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Sometimes a documentary doesn't know when to leave well enough alone. It's got access to all of the important people, who come through as their most maximal selves. It's got a good story to tell and a life to unpack and tons of old photographs and miles of archival footage to delight, intrigue and astound. If you've got all of that and your documentary is called "Halston," you don't need anything else. And yet for reasons unfathomable to me, the people who made this movie don't trust what they've got: the tale of one of the crucial fashion imaginations in Roy Halston Frowick, who went, titanically, by that middle name. They don't trust the images and interviews animating this thing. They feel compelled to be smart or maybe just ponderously playful about it. So Frederic Tcheng's movie opens the way a Raymond Chandler novel might, with an insinuation of noir, except "Halston" starts in some kind of editing room, in which video players are swallowing cassettes and the actor and writer Tavi Gevinson has to do a lot of lurking and creaking as both the narrator and, what, a production assistant private detective? Somebody erased Halston's precious video archive, and the movie wants to finger the culprit. These early scenes are meant to conjure an air of 1980 something corporate ruthlessness and dour nostalgia ("It was morning again in America," Gevinson says on two different occasions, from a script Tcheng wrote). But who cares about morning. Show me some evening gowns! "Halston" is a juicy business culture story, not a film noir. It's about how this ambitious, soap opera handsome, emotionally opaque man went from Iowan to New Yorker, from serf at Bergdorf Goodman to Merlin of American fashion to shuttlecock in corporate takeover badminton. He made "hot pants" a thing in the 1960s and Ultrasuede shirt dresses a thing in the '70s. His innovation of crafting dresses from a single piece of fabric cutting along the bias was basically a biblical miracle. (Women were completely naked under their Halstons. The man had, we're told, "hands of gold." And the patterns looked "like a Cuisinart blade.") A Halston fashion show was a theatrical event that included, with aberrant nonchalance for the times, black models. Liza Minnelli was and remains a true blue bestie. Both the designer and the brand became essential to ideas of attire in the '70s and early '80s. (The company made uniforms for the Girl Scouts, the folks at Avis, and the American athletes of the '76 Olympics; he cut a deal to glamorize the average woman for J.C. Penney, making him a granddaddy of the mass market fashion collaboration.)
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Movies
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It won't cure your problems, or the world's, but it can't hurt to immerse yourself in the music of Robert Schumann, a man who knew how to love. No less an authority than Sting agrees. I know this because Sting once put his hand supportively on my back while I practiced the postlude of Schumann's song cycle "Dichterliebe," and I haven't washed that shirt since. Robert's life story comes to a harrowing end I won't spoil all the grim details, even more tragic than the median Romantic artist's. Nonetheless, if you take the time to read Judith Chernaik's new biography, "Schumann: The Faces and the Masks," your life outlook may improve. Without hitting you over the head, Chernaik allows you to feel the core of Schumann's story: his love for his wife, Clara, a great concert pianist and formidable muse. Between this and the battle against his own demons to compose truthful music, Schumann's spirit comes across as an antidote to all the hate and perverse self love we are forced to swallow in public affairs, day after day. Read about new biographies of the composers Claude Debussy and Frederic Chopin that are also featured on the cover of The Times Book Review this Sunday Depicting love through music may seem all too easy a job, especially for a composer born in 1810, when brilliant Romantics seemed to be bursting from wombs all over Europe. If you find a good love poem, and write a catchy melody, you might well be done in time for dinner. But as in real life, capturing and prolonging love in music is tricky. Sentiment cloys; melodies repeat; before you know it, instead of the complexity of love as felt, you get a greeting card. Schumann was not scientific by nature, but in this respect he was a master cultivator. He was able to distill in small bits of music usually self enclosed, like emotive petri dishes these unbelievable concoctions of frustration, beauty, bitterness, burning need and radiant joy. One of Schumann's great discoveries was the power of an underexploited area of the harmonic universe. Imagine a chord Y that "wants" to resolve to another chord, Z. Because music is cleverly recursive, you can always find a third chord (let's say X) that wants to go to the first: a chord that wants to go to a chord that wants to go to a chord, or if you will a desire for a desire. Schumann placed a spotlight on this nook of musical language, back a couple of levels from the thing ultimately craved, deep into the interior of the way harmonies pull at our hearts. Another musical principle that haunts Schumann's work, and makes it so ideal for exploration of the kinetic qualities of emotion, is oddly syncopation. He's not after swingy, happy syncopation, the kind you find in ragtime, which lightens a simple tune and makes it feel less foursquare. Schumann's does quite the opposite: It creates baggage under even his most soaring melodies. He writes pulsating accompaniments, moment after moment determined not to be with the main voice, supplying a kind of constant and urgent in between ness, anticipations of the next note or reflections of the last, charging each moment with intensity. But as thrilling as these palpitating accompaniments are obviously sexual in their throbbing and striving the most original and profound of Schumann's syncopations occur when a ghost melody follows the main melody at some distance, an echo blurring the sense of time, making the music seem almost divorced from itself. This sense of being divorced from the self plays a starring role in Chernaik's biography, as it must. Schumann's problems at first are humdrum Romantic complaints: His mother wants him to study law; he has to decide whether to follow his musical heart. He contracts syphilis, alas, and worries about it. But when he is 21, almost as soon as he devotes himself to piano study, two names appear in his diary: Florestan and Eusebius, extrovert and introvert, mascots of Schumann's internal divisions, the "masks" of the book's subtitle. Chernaik, the author of "The Lyrics of Shelley," writes that "Florestan and Eusebius were far more than Romantic doubles. They appeared to him, as real as his student friends." Chernaik gets the incredible essence of this: how he offloaded his difficult emotional world onto an imaginary band of alternative identities, partly for survival, to fight the philistine world on better terms. I wish she had dug a bit further into the way he translated them into music. Florestan's characteristic gesture, for instance, is a surge: a crescendo with no corresponding diminuendo. (Schumann's music is full of these instructions, all in a row; if you took them literally, you would end up playing louder and louder until you or the piano fell apart.) Eusebius' gesture is the circle: a phrase that bends back on itself or oscillates around a mysterious center. The difference is not just contrast. Some of Schumann's most compelling music holds these two forces in tension centrifugal and centripetal, reaching and enfolding. He's therefore able to tap into two veins of tenderness, one overtly adult sensual, the second magically on both ends of the child parent bond young wonder plus aged reverie. In other words, the masks allow Schumann to capture love as a spectrum: He gets more of it than his fellow Romantics, even Chopin, with whom love can sometimes feel like a performance. Chernaik, drawn to this supercharged story and the music, has backed up her affection with solid research. She describes the key family drama with relish: Robert's initial infatuation with his piano teacher's daughter Clara, the rage of the father once the romance is discovered, endless separation, legal wrangles and (at last) some reconciliation. (Once he is happily married, the real troubles begin: Schumann's gifts waging war with the forces tearing him apart.) She narrates plainly, staying far from Schumann's overeffusive style. It isn't a gripping book for the person who already knows Schumann's music and story, but it is perfect for the newcomer, a generous and tremendously useful resource. Schumann's elusive genius has allowed for a lot of naysayers. In a recent Wall Street Journal review of this same biography, the writer gives credit to Chernaik's narrative work but can barely find time to praise Schumann's music. He refers to Schumann's spirit as "exhausting," poking fun at his ardor: "Today's reader might confront such a person and ask him to calm down." He lists standard concert works but omits almost all the essential ones: the joyous, meltingly beautiful Piano Quartet; the Violin Sonata in A minor; and the surge of early piano pieces, including "Carnaval," "Kreisleriana," the "Fantasie" and for many pianists the holiest of holies the "Davidsbundlertanze," a piece that rewards each listening more than the last. Though I don't understand them, Schumann doubters do have rational objections. Unabashed love and rational skepticism are natural companions, even symbiotic enemies. Schumann understood this as well as anyone. The final song of "Dichterliebe," for instance, gives voice to the bitter, skeptical breakup phase of a relationship: "I'm done with it all." The music is ironic, marching, strict, pitch perfect in its adopted pose of detachment. But after the singer goes silent, Schumann uses the pianist for an astounding catharsis. First, a hint of melody, syncopated against a hidden beat, ascending to some unknown goal. Then this melody gathers itself, trying to say something in the absence of words, reaching up once, twice, and a third time reaching the top of the arc of loss (while the singer remains mute, listening to his own sorrow). This phrase arrives without arriving, as life often does; when at last it recedes through various painful notes, you get something like comfort, but with all preceding heartbreak folded in. When you contemplate these great Schumann passages, humble, vulnerable and unflinching in the face of human emotions, it feels heartless to doubt.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Books
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Trump and Congress Both Want Tax Cuts. The Question Is Which Ones. Several economic issues divide many Republicans in Congress from Donald J. Trump, the Republican president elect. Free trade versus tariffs to limit imports. Immigration reform versus a border wall. Cutting Social Security and other benefit programs versus protecting them. But one economic matter unites just about every member of the Republican party: support for tax cuts, particularly for those at the top of the income ladder. Whatever fault lines have emerged during this campaign, the belief that lower taxes targeted at "job creators" will unleash a roar of economic growth crosses them. Both Donald J. Trump and Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker, have released tax proposals that hark back to the supply side programs of the Reagan and George W. Bush eras, promising that the multitrillion dollar cost will be more than offset by the extra revenue flowing into the Treasury from the growth that will follow. "Tax reform is the thing that always unites Republicans," said William Gale, a co director of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center and a former economic adviser to President George H.W. Bush. "I would guess that that's Item 1 on the congressional agenda." House Republicans already have a fairly detailed blueprint for Congress and the White House to follow. "My sense is that Trump doesn't really have the details of a tax reform package that he wants," Mr. Gale said. "He has broad ideas, and then the Congress will go at it and pin down the details. The House blueprint seems like the place to start and may be fairly close to where they finish." That does not mean Mr. Trump will not have his own ideas. Mr. Gale expects a Trump White House to insist on continuing a deduction for interest paid on debt financed projects, a provision dear to real estate developers. (The House plan proposes ending the deduction, instead allowing businesses to immediately deduct expenses and investments.) While sweeping tax cuts were never a crusading theme of Mr. Trump's, they have long been near the top of Mr. Ryan's agenda. And Mr. Trump has suggested he would be happy to let Congress take the lead. "They'll have to take the temperature of the White House to see what pieces of Trump's campaign promises have to be incorporated into that," said Douglas Holtz Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and now president of the American Action Forum, a conservative economic advocacy group. "But I assume the House tax plan is the starting point." There is certainly a significant overlap. Both would cut income tax rates across the board and keep rates low on income from investments, an approach intended to spur savings that effectively guarantees the juiciest cuts for the wealthy. An analysis of Mr. Trump's latest plan by the Tax Policy Center calculated that the top 0.1 percent of the population, those with incomes over 3.7 million in 2016, would receive an average 14 percent reduction, or about 1.1 million. Households in the middle of the scale those earning between about 48,000 and 83,000 today would get a 1.8 percent tax cut worth on average 1,010, while the poorest fifth of Americans will gain about 110, or 1 percent of their income. Both Mr. Trump's and Mr. Ryan's plans eliminate a deep rooted Republican bete noire, the estate tax on bequests to heirs. Under today's code, it falls on only 0.2 percent of households, since it applies only to estates worth more than 10.9 million for a married couple. Their plans, in conjunction with rejecting the Affordable Care Act, drop the 3.8 percent surtax on high earners' investment income, which helps pay for health coverage for lower income Americans. Both also take aim at the alternative minimum tax, which was originally established to make sure that those earning high incomes do not entirely escape taxes by invoking certain deductions but now falls mostly on the upper middle class in affluent regions of the country. Lowering the tax on capital gains which also benefits the wealthy the most draws wide support among the leadership headed for both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in 2017 as well. Retail earnings and Black Friday: the week in business. Elizabeth Holmes will resume her testimony in her fraud trial. Republicans say they also want to provide some tax cuts for those lower on the income ladder. Senator Marco Rubio, who was re elected to represent Florida after his failed presidential bid, favors increasing the child tax credit; Mr. Ryan, who is working closely with Kevin Brady of Texas, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, supports expanding the earned income tax credit to poor working families without children. Mr. Trump has suggested he wants to provide tax cuts to two income families with children as well. For all the similarities, there are important differences as well. The biggest contrast between Mr. Trump's and Mr. Ryan's tax approaches can be seen on the corporate side, where they differ on how to tax capital investment and debt. They also differ on the proposed tax rate for most small businesses. The most compelling target for business tax reform is the roughly 2.6 trillion that American corporations like Apple, General Electric, Microsoft and Pfizer have kept abroad on an extended tax holiday, out of the Internal Revenue Service's reach. "Everyone agrees that the foreign tax situation is ludicrous because it doesn't raise any revenue and keeps several trillion dollars abroad," said Robert Pozen, a senior lecturer at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management. Mr. Trump has said he was determined to get multinational companies to pay their American tax bills every year, although the sting would not be as great since he would also cut corporate rates and allow credits for foreign taxes paid. By contrast, the House Republicans have been pushing for what is known as a territorial system, which would tax all businesses solely on what goods and services they sold in the United States. The flaw in a territorial approach, Mr. Pozen and other economists have pointed out, is that it encourages businesses to shop the world for lower tax rates, ultimately shifting even more profits and jobs overseas. "Why is that good for a president who wants to have more jobs and more facilities in the U.S.?" Mr. Pozen asked. "I don't see how you can reconcile those goals under a territorial system."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Economy
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Every summer as Americans slather on sun lotion, they are reminded of the dangers of skin cancer. This year alone, more than 76,000 people in the United States will develop melanoma, the deadliest form of the disease, and about 10,000 will die from it. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said on Tuesday, however, that there still isn't enough evidence to recommend total body screenings and declined to take a position on the practice. In short, the 17 member independent panel said that it could not determine after reviewing thousands of research papers and studies from around the world whether the benefits of screening outweighed the potential for harm if unnecessary or excessive procedures were performed. One particular study that the task force relied upon concluded that full body screenings only reduced deaths from melanoma by one death per 100,000 people screened. Published in the journal JAMA, the statement by the task force essentially reiterates the position it took in 2009 and has reignited debate on the issue at the height of the summer season. To decide whether you should get screened, here are some guideposts on skin cancer research and the views of some experts. There are three types: squamous cell carcinoma, basal cell carcinoma and melanoma. Squamous and basal are grouped together into nonmelanoma skin cancers and are by far the most prevalent form of the disease, making up about 98 percent of cases. They are also rarely fatal, making up only about 0.1 percent of skin cancer deaths. Melanoma poses a much bigger threat. In 2015, there were 73,870 diagnoses and 9,940 deaths in the United States. Who is most at risk? Those who have had melanoma, or who have a family history of the disease, and people who have more than 100 moles on their bodies are most likely to develop the disease. The task force did not include this high risk group in its study. White men 65 and older are at higher risk than the rest of the general population. People with light skin are also more prone to developing skin cancer than people of color, though they too can get melanoma. What do doctors look for in a screening? There are the A B C D E's to identify potentially troublesome skin lesions: asymmetrical, when one half doesn't match the other; borders of the lesion that look uneven or ragged; colors that differ from one another; diameter larger than 6 millimeters, about the size of a pencil eraser; evolving lesions over time. What is the Preventive Services Task Force? Members of the United States Preventive Services Task Force are appointed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The 16 member panel of preventive medicine and epidemiology experts is independent of the federal agency, and advises medical professionals on screenings. What did the task force find? For patients without signs or symptoms of skin cancer, the task force decided there was insufficient evidence to make recommendations either for or against skin examinations by clinicians. The statement also relied heavily on a large German study that found that skin cancer screenings decreased melanoma deaths in the region by only about one death per 100,000 people screened. Dr. Michael Pignone, a member of the task force, said that he was frustrated that the task force couldn't offer more definitive guidance. "But I feel good that we can't overstate what we know and what we don't know," he added. Dr. Hensin Tsao from Massachusetts General Hospital, who wrote an editorial that accompanied the task force's statement, cautioned that patients and doctors should not over interpret the task force's decision. "It is important to note that 'insufficient evidence' does not translate to 'evidence of inadequacy,' " he said. "What we're lacking is a high quality study that would tell us what the reduction in death from skin cancer, specifically melanoma, would be," Dr. Pignone said. "We just don't have that large scale randomized trial of screening versus no screening to give us a good sense of the reduction that comes from screening." How can a screening be harmful? The task force identifies three potential problems: scarring, misdiagnosis and overdiagnosis. Cosmetic damage caused by repeated biopsies can lead to scarring, according to Dr. Pignone. Although there are no hard numbers to support an increase in misdiagnosis and overdiagnosis, the potential for unnecessary treatment could be classified as a harm. "These are small, slow or not growing melanomas that if they were not ever found they wouldn't have caused any problem in a person's lifetime," Dr. Pignone said. "Instead we find them in screenings, and a person has to undergo a more extreme type of treatment that gives them no benefit because that melanoma wouldn't have caused any harm." But not everyone agrees with the task force. "It's a travesty to suggest that the harm from a little biopsy would outweigh the benefit of finding a melanoma early," said Dr. Deborah Sarnoff, a dermatologist and senior vice president of the Skin Cancer Foundation, a nonprofit organization. "I would hate for someone to read it and not get something checked because there is 'insufficient evidence' It doesn't come with a billboard saying 'I am melanocarcinoma.' " "The best recommendation at this point is to talk to your doctor and decide together what to do," Dr. Pignone said. The American College of Physicians and the American College of Preventive Medicine do not have any current recommendations on skin cancer screenings. The American Academy of Family Physicians, like the task force, concluded there was not enough evidence to provide a recommendation on the benefits and harms. The American Cancer Society, which had earlier recommended that people 20 and older should have their skin examined as part of a regular checkup, responded to Tuesday's news by saying that it does not advise getting annual exams. "Dermatologists know that skin cancer screenings can save lives," Dr. Abel Torres, president of the American Academy of Dermatology, said in a statement. "We know that screenings, which are noninvasive, quick and painless, are the best tool possible to detect skin cancer early when it is most treatable." "As a dermatologist I personally believe that inspection of the skin is part of a good physical exam since many skin disorders can be easily detected by simply looking," Dr. Tsao said. "Everyone should probably have their skin examined by a physician or health care provider at some point during their early adulthood."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Health
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Q. A previous column explained how to download specific files from Google Photos, but I need to know how to upload a specific album to share with a family group. How do I do this? A. Google Photos can be set to automatically back up all the pictures you take on your smartphone or copy to your computer, so if you have this setting enabled, the pictures have already been uploaded to the online storage space that comes with your Google Account. You just need to select and sort the photos into the album you want to share before sending out a link to the family. Even if you are not using the automatic backup feature, you can manually upload selected photos you want to share online. If you have a folder of images on your computer that you want to upload to Google Photos through your web browser, log in at and drag pictures onto the browser window to transfer them. (As an alternative, you can click the Upload button at the top of the screen and navigate to the folder on your computer to add them.)
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Technology
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Canceling Michael Jackson, it seems, may not be so easy. Since HBO's broadcast last week of "Leaving Neverland" a two part, four hour spotlight on two men who said Mr. Jackson had abused them when they were young boys reams of commentary have been devoted to whether fans could ever listen to "Off the Wall" or "Thriller" again in good conscience. But the numbers show that, at least so far, the popularity of Mr. Jackson's music has not budged. Since the beginning of the year, songs from Mr. Jackson's solo catalog have been streamed 16 million to 17 million times each week in the United States on services like Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal, according to Nielsen. Last week, including the period immediately after the documentary's premiere on March 3 and 4, the total was 16,497,000 streams. Even the daily listening pattern did not vary since the HBO documentary was shown. On the two days of the "Leaving Neverland" premiere, a Sunday and a Monday, Mr. Jackson's streaming numbers dipped below his typical daily average of about 2.3 million but that was in line with the usual streaming pattern of his songs, which tends to peak in the middle of the week. In the three days after the film, those numbers climbed back up. By Thursday the last day for which complete information is available they had risen to 2.5 million. Particularly popular, as always, were hits like "Beat It," "Billie Jean" and "Thriller."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Media
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Virgil Abloh, the founder of Off White and the men's wear designer of Louis Vuitton, is the kind of fashion figure that seems to demand comparison. Almost every profile contains one buried somewhere in the text (or not so buried). He is "the Andy Warhol for our times" (The Guardian), he is "Jeff Koons" (the editor Stefano Tonchi). He is most often and when no individual will do "a Renaissance man." While struggling to explain his ubiquity, his seeming sudden blanketing of the culture, people grasp for someone, anyone, to make sense of his influence. After all, aside from his two fashion day jobs, here is a partial list of the companies and brands with which he has collaborated: Evian, Nike, Vitra, Ikea, Champion, Equinox, Jimmy Choo, Sunglass Hut and McDonald's. Here is a list of galleries and museums where his work has been shown (and sold): the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Galerie Kreo in Paris, Gagosian, the Louvre. He has lectured at the Rhode Island School of Design, the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, and Columbia. But of all the comparisons that have been posited since Mr. Abloh landed in Paris Fashion Week six years ago and began his viral takeover, perhaps the one that gets the strongest reaction is a more fashion centric idea: Mr. Abloh is the Karl Lagerfeld of the millennial generation. "I've been saying that for a while!" said Michael Burke, the chief executive of Louis Vuitton, who hired Mr. Abloh in 2018 and previously, as chief executive of Fendi, worked with Mr. Lagerfeld from 2003 to 2012. But to pretty much everyone else in fashion, it's a blasphemous statement. Almost every time I suggested it to someone while chatting catwalk side during the most recent show season, which since early February has been moving from New York to London to Milan and now Paris, they blanched and said, "Oh, please, no!" or "That's crazy!" or "Is this a joke?" Perhaps it is too early: for both men. Mr. Lagerfeld died only a year ago this fashion month at 85 ish, after more than five decades in fashion, and the industry is still mourning his loss. Mr. Abloh, 39, has been showing a brand for only six years. He's still relatively unproven. But then, attention spans are increasingly short. Mr. Lagerfeld, the designer of Chanel, Fendi and his own line, among many other things, is often viewed as the ultimate fashion figure: a one off creative genius whose imagination and intellect could not be contained in a single brand, and whose understanding of the art of the atelier was unparalleled. He was, above all, a professional designer. He embraces, and propagates, the idea that fashion is not about clothes, but rather totems of community, and that the uniforms of various youth subcultures have a legitimate place in the temple of the elite. There's a suspicion, somehow, that he is scamming the industry; seeing how far he can exploit its own embarrassing desire for cool, its need for visible diversity, and its lust for his millions of Instagram followers. High fashion, after all, is famously white, set in its often old fashioned ways, and yet desperate to appeal to a generation of consumers whom, it suspects, have a very different idea of what matters than the current establishment does. Mr. Abloh exploits, tantalizingly, the promise of all that. People line up for what he is selling, even if they feel like what he is selling is a line. (Maybe because he is selling a line.) This is a moment of reckoning with the world we have wrought, in politics, in technology, in society. And in many ways, the idea that it may be Mr. Abloh who has inherited the Lagerfeld mantle that, in profile, ambition and reach he occupies the same sort of mind/cultural space for the Gen Y and Gen Z consumers and the social media age that Karl occupied for those who came before is simply a pointed reflection of the choices the industry has made when it comes to its own value system and place in the consumer mind set. Mr. Abloh, a black American, grew up in the suburbs outside Chicago, the child of Ghanaian immigrants, studied engineering in college and then architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, worked with Kanye West for a decade, and opened Off White in 2013. His formal industry apprenticeship consisted of six months at Fendi. One comes from the couture tradition; one built his career on street wear. One saw himself as the caretaker of artistic heritage (under Mr. Lagerfeld, Chanel acquired the specialty ateliers of embroiderers, hat makers and cashmere spinners in order to protect them); one has a keen awareness of himself as a harbinger of cultural change and breaker of boundaries. Mr. Abloh is one of the rare black creative directors of a French heritage house, which makes his position particularly freighted and unusual. And yet in many ways they have met in the middle, which is kind of where fashion is these days. Mr. Lagerfeld blithely sprinkled his conversations with erudite references, as does Mr. Abloh, though his tend to be the references of popular intellectualism (Mies van der Rohe, Duchamp, Rem Koolhaas), while Mr. Lagerfeld's were often obscure and extraordinary (the Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen and his 1914 children's book, "East of the Sun and West of the Moon"). In the realm of self branding, Mr. Lagerfeld had a signature look: powdered white ponytail, high collar Hilditch Key white shirt, black fingerless gloves, black jeans. Mr. Abloh has a signature logo: the quotation mark. Mr. Lagerfeld was criticized for doing too much, a lot of it not well enough, as is Mr. Abloh. So far, Mr. Abloh has proved himself best as a designer when building atop a foundation established by someone else. His Vuitton is more interesting than his Off White, which often seems like a pallid copy of other people's ideas, just as Mr. Lagerfeld's Chanel was more effective than his namesake label. When left to create from scratch, the result on both parts was, and has been, less convincing. In the end, Mr. Lagerfeld's most significant contribution to fashion was the way he changed everyone's idea of what it meant to be a great designer, reshaping it in his image as a jack of all brands, able to enter a heritage house and reinvent it with both a sense of history and a willingness to make it relevant for a new cultural moment. He was, as the influencer Bryan Yambao said, the pioneer of "the idea of the multitasking designer." Mr. Abloh is broadening that, to be a jack of all design. John Hoke, the chief design officer of Nike, also called him a "pioneer." Whether that becomes a new benchmark whether Mr. Abloh really is, say, the Jeff Koons to Mr. Lagerfeld's Warhol, as Mr. Tonchi posited is still too early to say. Mr. Abloh has decades left to work. He may turn out to be a flash in the pan, someone who becomes a footnote in fashion history, rather than an era. It is not hard to imagine him leaving clothes behind and heading off into the pop culture technology nexus. In which case the final judgment may depend as much on how the world evolves as how his clothes evolve; whether we continue down the road of reality TV, of value systems shaped as much by convenience as closely held moral codes, of businesses run by likes and follower numbers as much as the desire to create something genuinely new or change direction. When people were trying to wriggle out of the comparison between Mr. Lagerfeld and Mr. Abloh in a diplomatic way, they often said, "fashion has changed so much, the world has changed" that they couldn't possibly connect them. That is true. Precisely because of that, though, Mr. Abloh may not be the Lagerfeld heir we want. But he may be the Lagerfeld heir we have made.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Style
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Mr. Sparks was an editorial assistant; Ms. Walker Hartshorn was the assistant to the editor in chief. "What's interesting is, we were at this lower level, but then we were often asked to help do a gut check of things like newsletters communicating how Bon Appetit was responding to the criticism over race," Mr. Sparks said. "I was being put into the role of a cultural consultant." Mr. Sparks said he had accepted an offer to be an editor at Eater, a Vox Media food site. "Jesse and Ryan were valued members of the team and we worked with them to address their concerns about former leadership at the brand," a Conde Nast spokeswoman said in a statement. "We very much wanted them to be part of the new team under a new editor in chief and offered them enhanced terms to stay through the transition. We respect their decision and wish them the very best." The company separately issued an internal note on Friday on the results of a pay equity study that examined the Bon Appetit video team. The note, which Conde Nast shared with The New York Times, concluded that race had played no part in how team members were compensated. The three journalists who stopped working on the magazine's videos had worked in the Bon Appetit test kitchen, helping to create online content that can rack up millions of views. Two of them said they had been paid unfairly for their work.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Media
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Conceived and directed by Stacy Klein, "Leonora and Alejandro" draws from its two subjects' art and writings, including their stories, novels and memoirs. But the border between reality and dream, conscious and unconscious was porous for them indeed, that ambiguity is one of the foundational elements of Surrealism, a style with which they are commonly associated. And so it is hard to judge the reliability of the memoir "The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky," from which the meet cute details come from. Did Carrington (the sensational Jennifer Johnson) really draw blood from her thigh, pour it in a cup and gave to it Jodorowsky to drink? It's best to just go with the flow. The show, which runs just over an hour, has a narrower focus than the previous Double Edge production in Montclair, "The Grand Parade (of the 20th Century)," but it still feels like a peek into an expansive world a hallucinatory, symbol heavy tour of Carrington's fervid mind. Ms. Klein and Ms. Johnson are particularly adept at rendering her dry wit and her instinctively feminist impulse to create her own spiritual and aesthetic universe, with many references to Carrington's paintings and texts, including a bird (Amanda Miller) as a familiar, a hyena (Travis Coe) pulled from the story "The Debutante," and lots of eggs. Shunning theatrical conventions like plotlines, the show works on its own kooky terms. To fully enjoy it, it is best to follow Carrington's advice to her visitor: "You're trying to intellectualize something desperately, and you are wasting your time," she tells him. "Use your feelings, there is no other way, no alternative way."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Theater
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When the abortion pills arrived in her mailbox this summer, she felt anxious but also in control, knowing she could end her pregnancy entirely in the privacy of her own home. "I was happy that I was going to be able to do it myself and I did not have a nurse there or doctors there staring at me and judging me," she said, asking to be identified only by her middle name, Marie, because she did not want people outside her immediate family to know about her abortion. Marie is part of a small but closely watched research effort to determine whether medical abortions those induced by medicine instead of surgery can be done safely through an online consultation with a doctor and drugs mailed to a woman's home. At a time when access to abortion is being restricted on many fronts, advocates say being able to terminate a pregnancy through telemedicine and mail order drugs would provide a welcome new option for women. Opponents of abortion find the concept dangerous and deeply disturbing. The idea builds on a trend that is helping women obtain birth control more easily. A growing number of smartphone apps and websites now make it possible to get prescription contraceptives without visiting a doctor's office first. The pills Marie and the other women received through the study are not allowed for sale in pharmacies and are usually available only at hospitals and abortion clinics. Australia and the Canadian province of British Columbia allow women to get abortion pills by mail after consulting with a physician or other health care provider via phone or the internet. Several international organizations offer mail service in countries where abortion is otherwise unavailable or severely restricted. The oldest group, Women on Web, based in the Netherlands, has provided abortion medications to about 50,000 women in 130 countries since 2006. The service is not available in the United States, and the Food and Drug Administration warns against buying the drugs over the internet. Having the pills delivered to her home in Hawaii meant that Marie could avoid the cost and time of traveling by plane to the nearest abortion clinic, over 100 miles away in Honolulu or Maui. Once she received them, she set the package aside for a week in her bedroom, waiting until she could schedule time off from her job at McDonald's. The first pill, as expected, had little effect. The next morning, with her mother at her home to watch her toddler, she took the second. Almost immediately, the bleeding and cramping began. Within three hours, her eight week pregnancy was over. She described the pain as a five on a 10 point scale. That night she cooked dinner for her family, and the next day she went back to work. The study Marie participated in is being conducted in four states Hawaii, New York, Oregon and Washington. It is being funded and organized by Gynuity Health Projects, a nonprofit research group focused on reproductive health services that seeks to improve women's access to medical abortions. The F.D.A. has allowed the experiment. Women learn about it when contacting the abortion clinics in the study and other health providers who are aware of the trial. Danco Laboratories, the company that makes the pills, has no plans to seek wider distribution of the medication either through mail order pharmacies or physical ones, a spokeswoman said. It would have to seek the F.D.A.'s permission to do so; the agency can also ask companies to change how their drugs are distributed. "Abortion is a politically charged issue in this country, and there is an extra degree of caution," said the spokeswoman, Abby Long, explaining that research would be needed to support changing the drug's distribution. Of the first 12 women who participated in the study, all in Hawaii, 11 reported they had no complications and one did not take the pills, researchers said. Ten who completed surveys afterward said they were satisfied with the service and would recommend it to a friend, according to the researchers. "It's absolutely an important step forward to expanding access to abortion that is safe and effective and creating options for women," said Susan Wood, director of the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. She was not involved in the study. Anti abortion groups are outraged by the experiment, and their concerns may well carry greater momentum in Washington in the coming months with Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress and Donald Trump winning the presidency on a sharply anti abortion platform. "We have grave concerns about handing out dangerous, life ending drugs without medical supervision because women face great risks for chemical abortions," said Kristi Hamrick, spokeswoman for Americans United for Life. Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, also raised safety concerns. "If pills are sent through the mail, who are they supposed to call if they have a problem?" she said. "There are serious downsides from the pills," she said, adding, "and just talking to someone over a computer and sending pills in the mail, to me, that is just reckless." The process does not allow women to avoid the doctor's office entirely. Using a video hookup on a home computer, a woman first consults with a doctor (or other clinician such as a nurse practitioner) at one of three participating abortion clinics who evaluates her medical history and explains how to take abortion pills and what to expect afterward. She must then get tests including an ultrasound and blood work. If the tests show she is eligible for the study, the clinic sends her a package with pills and instructions via overnight mail. After taking them, she has some additional tests, such as an ultrasound to verify that the abortion is complete and also a phone consultation to review the results. Access to abortion has been declining steadily in the United States as dozens of clinics have been forced to close under new state restrictions. In Texas, the number of clinics fell to 18 in 2015 from 41 in 2012. Five states have just one clinic that offers abortions. Medical abortions require women to take two drugs that together induce a miscarriage. The first, mifepristone (marketed as Mifeprex), is typically taken in a doctor's office while the second, misoprostol, is given to the woman to take at home the next day. In the United States, the F.D.A. has approved medical abortion pills for use only in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, while surgical abortions can be done later than that. Medical abortions make up a quarter of all abortions in the country. About 2.8 million women in the United States have used mifepristone to terminate a pregnancy since the drug's approval in 2000, according to Danco Laboratories, its manufacturer.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Health
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LONDON When the news you wake up to each morning has the menace of a Rottweiler's growl with unending stories of civil strife and looming nuclear cataclysm it is understandable if you feel the urge to retreat. Or to regress, to return to a more innocent time, or to be exact a more innocent age. Like 17, or 13 3/4 , or maybe even a preadolescent 11. You know, one of those early chapters in life when no matter how seriously you took yourself, crises were seldom all that serious. High drama was an everyday condition then, but it could be practiced without the consequences that accrue once you've grown up. If that's the way you are feeling, then the London theater is more than willing to indulge you. During the last week of my summer trip here after a succession of dramas about destructive and dysfunctional adults I spent time with three shows that tickle and cosset the hopeful, anxious and rowdy kid that lurks inside every respectable mortgage holder. And for those in need of retrogressing even further, a host of family entertainments spring up every summer in the West End, cartoon colored affairs that speak the jolly and exaggerated language of Christmas pantomimes. The one I attended was a cheerfully rude romp called "Gangsta Granny." Adapted by the Birmingham Stage Company from David Walliams's best selling children's book, "Gangsta Granny" concerns an 11 year old boy whose pet hate is having to spend Friday nights with his boring (and flatulent) old grandma. Its chief life lessons are: Never judge a granny by her housecoat; middle aged parents are stupid but well intentioned; and even Queen Elizabeth II occasionally passes wind. I would like to make it clear that I also saw serious musicals with social consciences. They memorably included the scalding "Nina a Story About Me and Nina Simone" (which I caught at the Young Vic before its transfer to the Traverse Theater in Edinburgh), Josette Bushell Mingo's passionate account of Simone's life and the legacy of enduring American racism. And at Wyndham's Theater in the West End, I revisited "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill" (seen on Broadway in 2014), with the Tony winning champ Audra McDonald, as Billie Holiday, demonstrating to London audiences why she is probably the most talented person on this planet. These performances bring theatergoers to tears through the expression of their subjects' deeply felt, ultimately unconquerable pain, which both maimed and inspired them. If you find yourself crying at "Adrian Mole," it's partly because the agonies of its title character are as temporary as they are intense. Ms. Townsend's 1982 novel, which begot seven sequels (and various previous stage, television and radio adaptations), is dear to the hearts of Britons who came of age in the Thatcher era. Written by Jake Brunger and Pippa Cleary, and directed by Luke Sheppard, "Adrian Mole" presents an adolescent protagonist who is both a product of his time and place and (as if often true of his age group) frequently oblivious to them. Pimples, school dress codes, the ravishing and seemingly unobtainable new girl at school and the parents who fail to understand his intellectual aspirations: Such are the preoccupations of our Adrian, whose daily confidences to his diary frame the show. Unlike Ms. Townsend's book, this musical allows us to experience the point of view of other characters, including Adrian's restless mum (Kelly Price), who is having an affair with her next door neighbor (a hilarious John Hopkins, who doubles as a gargoyle school principal); Adrian's lager loving dad (Dean Chisnall) and a husband poaching good time gal (Lara Denning). These are all dexterous performances, though they would probably be even funnier if the show saw their characters through Adrian's eyes. It's when the younger ensemble members (who rotate in the leading parts) take charge that the show triumphs. Such sequences include a red sock wearing student rebellion that pays homage to the barricades of "Les Miserables" and a priceless reworking of the Nativity story for the school Christmas pageant. The terrifically talented Benjamin Lewis, the Adrian I saw, radiated a sweet and incandescent solipsism, untainted by hipster irony, that befits a lad who is after all the star of his own life. The hero of "Bat Out of Hell," directed with technological sturm und drang by the American Jay Scheib, is also irony free, but in the mode of a heavily emoting lover from grand opera. His name is Strat, and he is played with beguiling epicene virility and lungs of steel by the willowy Andrew Polec. Strat is the leader of a gang of resourceful street urchins known as the Lost, a tribe frozen for eternity at the age of 17. The Lost rove the futurist city of Obsidian, which was formerly Manhattan. Jon Bausor's dystopian set is a blasted landscape of blackened earth, derelict machinery and a whole lot of surveillance cameras (Finn Ross is the video designer), a favorite tool of Mr. Scheib's. Obsidian is ruled by the evil tycoon Falco (Rob Fowler), whose beautiful daughter, Raven (Christina Bennington), inevitably falls in love with Strat. Falco's lair is a chandeliered penthouse in a building that looks suspiciously like Trump Tower. Oh no! Is topicality rearing its unwelcome head? Whew! Though Falco may initially register as a nasty tyrant, whose favorite pastime is capturing and torturing the Lost, it turns out he's just grumpy because of marital problems with his luscious wife, Sloane (Sharon Sexton). Nothing that a good roll in the obsidian can't cure. Most of the songs in "Bat Out of Hell" are from the 1977 Meat Loaf album of the same title and were written by Mr. Steinman, whose other theater credits include the notorious "Dance of the Vampires." Meat Loaf classics like "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" are performed with high adrenaline and at higher volume, as motorcycles roar, artificial bats fly, flames reach skyward and a car crashes into the orchestra pit. It's all loud and flashy enough to make the many theatergoers I saw at the Coliseum who had passed 40 (never mind 17) put aside their middle aged blues to rock out in their black leather and bat T shirts. For a couple of sense numbing hours, they could believe that the grown ups who make a mess of the world are a distant and adversarial breed, and that the biggest problem on earth is an older generation's inability to understand what it means to be in love.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Theater
