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Come Valentine's Day, some people may wonder to themselves, "Is this the only way to find a mate?" And the answer is no. There are many ways to find one. But be careful what you wish for. Evolution has produced all manner of surprising interactions that enable reproduction in nature. Compared with these four unusual tales from the animal kingdom, being someone's Valentine might sound pretty good. The way that male painted turtles entice females may sound almost romantic. The male faces the female, stretches out his long, dainty claws and strums the sides of her neck, head and face; this courtship gesture has been well documented since the days of Charles Darwin. But scientists recently documented another mating strategy, often deployed by the largest males, that is far less elegant. At Canada's Algonquin Wildlife Research Station, researchers noticed injury marks on the heads and necks of female painted turtles. Year after year, and often during breeding season, the wounds appeared fresh. The marks matched the shape of the spiky front of a male turtle's shell and of sharp, toothlike structures on his beak. Patrick Moldowan, a doctoral candidate in evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto, and his colleagues hypothesize that the males ram and grind the front portion of their shells on the soft head and neck tissues of the females to coerce them to submit. The larger, possibly older males are more aggressive, and their "sexual weapons" are more developed, the researchers noted. The smaller males still rely on seducing the females with their claws, which appear more grandiose compared with the males' bodies. That may prompt larger males to adopt more combative tactics. Mr. Moldowan compared the situation to a small moose sporting a gigantic rack of antlers. On a larger male, the same antlers don't look as impressive. But which male large or small wins the race to father more painted turtle generations remains a mystery. Mr. Moldowan's team is now conducting paternity tests to see if the large, mature and weaponized brutes sire more offspring each season than the younger males. In the octopus world, the act of reproduction is fraught with risk. That seems to be especially true when smaller males mate with larger, hungry females. In 2010, Christine Huffard, a marine biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, observed a mating pair of day octopuses in Eastern Indonesia. The male was 1.6 inches shorter than the female and had 58 percent less body mass. He crawled across a coral reef, parking himself at arm's length from a female. He caught her attention by waving his long, modified tentacle a mating arm then inserted it into a duct in her body that leads to the ovary. The more time the tip of his arm spent inside her body, the more sperm packets he could deliver to her eggs. And it's during this intimate period that small males are most vulnerable to cannibalistic females. After 15 minutes, as the mating ritual neared its end, the female sneaked closer to the male, rapidly extending her two front arms. The typically brown colored male quickly turned white, attempting to flee. She strangled him, then hauled his dead body to her den, where, Dr. Huffard presumes, she ate him. Other researchers studying the same octopus species in Micronesia witnessed a small male being devoured by a female in her den. Sexual cannibalism may operate in other octopus species, too. It's unknown how often small males fall prey to females, but the presence of an exceptionally long mating arm and the distant mating position may hint at "sexual cannibalism being a factor in their evolution," Dr. Huffard said. Male bedbugs sure give love a bad name. Each possesses a penis that juts out from the tip of the abdomen. Curved and ending in a sharp needlelike point, the instrument seems destined to inflict damage. The male latches on to the female's back, pierces a hole into a groove on her abdomen and directs his ejaculate straight into her bloodstream. The sperm is ultimately ferried to the ovaries, for fertilization. Males deploy this "traumatic insemination" to initiate frequent re mating with females, ultimately stabbing the same individual multiple times. The sperm deposited by the most recent male gains precedence, and is likely to sire more offspring, so there's a selective advantage to being last. As a likely result of this method of mating, female bedbugs seem to live shorter lives, perhaps because they direct their energy toward either mending these wounds or beefing up their immune system to fight infections. In hermaphroditic land snails, sex is complicated. These promiscuous snails, capable of being a father and mother at the same time, engage in a violent race to sire as many offspring as they can.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
The population of the world's largest primate, the Grauer's gorilla, has plummeted 77 percent over the last 20 years, with fewer than 3,800 remaining. The Grauer's gorilla, the world's largest primate, has been a source of continual worry for conservationists for more than two decades. Longstanding conflict in the deep jungles of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo left experts with no choice but to guess at how that gorilla subspecies may be faring. Now, with tensions abating somewhat, researchers finally have an updated gorilla head count one that confirms their fears. According to findings compiled by an international team of conservationists, Grauer's gorilla populations have plummeted 77 percent over the last 20 years, with fewer than 3,800 of the animals remaining. "We suspected that the Grauer's gorilla had declined because of all the insecurity in the region, but no one had an idea of how much they'd declined by," said Andrew Plumptre, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Albertine Rift Program in Central and Eastern Africa. "It turns out that the rate of collapse pushes this subspecies to the verge of extinction." Grauer's gorillas named after Rudolf Grauer, an Austrian explorer and zoologist who first recognized the apes as a separate subspecies resemble their close relative, the mountain gorilla, save for their longer limbs and shorter hair. Although Grauer's and mountain gorilla populations were once connected, years of isolation have left them genetically distinct enough to warrant separate designations as eastern gorilla subspecies. An estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed over a three month period, while hundreds of thousands more fled to neighboring Zaire. Some of those refugees formed militias such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, and the forest served as their stronghold and hide out. Instability soon spread, leading to the overthrow of President Mobutu Sese Seko and civil war in the newly formed Democratic Republic of Congo. From 1996 to 2003, that conflict cost the lives of an estimated five million people, and also brought the formation of more armed groups, 69 of which continue to operate in the eastern part of the country. Bushmeat feeds many of them, and gorillas, which can weigh up to 400 pounds, prove easy and worthwhile targets. To finance their efforts, many armed groups have also set up artisanal mining sites, nearly all illegal. The International Peace Information Service, an independent research institute based in Belgium, has documented more than 1,000 of these mines, and the Wildlife Conservation Society has counted at least 240 more within protected areas and proposed protected areas. The mines attract untold numbers of outside workers, who also need to eat. Although the fighting has ebbed somewhat over the last five years, the region today is by no means secure for people or for animals. Eastern Congo "is just tragic on every level imaginable," said Liz Williamson, a primatologist at the University of Stirling in Scotland. "People there have been living through hell for 20 years." Those trying to protect the region's flora and fauna are equally at risk. The Wildlife Conservation Society estimates that 170 to 200 park rangers have been killed in eastern Congo since 1996. Grauer's gorilla populations fell 77 percent in 20 years, to fewer than 3,800. "The government has been trying to go into some areas to disarm all these groups, but it's not an easy job," Dr. Plumptre said. "In that large of a chunk of forest, finding people is difficult." Despite the danger, over the last few years, field teams of local residents, park staff members and scientists have managed to undertake the most comprehensive survey of Grauer's gorillas ever, covering 7,450 miles of their range. Statistical analyses allowed Dr. Plumptre and his colleagues to estimate a total remaining population of fewer than 3,800. All told, the researchers calculated a 77 percent decline in Grauer's gorilla populations since 1994, although some sites were hit harder than others. In and around Kahuzi Biega National Park, for example, there has been an 87 percent decline. Additionally, nearly 80 percent of the total losses took place over just one generation a rate three times higher than what is normally needed to officially declare an animal on the brink of extinction. Should this trend continue, most Grauer's gorillas will be gone within the next five to 10 years, Dr. Plumptre said. Grauer's gorillas are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, but Dr. Plumptre and his colleagues believe that their situation warrants immediate updating to critically endangered status. Dr. Williamson submitted evidence this month supporting that change, and she expects approval by June. While killing gorillas is already illegal in the country, declaring the subspecies as critically endangered would probably bring more funding and support for saving it. Protecting the entirety of the gorilla's 7,700 square mile territory would no doubt prove impossible, but Dr. Plumptre and his colleagues are talking with the government and community leaders about establishing two new protected areas that would encompass 60 percent of the remaining gorillas' habitat. "I think people felt like this was a lost cause and not much could be done," Dr. Williamson said. "But now W.C.S. is really pushing to get boots on the ground and create these new national parks, which would really make a difference." Government commitment to saving the gorillas, she added, is essential. There is some evidence that heightened protection and investment could work. In their surveys, the researchers found that one gorilla population, in the highland sector of Kahuzi Biega National Park, has increased to an estimated 200 from about 130 in 2000. That sector receives the most protection in the eastern national parks, and even welcomes tourists. "This shows that if you do invest in a site, you can stop the decline," Dr. Plumptre said. The researchers also plan to set up microcredit schemes small loans with minimal interest that are intended to help people living in poverty set up businesses and employment opportunities for people from local communities who are involved in mining. Additionally, they hope to establish a certification program for legitimate mining sites.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
If ever there were a year to try games that can drop you into an alternate reality, 2020 would be it. As the coronavirus pandemic restricts our travel and the never ending news cycle weighs on our minds, a virtual reality headset can provide some relief, escape and distraction (at least for a little bit) from actual reality. It's one of the best ways to leave home from the comfort of your home. The goggle like gadgets, which float a screen in front of your eyes to create a virtual 360 degree landscape, offer an immersive way to play increasingly powerful video games, make art, exercise, and even spend time with friends. And it's a good time to get in on the action: In the past, VR headsets were attached to a computer and were, for most people, prohibitively expensive. But the new generation is surprisingly approachable. Facebook recently launched the Oculus Quest 2, a 300 headset that Wirecutter named its top pick because it doesn't require cords or a computer you can slip it on and start playing just about anywhere, though it does require a Facebook account to use. An alternative is Playstation's PSVR, but with outdated specs and a new PlayStation due in November, the PSVR will soon be obsolete. Other VR headsets, like the Vive and Valve Index, are pricier and require PCs. The rapidly expanding VR universe, which is accessible from an app store within the headset, will please beginners of all tastes and ages, from an experienced PC gamer to your 8 year old niece. Here are some tips on where to begin. "SUPERHOT" ( 25), a stylish first person shooter game, challenges players to kill faceless red enemies with weapons like guns and ninja stars. Originally made for PC, the game translates perfectly to VR gameplay relies on moving to avoid bullets and punches. If the player stops moving, so does everything else. Not only does it feel like being in "The Matrix," but it's also a nice touch for beginners who can stand still and pause the action when they begin to get overwhelmed. If a slow paced puzzle is more your pace, "I Expect You to Die" ( 25) is one of the best examples for VR. Each level is like an escape room, where players must use the items around them to complete challenges such as starting a car before driving it out of an airplane or destroying a villain developed machine. When players mess up, they die and start the level over again. The game is single player, but it's still fun to pass the headset back and forth with a friend to work through roadblocks together. For the Kids (and Adults, Too) "Angry Birds" helped to hook the world on mobile gaming more than a decade ago, and the game works well in VR, too, where flinging feathered avians at green pigs and their flimsy dwellings in a tropical island setting has a surprisingly relaxing effect. Angry "Birds VR: Isle of Pigs" ( 15) also has the option to build custom levels, adding the ability to choose your own pigs, block materials, and use as much TNT as you want, for players who are into that sort of thing. If you download just one VR game, make it "Beat Saber" ( 30). It's reminiscent of the arcade hit "Dance Dance Revolution," only instead of stomping their feet in rhythm with the music, players move while swinging two light sabers to cut through flying boxes. Break this game out at a party and guests of all ages can immediately play or laugh at the headset wearers as they swing their arms wildly and hop from side to side. It also makes for a great workout for family members missing their days at the gym. For the Serious Gamer Deep with story, puzzles and action, "Half Life: Alyx" ( 60) is a critically acclaimed game that links the stories of the beloved "Half Life" and "Half Life 2." Players collect resources, fight enemies and, most impressively, explore a virtual landscape that feels rich in detail and opportunities for interaction. This feels like the full featured game that many of VR's earliest adopters have been waiting for. The catch? It's a PC VR game, meaning it utilizes the power of a high end computer to render its full effects. It also requires an Oculus Link cable ( 80) to run it on a Quest 2 (owning both a PC and a Link cable will put many more VR games within your reach). "POPULATION: ONE" (set to launch Oct. 22) might not stand out among the increasingly crowded field of battle royale games available for Xbox or PlayStation, but it's the first worthy option for VR. Drop into town with a squad and then gather weapons, ammo and medical supplies to survive the coming battle. A constantly shrinking play area pushes players closer and closer to enemies, forcing them to fight to see which team is the last to survive, making it an adrenaline filled bonding experience. Who else dreamed of being Ender Wiggin as a kid? "Echo Arena," part of "Echo VR" (free) transports players to a zero gravity battle room that looks like it's straight out of "Ender's Game." Competitors fling themselves off walls and obstacles in hopes of tossing a disc through the opposing team's goal but watch out for opponents trying to land a punch. This is a great game to try with a friend who also has a headset, and shows a promising future for sports games reinvented for VR. Players should be sure to clear out a room before playing so they don't go careening into any furniture. Interested in learning more about the best things to buy and how to use them? Visit Wirecutter, where you can read the latest reviews and find daily deals.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
He smiled. She sniffed. He sat. She stalked. He called her a "puppet." She called him a "nasty man." These were the 2016 presidential debates as re enacted in Greenwich Village over the weekend. At the Provincetown Playhouse on Saturday, professors from New York University, the Rhode Island School of Design and the French business school Insead twice presented "Her Opponent," a free 35 minute performance composed of excerpts from the three presidential debates with a significant twist in the casting: Donald J. Trump was played by a woman, Rachel Tuggle Whorton, a Ph.D. candidate and adjunct instructor at N.Y.U. Hillary Clinton was played by a man, Daryl Embry, another adjunct instructor. To complete the gender inversion, the candidates were given new names, Brenda King in place of Mr. Trump, Jonathan Gordon for Ms. Clinton. Drawing on the techniques of documentary theater, as practiced by the likes of Anna Deavere Smith, these actors not only studied the words of the candidates but also the gestures, posture, tempo and vocal intonation that each used. As Andy Wagner, the actor playing the moderator explained, the creators wanted to see if gender inverted casting would "cause people to revisit their own personal biases and develop insights or a different perspective." Using a theatrical performance to deconstruct responses to a months old debate performance seems like another corridor in the hall of fun house mirrors that is coming to define the Trump presidency, in which facts are countered with alternative facts, rogue social media accounts replace those that are muzzled and Mr. Trump as president elect can take to Twitter to compare his cabinet selection process to reality TV or to carp about his impersonation on "Saturday Night Live." Certainly, creating "Her Opponent" has been somewhat unnerving for those involved. "We were dealing with a section on border control and immigration and now saying those words and seeing what's happening with that is really heavy and frustrating and horrifying," Ms. Whorton said. Yet, according to many in the audience who spoke at a postshow talk back, the cross gender casting offered just enough remove to help them think through how they might have understood the debates had they not strongly preferred one candidate. "It gives you a distance to actually reason," said Maria Guadalupe, a professor at Insead who first proposed the project. At the playhouse, the stage was sparsely decorated with two lecterns and two monitors. The atmosphere among the standing room only crowd, which appeared mostly drawn from academic circles, was convivial, but also a little anxious. Most of the people there had watched the debates assuming that Ms. Clinton couldn't lose. This time they watched trying to figure out how Mr. Trump could have won. Interviews with cast members and comments from the postshow discussion suggested that they'd found some answers. Her Smile (Performed by Him) In the first debate, Mr. Embry, as Jonathan Gordon, smiled. And smiled. And smiled some more. If you were sympathetic, it was a knowing smile, an inclusive smile, a "let's not stoop to that level, but can you believe this" smile. If you were less approving, the tightly controlled smile could be seen as supercilious. "Is it patronizing? Is it condescending?" Mr. Embry, speaking before the performance, wondered. "You see her filtering what she wants to say, biting back a reaction and then going in a much more polished, dignified way." A woman at the talk back described that constant smile as "really punchable." In the second debate, Ms. Whorton, as Brenda King, continually attacked. A question about taxes became a protest about why nothing had been done to close tax loopholes, then abruptly skittered into a condemnation of President Obama's actions in the Middle East. Mr. Embry, reciting Ms. Clinton's lines, also attacked, but not as viciously nor as tenaciously. He offered a rushed precis of a tax plan, corrected fact errors and detailed her accomplishments, responses that may not have stuck in the mind as fixedly as Mr. Trump's barbs or his jokes, like a refusal to name Ms. Clinton's donors: "I won't mention their names, because they're rich, but they're not famous. So we won't make them famous." "I was struck by the strength of the technique of the Brenda King character," said a man in the audience, speaking after the show. "Attack. Consistently attack. Never stop attacking." Said a woman, "When she was attacking, I had so much respect for her and her level of confidence."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
For almost a decade, the combination of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert made Comedy Central destination viewing for fans of late night comedy and barbed political commentary. But over the last 12 months, the post Stewart and post Colbert era has not been as easy for the network. On Monday, Comedy Central announced that it was canceling "The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore" because of falling ratings and a distinct lack of buzz. The final episode of Mr. Wilmore's 11:30 p.m. show the slot formerly occupied by Mr. Colbert before he left for CBS will be Thursday. Kent Alterman, Comedy Central's president, said he informed Mr. Wilmore of the news late last week. The move, Mr. Alterman said in an interview, was made for a simple reason: The show "hasn't resonated." "Even though we've given it a year and a half, we've been hoping against hope that it would start to click with our audience, but it hasn't happened, and we haven't seen evidence of it happening," Mr. Alterman said. The awkward timing of the cancellation, just 12 weeks before the presidential election, ultimately came down to a contract, Mr. Alterman said. Mr. Wilmore's deal, along with those of several of the show's other staff members, was set to expire in a few weeks and the network had to decide now whether to renew or cancel. For the time being, Comedy Central's 12 a.m. show, " midnight," will replace "The Nightly Show" at 11:30 p.m. "The Daily Show" with Trevor Noah remains at 11 p.m. Mr. Alterman said he hoped to name a full time replacement for "The Nightly Show" sometime next year. The cancellation makes Mr. Wilmore, 54, an early casualty of a television late night comedy slate that has been vastly reordered over the last two years. With the retirement of David Letterman, Jay Leno and Mr. Stewart, and Mr. Colbert's move to CBS, a series of new hosts have stepped into the spotlight, including James Corden, Samantha Bee, John Oliver and Mr. Noah. Jimmy Fallon, the host of "The Tonight Show," has most formidably filled the power vacuum left by his predecessors, earning the highest ratings of any late night show. While Mr. Stewart was the host of "The Daily Show," Mr. Wilmore became a fixture as the program's "senior black correspondent," offering wry observations on racial issues. In May 2014, Mr. Stewart tapped Mr. Wilmore to get his own show, and Mr. Wilmore formally became Mr. Colbert's successor when "The Nightly Show" premiered in January 2015. "The Nightly Show" has been known for a signature segment, "Keep It 100," (slang for telling the truth, no matter the consequences) and for Mr. Wilmore's often stinging commentary on race and this year's election. (He called the election to find Barack Obama's successor "The Unblackening.") Though the late show genre remains heavy on easygoing laughter, any one episode of "The Nightly Show" could occasionally go for prolonged stretches without a single joke, something that intrigued some critics but failed to attract a broader audience. "I'm really grateful to Comedy Central, Jon Stewart and our fans to have had this opportunity," Mr. Wilmore said in a statement. "But I'm also saddened and surprised we won't be covering this crazy election or 'The Unblackening' as we've coined it. And keeping it 100, I guess I hadn't counted on 'The Unblackening' happening to my time slot as well." The move by Comedy Central is also the first concession that the transition from Mr. Stewart and Mr. Colbert both pioneers of a certain kind of political comedy as media criticism and social commentary to Mr. Noah and Mr. Wilmore has not gone as smoothly as the network had hoped. 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. Though Mr. Alterman strongly defended Mr. Noah's iteration of "The Daily Show" next month will be his first anniversary as host both Mr. Noah and Mr. Wilmore have failed to capture the critical praise that rivals like Ms. Bee, Mr. Corden and Mr. Oliver have enjoyed. This year, for the first time in 16 years, "The Daily Show" was not nominated for an Emmy in the best variety show category. Mr. Noah and Mr. Wilmore have also lost a good portion of the audience that used to tune in to Comedy Central between 11 p.m. and midnight. "The Daily Show" had an average of 2.1 million viewers a night in Mr. Stewart's final year as host, while Mr. Noah's audience has averaged 1.3 million, according to data from Nielsen. And Mr. Wilmore has lost more than half the audience that he inherited. In Mr. Colbert's final year as host of "The Colbert Report," he had an average audience of 1.7 million viewers, but in Mr. Wilmore's first year, that viewership fell to an average of 922,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. This year, the total has fallen to 776,000 viewers a night. Likewise, in the demographic most important to Comedy Central young men he has not made a dent. In recent months, Mr. Wilmore has even started losing to the show that is on after his, " midnight." Mr. Wilmore's most visible role in the last year may have been his turn as host of the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. But reviews for his act were decidedly mixed, and the exposure did not result in a ratings bounce. Mr. Alterman said that he had hoped that there would be a ratings surge particularly around the political conventions and that the decision to cancel "The Nightly Show" was a recent one. "We were hoping that we would get a turnaround along the way including the wild, wild two weeks of the conventions," he said. "We just haven't seen it on any level from the general conversation to ratings to any sort of traction on social media platforms." That stands in contrast, he said, to what the network has seen regarding Mr. Noah. Calling the perception that Mr. Noah is struggling "a myth," Mr. Alterman pointed to the show's strong performance on Hulu though he is not allowed to disclose figures, he said. Mr. Noah's show is the No. 2 late night show among young adults ages 18 to 34, Mr. Alterman said, and his ratings have grown among 18 to 24 year old men. Mr. Alterman said he "couldn't be happier" with Mr. Noah's performance.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
SAO PAULO, Brazil It's been almost three months since my toddler left the apartment. We've been enduring as best as we can: We spend countless afternoons at the balcony watching the street and counting red cars; we open and close all the curtains; we pile up boxes of paper tissues and make mountains; we invent stories about our neighbors based on the smells of their cooking. Recently, she has started to play with her own shadow. This was a wise move, since both of her parents are exhausted. Quarantining with a 2 year old is a draining job. On top of that, my husband and I are both still working remotely he is a tax inspector for city hall even as we cook and clean and disinfect the doorknobs. Day after day, we try to stay strong. But while many of us are making sacrifices, there are others who couldn't care less. In the city of Sao Paulo, according to mobile location data, a little less than half the population is complying with social distancing measures. It is true that some have no choice but to keep commuting to their jobs, as underpaid freelancers, essential workers or merely exploited employees. But many are simply counting on their immune system's superpowers, denying the severity of the pandemic, or free riding off the efforts of the rest of us. Every afternoon I can see from my window a group of men chatting on the sidewalk and drinking beer, as if this were all a joyous vacation. The other day I went to the drugstore to pick up a prescription and saw a group of three women lingering over the nail polish mask free, of course. I recently heard about someone who had just decided to resume his Pilates classes, as though his health is more important than everybody else's.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
Denmark's mink industry is gone, a victim of the coronavirus. The nation killed all its 17 million mink because of fears of a mutation in the virus that had spread from mink to people. Separately, in Utah, farmed mink infected with the virus seem to have passed it on somehow to at least one wild mink, raising concern about whether the virus will find a home in wild animals. And around the world, farmed mink continue to fall victim to the coronavirus. The United States, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Greece and Lithuania have all reported mink infections to the World Organisation for Animal Health. Not only are mink the only nonhuman animal known to become severely ill and die from the virus, they are the only animal known to have caught the virus from humans and then passed it back. What terrified Danish officials was that the virus that jumped back to people carried mutations that seemed as if they might affect how well vaccines work, although that worry has faded. Even if the mutations that have emerged so far don't pose a danger to humans, it is clear that the virus rampages through mink farms once infection begin and continues to mutate in new ways. Some mutations that have evolved in humans have already made the virus more easily transmitted. From a public health point of view, there is no upside to offering the virus a second species in which it can evolve. The Netherlands, which was already planning to ban mink farming for animal welfare reasons, moved up the ban to next year from 2024 and has culled all its mink. The disease is such a threat to the industry that researchers are working on a vaccine for mink. And scientists who track viral infections in animals are concerned. For Denmark, the mink story appears to be over. The country of about six million people produced 15 million to 17 million skins a year for the fur industry. But mink farming is banned for 2021, and a fallow year will mean that workers and infrastructure will disappear. "It is highly, highly unlikely that they'll be able to restart farming" in the future, said Mark Oaten, the head of the International Fur Federation. A minister resigned because the government had apparently overstepped its authority in ordering the culling of all mink, farmers are still negotiating for compensation and the nation's prime minister wept at the plight of the farmers. It has the feeling of a dark dystopian comedy, and the oddest thing of all may be that the mink themselves did not have much of a future anyway. Most, except for breeding stock, are killed every year. Apart from lost business and jobs, threats to the fur industry might seem to many people to be the least of the worries posed by the pandemic. But the Danish mink nightmare is a reminder of the central role animals play in human pandemics. The virus seems to have come from bats, passing through some other animal on the way, and could easily enough pass from us to another kind of wild animal, establishing what epidemiologists call a reservoir, a permanent lake of disease waiting for us to fall in or sip from. Mink are also intriguing because they have proved to be unusual in their susceptibility to illness. Early fears that pets could catch the virus from their owners were entirely justified, but not that worrisome because while cats and dogs do become infected, neither species gets very sick. The same is true for tigers, lions and snow leopards, which have all become infected naturally, from people, and animals like monkeys, hamsters, ferrets and genetically engineered mice that scientists infect on purpose in the laboratory. Because of ferrets, it was expected and predicted that members of the weasel family, like mink, would be easily infected. But the severity of the illness in mink was not anticipated. Stanley Perlman, an expert on coronaviruses at the University of Iowa who has been researching SARS CoV 2 primarily with genetically engineered mice, pointed out that ferrets develop "very, very mild disease." Mink, like people, often die from infection with the virus, and nobody knows why. "This is a key thing," Dr. Perlman said. "Why do people get sick? Why do we react so differently to these viruses." He said he had thought about studying mink, but the challenges, involving their genetic diversity and the lack of an established set of biochemical tools for studying infections in them, made the prospect difficult. Some parts of the mink puzzle fit easily together. They live in crowded conditions in rows of cages on mink farms, like people in cities, and are in constant contact with the humans who care for them. No surprise then, that they not only caught the virus from people, they passed it back to us. And the infection of mink and the potential danger they pose is a reminder that it isn't only wild animals that are the cause of spillover events. The livestock humans housed in close quarters have always given diseases to humans, and acquired diseases from them. But it required big human settlements for epidemics and pandemics to appear. In a 2007 paper in the journal Nature, several infectious disease experts including Jared Diamond, the author of "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies" wrote about the origins of diseases that spread only in relatively dense human populations. Measles, rubella and pertussis, they wrote, are examples of crowd diseases that need populations of several hundred thousand for a sustained spread. Human groups of that size did not appear until the advent of agriculture, around 11,000 years ago. The authors listed eight diseases of temperate regions that jumped to humans from domestic animals: "diphtheria, influenza A, measles, mumps, pertussis, rotavirus, smallpox, tuberculosis." In the tropics, more diseases came from wild animals, for a variety of reasons, the authors wrote. Diseases move from wild animals to farmed animals and then to people. Influenza viruses jump from wild waterfowl to domestic birds and sometimes to pigs and then to people who are in close contact with the farmed creatures. As occurred with the mink, the viruses continue to mutate in other animals. There may have even been an earlier coronavirus epidemic that came from cattle. Some scientists have speculated that one of the coronaviruses that now causes the common cold, OC43, may have been responsible for the flu epidemic of 1889, which killed a million people. In that case, fruit trees were growing next to pig enclosures and pigs became infected through exposure to the feces of large fruit eating bats. But part of the reason was also that pig farms had grown as pig farming changed from small operations to large, offering more of a chance for any disease to spread. Jonathan Epstein, vice president for science and outreach at EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization that works on studying and preventing spillover events, said growth of the pork industry in Malaysia meant that "rather than a couple hundred pigs on lots of different farms, we now had a farm of 30,000 pigs and zero barrier between those animals and wildlife." Laws now require a separation of orchards and pig enclosures. Big is not always worse, however, according to William E. Sander, a veterinarian and public health specialist at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. For example, large industrial farms in the United States pay a lot of attention to biosecurity and disease surveillance because of the danger of a disease sweeping through a large and genetically similar group of animals, broiler chickens, he said. Backyard chicken operations are much looser, although since they are small, they pose less risk for a large outbreak. It may, in fact, be in the middle where the dangers arise in animal operations, Dr. Epstein said. Several years ago, a study looking at avian influenza, particular the H5N1 virus, was conducted to assess whether large or small farms were greater risks. Computer modeling, he said, showed that "it was actually the intermediate sized farms that were both large enough to have enough domestic animals on them while still intermingling with wild, migratory water birds that created the most risks." Small farms didn't have enough animals to support an outbreak, and large farms were considered more likely to have effective barriers. In the case of mink, it is not spillover exactly, since they are giving the virus back to humans. Many Danish farms were quite large, with 20,000 or more mink. "The biosecurity in Denmark was really high," said Mr. Oaten of the International Fur Federation. "These are actually big, big, big farms." The presence of the disease on mink farms has, of course, brought more attention to the whole issue of fur and fur farming from animal welfare and animal rights groups. Direct Action Everywhere, an animal liberation activist group, has been highly critical of both Oregon and Utah for a lack of transparency surrounding infected mink farms in those states. Globally, however, the mink infections have not hurt the market for fur, according to Mr. Oaten. But concerns of scarcity because of the pandemic increased the price of mink pelts by more than 40 percent, he said. A number of countries in Europe have banned mink or fur farming altogether, based on animal welfare concerns. But in the long term, Mr. Oaten said he expected other countries like Poland, Greece, Canada and the United States to pick up the slack, raising more mink. Also, in the future, mink may receive protection from the virus. "I'm hoping by January we'll be in a position to say more about this," Mr. Oaten said, "but there's a lot of research taking place in Russia and Finland on a vaccine for the mink."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
The American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending that everyone older than 6 months get a flu shot for the 2018 19 season as soon as it is available, preferably before the end of October. The policy statement, published in the October issue of Pediatrics, states that the inactivated influenza vaccine, which is given as a shot, is best. Children with egg allergy, even severe allergy, can take the shot safely. The live attenuated vaccine, which is sprayed into the nose, has been ineffective in previous years, and the academy is recommending against its use except in cases in which the child refuses the shot. The live vaccine cannot be given to children under 2. Children 9 and older need only one dose. Those 6 months through 8 years may need two shots, at least four weeks apart.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Well
This one is for the ladies. I have a small tray decorated with two gorgeous, red lipped glamour girls, poised for the good life in front of a lush bush of bright pink flowers. Splashed across their image is this aphorism: "I believe we have an opportunity to make some extremely poor choices." This is one of women's abiding truths when it comes to their love lives. "Falling in love" frequently produces the curious inclination in a woman to abdicate her sovereignty and seat a man on her own throne. But then love for women has a long history as slavery. Sacrilege as it may be to say, "falling in love" remains criminally oversold to girls in our culture. From their earliest fairy tales, it is the Great Event. A man has always been a woman's best excuse to avoid her destiny; that a man is her destiny is one of patriarchy's most pernicious tenets. What a scam. And often we leap into our "poor choices" with the operatic flourish of Juliet, Madama Butterfly or Tosca all dead by suicide at show's end. Yet most of us survive our grand passions the truly great ones break you so as to remake you. These are what we will remember on our deathbeds as the moments when we were most alive. Deep eros plunges one face to face with death, here, now. But is the price we pay worth it? Enter a new treatise on the subject. Lisa Taddeo's "Three Women" is an excavation of three American women's love lives. All are white and (mostly) heterosexual, and they range in age from 16 to early 40s: a highly limited, though serviceable, group. Taddeo's subjects allowed her to observe them intimately over a number of years. She explains in an author's note that she spent countless hours with these women in person, on the phone and over text message and email, while following their social media accounts. She read their diaries, interviewed their friends and family and relied on their memories. Taddeo's intent and her publisher's hope is to reveal what "female desire" looks like today. Despite the glut in our society of anything and everything sexual, very little approaches the shocking, truly revolutionary, revelations in the sexual fantasies of hundreds of women that Nancy Friday collected in the 1970s. The stunning variety and lasciviousness of female perversions detailed in Friday's anthologies knocked our madonna off her altar into the gutter but, under threat of anarchy, our loosened whore is always, soon again, chastened. Want to keep up with the latest and greatest in books? This is a good place to start. None Learn what you should be reading this fall: Our collection of reviews on books coming out this season includes biographies, novels, memoirs and more. See what's new in October: Among this month's new titles are novels by Jonathan Franzen, a history of Black cinema and a biography by Katie Couric. Nominate a book: The New York Times Book Review has just turned 125. That got us wondering: What is the best book that was published during that time? Listen to our podcast: Featuring conversations with leading figures in the literary world, from Colson Whitehead to Leila Slimani, the Book Review Podcast helps you delve deeper into your favorite books. The result of Taddeo's investigation, however, is not a book about the vast terra infirma of female desire, but, rather, an excruciating expose of the ongoing epidemic of female fragility and neediness in the romantic arena a product of our insecurity, ignorance and zero self regard. Taddeo's sad, searing, sometimes unbearably painful tales of bad decisions, agonies and humiliations at the shrine of "love" show us that, in spite of 10 to 15 minutes here and there of truly hot sex, a woman "in love" is frequently a basket case. The stories of Taddeo's subjects, Sloane, Lina and Maggie, all feature the illicit threesomes, dominance and submission, underage sex and each includes a hefty dose of good old fashioned adultery. Maggie Wilken's story dominates the book and for good reason: It ended up in court. Maggie, who lives in Fargo, N.D., had a relationship for approximately one year, starting when she was 16, with Aaron Knodel, her 29 year old high school English teacher, who was married with two young children. Maggie confides in a letter to Knodel her big secret: She has recently lost her virginity to a military man, 15 years her senior, while vacationing in Hawaii, and found it exciting. Knodel suggests they speak. So it begins. Maggie does everything she can to "preserve the relationship," not reminding him she is underage, not mentioning his wife and kids. Soon he texts her: "I think I am falling in love with you." He reads Maggie's copy of "Twilight," returning it doused in his cologne, with masses of yellow Post it Note annotations. "I am your vampire lover," he writes, "and you are my forbidden fruit." She sleeps with the book. On his 30th birthday, Maggie texts him around 7 a.m. "Happy Birthday!!!" By 8 a.m. his wife has seen the message, and the affair is over. Boom. When Knodel is named "North Dakota's Teacher of the Year" in 2014, Maggie breaks her five years of silence and despair and tells her parents about the relationship. She goes to the police. Six months later her father slits his wrists and dies. In court Knodel fingers a rosary and claims not to remember Maggie much during the year of their affair, but does recall that she was "needy" and had "issues." He is acquitted on three of five charges of corrupting a minor. A mistrial is declared on the other two charges owing to a juror's sudden mysterious illness alleging oral and digital penetration. Knodel was reinstated with back pay and is currently teaching and coaching in the North Dakota public school system. Maggie, meanwhile, gains 30 pounds, survives on a cocktail of five drugs, drops out of college, plans her suicide by hanging, and waits tables. Despite everything, Maggie still loves her high school teacher. Cue Tammy Wynette. It is Taddeo's victory that we see Maggie's tragedy: Knodel gave this girl the validation, the attention, that no one else ever had or perhaps ever will. Her blessing, her curse. This is Taddeo's first book, but she has garnered two Pushcart Prizes for her dense, disturbing short stories about women. Here, but for a few quoted conversations, she writes her narratives in the third person, in her own dramatic, often overreaching, staccato prose. While the complex feelings of the women conveyed may well be true, the voice is categorically Taddeo's, not theirs. Nevertheless, the result is effective and affecting. Strangely, she has elected to draw no conclusions. So here are a few of mine. Mother Nature has heavily handicapped women. From age 15 to 50 our brains are a swamp of hormones you know, the ones that make us the origin of the human race. A female orgasm releases a tsunami of neurochemicals, suctioning us to that fallible Joe who happens to be in the vicinity, every climax another knot in our involuntary bondage. And so we continue, despite more than 200 years of feminism culminating in Andrea Dworkin's glorious rage, to be inept voyagers in search of "love," repeatedly abandoning our own ship to board some dude's dinghy. Why does the femme fatale who wields her unyielding power with charm in our culture have no traction as an actual role model? Where is Barbara Stanwyck when we need her? Extraordinary erotic longing rarely survives stabilization, and Taddeo reveals an avalanche of evidence, as if we needed more, that the cozy comforts of marriage and its defining, confining attribute, monogamy, provide the perfect petri dish for combustible sex with someone other than your spouse. Taddeo's book features one unethical, horny, entitled guy after another, but what else is new? Our current discourse is filled, rightly, with women's MeToo revelations about loathsome male misbehavior and worse, while we simultaneously reassert our roles as their victims, confirming, with our nagging, weeping and public shaming, our complicity on the patriarchal merry go round. But patriarchy cannot change patriarchy, as a leopard cannot change his spots. The time is up, the clock has run out: Men no longer deserve our understanding or tears or time. Until women realize our pre eminence, and act accordingly, with its inherent responsibilities, we will never get a grip on our own happiness. Might we shift our thinking, reorder our priorities and discipline our minds in our affairs with men? Can we change ourselves? If we did the world would change too.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Such incongruities between words and circumstances might be comical if Konchalovsky didn't so seamlessly infuse each scene with a tense, sickening feeling of inevitability; in a bracing way, it is tricky to pin down the tone of "Dear Comrades!" in any given moment. Rioters believe that Soviet soldiers won't fire on them. High ranking officials don't see the point of an army without munitions. Later, after the carnage which Konchalovsky, perhaps best known in the United States for the taut action film "Runaway Train" (1985), renders in quick, brutal strokes the goal becomes erasing it. Blood that the sun baked into the pavement can always be paved over. Lyuda, whose daughter (Yulia Burova) was embroiled in the protests and goes missing after they are over, might be able to save her by writing a report calling for instigators to be shown no mercy. The K.G.B. issues nondisclosure agreements about the events. (What can't be disclosed? Anything. What's the penalty? As much as death.) In the most grimly absurd scene, Viktor (Andrei Gusev), a K.G.B. agent who eventually becomes Lyuda's confidant, tries to explain the preposterous scope of the pledge to a nurse then, upon learning she was in the crowd, has her arrested on the spot. Konchalovsky complements the screw tightening atmosphere with a claustrophobic visual style. "Dear Comrades!" is shot in black and white and in near square image dimensions instead of wide screen. Even the choice of angles, with an emphasis on doorways and private spaces, contributes to the sense of lives lived furtively. Dear Comrades! Not rated. In Russian, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 1 minute. Watch through Film Forum's Virtual Cinema.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
My manic, psychotic break from the rest of the world's notion of reality was clinical and terrifying, but it started out soulful and electrifying. For a brief moment before the hallucinations, delusions, restraints, seclusion and hospitalization that ensued, an intense calm washed over me. Standing on my Atlanta balcony watching the sun rise over Stone Mountain, I felt a deep connection to every atom back to Adam and before, and to the divine spirit within each one of those atoms. However clumsily, I had stumbled into the land of mystics, the land of my father, the land of Rumi. At long last, I was beginning to understand this poetry that had spoken to my father since he was a child in Shiraz. For what modern medicine lacked by way of explanation, Rumi provided through my father's voice, visiting me on the locked psychiatric unit of the same hospital where he had performed thousands of surgeries and delivered hundreds of babies: In love with insanity, I'm fed up with wisdom and rationality. While Rumi considers insanity a mark of divine favor, he distinguishes between types. The madness he promotes is rooted in ecstatic love; the one he condemns, in petty fear. The former creates a mystic, the latter a lunatic. When I first began studying Rumi with my father in late 2014, years after that psychiatric hospitalization, properly diagnosed and medicated for bipolar disorder and in recovery, I never expected that within a few short years my extended family in Iran would be barred from visiting us in the United States. Nor did I ever expect that our country would become so deeply divided. But here we are, more isolated than ever, and as an Iranian American Muslim feminist living with a mental health condition, I feel the weight of this isolation every day. Heavy with fear's warped wisdom and rationality, crazier than anything mania ever induced in me, this weight is a reminder that clinical psychosis, even absent any mystical tendency, seems sensible compared with our current political reality. Thankfully, as a student of my father and Rumi, I have learned how to counter the toll of this weight. In Rumi's words: Become the sky and the clouds that create the rain, not the gutter that carries it to the drain. Of course it's easier to be the gutter than the sky, to imitate rather than to create, but imitation builds cults, not communities. It may seem counterintuitive, but true community demands originality, not conformity. I know this firsthand, because every time I write something new it helps me feel less alone, reminding me that we are all inextricably linked to and through a sacred spark within each of us. It seems so obvious, but it's also painfully easy to forget how deeply connected we are. More than any other factor, it's ego that makes us forget, filling us with a sense of superiority. This false feeling of being somehow "better than" our fellow human beings allows us to forget the common source of our humanity and thus to disconnect from the divinity within ourselves and one another. This is why, for Rumi, ego is not only the worst of our natural and inescapable human afflictions but also the root of them all. His solution?	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
