem. But we don't know, exactly. Are we going to lose all birds in Brazil? Probably no. But it would be nice to know, what should we be worried about?" Ecologists worry that the problem will soon worsen. Brazil is home to 20 percent of the world's biodiversity, but the newly elected president, Jair Bolsonaro, has promised to develop large tracts of the country's most ecologically sensitive areas. Now that Mr. Fischer's data are in the scientific literature, other researchers can more easily compare it with current data and identify trends, said Arnaud Desbiez, a conservation biologist with the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, and a co author of the 2017 study. Dr. Desbiez also runs Brazil's Giant Armadillo Conservation Project and a related program called Anteaters and Highways. Ideally, he said, the data would inform government efforts to lessen the carnage. Over the years, Dr. Fischer has shared his unpublished data with state officials and urged them, to little effect, to build a system of bridges and underpasses that would let animals cross roads safely. "Fischer's data were very complete, and it was a very well done study, so it's sad to see that it hasn't been used as much as it should have," Dr. Desbiez said. "A lot of things he suggested have not been implemented. This is not a new problem, but something he demonstrated existed a long time ago." Dr. Fischer said: "Ecologists are very worried. The authorities pretend to be worried." Brazilian officials have taken some basic measures. White metal signs, bearing silhouettes of armadillos and giant anteaters, appear on the roadside every few miles, advising motorists to "Respect Wild Life" and "Preserve the Pantanal." But signs are easily ignored, especially in the rush of freight hauling and daily life, ecologists say. Dr. Desbiez favors fencing that keeps animals off the pavement and guides them toward safe passages under or over the road. In the United States, fences, underpasses and bridges have been built along interstate highways to reduce collisions, which are costly for drivers and animals alike. In Wyoming, wildlife conservationists tracked pronghorn antelope to determine their favorite crossing spots, and then built sagebrush lined bridges for the animals. In Colorado, a network of underpasses and bridges over a mountain highway has reduced collisions by 90 percent. Fraser Shilling, director of the Road Ecology Center at the University of California, Davis, helped develop a real time deer collision map, which connects to a car or phone app that can warn drivers when to be on high alert. A recent seminar that taught other officials how to build their such maps drew representatives from 42 states, Dr. Shilling said. Dr. Gonzalez Suarez is now studying individual species to figure out the impact on local populations. For mammals, especially those who reproduce slowly and in small numbers, the loss of a few individuals could have devastating effects, Mr. Desbiez noted. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
But because the position includes more power than any creative figure has had at Tiffany, including its recent design director, Francesca Amfitheatrof, whose remit was limited to Tiffany branded jewelry, and who will be leaving the company. Even John Loring, Tiffany's longtime former design director, played less of a strategic role. Famous collaborators such as Paloma Picasso and Frank Gehry made only special collections for the brand. And thus it underscores a recent trend in high end fashion toward empowering the design side of the business. Since 2004, when Tom Ford left Gucci to much industry hand wringing, conventional wisdom has held that brands should be more important than the people behind them. But the pendulum has begun to swing in the other direction. In August, Calvin Klein named Raf Simons its chief creative officer, the first time that all of its lines were united under a single design authority since Mr. Klein sold the business in 2002. Last summer, Maria Grazia Chiuri was named artistic director of Dior women's wear and given an expanded portfolio that included not just runway shows but also image, ads and stores. Both appointments echoed the iron fisted control over all things consumer facing that was given to Hedi Slimane during his tenure at Yves Saint Laurent, during which he famously transformed that brand into one of the fastest growing names in the parent company Kering's portfolio. Presumably, Tiffany is hoping that Mr. Krakoff will do the same. It could use some help, after all. The Fifth Avenue jeweler has not been exempt from the general slowdown in the luxury market that has been in effect for the last few years. In 2015, worldwide net sales declined 3 percent, to 4.1 billion. Though there were some improvements in 2016, Frederic Cumenal, the Tiffany chief executive, said on Tuesday thatperformance during the holiday period was "somewhat lower than we had anticipated." To a certain extent, the company has become stuck in a blue box of its own making. Efforts have been made to add some contemporary pizazz via Ms. Amfitheatrof's designs, which were worn on the red carpet by celebrities such as Cate Blanchett. The house also brought in the punky new gen jeweler Eddie Borgo for a special line, embarked on a collaboration with the hip emporium Dover Street Market, and enlisted Grace Coddington, the former Vogue creative director, to style an ad campaign. But the initiatives often seemed disjointed and inconsistent. Mr. Krakoff will, at the very least, provide a single, overarching point of view. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
For decades, researchers have sought a blood test for beta amyloid, the protein that is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. Several groups and companies have made progress, and on Thursday, scientists at Washington University in St. Louis reported that they had devised the most sensitive blood test yet. The test will not be available for clinical use for years, and in any event, amyloid is not a perfect predictor of Alzheimer's disease: Most symptomless older people with amyloid deposits in their brains will not develop dementia. But the protein is a significant risk factor, and the new blood test identified patients with amyloid deposits before brain scans did. That will be important to scientists conducting trials of drugs to prevent Alzheimer's. They need to find participants in the earliest stages of the disease. At present, a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease is not easy to make. Doctors rely mostly on tests of mental acuity and interviews with the patient and family members. Studies have shown that community doctors are only 50 to 60 percent accurate in diagnosing the condition about the same as tossing a coin. Methods that can improve accuracy, like PET scans of the brain, are expensive and often not available. The new test relies on mass spectrometry, a tool used in analytical chemistry that, with recent technical advances, can find elusive beta amyloid molecules in blood with high precision. The lead investigator, Dr. Randall Bateman, a neurologist at Washington University, has been working on a mass spectrometry test for 20 years. He and a colleague, Dr. David Holtzman, founded a company ten years ago and licensed patents from their university to commercialize a mass spectrometry test if they ever developed one. Read more about the challenges of curing Alzheimer's. Amyloid is a normal brain protein, formed from the breakdown a much bigger protein. No one knows what its function is. "We don't know if it has a function," said Dr. Suzanne Schindler, a neurologist and first author of the new paper. "It might just be a piece of trash." The idea behind the blood test is somewhat paradoxical: If blood amyloid levels are very low, the patient may well have plaques in the brain. The reason, said Dr. Schindler, is that amyloid is "sticky." As it gets trapped in clumps in the brain, levels dip in the blood. The new study involved 158 volunteers mostly in their 60s and 70s. Most were cognitively normal. They came to Washington University periodically for tests of memory and reasoning, and received spinal taps and brain scans. Dr. Schindler and her colleagues used mass spectrometry to test the volunteers' stored blood for beta amyloid. Then they asked if the beta amyloid levels predicted the results of PET scans that the participants received over the years. Mass spectrometry identified asymptomatic people as accumulating beta amyloid in their brains when PET scans were still negative, the researchers found. The scans only turned up beta amyloid in the brain years later. Read about a possible Alzheimer's treatment that worked in mice. The researchers combined the blood test results with other factors known to influence the risk of Alzheimer's disease age, and the presence or absence of a gene variant, ApoE4 and found the blood test was 94 percent accurate in predicting the presence of plaques even in mostly asymptomatic people. There is no treatment for Alzheimer's, and very early diagnosis of any disease can be problematic, since it may not progress. So the first use for this blood test will probably be to screen people for clinical trials of drugs to prevent Alzheimer's disease, said Dr. Michael Weiner, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco. "If you are doing a prevention trial, you are looking for evidence of the disease that is silent," he said. About a quarter of people in their mid 70s are starting to accumulate amyloid in plaques in their brains, but their memories and reasoning abilities are intact. To identify patients for prevention trials, researchers have to perform a lot of PET scans at a cost about 5,000 each, Dr. Weiner said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
It is increasingly apparent what the economy will look like when President Obama faces voters in November: pretty much what it looks like today. And that picture, a report from the Labor Department made clear on Friday, is far from the booming job growth that prevailed only a few months ago. In June, the economy added a meager 80,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate remained at 8.2 percent. Early this year, optimists buzzed that the jobless rate might touch below 8 percent by the election, a milestone that would be a major symbolic victory for the incumbent. Then employment growth slowed in March and took a turn toward the paltry in April and May. With Friday's report, what looked like a blip has now become a streak. And with a gridlocked Congress unlikely to pass any additional stimulus measures before the election, the president is stuck again with an economy in stall mode. June's job growth, after a revised increase of 77,000 in May, was just about enough to keep up with population growth, but not nearly enough to reduce the backlog of 13 million unemployed workers. Economists have scaled back their expectations for the rest of the year and are now forecasting continued sluggishness. "This economy has no forward momentum and little help from monetary or fiscal policy," said Kathy Bostjancic, director of macroeconomic analysis for the Conference Board. "As if that were not enough, ill winds are blowing in from both a contracting Europe and slowing growth in emerging markets." Friday's report also put a chill on financial markets, sending stocks sharply lower on both sides of the Atlantic. "I want to get back to a time when middle class families and those working to get into the middle class have some basic security," he said. "We've got to deal with what's been happening over the last decade, the last 15 years." Mr. Romney, on the other hand, emphasized the more recent string of weak job growth that has taken place under Mr. Obama's leadership. "This is a time for Americans to choose whether they want more of the same," Mr. Romney said from Wolfeboro, N.H., where he is vacationing. "It doesn't have to be this way. America can do better. And this kick in the gut has to end." The recent string of weak employment growth may work to political advantage for Mr. Romney. From December through February, private companies added an average of 252,000 workers a month. But job growth slowed in March, leading some economists to wonder whether the unseasonably warm winter, rather than a fundamentally healthier economy, had been the real source of the short lived employment surge. 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. "The net of it is not as if the economy is collapsing, but it wasn't really as strong as it looked in December, January and February," said Jim O'Sullivan, United States economist at High Frequency Economics. The numbers themselves are also adjusted by season, and these adjustments themselves can be imprecise and open to interpretation. By June, in any case, the payback from the unusually warm winter should have faded, indicating that the slowdown may reflect more serious underlying problems in the economy, Mr. O'Sullivan said. One of the few industries with decent job growth was temporary help services, suggesting that employers were not confident enough of the recovery's sustainability to invest in permanent hires even if their order books were currently growing. Among the few bright spots in Friday's report were ticks upward in average hourly earnings (to 23.50, from 23.44 in May) and the length of the typical private sector workweek (34.5 hours, from 34.4). Still, the overall weakness in the report may have nudged Federal Reserve officials toward additional monetary stimulus. "The odds of QE3 happening before the election are clearly going up," said Jay Feldman, an economist at Credit Suisse, referring to the nickname for a third round of stimulus known as quantitative easing. The Fed has been reluctant to inject more money partly because it has been hard to determine whether additional monetary stimulus is either effective or even needed. A healthier economy might have been able to withstand such shocks easily, but not one weakened by a debt overhang and a sea of underwater homes. "At this point, expectations are pretty low, so anything that is moving the job market in the right direction would be welcome," said Sophia Koropeckyj, managing director at Moody's Analytics. Economists worry that even modest acceleration in job growth could be derailed by additional shocks both abroad and at home. Corporate profits fell in the first quarter of 2012, the first decline since 2008, the Commerce Department reported last week. The overall drop was entirely because of falling profits abroad. While there are challenges across the developing world, including China, the primary foreign drag on the American economy is still coming from Europe's protracted sovereign debt crisis. "When you factor in the effect on U.S. trade, financial markets and credit availability, the Europe crisis is probably taking a percentage point off of U.S. growth," Andrew Tilton, a senior United States economist at Goldman Sachs, said of Europe's impact on America's gross domestic product. There are plenty of homegrown risks, too. Struggling local governments have been shedding workers. There was a brief respite in June, but economists generally seem to expect the layoffs to pick up again for the rest of the year. Under current law, the end of 2012 will also bring a torrent of federal tax increases as the Bush tax cuts and temporary payroll tax reductions expire. The government is also scheduled to lop off a huge chunk of federal spending because of measures set in motion by Congress's inability last December to come up with plans for longer term fiscal restructuring. In addition to those components of the so called fiscal cliff, the federal extension for unemployment benefits ends this year, meaning that, in most states, newly unemployed workers will receive no more than 26 weeks of jobless benefits, according to the National Employment Law Project. Without extended jobless benefits, unemployed workers will have less disposable income, cutting their spending, and reducing employers' need to hire more workers. "A lot of companies are not too clear about how all these policy issues are going to affect their bottom line," Ms. Koropeckyj said. "Ultimately, demand determines what companies are going to do in the longer run in terms of hiring. But in the short run, companies are going to try to hold off as much hiring as long as possible." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
The N.H.L. dished out its most prestigious awards on Monday before Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals. Because of the pandemic, teams played 68 to 71 of the 82 scheduled regular season games, making this the first time a season was shortened to disparate extents from team to team since 1925, when Hamilton Tigers players staged a strike during the playoffs. The Hart Trophy, for the league's most valuable player; the Ted Lindsay Award, for its most outstanding player; the Norris Trophy, for its top defenseman; the Vezina Trophy, for its best goaltender; and the Calder Trophy, for its top rookie, were all handed out in a virtual ceremony that replaced the usual festivities in Las Vegas. Edmonton Oilers center Leon Draisaitl became the first German born player and ninth European trained player to win the award. He had already captured the Art Ross Trophy as the league leader in points. Once overshadowed by his teammate Connor McDavid, Draisaitl balanced consistency and explosiveness to keep the spotlight on him this season. He topped the league in multiple point games (33) and found the score sheet in 56 of 71 games. He received 91 of a possible 170 first place votes. "I know that there's so many people that have helped me get to this point, and there's so many people that I have to thank," Draisaitl said. "Family, friends, coaching staff, they trust in me, my teammates, most importantly, the fans." Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon, who led his team in scoring by the widest margin of any player and was the playoffs' leading scorer for more than a week after his team was eliminated, finished second. Rangers wing Artemi Panarin finished third after leading the league with 71 even strength points. Panarin and Draisaitl's teams were both ousted from the postseason in its novel qualifying round. As he became the second German born player to win an M.V.P. award in a major North American sports league (the N.B.A.'s Dirk Nowitzki was first), Draisaitl took home the Most Outstanding Player Award as well. "We're producing more and more players, so hopefully this will somehow give little kids maybe some more joy of playing hockey and starting hockey instead of other sports," Draisaitl said. While members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association vote for the winner of the Hart Trophy, the Lindsay is determined by player voting. Seven times in the past 10 seasons, the same player has earned both honors. This season, the groups of finalists were identical, though Panarin finished ahead of MacKinnon among the runners up. Connor Hellebuyck was chosen by the N.H.L.'s general managers as the league's top goalie. He was the foundation of a Winnipeg Jets team that had massive turnover in its defense corps. He faced and stopped more shots than any other goalie, led the N.H.L. in shutouts and finished second in wins despite his team being a fringe playoff club that was eliminated in the qualifying round. "This year was just such a mental grind, but was also so fun," Hellebuyck said, adding that he looked forward to greater team success in the future. Hellebuyck finished sixth in Hart Trophy voting. The last goaltender to win the Hart was Carey Price, with whom Hellebuyck tied for the league high in games played among goaltenders this season. Tuukka Rask finished second, posting the best goals against average while anchoring a goalie tandem for the league's best team by record, the Boston Bruins. Andrei Vasilevskiy, who won the Vezina last year and has his Tampa Bay Lightning in the Stanley Cup finals, finished third. The Nashville Predators' Roman Josi was voted as the league's best all around defenseman. Josi overtook the Washington Capitals' John Carlson, who was an early season favorite, with a blend of skill, flair, headiness and consistency. Opposing players gave him votes of confidence throughout the season, and so did the writers on Monday. Josi finished second in every major offensive category and seventh in the M.V.P. voting. The last Hart winner on the blue line was Chris Pronger in 2000. Like Draisaitl, Josi headlines a blossoming hockey program, that of Switzerland. He is the first Swiss player to win the award. Mark Streit's eighth place finish in 2009 had been the highest finish for a Swiss defender. "I was looking at some of the names who have won it, and those are all names you've idolized," Josi said. "When I was younger, Scott Niedermayer was a guy I looked up to. I really loved his game. Chris Pronger, Chris Chelios, so many guys. Obviously, Bobby Orr, it was long ago, but to be next to those guys is pretty cool. Growing up in Switzerland, they always seemed to be so far away; it's unbelievable my name is on there beside so many greats who have won it before." Carlson, the top scoring defenseman this season, was the second place finisher ahead of Victor Hedman of the Lightning. Hedman is currently in pursuit of the Stanley Cup and possibly the Conn Smythe Trophy as the postseason M.V.P. Though the three finalists were fairly clear cut, there was no shortage of debate regarding who was hockey's most outstanding rookie. In the end, it was Colorado's Cale Makar, who plunged into the pros last season, transitioning from the N.C.A.A.'s Frozen Four to the Stanley Cup playoffs over a weekend. In his first full season, he was hindered by injury at times, but superlative in most areas when he was on the ice. Though his physique is still a work in progress, his skating and puck handling skills belie his boyish appearance and soft spoken voice. "We're in a very exciting group, and we're in a good spot," said Makar, 21, taking the opportunity to defer credit to his team. "I know everybody's just pumped to get back at it, that's for sure." Vancouver Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes, 20, finished second. He led all rookies in scoring, assists and power play points after missing only one game this season. Chicago Blackhawks wing Dominik Kubalik, 25, finished third. Kubalik, a Czech, was a lethal goal scorer in Switzerland's top league last season and his touch translated to the N.H.L., where he led all rookies in goals (30) and even strength points (38). Rangers defenseman Adam Fox finished fourth, narrowly missing finalist status. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
In a luminous new show at the Frick Collection, the great 19th century maritime painter J. M. W. Turner explores the waterfront gateways to Europe with the ravenous eye of a man long deprived of travel. Along with his fellow Brits, Turner had endured nearly two decades of restrictions on visiting the Continent during the Napoleonic Wars. And with other artists, he was eager to cross the Channel in search of fresh and worldly material for his equally tourism starved patrons. He often found it along the journey, on the coastlines where ships docked and people and cargo moved, as we see in "Turner's Modern and Ancient Ports: Passages Through Time." Surrounding the Frick's two grand Turner paintings of Dieppe, France, and Cologne, Germany, with loans from the Tate and other museums, the exhibition is an enchanting look at the port in reality a noisy, smelly, workaday environment, but in Turner's hands a magical place of exposure and possibility where cultures meet, time is elastic and golden light abounds. That radiance, a preview of Turner's late, intensely atmospheric seascapes, is almost overpowering in the Frick's intimate Oval Room, where the show begins. Here, the museum's own Turners (normally installed in the long, skylit West Gallery, where they are easily missed among the treasures) look newly concentrated and resplendent. In "Harbor of Dieppe: Changement de Domicile" (from the mid 1820s), a lemony sheen imparts grandeur and transcendence to small, down to earth figurative vignettes, reminiscent of those in Dutch landscape painting. Along the pier in the right half of the painting, a man and woman unload domestic items from a raft moving into a new house, perhaps, as the painting's subtitle implies. Farther along the pier, a girl perches on the edge of a rowboat and dangles her feet in the water, cheerfully oblivious to the gushing waste pipe nearby. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