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NASSAU, the Bahamas Trei Bethel had been looking for work in the Bahamas for about a year when he finally got a break: a coveted spot in a program that trained young Bahamians to work at Baha Mar, a 3.5 billion mega resort nearing completion on Nassau's white sand Cable Beach. There, he said, he learned about fine wine and the choreography of five star service. He saw the resort as a place of opportunity and stability in a difficult economy. "They really put so much effort into the growth and development of us as young people," said Mr. Bethel, now 20, who became a concierge at one of the resort's four hotels. But in October, Mr. Bethel lost his job along with 2,000 others, the casualties of a dispute between the resort's developer and his Chinese partners that led to bankruptcy court. The falling out has left Baha Mar at a standstill, fenced off at the end of a road that bears its name, more than a year after its original opening date. Baha Mar's uncertain future points to the challenges China faces as it finances and builds large scale construction projects overseas amid language and cultural barriers, lack of regulation and allegations of graft. "The more problems there are and, in a way, the more media attention these problems attract, they erode positive attitudes towards Chinese presence in the region," said Ariel C. Armony, director of the University Center for International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, who has researched the perception of Chinese investment in the Americas. After losing its American backer during the financial crisis, Baha Mar was revived in 2009 by China Construction America, a Jersey City based subsidiary of a Chinese state owned construction company, the China State Construction Engineering Corporation. The company facilitated a 2.5 billion loan from the Export Import Bank of China, a state owned lender with which it has close ties, and invested 150 million for its own equity stake. In exchange, China Construction America would serve as the resort's contractor, using Chinese workers. Since his project filed for bankruptcy last summer, there has been finger pointing from all sides. But there is broad agreement on two points: Baha Mar is spectacular, and there is plenty of blame to go around for its failure to open. Critics say the resort was overly ambitious from the start and should have been built in phases. It combines four luxury hotels, the largest casino in the Caribbean region, a championship golf course, a 200,000 square foot convention center and what is billed as the world's largest collection of Bahamian art. The hotel chains Hyatt, Rosewood and SLS had signed on as partners. The Bahamas welcomed the investment, even moving the prime minister's residence to provide a prime location for the resort. But Baha Mar executives say that problems became evident when China Construction America, or C.C.A., missed several construction deadlines, including a second attempted opening in March for which the hotels had already started taking reservations. The company then walked away from the job, officials say, leaving the resort staffed to run hotels that weren't finished. In a statement in July, it called the developer's accusations "misleading and dishonest," saying Baha Mar's "failure to secure adequate financing and its mismanagement" led to construction delays. The company did not respond to requests for further comment. The Export Import Bank of China did not respond to a list of faxed questions. Unable to maintain the upkeep of a dormant mega resort, Mr. Izmirlian filed bankruptcy paperwork for the project in Delaware in June. He declined to be interviewed for this article. Since then the resort has received a 50 million loan from another Chinese state owned company, the China Harbor Engineering Company, to help maintain the resort. Prime Minister Perry Christie of the Bahamas has said there are several potential buyers from China. For C.C.A., which celebrated its 30th anniversary last fall, Baha Mar was an opportunity to show what it could do as it tries to expand into Latin America and the Caribbean. In court filings, Baha Mar officials say C.C.A. failed to maintain adequate staffing, provide proper schedules or follow through on a promise to bring in partners with the experience needed to build such a complex project. "China State Construction never allocated the resources that were necessary to meet the deadlines of this project," Stephen Wrinkle, former president of the Bahamian Contractors' Association, said in a phone interview, using the name of C.C.A.'s parent company. "From Day 1 they never put the manpower, they never put the management, they never put the materials on site to finish on time." In court filings, C.C.A. countered that the developer had mismanaged the project, requesting multiple design changes that created cost overruns. As evidence of poor construction quality, Baha Mar officials have cited an email from a Chinese subcontractor that appeared to have been accidentally shared with them. In it, he admonished two of his staff for using cheap material. "What's wrong with you two! You can't fake things in such an obvious way!" he wrote in Chinese, according to court records. "You're going to get yourselves in trouble! If you want to do this, you must be careful!" In an affidavit, the subcontractor said that the English translation of his email did not convey his intent and that "there is a conflict between American and Chinese culture and expressions." Standard Poor's cited the Baha Mar impasse in its August decision to lower the Bahamas' credit rating to one level above junk status, warning that further downgrades were possible depending on "the handling of the Baha Mar project." And in December, the International Monetary Fund lowered the country's growth forecast for 2016. Even if work at Baha Mar resumes, it could be another year or more before it opens. Rosewood has moved to terminate its license agreement with Baha Mar; SLS did not respond to requests for comment. Hyatt said it remained committed to the project. Mr. Bethel, the concierge, is holding out hope that he can return to Baha Mar once it opens and put what he learned into practice. "I have unfinished business there in terms of my career and where I want to get in life," he said.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Real Estate
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Yeah. I mean, I think that we have to remember a lot of these ICE agents are career officials. Many of them were ICE agents under the last administration. They're ICE agents under this administration. And they're going to be ICE agents under the next administration. The policies and the mandates do shift within whoever's in the presidential office. And so I think that something to recognize is the fact that they, you know, they had different mandates under Obama. They couldn't do certain things. And they could do other things. And then same under Trump. And I think that's something that they grapple with. They are federal jobs. They are federal employees. They have federal positions. And I think, you know, there is something to be said that maybe there are a few that say, you know what, I just can't do this anymore. You know, I don't agree with the policies. I'm going to quit. But there's a lot that don't. There's a lot that just grapple with it. They just continue doing their job. They do their mission. And and that's it.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Television
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During her 35 year marriage, Jill DeVaney earned significantly less than her husband, a television executive, but always handled the family finances. So when the couple divorced in 2012, splitting assets worth "several million dollars," she said, "I knew where the money was." Now a semiretired interior designer in Chicago, Ms. DeVaney, 63, has hired a financial advisory firm that specializes in female clients, bought a three bedroom townhouse and a Porsche, and traveled frequently with her daughter, Britt, 25. "I think I've got 25 more good years," she said with a laugh. As a woman nearing retirement age with substantial assets, Ms. DeVaney has plenty of company. In part that trend is thanks to gains made in her generation, when barriers to higher education, prestigious professions and credit began to fall, and to demographic factors like older baby boomer women outliving their husbands. Nearly one million women in 2007 had assets of at least 2 million, a number comparable to the 1.3 million men at that level, according to estimates in the Internal Revenue Service's Winter 2012 Statistics of Income Bulletin, which does not have such figures from earlier periods. The women in this group tended to be older than the men; nearly 80 percent were 50 or older versus fewer than 70 percent of men. To some degree, this lucky group shares the same concerns as wealthy older people of both sexes throughout history, including complex investment choices and the risk of financial swindles. But some of the challenges and circumstances represent uncharted territory. "We don't have a lot of women role models who are older than us," said Caren R. Levine, 55, a financial planner in Philadelphia with MassMutual Financial Group. The proportion of women 65 and older who were divorced tripled to 12 percent in 2008 from 4 percent in 1980, according to "The Gray Divorce Revolution," a 2013 report by Susan L. Brown and I Fen Lin, sociologists at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. For younger wives who are raising children, divorce often leads to worse economic straits. But women like Ms. DeVaney whose children are grown, who have substantial marital assets to split and who have stayed informed about those finances may find consolation in being in sole control of six and seven figure settlements. For boomer age women who stay married, there could be a double inheritance: from their thrifty, Depression raised parents and from their husbands. Yet since women's life expectancy is typically around five years more than men's, according to United States census data, "by definition, their wealth has to last longer," said Judy Slotkin, a New York metropolitan area market executive at U.S. Trust. The Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington estimated last year that just to have a 50 50 chance of covering future health costs, a 65 year old man would need at least 65,000 in savings, while a woman the same age would need 86,000. If they outlive their partners, moreover, women may need to hire caretakers. These same women are likely to have already devoted years to caring for their parents, spouses, other less wealthy relatives and so called boomerang children who return home after college if they cannot find jobs. Locast, a nonprofit streaming service for local TV, is shutting down Capital One's chief executive was fined after being called a 'repeat offender.' "Women are generally seen as the caretakers in the world, and it certainly falls on high net worth women because they have the resources," said Molly McCormack, a senior wealth management adviser at TIAA CREF. Even for the rich, such obligations can be a financial burden as well as an emotional one. Although Medicare may cover most medical costs for older adults, that still leaves expenses like co payments and home health aides, in addition to the caretaker's travel and lost work time. Ms. DeVaney estimated that she spent 1,250 a month on food, medical care, classes and other expenses for her daughter during the year and a half that Britt lived with her while trying to establish an acting career. Britt DeVaney now has her own apartment and plans to attend law school. Because the rise of women in business ranks is still recent, wealthy women face a lingering perception that they are sweet old things who don't understand money whether the attitude comes from financial swindlers, greedy suitors or well meaning male relatives. "It is not uncommon for family members to come to the 'assistance' of widows" whose husbands always handled the finances, said Renee Hanson, a Phoenix based planner with the financial planning firm Ameriprise. In recent years, she has helped two Arizona women, one in her 50s and the other in her 60s, take control of seven figure inheritances that a son and a brother had stepped in to try to manage. Jean Setzfand, AARP's vice president for financial security, said even a 77 year old retired nuclear physicist in Virginia was fooled three times by phishing links sent from friends' hacked email addresses. "I don't know if women tend to communicate more with friends and are more susceptible to clicking on bad links," Ms. Setzfand said. But the caricature of the financially ignorant grandma is disappearing, said Terry Savage, a financial columnist and co author of "The New Love Deal," a book about the money issues in romantic relationships. "I don't think that applies to the woman today who's reached age 50 and made her own money," she said. To help wealthy women prepare for the long term, two pieces of advice are almost universal: Buy long term care insurance and shift enough assets into an annuity or another financial product to provide a steady income stream roughly equal to expected expenses. In addition, these women can optimize Social Security payments by coordinating with spouses on how and when each claims benefits. Such women can probably afford to delay taking Social Security payouts until they reach the maximum amount at age 70, assuming they are in good health, said Anna M. Rappaport, president of a retirement consulting firm in Chicago and a past president of the Society of Actuaries. "As you get older, you may have more cognitive problems," she added, "so put into place a structure that requires less managing." One suggestion is to pay off the mortgage early. Perhaps surprisingly, many experts say that the longer life span does not necessarily mean women should use a different investment strategy than men. That is because "asset allocation should align with a person's values, goals and risk tolerance" more than longevity, said Ms. Hanson of Ameriprise. Especially if a woman has an annuity to guarantee some income, Ms. Setzfand of AARP said, "that should give you a little more sense of security so that you should become almost more risk loving," although usually older investors are urged to minimize risk.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Your Money
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Let's just say it plainly: The United States needs more low skilled immigrants. You might consider, for starters, the enormous demand for low skilled workers, which could well go unmet as the baby boom generation ages out of the labor force, eroding the labor supply. Eight of the 15 occupations expected to experience the fastest growth between 2014 and 2024 personal care and home health aides, food preparation workers, janitors and the like require no schooling at all. "Ten years from now, there are going to be lots of older people with relatively few low skilled workers to change their bedpans," said David Card, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. "That is going to be a huge problem." But the argument for low skilled immigration is not just about filling an employment hole. The millions of immigrants of little skill who swept into the work force in the 25 years up to the onset of the Great Recession the men washing dishes in the back of the restaurant, the women emptying the trash bins in office buildings have largely improved the lives of Americans. The politics of immigration are driven, to this day, by the proposition that immigrant laborers take the jobs and depress the wages of Americans competing with them in the work force. It is a mechanical statement of the law of supply and demand: More workers spilling in over the border will inevitably reduce the price of work. This proposition underpins President Trump's threat to get rid of the 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the country. It is used to justify his plan to cut legal immigration into the country by half and create a point system to ensure that only immigrants with high skills are allowed entrance in the future. But it is largely wrong. It misses many things: that less skilled immigrants are also consumers of American made goods and services; that their cheap labor raises economic output and also reduces prices. It misses the fact that their children tend to have substantially more skills. In fact, the children of immigrants contribute more to state fiscal coffers than do other native born Americans, according to a report by the National Academies. What is critical to understand, in light of the current political debate, is that contrary to conventional wisdom, less skilled immigration does not just knock less educated Americans out of their jobs. It often leads to the creation of new jobs at better wages for natives, too. Notably, it can help many Americans to move up the income ladder. And by stimulating investment and reallocating work, it increases productivity. Immigration's bad reputation is largely due to a subtle yet critical omission: It overlooks the fact that immigrants and natives are different in consistent ways. This difference shields even some of the least skilled American born workers from foreign competition. It's more intuitive than it seems. Even American high school dropouts have a critical advantage over the millions of immigrants of little skill who trudged over the border from Mexico and points south from the 1980s through the middle of the last decade: English. Not speaking English, the newcomers might bump their American peers from manual jobs say, washing dishes. But they couldn't aspire to jobs that require communicating with consumers or suppliers. Those jobs are still reserved for the American born. As employers invest more to take advantage of the new source of cheap labor, they will also open new communications heavy job opportunities for the natives. For instance, many servers and hosts in New York restaurants owe their jobs to the lower paid immigrants washing the dishes and chopping the onions. There are many more restaurants in New York than, say, in Oslo because Norway's high wages make eating out much more expensive for the average Norwegian. A critical insight of the new research into the impact of immigration is that employers are not the only ones to adapt to the arrival of cheap foreign workers by, say, investing in a new restaurant or a new strawberry packing plant. American born workers react, too, moving into occupations that are better shielded from the newcomers, and even upgrading their own skills. "The benefits of immigration really come from occupational specialization," said Ethan Lewis, an associate professor of economics at Dartmouth College. "Immigrants who are relatively concentrated in less interactive and more manual jobs free up natives to specialize in what they are relatively good at, which are communication intensive jobs." Looking at data from 1940 through 2010, Jennifer Hunt, a professor of economics at Rutgers, concluded that raising the share of less skilled immigrants in the population by one percentage point increases the high school completion rate of Americans by 0.8 percentage point, on average, and even more for minorities. Two economists, Giovanni Peri of the University of California, Davis, and Chad Sparber of Colgate University, compared the labor markets of states that received lots of low skilled immigrants between 1960 and 2000 and those that received few. In the states that received many such immigrants, less educated American born workers tended to shift out of lower skilled jobs like, say, fast food cooks and into work requiring more communications skills, like customer service representatives. Interestingly, the most vulnerable groups of American born workers men, the young, high school dropouts and African Americans experienced a greater shift than other groups. And the wages of communications heavy jobs they moved into increased relative to those requiring only manual labor. It is not crazy for American workers who feel their wages going nowhere, and their job opportunities stuck, to fear immigration as yet another threat to their livelihoods. And yet for all the alarm about the prospect of poor, uneducated immigrants flocking across the border, this immigration has been mostly benign.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Economy
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"I would say almost every plane has had a dog in the last month, and they're not deep cleaned very often. You still have dander, and if you're highly allergic you may react to it," said George Hobica, founder of Airfarewatchdog.com. How do airlines manage people who have allergies to pets or service animals aboard a flight? Most airlines will try to accommodate allergy sufferers by reseating them. "We will reseat them in a place furthest from the animal or if that is not acceptable or available we will put them on the next available flight at no additional cost," said Ross Feinstein, spokesman for American Airlines. How should fliers with allergies prepare themselves for travel? "If you are traveling, call the airline or the train ahead of time to find out what their policies are so you are well informed going into the trip," said Dr. Cary Sennett, chief executive of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. "If you are bothered while traveling, you have to say something to the person next to you or to the flight attendant. It's important to have your medications with you in your carry on and not checked, and to ensure the medications are up to date." For those with severe allergic reactions, which is not uncommon in cases like peanut allergies, he recommends keeping the medication epinephrine and auto injectors at hand. What is the airline protocol in the event of a medical emergency? Allegiant Air explained its actions in the following emailed message, "In instances where passengers become ill or experience other medical issues, Allegiant, like many major air carriers, works with a third party organization to make decisions to ensure the safety of the passenger in question. This third party team includes medical doctors who are available 24 hours a day to provide guidance to our ground and in flight crew members. Based on the advice of the third party physician, decisions are made about whether or not it is the safest course of action to allow a passenger to continue on board." What would an airline do if this had happened in the air? In addition to carrying first aid and medical kits, most airlines have medical support on call. Over 130 global airlines contract with MedAire to supply advice. According to Dr. Paulo M. Alves, global medical director with MedAire, the most common ailments are gastrointestinal, involving nausea and vomiting, followed by common fainting and seizures. With chest pains or strokes, the company usually recommends diverting the flight because time to treatment is critical, although the judgment ultimately rests with the pilot who must weigh security concerns and the well being of the other passengers.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Travel
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The yellow fever outbreak in Africa this year came closer to being a disaster than is widely recognized, public health experts recently disclosed. The epidemic also revealed glaring weaknesses in the emergency vaccine supply pipeline. The first deaths in Angola were misdiagnosed as food poisoning; the global emergency vaccine stockpile was depleted before even one city was fully protected; and diagnostic laboratories were so far away that it was months before the scope of the outbreak was clear and a worldwide alarm was raised. Ultimately, the yellow fever outbreak was halted only by a huge vaccination campaign that stretched supplies by diluting doses, and even that succeeded only because some unusual donors stepped in. Brazil contributed 18 million doses of yellow fever vaccine three times the amount in the emergency stockpile to contain the African outbreak. Even South Sudan, one of the world's poorest nations, gave up 400,000 doses intended for its children. The outbreak, which began last December and appeared to be over as of September, went largely unnoticed because attention was focused on the Zika epidemic. Some aspects were truly frightening, experts said at the annual conference of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in Atlanta in mid November. For the first time, the virus reached Asia a continent with no yellow fever immunity. Ultimately, however, there were only 11 cases in China, all in returnees who had been working in Africa. "It did not get a foothold in Asia, but if it did, it would be a real nightmare," said Dr. Axelle Ronsse, an emergency medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, which led the fight against yellow fever in the Democratic Republic of Congo. After the first case was detected in Beijing, John P. Woodall, a co founder of the disease alert service ProMed mail, warned that spread in Asia "could make the Ebola and Zika epidemics look like picnics in the park!" More than 100,000 Chinese work in Africa and many, Dr. Woodall noted, come from tropical southern China where Aedes mosquitoes already spread dengue and could spread yellow fever. Kinshasa, Congo's capital, narrowly missed having a runaway outbreak. There were only 16 cases far from the crowded city center. Just 50 cases, Dr. Ronsse said, would have overwhelmed her mosquito control teams, which sprayed 325 acres of the city. Although there were fewer than 1,000 laboratory confirmed cases in the outbreak over all, there were more than 6,000 suspected cases and undoubtedly many more unreported. Only about 15 percent of cases get the characteristic yellow eyes, dark urine and abdominal pain, but half of them die. Yellow fever was one of the great scourges of the 18th and 19th centuries. Imported to the Americas from Africa with the slave trade, the mosquito borne virus regularly killed hundreds of thousands in Latin America and the Caribbean. From 1702 to 1822, outbreaks emptied out New York City several times as residents, banks and government offices moved north to Greenwich Village or farther in search of safety. In 1793, the fever killed a tenth of the population of Philadelphia, which was then the nation's capital. Aedes aegypti is called the yellow fever mosquito, but it also transmits Zika, dengue and other pathogens. In December 2015, four Eritrean workers who frequented the market in Viana, a suburb of Luanda, died, as did the owner of a restaurant where they ate. Food poisoning was suspected at first. It was not until January, after blood samples reached the Pasteur Institute in Senegal, that the fever was diagnosed. By then it was spreading fast within Luanda, a metropolitan area of almost seven million. By February, 12 Angolan provinces were affected. Why the disease never moved south into Namibia or east into Zambia is unclear. The borders are sparsely populated, two years of drought lowered mosquito populations, and those countries do some routine vaccination. The virus did move north into Congo, which has two port cities, Boma and Matadi, on the border with Angola. Kinshasa, a city of 10 million, is just up the Congo River and across from Brazzaville, where two million more live. A huge population was suddenly at risk, but the emergency vaccine stockpile, administered by a committee in Geneva, then held only six million doses. The vaccine is grown in chicken eggs for as little as 1 a dose, said Dr. Thomas P. Monath, a vaccine expert formerly with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But because profits are low, many pharmaceutical companies dropped it. In 1970, 14 private or national vaccine factories made yellow fever vaccine; now only six do, and only four sell it to the World Health Organization. The manufacturers were asked to increase production, and other countries were asked to divert their supplies. The outbreak turned into a race between the vaccine and the mosquitoes. The first six million doses reached Luanda by late February, and officials in Angola requested four million more. Those did not all arrive until late May. Then Congo urgently asked for two million doses, and Uganda, which had a brief, unrelated outbreak, requested one million. With panic spreading, it was reported that one million doses had been stolen, and that forged vaccination certificates were circulating. On April 4, the situation looked so serious that the W.H.O. director general, Dr. Margaret Chan, visited Luanda to draw attention to the crisis. On May 19, an expert advisory committee debated declaring a global emergency like the one it had declared for Zika in February. The committee decided to hold off because the outbreak appeared to be slowing. Then Peru reported a big yellow fever outbreak, raising worry again; but it was brought under control without outside help. Ultimately and luckily it was the mosquitoes that stumbled. Doctors Without Borders vaccinated residents of Matadi, the Congo border city. In Kinshasa, it suppressed each of the 16 known cases by spraying every nearby house with three types of pesticide: spray on indoor walls, fog outdoors, plus larvide in standing water.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Health
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Re "Why Did Say Yes to Trump?" (Op Ed, nytimes.com, Jan. 22): Stephen Harper asks why I said "yes to Trump." I think he knows the answer, having been in my class at Harvard Law School. Throughout my career I have stood on principle, representing people with whom I disagree as well those with whom I agree. I have never made a distinction based on partisanship. During the Richard Nixon impeachment, as a national board member of the American Civil Liberties Union, I urged that organization to monitor the proceedings in order to protect Mr. Nixon's civil liberties, even though I personally supported his impeachment. During the proceedings against President Bill Clinton, I testified in his favor and consulted with his defense team. While it is true that most other constitutional scholars believe that impeachment can be based on completely noncriminal type behavior, such as abuse of power, my independent research conducted over the past two years has led me to the opposite conclusion a conclusion shared by Justice Benjamin Curtis, who after resigning from the Supreme Court in protest of its decision in the Dred Scott case represented President Andrew Johnson, with whose politics he thoroughly disagreed. Mr. Harper's claim that I am not an expert in constitutional law is belied by the fact that I taught constitutional criminal procedure at Harvard Law School for nearly half a century. Were I arguing on behalf of impeachment, my credentials would not be questioned by those who question them now for partisan reasons.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Opinion
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A van parked along Interstate 70 in Missouri as part of an event calling for tenant relief. "People are going to be homeless," one of the passengers, Jenay Manley, said later. The dented Honda minivan pulled onto the shoulder of Interstate 70, just outside downtown Kansas City, Mo. Jenay Manley, in the passenger's seat, had brought along her sister and their children to protest the difficulty of paying rent during the coronavirus epidemic ProtectMOTenants read the paint on the windows. Less than three minutes later, a police car pulled up, and their attempt to make a statement from the roadside had become a potential act of civil disobedience. The police told them that they would get a ticket if they didn't move along. Ms. Manley left, frustrated. The police were "worried about our safety on the side of a highway," she said later. "I'm worried about our safety in life. We are trying to bring awareness to the fact that people are going to be homeless." For weeks, civil rights activists around the country have grappled with a conundrum. With the economy shut down and tens of millions out of work, the energy for protest is high. Many are angry that black and Latino people are being disproportionately killed by the virus. They're angry that service workers already struggling with bills were the first to lose their jobs. They're angry that corporations are getting bailouts while small businesses wither. Seeking the coronavirus equivalent of Occupy Wall Street's colonization of public parks almost a decade ago, organizers have been batting around approaches. Would dropping banners from office buildings make an impact if nobody is at work to see them? Are public gatherings worth the effort to tape 6 by 6 squares to space out the crowd and would anyone abide by them? "Direct action is so much about people putting their bodies on the line," said John Washington, an organizer in Buffalo with People's Action, a national network of local advocacy organizations. "In a way, Covid has stolen that." Some groups have tried to break through with car protests, like the Los Angeles caravan that honked horns outside Mayor Eric Garcetti's house to call for a broad moratorium on evictions. In Minneapolis, a group called Inquilinxs Unidxs Por Justicia (United Renters for Justice), drove around U.S. Bank's national headquarters calling for a rent and mortgage holiday. It didn't back up much traffic, since downtown was empty. But coronavirus restrictions could have some upside by forcing activist groups to get better at harnessing the power of the internet, said Maurice BP Weeks, co executive director of the Action Center on Race the Economy and a veteran of the door knocking approach to organizing. It settled on having people station themselves at five mile intervals along the 250 mile route between Kansas City and St. Louis the width of Missouri. That way, people could travel safely in their own cars while maintaining solidarity with the messages painted on their cars. To mimic the feeling of being in a large group, KC Tenants created an audio track on its website with tenants' voices and chants like: "What do we want? Rent Zero! When do want it? Now!" That way, everyone involved, even if alone, would hear the same sounds of protest. Sitting on the shoulder of I 70 at noon sharp, Ms. Manley took out her iPhone and pressed play. Her van rocked as cars whizzed past while inside the car calls of "I believe that we will win" echoed from a portable speaker. A 27 year old single mother, Ms. Manley had gotten home at 7 that morning after working the night shift as a clerk in a gas station. She was tired but eager to protest and be heard, so she gathered her 6 year old twins along with her sister and her sister's two children, and they drove to their appointed place on the highway. The May bill will arrive soon, and she's not sure how she'll pay it. A statewide rent suspension would be a lifeline. Two minutes 40 seconds into the protest recording, while Ms. Manley's own voice telling a story of struggle came through the speaker, a police car pulled up behind the van, lights flashing. First, the officers told the passengers that they could remain on the side of the highway so long as they stayed in the van. A few minutes later, two more police cars arrived. This time the officers told Ms. Manley that idling on the side of the highway was unsafe. If she refused to leave now, she'd be failing to obey a lawful order. Ms. Manley moved along, circled around an exit ramp and parked on the shoulder of a road, deliberating what to do. "How do we continue to bring up our issues and speak truth to power if we can't actually do anything?" she asked. "We're trying to keep a safe distance, we're trying to follow the regulations for Covid 19 and the stay at home order, and yet that's still not enough." Ms. Manley called a lawyer who was advising the protesters, and who told them that if she went back on the interstate, she'd probably be arrested. Rather than go back, she decided to drive up and down the highway and hope that other drivers noticed the messages on her car. It wasn't very effective, but it felt better than going home.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Economy
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One of the first things you learn in "Pula!, Botswana on Broadway," the large spirited song and dance show performed by the I Love Botswana Ensemble, is that the non English word in the title means "rain" and that rain is all important to this semiarid African nation. The story that follows turns on drought. But the experience is one of abundance. For a run of just three performances at the PlayStation Theater in Manhattan, there's not much set, mostly some projections on a scrim, but the cast of nearly 40 fills the stage just fine. Singing in choral harmony embellished with ululations, they could be a village. When they stomp in unison, backed by low drums, you feel it in your gut. This is a direct appeal show, with a jovial narrator who says things like "our culture is beautiful." The performers are generous, aiming their smiles right at the audience and accepting applause as dry earth absorbs water.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Dance
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When NASA launches its new big rocket for the first time more than a year and a half from now, at the earliest there will be no astronauts along for the ride. In February, at the request of the Trump administration, NASA began studying whether it was possible to add crew for the first flight of its Space Launch System, a heavy lift rocket under development for deep space missions. On Friday, the space agency announced it would not. During a conference call with reporters, Robert M. Lightfoot Jr., the acting NASA administrator, said the change was technically feasible, but that the additional cost, time and risks outweighed the benefits. "It really reaffirmed the baseline plan we have in place is the best way to go," he said. Putting astronauts on the first flight would have added 600 million to 900 million to the 24 billion price tag, Mr. Lightfoot said, and delayed the launch until probably the first half of 2020. Including astronauts would have also required significant work, like adding a fully operational life support system to the Orion crew capsule, where the astronauts would have been seated. Even without that additional work, Mr. Lightfoot announced that the launch date has slipped again, to 2019 from the previous target of November 2018, because of various technical challenges and some bad luck. In February, a tornado struck the Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana, where pieces of the rocket are being built, damaging the roof and equipment. "That really set us back in a big way," said William H. Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator for the human exploration and operations directorate at NASA. This month, a big dome shaped piece at Michoud was badly damaged while being moved; it was to become the bottom of a liquid oxygen tank that will be used for testing. "It's probably not repairable," Mr. Gerstenmaier said. But there are additional domes, and Mr. Gerstenmaier said he did not expect that to add much to the delay. NASA will now follow its original plan. For the first flight, Orion is to fly thousands of miles beyond the moon during a three week trip. Mr. Gerstenmaier said one advantage of a crewless mission is that it will allow more thorough testing, closer to the edge of the capabilities of the spacecraft. "We will push as hard as we can," he said. The second flight, the first with astronauts, will come about three years later. It is scheduled for August 2021, but will also likely be delayed. The delays will add to the skepticism of those who think the Space Launch System and Orion will be obsolete by the time they get to the launchpad. SpaceX, the rocket company started by Elon Musk, is planning to finally launch this summer its long delayed Falcon Heavy rocket. The Falcon Heavy is not as powerful as the Space Launch System, but with a 90 million price tag, far cheaper. The Space Launch System, which would launch only about once every two years, is estimated to cost 1 billion per mission. Blue Origin, a rocket company started by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is also developing a large rocket called New Glenn, which may begin launching as soon as 2020. The Trump administration's preliminary budget proposal for 2018 keeps NASA's financing level almost unchanged, while it includes deep cuts to many other agencies. The administration has not offered many details of its plans for NASA in the coming years.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Science
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When Andrew Bolton, the curator in charge of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, had to come up with a blockbuster in celebration of the Met's 150th anniversary in 2020 a blockbuster to follow the blockbusters that were about Catholicism and camp; a blockbuster to do what blockbusters do, which is lure people into the museum he was stumped. "I wanted to do an exhibition focused on the collection, but not a traditional masterworks exhibition," he said. "Something that connects to the zeitgeist, and what people are talking about now." Then he had an idea. And then he thought, "it's about time." On Thursday , the museum will reveal its next big costume exhibition: "About Time: Fashion and Duration." It is inspired in part by the novels of Virginia Woolf and the theories of the early 20th century French philosopher Henri Bergson, whose admittedly somewhat obscure but also important musings on time posited it as a constantly mutating stream rather than a series of discrete moments. The show, which opens on May 7, will feature 160 pieces of women's fashion from the last 150 years, and beyond. "Fashion is indelibly connected to time," Mr. Bolton said. "It not only reflects and represents the spirit of the times, but it also changes and develops with the times." And it is, like most industries, currently having an existential crisis centered on the entire question of time. Designers complain endlessly that they have too little of it to be creative. Consumers complain that they don't want to wait six months to buy a dress they like now. There is an continuing tension between the desire for sustainability and a garment that lasts and the desire for planned obsolescence and a new garment that drives us back into a store. There is a sense of dislocation from always having to predict today what is going to happen tomorrow. And that's before you get into the broader cultural phenomenon of binge watching, when you lose all sense of time. Of everything (including all texts from all periods) being available at any moment. Of instant communication and instant feedback and indefinite existence. Of the way that, as Katherine Miller wrote in BuzzFeed recently, "The 2010s broke our sense of time." Now the Met is trying, if not to put it back together, to at least confront the issue. The show is conceived to trace a traditional chronological timeline between 1870 and now, represented by a "spine" of clothes all in black, and to depart from it in all sorts of complicated, colorful, connective ways to show how garments of the past and present influence one another, kind of the way Woolf's "Orlando" moves between centuries. The result may be the most conceptually abstract blockbuster the Costume Institute has attempted, toggling between what Mr. Bolton calls the "objective" time of the calendar and the "subjective" time of creativity. So late 20th century Alaia may be juxtaposed against early 20th century Vionnet; a 1920s chemise against a 1960s minidress; the excess of the 1880s against the excess of the 1980s; one bias gown against another; the elongated silhouette of a princess dress against the elongated torso created by an Alexander McQueen bumster trousers. About 70 percent of the exhibition will come from the museum's holdings, and 30 percent will be new gifts in honor of the 150th anniversary sourced from designers or collectors to fill holes in the collection. Putting the show together has "really revealed the biases and prejudices of previous curators," Mr. Bolton said. "I wanted to address minimalism in the 1990s and thought Jil Sander would be perfect and discovered we only have two pieces of Jil Sander." The museum, he also said, "hasn't got a huge amount of Galliano from his Dior days" or "many of the iconic pieces of Helmut Lang." And it doesn't have anything from the influential "Lumps and Bumps" collection the British designer Georgina Godley created in 1986, because "it no longer exists," Mr. Bolton said . So Ms. Godley has agreed to recreate a piece for the show. What the museum does have: many historic clocks, one of which will greet visitors when they arrive, loudly ticking the minutes away as they peruse the show, with excerpts from Ms. Woolf's writing on the walls as a kind of "ghost narration." The show will be designed by Es Devlin, who created the sets for Beyonce's "Formation" tour, as well as many Royal Opera House productions. The catalog will contain a new short story written in the show's honor by Michael Cunningham, the author of the "Mrs. Dalloway" inspired novel "The Hours." It all sounds awfully ... well, time consuming. Visitors may find this concept even more elusive than that of this year's camp show, which drew people in and frustrated them in equal measure. Mr. Bolton doesn't mind. "As a curator, I don't believe in presenting exhibits that are conclusive," he said. "I like them to be open ended." He added, however, that working on the show had "made me realize more than ever that the clock and the calendar especially the 24/7 time of digital capitalism is one of the main contributing factors to the creative exhaustion that many designers are feeling at the moment." Still, at least one aspect of the show will be easy: picking an outfit for the gala on May 4. The show will be chaired by Nicolas Ghesquiere of Louis Vuitton (the brand is also underwriting the exhibition, because, you know, travel, time and so on), Emma Stone (a Vuitton ambassador), Meryl Streep (who starred in "The Hours"), Lin Manuel Miranda (because he showed everyone that Hamilton was modern) and Anna Wintour (duh).
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Fashion & Style
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MOSCOW The world's richest economies for the first time endorsed a blueprint on Friday to curb widely used tax avoidance strategies that allow some multinational corporations to pay only a pittance in income taxes. It could be years before any changes take place in national tax laws and big corporations and other interest groups are sure to lobby heavily to preserve their tax breaks. But the proposal was the most concrete response yet to the intensifying pressure on governments around the world to address the issue. The governments have strong motivation for change. They are starved for revenue and face citizenry who see inequity in a system that enables some highly profitable corporations to pay far lower tax rates than workers. In one widely cited example, Starbucks last year paid no corporate tax in Britain despite generating sales of nearly PS400 million ( 630 million) from more than 700 stores in that country. Apple, despite being the most profitable American technology company, avoided billions in taxes in the United States and around the world through a web of complex subsidiaries. In light of such practices which are entirely legal, taking advantage of differing tax rules around the world the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has proposed that all nations adopt 15 new tax principles for corporations. The plan focuses on corporations only and would, if adopted widely, shift some of the global tax burden toward large companies the ones big and rich enough to devise complex tax reduction strategies and away from small businesses and individuals, which tend to spend a much bigger share of their incomes on taxes. The list, presented Friday at a meeting of finance ministers of the Group of 20 countries in Moscow, includes ideas to prevent corporations from "treaty shopping" to find countries with the lowest taxes and then find ways to book their profits there, even when much of the money is made elsewhere. The group recommended strict rules for defining where a company has a permanent presence. It also proposed three measures to limit the practice of so called transfer pricing the shunting of profits and losses between subsidiaries by disguising them as internal corporate payments for goods or, as is increasingly common, for copyright or patent royalties. Friday's proposal represents a new global commitment to tackle an issue that has drawn angry outcry in some countries. Lawmakers in the British Parliament and the United States Congress this year have held hearings on corporate tax avoidance. It is unclear if this proposal will gain any more traction than past statements of resolve by the Group of 20 nations with the biggest economies. The Obama administration has endorsed the plan and Jacob J. Lew, the Treasury secretary, issued a statement saying it would help "address the persistent issue of stateless income, which undermines confidence in our tax system." The O.E.C.D. does not expect to complete work on the proposals until the fall of 2015, and after that it would be up to governments and legislatures to pass new tax laws adopting them. Some of the proposals would seek to standardize the way profits are counted, and to assure that companies could not as Apple did create subsidiaries that had profits but, for tax purposes, were located nowhere. There would also be efforts to assure an international exchange of information, to make it possible for countries to assess the taxes each multinational was paying around the world. The plan is called BEPS, for "base erosion and profit shifting," a description of tactics that companies use to reduce their taxes. If successful, it would mean that countries could collect more in taxes at the same time they lowered tax rates, simply because the base they were taxing was larger. The details, however, may prove daunting and will be subject to intense lobbying by corporations. In addition, countries have long used tax policies in efforts to lure businesses to locate operations there. The O.E.C.D. plan would not seek to end such competition entirely any country would be free to charge lower rates than others did but it would try to keep countries from essentially offering companies ways to avoid paying taxes anywhere, something critics say Ireland did in reaching agreements with Apple. Open or closed on Thanksgiving? Here are stores' plans for Thursday and Friday. The high cost of gas is forcing families to cut back on activities and essentials. Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is the chairman of a subcommittee that has investigated tax arrangements at several major companies, including Apple, said that there was "growing global demand for reining in corporate offshore tax abuses" and that he hoped the United States would act on the proposals. "It's long overdue for Congress to close outrageous corporate tax loopholes, increase tax fairness, and use the revenue to stop irrational sequestration cuts from further damaging national security, education, health care, research and innovation and more," he said on Friday. If the plan is accepted, the countries in the Group of 20 would commit to it at a gathering of heads of state in St. Petersburg, Russia, in September. "It's a matter of justice and fairness," Angel Gurria, the secretary general of the O.E.C.D., said at the presentation of the new plan with the finance ministers of France, Britain, Germany and Russia. Pierre Moscovici, the minister of economy and finance of France, said some multinational corporations managed to pay an income tax of only 3 percent or so. "This is unbelievable to our fellow citizens, who pay their fair share," he said. Multinational companies have found they can pay less by opening subsidiaries in the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Ireland, or in North America in offshore havens like Bermuda or the Cayman Islands. Authorities in Ireland, for example, for years have encouraged multinational companies like Google, Facebook, Pfizer, Johnson Johnson and Citigroup to set up shop and provide good jobs, in return for helping those companies pay less tax around the world. And in response to critics, Ireland has blamed loopholes in other countries' tax policies and the lack of uniformity in international taxation principles. On Friday, Ireland's Department of Finance issued a statement saying "Ireland welcomes the work of the O.E.C.D.," and that tax avoidance strategies arose because "of the constantly changing business environment with which international common tax principles may not have kept pace." The statement noted that Ireland had been part of the task force that helped draft the proposals announced on Friday. The tactics of tax shopping companies include placing copyrights in offshore shell companies, then paying royalties to those shell entities as a way of reducing the stated taxable profits earned in higher tax countries. Using such strategies, businesses that operate across borders have an advantage over businesses operating mostly domestically, skewing the global economy in favor of multinational chains and large corporations, the O.E.C.D. report said.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Global Business