What I Wish I'd Known Before Moving in Together When my boyfriend, Mike DiPasquale, asked me to move in with him after two years of dating, I was thrilled. Even though I wasn't sure exactly what I was signing up for. Just the prospect of no longer needing to keep two bottles of contact lens solution, two toothbrushes and two sticks of deodorant in two separate homes was enough to have me jumping for joy. Visions of plush rugs, soft lighting and cuddling in front of a fireplace filled my head. I quickly realized that I was confusing coffee commercials with real life. The truth is: Living together before you're married is a big step legally, financially and emotionally. My mother gave us a 100 gift certificate to Crate and Barrel, but she didn't tell me what to anticipate. I Googled "Moving in with your boyfriend," but the search results landed with a thud. The advice was dry and didn't speak to my concerns: How do I know if I'm picking a compatible person to move in with? What if he's annoyed by my hourlong phone calls with my sister, the sweatpants I wear around the house, or the insane amount of hair I shed on every available surface? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more Americans than ever are choosing to live together before marriage. And the Pew Research Center says more than half of all women aged 19 to 44 who marry for the first time have lived with their husbands before walking down the aisle. Unmarried millennials are more likely to live with their partners than any previous generation at this stage in their lives. It's clear why couples find cohabitation so appealing. Aside from the convenience it affords, the prospect of splitting rent and utility bills is too seductive to pass up. Add in a desire to shed roommates and a reluctance to renew a pricey lease, and you can see why plenty of couples choose cohabitation, even if they aren't exactly sure what comes next. Turns out we're not alone. Most couples don't take the time to walk through the financial and legal implications of cohabitation beforehand. According to leading legal and financial experts, that's a major mistake and a missed opportunity. Frederick Hertz, author of "Living Together: A Legal Guide for Unmarried Couples," says the first step toward moving in together is to figure out what will happen should you part ways: "You can either plan your breakup in a civilized, caring, thoughtful way, or you can try to avoid it and have it be a nasty fight later on." If you are renting or own a home, figure out who will stay in the event of a breakup. Nail down who will pay any pesky fees or taxes. Come up with a plan. In light of this practical advice, I pushed Mike to discuss what would happen if we should break up. Initially, he was reluctant to discuss the possibility. He said he'd be so devastated that he would start a new life from scratch. While I appreciated the drama of his response, we still needed to develop a road map. Since Mike had owned his condo before we started dating, we agreed he should continue to live in it. I volunteered to move in with my parents until I found a more permanent place. I'd keep the Passat and pay the remaining payments on the lease. And Eleanor would stay with me. (I was thrilled I could keep the cat, but I didn't want to cheer too loudly.) After we settled on the details of our dissolution, we gave each other a long hug. Pam Friedman, a marital financial expert and author of "I Now Pronounce You Financially Fit," agrees that the biggest mistake couples make is moving in together before having these candid talks. She advises couples to be honest about their fears and insecurities and meet them head on: What happens if we break up? Or get sick? Or die? Some unmarried couples might benefit from a cohabitation agreement, also known as a no nup, a legal agreement about who gets what in the event of a breakup or major life event. "You've got to think five steps ahead," Ms. Friedman said. "And it's no fun at first. Then it becomes a project you can work on together." Apart from thorny financial and legal concerns, cohabitation creates a new set of emotional constraints for couples as well. Galena Rhoades, a professor and researcher who studies cohabitation at the University of Denver, calls it a "sandwich period," when people juggle dating and marriage issues concurrently. "When you live together," Dr. Rhoades explained, "you face all the issues dating couples face time together, managing friends, jealousy, ex partners but you also face all the issues married couples face, like household contributions, managing money together and planning for future expenditures." It can be an especially risky undertaking if the couple immediately goes from a long distance relationship to cohabitation. Katie Leggett and Allen Hotchkiss did just that. The couple dated for over a year while Ms. Leggett lived in the West Village and Mr. Hotchkiss lived in Chicago. Then they moved into an apartment together in Park Slope, Brooklyn. "We knew we could get more bang for our buck if we just took the plunge and moved in together when my lease was up, versus getting separate studios, or dealing with roommates for another year in our late 20s," Ms. Leggett said. "It was definitely an adjustment." "There were very few surprises upon moving in with each other," Mr. Hotchkiss recalled. "Talking about all of the possible 'what if' scenarios is the only way to make sure living together is the right move." Mr. Hotchkiss is more laid back. "For me, it was about picking the right battles and respecting Katie's key points of contention, like taking my shoes off at the door or not wearing my 'subway clothes' on the bed," Mr. Hotchkiss said. This willingness to meet in the middle eased the transition considerably. Mike and I slid into certain habits when it came to chores. I'm happiest food shopping, cooking meals and emptying the dishwasher. Mike prefers washing the dishes, doing the laundry, making the bed and taking out the trash. The key, says Jolie Kerr, Esquire's cleaning advice columnist and host of the podcast "Ask a Clean Person," is to treat each other as teammates rather than adversaries: "You play to each other's strengths." We were happy to assign chores based on whoever expressed more enthusiasm. However it quickly became evident that our cleanliness standards are wildly different. Sheena Murphy, a founder and designer at a Brooklyn based design studio called Sheep and Stone, encourages partners to be explicit about their expectations and boundaries: "One of the biggest things people don't do is talk about living together, what that means and how you're going to set up your home." After a year of dating, Armando Morales and Annie Simeone decided it was silly for them both to be paying New York City rents, especially since hers was twice what he paid. Last June they figured they could make it work in Mr. Morales's apartment in Ridgewood, Queens, pending a drastic reworking of the space. Fortunately, Ms. Simeone works as a production designer for film and television. She created a rendering of the apartment and its furniture layout using a three dimensional modeling program, which allowed her to envision various floor plans. Mr. Morales crafted custom shelving so they could save even more space. "We have a classic New York railroad, with a kitchen on one end and the bedroom on the other. In between is an office and a living room," Mr. Morales said. "It's perfect for a couple in that you can be together but also have separate space when you need it." Another reason couples choose to cohabitate is to spend more time together. It's been interesting to see how Mike and I use that time. Like most modern couples, we are never far away from our cellphones. We're quick to browse social media at the slightest lull in conversation. I prefer to scroll through Facebook while he's more of a Twitter guy. Over time, I sensed that our willingness to plug in (and ignore each other) was affecting the quality of our interactions. "Your partner can be a source of deep and lasting joy, connection, meaning, fulfillment," Dr. Carter said. "Your phone cannot." In the end, some of my initial concerns proved silly. Mike doesn't mind that I shed like Mr. Snuffleupagus in August. When I conduct marathon phone calls with my sister, he catches up on his social media apps. He's happy to scrub the toilet, as long as I clean the shower. We are stronger for taking this step and navigating our sandwich phase this premarriage, postdating bubble with clear eyes. Having those difficult talks about our finances and being more mindful of the space we share, the chores we perform and the habits we cultivate, we're well on our way to creating a happy home. After living together for two years and after countless loads of laundry and a dizzying number of dishwasher cycles Mike and I tied the knot on April 21, 2017. Eleanor is thrilled.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
For most of its 1,000 pages, Lucy Ellmann's brilliantly ambitious seventh novel follows the unspooling consciousness of an Ohio housewife circa 2017, and does so almost entirely in one long, lyrical, constantly surprising sentence. Our narrator is an educated, liberal mother of four, obsessed with the news, plagued by worries and self doubts, a baker of pies, a keeper of chickens, keen on old movies and afraid of confrontation. She is not so different from many of us, though her voice has a distinct cadence: "... the fact that we're broke because I had cancer, the fact that that broke us, it broke us, the fact that I shouldn't say that, because here we are, still kicking, and I am still producing cinnamon rolls by the ton but, sciatica, hip, Advil, painkillers, Leo's health plan, the fact that Phoebe helped us out and we'll never be able to pay her back, and Jake was at the height of his cute stage and I missed it, 'You missed it, Oscar, you missed it!,' and that hurts ..." With unstanched momentum she makes her way through memories and stories of her family, her past, her life in Ohio and the journey that brought her here. Since she used to teach history but now sells her own baked goods, a lot of anecdotes about Native Americans and baking make their way into the book; and since she is a curious, politically conscious, slightly frenetic person, we step into and out of subjects from Donald Trump to purple martins, global warming to Laura Ingalls Wilder, animal cruelty, school shootings, SpaghettiOs, industrial pollution, hydrangeas, even the word "hydrangea." In other words, all her thoughts and everything in the world around her. At times there's such fury to these ruminations that the book seems to shift into direct cultural critique; at other times it all seems simply part of the story. The author's hand never points us either way. Interspersed throughout this modern Molly Bloom monologue are one or two page installments of a story about a mountain lion searching the Midwest for her cubs. It's an odd juxtaposition, but the two story lines do eventually converge. More important, the lioness offers a foil, a figure of natural instinct and maternal courage set against the narrator's culturally determined fears and insecurities.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
On Their Way to Pebble Beach, Driving Every Mile MUSCLING his 1931 Pierce Arrow through a sharp turn in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest of Washington State, Al McEwan might have been living out a passage from "The Kings of the Road," a book he read and reread as a boy. "Many a man still alive remembers the day when he ripped down a country road in a canary yellow, bucket seated Mercer," Ken W. Purdy, a pioneering automotive journalist, wrote in his 1949 tribute to great machines of earlier times, "master of all he surveyed, high riding, able to see where he was going, with a wheel in his hands that really steered the car instead of shyly suggesting that it change direction." The book's tattered pages have long since loosened from their binding, but Mr. McEwan, at 77, still has that first edition. At this moment, however, he was too busy for reflection: the big phaeton lurched, the tires screeched and the rear end started to slide. "Al, be careful," his wife, Sandi, said reprovingly from the back seat. "This isn't a race." Not a race indeed, but the Pebble Beach Motoring Classic, a 1,500 mile tour now in its eighth year as an official prelude to Sunday's concours d'elegance. The concours caps a week of collector car auctions, shows and vintage races that take place each August on the Monterey Peninsula of California. Chastened, Mr. McEwan grunted, wresting the thick steering wheel into a course correction. The 5,000 pound convertible settled down, resuming its glide over the two lane highway that winds through towering spires of Douglas fir and alder trees. As tour master for the 2012 motoring tour, which left Kirkland, Wash., on Aug. 7 and arrived in Pebble Beach eight days later, Mr. McEwan knows firsthand the mishaps that can occur when 17 mostly ancient vehicles embark on a journey over arduous terrain. In 2006, a forest fire swept across Highway 35 in Oregon, blocking the tour's planned route to a lodge at the 6,000 foot level of Mount Hood. The McEwans worked all night, painstakingly rewriting the directions for the route book. In 2008, Arturo Keller, a prominent collector, fell from his prewar Alfa Romeo when a door swung open in a slow turn. Luckily, he (and the car) escaped serious injury. "Something always comes up you can't plan for," said Mr. McEwan, whose Pierce Arrow foundered shortly after the group entered California, but returned to the road with its head gasket replaced. "Old cars break. You just have to roll with that." Along the route, drivers were treated to dazzling views of volcanic peaks in the Cascade Range, the Columbia River Gorge, the crystal blue waters of Crater Lake and the redwood stands of Northern California's rugged coast. The tour then swung inland through the Sonoma County wine region, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and motored through San Francisco toward Monterey. In addition to a van for participants' luggage, the convoy included a so called trouble truck for hauling mechanics and disabled cars, and a new company supplied Bentley sedan to ferry stranded drivers and passengers. If somebody got in a jam, other participants pulled over to help. "Most of us guys can fix anything," Denny Dochnahl, owner of a 1928 Packard from Renton, Wash., said. After a pause: "Except a modern car." Knuckle scuffing repairs become part of the tour's lore, gleefully passed along at each day's dinner party. Not all the tales end happily. Tortuous roads, like the twisty drive from Leggett, Calif., to the coast, blistering temperatures and steep climbs forced several cars to retire, including a prized 1912 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost that served in World War I and a stately Packard, discovered by its current owner to be the same car his father bought new in 1928. (It later returned to the tour.) For some time, the classic car world has been moving away from what Sandra Button, chairman of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, calls its "super tidy, spit and polish" era. Spurred by Europeans' disdain for overly restored cars, concours officials have been emphasizing more original condition, or preservation, vehicles. "The motoring classic," she said, "is about enjoying these cars as they were meant to be enjoyed on the road." The tour, which costs 9,000 a couple, is open to cars that have been entries in the Pebble Beach concours, are current entrants or deemed "Pebble appropriate." The fee covers meals, stays in elegant and rustic settings and admittance to auctions, private receptions and parties restricted to concours participants. Shipped, trucked or flown into Seattle, the cars have come from as far as Australia and New Zealand, with regular entries from European countries as well as North America. The drivers also come from varied backgrounds. Jules Heumann, a former chairman of the Pebble Beach concours, who drove a swoop fendered, black and plum Hispano Suiza, designed and built furniture for his family's company in San Francisco. Another Hispano owner, Hugo Modderman, lives in Monaco and finances cruise ships. Mr. McEwan is a retired aeronautical engineer. The cars can be more valuable than the most expensive offerings in any luxury showroom. Mr. Modderman paid 200,000 for his 1930 Hispano Suiza H6C Cabriolet de Ville, one of 15 vehicles in his collection, and another 300,000 went into its restoration. Jaime and Cecelia Muldoon's two tone 1953 Ferrari America is worth in the "low millions," according to a vintage car broker, Bruce Trenery. For Mr. McEwan's inspired caravan, however, the tour is about a shared passion for cars and history. Bruce Campbell, a former advertising executive from Alamo, Calif., spent five years doing research before beginning the restoration of one of his cars. Mr. Campbell began this year's tour in a bright red 1953 Alfa Romeo coupe; when the Alfa developed starter problems, he continued in his Austin Healey 100 roadster. "It's astonishing that something so beautiful and functional could be made by hand," Mr. Campbell said of the Alfa. The car's wooden steering wheel, custom made by Touring, the coachbuilder, is one of fewer than two dozen in existence. "People touched these cars," Mr. Campbell said. "They didn't just touch a button that made the cars. And they didn't make them only to sit on a lawn and be looked at." Mr. Modderman revels in auto sociology. As originally built for a member of the Vanderbilt family, the Hispano Suiza offered little weather protection for the chauffeur, so a custom top was added. But there is no record of other bastions of class being relaxed. "By custom, the lady was never to see a driver's hands," Mr. Modderman explained, forcing the chauffeur to handle the hefty vehicle using only the wheel's lower half. Like Mr. McEwan, most tour participants trace their interest in cars to childhood. Only one owner in this year's tour was younger than 50, and several were in their 70s. Mr. Heumann, the Classic's oldest driver ever, is 89. "I've been in this hobby since I was 1 year old," Mr. Heumann said, "and I'm still on the good side of 90. I'm not stopping now." For a Mercer roadster in the group a 1925 Raceabout in the same canary yellow summoned by the writer Ken Purdy stopping came early. Despite a fresh restoration by its owners, Johnny and Christine Crowell of San Ramon, Calif., and the fierce, grizzly growl of its engine, this final factory built Raceabout overheated after just three miles. Undaunted, the Crowells rejoined the tour in another car from their collection, a 1932 V 16 Cadillac. The Mercer continued to Pebble Beach by truck, where it was scheduled to appear in a special concours display. "It reminds me of my daughter's horse," Mr. Crowell, a lawyer who owns a chain of stores, said philosophically. "Buying the horse was the cheap part."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
Frank Salomon has managed Peoples' Symphony Concerts, which fights the tide of rising ticket prices, for nearly half a century. It is no secret that classical music faces strong headwinds, but one challenge has been reaching gale force proportions in recent years: high ticket prices. The top ticket costs 495 at the Metropolitan Opera, 295 at Carnegie Hall and 165 at the New York Philharmonic. And while their average prices are much lower and each offers inexpensive, sometimes free outreach programs fans and newcomers can feel priced out of performances that often seem more like luxury goods than staples. All of which makes Peoples' Symphony Concerts a holdout one of the best deals in New York, a city not exactly known for bargains. The organization, which offers performances by some of the best artists in the world for as little as 8.33 a concert, will open its 120th season on Saturday evening with the Juilliard String Quartet playing Mozart, Britten and Brahms in the auditorium of Washington Irving High School in Manhattan. "We're primarily able to do it due to the generosity of the musicians, who come and play for a fraction of their normal fees," said Frank Salomon, 83, who has managed the series for nearly half a century. "The artists believe in the mission. And many say it's one of their favorite audiences anywhere in the world." Founded during New York's earlier Gilded Age by Franz X. Arens, a conductor with a vision of making the finest music available to students, workers and immigrants, the series has continued to offer Rolex quality performances at Timex prices. By using less opulent venues (Washington Irving's auditorium has good acoustics, but hard wooden seats), forgoing advertising, and attracting philanthropy and well timed bequests, Peoples' Symphony has been able to present an impressive roster of artists over the years, including Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, the Emerson String Quartet, the Guarneri Quartet, Leonidas Kavakos, Gidon Kremer, Lang Lang and Radu Lupu. Everything is expensive in New York these days: rent, groceries, restaurants, taxis, movies, pop concerts, ball games. But rising costs pose a special threat to classical music, raising barriers at a fragile moment when the field must fight to keep existing fans and lure new ones. Michael M. Kaiser, the former president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, said that after years of bumping up ticket prices to offset spiraling costs, many presenters were hitting a point of diminishing returns: Some people are deciding they cannot afford live performances and are opting instead for home entertainment alternatives. "This is a problem in the field," said Mr. Kaiser, who is now the chairman of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland. Peoples' Symphony Concerts have been aimed, from the start, at the 99 percent giving regular New Yorkers a chance to enjoy the best the city has to offer. This season is no exception. The great lieder singer Mark Padmore has performed Schubert's anguished "Winterreise" song cycle at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and has made more than one celebrated recording of it. This May he will sing it at Town Hall with the jazz pianist Ethan Iverson as the finale of a six concert Peoples' Symphony series that can be bought for 80 (or 13.33 a concert) or 52 ( 8.66 a concert). Other artists in the series include the pianist Benjamin Grosvenor and the violinist Augustin Hadelich, who appeared this month with the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Salomon, who is also an artist manager and a senior administrator at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, said that he had been chasing Mr. Padmore since hearing his astonishing performance as the Evangelist in Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" with the Berlin Philharmonic at the Park Avenue Armory in 2014. "He just blew me away, and I started lobbying to try to get him," Mr. Salomon said, recalling stalking Mr. Padmore in 2016, when the tenor received the vocalist of the year award from Musical America. "And after five years of bugging him, we finally got him." Mr. Padmore said that he had been intrigued by the organization's goal of making music affordable. "I was really delighted to hear about it," Mr. Padmore said in a telephone interview, noting that he also serves as the artistic director of the St. Endellion summer festival in Britain, where artists donate their services to keep costs down. "I think what they do with these concerts is completely admirable." From the start, the concerts have drawn discerning audiences. A 1902 review in The New York Times of a program at Cooper Union, the series' first home, said that the audience's "attention and manifest understanding are such as to put pretentious up town audiences to shame." The organization still draws engaged, knowledgeable crowds to hear its chamber music and recitals. The pianist Garrick Ohlsson, who has performed several times, said he had found the subscribers "a passionate and well informed audience and beautifully behaved." In addition to the Town Hall series, Peoples' Symphony has two six concert series at Washington Irving, which has general admission seating, and subscriptions cost 50 (or 8.33 a concert). Mr. Salomon said many subscribers arrive early to make sure they can get the best seats, or sit with large groups of friends or relatives. The slightly more expensive Town Hall series has assigned seats. To attract younger listeners, subscribers to any series can now bring up to two children for free, and 25 student passes allow access to all 18 concerts, which would let completists hear them for just 1.39 apiece.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Finding out that a celebrity follows a dance company can be a shock to the system. (After all, the dance world is a small place.) Kathleen Turner and the choreographer Pascal Rioult? Really? Apparently, she's a fan. On Tuesday at the Joyce Theater, Ms. Turner joined Mr. Rioult's dancers by narrating two of three works united by a theme: Greek tragedy. Her gravelly voice sounded wheezy in both instances. Weak staging didn't help. Why make her barefoot? Her tentative steps made it seem as if she were in need of sensible shoes. Mr. Rioult's approach is an emotional one, and it often overpowers his ability to make shrewd decisions in his dances, which have a lumbering quality, no matter the subject. "Women on the Edge ... Unsung Heroines of the Trojan War," which features Ms. Turner at select performances, takes an antiwar stance as Mr. Rioult focuses on Iphigenia, Helen of Troy and, in a premiere, Cassandra. What doesn't come as a surprise is Mr. Rioult's link to the Martha Graham Dance Company, where he was a principal dancer. Mythology is in his artistic blood. But while Mr. Rioult uses the tools of Graham we see it in the contractions, in the scantily clad men and in the misunderstood heroines his exploration of psychological states, in both "Iphigenia" and "On Distant Shores ... a redemption fantasy," about Helen of Troy, has little depth. They writhe; they toss their hair.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Students at the Hostos Lincoln Academy in the Bronx blamed the English exams for making them anxious and sick. Teachers at Public School 152 in Manhattan said they had never seen so many blank stares. Parents at the Earth School in the East Village were so displeased that they organized a boycott. As New York this week became one of the first states to unveil a set of exams grounded in new curricular standards, education leaders are finding that rallying the public behind tougher tests may be more difficult than they expected. Complaints were plentiful: the tests were too long; students were demoralized to the point of tears; teachers were not adequately prepared. Some parents, long skeptical of the emphasis on standardized testing, forbade their children from participating. Maya Velasquez, 14, an eighth grader at the Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering in Upper Manhattan said she had done well on tests in the past. But when a teacher on Wednesday informed her class that only 15 minutes remained in the exam, she knew she was in trouble. She had only written an introduction to her essay. "All the kids were, like, open mouthed, crazy shocked and very upset," she said. Education officials said that any big change, especially one aimed at making it harder to earn a diploma, would attract critics. Anticipating some frustration, the city embarked on a flashy media campaign, producing advertisements warning of the higher standards, known as Common Core. Ken Wagner, who oversees testing for the New York State Education Department, said the feedback that tests provided was essential for preparing students for college and the work force. The scores are also used in some districts to determine promotions and admission to selective middle or high schools. New York City education officials said children without test scores would have to go through alternative evaluations. Mr. Wagner said that he worried that parents' concerns were rubbing off on children and hurting their confidence. "My heart goes out to any kid that's suffering stress or anxiety," Mr. Wagner said. But, he added, "We have to think very strategically about the messages that students are getting from the adults they are around." English exams were given this week for students in the third through eighth grades; math tests begin next week. Some parents, particularly at elite schools in Manhattan and Brooklyn, have withdrawn their children from testing this year, joining a broader nationwide opt out movement. At the Earth School, about one third of students slated to take the tests decided to sit out, parents said. "The current boycott is against the one song the mayor and the rest of the country have been increasingly singing, which is: test scores, test scores, test scores," said Casey Fuetsch, a member of the Earth School's parent advocacy group. Even outside of New York City, there was an unusual amount of protest. At South Side Middle School in Rockville Centre, on Long Island, more than half of the eighth grade class, 134 out of 260 students, opted out of the exams, according to the principal, Shelagh McGinn. Katie Zahedi, the principal at Linden Avenue Middle School in the Hudson Valley town of Red Hook, where 55 out of 480 students opted out, said education officials too often assumed that more testing would improve results. "The amount of disruption this is creating is actually a threat to the quality of education," Dr. Zahedi said. Adopted by 45 states, Common Core aims to foster independent thinking, with an emphasis on relating material to real world issues. Common Core tests made their debut in Kentucky last year, and scores fell significantly. New York officials are expecting a similar decline. But officials say leaving the old standards intact would be worse, forcing thousands of students into costly remediation programs in college. David Coleman, president of the College Board and an architect of the Common Core standards, said he did not understand skepticism about the tests. Students said they struggled with questions that asked them to discuss how a writer constructed a story rather than about the content of the passage itself. One question, for instance, asked students to analyze how an author built suspense in describing a girl whose rope snapped while in a cave. At the Computer School on the Upper West Side, students said teachers had warned them that the test would be the most challenging they had taken. "When they ask, 'What's the main idea?' and you have to put it in your own words, it's a lot harder," said Ron Yogev, a sixth grader. Many did not finish, and some students said classmates were crying at the end. Mr. Wagner said the state was aware of complaints about the time allowed for the test and would look more extensively at the results to determine whether a change was necessary. For all the concern, some students were unfazed by the new exams. Jonathan Steuer, the parent of a third grade girl at the Neighborhood School, said he was not sure why there was such an outcry. "It was built up into this thing," he said. After the test, according to Mr. Steuer, his daughter said simply, "It was a snap."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Education
The soprano Barbara Hannigan has given nearly 100 premieres, the majority of which were written specifically for her. She is also a master of some of the most challenging music in the repertory: Berg's "Lulu," Webern, Ligeti. So if she's stumped by a new work, chances are it's unsingable or perhaps a masterpiece in the making. On paper, John Zorn's "Jumalattaret" which has its New York premiere at the Park Avenue Armory on Oct. 15, with Ms. Hannigan joined by the pianist Stephen Gosling looks impossible: breathless vocalise; abrupt transitions from head spinning complexity to folk song simplicity; and, within the span of a single measure, whispering, squeaking and throat singing like a winter storm. It's the kind of piece that leaves you asking, repeatedly, over the course of its 25 minutes: Can a voice even do this? The answer, for Ms. Hannigan, is yes. It took a lot of practice, a thwarted summer vacation, and a well timed email to get there. But once she and Mr. Gosling gave the first performance of "Jumalattaret," it was clear Mr. Zorn had created something special. FOR ALL HER NEW MUSIC BONA FIDES, Ms. Hannigan didn't meet Mr. Zorn until several years ago, and didn't perform his work until "Jumalattaret." As a college student , though, she would get together with friends and listen to his albums. George Benjamin's opera "Written on Skin" brought soprano and composer together. Ms. Hannigan was in New York for the work's stop at the Mostly Mozart Festival in 2015, and her boyfriend the actor and filmmaker Mathieu Amalric , who so far has completed two movies in a planned trilogy about Mr. Zorn introduced them. "I of course knew and admired her work and was aware of her passion and dedication," Mr. Zorn said in an email. "She is 1,000 percent music. We talked music, life, philosophy and hit it off immediately." But Ms. Hannigan didn't expect to sing any of his music. "I admired him, of course," she said in a recent interview, "but I was also kind of scared of him." The possibility of working together did eventually come up, and Mr. Zorn gave her the score of his song cycle "Jumalatarret," which was composed in 2012 but hadn't yet been performed. They just needed a pianist. Mr. Gosling was a Zorn veteran by that point: Mr. Zorn had written "Illuminations," which experiments with improvisation within a notated work, for him, and more premieres had followed. In an interview, Mr. Gosling said he has long found himself drawn to "this little bit of the unknown" in Mr. Zorn's work. "It's just knowing that I'm going to get something that's really challenging," he said. "I'm always going to get something that's going to genre hop and shift textures and shift time signatures. He always likes to push the boundaries." Rarely has Mr. Zorn pushed the boundaries as much as in "Jumalattaret." The cycle nine sections, as well as an opening invocation and a postlude contains text from the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, with a score that draws from a variety of genres, moods and techniques, as well as, Mr. Zorn said, "the quality of ritual and extremes of experience." A self identified "admirer of the female warrior spirit," he named each section after a Sami goddess . In the sections that follow, the soprano is asked to wobble vibrato like bird song; dash through rhythmically complex runs that jump throughout the staff; laugh deeply, as if possessed; play percussion and clap; and navigate a page long cadenza in which each measure is a minefield of intonation and technique. Yet between these passages is also astonishing beauty, even the sublime: rending melodies fit for lullabies, ethereal humming that hovers delicately, like a visiting spirit. "Most of my work involves pushing the envelope of technical mastery," Mr. Zorn said. "For me, challenges are opportunities. You must believe enough in what you are doing to put yourself in harm's way because only through discipline and extremes of experience is one able to transcend the trivial and mundane. As a sacred piece, 'Jumalattaret' needed very much to capture those feeling tones." Ms. Hannigan and Mr. Gosling began rehearsing the piece, with help from Mr. Zorn, in late 2017, with the intention of recording it as soon as possible. But it wasn't coming together. The score doesn't offer many opportunities for the singer get her pitch from the piano, so Ms. Hannigan needed to ingrain the part into her muscle memory. To master the breakneck speed, she began by learning the notes at a slow hum to avoid damaging her voice. "You've got to tame the wild horse and get a saddle on it," she said. "This piece took a lot for me to be able to do that." Among the most grueling sections were the ones in which Ms. Hannigan and Mr. Gosling were required to remain together despite very different virtuosic lines. "In the second movement," Mr. Gosling said, "it's quite a brief passage, but it's polyrhythmic and it goes all over the keyboard. But then we have to suddenly realign. You have to be selectively deaf." They decided to postpone the recording. (A session still hasn't happened, though Ms. Hannigan feels she is ready now.) Instead, they gave themselves nine months to prepare for what would end up being the piece's premiere, at the Jazz em Agosto festival in Lisbon. In between, Ms. Hannigan joined her family for a summer vacation in Nova Scotia. "Vacation" is a misnomer for Ms. Hannigan; she typically practices every morning. (She once spent a Christmas trip telling her family she needed a nap so she could have some time alone with the score for "Lulu.") That summer in Canada, she worked on "Jumalattaret" until about 2 or 3 p.m. But even after that, she couldn't relax. "I couldn't land it," Ms. Hannigan said. "I was in a state of panic and anxiety. I knew I wasn't ready." This had happened before with other pieces, but she could always rely on something to click, she said, for the music to wash over her like a wave. That moment, it seemed, refused to come with "Jumalattaret," and the premiere was rapidly approaching. In a deus ex machina stroke, she and Mr. Zorn received a message from Mr. Gosling: He had fractured his collarbone while on a vacation of his own, and he wasn't sure he would be able to play in Lisbon. "None of the doctors said yes, none of them said no," Mr. Gosling recalled. "They all said maybe." Ms. Hannigan saw this as a sign, and a welcome opportunity for more time. But then Mr. Gosling sent another message: He expected to recover before the concert. Fearing the worst, Ms. Hannigan wrote to Mr. Zorn with a progress report whose subtext suggested a cry for help. He responded: one cannot transcend anything by staying on safe ground and it is in these intense moments that we can find deeper truths, bring mind and heart together and begin to understand the soul and its workings in that courageous moment of letting go and going for it, the music will become alive in a special and heroic way a way that is beyond just the notes on paper Energized by that email, Ms. Hannigan returned to "Jumalattaret." And something changed, both mentally and musically: It now worked. When a piece clicks, she said, "you feel the flow, can almost taste it coming." "There's a point a day or two after that where you can start having a kind of consistency of flow," she added. "It's as if all the other chemicals start working a different way. The brain starts making other connections, the body starts making other connections. Everything starts to tingle." One phrase five measures of eighth notes, followed by a note sustained for an entire measure still bothered her because she couldn't sing it in a single breath. But at the Lisbon performance, with Mr. Zorn watching from the front row, she landed it for the first time. And she landed it again when the piece traveled to the Ojai Music Festival in June, where "Jumalattaret" was greeted with cheers. "It has changed everything," Ms. Hannigan said. "It's one of those pieces that was life changing." Ms. Hannigan and Mr. Zorn naturally wondered what else they could collaborate on. Since Lisbon, they have improvised together (she was a guest at one of his "Hermetic Organ" concerts), and her Zorn program at the Armory will include her first performance of his "Pandora's Box," with the JACK Quartet. She started learning the piece in the spring, but it surprise, surprise hasn't come easily. "So that," she said, "is what ruined this summer." Oct. 15 and 17 at the Park Avenue Armory, Manhattan; armoryonpark.org.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Republicans, you are probably tired of hearing how so many Americans are sicker than their peers in other rich countries, lacking access to needed medical care. There are only so many times one can take being unfavorably compared to Denmark. As you regroup after the collapse of your bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, hoping to figure out some new approach to dismember it, you might want to think not about Denmark, but about Rwanda. Rwanda's economy adds up to some 700 per person, less than one eightieth of the average economic output of an American. A little more than two decades ago it was shaken by genocidal interethnic conflict that killed hundreds of thousands. Still today, a newborn Rwandan can expect to live to 64, 15 years less than an American baby. But over the past 15 years or so, Rwanda has built a near universal health care system that covers more than 90 percent of the population, financed by tax revenue, foreign aid and voluntary premiums scaled by income. Rwandan lives may be short, but they are 18 years longer than they were at the turn of the century double the average increase of their peers in sub Saharan Africa. More than 97 percent of Rwandan infants are vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae Type B, polio, measles, rubella, pneumococcus and rotavirus, noted a 2014 study led by Dr. Paul Farmer, of Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, then Rwanda's health minister. Almost all Rwandan adolescent girls are vaccinated against human papillomavirus, which causes cervical cancer. That compares with about four in 10 girls in the United States. Republicans, I know Rwanda with its poverty, illiteracy and autocratic government is not in the same peer group as the United States. But in some dimensions of health care, it gives the United States a run for its money. Its infant mortality rate, for one, dropped by almost three quarters since 2000, to 31 per 1,000 births in 2015, vastly outpacing the decline in its region. In the United States, by contrast, infant mortality declined by about one fifth over the period, to 5.6 per 1,000 births. In Portugal a developed country that is not quite as rich it fell by almost half, to 3. Critically, Rwanda may impress upon you an idea that has captured the imagination of policy makers in even the poorest corners of the world: Access to health care might be thought of as a human right. The idea is inspiring countries from Ghana to Thailand and from Mexico to China to develop, within their political and financial limitations, universal health care systems to offer some measure of access to all. One is that it is hard to finance a universal system with voluntary payments. The young and the healthy will be reluctant to pay, leaving only the sick in the insurance pool, which would push the cost of premiums to unaffordable heights and ultimately cause the system to collapse. "No country has attained universal population coverage based on a system organized around voluntary prepayment," the World Bank researchers wrote. In fact, they said, in 2012 there were only five countries with more than 600,000 people where voluntary payments accounted for more than one fifth of total health spending. (The United States was one.) Several developing countries that initially leaned on voluntary premiums to finance their push toward universal health care have turned increasingly to direct government funding, either from earmarked taxes or general budget revenues. Another rule of thumb is that it is best to consolidate the health care system into one big risk pool for the entire population, as Ghana, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam are aiming to do. Having several different pools one for the poor, another for the aged, another for employees of this or that company blocks the cross subsidization from the rich to the poor, the young to the old and the healthy to the sick upon which insurance relies. It makes it tougher to control costs, as doctors and hospitals facing a cost control squeeze in one pool might simply charge more to patients or insurers in the other. A critical third point is that it will be prohibitively expensive to provide universal health care access without cost controls and mechanisms to pare back unnecessary care. Rwanda, for instance, introduced a results based financing approach that pays providers based on performance. Thailand's National Health Security Office, the single purchaser for three quarters of the country's population, has negotiated lower prices of medicines, medical products and interventions. To offer universal access to renal replacement therapy without breaking the budget, it limited access to more expensive hemodialysis therapy paying instead for cheaper peritoneal dialysis.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
BAYREUTH, Germany The Bayreuth Festival Theater famously leaves audiences sweltering. When I arrived here last week, my Airbnb host warned, "If it's hot outside, it will be even hotter inside." Imagine, then, what it's like to be in the orchestra pit. Some of Wagner's operas his 10 major works are the only ones presented by the 142 year old Bayreuth Festival run well beyond four hours. But the pit is cradled under the stage, virtually hidden from view. So conductors can get away with a lax dress code. "I wear jeans and a T shirt, maybe a polo, and I change every act," Christian Thielemann, the festival's 59 year old music director, said in a phone interview before a performance of "Lohengrin" this week. For curtain calls, he quickly changes into what he calls his "Mao suit," sweats through that, then escapes offstage for a cognac or whiskey and a shower. "It's good that you don't see everything that happens here," he said with a laugh. "It's funny, very human." Mr. Thielemann is something of a rarity, a conductor who has thrived so much so that his title, music director, is more or less unprecedented at a festival that is known to challenge even the most established maestros. The design of that sunken pit is the problem: Its idiosyncratic design makes for awkward delays as sound travels to and from the stage, and to the audience in the theater. Some guests never return after one season. But when the pieces of this aural puzzle fit together, the results are magical. Sound emerges from the pit perfectly balanced with the chorus and soloists, as if the performance were being edited in a recording studio and broadcast in real time. Mr. Thielemann's "Lohengrin" Prelude enveloped the house with a mysterious, sublime shimmer. "When I need my Bayreuth ears, I have to cut my normal ears off, and then someone puts the new ears on," said Mr. Thielemann, who tends to speak poetically. "At the end of the summer, the new ears are cut off, and then I have my old ears back." For all his artistry, Mr. Thielemann approaches his work with a craftsman's care. Indeed, he's even a bit old fashioned and regularly praises the traditional role of the Kapellmeister in German churches and theaters. His beliefs have also earned him a reputation as a conservative, even far right, sympathizer. Fair enough: It was after 3:30 p.m., and the curtain at Bayreuth is a strict 4 o'clock. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation. How do you change your conducting for Bayreuth? The sound is so different that you have to do certain things like a mechanic: You close a window here and you open another there, or you need some more hot water or cold water. It's kind of like an electrician or plumber, how you try to get the right mixture of sound. It's very much a Kapellmeister task. I know that in the English speaking world, the word Kapellmeister has not a good sound: boring, uninspired conducting. But when you have these skills, the conducting becomes second nature, and then you can make your art. Where do you see yourself in the tradition of Bayreuth conductors? I have my own point of view, but yes, I think the traditional Kapellmeister tradition has been good for Bayreuth. If you see all the great conductors, they were Kapellmeisters: Karajan, Knappertsbusch and Furtwangler. They were successful here, but you will see they had this typical Kapellmeister career. What is your philosophy for hiring singers? I like singers who do not bark too much. It's strange, but the singers who give too much voice are not good for Bayreuth. And everyone, even famous singers, have to make an audition. It's not really an audition for the opera, but for the house. The house lives; I try to explain to them that the house is living as an animal. The house, like a dog, wants to sniff a little bit and see if you are nice to him. Not everyone wants to do it. Right wing politicians have criticized theaters for taking stances on political issues and the refugee crisis. Where do you think the Bayreuth Festival does or should fit into this? Don't forget Bayreuth is a provincial city. It is famous because the sister of Frederick the Great and Wagner, but it is very calm and in a good way provincial. I find the mentality is very laid back. You can see how because so many people are overweight: They love eating and drinking wonderful beers. It's very different from Berlin and the bigger cities, so the political earthquakes are far away. But there were protesters and counterprotesters at the opening night of "Lohengrin" as politicians walked the red carpet. They are carried out here just to appear on television. Don't misunderstand that. I don't know that they were really from Bayreuth. Protesters and politicians come, and you can write something for the newspaper, but one day after, everything is gone. It is a storm in a glass of water. Regardless, what should a theater's role be in engaging with politics? My opinion is that I'm a little bit overfed with politics in a theater. I think you should say something, but you also allow for other opinions. You have to have respect for even people you don't respect. So you think liberal theaters should make room for conservative opinions? Well, you are doing something wrong if your view harms another person. Certain opinions are for a good reason forbidden. That's when you're going too far. You know, if you say racist opinions or whatever. There are certain things that are forbidden. They are banned. That's very good. But you can still express things which are a bit uncomfortable. You cannot say every opinion; there is a limit, and you have to stop at a certain point. But before we come to that stop, there is so much space left, you see?	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Winston Groom, a Southern writer who found a measure of belated celebrity when his 1986 novel, "Forrest Gump," was made into the 1994 Oscar winning film starring Tom Hanks, died on Thursday at his home in Fairhope, Ala. He was 77. He died in his sleep, most likely from a heart attack, his stepson Frederick Helmsing said. Mr. Groom had published three well regarded novels and a nonfiction finalist for a Pulitzer Prize when he wrote the book that would define him as a writer and turn the Gumpian phrase "life is like a box of chocolates" into a modern day proverb. "Forrest Gump" tells the picaresque adventures of an Alabama man who stumbles through contemporary American history with an IQ of 70 and a headful of folksy wisdom. The novel sold respectably and earned good reviews. The novelist and critic Jonathan Baumbach describe it in The New York Times Book Review as "a kind of defanged 'Candide,' an unabrasive satire of the idiocy of life in our time." But when "Gump" was made into a film by Paramount Pictures, it became a cultural phenomenon. Forrest Gump became, like Huck Finn and Atticus Finch, to name two other fictional Southerners, a beloved American character. His koan like sayings "stupid is as stupid does" and the line about chocolates (neither of which appeared as such in the novel) entered the lexicon as "Gumpisms."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
