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Credit...Kyle Johnson for The New York Times WASHOUGAL, WASH. People talk about chucking their jobs. They say they will leave behind the madness of the city and hit the road. A few drinks and they're telling you about the epic hiking trip in the Sierra Nevada they'll take or how magical the surf is in Baja California Sur, Mexico. But nobody ever does it. Nobody. Except for one guy. His name is Foster Huntington, and he used to work in New York. He had a bright future in the fashion industry. But then he cut the cord. And do you know where he lives now? In a treehouse. "I could've bought a house," Mr. Huntington said one recent afternoon. He stood at the base of a massive fir tree, his face hidden behind a scruffy beard. "But this is so much better. For me, it's realizing a childhood dream." Since last fall, Mr. Huntington, 27, has lived among a stand of Douglas firs on a grassy hilltop in southwest Washington state. The spot is God kissed: wide, flat ish land overlooking a verdant farm valley. Just over a ridge to the south is the Columbia River Gorge. And at night, from up in the treehouse, you can see the faint glow of Portland, Ore., 20 miles to the west. There are actually two treehouses: what Mr. Huntington calls the Studio, a red cedar cabin sheltered within three trees 20 feet above the ground so that it seems to float; and the Octagon, shaped like its name says, which clings, 35 feet in the sky, to the trunk of a lone fir tree. Two bridges one a swaying rope bridge, like something out of the Ewok Village connect the midair structures. Down below there is a sinuous wave of concrete: a skate bowl. Mr. Huntington built the treehouses over several months last year with the help of what he called a "bronado" of friends. He hired contractors to build the skate bowl at the same time. The treehouse crew slept in a bunkhouse on the property, or else in tents or in their trucks. When they weren't sawing and nailing boards, they loaded up bows and shot arrows; they skateboarded; they swam and fished in the Columbia River; they got stoned and raced motorbikes. But the Cinder Cone is not a 24/7 fun park. Mr. Huntington may have left New York City behind, but he didn't forsake ambition, or the fashion world. For a time he was paid to be a social media consultant for the outdoor apparel brand Patagonia, and he has collaborated with the German financial services company Allianz and the computer maker HP, starring in online ads that played up his off the grid lifestyle. He also works as a freelance photographer and publishes A Restless Transplant, an adventure travel blog he began in 2008, while still a student at Colby. He is an outdoorsman entrepreneur who has invented his own career. The treehouses serve as his home and as an alluring backdrop for advertisements for himself. One reason Mr. Huntington built the treehouses, in fact, was that he was having trouble working in his previous home, a custom camper he drove around the West. "I lived on the road for three years," he said. "And it's awesome. It's an amazing way to live. But it's hard to get things done." He shook his head and uttered the lament of the 21st century nomad: "Internet is unreliable." Four years ago, Mr. Huntington was working as a men's wear designer at Ralph Lauren. He was part of a team that handled concept design, coming up with the stories, themes and presentations behind each collection: say, the bush pilots of Alaska and their ruggedly stylish world. It was his first job out of college, and he initially found it fun and creatively challenging. But after a year and a half, he realized he didn't care that much about clothes. "I remember looking at photos of bush pilots and thinking: 'I can take photos. I don't want to live my life in the city. I want to go do something else.' " For New Yorkers, leaving the city can be a long, agonizing, maybe never fulfilled process. Mr. Huntington's exit was decisive, said Phillip T. Annand, a friend who runs Madbury Club, a New York creative agency. "He was literally, like: 'Hey, I just bought this van. I'm going to drive to Washington and live in it.' " The road has always held a romantic appeal for the young American male. So has the notion of ditching office life for something more self determined. Mr. Huntington knew that with each year he stayed at Ralph Lauren, "it's only going to get harder to leave," he said. "I'd be making more money, which means I can have a nicer apartment and more stuff." He thought he would save up enough to buy a used van and quit his job in two years. But then HarperCollins paid him a mid five figure advance to make a book out of The Burning House, a blog he created in 2008 that asked people what they would take along with them if their homes caught fire. "I'd never had that much money," Mr. Huntington said. "I thought, I can live for a year off this money and buy a van." In July 2011, he flew to Reno, Nev., bought an '87 Volkswagen Vanagon and drove it up to the hilltop property in Washington for a visit. His parents, real estate agents who are outdoors enthusiasts, had bought the land years earlier; it lies a few miles from the rustic wood house where Mr. Huntington had grown up. When he got back to New York, he gave his notice. "I flew out here and then immediately went on a road trip with my brother," Mr. Huntington said. "After that, I went to California and just drove up and down the coast." He ate cheap Mexican food or cooked out. To cut down on gas costs, he would park for several weeks, spending time on Baja beaches or at Sierra Nevada campsites. Drive anywhere. No obligations. "It was everything I wanted it to be and more," he said. "I was 23." He encountered other free spirits living in their vans. The subculture had existed since the '60s, but now it would get its own hashtag, vanlife, which Mr. Huntington slapped on the photos he posted to social media. Staying digitally connected, in fact, is what allowed him to live off the grid. The photos eventually became a book, "Home Is Where You Park It," whose publication he self funded via a Kickstarter campaign that raised more than 65,000. He sells the book for 65 through his site. The coolness of the project is also a factor, Mr. Gorman said. Getting tasked with roofing the Octagon on a windy day was hard work, not to mention scary, he said, but "you had an unbelievable view anywhere you looked. It was certainly my dream job." Mr. Siegel and Mr. Korsmo planned to do more work on the outdoor shower, but because Mr. Huntington wanted to film them, they were waiting. They would work in perfect light. Meanwhile, Mr. Huntington ascended into the trees. At the top of an increasingly steep staircase was a platform made of red cedar. Opening the door of the Studio, Mr. Huntington noted that both treehouses have wood stoves, allowing him to stay hunkered in, even during the Pacific Northwest's cold, stormy nights. Inside, the space was toasty and light filled, decorated in a cabin y version of Young Bachelor. A shelf by the door held Mr. Huntington's cameras and lenses; his iMac sat on a simple desk against one wall, a surfboard propped next to it. Large windows looked straight into green needled limbs. Mr. Huntington regards the Studio as his work space and the Octagon as his bedroom; he regards the small house his mother built, 100 feet away, as a source of electricity and plumbing. To get to the upper treehouse, he raced across a kind of ladder lying almost flat across the sky to another tree that supported yet another platform. From there he dashed across the swinging rope bridge to the Octagon's door. The next day, it rained and the temperature plummeted. Mr. Huntington went on a hike, worked on the treehouse book and geeked out online over new cameras unveiled at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas. In the biting cold that night, he was splitting kindling before firing up the hot tub to give his guest "the full experience." With the valley and its lamp lit houses shrouded in a chilly mist, Mr. Huntington soaked in the tub and reflected on his time in New York: the overpriced apartment on the Upper West Side, the corporate job, the more more more rush of it all. "That world seems so distant," he said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
Lavaux, a Swiss fondue restaurant, has signed a 15 year lease for the ground floor of this mixed use building in the West Village. The owners run several vineyards in Switzerland, and this will be their first venture in the United States. The restaurant will occupy 1,200 square feet on the ground floor and 1,000 in the basement. The building has six apartments on three floors above the restaurant. Tenant's Brokers: Jesse Smith and Frederik Six of Murro Realty | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Jim Lehrer in 2013. A fixture on public television for decades as an anchor, he also moderated a dozen presidential debates and wrote novels and plays. Jim Lehrer, the retired PBS anchorman who for 36 years gave public television viewers a substantive alternative to network evening news programs with in depth reporting, interviews and analysis of world and national affairs, died on Thursday at his home in Washington. He was 85. While best known for his anchor work, which he shared for two decades with his colleague Robert MacNeil, Mr. Lehrer moderated a dozen presidential debates and was the author of more than a score of novels, which often drew on his reporting experiences. He also wrote four plays and three memoirs. A low key, courtly Texan who worked on Dallas newspapers in the 1960s and began his PBS career in the 1970s, Mr. Lehrer saw himself as "a print/word person at heart" and his program as a kind of newspaper for television, with high regard for balanced and objective reporting. He was an oasis of civility in a news media that thrived on excited headlines, gotcha questions and noisy confrontations. "I have an old fashioned view that news is not a commodity," Mr. Lehrer told The American Journalism Review in 2001. "News is information that's required in a democratic society, and Thomas Jefferson said a democracy is dependent on an informed citizenry. That sounds corny, but I don't care whether it sounds corny or not. It's the truth." Critics called Mr. Lehrer's reporting, and his collaborations with Mr. MacNeil, solid journalism, committed to fair, unbiased and far more detailed reporting than the CBS, NBC or ABC nightly news programs. To put news in perspective, the two anchors interviewed world and national leaders, and experts on politics, law, business, arts and sciences, and other fields. It was not unusual to see presidents, prime ministers, congressional and corporate leaders and other luminaries interviewed on "MacNeil/Lehrer." Early subjects included the Shah of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Presidents Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Fidel Castro of Cuba. Mr. Lehrer also interviewed nearly all of America's presidential and vice presidential candidates from 1976 on. With Mr. Lehrer reporting from Washington and Mr. MacNeil from New York, the program sought to represent all sides of a controversy by eliciting comments from rivals for public attention. But the anchors deliberately drew no sweeping conclusions of their own about disputed matters, allowing viewers to decide for themselves what to believe. The approach had its drawbacks. An extended presentation of authoritative voices offering conflicting viewpoints left some viewers dissatisfied, if not confused. Many found the technique elitist and dull, and even some critics called it boring or, worse, a willful refusal by Mr. Lehrer and Mr. MacNeil to make hard judgments about adversarial issues affecting the public interest. In The Columbia Journalism Review in 1979, Andrew Kopkind wrote: "The structure of any MacNeil/Lehrer Report is composed of talking heads rather than explosive images, of conversation covering several points of view rather than a homogeneous statement of the world's condition, of panels of experts, proposals for policy, and the sense of incompleteness and therefore of possibility rather than a feeling of finality." Edwin Diamond, writing in The New York Times that year, said the hosts had "gradually created one of the best half hours of news on television without 'visuals' at all; the major elements of the program are the interviewers themselves, always prepared with good questions, and the quality of their guests, always specialists on the night's single topic and almost always capable of speaking fresh, intelligent thoughts." "MacNeil/Lehrer" audiences were small compared to the network news shows, which drew far more viewers with videotaped coverage and news summaries that critics called headlines for people who did not read daily newspapers. But surveys found that PBS viewers were better educated, and that they were newspaper readers who tuned in to amplify what they knew. Mr. Lehrer and Mr. MacNeil each declined lucrative job offers from television networks. Unlike commercial networks, "MacNeil/Lehrer" relied on donations by corporations, foundations and wealthy individuals; by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a nonprofit creation of Congress; and by MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, created in 1981 to support their franchise, specials and documentaries. In 1986, Mr. Lehrer hosted the documentary "My Heart, Your Heart," which was based on his experience of double bypass surgery and recovery in 1983. The program, on PBS, won an Emmy and an award from the American Heart Association. He also hosted "The Heart of the Dragon," a 12 part series on modern China, also shown in 1986. Known mainly to PBS viewers, Mr. Lehrer became one of television's most familiar faces by moderating presidential debates, starting in 1988 with the first between Vice President George H.W. Bush and Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts, and continuing in every presidential campaign through 2012, sometimes including two or three debates in a year. Complaints by candidates and pundits about moderators' performances became a tradition of election seasons, and Mr. Lehrer, often called the "Dean of Moderators" for his many appearances, was singled out repeatedly, accused of being too easygoing or too strict in enforcing the rules, of being too soft or too hard on the debaters. In 1988, when critics said he was not aggressive enough with the candidates, Mr. Lehrer snapped, "If somebody wants to be entertained, they ought to go to the circus." In 2008, he was said to be too aggressive in trying to get Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois to engage with each other. In the 2012 debate, it was Mr. Lehrer's light touch that came under fire. President Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts at times ignored Mr. Lehrer, who strained to interrupt when they exceeded their allotted speaking times, and rules were violated repeatedly. Both campaigns accused Mr. Lehrer of losing control of the debate. The Commission on Presidential Debates defended Mr. Lehrer, saying it was his job to get the candidates talking, not to insert himself into their dialogue. For his part, Mr. Lehrer said his task had been "to facilitate direct, extended exchanges between the candidates about issues of substance" and "to stay out of the way of the flow," adding, "I had no problems with doing so." James Charles Lehrer was born in Wichita, Kan., on May 19, 1934, to Harry Lehrer, who ran a small bus line and was a bus station manager, and Lois (Chapman) Lehrer, a teacher. Jim attended schools in Wichita and Beaumont, Tex., and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio, where he edited a student newspaper. He earned an associate degree from Victoria College in Texas in 1954 and a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 1956. Like his father and his older brother Fred, he joined the Marine Corps. He was an infantry officer on Okinawa, edited a camp newspaper at the Parris Island Marine training center in South Carolina and was discharged as a captain in 1959. In 1960, he married Kate Staples, a novelist. She survives him, along with three daughters, Jamie, Lucy and Amanda, and six grandchildren. From 1959 to 1961, Mr. Lehrer was a reporter for The Dallas Morning News, but he quit after the paper declined to publish his articles on right wing activities in a civil defense organization. He joined the rival Dallas Times Herald, where over nine years he was a reporter, columnist and city editor. He also began writing fiction. His first novel, "Viva Max!" (1966), about a Mexican general who triggers an international incident by trying to recapture the Alamo, was made into a film comedy starring Peter Ustinov and Jonathan Winters. "His apprenticeship came at a time when every reporter, it seemed, had an unfinished novel in his desk but Lehrer actually finished his," Texas Monthly said in a 1995 profile. But it was as a newsman that Mr. Lehrer was best remembered. "Jim Lehrer is no showboat," Walter Goodman wrote in The Times in 1996. "That is a considerable distinction for television, where the interrogators are often bigger than their guests or victims. This man of modest mien keeps the spotlight on the person being questioned. His somewhat halting conversational manner invites rather than commands. And his professional principles dispel any fears that he is out to get not just his guests' point of view but also the guests themselves." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
LADDIE STERN stopped in front of a copy shop. "This is where I was," he said. "It's been a long time." So it has, and the cityscape has changed. In 1985, Mr. Stern was the last car dealer on Automobile Row, the stretch of Broadway from the West 50s to slightly north of Columbus Circle that was home to showrooms for almost as long as there had been cars. That year, he did what the rest of the dealers there had already done: he turned off the lights, locked the door one last time and left for 11th Avenue. It was one of those end of an era moments, and he knew it. New York, that most automobile unfriendly of cities, once had the fanciest showrooms, some designed by star architects. In the industry's earliest days, when horse drawn carriages outnumbered crank start sedans, having a showroom on Automobile Row made a statement: the car is here to stay. Mr. Stern actually Louis, but Laddie to friends had followed his father into the business on Automobile Row some 30 years earlier. As a young man, he could stand at 57th Street and Broadway and see a thicket of neon signs above the showrooms where Damon Runyonesque types sweet talked the customers. Among them there was the man everybody knew as Charlie Chrysler not his real name, but it moved a conversation beyond "You're a car dealer? What kind of cars?" And there was the used car operation whose salesmen, according to an F.B.I. report in the 1960s, included "one of the most feared and ruthless Mafiosi in the U.S." Automobile Row was also a gallery of brands long forgotten. There was the dealership at 1739 Broadway that sold Hudson Hornets in the 1950s. And there was the storefront at 1711 Broadway that was once a Reo Motor Car showroom. The company's name took the initials of its founder, Ransom Eli Olds, better known for another car he had a hand in naming, Oldsmobile. "This area was not that desirable an area," said Mr. Stern, 72, on a recent walk along Broadway. "People looked at this as more of an industrial area. "But I think more cars were sold here than anyplace, especially during World War II, and especially used cars. The G.I.'s were leaving to go overseas, and the wholesalers would go knocking on doors: 'Do you want to sell your car?' And then dealers from all over the United States would come to New York, buy the cars and ship them home." Like other landmarks of Automobile Row, the building that housed Mr. Stern's Manhattan Nissan has been replaced by an office tower. Gone, too, were dealers he remembered: Circle Buick, a few steps down Broadway at 55th Street, and Don Allen Chevrolet, "famous for the finest," its ads bragged. It had filled two floors of the General Motors Building when G.M. made its Manhattan home at 1775 Broadway, at 57th Street. A recent makeover has given that building a mirrored skin that reflects two other relics on Automobile Row. One is the Argonaut Building at 224 West 57th Street, which G.M. had occupied before it moved diagonally across 57th and Broadway to 1775 Broadway, the building now known as 3 Columbus Circle. Built for the Peerless car company in 1909, it was sold to G.M. in 1916. For years G.M. had a showroom on the first floor, and the building's current owners know their history. They know that the first built in car radios were sold there in 1938, and that the storefront, now a bank, was a Cadillac showroom in the 1950s, when Coupe DeVilles grew tail fins. Also reflected in the new face of 3 Columbus Circle is the United States Rubber Company Building, at 1790 Broadway, on the southeast corner of 58th Street. It is 100 years old and was designed by Carrere Hastings, the firm that designed the New York Public Library, which also opened in 1911. Ford had an office building on Automobile Row, the work of the architect Albert Kahn, who designed the General Motors Building in Detroit. During World War II Ford sold the building, at 1700 Broadway, to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Studebaker also had its own building, at 1600 Broadway. In 1909 it was the scene of the "most comprehensive exhibit of motorcars ever shown by any one maker," as an auto magazine described it. But Studebaker moved out by 1911. The building outlived the brand, which went out of business in 1966. The building was razed in 2004. Automobile Row began when car dealers took over from the carriage and harness shops that had occupied the Times Square area, then called Longacre Square, in the 19th century. By World War I, the dealers had spread uptown, but not too far from the West 50s "to approximately 66th Street," a 1916 guidebook reported. In the years since Mr. Stern made the westward migration to 11th Avenue he has since sold the Nissan dealership many other dealers have settled there. The Manhattan Auto Group, a dealership that houses Ford brands, has a Kahn designed building at 787 11th Avenue, between West 54th and West 55th Streets. It began in the 1920s as an all in one complex for Packard, complete with a cobblestone driving course on the roof. Mercedes Benz will open a luxury class showroom on 11th next month, and BMW announced this week a makeover of its dealership at 57th Street. That's a rather different set of prospects from the declining fortunes along Broadway in the '60s. Automobile Row had become scruffy, and it turned scruffier yet before Mr. Stern left in 1985. One day, he said, "a guy came in in a suit and tie and said he wanted to go for a test drive." A salesman got the keys, and off they went in a Nissan 300ZX. A couple of blocks away, "the guy put a gun to the salesman's head and stole the car." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
Best Shows of 2020 Best International Best Shows That Ended The Best TV Shows of 2020 Everyone knows that the year 2020 changed everything. What this 10 best list presupposes is: What if it didn't? The pandemic, the first and last story of this year, naturally disrupted television talk shows, sports and especially scripted comedy and drama. My list might have included "The Good Fight," if its unfinished fourth season had not been left dangling. But because of the glut of material already in the pipeline when the shutdowns came, my TV retrospective of the year is surprisingly ordinary. There was still too much TV to watch it all, and still too much extraordinary material to whittle down. (In a boom year for limited series, for instance, "Unorthodox," "The Plot Against America" and "The Queen's Gambit" missed the cut.) This also means that, as usual, you will not get me to create a ranked list. There is not a show I was more awed by this year than "I May Destroy You," and there was not a show I enjoyed more than "What We Do in the Shadows." But to weigh these exceptional and very different shows on a scale seems absurd. The prequel to "Breaking Bad" is television's most finely rendered slow motion car crash. You know where this vehicle is pointed: Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) will become Saul Goodman, the loquacious and lizardy legal consigliere to drug kingpins, eventually fleeing into Cinnabon exile. But the beauty is in how exquisitely the pieces fly apart, never better than in Season 5. M.V.P. status this year goes to the mesmerizing Rhea Seehorn, as Jimmy's now wife, Kim Wexler, whose gradual corruption shows us how anyone can end up on the same dark road that Jimmy chose. (Streaming on Netflix.) I feel like I don't watch "Better Things" so much as live in it which is less to say that it reminds me of my life than that it replicates the experience of inhabiting someone else's. Directed by and largely written by Pamela Adlon, who also stars as the mid tier actress Sam Fox, the fourth season generously explores family, mortality and the ways of being a woman in the world. In the season finale, Sam's daughter Duke (Olivia Edward) meets a mysterious elderly woman (quite likely a ghost) who recounts having had a full life without marrying, telling Duke, "One compliment from a woman is worth a thousand compliments from a man." Fair enough: "Better Things" is beautiful TV, and I will gladly say it a thousand times. (Streaming on Hulu.) Based on a Japanese manga and overseen by Masaaki Yuasa, this smart, spunky anime about anime earned its exclamation point. A trio of high school girls an eccentric animator, a popular model and a business obsessive form an anime club, a part time diversion that soon grows, like a radioactive monster, into an all consuming obsession. Woven into the let's put on a show story line is one of the best renderings of the creative process I've seen on TV (with special meta attention to the exhausting labor of animation) and an affecting theme of discovering identity through art. This is a giddy flying robot of a story, and it's worth letting it scoop you up and rocket you away. (Streaming on Crunchyroll and HBO Max.) Dahvi Waller's double barreled story of the fights for and against the Equal Rights Amendment went a half century into the past and found today. In the ensemble story of the feminist movement's advocates, we can see not just the promise (realized and unrealized) of women's equality but echoes of up to the moment arguments between revolutionaries and pragmatists. In the parallel story of the E.R.A. opponent Phyllis Schlafly (Cate Blanchett) who, ironically, used her crusade to find the power denied her as a woman in conservative politics there's a direct line to our era of culture wars and alternative facts. Have we come such a long way, babies? (Streaming on Hulu.) This 12 part adaptation was like a warm Instagram filter laid on the black and white portraiture of Sally Rooney's novel of the same name. Rooney (who helped adapt the series) rendered its hormonal first love story in spare, dispassionate prose that paid close attention to the power and class dynamics between its small town Irish sweethearts. The series layers on poetic imagery (thanks to the directors, Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald), while Daisy Edgar Jones and Paul Mescal connect in a way that makes the central relationship a living character in itself. This is a heaving, complex romance that breaks your heart in all the best ways. (Streaming on Hulu.) There is a fine line between horror and humor, and that line runs straight through your middle school years. In the second season of their retrospective comedy, Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle handspring down that line like Olympic gymnasts. The seven episodes (intended as the first half of a two part season that was interrupted by the pandemic) found new depths of cringe and heights of weirdo glee, as its turn of the millennium besties had their friendship tested and found a calling in the school drama club. Erskine and Konkle, who in their 30s are wholly convincing as teens, remember early adolescence better than most of us would care to. But their curse is our blessing. (Streaming on Hulu.) People think of a stripper pole as something you slide down. "P Valley" knows that it's something you climb up. Katori Hall translated her 2015 play "Pussy Valley" into a swaggering melodrama of ambition, building out the stories of the women who command the stage of the Pynk, a threadbare club in Mississippi's "Dirty Delta" at the center of a web of dreams and schemes. The vibrant dialogue is well served by the cast, including the remarkable Nicco Annan as Uncle Clifford, the club's silver tongued, gender fluid proprietor. The fuchsia lit sex appeal may get you in the door, but what keeps you coming back is the show's devotion to its characters as athletes and strivers, working muscle by muscle to get a leg up. (Streaming on Starz.) 'What We Do in the Shadows' (FX) The funniest hangout comedy of 2020 featured no hugging, no learning and no direct exposure to sunlight. The second season of this series, about a clan of decadent vampires living (or unliving) in reduced circumstances in Staten Island, highlighted an elite cast of regulars (this was an especially strong season for Matt Berry and Natasia Demetriou) and well chosen guests, including Mark Hamill as an undead ex landlord out for revenge. I was skeptical, in Season 1, about whether "Shadows" could sustain the comedy of the 2015 movie it was based on. But this premise proved tough to kill. (Streaming on Hulu.) Including this Syrian documentary the highly personal account of five years in the lives of its narrator, Waad Al Kateab, and her husband, the doctor Hamza Al Kateab, in the increasingly unendurable confines of Aleppo, Syria in this list is a bit of a cheat. It's a feature, and it was broadcast in late 2019, as that year's last installment of PBS's "Frontline." But I have to because it's the most dramatic, the most heartbreaking and the most essential thing I've watched on TV in 2020. (Streaming on Kanopy.) 'It's Okay to Not Be Okay' (Netflix) The wizards of South Korean TV drama can play countless variations on the romantic comedy. This archly clever series about an imperious, emotionally challenged children's book author and the impossibly noble health care worker she falls for mixes the rhythms of a sex farce with the ambience of a dark fairy tale. (Among other things, it's a tart commentary on cancel culture.) Making it work is a mesmerizing performance by Seo Ye ji as the writer, who's both Cinderella and evil stepmother. (Streaming on Netflix.) A charming, fantastical and relentlessly practical story about freeing (and harnessing) the energy of young imaginations. Animation is the medium and the message in this Japanese coming of age saga about three high school classmates who form their own anime club; instead of heading to the barn to put on a show, they head to an abandoned industrial space to draw new worlds, and make some money while they're at it. (Streaming on Crunchyroll and HBO Max.) Among the most ambitious network comedies of all time, "The Good Place" is to moral philosophy what "CSI" was to forensics but also funny and beautiful and as inspiring as a beloved social studies teacher whose guidance fills you with a sense of "wait ... I actually could." Even as its swan song got maybe a little too swanny, "The Good Place" never lost track of its greatest strength: specificity. The grander the scope, the more essential the details, and each dopey, perfect suggestion from Jason or moment of awe from Michael made the show feel so full, even as it expanded its reach to all existence. Let us all now take it sleazy. (Streaming on Netflix.) Were this the end end for "Last Chance U," I'd be in a puddle on the ground luckily, the show is getting a spinoff, "Last Chance U: Basketball." If it's even half as good as the five seasons of "Last Chance U," it will be among TV's best documentaries. The original follows community college football players and coaches, and some professors and administrators, and it started out in Mississippi for two seasons, then moved to Kansas for two and finished with a season in Oakland, Calif. Each year I thought, "Well, I'll never be able to care as much about these people as I did about the people last season," and every time I was of course gloriously wrong. I'm not sure any show of any format has so consistently expanded my sphere of caring. (Streaming on Netflix.) I'm not sure what the last great doctor show was, but it's definitely been a minute, which is why the frank elegance of this documentary seemed even more potent during our pandemic spring. (There was even a Covid specific special ninth episode.) "Lenox" captured a staggering range of human emotion, so it felt like both a riveting narrative and a modern wisdom text about the ebbs and flows of life and loss. Sadly, it's a one and done. (Streaming on Netflix.) "Schitt's Creek" swept the comedy categories at the Emmys this year, a tribute less about the show's being good though it is! very! than about its being adored for its light in such a dark time. It was like giving awards to an oasis. After a rocky first season, "Schitt's" settled into its happy self, loving and goofy and romantic, a show that's a genuine pleasure. (Streaming on Netflix.) This one is extra painful not only because its one season ended on a cliffhanger but also because it feels as if Netflix barely gave the show a chance it debuted in August and was canceled in October. But any of us who love whimsical, voicey, female driven shows know they're often too precious for our cruel world, and so it is here. I loved this show's patter, like peak era "Gilmore Girls," and I loved its perspective. Coming of age stories are often about tempering one's idealism, and one of the many appealing aspects of "Teenage Bounty Hunters" was that its characters experienced mostly the opposite: They became steadier in their convictions, in the special ways they understood the world. (Streaming on Netflix.) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
4 Athletes Selected as Artists in Residence at the Olympics A group of Olympic athletes is attending the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, but they won't be competing for medals. Instead, they will travel to Pyeongchang, South Korea, as Olympic artists in residence, the International Olympic Committee announced today. The four artists, who have competed in a combined seven Olympic Games, include the Greek American distance runner , the British javelin thrower Roald Bradstock, the Swiss fencer Jean Blaise Evequoz and the American biathlete Lanny Barnes. The modern Olympic Games, in their earliest decades, relied on creative competition. Between 1912 and 1948, the I.O.C. awarded gold, silver and bronze medals to artists in five categories: painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and music. The Irish author Oliver St. John Gogarty won a bronze medal in literature at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games. The architect of the Jefferson Memorial, John Russell Pope, won a silver at the 1932 Los Angeles Games. But ever since the elimination of those categories, the arts have not drummed up nearly as much excitement as the athletics. "Art and culture is part of the DNA of the Olympic Movement," said Francis Gabet, director of the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage. In 2014, as part of a larger initiative called Agenda 2020, the I.O.C. created an artists in residence program to testify that arts have a rightful place at the Games. The committee brought in the French street artist JR, the American Vine star Gerald Andal and the German writer Tilman Spengler as their inaugural class. The residency was deemed a success by the I.O.C. after JR's public works made headlines around the world. He constructed monumental portraits of various athletes: a high jumper clearing a building in the Flamengo neighborhood, a swimmer with a 98 foot wingspan in Guanabara Bay and a diver in Barra de Tijuca. Ahead of the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, Mr. Gabet looked for ways to bring competing athletes closer to the art. "We wanted to build interaction between those Olympian artists and those who are competing in Pyeongchang," Mr. Gabet said. "So we said, 'Let's try and give the work to the Olympians.'" Here, the selected athlete artists offer a preview of their projects. The athlete: Of the four participants, Ms. Pappas is the only one still working as a professional athlete. The 27 year old distance runner raced for Greece in the 2016 Rio Olympics, setting a national record of 31:36.16 in the 10,000 meter run. She will continue her training while living in the Olympic Village. The artist: Ms. Pappas is also a filmmaker who co directed and co wrote the 2016 film "Tracktown" with her creative partner and soon to be spouse, Jeremy Teicher. She was also the film's star. "It's important to me as an athlete to tell a story that is cinematic and fictional but could have really happened and does reflect the true experience there," Ms. Pappas said. "It feels like my background as an athlete and a filmmaker are coming together at this intersection." The track and field athlete has long been known to turn athletics into performing arts. In 2008, he competed in three different hand painted outfits during the Olympic Trials. "There's an art to throwing," Mr. Bradstock said in a phone interview. "I've been asked if I consider myself an artist or an athlete, and I'd consider myself 50 50. I cannot separate the two, and I don't want to." Each painting will be dedicated to one of the 15 Winter Olympic events. There will also be a 16th wild card canvas. "We want to let the paint roll," Mr. Bradstock said. Every morning before sunrise, Mr. Bradstock will set up the day's large blank canvas in the Olympic Village. Athletes will be provided painting supplies and will be given free rein. Joining Mr. Bradstock in facilitating the project will be two more Olympians. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
A few of the tales in "Likes" cover long stretches of time, with narrators who are retrospective but not nostalgic: Childhood and adolescence, or the early days of a relationship, are rendered with all the shades of light and shadow that Bynum brings to later adulthood. In the title story, a father pores over his daughter's Instagram posts for clues to an inner life that she only rarely shares, but that we understand to be every bit as complex as his own. In "Many a Little Makes," an argument between middle school girls about cake batter turns into an eerie and intimate physical conflict. Later, the protagonist smells the baking cake: "She found something spreading underneath the sweetness, a smell similar to that of butter and eggs and vanilla and flour but not quite the real thing, a smell that was artificial but also intoxicating and somehow more intoxicating for being fake. She didn't have to taste it to know ahead of time how much she was going to like this cake." Bynum is finely attuned to both sensory and emotional detail, especially in those moments when characters' observations and feelings are more conflicted than they or the reader initially assumes as well as moments, hours or years later, when those characters re examine what they thought they understood about themselves. The adjectives that readers often attach to Bynum's work "enchanting," "charming," "precise" are accurate, but can give the impression that she specializes in dollhouse miniatures, masterfully crafted but bloodless. Her skills and her sensibility are deeper and darker than that. The sentences are indeed meticulous, but never for their own sake; they bring to life characters who possess rich inner lives even when navigating moments that feel dreamily sinister or otherworldly. To borrow Marianne Moore's description of poems as "imaginary gardens with real toads in them," Bynum offers her reader inventively landscaped, beautifully manicured gardens teeming with rewardingly warty toads. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
A storm of readers' comments over 650 on The New York Times's site and over 200 on The Times's main Facebook page followed the posting of "Meet the Bachelors Who Yearn for Something More," an article by Sridhar Pappu on aging single men in New York. Back in the day June 2, 1986, to be exact a Newsweek cover story offered up a statistic seemingly meant to terrify women: They were likelier to die in a terrorist attack than to marry over age 40. Since debunked, it no longer makes the rounds. Yet articles on the plight of "aging" women (over, say, 25) still proliferate. Many of the nearly 900 readers responding to the article about midlife men panicking because they hadn't found "the one" expressed relief at seeing the shoe on the other foot. "Finally," Jane from New York wrote. "The guys are getting the same treatment from the Media that women have been getting for generations: 'hurry up and get married before you're too old and nobody wants you.'" She added: "My take is that you get out of life what you really want, even if you think you don't want it. So if you're still single, maybe on a very deep level that's exactly where you want to be." Indeed, hundreds of readers, some with long experience in the dating trenches, questioned if the men profiled had realistic expectations. "I lived in NYC from when I was 18 to 32," HeatherR. from New York City wrote. "I am 46 years old now and am shaking my head in dismay at the older guys that were interviewed here because I know very well that they are of the same age group that would drop someone like a hot rock for any excuse back in the day (one guy who had spoken of marriage changed his mind because he didn't like the eyeliner that I wore one night), just because there were so many options out there." She added: "I finally had to move to another country (France) and my sister to another state (Michigan) to find a good man. So sorry guys, none of you are getting the tiniest amount of pity from me." SaraJean from Greenville lamented, "I am on the other side ... as a middle age woman with teenagers still living at home, I see many men sabotage relationships before they even begin. On dating sites, I am mainly contacted by men at least 10 years older than me ... but they don't want women with kids at home, even if they are not home most of the time. A woman must be able to 'travel' on a whim and follow the man's work schedule ... but will not consider the woman's schedule." LNL from New Market, Md., a therapist, scolded, "Men in their 40s living in New York City who have good careers and fairly attractive looks, but who have never been married and want to get married, need to stop blaming fate or outside circumstances and hightail it to the nearest competent psychotherapist." Demographically, LNL wrote, "women in their 40s and 50s are in a far worse position looking for decent single men. Men who are good and loving and aren't out of work or morbidly obese and who truly want a loving permanent relationship are usually in wonderful new relationships within eight months, and frequently within four." Plenty of other readers, however, both straight and gay, sympathized with the men's stories. "Spot on," Jim Neal of Chapel Hill, N.C., wrote. "The older I get the more cynical I feel, especially as other gay men are celebrating gay marriage something I fought for but may never experience. I just feel resigned to living the rest of my life alone and that brings a sort of creeping despair. Well I've got an awesome cat." Another reader, avery t, from TriBeCa, complained: "Okay, but as a 5' 7" guy, I know that many, many, many, many, many women's profiles say 'be 6 feet tall' or 'I like tall guys' or 'no short guys.' In 2011, I tried OkCupid. In 12 months, I saw about 3200 (not 32. Not 320. But 3200!) profiles that said, 'I like tall guys' or 'be taller than me in heels.'" In "real life," he wrote, "plenty of women are less concerned with height, but online, women are seeking Thor." MVN, also a New Yorker, cheered: "Bravo to these brave men who dare to show vulnerability and desire for more within their lives. New York sure breeds this situation it's an ambitious town and everyone here is ambitious for more and certain they'll find it including in the romantic sphere. There are so many fun and interesting opportunities for people to socialize and blend and it's hard for many people to develop the skills of intimacy." Others questioned if the search is worth it. "We all want a 'partner for life,'" Carmen from New York City wrote, "but the reality is that most of us wander into the emotional wasteland that is marriage only to find we've never been so alone." MCS, a single New York man, commented: "Most of my married friends don't have much of a sex life. Many of the guys tell me, having kids is great, but being a husband is a challenge. They envy me. I don't envy them, but I do support them, as a true friend should." On a cheerier note, one reader leapt at a chance to turn her own luck around. Addressing one of the men profiled, Kathryn Smith from Atlanta, who described herself as "a single 30 year old woman in finance who studied English," wrote: "I've dated older before, and had a really great time with someone more mature who didn't incessantly play video games and get blackout drunk. Paul Morris sounds right up my alley. Hit me up, boo." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Academic advising has always been one of those intractable problems on college campuses. Students rarely think about it until that frantic moment when they need someone to sign the registration form for next semester's classes. Only 4 of 10 students consider counselors their primary source of advice regarding academic plans, according to the National Survey of Student Engagement, an annual poll of freshmen and seniors. A third of freshmen turn to friends or family. One in 10 students never even meet with an academic counselor. While students may treat advising as an afterthought, the cost of acting on bad advice can be considerable. Take the wrong class to satisfy a requirement and you may not have enough credits to graduate on time. Withdraw from a course and you may put financial aid in jeopardy because you aren't taking enough credits. Professors have long shrugged off such circuitous routes to a degree as once in a lifetime opportunities for students to explore a wide array of academic disciplines. But as the cost of college has spiraled upward, and as federal and state officials try to tie taxpayer dollars to graduation rates, colleges and universities are focused more than ever on seeing students get through on time. In response, many have taken the job of advising away from professors and put it in the hands of professionals. "When it comes to helping students be engaged, to give them advice about what they need to do outside the classroom, faculty are not always the best," said Charlie L. Nutt, executive director of the National Academic Advising Association, which represents professional advisers. "It's not because they don't care, but because they are hired to teach a specific set of courses. So they end up advising like they were advised in college: They give students a schedule and send them on their way." About 22 percent of colleges today use full time professional counselors, according to a 2011 survey by the association. About 18 percent use only faculty advisers. The remainder use both, though rarely do faculty members advise in the critical first two years of college, when students are more likely to transfer or drop out. While advising takes time away from research and teaching, not all professors favor relinquishing their role to professionals. Many see themselves as essential fonts of information about majors, courses and graduate school. But there are also fewer full time faculty members around to do mentoring. Some 75 percent are now part time workers paid just to teach. Benjamin Ginsberg, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins, is author of "The Fall of the Faculty," which takes aim at the growing ranks of nonfaculty staff. He argues that such staffing ends up adding to the cost of college because the workers take on unnecessary functions or assume roles that full time faculty members used to perform and still could. But over the past several decades, student support services has been the fastest growing category of employment in higher education, and the positions, which include academic advising, now make up nearly one third of professional jobs on campuses. "Academic advising should be done by academics," Dr. Ginsberg said. "Professional advisers seldom have the qualifications in the field about which they are offering advice." Indeed, it is unclear whether professional advisers 65 percent of whom have master's degrees, according to the 2011 survey are really any better at giving advice than faculty. At small, teaching focused colleges, where professors are more likely to still perform the bulk of advising, students reported the highest satisfaction on the student engagement survey when it came to the quality of their interactions with academic counselors. Meanwhile, students at large research universities were most likely to rate the quality of their interactions with advisers as poor. Professional advisers have a linear focus: pushing students to sign up for the "right" classes to and graduate on time. "Advising at many schools has become so intrusive, so maternal," said Robert Talbert, a professor at Grand Valley State University, who writes a blog on teaching called Casting Out Nines. "The implicit assumption is that students are incapable of making their own decisions, so we have to be constantly in their business." But large public universities, with massive course catalogs to negotiate and many first generation students to guide, are investing heavily in hand holding. Temple University in Philadelphia, with more than 27,000 undergraduates, began to focus on improving advising in 2006, and since then has more than doubled its advising staff, hiring a cadre of 60 full time counselors. "Our hope is that students see us as more than just clerical workers," said Irina Veramidis, a professional adviser at Temple. "We're always here and we're less intimidating than faculty, who are inaccessible to a certain extent." One morning near the end of last semester, Ms. Veramidis met with a sophomore who was debating between marketing and tourism as a major after she dropped her initial choice, biology. The student was debating between marketing and tourism. Ms. Veramidis mentioned that the marketing major required a calculus course for business students. "You already took calculus for science and math and that didn't work out so well," she said, looking over the student's record on her computer monitor. The student asked about the difference between the two calculus classes. The adviser read the course descriptions and then recommended an online tutoring tool and a talk with a peer adviser a student who works in the advising center who had taken business calculus. Before the student left, Ms. Veramidis took one last look at the transcript and noticed she had taken enough Spanish to come close to qualifying for a minor. "Keep that in mind," she said. "We don't want you to be here longer than you need to be." The appointment lasted a half hour longer than a student would be likely to get during a professor's limited office hours and the dialogue went beyond the initial reason for the appointment: advice on registering for spring classes. Rather than just focus on courses for the next semester, Ms. Veramidis is constantly looking at course sequencing over multiple semesters, to be sure students take classes in the right order and that required courses will be offered when they expect to take them in subsequent semesters. The advisers go through training each summer to learn about changes within the university's 12 undergraduate schools. Temple's goal is to increase retention and graduation rates, but progress is slow. The proportion who return for their sophomore year has remained relatively steady, around 88 percent. Meanwhile, the number of students graduating in four years has risen to 43 percent, from 35 percent in 2005 the average for public colleges nationwide is 32 percent and many report higher satisfaction with advising. "It is important for us to be realistic about how much opportunity for improvement exists," said Peter R. Jones, Temple's senior vice provost for undergraduate studies. "Many of our students are first generation, and many face significant challenges and stop attending simply because they cannot afford to continue." To more quickly move those numbers upward, Temple is developing "intrusive advising" strategies that identify students who need help the most but never seek it. A computer algorithm pinpoints students most at risk of dropping out. First semester, the algorithm is based on factors like high school record, a job of more than 20 hours a week, and if first in their family to attend college. Of last fall's incoming class of 4,300 students, Temple identified about 650 at risk and contacted them at least five times, twice in person. Second semester, the algorithm is based on first semester grades and credits completed. To Dr. Jones, Temple's plethora of professional advisers is not indicative of administrative bloat but essential in "making sure students don't drop out when they don't have to." In the past, he said, "we were so passive in advising." He added: "An adviser shouldn't be like a librarian who waits for students to come in for help. Too often, by the time students realize they need help, it's too late." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Education |
Across the country, only a small number of courts and justice systems appear to have significantly adjusted their procedures to guard against the coronavirus pandemic. And that is putting tens of thousands of people at risk for no good reason. Most justice systems simply are processing cases much as they always do, perhaps with an extra supply of hand sanitizer. "Business as usual," a deputy district attorney from Los Angeles messaged me on Wednesday night. Luke Coley, a lawyer in Mobile, Ala., reported he was the only person among about 125 in municipal court earlier this week who wasn't shaking hands. He was there with his client, an 18 year old charged with a misdemeanor of marijuana possession. "Hearing could very easily been put off; don't understand why it wasn't," Mr. Coley tweeted to me. A public defender in Birmingham, Ala., echoed the point. "Literally no response at all yet," he said of the justice system. "Worrying to say the least." Yes it is. But it doesn't have to be. The district attorney in Seattle, Dan Satterberg, said his office was filing only serious violent cases. The Chatham County Jail in Georgia says it is screening all arrested people before they enter and has promised not to incarcerate any misdemeanor defendants once a case of Covid 19, the disease the virus causes, is confirmed in the county. In Ohio, the Cuyahoga County courts, with the agreement of the sheriff and head prosecutor, plan to hold mass plea hearings as early as Saturday. The express goal is releasing as many people from jail as possible. In the federal judiciary's Eastern District of Virginia, cases involving misdemeanor and traffic offenses have been adjourned until the end of April. And on Thursday, the district attorney in Boston, Rachael Rollins, said prosecutors would ask for 60 day continuances in criminal cases in which defendants are not in custody. Courts are places of congregation. It's common for people who are called for hearings in courts with criminal or eviction dockets to sit on packed benches for hours. That makes the courthouse a potential vector for community spread of the virus. It's not just about the people who have to go to court; it's about all those who work there and everyone they come in contact with. Another risk is short term jail stays. There are at least 450,000 people locked up at any time around the country for brief periods the vast majority awaiting arraignment or because they can't make bail, often small amounts. Why put them at risk and introduce the possibility that they will bring the virus home? Most people detained before trial are charged with nonviolent offenses. And let's not forget, they have not been found guilty. The American justice system cannot simply shut down, of course. But at a moment when the government should be making every effort to minimize risk and to send a signal that this is not a time for business as usual officials should be making far more significant changes. Whenever possible, courts should turn to video conferencing, just as many colleges and universities now are doing for classes. In Australia, the Supreme Court of New South Wales on Thursday announced it would send lawyers and clients to online courts, with video and teleconferencing, to "minimize the need for parties to come to the court." An emergency law proposed in Britain includes a provision for virtual courts for criminal and civil cases. A few years ago, I watched judges in Newark seamlessly conduct bail hearings by video conference. The technology is there. Courts should also explore increasing access for people to pay fines for traffic offenses or violations of municipal ordinances by mail or online. They should not simply close, stranding people in jail. Instead, the pandemic is an opportunity to rethink how the system treats low level offenses, which account for more than 60 percent of arrests nationally. Police officers often have the discretion to issue tickets and summonses for many misdemeanors, and that's what they should do, rather than booking people on such charges. That would reduce the potential of spreading the virus in police stations and to the families and friends of officers. Judges and prosecutors should suspend bail for defendants who are arraigned (rather than ticketed) for nonviolent crimes. Jails and prisons, with crowded and sometimes dirty conditions, are known vessels of infection. The extra risk outweighs any benefit from setting bail for defendants accused of nonviolent crimes who can't post it. Judges can also delay court appearances for misdemeanor defendants. "It's nuts to force people to choose between their health and an added fine or bench warrant," as Radley Balko, an opinion writer for The Washington Post, pointed out this week, "especially for alleged offenses that, by definition, aren't comparatively serious." He added that he's not advocating lawlessness: "Make rolling decisions as public health picture evolves, so public knows that any misdemeanors committed going forward could still be punished." It also makes sense to stop arresting and incarcerating people for technical that is, noncriminal violations of parole and probation. About 4.5 million people live under court supervision around the country. In 2017, they made up 25 percent of new admissions to state prisons, not because they committed new crimes, but for infractions like missed curfew or unauthorized travel. This practice often makes little sense in terms of public safety; it is particularly hard to justify now. There are limits to what justice officials should do in response to the pandemic. They should not release people accused of violent acts who are likely to pose a threat, a group that can include those charged with misdemeanors relating to domestic violence. They should reduce the call for jury service but not violate a defendant's right to a speedy trial with lengthy postponements for those who have already been waiting for long periods in jail. But right now, local and federal justice systems aren't at risk of doing too much too soon. They're at risk of doing too little, too late, and missing a chance to show that the government is working to protect everyone. Emily Bazelon is the author of "Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution. and End Mass Incarceration." 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 |