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THE KILL TEAM (2019) Stream on Amazon; rent on Amazon or Vudu. The director Dan Krauss revisits the case at the center of his 2014 documentary "The Kill Team" in this war drama. Andrew (Nat Wolff), a young American soldier in Afghanistan, starts his deployment with fortitude. But after he witnesses fellow recruits kill innocent Afghan civilians, he second guesses his brigade's mission and considers reporting their behavior. What stops him, though, is a terrifying sergeant (Alexander Skarsgard) and the possibility that Andrew's fellow soldiers would kill him, too. "Dramatizing these events makes them seem isolated a bad apples incident," Ben Kenigsberg wrote in his New York Times review. "The documentary had a more haunting implication: If you train soldiers for Hollywood ready combat, violence on peacekeeping missions becomes inevitable." MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974) Stream on Criterion. This classic whodunit adapts one of Agatha Christie's most popular murder mysteries for the big screen. Directed by Sidney Lumet, the film takes place on a crowded train in the 1930s, where an American tycoon has been stabbed to death in the dead of night. Conveniently enough, Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney), a Belgian detective, is aboard and jumps on the tantalizing case, interrogating the 13 occupants in the carriage (played by an all star cast, including Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman and Sean Connery). The film received six Oscar nominations; Bergman took the sole award for her role as a Swedish missionary. The 2017 remake of the film, directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench and Willem Dafoe, is available to rent on Amazon, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Television
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Among all the exotic new accouterments peak TV has brought to our small screens, surely one of the most unexpected is Paolo Sorrentino, a certified high art Euro film auteur who made his American television debut with "The Young Pope" on HBO in 2017. For that modishly hallucinatory satire on Roman Catholic themes in which the pope was a Gen X American whose anger over having been abandoned by his hippie parents made him swing harshly conservative Sorrentino attracted a cosmopolitan, marquee name cast: Jude Law, Diane Keaton, Cecile de France, Ludivine Sagnier. And in another sign of his clout, what was billed as a mini series has been revived after a three year gap. "The New Pope," somewhere between a second season and a new nine episode mini series, begins Monday on HBO. Most of the principal cast returns, minus Keaton (the sage nun she played was sent off to do missionary work in Africa). That includes Law, but as the title indicates, there have been some changes. The initial series ended with Pius XIII, the beautiful young pope Law embodies, collapsing just as he appeared to find his faith. (And perhaps his long lost parents.) Silent groupies in Pius hoodies stand vigil outside the hospital, where the comatose pope rests in an ornate, echoing chamber, like a living work of art in a Renaissance gallery. Sorrentino wastes no time indulging his knack for soft core irony delivered in diverting visuals: Our first sight is a naked Pius receiving a sponge bath from a trembling young nun. She gazes at the small cloth covering the papal package, then lies down while the camera pulls in on her Vermeer like visage. As in the earlier series, "The New Pope" glides along on a velvet raft of conversation about miracles, the sacred and the profane, the mysteries of faith, and the real world issues that dog the church pedophilia scandals, retrograde attitudes toward homosexuality, lousy treatment of women. For much of the new season the axis of conflict runs between Voiello and John Paul III (John Malkovich), a weary, vacillating British aristocrat and aesthete who's a compromise choice as Pius's successor. Later in the season the story darkens as the church faces possibly existential threats from inside and out. Sorrentino's real interest, though, is always in chic, seductive, mildly provocative spectacle more Alan Ball or Ryan Murphy than Fellini and the payoffs of "The New Pope," whether you enjoy them or not, are mostly in the visual flourishes and conceits, often set to pointedly secular pop songs. Opening credits play over recurring scenes of cloistered nuns shrugging off their shapeless smocks and dancing before a towering neon cross. The cardinals in their scarlet vestments are a constant design element, massed for conclaves or strung out in long files along the Vatican corridors. Small groups, meeting to strategize or argue, are arranged in Antonioni like tableaus, seemingly transfixed by the import of what they're seeing and hearing. The spectacle is heavily filtered through a male gaze, which can be taken as a comment on the Vatican environment and still feel ill considered. (Sorrentino directed and, with Umberto Contarello and Stefano Bises, wrote all the episodes.) De France, as the church's image director, and Sagnier, as a woman closely connected to Pius, are consigned to subsidiary and often half clothed roles. In a particularly risible conjuration of the virgin whore paradigm, Sagnier's Esther slides into prostitution to the sounds of "Ave Maria." Among the men, Law's Pius is a silent presence through much of the season and Malkovich's John Paul is mostly sad eyed and mopey. Malkovich makes the ennui pretty consistently amusing, especially in a scene in which a star struck John Paul gets to meet Sharon Stone (playing herself), complete with sophomoric "Basic Instinct" joke. But even more than in the original series, the heart of the show is Orlando's nimble, delicate comic performance as Voiello, the scheming but soulful pragmatist who will do just about anything to protect the church even dispose of inconvenient popes. And the real theme of "The New Pope," as it tracks the machinations of the small circle of cardinals and laypeople who operate behind the papal skirts, is not philosophy or God but the exercise of power. It has strong elements of workplace sitcom, but it even more closely resembles another venerable genre: the Mafia movie. Voiello and his ecclesiastical associates, bickering and maneuvering, are like the members of a crime family, making offers that maybe, with eternity in mind, you shouldn't refuse.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Television
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Astronauts Jessica Meir, left, and Christina Koch are scheduled to take a spacewalk together on Oct. 21 the first to be conducted entirely by women, NASA said. The first spacewalk to be conducted entirely by women is scheduled for Oct. 21, NASA announced, nearly seven months after an all female spacewalk was canceled because two properly fitted spacesuits were not readily available. Christina Koch and Anne McClain, the two astronauts who were scheduled to conduct the spacewalk in March, both needed a medium size torso component, but only one was available. The spacewalk did take place it just wasn't all female. Ms. Koch conducted the six hour mission with fellow astronaut Nick Hague. Ms. McClain, whose domestic dispute sparked what is believed to be the first criminal case in space, returned to Earth in June after orbiting the planet more than 3,000 times in 204 days. Summer Worden, Ms. McClain's spouse, accused the astronaut of identity theft and improper access to her private financial records from space. Ms. Koch will now set out with astronaut Jessica Meir this month on the first women only venture outside of the International Space Station. They are set to install lithium ion batteries to better serve the station's power supply. It will be the fourth of 10 spacewalks scheduled for the next three months, which might set a record pace of complex spacewalks since the space station was completed in 2011, NASA said. "I think it's important because of the historical nature of what we're doing and in the past, women haven't always been at the table," Ms. Koch said on NASA TV. "And it's wonderful to be contributing to the human spaceflight program at a time when all contributions are being accepted." Ms. Koch and Ms. Meir were part of the 2013 astronaut class. Of the eight people in that class chosen from more than 6,000 applicants half were women, a first for NASA. The agency lists 38 active astronauts on its website; 12 are women. The first five scheduled spacewalks will upgrade the space station's power systems and the last five, planned for November and December, will repair the alpha magnetic spectrometer, which analyzes cosmic ray events. Ms. Koch, who arrived on the space station in March, is on her way to set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, surpassing Peggy Whitson, who in April became the American with the most overall space time. "It's an honor to follow in Peggy's footsteps," Ms. Koch said. "I hope that me being up here and giving my best every day is a way for me to say thank you to people like her, who not only paved the way through their examples, but actively reached out to make sure we could be successful." Ms. Koch is scheduled to remain in orbit until February. Her mission will provide researchers time to observe the effects of long duration spaceflight on a woman's body, which will help support missions to the moon and Mars, according to NASA. "What we're doing now shows all of the work that went in for the decades prior, all of the women that worked to get us where we are today," Ms. Meir, who arrived on the space station in September, said on NASA TV. Ms. Meir said she does not think a lot about being one of two women on the space station. "It's just normal," she said. "We're part of the team."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Science
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A resident of the Rest Home for Musicians in Milan playing the piano. Sixty former professional musicians and 16 music students live at Casa Verdi, as the institution is known. MILAN There was a buzz as some two dozen concertgoers in silk scarves and sparkling jewels arrived with the help of wheelchairs, walkers and canes, and took their seats in the ornate, hardwood floor concert hall of Milan's Rest Home for Musicians, known as Casa Verdi, which is run by the Giuseppe Verdi Foundation. A hush fell, as two musicians in evening dress took up their positions behind two golden harps. The room filled with shimmering music by Debussy. The audience was rapt. "Bravo," murmured Luisa Mandelli, a soprano who sang with Maria Callas at La Scala in Milan. Then she cocked her head in dismay: Two seats away, a nattily dressed tenor in a black suit and tie had begun snoring gently. "He's 98," whispered Ms. Mandelli, who is 95. She leaned over and slapped her former colleague's knee. Ms. Mandelli is one of 60 older musicians living in Casa Verdi, a sumptuous neo Gothic mansion built in central Milan by Verdi. Completed in 1899, the building was created as a sanctuary for musicians who found themselves poverty stricken in old age, "Old singers not favored by fortune, or who, when they were young, did not possess the virtue of saving," as Verdi wrote in a letter at the time. Nowadays, pensions and social security have reduced the economic necessity of a refuge like this, said Roberto Ruozi, president of the Giuseppe Verdi Foundation, which uses investments made with the royalties from the composer's operas to fund the rest home. Residents pay on a sliding scale, according to their means. Nonetheless, Casa Verdi is inundated each year with applications from composers, conductors, singers, orchestral players, music teachers and anyone else who has "exercised the art of music as a profession," as the foundation's website puts it. Once applicants establish their professional bona fides, Casa Verdi's board makes choices based on who they think will be a good fit. "Now, the majority of our clients are not in very bad economic condition, but wish to continue to play, and be involved with, music," Mr. Ruozi said. Casa Verdi's talented clientele have the same needs as other old people, with some exceptions, he added: "First, they need music. Second, they want to be treated not as common guests, but as special guests as a star." Mr. Ruozi sighed. "We have 60 old musicians and 60 stars." Upstairs, in an elegant sitting room, two residents waited for the lunch hour. Sitting in comfortably overstuffed red armchairs, they reflected on what they liked about living here. "We're not missing anything," said Angelo Loforese, a 98 year old tenor who is currently the oldest person living at Casa Verdi. "You can get a manicure, a haircut, a shave." Lorenzo Saccomani, 79, nodded in agreement. Explaining that he had sung some of his first roles onstage with Mr. Loforese who at the time was much more experienced Mr. Saccomani said Casa Verdi felt like home. "We found some of our colleagues," he said. As if to illustrate Mr. Saccomani's point, the conductor Armando Gatto, 89, came in, pushing his walker. Dressed in a wool suit and dark glasses, Mr. Gatto was greeted as "maestro" by the two singers, both of whom he conducted onstage as younger men. "It feels protected here," said Mr. Gatto, who worked all over the world before moving to Casa Verdi with his wife, a soprano, who is now 90. "I feel respected and loved." A 96 year old violinist in bright pink lipstick and golden slippers nodded when the men asked if it was time for lunch. They stood, and made their way to the airy dining room. A few minutes later, they were joined by Beatriz Cortesao, 19, a harpist, who was wearing jeans. Ms. Cortesao is part of a relatively new tradition: In 1998, Casa Verdi decided to try renting rooms to music students. While some of the old musicians were wary, the experiment turned out to be a success, and today, 16 students live in Casa Verdi. They are charged a low rent, and they join the older musicians at mealtimes. Old and young agreed that the arrangement was a good one: Younger musicians learned from the older ones, while the older musicians said they were happy to have young people who shared their love of music around. Cosimo Moretti de Angelis, 25, another student who lives at Casa Verdi, said that he tried to teach the older musicians how to use the internet. "We talk about everything music, but also everyday problems, politics, elections, technologies," Mr. de Angelis said, adding that he felt very lucky to live in a place where he could practice the piano any time he wanted. But not everyone said they were happy. In a bedroom decorated with black and white photos of himself in costume, Claudio Giombi, a baritone, said fellow residents complained too much about their aches and pains. Since moving here six years ago, the 80 year old and his wife said they had given up trying to run musical projects with other residents. "There is always a sharp tongue the envious ones a lot of people here say 'what does he want? Is he looking for the limelight?' " Despite their frustrations, Mr. Giombi and his wife said they enjoyed the concerts regularly held by Casa Verdi among other performances, La Scala sends singers over several times a year and Mr. Giombi said he liked his morning ritual of reading the newspaper in the library. Ms. Mandelli, the soprano, acknowledged that getting older came with limitations: Her left leg began hurting recently, and now she only takes the metro to see performances at La Scala four times a week, instead of every night. "I've become lazy," she said. Bissy Roman, taking a break from Casa Verdi's afternoon bingo game which, she said, she never wins, anyway said she was originally from Romania, but had worked all over the world, including in New York, as an opera director and music teacher, before moving to Casa Verdi two years ago. "I am alone, I never married, my family is music," the 93 year old said. "So, I was obliged to find a solution for my old age." Here, like many other residents, she continues to teach. And Ms. Roman is also trying to learn Hebrew and Korean, in addition to the seven European languages she already speaks fluently. Ms. Roman said she liked being in Milan, close to La Scala, surrounded by music and fellow musicians. As the bingo game ended, Mr. Gatto, the conductor, put away his winnings chocolate bars and biscotti and prepared to move to another room for a pre dinner concert. "We speak about the music, the life, the memories," he said, nodding his agreement with Ms. Roman. "It's lovely to be in this company."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Music
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Matthew Ronay's electric show at Casey Kaplan reveals an artist at the height of his powers. Mr. Ronay has been arranging small shapes made of carved and stained wood into aggregate sculptures for nearly two decades, and they've always been appealing. But the best works in the exhibition, "Betrayals of and by the Body," go beyond appealing in their brilliant colors, myriad textures, suggestive forms and the ease and delicacy with which they fit together. The frugal use of flocking, which adds a velvety opaque surface that contrasts with the smooth, glowing wood, unsettles perception, adding another dimension. See the stand alone ganglia flocked dark red in "Engorged Follicle (Corazonin)." Analogies run rampant in these pieces to body organs, exotic plants or sea life with occasional hints of architecture, food or wet clay. And the shapes also enact tense little comedic dramas and interactions in the ways they lean, droop or are stacked. The orange and purple shapes of "Flexed Poised Breached Swollen" are a case in point. Sex, a fight or simple cell division could be just around the corner. Yet they are present even commanding as abstract objects. Their highly artificial palette and dimensionality update Surrealism (Yves Tanguy's paintings, especially) and late Guston. As with the ceramic sculptures of Ken Price, Mr. Ronay is exploiting his means to their full extent, and it is thrilling to see. ROBERTA SMITH Tarek Atoui's beautifully crafted sound making sculptures are installed on multiple continents. He's in the Venice Biennale, has a show in Singapore and performed recently at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. In New York, "Organ Within," his exhibition at Kurimanzutto, centers on a specially built instrument based on a church pipe organ, played by musicians recruited for weekly residencies who showcase their work every Saturday at 3 p.m. (A culminating performance with Mr. Atoui and all the participants is scheduled for June 27 at the Guggenheim Museum.) I witnessed two performances, Keith Fullerton Whitman and C. Lavender, and they were starkly different. Mr. Whitman's approach to the sprawling organ built from wood, copper pipes, plastic tubing, sandbags (among other objects) and a computer that coordinates the elements, was more episodic and noisy; Ms. Lavender's piece swelled into a warm, engulfing drone, in keeping with her sound as healing practice. (Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe of Control, a synthesizer shop in Brooklyn, invited the performers C. Spencer Yeh performed last week and Chuck Bettis and Victoria Shen are up next and facilitates the whole operation.) In the late 1990s, a clique of young artists in Krakow shot to international attention with deadpan, schematic paintings that cast an alienated eye on the new capitalist Poland. They included Wilhelm Sasnal, Marcin Maciejowski and Rafal Bujnowski the last of whom is now presenting a series of arresting new grisailles whose reticence gives them a paradoxical intensity. Mr. Bujnowski paints bathers by the seashore in glassy black and white oils; their jet black bodies stand out from beaches rendered in gradients of white to light gray. Yet the artist's wet on wet brushwork is so abrupt and so total that nearly no detail remains. In five absorbing portraits, black whorls drown their subjects into featurelessness; a landscape is nothing more than striated black bands; paper towels on which the artist wipes his brushes exhibit Rorschach like resonances of a face or a body but never properly cohere. (Even the gallery's windows are obliterated; Mr. Bujnowski has painted over them with white stripes .) These paintings, though vacant, aren't nihilistic and they sure aren't punk, despite the black on black color scheme. They are deliberate, haunted efforts to express the pitiful limits of contemporary human memory, always at risk of erasure in the shadow of history and the flood of the digital image stream. Kiki Kogelnik, who was born in Austria and who, before her death in 1997, was active in New York, liked to put the human body in silhouette. In her painting "Friends," a handful of bright figures, some missing a head or limb or with large circles cut right through their torsos, are thrown across a jazzy background. In "Hands," she painted a group of dismembered arms and legs spread out like letters in a printer's tray, and for "Divided Souls," she cut figures out of black and white vinyl and hung them on a garment rack. The woman striking a pose in "Dynamite Darling," the highlight of Kogelnik's first show at Mitchell Innes Nash, isn't technically a silhouette because she isn't a monochrome, but she's definitely flat. And whether it happens in the pages of a fashion magazine, under the sexism of the art world, or in the pitiless gears of the atomic age, all that flattening is certainly violent. But somehow the violence seems incidental. What's really notable about Kogelnik's flatness is that she never lets it entirely succeed. Punk kabuki makeup gives the face in "Dynamite Darling" the suggestion of depth, as well as irony and plenty of affect, and even the physiques in "Hands" and "Divided Souls" are distinctive enough to feel individual. To me, this suggests an optimism about our power to resist the dehumanizing forces of modernity or an invaluable insight that nothing's ever as flat as it looks. WILL HEINRICH
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Art & Design
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Picture a figure skater. Who comes to mind? Maybe it's Nancy Kerrigan spinning gracefully. Or it's Michelle Kwan skating with confidence and ease. It's possible that it is Surya Bonaly or Starr Andrews black women whose presence on the ice remains as daring as their performances but professional figure skaters of color make up only a fraction of the field. It's a reality that feels far from mind at Riverbank State Park in Harlem, where twice a week, year round, little black and brown girls glide and twirl across the ice. Figure Skating in Harlem provides young women of color with a space to build confidence, nurture academic success and use figure skating to understand themselves and the world around them. Sharon Cohen founded the program in 1997 after a group of parents invited her to teach their daughters how to skate. The initiative, she said, began as a "circle where girls could express themselves and what was going on in their life," and evolved to serve over 170 girls between the ages of 6 and 18. Figure skating, like most Olympic sports, has traditionally "been dominated by white people," Ms. Cohen said. In 2017, the United States Olympic Committee reported that about 25 percent of their figure skaters were "people of color." Much of the sport's lack of diversity stems from its relative inaccessibility: Quality rink time can be hard to come by and competitive skaters can spend upward of 50,000 on training, equipment and costumes, among other expenses. Figure Skating in Harlem does not bill itself as a training ground for future Olympians. Instead, the organization's goals are to build community within the group and democratize what is considered an individualized, competitive and at times isolating sport. When girls enter the program, they are divided into four groups by grade level: "Stars" are first through third graders; "Pros" are third through fifth graders; "Champs" are fifth through seventh graders; and "Leaders" are eighth graders through high school seniors. The program has three core areas: figure skating, academic development and leadership development. The figure skating component includes both on and off ice instruction twice a week at skating rinks across New York City and, as of seven years ago, three synchronized skating teams that compete throughout the tri state region. The academic component, which Ms. Cohen stresses is equally important, is designed to help the young women improve their skills in reading, writing and math. Students in the program take a computerized assessment to measure their academic strengths and weaknesses. Then they are placed into small tutoring groups (usually made up of four or five girls) where they receive individualized instruction twice a week at the program's home base on 125th Street in Harlem. The leadership component focuses on conflict resolution, identity and career exploration. Each week, the girls commit about 10 to 11 hours to the program, whose various elements work in tandem to support them physically, academically and emotionally. "It builds up our self confidence and our self esteem," said Jonni, who joined Figure Skating in Harlem at age 6. "Not like self absorbed, but it makes us feel more confident in ourselves that we can be more than what we thought we could be." Near the locker rooms at Riverbank State Park, she recalled a recent competition in Connecticut. "The ice was slippery, but that was the lowest I've ever lunged in my life, so it was technically an accomplishment," she said. "I just got right back up, and I felt pretty good about participating." The other highlights of the day it was also her 10th birthday included sitting on the bus with her friends sharing cupcakes from Party City, listening to music and "watching creepy text stories" on an app called Hooked. In addition to building and nurturing self confidence, Figure Skating in Harlem directly addresses the underrepresentation of black women in skating. During the leadership and empowerment classes, the girls are taught lessons created by a team of social workers to help them negotiate their identities and contend with issues that affect young children, like bullying and the negative sides of social media. They also learn about successful women who look like them, both on the ice and off. "Being a woman of color in a sport that is predominantly white has always been difficult in terms of identity," said Vashti Lonsdale, the program's director of skating. She named the professional skaters Surya Bonaly, Tai Babilonia and Starr Andrews as possible role models. "I think seeing Surya in particular being a rebel in her own realm and proving that you don't have to be a stock standard looking person to be a great skater, it's quite powerful," she said. Back at the rink, a little girl with pink gloves and a white hat attempted the beginning of a camel spin, a move that requires the skater to balance on one foot and extend her other leg backward. She fell onto her knees. Without pause she picked herself back up and glided into the arms of her two friends, who were waiting for her on the other side. To the left of these girls, in a more sparse part of the rink, another skater lost her balance and started to wobble. But before she could hit the ground, another girl held out her arms and caught her. "When I came to Figure Skating in Harlem, I realized how important it was that an African American girl was ice skating and how out of the ordinary that was," Raven Williams, 13, said . When she started competing, she noticed that most of the time their team was the only one exclusively made up of black and brown girls. The other skaters "would kind of look at us, but when we actually beat them, it was the best look in the world because they don't expect it from you," she said. Though a majority of the most prominent women skaters in the world are white and Asian American, a quick internet search does turn up images and videos of black skaters consistently defying expectations. As I think about the girls, about skating and about freedom, there is one video that stands out most prominently in my mind. It is of the 16 year old Starr Andrews at the 2018 United States Figure Skating Championships. She skates to Whitney Houston's "One Moment in Time" and as she dances on ice, one of the commentators responds to Andrews's early proclamation to "finish on the podium" as "a little bit ambitious." But over the course of her five minute routine, Andrews builds a momentum that matches the emotional cadence of Houston's voice. She lands her triple toe loop and spins gracefully. The mood shifts and as Houston's voice crescendos, tears begin to form in Andrews's eyes. The commentator declares, in awe and excitement: "This is our future."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Style
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To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. All of a sudden, everybody seems to care about black lives. Well not everybody, of course. But since the slow, recorded killing of George Floyd by Officer Derek Chauvin made headlines at the end of May, the floodgates have been kicked open. From Taylor Swift to Star Wars to your friends confessing their "white privilege" on Facebook, protecting black lives has been at the top of minds where it never seemed to exist before. Yet some who have finally chosen to chime in and proclaim that yes, black lives matter, have been greeted by a pesky little critter best described as The Ghost of Racism Past. The Ghost exists in many forms, but on Black Twitter as of late, it has frequently taken on the shape of two simple words. Brutally crisp and blatantly rhetorical, the phrase has become a catchall representing the internet currency of receipts, forcing bandwagon participants to confront things they might have said or done that seemingly contradict their newfound commitment to the cause. The N.F.L. player Drew Brees, for instance, participated in the thoroughly muddled but hugely popular social media campaign Blackout Tuesday, tweeting a link to his Instagram page, where he'd posted a black square to express "solidarity" with black people. A short and sweet "This you?" was waiting for him in the form of a user's retweet, accompanied by a photo of a smiling Mr. Brees alongside President Trump and Melania Trump. (Until very recently, Mr. Brees had also been a vocal critic of football players kneeling to protest police brutality during the national anthem.) The main account for H M France tweeted, in French, support for black Americans. "This you?" a user retweeted, with an image of the retailer's ad from 2018 featuring a black boy in a hoodie that reads "Coolest Monkey in the Jungle." The Baltimore Police Department tweeted photos of its officers kneeling with protesters. "This you?" someone retweeted, with a screenshot of a New York Times article featuring the mug shots of the Baltimore officers involved in the arrest of Freddie Gray, who died in their custody in 2015. Usually this specter floats in the internet ether, left unacknowledged (at least directly) by the subject it haunts and taunts. But the rest of us see it and take note and sometimes add our own sassy tweets approving this swift undercutting of performative wokeness. Certainly, this manner of exchange is nothing new for Twitter, where call out culture has long reigned supreme, for better and for worse. But there's something especially apt right now about this particularly succinct framing, which, according to the website Know Your Meme, has morphed from merely catching a Twitter user in a mildly embarrassing act of deception to a mode of accountability for palling around with President Trump. A message for the moment, in which combating anti blackness or rather wanting to appear as if one is combating anti blackness is The Thing to do. In many ways, this wave of protests feels quite different from others: Anti racist literature lists are being shared far and wide; inboxes are awash in carefully worded Very Special Emails from businesses espousing key phrases like "racial disparities" and "We pledge to do better." Protests from city to city and country to country have carried on for many days now featuring Ben Affleck! and show little sign of slowing anytime soon. Yet George Floyd's death is not the first to be captured in a disturbing video and go viral. (See: Walter Scott, Philando Castile and Eric Garner, for starters.) And it's not the first to spark widespread protests across the nation and even the globe (Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin). For those who have been doing the real work for some time, protesting is more than a trend. "This you?" captures the sense among some that for all the attention given and demonstrating and donating that has occurred in the past two weeks, not much has changed yet. It taps into a feeling that these affirmations of black life by public figures and corporations alike are merely lip service for the time being, catching on the way trends often do if everyone "cool" is doing it, it's finally safe for them to do, too. It highlights the hypocrisy and disconnect between actions and words, and does so in the infinitely shareable, memeable, retweetable syntax of the internet. That's its power. A detailed tweet revealing how a star who just announced blacklivesmatter also has a history of mistreating her black colleagues is juicy to read. But a "This you?" retweet from a random user is like a simple alley oop; it just hits differently. It's a way to keep people and organizations in check, and nudge them to work harder to receive their cookies, to make it clear that this won't be easy for them, because it has never been easy for black people. A black square, a hashtag, a one time donation alone isn't going to cut it and, frankly, is a very low bar to clear. Part of doing the work and moving forward is taking responsibility for the past. We've only just begun. It's a question, but not really. Everyone knows it's you. They just want to make sure you know it's you.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Opinion
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The plot of the season premiere is simple: The Discovery links up with a disabled Enterprise and what a joy to see the classic ship depicted with 21st century graphics and must investigate several "red signals" that are emerging across the universe. Pike takes control of the Discovery, with Mount evincing the same rugged charisma Bruce Greenwood brought as Pike to the J.J. Abrams "Star Trek" films. I should also note: Mount also serves as an indirect replacement for last season's rugged captain, Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs). "Brother" has everything that the best episodes of "Trek" have historically had: a mystery, excellent ensemble work with a genuine sense of camaraderie, action scenes that don't overwhelm the plot and most importantly, genuine fun. Several episodes in the first season of "Discovery" didn't work because it didn't feel like the crew enjoyed being around each other recall for example how much antipathy members of the bridge had toward Burnham for much of the season. Now, that seems to have melted away. In addition, Tig Notaro TIG NOTARO! is a welcome addition of the cast as Jett Reno, an officer who has found a way to keep her crash landed crew alive even though she's not a doctor. It's great fun to watch one of the world's best stand up comics navigate the "Star Trek" universe and Notaro really seems to embrace her role with gusto. Another aspect from last season which thankfully we don't see in the premiere: Klingons. The depiction of the Federation's most hated foe was very poorly received by fans, for good reason. The dialogue was difficult to follow and the choices made by the characters were baffling. Now, it appears that Klingons and the Federation are at peace and we don't have to see them for a little while. But there is an elephant on the bridge. Spock, who will be played by Ethan Peck, was not seen in the season opener. This is the one element that has left fans on edge since even before the series premiere. It's always been a sore point that Burnham is supposed to be Spock's foster brother, whom apparently we never hear about in the history of all of "Star Trek." In "Brother," we get hints about this. Burnham suggests that Spock didn't accept her as a sibling which seems, frankly, out of character for Spock, but it's too early to determine that until we see how this story unfolds.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Television
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SOUTH TO FREEDOM Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War By Alice L. Baumgartner THE KIDNAPPING CLUB Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War By Jonathan Daniel Wells One night in May 1861, mere weeks after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, S.C., three enslaved men rowed a skiff across the James River in Virginia toward Fort Monroe, a military post near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. The men Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory and James Townsend were field hands, forced by the Confederacy to build an artillery emplacement at Sewell's Point. As they worked, the blue flag of the 115th Virginia Military blew in the wind above them, its motto an ironic appropriation of another Virginia slaveholder's dramatic call, "Give me liberty or give me death." After learning that the rebel colonel Charles Mallory planned to send them further south, away from family and kin, to build additional fortifications in North Carolina, the men decided to flee. Fort Monroe, the last federal military stronghold in Virginia, provided sanctuary, but only after Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler, the fort's commander, met with Colonel Mallory's agent, who refused to denounce Mallory's allegiance to the Confederate States of America. Butler, a conservative Democrat until South Carolina seceded from the Union five months before, was no abolitionist. Nevertheless, he agreed not to send Baker, Mallory and Townsend back to slavery under the Fugitive Slave Act, which provided federal protection for "absconded" property. Butler reasoned that, because Colonel Mallory intended to use the men to support further insurrection against the United States, he had the right to confiscate them and their labor in service to the Union Army. Historians have argued that Butler's so called contraband of war policy did not concern itself with the Black men's humanity. Regardless, the actions taken by the three men the fact that they compelled the racially apathetic Butler to alter the Union Army's fugitive slave policy changed the course of the Civil War. By engaging in what W. E. B. Du Bois referred to as "the slaves' general strike," Baker, Mallory and Townsend joined a defiant stream of enslaved migrants who used the chaos and uncertainty of war to define freedom on their own terms. These "contrabands," like centuries of enslaved people before them, challenged the pro slavery federal government to confront the political reality wrought by its peculiar institution. In response to Butler's decision, and the steady flow of fugitives flooding Union strongholds across the South, Congress passed a series of Confiscation Acts that effectively dismantled more than 200 years of slavery in North America. Unwilling to wait for emancipation from a government built on their degradation, enslaved people walked, rowed and ran to freedom. The story of how Black people in a slaveholding society affected federal policy by their movements, by their defiance and by their very existence has been told before. But rarely has this story been told as compassionately, or rendered as beautifully, as it is in two new books, "South to Freedom" and "The Kidnapping Club," by the historians Alice L. Baumgartner and Jonathan Daniel Wells, respectively. Du Bois's "Black Reconstruction in America" (1935) acknowledged the radical effect that enslaved people had on the Civil War and Reconstruction. And 20th century Black scholars like John Hope Franklin showed enslaved people as "rebels on the plantation" who challenged white America's notion of Southern bondage as, in the words of the award winning scholar Ulrich B. Phillips, "perhaps a chapel of ease." Similarly, "A Nation Under Our Feet," Steven Hahn's 2003 account of Black nation building during and immediately after the Civil War, forced historians to reckon with the formerly enslaved as actors on their own behalf. Baumgartner and Wells place the constant push of enslaved Black people against the nation state at the center of antebellum politics. Significantly, both authors take the long tradition of Black resistance as a given; their books are not studies of racial exceptionalism, but of Black political agency as a persistent current. In "The Kidnapping Club," Wells shows how the "booming and prosperous metropolis" of antebellum New York City profited from the rendition to the South of escaped slaves who sought freedom in the North. In "South to Freedom," Baumgartner traces the journey of enslaved people to New Spain and Mexico, even as white planters, emboldened by federal law, spread their cotton kingdom west. Both books are masterfully researched, yet their greatest contribution lies in the radical implications of their respective theses: that 19th century American politics were shaped as much by Black resistance to enslavement as by the institution of slavery itself. When Baker, Mallory and Townsend rowed their stolen skiff across the James River in 1861, nearly 90 percent of African Americans were enslaved, and most of the nearly quarter million who resided in Northern "quasi freedom" were disenfranchised. Yet, as both Baumgartner and Wells show, Black movement against the laws and institutions that enslaved them affected American politics far more than any ballot cast or Electoral College vote. Want to keep up with the latest and greatest in books? This is a good place to start. None Learn what you should be reading this fall: Our collection of reviews on books coming out this season includes biographies, novels, memoirs and more. See what's new in October: Among this month's new titles are novels by Jonathan Franzen, a history of Black cinema and a biography by Katie Couric. Nominate a book: The New York Times Book Review has just turned 125. That got us wondering: What is the best book that was published during that time? Listen to our podcast: Featuring conversations with leading figures in the literary world, from Colson Whitehead to Leila Slimani, the Book Review Podcast helps you delve deeper into your favorite books. The United States' early 19th century border with New Spain a vast expanse of diverse climate and varying geography spreading from present day Florida to California and south through the Gulf Coast and Yucatan Peninsula was a particularly porous boundary between slavery and freedom. Relying on Mexican and American archives, including congressional records and letters from the period of the Mexican American War (1846 48), Baumgartner demonstrates how enslaved people fled to Mexico, where they invoked the republic's contested antislavery laws to claim their freedom and, in doing so, contributed to the political wrangling over slavery's future in the United States. New Spain provided legal protections for the fugitives, despite a long history of African and Indigenous enslavement throughout the Spanish empire. Siete Partidas, a 13th century legal code that protected enslaved people from mistreatment, was grounds for African American sanctuary in the face of slaveholding America's most brutal forms of control: branding, maiming, starvation. In the hands of a less meticulous scholar, the notion that fugitive slaves invoked Siete Partidas when they arrived in New Spain after fleeing the horrors of Louisiana or Mississippi could come across as matter of fact. Yet there is nothing matter of fact, Baumgartner argues, about the conflict between white plantation owners, perpetually hungry for fresh cotton land in the Southwest, and the antislavery laws of the Mexican republic. To show this, she enlists the heartbreaking and carefully researched stories of escaped slaves themselves. In 1820, when Moses Austin, the owner of a lead mine near St. Louis, petitioned Spanish authorities for permission to settle 300 Americans in the New Spanish province of Tejas, he was accompanied, for part of his journey, by a Louisiana slave owner, James Kirkham. Kirkham carried his own petition to the provincial capital of San Antonio de Bexar for the return of three enslaved people who had escaped from his plantation the year before. Other scholars have framed Austin's journey as the starting point for Anglo settlement in Tejas, a prelude to the supposedly exceptional story of Austin's more celebrated son, Stephen Fuller Austin, known as "the Father of Texas," who carried out his father's mission, and to the two decades of political conflict that led to the annexation of Texas by the United States. But Baumgartner situates this first step in the incursion into Mexico of norteamericanos within the 1819 escape of the enslaved people: Martin, Fivi and Richard, from Kirkham's plantation, and Samuel, from a neighboring one, who together fled more than 100 miles west to Nacogdoches. One of the fugitives had attempted escape before, and bore the terrifying brand "R" (for runaway) on his cheek, a detail that Baumgartner renders with the same novelistic flair that she does the slaves' harrowing journey on to Monterrey, 600 miles south, where the military commander in Nacogdoches, reluctant to emancipate them himself, sent them to plead their case before a judge. In Monterrey, they invoked the Siete Partidas and were eventually freed. Baumgartner's placement of fugitive slaves at the center of this story is not merely cosmetic. The fact that the commander in Nacogdoches wrestled with whether to grant them freedom, despite the legal precedent for doing so, shows how slavery, emancipation and empire were constantly renegotiated based on enslaved people's movements across geographical and political boundaries. The commander's hesitation arose from fear of American reprisals: Spain had failed to stop the United States' violent incursions into Florida under the leadership of the future president Andrew Jackson, who, in 1816, attacked the so called Negro Fort on the Apalachicola River. Like the rest of New Spain, Florida had long been a refuge for enslaved Africans; Spanish law protected them at the Negro Fort as surely as it shielded Kirkham's slaves in Monterrey. But Jackson and his soldiers, determined to remand the Negroes on the Apalachicola River and subdue the Seminole Indians with whom they were allied, continued to occupy Florida as the Spanish empire collapsed from Venezuela to New Grenada. Thus, Baumgartner argues, the four fugitives' arrival in Nacogdoches, and their successful petition for freedom in Monterrey, had a significant effect on relations between the slaveholding United States and what eventually became antislavery Mexico. James Kirkham returned to Louisiana without his slaves, and Moses Austin died in Missouri soon after he was granted permission to bring Anglo settlers to Tejas. Yet his plan was eventually fulfilled by his son and other white Americans, many of whom brought slaves with them, with the result that political crisis characterized Mexican American diplomacy every time Black people crossed the border. Constant resistance by the politically powerless against a white racial establishment is a motif as well in Wells's analysis of New York City's 19th century "kidnapping club." His narrative dissects the tragic effects of an organized group of local police officers, merchants and Democratic politicians who supported Southern slave catchers unleashed upon the city's Black community by federal fugitive slave law. And yet, much in the way that enslaved people crossing the Southern border changed the political relationship between America and Mexico, Black New Yorkers challenged the city's pro slavery ruling class by building their own network through the press, through Black abolitionist leaders and under the protection of the newly formed New York Vigilance Committee. The city's economic expansion in the decades after the American Revolution was made possible by Southern slaves and the hundreds of thousands of cotton bales that they produced every year. Wall Street financed cotton production, which bloated the coffers of textile mills in New England and Britain; cotton plantations, in turn, relied on New York City brokers, financiers and businesses. Insurance companies grew rich protecting the Southern plantocracy's slave investments, and banks extended credit to plantations as they spread to the south and west. The fact that America's largest city was so intimately entwined with the cotton kingdom meant that New York's political class, controlled by Democrats in Tammany Hall, used the press, law enforcement and elected officials to appease Southern slaveholders rather than to protect its Black residents. Gradual emancipation made New York a free state, but Wells shows that white New Yorkers, like other whites across the North, had a vested interest in preserving slavery through a lucrative kidnapping industry. The city's so called kidnapping club, established by two police officers in the early 1830s, relied on the Constitution's Fugitive Slave Clause to corral law firms, the city recorder and district court judges into a sustained campaign against Black residents, who were abducted and sold to slave catchers, whether or not they had previously been enslaved. Readers familiar with "Twelve Years a Slave," the film based on Solomon Northup's 1853 slave narrative, might recognize the horror of free Black people forced into Southern enslavement in Wells's harrowing account of men and women abducted by police officers as they walked the crowded streets of Lower Manhattan.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Books
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Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican singer, rapper and streaming megastar, has set an industry milestone with his latest album, "El Ultimo Tour del Mundo": It is the first LP entirely in Spanish to top the Billboard 200 album chart. "El Ultimo Tour" had the equivalent of 116,000 sales in the United States, according to Nielsen Music, including 146 million streams and 12,000 copies sold as a complete package. It is Bad Bunny's first No. 1 his last album, "YHLQMDLG," stalled at No. 2 in March. According to Billboard, two albums "mostly" in Spanish have taken the top spot before: Il Divo's "Ancora" (2006) and Selena's "Dreaming of You" (1995), but Bad Bunny is the first to reach No. 1 with lyrics entirely in Spanish. Streaming has been key to Bad Bunny's success: he is popular around the world, and last week Spotify announced that he was the service's most streamed act so far in 2020, with 8.3 billion clicks of his songs. Last week, another language barrier on the charts was broken when the K pop stars BTS had the first Korean language No. 1 single, with "Life Goes On." (This week, the song fell to No. 28.)