So it's the 2019 Vanity Fair Oscar party, and John McEnroe is waiting to get his picture taken by the portrait photographer Mark Seliger, because that's the kind of party favor you get at the Vanity Fair Oscar party. He's about to take his turn when Mindy Kaling, the comedy writer and actor best known for her work on "The Office" and "The Mindy Project," comes out of the pop up photo studio. As McEnroe remembers it, Kaling immediately launched into this soliloquy about how she has this idea for him to be in her new series and she has to talk to him. McEnroe has gotten used to this sort of thing happening every so often. Usually he never hears from the person again. In this case, Kaling actually followed up, and a year later McEnroe, one the greatest tennis players (and hotheads) of all time, is somehow the narrator for the life and the inner voice of Devi Vishwakumar, a 15 year old boy crazy Indian American girl from the San Fernando Valley in "Never Have I Ever," Kaling's Netflix series that made its debut this spring. "I don't know why it works," McEnroe, 61, said last week in a phone interview from his home in Malibu, Calif., where he has been hunkering down since the Covid 19 crisis shuttered much of the American economy in March. "At first people are like, 'What?' I'm not the normal voice over sound." To be clear, McEnroe is not a complete stranger to Hollywood. There were his less than memorable Bic commercials in the 1980s, and then more successful cameos in the Adam Sandler movie "Mr. Deeds" and on "Curb Your Enthusiasm." He is also one of the lead tennis commentators on ESPN's coverage of the grand slam tournaments. But voicing the trials of a nerdy girl obsessed with a hunky swimmer and struggling with the sudden death of her father? That was not a role he saw coming. Kaling, the daughter of Indian immigrants, has described the Indian love of tennis as an "English Anglophile kind of thing." In a statement issued through Netflix, Lang Fisher, the show's executive producer, said that once the creators decided that Devi, the lead character played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, was going to have both an inner monologue and a McEnroe like temper, they figured they might as well see if McEnroe was up for doing the narration. "We just thought it would be funny," said Fisher, whose favorite parts of the show are when McEnroe comes off as incredibly invested in the lives of the teenagers. McEnroe has long had something of a performance bug. A guitarist who is married to the musician Patty Smyth, he long ago began hopping onstage with his favorite music stars. And yet while tennis is usually sports' ultimate solo act no caddies, no coaches, no cornermen he insists he never thought of himself as a performer when he was playing, though other people might have, given the notorious tirades that he still can't really explain. "At the end I felt like I was becoming a caricature of myself," he said of his playing career. "Sometimes I wonder if I was doing it because I was like a cigarette smoker and I couldn't break the habit." He also still doesn't understand why his opponents were so bothered by his behavior. Looking back, he figures all those insults earned him some payback from the linesmen and umpires who probably helped the players on the other side of the net. Some of those highlights get another go on "Never Have I Ever," including the infamous "Answer my question! The question, jerk!" eruption at the Swedish Open in 1984. After confronting the chair umpire, McEnroe smashed several glasses of ice water with a backhand forehand combination. The umpire penalized him a game. McEnroe later won the match, 1 6, 7 6, 6 2. "I went over the line," McEnroe said of his behavior during his career. "I got so frustrated." So does Devi, and despite their obvious differences McEnroe relishes the chance to explain what's going on inside her head and the unforced errors she is making. "She's more of a hothead than I was in high school," McEnroe said of the teenage character, whose lower moments include shattering her bedroom window with a textbook and telling her mother she wishes she had died rather than her father. McEnroe, on the other hand, eventually earned the nickname Superbrat from the British press.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Judy Drucker, a South Florida impresario who for decades brought the stars of concert music, opera and dance to Miami, elevating the city's cultural scene with inexhaustible enthusiasm and self confidence, died on March 30 at a care facility in Miami. She was 91. Her daughter Vicki Schwartz said the cause was complications of Alzheimer's disease. From the late 1960s until about a decade ago, Ms. Drucker presented a panoply of talented artists to the Miami area. The list includes Beverly Sills, Isaac Stern, Vladimir Horowitz, Yo Yo Ma, Leonard Bernstein, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Richard Tucker, Twyla Tharp, Zubin Mehta, Pinchas Zukerman, Daniel Barenboim, Wynton Marsalis and the Three Tenors. She also arranged for performances by many of the world's foremost orchestras and dance companies, like the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Bolshoi Ballet. Ms. Drucker was a tireless promoter and fund raiser. She created and ran several different organizations, including the Great Artists Series and the Concert Association of Florida. She staged performances at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, the New World Center, what is now the Jackie Gleason Theater in Miami Beach and the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale. Though her operations' finances were often precarious, she still delivered top performers, decade after decade. Mark Bryn, a lawyer and friend of Ms. Drucker's who supported many of her musical ventures, said in a phone interview that she "was not fettered by the fact that she didn't have all the pieces in place at the same time." "She figured that if she could get the artist, she'll get the funding, or if she got the funding, she'd get the artist," Mr. Bryn said. Ms. Drucker, who had trained as a soprano and a pianist, formed bonds with the artists she enticed to Miami and went to great lengths to make them happy. She reportedly convinced the owners of Joe's Stone Crab restaurant, a Miami institution, to feed Mr. Baryshnikov long after closing time; made sure that Luciano Pavarotti was able to cook in his hotel suite; and had a supply of fresh gray sole flown to Miami from Massachusetts for Mr. Horowitz. The Siberian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky told The Miami Herald in 2001 that Ms. Drucker was a master of fulfilling what he called "the three Fs." "She pays the fee, she fills the house and she feeds you," Mr. Hvorostovsky said. "It's something like you would expect from your mother." Ms. Drucker welcomed artists into her home, letting them practice on her Steinway concert grand piano and cooking them elaborate meals. Such warmth was an expression of her admiration and fondness for the artists, people who knew her said, as well as a lure for their return. "I don't think of Judy as a sort of 'local impresario,'" the violinist Itzhak Perlman told The Miami Herald in 1985. "I think of her as a friend of mine, and I come and play for her." Judith Reva Nelson was born in Brooklyn on June 20, 1928, to Isidore and Lillian (Levine) Nelson. Her mother was an opera singer and pianist who kindled her daughter's fascination with music. Her father was a Russian Jewish immigrant who ran a women's clothing and hosiery business. Judith grew up singing and playing piano in New York. When she was in junior high school the family moved to Florida, where she missed performing. She took to singing in nightclubs. During the summers she studied singing at the Juilliard School in Manhattan, and after she graduated from high school in Miami Beach in 1945 she studied music at the University of Miami while singing at the renowned Latin Quarter club by night. She met David Drucker, a law school student and former Marine, in college. They married shortly before she graduated, and she mostly stopped singing to become a homemaker, though she did not give it up entirely. She met Pavarotti while singing in the chorus during his American debut, a performance of Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" in Miami in 1965. Ms. Drucker became an impresario in the mid 1960s as a way to escape domestic life. She felt so directionless at the time, she told The Herald in 1985, that during the day she thought she was "going to pass out standing there in the kitchen." So she contacted the rabbi of Temple Beth Sholom in Miami Beach to propose a series of lectures. The synagogue agreed, and the series included appearances by the writers David Halberstam and Elie Wiesel. Those lectures eventually expanded into musical performances that became the Great Artists Series. In June 2007, Ms. Drucker left her position as president and artistic director of the Concert Association after having differences with the board over budget deficits. By August she had become the senior artistic adviser for the Florida Grand Opera. In addition to her daughter Vicki, she is survived by another daughter, Kathy Drucker; a son, Andrew; seven grandchildren; and six great grandchildren. Ms. Drucker said that her hard work in service of Miami's cultural scene was motivated by one thing. "I wanted to hear beautiful music," she said in 1985. "You've got to have music where you live. So you just go out and you get it."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Our guide to new art shows and some that will be closing soon. 'JAPANESE BAMBOO ART: THE ABBEY COLLECTION' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Feb. 4). This fabulous show celebrates Diane and Arthur Abbey's gift of some 70 bamboo baskets and sculptures, which nearly doubles the Met's already outstanding holdings in this genre and brings them into the 20th and 21st centuries. The curator has embedded this trove within what is essentially a second exhibition that traces bamboo's presence through folding screens, ink paintings, porcelain, netsuke, kimonos and more. (Roberta Smith) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'ETTORE SOTTSASS: DESIGN RADICAL' at the Met Breuer (through Oct. 8). No surprise here: The first big New York survey of this many styled Italian design guru's 60 year career has a combative air. You may argue your way through the show, and also take issue with some of its contextual artworks the exhibition is nearly half non Sottsass but it is an invigorating, illuminating experience. (Smith) 212 731 1675, metmuseum.org 'EUGEN GABRITSCHEVSKY: THEATER OF THE IMPERCEPTIBLE' at the American Folk Art Museum (closes on Aug. 20). Eugen Gabritschevsky was well on his way to a successful career as a geneticist when a series of nervous breakdowns left him, in his late 30s, institutionalized. Unable to continue his research, he turned to his other childhood passion drawing. The quality of the more than 3,000 gouaches he produced over the next five decades is mixed, but at its best, Gabritschevsky's work presents a series of mesmerizing dispatches from some archetypal dream world. (Will Heinrich) 212 595 9533, folkartmuseum.org	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
The study was done in mosquitoes bred in the U.T.M.B. insectary, "so we need to confirm whether this occurs in nature, too," Dr. Tesh said. Answering that question will mean collecting eggs and larvae in the wild from the mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti, that carry the infection. "Aedes aegypti are hard to find," Dr. Tesh said. "They aren't as numerous as other mosquitoes." Zika's relatives in the flavivirus family including yellow fever, dengue, West Nile, Japanese encephalitis and St. Louis encephalitis all have the ability to skip down a generation in various mosquito species. But so called filial infection is usually rare. In the case of Zika, only one daughter Aedes aegypti mosquito out of 300 inherits the virus from an infected mother, Dr. Tesh's team estimated. The team also tested Aedes albopictus, a related species that is more widespread through the United States. The researchers found that no progeny inherited the virus from an infected mother. By contrast, Dr. Tesh said, filial infection is important for the La Crosse virus, which causes serious brain disease or death in about 72 Americans each year, most of them children. That virus is transmitted to humans by Aedes triseriatus, a forest mosquito that picks it up from chipmunks.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
As with so many things, the pandemic has altered the way we see color, and specifically, what colors we do and do not want to surround ourselves with while bunkered down at home. Some color trends have accelerated during the pandemic. Other long popular shades are suddenly all wrong. "There is a huge wave away from gray," said Joa Studholme, the color curator for Farrow Ball, the fancy English paint company. "There's nothing about gray that evokes wellness." No, the classic pandemic home, she said, "would have a dark hallway in Minster Green and the colors coming off it would be Dead Salmon or Jitney in the living room and Light Blue with its silvery quality in the kitchen. (Farrow Ball has famously evocative names for their shades.) Ms. Studholme, 59, was picturing a London townhome, but she could easily have been conjuring a Brooklyn brownstone, a suburban Cape Cod or an old farmhouse in the country, freshly painted for the aspirational work from home, shelter in place, when will this be over life. "There is a tendency to crave warm tones in challenging times," she said. "It's all about being warm and earthy and choosing deeply saturated color. It's about trying something that gives you a great big hug." For Farrow Ball, which recently released its 2021 color trend report, that means "friendly and relatable" tones like Tanner's Brown, India Yellow and Dead Salmon, which, despite its unappealing name, is a lovely aged pink. Other paint brands are in consensus. Consider Benjamin Moore's color of the year for 2021, announced last month: Aegean Teal. Or Sherwin Williams choosing Urbane Bronze, a rich neutral that's part of the brand's "Sanctuary palette," as its primary color for 2021. In normal times, a paint brand proclaiming the stylishness of one color among thousands has more than the whiff of marketing a trivial gesture meant to sell more paint. But we are all spending so much time at home, and color has been shown to affect mood and ease anxiety, as Artnews recently pointed out, so finding the right shade for the moment does take on a certain significance. "One of the things that's happening with color and the pandemic," said Amy Wax, a color consultant, "is people are seeing their homes for the first time and saying, 'This could feel better. I need to make a change.'" During the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, Ms. Wax's clients wanted colors that were neutral and understated, and every appointment ended with the homeowners' mantra: in case I have to sell. "Now I'm hearing, 'I need a color I can spend a lot of time in,'" Ms. Wax said. "That's the pandemic effect." That rules out white and gray, hard edge and architectural shades with a formality to them. And while our homes are doing double duty as living and work space, so, too, does a wall color need to do more these days than just soothe. "Our homes need to rejuvenate and inspire us now," Ms. Studholme said. She explained her current approach: "I'm creating two very different areas in the house. Somewhere bright and light to work in the day, and then if you have the luxury of another room, make that much darker for the evening." Changing from light to dark follows the natural flow of the hours and "gives you more structure to your day and a basic sense of well being," Ms. Studholme said. Andrea Magno, the director of color marketing and development at Benjamin Moore, said meetings to decide the brand's color for 2021 started in December of 2019. Back then, Ms. Magno, 43, and her team didn't consider the coronavirus and its world altering effects. But by spring, the lifestyle trends they anticipated multitasking in the home, finding fulfillment at home instead of at restaurants or other public spaces, a more introverted approach to life generally fit the new reality made by the pandemic and were turbocharged by it. Aegean Teal "had a presence about it," Ms. Magno said. It wasn't too deep or too pale, while its muted mid tone made it "easy to live with." People are craving color, Ms. Magno added. "I love neutrals more than anybody," she said. "But you see that need to bring some color into the home." Tara Mangini, 37, did that by walking through fields of wildflowers and using nature as a point of inspiration. Ms. Mangini and her partner, Percy Bright, run the design firm Jersey Ice Cream Company. They are serial renovators who move from house to house, rehabbing them for clients. Their latest project is a late 1800s farmhouse in the tiny upstate hamlet of Parksville, N.Y. "We were outside a ton this summer," Ms. Mangini said. "The wildflowers there, the fields are filled with so many purples and yellows. I said, 'This is the color palette.'" Ms. Mangini and Mr. Bright, 36, also create the colors for their plaster work by adding pigments to water that's later mixed with dry plaster. For the wall of a guest bedroom in the farmhouse, they used a formula that left them with a peachy pink plaster. The color is both reminiscent of Farrow Ball's Dead Salmon and has the same sunbaked quality as the 12 colors in Benjamin Moore's color trends palette. Ms. Mangini was unaware of those brands' highlighted shades, but she didn't think the overlap was a coincidence. Color works on us in mysterious ways, and collectively, she said: "As much as I want to think I'm an individual thinker, I have a feeling I'm on the same color wheel trajectory as everyone." Ms. Mangini offered a color trend of her own, inspired by her time outdoors. "Purple is not there yet, but I feel it's coming," she said. "A light lavender."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Over the past decade, hundreds of public projects have benefited from a federal incentive meant to encourage investments in energy efficient technology. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey used it to save 1 million on building One World Trade Center and upgrading bus terminals and airports. In Florida, Miami Dade County sliced 1.13 million off the price tag of an improved cooling system in its county hall, courthouses and downtown sports arena. But a growing chorus of public agencies complain that they were prevented from benefiting from this same incentive in their own building projects. Conflicting interpretations of the law and how it should be applied, they say, have caused taxpayer funded schools, prisons, military bases and libraries throughout the nation to lose out on millions of dollars in savings. The issue has heated up as state and local governments, and other public entities, move more aggressively to claim a piece of this federal subsidy. Lobbyists and lawyers have joined the scramble as Congress revisits this incentive and decides whether to extend it along with a raft of other tax breaks left out of last year's tax overhaul. The Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that this one energy deduction, over the past five years, was worth 1.1 billion. Yet even as public entities miss out on the savings, a juicy chunk of the money is going to consulting firms that handle the complex certification and filing requirements. To Steven M. Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington and a former member of the joint tax committee's staff, these types of tax breaks are inefficient, and fall short of the target. "It rarely gives the benefits to the parties you intended to give it to," he said, "and more often rewards parties that you never intended to reward." When Congress first approved this incentive known as 179D as part of the Energy Policy Act in 2005, the aim was to encourage energy efficiency in commercial property. One carrot was a tax deduction that enabled property owners to reduce the cost of green buildings. A tax deduction, however, is of no use if you don't pay any income taxes and government entities don't. So to include public projects, Congress added a provision allowing buildings on government owned property to transfer the deduction worth 1.80 a square foot to a private company that created the building's energy saving system. The law did not specify whether a public project or agency should get anything in exchange for the transfer. But taxpayer advocates argue that enabling a public entity to negotiate with a private contractor for a reduced fee or a rebate in return for signing away the 179D deduction was clearly the point. The question of who deserves to benefit from the 179D tax deduction is particularly complicated because both contractors and governments are often unaware of it until after the project's completion. That's where the consultants come in. "Not many know about this," said Barry Fischman, a partner at the accounting firm Marcum. Most of the time, he said, the deduction is sought when "the job is already done, finished and closed." No matter that the tax break did not work as intended since it did not act as an incentive to invest in energy efficiencies that wouldn't have been done anyway. It can still be claimed. Tax consultants, pointing out that recent tax returns can be amended, urge private contractors to take advantage of a windfall and request 179D transfers related to previous public projects. Public agencies, however, complain of simultaneously being told that they have no right to engage in a parallel look back and ask for a share of that money in return for the transfer. That argument is what spurred the University of Texas and University of Houston Systems to file a lawsuit asserting that Alliantgroup, a politically connected tax credit consulting firm, engaged in a "nationwide scheme" to obtain 179D tax deductions from "thousands of governmental entities without any compensation." In the lawsuit, they accuse the firm of presenting false information that the university was required to allocate 12.25 million worth of deductions to its contractors without receiving any compensation. The firm, the suit said, also pressured unauthorized employees to sign the transfers. In a statement, Alliantgroup said: "We are disappointed that the University of Texas System and University of Houston System have been led into a frivolous lawsuit against Alliantgroup and our client." The firm also noted that members of Congress and other government agencies had said 179D "was not intended to provide kickbacks to government entities who do not pay taxes in exchange for a tax deduction allocation letter." Alliantgroup boasts an impressive roster of advisory experts to back up its interpretation, like Mark W. Everson, a former commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, and Dean Zerbe, who worked on the Senate Finance Committee. Former I.R.S. managers, state governors, representatives and administration officials also sit on its strategic advisory board, including Tom Ridge, a former governor of Pennsylvania and secretary of homeland security, and Rick A. Lazio, a former New York congressman. In March, Mr. Lazio testified at a congressional hearing that the 179D deduction should be expanded to nonprofits and Indian tribes and made permanent. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland, raised the issue of kickbacks, too, in 2016 when the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development asked for compensation in exchange for transferring its energy deductions from a completed project. A spokeswoman for Mr. Cardin said the senator's objection referred solely to public agencies demanding a fee for administering the confirmation letter, and not to "using 179D writ large as a way to negotiate a project's cost." Other schools have also taken issue with applications overseen by Alliantgroup. The University of Connecticut discovered that the firm had solicited a 179D transfer from unauthorized employees on behalf of different clients for the same project. "I was dismayed," said Scott A. Jordan, the University of Connecticut's chief financial officer. "There seemed to be a bounty sort of system where companies like Alliant were coming in and pressing owners to sign off on behalf of clients." The incident, he said, prompted the university to devise a formal policy on how to handle the incentive. At the same time, concerns that private businesses may be improperly filing claims on work done in public buildings helped prompt the large business division of the I.R.S. to add the 179D deduction to its watch list. As for the broader issue of who should benefit, Mr. Jordan pointed out that the university's board already required buildings to be energy efficient. "If we have already established policy, we don't need an incentive to do that," he said. But if the federal government is going to subsidize energy efficiency, he added, then "the owners should be the recipients of the subsidy and not the builder."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
Antonio Cruz, like so many New Yorkers in this pandemic, is stuck at home. Except in his case, home is a 28,000 square foot, Greek Revival mansion in a forest in the Bronx. And he lives there rent free. Mr. Cruz, 49, is the steward of Bartow Pell Mansion Museum in the northeast corner of the borough, through a city program called the Historic House Trust, a partnership of the Department of Parks and Recreation and several nonprofit groups. He is one of just 22 resident caretakers living free of charge to protect and maintain some of the city's oldest and most cherished properties, all of which are now closed to the public because of the coronavirus. "It's like a vacation," at least compared to life before the virus, Mr. Cruz said on a recent, spotty phone call the landline in the 1840s home was on the fritz, and cell service can be unreliable on the roughly 2,700 acre grounds of Pelham Bay Park, the largest in New York City. And with museums not expected to reopen until the fourth and final phase of the city's plan, the caretakers are settling in for what could be months of limbo. "I often feel they are the unsung heroes in the stories of our houses," said John Krawchuk, the executive director of the Historic House Trust, a preservation program established in 1989 that includes Gracie Mansion, the mayor's residence, and the onetime cottage of Edgar Allan Poe in the Bronx. He oversees 23 historic sites, all but one of which have live in caretakers who ensure the houses are never empty and keep things running smoothly. The positions are unpaid, but many caretakers work part time as museum guides or groundskeepers, or do any number of side jobs to help cover their other expenses. Roy Fox, a former radio broadcaster, is the program's longest tenured steward, with 30 years of service. "I am an 80 year old who's never worked a legitimate day in his life, and now it's a matter of building on that record," he quipped from his home office, on the third floor of the King Manor Museum in Jamaica, Queens. The 18th century, Federalist style farmhouse was once the home of the New York State Senator Rufus King, a framer and signer of the constitution who opposed slavery. Mr. Fox has spent the better part of three decades burnishing the King legacy through dramatic readings of King's work and guided tours of the 29 room mansion. That came to an abrupt stop in early March, when the museum, set in the middle of the 11 acre Rufus King Park, was closed to the public and its small staff was sent home. But Mr. Fox's watch continues: The house has been occupied every day since he moved in on Labor Day weekend in 1989, he said. (When he travels, he gets someone to cover for him and he said he has visited nearly every baseball park in the country, including the minor leagues.) He lives in a spacious two bedroom apartment upstairs, converted from servant quarters, overlooking trees planted by Mr. King himself. He loves public radio and is an avid reader, with over 4,000 books in his apartment, many on American and British history. He hasn't owned a television since 1982 or a car since 1972. "If you had the bucks, Jamaica was the Hamptons of its time," said Mr. Gary, referring to the current surge of affluent New Yorkers fleeing for the countryside. As for the current resident, "I don't have concerns about Roy Fox being lonely at all," he said. "He's the kind of guy who would ride a train to Schenectady just to give himself time to read. He's going to be A OK." Others are getting in some quality time with family. Mr. Cruz, the steward of Bartow Pell Manor in the Bronx, is seeing more of his wife, Mary Janet Cruz, and their sons, Scott, 21, and Joseph, 17, who are home from school. The couple, originally from Peru, moved into the 28,000 square foot mansion in 1999, and raised both of their sons in a two bedroom caretaker apartment on the second floor of the estate. It was a hard adjustment. "After my first two nights alone, I said, 'I want to quit,'" Mr. Cruz recalls telling his wife, who moved in a week later. At the time, the house had neither a television nor a radio, but it scarcely mattered because the thick woods around the house cut off reception. And the banging of the radiator at night sounded like stomping footsteps. "I was a little scared," he admits, but Ms. Cruz, who grew up on rural farms in Peru, told him to tough it out. The home could feel isolating even before the pandemic. The nearest neighbor is a gas station, about 30 minutes away at a brisk jog. The couple's children attended school on nearby City Island a 10 minute drive, but nearly an hour hike through the park. And the work can be taxing. Mr. Cruz does the cleaning, event setup, and security for the property, while also working as a cook at the nearby Leewood Golf Club, which is now closed. Ms. Cruz works as a housekeeper for nearby homes. Sometimes the security system alarm will go off two or three times a week, because of strong winds or perhaps trespassers, and he'll stumble into the night with a flashlight in hand, unsure what he'll find. Once, a man broke in to use the bathroom in the attached orangerie. It has been an unusual place to raise a family. In middle school, their son Scott had a field trip to his own home. "The funny thing is, I knew everyone who worked here, so as soon as one of the tour guides came on the bus they recognized me." His classmates were amazed. But playing in the landmark rooms of the mansion was forbidden, so when friends did visit, they mostly played epic games of "manhunt" on the surrounding nine acres of landscaped gardens. More than a few instances have led the family to believe they're not alone in the house. Mr. Cruz says he's often felt the presence of others in the home, and credits the supernatural for saving his wife's new Honda Civic. Around 2005, Mr. Cruz heard a frightened scream around 2 a.m. from the end of the long driveway. The next morning, it was clear that someone tried to jimmy the window of the car, but left in a hurry. They believe a benevolent spirit, perhaps a past resident, was watching out for the caretaker. But now there is concern that much of what makes these places special, the staff and the educational programming, could be at risk, because of virus related budget cuts. The caretaker positions are safe, because they are unpaid, but many rely on paid work through the museums. "Basically 100 percent of our time is working from home and applying for funding," said Branka Duknic, the executive director of the Queens Historical Society. The group is headquartered in the Kingsland Homestead in Flushing, Queens, a 1780s Colonial style home built by a prominent Quaker family. Some staff have already been furloughed.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Like many other relics of the '80s and '90s, the scrunchie has returned to relevance in recent years at the hands of fashion designers. Chanel, Balenciaga and Mansur Gavriel have incorporated them into collections. A Danish company called Comfort Objects repurposes vintage Hermes scarves as 190 "hair clouds." Maison Cleo, a French online retailer, sends its customers a free scrunchie with every order. Model influencers like Bella Hadid and Hailey Bieber have been known to sport the occasional scrunch. The accessory has also retained its mass market appeal, and can be found larding the checkout line of many fast fashion stores, in a wide variety of prints, fabrics and volumes. Scrunchies have a largely feminine history. Britney Spears's fuzzy pigtails in the "Baby One More Time" music video and the "Full House" era Olsen twins' ponytails come easily to mind. Decades of women and girls crowned by these soft, colorful accessories are cataloged on the account scrunchiesofinstagram. Tougher to conjure are images of longhaired men whose tresses are loosely bound by a loop of fabric. The pink hair tie was Fendi's take on a nonluxury version that Mr. Momoa had received from a hairstylist and worn frequently. Ahead of the Oscars, Mr. Momoa donned the scrunchie in a promotional video for "Saturday Night Live," on "The Late Late Show With James Corden" and on an Australian talk show, where he took a second matching scrunchie from a red carpet reporter. He has called the original scrunchie "beautiful." So when the time came to design his suit for the Oscars, where the "Aquaman" star was a presenter, Mr. Momoa pointed to his scrunchie for inspiration. "I told Jeanne it would be pretty rad if we could make a suit like that," Mr. Momoa said in a video posted to his YouTube channel. Jeanne Yang is a stylist Mr. Momoa works with (she has helped a stable of superhero actors, including four Supermen and four Batmen, dress themselves). Ms. Yang reached out to Fendi, and Fendi obliged. Ms. Yang barred Mr. Momoa from wearing the old scrunchie to the Oscars, according to Vogue, so Silvia Venturini Fendi designed a new scrunchie to go with the look, as well as an additional hair tie to pair with his after party outfit. Mr. Momoa's choice of accessory made an obvious splash on the red carpet, but it also may have practical value. If you have long hair, wearing a scrunchie rather than a regular hair tie can protect your locks from damage. "If your hair is being pulled back in a tight knot, traction alopecia would be a risk, especially if the hair is long and particularly wavy," said Evan Rieder, an assistant professor of dermatology at New York University. Traction alopecia manifests as a receding hairline around the forehead and near the ears. It is caused by micro tears in hair follicles that lead to scars and prevent more hair from growing in the affected area. "A scrunchie is definitely easier on the hair," said Chris Adigun, the director of the Dermatology Laser Center of Chapel Hill. "It's much softer and creates lower friction on the hair. It flies off the hair without causing the hair to break." Mr. Momoa may have been aware of these benefits before the Oscars. Maybe he hoped that his widely shared image would encourage men to embrace style signposts that have traditionally been associated with women, in service of a future that is free of stringent, gender based rules. Or maybe he just likes pink velvet.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
I have anxious kids. So when it comes to tragic events, my general philosophy is to do whatever I can to shield them. But last month, when a shooting left 11 dead in a Pittsburgh synagogue, I was consumed by the news and it felt hard not to share with them a version of what had happened. My daughters couldn't really fathom that a person would hate anybody, let alone want to hurt people simply for being Jewish, as we ourselves are. For my 5 year old, this feeling of deep injustice quickly transformed into an outsize pride in the upcoming Hanukkah as her holiday, one that should get equal standing with Christmas. When we visited a drugstore the other day, she marched off to the aisle of holiday trinkets to assess the overall balance of sparkling tinsel to kitschy dreidels. At the bookstore, she eyed the children's section to ensure that all religions were on display (we live in Brooklyn: so, yes). While Hanukkah is probably the best known and most accessible Jewish holiday in America, it has never been a particularly important one religiously. It was elevated, starting in the 19th century, because of its proximity to Christmas and the chance it provided for Jews in America to have their own year end gift giving celebration. Cleansed, usually, of its actual roots as a story about forced assimilation and a bloody rebellion, it has also become a favorite subject of children's books, something for the Jewish boys and girls whose houses Santa skips. But the inescapable dominance of Christmas makes it hard to write about the Jewish holiday in a way that doesn't feel as if it's merely responding to the Christian one. A whole genre of books points out that Josh gets eight nights of gifts to Johnny's single day as if the point of a Hanukkah book is to make children feel O.K. about the evergreen trees and stuffed stockings they will not have. 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. One of the best depictions of Jews on their own terms is the All of a Kind Family series, the beloved books by Sydney Taylor, published between 1951 and 1978, about five sisters growing up in turn of the century New York. Basing the books on stories from her own large family on the Lower East Side, Taylor first started writing the series when her daughter complained of seeing only Christian characters in the books she was reading. (I have a feeling our daughters would have gotten along.) It was also the first chapter book series to center on a Jewish family and their rituals and traditions, from the Sabbath preparations to how they celebrate Purim and Passover. So it's fitting that one of the best Hanukkah books in a long time is an adaptation of those beloved chapter books. The author Emily Jenkins teamed up with the Caldecott Medal winning illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky to create ALL OF A KIND FAMILY HANUKKAH (Schwartz Wade, 40 pp., 17.99; ages 3 to 7), a picture book that lovingly and dutifully brings to life the family's cozy Lower East Side apartment, with Zelinsky's warm, close up illustrations and occasional dazzling cutaways which evoke both the cramped quarters and the strong emotional bonds of the family. Set in 1912, Jenkins's story focuses on the youngest daughter, 4 year old Gertie, who throws a tantrum one afternoon when she's not allowed to help make the family latkes. "No, Mausele," her mother says, pointing to the potato parer: "It's too sharp." With pans of schmaltz bubbling, Gertie is carted off for a timeout in the cramped room she shares with her sisters. There she pouts and listens to the joyous festivities happening without her. Eventually invited out by her father, Gertie joins the warmth of her family and is offered the honor of lighting a candle on the menorah and placing it in the window. Somehow even young Gertie seems to understand that while in exile in her room, she is missing out on the rituals that have bound her people together. As the family moves to the table after lighting the candles, they sit down for dinner to enjoy their hard earned latkes, which "taste of history and freedom, of love and crispy potato." As delightful as the book may be, it's a shame that many of the best Jewish children's books are still set in a bygone era on the Lower East Side, where children run through dense streets of Yiddish speaking peddlers to light the Shabbos candles on Friday nights in their parents' tenements a world that increasingly means very little to today's generation of Jewish kids. These books can turn a holiday like Hanukkah into an artifact in a museum, something that seems to have been practiced authentically only in the past as opposed to being alive and thriving today. Another new book takes a totally different approach to the holiday. In MEET THE LATKES (Viking, 36 pp., 17.99; ages 3 to 5), the author and cartoonist Alan Silberberg tells the story of Hanukkah through a nice family of latkes. "They're just like you and me, except they're potato pancakes!" he explains. The teenage latke, Lex, is in his filthy room eating pizza while Mom and Dad are in the kitchen frying up jelly doughnuts a traditional Hanukkah treat that's preferable to latkes if (as in this case) you happen to actually be a latke. Then Grandpa sits down with the little latke to recount the story of Hanukkah. "We celebrate this holiday thanks to the brave bees who buzzed and stung and fought to keep our people safe," Grandpa explains, taking some creative license with the story, turning the Maccabees into a hive of Mega Bees who fought to save the Jewish temple and the lives of Jews who worshiped there. Enter some "alien potatoes" standing in for the army of King Antiochus, and a wise family dog named Applesauce, and you've got yourself a full blown kooky comedy unpacking an ancient Talmudic tale. It's good to be reminded of the story of Hanukkah right now. The holiday invokes a tale of good guys and bad guys, of resistance, of a community holding on to its values. It's about darkness and light, and the hope that light can ultimately triumph. Even coming from the mouths of latkes, that's a story we all desperately need to hear.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Aditya Pipersenia, with the help of his fiancee, Savini Nenmini, furnished his studio from Ikea. Aditya Pipersenia came to New York as a graduate student at Columbia University, living in a dorm room at International House. After three years there, having graduated and begun work as a software developer for a bank downtown, it was time for him to leave. So, in early summer, he began the hunt for a new Manhattan place. With a rental budget of 2,000 a month, Mr. Pipersenia thought he would be unable to find more than a studio but he hoped, at least, for one that wasn't too small. He needed space for two. In November, he will marry Savini Nenmini. They met in their native India as students at the Malaviya National Institute of Technology in Jaipur. Miss Nenmini, who later did graduate work at Stanford University, works in Jersey City, and shares a place there with a roommate. "Locality was not really a preference for me," Mr. Pipersenia said. But while searching online, he noticed that the most affordable listings were on the far Upper East Side. "It's quite logical the farther from the subway, the cheaper." But the tiny sizes "really scared me," Mr. Pipersenia said. "Is this what I am signing up for? I was dumbfounded." He had been envisioning alcoves or L shaped spaces, but instead saw squares and rectangles. Often, buildings "had a nice look from the outside," but the studio inside was little more than "a bedroom with a couch." As far as price, location and size, Mr. Syed said, "it is like a trifecta. You have to prioritize. Based on his feedback, size was the most important thing." Mr. Syed showed him a 1961 elevator building in the far East 80s. Two large L shaped studios were available, each for 2,050 a month. But Mr. Pipersenia liked the one on a higher floor best, because it had an additional closet. "Even though there was no doorman, the entrance had a semiluxury feel to it," he said. "I said, 'this somewhat matches what I had in mind.' It felt nice walking into the place, compared with the ones where you have to take the stairs." But he wanted to keep hunting. "I am bad at making decisions," he said. "I have this buyer's remorse which hits me pretty soon after I buy anything of significance." A studio for 1,850 a month in an elevator building on York Avenue in the high 80s had a huge window, which Mr. Pipersenia liked. But it was on a busy avenue. By now, the alcove studio with the additional closet was his benchmark. Meanwhile, Mr. Pipersenia was e mailing photos to Miss Nenmini, who didn't mind leaving the hunt to him. "She is really not finicky in these things," he said. He made an appointment to look at a one bedroom, also in the far East 80s, for 1,900 a month. It was cheaper than the studio he liked. But the apartment was "stuck between two adjacent buildings," he said. Every window faced a brick wall. He pronounced it "very suffocating." The placement of the bathroom also gave him pause. Guests would need to walk through the bedroom to reach it. "Should it be a factor; should it not be a factor?" Mr. Pipersenia said. "Initially it might not seem to bother you too much, but when you start living there, it will cause more agony." It was time for her to see the finalists the L shaped studio and the dark one bedroom. She instantly liked the studio. But they were unable to gain immediate access to the one bedroom. So the decision was made. "Let's just go with this one," Mr. Pipersenia said. "I don't want to be left hanging for longer. I like to survey what is out there in the market and make sure I am getting the best deal for my money, but the brokers said if you take too much time to decide, the apartment will not last long. There are other brokers showing the same places." The management company required two months' rent for a security deposit. "I was taken aback a little, thinking my credit history was sound," Mr. Pipersenia said. Still, "I had been using a credit card for only one and a half years." In India, he used a debit card, which is much more common there. In fact, he got off easy, Mr. Syed said. "They asked for an additional month's security deposit due to the fact that he didn't really have a credit history. I've dealt with international students who are asked for a year upfront." Mr. Pipersenia signed a one year lease, paid a broker fee and moved in earlier in the summer. He walks almost 15 minutes to the subway because of the long lines for the crosstown bus in the morning.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
That evening, several stores in the neighborhood will stay open late for a holiday block party. Jill Stuart will introduce a limited edition Morgan Lane x Caileur travel kit that includes a silk eye mask and mini Diptyque candle ( 150). Look out for leaping lords O.K., bed jumpers clad in festive cotton PJs with contrast piping ( 148 for the top, 128 for the bottom) at Sleepy Jones. Opening Ceremony will donate 20 percent of all sales including those from its CrazyCozyCool capsule collection, which includes a fake fur baseball cap ( 65) and a varsity jacket ( 425) to KIND, a nonprofit that provides legal aid to refugee children. Jill Stuart is at 466 Broome Street; Sleepy Jones is at 25 Howard Street; Opening Ceremony is at 35 Howard Street. Find pretty shiny things like a gold Sara Cristina knot top bikini ( 245) at the W Style Lab holiday pop up shop curated by Sarah Easley, a former owner of Kirna Zabete, open through Sunday. At the W Times Square, 1567 Broadway. A Marni silk dress ( 618, originally 3,760) is among the preloved pieces available for an extra 40 percent off at the RealReal pop up, open through Sunday. At 79 Greene Street. A leopard trench ( 189, originally 1,890) is among the steals (up to 90 percent off!) at the Edun sample sale on Thursday. At 107 Grand Street, third floor. From Thursday to Sunday, the perfect basics line AYR will host a "cuddle puddle" at its pop up, with discounts of 25 percent on sweaters like a merino ribbed funnel neck ( 258, originally 325). At 199 Lafayette Street.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
Toby Anderson, 30, at a Black Lives Matter protest in Providence, R.I., on June 5. Mr. Anderson said he downloaded Signal at his mother's request. "She's a black woman in America," he told the Associated Press, explaining her concern for his safety. Over the last two weeks, the number of Americans who have downloaded Signal, an encrypted messaging application, has skyrocketed. Many are using the app to organize and participate in protests against police brutality (without being spied on by law enforcement). The week before George Floyd died on May 25, about 51,000 first time users downloaded Signal, according to data from the analytics firm Sensor Tower. The following week, as protests grew nationwide, there were 78,000 new downloads. In the first week of June, there were 183,000. (Rani Molla at Recode noted that downloads of Citizen, the community safety app, are also way up.) Organizers have relied on Signal to devise action plans and develop strategies for handling possible arrests for several years. But as awareness of police monitoring continues to grow, protest attendees are using Signal to communicate with friends while out on the streets. The app uses end to end encryption, which means each message is scrambled so that it can only be deciphered by the sender and the intended recipient. "If you don't have end to end encryption, by definition, there are other parties that can read your messages," said Joseph Bonneau, an assistant professor of computer science at New York University who has researched cryptography. "That doesn't mean that they necessarily do, but it usually means that they can and, in particular, depending on what jurisdiction you are in, they can be ordered to by law enforcement." SMS texts are not encrypted, so those messages can be read easily off the servers and cell towers that transmit the data. WhatsApp is encrypted but owned by Facebook. Many activists believe the application is only as secure as Mark Zuckerberg's convictions. Signal has also already been tested. In 2016, the chat service withstood a subpoena request for its data. The only information it could provide was the date the accounts in question were created and when they had last used Signal. Signal does not store messages or contacts on its servers, so it cannot be forced to give copies of that information to the government. "Facebook and Twitter feel like standing on the side of the street, just kind of like, yelling," said Jelani Drew Davi, a 25 year old black campaign manager at Kairos, an organization that teaches digital organizing strategies to people of color. "Signal is like taking to someone I want to talk to, and going into a very quiet corner." In addition to privacy, some users are concerned about who may profit from their use. Signal was developed by a nonprofit. "WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, so it makes money off of who is talking to whom, when," said Bex Hong Hurwitz, 39, the founder of Tiny Gigantic, a company that works with activists and organizers to promote digital safety. (A spokesman for WhatsApp said the company does not keep records of private conversations.) Signal also allows users to set their messages to delete after a period of time. And last week, the app introduced a "blur" tool for photographs, which can be liabilities for protesters. Many organizers suggest attendees wear nondescript clothing and face coverings, because police have identified people from protest footage. The same is true in reverse. As more people download Signal, it is easier to move to encrypted conversations about issues not directly pertaining to the protests. Michael Onah, a 29 year old attorney at the nonprofit law practice Phillips Black who represents people on death row, just downloaded the app last week, after his friends and colleagues suggested it to him. He was initially reluctant to add another app to his already crowded phone, but the ongoing protest movement convinced him. "I think the protests and sort of just thinking about my work generally has really changed my mind on it," said Mr. Onah, who is black and has been acting as a legal observer at the protests. He intends to keep using the app to communicate about sensitive information with his clients. "My responsibility in how I use my phone and how I go about my life has sort of changed," Mr. Onah said. "People who are relying on me are in custody of the state, an entity that can really extract data from me and use it against me in this terrible way. I have a duty to them now." Mr. Onah is also aware that the federal government is working to expand oversight privileges. The EARN IT Act, intended to stop child sex abuse, could also endanger encrypted communication. He worries that the declaration of the anti fascist movement as a terrorist organization could also lead to broad base oversight. "Before, it was tied to 'criminal activity,'" he said, referencing justifications for surveillance put forward by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. "But now that the White House has declared war on people who oppose hateful, racist, white supremacist groups, maybe law enforcement could extend that definition to people to people like me."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
The 10 reverberant color photographs in D'Angelo Lovell Williams's show at Higher Pictures form one of the year's best gallery debuts. Seemingly uncomplicated and improvisational, the works set off startling strings of associations and meaning, tearing through references to race, gender, eroticism, art, fashion, culture and history like crashing dominoes. Yet silence reigns: All is encompassed and centered by the presence of the artist, who is usually shown leveling a steady, slightly quizzical gaze at the camera, and the certainty with which he wields his black, male body as shape shifting subject and material. This happens with special power in "Structural Dishonesty," a title that resonates with the phrase institutional racism. We see Mr. Williams seated, bare chested, against a wall of raw plywood, in a state of extreme inhale. His chest is pulled up so that his waist is tiny, seemingly corseted; his flaring rib cage suggests a padded bosom, especially because he delicately touches his throat, as if fingering jewels. It is the exaggerated silhouette of a 19th century woman of wealth, straight from the novels of Edith Wharton or Henry James, as well as a discreetly ambiguous, possibly homoerotic come on, given his unbuckled belt and unzipped pants. But also here are intimations of horror: slaves' cabins, 19th century photographs of slaves' backs scarred by flogging, the open pants of lynching victims. In "Face Down, Ass Up," the artist bends over in a corner, in front of a wall covered with flowered fabric. We see only his backside, his white briefs and the vulvalike shape of pink edged in yellow at the center: It is menses and a sign of torture, yet oddly painterly and artificial, like the image of a stigmata lifted from some over the top painting of a saint. "Fleurish" shows him naked against a dark turquoise wall, seated on a folded quilt atop a thick cabinet with his feet barely touching the floor. His genitals are obscured by a phallic vase whose long stemmed blossoms frame his face: a childlike yet imperial dandy an analogy aided by the title's hints of flourish and flaneur. "The Lovers" shows the heads of two black men kissing through the veils of reversed black do rags. The taboo of black male love is evoked, while the frustrated white couple of Rene Magritte's identically titled Surrealist landmark white shrouded and heterosexual is inverted. These disarmingly casual yet solemnly astute images are performances that aim for the hearts of many matters.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