Despite disappointing job growth last month, the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since early 2008, sharpening the debate within the Federal Reserve over whether to raise interest rates when policy makers meet in two weeks. Friday's report from the Labor Department which found that employers added a weaker than expected 173,000 jobs in August while the official jobless rate dipped to 5.1 percent provided fodder for both camps to make their cases. The slowdown in job growth and the absence of any significant wage pressure could strengthen the arguments of those who see little risk in keeping borrowing costs exceptionally low and waiting not just for more encouraging data but also for unruly markets to settle down. On the other side, there were enough positive indicators to keep a September tightening in play, even as Wall Street looks more seriously at the possibility of a Fed move in October or at the central bank's last meeting of the year, in December. "I don't think it changes anyone's views," said Michael Gapen, head of United States economic research at Barclays. "It's strong enough to keep the September ists stuck on September and weak enough for everyone else who is looking for a later takeoff." The report was hotly anticipated, mainly because it represents the last major piece of economic evidence the central bank will have on hand before its long awaited meeting on Sept. 16 and 17. The August payroll increase was well below the 220,000 jump economists had predicted. But the unemployment rate's fall to 5.1 percent from 5.3 percent in July bolstered the case that the job market was returning to a healthier state, similar to conditions before the recession. At that level, joblessness is nearing the threshold that economists and the Fed consider close to full employment; inflation foes worry that allowing the unemployment rate to fall significantly below 5 percent runs the risk of leading to an overheated economy. Edmund D. Fountain for The New York Times While millions of Americans are still struggling to find work that pays adequately, there are nascent signs that wages are finally beginning to rise. Average hourly earnings rose by a better than expected 0.3 percentage point in August. Most Federal Reserve officials have signaled that they think this year is the appropriate time to raise interest rates from near zero, where they have been since the depths of the financial crisis in late 2008. But the exact timing of the decision has become an obsession on Wall Street, which has enjoyed a long period of ultracheap money that helped, until the last few weeks, feed a long bull market. For investors around the world, that sense of anxious waiting is only going to build after Friday's report, increasing the odds of more stock market swings. At the close of trading in New York, the Standard Poor's 500 stock index was down just over 1.5 percent, to 1,921.22. Bonds were little changed. Whenever the Fed decides to act, the initial rate increase will be small a quarter of a percentage point but it looms large psychologically because it will be the first increase in short term rates by the Fed since June 2006. All this has contributed to a knife edge quandary for Federal Reserve policy makers: Raise rates too soon and markets could plunge, economic momentum could fade and long sought hopes for better paying jobs could wither. Wait too long, however, and the Fed risks rekindling inflation and fostering speculative excesses on Wall Street. Officials said at the last Fed meeting, in July, that they wanted to see "some further improvement" in labor markets. Stanley Fischer, the Federal Reserve vice chairman, said last Saturday that the Fed was awaiting the results of the August survey to help make that judgment. "A month ago, this report and the other data on the economy would have created a strong rationale for raising rates at the September meeting," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS, a research and consulting firm that tracks the economy. "But the world has changed and our expectation is now for a rate increase in December." Indeed, some Fed officials are warning that the recent market turmoil hints that the economic picture might turn darker. "In my view, these developments might suggest a downward revision in the forecast that is large enough to raise concerns about whether further tightening of labor markets is likely," Eric Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, said on Tuesday. A minority of officials made up their minds even before the release of the August numbers. Jeffrey Lacker, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, delivered a speech on Friday titled "The Case Against Further Delay." Mr. Lacker, a voting member of the policy committee this year, has indicated he is likely to dissent if the Fed does not raise rates at the September meeting. On the other side of the debate, Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, argued in a speech on Thursday night that the Fed should not raise rates this year because price inflation remains too low. The longer term trend for job creation in 2015 has been fairly robust, even if wage gains have been disappointing. Since the start of the year, the average monthly payroll gain stands at 212,000. In addition, payroll gains for June and July were revised upward by 44,000. As has been the case all summer, hiring in blue collar industries like manufacturing, construction and mining was weak last month, while white collar sectors like financial activities and professional and business services were relatively strong. In fact, some employers in these fields are picking up the pace of hiring and offering higher salaries. Hyland Software, a Westlake, Ohio, company that helps businesses manage and retrieve documents digitally, is on track to hire 450 new workers this year and an additional 450 to 475 in 2016. That's well above the 250 to 350 employees it added annually between 2010 and 2014. With average starting salaries of 55,000 to 65,000 for software development and technical roles, these positions pay well, said Debbie Connelly, vice president for human resources at Hyland. But the company needs candidates with specific skills in software development and information management or credentials like an engineering or information systems degree. "Over the last five years, starting salaries have increased as we compete for talent," said Ms. Connelly, noting that it is not always easy for a company in the Cleveland suburbs to lure workers who might be able to find similar jobs on the coasts. "We hire many of our candidates at the entry level from Ohio colleges and universities," she said. "If you grew up in Ohio, you're far more likely to accept a job and stay in Ohio after school." There is yet another twist for the Fed to consider. The initial employment reports for August for largely seasonal rather than fundamental factors have a long history of coming in below the underlying trend, only to be revised upward later by the Labor Department. In addition, this year's monthly figures could also be in for a sizable revision because fewer businesses than normal responded to the government's survey. Only 69.9 percent of businesses reported their payroll change last month, the lowest rate in nearly four years, and well below the 79.4 percent average over the last 12 months. "That's a big difference," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago. As those missing reports for August come in, she said, "it could lift the revision for private sector hires." In other words, while a monthly gain of fewer than 200,000 jobs the rest of the year might be considered weak, this month is different, said Robin Anderson, senior economist with Principal Global Investors in Des Moines. "The trend is so strong that one number alone won't derail the Fed," Ms. Anderson added. "These numbers are prone to revision, and you have to take the first estimate with a grain of salt." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
Ah, a day at the beach. Sun, sea, sand and a bunch of people doing the Hustle. On Saturday and Sunday, the Beach Sessions Dance Series returned to Rockaway Beach in Queens for its fourth year of free performances. Scheduled for the barest stretch of the dance calendar (late August to mid September), this series might stand out even without the attractions of its location. But the setting is definitely a plus, one made more tempting by the looming end of summer. So I rode the ferry over on Sunday to see what dance and beach might add up to. It wasn't groundbreaking art but it was a good time. As in previous years, there was dance right on the sand with the Atlantic for a backdrop. This was Biba Bell's "Hustle on the Sand," in which Ms. Bell, in a shimmery dress and sneakers, joined five other dancers to repeat variations on line dances you might have done at a wedding. In Los Angeles, where I grew up, we called one of these dances the Electric Slide. In Detroit, where Ms. Bell is based, they call it the Hustle. (None of the routines in Ms. Bell's dance was the "Saturday Night Fever" hustle, with the rotary fists and fingers rocketing to the sky.) Aunts is a sort of collective that presents dance performances that are kind of like parties, or, to revive an antiquated term, happenings. Aunts turned the Castle into a beach house inhabited by performance artists. All over the building, including the grassy top of an attached garage and a roof accessible only by a small spiral staircase, about a dozen participants did their thing, experimenting in front of a semi attentive public. At any given time, several performances were happening in different places, so it wasn't possible to catch everything. But wandering on whim was in the spirit of the event. And several bits seemed best appreciated in peripheral vision or when happened upon like a woman lying on her back in a tiny mirrored bathroom, listening to Korean disco and wiping her tears with a head of lettuce. Some people might have found it aggressive for Juan Lopez to gyrate in an S M harness as a scarf masked colleague next to him feigned masturbation, yet the overall tone of this and almost everything else at the Castle struck me as rather gentle and unassuming. Right after Mr. Lopez, Lily Gold and Mary Read staged a lovey dovey picnic on top of the garage, gazing into each other's eyes as they unpacked a basket in wonder. Perhaps, as Sasha Okshteyn, the dancer and surfer who founded Beach Sessions, explained to me, there was "something in the air." "Thanks for coming to my vacation performance" was how Tess Dworman introduced her comic solo on the roof, telling a story to explain why she was holding a tote bag before dancing with it to the Beach Boys in a way that reminded me of a brash and likable young John Travolta. She didn't do the hustle. She did make her audience laugh. In another context, I might have grown irritated by the thinness of many of the selections. Especially up on the roof, though, with the spires of Manhattan hazy in the distance, I felt a little on vacation, too willing to let my impatience go quiet, open to placid pleasures. I found them up there in the performance by Jasmine Hearn and Tatyana Tenenbaum. These artists share an interest in the intersection of dance and sound, particularly when both are produced by the same body. As Ms. Hearn sang a love song to a lady in a whispery, soulful voice (archly quoting Dr. Dre), she folded and pivoted with elegant beauty. But her voice also stuttered like a skipping record, the bending of her body distorting the sound, revealing pain. Ms. Tenenbaum is as much a composer as she is a choreographer. She used electronics to build up a song with her voice, loop by loop gorgeous harmonies and counterpoint then moved to that sound, wafting her arms calligraphically as she vocalized another layer. Some of the words, coming in widely spaced, suspense producing phrases, were "soon, I'll pass by" and "now," which made the song a hymn to ephemerality, describing the whole occasion while transfiguring it. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
If there is one statistic that does not lose its ability to scare, it's how many marriages end in divorce. "About half" is thrown about often, if a bit loosely. Research has added nuance to that figure. Factors like age, education and socioeconomic status contribute to reducing the likelihood of divorce. So, too, does the number of marriages: First marriages are less likely to end in divorce than third marriages. Still, the numbers do not fill a young (or old) heart with joy. The response for many wealthy people is the prenuptial agreement, which details what each spouse is entitled to financially if the marriage ends in divorce. Whether a person's betrothed or own family raises this issue, the ensuing conversation is likely to be about as romantic as deciding who takes out the trash. Any discussion, after all, will focus on the parameters for who gets what at the end of a marriage that has not even started. This is where Nathan Dungan, a wealth educator and founder of Share Save Spend, a financial consulting firm in Minneapolis, is trying to take a smarter approach to any conversation around prenuptial agreements. He wants to require both partners to attend what could be called Prenup 101. It is far from something couples can take casually. Mr. Dungan has developed work sheets and quizzes to complement extensive counseling that lasts at least six months, though ideally closer to a year. He calls the whole process "onboarding" a far more welcoming description than "divorce planning." "You want to say, 'We're in this together,' but then there's this big wrench that gets put in place," he said. "What if we looked at it as an opportunity and not this huge problem?" To this end, the work sheets ask open ended questions about how people feel about money: "What is money to me?" "What things matter most to me in life?" "Why is it important to understand how each person is wired with respect to money?" "They have homework assignments they need to do," Mr. Dungan said. "Some are together, some are separate." But emphasis is put on the discussion, he said. "Part of this is to recognize that this is not a romantic conversation," Mr. Dungan said. "We get that, but it's an opportunity for them to step into this and talk about their own family of origin and their own money story." Mr. Dungan said his goal is to take the prenuptial agreement out of the conversation and present the couple with an opportunity to have an honest conversation about money. He wants them to learn if they are spenders, savers or sharers when it comes to money in their lives. Andrew, who comes from a prominent Midwestern family and asked that his last name not be used, said his family had been a client of Mr. Dungan's since he was a teenager. He's in his late 20s now and has been married for four years. His wife became part of the family's financial discussions while they were dating. Still, when they got engaged and the process ramped up, the conversations were not easy. "There were things that got brought up that my wife and I never knew were bothering us," Andrew said. Mr. Dungan helped them ask about their attitudes toward money. "It allowed my wife and me to learn why this is important and to understand this isn't a 'me vs. you' thing," he said. Mr. Dungan's method appeals to people who are confident and open enough to at least discuss money within their own families. That's usually how they know about him in the first place: as clients of his getting advice on wealth and inheritance. But many prenuptial financial conversations are not well planned. More often, couples wait until weeks or even days before their wedding before talking about a prenuptial agreement a hasty decision signed in what the industry calls "the shadow of the altar." Casting that kind of uncertainty on a wedding can dim the sunny days most couples expect. But such an approach can also have unintended ramifications. The person who is being presented with the prenuptial agreement can feel unprepared or, worse, ambushed. As for the agreement itself, that kind of rush also increases the likelihood that whatever is signed will not hold up in court. Part of what makes a prenuptial agreement enforceable is a full disclosure of existing assets. To do this, there needs to be time for both parties to understand what is involved. "It's difficult to challenge a prenup in New York," said Jacqueline Newman, managing partner at the New York law firm Berkman Bottger Newman Rodd. "But if it's literally thrown to the person in the shadow of the altar, courts consider all of that. It's not smart on the part of the person who wants a prenup to give it to someone last minute." Inherited assets and family gifts are generally protected in divorce proceedings. But if, say, income from a trust was used to pay for the family's lifestyle, it could be subject to division in a divorce, said Silvana D. Raso, managing partner at Schepisi McLaughlin, a law firm based in New Jersey. The same, she said, holds true for a family business, even if a new spouse is only partly involved in managing it and receiving income from it. Both concerns can be handled in a properly drafted agreement, but doing so takes time and discussions. Ms. Newman, however, noted that for the so called non monied spouse, a prenuptial agreement can offer access to funds supporting the couple's married lifestyle that would not be available in a divorce, such as otherwise untouchable inheritance funds. There is consensus on what makes a good prenuptial agreement: time to discuss all the issues and draft a document that is fair to both sides and perhaps even has provisions to change over time. But getting to that document can cause lasting problems in a family if the process is not handled with care. Mr. Dungan's classes attempt to fend off emotional distress, much of which can revolve around how families talk or don't talk about money. Alison Comstock Moss, chairman and chief executive of Paul Comstock Partners, which advises clients on a total of 2.2 billion in assets, recalled a client who told his future son in law that he would not get a dime from the family if the marriage ended. The son in law, who was himself financially successful, had not planned to ask for anything from his wife's family in the prenuptial agreement. Years later, the marriage is happy, but the two men still do not get along. "Knowing all the parties involved, I don't think the intent was to be nasty," Ms. Moss said. "I think they got bad advice and the way they communicated with each other was really hurtful." A better way to have handled the situation, she said, would have been to ask a simple question about expectations, which would have allowed the son in law to speak his mind. But an approach like that requires planning, education and openness about financial expectations, which may not be possible if the focus is on the agreement itself. Mr. Dungan said that his process still led to the same end a prenuptial agreement but that it got there in a way that required more thought. "We're not robotically moving through this process," he said. "We're creating a dynamic that allows them to have the best outcome." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Your Money |
PASADENA, Calif. After the first season of E!'s "I Am Cait," the reality series about Caitlyn Jenner's first months as a transgender woman, there was no mistaking that it was a different show from the one she used to star on, "Keeping Up With the Kardashians." "I Am Cait" explored weighty topics like the high suicide rate among transgender people and the difficulty of transitioning in the public eye. "It was a conscious decision that I wanted this show to be about the issues," Caitlyn Jenner said at a Television Critics Association press event on Thursday. "We all love good clothes and all that kind of stuff, but I really wanted the people to get to know all of my girls, everybody that's involved with the show." She was referring to the transgender friends who became prominent cast members in the first season and will continue to be this season. Ms. Jenner added, referring to her children: "I love my kids, I have a great relationship with all my children, but this is a different show. This is about a serious issue." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
LOS ANGELES With grave concern, a television reporter for KTLA described the mayhem in the upscale Los Angeles neighborhood of Beverly Grove in July: The residents of a graffiti marred, 17,000 a month white contemporary house, led by a 20 year old "social media megastar" named Jake Paul, had turned this "tightknit community" into a "war zone." "A recent stunt involved tossing furniture into an empty pool and setting the pile on fire," the reporter informed viewers. "Neighbors said flames eventually grew higher than the house." With the news crew still mingling outside, Mr. Paul bounded out of the house, his peroxide blond hair flopping, trailed by a squadron of artfully coifed teen heartthrob types. They mocked the reporter's fusty brown oxfords, and whooped as their leader clambered onto the roof of the KTLA van ("Jake, I wouldn't do that," the reporter warned), where he stood triumphant symbolically, at least over the old media landscape. Mr. Paul responded with a smirk: "But people like going to circuses, right?" The stunt made global headlines and turned the YouTube prankster into a social media villain. A "moronic menace to society," Canada's National Post called him; an "absolute terror," according to Mashable, "the worst person on earth," in the words of Deadspin. But to Mr. Paul and his devotees, who track his pranks religiously and call themselves "Jake Paulers," the incident was something much greater. He has 10.5 million subscribers on YouTube, and seemingly five million haters. This high school dropout from Ohio has already outlasted Vine, the short form video platform that gave him his first taste of fame; survived an ill fated turn as a Disney star; cut a rap anthem ("It's Everyday Bro") that became, simultaneously, one of the most viral and reviled songs on the internet; and established himself in the eyes of grown up America as an embodiment of everything that is wonderful and horrible about Generation Z. And all that, basically, has been a warm up act. Even as controversies stack up and the jakepaulisoverparty hashtag circulates, Mr. Paul is leveraging a Johnny Knoxville taste for outrage with mogul size ambition to build an empire out of that sprawling Beverly Grove house, serving as a Svengali and star maker to the YouTube stars of tomorrow. Think of it as a factory of social media talent, a scrubbed, web version of Berry Gordy's Motown Records for pre tweens. A genius or a jerk? A punk or a prophet? In a media landscape where clicks are money, does it even matter? "My personal goal," he said, "is to be a billionaire." Mr. Paul, who is arguably the most polarizing personality on YouTube, remembers the moment back in Westlake, Ohio, when he told his parents, Greg Paul, a real estate agent, and Pam Stepnick, a nurse, that he planned to skip his senior year of high school and move to Los Angeles with his brother, Logan, to pursue fame. It was not as crazy as it sounds. He and Logan, who is two years older, had already established themselves as breakout stars of Vine, that Ritalin addled showcase of six second comedy snippets that, for a moment, seemed like it might swallow teen culture. "There was real life opportunity to make a career for ourselves, for the rest of our lives," he said. "We were working with brands and advertisers. I was, like, 17 years old, making more money than my parents." For the Paul brothers, Hollywood proved to be anything but a boulevard of broken dreams. Leveraging their millions of social media followers, along with their well honed skills for rubber faced comedy and ambulance worthy stunts, each started a YouTube vlog that became explosively popular. Web fame soon led to mainstream work on television: Jake earned a regular role on the Disney Channel sitcom "Bizaardvark," playing what else a goofy young social media star. "I saw what he did," Mr. Paul said of that N.W.A. rapper turned mogul, "how he was a celebrity himself, and then he took that, brought people under his wing, taught them how to make music, and then put those people in front of his audience. Out comes Eminem, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, Tupac. And then he used that network to launch different companies and go into merchandising, obviously his big one being Beats by Dre." Jake Paul was suddenly Jake Paul Inc., the head of Teen Entertainment and Media Kingdom, or TeamDom, a company he started this past January centered on a talent label called Team 10. The team, which never actually had 10 members (but who's counting?) was made up of an ever evolving crew of teen idol types under contract to Mr. Paul, who sought to turn them into web stars. Not yet old enough to legally drink alcohol, Mr. Paul was now a mix of talent manager, executive producer, life coach and motivational guru to a constellation of rising YouTube vlog stars, several of which had more than two million subscribers. He also acted as a resident adviser, given that a half dozen of them bunked full time at the social media "incubator" that was the Team 10 house. Before long, the venture was drawing interest from more than just angry neighbors. Heavyweight investors like Ron Burkle and Gary Vaynerchuk jumped aboard. In Dr. Dre fashion, Mr. Paul debuted a merchandise line, Fanjoy.co, hawking a collection of skater ish sweatshirts and T shirts to the swelling army of "Jake Paulers." Not that those Generation X references would mean much to Mr. Paul's target audience, who were born in the George W. Bush or Barack Obama years. And the brand stakes its existence on keeping these attention challenged adolescents coming back for more. Because it really is every day, bro to cite Mr. Paul's mantra. It has been for more than 335 straight days and counting. That is why Mr. Paul decided one day in May, on a whim, to transform himself into a rapper. "I woke up, and I was like, 'What if I make a song today, and make a music video for it, all in one day?'" he said. As Mr. Paul tells the story, he spent a few hours tracking down a producer and booking a studio, maybe 30 minutes scribbling out some rhymes for himself and his crew, and another few hours to record the track. That afternoon, Mr. Paul secured a glassy hilltop mansion in Coldwater Canyon as a location to shoot the video (it seemed like the perfect parody location of a cliche hip hop video, he said) and rustled up a white Lamborghini as a prop. A spirit of anarchy, however, was noticeably absent. Inside the cavernous and scarcely furnished main floor, the house felt more like the office of a Silicon Valley start up than a modern, teenager filled "Animal House." Handwritten notes exhorted housemates to tend to their trash. A mini basketball hoop hung on one wall. A pink tie dyed banner emblazoned with the Team 10 logo blanketed another. At an hour when some corporate Angelenos were still idling on the 405 freeway, Team 10 was hard at work. Justin Roberts, known as "the Freshman," quietly labored behind a computer monitor. At 15, the home schooled student still lives with his parents. That does not mean he is denied the Team 10 halo effect. The rap star Drake recently dropped in on his birthday party at the nightclub Tao. The team matriarch, Erika Costell, a 24 year old model from Michigan, mingled nearby in workout gear. Half of the Team 10 power couple "Jerika," she has three million YouTube subscribers and got a big boost from her "wedding" video with Mr. Paul, "We Actually Got Married..." in June, which has attracted 21 million views, even though they actually did not get married. ("We're not even actually dating," Mr. Paul explained later that day. "It's like the WWE. People know that's fake, and it's one of the biggest things of entertainment.") "Dude, I'm still picking glass out of my cheeks," said Chad Tepper, the unofficial masochist of Team 10, gingerly stroking his face as he rode in the back seat of Mr. Paul's tricked out Tesla X. Holding out his phone, Mr. Tepper showed off footage from the previous day, a stunt filmed by an ultra slow motion Phantom camera showing a fluorescent light tube crashing down over his shoulder, enveloping his head very, very slowly in a cloud of glass shards and noxious white dust. Such stunts might look like spontaneous iPhone goofs, but it often takes eight hours of shooting to create enough material for a 10 minute video. At that day's morning workout, for instance, an hour of sweat yielded 26 seconds of usable footage. Next, the team headed to a Ralphs supermarket on Sunset Boulevard, where they roamed the aisles brainstorming other stunts. "Yo, what about just pouring milk into cereal?" Mr. Paul asked the group, his eyes partly hidden by his trademark "yellers," or yellow aviator sunglasses. "We need to do something where we light something on fire," one team member said. An hour later, the crew assembled at a parking lot and giddily began emptying their grocery bags. As the Phantom camera rolled, team members swatted a cup of Jell O with a tennis racket, blasted Mr. Tepper in the face with mini marshmallows fired from a T shirt gun and dropped an egg onto the blades of a drone hovering at shoulder level, splattering several members of the team with an al dente aeronautic omelet as they doubled over in laughter. For the piece de resistance, Mr. Paul attempted a fire breathing stunt involving dish soap, butane and cornstarch. Over Mr. Tepper's firm warnings ("Dude, I'm serious"), a cameraman ignited a puff of flammable foam in Mr. Paul's palm. The Team 10 leader then blew a pillow size fire ball into the warm Hollywood air, then turned to the camera triumphantly, squawking, "I'm a dragon!" as he flapped his arms melodramatically, cornstarch cascading from his mouth. "A lot of people get this awesome feeling when they go to a club, or they're out with their friends every night having fun," he said later. "But the feeling for me is freedom. Like, I can literally do whatever I want, whenever I want." That has proved a blessing and a curse. His overnight transformation into a rap star, for example, was a breakthrough moment, but it also made him, to some, hater bait of Vanilla Ice proportions. It wasn't just the parody videos that were blossoming online."Everyday Bro" ranked high on YouTube's list of most disliked videos (it's currently No. 7; Justin Bieber's "Baby" is No. 1), and the backlash dragged Mr. Paul into a series of highly publicized skirmishes with both intimates and rival YouTube stars. Most prominent was the slugfest with his brother, Logan. The siblings traded menacing YouTube "diss tracks" over the song that were viewed hundreds of millions of times, each one solemnly dissected by teen magazines and gossip sites, as if they were nuclear threats between Donald Trump and Kim Jong un. "First of all, we hit 80 million," Mr. Paul announced, gesturing toward a flat screen television glowing orange with a graphic that read "80,095,981," Team 10's current subscriber base. "And we're also doubling the Kardashians in monthly growth." Team members, many wearing Team 10 hoodies and T shirts, erupted in applause. "I really think in the next six months, we can triple that, if not quadruple that," he said. "It's about coming together and pushing your boundaries every single day." Afterward, Mr. Paul retreated to the only quiet place he could find his Tesla, charging in the garage to discuss his tumultuous summer. He seemed contrite. As was obvious to any Jake Pauler, he was making a big effort of late to atone for his perceived sins, to stress the positives of the Team 10 mission. He had uploaded an apology confessional in which he talked about the difficulties of coming of age in the public eye with few mentors, a mea culpa rap song ("Pressure hard, they all watchin now, make a mistake, world on me now"), and a hug and make up rap duet with Logan, "I Love You Bro," which has received 61 million views. To appease neighbors, he has toned down the noise and high jinks and, under a threat of arrest, has agreed not to shoot at the house without a permit. He was even promising to move, going on an aggressive house hunt for secluded quarters on the outskirts of Los Angeles. "The people who are really close to me would walk in here and tell you that I'm a great person and that I've done nothing but good for them in their lives," Mr. Paul said. "But I can't be like, 'Hey, I'm a good person,' because no one cares. Anyone can say they're a good person." Then again, what is hate, really, but just more content? Later that evening, Mr. Paul headed back to the studio to answer his critics in the best way he knows how, a new rap video. Channeling Eminem in "8 Mile," he cut a feisty track in which he owned up to seemingly every last insult the haters had hurled at him. "Fake wife, fake life, no talent at all," he rapped. "Let me tell y'all about all of his flaws." "Sometimes I wanna quit it all, sometimes I wish I wasn't involved, sometimes I wish I could hate Jake Paul." It is safe to assume that impulse passed. As of this week, the video had attracted almost 25 million views. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
A San Francisco dining room designed by Ken Fulk features a hand painted mural by Wayne David Hand that wraps the walls and cabinetry, and extends up onto the ceiling. A mural is "something really wonderful," he said, "and it isn't always cost prohibitive." Dining at restaurants has always been about more than the food one of the joys of going out is the opportunity to enjoy a new and different environment. At home, the most ambitious hosts have long sought to create atmospheric dining rooms that offer a similar sense of occasion. And at a time when many of us are spending the majority of our evenings at home, that's especially valuable. "If ever a room was meant to be dramatic, it would be the dining room," said Ken Fulk, an interior designer with offices in San Francisco and New York. "Dining rooms are all about entertainment, they're typically used at nighttime, and they're always used at special occasions." Much like a powder room, a dining room is a good place to paint the walls and ceiling a bold color you love but worry might be overwhelming in a space where you spend more time, like the living room. "If you want drama, that's how you get it very inexpensively: with paint," said Jan Showers, a Dallas based interior designer whose latest book, "Glamorous Living," was published in September. For the dining room in a historic home in Austin, Texas, Ms. Showers covered the walls, ceiling and trim in a deep navy blue. "People think dark colors are going to make the room look smaller," Ms. Showers said. "Well, that's not true. Dark colors actually make a room look larger, because the corners recede." The New York based interior designer Alexa Hampton also sometimes uses dark colors in dining rooms. In an apartment she recently designed in Manhattan, she painted the dining room walls above white wainscoting a "really deep, boozy plum color, in high gloss," she said. Paired with pink and purple paper lanterns and a rug saturated with similar colors, she noted, "the room became more of a folly." Mr. Fulk is a proponent of blasting walls with vibrant colors like peacock blue and grassy green. "Dining rooms can have exuberant colors," he said. "Look at Monticello: Thomas Jefferson's dining room was actually crazy, bright yellow." A daring paint color isn't the only way to give walls extra appeal. Many designers view the dining room as a good place to use statement making wallpaper. For a dining room in New Orleans that Ms. Hampton said was previously a "black hole" of dark brown furniture, she lightened the mood by installing custom Gracie wallpaper depicting branching trees that grow from the floor toward the ceiling, as well as birds and flowers. "It has an organic quality" that enlivens the room, she said. "Another thing about wallpaper with pattern is that it alleviates the need to find artwork." Mr. Fulk sometimes goes one step further and commissions artists to paint scenic murals on the walls. For his own house in Provincetown, Mass., he recruited painter Rafael Arana to wrap the dining room with a mural of the town's harbor. "I wanted to have something with some soul, opinion and depth," Mr. Fulk said. "You can live in a painting. It's something really wonderful, and it isn't always cost prohibitive. There are so many artists who would love that commission." If pattern isn't your thing, consider adding texture with a wallcovering like grasscloth or wood paneling. Once upon a time, a popular way to furnish a dining room was with a matching set of furniture identical chairs around a coordinating table. Now that a more casual vibe prevails in many homes, it's not uncommon for designers to mix contrasting chairs and tables, and to introduce other types of seating as well, for a more laid back feeling with extra visual appeal. "I love having benches in a dining room," said James Huniford, a New York based interior designer whose new book, "At Home," features a long table with four benches on the cover. "It gives that sense of being able to have an easy conversation with the people who are there next to you or across from you." Mr. Huniford often mixes chairs and benches around a rectangular table. On occasion, he has used a settee or small sofa on one side of the table. "It's a much more relaxed sensibility," he said, and it helps the dining room serve additional purposes, like providing a place for family games or working from home. "Every dining room deserves a great mirror," Mr. Fulk said. "Sometimes, we'll use a crazy antique palace mirror we find and lean it against the wall. Other times, it's an entire wall of antiqued mirror." Mirrors can help guests see each other better, he noted, and when strategically placed, can bring desirable views from windows deeper into the room. For extra drama, he suggested, consider a colored mirror. "It's certainly time for smoked mirror, a la 1970s," he said, or gold or rose tinted mirrors. Ms. Showers hung some mirrors to create an optical illusion in the dining room of her country house south of Dallas. On either side of an intricately detailed 1920s mirror, she installed floor to ceiling mirrors flanked by curtains that give the impression of enormous windows. "I did a little smoke and mirrors literally," Ms. Showers said. "It expands the room." The dining room is no place to wash the entire area with overhead light. A chandelier or pendant lamp above the table is important for illuminating the dining surface, but it shouldn't be the only fixture in the room. "Having just a chandelier doesn't work," Ms. Showers said. "If you've ever been in a dressing room where all the lighting is overhead, you look in the mirror and it's like, 'Oh, my gosh, I just aged 10 years.'" To help everyone look their best, she said, "you always need to have adequate eye level lighting." That can be achieved with sconces, floor lamps in the corners of a room or table lamps on a buffet. "You want shades that provide ambient light," Ms. Showers said, so look for those made with translucent material rather than opaque shades that direct light toward the floor and ceiling. Ms. Hampton is a fan of mounting picture lights above framed pieces of art for a gentle glow that shows off favorite paintings. Wherever possible, dining room lamps should be controlled with dimmers, she said, so they can be cranked up during the day and dimmed at night. "You have to have it capable of being set to sexy dining light," she said. And don't forget the candles. Ms. Standefer likes to illuminate the table with tapers at various heights. (Her firm has designed its own collection of candlesticks, offered in eight mixable heights at Roman and Williams Guild, for that purpose.) Sometimes she puts votive candles in repurposed glasses. "I love when things do double duty," she said. "Put a little water in the bottom, along with a tea candle or votive, and use them as a basic lantern on your table," she said. "And then if you have extra guests, use them as drinking glasses." It doesn't have to be fancy, she added she often uses large pieces of plain linen. "I think it's a beautiful way to give your table a different quality." For a little pattern, Mr. Fulk sometimes uses blankets as tablecloths. On top, "you can make a meadow," Ms. Standefer said, with a series of bud vases or collected bottles or, in a pinch, old wine bottles filled with inexpensive greenery. "You don't spend a lot on the flowers," she said. "You can literally take, like, a piece of grass or a piece of dill you buy at the grocery store," and put one stalk in each vessel. "When you have eight vessels and all those little stalks," she said, "it makes a garden on your table." For dinnerware, Mr. Fulk suggested setting the table with antique decorative plates and colored glassware rather than the minimalist white ceramics that have become so popular in recent years. "I love to mix it up and give the dining table a collected feel," he said, noting that he might use Limoges porcelain or antique transferware on a table in a contemporary room, for an unexpected visual twist. "A great way to dress up your dining room without changing the decor is to change the tabletop," he said. And don't fall into the trap of saving the fine china for special occasions, he added. "If the moment we're in has taught us anything, it's to use the good stuff," he said. "Every moment matters." For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: nytrealestate. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
The movie is adapted from a Booker Prize winning novel by Peter Carey. If you haven't read the book, you might wonder while watching the movie, "THIS cold porridge won a Booker?" Well, no. While Carey's voice for Kelly does contain some commonplace language, the prose also has music and momentum (the narrative abjures commas but is still clear enough to flow coherently, no mean feat). It also allows Kelly some vivid similes, as in, "Your Grandma was like a snare laid out by God for Red Kelly." Shaun Grant's script rarely, if ever, avails itself of such riches; instead, the narration and dialogue teem with outlaw movie cliches. Grant and Kurzel's conceptions of the characters are so one dimensional they seem to defeat the movie's talented cast. As Kelly's mother, Essie Davis, excellent in "The Babadook" and the upcoming "Babyteeth," does little besides jut out her jaw while either sneering or smirking. Her trite defiance is exemplified when she remonstrates against a would be teacher who would pollute young Ned's mind with "fancy books." As the adult Kelly, George MacKay seems content to run around with his shirt off and make faces while faux punk songs adorn the soundtrack. For minutes at a time, you might think, and also maybe wish, that you were watching "Trainspotting." Rated R for violence, language and a bit of sexuality. In English and Latin, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 4 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, AppleTV and other streaming platforms, as well as pay TV operators. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
Mr. Lighthizer also praised the administration's trade record, including new or revised deals it has signed with Japan, Canada and Mexico that he said had improved the terms of trade for American farmers and businesses. And he said that a comprehensive trade deal with the United Kingdom was just a matter of time, though it was not likely to be concluded before the election in November. But he was more circumspect on the potential for a deal with another big partner, the European Union, which he accused of "thinly veiled protectionism" for rejecting American agricultural products over alleged safety concerns. A deal with the European Union is "not looking good in the short term," Mr. Lighthizer said, adding that "the president will use tariffs if he has to to get a fair shake for American businesses." Mr. Lighthizer defended the administration's aggressive use of tariffs and rebuffed requests from various lawmakers to reduce or defer the levies it charges on products imported by people or businesses in their districts, in order to reduce costs on businesses that are struggling with the pandemic. Over the last several years, the Trump administration has deployed tariffs more aggressively than any in modern history, turning to tariffs to shelter American businesses from competition and create leverage in trade negotiations. The president has imposed new duties on steel, aluminum, washing machines, solar panels and more than 360 billion of Chinese goods in the last few years, levies that have helped some American businesses but raised costs for others that depend on imported products and components. Opposition to the tariffs has increased since the pandemic began, with lawmakers and trade groups pressing the administration to waive some of these taxes to help the United States bounce back from the economic downturn. They have questioned the administration's decision to continue imposing levies on some medical products and components that have been in short supply, like protective gear, hand sanitizer or ventilator parts. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
At the V.M.A.s, Lady Gaga's Clothes Were Good, but Her Masks Were Better None Lady Gaga and some of her fashion masks at the MTV Video Music Awards. The question of what the red carpet, that weird celebrity style ritual that reached its apogee in the early 21st century as a marketing/social media/fashion Frankenstein's monster, would become in a Covid 19 world could it still exist at all, when most people have given up on party dressing entirely was finally answered Sunday night at, of all places, the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards. And it was answered by Lady Gaga. Held live around New York City, socially distanced but without an audience, the V.M.A.s were the last of the summer award shows, and the first to attempt some semblance of old days pizazz, rather than Zooming from your living room relatability. Keke Palmer hosted, and both acknowledged the tragedies of the day the death of Chadwick Boseman, the shooting of Jacob Blake and engaged in multiple dress modeling. Keke Palmer talked about the actor Chadwick Boseman at the MTV awards show. Not everyone wanted in. Taylor Swift accepted her prize remotely. So did BTS, though the band performed in a prerecorded segment in very snazzy suits and ties. There was a space where hosts and performers could pose on their ownsome for arrival photos to show off their clothes, but they didn't quite reach the usual critical mass: Sofia Carson, in red Giambattista Valli with a giant poufy peplum; Joey King in a short rose print Versace; Machine Gun Kelly in hot pink Berluti. It was nice to see them make an effort, and to experience a bit of a vicarious dressing up thrill, even if without the attendant crowds and paparazzi. It also felt as if something were missing, like a hot air balloon slowly deflating. (Why are those people all gussied up and standing there by themselves?) But then came Lady Gaga. She puffed it back up all by herself. She accepted her many awards in person. She performed. She changed clothes every single time she appeared, and she appeared seven times. And almost every time she appeared in her seven different outfits, she wore a different face mask. In the process she used her image to do for mask fashion and designers what used to be done for, say, Dior and Chanel. From left, Sofia Carson in Giambattista Valli, Machine Gun Kelly in Berluti, and Joey King in Versace. First came her entry making silver circular Area coat, with a matching clear face shield/astronaut helmet by Conrad that made reference to the V.M.A. Moonman himself. To accept her artist of the year award, she wore an Iris Van Herpen bird of paradise dress with a swirling pink Cecilio Castrillo face mask; for the song of the year award, a gigantic iridescent emerald green shirtdress ball gown from Christopher John Rogers and a matching bejeweled and tusked Lance V. Moore mask. She looked like some sort of superglamorous mastodon. And so it went. In her performance from "Chromatica," Gaga appeared in a pink and black bodysuit, mask by Diego Montoya and Smooth Technology. And finally, she wore a giant feathered Valentino couture cape and silver bodysuit with a silver Maison Met mask, which she also wore for her last change into a silver cape by Candice Cuoco to accept the Tricon award. Lady Gaga, as she accepted the Tricon award. Her clothes were eye catching, but her masks were unforgettable. Even on an evening that also included Miley Cyrus poking fun at her own history in a sheer Mugler dress, not to mention wearing a sequined tank top and panties on top of a disco ball. Thanking everyone at the end, Gaga said: "I might sound like a broken record, but wear a mask. It's a sign of respect." Masktivism! That's one way to inject meaning into what had become, by any measure, a format increasingly sapped of its soul and original purpose (self expression). As we move forward into more red carpet events next up is the Venice Film Festival, which starts this week and where Cate Blanchett, as jury president, has vowed to wear only gowns from her own closet the bar has been raised. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
JodyAnn Morgan wasn't expecting to catch a glimpse of her future wife while working as a security guard when the circus was in Brooklyn in February 2016. But the noisy chants of children and wafting concession stand aromas all seemed to pause for a moment as Chaya Milchtein walked through the security checkpoint. It was actually Ms. Milchtein's outfit that grabbed the attention. "I don't want to use the word 'inappropriate,' but it was not fashionable for the circus," Ms. Morgan said through giggles. She described Ms. Milchtein's fashion choice a tight, red minidress with black, thigh high boots as better suited for a dance club. Ms. Milchtein was getting a manicure earlier that day when another patron offered her nail technician a seat for the show, but the tech couldn't attend. Ms. Milchtein, who was raised in a Hasidic household before spending her teen years in foster care, missed many typical American experiences of childhood. She took the ticket to help make up for lost time. Their relationship quickly became serious. Later that year, they hosted a hybrid Christmas and Hanukkah party, posting an open invitation to members of another online group for local L.G.B.T.Q. people. "My parents always invited a ton of guests for Shabbat and holidays," Ms. Milchtein said. "My mother instilled in me that there is always room at the table, and we made room." Ms. Morgan peeled 30 pounds of potatoes to make latkes for guests they had never met but welcomed into their home. That spring, the pair hosted a Seder for 38 people in their 650 square foot Brooklyn apartment. In 2018, the couple moved to Milwaukee. Their new home felt comparatively huge, so they crammed in a dining table that seats 12. They still live in Milwaukee, where Ms. Milchtein, 25, has an eclectic career as a style influencer, writer and automotive educator. Her website and blog is called Mechanic Shop Femme, where she also writes about plus size fashion. Ms. Morgan, 33, is a security guard and "Doctor Who" fanatic. Although they share love and hospitality with people they don't know, they say they can't do the same with their parents. "My parents are traditional Jamaican people who are very religious," Ms. Morgan said. "They're just not accepting." She explained that they view her orientation as a phase that will pass when she's ready to marry a man. Ms. Milchtein said that it's clear how much Ms. Morgan's parents love their daughter, so she feels confused by their inability to accept the couple. Ms. Milchtein said, "My parents don't talk to me for other reasons." She said that her sexuality isn't the primary cause of tension within her own family's dynamics. She said that her father abused her for years before she entered foster care at age 16. As the oldest of 15 children, she still has relationships with some of her siblings and family members. But her grandmother, who she and Ms. Morgan have visited on numerous occasions, always told Ms. Milchtein that she would not attend her wedding if she married outside the faith. The couple was engaged in August 2019 after many conversations about marriage. They bought simple rings together and planned to officially make the commitment together during a vacation in Mexico, but Ms. Morgan couldn't wait. While the pair was visiting Lake Michigan she asked, "Can we, you know, do that thing?" and proposed. Still, they hadn't finalized the details of their wedding. Ms. Morgan expressed a preference for a simple, smaller affair, and Covid 19 seemed to eliminate the possibility of hosting the "biggest, queerest" wedding of the year until the pair decided to go virtual. They limited the in person guest list to zero, obliging Ms. Morgan's request for intimacy, but also livestreamed the event and invited everyone to the "Biggest, Queerest Wedding of the Year." Nearly 10,000 people expressed interest, or indicated they were going to watch the wedding after it was posted as a public event on Facebook. The pair chose Indianapolis because it's known as the elopement capital of the Midwest, confident in the city's ability to accommodate their micro wedding, then turned again to online queer communities to find vendors, an officiant and a venue. The couple were married Aug. 29 in the private backyard of an Airbnb house overlooking a wooded area on White River at the edge of the city. A slide show of pictures welcomed guests from around the world who waited 15 minutes for the ceremony to begin because of technical difficulties. L.S. Quinn, a Universal Life minister, gathered with the brides at a large tree stump that helped them maintain social distancing and acted as a space to lay bouquets, rings, and written vows for quick access during the ceremony. About 1,600 viewers shared blessings and gratitude in the comments section of the live feed. Ms. Milchtein's vows included, "Today is our ultimate compromise: a wedding with no one, yet with everyone, present." The public event offered a way for family members who are less supportive to tune in to the livestream "without compromising their values or announcing their R.S.V.P.," Ms. Milchtein said. "I know my parents know what I'm up to," she said. "They have the opportunity to watch should they choose to." Ms. Milchtein, who is not in contact with her parents, did speak with her grandmother after the wedding, "She said to me in Russian that she even began to cry that she almost shed a tear. It doesn't translate perfectly. She said that we looked beautiful." As a style influencer, Ms. Milchtein had a simple dress in mind before her partner threw a wrench in her plans. Ms. Morgan said, "I'm very much a button down shirt and slacks kind of person male fitting clothes. That's how I feel comfortable." But after trying on a wedding dress Ms. Milchtein saved from a previous photo shoot, Ms. Morgan announced, "I'll just wear this!" Ms. Morgan eventually chose a glamorous white ball gown with lace sleeves paired with a sparkling belt from the Laine London Company. This Black owned business also supplied her with a shiny tiara. "It's a special day," she said. "I wanted to try something new." Ms. Milchtein noted that 2020 could have gone differently for the couple. She lost her job as a customer service manager at a collision repair shop, in April and Ms. Morgan's industry has been suffering during quarantine. They explained that their giving and hospitable nature comes from gratitude for the support they've received in the past. "If I can share what I love with other people and in the process create lifelong relationships, that's a gift to me," Ms. Milchtein said. When reflecting on the importance of online communities, she said, "These queer spaces have given me so much but they also gave me her. She wouldn't have found me if there wasn't this space where I could share about myself." Where An Airbnb overlooking White River in Indianapolis Nontraditional Ceremony As a polyamorous couple, the pair rejected vows that would promote the idea of giving themselves only to one another. They customized the ceremony to promote the power of community rather than traditional family ties and walked out together to the song "Cake," which is known as a polyamorous anthem, by the artists Iggy T and the Crazymakers. Intentional Choices They collaborated with Black, queer and plus size artists and professionals. "All but one of our vendors was a one woman show," Ms. Milchtein said, "and our officiant performed ceremonies for queer people before it was even legal to do so." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
WASHINGTON Senator Elizabeth Warren plans to introduce a bill in coming weeks that would intensify the scrutiny of bank mergers, a signal less of legislative action to come than of her intentions for the finance industry if she is elected president. The bill, a companion of which will be introduced Wednesday in the House by Representative Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, Democrat of Illinois, will almost certainly go nowhere in the Republican controlled Senate. But its argument that the "review process for bank mergers is fundamentally broken" indicates that Ms. Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, still has the financial industry in her sights. It would demand more extensive testing for vulnerabilities when two banks want to merge, a bid to slow financial sector consolidation and lean against the formation of huge banks. And it would require the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Ms. Warren helped create, to approve any merger in which one of the banks offers consumer financial products. The proposal is the latest sign that if Ms. Warren wins the White House, her victory could usher in a new era for the rules that govern banking. Financial regulators, including the Federal Reserve, have been relaxing requirements put in place after the 2008 financial crisis in recent years, often at the behest of Congress. The changes have jibed with the Trump administration's broader push for a lighter touch government. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