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Music
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At last count, there were about 1,354 mountain caribou in 15 subgroups in southern British Columbia. BONNERS FERRY, Idaho The only caribou left in the contiguous United States are here in northern Idaho where they number about a dozen and live deep in the forests of the jagged Selkirk Mountains, near the Canadian border. Because they are so rarely seen, the caribou America's version of reindeer are known as gray ghosts. They may very soon become real ghosts: These animals are among the most endangered species in the lower 48 states. "Right now, predation is the biggest problem, primarily wolves and cougars," said Norm Merz, a wildlife biologist with the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, which has contracted with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to create a plan to revive the population. Not that long ago, hundreds of the animals lived in the United States. Part of the problem is that the Selkirk herd is international. The caribou can be found in the snowy old growth forests of Idaho and extreme northeast Washington, but spend about 90 percent of their time in southern Canada. The threat to the animals there is so serious that Canadian government sharpshooters began killing wolves from helicopters. In the Selkirk Mountains, they have killed just 19 so far. The Selkirk herd is not the only one so greatly imperiled. At last count, there were some 1,354 mountain caribou in 15 subgroups in southern British Columbia. Ten years ago, there were thousands. Today, all are in steep decline and listed as endangered in Canada, primarily because of wolves. Wolf predation, though, is a symptom of a much bigger and far more difficult problem. The fundamental cause of the caribou decline is the unanticipated ecological consequences of development. The steep mountain forests where the caribou dwell are part of an inland temperate rain forest, a unique ecosystem characterized by frequent precipitation and the only one inland. The centuries old cedar and hemlock trees, and the lodgepole and whitebark pines in the high country, are home to a lichen that the southern herds of so called deep snow caribou depend on. For decades, the forest has been fragmented by clear cutting, road building, oil development and mining. Where the forest has grown back, it is dominated by willows and other small trees favored by moose, deer and elk. In 2009, wolf numbers began surging in southern British Columbia, northern Idaho and northeastern Washington, drawn to the abundant prey. The population of mountain caribou dived, including the Selkirk herd, which then numbered about 50. Wolves focus primarily on moose and deer, but in the last two years, wolves have killed two caribou in the Selkirks; cougars killed another one. Yet another was killed by a car on Highway 3 in Canada, where salt on the road lures wildlife. Canadian government hunters have killed entire wolf packs in the caribou's range to keep the species from extinction. Government experts and some environmentalists say the wolf populations can easily withstand such aggressive hunting; some research suggests the culling actually stimulates wolves to reproduce more. Drastic measures to protect the mountain caribou have also led to "maternity penning" pregnant caribou are moved into a fenced enclosure that keeps predators out until the calves are old enough to fend for themselves and, hopefully, escape the wolves. There are many other caribou around the polar region, among them the famous herds of tundra caribou that thunder across the Arctic. But the caribou at risk in southern British Columbia and northern Idaho are the last known to climb the wintry peaks of the Rocky Mountains in search of dangling strands of lichen called Old Man's Beard. Deep snow caribou are burly, muscular ungulates, in shades of gray, white and dark brown, with unusually large antlers sweeping backward. They weigh as much as 600 pounds and have hooves the size of dinner plates, specially adapted keep them atop the many feet of snow at these elevations, where there are no predators. Protection for the caribou is controversial in the United States partly because snowmobilers want to ride on the public lands that were to have been set aside for the endangered species. In 2012, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to set aside more than 375,000 acres of critical habitat for the caribou. Opposition to the plan forced officials to reduce that to some 30,000 acres. The Pacific Legal Foundation, on behalf of the Idaho Snowmobile Association, has petitioned the federal government to have the 12 remaining animals delisted as endangered on the grounds that there are others in Canada and that these are not genetically distinct. But the Selkirk population is cut off from the hundreds of relatives farther north, primarily by roads, environmentalists say. Restrictions on snowmobile use and development in caribou habitat, they add, should be more rigorously enforced. "It seems to me the U.S. federal and state governments have written off caribou," said Joe Scott, the director of international programs at Conservation Northwest, an environmental group in Washington State. "If you are serious about protecting and restoring caribou, why are you shrinking their habitat down to the size of a postage stamp?" As it stands, the Selkirk herd will not survive, and biologists say augmentation of the population is desperately needed. But with caribou in steep decline throughout their range, officials elsewhere don't want to give up animals.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Science
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The federal government's stimulus checks were meant to help people exactly like Krystle Phelps of Owasso, Okla. She and her husband, Christopher, who have two children, recently lost their incomes after Oklahoma shut down the bars near Tulsa that she cleaned and that he supplied with vending machines. But when Ms. Phelps, 33, went to the I.R.S. website to check on the status of her family's stimulus funds, she learned someone else had filed taxes on her husband's behalf and used his identity to obtain their 3,400 payment. "I cried all day," said Ms. Phelps, who is about a month away from being unable to pay her mortgage and has cut out everything but the basics, canceling cable and eliminating snacks for the kids. "It is a little relief, and then you find out it isn't happening." With the government doling out trillions of dollars to blunt the economic pain of the coronavirus pandemic, these are good times for thieves and dangerous times for those who actually need the money. "I've been in this space for over 30 years and I have not seen anything like this in my entire career," said Eva Velasquez, the chief executive of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit based in San Diego that helps victims. "The scope, the scale, the speed and the efficiency of the scams is breathtaking." In recent weeks, criminals have used people's Social Security numbers, home addresses and other personal information much of which was available online from past data breaches to assume their identities and bilk them out of their stimulus checks and unemployment benefits. As a result, total traffic to Ms. Velasquez's organization, including calls, emails and visits to its website, was 850 percent higher in March than a year earlier, she said, and is still soaring. The scale of the fraud has been enormous, fueled by the economic crisis and the confusion surrounding the 2 trillion stabilization plan that President Trump unveiled last month. That has been compounded by the government's own lack of security measures for people claiming stimulus payments, with those going through the I.R.S. website to get their checks needing to input just a few pieces of information that scammers can readily obtain. The Federal Trade Commission recently reported that it had gotten four times as many complaints about identity fraud in the first few weeks of April as it had received in the previous three months combined. And law enforcement agencies have issued warnings about the daunting array of ways that criminals are exploiting the coronavirus. Even before the outbreak, losses from identity theft were enormous. Criminals made around 16.9 billion from identity fraud last year, the highest total in the last half decade, according to the data firm Javelin. Many people's personal information is readily accessible to hackers, amassed from dozens of data breaches over the past few years. Last month, Experian, the credit reporting agency, found a fresh batch of stolen data for three million people, containing all the pieces of personal information that a scammer would need to file for their stimulus checks. The coronavirus has made it even easier for fraudsters to get more information. Many are bombarding Americans with emails and phone calls that use the uncertainty around the virus to distribute malware and get people to divulge their bank information and other data, which can then be used to defraud the same people. Google said it intercepted 18 million such emails last week. Now criminals are deploying those troves of information to get their hands on the checks that the federal government is sending to needy Americans. Over the last month, more than 22 million people have filed for unemployment benefits. Stimulus funds are separately expected to go out to around 150 million people. While the Treasury Department electronically deposited the money for around 80 million people who have bank accounts on file with the government, the I.R.S. created an online portal for the 70 million or so other recipients who did not have that information on file. The portal allows people to enter a new bank account address for the government to send them their money. But it requires only a few pieces of data for verification: a Social Security number, an address, a phone number and a date of birth. Security experts said that the I.R.S. had opened up the door to fraud by requiring so little data to claim the money. "The stimulus site is a little bit like ringing the dinner bell for hackers," said Brian Stack, the vice president for dark web intelligence at Experian. The I.R.S. did not respond to request for comment. On forums on the darknet, where criminals gather to buy and sell identity information and discuss tactics, fraudsters have openly discussed the opportunities presented by the stimulus funds and unemployment benefits. Over the last month, 4,305 malicious website domains were set up to take advantage of people looking for new forms of government support, according to the security firm Check Point. The fake sites, with names like whereismystimulus and 2020reliefprogram, generally ask people to input their personal data with the promise that they can get information about their checks. But hackers then use the data against those who fall for the trick. "This is El Dorado for hackers and pure hell for the victims," said Adam Levin, the founder of CyberScout, a firm that helps companies protect against and manage identity theft. Unlike many previous victims of identity theft who were often hit at random, those being targeted now are in particular need of the money. Colin Chaplain, 21, in East Bridgewater, Mass., found out he had lost his unemployment benefits to a scammer the day after he was put on indefinite leave from his construction job this month. He made the discovery when he logged in to the state website to create a new profile and claim unemployment. To his surprise, when he entered his Social Security number, the site responded, "Welcome back." It also showed the last two letters of the street name of the person who had already claimed his check, he said. Mr. Chaplain has since waited more than 10 days for a police report, which he needs to start the process of correcting things with the unemployment office. He said he'd had trouble getting through. "I just let it ring, and two hours go by and nothing," Mr. Chaplain said, adding that he had only enough savings to get him through the next few weeks. "I don't know what else to do." Cortlyn Taylor, 19, who lives in Fishers, Ind., has also been trying to get help after she was laid off from her job at Walmart last month. When she applied for unemployment benefits, she learned an identity thief had beaten her to it. On the I.R.S. site, she found that the same person had grabbed her 1,200 stimulus check, which she needed to pay her mounting bills. For the past few weeks, Ms. Taylor has been trying to get a response from the I.R.S. After not hearing back, she spent 10 hours one day driving to all three I.R.S. offices in Indiana, where she still could not find anyone to help. Ms. Taylor lives with her mother, 56, who doesn't work and has been recovering from the coronavirus. On Tuesday, Ms. Taylor said they were down to 4 in her checking account. She said the local police had told her that they were hearing from lots of other people in the same situation. But with all of the backlogs and closed offices, she was told, the glacial speed at which identity theft cases are normally resolved was likely to be even slower. "I kind of have to pause everything," she said. "I can't get a car in my name like I planned. I'm not going to be able to do a lot of things that I planned to do."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Technology
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WASHINGTON Twitter on Tuesday suspended the account of the far right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for a week after he tweeted a link to a video calling for supporters to get their "battle rifles" ready against media and others, in a violation of the company's rules against inciting violence. The social media company followed up on Wednesday by also suspending the account for Infowars, the media website founded by Mr. Jones, for posting the same video. The twin actions effectively prevent Mr. Jones and Infowars from tweeting or retweeting from their Twitter accounts for seven days, though they will be able to browse the service. The moves were Twitter's harshest against Mr. Jones and Infowars after other tech companies took steps last week to ban them from their platforms. The removals began when Apple announced it would purge videos and other content by Mr. Jones and Infowars because of hate speech, followed by Facebook, YouTube and then Spotify. Twitter was the sole holdout among the major tech companies in not taking down content from Infowars and Mr. Jones, who has called the Sandy Hook shooting a hoax conducted by crisis actors.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Technology
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In the next 60 seconds, people around the world will purchase one million plastic bottles and two million plastic bags. By the end of the year, we will produce enough bubble wrap to encircle the Equator 10 times. Though it will take more than 1,000 years for most of these items to degrade, many will soon break apart into tiny shards known as microplastics, trillions of which have been showing up in the oceans, fish, tap water and even table salt. Now, we can add one more microplastic repository to the list: the human gut. In a pilot study with a small sample size, researchers looked for microplastics in stool samples of eight people from Finland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, the United Kingdom and Austria. To their surprise, every single sample tested positive for the presence of a variety of microplastics. "This is the first study of its kind, so we did a pilot trial to see if there are any microplastics detectable at all," said Philipp Schwabl, a gastroenterologist at the Medical University of Vienna and lead author of the study. "The results were astonishing."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Health
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Lin Manuel Miranda, center, wrote the music, lyrics, and book for "Hamilton," and led the cast for the first year of the Broadway run. At long last, you don't have to be in the room where it happens. For all those who have been unable to afford, or even find, tickets to "Hamilton," there is going to be a solution: A filmed version of the stage performance will be distributed to movie theaters late next year. The blockbuster musical was filmed in June 2016, during one of the last weeks when the original Broadway cast was still intact. The producers, who include the show's creator, Lin Manuel Miranda, have been sitting on the film since, trying to weigh when would be the best time to release it to the public while interest was still high but without damaging the multiple ongoing stage productions. The decision: The Walt Disney Company will release it on Oct. 15, 2021, a little more than six years after the show opened on Broadway. "We worked a very long time to make the very best piece of theater possible, and Tommy has translated that into an exciting film version, where you have the best seat in the house with the original cast," Miranda said in a phone interview. "The ability to democratize this is a really rare privilege." Kail shot a Sunday matinee and a Tuesday night performance, before live audiences of regular ticketholders, and then shot close ups and details with the cast in the empty theater between those performances. He cut the footage into a film some time ago, and said he will continue to polish it before next year's release. The film is expected to be about 2 1/2 hours long, Seller said, with two acts, each lasting one hour and 14 minutes. He said the creative team is still talking with Disney about how it would be presented, but that he thought some sort of intermission between the acts was likely. Both Miranda and Kail have worked previously with Disney; Miranda as a writer, on "Moana," and performer, in "Mary Poppins Returns," and Kail as a director, of "Fosse/Verdon," which was made by FX, a channel now owned by Disney. "My creative experiences with Disney have been very positive, and the reach they provide is what you want," Miranda said. Disney paid 75 million for the rights to the film, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because terms of the deal were private. The value of the deal was previously reported by Deadline; neither Seller nor a spokeswoman for Disney would comment on the amount. "Hamilton," which uses the life and death of America's first treasury secretary to explore the nation's revolutionary history, has been showered with praise and awards: In 2016, among other honors, it won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony Award for best new musical. "Hamilton" is still going strong on Broadway, where it is the top grossing show each week. Since beginning performances in 2015, it has been seen there by 2.6 million people, and has grossed 636 million. There are currently three other productions in North America one in San Francisco, and two on tour as well as a production in London. Another North American production will start performances next month in Los Angeles; an Australian production is scheduled to open next year; and a German production is anticipated, although no date has been set for that. The show's leadership team believes a movie will reinforce interest in the stage productions. "This is a complement to all the other versions of the show in a way that the book and the documentary and the cast album are," Kail said. There are some precedents for the film Spike Lee filmed the Broadway production of "Passing Strange," and Netflix filmed "Oh, Hello." The National Theater and BroadwayHD are among companies that have broadcast stage performances; there have also been feature films made of some stage musicals while they were still running, including "Chicago," "The Phantom of the Opera" and "Rent," each of which was credited with bolstering interest in the stage versions. "I looked at the last 20 years, and there is only evidence that all audiovisual applications have driven ticket sales to all shows," Seller said.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Theater
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Sometimes, just when you need it most, a play courses into your system like a transfusion of new blood. You feel freshly awakened to the infinite possibilities not only of theater but also of the teeming world beyond. And when you hit the streets afterward, every one of your senses is singing. Such is the effect of seeing the flat out fabulous revival of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America," which opened on Sunday night at the Neil Simon Theater, with a top flight cast led by Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane in career high performances. This is the 25th anniversary production of Mr. Kushner's two part, seven and a half hour multi award winning masterwork about death and destruction in Ronald Reagan's America. Does that last sentence make your eyes glaze with the weighty worthiness of it all? Since it was first staged on Broadway in 1993, "Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes" (to use its full, colon toting title) has acquired the marbleized patina of something stately and grand, a work to be approached with reverence and a dictionary. It is also, on the surface, very much of its time, featuring political figures only vaguely familiar to many younger theatergoers and stalked by the menace of a then fatal disease, AIDS, that has since been if not vanquished, then tamed by medical science. The play begins with a funeral and, after many successive acts, visits heaven above. The specter of death is nearly always present, framed by ontological discussions wrought in dizzying spirals of words. Yet, as Marianne Elliott's enthralling London born production makes clear, "Angels" blazes with a passion that is the opposite of morbid. Its subject not to put too fine a point on it is life itself, and its defiant, forward moving persistence through plagues and persecution, failing bodies and broken hearts. Even on deathbeds or in mind melting states of hallucination, everybody in "Angels" pulses with that animating spirit. And even more than when I saw this production at London's National Theater last spring, the cast members here make you feel the full force of such vitality. That's what they all have in common, this strangely assembled, ineffably interconnected group that includes drag queens, wandering Mormons, assorted lawyers, a breast beating Jewish intellectual and the real life power broker (and Donald J. Trump mentor) Roy Cohn. The inhabitants of "Angels" are as glowingly individual as illuminated fingerprints. I found it impossible not to identify or even fall a little in love with all of them, including Mr. Lane's satanic Roy. And when characters are this vividly drawn, spending hours in their company is no hardship. Watching both parts of "Angels" "Millennium Approaches" and "Perestroika" on one Saturday, as I did, didn't feel much different from falling into a fat novel by Dickens or Donna Tartt, or binge watching a quality soap on Netflix. At the dinner break, I almost resented having to leave the theater for two hours. The play's second half still lacks the focus of its first part. Mr. Kushner takes it upon himself to elucidate mysteries he has set up earlier, and "Perestroika" has some of the water treading frenzy of the last season of David Lynch's original "Twin Peaks." But the characters remain so palpably there, in the writing and the performance, that attention never flags. Ms. Elliott a two time Tony winner for her productions of "War Horse" and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" has always been at home with vast canvases. But on the National's immense Lyttelton stage, her "Angels" could sometimes feel lost in space. And some of the British cast members were having trouble fitting into the American skins of their characters. This "Angels" sits far more comfortably in its New York residence. And the method in Ian MacNeil's shadow shrouded stage design, with lighting by Paule Constable, is now gratifyingly apparent. The mid 1980s New York conjured here is a town of endless night. Isolated spaces apartments, offices, restaurants and hospital rooms are defined by cool neon strips, with window framed vistas as lonely as those of a Hopper painting. The real radiance comes from the people, and how they flicker, sputter and flame. At their center is Prior Walter (a magnificent Mr. Garfield, last seen on Broadway in Mike Nichols's staging of "Death of a Salesman"). Having just learned that he is HIV positive when the play begins, Mr. Garfield's Prior is a mix of mortal terror, a drag queen's bravado and a profound consciousness that the world is now a different place for him. He embraces his disease by making a wild, grotesque joke of it, even when he's in pain. This approach is not appreciated by his boyfriend, Louis Ironson (a terrific James McArdle, who wears his character's guilt like a scratchy straitjacket), a legal clerk prone to endless bloviation on morality and justice. Louis leaves Prior, drawing the first line in a pattern of abandonment that informs the entire play, and finally stretches all the way into the empyrean kingdom of an absent God. Don't be thrown by the God business or by the celestial messengers of the title who choose Prior (descended from a long line of Anglo Saxon ancestors with the same name) to be their prophet on earth. It is all utterly of a piece with Mr. Kushner's vision of a universe that seems to be coming apart on every level. The sense of a world in which the center no longer holds feels freshly and frighteningly relevant to this fraught year of 2018. Such times, "Angels" makes clear, are crucibles in which moral and mortal worth are tested. God may no longer be around to judge those of bad faith, but Mr. Kushner definitely is. More than any "Angels" I've encountered, Ms. Elliott's version illuminates the symmetry amid the play's diverse relationships. Louis's cowardice (disguised as Nietzschean self assertion) is mirrored by that of Joe Pitt (Lee Pace), a closeted Mormon lawyer with little patience for his Valium popping, fantasist wife, Harper (Denise Gough, of "People, Places Things"). Ms. Gough provided a convincing portrait of a textbook depressive in London, which made sense but also felt monotonous. Her Harper now shimmers with wit and the promise of a buried resourcefulness. Harper's spikiness is on a level with that of Mr. Garfield's Prior, and when they meet "on the threshold of revelation" in shared hallucinations, they are a wonderfully matched set. Mr. Lane's Roy Cohn whose own battle with AIDS is a vivid counterpoint to Prior's is fully on their level of intensity. Taking on a role memorably embodied by Ron Leibman and Al Pacino, among others, he provides a fresh as toxic paint interpretation that embraces extremes of viciousness and, more surprisingly tenderness without stripping gears. He is a fully human monster, which is the scariest kind. Mr. Pace, who is new to the cast, overemphasizes the heart of coldness in Joe, who leaves Harper after falling in lust with Louis. It's a stark, glacial and intermittently arresting performance that could use some of the dangerous warmth that Russell Tovey brought to the London version. The rest of the cast members, who play multiple roles, couldn't be much better. Nathan Stewart Jarrett is dry, droll and very funny as a caustic gay nurse. And Amanda Lawrence is, among other things, a disheveled angel to remember. (Her much heralded arrival has never felt wittier or more thematically on point, thanks to Nicky Gillibrand's bedraggled celestial costumes and the puppetry of Finn Caldwell and Nick Barnes.) Susan Brown is sensational as a rabbi, an ancient Soviet revolutionary and Joe's staunch Mormon mother. She is also, indelibly, the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, who was executed as a Communist spy in 1953, thanks in part to Cohn's efforts. Ethel returns from her grave to hold vigil at Roy's deathbed, a task she relishes. Each is the bitterest enemy of the other. Yet a moment comes, as they are exchanging angry curses, when they erupt into shared raucous laughter, and it is a scarily knowing, energizing noise. You're reminded that, among many other things, "Angels in America" is a comedy, but in the biggest, most generous sense of the word. I mean as in the Human Comedy and the Divine Comedy, which in Mr. Kushner's swirling, mixed up universe are gloriously one and the same.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Theater
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BUDAPEST In the fall of 1956, the Soviet Union crushed an uprising in Hungary, swiftly ending an attempt to escape the superpower's grip on the Eastern bloc. The Soviet tanks that rolled through Budapest also brought an end to the belief of many intellectuals and artists here in the ideals of Communism. The Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag, then 30, felt his whole world collapse that year. "Not just the outside world, but my inner universe, too," he once said in an interview. Mr. Kurtag spent the next two years in Paris, seeking new meaning for his life and work under the guidance of a psychoanalyst. He studied with the composer Olivier Messiaen, and heard the music of Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg at concerts given by Pierre Boulez. From the isolation of Communist Hungary, he had emerged into the West's center of musical modernism. In an interview last month in his attic study at the Budapest Music Center, where he lives with his wife, Marta, Mr. Kurtag, 92, spoke about the importance of opera to him. (Stuffed with papers and books, the study has whole shelves devoted to Beckett.) The art form, he said, brought together his two great passions: the spoken word and the singing voice. Mr. Kurtag said he had reached back to Claudio Monteverdi for inspiration. The Italian Renaissance composer, whose "Orfeo" was one of the first operas, made it clear that words and score need to be equal partners. In Monteverdi, Mr. Kurtag said, "the text doesn't move to the background in favor of the music." While it looks back to the origins of the art form, Mr. Kurtag's "Endgame" in its radical (and very Kurtagian) compression and starkness also heralds a conclusion of sorts. "Fundamentally, this is the end of a genre," said the musicologist Andras Wilheim, who is writing a book length study of the composer. "Kurtag's opera could be the end of traditional thinking in opera." Mr. Kurtag was born to a Hungarian Jewish family in Lugoj, Romania, in 1926. He studied piano, chamber music and composition in Budapest, where he met his wife, also a pianist. They married in 1947. Reducing music to its intense essentials, Mr. Kurtag cultivated a style of precisely controlled intensity. His works are often collections of tiny bits some of his set of 40 "Kafka Fragments," for soprano and violin, are just a few seconds long which pack a concentrated punch, extravagant in expression while rigorously focused and astringent. He is perhaps the last of the great generation of European composers to have come of age in the wake of World War II: Gyorgy Ligeti, a friend, died in 2006; Boulez, the dean of the postwar avant garde, in 2016. Mr. Kurtag's 1994 orchestral work "Stele" is "like a gravestone on which the entire history of European music is written," the conductor Simon Rattle once told The Boston Globe. Throughout his career, Mr. Kurtag, who speaks six languages, has made music out of the literature he loves. A handful of works inspired by Beckett have included "Samuel Beckett: What Is the Word," based on a late poem. Mr. Kurtag wrote it for the Hungarian singer Ildiko Monyok, who had developed severe aphasia in a car accident. Ms. Monyok learned to speak again while rehearsing the piece with Mr. Kurtag, and her struggle was reflected in the composition: a harrowing landscape of stuttering repetition, of language trying reluctantly to form itself. That reluctance to be formed has been a feature of Mr. Kurtag's "Endgame," too: The music world has been waiting for it for years. Mr. Pereira, of the Teatro alla Scala, has penciled it in for every opera season he has overseen for almost a decade at the Zurich Opera, then the Salzburg Festival, and now in Milan only to be told, again and again, that it wasn't yet ready. "I suffered a lot," Mr. Pereira said, "but now we are at the end." When Mr. Pereira's Salzburg Festival wrote to Mr. Kurtag asking him to accept the commission for the opera, he said he wanted no contract and no money. In his study in Budapest, he added he couldn't promise to finish every piece he started, and didn't want to compromise his creative freedom. He said he could have taken much longer to finish, but he had only "this one life" "so I had to let this one out now." "Endgame" Kurtag's libretto adapts Beckett's original French version, "Fin de Partie" is, like the play, a tragicomedy of four characters: the tyrannical master Hamm; his mother, Nell; his father, Nagg; and his servant, Clov. Beckett included copious stage directions alongside the gnomic dialogue as the characters discuss, with dark humor, the meaninglessness of the human condition. Only Clov moves around freely: Hamm stays still in a wheelchair at the center of the stage, and his parents sit in dustbins at the side. Every note matters in Mr. Kurtag's miniatures, and although "Endgame" is around two hours long, he applied the same painstaking method to its composition as he has to his shortest pieces. He is as hard on himself as he is on his performers; the cellist Tamas Zetenyi described playing a Kurtag string quartet at a concert in Budapest. At the end, its composer stood up to thank the group and proceeded to give 90 minutes of feedback. Marta Kurtag was a partner in the new opera's creation, as she has been in the composing and performance of many of Mr. Kurtag's works. (Much of his continuing series of short piano pieces, "Jatekok," or "Games," has been written with their duet in mind.) When asked a question by a reporter, he sometimes simply offered a smile when a precise answer wasn't forthcoming; his wife would then answer. At other times, she interjected to gently clarify or contradict Mr. Kurtag's point. "At the end," he said of "Endgame," "she didn't just have thoughts on orchestration; she was composing the music."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Music
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Thomas C. Schelling, an economist and Nobel laureate whose interest in game theory led him to write important works on nuclear strategy and to use the concept of the tipping point to explain social problems, including white flight from urban neighborhoods, died on Tuesday at his home in Bethesda, Md. He was 95. The death was confirmed by Richard Zeckhauser, a former student and colleague. It was while working as an economist in the Truman administration that Professor Schelling became intrigued by the stratagems and negotiating ploys that he observed in international bargaining. In particular, as the Cold War developed, he became fascinated with the complexities of nuclear strategy, then in its infancy and a source of worldwide anxiety. After spending a year studying nuclear weapons at the RAND Corporation in 1958 and writing "The Strategy of Conflict" (1960), he took his place as a leading theorist of nuclear war and peace along with the RAND intellectuals Herman Kahn and Albert Wohlstetter, as well as Henry A. Kissinger, the director of the Defense Studies Center at Harvard. Professor Schelling analyzed superpower negotiations in the way that he analyzed the conflicts between, say, a blackmailer and his client, a parent and a child, or management and labor. In each case, he wrote, "there is a mutual dependence as well as opposition," with each side seeking out tests of strength at less than crisis levels. Among other counterintuitive propositions he put forth, Professor Schelling suggested that one side in a negotiation can strengthen its position by narrowing its options, using as an example a driver in a game of chicken who rips the steering wheel from the steering column and brandishes it so his opponent can see that he no longer controls the car. He also argued that uncertain retaliation is more credible and more efficient than certain retaliation. "The Strategy of Conflict" introduced the concept of the focal point, often called the Schelling point, to describe a solution that people reach without benefit of communicating, relying instead on "each person's expectation of what the other expects him to expect to be expected to do." People separated geographically, for instance, will rendezvous at a prominent landmark. Mr. Schelling used the example of strangers arranging to meet in Manhattan. Posing this problem to a group of students, he found that the most popular choice was the information booth at Grand Central Terminal at noon. The time and the place were given preference by tradition, and that preference was anticipated by all. In "Meteors, Mischief and Wars," published in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1960, Professor Schelling looked at the possibility of an accidental nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union and reviewed three novels that imagined such an event. The director Stanley Kubrick read his comments on the novel "Red Alert" and adapted the book for "Dr. Strangelove," on which Professor Schelling was a consultant. In the film, the Soviet "doomsday device," set to respond automatically to a nuclear assault by the United States, was, Mr. Schelling said, a poor piece of gamesmanship. "One obvious point in the Strangelove movie was that the Soviet doomsday thing was not a deterrent when the other side did not know in advance that it existed," he pointed out in an interview with The New York Times in 2005, when he and the Israeli economist Robert J. Aumann were awarded the Nobel in economic science. The prize, formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was conferred on both men for "having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game theory analysis." In the 1970s, Professor Schelling moved on to other social questions that seemed to be fertile ground for game theory, notably the dynamics behind racial change in American neighborhoods. Expanding on the work of Morton Grodzins, a political scientist at the University of Chicago who used the term "tip point" to describe the crucial moment when white fears become white flight, Mr. Schelling offered a simple diagram, almost like a game board, to show how mixed urban neighborhoods could quickly become entirely black, even when white residents expressed only a slight preference for living among members of their own race. His papers on the subject, and his book "Micromotives and Macrobehavior" (1978), achieved wider currency when his ideas were popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his best selling book "The Tipping Point" (2000). Despite being identified with game theory, Professor Schelling described himself as an opportunistic user of its ideas, bringing them in when needed and sometimes not at all. "When people ask me what game theory is, my answer is that it is an attempt to formalize any kind of study of strategic behavior where people are trying to affect or anticipate the behavior of others," he told The Baltimore Sun. "So all kinds of people are game theorists. Organized labor of the 1930s. The underworld is full of extortionists who are good at it. Most of what I did with very few exceptions can be understood without having any idea what game theory is." After working as an analyst for the federal Bureau of the Budget, Mr. Schelling enrolled in Harvard and, on completing his course work, spent two years in Denmark and France as an economist for the Economic Cooperation Administration, the agency created to carry out the Marshall Plan, the American effort to revitalize Europe after World War II. In 1950, he joined the White House staff of the foreign policy adviser to the president, which in 1951, became the Office of the Director for Mutual Security, which managed all foreign aid programs. He published his first book, "National Income Behavior: An Introduction to Algebraic Analysis," in 1951, the year he received his doctorate from Harvard. He joined Yale's economics department in 1953 and in 1958 became a professor of economics at Harvard, where he taught until 1990. That year, he was named a distinguished university professor in the University of Maryland's Department of Economics and School of Public Policy. He retired in 2003. In "International Economics" (1958), his second book, Professor Schelling analyzed trade agreements and competition, but he had already begun to think about cooperation and conflict in a nuclear context. With the publication of "Games and Decisions: Introduction and Critical Survey" by Howard Raiffa and R. Duncan Luce in 1957, he began to apply game theory to his arguments. In a long article that took up an entire issue of The Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1958, he tried to persuade game theorists to pay attention to a wide range of strategic activities, including promises and threats, tacit bargaining, the design of enforceable contracts and rules, and the tactics by which individuals or firms or governments committed themselves. After becoming interested in theories of deterrence and limited war, he decided that nuclear strategy lent itself to his evolving ideas about bargaining and game theory. He explored this avenue at RAND, in the book "Strategy and Arms Control" (1961), written with the nuclear theorist Morton H. Halperin, and in influential papers like "Uncertainty, Brinkmanship and the Game of Chicken." One of his central arguments was that two sides to a conflict often reached tacit understandings rather than formal agreements. In his Nobel speech, he noted that the Soviet Union took the public position that any European war would automatically become a nuclear conflict, yet at the same time, Moscow poured immense resources into building up conventional forces that in theory would be useless in a nuclear war. This policy reflected an "unacknowledged arms control understanding" between the United States and the Soviet Union that was, he said, the most important agreement of the Cold War, after the 1972 antiballistic missile treaty. Professor Schelling explored nuclear bargaining further in "Arms and Influence" (1966). "Dr. Strangelove" presented a different problem of conflict resolution. Peter George's novel "Red Alert" was written in 1958, when bombers delivered nuclear weapons, but by the 1960s, intercontinental ballistic missiles had become the principal delivery system. Professor Schelling, conferring with Kubrick, George, Halperin and another nuclear theorist, William Kaufmann, tried to come up with a plausible screenplay using bombers. "We had a hell of a time getting that damn war started," he told The Sun. "We finally decided that it couldn't happen unless there was somebody crazy in the Air Force. That's when Kubrick and Peter George decided they would have to do it as what they called a nightmare comedy." Although Professor Schelling was identified in the public mind as a steely rationalist on the nuclear question "These are the men who believe in the balance of terror, who feel that we must proceed with reason and think about the unthinkable," a fellow academic critic complained about him and theorists like Herman Kahn in 1963 he led a delegation of Harvard scholars in 1970 to sit down with Mr. Kissinger, then the national security adviser to President Richard M. Nixon, and voice opposition to the bombing of Cambodia. It was around this time that Professor Schelling published "Models of Segregation" in The American Economic Review, to illustrate a law of unintended consequences. Using Xs and Os, he showed how one group whether racial, ethnic, linguistic, economic or sexual would inevitably set off an exodus merely by trying to avoid minority status in their neighborhood, even if its members stated a preference for living in a mixed neighborhood. "Whites and blacks may not mind each other's presence, may even prefer integration, but may nevertheless wish to avoid minority status," he wrote in a different version of the essay "Micromotives and Macrobehavior." "Except for a mixture of 50:50, no mixture will then be self sustaining because there is none without a minority, and if the minority evacuates, complete segregation occurs." He then invited readers to test the model using pennies and dimes on a grid. In other chapters of the book, Professor Schelling used thermostats, hockey helmets and the game of musical chairs to illustrate other problems of contingent behavior behavior that depends on what other people do and strategic interdependence. In 2009, William Easterly, an economist at New York University, applied a real world test to Mr. Schelling's abstract tipping point model of racial segregation. Analyzing census tract data for metropolitan areas of the United States from 1970 to 2000, he found more white flight out of neighborhoods with a high initial share of whites than out of more racially mixed neighborhoods. "I continue to respect the Schelling model as a brilliant theoretical accomplishment that formalized loose language about 'tipping,'" Mr. Easterly wrote in an email in 2011. "Indeed, it is only because of Schelling formalizing the tipping story and its predictions that it became feasible for me to test the conventional wisdom on tipping." Mr. Schelling later turned his attention to addictive behavior and climate change. In both, he found intriguing the strategies of self constraint and bargaining, which he discussed in "Choice and Consequence" (1984) and "Strategies of Commitment" (2006).
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Economy
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This display of works from nine mostly emerging artists, organized by, and including, Michael Childress, may be the quietest, most meditative group show of the summer. It offers a rare balm in a moment when tumult reigns on so many fronts, and takes its title, "The Small Exceeds," from Hexagram 62 of the I Ching, which heralds "the preponderance of the small," and counsels the strengths of restraint, conscientiousness and modesty. "Small things may be done," it says. "Great things should not be done. If a man occupies a position of authority for which he is by nature really inadequate, extraordinary prudence is necessary." The quietude begins with a shoji screen by Mr. Childress that blocks off the gallery's front window, its lightweight frame reiterating the six basic lines of the hexagram structure. The screen's structure and softening effects are echoed at the back of the gallery in the atmospheric yet geometric blacks and grays of a painting by Mr. Childress. In the middle of the space, Siebren Versteeg's "Sunyata" the Buddhist concept of emptiness or voidness gives you a notion of chance in action: Resembling a glowing glass coffee table with a modernistic lamp, it is actually a large LCD monitor laid horizontal and outfitted with a webcam arcing over it. Together they form a tight feedback loop: Anything captured by the camera appears on the screen, but in varying states of ghostly flux a seance like effect thanks to a computer program that incorporates a live Google search. Leah Shirley and Matt Gliva mix nonelectronic mediums, combining paintings that evoke icons with offerings or altars. On three small but substantial cantilevered platforms, Matthew J. Stone presents delicate objects carved in contrasting woods. His efforts and Aviva Rowley's assertive black ceramic vessels might both be intended for ceremonial uses. The asymmetry of Kate Casey's "Offset Bench" may make you look twice to discover its balance and, in its details, its symmetry. Lena Schmid's large, carefully textured landscape on paper might be a pictorial response to Hexagram 62's invocation of "Thunder Over the Mountain." That it is a monotype and not, as it first appears, a charcoal drawing somehow makes it stranger. Next to it, Katy Fischer's magical "Shards 9" may inspire a similar double take: What seem to be found ceramic fragments in irregular shapes are in fact carefully formed and glazed objects, suggesting the evolution of language and tools in a universe in which every different thing is perfect.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Art & Design
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Christine Amorose and David Merrill both lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, sharing apartments with friends. Together, Ms. Amorose and her roommate paid 3,150 a month for their two bedroom on Skillman Avenue. The building was old, her bedroom small and the landlord unresponsive. Mr. Merrill lived in a duplex on Grand Street. He and his two roommates paid a combined monthly rent of 3,900. His bedroom was big enough for a sofa as well as a bed, but the building was run down. When things went wrong, the fix would make it worse. A leak repair would lead to a hole in the ceiling. "I was ready to get out of Williamsburg. It was becoming much more of a touristy destination," she said. "The thought of waiting an hour in line and fighting a crowd was no longer so appealing." They decided to hunt for a one bedroom in a nice, new building in a less trendy Brooklyn neighborhood where their money would go farther. Their budget was 3,000 a month. Ms. Amorose didn't want to give up a dishwasher and a washer dryer. Mr. Merrill, who grew up on the Upper West Side, wanted light and space without "all the frustrations of my previous place," he said. "Christine said I wanted storage, but that's her way of saying I have too many things." Both Ms. Amorose, 27, and Mr. Merrill, 33, commute to Manhattan. Ms. Amorose, who works in brand partnerships at Vimeo and also blogs at CestChristine.com, travels often for work and had neither the time nor the patience for prolonged apartment hunting. "We wanted to see as many as possible in a short time so we could make a quick decision," Mr. Merrill said. He works for Imminent Digital, a video content marketing agency for nonprofits. The couple visited a renovated apartment at the Clinton Hill Co ops, built in the early 1940s. The corner apartment, for 2,700 a month, had a nice view and a space that could be used as an office. Renting in a co op seemed daunting, however, involving board permission and extra fees. The couple plan to adopt a dog, but doing so in a co op might pose yet another hurdle. Besides, Mr. Merrill wanted to check out at least a few more options. "Let's not take the first place we see," he said. "That's not the way you do it." One weekend day, they set up a schedule of open houses, riding their bicycles to each. Both liked a large one bedroom for 2,750 a month at the Absolute, a 2009 condominium building on Steuben Street in Clinton Hill. The open house was filled with "more or less carbon copies of us," Mr. Merrill said. "Everyone was very anxious and eager. We thought, this is going to get very competitive." Several places priced at around 3,000 a month were available at the Nostrand Lofts in Bedford Stuyvesant. The building had opened in the early 1900s as the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy and had been recently converted to apartments. Ms. Amorose found the layouts awkward. Some units had spiral staircases, which seemed burdensome. A dog would have a tough time going up and down, "and I wouldn't like it, either," she said. When they asked about a dishwasher, the agent said the kitchens did not include them after all, New Yorkers eat out. Ms. Amorose didn't buy that. In otherwise functional kitchens, she said, "I think that is a poor design choice. I eat out plenty. When I am home, I still want to put the dishes in the dishwasher." Earlier in the summer, on a bike ride, Ms. Amorose had seen a "coming soon" sign on a rental building under construction on Franklin Avenue in Bedford Stuyvesant. "I tucked it away, like, maybe that will be coming by the time we are ready to move," she said. Sure enough, it now appeared online. At the building, the couple liked what they saw: a spacious one bedroom with a kitchen that included a dishwasher. There was even a balcony and a bike storage room. The unit had no washer dryer, but the building had a laundry room. The rent was 3,000 a month the top of their budget, but worth it, they felt. In the fall, the couple were among the first to arrive. Not everything was finished, and they faced loud construction on the floor above.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Real Estate
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When Taylor learns that Krystal is a single mother, a recovering addict and a former stripper, he abandons his low adrenaline lifestyle to reinvent himself as a motorcycle riding, cigarette smoking bad boy in hopes of winning her. But Taylor's courtship leads to consequences he did not anticipate. His family life threatens to unravel as his bond with Krystal and her son grows stronger. He becomes a target for Krystal's abusive ex boyfriend (played by the rapper T.I.) and a cause for his art gallery boss (Kathy Bates) after she spies him at one of Krystal's Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Under the direction of the actor William H. Macy, who also plays Taylor's father, "Krystal" has some of the qualities of sitcom television: It has a large ensemble cast and multiple concurrent story lines, and the writing and performance styles favor rhythm and energy over realism. But TV programs have seasons to develop their characters worthy of their all star casts, and at 93 minutes "Krystal" feels chaotic and thin, like a pilot that was also forced to be a series finale. Instead of emotional depth, "Krystal" delivers speed, making Taylor's heart race, but never the audience's.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Movies
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Astronomers have arrived at what they believe to be the most accurate measure yet of the mass of the Milky Way: about 4.8 x 1011 times the mass of the sun, or "solar masses," to use a standard unit of mass in astronomy. This comes to about 9.5 x 1041 kilograms that is, 95 followed by 40 zeros. The number, of course, is inexact, as obviously no direct measure of all the billions of stars and other objects in the Milky Way could be taken. But in a paper to be published in The Astrophysical Journal, scientists used methods of measurement that involve complex mathematical and statistical techniques called hierarchical Bayesian analysis, as well as direct measurements of the velocity of globular clusters, the tightly packed spherical groups of 10,000 to 100,000 old stars that move through the galaxy. Just as the mass of the sun can be calculated by measuring its gravitational pull on Earth, the mass of the Milky Way can be calculated by measuring its gravitational pull on the globular clusters.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Science
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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. Two of late night television's favorite topics the Russia investigation and the Stormy Daniels scandal got entangled on Monday: The F.B.I. raided the office of Michael Cohen, President Trump's lawyer, who paid the pornographic film actress Stephanie Clifford 130,000. Clifford, who is known as Stormy Daniels, has said it was hush money to keep her from talking about her affair with Trump. Stephen Colbert delivered the Cohen news with glee. So did his fellow hosts. "Today on a tip from Mueller, the F.B.I. raided Cohen's office, 'seizing records related to several topics, including payments to a pornographic film actress.' They got everything: They got all of his information about porn in a folder marked 'finances,' and all of his information about finances in a folder marked 'porn.'" STEPHEN COLBERT "Porn star Stormy Daniels says that right before the election, she was paid 130,000 by Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen to stay silent about her alleged doin' it with the Donald. Future generations will learn all about it in the Trump presidential library's adult section." STEPHEN COLBERT
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Television
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Updated, 1:35 a.m.: Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, drivers for the Mercedes Formula One team, waged an often side by side duel at Sunday's event in Bahrain. Hamilton held on for victory by a margin of one second. In the late stages of the race, an accident Pastor Maldonado crashed into Esteban Gutierrez, causing Gutierrez's car to flip bunched the field for what would become a final sprint to the finish. The Mercedes team advised its drivers that there were no "team orders" as to whether one driver should defer to another and that the best driver should win. But the team expected, the drivers were warned, that regardless of the outcome both cars should be brought home safely. What ensued was a display of pure racing, executed with exemplary sportsmanship by each driver. Rosberg would pull ahead, only to have Hamilton retake the position with skill and daring. "When you're racing your teammate, the pressure is really intense, and we both knew that we had to bring the cars home for the team and for the championship," Hamilton said. "All credit to the team for allowing us to race, and I hope the fans loved the show that we were able to put on tonight."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Automobiles