When Maria Callas appeared onstage at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center on Sunday night, she looked a little pale, a little spectral. This was understandable, perhaps: She has been dead since 1977. This Callas was a three dimensional hologram, the latest in a series of musical visual resurrections that have included Tupac Shakur, Michael Jackson and Ronnie James Dio. She shared the program, in fact, with Roy Orbison, who died in 1988. Arguably the greatest singer of the 20th century, Callas eerily, well, radiant in a white satiny gown and rich red stole was recreated for the occasion, down to the minutest movements of her hands and the subtlest facial gestures. Her voice, in arias from Bizet's "Carmen" and Verdi's "Macbeth," came from her own recordings, backed by a live orchestra at the Rose Theater. We in the audience saw only about 30 minutes of what will eventually be an evening length concert. (The finished program, created by a division of the company Base Entertainment, begins an international tour this May in Tokyo.) It was amazing, yet also absurd; strangely captivating, yet also campy and ridiculous. And in a way, it made the most sense of any of the musical holograms produced so far. More than rock or hip hop fans and even more, you could say, than fans of instrumental classical music opera lovers dwell in the past. We are known for our obsessive devotion to dead divas and old recordings; it can sometimes seem like an element of necrophilia, even, drives the most fanatical buffs. Callas aficionados, in particular, have long been insatiable in their hunger for every scrap of La Divina's artistry and persona. Every studio recording she made has been issued, reissued, remastered and re re mastered, several times over. Callas would have been dismayed to know that even her most flawed live performances have been legitimized and released. Alas, her career mostly predated the era when film and TV routinely came to international opera houses. We have some wonderful films of Callas in concert. And there is an amazing video of her in Act II of Puccini's "Tosca" in 1964. But no full operas by one of the greatest singing actresses in history; this hologram performance can seem to fill in a bit of that gap. The operatic voice, and the art form itself, can feel so fragile. What better way to represent that fragility while also reviving it, in a kind of seance than a hologram? After the "Habanera" from "Carmen," this Callas sang the Act III scene in which Carmen reads her fortune in some cards and sees death foretold for herself and her lover. In the recording that was used, Callas's singing was chillingly subtle and sad. In the hall, however, the sound was a little spotty, at times tinny (the producers say they are still tweaking the technology). At the end of the excerpt, the holographic Callas tossed Carmen's cards into the air above her, where they hovered in space for a moment before slowly drifting down, an effect that allowed the conductor time to segue seamlessly into the next aria, from "Macbeth." Though a melodramatic touch, it worked. If you're going to use hologram technology, then it makes sense to go all out and create something new, rather than just copy a standard concert. There were several stretches during Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene that got to me, mostly because the real Callas's singing on the recording was so honest and revealing. At her best, Callas redefined what it meant to sing beautifully. Her deeply emotional, sometimes delicate, sometimes frayed singing of the Verdi aria was the essence of truth, something that cut through all the holographic stage tricks. But what is the point of this spectacle? Who is the intended audience? Callas, a symbol of chic, remains an object of fascination extending even beyond opera fans. Perhaps the hologram will introduce some newcomers to her incredible artistry; I'd urge everyone to listen to Callas's extensive discography. Like so many now, I loved her without ever seeing her live; this holographic specter was weirdly tantalizing, even if it hardly made up for that. Lovers of opera, more than probably any other art form, have always been too quick to complain that the "golden age" has long since left us, and have preferred to sit at home with their records rather than seek out young performers and live, necessarily imperfect performances. Rather than recommend that fledgling operagoers hear Callas's hologram, I'd tell them to get to the Metropolitan Opera, where Sonya Yoncheva and Anna Netrebko singing "Tosca" this season will tell them much more about what makes opera so endlessly exciting.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Sam Wyche, who was the last coach to lead the Cincinnati Bengals to the Super Bowl, but who was later fined by the National Football League for barring a female reporter from the team's locker room, died on Thursday at his home in Pickens, S.C. He was 74. His family said the cause was complications of melanoma. Wyche coached for several N.F.L. teams but was most closely associated with the Bengals. He began his career as a backup quarterback for the team in 1968, the franchise's first year. After seven undistinguished seasons playing for four teams, Wyche joined the San Francisco 49ers in 1979 as quarterbacks coach, working under Coach Bill Walsh to develop a rookie quarterback named Joe Montana. In their third year together, the team won its first Super Bowl. After a year coaching at Indiana University, Wyche, then a relatively young 38, took over in 1984 as head coach of the Bengals, where Walsh had been quarterbacks coach before departing for San Francisco. He quickly took an unconventional approach in turning the team into an offensive juggernaut. In his first season in Cincinnati he benched Ken Anderson, the team's popular longtime quarterback, and replaced him with Boomer Esiason, a rookie. Bengals teams were among the top 10 in the league in offense in five of the next six seasons. On Twitter on Thursday, Esiason praised Wyche as "an innovator" who "took chances that no coach ever would." During that run of success, Wyche was also widely credited with being the first coach to routinely use the no huddle offense to keep defenses off kilter. The strategy, which includes only brief moments for play calling, had been typically used at the end of games, when teams behind in the score rush to catch up. Wyche's decision to use the strategy more frequently helped propel the Bengals to a 12 4 finish in 1988, when they had the league's top ranked offense. After winning the A.F.C. Championship for only the second time in their history, the Bengals lost, 20 16, to Walsh's 49ers in Super Bowl XXIII. The 49ers sealed the victory when Montana tossed a 10 yard touchdown pass to John Taylor with 34 seconds remaining. (The Bengals have never returned to the Super Bowl.) Known as a fiery and hard driving coach willing to go against the grain, Wyche made waves for another, more embarrassing reason two years later. In October 1990, the N.F.L. fined Wyche 27,000, a record for a coach, for preventing a female reporter, Denise Tom of USA Today, from entering the team's locker room. He was unrepentant, saying that women shouldn't be able to walk in on players while they were naked. "No amount of fine will force me to change my conviction on this matter," he told reporters. "We need to find a way for women to have a decent and open access to all these athletes. The commissioner feels like it's more important to fine me than to seek another solution." Wyche had been fined twice before, once for knocking a microphone out of a reporter's hand and once for barring all reporters from the team's locker room after a loss. The third fine, though, came just weeks after another reporter, Lisa Olson of The Boston Herald, complained that she had been surrounded by several naked players in the New England Patriots' locker room and verbally abused. Wyche's willingness to buck convention extended to the field. He ran up the score on opponents, once ordering an onside kick even though his team was ahead 45 0. He was also outspoken. He criticized fans in Cleveland for throwing debris on the field and implored fans in Cincinnati to stop throwing snowballs. After a 3 13 finish in 1991, Wyche, with several years remaining on his contract, left Cincinnati for Tampa, where he coached the Buccaneers for four seasons. Though he led the Bengals during one of the franchise's more successful stretches, he had only a 61 66 record there (plus 3 2 in the playoffs) and a 23 41 record in Tampa. He was quarterbacks coach for the Buffalo Bills in 2004 and 2005, then moved to Pickens, where he volunteered as a quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator for the town's high school team.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
A Four Bedroom Villa on the Coast of Bonaire This four bedroom, Mediterranean inspired villa sits just outside Kralendijk, the capital city of Bonaire, a Caribbean island in the Leeward Antilles known for its world class scuba diving. The island, situated about 60 miles off the coast of Venezuela, is one of the ABC Islands (together with Aruba and Curacao) belonging to the Netherlands. The 5,382 square foot house is set on a hillside in the exclusive Sabadeco Terrace neighborhood, with views of Bonaire's western coastline and the Caribbean Sea. Surrounded by palm, fruit, allspice and rubber trees, the property, on about two thirds of an acre, includes a separate studio apartment, a greenhouse, a 270 square foot swimming pool, and numerous patios and terraces. Robert Cooper, a director with 7th Heaven Properties, which has the listing, called it "one of the finest homes for sale on Bonaire," with warm Mediterranean style design influences "on one of the most tranquil islands in the Caribbean." Built in 1997, the house has plastered concrete block walls painted white and terra cotta floor tiles. The front door opens to a spacious living area with high ceilings and a staircase leading up to the second floor. The kitchen is through an archway to the right. To the left, a wrought iron gate opens to a hallway leading to the main bedroom and an office. French doors open to the large covered terrace and pool with curved wood deck overlooking the sea. Furniture is not included in the home's asking price, but is negotiable. The office is fully built out with mounted shelves and dual work stations. The main bedroom beyond has a walk in closet and en suite bathroom with a tiled soaking tub, both with skylights. The staircase ascends to a bedroom that accesses a large roof terrace and has an en suite bath. The kitchen has a skylight, marble countertops and a walk in cooler with a Danish refrigeration unit useful for wine storage, said Robert Bartikoski, the broker owner of Re/Max Paradise Homes Bonaire, a local partner of 7th Heaven Properties that also has the listing. Beyond the kitchen are storage and laundry rooms, as well as a patio leading to the studio apartment. An addition to that wing of the house includes a two car garage with a bedroom suite above. The villa has air conditioning, security cameras and a water storage tank. Sabadeco Terrace is about five miles north of Kralendijk, a small coastal city with a few thousand residents and a strip of shops, supermarkets, restaurants and other amenities, Mr. Bartikoski said. The 111 square mile island of Bonaire is a magnet for scuba divers, but also attracts wind surfers to Lac Bay and kite surfers to Atlantis Beach. Pink Beach, on the island's southwestern shore, and Washington Slagbaai National Park, on its northern tip, are each less than 20 minutes away by car. Bonaire International Airport is a 15 minute drive. The Dutch island of Bonaire, with about 21,000 residents, has long attracted outsiders with its arid climate, coral reefs and relatively low risk of hurricanes. In recent years, its largely tourism based economy has generated a flourishing real estate market, and not unlike many other tropical locales, its allure seems to have grown during the coronavirus pandemic. "The outbreak of the pandemic has only enhanced the island's appeal," Mr. Cooper said. "We've seen a steady rise in inquiries this year, including a huge surge the day after the U.S. election." According to Bonaire's most recent official data, reported by Statistics Netherlands in 2018, the housing index showed prices for residential properties were on average 21.6 percent higher than they were the previous year. The number of housing transactions from 2017 to 2018 grew by 52.8 percent, from 214 to 327. Official data for 2019 is not available, but real estate experts said the market has continued apace. "It's been insane," said Roderick Groenman, a notary with the office of Aniek H. Schouten. "For the past three or four years, things have been going really well." Mr. Groenman attributed the consistent growth to the island's status as a special municipality of the Netherlands, which provides free, high quality health care to residents. (Aruba and Curacao, by contrast, are autonomous constituent countries of the Netherlands.) He also pointed to Bonaire's stability on the U.S. dollar, which the island adopted as its currency in 2011. The economy has been expanding, with a 3.9 percent increase in the gross domestic product in 2018, and this year the Dutch government has provided subsidies to thwart an economic downturn. "If you compare Bonaire to the islands around us, like Aruba or Curacao, or even Trinidad and Tobago, we have a big plus on the surrounding islands because we're part of Holland, and have a strong currency and room for economic growth," Mr. Groenman said. After closing to international travel in the spring, Bonaire resumed flights to and from Europe on July 1, followed by flights to and from Curacao on Oct. 26, according to the U.S. Consulate General in Curacao. (There has been no announcement about when direct flights to and from the U.S. will resume.) As of Nov. 6, Bonaire had reported 135 confirmed cases of Covid 19. The housing market "did slow down for a little while, but we continued to have Dutch visitors through the summer, and they were buying," Mr. Bartikoski said. "And we have 3 D tours online, so we've had Americans buying over the internet. We really haven't seen a dip in prices." While resale homes run about 111 to 139 a square foot, not including the land, new construction can run to 130 a square foot or more, he said. There are luxury villas on the island priced between 1 million and 10 million, he said, along with many more reasonably priced options. "You can find a nice two bedroom, two bath oceanfront condo for between 400,000 and 550,000," he said. "Non oceanfront condos start around 250,000 and go up."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
The first three episodes of "Star Trek: Picard" feel like a long pilot unto themselves. We establish what Picard has been up to. We establish several new characters, the central conflict and the circumstances which led to the conflict; in this case, Picard's efforts to rescue Romulus from the supernova. By the conclusion of "The End Is the Beginning" an apt title we have our central arc: Picard has formed a ragtag group of outsiders to solve this thing on their own. It's telling, once again, how much Picard links his identity with Starfleet. The thought of mounting a rescue effort without the Federation's backing is out of the question for Picard, as he notes to Raffi Musiker (played with charisma by Michelle Hurd) Which is what makes the arc a novel one for our dear captain. "Picard," as a show, wants to make clear that we are not watching "The Next Generation"; this is something totally new. And yet, Picard still values Starfleet somewhere deep down. Note the way he recruits the swashbuckling pilot Chris Rios (Santiago Cabrera). He exhorts him with "You are Starfleet!" because his ship is clean. Picard doesn't even consider that Rios doesn't care about the ideals of Picard's old haunts. Maybe, Rios just likes to keep things efficient. Raffi, in particular, knows how to cut Picard deeply. "I saw you sitting back in your very fine chateau," she says sarcastically, while Picard grimaces. "Big oak beams. Heirloom furniture." The not so subtle implication: You changed after quitting Starfleet in a huff, while I suffered. Picard swallows her anger, knowing he deserves her resentment and that she's right. He's been faking it for years. But Raffi's biggest point of contention is that fact that Picard never called. If you consider Picard's actions throughout the decades that he's been on our screens, this makes sense. Starfleet came first. His entire life was about serving the Federation. That's it. Once he left Starfleet, he had no purpose, and no reason to interact with Raffi since they had no work to do together anymore Picard was never one for nostalgia and sentimentality. He also wasn't suited to be cooped up at a vineyard, as he tells Laris. He's a space explorer. As Laris says, "I suppose you've always had one eye on the stars." But Picard also a sweet talker, so you knew Raffi was eventually going to come on board. This episode was a series of introductions. We got our first glimpse of Hugh, the former Borg drone who won over "The Next Generation" fans in episodes like "I Borg." Jonathan Del Arco plays him again here this version is unrecognizable from the original series, which makes the character the perfect callback for a series looking to explore fresh ground. He's familiar to Trek fans, but not too familiar. Hugh is far more human now, perhaps an aspiration of his, but unhappy with where he's ended up much like Picard. Then there is the curt Rios, apparently the "Star Trek" answer to Han Solo. He's of course the best pilot around and he doesn't care about rules, lawyers or his holograms. He's a welcome addition to the "Trek" franchise. Picard has historically been a man who loves order and regulations, and I'm sure this will eventually rub Rios the wrong way. Meanwhile, Soji the android is in a strange position. Everyone seems to know what she is except her. She interviews a Romulan named Ramda, who was once a former Borg drone, who tells her, "I remember you from tomorrow" and asks her repeatedly which sister she is. Ramda is an expert in ancient Romulan mythology, which surely ties into the attack at Chateau Picard, happening simultaneously on Earth. (I'm not sure where this story line is going, but the implication is that there is a prophecy involving Soji and Dahj.) Soji is getting suspicious of her own abilities, though, realizing that she has knowledge she's not supposed to have. The manipulative Narek is unaware of what Soji knows. Let's say a quick word about the attack on Chateau Picard by the Zhat Vash, the old Tal Shiar sect, mentioned in last week's "Maps and Legends." It is one of the most delightfully choreographed fight scenes in "Trek" franchise history. (Note how many "Next Generation" fights simply involved an open palm punch.) Picard, Laris and Zhaban defend themselves gracefully, with an assist from Jurati. The scene is shot beautifully and no character does anything beyond their abilities. Picard has won many fights he probably shouldn't have over the years but in this one, his actions made sense. Both Ramda and the captured Romulan refer to Soji as "the destroyer." I haven't seen any episodes past this one, so I feel free to speculate. I'm predicting that Soji and Dahj were created long before Jurati thinks they were and discovering Maddox on Freecloud will illuminate this. I'm guessing one of them was created as a weapon that the Romulans somehow discovered. I'm also typically wrong about everything, so take this prediction with a grain of salt.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
The structure would have the weighty presence of slate, he said, while "simultaneously appearing so light it could blow away in the breeze." It would look "like a billowing piece of fabric," he added. The pavilion will be open from June 20 to Oct. 6. Mr. Ishigami started his architectural practice in Tokyo in 2004 and has drawn praise for his dreamlike structures. In 2010, he won the main prize at the Venice Biennale of Architecture for an installation called "Architecture as Air." Felix Burrichter wrote in The New York Times that the work "serves as a reminder that one has to be able to dream in order to find solutions for the very real architectural concerns of today."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Don't let Michael Phelps ruin your Shark Week. Read about some of the best shark travel adventures around the world and learn how to share the water with them safely. There is more of a risk of drowning at the beach than there is of getting attacked by a shark. But still, if you find yourself in the unfortunate position of having to encounter a shark in the ocean, here's what to do. Drawn by fresh bait, a great white shark bites the bars of a shark cage near Kleinbaai, South Africa. Thousands of migrating sharks swarm the area beginning in July. Benedicte Kurzen for The New York Times Dyer Island, four miles off the South African coast, is one of the best spots in the world to view the great white. Migrating great whites by the thousands swarm through Shark Alley around Dyer during the South African winter to feed on seal pups, one of the predator's primary food sources. The sharks are less plentiful during the rest of the year, but there is never a time when they completely disappear. Scuba diving in Fiji, a collection of some 300 islands strewn across the South Pacific, poses a recreational dilemma for anyone with less than a month on his hands. In particular, shark diving in Pacific Harbor, a couple of hours' drive from the international airport on Viti Levu, offers a fairly certain chance of seeing what any honest diver will admit to yearn for: lots and lots of big fish. A family making its way through a 40 foot tunnel through a shark tank at the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, N.J. Mike Mergen for The New York Times 5. Looking at, and Swimming With, the Sharks Deep in the bowels of the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, N.J., lies the Shark Realm, a 40 foot tunnel suspended through the middle of a shark tank, allowing visitors to see the sharks as close as humanly possible without getting wet or petrified. The aquarium is hosting special events to celebrate Shark Week.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
Yet the inspiration for Ms. Hul's designs can come to her here, with the help of her Italian assistant, or almost anywhere. As an example, she offered one of her popular Funghetti rings, which features a circle of pave diamonds set in a cone of gold resembling a trumpet mushroom. "I was walking in the woods near my house," she said, when she got the idea. The ring, which comes in a variety of colored stones, is meant to be stacked for a personalized look. A trip she took to Tahiti was about 10 years ago, but it has had a lasting influence: Her Monoi collection, with its pave diamond petals, echoes the fragrant monoi flower, a species of gardenia that she discovered during the trip. Corsage, with its crisscrossed lacings of pave diamonds, came about because "I was walking after midnight in Milan and stopped in front of the La Perla windows," she said. And the Lucky 8 collection is based on the importance of that number in Chinese culture and designed with that market in mind. Her newest collection, Magritte, debuted at Baselworld this year. It was inspired by the marguerite, the French name for the daisy, one of her favorite flowers, as well as a play on the name of the Belgian surrealist painter Rene Magritte.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Sumatran tigers can't seem to catch a break. This week, a study containing good news about the population of this endangered cat also carried a disclaimer that there was probably no cause for optimism. The new study, published Tuesday in Nature Communications, relied on images from more than 300 trap cameras as well as data from decades of similar studies. The authors reported that tiger density in Sumatra's three largest protected forests increased 5 percent per year from 1996 to 2014, suggesting that Indonesia's preservation efforts are slowly working. However, the increase was probably caused by an influx of tigers fleeing unprotected forests on the large western island in the Indonesian archipelago, where their numbers are dropping rapidly, the researchers said. That means small gains in the protected areas are probably dwarfed by the species' overall decline. "Densities have increased, but that has not reduced the threat of extinction, because the habitat is being cut down and fragmented," said Matthew Luskin, a research fellow with the Smithsonian Institute in Singapore and an author of the study. "You're basically packing more tigers into smaller areas." Though no one knows exactly how many Sumatran tigers remain, estimates range from about 400 to 500, down from 1,000 in 1978. The animals are only on Sumatra, where their rain forest habitat is quickly being replaced by rubber and palm oil plantations. Tigers are particularly vulnerable to habitat fragmentation because they require expansive territories for hunting.The researchers estimated the Sumatran tiger's home range to be about 150 miles, which is large even by tiger standards. "These tigers cover an insane amount of area every day," Dr. Luskin said. Poachers also pose a serious threat to the species' survival. "A single tiger on the black market is worth well over 1,000, which is often more than the annual income of a person in these communities," he said. In 2014, as a graduate student with the University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Luskin mounted close to 300 motion activated cameras throughout Sumatran forests, then used the tigers' distinct markings to track individuals. He found that the concentration of tigers outside the protected parks was 70 percent lower than in the protected areas. He also found that density varied considerably from park to park, suggesting some parks are better than others at keeping out poachers. But Dr. Luskin couldn't draw conclusions about changes in tiger density over time with only a single year of data. And data from previous studies had to be recalculated in order to standardize estimates of tiger density. That effort showed that overall tiger density had decreased by 17 percent from 2000 to 2012, even as density in the protected forests was inching upward. And because the overall decline is driven by loss of habitat, some of the growth in the parks is probably just tigers fleeing the forest. "When you cut down forest, the tigers all move inward," said Dr. Luskin. Stopping deforestation would stop the tiger's decline, Dr. Luskin said. But the continuing demand for palm oil a common ingredient in soap, lipstick and even ice cream makes that difficult. "The production is so profitable, and everyone in these landscapes just wants to grow more."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
The reason for the anonymity is that the high schooler Simon is, like his correspondent, gay. He hasn't come out largely because he's not sure how to go about doing so, and his continuing reluctance gets him enmeshed with a thoroughly obnoxious weasel of a blackmailer. The blackmailer's aim is simple: He wants to gain a romantic advantage with one of Simon's female friends, and while Simon is in a sense too smart for this nonsense, he reluctantly complies. In the movie's last third it gains a lot of guts. Simon has to contend with the fallout from what he considered a necessary hypocrisy and the personal betrayals it entailed. The emotional resonance may be surprising given the movie's relentless gloss, but it's real. The spectacularly charming cast, led by the young Nick Robinson in the title role (who brings a knowing touch of 1980s Matthew Broderick to some of his line readings), puts it all across, including a genuinely crowd pleasing ending.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh Bangladesh is probably one of the last places in Asia people would expect to see a thriving beachside resort with luxury hotels. And yet, Cox's Bazar is exactly that a place where affluent Bangladeshis go for a weekend of seaside fun. During the high season, when the monsoon rains are not pounding the country, the beach is filled with children and their watchful parents among slightly dilapidated orange beach umbrellas. About five years ago, only a few luxury hotels were in this small city on the Bay of Bengal. Now there are a dozen, and counting. Smaller hotels and guesthouses are proliferating, and property prices have risen sharply. The transformation of Cox's Bazar from remote backwater to a beach El Dorado encapsulates the changes that have taken place in this country of 160 million people, and many other developing Asian countries, over the last couple of decades. "A middle class is gradually forming," said Zahid Hossain, principal economist at the Asian Development Bank in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The growth in the country mirrors the developments in other emerging economies, he said. "Domestic demand is growing and becoming an important driver of economic activity." The progress, though, has been uneven. As in other Asian countries, the gap between rich and poor has widened in Bangladesh, giving rise to social tensions and sometimes violent protests. The murder this month of Aminul Islam, a prominent labor rights activist, apparently in retaliation for his advocacy work, put a spotlight on the low wages and poor working conditions that prevail in burgeoning sectors like the garment industry. In Bangladesh's countryside, home to more than 70 percent of the population, subsistence farming remains the norm, and weather related disasters regularly wreak havoc in the flat lowlands. Yet despite this, the Bangladeshi economy has managed to grow more than 6 percent a year for much of the last decade. Economists at Standard Chartered Bank believe that Bangladesh could join what have been called the "7 percent club" of economies that expand at least 7 percent annually for an extended period allowing their economies to double every decade. Current members of the "club" include China, Cambodia, India, Mozambique and Uganda. HSBC included Bangladesh in a group of 26 economies along with China, India and several Latin American and African countries where it expects particularly strong growth. The United States and much of Europe, by contrast, are likely to remain merely stable, according to HSBC's projections. The gradual shift in global production to low cost countries, from developed economies in Europe and North America, is driving much of that growth. The trend, which began turning parts of Asia notably China into manufacturing hubs in the 1980s and 1990s, has started to take root in Bangladesh. For now, Bangladesh's manufacturing prowess is primarily focused on the garment sector, which has grown into a multibillion dollar industry that employs 3.6 million people and accounts for 78 percent of the country's exports. Today in On Tech: Imagine not living in Big Tech's world. Dollar Tree will raise prices to 1.25 by the end of April. Bank regulators released a 'road map' for crypto regulation that is short on details. Bangladesh has seen particularly strong growth in the last few years, partly because of rising labor costs in China, where manufacturing is moving into higher margin activities like product design. Bangladesh exported nearly 18 billion worth of garments in the 12 months through June 2011, 10.5 billion of that to the European Union and 4.6 billion to the United States, according to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association. The total nearly doubled from four years earlier, and McKinsey forecast that the garment industry would grow by as much as 9 percent a year over the next decade. Li Fung, a giant Hong Kong trading company that supplies retailers including Walmart with clothing mostly purchased from Asia, is a case in point. Last year, the company bought 1 billion worth of apparel from manufacturers in Bangladesh, 41 percent more than in 2010. Bangladesh overtook Vietnam and Indonesia in 2011 to become the second largest source of such products for Li Fung, after China. But infrastructure bottlenecks and power cuts are substantial "negatives," Bruce Rockowitz, chief executive of Li Fung, said at a recent news conference in Hong Kong. Still, the company intends to increase the business it does in Bangladesh. "The prognosis," Mr. Rockowitz said, "is good." Another driver of economic growth has been the inflow of remittances money sent home by Bangladeshis who have sought employment abroad. More than 11 billion worth of remittances flowed into Bangladesh last year, more than 10 times the amount from foreign investment, and the annual inflow is expected to rise to 20 billion in five years' time, the government estimates. Of course, the fact that tens of thousands of Bangladeshis go abroad each year highlights a weakness in the country's economy: well paid jobs are hard to come by. Manufacturing is mostly confined to low level, fairly unskilled assembly work, rather than to high end production or design. Moreover, "other sectors, such as shipbuilding and pharmaceuticals, are only just starting to emerge," said Agost Benard, who covers Bangladesh for the ratings agency Standard Poor's. Still, the expansion of the past few years and improvements in the agriculture sector mean that domestic demand is growing. Dhaka, whose population has ballooned to about 15 million, now has car showrooms and a small but growing number of high end international hotels. Monthly office rents in the most sought after neighborhoods of the capital can be as high as 250 taka per square foot, or about 3 levels that would not look out of place in some Western cities, according to the real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle. In Cox's Bazar, construction sites pockmark the once laid back beachfront. A Best Western hotel is in the making. Green Delta Housing, a Bangladeshi construction company, is working on several developments. Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, which already operates a Radisson in Dhaka, is planning to open two hotels in Cox's Bazar in 2015. The town is a long way from turning into Cancun, Mexico, or the Cote d'Azur in France. Rickshaws trundle along the potholed road between the small airport and the hotel zone farther south, where shopkeepers sell dried fish and sunglasses, and rickety stalls on the beach sell souvenirs crafted from seashells. "This is not 'Baywatch' or Hawaii," said Mikey Leung, a co author of the Bradt travel guide to Bangladesh. "You're not talking international style resorts." But Cox's Bazar has changed a great deal over the past five years, Mr. Leung said. "Properties are popping up like daisies, and the development is moving further and further down along the beach. The speed and scale of it is unprecedented for Bangladesh."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Global Business
WASHINGTON Federal Reserve officials are in no hurry to retreat from their bond buying campaign to stimulate the economy and are likely to postpone any cuts to the program until next year, according to public statements by Fed officials and interviews with some of them. Job growth has strengthened in recent months, and Fed officials expect continued improvement in the coming year. The Fed's chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, predicted in June that the Fed would taper its purchases by the end of this year, and officials say they still could announce such a cut next week, when the Fed's policy making committee is scheduled to hold its final meeting of the year. But influential Fed officials see little harm in postponing the decision, particularly compared with the risks of pulling back too soon. Significant details of the eventual retreat also remain the subjects of unresolved debates, according to the public statements and interviews. And some officials argue that the slow pace of inflation is itself a reason for the Fed to maintain its stimulus campaign. "Everything else equal, I would like to see a couple of months of good numbers," Charles L. Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, told Reuters on Friday, referring to the relatively strong jobs numbers in November. Mr. Evans added that he was "certainly nervous" about the sluggish pace of inflation. Rising prices can help stimulate the economy, making it easier for companies to increase profits and for borrowers to repay debts. Inflation also encourages people and businesses to borrow more money and to spend it more quickly. Low inflation reduces those incentives. It also means the economy is closer to deflation, or a general decline in prices, which has the opposite effect: freezing economic activity by discouraging both borrowing and spending. Since January, the Fed has added 85 billion a month to its holdings of Treasury and mortgage backed securities as part of a broader campaign to reduce borrowing costs for businesses and consumers and encourage risk taking by investors. What to Know About Inflation in the U.S. None The Fastest Inflation in 31 Years: The Consumer Price Index rose 6.2 percent in October from a year earlier, its sharpest increase since 1990. Americans Are Still Spending: Despite inflation concerns, retail sales jumped 1.7 percent in October. Who's to Blame for Rising Prices?: Here are the most obvious candidates and where the evidence looks strongest. What the Experts Say: Most agree the spike in prices is linked to the economic recovery. When it will fade, and by how much, are less clear. The Psychology of Inflation: Americans are flush with cash and jobs, but they also think the economy is awful. Mr. Bernanke and his allies have repeatedly described the program as a safe and effective way to generate a little more economic activity at a time when the nation's primary economic problem is that millions of Americans cannot find jobs. Almost from the outset, however, internal and external critics have questioned whether the bond purchases are helping the broader economy or merely enriching investors. And they have warned that the Fed's outsize role in financial markets is disrupting normal activity and may be encouraging excessive speculation. In the face of those doubts, the Fed has appeared to play for time, repeatedly indicating that it is getting ready to pull back even as a strong majority of its policy making committee has voted to extend the campaign at each meeting this year. William C. Dudley, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a key supporter of the bond purchase program, reflected the caution of this majority in a November speech in which he said, "I have to admit that I am getting more hopeful" given the recent improvement in economic data. "I hope that this marks a turning point for the economy," Mr. Dudley said. But he continued, "We have seen such bursts in payroll growth before over the past few years and have been disappointed when the pickups proved temporary." Officials including Mr. Dudley and Janet L. Yellen, the Fed's vice chairwoman whom the Senate is likely to confirm as Mr. Bernanke's successor later this month see recent job growth as outstripping the moderate pace of economic growth. "The Yellen/Dudley prescription holds that it will take strong G.D.P. growth to convince them that these employment gains will continue," wrote Vincent Reinhart, a former head of the Fed's monetary policy staff and now the chief United States economist at Morgan Stanley. "We think the committee will use the December meeting to agree on a plan" most likely to be put into effect in March. Agreeing on a plan also will take some work. The Fed wants to convince investors that tapering would not alter what it views as the centerpiece of its economic stimulus campaign, its commitment to hold short term interest rates near zero. It has said that it will keep rates near zero at least as long as the unemployment rate remains above 6.5 percent, and probably quite a bit longer. The rate in November was 7 percent. When Mr. Bernanke first described the Fed's tapering plans in June, investors ignored this distinction, driving up rates across the board. But the message has gradually taken hold. The movement of asset prices after recent good news, including the November jobs data, has reflected an expectation that the Fed is closer to tapering, but not to raising interest rates. "Markets are beginning to appreciate that they are separate tools," Mr. Bernanke said last month. Covid's impact on the supply chain continues. The pandemic has disrupted nearly every aspect of the global supply chain and made all kinds of products harder to find. In turn, scarcity has caused the prices of many things to go higher as inflation remains stubbornly high. Almost anything manufactured is in short supply. That includes everything from toilet paper to new cars. The disruptions go back to the beginning of the pandemic, when factories in Asia and Europe were forced to shut down and shipping companies cut their schedules. First, demand for home goods spiked. Money that Americans once spent on experiences were redirected to things for their homes. The surge clogged the system for transporting goods to the factories that needed them and finished products piled up because of a shortage of shipping containers. Now, ports are struggling to keep up. In North America and Europe, where containers are arriving, the heavy influx of ships is overwhelming ports. With warehouses full, containers are piling up. The chaos in global shipping is likely to persist as a result of the massive traffic jam. No one really knows when the crisis will end. Shortages and delays are likely to affect this year's Christmas and holiday shopping season, but what happens after that is unclear. Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, said he expects supply chain problems to persist "likely well into next year." Some officials think the Fed still needs to underscore this distinction when it begins to taper its bond purchases. Others now regard such an effort as unnecessary, or contend that the Fed could act after it begins to taper if investors seem to be confused. Proponents of underscoring the Fed's commitment to low interest rates are further fragmented about the best technique. Some, including Mr. Evans, would like to lower the threshold unemployment rate. Some would like to create a similar threshold for inflation. Some would like to make a symbolic cut in an obscure interest rate the Fed pays on bank reserves. Instead of such concrete steps, the Fed also could seek to explain in greater detail how it will decide the timetable for increasing interest rates. This option commanded the broadest support at the Fed's meeting in October. A shift among officials who pushed for tapering earlier in the year has made it easier for the Fed to postpone decisions. Some of those officials now say the Fed should commit to a date to end the program rather than beginning to taper as soon as possible, because they see this as the best way to reduce confusion among investors. "The sooner we say we're going to end this program once we've purchased X, the sooner we say that, the better," Charles I. Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, said on Friday. "It's that constant uncertainty about what we'll do at each and every meeting that I think we can eliminate this way, and we'll be better off for it, and we'll not sacrifice much of the benefits of the program." The sluggish pace of inflation also has made it easier to wait. Prices rose just 0.7 percent during the 12 months that ended in October, the Commerce Department reported on Friday. Excluding the volatile movements of food and energy prices, inflation was still just 1.1 percent over that period. That is significantly below the 2 percent pace the Fed regards as best for the economy.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
Our weekday morning digest that includes consumer news, deals, tips and anything else that travelers may want to know. Off Florida's Atlantic coast, replicas of the famous moai of Easter Island, affixed to a 145 foot barge, will be submerged in 70 feet of water this Sunday, forming an artificial reef for scuba divers to explore and fish to populate. Fifteen concrete statues ranging from six to 22 feet high and modeled on the mysterious stone heads on Easter Island will populate the Rapa Nui Reef off Deerfield Beach, about 20 miles north of Fort Lauderdale. The project was founded and funded by the Boca Raton philanthropist Margaret Blume. Of 112 artificial reefs in Broward County, this is the third for Deerfield Beach. Manmade reefs are designed to provide habitat for fish and coral. Backers of Rapa Nui Reef say it is the largest piece of public art ever sunk worldwide. Afterward, the submarine sculpture park will be visible only to divers. In the verdant interior of Bali, the first Ubud Food Festival will take place this weekend. Held in Ubud, the bohemian town surrounded by rice paddies that has long been a draw for artists and writers like Elizabeth Gilbert, who set the third act of her novel "Eat, Pray, Love" here, the three day event combines cooking classes and market tours with workshops on food photography, forums on the dwindling rice production on the island and presentations on healing foods. Guest chefs include Janice Wong of 2 am: Dessert Bar and Ryan Clift of the Tippling Club, both in Singapore. Many tastings focus on local products including coffee and Balinese "superfoods" like raw cacao, coconut and cashew. The festival founder, Janet DeNeefe, previously launched the popular Ubud Writers Readers Festival, now in its 13th year, and the food event reflects a penchant for storytelling of a culinary kind, including nightly screenings of cooking related films including "Eat Drink Man Woman" and "The Hundred Foot Journey." To celebrate the eight year anniversary of its Milan Sao Paulo route in March, and gain the attention of its fliers, TAM Airlines produced an individualized in flight magazine for many passengers on a recent flight, suggesting a bespoke media future for captive audiences. Using Facebook information captured from travelers who used the Facebook Connect social media tool while booking their flights, the ad agency FCB Milan created about 50 different magazines, called The OwnBoard Magazine, each with the subject's portrait on the cover. Inside, destination information was filtered by interests gleaned from Facebook, and articles ranged from soccer profiles for confessed sports fans to cat care for pet lovers. "All the magazines that we find in front of us are so boring," said Fabio Teodori, executive creative director at FCB Milan. "We wanted to start a new conversation." Customizing stories and printing unique magazines took considerable planning. And though the company declined to reveal the budget (Mr. Teodori said it was less than "a Super Bowl commercial"), cost is clearly a high hurdle in repeating the project. Still, the designers see a future in tapping social media to personalize the in flight experience. "We are just trying to understand how to follow on the idea in a digital way maybe," he said. "All seats have digital screens. It could be easier. There would be less emotion without paper , but it could be cool."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
When they zig, he zags. Cardi B will co host "The Tonight Show" with Jimmy Fallon next Monday night, the first time the show has ever had two people sharing hosting duties, NBC said on Tuesday. Next Monday's show will, as usual, stand out compared to his competitors: Mr. Fallon has kept his show joke and celebrity heavy while CBS's Stephen Colbert and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel have gotten increasingly political. In that time, Mr. Fallon's ratings have declined while Mr. Colbert and Mr. Kimmel have seen their total viewerships go up. The Bronx born rapper appeared on Mr. Fallon's show in December, and her segment on the couch became a viral hit. To date, the five minute interview has collected more than 16 million views. She also appeared on the show in September when she performed "No Limit" with G Eazy.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
Thirteen Pac 12 Conference football players threatened Sunday to opt out of the coming season, saying they would not play until systemic inequities that have been highlighted by college athletics' response to the coronavirus pandemic were addressed. The players, who are from 10 schools and include All American and honor roll candidates, said that playing a contact sport like football during the outbreak would be reckless because of what they described as inadequate transparency about the health risks, a lack of uniform safety measures and an absence of ample enforcement. Those shortcomings, they added, are emblematic of a system in which players have little standing to address social, economic or racial inequalities and, they said, far more of the millions of dollars they help generate should go toward addressing them. "The people who are deciding whether we are going to play football are going to prioritize money over health and safety 10 times out of 10," Jaydon Grant, a senior defensive back at Oregon State who graduated with a degree in digital communication arts said in an interview. The announcement comes as the college football season is increasingly in doubt as the coronavirus bounces around the country including infiltrating Major League Baseball no more under control than it was in March, when college sports and professional leagues in the United States began shutting down. This has led many universities to keep students off campus and some conferences, like the Ivy League, to postpone fall sports until at least January. But the schools at the lucrative top of the football food chain, which heavily leans on television revenue, are forging ahead. Four major conferences the Southeastern, Big Ten, Pac 12 and Atlantic Coast have pared their schedules mainly to conference games. Still, there is pushback gathering over whether universities should be conscripting unpaid college athletes to keep hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into athletic departments' coffers by largely assuming whatever risks come with Covid 19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Particularly when there are no N.C.A.A. wide standards on the frequency of testing or other protocols, which some schools could resist because they would be costly. (The N.C.A.A. has made recommendations but decisions have been left up to the universities themselves.) The N.C.A.A. Board of Governors, which largely comprises university presidents, will consider fall sports when it meets Tuesday. While some athletes have expressed trepidation about playing football during the pandemic including SEC players during a recent call with league officials, according to The Washington Post and a handful have opted out, the Pac 12 players represent the first collective effort to question why players are assuming so much risk. The players asked that Commissioner Larry Scott, who is paid 5.3 million per year, and other coaches and administrators drastically reduce their pay and end lavish facility spending. They also demanded increased medical insurance coverage, six year scholarships, the freedom to hire marketing agents, and that 50 percent of each sport's conference revenue be distributed evenly among athletes in their sport, akin to how professional sports leagues share revenue with players. Scott declined an interview request. A conference spokesman referred to a statement that said the group had not contacted the Pac 12 or its schools. At least one head coach was not happy with the players' stance. Washington State Coach Nick Rolovich told players who had health concerns he was fine if they opted out, but he did not want them around the team if they expressed support for WeStandUnited, according to John Woods Jr., the father of the sophomore receiver Kassidy Woods. In an interview Sunday night, John Woods Jr. said Rolovich told his son, who opted out for health reasons, to clean out his locker on Monday after he also said he supported the WeStandUnited players. The lone Washington State player to sign the statement, Dallas Hobbs, a junior defensive lineman, was told the same, the receiver's father said. Washington State did not immediately respond to a request to comment. "These are discussions and topics that are talked about in locker rooms around the country weekly," said Valentino Daltoso, a senior three year starter on the offensive line at California, where he recently graduated in legal studies. "This isn't some new idea out of left field." Daltoso, one of three Cal players among the 13, said the idea took a foothold about a month ago during a Zoom call his teammates had in the wake of protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. As the discussions developed, they reached out to players around the Pac 12 and to others, like Ramogi Huma, the director of the National College Players Association, which advocates for players' rights. The players say there are hundreds of others in the Pac 12 who share their concerns, and indeed dozens, including Penei Sewell, an Oregon offensive tackle who is considered a likely top draft pick next year, retweeted a Twitter post on Sunday with the hashtag WeAreUnited. Daltoso expects there are also hundreds of players in other conferences who feel similarly, noting the questions the SEC players raised in their conference call with Commissioner Greg Sankey and the conference's medical advisers. When MoMo Sanogo, a linebacker at Mississippi, wondered why colleges were bringing students back to campus, according to The Post, an official replied, "It's one of those things where if students don't come back to campus, then the chances of having a football season are almost zero." Another player wondered about the long term effects of contracting the virus. "Those guys in the SEC are not alone in how they feel," Daltoso said. "Good for them for advocating for themselves. Our power as players comes from being knowledgeable of each other's struggles."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Campus affiliated accounts may come with fees that can add up if students don't use the accounts carefully. Some campus debit cards, for instance, charge fees when students make purchases using their PINs, rather than with a signature a fee not typically seen with traditional checking accounts. And some may charge hefty overdraft fees for debit transactions that is, fees charged for overdrawing the account, according to a study this year by the Center for Responsible Lending. That means it is important for students to clearly understand the terms of any account they are offered and to make sure they are using it in a way that minimizes fees, said Meredith Turner, chief governmental officer with the California State Student Association. "Read the fine print," she said. While becoming acclimated to campus can be overwhelming at first, students should set aside a few minutes to familiarize themselves with the rules of their bank accounts. "Take the time to ensure you're setting yourself up for financial success while you're in school," she said. Here are some questions and answers about student checking and credit cards: How can I avoid an account with excessive fees? Ideally, students should consider how they want to receive financial aid, and manage their personal funds, before arriving on campus, Ms. Turner said. "If you have a bank account already, have your financial aid directly deposited into your account," she said. More than half of new college students already have bank accounts, according to estimates from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Your Money