For the past several years, wealthy buyers from China have been purchasing investment properties and pieds a terre in luxurious Manhattan high rises. Lately, though, some have moved their portfolios east to the exclusive enclaves of Long Island, springing for the pricey houses of the North Shore's Gold Coast. Some Chinese buyers are parking money in what they see as a low risk investment. Others are seeking a trophy home. Still others are intent on living in these places full time while their children attend the area's high performing schools. The suburbs of Long Island are not the only places growing in desirability among the Chinese. The Chinese are either the largest or second largest group of foreign property buyers in 46 of the 50 states, according to the National Association of Realtors and Juwai.com, an online real estate marketplace for Chinese buyers, with offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong. In the 12 months ending in March 2014, Chinese investors spent 22 billion on real estate in the United States, or nearly one quarter of all international sales, according to a survey by the National Association of Realtors. Roughly 51 percent of the deals were in New York, California and Washington; the bulk, 46 percent, were in suburbs, while 37 percent were in urban areas. Seattle became particularly popular after the release of "Finding Mr. Right," a 2013 Chinese film inspired by "Sleepless in Seattle," with Tom Hanks. Chinese buyers are heading east for a variety of reasons, including relative affordability, top performing public schools and proximity to the Chinese communities in Flushing, Queens, and Manhattan. The area also boasts waterfront access and the promise of fresh air. "New York City is the concrete jungle, much like Beijing or Shanghai. Long Island offers fresh air, no pollution, the waterfront," said Andrew Wu, an associate broker at Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty in Port Washington, N.Y. "If you have a home in China, that is one thing. But if you own a large home here, with a lot of land or a waterfront view, it is a true status symbol." Chinese buyers favor all cash deals approximately 76 percent of the Chinese purchases made in the last year were all cash, according to the National Association of Realtors. Using information gleaned from online listings and other resources, they are savvy bargainers, brokers say. "There is a fear in China that you could lose your wealth overnight," said Daniel Chang, a salesperson at Sotheby's International Realty who heads the Asia desk for the Field Team in Manhattan. "Most Chinese view real estate in the United States as a safe deposit box no one can take it away." While the influx of Chinese buyers is altering the makeup of towns along the North Shore of Long Island, the transition has been relatively smooth. Great Neck, for example, used to be heavily Persian Jewish, said Jennifer Lo, an associate broker with Douglas Elliman in Great Neck, N.Y., "but now there are so many Chinese coming they must be welcome." Still, sometimes minor misunderstandings do arise. Last year, Ms. Lo sold a five bedroom house on Long Island to a family from China. As soon as the deal closed, the new owners handed Ms. Lo the key and asked her to keep an eye on the place. "They told me they were returning to China and would not be back for two years," said Ms. Lo, incredulously. "I said, 'But what about the house and upkeep on the garden?' The wife suggested I pour cement over the grass, maybe turn it into a basketball court. I tried to explain this isn't how things are done on Long Island." Ms. Lo found a tenant to rent the house with the garden intact while the owners remained in China. A large subset of the Chinese buyers who are moving to Long Island are drawn by the public schools, and plan to stay put while their children grow up. "Many Chinese want a U.S. education," Ms. Lo said. "In China, there is so much competition, even to get into elementary school, and it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor." Chinese language schools have cropped up across the island, and some public school districts are nearly half Asian, with a mix of children born overseas and children born to Chinese American families. Theresa Wang was hoping to escape the pollution in Chengdu, China, where she is from, and to secure an American education for her daughter, Tian Tian, now 4, when she purchased a house in the exclusive town of Old Westbury in 2013. As is common with many Chinese families, Ms. Wang's husband remains in China for work, coming to visit from time to time. Ms. Wang's home is in the desirable Jericho Union Free School District, where the public high school is ranked 13th in New York State, according to U.S. News World Report. While Ms. Wang wants to remain within the Jericho school district, she has decided her home is too big for a family of two. The house has more than 7,000 square feet with six bedrooms, and four acres of grounds, with a tennis court and in ground swimming pool. She purchased it with some of the furnishings, including the oil painting of a hunting dog above the fireplace in the den, and the complex audiovisual equipment in the media room that she has never used. "I loved this house when I first came, but it is too large for us," said Ms. Wang, who is hoping to move to a more manageable home of around 5,000 square feet in a gated community that offers 24 hour security. Her home has a private gate, but no security guard. It is listed for 3.68 million. The price tag is purposeful the numbers 3, 6 and 8 are all considered lucky for the Chinese. "We actually have another property in Sands Point, and we also listed it at 3.68 million," said Mr. Wu, who is marketing the house with his partner, Tina Wang, a saleswoman at Daniel Gale Sotheby's. "We might soon list my mom's house, and I'm thinking we will ask the same price." Choosing numbers thought of as lucky is widely embraced as a way to attract Chinese buyers. At the Estates at Green Fields, a new development in Old Brookville, the number 4 does not appear anywhere. That is because it is considered extremely unlucky, as the sound for 4 is similar in Chinese to the word for death. On the even side of the street, the addresses jump from No. 2 to No. 6. Conversely, 8, considered the luckiest number because it is a homophone for the word for prosperity, is nearly everywhere. "Most of our homes are between 8,000 and 8,888 square feet, and the asking price has to have an 8 in it," said Raymond Hakimian, who with his father owns the project's developer, the Mashady Development Corporation of Roslyn, N.Y. Feng shui, a system for creating a harmonious environment, was a guiding principle for the design of the Estates at Green Fields, where houses cost 5 million and higher. For example, Mr. Hakimian said, most face the preferred direction, south, letting in more sunlight, and none of the front doors open directly onto a staircase, which is considered unfortunate because of the belief that the energy from the stairs could easily run out of the house through the front door. He recalled showing a property to a couple from China. "They were going gaga over the house; they brought their children to see it," Mr. Hakimian said. "Then their father came with a compass, and the house happened to be facing north. Even though they had been willing to pay full price, they told me it was simply facing the wrong way." He built them another house. "We are taking our marketing to Chinese buyers extremely seriously," said Roberta Feuerstein, an associate broker at Douglas Elliman, who is marketing the Estates at Green Fields and who created a virtual tour of the development in Chinese. So far, the strategies have been a success. "My last two buyers were both executives in China, and they just came, sat down and wrote a check," Ms. Feuerstein said, adding she is about to close a third sale, also to a Chinese buyer. While incorporating tenets of feng shui into a house's design can be an important selling point for some Chinese buyers, others do not seem to care. "Most of the larger purchases we do are really more a land buy, where the buyer plans to tear down the house and rebuild it to his tastes," said Jason Friedman, an agent at Laffey Fine Homes on Long Island, who, along with his mother and partner, Rudi Friedman, has sold three trophy estates, ranging from 13.28 million to 36.5 million, to Chinese buyers in recent years. "About half of our buyers are Asian," Mr. Friedman said. "I had one buyer who never saw the house before he bought it he came to the closing at the lawyer's office, which was in the same town, but hadn't even seen the home." Regardless of design specifications or intention, Chinese buyers are wielding increasing power on Long Island. "After someone has worked hard their entire life, and after they bought the beautiful home in China, where do they go? Usually Hong Kong, then London and New York City," said Kevin B. Brown, a senior global real estate adviser and an associate broker for Sotheby's International Realty in Manhattan. "Now they are thinking, where else?" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
TAMPA, Fla. As the Yankees' pitchers and catchers reported to spring training on Wednesday, they had plenty to be excited about. With their talented roster largely healed from the injury nightmare that was the 2019 season, and the addition of perhaps baseball's best pitcher in Gerrit Cole, the Yankees entered camp as the favorites to win the 2020 World Series just a touch ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers. But on Day 1 of spring training, they weren't quite ready to talk optimism and championship dreams. They still had some grievances to air. Like everyone around the baseball world and beyond, Yankees players and coaches have spent much of the off season watching the fallout from the Houston Astros' electronic sign stealing scandal. And as they reconvened here this week for the first time since being eliminated by the Astros in the American League Championship Series last fall, Manager Aaron Boone said it was important for any of his players who wanted to get something off their chests to do so now. Some, Boone said, had already done so over the winter, in text messages or conversations with him. "The range of emotions has been huge," he said on Wednesday. "You're mad, frustrated, disappointed." Because the Yankees have been processing the Astros scandal and the what ifs for weeks, Boone said some players had already moved on, while others still wanted to voice their feelings. He added, "But at some point, very soon, it'll be important for me that we move forward." 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. Soon after Commissioner Robert Manfred issued his report on the scandal and punished the Astros, C. C. Sabathia, the longtime Yankees starter who retired after last season, said he felt he and his teammates had been cheated out of a World Series by the Astros, who also beat them in the 2017 A.L.C.S. Masahiro Tanaka, the normally reserved Yankees pitcher, agreed earlier this week. Gary Sanchez, the Yankees' starting catcher, and thus the person most responsible for helping protect his team's signs, said it was tough learning the truth about the Astros' schemes. "We thought we were doing things well, but they had something else to decipher what we were doing quickly," he said. Manfred's report said the Astros had illegally used a live video feed during games to decode opponents' signs and immediately communicate the next pitch to their hitters, sometimes by banging on a trash can. Sanchez said he might have heard those sounds during the 2017 season, but since he was only in his first full season in the major leagues, he didn't have much experience with sign stealing. Boone said he still wasn't sure the Astros did not use hidden buzzers to communicate the signs in 2019 a much discussed but unproven theory that emerged after Manfred's report. "That's certainly one of those great unknowns, and I've spent time, as I'm sure a lot of people have, wondering all the things that could've potentially been going on," Boone said, "and probably we'll never know for sure." Asked if he thought Jose Altuve knew which pitch was coming when he slammed a game winning home run off Aroldis Chapman in Game 6 of the 2019 A.L.C.S., Sanchez said he wasn't sure. But he offered one humorous thought on a scene that has spurred much of the discussion of hidden buzzers: Altuve's refusal to let his teammates rip off his jersey in celebration after he hit that homer a clue to Astros doubters that Altuve had something hidden underneath. (Altuve has denied using a buzzer.) "If I hit a home run at Yankee Stadium to send my team to the World Series, if they want to, they can take off everything, even my pants," Sanchez said, laughing. Luis Severino, the Yankees pitcher who allowed six runs in 13 postseason innings against the Astros in 2017 and 2019, said he was angry when he first learned of the cheating, especially because he had spent so much time trying to figure out if he was tipping his pitches. But he struck a far more conciliatory tone on Wednesday. "They don't have to apologize to me," he said. He commended a former Astro, Marwin Gonzalez of the Minnesota Twins, for apologizing on Tuesday for his role in the cheating scheme. "For me, it's already in the past. I have to focus on 2020. Because we can get mad, we can get anything, but we can't change the past." Unlike Severino, Boone was still wrestling with those events. Boone, who took over as manager in 2018, said he still considered three central figures of the scandal A.J. Hinch, the former Astros manager; Carlos Beltran, a former Astros player and a Yankees special assistant last year; and Alex Cora, a former Astros coach and Boone's former ESPN colleague to be his friends. Boone even briefly texted with Hinch after the allegations surfaced, he said. But Boone admitted he might never fully come to peace with his emotions about the scandal and those three men. "As human beings, we all fall down and all fall short," he said. The Yankees were bounced in recent years from the playoffs not only by the Astros but also by the Boston Red Sox, who are currently under investigation by M.L.B. for illegal sign stealing as well. Boone stopped short of blaming opponents' misdeeds for those early exits, though, saying the blame still lay with the Yankees. This season could end differently for one notable reason: Cole, a former Astro. "We feel like we've been a championship caliber team now for a few years and have been knocking on that door," he said. "Haven't pushed through yet. Adding a guy like Gerrit, there's no running from the fact that this is an elite player and taken away from one of the teams that we've been competing with so heavily. So we're excited to have him and know what kind of impact he can potentially make." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
Christopher Gray's first job title after graduation was C.E.O. As the son of a single mother who lost her job during the recession, he knew he would need considerable financial aid to pay for college. After seven strenuous months of searching for scholarships, dodging scams and writing (and recycling) essays on leadership and community service, he raised 1.3 million. Then, as a student at Drexel University in Philadelphia, he turned his experience into a social enterprise an app called Scholly that matches students with a personalized list of scholarships. Scholly soared to No. 1 in the iOS App Store after Mr. Gray pitched it on "Shark Tank." In three years, Scholly has been downloaded over a million times and has helped students raise more than 50 million. Mr. Gray now 25, one of Forbes's "30 Under 30" and Oprah Winfrey's "SuperSoul 100" shares advice for students hoping to launch a sustainable social venture. Being from Birmingham, Ala., you tend to want to get out of Birmingham, Ala. I wanted to be a tech entrepreneur. I wanted to escape and get to a place where I could do that. My brother and sister were 4 and 2 at the time I was going to college. I wanted to break the cycle and create a better life for them. They now have someone they can see who's different than what's around them. All the success is just surreal, and it's emotional. When I started Scholly, my goal wasn't to make a billion dollars. It was to help a lot of people. Realizing there's a big market, that's when I knew this could be a business. At Drexel I was around a lot of kids who had different backgrounds. I saw, it's not just me. Both parents could make 100K, but they have three kids in college. They need scholarships, too. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Education |
Now Lives In a four bedroom apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn, with her three best friends. Claim to Fame Lil Freckles (her real name is Emma Carroll) is a pixie faced rapper whose unapologetic and raunchy lyrics betray the high low melodrama of millennial life. She has performed at the Cake Shop on the Lower East Side, the closing party for Tandem in Bushwick, the Woodstock Comedy Festival in Brooklyn, and the Fun Fun Fun Fest of music and comedy in Austin, Tex. Big Break Ms. Carroll graduated from Marymount Manhattan College in 2010 and was a production assistant on "Girls" when she began to take rap more seriously. "Everyone was very cool about the music, and Lena wrote me into a scene," she said, referring to Lena Dunham, the show's creator. Lil Freckles made her debut TV performance in the show's third season as the musical act that preceded Marnie and Desi in a scene filmed at Glasslands in Brooklyn. Latest Project Her second mixtape, "Sleep on It," written in collaboration with the hip hop artist Kyle Rapps (real name Kyle Sutton), was released in December. "I wrote one song at a time for about a year, about things that were going on in my life," she said. "The music is funny, but it's not a joke." She hopes the lyrics, which deal with friendship, family and feminism, as in the song "Feminist Kings," will resonate with all sorts of listeners. The tracks are also peppered with tongue in cheek samples of random cultural moments. "Our Mothers" begins with a few bars from "I Dreamed a Dream" from "Les Miserables." Midway through "Classic Case," there is an audio clip from the 1994 attack on the figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, when she wails, "Why? Why? Why?" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
DALLAS On the edge of downtown Dallas, the sleek, 17 story tower that is the new Parkland Hospital punctuates the pancake flat Texas landscape like a gleaming exclamation point. North of the city's main commercial hub, the sprawling county hospital, 2.5 million square feet with 862 beds, is scheduled for completion in late August. Once patients fill the hospital sometime next spring, the building may become a centerpiece for the area's evolving real estate market. "You can't spend 1.3 billion and not have an impact on the local real estate market. You just cannot," said John Wiley Price, Dallas County commissioner for the district. "We've already seen the effects with lofts, multipurpose housing and the kind of development we've not seen there in 15 to 20 years." The previous Parkland Memorial Hospital, built in 1954, had become outdated and crowded. With the city's population and medical needs growing, Dallas County approved a 747 million bond issue in November 2008 to build a new Parkland complex. In the summer of 2004, much of the 60 plus acres of industrial, urban property that the new Parkland now occupies was a brownfield, with a train car, an assembly plant, a fuel depot and a battery plant. "It was a wasteland," said Lou Saksen, senior vice president for new Parkland construction at the Parkland Health and Hospital System. The hospital bought those parcels over several years. "We've been landlocked since 1954," said Dr. Ron Anderson, the former chief executive of Parkland. "We learned that we really needed to be in the real estate business. We bought enough land so in the future we won't be landlocked." An elevated DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) light rail line stops directly in front of the new hospital, which some developers say may lure medical professionals and new employees to reside in the area. "You are going to see Parkland becoming the linchpin to creating a more vibrant district," said Joseph Cahoon, director of the Folsom Institute for Real Estate at the Cox School of Business of Southern Methodist University. "There are a growing number of health practitioners who will be able to live in the area. It's that live, work, play lifestyle that is now at arm's distance from the hospital. "The area has been an island and lacked any quality multifamily development. Now that's changing." Jorge Ramirez, 54, president of Mockingbird Venture Partners, said nine new multifamily buildings would add about 4,000 apartments to the area. Mr. Ramirez, whose firm owns and develops residential and commercial property in the construction site's vicinity, said he hoped that retail and commercial ventures would be inspired by the residential development, saying they usually "follow the rooftops." "It's almost like a brand new neighborhood," he said. How much of an effect the new Parkland hospital complex can have on the surrounding neighborhood remains a question. The existing commercial area is dotted with family and local restaurants, bodegas, auto related shops and other small businesses. Mr. Cahoon said that better restaurants were entering the adjacent area around Maple and Wycliff Avenues, but he added that he was not sure there was enough development and a customer base affluent enough to anchor a national retailer. A sizable Kroger supermarket built two years ago on a four acre site could represent evidence of the potential for more commercial expansion. "When you see national retailers like Kroger coming in, that is indicative of a demographic shift," Mr. Cahoon said. "It is a big stake in the ground." Dr. Fred Cerise, Parkland's new chief executive, likens the area's real estate prospects to what he saw recently in the 15 block area in New Orleans where a replacement is being built for Charity Hospital. "It was a very depressed area with a lot of vacant property," he said. "Now you see the development of apartment complexes, retail and stuff in that area; you see the beginning of that and it's a transformative project in that part of town." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
The coronavirus pandemic has silenced the Masters Tournament's resonant roars. It has erased the par 3 contest, drained the color from the wintering azaleas and brought brisk north winds into play for the first time. This week's tournament, rescheduled from the first major of the year to the last and stripped down to better safeguard the participants from the virus, is happening in one kind of bubble. But Augusta National has always existed in a bubble, a byproduct of a famously private club consolidating its influence and then enforcing it over the decades while maintaining practices that, throughout most of its storied history, were exclusionary and racist. The Masters, first played in 1934, didn't extend an invitation to a Black competitor until 1975. The club didn't admit its first Black member until 1990 and didn't offer membership to women until 2012. As host to what is considered the most prestigious event on the golf calendar, on the most exquisite course that money can maintain, Augusta National serves up a history that is Southern comfort food for the pilgrim's soul but leaves out the unappetizing bits. After a year characterized by widespread protests over racial inequality and amid an ongoing reckoning in America over race, Augusta National on Monday at last joined the conversation. The club announced plans to honor Lee Elder, who in 1975 became the first Black man to play in the Masters. On the 45th anniversary of his barrier breaking appearance, Elder was recognized with an invitation to become an honorary starter alongside the sport's elder statesmen and long serving curtain raisers, 85 year old Gary Player and 80 year old Jack Nicklaus. Fred Ridley, Augusta National's chairman, said Elder, 86, would join Player and Nicklaus for the ceremonial first tee shot next year, when he hopefully can be surrounded, and celebrated, by the tournament's customary complement of fans. "The opportunity to earn an invitation to the Masters and stand at that first tee was my dream, and to have it come true in 1975 remains one of the greatest highlights of my career and life," Elder said in a statement. "So to be invited back to the first tee one more time to join Jack and Gary for next year's Masters means the world to me." Ridley also revealed that the club would fund a women's golf program at Paine College, a historically Black college in Augusta, Ga., and endow two scholarships there in Elder's name, one to a student on the men's golf team and one to a student on the women's. In a statement, Ridley said the club had decided to recognize Elder's "courageous life" because of "all he has done in his career to help eliminate barriers and inspire Black men and women in the game of golf and beyond." Unspoken was the fact that Augusta National could have honored Elder five, 10 or 15 years ago. In choosing to do so now, the club appeared to be trying to catch the tail end of a wave of racial awakenings that spurred work stoppages across a variety of professional sports, forced the N.F.L. to publicly reverse its position on on field protests and led to the banning of the Confederate flag at NASCAR events. Yet golf, especially in America, has always been different. Historically it has practiced segregation by class, gender, race and religion. The Professional Golfers Association had a "Caucasian clause" from 1934 to 1961, which precluded nonwhites from becoming members. Augusta National's founders, the famed amateur Bobby Jones and the Wall Street broker Clifford Roberts, were both men of their times. In Golf Digest in 2017, Tom Callahan wrote that Jones and Roberts "might not have been any more bigoted than the average American born in 1894 or 1902, but neither was a champion of affirmative action." Callahan will get no argument from the family of Charlie Sifford, whose two PGA Tour victories, at the 1967 Greater Hartford Open and the 1969 Los Angeles Open, were not enough to gain him a start at the Masters. "He did everything that was required," said Sifford's son Charlie Jr., "and they kept changing the requirements." In 1983, Calvin Peete, the second Black golfer after Elder to compete in the Masters, was asked his opinion of the Masters traditions. "Till Lee Elder came, the only Blacks here were caddies and waiters," he said. "To ask a Black man how he feels about the traditions of the Masters is like asking him how he feels about his forefathers, who were slaves." One member, Lynn Swann, an N.F.L. Hall of Fame receiver and one time Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, demurred weeks ago when asked about the proposal to honor Elder. "The club has some histories and traditions and things that they follow," Swann said in a telephone interview. "I'm on a committee that does not look into those things." Wendell Haskins, who left his post as the diversity director for the PGA of America in 2017, first proposed making Elder an honorary starter at Augusta more than five years ago. But it wasn't until he got outside golf's bubble, he said, that he understood why he had not been able to make more inroads in the sport. This fall, Haskins enrolled in an online course through Cornell University to earn a diversity and inclusion certificate. One of the lessons, he said, was that meaningful diversity in any club or company can only happen when the people brought in are not expected to conform to the existing environment but are encouraged to add their unique perspective. Upon hearing the news that Augusta National had adopted his proposal, Haskins was reflective. "It's significant for Augusta National to be doing this at this moment in time," said Haskins, now the chief marketing officer of the Professional Collegiate League. "I think it's extremely special. I know it's going to mean a lot to the people of color who want to see more reflections of themselves in the game." Still, he remained dubious that the club's power brokers were committed to changing its culture. "What are they doing from this day forward to create a climate that is welcoming and comfortable and allowing people to be their authentic selves?" Haskins said. In 2008, Kenton Makin, who is Black, was assigned to cover the Masters for The Aiken Standard, a daily newspaper in South Carolina. He walked the grounds and noticed that most of the patrons, as the spectators are called, were white. And most of the people picking up the trash and serving him food in the media center were Black. "I felt that angst, that uncomfortability," Makin said. He was at the event again in 2012, he said, and hasn't been back since. Makin, who now hosts a podcast, said: "I call it 'that golf tournament.' The reason I call it 'that golf tournament' is I think calling it the Masters when you understand its sordid history, I think the Masters is in and of itself an ideology that literally ties back to white supremacy." If Augusta National's loblolly pines, some of which predate the Civil War, could talk, they would tell the story of a parcel of land that has gone from an indigo plantation in the middle of the 19th century to a private white men's society that reflected the racist mores of the 20th century to a private wealthy person's society in the 21st century that hosts the most prestigious golf tournament in the world, has Black and female members and now even oversees a women's amateur tournament. It was never going to be possible to move forward without revisiting the past. The initiatives that Ridley announced Monday may relieve the tension that has rippled just beneath the serene surface of the Masters, the tug and pull between people who revere Augusta National as a holy place and those who view it as a remnant of the country's segregationist history. But in honoring one Black player, it also shines a new light on those it continues to ignore. Jim Dent, 81, an Augusta native and Paine College alumnus, participated in his first Masters when he was 15 as a caddie, because that was the only avenue available to him at the time. He joined the PGA Tour at 31 without the benefit of a single lesson and, as a long hitting journeyman pro, inspired other Black players for parts of five decades while winning more than 500,000 on the tour and posting 12 victories on the 50 and older tour. Dent was to the '70s what Bryson DeChambeau is to 2020 a pro whose drives made jaws drop. In June, the entrance to the Augusta Municipal Golf Course was renamed Jim Dent Way to honor his contributions to the sport. Ira Miller, the general manager of the course, known affectionately as the Patch, would love to see Dent recognized in some way by Augusta National. "Jim is right here in the backyard," Miller said, adding, "What stops them from honoring him?" Sifford's son Charlie Jr. said his father, known to his family as Big Charlie, never set foot on the grounds of Augusta National before his death in 2015 at age 92. He could never get out of his head what he claimed Roberts had said: As long as Roberts was alive, all the caddies at Augusta National would be Black and all the players would be white. Roberts died in 1977 of a self inflicted gunshot wound. Sifford's nephew Chris Sifford traveled from his home in North Carolina to attend his first Masters some time ago. Walking the storied course, "I got goose bumps," he said. But as the day wore on and he took in the majesty of the grounds and the magnificence of the event, he thought of his uncle, and his ebullient mood soured. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
What Travelers Need to Know About the Paris Riots Incited by an impending rise in the gas tax and other economic issues, protesters in Paris, known as Yellow Vests for the neon yellow road workers' safety vests they wear, have been rioting, looting and setting cars on fire for the past three Saturdays. Here's what travelers to Paris can expect as a result of the turmoil, and some resources for travel advice and protection. What areas have been affected? Yellow Vest protests have occurred around the country, but have been concentrated in Paris, mostly on Saturdays. Though protest areas may shift, they have focused on the Champs Elysees, the Elysee Palace and other areas in the First, Eighth, 16th and 17th arrondissements. At least 13 metro stations were closed ahead of the protests last Saturday. Some cultural institutions near the demonstrations were closed pre emptively on Saturday, including the Arc de Triomphe and the Grand Palais, while others, like the Musee de l'Orangerie, closed some entrances. For now, the museums, shops and metros that were affected have all reopened, but protests, possibly violent ones, could continue on future Saturdays and force the shutdown of transportation, institutions and services. Travelers can follow the Prefecture de Police on Twitter and the website of the public transportation system known as the RATP for real time warnings and travel restrictions (in French only). What does the American government say? The Department of State's travel warning on France remains unchanged since Jan. 10, 2018. It stands at Level 2 (on a scale of 1 to 4), meaning "exercise increased caution" because of terrorism. The United States Embassy in Paris issued its own demonstration alert, warning of several protest locations, and advised avoiding turbulent areas and keeping a low profile. It also included a number of French media sites published in English where travelers can monitor the news. "We strongly encourage U.S. citizens who are in, or plan to travel to, France to enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program at step.state.gov to receive important emergency information, and follow us on twitter travelgov and Facebook for additional updates," wrote Marlo Cross Durrant, a spokes woman for the State Department, in an email. Known as S.T.E.P., the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program asks Americans to register their travel plans in the free program. In the case of emergency, including a natural disaster or civil unrest, the United States embassy in that country will get in touch directly with travel advice. Are there other sources for emergency notifications? Many security experts also advise checking the travel advice published by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of Britain. Its Dec. 3 update on France notes: "Protests against fuel prices continue across France, leading to blocked roads and motorways in some areas." For travelers seeking direct advisory service, the security firm Incident Management Group offers updates to subscribers of its app FoneTrac ( 15 for individuals for a month, no minimum term). Its updates on the Yellow Vest protests on Dec. 3 report roadblocks in the south of France and that demonstrations at Total fuel depots caused 75 stations to run out of gas, which was also reported by Reuters. I.M.G. advises avoiding large gatherings and overt signs of wealth, in stores, vehicles and upscale neighborhoods, as these have been targets of some protesters. Will travel insurance help in the case of riots? "The quick answer for trip cancellation is typically, no," said Stan Sandberg, the co founder of TravelInsurance.com, which compares and sells policies. "Civil unrest is typically spelled out as an exclusion in most plans." However, travelers in France who have already purchased travel insurance or those considering it for a future trip may find that their policy includes covering missed connections or travel delays. So, if a traveler is unable to get to an airport as planned because of subway or road closures related to the protests, then the policy holder may be able to file a claim for reimbursement. Another option for nervous travelers is a travel insurance upgrade known as "cancel for any reason." This allows travelers to cancel their trip up until about two or three days before departure without explaining why. Most policies have to be purchased within a few days or a few weeks of initially buying the trip. "Cancel for any reason can only be used prior to departure," said Jenna Hummer, a spokeswoman for Squaremouth, a travel insurance comparison website. It's also expensive. "It adds about 40 percent to a policy, which is based on trip cost," and reimburses 75 percent, generally, she added. But since insurance is regulated by states, some do not allow the provision, including New York, though it is available to residents in Connecticut and New Jersey. The tour company Eurobound said its business has been robust despite the unrest and hoteliers have said it's business as usual in France. In a statement, Marriott International wrote, "Due to demonstrations in the local area our hotels are open but operating with enhanced security." A spokes woman for Hilton Hotels Resorts said it too is, "closely monitoring events in Paris, and none of our hotels have experienced major disruptions to date. The safety and security of our guests and team members is our priority, and we urge guests to check local travel advice before they travel. Any individual booking enquiries should be directed to the hotel in question." Follow NY Times Travel on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Get weekly updates from our Travel Dispatch newsletter, with tips on traveling smarter, destination coverage and photos from all over the world. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
PIER PAOLO PASOLINI: A FUTURE LIFE, PART 1 at Metrograph (Jan. 4 10). The first weekend of this planned multipart retrospective on the Italian director, poet, author and theorist (1922 1975) centers a trilogy of literary adaptations ("The Decameron," "The Canterbury Tales" and "Arabian Nights") that he ultimately repudiated. It also includes the film that followed: "Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom" (on Friday and Saturday), which adapts a Marquis de Sade novel in the context of Fascist Italy. Notorious for its depictions of rape, torture and human feces repurposed as haute cuisine, the movie is a harrowing portrait of bodies in total service to a state. It's also must see Pasolini or at least the most difficult Pasolini to un see. 212 660 0312, metrograph.com THE SOPRANOS FILM FESTIVAL at SVA Theater and IFC Center (Jan. 9 14). To celebrate the 20th anniversary of "The Sopranos," this festival will host discussions with the series' creators as well as screenings of movies that influenced the landmark HBO show from the obvious ("Goodfellas," showing on Jan. 12) to the perhaps less well known ("Trees Lounge," directed by Steve Buscemi, playing on Jan. 13). 212 924 7771, ifccenter.com TO SAVE AND PROJECT: THE 16TH MOMA INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF FILM PRESERVATION at the Museum of Modern Art (Jan. 4 31). Technically, MoMA's annual bonanza of newly preserved films opens this Friday, but it seems more proper to think of the first week's offerings as an aperitif, because they focus almost entirely on one filmmaker, Barbet Schroeder ("Single White Female") and specifically on his documentaries. These include up close looks at the Uganda dictator Idi Amin ("General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait," on Saturday and Tuesday) and at Jacques Verges ("Terror's Advocate," on Saturday and Wednesday), a French lawyer famous for defending clients like the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal. On a lighter note, in "Koko: A Talking Gorilla" (showing in the program on Friday and Tuesday), the director captures the interactions of the celebrated western lowland gorilla Koko, who had an apparent facility for sign language (and who died in June). 212 708 9400, moma.org | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
Does it matter which doormat you choose? Actually, it does because a doormat does more than just scrub the bottom of your shoes. "It really sets the tone when you come to someone's front door," said Garrow Kedigian, an interior designer in New York. So style matters: "It's a crucial first hint to the personality of the person who lives in the house," he said. At Mr. Kedigian's apartment in Manhattan, for instance, the first thing visitors see is a doormat made from coconut husk fibers with a Greek key border. "It's classic," he said, and it nods to his love of antiques and traditional style. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
"Chirp," "Maybe He Just Likes You" and "When You Know What I Know" are among the middle grade books published over the past 12 months whose plots range from nonconsensual touching to sexual assault. When Kate Messner read the testimonies of the gymnasts abused by Larry Nassar, she was struck by his behavior early on: giving the girls little gifts and back rubs, or sending them private texts. It got her thinking. "What if we could teach kids to recognize this and speak up, and tell us when someone made them uncomfortable?" she said. "And then, what if we really listened?" The idea informed Messner's latest novel, "Chirp," about a young gymnast reckoning with the inappropriate behavior of an assistant coach during a summer at her grandmother's cricket farm. "There's no explicit sexual assault in the story," since it is written for 10 to 14 year olds, she said. "It's all what we would look at, what experts would look at, and say, 'That's somebody grooming a child.'" "Chirp" is one of several middle grade books typically geared toward children from 8 to 12 published over the past year that address sexual consent, abuse and harassment, subjects previously considered off limits for such young readers. Others include "Maybe He Just Likes You," about a seventh grader harassed by male classmates; "When You Know What I Know," about a girl's emotional journey after she is inappropriately touched by her uncle; and "The Ship We Built," about a transgender boy who sends his secrets, including how his father hurts him, off to the world in the form of letters tied to balloons. "Fighting Words," about two sisters who must learn to protect each other after escaping their mother's abusive boyfriend, is due out in August. The writers were inspired by personal experiences with harassment or abuse, but the MeToo movement added a sense of urgency to telling their stories. "I had no plans to write anything about it anytime soon a year and a half ago," said Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, the author of "Fighting Words." But reading the barrage of reports of sexual assault and harassment in the fall of 2018, she become angrier and angrier at how little had changed since her childhood, when she had experienced abuse. "I just sort of had had enough," she said. She wrote 40 pages of the novel in one sitting, and though she knew it was a taboo subject, she felt sure this was "the hill I was willing to die on." Young adult books, geared toward teenagers, have long explored topics such as sexual violence, but middle grade writers have largely steered clear because of resistant parents and publishers wary of scaring them off. Yet a range of research and data show that many children are exposed to sexual harassment or abuse. In a 2016 study published in Children and Youth Services Review, a third of sixth graders and more than half of seventh graders reported having experienced some form of sexualized harassment, most commonly in the form of lewd comments or jokes, with girls more likely to be on the receiving end than boys. According to the anti sexual violence group Rainn, child protective services in the United States find evidence of or substantiate sexual abuse claims every nine minutes. "We're waiting until they're in high school to have conversations around harassment and sexualized mistreatment," said Lisa Damour, an author and clinical psychologist who specializes in the experiences of teenage and young girls, but by then, "the topic is three or four years old." There's a benefit, she said, in "talking about these things in a controlled or displaced way before they arrive in real life." For Barbara Dee, the author of "Maybe He Just Likes You," it was Christine Blasey Ford's 2018 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that prompted her to consider the roots of inappropriate behavior, and she pinpointed middle school as a time when harassment became the norm. "Maybe He Just Likes You" focuses on this experience through a young girl trying to make sense of male peers' extra long hugs and other nonconsensual touching, and their dismissive reactions when she calls them out. Since publishing her book last fall, "I am hearing from kids about things that happened to them at school that they never had the words for," Dee said. "Now they know that they can use a word like 'sexual harassment' or 'consent' or 'boundaries.'" While the other recently published books focus on abuse of children by adults, she focused on harassment by other children to convey how such behavior becomes normalized. Bean's book, written from the perspective of a trans child who is abused by a family member, is based on their own experience. "I wanted to offer the internal world of these experiences because they run so deep," Bean said. "They become a part of the walls. They become a part of the toys that witness you." Sonja Solter, whose debut book "When You Know What I Know" portrays a girl's experience of being molested by her uncle, said that having this type of book earlier might have helped her recognize her own experience. "Our discomfort with the fact that it exists as a horrible problem can spill out over onto survivors and them being able to speak out," Solter said. "That's really what I'm hoping can be broken for these types of stories." Black girls face both racism and sexism, and "So Done," Paula Chase's 2018 novel, explores that double bind. The book portrays a friendship between two girls that is compromised after one of them is touched by the other's father. "There's this phenomenon that sort of happens with black girls," Chase said. "People tend to adult them too fast." Not every reader thinks children should be reading about sexual abuse or harassment. A "Chirp" review on Goodreads, for example, called the book well written but said "I'm not a huge one overly fond of folks jumping on the bandwagon of the metoo thing. I also don't think it needs to be shoved in younger kids faces." The challenge for middle grade writers is depicting reality in an age appropriate way. "You need to have a light touch," said Dee, who wrote "Maybe He Just Likes You." "You need to use humor. You need to weave in other themes." The main character in "Chirp" is trying to solve a mystery on her grandmother's farm. And Solter said it was important for her to focus on the emotional fallout of the abuse rather than the act itself. "Really, for the survivor, this emotional journey is their journey," she said. Writers like Jacqueline Woodson and Laurie Halse Anderson, whose 1999 novel "Speak" is considered a landmark Y.A. book on sexual assault, "have really been knocking at that door for a long time and banging the drum to talk about this stuff," Messner said. "I think it has inched that door open, so that now more of us are able to raise these issues for younger readers." Woodson's book, "I Hadn't Meant to Tell You," is about two 12 year old girls who find a safe harbor in each other amid issues at home, but despite its protagonists' age, it was categorized as Y.A. when it was published in 1994 for its treatment of sexual assault. Attitudes are shifting, however, on sensitive topics in middle grade literature L.G.B.T.Q. issues, for instance, were once taboo but have become more common. Messner said that she encountered pushback when discussing her 2016 book "The Seventh Wish," which deals with drug addiction, in schools, but audiences have been more receptive to "Chirp" and some even wanted to share it with readers younger than middle grade. That doesn't mean these books need to be required reading for everyone. "I think people tend to know their kids well and should trust their gut," Damour said. She recommends parents read the books first to ensure the content makes sense for their child. Wendy Lamb, who edited Woodson's book, said she sees a change in the message of these newer books. "Today's books are saying there is more help from authorities and understanding adults," she said. "There are more resources in your family, in your community, for you." This is reflected in the final scenes of "Chirp," when the protagonist, Mia, hears from adults what children who are victimized need to know: "It's his fault. No one else's," and "You were brave to speak up." Messner was trying to depict a reality in which kids felt safe using their voices. "Writing a story like this," she said, "is a way for us to rewrite the script the way it should've gone." Follow New York Times Books on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, sign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar. And listen to us on the Book Review podcast. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
On Friday, a team of Russian scientists published the first report on their Covid 19 vaccine, which had been roundly criticized because of President Vladimir Putin's decision last month to approve it before clinical trials had proved it safe and effective. In a small group of volunteers, the scientists found that the vaccine produced a modest level of antibodies against the coronavirus, while causing only mild side effects. The research has not yet shown, however, whether people who are vaccinated are less likely to become infected than those who are not. In August, Mr. Putin announced with great fanfare that the vaccine called Sputnik V "works effectively enough" to be approved. He declared its approval to be a "very important step for our country, and generally for the whole world." But vaccine developers denounced the decision, observing that no data had been published on the vaccine. In addition, the critics pointed out, the Russian scientists had yet to run a large trial of tens of thousands of people, which is required to demonstrate that a vaccine works. The new paper, published in the Lancet, contains the first batch of public data from Sputnik V's clinical trials. Independent scientists were impressed by the rigor of the work. "The science looks like it was done impeccably well," said Naor Bar Zeev of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who is the co author of a commentary on the new paper. Still, he cautioned that no one will know if Sputnik V is safe and effective until the larger trials are completed. "We should welcome a Russian vaccine if it's successful, and we should welcome other vaccines if they're successful," Dr. Bar Zeev said. "But they should all be equally rigorously evaluated." Researchers at the Gamaleya Research Institute in Moscow used a design for the vaccine that they had previously developed and tested for MERS, a disease caused by another coronavirus. The Sputnik V vaccine stimulates the immune system by coaxing a person's cells to make a protein normally found on the coronavirus that causes Covid 19. The researchers loaded the gene for this viral protein into a second virus, called an adenovirus. When injected into the arm, the adenovirus slips into muscle cells. It has been genetically engineered so that it cannot make copies of itself or cause illness. But once it delivers the coronavirus gene into a cell, the cell starts making the protein. Similar adenovirus based vaccines are also being tested by several other teams, including AstraZeneca, CanSinoBio and Johnson Johnson. Each team is testing a different strain of adenovirus. Unlike the rest, the Russian team is combining two adenoviruses into one vaccine. For their initial clinical trial, the Gamaleya researchers gave volunteers an initial shot of an adenovirus called Ad26, and then, three weeks later, a shot of one known as Ad5. In the Lancet paper, the researchers said that they tested the vaccine on hamsters and monkeys. They claimed the animals were protected against the coronavirus without any harmful side effects but did not present any data about these studies in their new paper. Who should get a booster shot? It depends, Dr. Scott Gottlieb says. The trial they ran on human volunteers was what's known as a Phase 1 / 2 trial. It was small: Only 40 volunteers received the full vaccine with both kinds of adenoviruses. No one received a placebo. By comparison, the Chinese firm CanSinoBio ran a Phase 1 / 2 trial that included 382 people who received the vaccine and another 126 who were given a placebo. The Russian vaccine produced mild symptoms in a number of subjects, the most common of which were fevers and headaches. Other adenovirus based vaccines have produced similar side effects. "You expect to have some symptoms that's normal," Dr. Bar Zeev said. The researchers found that volunteers who received the full vaccine produced antibodies that could block the virus from replicating in cells. To gauge the performance of their vaccine, the Russian researchers compared the level of antibodies with samples taken from people who had recovered from natural infections of Covid 19. Convalescent plasma, as these samples are known, contain antibodies to the virus that people make on their own. In the paper, the researchers said that vaccinated people had the same levels of antibodies as those found in convalescent plasma. Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University who was not involved in the study, said the vaccine produced "good antibody levels in all volunteers." But in a news release, the Gamaleya Institute implied that its vaccine was superior to AstraZeneca's. It said that the level of antibodies from vaccinated volunteers was "1.4 1.5 times higher than the level of antibodies of patients who had recovered from Covid 19." AstraZeneca, they claimed, only produced antibody levels equal to that in convalescent plasma. It is not clear why the paper presents a different picture. The authors of the study did not respond to a request for comment. John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York who was not involved in the study, said that it was too early to make any meaningful comparisons among the various Covid 19 vaccines. Each team uses different tests to measure antibody levels. And each group of recovered patients they study for convalescent plasma may have different levels of antibodies. "We have long been suffering from the apples versus oranges scenario, but now we're into fruit salad territory, and it drives me bananas trying to figure it all out," he said. One thing is clear, however: No Phase 1 / 2 trial can demonstrate protection against Covid 19. That requires a so called Phase 3 trial, in which a large number of volunteers are given either a vaccine or a placebo. A Phase 3 trial can also reveal harmful side effects missed by small preliminary studies. In their paper, the Russian scientists wrote that they got approval on Aug. 26 to run a Phase 3 trial on 40,000 people. There are seven other vaccines currently in these late stage trials. Johnson Johnson is expected to start its own Phase 3 trial later this month, and Novavax is expected to start its own in October, bringing the total to 10. Phase 3 trials can take months to yield clear results, Dr. Bar Zeev said, and even then they have to be carefully reviewed before any decision is made about using a vaccine widely. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Are you out of your mind to even consider buying a foreclosed property right now? Todd Phelps and Paul Whitehead didn't think they were last month when they were the winning bidders in a foreclosure auction on the steps of the main Riverside, Calif., county courthouse. They thought they had won the lottery. For years, they had been living in a rent controlled apartment in Santa Monica and waiting out the housing bubble in hopes of buying a weekend getaway in the Palm Springs area. And on Sept. 10, they thought they had finally done it, getting a house for 137,000. Several days later, however, they realized that what they had really bought was a second mortgage from Wachovia on a house that still had an enormous, unpaid primary loan. In other words, they did not own the home free and clear, and the auction company wouldn't give back their 137,000 check. The tale is certainly enough to give anyone pause, especially as several banks slow or halt their foreclosure proceedings amid questions about how they cut corners to speed up the process. Still, roughly half the recent home sales in hard hit states like California, Arizona and Nevada have been foreclosures or short sales, according to RealtyTrac. Anyone wanting to buy homes in those and other states hit hard by the housing crisis will probably encounter these sorts of properties. And the houses will be tempting for scores of first time homebuyers, second home seekers and people looking to get an early jump on buying a retirement home while prices and interest rates are low. So given the pitfalls, are they crazy? The answer is no, not always. But it's important to keep something in mind. "The whole foreclosure process is adversarial, even though it's nonjudicial in many areas," said Tom Cahraman, the presiding judge in Riverside County. "One person is losing their home, and another person is trying to get a new home at a discount price." THE LOAN First of all, many banks that own foreclosed properties would prefer that you stay far away from their listings. In fact, they may sell a property for less money to an investor who can pay all cash. You, on the other hand, will probably need a mortgage, and your need for bank approval can delay the sales process because your lender may hesitate when you say you're interested in a foreclosed property. "Lenders will usually only give you a loan on homes that are pretty ready to be lived in," said Andy Tolbert of Oneir HD Realty in Longwood, Fla., who represents buyers shopping for foreclosed and other homes and invests in distressed property herself. "If the carpet is ripped out and the toilets are missing, they are not going to give the loan." This is especially important to consider if you're using a Federal Housing Administration or Veterans Administration loan, where there may be particularly stringent requirements. "I have seen V.A. lenders require torn carpet to be repaired or replaced because they see it as a hazard to the new occupants," said Mike Goblet, a mortgage broker with United Mortgage Financial Group in Mesa, Ariz. There are some exceptions. The F.H.A. offers a mortgage called a 203(k) that may allow you to borrow money to buy and substantially rehabilitate a foreclosed property. But it could take a while to find a bank that offers the loan and to get your project approved. Some sellers, meanwhile, won't let you buy with F.H.A. loans. THE AUCTION PROCESS Foreclosure auctions can be a dangerous place for people who don't know what they're doing or are relying on help from people who are sloppy or negligent. They considered suing the broker, but first turned to the auction company, Executive Trustee Services, a unit of GMAC Mortgage (one of the companies that suspended many foreclosures in recent weeks). At the company's Burbank, Calif., office, a representative told Mr. Phelps that all sales were final and that Executive Trustee was merely a middleman. Mr. Phelps asked for further documentation and was told that he could have it when he returned with a subpoena. Classy, no? Gina Proia, a spokeswoman for the company, did not respond to requests for comment. The couple also wrote plaintive letters to executives at Wachovia, now part of Wells Fargo, because both defaulted loans attached to the home they were trying to buy came from that bank. (The auction company was working on the bank's behalf.) After a couple of rounds of e mail and phone inquiries on my part, the bank decided to give Mr. Phelps and Mr. Whitehead their money back. "Given the circumstances, we have decided to rescind the sale on the property and return the funds to the buyers," Vickee J. Adams, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman, wrote in an e mail on Friday. Meanwhile, the couple, having nearly lost most of their life savings, now realize that they were in way over their heads bidding for homes at auction and were lucky to get their money back. "Trust no one," Mr. Phelps said. "We didn't get involved when the market was going crazy and everyone was getting subprime mortgages, and we felt like we were smart and that this was our reward for sitting on the sidelines. But there are enough bargains to be had on a straight sale." THE INSPECTION Let's say you do manage to get a loan, resist the auctions and take the straight sale approach, shopping through a real estate agent. You'll want to make any bid for a home contingent on a thorough inspection from someone familiar with foreclosed properties. Mold may be your first concern, especially in more humid climates, given that many foreclosed homes have been uninhabited for months. Then there's sabotage. You should arrange (or have the real estate agent arrange) to have the power and water turned back on before the inspection if possible. Why? The previous owner (or vandals who have been in the home since) may have cut wires behind walls or poked holes in pipes in various places. Having running water and power can make these things easier to detect. The pour concrete down the toilet trick is one that most good inspectors know to look for. But Jon Bolton of The Inspectagator in Oviedo, Fla., recently ran into a bit of destructive ingenuity he'd never encountered. "Someone went on the roof with a bag of cement and dropped it down the chimney," he recalled. "It rained, and now you have a solid block of concrete somewhere where it's extremely difficult to get in to break it up. That's just wrong." Also, don't forget to inspect the minutes of the condominium board or homeowners' association, if there is one. It may be in deep financial trouble if other foreclosures have occurred. Ms. Tolbert says that a good title insurer may be able to help with contacts if you have no luck finding the manager or treasurer on your own. THE TITLE INSURANCE Speaking of which, title insurance is a must, particularly now. In the unlikely event that a former owner somehow wins back rights to the foreclosed home you end up buying and then tries to kick you out, you will need to make a title insurance claim. And if you plan to put a lot of money into fixing up the home, you'll want to ask about a rider on the insurance policy that can cover you for more than what you paid to buy the property. THE WAITING GAME Still worried about the prospect of former owners showing up someday and asking for their home back? Cyd Weeks, a real estate agent with Palmcoasting.com in Palm Coast, Fla., suggests waiting a few months before trying to buy a foreclosed home. Now that all eyes are on the foreclosure process, he said, homes coming on the market early next year will probably have been foreclosed upon with much more care and precision. Indeed, Ms. Weeks's tip suggests a larger point. Given the foreclosure moratorium that some banks have put in place and the lengthy investigations and lawsuits that are sure to follow, there is no rush to buy as long as you don't have to move or if renting is an option. Take your time. Assemble a panel of experts and apprentice yourself to them. And watch the listings carefully. For better or for worse, foreclosed properties are going to be available for a very, very long time. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Your Money |
Announcer: "Live from Los Angeles, it's the 71st Emmys." "Step out of line, ladies. Step out of line." cheering and applause "It's just really wonderful to know, and reassuring, that a dirty, pervy, angry, messed up woman can make it to the Emmys." "But most importantly, this is for the men that we know as the Exonerated Five." cheering and applause "It's for Raymond, Yusef, Antron, Kevin and King Korey Wise." "I count myself so fortunate to be a member of a community that is nothing but all about tolerance and diversity, because no other place could I be standing on a stage." "James Baldwin said: 'Took many years of vomiting up all the filth that I had been taught about myself and halfway believed before I could walk around this earth like I had the right to be here.'" "Well now, this is just getting ridiculous. 'Fleabag' started as a one woman show in Edinburgh Festival 2014, and the journey has been absolutely mental." "These last 10 years have been the best years of our lives. And for everyone who worked with us on it, I can't believe we finished it. I can't believe we did it. We did it all together and it's over." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
