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The wrath of Hurricane Sandy's powerful winds and violent storm surge left considerable damage across New York and New Jersey in October 2012. But for one tiny bird, the cataclysmic storm has been a big help. "Hurricane Sandy was really good for piping plovers," said Katie Walker, a graduate student in wildlife conservation at Virginia Tech. The piping plover is a small, migratory shorebird that nests along North America's Great Lakes and Atlantic Coast. The species, which is listed as endangered in New York State and threatened federally, has been the focus of intensive conservation efforts for decades. But on one island that was heavily damaged by the big storm, the piping plover population has increased by 93 percent, Ms. Walker and colleagues reported in the journal Ecosphere this month. Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. The finding highlights how major weather events can benefit wildlife on barrier islands that humans have engineered to resist storm damage. Fire Island, a 32 mile long barrier island off the southern coast of Long Island that is popular with vacationers, was hit particularly hard by Hurricane Sandy. The storm washed sand and seawater across the island, flooding homes, flattening dunes and breaching the island in three places. Sand deposited from Fire Island's oceanside onto its bayside created a number of new sand flats. Some areas were also breached by seawater but most were filled by the Army Corps of Engineers shortly after the storm as part of the recovery effort, and to help make the island better able to withstand future storms. For the threatened birds, this was great news. Piping plovers like to nest on dry, flat sand close to the shoreline, where the insects and crustaceans they feed on are easily accessible. But over the past century, coastal development and recreational use of shorelines have vastly reduced the amount of waterfront property available to the sand colored shorebirds. Ms. Walker and her colleagues analyzed aerial photographs of Fire Island taken before and after Hurricane Sandy and discovered that the storm, and the coastal engineering that followed it, increased the amount of suitable habitat for plovers by roughly 50 percent. For the past three years, the majority of new and returning plovers chose to nest in habitats generated by the storm. And now, for the first time in nearly a decade, Fire Island's population of piping plovers is growing. "Hurricane Sandy was obviously very catastrophic for human infrastructure on Fire Island, but on an ecosystem level, it worked wonders," said Ms. Walker. Barrier islands like Fire Island are known as early successional habitats, which means they require regular disturbance events to keep their ecosystems in check. Under normal circumstances, Fire Island would experience disturbance events on an annual basis. However, engineers have gone to great lengths to stabilize the island, and now only powerful storms like Sandy are able to have a significant impact on the island's ecosystem. "Barrier islands are very dynamic systems, they don't stay the same from one year to the next. The species that inhabit them there are adapted to these changes, so if we try to keep these systems static, we are going to lose these species," said Dr. Cohen Last year, 486 pairs of piping plovers nested along the shores of New York and New Jersey, approximately 10 percent of which did so on Fire Island. If current trends continue, the two states may soon reach their recovery goal of 575 breeding pairs set out by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "If reproductive output remains high and plovers continue to nest in these regions, the population will continue to do well, but it definitely will hit a point where it's going require another large scale disturbance event, another storm," said Ms. Walker. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
The conductor Andris Nelsons, the soprano Camilla Nylund and the tenor Jonas Kaufmann are collaborating on the sprawling second act of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde." BOSTON The love duet at the heart of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" makes little sense. Breathless ecstasy is conveyed through made up, often bafflingly long words as the titular lovers declare their devotion over and over for 40 minutes. So why is this scene one of the most enrapturing and adored duets in opera? "This music is like a drug, extremely addictive," said the star tenor Jonas Kaufmann, who is making his much anticipated debut as Tristan in concert performances of the opera's second act with the soprano Camilla Nylund and the Boston Symphony Orchestra this week before bringing the program to Carnegie Hall next Thursday. "You can never get rid of it. It is always there, stuck in your brain." In an interview during rehearsals here, the two singers and Andris Nelsons, the Boston Symphony's music director, attempted to grapple with the forces at play in the scene, which is so difficult in the context of a four hour score that it is often cut by up to 10 minutes. (At these concerts, it will be performed in its entirety.) At this point in the story, Tristan and Isolde have drunk a love potion so powerful it makes Tristan forget the name of his king, who by Act II is married to Isolde. The furtive lovers meet in the darkness of night which, likely influenced by Schopenhauer, is an otherworldly plane free from the bounds of reality where they can finally be together, at least until daylight returns. The music alternates, often without warning, between grandiosity and, as Mr. Nelsons said, the intimacy of Schubert lieder. The dialogue is a volley of sweet nothings that verge on nonsense as passion renders the characters a bit insane. (One moment, when Tristan says he is now Isolde and she is Tristan, seems to prefigure the all consuming love of "Call Me By Your Name.") Mr. Kaufmann and Ms. Nylund are both Wagner veterans, but neither has sung this opera before. In the interview, they said that the love duet has challenges unlike any other in Wagner's major works. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation. What is Wagner saying about love here? NELSONS The first "Tristan" score I had was the "Vorspiel" prelude in Russian, with a written Wagner quotation, like: "I don't really believe in love as a feeling. But it is so strong, I want to write an opera about it." I wonder whether he actually thought that it's a crazy state of mind which is not healthy. But I find that this goes beyond the norm of what we expect of love. It's all exaggerated, over the top. It is as if it is not a real thing in life, not possible. I think he doesn't believe in this himself. KAUFMANN For that, I think he did it very well. NYLUND Maybe Wagner was also looking for something. What is love? It has to be something more than this love we speak about, the usual stuff. It's something more. But it's not something you can achieve here in your life. How do these ideas play out in the text? NYLUND I think they are playing some kind of word game. KAUFMANN This has alliteration and all these games Wagner loved to play, like nine syllable words that I've never heard put together, because sometimes he wanted to express things in a way that probably was never done before. It's like children that play a game and try to overtake each other with something more. It's insane. By the end of Act II he's completely cuckoo. That doesn't sound like romance in other Wagner operas. KAUFMANN Real love, or even straightforward love, doesn't exist in Wagner. In "Tannhauser" you have love: one is innocent and pure, and the other is sexual. In "Walkure" you have brother and sister love. Then you have Siegfried's love for the old lady, Brunnhilde. All kinds of strange loves. KAUFMANN Of course opera lives for that. But usually you have the happy innocent moment of love, and then destiny strikes. NYLUND Which is here in "Tristan," kind of. It makes this moment of happiness even worse. How do you pace yourselves? NYLUND You can never lose control. NELSONS For the orchestra it is challenging. Wagner writes a lot of "piu forte," but then you have to drop down without losing any of the intensity. But it's also like when you run a marathon and there is a moment when you think you can't anymore once you overcome that, then you lose time and go on. KAUFMANN It's not a marathon. It's like one high jump after another. And you don't have time in between to come properly back to the ground and accelerate for the next one. It's just jump, jump, jump. If on just one of those notes you hesitate you wait a little bit because you're not sure where the harmony is or whatever you can completely break your neck and lose your voice in a second. Is it the same with the orchestra? NELSONS Yes, but I also always think that when conducting or hearing Wagner's music it actually takes you to another psychic world as well. I feel these emotions that I cannot put into words, and the music has to show that, how you think this is going to explode. It's orgasmic. NYLUND It's actually very dangerous to drive a car and listen. You always drive much too fast. NELSONS A few conductors have died during "Tristan." The reason is Act II. It might seem relaxing, but actually the heartbeat and the intensity and level of excitement it's so high that you can't stand it for a long time. So I don't want yet to die, but I might. KAUFMANN Do it on Saturday, so at least we've done one concert. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
The impending 15 month shutdown of the L train, which will heavily affect residents in Williamsburg when it begins in April 2019, has prompted many developers to scout properties along the G train in Greenpoint and the J, M and Z lines in South Williamsburg. "There were already a lot of natural drivers pushing people into Greenpoint, but the L train shutdown has meant more people paying attention to it," said Anthony Morena, who heads up the architecture and development firm Mortar. "We've had buyers who were looking strictly at Williamsburg who have started looking at other options." Mortar has recently secured three development sites on the path of the G where it plans to build 10 to 20 unit projects one on Frost Street in Northern Williamsburg, another on Diamond Street in Greenpoint, and the third on Eagle Street, also in Greenpoint. Mr. Morena added that sites along the G once plentiful and well priced compared with L train parcels have become more difficult to acquire. At the Gibraltar, a new condo under construction at 160 West Street in Greenpoint, some units have sold for upward of 1,500 per square foot, rather than the 1,000 per square foot older inventory commands. Bryan Atienza, a salesman at Nest Seekers International handling sales there, pointed out that G train adjacent projects fetching L train level prices were an enticing prospect for developers squeamish about bringing properties to market in the midst of the shutdown. Jonathan Miller, the chief executive of Miller Samuel, an appraisal firm, noted that a shutdown of a year and a half "is a window, not a permanent structural change," and as such wasn't likely to generate buildings in competing transportation areas that would not have been created eventually. "But it does move the timetable up," he said. Although the G train has long been denigrated as poky and subpar it's the only major line that doesn't go to Manhattan improved service, along with overcrowded L trains, the growing popularity of alternatives like Citi Bike and Uber, as well as the rising number of people who work from home, has made living along it increasingly appealing, according to Chris Cavorti, an associate broker with the Corcoran Group. "Greenpoint has always been standing on its own," Mr. Cavorti said. "The shutdown will just push it over the edge into higher price points." While demand for properties along the G has been strong for some time, John Horowitz, a regional manager at Marcus Millichap, a commercial brokerage, said he had seen more investor interest in buildings along the JMZ corridor, "which was not necessarily a line many people were talking about before." He added, however, that he didn't anticipate a commensurate decline in L train interest: "There's a reason it's in more demand than the JMZ, and I don't think two years is long enough to flip that," he said. After all, though sales along the L train may suffer in the coming years, the line's status and supremacy is likely to be restored along with the Canarsie tunnel. And it's worth noting that some of the highest condo sales along the G have been in areas also convenient to the L. Tami Earnest of Bold New York, who is managing sales at 533 Leonard, where a penthouse asking 2.87 million recently went into contract, pointed out that the location was, at the moment, hard to beat. "It's in this perfect pocket of Greenpoint just over the border of Williamsburg, on the other side of McCarren Park, right between the G and the L," she said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
's camera ready first novel, "Tangerine," opens with three men hauling a corpse pecked by magpies and missing its eyes from the sea. Whose body is this, and how did it end up in the water? In alternating chapters, two female narrators provide the long, lurid and psychologically complex answer. Neither woman is necessarily trustworthy, a trait they share with the unreliable female narrators of recent best sellers like "Gone Girl" and "The Girl on the Train." Like those novels, "Tangerine" is on track to become a film, with Scarlett Johansson tentatively attached to star. Mangan draws her narrators with broad strokes, using classic Hollywood color coding. Alice Shipley is pale, rich and emotionally fragile. She wears lace gloves and pearls. Lucy Mason is dark, voluptuous and worldly. She smokes. They meet on their first day at Bennington College in the mid 1950s and develop one of those possessive, erotically charged friendships that never seem to end well. The two young women experience or perhaps instigate an unspecified tragedy. Then Alice drops out of school, marries and flees to Tangier with her caddish new husband, John, to escape the traumatic memory, and perhaps Lucy as well. Soon, though, Lucy turns up unannounced at Alice's Tangier flat. Alice's response: "I thought of the few works of Shakespeare I knew and the line that frequently rattled in my brain what's past is prologue." But what exactly is that past? As Lucy and Alice re establish a volatile intimacy over sugary mint tea in sweltering Tangier cafes, via flashback we gradually learn the details of that earlier mystery, which unfolds in frosty Vermont. It's as if Mangan couldn't decide whether to write a homage to Donna Tartt's "The Secret History" or a sun drenched novel of dissolute Westerners abroad in the tradition of Patricia Highsmith and Paul Bowles, so she tried to do both. She mostly succeeds. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
Seven people in San Diego have died in the last two months from a flesh eating bacteria associated with black tar heroin use, prompting public health officials to warn the medical community to be on the lookout for additional cases. The San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency reported Wednesday that the seven people died from myonecrosis, a severe infection that destroys muscle tissue. The dead ranged in age from 19 to 57; five were male. They were among nine people admitted between Oct. 2 and Nov. 24 to county hospitals with the condition after injecting black tar heroin, a dark, sticky drug that often contains impurities resulting from crude processing methods. Two remain hospitalized. One is expected to survive; the other is "quite ill," said Dr. Eric McDonald, medical director for the epidemiology program at the county health agency. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
"I'm not 20. I don't want to be 20, but I'm really freaking cool. That's what I think about when I'm posting a photo." Photographed with a hip thrust forward to show off her Margiela apron dress and modishly frayed jeans, Lyn Slater projects a kind of swagger pretty rare among her peers. A professor at the Graduate School of Social Service at Fordham University, with hyper chic side gigs as a model and blogger, she is known to a wider public as an Instagram idol. Sure, she's 64 , a time when some women her age are feeling pressed to close up shop. But if you are Ms. Slater, that's not going to happen. On Accidental Icon, her influential Instagram account, she tends to vamp in an eye catching mash up of Comme des Garcons, Yohji Yamamoto and consignment store finds. Her following, hundreds of thousands strong, skews young, she said, and is responsive to her sass. "I flaunt it," she said. "I'm not 20. I don't want to be 20, but I'm really freaking cool. That's what I think about when I'm posting a photo." Her brash voice is one in a chorus of like minded contemporaries and women in their 70s and 80s, who are taking on matters of aging with an audacity and riveting style their mothers might have envied. Married or single, working or not, and most often grandmothers, they are asserting their presence on Instagram, intent, in the process, on subverting shopworn notions of what "old" looks and feels like. They are, to hear some tell it, "100 percent slaying." "The idea of what these older women look like has changed," Mr. Cohen said. "If they were stylish in their youth, they will still be stylish now. They continue to be who they were." That observation is echoed in the Elastic Generation, a 2018 J. Walter Thomson survey of 55 to 72 year old women in England. "Our collective understanding of what later life looks like remains woefully outdated," Marie Stafford, the European director of the JWT Innovation Group, wrote in her introduction. "Age no longer dictates the way we live. Physical capacity, financial circumstances and mind set arguably have far greater influence." A woman in her 50s, then, "might be a grandmother or a new mother," the study goes on to say. "She might be an entrepreneur, a wild motorcyclist or a multi marathon runner. Her lifestyle is not governed by her age but by her values and the things she cares about." Some of these women and their counterparts abroad are still subscribing to the counterculture values and maverick stance they adopted in the 1960s and '70s. "We are not going to be little old ladies sitting in a nursing home with blue rinsed hair," said Jenny Kee, Jennykeeoz, a 71 year old Australian artist and knitwear designer. "Or if we are going to be in a nursing home, we'll be there with our marijuana, our health foods and our great sense of style." Ms. Slater echoed that sentiment. "When I was young, we were burning our bras and promoting free love," she said. "We were getting high. Why would we accept the aging image of our mothers?" In their wardrobes, unfettered self expression is the rule. Dorrie Jacobson, an 83 year old former Playboy bunny, piqued interest last year when she began modeling lacy black lingerie on her Senior Style Bible Instagram account. In an interview, as on her feed, she urges followers to ditch cobwebby notions of how a woman her age should dress. "Wear what you like," she said . "Age appropriate has nothing to do with it." That brand of feistiness likely owes a debt to a few playfully cantankerous online role models, women who call themselves "Insta grans," who have made brazenness a virtue. Making waves, and a little cash on the side, are pop sensations like Baddie Winkle (89 year old Helen Ruth Elam Van Winkle), whose posts are conceived to flip convention on its head. Snapped in shrilly colorful knits, skimpy swimwear and, in one instance, a pink message T shirt that reads, "Be a slut, do whatever you want," Ms. Van Winkle has transcended cult status. She has millions of followers and is paid to tout brands like Got2B hair products and Smirnoff on her account, and has made personal appearances at Sephora. There is 69 year old Lili Hayes, whose posts tend to send up stereotyped images of Jewish mom ness. Ms. Hayes, who, as her online bio makes clear, is always a little ticked off, underscores her peevishness with a street wear inflected style. Her fashion signature: an ever expanding collection of Supreme caps. Chalk up their influence to a palpable shift in the wind. Their advent coincides with the stepped up visibility, and clout, of political outliers like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose weathered features loom large these days on theater screens, to say nothing of a voluble coterie of older women in Congress. Entertainment legends like Cher, the redoubtably glamorous grandma in "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again," which arrives in theaters next month, do their utmost as well to spruce up the image of aging. In an apparently more hospitable climate, designers and advertisers have begun to acknowledge a more mature market, pushing a concept of inclusion to extend not just to race and ethnicity but also to age. Maye Musk, 70, models for Concept Korea and is featured in Harper's Bazaar; Yasmin Le Bon, in her 50s, strikes poses for Armani; and at 65, Isabella Rossellini has returned as a face of Lancome, the beauty brand that dropped her 20 years earlier. Even so, those campaigns can carry a whiff of tokenism. According to the Elastic Generation study, women over 50 are still greatly underrepresented in proportion to their spending power. Also overlooked is their social media savvy. Eschewing stereotypes, 73 percent of participants "hate the way their generation is patronized when it comes to technology," the report says. Six out of 10 say they find tech "fascinating," according to the report, and many of those may actually be more competent using tech than their younger counterparts. While they court and may relish a surge in attention, some prominent influencers balk at being profiled. "It's colonizing to be put out there exclusively with women your age," Ms. Slater said. "Every woman should be able to open a magazine and see herself there as part of a mix." Sarah Jane Adams, 63, who turned to Instagram to show off the jewelry she sells, makes no references in her posts to her gray hair. "I don't feel as if I'm trying to play the old card," she said. She would rather be judged on the particulars. "I was a punk," she said, "and before that I was a hippie. Now I've merged the two cultures. I'm part of the Germaine Greer generation. But in the world of social media, I'm simply lumped with all the over 60s." Privacy is a concern as well. "Men reach out all the time," said Ms. Correll, who has been married for 43 years and is a grandmother of four. "Sometimes it scares me. I'm constantly deleting their posts." Still, the outcome is more often positive. Posting on Instagram reinforces a sense of solidarity that may have been missing elsewhere in their lives. As Mr. Cohen of Advanced Style noted: "Some of these women don't live in big cities. For them, Instagram can lead to long distance friendships, real life encounters, dinner parties and other events that combat isolation and foster a sense of community." That online community encompasses a surprisingly youthful contingent. On Instagram, many of Ms. Slater's followers range in age from 25 to 35. "Young people don't seem to have the same bias that older people do," she said. "They don't like categories they deconstruct all these historical groupings like gender. That's why some of them identify with my posts. The people who support me, follow me, hire me they're all young." Ms. Kee ascribes the enthusiasm of girls in their teens and women in their early 20s to a wish I'd been there mentality. Among her special champions, she said, is her 13 year old granddaughter, an ardent fan of '60s rock, especially the Beatles. "We lived in extraordinary times," Ms. Kee said of the period when she came of age. "These girls know that, they know what we lived through. They envy us." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
Jennifer Lopez apologized for how she smelled. That light waft of cigarette smoke, she said, gesturing with a faux tattooed arm. Maybe it was her, maybe it was embedded in the white couches and plush carpeting, here on the 29th floor of a midtown Manhattan high rise. Either way, the mood was set. It was near the end of shooting for "Hustlers," a spik y smart drama in which Lopez plays a Bronx single mother "so that comes easy," she said and a stripper extraordinaire who masterminds a scheme to con her Wall Street clientele out of money by nearly any means necessary. A moment later, she and her co star, Constance Wu, were filming a scene in which they cook up the MDMA ketamine concoction they would use on their marks. The writer director, Lorene Scafaria, stood watching behind the camera, surrounded by sheets of aluminum foil flaked with prop drugs. It's only the third feature she's made, and the flashiest by far. "Hustlers" is based on a real life tale, which appeared in New York magazine in 2015, about a crew of high end strippers in New York who after their customer base deflated thanks to the 2008 recession found creative, and illegal, ways to keep business going. (They were eventually caught.) The gleam comes in part because of Scafaria's savvy casting: "Hustlers" marks the big screen debut of Cardi B, herself a former stripper from the Bronx, along with appearances by of the moment artists like the singer Lizzo; the actress and trans advocate Trace Lysette ("Transparent") ; Lili Reinhart ("Riverdale"); and Keke Palmer (freshly announced as a host of the third hour of "Good Morning America"). Note the absence of a leading man: There really isn't one. For Scafaria, 41, that was the lure of the source material. "Because it was like every good story that you ever read but with women in it, naturally," she said. "It wasn't something that had to be manufactured into an all female anything." "Louder!" Lopez called to the sound techs. "Don't be cheap!" "We're a family now," she crowed in character as Ramona. "A family with money!" The stars kept dancing after the scene stopped; Scafaria jumped in, too, holding her own with the hip swivel. Here's the sly superpower of "Hustlers": It's serving us a Hollywood stripper romp, but pivoting to show that life from the women's point of view. W itness bikini bod JLo wrapping an adoring Wu into her fur coat on the club rooftop the very first scene that Scafaria wrote. It plays up Mama Bear relationships in a way that felt familiar to Lopez. ("They call me Ma a lot, the people that work with me," she noted.) But it's also transactional, an unabashed display of wealth envy. It's intimate but not sexualized focused on Wu's female gaze. "Hustlers" has a rare vantage point, as perhaps the only high caliber feature about strippers made by a female filmmaker . Real life female baddies are still so uncommon onscreen, though, that they almost seem heroic , not dangerous, by default. "There's no doubt that people are going to think it's a female empowerment movie," Wu said, "because if you look at the highlight reel of the movie, it's badassery." But she added, "We're not trying to romanticize that life. Whereas in 'Goodfellas,' the first line is, 'I always wanted to be a gangster.'" The story is told through Wu's character, who begins working at a club out of economic necessity, only to realize that stripping has its own financial hierarchy. Dancers are often at the bottom; club managers, security and D.J.s can all take a cut. The drug and fraud scheme that Lopez's Ramona concocts and the leg up she offers as a friend is a lifeline, especially in the wake of the recession, when the status the women have precariously reached tumbles down. The movie, said Wu, focuses on "the societal structures they have grown up in and the backgrounds that have given them very few choices of how to survive and flourish in this world." Authenticity mattered. Scafaria and her cast made many visits to strip clubs, and had a stripper as an expert and comfort consultant on set. "She would say little things like, 'The guys say "please" a lot more,'" Scafaria reported. They shot in an actual club, Show Palace in Long Island City, Queens, where, after an open call, they cast several real life dancers and a manager. Lopez and Wu committed themselves to the moves, installing stripper poles in their homes to train. Even for Lopez, a lifelong dancer, it was jolting. "I was incredibly nervous," she said. "I had to be up there, and I had to kind of bare myself my soul and my physical body in a way that I hadn't in any other movie." And she was surprised at the skill and stamina required. Filming her showstopping routine over several days at the club in May, she hurt her arm, "and it still hasn't recovered," she added. For Cardi B, who appears in a few memorable club moments, the film hit home. In an Instagram live message she posted immediately after a screening, she was on the verge of crying as she recalled her dancing years. "Sometimes a lot of times I always remember when I first started, how hard it was," she said, dabbing at her eyes. She got customers' attention, eventually : "I was just that bitch, oooh baby," she said, giving the camera a meaningful glance. "But it took time for me to get there, and it took training, and it took long hard nights of dealing with" less than savory people (to paraphrase). "Like, it took a lot of my self esteem away, but then it also built some self esteem, because I felt so powerful at times." Customers, she said, tried "to hustle me any type of way. They try to hustle me out of my body." But the friendships she made with other women at the club, and the lessons they taught, changed her life, she told her followers. "I be feeling like nobody can hustle me anymore." The movie brought all that back, "like, wow," she said, adding: "I recommend every stripper to see it. Especially if you are a New York stripper like, you definitely will relate." The group scenes with Cardi B, Lizzo and the rest of the diverse cast stand out the performers were chosen in part to showcase that real strip clubs, unlike the typical Hollywood version, have bodies of all shapes and sizes. Wu decided not to plump up her own bikini top: "I thought, wow, could be fun, to have a strip club movie with a lead actress who is like, completely flat chested," she said. And she shelved her vanity. "There was a hot minute where I was like, 'Oh my God, I should work out every day,'" she said. "But this character, she probably didn't have the time or money to hire a personal trainer. And I want to represent her the way that her life was." Those big group scenes were among the last to be shot, and for the filmmakers, most delivered on their vision not least because the movie had fallen apart in development exactly a year prior. A victim of upheaval at a previous production company, Annapurna, it was subsequently picked up by STXfilms. Scafaria originally came onboard as a screenwriter; as her script was sent to the likes of Martin Scorsese, she started making her own case to direct, complete with a sizzle reel, heavy on images of powerful female foursomes, to explain her concepts. "I'm so glad Scorsese said no," Elbaum, the producer, said. Her editor, Kayla Emter, cut as they shot; five days after they wrapped, Scafaria saw an assembled version of the movie. "I wept with relief, like genuine relief," she said. In early July, having taken almost no days off for months, she and Emter were in a darkened editing suite in Burbank, Calif., figuring out where to put the hot pink title credits. The film still manages some twists: As the women's criminal plot intensifies and then unravels, the storytelling becomes more layered (Julia Stiles plays a journalist who connects the dots). "It gets ugly," Lopez said of what the foursome pull off. Watching the first screening as a producer, she was suddenly put off by her own character (an amalgam, not a direct representation). "She is a beast, she's brutal," Lopez said. " I don't think she ever felt bad." That's a reason the movie intrigued her: "Like, be careful, these things could be glamorous and sexy but they could also be dangerous, and they can finish you," she said. For Scafaria, the culture of strip clubs offers a way to explore power onscreen the way the dancers onstage are trying to tip the balance, dollar by G string dollar, in their favor. "I'm hoping that the conversation outside of the movie is about gender, and the economy what it is that we provide, and what we get back. It's not quite the fair trade," she said. But mostly, she added, "I just care if sex workers like it. I made the movie for sex workers. As long as they like the movie, great. If women like it, really great. And if men like it, that's cool, too." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
"A man lit a fire and put me on it," the actress Jean Seberg (Kristen Stewart) curtly tells her lover, the activist Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie), in "Seberg," a flawed and fascinating film about fame and martyrdom. She's explaining the burn scars she suffered while playing Joan of Arc in Otto Preminger's "Saint Joan" (1957), but the comment could as easily serve as this movie's tagline. Conflagration is a recurring motif. "You're playing with fire," Jamal warns, knowing the F.B.I. will notice her generous donations to civil rights causes and her association with the Black Panther movement. The year is 1968, and Seberg has left her home in Paris as well as her husband, the writer Romain Gary (Yvan Attal), and their young son to come to Los Angeles to audition for "Paint Your Wagon." Her Black Power salute at the airport draws immediate attention, as does her nighttime visit to Jamal's home in Compton wearing an arresting minidress and driving a sunshine yellow convertible. Her actions seem less deliberately provocative than politically ingenuous, those of a woman unaware that her support for African American rights will lead to the thorough violation of her own. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
THE FEATHER THIEF Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century By Kirk Wallace Johnson Illustrated. 308 pp. Viking. 27. In June 2009, , a 20 year old American flutist studying at the Royal Academy of Music, smashed a window at the Museum of Natural History in Tring, near London, and pulled off one of the more bizarre robberies of recent decades. Under the nose of a hapless security guard, Rist ransacked storage drawers and absconded with the preserved skins of 299 tropical birds, including specimens collected by the legendary naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace in the mid 19th century. He intended to fence the birds' extravagantly colored plumage at high prices to fellow aficionados in hopes of raising enough cash to support both his musical career and his parents' struggling Labradoodle breeding business in the Hudson Valley. Kirk Wallace Johnson's "The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century" recounts Rist's odd crime and its even more curious aftermath. Johnson, a former U.S.A.I.D. employee in Falluja, Iraq, and the founder of the List Project (a nonprofit organization that resettles Iraqis marked for death after working with the American military), first heard about Rist's robbery during a trout fishing holiday in New Mexico: "I don't know if it was Edwin's Victorian sounding name, the sheer weirdness of the story or the fact that I was in desperate need of a new direction in life, but I became obsessed with the crime within moments." So he set out to learn all he could about Rist, unspooling a complex tale of greed, deception and ornithological sabotage. Rist's feather obsession turns out to have rich antecedents. Johnson describes Wallace's 1854 expedition through the Malaysian jungle in pursuit of the Bird of Paradise, which "had an otherworldly beauty. ... From its tail emerged two wiry feathers that spiraled tightly into two glittering emerald coins." Walter Rothschild, the eccentric scion of the banking family, eagerly took in the specimens from the expedition and assembled the largest private collection of bird skins in the world at his Tring mansion, which later became a branch of the Natural History Museum. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
AIZU WAKAMATSU, Japan Mayor Shohei Muroi knows it is a tough sell to get new companies to invest in this struggling industrial city just 60 miles from Japan's most notorious nuclear plant. So in September, Mr. Muroi did the unthinkable. He flew to China to ask a fast growing maker of heavy machinery to set up shop in his town. His move was a stark role reversal in a nation more accustomed to sending factory jobs to China, rather than recruiting them to move the other way. "We've come to a point in Japan where we can no longer grow without outside help," Mr. Muroi said in an interview here. "Whether you are based in China or America, we want you to please come do business in Aizu Wakamatsu." Call it the post tsunami economic order. Japan, once a manufacturing powerhouse known for its exports and overseas investment, is confronting a new reality. A year after natural and nuclear catastrophes forced wrenching change on Japan's economy, which was already listless from years of downsizing and moving factories offshore, the country is finding it must do what it has long resisted: welcome foreign manufacturers. The new dynamic in Japan also signifies part of a larger regional power shift. A small but rapidly increasing amount of foreign capital comes from its neighbor, China, which last year surpassed Japan as the world's second largest economy and seeks to diversify its export oriented approach to business. Other recent Chinese manufacturing deals with Japan include plans for a plastics plant in Tottori and a heavy machinery factory in Kochi, both in western Japan. "The Chinese are starting to look like saviors," said Kotaro Masuda, an economist at the government affiliated Institute for International Trade and Investment in Tokyo. "Any investment Japan gets is basically a plus, wherever it's from, because it means more jobs, more tax income, more opportunities." Last month, the government invited a delegation of 80 Chinese trade officials and executives for an investment tour. Japan now says it aims to double the flow of foreign direct investment into the country in the next decade. A special focus is on the three prefectures most affected by the March 2011 disasters: Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, where Aizu Wakamatsu is. Direct investment from China to Japan jumped twentyfold in four years, to 314 million in 2010, according to data from Japan's Finance Ministry though as an overall percentage of investment into Japan, money from China remains small. Some experts say the true figure is much higher, however, because a large amount of Chinese investment is carried out through Hong Kong and other regions. The new openness, if it lasts, will require Japan to break decades of habits that have discouraged foreign investment here, even as most other developed countries have done everything possible to lure foreign capital. The Japanese impediments have included relatively strong regulations, high operating costs and tax rates, and weak government inducements not to mention what outside observers have often described as overt xenophobia. According to data compiled by the United Nations, Japan has one of the lowest levels of foreign investment relative to its overall economy. Japan's inflow of direct foreign investments came to just 0.24 percent of its gross domestic product in 2009 and even turned negative over all in the two years after that. In 2011, overseas companies moved 183 billion yen ( 2.3 billion) more out of Japan than they put in, according to the Finance Ministry. Even now, many of Japan's own companies are preferring to put their money into growth opportunities abroad rather than at home. The same Finance Ministry data shows that the net outbound investment from Japan reached 9.1 trillion yen ( 113 billion) in 2011, accelerating the so called hollowing out of Japanese industry long bemoaned by the nation's policy makers. Dollar Tree will raise prices to 1.25 by the end of April. It is a dangerous imbalance, economists say, particularly since Japan is struggling to reinvigorate economic growth, protect employment and uphold living standards. Moreover, recent studies have suggested that foreign affiliated businesses in Japan tend to create more jobs than domestic ones, and that they tend to have higher productivity. "Everybody is fretting that Japanese companies are moving overseas. If that's the case, Japan should balance that out by opening up more to more foreign investment," said Kyoji Fukao, an economics professor at Hitotsubashi University. "Foreign companies that are successful enough to think about coming to Japan are highly competitive and productive," he said, "which means they will invest, create jobs, pay high salaries, spark new demand." Aizu Wakamatsu, the fourth largest city in Fukushima Prefecture with a population of 125,000, has already found that domestic industry can no longer sustain local employment. At the height of the global economic crisis in 2009, a semiconductor plant run by Fujitsu, a cornerstone of the local economy for almost 40 years, announced it would eliminate a third of its 2,000 jobs. The outlook for Japanese manufacturers has only worsened since then. Disruptions from last March's disasters and the resulting energy shortages, along with a yen that continues to be punishingly strong, have lowered profits and pushed exporters to move even more production offshore. Japan posted a record deficit in its current account the broadest measure of imports versus exports of 437 billion yen ( 5.4 billion) in January, the Finance Ministry said Thursday, as energy imports surged after the Fukushima nuclear crisis, which has kept nuclear power plants shuttered across the country. It is little wonder that when Mayor Muroi returned from China with a manufacturing agreement by the heavy equipment maker Zoomlion, he received a hero's welcome in this city and Fukushima Prefecture. "The deal could create jobs and revitalize Aizu," the newspaper Fukushima Minpo said in an editorial. "It's a ray of hope for Fukushima." The Chinese are also buying struggling Japanese companies. Last year, the washing machine and refrigerator business of Sanyo Electric was bought by Haier, a Chinese company, for 10 billion yen ( 124 million). In 2011, for the first time on record, the number of mergers and acquisitions by Chinese companies in Japan exceeded those by American businesses in the country. For Chinese companies, learning to appeal to the demands of finicky Japanese customers could help also refine goods and services for their domestic economy and make them more globally competitive. "Our aim is to build products that satisfy Japanese standards," Zoomlion's chief executive, Zhan Chunxin, said at a September news conference. The company is expected to set up an office in Aizu Wakamatsu next month and work with a local partner to build a small manufacturing plant in the city to make concrete pump trucks for the Japanese market. Some people in the disaster zone have expressed concern that foreign companies, helped by generous subsidies, will hurt local businesses trying to rebuild. But the overriding impulse seems to be to seeking help from whoever is willing to offer it. Last month, the central government designated districts in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures as "special disaster reconstruction zones" that offer incentives and tax breaks to new investors. In Miyagi, for example, companies that invest in the new zones are exempt from corporate tax for five years. But some of the most generous subsidies could come in Fukushima, which has allocated 225 billion yen ( 2.8 billion) to industry in the prefecture, including 30 billion yen for new companies that open in the prefecture. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Global Business |
ARLINGTON, Texas The Tampa Bay Rays pride themselves on creativity, on aggressively challenging conventional wisdom. That ethos helps make them an annual contender on a tight budget, and this was their best season ever. But when the Rays needed to believe in the unseen, while facing elimination in Game 6 of the World Series on Tuesday, they were blind. Everyone watching at Globe Life Field, especially the Los Angeles Dodgers, could see that Blake Snell was pitching the game of his life. Kevin Cash, the Rays' manager, could not and he paid for it with a season ending 3 1 defeat and a lifetime of questions. "Blake could not have been better tonight," Cash said. "The strikeouts, the pitch efficiency, the stuff it was all really, really special. He put it all together for us in a big way." It was the kind of mesmerizing effort that World Series are made for: a former Cy Young Award winner carving through a powerful lineup with fastballs, curveballs, sliders and changeups. Snell had a 1 0 lead in the sixth inning, with one out, Austin Barnes on first and all winter ahead of him to rest. "I wanted to go that whole game," said Snell, who gave up two singles and no walks with nine strikeouts. "That was everything I wanted to do: burn the tank and see how far I could go." Cash believed he had gone far enough, never mind that Snell was pitching with a full five days of rest. Snell, 27, had not worked six innings in any start since last July, and Cash could not imagine him doing it with the season on the line. He called for the right hander Nick Anderson to replace Snell. 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. The Rays rely heavily on analytics, which often serve them well. But Anderson had given up at least one run in each of his last six outings. The next three Dodgers hitters Mookie Betts, Corey Seager and Justin Turner had each struck out twice against Snell in Game 6 already. What more could Snell have possibly done to stay in the game? "That's a fair question," Cash said. "I don't know if I've got the best answer right now. He did above and beyond what any of us could have asked for." Predictably, this happened within six pitches from Anderson: a double by Betts, a game tying wild pitch, and a go ahead grounder to first by Seager, the World Series' most valuable player, putting the Rays in a 2 1 hole with three innings left. Snell's departure had jolted the Dodgers to life. "I was pretty happy, because he was dominating us and we just weren't seeing him," Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts said of Snell. "Once Austin got the hit, Mookie looked at me with a little smile. He was excited Snell was out of the game." Cash said Anderson had been arguably "the best reliever in baseball" since the Rays acquired him last July, and he trusted him to be the best version of himself. But Anderson had nothing left; in his final seven appearances this postseason, he had a shoddy 7.20 earned run average and only five strikeouts in 10 innings. Did he feel like the best version of himself? "Definitely no," Anderson said, with refreshing candor. "Workload, 2020 season, the whole thing is just crazy, honestly. Not having a normal routine, lifting, the season, everything it's been crazy. I didn't feel as good as I would have liked to, but it's the big leagues; you're not going to feel good every time. I was still confident. It wasn't the situation, it wasn't being in the World Series or anything like that. Not a lot of gas." Anderson did not tell the coaches he was tiring, he said, because relievers almost never do everyone deals with general fatigue by late October, he added, and he was not injured. It is a core belief of almost every player: If they are active, they expect to perform. "My mind set going out it was the same, it really was," Anderson said. "The ball just wasn't coming out. Either way, I still should have been able to get the job done, and didn't. I'll always carry a lot of that weight on my back. The guys always say, 'Win as a team, lose as a team,' but I don't know: I take pride in my work, so I'll take a lot of the blame." Cash insisted there was no set plan to switch pitchers as soon as Betts came up a third time, no script he was told to follow. But every manager says that. The Rays believe strongly that the advantage shifts to the hitter after he has seen a pitcher twice in a game. Cash pulled Charlie Morton for Anderson in nearly the same spot in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, and it worked. This time, it backfired. "Cash is usually right," Snell said. "For you guys that are going to write bad stories on the decision, he's usually right." True enough, and the first rule of sports is that you can't win 'em all. But this decision seemed inexplicable as soon as Cash left the dugout, a push button move when the moment demanded vision or at least an acknowledgment that Anderson had been struggling. "We factor in all of that," Cash said. "But also: The different look means something. We know how talented those guys are, and it felt like giving Blake another time, with the margin of error that Blake was pitching with, I felt the different look was going to be beneficial." Mostly, though, Snell just looked like an ace who had a lot more than 73 pitches to offer. He said he had thoroughly scouted the Dodgers and himself, and knew what they were looking for and how to counter. "I get it, it's the third time through the lineup, but I think I'm going to make the adjustments I need to make as I see them a third time," Snell said. "I don't know I just believe in me. I believe in myself, I believe in what I was doing." So did Kevin Kiermaier, the longest tenured member of the Rays, who had been enjoying the view from a lonely center field. Besides the nine strikeouts, Snell induced five groundouts, an infield pop up and a fly out to right. "I don't really care what the numbers say," Kiermaier said, "third time through the order or whatever, there weren't many guys making contact in general, and no hard contact whatsoever. We all wanted to see him stay in there." Last October, facing elimination in Game 6 of the World Series, the Washington Nationals let Stephen Strasburg work into the ninth inning in Houston. Strasburg's masterly performance forced a Game 7, which the Nationals won when the Astros' manager, A.J. Hinch, pulled Zack Greinke too soon. So it is again, another World Series that ends with a manager trusting matchups over pedigree, afraid to let an ace be an ace. Snell will never get this game back, and may always wonder what could have been. "The hardest thing for me is I was rolling, I was in a groove," he said. "I just really felt dominant, like I had them guessing. It's just tough for me, man. It's going to be tough for me for a while to accept that, accept losing the World Series." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
There's a lot of ocean out there, and boats engaging in illegal fishing or human trafficking have good reason to hide. But even the stealthiest vessels the ones that turn off their transponders aren't completely invisible: Albatrosses, outfitted with radar detectors, can spot them, new research has shown. And a lot of ships may be trying to disappear. Roughly a third of vessels in the Southern Indian Ocean were not broadcasting their whereabouts, the bird patrol revealed. Albatrosses are ideal sentinels of the open ocean, said Henri Weimerskirch, a marine ecologist at a French National Center for Scientific Research in Chize, France, and the lead author of the new study published on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "They are large birds, they travel over huge distances and they are very attracted by fishing vessels." Dr. Weimerskirch and his colleagues visited albatross breeding colonies on the Amsterdam, Crozet and Kerguelen Islands, French outposts in the Southern Indian Ocean. The team attached roughly two ounce data loggers to 169 adult and juvenile birds. The equipment consisted of a GPS antenna, a radar detector and an antenna for transmitting data to a constellation of satellites. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Congratulations. If you are anything like the Americans in a study by a Cornell University professor, your weight will reach an annual low this week or the next. But don't get too excited you'll most likely get fatter soon. Later this month, the numbers on your scale will begin a long climb past holidays like Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas, peaking around New Year's Day, according to research published last month as a letter to the editor in The New England Journal of Medicine. What's worse, those extra holiday pounds tend to stick around for quite some time. "Anything that happens in these next 10 weeks, on average, takes about five months to come off," said Prof. Brian Wansink of Cornell's business school. He conducted the study with Elina Helander of Tampere University of Technology in Finland and Angela Chieh of Withings, a company that sells connected health monitoring devices. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Well |
Demitrius Pickens was wearing his Jeff Gordon T shirt and sipping a can of beer. It was warm out. He was feeling good. This was in 2015, when Pickens and his friends took a road trip from Durham, N.C., to Alabama see their first NASCAR race at Talladega Superspeedway, one of the most spectacular tracks in the country. They were walking near the venue, buzzing about the event, when something stopped them short: a large, inflatable monkey next to another attendee's camper van and a hand drawn sign that read, "Monkeys Lives Matter." This was the year after protesters in Ferguson, Mo., decried the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, by a white police officer. The Black Lives Matter movement was gaining prominence around the country. As a black man, Pickens was not naive about his surroundings. To an extent, he was ready for this. And still it felt like a punch in the stomach. "It was like an empty gut feeling, one of those moments where anger immediately rushed over my body," said Pickens, who wanted to pop the balloon but thought better of it after considering how "outnumbered" he felt and what might happen next. "I knew where I was. But you still never want to be blatantly smacked in the face with overt racism." Pickens, now 26, clamped his emotions. He took a picture next to the monkey, middle finger up, and moved along. He still looks back on the weekend warmly. NASCAR this month was thrust into the national spotlight after its lone black driver on its top circuit, Darrell Wallace Jr., began speaking out about the racism he perceived in racing. Directly responding to a request by Wallace, who is nicknamed Bubba, NASCAR banned the Confederate battle flag from its venues and promised to do more to battle injustice. The moves were widely praised and seen as a potential olive branch to welcome potential new minority fans. But the ensuing conversation in many ways has overlooked the experiences of black fans who are already committed to the sport. They are relatively few joked about sometimes as veritable unicorns but they are indeed there, often executing delicate balancing acts to function in environments that until now have done little to embrace or accommodate them. Being a black fan of NASCAR, they say, means having fun while never feeling 100 percent at ease. It means jokes from friends and family members. It means watching the sport religiously on TV but having reservations about seeing a race in person. It means keeping your head on a swivel at the racetrack and, at the same time, diverting your eyes from various discomfiting sights, like fans flying the Confederate battle flag. "I was like, 'Wow, we're actually doing this!" said Boykin, 45, of Orange, Calif., who attends races around the country each year with his wife, Rochelle, noticing but trying to ignore the Confederate imagery everywhere. "I was excited. I was proud. And NASCAR took it seriously." Fans like Boykin now want to see what comes next. They hope what has happened over the last few weeks represents a real turning point in racing. Many of them are long accustomed to feeling like outliers among their friends, forced to reconcile their love of the high speed action and charismatic drivers with the stigma and stereotypes that the sport is only for white people. "What if I rock a Tony Stewart hat?" said Ricky Smith, a television writer from Cleveland. "Am I not a good black person? Am I a bad example? Am I that black guy at a Trump rally?" Smith, 39, said he spent the past 15 years "embarrassed" to be a NASCAR fan. But he said Wallace's new outspokenness, and NASCAR's surprising response, has quelled some of those old insecurities. In a similar vein, Noah Cornelius, 20, a college student from Charlotte, N.C., called NASCAR a "guilty pleasure," a pastime with which he had developed a "love hate relationship." The love came first at his predominantly white elementary school, where NASCAR was a popular topic of conversation in the lunchroom. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson became his favorite drivers. But at his high school, where the student body was more diverse, he began to understand why his fellow black classmates viewed the sport so differently. "I'd still watch the races," said Cornelius, who is studying music, "but I wasn't vocal about it anymore because I was just afraid of the stigma." Noting that NASCAR was struggling with a diminishing audience and sponsorships, Cornelius said he hoped the organization's actions this month symbolized a deeper change that might revive the sport. Leila Brown, 29, has gotten used to being the only black NASCAR fan she knows in Montclair, N.J. That has not stopped her from dragging friends and family members to races in nearby states, touting them as "like Coachella, minus music, plus cars," with mixed success. At another race, she said, Brown and her friends camped next to a group with a Confederate flag. Brown tried to wave hello, but the people never acknowledged her presence and avoided eye contact all weekend. It reiterated what she always felt the Confederate flag communicated to black fans at races: You are not welcome here. "I can honestly say the majority of my experiences with race fans have been positive," Brown said. "But you always have that guard up." That explains why Susan Reynolds, a die hard fan from Baltimore, was moved to tears when she heard the organization was banning the Confederate battle flag. Reynolds, 40, has worn a Tony Stewart bracelet almost continually since 2002. The only time she took it off for any significant amount of time was at her wedding in 2007 and even then she had it pinned to the inside of her dress. The first race Reynolds attended, she played a little game with herself, trying to spot any fellow black fans. She could tally the number on one hand. "There were black people there," she said. "They were working." So this month she felt relieved to think that perhaps one day she might not feel any cognitive dissonance while enjoying a race weekend. "I've put my head down and ignored or turned a blind eye to a lot of things, but this is one of those things that simply represents the oppression of black people," Reynolds said about the Confederate flag. "We have a flag. It's the United States flag. I'm cool with that one." NASCAR's change of tune on the flag has not been well received by a segment of its fans. Darian Gilliam, 22, a fan with an up and coming YouTube channel called "Black Flags Matter," learned this firsthand. After speaking in support of Wallace, he woke up on Monday to a threatening email "I think it's time you've got a taste of your own medicine," it read that included his home address. Unnerved, he alerted local authorities. "I was like, 'Since when is canceling racism a bad thing?'" Gilliam said. "This guy was upset because I was speaking up." He added: "I'm not going anywhere." NASCAR's longtime black fans have not been surprised by the backlash to its new initiatives. Or by the unfounded skepticism of Wallace after his team reported seeing a rope in their garage at Talladega that was tied into the shape of a noose. Federal authorities determined it had been there since at least October, months before Wallace was assigned the stall for the race this week. NASCAR on Thursday released a photo of the noose following criticism that racing officials had overreacted. The organization's president, Steve Phelps, said sensitivity training would be required for NASCAR employees to prevent any similar episodes in the future. "It just shows you how many people out there are so closed minded and don't want to see change because it doesn't benefit them or makes them uncomfortable or reveals their flaws," said Jae Bradley, 22, a college student and racing fan from West Monroe, La., who follows Chase Elliott. "NASCAR's trying to go in one direction and a large portion of the fan base doesn't want to do in that direction. But most of us know it's for the betterment of the sport." It remains to be seen how far NASCAR travels along this path. Derrick Crutcher, 45, of Athens, Ala., has enjoyed racing for decades ("I'd watch guys race lawn mowers, man"). But even though he lives just two hours by car from Talladega Superspeedway, he has never attended a race there. "I'd love to go," Crutcher said, "but I'm not going down there until I feel safe." Brown and Reynolds both said they would not feel comfortable going to Talladega, either. This was NASCAR's predicament personified: longtime, loyal fans who refused to visit one of the sport's premier venues because they could not imagine feeling welcomed there. But could NASCAR's steps this month signal a cultural transformation that might alter Crutcher's stance? He paused to consider the thought. "It could happen," he said, finally. "It could. Someday, if we get the feeling the wind is blowing in the right direction, we'll try. Who knows?" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