If you had to select the least likely play to translate to Zoom, it might well be Kristoffer Diaz's "The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity." A 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist, the play uses the outlandish world of professional wrestling, with its larger than life heroes and villains and reliance on ethnic stereotypes, to consider the power of storytelling itself. The Second Stage Theater production, which The New York Times praised for delivering the "delicious crackle and pop of a galloping, honest to God, all American satire," also handed out body slams and "powerbombs," carefully rehearsed with a fight director. So when Play PerView announced a live reading of the play (streamable until Aug. 20), directed by Diaz and starring most of the original cast, the question was: How would such a physical show, which encouraged vociferous audience reaction, feel in little online boxes, with actors physically distanced? To answer that, the critics Elisabeth Vincentelli, who saw the original production (and praised it as one of the 25 Best American Plays since "Angels in America") and Maya Phillips, who had never seen it onstage, watched last weekend, and talked. These are edited excerpts from their conversation. MAYA PHILLIPS Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought the ways the production translated the action via Zoom was great. The choreography between the wrestlers the stances, the reciprocal actions, how we see one attack and the other fall backward to the "mat" really gave us a great sense of the interplay we would be seeing if this had been live. I was missing, however, a sense of place in the scenes, when we're transitioning from the ring to the office, etc. How did the production meet your expectations (or not)? VINCENTELLI Honestly, I'm not sure I would have been as impressed if this had been my introduction to the play. "Chad Deity" is a textbook example of theater in which form is completely wedded to function. When I saw it, there was a ring onstage and frequent interaction between the actors and the audience. The whole thing was an assault on the senses, in the best possible way: The music was really loud, the lights were really bright. The star wrestler Chad Deity (Terence Archie, back in the role and still able to wriggle his pecs) distributed dollar bills with his face on them to the audience. It was just nuts and breathtaking because it connected so well with the play's subject. PHILLIPS The stage production sounds like an amazing spectacle, and I do wish I could have seen it, but I was still able to appreciate Diaz's great writing and the actors' performances. And to play devil's advocate, I wonder if we couldn't just consider how the circumstances, even though unavoidable, may inform the content in a totally new way? Part of what Diaz is writing about are the places where this fictional sport or art form, really, the way the protagonist, a wrestler named Mace (Desmin Borges), describes it rubs up against reality. They are performers, and part of that is a performance of racial conflict. I wonder if that tension between the real and false parts of these matches could have been represented and highlighted by this Zoom format, in which we're so much more aware of the artifice of it all? VINCENTELLI Before I elaborate, I want to clarify that I don't think the play is gimmicky at all: There is a point to the staging. It all comes together because, as you said, the writing is so sharp. The constant tension between reality and artifice is the essence of wrestling, but Diaz's point applies to American pop culture in general: It is fueled by the need to create make believe and fantasy. The reading did make me more aware of how the play takes down capitalism. Mace is a fall guy: the wrestler who is paid to make the star look good. And the idea that someone has to lose, and lose badly, for someone else to succeed is a key component of capitalism. The fact that Chad Deity is meant to be a bad wrestler just adds to the cruelty of the system: This is no meritocracy. PHILLIPS Absolutely. But I didn't take capitalism as the central target. What interested me was how the characters chose to play into, or rail against, racist stereotypes. I was so ready for Chad Deity to be white, but I think the fact that he's Black makes it so much more interesting, because the question then becomes one of how complicit these wrestlers of color are, and of course part of that is a question of survival, of "playing the game" and acting the part just so you're able to get on with your day to day in America. And I keep thinking back to the last line, when a character looks at Deity and the cheering spectators and asks why they're rooting for the bad guy. Deity is this stencil of a character, seemingly unaware of the choice he's making at least to me, though maybe he's more aware than I'm giving him credit for? and how damaging it is to allow these mostly white audiences and a white institution to manipulate the stereotype of the scary Black man into entertainment. VINCENTELLI Oh, I think Deity is aware of what's going on and how he is used but unlike Mace and Mace's South Asian friend Vigneshwar Paduar (Usman Ally), he just doesn't care. That's one of the many ways Diaz is a good writer he's giving his character the agency to be a selfish jerk who's in it for the money. VINCENTELLI In this particular case, noticing the capitalism theme was a result of both the changed format and the changed political environment. But overall, I have to admit that for me a play lives only onstage and the text is only part of it, and in some cases it's not even the most important part. I am aware this is not a majority opinion (insert shrug emoji). I know you're interested in fandom, and I was wondering how you consider the audience's role in theater and in pop culture (of which wrestling is a part). In the original production, for example, a wrestler named Old Glory (Christian Litke, back in the Play PerView reading) got a roomful of New York theatergoers to chant "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" It was a powerful moment, and unsettling. PHILLIPS Interesting! To your first point, while I do think the stage is an important part of theater, I consider it a literary art form, and our current situation has only reinforced that for me. We're having to reconceptualize our idea of what a stage is, and why it is or isn't necessary to a work. VINCENTELLI Yeah, now is a bad time for those of us who think of theater as primarily a live performance art form. PHILLIPS But to get to your second point, yes, I'm fascinated by fandom, and there were a few points during the production where I did miss that element. It was clear from Diaz's writing that he is implicating the audience and examining how we will respond and asking us to think about that, too. We are the other side of the equation: The creator makes the art and releases it into the world, but then immediately it's ours, and we bring our own context to it, individually and as a community, and we change it, and that can be for the good or for the bad. VINCENTELLI Mace is a fan who ended up working in the industry he adored. He is aware of how complicit both the wrestlers/actors and the audience are. He knows there is a degree of pushing through what you fully know is fake to get to the satisfying bits. We all do that! Where Diaz is really smart is that he says, OK, you know the wrestler named the Fundamentalist isn't a real fundamentalist Muslim, but you choose to believe in the charade because it's a good story you as a viewer relish stories based on racial stereotypes and then you go out and pretend otherwise. Hypocrisy sustains not just us as fans, but entire swaths of American pop culture. And Diaz does it in a fast paced, funny, sharp show. It's masterly. The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity Streaming on Play PerView through Aug. 20. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
At age 7, Aron Anderson was diagnosed with cancer. Two years later, doctors removed a tumor from his lower back and the boy who once loved to play soccer lost the use of his legs. But his wheelchair "changed my life," said Mr. Anderson, 29, a native of Sweden. He began wheelchair racing competitively and has participated in four Paralympic Games. To challenge himself and raise money for the Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation, he began making expeditions, including climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, biking from Malmo, Sweden to Paris and, last year, skiing across Antarctica, a monthlong journey that raised roughly 800,000. As a triathlete, he plans to compete in the handcycle division of the Ironman World Championship race in Hawaii in October. As an inspirational speaker, he travels frequently and his autobiography, "Opportunities," was recently published in Sweden. The following are edited excerpts from a conversation with Mr. Anderson. Q: How did you adjust to competing without using your legs? A: I went to Florida to get my first racing wheelchair, and I remembered feeling that freedom to be able to go really fast and push my limits again, to be out of breath. I missed that feeling and my friends. There were hardships physically, but one of the things I missed the most was what you get from sports socially. I really missed hanging out with friends. Sports became important to get back to life and to make new friends. How do you climb mountains when you are in a wheelchair? I used a mountain bike, which I hand drive. I can also use crutches. Near the top I crawled and pulled with my arms. It's a mix of everything. A wheelchair is not great on a mountain. Do you have any advice for travelers in wheelchairs? It depends on your disability and the kind of wheelchair. It's easy for my wheelchair to get lost if it's put in cargo. I try to put it in the cabin with me. I fly economy and my wheelchair often flies business. You have to be nice to the staff and ask. You have to flirt a little bit. Flying is the least problematic if you travel. There are rules and regulations and people to help you. Travel by bus and train can be trickier and not as accessible. For hotels, I use Handiscover, a website that rates exactly how accessible each hotel is Mr. Anderson is a paid representative of the company . I find it can be a huge problem in some countries. When I biked from Sweden to Paris, I booked a Paris hotel with an elevator. But it was tiny and old and it only stopped at every other floor, and not mine. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
Little to rave or rant about. That was the view among economists of Friday's jobs report, in which the Labor Department estimated that the economy added 209,000 jobs in July, continuing a string of sturdy monthly advances above 200,000 but lower than in recent months and less than analysts had expected. And while the numbers didn't soar to new heights, they completed the strongest pace of job creation over a six month period since the prerecession year of 2006, while helping to calm concerns on Wall Street that the economy was about to accelerate to a point where the Federal Reserve would be under pressure to start raising interest rates earlier than anticipated. "This report is consistent with a moderation in economic growth in the second half of the year," said Dean Maki, chief United States economist at Barclays. "This is a labor market that is growing solidly, just not quite as fast as in prior months." The Labor Department, using a different method of measuring the job market, said Friday that unemployment increased to 6.2 percent from 6.1 percent in June. Many economists viewed the slight rise in the official jobless rate as a modestly encouraging sign, in part because more people reported that they were looking for work, suggesting that many of them were seeing greater job opportunities. On Wall Street, stocks fell only a little after their sharp decline on Thursday, while the bond market improved slightly as interest rates softened. The latest economic data reinforced the view that inflation and wages remain bound by a fairly tight straitjacket, suggesting that the Federal Reserve will see little need to retreat more quickly from its stimulus campaign. The Fed's chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, and her allies argued in recent months that the declining unemployment rate overstated the economy's progress, because more people would start looking for work as the recovery continued. The uptick in the unemployment rate in July lent credence to that view. Inflation also remained sluggish. The Fed's preferred measure, which the government also updated Friday, rose just 1.6 percent over the 12 months ending in June, remaining below the central bank's preferred pace of 2 percent a year. The Fed affirmed on Wednesday that it planned to keep interest rates low as long as unemployment remained elevated and inflation remained under control. The sole dissenter, Charles I. Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, said on Friday that the Fed still should be moving more quickly toward raising rates. In an unusual statement explaining his decision, he noted that inflation had increased over the last year, while unemployment declined, so conditions were moving closer to the Fed's stated goals. On the jobs numbers, the July figure was well below the revised 298,000 surge reported in June and lower than the 229,000 figure now reported for May. The figures for July confirmed that a gradual healing of the job market remained on track, even as it underscored just how much more needs to be done to reach a level where most people who want to work can find a job relatively easily. It showed, for example, that over the last year employers added 2.57 million jobs, the steepest rate of job creation for any 12 month period in the five year expansion. But the proportion of the country's population that reported having a job in July was unchanged at 59 percent, a number that was up only barely from its 58.7 percent level of a year ago, and still near its lowest levels since the late 1970s. 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 economy still has a huge amount of headwind out there from the popping of the credit bubble," said Joshua Shapiro, chief United States economist for MFR Inc., in an interview before the labor market numbers were released Friday. "We're not through that by any means." The Hamilton Project, a Washington group affiliated with the Brookings Institution, calculated that the economy had a "jobs gap" at the end of July of 5.7 million jobs, the number needed to return to prerecession employment levels while absorbing the people who enter the labor force each month. For all the shortcomings, the economy nonetheless appears to be in better shape than at any time since the recession hit in late 2007. So far this year, for example, the economy has added an average of 230,000 jobs a month, compared with 194,000 last year, 174,000 in 2011 and only 88,000 in 2010. "This is another solid report that shows we are sustaining the momentum of broad based growth in the economy," said Thomas E. Perez, the labor secretary, in a telephone interview. He cited the growth in well paying professional and business services jobs as evidence that the economy is not creating just low paid jobs. The retail and manufacturing sectors also added jobs. Adding to the more upbeat view was a report from the Institute for Supply Management showing its manufacturing index rose to 57.1 in July, from 55.3 in June. It was the highest reading in three years, bolstered by improvements in the index of new orders, production, employment and supplier deliveries. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index rose to 81.8 in the last July reading, up from the initial July reading of 81.3. The index was on track with moderate consumer spending growth. But Friday's data from the Labor Department showed that in July wages barely moved, inching up by just a penny and leaving wages only 2 percent higher than a year ago, a rate that barely outpaced inflation. "People's standards of living are still stuck in the mud," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economics, who called the government's report otherwise "close to perfect" because job growth increased across nearly all industries and all pay scales. The news that wages remained flat contrasted with an Employment Cost Index report Thursday that American labor costs recorded their biggest gain since the third quarter of 2008. The notion that wages might be rising helped prompt the sell off among investors Thursday, highlighting the divergent views between some on Wall Street and those held by many economists who view rising wages as essential to sustaining an expanding economy. Higher wages have been "a key missing ingredient from the recovery," Jared Bernstein, an economist at the left of center Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote in a blog post. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
One Way to Avoid Other Guests? Book the Entire Hotel When Jack Samenuk checked into Zabriskie House this week, there was no mystery about whom he would encounter in the inn's double parlor or wood paneled dining room. The only guests in the 11 bedroom property, which opened in January as part of the Inns of Aurora, a resort in New York's Finger Lakes region, are Mr. Samenuk's nearest and dearest: his mother, three siblings and their families, including two children, 3 and 4, and two Labrador retrievers. The group also invited some in laws to join them for a private dinner and backyard s'mores on New Year's Eve. "It's just going to be us no one else will be there," said Mr. Samenuk, 21, a model and Fordham University student who lives in New York City. "I feel like it'll be our little home away from home." "Buyouts were very 'of the moment' even before Covid," said David Prior, the co founder of PRIOR, a travel company that specializes in luxury trips. "But now even more so, because you can go with friends or an intergenerational group and still feel safe. It's almost like a reunion." The pursuit of "togetherness" is what motivated Juan Soria, 51, to organize a Thanksgiving trip to Dive Palm Springs, a French Riviera inspired boutique hotel in California. Buyouts at Dive start around 2,500 a night the cost of booking all 11 rooms at their standard rate, which start at 225 a night plus an one time 5,000 event fee. "We have a large community of friends who go to parties and events, which we've all missed this year," said Mr. Soria, a technology consultant who lives in San Francisco. "And I thought, 'I would love to just have a big, safe get together with our closest friends and have a great time.'" Before the gathering, Mr. Soria and his wife, Katie Moore, 47, created a Google Slides presentation that detailed hotel floor plans and other logistics, then shared it with the group, which totaled 19 adults, over Zoom. The four night trip was given an official name ("Mission: ImPALMsible") and mantra ("Safety, Serenity, Respect"). Mr. Soria said he chose Dive in part because of its layout: The majority of common spaces, including a large pool area, are outside. "There's no way we would want to be taking over, say, a part of a larger property without physical segmentation from other guests," he said. Mr. Soria and Ms. Moore worked with the Dive team to ensure certain requests were met. Thanksgiving dinner seating was arranged so that "pods" either couples or sets of couples that had been quarantining together at home could sit together. 'They can really do anything they want' As Mr. Soria's experience showed, having the run of the place leads to hotel and resort stays being curated to travelers' tastes and interests. For a group of clients next year, PRIOR, the travel company, is customizing a buyout of Hotel Garzon, the chef Francis Mallmann's five room boutique hotel in Uruguay. But that's not all: Mr. Mallmann will give a master class on grilling, his culinary specialty, and be on hand to hobnob with his guests. Bespoke trips of that sort range in price, but usually start at around 5,000 a person, on top of PRIOR's 249 annual membership fee, Mr. Prior said. "We work with each location to create something tailored and special," he said. "It's like a hybrid of an intimate party and a touring group." At Estancia Vik, a 12 suite boutique hotel in Jose Ignacio, Uruguay, a new buyout package ( 6,000 a night) can be customized with activities like private polo demonstrations and moonlit horseback rides. "Usually when we have a buyout we have all of our resources focused on that group, that makes our options even better and more extensive," said Tomas Laura, Estancia Vik's manager. For six weeks this summer, a group of four adults and four children bought out the seven bedroom main house which usually accommodates 14 people at Cape Arundel Inn Resort, in Kennebunkport, Maine. They brought along a basketball hoop and trampoline, which the hotel's maintenance team set up. "When someone's taking over the whole property, they can really do anything they want," said Justin Grimes, the managing director at Kennebunkport Resort Collection, which owns and manages Cape Arundel. "If we were open with a traditional model, we wouldn't be able to just throw up a basketball hoop. Guests get a really unique experience." After a prolonged closure in winter and spring, Cape Arundel reopened with a buyout only model in June. In addition to the main house, guests can take over the property's three bedroom cottage (or both). The switch has allowed the seaside resort to help defray some of the first half financial losses and keep staff employed, Mr. Grimes said. "We didn't want our properties to sit empty for the summer," he said. "Knowing that they'd be usable in a variety of different ways, we had to make it feel a bit more residential." That meant retrofitting a commercial chef's kitchen with appliances that wouldn't intimidate the average home cook and creating a de facto business center with desks and printers. Scaled back service lends an extended stay feel; guests can cook, just as they would at a vacation rental, or arrange catered or prepared meals. For operators like Mr. Grimes, a single large group can in many ways be easier to attend to than multiple smaller groups, even with the year's new health precautions. One point of contact, for instance, means staff can often handle requests remotely another way to limit in person interaction. Dining is more streamlined, too. "If we were operating our restaurant with a full hotel, we would have needed to coordinate dining times, party size and contact tracing reporting, all in what is a modest sized dining room," Mr. Grimes said. 'We've never seen so much demand so early in the season' Before the pandemic, most luxury hotels arranged buyouts upon request. Many now offer formalized buyout packages to attract the increased interest. "We've never seen so much demand so early in the season," said Nina Libby, the vice president of marketing at Caldera House, an eight suite hotel and alpine club in Jackson Hole, Wyo. "Families are excited to reunite, but people are making safety a priority during their vacations this year." Caldera House's new buyout package starts at 21,900 a night for a minimum of seven nights. Experiences might include sleigh rides through the National Elk Refuge or, for an added fee, a private ski session with Bode Miller, the Olympic gold medalist. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
For decades, WBAI FM has remained a proudly scrappy alternative in New York's radio market, a bastion of left wing political commentary and community voices rarely heard elsewhere on the dial. That identity was cast into doubt on Monday when the station's owner, the nonprofit Pacifica Foundation, abruptly laid off most of WBAI's staff and replaced its local programming with shows drawn from Pacifica's four other stations. Ten of WBAI's 12 employees were laid off, according to John Vernile, Pacifica's interim executive director. Employees and volunteer hosts at the station said they were blindsided by Pacifica's decision. "We are in disbelief," said Alexander J. Urbelis, a host of "Off the Hook," a weekly show about computer hacking. "Nobody was given any notice of this or any opportunity to be heard." Berthold Reimers, WBAI's general manager, told producers in an email on Monday morning: "There is a show on the air now that I do not recognize. This means your shows are no longer on WBAI." Mr. Reimers declined to comment. Pacifica leaders said that the decision to shut down WBAI's operations in New York had been in the works for months, and that it was an essential step to save the larger foundation from ruin. In an interview, Mr. Vernile said WBAI which, like the network's other stations, is listener supported had fallen short of its fund raising goals in recent years. He added that the station was unable to make payroll and other expenses, forcing the larger Pacifica Foundation network to bail it out. 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. "Listeners in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston and Washington, D.C., have been supporting the efforts in New York," Mr. Vernile said. "It has gotten to a point where we can no longer do that." WBAI's ratings are minimal, but its shows can have an impact. On Monday, Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, wrote on Twitter: "This is deeply disappointing and I hope this station is relaunched." WBAI and Pacifica had been under strain for years. Pacifica has not released any financial statements since 2017, when its auditor cited doubts that the organization could continue as a going concern. The foundation faced possible bankruptcy after a New York State court ordered it in 2017 to pay 1.8 million in rent and other fees to a trust affiliated with the Empire State Building, where WBAI transmitted its signal. Last year, Pacifica settled with the trust after obtaining a loan from FJC, a nonprofit lender. Mr. Vernile said Pacifica had been meeting its obligations under the loan agreement. Sam Marks, the chief executive of FJC, declined to comment. WBAI, founded in 1960, was a leader in the free form radio movement, and has had a history of extraordinary moments in broadcasting. Bob Dylan made early appearances on the station, and in the 1970s WBAI was cited by the Federal Communications Commission for indecency for running George Carlin's routine on seven "filthy words," a decision upheld by the Supreme Court. As WBAI's audience has dwindled, its finances have grown shaky. In 2013, after nearly a decade of losses, the station laid off 19 employees. At times, it has seemed crippled by factionalism, as board meetings descended into name calling and bickering over parliamentary rules. The station's most valuable asset may be its license to operate a coveted spot on the dial, at 99.5 FM, but Mr. Vernile said Pacifica was determined not to sell that prime piece of radio real estate. Pacifica, he said, wants to "rebuild" WBAI at some point, although he did not offer a clear target date. "We are not out of the woods yet," he said, "but this puts us in a place where we have a shot at bringing everything back in full." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? David E. Sanger, a national security correspondent based in Washington, discussed the tech he's using. You previously were a bureau chief for The Times in Japan, one of your many roles for the newspaper. When you arrived in Tokyo in the late 1980s, what tech were you equipped with? In retrospect, nothing very impressive. Our "portable" computers weighed about the same as an electric typewriter, had a tiny cathode ray tube screen that showed a paragraph or two at most and stored stories on magnetic bubble memory, which in the 1980s was supposed to replace hard drives. Needless to say, it was a technology whose time never arrived. Oh, and the computer had two black rubber cups on the top. You put the handset of a hard line phone into them and dialed up a computer in New York to transmit at the astoundingly slow speed of 300 bits per second. Half the time we had to give up and call the dictation room, where someone would type out the story that you read to them. So today the technology is lots faster, but perhaps not a lot more reliable. What's the worst tech failure you've suffered? Naturally, things die when deadlines are tightest. There was the time I was rushing off the back stairs of Air Force One in the Middle East with an open laptop, story half written and late to the editing desk, and managed to drop my computer 20 feet on the tarmac. (Not good.) I've had modems die in Egypt, and the blue screen of death crawl across my laptop in India. Power supplies don't like variable current I've melted my share. This has all made me focus intently on what NASA calls "mission critical components." If you can't file your story or record video, or connect up with "The Daily'' you might as well not be there. So I travel with a laptop and a backup iPad with a keyboard, so there is always a way to write. I take two phones and two booster battery packs. I carry an AT T portable hot spot, and still I've had to fall back at times on the built in Wi Fi hot spot on my iPhone. Oh, and a Logitech camera that allows me to do TV hits over a Skype connection without using the built in pinhole camera in the laptop. So my backpack weighs plenty and my wife and our sons think carrying it everywhere is faintly ridiculous. Until they run out of cellphone power. You'd think that belt and suspenders approach would cover everything. It doesn't. In Hanoi, Vietnam, this year for a summit meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong un, we were, as my colleague Edward Wong put it, "comms cursed." Lots of things failed. It didn't help that I was staying in the Metropole hotel, where the meeting was being held, and security personnel blanketed the lobby with a cellphone suppression technology that keeps terrorists from detonating bombs remotely. Turns out it also keeps reporters from updating their stories on the web. You published your third book, "The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age," last year. It's a geopolitical look at how nations are using cyberweapons, and not just for espionage. Ever been a target? I'm afraid that if you are in my line of work writing about the intersection of technology, spying, cybersabotage and national power you attract attention from intelligence services. In Beijing in 2017 with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, I made the mistake of looking up something about the Tiananmen Square massacre from my hotel room, over a portable hot spot. Big mistake. The hot spot stopped working. I couldn't revive it in Japan, or back at home. We later determined that Chinese intelligence had fried the firmware. A few years ago I began seeing that big red banner over my email account that declared: "We have detected a state sponsored attacker seeking to obtain your data." That could be anyone: Russians who didn't like our investigations into the 2016 presidential election and subsequent hacks; Chinese People's Liberation Army officers who didn't care for our work exposing Unit 61398 , which stole intellectual property; North Koreans who didn't like our coverage of the Sony hack, the Bangladeshi central bank cyberheist or the cyberattacks on their missiles. And I've survived enough F.B.I. leak investigations to become mildly paranoid about our own government. So what do you use to protect yourself? There is no permanent technological solution to hacking, data manipulation and, soon, deep fakes like climate change, this is a problem we have to manage. Ultimately, we will need a mix of technology, political agreements and retaliatory responses that establish that attacks are not cost free. That said, I'm a big fan of Google's Advanced Protection program. It uses a combination of a key that fits in a USB slot (with a button that must be pressed) and a Bluetooth dongle, each registered to your computer or cellphone. Try to get access to someone's accounts on a computer without that hardware present and you don't get in. If you were cyber king for a day, what mandates would you issue? First, I'd ban the use of any voting machine that doesn't rely on a hand marked paper ballot, so there is something to count later. I'd require encryption for all personal information that you are asked turn over, including when I hand my passport to a hotel clerk. (Hear that, Marriott? It's time.) What favorite cool technology do you always take with you? Sanity preservation devices that cut me off from the world, from editors and from the complaints of presidents, secretaries of state and national security officials. The three most vital: Bose noise canceling headphones, a small shortwave radio and a seven piece, four weight fly rod that breaks down to fit in a tube under a foot long. When the weather warms up, I carry the rod in that overloaded backpack along with a reel and a box of flies. No batteries required. I've been known to sneak out of hotels in early morning hours to cast into rivers, harbors, ponds, you name it. I don't even care if nothing's biting the casting is therapeutic. Don't tell the bosses, O.K.? | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
1. Place potatoes in a wide saucepan and cover with water. Add salt to taste and bring water to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat to medium, cover partially and gently boil potatoes for 20 minutes, or until tender all the way through but firm enough to slice. Drain, return the potatoes to the pan, cover and let sit for 15 minutes. Remove from the pot and using a towel to grip the potatoes if they are too hot to handle, slice about 1/2 inch thick, or if you prefer, cut in dice. Transfer to a large bowl. 2. Meanwhile stem and wash sorrel leaves. Heat a wide skillet over high heat and add the sorrel, in batches if necessary. Stir until sorrel has wilted in the liquid left on the leaves after washing. The color will go from bright green to drab olive and the sorrel will melt down to what looks like a puree. Don't worry, it will be chopped and mixed with the other ingredients and you won't mind the color. When all of the sorrel has wilted, remove from heat and transfer to a strainer or a colander. Rinse briefly with cold water, then press or squeeze out excess liquid. Chop medium fine. Transfer to bowl with the potatoes, toss together and season with salt and pepper. 3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Rub sides and bottom of a 2 to 2 1/2 quart baking dish or gratin with the cut side of the garlic clove. Oil dish with olive oil. Mince remaining garlic and add to potatoes and sorrel. 4. Beat eggs in a medium bowl. Add salt to taste (I use about 1/2 teaspoon). Whisk in milk. Add to potatoes and sorrel and stir well to distribute sorrel evenly throughout the mixture. Stir in cheeses and freshly ground pepper, and scrape into the baking dish. 5. Bake 45 minutes, or until set and the top and sides are nicely browned. Remove from the heat and allow to sit for 10 minutes or longer before serving. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
A roundup of motoring news from around the web: Nissan's plant in Aguascalientes, Mexico, is ready to begin small car production this week, the company said. Having just spent 2 billion upgrading the plant, Nissan says it plans to increase annual Sentra production there to 175,000 units by next March. (Automotive News, subscription required) Toyota Motorsport announced this week that it would offer a rally version of the Toyota GT86 (sold in the United States as the Scion FR S), an R3 rally class ready model called the CS R3. The car, which will be available in 2015, includes a 6 speed sequential gearbox, improved brakes, a modified engine and a limited slip differential. (Autoblog) Kia says its goal for the Soul EV battery power electric car is for it to travel 120 miles on a single charge. By comparison, the Nissan Leaf currently has an Environmental Protection Agency certified 75 mile range. The Soul EV, which is the first E.V. that Kia will sell outside Korea, can be charged in five hours from a 240 volt outlet, Automotive News says. (Automotive News, subscription required) In Britain, electric car sales have jumped 25 percent in the third quarter. For the quarter, the government recorded 1,149 new registrations under its grant program, the highest number since the program began in 2011. The program offers E.V. buyers an incentive of nearly 8,000. (The Guardian) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
In Japan, where the tradition of sakura, or celebration of the blooms, originated, the Peninsula Tokyo has a Cherry Blossom ceremony that lasts until April 28. The ritual begins with a cup of tea and a pink macaron offered during a gentle foot scrub that is a prelude to an hour and 50 minute body treatment ( 350 on weekends). The hotel also displays nine illuminated eight foot tall sakura arrangements. Some places offer rooms with views of the blossoms, especially in Washington, D.C. At the Mandarin Oriental, rooms with views of the Tidal Basin and the city's cherry trees come with two passes on the Odyssey Washington D.C. Cherry Blossom lunch cruise, along with a seasonal welcome amenity, sunscreen and snacks (rates from 495). The hotel's spa will also introduce qigong, a Chinese holistic practice, on April 1; participants receive instruction in the best physical postures and breathing techniques while strolling through the blossoms (daily at 6 a.m. from 95 a person). As part of the Blossoming Adventures Cherry Blossom package at the Ritz Carlton, Pentagon City, 50 of the room rate will go toward planting trees on the Tidal Basin in April (rates from 279 a night). At the Ritz Carlton in Battery Park, New York, a Cherry Blossom package includes overnight accommodations in a guest room with views of the Statue of Liberty, two tickets to the Sakura Matsuri festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, two themed cocktails and recommendations on where to capture the best floral sites in the city ( 487 a night). | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
IN her ballroom dance class, Li Wanrong has learned to tango and cha cha. At lunch one day, she tried a strange mix of flavors pepperoni pizza, the spicy sausage and oozing cheese nearly burning her tongue. Then there was that Friday night before going clubbing for the first time when new friends gave her a makeover, and she looked in the mirror to see an American girl smiling back wearing a little black dress, red lipstick and fierce eyeliner. "I say 'wow' a lot," says Ms. Li, a freshman at Drew University, a small liberal arts school in Madison, N.J. Against her parents' wishes, she studied for and took the SAT in Hong Kong, a three hour bus ride from her home in southern China. She told them she was going there to do some shopping. Her parents eventually came around, persuaded by her determination and a 12,000 scholarship that would take some of the sting out of the 40,000 tuition at Drew, which her high school teacher had recommended. Describing her whirlwind transformation to college kid sometimes leaves Ms. Li at a loss for words. And sometimes the cultural distance seems too much, especially when facing dining options in the cafeteria. "Sometimes I feel when I go back to China I'll never eat a hamburger ever again," she says, laughing. Ms. Li is part of a record wave of Chinese high school graduates enrolling in American colleges, joining the fabric of campus life as roommates and study partners and contributing to the global perspectives to which colleges are so eager to expose their students. "China is going to matter greatly to all students in the 21st century," says Robert Weisbuch, president of Drew, which has increased its international enrollment by 60 percent in the last five years. "We feel it is important to provide the opportunity for American and Chinese students to learn from one another." While China's students have long filled American graduate schools, its undergraduates now represent the fastest growing group of international students. In 2008 9, more than 26,000 were studying in the United States, up from about 8,000 eight years earlier, according to the Institute of International Education. Students are ending up not just at nationally known universities, but also at regional colleges, state schools and even community colleges that recruit overseas. Most of these students pay full freight (international students are not eligible for government financial aid) a benefit for campuses where the economic downturn has gutted endowments or state financing. The boom parallels China's emergence as the world's largest economy after the United States. China is home to a growing number of middle class parents who have saved for years to get their only child into a top school, hoping for an advantage in a competitive job market made more so by a surge in college graduates. Since the 1990s, China has doubled its number of higher education institutions. More than 60 percent of high school graduates now attend a university, up from 20 percent in the 1980s. But this surge has left millions of diploma wielding young people unable to find white collar work in a country still heavily reliant on low paying manufacturing. "The Chinese are going to invest in anything that gives them an edge, and having a U.S. degree certainly gives them that edge back home," says Peggy Blumenthal, a vice president at the Institute of International Education. American colleges offer the chance to gain fluency in English, develop real world skills, and land a coveted position with a multinational corporation or government agency. Ding Yinghan grew up in a modest apartment with his mother, a marketing executive, and his father, a civil servant in Beijing's work safety administration whose own mother is illiterate. A child of the "new China," he is fully aware that his generation has opportunities unavailable to any before. His parents pushed him to study hard and study abroad because they have little faith in the Chinese education system. Sipping tea in their living room one sweltering August afternoon, Mr. Ding's mother, Meng Suyan, reflects on the Chinese classroom. "In the U.S. they focus on creative thinking skills, while in China they only focus on theory," she says. "So what university students learn here doesn't prepare them for the real world." Says Mr. Ding: "Chinese values require me to be a good listener, and Western values require me to be a good speaker." A bespectacled whiz kid, Mr. Ding was accepted early admission to Hamilton College in upstate New York following a yearlong exchange program at a North Carolina public high school. Now a junior, he is on a full scholarship, No. 1 in his class and spending this year at Dartmouth on a dual degree engineering program. He also founded the bridge club at Hamilton, ran the Ping Pong team, wrote for the student newspaper and tutored in chemistry, physics and economics for 8.50 an hour. His first tutoring job was freshman year, when his advanced calculus professor asked him to help classmates struggling with the material. Over textbooks and calculators, Mr. Ding used the opportunity to practice his English and find commonalities with people who had never met someone from China. At Hamilton, he is surrounded by wealth some students, he says, fly to Manhattan on weekends in helicopters, party with Champagne instead of beer, and smoke 100 cigars. It's a new experience for a man who gets his hair cut a few times a year because the 15 is a lot of money for his parents, who fret that they cannot afford to provide him with health insurance in the United States. But sending their child to live across the world is a worthy sacrifice, says his father, Ding Dapeng. "In China 25 years ago it was rare to even go to university, so for Yinghan to study in the U.S. is a real miracle." "Today the world is so small," he says. "Only by broadening his knowledge with an international background can Yinghan really become a global citizen." THE cultural exchange perhaps manifests itself most in the intimacy of the shared dorm room. When Mariapaola La Barbera learned last summer that her roommate at Drew would come from China, her mother was thrilled. "She said, 'They're smart people, so you'll learn from her and be focused.' " ORIENTING Shen Xinchao, top, at home in Shanghai. A Rutgers junior, he finds Americans a little too foreign. Qi Fan can relate. He's chosen to live off campus with Chinese friends at the University at Albany. Qilai Shen for The New York Times, top; Stewart Cairns for The New York Times She shares a room with Li Wanrong. The two have tacked funky tie dye tapestries and a poster of the Eiffel Tower to the walls; Ms. Li is planning to study Spanish while perfecting her English, and has taped the words "hola" and "muy bien" next to her laptop. "Wanrong is very brave," Ms. La Barbera says. "I give her a lot of credit for moving across the world and being so focused." Still, Ms. La Barbera, who knew no one from China, says: "It's different. I'm not going to lie." They have different groups of friends but are friendly. The roommates have taught each other words in Mandarin and Italian, discussed the political differences between the United States and China, and had impromptu lessons on American slang. Ms. Li's teachers in China had told her that American parents kick their children out of the house when they turn 18. Ms. La Barbera, who goes home to Staten Island every weekend, has corrected this misconception. "She's like a window," Ms. Li says. "I can watch her and see what Americans are like." As a freshman at Central Michigan University, Qi Fan realized that even Americans come from different cultures. His roommates one black, one white spoke to him in different accents and had social circles that largely matched their own skin color. Sometimes they would grab him out of bed and drag him to parties where beer pong was played all night. Mr. Qi had learned of Central Michigan from a Chinese friend who went there, and it was talked up by a company in China that recruits students. Originally he had considered Britain or Germany, but his parents decided there was little point in paying for college in "second tier" countries, and they would send him to the United States "no matter what, because it's the super power." But the American myth faded once he settled in. He disliked a campus culture that "was all about drinking," and wanted a high profile school closer to New York's finance world. In his sophomore year, Mr. Qi transferred to the University at Albany, of the State University of New York. He says he is happy there, makes trips to New York City in the car he just bought, and avoids any drinking culture by living with other Chinese off campus. Partying is an American college rite of passage, but socializing in China is usually conducted around the table, where close friends cook, eat and play games together. The fun in standing around a dark room filled with strangers, speakers blaring, is often lost in translation. Frances Liu, a Yale sophomore from the bustling city of Tianjin, remembers one night freshman year when friends started smoking marijuana. And then offered her the joint. "They were like, 'Frances, come on,' " she says, rolling her eyes. She declined, but the pressure to fit in meant plenty of late nights. "I don't want to be in a bar drunk and grinding with someone I've never met and will never see again," Ms. Liu says. "I've tried that. I went to parties every single weekend freshman year and realized it's not for me." Ms. Liu found refuge in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the towering cube of translucent marble at Yale that holds thousands of the world's most precious written originals. Last summer she worked there as a page, bringing requested items to researchers. But more satisfying than the 12 an hour was discovering treasures like the original manuscript of Edith Wharton's "Age of Innocence" in the stacks and leafing through illuminated parchment from the ninth century. The experience has given her a deep appreciation for the West's values of transparency and access to information. "In China, I'm used to secrecy, so being 18 and able to touch history with my bare fingers really impressed me," she says. After a year, Ms. Liu believes she is less of the quiet Asian nerd stereotype that she had felt followed her through Yale's Gothic hallways. Now she wears makeup, raises her hand in class, and has a different perspective than her friends in China, according to whom "I'm contaminated by American culture and not Chinese anymore." That harsh assessment is heard by many Chinese undergraduates, which they say is hard to ignore. It was in a freshman literature seminar class at Yale called "Experiences of Being Foreign" that Xu Luyi began to tackle the "pulling force westernizing me rapidly and driving me away from my own background." "Somehow I was stuck in this middle zone and unable to identify with either side," says Ms. Xu, a sophomore from Shanghai. She was the only international student in the class. Rather than ignore her "otherness," she dived into the course's exploration of identity construction and confusion, and embraced the assigned readings, by immigrants and exiles. For an assignment that required that students go somewhere that would make them feel foreign, she went to Bible study. Where she ended up feeling most at home was in her dorm. The women in her hall would meet for tea and cookies every few weeks to discuss college life and address girl "drama." This "women's table," Ms. Liu says, "was a great bonding experience and also a good chance to meditate on our experiences." Perhaps most unsettling to Chinese students is the robust activist culture on campus, where young Americans find their voices on issues like war, civil rights and immigration. In China, protests are illegal and vocal dissent forbidden, and on sensitive topics like Tibet and Taiwan a majority are in lockstep with their government. It can be especially painful hearing Westerners condemn China after growing up steeped in propaganda blaming the West for the suffering before Communism. Shen Xinchao, a Rutgers junior from Shanghai, chose to attend college in the United States because "here you can argue with professors, which is not encouraged in China," and choose a major rather than test into one. "In China, your path is almost set when you get into college on the first day," he says. But American college life presented obstacles. As a freshman, he found his campus lonely and alienating. First, he spent a semester living in a dorm lounge because Rutgers had run out of rooms for freshmen. Then he was paired with a roommate who challenged him over his homeland's human rights record. "He thought China was just a very tyrannical Communist country that has no freedom, and that is not what life is really like there," says Mr. Shen, who has moved off campus to live with Chinese friends. "Americans are friendly, but I just can't establish a deep relationship because our cultural differences are too deep." Some Chinese students have turned activist themselves to rebut criticism of homeland policies. Following China's crackdown on Tibet before the Beijing Olympics in summer 2008, furious groups of Chinese students confronted protesters who were trying to disrupt the torch relay in the United States. And on rare occasions, Chinese students have harassed pro Tibet activists on campus, and sought to dissuade universities from inviting the Dalai Lama to speak on their campus. "In China, we definitely don't see people marching in the streets, so it's a bit disturbing to see the masses rallying," says Li Yidan, a freshman at Yale, wearing a preppy white sweater at an off campus cafe. "People did that in 1989, and it ended in bloodshed." TO help students make the cultural leap as well as to internationalize their institutions colleges and universities are building programs that begin in China and end, hopefully, on an American campus. Teachers College of Columbia University has started a program for high school seniors (in China, much of the last year is spent reviewing for a college entrance exam, though curriculum varies). This year, the program's first, 28 students spent six months at the University of International Relations in Beijing; 19 were found qualified to finish off the year at Columbia. The program preps students to apply as freshmen, with a focus on English instruction, cultural immersion and counseling, including study for the Test of English as a Foreign Language and SAT, and a tour of campuses in the Northeast. (Total cost: about 45,000, including room and board.) Another new program, U.S. Sino Pathway, aims to transition high school students into one of six participating colleges. Northeastern University devised the curriculum, a year of for credit courses taken at Kaplan Inc. branches in China and at a summer bridge session at Northeastern's Boston campus or the University of Vermont. Kaplan handles administration, English language instruction in China and recruitment of students. (Total cost: about 26,000 to 28,000, including room and board in the United States.) Collaborations with for profit education companies are beginning to gain traction as American institutions seek to tap their in country resources. Kaplan has branches in eight Chinese cities; INTO University Partnerships, a British company with roots in China, similarly works with the University of South Florida and Oregon State. Kaplan, which has been criticized for overly aggressive recruiting in the United States, says it does not use a commission model or work with "agents" in China. Many Chinese hire agents to navigate the American admissions and visa maze. The industry has mushroomed, as has its reputation for unscrupulousness, like falsifying transcripts and making bloated promises. The goal of U.S. Sino Pathway, says Philomena Mantella, senior vice president for enrollment management at Northeastern, is to help Chinese families make informed choices and to increase readiness for the American experience. "Finally," she says, "we saw this through a global competitive lens. British and Australian institutions were ahead of us, and we saw an opportunity to offer a strong pathway to American universities." Students who complete the program's China portion apply as sophomore transfers to a consortium college the others are Baylor University, Marist College, Stevens Institute of Technology and the University of Utah. Of the 171 students who started in China, 138 were ultimately accepted into a degree program. Nine of those who didn't meet standards chose to work on their English in another Northeastern program, American Classroom, at its adult education college on campus (a dozen of the successful matriculants ended up in its degree programs as well). The University of Vermont joined the consortium to increase its international population, which was less than 1 percent of its undergraduates. During Vermont's first bridge session, last summer, 29 new Chinese undergraduates absorbed American culture by hanging out with a crowd of aging hippies at a reggae concert. They went to the Ben Jerry's factory and met with the co founder Jerry Greenfield to discuss entrepreneurship and social justice. They also got face time with elected officials, including Vermont's governor and Burlington's mayor, for a lesson on democracy. Among course electives: "History of Rock Roll," for a hearing of Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and the Doors. Yuan Xiecheng, who grew up amid the neon lit skyscrapers and karaoke emporiums of Shanghai, was eager to study abroad. He had planned to go to a Canadian university until he attended a presentation by the chief executive officer of Kaplan China, Zhou Yong. When Mr. Zhou announced that students would not have to take the SAT or TOEFL or attend the final year of high school, Mr. Yuan leaped at the opportunity. He attended an international high school, and says he was 20 course credits short of graduation. Instead, he took the final exam given to secure a Chinese diploma, and enrolled in the pathway program. He is now a sophomore at Vermont. Zhao Siwei took the same route. "This program is super easy to enter, and it was really easy to come here to the U.S.," says Ms. Zhao, who hopes to major in film and TV at Vermont. "I love it here," she concludes. She expresses amazement, though, at her program peers' English: "They can't talk. They can't communicate with American people." Language is one of Chinese students' biggest challenges. Mr. Yuan wishes he had had more exposure to the vernacular. His for credit classes at Kaplan included calculus, chemistry and American studies, taught by instructors approved by Northeastern. But only half were Westerners, he says, and none American. His teachers in grammar, reading and listening comprehension were Chinese, he says, and "some of their English was not good enough." Once in Vermont, Mr. Yuan worried when people smiled and asked "What's up?" "It was really awkward," he says, "because I wouldn't know how to respond and while I was thinking of an answer they would just walk away." Still, his English is strong enough that he joined the debate team, with its fast clip speech and thinking. At weekly meetings he has argued about indigenous land rights and vote buying. Presenting an opinion in under seven minutes, as he did at his first competition, at Binghamton University, has helped him write college papers succinctly, he says, and question the world around him. "It's about challenging the status quo and thinking of better solutions in a way I never thought about in China." ZHOU KEHUI had an unusual adjustment to Brigham Young University. Growing up in officially atheist China, she knew little about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, with which the university is affiliated. Mormonism is not a state sanctioned religion, and proselytizing by its members is illegal. Ms. Zhou chose Brigham Young on the recommendation of a friend of her father's, who had gone there. Its business school also ranks highly. Her parents thought the university's honor code, with its rules of conduct, would keep her safe and focused. Initially, however, the curfew and code, which includes a ban on short skirts and drinking tea, left her shellshocked. "It was really hard for me to accept the rules in the beginning," says Ms. Zhou, a junior majoring in accounting. "I mean, where I'm from, in Fujian province, drinking tea every day is what we do." But few American universities offer the comfort zone she found here. Though there are only 77 Chinese undergraduates at Brigham Young, with so many Mormons doing their two years of missionary work in Taiwan and Hong Kong, finding someone fluent in her language was easy. "A lot of times I'd be walking on campus when some white dude would just come up to me and start speaking Chinese," Ms. Zhou says. That warmth and common experience not to mention several meetings with church missionaries went a long way toward convincing her B.Y.U. was the right match. A few months after arriving, Ms. Zhou was baptized, which, she says, provided a support network. That Mormonism is considered subversive at home, or that her parents were unhappy with her conversion, gave her little pause. After all, she says, saving her soul was as logical as deciding to go to college in the United States. "It wasn't a hard choice to make," she says. "It's probably the best decision I've ever made in my life." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Education |