Medvedev Spurred Cheers and Jeers at the Last U.S. Open. Now, He'll Just Play. None The piped in crowd noise at this fan free United States Open won't be anything near the shouts some of joy, some of fury generated last year by Daniil Medvedev. He antagonized the crowd in his third round win over Feliciano Lopez, basking in boos that he encouraged during his on court interview. Then he battled to the fifth set of the final against Rafael Nadal, and had New York in the pocket of his Lacoste shorts. For Medvedev, it was "a great roller coaster" that showed the different sides of his personality. "I didn't try to, say, 'OK, sorry, guys, that was not me.' I did mistakes; I admit it. But that's me," Medvedev said. "And then, finally by fighting, playing good tennis, maybe being funny, but again, not being another person, not trying to hide something, they were cheering me at the end." With Nadal not competing in this U.S. Open, the third seeded Medvedev stands apart as an obvious threat to return to the final, where he could face top seeded Novak Djokovic, who has not lost a match this year. Medvedev cruised in his first round match on Tuesday, beating Federico Delbonis 6 1, 6 2, 6 4. Though there was no crowd to please, Medvedev still pulled off an impressive no look passing shot for his own amusement. Medvedev's second round opponent will be Christopher O'Connell, who is ranked No. 116. Medvedev's run to the U.S. Open final, along with titles in two other big tournaments around that time, helped vault him into the top five in the men's ranking. His success in New York was no fluke, even though his unusual wielding of his lanky limbs can make his laser shots look lucky. "You wouldn't say from a tennis coach's perspective that he is an ideal player for his shots, but he does everything so well," said Aljaz Bedene, who lost to Medvedev last week in the third round of the Western Southern Open. "He moves well, he serves well, he's tall. Even if his shots look odd at times, he hits everything so well." Tennys Sandgren, a 2018 and 2020 Australian Open quarterfinalist, recalled marveling at Medvedev the first time he saw him, on a practice court in Lyon, France, three years ago. "He was hitting them so hard and so flat," Sandgren said. "I was like: 'What is this? What are these levers moving this way?'" Medvedev's coach, Gilles Cervara, said that "Daniil has this unusual technique because of his unusual body." "The technique works with his body, his biomechanics, and also his psychology and mentality," Cervara added. "It's a system: All four things go into that technique." Djokovic, who lost twice last year to Medvedev and won a bruising four set match against him at the Australian Open, said that despite "not the best looking technique" on his forehand, Medvedev's unshakable backhand makes engaging him in metronomic rallies a mistake. "It's kind of cat and mouse when you play him," Djokovic said. "You're really trying to change the depth and not just go kind of left right, because he likes the rhythm." Medvedev did not play any of the exhibition events held during the tour's five month stoppage, but looked sharp in his three matches last week at the Western Southern Open. He led Roberto Bautista Agut, 6 1, 4 3, before losing their quarterfinal. "My muscles are going to learn from it," Medvedev said after that loss. "They are going to remember what it is to play these tough matches." Aside from his practices, Medvedev got his competitive kicks during the tour stoppage by playing a mobile trivia game, only ever wanting to compete against other people. He excelled, fittingly, on questions in the sports category. (He enjoyed watching hockey, snooker and other sports with his father when he was a child.) On the court, Medvedev can generate showstopping speed, even catching opponents off guard when they think the point has been won. "We've seen highlights where players stopped playing and he still got there and won the point," Bedene said of Medvedev. "It's amazing. Besides having a strong serve, his movement is above any others." Medvedev said it was too bad fans would not be able to react to his game in person in New York because he thought he had done enough to win them over. "Of course, it's going to be really sad without the New York crowd," Medvedev said of playing this year. "Because I think at the end of what happened that this year they would be a lot for me, I hope." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
Another kind of Brexit: Ruth Mackenzie, the British artistic director of the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, was fired on Thursday. PARIS Since Ruth Mackenzie, the British artistic director of the storied Theatre du Chatelet, was abruptly fired last Thursday, two very different perspectives have emerged. Media coverage in France has focused on allegations that theater employees were unhappy with Mackenzie's leadership style, and felt bullied. Her command of French hadn't improved enough since she took over during the Chatelet's recent renovation in 2017, according to the newspaper Le Figaro, and she was accused of outsourcing work and driving staff members away. On the whole, English language outlets have been more sympathetic. In an interview with The Guardian Mackenzie, who was the first non French artistic director at the Chatelet, speculated that sexism and xenophobia had played a part in her firing. French theater is elitist and reticent to change, she said. Both points of view may well be true, but there is something else to consider in this dispute: the cultural differences between Mackenzie, a product of British theater, and the arts establishment in France. An open letter signed by 60 high profile artists and administrators in Europe and the United States was published on Tuesday by the French magazine La Lettre du Musicien, and is set to appear in English in The Guardian: It states that Mackenzie "broke boundaries" at the Chatelet and that the signers stand "in solidarity" with her. One name among them caught the eye: Chris Dercon. In 2018, his tenure as director of the Volksbuhne theater in Berlin also ended bitterly, after only six months. Dercon, a former director of museums including Tate Modern in London, resigned after protests over his decision to refocus the former East German playhouse on visiting international productions. There, as in Paris, globalization was criticized as a threat to local artistic traditions. Dercon is now based here in Paris, where he oversees a range of prominent exhibition spaces as the president of the Reunion des Musees Nationaux Grand Palais. But theater isn't the art world, which has adjusted to a global market. Language is a factor: Most theater productions don't travel as easily as visual artworks. The vast majority of top French directors are unknown abroad. Like German companies, they operate mainly within a local ecosystem, with its own history and conventions. Coming in as an outsider isn't impossible the Swiss director Milo Rau has been successful so far at NTGent, in Belgium, for instance but it requires serious diplomacy. Like Dercon, Mackenzie also made some costly mistakes early on. One was to introduce herself with "DAU," an immersive work staged while the Chatelet was still under renovation in 2019. Riddled with technical and ethical issues, it was an exclusive rather than inclusive choice. The Chatelet then reopened last September with "Parade," a production consistent with Mackenzie's outlook that featured mainly international companies alongside local amateurs. There is nothing inherently wrong with that choice, except that, in displacing paid French workers, it doesn't gel with the country's values. Mackenzie herself knows this: "In the U.K. it's completely accepted and normal that you can involve unpaid community members in the arts," she told The Guardian. "In France, you have to protect the paid professionals. It's the sort of argument you'd hear in the U.K. 30 years ago." There are reasons her stance was resisted: The relative protection enjoyed by professional artists in the country is hard won. Mackenzie frames this as a backward cultural quirk that she was going to fix. It's no wonder many felt a sense of disconnect. Whoever was advising Mackenzie on the subtleties of French workplace culture also did a dismal job. Le Figaro's report said Mackenzie spoke "incomprehensible Franglais," hired "Anglo Saxon freelancers" instead of relying on her in house team and didn't spend enough time in Paris. In a country where proper etiquette and hierarchy remain key in most working environments, an incoming foreign director should have been better supported. Still, her instant firing is extraordinary by French standards. An underperforming artistic director in the United States might not be surprised if they were asked to vacate their office immediately, but job security is almost a sacred right in France. Even in cases of harassment or discrimination within publicly funded institutions, national and local authorities have been very reluctant to suspend or remove artists and administrators. Just think of the case of Yorgos Loukos, the former director of the Lyon Opera Ballet: It took six years and two court trials for pregnancy discrimination before he was fired earlier this year. Did Mackenzie's status as a foreigner play a part in the decision by the Chatelet's board to sack her, with the support of city officials? It's worth asking whether an established French director, with political clout and roots in the local theater scene, would have suffered the same fate. Major arts appointments are heavily influenced by elected officials in France: The new director of the Paris Opera, Alexander Neef, had to interview with President Emmanuel Macron for that job. Having spent her career abroad, perhaps Mackenzie didn't have the connections that might have protected her; her co director, Thomas Lauriot dit Prevost, a long serving French employee of the Chatelet, remains in his position. As with Benjamin Millepied, who directed the Paris Opera Ballet from 2014 to 2016 and was also criticized for being too "Anglo Saxon" in his approach, Mackenzie's outspoken stance on diversity proved a lightning rod. She increased the number of Black artists in the Chatelet's programming and invested in outreach initiatives including a "Robin Hood" scheme, asking theatergoers to buy extra tickets that were then offered to underprivileged groups. Yet open conversations about racism are difficult to initiate in France, and along the way, Mackenzie's vision didn't always seem rooted in a nuanced understanding of local reality. According to a spokesman for the Chatelet, before the 2019 20 season was halted by the coronavirus pandemic only 13 patrons had gifted a total of 29 tickets through the "Robin Hood" scheme, for example. Mackenzie's frustration with French apathy is shared by many, but she could have leaned on existing initiatives instead. Beyond Paris, France has its own tradition of popular theater and a large network of small venues, many situated in poor, outer suburbs and other economically deprived parts of the country. Some of them have been working hard to connect with local communities for years. When Mackenzie positioned herself as a revolutionary taking on entrenched racism and elitism, as she often did in interviews, she rubbed many in France the wrong way. There was a touch of schadenfreude to the reaction to Mackenzie's firing here a sense that an outsider wasn't going to teach Parisians how to run a theater. Yet the city didn't give her the time to realize her vision. Who knows what a disruptive British director would have achieved at the Chatelet in five or 10 years? After Mackenzie's swift dismissal, it's unlikely another will come along. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
The fashion upheavals continue. In a move that counters a major trend in the industry toward consolidation, Salvatore Ferragamo, the Italian brand, confirmed on Thursday that it was appointing three designers to the top of its creative team. Fulvio Rigoni and Guillaume Meilland will become design directors of women's and men's wear, respectively, joining Paul Andrew, who will be the design director of women's footwear. "I am convinced that the work of these three designers, each with his own unique background but all united by their love of beautiful design and an immense, innate creativity in the service of research and innovation, will contribute to further strengthening our product offering," said Eraldo Poletto, Salvatore Ferragamo's chief executive, said in announcing the appointments. The decision marks a major reorganization of the brand under Mr. Poletto, who joined the company in August after the resignation of his predecessor, Michele Norsa, and the departure of Massimiliano Giorgetti, who resigned as creative director in March. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Doctors can more effectively treat many brain tumors by first ascertaining their genetic characteristics, rather than studying tissue samples under a microscope, the standard practice, two teams of researchers reported on Wednesday. The findings could alter diagnosis and treatment decisions for thousands of patients, experts said, and mark an important advance in so called precision medicine, in which cancer treatments are customized according to the genetic makeup of the patient's tumors. "Prognosis is going to be more accurately delineated by these kinds of genetic subtypes, outstripping the value of looking through a microscope," said Dr. David J. Langer, the chief of neurosurgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, who was not involved in the research. Doctors working to treat other types of cancer, particularly breast cancer, have already established genetic subtypes to help guide treatment. The two new papers are a large step in bringing the same approach to brain cancer treatment, Dr. Langer said: "This is really the holy grail, this kind of individualized analysis, and we are beginning to reach that point." Some 23,000 Americans develop a brain tumor each year, and about 14,000 die of one annually. The two reports, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, focused on gliomas, which account for roughly a third of brain cancer cases. Some gliomas become aggressive, like the cancer that recently killed Beau Biden, a son of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. But doctors have not had a rigorous way of identifying which tumors will become deadlier before they do so. In the new studies one coordinated by the National Institutes of Health, the other led by the Mayo Clinic and the University of California, San Francisco research teams performed multiple genetic analyses on 1,380 tumors. Both teams found that the tumors could be grouped into a few categories, which could be determined by looking at a handful of genetic glitches. Tumors with one genetic profile, for instance, were relatively slow growers and responsive to drug treatment, making them good candidates for chemotherapy alone, rather than combined with radiation. Tumors in another category grew relatively slowly but were not as responsive to drugs, suggesting that combined therapy was best. And those in a third category were nascent aggressors, for which the prognosis is usually dim. But catching those tumors early will at least give families time to enroll in experimental trials, the researchers said, and will give patients and their families more specific guidance on which treatments and trials may be most suitable. "These are people who so seek out clinical trials, so this is valuable information for them," said Dr. Daniel J. Brat, vice chairman of pathology and laboratory medicine at Emory University and lead author of one of the new studies, along with more than 300 other scientists in the Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network. Genotyping will make research trials more focused, he added, less likely to mix different types of tumors. Under the current system, doctors examine cancerous tissue and rate it according to several stages and grades. A doctor's judgment varies "depending on where you were trained, when, and by whom," Dr. Brat said. By relying more extensively on genetic profiles, "all that variability will go away," he said. Previous research had identified these genetic markers as important. Many brain surgeons have used genotyping along with standard biopsy ratings to guide treatment. But the new papers conclude that the genetic markers should be central in diagnosis and prognosis, rather than complementary. "Both studies can justifiably claim that molecular classification captures the biological features of glioma variants better than" current tissue ratings, wrote Dr. David Ellison, of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, in Memphis, in an editorial accompanying the two papers. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of women are expected to march in Washington after Donald J. Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. This past Tuesday, the singer songwriter Fiona Apple gave those preparing to protest a signature chant. The chant is on a new one minute track called "Tiny Hands," which repeats 10 words recorded by Ms. Apple on a phone: "We don't want your tiny hands/anywhere near our underpants." The track includes a sample of Mr. Trump's comments from a 2005 leaked "Access Hollywood" recording with Billy Bush in which he brags of grabbing of women's body parts whenever he wanted. The track was produced by the composer Michael Whalen, who released the song on SoundCloud, where some commenters did not think that the chant went far enough. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
The upcoming season of the Flea Theater is not for the faint of heart: productions will tackle police brutality, gun violence, infanticide and slavery, and the often squirm inducing filmmaker Todd Solondz will make his playwriting and stage directing debut. The plays were chosen by the Off Off Broadway nonprofit's leadership in an effort to practice what they term "color brave" artistic choices. "We are not color blind and we must go beyond color conscious," Carol Ostrow, the Flea's producing director, said in a statement. The season will be the second in the Flea's new and expansive TriBeCa home. Mr. Solondz, who is known for darkly comic films like "Welcome to the Dollhouse" and "Happiness," will present his first play, "Emma and Max," on Oct. 1 28. Details are scant so far, but the play is described as a "satire of tragic dimensions" set in New York City. Two plays will deal with police violence and its ripple effects. "Scraps," by Geraldine Inoa, will run Aug. 15 through Sept. 24 and explore the trauma of four black teenagers after their friend is shot by a police officer. Idris Goodwin's "Hype Man," Nov. 10 through Dec. 10, focuses on a hip hop group struggling with how to respond to a similar tragedy. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
Whether the music to your ears is pop, classical, jazz, country or another type of tune altogether, the rhythms of 2017 have you covered. Dance the days and nights away at Summerfest, June 28 to July 9 in Milwaukee, an 11 day bonanza that includes 800 acts spread out across 11 stages at Henry Maier Festival Park on Lake Michigan. The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pink are among the headline performers this year, the festival's 50th, but other genres such as hip hop, classic rock, Latin and reggae are also represented. The Monterey International Pop Festival, June 16 to 18 in Monterey, Calif., is also turning 50 this year, and celebrating in style, on the same weekend and at the same location the Monterey County Fair and Events Center where the original festival was held in 1967. That event helped establish the careers of many legendary musicians, including Jimi Hendrix, the Who and the Grateful Dead, and this year, over the course of three days, nine bands will take the stage to pay tribute to them. In Monte Carlo, it's all jazz all the time at the 12th annual Monte Carlo Jazz Festival (November and December, exact dates to be determined), featuring performances by the world's top jazz players such as Manu Katche, the drummer and singer, the bassist Richard Bona, and Ibrahim Maalouf, the trumpet player, all of whom were guests in 2016. The heart of the action takes place at the Opera Garnier Monte Carlo, an ornate 19th century building, but the shows spill over into the Casino de Monte Carlo and glitzy oceanfront bars. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
WASHINGTON President Trump's nonstop attacks on the Federal Reserve have raised eyebrows and broken with recent presidential norms. But an Aug. 23 tweet in which Mr. Trump called the Fed chair, Jerome H. Powell, an "enemy" of America appears to have prompted some hand wringing inside the central bank. "My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?" Mr. Trump wrote, just moments after Mr. Powell wrapped up a speech at the monetary policy world's top annual conference in Jackson, Wyo. Mr. Trump, who himself nominated Mr. Powell to lead the Fed, had long complained about the central bank's 2018 rate increases and had griped that officials were too slow in reversing course. But suggesting America's most important economic leader was an enemy sent shock waves through the economics profession and spurred an email chain at the Fed itself. Minutes after the president posted his tweet, the Fed's communications director, Michelle Smith, sent an email to Richard Clarida, the Fed vice chair, with a screenshot of the tweets, based on documents released through a Freedom of Information Act request. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
"If we see that a term is used frequently, then it's going to get into the dictionary," said Peter Sokolowski, a Merriam Webster lexicographer. Inspo. Dad joke. Fabulosity! Rhotic. These are among the 533 new terms and definitions that Merriam Webster added to its dictionary this month. But none have drawn as much attention as the quotidian pronoun "they," to which Merriam Webster has added a new sense, or meaning: "used to refer to a single person whose gender identity is nonbinary." (Nonbinary people do not identify as either male or female.) Meanwhile, in a separate lexicological dispute, tens of thousands of people are petitioning the Oxford Dictionary of English to strike derogatory synonyms from its definition of "woman." Both episodes made headlines this week, pointing to the enduring relevance of dictionaries old arbiters of fundamental meaning that are now engaging the public not only with books, but also via apps and (occasionally cheeky) Twitter timelines. Read more about dictionaries on Twitter and the perils of politicization. Merriam Webster's move, announced on Tuesday, reflects the fact that many nonbinary people use "they" as their singular third person pronoun instead of "she" or "he." (As an example of usage, the entry cites a June article in The New York Times.) That the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States has added its imprimatur to this meaning of the pronoun could be seen as a powerful statement about evolving understandings of gender identity. Or it could be seen as something much more elementary: a reflection of changing times. The dictionary, after all, is more of a rearview mirror than a vanguard of change, said Peter Sokolowski, an editor and lexicographer with Merriam Webster. "If we see that a term is used frequently, then it's going to get into the dictionary," Mr. Sokolowski said. "We wouldn't be doing our jobs if it weren't reflecting the truth of the way language is used." Still, a major dictionary can add credibility to an existing term or definition, said Laura A. Jacobs, a therapist in New York who focuses on L.G.B.T.Q. clients and whose preferred pronouns include she, he and they or none at all. "I think this is a sign of the times," Mx. Jacobs said. "They're acknowledging that this is a term that is in widespread use, and it's a term that's important to many people." The American Heritage Dictionary also mentions gender in its definition of "they," noting that it can be "used as a singular personal pronoun for someone who does not identify as either male or female." Both Lexico (which is affiliated with the Oxford Dictionary of English) and Dictionary.com mention the nonbinary use of "they" only in their usage notes for the term. In the United States, the Merriam Webster dictionary is particularly prominent, said Bryan A. Garner, a lexicographer and the author of "Garner's Modern English Usage," which is published by Oxford University Press. It's good at marketing, too. "These publicity campaigns seem to be pretty successful, in the sense of frequently making front page news in national newspapers," Mr. Garner said. Some pop culture news last week made Merriam Webster's announcement seem especially apposite; on Sept. 13, the British singer and four time Grammy winner Sam Smith, who had been referred to as "he," announced that they were changing their pronouns to "they/them." "After a lifetime of being at war with my gender I've decided to embrace myself for who I am," they wrote on Twitter. "When prominent people make these changes, more people notice," Mr. Sokolowski said. "And that accelerates the change, too." Read more about people who identify as nonbinary. Reactions to the nonbinary meaning of "they" have been mixed, with some critics saying it's awkward to use the word as a singular pronoun. But Mr. Sokolowski said English speakers already use the singular "they" even when they are not referring to nonbinary people. (As in: "No one has to go if they don't want to.") In that sense, the singular "they" has been in use for more than 600 years, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, a historical dictionary that is distinct from the more modern Oxford Dictionary of English. Mr. Sokolowski added that languages change all the time, and objections to those transmutations however loud they may be in the moment are eventually forgotten. He said the evolution of "they" is something like what happened to "you" centuries ago, when it drifted from plural to singular, nudging "thee" and "thou" into Elizabethan obscurity. Mr. Garner challenged that comparison. "This nonbinary 'they' is a very conscious linguistic change that has resulted from a kind of social movement," he said, comparing it instead to the campaign, led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the late 1980s, to popularize the term "African American." If using the word "they" to describe a nonbinary person feels difficult, Mx. Jacobs said, it's important to remember that it is a sign of respect. "Choosing not to work on it means you're O.K. with harming that other person," they added. The tension over whether dictionaries are reflective or prescriptive erupted in a different way across the Atlantic, with a petition questioning whether, or when, historic terms should be stricken from the record. Maria Beatrice Giovanardi, a women's rights activist in the United Kingdom, said Merriam Webster's announcement seemed like a positive step. But she has focused her ire on another major dictionary: the Oxford Dictionary of English. Ms. Giovanardi said that in January, she looked up the word "woman" on Google, which draws from Oxford's dictionaries when people ask the search engine to define a word. She noted that the synonyms included terms like "biddy," "wench," and "piece." (In the screenshots she shared online, the Google search result classified those words, respectively, as "informal," "archaic" and "derogatory.") And she noted that in an online version of the Oxford Dictionary of English, examples for the usage of "woman" included phrases like "one of his sophisticated London women." Her petition has lately begun to pick up steam because of news media exposure, she said. As of Thursday morning, about 30,000 people had signed it. Reached for comment, a spokeswoman for Oxford University Press referred to a blog post by Katherine Connor Martin, the head of lexical content strategy. "These texts are based on the methodologies of descriptive, corpus based lexicography, meaning that editors analyze large quantities of evidence from real life use to determine the meanings of words," the post said. "If there is evidence of an offensive or derogatory word or meaning being widely used in English, it will not be excluded from the dictionary solely on the grounds that it is offensive or derogatory." But Ms. Giovanardi said the injudicious material should be removed or replaced. "I think that the dictionary should be a place without all of these biases," she said. Oxford is taking the points raised in the petition very seriously, a spokeswoman said, and researching possible uses of "woman" that are not yet covered in the dictionary. For Merriam Webster, which seems to precipitate news headlines every time it rolls out fresh batches of new terms, the flurry of attention evinces an enduring interest in denotation, Mr. Sokolowski said. "If we both agree on what, for example, 'socialism' means, or what 'fact' means, then we can move forward even if we're on opposite sides of an argument," he added. "If we can agree on terms, then we can make some progress. That is a role I think the dictionary has always played. It's just simply amplified now by the speed of communication." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
This evening as you sneak some late night Thanksgiving leftovers, take a moment to marvel at the full moon. Do you notice anything different? It's subtle, but on early Monday (Sunday night if you're on the west coast), the full moon should appear a bit darker than usual. That's because you're witnessing a penumbral lunar eclipse, a celestial occurrence in which the moon dips behind Earth's faint, outer shadow, or penumbra. Penumbral eclipses are slight, verging on imperceptible in some cases, says Jackie Faherty, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. "It's not something that's going to slap you in the face." So Sunday night's eclipse will not be as dramatic as a total lunar eclipse, in which the moon plunges into Earth's dark inner shadow, called the umbra, turning its surface blood red. Nor is it as striking as a partial lunar eclipse, in which the moon slides behind part of the umbral shadow and looks as if some space monster took a gigantic cookie bite out of it. And it is not as awe inspiring as a total solar eclipse, in which the new moon glides in front of the sun, leaving a wispy, white halo shining in the daytime sky. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
The idea of the siblings performing together as a unit really came about only after a 2000 New York Times article about how all the children were attending Juilliard simultaneously. After the act got underway, Keith Brown became the business manager and put his children on a punishing schedule, keeping up the abuse for much of the time. Once the sisters revealed what was going on to one another, and to their brothers, Gregory and Ryan, there had to be a reckoning. And so there was, one that led to further trouble, and one inarguably just resolution: Keith Brown is serving a prison sentence. This story is in a sense confounding. I can't imagine the bitterness of having to deal with one's vocation and artistic calling being inextricably linked to a monstrous, criminal upbringing. And yet the movie is framed by scenes of the now adult Browns making a new record. For as much as they suffered, music was able to keep them sane, and united. The director and his editor, Amanda Larson, construct the movie in a fairly conventional way, but leave a single string dangling, which they pull tight to devastating emotional effect near the end. The five Browns are likable, admirable individuals; two of the sisters started the Foundation for Surviving Abuse, an advocacy group, and we see them at work with eloquence and compassion. Their trauma and their subsequent resolve, as depicted here, are also, finally, all American. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
With news buzzing about Margaret Atwood's sequel to "The Handmaid's Tale" and other hotly anticipated titles, it was an especially great week to be a book lover. We take the weekend to highlight recent books coverage in The Times. New details about Harvey Weinstein and the MeToo movement "She Said," by The New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, names some of the people who turned against the influential producer, as well as ones who helped cover up his alleged predation. Previously anonymous sources come forward, and the book reprints a blockbuster letter to Weinstein from his brother, Bob Weinstein, in which he pleads for Harvey Weinstein to seek treatment for his history of "misbehavior." The book comes out Tuesday. Our reviewer, Susan Faludi, said that "She Said" reads "a bit like a feminist 'All the President's Men.'" "The Testaments," the hotly anticipated sequel to Atwood's 1985 book "The Handmaid's Tale," is almost here. Our reviewer, Michiko Kakutani, had high praise for the book, writing that Atwood's "sheer assurance as a storyteller makes for a fast, immersive narrative that's as propulsive as it is melodramatic." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
As parents around the country cancel well child checkups to avoid coronavirus exposure, public health experts fear they are inadvertently sowing the seeds of another health crisis. Immunizations are dropping at a dangerous rate, putting millions of children at risk for measles, whooping cough and other life threatening illnesses. "The last thing we want as the collateral damage of Covid 19 are outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases, which we will almost certainly see if there continues to be a drop in vaccine uptake," said Dr. Sean T. O'Leary, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' committee on infectious diseases. In the last few years, early childhood immunization rates have been slipping in some hot spots around the country, and in 2019, the United States very nearly lost its measles elimination status. While current nationwide vaccine figures are not available, anecdotal evidence and subsets of data are alarming. PCC, a pediatric electronic health records company, gathered vaccine information from 1,000 independent pediatricians nationwide. Using the week of February 16 as a pre coronavirus baseline, PCC found that during the week of April 5, the administration of measles, mumps and rubella shots dropped by 50 percent; diphtheria and whooping cough shots by 42 percent; and HPV vaccines by 73 percent. The doses that states distribute in a federally funded program for uninsured patients called Vaccines for Children have also dropped significantly since the beginning of March. The Massachusetts health department said its doses were down 68 percent in the first two weeks of April, compared with the previous year. Minnesota reported that its doses of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine dropped by 71 percent toward the end of March. In Washington State, dozens of practices and clinics have had to reduce hours or even temporarily close. The state already had its biggest measles outbreak in nearly 30 years last year. "We know our vaccine rates were already tenuous, so any additional hit to that is a great worry," said Dr. Elizabeth Meade, president of the state's chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Meade leads calls twice a week with physicians throughout the state about how to maintain immunizations and stay solvent. "Internationally, measles and diphtheria will pop up around the world. Even with limited travel, they can make it into the United States," Dr. O'Leary, an immunization expert at Children's Hospital in Denver, said. According to immunization experts, the optimum rate of coverage for many vaccines, known as herd immunity, is about 90 to 95 percent. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Academy of Family Physicians have each been urging doctors to maintain vaccination schedules as rigorously as reasonably possible, particularly for the youngest children. Vaccinate Your Family, a national nonprofit group, is pushing families to set reminders to reschedule canceled vaccine appointments. Though many doctors note that vaccine preventable diseases can be more deadly to children than Covid 19 seems to be, parents are understandably focused on the threat at hand. Over the last six weeks, the loud, consistent public message has been to keep children at home, and to take them to the doctor only if necessary. Initially, medical practices were apprehensive too. In early March, the health clinic in Barre, Mass., called Emily Hoag to say it had postponed her baby's vaccine appointment for a month to prevent the spread of coronavirus infection. Ms. Hoag felt conflicted: If her baby, Karson, missed his two month immunization, she feared, he would be susceptible to any number of diseases. But if she took him to the clinic for his shots, they both might be exposed to Covid 19. A few hours later, Dr. Kristina Gracey, a family medicine physician at the Barre Family Health Clinic, reached out to the new mother: Would she like a house call? That afternoon, Dr. Gracey showed up at Ms. Hoag's doorstep. After removing her shoes, meticulously washing her hands and wiping her stethoscope and baby scale, Dr. Gracey gave Karson his shots. Both mother and baby immediately burst into tears. Virginia's new lieutenant governor elect says she won't force vaccines. "Karson cried for a minute and then calmed down, and I was just so grateful that Dr. Gracey was there and able to give him the vaccinations he needed," Ms. Hoag said. Dr. Gracey, who has a degree in public health and has practiced in Uganda, has no qualms about home visits, which she and her colleagues are making several times a week. "We have so many women who are struggling with what it feels like to have a child in the setting of Covid 19," she said. "And especially for a new mom who has concerns about the risks of coming into the office, it can feel comfortable to receive care within the home." Dr. Gracey's colleagues and other medical practices are experimenting with other ways to boost vaccine rates during the outbreak, including setting up a vaccination tent in a field. Last week, the pediatric ambulatory department at Boston Medical Center, which treats nearly 15,000 children, began sending vaccination mobile units into city neighborhoods. It also stationed a dedicated van for vaccines and well baby checkups in front of the hospital. In the early weeks of the shelter in place orders, doctors concentrated efforts on vaccinating infants up to 2 years old, and waved off the disruption to the schedule for older children as temporary, saying it could readily be addressed once the restrictions lifted. But the longer that the orders continue, the more worried doctors have also become about vaccine protection for older children. One concern is that if booster shots are missed for diseases like measles, mumps and rubella for 4 and 5 year olds, and tetanus and whooping cough, for 11 year olds immunity will begin to wane. At 11, children should also receive their first meningitis vaccine. Preteens are recommended to get the HPV vaccine series, which protects against certain types of cancer. Beginning next month, Dr. Eleanor Menzin, managing partner of Longwood Pediatrics in Boston, will try to vaccinate older children, when the practice's waiting rooms will still be relatively empty. "Looking ahead, I think it's unwise to get behind even on older kids, because of the logistics of catching them up, given what I predict will be a long period of avoiding crowds," she said. Many doctors already report that the backlog from canceled appointments for younger children is staggering. But summer appointment calendars are typically filled by older children, who need vaccine documentation for school and college. Pediatricians, who report that visits have dropped by 50 to 70 percent, are laying off staff; they do not know whether they will be able to handle the rush of last minute visits in a few months. Some health officials are wondering whether school registration policies will need to be adjusted: Because of these extreme circumstances, will states temporarily ease school vaccination requirements? Health experts are also worried about day care centers. Licensed centers require proof of vaccination. Even assuming that parents returning to work could swiftly get immunization appointments for their young children, most vaccines take between two and four weeks before providing full protection. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
The president is hospitalized and reporters are fighting for basic facts. What should elderly leaders many of America's top politicians are over 80 reveal about their health? When John Bresnahan was starting out as a reporter in the mid 1990s, he approached Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who had run for president in 1948 as a segregationist and was still shuffling through the Capitol. Senator Thurmond, born in 1902, gave no indication that he'd understood Mr. Bresnahan's question and responded with a non sequitur. The young reporter saw his older colleagues shaking their heads and snickering. The kid had expected the elderly senator to be able to carry on a conversation! They didn't report on Senator Thurmond's infirmity that wasn't how things were done but they all knew about it. These days, Mr. Bresnahan is the congressional bureau chief for Politico. A Navy veteran with the demeanor of a guy you've dragged out of a dive bar in the eighth inning of the Yankees game, he has become Capitol Hill's grim reaper, a rare reporter with the stomach to print some obvious truths: that some top lawmakers aren't all there. In 2017, Mr. Bresnahan and his colleague Anna Palmer wrote that the powerful Republican chairman of the Senate's appropriations committee, Thad Cochran, was "frail and disoriented," a story that sped his retirement. Last month, Mr. Bresnahan and Marianne LeVine reported that fellow Democrats were worried whether Dianne Feinstein was up to leading her side of the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearings because she gets "confused by reporters' questions, or will offer different answers to the same question depending on where or when she's asked." This kind of reporting is impolite. It's also totally obvious, and a natural feature of America's recent slide toward gerontocracy. On Capitol Hill, everyone "knows this stuff," Mr. Bresnahan said. "I just am the one to write it." I was thinking of Mr. Bresnahan as I watched reporters arrayed at Walter Reed military hospital on Sunday facing yet another moment of crisis for the news media, one even more basic than many of the hard challenges of the Trump era. The White House press corps is trying to perform a fundamental job of journalism delivering simple facts about President Trump's condition in the face of Mr. Trump's years of casual fabrication and his doctors' clumsy evasions and contradictions. They're covering the biggest policy failure of his administration in the most literal sense imaginable. And yet they're also doing something obviously uncomfortable. It's hard not to feel some human revulsion for the sight of healthy, TV ready young journalists braying for the vital signs of a sick old man. But there is no question that this prying is in the urgent public interest, and the White House press corps is working with admirable aggression and openness. We need to know who is in charge of the government, and to understand the outcome of President Trump's long evasion of the coronavirus crisis as Americans begin to vote. By refusing to speak honestly about basic facts, the White House is really "annihilating the press's role," said Elizabeth Drew, a former New Yorker Washington correspondent who covered President Ronald Reagan's shooting in 1981 and his staff's success at playing down the grave risk to his life. Physical decline is likely to be a major feature of the next few years of American politics, at least. The current line of succession, after Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, features Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is 80, and the Senate president pro tempore, Charles Grassley, 87, who also runs the Senate Finance Committee. Ms. Pelosi's two most powerful deputies in the House, James Clyburn and Steny Hoyer, are both 80 or older. Over in the Senate, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee is 85 and coasting to re election. The chairman of the Appropriations Committee is 86. Joe Biden, who turns 78 next month, is nearly a year younger than the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who is also seeking re election in November. Ford and Rivian no longer plan to work jointly on electric vehicles. Elizabeth Holmes took the stand in her trial. Follow along with our reporters. Ken Griffin, head of Citadel, bid highest for a copy of the Constitution. This concentration of power in the hands of the old is an American phenomenon, Derek Thompson recently wrote in The Atlantic, noting that our leaders are getting older as European leaders get younger. "If government of the elderly, by the elderly, and for the elderly will not perish from the Earth, the rest of us might suffer instead," he lamented. But it also means that journalists must get past the taboos and be frank about the normal process of aging, and must emulate Mr. Bresnahan's stomach for blunt truths. Typically, whispers about age and health have remained on the margins of the political conversation, often driven by the right wing aggregator Matt Drudge, whose visceral grasp of news has always included obsessions with age and health. In 2007, Mr. Drudge briefly capsized the presidential campaign with news of a new spot on John McCain's head, for instance. His site is consumed, to the dismay of Mr. Trump's supporters, with the president's illness. (One of Drudge's 18 headlines about Mr. Trump's condition on Sunday morning: "Blind mystic predicted it!") Among the people scrambling this weekend at American newspapers are obituary writers, as major outlets assigned top reporters to update Mr. Trump's obituary Peter Baker at The New York Times, Marc Fisher at The Washington Post and Mark Z. Barabak at The Los Angeles Times, people at each paper told me. But the easiest solution to this media quandary is for citizens to elect leaders of working age. A friend recently told me sadly how nice it had been to see a national politician, Kamala Harris, jog down a few stairs. But for the next few years, at least, our leaders' age and health will remain big news. We need a reporting culture that's ready to handle the public decline of this generation of leaders, as long as they insist on declining in public. Searching questions about everything from sleep to cognition shouldn't be off limits. "It will help if reporters are medically knowledgeable, and ask the right questions, e.g. blood pressure, heart rhythm, sleep disorders," Dr. Mark Fisher, a professor of neurology and political science at the University of California, Irvine, told me on Sunday. "The more specific and precise questions reporters ask, the better. A robust fund of knowledge by the reporter is a great advantage." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
Travis Kalanick stepped down Tuesday as chief executive of Uber, the ride hailing service that he helped found in 2009 and built into a transportation colossus, after a shareholder revolt made it untenable for him to stay on at the company. Mr. Kalanick's exit came under pressure after hours of drama involving Uber's investors, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, who asked to remain anonymous because the details were confidential. Earlier on Tuesday, five of Uber's major investors demanded that the chief executive resign immediately. The investors included one of Uber's biggest shareholders, the venture capital firm Benchmark, which has one of its partners, Bill Gurley, on Uber's board. The investors made their demand for Mr. Kalanick to step down in a letter delivered to the chief executive while he was in Chicago, said the people with knowledge of the situation. "I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moment in my personal life I have accepted the investors request to step aside so that Uber can go back to building rather than be distracted with another fight," Mr. Kalanick said in a statement. Uber's board said in a statement that Mr. Kalanick had "always put Uber first" and that his stepping down as chief executive would give the company "room to fully embrace this new chapter in Uber's history." An Uber spokesman declined to comment further. The move caps months of questions over the leadership of Uber, which has become a prime example of Silicon Valley start up culture gone awry. The company has been exposed this year as having a workplace culture that included sexual harassment and discrimination, and it has pushed the envelope in dealing with law enforcement and even partners. That tone was set by Mr. Kalanick, who has aggressively turned the company into the world's dominant ride hailing service and upended the transportation industry around the globe. Mr. Kalanick's troubles began earlier this year after a former Uber engineer detailed what she said was sexual harassment at the company, opening the floodgates for more complaints and spurring internal investigations. In addition, Uber has been dealing with an intellectual property lawsuit from Waymo, the self driving car business that operates under Google's parent company, and a federal inquiry into a software tool that Uber used to sidestep some law enforcement. Uber has been trying to move past its difficult history, which has grown inextricably tied to Mr. Kalanick. In recent months, Uber has fired more than 20 employees after an investigation into the company's culture, embarked on major changes to professionalize its workplace, and is searching for new executives including a chief operating officer. Mr. Kalanick last week said he would take an indefinite leave of absence from Uber, partly to work on himself and to grieve for his mother, who died last month in a boating accident. He said Uber's day to day management would fall to a committee of more than 10 executives. But the shareholder letter indicated that his taking time off was not enough for some investors who have pumped millions of dollars into the ride hailing company, which has seen its valuation swell to nearly 70 billion. For them, Mr. Kalanick had to go. The five shareholders who demanded Mr. Kalanick's resignation include some of the technology industry's most prestigious venture capital firms, which invested in Uber at an early stage of the company's life, as well as a mutual fund firm. Apart from Benchmark, they are First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, Menlo Ventures and Fidelity Investments, which together own more than a quarter of Uber's stock. Because some of the investors hold a type of stock that endows them with an outsize number of votes, they have about 40 percent of Uber's voting power. Benchmark, Lowercase, First Round, Menlo Ventures and Fidelity did not respond to requests for comment. But on Twitter, Mr. Gurley of Benchmark, one of the earliest supporters of Mr. Kalanick at Uber, said of the executive, "There will be many pages in the history books devoted to travisk very few entrepreneurs have had such a lasting impact on the world." Mr. Kalanick's resignation opens questions of who may take over Uber, especially since the company has been so molded in his image. And Mr. Kalanick will probably remain a presence there since he still retains control of a majority of Uber's voting shares. Taking a start up chief executive to task so publicly is relatively unusual in Silicon Valley, where investors often praise entrepreneurs and their aggressiveness, especially if their companies are growing fast. It is only when those start ups are in a precarious position or are declining that shareholders move to protect their investment. In the case of Uber one of the most highly valued private companies in the world investors could lose billions of dollars if the company were to be marked down in valuation. Uber, which has raised more than 14 billion from investors since its founding in 2009, has a wide base of shareholders apart from the ones who signed the letter. Uber's investors also include TPG Capital, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, mutual fund giants like BlackRock and wealthy clients of firms like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. In the letter, in addition to Mr. Kalanick's immediate resignation, the five shareholders asked for improved oversight of the company's board by filling two of three empty board seats with "truly independent directors." They also demanded that Mr. Kalanick support a board led search committee for a new chief executive and that Uber immediately hire an experienced chief financial officer. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
It was not the day many people expected. The Broncos, the Falcons and the Bears all pulled off upsets on the road. The Buccaneers made easy work of the Packers, the Eagles gave the Ravens a scare, and the Browns went from looking like an offensive juggernaut in Weeks 2 through 5 to being absolutely humiliated by the Steelers. But when you consider that several N.F.L. teams dealt with closed practice facilities this week because of positive coronavirus tests, the fact that the games were even played was nearly as surprising as the results on the field. None It doesn't matter if Derrick Henry is the chicken or the egg. Has quarterback Ryan Tannehill's efficiency in the passing game prevented teams from stacking the box, allowing Henry to reach his true potential? Or has playing with Henry made life easy for Tannehill, who had been a disappointment in Miami? Whatever it is, it's working. The numbers in Sunday's overtime win over Houston were eye popping even by Tennessee's high standards. Tannehill passed for 364 yards and four touchdowns, which was almost an afterthought since Henry's 264 total yards from scrimmage included a 94 yard touchdown run, a 53 yard reception in overtime and a 5 yard game winning touchdown in which he got the ball on a direct snap with Tannehill split out as a decoy receiver. In all, Tennessee had 601 yards of offense just the 38th 600 yard game since 1940, according to Pro Football Reference and is now 5 0 this season and 12 3 since Tannehill became the team's starting quarterback last season. None The state of New Jersey will not be winless in 2020. It was not an impressive win, and there's little reason to expect it to happen again this season, but the Giants just barely hung on for a 20 19 win over the Washington Football Team. As coming into the game the Giants and Jets were both 0 5 for the first time in their shared history, a 1 point win over one of the worst teams in the N.F.L. qualified as a high point for the co tenants of MetLife Stadium. The Jets, meanwhile, were absolutely crushed by Miami. They fell to 0 6 for just the second time in franchise history, lack a game on their schedule that looks winnable, and with Bill O'Brien (Houston) and Dan Quinn (Atlanta) already fired, Coach Adam Gase seemingly has the least job security in the N.F.L. None The Bears are probably a playoff team. It has not always been pretty. In fact, it has been mostly not pretty. But Chicago held off a Carolina comeback on Sunday to improve to 3 0 on the road and 5 1 over all. In the last 10 seasons, only five of 29 teams that started 5 1 failed to make the playoffs though that list of five teams includes the 2012 Bears. Buccaneers 38, Packers 10 Just about everything went Tampa Bay's way, but the most stark thing about this game was likely the lack of pass protection for Green Bay, as Aaron Rodgers, who had been sacked just three times over his team's first four games, was put down four times by the Buccaneers. Rodgers finished the day with a passer rating of 35.4, the third worst mark of his career. Titans 42, Texans 36 (overtime) It's hard to quibble with a game in which a team's offense managed 601 total yards, but Tennessee really should be concerned about its defense, which allowed 412 yards and 36 points to a team that fired its head coach and general manager two weeks ago. Steelers 38, Browns 7 Cleveland averaged 37.5 points over its previous four games but could do absolutely nothing against Pittsburgh, with quarterback Baker Mayfield looking beat up and ineffective while throwing for 119 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. The Browns have topped 30 points four times and been held to less than 10 twice. Colts 31, Bengals 27 It was an emotional week for Indianapolis, as the team had to briefly close its facility because of a few false positive tests for the coronavirus, fell behind by 21 0 to Cincinnati and then raced back to win, tying the franchise's record for largest comeback in a regular season game. Ravens 30, Eagles 28 Baltimore was overwhelming Philadelphia with its running game during its 17 0 start, but in a rare instance of the Ravens taking their collective foot off the gas, they very nearly let the Eagles pull off an upset only to be bailed out when Carson Wentz couldn't run the ball in for a 2 point conversion with just under two minutes remaining. Bears 23, Panthers 16 It is hard to get excited about Chicago's offense, regardless of the team's record, but the Bears' defense had a throwback day, forcing three turnovers including a game saving interception in the final two minutes. Dolphins 24, Jets 0 It was the full Ryan Fitzpatrick experience, as the veteran quarterback threw for three touchdowns, was intercepted twice, and did a Patrick Mahomes impersonation by completing a short left handed pass in the easy victory. Tua Tagovailoa made his N.F.L. debut, but it was to mop up a laugher rather than to replace his team's volatile starter and Fitzpatrick was leading the cheers for the rookie who will eventually replace him. Lions 34, Jaguars 16 Matthew Stafford threw a touchdown pass he now has one against all 31 teams besides Detroit D'Andre Swift ran for 116 yards and the Lions won so convincingly that Jacksonville Coach Doug Marrone acknowledged after the game that his job may be in jeopardy. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