Faye Dunaway will play Katharine Hepburn in a one person show planned for Broadway next summer, the show's producer announced on Thursday. According to the announcement, Ms. Dunaway will star in a revised version of Matthew Lombardo's "Tea at Five," to be directed by John Tillinger. The play had its debut at Hartford Stage in 2002, starring Kate Mulgrew, and later moved Off Broadway. No theater or opening date was included in the plan, which was announced by Ben Feldman, whose other Broadway producing credits include revivals of "M. Butterfly" and "Pippin." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
Throughout Fox News Channel's summer of discontent last year, executives at its parent company, 21st Century Fox, assured reporters that the young, up and coming corporate leadership Rupert Murdoch's sons, James and Lachlan understood the severity of the sexual harassment allegations pending against the network's founding chairman, Roger E. Ailes. It was why they moved quickly to hire a white shoe law firm to investigate the charges against Mr. Ailes, executives at the company told reporters at the time. And, these people said, it was why they forced Mr. Ailes's resignation after that investigation found enough potential evidence to preclude them from standing by his denials. The company's response, the executives said, was an example of how it had reined in the wild "rules are what we make of them so long as we're winning" impulses that led to the crisis that was almost its undoing a few years ago. That, of course, was the phone hacking scandal at its British newspaper division, in which reporters and a private investigator hacked phone messages of the royal family, actors, athletes and various others. This time around, after Mr. Ailes's departure, the company promised that things would get cleaned up quickly. It said it was committed to "maintaining a work environment based on trust and respect," and spent millions on settlement deals that also happened to keep accusers from speaking about their experiences with Mr. Ailes who, company executives implied, was the isolated cause of all the problems. And that was to be that. Except, clearly, it wasn't. Not if you go by the meticulously reported piece last weekend by Emily Steel and Michael S. Schmidt of The New York Times, which said that some 13 million had been paid out to settle claims of harassment leveled against another man vital to Fox News's success, its top star Bill O'Reilly. (Two of those settlements came after Mr. Ailes's ouster.) Not if you go by a federal investigation that is exploring whether Fox News failed to properly account for settlement payments, granting immunity to the network's former chief financial officer, Mark Kranz, as The Financial Times reported. Certainly not if you go by the latest lawsuit, from the Fox News contributor Julie Roginsky, who said her own claims against Mr. Ailes and her refusal to attack his first public accuser, Gretchen Carlson caused the current Fox News co president (and former Ailes deputy) Bill Shine to deny her a promotion. Her complaints weren't even investigated, she said. Mr. Ailes through a lawyer denied her charges after she filed her suit on Monday, just as Mr. O'Reilly has denied all the claims that have been made against him. But the latest cascade of news involving allegations of misbehavior at Fox News makes it pretty hard to see what, exactly, has changed. Fox News executives say they've made more workplace improvements than they're getting credit for, and I'll get to that. But it still stands that, other than the senior Mr. Murdoch taking the reins of the network as executive chairman, the leadership has remained fairly stable; two of Mr. Ailes's deputies, Mr. Shine and Jack Abernethy, took over as co presidents, with the executive vice president for programming, Suzanne Scott, and the Ailes era network counsel, Dianne Brandi, remaining as well. On top of that, take a look at the news, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, that the network went ahead and renewed Mr. O'Reilly's contract despite the two new settlements and a third one from years ago that 21st Century Fox learned about only last year. Then consider that another Fox News star, Sean Hannity, brandished his licensed (and, he said, unloaded) handgun in his studio and (jokingly) pointed its laser sight at his liberal sparring partner, Juan Williams, with no apparent reprimand, as CNN reported last month. Retail earnings and Black Friday: the week in business. Elizabeth Holmes will resume her testimony in her fraud trial. It's hard not to see the Murdoch pirate flag moving back up the mast or to wonder whether it was ever really taken down, at least at Fox News. The network, led by Mr. O'Reilly, remains the most watched cable news network by a wide margin, and it sure seems that the old proclivity to look the other way in the face of hyper profitable victory remains in place. But this isn't just another story about a big public company with potentially serious problems in its corporate culture which, given the growing number of advertisers pulling out of Mr. O'Reilly's program, could prove costly. It's about one of the biggest and most influential media companies in the world; its cable behemoth, Fox News, is the network of choice for the current United States president. (And this president is more reactive to news than any who came before him.) The wildness that allegedly permeates Fox News's office culture has extended to its reportage in ways that have at times helped President Trump create his famous alternative reality. The most notable recent example: a declaration by Andrew Napolitano, a network contributor, saying Fox News had learned that President Barack Obama enlisted British intelligence officers to spy on Mr. Trump before his inauguration. The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, repeated this at a daily briefing, drawing fury from 10 Downing Street. Fox News followed up by reporting that it had learned no such thing. The network soon let it be known that Mr. Napolitano was being sidelined "for the foreseeable future," as The Los Angeles Times reported. The foreseeable future lasted just about two weeks. And when Mr. Napolitano returned to Fox's programming last week, he repeated his claim about Mr. Obama and the British, despite the news division's disavowal, only this time with no consequences (as if there had really been any up to that point). Those who wondered whether Fox News was somehow going to moderate its editorial direction following Mr. Ailes's ouster have their answer. The questions were based, at least in part, on the notion that the sons were more politically moderate than their father, though Lachlan less so than James. But the questions were misguided, given that the sons have made it clear that Fox wouldn't and shouldn't change too much, given its profits. "There's no desire or need to shift the position that it has in the market," Lachlan Murdoch told Wall Street analysts over the summer. And evidence is piling up that the elder Mr. Murdoch is the one running the show at Fox News, anyway. Fox News was as much his creation as it was Mr. Ailes's, after all. But let's remember: 21st Century Fox repeatedly said that all three Murdochs were on board to change the corporate culture. Fox News said Tuesday that it was doing so by "expanding our Human Resources department with regional people and adding more people in New York," a tacit acknowledgment that when Mr. Ailes was there, employees viewed the department as loyal to him above all, and often didn't trust it enough to make complaints. In January, the network hired a new human resources chief, Kevin Lord, who on Monday issued a memo encouraging employees with complaints to step forward, assuring them of confidentiality and a swift response (though one name listed as an avenue of complaint was that of Ms. Brandi, an Ailes era holdover). | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
Every day, hundreds of men pay to enact their sexual fantasies and boost their self esteem. Sometimes her clothes come off. Sometimes she dresses up as a nurse or a dominatrix. If a guy is a regular customer, she likely knows his birthday, the names of his children and his pets even when to call after a surgical procedure. He may pay her to help him achieve an orgasm, though she is not a prostitute. He may purchase erotic videos from her, though she is not a porn star. Ms. Harwood is one of the top earners on OnlyFans, where subscribers mostly male; straight, gay and beyond pay models and social media influencers a fee, generally 5 to 20 a month, to view a feed of imagery too racy for Instagram. With that access, subscribers can also direct message and "tip" to get pictures or videos created on demand, according to their sexual tastes. Models who join the site often presume that their subscribers will increase in number if they post more often and make the content more explicit. The "more often" part is true. The "more explicit" part is not. At a time when anyone with a smartphone or small studio can become his or her own pornographer, and content is often free, the hottest site in the adult entertainment industry is dominated by providers who show fewer sex acts and charge increasing fees depending on how creative the requests get. That's the first paradox at the center of the OnlyFans phenomenon. The most popular OnlyFans personality is Jem Wolfie, of Perth, Australia. She can't help but laugh when people call her a "fitness model." As she noted in an interview, "70 percent of my fans are men." So the bulk of them aren't looking for exercise tips, although she may provide them, for an added fee (along with healthy recipes she used to be a chef). According to OnlyFans, she has 10,000 subscribers who pay 10 a month for access to a feed in which she shows off her Kardashianesque proportions, squatting in really tight leggings and squeezing her breasts together, strategically covering her nipples. "I'm a thick girl," she said matter of factly. "Basically, OnlyFans is online go go dancing," said Matthew Camp, a 34 year old model on the men's side who broke into the business a decade ago writhing on platforms around downtown Manhattan for the party promoter Susanne Bartsch. If the four main quadrants of the gay approval matrix were daddy, twink, bear and boy next door, he seemed to sit smack in the center, not falling neatly into any of those categories but appealing to the potential audiences for each. With a G string and a strobe light, he could make as much as 1,000 on a good night. Porn studios like Lucas Entertainment began calling. Mr. Camp was intrigued. "Having sex for money is appealing," he said. But 1,000 seemed low for something that would sit on the internet and brand him for life as a porn star. So he turned them down and instead used a PG 13 feed on Instagram to build a following of more than half a million. About a year ago, as the club scene continued its slow death, he moved to Hudson, N.Y., and signed up for OnlyFans. Weeks often went by without him posting a single picture or video. He didn't show a full penetrative sex clip for the first nine months, yet he still regularly took home more than 10,000 a month. "Tumblr was filled with the most extreme sexual experiences you could see," he said. "And I think a lot of people were turned off by that. It's not what they're looking for. They want more intimate experiences. They want a boyfriend experience. They want to fantasize about someone that they want to have sex with and not feel disgusted by it." From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, dreamers in the porn industry, centered in the San Fernando Valley of California, openly described their multi million dollar futures in the business. There was actually a history of this happening, at least for a small number of models signed to lucrative long term contracts with studios like Vivid and Wicked. They could make north of 5,000 a scene and shoot a couple of those each week, according to Brian Gross, a well known industry publicist. That income could be supplemented with five figure sums doing nightclub appearances around the country on the weekends, he said. Jenna Jameson the Julia Roberts of straight porn even parlayed her notoriety into a memoir released by HarperCollins, "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale," which was a New York Times best seller. The title turned out to be eerily prescient. As its publisher, Judith Regan, pointed out: "Porn went the way of all media." It turns out, everyone could do it. Except that because porn was an industry of people already living on the margins of society, the effects for the performers were in many ways worse. Since porn studios did not have the capital or political connections to sue their most threatening adversaries out of business (as the record industry did), rates for scene work dropped. Fewer scenes were shot overall. Eventually, the studios began selling themselves to the tube sites at fire sale prices. It was as if the entire music business had been subsumed by Napster. By 2015, a handful of companies were able to exert monopolistic control over the industry. MindGeek is the biggest player of all. The crown jewel of its empire is Pornhub (perhaps the most popular tube site in the world), which is supplied with content from numerous in house production companies of the straight (Brazzers.com, Reality Kings) and gay varieties (SeanCody, Men.com). MindGeek knows all about porn habits by doing comprehensive data analysis. It has shown less of an affinity for the product or the people who appear in it. The MindGeek website makes no reference to the fact that the overwhelming majority of its customers are consumers of hard core pornography. The technocrats who built the company got rich. Many of the performers who helped enable their success became prostitutes, offering their services on websites like RentMen.com and The Erotic Review when scene work ceased to be a viable way to make a living. It's a fitting but unfortunate parable in an era of rampant economic inequality. "If you have a known name, it's much easier to market your services," said Dirk Caber, a porn star who has filmed close to 40 scenes for MindGeek's most popular gay site, Men.com, since 2013. Most of his income comes from his work as an escort, because this scene work pays so little. "The whole industry did a 180," Mr. Gross said. "When I started, there were actually websites that would out famous porn stars if they escorted, because it was shocking, for lack of a better word. Now, all talent is looked at as if they are escorts, and those who aren't have to come out and say so." One alternative to escorting is webcamming. In England, there are even TV stations, like Playboy and Babestation, on which models talk live with thousands of customers and earn several hundred dollars a day. That's what Ms. Harwood did before OnlyFans came along. She grew up in Wales, with a mother who stocked supermarket shelves and a father who was a factory worker. It was a "typical working class" household, she said recently, while on a vacation in New York that included a trip to the 9/11 memorial and the taking of many hotel room selfies. As a little girl, Ms. Harwood was a relentless attention seeker, the sort who appeared in school plays, competed in beauty pageants and studied dance. She also had reservoirs of empathy that would serve her well later in life. She could spot pain in others and find ways to make them feel better. She also was capable of identifying her limitations and finding ways to chart new paths for herself. "I was raised well," she said. She studied dance at Laine Theatre Arts, a prestigious drama and dance college near London. Then, "I went to audition after audition," she said. "Eventually, I realized I wasn't good enough. And it was quite hard to accept at first." Around 2005, Ms. Harwood posed topless on Page 3 of The Daily Sport, a second tier British newspaper that she said "was popular with day laborers and construction workers." This apparently included the guys her father worked with. One morning, he went into work and saw the picture of his daughter plastered to his locker. On her face, his colleagues had drawn his mustache and glasses. That's how he found out she was modeling nude. That's why he warned her about being disowned. It would therefore be a natural bolt on to the influencer's existing social media. A free feed on Instagram or Twitter could promote and drive traffic to the subscription only feed on OnlyFans. Eighty percent of the fees collected for each feed would go to the provider. Twenty percent would go to OnlyFans (although after merchant and processing fees, Mr. Stokely says its take is around 12 percent). This is roughly the same arrangement Uber has with its drivers, except that OnlyFans didn't push performers toward poverty by dictating the prices they could charge. When OnlyFans started, in 2016, Ms. Harwood was one of just 10 models who sought subscribers. She didn't think much would come of it initially. Her earnings for the first month were 257. Then, the site added features enabling models to create custom content. Ms. Harwood got inventive. She introduced themed days like Mistress Mondays and Dare Dannii Tuesdays, when men bid to watch her drive around town in her underwear and order a pizza to her home, whereupon she would answer the door naked. She also chatted with fans daily, learning their habits, their sexual predilections and their insecurities. "You can get porn for free," she said. "Guys don't want to pay for that. They want the opportunity to get to know somebody they've seen in a magazine or on social media. I'm like their online girlfriend." Ms. Harwood took out her phone and showed evidence of her theory. She brought home 29,420.47 in August, 34,303.24 in September, 52,693.29 in October and 52,760.49 in November. Although OnlyFans has brilliantly capitalized off the life's work of exhibitionists, it is run by people whose most apparent trait is opacity. That's the second paradox at the center of its existence. There is no website for Fenix International Limited, which is the parent company of OnlyFans. It does have a publicist, Daniel Blythe, who largely helps the men behind it avoid interviews. When I first contacted Mr. Blythe, in November, informing him of my intention to write about OnlyFans, he was affable as could be for a man with no intention of disclosing the names of his clients, much less submitting them to an interview. When I did discover Mr. Stokely's name and portions of his back story, with a little help from someone on Reddit, Mr. Blythe offered the warmest of congratulations. "Refreshing to know that investigative journalism isn't dead," he said. Still, the best he could offer were written responses to questions for Mr. Stokely, the company's chief executive. The answers were maddeningly vague, but Mr. Stokely did say that he works at Fenix with his father, Guy Stokely, who, before becoming its chairman, was an investment banker with Barclays, the storied British bank. Mr. Stokely also confirmed that one of Fenix's directors is Leo Radvinsky, a 2003 Northwestern University graduate who went on to start MyFreeCams (one of the industry's largest chat sites) and who has been a defendant in three lawsuits related to phishing attempts and patent infringement. (Mr. Blythe said he could not comment on the status of those lawsuits because they "do not pertain to OnlyFans.") There's No App for That Mr. Stokely is eager to take OnlyFans out of the pornography niche and make it a platform for all sorts of influencers and audiences. One hurdle is that there is no iPhone app. The platform as it exists now likely runs afoul of Apple's restrictions on "overtly sexual or pornographic material." And even if Apple did allow an OnlyFans app, the fees 30 percent would certainly be a problem, Mr. Stokely said. He would have to pass along those expenses to performers. Technical problems on OnlyFans also threaten its longevity and help explain why synonymous sites, such as JustFor.Fans, have managed to siphon off considerable numbers of performers and revenue. Still, Chanel Santini, a 21 year old performer who has been with OnlyFans for more than a year and earns at least 8,000 a month in subscription revenue, can't muster serious complaints. Not when she experienced the alternative. She grew up in Albuquerque with a single mother who was a hairdresser. Ms. Santini came out as transgender when she was a teenager. That got her thrown out of the house. She never finished high school. In 2015, Ms. Santini moved to Las Vegas and took a job as a clerk at Hollister, the clothing chain. Even in a city with a fairly low cost of living, it wasn't enough. So she started doing porn, filming scenes that paid as little as 400, which then led to escorting. She worked for a madam who stole her money, she said, and threatened her with violence. With popular feeds on Instagram and Twitter, Ms. Santini's name got bigger. OnlyFans started and she signed up. A couple of weeks ago, she burst into tears over the phone while recalling her first pornographic shoot. There, a director had told her that the only way to make a living in porn was to also be a prostitute. "He said that straight to my face," she said. "Now, I just want to run into him again, so I can say, 'Well, here I am. I'm pulling in tens of thousands of dollars every month just posting content online. I don't have to escort anymore. I don't have to do that. Guess you were wrong!'" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
Next month , a comprehensive new data protection law goes into effect in the European Union, placing greater requirements on how companies like Facebook and Google handle users' personal information. It also strengthens individuals' rights to control the collection and use of their data. Last week , Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, said his company would offer its users all over the world the same privacy controls required under the European law. What would that look like for Facebook users? That is still a work in progress. A Facebook spokeswoman said the company would provide more details about its plans in the coming weeks. In the meantime, here are some of the general requirements and rights under the new European law. Although some of the practical steps that companies must take are still being worked out, several European privacy and consumer advocates, who had pushed for the new law, offered their thoughts on what Facebook might need to do to extend the protections to its users worldwide. The European law, called the General Data Protection Regulation, requires companies to collect and store only the minimum amount of user data needed to provide a specific, stated service. That means a flashlight app should not be asking users for access to their photos or contacts. Anna Fielder, a senior policy adviser at Britain based Privacy International, said she thought the new law would require the social network to change certain advertising and other settings to make privacy, and not sharing, the default. Currently, the company makes certain user profile details public by default. And the default advertising settings allow targeted ads based on a user's relationship status, employer, job title, education and use of websites and apps. Facebook currently has controls that allow users to choose who can see their posts. There is also a "privacy checkup" feature where users can adjust their sharing settings. In a statement in response to questions, Rob Sherman, Facebook's deputy chief privacy officer, said, "We need to do more to keep people informed and in control." He noted that the company had recently introduced a new "privacy shortcuts" menu that centralized major privacy, security and ad settings. "These are just a few small steps and there's more to come," he said. The European law requires companies like Facebook and Google to use clear and plain language to explain how they will use their users' personal details. The companies must also provide information about what other kinds of entities users' data will be shared with. Digital platforms must also obtain consent from individuals for many uses of their data. When companies want to use individuals' data for a new purpose, they must explain that new purpose and obtain users' permission. And companies must get special permission from users to collect and use sensitive details like health information, unless that data is clearly related to the purpose of the service, such as a diabetes management app. That means Facebook will probably need to rework its data policy and terms of service, said Finn Lutzow Holm Myrstad, director of digital policy at the Norwegian Consumer Council, a nonprofit group in Oslo. He added that he thought the law would also require Facebook to give users more "real choices, not take it or leave." The current data policy requires people who sign up for the social network to allow Facebook to, among other things, track them on many other apps and websites. Mr. Sherman, Facebook's deputy chief privacy officer, said that Facebook was updating its terms of service and data policy to ensure that it complied with the new European law. Those updates cover users worldwide, with legal variations in some places. The European law gives individuals the right not to be subject to completely automated decisions which significantly affect them. These decisions could include credit algorithms that use an individual's data to decide whether a bank should grant him or her a loan. Privacy International said the clause on automated decisions could allow consumers to challenge Facebook practices like political advertising , which can be sent to users based on algorithms, because the ads are meant to sway users' votes. Facebook currently has a section called "Your Ad Preferences" that allows users to opt out of seeing ads based on their relationship status, employer, education, interests, and use of websites and apps. Users can also hide ads related to three topics alcohol, pets and parenting or suggest a topic they would rather not see ads about. The European law gives people the right obtain a copy of the records that companies hold about them. Facebook already allows users to download a copy of their information such as the messages they have sent on the service and the status updates they have posted. At the end of March, the company announced new tools to let its users see and delete information such as their friend requests and their Facebook searches. But if Facebook wants to offer European level privacy protection to all, it would also need to provide its users with the data that Facebook itself collected or created about them, including any categories, descriptions or behavior scores Facebook assigned to them, European privacy experts said. And it should provide users who seek their own records with any data that Facebook has obtained from tracking them around the web as well as any data that Facebook obtained about them from third parties, like data brokers, they said. "You exercise your access rights and you have the right to know everything about you," said Giovanni Buttarelli, the European data protection supervisor who oversees an independent European Union authority that advises on privacy related laws and policies. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
In the most memorable performance of his career, K Ci Hailey is shirtless, wearing a backward baseball cap, two earrings in each ear and blue boxer shorts mushrooming out over low slung black jeans. At times, he struts around with a cane. The pendant dangling from the gold chain around his neck bears the logo of his group, Jodeci. It's early 1993, and Jodeci is performing "Lately" as part of an "MTV Unplugged" special devoted to Uptown Records. Uptown founded by Andre Harrell, who died last week was the first label granted an "Unplugged" special of its own, and the lineup was stacked: the budding soul siren Mary J. Blige, fresh off her debut album, "What's the 411?"; the buoyant hip hop group Heavy D the Boyz; the irrepressibly smooth rapper Father MC; the irrepressibly smooth singer Christopher Williams. But they all felt like humble opening acts for the robust, audacious R B foursome Jodeci, at that point still floating on the success of its sterling 1991 debut album, "Forever My Lady." The "Unplugged" franchise was predicated on the erasure of artifice, a way to see superstars without the pylons that hold them up and the glaze that makes them pretty. There wasn't much of that to start with when it came to the prodigiously talented Jodeci, a group brimming with raw sexual gusto and pinpoint vocal harmonies kiln fired in North Carolina churches. Jodeci was made up of two sets of brothers K Ci and JoJo (Cedric and Joel Hailey), and DeVante Swing and Mr. Dalvin (Donald and Dalvin DeGrate) though at times it could feel like a one man band, with K Ci as the tempestuous alpha. Throughout the group's performance (which also included the hits "Come Talk to Me," "Forever My Lady" and "Stay"), JoJo, Dalvin and DeVante are painting luscious watercolor scenes. Wearing forest green leather motorcycle vests, black pants and black boots, they're vibrant, delicate, elegantly contoured. K Ci, meanwhile, slinks among them doing Jackson Pollock, Isiah Thomas, Wile E. Coyote. A vocal dynamo at the peak of his power and sometimes beyond it he's notionally on the same plane of existence as everyone else, but really dipping in and out of different dimensions, an alien and a conqueror. The calmest he gets is during "Lately," performed by just him and his brother. They begin on stools, contemplative, maybe a little drained. JoJo, the placater in the family, with a pager clipped into his right jeans pocket, introduces the song almost sheepishly. K Ci revs into gear with some vamps, but JoJo takes the early reins with sugar sweet coos. He gets four lines in like this technically precise, tender, heavy with the sense of regret just around the corner. Then he passes the baton: "K Ci, sing it." The piano offers up a little march like flourish, then cedes the floor. There aren't many human parallels to the way K Ci enters the song here: a bugle blaring the Reveille, the pink sun nudging over the horizon. He is skinny but not slight, all sinew and boxed up energy, a spring waiting for the bounce. He leans into the microphone just a bit, his head vibrating under the sheer intensity of his singing. They go back and forth every few lines K Ci detonating bombs, JoJo spreading rose petals. The song is about the body shaking certainty you are being misled by the person you love. It's a plea, but it's sung proudly, as if learning you have been undermined is a kind of triumph. K Ci is perhaps a little peppier, a little more rascally, than the song demands, but his vim turns out to be an asset. He's almost jaunty when singing, "When I ask you all the thoughts you're keeping/You just said ..." Then the nitrous oxide kicks in, and K Ci goes from bystander to victim, growling "Noooooothing's chaaaanged!" like a human defibrillator. JoJo is here to catch him, again throughout the song, K Ci is aggrieved, JoJo reluctant but proud. There's a stretch around four minutes in where they echo each other word for word, ache translated into entreaty, a choose your own heartbreak explosion. It is hard not to feel drenched or depleted at the end of watching it it's like standing amid a thunderstorm with no cover. The wetness is a thrill. The "Unplugged" performance of "Lately" became iconic parodied on "In Living Color," integrated into a hilarious episode of "Martin." Jodeci rerecorded it for a studio version that's far more polite, leaching out the bruised ardor of the "Unplugged" performance. They've performed it umpteen times since, sometimes dismantling it a 2002 rendition at a BET tribute to Stevie Wonder had some particularly tumultuous moments. Released as the promotional single for the "Uptown MTV Unplugged" album, "Lately" went to No. 1 on the Billboard R B chart, and No. 4 on the Hot 100, making it Jodeci's biggest pop hit. The song is, of course, not a Jodeci original it was a minor hit for Wonder in 1981. In Wonder's hands, it was relatively tame, a little lagging and un nimble; he doesn't really get busy until the song's loose fourth and final minute. That's where K Ci and JoJo likely took their cues from, adding in the sober ecstasy of gospel. Outsinging Wonder is, ordinarily, a fool's fantasy. K Ci said recently that Harrell had asked Jodeci to sing "Lately" only a day or so before the special was recorded, buying the CD and playing the music for them. But the Hailey brothers, quite frankly, lovingly annihilated Wonder's original. There is no other version of the song that matters. And sometimes, there is no other song that matters at all. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
The clarinetist and saxophonist Bob Wilber, left, in an undated photo with Sidney Bechet, his mentor and biggest influence. "I modeled myself after Bechet," he once said. "He was very complimented by this because he felt time was passing him by." Bob Wilber, a clarinetist and saxophonist who fell in love with swing and early jazz just as those styles were going out of fashion and then became an important carrier of their legacy, died on Sunday in Chipping Campden, England. He was 91. The death was confirmed by his wife, the British vocalist Pug Horton. He had lived in New York City for most of his life before settling in England. Mr. Wilber began his professional career while still a teenager as the leader of the Wildcats, one of the first bands devoted to reviving the jazz of the 1920s and '30s. His love for the old guard soon endeared him to the pioneering New Orleans musician Sidney Bechet, who became his mentor and biggest influence. "I modeled myself after Bechet," Mr. Wilber told John S. Wilson of The New York Times in 1980. "He was very complimented by this because he felt time was passing him by. All the talk then was of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. He felt his music would die unless it was passed on to younger players." Over a long apprenticeship, Mr. Wilber developed his own take on Bechet's style, with its ribbony vibrato and stoutly articulated melodies, first on clarinet and then on soprano saxophone. For much of Mr. Wilber's career his affiliation with Bechet would be both a calling card and a cross to bear; he would never fully escape his identity as Bechet's top protege. The Wildcats which sometimes employed a racially integrated lineup, a rarity for the era recorded a number of well received sides for the Commodore and Riverside labels, a few of them featuring Bechet as a guest star. Mr. Wilber soon grew tired of the comparisons to Bechet, and of the murmurs he heard that he would never define his own approach. He studied briefly in the early 1950s with two leading modernists, the pianist Lennie Tristano and the saxophonist Lee Konitz, before being drafted into the Army in 1952. He spent two years playing in a military ensemble in New York while studying with Leon Russianoff, working to expand his identity on the clarinet. Mr. Wilber said that he had twice been invited to join Louis Armstrong's touring band but declined because it would have required him to be on the road for a year at a time. After making an album of Bechet's music in 1960, he recorded only occasionally in the coming decade, most notably the album "Close as Pages in a Book," a collaboration with the vocalist Maxine Sullivan. In his searching, often self lacerating autobiography, "Music Was Not Enough" (1987, with Derek Webster), Mr. Wilber described feeling underappreciated and at sea in the middle years of his career. His "mild and almost self apologetic demeanor in a world that demanded dynamism and charisma," he wrote, "were real and painful problems." But in 1968 he became a member of the World's Greatest Jazz Band, a standard bearing group devoted to Dixieland and swing, and it reinvigorated him. He began playing the alto saxophone more often a clear attempt to put some distance between himself and Bechet and gave himself a makeover, growing a beard and swapping his glasses for contact lenses. "For the first time the world was able to look into my face," he wrote. "He took off; he sparkled," Ms. Horton said in an interview. "He was his own man again." Mr. Wilber's work in the World's Greatest Jazz Band helped solidify his reputation as a leading preservationist, just as jazz history was becoming a topic of broad academic interest. In the mid 70s he and Kenny Davern also a clarinetist and soprano saxophonist formed Soprano Summit, an all star combo whose fervid renditions of old repertoire made it a favorite among fans of traditional jazz. After their marriage in 1976, Mr. Wilber and Ms. Horton formed Bechet Legacy, a band devoted to his mentor's music, which recorded intermittently over the next two decades. Mr. Wilber became the musical director for George Wein's New York Jazz Repertory Company in the mid 1970s, and the inaugural director of the Smithsonian Jazz Repertory Ensemble soon after. He won a 1985 Grammy Award for his arrangements of Duke Ellington's music for the soundtrack of the Francis Ford Coppola film "The Cotton Club." In his last decades, living primarily in England, he continued to tour and record frequently. From the 1980s to the 2010s he released dozens of albums. In addition to Ms. Horton, he is survived by a daughter, Elizabeth Wilber Gongde, from his marriage to the actor Shirley Rickards, which ended in divorce. Robert Sage Wilber was born on March 15, 1928, in New York City. His mother, Mary Eliza Wilber, died when he was less than a year old. His father, Allen, a partner in a publishing firm that sold college textbooks, remarried when Bob was 5 and moved the family to suburban Scarsdale, N.Y., north of the city. Allen Wilber, an amateur pianist, encouraged Bob's budding love of jazz and took him to Carnegie Hall in 1943 for Duke Ellington's first concert there. A shy student, Bob connected with classmates most easily through music, and in high school he started hosting jam sessions at his house. He and his friends sometimes sneaked into New York City to go to jazz clubs. He spent a semester at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester before dropping out, frustrated with its focus on Western classical music. "I said, 'Well, Dad, I just want to hang around and listen to all these great musicians, maybe meet them, maybe get a chance to sit in and play with them,' " Mr. Wilber remembered in a 1998 interview with the Jazz Archive at Hamilton College in upstate New York. "He says, 'Son, you want to spend the rest of your life blowing your lungs out in smoky dives?' I said, 'Yeah, yeah, that's what I want to do.' " In 1946, after Bechet refashioned his home in Brooklyn as a music school, Mr. Wilber became his first serious student. He also began sleeping on a couch in Bechet's parlor and ended up staying for about six months. Speaking to Whitney Balliett decades later for a profile in The New Yorker, Mr. Wilber remembered Bechet's teachings. "He was particular about form: Give the listener the melody first, then play variations on it, then give it to him again. And tell a story every time you play." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
United States servicemen played Snap Apple with U.S.O. hostesses at a Halloween party in New York in 1943. Boo? Halloween Used to Be About Finding True Love Halloween wasn't always so scary. It was once less about fright and more about flirtation. A century ago, the rituals surrounding the celebration at the end of October emphasized love. Newspapers recommended parlor games that promised to reveal romantic fortune. Even the cast of characters was more oriented toward matters of the heart. "Halloween in the early 20th century had far less emphasis on blood, gore and scary monsters, and much more emphasis on courtship, romance and the opportunity for love," Daniel Gifford, the former manager of museum advisory committees for the Smithsonian National Museum of American History explained in a museum blog post last year. "In fact, the image of Cupid was often interspersed among the more familiar black cats, witches and jack o' lanterns." Halloween games and traditions reflected that attention to themes of love, with many offering a peek at what the future holds. For women in a restrictive society, they offered a semblance of control. "Given the importance of finding a desirable marriageable man in an era when prim, proper, ladylike behavior was the norm, young women often reveled in chances to participate in well established and regarded traditions that might guide them to the spouses of their dreams," Diane Arkins, the author of the book "Halloween: Romantic Art and Customs of Yesteryear," from Pelican Publishing, said in an email. Here's a look at some of those largely forgotten customs. Snap Apple and Other Games of Love Apples played a starring role in many of Halloween's romantic traditions. One game, Snap Apple, challenged participants to use only their teeth to bite an apple suspended from the ceiling by a string or ribbon, Ms. Arkins writes in her book. The first to succeed would be the first to marry. (In a more dangerous version of the game, the apple is speared by a stick with a lit candle on the opposite end.) According to tradition, a successful first attempt at that game retrieving an apple with one's mouth from a container filled with water foretold true love reciprocated, Ms. Arkins writes. Repeated failure suggested that a less than ideal match awaited, or perhaps it was a warning to move on. Other traditions were simpler. One old custom called for cutting a long strip of apple skin and tossing it over one's shoulder. The landed peel was said to resemble the first initial of a suitor. Another tradition involved eating an apple in front of a mirror to conjure the image of one's soul mate, just in time for him or her to ask for the last bite. The seeds within offered insight, too, with poems serving as guides to what they predicted. Here is one such poem, reproduced by Ms. Arkins and published in the "Kiddies' Hallowe'en Book" in 1931: Two a dish you're going to break. Four, a ride you soon will take. Five, you will be disappointed, Six, you're going to meet a friend. Eight, some money you will spend. Ten, you'll have something to wear. Eleven, you will take a trip, Twelve, some good luck you will share. According to one popular tradition, placing two chestnuts on a stove or fire, each representing a partner in a romantic pairing, would yield insight into the stability of a match. A pair that cozied up to each other and burned brightly foretold a happy relationship, Utah's Ogden Standard explained in 1915. But if one nut cracked or popped, that partner's love could prove fickle. By adding a third nut, one could compare multiple partners: "The nut which burns longer and more quietly betokens the more constant lover," the Ogden Standard reported. In her book, Ms. Arkins describes a different kind of ritual, involving "boats" made of walnut shells filled with wax. Colored candles affixed to each represented potential partners. They were then set in motion in a tub of water, with the candles lit. The boats that sailed together symbolized a match meant to be. The person whose boat first reached the opposite side would be first to wed. An extinguished candle indicated a lonely future. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
The American economy grew last quarter at its fastest rate in over a decade, providing the strongest evidence to date that the recovery is finally gaining sustained power more than five years after it began. Bolstered by robust spending among consumers and businesses alike, economic output rose at an annual rate of 5 percent during the summer months, the Commerce Department said Tuesday, a sharp revision from its earlier estimate of 3.9 percent. The advance followed a second quarter where growth reached a rate of 4.6 percent after a decline last winter that was exacerbated by particularly harsh weather. The revision was led by an upswing in investment by businesses, a powerful force for growth in most economic recoveries but one that has lagged in the latest rebound. Higher consumer spending, including increased outlays on health care, and a narrower trade balance also contributed to the summer improvement. The gain makes the third quarter the strongest since the summer of 2003. The Dow is now up 8.7 percent for the year, while the S. P. 500 has risen 12.7 percent. Although the growth rate is expected to decelerate somewhat in the current fourth quarter, the improved view in the rearview mirror corresponds with other evidence suggesting that the economy is moving to a higher gear. "The data today is very consistent with a U.S. consumer that is doing quite well," said Michael Gapen, chief United States economist at Barclays. "Consumers are receiving a boost in the form of lower gas prices, but they are also feeling more confident about their own futures because of the stronger labor market." The only negative indicator in Tuesday's flood of economic data was a 0.7 percent drop in durable goods orders in November. But durable goods data, tracked by the Census Bureau, is often highly volatile on a month to month basis, and economists tend to put more weight on other factors like employment, consumer spending and income. The year's final Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan survey of consumer sentiment, also released Tuesday morning, recorded a small decrease to 93.6 from a preliminary 93.8 report. That still left overall consumer expectations in the survey at their best levels since January 2007, a year before the last recession began. Despite signs of faster growth, the Federal Reserve remains cautious about raising short term interest rates from near zero, where they have been since the depths of the financial crisis in 2008. The central bank is expected to raise rates in mid 2015, but it signaled last week that it would remain patient in order to confirm that faster growth looked sustainable and would translate into increased hiring over the long term. Doug Handler, chief United States economist at IHS, a consulting firm, said the data released Tuesday, along with the recent jobs report and comments by Fed officials, "solidifies our expectations that some action will be taken in June." "It looks like we have a stronger economy than we thought a month ago," he added, "which creates a compelling case for tightening." The latest data brings the average rate of growth in the first three quarters of 2014 to about 2.5 percent. Mr. Handler said he now expected fourth quarter growth to be between 2.5 percent and 3 percent, up from an earlier estimate of roughly 2 percent, and predicted that the economy would grow 3 percent next year. The better than expected numbers Tuesday morning also prompted other experts to revise their forecasts upward. Macroeconomic Advisers, for example, lifted its estimate of fourth quarter growth to 2.8 percent from an earlier forecast of 2.6 percent, while Goldman Sachs bumped its forecast to 2.6 percent from 2.2 percent. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
On her way to the wedding at Holiday Acres Christmas Tree Farm in Manvel, Texas, on Nov. 10, 2018, Madison Logan Edwards picked up Ruger, a nine month old golden retriever. "I had to pick him up a little early," she said. "Because of his personality profile, I knew he'd be hyper. So I took him to the dog park and then brushed him out and got him all ready." Not all ready for her own ceremony, though. She was preparing Ruger for a client's wedding. Ms. Edwards, 27, is the owner of Pawsh Weddings, a Houston business that provides wedding day pet planning and attendants. Ruger was a model member of the wedding party, decked out in a black bow tie and a bandanna that read, "Here comes the love of our life." "Ruger got through the processional," Ms. Edwards said, "and as the pet parents were exchanging vows, the officiant said, 'Do you take so and so to be your lawfully wedded husband. And Ruger barks." The idea of a wedding day pet planner and attendant might seem outrageous to some, or at least nothing more than a fad du jour. But Edwards says not so. "We may be a new kind of wedding vendor," she said, "but for most millennial couples, bringing their dog to their wedding is a new tradition, not a trend." She wishes she had been able to find a wedding pet planner and attendant to watch over her two dogs Russell, a black Labrador and Butterscotch, a golden retriever, at her own wedding in 2017. With everything else to wrangle, including a three week long honeymoon in the Caribbean, she needed someone to help get her dogs to the wedding and attend to them during and after. Ms. Edwards saw the lack of such services as an opportunity to create Pawsh Weddings while doing much of the prep work and planning for her own wedding. "I actually launched the website and Instagram while out of the country in the middle of our honeymoon and started booking weddings the second we returned," she said. "Demand was there. We just needed the supply." Sign up for Love Letter and always get the latest in Modern Love, weddings, and relationships in the news by email. Becky Moriarty Davis and Greg Davis of Houston, who were married at McGovern Centennial Gardens in Houston, knew they wanted to include their six year old female pit bull, Birdie, and their two year old golden retriever, Watson, in their wedding. "We also knew how hectic the day of the wedding could be since coordinating the wedding party alone was an overwhelming task," Ms. Davis said. "We decided to hire Pawsh so we could focus on our day and have peace of mind that our pooches were in good hands." Ms. Davis was pleased with how the day turned out. "They were so attentive to the dogs and kept them entertained during the inevitable down times," she said. "While we were taking pictures, they made sure the dogs were paying attention and looked good in the shots. They even worked with our shy flower girl and ring bearer to get them more confident with walking the dogs down the aisle. And in the end, the dogs were probably the happiest of all of us." Ms. Edwards is far from being alone in the industry. She hosts a monthly Zoom call for others in the business around the country, with owners of companies like Pawfect For You, FairyTail Wedding Pet Care and Doggy Social. They are also a part of a Facebook group, Wedding Planning For Pet Parents, devoted to wedding day pet care. There are countless others around the world, including Wedding Dog Sitter in Italy, Pawfect Occasions in England and Wedding Paws in Australia. Ms. Edwards sees the industry as growing so much so that she was able to quit her full time job as a coordinator for the nonprofit Collaborative for Children in July 2019. She expects to be busier than ever once the challenges of Covid 19 are gone. "Millennials are cohabitating," she said, "so we have pets already. A wedding wouldn't be complete without them." Annabel Cookson started Pawfect Occasions in Penwortham, England, two years ago. She previously ran a professional dog walking business and was asked several times by clients to attend their weddings with their dogs. "I loved being part of their special day," she said. If you're wondering exactly what a pet attendant does, well, the answer is basically everything that is, everything that has to do with your pet. Hiring a wedding pet planner and attendant doesn't come cheap, however. Pawsh Weddings, who works all pets including cats, rats, birds, reptiles, chinchillas and guinea pigs, offers packages from 200 (for the first dog) for two hours of pet attendant services to 950 (for the first dog) and includes six hours of services. Pet attendants will typically begin watching your dog as soon as you arrive at the venue, or bring the dog there, depending on the package. They also explore the ceremony site with your pet; supervises potty breaks and clean up; give your dog a quick grooming session, or even a bath; walk your dog down the aisle if you like; sit with your dog during the ceremony; and pose your dog for photos. Some offer formal wear, like bow ties and bandannas, flower crowns and floral leashes, and tuxes and tutus. Ms. Edwards also offers prewedding consults that include coordinating with other wedding vendors, profiling your pet's personality, and planning for the wedding in terms of all things pet. And she comes prepared, with items like a pet first aid kit, emergency collar and leash, doggy seatbelt, filtered water, hypoallergenic wipes, and even a lint roller. Tamarah Smith, a wedding coordinator and the owner of the Houston based company Tammy's Table, said she loves having dogs at wedding ceremonies, but that they do tend to add a bit of chaos to the mix. "It's nice to know that your pet is well taken care of so you can focus on simply getting married, or in my case simply getting my couples down the aisle." Her advice to anyone wanting to include a pet is simple: "Have a plan of action regarding pet care." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Credit...Scott McIntyre for The New York Times Earl Campbell, a former All Pro running back in the N.F.L., said the first painkillers he took came in a small brown packet that a trainer gave him on the team plane. The former lineman Aaron Gibson received his first painkillers in his rookie year after undergoing shoulder surgery. Randy Grimes, a former center, started taking Vicodin and Halcion, a sleeping pill, in his second season to get through full contact practices. Like hundreds of former N.F.L. players, Campbell, Gibson and Grimes said they never took painkillers in college, or at any time before they entered the league. Yet as professionals, they regularly used the pills to continue playing, and even in retirement, their pill popping habits persisted, sending them on haunting, shattering journeys into opioid addiction. It has taken years of struggle, money and anguish in order to heal. Putting up with pain a lot of it has for decades been central to the bargain of playing for glory and money in the N.F.L., the biggest stage in American sports. To do that, countless players have long ingested far more pills than they should. In recent years though, N.F.L. players, especially linemen, have gotten significantly larger, and pain medication has become far more potent and addictive, with devastating consequences. A study published last year in the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine found that 26.2 percent of retired players said they had used prescription opioids within the past 30 days. Nearly half of those players said they did not use them as prescribed. Seven percent of retired players equal to about 1,500 men said they had misused painkillers in the past month, according to a study conducted in 2011 by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. That was more than three times the national rate for adults 26 and older at the time. Seventy one percent of those surveyed had misused drugs during their N.F.L. careers, and some of them continued to do so after they left the league, the study found. Players who abused opioids in retirement were also more likely to be heavy drinkers. In the past, players might have tried to manage their pain with a handful of Percocet, or by indulging in the over the counter medicines that used to be left in bowls in trainer's rooms. Now, supersize men with crippling injuries and high tolerances for pain medication, such as Grimes and Gibson, seek out far stronger and more dangerous drugs, like high dosage OxyContin, which cost about 500 for roughly 50 pills. "I was running through those like nothing," Gibson said. "One doctor who thought he was the only one treating me said, 'Aaron, what I'm prescribing you is what I'd give a Stage 4 cancer patient.'" The problems often grow worse after careers end, when the effects of injuries sustained while playing require interventions that can include multiple surgeries. "When you get out of pro football, you start having these operations," said Campbell, a running back for most of his career with the Houston Oilers who was confronted a decade ago by his family about his drug use. "I didn't realize what I had until I got out of rehab." In the first case, led by the former Chicago Bears defensive end Richard Dent, a federal judge initially dismissed the suit on the grounds that the league's collective bargaining agreement required the parties to contest this kind of dispute in arbitration, not the courts. The players appealed, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco ruled in their favor, reinstating the case. "The parties to a C.B.A. cannot bargain for what is illegal," the appeals court panel wrote. In the second case, the players sued the clubs that employed the team doctors, not the league, for improperly distributing painkillers. The same judge who dismissed the first case ruled that the statute of limitations had passed. The Ninth Circuit heard arguments in an appeal in December. In 2017, the N.F.L. Players Association filed a grievance against the league for overprescribing painkillers, not keeping accurate records of the drugs that teams distributed and denying the union's medical director access to meetings and documents relevant to the distribution of painkillers. The two sides are locked in arbitration. Even before the legal action, the league's pill culture had been well documented in tell all books by former players and team doctors, and portrayed in books and films like "North Dallas Forty." What happens to players like Gibson when they leave the N.F.L. cocoon has been less explored. Like many players, his departure was abrupt, involuntary and wrenching. Although he no longer abused his body every week in practices and games, he could no longer rely on team doctors to help him cope with the lingering injuries he had to his neck, back, shoulders, knees and ankles that made getting out of bed in the morning a 30 minute ordeal. So he coped on his own. He found new doctors, visited pain clinics and bought painkillers on the street and even from residents at retirement homes. Addiction is expensive. Most pills are not covered by insurance. So like other addicts, retired N.F.L. players with addiction problems reach into their pockets. Spare cash disappears. Possessions are pawned. Homes are sold. Players are abandoned by their families, leaving men like Grimes sleeping alone on the floor in an empty house, as he recounted, with the utilities turned off, consumed by the pain of withdrawal. An ingrained warrior mentality can prevent them from admitting weakness. Grimes finally sought help 17 years after his career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ended in 1992, when all the trappings of his N.F.L. life were gone. "At that point, I had no excuse not to do it," said Grimes, who has been off pills for almost a decade and now works for Transformations Treatment Center in Delray Beach, Fla., which helps former players and others battle substance abuse. "I was jobless, desperate, my family wanted nothing to do with me. I thought I hit a lot of bottoms, but that was the real bottom." The Player Care Foundation, which is run by the league; the union's Player Assistance Trust Fund; and Gridiron Greats, a nonprofit group started by the former coach Mike Ditka, help retired players with substance abuse problems. Gibson, the former lineman, had a similar tale. He spent six years in the N.F.L. and several more in an indoor football league, where painkillers, he said, were even easier to get. In retirement he was left with a battered 400 pound body that he medicated with opioids. The abuse he endured in his career and his struggles with obesity left him with shoulders that barely move, chronic knee and back pain, and feet that are missing the big toe. He also ran a company that provided bodyguards. But trying to find pills soon became his full time job. Like Grimes, he found doctors willing to write prescriptions. When they realized he was also getting painkillers from other doctors, he found new doctors, then pain clinics. He was so hungry for painkillers, he found a senior center where the residents were willing to sell their pills to him. "They can easily make 600, 700, off this one bottle of pills, so that would double their social security for the month," he said. Gibson tried to quit cold turkey, but the withdrawal symptoms overwhelmed him. Then he met Brigitte, a sports massage therapist who became his wife. She worked on addressing the pain that was driving him to take pills. Several times a week, she stretched his muscles and tendons in his neck, back and legs. As the pain eased, Gibson took fewer pills. After he stopped entirely, he leaned on Brigitte when he had cravings. "There were a lot of talks at 3 a.m.," she said. Off painkillers, Gibson now sleeps better and eats healthier food. He has lost about 100 pounds. He has had surgery on his hip, feet and mouth, but has endured the pain without prescription drugs because he fears a relapse. "It was an everyday battle to say no, I don't want the pills," said Gibson, who had a sign in his hospital room telling nurses and doctors not to give him painkillers. "They are a road that I will never go down again." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