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Given that there are some dozen ballet schools in New York, it's striking how quickly the Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet has found its niche. Six years ago, the American ballerina Gelsey Kirkland founded the school with her husband, Michael Chernov, an Australian actor and choreographer of Russian descent, in a space above a fabric shop in TriBeCa. Three years later, they added a small studio company, Gelsey Kirkland Ballet, composed of academy graduates and young professionals. Each year since, the company has produced a few well appointed stagings of 19th century classics like "The Nutcracker" and "Don Quixote." But the couple's ambitions keep growing. Last year, they relocated to a 20,000 square foot space in Dumbo that has four studios and a black box theater. Inspired by the sheer size of its new digs, Gelsey Kirkland Ballet is planning its first original, evening length work, to have its premiere on Thursday, March 17. The ballet, "Stealing Time," was conceived by Mr. Chernov and choreographed in collaboration with Akop Akopian, a teacher at the academy. This is something of a choreographic coming out for Mr. Chernov. His previous ballets have all been restagings of existing pieces. Inspired in part by the paintings of Magritte and set to recorded music by Kurt Weill, "Stealing Time" is a surreal, semi comic allegory of modern life. The plot deals with an Everyman who loses his way, distracted by worldly temptations. The two work in tandem. Ms. Kirkland provides the artistic authority and the inspiration in the classroom. (The school now serves more than 130 students.) She merely has to show a step to clarify a point. This is not surprising. She was one of the most admired ballerinas of her generation, and one of the last to catch the eye of the choreographer George Balanchine. (She joined City Ballet in 1968 at 15 and was a principal dancer by 1972.) But Balanchine couldn't hold onto her; in 1974, she left New York City Ballet to join the more classically oriented American Ballet Theater, and to dance with Baryshnikov. She went on to become one of the late 20th century's most dramatically committed performers, before retiring early, in 1986, after struggles with drug addiction and paralyzing perfectionism. All of this was chronicled in her first memoir, "Dancing on My Grave" (1986). Thirty years on and long since recovered, Ms. Kirkland, 63, is still a force, as uncompromising in her teaching as she was in her dancing. Mr. Chernov, whom she married in 1997, is, in a sense, her opposite: garrulous, diffuse, a generalist with experience in ballet, acting and directing. He manages the company, coaches dancers, designs costumes and sets in short, a bit of everything. A few years back, when New York City Opera was about to close, he scooped up a trove of costumes and sets at bargain prices. "We have four full operas and parts of several others," he said, pointing to a rack of dresses from Rossini's "Mose in Egitto" waiting to be cut and altered for "Stealing Time." Both he and Ms. Kirkland have strong ideas about what ballet should be: an art with an emphasis on storytelling and emotion rather than on the mere physical expression of movement to music. "The philosophy is to prepare dancers so they become actors and actresses first," Ms. Kirkland said. They subscribe to the Russian, or Vaganova, school of training, with its emphasis on the harmonious use of the upper body and through the body coordination. Ms. Kirkland discovered it late in her career; she had been formed by the School of American Ballet, which is closely associated with Balanchine. In the early 2000s, both she and Mr. Chernov studied the Vaganova method at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia, where they were living, and privately with the Russian teacher Nina Osipyan. Most of the teachers at the Gelsey Kirkland Academy are Russian or Australian with Russian training. In class, Ms. Kirkland encourages her students through a mixture of imagery and almost religious idealism: "You have to be in need of something," she recently told a group of teenagers, urging them to reach upward, toward the light. "You have to beg!" During a jumping exercise, she had them shake their heads slightly at the top of their ascent, to create a little shimmer before landing. The academy's curriculum includes classes in mime and in character dance balleticized versions of the mazurka, czardas and other folk dances neither of which are emphasized in most American ballet training. Pilar Garcia, Ms. Kirkland's longtime acting coach, teaches students to use their eyes and to explore the emotions embedded in the steps. "Movement is silent acting," she said, "and there is no movement without thought." As Ms. Kirkland is the first to acknowledge, this kind of training isn't for everyone. "They either grasp something and want to keep going," she said, "or it doesn't make any sense to them, and they fall away." The young Argentine dancer Sabina Alvarez, who plays a sultry flapper in "Stealing Time," spoke of Ms. Kirkland's ability to elicit "the deepest feeling and meaning of each gesture, down to the last eyelash" when coaching a role. To some observers, such preparation can come across as excessive. The New York Times critic Alastair Macaulay, described a 2014 studio performance of "The Sleeping Beauty" as having "no freshness whatsoever." But a visit to the studios revealed eager faces and remarkably unforced technique.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Dance
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On a mild September evening, Les Arlots, a Parisian bistro that opened last March, served a pork and duck terrine, subtly seasoned with pistachios and apricots. Then came a roast lamb redolent with thyme and a chocolate tart, saltily sweet. Each dish was excellent. But the bistro's specialty is not something that comes on a plate. It's a kind of conviviality that let this loud American, usually self conscious about playing to stereotype in Paris, guffaw without shame that night. Warmth brimmed from the 28 seat bistro, owned by Thomas Brachet, a chef, and Tristan Renoux, a sommelier, from the moment my two friends and I arrived. We started the night on the sidewalk, with the reedy Mr. Renoux, in a long blue apron, serving us a crisp Provencal rose. No rush to our seats, he told us and the other diners, also smoking, talking, laughing outside. By the night's end, it was Mr. Brachet, who materialized from the kitchen, mustached, fatigued, ruddy, serving shots of an anise flavored eau de vie.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Travel
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Shapewear Would Like to Be Loved by You. No Pressure Though Sliding into shapewear for the first time feels a little like vacuum sealing oneself. As someone who'd never worn the stuff before, it was, at best, noticeably uncomfortable. At worst, my internal organs felt so squished that I raced to the bathroom to shimmy out of it halfway through the work day. My ill fated experiment was an attempt to understand how a garment designed to remold the body could simultaneously be described as empowering and anti feminist, depending on whom you asked. Though the body positivity movement and self love preaching stars like Lizzo are more popular than ever, and many women are ditching their underwire bras for more comfortable alternatives, shapewear has maintained a viselike grip on America's midsections. Nearly 20 years after Oprah named Spanx a "Favorite Thing," that grasp shows no sign of loosening. Sales in the United States shapewear market were valued at 526 million for the year ending in August , according to the NPD Group, the market research firm. The surge in online businesses peddling shapewear and advances in product innovation have created a shift in the industry over the last year and a half, said Marshal Cohen, NPD's chief retail analyst. "It isn't just your grandmother's girdle anymore and it isn't your mother's unitard shapewear," Mr. Cohen said. It targets specific areas, like buttocks or belly. It's easier to slip on or off (as it's no longer reserved for special occasions). And, in some cases, it's made to be seen. New companies, some direct to consumer, check all the boxes of millennial marketing: pale pastel colors, sans serif fonts, ethnically diverse women with a range of body types and robust social media campaigns. Their message is one of inclusion and empowerment, even (perhaps paradoxically) emancipation. As Toby Darbyshire, the male C.E.O. of Heist Studios, an online tights and shapewear company headquartered in London , put it, "We want to build the most liberating underwear brand in the world." People who work in the shapewear industry tend to have the same talking points, many derived from Spanx's own oft repeated origin story. They will bring up the "Bridget Jones moment," the one where Renee Zellweger's character famously dons an enormous pair of figure smoothening granny panties. They'll likely tell you that shapewear, like jewelry, or makeup, should be a choice. They'll say that they aren't forcing you to wear it, or stating you need it to look good they're simply offering it for the people who seek it. (In a written statement, Spanx said that the company's mission "has always been and always will be to help women of all shapes and sizes look and feel their best," and suggested that Spanx helps "empower" women with its products and philanthropy.) To a generation that would cringe at traditional, sexist marketing like "nothing beats a great pair of L'eggs" and throw Spanx's paper catalogs right into the recycling, new companies are taking a take it or leave it approach. S hapermint , a popular online shapewear marketplace that sells lines by its parent company, Trafilea, alongside other brands, advises visitors to its website to be confident "with or without shapewear." The companies may also be priming them for the future. "The thing with women's bodies is that they are ever changing," said Ms. Biscomb. "You accept it the way it is, then you have a baby, or menopause, and it's like boom! You need to learn to love it again, and sometimes you need to have extra help with that." Silicon Valley investors have been bullish on the category. In the summer of 2018, Honeylove, a shapewear company, received funding from Y Combinator, a start up accelerator. Betsie Larkin founded the company three years ago in San Francisco, after becoming "obsessed" with finding good shapewear during her career as an electronic dance musician, when she'd wear it nightly for shows. "Shapewear isn't something you can really feel proud wearing," Ms. Larkin said . "I felt that shapewear should be really beautiful too and make you confident from the inside out, versus being something like a sacrifice." Facebook and Instagram are the company's biggest marketing channels, because these platforms allow for video demonstrations of the product. "What really works for people is to just cut to the chase," Ms. Larkin said. "We show how the product works by showing body types people can identify with, versus using the skinny models the old school brands are still using." (I n fairness, Spanx has a plus size division .) That everyone is now used to frank body pictures online has also changed the way shapewear is being sold. "We're going to show women the way they are," said Ms. Biscomb of Shapermint. "Women are prepared to see themselves reflected on social media." But Is It Body Positive? Alexis White, a 26 year old business analyst living in Atlanta, started wearing shapewear last summer after an onslaught of Instagram ads caught her attention. Ms. White, who has a 3 year old daughter and described herself as "very pro feminism," said she doesn't believe wearing shapewear conflicts with her values. "If I feel beautiful and powerful walking into my workplace, if it makes me feel good, then why shouldn't I wear it?" she said. "That's not where my focus on feminism is." Kennedy Crouch , a 24 year old podcaster living in Hamilton, Ohio, began wearing shapewear daily in high school. "It felt like protection in a way it was like one more layer of makeup, one more thing that changed something that I didn't like about myself," said Ms. Crouch, who is nonbinary and uses the pronouns "she" and "they." Around four years ago, Ms. Crouch made a conscious decision to stop using shapewear and wear less makeup. "Part of it was I didn't want people to be making money off of my insecurities," they said. Though Ms. Crouch was self conscious before wearing shapewear, they said wearing it created new insecurities, resulting in a "compulsive need to have something sucking me in." While Ms. Crouch still might consider wearing shapewear on a night out, they expressed skepticism over the "corporate empowerment" pervasive in the shapewear ads they see popping up on social media. "I worry about women finding empowerment in these things that are ultimately made by companies that don't want them to feel empowered, " they said. " I think sometimes empowerment might be confused with a feeling of getting closer to societal ideals." But CeCe Olisa, a blogger and co founder of the Curvy Con , a multiday event dedicated to plus size fashion, wears shapewear daily, occasionally doubling up (an experience she described as "intense") to smooth out lines and give herself a "snatched waist." As an influencer, she'd received enough questions from followers on the subject to devote one of her newsletters to an in depth shapewear guide, which still remains one of her most popular posts to date. "There is a portion of the body positivity community that feels that shapewear is not a body positive thing to wear," said Ms. Olisa, who is in her 30s. "For me, if I'm in a meeting trying to fight for plus size women with the work I do and I'm worried about my back fat, that is not a body positive moment." Some followers have reached out to Ms. Olisa, explaining how they removed shapewear from their life as a part of their "body positivity journey." One follower described in an email how she found herself "dressing around her rolls" as a result, wearing baggier clothing and ultimately ended up hiding her body more. The decision to wear shapewear, Ms. Olisa said, should be guided by personal preference, not "because it's about the male gaze or body positive." "I'm more inclusive with my body positive philosophies," she said. "My community wants a body positive reality, and I'm down for that world, but I don't live in it right now." Last August, a handful of soft red posters popped up across the London tube, bearing the question, "Shapewear is anti feminist, right?" It was one of Heist's ad campaigns. Mr. Darbyshire, the C.E.O., said that he had seen the amount of money companies poured into "proper science" researching and developing technological advancements in sportswear. "Compare that to an industry that produces garments women wear all day, every day, and there's no R D," said Mr. Darbyshire. (An exaggeration, but certainly most shapewear companies are advertising what they do for curves, not their technology.) Recently, Ms. Fairhurst's 10 year old daughter read a book on the designer Coco Chanel, who revolutionized dressing for women in the 1920s when she introduced a suit inspired by men's wear. "Coco saw that women couldn't move," she told her mother excitedly. "You're solving a problem Coco Chanel tried to solve a hundred years ago!" At an academic conference in 2017, Maria Carolina Zanette presented a research paper on the evolution of shapewear from Victorian era corsets to Spanx. But first, she had to explain to some male colleagues in the audience what it was. She mentioned the concept of the "invisible corset": how even if women abstain from wearing physically binding clothing, they are still urged to structure their bodies through plastic surgery, diets and exercise. In interviews for her research, women described the bruises they'd gotten while wearing shapewear and recounted their experiences wearing the garments in sweltering heat. "They acknowledge it's uncomfortable and causes bruises in your skin, how if you go out with it you basically can't eat or do anything," she said. "But then on the other hand, the person will say, 'I felt I was putting on armor.'" While a suit of armor offers protection, historically, the metal was cumbersome; it made its wearers weary. And when it comes to shapewear, it's less clear what people are seeking protection from. The truth of their own bodies? I admired how sleek my clothes appeared in the mirror while wearing shapewear. But I also didn't feel particularly warrior like when I couldn't focus at my desk, unaccustomed to the discomfort caused by the constricting garment. The only real moment of empowerment came when I took it off.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Style
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Q. Does Windows 10 come with its own dictation function, as the Mac does? A. Windows 10 does have an integrated speech recognition feature that you can use for things like dictating text into a word processing program or giving vocal commands to navigate the system. (Windows 7 also includes speech recognition functions in the Ease of Access settings.) To set up a Windows 10 computer to take dictation, go to the search bar next to the Start menu, enter "speech recognition" and choose the Windows Speech Recognition control panel from the search results. A link in the control panel takes you through a tutorial on using voice commands and dictation.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Technology
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The low key neighborhood of Shimokitazawa in western Tokyo is only one express train stop from the sensory excesses of chaotic Shibuya imagine Times Square, amplified but it's a world away in spirit. The area, locally called Shimokita, is populated by hip young Tokyoites drawn by the relaxed, small town atmosphere that makes the neighborhood an anomaly in this bustling megalopolis. The narrow streets are easy to navigate and dense with local businesses, including a high concentration of vintage shops, unusual specialty stores and small boutiques stocked with wares from young artists and artisans. Many consider this the coolest neighborhood in Tokyo, and when you browse some of the most interesting shops, it's hard to disagree. In a neighborhood overflowing with secondhand shops, this beautifully arranged vintage store stands out for its well chosen collection of clothing, shoes and accessories, mainly from the 1950s to 1970s. Equally impressive is the enviable style of the employees, who dress the part in headscarves, floral midi skirts and round granny glasses.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Travel
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Exploring new paths, figuring out a field of study to pursue in college or simply taking a break are just a few reasons high school graduates are taking gap years. We asked readers who have taken a year off from their education what they learned and what tips they have for those who are considering the same. Responses were edited for length and clarity. Did you take a gap year or are you thinking about taking one? Share your experiences in the comments section of this article. I signed up for the trip thinking that while we were in New Zealand, I would just sit back and watch everyone else sky dive and bungee jump. I had always been afraid of heights like crying while crossing a bridge afraid so I told myself every day that I was not. I now know that I can overcome any fear. I bungee jumped off a 43 meter high 140 foot ledge, jumped out of a plane at 15,000 feet and flew in a 300 meter 985 foot arc on the world's largest canyon swing. It was a week that demonstrated the power I have over my own mind. If you are afraid of something, think about your fear. See if you can work through it. Don't just listen to someone who says don't be afraid to try new things. Contemplate why you are afraid of new things. 'Remember you are experiencing a challenge few accept.' I took a gap year between high school and college in 1989. I graduated from high school and was on a plane to basic training at Fort Benning for the Army National Guard a few days later. I returned home with a bad haircut and worse attitude. For my gap year I lived with my parents and siblings. I worked a variety of jobs: for a land surveyor, nights at a convenience store and as an inventory checker. I hated them all, but they got me out of the house and put some money in my pocket. I felt lost. My friends were gone and I didn't fit in with my family dynamic. The highlights of my months were my military service weekends. I made close connections with my fellow soldiers and looked forward to the challenges and camaraderie of our training time. Recognize that the gap year is a time of transition. When you feel alone and like your life is stuck while your friends are away on their own adventures, remember you are experiencing a challenge few accept. You will learn more about yourself during your gap year than most of your friends will learn during their first year of college. In addition, you'll develop skills that will serve you in life: resilience, self reliance, courage and patience. Your gap year will be the furnace that will temper your steely resolve to achieve when you arrive at college. 'Even though I come from a low income family, there are programs like Global Citizen Year that provide scholarships for students of all backgrounds.' ANH TU LU, 18, Garden Grove, Calif. (currently in Kedougou, Senegal; undecided on college choice) I decided a gap year would be the best choice for me because I felt exhausted after going through high school. Even though I come from a low income family, there are programs like Global Citizen Year that provide scholarships for students of all backgrounds. (I paid 5,000 through outside scholarships and my own fund raising.) Though there are many struggles at times with limited resources to take care of mental and physical health, the experience over all has been very meaningful. I am learning three languages here: French, Pulaar and Malinke. I even decided on what I want to study in college: linguistics. For work, I teach English at the local high school two days a week, and on the other days I work at my host family's community garden. Since my host father works for the Peace Corps and Trees for the Future, I get to learn a lot about sustainability and foreign aid. Mostly, the trip is worthwhile because I got to meet my host family, who have guided me through Senegalese life as a Vietnamese kid who doesn't know a lot about what he's doing. 'I fell for the company with the great promotional videos and website.' MIRANDA ANDREWS, 26, Victoria, Canada (policy analyst for the Province of British Columbia) My experience with a gap year was not without its challenges. I went to northern Thailand, taught in a rural school and did community work with a monastery. The school, community and people were amazing. It was the other students in the gap year program that made it especially challenging. The majority of the people I was with picked Thailand so they could party. My weekends became party central, which was not what I signed up for. But all in all, I learned much more than I would in first year university, about myself, rural education, public health and other cultures. I was forced out of my comfort zone on multiple occasions, and it served me well in the long run. I recommend doing your research. I fell for the company with the great promotional videos and website, and I paid for that, and my experience wasn't as great, as far as gap years go. 'I thought I knew what I wanted to do, but through my service experiences over the year, I changed my mind and found a new life direction.' I intended to go to medical school right after undergrad, but I thought a gap year would be a good break. I found a nonprofit that allows young adults to serve as mentors in schools to at risk students. I got paid a stipend through the program and supported myself minimally off that. I have discovered things about myself that I would not have had time to consider if I jumped right into school. I thought I knew what I wanted to do, but through my service experiences over the year, I changed my mind and found a new life direction. I found out that I love doing service work in the communities, and rather than going to medical school I want to pursue a career in public health. 'The purpose of a gap year is to grow, experiment, experience and "live." But that can be compromised if your plans fall short of your expectations due to money.' My financial circumstances, in addition to the pressure my parents placed on me to "grow up," did not allow me to take a year off. Instead of a gap year, I decided to continue on to college and take a couple of semesters to study aboard. This seemed like an alternative that would not stall my graduation date.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Education
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Almost 2,500 years after his death, Socrates continues to fascinate. The Greek thinker is seen, by some, as the father of philosophy, a martyr for the cause of freedom of speech and even as a kind of secular saint. But Socrates also repels. We know of him only from the work of others, and even Plato, who seemed to have held him in high regard, paints him as a pugnacious and ironic figure someone who insistently dispelled comforting notions and sought to overcome the tendency to mythologize. This complicated man, and how he was received by later generations, is the subject of Tim Blake Nelson's new play, "Socrates," now in previews at the Public Theater as a part of the Onassis Festival. Running through April 28 at the Public Theater and La MaMa, the festival offers theater (including "Antigone" staged as a comedy), music (like a concert exploring the songs of refugees) and talks that focus on this year's theme: democracy. After attending an early performance of "Socrates," Kwame Anthony Appiah, a philosophy professor and the author of The New York Times Magazine's column "The Ethicist," spoke with me about the philosopher, the sometimes strained relationship between philosophers and society, and how to deal with critics of democracy. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. PETER LIBBEY PETER LIBBEY Were you surprised to learn that there is a new play about Socrates? Our society doesn't tend to celebrate philosophers. KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH I can't say I was super surprised, because people write plays about all kinds of things. The challenge in writing a play about Socrates is that Plato already wrote more than a dozen episodes of Socrates talking to people. In a way, you're in competition with Plato. If somebody was going to write a play about a philosopher, Socrates would be an obvious one to pick, because he had this interesting life in which his philosophy and his philosophizing came into the public life of his society and led to his being condemned to death. LIBBEY But wasn't Socrates an enemy of the arts? In Plato's "Republic," Socrates banishes poets, including dramatists, from the perfectly just city. Do you think that philosophy and theater are in some kind of tension with each other? APPIAH I think they can be. It's brought out in the dialogue with the poet in Nelson's play. One way of thinking about this philosophical skepticism about the arts is as a conflict between logic and rhetoric. The skepticism about the arts is that they will lead us away from the truth. This is true, of course. Poetry isn't just about saying what is so. It's about saying it in a particular way. I don't share this Platonic skepticism about the arts, but you can see how you get there. One worry is just that Socrates is preoccupied with truth, and fiction doesn't even aim at truth directly. The other worry is and this is why Socrates, in this new play, argues with the Athenian politician is a worry about fiction as being something that can be used to confuse us, to get us to go along with things or believe things that aren't so. The problem isn't that it's not aimed at truth, it's that it can be used to assist in the propagation of falsehoods. LIBBEY We tend to credit ancient Athens with the invention of democracy and also with the birth of philosophy. But are these two things even linked? After all, Socrates was condemned to death by democratic Athens. APPIAH I don't think it's terribly helpful to try to say when philosophy begins. But I think that this play brings out the fact that there can be a conflict between the philosopher and the polity. Socrates thinks that the search for truth is the search for how to live, because he thinks that if you know the truth, it will tell you how to live. For him, the search for truth is an ethical thing, it's about guiding the conduct of your life. But, as you can see in the play, he's interested in understanding for its own sake. Now, if you're trying to get on with things and politics is a practical art having someone stop you and say, "I know that works in practice but I want to understand the theory of it," is not very helpful. So philosophers can be an irritant in any political system but especially in a democracy, because they're likely to seem, as Socrates does, to be looking down on the ordinary citizen who doesn't have what the philosopher considers a decent understanding. LIBBEY Socrates was viewed as dangerous because he questioned his city's most fundamental norms and values. Can a democratic society accommodate those whose questioning goes so deep? APPIAH You have to have the confidence that democracy is sturdy enough that even the critics of democracy cannot undermine it simply by raising questions. If you don't have it, then you'll want to silence people who, by their questioning, seem to undermine democratic institutions. My own tendency is to think that our democracy is robust enough that we don't have to worry about that, that we can allow people to make arguments against our fundamental assumptions and institutions and the institutions will survive. Athens is just starting out on this. They're emerging from a period of nondemocracy, and you can see why you might be worried that someone who questions democracy could end up undermining respect for the institutions. That might lead back to tyranny or oligarchy. They don't have full confidence that the system can be given a rational defense. And I think its true that a lot of politics does depend a little bit on magic and mystery. LIBBEY It is easy to admire Socrates from afar. But is it fair for us to assume that we're so different from and better than the Athenian citizens who put him to death? APPIAH Some very thoughtful and decent people loved him, so he must have had something endearing about him. Plato, while certainly disagreeing with him about certain matters, admired him enormously. But Socrates must have been intensely annoying, in ways Nelson's play brings out. Execution isn't our response to people who try to unsettle our cherished beliefs, but we don't have a huge amount of patience. If Athens had had our technology, I'm sure Socrates would have been widely blocked on social media. LIBBEY On April 15, you'll be discussing the relationship between theater and democracy, with the playwright Suzan Lori Parks and the Public's artistic director Oskar Eustis. What, for you, is the connection between the two? APPIAH For us at the Public and I'm on the board of the Public, so I sort of have a strong sense of how we all think about this one of the main things we're doing is trying to be a theater for this democratic society. The thought is that great drama, great art, helps in the discourse of a society to think about what we should be doing. The Socrates play does this, as do all of Suzan Lori Parks's plays. They help us reflect on what's going on in our society, about the displacement of workers or the complexity of race relations and so on. Democracy is, among other things, about a kind of shared public deliberation. LIBBEY How do you think Socrates would conduct himself at a panel discussion in Manhattan in 2019? APPIAH You wouldn't be able to get him to make an opening statement, because he would say, "I don't know anything." But as soon as anybody started saying anything, he'd be asking you to make your arguments clearer he'd be challenging your assumptions. He'd want us see that the standard stories we tell ourselves aren't good enough.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Theater
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Kansai Yamamoto at the Portobello Hotel in London after his debut collection in 1971, a full decade before other, more prominent Japanese designers showed in the city. Kansai Yamamoto, the unapologetically flamboyant fashion designer whose love of color, unfettered imagination and exploration of genderless dressing caught the eye of David Bowie and helped define the look of his alter ego, Ziggy Stardust, died in a Tokyo hospital on July 21 . He was 76. The cause was leukemia, a statement on his office website confirmed. Kansai, as Mr. Yamamoto was generally known, was not as well known as some of his more high profile Japanese fashion contemporaries, including Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons. But it was Kansai who led the way for a generation of Japanese design talents to make their mark on the Western industry. In 1971, he was among the first Japanese designers to show in London a full decade before Ms. Kawakubo and the other Mr. Yamamoto. His signature aesthetic of sculptural shapes, clashing textures and prints, and eye popping color combinations attracted industry attention. Kansai's debut collection was splashed across the cover of Harpers Queen magazine with the tagline "Explosion from Tokyo," and his growing profile led to collaborations with the decade's most important musician showmen, including Elton John and Stevie Wonder in addition to Mr. Bowie, with whom he formed a longstanding creative relationship. In a talk at the Brooklyn Museum during its 2018 "David Bowie Is" exhibition, to which he wore an elaborate black and gold brocade suit that he characterized as "minimal," Kansai recalled meeting Mr. Bowie in 1973. Mr. Bowie's producer had called Kansai and asked him to come to Radio City Music Hall in New York, where, in a concert, Mr. Bowie descended the stage on a giant disco ball. The two men soon discovered that they shared a love of "radical appearance" and pushing boundaries. In fact, Mr. Bowie had been wearing Kansai's women's wear since 1971. From 1973 onward, they worked together to create one off showpieces for Mr. Bowie's stage personas and music tours, including the 1973 "Aladdin Sane" tour. There were exuberant skintight jumpsuits with giant flared hems and silken brocade bomber jackets, androgynous cloaks with cutaways and vivid platform shoes. Often, the costumes incorporated elements from Japanese culture, particularly the silhouette of the kimono and the bold aesthetics of medieval samurai warlords. "I approached Bowie's clothes as if I was designing for a female," Kansai said at the Brooklyn Museum talk, pointing out that there was "no zipper in front." He also said that the number of costume changes required had inspired him to use snaps on Mr. Bowie's costumes, so they could be removed faster. His favorite piece for the singer was the black and white jumpsuit with bowed legs featured in the "David Bowie Is" exhibition, which was first mounted in 2013 at the Victoria Albert Museum in London before traveling around the world. "I found David's aesthetic and interest in transcending gender boundaries shockingly beautiful," Kansai told the website The Cut in 2018. Born on Feb. 8, 1944 in Yokohama, on Japan's east coast, Kansai Yamamoto did not have a happy childhood. His parents divorced when he was 7, and he was sent to a children's home. He traveled with his two younger brothers ages 3 and 5 from Yokohama to Tokyo and then to the far flung southwestern province of Kochi. "How much I envied the lights of happy families that I saw from the window of the slow train at dusk," he once said. "It was lonely, and I still can't forget that." He studied civil engineering before leaving school in 1962 to study English at Nippon University. A self taught fashion designer (despite saying later that "fashion is not a profession I would recommend") he founded his own business, Yamamoto Kansai Company, at 28, the year of his first London show. After his heyday in the 1970s and '80s, and as Japanese fashion gained global prominence for its cultivation of a pared back minimalism, Kansai continued to explore his interest in traditional Japanese clothing and craftsmanship, but with a distinctive and fantastical flourish. He often pointed to his longstanding affinity with the Japanese concept of basara, a love of color and flamboyance; one that stood directly in contrast with the idea of wabi sabi, the Buddhist ideal of the beauty in imperfection, modesty and humble materials. Starting in 1993 in Red Square in Moscow, he began producing evermore extravagant "super shows," including one that involved a gigantic inflatable whale.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Fashion & Style
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At the Mnuchin Gallery, an untitled Ed Clark painting, with "magnifying impasto and brushwork in piled up strokes that seem to squirm on the surface," Roberta Smith writes. At 7 Art Galleries, the Ecstatic Flow of Paint and the Stories It Can Tell Few truths about paint are more basic than this: it tends to go on wet, whether on canvas, furniture or buildings, and then it dries. Once dried, it can preserve a sense of its original fluidity to greatly varying degrees. In the postwar years it became a sure sign of modernity and freshness. It's dynamic, at times volcanic, like artistic genius is supposed to be, but it can also have a comedic, even ironic quality. It conveys immediacy, material reality, improvisation as well as flamboyance and glamour, savoir faire. Giving full voice to the liquidity of paint has gone in and out of style since it was liberated in the 1940s by the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, Janet Sobel and Norman Lewis. In the mid 1950s, Helen Frankenthaler opened further possibilities. Working on the floor, she thinned her paint to the consistency of water, creating floods and eddies of color that soaked into the canvas. Her techniques established the Color Field School in the United States. The Japanese artists of the Gutai took wetness to fabulous excesses, making it a lavalike substance. Things turned ironic with Andy Warhol's Oxidation series, achieved by the artist and others urinating on canvases painted with copper metallic paint. Sometime in the 1970s, Color Field fell out of favor and visibly liquid paint had a much a lower profile. You could say it flowed underground. But it never went away, and right now, seven shows in New York galleries give both its present and its recent past a new visibility. The career of Ed Clark, now 92, is the subject of this vigorous 40 year career survey, which establishes his singular exploration of the formal and narrative potential of color and paint. Mr. Clark sometimes stains but mostly he wields wide brushes and even brooms, magnifying impasto and brushwork in piled up strokes that seem to squirm on the surface. More characteristic are broad bands and curves of color that zoom across or out of corners, achieving an almost sculptural force, as in the pale, propulsive streams of "Elevation" (1992), a tumult of sound, water and paint all in one. In "Blacklash," from 1964, Mr. Clark signals racial anger with his title and a splatter of black paint that fans against red and white, like a cat o' nine tails. In the formally vehement "Orange Front" (1962) a stained orange field is barricaded with broad strokes of blue and blue green; they mostly cover a big black shape, visible from drips that extend from it to the canvas's upper edge. Virtually next door to Mnuchin, the Almine Rech Gallery is showing the little known Color Field painter Vivian Springford (1913 2003), whose work resurfaced in an exhibition at the Gary Snyder Gallery in 1998, several years after macular degeneration had forced her to stop painting. Most of the paintings here feature concentric poolings of translucent colors that intimate flowers, clouds and water reflections. They build on the potential of Georgia O'Keeffe's early watercolors as O'Keeffe did not but also evoke the art critic Robert Hughes's epithet about the Color Field paintings being "giant watercolors." The smaller, more intensely colored works are livelier, especially an untitled painting from 1972 that evokes Arthur Dove's visionary conjurings of nature. Larry Poons has always been something of a maverick who trusts his instincts and never minds fashion. He first became known in the early 1960s for stripped down "dot" paintings whose combination of evenly stained color, punctuated with small precise lozenges, aligned him with Color Field, Minimalism and Op Art in one fell swoop. By the late 1960s, he had gone heavy duty, creating thick, creviced topographies of paint poured on horizontal unstretched canvases soon designated the "Elephant Skin" series. By 1971, the canvas was back on the wall, and Mr. Poons was throwing paint from cans and buckets, always aiming high. It ran down the surface in thick rivulets as funkily literal as they are associational. Words like vines, rain, waterfalls and fountains run through the mind in this rare and wonderful show, titled "Ruffles Queequeg The Throw Decade 1971 1981." (The reference to Queequeg of "Moby Dick" fame is a transitional wavelike work.) I can imagine these pieces holding their own against Monet's "Waterlilies." In an essay in the catalog, Frank Stella, the painter and Mr. Poons's friend, calls him "Mr. Natural," which seems accurate. The Guyana born, London educated painter Frank Bowling, now 86, imperiously takes Ezra Pound's famous battle cry to artists as the title of his show of recent work: "Make It New." What Mr. Bowling has been making new for much of his career is Color Field painting, messing it up with added images and references. When he was living in New York in the 1970s, the continents of Africa or South America sometimes floated behind his fluorescent fields of color. (Hints of them recur in "Another Morrison as in Stuart.") I've never been enamored of Joan Mitchell's early paintings, but some of the best are in Cheim Read's latest exploration of her achievement, expansively titled "Paintings From the Middle of the Last Century, 1953 1962." Their slashing brush work challenge Pollock. Like Ed Clark, she relished speed, but worked more intuitively, yet often arrived at an uneasy brittleness in the swirls of strokes. The show tracks the slowing down that was Mitchell's development. There's still some slashing, but with wider brushes more loaded with color, which decreases the blender effect. With the blues, green and oranges of "Blue Michigan" from 1961, we see Mitchell reach maturity, beginning a 30 year phase that lasted until her death and during which she only got better. They are also ecstatic, pierced by beams of light, similar to Bernini's "Ecstasy of St. Theresa." The combination is beautiful, ironic and rococo, bridging the gap between painters like Helen Frankenthaler and Post Minimalists like Bruce Nauman and Keith Sonnier. A strange unity is achieved. You can't imagine the canvases without their neon, and Ms. Weatherford holds back her aggressive brush strokes to foster this reciprocity. It's great to see her in a space where macho painting tends to prevail, but attaching lengths of neon to paintings has it limitations. Six years on, this show may be their last hurrah. Like Mary Weatherford, Elizabeth Neel adds unexpected elements to her painterly abstractions: hard edge geometric shapes in black or white as well as textured rubbing like silhouettes of insects. These added elements accent the methodical way the paintings are built up, for example with mirroring Rorschach like motifs. The paintings have a new clarity that makes them Ms. Neel's most impressive efforts so far. The show's title "Tangled on a Serpent Chair" suggests an artist on the hot seat, which may, creatively speaking, be a good place to work from.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Art & Design
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The cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov in Moscow in March 1965, just days after he became the first man to walk in space. Aleksei Leonov, the Russian cosmonaut who became the first person to walk in space, a thrilling feat that nearly cost him his life but raised Soviet prestige during the Cold War space race against the United States died on Friday in Moscow. He was 85. His death was announced by Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, on its website. The milestone achievement by Mr. Leonov, a major in the Soviet Air Force at the time, showed that men could survive in space outside the confines of their craft and presumably walk on the moon one day. His spacewalk, in March 1965, was seen by television viewers in the Soviet Union and Europe on videotape. Later in the mission, a live telecast showed Mr. Leonov and a fellow cosmonaut strapped in their seats in the cabin. The spacewalk enabled the Russians once again to upstage the United States in space; they had launched the first satellite, Sputnik, in October 1957 and the first manned spaceflight into orbit, with Yuri Gagarin, in April 1961. Edward H. White II of the United States Air Force carried out America's first spacewalk some two and half months later, leaving his two man Gemini 4 capsule for 20 minutes. NASA said in a statement that Mr. Leonov's "venture into the vacuum of space began the history of extravehicular activity that makes today's Space Station maintenance possible." Mr. Leonov would have likely been the first Russian to walk on the moon had the Soviet Union not given up on its lunar ambitions. In 1975, he took part in a pioneering linkup in orbit of Soviet and American spaceships that ultimately led to creation of the International Space Station. "As far as I can remember, I was concentrating fully, cold blooded and relatively unexcited," Mr. Leonov wrote in a first person account in Life magazine two months later. "The sight was spectacular! The stars do not blink. The sun seems welded into the black velvet of the sky. The earth alone speeds along." What Mr. Leonov did not reveal until many years later was that he and his fellow cosmonaut, Pavel I. Belyayev, who was also an Air Force pilot, were fortunate to have survived. Mr. Leonov's specially designed suit had unexpectedly inflated during his walk, and its bulk was preventing him from getting back inside the Voskhod. "I knew I could not afford to panic, but time was running out," he recalled in the book "Two Sides of the Moon" (2004), written with the astronaut David Scott, about their experiences in space. Mr. Leonov slowly deflated the suit by releasing oxygen from it, a procedure that threatened to leave him without life support. But with the reduced bulk, he finally made it inside. "I was drenched with sweat, my heart racing," he remembered. But that, he added, "was just the start of dire emergencies which almost cost us our lives." The oxygen pressure in the spacecraft rose to a dangerous level, introducing the prospect that a spark in the electrical system could set off a disastrous explosion or fire. It returned to a tolerable level, but the cosmonauts never figured out the reason for the surge. When it came time for the return to Earth , the spacecraft's automatic rocket firing system did not work, forcing the cosmonauts to conduct imprecise manual maneuvers during the descent that left them in deep snow and freezing temperatures in a remote Russian forest, far from their intended landing point. It took several hours for a search party to find them and drop supplies from a helicopter, and they spent two nights in the forest, the first one inside their spacecraft and the second one in a small log cabin built by a ground rescue crew, until rescuers arrived on skis. They then took a 12 mile ski trek to a clearing, where a helicopter evacuated them. Nearly four years after his spacewalk, Mr. Leonov had another brush with death. In January 1969, a car in which he was riding with three other former cosmonauts part of a motorcade that included the Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev was entering the Kremlin for a celebration marking the docking of two Russian spaceships when a man wielding a pistol in each hand opened fire. The car carrying Mr. Leonov was hit by 14 bullets, which shattered the windows and killed the driver. "I looked down and saw two bullet holes on each side of my coat where the bullets passed through," Mr. Leonov told The New York Times Magazine in 1994. "A fifth bullet passed so close to my face, I could feel it going by. When it was over, Brezhnev took me inside and told me, 'Those bullets were not meant for you, Aleksei, they were meant for me, and for that, I apologize.'" The gunman had apparently fired on Mr. Leonov's car thinking Brezhnev was inside, but his car had already peeled off from the motorcade. He was quickly captured, declared insane and sentenced to a mental institution. Mr. Leonov, an accomplished amateur artist, presented the astronauts Thomas P. Stafford, Vance D. Brand and Deke Slayton with sketches he had drawn of them during joint training. The cosmonauts were later greeted by President Gerald R. Ford on a visit to the White House and the American spacemen toured the Soviet Union as guests of the cosmonauts. Aleksei Arkhipovich Leonov was born on May 30, 1934, in the Siberian village of Listvyanka, one of 12 children. His father, Arkhip, a former coal miner who had become a farmer, was sent to a Soviet prison when Aleksei was 3, having been falsely denounced as an enemy of the state, but was released after several years. When Aleksei was 6, he met a Soviet pilot and became enthralled by aviation. He was admitted to flight training school, joined the Air Force, flew jet fighters and served as a test pilot. He was among the first group selected for cosmonaut training, in 1960. He later became director of the cosmonaut corps and retired from the Soviet space program in 1992 as a major general. In 1969, Mr. Leonov was sitting in front of a television when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first moonwalkers as part of the Apollo 11 flight. Though he knew he would never fulfill his dream of walking on the moon, he saw a larger picture that day. "Everyone forgot, for a few moments, that we were all citizens of different countries on Earth," he wrote in "Two Sides of the Moon." "That moment really united the human race."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Science
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Picture this: A summer behind the scenes at the Edinburgh Art Festival, helping set up a show and banquet, managing a guest list and communicating with artists and agents, plus an excursion to London and a tour of a Scotch distillery and 12th century castle. That was Darius Francis' internship last summer. He loved it. Who wouldn't? "Anytime I talk to anyone about this experience, they say, 'Wow, tell me about that,' " said Mr. Francis, a senior majoring in public relations at Eastern Illinois University. Demand for internships abroad has surged as students and just as important, their parents grow ever more worried about their job prospects after graduation and seek a foothold in a world that values global experience. "The hottest growth area in the whole international education area" is how Cheryl Matherly, vice provost for global education at the University of Tulsa, describes internships. "It's a way to really make the international experience more relevant." There is no good data over time, but according to the Institute of International Education, almost 20,500 Americans participated in for credit internships in 2012 13, while about 15,000 interned, worked or volunteered abroad for no credit. For students, setting up an internship with an employer thousands of miles away is no easy feat. Seizing an opportunity, hundreds of program providers have jumped into the field, adding numerous bells and whistles and a steep price tag. GoAbroad.com, which offers information on international education, lists some 3,200 internships, usually unpaid, put together by over 700 providers. Most providers are for profit companies, while some are educational nonprofit organizations. In addition, more and more universities, including Columbia, Georgia Tech, Rice, Yale and the University of Southern California, are arranging internships for their students, in part to keep costs down. Some experts complain that the internships give wealthy students an unfair leg up in the job market. "Expensive overseas internships are yet another way that the internship economy reinforces privilege, making the once unthinkable seem almost normal people paying thousands of dollars to work," said Ross Perlin, the author of "Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy." But to many students and parents, even to families like the Francises, for whom the expenditure was a stretch, the benefits the on the job learning and exposure to another culture justify the cost. In a 2012 survey by the Institute for the International Education of Students, known as I.E.S. Abroad, 84 percent of their alumni said the experience had helped them build job skills; 89 percent reported getting a job within six months of graduation. Emily Merson, co founder and C.E.O. of Global Experiences, a 13 year old company that arranges internships in Dublin, London, Shanghai and other cities, argues that internships are more of an equalizer than study abroad programs. "We've seen so many people do internships who would otherwise not study abroad because it's too expensive," Ms. Merson said. "A lot of students think, 'An international internship is a really good idea, and I'm going to make sure I can afford it.' " She added: "We're seeing proportionally far more first generation college students doing internships abroad than doing study abroad, because it's such a good strategic choice and such a good return on investment." She explained where the "tuition" goes: internship placement, which involves one on one time with each student; housing, which she says is particularly expensive in London and Sydney, Australia; and visa assistance, orientation, social activities and weekend excursions, among other expenses. Airfare and food are not included. Many colleges and universities compile lists of preferred providers, though students often turn to online peer comments for advice. Troy Peden, a founder of GoAbroad, cautions that testimonials are often skewed because of voluntary response bias. Moreover, internships are particularly hard to review. "A lot of times, the satisfaction ratings for internships are all over the place," he said. Are they reviewing the provider, who may be organizing only an orientation and a placement, or their boss, or the job itself? "You also have the interns themselves," he added. "Were they a good intern? Did that impact their experience?" Some students rave; some grumble about being underutilized and not learning enough. Elena Friedberg, a junior majoring in history and French at the University of Michigan, had an eight week internship at a bridal boutique in Paris arranged by Global Experiences. Ms. Friedberg said that the internship, which cost 10,000, was a great learning experience but the grunt work, like serving tea and coffee to customers, got repetitive, convincing her she did not want to work retail. "It had its ups and down," she said. And she found her homestay, in a couple's Paris apartment, less than ideal. The couple argued a lot and sometimes served frozen meals. At night she had to walk past an unlit park on the way home from the Metro. Then there's Sam Thayer, a 2011 graduate of Bucknell, who was eager to combine an overseas experience with work, and signed up with Dream Careers, whose website boasts "Over 3,000 Employers. 30 Industries. 5,000 Internships." He made known his love of sports and interest in marketing, and was connected with Octagon, a leading sports marketing company in London. An Octagon executive interviewed him by phone, and they agreed it was a good fit. At Octagon, Mr. Thayer helped develop marketing strategies for MasterCard and Cadbury and worked with account managers on making pitches. "They weren't just sticking me in a corner, giving me busy work," said Mr. Thayer, now an account executive at the 360i advertising agency. Dream Careers' 70 interns in London lived in a housing complex near Kings Cross, two to a room. They had weekend outings to Stonehenge, Bath and Paris. As might be expected, with a drinking age of 18, some plunged into the pub scene. "But everyone took their work very seriously," Mr. Thayer said. "When you are an entry level kid coming out of a liberal arts college, you really need something in your resume that jumps off the page," he continued. "For me, to say that I worked at an international company in an international city, that's something that was always interesting. In every job interview I had, that was discussed." This summer, the cost of a Dream Careers internship in London is 9,499, including housing, resume polishing and excursions, but not airfare or visas. Eric Normington, chief executive of Dream Careers, said his company does not pay employers to take students, and it's up to the employer and student to decide whether they're a good match. "A lot of employers like bringing in young American students because they bring insights, create connections, add a different culture," he said, "and a lot of employers like the American work ethic." Internship operators note that many parents want their children to intern at prestigious giants like JPMorgan Chase, but such positions are few and far between. The best learning experiences, they say, are with small companies or nonprofits. Hardly any international internships are paid. Mallory Meiser, community and brand manager at the website GoOverseas.com, explains why: "Most countries have regulations for foreign students saying, 'You have to work for free or not at all.' China doesn't want a Chinese company paying American kids to do what Chinese kids can do." (The phenomenon of unpaid internships does not plague American students alone; Europeans and Asians do them as well.) Ms. Meiser acknowledges that cost is an obvious issue. "There's a very small percentage of students who can afford it, who can afford to work for free in London for three months," she said. "These companies provide a great opportunity and they charge for it. You might have the luxury of going to work at Wimbledon and not being paid for it." Karina Cheung, who graduated from Temple University in December, did not let money stop her from pursuing her dream: an internship in Hong Kong. Many universities have special funds for study, internships and volunteering abroad, and Ms. Cheung secured two scholarships from Temple, which, together with a federal Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, covered the 10,000 charged by Dream Careers for an internship with a bilingual lifestyle magazine. Ms. Cheung is from a single parent household with three children, and as a low income Pell grant recipient, she was eligible for a Gilman, a grant of up to 5,000 that's available to 2,300 students a year. The grant is aimed at diversifying the kind of students who study and intern abroad. "All I had to pay for was my plane," said Ms. Cheung, whose internship included translating articles from Cantonese to English, writing an article on luxury watches, helping photo shoots and writing ad copy. She now works at a Philadelphia radio station. Some programs also offer scholarship money. I.E.S. Abroad awards more than 2 million a year in need or merit based grants. The nonprofit institute, which is part of a consortium of more than 220 American colleges and universities, is a big name in the study abroad field. Over 100,000 students have enrolled in its programs since it was founded in 1950. But while part time internships have long been baked into its study abroad, parents and students clamored for more. "We saw a change in parents' mentality," said Keith Dipple, executive director of internships. "They were demanding a return on investment for their child's study abroad experience. The return on investment is a job after graduation." In response, in 2013, I.E.S. Abroad introduced full time summer internships, which this year will be in Sydney, Dublin, London, Rome, Milan, Paris and Barcelona, Spain, and Santiago, Chile. Cost: 5,000 to 7,850. Rachael Criso, a French professor at the University of Michigan, is not a fan of pricey internships. "There are a lot of private operators who charge students 7,000 to 10,000 for the privilege of working abroad for nothing," said Dr. Criso, who helps find and arrange overseas internships for students in Michigan's college of literature, science and the arts. "We're trying to make it an affordable proposition for students. We have some scholarships that help them pay for housing and airfare." Assisted by Michigan alumni spread around the world, her program has arranged internships with a winery in France, an artist in Paris, a women's group in Geneva and a school in Turkey. Kai Norden, a University of Michigan sophomore majoring in business and environmental science, found an internship last summer at a London consulting firm where an alumnus worked; he got to research farming in Uganda for an apparel company that was setting up a fair trade program. The employer's stipend covered housing and food; he paid only 1,400, for visa and flight. "It was a lot better than the whole pay to play program where you have to shell out a lot of money," he said.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Education