Val d'Or Foreurs and Drummondville Voltigeurs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League playing on Oct. 10. Neither team has played since, because of confirmed infections within two of the league's teams and rising coronavirus case numbers in the province. In British Columbia, on Canada's west coast, hockey referees are wearing masks and waving their hands to flag infractions instead of whistling. In Ontario, to the east, officials are still deciding when teams in the province's top junior league will return to the ice, but they will be playing a whole new game when they do, with body checking and fighting eliminated in the interest of social distancing. In Toronto, the provincial capital, spikes in coronavirus cases have caused the country's largest youth hockey association to halt all play until 2021. But in Nova Scotia, where the spread has been slower, it's (mostly) game on and (almost) business as usual. That's just part of the patchwork of protocols and prohibitions the authorities who organize and oversee Canada's national pastime are using to try to build something resembling a hockey season for its developing players. In the first months of the pandemic, after rinks shut down along with everything else, images of hockey sticks were often placed on signage as guides for social distancing. With winter weather having arrived in parts of Canada in the north, some backyard rinks are already frozen the sport that, for many, defines the country is doing its best to again use sticks for their intended purpose. As daily reports of coronavirus cases across Canada rose by more than 30 percent over the past two weeks, and the number of deaths per day by more than 50 percent, plotting the future became anything but straightforward. Like everything else in this uneasy year, hockey has found that its possibilities are only provisional. Some 644,000 Canadians were registered to play in 2018 19, according to Hockey Canada, the national governing body. Thousands more skate every year, with varying degrees of speed and seriousness, in recreational and pickup games. Across the map, the degree to which hockey operations have been limited, postponed or canceled has generally reflected local coronavirus related conditions. Most jurisdictions have, so far, allowed skating and instructional sessions with strict limits on player participation no scrimmages or games. "You plan for what you think could happen, but then you also realize that you have no idea," said Cassie Campbell Pascall, who was the captain of Canada's Olympic gold medal teams in 2002 and 2006 and now works as a broadcaster on "Hockey Night in Canada." From her base in Calgary, Alberta, she worked this year's Stanley Cup playoffs. Since the Cup was awarded at the end of September, her hockey focus has been on her role as an assistant coach for her 9 year old daughter's team. "It's amazing to see how excited the girls are to be back on the ice," she said. "I think it's great for their mental health and for parents' mental health to get some normalcy." Even in pre pandemic times, all was not well with hockey in Canada. The realities of the high cost of playing the game, flagging enrollment and the relentless toll of concussions have all disrupted the sport. So have questions about how much the game's traditional demographics and its slow to shift attitudes fail to reflect a multicultural, progressive society. Still, hockey is deeply and proudly embraced, and across the country the local rink remains a community hub.Working with Hockey Canada and public health authorities across the country, provincial associations have been at the forefront of the effort to get the sport running again. In Saskatchewan, progress was steady through September, according to Kelly McClintock, the general manager of the Saskatchewan Hockey Association, which counts some 35,000 players in its minor league, junior and senior constituencies. Teams had tryouts, chose their players and started to practice. "In the larger centers you could create leagues of up to 50 people," McClintock said, "and you could play games and scrimmage and there were no worries about using dressing rooms, or body contact. So it was fairly normal to start it's just that we weren't allowed to play games." If all goes well, league play in Saskatchewan will start next month. A few parents, McClintock said, withheld their children because they objected to mask mandates in arenas. "The clear majority I would say over 90 percent of our associations did not expect any drop in registrations at all," McClintock said. "For the most part, people just want their kids to play, and they understand the big picture." The Greater Toronto Hockey League, for players ages 6 to 19, had a meticulous plan to be ready to play this month. With some 2,800 teams and 40,000 players, officials and volunteers under its umbrella, the league is the largest minor hockey association in the world. But at an emergency board meeting on Oct. 3, the start of the season was postponed to January. "At the end of the day," said Scott Oakman, the league's executive director, "we made a decision based on public health concerns around operating hockey during a pandemic when the infection rates were rising rapidly in our jurisdiction." None of the three regional loops that make up the Canadian Hockey League, hockey's top junior tier, are playing this week. The Western Hockey League won't begin its season until January. After months of planning, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League started its schedule in early October, slightly later than in the previous season. "It went well," said Maxime Blouin, the league's director of communications. But not for long: Two teams that played each other on the first weekend abruptly suspended operations after 34 players, staff members and officials tested positive for the virus. With infection rates rising across the province, the league's 10 other Quebec based teams soon followed suit. The league's six teams in Canada's not so hard hit Maritime provinces continued to play among themselves, in front of a limited number of fans, while the Quebecois government promised 12 million Canadian dollars in funding for the league's teams in the province. Then the league announced late Tuesday that some games in Quebec would resume this weekend, more than two weeks after some teams had played their last game. The Ontario Hockey League is expected to begin its season in January or February. The league itself hasn't been talking about the conditions under which its 17 Canadian teams and the three based in the United States will take the ice, but Lisa MacLeod, Ontario's minister of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries, has been clear that the government's ban on combat and contact sports will not be relaxed to accommodate the O.H.L. "This is a precaution based on circumstance," she said in an interview. "There is no physical contact allowed, regardless of what sport it is." Any plan that the government approves will have to include amended rules that eliminate body checking and fighting. "They will have to change the game, otherwise the chief medical officer of health will not sign off on the return to play," she said. "The advice of medical professionals is what's going to get us through to the other side of the pandemic. And we must continue to be resolved in order to beat the virus. It's the biggest hockey game we've ever played." While details of how the O.H.L. will reconfigure its rules have yet to emerge, some wonder what effect a season without body checking will have on player development and the process of assessing talent. "I have a hard time understanding how it's going to work," said J.P. Barry, an N.H.L. player agent whose clients include Evgeni Malkin and David Pastrnak. "It's such a fundamental part of the game. In Canada, we already have a sport without physical contact it's called shinny." In British Columbia, Coach Steve Gainey of the Kamloops Storm, a lower tier junior team, has noticed the effect of new guidelines directing officials, who are masked, to maintain a safe distance from players. "They're not allowed to engage to separate players, if there's anything that materializes after a whistle," he said. "So they're calling roughing and things like that far more aggressively around the net." Amid all the uncertainty, Alain Gaul, a Montreal lawyer, has been finding positives where he can. His son Simon is a 16 year old right winger for the Gaulois de Saint Hyacinthe Midget AAA team who has been drafted by Voltigeurs de Drummondville of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Strange as this stalled season has been, Alain Gaul said, it has allowed to coaches to work on developing skills. "They work a lot," he said. "They're not allowed to play games, but they practice. Since September, they've been working a lot on individual skills skating, shooting, the things that in a real season, where they play 40 to 60 games, they don't have time concentrate on in such detail." "We get excited about hockey in this country, still sometimes too excited," Campbell Pascall said. "With things so different this year, it just becomes a lot more about development. And, to me, it should always be about development." David Clark ended up hoarse last week from directing traffic on the ice. He's the recreation coordinator for the hamlet of Rankin Inlet in the northern territory Nunavut, and the man behind the community's annual hockey camp that opens the local minor league season for some 200 children, ages 3 to 18. Though Nunavut has, to date, recorded no coronavirus cases, there are limits on spectators and other precautions in place. In September, Clark traveled south to Wilcox, Saskatchewan, to drop his 15 year old son off at Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, a boarding school renowned for its hockey program. Before Clark could return home, he was required to quarantine for two weeks in a Winnipeg hotel. "We're doing everything we can to keep things safe," he said. "We still have no Covid, but that could also change any day. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
THE HOUR OF LIBERATION: DECOLONIZING CINEMA, 1966 81 at Film Forum (May 24 June 13). The anticolonial movements of the 1960s were both expressed and documented in cinema. Film Forum captures the spirit of those times in this series, which opens with classics like "The Battle of Algiers" (on Friday and Saturday and in June) and Ousmane Sembene's "Black Girl" (showing throughout the coming week and in June) and expands to all corners of the globe. The freewheeling Brazilian feature "Macunaima" (on Tuesday and Wednesday and in June) infuses its 1928 source material with the concerns and rebellious mood percolating during Brazil's military dictatorship, while Med Hondo's "Soleil O" (on Thursday, May 31 and June 1), about a Mauritanian accountant in Paris, has been newly restored as part of an initiative to preserve historically significant African films. 212 727 8110, filmforum.org Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead. ESTER KRUMBACHOVA: UNKNOWN MASTER OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK NEW WAVE at Film at Lincoln Center (May 24 29). In its first retrospective since its name change in April, Film at Lincoln Center highlights a secret weapon of 1960s and '70s Czechoslovak cinema: Krumbachova was a costume designer on Jan Nemec's World War II film "Diamonds of the Night" (on Saturday and Tuesday); a screenwriter, cast member and costume designer on Vera Chytilova's "Daisies" (on Friday and Monday); a screenwriter and production designer on the fairy tale fantasia "Valerie and Her Week of Wonders" (on Saturday and Monday); and, once, a feature director in her own right ("The Murder of Mr. Devil," on Friday and Monday). 212 875 5601, filmlinc.org 'LIANNA' at the Quad Cinema (May 28, 7 p.m.). John Sayles and the actress producer Maggie Renzi will appear in person at this screening of Sayles's 1983 feature, about a faculty wife at a New Jersey university (Linda Griffiths) who falls in love with a psychology professor (Jane Hallaren). At the time, the film was received as trailblazing for its depiction of lesbian love. "Though 'Lianna' is about a subject that only yesterday was called explosive, and that even now is not all that commonplace, the film Mr. Sayles has made about Lianna's rude awakening to herself and the world mostly avoids melodramatics," Vincent Canby wrote in his review for The New York Times. 212 255 2243, quadcinema.com | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
"Frontline" produces some of the sharpest investigative journalism on television, such as its recent report on the Trump administration's mismanaged response to the coronavirus pandemic. The greatest hits of PBS, which was formed 50 years ago to serve what were then known as educational television stations, could broadly be described as instructive. "Sesame Street" and Julia Child and Ken Burns, no argument. "Downton Abbey" and "Antiques Roadshow," well, they're primers on the management of inherited wealth, perhaps a topic of some importance to the service's viewership. I jest, a little. As a more than full time TV watcher I have a tremendous fondness and respect for the Public Broadcasting Service and for the public TV ecosystem that surrounds it that aren't based on grumpy butlers or colorful puppets. They're based on something PBS and its member stations do more thoroughly than anyone else in TV: educate us to be better citizens. Given PBS's nature, that education is not a coordinated, eye in the sky effort. The service doesn't make TV programs, and the news, public affairs and cultural shows at its heart are produced by different members of its amicable but competitive family. Other parts of the mosaic are filled in by noncommercial TV making and distributing organizations that are allied with PBS and largely invisible to the public. The documentary showcases "POV" and "America ReFramed" are produced for PBS by the New York based American Documentary. The most recent of Bill Moyers's invaluable series of shows in 2014, it was mainstream American TV at its most insurrectionary was distributed to PBS stations by American Public Television, PBS's smaller cousin, whose current offerings include the African diaspora documentary series "AfroPop." That was a bit of a laundry list, but there's a point to it. Decentralized by definition, focused on its glossier shows for fund raising purposes and, perhaps, wary of political turbulence, PBS doesn't package or promote its journalistic and documentary content (outside of Burns's marathons) as strongly as it could. But the viewer who partakes of the breadth of PBS's public affairs offerings will be much better informed about the realities of contemporary American life than the more numerous citizens who depend on cable news. In the last month or so, that viewer could have watched an evenhanded comparison of the political histories of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, as well as an examination of efforts at police reform in Newark, on "Frontline." The "Voces" series offered a documentary on mobilizing Latino voters; "POV" carried "The Infiltrators," about a pair of Dream Act immigrants who got themselves arrested in order to see inside a detention center. From "American Experience," there was a four hour history of women's voting rights. In the near future: Ric Burns and Gretchen Sorin's "Driving While Black," on the role of the car and the road in African American life, and a "Nova" segment on the possibilities of geoengineering climate change called "Can We Cool the Planet?" A couple of observations. First, those of us who write about TV could do a lot more to bring attention to worthwhile and, for the most part, engaging shows like these. It would be as simple, and as difficult, as stepping aside more often from the self perpetuating buzz pursuit that pulls so many eyeballs to Netflix and HBO. Mea culpa. Second, it is striking how often and openly PBS programs pursue investigations or present information that is not likely to please the overseers of the service's (relatively small) federal subsidy, particularly during the past four years of the Trump administration. "Frontline," in particular, has been tough on the powers that be and their supporters in recent reports like "United States of Conspiracy," "The Virus: What Went Wrong?" and "Growing Up Poor," whose working title was "Growing Up Poor in Trump's America." (PBS science and nature programs were also early accepters of the science of climate change.) Explorations of injustice and inequality may be presented in neutral terms probably more a result of institutional culture than of political calculation but they are no less damning for that. PBS and its noncommercial colleagues are not the only places on TV to find tough minded, honest accounts of the fractious American situation, and political content, in particular, has exploded in recent years and even months. Showtime, with "The Circus" and "Desus Mero," stands out, along with Vice, which on TV can look like PBS's poorly behaved teenage sibling. But these efforts still tend to be scattershot and, often, stronger on emotion or drama than on authority. Commercial TV often funnels its public affairs impulses into comedy and late night, and the strongest program in the field, HBO's "Last Week Tonight With John Oliver," sits at the intersection of the two. "Last Week" is a jewel, one of the most essential shows along with "Frontline" on American TV. But in the commercial world, it's an extreme outlier. (It has less than a quarter of the audience of that far inferior provider of late night satire, "Saturday Night Live.") The current presidential election has stirred even the old broadcast networks, and they have generated some decent politically minded efforts in recent weeks, though again in the soft shell of comedy. ABC's "black ish" produced a pair of election episodes that had sharp things to say about Black disenfranchisement. Fox, of all networks, offered "Let's Be Real," a Robert Smigel puppet show that savaged both Biden and Trump. (Both shows are available on Hulu.) Telling uncomfortable truths may be in vogue now, but PBS has been doing it, quietly and consistently, for decades. "Frontline" premiered in 1983; Moyers was a progressive voice on PBS in a series of programs dating back to 1971. "American Experience" has been fleshing out the historical record since 1988 and has been a primary venue for the documentarian Stanley Nelson's rich, continuing history of Black life in America (including "The Murder of Emmett Till" and "Freedom Riders"). The record isn't perfect everyone will have examples; my most recent one would be the notably uncritical "Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words" from this summer but the record is peerless; no one else in American TV comes close. In a step toward promoting that heritage, the service this month inaugurated an Amazon Prime Video channel called PBS Documentaries that collects a lot of the programming I've mentioned here. This being America, though, you'll need to pay a small monthly subscription fee (plus the Prime Video fee) for the convenience of watching all that noncommercial, previously free content. It's a fairly small price to pay for an education. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
So you missed the Great Eclipse of 2017. Don't worry. You can try again in 2,422 days. On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will enter North America around Mazatlan, Mexico, and leave it just north of St. John's, Newfoundland. In between, it will traverse the United States from Texas to Maine. If you live in Paducah, Ky., or Cape Girardeau, Mo., go buy a lottery ticket, because you were in the line of totality on Monday and you'll be there once again. But the other cities that got lucky in 2017 will have to settle for a partial eclipse in 2024 and some that were passed over this week will get their chance at totality. Don't miss it, because unless you're in Alaska, your next shot won't be until 2045. If you live in any of the following places, start counting down: | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Want to See the Mona Lisa? Get in Line PARIS The Mona Lisa gets around. In 1516, she was lugged out of Italy on the back of a mule by Leonardo da Vinci and ended up in France, where she became royal property. She lived for a time at the Palace of Versailles, then moved permanently to the Louvre Museum. That stay was interrupted in 1911, when a thief snatched her off the walls and kept her for two years in his Paris apartment before he was caught trying to sell her in Florence. Now, the Mona Lisa is on the move again. And while it's only a temporary relocation from one wing of the Louvre to another it's causing commotion here. The Salle des Etats, where the painting has hung since 2005, is being renovated in time for the October opening of an exhibition commemorating the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's death. So since July 17 the portrait has been installed in a protective case on a temporary wall in another gallery. Once they get past the metal detectors, ticket holders are herded like sheep in a long, coiling line. They shuffle up escalators until they reach the Mona Lisa's skylit new digs: the Medici Gallery, named after a striking series of wall to wall paintings by Rubens also on display there. Not that anybody notices the Rubens works. As if in an airport check in area, dozens of visitors rowdily wait their turn in another snaking line. Armed with smartphones, selfie sticks and cameras, they then rush into the final stretch the Mona Lisa viewing pen. They have roughly one minute there before the guards shoo them away. "I need more time to watch the Mona Lisa," said Jongchan Lee, a Korean mechanical engineer who had just seen the masterpiece for the first time. "There are so many people in there. So the guards are pushing us to go, go, go. That's not really good." The distance between the public and the painting is another gripe: Visitors are held back around 15 feet from the 30 inch tall painting . Jane Teitelbaum, a retired educator from the United States who had seen the Mona Lisa multiple times "in the flesh" and wanted to share the joy with her daughter and granddaughter, said she "wasn't pleased" with the experience, because "we were so far away." "The thing about the Mona Lisa is, supposedly, her eyes follow you," Ms. Teitelbaum said. "I could hardly see her eyes." Until the 20th century, there was little fanfare around the Mona Lisa: She was just another painting in the Louvre. Her theft in 1911, and a high profile trip to the Met in New York and the National Gallery in Washington in 1962 3 made her a global media sensation. Today, she tops the bucket list of many tourists. The problem is that there are so many more tourists now. Worldwide, international tourist arrivals (visitors staying at least one night in a country) reached 1.4 billion in 2018, two years earlier than forecast, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. France once again topped the list of destinations. And the Louvre drew a record 10.2 million visitors last year more than any museum, ever, it announced in January. Not surprisingly, the Mona Lisa is swarmed. Moments after seeing her, Alex Stewart, a professor at the University of Ottawa, said the crowds were "just enormous now" compared with 25 years ago when he first saw the portrait. "It's like cattle to the abattoir," he said. Back inside the Mona Lisa viewing pen, Gregory Jimenez, 25, a college student from Chile, lifted his fancy camera above the heads of a row of people in front of him and took a shot. "You have to take a photo to be able to appreciate her," he said as he walked out. Photographs may be a solution, but they're also part of the problem. People don't just want to see the Mona Lisa: they want the picture for social media to prove it. Many don't look at her at all; they focus on their smartphone screens. Some even turn their backs, beam their finest Mona Lisa smile, and take a selfie, as she grins right back. The phenomenon now known as overtourism is frustrating everybody: visitors, host institutions and host countries, said Marina Novelli, a professor of tourism at the University of Brighton in England. "This perception that I have the right to travel and go wherever I like, whenever I like, is no longer possible," she said. "We live in a world that is overcrowded, and travel is equally overcrowded." Professor Novelli said countries should stop striving for ever higher tourism figures, and take a more qualitative approach to travel. Cultural institutions such as the Louvre should make visitors feel more responsible about the damage caused to museums and heritage sites by overcrowding , and try to change their behavior, she added. It's like entering an elevator, she explained: If there are too many people, "you're going to get stuck." The Louvre is starting to introduce stiffer traffic control measures. Last week, the museum's deputy managing director, Vincent Pomarede, announced that from October or November, all visitors even those eligible for free entry, or holding passes valid at all Paris museums will need to reserve a timed slot for their visit. The measure was originally planned for early next year. Professor Novelli said she would be more radical still in protecting the world's top sites. If "the way to deal with it is closing access to a particular attraction," she said, "so be it." Try telling that to Alia Al Jabr. The 19 year old engineering student from Kuwait looked dazzled by her first encounter with the Mona Lisa. "We love art, we love seeing art!" she said, as her younger sister and brother nodded approvingly. But what about the rushed conditions? "I don't mind, because I took a beautiful picture. I actually took a video," she said, noting that she'd already posted on both Snapchat and Twitter. What if she didn't get a photo? "I would be sad," she said. "It's like a memory. We have to take a picture to remember our first time here." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
LONDON Two collections of previously undiscovered short stories found among the papers of the prolific author Noel Streatfeild will be published by Virago Press. Streatfeild, who died at 90 in 1986, wrote several much loved children's classics, many of which drew on her own experiences of professional acting before she began to write. Her first novel, "Ballet Shoes" (1936), was a huge success and, like many of her other children's books ("The Circus Is Coming," "Tennis Shoes," "White Boots," "The Bell Family"), is still popular with young readers today. (A made for television film of "Ballet Shoes," starring Emma Watson, was created in 2007.) The stories were found after Donna Coonan, the editorial director of the publishing house Virago Modern Classics, was invited by William Streatfeild, the author's nephew, to look through her papers before they were sent to the Seven Stories museum, a center for children's literature in Newcastle, England, where they are to be housed. Ms. Coonan wrote on Twitter: "I am over the moon! Wonderful though 'Ballet Shoes' is, there's so much more to Noel." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
This is a story of the biggest story of its day, a crime that set a high water mark for depravity, an urban atrocity that caused existential hand wringing for America's biggest city. It was a story that over 30 years changed from solid to liquid to gas, all but vanishing. "When They See Us," a four part series premiering May 31 on Netflix directed by Ava DuVernay, is based on the lives of five men who were wrongfully convicted and sent to prison as teenagers for gang raping and nearly killing Trisha Meili, a woman who was jogging in Central Park in 1989. Their convictions were vacated in 2002, and the city paid 41 million in 2014 to settle their civil rights lawsuit. Hated by one generation as brutalizers, they were hailed by the next as the brutalized. The Central Park Five discussed "When They See Us" with their onscreen counterparts. In the series, these events are fictionalized, lightly but not trivially. With the license of imagination, it follows the boys as they turn to men, and opens interior spaces personal torments, family turmoils, prison torture, the sustenance of odd friendships to which daily journalism has little access, and in which it has scant interest. Few crimes leave permanent marks on anyone other than the people involved. From its first moments, the Central Park case had been a global cultural phenomenon, its meaning debated and anguished over by urban scholars, politicians, ordinary citizens. A real estate developer, not widely known outside New York in 1989, used it for one of his earliest forays into civic affairs, placing full page ads to proclaim his fury. "You better believe that I hate the people who took this girl and raped her brutally," that developer, Donald J. Trump, said at a standing room only news conference. "You better believe it." These boys were terror incarnate, a casus belli for the city, just as Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction would be years later for the nation. Both stories were wrong. Fallibility runs in the human bloodline, and people from many quarters of public life had not done their jobs well, including journalists like me. The attack had not been a gang rape, but almost certainly an assault carried out by a serial criminal acting on his own while the five boys were elsewhere in the park, an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney's office concluded in 2002. It is a profound distinction. Bungling by the authorities had left the real author of the crime against Ms. Meili, a truly dangerous predator, on the street for months as he carried out a binge of raping, maiming and murdering across the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Ms. Meili was the second woman he raped and beat in the park that week. I covered parts of the trials in 1990 for New York Newsday, and wish that I had been more skeptical and that I had shouted, rather than mumbled, the doubts I did express. The enormity of what went wrong was first revealed to a broad audience in a 2012 documentary, "Central Park Five," by Ken Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns. It also mapped the raw edges of the era and captured the textures of 1989 New York, a jolting sight. The city has molted and remade itself many times since. The New York psyche if there is such a thing no longer dwells in that age of relentless crime. Fear cannot so easily crowd out evidence. The rapid evolution of DNA technology has demonstrated, time and again, how the righteous pursuit of truth can become warped. And the works of filmmakers like Ms. DuVernay, Mr. Burns and Henry Louis Gates Jr. have shown that the racial tropes of our past were not abandoned in ancient boneyards, but were poured into the concrete that modern America was built on. "It's more than anger," Mr. Trump had said. "It's hatred, and I want society to hate them." For a long while, he got his wish. One spring day in 1989, the world awoke to news of a crime so soul witheringly awful that it shocked even those who knew the New York City of that often ghastly era. In the middle of the night, Ms. Meili, 28, had been found near death in a wooded ravine off a road used by joggers in Central Park. She had been raped and her skull had been fractured in two places. Most of her blood had seeped into the mud from lacerations in her head. Unlike the accurate accounts they gave to police of those events, their confessions to the assault on the jogger were wrong about where, when and how it happened. In the series, the police and prosecutors are portrayed as immediately aware of these discrepancies. That is false. Chaos does not get its due. Ms. Meili was not identified for nearly a day, and her movements not established until much later. The tunnel vision that took over the investigators is rendered solely as amoral ambition, but the reality of error in the Central Park case, as in most everything, is more interesting and nuanced than cartoon villainy. Still, it is a fact that in 1989, there was little interest in the weakness of the confessions. This story of pitiless teenagers taking turns with a woman, then caving in her skull was big enough, terrible enough, to electrify a city grown numb to its own badness. A critic weighs in on "When They See Us." In those years, the daily pulse of New York life included a murder, on average, every five hours, every day; rapes nearly twice as often; and robberies just five or six minutes apart. Yet the attack in Central Park stood out because, as Mayor Edward I. Koch said, the confessions by the five teens could have been a chapter of "A Clockwork Orange" come to life. After all, it had not been the act of a single, deranged individual, but a "social and premeditated" crime by a group, The New York Post wrote. That was most staggering of all. "How could apparently well adjusted youngsters turn into so savage a wolf pack?" The New York Times asked in an editorial. "The question reverberates." The victim was white. The accused were black and brown. If "the eldest of that wolf pack were tried, convicted and hanged in Central Park, by June 1, and the 13 and 14 year olds were stripped, horsewhipped, and sent to prison," the columnist Patrick Buchanan wrote, "the park might soon be safe again for women." Note for note, without mention of race, Mr. Buchanan and others echoed the historic calls for the public punishment of dark skinned men thought to have defiled white women. Just two weeks after the attack, Mr. Trump published his ads, headlined, "Bring Back the Death Penalty." The boys recanted the confessions and said they had been coerced. This, their lawyers argued, made the statements inadmissible. Prosecutors replied that parents of three of them had been present as their sons admitted to the crime on videotape. How could that be coercive? Not so well understood was that the parents were only sporadically present for interrogations that spread over a day before the camera was turned on. It was during those unrecorded sessions, unseen by anyone outside the room, that the damning statements were first extracted. During the trials, the courthouse was ringed with competing demonstrators, some claiming that the rape story was a hoax, others demanding castration. Al Sharpton called for a psychiatrist to examine the jogger's amnesia. "We are not endorsing the damage to the girl," he said. "If there was this damage." The red bereted "Guardian Angels" group chanted for the five boys to be tried as adults. It was an unedifying barrage, kazoos from all corners. Mr. McCray, then a skinny 16 year old, walked into court holding his mother's hand. "Demonstrators, you know people just shouting, you know, 'Rapist!' 'You animal!' 'You don't deserve to be alive,'" he said several years ago. "It just felt like the whole world hated us." Ms. Meili emerged to testify about her return from the doorway of death, without pieces of her life a sense of smell, clear vision, effortless speech. She still had no memory of the crime. Breathtaking as her appearance was, it added nothing to the proofs. Later that day, I watched other witnesses say that for all the intimate violence, not one iota of scientific evidence linked any of the five to the attack. A forensic pathologist, the prosecution's own expert, could not testify that Ms. Meili had been attacked by more than one person. In closing arguments, the prosecutor incorrectly said that hairs matching the jogger's were found on the clothing of the boys. They spent six to 13 years in prison. Before parole boards, when a show of unqualified remorse would have given them a better shot at leaving prison earlier, they acknowledged witnessing or participating in other wrongdoing in the park but refused to concede having had anything to do with the jogger. They stuck with their stories. So did the system. Years later, the hair "match" claimed by the prosecutor was discredited through DNA testing. It was part of an exhaustive revisiting of evidence that took place in 2002, when Matias Reyes, a murderer and serial rapist serving 33 years to life for other crimes, got word to the district attorney's office that he and he alone had struck the jogger as she ran, and dragged her off the road to rape and bludgeon. His was the only DNA recovered. In rebuttal, the Police Department commissioned a report to exonerate itself and muddy the new narrative. It edged away from any certainty about the involvement of the five in a sexual assault, but maintained that they nevertheless somehow had a part in the attack, before or after Mr. Reyes, enough to make them guilty of something, and the police innocent of everything. In a recent round table discussion about their shifting roles in the culture, Mr. McCray reflected that until the "Central Park Five" documentary was released a decade later, in 2012, "The train wasn't moving at all." One image has been part of the saga in all its iterations, from the trial to the new series. The grass had been wet the night of the attack, so a record of the first moments of the assault was written in the damp ground. Crime scene photographs showed the trail where Ms. Meili was dragged off the road. It was only about 18 inches wide, less than a newspaper spread open. In that trail, there is neither room for, nor trace of, five people. No matter how hard or long you look. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
First Bach, now T. S. Eliot. Pam Tanowitz has developed a habit: choreographing to masterpieces. After last year's acclaimed collaboration with the pianist Simone Dinnerstein an evening length work set to Bach's "Goldberg" Variations her latest source of inspiration is Eliot's beloved "Four Quartets," a 75 year old poetic exploration of time and memory. When Gideon Lester, the artistic director for theater and dance at Bard College, first brought up the idea of her setting Eliot's poetry to dance, Ms. Tanowitz responded positively. "I said sure," she recalled, "but I was really like: There's no way. How could I make a dance to a poem and one so hefty? Who do I think I am? I said yes because I never thought it would happen." But "Four Quartets," directed and choreographed by Ms. Tanowitz, will have its premiere this week at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard. It's an impressive and ambitious group effort: Music, by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, will accompany the actress Kathleen Chalfant as she narrates the complete poem cycle. The set designed, along with the lighting, by Clifton Taylor comprises four paintings by Brice Marden. Costumes are by Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung. Ms. Saariaho's music will be performed by the Knights, the Brooklyn based chamber orchestra. The sound design is by her husband, the composer and video artist Jean Baptiste Barriere. Mr. Lester wanted to give Ms. Tanowitz, 48, an opportunity to work on a more substantial level. "It's so hard, particularly for New York choreographers, to work on any kind of scale outside the structures of ballet companies," he said. "Everybody gets used to making works for three dancers in a black box." This time, he's not letting that happen. For the look of "Four Quartets," Ms. Tanowitz has worked closely with Mr. Taylor. At the start, she told him what she didn't want: a straightforward backdrop for each of the poems "Burnt Norton," "East Coker," "The Dry Salvages" and "Little Gidding" which are named after the places Eliot wrote about. "Pam likes to see the stage in different sizes and proportions," Mr. Taylor said. "I think it fits really well with the poetry, which comes from different angles. It's like looking at a jewel from a different facet." Mr. Taylor paired "Dry Salvages," named after a cluster of rocks off the coast of Cape Ann, Mass., with "Untitled (Hydra)," from Mr. Marden's latest series focusing on curvilinear lines on a field of color. It will be reproduced at scale, translucent and placed on wheels. Dancers will perform in front of and behind it; they will also move it onstage. "That poem deals with a lot of water imagery: They're in the sea, they're on boats," Mr. Taylor said. "So the curvilinear lines, the color palette it all fits." Mr. Taylor's other job lighting the production is just as crucial to carving the audience's experience. "To me, light is interesting because it's time," he said. "It's exactly the issues that Eliot's dealing with in the poetry. I want to create scenery that changes through time, that talks about time." Ms. Saariaho, in an email interview, said that she had been inspired by Eliot's poems since she was young. One of her early works for soprano, lights and electronics, "Study for Life" (1980), used text from the fifth part of "The Hollow Men." She was refused rights to use the poetry; it was performed only once. Even though that experience left her disappointed and frustrated, it couldn't quell her admiration for Eliot's poetry and "Four Quartets." "These poems are really musical, as all his work is," she said. "Eliot clearly worked on sound and repetition of words and images. This is similar to a composer's work." Her music accompanies the text "from a respectful distance," she said. "And it has been interesting to observe how combining the music in this text changes the listening, and, maybe surprisingly, makes the text easier to comprehend." Ms. Chalfant has thrown herself into the project with much enthusiasm, even traveling to England for a pilgrimage to visit three of the sites that inspired "Four Quartets." (Mr. Lester and Ms. Tanowitz visited all four in preparation.) "That was enormously helpful because it made you understand that even though the poem is immensely cerebral and philosophical and dealing with questions of time, it is also very concrete," Ms. Chalfant said. "Some of the things that were particularly mysterious turned out not to be: It was actually a rose garden, and the sunken lanes were actually sunken lanes." Ms. Tanowitz said that Ms. Chalfant's voice just as with Ms. Dinnerstein's playing in "Goldberg" helps to guide her in rehearsals. "It's unadorned," Ms. Tanowitz said. "It's not too lofty or too earthy, it's just presenting the material. And she's not acting it; she's reading it." In the work, Ms. Chalfant will read the entire poem from a raised pit. "I'm really just part of the band," she said. When Mr. Lester approached Clare Reihill, the trustee of the Eliot estate, for permission to set the poem to dance, she was immediately intrigued. "I honestly couldn't see anything that would prevent me from saying yes," she said. "Even though it's a kind of unified event, the poem emerges in its own right." But how to make a dance to match it? Ms. Tanowitz began working last May, when she was still choreographing "New Work for Goldberg Variations." She sees the two as companion pieces: "Goldberg" starts and ends with an aria, while "Four Quartets" is about time present and time past. They're circular. "The core is spiritual: It has rhythm, it's development, it's form, it's traditional, and there's freedom in the tradition," Ms. Tanowitz said. "Both of these pieces equal endless possibilities. It's about the relationship between emotion and form." It was also meaningful that in "Four Quartets," there are several references to dance. "The poem is dance, and it also literally has dance in it," Ms. Tanowitz said. "He saw Nijinsky. He was inspired by Isadora Duncan. But what's amazing about the poem is that it's inevitable. As it goes on, you don't question anything." And Ms. Tanowitz is trying something new. Not only will she make a rare appearance dancing in the work herself, but she also tried to approach it from a place of intuition, as opposed to planning all the movement in advance. "I've choreographed before in my life, but I've never choreographed this exact dance in this moment," Ms. Tanowitz said. "So I'm letting the dance show me what to do. If I can do that and make it seem inevitable, then maybe I can even have 2 percent of what he did in this poem." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
From left: Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times; Johnny Nunez/Getty Images for NAACP LDF; Charley Gallay/Getty Images For The J. Paul Getty Trust; Whitten Sabbatini for The New York Times; Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for The CalArts REDCAT Gala 2019; Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for The Rush Philanthropic Art Foundation From left: Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times; Johnny Nunez/Getty Images for NAACP LDF; Charley Gallay/Getty Images For The J. Paul Getty Trust; Whitten Sabbatini for The New York Times; Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for The CalArts REDCAT Gala 2019; Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for The Rush Philanthropic Art Foundation Credit... From left: Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times; Johnny Nunez/Getty Images for NAACP LDF; Charley Gallay/Getty Images For The J. Paul Getty Trust; Whitten Sabbatini for The New York Times; Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for The CalArts REDCAT Gala 2019; Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for The Rush Philanthropic Art Foundation For years, Black trustees at the country's art museums have been talking to each other. They share their frustrations at being the only Black faces in board meetings. They exchange ideas about how to help recruit more Black directors, to collect more Black artists, to cultivate more Black curators. Now, in an effort to formalize those conversations and facilitate meaningful change amid the Black Lives Matter movement, several of those trustees have banded together to form the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums. "This is a different moment," said Pamela J. Joyner, a member of the alliance's steering committee who is a trustee at the Getty Trust, the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Americas Foundation. "I don't see anybody who isn't focused on moving a process like this forward." The need for this type of organization, its members say, was amplified most recently by the decision by four museums to postpone a Philip Guston retrospective until 2024 because of its images of the Ku Klux Klan. The announcement sparked a fierce backlash in the art world, with critics of the decision calling it self censorship. The institutions that organized the Guston exhibition the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Tate Modern in London, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston have said they postponed "until a time at which we think that the powerful message of social and racial justice that is at the center of Philip Guston's work can be more clearly interpreted." The National Gallery's director, Kaywin Feldman, told The Washington Post on Wednesday that members of the gallery's staff, including some guards, had voiced their objections to the show's images and that "the KKK images in Guston's work are in a special category of racial violence." (She also said the 2024 date was announced hastily and she hoped the exhibition would open sooner at her museum in 2022 or 2023.) The new trustees alliance is riding a wave of heightened awareness about the importance of better representation that has reached city government, museums and most recently commercial art galleries. The steering committee, which met for the first time last month, includes prominent collectors such as AC Hudgins (who serves on the board of the Museum of Modern Art), Denise Gardner (Art Institute of Chicago) and Troy Carter (Los Angeles County Museum of Art). Often the only Black people on the boards of major museums, these trustees are pooling their efforts to help institutions identify new talent and insist on diverse perspectives to better reflect the communities they serve. "We can begin to hold institutions accountable," said Raymond J. McGuire, who serves on the boards of the Whitney and the Studio Museum in Harlem. "It's really intended to be transformative." The alliance's mission, as articulated in a written summary of the committee's first meeting on Sept. 18, is "to increase inclusion of Black artists, perspectives and narratives in U.S. cultural institutions by: addressing inequalities in staffing and leadership; combating marginalized communities' lack of presence in exhibitions and programming; and incorporating diversity into the institution's culture." The organization, which is scheduled to meet again this month, also plans to amass and make available data that can help institutions take a hard look at themselves, similar to last year's Williams College study of 18 major U.S. museums, which found that 85 percent of artists in their collections were white and that 87 percent were men. Similarly, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation found last year that the percentage of nonwhite curators had risen to 16 percent in 2018 from 12 percent in 2015, though little change had been made at the executive leadership level. "It's not enough to just call out the problem," said Gaby Sulzberger, a private equity executive who last year joined the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is serving as a chairwoman of the new group. "We want to be part of the solution." The Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation are financially supporting the work of the alliance. "There has always been a token on these boards," said Darren Walker, the president of Ford who last year became the first Black trustee at the National Gallery, where the Guston show was to open in June. "Tokenism is no longer acceptable and there will be an internal mechanism that holds the museums accountable." Mr. Walker, who was a guest at the steering committee's first meeting and last month issued a statement in support of the Guston postponement, said in an interview that the issues raised by that exhibition are systemic. "This is not about Guston, it's about museums needing to change," Mr. Walker said. "In the past, the National Gallery curators would never have consulted with Black staff members before doing a show they might consider problematic. In the future, that's going to need to happen." Thelma Golden, the director and chief curator of the Studio Museum, who was also a guest at the committee's first meeting, called the alliance "incredibly important, significant and necessary to the work of institutional transformation." The alliance initially plans to concentrate on building up the number of Black board members, but will also address the scarcity of Black artists in collections and Black curators on staff. "It feels as if there is real power in coming together and sharing resources," said Victoria Rogers, another chairwoman of the alliance, who serves on the board of the Brooklyn Museum. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
WORTH THE WAIT Jason and Jennifer Donatelli rented near their target neighborhood in Huntington before moving into their dream house, which they bought for 725,000, or about a third off the initial asking price. BACK in 2008, Jennifer Donatelli and her family sold their small "starter house" in southeastern Huntington in record time (the kind of thing that used to happen routinely before the housing crash) and had to get out in two months. "We wanted a better neighborhood and a bigger home," said Ms. Donatelli, a former TV producer who now works at the Huntington Y.M.C.A. With two small children, she and her husband, Jason, a lawyer in Syosset, felt rushed to make a good choice, she said. "We talked one night: 'What should we do, what should we do?' Then we said, 'Why are we killing ourselves? Let's rent first.' " Renting first in this case not far from their ultimate target neighborhood turned out be just the right decision. They found a two bedroom house for 2,000 a month in downtown Huntington. "We thought it was a good deal," Ms. Donatelli said. And at first, the couple thought they would stay a short while. Then house prices started tumbling. "We thought, why settle let's just wait," Ms. Donatelli said. They had their eyes in particular on a four bedroom center hall colonial on a quiet street near the border of Huntington Bay, perfect for raising their sons, Nicholas and Michael, now 9 and 5. "It was our dream house," she said. The rental market on Long Island has been steadily strengthening during these years of economic uncertainty, brokers say. And a good part of those renters are people who, like the Donatellis, say they are planning to buy. Often, they want to try out a particular community before they commit to buying there. Or they know they want to live there, but have their hearts set on a particular street or house. This kind of goal oriented renting is "a very smart thing to do," said Deborah Sande, a licensed saleswoman for Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty, because "you don't want to make a mistake." In fact these days, with so many potential buyers renting, and more and more sellers pricing realistically as they "get their heads around the new prices," as Ms. Sande put it, the stock of rentals is shrinking. "Our inventory is not as big as we need," said Susana Muir, who works in Daniel Gale's Locust Valley office, which also covers upscale areas like Centre Island and Oyster Bay Cove. She, too, has seen an upswing in people who "want to acquaint themselves with an area before they buy, or want to see what will happen in the market." Although few renters ever buy the house they rent, the rental may include an option to buy that is, they may enter a bid or top one from another bidder. Other deals include one that a former stockbroker made after losing his job and selling his Oyster Bay home for 1.3 million last year. The man, who did not want his name used, said he negotiated a reduced rent 4,000 instead of 6,000 on a run down home down the street that was on the market for what he considered an inflated 1.3 million. In exchange for the lower rent, he agreed to make improvements to the house, on which he has since spent 175,000. "At the end of the lease," the man said, "the owner can sell it and give me my money back, or I can buy it at market price." If he thinks the appraised value fair, he said, at this point he is inclined to buy. In the case of the Donatellis' dream home, it had already been on the market two years when they first spotted it on the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island Web site. The owners were asking 1.1 million. "That was out of our price range," Ms. Donatelli said. "We just watched it. It went down every month." A year later, when it reached 799,000, they finally visited the home and made an offer, winning it at 725,000. "That's the beauty of renting while you're looking," she said. "There's no time frame. It allowed us the leisure to be a little more picky, to look for the house we wanted." (She added that their only regret, since prices have plunged even more, is that they didn't wait even longer.) Another bonus: With the Donatellis' low rent, they were able to save toward a bigger down payment. The rental trend is strong in areas with more modest homes, and the upside of the unsteady economy, said Darab Lawyer, an agent for Century 21 American Homes in Oceanside, is that renters like his clients Julian and Christina Giaquinto can find affordable homes when they're ready. "In a booming market," Mr. Lawyer said, "they would have been priced out" The couple are in contract to buy a split level in Seaford for 345,000, after having rented in Mineola. "We were waiting for the right time," Mr. Giaquinto said. A loan officer with Advisors Mortgage Group, he watched prices and interest rates carefully, he said, and was able to lock in a rate of 3.5 percent, which went up soon afterward. Often, renting a modest house can be more expensive than owning it, said Katy Anastasio, the owner of Anastasio Associates in Northport. But the opposite is often true at the high end: "It's almost cheaper to rent a luxury home than to buy it," she said. Her last three clients had each come to Long Island to relocate for new jobs. One, from South Carolina, decided to buy because his company offered a financial cushion. A second, from Washington State, is looking to rent first, and the third, from New Jersey, is "really debating whether to buy now or wait two or three years." Buying a million dollar house, she said, would cost about 7,000 a month, including taxes, insurance and maintenance versus about 4,000 in rent. Still, lower rates and prices might mean that now is a time for renters to buy, said Linda Bonarelli Lugo, the owner of Realty Executives in Huntington and the president of the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island, which has a rent versus buy calculator on its Web site: "A lot of people might be quite surprised at what they find out." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Makan Delrahim, the assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, wrote in March to the FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, and Cindy Parlow Cone, who heads U.S. Soccer, to express his concerns after learning an influential FIFA advisory committee had recommended to FIFA's governing council that "official domestic matches should take place on the territory of the member association concerned." The FIFA Council has yet to ratify the recommendation. "We specifically are concerned that FIFA could violate U.S. antitrust laws by restricting the territory in which teams can play league games," Delrahim wrote in the letter, which has not been previously disclosed. Relevent included the letter as part of its amended complaint when it filed a new lawsuit in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday. FIFA did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The Justice Department's involvement adds a new dimension to the case brought by Relevent. FIFA has tried to cultivate a close relationship with U.S. authorities since the corruption indictments were handed down in 2015, dismantling the top tier of international soccer's leadership. FIFA's top lawyers have been in regular contact with American justice officials in an attempt to prove the organization has changed significantly and should be repaid some of the hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution seized from defendants who admitted to participating in bribery and kickback schemes. Despite the changes, FIFA is still mired in legal troubles. The most serious of them concerns its president, Infantino, who was informed in July that he is the subject of a criminal investigation over his meetings with the Swiss official overseeing the FIFA corruption inquiry. Infantino has said any claims of improper behavior are "absurd." The official, Michael Lauber, has resigned as attorney general and last week was stripped of immunity from prosecution. FIFA has also invested significant time and effort in strengthening its relationships in the United States after awarding the right to host the 2026 World Cup to a U.S. led bid that included Canada and Mexico. Infantino has visited the White House for meetings with President Trump, and was also invited in January to address guests at a dinner that Trump hosted at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
Richard Plepler, the chief executive of HBO and one of the most influential executives in entertainment, abruptly stepped down on Thursday. A New Jersey mafia boss under strain who finds himself in a psychiatrist's office. A 30 something writer taking on the big city with her friends. A "Mother of Dragons" locked in an epic battle to sit on an iron throne. During Richard Plepler's almost three decades at HBO, the premium cable channel has shaped culture with unforgettable characters and groundbreaking shows that have forced viewers to grapple with topics like power, politics and sex. Often, the magic of such television series is the messy way those themes intersect. Mr. Plepler joined HBO as a public relations official in 1992 and rose through the ranks. He abruptly stepped down as C.E.O. on Thursday. Here is a look at some of the network's biggest hits during his tenure at the company. On June 6, 1998, the TV world was introduced to Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha four single women who took Manhattan by storm. Over six seasons, a show that began with jokes about oral sex and orgasms offered a window into an upscale slice of New York City, spurring a generation of young, ambitious single women to move there. Much has been written since the show ended about how it changed television, and particularly about how it depicts female relationships and sexuality. Throughout the series, the city remained a constant companion of the four main characters. When the show was ending in 2004, The New York Times wrote: "Sometimes they swore off men Samantha less than the others. But they never swore off the city." As soon as Tony Soprano went to therapy, "The Sopranos" became a sensation. Viewers, it turned out, had an appetite for complicated, ambitious storytelling. In 1999, The Times said the show "just may be the greatest work of American popular culture of the last quarter century." What followed was a television revolution that helped establish HBO as a cultural force. Through "The Sopranos," the writer and producer David Chase made literary symbolism, cinematic style and antiheroes the norm for high end TV dramas. Then, in 2007, after a six season run, it finally cut to black. One could say that is no longer the prevailing opinion. Though it is true there are enough characters, kingdoms and plot lines to make your head spin, the series by the writer producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss may be HBO's biggest hit ever. Even those with no interest in dragons have become absorbed in its storytelling, which enters its final season in April. That said, the dragons are pretty darn cool. "I don't want to freak you out, but I think that I may be the voice of my generation," says Lena Dunham's character, Hannah, in the premiere of "Girls." The line encapsulates the comical self obsession of Hannah Horvath, a 20 something writer trying to "find herself" in New York City, along with three close female friends. The show was a lightning rod for its audience, attracting both a loyal fan base and a steadfast community of ruthless critics. Many considered "Girls" to be groundbreaking for its portrayal of the awkward, unflattering moments during sex. There was also plenty written about the lack of diversity in the show, which saw Brooklyn mostly through the eyes of four white women. The explosive popularity of the limited series was further validated when HBO announced it would be coming back for an unexpected second season. The first season of the glossy drama centers on a set of rich and feuding parents living in Monterey, Calif. They are all suspects in a crime that occurs in their town after the arrival of a young single mother and her 6 year old son. The stars of the show, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, lend the series its big screen sparkle. That sparkle will only get brighter in the second season, which introduces Meryl Streep to the cast. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