Most travelers descend on Granada, the ancient city in southern Spain, to nibble on tapas with their tinto de verano and wander, mouths agape, through the sprawling Alhambra complex. But it's worth saving energy and an appetite for some time in the Realejo area, where, along Calle San Matias and its neighboring streets, gourmands are transforming the historical Jewish quarter. "Realejo is a magical area of town," said Stefania Miccoli, an owner of Cacho e Pepe, an Italian specialty shop there that she and her partner, Giuseppe Epifani, opened in October 2013. Other destinations for chowhounds range from grocers like Agrolachar la Tienda that offer classic Andalusian delicacies, to indoor outdoor spots like Taberna de Jam, where locals come for upscale tapas. There's also a pleasant spot from which to explore it all. In a converted palace and hospital, this hotel has all the trappings of a luxurious place to rest one's head, complete with a cavernous, brick walled dining area and chic contemporary rooms named after literary figures like Washington Irving and Federico Garcia Lorca. Doubles start at 95 euros, or about 100 at 1.05 to the euro. This vegetarian friendly cafe calls its menu "retro fusion," and while the dishes, like the fried plantains at left, blend Mediterranean and Spanish flavors, Papaupa's most notable throwback element is its decor. Between the mismatched couches and mod lamps, the space is a mix between a set from "Boogie Nights" and Grandma's living room circa 1972. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
Betty Corwin inside a van with the video director Richard Stucker during the taping of the musical "Me and My Girl" at the Marquis Theater in 1987. Ms. Corwin ran the New York Public Library's Theater on Film and Tape Archive, an immense resource for the theater world. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts announced an ambitious program in 1970 to preserve evanescent theatrical performances for posterity on film. Betty L. Corwin was described as assisting the man in charge, the chief of research . But the project, which would become the renowned Theater on Film and Tape Archive, was the charismatic Ms. Corwin's baby. She proposed it to the library in 1969 and, told that she could pursue it as a volunteer, coaxed it into being through a feat of extraordinary diplomacy, persuading each theatrical union that recordings would neither lead to piracy nor harm the box office. "That's the only way that programs get started," the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paula Vogel, whom Ms. Corwin hired to be her secretary in the early 1980s, said in an interview. "As one woman shows." Ms. Corwin quickly became the archive's director and relentless fund raiser, and remained so until she stepped down in 2000 at 80. She was 98 when she died on Sept. 10 at her home in Weston, Conn. The still growing archive which at last count held 8,127 recordings, including artist interviews and theater related films and television programs has long been a rich resource for artists, students and researchers. When Audra McDonald was preparing to perform in "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune" on Broadway this summer , she went to the library to watch the archive's 1988 recording of the original Manhattan Theater Club production , starring Kathy Bates . The week that Mike Nichols died in 2014, he had an appointment to look at "Master Class," a version of which he was planning to direct for HBO. Before Ms. Corwin floated her idea to the library, researchers relied on remnants like programs, press clippings, design drawings and still photographs to gain a sense of past productions. Patrick Hoffman, Ms. Corwin's successor at the archive and its assistant director for several years before that, recalled her lamenting that great original productions she had seen like "The Glass Menagerie" with Laurette Taylor and "A Streetcar Named Desire" with Jessica Tandy were preserved only in memory. "Betty always said, 'We want to capture the crackle of live,'" Mr. Hoffman said. And so the archive did, making its first recording in the autumn of 1970: the obscure Japanese avant garde Off Broadway rock musical "Golden Bat." It wasn't until January 1974 that Ms. Corwin added her first Broadway show to the collection: "Liza," which Liza Minnelli performed at the Winter Garden Theater at the height of her fame . Another early coup for theatrical history was the Public Theater's pre Broadway production of "A Chorus Line," in 1975. The collection includes every play in August Wilson's 20th century cycle, starting with "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" in 1985; the 1978 New York Shakespeare Festival production of "The Taming of the Shrew," starring Meryl Streep and Raul Julia; the original Broadway production of "Angels in America," recorded in 1994; and the 1988 Lincoln Center Theater production of "Waiting for Godot," starring Robin Williams and Steve Martin. Ms. Corwin and the archive won a special Tony Award in 2001. Which shows are recorded depends on permission from the production, the judgment of the archive's director and, crucially, the means to pay for it. The producer Harold Prince was such a supporter of the archive, Mr. Hoffman said, that he established an endowment to help it document musical theater. Some shows, like the recent Broadway musical "The Prom," pay for their own taping. All that's generally required to watch the recorded productions, which become available after a show closes, is a New York Public Library card (or, for out of staters, a temporary visitor's card) and a valid research purpose. Betty Linkoff was born in New York City on Nov. 19, 1920, to James Linkoff, a bookmaker, and Mae (Rosenberg) Linkoff , a homemaker. She grew up in Manhattan. She worked as a script reader in a theatrical office and married Henry Corwin, a dermatologist, in 1943, eventually moving with him first to Westport, Conn., and then to Weston. She helped establish a progressive bookshop in Westport and volunteered in the psychiatric emergency room of Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
"People don't recognize me at all," Chris Evans said of the mustache he's grown for his "Lobby Hero" role. "It's like I'm invisible."Credit...Erik Tanner for The New York Times Why the linchpin of Marvel's "Avengers" movies and walking image of American fortitude is giving it all up to play a villain on Broadway (and learn to tap dance). "People don't recognize me at all," Chris Evans said of the mustache he's grown for his "Lobby Hero" role. "It's like I'm invisible." Chris Evans has a theory about tap dancing. "Tap is waiting to have its day," he said one recent afternoon, sitting in a TriBeCa hotel clubhouse around the corner from an apartment he's been renting since last month. Mr. Evans, or Captain America, as he's been known in omnipresent Marvel movies for the better part of a decade, tapped as a child and still has sincere reverence for the form. His theory is that tap dancing today, like competitive hip hop dancing in the early 2000s, is generally undervalued and ripe for a comeback. "If you walk down the street and you see someone tapping," you stop in your tracks, he said, using an unprintable word, "because it's awesome." Twice a week since he's been living in New York, Mr. Evans, who ordinarily splits his time between his native Boston and Los Angeles, has taken refuge in tap, clearing his mind and working up a sweat in private lessons taught by a friend. The lessons aren't preparation for any role in particular, although Mr. Evans is hard at work on a pivotal one: his Broadway debut, as a charming but manipulative cop in Kenneth Lonergan's "Lobby Hero," which is now in previews and opens March 26 at the Helen Hayes Theater. The dancing, rather, is just a low pressure new hobby ("It makes me feel like I'm a part of the music," Mr. Evans said.) Along with the play, and the move to a new city, it's one component in an ad hoc but inevitable process not quite a rebirth, more like a re orientation designed to help the 36 year old actor answer a nagging question: What do you do with your life after walking away from the role of a lifetime? And then there are the Avengers movies, in which the nobility of Mr. Evans's character is so unimpeachable that entire plotlines turn on the ticks of his moral compass. In the TriBeCa lounge, Mr. Evans volunteered his own stereotype: "Taciturn men who are leaders, selfless and magnanimous." Last year, he filmed back to back the final two Marvel movies for which he is under contract "Avengers: Infinity War," due in April, and a sequel planned for next year. For now, he has no plans to return to the franchise ("You want to get off the train before they push you off," he said), and expects that planned reshoots in the fall will mark the end of his tenure in the familiar red, white and blue super suit. It was in the midst of shooting "Infinity War" that Mr. Evans signed on for "Lobby Hero." Also starring Michael Cera, Brian Tyree Henry and Bel Powley, it inaugurates the nonprofit Second Stage Theater's recently remodeled Broadway venue. The choice will give those wondering about Mr. Evans's frame of mind plenty to chew on: His character, known only as Bill, is essentially a narcissistic creep, with a vision of protecting the innocent that lifts a warped mirror to the actor's usual procession of do gooders. Though "Lobby Hero" is his Broadway debut, Mr. Evans is not a total stranger to the theater. He grew up in Sudbury, Mass., outside of Boston, in a family of performers: His mother was a dancer who later ran a children's theater, his elder sister Carly studied drama at New York University and his younger brother Scott is a television actor who recently appeared on the Netflix comedy "Grace and Frankie." In high school, Mr. Evans balanced wrestling and lacrosse practice with Shakespeare, and was voted "most theatrical" after appearing in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "The Winter's Tale." The summer before his senior year, he moved to New York to intern for a casting company and went back to Sudbury with his first agent. By graduation, he'd landed a role on television, as one of three boys in a former all girls' school on the short lived Fox drama "Opposite Sex." He spent the next several years playing a series of clean cut hunks with an ambivalent relationship to their shirts: There was the shirtless jock in "Not Another Teen Movie," the shirtless musician in "What's Your Number?" and the shirtless flame throwing superhero in two "Fantastic Four" movies, which put him in Marvel's orbit. In conversation, Mr. Evans is more thoughtful and grounded than his filmography might suggest. He is animated by the challenge of playing against type, but has no regrets over his previous roles and surprisingly little anxiety about future prospects. "I used to have thoughts of wanting to climb to the top of something, or wanting to be somebody," he said. "But when you get the thing that you think you want and then you wake up and realize that you still have pockets of sadness, and that your struggle will reinvent itself, you stop chasing after those things and it's liberating, because you realize that right here, right now, is exactly all I need." Mr. Evans was wearing the urban camouflage of a black NASA baseball cap with a cuffed brim pulled low. At around 6 feet tall, he is much less physically imposing in person than he appears onscreen, with the unassuming athleticism of the friend you forget does CrossFit until beach season comes around. For the play, he recently grew a formidable mustache a mighty rust flecked horseshoe and gained a super power of a different sort. "People don't recognize me at all," he said. "I can look them right in the eye it's like I'm invisible." "Lobby Hero," which ran Off Broadway in 2001, follows several nights in the lives of four workers on the graveyard shift who are stratified by professional and social class. A pair of male security guards, one black and one white, have a series of run ins with a swaggering cop and his young female partner in the lobby of a nondescript Manhattan apartment building. "This isn't new," Mr. Lonergan said. "Anyone who's shocked by these issues I don't know where they've been." Mr. Cullman, the director, said he hoped "Lobby Hero" would further "expose toxic masculinity." "Kenny has given voice to Dawn's predicament in such a compassionate and powerful way," he said. Mr. Evans's newfound appetite for morally challenged characters has already been tested by Broadway's eight show a week routine. Two weeks into previews for "Lobby Hero," he said it had felt more like two months. But he's prepared for the part with the fervor of the newly indoctrinated. Mr. Evans's character is charismatic and often funny, and the actor devoted much of his rehearsal time to exploring how a man who is well liked can shade into reprehensible. "He has the right instrument to bring the character to life," said Mr. Cera, who worked with Mr. Evans on the 2010 film "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World." Mr. Cera pointed to one scene in which Bill threatens his partner. "The words on the page are menacing, but Chris made the choice to deliver them as if he himself is spinning out, which is much more frightening," he said. "It reduced Bel to tears one night because it was so unexpected." The actor, who said he didn't base his performance on anyone in particular ("It's awful to admit, but I know plenty of guys who fit this mold"), has been studying how to better conduct himself as an ally to women in his profession. One book he found eye opening was Rebecca Solnit's "The Mother of All Questions." Mr. Evans read it while dating the actress Jenny Slate (their on again, off again relationship, beloved by the internet, recently ended) and decided that he needed to listen more and speak less. "The hardest thing to reconcile is that just because you have good intentions, doesn't mean it's your time to have a voice," he said. As has become the norm for star driven plays on Broadway, "Lobby Hero" has a limited run, through May 13. And while the show is as substantial a leap as any Mr. Evans has made professionally, it remains a kind of riff on his existing resume. When it's over, he'll discover what it really means to be a film actor with Captain America's face (and bank account), but without the job. The last time he experienced anything similar was in 2016, when he took a year off from acting after wrapping the third Captain America film. Mr. Evans spent the time remodeling his house in Boston and bonding with his family. He visited his mother or sister every other day and marked the seasons with his nieces and nephews apple picking, pumpkin carving, decorating a Christmas tree. He raised an adopted puppy a regal mixed breed named Dodger and became a regular at his local grocery store. Mr. Evans said it was those slice of life domestic moments, rather than notions of any particular career path, that have most influenced his vision board. "When I think about the times that I'm happiest, it's not on a movie set," he said, adding that he no longer wishes to make more than one film per year. "I've stopped thinking about my trajectory, or my oeuvre, or whatever pretentious word you want to use. I'm just following whatever I feel creatively hungry for." He wants to direct (his directorial debut "Before We Go" screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014) and to start a family of his own. And, when he's had his fill of tap dancing, he envisions many more hobbies, including sculpting and carpentry. "I'm not afraid to take my foot off the gas," he said. "If someone said tomorrow, 'You're done, you can't do anything else,' I'd be O.K." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
He apparently did not tell any of his bosses, including David Rhodes, president of CBS News, that he planned to announce his farewell. Although Mr. Elliott was expected to move from his daily CBSN anchoring roles and take on a broader reporting job, CBS was not planning to publicize the move. On Monday, Mr. Rhodes decided to end CBS's relationship with Mr. Elliott and told him in a morning meeting. Mr. Rhodes told senior CBS News officials at an editorial meeting on Monday that he had asked Mr. Elliott to leave because his announcement on Friday had created unnecessary confusion, according to two people present at the meeting. Mr. Rhodes was also apparently concerned that Mr. Elliott's announcement could stoke unwanted speculation about Mr. Elliott's future, and the future of other anchors, according to the people present. News of Mr. Elliott's departure was reported by The New York Post. This is the third network that Mr. Elliott has departed in three years. He left ABC's "Good Morning America" in 2014 after a rough contract negotiation during which the network's news president at the time, Ben Sherwood, told staff members that ABC executives had "worked hard to close a significant gap between our generous offer and his expectations." Mr. Elliott left NBC the next year after a fitful turn with the sports division that resulted in few on air appearances. Mr. Elliott remains under contract at CBS for another year, and the network is expected to continue to pay him. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
President Trump's plan to lower prescription drug prices hit two major obstacles this week. He killed a proposal on Wednesday that would have reduced out of pocket costs for older consumers out of concern that it would raise premiums heading into his re election campaign. And a federal judge threw out a new requirement that drug companies disclose their prices in television ads. Administration officials rushed to assure the public that the double setback did not reflect failure on one of the president's signature issues, one that has fueled public outrage and drawn the attention of both parties. He has hinted that he is focusing in on a more audacious proposal, especially from a Republican president. It would tie some drug prices to those set by European governments, an idea that is tantamount to price controls and opposed by members of his own party. Yet Mr. Trump is said to be particularly taken with the idea because it fits with his "America First" approach. "The American senior and the American patient have been too long been asked to overpay for drugs to subsidize the socialist systems of Europe," said Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services. "It's time for the American patient to stop propping up the socialism of Europe." The administration and leading members of Congress have also been discussing legislative proposals, including negotiating directly with companies to set price caps on some drugs, and placing a limit on out of pocket spending by Medicare beneficiaries. The government efforts pack a broad populist appeal, particularly with older Americans, who remain one of the nation's most reliable voting blocs. But many of these plans face stiff opposition from the powerful pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies, which have already taken the administration to court on some issues. Another of Mr. Trump's goals ending so called surprise medical billing, when patients receive medical care, then get unexpected bills from providers who are not in their insurance network is also on shaky ground. Doctors and hospitals are pushing back fiercely against legislation moving through Congress. During a question and answer session with reporters, Mr. Azar tried to rebuff impressions that the administration's efforts to tackle drug prices were flailing. A former Eli Lilly executive, Mr. Azar had been the architect of the proposal abandoned on Wednesday that would have eliminated drug rebates that companies pay pharmacy benefit managers, like CVS Caremark or Express Scripts. Some argue that the hidden rebates help to drive up prices because the discounts are not passed on to consumers. His briefing also seemed a calculated attempt not only to convince the public that Mr. Trump was making progress, but also that he had strong ideas for improving the nation's health care system over all. Democrats successfully used Mr. Trump's attacks on the Affordable Care Act in last year's midterm elections, and are gearing up to do so again in 2020, focusing on the administration's decision to join forces in a court case with several states seeking to invalidate it. Mr. Trump's decision to withdraw the rebate rule represented a rare loss for the drug industry, which has long cultivated a friendly relationship with Republicans. It had strongly backed the rebate measure, in its attempt to blame pharmacy benefit managers for rising prices. The stocks of several major drugmakers, such as Merck, Eli Lilly and Pfizer, closed lower on Thursday, while the stocks of large insurers and pharmacy benefit managers were up. "Now that the administration has abandoned what it was going to do to address the middlemen, pharma is the only one sort of standing there with a target on its back," said Rob Smith, a director at Capital Alpha Partners. "I don't think they've ever been in a worse situation." In a statement, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the lead trade group, called the president's decision to drop the rebate rule disappointing. Mr. Azar contended that Congress might have better tools to rein in drug prices, and for now, the legislative package that is still being honed in Congress may offer Mr. Trump and Republicans a rallying point on the campaign trail. Mr. Azar and Joe Grogan, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, met on Capitol Hill on Tuesday with Republican lawmakers to discuss some of the proposals. Last Friday, Mr. Trump alluded to an executive order that would require pharmaceutical companies to offer the federal government among the lowest prices in the world. And on Wednesday in announcing a kidney care initiative, he mentioned drug prices again, saying, "I think we have some very big moments coming up very shortly." What Mr. Trump meant was not immediately clear. He may have been referring to a more modest plan already under review, which would apply only to drugs administered in doctors' offices or hospitals. But his remarks hewed to a familiar theme: The president has long railed against what he describes as "global freeloading" the fact that other countries negotiate far lower prices for drugs than what pharmaceutical companies charge in the United States. Mr. Azar has been the leading champion of trying to eliminate rebates as a centerpiece of the administration's plans to offer relief to consumers from rising drug costs. He was still promoting it as recently as June, to showcase how the market for drugs is broken. But fiscal conservatives at the White House had long balked at the potential cost, and others had worried about angering Medicare beneficiaries in an election year. Though it would have lowered out of pocket costs for older Americans with expensive drugs, the rule was expected to raise drug plan premiums for all Medicare beneficiaries. In May, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that the rule, if adopted, would cost taxpayers 177 billion within 10 years. The initiative was intended to eliminate after the fact rebates that drugmakers pay to the private companies that operate Medicare's Part D drug plans, and instead required that any discounts be passed to consumers at the pharmacy counter. Medicare beneficiaries with high drug costs often pay close to the list price, or a percentage of it, during certain phases of their coverage. They were required to do so even though, in many cases, the companies operating the plans were collecting rebates on the same drug. The rule had been opposed by the insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, who contended that they wielded the rebates to pressure drug companies to keep prices low, and used the savings to keep Medicare premiums low. But the drug industry has been campaigning for years that it is unfair for insurers to keep the rebates when consumers are paying the list price through high deductibles. "At the end of the day, while we support the concept of getting rid of rebates and I am passionate about the problems and the distortions in system caused by this opaque rebate system, we are not going to put seniors at risk of their premiums going up," Mr. Azar said. He then tossed the ball to Congress, saying it could take up the rebate issue. A pilot program announced last year has struck fear among drugmakers, who, like some Republicans in Congress, have described it as akin to foreign price controls. That project, unveiled in October, would tie the price of some drugs administered in medical offices like many cancer treatments to an international index of prices. The test program, under final review at the Office of Management and Budget, would last five years. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the powerful Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, denounced the idea last month, saying it could discourage research investments for new treatments. Conservative groups like Freedom Works and Americans for Tax Reform have been campaigning against the idea, too. Even if Mr. Trump signs a broader executive order tying federal spending to overseas drug prices, it is not clear how much impact it would have. Most Americans are covered by commercial health insurance, which negotiates with drugmakers themselves. In many other countries with nationalized health care, the government is the negotiator. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
With other sports leagues around the world shut down, the N.F.L. has a captive audience for the frenzied days of free agency, which began at noon Monday, when teams were officially permitted to start talking with unrestricted free agents. Trades will not be official, and teams cannot announce them, until the beginning of the league year at 4 p.m. on Wednesday. Trades and free agent deals are contingent on players' passing physicals. The global coronavirus pandemic has affected N.F.L. business, however, as the league has put travel restrictions in place to prohibit players from meeting with teams in person, and has required that players take physicals in cities where they live instead of at team facilities, which are closed. This year's round of free agency certainly is different from any other. That has not stopped teams from setting the market with seismic trades and re signings in an effort to improve their rosters. The league said Tuesday that teams would have a salary cap of 198.2 million this coming season. As in most years, quarterbacks are in demand, with Tom Brady, a free agent for the first time after a 20 year career with New England, headlining a cast of starting quarterback options that includes Philip Rivers and Teddy Bridgewater. Brady looking toward Tampa Bay: Brady turns 43 in August, and he announced on Tuesday that he would become an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career. Late Tuesday night, a person familiar with Brady's plans who requested anonymity said that a deal with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was expected to be finalized. DeAndre Hopkins to the Arizona Cardinals: The Texans have reportedly traded their best receiver and a fourth round draft pick to the Arizona Cardinals for running back David Johnson, a second round draft pick this year and a fourth round pick next year. The teams have not confirmed the exchange, but via Twitter on Monday Hopkins thanked the Texans and the city of Houston and said, "Now it's time to bring a championship to AZ!!" Teddy Bridgewater to the Carolina Panthers: Beloved during his stints in Minnesota and New Orleans, Bridgewater stabilized the Saints' 2019 season with a 67.9 completion percentage, 7.52 adjusted yards per attempt and just two turnovers in five starts, all victories during Drew Brees's absence. His performance ensured that, after two seasons as a backup, he would get a chance to start for the first time since sustaining a severe knee injury in 2016. According to The Charlotte Observer, the Panthers are close to a deal that would make him Newton's replacement. Philip Rivers to the Indianapolis Colts: Philip Rivers is moving east. After 16 years with the Chargers, Rivers is set to become the starting quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts, who plan to sign him to a one year, 25 million deal, according to ESPN. Rivers will reunite with two former Chargers coaches, Frank Reich and Nick Sirianni. Malcolm Jenkins to the New Orleans Saints: Saints Coach Sean Payton has said he regretted letting go of Jenkins, who spent his first five years with New Orleans. Now the Saints appear to be righting a wrong. At 32, Jenkins is still an effective safety, with 81 tackles and a career high nine quarterback hits last season. If he can play to form, he could improve the Saints' pass defense, which was in the bottom half of the league in 2019. Nick Foles to the Chicago Bears: After leading the Eagles to a Super Bowl victory two years ago, Foles fizzled last season with Jacksonville, where he had secured a four year, 88 million contract. He lost all four games he started at quarterback before getting injured. The Bears are betting he will bounce back in Chicago. According to ESPN, they traded a compensatory fourth round pick to the Jaguars, who will presumably stick with Gardner Minshew at quarterback. Byron Jones, CB: He has spent the last two seasons with Dallas demonstrating that he should be known less for his performance at the 2015 scouting combine, where he set an event record in the standing broad jump, than for his reliability in the secondary. After moving around the defensive backfield his first few seasons, Jones became the team's No. 1 corner in 2018, positioning himself for a huge deal this month. The best free agent cornerbacks always get paid, and Jones allowed only 0.39 yards per coverage snap on the outside last season, according to Pro Football Focus. Chris Harris Jr., CB: Once the league's best nickel corner, Harris was moved to the boundary for Denver last season, Vic Fangio's first as the head coach. The experiment capsized at least, when measured by Harris's standards. A smart team will restore him to the slot, the most demanding defensive position in a league where three receiver sets have become the norm, and watch him thrive again. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
HOW HARD CAN IT BE? By 372 pp. St. Martin's Press. 27.99. "Poor sense of well being? Check. Weight gain? Sadly. Depression? No. No, I'm just tired, that's all. Reduced sex drive? What sex drive? Signals from down below are now so intermittent it's like one of those black box flight recorders lost on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean." Can this be Kate Reddy, the same go getter we met 16 years ago in 's debut novel, "I Don't Know How She Does It"? The same protagonist who, when not outperforming her male colleagues at work, once found herself "distressing" store bought mince pies for a school event so they'd seem homemade? Here she is now, engaging in the self torture of every woman about to turn 50, otherwise known as looking in the mirror: "With two thumbs, I scoop up the skin under my chin and pull it back. For a second, my younger self stares back at me: startled, wistful, pretty." Hang on, Kate! You're still a pretty girl, just an older one. Yes, your body temperature now veers from auto fry to flash frozen within minutes, which somehow distracted you from noticing that a tire displaced your waistline. You'll find it again on the 12th of Never. No matter. In "How Hard Can It Be?," Kate, the Cambridge educated hedge fund manager from a modest background, is back. She's abandoned her job and the family's house in London for the Northern suburbs, to raise her daughter, Emily, and her son, Ben, while trying to steady her wobbly marriage to Richard and forget the American man of her dreams, Jack Abelhammer. However, Richard has now lost his job as an architect and is retraining as a therapist, so they're broke. Kate returns to work at the very fund she founded, unknown to its new management. But even to cover for a junior level employee on maternity leave, a 49 year old woman is anathema to the young men hiring. She tells them she's 42. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
A light micrograph of brain tissue of a person with Alzheimer's disease, which shows the characteristic tangles (the dark teardrop shapes) and amyloid plaques (the rounded brown agglomerations). The Diagnosis Is Alzheimer's. But That's Probably Not the Only Problem. Allan Gallup, a retired lawyer and businessman, grew increasingly forgetful in his last few years. Eventually, he could no longer remember how to use a computer or the television. Although he needed a catheter, he kept forgetting and pulling it out. It was Alzheimer's disease, the doctors said. So after Mr. Gallup died in 2017 at age 87, his brain was sent to Washington University in St. Louis to be examined as part of a national study of the disease. But it wasn't just Alzheimer's disease, the researchers found. Although Mr. Gallup's brain had all the hallmarks plaques made of one abnormal protein and tangled strings of another the tissue also contained clumps of proteins called Lewy bodies, as well as signs of silent strokes. Each of these, too, is a cause of dementia. Mr. Gallup's brain was typical for an elderly patient with dementia. Although almost all of these patients are given a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, nearly every one of them has a mixture of brain abnormalities. Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. For researchers trying to find treatments, these so called mixed pathologies have become a huge scientific problem. Researchers can't tell which of these conditions is the culprit in memory loss in a particular patient, or whether all of them together are to blame. Another real possibility, noted Roderick A. Corriveau, who directs dementia research programs at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, is that these abnormalities are themselves the effects of a yet to be discovered cause of dementia. These questions strike at the very definition of Alzheimer's disease. And if you can't define the condition, how can you find a treatment? In addition to plaques and tangles, other potential villains found in the brains of people with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's include silent strokes and other blood vessel diseases, as well as a poorly understood condition called hippocampal sclerosis. Potential culprits also include an accumulation of Alpha synuclein, the abnormal protein that makes up Lewy bodies. And some patients have yet another abnormal protein in their brains, TDP 43. No one knows how to begin approaching the multitude of other potential problems found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. So, until recently, they were mostly ignored. "I wouldn't say it's a dirty little secret," said Dr. John Hardy, an Alzheimer's researcher at University College London. "Everybody knows about it. But we don't know what to do about it." In interviews, some experts said they had been reluctant to talk much about mixed pathologies for fear of sounding too negative. But "at a certain point we have to be somewhat more realistic and rethink what we are doing," said Dr. Albert Hofman, chairman of the epidemiology department at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The problem began with the very discovery of Alzheimer's disease. In 1906, Dr. Alois Alzheimer, a German psychiatrist and neuroanatomist, described a 50 year old woman with dementia. On autopsy, he found peculiar plaques and twisted, spaghetti like proteins known as tangles in her brain. Ever since, they have been considered the defining features of Alzheimer's disease. But scientists now believe this woman must have had a very rare genetic mutation that guarantees a person will get a pure form of Alzheimer's by middle age. Patients with the mutation appeared to develop only plaques and tangles, and no other pathologies. So for decades, plaques and tangles were the focus of research into dementia. The rare genetic mutations led to an overproduction of amyloid, it turned out, the abnormal protein in those plaques. To many scientists, that suggested that amyloid was the fundamental cause of Alzheimer's disease. More plaques usually meant more severe dementia, in both older and younger patients. So researchers tested drugs that could attack amyloid or stop its production in genetically engineered mice. The drugs worked beautifully. Scientists recognized that mice were an imperfect model they never develop dementia but the studies were encouraging. So it was a huge disappointment when, over and over, those drugs failed in clinical trials in patients. Tests of anti plaque drugs continue, despite the increasing recognition that many factors may combine to cause dementia or that, perhaps, the true cause has yet to be found. "What motivates us is the depth of the unmet need," said Dr. Dan Skovronsky, chief scientific officer of the drug company Eli Lilly, which continues to investigate anti amyloid treatments. "That's why we keep going forward. But it is such a tough, tough problem, and made tougher because of the mixed pathology." What to do now? Scientists are struggling the reframe the problem. Some think research should be more focused on age. "We can't avoid the fact the number one risk factor for Alzheimer's disease is age, and many of these other pathologies are age associated," said Dr. John Morris, a professor of neurology at Washington University in St. Louis. "We don't see them in younger people." Carol Brayne, an epidemiologist at Cambridge University, has been saying as much for decades. There is something significant, she has found, about the obvious fact that the older a person gets, the more likely he or she is to develop dementia. By their 90s, one out of every two people has dementia. A more optimistic view is that there may be something in the brain that sets off a cascade of multiple pathologies. If true, blocking that factor could stop the process and prevent dementia. Dr. Hofman is convinced that the precipitating factor is diminished blood flow to the brain. "Alzheimer's disease is a vascular disease," he said. Supporting this view, he added, are data from nine studies in the United States and Western Europe consistently finding a 15 percent decline in the incidence of new Alzheimer's cases over the past 25 years. "Why is that? I think the only reasonable candidate is improved vascular health," Dr. Hofman said. The most important factor is the decline in smoking, he believes, but people in rich countries also are more likely to better control high blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Dr. Seth Love, professor of pathology at the University of Bristol in England, noted that a core feature of Alzheimer's is a reduction in blood flow through the cerebrum of the brain. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
From the doorstep of 52 Mercer Street in SoHo on a recent Thursday night, a line of women mostly in their 20s and 30s, exuding anticipation, snaked halfway around the next block. A man asked what they were waiting for as he walked by. No one seemed to notice him and no one answered. What business was it of his anyway? Read More: The Wing is a women's utopia. Unless you work there. Upstairs from iPadded list checkers, on the fifth floor, was the 10,000 square foot second location of the Wing, a women only club and co working space in New York City that a year into its founding is poised to take across the country its particular brand of Instagrammable feminism: mindful of history, striving for diversity and sponsored by Chanel. The club now has more than 1,500 members, many of whom are paying 3,000 annually for access to the Wing's locations, which by March will include Brooklyn and Washington, D.C. Los Angeles and San Francisco are likely next. Next week, like Goop before it, the Wing will offer the first edition of a print magazine, No Man's Land, which will be sold at Barnes Noble and newsstands. "It is more than a members' pamphlet," said Deidre Dyer, the magazine's executive editor. "We wanted it to be meaty and substantial." But the Wing has stood out because of its glamorous founders, Audrey Gelman and Lauren Kassan, both 30, who have cultivated a circle of social media celebrities that includes the writer, editor and actress Tavi Gevinson, Jessica Williams (formerly of "The Daily Show") and the transgender actress and Gucci model Hari Nef, who appears on the cover of No Man's Land. (The profile of Ms. Nef was edited by a New York Times Magazine staff editor who is also a Wing member.) "We have a lot of members who are transgender, who are trans women," Ms. Gelman said; they include Chelsea Manning. Ms. Gevinson, also featured in No Man's Land, was initially reluctant to join the Wing. "I work from home, and that's how I can almost justify my rent," she said. Then she went to visit the first club, which opened in the Flatiron district in October 2016: awash in millennial pink, with softly lit desks for working, a beauty room for primping, a snack bar with coffees and organic granola, plenty of art, a lactation room and a large library of color organized books written by and about women. "The look of it is out of my dreams," Ms. Gevinson said. "It's crazy that that place exists in real life. I joined right away." Over the course of 18 months, the club raised more than 10 million from investors, most recently from a group led by Tony Florence, a general partner at the venture capital firm NEA. He also backs Goop, the luxury shopping site Moda Operandi and Casper, the mattress company. As a man, he has been allowed to visit the Wing only when members are not present. "My ability to understand the market opportunity and the need for this kind of business extends beyond man or woman," Mr. Florence said of his involvement. "It's a very attractive financial model." What remains to be seen is what kind of business the bigger Wing might be: a locus of a mediacentric feminist movement, like Ms. in the 1970s, or a mass scaled temple of "exclusivity," like Soho House, if Soho House wrapped itself in a marketing banner of she power. Ms. Gelman, a former political press representative who worked on the 2013 campaign of the New York City comptroller Scott Stringer, helped inspire the character Marnie on the television show "Girls," created by Lena Dunham. Native Manhattanites who met in adolescence through Ms. Gelman's mother, who was Ms. Dunham's therapist, they became close friends at Oberlin College and were avidly covered by the press as their stars rose together in young adulthood. Ms. Gelman appeared on "Girls" several times as Audrey, Marnie's nemesis. Her romance with the fashion photographer Terry Richardson was well documented. Vanity Fair put her on its best dressed list. Vogue covered her wedding to Ilan Zechory, a founder of Genius, the music website (Ms. Dunham was a bridesmaid). She got the idea for her current venture after getting a job at the political consulting firm SKDKnickerbocker, which has offices in SoHo and Washington. Commuting frequently from her home in Brooklyn, Ms. Gelman longed for a place where she could change her clothes, take a shower or chill between meetings. She thought it might be called Refresh. But "Refresh is such a bad name," she said last week, sitting at a round marble table in a pink conference room with Ms. Kassan; their partnership began at the suggestion of Ms. Kassan's husband. "It sounds like a vaginal douche product." "I think it might be," said Ms. Kassan, who previously worked in boutique fitness, as the director of business development for ClassPass and for the studio company SLT. Experienced in operations and community management, she is the "back of the house" partner to Ms. Gelman's frontwoman. "We like Audrey and we liked Audrey's conviction that women wanted to be with other women, in a safe place that was also beautiful," Ms. Lyne said in a phone interview. "Audrey said, 'I've changed in a Starbucks bathroom one too many times.'" By the spring of 2016, they found a 3,500 square foot space on the 12th floor of a building on East 20th Street to rent, and hired an all female team Alda Ly, an architect, and Chiara de Rege and Hilary Koyfman, interior designers to realize their vision. Ms. Koyfman described the look of the Wing to Domino magazine as "kind of like 'Mad Men' without the men." The Wing also began to work on branding with a women only design team from Pentagram. Ms. Gelman took charge of social media marketing. ("We're a coven, not a sorority" is how she describes the Wing on Instagram.) For its founding membership of 200 women, Ms. Gelman and Ms. Kassan tapped their networks: media professionals, entrepreneurs and artists, sometimes bartering membership, which then cost 2,100 a year, for services. There was an immediate waiting list. When the club opened, the Wingers, like many women around the country, were anticipating a historic election of the first female president of the United States. When that didn't happen, the founders said, the space took on new urgency. "We had the expectation that we would have the first women president and it would be the golden age of feminism and women get to have rooms like these as a result of that momentum," Ms. Gelman said. "Very quickly overnight it went to feeling a little protective." "It's like a 'Sex and the City' of today," Ms. Kassan said of "Younger," "and it's like we were a pretend thing on 'Sex and the City,' which is awesome." The Plumber, and Other Conundrums Back in reality, the around the block line in SoHo comprised women who had just been named members, allowed into the new space before existing members. The initiates grouped around tarot card readers, political/feminist slogan button making stations, a potion making table and a booth for voter registration. There was food, wine and massive Rice Krispie treats in the shape of the Wing's W logo. The scene had all the awkward excitement of a new student mixer at a women's college. Mandi Nyambi, 24, sat on a couch by herself. Ms. Nyambi, who works for a digital platform, is one of those who will pay 3,000 per year for access to all the clubs. "If I tried to get a co working space elsewhere, it would cost about the same and I would miss out on the value proposition of the wealth of having this network of other women," she said. She is hoping that after the parties finish, the Wing truly will be a place for work and serious connection. "I'm a little overwhelmed," she said. Margit Detweiler, a 50 year old new member, was standing back, beholding the crowd. She joined the Wing, she said, because she lives in Brooklyn and needs "a pit stop" in Manhattan. "How often are you in a space like this with all women?" said Ms. Detweiler, the founder of the TueNight, an online magazine and live events company for women over 40. "The energy is palpable." (The Wing's founders say they are trying to increase non millennial membership.) Ms. Gelman and Ms. Kassan were milling about the party and greeting new members. Ms. Gelman was carrying a Red Bull and iPhone. Ms. Kassan was carrying in utero her first child, due in January. It had been a long week of 18 hour on their feet work days leading up to the opening. They didn't even have time to go home to get ready for the party; they had primped, naturally, in the Wing's beauty room filled with Chanel products. Brands are now paying the club for marketing access to members. Earlier this fall, each member received a big bottle of Chanel perfume in the mail. Hulu sponsored a "Handmaid's Tale" event at the Flatiron club, for which Margaret Atwood, the book's author, made a special video. Thanks in part to such enticements, some members hardly ever leave. Scarlett Curtis, 22, is the Gen Z columnist for The Sunday Times of London and a student at New York University. She learned about the Wing after following Ms. Gelman on Instagram. Her parents paid for the first six months, and she says she pays the dues herself now. Ms. Curtis is so frequently at the Wing that when she complains to her father that she doesn't have a boyfriend, he says, "Stop hanging out at the Wing all the time." He's just jealous that he can't visit the space, Ms. Curtis said, remembering with amusement the day a male plumber visited and an employee charged with community building "told every member there was a man coming into the space." Ms. Gelman and Ms. Kassan say they try to hire and commission women for every service the company needs, but that sometimes it's most important to look beyond gender. "Our electrician isn't a woman," Ms. Kassan said in the conference room. Ms. Gelman said, "It's also one of those things where it has to work as a business." As at a gym, Ms. Kassan pays particular attention to usage patterns of members to track what members of what professions and ages come to the space at what time. She and Ms. Gelman then consider who might fill in the gaps (they would like to have more members who are doctors, for example), as well as demographics including religion, race, sexual orientation and gender identification, among others. Internally, they refer to the process as "minority led membership." "We do ask members to send us one social media profile just so we can understand more about them," Ms. Gelman said. Raven Stralow, 33, works with addicts and their families, and she also owns with her husband a farm in upstate New York. She was having many meetings in Manhattan and began to comparison shop co working spaces. She looked at Ludlow House but thought the people looked too conspicuously hip. She looked into WeWork but didn't like the culture of drinking she heard about. She saw the Wing on Instagram and applied, thinking she wouldn't get in. "I don't have a ton of Instagram followers, I don't have a curated anything," Ms. Stralow said. But she was accepted quickly, and has felt very comfortable there. "I'm a woman of color and I wear my hair natural," she said. The beauty room at the Wing includes products and combs that suit her hair. "There always seems to be an effort of inclusion," she said. There are challenges to this effort. Along with the membership fees, there are charges of 30 per hour for semiprivate work rooms and for the snack bar's food, coffee and wine (no outside food is allowed inside). This limits the economic diversity of membership. Ms. Kassan and Ms. Gelman are sensitive to criticism of elitism and said they plan to announce a scholarship program next year. "It was never my goal to go into business to begin with and certainly not to go into business to create a product for the uber wealthy, and I don't think it is," Ms. Gelman said. The Wing is also in the interesting position of marketing a women only company at a moment when the progressive forces in American culture are pushing for a less binary, more fluid interpretation of gender, as evinced by Ms. Nef's presence on the cover of No Man's Land. If a person applied for membership who looked like a man but said he identified as a woman, Ms. Gelman said they would likely check out the person's social media feeds and look for other indications of the person "living as a woman," she said. They have looked to women's colleges for guidance on how to construct their policies. Barnard College, for example, stipulates that it "will consider for admission those applicants who consistently live and identify as women." But it is a staple of such colleges' English curriculums, Virginia Woolf, whose guiding specter still hovers over the enterprise. "We still believe women deserve spaces of their own," Ms. Gelman said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
Yet that dreamlike ambiguity is the most compelling element of "Zauberland," an intense and thoughtful, though frustrating, work. It opens with Ms. Bullock and Mr. Tiberghien commencing what seems a traditional performance of "Dichterliebe." Soon Ms. Bullock's singer is accosted by two male actors , who blindfold her, tear off the outer layer of her concert dress, prod and beseech her, and lay her on a wood bed. Singing a lieder recital, with its confining protocols, can seem rarefied. "Dichterliebe," Schumann's settings of Heine poems about the unrequited and bitter love of a young man, is at once a timeless exploration of longing and a poetic sojourn far from the roiling issues of the contemporary world . Is the character of the singer someone with a social conscious whose thoughts drift to the plight of refugees? After the first few Schumann songs, the first new one is heard: "Ah dead even so." Then, "Dichterliebe" continues, followed by another grim, restless Foccroulle song, "I walk in the dark to a tree," which tells of ominous men in black suits who lay down a woman in wedding clothes and spread her hair out in a "ring of flames." Mr. Foccroulle's musical language deftly combines elements of 12 tone writing, skittish pointillist piano riffs, sonorities that recall Messiaen and milky Impressionist textures. Boulez's astringent yet sensual music seems a model. The identities of the Schumann singer and the Syrian refugee begin to blur. Schumann's protagonist sings of a "magical land" ("Zauberland," in German) where one's heart could be free and full of joy. And the refugee longs not just for a new homeland, but also for intimate connection with a lover. Still, the show loses its dramatic thread, especially during the overextended final segment devoted to 17 of Mr. Foccroulle's songs which, for all the music's intricacy, become inflated. Much of "Zauberland" is good; the creators should bring focus to the material and get it right. And Ms. Bullock's performance was extraordinary. "This is who we've been waiting for," the director Peter Sellars recently told The New York Times. Indeed, as her dedication to this worthy project made clear. Also on Oct. 30 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater, Manhattan; lincolncenter.org. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