The bedroom of the model unit for 432 Park Avenue, designed by Kelly Behun. The azure Calico wallpaper appears to be finished with a torn edge and long silvery drips. Compared with the tastefully neutral interiors of so many new condominium buildings, the latest model unit to open at 432 Park Avenue comes as a jolt. The living room fireplace is finished in Venetian plaster incised with an Art Deco inspired pattern and gold lines by Callidus Guild. The dining table is lit by a long chandelier of glass spikes by Jason Koharik. A random arrangement of tubular Apparatus light fixtures in various metal finishes and sizes punctuates a long hallway like stalagmites. One bedroom has azure Calico wallpaper that appears to be finished with a torn edge and long silvery drips. The master bedroom has a wall spanning oak and velvet asymmetrical headboard with geometric shapes inspired by the paintings of Frank Stella. "It was important for me that it not just be your typical model apartment," Ms. Behun said. "I understand how they try to speak down the middle to a more common denominator, because you don't want to offend. But that wasn't interesting to me." It also wasn't of interest to the developers. "We really wanted to stand out," said Jill Cremer, the vice president of marketing for Macklowe Properties, which developed the building with CIM Group. "We were ready for someone like Kelly to come and respect the architecture, but also bring an unconventional, unique style." Ms. Cremer and her colleagues aren't alone. As developers face a glut of newly constructed apartments, both condominium and rental, some are turning to interior designers and letting them run wild with model units in an effort to differentiate their buildings from the rest. Newly built inventory for sale in New York was up 19.6 percent in the first quarter of 2017, compared with the same period last year, according to the appraisal company Miller Samuel. At the same time, Citi Habitats New Developments expects 15,291 new market rate rental apartments to become available this year in Manhattan and Brooklyn, following just 8,774 units last year. "There's a lot of competition," said Jonathan J. Miller, the president of Miller Samuel. "So getting eyeballs on those projects is important." At 520 West 28th Street, the condo building designed by Zaha Hadid, the Related Companies tapped the interior designer Jennifer Post to furnish a 15 million apartment as a model unit. Ms. Post brought in Bernhardt Design lounge and dining chairs with mismatched upholstery, added graphic yellow and gray wallpaper to one of the bedrooms, and stocked the unit with eye catching art, including an explosive geometric painting by Allan D'Arcangelo, and a sculptural free standing penguin from Robert Kuo. "I took a risk, and burst it with color, art and energy it's not tone on tone," Ms. Post said. "It was a great opportunity to be given the freedom to make something people will talk about." "We didn't hold back anywhere in this building, in terms of creating something that's never been seen before," said Greg Gushee, an executive vice president of Related. "With the model, it's the same thing." At XOCO 325, at 325 West Broadway in Manhattan, DDG invited Colony, a cooperative showroom for emerging designers, to outfit a 17.5 million penthouse. The resulting design includes textile wall hangings by Hiroko Takeda, a snaking 13 foot long chandelier by Allied Maker and bold geometric tables by Fort Standard and Erickson Aesthetics. "We try to push the envelope on design," said Joseph A. McMillan Jr., the chairman and chief executive of DDG. "Having something that's fully neutral or monochromatic is not something that we subscribe to." For homeowners who have frequently been told they should rid their homes of personality in order to sell, model units with such expressive design elements may seem counterintuitive. Indeed, some real estate professionals urge caution. "From a marketing perspective, there's certainly something intriguing about bringing out a very aggressive design from a well known or up and coming interior designer," said Stephen G. Kliegerman, the president of Halstead Property Development Marketing. "On the other side of that coin is the conversation about not being so specific as to potentially turn off a buyer who might not be as creative, imaginative or liberal." To appeal to the largest pool of buyers, he said, "we recommend that developers use fine, elegant, but more neutral palettes." However, with so many properties on the market, some designers and developers say spirited model units can help make buildings more memorable. One of the model units has dazzling colors and patterns, including walls with painted trompe l'oeil paneling, powder blue ceilings and counter stools, and a purply pink tie dye rug. "When renters are going around to all these new buildings, they're seeing maybe 10 units a day and it's hard to remember, from one white apartment to another, which they liked and why," Mr. Mazzarini said. "So we built these memory points it's the unit with the pink rug, or the 12 foot sofa, or the hats on the wall." The interior designer Ken Fulk had a similar objective for three model units at Henry Hall, a 225 unit rental at 515 West 38th Street. From the Imperial Companies, the building has apartments ranging from studios starting at 3,350 a month to two bedrooms starting at 6,995. Mr. Fulk equipped a studio with a four poster bed with multicolor zigzag bed curtains installed in an alcove with matching wallpaper. "Some people will love it, some people will hate it," Mr. Fulk said. "But even if you don't like it, you'll remember it." Eric Birnbaum, a partner at Imperial Companies, added: "We wanted to take a position and create a brand. If you're doing it right, in our minds, you're going to offend certain people. But others will really like it." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Around this time of year, versions of "The Nutcracker" are as ubiquitous as holiday sales. Are you really saving money? Do you really need to see another "Nutcracker"? Austin McCormick's "Nutcracker Rouge," performed on Thursday at XIV, is an oddity, and not only because of its kinky edge. This coming of age story delicately balances burlesque, circus and baroque with ballet as its through line. In the setting, it's as if the court of Louis XIV is transplanted to a nightclub, and the demure main character, Marie Claire a Francophile twist on Marie and Clara gradually finds her bliss, shedding layers of clothing along the way. The land of the sweets is the land of sex. Yet this unmasking of a young woman's secret desires is somehow less about a sexual awakening than it is a makeover. "The Nutcracker" is the wrapping, but when you open the present, there she is: Cinderella. In Company XIV's revival of "Nutcracker Rouge," Laura Careless, a marvelously sensual dramatic dancer, reprises the part of Marie Claire, who is given a Nutcracker, at which she stares in adoration while the voluptuous Madame Drosselmeyer (Shelly Watson) and Monsieur Drosselmeyer (Brett Umlauf) sing a Russian lullaby. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
Julie Kent told her Instagram followers about her new job earlier this month with a link to an article and a single word: "Surprise!" In retrospect, her appointment to artistic director of the Washington Ballet shouldn't have been so unexpected. Ms. Kent, a former principal dancer at American Ballet Theater who grew up in Maryland, has been training for the position, if indirectly, for years. The first professional stage she danced on was at the Kennedy Center, with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Patricia McBride, in New York City Ballet's production of "Coppelia." She was 9. Now 46, Ms. Kent, who retired last spring and now runs Ballet Theater's summer intensive program, will relocate to Washington with her husband, Victor Barbee, and their two children, ages 11 and 6. Mr. Barbee will join her at Washington Ballet as the associate artistic director, the same position he holds at Ballet Theater. Ms. Kent officially begins her job on July 1, but is hard at work planning the 2016 17 season. What does it mean to be a leader especially when you didn't plan on being one? Thoughtful and refined, but with plenty of good humor, Ms. Kent is likely to set a high standard. Here are edited excerpts from a recent conversation at one of her favorite restaurants on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Do you talk to Aurelie Dupont, who just became artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet? Laughs Via Instagram, yes! And I have to say that that was one of the little clicks. I thought, here we go. If she's going to take on that responsibility, then I don't see why I shouldn't take on this. Did the Washington Ballet approach you? Oh, yes. And to be quite honest, the answer was no. We have a very happy, deep life here in New York City. Our children are thriving. It's one thing if you're really looking for something, it's another thing if you're perfectly content. It's just that as the conversation continued, everything I saw as potential obstacles was addressed and fell away. I want to set a good example for my kids in showing them to embrace change. I have experienced so little change in my life. I've been married for 20 years, we've been in the same apartment for 20 years, I've been in the same company for 30 years. That itself was an obstacle. If I allow my children the opportunity to experience this, hopefully when they are 46 years old and an opportunity presents itself, that obstacle won't be there. The other thing was to show their mother in a leadership role with their father supporting her. How did your husband feel about this move? He was clear that this was for me, and he was supporting me. But it was really my decision. Then the next decision was, are we going to support this with our family? He said yes. What are your ideas for the company? This season is a scramble because it has not been set yet. I'm hard at work trying to make some miracles happen, but there are limits. I would love to pursue an English Masters program, Russian Masters, American Masters. So have an evening with a Kenneth MacMillan work, an Frederick Ashton work, an Antony Tudor work and a Christopher Wheeldon work. Do we see similarities? Is there something typically English about it? You don't have to like every single piece, but you have to understand why it's important. Or why it should be danced. Why do you want to start these kinds of conversations? What people end up understanding is that they know a lot more about the ballet than they ever thought they did because they know a lot more about life. I would love to develop programs that cross reference art. I'm inspired by " Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909 1929: When Art Danced With Music" that was at the National Gallery in Washington. Ballet isn't just over here, and you either like it or you don't. It's part of the bigger conversation about art. Who do you like in terms of new choreographers? I can't say that I'm the one that's on top of what's going on, so I'm just going to ask my friends and my huge support network. It's very important to give the opportunities to choreographers even if you're not going to run to the bank with all the money you're going to make on the show. Before you accepted the job, you went to check out the company in a disguise: glasses and a hat. No one recognized you? Nobody gave me a second look. If you ever want to be ignored, put your hair in a hat. I just put my head down, walked in, watched the ballet, read the program, left. Unrecognizable. What did you like about the company? They really enjoyed dancing and they have a nice feel as a company, a collective sense of dancers really committed to what they were doing. And a lot of potential. What I have for the image of our new brochure is their faces the new face of the Washington Ballet. It's just every single one of them, and you see how beautiful and diverse and American, essentially, they are. Yes, it's about important choreography, increasing the company and growing it so we can do wonderful work, but it's also about the dancers who are there. This is their time. I want them to know it's for them. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
BEYOND its psychological and political impacts, the Supreme Court ruling last June that married same sex couples were entitled to federal benefits and tax advantages is prompting many to rethink their financial arrangements. Financial advisers of such couples say their clients are looking especially into whether to amend old income tax returns, how to alter their estate plans and which partner should officially own their investments or vacation home, if not both. Retitled assets are seen as the most likely changes, although few couples have acted yet. While the ruling in United States v. Windsor striking down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act will probably cut the federal taxes of such couples in most cases, the choices before them may not be as clear cut as they expect. "You have a whole range of new tax reduction options that you didn't have before," said Bruce Hoffmeister, a senior financial planner at Wilmington Trust, a wealth management firm based in Wilmington, Del. The ruling means that legally married same sex couples must be treated the same as heterosexual married couples under federal laws pertaining to income and estate taxes, pensions and the like. But much remains unsettled or unclear regarding state residency. Gay couples are still subject to the state tax laws where they live, which may not grant the same legal and financial rights. This is particularly a problem for residents of the 27 states that have a state income, estate or inheritance tax and do not treat same sex marriage, domestic partnerships or civil unions the same as heterosexual marriage for tax purposes, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a major lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group. "We want to remind people that, as much as there's this great advance with federal recognition, we still have a patchwork of state laws," said Brian Moulton, the organization's legal director. For long term couples, an important question is whether to redo their last three years' federal income tax returns and file jointly rather than as individuals, as allowed under rules issued by the Internal Revenue Service in August to carry out the court ruling. The way the math works, experts say, joint filing is usually better for people with a big difference in incomes, but two people with similarly high incomes will probably hit steeper tax brackets faster when they pool their returns. A good number of same sex couples would seem to fit that second definition, since women earn only about 80 percent of what men do, on average, creating an income imbalance in heterosexual couples. In contrast, two men or two women would be more likely to have similar earnings. But financial advisers like Mr. Hoffmeister say that generalization doesn't always hold true. For instance, one spouse may be a stay at home parent. Other factors also affect the calculation. If a much wealthier person gave the partner an asset that was then sold, the second partner, filing as an individual, probably paid lower capital gains tax on the increased value than the couple refiling jointly would do now, suggested Ross Levin, president of Accredited Investors, a wealth management firm in Edina, Minn. So amending the return would mean an increased tax bite. On the other hand, if one spouse had been covered under the other's employer sponsored health insurance, the employee had to pay tax on the "imputed value" of that coverage, so refiling could bring a refund. The biggest risk is that once a couple has brought the old filings to the attention of the I.R.S., "it is possible that those returns could be reviewed and audited," warned Shari A. Levitan, a partner at the New York based law firm Holland Knight, specializing in high net worth clients. "They might choose to let sleeping dogs lie." Same sex couples will also be able to reduce or even eliminate federal taxes on estates and gifts. Nonspouse beneficiaries pay tax on property above certain minimums, currently 5.25 million for estates and 14,000 a year for gifts. "Now you don't have to create strategies and implement transactions that are complicated, to transfer assets to your spouse," said Georgiana J. Slade, a partner in the New York office of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley McCloy who specializes in trusts and estates. Before Windsor, one common tactic to avoid estate taxes was for the wealthier spouse to buy a term life insurance policy listing the other as the beneficiary. As long as the annual premiums were less than the gift tax limit, the second spouse could inherit the benefit tax free, Ms. Slade said. However, the couple was spending thousands of dollars a year on the premiums. Nevertheless, couples might want to think twice before transferring legal ownership of assets. "If you have a spouse who has bad credit issues," Mr. Hoffmeister said, "you may have an issue whether you can qualify for credit in both names." This could be a problem in buying a new home, he said, and in adding one spouse's name to a house that the other spouse had previously gotten a mortgage for. Furthermore, when one spouse dies, an heir whose name is not included on a financial asset that has accumulated long term value may actually pay lower capital gains taxes, when the asset is sold, than would an heir who co owned the asset, according to Mr. Levin. That is because a nonowner would calculate the value of the asset from the date of death, while the original owner calculates it from the date of purchase. And if the happy new marriage breaks apart, it will be more complicated to unwind these retitled assets. Adding a spouse's name to brokerage accounts and marketable securities is fairly straightforward, albeit with a lot of paperwork. "Where you might get into issues is with alternative investments like hedge funds and private equity holdings," Ms. Slade said. Because each spouse needs at least 5 million in assets to qualify for those investments, the wealthier partner might have to shift some liquid assets to the other. If the assets are kept separate, "make sure your spouse is listed as the primary beneficiary," to avoid probate headaches, recommended Robert Stammers, director of investor education at the CFA Institute, a trade group for financial professionals, based in Charlottesville, Va. Ultimately, couples might even alter their investment strategies. True, these strategies are usually based on factors that marriage does not change, including age and risk tolerance. Still, Mr. Hoffmeister pointed out, "The investors will need less liquidity to pay estate taxes on the death of the first spouse." That could free up the couple to invest more in stocks or other long term investments. Whether all assets are listed in both names, they should be treated as a single portfolio in setting investment strategy, to "make sure you're not overextended in one area," Mr. Stammers said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Your Money |
The architecture and development company Flank set out years ago to prove what others are now discovering: there is a market in Lower Manhattan for oversize condominiums in boutique buildings, no matter the neighborhood. Flank started out on the Far West Side with a 12 unit building at 385 West 12th Street, and more recently created the 10 unit Abingdon, also on West 12th, where a triplex sold for 23.4 million. Now, in its latest project, the firm will be creating seven capacious units, each with two to four bedrooms, in the unlikely location of 224 Mulberry Street, the site of a parking garage in NoLIta. (Demolition has already started, with completion of the building set for the first quarter of 2015.) And as the project's broker, Tim Crowley, puts it, at 6 million to 30 million a unit, pricing will be "unapologetically high." Calculated to average in excess of 3,500 a square foot, the cost may set records for the 16 square block neighborhood, which was once part of Little Italy to the south. Its name, NoLIta, is an acronym of "North of Little Italy," and prices for new construction condos there tend to hover around 2,000 a square foot. "If you can figure out a way to build here," Mr. Crowley said, "every project that comes into this neighborhood inevitably breaks a record, because there's a lot of desire and a following in this neighborhood, but not a lot of real estate." Coming to market this week, 224 Mulberry Street isn't alone in seeking to break new ground in NoLIta. Six loft style residences being built atop the famed Puck Building, about a block away, are being marketed for 20 million to 60 million apiece. Mr. Crowley says prices north of 3,500 a square foot aren't out of line for large apartments, ranging from about 1,950 to 5,650 square feet, in a well constructed building of solid materials with classic high end finishes. "We're going to set records on Mulberry Street obviously, but we're in line with the other high end, really sought after real estate in the city," he said, asserting that potential downtown buyers tend to be "agnostic" when it comes to neighborhood. "They go to great real estate, and are less sensitive to where SoHo stops and NoHo starts." But with a growing number of developments in Manhattan offering large, exceptionally pricey apartments, there is more competition than there has been, brokers said. The asking prices that 224 Mulberry and the Puck Building hope to achieve are conceivable in NoLIta, but will require a "superior product," said Shaun Osher, the founder and chief executive of the Core Group, a brokerage in Manhattan. Jon Kully, a managing partner of Flank, said he believed 224 Mulberry was just the product to do it. The eight story building will be quite tall, at 110 feet, because some of the units will have living rooms with 25 foot ceilings, he said. And because NoLIta is a low rise neighborhood with zoning restrictions of 80 feet, the higher floors of 224 Mulberry should have unrestricted views in perpetuity, Mr. Kully said. Flank is able to build so high because "we've had an active permit for over five years, and a down zoning took place after the permit was issued," he said. A 40,000 square foot building, 224 Mulberry will replace a four story garage that had a distinctly patterned enameled brick exterior. That building was too expensive to salvage, but Flank chose to pay homage to it with Art Deco touches like black and white penny round mosaic flooring in the bathrooms, Mr. Kully said. There will be elevator accessed parking beneath 224 Mulberry, which has a garage entrance adjacent to the pedestrian entrance. All units will have at least one parking space; some will have two. A 24 hour doorman will also park cars. With an exterior of Roman brick on the first four floors, and top floors of cast stone and brick set back 10 feet, 224 Mulberry will have private terrace space for each unit along with a common roof deck. The other amenities, all of which will be free like the parking and the roof deck, include a gym and storage space. The windows are to be old style weight and chain mahogany structures; though divided into panes, they're grouped into 10 by 10 foot openings, increasing the amount of light in the apartments. Elaborate brickwork, especially around windows that have cast stone sills and jambs, will add texture to the facade, Mr. Kully said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