"Pull, pull, pull!" Basil Twist called out the other day as two puppeteers struggled to drag a waterlogged blue curtain out of a five foot deep tank filled with 1,000 gallons of water. The tank sat in a bunkerlike room near Canal Street and Sixth Avenue. The room's owner, Trinity Real Estate, had lent it to Mr. Twist so he could rehearse his musical puppet reverie "Symphonie Fantastique." Now 20 years old, the show returns to the HERE theater, just a few blocks away, for a 12 week run on Thursday. Behind the tank, water splashed everywhere. (Mr. Twist estimates that he loses about 100 gallons per run through.) A kind of scaffolding had been constructed around the tank, a miniature staging area. Puppeteers in wetsuits straddled the sides or scrambled into harnesses so that they could dangle above it, holding wires attached to fabric, feathers, tinsel, pinwheels. They lowered these into the water below at designated points in the music, Hector Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique." "Every puppet show with Basil, there's a choreography going on backstage," said Lake Simons, a longtime Twist puppeteer. "It takes a lot to create those amazing stage pictures." Everything moved in sync with the music's highs and lows, reflecting its changing themes. "I guess I'm more musical than the average Joe," Mr. Twist, 48, said modestly. His "Symphonie Fantastique" is reminiscent of the "music visualizations" by dance pioneers like Loie Fuller, who used light and fabric to mimic the aural experience of listening to music. This may sound a bit hokey, but like great dance, Basil Twist's musical puppetry blurs the line between the eye and the ear; the dancing feathers intensify the experience of Berlioz's score and vice versa. It helps that Mr. Twist's idea of puppetry is expansive; it includes anything that can be manipulated. The puppets don't have to look like an animal or a person or anything else. "Puppetry is an abstraction of the spark of life," he said. In this case, "It's just a piece of fabric, and because it's in the water and because someone with skill is giving little impulses to it and we're all looking at it, it looks like it's alive." Over lunch, Mr. Twist recounted how he came up with the inspiration for "Symphonie Fantastique" some 20 years ago. One day, he found a small cracked aquarium lying on the sidewalk in the West Village, discarded by its owner, and dragged it home. After patching it up, he filled it with water and started experimenting: "I would take a hanger and attach a piece of fabric to it, and I could just watch it forever. It was hypnotizing." He did this with feathers, and shapes he cut out of plastic, and fringe and anything else that came to hand. Then he experimented with light. His libretto lays out the story of a young musician haunted by the image of an idealized woman he sees everywhere. The protagonist, who sounds suspiciously like Berlioz, eventually smokes opium and lapses into a crazed dream, evoked by spooky bell like sound effects and terrifying glissandi. (Berlioz too is said to have had an affection for opium.) Leonard Bernstein referred to it in his "Young People's Concerts" as "the first psychedelic symphony in history." When Mr. Twist first conceived "Symphonie," he used a recording, but now the music is played live in a transcription for solo piano written by the great Romantic era showboat Franz Liszt. It's a monster of a piece, which, as played by the pianist Christopher O'Riley, adds a new level of theatricality to the visual spectacle. In Mr. Twist's eyes, the pianist becomes a stand in for the love crazed composer in Berlioz's original concept. Or as he put it: "He is the person having this fever dream." The object of his affections is represented by a ghostly white fabric. This is "hand held Harriet," named after Berlioz's beloved, Harriet Smithson, whom the composer met and married three years after the symphony's premiere. (Reader: It didn't last.) The white apparition coincides with the first occurrence of a musical motif that returns many times. Berlioz called it his "idee fixe," or obsession. Each time you hear the wistful melody, you see the fabric shape shifting in the water. It feels vaguely human and abstract at the same time. Until recently, this Harriet apparition was handled by Mr. Twist: "There were no strings or sticks or anything. The idea was to make it look like it was moving on its own. I had this feeling I was expressing myself through my hands and making this piece of cloth come to life." He has since taught it to one of his puppeteers. He no longer performs in the show at 48, he finds its physical demands more taxing than they once were. Now, he prefers to fine tune the work of others. A lot has happened in Mr. Twist's career in the 20 years since the successful premiere of "Symphonie Fantastique." His works have been shown at Lincoln Center ("Petrushka" and "The Rite of Spring"). He has created puppetry for several ballets (most notably works by Christopher Wheeldon) and on Broadway ("Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "The Addams Family"). He has directed operas. He helped design the Dementors, terrifying black ghouls in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." And in 2015 he won a MacArthur "genius" fellowship. "Symphonie" was also the impetus behind Dream Music Puppetry program, a puppetry series that was inaugurated at HERE in 1998 with the premiere of the piece. The dedicated puppetry space downstairs, one of the few of its kind around the country, was founded with the help of a donation from his grandmother and still bears her name, Dorothy B. Williams. Her photograph sits outside the door. (This revival will be performed in the larger space upstairs.) Mr. Twist has been its artistic director since the beginning. The city beyond HERE's walls, though, has changed. "When I created 'Symphonie' I used to go down to Canal Street and get everything I needed those stores are mostly gone now," he said with a note of sadness. "You would touch things and feel materials instead of just ordering them online." All these years later, he's still amazed that this assemblage of bits and pieces worked together as well as it did. Sometimes, he said, as he surveys the drenched props and the puddles on the floor, he wonders: "Wow, how did I do that?" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
Where the High Line meets 14th Street, visitors can enter a series of three rooms designed to evoke prison cells. Each is 9 by 6 feet , 8 feet tall, and is covered on every surface with writing: essays about womanhood; poems about race and family; pages from a hand drawn graphic novel; letters from incarcerated or formerly incarcerated people around the world. The rooms are part of the installation "The Writing on the Wall," a collaboration between the conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas, the English professor Baz Dreisinger, the design studio Openbox and the architectural firm MASS Design Group to draw attention to the estimated 11 million people in prison worldwide. "Justice has always been a complicated thing to maintain in the United States," Mr. Thomas said. "We lock people away and we don't even think about them , but we have to think about how much good that is doing us as a society, and what does this mean for humanity?" "When you read someone's words you have to in some way become them," he added. In 2013 the artist visited Dr. Dreisinger who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and is executive director of the Incarceration Nations Network while brainstorming for the 2014 People's Biennial at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. She showed him a stack of papers in a closet: writing from prisoners in 50 countries that she had collected in her research over the years. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
Exposed wood may be a familiar sight in some 19th century buildings in New York City, like lofts in TriBeCa and Dumbo, where it was necessarily used in columns, joists and ceilings. But in the kinds of apartments that make up most of the city's current housing stock, the only timber that is visible in a near natural state is on the floor. But Frame Home, a new Manhattan based development firm, is trying to change that. In one of the first of its kind efforts in New York City, Frame Home is using mostly wood instead of the concrete and brick that's been common for decades for the construction of a series of rental buildings in Brooklyn. First, Frame Home had to address the city's fears about using a form of engineered wood for its residential buildings that is typically banned by the building code over concerns about its strength in relation to fires. But the company was granted an exception to the code. "Cities across the globe have brought back wood to build 40 floor buildings," said Joanne Wilson, a Frame Home co founder. "New York City should be doing the same to dramatically expand the number of environmentally responsible living opportunities." The first and subsequent buildings in the series are being designed by Loadingdock5, an architectural studio in Williamsburg. "Wood is solid, it's calm, it's warm and it smells good," said Sam Bargetz, a principal of the studio. "It's a very inviting material." But there are other considerations than just aesthetics. In using wood, a renewable resource, Frame Home is hoping to create housing with a smaller than normal carbon footprint, which is a choice that might seem counterintuitive: How can chopping down trees ever be green? The developers say the wood they use doesn't come from old growth forests, but rather is harvested from places like tree farms that replace stumps with saplings. And because the trees used are fast growing spruces, any environmental loss is mitigated. The first project in the series, called Frame 283 and located at 283 Greene Avenue in Clinton Hill, is an industrial style five story building with 10 apartments, all with two bedrooms and either one or two bathrooms, and private outdoor space. Spruce boards, which are glued at perpendicular angles to make thick beams called cross laminated timber, are clearly visible in columns, beams, walls and ceilings. And the veins, knots and whorls in the wood won't always be concealed behind Sheetrock or paint. But not every surface at Frame 283 is wood. Some walls are made of unfinished concrete, giving the building, which has open air staircases, an almost work in progress look. Some pipes are exposed, too. Other building features include an 80 panel solar system, a shared roof deck and a bike room. While wood can be pricier than concrete, labor costs can be much less, developers say. In fact, because Frame 283's cross laminated timber arrived in prefabricated sections, it took only about two weeks to put up its main structure, in what might traditionally be a six week project, said Ms. Wilson, of Frame Home, who would not divulge the development cost. The land, city records show, cost 6 million in 2015. The building, which began marketing in the fall and expects to open this winter, is priced near the top of the market. Rents start at more than 4,000 a month, which is high for Clinton Hill, where market rate two bedrooms have averaged 3,300 a month, according to the brokerage Ideal Properties Group. But two bedrooms in next door Fort Greene average 4,100, the brokerage said. Though multifamily residences made of timber are turning up in places like Portland, Ore., the practice is far less common in cities like New York. Currently, the city's building code allows only one kind of wood material to be used in any building, an engineered product that's generally called nail laminated timber, which is made of wood pieces arrayed parallel to one another. Some proponents of the product say lining up the pieces like that makes nail laminated timber stronger than cross laminated timber, which has more seams, and can be perceived as weaker because of it. In New York, cross laminated timber is generally prohibited, though with Frame 283, an exception was granted only after Frame Home added an extra strength sprinkler system and special noncombustible insulation. But Frame Home is undeterred by the extra red tape and is planning its next project, a 17 unit rental at 118 Waverly Avenue in Clinton Hill. That building is expected to break ground this year. In New York, another similar residential project is at 80 Ainslie Street, a five story, 16 unit project made of cross laminated timber that is under construction in Williamsburg. Parkview Builders is listed as the developer on building permits. Housing development is a new professional pursuit for Ms. Wilson, whose main focus has been investing in tech start ups, to the tune of about 130 in the past 14 years, including Curbed Media, which according to new reports sold in 2013 to Vox Media for between 20 million and 30 million in a cash and stock deal. But if low carbon emission buildings are the next business frontier, they're also good for the planet, which shouldn't be overlooked, she said. "It didn't make sense," she added, "to make something that wasn't thinking about the future." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Sugar, red and Japanese Maples: You can drive up and down America's east coast to enjoy their fiery pyrotechnic shows each fall. Along the way, you may want to hop out of the car, take a deep breath and hope you catch a whiff of the katsura tree's sweet scent. "I can barely smell it, but as people walk through my garden, they shriek, Cotton candy!" said Ken Druse, a gardener and author of "The Scentual Garden," a book about how humans smell and process scented plants. Autumn seems to belong to pumpkin spice, and odors are often overlooked when it comes to fall foliage. We rave about how leaves die colorful deaths and rarely discuss how their scent changes with old age. But right about now in Mr. Druse's garden and elsewhere around the country, the leaves of katsura which can be found all over New York City and in many other parts of the United States are just beginning to turn. The katsura is also called the caramel tree. In Germany, they call it "kuchenbaum," or "cake tree." And if you're able to pick up its scent, you'll see why. Known scientifically as Cercidiphyllum japonicum, the katsura tree is native to Japan and China. Fossil records suggest it once grew widely in North America and Europe before going extinct in the cold Pleistocene epoch. It returned to the United States around 1865, when an American diplomat in Japan shipped seeds home to his brother in Manhattan, who operated a family nursery. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Each Friday, Farhad Manjoo and Mike Isaac, technology reporters at The New York Times, review the week's news, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry. Farhad is off this week, so Nathaniel Popper, a Times tech and finance reporter, is filling in for him. Want this newsletter in your inbox? Sign up here. Mike: Why, hello there, new newsletter partner! It's everyone's favorite Bitcoin reporter, Nathaniel Popper! Thanks so much for subbing in for Farhad this week, sir, while he's off doing whatever it is he does when he's not being wrong about technology in this newsletter. Nathaniel: It's good to be here to share some of my own wrong thoughts, Mike. I'll see if I can do my best Farhad imitation, but with the added bonus of lots of tangents about Bitcoin and fintech. Mike: Indeed. Well, it's nice to have a finance expert join the tech pod and tell us all the ways that technology is changing how we bank and pay for things and all that stuff I barely comprehend. Mike: Anyway, let's get on to talking about the week in tech! And with that, why don't we start off with Bitcoin? Square, the micropayments processing company co founded by Jack Dorsey, recently started letting a small subset of users purchase Bitcoin using one of the company's consumer facing apps, Square Cash. It's primarily a peer to peer money transfer service, but Square is dabbling in ways to make money from the app. Now, you've written a bit about Square over the past year, including how the company was set to surge past the market cap of Twitter, Dorsey's other beloved company. What should I make of this move? Is it something significant for the business or, alternately, is it a significant moment for Bitcoin? With all the daily vacillations in Bitcoin value, it's hard for me to know if the currency is in a stable, real place with normal people or if it's still a flight of fancy. Nathaniel: Square's stock jumped after this Bitcoin news got out. It reminds me a bit of the British company that saw its shares jump 400 percent last month after it simply added the word "blockchain" to its name. (For those tech readers who have successfully ignored all of this craziness, blockchain is the database technology that Bitcoin introduced.) It seems hard to dispute that this is a very bubble y moment for Bitcoin and all the blockchain and virtual currency stuff that have spun off it. A lot of the people buying right now probably don't have a terribly strong thesis about why the technology matters they just see it going up and want to get in on the action. Bitcoin's position as a new kind of global online gambling parlor has been particularly apparent in South Korea and Japan, which have risen out of nowhere over the last six months to become the largest markets for virtual currency trading. When I was asking around about this a few weeks back, I kept hearing how virtual currency trading fit neatly in countries where ordinary people have long speculated on foreign currencies. It's worth keeping this in mind for anyone thinking of buying a Bitcoin through Square Cash. Even the speculation, though, points to one of the things that has gotten real technology people so excited about Bitcoin. Here is a new kind of digital investment that anyone in the world can access and buy and that can cross global borders without needing to go through banks. Jack Dorsey hasn't hidden his interest in this. Back in August, he used an event at the Computer History Museum to reveal his fascination with Bitcoin and the blockchain and his belief that it's going to lead to some fundamental changes in how money works. I would bet that this trial on Square Cash is just the first baby steps in some bigger moves the company has planned. Mike: I should probably try to find that random Bitcoin I purchased a few years ago on a whim. If only I remembered where I put that wallet. Mike: Moving on, let's head over to the world of Twitter, everybody's favorite dysfunctional social network. First, it spent a brutal week testifying in front of Congress about how Russians used social media to influence the 2016 presidential election. Then, a rogue employee decided to delete President Trump's account for 10 minutes, sending the internet into a fit. Now, Twitter is making some changes to its verification program. You know that little blue badge that some people have on Twitter, signifying that they have been "verified" to be who they say they are? Well, Twitter thinks it needs an overhaul. The badge had become something of a status symbol. But then people started pointing out that avowed white supremacists had become verified, and people argued that Twitter was giving a tacit seal of approval to racist speech or the people behind it. This week, the company rescinded some of the badges to people it said "break the company's rules," though Twitter didn't go into detail. Now, some prominent white supremacists are up in arms about being targeted on the service. I imagine they'll have another few days of furor over this one. The company says it is also rethinking how verification should work in the future. I always thought being verified was sort of silly, even though I admit I have a little blue badge as well. It seems like the whole program really isn't worth the headache to me. Nathaniel: It really seems like a bit of a no win situation for Twitter to me like so many of the battles around the social media sites these days. For much of the last year, they've been getting in trouble for not doing enough to stop bot accounts and fake news. Then they have this one program where they are actually trying to verify things, and that gets them in trouble as well. Didn't Facebook confront something similar when they took on the fake news problem by adding human editors to their news feed? For Twitter, though, I have to imagine that part of the problem comes from how unevenly it applied those blue badges. You are a New York Times reporter with a badge; I am one without. I can appreciate why you have one, with your vast following and groupies but the whole thing does feel a bit haphazard and unevenly applied. It does seem like you'd want some sort of guidelines around how the system works. The whole thing made me think that if I were Jack Dorsey, I'd want to leave my job at Twitter and just go sell Bitcoin at Square. What a headache. And only the latest of many for Twitter. Mike: Indeed. Though on a positive note, Twitter is trying to ramp up its data business, an area of the company's revenue that historically hasn't gotten much attention. Perhaps they'll be in luck for this one. Anyway, thanks for coming on and making me smarter about fintech and Twitter! Please come back any time, especially when I start buying large quantities of Dogecoin. Nathaniel: I'll only come back if you promise you won't do that. Mike Isaac covers Facebook, Uber and Twitter for The Times. Nathaniel Popper writes about the intersection of technology and finance. You can follow them on Twitter here: nathanielpopper and MikeIsaac | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
In 2017 Beyonce spoke with Solange for Interview magazine, and popped a couple of questions about her sister's tastes. First she asked for her sibling's favorite Diana Ross film, then a choice some readers might have found more puzzling: "'No Me Queda Mas' or 'I Could Fall in Love'"? "This is so unfair!" Solange protested, before answering: "No Me Queda Mas." Neither sister needed to mention the name of the song's singer. Growing up in Houston in the 1990s, everyone knew of Selena, the Tejano star whose death at age 23 in 1995 catapulted her to national fame. In the quarter century since her death, Selena's legend has continued to grow, fed by reissues and remixes, numerous books, a film starring Jennifer Lopez and now a bio series from Netflix, which debuts Friday. A regular theme of these projects is that the young star was struck down while recording her first full English language album, right on the verge of crossover success. While not altogether wrong, that interpretation misses an essential fact about Selena's career: She had been crossing stylistic, linguistic, ethnic and geographical boundaries since she began singing professionally at age 9, constantly expanding both her music and her audiences. And everything she sang came from her own background and experience. Selena's first hits were in Spanish, but her first language was English and her musical tastes ranged from traditional ranchera, the Mexican equivalent of country western, to whatever was currently on the radio. A 1987 performance at Houston's Miller Outdoor Theatre shows her dressed in jeans and a denim jacket, singing Jody Watley's "Looking for a New Love" a No. 1 R B hit that year, and one with particular significance for the overwhelmingly Latino crowd, which enthusiastically cheers its bilingual kiss off line, "Hasta la vista, baby." Selena struts across the stage, busting out Paula Abdul dance moves and negotiating the melody with effortless power, then announces "a song by Janet Jackson's brother" and segues into "Billie Jean." Barely 16 years old, Selena was breaking out as the new queen of the Tejano scene. The previous month she had been named best female vocalist at the Tejano Music Awards an honor she would win for nine of the next 10 years and if her records focused on the light Spanish language show band pop typical of that genre, her live shows demonstrated an uncanny ability to assimilate any style that attracted her. Whether she was singing hot R B, bouncy cumbia, rootsy accordion conjunto music or her own genre busting fusions, she looked and sounded completely at home. Selena combined virtuosic skills with a kind of magical ordinariness. You can see it in a live performance of one of her defining songs, "Como la Flor." She begins by emphasizing the heartache of the lyric, slowly drawing out the lines about a lover leaving, her face contorted in pain. Then, in an instant, she drops the mask, smiling and even laughing, reminding the audience they are all watching and enjoying this together and then she again is in agony, her fist beating her chest, murmuring the final words, "como me duele," "how it hurts me." The triple transformation takes barely a minute, and although she repeated it night after night, both personas feel authentic: She is tearing herself apart for us and also is one of us, entertained by the spectacle. Then her hips sway as the band shifts to a cumbia, the crowd cheers and relaxes, and the show goes on. That mix of brilliance and normalcy created a special bond between Selena and her fans. No matter how dazzling or famous she became, she always seemed approachable and candid, and easily laughed at herself. It helped that she was part of a family band: Her father, Abraham Quintanilla, had been part of a popular Tejano vocal group in the early 1960s and raised his children to continue and amplify his dream. Selena's older siblings formed a solid rhythm section, sister Suzette on drums and brother A.B. on bass, and when she married the band's guitarist, a Van Halen style shredder named Chris Perez, they moved into a house next door to her parents. That sense of family grounded Selena's most spectacular performances in a reassuring warmth and stability, and as she explored a growing range of styles, it kept her sound impressively cohesive. A.B. Quintanilla arranged and produced all the recordings and wrote almost all the songs, often in partnership with the backing vocalist Pete Astudillo, and they rarely brought in any outside musicians. The 1990 album "Ven Conmigo" marked Selena's first significant crossover, hitting not only in Texas but in Mexico. The key was her R B flavored version of cumbia, the Afro Colombian style that had become popular with dancers on both sides of the border. Selena prepared for the new market by working hard on her Spanish in early interviews she responded to Spanish questions in English, but by the 1990s she was comfortably fluent, though she still joked about occasional mistakes. She also proved she could sing the deepest form of ranchera and make it her own. Her brother and Astudillo wrote a ballad of female anger, "?Que Creias?" (What Did You Think?), which she delivered with the ferocious passion of a classic Mexican diva and in concert she would call for a volunteer from the audience and spit the lyrics in his face, paying tribute to tradition while comically asserting her independence from it. That ability to find a unifying, personal approach to widely disparate styles was Selena's special genius. Where other artists might seem to be torn or shifting between cultures, all her explorations felt like natural extensions of herself. She was genuinely an R B singer, genuinely a Mexican diva, genuinely the little daughter of a close family and genuinely a dazzling pop star. As she reached new audiences, first in Texas, then Mexico, then the broader Latin markets of Miami and South America, and finally the United States's Anglo mainstream, it felt less like she was "crossing over" than inviting them to join her. Selena's death was in jarring contrast to her life. Shot by her close friend and fan club president in a moment of madness, she became a tragic legend. Dramatic retellings of her story inevitably build toward that ending, showing her bravely struggling against a domineering father, pervasive sexism and the prejudices of both Anglos and Mexicans, cut down before she could realize her dream. Selena undoubtedly had to surmount a lot of barriers, but that legend is the opposite of what she chose to portray every time she stepped onstage: a young woman joyfully in control of her music and her life. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
In the back of a cab heading up Central Park West, Joanna Coles, the editor of Cosmopolitan, was telling the story of her first meeting in Rome with the designer Valentino Garavani. It took place in 2007, when she was the editor of Marie Claire, another magazine published by Hearst. Mr. Garavani's staff had lent Ms. Coles a gown for a gala to be held in the designer's honor at the Galleria Borghese, and a handler escorted her to his private chamber before the party began. "As I'm about to meet him," Ms. Coles said as the taxi drew closer to her Upper West Side apartment, "I was told, 'Joanna, please do not mention the war in Iraq.'" "'He doesn't know about it,'" she said she was told. "'Mr. Valentino does not read the newspapers, only good news. Mr. Valentino is a man of beauty and must remain in a world of beauty.'" Ms. Coles was dumbfounded. While she has long worked in the realm of fashion and beauty, she has yet to shake the formative experiences she had as a young reporter in 1980s London in the company of cigar chewing Fleet Street editors. One of her first assignments concerned a woman jailed for refusing to share details about her boyfriend, a criminal suspect. After the woman was released, a pack of male reporters, with Ms. Coles in tow, went after her. When she slipped into a women's room, Ms. Coles saw her chance. "I hopped over the turnstile and burst the door down," she later said. "Poor girl was in mid pee and I thought, 'What the hell am I doing?'" The actual oversight of a print publication and website is an increasingly small part of the job for 21st century editors in chief. Joanna Coles, 54, who calls herself a "brand steward," is expanding Cosmopolitan's reach while also elevating her personal profile. Ms. Coles also fits the mold of star Conde Nast editors, former and current, such as Tina Brown, Anna Wintour, Graydon Carter and David Remnick, who became known beyond the narrow world of Manhattan media while bringing attention to their publications. This year, Ms. Coles is involved in the making of an E! reality show, "Cosmo Life," based on the working lives of Cosmopolitan editors, as well as a scripted series, "Issues," inspired by her own life for the ABC owned Freeform network. She is also a lively presence on Instagram and Twitter and has recently joined Snapchat's board. In whatever downtime she has, Ms. Coles is working on a book for HarperCollins about sex and intimacy in the digital age. Ms. Coles has so much on her plate that, along with an assistant who manages her schedule, she has her own de facto chief of staff, Holly Whidden, who worked in marketing at Gucci and Paramount Pictures. "I think people who don't know Joanna Coles think of her as a British glossy magazine type," said a friend, Andre Bishop, the artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater. "But she isn't that type at all." In December of last year, the CNN host Brian Stelter had her as a guest on his year end edition of "Reliable Sources." There she was, the editor of a magazine perhaps best known for its sex tips, discussing the major news events of 2015, alongside Michael Oreskes, the senior vice president of news at NPR, and Kathleen Carroll, The A.P.'s executive editor. "We wanted someone to broaden the show out so we reached out to her," Mr. Stelter said. "It's a boring reason, but I saw her as someone outside of traditional media. She's great. When you get a chance to have her on, you do." In January, Ms. Coles was among a group of 20 or so media people at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas who boarded five helicopters that whisked them to the floor of the Grand Canyon for a luncheon. (The junket was paid for by Vox Media.) In April, she hitched a ride on the private jet of her friend Michael R. Bloomberg to attend the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington. In June, she was on a stage in Cannes, France, interviewing Brian Chesky, the chief executive of Airbnb, at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. "She is always running for mayor," said her husband, Peter Godwin, a former human rights lawyer and the author of a memoir, "Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa," among other books. "She doesn't have to. But she feeds off it." As a girl in Leeds, England, Ms. Coles wanted to be a politician. At 12, she produced a magazine with a friend and sent a copy to Queen Elizabeth. Acknowledgment for her effort came in the form of a thank you note from the Queen's lady in waiting. At 17, she won a national writing contest for an essay warning that the polar ice cap would begin to melt by the year 2000. Later, as a reporter, she became known as a forceful competitor, tracking down politicians and court judges for The Guardian in London. "Before I met Joanna, I was told she was the rudest woman in London," Mr. Godwin said. The couple moved to New York in 1997. She was writing for The Guardian and The Times of London, and he was working on a novel. They chronicled their months of Ms. Coles's pregnancy with her older son, Thomas, now 17, in a co written, diarylike memoir published by HarperCollins in 2000, "The Three of Us: A New Life in New York." Along came a second child, Hugo, and a new job as senior editor at New York magazine for Ms. Coles. In the aftermath of 9/11, she and Mr. Godwin were married. "We felt we needed to make things official because we weren't yet citizens, and yet the kids were American," Ms. Coles said. "There was talk of throwing foreigners out, and we wanted to have everything in order. Just in case something else happened. Went down to City Hall, got married, had a quick glass of champagne at Bubby's on North Moore Street, gave each other a quick nod, and I was back at work before lunchtime. I am deeply unsentimental." In 2012, she moved within Hearst, to Cosmopolitan from Marie Claire. Under Ms. Coles, Cosmopolitan's cover lines and web heads are as frothy as ever, from fashion ("Your Perfect Swimsuit Is Inside") to beauty ("Look Hotter Naked!") and relationships ("He Kissed Me Like He Was Eating a Sandwich"). But she has also used the publication to explore genital mutilation, abortion restrictions and politics. On her watch, according to the Magazine Media 360 Brand Audience Report, which tallies print, digital and video audiences, Cosmopolitan's reach has increased to 32 million last year, from 24 million two years earlier. And its Snapchat Discover platform reaches three million viewers per day, according to Hearst. On Feb. 17, Ms. Coles arrived at the Ritz Carlton, Laguna Niguel in Dana Point, Calif., for a conference. Kara Swisher, a founder of Recode, the technology news company acquired by Vox Media last year, was going to interview her onstage. Ms. Swisher sat on a couch in the green room, staring at her laptop. Ms. Coles, who had just arrived from Los Angeles, plopped into a makeup chair for a dab of blush. The conversation turned to a media executive they both knew who was purportedly making 5 million a year. Off camera, Ms. Coles homes in on the interests of acquaintances, liberally dishing out advice. But in front of the camera, a sometimes bawdy persona emerges. In her chat onstage with Ms. Swisher, Ms. Coles defended magazines ("They make a huge amount of money still," she said) before delving into America's puritanical approach to sexuality. "I love talking about that, yeah," she said, adding, "I'm thinking there should be a Cosmo sex position called 'the Swisher,'" referring to Ms. Swisher. "And I'm just wondering what it would involve." In the crowd, Ms. Coles spotted Cynthia Erivo, the star of "The Color Purple." "You have to meet her," she told a guest. "She is going to be nominated for a Tony award." (Ms. Erivo was not only nominated for best leading actress in a musical, she won.) Ms. Erivo hugged her friend and said Ms. Coles took her under her wing after she moved to New York. Ms. Coles didn't stay long at the after party. She hailed a taxi and, as it moved past Columbus Circle, she mentioned Donald J. Trump. If he is elected president, she said, "That would be a terrible thing for women and human rights." She sighed. "Maybe Valentino had it right," she said, recalling her visit to the designer's atelier. "Maybe we need to shelter ourselves so we see the beautiful." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Try not to smile when you watch Yo Yo Ma and Wu Man onstage together. I dare you. The two musicians he's a superstar cellist, she's our leading pipa player seem at first like an odd couple. Mr. Ma plays with brazen emotionality; you get the impression he couldn't pull off a poker face if he tried. Ms. Wu, calm and unshowy, casts a quiet spell as she gracefully plucks the strings of her lutelike instrument. But they exude amiability, with jolly glances frequently thrown back and forth, and unexpected compatibility. The cello and pipa have vastly different sounds and histories. Yet together, in the hands of Mr. Ma and Ms. Wu, they are as intimately harmonious as a cafe singer and guitarist. At David Geffen Hall through Saturday, they're playing Zhao Lin's double concerto "A Happy Excursion," which had its American premiere on Wednesday with the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Long Yu. (And how refreshing to hear a work by a Chinese composer outside the Philharmonic's annual Lunar New Year concert.) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
The popular author illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka has explored a lot of terrain in his inventive stories for young readers. There's "Punk Farm" where the livestock has hidden musical talents and the school where the "Lunch Lady" serves sloppy joe's and justice. But with his latest book, a graphic memoir, Mr. Krosoczka, 40, has mined his childhood to tell a story that is very much relevant today amid the opioid epidemic plaguing the country. "Hey, Kiddo," which arrives in stores on Oct. 9, is about being raised by his grandparents in Worcester, Mass., because Mr. Krosoczka (pronounced crow sauce KAH) did not know his father, and his mother was battling a heroin addiction that eventually claimed her life. It is a story that the author has seen resonate with audiences at schools around the country. "There are so many kids out there whose parents do terrible things," he said during a telephone interview while on a family vacation away from their home in western Massachusetts. "It's important for kids to know that it doesn't make them a bad person." The book, published by Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic, is aimed at a young adult audience and may sound like heavy reading, but the story is a true reflection of the seesaw of life: There are moments of hardship and conflict, but also scenes of joy. The prelude introduces us to Joseph (Joe), Mr. Krosoczka's grandfather, who is instructing young Jarrett on a coming of age ritual. "You know why I'm teaching you to drive in a cemetery, right?" he asks. "Because everyone is already dead," they answer jointly (Joe with a smile; Jarrett with a slight eye roll). Two of the book's other central characters, his grandmother, Shirley (Shirl), and his mother, Leslie, are introduced in the opening chapter. There is no time wasted before the tension between them emerges. In one scene, when Leslie finds herself pregnant and unwed, Shirl unleashes a torrent of terrible names at her though they give way to sweet baby talk, a page later, when Jarrett is born. 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. Mr. Krosoczka lived with his mother for a couple of his formative years, but the good memories the Charlie Brown bath toys, the Franken Berry cereal, the Halloween costumes are overpowered by harsh realities. There is the beginning of Leslie's heroin use, a shoplifting spree and unfamiliar men, two of whom she abets in hiding the evidence of a murder. It is this last incident that allows Joe to obtain legal custody of Jarrett. (Leslie relents only if Shirley's name is omitted in the court documents.) The genesis of "Hey, Kiddo" dates back to when Mr. Krosoczka was around 21 years old. "It was right around the time I had my first book contract for a picture book," he said. But over the years, every time he set out to work on this personal story, he hesitated. "I would get caught up and wonder and worry what people would think." The concern involved the potential reactions from two audiences: The family members depicted and the fans who know him for his more gentle work. While critical reaction has been favorable "Hey, Kiddo" is on the National Book Awards Longlist for young adult literature being embraced by the general public is not guaranteed. Just two years ago, when "The Seventh Wish," a middle school novel by Kate Messner about a family dealing with addiction, came out, the author found herself disinvited from speaking at a school in Vermont. "They decided the book might raise questions they were not prepared to talk about," Ms. Messner recalled recently. "I was devastated. I knew that school was in a district where families had been hit hard by the opioid epidemic. It was a school where many kids might have seen themselves in that story." Since then, the tide has turned and she has seen a rise in requests to speak at schools and community events. "We only have to look at the statistics to know how many families are affected by the opioid epidemic," she said. The chance to have a dialogue is important. "You can't solve a problem that no one is talking about." Mr. Krosoczka is a firm believer in transparency and he attributes that to what helped his fortuitous TED Talk at Hampshire College in October 2012. He was a last minute substitute and had only four hours to prepare. His wife, Gina, suggested that he discuss what he overcame from his childhood. As he practiced his opening, he said his mother was a drug addict. His wife intervened again: "Your mother was a heroin addict and you should say as much." Mentioning that detail made a difference, he said. "There is such an array of things that could mean drug user, but when you say heroin user, you know that this is a really intense, terrible narcotic that has to be injected," Mr. Krosoczka said. "You know how dire the situation is." His talk went viral (it has over 932,000 views), but his mother is mentioned only fleetingly; first drafts of "Hey, Kiddo" were similar. "I noticed there was this buffer," said David Levithan, the book's editor and a longtime friend of Mr. Krosoczka. "He wanted to write about his family without really writing about his mother." Their friendship allowed Mr. Levithan to push. "I was able to say you're dodging. You call her Leslie, but she is your mother. This book is about your mother. That's the heart of the story," he said. An editorial letter outlining what was needed for the book was a breakthrough. "He wasn't on the spot. I wasn't on the phone with him. He could read it and digest it," Mr. Levithan recalled. "Immediately, the conversations were much more honest." Mr. Krosoczka agreed: "Somebody who didn't know me as well probably wouldn't have been able to guide me to create the book that it became." "Hey, Kiddo" is a testament to the whole family and abounds with letters and drawings, his own and that of Leslie, who always encouraged his artistic talent. The act of preservation was instilled by his grandfather, who would give him Tupperware each year to store mementos. Mr. Krosoczka's meeting with his father, Richard Hennessy, comes in slow steps. He finds out his first and last name on separate occasions. Later, an apologetic letter arrives from Mr. Hennessy. Mr. Krosoczka withholds it from his grandparents, but eventually tells them and writes back. The follow up response includes a photograph that allows him to see his father for the first time and a brother and sister. As he did for the family members included in the memoir, Mr. Krosoczka shared an advance copy with his father. "I told him, 'Don't take this the wrong way but you're not in it that much because it's about my childhood.'" The men debated whether to use his real name, but Mr. Hennessy said he was proud of his son and wanted to be included. Leslie died on March 23, 2017, while Mr. Krosoczka was still revising the book. The obituary made clear that she died of an overdose. Mr. Krosoczka believes she wanted to help people learn from her mistakes. "I think my mother was a good person who made terrible decisions," he said. Mr. Krosoczka recounted one more story that was similar in vein to the cemetery joke that opens his memoir. "I've learned that dark sense of humor that will also get you through anything in life," he explained. His mother was cremated and he wondered about the logistics: What would the ashes be contained in? Would they be heavy? He was anxious and sweaty when he visited the funeral director's office. Then he noticed, next to the box containing his mother's ashes, four or five of his "Lunch Lady" books. The son of an employee was a huge fan and was hoping for an autograph. Mr. Krosoczka was at first taken aback. But "my second thought was, well, at least my mother gets to come to one last book signing. She was always there, even if our relationship wasn't great, she'd turn up." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
Jimmy Iovine, pictured in front of Ed Ruscha's "Our Flag," started the decade running a major label and ended it retired from his position at Apple Music. The biggest story in music over the last decade was the industry's reconciliation with tech after a decade fighting the internet, the music business fully embraced it in the 2010s. Streaming has now finally returned the business, which was nearly decimated by the shift from physical to digital formats, to growth. Perhaps no one has had a broader view of this phenomenon than Jimmy Iovine, the producer and record executive who made the leap to the other side. He and his partner, Dr. Dre, sold their company, Beats Electronics, to Apple for 3 billion in 2014 and helped launch Apple Music, the tech giant's late entry to the streaming market, which now has more than 60 million subscribers. It was, from the start, a strange pairing. Apple is obsessively cautious in maintaining its public image; Iovine, the son of a Brooklyn longshoreman, blurts profanities in a high pitched rasp and is one of music's great hustler salesmen. But Iovine, who co founded the Interscope label in 1990 and led it until he left in 2014, has long been one of the sharpest observers of the tug of war between the entertainment business and Silicon Valley. Iovine, 66, retired from Apple in 2018, and says he has devoted himself to passion projects like the XQ Institute, an educational initiative led by Laurene Powell Jobs, who was married to the Apple co founder Steve Jobs. He has even started taking guitar lessons. "I'm realizing how hard Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen's jobs really were," he said from his home in Los Angeles, with a chuckle. Iovine has also become a dedicated collector of contemporary art, guided in part by David Geffen, his friend and fellow mogul retiree. His most prized work is a 2017 commission by Ed Ruscha, "Our Flag," an update to one of Ruscha's perennial subjects that shows a star spangled banner ripped and tattered a striking comment on contemporary politics. "If you looked at the painting and thought it represented the disarray of democracy you would be right," Ruscha said. "Any flag that flies for 250 years deserves to be a little soiled but nothing this extreme." In a series of conversations in December, Iovine spoke about his career transition from the studio to the halls of Cupertino, and the tangled relationship between music and tech in the 2010s. Artists, he said, are more powerful than ever, thanks to social media but too few, in Iovine's opinion, have made social statements as bold as those by the 82 year old Ruscha and "Our Flag." "This painting says more than any song that I've heard in the last 10 years," Iovine said. "Why is that?" These are edited excerpts from the conversation. Back in 2010, you were still at Interscope, where you had hits with Lady Gaga, Eminem, the Black Eyed Peas. At the same time, you were building up Beats. But within four years, you left the label and sold Beats to Apple. Why did you take that trajectory? Yes, and putting up a moat, like that was going to do something. So I said, "Oh, I'm at the wrong party." And I met a bunch of people in tech. I met Steve Jobs and Eddy Cue from Apple. And I said, "Oh, this is where the party is. We need to incorporate this thinking into Interscope." I find out a lot through the artists I work with. Dre is a perfectionist of audio, maybe one of the greatest audio producers that ever existed. And when I found out what Dre was concerned about, that the equipment his kids were listening to the music on an entire generation was learning about audio through cheap, inefficient equipment. That's how Beats started. Steve Jobs used to sit with me at this Greek restaurant and draw out what I needed to do to make hardware. He'd say, "Here's distribution, here's manufacturing," and he'd be drawing on this paper with a Sharpie. And I'd go, "Oh, expletive ." So what did you learn when you got to the other side? I didn't want it to be the other side. I wanted it to be all one thing. I wasn't bailing on music. I always thought that technology was going to get people to listen to music in a better way, and you were going to promote it all through a streaming service. But it would all be in the same house. Is that where things ended up? Are music and tech in the same house, or is the house divided? The two sides don't speak the same language. Content doesn't know what technology is building. And engineers are just going by the way they see a problem. The streaming business has a problem on the horizon, and so does the music business. That doesn't mean they can't figure it out. What's the streaming business's problem on the horizon? Margin. It doesn't scale. At Netflix, the more subscribers you have, the less your costs are. In streaming music, the costs follow you. And the streaming music services are utilities they're all the same. Look at what's working in video. Disney has nothing but original stuff. Netflix has tons of original stuff. But the music streaming services are all the same, and that's a problem. What happens when something is commoditized is that it becomes a war of price. If you can get the exact same thing next door cheaper, somebody is going to enter this game and just lower the price. Spotify's trying with podcasts. Who knows? Maybe that will work. If you look at the last 20 years of the music business as a recovery from Napster, has the problem now been solved? I don't view it as problem solved. There's been progress, but there's a ways to go yet. If I were still at Interscope, here are the things I'd be worried about. I'd be worried that I don't have a direct relationship with my consumer. The artists and the streaming platforms do. I'd be worried that an artist like Drake or Billie Eilish streams more than the entire decade of the 1980s, according to the information I've seen from labels and streaming services. I'd also be worried that the streaming services aren't making enough money, because that can jackknife. What about the future of the record business? Why should the next Billie Eilish sign with a record company at all? The artists now have something they've never had before, which is a massive, direct communication with their audience from their house, their bed, their car, whatever. And because of that, everybody wants them. Spotify wants them, Apple Music wants them, Coke wants them, Pepsi wants them. And people that make terrible second records are still famous and still have online audiences. The power of celebrity, this obsession with Instagram it's driven by personality and lifestyle. So hail to the artists, because in the end they're winning. It isn't their problem to figure out how the streaming company and the record company are going to make more money. It's the streaming company and the record company's problem to figure out how to become more valuable to that artist. You left Apple in 2018, just three years after launching Apple Music. Why? When I went to Apple, it was a new creative problem for me. How do we make this the future of the music business? How do we make it not ordinary? But I ran out of personal runway. Somebody else will have to do that. What do you think about Taylor Swift pushing for control of her master recordings? Well, who doesn't want to own their masters? But what she is doing is amplifying that because she has a giant platform. That's going to have an effect, and it isn't going to be neutral. So if you're a 16 year old kid making music on Pro Tools, that is now in the conversation. If I was still at Interscope. I would say, "O.K., this is coming. So I have to figure out, how do I evolve my relationships with artists?" What's the secret for an artist to have a long career today? Quality of everything you do. Make quality the priority, not speed. Speed is marketing, but you have to have something great to market. Dre says we're seeing a lot of quantity over quality right now. Somebody asked me the other day, how do you make a Christmas album that lasts? I said, "Don't make it with disposable artists." If you don't want to be disposable, take care of the art. Are you impressed by artists' work now? Artists have these new platforms that are very, very powerful. So why do visual artists like Mark Bradford, Kara Walker, Ed Ruscha, Jenny Holzer make such powerful statements on where we are today in our culture, like Marvin Gaye, Public Enemy, Bob Dylan or Rage Against the Machine did? What has changed? One of the reasons I left music was because there wasn't a kind of music that I related to. I grew up with Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon. When Neil Young's "Ohio" came out, I was 17 years old. I was a year from being drafted. My instincts said that this war is wrong. And here was a guy whose music I loved, and all of a sudden, I was part of, "We don't agree with this." And Neil Young had one tenth of one percent of the platform that some of these artists have now. These days I am getting that from the art world and not the music world. So I call up Ed Ruscha, and I said, "Could you make me an American flag?" And he said, "Only if I can make it the way I feel about America today." And I said, "Absolutely." When I got that painting, I knew that Ed had hit on something. And I said, "Where are the musicians that are doing this?" There are some clues. Have we entered into an age of music where artists are afraid to alienate people? Since the country is so polarized, am I afraid to alienate the other audience? Am I afraid to alienate a sponsor from my Instagram? I don't know. I'm asking the question. But you do have artists like Eilish who are talking about climate change. There are a few. But not nearly enough. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
Google said on Monday that it would shut down Google Plus, the company's long struggling answer to Facebook's giant social network, after it discovered a security vulnerability that exposed the private data of up to 500,000 users. Google did not tell its users about the security issue when it was found in March because it didn't appear that anyone had gained access to user information, and the company's "Privacy Data Protection Office" decided it was not legally required to report it, the search giant said in a blog post. The decision to stay quiet, which raised eyebrows in the cybersecurity community, comes against the backdrop of relatively new rules in California and Europe that govern when a company must disclose a security episode. Up to 438 applications made by other companies may have had access to the vulnerability through coding links called application programming interfaces. Those outside developers could have seen user names, email addresses, occupation, gender and age. They did not have access to phone numbers, messages, Google Plus posts or data from other Google accounts, the company said. Google said it had found no evidence that outside developers were aware of the security flaw and no indication that any user profiles were touched. The flaw was fixed in an update made in March. Google looked at the "type of data involved, whether we could accurately identify the users to inform, whether there was any evidence of misuse, and whether there were any actions a developer or user could take in response. None of these thresholds were met in this instance," Ben Smith, a Google vice president for engineering, wrote in the blog post. The disclosure made on Monday could receive additional scrutiny because of a memo to senior executives reportedly prepared by Google's policy and legal teams that warned of embarrassment for the company similar to what happened to Facebook this year if it went public with the vulnerability. The memo, according to The Wall Street Journal, warned that disclosing the problem would invite regulatory scrutiny and that Sundar Pichai, Google's chief executive, would most likely be called to testify in front of Congress. A Google spokesman, Rob Shilkin, declined to comment on the memo. He said the company had planned to announce the disclosures later this week but moved up the announcement when it learned of The Journal's article. Early this year, Facebook acknowledged that Cambridge Analytica, a British research organization that performed work for the Trump campaign, had improperly gained access to the personal information of up to 87 million Facebook users. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, spent two days testifying in congressional hearings about that and other issues. In May, Europe adopted new General Data Protection Regulation laws that require companies to notify regulators of a potential leak of personal information within 72 hours. Google's security issue occurred in March, before the new rules went into effect. Let Us Help You Protect Your Digital Life None With Apple's latest mobile software update, we can decide whether apps monitor and share our activities with others. Here's what to know. A little maintenance on your devices and accounts can go a long way in maintaining your security against outside parties' unwanted attempts to access your data. Here's a guide to the few simple changes you can make to protect yourself and your information online. Ever considered a password manager? You should. There are also many ways to brush away the tracks you leave on the internet. California recently passed a privacy law, which goes into effect in 2020, allowing consumers in the event of a data breach to sue for up to 750 for each violation. It also gives the state's attorney general the right to go after companies for intentional violations of privacy. Steven Andres, a professor who lectures about management information systems at San Diego State University, said there was no obvious legal requirement for Google to disclose the vulnerability. But he added that it was troubling though unsurprising to see that the company was discussing how reporting the vulnerability might look to regulators. There is no federal law requiring companies to disclose a security vulnerability. Companies must wade through a patchwork of state laws with different standards. Arvind Narayanan, a computer science professor at Princeton University who is often critical of tech companies for lax privacy practices, said on Twitter that it was common for companies to fix a problem before it is exploited. "That happens thousands of times every year. Requiring disclosure of all of these would be totally counterproductive," Mr. Narayanan wrote. In private meetings with lawmakers last month, Mr. Pichai promised to testify before the end of the year at a hearing about whether tech companies are filtering conservative voices in their products. He is also expected to be asked if Google plans to re enter the Chinese market with a censored search engine. The vulnerability that was discovered in March and the company's discussions about how regulators could react also are likely to come in his testimony. Just last month, Google was criticized for not sending Mr. Pichai to a hearing attended by top executives from Facebook and Twitter. Introduced in 2011, Google Plus was meant to be a Facebook competitor that linked users to various Google products, including its search engine and YouTube. But other than a few loyal users, it did not catch on. By 2018, it was an afterthought. Google would not say how many people now frequent Google Plus, but it said in the blog post that the service had low usage 90 percent of users' sessions are less than five seconds long. When Google's engineers discovered the vulnerability, they concluded that the work required to maintain Google Plus was not worth the effort, considering the meager use of the product, the company said. Google said it planned to turn off the consumer version of Google Plus in August 2019, though a version built for corporate customers will still exist. The failure of Google Plus has relieved Google of some pressure on issues faced by Facebook and Twitter, particularly Russian disinformation efforts. When Google announced in August that it had deleted accounts suspected of ties to Iranian influence campaigns, the company disclosed that it had deleted 13 Google Plus accounts compared to 652 accounts that Facebook had deleted for the same concerns. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