Around the summer of 2016, shortly after his second album, "Love Hate," was released, Michael Kiwanuka started getting texts from Russell Crowe. The texts were friendly compliments about his music, invitations to get a beer, enthusiastic updates about works in progress but felt strangely portentous, like being invited behind a velvet rope. After all, Crowe, the Academy Award winning star of "Gladiator," was seeking out and befriending Kiwanuka, an acclaimed but relatively obscure singer songwriter who still felt grateful for more than a few hundred likes on Instagram. Kiwanuka felt the strangeness most intensely when he went to one of Crowe's dinner parties. He hadn't known it was a dinner party. He just thought Crowe was inviting him to hang out. But there he was, at a dining table in Crowe's expensive London hotel suite, as a parade of Britain's tabloid elite walked in and sat next to him: David Beckham, Tom Jones, Ed Sheeran. He could feel the eyes in the room bearing down on him, all of which seemed to be asking the same question: Who in the hell is that? Kiwanuka's third album, called "Kiwanuka" and out Friday, is a hard won answer to that question. It's a muscular, multilayered declaration of self worth and reliance from an artist who has been open about his insecurities, both as a "Black Man in a White World," as he put it in a trenchant 2016 song, and as a rock and soul singer who was born into the wrong decade. His first album, "Home Again" (2012), impressed critics with its observant, soul flecked folk songs, delivered in a rich, full bodied voice that sounded the way drinking hot cocoa in front of a crackling fireplace feels. But it was "Love Hate" an eclectic reanimation of psych rock, political R B and funk, which, among other distinctions, spawned the unlikely theme song for "Big Little Lies" that first showed the artist growing into his talents, and earned him a seat at that table with Beckham and Sheeran. (Kiwanuka, an introvert, said he only lasted at the party for about two hours.) He re teamed with the producers of "Love Hate," Danger Mouse and Inflo, to make "Kiwanuka," on which questions of ego, identity and belonging receive top billing. "If you don't belong, live in the trouble," he sings on the upbeat first single, "You Ain't the Problem," putting a finger on what could be the album's thesis statement. Earlier this fall, Kiwanuka, 32 , sat at a sidewalk cafe in Williamsburg, Brooklyn wearing his signature unkempt Afro and high top Chuck Taylors and discussed feeling perpetually "one step away" from social acceptance as a child, the effect getting married had on his songwriting and the prognosis for rock 'n' roll in the 21st century. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. "You Ain't the Problem" is a kind of pep talk for people who might feel rejected, or fear rejection. Was that something that you needed to hear? It was a little, yeah. I was thinking about being an artist and, specifically, how I used to get really self conscious at festivals. I would see my favorite artists, or people who I thought were really cool and had these things that I aspired to have, and I'd be like "Man, I don't know how to do that"; or "My songs are like this, but if only they were like that." I just got really tired of that negative, beat yourself up mentality. I started to think, "Screw this, man: There's nothing wrong with me. Of course I can work on myself and grow, but enough of this self deprecating attitude. Let me just enjoy this amazing experience of being an artist, and believe in myself, and keep going." "Hero," the second single, is almost the flip side of that. It's "I'm everything you ever wanted. Now what?" I was thinking about what it takes to become a big name, like a full blown superstar. A lot of the times it's inventing this image, or an alter ego, like Elton John or Bob Dylan or David Bowie. I really hated that idea, because I've taken so long just to be really happy with myself the last thing I want to do is try to make up this new character. So "Hero" is kind of posing that question: If I do all of these things, will I become this iconic big singer? Alienation and self worth are recurring themes in your music. Is that the legacy of your childhood in London? Yeah. My family and I stuck out so much in the town we were in. It was mostly white people. I was lucky because I had a fun upbringing, but I never quite slotted in anywhere perfectly. I would listen to rock music and indie, but I could never dress like those kids did I couldn't even figure out where to get the clothes from. And even when we would go to Uganda, they would call me and my brother "mzungu," which can mean either English or white man. So everywhere I went I was always just one step away from being the thing that everyone else was. It wasn't until I started playing in bands and making my own music in secondary school that I felt like I found a place where I really belonged. Since "Love Hate," you've gotten married and entered your 30s. Has it changed you? It has; I think it really helped improve my confidence. All that stuff about comparing myself to other artists, or feeling insecure in the studio, it really started to die down after I got married. I'm enjoying the skin I'm in a bit more. There's just a peace in feeling like "This is my team." It's made me care more about other people. It's funny, because I love melancholy stuff so much. But now I do want to sing about more joyful things, instead of just "Cold Little Heart." There's a song on this album called "Piano Joint" that originally had a different theme and chorus. It used to be "My oh my, it's sad in love." Danger Mouse and I liked it a lot, and it rhymed perfectly. But I just couldn't sing it it was too negative. When I went to record it for the album, I told the engineer that I had to change the lyrics. So now it's "My oh my, this kind of love," and it's about how even in the hard times, love is what gets you through. If I had left it the other way, I wouldn't have been able to perform it every night. It wouldn't have been true. You mentioned feeling like an outlier as a black kid who listened to rock. It made me think of how much rock itself has fallen outside of the mainstream. Definitely. I think it's lost some relevance for now. I think it got to the point where it was so based in aesthetics, the skinny jeans and everything, that it was almost a joke. If you said you were in an indie band, people would kind of roll their eyes at you. So right now, it's in a bit of a timeout. But everything goes in cycles. The good thing is, if you're making rock and indie now, you're definitely not doing it to be cool, or make millions of dollars. And I think sometimes that's how you get those game changing albums that shock people with something that feels real and true and unexpected. I definitely think music could do with something like that again. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
'LUNCH BUNCH' at 122CC (previews start on March 18; opens on March 29). Sarah Einspanier's compassionate comedy, about public defenders, their midday meals and what we owe to ourselves and one another, comes back for seconds. The Play Company revives this Summerworks show, directed by Tara Ahmadinejad with a cast that includes the original players Ugo Chukwu, Keilly McQuail and Julia Sirna Frest. 866 811 4111, playco.org 'NOLLYWOOD DREAMS' at the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater (previews start on March 19; opens on April 13). Jocelyn Bioh, an actress and playwright who has a wicked way with comedy, premieres a new play. In Lagos, Nigeria, in the 1990s, Ayamma (Sandra Okuboyejo), a travel agent, fantasizes about becoming a leading lady in that country's burgeoning film industry. Then she gets the chance. Saheem Ali directs for MCC. 646 506 9393, mcctheater.org Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead. 'ANATOMY OF A SUICIDE' at the Atlantic Theater Company at the Linda Gross Theater (closes on March 15). Alice Birch's play, dazzling in its form and devastating in its effect, ends its Off Broadway run. With dizzying simultaneity, the play follows three generations of women (Carla Gugino, Celeste Arias, Gabby Beans) in the throes of suicidal depression. Lileana Blain Cruz directs. 866 811 4111, atlantictheater.org 'EMOJILAND: THE MUSICAL' at the Duke on 42nd Street (closes on March 19). Get your sad faces ready as this symbolist musical by Keith Harrison and Laura Schein shuts down. A romantic comedy set inside a smartphone and starring Lesli Margherita and Lucas Steele, it was described by Laura Collins Hughes as "the kind of sheer fun that sends you back into the world feeling a little more upbeat." 646 223 3010, emojiland.com | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
Book your accommodations through Airbnb and be sure to take out the garbage. If you really want to get a feeling for a city, my experts agreed, do not stay in a hotel. Hotels cater to what they think are your tastes and go out of their way to make you comfortable. Instead, find an actual home that allows you to experience genuine life. Stumble around during a power failure. Take a shower without hot water. Sort the trash; did the neighbors give you the stink eye? Recycling regulations vary from country to country but can be astoundingly complex. Japan has eight categories of trash, including combustibles, noncombustibles, plastics and plastic bottles. If you don't put the right detritus in the right bag, your garbage may be publicly branded with what one expatriate blogger in Nagoya described as "the red sticker of shame." Stop by a local grocery store. Did you find peanut butter and Pop Tarts? Of course not, but even if it's hard to imagine life without typical American foodstuffs, don't despair. George Eves, the British raised, Amsterdam based founder of Expat Info Desk, a website that produces guides for expatriates, said that a growing number of non American businesses cater to American tastes. Mr. Eves singled out My American Market, a French website that sells Dr Pepper, jelly beans and Aunt Jemima syrup among its 900 products. Despite such bounty, there will be difficult to sate cravings that a brief vacation may not reveal, so think hard about what you may miss. A Quora survey answered by 24 American expats pinpointed Mexican food as the No. 1 yearning. For those serious about Cape Breton, Mr. Calabrese warned that the nearest Ikea is a 20 hour drive. It's the best way to get a sense of the local topography and find out where everyone goes on weekends. Keep in mind that gas prices are all over the map. The highest price is in Hong Kong ( 6.86 per gallon), the lowest in Kuwait (86 cents per gallon). A study by the traffic app Waze, based on data from 50 million drivers, rated the Netherlands the best country overall for driving, El Salvador the worst. Take off your jacket and imagine the sun beating down on you in midsummer 20 years from now. What may seem like a pleasant climate in spring may be a sopping inferno in summer or cryogenic tank in winter. "If you've never lived by the Equator, you may find you hate being in air conditioning all the time," said Mr. Eves, who has lived in India, Poland, South Africa, Russia and Ukraine, among other places. There's also global warming to consider. Prognosticators say the countries that will endure it best have both fortunate geographic locations and strategies for mitigating the impact. A University of Notre Dame index put Germany and Iceland at the top of the list, Chad at the bottom. Tour the local institutions: real estate offices, international schools, houses of worship but not the hospital, if you can help it. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
SANTA MONICA, Calif. In 2006, when Tom Hanks wanted to get a story published, he sent it to his friend and sometime director Nora Ephron. Having had my own writing critiqued by her, I know just how daunting that could be. The piece was a sweet paean to his makeup man Danny Striepeke, then 75 years old and retiring, a 50 year Hollywood veteran who had started by giving Elvis Presley his tan in "Viva Las Vegas" and Laurence Olivier his Roman nose in "Spartacus" and ended by turning Mr. Hanks into a policeman, an astronaut, an Army Ranger, an F.B.I. agent, a Master of the Universe, a Slavic tourist stuck in an airport, Santa Claus and a Harvard professor of symbology. Hanks sent Ms. Ephron the piece she got mail! and asked, "Is this a thing?" "And she said, 'Yes, it is a thing. Send it to The New York Times. I'll make some calls for you. It shouldn't be in the Sunday Styles section but maybe in the Thursday Styles section,"' Mr. Hanks recalls. And after many rewrites and lots of no mercy Nora editing, like "What does this mean?" and "This is not good" and "Voice, voice, voice" and "Tell people what you're going to tell them, and then tell them, and then tell them what you just told them," it was finally published in Thursday Styles. And it is interesting, given that Mr. Hanks and Rita Wilson are celebrated as the king and queen of Hollywood, that there is a strain of melancholy that runs through many of the stories about small town characters. In one, "A Special Weekend," a 9 year old named Kenny is being raised by his moody father and brisk stepmother in a Northern California town with a throng of siblings and stepsiblings because his mother, a pretty waitress, broke up with his father when Kenny was little. He gets to spend a birthday weekend with his mother, who arrives in a cloud of perfume, with red lipstick that matches her red roadster. When Mr. Hanks was 5, living in Redding, Calif., his parents separated. His mother, a waitress, kept the youngest of the four children while Tom went with the other two to live with his father. He was playing with his siblings one night when he was told he had to go with his father. He was a cook who married twice more and Tom had lots of stepsiblings and lived with a lot of upheaval. "By the age of 10, I'd lived in 10 houses." "By and large, they were all positive people and we were all just kind of in this odd potluck circumstance," he said, adding that he still vividly recalls the confusion of being that little boy. "I could probably count on one hand the number of times I was in a room alone with my mom, or in a car alone. That is not exactly what happened to me, but there were times when either my mom or my dad the same thing was true for both in which being alone with them, I realized, was like, 'This is a special time.' For other people, it's not a special time. It's just part and parcel to the day." He took Ms. Ephron's advice to heart. His voice is recognizably Hanks, with lots of Norman Rockwell phrasing: lollygagging, yowza, thanked his lucky stars, titmouse, knothead, atta baby. He tried to write his fiction on a typewriter but concedes, "I only made it about five pages in." That delete key on a laptop is too alluring. All different brands of typewriters Royals and Remingtons and Continentals make cameos in the stories, with pictures. It's "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs" version of Alfred Hitchcock giving himself a walk on in his movies. When I ask Mr. Hanks how he fell in love with typewriters, he tells the basic story in "These Are the Meditations of My Heart," noting, "I changed the gender so they wouldn't all be about confused young men." It's a yarn about a young woman who finds a cheap typewriter at a church parking lot sale, goes to a Polish repairman to get it fixed and ends by upgrading to a Swiss sea foam green Hermes 2000, the Mercedes of typewriters, with an Epoca typeface. Did his stint on the early '80s sitcom "Bosom Buddies," in which he dressed in drag, "Some Like It Hot" style, to live in an apartment building restricted to women, help him write in a woman's voice? "I'm not sure that Lenny Ripps and Chris Thompson wrote in women's voices per se," he says with a smile, referring to the show's writers. "I think between all the women that I worked for and with and gave birth to and married, they all had a great amount of input." That character wants a typewriter because her handwriting is so bad. Mr. Hanks says that's his problem, too, that his handwriting is "horrible, horrible." I had read that he got diabetes from gaining and losing a lot of weight for roles, but he tells me: "No, I got it from a life of the worst diet on the planet earth. I just ate sugar and stuff all my life." Although he admits he's not "impervious to perks" going on private planes is "literally like crack cocaine" he said he didn't have any trouble writing about ordinary people beyond the Hollywood bubble. "Life here is not like 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,"' he says. "No one wears that much lip gloss 24 hours a day or constantly goes out to restaurants only to have arguments about 'You didn't invite me to your daughter's bat mitzvah."' When one of his stories, a whimsical tale set in the future about four friends who build a spaceship and fly to the moon besides typewriters, Mr. Hanks has long been obsessed with flying to the moon appeared in The New Yorker in 2014, a couple of critics pounced. Slate complained that it was "a mediocre story that breezed past the bodyguards because of its Hollywood pedigree" and another writer in The Chicago Tribune, admitting envy, called Mr. Hanks "a dabbler at best." "Just don't read the comments because nothing good can come out of it," he says. "Have you ever had someone say, 'I read the greatest review of your book,' or 'the most glowing review of your movie,' and you read it and you say, 'That's not a glowing review. This guy takes cheap shots left and right and he didn't get the point.' Look, I'm 61. I don't have time to read about how bad or how good I was at something. Just let it sit out there and they have to deal with the fact that I'm the famous guy who got my name in the paper." I ask him if he's going for a Pegot (Pulitzer, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony). He laughs and says that sometimes you just have to take a risk and be bad at something and get outside yourself and have somebody else critique it and throw stuff away and work harder and that's how you get better. "I went through some things like, Well, it looks like a piece of writing. It's on a piece of paper with the right format. And it ain't." "It's not a matter of not willing to get dark," he says. "Look, I played an executioner in a movie. Then the journalist says, 'Yeah, but you were a nice executioner.' It wasn't fun to play a guy whose job it is to put everybody to death. In 'Road to Perdition,' I played a guy who shot people in the head. And you know what they say? 'Yeah, but you shot him in the head for all the right reasons.' I'm not interested to play a guy who is some version of 'Before I kill you, Mr. Bond, would you like a tour of my installation?' I like stories in which everybody makes sense, so you can hear their different motivations and understand them, as opposed to 'When this elixir goes in the Gotham City water structure, then the city will be mine!' "I think the best examples of a bad guy that I would jump to be able to play would be Richard III or Iago. I get that. Richard III is this misshapen guy who's sick of being treated like a dog and he's got a shot at being the king of England, and Iago lost out on a promotion. But the vast majority of bad guys what am I going to do, play Loki? No one wants to see me do that. But I could play Jefferson Davis. The biggest thing I have to consider is: What's my countenance? I don't have a great deal of mystery." Doesn't he ever want to be like Larry David and start yelling at people on the street? It must be hard when everyone expects you to always be nice. "I think I am! I'm sorry!" he says, laughing. "I think I give everybody a fair shake. But I will tell you this, and there's plenty of people who can attest to it, don't take advantage of my good nature, because the moment that you do, you're gone, you're history. I mean, look, I'm not a sap. I'm not naive. At least I don't think I am. I understand that part of it is my nature, part of it is my DNA, part of it is the sum total of everything I went through, and it came out O.K. But part of it is a choice that just says, How do I want to spend my day? How do I want to spend these hours, pissed off at something or you just kind of let it roll off you. But don't take advantage of my good nature because if you do, it will come back to haunt you and you will hear from me in no uncertain terms. I've yelled at people." Even used vulgarities. "I've never worked with Harvey," Mr. Hanks says, after a long pause. "But, aah, it all just sort of fits, doesn't it?" Why did Hollywood help shelter him, if everyone knew about the decades of abusive behavior? "Well, that's a really good question and isn't it part and parcel to all of society somehow, that people in power get away with this?" he says. "Look, I don't want to rag on Harvey but so obviously something went down there. You can't buy, 'Oh, well, I grew up in the '60s and '70s and so therefore. ..." I did, too. So I think it's like, well, what do you want from this position of power? I know all kinds of people that just love hitting on, or making the lives of underlings some degree of miserable, because they can." They think their achievements entitle them, he says, noting: "Somebody great said this, either Winston Churchill, Immanuel Kant or Oprah: 'When you become rich and powerful, you become more of what you already are.' "So I would say, there's an example of how that's true. Just because you're rich and famous and powerful doesn't mean you aren't in some ways a big fat ass. Excuse me, take away 'fat.' But I'm not, you know, I'm not the first person to say Harvey's a bit of an ass. Poor Harvey I'm not going to say poor Harvey, Jesus. Isn't it kind of amazing that it took this long? I'm reading it and I'm thinking 'You can't do that to Ashley Judd! Hey, I like her. Don't do that. That ain't fair. Not her, come on. Come on!'" I ask him why Hollywood and Silicon Valley are still such benighted places about women's rights, with conspiracies of silence about raging sexism and marauding predators. "Look, I think one of the greatest television shows in the history of television was 'Mad Men' because it had absolutely no nostalgia or affection for its period," Mr. Hanks says. "Those people were screwed up and cruel and mean. And, 'Hey, wait, that's going on today? Shouldn't we be on this?' Is it surprising? No. Is it tragic? Yes. And can you believe it's happening? I can't quite believe that" here Mr. Hanks uses an expletive "still goes on." I ask Hollywood's top history buff, the man who sent the White House press corps an espresso machine after Trump's election because he knew they'd need it (he did this for journalists covering the Bush White House in 2004, too): Is this the calm before the storm? "Let me just read you one thing," he says, getting up to go into the other room and coming back with "April 1865: The Month That Saved America," a book by Jay Winik about the closing weeks of the Civil War: "'And where abolitionists preached slavery as a violation against the higher law, Southerners angrily countered with their own version of the deity, that it was sanctioned by the Constitution. In the vortex of this debate, once the battle lines were sharply drawn, moderate ground everywhere became hostage to the passions of the two sides. Reason itself had become suspect; mutual tolerance was seen as treachery. Vitriol overcame accommodation. And the slavery issue would not just fade away."' He looks up. "Somehow, sometime in the last 20 years of our generation, that's re emerged. So, yes, this is the calm before the storm." I note that he savors the Philip Kerr character Bernie Gunther, a cynical Berlin detective who sees the Nazis for the beasts they are. Is he surprised the Nazis have crawled out of hell, marching in the open in Charlottesville? "In Germany, in some of the smaller counties, they've got Nazis running for office," Mr. Hanks says. "And jeez, we've got Nazis giving torchlight parades in Charlottesville. Don't you hope that this is just some kind of doomsday fetishism" that will soon die out? At a tribute to his career last November at the Museum of Modern Art, Mr. Hanks gave a soothing Sully Sullenberger like speech about the election, with the theme "We are going to be all right." I ask him if he is sure. He replies that, except for some bone headed amendments to the Constitution like prohibition "that was so friggin' stupid, completely contrary to human behavior" America always course corrects. "It's not the first time we've had a knot headed president of the United States," he says. "We have always corrected something that's horrible. World War II was fought by a segregated United States of America, except for a few military units. And immediately after that, it altered. But you have to go through things that will alter the consciousness. And normalcy is always being redefined and you just have to have faith and you have to have some degree of patience and you do have to put up with, every now and again, let's face it, Nazi torch parades surrounding a phantom issue of a statue that was put up in the 1920s." I ask where he stands on the removal of Confederate statues. "Look, if I'm black and I live in a town and every day I have to walk past a monument to someone who died in a battle in order to keep my grandparents and my great grandparents illiterate slaves, I got a problem with that statue," he says. "I would say if you want to be on the safe side, take them all down. Put them in some other place where people can see them, in a museum somewhere." Mr. Hanks concludes about our rocky road to a more perfect union, "It's going to be ugly periodically, but it's also going to be beautiful periodically." And he advises keeping a sense of humor. "It might be the only ammunition that is left in order to bring down tyrants," he says. "You know what Mark Twain says: 'Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand."' | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at David Geffen Hall (May 4 and 7, 8 p.m.; May 6, 3 p.m.). A triptych of late Mahler from London's finest orchestra, all conducted by Simon Rattle. On Friday, it's the Symphony No. 9; on Sunday, "Das Lied von der Erde," with the vocal soloists Stuart Skelton and Christian Gerhaher; and on Monday, Deryck Cooke's completion of the Symphony No. 10, a piece that has been associated with Mr. Rattle throughout his career. It's a pity that the audience at Lincoln Center won't hear the works paired with the symphonies performed this spring in England, including a new piece by Helen Grime and Tippett's "The Rose Lake," but it seems churlish to quibble. 212 721 6500, lincolncenter.org TRISTAN PERICH at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (May 9, 7:30 p.m.). This composer, best known for experimenting with one bit technology, unveils "Drift Multiply," for 50 violins and 50 one bit speakers, under the direction of Doug Perkins. Also on the bill is a new work for subwoofers and voice by Lesley Flanigan. nyc.redbullmusicfestival.com DANIIL TRIFONOV at Zankel Hall (May 4, 7:30 p.m.). Try for returns to one of the most interesting and innovative programs that a major pianist has put forward at Carnegie in many years. The gambit: 10 works, each from a different decade of the 20th century. The results: Berg's Piano Sonata, Prokofiev's "Sarcasms," Bartok's "Out of Doors," Copland's Piano Variations, a section of Messiaen's "Vingt regards sur l'Enfant Jesus," bits of Ligeti's "Musica ricercata," Stockhausen's "Klavierstuck IX," Adams's "China Gates," Corigliano's "Fantasia on an Ostinato" and, lastly, Ades's "Traced Overhead." Lordy, I hope there are tapes. 212 247 7800, carnegiehall.org LES VIOLINS DU ROY at Zankel Hall (May 5, 7:30 p.m.). A Quebecois period instrument ensemble brings Bach and, with it, a star soloist. Isabelle Faust, whose Bach recordings on Harmonia Mundi are self recommending, is the soloist in two violin concertos and the Concerto for Two Violins, virtuoso works surrounded here by new transcriptions of Bach's keyboard works, written by the conductor, Bernard Labadie. 212 247 7800, carnegiehall.org | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
For a dozen years, the Tony and Emmy Award winning actress and singer Kristin Chenoweth lived just off the Hudson River on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Hard by a pier, the location was grand in the summer, but left something to be desired in the winter. The winds were such that every time the petite Ms. Chenoweth ventured outdoors she was just one stiff gust away from making like Mary Poppins. A few years ago, she moved inland to calmer climes and a two bedroom condo in Midtown West. "I was literally walking by and said, 'I wouldn't mind living in that building.' It's on the newer side, but in an old neighborhood," said Ms. Chenoweth, one of the few Broadway stars ("You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," "Wicked") to make the leap into the broader pop culture, thanks to roles in series like "Glee," "The West Wing" and "Pushing Daisies," and movies like "Four Christmases." Ms. Chenoweth, 51, has also released several CDs, including "For the Girls," which came out in late September and features appearances by Jennifer Hudson, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire and Ariana Grande. It will be the centerpiece of Ms. Chenoweth's limited engagement concert (Nov. 8 through 17) at the Nederlander Theater on Broadway. Even more important, the apartment didn't need a jot of work. "I am a big lover of walking in and the place being ready," said Ms. Chenoweth, who is equal parts charming and voluble. (She carries around business cards inscribed with the exhortation "Stop Talking," a reminder to herself and others to put a lid on it.) "Some people love to move walls around. They can see it, they have a vision; they have the time and the wherewithal. As the daughter of a man who was an engineer and owned a construction company, you'd think that would be something I would enjoy. But that isn't me. That has never been me." Her aesthetic is an evolving thing. The starting point was Ikea. From there, Ms. Chenoweth progressed to shabby chic, then to what she calls modern chic. A turning point was her starring role in the 2015 revival of "On the Twentieth Century," a musical inspired by the 1930s screwball comedy "Twentieth Century." "This" is a mix of Art Deco and Hollywood Regency, with a bit of the 1960s thrown in: chrome and glass bar cart; two tiered glass coffee table; area rug patterned in circles; acrylic chairs; faux fur and jungle print pillows. The palette, mostly earth tones, is relieved by a low, tufted rose colored bench behind the sofa. A Kawai baby grand piano anchors the space, which, just to be clear, would be nothing to Ms. Chenoweth without her assertive companion, a mixed breed named Thunder. I feel a song coming on: "My building is very well soundproofed, but I'm very conscious that after 10 I should probably not play the piano and sing. I say to myself, 'Don't go singing Bernstein at midnight.'" All the world's a stage, and Ms. Chenoweth wants to buy the set. "In a store, I'll see the whole bedroom with the carpet and the lamp and the nightstand and the bed and the bedding and the picture on the wall and I'll say, 'I'll take it, the whole thing,'" she said. Still, it's very easy to distinguish the apartment from a showroom. There is, first off, the bow and arrow on the wall. ("I'm from Oklahoma; I have shot a bow and arrow. But not at anyone," said Ms. Chenoweth, whose heritage is part Native American.) There's the string of Christmas lights in the master bathroom. ("I just like the feeling of Christmas all year.") But Ms. Chenoweth, who grew up in suburban Tulsa and sang gospel music in local churches, is hardly one to forget her roots, either temporal or religious. A photograph of Florence Birdwell, her beloved music teacher from back home, hangs near the piano. The wall unit in the living room holds a cowboy hat and a handbag fashioned from an Oklahoma license plate. Nearby is a plaque etched with the prayer of Saint Francis. "This is very important to me because of what it says," Ms. Chenoweth said, quietly reciting the words: "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love." Other sources of inspiration include a framed quote by Elizabeth Edwards "When the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails" that was a gift from a fan, and a copy of a letter from Martha Graham to Agnes de Mille about creativity and its dissatisfactions, a gift from Ms. Birdwell. "It's what Florence taught: You're the vessel through which art can flow. Don't block it," Ms. Chenoweth said earnestly. "When I would have a hard time in college, she would tell me to read the letter out loud." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
I remember my first night in Costa Rica, and the color of the sunset. I had an entire beach nearly to myself, and swatted the occasional sandfly as I watched bruised grays and yellows stretching across the horizon, pinks popping vividly, in part thanks to the lack of any visible electric light from the shore. I would spend those next few days in late March snorkeling in limpid, blue waters, hiking in Corcovado National Park, and riding around on the back of a motorbike in one of the more splendid, unspoiled places I'd ever visited. The airport in Drake Bay, on the southwestern coast, consisted of a small shack next to a long strip of asphalt. I had arrived by small aircraft, a single propeller Cessna operated by Sansa Airlines. It was the same type of plane that crashed this past New Year's Eve outside of Punta Islita Airport, killing 10 Americans. Air fatalities, while rare, are always sobering. And the tragedy of this crash is particularly difficult to reconcile with the remarkable beauty of Costa Rica a place American tourists have embraced as one of the world's top eco travel destinations, and one that I wouldn't hesitate to return to. Of the roughly 2.7 million tourists who visit Costa Rica annually, 40 percent are from the United States. This is largely because of the country's extraordinary wildlife, rain forests, and cloud forests, but also its stability within a historically volatile area. Costa Rica has been an uninterrupted democracy since the late 1940s in a region marred by political and economic turmoil. Its G.D.P. has grown at an average of nearly 5 percent since 1992, well ahead of other countries in the region. And the country is now practically synonymous with sustainable tourism and eco tourism, having abolished its standing military following the Costa Rican Civil War in 1948 and funneled some of that money into developing social and environmental conservation programs. That success manifests itself in great national pride a calm assurance that I witnessed throughout my visit. "You're in Costa Rica now, relax!" my snorkeling guide, Gustavo, advised a seasick German woman in our group. The immediate friendliness and warmth of Ticos, as Costa Ricans call themselves, allow visitors to easily get back to nature and experience the Costa Rican concept of "pura vida," or pure life, that is the unofficial national motto and a phrase you'll hear daily while in the country. "It's no problem pura vida," said my host, Edu, when his car had a flat tire and he plopped me on the back of a motorbike to rush me to my tour of the national park. From Rio Drake Farm, where I stayed for 54 per night, to the Drake Bay Getaway Resort, where there are 700 per night bungalows, there are price points and levels of luxury for every traveler. Protected parks and reserves comprise over 25 percent of the country's territory, and practically all of its coastline (Pacific and Caribbean) is protected and earmarked as public property where no development is allowed. That and its variety of landscapes, fauna and flora (while only 0.03 percent of the earth's surface, Costa Rica has about 6 percent of the world's biodiversity) make it a particularly attractive destination for adventure seeking tourists. In addition to the magnificent forests, volcanoes, and biodiversity (22,000 species of butterfly alone, according to my park guide), Costa Rica is one of the easiest and most fun places in the world to get exercise, even for people like me who weren't exactly athletes growing up. I found myself going on hikes, snorkeling, swimming, and traversing rickety bridges in the rain forest without thinking much about it it's just what you do when you're in Costa Rica. And there's even more I didn't take advantage of. There's fishing, white water rafting, zip lining almost anything you could want to do affordably priced and condensed into a compact, spark plug of a country. To reach some of the country's more out of the way regions, like Drake Bay or Punta Islita, smaller, turboprop aircraft are used for their versatility and ability to access places large jets can't. (Driving is also an option, but has its own dangers. It can also add significant time to a trip: To reach Drake Bay from San Jose would take about six hours.) Whereas the main runway at the country's main airport, Juan Santamaria, exceeds 9,800 feet, runways at the smaller regional airstrips are commonly under 330 feet in length. And are small aircraft more dangerous than commercial jets? Yes. But not, I would argue, to the point that you should pass on the chance to see what Costa Rica has to offer. Statistics from the National Transportation Safety Board state that in 2015, there were zero U.S. fatalities involving air carriers large, commercial aircraft carrying cargo or passengers. There were 28 fatalities involving small (fewer than 10 seats) commuter and on demand carriers. Finally, there were 378 fatalities classified under general aviation an umbrella term that encompasses everything from light sport aircraft and turboprops to hot air balloons. There was no safer time to travel by plane than 2017, according to To70, a Dutch consulting firm. There were no fatalities involving commercial jets and 13 that resulted from crashes of turboprop planes. (President Trump even managed to take unwarranted credit for the extraordinary statistic.) Not included in the survey, however, because they did not make the weight threshold, were two New Year's Eve crashes involving small planes: A seaplane crash near Sydney that killed six, and the crash outside Punta Islita that killed 12. World travel involves a constant internal risk reward mental calculus: Is it safe to visit this country? Do I approach this friendly looking stranger? Should I explore down this street? The answer, most of the time, is yes. But the calculus can get thrown out of whack when there's a fatal air crash in Costa Rica, a mosque attack in Egypt or a shooting at a Parisian concert hall. No traveler, no matter how experienced, is immune to fear. Reading about the recent accident made me reflect on my time in Costa Rica and, specifically, that flight by Cessna to Drake Bay. I particularly remember my boarding pass: a numbered, laminated card that the airline reused. After we'd all been seated, the pilots said hello and crawled over us to reach their seats in the front of the plane. The low altitude flight was brief, noisy and uneventful. But I also remember views of the beaches near Dominical, Uvita and Ojochal, and of the lush, green canopy of Corcovado National Park as we approached by boat. I remember the kindness of my hosts in Drake Bay, Edu and Sabrina, as well as the friendly locals who cooked me a fish dinner one night at a small cantina down the road. And, of course, the spider monkeys, puffer fish, coatis and caracara birds that manage to, in relative harmony, tolerate the imposition of millions of tourists each year. Experiencing the "pure life" of Costa Rica is a unique experience it teems with an energy and spirit both infectious and memorable, and I hope to experience it again soon. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
A Senate committee on Tuesday advanced the nomination of Dr. Stephen Hahn, a noted oncologist and cancer researcher, to lead the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Hahn, chief medical executive at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, was nominated by President Trump last month to replace Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who left the job in April. Dr. Norman E. Sharpless, director of the National Cancer Institute, had served as acting commissioner from April to Nov. 1. Although Dr. Sharpless was endorsed by four former F.D.A. commissioners and dozens of patient advocacy groups, he had donated to Democrats, which seemed to weigh heavily against him. Dr. Hahn has donated to Republicans, but not to the president's campaign. Since Dr. Sharpless returned to his post at the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary of health, has been running the F.D.A. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
For the first time in perhaps decades, Grace Coddington isn't part of the grind of New York Fashion Week. Since stepping down in January from her full time role as the creative director of Vogue, Ms. Coddington now follows her own calendar. "I pick and choose" which shows to attend, she said, standing in the Calvin Klein store on Madison Avenue on Monday evening. She wasn't there for a fashion presentation but rather her own book party, to celebrate the publication of "Grace: The American Vogue Years" (Phaidon). The 400 page doorstopper contains nearly 300 images and collects her work in the magazine from 2002 until present (Phaidon also reprinted an earlier book that surveyed her entire career until 2002, "Grace: Thirty Years of Fashion at Vogue"). Ms. Coddington said the book wasn't a collection of fashion spreads but "a life," adding that selecting the images was "almost like looking through your family pictures because, in a way, this is my family." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Big Break Frustrated creatively in Brooklyn, Mr. Pendleton decamped to Germantown, N.Y., in the Hudson Valley in 2007 to live and work. "I began thinking very deeply about what it meant to create space for yourself as an artist from an art historical standpoint," he said. "But also, what ideas can you contribute to the world as an artist that matter." Out of that fertile time came his Black Dada paintings large, monochromatic, abstract seeming diptychs that incorporate type. He described Black Dada as "a way of articulating a broad conceptualization of blackness." The paintings went on view at the New Museum, and one of them was acquired by MoMA. Latest Projects Mr. Pendleton is finishing up "Black Dada Reader," a book that incorporates essays by curators, as well as text from W. E. B. Dubois, Felix Gonzalez Torres and others and will be published this fall by Walther Koenig Books. He is also working on a commission from MoMA to delve into the archive of Avalanche, the art magazine from the 1970s. The commission will result in a wall work, immersive floor to ceiling pieces, based on collages. In his studio, he has begun a new series of large scale paintings using spray paint. On Display Mr. Pendleton has three solo museum exhibitions this spring at MOCA Cleveland until May 14; at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin until May 14; and at the Baltimore Museum of Art through Oct. 1. The show in Baltimore is an exhibition of new work that responds to recent political events, and race in America in 2017. Copy That As someone whose Saturday night out in high school was a trip to Borders, Mr. Pendleton finds two things indispensable to his work: books and his old Sharp copy machine. He can buy 10 to 15 books a week, he said, and when he comes across an image or a passage that inspires him, he copies it. "I'm hoping it never breaks down," he said of the machine, which he calls the "queen of the studio." He laughed. "I'm also hoping they don't stop making the toner." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
We've come to the phase of the coronavirus quarantine when stir crazy athletes are starting Twitter debates and live streaming workouts. Look, we're not complaining. We've got a sports section to fill here. There are plenty more potential top five lists out there, and we need to keep exercising, too. Now, what can we expect next? Could a wave of dog videos or the tiresome "What is a sport anyhow?" debate be far behind? Is This Thing On? Buffalo Bills receiver Stefon Diggs got a big Twitter debate started when he urged followers to pick "the top 5 wideouts to ever play the game." His replies were flooded with some 6,400 takes from pros and fans alike. Panthers receiver Robby Anderson also tabbed the automatic choices of Rice and Moss and added Chad Ochocinco (who changed his name back to Chad Johnson), Steve Smith and Antonio Brown. Chargers receiver Keenan Allen threw Larry Fitzgerald in the mix along with Moss, Rice, Owens and Johnson. The Hall of Fame cornerback Deion Sanders wouldn't bite when Diggs pushed him to make a public selection. "Man, I don't rank players at all. It's the quickest way to lose friendships. That's been established for years." But then Sanders couldn't resist adding, "Hint: They played in my era or before." One of the great receivers himself, the Hall of Famer Cris Carter broke his choices down into eras: Rice, Moss, Harrison, Owens and Johnson from the older crowd and Fitzgerald, Jones, Brown, DeAndre Hopkins and one open spot from the younger generation. For his part, Diggs stayed coy, but did say that Owens had to be in it, and also said, "I'm surprised more people not saying Julio." The retired N.B.A. center Kendrick Perkins jumped in with his five best basketball players, selecting Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Larry Bird. The Celtics' Jayson Tatum was one who replied, offering up four Lakers on his list: James, Bryant, Abdul Jabbar and Magic Johnson, along with Jordan. If you're one of those confined at home, those excuses for being too busy to work out are seeming especially thin these days. Luckily, some athletes are there to help out. Venus Williams has started a daily live short workout on Instagram in which she does squats and curls and such, and encourages her viewers to join in. Don't have weights at home? Don't worry, she has been using water jugs and Champagne bottles as weights, too. Also getting in on the action were members of the U.S.A. Field Hockey men's and women's teams, who are planning a daily series of skills challenges, and the former N.H.L. player Brooks Laich, who posted some at home workouts and challenged viewers to match or better his time. Remember that big chess tournament in Russia we wrote about Wednesday that was proceeding despite the virus? Um, forget we mentioned it. The International Chess Federation decided to pause the Candidates Tournament in Yekaterinburg after Russia announced that flights to other countries would stop on Friday. The tournament was halfway completed, and the results will stand until it can be resumed at a time and place to be determined. And the postponements continue. The Indy 500, a Memorial Day staple, has been rescheduled to Aug. 23. The N.H.L. draft, which had been scheduled for Montreal on June 26, has also been bumped back. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
TEXAS BLOOD Seven Generations Among the Outlaws, Ranchers, Indians, Missionaries, Soldiers, and Smugglers of the Borderlands By Roger D. Hodge Illustrated. 353 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. 28.95. Roger D. Hodge is a Brooklyn resident, former editor in chief of Harper's Magazine and the author of a book about Barack Obama's failure to live up to liberal ideals not a bad disguise for a crypto Texan. "People still express surprise when I tell them where I'm from," he confides early in "Texas Blood," a fervent pastiche of memory and reportage and history, "for Texas to New Yorkers and other lifelong Eastern city dwellers is a terrifying land of racism and violence and retrograde politics." Yes but. As Hodge discovered after he left Texas at 18, it's hard to shake loose from a place where "the aura of a potent mythology lies heavily upon the land." Or, as Mac Davis concluded in his cautionary song about the folly of trying to escape the Lone Star State, "Happiness is Lubbock, Texas, growing nearer and dearer." Hodge's ancestral West Texas territory is a family ranch 300 miles due south from Lubbock, along the remote Devils River near its junction with the Pecos and the Rio Grande at the Mexican border. As the 4,000 year old pictographs still visible along its steep canyon walls attest, it is saturated in history. Part of that history was made by Hodge's ancestors. He is a seventh generation Texan from a state in which phrases like "seventh generation Texan" are humble brag gold. His great grandfather had the distinction of surviving the Galveston hurricane of 1900, the worst natural disaster (perhaps as many as 8,000 dead) in the history of the United States. A great granduncle operated a ranch at the base of the Window, a gap in the mountain ramparts of the Big Bend country that is a beloved hunk of geology to scenery starved Texans. 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. Hodge begins his book with an atmospheric prelude ("The boy wears a cowboy hat and boots, his jeans tucked in. He carries a gun, and a knife, and sometimes a sword") that to my ear echoes the opening of Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" ("See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire"). Lest you suspect me of overexplication, Hodge himself takes time out, a little past the midway point of his book, for a 14 page appreciation of McCarthy's fiction, particularly his Texas set novel "No Country for Old Men." Caution: Writing about Cormac McCarthy while simultaneously writing about the immemorial violence of the Texas borderlands can lead to sentences like this: "And everywhere are the ruins of those ancient and not so ancient peoples who were slaughtered in those places and whose lives left no articulate testament to bear witness to the joys and hopes and dreams and sorrows that they shared before pale riders the color of dust swooped down and spilled their blood onto the thirsty ground." If Hodge is susceptible every now and then to the hypnotic Bible rhythms of McCarthy's language, for the most part he writes with an earnest, stripped down clarity. He's smart, observant and skeptical. He has no interest in adding another volume to the library shelves of rousing Texas hoohah. "As I reread the conventional histories," he writes, "I remained dissatisfied by their generalizations and hoary meditations on Texas 'character.' Much of it struck me as self congratulatory nationalistic rubbish. I read those fat tomes mostly for the footnotes, the infinite forking paths of primary sources and archives." Even "Lone Star," T. R. Fehrenbach's venerable history of the state (so massive and self confident its first words are "In the beginning"), makes Hodge a little queasy, because "such epic histories sweep high above the hard ground of lived experience." Hard ground and lived experience are what "Texas Blood" is all about. Hodge reminisces about his own background as a young ranch hand loading livestock into trailers, rounding up sheep on muleback, crossing the Rio Grande to Ciudad Acuna every weekend for flaming tequila shots at famous watering holes like Ma Crosby's. He traces the history of the region through the Jumano and Apache Indians who had at one time or another considered themselves in possession of it. He writes about Spanish explorers like Cabeza de Vaca and notorious scalp hunters like the Irish born James Kirker, or the former Texas Ranger John Joel Glanton, who went on to assume toxic literary immortality as a character in "Blood Meridian." In other chapters Hodge follows the trail of his long ago Texas bound ancestors through Missouri and Kansas, hangs out with the Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley, explores the ancient rock art along the Pecos, and takes part in a pilgrimage to the top of Mount Cristo Rey across the New Mexico border from El Paso, where Indian dancers known as matachines perform a centuries old dance depicting Hernan Cortes's conquest of Mexico, "the ancient drama of conquest, love, betrayal and conversion." All of this is often riveting, but it can be frustrating too, because "Texas Blood" is more a box of parts than a smoothly cresting narrative. Most of it has already appeared as articles and essays in publications like Harper's, Popular Science, Texas Monthly and The Sewanee Review. The author does his best to discharge an overall impression of randomness in a kind of process statement early in the book, advising us that he will be "always moving aslant, both physically and metaphorically, cutting against the currents of institutional, governmental and industrial momentum with side trips and excursions, historical and literary and personal interludes, as well as digressions and dalliances with a broad cast of characters." Point taken, I guess. I'm not really complaining, and even if I were as Hodge slyly reminds us in his assessment of Cormac McCarthy's work "book reviews leave little trace in the strata of literary history." Even for readers who prefer the sensation of moving ahead to moving aslant, "Texas Blood" is a rich journey. Whether he's writing about modern day drug smuggling ("Cube shaped spaces in the middle of a pallet of cilantro might not necessarily be packages of dope, but the odds are good") or the itineraries of 16th century Spanish entradas, Hodge is always deep in the buffalo grass. His reporting is vigorous. As a citizen historian, he has a reliable eye for important scholarship: Pekka Hamalainen on Comanches, Carolyn Boyd on pictographs. As he promises, he hews close to primary sources, such as Frederick Law Olmsted's lively 1860 travel narrative, "A Journey Through Texas," or the often heartbreaking crossing the plains diaries of women like Ruth Shackelford ("Little Annie died this morning just before daylight. She died very hard"). Best of all, Hodge is haunted. He never gets mystical, but neither is he ever out of touch with the shimmering, mysterious history of the land he's writing about, or the unfathomable allure it had for ancient peoples and his own pioneer family. "Why would anyone attempt to settle in this unforgiving landscape?" he asks. "What were they searching for that was found here, in the devil's own country, alongside his namesake river?" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
"That's how the world works. A lot of people get opportunities because of who their parents are. Cindy Crawford's daughter is now a model. Andrew Cuomo's father was the governor of New York before him. And do you think Harry Potter would have gotten all that attention if it wasn't for his famous wizard parents?" TREVOR NOAH "Donald Trump Jr. just got paid 50,000 to give a speech at a college. If he wasn't Donald Trump's son, why else would they be asking him to speak, huh? To share his expertise on bad beards?" TREVOR NOAH "Even with their dad in office, the Trumps are still growing their business in places like India, Philippines, Indonesia, Uruguay they're all over the world. It's like 'The Amazing Race' with no running and no chins." TREVOR NOAH "I know for a fact, I know, the only reason I got to where I am today is probably because my great great grandfather built the ark." TREVOR NOAH Still No Art, Still No Deal The White House shared a letter that President Trump sent to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey last week, urging him not to invade Syria. It began, "Dear Mr. President: Let's work out a good deal!" "As if he's running a Honda dealership or something," Jimmy Kimmel observed. "So he sent that letter on Oct. 9th. Erdogan immediately sent his tanks across the border. So it was insane and ineffective, which is the art of the deal." JIMMY KIMMEL "And you know, it's funny, because on this very day on Oct. 16 57 years ago the Cuban missile crisis started, and this letter from Trump is eerily similar to a letter J.F.K. sent Khrushchev when we found out the Soviets were putting nukes in Cuba. Well, he wrote, at that time: 'Dear Premier Khrushchev, don't be a expletive , O.K.? Get your missiles out of Cuba. Everybody will say, 'Yay, Cruise Ship! You're the best.' But if you don't, everybody will be like, 'What an expletive ' and call your garbage country 'The Soviet Bunion.'" JIMMY KIMMEL "Yes, LeBron James is getting a lot of heat for not taking a stand against China and their oppression, with people even burning his jersey in Hong Kong. Which, by the way, if the N.B.A. kept statistics of most jerseys burned, I think LeBron would dominate that, too. Yeah, yeah, Hong Kong burned his jersey, Cleveland burned his jersey, Miami burned his jersey. Like, forget Nike: LeBron should be sponsored by Kingsford lighter fluid." TREVOR NOAH "And you know, normally, I would agree that N.B.A. players shouldn't have to know the intricacies of East Asia policy, but at the same time, Dennis Rodman is basically the U.S. ambassador to North Korea, so I don't know what the rules are anymore." TREVOR NOAH "I also understand why people think LeBron's comments were insensitive or misguided but at the same time, I get where he's coming from. Yeah. Because the Houston Rockets G.M. slammed China on Twitter when LeBron was on his way to China. So LeBron was probably like, 'Hey, man, start this beef after I leave. What's wrong with you, man? I'm going there.' Because I would do the same thing. Like, if you asked me in China what I thought about China's policies, I would be like, 'I think China has policies, and they're the policies that allow me to fly home from China.'" TREVOR NOAH | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