RETURN TO THE REICH A Holocaust Refugee's Secret Mission to Defeat the Nazis By Eric Lichtblau How many fearless, foolhardy heroes did World War II produce? The answer, judging from the number of nonfiction titles about them, is ... a lot. It qualifies as its own genre: Warriors of the Greatest Generation Who Make the Rest of Us Look Like Weenies. In the last few months alone, these pages have featured books about the leader of France's biggest spy network, intrepid pilots of the Soviet Air Force and "the coolheaded, one legged spy who changed the course of World War II." And those are just the ones about women. So with a title like "Return to the Reich: A Holocaust Refugee's Secret Mission to Defeat the Nazis," you can see where things are headed. The book's hero was first memorialized in a 2016 New York Times obituary: "Frederick Mayer, Jew Who Spied on Nazis After Fleeing Germany, Dies at 94." Eric Lichtblau, the reporter who wrote the obit, has now given Mayer's story the feature length treatment it deserves, drawing on a rich trove of oral histories, letters, government archives, captured German records, and personal accounts from surviving witnesses and their families. The book doesn't distinguish itself from others in the genre it's an epic poem rendered in workmanlike prose but the details are astonishing nonetheless. To borrow from the Passover Seder: If Freddy Mayer had merely escaped Nazi Germany as a teenager, then enlisted in the United States Army and gone back to fight, it would have been enough. But Mayer also parachuted into Nazi occupied Austria, impersonated a Wehrmacht officer, tracked enemy troop movements and helped Allied bombers target Nazi supply trains. Which also would have been enough. But Mayer also discovered the whereabouts of Hitler's secret Fuhrerbunker in Berlin, facilitated the sabotage of a secret Messerschmitt airplane factory, and was captured and tortured by the Gestapo. That surely would have been enough. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
Late last year, Michael Lang, one of the producers of the original Woodstock festival in 1969, began to approach music's most powerful managers and booking agents with a pitch. Lang wanted to commemorate Woodstock's 50th anniversary with a three day, multigenerational event that would draw 150,000 people to a Formula One racetrack in upstate New York. With the Woodstock brand as a magnet, he told them, the festival would celebrate the spirit of the original yet be relevant to the youth of today, according to five agents and other talent representatives, who spoke anonymously because the conversations were confidential. With less than a year before Lang's chosen weekend, Aug. 16 to 18, time was short. They doubted whether the Woodstock name meant much to Generation Z. And how would Woodstock 50 stand out from the glut of festivals already flooding the market? Still, the agencies agreed to supply top tier talent to the festival if Lang and his partners accepted all the risk. As one senior agent recalled their message to him: "We'll help. But you're going to overpay us, and pay us up front." With their help and with financing from a division of Dentsu, a Japanese advertising conglomerate Lang and his team booked more than 80 acts, including Jay Z, Miley Cyrus, the Killers, Santana, Imagine Dragons, Chance the Rapper, Halsey and Dead and Company, who were set to perform in Watkins Glen, N.Y. According to court papers, the festival paid 32 million in talent fees. But this week, in the most disastrous collapse of a music event since the Fyre Festival two years ago, Lang's dream came to an end in a humiliating defeat for one of the most storied names in rock history. Lang believes the festival was undone by a bad partner and, as he said in a statement announcing the cancellation, "a series of unforeseen setbacks" although many of its setbacks seem self inflicted. The death of Woodstock 50 is also the story of a former player returning to a changed game. Since the last Woodstock, in 1999 another disaster, which ended with riots and reports of sexual assault festivals have become an intensely competitive and expensive market, with little room for error or miscalculation. An announcement, but no tickets From the beginning, many doubted Lang's concept. John Scher, a promoter who worked on the Woodstock festivals in 1994 and 1999 and considers Lang a friend, said that when Lang mentioned his idea for Woodstock 50, he tried to talk him out of it. "Michael is a dreamer," Scher said. "He had the most honest of motivations. But as I said to him a year and a half ago, 'Michael, you have not made a dime from Woodstock three times. Now you're trying to do it a fourth time?'" The festival was announced in January, but it was far from ready. Organizers had made requests for dozens of artists their original wish list included Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Drake and Kendrick Lamar but not confirmed bookings with any of them. Soon red flags began to pop up. Organizers quietly reduced their attendance target to 100,000 . The lineup was not announced until March 19, and, strangely, tickets were not set to go on sale for another month, on April 22. Then the date for ticket sales came and went, and news emerged that the festival had not secured proper permits raising serious doubts about its viability. Within days, Dentsu pulled out and declared Woodstock 50 dead. Lang disputed that Dentsu had the right to cancel under their contract and a judge ultimately agreed that it did not but the damage was done. By early June, Woodstock 50 lost its venue in Watkins Glen when it failed to make a 150,000 payment. "Losing Watkins Glen set us back six weeks," Lang said in an interview this week. "We never really recovered from that." Once organizers went to court in May over the Dentsu contract, a paper trail was made public that suggested they had ignored warning signs for months. Woodstock 50 hired Superfly, a well known event producer, to inspect the festival site and recommend building and safety plans. Early on, Superfly warned that Watkins Glen could accommodate no more than 65,000 people. But Lang and his partners pushed for 100,000. Superfly was able to conduct a more thorough inspection of the site after snow melted in April, and reduced its recommendation to 61,000. In letters submitted in court, Superfly's lawyer told Woodstock 50 and Dentsu that they would be in breach of their agreement with Superfly if they made any changes to its recommendations that could harm "the safety of the guests, attendees, workers and others at the festival." According to those letters and affidavits from Dentsu executives, state officials demanded that Woodstock 50 make an array of improvements before the festival would be granted a permit, including building new roads, a temporary bridge and water storage systems. They also required more security personnel. The Department of Heath also asked Watkins Glen International, the racetrack, to sign a 1 million bond before it would grant a conditional permit, or else tickets could not be sold; the company refused. Lang blamed Dentsu for much of the festival's problems. In court papers, Dentsu pointed the finger back at him. But the management of the festival itself was opaque. Organizers had set up a company, Woodstock 50 LLC, to license trademarks from Woodstock Ventures, a partnership of the original backers of the 1969 festival, which include Lang. To the music industry at large, Lang was the face of Woodstock 50. But he had partners: Gregory Peck and Susan Cronin of the Crescent Hotel Group, whose flagship property is the boutique Crescent Hotel in Beverly Hills. Peck and Cronin, like Dentsu, were little known in the music industry, and their roles with the festival were unclear. In a statement, Cronin described their involvement. "Greg and I started out as friends with Michael and wanted to support his desire to have a festival," she said. "We have a long professional history of standing behind brilliant individuals and helping those wonderfully creative people grow their business." In time, even Lang's role came to be in doubt. In court documents, Lang was described as an "employee" of the festival partnership. After the festival collapsed, Lang distanced himself from the company. "I am not a partner in Woodstock 50," Lang said in an interview this week. "I am a partner in Woodstock Ventures. The intention was to be a partner in both, but my lawyer said that was a conflict." After the loss of Watkins Glen, Lang and his partners tried to move to another racetrack this one for horses in Vernon, a town 35 miles east of Syracuse with a population of about 5,000. With less than two months left on the festival clock, organizers faced stiff opposition from local government officials, who were concerned that proper plans could not be implemented in time. The sheriff of Oneida County said he could not guarantee public safety at the event (other happenings, including the Madison Bouckville antique show, would require his staff). The town Code Enforcement Office also would not budge. It rejected four permit applications by Woodstock 50; the first two, officials said, were just one page apiece. In rejecting the fourth which was 237 pages Vernon's code enforcement officer, Reay Walker, wrote a withering eight page letter that pointed to insufficient traffic, parking and security plans, and declared a public safety plan "worthless." When the town of Vernon issued its last denial, on July 22, Woodstock 50 seemed unsalvageable. But Lang had one Hail Mary left. He contacted Seth Hurwitz, an independent promoter in Washington, D.C., expressing interest in the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium. Hurwitz instead pointed him to the Merriweather Post Pavilion, the amphitheater that Hurwitz and his company, I.M.A., manage in the woods of Columbia, Md., which could hold about 30,000 people. Hurwitz offered Merriweather on the condition that Lang could confirm a lineup, and gave him a tight deadline to do it. "It won't be another Fyre Fest," Hurwitz said in an email interview when Merriweather was announced as the new venue, "because I won't let them sell any tickets unless I see confirmations in writing from the acts." But Lang was unable to save Woodstock 50. He was asking artists to play a vastly smaller event hundreds of miles away from the original venue, under the banner of a damaged brand. According to their original contracts, artists could refuse to appear anywhere other than Watkins Glen. He tried to rebrand the event as a free benefit for HeadCount, a voter registration nonprofit, but that was not enough. One by one, artists abandoned Woodstock 50: Jay Z, John Fogerty, Santana and finally Cyrus. In the music industry, the death of Woodstock 50 brought out plenty of schadenfreude, as hardened executives watched another poorly executed plan fall apart proof, in their eyes, that the complex demands of putting on a first class festival are beyond the reach of any dilettantes. But there was also disillusionment and sadness from others who saw promise and purpose in Lang's plan to bring the peace and love values of Woodstock to 2019. "The world is a very different place than it was in 1969," said Frank Riley, who represents Robert Plant and his band the Sensational Space Shifters, who had been booked for Woodstock 50. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
Thomas McNulty is an orphan, a refugee from Ireland's Great Famine, a crack shot, a cross dresser and a halfhearted soldier, but mostly he's in love with a young man who, on their harrowing and tender adventures across the breadth of mid 19th century America, becomes so starved "you coulda used John Cole for a pencil if you coulda threaded some lead through him." "Days Without End" the Irish writer 's seventh novel, and the fourth to feature a member of the McNulty clan is a haunting archaeology of youth, when "time was not something then we thought of as an item that possessed an ending." To the fatalism and carnage of classic westerns, Barry introduces a narrator who speaks with an intoxicating blend of wit and wide eyed awe, his unsettlingly lovely prose unspooling with an immigrant's peculiar lilt and a proud boy's humor. But in this country's adolescence he also finds our essential human paradox, our heartbreak: that love and fear are equally ineradicable. Thomas first stumbles across John Cole beneath a hedge in Missouri, sometime around 1849, when the teenagers are just "two wood shavings of humanity in a rough world." Their first employment as dolled up saloon dancers gives Thomas a taste for ladies' accouterments, but war, with its disregard for finery or flesh, keeps intervening. The friends join a platoon charged with clearing the West for whites and encounter Caught His Horse First, a chief of the Oglala Sioux who clasps the United States Army in the two step of generosity and vengeance that will bloody the plains for generations, its "tremendous grasses folding, unfolding, showing their dark underbellies, hiding them, showing." In an interlude of peace, Thomas and John Cole hie to the Midwest with the chief's niece, Winona, a placid child and ward of the Army, and Thomas once more dons "the stays and the corset and the bosom holder and the padded arse and the cotton packages for breasts" for nightly performances on behalf of the enraptured local miners. The Civil War interrupts this idyll, and the seesaw of petticoated peace and trousered violence continues its rhythmic tilting. The makeshift family develops sweetly, while the scenes of battle sear. Thomas claims "there is a seam in men called justice that nothing burns off complete" moments before an Army sharpshooter kills the daughter of a retreating Sioux. Justice is a troubled concept here: Women and children are never spared, Irish born Yankees bayonet Irish born Rebels, and friendship is no defense against murder. Nor does our guide through this gory fantasia have clean hands. If Thomas's adoption of Winona, another chess piece in the prairie wars, is an attempt to shore up human decency, we learn too little about her own cultural cleavage. That two strange white men can so neatly become her parents belies the trauma of Indian dislocation. Barry draws parallels between the Irish and the American Indians pushed out, despised, dispossessed but he leaves Winona untethered from her identity as a Sioux. A few days after being taken from her people a second time, we find her "loosening too, and laughing now." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
Woody Allen may have called Los Angeles a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light (that's from "Annie Hall"), but the bicoastal restaurateur Michael McCarty and his wife, Kim McCarty, an artist, have spent 40 years proving that wrong, bringing top examples of West Coast creativity to the Big Apple. This couple have a Midtown Manhattan apartment filled with California flavored art and objects, many of them works on paper, by Los Angeles residents like Tim Hawkinson, Frank Gehry, David Hockney, Laura Owens and Ed Ruscha. From their large terrace, they can see the back of the building that houses the New York branch of Mr. McCarty's restaurant, Michael's, a favorite for media types that was established in 1989. The original Santa Monica version, still going strong, opened in 1979. (Mr. McCarty is featured in the cover photo for Andrew Friedman's recent book about the era, "Chefs, Drugs and Rock Roll.") Surveying the five room penthouse that they turned into a two room apartment (it includes a studio space for Ms. McCarty), Mr. McCarty, 65, said: "Basically, the restaurants look like this apartment wood trim, a garden, art and track lighting. That's our look." Ms. McCarty, 62, added, "We go back and forth a lot." They own dozens of artworks, some stashed in her studio in the couple's Malibu home when they are not on view in their restaurants, where art filled walls have been a signature from the beginning. "It gives us the ability to rotate when we want to rotate; they're in the bullpen waiting to play," Mr. McCarty said. Recently, the couple talked about how their collecting developed. These are edited excerpts from that conversation. Curtain opens on late '70s Santa Monica: What was that time like for collecting? MICHAEL McCARTY The art world was just like the food and wine world small. Santa Monica and Venice had been this little hotbed for the bad boys and girls of the Ferus Gallery. We really wanted to know artists. So that's what we did, meeting Tony Berlant, Ed Moses, Hockney, Richard Diebenkorn, Sam Francis everybody. How did you get them for your restaurant when you were just starting out? MICHAEL McCARTY I said: "We don't have any money. We do things on trade." And, of course, 90 percent of them said, "Forget it." How did the works on paper focus come about? MICHAEL McCARTY The first year we opened, we had paintings in the restaurant. And 12 months later, we had red wine and duck sauce splashed on them. Kim said: "We can't do this anymore. We're going to ruin all this stuff." So we took anything that was not behind glass and took it out. We brought in only watercolors, drawings, prints everything that was behind glass. How did you get the David Hockney and the Laura Owens on this wall, both with such California colors? MICHAEL McCARTY David was a very good client of the restaurant because he loved to be able to smoke outdoors. Our garden was the last of the smoking spots in Santa Monica. KIM McCARTY The Hockney is actually two drawings together, in crayon and pencil, a study for a big painting of Santa Monica. The Laura Owens drawing we got at an event about 12 years ago, a fund raiser for the museum that's now the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Her career has really taken off, as seen in the recent solo exhibition at the Whitney. KIM McCARTY I think Laura's always been a star, unique in her approach to making things. She has an amazing sense of color; her tones are just always very beautiful and very fresh. And everything looks effortless. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
She gets the gig, by the way. Luckily, this was just a practice interview. It's a funny thing what time does to rebels. In old photographs, the first wave feminists the generation that in the early 1900s won women's right to vote look so proper and dull. Logically, they couldn't have been, fighting as they were to topple enormous legal and social barriers. Inspired by letters between the real Mary Woolley, the president of Mount Holyoke College for the first third of the 20th century, and Jeannette Marks, the writer who was her longtime love, "Bull in a China Shop" blows every last speck of dust off these two women and their compadres. Onstage at LCT3's Claire Tow Theater in Lee Sunday Evans's warm, lucid, handsomely designed production, they are radiant with life. "I am a revolution," Woolley (Enid Graham) replies, and so she is. In the hinterlands of Western Massachusetts, where Woolley sets about transforming the seminary into a "pre eminent school of critical social thought for women," she and Marks settle in. (The playwright pointedly names them Woolley and Marks, not Mary and Jeannette.) A secret student fan club springs up, dedicated to worshiping their romance never mind that Pearl (Michele Selene Ang), the club's sonnet writing leader, has a mad, puppyish crush on Marks. Ms. Turner, in a note in the script, calls the play "an excavation of queer history," and it is that, tracing nearly four decades in the life that Woolley and Marks share passionately, turbulently, joyously. It is an examination of feminist history, too, wresting the spotlight back from the straight women. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
My niece is about to give birth to her first child, so I decided to fill her freezer with nourishing, comforting chicken stews for those first busy weeks. She loves to cook and to eat well, but she and her husband both know how little time there is when you come home from the hospital with a new baby. When I e mailed her asking if she'd like this, she wrote back: "That would be the best gift ever! I have felt like cooking up until today.... But now I feel too tired to stand up." I wanted each of these stews to feature a nutritious vegetable along with the chicken and aromatics. In this way they are truly one dish, nutrient dense meals. Though I suggest serving them with rice, other grains or pasta, if carbs are an issue, know that these stews are very satisfying on their own. I used skinless legs and boneless, skinless thighs for my chicken stews, and I sought out free range organic chickens. While chicken breasts are lower in fat than the legs and thighs, they dry out when you stew them for very long. You can increase or decrease the number of chicken pieces according to your needs. If you've frozen a stew, it's best to thaw it overnight in the refrigerator for the next night's dinner. If the stew doesn't thaw completely, heat gently in a casserole or use your microwave's defrost function. Here's a great thing to do with leftovers: Shred the chicken and stir back into the stew, then pile the mixture over grains and heat in the oven as a casserole, or toss it with pasta. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
There is a period between summer high season (when hikers and families flood the state) and winter high season (when skiing is the main attraction) where locals in Colorado take a deep breath. Through approximately mid November, crowds are notably absent and savings are abundant. A boutique luxury property company, Mountain Management, offers off season discounts on a range of rentals from cozy condos to spacious seven bedroom homes in Beaver Creek. Autumn deals fall into one of two categories: book within 60 days of arrival and get 30 percent off, or book three nights and get the fourth free. Deals aren't clearly outlined on the Mountain Management website, but guests who call and express interest in these discounts will be directed to them. Two for one entrees are also a popular offer. The Denver Dining Out Passbook ( 34.99) includes two for one entrees at over 70 restaurants guests pay for the more expensive item). Through Nov. 17, Breckenridge also has a Dining Passport ( 10 donation to the Breckenridge Restaurant Association in support of scholarships); individual restaurants design their own deals from set price menus to two for one entrees to discounts on alcoholic beverages. Hotels are also offering seasonal specials. At Destination Resorts Vail, bookings in the fall are available for up to 35 percent savings. Book three nights at the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek and receive a fourth night free through Nov. 18. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
In many cases, the claims have been bolstered by people conflating voting rolls, which list people who can potentially vote, with actual voting records. Those mistakes were often fixed before or during Election Day, and people who have passed away were removed from the voting roles. Lists that have circulated on social media sites sharing the names of dead people who supposedly voted have also largely been debunked by The Times and others. No, voters are not casting hundreds of ballots under maiden names. Fact: There is no evidence that any votes were cast by impersonators using maiden names. Background: This rumor was started when a woman tweeted that her mother's maiden name had been stolen by someone who used it to vote. The tweet did not provide any evidence of the claim. Election officials said there was no proof that individuals committed voter fraud by registering to vote, and then casting a vote using a maiden name. They added that they had received no individual complaints about specific cases. No, a postal worker in Pennsylvania did not witness voter fraud. Claim: A postal worker in Pennsylvania said he had seen his supervisor "tampering with mail in ballots." Fact: The postal worker retracted his claims, and no evidence was found to support what he had said. Background: The claims originated in a video released by Project Veritas, a conservative group that has repeatedly spread disinformation. The video featured a postal worker, Richard Hopkins, who said he had overheard a discussion about backdating ballots that arrived in the mail after Election Day. The video did not provide evidence of any voter fraud, and Mr. Hopkins did not say that he had seen any fraud occur. Mr. Hopkins later recanted his allegations, according to a report by the inspector general's office to Congress. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
More than 2.2 million Americans, through no fault of their own, lack access to the clean running water and basic indoor plumbing the rest of us take for granted. Every state is home to entire communities facing this virus without being even able to wash their hands, but the federal government has yet to form an emergency response that addresses their safety. It's no accident that these places tend to be communities of color. Decades ago, they were bypassed by government initiatives to build water infrastructure, and federal funding for water projects is now just a tiny fraction of what it once was. Today, race is the single strongest predictor of whether you have access to a tap or a toilet in your home. Nationwide, Indigenous households are 19 times more likely than white households to lack access to complete plumbing, while African American and Latinx households are nearly twice as likely. It is too soon to say what impact the lack of clean running water has had on the spread of the coronavirus in most of these communities. But in the Navajo Nation, more than 27,000 square miles in the four corners region of the Southwest, more than a third of homes lack running water, and there are more Covid 19 cases per capita than in any state other than New York and New Jersey. In parts of California's Central Valley, where tap water is too tainted by agricultural chemicals and other contaminants to drink, mothers have formed water sharing groups on Facebook to get around the bottled water purchasing limits at many stores. Remote communities in Alaska rely on "washeterias" shared laundry and shower facilities that typically provide two washers and two dryers for an entire village. That makes social distancing difficult, to say the least. And across the country, the more than 500,000 Americans experiencing homelessness face some of the most difficult barriers to water access. These conditions are making the virus more powerful than it should be, endangering all of us. But this is not an intractable challenge. We can close America's water access gap. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