There are times an old fashioned alarm clock may be a better choice than an Amazon Echo Spot. When you don't want someone taking a picture of what you do in bed, for example. In an Era of 'Smart' Things, Sometimes Dumb Stuff Is Better It still feels magical to light up your living room by saying "Alexa, turn on the lights." But with all the hype surrounding so called smart things everyday devices that are connected to the internet it's easy to forget that sometimes the dumb stuff is just better. Tech companies are adding internet connections to just about everything you can imagine so that they can be controlled with smart speakers or phones. Thermostats, surveillance cameras, mosquito zappers, coffee makers you name it. And smart devices are becoming more popular. In 2017, 15 percent of American households owned a home automation device, up from 10 percent in April 2016, according to NPD Group, a research firm. But before we get carried away setting up the Wi Fi connections on all our appliances, lights and fashion accessories, let me play Luddite for a second. Some of the most mundane devices are designed to accomplish a simple task extremely well and in some cases they still execute those duties better than their high tech brethren. Yet a normal wristwatch is still superior at one crucial task: Telling the time. The Apple Watch's screen wakes up when you tilt your wrist at an angle, which indicates you are trying to check the time. That helps conserve battery life. But any Apple Watch wearer is familiar with situations where this feature gets frustrating. While riding a bicycle, for example, you often have to let go of the handle bar and lift the watch toward your face to check the time. When you're standing on a bus or subway train and holding onto a pole, it is difficult to tilt your wrist at the correct angle to look at the time. Or when you're in a meeting and want to see if you're staying on schedule, flicking your wrist isn't very subtle. Until the Apple Watch manages to constantly display the time without sapping the battery, a normal wristwatch is better for telling the time in all those scenarios. That's why you'll see me wearing a normal watch at work but an Apple Watch at the gym. Many cars are now equipped with a touch screen on the console that essentially mirrors your smartphone screen. Android phone users get to use Android Auto, and iPhone users hook into CarPlay. These smart car systems are designed to seamlessly work with your smartphone. Plugging in an iPhone, for example, loads a screen of apps like Apple Maps, Apple Music and Apple's podcast app, which you can then control on the console or with Siri instead of fiddling with your smartphone screen. The problem with this concept is there are a limited number of apps that work with these smart infotainment systems. For example, if on CarPlay you prefer to use Google Maps or Waze, you're out of luck and are stuck with Apple Maps. In addition, if your smart car system needs a major software update, some car brands are lagging in allowing you to download and install the updates yourself. Instead, they require you to bring the car to the dealer and pay for the updates to be installed there. General Motors, for example, has for years declined to offer so called over the air updates and will only say it plans to support them before 2020. Using a phone mount is a cheap and simple solution that is far less frustrating. You just attach the mount to the dash, a CD player slot or an air conditioning vent, mount your phone and plug it into a power charger via the accessories port. Voila, your phone has become your infotainment system, capable of running your favorite navigation and music apps and using voice controls to place calls over speakerphone. The screen is large enough to clearly read maps, and you can update the operating system on your own. What more do you need? Amazon recently introduced the Echo Spot, a smart alarm clock with a touch screen and the Alexa virtual assistant. A less desirable feature is a built in camera for placing video calls. A camera on your nightstand that is constantly pointed at your bed? It's like asking for your privacy to be violated. You might as well shop for your groceries in your underwear or post all your smartphone photos publicly on the web. Amazon promises the camera software on the Echo Spot can be turned off whenever you aren't using it. But it's an obvious feature for hackers to target with malware. So if your primary goal is to have a device that wakes you up on time to go to work, just get an old school alarm clock. One of the most common uses of Amazon's Echo is to set a kitchen timer. Just say "Alexa, set a timer for 80 minutes" while you're busy chopping vegetables. When people buy new iPads or Amazon Fire tablets, they often give their older tablet a second life by designating it for the kitchen. There, the ancient tablet gets mounted to the refrigerator with a magnet and becomes a glorified recipe reader. Having tried this experiment, it's a hassle. You often have to clean the tablet after smearing food on the screen. The battery eventually needs to be recharged. And if you want to double or halve a recipe, you have to do some mental math, which makes multitasking more challenging when you are busy in the kitchen. Printing out or jotting down a recipe on a piece of paper is just simpler. You can easily scribble additional notes, like changes and improvements to the recipe. Assuming you have decent handwriting, it's easy to read the steps and ingredients. And if it gets covered in food, you can just throw it away. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
The archaeologist Guillermo de Anda next to pre Columbian artifacts in a cave at the Maya ruins of Chichen Itza. In a cave under the ancient city of Chichen Itza, Mexican archaeologists discovered a trove of ceramic artifacts that appear to be over 1,000 years old. Archaeologists announced this week that they had discovered an extraordinary trove of well preserved Maya artifacts under the ancient city of Chichen Itza in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The artifacts were found in a cave called Balamku, less than two miles from the famed pyramid known as the Temple of Kukulcan, or The Castle, which sits in the center of the site. Guillermo de Anda, an investigator with the National Institute of Anthropology and History, said in a statement on Monday that the remarkable discovery could help researchers rewrite the history of Chichen Itza, which flourished from roughly A.D. 750 to 1200. The city was built on top of a network of waterways, including sinkholes called cenotes, which the ancient Maya believed were sacred places that provided a portal to the underworld. Its name is sometimes translated as "the mouth of the well of the Itza," the name of the main ethnic group in the area at the time. Mr. de Anda and his colleagues were exploring that system of waterways when they found the artifacts, which date to around 700 to 1000 A.D., about 80 feet underground. The team has explored about 1,500 feet so far, crawling between various chambers connected by narrow tunnels. "The place is extraordinary," Mr. de Anda said in a video produced by the institute, speaking as he crawled through a dark, narrow passageway. "Now comes a stage of documentation, protection and conservation of this marvelous and unique place." Local residents told the authorities about the cave more than five decades ago, but it was not studied extensively at the time, the institute said in its statement. Instead, the archaeologist Victor Segovia Pinto ordered the entrance to be sealed, ensuring that its contents remained undisturbed. Last year, Luis Un, 68, who as a child was among the residents who had told officials about the cave, led Mr. de Anda's team to its entrance again. There are at least 200 artifacts, including fragments, ceramic incense holders, containers used to grind food and other items. Researchers expect that tests will show that they contain jade and remnants of seeds and bone that were used as offerings and have been found at similar sites. Some of the incense holders bear the likeness of Tlaloc, the rain god of Central Mexico, who at some point "traveled" to the Yucatan. That could help researchers understand how the relationships between the Maya and other civilizations evolved over time. The quantity of the artifacts and their placement in hard to reach parts of the cave could also indicate the site's importance. Mr. de Anda, who is also the director of the Great Maya Aquifer Project, said the discovery would allow researchers to develop new models of cave archaeology using 3 D mapping and modeling techniques. Mr. de Anda and the project's co director, James Brady, a Maya archaeologist at California State University, Los Angeles, said it was the most significant discovery in the area since the nearby cave of Balamkanche was found in the 1950s. In a phone interview, Dr. Brady said that the artifacts at Balamkanche, many of which are similar to those found at Balamku, were not closely studied because of a rush to develop the cave into a tourist site. He added that the findings indicated that subterranean spaces were more central to life in Chichen Itza than previously recognized. "We are just moving very slowly as we approach this, to make sure everything is done correctly," Dr. Brady said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Solar photovoltaic (PV) panels are made from silicon cells that join together to form a circuit. The panel collects the sun's energy and makes direct current (DC) electricity. An inverter changes the DC electricity into alternating current (AC) electricity, which is what most homes use. The inverter is a metal box connected to a meter, which in turn is connected to the utility's electric grid. Do I need a new roof? Most installers prefer a roof that has been fixed or replaced within the last five years. This is because the roof must be sturdy enough to support a mounting system and a rack. What happens when it snows? The snow typically melts right off the panels, especially if the panels are tilted. Who fixes a panel if it breaks? Most solar panels come with a 25 year manufacturer's warranty, and it takes only a few hours for a solar installer to make replacements. Usually the installer will have a monitoring system that continuously checks the working condition of its solar panels. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Kristen Meehan's home office is often a brown Adirondack chair on her front lawn, with hedges that make a halfway decent Zoom backdrop. "Every time I'm on a video call, people are like, 'Are you in a forest?'" said Ms. Meehan, 31, who lives not in the woods, but in a four bedroom house in Montclair, N.J., with her husband, Mark Meehan, and their three children, all under the age of 4. Ms. Meehan, a consultant for PwC, has used indoor alternatives in the months since the family has been home during the pandemic in the living room, at the dining room table or in a bedroom. But none are particularly quiet since the children, ages 3, 2 and 6 months, have claimed a den off the living room as their primary play space. Mr. Meehan, 34, who works in sales, also needs a place to work, so he and Ms. Meehan often swap spots and parenting duties. They've had no consistent child care since February, although family members have helped over the summer. "In practice what that tends to look like is my husband and I running around frantically trying to find a quiet spot for conference calls," Ms. Meehan said. "Layer in the fact that I'm also nursing a baby every two hours and it makes for a good time." Because the game of musical office chairs couldn't last indefinitely, the couple started work on a 200,000 addition this summer, a project that will add a family room, deck, mudroom and move a bathroom. Once the space is complete in January, Mr. and Ms. Meehan intend to claim the front of the house as the quiet adult work space and relinquish the addition to their children. "We initially didn't think we needed all the space and now we're like, 'Oh my God, we need more space,'" Ms. Meehan said. "We're going to be home for the foreseeable future." As the country approaches the six month mark since stay at home orders were enacted, and coronavirus cases surge again, millions of Americans are struggling to stay in their homes through a punishing recession. In August, a third of respondents to an Apartment List survey reported failing to make their full rent or mortgage payment on time, the highest nonpayment rate since the rental listings site began conducting the survey in April. But the pain has not been evenly felt. While many Americans are suffering through a historic economic crisis, those who have not taken a financial hit are focused on ways to make an extended period of isolation more comfortable. Facing additional months of distance learning and working from home, some are making extensive home improvements permanent alterations that they would not have done absent a pandemic. As bans on construction have lifted, designers, architects and general contractors have begun fielding calls from homeowners who are looking for ways to improve or expand areas in their home for work, school and exercise. In June 2020, professionals who list their services on the home renovation site Houzz reported a 58 percent increase in requests from homeowners from June 2019, with queries about home extensions and additions up 52 percent. Some homeowners are converting garages into work studios, or adding a shed in the yard for an office. Others are renovating the basement to turn it into a yoga studio or a classroom. Those who may have started projects before the pandemic, are looking at those original design plans and realizing they need an overhaul to work in this new world order. "People want to be ready. We weren't ready in March and now we've had the summer and we're able to reflect," said Alessandra Wood, the vice president of style for Modsy, an online interior design service. "I don't know if it's a fear or an expectation that in the fall we're still going to be living this life." Elizabeth Stuart, an interior designer in Charleston, S.C., says her business from residential clients is up 50 percent as homeowners and new buyers rush to redesign their spaces for a new era. Clients are looking for ways to accommodate multiple workstations in a home, expand high speed internet, and improve ventilation and soundproofing. Features like mudrooms have taken on a renewed importance as homeowners look for dedicated spaces to safely remove outerwear and store packages. "It's crazy to be thinking like this but that's the reality of it," Ms. Stuart said. "Necessity is the mother of invention. You're figuring out right now what you need and what you wish you had." When the Meehans bought their home in 2018, they planned to eventually renovate it, but the pandemic pushed up the timeline and changed their priorities. As interest rates fell, they refinanced their home, taking out cash in the process to supplement their savings so they could start the work immediately. Before the pandemic, they figured they would renovate the kitchen, which is small, but in good condition. Their architect steered them away from that idea, Ms. Meehan said, suggesting that by expanding the dining and living areas, they could leave the kitchen intact, but it would nonetheless feel larger. By avoiding a kitchen remodel, most of the work can be done outside of the footprint of the existing house, allowing the family to continue to live at home with only minimal contact with the work crew. "Obviously there's a different level of concern with Covid, not wanting contractors in your house," Ms. Meehan said. "That sold us on doing the renovation." No More Room Inside? Consider a Shed Some homeowners are looking to their backyards for additional space, adding customizable sheds to use as offices, classrooms or workout studios. Such structures, which can be assembled quickly on site, avoid the stress, time commitment and high cost of an interior renovation. Sales in May 2020 were up 500 percent from May 2019 for Studio Shed, a Colorado based company that sells customizable backyard shed solutions ranging from simple storage spaces to elaborate tiny cabins with gabled roofs, double pane windows and sustainable lumber. Most orders, said Studio Shed's founder, Mike Koenig, are for home office spaces. Man caves and "she sheds" are also popular, as are music studios and so called flex spaces, which could work as a spare guest room, play space or home gym. Marlo and Michael Aragon, who live in Malibu, Calif., installed a shed in their yard, not for themselves, but as a classroom for their four teenage children who were suddenly studying at home. They spent about 6,000 on the shed and upgrades. Ms. Aragon, 50, a stay at home parent, left the decorating decisions to the children, telling them to measure the windows for blinds and letting them furnish it. Mr. Aragon, 50, works at the Pepperdine University bookstore. During the school year, the children established a schedule with a spreadsheet. The oldest, Avalon, 19, claimed the space in the early hours because she was tele schooling from George Washington University, and so needed to keep to an east coast schedule. During the summer, the teens have used it to socialize and as a dance studio. "We were going to call it the Corona schoolhouse," Ms. Aragon said of the shed that they erected in a spot on their one acre property that once housed a large wooden playset. "It made them feel like they were going to class." For families of school age children, the pandemic has turned their homes into virtual classrooms. Now, with more remote learning on the horizon, many families are grappling with how to accommodate an entire year spent at home. Adam Potter and Tom Wallace, a married couple in Greenwich, Conn., looked at the first floor of their 5,000 square foot home and saw an opportunity to turn the space into a schoolhouse for their daughters, ages 6 and 7, and both entering second grade in the fall. "By the beginning of May, I recognized that this could continue for another year," Mr. Potter, 52, who is a retired entrepreneur in the insurance industry, said of remote learning. "I don't think that's the right option for our girls." They hired a retired elementary schoolteacher, an aide, and invited six other girls to join them in what they describe as a home schooling co op. Mr. Potter and Mr. Wallace, 58, an actor and a director, named the school Willowmere Academy, after the name of their street, and made a school logo of a goose, printed on T shirts. "We want our kids in a school without social distancing, without wearing masks," Mr. Potter said. "We want to create this great school environment for them." "It materially changed the way we thought about setting up the house," Mr. Wigfield said. "Everybody needed their zone." The Wigfields sat down with their interior designer, Ms. Stuart in Charleston, and reconceived the interiors. They added built in desks to the children's rooms, an office space in the master suite where Mr. Wigfield could work, and a gym in the basement with a television so Ms. Wigfield, 37, a stay at home parent, could take virtual workout classes. They added ample bicycle storage since they bought bikes during the pandemic. The Wigfields also made sure the house had adequate bandwidth for high speed internet, so everyone could work easily without interruptions in the backyard, basement, living areas or any of the bedrooms. Above all, they wanted a house that would be comfortable and inviting when they move into it in September. "You're living in your space differently and we wanted to make sure that ultimately we were really thoughtful," Mr. Wigfield said. "It had to be comfortable. It had to be something that if you're going to be spending a lot more time at home, it had to be functional, too." For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: nytrealestate. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Archie Andrews, the seemingly eternal redhead from Riverdale, and his friends will be getting new creative teams later this year that will take some cues from the CW's "Riverdale" television series and explore new terrain for the characters. First up is the comic book Archie No. 700, slated for November, from a new team: the writer Nick Spencer and the artist Marguerite Sauvage. "Archie Comics has a long, proud history," Mr. Spencer said. "I don't want to blow things up or do anything that would upset the long term audience. It's more like finding some conflicts that have some stakes, upping the drama level a little bit." He added that he would play into the soap opera aspect of the characters and "depict that in a way that the 'Riverdale' audience can appreciate and enjoy." But fans of the comic need not worry about the book straying too far, like perhaps mirroring some of the more out there relationships from the TV show (whether that be a student teacher dalliance or the creepy vibe of the too close Blossom siblings). | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
Tony Vincent and Alyson Cambridge, in background at left, let it rip in "Rocktopia." About two hours in, the touring concert "Rocktopia," which is making a six week pit stop on Broadway, had settled into a benign, dull groove. Then the slide show, which until then had been mostly sunsets and rolling clouds, jolted me awake. Could it be? Yes, that was Anne Frank looming over the stage, followed by images of Eleanor Roosevelt, Mother Teresa, Diana, Princess of Wales and a Van Gogh self portrait. All of them visual aids for Queen's "We Are the Champions." If anything, "Rocktopia" will go down as featuring one of the most misguided PowerPoint presentations ever to grace a Broadway stage. Hatched by the singer Rob Evan and the conductor Randall Craig Fleischer, "Rocktopia" brings together the worlds of classical music and rock under the theory that they are more simpatico than a casual listener might assume. The idea is that, say, Mozart was the Mick Jagger of his time, while many beloved singalongs and air guitar staples draw from centuries old masterpieces. To illustrate, the six "Rocktopia" singers, led by Mr. Evan, are backed by a five person band, a 20 strong orchestra and a chorus of 30 under Mr. Fleischer's direction. (Before the Broadway opening, Actors Equity slapped the production with a "Do Not Work" warning because, among other problems, the choir members were paid below scale; the parties have since reached an agreement. It is not just rock and classical that can get along.) Like a tasting menu with wine pairings, the set list is organized around not so odd couples: Strauss's "Also sprach Zarathustra" segues into the Who's "Baba O'Riley," for instance a song originally intended as part of a rock opera and whose title partly refers to the composer Terry Riley. Sometimes the classical composition is used mostly as a glorified intro to the song, as if we were in a stadium waiting for the entrance of a band with delusions of grandeur and a Carl Orff fetish. And sometimes there is an effort to mash up the two, as when the soprano Alyson Cambridge's performance of the Handel aria "Lascia ch'io pianga" is haphazardly superimposed with bits of Tony Vincent emoting "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me." Later, Ms. Cambridge, singing "Quando m'en vo' (Musetta's Waltz)," from "La Boheme," trades lines with Mr. Evan, busy belting the Beatles' "Something." The intention may be to underline the resemblances between the pieces, but the result is a cacophony. For a better integration of Puccini and rock, head to "The Phantom of the Opera," a few blocks away. The vocalists generally acquit themselves well enough, though Chloe Lowery exhibits a full blown case of "American Idol" itis on "I Want to Know What Love Is." Only Kimberly Nichole has a distinctive tone, all burnished copper, and she manages to inject fresh life into the hoary "Dream On." The Train frontman Pat Monahan, on the other hand, sounds a little pinched on Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" and "Stairway to Heaven," as if he ran out of gas after reaching into his upper register. (Mr. Monahan is billed as a guest singer and appears through April 8; Cheap Trick's Robin Zander joins the roster from April 23 29.) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
During his 30 years in editing, Adam Bellow has handled some of the most controversial and notorious right wing books of our era, including "The Bell Curve" by Charles Murray and Richard J. Herrnstein, Dinesh D'Souza's "Illiberal Education" and David Brock's "The Real Anita Hill." But last fall, in the middle of one of the most acrimonious and divisive presidential elections in American history, Mr. Bellow, 60, made a surprising pivot. He left his post as editorial director of Broadside, a conservative imprint at HarperCollins, and started a new imprint at St. Martin's Press, where he plans to edit authors from across the political spectrum. As a well known neoconservative culture warrior, Mr. Bellow is an unlikely emissary for fostering bipartisan dialogue. He's not softening his views, or renouncing the right wing polemics he's edited over the decades, some of which continue to kick up controversy. (Last month, Mr. Murray faced violent protests when he gave a speech at Middlebury College in Vermont.) Instead, Mr. Bellow said he hoped to bring Democrats and Republicans together or at least onto the same publishing list. "I saw an opportunity to get myself out of the box that I was in," he said. "Both sides need to re examine their assumptions, and I want to sponsor that process." Mr. Bellow played a role in widening the ideological divisions he now maintains he wants to bridge. At Broadside, which he founded in 2010, he edited partisan books by Donald Rumsfeld and Ted Cruz. He helped fuel the right's attacks on Hillary Clinton as a corrupt career politician, with works like Daniel Halper's "Clinton, Inc." and Peter Schweizer's "Clinton Cash." 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. "I plead guilty," he said. "If it's true that our public culture has become overly polarized and people no longer argue in a respectful way with one another, I'm sure I had something to do with that." At his new imprint, unsubtly named All Points Books, he is attempting a more ecumenical approach. In the past few months, he has acquired an ideologically eclectic mix of titles, including "Billionaire at the Barricades" by the conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham, which will explore populist revolts that gave rise to Ronald Reagan and Donald J. Trump; but also a memoir by Representative Seth Moulton, Democratic of Massachusetts, and another by the journalist Robby Soave about millennial activists. Mr. Bellow, who is the son of Saul Bellow, and whose immaculately spare office features a prominently displayed pulpy paperback edition of his father's novel "The Adventures of Augie March," also hopes to edit a range of political fiction, from Tom Clancy like thrillers to novels in the mold of Curtis Sittenfeld's "American Wife." And without the Clintons and Obamas as fresh targets, the opportunity for political and polemical books seems to be more on the left than the right. Mr. Bellow's reputation might make it hard for him to recruit liberal writers to his list. In recent months, he has aggressively pursued prominent writers on the left "I won't name names," he said and lost out to editors at other houses. "He's a known commodity in conservative circles," said the literary agent Keith Urbahn, "but he's going to have to introduce himself to the other side." Mr. Bellow has spent most of his life surrounded by people with opposing views. Growing up on the Upper West Side, he absorbed the liberal politics of his family, friends and peers, and joined antiwar marches. He majored in comparative literature at Princeton, and took graduate courses in history and political thought at Columbia, but he decided he wasn't cut out for academia. By then, he was starting to rebel against his liberal upbringing, and found his views more in line with the right on issues like the Cold War and the Iran contra scandal. In 1987, Erwin Glikes, then publisher of the Free Press, hired Mr. Bellow as an editor and tasked him with finding the next generation of young conservative thinkers. During Mr. Bellow's time there, the Free Press, which has since shut down, evolved into a rowdy, energetic place that published writers of all political stripes, who would often attack one another's ideas in person and in print. "It was like a high level intellectual food fight," he said. Eventually, the publishing industry caught on to the commercial potential of the conservative market, and many publishers created separate imprints for right wing authors. As a business strategy, it worked beautifully, particularly when Democrats were in power and Republicans felt like underdogs. Last fall, in the final weeks of the presidential campaign, the best seller lists were stacked with anti Clinton titles by Mr. D'Souza, Michael Savage, Edward Klein and Gary J. Byrne. Last year, Mr. Byrne's anti Clinton book, "Crisis of Character," released in June, sold around 250,000 copies, and Mr. D'Souza's book "Hillary's America" sold more than 200,000 copies. Mr. Bellow said that he began to feel conservative imprints were becoming "more celebrity and platform driven and less concerned with ideas." Some are skeptical that the partisan publishing model needs reformation. "I'm a believer that the best way to serve books of a particular viewpoint, particularly on the right, is to publish a focused list that's committed to one side or the other," said Adrian Zackheim, the publisher of Sentinel, a conservative imprint at Penguin Random House. Still, there may be a growing appetite among readers for less partisan books that explain the economic, social and cultural realities shaping our politics, and upending old ideological alignments. Just after the November election, readers flocked to books like Arlie Russell Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right" and J. D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" to understand the political revolution few saw coming. "Hillbilly Elegy" has sold more than 1.1 million copies. Mr. Bellow has no intention of toning down the views of hard liners he edits or retreating to a kind of "mushy centrism," he said. He delights in courting controversy. He said that he was open to editing books by members of the newly invigorated nationalist and populist wing of the Republican Party, though he plans to proceed cautiously, particularly after the controversy that engulfed Simon Schuster when it bought (and subsequently canceled) a book by the right wing writer Milo Yiannopoulos. (Mr. Bellow read the proposal for Mr. Yiannopoulos's book when it first circulated, but didn't bid on it, he said.) Whether political adversaries will come together under his editorial aegis remains to be seen. "In this time of polarization and mutual dislike and suspicion, there will be people who don't want to be published on the same list as Laura Ingraham," he said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
One trick professionals use to make a bathroom sparkle (like this one in Watermill, N.Y., designed by Jennifer Cohler Mason): Apply cleaner, but don't scrub right away. If you've been cooped up at home for a couple of months, it's time to clean house and not in a superficial way. Here's how the pros do it. There's no way around it: When you rarely leave home, things get dirty faster. Windows are left open longer, kitchens and bathrooms are used more frequently, and bits of pencil shavings and cereal crumbs somehow manage to elude the trash bin. Keeping up with the mess can be a challenge especially when you have only a couple of minutes to give the floors a once over before jumping onto your next Zoom call. You may as well admit it. Your home is in need of deep cleaning. "With the house getting so much use, it really does need more attention," said Sabrina Fierman, the vice president of the cleaning company New York's Little Elves. We asked her and other cleaning pros for advice on what to do. Most cleaning jobs around the home can be completed with a few key items: a vacuum, a mop, microfiber or cotton terry cloth rags (or paper towels, but they create more waste) and an all purpose cleaner. It's possible to make your own all purpose cleaner, Ms. Fierman said: "Add half a cup of white vinegar, one pint of rubbing alcohol, one teaspoon of dish soap and enough water to make a gallon." Then pour the mixture into an empty spray bottle. "This is a really good cleaning product for the whole house," she said. "It's eco friendly, it's hypoallergenic, and it's really effective." If you don't have rubbing alcohol, try mixing equal parts white vinegar and water, and adding a couple of drops of dish soap, she suggested. For bathrooms and kitchens, some specialty supplies, like tub and tile and toilet bowl cleaners, will be required. Surfaces like natural stone, stainless steel and wood may also benefit from cleaners created specifically for them. Break It Up, Room by Room Because deep cleaning involves targeted scrubbing in hard to reach areas, trying to tackle a whole home in one afternoon could prove impossible. "Deep cleaning involves a lot of detail, a lot of time and a lot of labor," Ms. Fierman said. To make the job more manageable and for a quick sense of satisfaction start by focusing on the room that needs the most attention, whether it's a bedroom, bathroom or kitchen. "That way, you can feel like you've accomplished something," she said, which may inspire you to keep going. Dust falls to the floor during cleaning, so it makes sense to start by cleaning the ceiling and then working your way down. "Look for cobwebs in the corners," said Kadi Dulude, the owner of the New York cleaning company Wizard of Homes, and inspect ceiling fans and light fixtures. "Most people don't look up, so these are things that are missed all the time." Most cobwebs can be vacuumed away, but stubborn ones should be coaxed off the ceiling with an extendable duster or soft broom, Ms. Dulude said. Ceiling fans are often covered with a thick layer of dust and require a two step cleaning process: First, remove all the dust you can with a damp cloth, then use an all purpose cleaning spray for a final polish. Suspended light fixtures can be treated the same way. Cover furniture below with a bedsheet, Ms. Dulude advised, to catch falling debris. During the coronavirus pandemic, most of us have learned to be wary of high touch surfaces in public. But high touch surfaces at home doorknobs, light switches, cabinet and appliance pulls, faucet handles can also be problematic, as they tend to collect grime, or what Ms. Modaressi called "biofilms." We touch these surfaces multiple times a day, she said, but "these things are rarely wiped down or cleaned." Wipe them with a cloth and an all purpose cleaner, she advised, and polish until they look new again. "I like to use vinegar because it's effective, it doesn't leave streaks and it's also good for taking away odors," she said, as the vinegar smell dissipates. Clean windows the same way. Many people don't realize it, Ms. Dulude said, but most double hung windows have sashes with clips at the top that allow them to be tilted in, so the inside and outside can be cleaned. Finally, clean windowsills with a cloth and soap and water. And "if it's really bad," she said, "use a scrubbing brush." Most people clean bathtubs, showers and toilets as part of their routine housekeeping, but some parts of the bathroom are frequently missed. Drains, for instance, are typically ignored until a clog or odor requires attention. To avoid that, clean them before they become problematic. "When you open up the drain, there is usually some nasty stuff inside, because hair does get through, and it gets dirty, moldy and stinky," Ms. Dulude said. To take care of it, put on gloves and pull out the gunk, perhaps using the end of a wire clothes hanger. "Then pour a few spoons of baking soda and vinegar in, and let it bubble up," she said. "Later, drain it with hot water." The areas where tiled walls meet bathtubs and shower enclosures can be breeding grounds for mold and mildew. To clean those areas, Ms. Fierman recommended using a specialty tile and grout cleaner like Tilex. Apply the cleaner, let it sit and then scrub with an old toothbrush or other soft brush, she said. Giving the cleaner time to work before scrubbing will make the job easier. "Letting the chemical penetrate is one of the key tricks" professionals use for difficult cleaning jobs, Ms. Modaressi said. After scrubbing, rinse well and consider resealing the grout if it has been more than six months since it was last sealed, Ms. Fierman said. Wipe the front of cabinets with soap and water, she said, then unload them and clean the insides, too. Toss any expired food from the pantry while you're at it, before putting things back. A thorough cleaning of the inside of the refrigerator should also be on your to do list, Ms. Fierman said. Finally, wash out the trash bin and wipe down the area under the sink, as those areas are often the source of odors. Once higher surfaces are sparkling, clean the floors. Hard floors like wood, ceramic and stone should be vacuumed and then mopped, Ms. Fierman said. And if you have hardwood floors, the mop "should not be anything more than damp," she said, because too much water can damage the wood. For hardwood, Ms. Fierman uses Bona floor cleaner or a mix of equal parts white vinegar and water. She recommended tying a cloth around the end of the mop, rather than using the mop head itself, so it can be replaced with fresh rags as cleaning progresses: "We don't like to use the same surface over and over, because we don't want to just push the dirt around." When vacuuming carpets, furniture should be moved in order to clean the entire surface. "You have to actually move the furniture and change the layout of the room," Ms. Dulude said, "to make sure you get under everything." That includes rugs, which should be rolled up so you can clean beneath them. If possible, beat the rugs outdoors to remove embedded dirt. If your carpets are looking a bit grungy, and perhaps even smelly, Jon Gholian, the founder of the New York cleaning company Cleany, suggested sprinkling baking soda over the surface before vacuuming. "Let it sit for half an hour," he said. "Then go over it with your vacuum. That will take out a lot of the buildup and leave your carpet smelling great." Once you're finished (and exhausted), try to maintain the new feeling of cleanliness with more frequent, lighter cleanings. That way, you can avoid having to do it all again for as long as possible. For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: nytrealestate. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Researchers on Tuesday reported strong evidence that the coronavirus can be transmitted from a pregnant woman to a fetus. A baby born in a Paris hospital in March to a mother with Covid 19 tested positive for the virus and developed symptoms of inflammation in his brain, said Dr. Daniele De Luca, who led the research team and is chief of the division of pediatrics and neonatal critical care at Paris Saclay University Hospitals. The baby, now more than 3 months old, recovered without treatment and is "very much improved, almost clinically normal," Dr. De Luca said, adding that the mother, who needed oxygen during the delivery, is healthy. Dr. De Luca said the virus appeared to have been transmitted through the placenta of the 23 year old mother. Since the pandemic began, there have been isolated cases of newborns who have tested positive for the coronavirus, but there has not been enough evidence to rule out the possibility that the infants became infected by the mother after they were born, experts said. A recently published case in Texas, of a newborn who tested positive for Covid 19 and had mild respiratory symptoms, provided more convincing evidence that transmission of the virus during pregnancy can occur. In the Paris case, Dr. De Luca said, the team was able to test the placenta, amniotic fluid, cord blood, and the mother's and baby's blood. The testing indicated that "the virus reaches the placenta and replicates there," Dr. De Luca said. It can then be transmitted to a fetus, which "can get infected and have symptoms similar to adult Covid 19 patients." A study of the case was published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. Dr. Yoel Sadovsky, executive director of Magee Womens Research Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, who was not involved in the study, said he thought the claim of placental transmission was "fairly convincing." He said the relatively high levels of the coronavirus found in the placenta and the rising levels of virus in the baby and the evidence of placental inflammation, along with the baby's symptoms, "are all consistent with SARS CoV 2 infection." Still, Dr. Sadovsky said, it is important to note that cases of possible coronavirus transmission in utero appear to be extremely rare. With other viruses, including Zika and rubella, placental infection and transmission is much more common, he said. With the coronavirus, he said, "we are trying to understand the opposite what underlies the relative protection of the fetus and the placenta?" Another study published on Tuesday in eLife, an online research journal, may help answer that question. It found that while cells in the placenta had many of the receptor proteins that allow viruses to propagate, there was evidence of only "negligible" amounts of a key cell surface receptor and an enzyme that are known to be involved in allowing the coronavirus to enter cells and replicate. The study was led by Dr. Robert Romero, chief of the perinatology research branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The report from doctors in Paris said that the woman was 35 weeks pregnant when she came to the hospital with a fever and a cough that she developed a couple of days earlier in what was an otherwise healthy pregnancy. She tested positive for the coronavirus. After three days, fetal heart monitoring indicated signs of distress, and the baby was delivered by emergency cesarean section. The baby was placed in the neonatal intensive care unit and was connected to a ventilator for about six hours, the authors reported. He seemed to be doing well, but on his third day he became irritable, had trouble feeding and was experiencing muscle spasms and rigidity. A brain scan showed some injury to the white matter, which Dr. De Luca said resembled symptoms of meningitis or inflammation in the brain. He tested negative for other viruses or bacterial infections that could have caused such symptoms, while tests of his blood and fluid from his lungs were positive for coronavirus infection, the authors said. The baby gradually recovered and left the hospital after 18 days. The authors said that the highest levels of the coronavirus were found in the placenta, higher than those in the amniotic fluid and in the blood of the mother and baby, which Dr. De Luca said suggested that the virus might be able to replicate in placental cells. Dr. De Luca, who is also the president elect of the European Society for Pediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care, said his team was analyzing other suspected cases of placental transmission of the coronavirus. "This will be helpful for clinicians and policymakers in order to manage pregnant women, check neonates and reduce the risk of viral transmission from mothers to neonates," he said, adding, "The good news is that the baby recovered spontaneously and gradually despite all this, and this confirms that the disease is milder in early infancy." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
What's particularly misleading about online dating, says Daniel Jones, the Modern Love editor, is how everyone on the site is trying to seduce you. "They're trying to seduce everyone. They're all saying, 'Date me!'" How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? For Valentine's Day, Daniel Jones, who edits the Modern Love column for The Times, discussed the tech he's using. As the editor of Modern Love, you are constantly reading stories about people's relationships, including submissions that never make it to publication. With that bird's eye view, how do you think tech has transformed relationships? In looking for love, tech gives us access, protection and the power of curation. Meaning we can shop for love from the safety of our homes while presenting only the best parts of ourselves to potential mates. So much control! How could anything go wrong? But actually, as with so much of tech, it's mostly the illusion of control. Because we can't really choose anyone even if it seems that we can. We can't protect our hearts with the glass of our phones. And we can't keep a potential mate from discovering who we truly are; we just increase the odds of their ultimately being disappointed by keeping them hooked to our "best" self. How has tech changed dating? Is online dating making romance better or worse? I think we view technology in all areas as being a shortcut. We can solve problems faster, maximize time, use less energy while doing more. We can work smarter. And we can love smarter, too, right? With online dating, we can find the perfect person more efficiently, make contact more easily, rule that person in or out faster. But that whole approach is fueled by an expectation that our search for love is like finding a needle in a haystack. And from what I've seen, love doesn't often work that way. Having too many choices is in itself inefficient and fantasy inducing. In my view, love is best found not in a haystack but in a pea pod. Here are your five peas. Or maybe nine peas. The anthropologist Helen Fisher claims that a human brain can reasonably consider only nine or 10 choices; beyond that, they turn to noise. So if you were to limit yourself to nine people and get to know them, give each a chance, you'd probably fall in love with one. Even so, I'm not one of those people who moan about how dating apps make things worse. It's just different, much the way online shopping differs from brick and mortar. When shopping online, you buy more stuff because it's so easy. Then you probably fantasize a little more about your new shoes or flying drone as you await their arrival, which means you're going to be disappointed more often because the shoes don't fit or the drone is poorly made. So you return them and start over same as with the average online date. In the store, meanwhile, all of that trying on and rejecting would have happened in real time, much like getting to know and rejecting people at the bar or a party happens in real time, leaving you little time to fantasize. What's particularly misleading about online dating is how everyone on the site is trying to seduce you. They're trying to seduce everyone. They're all saying, "Date me!" When you walk into a bar, does everyone rush up to you with a big smile and a glowing resume? No. Everyone ignores you. But online, a little piece of you believes. Because you're being pitched, you allow yourself to believe in these people's vulnerability and desire. Which is why meeting people online tends to heighten our fantasies and deepen our disappointment. Our smartphones now include photos, chat transcripts, contacts and more. Is it good for relationships to have so much of our lives public? What I've noticed about young people who've grown up with social media is the degree to which they bring a sense of audience to nearly everything they do. They see their own life as a performance, one that is constantly "reviewed" by friends, family, aunts, cousins, strangers. But what's refreshing to me is how goofy a lot of it is. It's curated but not always to show perfection; in fact, imperfection seems to be the goal, something to laugh at, an ugly or embarrassing moment or expression or bad experience. They splash it all out there as a way of saying, "This is me." I think a lot of us who didn't grow up with that are horrified about having unflattering pictures of ourselves out there or embarrassing stories. We see that kind of online vulnerability as risky, and they often don't they celebrate it. How has tech affected your job editing Modern Love? Tech which for me mostly consists of my laptop and phone has made me both happier and more stressed out, more engaged with the world and more isolated from my immediate surroundings, more in touch with my friends and family while I see them less and less. In my job, tech allows me incredible freedom to do my work at The Times or from the beach, and whether I'm feeling good or am sick in bed. I'm writing this now on a train from New York City to Massachusetts on a brisk, beautiful Saturday in February. It's glorious, and at the same time my work and personal life have almost no boundary. What tech are you obsessed with in your personal life? I could not navigate the world without Google Maps, and I could not fully appreciate the world without Google Earth. I still don't get how either works. They are miraculous. Recently there has been a lot of talk about smartphone addiction. What's your advice for couples who struggle to put down their phones and want to remain present with each other? I'm a bad person to ask about that because I'm on my phone all the time, too. I'm just glad these things didn't exist when I had small children, because I know I'd be like those parents you see at the playground, staring at their phones as their children try to get their attention. My immediate family is scattered kids in college, my wife and I frequently in different cities and these days that texting connection outweighs the negative of being on our phones when we're together. But just barely. With phone addiction, it's all about willpower. These days I'm without my phone only in the shower. So I guess my parting advice to couples who want to remain present with each other: Spend more time together in the shower. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
Here's an odd bit of personal 2020 trivia: The last movie I bought a ticket to see in a theater was "A Rainy Day in New York." That was in January, when I squandered part of a wintry afternoon in Bologna, Italy, and dragged my blameless spouse to a matinee of what was then the latest Woody Allen film. (A newer one, "Rifkin's Festival," has since surfaced at the San Sebastian Film Festival.) "Rainy Day," you may recall, had been shelved by its original American distributor, Amazon Studios, in the wake of renewed attention to accusations that Allen had sexually abused his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow when she was a child. The film nonetheless opened in Europe last year. Though I haven't been much of an Allen fan for a while, I remain, for complicated reasons, a completist, and I happened to be in Italy during its run. The movie is now arriving in theaters in some American cities, which suggests that what we have taken to calling cancel culture is more often a matter of postponement. This release may also be a way of testing the commitment of Allen's die hard defenders. Are you willing to take chances with your physical health for the opportunity to sample his latest cocktail of Great American Songbook excerpts, luxurious interiors, dated cultural allusions and casual misogyny? I wouldn't advise it, but I can also tell you that the experience via streaming, while epidemiologically safer, isn't much better. I suppose I could also tell you that "A Rainy Day in New York" shows more liveliness and wit than some of its recent precursors, like "Magic in the Moonlight," "Cafe Society" or "Wonder Wheel." It's easy on the eyes, thanks to the characteristically elegant work of the production designer, Santo Loquasto; the director of photography, Vittorio Storaro; and a cast of attractive youngish and midcareer performers. The titular city looks good under gray skies, even if it's mostly standard tourist fare. We breeze through Central Park, bits of SoHo and Greenwich Village, and some of the fancier hotels. Upper crust Manhattan is the native ground of Gatsby Welles (Timothee Chalamet), a college student with the tastes and temperament of a much older fellow. Rebelling against his hoity toity, culture vulture mother who eventually shows up in the regal person of Cherry Jones he prefers jazz piano and high stakes poker to Henry James. His artistic reference points are a bit eccentric for Generation Z, but that kind of anachronism has been part of the Allen gestalt at least since the dawn of the current century. And with a name like Gatsby Welles, you might have some cultural hangups too. Gatsby's girlfriend, Ashleigh (Elle Fanning), is a celebrity crazed ditz and an ambitious student journalist who name drops Renoir and De Sica when talking with a famous filmmaker (Liev Schreiber), though she later mistakes a Cole Porter lyric for Shakespeare. She's from Arizona, which authorizes a few cactus jokes and also the conceit of a romantic weekend during which Gatsby will show her the hometown sights: A suite at the Pierre. Drinks at the Carlyle. A Weegee show at MoMA. Why not? But of course the excursion, which coincides with a big party Gatsby's mom is throwing, doesn't go as planned. Ashleigh, having scored an interview with the director, runs a gantlet of important men, including a neurotic screenwriter (Jude Law) and a randy movie star (Diego Luna). Gatsby, meanwhile, encounters Chan (Selena Gomez), the younger sister of a high school flame who has grown into a young woman whose combination of world weary cynicism and rainy day romanticism perfectly matches his. The Chan Gatsby Ashleigh triangle is a standard Woody Allen setup, though the names are a trifle exotic. The young actors all struggle with the blend of pretense and nonsense that is Allen's current screenwriting idiom, a rigged match that can be painful to witness. Poor Chalamet has the hardest time, since he is also the designated directorial alter ego. Fanning, a subtle and serious performer, does her best to locate comedy and dignity in her ridiculous character, but neither thing has been supplied. Gomez is the least humiliated, in spite of having to say things like, "A farrago of WASP plutocrats? That sounds like something on the menu at a fusion restaurant." Sure it does. What's on the menu here is the usual cynicism, overlaid with unconvincing, nostalgic dreaminess. There is one genuinely romantic moment, when Gatsby plays "Everything Happens to Me" on a "family heirloom" grand piano while Chan listens from another room, but "A Rainy Day in New York" squanders that along with its few moments of fun in the service of a set of tired, sour and vindictive propositions about love, youth and, above all, women. Which is a long way of saying what I didn't really need to cross an ocean to discover: it's a Woody Allen movie. A Rainy Day in New York Rated PG 13. A farrago. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
Of Philip Glass's many, many operas 30 or so, depending on how you count "Akhnaten" may be the most ritualistic and mystical. With the subdued, undulating opening of the long orchestral prelude, Mr. Glass is sending a message: Put aside your typical expectations of music drama. This isn't "Tosca"; you're on Glass time . If even stylized action therefore takes a while to get going, that's surely the effect Mr. Glass was aiming for. And that's how it came across on Friday, when the Metropolitan Opera presented the company premiere of this spellbinding 1984 meditation on the tumultuous rule of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaten, who is said to have pioneered monotheism and been overthrown for that blasphemy. Phelim McDermott's staging, with designs by Tom Pye, makes a virtue of the slow building, mood setting opening scenes. During that prelude, we see only a screen with splotchy colors and shadowy hints of people behind, while the music gradually unfolds. Though Mr. Glass has never liked the term "Minimalism," to which he has become irrevocably connected, it suggests how his work casts its spell. Groups of beats in shifting metrical combinations churn constantly in midrange instruments, as oscillating two note riffs, spiraling arpeggios, or rising and falling scales float above or hover below. The production's conductor, Karen Kamensek, making her Met debut, conveyed the ripple, flow and quiet urgency of the music without fixating on precision. This "Akhnaten" staging is not as revelatory as the "Satyagraha." The riskiest element involves a 12 person troupe of jugglers Sean Gandini, the director of Gandini Juggling, is credited as choreographer in spandex catsuits. The circuslike juggling provides an apt visual representation of the spiraling rhythms of Mr. Glass's music. The images also suggest the roiling tensions incited by Akhnaten's rule, as opposition builds up to the climactic confrontation in which he is deposed and killed. Still, there was too much juggling; it became intrusive and one note. But the production largely succeeds at Mr. McDermott's goal of presenting "Akhnaten" as a "weird fever dream" combining ancient Egypt and the Victorians who fetishized it, as he said in a New York Times interview. The set slightly steampunk, with corrugated metal walls and industrial style platforms coexists with fantastical evocations of the pharaoh's world; an Egyptian aristocrat is dressed like a 19th century gentleman, but with a skull embedded in his top hat. Mr. Glass and his collaborators assembled the libretto from ancient Egyptian, Akkadian and Hebrew sources, though crucial passages are intended to be spoken in the language of the audience by a character called the Scribe. Mr. McDermott has chosen to have the texts delivered by the ghost of Akhnaten's father, played by Zachary James, who looks imposing in his sequined regalia and speaks the lines with chilling intensity. The opera begins with the extended scene of his funeral. Finally and it felt like a long wait the new pharaoh, Akhnaten, appears: the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo. When attendants remove the stiff garment that encases him, Mr. Costanzo stands motionless on a platform, completely naked. Staring ahead with uncanny focus, he looks like a young man overcome with the momentousness of the ceremony not just a coronation, but also a public ritual of rebirth. His nudity makes him seem at once fearless and vulnerable. Before he sings a note, Mr. Costanzo already seems to be nursing a radical agenda, which involves, as we soon learn, transforming Egypt from a polytheistic society to one embracing a single god, Aten, whose energy fills the sun. In the next scene, Mr. Costanzo sings the opening phrases of a hymn of acceptance with gleaming high notes and melting sound that cut through the orchestra with surprising ease. This blossoms into a ravishing trio for Akhnaten, his wife, Nefertiti (the rich voiced mezzo soprano J'Nai Bridges, in an auspicious Met debut), and his mother, Queen Tye (the radiant soprano Disella Larusdottir). With this trio and other set pieces, Mr. Glass does create something with the outlines of old fashioned operatic structure. Act II concludes with an aria: Akhnaten's pensive hymn to Aten, the young pharaoh's most private moment and some of Mr. Glass's most richly harmonic writing. Mr. Costanzo sings with exceptional tenderness while bringing out inflections in the music that hint at the character's isolation and insecurity. For Act II, Mr. Glass also perhaps came the closest in his career to writing a traditional operatic love duet, as Akhnaten and Nefertiti affirm their devotion in plaintive phrases that waft and intertwine, while the orchestra suggests their teeming inner emotions. Wearing gauzy red robes with extravagantly long trains , Mr. Costanzo and Ms. Bridges seem at once otherworldly and achingly real. His ethereal tones combine affectingly with her plush, deep set voice. Ms. Kamensek, while keeping the orchestra supportive, brings out the restless rhythmic elements that suggest the couple's intensity. The excellent cast also includes Richard Bernstein as Nefertiti's father, Aaron Blake as a high priest and Will Liverman as the general who leads the assault on Akhnaten. The enormous ovation for Ms. Kamensek, one of just five female conductors in the Met's history, was heartening. And Mr. Costanzo, who sang the title role when this production was introduced in London and later presented in Los Angeles, truly owns it. The final scene shows a group of irreverent modern day students in a classroom, tossing paper wads as a professor lectures them on the information gleaned from an excavation of the city Akhnaten built in praise of Aten. We see the ghosts of Akhnaten, Nefertiti and Queen Tye voicing forlorn, wordless refrains. Are they anxious about how history has remembered them? Mr. Glass, 82, who received the biggest ovation when he appeared onstage, has no such worries. In a recent interview with The New York Times, asked about his legacy, and whether his music will endure, Mr. Glass said simply: "I won't be around for all that. It doesn't matter." Continues through Dec. 7 at the Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center; 212 362 6000, metopera.org. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