Need Help With Your Estate Plan? Go With the Flow, Advisers Say Andrew D. Hendry rose through the corporate ranks to become the vice chairman and general counsel for Colgate Palmolive, the global consumer products company. As a lawyer, he understood complicated legal documents and how they guided the inner workings of a large corporation. But when it came to his estate plan, Mr. Hendry, like many others, was not terribly interested in digging through hundreds of pages of legal papers. An estate plan is intended to distribute our assets after our death. The task can sometimes be too mundane or too macabre for many, and it is often put off. When the coronavirus crisis put mortality front and center, Mr. Hendry, 72, felt it was time to revisit his plan. He found comfort in what his wealth adviser had created: a series of color coded documents that laid out exactly who got what, when and why. "The flowchart is the guiding document," said Mr. Hendry, who lives in Pinehurst, N.C., with his wife, Mary. "I'm a lawyer, and I understand estate planning documents have to be pretty heavy for the estate plan to work. But they're really not useful to make a decision." Neatly diagramed flow charts and color coded spreadsheets are not what most people think of when they envision the densely worded documents that will carry out their last wishes. But the mortality risk for older adults who contract the coronavirus has pushed many people to call their lawyers and wealth advisers to make sure their affairs are in order. Charts are much easier to comprehend than legal jargon. "More people are looking to review their estate plans if something happens, but it's hard to keep track of everything without a schedule like this," said John J. Voltaggio, a managing wealth adviser at Northern Trust who creates color coded charts and simple spreadsheets for his clients, including Mr. Hendry. "We have that on one page. And then we can ask, 'Should we update any of it?'" When the second spouse dies, the flowchart can present options, with more money flowing into a tax exempt trust for heirs or going to children outright, to charities, to estate taxes or to friends and family as bequests. A more detailed spreadsheet allows people to tweak how much is going to each heir, and to see what the estate tax ramifications are depending on what assets are transferred, how they're transferred and when they're transferred. Mr. Hendry has a son but no grandchildren. He has a second home in Amelia Island, Fla., and has various charitable interests. What he finds helpful with the spreadsheet are the detailed financial values before and after taxes. Playing with the values in the spreadsheet, like adjusting risk versus return preferences in an investment plan, allows him to see the consequences of his decisions. "Putting it together like that allows you to make a reasonable judgment," he said. "You can stress test it and understand who benefits and what happens when you make your decisions." Mr. Hendry said he and his wife used the flow chart to discuss with Mr. Voltaggio what would happen if they put their houses in trust. They are still mulling the consequences to their estate plan. Mr. Voltaggio said the charts might simplify things for each client, but they are not easy to put together. Each one is created from the stack of documents and financial statements that his clients bring. For people who are not trained lawyers, the charts can help them understand the plan and can serve as verification that their desires will be fulfilled. "Our process is we summarize it, we visualize it, and we talk through it," said Joseph C. Kellogg, head of wealth planning at WE Family Offices, which manages money for affluent families. The color coding serves as a way to make certain points stand out. "If we spot it, we make sure families spot it, too," he said. With investments, for example, highlighting certain areas can draw a person's attention to who will be in charge of making investment and distribution decisions for the estate. "Oftentimes, the person connected with the succession planning of the investments is not the person they thought it was," Mr. Kellogg said. "If there is a trustee, they want to make sure it's the right person." Yet a pretty picture can be just that if people don't know what to look for. They need to make sure the right managers are in charge of their assets, their health care and their children, either young and in need of care or older and awaiting an inheritance. Different assets are transferred through different legal mechanisms. Retirement accounts, for example, are governed by the beneficiary designation forms. Property and collections are transferred through the will. In certain states, not putting assets in trusts means those assets have to go through a long and sometimes costly probate process. All of this can be highlighted in a flowchart. The "if/then" clauses that populate estate documents can be more complicated. They're meant to trigger an action if a set of criteria is met. One example would be more money going to someone if the value of a certain asset rose. Pay attention to these clauses to make sure you understand what you are doing, said Ivan Hernandez, a co founder of Omnia Family Wealth. Diagraming them can be complex. "The dream is to have everything on one page," he said. For that reason, some trust and estate lawyers stick to long memos to summarize estate plans and point by point conversations with their clients. James I. Dougherty, a partner at the law firm Withersworldwide, said that he had been sending illustrations to clients for phone conferences, but that he always came back to memos to lay everything out. "If you have something where the parents' estate plan overweighs a distribution of money to one child over another say because one child got a down payment on a house we talk about it and we put it in a memo," he said. But with large estates, litigation is always a concern. "Down the road, you don't want to be on the witness stand and say, 'The stuff in green is going to go here,'" Mr. Dougherty said. "You want to have that lengthy memo." You can tweak things in the chart, but your lawyer has to put the changes into your estate documents for them to be effective. (This is where the exercise differs from making adjustments to investments; your adviser can make those changes on the spot.) At the end of the day, Mr. Hendry said, he, like any one else, just wanted the plan to work, both on paper now and in practice later. "If I didn't have this flowchart, I'm not sure what I would do," he said. "I'm not going to sit down and read 500 pages of documents. By doing this, it gives my wife and me a sense of security that we have control of this situation and have it laid out as best we can." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Your Money |
You never get something for nothing, especially not in health care. Every test, every incision, every little pill brings benefits and risks. Nowhere is that balance tilting more ominously in the wrong direction than in the once halcyon realm of infectious diseases, that big success story of the 20th century. We have had antibiotics since the mid 1940s just about as long as we have had the atomic bomb, as Dr. Martin J. Blaser points out and our big mistake was failing long ago to appreciate the parallels between the two. Antibiotics have cowed many of our old bacterial enemies into submission: We aimed to blast them off the planet, and we dosed accordingly. Now we are beginning to reap the consequences. It turns out that not all germs are bad and even some bad germs are not all bad. In "Missing Microbes," Dr. Blaser, a professor at the New York University School of Medicine, presents the daunting array of reasons we have to rethink the enthusiastic destruction of years past. First and foremost, the war has escalated. Imprudent antibiotic use has resulted in widespread resistance among microbes; infectious disease doctors (I am one, as well as a casual acquaintance of Dr. Blaser's) now operate in a state of permanent near panic as common infections demand increasingly powerful drugs for control. Second, as always, it is the hapless bystanders who have suffered the most not human beings, mind you, but the gazillions of benevolent, hardworking bacteria colonizing our skin and the inner linings of our gastrointestinal tracts. We need these good little creatures to survive, but even a short course of antibiotics can destroy their universe, with incalculable casualties and a devastated landscape. Sometimes neither the citizenry nor the habitat ever recovers. And finally, there is the accumulation of disheartening evidence that the war against the old plagues is simply leading to worse wars against a whole series of new ones. Parts of Dr. Blaser's argument are familiar, such as the story of Clostridium difficile colitis, an increasingly common cause of diarrhea. This condition arises most often when a course of antibiotics skews the normal microbial population of the gut to favor a single toxin producing organism. Sometimes yet more antibiotics will restore normal intestinal function. But sometimes no treatment works nothing but infusing feces full of normal bacteria into the ailing intestines, a last ditch strategy that has proved stunningly successful. Without it, otherwise perfectly healthy people can die. Less familiar is the paradox posed by the little comma shaped organism Helicobacter pylori, a denizen of the human stomach. Dr. Blaser is one of the world's experts in these "ulcer bacteria," which are associated not just with ulcers but also with stomach cancer. We have been slowly eradicating H. pylori with antibiotics the organisms have become quite uncommon in developed countries. But as they vanish, Dr. Blaser notes, a small epidemic of esophageal disease follows, with inflammation causing heartburn and even cancer. It turns out that this bad germ is also good, instrumental in protecting the human esophagus from trouble. And that's not all, folks, far from it. We know that giving antibiotics to young chickens, cows and pigs means bigger, fatter animals brought to market. But we are doing pretty much the same thing to our own young, repeatedly dosing them up against all the infections of childhood (many of which do not require antibiotics to resolve). The results of an interconnected series of experiments in Dr. Blaser's lab, with infant mice fed a variety of antibiotic regimens, lend strong support to the theory that exposure to antibiotics early in life has long term effects on metabolism, and may contribute to our epidemic of childhood and adult obesity. For other increasingly common conditions such as asthma, inflammatory bowel disease and celiac disease, Dr. Blaser offers an inversion of the so called hygiene hypothesis, which holds that by removing us from contact with outdoor microbes, sanitized modern life has allowed the immune system to spiral out of control. Instead, he suggests, blame rests on the distortion of our internal microbial world. Antibiotics are partly responsible, but so are other medical habits, such as our increasing use of cesarean sections. These aseptic procedures prevent newborns from acquiring their mothers' organisms through the birth canal, possibly setting them up for a lifetime of trouble, with higher than normal risks of a range of immune related problems. Dr. Blaser presents this all at a rapid clip, not stinting on the technical language but infusing enough human interest to make his argument and data reasonably accessible. (He had writing help from Sandra Blakeslee, a veteran science journalist and a frequent contributor to Science Times.) The discerning reader should not forget that the research he discusses is largely his own; we hear no dissenting voices or contradictory evidence, although much of the narrative remains scientifically hypothetical. That said, however, the weight of evidence behind Dr. Blaser's cautions about antibiotics is overwhelming. They are certainly lifesaving drugs they saved his own life when he had typhoid fever, and he testified in Congress recently on the urgent need to develop better and stronger ones. But they are also immensely dangerous, both to individuals and to the firmly linked communities of microbes and men. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Readers who long imagined themselves in Harry Potter's world have a chance to immerse themselves in another fictional universe created by J.K. Rowling. The author said Tuesday that she would release "The Ickabog," a new story for young readers, for free online. "The Ickabog" will be published in 34 installments starting on Tuesday, with one installment released every weekday until July 10. It will be targeted to readers ages 7 to 9 and published as a book in November. In an announcement on her website, Rowling said she had started working on the book more than a decade ago, while she was still writing Harry Potter, and originally intended to publish it after she finished the last book in the beloved series. But she ended up keeping "The Ickabog," which isn't related to Harry Potter or any of Rowling's other work, in her family, reading it to her young children and then putting it away in her attic until recently. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
"Bliz aard Ball Sale I" (1983), a street action or performance by David Hammons that was captured on camera by Dawoud Bey, shows the artist with his neatly arranged rows of snowballs for sale in the East Village. In 1981, the artist David Hammons and the photographer Dawoud Bey found themselves at Richard Serra's T.W.U., a hulking Corten steel monolith installed just the year before in a pregentrified and sparsely populated TriBeCa. No one really knows the details of what happened next, or if there were even details to know aside from what Mr. Bey's images show: Mr. Hammons, wearing Pumas and a dashiki, standing near the interior of the sculpture, its walls graffitied and pasted over with fliers, urinating on it. Another image shows Mr. Hammons presenting identification to a mostly bemused police officer. Mr. Bey's images are funny and mysterious and offer proof of something that came to be known as "Pissed Off" and spoken about like a fable not exactly photojournalism, but documentation of a certain Hammons mystique. It wasn't Mr. Hammons' only act at the site, either. Another Bey image shows a dozen pairs of sneakers Mr. Hammons lobbed over the Serra sculpture's steel lip , turning it into something resolutely his own. Soon after he arrived in New York, from Los Angeles, in 1974, Mr. Hammons began his practice of creating work whose simplicity belied its conceptual weight: sculptures rendered from the flotsam of the black experience barbershop clippings and chicken wing bones and bottle caps bent to resemble cowrie shells dense with symbolism and the freight of history. His actions, which some called performances, mostly for lack of a more precise descriptor, were the spiritual stock of Marcel Duchamp and Marcel Broodthaers wily and barbed ready made sculptures, created by inverting spent liquor bottles onto branches in empty lots, or slashing open the backs of mink coats, or inviting people to an empty and unlit gallery. The "Pissed Off" images are several in a suite Mr. Bey made in New York in the early '80s of Mr. Hammons and other artists as they floated in and around Just Above Midtown, known as JAM, Linda Goode Bryant's gallery devoted to contemporary African American artists in a time when few other institutions were providing such a platform. Mr. Bey's images of Mr. Hammons, which are set to go on view this week in a special section at Frieze devoted to JAM, are striking, not least because they are rarely exhibited, but also because the total visual record of Mr. Hammons and his work in New York is so spare. Mr. Bey, who was born and raised in Queens, N.Y., and whose own practice has been concerned with ideas of community and the continuum of black life, met Mr. Hammons early in his tenure in New York. Mr. Bey had recently begun photographing street life in Harlem and was showing his images at the Studio Museum of Harlem, where Ms. Bryant was working . When she left to open JAM on 57th Street and Fifth Avenue, Mr. Bey fell in with its circle of artists, many of whom, including Mr. Hammons, Senga Nengudi, and Maren Hassinger, had been working in Los Angeles. "There are these deep connections she made that I don't think we saw in commercial spaces," said Franklin Sirmans, director of the Perez Art Museum Miami and curator of the tribute to Ms. Bryant and JAM at Frieze. "Dawoud being one of those younger artists she worked with early on, and someone who obviously was already coming into his own. His Harlem series was shown at Studio Museum in 1979, so although young, he had a presence. Thinking about the connection to his friend David Hammons, whom he's also photographing, then you're talking not only about the documentation of a friend and artist, but you're widening the circle. And I think that's one of the big takeaways from Just Above Midtown, that there was this incredible laboratory of ideas that was being exchanged between different artists." As that circle became more defined, it also developed a reflexive support system. "We were all part of that community," Mr. Bey, who is 65, said. "So when JAM opened, we knew to show up. I don't know if any pieces of mail ever went out or anything, you know, it's what you did. You showed up and supported each other. And you show up at the same place with the same people long enough, you get to know them, and you become friends." Showing up meant Mr. Bey was usually present when Mr. Hammons unfurled one of his actions. "They were spontaneous, unannounced," the photographer recalled. "Which was the beautiful part about it it wasn't a performance for the art world. He would say, 'I think I'm going to do something. Be at Cooper Square tomorrow, 12 o'clock,' you know, and I'd say 'Sure, man.' It was more about documenting our presence, because, I thought, if we don't document ourselves, no one will." Two such documents concern Mr. Hammons rehearsing a dance piece at JAM. In one, he and the video artist Philip Mallory Jones frame the dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones, barefoot and in mid movement, as Mr. Hammons is rapt with a folded piece of paper. In the other, the men pose for Mr. Bey Mr. Mallory Jones in the middle, flanked by Mr. Jones, shirtless, his face turned away and eyes closed in gentle repose. Mr. Hammons looks directly into the camera, his gaze piercing the surface, implicating the viewer. Much of Mr. Hammons' work has anticipated the upheaval of urban life, chiefly black urban life, in forms that collide symbols of race, class, and wealth. He sold snowballs like bootleg luxury goods outside the Cooper Union, 30 years before the historically free art school, overextended with construction projects, began charging tuition. He raised 30 foot tall basketball hoops studded with bottle caps in Harlem and Downtown Brooklyn before those neighborhoods were made smooth with glassy high rises. He mounted the hood of a sweatshirt lopped off from its body, like a mask or a trophy, in 1993 20 years before that piece of clothing became a charged symbol of a reignited civil rights movement. In all of it there's a furious sense of social realism, oriented toward an audience that the standard gallery and museum system wasn't capable, or willing, to address. "I was trying to remember where the first 'Higher Goals' was placed," Mr. Bey said. "It was 121st Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, but it's hard to go there now and visualize that. It was the Harlem of vacant lots, which is where David was making a lot of his work. That work was of a moment. And of course who knew that? You can't peer into the future. All you can do is make the work in the circumstances you had." He paused. "It was about doing something meaningful at that moment, for the people who would be encountering it." As alive as Mr. Hammons' work was to the fabric of society, he resisted engaging in the art world machinery, becoming something of a benevolent ghost. That gave his work the cast of the shamanic, even if its real power was in the space between what was and wasn't visible. Mr. Bey's images refocus that visibility, giving shape to a long gone version of New York, and to the ephemeral strands of Mr. Hammons' art, which are discussed now in near mythological terms. "It's like that whisper game that by the time it gets to you it's all wrong," Mr. Bey said, laughing. "There are very few people who can provide the firsthand information about any of it. So people just start filling in the blanks." He added, "In David's case, it's because there was, for the sake of the work, an understanding that you don't explain it. There were no news releases. No yakety yak. No theorizing. What happened before, where those snowballs came from between David and I there's always been an agreement: don't talk about it. That's part of the aura of the work. And because David still probably doesn't have a telephone, and probably wouldn't answer it if he did, it's up to me to at least put that much out there, to be accountable to and for that history." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
PARIS For the growing chorus of observers who fear that a breakup of the euro zone might be at hand, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has a pointed rebuke: It's never going to happen. But some banks are no longer so sure, especially as the sovereign debt crisis threatened to ensnare Germany itself this week, when investors began to question the nation's stature as Europe's main pillar of stability. On Friday, Standard Poor's downgraded Belgium's credit standing to AA from AA , saying it might not be able to cut its towering debt load any time soon. Ratings agencies this week cautioned that France could lose its AAA rating if the crisis grew. On Thursday, agencies lowered the ratings of Portugal and Hungary to junk. While European leaders still say there is no need to draw up a Plan B, some of the world's biggest banks, and their supervisors, are doing just that. "We cannot be, and are not, complacent on this front," Andrew Bailey, a regulator at Britain's Financial Services Authority, said this week. "We must not ignore the prospect of a disorderly departure of some countries from the euro zone," he said. Banks including Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and Nomura issued a cascade of reports this week examining the likelihood of a breakup of the euro zone. "The euro zone financial crisis has entered a far more dangerous phase," analysts at Nomura wrote on Friday. Unless the European Central Bank steps in to help where politicians have failed, "a euro breakup now appears probable rather than possible," the bank said. Major British financial institutions, like the Royal Bank of Scotland, are drawing up contingency plans in case the unthinkable veers toward reality, bank supervisors said Thursday. United States regulators have been pushing American banks like Citigroup and others to reduce their exposure to the euro zone. In Asia, authorities in Hong Kong have stepped up their monitoring of the international exposure of foreign and local banks in light of the European crisis. But banks in big euro zone countries that have only recently been infected by the crisis do not seem to be nearly as flustered. Banks in France and Italy in particular are not creating backup plans, bankers say, for the simple reason that they have concluded it is impossible for the euro to break up. Although banks like BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, UniCredit and others recently dumped tens of billions of euros worth of European sovereign debt, the thinking is that there is little reason to do more. "While in the United States there is clearly a view that Europe can break up, here, we believe Europe must remain as it is," said one French banker, summing up the thinking at French banks. "So no one is saying, 'We need a fallback,' " said the banker, who was not authorized to speak publicly. When Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy's second largest bank, evaluated different situations in preparation for its 2011 13 strategic plan last March, none were based on the possible breakup of the euro, and "even though the situation has evolved, we haven't revised our scenario to take that into consideration," said Andrea Beltratti, chairman of the bank's management board. Mr. Beltratti said that banks would be the first bellwether of trouble in the case of growing jitters about the euro, and that Intesa Sanpaolo had been "very careful" from the point of view of liquidity and capital. In late spring, the bank raised its capital by five billion euros, one of the largest increases in Europe. Mr. Beltratti said that Italy, like the European Union, could adopt a series of policy measures that could keep the breakup of the euro at bay. "I certainly felt more confident a few months ago, but still feel optimistic," he said. European leaders this week said they were more determined than ever to keep the single currency alive especially with major elections looming in France next year and in Germany in 2013. If anything, Mrs. Merkel said she would redouble her efforts to push the union toward greater fiscal and political unity. That task is seen as slightly easier now that the crisis has evicted weak leaders from troubled euro zone countries like Italy and Spain. But it remained an uphill battle as Mrs. Merkel continued this week to oppose the creation of bonds that would be backed by the euro zone. Politically, even the idea of a breakaway Greece is increasingly considered anathema. Despite expectations that Greece and the banks that lent to it may receive European taxpayer bailouts for up to nine years, officials fear its exit could open a Pandora's box of horrors, such as a second Lehman like event, or even the exit of other countries from the euro union. Europe's common currency union was formed more than a decade ago and now includes 17 European Union members, creating a powerful economic bloc aimed at cementing stability on the Continent. It ushered in years of prosperity for its members, especially Germany, as interest rates declined and money flooded into the union until the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy sent global credit markets into chaos three years ago and the financial crisis took on new life with the near default of Greece last year. The creation of the euro zone meant countless interlocking contracts and assets among the countries, but no mechanism for a country to leave the union. But as the crisis leaps to Europe's wealthier north, banks have been increasing their preparedness for any outcome. For instance, while it would certainly be legally, financially and politically complicated for Greece to quit the euro zone, some banks are nonetheless tallying how euros would be converted to drachmas, how contracts would be executed and whether the event would cause credit markets to seize up worldwide. The Royal Bank of Scotland is one of many banks testing its capacity to deal with a euro breakup. "We do lots of stress test analyses of what happens if the euro breaks apart or if certain things happen, countries expelled from the euro," said Bruce van Saun, RBS's group finance director. But, he added: "I don't want to make it more dramatic than it is." Certain businesses are taking similar precautions. The giant German tourism operator TUI recently caused a stir in Greece when it sent letters to Greek hoteliers demanding that contracts be renegotiated in drachmas to protect against losses if Greece were to exit the euro. TUI took the action just days after Mrs. Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France acknowledged at a meeting earlier this month of G 20 leaders in Cannes, France, that Greece could well leave the monetary union. On Thursday, Greece's central bank warned that if the country failed to improve its finances quickly, the question would become "whether the country is to remain within the euro area." In a survey published Wednesday of nearly 1,000 of its clients, Barclays Capital said nearly half expected at least one country to leave the euro zone; 35 percent expect the breakup to be limited to Greece, and one in 20 expect all countries on Europe's periphery to exit next year. Some banks are now looking well beyond just one country. On Friday, Merrill Lynch became the latest to issue a report exploring what would happen if countries were to exit the euro and revert to their old currencies. If Spain, Italy, Portugal and France were to start printing their old money again today, their currencies would most likely weaken against the dollar, reflecting the relative weakness of their economies, Merrill Lynch calculated. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Global Business |
Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Closer to Medicinal Use (It's Not Just Your Imagination) Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have recommended that psilocybin, the active compound in hallucinogenic mushrooms, be reclassified for medical use, potentially paving the way for the psychedelic drug to one day treat depression and anxiety and help people stop smoking. The suggestion to reclassify psilocybin from a Schedule I drug, with no known medical benefit, to a Schedule IV drug, which is akin to prescription sleeping pills, was part of a review to assess the safety and abuse of medically administered psilocybin. Before the Food and Drug Administration can be petitioned to reclassify the drug, though, it has to clear extensive study and trials, which can take more than five years, the researchers wrote. The analysis was published in the October print issue of Neuropharmacology, a medical journal focused on neuroscience. The study comes as many Americans shift their attitudes toward the use of some illegal drugs. The widespread legalization of marijuana has helped demystify drug use, with many people now recognizing the medicinal benefits for those with anxiety, arthritis and other physical ailments. Psychedelics, like LSD and psilocybin, are illegal and not approved for medical or recreational use. But in recent years scientists and consumers have begun rethinking their use to combat depression and anxiety. "We are seeing a demographic shift, particularly among women," said Matthew Johnson, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins and one of the study's authors. Among the research he has conducted, he said, "we've had more females in our studies." Microdosing, or the use of psychedelics in small, managed doses, has become a popular way to try to increase productivity and creative thinking, particularly among the technorati in Silicon Valley. It's even a plot point in the CBS show "The Good Fight." Dr. Johnson said that in 2005, he volunteered to work in the "bad trip" tent at Burning Man, the festival in the Nevada desert known for rampant drug use. For decades, though, researchers have shunned the study of psychedelics. "In the 1960s, they were on the cutting edge of neuroscience research and understanding how the brain worked," Dr. Johnson said. "But then it got out of the lab." Research stopped, in part, because the use of mind altering drugs like LSD and mushrooms became a hallmark of hippie counterculture. The researchers who conducted the new study included Roland R. Griffiths, a professor in the departments of psychiatry and neurosciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who is one of the most prominent researchers on the behavioral and subjective effects of mood altering drugs. The researchers reviewed data going back to the 1940s. Dr. Johnson said that the F.D.A. had approved a number of trials of psilocybin. If its use is approved for patients, he said, "I see this as a new era in medicine." He added, "The data suggests that psychedelics are powerful behavioral agents." In legal studies, he said, participants are given a capsule with synthetic psilocybin. (They are not given mushrooms to eat, which is how the drug is most often ingested.) He warned, though, that psilocybin is not a panacea for everyone. In their analysis, the researchers called for strict controls on its use. There are areas of risk, too, for patients with psychotic disorders and anyone who takes high doses of the drug. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Taylor Mac's autumn harvest headdress is such an elaborate landscape of apples and gourds that the gleaming green talons reaching out of it come across as a subtle touch. Beneath it, the makeup is mesmerizing: an almost trompe l'oeil tribute to the 16th century painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who depicted people with vegetables where facial features would otherwise be. And the set, in the opening tableau of Mac's "Holiday Sauce ... Pandemic!," is such a tinselly tumult of color that even the performer's shimmery costume, bedecked with blossoms and slit up to here, blends right in, as if it were extravagant camouflage. The look, then, is the first shiny lure of this mature audiences only entertainment, whose writer and star has brought a bevy of talent to refashion for streaming the annual live show "Holiday Sauce" including, indispensably, the set and costume designer Machine Dazzle and the makeup designer Anastasia Durasova. Which this bawdy, spangled, queer celebration absolutely does when it's not busy looking like a glamorous concert recording, or a trippy music video, or a cheeky animation, or a cinematic home movie of some of the people in Mac's chosen family. There are catwalk dramatic costumes and gorgeous guest stars, with familiar carols and original songs interspersed, irreverently. For stage artists like Mac and, at a different spot on the continuum, Irish Repertory Theater, about whose "Meet Me in St. Louis" more in a bit the fundamental challenge of 2020 has been to reconfigure their work for an audience that isn't physically present. It can be an awkward undertaking, even more so at this tradition encrusted time of year. Directed by Jeremy Lydic, with large segments sumptuously filmed by Robert Kolodny inside the Park Avenue Armory, this companion to Mac's new album "Holiday Sauce" is by turns homey and sleek though the band, with its string and horn sections, sounds consistently warm and lush. (The music director and arranger is Matt Ray.) Its high low aesthetic feels just right, not only as a reflection of an erratic year but also as an encapsulation of Mac's career, which in recent years has vaulted from the downtown alt fringes into prestige territory. Produced by Pomegranate Arts, the show was commissioned by the Ibsen Festival, the Norwegian Ministry of Culture and the National Theater of Oslo. (Saturday's three showings followed the virtual ceremony for the International Ibsen Award, which Mac won this year.) As smashing as both Mac and the Armory look, one of the most captivating segments is the video of the song "Christmas With Grandma," whose lyrics about traumatic childhood holidays feel more bluntly grim on the album than they do with Dana Lyn's resilient and cheery felt tip animations among them a Mac faced ornament. (A masked Lyn also plays violin in the "Holiday Sauce" band.) But the unexpected show stealer is a glittering green Christmas tree that totters and spins through the Armory on precarious heels, arms out for balance and self expression. We first glimpse it from afar, tiny and comical at the bottom of our screens, entering stage right in a follow spot. With Machine Dazzle inhabiting this magnificent costume, it is an evergreen at once winsome and gallant an endearingly bumbling, perseverant emblem of this weird, uncertain, sometimes defiantly festive season. A similarly intrepid spirit pervades Irish Rep's "Meet Me in St. Louis," an experiment in fully staging a musical online: costumes, sets, orchestra and all. Directed by Charlotte Moore, the 13 actors filmed themselves separately from home, their footage edited together later. I wish I could say it was a great success, and if you close your eyes, this stage version of the classic 1944 film can sound that way. (The book is by Hugh Wheeler, the score by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane.) The songs are often a delight, with a cast featuring expert interpreters like Melissa Errico as Anna Smith, the matriarch of a Missouri family eagerly awaiting the 1904 World's Fair in their hometown and lovely newcomers like Shereen Ahmed in the Judy Garland role of her teenage daughter, Esther. It is hard, though, to get past the jarring visuals, which have such a high definition green screen aesthetic that I'm sorry to say I kept wishing I could watch through gauze. With uncredited narration by Moore, who also adapted the script (and played Anna in the 1989 Broadway premiere), the show has an inherently nostalgic tone, whisking the audience back to the turn of the 20th century such a technological distance from our era that the Smiths' housekeeper, Katie (Kathy Fitzgerald), disapprovingly refers to the telephone as "an invention." So one expects a softer appearance than the video of the actors tends to have, with that crisp, white electronic light that is a hallmark of our age. (The lighting is by Michael Gottlieb.) Put someone lit that way in front of a vintage looking backdrop (scenic design is by Charlie Corcoran) and the contrast gets right between a viewer's wish to suspend disbelief and the ability actually to do that. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
"So, it didn't happen because she's not his type. That is the sound of a man realizing in midsentence that he's not talking to Billy Bush." STEPHEN COLBERT "If your denial leaves people thinking there is a type of woman you would rape, that's not a good denial." TREVOR NOAH "But it shows you how out of whack Trump's priorities are. He's being accused of rape and his first concern is letting people know what his standards are for women. It's like you're accused of murdering someone at a Holiday Inn and your response is, 'I stay at the Ritz Carlton!'" TREVOR NOAH "That's not a defense that's a confession. It's like if you ask Hannibal Lecter, 'Did you eat that guy?' and he said, 'No, he looked a little bony.'" SETH MEYERS | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
A local commercial investor plans to eventually redevelop these two brick buildings a 21,400 square foot two story mixed use building with 210 feet of retail frontage along Northern Boulevard and a 4,000 square foot one story building behind it. The two story building has 11 retail units on the ground floor, 10 offices on the second floor and four rent stabilized one bedroom apartments on each floor. A production company has signed a three year lease, with a two year option to renew, in a gut renovated 600 square foot loft style duplex with exposed brick, new heating units and an additional 200 square foot outdoor terrace. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
For most of its history, America ignored the talents and potential of most Americans. We will never know what great progress might have been made in science, medicine, business and many other fields if we had taken advantage of the brainpower and abilities of all our people regardless of gender, race, ethnicity or income level. And people from low income families continue to face enormous obstacles. A 2014 White House report, "Increasing College Opportunity for Low Income Students," states: "While half of all people from high income families have a bachelor's degree by age 25, just one in 10 people from low income families do." These low income students lack money, don't get adequate counseling in high school and face many other barriers that more affluent students never encounter. To enable more low income students to get a higher education, colleges should make socioeconomic diversity a priority. They should encourage outstanding low income students to apply, simplify the application process and make transparent the actual tuition price and financial aid possibilities for students from struggling families. In addition, colleges should devote more financial aid to those who need it and less to those who don't, by reducing so called merit scholarships. Colleges should also re examine their policies of giving preferential admissions to the children of alumni. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Education |
Norway's 890 billion government pension fund, considered the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, will sell off many of its investments related to coal, making it the biggest institution yet to join a growing international movement to abandon at least some fossil fuel stocks. Parliament voted Friday to order the fund to shift its holdings out of billions of dollars of stock in companies whose businesses rely at least 30 percent on coal. A committee vote last week made Friday's decision all but a formality; it will take effect next year. The decision which could seem paradoxical, given that Norway is a major producer of oil and gas is certain to add momentum to a push to divest in fossil fuel stocks that emerged three years ago on college campuses. The Church of England announced last month that it would drop companies involved with coal or oil sands from its 14 billion investment fund, and the French insurer AXA said it would cut some 560 million in coal related investments from its portfolio. Members of the Rockefeller family, whose fortune derives from Standard Oil, also pledged last year to remove fossil fuel investments, beginning with coal, from their philanthropic Rockefeller Brothers Fund. There is no question that the decision by various funds to sell fossil fuel stocks has little or no impact on the vast market capitalization of most companies. For that reason, the divestment movement has long been dismissed by many institutions, especially oil companies, as symbolic. But divestment decisions from funds like Norway's are important because they require, as a first step, discussions that once seemed taboo, said Bob Massie, a longtime climate activist and a founder of the Investor Network on Climate Risk, an organization of institutional investors affiliated with the business environmental group Ceres. "It lays the groundwork for the transformation of cultural and political views in a major topic that people would rather avoid," he said. "This requires people to say, 'What are we going to do? What are our choices? What do we believe in?' " Mr. Massie, who was deeply involved during the 1980s in the South African divestment movement and who wrote a well regarded history of it, said that in both cases, "There's a mysterious process by which an 'unthinkable, ridiculous' proposition becomes 'possible.' " Divesting from the economically battered coal industry is a more selective move than a broad action against all fossil fuels, of course. But Jamie Henn, a co founder of 350.org, a group that has promoted divestment, said that coal was the most environmentally damaging fossil fuel, and that the various divestment decisions "send a clear political signal that we think will hasten the industry's inevitable decline and push governments to take broader action." Marthe Skaar, a spokeswoman for Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages the huge Norwegian fund, said its goal was "safeguarding and building financial wealth for future generations in Norway." Its reasons for divesting include "long established climate change risk management expectations," she said. The fund's 30 percent threshold for divestment applies to whether a company's business is based on coal, as in mining companies, or the percentage of its revenue that comes from coal. The second category would include power companies that burn coal. Norway's decision underscores its ambivalence about fossil fuels. The fund itself is nicknamed the "oil fund" because its wealth comes from the nation's oil and gas revenues. But proponents of the move say that it helps prevent Norway from compounding the environmental damage that its own production causes by investing in environmentally destructive companies. Truls Gulowsen, the head of Greenpeace Norway, called his country's decision "a great first step" that showed his nation now understood that it was "nonsense to use oil money to invest in coal." Now the nation must further understand "the nonsense of investing oil money in more oil," he added. Svein Flatten, a member of Parliament from the Conservative Party, said that lawmakers acted because investments in coal companies have "both financial risks and climate risks." He added, however, that this was not a step toward any other action. "The fund shall not be, and they really are not, a tool for political purposes," he said. Many institutions have pushed back against the divestment movement. Drew Gilpin Faust, the president of Harvard, has stated that while climate change is an important issue, the university can address it through research, education and its own practices, and that dropping fossil fuel investments is not "warranted or wise." The endowment, she has said, should not be used "to impel social or political change." Middlebury College, where 350.org founder Bill McKibben teaches, has also resisted student pressure to divest. David W. Oxtoby, the president of Pomona College in California, opposes divestment. He said in an interview that schools and institutions that announce divestment decisions often do so in symbolic moves with no real sacrifice or change of policy. "We actually don't have any investments in coal, but to make an announcement of that type didn't seem terribly useful," he said. Dr. Oxtoby, a climate researcher, called the divestment activism a distraction from efforts that could bring about real change, such as getting government to tax oil and gas to reduce consumption. Norway's decision, Dr. Oxtoby said, is similarly symbolic especially when compared with the kind of commitment that might involve leaving significant portions of the nation's oil and gas reserves untapped. The business trends that have made coal an undesirable investment will ultimately humble oil and gas companies as well, Mr. Massie said. He cited research that suggests averting some of the worst outcomes of climate change will require leaving much of today's fuel reserves unburned. This means companies with large fossil fuel reserves could be forced to leave them in the ground. Those "stranded assets," he argued, will be a financial burden on the companies. The oil industry has roundly rejected the stranded asset hypothesis, however. Those who resist calls for divestment often say they prefer to pursue a strategy of engagement with fossil fuel companies, which means using their influence as investors to encourage companies to alter their policies. "The choice of whether to divest or not is good," said Geeta B. Aiyer, the founder of Boston Common Asset Management, an investment firm with a focus on sustainability, "but it's only the beginning." She said that engaging with companies across the board could help bring about a future with lower levels of carbon emissions. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
The first Broadway production of "Cats" was a smash hit that ran for 18 years. The revival, not so much. The current production, which opened last July, will close on Dec. 30, after a respectable, but far from record setting, 609 performances. "Cats," with songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber based on poems by T. S. Eliot, is one of the most famous 20th century musicals loved and loathed, mimicked and mocked. The show has a loose plot, about a group of cats, of varying personalities, who vie for the opportunity to begin life anew. The revival is a rare joint production of the two biggest Broadway theater owners, the Shubert Organization and the Nederlander Organization. Both the revival and the original were directed by Trevor Nunn. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
With an Oscar in his left hand and a microphone in his right, Bong Joon Ho instructed a cheering crowd to drink. It was just hours after his biting thriller "Parasite" pulled off a historic best picture win Sunday, and Bong had been called to the stage at the film's Soho House after party in West Hollywood. With three acceptance speeches already under his belt (for best director, best international feature and best original screenplay, the South Korean director had little desire to say more, and he eventually passed the microphone to Tom Quinn, whose company, Neon, distributed the film in the United States. "This is a win for all of us tonight," Quinn declared, his voice rising like a world wrestling impresario. "We put the rest of this industry in check, because cinema won!" With that, he raised the microphone into the air, and the crowd screamed. Nothing encourages hyperbole like Oscar night, but at that moment, Quinn's enthusiasm was contagious. "Parasite" had become the first film not in the English language to win best picture, a victory that felt like it could herald the start of something new. But will it? In Hollywood, many executives only pay attention to the wider world when they're trying to goose the international take of their superhero movies. Can a best picture breakthrough like "Parasite" transform the way business is done, or will it seem like a blip in 10 years' time? Certainly, it should pay dividends for Bong, who emerges from Oscar night an A list auteur. Already a major cinematic figure in South Korea and a critics' favorite elsewhere, Bong has had a tricky time of it since he came to Hollywood: Harvey Weinstein nearly buried his U.S. debut "Snowpiercer" when Bong wouldn't agree to major revisions, and his starry follow up, "Okja," went to Netflix when no other studio was eager to finance an effects laden genre hybrid with a significant amount of scenes in Korean. But after the success of "Parasite," which could soon become the fourth highest grossing foreign language film of all time in the United States, Bong will join an elite group of international directors like Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron who can command top tier interest from Hollywood. Already, HBO won a fierce bidding war for a "Parasite" limited series that Bong will create with Adam McKay, and I'd expect even more suitors once Bong mounts his feature film follow up, especially since he's said to be working on a new English language movie. Still, how big will the "Parasite" halo be when it comes to other international fare? While Netflix invests heavily in acquiring foreign language films to better serve its worldwide streaming audience, other studios have historically been more hesitant, since the upside at the domestic box office can be limited. It's possible that a breakthrough like "Parasite," with its fleet editing and relatable subject matter, can help cultivate a new audience that had previously associated subtitles with glacially paced art films. It's just as likely, though, that "Parasite" will pay off only for the films that seem most similar to it. When "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" became a massive, Oscar nominated hit in 2000 with its take of 128.1 million, it's still the highest grossing foreign language import at the U.S. box office it mainly just paved the way for a handful of other Asian martial arts films to find domestic distribution. Certainly, studios will be prowling this year's Cannes Film Festival eager to find the next "Parasite," but a film as idiosyncratic as Bong's will prove tough to clone. The most notable ripples from the "Parasite" victory, then, may be seen in the Oscars themselves. The Academy Awards have come in for no shortage of criticism over the last decade that they are too white, too insular and too devoted to milquetoast crowd pleasers. "Parasite" bats back those criticisms, and additionally restores an anything can happen element to an event that had become increasingly predictable. A vote for "Parasite" served as more than just a cast ballot: It was an investment in the Oscars' future as a relevant institution. At the Governors Ball following the show, the former academy president John Bailey told me that the "Parasite" win could be traced in large part to the more international membership the organization has cultivated over a yearslong diversity drive. That rapid expansion of the academy has still produced lineups that can feel homogeneous: The directing category this year was still made up of five men, and the "Harriet" best actress nominee Cynthia Erivo was the only bulwark against another round of OscarsSoWhite. Still, many of the wins on Oscar night went to women and people of color, and "Parasite" claimed several of them. As a testament to broadened horizons, "Parasite" proved to be an effective billboard, but it also served as a testimonial for good taste: Nearly as rare as a foreign language film claiming best picture is an outcome where the most acclaimed nominee of the year actually does take the top prize. What "Parasite" can still provoke remains to be seen, but what the film has already accomplished is pretty remarkable, no matter who the microphone gets passed to next. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
The world's most endangered porpoise is disappearing much faster than previously believed, according to a new report from the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita. Found only in the northern Gulf of California, the remaining 97 vaquitas are threatened by gill net fishing. Despite an emergency two year ban enacted by the Mexican government in April, fishermen still use the nets. Recent data from acoustic monitoring show that the species is declining by an average of 31 percent a year much higher than the previous estimate of 18.5 percent, which scientists said was the steepest decline of cetaceans on record. The rapid loss of the species parallels local reports of increased illegal fishing for totoaba, which are prized in China for their swim bladders, used in food. Because vaquitas are about the same size, they are easily ensnared in nets meant for totoaba, and drown. More illegal fishing is occurring in the marine reserve set aside for the vaquita. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
The soprano Julia Bullock in "Perle Noire," a reflection on Josephine Baker that will be streamed by Da Camera of Houston on Dec. 11. With many opera houses and concert halls still closed by the pandemic for months to come, the musical action has moved online. That's been the case since March, of course but as winter arrives and outdoor presentations grow more difficult, artists and institutions are creating digital presentations with more care and intention. There is a flood of offerings out there. Here are 10 highlights from what's coming in December. (Times listed are Eastern.) Dec. 3 at 8 p.m.; loc.gov and on Facebook and YouTube; available indefinitely. In something of a dream combination, the JACK Quartet will be joined by the pianist Conrad Tao for this Library of Congress virtual concert. On offer are an arrangement of Rodericus's 14th century Latin ballade "Angelorum Psalat"; Ruth Crawford Seeger's modernist "String Quartet 1931"; and two Elliott Carter studies in contrasts, the Third String Quartet (1971) and the Duo for Violin and Piano (1974). Add to all that a pair of works by Tyshawn Sorey: the glacial, mesmerizing "Everything Changes, Nothing Changes" (2018) and "For Conrad Tao" (2020) which, despite its title, is written not for piano but for violin, another instrument Mr. Tao grew up playing. JOSHUA BARONE If there's a silver lining in the saturated programming of a composer's anniversary year, it's the opportunity to hear more than just the greatest hits. That's the case with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, which is celebrating Beethoven's 250th birthday with a broadcast of "The Creatures of Prometheus," an 1801 ballet score more often heard in fragments than its entirety. Here is the whole thing, conducted by Esa Pekka Salonen and featuring a new script by Gerard McBurney, animation by Hillary Leben and narration by Stephen Fry. JOSHUA BARONE Dec. 9 at 7:30 p.m. and Dec. 12 at 2 p.m.; youtube.com/youngconcertartists; available indefinitely. Pandemic travel restrictions are preventing this young pianist from coming to New York for a scheduled livestream recital presented by Young Concert Artists. Instead Mr. Sham, whose playing combines clarity, elegance and abundant technique, will be presented in a two part recital filmed in Sweden. For the Dec. 9 program, he plays Book 2 of Debussy's "Images," the premiere of Saad Haddad's "Vignettes" and Brahms's early, epic Piano Sonata No. 3. On Dec. 12 he offers Mozart's Sonata in D (K. 576) and Carl Vine's Sonata No. 1 (1990). ANTHONY TOMMASINI Dec. 9 at 5 p.m.; americansymphony.org; available until Feb. 28. The pianist and composer Marcus Roberts was scheduled to appear this past March at Carnegie Hall with this adventurous orchestra and its conductor, Leon Botstein, in arrangements of Duke Ellington, including a suite from "Black, Brown and Beige." Having had some months to regroup, those same forces are releasing a filmed concert with different repertoire: three new works by Mr. Roberts himself. Particularly since "Black, Brown and Beige" was so well captured on a Jazz at Lincoln Center release earlier this year, the chance to hear Mr. Roberts's orchestral language, not yet represented on recordings, is a welcome development. SETH COLTER WALLS Dec. 10 at 10 p.m.; calperformances.org; available until March 10. The new ensemble in residence at the Curtis Institute of Music, this group takes on a meaty program here that forms a short history of the styles of Mitteleuropa: Haydn's fiery, eloquent "Fifths" Quartet (Op. 76, No. 2); Ligeti's uneasy Quartet No. 1, "Metamorphoses Nocturnes," which unfolds in a series of brief, brutally contrasting episodes around a tender central Andante; and Dvorak's rich and rapturous Quartet in G (Op. 106). ZACHARY WOOLFE This trumpeter and composer has become known in multiple guises: as a performer of his own patient, enigmatic works; with a variety of improvising ensembles; and even as a guest with the New York Philharmonic. He is also a convivial ringleader as his commissioning series "For/With" has demonstrated in recent years at the Brooklyn venue Issue Project Room. He is both overseeing and performing in this new program for Roulette, "Mutual Aid Music," featuring players drawn from the contemporary classical and jazz scenes for a collaboration somewhere between notation and improvisation. SETH COLTER WALLS Dec. 11 at 8 p.m.; dacamera.com; available until Dec. 18. In 2019, I was deeply impressed by a performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art of this oratorio by the composer and multi instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey, inspired by the life and songs of Josephine Baker, with text by Claudia Rankine. The piece conceived with the soprano Julia Bullock ruminates over Baker's legacy, turning what is usually thought of as upbeat repertory into a mournful, sensual ritual. Mr. Sorey and Ms. Bullock are joined by members of the International Contemporary Ensemble for this streamed version presented by Da Camera of Houston. SETH COLTER WALLS Dec. 12 at 5 p.m.; caramoor.org; available until Dec. 13 at 7 p.m. Vocal music has been the genre perhaps most sadly affected by the pandemic group singing, especially, since it poses a perfect storm of risks. So it is good for the soul to see even glimmers of a revival, as in this superb early music group's holiday program at Caramoor, featuring five singers including Jolle Greenleaf, Tenet's artistic director and lute. The music is mostly in the Anglican tradition, from folk origins to contemporary sounds, with some quirky touches. ZACHARY WOOLFE Dec. 13 at 5 p.m.; chambermusicsociety.org; available through Jan. 1. For many music lovers in New York, the Society's annual performance of Bach's six "Brandenburg" Concertos, performed as a single program, has become a favorite holiday season ritual. Though there will be no live version this year, the organization has collected footage of performances of the works from six recent seasons and grouped them into a single online program, featuring 47 artists in all. ANTHONY TOMMASINI When he plays in New York, this searching pianist usually programs musical modernists like Boulez, Messiaen or Ligeti. But his sensitivity to texture and resonance is sure to illuminate the more traditional works on offer here: a prelude, ballade and polonaise by Chopin, Debussy's "Estampes" suite and Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata. Toru Takemitsu's delicate "Rain Tree Sketch II" rounds out the concert. ZACHARY WOOLFE | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