The axolotl, sometimes called the Mexican walking fish, is a cheerful tube sock with four legs, a crown of feathery gills and a long, tapered tail fin. It can be pale pink, golden, gray or black, speckled or not, with a countenance resembling the "slightly smiling face" emoji. Unusual among amphibians for not undergoing metamorphosis, it reaches sexual maturity and spends its life as a giant tadpole baby. According to Aztec legend, the first of these smiling salamanders was a god who transformed himself to avoid sacrifice. Today, wild axolotls face an uncertain future. Threatened by habitat degradation and imported fish, they can only be found in the canals of Lake Xochimilco, in the far south of Mexico City. Captive axolotls, however, are thriving in labs around the world. In a paper published Thursday in Genome Research, a team of researchers has reported the most complete assembly of DNA yet for the striking amphibians. Their work paves the way for advances in human regenerative medicine. Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. Many animals can perform some degree of regeneration, but axolotls seem almost limitless in their capabilities. As long as you don't cut off their heads, they can "grow back a nearly perfect replica" of just about any body part, including up to half of their brain, said Jeramiah Smith, an associate professor of biology at the University of Kentucky and an author of the paper. To understand how they evolved these healing superpowers, Dr. Smith and his colleagues looked to the axolotl's DNA. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
This article contains spoilers for Season 6, Episode 1 of "Empire." The last time "Empire" fans saw Jussie Smollett on the show, he was getting married to the love of his life, looking jubilant in a white tuxedo and dancing with his new husband while family drama swirled around him. At that point, Mr. Smollett's character, Jamal Lyon, was the focal point of the show: Fans watched him fret over his vows and patch up a last minute fight with his fiance before they walked down the aisle. But during the Season 6 premiere of the Fox hip hop drama, which aired on Tuesday, Jamal was a mere footnote. The character simply evaporated from the Lyons's world except for one brief conversation that seemed engineered to explain his disappearance. In that scene, Jamal's mother, Cookie Lyon (Taraji P. Henson), is sitting in her kitchen with Becky Williams (Gabourey Sidibe), a good friend of Jamal's and a former employee of the Empire Entertainment media company. They're both in slumber party attire (Cookie is wearing a sleep mask pulled up above her forehead). When Cookie pokes fun at Becky's cat covered pink onesie, Becky says it's the kind of outfit she used to wear to sleepovers with Jamal. "No wonder that boy ran off to London," Cookie jokes. "I thought he was running away from Lyon drama," Becky says, pausing before she gets serious. "I really miss him." "Please don't get me started; I miss him so much," Cookie replies, before quickly diverting the conversation. "Anyway, why do we need to have this slumber party?" It was a fleeting 20 second exchange that attempted to tie up the loose ends of months of real life controversy. In February, "Empire" was filming the final episodes of its fifth season when Mr. Smollett was arrested and accused of paying two acquaintances to stage a racist and homophobic hate crime against himself in downtown Chicago. The producers of "Empire" later announced that Mr. Smollett would not appear in the final two episodes of the season. The question of whether Mr. Smollett would appear in the show's sixth and final season remained. After weeks of uncertainty, Lee Daniels, one of the show's creators, posted a tweet saying that Mr. Smollett would not be returning. In August, a Fox executive confirmed that there were no plans for him to appear in the sixth season. There is plenty of precedent for writing television characters out of fictional worlds when the actors force their hand. Kevin Spacey was fired from "House of Cards" after he was accused of sexual misconduct in 2017. (His character, the egomaniacal politician Frank Underwood, was killed off .) After Roseanne Barr posted a racist tweet, the "Roseanne" reboot on ABC was canceled and spun off into a show called "The Conners." (In the new show, Ms. Barr's character has died from an opioid overdose.) Charlie Sheen's character in the CBS sitcom "Two and a Half Men" also suffered his own demise because of the actor's behavior. Warner Bros. fired Mr. Sheen from the show in 2011, citing as reasons his "dangerously self destructive conduct," drug and alcohol abuse and his assault of his former wife. (Mr. Sheen's character was written out of the script.) So far, the "Empire" writers have been less morbid, deciding to give Jamal convenient reasons to be offscreen rather than killing his character off. In the Season 5 finale, which aired in May, Jamal's brother Andre is hospitalized with a life threatening medical problem. It would have seemed odd for Jamal not to be at his brother's hospital bed like everyone else, so Cookie has a brief phone call with her son in the waiting room to explain his absence. "He's stuck at the Seychelles," she says, seemingly referring to Jamal's honeymoon destination. "There's a storm. He can't get a flight out." Mr. Smollett's felony charges for allegedly orchestrating the hate crime were dropped in March, but the actor's legal troubles are far from over. A special prosecutor was tasked with investigating every detail of what happened on that night in January, when Mr. Smollett says he was attacked, and whether there was any misconduct in how officials handled the investigation and prosecution. Mr. Smollett is also fighting a lawsuit filed by the City of Chicago, which is demanding that he reimburse them for more than 1,800 overtime hours spent investigating his hate crime report. That case is expected to go to trial next year. If the "Empire" premiere was predictive of the rest of Season 6, all of the characters, including Jamal, will be overshadowed by the brash, fast talking "Empire" matriarch, Cookie. She has a new gig at a talk show and seems uninterested in going back to building a life around her husband, Lucious Lyon. In an interview at the Emmy Awards on Sunday, Ms. Henson emphasized her own character's centrality to the show's final episodes. "It's not about the empire anymore, it's not about Lucious anymore, it's not about our kids," she said. "It's about her." Still, Ms. Henson had some words of support for Mr. Smollett, who had the backing of some of the show's central cast members throughout the ordeal. "We miss Jussie," she said. "He's family to us. There's no way we can throw five years of family away." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
For a Dying Father of the Bride, a Wedding Built in 24 Hours Sarah Richards and Wyeth Killip were legally married on June 3 at the Renaissance Hotel in Cincinnati. More than a year earlier, they exchanged vows in an unofficial ceremony that took about 24 hours to prepare but created a moment that the father of the bride had waited a lifetime to see. Their journey toward marriage moved quickly when Mr. Killip became engaged to Ms. Richards on the first day of April 2016, beneath a vanishing sun at a picnic in Cincinnati, where he did more than just propose. Mr. Killip also let his future bride know he had every intention of honoring a vow he had already made that her father, Dr. Arthur Isaac Richards, who became ill the year before, would be able to attend her wedding. So Mr. Killip glanced at his watch, looked up and asked Ms. Richards something that sounded like an April Fool's joke: "How about marrying me tomorrow?" Already overcome with emotion, Ms. Richards had a hard time processing the logistics surrounding the question. Her parents lived in Cincinnati, Mr. Killip's parents and a sister lived in Kansas City, Mo., and two other sisters were even farther away, one in Denver and the other in Stuttgart, Germany. And many of their friends were in Manhattan, where the couple worked and shared an apartment. "You can't be serious," Ms. Richards told Mr. Killip, pointing out that doctors had already called for hospice care for her father. "It's just not possible." But for Mr. Killip, who had already beaten great odds just to meet Ms. Richards in the first place, anything was possible. Ms. Richards, now 30 and an executive account director for Conde Nast, had met Mr. Killip, now 35 and chief executive of WonderTech, a toy manufacturer, on Memorial Day 2011. They were at a bar on the Lower East Side when Mr. Killip's friends playfully questioned his ability to get the phone number of a beautiful woman. "Pick anyone here, I'll go talk to her!" Mr. Killip told them. They chose Ms. Richards, whom Mr. Killip described as "gorgeous, with blue eyes and beautiful blond hair." "In a whole sea of faces, all I saw was hers," he said. Out of that chance moment between strangers came a couple that grew close to each other's families, often spending holidays together in the ensuing years. At an outing with Ms. Richards's family in Colorado in July 2015, Mr. Killip taught Dr. Richards fly fishing, and later they shared a gondola ride high in the mountains. They had been clowning around during the ride when their conversation suddenly turned serious. "You know, if you were to marry Sarah, you would have my blessings," Dr. Richards said. Mr. Killip thanked him, and they continued to "banter back and forth," Mr. Killip said. "Sarah's dad had hinted to me many times that he wanted to see us get married," he added. "I wasn't about to disappoint him." So less than a year after that gondola ride, Mr. Killip would not let a lack of time prevent the father of his bride from attending the wedding. He told his fiancee that he had already been making preparations and that the initial phase of his plan was about to take flight. "My family is on standby, waiting for my call," he told her. "They can hop on planes and be here tomorrow." "I knew how badly my dad wanted to be there on my wedding day, and it was heartbreaking because Wyeth and I weren't even engaged yet," she recalled, her voice beginning to crack. "But now we had this opportunity, so I said, 'Sure, let's go for it.'" Mr. Killip looked at his watch again. Even though it was nearing 7:15 p.m., he set the next day's ceremony for roughly the same time, leaving 24 hours to grant the wish of a lifetime to Dr. Richards, who had peripheral T cell lymphoma, in which the T cells become cancerous. After returning to Ms. Richards's family home to celebrate their engagement with Champagne toasts in the company of her father and mother, Ms. Richards and Mr. Killip immediately began making plans for what they called a "spiritual ceremony." After a successful search, Mrs. Monahan Nathan raced over to the nearest FedEx office, but it was after 9 p.m., and the office was closed and could not accept any additional packages. "She starting crying and pleading with people there to ship the package," Ms. Richards said. "One of the drivers overheard and took the box from her. He wrote the mailing information in pencil and had no receipt or tracking number to give her, but miraculously, the package got to me the very next morning." "He was very tired after that, and went to lie down," said Ms. Richards, beginning to cry. "But he never really got up again." "It was an incredible rush of emotions, absolutely insane," Ms. Richards said. "But in the end, my dad got his wish, and that's all we really wanted." She decided to wait to have the legal ceremony. "It's been very hard," she said. "But I kept getting stronger, both mentally and emotionally, until I was strong enough to move forward again." They were officially married on June 3, when Rabbi Kamrass returned to officiate in what was a black tie affair. The bride's mother, Cathy Richards, who walked her daughter down the aisle, said she felt as though her husband had not missed the second ceremony either. "I could feel his presence," she said. "I feel my dad's presence every day," she said. "When I walked down the aisle, I was thinking, 'Be strong,' and how much I wish he could have been there. He would have been proud and overjoyed for us." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Mountain gorillas are faring better perhaps because some humans just won't listen to reason. Last Thursday there was a bit of good news relating to the impending extinction and destruction of everything. The mountain gorilla, a subspecies of the Eastern gorilla, was upgraded from critically endangered to endangered. There still are only about 1,000 of them, up from a low point of a few hundred, so it's not like they were declared vulnerable (better than endangered), or just fine (not a real category). And the Eastern gorilla as a species overall is still critically endangered. But the mountain gorillas are in fact doing better, according to the announcement from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. It bases its decisions on information gathered from scientists and conservation experts. The gorillas' population has been increasing for about 30 years. And it has taken a tremendous amount of struggle and work to get this far. That raises a question: If things have improved so much for an animal in such a dire situation as the mountain gorilla, should we then give in to hope? Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. I know this isn't the accepted way of speaking about the planet and its creatures. In public discourse, hope is the one thing you should never give up. But in our minds (well, in my mind, anyway, and I can't be the only one), the reasoning behind that often expressed sentiment is not so clear. What if a rational look at the facts points in the other direction? What if, for instance, the planet were getting warmer every year, and there was a lack of political will to try to stop the trend? What if we were in the middle of a mass extinction caused by humans? Imagine, just for a moment, that the planet had 7.7 billion people, who had already used up a lot of the space for bears and wolves and lions and oh, I don't know gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans. Suppose that all of the great apes were either endangered or critically endangered. Of course, all those things are actually true. Perhaps I am blinded by my own pessimism, but I do often wonder whether hope is a rational response to reality. On the other hand, hope does seem to have played a role in the mountain gorillas' rebound. After we reduced them to a point where it seemed they would go extinct by the year 2000, some humans worked incredibly hard to protect them. And the gorillas survived, even through the very dark period of the Rwandan genocide. Their success so far, according to Tara Stoinski, a scientist who has studied gorillas for more than 20 years and is the head of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, is the result of intensive work, of the gorillas' charismatic appeal, of the buy in to conservation on the part of government, and finally the result of an extremely high commitment of resources that she calls "extreme conservation." The gorillas are watched over by lots of field staff 20 times the global average per square kilometer in protected areas. What makes that possible is ecotourism, which is made possible by the great charisma of gorillas. If they were legless skinks, it might be hard to work up that kind of support. But that is a quibble. What is clear is that irrational hope combined with dedication and decades of work culminated in pulling back mountain gorillas one step from the brink. So, should we give in to hope? I think that Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford professor, neuroscientist, author of many books and giver of many talks, has the answer. He's a public science star of sorts. He may not be as well known as Neil deGrasse Tyson, but he's doing pretty well for a (self described) strident atheist who points out in his recent book, "Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst," that free will, the way we usually imagine it, is an illusion. He's not a Pollyanna, is my point. No sugarcoating from Dr. Sapolsky. But, surprisingly, he is an eloquent admirer of certain forms of irrationality. He gave a funny, rich and convincing talk in 2009 to Stanford seniors on what separates humans from animals. I know it's not brand new, but I still turn to it occasionally because it's so clear and persuasive. It has more than 400,000 views online. After describing many differences between humans and animals, even our close relatives, like the mountain gorillas, Dr. Sapolsky presents what he sees as one of the most remarkable human qualities: the ability to hold on to two contradictory ideas at once and find a way forward. His main example is Sister Helen Prejean, who wrote the book "Dead Man Walking," based on her work ministering to death row inmates. She said that the more unforgivable the sin, the more it must be forgiven, and the more unlovable the person, the more important it is to love him or her. That is not, Dr. Sapolsky argues, a conclusion any animal could come to. But a human can spend her life acting on that conviction. And that ability, he said, is the "most irrational, magnificent thing that we are capable of as a species." In fact, he tells the Stanford graduates to be that this is precisely what they need to do. He acknowledges that they have probably learned enough to realize that it's impossible for any one person to make a difference in the world. But, "the more clearly, absolutely, utterly, irrevocably, unchangeably clear it is that it is impossible for you to make a difference and make the world better, the more you must." I'm sure this is completely obvious to people who actually do things, rather than write about them: that you don't have to give in to hope, but that you shouldn't always give in to reason, either. If you take the long view, the good news for gorillas may be a bit like a Mega Millions lottery ticket. But somebody won more than a billion dollars recently. Dr. Sapolsky's concluding challenge to the well educated, well connected, savvy Stanford seniors could be taken to heart by anyone burdened by the weight and apparent rationality of their own pessimism, which may be why I've listened to it more than once. "There's nobody out there who is in a better position to be able to sustain a contradiction like this for your entire life and use it as a moral imperative. So do it." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
"I think if Monk was alive, he'd be really, really annoyed with me," the pianist Jed Distler said recently. "He knew exactly how he wanted his music to sound." Mr. Distler was discussing the latest and most ambitious recording of his career: a full on reckoning, alone at the piano, with the monumental songbook of Thelonious Monk, roughly 70 pieces in all. And he was admitting, unapologetically, that he'd done it his way: making outrageous choices and intentionally bucking the caution with which jazz musicians tend to approach Monk's tunes. Over the past few years, small groups have occasionally tackled Monk's complete songbook, the most referenced body of work in jazz. But until last month, no solo artist was known to have recorded the whole catalog. Now, two have. Mr. Distler's piano version will be released in the coming months on TNC Recordings. But he was unexpectedly beaten to the punch by the guitarist Miles Okazaki, who on Aug. 15 released his Monk compendium, "Work," on Bandcamp, without fanfare or warning. Solo is an especially meaningful format for Monk. He came up in the gospel and stride traditions, in which solo piano predominated. Even when playing with a quartet in the busiest years of his career, he used the entire keyboard to symphonic effect sounding like a solo pianist even as he left big patches of wide open space. And when playing other people's music, solo piano was his preferred method. In his covers of Tin Pan Alley tunes he did them with tenderness, ardor and humor he seemed to spend an entire song seeing how rhythmically emphatic he could make the melody feel, but without corrupting its cadence. The first of its kind, Mr. Okazaki's release sent a stir of excitement through the jazz world. A committed experimentalist who recently ended a decade long stint with the influential musician Steve Coleman, Mr. Okazaki had something different in mind than Mr. Distler's irreverence. He wanted to pay dutiful tribute, while also using the Monk songbook to expand his own approach to the guitar. "It's like a crystal," Mr. Okazaki said of Monk's music in an interview. "It's got all these angles inside of it; it's not just linear. It's three dimensional, and there's counterpoint. And it's African rhythmically." For each of the 70 tunes on "Work," Mr. Okazaki listened closely to a single recording by Monk, homing in on the details. That's in line with the composer's practice: Monk insisted on teaching his music to bandmates by ear, so they could catch his inflections and emphases. Mr. Okazaki used no overdubs or effects and never changed a piece's key, time signature or central melody. But he arrived at an engrossing, nearly five hour collection that sounds entirely new. On his rendition of "Light Blue," a swaying, mesmeric ballad, Mr. Okazaki makes it through the melody twice using only single notes, piquant and quavering, with no chords. On "Nutty," he veers toward the traditional intimating Monk's stride piano technique by way of early ragtime guitar, then running through a rising sequence of diminished chords like a bebop guitarist. Throughout the album, especially when Mr. Okazaki chucks out fast and syncopated undercurrents on the lowest strings, you can feel the influence of Mr. Coleman, whose music draws from across the African diaspora to make a thick bodied, often unswinging funk. Mr. Distler, on the other hand, said he worked primarily from paper lead sheets and scores rather than by listening closely to records. Also a composer, radio D.J. and critic, he began playing the full Monk book a few years ago in marathon concerts. His style in this repertory is jocular to the point of insouciance unsurprising, considering his past works include easy listening interpretations of Beethoven and Brahms, and a string quartet called "Mister Softee Variations." Even if you recognize the melodies, Mr. Distler's recordings feel almost nothing like Monk. The up tempo jounce of "Monk's Dream" and "Criss Cross" has been turned into surface skimming, 12 tone dashes, with debts to Cage and Stockhausen. "Bemsha Swing" has undergone a conversion from Caribbean pseudo blues to slippery, Debussy influenced glide. On "Light Blue," despite the tune's gentle nature, Monk tended to lean hard on the highest note of each phrase, using it to pivot hard back down. Mr. Distler does almost the opposite he lets that note drift, becoming the top of a gentle arc. Elsewhere in the piece, he waits a little bit less than Monk would have between chords, erasing the potato sack thwack of syncopation that typically defines the tune. Still, I'm not so sure Mr. Distler is right that Monk would come out hard against him. His interpretations are so distant from the originals that I can almost see Monk laughing at the whole thing with bemused satisfaction. Early in the 2000s, the experimental German pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach became the first to record Monk's entire oeuvre when his quartet made "Monk's Casino," an effort caught, to its detriment, between Mr. Okazaki's purposeful devotion and Mr. Distler's devil may care playfulness. Frank Kimbrough, a straight ahead pianist, recently made his own 70 song collection with his quartet, featuring rather by the book readings of Monk's tunes; that will come out in November on Sunnyside Records. But Mr. Okazaki and Mr. Distler are the only known solo completists. Last year, when I attended a festival at Duke University celebrating Monk's 100th birthday, I was reminded how deeply in touch Monk was with the elements of dance the physicality and weight of motion. In his solo piano playing, at a halting mid tempo, he often sounds like someone learning a step, holding and testing a pose, cogitating. (His versions of "Darn That Dream" or "Sweet and Lovely," from "Solo Monk," illustrate the point.) A heap of Monk tribute discs arrived during the centennial last year, and one that got unfairly buried was Min Xiao Fen's "Mao, Monk and Me," a moving solo album just seven tunes, not 70 with outside the lines renditions of two Monk classics, "Ask Me Now" and "Misterioso." Playing the pipa, a Chinese lute, she brought her own history to the pieces while seeming to savor crucial elements of Monk's genius: his thorough, ringing engagement with his instrument's strings; his percussiveness; his capering between zips and blasts and meaningful silence. At Duke, I noticed that, while the jazz world is increasingly defined by pluralism lapping up influences from across the cultural spectrum Monk's influence stands tall and firm, a kind of grounding force and perhaps the genre's closest thing to a unit of artistic measure. But it's no coincidence that, as the art form has begun to borrow more from other traditions, the stuff that was once inviolable within jazz is now available for new experimentation. Hence, solo Monk: both Mr. Distler's cheeky humor and Mr. Okazaki's affectionate daring. Take your pick. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