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Inside the Great American Songbook From Gershwin to Sondheim Rob Kapilow may be contemporary America's most passionate evangelist for the quaint discipline known as "music appreciation." As a composer, conductor and host of the "What Makes It Great?" programs and in his occasional appearances on the PBS NewsHour he is a winning combination of Leonard Bernstein and Bill Nye the Science Guy, an infectiously enthusiastic explainer of the inner mechanical workings of music, that most abstract of all arts. Perhaps best known for his erudite yet accessible analyses of the classical repertoire, he is also a passionate fan of those wondrous works of the mid 20th century when good music was popular and popular music was very good indeed. He hears America singing, in all its varied carols. In "Listening for America: Inside the Great American Songbook From Gershwin to Sondheim," Kapilow has set himself the formidable task of demonstrating how and why standards from "I Got Rhythm" to "Send In the Clowns" have become irresistible earworms for generations of listeners. The task is formidable because, as the lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green once put it, "music is better than words," and words can go only so far in explaining music's magic. The 16 sophisticated, literate songs (by eight composers as diverse as Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin and Richard Rodgers) that Kapilow has chosen for his text pose a further complication precisely because they are songs. They are seamless, and seemingly spontaneous, chemical combinations of words and music whose elements can only be analyzed together. Lyrics are not meant to be heard in isolation, and music without the words that give it meaning is just pleasing sound; the marriage of the two is everything. So Kapilow striving for a tone that won't alienate the expert or confuse the amateur resorts to copious musical notation and detailed graphic examples of how these timeless songs might have been written and harmonized by less talented composers, while largely avoiding technical jargon. He aims to show not only how the melodies work and why they move us so, but also how they function in relation to the words. In a prefatory note to the book, he insists (italics his) that "absolutely no knowledge of music whatsoever is necessary to read it." I'm not at all sure about that. Kapilow's dense musical illustrations repeatedly sent me, a middling amateur pianist, scurrying to my grandmother's baby grand so I could play and hear his examples out loud. But happily, for those who don't read music or didn't labor through the composer Walter Piston's intimidating "Harmony" in high school a nifty companion website for the book includes helpful, easy to grasp audible demonstrations and vocals, as does the e book version. For me at least, this digital crib sheet was a vital tool for appreciating Kapilow's arguments. 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. It is a testament to the depth and catholicity of Kapilow's knowledge that he can effortlessly compare the sweet sour takes on love in Rodgers and Hart's "I Wish I Were in Love Again" with Stephen Sondheim's "Being Alive." Or that he can note that Sondheim and Bernstein's "Tonight" from "West Side Story" performs the same musical dramatic function as the Act 1 finale of Puccini's "La Boheme," in which the doomed lovers "float operatically in falsetto and head voice" to "an otherworldly vocal region that perfectly represents the only place where Tony and Maria could ever be together." He writes engagingly of Irving Berlin's astonishing journey from a Russian village and Manhattan's Lower East Side to the heights of fame and popular appeal, and of the effects of Cole Porter's and Lorenz Hart's closeted homosexuality on their wistful lyrics about love. I found a long and somewhat puzzling digression on the history of the real Annie Oakley behind Berlin's "Annie Get Your Gun" less effective I just didn't get the point, except that when Ethel Merman immortalized the role on Broadway in 1946, the actual Annie had been dead for only 20 years. More compelling is a late chapter, "Rock and Roll, Broadway and the Me Decade," in which Kapilow astutely surveys the radical changes in popular taste in the 1960s and '70s that dislodged the Broadway musical from its once central place in American culture, yet simultaneously fostered the full flowering of Sondheim's unique genius as the leading third generation example of outstanding songwriters who had begun their work in their teens and 20s. But it is the analysis of the songs that is the meat of the book and something like its soul as well. While Kapilow may sometimes test the fortitude of general readers as he wades into the intricacies of composition, he rewards those patient enough to hold his hand as he walks them through just what makes these songs great. Take a single example from the golden year of 1939: Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's "All the Things You Are." (Annoyingly, for a writer who makes such a persuasive case for the integration of music and words in these songs, Kapilow's chapter headings name solely the composers.) Written for a disastrous flop called "Very Warm for May," the song began life as a near operatic quartet in a play within the play but has since become a beloved staple of jazz and cabaret artists. It is almost a standard 32 measure popular song in the basic AABA format, in which an opening melody is sounded, then repeated with slight variation, then bridged by a new theme called the "release," before ending with a modified return to the original tune. What makes the song so memorable, as Kapilow explains, is its haunting, relentless descent through a series of regular five note intervals down the musical scale, topped by "chords drenched in warmth and heartrending dissonances." To put that in more layman's terms, the chords are incongruous, unexpected and correspondingly delightful. At the song's conclusion, instead of simply repeating the opening theme intact, Kern makes an exquisite, astonishing leap to a high note before returning to the satisfying comfort of the song's home chord, the "do, a deer" of the scale the first and only time in the song it appears. If that isn't clear, listen to any YouTube clip of "All the Things You Are" and you'll see what I mean. Kapilow ends this enlightening study by stating matter of factly and without undue mourning that "the unique moment in time in which the Broadway musical was in sync with and reflected the American zeitgeist a moment when the songs heard on Broadway were the songs heard and sung throughout the country has passed and will probably never be recaptured." Yet, paradoxically, these words and melodies of the Golden Age seem likely to endure forever. For all that composers like Kern hated jazz and pop interpretations of their work work generally created, after all, for specific scenes and characters in specific musical plays Kapilow notes that "it is precisely the freedom to take these canonical works these 'standards' and continually reinterpret them in the multiplicity of musical languages that have evolved over time that has kept the repertoire alive." Long may America and the world keep listening for these indelible songs.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Books
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Throughout the country, school closures, remote learning and quarantine are redefining the American teen experience. Many are dealing with grief, trauma and loss that is compounded by the lack of school day routine and inability to see friends in person or participate in activities that once consumed their lives. While some had initially hoped that the shutdowns were only temporary and that they'd be going back to their classrooms for the end of the school year, most states have now ruled out that possibility. For teenagers, there are deep losses, but some are finding bright spots as well. It's clear that this pandemic has disproportionately impacted low income families and racial minorities, and some students will experience significant learning loss. At the same time, some previously overscheduled and sleep deprived students are surprised to find more time for sleep, less stress around completing schoolwork, and more time for simple activities like reading on the front porch, spending time outdoors or having a leisurely dinner as a family. In a normal school year, Zachary Jones, 17, of Durham, N.C., would see his life "swallowed by baseball." He and his teammates at Voyager Academy, a charter school in northern Durham, planned to dedicate the season to their longtime head coach, Floyd Clayton "Pete" Shankle Jr., who died of cancer in November. "We had probably the best team in our school's history," Zachary said wistfully, "so it was the year that we could have won a state championship for him." But Zachary no longer rushes from school to practice to starting homework at 8:30 p.m., and finds that he now has "an entire day to do my homework with quality." Many teenagers say this newfound flexibility and fewer outside obligations mean getting more sleep, even as they desperately miss the routine and normalcy of going to school. "Our teachers are really accessible if we have a question," said Sydney Hewit, 15, a sophomore at Corning Painted Post High School, a public school in Corning, N.Y. "But it's been difficult. Our learning has kind of been put on hold." She now receives assignments on Monday mornings through Google Classroom, and has until the following Sunday evening to complete them. Much of the work has been either review or instructional videos. Before school went online, Sydney was in the dance ensemble for the spring musical, "Crazy for You," but it never had an opening night or a final curtain call. She uses FaceTime now to check in with friends and sleeps around eight hours every night, instead of her typical five to six hours. To pass the time, she bakes brownies and cookies, dropping them off at friends' houses each week, and she finds creative writing and independent reading help her be "in a different world for a little bit of each day." Cole Hammes, 17, of La Canada Flintridge, Calif., now creates his own schedule, different from his normal school grid. "I personally don't like doing math at 8:30 in the morning," he explains. Without a morning commute, he has been taking his two dogs on longer walks in his suburban Los Angeles neighborhood, and helping his mom with chores. Still, "it's stressful not to do the things I used to love." Some students are able to continue participating in extracurricular activities using Zoom and other online tools. Caroline Lam, a 13 year old from Charlotte, N.C., typically dances seven days a week. Now, her teacher provides instruction and corrections virtually, and Caroline dances on carpet instead of the dance studio's wood floors. "It's not the same," Caroline admits. "The corrections are harder to apply because the teacher isn't right there with you." Caroline Lam works to keep up her dance skills at home. But she is grateful she can still participate in the activity she loves while recognizing that some of her peers don't have reliable internet access or devices. To regain control at a time of uncertainty and despair, some students are discovering more purposeful ways to channel their energy. Juliette Fore, 16, of Alexandria, Va., initially found quarantine to be a major adjustment. She worried about the health of her 85 year old grandfather, who lives with her parents and three siblings. When she heard reports of a worldwide increase in domestic violence during lockdown, she started a campaign to gather donations for House of Ruth, a Washington, D.C. area shelter for victims of abuse. A self described extrovert, Juliette reached out on social media to friends, relatives and classmates. To maintain social distancing, donors would send a message and leave items on their front porches for pickup, or mailed checks directly to her home. Right before Easter, she and her family delivered two minivans full of donations to the shelter. For Lexi Weintraub, 17, from Irvington, N.Y., in Westchester County, creating new rituals with friends and family has helped diminish the disappointment of a truncated senior year. Her friends have started driving separately to a parking lot by the Hudson River and tuning into the same radio station in their respective cars while watching the sun set. At home, her mom recently began a nightly tradition to capture memories that might otherwise be forgotten in the middle of a pandemic. Everyone writes down something they are grateful for or something positive that happened during the day on a slip of colored paper and drops it into a repurposed goldfish bowl. Being home all the time has been challenging for students like Rahsaan Bernard Jr., 12, of Washington, D.C., who has been home schooled for nine years. Rahsaan usually plays several team sports and finds it taxing to be unable to go anywhere, but he is grateful to have more time in the evenings to spend with his dad. He uses his time after exercising and completing schoolwork to learn how to design websites. He plans to start a business selling clothing of his own design. "I'm trying to teach things you have control over and things you don't," said DeLise Bernard, Rahsaan's mother. "I think that having to move through these traumatic experiences for families also allows us to build a level of resilience and connect in ways that we may not have done in the past." In a time of uncertainty, there really is no guidebook. "I think it's already hard for adults to remember how it felt when they were in high school or when they were in middle school or even elementary school," said Kaci Cadiz, an 18 year old high school senior from Hillsboro, Ore. She plans to enroll at Oregon State this fall as a bio health sciences major and said she worries about being prepared for college. "But I think right now, there are no guidelines on how people should act and cope with this stuff." Ana Homayoun is the author, most recently, of "Social Media Wellness: Helping Teens and Tweens Thrive in an Unbalanced Digital World."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Well
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The "Breaking Bad" star Bryan Cranston revealed on Thursday that he had recovered from the coronavirus and shared a video of himself donating plasma at a Los Angeles blood bank. Mr. Cranston, 64, a five time Emmy winner and two time Tony Award winner, discussed the diagnosis in an Instagram post. He said that he was lucky and that his symptoms had been very mild. The actor, who is best known for his role in the vaunted AMC series "Breaking Bad" as Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who resorts to making and selling crystal meth to pay for his cancer treatment, said he had been vigilant but had still gotten the virus. "I was pretty strict in adhering to the protocols and still ... I contracted the virus," Mr. Cranston wrote. "Yep. it sounds daunting now that over 150,000 Americans are dead because of it."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Television
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Also the CFDA awards (get excited!) and not just how to get a signature uniform but whether you actually want one. Hello and happy June. It's been a turbulent week in pop culture, what with Roseanne's cancellation and Kim Kardashian Wests's White House visit. Aside from the latter's switcheroo from Yeezy to a black pantsuit to signal seriousness of purpose (oh, and Kendrick Lamar's decision to accept his Pulitzer in "traxedo" or track tuxedo pants designed by Rhuigi Villasenor), the fashion action has been relatively quiet. Things are going to change on Sunday, however, when Alexander Wang has his debut fashion show not at fashion week. As you may recall (or probably not), Mr. Wang declared earlier this year that the fashion calendar was not working for him any more, so he was stepping away, and would have his main show during pre collection time. Alex was hoping to garner industry support to create an entire cruise (or resort or pre spring) week and rationalize what is a whole mess of shows and presentations spread over more than a month, and the CFDA got behind him, but it hasn't entirely happened. Getting designers to agree to coordinate their plans is, I increasingly believe, like getting a group of kindergartners in an adventure park to sit down and pay attention i.e., probably not gonna happen. Anyway, we'll see how things go on Sunday. If it's a bang up amazing show, with a huge reception, all of this could change. Because if there's one thing we know about fashion, it is that it has a very short memory, and when it sees something that is working (Gucci!), it is more than happy to shrug off its old prejudices and embrace a new trend. But it does need to be an amazing show; witness all of those designers who tried to do a similar thing in the past (Public School, Yohji Yamamoto) without much success. The day after Alex's show are the CFDA awards a.k.a., the biggest night in American fashion. If you are scratching your head, there's an explainer here so you'll know what they are all about, but the short version is: the fashion equivalent of the Tonys. New design talents get crowned. Comedians poke gentle fun at the industry. We report back. So I'm going to get some sleep this weekend in preparation. (Actually, that's not true: I am going to my daughter's high school graduation, and having tsouris about what to wear as mother of the senior, but that's my problem.) For those who do have some time, catch up on the shocking news that De Beers, the diamond behemoth, is getting into synthetic stones; check out the European cruise show extravaganzas; and debate the relationship between tacky and luxury as posed by the new Gucci store. Have a good weekend. Q: Is the concept of a signature uniform applicable to the person on the street, or is it better left to celebrities and fashion icons? And if it is for the person on the street, how does one go about defining a look and developing a wardrobe to suit it? I have never personally known someone who dressed that way. Lisa, Cape Town A: The first thing to understand is that for all of us there are degrees of "signature uniforms." And it is not necessarily the same as a "signature look." Anna Wintour, for example, has a signature look dark glasses, bobbed hair, Manolo Blahniks, big stone necklace but her actual wardrobe changes every season. So did the New York socialite Anne Slater (white hair, cobalt blue eyeglasses). A signature look makes you immediately recognizable, but it does not necessarily make the actual process of getting dressed any easier. A signature uniform, on the other hand, does both. That is part of the purpose of a uniform. Tom Wolfe had a signature uniform, thanks to his white suits, and was also immediately recognizable. Ditto Mark Zuckerberg and his gray tees. Ditto Elizabeth Holmes and her black turtlenecks. But it also requires great discipline, because as difficult as it may be to choose your single option (you have to think through exactly how it may be interpreted by those who see you), it is equally hard to stick with it. To be blunt, it gets a little boring. That's the single biggest hurdle for most of us and probably why you haven't known anyone who did this. But if you do want to try to develop a uniform, I wouldn't start by picking one thing you wear every day and to hell with the rest of it. I'd do it in stages. Start with color, for example. Pick three (personally I stick mostly to black, white and silver/gray) and try to keep everything in sync. Decide if you are a suit person or a separates person. You could do skinny jeans and a jacket, which leaves you a fair amount of leeway in the middle. Or opt for dresses, but all in the same silhouette. The point is to create a point of visual reference so consistent that it becomes synonymous with your self. Then by thy clothing, they shall know thee. Assuming you really do want that, of course.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Fashion & Style
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Rotten Tomatoes Adds 200 Critics as It Tries to Be More Inclusive LOS ANGELES Rotten Tomatoes, the powerful review aggregation service, substantially revised its criteria for critics on Tuesday in an effort to include more female and minority voices and better reflect podcast and YouTube reviewing. Who qualifies as a critic has long been a touchy subject for the site, which boils down hundreds of reviews to give films and television shows "fresh" or "rotten" scores on its Tomatometer. Some filmmakers complain bitterly that Rotten Tomatoes casts too wide a net already, pulling in reviews from roughly 4,400 critics worldwide, mixing bloggers with more established appraisers. Rotten Tomatoes has decided, however, that broadening its criteria for critics more than 200 were added to the site on Tuesday will make its Tomatometer stronger. "It will always be a better product if it has more voices," said Paul Yanover, the president of Fandango, which owns Rotten Tomatoes. "We are still looking for the highest quality criticism." Among the 200 new Tomatometer approved critics are people like Bernard Boo, who writes for sites like Film Threat, PopMatters and Den of Geek, and Luciana Mangas, who reviews television shows for the site Writes of the Roundtable. Rotten Tomatoes has essentially decided that it has a responsibility to give the critical conversation a hard push in the direction of inclusion. Recent academic studies about diversity in the film criticism field have been damning echoing the widespread denunciation of film studios for what many see as their systemic marginalization of women and people of color. About 82 percent of the reviews aggregated by Rotten Tomatoes in 2017 for the 100 highest grossing movies were written by white critics, according to a report published in June by researchers at the University of Southern California. Roughly 78 percent were written by men. A separate study published in July by researchers at San Diego State University found that male critics were harsher than women on female led films. Oscar winning stars like Brie Larson ("Room") have also drawn attention to the lack of critic diversity. "I do not need a 40 year old white dude to tell me what didn't work for him about 'A Wrinkle in Time,'" Ms. Larson said in June. "It wasn't made for him." Her comments came as she announced that the Sundance and Toronto film festivals had vowed to dedicate 20 percent of press credentials to underrepresented journalists. "It will always be a better product if it has more voices," said Paul Yanover, the president of Fandango, which owns Rotten Tomatoes. To become more inclusive, Rotten Tomatoes has moved away from criteria that emphasize scale. Under the site's previous standard, for instance, broadcast critics had to be employed for at least two years by a national television or radio outlet. The new broadcast criteria allow for local outlets and eliminate a specific time component for employment. Gone are requirements for publications based on print circulation. And online critics will no longer be required to have published a minimum of 100 reviews of at least 300 words in length across two calendar years at a site with at least 500,000 unique monthly visitors. The new standard is simply "consistent output for a minimum of two years." 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. For the first time, people who review films exclusively via podcast can apply to become Tomatometer approved. Podcasts must publish at least four episodes a month to be eligible, among other criteria, although Rotten Tomatoes stipulates that "podcasts reaching underrepresented groups will also be considered on a case by case basis." Rotten Tomatoes also said it would place more emphasis on freelance critics a reflection, in part, of the diminished state of local newspapers. "In some ways, we were looking at the media landscape as it existed 20 years ago with the old criteria," Mr. Yanover said. "The world has obviously changed." Rotten Tomatoes was founded in 1998 by students at the University of California, Berkeley, who wanted reviews for kung fu movies in one place. The name harks back to medieval times, when villagers would lob spoiled food at criminals in the stocks a practice later taken up by unsatisfied audiences to express disapproval of subpar performers. Fandango, the ticket selling service owned by NBCUniversal, acquired Rotten Tomatoes two years ago. Since then, the Tomatometer has become more ubiquitous (scores now appear on Fandango's ticketing platforms, for instance), leading to complaints from film studios about the site's ability to influence box office results. Mr. Yanover and his team have dismissed that concern as overblown. But Rotten Tomatoes has also unveiled changes in recent months that seem to fall under the Spider Man doctrine: "with great power comes great responsibility." Mr. Yanover said that the site spent a year considering how best to make its criteria for critics more inclusive an effort that led to the hiring of a full time "critics relations manager," Jenny Jediny. Rotten Tomatoes in February hired a new editor, Joel Meares, who has worked to deepen its news articles and feature stories.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Media
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I wrote this on behalf of my high school's class of 2020: I knew they would cancel school for the rest of the year, but it still doesn't feel quite real. I will never get to be late to homeroom again, I will never get to fool around in class again, I will never get to stay after with my favorite teachers again, I will never get to high five my friends in the hall in passing, I will never get to have a real last day. It feels selfish to say this when people are dying, but I know the class of 2020 is hurting. We entered the world in the shadow of 9/11. We began elementary school as an economic recession took hold. We graduated from elementary school after the Boston Marathon bombings. We graduated from middle school at a time when our political climate was nothing but a battlefield. We entered high school when school shootings continued to be a truly terrifying threat. So it's only fitting that we will leave behind an entire chapter of our lives in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. Here's to the class of 2020, everything we have accomplished, and everything we will achieve.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Opinion
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A new audio series from Rattlestick Playwrights Theater imagines the bustle of the trains before the pandemic one story and one station at a time. Jasmine, a student at Brooklyn College, sprints across the platform to catch an idling train. She had lingered on the No. 2 a second too long, distracted by a performer cum mystic doling out free advice that felt eerily relevant. Now she was moments away from missing her transfer. "Don't close the door, don't close the door, don't close the " she prays under her breath, just as the subway car's metal doors snap shut in front of her. So ends the first episode of "The M.T.A. Radio Plays," a new series of audio dramas created by the playwright Ren Dara Santiago and directed by Natyna Bean, among others. The series, presented in collaboration with the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, brings listeners inside a No. 2 train as it snakes from the Bronx to Brooklyn. Conceived as a love letter to city life in pre pandemic times, each 10 to 15 minute episode is set at a stop on the No. 2 and tells the story of various New Yorkers as they navigate chance encounters with strangers, arguments with lovers or conversations with friends aboard the train. There are the subway buskers who storm train cars like tornadoes. There are eavesdropping riders who offer unsolicited advice and, often, welcomed camaraderie. There are the strangers who will not stand clear of the closing doors, the spirited child staring through a train window with glittering eyes and the omniscient voice of a conductor who keeps the train, and the city, moving through it all. Taken together, the plays elevate those once ubiquitous moments from the mundane trials of a daily commute that bind the city's collective DNA. "When you claim New York, then naturally everyone who exists here is community," Santiago said in a phone interview one recent morning. "You can exist in a neighborhood that is very specific, ethnically or otherwise, and feel like that is all of New York. But it's on the subway where we get to encounter all these other identities." For New Yorkers, the series may feel like a nostalgic embrace. In the scrum of a rush hour train, everyone from executives to office cleaners were pushed and shoved in a daily reminder that the New York hustle leaves few unscathed. Here too were the round the clock performances of Manhattan's least expensive show, in which New Yorkers were at once audience members and leading actors performing scenes from their private lives on a public stage. That choreography is one Santiago knows well. The 28 year old Harlem native spent her middle school days squeezing into packed No. 1 trains each morning and her early 20s slipping into No. 2 cars for her daily three hour round trip commute to work. (Like many of the playwrights involved in the series, she still relies on the No. 2 today). The first three episodes, which are available online at the Rattlestick website, begin at the northern tip of the line at the Wakefield 241 Street station in the Bronx. There, in a play by the 29 year old Julissa Contreras, listeners meet the character named Jasmine as she is consumed by thoughts of a recent breakup and a subway performer offers her seemingly prophetic advice. The next episode, written by Alexander Lambie, 29, picks up 15 stops later at the Intervale Avenue station, where a single mother bumps into a friend and abandons a plan to visit a questionably committed lover. And at the Prospect Avenue station, the writer Dominic Colon, 44, introduces a young man whose angry call with his boyfriend prompts another rider to offer some sage advice. In a nod to the New Yorkers who make up the bulk of subway ridership today, every play also features at least one essential worker. Implicit in each vignette are the lofty life questions the playwrights wrestled with as the shrinking of urban life turned their gaze inward: What does a healthy relationship look like? How can you tell when to let go of love? How do we survive a love lost? "A lot of the inspiration are the unspoken love stories that we pass by as commuters each day," Contreras said. "We wanted to focus on millennial lovers who are in this complicated space of finding themselves." As theaters went dark in March, Santiago's own Rattlestick debut production, "The Siblings Play," was shut down days before its world premiere. By April, the subway had emptied of riders. Lives that were lived in multiple boroughs were suddenly confined to single neighborhoods. "We've lost perspective," said Bean, 28, one of the series' directors. "Being in our homes every day, we are left to our own assumptions and prejudices. We aren't forced to engage with people we might not have otherwise if we hadn't gotten on the train." That is exactly the void that she and Santiago, approached by Rattlestick, set out to fill. In May they enlisted 17 playwrights to craft stories that reflected the people living in the communities served by the stations. By then, many theaters had moved online, with prerecorded performances and virtual play readings, many of which translated awkwardly onscreen. "There was no creation of community," Santiago said. "It felt like we were pretending it wasn't through a screen, instead of embracing that the person watching online also exists and we can write new plays for a new medium." But if intimacy is where those onscreen productions fall short, it is where radio thrives. The ambient sounds alone can transport a New Yorker into the sprawling underground: The familiar clink clink clink of a turnstile grinding forward. The earsplitting screech of a train as it winds across metal tracks. The crackle of a conductor's voice broadcast inside a subway car. "The voices are in your ears, you can walk around, close your eyes and feel like you're inside the story. You can see these characters or you put their voice on people walking by you," Santiago said. "That feels more like true theater to me because it allows the person to be immersed." The next set of episodes in the series will be available online in February, with the remaining plays released every few weeks through May. As this season nears its end, listeners arrive at the Church Avenue station in Brooklyn, where two friends debate whether or not to help a sick fellow passenger. And just before the train ends its run, Jasmine's ex boyfriend enters the car and encounters the same mystical performer whose spiritual counsel opened the series. Santiago plans to continue the series in subsequent seasons devoted to every train line that winds across the city. "I hope the stories will resonate with people," she said. "They'll think 'Oh, I had a moment like that on the train!' Those small interactions make people feel recognized and now, listening to them, maybe less alone."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Theater
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What is "grand strategy" as opposed to simple strategy? The term is mostly an academic one. It denotes encompassing all the resources that a state can focus military, economic, political and cultural to further its own interests in a global landscape. "On Grand Strategy," by John Lewis Gaddis, a pre eminent historian and biographer of the Cold War, does not offer a comprehensive analysis, much less a history, of strategy on a grand scale in the manner of the classic studies by Angelo Codevilla, Edward Mead Earle, Lawrence Freedman, B. H. Liddell Hart, Edward N. Luttwak or Williamson Murray. Gaddis does concede that "grand strategies have traditionally been associated, however, with the planning and fighting of wars." And so wars or rather how not to lose them are the general theme of his often didactic book. Ten lively essays proceed in chronological order from King Xerxes' invasion of Greece to Isaiah Berlin's thoughts on World War II and the Cold War. In all of them Gaddis keeps pounding to the point of monotony the seemingly self evident: The grand strategist must prune away emotion, ego and conventional wisdom to accept that "if you seek ends beyond your means, then sooner or later you'll have to scale back your ends to fit your means." His repetitious observation about proportionality might have been banal if so many leaders, many of them geniuses, had not forgotten it. The generals who led the Athenian expedition to Sicily, Julius Caesar poised at the Rubicon, Alexander the Great at the Indus, Napoleon and Hitler at the border of Russia and Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam all equated past tactical success with assured future strategic dominance, lied to themselves that the material or spiritual advantages were all theirs and so ended up dead, humiliated or defeated. The case studies are variously drawn from some 16 years of co teaching a well regarded seminar on "Studies in Grand Strategy" at Yale. Gaddis's present book is at least the fourth such volume by professors of the Yale class, along with Paul Kennedy's edited "Grand Strategies in War and Peace," Charles Hill's "Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order" and more recently Linda Kulman's "Teaching Common Sense: The Grand Strategy Program at Yale University." While varied in tone and theme, all these efforts reflect the practical aims of the Yale seminar. Their implicit idea is to remind America's future best and brightest how the mostly successful grand strategy of the past saw America become the pre eminent world power of the 20th century by winning two world conflicts along with the Cold War. In contrast, the often arrogant neglect of grand strategic thinking has led to postwar quagmires, stalemates and the assorted misadventures that often drained American resources for either impossible or irrelevant aims, while tearing the country apart over the last 70 years. Gaddis writes as he presumably teaches, informally mixing literary and historical analyses with the observations of his students, reminiscing in a personal voice about long ago conversations or sharing conclusions that came to him over the years of the seminar. The book is as much personal remembrance as strategic reflection, and is chock full of aphorisms and enigmatic adages. Gaddis believes the best way to hone strategic thinking is not just by mastering the advice of Machiavelli or Clausewitz (who both figure prominently in the class), much less contemporary high tech wizardry, but also by understanding the interplay of history, literature and philosophy over 2,500 years of Western civilization with occasional insights from and other non Western thinkers. In some sense "On Grand Strategy" is a traditional argument for the value of classical education in the broadest sense. Want to keep up with the latest and greatest in books? This is a good place to start. None Learn what you should be reading this fall: Our collection of reviews on books coming out this season includes biographies, novels, memoirs and more. See what's new in October: Among this month's new titles are novels by Jonathan Franzen, a history of Black cinema and a biography by Katie Couric. Nominate a book: The New York Times Book Review has just turned 125. That got us wondering: What is the best book that was published during that time? Listen to our podcast: Featuring conversations with leading figures in the literary world, from Colson Whitehead to Leila Slimani, the Book Review Podcast helps you delve deeper into your favorite books. The student of strategy learns to balance a grasp of detail with proper humility: It is, of course, wise to have a plan and contingencies. But how will these prompt rival counter responses? Do such agendas have the means adequate for their ends? Or are they more dreams, warped by ego and emotion ("And the heat of emotions requires only an instant to melt abstractions drawn from years of cool reflection. Decades devoid of reflection may follow")? The better way is to be Isaiah Berlin's versatile fox, not a single minded obsessed hedgehog, or to embrace Machiavelli's virtues of imitation, adaptation and approximation. A recurrent theme is the danger of omnipresent hubris. Even a great power cannot master the unexpected and uncontrollable from the great plague at Athens, to the harsh Russian winter, to I.E.D.s and tribal factionalism in Iraq. Why in the world, during a breathing spell in their war against Sparta, did democratic Athenians attack neutral and democratic Syracuse, 500 miles away? The answer is the same blinkered arrogance that sent Philip II's huge but poorly led Spanish Armada into the British northern seas. Understanding the underappreciated role of irony is essential for a leader, and might have prevented the disasters of both 415 B.C. and 1588. Tolstoy and Clausewitz appreciated that bad things can come from good intentions and vice versa. The best generals live with and react to paradoxes, Gaddis argues. The worst ignore or seek to undo them. Gaddis sees these more successful global strategists as rope a dope pragmatists who remain elastic and patient enough to capitalize on events and opportunities as they unfold, rather than forcing them to fit preconceived schemes. Caesar tries to force a Roman republic into a global hegemony without full cognizance of the inevitable blowback from centuries of republican government, and so predictably is assassinated by a dying generation of dreamy senators. His savvier adopted son, Augustus, like the later Otto von Bismarck, builds coalitions, finds pre existing seams to exploit at home and abroad, and waits to take advantage when enemies or friends stumble. Stalin's prewar Bolshevik nightmare was responsible for 20 million dead, but apparently was not so loathsome that the Soviet Union could not prove temporarily useful for Churchill and Roosevelt in bleeding out the Nazi Wehrmacht. Morality matters, if defined less as self righteous ardor and more as self awareness of a leader's effect on those around him and an appreciation of paradox. A pragmatic St. Augustine has no problem with war if it is a last resort to save civilization, without which there can be neither calm nor organized religion. Still, courting calculated risk is essential. The gambler Winston Churchill took chances in 1940, albeit rational ones backed by educated guesses that, for all Hitler's bluster, the Third Reich had neither the air nor sea power to destroy the Anglosphere. Risk is not always risk when it is the natural expression of national advantages and a mixture of caution and audacity. Gaddis's American heroes are Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, who he thinks "rescued democracy and capitalism." Roosevelt somehow was cognizant early on of how the singular military and economic potential of America might save Europe and Asia, but only if he first prepared reluctant Americans materially and psychologically for the inevitable war to come. Woodrow Wilson, among others, was not so successful in creating a postwar peace because he forced conditions to preconceived realities that bore little resemblance to emerging ironies at Versailles and was without a sellable idea of an American role after World War I. Gaddis concludes with an invaluable warning that true morality embraces neither messianic interventionism nor the quest for utopianism indeed that is how millions become deluded, endangered or doomed. Instead, ethical leadership pursues the art of the possible for the greater (not the greatest) good. Augustine did not demand the city of God absolutely over the city of man. Augustus did not self righteously return the Principate to the strife of the late republic. Lincoln did not start the Civil War as a crusade to eradicate slavery everywhere.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Books
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You Can't Spell Cher Without Her (and Her and Her) It takes three women to portray one superstar through the decades in the new Broadway musical "The Cher Show." Meet the threesome strong enough to take up the challenge. It wasn't just studying dozens of YouTube videos that helped Stephanie J. Block capture Cher's speech pattern. It wasn't the vocal coach from Juilliard, either. "One day I was running lines with Crest White Strips on my teeth and I found the voice," said Ms. Block, who portrays the pop star in "The Cher Show" on Broadway. She slipped into the singer's immediately recognizable crushed velvet contralto: "I was like, 'Are you kidding me? Holy crap, I found Cher through Crest White Strips? This is insane!' " In the new musical, which opens on Dec. 3 at the Neil Simon Theater, Ms. Block, 46, takes on the older incarnation of Cher, dubbed Star, while Micaela Diamond portrays the youngest version, Babe, and Teal Wicks handles the middle years as Lady. The Donna Summer bio musical "Summer" also splits its titular role among three performers, but "The Cher Show," written by Rick Elice ("Jersey Boys"), and directed by Jason Moore ("Avenue Q"), features more interaction between the different avatars, who share the stage for extended periods of time, trade verses and choruses of a single song, and banter with each other. And all three even get to poke affectionate fun at Sonny Bono (Jarrod Spector). The role of Star is high profile exposure for Ms. Block, who is one of Broadway's most reliably entertaining powerhouse belters, if not quite a household name despite landing Tony nominations for her turns in "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" (2012) and "Falsettos" (2016). She can even duplicate Cher's casual swagger while wearing strategically placed shreds of fabric. "Had they said, 'You're going to start the show in the "Turn Back Time" costume with the wig and the leather coat,' I would have run the other way," Ms. Block said. "Because we've been able to finesse it and nuance it for the past year, I'm now comfortable doing so." And yet she was reluctant to play Cher because her Broadway debut 15 years ago, in "The Boy from Oz," also involved playing not just a real person, but a superstar who was still alive in that case, Liza Minnelli. "Creating a fictional character can be anything you want it to be, with the director of course molding and guiding you," Ms. Block recently explained in her dressing room, seemingly energized rather than fazed by the many pages of adjustments that had landed on her table a couple of hours before a preview performance. "When you are playing someone who lives and breathes, and people can recognize their mannerisms and the tonality of their voice, it changes greatly." But the new show's trio concept assuaged her doubts and she signed on. If anything, Ms. Block is a showbiz trouper, and at the very least this would be yet another adventure in a resume full of them. After all, her career started with a bit of well intentioned tinkering, back when Ms. Block was a 15 year old budding actress in Southern California. Her mother forged young Stephanie's birth certificate so the teenager could get a job in Disneyland parades. Ms. Block ended up playing Fifer, one of the Three Little Pigs you might say it was the first in an amusing group of power trios, including the plotting friends in the Broadway musical "9 to 5" (she was Judy Bernly, Jane Fonda's part in the film) and now, of course, the Chers. As with most California based musical theater actors, Ms. Block relied a lot on Disney and Universal Studios in her early career. She also spent some time in Branson, Missouri, in the early 1990s, first in a production of "The Will Rogers Follies" headlined by Pat Boone, then as the co host of a live breakfast show, sometimes filmed for local cable access, on the Branson Belle showboat. "It's all these experiences where you laugh and you're like, 'How did I end up in that world?,'" Ms. Block said. "But you gain so many tools and skills." One of them must have been the ability to suck up disappointment. After playing Elphaba in early workshops of "Wicked," Ms. Block was replaced by Idina Menzel for the Broadway premiere in 2003. Time has passed, recognition has come, but the episode still smarts it is the only moment in our conversation that a shadow passes over Ms. Block's face, that her friendly confidence falters a little. "I worked on it for two years and then ... fell to the wayside," she said. "My ego was bruised and I did feel like I was kicked in the gut a little bit. That's because I didn't really know the business part of show business." She ended up playing Elphaba again in 2005, when she led the show's first national tour (on which she met her future husband, the actor Sebastian Arcelus), and eventually did it on Broadway two years later. Since then Ms. Block has climbed up the food chain, yet she's not always mentioned among the reigning divas except, of course, by her fans, the Blockheads perhaps because she is more of an old school entertainer who prefers to let a character take over rather than show off her own personality. "The diva term to me is perhaps given to musical theater performers, especially female ones, who do have that big body voice and can just stand onstage and own it," Ms. Block said. "And if that's what the definition is, I love it. But if I am playing a role, I'd much rather the audience forget that I'm Stephanie. My husband likes to call me the Gary Oldman of musical theater because I have this way of shapeshifting." Even in "I'm Breaking Down," her epically funny, showstopping number in "Falsettos," Ms. Block stayed true to the character. "Another actor might have hamboned the whole thing but she was always honest," said that revival's director, James Lapine, who had grasped the full extent of the actress' range when he saw her in the Lynn Nottage play "By the Way, Meet Vera Stark," in 2011 another portrayal of a larger than life star, that one fictional. "I hope she gets more dramatic roles because that would be an eye opener for folks. She's emotionally available, as they like to say," he said with a laugh. This openness is evident in the close relationship Ms. Block has forged with the other Chers. Tellingly, she is quick to boast not so much about her own role but about the team spirit that animates the trio. "You have to set aside your ego, you have to set aside your expectations, you have to set aside your personal agenda," she said animatedly. "You've got to look at your fellow sister actors and say, 'What is you is me, what is me is you. We're all in this together.' " When she auditioned for "The Cher Show" in the summer of 2017, Micaela Diamond was 18 and her knowledge of the subject was as skimpy as one of the star's outfits. "My introduction to Cher was 'Burlesque,' Ms. Diamond said, referring to the 2010 camp fest of a film co starring Christina Aguilera. "I knew 'I Got You Babe' because you hear it at Duane Reade, but I didn't know anything about Cher's life or her romances." Ms. Diamond had recently graduated from LaGuardia High School and was scheduled to leave for the musical theater program at Carnegie Mellon University. Some people had other ideas. "I wanted to throw myself down on her ankles and say 'Don't leave until you say you're going to do this!' " said Mr. Elice, who wrote the show's book. "Looking back, it was a choice, but I knew in my heart it wasn't a choice at all," said Ms. Diamond. " Not going to college was a big decision, but it was an easy one." After landing Babe but before the show's Chicago tryout this summer, Ms. Diamond appeared in the live telecast of "Jesus Christ Superstar" as part of the ensemble, and understudied Mary Magdalene for Sara Bareilles. "I actually did her track in rehearsal for about a month before she came in," said Ms. Diamond. "Canoodling with John Legend was cool. Like, what the expletive ? I was 18 and kissing John Legend's ear." Ms. Diamond has since won a fan in a very high place. "I especially related to Babe, who totally captured who I was at that time in my life," said Cher, a co producer of the musical, in an email. Carnegie Mellon may have to wait a little longer. When Teal Wicks, who plays the middle Cher, Lady, discovered some of the barely there costumes she'd have to wear in "The Cher Show," her reaction was ambivalent. "I was so excited," she said, "but it's nerve racking because I have to be a little bit more aware of my physical fitness. I have a very healthy appetite and I enjoy alcoholic beverages here and there. It's just trying to find a balance." Lady is quite a departure from Elphaba of "Wicked," whom Ms. Wicks, now 36, did on the West Coast for almost two years, then on Broadway for nearly a year, starting in 2011. "It was my first huge leading role and it kinda taught me all my strengths and weaknesses as a performer," she said. "I had a lot of raw talent but I wasn't very disciplined: I was excited, I wanted to socialize and hang out with the cast and go to all the events. I sort of burned myself out pretty fast and then had to climb back up from that, which took a lot longer than I thought." That return involved more somber parts, in the Broadway revival of Frank Wildhorn's "Jekyll Hyde" and in "Finding Neverland." Yet Ms. Wicks has maintained a sunny demeanor that she puts to good use in the new show. "When Teal joined she was the perfect personality to offset the other two," Mr. Elice said. "She's like the puppy who always runs a little too fast and crashes into the wall. She keeps everybody happy and howling with laughter."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Theater
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Merritt Wever's best actress nomination for Netflix's "Unbelievable" was widely predicted, but the highly regarded mini series had longer coattails than expected. Dever's best actress nod may have come at the expense of Niecy Nash in "When They See Us" or Kathryn Hahn in HBO's "Mrs. Fletcher," while Collette's supporting actress nomination prevented Olivia Colman of "The Crown" from snagging a second nod for "Fleabag." Despite the negative reactions of many fans and critics to the final season of HBO's bellwether, "Game of Thrones," the massive ratings and general cultural hegemony were expected to bring it a best drama nomination. And another HBO series, "Watchmen," was thought to have a chance in the same category and a better chance in best actress for its star, Regina King despite starting late in the year. HBO still received plenty of Globes love for "Big Little Lies," "Barry," "Succession" and "Chernobyl." His show didn't get a nod, but Harington broke through, getting his first Globes nomination after being nominated twice at the Emmys for playing the noble Jon Snow. He probably aced out his HBO colleague Jeremy Strong, who was expected to give "Succession" a second best actor nomination alongside Brian Cox. Why pair the time jumping Netflix comedy "Russian Doll" (which drew an acting nomination for its star, Natasha Lyonne) and the veteran performer Shalhoub, a five time Globes nominee for "Monk" who was expected to finally get some recognition for his supporting role in "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel"? (He won a supporting actor Emmy in September for the performance.) Because both may have been victims of the Globes' confounding love for the middling Netflix sitcom "The Kominsky Method," which received a second comedy series nomination (after winning last year) and an unanticipated repeat supporting actor nod for Alan Arkin.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Television
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Finally! Four states and nearly two months into the Democratic primary voting, Joe Biden scored a win. On Saturday, he received a big electoral kiss from South Carolina, where he captured 48 percent of the vote and at least 29 of 54 delegates (with more expected as the results were finalized). It was the largest margin of victory and the largest single delegate haul in the race thus far. Bernie Sanders, the presumptive front runner, placed a distant second with 20 percent. Tom Steyer, who had bet everything on the state, came in third with 11 percent a weak enough showing that he promptly, and sensibly, ended his campaign. No one else made much of a ripple. South Carolina was the first major test with African American voters, who make up some 60 percent of the state's Democratic electorate. It was not a surprise that Mr. Biden won. Black voters are the rock upon which his candidacy rests. But no one expected a win this big perhaps not even the candidate. Mr. Biden carried every county, with a strong showing among women, older voters, moderates and conservatives, along with 60 percent of the black vote. Turnout topped 500,000, compared to around 370,000 in 2016. Beaming, Mr. Biden delivered a cri de coeur. "This is a battle for the soul of the United States of America," he said. "Winning means uniting America, not sowing more division and anger. It means not only fighting but healing the country." He spoke about grief and faith and his belief in the nation's goodness. He took an oblique poke at Mr. Sanders. "Talk is cheap, false promises are deceptive, and talk about revolution isn't changing anyone's life." And he dangled the promise of a return to decency and sanity. "We can believe again. We're better than this moment. We're better than this president! So get up! Take back our country!" It was Mr. Biden at his best, passionate and personal. If he had looked half this good in any of the debates, this might have been a very different race. As it is, victory came none too soon for the former vice president, whose electability pitch had been ringing increasingly hollow. After taking fourth place in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire, his national polling average dropped 10 points. This included a 12 point dip among black voters. During that same period, black support for Mr. Sanders and Michael Bloomberg grew around 10 percentage points each. Mark Penn and Andrew Stein write that "only a broader course correction to the center will give Democrats a fighting chance in 2022" and beyond. Tory Gavito and Adam Jentleson write that the Virgina loss should "shock Democrats into confronting the powerful role that racially coded attacks play in American politics." Ezra Klein speaks to David Shor, who discusses his fear that Democrats face electoral catastrophe unless they shift their messaging. Ross Douthat writes that the outcome of the Virginia gubernatorial race shows Democrats need a "new way to talk about progressive ideology and education." This had Biden backers reaching for the antacid if not something stronger. In the Democratic Party, black votes matter, comprising about a fifth of the primary electorate. They are even more critical to Mr. Biden's chances, accounting for around a third of his potential voting coalition, according to the data crunchers at fivethirtyeight.com. If black voters, with a reputation for electoral pragmatism, got nervous enough about his electability to abandon him, his candidacy would be deader than disco. For Mr. Biden, South Carolina was do or die. And now? He has less than three days to savor the moment and figure out how to exploit his new momentum. March 3 is Super Tuesday, when 14 states, American Samoa and Democrats abroad will dole out approximately one third of the primary's total delegates including a whopping 415 from California reordering the race yet again. (It takes 1,991 delegates to achieve a clean majority.) The outlook is less than promising for Team Biden, which has not invested heavily or built much of an organization in the states set to vote. Resources have been an issue. The Carolina blowout should provide a boost, helping Mr. Biden make the case that he is the most viable Bernie alternative. Post victory, the campaign's online fund raising exploded. But Mr. Sanders has been polling strong across the Super Tuesday map, including a double digit lead in California. Mr. Biden simply may not have the time or money needed to catch him. Then there's the X factor of Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York. Skipping the first four contests, the self financing billionaire has focused his attention (read: money) on March 3. But he has already jolted the race in a couple of different ways. Despite the sprawling field, many Democratic voters have remained disappointed with their options and continued to pine for someone less scary than Bernie but more inspiring than Joe. For a while, segments of the party thought Mr. Bloomberg might be that someone. He had the business chops, political experience, swagger and money. So much money. Plus, he knew how to get under Mr. Trump's skin. The media, always keen for a race with twists and turns, fueled the speculation. Mr. Bloomberg's poll numbers ticked up and up, even as Mr. Biden's slid down. Then came Mr. Bloomberg's atrocious debate performance in Las Vegas, in which he bombed on issues ranging from his stop and frisk policing practices as mayor to his questionable treatment of female employees as chief executive of Bloomberg LP. The next week, he had an only slightly less terrible encore in the Charleston, S.C., debate. And just like that, the Bloomberg bubble burst or at least underwent a market correction. His poll numbers softened, and the media turned on him. Now, money is the lifeblood of politics, and Mr. Bloomberg has thrown the equivalent of a blood bank at Super Tuesday. He is far from out of the game. But his stumbles have cured many Democrats, and the chattering class, of their magical thinking that he or anyone else will swoop in as a dazzling, last minute Supercandidate. The field is what it is, warts and all. And in South Carolina, at least, nearly 50 percent of primary voters decided that Mr. Biden was their best bet. As for the rest of the field, it's time for gut checks about how much farther they want to take this. Even if Mr. Biden collapses which is what most of the other candidates have been waiting for since the race began these players face serious hurdles to taking over his so called lane. Minority voters remain staunchly unimpressed by Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg. Elizabeth Warren has been losing progressives to Mr. Sanders while failing to woo moderates with her "unity" message. Most days, it's easy to forget Tulsi Gabbard is still running. For all the candidates, there are tough decisions to be made and precious little time to make them.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Opinion