LONDON In the British capital, it is the calm before the storm. The country's scheduled departure from the European Union Brexit is mere weeks away, although no deal has been reached. And so little is clear about what will become of Britain in the wake of its decision to "Leave" that many people seem resigned to the uncertainty of the moment. There is a tempest bearing down. But until then? Until then, it is London Fashion Week, which wrapped up its biannual round on Tuesday. Fashion is a multibillion dollar industry in Britain, and a global one: It can neither afford to grind to a halt for Brexit nor afford to ignore it. It is unfair to demand that designers reflect the politics of the moment in their work, and unfair to ask them to be spokespeople for the decisions of government ministers. Yet the question bubbled up again and again over the course of five days in London, in the backstage scrums where they faced the press and explained their work: "Don't you hate Brexit?" said a voice from the crowd that was facing down Riccardo Tisci, Burberry's chief creative officer, on Sunday under the hot, sharp glare of the lights at the Tate Modern following his second show for the brand. "I cannot answer," Mr. Tisci said. "Everyone has a different opinion, of course." But he had called his show "Tempest." And he had just finished opining that "we need the younger generation to be more free, and express themselves." He felt there had been greater freedom 20 years earlier, when he was studying at Central St. Martins. But two days before, London schoolchildren had skived off classes Americans call it "cutting," but the Britishism really captures the sense better to noisily protest inaction on climate change in the streets. It seemed Mr. Tisci was the less free one, practicing the diplomatic parry of the corporate steward. He divided the collection along the same lines. There was a streetwear section of rugby shirts and puffers, trainers and track pants. Then came the bourgeois: the good old Burberry trench, fluty dresses, trailing scarves. (It would be nearly impossible to mistake one for the other, but if, say, you were viewing from space, the hair was the tell: gorgeous, elaborate curlicues more or less tattooed to the models' foreheads for the street; sober, severe buns for the rest, snug in their own little nets.) It had more sharpness and more bite than Mr. Tisci's first collection for Burberry, which was washed out in a medley of dutiful beige. But it nevertheless had more of the attitudes of aggression (familiar to Mr. Tisci's fans from his years at Givenchy) than real snap. For all its enormous breadth, it felt more styled than meant, a tempest that would fit neatly in a teapot. Mr. Tisci played with references of Cool Britannia, rave and chav (British for lout), and the vaunted DNA of Burberry a word fashion executives love to use, in an eerily eugenic way. But the effort to be everything to everyone is enervating, and no doubt exhausting. It's no secret in the industry that "lifestyle" is the lifeblood of the business: Those that can't afford or can't wear luxury runway fashion have to be invited in with a T shirt, a boxer brief, a perfume, a handbag, a keychain. But is that effort killing fashion? It's not Mr. Tisci's fault that fashion has grown so giant. Lifestyle is the general ambition. It is clearly Victoria Beckham's. But then, she's already a lifestyle. Ms. Beckham is an icon in a truer sense of the word than is usually meant by the term's constant invocation images of her are studied and revered and she has built up a line offering women a way to dress like her. So when a bright red she called "lipstick red" rippled through the collection, you got what she was gesturing at. But it went down gently because Ms. Beckham delivered a collection, on a sunny Sunday morning at the Tate Britain, that was focused, appealing and, most importantly, real: suits and nipped waist blazers, slouchy trousers and longish skirts, dresses and coats and muzzy knits that women could wear. Not only "out" but in: Into the office, into the lunch meeting, into the Tube. "We know my customer," Ms. Beckham said, and for a change, you believed it. Fantasy predominates at fashion week, often fabulously so. When Joan Collins finally comes scampering into an Erdem show half an hour past its scheduled start gasping, "I was stuck in the lift!", you pinch yourself. Is this a dream? When Christopher Kane designs a collection around balloon fetishists and latex kinksters, "looners" and "rubberists," you pinch yourself or worse. (I'm not here to judge.) But throughout London, the strongest impressions were made by clothes that seemed destined to go farther than the runway and Instagram, more life than lifestyle. No disrespect to the palliative power of fantasy but, with tempests on the horizon, the real way may be the wise way. Away from the hamster wheel of hype are designers who have been working away steadily for decades, artists of the small detail and subtle tweak. Margaret Howell is one of those: After more than 40 years in business, she remains so discreet and so untroubled by the need for acclaim that you could spot her (if you could spot her) casually chatting, unrecognized, in the stairwell to her show space as dozens of guests there to see her show streamed obliviously past. But her collection was filled with pieces you would be glad to own, their proportions ever so slightly improved. Hussein Chalayan, who celebrates his 25th anniversary in business this year, is another: He has a wonderful way of reworking something you know a white shirt, an unstructured blazer into something recognizable but new, so you see it fresh. It's tempting to think of Mr. Anderson floating above it all, especially when he said that he had designed his set, with its little rocks poking out of cream colored carpet to suggest mountaintops poking through the clouds as if his models were sailing over the sky, safe from the storm. But this was a much more grounded collection for Mr. Anderson, and all the better for it. "Shows like that put me in a good mood," Sidney Toledano, the chairman and chief executive of the LVMH Fashion Group, a minority stakeholder in the brand, whispered to Mr. Anderson. Little else at the moment may be clear but this: I felt the same. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
"Time is not a line with two equal directions: It is an arrow with different extremities. And it is this, rather than the speed of its passing, that matters most to us about time. This is the fundamental thing about time. The secret of time lies in this slippage that we feel on our pulse, viscerally, in the enigma of memory, in anxiety about the future. This is what it means to think about time. What exactly is this flowing? Where is it nestled in the grammar of the world?" Here Rovelli is raising yet another of time's mysteries. Why does it have such a clear directionality, with the future so easily distinguished from the past? Let me explain. If you see a film of a teapot first sitting on the edge of a table, then falling off the table and shattering into a thousand shards, the film appears perfectly normal. Evidently, someone jostled the table. But, if you were to watch a film in which shards of pottery scattered about on the floor suddenly rushed together and formed a teapot, which then jumped up to land on a table, you would interpret that film as being played backward in time. Because you've never seen such a sequence of events in the real world. Why not? The answer is a matter of probability. A broken teapot could indeed re form itself from vibrations and heat in the floor, but it is highly unlikely. Physics shows that moving from order to disorder is more probable than the reverse much more probable when it comes to large collections of atoms such as constitute a teapot. In scientific terms, this movement determines the direction of time. And the fact that this direction is so definite in all that we see, both on earth and beyond, means that the cosmos must have begun in a state of relatively high order with plenty of room to make a mess in the future. It is that room for increasing chaos that drives the evolution of the universe, that drives change. Without it, stars and planets would never form, humans and other life forms would never exist, and teapots would never be made in the first place, broken or otherwise. Physicists still do not understand why our universe appears to have been created with such a high degree of order. Rovelli suggests that it's a matter of our human "perspective," and depends on our "interactions" with the physical world. I respectfully disagree. It is theoretically possible for the universe to have been created in a state of nearly maximum disorder, in which case no evolution or change would occur. That would not be a matter of perspective. One possibility, entertained by a number of leading physicists, is that there are lots of universes, the so called multiverse, with very different properties and initial conditions. Some of those universes may have started in conditions of maximum disorder, with nothing driving change, no distinction between future and past, where atom size pottery shards gather themselves up to form atom size teapots as often as the reverse. But some of these universes would have been created, by accident, with relatively high order. We live in such a universe because otherwise we wouldn't be here to discuss the matter. The theory of "quantum gravity," which is still not fully formulated, describes such a continuous creation of universes with random properties and initial conditions. Some elements of Rovelli's narrative, like the material on light cones and loop quantum gravity and spin networks, many readers will find incomprehensible. But the many other excellent explanations of science, the heart and humanity of the book, its poetry and its gentle tone raise it to the level and style of such great scientist writers as Lewis Thomas and Rachel Carson. Listening to Rovelli's book, as read by Cumberbatch, we hear the warm voice of a modest man searching to understand not only the physical world but also how he, and we, perceive it. "Time, then, is the form in which we beings whose brains are made up essentially of memory and foresight interact with the world," Rovelli writes near the end. "It is the source of our identity." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
How Much Watching Time Do You Have This Weekend? None No matter how much free time you have this weekend, we have TV recommendations for you. Come back every week for new suggestions on what to watch. This Weekend I Have ... 17 Minutes, and Everybody's Got Something to Hide 'What Did Jack Do?' When to watch: Now, on Netflix. Abandon expectations all ye who enter a David Lynch short film in which he interrogates a talking monkey. It's a tale of woe, a tale of love, a tale where the monkey's mouth is replaced by a person's mouth a la that Conan O'Brien bit from the mid 1990s. It's also the jolt of poetic surrealism we need right now, a welcome surprise amid the Netflix content glut. If you loved the black and white episode of the "Twin Peaks" revival, or if you think Gonzo and Camilla's romance is one for the ages, watch this. ... a Half Hour, and Let's Triumph Over Anxiety (a Little) 'Work in Progress' When to watch: Sunday at 11 p.m., on Showtime. I am relieved that this funny, surprising series has been renewed for a second season, especially because Sunday's season finale is so good. A comfy sense of humor goes a long way, but the show's real power is its calm precision, its richly developed world that still has these believable moments of hurt and beauty, like photorealistic needlepoint. Abby (played by Abby McEnany, who co created the semi autobiographical series) and Chris (Theo Germaine) have another big fight, and like all big fights, it's not really about what it's about. ... a Few Hours, and I'm Tired of the Rat Race 'My Dream Farm' When to watch: Now, on Amazon. Fleeing city life and embracing a pastoral existence: It's not just for Instagrammable fantasies anymore. Well, actually, it still is, and this five part British series from 2010 serves as a good reminder that small scale farming is a tremendous undertaking. Get ready to learn about pig mange, for example, and the need to follow local building ordinances lest your would be alpaca farm violate the law. Still, this show is mostly Monty Don giving gentle guidance and nonjudgmental suggestions. And advice like "get to know your neighbors" and "educate yourself about relevant issues" is as valuable in the concrete jungle as it is on a fledgling flower farm. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
The Palme d'Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, was awarded Saturday to "Parasite," a ferocious satire and critical favorite from the South Korean director Bong Joon ho. "I never imagined this," Mr. Bong said, accepting the award. This is the first time that a South Korean movie has won the Palme d'Or. Sylvester Stallone, who was honored at the festival, presented the Grand Prix, or second prize, to the French Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop for her feature debut "Atlantics." Ms. Diop is the first black woman to have a movie in the main competition. The streamlined awards ceremony was quick and almost painless. The main competition jury was led by the Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who said from the stage that while "democracy is disappearing" the jury was still very democratic. Its prizes included a "special mention" for "It Must Be Heaven," an existential comedy from the Palestinian director Elia Suleiman. The French director Celine Sciamma won the best screenplay prize for "Portrait of a Lady on Fire." Another critical favorite, this love story set in the 18th century centers on a female painter and her subject, a young woman whose portrait she is painting. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
Editor's note: We're thrilled that our longtime columnist, Marilyn Stasio who's been recovering from a traffic accident is finally back in our pages with her crisp, sharp, tartly funny takes on the latest crime novels. We've missed her, and we know you have, too. Yuck! That's the English word that unavoidably springs to mind when handling a novel by Lars Kepler, the pen name of the Swedish husband and wife writing team of Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril. THE RABBIT HUNTER (Knopf, 512 pp., 27.95) is a graphic example of their stomach churning style. Let's put it this way: It's not the killings that are disturbing it's what happens to the body parts. The translation by Neil Smith adheres to the authors' sanguinary style with descriptive accounts of subsequent murders by a killer or killers who seem to have it in for politicians. Given the high rank of the targeted victims, the case falls to Saga Bauer, a Security Police officer with a specialty in counterterrorism and a penchant for showing up at crime scenes dressed in a black leather bodysuit. Kepler injects the sweet voice of a child chanting a nursery rhyme about bunnies before each execution style death. ("Ten little rabbits, all dressed in white / Tried to get to heaven on the end of a kite. ...") But that's more a grace note than a plot point in a story that hops from political terrorism to psycho killer suspense in a heartbeat. No fluffy tales here. Whatever will they come up with next? In MANY RIVERS TO CROSS (Morrow, 377 pp., 28.99), Peter Robinson's new mystery featuring his simpatico police detective, Alan Banks, it's "pop up brothels." These floating escort agencies materialize out of nowhere to service patrons who trawl the dark web to find them only to quietly fold their tents and disappear once the police get wind of them. 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. "They can be quite sophisticated," observes Banks, ever the master of British reserve and understatement. But these enterprises are part of a pervasive flesh peddling racket that victimizes young women who are lured to England with promises of respectable jobs, only to be tricked out as prostitutes. That old story is given a new twist when Zelda, one of these involuntary recruits, turns out to be a "super recognizer," an individual gifted (or cursed) with extraordinary abilities to place a face. As always, Robinson approaches his characters with immense compassion. But it's Zelda's uncanny skills, not her vulnerable humanity, that are of intense interest to the police and even more so to the criminals who hold her life in their hands. We all need other people, but some of us sadly find ourselves in need of suspiciously helpful strangers call them Samaritans like the ones we meet in C. J. Tudor's eerie thriller, THE OTHER PEOPLE (Ballantine, 324 pp., 27). Gabe finds himself accepting the dubious assistance of such a shadowy syndicate following the disappearance of his 5 year old daughter, Izzy. Driving home from work one evening, Gabe is stunned to see a child who looks exactly like Izzy in the back seat of a car that passes him on the highway. It must be an illusion, he tells himself surely his daughter is at home with his wife until the little girl looks directly at him and mouths the word: "Daddy!" Unnervingly, upon his arrival home, he finds the police on his doorstep. Perhaps worse than the finality of death, "missing is limbo," he reflects, stung by the pain of studying old photographs of absent loved ones, "their hairstyles becoming more dated, their smiles more frozen with each missed birthday and Christmas." Fast forward three years: The car Gabe saw on the highway is pulled from a lake, a rotted body in the trunk, and Gabe is thrown back into the old nightmare. Better make that a fresh nightmare, because at the hands of Tudor, the real pain is yet to come. Now, there's a laugh line for you. But Brynn Callahan, the gutsy heroine of Susan Furlong's latest mystery, SHATTERED JUSTICE (Kensington, 293 pp., 26), doesn't crack a smile when she says it. A sheriff's deputy in a remote Tennessee community known as Bone Gap, Brynn had seen those severed ears "bloodstained, blue tinged flesh, strung up to dry like anemic chili peppers" just the night before, at a local bar. In a healthier state and sporting a silver horseshoe stud, they had belonged to a male stripper who had danced at a hen party and staggered off at the end of the night with one of the guests. This morning, they turned up at a children's playground, displayed under the crude scribble: "Hear no evil." What's next? A severed tongue, accompanied by a warning to "Speak no evil"? Well, yes, because that's the kind of humor that gets grim laughs in this gritty series, a real find, if you ask me. The thickly forested setting is gorgeous, once you look past the armed militia encampments pitched in the woods. And the locals are just quirky enough to make you forget they can also be dangerous. But the sturdy wildflower in this treacherous terrain is Brynn, who lives with a dog named Wilco, "once the best damn HRD (human remains detection) dog in the entire Middle Eastern conflict." The question is, are these two veterans tough enough to survive on the home front? | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
Shelved for four years when its original distributor went out of business, "Zeroville" has a handful of cute moments: Craig Robinson as a garrulous, movie loving mugger; Mia Serafino as Ali MacGraw repeatedly botching the most famous line in "Love Story." The cinematic name checking is relentless at one point, Vikar is rushed to the Philippines to rescue edit "Apocalypse Now" yet there are no ideas to engage with and no one to like. In common with Vikar, "Zeroville" is empty behind the eyes. Rated R for aggressive cinephilia and a smattering of naked breasts. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
After the emergency hacksaw surgery on his hooves, Sherman barely moved. We held our breath, waiting to see if he could walk, but Sherman spent all day pressed against the side of our little brown barn, head hanging, looking as if he'd been led there for execution. On the outside, the neglected donkey looked better than he had a few evenings ago, when he shuffled off a trailer, lame and sick with matted fur. But now he needed to move, to walk, in order to survive. Whether he was frightened, or in pain, or just confused, we couldn't tell. "I can't believe he isn't dead," a friend who raises sheep in upstate New York messaged after seeing a photo of Sherman. "I have seen farmers here put down animals in far better shape." My wife, two girls and I left Sherman in peace, keeping an eye on him but trusting that for now, what he needed most after his liberation from years in a mucky stall and the tough love of his hoof trimming and matted fur shearing was time to rest. Or so we hoped. Donkeys on deathwatch were way out of our very limited field of experience. We weren't animal people when we moved to Lancaster County, even though we'd landed ourselves amongst Amish and Mennonite neighbors whose lives revolved around their herds. For the first three years we didn't even have a cat, and took one in only because she turned up at the back door. We edged our way into bigger creatures after Katie and Amos Stoltzfus, our closest Amish friends, told my lactose intolerant wife that sheep milk was easiest on the human stomach. We borrowed a pair of Katie's ewes for a few months, and then decided to start a little flock of our own. From sheep we had to progress to a pair of fainting goats, Chili Dog and Awesome Blossom, after discovering that the Falmouth Goat Race, one of America's weirdest and funnest throwback festivals, was almost in our backyard. So until Sherman arrived, our version of a farm was pretty much a turn key operation. Goats, dairy sheep and barn cats mostly look out for themselves, requiring little more than hay in winter and a regular squirt in the mouth of deworming paste. I had more trouble managing myself than them, like when I gave in to temptation and bought Lawrence, an adorable little Oberhasli goat whose poor ears had been deformed by frostbite. Only after I got home did I discover that they're famously strong jumpers who love to rocket over fences. Sure enough, we were soon being woken at 5 in the morning by neighbors pounding on the back door after swerving to avoid the furry doofus in the middle of the road. It was hard to stay mad at Lawrence, though, because his breakouts seemed less about freedom and more about friendship. Whenever I shuffled out to haul him in, he'd come trotting right up as if wondering where I'd been all morning. But sweet as he was, I was worried about mixing Lawrence with Sherman. I wanted to surround Sherman with the comfort of a herd as soon as possible, but I couldn't tell if Lawrence would be perfect for the job or a disaster. His friendliness can freak out kids and other animals, especially when he forgets he's got two giant bone spears on his head. His bounding welcome can look like an attack, especially to other males. Chili Dog, our other billy goat, has learned to mostly ignore him, but I had my doubts about an already traumatized donkey. I kept Sherman on his own all day, thinking he'd settle in more easily and begin to explore his new home, but by nightfall he still hadn't budged. I decided to bring the other animals back from the pasture, hoping they'd be in such a hurry to get into the barn that they'd barely notice the stranger. Maybe they'd smell the new presence in their midst overnight and be adjusted to it by sunrise. Lawrence's next move won my forgiveness for all his escapes: Instead of joining the other animals inside, he lay down at Sherman's feet. When I came out the next morning, Lawrence was still by Sherman's side. It was more than just heartwarming; if Lawrence's friendship could get Sherman to move and eat, it could keep him alive. I put out some hay and Lawrence, that chowhound, bolted for breakfast. Sherman took a few tentative steps to follow. He didn't eat, probably because the sheep were charging around the feeder like sharks attacking chum, but wherever Lawrence went, Sherman was close behind. The rest of the day, they were inseparable. By evening, Sherman was joining the rest of the gang at the hay feeder. Over the next few days our horse trainer friend, Tanya, stopped by repeatedly to check Sherman's progress. She fed him apple flavored deworming paste, and brought over an equine dentist who pulled Sherman's rotten teeth and estimated by their growth that he was only 8, shockingly young for a donkey who seemed 80. But his feet, at least, were looking hopeful. "He's moving well," Tanya said. "A lot better than I expected." But when we tried to lead Sherman out for a walk, he refused to leave the grass. Getting Sherman to step confidently onto hard surfaces was essential to my plan for his recovery. Tanya, who is as close to a donkey whisperer as you'll ever find, knew that for Sherman to heal, he needed a job, a sense of purpose. I wanted to turn him into a runner. Maybe one day, I could even lead him to the starting line of a pack burro race. Legend has it that the sport was born in the Gold Rush, when prospectors ran alongside their pack animals to register their claims. A few Colorado miners in the 1940s began racing their burros from Leadville to Fairplay along mountain trails that were 13,000 feet high and 30 miles long. Other towns got in on the action until, at the peak of burro mania in the 1980s, a top racer could live off nothing but prize money from a dozen races in three states. Recently burro racing has been on the rise, partly because it attracts athletes craving a test as demanding as an Ironman triathlon. "To me, the really interesting challenge is working with a large animal that can run any second, any day, any week, faster than any human on earth," says Hal Walter, a sub 2:40 marathoner who left roadrunning to become a seven time winner of the World Championship Pack Burro Race in Fairplay, Colo. Training Sherman to race with me could be the perfect thing to help him heal and learn to trust again. The rules of burro racing are simple: You have to be accompanied by a donkey, which you cannot ride. You can use any kind of donkey (or burro, since they're the same thing), but mules are a donkey horse hybrid and therefore forbidden. It's a lot like running with any other buddy, assuming you've got the kind of friends who occasionally freeze in their tracks, bolt for the hills, and kick you in the face. "He won't set foot on anything hard, though," I told Tanya. "He won't even step on gravel in the driveway." "That might be his brain, not his feet," she said. "You've got no idea what kind of life he's had. There could be a lot of trauma between those ears that needs to be unpacked. Let's try something. Go get that goat he likes." I fetched Lawrence and snapped a leash on his collar. Lawrence is always up for an adventure, especially when it might involve a treat, so he walked eagerly at my side. "Bring him out here to the road," Tanya called, "and let's see if Sherman follows." As Lawrence and I approached the pasture gate, Sherman's head jerked up. He began to follow, quick and anxious. Suddenly, he broke into a canter and ran past us. He stopped right in front of the gate, blocking it so we couldn't get past and out to the road. Check mate. He gazed off innocently, as if he'd ended up there by accident. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Well |
More than 70 medical, research and advocacy organizations active in 41 countries and including the National Institutes of Health announced Wednesday that they had agreed to create an organized way to share genetic and clinical information. Their aim is to put the vast and growing trove of data on genetic variations and health into databases with the consent of the study subjects that would be open to researchers and doctors all over the world, not just to those who created them. Millions more people are expected to get their genes decoded in coming years, and the fear is that this avalanche of genetic and clinical data about people and how they respond to treatments will be hopelessly fragmented and impede the advance of medical science. This ambitious effort hopes to standardize the data and make them widely availabl e. "We are strong supporters of this global alliance," said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. "There is lots of momentum now, and we really do want to move quickly." In just the past few years, the price of determining the sequence of genetic letters that make up human DNA has dropped a millionfold, said Dr. David Altshuler, deputy director and chief academic officer at the Broad Institute of Harvard and M.I.T. As a result, instead of having access to just a few human genomes the complete genetic material of a person, including genes and regions that control genes researchers can now study tens of thousands of them, along with clinical data on peoples' health and how they fared on various treatments. In the next few years, Dr. Altshuler said, researchers expect that millions of people will have their genomes sequenced. "The question is whether and how we make it possible to learn from these data as they grow, in a manner that respects the autonomy and privacy choices of each participant," he said. No one wants to put DNA sequences and clinical data on the Internet without the permission of patients, he said, so it also is important to allow people to decide if they want their data with no names or obvious identifiers attached to be available to researchers. But there are no agreed upon standards for representing genetic data or sharing them, experts say. And there are no common procedures for assuring that patients consent to sharing their information. "Each institution has its own approach," Dr. Altshuler said. In cancer research, for example, medical centers test cancer cells to find gene mutations. The goal of these tests is to help diagnose and identify treatments that might help individual patients. But there are no common methods for doing these tests or analyzing the data, and each research group keeps its data to itself, said Dr. Charles L. Sawyers, chairman of the human oncology and pathogenesis program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. As a result, the centers often have too little experience with a particular mutation to know what it really means. A person might be told at one cancer center that a new treatment would help and at another that it would not. Medical researchers say the best way forward is to have shared databases. Do patients with a particular genetic aberration tend to do well with a particular therapy? Do patients with another mutation have greater odds of developing cancer? Dr. Collins said that cancers are so genetically complex that, most of the time, a mutation seen in a cancer patient will be uncommon. To figure out its significance, data from hundreds of thousands of patients the world's collected data on that mutation are needed. "You need very large numbers of patients," Dr. Collins said. Pooled data are also needed to understand mutations that lead to rare diseases in children, Dr. Altshuler said. A disease might occur in one in 1,000 or one in 100,000 babies, he said. A medical center might never see a child with that disease, or might see just one. "Since everyone sees zero or one, no one ever learns," Dr. Altshuler said. Brad Margus, an advocate for children with rare diseases, enthusiastically supports the idea of data sharing. As the father of two sons with a rare disease, ataxia telangiectasia, and founder and volunteer president of the A T Children's Project, he says he learned how progress is made. "There is this perception that the key to the next breakthrough is from someone finding a gene that is sitting somewhere and someone having a eureka moment," Mr. Margus said. "What I learned is that it does not usually happen that way." Often what is needed are huge data sets, he added, "so people can be proactive when they have an idea." Pooled data are also needed to understand the genesis of big killers like heart disease, researchers said. Recently, for example, Dr. Sekar Kathiresan, director of preventive cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital and a geneticist at the Broad Institute, sought to find out whether high density lipoprotein, or HDL, the so called good cholesterol, actually protects people against heart disease. Do people who happen to have genetic changes that result in lifelong high levels of HDL have a lower risk, he asked? They do not, he concluded, but his study required genetic data from more than 100,000 people collected in 20 studies by researchers from around the world. It took three years to gather the data, put them in a form that allowed investigators to analyze them and to do the analysis. "We need standard formats so we don't have to spend two years figuring out how to merge data together," Dr. Collins said. Over the past couple of years, genetics researchers puzzled over the data sharing problem, seeing it as central to making progress. On Jan. 28, 50 leading researchers from eight countries met and agreed on the need for a global alliance. The group, which included ethicists and disease advocates, stressed that because individual study subjects had to be able to decide whether to share their genetic and clinical information, the system for data sharing had to include ways to track and manage these permissions. The group wrote a white paper and a letter of intent that has now been endorsed by an ever growing international group. "For us, this is a gratifying development," Dr. Collins said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
It's hard for a conductor not to make an impression with the surefire opening of Verdi's "Otello." The terrified people of Cyprus look out to sea where a vicious storm is battering the ship carrying home Otello, their governor. The orchestra captures the sounds of crackling thunder and roiling waves; chorus members erupt with cries of fear as they see the ship tottering. Gustavo Dudamel, one of the most dynamic conductors of our time and, arguably, at 37, the face of classical music today, made the most of this scene in his much anticipated debut at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday, when Bartlett Sher's sleekly contemporary 2015 production returned to the house. The orchestra seethed and heaved with intensity. Slashing chords had raw, brassy power. Mr. Dudamel kept the scattered choral declamation and fitful orchestral stretches in sync, while making the episode seem utterly spontaneous. And when the full chorus breaks into a collective appeal to God to save the ship, Mr. Dudamel pulled back the tempo to give more lyrical fullness to the pleading melodic line. From the compelling way he handled this stormy opening it seemed like we were in good hands. Mr. Dudamel came through, leading a surely paced, textured and exciting performance of a challenging score. If there were no interpretive revelations and, for me, a couple of scenes that lacked tragic weight this was still a significant, and overdue, debut. Though Mr. Dudamel is best known for his visionary leadership at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he has actually conducted quite a bit of opera, including appearances at La Scala, the Berlin State Opera and the Paris Opera. And he's innovatively presented operas at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
's new novel, "Machines Like Me" set in an alternative past, and grappling with issues surrounding artificial intelligence debuts on the list this week at No. 10. If "Machines Like Me" sounds like the stuff of science fiction, well, it is, and McEwan recently touched off a firestorm when he dismissed the genre in an interview with The Guardian. "There could be an opening of a mental space for novelists to explore this future," he said, "not in terms of traveling at 10 times the speed of light in antigravity boots, but in actually looking at the human dilemmas of being close up to something that you know to be artificial but which thinks like you." Later, he told The Associated Press that "Machines Like Me" was "an old fashioned novel about an ethical problem pushed on us by technology." The sci fi community began calling out McEwan's genre snobbery on Twitter and in opinion pieces. "It is as absurd for McEwan to claim he's not writing sci fi as it is for him to imply that sci fi is incapable of approaching these themes interestingly," said one. "Alternative history and nonhuman consciousness are established sci fi motifs." Another wrote, "Anyone is entitled to try out ideas. What you can't do is write a detective story and think 'the butler did it' is a world first clever twist." As Dwight Garner noted in his review of "Machines Like Me," "people are touchy about genre." Kurt Vonnegut famously complained that he was "a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled 'science fiction' ... and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal." And Harlan Ellison once said, "Call me a science fiction writer. I'll come to your house and I'll nail your pet's head to a coffee table. I'll hit you so hard your ancestors will die." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
"Jane Pauley! You're all in leather," said Samantha Bee, as Ms. Pauley walked into the private dining room at Asiate restaurant in the Mandarin Oriental hotel in New York. And she was: in a sleek, black leather suit. "My husband calls it my biker chick outfit," Ms. Pauley said, surveying a sleeve warily. "It doesn't get out much." Even in that early exchange, the women established life size versions of their television personas: Ms. Bee, 47, a comedian and host of "Full Frontal With Samantha Bee," is fearless. She will say, out loud, the thing the rest of us are thinking, if not (in restaurants, anyway) with the same fierce humor she brings to her critically acclaimed satirical news program. "Full Frontal" was named one of the best television shows of 2016 by The New York Times. It returns on Wednesday on TBS. Before "Full Frontal," Ms. Bee was a longtime correspondent for "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart." And Ms. Pauley, 66, the new host of the venerable television newsmagazine "CBS Sunday Morning," is trustworthy and relatable. And she has a 40 year legacy in broadcast news to prove it. In 1976, she became a co host of "Today," at 25, following Barbara Walters. After 13 years at "Today," and the first of many messy handovers in morning television, Ms. Pauley moved to "Dateline," a prime time newsmagazine on NBC, where she was co host for 12 years. More recently, she wrote a best selling memoir, "Skywriting," in which she discussed her bipolar disorder. JP: I would have appreciated notes. I felt like a girl, and I had no idea how to be a woman. Remember, I was replacing Barbara Walters. I don't think Barbara was ever a girl. She was grown up and confident and an actual pioneer. SB: I'm sorry to tell you, Jane, you're an "actual pioneer" too. JP: But, wait. Barbara was a self made woman; Sam is a self made woman. They created their opportunities. What I give myself credit for is when opportunities presented themselves and many did I always said yes. And I made it work, even if it was scary or I didn't feel quite ready. But that's different. About a dozen years ago, NBC showed me my audience research for the first time. For years, the quality most associated with me was authenticity. I thought, "Yeah, I believe that." I would have argued if they'd said anything else. But somehow, through the fear and learning and work, some authenticity broke through. PG: Flash forward 40 years, and there still wasn't a woman in the late night arsenal. Was gender a selling point for "Full Frontal"? The way you're leaning into misogyny is so righteous. And fun to watch, like a woman just let out of prison. SB: We do our righteous fury for 21 minutes, and then we just exist in the world as normal people. It's very satisfying for a short period of time. But I don't carry a heavy burden of ... no, wait. I can't accurately say that I don't carry a burden of anger now. It's toxic to be swimming in the news stream these days. But you have to find a way to peel away from that. Nobody enjoys this answer, but I'm saying it anyway: I haven't faced an incredible amount of misogyny in my career. I know it's real; it exists. But I've been lucky to work with a lot of woke men. Jon Stewart gave me my biggest opportunity. But I gave myself opportunities too. I did the work. SB: That's because we want to cram so much excitement into 20 minutes. But it doesn't just come from outrage. It comes from fascination and confusion and learning. The stories that excite us most are the ones we're learning from. You can see everyone on the staff swarming around them. PG: Has being fiery ever been effective for you, Jane? JP: Behind the scenes, absolutely. When I really believed in something, I surprised people by being powerful. But never on air. Once I was in a taxi, and another cabdriver did something to offend mine. Horns are being honked and suddenly the drivers are out of their cars. SB: And Jane Pauley gets out of her car JP: Jane Pauley does. She gets out of the taxi and uses not her TV voice, but her mom voice. I said, "Stop being children and get back in your cars." And they did. That authority came from an easy place. PG: Let's take a look at authority in the news. First, there was just news: stuff that Jane and Tom Brokaw told us. Then there was cable news that often comes with an ideological slant. Then satirical news, like "The Daily Show" and "Full Frontal," which aims at the absurdity of news and newsmakers. And now, fake news, just outright lies and the scourge of our past election season. Did you see any of this coming? JP: Not at all. Sometimes I feel like an ambassador from the 20th century. For me, everything changed when they started putting that crawl beneath the anchor, as if to say: "Pay no attention to the man on the screen! Ignore him and read this instead." I'm still quavering over that, and it was a generation ago. PG: And I heard a brilliant bit of writing. You called Trump a "tangerine tinted trash can fire." It was very funny, but are you not afraid of saying that? JP: Does she look afraid? PG: There are scary people out there. That guy from Maryland who went to Comet Ping Pong pizza with an assault rifle because he really believed that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring in the basement JP: He thought he was being a superhero. PG: Not to mention the trolling repercussions of a Twitter war with Donald Trump. Has that happened to you yet? SB: No, we're still looking forward to that. I don't think we're on his radar. PG: And when you call him a "trash can fire," you're not worried about half the nation changing the channel? SB: I don't, but maybe I should. You won't believe this, but we don't hear much about how people receive the show. I'm sure TBS knows. But we're doing this for ourselves. It's as pastoral as kids putting on a show in the barn for their parents. We're just trying to make the tightest 21 minutes of artful satire we can. SB: That's 100 percent correct. But I hear you, Philip: We're facing a new reality after the election. These next four years are going to require a broad coalition of straight up decency. And we're going to need to be able to talk to people who would normally feel alienated by my show. I'm trying to think how those conversations can take place. I'm starting to imagine America as a giant Thanksgiving table where we may need some ground rules before we break bread. Maybe some things will have to be off limits if we're going to find the humanity on the other side of the aisle some contact points. PG: Maybe there's a way of going forward by looking back: recruiting measured voices, like Jane's, to help us. JP: But the danger is blandness. You can't overthink it, or you'll end up being uninteresting to everyone. PG: I can't believe you heard, "Jane is bland," when I was thinking, "Jane is empathic enough to do it." Do you think you're bland? PG: Before we leave the subject of celebrity, let me thank you, Jane, on behalf of a great friend, who's bipolar. Your book about being bipolar, "Skywriting," came out exactly when she needed to read it. JP: I'm thrilled to hear it. That makes fame worth something, that I could use it for some good. I hope she's doing well now. PG: She is. Was it hard to do? JP: Not if it was going to help some people. PG: Let's close with a question about identity. For me, hearing about people's obstacles as women or gay people, the white working class or people of color is always interesting. The stories connect us, as long as we're not dismissive of anyone. So, how did identity politics become the scourge of the year? JP: I can see how it cuts both ways. Identity politics can let us know each other in a human way, but it can also be tribal. I can retreat into my identity group and resent people who aren't in it. Given a choice, we don't necessarily choose unity. SB: It's all identity politics. Why isn't being a white working class male an identity in itself? PG: But did we give the impression that a white working class guy struggling to find a job was something we didn't respect? JP: My mother was an organist at church, unpaid. She was an intelligent woman, very conservative, a housewife. They didn't call them "stay at home" moms then; she didn't have that identity. So the women's movement felt diminishing to her, and she resented it. I think something similar was going on this year. Some populations felt diminished in their identity. SB: I want to live in a world where all voices are heard. I don't think putting aside the concerns of transgender people or gay people to chase votes is ever the right move. Identity politics is like civil rights. And chasing our tails after a loss, the way we seem to be doing now, is not working for me. PG: Now I'm dying to know how Jane's mother felt about her giant career. JP: She didn't trust journalists much. That was possibly inspired by Walter Cronkite coming back from Vietnam and saying that we had not been told the truth about the war. Still, she was absolutely proud of her daughter and son in law. Garry was this liberal satirist, and she loved him. Boy, could he make her laugh. But she had an issue with the media, and my being part of it didn't resolve it for her. PG: How about your parents, Sam? SB: My dad is very in there; he watches the show regularly. My mom watches it after the fact. But they're supportive. They live in Canada. JP: What's that supposed to mean? SB: They're low key. It's just the new reality: Their daughter has a TV show. They're not overly impressed. My mom will still call me up and go, "I didn't care for that red blazer." JP: Did your father ever tell you that you had to be a lady? SB: Never! I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, who sounds a bit like your mom. She would see women on TV and think they were snippy or full of themselves. She would not enjoy the content of my show, but she would be so proud. PG: The eternal distinction that parents make for us. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
The Sacklers Could Get Away With It None Mr. Posner is the author of "Pharma: Greed, Lies and the Poisoning of America." Mr. Brubaker is a law professor. The billionaire Sacklers who own Purdue Pharma, maker of the OxyContin painkiller that helped fuel America's opioid epidemic, are among America's richest families. And if they have their way, the federal court handling Purdue's bankruptcy case will help them hold on to their wealth by releasing them from liability for the ravages caused by OxyContin. The July 30 deadline for filing claims in Purdue's bankruptcy proceedings potentially implicates not just claims against Purdue, but also claims against the Sacklers. The Sacklers may yet again benefit from expansive powers that bankruptcy courts exercise in complex cases. So far, the bankruptcy court has granted injunctions stopping proceedings in several hundred lawsuits charging that Sackler family members directed the aggressive marketing campaign for OxyContin; it and other opioids have been implicated in the addictions of millions of patients and the deaths of several hundred thousand. The Sacklers have offered 3 billion in the hope that the bankruptcy court will impose a global settlement of OxyContin litigation. Under this settlement, all claims against the Sacklers, even by families who lost loved ones to opioids, would be forever extinguished. The Sacklers would walk away with an estimated several billion of OxyContin profits while leaving unresolved a crucial question asked by victims and their families: Did the Sacklers create and coordinate fraudulent marketing that helped make their best selling drug a deadly national scourge? With that question left unanswered, many of those injured by OxyContin would feel victimized again. In a bankruptcy filing, debts are forgiven "discharged," in legal terms after debtors commit the full value of all of their assets (with the exception of certain types of property, like a primary home) to pay their creditors. That is not, however, what the Sacklers want, and indeed the members of the family have not filed for bankruptcy themselves. What they propose instead is to be shielded from all OxyContin lawsuits, protecting their tremendous personal wealth from victims' claims against them. What's more, a full liability release would provide the Sacklers with more immunity than they could ever obtain in a personal bankruptcy filing, which would not protect them from legal action for fraud, willful and malicious personal injury, or from punitive damages. Appallingly, legal experts expect the court to give the Sacklers what they want. The precedent is a 1985 case in which the A.H. Robins Company, the manufacturer of the Dalkon Shield contraceptive device, filed for bankruptcy protection. Plaintiffs charged that members of the Robins family and others had fraudulently concealed evidence of the Dalkon Shield's dangers. None had themselves filed for bankruptcy, but the court discharged all of them from liability. The releases even went so far as to prohibit injured women from suing their doctors for medical malpractice claims. Other bankruptcy courts have since embraced this concept of a shield from liability for those who have not filed bankruptcy. The Constitution vests only Congress with the power to enact bankruptcy law, the essence of which is prescribing by statute how much wealth a debtor must surrender to creditors in order to obtain a discharge. But Congress has never given a green light for the courts to create a liability discharge process for those like the Sacklers who have not submitted all of their assets to the control of a bankruptcy court by filing bankruptcy. This extraordinary practice presents serious obstacles for those injured by OxyContin. If granted, it will be nearly impossible to get a full and transparent assessment of the Sacklers' role in the opioid crisis without either the appointment of an independent examiner in the bankruptcy case or congressional investigations. Allowing the bankruptcy court to impose a global OxyContin settlement may at first appear to be an efficient way to resolve litigation that could drag on for years. But the Sacklers will benefit from this expediency at the expense of victims. At stake is whether there will ever be a fair assessment of responsibility for America's deadly prescription drug epidemic. Protection from all OxyContin liability for the Sackler family would be an end run around the reckoning that justice requires. Gerald Posner ( geraldposner) is the author of "Pharma: Greed, Lies and the Poisoning of America." Ralph Brubaker teaches bankruptcy law at the University of Illinois. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter ( NYTopinion) and Instagram. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
One of the most famous men to kill a wolf was Aldo Leopold, who, as a 22 year old forest ranger more than a century ago, slaughtered a mother and her cubs in Arizona's Apache National Forest. Thereafter, he was forever haunted by the "fierce green fire dying" in the eyes of the elder wolf. Slaying a wolf with its family, for Leopold, was an epiphany of conscience that helped fortify the convictions of a budding conservationist. But to the Trump administration, it's now just another way to kill in the wild. For it will again be legal on some federal lands to kill wolves and pups in the season when they wean their young. Hunters also are free to harass and shoot bears newly roused from their dens by spotlights and bait, and to gun down swimming caribous from a boat. You judge the character of a nation by how it treats fellow humans. Putting kids in cages, ignoring the warning signs of a virus that has killed more than 118,000 people in America, and using force to clear a park of peaceful protesters are among the most awful things that will follow Donald Trump into his dungeon of history. But you should also judge the character of a nation by how it treats fellow living creatures. Because how we treat animals tells us something a lot, in fact about how we treat one another. So, this is how you can now kill a bear on some federal preserves in Alaska: You put stale doughnuts or dog food drenched in honey outside a bear's lair, and then shoot the drowsy and hungry animal that stumbles out to take the bait. This crude policy was banned by wildlife experts in the Obama administration, who said it was biologically unsound and unsportsmanlike. There's that curious and archaic word sportsman, someone who follows the rules of engagement. Good hunters give their prey a chance. Bad hunters shoot hibernating mothers and their babies because they don't have the patience or skill to track an animal in the wild. Don't be fooled by the stated excuse for the government's turn to barbarism: that the feds are merely aligning themselves with the practices allowed by the State of Alaska. This change is all about appeasing trophy hunters. Well, one trophy hunter Donald Trump Jr. You may have heard the recent report that taxpayers spent 75,000 for junior to hunt and kill a rare argali sheep in Mongolia last year while in the secure silo of the Secret Service. Trump Jr. is a hunter of privilege, jetting into an exotic locale, getting special treatment from the local government and a permit issued retroactively, using the best guides and equipment. The package was completed by Instagram posts of the entitled rich kid in camo atop a horse in Mongolia. He snuffed the life from that magnificent animal, a species threatened with extinction and the largest sheep in the world, using a laser guided rifle that allowed him to hunt at night, according to a story in ProPublica. If there was fierce green fire in the animal's dying eyes, Trump probably missed it. I'm not against hunting. I have family members and friends who are experts with gun and crossbow, including a nephew in Montana who has a freezerful of the most wild, organic, free range meat you'll find on the planet. He makes a terrific bear Bolognese. But trophy hunters like Trump Jr. are another breed soft handed predators masquerading in manliness. In February, Junior gave a speech in Reno and auctioned himself off on a "dream hunt" in Alaska, to the Safari Club International, a trophy hunting club that pushed for the changes in the Last Frontier State. The Humane Society described the Reno event as a gathering of people who "celebrate the senseless killing, buying and selling of dead animals for bragging rights." You can only wonder what thrill it might bring little Donnie and the other big men who are now free to shoot mothers and their cubs. Trump Jr. likes to brag about "triggering the libs" with his behavior. But he just wants to pull a trigger at some defenseless animal. By sucker punch killing bears and wolves, trophy hunters improve their chance at felling prized moose or caribous. The more ferocious animals must be "harvested" in order to increase the "bag limits" of the other species that are their prey. This kind of rigged hunting throws the natural ecology out of whack in order to appease the Trump Juniors of the world. By far, most animal cruelty is not in the wild, but on American farms. And here the Trump administration has been characteristically inhumane. In 2018, Trump's government threw out Obama era rules providing some protection to cattle and chickens raised on organic farms. These measures were designed to allow creatures to breathe fresh air or move about somewhat freely. From the beginning of his presidency, Trump has been toxic to the natural world. He has reversed more than 100 environmental laws, allowing more chemicals in our fruit and reducing air quality to such a degree that it may result in thousands of premature deaths. He is a doge of desecration. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