Viruses attached to a fragment of a bacterial cell wall. "Viruses modulate the function and evolution of all living things," scientists wrote last year. "But to what extent remains a mystery." High in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Spain, an international team of researchers set out four buckets to gather a shower of viruses falling from the sky. Scientists have surmised there is a stream of viruses circling the planet, above the planet's weather systems but below the level of airline travel. Very little is known about this realm, and that's why the number of deposited viruses stunned the team in Spain. Each day, they calculated, some 800 million viruses cascade onto every square meter of the planet. Most of the globe trotting viruses are swept into the air by sea spray, and lesser numbers arrive in dust storms. "Unimpeded by friction with the surface of the Earth, you can travel great distances, and so intercontinental travel is quite easy" for viruses, said Curtis Suttle, a marine virologist at the University of British Columbia. "It wouldn't be unusual to find things swept up in Africa being deposited in North America." The study by Dr. Suttle and his colleagues, published earlier this year in the International Society of Microbial Ecology Journal, was the first to count the number of viruses falling onto the planet. The research, though, is not designed to study influenza or other illnesses, but to get a better sense of the "virosphere," the world of viruses on the planet. Generally it's assumed these viruses originate on the planet and are swept upward, but some researchers theorize that viruses actually may originate in the atmosphere. (There is a small group of researchers who believe viruses may even have come here from outer space, an idea known as panspermia.) Whatever the case, viruses are the most abundant entities on the planet by far. While Dr. Suttle's team found hundreds of millions of viruses in a square meter, they counted tens of millions of bacteria in the same space. Mostly thought of as infectious agents, viruses are much more than that. It's hard to overstate the central role that viruses play in the world: They're essential to everything from our immune system to our gut microbiome, to the ecosystems on land and sea, to climate regulation and the evolution of all species. Viruses contain a vast diverse array of unknown genes and spread them to other species. Do viruses even fit the definition of something alive? While they are top predators of the microbial world, they lack the ability to reproduce and so must take over the cell of a host called an infection and use its machinery to replicate. The virus injects its own DNA into the host; sometimes those new genes are useful to the host and become part of its genome. Researchers recently identified an ancient virus that inserted its DNA into the genomes of four limbed animals that were human ancestors. That snippet of genetic code, called ARC, is part of the nervous system of modern humans and plays a role in human consciousness nerve communication, memory formation and higher order thinking. Between 40 percent and 80 percent of the human genome may be linked to ancient viral invasions. Viruses and their prey are also big players in the world's ecosystems. Much research now is aimed at factoring their processes into our understanding of how the planet works. "If you could weigh all the living material in the oceans, 95 percent of it is stuff is you can't see, and they are responsible for supplying half the oxygen on the planet," Dr. Suttle said. In laboratory experiments, he has filtered viruses out of seawater but left their prey, bacteria. When that happens, plankton in the water stop growing. That's because when preying viruses infect and take out one species of microbe they are very specific predators they liberate nutrients in them, such as nitrogen, that feed other species of bacteria. In the same way, an elk killed by a wolf becomes food for ravens, coyotes and other species. As plankton grow, they take in carbon dioxide and create oxygen. One study estimated that viruses in the ocean cause a trillion trillion infections every second, destroying some 20 percent of all bacterial cells in the sea daily. Viruses help keep ecosystems in balance by changing the composition of microbial communities. As toxic algae blooms spread in the ocean, for example, they are brought to heel by a virus that attacks the algae and causes it to explode and die, ending the outbreak in as little as a day. While some viruses and other organisms have evolved together and have achieved a kind of balance, an invasive virus can cause rapid, widespread changes and even lead to extinction. West Nile virus has changed the composition of bird communities in much of the United States, killing crows and favoring ravens, some researchers say. Multiple extinctions of birds in Hawaii are predicted as the mosquito borne avipoxvirus spreads into mountain forests where it was once too cold for mosquitoes to live. When species disappear, the changes can ripple through an ecosystem. A textbook example is a viral disease called rinderpest. "The impact was not just on the animals. But because they are primary grazers and they died off in huge numbers, vegetation was impacted, and it allowed trees to grow where they would have been grazed away," he said. "The large acacia trees on the plains of Africa are all the same age and were seedlings when rinderpest first came in and the wildlife died," Dr. Daszak said. In other places, far less grazing created a hospitable habitat for the tsetse fly, which carries the parasites that cause sleeping sickness. "These kinds of ecological changes can last for centuries or even millennia," Dr. Daszak said. Combined with drought, large numbers of people died from starvation as rinderpest spread. An explorer in 1891 estimated two thirds of the Masai people, who depended on cattle, were killed. "Almost instantaneously, rinderpest swept away the wealth of tropical Africa," wrote John Reader in his book "Africa: A Biography of a Continent." With intensive vaccinations, rinderpest was completely wiped out, not only in Africa but globally in 2011. The beneficial effects of viruses are much less known, especially among plants. "There are huge questions in wild systems about what viruses are doing there," said Marilyn Roossinck, who studies viral ecology in plants at Pennsylvania State University. "We have never found deleterious effects from a virus in the wild." A grass found in the high temperature soils of Yellowstone's geothermal areas, for example, needs a fungus to grow in the extreme environment. In turn, the fungus needs a virus. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Low on the horizon, the sun casts an eerie light on the icy sea. For several hours, the glow transforms the colorless terrain into shades of pink as the sun does not rise or set, but edges to the side traveling in a semicircle before slowly sinking one last time. I am far north in the Arctic Ocean, and polar winter has just begun. Every year, the North Pole tips away from the sun and the region is plunged into darkness for months, meaning that t he sun will disappear with a final sunset in the fall and reappear with an initial sunrise in the spring. But precisely c alculating these dates is challengin g . In the Arctic, the air temperature slowly decreases the higher you get above the sea. Then it significantly increases a temperature inversion that causes a change in air density. That makes light from the sun bend around the horizon, similar to the way your arm appears to bend below water. The result is the sun seeming to hang in the sky even after it has physically dropped below the horizon. If fluctuating weather allows you to see it. The location and strength of the temperature inversion changes daily and occasionally hourly making it difficult to predict when this odd effect will occur. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Colbert on Ukraine Evidence: 'You Don't Write the Crime Down, You Dummy' 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. On Tuesday, just a day before the House's articles of impeachment against President Trump were delivered to the Senate, Democrats released new evidence that had been turned over by Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian businessman. He provided handwritten notes (some on Ritz Carlton stationery) and other records detailing his work with Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, to pressure Ukraine's president into announcing an investigation of Joe Biden. "Yesterday, the House Intelligence Committee released materials that they got from Parnas that have been described as 'a trove of ridiculously incriminating impeachment evidence.' That's pretty bad, because when it comes to Trump crime, the scale goes: incriminating, very incriminating, ridiculously incriminating and Rudy on merlot." STEPHEN COLBERT "It turns out that one of Rudy Giuliani's associates, Lev Parnas, actually wrote a note that said, 'Get Zelensky to announce that the Biden case will be investigated.' Trump was furious. He was like, 'You stayed at the Ritz instead of one of my hotels?'" JIMMY FALLON "Seriously? They wrote down the plot of their crime and then kept it? That is a literal paper trail." TREVOR NOAH "You don't write the crime down, you dummy! It didn't help that the next note was 'leave paper trail of impeachable offenses' and 'steal Ritz Carlton stationery.'" STEPHEN COLBERT "In the final note, in big, bold letters at the bottom of the page, Parnas writes what is perhaps the most incriminating word of all: 'Rudy.' You have to write it down because if you say his name three times, he appears on Fox News and incriminates you in a crime." STEPHEN COLBERT "These guys are a lot dumber than the criminals on T.V. Those criminals are always using burner phones and switching cars, meeting in back alleys. In real life, these guys were texting each other and putting up posters on telephone poles that said, 'Looking for thugs to do crimes. This is for Trump as citizen, not as president. He is my friend, here is picture of us.'" SETH MEYERS The Punchiest Punchlines (Talk to the Hand Edition) "Following last night's debate, Senator Elizabeth Warren appeared to turn down a handshake from Senator Bernie Sanders also, a foot rub from Joe Biden." SETH MEYERS "Warren accuses Sanders of calling her a liar. Then he says she called him a liar. Look, there is a very easy way to settle this: You're politicians, you're both liars." JAMES CORDEN "There's been a lot of speculation about what was being said. Some said they weren't arguing, some said she didn't want to shake Bernie's hand because it smells like Brylcreem and gefilte fish." JIMMY KIMMEL "Bernie looks like a Delta gate agent who caught someone in zone two trying to board in zone one." JIMMY FALLON "This was the last debate before the Iowa caucus, and if we're having fights, they should be about how to protect reproductive rights and how to fight gun violence and how Biden looks like he got run through the 'Irishman' de aging machine." SAMANTHA BEE "And by the way, how cute is Tom Steyer? He is like oblivious to the whole tense situation. He's just he's so cheerful. He's just like: 'Wow, what a fun debate, guys. You guys thinking what I am thinking T.G.I. Fridays? No, Bernie? Applebee's? What do you want?'" TREVOR NOAH "I mean, for socialists they're not very social." JAMES CORDEN Abby McEnany, creator and star of "Work in Progress," reunited with her former Second City instructor, Stephen Colbert, on "The Late Show." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
How Hard Can It Be to Choose a Hardwood Floor? If you have flooring you don't like whether it's carpet, vinyl or unappealing wood it can feel like there's no way to escape it, no matter how many rugs you pile on top. But if you have floors you love, walking across them can be a daily pleasure. That's because the floor is the base upon which all other decorating decisions are built. Change your floors, and you change the character of your home. It's as simple as that. So it's no surprise that new floors specifically, hardwood floors are at the top of many renovation wish lists. Not all wood floors, however, are equally appealing or appropriate for every space. The wood flooring industry has evolved considerably in recent years, as wider planks have increased in popularity and finish and installation options have expanded. Given all the choices now available, we asked architects and flooring professionals for advice on how to pick the right one. Browsing through flooring samples to choose a type of wood and a color for your new floor is probably the most enjoyable part of the process. At this stage, much depends on personal preference and your overall vision for your home. One of the most popular species is white oak, a classic, durable and widely available wood. "It can also take stain very well," said Chris Sy, the president of Carlisle Wide Plank Floors. That means it can be customized for a wide variety of aesthetics, from bleached off white to ebony. Other types of wood offer different looks. "Hickory has a lot of color variation, from light tones to dark tones," Mr. Sy said. Those who want a rich, darker brown usually select walnut, while those who prefer blonder wood may opt for maple or birch. As for choosing a stain, the current trend is toward subtle colors that leave the wood with a natural look. Some designers even eschew stain altogether. "We don't ever recommend staining floors," said Elizabeth Roberts, an architect in Brooklyn, though she does occasionally use oak darkened by a process called fuming. If you're having trouble deciding which species and color is best for your home, consider the other wood elements in the room, Mr. Bertelli suggested. If you have walnut cabinetry, for instance, a walnut floor is an easy match; if you have oak doors, oak floors are a natural choice. "Limit the palette," he said, "to make it more tranquil and serene." With flat sawn (or plain sawn) boards, the grain has a wavy appearance. "The defining feature is this arching 'cathedral,'" said Jamie Hammel, using the industry name for the pattern. Mr. Hammel, the owner of the Hudson Company, a supplier of wood flooring and paneling, noted that quarter sawn boards offer a more linear appearance, with faint striping: "The prized feature are these medullary rays, which some people call tiger stripes." Rift sawn boards offer the straightest, cleanest grain, whereas live sawn boards may include all types of grain patterns. A floor can use one cut exclusively, or can incorporate various types of cuts. A mix of quarter and rift sawn boards, for instance, is a popular option for flooring with understated grain patterns. For a warm, woodsy appearance, using only flat sawn boards might be the best option. Another major decision is whether to buy prefinished flooring, sold with its final color and topcoat in place, or unfinished flooring that can be stained and finished by an installer after it's put down. One of the advantages of prefinished flooring is that it can be installed very quickly, usually in a single day. When floors are finished on site, the home has to be vacated to allow for sanding, staining and finishing, including drying time. "It's very messy work, and it's very important that nobody step on it for days, or weeks, at a time," Ms. Roberts said. "It really alters the construction schedule." Because prefinished flooring is made in a factory, companies can also produce it with a wide range of exotic finishes that might be difficult for an installer to recreate on site and with great consistency. "You know what you're going to get," said Jane Kim, an architect in New York. Some installers who do their own finishing, she noted, "may not have the experience to get the color you want, especially if you want shades of gray or a really pale finish." A key difference, however, is that prefinished boards usually have beveled edges to allow for slight irregularities, which creates more pronounced lines between the boards after installation. Because unfinished flooring is sanded flat after it is installed, the finished floor typically looks more like a solid plane, without gaps. Water based polyurethanes have grown in popularity in recent years, and the finishing sheen can range from matte to glossy. A polyurethane finish is very durable, but once damaged or worn, it can be difficult to repair, Mr. Hammel said, because it typically requires refinishing an entire board, if not the whole floor. An alternative is an oil based finish. "Oil penetrates into the wood and therefore tends to make it look a bit richer," he said. And because it doesn't leave a film on top of the wood, it allows for relatively easy spot repairs. The downside to an oil finish is that it requires more regular maintenance. "An oil floor will dry out over time," Mr. Hammel said. "But it can be easily refreshed, with more oil." More complicated installation patterns also tend to increase the overall cost of the floor, as they require additional labor for installation and result in more wasted wood from the multitude of cuts. How do you decide which board width and installation pattern is best? Consider the proportions of your space, and the style you want: Bigger rooms tend to look better with wider boards, and a herringbone or chevron pattern adds a touch of tradition. You can also mix it up. Ms. Roberts sometimes uses wider boards and complicated installation patterns in the primary living spaces, and narrower boards in a straightforward arrangement in secondary spaces, like hallways and bedrooms. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
WHAT IS IT? The only light duty pickup truck with diesel power, at least for now. HOW MUCH? Prices start at 30,690 for a basic Tradesman EcoDiesel work truck with roll your own windows. The Laramie Limited crew cab test vehicle with 4 wheel drive, leather interior and air suspension totaled 58,015. WHAT'S UNDER THE HOOD? An Italian 3 liter turbodiesel V6 with a German 8 speed automatic transmission. IS IT THIRSTY? Nope. This is the most fuel efficient full size pickup, with an E.P.A. rating of 19 m.p.g in town, 27 highway. ALTERNATIVES None. No other brand offers a diesel engine in half ton truck. By rolling out the market's only half ton diesel pickup in a time of tightening fuel economy standards, the Ram brand (formerly known as Dodge) gives its corporate parent, Fiat Chrysler, a chance to stand out from its competitors. But along with the attention comes criticism. Skeptics point out that the hefty costs of diesel both the fuel and the engine option may outweigh its mileage benefits. Indeed, the V6 engine, produced by a Fiat subsidiary, VM Motori, comes at a premium of 2,850 over a 5.7 liter Hemi V8 and fully 4,500 more than a base 3.6 liter V6. Add in the higher cost of diesel fuel on average, 23 cents a gallon more than regular gasoline, the Energy Department says as well as the requisite fill ups of diesel exhaust fluid at about 22 worth every 10,000 miles, and it could take years before the efficiency of a compression ignition engine starts to pay back. Shoppers should not overlook other benefits of a diesel engine, though: the potential to haul more, a longer service life and a higher value at trade in time. The V6 turbodiesel offers a ho hum 240 horsepower but makes up for it with 420 pound feet of torque, on par with a gasoline V8 and enough to get the truck in front of a 9,200 pound trailer. Paired with an 8 speed automatic transmission, the Ram runs through the gears with polished manners. A 2 wheel drive Ram EcoDiesel carries an impressive fuel economy rating of 28 m.p.g. on the highway, making that 3 liter V6 a worthy competitor to V8 impersonators like Ford's 3.5 liter V6 EcoBoost, rated at just 22 m.p.g. on highway. During a weeklong test drive, I got 20.5 m.p.g. in mostly stop and go traffic. The diesel V6's closest rival in terms of fuel economy is another Ram, the gasoline 3.6 liter V6, which has a highway rating of 25 m.p.g. The diesel's range also is impressive, with an estimated 728 miles between fill ups. I liked that Ram included a gauge showing the level of diesel exhaust fluid; other brands do not provide much advance warning of the fluid running low. With all that diesel torque engaging the pavement, it's a blast to drive. Acceleration from a stoplight is a bit lazy at first but as the turbo spins up, a powerful jolt quickly follows. And it's well refined. With the windows rolled up, I could barely detect the diesel's typical clatter. Thanks to its emission controls, there was not a whiff of smoke visible from the tailpipe, either. Getting a grip around the steering wheel could be a challenge for smallish hands it feels about as thick as a baseball bat but the electric power steering is nicely tuned. I felt as if I were engaged with a machine; some systems feel more like a bowl of oatmeal spinning in your hands. Ram's UConnect touch screen boots up quickly and responds well to voice commands, something that can't be said for some other trucks. As much fun as driving the diesel Ram is, you're still left wondering if all this was worth the high price. The company is not worried about shoppers understanding the long term value story. Ram predicts that the EcoDiesel will command 15 percent of its half ton pickup sales in the next year. "They've asked for a light duty diesel for years," Bob Hegbloom, Ram's brand director, said of the truck's customers. Soon, the EcoDiesel will have company. Nissan is working with Cummins to build a 5 liter V8 option for its next generation Titan pickup, while Chevrolet next year will introduce a Duramax 4 cylinder for its new Colorado midsize pickup. Other brands are rumored to be following suit. For the time being, the V6 EcoDiesel's energetic performance and segment leading mileage stands out among full size pickups. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
Most states have conducted very little coronavirus testing within prisons, but when they have, results have been shocking. Not far from Marion, the Pickaway Correctional Institution reported a rate of about 77 percent in April. At the Neuse Correctional Institution in North Carolina, 65 percent of the 700 prisoners tested positive. This humanitarian crisis could have been prevented if officials had heeded warnings about the danger of contamination in overcrowded and unsanitary prisons. But this devastating reality also now allows scientists to better understand the effects of the coronavirus within a population that was overwhelmingly and recently exposed to it. Researchers should therefore study and treat medically residents of the Marion Correctional Institution or a similar prison. This population is large enough to draw statistically significant conclusions, and their exposure was both recent and synchronous, which helps to overcome the problem of asymptomatic people not showing up in the testing data. It seems a thorough study and analysis of incarcerated people could help to establish the proportions of these groups: 1) people who have not been infected (but still may be vulnerable, unless they are somehow immune or not susceptible); 2) people who are infected and asymptomatic (though likely "carriers"); 3) people with mild symptoms who have made or will make a full recovery; 4) people with severe symptoms that may result in lasting health damage; and 5) people who have died of Covid 19. As of now, in society overall, there is no reliable way to estimate the percentage of people who would fall into these five categories, as most of the attention has focused on tracking the raw numbers in Categories 4 and 5. Yet Categories 1, 2, and 3 and especially a better understanding of the proportions across all five represent the key to a national recovery. One remarkable observation already emerging from the prison data shows how beneficial such a study could be: an analysis by Reuters revealed that 96 percent of those who tested positive in prisons in four states did not experience any symptoms. Of course, it is perhaps early in the infection cycle, and health problems may still emerge. But even if, say, 60 percent of prisoners were in Categories 1 and 2, while most of the others were in Category 3, this would seem to support an earlier reopening. If, however, the final proportions showed that only 30 percent were in Categories 1 and 2, another 30 percent in Category 3, but a full 40 percent in Categories 4 and 5, then the findings would justify much greater caution and a delayed reopening until a vaccine materializes. True, the U.S. prison population is not fully representative. But since Covid 19 seems to have more harmful effects on men, African Americans and people with chronic health problems, the findings from a prison study might slightly overestimate and certainly wouldn't underestimate Covid 19's negative health consequences. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
With his late brother Tom Magliozzi, Ray Magliozzi hosted the National Public Radio show "Car Talk," now airing as "The Best of Car Talk," , for 25 years. Since ending the show in 2012, Ray Magliozzi has continued to write a syndicated column on cars and contribute to the Car Talk website, which attracts the motor obsessed as well as fans of the Magliozzis' infectious humor. Recently, Mr. Magliozzi took a trip to Cuba, where midcentury American cars famously rule the roads. Following are edited excerpts from a conversation with him. Q. What cars did you find in Cuba and how are they possibly still running? A. So the 1959 Cuban revolution takes place, and at that time there were predominantly American cars on the road and American parts and dealerships, like an adjunct of what you'd see in Florida. Then the embargo starts and no one knew how long it was going to last. But they had parts available so the cars kept running. Then when they ran out of parts, they had a lot of "parts cars." That lasted about 20 to 25 years of cannibalizing cars. Who knows how many it takes now to make one car, but when they ran out of what could be scavenged, they ran into ingenuity. What we saw were beautiful cars. The 1957 Chevy taxi we rode in was beautifully maintained. But it was not original by any means. A lot of cars had Hyundai diesel engines. They've taken out the original engines and transmissions and transplanted a Hyundai drivetrain. These are simple and durable and relatively new. Those vintage cars are outwardly restored American cars, and if you didn't know any better, you'd say, "Wow," but that's part of their ingenuity to rip out engines and create something more reliable and newer and something you can get parts for. What's your impression of the car community in Havana? On the first day, we were picked up in an old Ford and a '56 Chevy. They took us for a ride down what's called Avenida Quinta where all the fancy houses were. I was surprised at how many people were out for a Sunday drive. I think it's because Cubans love cars, and they love them even more because they can't have them, especially since cars are so central to their culture. They are obviously doing business it's one of the few businesses allowed and they're doing it because they get a great satisfaction from taking something banged up and making it work again. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