A spacious penthouse at 150 Charles Street, the Witkoff Group's new brick and glass condominium in the West Village, which sold out weeks after sales began, has officially closed for 29,379,796.41, according to city records, and was the most expensive sale of the week. The sponsor apartment, PHA, with monthly charges of 6,948, has five bedrooms and five and a half baths over 4,553 square feet. There is also 2,521 square feet of outdoor space, which provides stunning cityscape and Hudson River views, including the Statue of Liberty. The new owner has access to amenities in the 91 unit building, including private green space, a 75 foot lap pool, a fitness center, a lounge and a children's playroom. The buyer's identity was shielded by the limited liability company 150 Charles Street PH A. Raphael De Niro, Darren Sukenik, Madeline Hult Elghanayan and Peter Zaitzeff of Douglas Elliman Real Estate were the listing brokers. They represented both sides of the transaction.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
SARS CoV 2, the virus that causes Covid 19, was initially thought to primarily impact the lungs SARS stands for "severe acute respiratory syndrome." Now we know there is barely a part of the body this infection spares. And emerging data show that some of the virus's most potent damage is inflicted on the heart. Eduardo Rodriguez was poised to start as the No. 1 pitcher for the Boston Red Sox this season. But in July the 27 year old tested positive for Covid 19. Feeling "100 years old," he told reporters: "I've never been that sick in my life, and I don't want to get that sick again." His symptoms abated, but a few weeks later he felt so tired after throwing about 20 pitches during practice that his team told him to stop and rest. Further investigation revealed that he had a condition many are still struggling to understand: Covid 19 associated myocarditis. Mr. Rodriguez won't be playing baseball this season. Myocarditis means inflammation of the heart muscle. Some patients are never bothered by it, but for others it can have serious implications. And Mr. Rodriguez isn't the only athlete to suffer from it: Multiple college football players have possibly developed myocarditis from Covid 19, putting the entire college football landscape in jeopardy. I recently treated one Covid 19 patient in his early 50s. He had been in perfect shape with no history of serious illness. When the fevers and body aches started, he locked himself in his room. But instead of getting better, his condition deteriorated and he eventually accumulated gallons of fluid in his legs. When he came to the hospital unable to catch a breath, it wasn't his lungs that had pushed him to the brink it was his heart. Now we are evaluating him to see if he needs a heart transplant. An intriguing new study from Germany offers a glimpse into how SARS CoV 2 affects the heart. Researchers studied 100 individuals, with a median age of just 49, who had recovered from Covid 19. Most were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms. An average of two months after they received the diagnosis, the researchers performed M.R.I. scans of their hearts and made some alarming discoveries: Nearly 80 percent had persistent abnormalities and 60 percent had evidence of myocarditis. The degree of myocarditis was not explained by the severity of the initial illness. Though the study has some flaws, and the generalizability and significance of its findings not fully known, it makes clear that in young patients who had seemingly overcome SARS CoV 2 it's fairly common for the heart to be affected. We may be seeing only the beginning of the damage. Researchers are still figuring out how SARS CoV 2 causes myocarditis whether it's through the virus directly injuring the heart or whether it's from the virulent immune reaction that it stimulates. It's possible that part of the success of immunosuppressant medications such as the steroid dexamethasone in treating sick Covid 19 patients comes from their preventing inflammatory damage to the heart. Such steroids are commonly used to treat cases of myocarditis. Despite treatment, more severe forms of Covid 19 associated myocarditis can lead to permanent damage of the heart which, in turn, can lead to heart failure. But myocarditis is not the only way Covid 19 can cause more people to die of heart disease. When I analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, I found that since February nearly 25,000 more Americans have died of heart disease compared with the same period in previous years. Some of these deaths could be put down to Covid 19, but the majority are likely to be because patients deferred care for their hearts. That could lead to a wave of untreated heart disease in the wake of the pandemic. Many patients are understandably apprehensive about coming back to the clinic or hospital. The American Heart Association has started a campaign called "Don't Die of Doubt" to address the alarming reduction in people calling 911 or seeking medical care after a heart attack or stroke. Since the beginning of the pandemic, it's been clear that people with heart disease or related conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure are at increased risk for severe Covid 19 illness. The C.D.C. recommends that the more than 30 million Americans living with heart disease practice extra precautions to avoid infection. Hospitals and clinics should work overtime both to ensure they are safe for patients and to bolster telemedicine services so that patients can be cared for without having to leave their homes. Doctors and researchers should no longer think of Covid 19 as a disease of the lungs but as one that can affect any part of the body, especially the heart. The only way to prevent more people dying of heart disease, both from damage caused by the virus as well as from deferred care of heart disease, is to control the pandemic. Haider Warraich ( haiderwarraich), the author of "State of the Heart: Exploring the History, Science, and Future of Cardiac Disease," is a cardiologist and researcher at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
Difficult as it might be to remember at this time is money stage in tennis, the sport once had no tiebreakers. Long ago, every set had to be won by a two game margin and theoretically had no finish line. Which meant that at Wimbledon in the first round of the men's singles in 1969, the great but aging Pancho Gonzales defeated Charlie Pasarell by the score of 22 24, 1 6, 16 14, 6 3, 11 9 in a two day match that lasted five hours and 12 minutes. The tiebreaker was introduced to Grand Slam tennis the following year at the 1970 United States Open, with red flags being flown courtside whenever a set reached 6 6. It has taken 49 more years for the major tournaments to reach the awkward phase where all four use different methods to resolve deciding sets in singles. The red flags are long gone, but the novelty effect is back. The Australian Open, which begins on Monday, will use a best of 18 point tiebreaker at 6 6 in deciding sets, which are third sets for the women and fifth sets for the men. Later this year, Wimbledon will introduce a conventional best of 12 point tiebreaker at 12 12. That will leave the French Open as the only Grand Slam tournament that uses no deciding set tiebreaker in singles. "I think the International Tennis Federation, the ATP and the Grand Slams should find, more or less, some consistency of the rules for the understanding of the public," Guy Forget, the French Open tournament director, said in an interview. Consistency and mutual understanding seem particularly elusive at this fractious stage of the game. The Grand Slam leaders meet regularly and have usually made a big effort to project unity in the last 30 years as their tournaments have grown and prospered. But they have squabbled much more often lately. There have been disputes about the possible introduction of in match coaching, which Wimbledon's leadership continues to oppose. There have been disagreements about the new Laver Cup team event, which the Australian Open and U.S. Open are formally backing. It seems symbolic that, with the Australian Open's switch from Wilson to Dunlop, each of the four Grand Slam tournaments is using balls manufactured by a different company this year. Breaking ranks over tiebreakers is the latest sign of the times, even if it hardly seems a major offense. Other sports also lack consensus. Consider men's golf, which has four majors of its own and four ways of resolving ties at the top of the leaderboard after 72 holes. Despite any confusion, fans still seem quite capable of enjoying golf. Tennis fans surely will end up feeling the same even if tiebreakers in their sport are a great deal more common than golf playoffs. Top tennis players had best remain alert, however. "I'm O.K. with any format, really," said Roger Federer, the Swiss superstar who remains a traditionalist on some fronts, including in match coaching. "The funny thing is we have different formats now in four different Slams, so it's just important to remind yourself when you do get to 6 all in the fifth, what's going on here now? Do you remember which one it is?" For women, that internal dialogue will come at 6 all in the third set even if there has been little concern about the length of Grand Slam women's matches, which are all best of three sets. "I was enjoying it, because you have to go far, and you don't know how the score will be at the end," said Angelique Kerber, who lost a taut Australian Open semifinal to Simona Halep last year 6 3, 4 6, 9 7. "I will miss it, for sure, but I don't know if it's a good or a bad rule change. We will see." One wonders what Jimmy Van Alen would think of it all. It was Van Alen, a wealthy American, who pushed for brisker, innovative formats including the tiebreaker in the 1960s. Van Alen, a former play who died in 1991, was also one of the driving forces in creating the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I. "Jimmy Van Alen would not have liked the confusion of different ways of concluding matches at the four Grand Slam events," said Steve Flink, an American tennis historian who met Van Alen several times. Van Alen's idea of a sudden death tiebreaker managed to change the game in earnest a best of nine point duel with a winner take all point at 4 4, which in a decisive set could give both players a match point simultaneously. This was the tiebreaker the U.S. Open adopted for all sets in 1970 at 6 6 but abandoned in 1975 in favor of the best of 12 point tiebreaker that had to be won by two and seemed, to the players, less of a lottery. Wimbledon embraced the best of 12 point tiebreaker in 1971, but chose to use it at 8 8 instead of 6 6. "I guess tennis has always had some inexplicable inconsistencies with formats and scoring systems," Flink said. Wimbledon maintained its scoring system until 1979, when it opted for tiebreakers at 6 6, waiting 40 years before adopting a decisive set tiebreaker at 12 12 after last year's semifinal between Kevin Anderson and John Isner (Anderson finally won, 26 24, in the fifth set on Centre Court, disrupting the tournament's schedule).	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
The birds and the bees need help. Also, the butterflies, moths, wasps, beetles and bats. Without an international effort, a new report warns, increasing numbers of species that promote the growth of hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of food each year face extinction. The first global assessment of the threats to creatures that pollinate the world's plants was released by a group affiliated with the United Nations on Friday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The summary will be posted online Monday. Pollinators, including some 20,000 species of wild bees, contribute to the growth of fruit, vegetables and many nuts, as well as flowering plants. Plants that depend on pollination make up 35 percent of global crop production volume with a value of as much as 577 billion a year. The agricultural system, for which pollinators play a key role, creates millions of jobs worldwide. Many pollinator species are threatened with extinction, including some 16 percent of vertebrates like birds and bats, according to the document. Hummingbirds and some 2,000 avian species that feed on nectar spread pollen as they move from flower to flower. Extinction risk for insects is not as well defined, the report notes, but it warned of "high levels of threat" for some bees and butterflies, with at least 9 percent of bee and butterfly species at risk. The causes of the pressure on these creatures intertwine: aggressive agricultural practices that grow crops on every available acre eliminate patches of wildflowers and cover crops that provide food for pollinators. Farming also exposes the creatures to pesticides, and bees are under attack from parasites and pathogens, as well. Climate change has an effect, as well, especially in the case of bumblebees in North America and Europe, said Sir Robert Watson, vice chairman of the group and director of strategic development at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia. A warming world changes the territories of plants and pollinators, and changes the plants' time of flowering, as well, leading to a troubling question, posed by Dr. Watson: "Will the pollinators be there when the flowers need them?" The group issuing the report, the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, is made up of 124 countries, including the United States, and was formed through the United Nations in 2012. It resembles in some ways the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, with a focus on providing analysis and policy proposals to promote biodiversity. The group did not conduct new research, but synthesized current studies and analysis to reach its conclusions. The assessment, developed with the help of 80 experts, does not take a conclusive position on two issues that environmental activists have focused on intensely. The report states that the contribution of controversial chemicals known as neonicotinoids "is currently unresolved." Recent research suggests that even when the pesticides are present at levels that do not have lethal effects on individual insects, concentrations in the hive may have long term effects on colonies of wild and managed bees. The passionate opposition to these pesticides from many environmental activists, however, "has almost hijacked the whole question of what's causing the declines," said Simon Potts, a co chairman of the assessment and deputy director of the Centre for Agri Environmental Research at Reading University. The report lays out many contributing factors beyond insecticides to the pressures on pollinators, and notes that they "can combine in their effects." The report also notes that the effects on pollinators of genetically modified organisms, including crops that are resistant to insects or tolerant of insecticides, is not settled. "That's a very clear knowledge gap," Dr. Potts said. "We're brutally honest with the science." A scientist at Bayer, a producer of neonicotinoids, applauded the report. Dr. Christian Maus, global pollinator safety manager for the company and one of the experts who contributed to the report, said that it confirmed "the overwhelming majority of the scientific opinion" on pollinator health "that this is a complex issue affected by many factors." Laurie Adams, executive director of the Pollinator Partnership, a group whose officials contributed expertise to the report, called the report a milestone that would "make a practical and effective contribution to finding solutions to pollinators challenges." The assessment is not structured to support advocacy, but to give governments, policy makers and organizations a sense of the current state of science and the options to address problems, the authors said. "The messages here are clear," Dr. Watson said. "If you want to protect pollinators, this is the suite of options you should consider or, could consider."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Health authorities in the United States said they were investigating 14 new reports of the Zika virus possibly being transmitted by sex, including to pregnant women. If confirmed, the unexpectedly high number would have major implications for controlling the virus, which is usually spread by mosquito bites. Scientists had believed sexual transmission of Zika to be extremely rare. Only a few cases have ever been documented. But if all the women in the cases the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is examining test positive for the virus as two women already have, and four others have done in preliminary lab tests officials believe there is no way other than sex that they could have contracted it. The specter of so many cases all in the continental United States brings fresh complexity to the medical mystery of Zika. The virus is suspected to cause birth defects and a rare condition of temporary paralysis. "We were surprised that there was this number," Dr. Anne Schuchat, the deputy director at the C.D.C., said in an interview. "If a number of them pan out, that's much more than I was expecting." In all the cases the C.D.C. is examining, women in the continental United States had sex with men who had traveled to countries where the virus is circulating, and developed symptoms associated with the virus within about two weeks of their male partners' symptoms. Officials at the C.D.C. reported the potential cases in an alert to health care providers on Tuesday. The agency did not say exactly how many of the women were pregnant, but it reiterated its recommendation that people returning from Zika infected areas use condoms or abstain from sex for the duration of their partner's pregnancy. The alert said there was no evidence that women could transmit Zika virus to their sex partners, but added that more research was needed to be sure. This country has become a laboratory of sorts to test the sexual transmission of Zika, as scientists race to understand the disease. Transmission by mosquitoes is not yet happening in the continental United States because it is still winter, so health officials say they believe that any infection of an American resident who has not traveled to a place where Zika is circulating has probably been contracted through sex. In all, the United States has around 90 cases of Zika, according to the most recent count from the C.D.C., most of them contracted by people who had traveled to Latin America, currently the center of the virus. If confirmed, the new reports of sexual transmission would represent about 15 percent of that total. "It's beginning to look as though Zika can be more readily transmitted sexually than we first anticipated," said Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical School. "These data are illuminating some of the things we don't know." Zika was originally identified in the 1940s in Africa. For most people, it is a relatively mild virus, causing rashes, red eyes and joint pain; many people have no symptoms at all. But the association with a condition known as microcephaly, in which babies have been born with unusually small and deformed heads to women who had Zika during pregnancy, has raised global alarms. On Feb. 1, the World Health Organization declared the virus and its link to the birth defects a public health emergency. Questions about how frequently Zika can be transmitted by sex and how long the virus can stay in semen are particularly urgent here, given the large volume of travel between the United States and Central and South America. There were about 5.5 million visitors from South America to the United States in 2014, and nearly a million from Central America, according to figures from the Department of Commerce. And with the season for mosquitoes still believed to be the primary mode of infection nearing in the United States, Tuesday's report is likely to further complicate preparations in states across the country. "This suggests that along with virus in the blood, Zika is gaining access to other fluids, including semen," said Dr. Peter J. Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. "Anyone who is pregnant and lives in an area where the Zika virus is circulating will need her male partner to use condoms. In the coming weeks, that may include the U.S. Gulf Coast." Testing of semen may be difficult. Patients at real risk in the United States need to be first tested by standard blood testing before the testing of semen would even be considered, said Dr. Gary W. Procop, a professor of pathology at the Cleveland Clinic. Only the C.D.C. and state laboratories do such testing, and only for people determined to be at high risk, he said. Scientists have suspected for several years that Zika could be transmitted sexually. In 2008, a malaria specialist who caught the Zika virus while gathering mosquitoes in Africa passed the infection to his wife shortly after his return to northern Colorado. Because his wife had not left the state and there were no mosquitoes in the region capable of carrying Zika and because the couple did not infect any of their four children experts concluded the only logical explanation was transmission through sex. Last year, French scientists described finding viable Zika virus in the semen of a 44 year old Tahitian man who had recovered from an infection during a 2013 outbreak in French Polynesia. And the health authorities in Britain recently described a case of a 68 year old British man who contracted Zika in the Pacific islands in 2014. After the man recovered, the researchers conducted follow up tests for the virus. It could still be found in the semen 62 days after the man's illness started, according to a report in Live Science.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
In his current book, Hedges raises provocative questions. Has the destructive aspect of capitalism reached a tipping point? Are drug abuse, pornography and gambling emblematic of a free market run amok? Are the vacant shells of cities like Scranton, Dayton, Buffalo, Youngstown and Cleveland the inevitable consequences of an economy based on greed? Hedges' answer consists of a grim doubling down. "The American Empire is coming to an end," he writes. "The death spiral appears unstoppable, meaning the United States as we know it will no longer exist within a decade or, at most, two." Traditional institutions of liberalism, including the Democratic Party, are, in Hedges' view, hopelessly corrupted. "The ruling elites," he says, "bought the allegiances of the two main political parties by purging ... New Deal Democrats and corporate and imperial critics. They imposed obedience to corporate capitalism and globalization within academia and the press." Hedges' indictment names names: "Self identified liberals such as Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama mouthed the words of liberal democratic values while making war on these values in the service of corporate power." Even liberal nonprofit organizations like MoveOn.org and the Sierra Club "are feeble appendages to a corporatized Democratic Party." Hedges is a Harvard Divinity School graduate and an ordained Presbyterian minister. His ecclesiastical immersion shows. This passage is long but revealing of his mind set: "The violence and commodification of human beings for profit are the quintessential expressions of global capitalism. Our corporate masters are pimps. We are all being debased and degraded, rendered impoverished and powerless, to service the cruel and lascivious demands of the corporate elite. And when they tire of us, or when we are no longer of use, we are discarded. If the United States accepts prostitution as legal and permissible in a civil society, as Germany has done, we will take one more collective step toward the global plantation being built by the powerful. The fight against prostitution is the fight against a dehumanizing corporate capitalism that begins, but will not end, with the subjugation of impoverished girls and women."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
"You want to make sure that you narrate what is going to be happening," a blond woman in a skintight nurse's costume said. She had just demonstrated how to safely, and consensually, stick a willing partner with hypodermic needles. The subject of her class was "medical play" and the crowd was standing room only. The event was hosted by the Eulenspiegel Society in Manhattan, which describes itself as the "oldest and largest B.D.S.M. support and education group" in the country. The "nurse," Margot, was not acting as a health care professional, though she did offer hygiene tips. She was there, with her role play partner for the evening, June, to model best practices. (Many of those interviewed for this piece, including Margot and June, did not want to use their full or legal names for fear of stigma.) "You create a container for the things that are your worst fears, your darkest fantasies, and you create very strong boundaries around that," Margot said. "Respecting those boundaries is the most important thing." Those who practice bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism ( B.D.S.M.) have rules for protecting boundaries, safety and consent. But the line between B.D.S.M. and abuse has been in the news after two politicians were accused of abusing their sexual partners. In a report released in April, a woman accused Gov. Eric Greitens of Missouri of taping her hands to exercise equipment, hitting and shoving her, and touching her without her agreement. The woman also said she thought he had taken a photograph of her without her consent; charges brought on that account were withdrawn last week. "This was a great victory and a long time coming. I've said from the beginning that I am innocent," Mr. Greitens tweeted. (The charges only addressed invasion of privacy.) In May, four women told The New Yorker that Eric T. Schneiderman, then the New York attorney general, had assaulted them . Mr. Schneiderman defended himself by claiming he was participating in role play. He also said he wanted to "strongly contest" the claims, but that they would "effectively prevent me from leading the office's work at this critical time." He resigned hours after the investigation was published. These situations bear little resemblance to consensual B.D.S.M. encounters, practitioners say. "There's no demarcation in these abuse situations," said Clarisse Thorn, author of "The S M Feminist." Of the reported incidents between Mr. Schneiderman and the four women, she said, "What these women are reporting is, 'He would hit me without warning and he would keep going until he wanted to stop.'" "There is a difference between abuse and B.D.S.M.," said Gigi, a spokesperson for the The Eulenspiegel Society. "That difference is consent." What Is 'Safe, Sane and Consensual'? B.D.S.M. practitioners use the catchphrase " safe, sane and consensual" to summarize best practices for sexual encounters that mix with violence . Extensive conversations, negotiated checklists and safe words are tools for navigating consent. Setting time constraints is also important, Ms. Thorn said, because most B.D.S.M. enthusiasts are not constantly "on." She provided an example of how time limits can be established: "We're going to do a scene right now," she said, referring to an episode of role play. "We'll demarcate that with one person wearing a collar and calling the other person 'sir,' and we'll do it this evening and when it's done, it's done." The key, said Mollena Williams, a self described submissive and author of "Playing Well With Others," is to "make a list of things that you absolutely need to have in order to feel safe, in order to feel heard, and then make a list of things that would be great if they happened." Lo la Jean, a sex educator and mental health professional, said it is important to tailor each experience to individual preferences and not assume that there is any one size fits all approach to B.D.S.M. "It's almost like a choose your own adventure," she said. Participants have to know and be able to describe and set their own limits. "I can take a lot of punching and kicking, but for whatever reason, if you slap my face, I go emotionally to pieces," said a longtime B.D.S.M. practitioner who goes by the name Ninja Juicer. Now, someone interested in B.D.S.M. might also go to a "munch," a plainclothes gathering where people with different sexual interests meet and mingle. Dungeons provide another space for people to interact and explore their desires. Those spaces have rules and safety monitors, often dressed in bright orange vests, who are on alert for the use of safe words. "Within the scene, the person receiving always has an out, a safe word," Ms. Moon said. "If a safe word is used, then you stop everything immediately." Safe words don't work for everyone. Other practices include making checklists in advance and nonverbal gestures, such as a pinch of the knee. Some checklists "have 1 to 5 scales for how into something you are," Ms. Thorn said. "If your partner is a 5 on being tied up and a 0 on face slapping, you can engage in B.D.S.M. while knowing very granular information about their boundaries." Some B.D.S.M. practitioners criticize the use of contracts or apps that codify an agreement. Preferences change, they say, and no one should feel locked into agreements when their boundaries may change over time. "You shouldn't bring in something that someone hasn't discussed with you," Ms. Moon said. "That's so important in this thing. You do not bring a mystery in." "I went on a date with a vanilla guy, somebody who wasn't involved in the community, and in the middle of the scene he started choking me," a B.D.S.M. practitioner who goes by Salty Goodness said . "Luckily I felt safe enough and in a position to just be like, 'Whoa dude, note that we did not talk about that. That's not okay.'" Members of the B.D.S.M. community also warn against partaking in violent sexual activity while drinking alcohol or taking drugs. "If you happen to have two vodka Martinis and you're about to suspend someone, you can cause serious damage," said a former professional dominatrix, who identified herself as Ms . Smiles. "Same thing if you're using a whip and your eye hand coordination is being thrown off because you're under the influence." 'We just really like to be adventurous with our sexuality.' Legally, though, people can't consent to just anything. "There's an important body of law that declares it illegal to consent to certain types of physical harm, whether it's sexual or not," said Wendy Murphy, a professor of sexual violence law at New England School of Law. "You can't consent to torture. You cannot consent to serious bodily injury." Practically, this means that strangulation, cutting or burning a partner could be prosecuted by law enforcement as assault and battery or aggravated assault even if the victim consented. "People who are not interested in kinky sex find it hard to understand, but some of us are just wired to really enjoy extreme sensations, whether it's emotional or physical or mental challenge," said Susan Wright, the founder of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, an advocacy organization. June, the woman leading the demonstration at The Eulenspiegel Society's class, said she enjoyed being poked with needles. "I have an elation, it is an endorphin rush that makes me proud of my body and what it can handle," she said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Some British red squirrels cute and pointy eared, like Beatrix Potter's Squirrel Nutkin carry a medieval form of human leprosy, scientists have learned. Red squirrels are disappearing from the British Isles, and researchers performed DNA tests on more than 100 animals as part of study to try to find out why. All 25 roadkill specimens collected on Brownsea Island, off England's south coast, were infected with Mycobacterium leprae. Leprosy has not been found in humans in Britain since the 1500s. But the M. leprae strain carried by the squirrels is a close genetic relative to one found in a skeleton buried in nearby Winchester 730 years ago, said the researchers, whose work appeared Wednesday in the journal Science. Because red squirrels are shy and rarely let people touch them, the transmission risk is low, said Stewart T. Cole, the director of the Global Health Institute at the Federal Polytechnical School of Lausanne, Switzerland, and an author of the study.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week's most notable new songs and videos and anything else that strikes them as intriguing. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once a week blast of our pop music coverage. The most obvious forebear for this Janet Jackson comeback single is her 2001 hit "All for You," which was similarly breezy, and asked just as little of her voice. But even at her most intense, she has always had a sweet, lithe vocal presence that's more about shapes than peaks and valleys. "Made for Now," while simple, is charming and especially for a needless collaboration with the vintage reggaeton star Daddy Yankee reassuringly guileless. Ms. Jackson floats her own way, regardless of which direction the rest of the world is floating in. CARAMANICA Remember when the internet was weird? Those were fun times. The video for "Mooo!" recalls a more innocent moment say, a decade ago (or less) when tightly edited absurdity was frequently rewarded with virality and a sort of instant fame that somehow managed to not be toxic. Doja Cat's raps are amusing, and this video lo fi, hilariously salacious is sharply executed. But what she's really captured is the poetry and elegance of low stakes. It's a thrilling simulation of what it meant to be yourself, and not know if anyone would care to watch. CARAMANICA In October, Cat Power will release "Wanderer," her first album in six years, and the first single is "Woman," an arid march and defiant stand. Cat Power (the musician Chan Marshall) has been finding ways to disappear for at least two decades, and her tug of war between reluctance and insistence is as alive as ever here. There's also a pointed dance between Ms. Power and her background singer, who happens to be Lana Del Rey, a performer who owes quite a bit to the reticence that has long been central to Cat Power's power, and who also knows a lot about hiding in plain sight. CARAMANICA A sprightly and weird off cycle song by Kanye West, released by DJ Clark Kent via a WeTransfer download posted on Twitter, "XTCY" is Mr. West at his most abstract, and also his funniest. The beat is a spare parts masterwork erotic exhales, what sound like detuned guitars, no wave dissonance. And the verses are terse, lewd and uproarious: "You got sick thoughts? I got more of 'em/You got a sister in law you would smash? I got four of 'em." CARAMANICA Little in the accomplished career of Luciana Souza, a flexible and transfixing Brazilian jazz singer, feels as charged with purpose as "The Book of Longing." The album, due later this month, features poems by Leonard Cohen and Edna St. Vincent Millay, as well as Ms. Souza herself all of which she set to music. Accompanied by just Scott Colley's bass, Chico Pinheiro's toasty guitar and her own occasional hand percussion, Ms. Souza strikes an interrogative stance on "These Things," a lulling original. "These are the words we've come to call our gods," she sings, wondering after the power and limits of language. "These are the books we read." GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO "Let hatred die of hunger because nobody feeds it," sings Ile (Ileana Cabra, who sang with her two brothers' group, Calle 13) in "Odio" ("Hatred"), which grew out of her enraged reaction to toxic social media. The melody summons traditional roots; the beat starts out simple and stark, gathers a triple time Afro Caribbean momentum and works up to crashing impact, mixing percussion and programming, as guitars, bird calls and chirping electronics all merge amid disorienting echoes. The video clip adds a distinctly different layer of meaning; it recreates the Cerro Maravilla Incident, the police killing in 1978 of two Puerto Rican independence activists, which was followed by a cover up that roiled the island for years. JON PARELES The internet and social media have facilitated a certain kind of hip hop gentrifier typically white who remakes trap hits into folk songs, or cello covers, or some other reimagining that turns on its unlikeliness more than its effectiveness. The current beneficiary of this evergreen phenomenon is Einer Bankz, who has parlayed his ukulele skills into off the cuff collaborations with Chance the Rapper, Trippie Redd and YG, among others. Often, the results are charming, essentially harmless, mildly distracting, a visual and sonic goof. But something intriguing happens when he partners with the young Florida rapper Project Youngin on an acoustic rendition of his recent single "Thug Souljas." The original is poignant and effective, but maybe a tad too brisk and drowning in digital effects that obscure the song's heart rending core. (Project Youngin got some notoriety online for faking his own shooting on Instagram Live as part of the video. He later apologized.) But something happens when the song gets stripped down. In the Einer Bankz version, Project Youngin's singing is roughly tender. The song's mournfulness takes center stage. Einer Bankz isn't doing much musically, but he's created the space for Project Youngin to lean into his emotion. After he runs down a list of friends who've died, he sings, "I wish that list would be finished," and his voice cracks just so. It's chilling. CARAMANICA In the middle of the week, with no advance notice, Mr. Okazaki released "Work" a striking, six volume collection featuring solo guitar renditions of every song Thelonious Monk is known to have written. That's 70 in all. The first thing that throws you off here is how Mr. Okazaki's dark, glutinous, often palm muted guitar sound alters Monk's compositional stamp, which was bright and sharp around the edges, and forthrightly rhythmic. Then you start to notice the widely varied strategies Mr. Okazaki is using. Sometimes he plays a whole theme in single notes. Elsewhere he dashes into outlandish improvisations before even stating the melody. On "Evidence," he fits the song's jagged displacements into a chucking, Steve Coleman influenced groove. RUSSONELLO	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
A defensive star in Green Bay he ran back seven interceptions for touchdowns he played on five championship teams under Vince Lombardi and one in Dallas. Herb Adderley, the Hall of Fame cornerback who played for Coach Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packer teams that won five N.F.L. championships in the 1960s, including the first two Super Bowls, and then helped take the Dallas Cowboys to their first Super Bowl victory, died on Friday. He was 81. The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, announced his death. No details were provided, but the Packers said he had recently been hospitalized. When Adderley arrived at the Packers' 1961 training camp as a first round draft pick and a former all Big Ten running back at Michigan State, he expected to be a backup for the Packer stars Jim Taylor at fullback and Paul Hornung at halfback, and that is what he became. Going into the annual Thanksgiving Day game between the Packers and the Detroit Lions, he had not run from scrimmage all season. But Lombardi, who saw Adderley as the best pure athlete on the team, finally gave him a chance in the defensive alignment. He inserted Adderley, who had played some defense in college, at left cornerback in the second quarter when the Packers' secondary, already short handed, lost cornerback Hank Gremminger to an injury. "I was in a state of shock," Adderley told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel long afterward. "I was shaking and nervous. I had no time to ask anybody any questions. I didn't know what I was doing." Nonetheless, he intercepted a fourth quarter pass from the Lions' Jim Ninowski, helping the Packers rally for a 17 9 victory. In December, the Packers won their first N.F.L. championship under Lombardi, routing the Giants, 37 0. Adderley played for nine seasons with the Packers and three for the Cowboys. He had speed and decent enough size for a cornerback of his time, at 6 foot 1 and 205 pounds, and he intercepted 48 regular season passes, running seven of them back for touchdowns. He took an interception 60 yards for a score when the Packers defeated the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl II. Adderley was an outstanding kickoff returner as well. He ran the ball back 103 yards against the Baltimore Colts and took another kickoff for a 98 yard score against the Los Angeles Rams. He was among only a few Black players on the Packers when he joined the team. When the Packers faced the Washington Redskins in a 1961 preseason game in Columbus, Ga., where hotels were segregated, the entire team stayed at Fort Benning, an Army base. As Adderley recalled, Lombardi said, "I'd rather be here with all my players than be split up somewhere else." Adderley said that landlords would not rent to the Packers' Black players when he was a rookie, leaving him to live with Davis and the running back Elijah Pitts in what he called a "shack" on the outskirts of Green Bay, Wis. Lombardi met with real estate agents after that, Adderley recalled, and "the following year, it was different. We had decent housing. He opened a lot of doors for Black folks and Black families many that had nothing to do with the Packers." Herbert Allen Adderley was born in Philadelphia on June 8, 1939, the son of Charles and Reva Adderley. His father was a factory machinist. Herb was a multisport athlete at Northeast High School. Playing for three seasons at Michigan State, he gained more than 800 yards rushing and was a pass catching threat. The Packers selected him as the 12th overall pick in the 1961 N.F.L. draft. Adderley retired after the 1972 season with 1,046 yards in interception returns and 3,080 yards in kickoff returns. In October 1984 he attended the Packers' first full scale reunion for players from the 1966 team, which defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl I. And he made it clear where his loyalties resided. Telling of that gathering in "Distant Replay" (1985), by the former Packer guard Jerry Kramer and the sportswriter Dick Schaap (the follow up to their book "Instant Replay"), Adderley said: "As far as I'm concerned, I never played for the Dallas Cowboys. I'm the only guy in the country who has a Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl ring and doesn't even wear it." Adderley's survivors include his wife, Brenda, and a daughter, Dr. Toni Adderley, a dentist, whom he had with his first wife, Barbara Adderley. After his playing days, Adderley owned a Philadelphia based company that laid television cable lines around the country.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
HOUSTON In most cities, companies are holding tight, mothballing office expansions and delaying new hires. But not in Houston. Powered by a rise in oil prices and a shale exploration boom, Houston is the first major metropolitan region to regain all the jobs it lost in the recession. The region added about 76,000 jobs last year, according to the Texas Workforce Commission, and is on pace to pick up tens of thousands more this year. Oil and gas companies, from the biggest names like Exxon Mobil to the smallest independents, are dusting off plans to expand, relocate or put up new buildings. Last year, 1.8 million square feet of commercial space was vacuumed up, and real estate brokers expect the same or greater this year. "No question, it's energy," said Jim Arket, a senior vice president at Grubb Ellis in Houston. "That's been the plus multiplier of Houston." The resurgence can be partly tied to the lifting in fall 2010 of the government moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill. The bulk of the gulf's drilling and profits comes from those offshore waters. Shale drilling has also bolstered balance sheets. Nexen, a Canadian company, is moving its American headquarters from Plano, Tex., to Houston after it received permits to restart deepwater drilling in the gulf. "Houston is quite clearly the place to be for a deepwater operator," said Grant Dreger, the vice president for finance and administration at Nexen Petroleum U.S.A. "You have loads of deepwater talent, and it's home to the majority of our joint venture partners." The office sales market, often a harbinger of future conditions, has picked up. After bottoming at an average 58 a square foot in 2009, sales prices for office buildings climbed to an average 224 a square foot last year, the highest in the last 10 years, according to Real Capital Analytics, a research and consulting firm. That is still low compared with Manhattan, where sales prices average 470 a square foot, and Washington, at 476 a square foot. A Canadian real estate investment trust made local history in December when it purchased the Hess Tower downtown for 442.5 million, or 524 per square foot the highest amount ever paid for a Houston office building. The 29 story tower, which was completed in June and had been leased to the Hess Corporation through 2026, was among the top 15 sales in the country last year, according to Real Capital Analytics. "It matches up perfectly with what we're doing," said Thomas J. Hofstedter, chief executive of H R REIT, the Toronto company that bought the Hess Tower. "Our focus isn't energy; it's high quality tenants and long term credit leases." Speculative construction has perked up, too, with more than a million square feet under way at year end. There was little new construction for the last few years because of abundant space. After a year's delay, the Swedish construction giant Skanska broke ground in December on a 302,000 square foot office tower, without a signed tenant. The 20 story tower, now scheduled to open in mid 2013, will cost 60 million to 90 million. Skanska, which also bought a downtown office building and a suburban office campus last year, can afford to gamble because of its deep pockets. In four cities with strong leasing markets, Skanska said, it is investing at least 279 million in putting up office buildings without a tenant. "Clearly, the story about the attraction to Texas is job growth," said Michael Mair, an executive vice president and regional manager at Skanska in Houston. "Everyone is looking at Texas for opportunities, quality of life and affordability, and Houston is off the charts for every one of those items." With little construction and large blocks of space disappearing from the market, overall vacancy fell to 14.8 percent in the fourth quarter from 15.1 percent during the same period in 2010, according to Reis Inc. (Gains in the Class A market were affected by companies' giving back Class B and C space and expanding.) Shell's renewal of its lease for nearly 1.3 million square feet downtown was the biggest lease signed nationwide last year. BP added 305,000 square feet to accommodate employees relocating to Houston from outside Texas, among other things. Small independents are also moving apace. Noble Energy, the first company to get a deepwater drilling permit in the gulf since the spill, is consolidating three offices into one with 400,000 square feet. An extra 100,000 square feet will accommodate future growth. Still, Houston's office market has not entirely regained its prerecession levels. At 24.33 a square foot in the fourth quarter, average asking rent has barely budged from the end of 2008, according to Reis. Vacancy at the end of the fourth quarter was higher than the 12.7 percent in the same period in 2008. Mr. Arket said the commercial real estate market usually trailed the overall market by six to 12 months and that vacancy would fall further, barring another downturn. Energy companies are also being drawn north of Houston to The Woodlands, a 28,000 acre development with office, retail, medical and residential space. Over the last year, companies like Newfield Exploration and Talisman Energy have expanded offices or relocated there to be closer to employees.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