The stories in Peter Orner's latest collection, like those in his previous two, are grouped into sections loosely organized around an era, theme or location, and vary widely in length. While at first I found myself flipping ahead, trying to get a handle on the size and scope of each new one, I soon gave in to the pleasure of not knowing how long the trip would be, experiencing a mild shock when (often sooner than later) its dense world ended and I was tipped into white space. Then another story would begin, set in Illinois or California or coastal Massachusetts, populated by a variety of characters: male, female; young, old. Whether a prisoner, a writer, a lawyer, a custodian, a grad student, a camp director or a salesman, all are intent on finding meaning in their lives, or on questioning its absence. There's a beautiful drifting quality to "Maggie Brown Others," a sense of being invited inside a roving, kaleidoscopic mind reluctant to generalize, tender, astute, with an eye for both comedy and heartache and adopting its rhythms as your own. If Orner is bold in his embrace of unconventional narrative structures and organizing principles (there aren't a lot of Freytag's Pyramids here, and the connections between stories are often oblique), his work is also without pretense, powerfully aware of how difficult it is to capture experience on the page. His characters regularly muse on the act of storytelling, sometimes as writers or readers, but more often as plain spoken, ordinary people, struggling to hide or reveal, bridge differences and resist glib formulations in the face of the serious threats posed by mortality, estrangement and the rush of time. "His voice cracked but he couldn't muster any words," Orner writes in "The Return." "How to even begin? How to stuff all the years into a few words? But wasn't this the frightening thing? You could. In two, three, four sentences, you could jam 14 years, easy." Elsewhere, the stories comment on the paucity of their own telling ("They were like similarly overweight leopards hunting alone the image doesn't quite work, but the point is they were solitary predators"), but in a mild mannered way, as if to say "Just do your best with what you've got." At times, some of the stories start to feel gloomily repetitive, rehashing failed marriages or love affairs. More interesting is the way Orner captures the power of flickering encounters that don't count as major milestones but persist in memory for what they have unleashed: a violent urge, a sharp regret, a renewed estrangement from or connection to the self. In the haunting title story, we read of the narrator's memories of his onetime lover, a young cellist named Maggie Brown, and of his college roommate, both long absent from his life. "You end up forgetting the people you shouldn't and remembering the people who've forgotten all about you," the narrator remarks. "For me what echoes, what reverberates, what I often relive and relive are those times that were cut short, times so fleeting they hardly even happened." Perhaps the collection's most powerful section is its final one, a wonderfully granular, funny yet also moving novella in stories set in Fall River, Mass. Here we encounter Walt Kaplan, a furniture salesman whom fans of Orner will remember from previous books. Now it's 1977, and Walt, 58, is in the Truesdale Hospital post heart attack. He's aging too fast in a fading city where "the only Jews who stayed ... were the ones who'd died and the ones waiting for the opportunity." Jumping around wildly in time, and with time's passage as its central concern, the novella builds a rich mosaic of Walt's life and of Fall River, a touchstone locale in Orner's work. "Walt Kaplan Is Broke" has the heft of a novel while allowing for the rough edges, gaps and echoes enabled by Orner's collagelike use of shorter forms. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
After over a decade as music director of the Paris Opera, the conductor Philippe Jordan is preparing to enter a new phase of his career at the Vienna State Opera. He bids farewell with the same work that won over the French capital's audience in 2010: Wagner's "Ring." A new staging of the tetralogy by Calixto Bieito has been scheduled to begin this season and continue in the fall before it unfolds under Mr. Jordan's baton as a mini festival in November and December. It takes place despite a loss of over 16 million euros ( 17 million) because of strikes over retirement reform that forced the company to withdraw two new productions next season. The company has also made available on its website until Sunday a replay of an earlier production of Mozart's "Don Giovanni," which Mr. Jordan was to conduct at Palais Garnier (three other productions were canceled because of the coronavirus outbreak). Until May 3, viewers will also have the opportunity to experience a full cycle of Tchaikovsky symphonies that Mr. Jordan recorded with the house orchestra in 2017 18. Known as much for his versatility and rigor as an ability to balance the theatrical with musical considerations, the 45 year old (son of the conductor Armin Jordan) is credited with raising standards in the pit during his Paris tenure. But it is with Wagner perhaps more than any other composer that the Swiss native has made his mark, from noted appearances at the Bayreuth Festival in 2012 to the Metropolitan Opera last year. Starting this fall, when Mr. Jordan takes over as music director in Vienna, he will devote the bulk of his energy to activities at the State Opera. Alongside the "Ring," he is scheduled to conduct only two concerts in Paris next season (as a further sign of commitment to his new post, he will end his position as principal conductor of the Wiener Symphoniker in 2021). Mr. Jordan said in a telephone interview that "it is best to leave on a high note": "Although I would have been happy to spend another 10 years in Paris with this wonderful orchestra, with these two houses, in this wonderful city I think I gave everything I could. It is also important to get new stimulation and develop myself further." The following interview was translated from German. It has been edited and condensed. What qualities does the house orchestra in Paris bring to Wagner, and on what aspects have you worked over the years? Not everyone may share my opinion, but my feeling is that Wagner should not necessarily be played heavy and German. We know that he spent a great deal of time in Paris, which was the mecca of opera culture. A French orchestra has per se more transparency and clarity than a German orchestra. The winds are more flexible and smoother. But also the strings, since they are not played as intensively, provide an opportunity for the singers not to constantly have to force their voices . Nevertheless, one shouldn't work with a French orchestra on French but rather German qualities. They don't lose their French qualities as a result. That was our collaborative work; it developed increasingly into the orchestra's DNA. How has your perspective on the "Ring" changed over the years? A lot has changed because I was in Bayreuth in the meantime. One learns there to conduct Wagner differently than one otherwise would above all, the "Ring" and "Parsifal." That lies with the acoustics. The proportions between the woodwinds and horns which are usually too loud in the pit and the strings are ideally balanced. One gets a very different feeling for the relief of the score. The other thing is the sense of tempo. Most conductors, myself included, tend to bathe themselves in the sound. In Bayreuth, one notices that it doesn't carry if a tempo is too slow. To what extent do you adapt to a given director? A conductor and director have to work with mutual respect. It should always be music theater music stands in the foreground and nevertheless it should be good theater. I have never worked with Calixto Bieito, but after seeing his production of Aribert Reimann's "Lear" at Garnier, it was clear to me and Stephane Lissner director of the Paris Opera that this is an exciting aesthetic. He is not someone who presents a finished concept that rather brings evocations that result in an overall picture. I am also very pleased that we are trying to cultivate a new generation of Wagner singers not no names, but people who are fresh. Iain Paterson is still a relatively new Wotan, Martina Serafin a new Brunnhilde. Of course we also have Jonas Kaufmann and Eva Maria Westbroek, which I am very happy about in "Die Walkure." How have you been affected by the strikes? Is this a warning to the rest of Europe? As a foreigner in this country, it is hard for me to offer an opinion. But I stated in a public letter to the culture minister that the higher the retirement age, the more the quality of the musicians suffers. Most of all with instruments like solo horn or solo trumpet or choral singers. One can say that there are such conditions abroad, but I think this is part of the quality that this system guarantees that we could always have the best people at the right age. In Vienna, the role of music director is being redefined so that you will be more involved in overall management. What challenges lie ahead there? The challenge is how to manage a repertory company, where one presents up to 60 titles a year. In Paris, it is about 20. How does one deal with the limited rehearsal situation? How does one manage the ensemble? | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
ROME The coronavirus pandemic and its punitive economic effects are about to set off the next global hunger crisis. In the last four years, conflicts, climate change and economic instability raised the number of people suffering acute hunger when the absence of food endangers people's livelihoods and, in some cases, their lives from 80 million to 135 million people. The pandemic could drive 130 million more people into that state by December. More than a quarter of a billion people are likely to be acutely hungry in 2020. Workers employed in the informal economy and in service and manufacturing sectors are particularly vulnerable. Many have already experienced job losses during extended lockdowns: A staggering 94 percent of the global work force live in countries where workplaces have been closed. According to the International Labor Organization, the pandemic will have caused a loss of working hours in April, May and June equivalent to that of 305 million full time jobs. What's more, economic contraction and job losses in major economies such as the United States, Russia and the Gulf countries deliver a serious financial blow to numerous countries that rely heavily on overseas remittances substantially threatening their food security. In Haiti, remittances mostly from the United States make up almost 37 percent of the gross domestic product. In Nepal, remittances form 27 percent of G.D.P., 67 percent of which comes from migrant workers in the Gulf countries. And in Tajikistan, where remittances are 28 percent of the G.D.P., 76 percent comes from migrant workers in Russia. As the economies of the host countries suffer, remittances to low and middle income countries could fall this year by 19.7 percent, according to the World Bank. It's not just remittances. The pandemic's effect on countries dependent on exports of crude oil, such as Venezuela, Angola and Nigeria, also exacerbates global hunger. Oil prices crashed in the third week of April when the markets realized the severity of the pandemic's economic consequences. The virus has suspended most transportation and grounded the airline industry, a major consumer of crude oil. And the expected global recession will shrink the industrial sector, another big consumer of oil, further slashing demand. Crude oil accounts for about 84 percent of Venezuela's merchandise exports, 96 percent in Angola and 94 percent in Nigeria. Given their reliance on oil, the fall in prices translates into lack of funding for infrastructure, health care and wages. And a consequent increase in hunger. And then there are the wars. As the pandemic disrupts food supply chains, the effects on people trapped in war zones, who almost completely rely on humanitarian assistance, are likely to be catastrophic. In Syria, 6.6 million people were living with acute hunger at the end of 2019. An additional 2.7 million people, according to our data, joined their ranks in the first three months of this year. That makes 9.3 million Syrians struggling with the higher cost of food, mass unemployment and a destroyed health care system. On Tuesday, the Syrian pound hit a record low of 3,000 against the dollar in the black market. Almost 32 percent of Syrians are eating insufficient quantities of food or skipping meals. Our projections indicate that the conflict, combined with the effects of the pandemic, will force another half a million people in Syria into acute hunger by the end of the year. In countries already besieged by climate crises and economic instability, the pandemic is making hunger much worse. In Zimbabwe, about 3.6 million people were already facing acute hunger in December. By March, the number rose to 8.9 million, according to our data, because of an extreme drought and the country's economic crisis. The lockdown imposed to battle the virus crippled the informal sector in Zimbabwe, as elsewhere. The official unemployment rate has risen from 11 percent in December to a staggering 90 percent after the lockdown. By mid May, nearly 5.6 million Zimbabweans were coping by reducing portion size or skipping meals. And at least 800,000 more will become food insecure by the end of the year because of the loss of purchasing power from unemployment and reduced remittances. Throughout history, when people have faced wars, natural disasters and unbearable hunger, they have migrated in the hope of finding safety, food and opportunity. That's true today. There is a high probability that we will soon see a wave of refugees, compelled by the economic effects of the coronavirus, leaving their countries and trying to reach the United States and Europe. Syrian refugees in Europe and Central American refugees on the United States border are stark reminders that people will make arduous journeys in hopes of a better life when they are left with nothing at home. Analysis from the World Food Program shows that refugee outflows increase by 1.9 percent for each percentage increase in acute hunger. As acute hunger is set to rise by nearly 50 percent, the scale of global movement can barely be imagined. Famines are not about food availability; they are about physical and economic access to food. The pandemic has worsened both, placing commercial transport under severe pressure and reducing purchasing power. Governments need to ensure that the production and supply of food is not disrupted. If farmers can't plant or harvest, if seeds and fertilizer are not available, if agricultural produce cannot reach markets, it will create dangerous food shortages. We can stop the coming global hunger crisis from getting worse through global collective action to save lives and protect livelihoods. Political solutions to conflicts, climate adaptation on the ground and reducing income inequality will go a long way to building resilient communities and nations. Arif Husain is the chief economist and director of research, assessment and monitoring at the United Nations World Food Program. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter ( NYTopinion) and Instagram. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
DETROIT General Motors introduced its step up entry in the midsize pickup market on Sunday, a day ahead of the opening of press previews for the Detroit auto show. The 2015 GMC Canyon takes its place in the G.M. lineup just a bit upstream of the 2015 Chevrolet Colorado, which was introduced at the Los Angeles auto show in November. While the two trucks share mechanical components, each has a distinctive look. The new GMC entry invokes big truck imagery with a hefty crossbar grille, large flared fenders that ride high and a cab that might look at home on an 18 wheeler. The Chevrolet Colorado, by comparison, is sleek and swoopy, with a nose that bends back to meet the front fenders and body trim that suggests a sporting intent. A Chevrolet spokesman, Tom Wilkinson, said in a phone interview that consumer tests of the Colorado and Canyon designs revealed an almost even split in terms of preference, with some embracing the more rugged GMC version and others favoring the slippery Chevrolet. In the past, those would have been exactly the results G.M. hoped for, and there is no reason to think the positioning of the 2015 models is any different. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
For decades, there have been complaints that the tennis season sprawled across continents and different surfaces is far too long. In this eerie and tragic year, it has quickly become far too short. The biggest blow to the sport came Wednesday when the leaders of Wimbledon, the oldest Grand Slam tournament and a cultural institution in Britain, announced that the event would not be held in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. "I'm Shooked," Serena Williams, a seven time Wimbledon singles champion, said on Twitter as she absorbed the news and its implications. This is unquestionably a shaky period for the world and for the games it enjoys watching. Though sports have rightfully receded during the outbreak, it is still a jolt to the system to realize that there will be no Wimbledon this year no chance of another classic final between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic; no possibility for Williams to return to the singles final and win to tie Margaret Court's record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles; no servings of strawberries and cream; no opportunity for the next generation of talents to step onto the meticulously tended grass of the All England Club and prove that they belong. "These are just very weird and strange times," said Pat Cash, the 1987 Wimbledon men's singles champion. "For me, it's just a big kick in the gut, because it's a tournament I love and a tournament that so many love." Founded in 1877, Wimbledon had previously been called off only during World War I and World War II. Postponement or delaying a decision until late April were options, but Wimbledon's leadership chose to make a clean break with 2020 and cancel the tournament, which was scheduled for June 29 to July 12. The hand painted board inside the clubhouse that lists each year's champions will skip from 2019 to 2021, just as it skipped from 1914 to 1919 and from 1939 to 1946. "Last year's final will forever be one of the happiest days of my life," said Simona Halep, who defeated Williams in the 2019 women's singles final. "But we are going through something bigger than tennis, and Wimbledon will be back. And it means I have even longer to look forward to defending my title." "At present there are just no easy options; the way ahead is hard," said Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, who tested positive for the novel coronavirus last week. Organizers at the All England Club, which stages Wimbledon, said the restrictions on large gatherings, travel and the strain on medical services made it impossible to prepare for the tournament properly without putting people at risk. Even though the government restrictions are to be reviewed later this month, the organizers wanted to quickly give certainty to players and others in the sport. The cancellation was immediately followed by the suspension of the preliminary grass court season, halting all men's and women's tournaments until July 13. No tour events have been held since early March, which means the forced hiatus for the players will last four months, and possibly much longer. "It's a definite realization that the tour might be canceled for 2020," John Isner, long the top ranked American men's player, said by telephone from his home in Dallas. "With Wimbledon being gone and with New York City essentially being the epicenter of all of this crisis currently, the U.S. Open is next. And there are countless U.S. Open warm up events as well, so we would need this situation to get better very quickly." The pressure to stage at least some tour events before the end of the year will be significant because players have lost months of income. The challenge is that tennis is among the most global of sports, and countries that have shut down travel and restricted public gatherings are unlikely to lift those measures at the same time. This could create inequities. "We might have countries want to have a tournament, but they might have travel restrictions on other countries where players are residing," said Isner, who is on the player council for the men's tour. "There's a lot of stuff that could cause a lot of issues." The All England Club's leaders quickly ruled out hosting Wimbledon without spectators, and they were always leery of postponing because of the narrow scheduling window for grass court tennis. Wimbledon has always been played on grass, which was once tennis's most common playing surface but has long since been superseded by clay and synthetic hardcourts. Still, the tournament has maintained its prestige, relevance and financial clout. Total prize money at Wimbledon in 2019 was 38 million pounds (about 47.3 million at the current exchange rate). "Wimbledon is the one event that transcends tennis in a lot of ways," said Patrick McEnroe, the ESPN commentator and a former elite professional who has tested positive for the coronavirus. "It's because of the history and their ability over the years to adapt. It's an anachronism, but they have found a way to really balance the tradition and the history of the game with being progressive." McEnroe added, "It just tells you the magnitude of what we're facing, especially for them to do it this early, three months out." Other annual premier sporting events, including golf's Masters and horse racing's Kentucky Derby, have chosen to postpone rather than cancel. Wimbledon is the first Grand Slam tournament to skip a year since the Australian Open was not held in 1986, when its organizers shifted the start date from December to January. The French Open, the clay court event in Paris that usually precedes Wimbledon, has shifted this year to a Sept. 20 start. But because of resistance from players and the leaders of the men's and women's tours, the organizers may be obliged to alter those plans or pay compensation to tournaments damaged by the unilateral move. The United States Open, normally the last Grand Slam played each year, remains scheduled for Aug. 24 to Sept. 13, but its leaders are exploring the possibility of postponement. The United States Tennis Association said on Wednesday that it was still preparing contingencies. At the moment, part of the tournament's site, the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, is being converted to an emergency 350 bed hospital. Unlike nearly every other tennis tournament, Wimbledon has cancellation insurance that will cover some of its losses during the pandemic. The All England Club also has considerable reserves. According to the most recent figures available, from the fiscal year ending July 31, 2018, Wimbledon reportedly generated revenue of 256.7 million pounds and a pretax profit of 39.7 million pounds. Approximately 37 million of that was provided as funding to the Lawn Tennis Association, the governing body for the sport in Britain. It also means that Federer and Williams will not be able to play in the major tournament that best suits their games and their title chances at this late stage of their careers. Federer, who had arthroscopic knee surgery in February and had planned to restart his season on grass in Halle, Germany, in early June, has won eight Wimbledon singles titles and a men's record 20 Grand Slam singles titles, one more than Rafael Nadal's 19. Federer and Williams will each turn 39 this year, and it is unclear whether they will still be playing when Wimbledon resumes in 2021. After the cancellation, Federer quickly declared himself willing to try again. On social media, he said he was "devastated" by the cancellation and made it clear that he intended to return to both Halle and Wimbledon next year. Tony Godsick, Federer's agent, said in an email that Federer thought that health and safety should be the No. 1 priority. "He shared with me that he looks forward to participating on the grass once again in 2021," Godsick said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead. MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY at the Joyce Theater (April 2 3, 7:30 p.m.; April 4, 8 p.m.; through April 14). A century ago, the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, was submitted to the states for ratification. In honor of that anniversary, the Graham company presents the EVE Project, a robust collection of work from several generations of female choreographers, spread over a half dozen programs. There are Graham classics, like "Herodiade," "Errand Into the Maze" and "Chronicle," as well as pieces by Annie B Parson and Lucinda Childs. Two new works will be introduced, too: one by Pam Tanowitz and one by Maxine Doyle and Bobbi Jene Smith. 212 242 0800, joyce.org NATALIA OSIPOVA at New York City Center (April 3 4, 7:30 p.m.; through April 6). Few contemporary ballerinas have the clout to carry a solo show and tour it internationally, but Osipova, a principal with the Royal Ballet, has been a global fan favorite for years. This is because of her ability to fuse fearlessness with vulnerability and apply it to classic and contemporary work alike. For this program, she has recruited David Hallberg, a cherished partner, with whom she will dance the United States premiere of Alexei Ratmansky's "Valse Triste," which takes its name from Sibelius's well known waltz, and "The Leaves Are Fading" by Antony Tudor. Additional works on the bill some Osipova will do with other partners; some Osipova and Hallberg will perform solo are by Ivan Perez, Kim Brandstrup, Roy Assaf and Yuka Oishi. 212 581 1212, nycitycenter.org RACOCO PRODUCTIONS at Abrons Arts Center (March 29 30, 7:30 p.m.; March 31, 2:30 p.m.; April 2 6, 7:30 p.m.). The set designs of the shows put on by this company can sometimes seem like characters unto themselves. A case in point is "Tilt," an inventive reimagining of the tale of Don Quixote, which gives physical form to that famous dreamer's internal delusions. The choreographer and director Rachel Cohen, performing with four other cast members and the tap dancer Heather Cornell, makes clever use of wood planks to build and dismantle worlds, construct and disassemble armor, and bring puppets to life. 866 811 4111, abronsartscenter.org KOTA YAMAZAKI/FLUID HUG HUG at New York Live Arts (April 3 6, 7:30 p.m.). Tatsumi Hijikata, who helped pioneer butoh, referred to the startling performance art as a "dance of darkness." Yamazaki, a New York based butoh artist, probes that idea and pays homage to Hijikata in his "Darkness Odyssey" trilogy, the last part of which debuts this week. "Darkness Odyssey Part 3: Non Opera, Becoming" features six dancers from different dance genres and cultural backgrounds who join Yamazaki in examining the multiple selves that make up a person, looking to the body as a black hole that absorbs its surroundings. 212 691 6500, newyorklivearts.org | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
CARDIFF, Wales At 11 p.m. here one recent Monday, Rob Aston, a 23 year old former drum and bass M.C., was four hours into a shift at one of the world's first mental health help lines for musicians. Started in December by the nonprofit Help Musicians U.K., the help line, Music Minds Matter, aims to provide a caring ear to the large proportion of people in the music industry with mental health problems. Callers can connect with therapists and can receive advice on issues like debt and Britian's welfare services. Help Musicians U.K. is investing nearly 1 million pounds, or around 1.4 million, in the help line. Mr. Aston's previous shift was busy. A struggling band manager had called first. "She just felt lost and needed someone to talk to," he said. An older musician then phoned, saying he was going to kill himself. Mr. Aston talked him into giving his address and sent an ambulance. He said he had to go out for a cigarette after the call, "just to get my head together a little bit." A few hours later, another musician rang. They seemed successful, Mr. Aston said, with tours booked. But they felt huge pressure, as if something could go wrong any minute. They wanted help, counseling, but did not see how they could get it while on tour. The Monday shift was in stark contrast. The phone was silent. Mr. Aston browsed the internet to pass the time, made cups of tea, stretched. But then, around 11:30 p.m., an email arrived. It was from an electronic musician experiencing a host of problems, including anxiety and depression. "It's a huge step for someone just to send that," Mr. Aston said. "They clearly need to talk." He quickly wrote a reply, saying, among other things, they could call anytime. Four hours later, the phone still hadn't rung. The help line received an average of 25 inquiries a week in December. Some nights are busy, others quiet. Mental health is a high profile issue in the music industry, with stars like Zayn Malik talking about anxiety and the suicides of Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Chester Bennington of Linkin Park. Yet the Music Minds help line is one of few public initiatives trying to improve matters. Richard Robinson, Help Musicians' chief executive, said the idea had been brewing for several years. The "final shove," he said, came in 2016, when the group commissioned the University of Westminster in London to research mental health issues in the industry. Of the roughly 2,200 people who participated in the survey, from aspiring violinists to folk singers, 71 percent said they had experienced anxiety or panic, and 68.5 percent depression. That compares with a nationwide average of 17 percent of people ages 16 or over having anxiety or depression in Britain, according to the Office of National Statistics. More than half of those in the music industry said they had found it difficult to get help. The report on the survey results is blunt: "Music making is therapeutic, but making a career out of music is destructive." Other studies have shown similar numbers. In 2016, researchers in Norway found that musicians there were three times more likely to be in therapy than the general work force. "I think it's a unique environment," Mr. Robinson said. "Someone who's putting their creative brain on show is saying, 'Look, I can either succeed or fail here.' And it's horrific." The daily calls to the help line show it is needed, he added. Calls from electronic musicians, composers and people in music theater have dominated so far. It is easy to find musicians who welcome such efforts. "I'm totally fine to admit I've rung Samaritans before," said Matthew Johnson, the frontman of the Leeds based rock band Hookworms, referring to Britain's best known suicide prevention hotline. "The problem I've had is, when I've tried to explain my problems, and I've had it with therapists too, they say, 'Oh, your life must be wonderful.' They don't particularly understand the pressures you might be under." "I found myself the other day looking through YouTube comments, and I found one one! where someone said they didn't like it," Mr. Johnson said, referring to their latest single. "That's the one I'll take to heart. I'll ignore all the ones saying it's brilliant." The artist says he feels lucky that his band signed with Domino, a London based label that he said had been supportive. "When I feel bad, they always reach out to check I'm O.K. They've gone out of their way to move stuff, cancel stuff." "If our record absolutely tanked, I don't think they'd stop supporting us," he added. "I've seen it with friends who've made one record on a big label then been dropped, and they've totally spiraled to a terrible place." None of the large record labels contacted for this article would comment on the industry's actions on mental health. "The help line is great, but it is not the total solution in any shape or form," said Sally Gross of the University of Westminster, who conducted the survey for Help Musicians. "Mental health is very much a hot topic, and everyone's saying they're doing something about it. I don't know what that is though." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
Pam Tanowitz, whose 2018 piece "Four Quartets" at the Bard Fisher Center in Annandale on Hudson, N.Y., received critical raves, will return as its first choreographer in residence, the center announced on Thursday. For the position, a three year residency to begin in February, Ms. Tanowitz will create three commissioned dances, including a collaboration with the New York City Ballet principal Sara Mearns; she will also develop a digital archive of her work. Ms. Tanowitz's time at the Fisher Center is being supported by a 1.2 million gift from the philanthropists Jay Franke and David Herro. "It's an incredible opportunity for me," Ms. Tanowitz said in an interview. "As a midcareer artist sometimes it's hard to keep going as far as support, and this is allowing me to have some stability for the creative process and performance." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
CORINNE BAILEY RAE at Rumsey Playfield (Aug. 4, 7 p.m.). Among the many fans of this British singer's soulful music is former President Barack Obama, who included her song "Green Aphrodisiac" on his 2016 summer playlist on Spotify. In more than a decade of recording, Bailey Rae has navigated skillfully through a range of styles and sounds, including the sunny, weightless pop of her first hits, "Like a Star" and "Put Your Records On," the jazz of her collaboration with Herbie Hancock, and the stormy, genre blending stew of her 2010 album, "The Sea." Bailey Rae's free performance in Central Park is presented by SummerStage. Before the show, at 5 p.m., she will participate in a panel discussion about gender diversity in music festival lineups; admission to the panel is free with an R.S.V.P. 212 360 2777, cityparksfoundation.org MOLLY BURCH at Rough Trade NYC (Aug 7, 9 p.m.). She may be young, but this 28 year old singer songwriter's voice suggests an old soul. Counting Dusty Springfield, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone among her inspirations, Burch studied jazz vocal performance in college and went on to make records that leverage her sultry, sepia toned alto in service of stories about romance, loss and social anxiety. On "Wild," one highlight from her latest album, she sings, "It's in my nature to be guarded/I wish I was a wilder soul." In her smoldering delivery, being strait laced sounds positively glamorous. roughtradenyc.com CAYETANA at Music Hall of Williamsburg (Aug. 2, 8:30 p.m.). Though they've often played smaller stages than many of their peers, this punk trio has been a centerpiece of Philadelphia's indie rock scene since releasing their scrappy, anxiety fueled thrasher "Hot Dad Calendar" in 2014. After completing a tour for their most recent album, the group's members began exploring other projects: Augusta Koch, their frontwoman, started the group Gladie, and their drummer, Kelly Olsen, opened a vegan restaurant. Cayetana's appearance in Brooklyn is one of three farewell concerts scheduled along the East Coast. Afterward, the group will go on hiatus indefinitely. 718 486 5400, musichallofwilliamsburg.com MAC DEMARCO at Prospect Park Bandshell (Aug. 6, 7:30 p.m.). Lovable antics and heartfelt songwriting have made this western Canadian singer a much celebrated voice in indie rock. Despite his devil may care attitude and tendency to appear onstage in his underwear, DeMarco's songs reflect on thoroughly adult topics like aging and love though he does treat them with a certain, shrugging naivete. DeMarco's latest album, released in May, contains some of his most understated work and seems to reach for timeless appeal as much as contemporary resonance. Both modes will likely be on view at this benefit concert, which helps support BRIC's free summer programming. Ex Hex, the garage rock outfit fronted by Helium's Mary Timony, will also perform. 718 683 5600, bricartsmedia.org FLORIST at Baby's All Right (Aug. 3, 7:30 p.m.). In April, this indie folk band from Brooklyn found themselves unexpectedly in the spotlight when Beyonce included one of their songs a musical poem called "Thank You" in her landmark concert film "Homecoming." The group, led by the singer, songwriter and synth enthusiast Emily Sprague, occupies a corner of the music industry far removed from Beyonce's: They play D.I.Y. gigs and make quiet, spare songs that reflect on life cycles and loss. As suggested by the title of their newest set, "Emily Alone," which was released last week, Sprague recorded it on her own. It looks through an even wider lens, taking on topics like selfhood and collective consciousness. Expect the group to play selections from their new album during this performance in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 718 599 5800, babysallright.com Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead. MNDSGN at Elsewhere (Aug. 2, 6 p.m.). A founding member of Klipmode, an erstwhile Los Angeles based collective that also included the Anderson .Paak associate Knxwledge, this producer, born Ringgo Ancheta, makes beats that are steeped in California mellow. As a solo artist, Ancheta gravitates toward throwback funk but seasons his tracks with plenty of electronic quirks, like on 2016's "Cosmic Perspective" or on "Browneez," from his latest beat tape project, "Snaxx." At the rooftop space of this concert hall in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Ancheta will perform with the prolific rapper Pink Siifu, a fellow Angeleno whose ambitious collage pieces examine blackness and capitalism. elsewherebrooklyn.com OLIVIA HORN PETER BERNSTEIN AND GILAD HEKSELMAN at the Jazz Gallery (Aug. 3, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). Here's a two for one deal for fans of masterful jazz guitar. With an ore like tone and a deep sense of assurance, Bernstein, 51, refers back to classic jazz guitar influences like Grant Green and Pat Martino. Hekselman, 36, owes a lot to the more nebulous tone of Kurt Rosenwinkel, though he has a knack for playful misdirection and blues inflection that gives him an identity of his own. Occasionally Bernstein and Hekselman come together in a quartet, sparring over jazz standards. For this date they are joined by the bassist Ben Street and the drummer Eric McPherson. 646 494 3625, jazzgallery.nyc GEORGE CABLES TRIO at Smoke (Aug. 5; 7, 9 and 10:30 p.m.). With a pianist as comfortably situated in jazz's mainstream tradition as Cables, you might expect his music to sound like a seminar, or a rehashing of old devices. Instead, it hits you in a more direct way: as evocation, or maybe image. Track how Cables, 74, lets time shrink and expand, tossing out his notes in quick clumps and then spreading them out, so that the rhythm nearly loses its swing. Or imagine his harmonies as a 3 D object, with four or six or eight sides depending, the light hitting each chord differently. He appears here with the bassist Ed Howard and the drummer Victor Lewis. 212 864 6662, smokejazz.com AVISHAI COHEN TRIO at the Blue Note (Aug. 1 4, 8 and 10:30 p.m.). Cohen is a middleweight champion of contemporary jazz bass playing, as agile as he is aggressive. The trio that he started in the mid 2000s, featuring the pianist Shai Maestro and the drummer Mark Guiliana, proved an ideal vessel for his punchy compositions; at these reunion shows, that group will revisit the material from their 2008 album, "Gently Disturbed." 212 475 8592, bluenote.net 'ELLINGTON ON BROADWAY' at Birdland (Aug. 4, 5:30 p.m.). This event marks the debut of a new monthly series, presented by the Duke Ellington Center for the Arts and the American Tap Dance Foundation, celebrating the intertwined legacies of jazz's premier big bandleader and tap dance. The first show is "Ellington on Broadway," and it features music from "Play On!" and "Sophisticated Ladies," two musicals that feature the Duke's compositions. 212 581 3080, birdlandjazz.com BILL FRISELL at the Village Vanguard (Aug. 6 11, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.). Blue Note Records announced this week that it had signed Frisell, a homey eminence of downtown guitar experimentalism. He has often appeared on the label as a sideman over the years, but "Harmony," due this fall, will be his first as a leader. Whatever he has in store with that release, his recent albums for ECM luminous duo affairs with the bassist Thomas Morgan probably offer a good clue of what to expect at these shows, where he and Morgan will be joined by the drummer Rudy Royston. 212 255 4037, villagevanguard.com INGRID LAUBROCK at the Stone (Aug. 6 10, 8:30 p.m.). Laubrock can manipulate her tenor saxophone with everything from thin, breathy lines to harsh slaps of the tongue. Despite her expressionist tendencies, she never lets go of her devotion to cool, lyrical clarity. Laubrock kicks off a five night run at the Stone on Tuesday with Mary Halvorson on guitar, Kris Davis on piano and Tom Rainey on drums. She will convene a different combo on each of the following nights featuring all stars of the avant garde before wrapping things up with a quintet performance on Aug. 10 dedicated to the music of Anthony Braxton. thestonenyc.com GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
A rare white female wolf that hikers found as she lay dying last month on the north side of Yellowstone National Park near the Montana border, was shot illegally, officials have determined. The wolf had to be euthanized by park officials because of the severity of her wound. She was the only white wolf living in the park, though there had been two others before her. She was 12 years old when she was killed, twice the average age of wolves in Yellowstone. She was the alpha female of the Canyon Pack, one of 10 packs in the park, and she had paired with the alpha male for nine years. Over that period, biologists say, she whelped 20 pups, 14 of which lived to be adults. After she was euthanized, the white wolf's carcass was sent to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service forensics lab, and the preliminary results of the necropsy were released on Friday. Park officials are treating the shooting as a crime. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
It was the Friday before Labor Day, and Alicia Keys, the 35 year old pop star, was on the "Today" show performing for the program's summer concert series she's about to release a new album, and she wrote the theme song for "Queen of Katwe," out next week. There was a lot to talk about. But instead, Ms. Keys spent most of her time talking about makeup (and not wearing it) with the anchors Tamron Hall, Billy Bush and Al Roker, who were doggedly wiping the pancake off their faces. "You're all crazy," said Ms. Keys, swabbing Ms. Hall's cheeks. "This isn't even what it's about!" "It" is nomakeup a meme, a movement, a cri de coeur that has been roiling social media for months. If you missed the kerfuffle, it started in May, when Ms. Keys wrote an essay for Lenny, Lena Dunham's online magazine, about the insecurities she felt being a woman in the public eye, and the roles (and makeup) she put on over the years to armor herself. She wrote about the anxiety she endured if she left her house unadorned: "What if someone wanted a picture? What if someone posted it?" And then, when she went without makeup or styling for an album portrait, she felt liberated, and the act became a metaphor. "I hope to God it's a revolution," she wrote. In the months that followed, Ms. Keys was seemingly everywhere always without makeup, always beautiful performing at the Democratic National Convention, on "The Voice" and the MTV Video Music Awards, at the Tom Ford show during New York Fashion Week. That's a nice story, right? Inspiring and kind of sweet? Feh. "Makeup gate 2016," as The New York Post and others called it, has grown only weirder and louder, as Twitter was at first ignited with Alicia Keys supporters, and then flooded with a backlash against her. And then with the backlash to the backlash. Nomakeup was empowering and brave. No, it was annoying, incendiary and invasive. Ms. Keys's (mostly female) detractors howled at her disingenuousness (surely she had spent thousands on skin care?) and her deceit (surely she was wearing tinted moisturizer?); some slammed her for not looking pretty enough (though they used coarser words than those). Late last month, Swizz Beatz, Ms. Keys's husband, took to Instagram with a video defending his wife: "This is deep," he said, clearly incredulous. "Somebody's sitting home mad, because somebody didn't wear makeup on their face?" Don't be surprised that this is news, said Letty Cottin Pogrebin, the second wave feminist activist and author. "It's all so familiar," she said. "Alicia Keys could be taking a page from the no makeup orthodoxy of the women's movement 40 years ago. I'd never heard of her before this brouhaha, but now I'll follow her anywhere. What she's doing is pop consciousness raising. She's not just talking about the tyranny of makeup. She's talking about female authenticity. She's challenging the culture's relentless standards of feminine conformity and the beauty industry's incessant product hype." Why is it, wondered Linda Wells, founding editor of Allure magazine, that fashion is considered self expression and makeup is self absorption? Or something more pernicious? Ms. Wells recalled "The Beauty Myth," Naomi Wolf's 1991 book in which she argued that contemporary ideals of beauty, proposed in large part by a male dominated cosmetics industry, were enslaving women and holding them in thrall to all manner of restrictive practices, from makeup to surgery to eating disorders. "I get the argument, but I don't agree with it," Ms. Wells said. "To me, we're not all passive victims. Make your choice, like Alicia Keys. Decide what makes you feel confident and enjoy it." Furthermore, Ms. Wells said, Ms. Keys's gesture is coming at a particular moment, when the internet is flooded with YouTube videos on how to best present yourself ... on the internet. "It's tutorials about contouring and highlighting, except now it's called strobing, and there's something else called baking, which is basically a thick coat of powder," Ms. Wells said. "It's a very extreme look we haven't had highlighting since the '80s. It's this sort of extreme grooming geared for the selfie culture, and then someone like Alicia Keys comes out and says, 'I'm not going to do it,' and people are losing their minds." Whose makeup is it anyway? In the late 1980s, Andrea Robinson, then the president of Ultima II, recalled the response of her male bosses at Revlon when she proposed an extension of her brand called the Nakeds, nude toned makeup designed for women who didn't want to look as if they were wearing any. As Ms. Robinson remembered: "They said: 'Why would a woman want to wear mud on her face? Makeup is about fantasy, it's about color.' What they didn't say was that it was about their fantasy, their sense of color. The idea that women would want to look like themselves, and wear makeup for themselves, was crazy to them." Once introduced, the Nakeds broke all sorts of sales records, she said, and sold out over and over again. Hundreds of women wrote her in gratitude, Ms. Robinson said, including Jean Harris, who wrote her from prison: "She thought we had the right idea, that women should not overpaint themselves, and use their simple beauty." "It takes a lot of guts to face HDTV without makeup," Ms. Brown said of Ms. Keys. "But I get it. It's all fine. Choose who you want to be. Personally, I like to have a little concealer. But obviously it's more than about makeup. I don't think people understand how difficult it is for women like Alicia Keys to worry about the way you look every second. It is the ugly internet we live in. Let's be nice to people, and not be so judgey." There is a sense you just can't win. When Kim Novak appeared on the Academy Awards in 2014, there was much snark regarding her clearly augmented face. Laura Lippman, the crime novelist who was then 55, was appalled: Who were these internet trolls who would weigh in so viciously on an 81 year old's appearance? In solidarity with Ms. Novak, she posted a selfie of her face "as is" and invited others to do the same. It was a different sort of nomakeup moment. "Damned if you do, damned if you don't, is how I felt," she said. The response, she said, was overwhelming: thousands of "as is" photos from all sorts of people, including one man, she said, who photographed himself on a hospital gurney the day he had a minor heart attack. It's just complicated, said Sheila Bridges, the interior designer. Given an alopecia diagnosis years ago, she decided to shave her head rather than contend with wigs or weaves, a private act that has subjected her to constant, uninvited public commentary. Also, people have been moved to pat her head. "Historically, beauty has been our currency as women," Ms. Bridges said, "and when you do something that is inconsistent with societal norms, people get upset. It reminds me of when Gabby Douglas won her gold medals at the London Olympics." It was 2012, and the 16 year old was taking home two gold medals for her performances, but much of the conversation around that historic event Ms. Douglas was the first African American woman to earn the Olympic all around title was about how her hair was pulled into a ponytail and secured with clips. "There was a tremendous backlash," Ms. Bridges recalled, "and all these terrible tweets, and what was so disturbing for me was that the majority seemed to come from other black women. I'm like: 'Are you kidding? She's one of the world's best athletes, and we're talking about her hair?'" Gail O'Neill, a journalist and former model, said that for some, Ms. Keys has become a Rorschach test, and the disapprobation for the singer's personal choice comes from women who are measuring themselves against it. "When women start applying makeup as preteenagers," she said, "by adulthood, that mindless habit can result in a mask we don't even know we're wearing until someone like Alicia decides to remove hers in public." People who do things outside the herd scare people who are in the herd, said Anne Kreamer, a journalist who stopped coloring her hair at 49, and wrote about her experience in her 2007 book, "Going Gray: What I Learned About Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity and Everything Else That Matters." "It was the women who were the most critical," Ms. Kreamer recalled, as if by doing without herself, she was taking something away from them. In her book, Ms. Kreamer noted that in the 1950s, fewer than 10 percent of women dyed their hair, as compared with 40 to 75 percent in the mid 2000s; she also surveyed some 400 women, of which 15 percent said they'd had some sort of plastic surgery. As she wrote, darkly, "Extrapolate the trend line, double the available technologies, and imagine the choices and pressures our great grandchildren may face." In 1983, Ms. Pogrebin wrote an article called "The Power of Beauty" for Ms., the magazine she helped found. She was galvanized to do so when a friend had a chin augmentation, and then blossomed, emotionally, as a result. What's the proper feminist response, Ms. Pogrebin asked herself, to such an extreme renovation: to offer congratulations, or wincing disapproval? If a feature distracts people from what they feel is their true selves, how can you argue with their alteration of that feature? But then again, as Ms. Pogrebin pointed out, whose notion of attractiveness motivated the change? "We can argue about what is attractive, but not that we wish to attract," she wrote. The solution to not making ourselves crazy, she suggested, is to propose a broader definition of beauty, one that celebrates its impact but reduces its tyranny. Meanwhile, the churn about women's looks continues. Last week, after Hillary Clinton's performance on NBC, Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, took to Twitter to chastise the former secretary of state ... for not smiling. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
CHARLOTTE, N.C. For the first time since his left sneaker split open 30 seconds after tipoff of a game last month, the Duke superstar Zion Williamson took the court on Thursday night, helping his team to an 84 72 victory over Syracuse in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. Showing no signs of the knee injury sustained when his shoe exploded, Williamson dominated the game, scoring 29 points as he made all 13 of his shots from the field. He also had 14 rebounds, five steals and a block. "I come ready to kill every game," Williamson told ESPN after the game. He continued with this theme later in a news conference and dismissed suggestions, which arose after the injury, that he might not return to the Duke lineup and would instead rehabilitate his knee and just prepare for the N.B.A. draft in June. "Everybody has their right to their own opinion," he said, "but I knew I was coming back the whole time." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
On Thursday, I went to "The Brooklyn Nutcracker" with a friend who grew up in Paris. A cosmopolitan balletomane, he can compare New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theater not only with each other but also with the Paris Opera Ballet and other top troupes. He enjoys disagreeing with me about the relative merits of "Swan Lake" productions. Before the show, he issued strong views on the sanctity of Tchaikovsky's score. "The Brooklyn Nutcracker" a 2016 production of Brooklyn Ballet, conceived and choreographed by Lynn Parkerson, the company's founding artistic director is being performed at the Irondale Center, just a six minute walk from the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Neither of us had been there before. The audience sits on three sides of the open stage, and no seat is far from it. There is no curtain or orchestra pit, so we knew the dancing would be to recorded music. My companion had experienced nothing remotely like this and yet the whole context made him eager for the show before it began. Me too. We knew we were on its side. What transpired was imperfect by any standards. The ribbons of one of the Flowers' pointe shoes came completely undone early in one number. Large chunks of Tchaikovsky's score were omitted, including the music for the ascent of the Christmas tree, the battle of mice and toy soldiers, the Spanish and Chinese dances, and Mother Ginger. One very non Tchaikovsky item was added: electronic music at the start of Act II for a Hip Hop Hoop dance solo (Nakotah LaRance). Vivid and magical, it was also musically jarring. The scant narrative was seldom clear. No little heroine, no naughty brother, no little prince. The magician Herr Drosselmeyer gave out Christmas gifts from that red bag: A maid and butler officiated, but no parents were in view. Yet the real pleasure I took from this "Nutcracker" was not just a matter of downscaled expectations. Drosselmeyer (Michael Fields, who is also a collaborating choreographer for the production) and some of his colleagues made musical sense of all the physical isolations of hip hop: Their flexing deepened their characters' mysteries appealingly. The Marzipan dance had four women dancing ballet and three in hip hop style in witty counterpoint. The dance patterns of the Waltz of the Flowers, choreographed by the dance historian Claudia Jeschke with Ms. Parkerson, are based on ones from 19th century archival drawings. (The Brooklyn Ballet has a good track record in restoring lost dance information to the stage.) Ingrid Silva (from Dance Theater of Harlem) was the Sugar Plum Fairy. Petite and quietly self possessed in manner, she's an impressively strong technician with apparently effortless fouette turns. The often acrobatic Snow pas de deux, danced, as in so many productions, to the transformation music in Act I, was performed by Miko Kawamura and Acee Francis Laird; the way Mr. Laird stands, partners and dances is of unusual elegance and distinction. Most remarkably of all to this "Nutcracker" connoisseur, this production's Arabian dance, performed by Sira Melikian, is the most satisfyingly gorgeous I've seen: not an imitation piece of eastern culture in hoochie coochie style but a real example of belly dancing, sensuously fitted to the music. The trills with which Tchaikovsky sensuously ends some phrases were matched by the rapid pelvic undulations that can be the most singular of belly dancing's marvels. Elsewhere Ms. Melikian vibrated her shoulders with equal speed and voluptuousness. Near the dance's conclusion, Drosselmeyer joined her neither her master nor her suitor, just a colleague moving in a harmoniously different style. "The Nutcracker," with its multiple national dances, has always been socially inclusive; this production's cultural pluralism was particularly affable. "The Brooklyn Nutcracker" was technically inclusive too: Ensembles featured women on pointe beside others (especially young girls) in softer dance slippers. Some execution was patchy, but you could see a strict plan everywhere; conscientiousness shone. Watching it, you want this admirable and endearing production to become a foundation for something larger and along the same lines in winters to come with more music and more story. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
As of a few weeks ago, advertisements for JPMorgan Chase were appearing on about 400,000 websites a month. It is the sort of eye popping number that has become the norm these days for big companies that use automated tools to reach consumers online. Now, as more and more brands find their ads popping up next to toxic content like fake news sites or offensive YouTube videos, JPMorgan has limited its display ads to about 5,000 websites it has preapproved, said Kristin Lemkau, the bank's chief marketing officer. Surprisingly, the company is seeing little change in the cost of impressions or the visibility of its ads on the internet, she said. An impression is generally counted each time an ad is shown. The change illustrates the new skepticism with which major marketers are approaching online ad platforms and the automated technology placing their brands on millions of websites. In recent years, advertisers have increasingly shunned buying ads on individual sites in favor of cheaply targeting groups of people across the web based on their browsing habits, a process known as programmatic advertising enabling, say, a Gerber ad to show up on a local mother's blog, or a purse in an online shopping cart to follow a person around the internet for weeks. But as the risks around the far reaches of the web have been cast into stark relief, some advertisers are questioning the value of showing up on hundreds of thousands of unknown sites, and wondering whether millions of appearances actually translate into more sales. "It's only been a few days, but we haven't seen any deterioration on our performance metrics," Ms. Lemkau said in an interview on Tuesday. She added that the company had also pulled ads from YouTube in the past week after reports showed other major advertisers like Verizon unintentionally appearing on videos promoting hate speech and terrorism. JPMorgan aims to restrict its ads on the platform to a "human checked" list of 1,000 YouTube channels, which it expects to be able to do by the week of April 10, she said. Much of the promise of online advertising hinges on the vast reach of the web, and the ability to reach people on niche sites at low prices. Index Exchange, an ad exchange, has estimated that the titles owned by the top 50 traditional media companies account for 5 percent or fewer of the trillions of ad impressions available for sale each day. Google's display network alone includes more than two million websites. YouTube has more than three million ad supported channels, according to the analytics company OpenSlate, which says the average 100,000 campaign on the platform runs on more than 7,000 channels. If more advertisers follow JPMorgan's lead and see similar results, it could hurt the operators of smaller sites that make up the so called long tail of the internet, as well as the advertising technology companies that profit from funneling trillions of ad impressions from brands to consumers through systems that mimic a stock exchange, according to Eric Franchi, co founder of the ad technology firm Undertone. Retail earnings and Black Friday: the week in business. Elizabeth Holmes will resume her testimony in her fraud trial. "If you charge a percentage of all of the ads that run through your platform, then the prospects can be pretty dim if all of a sudden your volume has been cut by 95 percent," Mr. Franchi said. "So many of these companies, and some of them are public, tout the number of ads they deliver per second, per day. If you start seeing more marketers move in this direction, it will be pretty interesting. What are the metrics then that those companies start to report?" JPMorgan started looking into preapproving sites, a strategy known as whitelisting, this month after The New York Times showed it an ad for Chase's private client services on a site called Hillary 4 Prison. It was under a headline claiming that the actor Elijah Wood had revealed "the horrifying truth about the Satanic liberal perverts who run Hollywood." Of the 400,000 web addresses JPMorgan's ads showed up on in a recent 30 day period, said Ms. Lemkau, only 12,000, or 3 percent, led to activity beyond an impression. An intern then manually clicked on each of those addresses to ensure that the websites were ones the company wanted to advertise on. About 7,000 of them were not, winnowing the group to 5,000. The shift has been easier to execute than expected, Ms. Lemkau said, even as some in the industry warned the company that it risked missing out on audience "reach" and efficiency. JPMorgan had already decided last year to oversee its own programmatic buying operation, and it works with Google and AppNexus to show its ads, she said. It was not a difficult decision to extend whitelisting to YouTube, given that Chase was already making that shift across its display advertising, she said. "Before the YouTube thing happened, we were just looking at programmatic," she said. "Now the question is, what else is out there that we should be looking at whitelisting?" She added, "At some point, a human is going to take a look." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