N.F.L. Settlement With Kaepernick and Reid Is Said to Be Much Less Than 10 Million The N.F.L. will pay considerably less than 10 million in its settlement of grievances filed by Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid, according to two people with knowledge of the agreement who were not authorized to speak publicly. Specifics of the settlement were not disclosed when the deal was reached Feb. 15, ending an 18 month standoff over claims by Kaepernick and Reid, former teammates with the San Francisco 49ers, that they had been denied jobs in the league because they knelt through the national anthem before games. They accused the league's 32 teams of colluding to keep them out of the sport. Much of the settlement will cover the fees of lawyers representing Kaepernick and Reid, one of the people with the knowledge of the agreement said Thursday, and the players will receive smaller, roughly equal amounts. The Wall Street Journal first reported the estimated amount of the settlement, which included a confidentiality agreement. An N.F.L. spokesman and one of Kaepernick's lawyers declined to comment on Thursday, referring to the confidentiality agreement. 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. Kaepernick, 31, a quarterback who led the 49ers to the Super Bowl in the 2012 season, has not played since the 2016 season, when he started to kneel in protest of racial injustice after several unarmed African Americans were killed by the police. He filed a collusion grievance in October 2017, seven months after he became a free agent. Since he left the 49ers, no team has offered him a contract or brought him in for a tryout, even though quarterbacks with less impressive statistics were signed. In 2016, his last season in the league, Kaepernick earned 14.3 million. Through the grievance, he was seeking the compensation he might have earned had he been signed as a free agent in 2017. That theoretical amount, had he won the case, would have been doubled for damages. The league tried to have the cases thrown out, but in August 2018, an arbitrator said there was enough evidence to allow the grievances to proceed. This would have allowed the players' lawyers to present their cases in something akin to a trial in front of the arbitrator. They were expected to call owners and league executives as witnesses in April. Reid returned to the N.F.L. about a month into last season, signing a one year contract with the Carolina Panthers in September for a base salary of 823,000, far less than the 5.7 million he earned the year before with the 49ers. Reid resumed his protests and in the off season signed a three year extension worth about 22 million. Reid said that the contract did not change his contention that he had been blackballed and that he still believed that owners were colluding against Kaepernick. Even though he remained out of the game, Kaepernick's fame only grew, and his case loomed over the N.F.L. Amnesty International gave him its Ambassador of Conscience award last spring, and as the season began, Kaepernick signed a multiyear deal with Nike that made him a face of the 30th anniversary of the sports apparel company's "Just Do It" campaign. Kaepernick was featured on billboards and in television commercials. His presence was also felt at the Super Bowl. Several musical artists, saying they supported Kaepernick, promised not to appear at the halftime show if invited. The league ultimately hired Maroon 5. The league's owners will gather for their annual meeting starting Sunday in Phoenix. At last year's meeting, the news media focused heavily on Kaepernick's absence and on the N.F.L.'s position on whether players should be required to stand on the field for the anthem. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
MOUNT DESERT ROCK, Me. From the top of the six story lighthouse, water stretches beyond the horizon in every direction. A foghorn bleats twice at 22 second intervals, interrupting the endless chatter of herring gulls. At least twice a day, beginning shortly after dawn, researchers climb steps and ladders and crawl through a modest glass doorway to scan the surrounding sea, looking for the distinctive spout of a whale. This chunk of rock, about 25 nautical miles from Bar Harbor, is part of a global effort to track and learn more about one of the sea's most majestic and endangered creatures. So far this year, the small number of sightings here have underscored the growing perils along the East Coast to both humpback whales and North Atlantic right whales. This past summer, the numbers of humpback whales identified from the rock were abysmal the team saw only eight instead of the usual dozens. Fifty three humpbacks have died in the last 19 months, many after colliding with boats or fishing gear. "Food is becoming more patchy and less reliable, so animals are moving around more," said Scott Kraus, vice president and chief scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium. "The more you move around, the higher the chance of entanglements." The North Atlantic right whales, which prefer colder waters, are also on a changed course with even more dire consequences. Fifteen of the animals have died since mid April in a population that has now slipped to fewer than 450. "We haven't seen this level of mortality in right whales since we stopped whaling them" in coastal New England in the 1700s, said Dr. Kraus. Digital algorithms make identifications a little easier, dividing the photos into categories of fluke patterns, mainly by determining how much of the tail is white or black. But researchers, including Lindsey Jones, a graduate student at the College of the Atlantic, which runs the station, must still look through several thousand images one by one to match by eye. It should be possible to build a better algorithm, but no one in the small, dedicated field of whale research has the funding to pay for one. Luckily, some matches are easy. Researchers on the island see many Gulf of Maine whales often enough that they recognize them on sight. The high number of humpback deaths from January 2016 to Sept. 1 of this year led the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to declare an "unusual mortality event." No one knows exactly what's going on, but the agency's investigations attributed half of the deaths to ship strikes. Mr. DenDanto and several investigators with Allied Whale, a group affiliated with the College of the Atlantic, plan to begin a research project next year, analyzing bits of skin from humpbacks, collected using biopsy darts, to determine what the animals are eating and how that affects their health. Steven Katona, a co founder of Allied Whale, was one of the first researchers to begin identifying whales here in the 1970s. Dr. Katona and his collaborators took pictures for the humpback whale catalog, which later confirmed their hunches that fluke patterns were consistent across a whale's lifetime. In 1975, they named one of the first North Atlantic humpbacks na00008, or Number 8. The whale has been spotted three times since: in Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence in the 1980s, off the coast of the Dominican Republic in 1993, and earlier this year off the coast of New Jersey. "We have only a handful of sightings of this whale, yet these link together the efforts of collaborators spanning much of the North Atlantic," Peter T. Stevick, a senior scientist with the North Atlantic Humpback Whale Catalog, said in an email. The catalog has also allowed researchers to see that the whales breed at the edge of the Caribbean Sea, then fan out to traditional feeding areas, from the East Coast to Newfoundland, Labrador, Greenland and Iceland. Understanding the whales' behavior remains key to helping them survive in warming waters shared with fishermen and ships, said Judy Allen, associate director of Allied Whale. "These are animals that are difficult to study," Ms. Allen said. "They spend most of their lives underwater. We see a brief glimpse when they lift their tails out of the water and somebody happens to be there with a camera." Right whales are generally seen in the Gulf of Maine, the coast of the Canadian Maritimes and the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the summer. In the winter, pregnant females and others migrate along the Eastern Seaboard to the Southeast. They don't have distinctive flukes; their bodies are wider, and they're less graceful than their humpback cousins. So researchers identify them using the pattern of each animal's "callosity" the roughened skin patches on their heads. Because these formations can only be seen from the top, scientists must use planes and boats to track them. Researchers based on Cape Cod begin flying in the winter months when right whales, which can grow as long as a five story building, seek out food and social interaction in the waters off Massachusetts. The low flying plane rides are so dangerous that scientists undergo "dunk training," learning to survive if the plane drops into the frigid sea, miles from shore. The North Atlantic Right Whale Catalog, managed by the New England Aquarium, includes images of 722 whales, chronicling the population since the early 1970s. The work has been particularly crucial this year, when there have been so many unexplained deaths. Twelve carcasses have turned up so far this year in Canada and three more in American waters; only five calves were born, as far as researchers can tell. The latest estimates, released by the New England Aquarium, put the population of North Atlantic right whales at 458 but that was before this year's deaths, Dr. Kraus said. Flying 750 to 1,000 feet over the animals also allows researchers to check on their health, making sure they are not dragging fishing ropes or bearing new scars, said Charles "Stormy" Mayo, director of the Right Whale Ecology Program at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Mass. Right whales are baleen whales, so they filter feed, supporting their 70 ton weight nearly as much as the Space Shuttle solely with microscopic animals called zooplankton. That search can push whales into shipping lanes, where the animals are sometimes struck, or into the gear of fishing boats. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
A severe, rapid allergic reaction calls for a dose of epinephrine as soon as possible. The medicine counteracts potentially dangerous symptoms, such as a plunge in blood pressure and closing of the airways. In extreme cases, it can mean the difference between life and death. Yet, according to a new study, when children experience serious allergy attacks, known as anaphylaxis, parents, teachers, emergency responders and other caregivers often fail to administer epinephrine even to children who had previously experienced anaphylaxis and been prescribed an epinephrine autoinjector. The research suggests a need for more education, showing caregivers "how to use the autoinjectors and walking them through what signs to look for," said Melissa Robinson, an allergist and lead author of the study, published in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in July. Analyzing more than 400 patient records of children and young adults from Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, Dr. Robinson's group found that only 36 percent of patients experiencing anaphylaxis received epinephrine before arriving at the emergency department. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Yola Jimenez's all women mezcal business began with her grandfather. In the late 1960s, he bought a farm in Oaxaca near his home in San Juan Del Rio, Mexico, and began experimenting with agave cultivation. It was a passion project that grew; eventually he spent more time making mezcal than he did at his day job. "My grandfather was progressive and was illiterate until he went to college and became an engineer," Ms. Jimenez said recently from her company's headquarters, in a house in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. "He only made it for his friends and family. He made it for the love of mezcal." That love spread to Ms. Jimenez, 35, who was born and raised in Mexico City. She opened a mezcal bar there in 2008, where she served versions of her grandfather's liquor along with other unique and obscure varieties. As the bar grew in popularity, the idea of taking on her family's mezcal farm and hiring only women to distill, bottle and sell the product became a reality. "Some of them are the granddaughters of the distillery's original workers," Ms. Jimenez said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. President Trump has become so shameless about subverting the public interest to his political self interest that Big Pharma not generally regarded as the most civic minded of entities is now scrambling to control the damage. On Tuesday, nine drug companies issued a joint pledge that when it came to releasing a vaccine for the coronavirus, they would "stand with science" and "make the safety and well being of vaccinated individuals our top priority." They vowed to follow the guidance of the appropriate regulators and to make decisions based on "large, high quality clinical studies," as is standard protocol. "We believe this pledge will help ensure public confidence in the rigorous scientific and regulatory process by which Covid 19 vaccines are evaluated and may ultimately be approved," the companies said. As P.R. strategies go, it may seem odd for drugmakers to offer unsolicited assurances that they will not cut corners on safety. This feels a little bit like a server at Olive Garden greeting customers with a promise not to spit in their iced tea. Why even raise the possibility? Health experts with actual scientific knowledge including key administration officials involved in the development process have suggested that this timeline is overly optimistic. The politicization of the issue has unsettled voters. In a recent survey by the Harris Poll and STAT News, 78 percent of respondents 72 percent of Republicans and 82 percent of Democrats expressed concern that the vaccine approval process was "being driven more by politics than science." Eighty three percent said that if a vaccine were approved quickly, they would worry about its safety. To be fair, Mr. Trump did not single handedly destroy the public's confidence in government regulators. Government bashing has been a Republican staple for decades, with special enmity reserved for regulatory agencies, which, in the view of many conservatives, serve only to pervert the beauty and rationality of the market. As with so many of his party's longstanding lines of attack, Mr. Trump has distilled the disdain for government expertise and oversight to its toxic essence. On one level, it's befuddling to see drug companies pitching themselves as guardians of the public good. Big Pharma has a well earned reputation as being synonymous with Big Greed. Practically speaking, the new joint statement doesn't do all that much. It is, for instance, somewhat vague about precisely what requirements the companies would meet before seeking emergency authorization. But from a messaging standpoint, the pledge is illuminating. Even the most avaricious drug executives recognize that absent a baseline of public confidence in their products, the companies' bottom lines will suffer. Mr. Trump is destroying that baseline. Vaccine safety was already a sensitive subject. Anti vaxxers stand ready to spread fear and conspiracy theories without any political provocation. (The "Plandemic" conspiracy that exploded on social media, which claims the coronavirus is the handiwork of a sinister band of elites, features a big dose of anti vax nuttiness.) The last thing drug companies want is for the president to fuel fears about the integrity of a coronavirus vaccine. Last weekend, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden's newly minted running mate, voiced hesitation about receiving any vaccine that might emerge before Election Day. "I would not trust Donald Trump, and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he's talking about," she told CNN. "I will not take his word for it." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
LONDON Greece appeared to have clinched a landmark debt restructuring deal with its private sector lenders late Thursday. The deal would clear the way for the release of bailout funds from Europe and the International Monetary Fund that would save the country from default. Given all the twists and turns in the recent negotiations, and the ups and downs in Greece's long debt struggle, something could still go wrong at the last minute, participants said. But most bond investors and government officials were expecting a positive outcome on the deal, which would help buy additional time for a European crisis that has recently shown signs of cooling down. Greek officials said the total number of participants in the deal would be announced at 6 a.m. Friday, London time 1 a.m. Friday in New York. Stock markets in Europe were buoyant Thursday. The interest rates on the government debt of Italy and Spain were down as fears eased that a Greece default might start a panic among holders of other indebted European nations' bonds. The European Central Bank also had a calming effect when it said on Thursday that it would hold a crucial interest rate steady on signs that the region's economy and financial markets were stabilizing. According to two officials closely involved in the debt negotiations, the participation rate could surpass 90 percent, a level that few would have predicted weeks ago. Greece will still need to impose so called collective action clauses provisions that will force the holdouts to accept the offer. But to pull that trigger with a number of 90 percent or better would put Greece in a much better position legally if some investors challenged the swap. "It's a done deal," said Hans Humes, the president and chief investment officer of Greylock Capital Management in New York, whose fund is a member of the committee of banks that negotiated the transaction. One remaining wild card in the deal was the 20 billion euros ( 26.5 billion) of Greek bonds governed by foreign law, which gives creditors better legal protection than the local law bonds. The foreign law securities have attracted the attention of potential holdouts, at least some of which are speculators that bought them at a discount on the open market in hopes of extracting a better deal. Petros Christodoulou, the head of Greece's debt management agency, has told wavering bondholders that there will be no sweetheart deals for holdouts. "We know what money we have and we know what money we don't have," he said during a recent interview. "My blood curdles to think what happens if this deal does not get done." Dollar Tree will raise prices to 1.25 by the end of April. The Institute of International Finance, the global banking body that has represented private bondholders in the discussion, circulated a confidential memorandum to European leaders recently estimating that a disorderly default by Greece, which could result in the nation's departure from the 17 nation euro monetary union, could result in losses to banks, corporations and governments of as much as a trillion euros. Although many considered the memo a scare tactic, it nevertheless seemed to have had an effect on some of the potential holdouts. When the alternative was put in such stark terms, many investors evidently concluded it would be better to accept the swap giving them a package of foreign law Greek bonds, as well as securities from Europe's financial rescue fund than to end up with nearly worthless bonds subject to Greek law. The value of Greek 10 year bonds recently hit a record low of 16 cents on the euro. "This is the best offer they can make to investors," said Ioannis Sokos, a bond analyst at BNP Paribas. "Because at the end of the day Greece has no cash." Still, many foreign investors say they believe that even with a successful debt swap, the Greek debt burden will remain untenable well above the 120 percent of Greece's gross domestic product that the I.M.F. considers the highest sustainable level. And with the Greek economy still in free fall and the makeup of the next government uncertain, many analysts contend that Athens may have to restructure its debt yet again within a year or so. Against that possibility, some hedge funds and other investors are already talking about the prospect of eventually buying the new foreign law bonds at rock bottom prices and then fighting Greece in courts outside the country in hopes of earning a handsome profit. A successful swap deal right now would also leave much of Greece's debt in the hands of official lenders like the European Central Bank and the I.M.F. Those institutions might ultimately face large losses themselves if Greece cannot find a way to manage its finances without further bailouts. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Global Business |
My wife sent me a text: "Molly is going to call you with news. Be happy." The call came, and the news: Our older daughter, Molly Jane, 26, who has lived in Russia since she went to graduate school there four years ago, was engaged to marry her current boyfriend, Pavel Shushkov, known as Pasha, whom she had been dating for a little over a year and a half. The wedding was set for the Fourth of July in St. Petersburg, Russia. Now, in my completely objective opinion, Molly, who works as an editor for an online news service that covers cryptocurrency, is brilliant and beautiful and generally wonderful in all ways (as is odd coincidence her sister) and has delighted me and enriched my life since the day she was born. It had occasionally crossed my mind that my daughters might someday marry, but who would be worthy of them? A Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist? A Google millionaire genius? Doubtful. Somehow, it had never occurred to me to put "32 year old Russian pet food wholesaler" on the list. We had met Pasha. He was slim and handsome and friendly and seemed like a very nice guy, although I expected we could determine that for sure if he ever learned to speak English. Which he doesn't. (Molly speaks Russian.) Then, over the Christmas break last year, we spent a week with Molly and Pasha in France, and my wife observed, and pointed out to me, that he was kind, and that he was not only good to Molly, he was also good for Molly (gently calming her when she got impatient with her annoying parents). I listened and acknowledged the importance of all that, and, of course, no one cared what I thought anyway. So I started to prepare for the wedding. I renewed my Russian visa, and bought plane tickets to St. Petersburg, and signed up for a night school Russian class. I had actually taken one high school semester of Russian in 1966, but all I remembered how to say in Russian was "notebook," "thank you," and "I do not understand Russian." My night school classmates included several people who were engaged or married to Russians, plus a female Buddhist monk with a shaved head and a surprisingly assertive attitude for a Buddhist monk. We were all making progress, and I was learning essential words. "Hello, everybody." "My name is Edward." And the one letter symbols for men's and women's bathrooms. Molly, of course, was preparing as well, entering the twilight zone of Russian bureaucracy compiling, translating and submitting a library of required documents, which at one point required a 900 mile round trip to Moscow from St. Petersburg, and, at the last minute, a frantic dash between the migration service and the migration police. Less stressful activities included booking a time slot in a grand pre Soviet building that houses a branch of ZAGS, the government agency that performs all Russian marriages. Then she booked an old imperial palace for the wedding party, and hired her favorite band, and started thinking about her hair and her dress. Sign up for Love Letter and always get the latest in Modern Love, weddings, and relationships in the news by email. Which was almost a catastrophe, as she and Pasha were in the country of Georgia when Russia announced that its borders were about to close to noncitizens. Molly would have flown back immediately to St. Petersburg, but there are no flights between Russia and Georgia (the two countries have a hostile relationship owing to Russian support for two secessionist Georgian regions). Molly scrambled to catch a 6 a.m. flight from Tbilisi to Istanbul and then a flight from Istanbul to St. Petersburg that landed a few hours before the border was closed. Pasha traveled overland, which entailed a mileslong hike on a snowy mountain road between the Georgian border post (beyond which his Georgian taxi would not drive) and the Russian border, and he and Molly managed to reunite in St. Petersburg in the apartment they already shared. But what about us? I kept thinking the pandemic would abate. It did not. I kept hoping flights from New York to Russia would resume and I could take my chances. They did not. I considered and abandoned a backup plan of flying to Helsinki and swimming from there. We kept in touch with Molly and Pasha via Zoom and FaceTime. One occasion was an online birthday party for our younger daughter, who lives in Chicago. For birthday decor, my wife and I had a picture of a balloon she had drawn on a piece of printer paper with a Sharpie. Pasha and Molly, quarantined in their apartment, had festooned it with banners and actual balloons. Pasha, wearing a goofy party hat, said hello and a few more words in English (he's learning). Then he pulled out a ukulele and sang a soulful birthday song originated by an animated crocodile in a Soviet era children's show. It was ridiculous, and he looked ridiculous, but he was warmhearted and wholehearted and entirely un self conscious, making every effort to make a real party of it for his fiancee's sister. And I was happy. This guy just might be good enough. The wedding or, at least, the marriage was still set for July 4. There would be no party, nothing beyond the civil ceremony. Witnesses would be two friends and Pasha's immediate family. The appointment was for noon, which is 5 a.m. in New York. We were up at 4:30 and glued to Zoom. Molly was gorgeous, of course, in a flowing white dress. Pasha wore a pink suit with a checked vest and a lacy white cravat that complemented Molly's arm veils. The bride and groom both wore white sneakers and masks as they assembled with their group outside the wedding venue. Called inside, they walked down an arched stairway into a large ballroom with white trimmed pale green walls and massive chandeliers. They stood, socially distanced, from a dark haired woman in a white dress. As classical music played from unseen speakers, she spoke at some length in a melodious voice. Sitting more than 4,000 miles away in our pajamas, my wife and I did not understand a word she was saying, although I did catch her say Molly's name, and I clearly heard Molly and Pasha both saying one crucial word in response to a question: "Da." Then they embraced, and signed another document, and everyone stood for the playing of "The Hymn of St. Petersburg," which is apparently required, post wedding, in St. Petersburg. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
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