If the strength of Seattle's office market could be chalked up to one company, it would be Amazon. Last year, the online retailer was responsible for the city's biggest deal, its largest lease and the purchase of the only large chunk of downtown land to come on the market in decades. Amazon bought its 1.8 million square foot headquarters last month from Vulcan Real Estate for 1.16 billion, the biggest office sale nationwide and a bold departure for a company that had been content to rent space until last year. And it's not done yet. Although Amazon leases or owns 2.7 million square feet of space in Seattle, the online retailer plans to more than double that figure when it breaks ground on three office towers of its own on the northern fringe of downtown this year. Amazon did not return calls seeking comment. Amazon's flurry of activity has led to rent increases and a drop in office vacancy and has inspired confidence in the market. Other companies, largely led by technology firms, have shaved the vacancy rate to 10.7 percent at the end of last year, from 12.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to Kidder Mathews, a commercial real estate brokerage. The biggest vacancy decrease has been in South Lake Union, an area north of downtown where Amazon's stake in the neighborhood has drawn other companies looking for large floorplates and new buildings. In the last three years, about half of Seattle's net absorption, or the amount of space companies leased and occupied, was in South Lake Union, where the vacancy rate fell to 5.4 percent from 9.3 percent, according to CBRE, a commercial real estate brokerage. "We're seeing a lot of companies that want to be closer to Amazon and that synergy, whether they do business with Amazon or not," said Jesse Ottele, a senior vice president at CBRE in Seattle. A tighter office market has pushed up rents across the city. The average rent rose to 29.19 a square foot at the end of last year, from 27.80 in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to Kidder Mathews. With few large blocks of Class A office space available and little new space expected to reach the market soon, brokers expect rents to go even higher this year. Developers are now talking about building again even without a tenant. Eight million square feet of office space are in the works across the city, with more than half planned or under construction in South Lake Union, according to CBRE. Residential developers will also open 5,800 units this year, the most in decades, according to Dupre Scott Apartment Advisors, a research firm. Vulcan Real Estate is betting more companies will want to move to South Lake Union. Although the developer, which owns 30 percent of the land there, has built more than five million square feet of space in the last decade, it has up to seven million square feet of space left that it can build. This year, Vulcan is breaking ground on two office buildings leased to Amazon and a life sciences research building. If the City Council raises height limits in the neighborhood this spring, Vulcan may move ahead with plans for two more office buildings and three 24 story residential towers. "We're now looking to position ourselves for a recovering economy and teeing up speculative buildings," said Ada Healey, a vice president at Vulcan Real Estate. "We want to be in a situation to take advantage of 2013." Other developers are also moving ahead in anticipation of the height rezoning. After purchasing blocks in South Lake Union in the last year and a half, Touchstone and Skanska, a Swedish development and construction company, submitted permits for three office buildings, for a total of 1.1 million square feet, that would exceed current limits. Company executives said they would consider building without a signed tenant. "Sometime around mid 2012, we saw rents for Class A office that justified new construction," said Lisa Picard, executive vice president of Skanska USA Commercial Development in Seattle. "The project is ready to start. We'll look at the supply and demand of the market and decide whether to go." Seattle appears to be at the top of many investors' shopping lists. The Urban Land Institute ranked the city as fourth best in the country for office buildings thanks to its projected job growth of 1.2 percent and its roster of expanding brand name companies like Starbucks, Nordstrom and Boeing. Real estate investors, who are looking for steady returns, have flocked to Seattle for its stable and growing companies. "The capital followed the fundamentals," said Kevin Shannon, CBRE's vice chairman in Los Angeles. "Seattle and San Francisco were the two stars in West Coast markets. A couple of years ago, I'm not sure Seattle would be on a core shopping list. We now have a lot of people looking at Seattle." The city's investment market cemented its revival last year. The volume of deals skyrocketed 203 percent in 2012 over the previous year, to 5 billion, according to Real Capital Analytics, a research and consulting firm. Among the 14.5 million square feet sold, Amazon's headquarters space is the largest. The sale of the Russell Investments Center building early last year, though, was perhaps the most significant of the year because it showed the city's investment market had fully recovered. When the 42 story office tower was put up for sale in late 2011, it attracted 34 buyer tours, an "incredible" number, said Mr. Shannon of CBRE, which handled the sale. It sold last spring for 480 million more than four times its purchase price in 2009. After its bid for the Russell building lost, Clarion Partners, an investment management company, looked for other buildings with the same "blue chip roster" and reliable rents, which it found at 1201 Third Avenue, the city's second tallest tower and a former headquarters of the failed Washington Mutual. Clarion advised on a deal to sell the 55 story tower for 548.8 million, the 10th largest deal in the country last year, to a joint venture of MetLife and an unidentified institutional real estate investor. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
The landscape and wildlife are increasingly attracting tourists to places like Juan Solito, an eco lodge founded in 1999 by Nelson Barragan. It's just across the silty Ariporo River from Hato La Aurora, a 37,000 acre ranch that belongs to the extended Barragan family. Tourists stay at Juan Solito and spend their days exploring the ranch, which is managed as a wildlife reserve through Colombia's Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development. "The ranch serves as a refuge for species at risk, and teaches visitors about the culture of the llanos," Mr. Barragan told me. "The idea is to support the natural ecosystem and maintain them in their wild state, so people can see the wild animals and the wild lands as they were before." Elsewhere, the llanos environment is threatened by oil drilling, intensive agriculture and overgrazing. Mr. Barragan is a pure llanero, as natives of the region are known. He sometimes plays the lively yet plaintive llanero music for guests, on the harp, or the four stringed cuatro. During the wet season, he rides alongside the other vaqueros to round up the cattle. On my first morning, Mr. Barragan outlined the options for exploring the area. Over several cups of tinto, the strong black coffee that keeps Colombia caffeinated, we came up with a three day plan a wildlife safari, a fishing expedition and a search for snakes. Later that morning, Giovanni Castilla, my guide, and I ferried across the river in a large, wood planked canoe. Along the riverbank, leaf cutter ants rambled industriously, looking like a fleet of tiny rusty boats with oversized green sails. A roadside hawk perched in a riverside tree. Parked in the shade was a Toyota pickup, tricked out safari style with padded bench seats in the stake side bed. I hopped in back and we rolled out onto the open plains on a rutted dirt road. Wildlife was abundant and conspicuous. A barefaced ibis foraged through the grass as a crested caracara hunted for turtle eggs along the mud bank of a small creek. Deer grazed in the near distance, and beyond, next to a small muddy pond, a pair of jabirus large, ridiculous looking storks with red, pelican like pouches. At a larger pond just down the road, a dozen spectacled caiman lounged in the shallows, and a long toed bird called a wattled jacana waded alongside a roseate spoonbill. A pair of Orinoco geese tended goslings, and two dozen capybara sat half submerged, looking docile, some with mud caked across their backs. Profiled on a sandy bench a few feet above the rest of the plain, four pairs of burrowing owls stood by their dens. It was a lot to take in, and there was more. Off in the distance, I noticed what first looked like clouds to the west. Looking closer, it was the white glaciers of the 17,000 foot peaks of the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy, resting atop the bluish Andes. All the while we traveled among livestock the Barragans run 5,000 head of cattle, along with horses and a small herd of water buffalo. Stopping for lunch at Hato Agua Verde, one of several haciendas on the ranch, we saw a lasso stretched along a fence, freshly made from pure leather. One of the cowboys gave us an introduction to the llanero art of making these "rejos." The process involves wetting a cowhide, slicing it into a long, slender strip, then twisting, stretching, and drying the rope. Returning late to Juan Solito, we crossed the river in the dark. Fruit bats flew about, and a yellowish snake, an Amazon tree boa, hunted them from the thatched roof of an outbuilding. The sky was a brilliant bowlful of stars accented by a crescent moon, utterly undiminished by light pollution. The days started early in the llanos, with a crazy dawn chorus. First came the chacalacas pheasant like birds whose onomatopoeic calls echoed from the mud banks of the river. Then the improbably loud calls of the horned screamers, goose like birds with slender bony points on their heads. And, just after sunrise, a deep, eerie sound howler monkeys calling from tall palms along the river. All of this, right by the hotel, before breakfast. On the second morning, Mr. Castilla and I traveled to a far corner of the ranch to do some fishing. As we drove over the plains, a lesser yellow headed vulture soared overhead, and a great black hawk flew by, one talon clutching a large iguana by the neck. Another big lizard darted shrub to shrub over the plain. It was darker and stockier than an iguana a golden tegu. In April 2017, Nelson's brother Jorge Barragan and Brigitte Baptiste, the director of Colombia's Humboldt Institute, saw two large jaguars resting in a swamp in the middle of the day. Using wildlife cameras, Jorge and a team of wildlife biologists has identified 31 jaguars on the ranch, including residents and migrants. Emerging from the jungle, we came to a small river where a weathered johnboat was tethered to a tree. Mr. Castilla poled us up to a confluence, and we tied off in the shade. It's best not to wade these waters there are freshwater stingrays swim here , and electric eels (which were objects of von Humboldt's fascination and study). A hoatzin, a primitive bird like a living archaeopteryx, called in the distance as we baited hand lines with what else? gristly chunks of local beef. Drifting the bait in the slow current, we quickly started catching fish. First, a couple of small catfish nibbled, then toothy piranhas hit the bait savagely. A couple of hours later, we hiked out with a fine stringer of plump piranhas, which we ate that night scored, fried and delicious. Meals are served in an open air dining area with a palm thatched roof, on a table that's a solid plank from a ceiba tree three feet wide, 24 feet long, and five inches thick. On one wall is a large map of the ranch, and on a railing, a hint of the surrounding wildness: the paw of a puma torn asunder by a jaguar. The food is fresh, simple and hearty soups, arepas, avocados, fruit and fruit juice, and beef, pork and fish. There's also tasty homemade cheese queso fresco, or farmer's cheese from a small herd of dairy cows. The main building has eight rooms and a patio strung with hammocks. Another building has six more rustic rooms, and a set of bookshelves overflowing with well worn field guides (handy for identifying endemic birds like the pale headed jacamars that hang around the buildings). It's clean, comfortable, and basic, but it's not for everyone. There's not an infinity pool, nor a hint of a yoga mat. You'll not get cellphone service or Wi Fi, and English words are in short supply. The showers aren't cold, per se, nor is the water heated. The nearly equatorial sun, on the other hand, is relentless at midday. And there are chiggers, ticks and mosquitoes, and venomous fer de lance snakes. An English speaking tourist who arrived just before I left was unimpressed. "If this is the way eco tourism is developing in this country," he told his wife, "I don't think it's going to be very successful." A week before I arrived, a large anaconda had eaten a caiman in a small pond near Juan Solito, then spent the day digesting on the bank. So on my third day, Mr. Castilla and I walked over to look for it, distracted along the way by dozens of birds. Small, medium and large parrots flew by brown throated parakeets, yellow headed parrots, and chestnut fronted macaws. Mr. Castilla spied an anaconda track in a ditch beside the road, and began wading barefoot through the muddy, calf deep water, searching for the snake. Soon, he stepped on something soft that moved slightly beneath his feet. Taking a step back, he gestured to me to come closer. Then he used a stick to gently probe the mud, which suddenly exploded, as a caiman emerged thrashing, jaws snapping, then hastily departed. Nearby, a refined looking raptor perched in a low tree, a savanna hawk. Arriving at the pond, we saw a similar hawk scanning the water, but this one had a paler head. It was a black collared hawk, which preys on fish. But the anacondas stayed hidden. Later that day, I set off with another guide, Jeremias Tumay, to search for anacondas in another corner of the ranch, this time on horseback. Though motorcycles, jeeps and pickups are popular on the plains, horses are better for fording rivers and creeks. Llaneros have earned reputations as excellent horsemen, and Simon Bolivar relied on them in his fight for independence. In "Bolivar: American Liberator," Marie Arana wrote: "The llaneros were accomplished horsemen, well trained in the art of warfare ... They made tents from hides, slept on earth, reveled in hardship. They lived on the open prairie, which was parched by heat, impassable in the rains." On the sure footed horses, we descended the steep muddy bank, and crossed the Ariporo River, stirrup deep in the opaque flow. Then we rode an hour over the llanos to a small lake, where hundreds of ducks dabbled amid a large herd of capybara and dozens of shorebirds. We found no snakes, but skirting another pond on the ride back, we came upon a reptile rarer still. Mr. Tumay spotted what first looked like a caiman, but without a knobby nose. It was an Orinoco crocodile, a critically endangered species that can grow to lengths of 20 feet. The sighting was a surprise, but not entirely unexpected Mr . Barragan has been cooperating with several wildlife agencies on a crocodile reintroduction project. After a brief glimpse, the crocodile disappeared into the water, in a corner of the llanos still big and wild enough to keep a few secrets. Murray Carpenter is the author of "Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts, and Hooks Us." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
The morning after the Oscars, as rain (which probably would have been snow a few years ago) strafed New York, bleary eyed guests filed dutifully into The Shed at Hudson Yards for the Carolina Herrera show. Yes, the same Shed that had been so grandly canceled as a fashion venue only a season before, thanks to the fact that one of its then board members, Stephen M. Ross, a billionaire real estate tycoon, had held a big fund raiser for President Trump at his Hamptons home. Mr. Ross stepped down in December, and now everything's back to normal. That was so ... six weeks or so ago! So much has happened, who can remember? Down is up and right is left and you'll get whiplash every hour or so if you don't hold your neck just right. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
But most candidates who endorsed those initiatives were in safer districts than those who didn't. When moderate Democrats like Conor Lamb and Abigail Spanberger say that left wing slogans are poisonous in their communities, people who don't live in those communities should take them seriously. Left wing populists often believe that there's a silent majority who agree with them, if only they can be organized to go to the polls. If that were true, though, an election with record high turnout should have been much better for progressives. Instead, 2020 was a reminder of something most older liberals long ago had to come to terms with: The voters who live in the places that determine political control in this country tend to be more conservative than we are. Yet that doesn't mean that the Democratic Party doesn't need the left. Leaders like Bernie Sanders and Ocasio Cortez were loyal soldiers in this election. After the primaries, they put aside their disappointment to rally voters whom Joe Biden might not have reached. One analysis showed that voting by young people was up 8 percent in 2020, and after the coronavirus, the issues young Biden voters cared about most were racism and climate change. The Democratic Party can't afford to alienate the people inspired by Sanders and the Squad. The Democrats' loss in 2004 was devastating, but recovering from it didn't mean moving right. At the time, even civil unions for gay couples were controversial the Ohio ballot initiative was one of several that banned them along with same sex marriage. Agitation for marriage equality turned support for such unions into the moderate liberal position, then into the centrist position. Then marriage equality became the law of the land. Similarly, the Green New Deal made a climate plan like Biden's, the most ambitious ever proposed by a major party presidential nominee, look moderate. Calls to defund the police are unpopular, but the slogan has already made other reforms like changing the law to make it easier to hold police officers liable for misconduct seem centrist and practical. Moderates need radicals to expand their scope for action. Radicals need moderates to wield power in a giant heterogenous country with sclerotic institutions and deep wells of reaction. Neither camp could have defeated Donald Trump on its own. It's frustrating now, as it was heartbreaking in 2004, that revanchist Republicans retain such a hold on America. But that's all the more reason for Democrats to stop their counterproductive sniping and work together to beat them. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
In an ideal world, a master class available to everyone would reveal all the secrets to retirement planning, telling you how much to save, where to invest and what to do when the stock market crashes. After all, there are few entirely conflict free places where investors can educate themselves on the topic, and there's little to no money related guidance offered within the public school system, which is where the financial groundwork should really be laid. Joshua Rauh, a finance professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, is acutely aware of that. And it's why he felt compelled to open his graduate level course on the finance of retirement and pensions to the masses. "My goal is to try to empower people to make better decisions about their finances with an eye toward retirement and for retirees who are thinking about managing their money," Professor Rauh said, "whether it is buying an annuity or having a spending rule." The course, which is offered free online, begins on Monday. I sat for nearly half of his online video lectures on topics like "saving for retirement" and "making smart decisions as a stock market investor" earlier this week. Watching remotely means you won't be party to the discussion that will emerge from the Socratic method Professor Rauh uses in his traditional classroom on campus. And there are already 13,000 students, so it's hard to expect any personal attention. But there's plenty that students will take away from his lessons, which you can watch anytime after the lecture is released, much as you might watch any series on your DVR. "A person that would really benefit is someone who is 40 and realizing they really need to start putting together a plan for retirement and haven't thought much about it," he said, though he says he believes that it will be equally helpful for people of all ages. There aren't many other places to turn, particularly where it costs nothing but your time. When I informally polled financial literacy advocates, financial planners and other experts if they knew of any other comprehensive retirement courses, they couldn't come up with any, though one person mentioned the instructional videos at Khan Academy. (If you know of any classes, please share them in the comments section online). Without any instruction manual, "people have to be their own chief financial officer," said Annamaria Lusardi, a financial literacy advocate and economics professor at the George Washington University School of Business, who teaches a class on personal finance. "The large majority of the population lacks the knowledge of basic but fundamental concepts, from the power of interest compounding, to the effects of inflation, to the workings of risk diversification." This course may be a good place to start. Each of the 10 video lectures are about 45 minutes long, but they're broken into bite size segments, all of which were well produced and relatively engaging. As Professor Rauh explains each concept, animated visuals and colorful graphs appear alongside him, which helps make the concepts easier to grasp. Each lecture includes a mix of financial theory and prescriptive advice, some of which people with a reasonable base of investment knowledge may already know: actively managed mutual funds aren't worth the money, so buy index funds. Don't time the market. Stocks don't become less risky the longer you hold them. Locast, a nonprofit streaming service for local TV, is shutting down Capital One's chief executive was fined after being called a 'repeat offender.' But the illustrations that accompany the advice how retiring in 2009, for instance, would have resulted in a nest egg 28 percent smaller than one resulting by retiring in 2012 are instructive. "It's not a rocket science idea, but people don't see it without having it illustrated for them," Professor Rauh said. All of the lessons are rooted in what he calls "the economist's view" of personal finance, which is built on the idea that there are no free lunches in financial markets, and that you can generate potentially higher returns only if you take substantial risk as well. It's a message woven through his lectures. At times, it almost seems as if there should be a red blinking sign behind Professor Rauh that reads, "Proceed with caution. Stocks ahead!" He clearly wants the lesson to linger long after you leave his virtual classroom and find yourself in a commission based stockbroker's office. "Too often, people just budget on the basis of an 'expected return' on their assets without thinking about the range of possible outcomes," he explained. He also explains why economists also believe that more people not all, but more should buy annuities. Not the high priced complex contraptions sold to unwitting seniors, but the plain vanilla immediate annuities, where you pay a giant pile of cash to an insurance company in exchange for a guaranteed stream of income for life. He breaks all of this down in a lecture about making your money last, which offers the kind of practical advice that will be of particular interest to people in their late 50s and older who are wondering why annuities feel so expensive: as he points out, for 100,000, a 65 year old woman can expect to receive about 450 a month. But he also explains another alternative that is about a tenth of the cost, known as longevity insurance. (You buy this annuity in advance and it begins paying income a decade or two later, when you're in your 80s and may have spent all of your other savings). In the same lesson, you'll be expected to sit through perhaps more than you may want to know about the inner workings of the mortality tables used to price annuities. But as Professor Rauh points out, it's a university level class. There will be moments where you may feel a sudden urge to check your e mail (like when the first mathematical equation with a sigma symbol appears on the screen). Indeed, a basic understanding of statistics is helpful, and you shouldn't be easily intimidated by a simple spreadsheet. The course ends with two lectures that explain the basics of pensions, the trouble erupting within our public pension system and how it affects taxpayers and municipal bondholders. Students are then tasked with a pretty serious group project: analyzing a state or local pension plan's solvency whether it's the New York State Teachers' Retirement System or Calpers, the big California public pension plan and coming up with ways to make it stronger. The five teams with the most promising ideas will get to present their proposals in January, all expenses paid, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business to a panel of faculty and experts. "We are sitting on the likelihood that there will have to be very large tax increases to pay for public employees' pensions and that is a very important aspect of our portfolios as well how much we will be taxed," said Professor Rauh, who has written several research papers analyzing public pensions. That's likely to incite much debate in the forums, where most of the interaction among students will take place. As much ground as this course covers from asset allocation to the investing in different types of tax deferred accounts there's still plenty of material that needs to be explained. Should I pay for advice? If so, what sort of adviser should I work with? How do I figure out my risk tolerance for stocks? Should I take Social Security now or later? And what should I make of all of these guaranteed return products that my brother in law keeps talking about? At the end of some of the lessons, you may still be left with your own questions, but that may be Professor Rauh's point: now, at least, you know what to ask. "There is some, 'Do this, not that,' " he said. "But that doesn't give them the complexity to operate in life." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Your Money |
The fact that this week's episode of "The Walking Dead" takes place almost entirely on a vast ocean of garbage seems all too appropriate. The landfill where Negan and his troops take refuge provides a canny symbol for a group of characters who are mired in what often seems like endless misery: Wandering through endless corridors of trash, they're unsure of where to go. To the show's many detractors, however, that image also becomes a less intentional symbol for the ills of this season. The episode is full of false steps, but at least they're in the right direction. Continued fallout from Carl's heart rending death in last week's episode dominates the action, as various characters clumsily process the loss and wonder what kind of world would take such a kind and decent person in the prime of his life. The writers' willingness to reckon with the full gravity of a character's departure rather than hustle to the next set piece makes for a refreshing change of pace. Even so, the various expressions of grief were tone deaf, feeding back ultimately into the same tedious cycles that have hindered narrative progress all season. For no apparent reason, the writers chopped this episode into chapters, each of which begins with a title card bearing an individual character's name. The first of these pseudo vignettes belongs to Michonne, as she and Rick lay Carl to rest and release a bit of their pent up rage. They're probably the two people who were closest to Carl before the lethal bite, making them uniquely suited to supporting each other as they alternate between embracing their anger and putting on a brave face. Rick readily joins Michonne when she decides to extinguish a burning gazebo where Carl liked to idle. She suggests her actions are a testament to Carl's memory, but when Rick has to physically drag her away before a herd of zombies can fully encircle them, it becomes clear that she's making the gesture for her own sake. It's an old writerly device having a character obsess over some meaningless task only to arrive at the cold realization that nothing will bring back the dearly departed. In this instance, it's executed with less grace than usual. That scene is not nearly as calamitous, however, as the inexplicable one in the landfill just before the opening titles. On paper, there shouldn't be anything odd about this story beat: Michonne and Rick hear trouble nearby and take cover amid the trash, simple as that. But because of some catastrophic misjudgment in postproduction, the final two minutes of the scene have been cut in a way that invokes the surreal incoherence that makes "The Room" such a hoot. That's not a good thing. Perhaps the title cards were intended to quarantine the conflict between Jadis and Simon. Having been thoroughly dressed down by Negan, Simon scrapes up a bit of his masculinity by belittling Jadis and her Scavengers, going so far as to shoot her followers one by one, right in front of her. The show's callous streak returns stronger than ever in this massacre, which culminates in a hail of bullets that the audience doesn't see. After Simon shoots the first few Scavengers who look at him funny, we hear him open fire but the scene has already moved on. That last volley lasts all of two seconds and plays out offscreen, with only the rat a tat sound effect making viewers aware of the widespread carnage. Depicting (or, rather, not depicting) violence in such detached terms certainly falls in line with Savior brutality, but it also makes for alienating television. Negan and his crew may be sadists, but he isn't totally unaffected by Carl's death. He spends the first half of this episode reading the Riot Act to Simon in a transparent attempt to reassert his fading authority. (While ostensibly this season's primary villain, Negan has spent most of his screen time sidelined.) When Rick radios him in the final minutes of the episode, however, Negan expresses true remorse the quality Simon cruelly punished Jadis for not possessing a few scenes earlier. Intentional softness is a rare quantity in this post apocalyptic war zone, and Negan reveals a kinder and more genuine side of himself as he speaks about the future he had planned for Carl. The happy, gardening Negan we glimpsed in last week's flash forward shows himself, however fleetingly. But the possibility of peace continues to slip out of Rick's grasp as he succumbs to his vengeful fury. Rare glimpses of the future have confirmed that the show's endgame is peace. But Season 9 has already been ordered, so we know our survivors have a ways to go before they get there. Rick doubles down on his commitment to war in the climactic walkie talkie chat with Negan, swearing that he will fight on for his absent son. (Never mind that Carl's parting words emphasized the importance of pacifism, as Michonne points out.) But every story about revenge winds up at the same nugget of wisdom: Wreaking more destruction cannot undo what's been done. Negan accuses Rick of having failed Carl as a father, and he's not wrong. Rick can put out gazebo fires or eradicate Negan's forces, if that makes him feel better. But if it does, that's all it will do. He can move heaven and earth, but none of it will bring back his son. A Few Thoughts While We Survey the Wreckage: Jadis certainly gets the rawest of this episode's many raw deals, considering suicide by industrial meat grinder as she contemplates her failure to protect her Scavengers. She stares suggestively into the makeshift death trap she's laid for the walkers pursuing her, as if she might just use it on herself before deciding she may as well live. It's a craven plot device: out of character for Jadis, out of joint with the overall atmosphere of the episode and out of mind after the scene wraps up. Still, compliments to the prop department responsible for concocting the thick paste of ground zombie pouring out of Jadis's repurposed car crusher. For the first time in a long time, the over the top gore hits the ridiculous extremes of a good Z movie. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
This episode contains spoilers for Season 8, Episode 3 of "Game of Thrones." It was really no surprise to see Melisandre (Carice van Houten) strolling up to the Battle of Winterfell in Sunday's "Game of Thrones" episode, right before the fighting got started. This was, after all, the war she had been talking about since her first appearance the conflict central to her entire belief system. There was no way she was going to sit this one out. But what is it that she believes? Is it magic? Religion? Both? Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, her High Valyrian words seeming to be both spells and prayers. It's clear that Melisandre is a devout follower of one god, R'hllor, the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow. That god is eternally at war with another one who is called the Great Other, the Lord of Darkness, the Soul of Ice, the God of Night and Terror or not called anything at all. Mel attempted to explain this dualistic belief system to Shireen in simple terms: "Septons speak of seven gods. There are but two. A god of light and love and joy, and a god of darkness, evil and fear." Read our recap of Season 8, Episode 3 of "Game of Thrones." It would be a stretch to call the Night King a god, but he is probably the closest representative of the Great Other that Mel has encountered in her long life. And she foretold his coming during a prophecy she repeated during the rare beach barbecue in which she sacrificed not humans but effigies of another faith's gods. The point of that ceremony was to anoint Stannis Baratheon as the messiah of her religion the prince who was promised, Azor Ahai, a great warrior who would fight the Long Night and defend the realms of men in the Battle for the Dawn. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
You don't need a lot of snow, just the lightest dusting around the Great Lawn in Central Park, to see a remnant of old New York. If the wind is right, the snow catches on a long, mysterious ridge on the east side, leading north to a strange half pyramid of stone. These are the traces of the long gone 1842 Yorkville Reservoir. It stood just south of the present kidney shaped reservoir in the park. A huge rectangle, it had sloping walls and a flat strip along the top 18 feet wide. To keep people off this potential promenade, it was guarded by a fierce looking double row of picket fences. When water began to fill the Yorkville Reservoir, which was up to 34 feet deep, on June 27, 1842, The New York Spectator was there to describe the sound of the inflow as "a sweet soothing murmur." The Spectator reported that "every stage, cab and coach in the city" was engaged to take celebrants to the opening ceremony at an out of town destination in the middle of a streetless wilderness. Soldiers lining the wall placed their caps on the end of their bayonets and gave "six hearty cheers." There was also a 38 gun salute, one for each mile of the aqueduct that brought the water from Croton Reservoir. In 1861 Harper's Weekly allowed as how the contents formed "a noble sheet of water," but the magazine was not impressed with its walls of "ponderous masonry" and concluded that the reservoir offered "but slight picturesque attraction." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
The European Fine Art Fair at the Park Avenue Armory is an elegant event during which wealthy collectors browse through booths of stunning art pieces, from ancient sculptures to works by early 20th century masters. So it raised a few eyebrows on Friday afternoon when two prosecutors and three police officers marched into the armory at 2 p.m. with stern expressions and a search warrant, witnesses said. A few minutes later, cursing could be heard coming from a London dealer's booth, breaking the quiet, reverential atmosphere. To the consternation of several art dealers looking on, the police and prosecutors seized an ancient limestone bas relief of a Persian soldier with shield and spear, which once adorned a building in the ruins of Persepolis in Iran, according to a search warrant. The relief is worth about 1.2 million and was being offered for sale by Rupert Wace, a well known dealer in antiquities in London. In an statement, Mr. Wace said he had bought the relief from an insurance company, who had acquired it legally from a museum in Montreal, where it had been displayed since the 1950s. "This work of art has been well known to scholars and has a history that spans almost 70 years," Mr. Wace said in an email. "We are simply flabbergasted at what has occurred." The bas relief is the latest in a string of antiquities the Manhattan district attorney's office has seized from art dealers and museums in New York City as part of a concerted effort in recent years to recover ancient works. Those seizures have been led by the assistant district attorney Matthew Bogdanos, a classics scholar and colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve who played an important role in recovering antiquities stolen in Iraq during the fall of Saddam Hussein. The district attorney's office declined to comment on the evidence underpinning the search warrant. The possible charge listed on the papers is possession of stolen property. No one had been arrested in connection with the seizure on Sunday evening. Experts on artifacts from Persepolis say the bas relief was first excavated in 1933 by a team of archaeologists from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. It appears in photographs of the site taken as late as 1936. The Persian government passed a law in 1930 making it illegal to transport such antiquities out of the country. An Iranian cultural official, Ebrahim Shaqaqi, told the Tehran Times the bas relief "had been stolen from Persepolis decades ago prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution." "Legal follow ups are underway to first prove that the relic belongs to Iran and finally repatriate it," said Mr. Shaqaqi, who is the director of legal affairs at the Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization. Mr. Wace said the relief was donated to a Canadian museum in the early 1950s by Frederick Cleveland Morgan, the heir to a Canadian department store fortune who was an art collector and philanthropist. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts displayed the work until 2011, when it was stolen. Three years later, the Canadian authorities recovered it from a collector in Edmonton and returned it to the museum, according to CBC News. But the curators opted to keep the insurance money and let the AXA Insurance Company take possession. Mr. Wace said he acquired the piece from the insurance company and believed its provenance was legitimate. Several dealers in ancient art at the fair, known as TEFAF, said they assumed the bas relief was one of dozens of artifacts that had been taken from the Persepolis site in the 19th century, long before it became illegal. But Lindsay Allen, an expert on Persepolis at King's College London, said fewer artifacts were smuggled out in the 19th century than many dealers believe. The number taken out of the country surged in the late 1920s, just before the Iranian government outlawed their exportation. In the 1930s, very few pieces left Iran, she said, beyond the items the government agreed to allow the Oriental Institute in Chicago to take for its collection. The bas relief is an eight inch square piece of carved limestone that was part of a long line of soldiers depicted on a balustrade at the central building on the Persepolis site. It dates to the Achaemenid dynasty the First Persian Empire and was made sometime between 510 and 330 B.C., when Persepolis was sacked by Alexander the Great. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
DEET Seen as Safe for Pregnant Women to Avoid Zika Despite Few Studies This summer, some yellow fever mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus are expected to arrive along the Gulf Coast and elsewhere in the continental United States. Health officials are urging people to use insect repellents with DEET to avoid being bitten. The mounting evidence that the virus is strongly linked with birth defects makes this a priority for pregnant women. But is it safe to use repellents containing DEET with a baby on the way? Although the scientific evidence is a bit thinner than some experts would like, most say the answer is yes, as long as you do not overapply. Few published studies address the effects of DEET, short for N,N diethyl meta toluamide, in mothers to be and their offspring. None involved pregnant women in the first trimester, the period when most birth defects occur. Still, the existing evidence in pregnant women is reassuring. Even though there is not "a lot of" research, "it makes sense to use DEET to protect yourself from something we know is truly unsafe, like Zika," said Dr. Laura E. Riley, a specialist who works with high risk pregnancies and infectious disease at Massachusetts General Hospital. A randomized trial of roughly 900 women in Thailand, published in 2001, provides some of the strongest evidence that using DEET daily for months will probably not hurt a fetus. A malaria infection in pregnancy can lead to miscarriage or stillbirth. To prevent it, half of the women in the study applied a 20 percent concentration of DEET mixed with a makeup called thanaka daily in their second and third trimesters. The other half wore only thanaka. DEET can cross the placenta and reach the fetus, the researchers found. But DEET was detected in the blood of the umbilical cord in just four of 50 users. Importantly, "the newborns weren't affected in terms of growth or development from DEET exposure," said Dr. Rose McGready, the study's lead author and a professor of tropical maternal and child health at the University of Oxford. No adverse effects on growth were found among the children a year later, either. But the study "didn't include the first trimester," Dr. McGready said. "That's an important missing component." Asked about the paucity of published studies looking at DEET use in the first trimester, Jack Housenger, the director of the Environmental Protection Agency's office of pesticides programs, replied in a statement, "DEET is safe, including for pregnant women at any stage." In 2014, a safety review by the E.P.A. did not identify "any risks of concern to human health" if the directions are followed. The agency's review assessed the potential risks of long and short term use of DEET in pregnant animals. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counsels pregnant women to use any E.P.A. registered repellent, including those with picaridin (a synthetic compound), IR3535 (a biopesticide) and DEET. In animal studies, the E.P.A. has found no evidence that either picaridin or IR3535 is harmful to the developing fetus. DEET was registered with the E.P.A. for public use in 1957, picaridin in 2005 and IR3535 in 1999, but the last two were used abroad for years before. Bob Peterson, a professor of entomology at Montana State University, published a risk assessment of DEET and picaridin in 2008. Exposures are acceptable in adults and children if they are used "according to instructions on the package," he said. An estimated 104 million Americans use DEET every year, and reports of adverse events are "relatively small by comparison," the E.P.A. wrote in its safety review. Only minimal amounts of DEET cross into a pregnant mother's bloodstream, suggesting babies are exposed to very little. In 2010, researchers, including some from the C.D.C., analyzed the blood of 150 pregnant women in New Jersey and their umbilical cords for a range of pesticides. "DEET was not at remarkable levels," said Mark Robson, the study's senior author and a professor of plant biology and pathology at Rutgers University. "Birth weight, length and circumference were all normal" for all infants. Pregnant women who wish to be extremely cautious may use a repellent with a lower concentration of DEET to limit how much gets in their blood, said Dr. Sarah G. Obican, a maternal fetal specialist and a member of the Organization of Teratology Information Specialists. "Using a 6 percent DEET product will last you two hours, and 20 percent one will last close to four hours," Dr. Obican said. "Why not use the lower concentration and apply more often?" A 1999 trial with 60 men and 60 women who used a 31 percent concentration of DEET found women had significantly less protection over time than men did from Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes. Still, DEET "will give you the best protection, even if it doesn't protect as long a duration for a woman as it does for a man," said Dawn Wesson, an associate professor of tropical medicine at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Until a few years ago, DEET formulations smelled like a chemical, Dr. Wesson said, and "people have this perception that if it smells this way, it's not safe, and that's not true." Pregnant women in areas where the Zika virus is spreading are currently at far greater risk than those in the continental United States. The C.D.C. is predicting that a quarter of Puerto Rico's 3.5 million people may be infected with the Zika virus within a year. Dr. John Meeker, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, and others are following 1,000 pregnant women in Puerto Rico. They are tracking concentrations of pesticides, including DEET and two of its metabolites, in urine to see if there is any link to adverse pregnancy outcomes. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
The ambivalence of Franz's position begins with the first day of her year alone: Feb. 29, leap year day, "a day that does and does not exist." The same might be said of Franz herself. On one level, she teaches English at Shokei University in Kumamoto and fills her free time with serious training in ceramics, Zen meditation, Japanese language and karate. She forges friendships across the language gap with her giggling students, her stern pottery sensei, her sparring partners at the dojo, the motley members of her meditation group. Beneath this intrepid purposefulness, however, runs a treacherous current of doubt both the everyday bafflement of the foreigner in Japan and the persistent question, "Why am I here?" Franz writes in elegantly understated journal entries, each with a satisfying heft, like a rustic wabi sabi tea bowl. She embraces both Japan's neon commercialism and its moments of antique serenity. Newly planted rice paddies glitter "like a mirror shattered on a staircase"; the incomprehensible visual and aural assault of a shopping center is "a museum of a misaligned parallel universe." She strives to look past labels, to find the spiritual practice in repetitive failure, the pleasure in cultural confusion, the flow in solitary pursuits. She widens her gaze to include her troubled Alaskan childhood and contemplates her damaged past through the lens of her strange present. Buzzing around her quiet musings, though, like a fly in the meditation room, is the largely unanswered question of what brought her to this point. She is allowed brief and unsatisfying visits to her husband's temple throughout the year, and allows us equally brief and unsatisfying glimpses into the relationship that has transplanted her in such distant and unfamiliar soil. We know that Koun is "the love of my life," the only person she's "ever been able to be properly alone with"; we know he wept on the day he left her behind. But that is about all we know. The central koan of Franz's book a struggle toward spiritual enlightenment catalyzed by romantic desire feels especially frustrating without a better understanding of this powerful attachment. Or perhaps that's the point. Toward the end, Franz goes with a Japanese friend to see an exhibition of calligraphy. "What do you think?" the friend asks, as they gaze at the scrolls. "I don't understand anything. But I also can't look away." "Oh. Then you understand," her friend says. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
The dramatic portrait of a crumbling marriage or relationship often lends itself to intense performance, allowing actors to spar with one another while playing out heightened, if not uncommon, circumstances. Usually this involves harsh words, yelling, crying, thrown objects. This is true of Edward (Bill Nighy) and Grace (Annette Bening), the central couple in the writer and director William Nicholson's intimate, sometimes engaging "Hope Gap." As the film begins, they are clearly in a Tennessee Williams style, late in life rut: Edward is checked out, ambling through the motions of their day to day, while obsessively fact checking Wikipedia. A restless Grace implores him to show the faintest interest in rekindling their connection and turns to aggressive tactics to get his attention. (Turning over the dinner table, for instance.) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
Two and a half years ago, my wife and I were tourists in Iran. For nearly two weeks, every day, groups of young Iranians stopped us in the street, in restaurants and at historical sites wanting to talk about their government and ours. We were astounded by their openness and forthrightness. We were amazed by how many of these young people were opposed to their leaders and were willing to say so. The editorial correctly notes that compassion is a good foreign policy. More important, if the United States does not stand in the way of emergency funding from the International Monetary Fund, that could only encourage the young people we met to struggle to gain some power over their autocratic leaders. Surgery for a Mets Star, but Not for Me | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
"I had it in mind that a woman designer might be interesting for a while now." So said Sidney Toledano, chief executive of Christian Dior, just before he officially got his wish. On Friday, the company announced that, as had been previously reported in The Times, Maria Grazia Chiuri, the co creative director of Valentino, was being named artistic director of Dior. She will be the first woman to lead the creative side in the label's 69 year history, and the role will be her first solo appointment after more than two decades of working with Pierpaolo Piccioli, who has been named creative director at Valentino. For the first time, Mr. Toledano was talking about the appointment: how it happened, why and what it means. "When you listen to a woman talk about a woman, whether it is her body or her lifestyle her work, the way she travels, what she needs it is not conceptual," Mr. Toledano said. "It is practical. Maria Grazia is very practical: very straightforward, very clear, and she has no fear. She has a family and a real life. She does things." She follows Raf Simons, who left in October. (In the interim, collections have been designed by the studio teams.) And besides the two couture collections, two ready to wear collections, one cruise, one pre collection, shoes, bags, costume jewelry and eyewear, she is going to be involved in image, ad campaigns and store design. (Men's wear is designed by Kris Van Assche and fine jewelry by Victoire de Castellane.) This gives Ms. Chiuri more oversight than Mr. Simons, who was reportedly frustrated at not being able to unify his runway vision with its later expression. It reflects, Mr. Toledano said, the fact that Ms. Chiuri will be devoting herself to Dior (Mr. Simons and the designer who came before, John Galliano, maintained namesake lines while at the maison), and the fact that ... well, she asked for it. A long time ago, as it turns out. Mr. Toledano met Ms. Chiuri approximately 20 years ago, he said, when he was looking for a bag designer to help Mr. Galliano. At the time, she and Mr. Piccioli had just left Fendi, where they had started working together, and joined Valentino as accessory designers. "She said to me: 'I'm not going to come for just bags. I want the global job,'" Mr. Toledano said, though he would not say when the talks were revived. "Well, now she has it all." She has it at a complicated time. The luxury sector is predicted to grow at only 2 percent this year, according to a study from Bain Company and Altagamma, the Italian trade association. Though Dior reported more than 5 billion euros ( 5.53 billion) in sales last year and has 195 stores worldwide, three fifths of its revenue came from perfumes and cosmetics. Christian Dior Couture, which includes all the clothing lines, contributed 1.8 billion euros to sales in 2015. And though Ms. Chiuri has experience working with couture and ready to wear ateliers, as well as overseeing some of the most successful bags and shoes of recent seasons, she has never led a house by herself. Her creative relationship with Mr. Piccioli was seen as almost symbiotic when they took their bow at their last Valentino show on Wednesday, they walked in lock step, though she wore white and he black and it is unclear how each will function on their own. (The front rows were rife with speculation during the couture shows last week.) Not surprisingly, Mr. Toledano said he wasn't concerned. Indeed, he said that though he thought Ms. Chiuri and Mr. Piccioli were "excellent together," he had not considered bringing both designers to Dior as a team. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Soara Joye Ross, center, in rehearsal for a revival of the 1943 musical "Carmen Jones," which begins performances at Classic Stage Company on June 9. "I don't want you to be sassy," the director John Doyle told Soara Joye Ross during a recent rehearsal for the musical "Carmen Jones." Ms. Ross was taken aback. And Mr. Doyle, a 65 year old white man from Scotland who, with this production, is directing an all black cast of a distinctly African American musical, was worried he had offended her. On the contrary: Ms. Ross was surprised only because she is used to directors telling her, often the token black woman, to be "sassy." "It's so refreshing," she said later. "Now I get to play a multifaceted individual, not just a stereotype." It might help that "Carmen Jones," the 1943 adaptation of Bizet's "Carmen" that begins performances at Classic Stage Company on June 9, is not Mr. Doyle's first experience leading a company of black actors. (His revival of "The Color Purple" won two Tony Awards in 2016.) Or it may be that Mr. Doyle's trademark style of paring down theater to its most essential, universally relatable elements makes it easier for him to traverse racial boundaries and make a case for a largely forgotten relic of Broadway's golden age. "We all come from different backgrounds," Mr. Doyle said in an interview. "I'm not saying to you that I feel 100 percent comfortable about it, but I have to come to terms with it inside myself. And I am comfortable being in a room of my friends telling this story. That's not a question." Since the 1940s, the racial politics surrounding "Carmen Jones" have been fraught. But Mr. Doyle is in well meaning company with Oscar Hammerstein II, who adapted the musical in between his work on "Oklahoma!" and "Carousel." Hammerstein's odd project, which came at a time when neither opera nor African American theater were mainstream entertainment, maintained Bizet's "Carmen" score but swapped the libretto for a new one that transported the story of opera's great femme fatale to a World War II era factory. He got the idea after watching a concert performance of "Carmen" no sets or costumes at the Hollywood Bowl. "The music came through," Hammerstein recalled in a souvenir program for "Carmen Jones" on Broadway. "And so did the story. It dawned on me that there was something universal about this opera." (Mr. Doyle was attracted to Hammerstein's adaptation for the same reasons.) "Carmen Jones" brought European opera into a populist environment, and, like "Porgy and Bess" and "Cabin in the Sky," provided opportunity for its all black cast. The musical ran on Broadway for 15 months, a long run for its time, and a few of the songs most notably "Beat Out Dat Rhythm on a Drum" achieved even more popularity with the 1954 film adaptation, starring Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte. (For the role, Dandridge became the first black woman nominated for a best bctress Oscar.) Neither an opera nor a typical Broadway musical, "Carmen Jones" has fallen through the cracks in both genres. The revival by Classic Stage Company, where Mr. Doyle is the artistic director, will be the first production in New York since the 1940s. "'Revive' to me means don't copy," Mr. Doyle said. "Have a point of view. Somebody might tell you it's wrong fine, but it's a point a view, and that is more interesting than a reproduction." Mr. Doyle's signature point of view is what he calls "essentialism," which involves whittling down a work to reveal some higher truth or beauty that might otherwise be lost in the bells and whistles of Broadway spectacle. It is a style he developed in small, often cash strapped theaters where financial necessity sometimes led to actors playing instruments onstage. He made a splash in 2005 when his production of "Sweeney Todd," originally created for the humble Watermill Theater in Britain, transferred to Broadway with virtually no set, though adding Patti LuPone as a tuba toting Mrs. Lovett. "I thought I was going to be crucified for it," Mr. Doyle recalled. Instead he won his first Tony. He was quick with the caveat that his approach doesn't work for every musical. "Nobody's going to ask me to do 'Kinky Boots,' nor should they," he said adding that some shows, like "West Side Story," are works of genius that shouldn't be touched. "But you can't say that for most musicals," he said. "Most of them can bear a re examination." Among those is "The Color Purple," which Mr. Doyle nearly turned down for four reasons: "white, male, British and too old." He was persuaded by reading Alice Walker's novel and being bowled over by its depiction of poverty, inhumanity and redemption. "This is eternal," he said. "It's all of us." His staging, which cut 45 minutes from the original Broadway production and used only wood planks and chairs for a set, won the Tony for best revival of a musical. And it made a star of Cynthia Erivo, who took home a Tony for her turn as Celie. "He managed to unlock 'The Color Purple,'" Ms. Erivo said. "In removing the things that aren't necessary, he makes space for the things you often don't get to show. I looked to him to make sure I was going in the right direction, but he would also let me discover things and help me distill whatever I needed to make it crystal clear." While working through the famous Habanera with Anika Noni Rose, the Tony winning actress starring as Carmen, he provided revelatory insights about the scene and her character simply by talking with her about the opening measure of the aria. "Why do you think this was written for cello and not violin?" he asked. "There's something earthy and deathlike about the cello, isn't there?" In an interview later, Ms. Rose said that from the first day Mr. Doyle was open with the cast about his own limitations directing what she called "a very black show during a specific time." She remembered him saying, "There are culturally things I don't know, so I'm open to whatever you all are bringing." "To have someone say those words makes you feel much safer than someone who steps in feeling like they know everything," Ms. Rose said. If "Carmen Jones" were written by a black writer today, Mr. Doyle said, he probably wouldn't direct it. But for now, working with the script and score of dead white men, he sees his job as taking the material and "exploring the unexpected" asking an actress to not be sassy, perhaps. "In that process," he added, "you get something that is truthful." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
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