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STEVEN PONTO was a senior lawyer at a financial services technology company when it was sold in 2009. Some colleagues were relocating to Jacksonville, Fla., the headquarters of the new parent, but he didn't want to leave the small city outside Milwaukee where he had lived since 1990. He chose a severance package and considered a second career. Friends encouraged Mr. Ponto to run for mayor of his city, Brookfield, Wis. He spent about 20,000 on the campaign. "I wanted to bring professionalism to the mayor's office," said Mr. Ponto, 68, who also holds a master's degree in public administration. In this election year, the two presidential front runners are both already well past the traditional retirement age. But the interest in running for office among baby boomers may be even more compelling at lower levels, with more people like Mr. Ponto bringing substantial resumes to a second career in politics. In choosing to run for office, said Jennifer Lawless, a professor of government at American University in Washington, "your informal circle matters as much as formal recruitment from elected officials, party leaders or activists." The number of positions available is sizable, although their hours, responsibilities and compensation vary widely. In doing research for a 2012 book, "Becoming a Candidate," Ms. Lawless found just over 18,000 elected officials at the state level in legislatures. She identified a further 320,000 elected officials in municipal, town and county governments. A further 180,000 serve as elected school district and special district officials. Older people are filling an increasing number of them, in many ways an extension of their broader interest in political activism. "Baby boomers are a generation of amateur enthusiasts for political causes," said Neil Howe, a historian and demographer and the president of LifeCourse Associates, a consulting firm in Great Falls, Va. This enthusiasm started early. The Cooperative Institutional Research Program of the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, publishes a longitudinal survey of college freshman that began in 1966. Data collected from 1969 to 1980 (from respondents who are now 54 to 65 years old) found that an unusually large number of people entering college in those years cited a high interest in influencing the political system. Now many of them are taking advantage of having more time to scratch that longstanding itch. "People bridging from full time work to retirement are looking for different things," said Laura Carstensen, director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. "In its purest form, politics is for the greater good in society. It's a change in preferences to pursue meaningful goals and activities and care about the larger group." Dick Barrett, 73, an economics professor at the University of Montana, retired in 2007 and was involved in the faculty union there. Mr. Barrett, who lives in Missoula, now spends 90 days every other year in Helena, the state capital, as a legislator. He's not in it for the money: He draws a base salary of about 82 a day while the legislature is in session and a per diem allowance of about 112 for food and lodging, which he uses to rent an apartment near the capitol. While he expects to run again, he has no ambition for higher office. "Few people go into it with longer aspirations," he said. Locast, a nonprofit streaming service for local TV, is shutting down Capital One's chief executive was fined after being called a 'repeat offender.' Some, like John Stromberg, 76, who was a management consultant for more than 20 years, learn the ropes as an unpaid staff member. He was appointed to a volunteer position on the planning commission in Ashland, Ore., before running for office there himself in 2006. Mr. Stromberg is now in his second term as mayor. His current priorities include disaster preparedness and managing the yearly influx of 300,000 visitors to the annual Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He plans to run for a third term in November. "I don't want to drop out and become a retired person," he said. It helps to have other sources of income, though: As mayor, he earns a mere 500 a year, plus health insurance. Together with the City Council he appoints a paid professional city administrator who coordinates city departments. That position pays well over 100,000. Jim Marpe, 69, used a 32 year career at Accenture and its predecessor company, Andersen Consulting, as a springboard to the position of first selectman (the town equivalent of mayor) of Westport, Conn. He gained experience and perspective serving in unpaid positions, including on the Y.M.C.A. board and as a member of the board of education for Westport, an affluent town of 26,000. His current job, which he started in 2013, pays just over 100,000 annually. "Government is different from business, but you can apply business principles to government," he said. Diane Jablonski, 69, has had a mixed experience running for office. After retiring from a business career, she ran for comptroller for Dutchess County, N.Y., in 2005. She initially considered her campaign as a transition to retirement. "You think, 'What am I going to do?'" she said. But when she ran for re election four years later, she lost. Undeterred, she sought the higher office of Dutchess County executive but received only 35 percent of the vote. "There are so many factors in winning an election," she said. Unsure whether she will run again, she currently volunteers at the Dutchess County Mediation Center and is active in the American Association of University Women. While the typical "encore career" lasts about a decade, according to Marc Freedman, the chief executive of Encore.org, some second careers in politics are more enduring. Betty Taylor, a city councilor in Eugene, Ore., has represented a ward of 19,000 people in the southern part of the city since her retirement from Oregon State University in 1996. Ms. Taylor turned 90 in September.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Your Money
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Dara Khosrowshahi has spent the past two months learning the ins and outs of Uber, the embattled ride hailing company where he took over as chief executive in August. Now begins the hard work of repairing Uber's negative image. On Tuesday, Mr. Khosrowshahi introduced a new set of cultural values for the company, replacing a list previously conceived by Travis Kalanick, the former chief executive who in June was pushed out of the start up he had helped to create. Introduced to employees at an all hands staff meeting in San Francisco, the list is meant to strike a softer tone for the eight year old company, which has long been seen as hard edged and combative. It includes warmer, fuzzier goals like perseverance and celebrating differences. Another entry reads: "We do the right thing. Period." The list also represents something of a repudiation of the culture created under Mr. Kalanick. Uber has long held a reputation for a willingness to fight any and everyone, from competitors like Lyft to lawmakers seeking stronger oversight of the company. That aggressiveness led to difficulties in cities like London, where Mr. Khosrowshahi is scrambling to keep the service alive.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Technology
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Yannick Nezet Seguin, the Metropolitan Opera's music director designate, rehearsing last year. He will become the company's music director this fall, two years ahead of schedule. The Metropolitan Opera, which has been rocked this season by sexual misconduct accusations against its former music director, James Levine, is passing the baton to his successor. And fast. The company announced on Thursday that Yannick Nezet Seguin would become its new music director next season, two years ahead of schedule. The accelerated ascension will give much needed musical stability to the Met, the nation's largest performing arts organization, which suspended Mr. Levine, its longtime conductor, in December and opened an investigation into his behavior. "The orchestra and the chorus, they need a leader," Mr. Nezet Seguin, 42, said in an interview, noting that a music director didn't just conduct performances but was also responsible for a host of tasks, such as granting tenure to new musicians and molding the company's overall sound. Met officials said that they had been discussing moving up Mr. Nezet Seguin's start date long before Mr. Levine's troubles surfaced in December, and that they had hoped to be able to announce it with the company's next season. But they said that Mr. Levine's suspension had given extra impetus to the plan. The sped up succession was unveiled along with the 2018 19 season, which will feature the Met debut of the conductor Gustavo Dudamel; the planned return of the elusive tenor Jonas Kaufmann; a revival of Wagner's "Ring" cycle; and four new productions. The season will open on Sept. 24 with Darko Tresnjak's new staging of Saint Saens's "Samson et Dalila," starring Elina Garanca and Roberto Alagna. Michael Mayer will direct both Nico Muhly's Hitchcockian "Marnie" and Verdi's "La Traviata," with Diana Damrau. Anna Netrebko will star in David McVicar's new production of Cilea's "Adriana Lecouvreur." Mr. Nezet Seguin, who is also the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, will conduct three productions next season ("La Traviata" and revivals of Debussy's "Pelleas et Melisande" and Poulenc's "Dialogues des Carmelites") as well as two Met Orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall; beginning in 2020, he will lead at least five operas a year. The Met said that in recognition of a new 15 million gift from the Neubauer Family Foundation, he would officially be the Jeanette Lerman Neubauer Music Director. Asked how he viewed the case of Mr. Levine, and whether he felt the company needed healing, Mr. Nezet Seguin was circumspect. "For me, I see my own curve with the institution, and I'm focused on this, solely," he said, adding that the more he got to know the workings of the opera house and its company, the more eager he was to begin. "I know what I want to do, and I just needed to have the time to start doing it," he added. Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager, predicted in an interview that Mr. Nezet Seguin's arrival would cheer the entire company. Some musicians said that they were ecstatic about the move. Jessica Phillips, a clarinetist and the chairwoman of the Met's orchestra committee, said in an email, "As fellow musicians excited by Yannick's vision for the future, it is our hope that the Met's inspired investment in his brilliance underscores its commitment to the musical artists and artistry that are the lifeblood of the Met Opera." The company's investigation of Mr. Levine, who was suspended after The New York Times reported the accusations of four men who said that he had sexually abused them when they were teenagers or his students, continues. Mr. Levine has denied the accusations. Next season will feature a number of notable conducting debuts. Mr. Dudamel, the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will conduct Verdi's "Otello." Robert Spano, of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, will conduct "Marnie"; James Gaffigan, "La Boheme"; and Cornelius Meister, "Don Giovanni." A number of Met favorites will make star turns. Mr. Kaufmann, who has canceled his last three planned appearances at the Met, is set to return in a revival of Puccini's "La Fanciulla del West." Mr. Gelb said that since Mr. Kaufmann had made it clear that he does not wish to leave his home in Germany for long stretches of time, Mr. Gelb had offered to "tailor make" repertoire for him to sing when he is free.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Music
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FOR fans of Italian cars those with positive recollections, anyway the high profile introduction of the Fiat 500 to the United States this year holds the promise of a long awaited brand renaissance. But for the 500 to be a genuine success, paving the way for a full line of European driver's cars to follow, its appeal would have to be more durable than a pretty face and an attractive body. My quest to plumb the 500's inner beauty recently took me on a long drive that included stops in Naples, Verona, Florence, Rome and Venice. Like the 500, these cities have Italian antecedents with American appeal. The route from Naples, Me., to Verona, N.J., to Florence, S.C., to Rome, Ga., to Venice, Fla., also included a stop in Alexandria Virginia, that is to sample Fiat 500s from the postwar generation. On overseas business trips I have admired the 21st century 500 a reincarnation of the diminutive 1957 75 Cinquecento squirting around cities like Berlin, Budapest and Stockholm. So when Fiat offered early adopters an initial allocation of American 500s on its United States Web site last year, I put a 500 deposit on a Prima Edizione model and snagged No. 172 before the run of 500 cars sold out in 100 minutes. The Prima Edizione is an offshoot of the 17,500 Sport model, dressed up with a black painted roof and beltline, special badges and seat trim, a numbered dashboard plaque and a power sunroof. Including a 500 destination charge, my car, in a rich shade of red, cost 20,350. It arrived in late March. Ten days later, with my GPS unit, E ZPass, hotel reservations and printout from bedbugregistry.com in hand, I took off from Naples, Me., a charming lakeside town of 4,000, 30 miles northwest of Portland. Portions of United States Route 302 from Naples to Portland are hilly; to keep the 101 horsepower engine charging along I had to shift the 5 speed frequently, but the car proved as poised as George Clooney sailing Lake Como. The Fiat made a drama free cruise along the various Interstates between Portland and Hartford. But on Connecticut's Merritt Parkway, my attempt at some two lane apex clipping was stymied by drivers who shot in from entry ramps like Angry Birds and immediately dived for the left lane, riding it like a winning streak at the Bellagio. I arrived in overcast Verona, a township of about 13,000 some 20 miles west of Manhattan, and continued my ersatz Italian holiday by dining on two pepperoni slices at Verona Pizza. Filling the tank with 9.5 gallons of premium and doing some long division, I found that the 364 mile first leg of the trip yielded 38.3 miles per gallon, right on the E.P.A. highway estimate of 38. Next up, Dante's autobahn the New Jersey Turnpike, where treacherous merges and construction projects large enough to be seen from outer space were made all the more entertaining by an afternoon of ark building rain. But the Fiat was absolutely composed: precise steering, no hydroplaning and brakes that grabbed more aggressively than Tony Soprano at the Bada Bing. My arrival in the Washington area coincided with the evening rush hour, where a cascading rain added to the usual chaos. Fortunately, the GPS unit's Catherine Zeta Jones (so I imagined) routed me through suburban neighborhoods to my Virginia hotel. This 221 mile segment returned 32.5 m.p.g. The day's tally: 585 miles, nine states and the disintegration of my temporary cardboard license plate. I headed for the hotel's business center to mock up a replacement. The 1.4 liter Fiat 500 has a charmingly optimistic 140 m.p.h. speedometer. The back seat can accept passengers ranging in size from infants to Tom Cruise, but average adults will find it sausage casing tight. The only glitch so far: the handles that slide the seats forward to grant entry to the back seat are balky, a problem only if a murder of clowns needs the car in its act. The next morning I met Mark Santaw of the DC Fiats club, who owns a 1971 Fiat 500 that has been modified with performance parts from Abarth, the tuning company. I followed him to Katie's Coffee House in Great Falls, Va., where on Saturday mornings the parking lot fills with exotic and collector cars. That day's lineup included a Ferrari F40, Audi R8, Lotus Elise, two Lamborghini Gallardos and seven Fiat 500s. The Fiat group, which included early and Prima Edizione models, drove in a convoy out of the parking lot and headed for the sylvan rolling hills of Georgetown Pike. We sneaked past the C.I.A. headquarters in Langley and drove by the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington. We enjoyed a leisurely cruise through picturesque downtown Alexandria and stopped at the nearby George Washington National Masonic Memorial. The 40 mile trip made clear the contrast between the front engine, front wheel drive layout of the new 500 and the rear engine, rear drive originals. Driving Dave Whitman's '66, I held a pizza size steering wheel with a breadstick thin rim and double clutched the unsynchronized transmission, a task more difficult than, say, limiting my Twitter messages to 140 characters. On Day 3, with my temporary temporary license tag taped to the Fiat's back window, I headed for Florence, S.C. If the New Jersey Turnpike is the approach road to Chernobyl, then Interstate 95 between Emporia, Va., and Florence, S.C., is the driveway crossing a Tuscan estate, a smooth two laner with tree lined stretches. In North Carolina, the Fiat seemed inexorably drawn to the exit for Micro. I passed up the chance to visit the Ava Gardner museum, but shortly after encountering the Ben Bernanke Interchange near Dillon, S.C., I stopped at that patch of American kitsch, South of the Border. Mileage for the 340 mile day was a slightly disappointing 37.3 mpg. I blamed strong headwinds and my decision not to draft an 18 wheeler bearing a 10 foot high image of Kim Kardashian. Day 4 was mostly I 20 between Florence and Atlanta; another refined, tree lined highway whose only drawback was the grooved pavement the tires dug into the rain grooves and tossed the car back and forth. As I passed the exit for the Laurel and Hardy Museum in Harlem, Ga., I pictured the 500 wobbling like an overloaded Keystone Kops patrol car. Happily, the six Bose speakers and trunk mounted subwoofer drowned out the road hum inside. Leaving Atlanta behind, I took I 75 and state route 20 to Rome, Ga. Like its Italian namesake, this picturesque city was built on seven hills. I noted that the 351 mile drive from Florence averaged 37.5 m.p.g. Also, the driver's floor mat was retaining the imprint of my shoes. The next day started with Catherine Zeta Jones efficiently guiding me around an accident and just as efficiently instructing me to "Continue. Three. Hundred. Eighty. Seven. Miles." Hours down the road, I decided that if space aliens landed on I 75, they would ponder the billboards and conclude that Americans were obsessed with pecans, fireworks and retirement communities. Before I could say Cinquecento 352,000 times fast, I arrived in the warm embrace of Venice, Fla., a city of 21,000 friendly folks who never met a pair of shorts they didn't like. The day's stats: 565 miles and 36.8 m.p.g.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Automobiles
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M.L.B.'s virus protocols say players should avoid high fives and fist bumps. At least Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge wore gloves for theirs. During a recent practice game at Yankee Stadium, pitcher Jordan Montgomery occasionally wiped his nose with his hand between pitches. Behind the plate, catcher Gary Sanchez spit to his side a few times. Frequently, Manager Aaron Boone sat or stood just a couple feet away from some of his coaches or an umpire to chat. A day later, outfielder Aaron Judge smacked palms and fists with several teammates after smashing a home run. All of these actions are either forbidden or discouraged by Major League Baseball these days, but old habits are hard to break especially if you have played baseball for many years. Spitting, high fiving and sidling up to teammates in the dugout are basically part of the job description. But the Yankees, like the other 29 M.L.B. teams who have gone back to work this month, are certainly trying. M.L.B. and the players' union crafted a 113 page operations manual of guidelines and protocols to prevent the spread of the coronavirus during its 60 game season, which starts on Thursday. The guidebook details everything from testing procedures to proper spacing throughout the stadium to best practices on charter plane bathrooms. While the entire season is unlikely to hinge on an errant high five, players know that much of their ingrained behavior will need to change to decrease their odds of infection, and keep the season on track. Montgomery said the bans on spitting and licking fingers were the hardest rules for him "because it's something I do and don't even think about." But, he added, "I've been doing better." None Everyone Loves Ohtani: The Angels' two way star was a unanimous pick for A.L. M.V.P. and his superfans redefine devotion. Phillie Phavorite: Bryce Harper truly committed to Philadelphia and now he's back on top of baseball, winning the N.L. M.V.P. Cy Young Winners: Milwaukee's Corbin Burnes and Toronto's Robbie Ray had hit rock bottom before they worked their way up to stardom. Baseball Is Stuck in Neutral: The potential of a lockout has a star studded group of free agents waiting for the dust to settle. Free Agency Tracker: Get the latest updates on signings, contract extensions and trades. High fives, first bumps and hugs are to be avoided, according to the M.L.B. manual; Ottavino said dropping those had been a relatively easy adjustment. Curbing spitting and adapting to the new shower edicts have required more effort. "There's no communal soap or shampoo," he said last week. "The first two times to clean myself up and get out of here, I forgot it and had to go back to my locker." While masks are now required indoors at major league stadiums, players do not have to wear them while on the field, in the bullpen or in the dugout. Pitcher Zack Britton wore a face covering while playing catch on the field and in the dugout after appearing in an intrasquad game, recently, but not when he took the mound. "If I was having issues licking my fingers, I would probably put it on so it would prevent me from doing that," he said. "So far, I've been able to break that habit." Only two Yankees have worn masks during intrasquad games, a practice they might carry into the regular season: outfielder Clint Frazier and catcher Kyle Higashioka. Frazier, who has struggled to break into the Yankees' everyday lineup the past couple seasons, said he was motivated to wear one because at least three of his teammates infielder D.J. LeMahieu and pitchers Aroldis Chapman and Luis Cessa had tested positive for the coronavirus and he is near two other people when in the batter's box. "I want to make sure that I'm not the reason why it spreads to anybody, and I can play if it does get spread to someone else," he said. He added later, "I want to make sure if there is somebody out there that sees me wearing the mask, maybe they'll do it as well." The Yankees, like many teams, have used the recent intrasquad games not only to get ready for the season but to adjust to their new normal. In addition to following the new protocols, the Yankees have played music softly during intrasquad games and are toying with pumping in crowd noise to prepare for games without fans. Pitchers have each brought their own rosin bag to the mound. During a recent practice contest, pitcher Gerrit Cole wanted to keep using a ball after a strikeout since he liked the way it felt, but couldn't because it had been thrown around the diamond by Sanchez and the infielders, a once common practice that is also now discouraged. Per M.L.B.'s new protocols, the ball had to be removed and replaced with a new one. "There's going to be some added preparation in terms of really knowing the rules before we get out there, and that's kind of all of our responsibilities," Cole said. "It falls under the job description of playing under a pandemic." The normal flow of team dynamics and chemistry has been thrown off, too, because Yankees players and coaches are spread throughout the stadium and their workout times have been staggered. Players, coaches and staff members communicate more frequently through an app. When Boone has addressed the team in person, he has done so in smaller groups. Pregame pitching strategy meetings are held in a large conference room, with masks on and everyone at a distance. Pitcher Michael King, whose locker is in the visiting clubhouse, said every other stall is empty and everyone wears a mask. "It almost kind of prevents us from talking," he said. "You feel uncomfortable talking. It's a little silent in there." Boone said he hoped that players and coaches himself included would become more accustomed to the new rules as the two month season progressed. He noted how easy it was, especially early on, to be distracted by work and to forget to put on a mask for a meeting or drift toward someone in the dugout during a game.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Sports
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Mom is right when she says to eat your peas. In one of the largest surveys of data on global dietary habits and longevity, researchers found that consuming vegetables, fruit, fish and whole grains was strongly associated with a longer life and that people who skimped on such healthy foods were more likely to die before their time. The study, published on Wednesday in the British journal The Lancet, concluded that one fifth of deaths around the world were associated with poor diets defined as those short on fresh vegetables, seeds and nuts but heavy in sugar, salt and trans fats. In 2017, that came to 11 million deaths that could have been avoided, the researchers said. Most of those, around 10 million, were from cardiovascular disease, researchers found. The next biggest diet related killers were cancer, with 913,000 deaths, and Type 2 diabetes, which claimed 339,000 lives. "These numbers are really striking," said Dr. Francesco Branca, the top nutritionist at the World Health Organization, who was not involved in the study. "This should be a wake up call for the world." The study, which was funded by the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation, covered global eating habits from 1990 to 2017 and tracked consumption in 15 categories including milk, processed meat, seafood, sodium and fiber. Researchers analyzed data from 195 countries and found that Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan and the Marshall Islands had among the highest proportion of diet related deaths, while France, Spain and Peru had some of the lowest rates. The United States ranked 43rd. China was among the worst at 140. The study found a tenfold difference between countries with the highest and lowest rates of diet related deaths. For example, Uzbekistan had 892 deaths per 100,000 people compared with 89 in Israel. Beyond its sobering conclusion, the study was notable for what it prescribed: Rather than browbeating people to reduce their consumption of the fats and sugars that are correlated with illness and premature death, the authors determined that adding healthier foods to global diets was a more effective way to reduce mortality. That's because the gap between the amount of nourishing foods people should eat but don't is much greater than that between the levels of harmful things they regularly put in their mouths but shouldn't, said Dr. Ashkan Afshin, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington who was the paper's lead author. For example, he noted that global average intake of red meat was 27 grams a day, slightly higher than the recommended daily limit of 23 grams. But when it comes to eating healthful nuts and seeds, most people eat on average 3 grams, far less than the 21 grams considered optimal. The only exception was excess salt, which the research said was highly correlated with illness and death. "To me, this study says that it's time to change the conversation both at the policy level and among the general public," Dr. Afshin said. He and other experts said the findings underlined the importance of national policies to boost the availability of fruits and vegetables, especially in low income countries where fresh produce can be costlier than processed food. Large food companies should be pressured to create healthier products, the experts said, and doctors should be encouraged to discuss the importance of a good diet with their patients. "Let's not just focus on the things we should be cutting out of our diet because to be honest, we've tried that for a while," said Dr. Nita Gandhi Forouhi, an epidemiologist at University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine who wrote a commentary that accompanied the study. Not everyone agreed with the study's central recommendations. Dr. Arun Gupta, a pediatrician and nutrition activist in India, said he thought the authors should have placed more emphasis on the role that food companies play in the spread of unhealthy foods. "My fear is that this will take the pressure off industry, who can use the report to say, 'We're doing nothing wrong,'" he said. The study had some limitations. There were notable gaps in diet related data from poorer nations and some of the deaths, the authors noted, could have been attributed to more than one dietary factor, leading to an overestimation of the burden of diseases attributable to diet.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Health
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In Pennsylvania on Thursday, with stunning ignorance, President Trump explained why our nation tragically leads the world in Covid 19 deaths: "When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn't do any testing, we would have very few cases." And all this time I thought chemo could save me from my leukemia. Stupid me. Had I simply never taken a blood test, I could have avoided my cancer altogether. Re "President Turns to an Old Ploy: Blame Obama" (front page, May 15): Barack Obama's crime was being more efficient, more moral and more empathic than this president will ever be.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Opinion
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are to be married Aug. 26 at the Museum on Eldridge Street in New York. Rabbi Rachel Timoner is to officiate. The bride, 27, is a disability benefits lawyer at the Urban Justice Center, a nonprofit legal services and advocacy organization in New York. She graduated from the University of Washington, Seattle and received a law degree from CUNY School of Law. She is the daughter of Andrea C. Lew and Kao Pin Lew of Jersey City. The bride's father is a court appointed lawyer in New York County Family Court in New York. Her mother is a landmark conservationist and a real estate agent at Armagno Agency in Jersey City. The groom, 35, is the owner and curator of Essex Street, a political and conceptual art gallery in New York. He graduated from DePaul University and received a master's degree in art history from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Fashion & Style
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After taking a creative flying leap with the director Darren Aronofsky's divisive "Mother!," Jennifer Lawrence looks likely to land on safer commercial ground with "Red Sparrow." The spy thriller reunites the star with Francis Lawrence, who directed the final three installments of her hugely successful "Hunger Games" franchise and puts her back in the action arena where she has scored with a trio of "X Men" films. Based on a novel by Jason Matthews, "Red Sparrow" casts Ms. Lawrence as Dominika Egorova, a Russian ballerina forced to become a student at the Sparrow School, which trains young people to seduce and betray enemy operatives. When she develops feelings for one of her targets, a C.I.A. agent (Joel Edgerton), she is tempted to become a traitor to Mother Russia.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Movies
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Margaret Warncke, who played the Witch, walks backstage before "Into the Woods Sr." begins at the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House in Manhattan. Into Their 60s and 'Into the Woods' It's a half hour to curtain, and a wicked stepsister in an emerald dress and an updo dashes through the lobby of Lenox Hill Neighborhood House on Manhattan's Upper East Side. It's a distinctive run: a cautiously teetering, toe heavy canter you might resort to when you're in heels, on the far side of 60 and about to take the stage before your friends and family at your musical's opening night. The actress, Sylvia Pilar, has been locked out of her dressing room. As she jogs back in the other direction a minute later, crisis averted, an old man in line reaches for her hand and gingerly kisses it. Then she's off, faster than well, Cinderella after the stroke of midnight. The show a witty yet melancholy blend of fairy tale stories that was adapted into a 2014 film with Meryl Streep was a pilot production for both the community center and the licensing company Music Theatre International. "Into the Woods Sr." and other musicals tailored to older casts are the brainchild of Freddie Gershon, the company's co chairman, who first developed similarly shortened "Junior" productions more than 20 years ago for elementary and middle schools, earning him a Tony Awards honor. Lenox Hill's cast represented a wide range of abilities. Some read lines and lyrics off their scripts; others performed from memory. One performer sang and danced while using a wheelchair; another, playing Rapunzel, stood perched on a ladder for much of the show. Most relied on the pianist's vamping to keep them on track with the rhythmically intricate songbook by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. "We didn't lay back on challenging them to do a good job," the director, Scott Klavan, said. "I don't want to coddle people, and I think people respond to that really well, because it's a form of respect." The idea is not to show off Bernadette Peters level talent or an extravagant Broadway staging, said Mr. Gershon, who himself turns 80 this month. It's about reinventing yourself in a character and the joyful whimsy of putting on a show. He remembers hearing his grandmother, then in her 90s, singing softly in bed when he visited her at a Manhattan nursing home. Mr. Gershon found a rec room with a piano, and together, they began to play. When they took a break several numbers later, he heard the applause. "There must have been 20 people at the doorway, and they wanted to sing along," Mr. Gershon said. "It was the first time I had any clue." In the past several years, Mr. Gershon has worked with a Pennsylvania nursing home and a Nebraska community theater to adapt "Guys and Dolls" for older actors. Theater for seniors has picked up steam elsewhere, too; a senior cast at Theater 55 outside Minneapolis did a relatively hairless "Hair" earlier this year. "Into the Woods Sr.," however, is the first such production in New York and perhaps the first where the writers themselves showed up at rehearsal. When Mr. Sondheim and Mr. Lapine peeked in about a week before opening night, neither expected to be quite so moved. "Theater is kids' play. It's all, 'Let's put on a show,'" Mr. Lapine said. "Giving people permission to do that at the other end of their lives, it's perfect." The actors signed on for different reasons: to reconnect with their past theater background; to experience performing for the first time; to look for new ways to feel healthy; or just because it sounded fun. "To be a senior person and to be able to play somebody young like that I think it made me act and feel young," said Suzanne Brinnitzer, who portrayed Little Red Riding Hood. "I took care of a lot of people for a lot of years. I took care of my husband, who was ill; his four kids, my two kids, work full time," said Rebecca Marks, the show's purple haired Cinderella, whose son and daughter in law came to watch her debut. "I'm making up for lost time." Aside from the social benefits, there seem to be significant health benefits to performing, too. A 2014 study by researchers at Coventry University found that seniors can experience a growth in confidence, as well as general improvement to their physical and mental well being, from participating in a theatrical production. Linda Creamer, who played the Baker's Wife in a wheelchair, is a case in point. "I'm telling you, ever since I got involved in this, I've been like " She sat up straight, grinning, and waggled her wrists in the air with splayed, outstretched fingers jazz hands. "I'm recovering because of this show." A show that reflects, movingly, on loss and the lessons parents leave to their children, "Into the Woods" seemed an especially apt choice. And watching older actors in younger fairy tale roles that have been passed down for generations lent a sense of timelessness to the show, said Mr. Lapine. It also got him thinking about his own future. "When you get older, you wrestle a little bit with what your value is, what you have to bring to the world," Mr. Lapine said. "Another 10, 15 years, when they stick me in some joint, I'll put on a show . "
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Theater
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Art Southampton has canceled its 2017 season, becoming the second major fine arts fair on the East End of Long Island to suspend programming for the coming season. Art Hamptons, the region's first art fair, canceled its season in February, leaving the once growing Hamptons market with one fair, Market Art Design. Organizers of both suspended events attributed the cancellations to market conditions and internal pressure to focus attention on other fairs. Nick Korniloff, the director of Art Southampton, said that rising operational costs, difficulties in site selection, local regulatory restrictions and buyer fatigue limited the event's expansion potential. "After five years, the event needed to be bigger and the market didn't support that," Mr. Korniloff said. "After June it's vacation time, and collectors can be in only so many places and the same is true for galleries. There are a lot of social distractions in the Hamptons, and collectors aren't always in a buying mood." Art Southampton is owned by the Art Miami fair producer, and Mr. Korniloff said that all of the company's events needed to be up to the Florida event's standards.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Art & Design
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SHENZHEN, China The phone takes dazzling photos and sports advanced artificial intelligence. Its display stretches gloriously from edge to edge. And at nearly 1,000, it pushes into eye watering territory on price. But the Mate 10 Pro isn't the latest high end offering from Samsung or Apple. It comes from China a country that, for all its growing sophistication in technology, has yet to produce a name like Lexus, Canon or Samsung that consumers around the globe associate with premium quality at premium prices. Huawei Technologies, the new smartphone's creator, thinks the world is ready to pay top dollar for a Chinese product. It is rolling out the Mate 10 Pro plus two sibling devices, one less expensive and lower spec, the other pricier and sleeker in Europe, in the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia. And it is in talks with AT T to offer the phones in the United States, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the discussions are not public. In technology, China is no longer the land of knockoffs and copycats. Its labs are racing ahead in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other frontier fields. Its internet companies are in the vanguard in devising ways to upend retail, finance, transport and other industries using mobile technology. The trouble is getting the world to recognize all that. China wants to upgrade its economy by selling the world higher value goods such as cars, jetliners, advanced electronics and more. Famous brand names can help open up new markets and convince global customers that Chinese products are as dependable as American, Japanese or South Korean ones. Huawei (pronounced HWA way) is already well known at home. The company outsells all others in China, the world's largest smartphone market. And it is nipping at Apple's heels to be the No. 2 phone maker worldwide. According to the research firm Canalys, Huawei shipped 39 million phones in the latest quarter; Apple shipped 47 million. But those Huawei devices were mostly low or midrange. "We see good signs that people have seen the brand change to a large degree," to one that is "stylish and innovative," said Glory Cheung, Huawei's marketing chief for consumer devices. "I think that's a very good sign for us." Still, Ms. Cheung said, Huawei would rather spend on developing smarter features and better technology than on marketing, even as she acknowledged the importance of building an emotional bond with users. The challenge for the company on that last front is significant: Compared with Apple or Samsung, Huawei has much further to go in forging that elusive something that leads someone to commit to a brand. Even in China, many people still view Huawei devices as good value for the money and not much else. Li Haoran, a 24 year old accountant in Beijing, is a longtime Apple user. Would she switch to Huawei? "Not for myself," she said. "But I'd consider buying Huawei phones for my family, because they are relatively cheap." As for the Mate 10 series, Li Weitao, a 40 year old marketer in Shanghai who is no relation to Li Haoran, said that for more than 600, "you should probably get an iPhone." Founded in Shenzhen three decades ago, Huawei was already one of the world's largest suppliers of telecommunications equipment when it released its first Android smartphone in 2009. Its earliest handsets were run of the mill in looks and performance. But Huawei has since invested more in design and technology, opening a design center in London and a research and development facility in Finland. With the Mate 10 series, Huawei is debuting one of the fruits of its research: a processor dedicated to artificial intelligence tasks such as identifying people in photos and translating text. Christophe Coutelle, vice president of software marketing for Huawei, said the new processor let the phones perform such tasks more quickly, with less power and as no data needs to be sent to a faraway server with better privacy protection. "Not everyone is willing to share all of their information, pictures and everything with cloud based services," he said. The emphasis on privacy could help Huawei crack its last big untapped market: the United States. The company's experience there has been fraught. Its network equipment business has effectively been banned in the United States since a congressional report said in 2012 that Huawei gear could be used by Beijing to spy on Americans. The company's founder, Ren Zhengfei, was once an engineer in China's military. Huawei has said its products pose no threat to security. The company has also been in hot water in the United States over patent infringement and for failing to inform the authorities before acquiring American companies. The New York Times reported this year that United States officials were widening an investigation into whether the company broke trade controls on Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria. Huawei's international presence and diverse work force make it more of a global company than a Chinese one, Ms. Cheung said. Whether Huawei is a global name and an appealing one is another matter. "The brand still lacks personality," Thomas Husson, an analyst at Forrester, said in an email. "The focus is still too much on technical specifications and functionalities." Figuring out how to strike a chord with ordinary consumers was never going to be easy for Huawei, which has spent most of its existence selling back end equipment to mobile carriers. It has enlisted Scarlett Johansson to star in ads, and teamed up with Porsche and Leica on design. Yet Huawei still has "very much of an engineering culture," Mr. Coutelle said. In conversation, employees rarely fail to mention how much the company spends on research and development (more than 10 percent of revenue) or the number of its workers involved in research (nearly half).
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Technology
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Rare is the bus station that compels customers to linger willingly. But the building that housed Savannah's old Greyhound Bus Depot, built in 1938, is no ordinary way station. In December, the space reopened as the Grey, an elegant restaurant that evokes an era in which bus travel entailed a degree of glamour and sophistication. A careful restoration preserved historical elements: a curved Art Moderne facade; the worn floor evidence of waiting, shuffling feet in front of the old ticket window; and most impressively, the 60 seat dining room with soaring ceilings, Art Deco paneling, snaking banquettes and a central horseshoe shaped bar. The executive chef responsible for ensuring that the food matches the high standards set by the gorgeous aesthetics is Mashama Bailey, a Queens, N.Y., native who was previously the sous chef at Prune in downtown Manhattan. Ms. Bailey spent a few childhood years in Savannah, but it was a recent road trip through the South that provided inspiration for her concise menu of pared down dishes that let local products shine. On a recent evening, that included grilled oysters luxuriating in sorrel butter, and a meltingly tender pork shank prepared with "a little bit of cane sugar to keep it more Southern" with a mess of greens and cornbread.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Travel
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After Donald Trump was elected, the first time I felt any hope was at the Women's March. The second was when I went to Georgia to cover the 2017 special election to fill the House seat vacated by Tom Price, who'd just become Trump's secretary of health and human services. Georgia's Sixth Congressional District, an affluent area once represented by Newt Gingrich, was considered safely Republican, but Democrats saw a chance to use the special election to register their fury and disgust with the new president. They poured money and resources into the campaign of a first time candidate, Jon Ossoff. When I arrived in the district, though, it wasn't Ossoff who caught my attention. It was the legions of women who'd never been particularly political before, but who were shocked into activism by Trump's victory. Many of them had previously put their energy into PTAs and homeowners associations. They had a deep, granular knowledge of their community that couldn't be bought, and they were using it to find every one of their neighbors who might be open to voting Democratic. The story of that race, Ossoff told me then, was "about the women in this community, Democrats, independents and Republicans, who have picked this campaign up and carried it on their shoulders." Neither candidate ended up winning a majority, and the race went to a runoff, which Ossoff lost by almost four points. But I followed several of the women I met as they redoubled their efforts, and in the 2018 midterms, they helped flip the seat to a Democrat, Lucy McBath. The Cook Political Report now rates her seat as "likely Democratic." Similar shifts are happening all over America, as abhorrence toward Trump has sparked an explosion of organizing among women. However Tuesday turns out, this mobilization has rapidly altered Georgia's politics, helping to turn a Republican redoubt into a competitive purple state. As I write this, FiveThirtyEight's polling average shows Biden slightly favored to win Georgia. Ossoff is now a Senate candidate, running about even with the incumbent Republican, David Perdue. That race is expected to go to a runoff, as is the one that the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, a Democrat, is waging for the state's other Senate seat. Georgia's Seventh District, where Carolyn Bourdeaux is running again after a narrow loss in 2018, is now rated by Cook as "lean Democratic." If Georgia does go blue, no one will deserve more credit than Abrams, who narrowly lost her race but came closer than any Democrat in years. Her New Georgia Project has reportedly registered around 450,000 people of color and young people, and she pressed the Biden campaign to take the state seriously, arguing that with the right investments, Georgia's demographics made the state flippable. Suburban women are only one part of the coalition that makes a Biden victory in Georgia conceivable. But they are probably the group whose politics have shifted the fastest. "I can't tell you the number of women I've met, traveling around the state of Georgia for about three years now, who maybe didn't see themselves as particularly political before, maybe didn't see themselves as partisan, maybe didn't see themselves as Democrats, who are now straight ticket Democratic voters," said Amico, who recently founded a PAC supporting progressive women running in state and local Georgia races. There are women like those Amico describes all over. I've met them in Arizona and in Pennsylvania, two states that might save this country this week. Their existence has kept me going during the last four years, especially in those low moments when rage gives way to grief. The revulsion women feel toward Trump has remade the landscape of American politics in ways that will outlast him. Recently I've worried about what Covid might mean for all these newly minted activists. Many have children and have thus been conscripted into home schooling. The meetings that were once so enlivening, that gave people whole new social worlds, are now on Zoom. But everyone I've talked to said engagement is as robust as ever. I first met Katie Landsman, an Army veteran and mother of three, when she was volunteering for the Ossoff campaign in 2017. When I got back in touch with her recently, she was, somewhat to her surprise, serving as deputy campaign manager on a state House race. "I never in a million years thought I would be this engrossed and involved in politics at 48 years old," she said. No one Landsman knew had stepped back from politics, and new volunteers were surging in. It may not be enough, but if Trump loses, it will be because of the women who wrung themselves out to defeat him. I asked Amico how she's sleeping in these final days. "I'm not sleeping very much," she said. "But when I sleep I sleep quite soundly."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Opinion
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I'm inside a room that feels simultaneously clinical and whimsical. Black, white and gray are the dominant colors. Positioned throughout the space are carefully crafted towers , boards, grids and other familiar objects they look like oversize, slightly haywire versions of games from my childhood, including Connect Four, Battleship, Simon and Jenga. A question mark hangs in the air, though. I no longer know the rules, and new ones haven't been provided. Doors and cabinets are locked. I'm joined by six other people, and we have 45 minutes which are ticking away on a countdown clock to figure out how to play in order to get out. We are in an escape room, a live action game where a group of people must solve a series of puzzles to work their way out of a locked room or series of rooms within a given time. In many escape rooms, the back stories are elaborate: You are traveling through a broken space time continuum. You are trying to avoid being buried alive. You are scrambling to save the world by shrinking yourself to the size of a mouse. In "The Privilege of Escape," a new public art project by Risa Puno at Onassis USA, the escape room turns from a high stakes thriller into a disarming demonstration of social inequality . Whether or not you succeed is largely beyond your control. The experience is still exhilarating, but can also be psychologically uncomfortable . Ms. Puno is the winner of the first open call by Creative Time, which has earned a reputation for its inventive approach to public art. Since the 1970s, the organization's work has taken the form of performances and parades, banners and billboards even a selection of photographs of life on Earth etched into a disc and launched into space. And whereas most public art tends to be physically static and stay on ideologically neutral ground, Creative Time has always engaged outright with political and social issues. That makes Ms. Puno's project, which aims to playfully illuminate the concept of privilege, a good fit. It's also encouraging to see Creative Time devoting substantial resources to the work of a lesser known artist. (The open call was aimed at those "who have not yet received a public commission or substantial support from a major cultural institution.") From 2007 to 2017, under the artistic stewardship of Nato Thompson, the organization leaned toward high profile commissions by big name artists like Kara Walker. "The Privilege of Escape" is the first project curated by the new executive director, Justine Ludwig, and it is promising. The experience at Onassis USA unfolds beneath a big corporate atrium in a building off Fifth Avenue. It's the perfect place to set a mock, nondescript institute, which is supposedly conducting a study for which I am a subject . When I arrive, an attendant in a lab coat greets me and asks, "Are you here for the test?" After registering the other participants for our session and dividing us into two groups, he brings us into an anodyne entry hall, where he briefs us on the rules. The institute, he says, is "dedicated to the study of behavioral sciences" and considers "structured gameplay" a philosophical pillar of its work. Each group will enter a different room and have 45 minutes to complete an identical set of puzzles. Our progress will be observed and compared, and at the end we will reconvene for a brief analysis. As we position ourselves near the doors, a countdown rings out. Go! Before I've had time to fully register our surroundings, someone in my group confidently unrolls what looks like a revamped Twister board (she's clearly an escape room veteran, I think). Someone else picks it up and swiftly locates its proper spot in the room in the process revealing a code. We try various locks, but they still won't open. We redirect our attention to a corner with jumbo dice. After a bit of frantic interpreting, we discern another code, and this time it works! We excitedly open a cabinet to find ... a set of round discs with symbols and colors on them. What do they mean? It's fairly obvious where they're supposed to go, but in what order? Forty one minutes and 13 seconds later, we emerge triumphant. The final code we cracked has gotten us out the door. It's only when we finish, though, that we realize something is off. (Readers beware: A slight spoiler follows.) As we reunite with the second group, we discover that they didn't escape in time not because their members lacked skills or intelligence, but because of the room they were in. Simply put, they were forced to play with a major handicap, whose challenges they were unaware of because it was presented as part of the game. (When asked for feedback, someone from that group jokingly called the experience "hell.") Meanwhile, we had the privilege of perfect conditions, which allowed us to achieve our full potential and escape. Throughout her career, Ms. Puno has used games as a means to consider human relations. In 2008 she built "The Course of Emotions," a mini golf course with holes based on negative feelings like jealousy and frustration. Earlier this year, she created "Risk Management," an original carnival inspired game that makes its players vulnerable to self sabotage in their attempts to beat one another and win. For Ms. Puno, play spaces offer safe environments for pushing people to confront complex questions about how we interact. "The Privilege of Escape" continues this inquiry. The project is an observable and ultimately visceral demonstration of something that often goes unrecognized or dismissed because it operates invisibly . Members of dominant social groups tend to believe that society is a meritocracy; what we fail to see is that the playing field was never level to begin with. Ms. Puno visualizes this by staging a test that's always rigged. If you're placed in the disadvantaged group, it will be harder and more frustrating; if you're afforded privilege, it will be easier and more fun. And just as with race, class, gender and ability, you don't get to choose the group to which you belong. Given the liberal bent of the art going crowd, this lesson won't be an epiphany for many participants. But knowing something in theory is different from experiencing it firsthand. Here, in the safe, neutral territory of public art, Ms. Puno has created an opportunity to assume different identities and compare and contrast the outcomes with a certain level of dispassion. My one critique of "The Privilege of Escape," which is impeccably designed and executed, concerns the decision to reveal the structural inequality at the end of the game. That timing turns it into more of a gotcha moment than a prompt for reflection or action. When I found out that my team had been given an advantage, I felt guilty, as if we had cheated not an unreasonable reaction, but not a constructive one either, and the facilitated discussion that followed didn't push me to consider the experience more deeply or critically. This is, I think, a missed opportunity. After all, the most pressing question regarding privilege isn't "how does it make you feel?" but "what can you do about it?" Through Aug. 11 at Onassis USA, 645 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan; creativetime.org .