A woman who says she was 19 when she began a relationship with R. Kelly sued the singer on Monday in a Manhattan court, alleging sexual battery, false imprisonment and failure to disclose a sexually transmitted disease, according to the filing. The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, was the latest in a steady pattern of sexual misconduct accusations against R. Kelly, 51, who has for two decades faced claims that he targets and abuses underage girls and young women, allegations that he has steadfastly denied. (Though Mr. Kelly has settled numerous lawsuits with women, he faced criminal prosecution for sexual misconduct only once, and was acquitted in 2008 of child pornography charges.) The MeToo movement and a viral MuteRKelly campaign have renewed interest in his career and personal life. In the filing on Monday, Faith A. Rodgers, a Texas woman, said she met the singer last March after he performed in San Antonio. Following a few months of phone contact, Mr. Kelly arranged for her to fly to New York, where he "initiated unwanted sexual contact" in a hotel room, according to the complaint, including "non consensual oral and vaginal intercourse." The singer did not tell Ms. Rodgers, now 20, that he was infected with herpes a criminal act and she contracted the disease, the lawsuit says. Never miss a pop music story: Sign up for our weekly newsletter, Louder. Ms. Rodgers remained in a relationship with Mr. Kelly for about a year, during which he "routinely engaged in intimidation, mental, verbal and sexual abuse, during and after sexual contact." According to the complaint, it was "behavior designed to humiliate, embarrass, intimate and shame her." Mr. Kelly also regularly recorded Ms. Rodgers without her consent during sex, she said, and often kept her locked in secluded areas to punish and control her.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Janet L. Yellen, the Federal Reserve Board's chairwoman, will deliver a semiannual report on monetary policy to Senate and House committees in mid February. WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve is waiting for more information about the Trump administration's economic plans, just like everyone else. After its first policy making meeting of the year, the Fed said on Wednesday that its economic outlook remained essentially unchanged since its previous meeting in December. The nation's slow and steady economic expansion has continued, with little sign in the latest data that it is flagging or accelerating. And as expected, the Federal Open Market Committee, which makes monetary policy, left the Fed's benchmark interest rate unchanged. The question is what comes next. Fed officials said in the weeks before the meeting Wednesday that their uncertainty about the outlook had increased. President Trump has proposed significant shifts in economic policy including changes in taxation, regulation and trade that could affect growth. "The statement is written such that the F.O.M.C. will be able to adjust monetary policy as needed in response to the fiscal and trade policies of the administration," said Michael Gapen, chief United States economist at Barclays. At its December meeting, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate for just the second time since the financial crisis. After the increase of a quarter point, the rate now ranges from 0.5 percent to 0.75 percent, still very low by historical standards. Low rates encourage borrowing and risk taking, contributing to faster economic growth. By raising rates, the Fed is gradually reducing the force of that stimulus. Fed officials predicted in December that they would raise the benchmark rate three times this year. But they have cautioned that changes in fiscal policy could alter those plans. If Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans seek to increase growth, for example by cutting taxes or spending a lot on infrastructure and the military, the Fed could raise rates more quickly. If Mr. Trump's policies weigh on growth, the Fed could move more slowly. The only hint of those pressures in the Fed's latest statement was a mention of increased public optimism about the outlook for the nation's economy. "Measures of consumer and business sentiment have improved of late," it said. Fed officials are watching fiscal policy makers closely because the Fed has concluded that the American economy is growing at something close to the maximum sustainable pace, meaning that, in the Fed's view, faster growth would probably lead to higher inflation. Changes in fiscal policy are most likely to have a gradual impact, however, so the tension between the Fed and fiscal policy makers may play out mostly in coming years. Ford and Rivian no longer plan to work jointly on electric vehicles. Elizabeth Holmes has taken the stand in her trial. Follow along with our reporters. Ken Griffin, head of Citadel, bid highest for a copy of the Constitution. "The committee is probably still in a wait and see mode as far as fiscal policy is concerned," said Kevin Logan, chief United States economist at HSBC. The Fed's assessment of economic conditions remained upbeat. The latest data showed "the labor market has continued to strengthen and that economic activity has continued to expand at a moderate pace," the statement said. "Job gains remained solid and the unemployment rate stayed near its recent low." Fed officials spoke in similarly optimistic tones in the weeks before the meeting. "All in all, things are looking good," Patrick T. Harker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, said in mid January. "We're starting 2017 off on a good foot." But seven years of tepid growth have not restored the economy to full health. The unemployment rate stood at 4.7 percent in December, a level most Fed officials regard as nearly normal. Other labor market measures, however, remain weak. Wage growth is tepid, and the employment to population ratio for people 25 to 54 was 78.2 percent in December. The Fed's preferred measure of price inflation, the Bureau of Economic Analysis' index of personal consumption expenditures, rose by 1.6 percent in 2016, the strongest performance in more than two years. But inflation remains below the Fed's goal of a 2 percent annual pace a goal the Fed has not achieved since 2011. The vote to leave rates unchanged was unanimous, the Fed said. And the tempered language of the statement led investors to mark down the modest chance of a rate increase at the Fed's next meeting, in March, from about 20 percent before the February statement to about 18 percent afterward, CME Group said. Janet L. Yellen, chairwoman of the Fed, will have a chance to elaborate on the central bank's economic outlook and policy plans when she delivers a semiannual report on monetary policy to Senate and House committees on Feb. 14 and 15. In the meantime, the Fed is the rare corner of official Washington where nothing is happening. Contrasting a lively week at the White House and on Capitol Hill with the Fed's announcement, Michael Feroli, the chief United States economist at JPMorgan Chase, declared the Fed's headquarters "the most boring spot in Washington."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. Beyond a thicket of dahlias, Katie Couric climbed through a tangle of vines to pick a squat little eggplant. Each week during the summer in this beach hamlet, she takes inventory of her vegetable garden, and on a mid September Saturday, the patch of soil was bursting with shishitos, jalapenos, and cherry tomatoes. She should have brought a basket, she decided, holding an armful of veggies. "Some of them are breaking, but they're so good, they taste like candy," she said, before rubbing a yellow tomato on her pants and popping it into her mouth. Ms. Couric, 62, often broadcasts her harvests on the "Story" section of her Instagram feed, where, like many public figures, she invites followers into her world. Having invited NBC viewers into the exam room for her colonoscopy in 2000, Ms. Couric is arguably a pioneer of oversharing, but back then, she was less open to sharing details from her personal life. (Her first husband, Jay Monahan, had died of cancer two years before.) On Instagram, Ms. Couric embodies the "Today" show version of herself: the fun loving mom who can pivot from hard news to "pajamagrams" and family photos. The trick is keeping her 715,000 followers involved. When news of the impeachment inquiry broke, for example, Ms. Couric asked her followers, somewhat un Instagrammishly, what they thought about it. "It's very interesting to me to read the comments because it also gets me out of my bubble of living in New York City," she said. "I think a lot of people who follow me don't necessarily live in big urban areas, and have very different points of view." Back when Ms. Couric was hosting "Today," from 1991 to 2006, she would receive audience letters in response to her segments "or if they didn't like my dress." When she became the anchor of CBS Evening News in 2006, she wanted to take the idea of viewer feedback a step further. Around 2013, Ms. Couric noticed how social media was changing the news business. She joined Yahoo as its global anchor in 2014, the same year she married John Molner, a financier, and a year later founded Katie Couric Media (KCM) with him. "My catchphrase these days is, 'mass media has become an oxymoron,'" she said. "It's niche, and how do you, in aggregate, reach an audience?" Ms. Couric now seems to appear on as many platforms as possible, in as many ways as possible. Since leaving Yahoo in 2017, she has produced scripted series ("Unbelievable" on Netflix), invested in female led companies (ThirdLove), worked on two documentary series for National Geographic and started a daily email newsletter called Wake Up Call. Several of her KCM projects are supported by brands like Procter Gamble and Sleep Number, which promote her content on their social channels. "I don't want to use the 'relevant' word, but it's just wanting to continue to have a voice, and I think that's what everybody really wants," Ms. Couric said. Perhaps inevitably this will now also mean podcasting, which Ms. Couric first tried from 2016 to 2018 with an interview show, before deciding to do a series about the zeitgeist. She likes how relaxed the medium is compared with television. "You don't have to wear makeup, you don't have to get dressed up, it's just a very different vibe," she said. "I also think people are more relaxed when they're not being videotaped, or they don't have to be so mindful of their facial expressions or how they look or how they're coming across." Twelve episodes of the new iHeartRadio podcast, called "Next Question," will be available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts et al beginning Oct. 10. The format is similar to a newsmagazine series, like "60 Minutes," with each 40 minute episode organized around a central question: "Does CBD really work?," for example, or "Does eating meat really destroy the environment, and how so?" "How does violent porn affect teenagers?" She also discusses polyamory, vaping and rural poverty. "I'm taking on these topics that have exploded onto the national stage but are confusing to people," Ms. Couric said. "I find you get so much information in bits and pieces on your iPhone, just a little story here and there. I've always liked to connect the dots." The pornography episode was born of "a confluence of conversations" Ms. Couric had with several people, including a man she met at a conference, another journalist and her gynecologist; it was also informed by a piece she read in The Atlantic. She interviews high school boys as well as Gail Dines, an anti pornography activist who accuses politicians of "complete willful ignorance on the part of adults who have been charged with taking care of teens." Al Vernacchio, a teacher who gives lessons on gender equity to third graders using age appropriate media like superhero shows and Pixar movies, also appears on the episode. "The one skill I think I have is detecting patterns and trends and issues that are going to be sort of at the forefront just a little bit before they are, and I think it's because I read a lot and I talk to a lot of people," Ms. Couric said. Right now, she is working on a podcast episode on ageism, in which she interviews Lyn Slater, a retired professor with a popular Instagram account, IconAccidental. Ms. Couric stayed on the air longer than most female anchors, for a while known as America's Sweetheart, and often tiresomely described as "perky." (In a 2012 video for Makers, she suggested that someone do a "feminist thesis" on the word, which she believes has sexist undertones.) When she entered the media in 1980, she said, "I saw women feeling like they had to be pleasers to their male superiors." That wasn't her style. In her archives, she unearthed a 1984 note she had written to a boss who offended her on the job. "I've always tried to speak up and stand up for myself. That's just who I am." "When I got to the 'Today' show, I had to fight initially to be treated equally, but then when the audience responded to me in a positive way, they didn't really have a choice," she said. "When I first started, Dick Ebersol, who I really, really like and I consider him a friend, but, I got word that they wanted me to wear fox fluffy sweaters and small earrings, and I said, 'absolutely not, I'm going to wear what I want to wear' and I'm not there to adhere to someone's view of what a woman on television is supposed to look like. I'm there to be myself, and if viewers respond to me, great." On a 2012 episode of "Katie," she revealed that she battled bulimia for six years during her early 20s, beating it by going to therapy and researching the long term effects of purging. "Unexpected," a memoir she is writing for Little, Brown, will cover this struggle, along with her decades in the newsroom, and the loss of Mr. Monahan and her older sister, Emily, to cancer. "While I've told personal stories throughout the course of my career, I didn't talk about what it was like to be 40 and have your husband diagnosed with terminal cancer," Ms. Couric said. Because she never kept a journal, she is reconstructing a timeline from the documents in her East Hampton basement, which has become an archive of the past 40 years. (Her home resembles a cozier Nancy Meyers film set; there are banana leaves on the table and a Richard Misrach photo of a lone woman on a beach takes up an entire wall.) She likens the writing process to therapy, except, "you're the therapist and the patient." While the book will be personal, Ms. Couric also plans to cover how women's roles in the media have changed from 1980 to 2020. "I'm going to be looking closely at this massive cultural shift and the aftermath of it, and whether it has really changed things," she said. "I think one of the things that has been lost in the mix has been the subtle sexism that can be so pervasive in addition to more overt behavior." She is reading "The Art of Memoir," by Mary Karr, to figure out how to process all this experience into prose, but is hesitant to read too many memoirs, in fear of being overly influenced by another writer's style. Ms. Couric doesn't want to enlist a ghostwriter, either. "I'm trying to write it myself because I want it to be from me," she said. "We're drowning in a cacophony of voices, and people gravitate to voices that they think are interesting or have something to say," she said over the phone a few weeks later. "So, I think at this stage in my life, I have a lot to say, so I want to be able to say it." Ms. Couric describes her pivot to digital media as a natural evolution, and while she always tried to show her personality on air, she likes that social media allows her to develop her voice and paint a more tangible picture of who she is. "I hate to use the word 'authenticity,' because that's been co opted and overused at this point, but I think people are craving sort of realness," she said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
PARIS The Eurotunnel Group said on Tuesday that it managed a profit in 2009, despite repercussions from a 2008 fire and the disastrous breakdown of Eurostar trains at the height of the year end travel season. Net profit fell 96 percent from a year earlier, to 1.4 million euros, or 1.9 million, the company said. Revenue fell 14 percent, to 571 million euros. Eurotunnel, based in Paris, operates the 31 mile Channel Tunnel, which allows partner rail services to move people, freight and vehicles between Britain and the Continent. A fire in the tunnel in September 2008 caused disruptions to traffic that lasted until Feb. 9. The company also said its results would have been better if a lawsuit initiated by the railways against its insurers had not frozen insurance payments it was owed.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Global Business
AIX EN PROVENCE, France The world of classical music is still figuring out what to do with virtual reality, an emerging technology that can be buggy and burdensome. So far, orchestras and opera houses have come up with little more than 360 degree videos that show concerts from the perspective of the conductor's podium. But there is a breakthrough in Michel van der Aa's "Eight," a so called mixed reality work that had its premiere last month in Amsterdam and is currently on view here at the Aix Festival, through July 30, at Chateau La Coste. "Eight" is an opera taken in through a virtual reality headset. In about 15 minutes, with a genre bending score that verges on pop (the singer songwriter Kate Miller Heidke is featured), it tells a poetic story of an old woman looking back on her life. She beckons you to follow her down a corridor with white walls; once you start walking, you almost never stop, even as the hallway seems to open up into a mountainside and the full cosmos. (In reality, this all takes place in a space no larger than a bedroom.) As viewer, you are very much part of the piece, your hands visible as they reach for a railing and, at one point, lift a red tablecloth to crawl underneath. There's nothing gimmicky about "Eight," in part because the medium is fully integrated with the concept of the piece a rarity in classical music, where VR is often applied to existing repertoire, modern technology superimposed on Mahler. ("Eight" was built from the ground up in collaboration with the firm The Virtual Dutch Men.) "I saw quite a few earlier VR projects where usually you would sit on a chair, and you could look around a little," Mr. van der Aa said in an interview. "It's cool for a few minutes, but I want more. We need to step in and offer an extra layer to these experiences for them to make sense. Otherwise I'd much rather go to a concert hall." Mr . van der Aa's music has long been tech forward. His 2002 chamber opera "One" featured the soprano Barbara Hannigan singing alongside virtual versions of herself. "Blank Out," which is also at the Aix en Provence Festival this month, incorporates 3 D film for an effect of blurring reality. He's at work on a new opera, that, he said, will involve motion capture technology rendered live. "We're surrounded by electronics and multimedia technology," he said. "So it would feel artificial to not allow that on an opera stage." Can you explain how technology heightens an idea like yours for "Eight"? For me, adding technology is like adding a tuba in an orchestra. It's a new color; it's a new possibility. I have an idea, then I think: What do I need to get this across to an audience? Sometimes I need a string quartet. Sometimes I need a 3 D video and electronics. The technology always is in service of the idea. This piece is short. Did the medium have anything to do with that? We did a lot of tests with audiences. We found that if it goes over 15 minutes, it has quite an impact on your brain. There's a limit to what's still comfortable. After 15 minutes, some people became nauseated. Shorter would have less impact, and longer would be a strain. So this felt like a proper arc. Is there a tension between the music and how overwhelming VR can be? It's so overpowering. It's such a big part of your intake, it's hard to get very detailed and complex in the music. Early on, I decided the music needs to be very focused. It's one of the lines of the storytelling, so I can't write a 16 layer, dense orchestra piece. I opted for a more direct, indie pop type. Since VR is still emerging, what problems did you encounter? The biggest challenge was the characters. First, we tried to make them as realistic as possible. I found quite early on that that didn't work at all, because the more perfect you make them, the more uncanny valley they get, and the more unrealistic they become. We decided to let go of the realism and show the digital imperfections more. So we created a glitch that moves through the body that almost makes them transparent at different parts. They dissolve into their surroundings. It became also conceptually much more appropriate for the piece. What other technology do you have your eye on? I'm thinking a lot about how we could lower the threshold for music theater and opera and present it through a web browser in an interactive way. I took a very small step there with my song cycle "The Book of Sand." I wonder what we could do if we could present a new art form digitally through the internet that would make sense and wouldn't try to mimic a live experience. We stream everything these days. There's something to be said about an art form that's there all the time and could be accessed through Chrome and not at the Met Opera. How do you feel about the way technology ages in relation to your art? The way we're doing this, the software is completely hardware independent. So we have a more fluid system. It will look better; we'll do more upgrades. But we stop at some point. In 2030, everybody will be laughing about this. Then again, for me it's not about technology. It's about the story that people experience. If you look at old video artworks, on VHS, they still move me intensely. It's not about the vehicle, but about the content.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Lydia Walker and Alan James Ross were married Aug. 29 at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau. Angel L. Lopez, a staff member of the New York City Clerk's Office officiated. Dr. Walker, 35, is a postdoctoral fellow in international studies, focusing on global decolonization at Dartmouth. From 2002 03 she danced with Pennsylvania Ballet II in Philadelphia and toured as a member of the corps de ballet in 2001 with the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, housed at the Kennedy Center in Washington. She is a founder of Delhi Dance Theater, a contemporary dance company in New Delhi and trained at the School of American Ballet. She graduated magna cum laude from Columbia, where she was a founder of the Columbia Ballet Collaborative. She received a master's degree and Ph.D. in history from Harvard. She is the daughter of Bonnie Scheibman and Tertius Walker of New York. The bride's father is a wood sculptor who creates fine art pieces and furniture for private clients. Her mother is a choreographer whose works include "Cross Rose" performed by members of Delhi Dance Theater at the Green Building in Brooklyn in 2015 and "Little Pictures" performed by Pennsylvania Ballet II at Peabody Dance at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore in 2008. The bride is a paternal descendant of John Hart, a public official in colonial New Jersey who became a delegate to the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
Last year, health officials confronted a record number of cases of a rare, mysterious neurological condition that caused limb weakness and paralysis in more than 200 children across the country. Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday that they were still trying to understand the condition, called acute flaccid myelitis, or A.F.M. And though there have been very few cases so far this year, they urged doctors to be on the lookout because the illness has tended to emerge in late summer and early fall. A.F.M. often involves sudden muscle weakness in the legs or arms and can also include stiffness in the neck, drooping eyelids or face muscles, problems swallowing and slurred speech. The paralysis can appear similar to polio. There have been 570 recorded cases since 2014, when the C.D.C. began tracking the condition, and it appears to peak every two years from August through October. In 2018, there were 233 cases in 41 states, the largest reported outbreak so far, the agency reported Tuesday.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
TWO months after their wedding in January 2010, Kyle and Lindsay Novellano embarked on the search for a home to call their own. The couple, then living in a three bedroom rental in Astoria, Queens, toured some 100 homes in Sea Cliff and Wantagh. Six months into their quest, they happened upon a three bedroom Victorian with a front porch and a picket fence on a small lot in Sea Cliff. The two story house, with its chair rails, crown moldings, fireplace, back deck and "cute gingerbread touches," had everything they wanted, but its 579,000 price tag put it out of their reach. "It was too pricey for the size of it compared to what we had seen," Ms. Novellano said. "For this kind of money, it wasn't worth it." After looking at a few more homes that either cost too much or needed too much work, they decided to suspend their search. In October, a month after they visited the cute Victorian, Kathy Wallach, an associate broker in the Cold Spring Harbor office of Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Properties, sold it for 550,000 to a family relocating from Ohio. In the meantime, however, prices have been on a slippery slope, interest rates are at record lows, and rents are on the rise. And the Novellanos, like an increasing number of other buyers, found these factors conspiring to ease their purchase of a dream home that had once been out of reach. Last September the Sea Cliff house abruptly reappeared on the market, as the new owner's company was relocating him again. This time the asking price was 550,000, and the Novellanos were the first ones in the door. "They moved very quickly because they loved it," Ms. Wallach said, "and with interest rates so low, they were able to afford it for 526,500." That was more than 50,000 less than the 2010 asking price. They went to contract three weeks later and moved in just before Christmas. The average sales price on Long Island dropped nearly 10 percent in the fourth quarter, while the number of listings fell, according to a report recently released by Prudential Douglas Elliman. The median sales price of 339,000 was also down, from 356,050 a year earlier. Luxury median sales across the Island were down 6.3 percent, to 890,000, from the previous year, with the biggest drop, 9.7 percent, on the North Shore of Nassau County. Island wide, the number of homes on the market slipped to 18,447 from 18,742 in the previous year. "While we were looking," Ms. Novellano said, "we got a lot of encouragement from people to 'buy now.' " She is glad they waited, even though she knows "we were lucky this house came back on the market." Others have similar stories to tell. In May 2010, said Carolina Boucos, an associate broker with Daniel Gale Sotheby's, a banker from Merrick made an all cash 1.9 million offer, in writing, for one of her properties, a Mediterranean listed for 2.35 million on two acres in Old Brookville. It had four bedrooms, four and a half baths, "smart house" technology, a wine cellar/humidor, a media room and an in ground pool. The seller rejected the offer. "We held out because we wanted the 2.3," Ms. Boucos recalled. But the buyer took the verdict in stride. "Call me I will wait for it," was what he said. A year later, after the financing fell through on a full price offer, Ms. Boucos called the banker back and asked him if he wanted to raise his bid. He refused, but "actually wound up getting it for even less," Ms. Boucos said, when the appraisal came back at 1.85 million. "He really loved that house," Ms. Boucos said. He immediately "tore it apart," redoing the kitchen and opening up a wall from the foyer to the great room. (The work was the reason he needed to stick to his price, the broker said she was told.) Despite happy ending stories like this, however, some sellers have a hard time letting go of their houses for less than they imagined. In 2009, Joyce Coletti, an associate broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman in Long Beach, listed a three bedroom three bath split level with a new kitchen, cathedral ceilings and a floor to ceiling stone fireplace, for 899,000. When she didn't get any bites, the price was reduced to 849,000. That sparked a 750,000 cash offer, which the seller refused. Ms. Coletti enamored of the place, which was a block from the ocean put in her own bid of 650,000 without commission. Again, the seller said no. When the listing expired, the seller took the house off the market for seven months, then decided she was ready to make a deal. On Jan. 3 Ms. Coletti relisted the home for 740,000, a drop of more than 100,000.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Even before he wrote the poem on which the Oscar winning short "Dear Basketball" was based, Kobe Bryant was interested in animation. He approached the former Disney animator Glen Keane after seeing his film "Duet." Bryant explained in an interview in 2017, "Animation can capture the emotion in the story in a much more compelling, visual way than live action." "Dear Basketball" illustrated the poem Bryant wrote in 2015 as a farewell to the sport he loved; it served as his announcement that the 2015 16 season would be his last. In the poem, recognizing that his body can no longer bear the game's demands, he accepts the inevitably of retirement. Keane's rough pencil drawings depict Bryant as both a Los Angeles Lakers superstar and as a small boy, executing the same leaps and dribbling maneuvers. The film, featuring a score by the composer John Williams, won both the Academy Award for best animated short in 2018 and the Annie Award, the animation industry's most prestigious prize. The latest on the crash that killed Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others. Looking back Sunday after hearing of Bryant's death in a helicopter crash at age 41, Keane said sadly: "Kobe was the most passionate man who was led by his heart and his intellect. He was a great thinker with an insatiable hunger for learning: As soon as he stepped into animation, he eagerly began soaking up every aspect of it. Working with him was a dream and one of the high points of my career." Keane, who hadn't touched a basketball since high school gym class, insisted at the time that the athlete "couldn't pick a worse animator for basketball." In a 2017 interview, Bryant explained why he thought the contrary. "Glen came to the sport with fresh eyes," he said. "Someone who's been watching basketball their whole lives and playing it tends to miss the small moves, the details. When you come at with fresh eyes, you look at every single thing because it's all new." Bryant explained in the 2017 interview: "Every game has a structure, just like a piece of music has structure and momentum. You have to be conscious of how that momentum is building to be able to shift or alter it." Keane recalled studying game footage with Bryant. "Kobe remembers everything about those plays, and talked about what was going through his mind," he said. "It was really important to me to animate not just the physical action, but what he was thinking." Keane said that in a way, "I believe I know Kobe better than he does, because he hasn't had to draw himself. "I'd see the way his knees would angle in as he was shooting the ball, the way he'd kick his feet out to throw his hips around to give himself some lateral movement," he said. To score the short film, Bryant asked Williams, the five time Oscar winning composer for the "Star Wars" series, "Schindler's List," "E.T. the Extraterrestrial" and other films. They had already begun a relationship of sorts. Bryant had previously reached out to Williams, thinking he could learn a thing or two from another master of the score. "What makes a John Williams piece timeless?" Bryant mused to The Los Angeles Times. "How is he using each instrument? How is he building momentum? As a basketball player, what I found myself doing a lot was essentially conducting a game, right?" And Bryant confessed to an ulterior motive: each night he would lull his daughters to sleep with Williams's melodies especially "Hedwig's Theme" from the "Harry Potter" films and he wanted to take a picture with the composer to show them. "I lay them on my chest and I hum it to them, and the vibrations of it just relaxes them," Bryant said. Williams said in a statement Sunday that Bryant's death was "a terrible and immeasurable loss." "During my friendship with Kobe, he was always seeking to define and understand inspiration even while modestly, and almost unknowably, he was an inspiration to countless millions," Williams said. "His enormous potential contribution to unity, understanding and social justice must now be mourned with him." Bryant had plans to create animated projects that would attract African American audiences and artists, who are underrepresented in the art form. "I see so much opportunity to add diversity and bring back the beautiful art of hand drawn characters that allow the animators to deeply express themselves," he said in 2017. On Sunday, Keane said he "can't help but think about the final shot in 'Dear Basketball' of Kobe walking into the light and hearing 'Love you always, Kobe.'"	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
"Tuca Bertie," which pairs an extroverted toucan (voiced by Tiffany Haddish) and an introverted song thrush (voiced by Ali Wong), debuts Friday on Netflix. You may get the feeling, watching Netflix's "Tuca Bertie," that you've seen these two birds somewhere before. How could you not? The series, which arrives Friday, is created by the "BoJack Horseman" producer and artist Lisa Hanawalt. It shares with "BoJack" a similar look and a roster of talking, paycheck earning, occasionally depression spiraling anthropomorphic animals. But there's another similarity to a recent TV great. This buddy/birdie comedy, pairing an extroverted, body positive toucan and an introverted, ambitious song thrush, brings back a kind of yin yang feminist friendship that departed when Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer left Comedy Central earlier this spring. Farewell, "Broad City"; hello, bird city. Or rather, Bird Town, the kaleidoscopic metropolis where Tuca (Tiffany Haddish) is moving upstairs from her former roomie Bertie (Ali Wong), as Bertie moves in with Speckle (Steven Yeun), an architect so chipper and straight arrow he has an "I Actually Like Mondays" mug. The two pals are 30 years old, the crux age for asking, or avoiding, what am I doing with my life questions. (The last season of "Broad City" kicked off its final, moving on phase with Abbi's thirtieth birthday.) Tuca's more of an avoider, working temp gigs, cashing checks from a wealthy aunt (Jenifer Lewis) and living by the philosophy, "Nothing belongs to anyone." And Bertie she's an asker, a worrier, a rules follower, currently tying herself in knots over whether to leave her data processing job at a magazine company (Conde Nest, obviously) and pursue her dream career as a baker. Bird Town is a looser, stickier, more boho environment than the sleek, manicured Hollywoo of "BoJack," and the series is decidedly, and overtly, more female centric. ("BoJack" is about a successful middle aged creep; "Tuca Bertie" about fledgling bird women who occasionally get creeped on by middle aged guys.) And the difference is made concrete in Hanawalt's trippy, exhilarating world building. For starters: the breasts. They're everywhere bouncing on the sides of buildings in the opening credits, on plants (the show is anatomically detailed but biologically creative), on pastries. In its conception and especially in its art, the world of "Tuca Bertie" is thoroughly carnal. The features of the city are curvy and organic; snakes wend down train tracks and through the windows of apartment buildings. The art undulates and pulses; even the inanimate objects seem to breathe. This everything is alive fleshiness fits the series's stories, which, both the comic and more serious ones, involve the characters' relationships with their own bodies. Tuca is earthy and sexual, living in short shorts and comfortable with bodily effluvia. Bertie is self conscious and seems to constantly dread exposure, an anxiety whose psychological roots form the arc of the season. Where much of the comedy of "BoJack" depends on placing animals in civilized human situations, the spirit of "Tuca Bertie" is that even the most housebroken of beings are still ruled by DNA. Hanawalt matches species to character ingeniously. Pastry Pete (Reggie Watts), a pretentious baker who mentors Bertie, is a ramrod stiff penguin. There are sentient plants, who are graceful, mysterious and intimidatingly cool (they make great mean teenagers). A mansplaining, idea stealing, boorish male co worker of Bertie's is, naturally, a cockerel. Their introvert extrovert dynamic is the most familiar aspect of the show, and early on "Tuca Bertie" seems to want to cheerlead more than challenge its leads. But the characterization deepens as the 10 episode season moves on. Brassy Tuca introduced as "friend, hero, connoisseur of snacks" reveals a more melancholy, self doubting side, and there's real nuance to the way Bertie confronts her learned passivity. What really distinguishes the show, though, is Hanawalt's surreal vision, the anarchic fluidity of the landscape, the series's whimsically bending laws of both nature and physics. Sometimes the show's imagination is comically playful. When Tuca meets a hot guy working at the local deli, she's so shaken that her bones leap out of her body, a Looney Tunes visualization of horniness. Elsewhere, the zaniness turns poignant. Flashbacks and memories are rendered in puppetry and stop motion, a visual break that creates the impression of the characters standing outside their own lives, as if observing other people. Bertie, in a moment of crisis, meets and embraces her childhood self, a faceless silhouette. Funny as the dialogue in "Tuca Bertie" can be, what stuck with me most after the season was over were the images. One of those involved Pat (Isabella Rossellini), an owl woman who creates intricate, memory based dioramas in the inside of eggshells the tough vessels, filled with sustaining goo, from which life emerges. These hauntingly pretty works feel a bit like "Tuca Bertie" a hallucinatory, messy story, about two bird women exploring their past and future, that crawls inside its own egg and finds art.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
The decline of smoking has largely eliminated a once common accessory from many homes: the match striker. But candles and firewood still need to be lit, so a new wave of small manufacturers has been giving the tool renewed attention. Sure, you could use a paper matchbox. But a well designed match holder with a rough surface for lighting strike anywhere matches is "so much prettier," said Michelle Nussbaumer, an interior designer in Dallas. "I love them on a cocktail table." Ms. Nussbaumer collects vintage spherical strikers, made of crystal or wood with a silver ring at the top, and covets those made by Asprey. "You see them at flea markets all the time," she said. "Almost every room in my house has one or two." Of course, not everyone knows how to use them. "I don't think the younger generation even knows what a match striker is," she said. "They might take a match out and not realize you can strike it on the side."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
New York's Flamenco Festival is back with us. The crowd that thronged City Center on Thursday for the first of two Gala Flamenca evenings abounded in Spanish speakers and flamenco aficionados. The performers onstage, most of them strongly individual, all won eager applause. The evening just over 90 minutes, no intermission reached its high point at the end, with a long, voluptuous, powerful Seguiriya solo by Karime Amaya. (She's the grandniece of the legendary Carmen Amaya.) Only her dancing was solo; the way she worked with her six male musicians (the singers Antonio Campos and Ismael de la Rosa, the guitarists Paco Cruz and Daniel Jurado, the violinist Roman Gottwald and the percussionist Miguel El Cheyenne) made this the evening's most intensely musical collaboration. The sumptuous hourglass curves of Ms. Amaya's figure handsomely dressed in gold and black swayed, tipped and arched. Her head turned vividly in opposition to either shoulder. And her feet sometimes she hoisted her skirts above her knees paced, darted and drummed. Some of the evening's male performers had delivered multiple pirouettes, but her rhythm made her solo far more exciting when she delivered a quick, biting series of single pirouettes. She reached a climax in a foot trill that was astonishing not just in its power and rapidity, but in its rhythmic and dynamic variety: One pulsation kept playing differently against another pulsation, always with an urgently propulsive force.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Marissa Maier and Wes Lau married at the Sedgewood Club in Carmel Hamlet, N.Y. Marissa Maier, who grew up in a TriBeCa loft in the early '90s, didn't have a regular bedtime or even a regular wardrobe. She mostly wore costumes. Her mother, Kathleen Russo, was a talent agent for dancers, actors and writers, and there were always theatrical people coming over for dinner or putting on impromptu performances. "It was very bohemian," said Mary Shimkin , a friend of Ms. Russo who had lived in the loft for two years and is now the director of marketing at the Symphony Space, a performing arts organization on the Upper West Side. Even when Ms. Maier was young, Ms. Shimkin said, she seemed more grounded and grown up than the grown ups. "I remember leaving for work at night and Marissa would be watching 'Thirtysomething,' at 7 years old," she said. Now 33, Ms. Maier describes her current life as the antithesis of her artsy, peripatetic upbringing. She is more a listener than a performer, has a regular 10 p.m. bedtime, and works regular hours, albeit long ones, as a story producer for "Dateline," the NBC news magazine. In person, she's noticeably poised, with a great laugh. "She doesn't walk into a party and grab a microphone," said Delphine Barguirdjian, Ms. Maier's roommate at Sarah Lawrence College , where Ms. Maier graduated with a degree in nonfiction writing . "She's a quiet observer." In 2011, Ms. Maier attended a birthday party in a downtown Manhattan bar and met Wes Lau, a graduate from Bucknell University who was working for a hedge fund. "I thought Marissa was very angelic," he said. "She was very bright and radiant, beautiful. It was like a glow." Beginning with their first date, the two felt connected in an almost uncanny way. Both said they often think of the same joke at the same time or find they are in a similar mood, or having a similar kind of day, even when apart. "It's almost like we're in sync, like quantum entanglement," said Mr. Lau, 33. "It's this concept that when something changes here, something very far away reacts." Most significantly, they each experienced a suicide in the family during their senior year of high school. Spalding Gray disappeared in January 2004 and his body was found two months later in the East River. Mr. Lau's brother , Darrick Lau, died from suicide in February 2004, soon after turning 21. Mr. Lau remembers classmates in school staring at him afterward, and he rarely talked about it until he met Ms. Maier. "I finally met somebody who understood," he said. She was the first girlfriend Mr. Lau ever introduced to his family. "Within five minutes, we were all in love with her," Jennifer Lau said. "She's just super sweet, the biggest heart, super respectful, which is huge for my parents. And she has my brother's sense of humor. It's very dry, very sarcastic, very muted." When he met Ms. Maier's family for the first time, he was handed a costume within minutes. He and Ms. Maier were recruited to participate in an art installation organized by Ms. Russo. They spent the next several hours wearing wooden costumes shaped like houses and standing perfectly still during a party at the Watermill Center in Water Mill, N.Y. "That first weekend he met my family, he just seamlessly fit in," Ms. Maier wrote in an email. "I didn't have to worry because Wes was up for anything." After seven months of dating, Ms. Maier asked him if they could call themselves boyfriend and girlfriend. "We were spending a lot of time together, we got along so well, and I didn't want to feel aimless." He hesitated. "I think I might have said, 'I'll have to think about it,'" he said. Her response was to gather her clothes and the other things she kept at his Manhattan apartment and leave. She didn't slam the door but that was the feeling. "I was like 'Oh, man, that's it,'" he said. "All of her stuff was gone, even her toothbrush." Over the next several days, he wrestled with what to do. "My thought process was one every single bachelor must go through," he said. "I was thinking, 'I really like her but man, it's a big commitment and I don't know if I'm ready. But man, I really like her. Let me give her a call.'" It took more than one call, but after about a week, the two got back together. They eventually adopted a nervous, antisocial dachshund they named Gertrude Stein. Gertie, as she is called, now accompanies them almost everywhere. "She really is such a pivotal part of our relationship," Ms. Maier said. (Mr. Lau even created an Instagram account for Gertie, cornchipfactory.) Afterward, 150 guests arrived at the boathouse for the reception. Of course, there was at least one theatrical performance that involved an ornate costume. Just before dinner, Johnny Chisholm, a friend of Theo Gray, paddled a canoe out into the middle of the lake while wearing a purple velvet Shakespearean outfit and carrying a fanfare trumpet. He climbed onto a floating dock and yelled, "Hear ye! Hear ye! I would like to welcome you to be seated upstairs!" During dinner on the upper level of the boathouse, several people gave speeches that were reminiscent of Mr. Gray's famous monologues. "No one spoke for less than 15 minutes in that tradition of storytelling and going deep," said Matt Goldman, a founder of the Blue Man Group and longtime friend of the bride and her mother. Ms. Russo, who now is the director of the podcast program at Stony Brook University, stood up with a sheaf of papers that she tossed off one by one, like petals on a flower, as she spoke. In his speech, Forrest Gray, a film and television composer, said that the groom's close relationship with Gertie "put on full display the qualities that make him such a great partner for Marissa attentiveness, unwavering support, utter and complete devotion and a warm bowl of ground turkey with carrots when the going gets tough." Where The Sedgewood Club in Carmel Hamlet, N.Y. Wedding Attire The bride wore a slim fitting lace dress from BHLDN, Anthropologie's bridal line. She tied a skinny red ribbon around her waist. (Red is a symbol of good luck in Chinese culture.) The groom wore a dark blue tuxedo, also slim fitting, by the Kooples. Their dog, Gertie, who mainly hid from guests, donned a tulle wedding dress. East Meets West The food served during the cocktail hour was Asian inspired and included dishes like miso glazed tofu and coconut shrimp. Dinner was all American and featured mac and cheese, barbecued beef brisket and cornbread. Guests ate at long tables decorated with family photos, mismatched glass candlesticks and hydrangeas hand painted in a pink/purple/green hue. Meeting Offline The groom, who works in technology, said he was grateful he met Ms. Maier at an actual party. "We did it the old fashioned way," he said. "No Tinder. We weren't matched by an algorithm. We were matched in real life. I feel like a dinosaur." Family First The couple are close with their families. They went on their honeymoon a road trip to Vermont with the groom's sister, Jennifer Lau. The couple is in the process of buying a two bedroom apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, which they will be sharing with the bride's brother Theo Gray. Continue following our fashion and lifestyle coverage on Facebook (Styles and Modern Love), Twitter (Styles, Fashion and Weddings) and Instagram.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
More than 200 real estate brokers and lawyers, many of them among the most ambitious in the Manhattan real estate world, filed into an Off Broadway theater last month for three hours. The subject of the gathering was not art, but money: specifically, how to sell multimillion dollar properties to clients from Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe. While the brokers sipped wine and nibbled cheese, a panel of lawyers and a banker reviewed some of the biggest sales made to Russians, including the 188 million spent on properties in Florida and New York by trusts linked to Dmitry Rybolovlev, who made billions from potash fertilizer; the 48 million that a composer, Igor Krutoy, paid for an apartment at the Plaza Hotel; and the 37 million spent by Andrei Vavilov, a former deputy finance minister, on a penthouse at the Time Warner Center. The real estate market in the United States may still be slumping, but its high end is enjoying a remarkable updraft, propelled by money flowing in from all corners of the globe, including from developing countries like Brazil, China and India. But no group is consistently writing bigger checks than the Russians. Over the past four years, Russians and other citizens of the former Soviet Union have signed contracts to buy more than 1 billion worth of residential real estate in the United States, according to estimates from lawyers and brokers. The spending spree may just be warming up, given that 84 billion left Russia last year, with the Russian government estimating that up to 5 percent of that capital flight was being plowed into American real estate. The number of billionaires in Russia and Ukraine has more than tripled since 2009, to 104, according to Forbes. "The fact that everybody recognizes that the high end of the market right now is controlled by that buyer is definitely driving that interest," said Edward A. Mermelstein, a lawyer with Rheem Bell Mermelstein, which helped organize the seminar last month. Jill Sloane, a broker with Halstead Property, said, "Everyone knows they are the ones with the big money right now." She added that when she heard that the penthouse at 15 Central Park West had sold for 88 million, "I knew it had to be a Russian." The billionaire buyers are flush with cash from the privatization of Russian state industries and from high prices on oil and other commodities, and are eager to park much of their fortunes outside the reach of the government of Vladimir V. Putin. Mr. Putin signaled his frustration in February, when he said Russia "must end this period," referring to what he called the "unfair" privatizations in the 1990s. Even before Mr. Putin was elected last month to another term as president, many wealthy Russians had been taking steps to move their families to New York, in some cases by using EB 5 visas in exchange for making government approved investments, Mr. Mermelstein said. "I think that Putin scares them to death," said Victoria Shtainer, a Russian born broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman in Manhattan. "You can't have so many droves of people here purchasing at such high rates of speed if things were O.K." Many of the Russians seem determined to make names for themselves as conspicuous consumers. After buying trophy apartments and houses, they often pour tens of millions of dollars more into remodeling projects by brand name interior designers like Jacques Grange. They also collect rare art and commission one of a kind yachts. Mr. Rybolovlev, worth an estimated 9 billion, has been involved in two of the biggest sales. In 2008, a trust linked to him bought a 69,000 square foot oceanfront home from Donald Trump for about 100 million then a record in the United States. In February, a trust linked to his eldest daughter, Ekaterina, 22, bought a four bedroom penthouse at 15 Central Park West from the former Citigroup chairman Sanford I. Weill for 88 million the most ever paid for an apartment in New York City. That sale stirred the imaginations of Manhattan brokers and emboldened developers to increase the prices of other luxury residences. In the past four months, Extell Development Company has increased its listing prices by 5 percent to 15 percent at 157 West 57th Street, which will be New York's tallest residential building. The two floor penthouse is now selling for 115 million, up from the original asking price of 98 million. Russian buyers usually know what they want Central Park views in modern, full service buildings with on call concierge service are high priorities but typically end up spending twice their original budget, said Jacky Teplitzky, a broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman. A number of wealthy Russians are making an impression on the New York night life scene, too. They frequent the Japanese restaurant Nobu and drink at the Standard Hotel in the meatpacking district, brokers said. Many are in their 30s and 40s. They are obsessive about keeping in shape and are often seen with a series of female companions, Ms. Teplitzky said. Some of them roll about town in customized Rolls Royces where the doors open at the opposite hinge to allow women to step out easier in heels, added Ms. Teplitzky, whose Russian clients include Vladislav Doronin, a construction magnate who dates the British model Naomi Campbell. Mr. Doronin has spent more than 20 million redoing a home on Star Island in Miami Beach that he bought in 2009 from the basketball player Shaquille O'Neal for 16 million, according to neighbors. "When I am with them, I feel like I am in a movie," Ms. Teplitzky said. "It is a complete different world." When the Russians shop for real estate, they tend not to dither, brokers said, and they seem to spend their fortunes as quickly as they made them. None Testing the Limits: Only three of New York's 25 tallest residential buildings have completed safety tasks required by the city. The Downside to Life in a Supertall: 432 Park faces some significant design problems, and other luxury high rises may share its fate. Luxury Developers' Loophole: Soaring towers are able to push high into the sky because of a loophole in the city's labyrinthine zoning laws. An Evolving Skyline: The high rise building boom has transformed the city's skyline in recent years. Its impact will echo for years to come. Hidden Feats: Our critic looks at some supertall N.Y.C. buildings and how the ingenuity of engineers helped build landmarks. Mr. Rybolovlev, for example, trained as a physician and started an electromagnetic therapy company in his 20s. He became one of the first stockbrokers in Russia, worked at an investment fund specializing in buying voucher funds, effectively shares in state owned enterprises, and, in 1994, founded a bank. He was in the right place when state industries started privatizing in the early 1990s. Instead of investing in the oil industry, as many others did, he chose the chemical industry. He joined the board of Uralkali, which exports potash fertilizer. Mr. Rybolovlev was aware of several threats on his life and took to wearing a bulletproof vest, his lawyer, Tetiana Bersheda, said. He moved with his family to Switzerland in 1995. Shortly after being named chairman of Uralkali in 1996, at age 29, he was charged with murder in the death of a competitor. He spent 11 months awaiting trial before the chief witness against him recanted and the charges were dropped. In 2000, the market value of Uralkali was 15 million. It went public in 2007, and by 2008, the value had ballooned to 34 billion, Ms. Bersheda said. But Mr. Rybolovlev was not taking any chances. In 2005, well before the initial public offering, he transferred his stake in the company to two trusts in Cyprus, where much of his fortune remains. His other assets are spread around the world, including in banks in London and Singapore, according to a court filing in his pending divorce case. His art collection, valued at 500 million to 1 billion, includes paintings by Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso, all stored outside of Russia. His real estate collection includes a home in Paris that he bought from the fashion designer Pierre Cardin, as well as residences in Dubai and Geneva and a house under construction in Gstaad, Switzerland. He and his daughter Ekaterina share a large apartment in Monaco, their principal residence. In 2008, Mr. Rybolovlev and his wife made house hunting trips to New York. He made an offer on an apartment at 15 Central Park West not Mr. Weill's penthouse, which was not for sale at the time but the seller backed off the deal, Ms. Bersheda said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