After nights spent sleeping on her side, Gigi Howard, a former public relations executive, would wake up with lines etched into her decolletage. By day she wore scarves to hide the wrinkles. At night, she searched for a solution. "I'd sleep with stuffed animals between my breasts," Ms. Howard said. "I tried masking tape, but it wouldn't stay on. I needed an adhesive that would fold with the skin to prevent the creasing. I was thinking duct tape." One day in a doctor's office, she discovered a piece of medical grade silicone and had a light bulb moment. After spending three and a half years testing, and creating more than 100 prototypes (her toddler son, Southworth, took to wearing the rejected pads all over his tummy), she arrived at the SiO SkinPad, an hourglass shape, medical grade silicone pad that is worn overnight to keep skin from crinkling. Dr. Dendy Engelman, a dermatologist in New York and a medical adviser for SiO, explained that the pad works by preventing creasing and creating a wrinkle fighting environment under the silicone. "We know medical grade silicone has healing properties," Dr. Engelman said. "Doctors use it all the time for scarring. The mechanism is not 100 percent elucidated, but the theory is that it increases growth factors to help wound healing and decreases the mediators that cause excess scarring." Ms. Howard's product arrives at a time when doctors are turning their attention to the often neglected area. "People have been taking better care of their facial skin in recent years, but a face that looks youthful paired with a neck and chest that show the signs of sun damage and photo aging can make people look unnatural and 'done,'" said Dr. Dara Liotta, a plastic surgeon in New York. "It's important to focus some energy on the neck and chest so you match." Since the problems of the neck and chest, like those of the face, are varied, doctors suggest layering multiple in office treatments with at home care. Following are recommendations for the most common complaints: After years of sun exposure, dark spots and broken capillaries can populate the chest. An intense pulsed light (also called broadband light), applied in a doctor's office, can correct both. The light targets unwanted pigment, breaking it up so it can be absorbed by the body. "It's superficial, requires little downtime and has a light collagen building effect," Dr. Engelman said of the treatment. It is also less expensive (around 600) than the popular Fraxel lasers, which trigger the skin's wound healing response to stimulate collagen growth. Crinkly skin below the chin is caused primarily by sun damage leading to collagen loss. "The sun hits directly on the chest and has a skin thinning effect," said Dr. Jeannette Graf, a dermatologist in New York. Fortunately, this inevitable damage is treatable in a number of noninvasive ways. Lasers such as the Fraxel can be used safely on the neck and decolletage. Dr. Anne Chapas, a dermatologist in Manhattan, recently studied the effect of photodynamic therapy, a light treatment traditionally used for skin cancers, as a cosmetic option for the chest. "It's a new take on a technology that's been used in the medical realm for a while," Dr. Chapas said. "There's improvement of the chest wrinkles, brown discolorations after three sessions." During the procedure, a photosensitive lotion containing aminolevulinic acid is applied to the skin and absorbed by only damaged cells. An intense pulsed light laser then activates the lotion. At around 600 a session, it, too, costs less than many laser treatments, which can be twice as much. Also, injectable dermal fillers, like Belotero, can plump the skin up from within. "It works superficially so you can correct those fine etch a sketch lines," Dr. Graf said. Loose skin and thick banding of the platysma muscle (which runs from chin to clavicle) create the look we call "turkey neck." Treatment options depend on the severity of the sagging. "Ultherapy" is a noninvasive ultrasound therapy that injures the tissue surrounding the muscles, setting off a healing response that creates more collagen, which in turn tightens and lifts skin gradually. The procedure works for those with mild sagging; very loose skin is best corrected by surgery. "Some people lose skin elasticity faster than others for genetic reasons," said Dr. Patrick K. Sullivan, a plastic surgeon and associate professor at Brown. Skin removal is required, Dr. Sullivan said, because there are no great noninvasive treatments "that will have you looking like you're 20 years old again." Thickening and protrusion of the platysma muscle is also common. "If the person has really good skin, and the problem is just these muscle bands, we can use Botox from top to bottom to relax them," he said. While most neck and chest problems begin to plague us as we reach middle age, a double chin lacks that partiality. Anyone can have one, and Kybella, an injectable acid, can treat the condition. The acid dissolves superficial chin fat (meaning that fat between skin and muscle). Patients may need multiple treatments, which are spaced a month apart. The cost of a first treatment is around 1,200. Dr. Sullivan explained that some people have fat underneath the muscle, which is usually a hereditary condition. Kybella and other less invasive options can't get to that deep fat, so surgery is best. "We make an incision at the chin region, lift up the platysma muscle, then contour down the fat," he said. You don't want to take away all of the fat, but just enough to give a natural shape." To figure out your double chin type, pinch the area, then swallow. "If the fat just stays there between your fingers, there's a much better chance the fat is beneath the skin and you can be treated with Kybella," Dr. Sullivan said. How to Maintain Progress at Home Daily sunscreen is a must for prevention. For damage that's already done, try these at home products. They were cited by a number of doctors for being effective in treating mild signs of aging and as good maintenance after in office procedures. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
If Sally Field nursed a hope of dodging notice at the Whitney Museum of American Art this month, that hope was crushed when she stretched her 5 foot 3 inch frame on an outsize banquette, its cushioned surface an apparent invitation to relax. It was no such thing, as Ms. Field soon discovered. The outline of her body had left a thermal impression captured in Day Glo green on a nearby video screen, part of an interactive installation exploring mass surveillance by the artist and filmmaker Laura Poitras. "This is seriously disturbing," Ms. Field murmured and moved on. She was pretty well camouflaged for her outing in a well worn plaid J. Crew shirt and Bottega Veneta black leather jacket, her garb a kind of youthfully understated urban armor. Ms. Field, who first captivated a mass TV audience in the 1960s in "The Flying Nun," has been long accustomed to a kind of informal surveillance. Blithely ignoring the gapes of passers by, she headed toward the museum terrace, a favorite retreat of the actress, who routinely shuttles between her homes in Los Angeles and New York. And a refuge as well from prying eyes. What do all those strangers make of her? "I can't tell," Ms. Field said evenly. "They don't treat me like a human being. They're giving me different energy than if I had just been some older woman sitting next to them on a bus or riding in an elevator." Her fame, she said, has left her a bit conflicted. "I've known some form of being celebrity my entire life," said Ms. Field, who was the gamine surfer Gidget on the TV show of that name at 18. "But I still want to go to the market and have my little old lady cart behind me." During such routine excursions, "I put blinders on," she said. "I don't want people to see me, or to not see me." All eyes were on her earlier that week when Ms. Field stepped elastically from her car to attend the premiere of "Hello, My Name Is Doris," hosted by the Cinema Society at the Metrograph, a new downtown theater on Ludlow Street. Among the guests were Michael Showalter, the film's director, and cast members, including Natasha Lyonne and Tyne Daly, as well as Paul Rudd, Emily Mortimer and the columnist Cindy Adams, who flaunted her trademark beehive as she interviewed Ms. Field in a dim corner, scribbling old school style in a reporter's notebook. As the film's title character, an endearing if slightly unhinged accountant in her 60s, Ms. Field finds herself lusting obsessively over a handsome co worker decades her junior. Left mostly to her own devices after her mother dies, she is surprised to discover an engagingly eccentric, adventurous side. Not only is Doris capable of entertaining humid fantasies about a much younger man, but of venturing into uncharted terrain, posing for rock album covers and dancing at subterranean clubs garbed in a garish caution yellow jumpsuit. Doris's exotic escapade is "part of becoming new, of coming of age," Ms. Field said. "But it's hard to be new and awkward and to open up to your vulnerabilities." At 69, she can relate. "I'm moving on to the newest stage of my life, my 70s," she said gamely. "There are things waiting for me that I couldn't have found without getting here." Including the Harold and Maude scenario suggested by Doris? Not out of the question, it seems. Ms. Field, who has been married twice and had a much chronicled long term relationship with Burt Reynolds, said on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" recently that she wouldn't object to acquiring a boy toy. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Resolved: January is self help season all those resolute readers, still nursing champagne hangovers and chocolate tummy aches, snatch up titles like "Food, Health and Happiness" (No. 1 on the advice, how to and miscellaneous list) and "The Lose Your Belly Diet" (No. 2 on the same list), which will linger for a month or so before giving way to funny cat books, only to resurface like freckles at the first sign of beach weather. It's not all questionable science and impossible aspirations, though. "The Telomere Effect," an anti aging book new at No. 15 on the hardcover nonfiction list, was written by a couple of honest to God scientists: , president of the Salk Institute and a 2009 Nobel laureate in medicine, and Elissa Epel, a health psychologist who directs the Aging, Metabolism and Emotion Center at the University of California, San Francisco. The quick version of their book, and their research, is that our chromosomes rely on protective caps (called telomeres) akin to the tips that keep shoelaces from fraying; healthy living, they claim, can preserve or even restore those caps to slow the effects of aging. "Move your body," Blackburn advised listeners of WNYC radio this month, in an interview with the journalist Jonathan Capehart in which she also casually deployed the correct term for those shoelace tips. (They're aglets.) "Everyone thinks, 'Oh, I have to run marathons and join expensive gyms and things like that.' It turns out really brisk walking, even for short periods of time every day, buffers or alleviates some of the stress related telomere shortening that happens in chronically stressed people. This is very encouraging, because even if you have a short lunchtime, you can get out and really briskly walk 10 minutes every day. . . . It's totally doable, and it's free." Nothing but the Truth: Douglas Preston is a habitue of the fiction lists for the thrillers he writes with Lincoln Child most of them featuring the F.B.I. special agent Aloysius Pendergast. But this week he makes an appearance on the nonfiction side of things, with the irresistibly titled "Lost City of the Monkey God," new in hardcover at No. 6. Actually, nonfiction is nothing new for Preston, who got his start as a journalist. He previously hit the list in 2008 with "The Monster of Florence," an investigation of an Italian serial killer written with Mario Spezi. And his 1986 debut was a nonfiction look at the American Museum of Natural History, "Dinosaurs in the Attic." To contemporary eyes, the most notable line in that book may come from the acknowledgments section, which heralded the start of a beautiful relationship: "Finally, I must thank Lincoln Child, my editor at St. Martin's Press, for proposing this book in the first place and for his peerless editorial guidance. I have had many editors and, without question, he has been the best." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
LOS ANGELES If Charlie Rose won't interview you, Ben Mankiewicz might for a price. Mr. Mankiewicz, a journalist and commentator who has lately been a host on Turner Classic Movies, has also quietly become one of the founders of a new business that trades, in a classy way, on that most constant of commodities: human vanity. Called Forward, the firm is co owned with Andrew Jameson, a seasoned television producer, and is advised by Lewis N. Wolff, an entrepreneur whose interests include the Oakland Athletics baseball team. In simple terms, Forward allows a wealthy person to become the subject of a professionally packaged video interview conducted with all the panache and most of the perspicuity you would expect from Mr. Rose for about 50,000 to 150,000, depending on the package. "I have tremendous respect for journalism; this isn't that," Mr. Mankiewicz said during a joint phone interview with Mr. Jameson. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
How did Raja Feather Kelly known for his imaginative dance theater excavations of pop and queer culture end up as a go to choreographer for Off Broadway shows? One reason, an obvious one, had to do with a close friend. As soon as the playwright Branden Jacobs Jenkins started to pass his name along to people in the theater world, Mr. Kelly found himself in demand. First, in 2016, came Adrienne Kennedy's "Funnyhouse of a Negro." Next was Suzan Lori Parks's "The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World," directed by Lileana Blain Cruz. "She said, 'I have this ensemble, and I don't want them to leave the stage so I need to think about their physicality and their bodies,'" Mr. Kelly recalled. "Then Branden had a show called 'Everybody' with 15 foot dancing skeletons and an idea that there would be a death dance. When I got the script, the page was blank." Soon, he found himself filling a niche Off Broadway. "I was working on new plays that wanted to have a physical life, but didn't know how," he said. "I walk in and it's like, 'We know we want movement and we want to bring the show to life and we want the bodies to be stylistic and particular, and we feel like working with a choreographer would help us do that.'" He laughed. But even though he is known as a figure in the world of experimental downtown dance, Mr. Kelly who unveiled a new piece for his company, the Feath3r Theory at the Invisible Dog in Brooklyn over the weekend loved musical theater as a teenager. Now his choreography constitutes a vital part of two important Off Broadway productions: "Fairview," the Pulitzer Prize winning play by Jackie Sibblies Drury, and "A Strange Loop," a musical by Michael R. Jackson. So how does he explain what a choreographer does or, more important, what he does? "I like behavior," he said. "I think of virtuosic behavior as what I like to do with my choreography. That's where I can help: by making the behavior specific and virtuosic. I feel like I found a place that directors and writers now are wanting to do something different and that makes a place for someone like me who is different. It's cool." Mr. Kelly does incorporate dance steps, but his choreographic approach is also about finding subtle ways of getting to both the essence of a character and the universe of a piece. In "Fairview," directed by Sarah Benson at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, Mr. Kelly's work is so deeply woven into the play's fabric, that it would be a completely different piece without him. It's set in the home of an African American family on the evening of a birthday dinner; the jittery Beverly, who is trying to make everything perfect, is having a hard time reining in her husband, sister and daughter. Eventually, Beverly faints, and the stage is reset as it was at the start of the play; the actors perform the same movements they did in the first part, a finely tuned mix of everyday movements peeling carrots, setting out a cheese plate, drinking wine to a soundtrack of voices discussing what race they would change into if they could. It's essentially a 40 minute piece of dance theater. (The last section is a surprise and should remain one.) "Fairview" deals specifically with the black body, and its relationship to movement is integral. "Raja completely changed the process in terms of making dance such a central part to the show and how the play works," Ms. Benson said. "The play is about making explicit structures of power, how we watch theater, who goes to the theater, how white people watch black people, how black people are watched by white people. The play is theatricalizing 'embodying.' Raja is putting those questions on the body." Along the way, there are references to sitcoms like "The Jeffersons," "Family Matters" and "Moesha," as well as to social dance forms like the Hustle and the Electric Slide. "It was always really important to me that it all looked really natural, so if you notice, everybody moves a lot," Mr. Kelly said. "When the dancing comes, it doesn't want to seem like a surprise. When they do a dance later, you're not like where did this dance come from? You've been watching them move and orbit around." "How do Thoughts fill up space?" Mr. Brackett said. "How do Thoughts communicate with each other and how do they move with each other? To be able to dip our toe into that with Raja was glorious. It opened up the possibility for the world of the piece." For the Thoughts' choreography, Mr. Kelly said he asked himself: "If I were being my most flamboyant self which I sometimes am and I kept turning that knob up, what would that look like? "In the middle of a song, someone will just swing their hands around and it's not necessary, but it is for me if I was expressing myself." In Mr. Kelly's own artistic life, theater came before dance. He grew up in Fort Hood, Tex., and later moved to Long Branch, N.J., to finish high school where there was a performing arts program, the Westwood Players. "I did it all: musical theater, speech and debate, dance team," he said. His first encounter with musical theater was Bob Fosse. "I was like, I should probably do that," he said, with a laugh. "It was super sexy, but so weird and if ever someone would call me sexy it would be in a weird way." He attended Connecticut College, where he studied English and dance and went on to choreograph and to dance for others, including Reggie Wilson, David Dorfman and Kyle Abraham. For now, he has stopped dancing; his recent show, "We May Never Dance Again(r)," which returns to Invisible Dog in January, is, in part a meditation on that change in his life. Focusing solely on choreography, which he sees as a visual art, is where his interest lies now. And he likes infusing plays with his take on dance. "I have studied the difference between sitting across from you and sitting right next to you, and it's huge," he said. "By understanding a body's relationship in space, you see how small tweaks make people feel differently. I think having someone in the room like that can really help develop an arc of a show." Would he like a shot at a Broadway musical? Absolutely. And what would he do? "This sounds weird, but I think I would attempt to make it less dance y but just as big," he said. "Again, my thing is about behavior, so how can a dial be turned up so the dance is both expected and celebrated" but not "now we dance and now dance over." He added: "It feels like there's life missing from some of the things I've seen. I just want to care about people and why they're dancing." At the moment, though, he feels lucky. "I choreograph full time," he said. "I'm happy to do that for now. And Broadway isn't going anywhere. Broadway will come." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
A roundup of motoring news from the web: BMW and Toyota have announced that they would collaborate on a sports car platform. The companies, which signed a battery technology agreement in June, said they would also look into the feasibility of joint development of a midsize car platform as well. (Automotive News, subscription required) According to the most recent edition of the Scotiabank Global Auto Report, 2014 is projected to be a record year for global auto sales. The report said that China, whose sales have accounted for nearly 50 percent of global auto sales growth over the last 10 years, is expected to continue its upward trend in new car sales. (The Wall Street Journal, subscription required) In an effort to lower fleet greenhouse gas emissions, automakers appear to be moving toward use of a new type of air conditioning system refrigerant. The new refrigerant, called 1234yf, would replace the R134A refrigerant that has been in widespread use since the early 1990s. Despite its supposed environmental superiority, there are concerns about the new chemical: a test conducted by Daimler in 2012 showed the refrigerant, also known as R1234yf, leaking into a passenger compartment and catching fire. (Tire Business) The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Google and Audi plan to announce at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week that they are teaming up to develop an in car infotainment system. The new system will take music, navigation and other applications available on Android smartphones and integrate them into Audi's electronics. (The Wall Street Journal, subscription required) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
The comedian Pete Holmes grew up a dedicated Christian, and his spirituality is something he draws on often in his stand up material and his HBO show, "Crashing," which was recently renewed for a third season. He's also currently writing a book about his experience with faith. So it's not surprising that at Mr. Holmes's house which he calls a "bungalow" in East Los Angeles, the walls emphasize both his spiritual and cerebral worldview. There is a photograph of the eminent writer on mythology Joseph Campbell, who died in 1987, and who, Mr. Holmes said, "redefined God for me." He also commissioned a print of lyrics to the Avett Brothers' "Salvation Song," and a quotation from Ram Dass, the spiritual and counterculture leader, about self judgment. It reads in part, "When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens. ... And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are." There is also a wooden topographic map of San Francisco "I enjoy seeing things from above," Mr. Holmes said in a phone interview. Mr. Holmes dabbles in painting as well. Four years ago, he painted Batman hugging his most reviled nemesis, the Joker, against a yellow backdrop on a large canvas. Mr. Holmes is also a cartoonist and several of his works have appeared in The New Yorker. Batman is of some importance to him he played the Caped Crusader in 10 parody sketches when he hosted "The Pete Holmes Show" on TBS. The scene of the Batman and Joker detente holds a prime position in Mr. Holmes's garage. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. Why did you pick that Avett Brothers song for a customized print? It kind of sounds like a mission statement for life. When I'm feeling in that good flow that we can all get in, that song makes so much sense to me. I really like the part: "If it compromises truth, then we will go." It's the idea that what we're pursuing isn't fame and it's not just money. It's actually about excavating your soul, sharing and creating. The Ram Dass quotation is interesting. Why did that speak to you? It's the sort of thing that when you're having dinner with your family and you are tempted to be driven crazy, and you just want to remember that everyone is doing the best they can. Everyone is doing what is natural to them. The idea of trees bending in a certain way because that's how they got light is another way of saying that people act a certain way because that's how they get love. Everybody wants the same fundamental things. They want to feel safe. They want to feel seen and they want to feel loved. So when Ram Dass reminds me to look at people just like other things, it helps me have a bit more compassion. Did you learn how to paint on your own? It's not as hard as it looks. I don't really paint. If you look at it, I draw with paint. People who paint blend colors and they're mimicking something, like a landscape. I'm just drawing on a canvas with a Sharpie and then I'm painting it in. The fanciest thing I'm doing is painting it yellow, letting it dry, and then painting it yellow. You have more than a passing interest in comic book heroes, correct? I love Batman. He keeps the same hours as a comedian. I think Gotham is so obviously supposed to be New York. So when I was handing out fliers or when I was going to do shows that started at 1 a.m. talk about metaphors, I literally leaned on the image of Batman to give me strength. Even more than that, I wanted to do a series about reconciliation. So I wanted to do a series of paintings I still might of notorious enemies hugging. I wanted to do Lex Luthor and Superman. I wanted to do Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker playing catch in a park like father and son. I love the idea of Batman, who represents right and wrong, and the Joker, who represents death, finding a way to love each other. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
I could tell you pretty much everything about my first passenger flight on a 747, a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight to Amsterdam, on June 25, 1988 (in 33A a window seat, of course). And I'd certainly describe the marvelous night of Dec. 12, 2007, when I first piloted a 747, for British Airways, the airline I now fly for, from London to Hong Kong. That night the majesty of the 747 made the experience of takeoff new again, as joyful as it had been on my first flying lesson years earlier, when a steely eyed instructor and I strapped ourselves into a Cessna, rumbled down the runway of my hometown airport in Pittsfield, Mass., and lifted into an autumn blue Berkshire sky. Recent news reports have suggested that the last 747s in passenger service with U.S. airlines will be retired this year. It's worth noting that other 747s including refurbished, newer and cargo versions will fly for years to come. New passenger 747s took flight as recently as this summer, and cargo models continue to roll off the assembly line. Nevertheless, as many 747 pilots start to ponder which aircraft we'll fly next (personally, I am drawn to the sleek lines and "Star Trek" caliber cockpit of the Boeing 787), it is a good time to reflect on the outsize importance of the plane known as "Queen of the Skies" not just to its most passionate and geekiest, pilots, but to billions of passengers and to the world it helped change. For those who grew up under 747 crossed skies, it can be hard to appreciate how revolutionary the jet's dimensions were when it first (and improbably, to some observers) got airborne in 1969. The inaugural model, the 747 100, was the world's first wide bodied airliner. The jet weighed hundreds of thousands of pounds more than its predecessors (the Boeing 707, for example), and carried more than twice as many passengers. Born in a factory so large that clouds once formed within it, the 747 100 was nearly twice as long as the Wright brothers' entire first flight. The aviation historian Martin Bowman has written that during the 747's first takeoff, from Paine Field, in Everett, Wash., in February 1969, the blast of its engines knocked over a photographer. Indeed, the jet's elephantine proportions were both a gift and a challenge to the travel industry. Peter Walter, who retired in 2011 after 47 years in ground based aviation jobs, shared with me his memories of the day the 747 first came to the airport in Freeport, Bahamas. "The aircraft did not look all that big on the runway, but once it was on the ramp it looked enormous," he wrote. The mobile steps that had serviced a previous generation of airliners were too short, so crews stacked one set of steps atop another in order to reach the lofty doors of the new leviathan. For pilots, crew members and passengers who love the 747, it's easy to forget that the airliner was first of all a business proposition, one that aimed to harness economies of scale and a raft of new technologies to cut the seat per mile cost of air travel by about 30 percent. Yet on a planet that previously only the richest could cross at will, the 747's most lasting impact may have been on everyday notions of distance and difference. Having inaugurated the "age of mass intercontinental travel," wrote the scholar Vaclav Smil, the 747 "became a powerful symbol of global civilization." The writer J.G. Ballard compared the jet to nothing less than the Parthenon each the embodiment of "an entire geopolitical world view." Juan Trippe, Pan Am's legendary founder, called the 747 "a great weapon for peace, competing with intercontinental missiles for mankind's destiny." The hopes and fears of the era that gave us the 747 can seem distant. Nor is it easy, in the age of the internet, to feel the same awe at the 747's ability to shrink and connect the world. Looking back, it's perhaps enough to marvel at the billions of reunions, migrations, exchanges and collaborations of all manner that were made possible, or at least more affordable, by this aircraft. Today, the equivalent of around half the planet's population has flown on a 747. The jets have also served in firefighting, military and humanitarian roles. In 1991, as part of Operation Solomon, about 1,100 Ethiopian Jews boarded the 747 that would take them to Israel. Never before had an aircraft carried so many passengers including, by the time the jet touched down, several babies born midair. If the 747's place in history is assured, so too, it seems, is its cultural stature. The jet remains a go to synonym for aerial enormity, one that a "Game of Thrones" director recently deployed to suggest the dimensions of a dragon. The 747 also endures as a symbol of speed, escape and, frankly, sexiness, one that along with the pleasingly palindromic rhythm of its number name has appealed in particular to singers. A 747 playlist might include Prince ("you are flying aboard the seduction 747"); Earth, Wind and Fire ("just move yourself and glide like a 747"); and Joni Mitchell, who gave perhaps my favorite tribute to 747s ("...over geometric farms.") The jet also seems certain to be remembered as an icon of modern design. "This is one of the great ones," said Charles Lindbergh of the aircraft that many consider to be uniquely good looking. I am surely not the first to speculate that the jet's distinctive hump (fashioned to facilitate cargo loading in a future that many expected to be dominated by supersonic passenger jets) suggests the graceful head of an avian archetype. Frequently, looking up from my cockpit paperwork, I'll spot several passengers in the terminal photographing the very jet in which I am sitting. I often see even senior 747 pilots disembark the aircraft that they've just spent 11 hours flying to Cape Town or Los Angeles, and then pause, turn around and photograph it. Indeed, the jet may be most esteemed by those who have been lucky enough to fly it. The very first to do so, the test pilot Jack Waddell, described it as "a pilot's dream" and a "two finger airplane" one that can be flown with just the forefinger and thumb on the control wheel; it is hard to imagine higher praise for such an enormous aircraft. Personally, I find the aircraft to be both smooth and maneuverable, a joy to fly and to land. Like every 747 pilot since, Mr. Waddell also took a keen interest in how the plane looked. Remarkably, he did so even as he was piloting the new jet on that first ever flight. "What kind of a looking ship is this from out there, Paul?" he said over the radio to Paul Bennett, a pilot in the "chase" aircraft that was following the newborn 747 through the skies of the Pacific Northwest. The reply from Mr. Bennett echoes through aviation history: "It's very good looking, Jack. Fantastic!" Many 747 pilots feel the same, and are pleased, but not surprised, to hear that the British architect Norman Foster once named the aircraft his favorite building of the 20th century. Now, well into the 21st century, I asked Mr. Foster for an update. The 747 "still moves me now as it did then," he told me in an email. "Perhaps with the passage of time, and in an age of 'look alikes,' even more so." Mr. Foster has plenty of company. At the start of my first book, a sort of love letter to my job as a pilot, I invited readers to send me their favorite window seat photographs. Many also wrote to share their particular passion for the 747. One reader detailed his first 747 flight, on Alitalia, bound for Rome in 1971. "I have been hooked ever since," he said. Another, Andrew Flowers, a 42 year old South African writer who lives in Helsinki, wrote that the 747s he saw as a child in Cape Town stood for what "I wanted most in the world: a way to Europe, to adventure, to freedom." When Mr. Foster emailed me, he also attached a transcript of remarks he made about the 747 in a 1991 BBC documentary. "I suppose it's the grandeur, the scale; it's heroic, it's also pure sculpture," he said then of the jet. "It does not really need to fly, it could sit on the ground, it could be in a museum." Today the first 747 is indeed in a museum the Museum of Flight in Seattle. When I last visited, I couldn't stay long. (Inevitably, I had a flight to catch.) But if you see me there another time perhaps in a few decades when I myself am retired, with more time, I hope, to sit on benches and listen to Joni Mitchell come say hello. I'll tell you how much I loved this plane, and how sorry I was that my parents did not live to join me on one of my flights. Perhaps you'll tell me about the first time you ever saw a 747, or flew on one, and together we'll marvel at how it towers above us even at its lowest altitude, even as it rests on the world. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. EL PASO The other day, armed with a face mask, I was rushing through the aisles of an organic supermarket, sizing up the produce, squeezing the oranges and tomatoes, when a memory hit me. Me age 6 stooping to pick these same fruits and vegetables in California's San Joaquin Valley. I spent the spring weekends and scorching summers of my childhood in those fields, under the watchful eye of my parents. Once I was a teenager, I worked alongside them, my brothers and cousins, too, essential links in a supply chain that kept America fed, but always a step away from derision, detention and deportation. Today, hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Mexico and Central America are doing that work. By the Department of Agriculture's estimates, about half the country's field hands more than a million workers are undocumented. Growers and labor contractors estimate that the real proportion is closer to 75 percent. Suddenly, in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, these "illegal" workers have been deemed "essential" by the federal government. Tino, an undocumented worker from Oaxaca, Mexico, is hoeing asparagus on the same farm where my family once worked. He picks tomatoes in the summer and melons in the fall. He told me his employer has given him a letter tucked inside his wallet, next to a picture of his family assuring any who ask that he is "critical to the food supply chain." The letter was sanctioned by the Department of Homeland Security, the same agency that has spent 17 years trying to deport him. "I don't feel this letter will stop la migra from deporting me," Tino told me. "But it makes me feel I may have a chance in this country, even though Americans may change their minds tomorrow." In the past, the United States has rewarded immigrant soldiers who fought our wars with a path to citizenship. Today, the fields along with the meatpacking plants, the delivery trucks and the grocery store shelves are our front lines, and border security can't be disconnected from food security. It's time to offer all essential workers a path to legalization. It might seem hard to imagine this happening during the "Build the wall" presidency, when Congress can barely agree on emergency stimulus measures. Many Republicans no longer support even DACA, the program that protected Dreamers who grew up here and that could be revoked by the Supreme Court this week. But the pandemic scrambles our normal politics. "We have started talking about essential workers as a category of superheroes," said Andrew Selee, the president of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute and author of "Vanishing Frontiers." If the pandemic continues for a year or two, he said, we should think "in a bold way about how do we deal with essential workers who have put their life on the line for all of us but who don't have legal documents." Maybe, he said, "they should be in the pipeline for fast track regularization, just like those with DACA" are, for now. Of course, America has always been a fickle country. I learned that lesson as a crop picking boy, when my aunt Esperanza, who ran the team of farmhands that included my mom, brothers and cousins, would yell: "Haganse arco." Duck! The workers without documents would stop hoeing and scramble. Run if not for their lives, then almost certainly for their livelihoods. We'd watch as the vans of the Border Patrol came to a screeching halt, dust settling. The unlucky workers would make a beeline for the nearest ditch or canal. Some would simply drop to the ground, hoping for refuge amid the rows of sugar beets, tomatoes or cotton. Sometimes the agents gave chase. We'd always root for the prey. We were desperate to prove they had every right to be out in those desolate fields, as if they were taking a dream job away from somebody else. One time, Aunt Teresa looked genuinely disappointed at the sight of our smiling faces. She was ticked off she hadn't been deported. Sometimes, the night after such raids, a puzzling thing would take place. A labor contractor or farmer would drive up as we'd gather for dinner of beef, green chile and potato caldillo washed down with tortillas. He'd compliment us for the hard work we had put in that day. And then he'd ask: Did we know anyone who might want to come and work alongside us? Along with other farmers, he has been pleading with Congress for the past few years to legalize farmworkers, if not as part of comprehensive immigration reform, then as a bill focused on farmworkers, because "you need these workers today, tomorrow and for a long time." "With or without Covid," he added, "we need to constantly replenish our work force to ensure food supplies." Some Democratic lawmakers, including Representative Veronica Escobar of El Paso, are pushing to include legalization in any updated coronavirus relief package. "The hypocrisy within America is that we want the fruits of their undocumented labor, but we want to give them nothing in return," she said. Even with unemployment projected to be 15 percent or higher, Mr. Del Bosque told me he doubts he'll ever see a line of job seeking Americans flocking to his fields. The rare few who have shown up at 5:30 a.m. don't come back. Some, he said, give up the backbreaking work before their first lunch break. He fears looming labor shortages. That's not because of raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement resuming or a wall keeping workers out. He worries about a potential coronavirus outbreak, yes, but his most immediate concern is that his farmworkers are aging. Their average age is 40. My old school, Oro Loma Elementary School, which was once filled with Mexican children, closed down in 2010. As a 6 year old immigrant, I'd cry at night under the California stars, homesick for Mexico, for my friends and cousins. Then one night, as my mother tucked me into bed, she caressed my face. "Shhhh," she whispered, "they're all here now." And she was right. Today my siblings include a lawyer, an accountant, a truck driver, a delivery manager, a security guard, an educational fund raiser and a prosthetics specialist. Cousins went off to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or to help run medical centers and corporations, including Walmart in Arkansas. Others still grind away in the fields of California and meatpacking plants of Colorado, work in nursing homes or clean the houses of the rich. Many of us make an annual pilgrimage to our home village in the Mexican desert. But we're firmly planted here. Without being thanked for it, we're replenishing America. Alfredo Corchado is the Mexico border correspondent for The Dallas Morning News and the author of "Midnight in Mexico" and "Homelands: Four Friends, Two Countries and the Fate of the Great Mexican American Migration." The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter ( NYTopinion) and Instagram. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
An installation view of the Virgil Abloh exhibition, "Figures of Speech," at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. On the wall, Inez Vinoodh's ad campaign images for Louis Vuitton, and in the foreground, "Options" (2019), consisting of yellow evidence markers. "Figures of Speech" in Chicago tries to capture the essence of a prodigious fashion designer. It's an endeavor with radical juxtapositions, clever products and s ome missed opportunities. CHICAGO There is one room in "Figures of Speech," the Virgil Abloh exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, that vividly demonstrates how his aesthetic principles, emotional range and commercial ambitions all cohabitate cozily. On one wall is an Inez Vinoodh triptych of a young black child playing with Louis Vuitton items , from Mr. Abloh's first ad campaign as the artistic director of Louis Vuitton men's wear design. The most striking is the middle image, in which a girl wears a psychedelically colorful sweater with a "Wizard of Oz" theme is draped in it, actually with small, fragile origami paper boats strewn at her feet. Her left arm is outstretched and she's gazing off into the distance it's beatific. But step to the other side of the room and see these photographs anew. On the floor in front of you will be a sculpture of a sort, an array of 16 numbered yellow markers, the kind used to denote the location of evidence at a crime scene. (What's not on any information card is that 16 is the number of shots a Chicago police officer fired at Laquan McDonald in 2014, killing him.) On the floor, there is tragedy. On the wall, there is hope. It was also striking just how many people stepped right around the ghost on the floor barely noticing it, if at all, as they snapped photos of an ad. He is the standard bearer for the internet speed globalization of haute post hip hop style , suggesting that the chasm between taking a marker to your shoes and ending up the head designer at an iconic fashion house may not be as vast as it once seemed. That he has achieved so much so rapidly is its own provocation, one amplified by "Figures of Speech." It is his first museum exhibition, and fundamentally it asks how a museum by practice, a static institution can capture and convey the work of someone who moves quickly, has prodigious output, and who isn't nearly as preoccupied with what he did yesterday as what he might do tomorrow. HIP HOP, STREETWEAR, SKATEBOARDING AND GRAFFITI are all art practices born of resistance, and by the time Mr. Abloh found them, they were eking their way into institutions. More than any of his generational peers, he has applied their disruptive urges in new contexts. His art is about besting capitalism from within. He has a just make it ethos; the essence of his work is process as much as product. In a 2017 lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design published as a book, "Insert Complicated Title Here" he focused on "shortcuts," about how changing an existing thing just 3 percent is often enough. "I'm sure that you're trying to challenge yourself to invent something new, trying to be avant garde," he told the students. "Basically, that's impossible." For Mr. Abloh, there is no art practice outside the mode of consumption. You sense that f or him, the sneaker in the store (which costs you money) and the picture of the sneaker in the store that goes on Instagram (which costs you time) serve effectively the same purpose. In the second gallery, clothes hang on racks that make it tough to appreciate the unusual details whether in terms of silhouette, or design in jokes that Mr. Abloh has made his stock in trade. At the end of one rack are some prototype Vuitton pieces with a strip of paper attached that reads "LEWIS VUITTON," an intriguing in house tweaking of a design lineage that could also fit in at a group exhibition at a Bushwick art gallery. (Such garments were never actually produced.) Later, a grid of Abloh/Nike prototype sneakers has been set at ground level. Presumably artifacts like these are what draw many people to the exhibition, but the presentation minimizes their importance and their strengths. There is a kind of exhibition that's effective for work like this, something more process focused that shows the inspiration and the innovation side by side a display of tools, techniques and gambits. In places here, that happens mentioning Calder on the wall text next to a mobile like sculpture made of pink insulation foam, or pointing out the Caravaggio that was referenced in his earliest clothing line, Pyrex Vision. But some are obscured : the oversize version of the clear CD case Mr. Abloh designed for Kanye West's "Yeezus" album is missing any mention of Peter Saville, a mentor of Mr. Abloh's, who did something similar for New Order . BORROWING IS IN MR. ABLOH'S DNA, and one of the unlikely pleasures of this exhibition is the way he freely absorbs the work of others. One wall is completely wheatpasted with posters of the Chicago rapper Chief Keef wearing a Supreme T shirt, photographed by Ari Marcopoulos it all clings to the wall like a proud stunt, one of several places where Mr. Abloh imports a vernacular context into the museum setting. Similarly, there are works made of concrete cast to resemble outdoor benches that would be manna to skateboarders . Mr. Abloh also applies that mode of creative direction to his own emotions . In one case, he displays some of his gold and platinum paper clip jewelry (by the celebrity jeweler Jacob Arabo) , made real versions of pieces he once fashioned for himself out of actual paper clips, an aspirational nod to the luxury rapper chains he never expected to be able to afford. Just across the gallery from those pieces is one of the show's most convincing arrangements. On the left is Mr. Abloh's D.J. setup austerely beautiful wooden speakers (by Devon Turnbull), glimmering CD turntables (by Pioneer DJ) presented as a shrine. And hanging on the wall to the right is a cease and desist letter from the United Nations chiding Mr. Abloh for using its logo on fliers for D.J. gigs. There it is reverence and flippancy all together, and a reminder that flippancy can often be a byproduct of reverence. And yes, Mr. Abloh is in on the joke. A biographical video near the end of the show includes a scene in which he waters, with a hose, the "WET GRASS" rug he made with Ikea. By the gift shop, I spied some tickets on a table that read "Virgil Abloh: 'Bathroom Pass.'" Mr. Abloh even folds critique into his work a rug in the first room is imprinted with an arched eyebrows quotation from a Four Pins story about Pyrex Vision in 2013 . An information slide in the fashion gallery alludes to some unkind things the fashion designer Raf Simons once said about Mr. Abloh: "Simons described Off White as not bringing anything original to fashion. Abloh immediately responded with the collection 'Nothing New.'" More than a dozen are marked as having been made in 2019 and as belonging to a private collection. Mostly they are room fillers: grand scaled billboards, an all black Sunoco sign sinking into the ground, and so on. Taken together, they betray an anxiety about what type of work might belong in a museum exhibition. They eat a lot of space, but don't communicate a lot of information. Mr. Abloh's best work could fill these rooms several times over, just in a very different fashion. He is a tinkerer. Rather than a simple grid of sneakers, what about a video of him drawing on them, or cutting one up and making something new? Instead of racks of largely obscured clothes, what about the WhatsApp messages between him and his colleagues that led to his creative decisions? For Mr. Abloh, paterfamilias to a generation that understands garments are to be modified, not simply worn, that would have been apt. (The show's hefty, excellent catalog embraces this spirit, deploying a titillating level of detail.) As this exhibition is standing there, still, Mr. Abloh is plowing through ever more references on his Instagram stories. What about a screen that displays his real time preoccupations? The notion that the museum can only hold finished works is an obsolete one. THOUGH THERE IS NO ROOM for true hands on interactivity in this exhibition probably a crowd control measure at least two works elsewhere in the museum do invite interaction: Felix Gonzalez Torres's "'Untitled' (The End)," an endlessly replenished stack of paper that you can take freely from, and Ernesto Neto's "Water Falls From My Breast to the Sky," basically a divan you can sit on, covered by crocheted nets extending to the top of the building. Millions of people rarely, if ever, experience art in a museum setting. They see it on the streets, in their clothes and sneakers, on the walls around them. The way for art to have wide impact is to set it free Mr. Abloh understands that his real museum is the world outside these walls. Capitalizing on his relationships with established brands, he set up de facto satellite locations for the show. At the NikeLab installation next to the Nike store on Michigan Avenue, a few blocks away from the museum, there was an ocean of shredded sneaker bits in the windows and walls. Inside, you could piece together D.I.Y. projects with markers, rubber ink stamps and various embellishments I filled in a coloring book outline of an Air Jordan Spiz'ike in shades of pink, green and brown, and pocketed a couple of pink chenille swooshes. Louis Vuitton opened an orange themed pop up location in the West Loop neighborhood carrying select items from the FW19 collection. (New York had a similar green themed one a few weeks later.) The space was filled with life size (and larger) mannequins that were surprisingly emotional, and wouldn't have been out of place at the museum. But perhaps the greatest provocation the most ineffable artistic moment came at the main Louis Vuitton flagship store on Michigan Avenue, which was carrying several pieces of Abloh designed clothing emblazoned with references to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. One varsity jacket had a hand embroidered patch on the back in the shape of Africa. In this temple of high fashion were clothes that shouted their radical intentions, locating black history at the very center of the aesthetic conversation. It was moving, and also undaunted a dash of capitalist conceptualism hiding in plain sight. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
LONDON Imagery in choreography is often easy to miss. Who in the audience really sees the eagle, snake, moon crossing the sky, emeralds, rubies and unicorns that are said by Balanchine connoisseurs to be present in his ballets? Early in Frederick Ashton's "The Two Pigeons," however, we see real pigeons fly across the stage, and when the leading couple, the Painter and his model, the Young Girl, liken themselves to the birds, we see the point at once. What's astonishing is how Ashton then amplifies this simile. He makes other dancers behave pigeonishly, sustains pigeon behavior as a metaphor and turns comedy into deeply affecting pathos. What begins as a joke (humans as performing pigeons!) turns into a profound statement of sexual love and passionate reconciliation (man and woman as turtledoves). For many of us, this 1961 two act work is a beloved, sometimes heartbreaking drama. The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden here is staging its first major revival of it in 30 years; a broadcast of the Jan. 26 performance will be shown in New York and other American cities on March 23. The infectious score (arranged by Ashton's frequent collaborator John Lanchbery) is by Andre Messager, one of the great French melodists of the era of Georges Bizet and Leo Delibes. The story and title derive from one of Jean de La Fontaine's 17th century fables. In French, the word "pigeon" has two senses: a dove like bird, but also a dupe, victim or fall guy. Both aspects are apparent in Ashton's ballet. At first, the ballet's central image is a comic simile. When the heroine who is the Painter's model and, implicitly, his live in mistress spots a pigeon flying outside the studio, she responds cutely, as if to say: "That's us! Look how like pigeons we two can be!" If you wonder how humans can move like pigeons, she shows you. She puffs out her chest, juts her head forward and back, places her wrists on her hips and flaps her elbows like wings, flutters her feet in the air like wingtips, flexes those feet and struts on them, and in arabesques and jumps, expands her line to suggest the shape and trajectory of flight. Both adorable and petty, her movement shows us how she at once irritates and enchants. Ashton is the most kinesthetically affecting of ballet choreographers. Just watch how every part of her is involved in this full bodied pigeon imitation, and some fiber in us responds as if in potent inner recognition. But then the heroine's eight girlfriends adopt it, too, and so does the Painter. Thus pigeon mannerisms come to illustrate human nature at its more fallible, vulnerable, endearing. The Painter leaves the nest in pursuit of the Girl. He seems to be trying to throw off his own avian character, but he can't. Even amid the new ardor and expansiveness he finds in the Gypsy encampment, the smaller, faster, neater movements of his earlier manner keep showing themselves, whereupon the Gypsies turn on him and throw him out. The ballet's closing scene is back in the studio. Here both Painter and Young Girl are forlorn and hurt; and their final pas de deux begins with amorous intimacy, with him touching her sensuously as if healing a broken wing. Her torso, shoulder, arm all respond, but then flutter back into a private, folded over position both marvelously birdlike and psychologically revealing. What builds from that beginning is among the most powerful of all choreographic statements of love as both physical need and spiritual reunion. It includes remorse, abandon, retrospection, forward movement and profound rapture. On Friday, I watched the Kiev born Iana Salenko, a guest artist, and Steven McRae as the "pigeon" pair; Ms. Salenko, lively and engaging, as yet lack aspects of the ballet's musical phrasing and the full sensuality of its texture. The vivid Mr. McRae, now in his prime, has become an exemplar of Royal Ballet dancing and acting; all that's missing is the anguished regret that surely motivates his gestures into the air during that great final duet. Fumi Kaneko, a soloist dancing the virtuoso Gypsy Girl, was highly impressive in both theatricality and dance brilliance. The company is pairing this work with a pure dance Ashton work (currently the 1965 66 "Monotones I and II"; the 1980 "Rhapsody" in January). A drawback throughout the program is that Barry Wordsworth, after some 40 years of conducting this choreographer's repertory, now allows the music to be tepid. All these dancers new to "Pigeons" bring it a crispness he has lost. "Pigeons" seems to want to look an amazingly dated piece of work at first. The England in which Ashton introduced it was seething with the theatrical advances of Samuel Beckett, John Osborne and Harold Pinter; and yet, here and in other neo Romantic ballets of that time, he dared to investigate aspects of triviality, sentimentality and prettiness. It's characteristic of his genius, though, that "Pigeons" soon gets deep beneath the skin. Those frissons of physical contact between lovers show a sexuality that's remarkably contemporary; they open up areas of extraordinary poignancy. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
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