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Art & Design
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Why enjoy a wild night on the town when you can skip straight to the head pounding hangover? That would appear to be the animating principle behind "This Ain't No Disco," the tone deaf, cliche clogged rock opera that opened on Tuesday night at the Linda Gross Theater in an Atlantic Theater Company production. Set in the wilting salad days of Studio 54, the New York dance emporium that became the Emerald City of hedonism in the late 1970s, this labored marriage of fact and fiction may begin when its cast of revelers is still pretending to have a good time. But a poisonous pall hangs over the folks who gather at the club's entrance, alternately chanting, "Let us in" and "Let us sin." Oooh, sounds like we've arrived in Gomorrah. And if you think that capital of doomed decadence won't be name checked before the evening is over, you don't know your judgment days. From the joyless frenzy of its opening number which rhymes "velvet rope" with "grind and grope" "This Ain't No Disco" wears its retributive grimness like a suffocating, Lycra spandex shroud. The book was shaped, in collaboration with the composers, by Rick Elice, a writer of "Jersey Boys," that tidiest of blockbuster jukebox musicals, as well as the ecstatic story theater piece "Peter and the Starcatcher." And the director is Darko Tresnjak, who won a Tony for overseeing the frolicsome mayhem of "A Gentleman's Guide to Love Murder." The gritty club at the heart of "This Ain't No Disco" In combination, though, these talented men seem to bring out the deep diving, wit stifling downers in one another. From its naysaying title (from a Talking Heads song), "This Ain't No Disco" screeches like a repressive, single message scold. Its electronic music repeats key phrases with an insistence that makes you long for the jolly melodic variety of Philip Glass. (Camille A. Brown's choreography correspondingly leans to desperate, repetitive flailing.) Such monotony fails to evoke the differently monotonous pop hits of disco or the differently harsh sounds of punk rock (the other cultural sensibility considered here), either fondly or satirically. Nor does Jason Sherwood's grimy scaffold set, mirroring the gritty sensibility of the down and out New York portrayed in the HBO series "The Deuce," suggest anything like the supposed glamour of Studio 54 or its darker downtown rival, the Mudd Club, which figures fleetingly in the second act. When, toward the end, a switch is thrown to reveal just how tawdry and shabby the seemingly golden Studio really is, it's hardly a shock. (Ben Stanton did the smudgy lighting.) That poor guy who begs "Don't turn on the lights!" as he is being dragged to jail might have saved his breath. Most notably, there's the single mother, self mutilator and rapper Sammy (Samantha Marie Ware), and her best friend, the once and future hustler and graffiti painter Chad (Peter LaPrade), whose nom de spray is Rake. Watch them writhe in the glare of the fame they sought so foolishly. Many famous names are evoked throughout (Liza, Jackie, Baryshnikov, Dali, et al.). But the most identifiable onstage celebrity is referred to only as The Artist, a wig wearing, deadpan, bespectacled figure who announces that he's just come from "a retrospective of my work at the Guggenheim hosted by a socialite." This Warhol by any other name is portrayed by Will Connolly, who, incidentally, has the only (underused) singing voice that feels appropriate to the time and his character. The Artist becomes the mentor and cruel exploiter of Sammy, who is presented to us as a Ramones worshiping punk, but looks more like a socialite in a toreador suit (before fame) and Whitney Houston (after). The hapless Chad finds himself the pet project of an aggressive, self promoting publicist and journalist named Binky (Chilina Kennedy). She's a clunky composite of such prototypes as Carmen D'Alessio, Joanne Horowitz and Nikki Haskell. Binky's constantly changing wardrobe offers some welcome evidence of period savvy wit by the costume designer, Sarah Laux. This publicity conjuring whirlwind turns out to be the naive Chad's nemesis, just as Steve is undone by a hate filled gay district attorney (Eddie Cooper). But fear not: There is wholesomeness on offer in the provisional domestic lair of the happy downtown artist couple (and former Studio coat check girls), Meesh (Krystina Alabado) and her trans partner, Landon, formerly Landa (Lulu Fall). It is here that our Candide like Chad may find the family and the sanctuary he seeks. But not before hitting the skids. After a short burst of flashbulb lighted glory that includes a Studio 54 wedding to Binky, Chad winds up in a bleak hotel room, singing to himself: It's 15 minutes later, boy, what a time you've had And now you're turning tricks with men Old enough to be your dad. Those lyrics, for the record, represent the campy heights as well as the bottom scraping nadir of Chad's story. But mostly "This Ain't No Disco" just ain't no fun.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Theater
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A WOMAN LIKE HER The Story Behind the Honor Killing of a Social Media Star By Sanam Maher In the early days of internet access, a young woman sits at a family computer, thrilling to its crackle and whine. It's connection she's after, a world where it seems possible to chat with anyone, anywhere, or to be anyone, name and ASL age, sex, location all negotiable. But this moment of excitement, of enchantment, is over almost as soon as it's begun. Her brother, self appointed guardian of his sister's honor, spies from behind. Enraged by her digital effrontery, he screams, then slaps her. By morning, the computer is gone, her access to university only narrowly preserved. This is Pakistan in the early aughts, where expectations for and control over female modesty and behavior extend to the new frontier of the internet. That young woman is not the main focus of Sanam Maher's compelling and disturbing new book, "A Woman Like Her." But as with so many stories in this intricately wrought work of reportage, this one casts light, and shade, on that of Maher's central subject, Pakistan's "first social media celebrity," Qandeel Baloch. Baloch's story, in Maher's hands, also begins with a brother watching. She is 8 or 9, mimicking a suggestive dance she has seen on TV. She too is hit by her brother. And 17 or so years later, another brother, seeking to defend the family honor against her online antics, will spike her milk with a sedative and strangle her. Read an excerpt from "A Woman Like Her." Baloch's murder in 2016 at the age of 26 was a sensation widely covered both in Pakistan and abroad, just as her life had been. She was famous, or infamous, for posting provocative videos such as one in which, wearing a bikini, she promised to strip if Pakistan's cricket team beat India's (it didn't) that so defied acceptable behavior for a Pakistani woman that she became a category of one. Unable to excel as a singer, actress or model, she adroitly identified social media as offering a cheaper, and so more easily accessible, kind of fame. Determined to hold attention whatever it took, willing to accept, if not relish, any insult except indifference, she was as savvy as she was cartoonish. But hers was a volatile kind of notoriety, one that required ever greater risks to maintain, even as it left her isolated and vulnerable. With such a public subject, what could there be left to tell? Maher, a journalist based in Karachi, answers that question handily, and originally. "A Woman Like Her" is a model of how to report on celebrity: by focusing on the seedy characters who feed and exploit it, and by harvesting the details, especially at the seam between public and private, that more conventional journalists leave behind. Maher has an often thrillingly slant gaze, an eye alert to the absurdities, ironies and small tragedies at play in the manufacture of images and personas. Her book is full of unforgettable scenes and vignettes Baloch, pretending to be a clueless urbanite, her stilettos sinking into the mud on a reality show set in a village like the one where she was raised; a television talk show blurring her cleavage spot to capitalize on her risque image, even though she is wearing nothing revealing. This tension over who is in control of Baloch's life drives the book. Among Maher's wise choices is to accept that the very publicness of Baloch's life makes her, on some level, unknowable. She was a construction, down to her name, which was invented. (Indeed the disclosure of her real name by local media may have played a role in her death, by exposing her family to local ridicule and judgment.) Maher sprinkles the book with Baloch's own words, spoken and written, but she doesn't try to resolve their contradictions. Baloch was brave and foolish, phenomenally independent and pathetically needy, protective of her virtue and, as was her right, also willing to trade on it. She was a type (see: a Kardashian, to whom she was sometimes compared) but also only herself. She was proof, if we needed it, that a life can be lived simultaneously on the rise and on the run. Maher diligently traces Baloch's steps from her family home to an abusive marriage to the women's shelter where she resolves to leave her husband but also, permanently, her son, behind. From there Baloch moved through a series of disillusioning way stations, the limited menu for a woman on the make: bus hostess, model. Everywhere in these subcultures Maher finds women confined and commodified, desperately trying, and rarely succeeding, to govern their own lives. No wonder the internet seemed to offer Baloch a new kind of freedom, one worth the price of the abuse she received. Social media is "not someone's father's property," she tells her critics. "Everyone has the right to express their opinion on it." And yet this is a dark book, in which loyalty and kindness are outdone by exploitation and cruelty. Maher, for example, finds the young reporter who breathlessly raced to Baloch's family home after receiving a police tip about her murder. Dissatisfied with his scoop, he arranged to have the sheet covering her corpse removed so that he could photograph it, so he could see for himself. This is amorality without a floor. Maher excels at finding the bit players who often seem to have more power than the main cast. There is, for example, the illiterate chaiwalah, or "tea boy," who, photographed at work, becomes an overnight internet sensation thanks to his striking blue eyes. Maher finds his manager and social media adviser coaching him on everything from elocution to how to behave like a star so that he can remain one. That story proves that it's not only women who must navigate the new mores of social media. But ultimately this is a book about what it means to be a woman in Pakistan and also online. The sickening insults and death threats Baloch endured aren't confined to any one country; when it comes to misogyny, the internet has proved a demonically equalizing force. And Maher astutely probes how laws meant to protect women from harassment can also be used to control and punish blasphemers, minorities and critics of the military government. I wish she had done more to examine Facebook's power in Pakistan, which she alludes to but never fully explicates. After Baloch's promise to strip, an online campaign is launched against her and Facebook cuts her ties to her 400,000 followers. Maher doesn't provide any explanation from the company for this, nor for the subsequent restoration of Baloch's account. Still, it's a reminder of the capricious and secretive government to which Facebook users have pledged allegiance. There are other omissions: More Pakistani history might have been helpful for readers unfamiliar with how the country's enmity with India, its Islamist parties and its military elite have shaped its mores and culture. At the same time, the profusion of details can become too much, the chronology of where we are in Baloch's life difficult to sort out. But these are small quibbles. "A Woman Like Her" is the story of a woman who was a survivor, until she wasn't. It's also a map of the savage underworld we've made.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Books
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Mortgage rates have never looked this good. They are at about 3.81 percent for a second week, a record low. But who gets that rate? What does it actually take to secure a mortgage rate that begins with the enviable number 3? One mortgage broker joked the other day that it required "a good mortgage broker and a prayer." But in reality, the borrower tends to look a lot like Javier Arau, who refinanced his 265,000 mortgage earlier this week at 3.5 percent. He and his wife, Kelley, live in a two bedroom co op in the Jackson Heights section of Queens. They have a respectable set of credentials, yet they are not entirely unattainable for reasonably employed people either. They have no debt, with the exception of about 30,000 in student loans. They have about 20 percent in home equity, and Mr. Arau said they considered themselves savers. By getting out of their original mortgage, which carried a 6.25 percent rate, their monthly payment will drop by nearly 600 to 1,200. "Having 600 less to deal with each month will be a huge relief," said Mr. Arau, who also has two young daughters. "It's probably going to pump itself back into my business and give us a little bit of breathing room." (He said they paid about 2,000 to reduce the original rate they were offered, or 3.75 percent, because they knew they planned to stay in their apartment for several more years.) Still, qualifying for that rate actually, qualifying for a mortgage at all required a bit of patience. The couple, both in their mid 30s, wanted to refinance a few years ago, but their mortgage broker told them at the time that they would probably be turned down. The earnings of a freelance saxophonist and a part time prekindergarten teacher were too inconsistent to pass muster with the banks. Since then, however, Mr. Arau has opened a music school, the New York Jazz Academy, and has been able to generate a consistent stream of income for two years. So qualifying for the best rates is not impossible, as long as you have a job with steady income that's easy to document. Of course, millions of people aren't that fortunate. While lending standards are considerably tighter than they were during the anything goes days of the housing boom, some mortgage brokers and lenders said they believed the rules were still lenient, at least in some ways, including the amount of total debt you're allowed to carry. The much greater challenge, they say, has become documenting your income and every bit of information on your application, down to the last 200 your mother sent you for your birthday. "What's tougher today is the level of scrutiny and documentation and analysis and reverification around assets, income, employment and appraisals," said Bob Walters, chief economist at Quicken Loans. "Lenders are terrified, literally terrified, of repurchases. What that means is if a lender makes a mistake, or there's a difference in opinion, and they close the loan and it goes into default, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac could require them to repurchase the loan." Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the two government agencies that buy or guarantee about two thirds of all new mortgages. While one set of factors influences your overall ability to qualify, another overlapping set helps determine your interest rate. To qualify, borrowers seeking a conventional loan typically 417,000 or less, or up to 625,500 in certain higher cost areas generally need to be approved by Fannie or Freddie's automated underwriting engines used by brokers and lenders. With the more conservative standards, the average borrower today has a significantly stronger financial profile than at the height of the boom. The average FICO credit score on a new Fannie or Freddie Mac mortgage is about 765, up from about 720 in 2006, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. On loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, the average score has increased to 700 from about 680 in 2006. But what interest rate you receive will be strongly influenced by the strength of your credit combined with how much equity have in your home, numbers that have derailed many deals or forced families to pay a higher rate. Your equity stake depends on the property's assessed value. So a disappointing appraisal could mean you'll have to pay a higher rate unless you come up with more cash at the closing. For the week ending Thursday, the average rate on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage was 3.66 percent along with a fee of 0.7 percent of the mortgage amount, or a rate of 3.81 percent with no fee, according to Freddie Mac. That's the lowest level since the agency began tracking the numbers in 1971, and Freddie Mac said, probably ever. Rates stood at 4.51 percent at this time last year. To secure the absolutely lowest rates, you generally need to have a credit score of 740 or better and to make a down payment of 25 percent or more (or have that much in home equity if you're refinancing), preferably in a single family house. That said, you will probably only pay a tiny bit more with at least 20 percent in home equity. Those with a credit score of 720 to 739 will also pay slightly more, but not that much, brokers said, as long as they also meet the general approval standards. But if you're financing a much smaller amount of your home's value and have a lower credit score, you may still be able to qualify for the same low rate as someone with a higher score. "Say you have a 700 score but you are only financing 50 percent of the home's value," said Mark Maimon, director of sales at Universal Mortgage in Brooklyn. "You might get the same rate as someone who has an 800 score doing 75 percent financing." Someone with a 620 credit score and 20 percent in home equity can expect to pay a rate that's nearly 4.4 percent, depending on the lender, compared to a person with a score of 740 or higher and an identical equity stake (or the person with the lower score can pay the lender 2.75 percent of the loan amount to receive a much lower rate), experts said. But as your score decreases, the two agencies want to see either a large down payment or a lot of money left in the bank. Otherwise, you may not qualify at all. That's why it's no surprise that so many more borrowers have turned to the Federal Housing Administration's loan program, which is much more lenient. "At a FICO 620, there is no penalty which drives the rates higher, and a borrower can have as small an equity position as 3.5 percent," said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com, a mortgage information Web site, though the loans typically carry other fees. "Costs may be higher but the interest rate remains at rock bottom." There are other reasons rates on traditional mortgages may not be as low as advertised. After the housing market collapsed, Fannie and Freddie began charging extra fees for mortgages that they insured or bought for a variety of reasons. Fannie, for instance, levies a fee of 0.75 percent of the loan amount on people buying condominium apartments if the borrower has less than 25 percent in equity. Even if you do qualify for the best rates, be prepared to deal with all sorts of rules that will require some work. And there are still entire groups of people who will have a difficult time. It's much easier to sail through the entire process, for instance, if you receive a paycheck. But people who are self employed, or who receive a large portion of their income through commissions and bonuses, are likely to have a more difficult time. "If you are self employed and your net income decreased from 2010 to 2011, even if it's 2 or 3 percent, it's an automatic rejection," said Fred Glick, owner of U S Loans Mortgage, a brokerage based in Philadelphia. But even people with easily documented income will probably leave the approval process with a story or two to tell. Mr. Maimon recalls a bank that required proof of where a 25 bank deposit came from. In cases with other requests on the source of deposits, he asked the lender to simply disregard that money and qualify the applicant on their other assets. But this lender wouldn't do it. "There is no common sense or reason left in underwriting," Mr. Maimon said. "As an applicant, you have to roll with the punches and give the banks what they ask for. When you try to dodge it, then they just ask for more."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Your Money
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"Of Love and Rage," a new evening length ballet by Alexei Ratmansky, will have its New York premiere during American Ballet Theater's spring season, the company announced on Thursday. The ballet the latest installment of the company's multiyear (and multimillion dollar) Ratmansky Project is an adaptation of Chariton's "Callirhoe," an ancient Greek love story, set to music by Khachaturian arranged by Philip Feeney. Its New York premiere is planned for June 2; the world premiere is to be in March at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Orange County, Calif. Ballet Theater's New York season, May 11 through July 4 at the Metropolitan Opera House, will mark the company's 80th anniversary. To celebrate, it will open with two programs called "ABT Then and Now." The first, "Then," will feature some of the oldest dances in Ballet Theater's repertory: George Balanchine's "Theme and Variations" (1947); Antony Tudor's "Jardin aux Lilas" (1940); and Jerome Robbins's "Fancy Free" (1944). And the second, "Now," will draw from recent premieres: Jessica Lang's "Garden Blue," Twyla Tharp's "A Gathering of Ghosts" and Mr. Ratmansky's "The Seasons." The three ballets of the "Then" program were also presented during Ballet Theater's 75th anniversary season. Kevin McKenzie, the company's artistic director, said they were brought back because they give a snapshot of Ballet Theater's earliest years.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Dance
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LEIPZIG, Germany What will Bachfest Leipzig do for an encore? You had to wonder almost from the start of this year's installment, last Friday. The festival, founded in 1999 to celebrate this city's favorite musical son on his own turf, offered a stunning array of events over the weekend. This included a new and remarkable feature, a "Ring of Cantatas": 10 church concerts or Lutheran services with world class interpreters John Eliot Gardiner, Masaaki Suzuki, Ton Koopman and Hans Christoph Rademann presenting 33 cantatas over 48 hours. The notion of a ring must have seemed only natural to musicians working in Leipzig, the city where Bach spent his last 27 years (1723 50) in service to St. Thomas Church (known by its German name, the Thomaskirche) and School. It is also the birthplace of Richard Wagner, whose huge four opera "Der Ring des Nibelungen" still runs regularly in Bayreuth, just two hours away. The number 33 "coincides nicely with the 333rd anniversary of Bach's birthday," Michael Maul, the festival's artistic director, wrote in the program book. It jibes, too, with Bach's fixation on numbers: particularly 3, in connection with the Trinity of Lutheran theology. But Mr. Maul, a 40 year old musicologist bursting with ideas and long connected with the Bach Archive here, which organizes Bachfest, conceded in an interview that the number 33 came about pretty much by accident. When he became the dramaturg of the festival in 2015, he began to work with Mr. Gardiner, the president of the archive, whom he credits for the idea. Mr. Maul drew Peter Wollny, the director of the archive, into the project, and the three agreed to nominate Bach's 30 best cantatas. (That word "best" is always problematic in an artistic context, even more so in one that is also religious, but that's a discussion for another day.) Working independently, they agreed on 15 cantatas. Mr. Maul selected the rest from those doubly nominated, to fill out the church year. Thirty works were fitted into eight concerts, but when two services were added to the mix, the list grew to 33. And a remarkable roster it turned out to be, with most of the popular favorites and a number of happy surprises though for me and doubtless others, it lacked a few personal preferences. As for the performers, Mr. Gardiner, by virtue of rank no doubt, commanded prime time with his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, performing in Bach's second church, the grander St. Nicholas Church (the Nikolaikirche), several blocks from the Thomaskirche, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. And the performances more than justified the place of honor. Mr. Gardiner long ago set aside the smooth, polite manner that used to characterize British early music performance and started grabbing listeners by the lapels with a more pointed, sometimes hellbent style. Here he breathed new life into standards like "Jesu, der du meine Seele" and "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme." But he was most impressive finding the drama in less familiar masterpieces. There was fire in "O ewiges Feuer, o Ursprung der Liebe," and real thunder in "O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort." The duet near the end of "Donnerwort" was downright spooky in its depiction of "weeping and gnashing of teeth." Mr. Suzuki's orchestra and especially fine chorus also stood out in fare both standard ("Wie schon leuchtet der Morgenstern") and less so. It is meant as no slight to Mr. Koopman's forces to say that their finest moment came with the singing of the eminent bass Klaus Mertens in the solo cantata "Ich habe genug." On Saturday afternoon, Gotthold Schwarz, Bach's successor in the position of cantor at the Thomaskirche, led the boys and men of the Thomanerchor in their weekly Motette service, which included two cantatas. And on Sunday, Mr. Rademann and the Gaechinger Cantorey took part in an outdoor service staged by the Thomaskirche and the Nikolaikirche in the Markt, the market square in the heart of Leipzig. Their performance of the big cantata "Die Himmel erzahlen die Ehre Gottes" suffered from the necessary amplification, but these performers were heard to powerful effect that afternoon in three cantatas at the Nikolaikirche. As if the Ring itself were not enough, Bachfest also presented late night concerts in the remarkable new Universitatskirche St. Pauli. David Timm conducted the university's choir and Baroque ensemble in three cantatas, over and above the 33. They included the "Trauer Ode," a lament on the death of a Saxon princess in 1727, the premiere of which Bach conducted in the old Universitatskirche, destroyed by the East German regime in 1968. By Monday, it was hard for a happily sated and exhausted listener to fight off a sense of anticlimax, but the brunt of the Bachfest, which opened on Friday with a concert of music leading up to Bach, remained. It reached a climax of another sort on Thursday evening, with a performance of Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" in the Thomaskirche, where Bach led its premiere in 1727 and to be covered in a later review and ends on Sunday. So what does Bachfest do for an encore? Will the (or another) Ring of Cantatas return? That, too, is a discussion for another day.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Music
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But what about students who are more comfortable in the pre post gender world? Jennifer Weiler, a freshman at Green Mountain College, filed a suit in December against the State of Vermont, contending that it had not enforced codes mandating single sex bathrooms. The bathrooms on her coed floors were open to all Joe Petrick, vice president of student life at the college, responds that "there are individual stalls, so it's not like anyone's exposing themselves." When Ms. Weiler raised the issue, one of two bathrooms on her floor was designated for women only. Her suit contends that male students continued to use it. At Green Mountain and most other colleges, students can opt out of coed dorms altogether. But housing administrators say that most students adapt quickly to coed culture, and a dozen Berkeley dorm residents who were interviewed agree. Diana Wei, who lives in Berkeley's Unit Three dorms, notes: "There is some primping you don't want to do in front of a guy. Most girls do their makeup in their room. But sometimes it can be a learning experience for the guys, like, 'Oh, this is what girls do!' " Another student, Evan Hudson, calls the situation "cool," probably because he grew up with a sister. "It's pretty social in the bathroom," he says. "At the end of the night we have toothbrush parties." He has noticed, though, that some women shower really late at night, "probably to avoid all us guys." How a few colleges handle the coed culture: COED ROOMS On request, with approval from both parents. The college gets one or two requests a year. COED BATHROOMS At the start of the year, students sit with resident advisers to determine how their floor's bathrooms will be designated.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Education
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Only the kidnapping is real, or seems to be. The gun Brooks leaves behind is very much real and loaded, as Max learns when one of its rounds goes through his arm. It's at junctures like this when the movie becomes less conventional, although it never soars. The dialogue leans so heavily on pop culture references you have to wonder whether the film's screenwriter, Mark Perez, is as insecure as his creation Max. The directors, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, who were behind the repellent 2015 film "Vacation," show relative restraint here, in spite of a set piece that involves an adorable little dog getting its immaculate white coat doused with blood. And all the cast members particularly the friends and neighbors played by Chelsea Peretti, Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris and Jesse Plemons (who, as an uptight cop, delivers a deliberately robotic idea of a Matt Damon impersonation) are very funny when they get the opportunity to be. And the movie is a pointed reminder that Ms. McAdams is one of cinema's most accomplished and appealing comic actresses. It's almost heartbreaking to contemplate how amazing she would be in a new comedy that was more than intermittently O.K.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Movies
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In NoMad, a 55 Story Condo Tries to Peek Out From the Pack Views usually come with the territory on the city's low slung edges. But they can be sometimes impossible to attain in the middle of Manhattan, where tall towers elbow one other, shoulder to shoulder. Cobble together enough adjacent lots and their all important unused development rights, however, and a tower might just be able to peek above the pack. Such is the effort of 277 Fifth Avenue, a 130 unit condo under construction near the Empire State Building, at East 30th Street, from the developers Victor Group and Lendlease Development. In a chess like series of moves that stretched over several years, these developers stitched together not two or three parcels, as is often the case, but essentially eight different lots about the entire length of the condo's block and then some. This helped allow the condo to soar to 55 stories, or taller than most of the buildings around it (so far). Snapping up so many surrounding development rights, better known as air rights, has an added benefit, said Ran Korolik, the executive vice president of Victor. It ensures that no other high rises will ever go up next door, along any of the condo's facades, which might have permanently blocked the windows there, he explained. "I think buyers will appreciate it," said Mr. Korolik, who explained that the original development site, which he purchased in 2014, consisted of just three lots, meaning that he could have built a 35 story tower, at best. Air rights can be sold by a building that has not been constructed to its maximum allowable height. Those rights can be shifted around and sold, though mostly between buildings that are side by side. Of course, not everybody will be able to live in the upper stories of the spire, which is designed by Rafael Vinoly Architects, a firm whose portfolio includes skyscrapers like 432 Park Avenue. But in an unusual move, every apartment is a corner unit with two exposures, which developers say will especially help residents of lower floors enjoy their fair share of natural light. Most units have between one and three bedrooms; there are also two penthouses, which each take up an entire floor. The interiors, from Jeffrey Beers International, an architecture and design firm known for its hotels and restaurants, have wide plank oak floors, at least 10 foot ceilings and open kitchens, with white marble counters, wine fridges and Miele ranges. And while there are no windows in the baths in the one bedrooms because the baths are tucked into the interiors of the units, windows are a feature of the baths in units with two bedrooms or more. Unlike some of its peers, 277 Fifth isn't taking a more is more approach to its recreational spaces, with just about 7,000 square feet of amenities compressed on two lower floors connected by staircase. Amenities there include a gym, saunas and a custom surface for table tennis. "It's not about unlimited choices," said Melissa Roman Burch, an executive general manager with Lendlease, a division of the global construction firm of the same name, "but it was about curation." The condo is Lendlease's development division's first New York project. Instead, Ms. Burch said, residents are likely to entertain themselves in the surrounding NoMad neighborhood, which has quickly become one of Manhattan's trendier addresses. This 470 million project's offering plan was approved by the state's attorney general on Aug. 18. One bedroom units, which start at about 830 square feet, are priced from 1.9 million, while two bedrooms, which start at about 1,340 square feet, are 2.8 million and up. Put another way, sales prices at 277 Fifth, excluding the penthouses, average about 2,700 a square foot. The building is supposed to open in about a year. The group, with about 350 members, was founded in 2012 to spare a prewar building on West 29th Street from demolition, though it was later razed, and the group is currently pushing to extend the boundaries of an existing historic district to keep new towers at bay. "What we are asking is not far fetched," Mr. Messina said. Developers "want to turn us into a new Dubai, in New York," he added. "It's a mess."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Real Estate
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Rafael Callejas, a former president of Honduras who was ensnared in an international soccer scandal and convicted in the United States of taking bribes while president of his nation's soccer federation, died on April 4 in Atlanta. He was 76. The cause was complications of acute myeloid leukemia, his lawyer, Manuel J. Retureta, said. He had been living in Atlanta while awaiting sentencing and being treated for his illness. Mr. Callejas, a member of Honduras's conservative National Party, was the nation's president from 1990 to 1994, a time of pronounced economic difficulty in Central America. He was the first opposition candidate in Honduras to take power through a peaceful vote in 57 years. He later spent more than a dozen years leading the Honduran soccer federation, known as Fenafuth. He stepped down in 2015, when the U.S. Justice Department announced a sweeping corruption case focused on soccer officials and sports marketing executives around the world. Mr. Callejas was charged along with dozens of other men, including his top deputy at Fenafuth.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Sports
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To its citizens and admirers, the United States "had never been just a country," Risen writes, "it was an idea too." Carefully constructed, brutally contested, boldly if imperfectly embodied, this singular idea had stirred widespread hope that liberty and equality might be possible, even contagious. More than a century after winning its independence, however, the United States had yet to turn its fame into what it really wanted: respect. In the eyes of much of Europe, the country still seemed like "a hypertrophied child," Risen argues, "with astounding economic growth and resources, but without the maturity to play a role in world affairs." When Cuba launched a war of independence in the winter of 1895, reviving its longstanding struggle against Spain, Americans immediately took notice. Most sympathized with the island, seeing in its fight for independence a reflection of their own, but others saw something more: an opportunity for the United States to claim its rightful place on the world stage. If America wanted to be taken seriously, no tactic was faster or more effective than war with a European power. Although President McKinley had hoped to avoid interfering in Cuba, less than a year after his inauguration the United States warship Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, killing 266 men and making it nearly impossible for him to resist the deafening call to war. In the 121 years since that fateful night, historians have yet to find any definitive evidence that the Spanish blew up the Maine. On the contrary, the overwhelming verdict is that it was an accident. At the time, though, there was little doubt in most Americans' minds, certainly none in Roosevelt's, that the Spanish were to blame. When Roosevelt, then an assistant secretary of the Navy and already spoiling for a fight, heard the news, Risen writes, he "grinned, and shouted, and declared that war with Spain had finally arrived." As soon as the war began, Roosevelt resigned his post and began lobbying to form his own regiment quickly termed the Rough Riders. Unnerved by his friend's eagerness "to fight and hack and hew," the historian Henry Adams, heir to his own political dynasty, wrote, "I really think he is going mad." Roosevelt didn't care. He wasn't interested in idle intellectuals. He wanted men who were ready to fight, and there was no shortage of those.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Books
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In a development that transforms the fight against Ebola, two experimental treatments are working so well that they will now be offered to all patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo, scientists announced on Monday. The antibody based treatments are quite powerful "Now we can say that 90 percent can come out of treatment cured," one scientist said and they raise hopes that the disastrous epidemic in eastern Congo can soon be stopped and future outbreaks more easily contained. Offering patients a real cure "may contribute to them feeling more comfortable about seeking care early," said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who joined the World Health Organization and the Congolese government in making the announcement. That prospect should greatly lessen the aura of terror that surrounds Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever virus whose reputation has been shaped by its deadliness and its incurability. Since its discovery 40 years ago, the virus has haunted Africa. Until now, many believed that anyone catching Ebola was doomed to die alone among space suited strangers and to be buried without ceremony in a bleach misted body bag. Fear of the virus and mistrust of health workers have been major obstacles to combating Ebola's spread in eastern Congo, where terrified families often hide their sick and even attack health teams. If word spreads that a cure exists, people may begin to summon help early in the disease's progress, which would be crucial to saving lives and preventing further spread. "The more we can learn about these two treatments, the closer we can get to turning Ebola from a terrifying disease to one that is preventable and treatable," said Dr. Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and a co chair of a W.H.O. committee evaluating Ebola therapeutics. The epidemic, which was declared a public health emergency last month, has now infected about 2,800 known patients, killing more than 1,800 of them, according to the W.H.O. The new experimental treatments, known as REGN EB3 and mAb 114, are both cocktails of monoclonal antibodies that are infused intravenously into the blood. REGN EB3 is made by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals of Tarrytown, N.Y., which also makes other antibody treatments. Dr. Fauci's institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, developed mAb114 and licensed production last year to Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, a Miami company. Antibodies are Y shaped proteins normally made by the immune system that clump onto the outer shells of viral particles, preventing them from entering cells. The two new treatments are synthetic versions grown under laboratory conditions. The two new therapies were among four that were tested in a trial that has enrolled almost 700 patients since November. The two worked so well that a committee meeting on Friday to look at preliminary results in the first 499 patients immediately recommended that the other two treatments, ZMapp, made by Mapp Biopharmaceutical, and remdesivir, made by Gilead Sciences, be stopped. All patients will now be offered either the Regeneron or the Biotherapeutics drug. Among patients who were brought into treatment centers with low viral loads which suggested that they had been infected only days before only 6 percent of those who got Regeneron drug died, and only 11 percent of those who got the Biotherapeutics drug died, Dr. Fauci said. By contrast, 33 percent of those who received the antiviral drug made by Gilead died, as did 24 percent of those who got ZMapp, an older monoclonal antibody cocktail that was tested briefly during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014. The death rate among untreated and unvaccinated patients in this outbreak is thought to be over 70 percent, said Dr. Michael J. Ryan, director of emergency response for the W.H.O. Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. The difference in mortality rates between the Regeneron product and the Ridgeback one was considered too small to be statistically significant, so both are still being used, Dr. Fauci said. Regeneron and Ridgeback have said they can make enough doses to treat all patients, Dr. Fauci said. It is helpful to have two options in case supply problems develop with one drug or the other, said Dr. Michael J. Ryan, the W.H.O.'s chief of emergency response. Dr. Jean Jacques Muyembe, director of Congo's National Institute for Biomedical Research, joined Dr. Fauci and Dr. Ryan in announcing the trial results. Psychologically, Dr. Muyembe said, news of a cure could change the course of this outbreak, which is the worst of the 10 that Congo has endured. Residents of eastern Congo, many of them traumatized refugees from wars and genocides in the region, are deeply distrustful of the government in the capital, Kinshasa. Rumors have spread that Ebola does not exist, or that treatment teams steal blood and body parts for witchcraft. Treatment centers have been shot up or burned down. "Now we can say that 90 percent can come out of treatment cured, they will start believing it and developing trust," Dr. Muyembe said. "The first ones to transmit this information will be the patients themselves." Dr. Muyembe, 77, whom Dr. Fauci referred to as a "true hero," has been fighting Ebola since it first appeared in what was then Zaire in 1976. Decades ago, he pioneered the use of survivors' blood serum which contains antibodies in order to save patients. The two experiment treatments that proved successful last week descend in part from his original research. Asked how he felt about that during a telephone news conference, Dr. Muyembe said through a translator: "I'm a little sentimental. I had this idea a long time ago, and I've waited patiently for it. I'm very happy, and I can't believe it." The Regeneron treatment the one with the best results was added to the clinical trial at the last minute only after reconsideration by a W.H.O. panel of experts, the company said. "We're extremely moved to know our therapy is helping save lives," said Neil Stahl, the company's executive vice president of research. "Our team worked tirelessly to discover, develop and produce REGN EB3 in record time." The four treatments were tested in units run by three medical charities: Doctors Without Borders, Alima and the International Medical Corps. Formal testing, which began in November, was known as the PALM trial, for Pamoja Tulinde Maisha, which means "Save Lives Together" in Swahili. Patients were assigned at random to get one of the four treatments. Before that, some patients were being given whatever was available. Early testing on 113 patients released in October suggested that the treatments could substantially cut mortality rates if given early, but there was not enough data to tell which ones were working the best. Development of the new treatments was supported by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services concerned with fighting chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats, and pandemic diseases.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Health
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A few years ago Annette and Herbert Kopp, the creative couple behind the bold, architectural bijoux of the German atelier CADA, decided to infuse their affinity for contemporary art into a new project. Mr. Kopp, inspired by the couple's own art collection, determined that the initial pieces for CADA Goes Art would be created by the American conceptual sculptor Aaron Curry and two German artists, Jonathan Meese ("who loves gold," Mr. Kopp said) and Andy Hope, who previously had made plastic jewelry. Mr. Curry's pieces, five years in the making and the last to be released, recently were displayed at the Almine Rech Gallery in Paris and now are available exclusively on CADA's website. The artist's characteristic whimsy came to life in 18 pieces Bull, Cactus and Moon styles created in pink, yellow and white gold, black rhodium, diamonds, citrines, corals, amethysts, rubies and sapphires. Prices range from 19,800 euros to 129,000 euros, or 22,400 to 145,800.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Fashion & Style
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Slovenes have a deep respect for honey bees. "If I see dead bees, I call a police SOS number, and they send a special inspector to check out the situation," said Blaz Ambro zic, the beekeeper at Beekeeping Ambrozic Kralov med, his family owned apiary that's just one mile from the popular resort town of Bled. With such passion, it's no surprise that the Slovenian Beekeeper's Association successfully petitioned the United Nations to proclaim May 20 the birthday of the native Slovene pioneer of modern beekeeping, Anton Jansa as World Bee Day, celebrating the importance of honey bee preservation and boosting the public's awareness of how significant bees are to the food supply. Starting May 13 and for at least the rest of the month, the medieval Bled Castle will host an exposition on bees and beekeeping in the area. Kralov med has introduced an apitourism (that is, tourism focused on and for people who love bees) project where visitors will don protective gear and spend up to two hours working with Mr. Ambro zic, including opening a hive with Carniolan bees a subspecies under the protection of the Slovene government. In essence, guests become immersed in bees and beekeeping, such as learning how to distinguish honey from propolis (a waxy bee glue used to seal up hives), and how to extract honey from the hive's cells.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Travel
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With paintings and sculptures selling for record prices in recent weeks, it makes sense for auction houses to market cars as artworks, too. That would seem to be at least part of the logic behind a coming sale by Sotheby's and RM Auctions ambitiously titled "Art of the Automobile." The sale, billed as the first high end car auction in New York City in more than a decade, aims to raise the aesthetic regard for automotive design. The concept is not new museum shows of automobiles presented as rolling artworks have proved immensely popular but this auction, conceived to attract buyers of fine art, is set in the midst of the fevered art auction season. The sale's 32 cars and two motorcycles will be displayed in the same gallery space where a wealthy patron might otherwise inspect works by Warhol and Koons. The auction is set for Thursday at 2 p.m. at Sotheby's on York Avenue at 72nd Street. The vehicles will be on view to the public in the 10th floor Manhattan galleries of Sotheby's from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday through Wednesday. The three day presale preview will serve as an impromptu brief automotive art show of star cars. "We applied the same criteria and principles that we use to evaluate works of art line, proportion, design, originality and provenance to these cars," said Leslie Keno, Sotheby's senior international specialist and a familiar face to fans of the "Antiques Roadshow" program on PBS. "That is why they belong in the space with the Picassos and Brancusis." Ian Kelleher, a car specialist at RM, said that the intention was to draw a wider set of art and design collectors. "We are looking at customers who appreciate the art of the automobile," he said. The emphasis is on art more than automobile; the sale may test, as Mr. Kelleher said, "how much credibility is given to the car as an art form." The cars, while not in the same price class as the three panel painting by Francis Bacon that brought 142 million this month at Christie's, form a select group, topped by a red 1964 Ferrari 250 LM with an estimated sale price of 12 million to 15 million. Sotheby's has displayed the Ferrari in its lobby to promote the sale. "We see these cars as the perfect intersection between art and technology," Mr. Keno said. Most major auctions of automobiles are timed to coincide with important concours events, from Amelia Island in Florida to the Monterey Peninsula of California. But this sale comes during the main New York and London season of auctions for art, furniture and jewelry. New York is one of the world's centers for collector auctions of every category, but not automobiles. "Sotheby's once regularly held sales, many years ago," Mr. Keno said. But RM cited a sale it held in 2000 at the Waldorf Astoria as the last major auto auction in the city. The Louis Vuitton Classic, a concours at Rockefeller Center that sometimes coincided with auctions, was last scheduled for Sept. 21, 2001, but was canceled after 9/11. Mr. Kelleher said each car was chosen for specific reasons a landmark design that was emblematic of its period or a notably high quality preservation or restoration. He said that he was able to obtain cars from owners willing to consign to an art sale, but not to a humble car sale. The choice of vehicles offers what could serve as the teaching collection for a class on the history of auto design, a tasting menu or Whitman's Sampler of the field. Together, they make a case for the value of the automobile as design and art. "There is a great deal of interest critically among collectors of modernist art and design here," said Benjamin Genocchio, editor in chief of Art Auction magazine, which follows the art markets. He said he believed that many collectors were ready to add cars to their interests. "This is the next step for those collectors," he said. "There is a groundswell of interest in modern design. Many modern art collectors also collect modern design, especially midcentury modern furniture. All that started with cars. The shapes come from streamline and streamline comes from cars and trains." The historical span of the cars includes a 1912 Stutz Model A Bear Cat (estimated to bring 800,00 to 1.2 million) and a 1933 Murphy bodied Duesenberg ( 2 million to 2.5 million). Italian coachwork from the 1950s is exemplified by a 1955 Maserati A6G/2000 Spyder from Zagato ( 3.5 million to 4.5 million). A very different expression of automotive art is seen in the so called Dick Flint roadster, a 1929 Ford Model A hot rod that graced the cover of Hot Rod magazine in 1952 ( 700,000 to 900,000). Many of the cars are one of a kind, like the 1956 Aston Martin DB 2/4 MK II Supersonic ( 1.8 million to 2.4 million). Also unique is a wonderfully oddball design study from the mid 1950s, the 1955 Lincoln Indianapolis Exclusive Study ( 2 million to 2.5 million). The little seen Lincoln was created by Boano, an Italian coachbuilder, in an attempt to impress the Ford Motor Company for future commissions. Like the Supersonic, it incorporates jet imagery. "That car exemplifies the era," Mr. Kelleher said. "It is the keynote of the sale, a real showstopper." Others are highlights of their category, like the 1938 Talbot Lago T150 C by Figoni Falaschi, a prototype of a star model of the romantic French streamline era ( 8 million to 10 million). More surprising lessons come from the inclusion of the 1964 Chevrolet CERV II, a testament to the beauty of innovative engineering. Created by Zora Arkus Duntov, the pioneering Corvette engineer, as a Chevrolet Engineering research vehicle, the CERV II inspired future models. ( 1.4 million to 1.8 million) A 1967 Toyota 2000GT, which RM says is one of only 54 delivered in the United States, makes the point that Japanese autos have been more than just mass production successes ( 700,000 to 1 million). The Jaguar E Type, BMW 507 and Mercedes 300SL seem usual suspects from a Top 10 list, but Mr. Kelleher said he looked for superb examples and a New York connection of some sort: the 300SL, for instance, was sold at the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Manhattan dealership of Max Hoffman. And a custom 1941 Cadillac limousine built for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor reflects how much time the former king spent in New York ( 500,00 to 800,000). Its radio presets are tuned to local AM stations of the era.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Automobiles
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SHANGHAI China's roaring economy slowed in the third quarter, rising at an annual rate of 9.6 percent after the government took steps to prevent overheating, according to data released Thursday. But inflation last month hit its highest rate in nearly two years. The government said the consumer price index, the broadest measure of inflation, rose 3.6 percent from the previous September. It was the highest rate in China since 2008, largely because of food prices, which rose 8 percent last month. Analysts said the slowdown was a return toward normal, sustainable growth, rather than the beginning of a worrying slump. "I expect growth to continue to slow down a bit more in the fourth quarter as energy saving and property tightening measures take hold and exports continue to decelerate," said Wang Tao, China economist at UBS in Beijing. But, she added, "growth remains very strong." The main issue for Beijing now, economists said, is containing inflation and rebalancing the economy in favor of domestic consumption. The inflation report, and other economic data released in recent weeks, point to one of the central challenges now facing Beijing policy makers: how to prevent soaring food and property prices from creating social problems and undermining the nation's economic boom. Those challenges were probably behind the central bank's surprise move Tuesday to force banks here to raise the benchmark interest rates on lending and deposits by 0.25 percentage point. The decision was meant to force borrowers to pay more interest and to provide higher interest rates for savers. The government has indicated that it hopes the decision will slow property purchases and encourage people to keep money in the bank rather than spending and driving up inflation. But some analysts say the initial move may not be enough. Consumers are benefiting from strong economic growth, with the nation's gross domestic product moderating from about 10.3 percent in the second quarter of this year. But they are increasingly anxious about rising prices for a wide variety of goods. "The purchasing power of households is being eroded," said Ma Jun, a Hong Kong based economist at Deutsche Bank. "These low rates are basically a subsidy to corporations by the household sector." Interest rates on savings deposits in China had recently fallen to about 2.25 percent a year before the decision Tuesday. (The government mandated rate is now 2.5 percent.) But inflation has risen steadily this year, which means bank depositors are essentially facing a negative interest rate return. Analysts say negative returns have persuaded many consumers to invest in real estate, which has served to fan property speculation and higher prices alarming those who have not yet bought a home. Meanwhile, low corporate borrowing rates have given companies cheap capital and strong incentives to borrow and invest, aiding corporate profits. Many consumers say they are frustrated. "Everything is expensive right now food, especially the vegetables," said Li Huijun, a 53 year old hospital clerk, who complained as she shopped at Lianhua Supermarket in Shanghai that lettuce used to cost only 1 renminbi per 500 grams, or 15 cents for about a pound, but now costs about twice that amount. "And not to mention clothes, and shoes," Ms. Li said. "They all went up, except my salary." And yet, things may be even worse than the consumer price index suggests. A growing number of analysts say inflationary pressure is stronger than the price index indicates, because it is heavily weighted toward food particularly pork prices. Rising energy, property and transportation costs are not as significant a factor in the index. And even the price increases of many food items aside from pork are also not adequately weighed or calculated, analysts say. For instance, according to official government data, food prices have risen about 19 percent over the last three years. But government data on individual items shows that the price of many food items jumped 30 percent during that period. According to government data for big cities, rice was up 38 percent, wheat prices rose 35 percent and beef and fresh milk prices each climbed about 44 percent. But two major supermarkets in Shanghai surveyed earlier this month had different figures. One said that rice prices had risen 132 percent since 2007, while the other said prices were up 190 percent in the same time frame. Both said that the cost of a tomato had jumped 300 percent. "The biggest problem with the C.P.I. and particularly the food inflation index is the market basket was determined in 1993 and not adjusted much since then," said Yi Xianrong, a researcher at the China Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. "Also, I have doubts about the source of the data." Some of the sharp rise in food prices is attributed to severe droughts in some parts of the country. But food costs are rising in the rest of Asia and in other parts of the world. Corn and wheat prices have soared this year. And in China, sugar production shortages have led to surging prices and have forced the government to release millions of tons of reserves for auction. In some ways, this is a return to 2007, when food prices were soaring in China and much of the rest of the world. Back then, the consumer price index here peaked at close to 7 percent. There is intense focus on inflation in China because it influences the nation's huge labor market, affecting things ranging from the salaries and labor costs at massive coastal factories to the cost of hiring restaurant workers in the big cities. This year, a series of huge labor strikes at factories in southern China was fed by worker complaints about unfair treatment and the diminishing purchasing power of their salaries. Many migrant workers cited higher rent and food costs. Whether China can contain inflation is unclear, analysts say. Some expect inflation to moderate later this year, as the government steps up measures to lift production and distribution of food. But for much of this year, even as the economy slowed, inflation rose sharply, passing the government's early year target of 3 percent.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Global Business
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For the first time in five years, the Oscars broadcast had growth in viewership. Now for the not so great news: While the Academy Awards show on Sunday, which honored "Green Book" for best picture, had 29.6 million viewers, a 12 percent increase from last year, it still attracted the second lowest viewership since Nielsen started keeping track of the ratings in 1974. At least for now, the Oscars has managed to snap its losing streak. Before the broadcast, there was plenty of concern within ABC and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that the Oscars had not yet hit rock bottom. Last year's ceremony, hosted by ABC's own Jimmy Kimmel, had 26.5 million viewers, a 19 percent drop from 2017 and well below the 43.7 million viewers who had tuned in as recently as 2014. The 2018 number was a record low, beating out the previous least watched Oscars, the 2008 broadcast. A total of 32 million watched that hastily organized ceremony, which came together days after the conclusion of the Writers Guild of America's strike. The ceremony on Sunday, which went without a host for the first time in 30 years, was warmly received by critics. ABC had promised a brisk ceremony, and for the most part, that's what it delivered.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
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Media
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