THIS WAY TO THE 18TH HOLE A house in Garrison has a golf course as a neighbor. BEFORE Ridgeway Golf Club in White Plains closed two years ago, it wasn't unusual for neighbors to have to cope with broken windows and other damage caused by golfers' wildly off the mark shots. And, recalled Terence Guerriere, who lives nearby, even when nothing was damaged, such incidents often resulted in the arrival of a search party, breaching the privacy of residents barbecuing or sunning themselves on a weekend afternoon. For those homeowners whose backyards abutted Ridgeway and whose front lawns were also in the line of fire of Westchester Hills Golf Club across the street, it was even worse: players there were known to overshoot the mark occasionally, breaking the windows of parked cars and then rummaging through residents' shrubbery to retrieve golf balls. But now Ridgeway has sold its 128 acres to the nonprofit French American School, which plans to build quarters there for 1,200 students, and many residents find themselves wishing they could turn back the clock, said Mr. Guerriere, president of the Gedney Association, a White Plains neighborhood group representing 450 families. Instead of school buildings rising in their backyards, neighbors say, they prefer the expansive views and the property tax income the club generated for White Plains's coffers. In fact, broken windows are a minor irritation by comparison. Homeowners who live next to golf clubs also at times have concerns about the environmental hazards associated with chemicals used to maintain fairways. In Bedford, Donald J. Trump had planned to build a golf course on the 213 acre Seven Springs Estate, formerly the home of the newspaper magnate Eugene Meyer, a property on a high point reaching into Bedford, North Castle and New Castle. In the face of intense opposition from residents worried about runoff from the course into the Byram Lake watershed, Mr. Trump is instead seeking approval for a nine lot subdivision there. Beyond Pesticides, a Washington nonprofit, credits changes to studies from the 1990s indicating a higher mortality rate among golf course superintendents from certain cancers. Two "Toxic Fairways" studies by the New York attorney general's office, in 1991 and 1995, helped prompt environmental and health groups, player organizations, and the Golf Course Superintendents Association to adopt what was called "Environmental Principles for Golf Courses in the United States." In part, according to Web data posted by Beyond Pesticides, course officials got involved in the effort because they learned that developers were experiencing more resistance to golf courses because of pesticide drift off of the greens and runoff into waterways. These days, said Michael Hurdzan, president Hurdzan/Fry Environmental Golf Course Design in Columbus, Ohio, "the industry has taken quantum leaps forward." He says the indiscriminate application of broad spectrum pesticides and fungicides has given way to more targeted uses of slow release chemicals. Course managers are also exploring natural remedies, like applying a mixture of water and molasses to the soil, because increased sugar content encourages healthy microorganisms. On top of which, Mr. Hurdzan pointed out, much of the public may not be aware that grasses used on courses today have often been genetically engineered to be resistant to infestation. Audubon International, a nonprofit organization near Albany (and no relation to the National Audubon Society), is working with landowners, municipalities, hotels and homeowner associations in different parts of the country to encourage the use of organic products. It also promotes the creation of pesticide free areas on courses, where wildlife can thrive. Of the 2,500 courses that belong to the group, said Joellen Lampman, a program director, 96 percent are using fewer pesticides. (There are about 16,000 courses in the country and 832 in New York, according to Ms. Lampman.) However, she said, "we have not been able to convince golf course managers to abandon all use of chemicals, because of demand by golfers for green, perfectly manicured, weed free courses." Mr. Hurdzan cited a different reason. Saying there were at most four courses in the country that were 100 percent organic, he added that others were "a step or two down because of the costs of running a totally organic course." On the other hand, some people love having a club as a neighbor. In Garrison, Joann Alvis and Daniel Greenberg, who since 2005 have owned a three bedroom colonial on two acres next to a golf course, say they are willing to contend with whatever cons there may be, in exchange for looking out back at a vast expanse of green as opposed to a neighbor's backyard. And in winter, the course becomes a playground for their son, 15, and his friends, who sled there when it snows. Ms. Alvis, a stay at home mother, says the location gives her family the opportunity "to live close to nature and get to see a lot more wildlife foxes and coyotes, for example than if we were in a subdivision." She and Mr. Greenberg, a retired garment executive, have their well water tested regularly, and to date, she said, "we haven't had a problem." Chris Davis, the chairman of the Hudson Highland Land Trust and an owner of the club, which is called the Garrison, has instituted green practices, many of them having emerged from an educational program administered by Audubon International. Mr. Hurdzan says many club owners and managers today pride themselves on being part of the green movement. For them, he said, "chemicals are the last resort." When it comes to the dangers of errant golf balls, of course, such changes are irrelevant. Not all houses on fairways are good buys. "It's still a matter of buyer beware," Mr. Hurdzan cautioned. "And be careful to ask the right questions, speak to the neighbors and make sure play areas are far enough away from where the house you are considering is located." Or as Susy Glasgall, a broker for Houlihan Lawrence in Rye, put it: "Golf courses can be a very positive asset in selling a house, but they're not for everyone. A lot depends on how close the house is to the holes." In general, homes with golf course vistas command higher prices up to 25 percent more, she said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Q. What is a fecal transplant, and why would I want one? A. Fecal transplant is a medical procedure in which stool from a healthy donor is introduced into the intestine of a patient as a treatment for a disease. The idea is that the stool from the donor contains a healthful mix of gut bacteria that can seed the intestine of the patient, bringing healthful results. While the procedure may sound highly unappealing, it is not unsanitary. Stool is obtained from a donor or from a stool bank, where it has been screened for pathogens and processed for medical use. Donor stool may be administered via a plastic tube inserted through the nose into the stomach or small intestine. Alternatively, donor stool may be introduced into the colon via an enema or colonoscopy, or by swallowing a capsule of stool. Fecal transplant is used as a treatment for a serious infection of the colon with Clostridium difficile, a harmful bacterium that can take hold if antibiotics kill off enough of a person's "good" gut bacteria. In 2011, C. diff caused some half a million infections, 29,000 deaths and 4.8 billion in health care costs in the United States alone.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Well
Beyond scattered tear downs, it is rare to find a new house in the midst of older neighborhoods in Queens. But in Whitestone, 44 single family homes are being built on the six acre site of a long defunct country club in northern Queens. The Bridges at Whitestone is the first detached home development "of its size in 20 years" in the area, said Tim O'Sullivan, the developer. The 2,000 to 4,500 square foot houses (most are about 3,000 square feet) on 4,000 to 9,000 square foot lots are priced from 1.6 to 2.2 million. Ten are in contract and three are already sold. "We are hoping to do something really special and in keeping with the neighborhood," eliminating the 'eyesore' the abandoned site had become," Mr. O'Sullivan said. The 10 models have varying traditional facades. Buyers can select the color of the brick, mortar and windows as well as the rooflines and railings they prefer. The houses have double front doors, some arched with wrought iron detail, and attached one car garages. Neighboring homes cannot be identical, said Patricia Moroney, a saleswoman with Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty, which has the listing. "It's an unwritten rule," Mr. O'Sullivan said. "It's not so hard to persuade people to do some things that will make their house original." To the rear, however, the houses all have covered porches with ceiling fans and bluestone decks. The houses have two story entry halls with marble flooring. Decorative soffits enhance the 10 foot ceilings in the living and dining rooms; oak floors have walnut inlays. Kitchens are outfitted with Viking appliances and marble backsplashes. A quartz topped center island opens to a family room with a coffered ceiling and raised panels. An electronic lift makes dining room chandeliers easier to clean. Upstairs, the master bedroom comes with Juliette balconies, outfitted closets and marble master baths with free standing tubs and separate showers. "It's what people are looking for," Ms. Moroney said. "It is classic. It is beautiful, clean lines." Finished basements with full baths have 9 foot ceilings. The first 11 of the 44 mostly four bedroom houses are nearly complete. Four are being framed and ground is expected to be broken on 10 more in the next few months. A new private road, Sullivan Lane, will cut through the enclave, which runs along 6th Avenue, Powells Cove Boulevard and 150th Street. Later this month, George and Tricia Tsamutalis and their three children are moving from a 60 year old house a mile and a half away in Flushing, to a substantially larger four bedroom, three and a half bath, Pickford model with a brandywine brick facade. Thrilled to "start from scratch," they picked their 50 by 100 lot and "put our own brush stroke on it from the get go," Mr. Tsamutalis said, including 50,000 in upgrades to the 1.88 million house. "I always wanted that section of Whitestone and when it became available it was a no brainer," said Mr. Tsamutalis, 45, a financial adviser. "There is nothing like a brand new smell, in a car or a house. Aesthetically speaking, the neighborhood is going to be fantastic." While he was growing up in Whitestone, the developer, Mr. O'Sullivan, 48, played tennis and frequented the pool at the former Cresthaven Country Club, which closed in 1989. Much of the club's property was sold and developed in the 1990s, but in subsequent years several plans to develop the remaining six acres failed. Mr. O'Sullivan bought the property out of foreclosure in 2015 for 13.6 million from another developer. "It feels like a once in a lifetime deal for Whitestone," Mr. O'Sullivan said. "If you are buying a new home here, you know the house next to it is also new," rather than "in need of a hug."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Hazel Park, a Detroit suburb, is home to a wrestling supply shop, several family dentistry practices, and numerous Greek American diners, but until last September, it had never seen a restaurant quite like Mabel Gray. With its artfully exposed plaster walls, perfectly mismatched vintage tableware, and a seasonal menu showcasing local ingredients and whole animal butchery, the restaurant initially appears to have been airlifted from Brooklyn. But never mind appearances: Mabel Gray is thoroughly of, by and for Michigan. "Michigan has a very distinct approach to food," said James Rigato, the restaurant's chef and co owner. "We're the second most agriculturally diverse state behind California, and the auto industry has created its own cultural influence. But because most people don't travel here, most people don't know." Visit Mabel Gray, named for the local folklore legend Alice Mabel Gray who lived in solitude on the shores of Lake Michigan and earned the nickname Diana of the Dunes, and you'll be served a healthy helping of local pride. This is a place where Faygo, a Detroit made soda pop, is on the menu, and where affable waiters will inform you that Michigan grows sugar beets 50 out of 52 weeks of the year. But Mr. Rigato lets his cooking deliver the most compelling lessons about his home state's culinary riches. The influence of metro Detroit's Korean population is apparent in the kimchi vinaigrette that heats up a plate of Michigan honeycrisp apples, celery and yogurt, while the black and white garlic sauces drizzled on an order of hopelessly addictive crispy fried potatoes were a nod to the area's Korean and Middle Eastern communities, respectively.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
An architect can claim exceptional good fortune to find a client loyal through two decades. Such was William Bunker Tubby, who enjoyed the patronage of the oil rich family of Charles Pratt, and speckled Brooklyn with picturesque, usually Richardsonian Romanesque style houses, schools and factories from the 1880s through the early 20th century. And thanks to one very unusual commission, Tubby took care of the Pratts even in the afterlife. In the 1870s Charles Pratt parlayed his successful kerosene and oil business into a partnership with John D. Rockefeller, and in 1891 The New York Tribune estimated his fortune at 20 million. He raised his eight children in a brick and brownstone mansion on Clinton Avenue in Fort Greene, and gradually acquired more land along the block, on which the family ultimately put up five mansions, including the 1895 Frederic B. Pratt House at No. 229 Clinton Avenue. This is now the residence of Dr. Thomas F. Schutte, the president of Pratt Institute, the college established by the Pratts in 1887. William B. Tubby was born in 1858 in Iowa. His father was Josiah Tubby, a civil engineer who soon moved to Brooklyn and became a successful leather merchant. The 1880 census recorded William Tubby as a clerk; probably he was working in the office of Ebenezer L. Roberts, at the time the favored Pratt architect, and the designer of Charles Pratt's Brooklyn house. Suzanne Spellen, who writes the Building of the Day blog on Brownstoner.com, counts these houses as the first of at least 36 collaborations between Tubby and the Pratts from 1889 to 1908. Tubby built the row houses for the Morris Building Company, a development arm of the Pratt family that supported its good works. The Pratts built solidly and well, since the goal was long term income, not quick sale. At the turn of the century, the Morris Building Company generated 100,000 of the Pratt Institute's yearly budget of 250,000. In 1890, Tubby did nifty on a grand scale, with his house for Pratt's eldest son, Charles Millard Pratt, at 241 Clinton Avenue. Now the residence of the bishop of Brooklyn, this one has a witch's hat tower, a luscious tile roof, a heavy lidded eyebrow dormer and a great arched drive through. Charles Pratt the elder died in 1891, but Tubby continued to receive commissions from the Morris Building Company, including three soft orange brick row houses built in 1892 at 179 183 St. James Place. Tubby gave them strange slit windows on the top floor, as well as fantastical, sinuous door hardware and limestone door frames with a definite Prairie style look. Just before Pratt died, he began accumulating land at Glen Cove, N.Y., on Long Island, for a projected family compound that grew to 1,000 acres. My wife, Erin Drake Gray, a Pratt descendant and a preservationist, has researched the family's estates on Long Island, and believes that Tubby's houses there were all erased by later construction. Tubby's most spectacular work for the family in Glen Cove was a five building stable compound built around a large oval, centered on an administrative building with a Flemish style tower. Only the tower survives. In the 1900s, Tubby's Pratt commissions petered out, devolving to a 1904 set of garages at 187 195 Waverly Avenue small potatoes, although with intricate brickwork. The children of Charles Pratt switched their allegiances to a variety of architects including Delano Aldrich and Charles Platt. Tubby continued just fine without them, designing scores of buildings, especially in Greenwich, Conn., where he moved around 1910. He died there in 1944. What was Tubby like? A photograph provided by his granddaughter Frances Chilcote of Laguna Beach, Calif., shows a lithe, suave man leaning at a rakish angle; he could be a successful novelist or a society artist. Mrs. Chilcote said that Tubby, a Quaker, "always spoke to me as thee and thou." She describes him as "a very gentle person" who collected antiques. She still has his 16th century "hen table" with a compartment below for a chicken, and a chopping block on the top. As for his designs for the grave, Tubby's 1895 mausoleum for the Pratts is hidden away on a forested piece of land in Glen Cove. It has a cold, Romanesque style exterior of granite, but a spectacular mosaic ceiling inside modeled after the tomb of Galla Placidia, built in Ravenna in the fifth century. Charles Pratt was the first to be interred there, and most of his children lie inside, the reflected light from the colorful tiles staining the marble floor. The Pratts evidently like to be neighbors in death as well as in life: descendants are buried in plots surrounding the mausoleum, and there is even space for spouses.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
At the end of 2013, CNN executives sent word to Chris Cuomo: No more interviewing your brother on television. The CNN host had taken a little heat when he addressed his older brother, Andrew Cuomo, deferentially as "governor" in an interview about a train accident in New York. Can you really cover your brother fairly? critics asked on Twitter. So for six years, Chris Cuomo sat by silently while the governor appeared on his morning show "New Day," but was interviewed by other CNN personalities. The elder Mr. Cuomo used those occasions to mock his little brother so brutally that Jon Stewart made a montage of it. Andrew Cuomo at one point suggested that Chris Cuomo "go into a prison and maybe stay there for about a year or so and then do an expose on prison life." All that changed on Wednesday, March 11. Andrew Cuomo had become too central to the coronavirus story to ignore, and Chris Cuomo's bosses at CNN gave him the green light. So in a series of four riveting interviews, Andrew Cuomo, 62, delivered the scary reality of the pandemic to his brother's audience. He also bragged that he is their mother's favorite and that Chris Christopher, he calls him was the family "meatball." When the governor's audio finally dropped, Chris delivered an aside: "This is a great chance for me to say some things to him." The Cuomo brothers' show became a deeper drama last week when Chris Cuomo, 49, revealed his coronavirus diagnosis. He had lost 13 pounds in three days. He chipped a tooth one night when he was in terrible pain. On Thursday, he called into his brother's daily news conference. "You came to me in a dream, you had on a very interesting ballet outfit, and you were dancing in the dream, and you were waving a wand and saying, 'I wish I could wave my wand and make this go away,'" Chris Cuomo told the governor. The sick guy in his basement roasting his brother is not exactly high minded journalism. Imagine the reaction, if, say, a Trump family member interviewed the president on Fox News. But it is moving television. And more than anything, it reflects the instincts and inclinations of Jeff Zucker, the morning show producer turned corporate executive who now runs CNN. "It flies against every preconceived notion of normal CNN standards and practices," Piers Morgan, the former CNN host who is now a co presenter of "Good Morning Britain," said in an interview. "But," Mr. Morgan added, "the corona governor talking to his victim brother is incredible to watch." Both Cuomos declined to speak about their on screen relationship. But on his SiriusXM radio show last Tuesday, the younger Cuomo acknowledged that, when interviewing the governor, he's not an ordinary journalist questioning a public official. He's offering insight into a man he is close to and hopes his audience can understand more deeply. "I wanted people to see that he's not just super intense on this all the time that he's living it with you," Chris Cuomo said. "He gets it. He's not a general. He's a man in full, and he's worried." He acknowledged the obvious conflict of interest. "There will come a time when there's an accountability measure where it will no longer make sense for it to be me" interviewing the governor, he said. Even without the almost cinematic story line, the coronavirus moment seemed tailor made for Chris Cuomo. He's a high wattage, emotional journeyman who arrived at CNN to revive its morning show in 2013. His unpredictable, in your face style on camera and off didn't always work in an ensemble. So in 2018, Mr. Zucker moved him to a 9 p.m. slot, opposite MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity of Fox News, two ideologically driven powerhouses who typically and easily bested CNN in the ratings. Ford and Rivian no longer plan to work jointly on electric vehicles. Elizabeth Holmes took the stand in her trial. Follow along with our reporters. Ken Griffin, head of Citadel, bid highest for a copy of the Constitution. For two years, Mr. Cuomo delivered a solid audience it is CNN's top rated show but never broke out. His mad as hell attacks on government failures lacked the explanatory clarity offered by Ms. Maddow and her MSNBC colleague Chris Hayes. His celebrity quality taut T shirts and bulging biceps bared during Hurricane Irma in 2017 and workout videos on Instagram didn't connect to the political moment. His most compelling viral moment occurred last year, when he erupted angrily at a guy who called him "Fredo" at a bar on Shelter Island. But the new crisis plays to his strengths. It is about Mr. Cuomo's go to topic: government failure. Audiences are eager for accountability and information. But they are also responding to love, Noah Oppenheim, the president of NBC News who keeps an eye on the competition, said in an interview. "Love between people whether it's brothers in high profile positions, or doctors and patients." That is one thing the Cuomos do: They love one another. On March 30, the day a Navy hospital ship arrived in New York, they said "I love you" twice each, in quick succession. The affection, the combat this is, friends say, how they are. "I was a little shocked at how open they're being about this but people seem to really enjoy it," said a close friend of Chris Cuomo's, Chris Vlasto, an ABC News executive producer. (I've noticed that I'm quoting a lot of men in this column; the Cuomos' world is very male.) The boys and their three sisters grew up at the feet of Gov. Mario Cuomo, who served as a counterpoint in the 1980s to the Republican president, Ronald Reagan. Mario Cuomo was the intellectual keeper of the Democratic flame, much as his elder son provides Democrats with their clearest contrast to President Trump today. The governor was a demanding father who bred intense competitiveness among his children. Andrew was a gear head and his father's right hand; Chris was the pudgy youngest of five, who worshiped his big brother. "The relationship between Andrew and Chris when they were younger was much more a father and son type relationship," said John Marino, an aide to Mario Cuomo, who recalled driving to New Jersey with Andrew days before the 1986 New York election to check out a used sports car that Chris wanted. "Mario was governor, he was busy, and Andrew remained very, very close to Chris." Their relationship has stayed close, and complex. Andrew is a solitary figure, Chris is an extrovert. Andrew is a behind the scenes player, Chris is a performer. Chris has also been an adviser to his brother, people who have worked for Andrew told me, sometimes extending his advice to the governor's staff. He's encouraged his brother's boldness; he has also encouraged the governor's prickliness about media coverage, a shared "Cuomo gene," one friend said. And now, suddenly, "my brother is this fulcrum point of where we are, and what's going on, and now all of you are watching CNN for perspective on this and I'm right in the middle of it," Chris Cuomo said on his radio show. "And now I have coronavirus. So weird." He added: "The fact that you think Andrew is sexy is so weird to me." CNN's audience more than doubled from March 9 to April 2, according to Nielsen, outpacing its rivals in audience growth. "Cuomo Prime Time" is up even more, 118 percent. The most read story on CNN's website on Thursday even as news broke that 6.6 million people had filed unemployment claims was about Mr. Cuomo's personal battle with the virus. It's easy, in this strange moment, to forget how far even outside the stretched norms of television news this is. But the critics have started to raise eyebrows. The Washington Post's media columnist, Margaret Sullivan, asked Saturday whether the "journalism ethics police" shouldn't shut down the whole thing. Fabian Reinbold, a German foreign correspondent based in Washington, was also puzzled. "It would be considered highly inappropriate and corrupt back home, but here it is getting applause on Twitter by a lot of colleagues," Mr. Reinbold said. "Needless to say, there are plenty of such problems in the Fox News/Trump corner as well, but this surprised much more." Crises often transform the broadly accepted rules of media. And for a century they've pulled news toward emotion and connection. Edward R. Murrow opened a new kind of broadcast news theater when he spoke from a London roof in 1940, and made his audience feel the terror of the Blitz. On Sept. 11, 2001, the business reporter Ron Insana, who witnessed the collapse of the World Trade Center, showed up on "The Today Show" his suit still dusty with ash. The coronavirus crisis has accelerated trends in American TV. There's a technological shift; executives are already thinking about how much money they will save by sticking to Skype and Zoom (or, in CNN's case, Cisco Webex, which struck perhaps the year's luckiest marketing deal to put its logo on the screen of now ubiquitous remote interviews). There's the new experience of seeing reporters and anchors at home which manages to feel both informal and staged at the same time. But the biggest shift may be the one Mr. Zucker and the Cuomos are now leading. They are, in their way, answering the endlessly debated question of how to restore trust in media. Do you strive to project an impossible ideal of total objectivity? Or do you reveal more of yourself, on Twitter or on Instagram and in your home? The old model for authority in public affairs, of course, is a man in a suit and a tie behind a desk. It was appropriated with particular success by Donald Trump on "The Apprentice," another Zucker creation. Today, daily White House news briefings often feel like clumsily produced episodes of reality television, a kind of parody of old fashioned TV seriousness. Meanwhile, Mr. Zucker's CNN is taking TV news in the other direction, toward reality television and Instagram, winning trust through the projection of a rough cut realness. The Cuomos aren't just feeling your pain. You're feeling theirs. News organizations invest heavily to build belief in their brands. That's why CNN calls itself "The Most Trusted Name in News." But at a moment when celebrities and social media figures seem to be connecting with Americans better than faceless brands, two brothers who share corny jokes and coronavirus fears are turning the "Cuomo" name into its own source of trust. "You get trust from authenticity and relatability and vulnerability," Mr. Zucker told me. "That's what the brothers Cuomo are giving us right now."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Marco Cochrane's monumental sculpture, "Truth is Beauty," 55 feet tall, debuted at Burning Man in 2013. A smaller work by the artist will be featured at the Renwick Gallery. WASHINGTON At the end of the summer, for one week only, hundreds of giant fantastical sculptures and whimsical roving vehicles appear, then disappear like a shimmering mirage in the Nevada desert. We're talking about Burning Man, the notoriously free spirited annual spectacle that has occupied a dry lake bed outside Reno for nearly 30 years. Depictions of Burning Man tend to focus on the hedonistic antics of attendees, but from the beginning, when its co founder, Larry Harvey, burned a wooden effigy as a summer solstice ritual on a San Francisco beach in 1986, art has been part of its DNA, and increasingly the museum world is taking notice. When Burning Man started selling tickets in the mid 1990s, it began giving away artist grants. That support, now totaling around 1.3 million annually, plus quiet funding from Silicon Valley, has allowed Burning Man's art projects to grow in ambition and quality. A generation of volunteers spawned more artists, turning Burning Man into "an informal but very effective art school," as Mr. Harvey put it. Pointing to these apprentices and what he called "enlightened patronage," he sees parallels in the blossoming of art at Burning Man and the Italian Renaissance, its art theme in 2016. Those challenges were part of the show's appeal for both parties. Touching will be encouraged for most works, and outreach is precisely what Burning Man is after. In the process, both cultural institution and countercultural event may re evaluate their relationships to the mainstream. "That's going to be a really cool outcome if the lines get blurred," said Kim Cook, Burning Man's director of art and civic engagement. "If we're not so far out and the museum isn't so far in." Ms. Atkinson, who recently attended her first Burning Man, contrasted that experience with the frenzied marketplace of Art Basel Miami, another annual fair of similar size and duration. In Miami, art is a product; an investment. At Burning Man, art is a manifestation of communal values, like inclusion and participation, that generate playful work emphasizing interaction and feeling over economics. Those qualities make Burning Man art "less attractive in the conventional world of galleries," Mr. Harvey said. "But at the same time the great potency of this is that it's a social movement." That said, some of the works are acquired after the event by cities or businesses. And Burning Man is eager to help its artists make a living beyond the desert. The exhibition includes sculptures, art cars, light installations (including one by Leo Villareal that is part of the Renwick's permanent collection), virtual reality experiences, jewelry and costume displays, an immersive temple (one of the show's three commissioned works), and a documented history of the event organized by the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno. The Renwick also teamed up with the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District to extend the exhibition into the neighborhood, where six installations among them, a giant bear made of pennies and a bronze head of Maya Angelou will inhabit parks and sidewalks. Burning Man has bohemian roots and can be seen as a descendant of Dada, Allan Kaprow's Happenings and the psychedelic Merry Pranksters. Yet the Renwick is the arm of the Smithsonian dedicated to American craft, and "No Spectators" celebrates Burning Man as a hub of modern maker culture. The Arts and Crafts movement was born in response to the Industrial Revolution, and Ms. Atkinson suggests that Burning Man art responds to the digital and information revolutions. "Each time we take another one of these technological leaps, there needs to be a balancing humanist force that keeps us connected," she said. The link between Silicon Valley and Burning Man in both proximity and attendance is no accident, she pointed out. But what happens when art shaped by utopian principles and intended as a civic gift to a temporary city is uprooted from its native white sands and replanted within white walls across the street from the White House, suddenly subject to the scrutiny of critics, curators and busy tourists? "This is the heart of the experiment now," Ms. Cook said. "When you move into another context, how much cultural integrity can you maintain and insist upon?" The experiment she refers to is the expansion of Burning Man. In recent years, the organization which has dozens of full time, year round employees has been planning its long term legacy. In 2011, it shifted from a limited liability company to a nonprofit, consolidating previously independent entities, like the Black Rock Arts Foundation, under one roof. Since the Bureau of Land Management has capped attendance at the Burning Man event at about 70,000 people, the organization is exploring new ways to spread the gospel. Museums and municipalities are potential apostles. The goal is "a global movement which is not purely event based anymore," Ms. Cook said. "It's as much about engaged citizenship and quality of interaction as it is about having a function." Burning Man and the Smithsonian have worked closely together to ensure that values are upheld while institutional needs are met. Admission to the Smithsonian, as always, is free. A licensing agreement lets Burning Man review signage and press materials and set guidelines for merchandising and sponsorship. Nothing with the Burning Man name or logo will be sold in the gift shop; no corporate sponsors are acknowledged near the artwork, though the Renwick's exhibition is supported by Intel and the Golden Triangle's by Lyft. The Smithsonian is also enlisting local Burners, as the festivalgoers are known, as gallery volunteers to help interpret and enhance the experience. And a docent manual that Burning Man helped develop offers suggestions for promoting deeper encounters in the Burning Man spirit: "Think about facilitating interactions rather than simply sharing information." Here's a look at several featured artists and collectives adapting their Burning Man art to the white walled museum world. Ms. Bertotti noted that the work "takes on a different preciousness here." But then, adaptability is a Burning Man virtue. Over the past decade Five Ton Crane has brought charming art cars and fanciful installations to Burning Man. For the Renwick, the collective contributed "Capitol Theater," a 12 seat Art Deco movie theater on the back of a big red bus an example of what is known at Burning Man as a Mutant Vehicle. Three films will be shown on a loop, including a six minute German abstract impressionist dance and a silent melodrama created by the collective. Small moments of discovery are buried throughout: colorful dioramas hidden in vintage film reels, a discarded fictional newspaper. "We pride ourselves on our craftsmanship and the level of detail in all of our pieces," Mr. Orlando said. "We want people to explore it."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
The increasingly lengthy commute isn't just a traffic jam. It's a captive audience for advertisers. The average one way trip for commuters in the United States in 2017 was 26.9 minutes, according to the Census Bureau. That was up from 26.6 minutes in 2016 and added two and a half hours to the average time commuting over the course of the year. So even in this age of Facebook, Google, Netflix and Amazon, the companies selling seemingly old fashioned ad space like billboards have noticed the slowing crawl. "We love a good traffic jam," said John Miller, vice president of sales and sales operations for Lamar Advertising in Baton Rouge, La. "We are all about eyeballs on billboards, and the increased amount of traffic is helping us." Lamar has 175,000 billboards throughout the United States, Mr. Miller said, adding that slower traffic had helped the company's data collection program determine who was looking at the board and for how long. Using anonymous data from mobile devices and apps, Lamar has figured out how fast cars are passing by, how much "dwell time" drivers spend paying attention to billboards, what the demographics of the drivers are, and even where they live, travel and shop. Roughly three years ago, Clear Channel Outdoor started its own data collection service, Radar. Using global positioning data from mobile apps that require mapping navigation, dating, shopping and restaurant ads the service blends third party demographic data with information about people passing billboards to determine not only where commuters will spend, but how. "Now we're starting to understand what mobile devices we saw exposed to our billboards, and we look back in time and say, 'Where else have we seen those devices?'" said Dan Levi, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Clear Channel Outdoor. "In the case of businesses trying to get people into Target, we say, 'What are the locations that are the most efficient in getting people whose devices we've seen in Target?'" He noted that a recent analysis of fast food customers in Southern California had found a strong (and perhaps counterintuitive) correlation with their going to the gym, largely because commuting whittled away time for sit down meals and other forms of exercise. It also showed that billboards for gyms worked better when placed near a commuter's workplace than near his or her home. Mr. Miller said that data could also help digital billboards, which make up 2 percent of Lamar's billboard inventory, change to meet an advertiser's needs at specific times of the day. That could mean a movie studio's billboard mocking traffic congestion at the height of rush hour, a Dunkin' billboard changing from coffee in the morning to sandwiches at night, or sequential billboards telling a story. "Smart brands strategically choose their placements based on a deep understanding of location and audience flow," said Jeremy Male, chief executive officer of Outfront Media. "Then they match the messaging to the environment. This means creatively impactful messaging that highlights one key message, easily digestible with a strong call to action." If advertisers can't catch commuters' eyes with billboards, they are also trying to reach them through radio. For instance, iHeartMedia which owns Clear Channel Outdoor has spent the last three years looking at listener behavior on both its radio stations and its app. Its research has produced data that iHeartMedia now sells to advertisers along with demographic information and specific ad time. 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. However, Robert Pittman, chairman and chief executive officer of iHeartMedia, said commuters were so bombarded with information that advertisers might get them to want a product or service in the moment but not get them to remember once they're out of their cars. Mr. Pittman said introducing a Taco Bell breakfast menu to commuters when they're hungry, suggesting they drink Bacardi rum when they get home or pitching a car dealership while they're stuck in their clunker put those advertisers foremost in a commuter's mind when they're most susceptible to persuasion. When 20th Century Fox was preparing to release the Queen biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody" this year, iHeartRadio stations used peak commute times to air interviews about the rock band, Mr. Pittman said. On Nov. 1, a day before the film's release, different versions of the six minute title song played across all 650 iHeartRadio stations and sites. "The longer the commute and the more time they're in the car, the more they're looking to enjoy the experience in the car or to make it at least more tolerable," Mr. Pittman said. "We really try to make the programming that way, and we're able to bring our advertising partners into it as well." Commuters using public transportation are also a coveted audience, especially in cities like New York (where 56 percent of commuters used public transportation in 2017), Boston (35 percent), San Francisco (35 percent), Washington (33 percent) and Chicago (28 percent). The Manhattan advertising technology company Intersection works with transit agencies in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia to place interactive ads, Wi Fi hubs and video displays in and around bus stops, train stations and airports. Dafna Sarnoff, Intersection's chief marketing officer, said partnerships with Foursquare on navigation and with companies like the ice cream maker Blue Bunny on station takeovers (like its pop up ice cream shop in a Chicago subway station this year) had become essential to holding commuters' attention.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Oona Doherty's entrance would have been better had it been a surprise; it wasn't, but it was still a doozy. This contemporary choreographer and performer from Belfast is astonishing not merely raw, as she is often described, but exactingly articulate. She is in possession of a body with as much flexibility as her mind, as was revealed in her arresting exploration of the young men of her hometown. On Friday, at the start of Ms. Doherty's "Hope Hunt and the Ascension Into Lazarus," spectators huddled around the entrance of the 92nd Street Y in a cold drizzle and waited for a car to pull up to the door. It was a desperate looking thing, with a garbage bag taped over the back window; one of its occupants, Joss Carter, got out, lit a rolled cigarette and surveyed the crowd with hunched shoulders before walking around to the back and opening the trunk. Out spilled Ms. Doherty. Dressed in a baggy blue shell jacket and pants, she crumbled and rose from the pavement with a spooky pliancy as Strength NIA's "Northern Ireland Yes" played. Once standing, she held her arms out and swayed to the beat before sliding back down to the sidewalk and crawling between spectators. Rising and buckling backward, sniffing and swiping her nose with the occasional head toss, she maintained a gliding, catlike grace. After she joined Mr. Carter and the driver to stand in front of the car they raised one fist in the air, then the other and then both to lyrics that included, "God is a Catholic man from Creggan" her mates abandoned her, driving off as Mr. Carter muttered something about having to "see a man about a dog."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Like thousands of minor league baseball players, Zack Kelly knew May 31 was an important date. With professional baseball on pause because of the pandemic, M.L.B. had ensured minor leaguers would be paid 400 a week through the end of the month and Kelly had a hunch that some players would be released as that expiration date approached. He just didn't think he would be one of them. Kelly, a right handed pitcher, wasn't a first round pick or a notable prospect, but he was progressing steadily through the Los Angeles Angels' farm system. Last season, at 24, he performed solidly at Class AA Mobile, a level where players typically earn about 9,300 a season. An elbow injury during spring training slowed him and he was awaiting surgery, but Kelly was looking forward to returning to the mound. Then came the news on May 29 that he was among the 39 minor league players released by the Angels. "It's kind of frustrating because I felt like I had a career that wasn't worthy of getting released at this point," he said. Much of the baseball world has been focused on the bitter back and forth between M.L.B. and the major league players' union as they try to hash out their differences on pay in order to play some semblance of a season in 2020. But as M.L.B.'s revenue has dried up significantly with the game on pause, much of the financial pain has also been felt by the vast constellation of club employees, minor league players and stadium workers who depend on the sport for their livelihood. On March 31, M.L.B. Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that the stipends for roughly 8,000 minor league players would continue until May 31 or until the start of their season, whichever came first. Three weeks later, Manfred sent a memo to the nearly 9,000 team employees governed by the uniform employee contract which includes major and minor league coaches, scouts, trainers and some front office staffers telling them that their contracts would be suspended as of May 1 because of the national emergency and lack of revenue. This gave teams the authority to enact furloughs, pay cuts and layoffs. "I feel for some of those guys," said Kelly, adding that the Angels' minor league players released were a mix of experienced, young and injured. He added: "It's unfortunate and it stinks that it has to come down to a financially based motive." The Angels owned by Arte Moreno, who has an estimated net worth of over 3 billion implemented some of the most drastic cost cutting of any M.L.B. team. They have released over 50 minor league players since March and instituted furloughs that gutted nearly every department of the organization, including trimming their amateur scouting group days before the draft began Wednesday. The Angels said they had donated 1 million to an employee relief fund. According to details of the program sent to employees, they could apply for an immediate one time 500 grant or submit a more detailed application for a needs based grant. "We, like businesses throughout the United States, are making difficult decisions to protect our long term stability," Angels spokeswoman Marie Garvey said in a statement in late May. Up the highway in Los Angeles, the Dodgers, owned by the billionaire Mark Walter, implemented a tiered system of pay cuts to avoid furloughs and layoffs. Full time employees making at least 75,000 a year saw a reduction, while those making more had their pay cut by up to 35 percent. Front office employees and minor league players aren't represented by unions, leaving them up to the whims of their employers. Many stadium workers have unions, but they are subcontracted hourly workers and have had mixed results getting aid from teams. Major league players, on the other hand, agreed in March to be paid only for games played, and their union has resisted owners' calls for deeper cuts. While no decision has been made on the length of a potential 2020 major league season, M.L.B. has told the players' union that teams would lose an average of 640,000 per game over an 82 game campaign played in empty stadiums if players were paid their full, prorated salaries, according to an Associated Press report last month though the union is skeptical of the league's accounting and has requested financial documents. David Carter, a professor of sports business at U.S.C.'s Marshall School of Business, said that while owners are indeed wealthy, they "aren't necessarily liquid the way you or I might think a billionaire is." Many owners are less concerned about yearly losses than they are with growing their team's valuations so that they can net large profits from a later sale. Fewer workers are needed with no games happening, of course, but Carter argued that owners and major league players are not sympathetic figures in the current economic climate, with more than 20 million people unemployed in the United States. "That's probably been the single area where there's been bad public relations, bad messaging and ownership of the issue with franchise owners that have not come across very strong because they are perceived as this really elite business crowd," he said. "You have people who are relying on minimum wage and that job at the arena as their second position to help put food on the table, and now they're getting cut back but, 'Wait a minute, you're still C.E.O. of what company?'" And some major leaguers, including David Price of the Dodgers and Sean Doolittle of the Washington Nationals, have led efforts to donate money to minor leaguer players. Kelly, now without income from the Angels and with a monthslong rehabilitation ahead after his upcoming elbow surgery, was unsure how much time he could dedicate to his side gig, giving baseball lessons. Normally, he said, that netted him "a couple hundred bucks every month" to help during the season. Kelly, who received a 500 bonus when he signed with the Athletics as an undrafted free agent in 2017 before landing with the Angels, said he was grateful that his wife had a stable job in health care to support them. He said the Angels would be paying for his medical costs through workers' compensation. As he talked by phone recently from his home in South Carolina, Kelly said he felt bad for his former coaches in the Angels farm system, many of whom have been furloughed and can't leave for jobs elsewhere. This pandemic, he said, has shown which teams prioritize their employees and players. "That's going to have an effect for years to come," he said, "especially if I'm a free agent going into the draft soon and I'm thinking Team A has invested in everybody on staff, and that speaks a lot more than somebody else who cut everybody for a couple thousand dollars."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
One and Done? Yes, but Done Before the Final Four It is, with rare exceptions, the era of the freshman in college basketball. Across the country, elite teams are led by teenagers who hit town for a few months, maybe win a few dozen games and even a title, and then head to the lucrative world of the pros. The N.B.A.'s so called "one and done" rule, which bars 18 year olds from playing in the league, has been at the heart of this transformation. Since its formalization more than a decade ago, the rule had led young players to opt for only a year of college ball a pit stop on the way to the N.B.A. but its effect has been to reshape the college game, and to make it unrecognizable to grumbling traditionalists. So how many one and dones, the college freshmen expected to be 2019 N.B.A. draft picks, are playing critical roles for Final Four teams this season? None of the freshmen on the four teams left in the N.C.A.A. men's tournament are averaging more than 6 points a game, and the only Final Four players likely to be drafted in June are upperclassmen. Sophomores, juniors and even (gasp) seniors are leading the way for Virginia, Michigan State, Texas Tech and Auburn. And it is not just this year. Freshman stars have not dominated any recent Final Fours, either. There was just one drafted one and done player in the 2018 Final Four, Omari Spellman of Villanova, who was selected 30th over all. There were two in 2017 and one in 2016, with only Zach Collins of Gonzaga, now with the Portland Trail Blazers, being drafted in the top 20. While the phenomenon of talented young players' spending only a year in college has certainly had an effect on the game, it turns out that for the most part it has not reshaped it at least in championship terms at all. One big reason for the lack of one and dones in the Final Four for the last four years has been the absence of Kentucky and Duke two programs that have come to rely on them. In fact, a trend that was supposed to reinvent college basketball has mostly restricted itself over the years to those two colleges and a few others. Duke has four potential one and dones this season; Kentucky has two. But both teams were eliminated in the regional final round over the weekend. (North Carolina, with two possible one and dones this season, lost in the round of 16.) The one and done era began in 2006 when the N.B.A., concerned about a few high profile young busts, decided it would raise the age limit for players to 19. That left most high school stars with a year to kill before they could begin their pro career in the United States. In many cases, the best ones decided to spend that year in Lexington, Ky., or Durham, N.C. Ohio State was an early adopter, too, riding the freshmen Greg Oden, Mike Conley and Daequan Cook to the championship game in 2007. But soon Kentucky and Coach John Calipari became the masters of the art form. Kentucky made the Final Four four times in five years with freshmen as key elements, winning one national title. In 2011, it had Brandon Knight. In 2012, it won with Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd Gilchrist and Marquis Teague. In 2014, it had Julius Randle and James Young. All of them were drafted in the first round a few months after their only college season ended. (A year before that run started, Kentucky lost in a 2010 regional final with John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins.) In 2015, the one and done trend appeared to reach its apotheosis as six future freshman first rounders turned up for the Final Four. Kentucky arrived with Devin Booker, Trey Lyles and Karl Anthony Towns, but Duke won it all with Jahlil Okafor, Justise Winslow and Tyus Jones. Neither team has been back to the Final Four since. And the flow of elite one and done players, at least on the game's biggest stage, has slowed considerably. Regardless of its impact, though, the one and done era may be coming to a close. In February, reports emerged that the N.B.A. had formally proposed lowering its age limit to 18, perhaps by 2022, meaning that the nation's best high schoolers would again be able to follow players like Moses Malone, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James and skip a campus cameo. Hidebound college basketball fans seeking a return to the good old days may feel relieved. But they may not have noticed that the old game never changed quite as much as they thought it had.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
LIKE many financial activities, wealth management has become increasingly automated, although it is inherently more complicated than a "bot" that searches the Internet or simply stores portfolios. That could explain why online investing has not caught on in a big way. But web based sites and applications that allow you to manage a portfolio, get help with financial planning and more are growing in popularity. Each year, software based companies up the ante by offering more low cost ways to build and maintain a disciplined portfolio. Though small in total assets under management relative to mutual fund companies, brokerage houses and other money management businesses, the latest generation of "robo investing" firms have attracted more than 1 billion in customer assets. The newest managers combine everything from automated portfolio creation to customized human advice. The biggest selling point is that these relatively new sites are often far less expensive than conventional money managers, who generally charge 1 percent annually on assets under management and scale down their fees the more money clients have on deposit. For those who do most of their activity online or through smartphone or tablet applications, there is obvious appeal in access and ease of use. If you are halfway between an adventurous do it yourself investor and someone who needs in depth guidance, these sites are worth a look. BETTERMENT.COM For those who want to get up and running quickly, but do not have sophisticated needs, Betterment is a good entry level service. With the theme, "Investing savvy without the hassle," the site can place investors in "goal based" exchange traded fund (E.T.F.) portfolios focused on saving for retirement, college or buying a home. The cost advantage of E.T.F.'s is the linchpin of Betterment and similar online investing services. They can cost as little as a fifth as much as actively managed mutual funds and cover nearly every asset class. The individual E.T.F. fees are assessed through a reduction in dividends. Betterment charges three annual management fees: 0.35 percent for less than 10,000 in assets, 0.25 percent for 10,000 to 100,000 and 0.15 percent for 100,000 or more. It has no transaction or rebalancing fees or minimum balance, but deposits must be at least 10. On the portfolio side, investors can choose among 12 global asset classes represented in portfolios that hew to Modern Portfolio Theory, the classic but flawed model for diversification. The portfolio models are guided by a "team of experts"; the site even invokes Harry M. Markowitz, the Nobel Prize winning father of Modern Portfolio Theory, although Markowitz is not on the Betterment team. While the accompanying Betterment blog provides some useful advice on measuring returns, avoiding behavioral errors and general investment advice, this site seems to be best suited for those who are just starting and do not want to think about portfolio allocation or financial planning too deeply. (888 428 9482) MARKETRIDERS.COM The next level up from Betterment is MarketRiders, which also offers online portfolio creation and management. MarketRiders, an inexpensive subscription service, offers predesigned portfolios or customized "you can build it" portfolios that let investors select from roughly 1,000 mutual funds in 10 asset classes. As with Betterment, there is a 30 day free trial. Although the pitch for MarketRiders is a little hyperbolic "learn how wealthy families and institutions like Yale, Stanford and Vanguard outperform Wall Street" investors can keep their own brokerage accounts. The site has no investment minimum, but customer service representatives recommend that investors with portfolios under 25,000 select their own mutual fund company, target date or broker. Unlike some of the other services, MarketRiders charges separately for rebalancing, an essential piece of online portfolio management because it will help you stay on target with your preferred portfolio returns, reduce market risk and improve performance. No customized advice from a fiduciary adviser is available. It is a do it yourself management tool, but the site does not have custody of your funds. MarketRiders charges a flat 14.95 monthly subscription fee for up to 10 portfolios and from 160 to 480 for rebalancing. There are also individual management fees for each E.T.F., which range from 45 to 1,800 annually, averaging 0.17 percent per fund. The more investors have on deposit, the less they will pay in total charges. So an investor with only 25,000 on deposit and four E.T.F.'s will be charged a steep 1.54 percent annually compared with someone with 1 million, who will pay 0.25 percent for 12 funds. While the site provides mostly automated advice, that could be a worthwhile service for a low to midlevel investor who does not need detailed direction on portfolio allocation or any other financial services. It is too expensive for investors who want only a preselected portfolio. (866 990 3837) If you enjoy monitoring and tweaking more than your investment profile, Personal Capital takes you more in the direction of financial planning, tax management and customized portfolio creation. Want to reduce your tax bill? The service provides "tax optimization" that will help you achieve that. Checking and brokerage accounts can also be viewed through the service. The investment minimum for wealth management is 100,000, which includes a complimentary analysis with an adviser, but the online "dashboard" is free. Although the explanation of the investment strategy is not as well defined the service calls it "smart indexing" through "tactical weighting" of E.T.F.'s and "even weighted sectors" it relies upon an "investment committee" to do this. The service also claims to be able to outperform the Standard Poor's 500 stock index by 1.5 percent annually and cites research to support that. Because the service is relatively new, this claim is not guaranteed and is based mostly on a model rather than actual performance. Personal Capital advisers are salaried fiduciaries, such as certified financial planners, which is a step in the right direction. They may not have a direct incentive to sell you anything and must put your financial interests first. Pricing for Personal Capital, though, puts it nearly on par with other private money managers. It charges 0.95 percent for the first 250,000 and scales down to 0.75 percent for 4 million and more. This hybrid service might work best for someone who wants access to an adviser, but does not have extensive financial planning needs or the need for face to face meetings. (855 855 8005) WEALTHFRONT.COM With a Silicon Valley attitude, Wealthfront hits investors hard with its pitch on its home page. It is one of the largest online investment company, with half a billion dollars under management and plenty of endorsements from technology types. The investment minimum is 5,000. With Burton Malkiel, Princeton University emeritus professor and investing guru, as its chief investment officer, Wealthfront has many bona fides. It wants to do for prudent online portfolio management what Google did for Internet searches. Focusing on low cost funds, the service offers Vanguard E.T.F.'s for its portfolios, covering eight asset classes. After asking an investor six questions about risk preference, Wealthfront will create a portfolio based on the investor's "risk score." It will also perform useful services like tax loss harvesting to reduce an investor's tax bill and "mean variance optimization," a way of using diversification to get a better risk adjusted performance. Wealthfront's fee structure is the simplest of all the online investment sites: 0.25 percent annually on balances over 10,000. No transaction fees are charged, but investors will be charged for individual E.T.F. expenses, which average 0.17 percent annually. No advisers are available. While Wealthfront is not as sophisticated as Personal Capital, it may be a useful service for middle of the road investors who want to create a tax efficient portfolio and do not need customized financial counseling. (650 249 4258) Although investors can receive some hand holding through these services, do not mistake them for full service wealth managers or financial planners. For the most part, investors cannot do complex tax, insurance, cash flow analysis or estate planning with them. How well these programs gauge risk tolerance also is an open question. Most of them produced a portfolio based on a handful of questions in less than a minute. That could be problematic if the market turns south or an investor's financial needs or goals change radically. "I don't like the way they market themselves as 'advisers' when their services are more narrow," says Michael Kitces, certified financial planner and director of research for Pinnacle Advisory Group in Columbia, Md. "Ultimately, though, the biggest challenge for these services will be the next bear market. Will their investors bail without anyone to talk to, blowing up their business model?" Since these tools are mostly focused on those building nest eggs, they will also fall short in complex tasks like retirement withdrawal, Social Security payments, spousal/partner considerations and estate/tax planning. They may be suitable accumulation tools, but if you need to carefully plan retirement, there are better suited online sites. Or, you may just need an experienced adviser or firm.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Your Money
Bringing down the house: An excerpt of "The Barbarian Nights, or the First Dawns of the World," with from left, Abdelghani Ferradji, Zakaria Ghezal and Giovanni Martinat of Cie Herve Koubi, ended the night with a bang. In its 15 years, Fall for Dance the festival where every ticket is just 15, and each program offers a colorful smattering of styles has fine tuned certain formulas: how to build, for instance, from an agreeable, subdued beginning to a spectacular, crowd pleasing finish. And how to leave people aching for more. It's easy, when you've attended many times, to feel a bit jaded. "Ah yes, the shirtless all male ensemble that ends the night with a bang," you might say to yourself with a sigh. (This time it was France's dynamite Cie Herve Koubi.) But it's also hard to think of another theatrical event where dance is received so enthusiastically by so many people, year after year. And even as programming cliches irk, there are surprises to appreciate. On the first of this year's five programs, which kicked off City Center's 75th annivesary season on Monday, the greatest revelation for me was Sara Mearns in "Dances of Isadora A Solo Tribute," making a welcome return after its premiere in March at Lincoln Center. (One Fall for Dance benefit: the chance to catch up on works you might have missed.) Ms. Mearns, a pre eminent New York City Ballet principal, may seem an unlikely Isadora Duncan interpreter. As a pioneer of modern dance at the turn of the 20th century, Duncan was in many ways rejecting ballet, casting off what she saw as its constraints on the body and soul. But in working with Lori Belilove who constructed this solo suite based on Duncan's dances to Chopin, Brahms and Lizst Ms. Mearns has stepped fully, transcendently, into a different kind of spirit, gentler than the dancer we know from City Ballet but with just as much power. Joined by the pianist Cameron Grant, Ms. Mearns, in gauzy pink, imbues the simplest gestures outstretching an arm, tapping together her wrists with expressive depth. In less sophisticated hands, Duncan's yearning, frolicking, diaphanous steps can feel contrived or saccharine, but Ms. Mearns makes them thrilling. Her presence was especially invigorating after Jorma Elo's "Bach Cello Suites," for 10 members of Boston Ballet, which opened the program on a pleasant but anodyne note. While it was good to see this company's fine dancers, Mr. Elo's choreography (accompanied live by Sergey Antonov on cello) gave them little of interest to do. Revving things up after intermission was the premiere of Caleb Teicher's "Bzzz," a Fall for Dance commission. For this rousing, clever, sometimes madcap tap number, Mr. Teicher recruited the extraordinary beatboxer Chris Celiz, whose vocals meshed with the percussion of seven dexterous pairs of tapping feet (the choreographer's included). With no additional instruments, "Bzzz" is a music making triumph. An excerpt from Mr. Koubi's "The Barbarian Nights, or the First Dawns of the World" for 13 strapping men in bundled skirts closed the program with a cascade of acrobatic tricks. Spinning on their hands, springing into back flips and catapulting each other into the air, they had no trouble bringing down the house.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
The seemingly endless series of euro zone crises has European officials pushing for a banking union that would watch over and bind together the currency group's faltering financial institutions. But for Europeans, there seems to be little appetite for such a compact right now. In fact, banks and their national regulators, anxious about the Greek elections and Spain's hastily arranged bailout, are behaving more parochially than ever. That poses a threat to the interbank lending across borders that is crucial to maintaining liquidity the free flow of money that is the lifeblood of the global financial system. French and German banks have clamped off much of the lending to their counterparts in Italy and Spain, which in turn are primarily giving loans to their own debt laden governments. And in Madrid, even after European finance ministers agreed to a 100 billion euro, or 125 billion, rescue of Spain's failing banks, the always proud Spanish government is insisting that it and not Brussels bureaucrats will take charge of how and where the funds are deployed. With interbank cooperation at perhaps its lowest level since the creation of the euro currency union, European officials say they are moving toward a broader solution. Experts warn, though, that what is needed now is not another working paper proposing new levels of euro bureaucracy, but a clear action plan that addresses the root issue: markets and investors have lost faith in Europe's ability to regulate its banks. "Why do you think European banks won't lend to Spanish banks?" asked Karel Lannoo, chief executive of the Brussels based Center for European Policy Studies and an expert on bank regulation in Europe. "Because they do not trust Spanish regulators. Has Citigroup stopped lending to California? No. What we need is a single banking supervisor and a single settlement system like in the United States. And we have no time to lose." Top officials at the United States Treasury and the International Monetary Fund have also been warning for more than a year that there can be no easy resolution to the euro crisis until Europe solves its banking problem. A blueprint is only that, however. Substantial changes that would affect banks and national budgets would probably require treaty changes and voter approval. That process could take many months and there is no guarantee of success. As part of the push, the European Commission published proposals this month that would include creation of a Europe wide banking supervisor whose oversight powers would trump those of local regulators. And to discourage the flight of bank deposits from weaker countries, a problem that has plagued Greece and now Spain, the European Commission proposed a deposit insurance fund for the entire euro zone, analogous to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the United States. Individual euro zone member nations already have deposit insurance. But the Spanish fund, for one, is nearly insolvent. Under the Brussels proposal, a new banking regulator would also have the authority to share the financial pain of bank bailouts by forcing some holders of the bonds of bailed out banks to absorb losses. Today in On Tech: Imagine not living in Big Tech's world. Dollar Tree will raise prices to 1.25 by the end of April. Hoping to impose such changes sooner than formal treaty revisions would allow, Mr. Lannoo of the Center for European Policy Studies proposed an elegant solution in a recent paper. He says there is already an article in the European Union treaty (Article 127.5, to be exact) that would let the European Central Bank take on supervision of euro zone members' banks, provided that the finance ministers of the 17 countries that use the euro approve such a step unanimously. That would be faster than getting the approval of 17 national governments. And it would be in tune with a global trend of giving central banks ultimate responsibility for bank safety, while giving the European Central Bank the ability to spot and address banking disasters in countries like Ireland and Spain before they become a Europe wide threat. But even if support was gathering for greater banking consolidation in Europe, there would be political obstacles. For one thing, putting the European Central Bank in charge would neuter the London based European Banking Authority, which was set up by Brussels to oversee European banks. Although the authority has been widely ridiculed for its toothless stress tests that missed banking fiascos in Ireland and Spain, entrenched bureaucracies are seldom easy to eliminate. Even as the policy debate proceeds, nervous European banks have been slashing their short term loans to Italy and Spain at a time when those banks, which depend largely on such loans to survive, are desperate for capital. French loans to Spanish banks plunged 34 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 compared with the previous quarter, according to the latest data from the Bank for International Settlements. More recent data, once available, are almost certain to show even tighter purse strings, analysts say. In the last six months, as fears about Spain and Greece have intensified, Spanish and Italian banks have been by far the biggest users of the European Central Bank's program of cut rate, three year loans to banks that cannot find money elsewhere. But instead of funneling that money back into the Spanish and Greek economies as loans to cash starved businesses and individuals, these banks have become the primary buyers of their governments' bonds. That has perpetuated a nasty cycle in which the problems of the government become the problems of its banks, and vice versa. "What we are seeing is a localization of risk in Europe," said Alberto Gallo, a senior credit strategist at the Royal Bank of Scotland in London. "Or, a reverse integration of financial and banking markets. And as this continues, it will be much harder to go back to normal." In many ways, the extent to which Brussels is committed to going beyond words and working papers will be tested soon in Spain. Even though Europe has agreed to lend Spain money to fix its banks, Spanish government officials continue to resist European advice on how to proceed. For example: When Joaquin Almunia, the Spanish born European Union commissioner for competition, said recently that at least one Spanish bank might need to be shut down, officials in Madrid rejected his suggestion. In some quarters, Mr. Almunia's patriotism was even questioned. Most delicate will be whether the Spanish banks receiving the largest cash injections, like the nationalized mortgage giant Bankia, will be forced to impose losses on holders of their subordinated bonds. Those are the investors whose bonds are not backed by collateral and are thus considered more risky. Such a "bail in" feature is a central plank of Brussels's banking union plan, and it is widely supported by industry experts because it would punish investors for taking undue risks. In Ireland, those types of bondholders were wiped out when Irish banks were recapitalized. In Spain, though, the problem is that 62 percent of the holders of Bankia's subordinated debt are Spanish individual investors, not overseas hedge funds and investment banks. It is not likely that Madrid will be willing to hit those citizens with a 65 percent loss the loans are currently priced at about 35 cents on the dollar at a time of 25 percent unemployment in the country. It is too early to know whether Brussels will override Spanish political considerations and force such a write down as a condition for lending bailout money. If it does not, doubts will continue over Europe's ability to deliver a banking union plan with real authority. "There are compelling reasons for the euro zone to insist on losses for subordinated and even senior bondholders, the least of which is a reduction in moral hazard," said Adam Lerrick, an expert on banking and sovereign debt at the American Enterprise Institute. "Losses for bondholders is now euro zone policy, so Europe's credibility is also at stake."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Global Business
The galaxy cluster Ophiuchus was doing just fine until WISEA J171227.81 232210.7 a black hole several billion times as massive as our sun burped on it. If there were ever sentient beings in the Ophiuchus cluster, a faraway conglomeration of galaxies in the southern sky, they are long gone. A few hundred million years ago, a mighty cosmic storm swept through that region of space. Hot gas suffuses the cluster, but the storm blew a crater through it more than a million light years wide, leaving just a near vacuum, a nattering haze of ultrahot electrical particles. The culprit, astronomers suspect, was a gigantic outburst of energy from a supermassive black hole the biggest explosion ever documented in the universe, according to Simona Giacintucci, a radio astronomer at the Naval Research Laboratory and the leader of the research team. In a statement issued by the lab on Feb. 27, Dr. Giacintucci compared the effects of the explosion to the eruption in 1980 that ripped the top from Mount St. Helens in Washington. Except that "you could fit 15 Milky Way galaxies in a row" into the crater punched out of the gas by this eruption, she said. The latest radio observations of the galaxy cluster were described in a paper in the Astrophysical Journal. The alleged outburst would rank as the biggest explosion yet discovered in the history of the universe: the energetic equivalent of one billion supernova explosions, unleashed in a torrent that probably lasted 100 million years. A hundred million years of bad space weather. That is extreme, but it may not be the worst scenario. Ophiuchus is relatively close to Earth, only about 390 million light years away. If astronomers look farther afield, they might see evidence of equally outlandish events, said Norbert Werner, an astronomer at Masaryk University in Brno in the Czech Republic and at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, whose observations with NASA's orbiting Chandra X ray Observatory helped lead to the discovery. A black hole with several billion times the mass of the sun presumably squats at the center of the Ophiuchus cluster, in a galaxy known only by a number, WISEA J171227.81 232210.7. Black holes are best known for their ability to swallow matter and energy, including light, and remove it from the universe forever. But they have another trait: They belch, and when a black hole belches, you don't want to be anywhere nearby. Paradoxically, belching black holes are the brightest objects in the universe, producing the fireworks known as quasars and other violent phenomena. Galaxy clusters are the largest conglomerations of matter in the universe, containing the equivalent of trillions of suns. But most of that matter is in the form of intergalactic gas so hot that it radiates X rays, which astronomers use to spot clusters far out in space. When this gas cools and sinks to the center of the galaxy, it provides the fuel for outbursts by which a supermassive black hole can affect realms of the cosmos far beyond the originating galaxy. On the way to disappearing, the gas swirls around the edge of the black hole like water around a drain. Pressures in this doughnut of doom squeeze powerful jets of particles and radiation out the top and bottom of the disk, fire hosing the universe. In 2003, observations with the Chandra satellite found that regular pulsations of a giant black hole in a galaxy in the Perseus cluster of galaxies were generating waves across intergalactic space with the frequency of a B flat 57 octaves below middle C. The black hole was "singing." By blowing periodic bubbles in the gas around it, the black hole was preventing stars from forming. Other singing black holes were subsequently found. In 2016, a sharp discontinuity appeared in Chandra's X ray maps of the Ophiuchus cluster. Dr. Werner, then at Stanford, wondered if it represented the edge of another black hole bubble. He and his colleagues ultimately concluded that it was not, "because it would have to be the result of the most powerful outburst that we have ever seen in the universe," he wrote in an email. But Dr. Giacintucci and her colleagues persisted. They examined data from the European Space Agency's XMM Newton X ray satellite, which also revealed an "edge," and from a pair of radio telescopes: the Murchison Widefield Array in Australia and the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in India. The radio telescopes clinched the case. The region lacking X rays on the other side of the "edge" was full of radio noise, exactly as expected if a beam of powerful high energy particles had blasted that region clean. "The radio data fit inside the X rays like a hand in a glove," said Maxim Markevitch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and a member of Dr. Giacintucci's team. Dr. Werner said that the black hole would have had to swallow about 270 million solar masses of material to have created such a big blast. The storm could have raged for 100 million years. It takes a long time to digest a small galaxy worth of suns. It's all over now. The pool of cool gas feeding the black hole is exhausted or has sloshed over to another part of the Ophiuchus cluster. But even bigger storms may yet be found. "I'm glad that we were proven wrong by new evidence," Dr. Werner said. "And I think that this result means that many more such large 'craters' are lurking in the universe. They are outside the well explored X ray bright cluster cores, waiting for the next generation of instruments to discover them." Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times Credit... Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times The first musical to reach the Great White Way partly on the strength of an active, passionate grass roots following "Be More Chill," in case you're over 30 begins previews next month. No wonder, then, that the fourth edition of BroadwayCon a three day expo targeting hard core Broadway fans was as much about shill as chill. Spending Friday and Saturday at the New York Midtown Hilton, I saw dozens of teens and tweens in elaborate costumes from shows like "Angels in America," "Mean Girls," "Anastasia" and "Newsies." Actors from "Be More Chill" rubbed elbows with fans portraying their characters. There were singalongs, fan meetups and workshops, booths jamming two "marketplace" floors, as well as an avalanche of panels dedicated to such topics as portraying Evan Hansen, 25 years of Disney on Broadway, auditioning, the lives of stage managers, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" and "Mean Girls." The last two shows are certified hits and, you'd think, don't need a push. Yet most of their lead actors and Tina Fey, who wrote the book of "Mean Girls" were on hand. BroadwayCon is the brainchild of Melissa Anelli (the chief executive of Mischief Management, which runs the convention) and the actor Anthony Rapp (now in the CBS series "Star Trek: Discovery," but forever known to attendees as the original Mark Cohen from "Rent"). The convention has grown steadily since its debut, in 2016, and this edition offered nearly 200 hours of sessions, with 7,000 estimated attendees over three days. And just as those conventions screen trailers for the latest Hollywood would be blockbusters, BroadwayCon offered song previews from "Hadestown," "Kiss Me, Kate," "Tootsie" and "Beetlejuice" all scheduled to open on Broadway later this season. This is expected from a convention and its mix of cosplay, fun behind the scenes anecdotes and an emphasis on process. At the well attended panel "Creating a Character," Melissa Errico talked about hypnotizing herself with a YouTube video while preparing to appear in "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" last year. The actress Donna Murphy described how James Lapine's staging bore a direct influence on Stephen Sondheim's rewrites during the creation of their 1994 musical, "Passion." And the original Broadway Mary Poppins, Ashley Brown, recounted trying not to vomit while flying over the audience. Hayley St. James, a 24 year old student in playwriting at Marymount Manhattan College, had come as Anatole from "Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812" on Friday and, the following day, as Karen from "SpongeBob SquarePants." (Previous cosplay outfits included the caterer Cordelia from "Falsettos" and William Shakespeare from "Something Rotten!") BroadwayCon also prompts questions about the musical theater canon. The list of top tier golden age musicals may be set, but which of the newer shows will join their ranks? One new show tune classic wasn't even hatched for the stage: "Broadway, Here I Come!" appeared in the TV series "Smash" and was, perhaps not coincidentally, written by the "Be More Chill" composer Joe Iconis. At the convention, the Tony nominee Ethan Slater, of "SpongeBob," sang it as part of a mash up with Simon and Garfunkel's "Homeward Bound." Ms. Buksbazen and her sister, Rachel, 20, were co hosting a singalong dedicated to flops a reverse canon that has long had a healthy following among musical theater aficionados. The first entries were from "Head Over Heels," "Amelie" and "Bonnie and Clyde." A "song roulette" offered selections from "Seussical," "American Psycho" and "Wonderland." It was like being at a Bizarro version of the popular piano bar Marie's Crisis and few were old enough to drink.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
One point of contention has been the Westfield Group's friction with the local New York brokerage firms. The company, which is based in Sydney, Australia, and owns 87 malls around the world, has declined to publicize any of its leases at ground zero, in stark contrast to Brookfield Place, which regularly announces new tenants. Westfield's reluctance to discuss its deals has frustrated the retail brokers, who are eager to publicize their deals. Westfield has further ruffled feathers by leveraging its relationships with retailers to negotiate leases directly with the stores, rather than hire brokers for assistance. Stuart Weitzman, for example, which has locations at other Westfield malls, negotiated its lease directly with the landlord. Despite the rough spots, after officially introducing its marketing effort last year, ground zero retail is reportedly close to fully leased. And, perhaps in spite of Westfield's reticence, brokers have persisted in disclosing the names of likely tenants, including Apple, Michael Kors and Victoria's Secret. Other tenants at ground zero will include the fitness chain Track and Field and the cigar purveyor Davidoff. The Westfield Group declined to comment, as did brokers who didn't want to upset their relationships with the landlord. People with knowledge of Westfield's strategy said its reluctance to speak publicly is partly so as not to appear crass and take attention from the solemnity of the National September 11 Memorial Museum, which is opening to the public on Wednesday. The centerpiece of the ground zero retail will be the Oculus, designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and featuring ribs made of custom steel that meet to form a soaring canopy. It will have 80,000 square feet of stores spread on two levels, and will connect with a larger underground concourse. The mix of shops will include grab and go coffee places and convenience stores to serve the thousands of commuters, as well as stores and clothing boutiques. Rents there are about 550 a square foot. To find the right tenant mix, Westfield conducted numerous focus groups and, possibly in a bid to erase the stigma that is sometimes associated with the term "mall," is referring in some of its materials to the different retail areas in the complex by New York City street names like Madison Avenue and West Broadway. While the level of foot traffic could make the World Trade Center shops some of the busiest in the world, there have also been design challenges, mainly from the ribs at Oculus. The ribs, which are spaced 11 and a half feet apart, divide the spaces into what some brokers said were awkward configurations. In addition, the glass storefronts must be recessed behind the ribs, decreasing the stores' visibility to passers by. The Oculus and much of the retail at ground zero are also below ground, which is less desirable for some retailers.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Instagram has introduced a tool designed to shore up its hold on shopping. The company announced today that it will be rolling out an in app checkout function to users in the United States, a secure and, Instagram hopes, friction free method for purchasing products on the app without ever leaving. At its introduction, 23 brands in fashion, apparel and beauty have signed on as partners, including Adidas, Burberry, Dior, Nike, H M, Zara, Kylie Cosmetics and KKW Beauty (Kim Kardashian West's cosmetics line). The tool will begin appearing in some users' apps today and roll out to all users in the United States within a few weeks. Additional brands will be added to the beta test throughout the year. "Given that 80 percent of people follow a business on Instagram, the desire really is there to shop," said Vishal Shah, the head of product at Instagram. "We just didn't have the tools in place to help them do that." Instagram has been working toward in mobile shopping since the introduction of its shopping tags in 2016 , which allowed users to tap on images of products and be linked to off platform e commerce via a pop up browser window.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Watching Shailene Woodley dither between two preposterously hot men and steamily sample both in "Endings, Beginnings" might not be the best choice for viewers whose libidos are on mandatory lockdown. If, however, you're into self torture, then meet Daphne (Woodley), in her 30s and on an emotional and physical time out. Having abruptly left her job and her longtime partner for ill defined reasons, Daphne washes up in the pool house of her married half sister, Billie (Lindsay Sloane). When not lackadaisically searching for a job, preferably at an arts related nonprofit, Daphne wafts around in boho wear, looking gorgeously pensive and smoking like a fiend. She has temporarily quit drinking: Apparently, as flashbacks suggest, her previously profligate lifestyle was something less than fun. Not to worry, though, because all of her self imposed sabbaticals will end as soon as her gold lame frock catches the eye of Frank (Sebastian Stan) at a party. A stubbly brooder and walking red flag, Frank specializes in lustful glances and angsty conversations. Add some flirty text messages and a playlist coyly titled "Music To Suffer To" and Daphne is happily leaping off the celibacy wagon. In more than one direction, as it happens: There's also Opposite Frank, otherwise known as his best friend, Jack, a successful Irish writer played by Jamie Dornan. Anyone still in doubt about where Daphne's heart should land needs to carefully reread the final clause of the previous sentence. While Daphne teeters listlessly between security and passion, earnest lovemaking versus rip them off boinking, "Endings, Beginnings" grows marginally more substantive. Emotional and familial blanks are vaguely filled in (the script by Jardine Libaire and the director, Drake Doremus is partly improvised by the actors), but the movie delivers mood more successfully than information. The soundtrack is soothing, the photography (by the gifted Marianne Bakke) is soft and hazy, and the tone is pleasingly contemplative. The writing might be a tangle of limp cliches, but the actors especially Woodley and the terrific Wendie Malick as Daphne's mother sweat to sell every line. Similar to Doremus's 2011 romance, "Like Crazy," "Endings, Beginnings" noodles around with characters whose personalities and motivations remain frustratingly indistinct. By the end, Daphne's journey of self discovery may have pulled you in, but, if you're anything like me, you'll still hate her. Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Philanthropists may proclaim their desire for social change, but few, it turns out, follow through. Instead, according to research by the Bridgespan Group, a philanthropic consultant, they tend to fall back on proven recipients like universities, hospitals and museums for their biggest bets. Those may be worthy recipients but, in the eyes of some in the philanthropic community, they are not at the forefront of social change. That is why someone like Paul Salem, a private equity investor in Rhode Island, is rare. He has made two big bets with his philanthropic dollars: one in a company that makes Plumpy'Nut, a peanut paste to feed malnourished children, and another in Year Up, a nonprofit group started in Boston that teaches young urban adults the skills needed for a professional career. Mr. Salem, senior managing director at Providence Equity Partners, said he decided to make the big bets defined as donations greater than 10 million only after growing tired of being asked for donations and not knowing what impact his money was having. "You get bombarded by amazing opportunities to invest in charities that come in over the transom," he said. "You can give 5,000 here or 2,000 there. I still do that, but I consider it being nice. My wife and I decided we wanted to focus our giving on something that matters. It's a way I like to invest money." William Foster, the head of Bridgespan's consulting practice and the author of the study "Big Bets for Social Change," said, "The desire to give to social change is genuine," but that the study found that only 20 percent of big donors followed through. The wealthiest people want their money to make an impact on the biggest problems, he said. "But there are two reasons reality doesn't match the aspiration." The first is it's hard and takes a lot of time. Big institutions have plenty of projects that a donor can finance and have confidence that they will be completed and their name will be put on the door. More complex problems, not surprisingly, are more challenging to finance. "It's not clear that if you wake up one morning and want to write a check to save the fish stocks of the ocean, where to write that check," Mr. Foster said. The second reason is more nuanced. After decades of the type of success that gives someone the means to make a gift of more than 10 million, many philanthropists do not want to look foolish with their donations. "Being an expert in a particular industry or field does not make you an expert in anything else," said Steve Prostano, head of family wealth advisers at Bank of the West Wealth Management. "The very successful person would like to be successful in everything they do." That takes time and requires advice, he said. "The rewards of giving to a larger, established institution are readily apparent the admiration and respect of your peer group, and the certainty that it's a professional and well run institution that will use the money well," Mr. Foster said. "When someone makes a gift to their 25th anniversary fund at Princeton, they're saying, 'It's Princeton. It's great.' They don't think it's going to change the trajectory of education at Princeton in the next 25 years." But such giving isn't rewarding enough for some philanthropists. Emily Nielsen Jones and her husband, Ross Jones, a private equity executive, began giving in ways that would seem big by most standards. They helped finance the creation of a preschool in Boston that has grown into the Park Street School. Still, as their wealth increased, she wanted to do more on a big issue: stopping the trafficking of women and girls and, more broadly, changing gender norms around the world. "It came from a deep feeling that we needed to ramp up ethically," Ms. Jones said. "But then it was, how do you do that?" Ms. Jones, who started the Imago Dei Fund, wanted to look broadly for groups to finance, from the innovative projects at larger nonprofit groups to working directly with religious leaders. "That changed the direction of our philanthropy overall to make sure we were not guilty of a blind spot of just funding the rock star social innovators who went to the Kennedy School but also change agents working around the world," she said. One of these is Tostan, an organization in Senegal that aims to end female genital cutting and forced marriage. Her big bet on that group was particularly rewarding, she said. "I've worked with these imams who led the anti genital cutting practice," she said. "They described that they had been resistant because this was how it was for centuries but they said when you get new information, you need to move on." Mr. Foster said he advised philanthropists to give to several organizations in the area where they want to bring about change but also not to micromanage the institutions. "If you say, 'I care deeply about the ocean and I'm going to try the three best organizations and give them some money and trust them and not hold their feet to the fire for every T that is crossed and I that is dotted,' that would probably work out pretty well," he said. Of course, not everyone agrees with the idea that philanthropists talk about social change in theory but shy away from it in practice or that big donations are even a good thing. Paul Connolly, director of philanthropic advisory services at Bessemer Trust, said many philanthropists can finance social change through institutions. Ms. Jones, for example, said she still gave to Dartmouth College, which she and her husband attended, but she focuses on scholarships and entrepreneurial programs. The riskier issue, though, is when philanthropists donate too heartily to a social change organization without thinking through how that donation could affect that group. "There's a limited number of nonprofits that can absorb a very large gift," Mr. Connolly said. "There are 1.4 million nonprofits, but two thirds have less than a 500,000 annual budget and only 5 percent have a budget of 10 million or more. If you're going to make a 10 million gift, you can do harm." And even if a single big donation doesn't overwhelm a small organization, it could wipe out its base of smaller donors, who feel the group no longer needs their money. Mr. Connolly said he was working with a client who wants to give 350 million to 20 organizations. He said his team's goal is to make sure those donations are not split equally among the groups but scaled to each organization's size. With Year Up, Mr. Salem said his involvement has grown over many years. And he has worked closely with its founder and chief executive, Gerald Chertavian, to expand the program beyond Boston to 16 other locations. For his part, Mr. Chertavian, who started and sold a technology consulting company before founding Year Up in 2000, said he had begun raising "funds" similar to those in the private equity world to bring in donations that will be spent over five years. The first raised 18 million, the second, in 2011, brought in 55 million. "You can't grow quickly if you don't have patient capital," he said. Those funds have the added benefit of keeping donors involved for at least five years. Mr. Salem, who has given more than 10 million to Year Up over 13 years, said that while he believed in making big bets, he tried to look at his contributions like his private equity investments. "When I die, I'll say I did my part to close the opportunity divide, but I'll also say the money I put in, I got a return on my investment," he said. "Not all bets work out." he added. "But if I looked at Year Up like an investment in some of my portfolio companies, this was a home run."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Your Money
SAN FRANCISCO Regina Bateson had just finished an Easter egg hunt with her children on April 1 when her phone started buzzing. Take a look at Facebook, messages from her friends and colleagues urged. Ms. Bateson, a Democrat running for Congress in the California primary on Tuesday, quickly opened up the social network. There, she saw what appeared to be a news article that painted her as underhandedly trying to torpedo the campaign of a rival Democratic candidate. When Ms. Bateson clicked through the article, she was directed to a Facebook page run by Sierra Nevada Revolution, a local progressive group she had clashed with in the past. The article was not a news story, she found, but a political ad paid for by Sierra Nevada Revolution. And while Facebook rolled out new rules on April 6 mandating that campaign ads be clearly labeled and say who had purchased them, Sierra Nevada Revolution's ad about Ms. Bateson continued to be targeted to local voters throughout that month without any of those disclosures. Ms. Bateson's experience underscores Facebook's difficulties as the Silicon Valley company aims to prevent manipulation of its ad system in elections, especially as the midterms loom this November. While the company has introduced several measures to improve the transparency of political ads on its platform, some groups and individuals appear to be finding ways to flout the new restrictions and Facebook has not been able to catch them. That raises questions about whether there are other gaps. Apart from improving transparency of political ads, Facebook has announced that it will not run a campaign ad in the United States unless it verifies the advertiser through a Social Security number, that it will keep a public archive of all political ads so they are easily searchable and that it has added a "paid for" label atop campaign ads so users can get more information. Paul Smith, the administrator of Sierra Nevada Revolution's Facebook page, said that despite Facebook's efforts, he was able to place other political ads some about Ms. Bateson and some about other issues without labeling them. He didn't say how many. There is another potential loophole in Facebook's rules. It appears that one person can go through the verification process and then give the account to someone else. Mr. Smith, for instance, said that while Facebook had authenticated him as a political advertiser, he later handed over control of Sierra Nevada Revolution's account to others. That meant others could have used his Facebook verification to post political ads without the social network's knowing it was not him. "They don't know we are five people running it, or however many," Mr. Smith said in a phone interview. "It's also not consistent. Occasionally, we slip a political ad by Facebook because it's not flagged." Rob Leathern, Facebook's director of product management, said he was "grateful" that The New York Times had brought the actions of Sierra Nevada Revolution to the company's attention. "We are looking into it because it's against our policies to share passwords or give someone else access to a person's Facebook account," he said, adding, "We use signals such as two factor authentication to detect and prevent this type of abuse, but steps like these won't stop every attempt to game the system." Facebook is being driven by its failure in the 2016 American presidential election to stop Russian agents from using the platform to spread divisive messages to voters. In the aftermath, the company announced changes, including working with independent fact checkers and starting a news literacy campaign to help people spot disinformation. Facebook also banned political ads from foreign groups in some elections, including Ireland's recent abortion referendum. "We believe the process we put in place is a solid step, but we also know that initially there will be instances where we don't catch ads that should have been labeled and the authorization process wasn't completed by the person placing the ad," Mr. Leathern said in the call. The Fourth District race has received national attention because four Democrats are running to oust Representative Tom McClintock, a five term Republican. Ms. Bateson's main rival is Jessica Morse, who previously worked for the State Department and other agencies. Both are campaigning for office for the first time. Mr. McClintock has said he believes that his seat is safe. To run, Ms. Bateson, who grew up in Roseville, Calif., took a leave of absence last year from her job as a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She moved from Boston back to her hometown, which is just outside Sacramento, with her husband, Vivek Krishnamurthy, who is a lawyer, and their three children. Ms. Bateson is running on a platform that includes protection of the Affordable Care Act. Sierra Nevada Revolution, which is facing a complaint to the Federal Election Commission over its failure to register as a political organization, clashed with Ms. Bateson starting in March when the group endorsed Ms. Morse. It attacked Ms. Bateson for having challenged Ms. Morse's credentials this year. The group often posted its criticism of Ms. Bateson on Facebook. Mr. Smith said he was in control of the account when it posted its first ad blasting her, adding that he spent more than 3,000 of his own money on that ad and others. That first ad, which Facebook did not designate as a political ad, was titled, "Lose by any means necessary." It accused Ms. Bateson of running a "scorched earth campaign" and helping the Republican candidate by turning on her fellow Democrats.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
Genius has been an underlying theme of this series, the second season of FX's "American Crime Story" specifically, the creative genius of Gianni Versace (and to a lesser extent, the young architect David Madson) and the pathological genius of Andrew Cunanan, whose capacity for deceit and violence is rare. Episode 7 of "The Assassination of Gianni Versace" reveals a different side of Versace's genius one that enabled him to build an institution and not just a brand. As this week's episode relates, his genius was grounded in a gift for reading people, based on intuition and perception rather than on flashes of inspired brilliance. In a series of flashbacks, we learn that Gianni, perhaps with a foretaste of his premature death, has begun to shore up his legacy by encouraging his most loyal helpmate his sister, Donatella to rise as his potential successor. It is a kind of encouragement by tough love. As portrayed by Edgar Ramirez, Gianni has a fiery temperament and is prone to bursts of rage when he believes his exacting standards are not being met. "What are you?" he shouts at Donatella, played by a terrific Penelope Cruz, as he shoves aside a collection of drawings she has assembled for his review. "Are you a designer? No, what are you? Are you a collector of other people's ideas?" He fumes at her: "You have the opportunity to be great, and you choose to assist." Time is not on their side: Gianni is using a cane, and he is losing his hearing. The series has implied as does "Vulgar Favors," the book by the journalist Maureen Orth on which it is based that Gianni is H.I.V. positive. (The Versace family has disputed this.) After reconciling, Gianni tells a tearful Donatella that they will design a dress together, "as if it's the last dress I will ever make." He adds, with a touch of melodrama: "This dress is not my legacy. You are." Later, at the 1992 gala celebration in New York to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Vogue, Donatella unveils that bondage themed dress, and it is an immediate sensation. The scene in which Gianni gently releases his sister's hand, letting her inhabit the limelight alone as he moves to the side, is affecting. It will be five years until he is murdered in Miami Beach, but it is a premonition of what is to come. Back in California, we learn more about Cunanan's career as a rent boy in the years before the 1997 killings. In an unusually amusing scene in this fairly grim series, Andrew, played by Darren Criss, is working behind the counter at a Thrifty drugstore. (He tells a nonplused customer that he is holding down the job while completing a Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego; in fact, he is a college dropout.) Andrew's boss, a man named Mr. Mercado, is an immigrant from the Philippines (like Andrew's father, Modesto, whom we have not met), a map of which hangs in his sparsely furnished office. Mercado tells him to stop looking at Vogue while he's on the clock. "Does it ever bother you that the customers only know you as 'That Helpful Man'?" Andrew asks Mercado. Mercado shrugs. Later, back at his mother's apartment, Andrew reacts violently after discovering that she has bought a tub of Safeway ice cream rather than his preferred brand, Haagen Dazs. His spite toward anything everyday what in last week's episode he derided as "ordinary" is visceral and explosive. He slams the tub onto the kitchen floor, making a mess. When his mother asks why it matters, Andrew tells her about Reuben Mattus, the brand's founder, who made up its Danish sounding name. It's a brief but sad moment, one that reveals how consumer abundance, or the illusion of it, has made Andrew so petulant, childish and self indulgent that he despises his own mother. In the gay world, we soon learn, Andrew is more Safeway than Haagen Dazs. At a gay bar with his handsome friend Jeff, a Navy veteran, Andrew laments that he isn't approached more by men; Jeff urges him to take the initiative, but Andrew fears rejection in the same way he fears getting his hands dirty. For him, it's existential. "Being told no is like being told I don't exist," he says. "It's like I've disappeared or something." People get rejected every day, and we may never truly understand why most move on with their lives while Andrew moved on to become a killer. But we're learning more about just how pernicious his fear of invisibility is, even at this early stage. When Andrew visits an escort agency, its brusque manager wastes no time in informing Andrew about the customers' preferences another rejection. ("My clients never ask for Asians," she says after asking him to drop his trousers. "And they never ask for Asians with attitude.") Deciding he doesn't need help finding a sugar daddy, he browses a local newspaper, studying the arts and philanthropy pages to identify suitable targets. A target found, he stalks the La Jolla Playhouse for a performance of Marivaux's 18th century comic play "The Triumph of Love." Just as planned, he catches the eye of Norman Blachford, a wealthy entrepreneur whose partner, as we know from last week's episode, has recently died of AIDS. Andrew ends up becoming the kept man of Lincoln Aston, a friend of Norman's. It's on Lincoln's dime purportedly to look into art acquisitions that Andrew travels to San Francisco and buys a fateful drink for a handsome young man sitting alone at the bar. That man turns out to be David, the Minneapolis architect, who is visiting San Francisco for work. (Frustratingly, we never learn more about the friends with whom Andrew is dining.) Up in Andrew's suite, we get an inside look at that passionate night at the Mandarin Oriental the one which meant so much to Andrew and, fatally, so much less to David. Dressed in their bathrobes after a steamy shower together, David tells Andrew about a childhood friend, Leah, who was tormented at school. He had promised to build her a house where they could escape from bullies. But later, when he told her he was gay, she never spoke to him again. "She must have felt betrayed," he says. Andrew looks as if he is ready to cry, and for the first time in this series, one sees traces of real empathy in him an ability to take seriously the pain of others and to look beyond himself. It is a fleeting moment. Back in San Diego, Lincoln is outraged to see a hotel bill that includes midnight Champagne. He cuts off the flow of funds. Sadly, it was an unwise move: Lincoln returns to a gay bar, where he picks up a hustler and takes him home. The encounter does not end well: The man bludgeons Lincoln to death. Andrew, who was inside the apartment, evidently waiting for Lincoln, cowers in fear; the hustler, after a moment's hesitation, does not attack him. "He tried to kiss me," he tells Andrew, previewing the "gay panic" defense he will use to justify the attack. Returning to Norman, Andrew feigns aggrievement over Lincoln's gruesome death. "We fall sick, it's our fault," he says. "We're murdered, it's our fault. You can rob us, you can beat us, you can kill us and get away with it." But this moment of political awakening if it can be called that is short lived. When Andrew tries to persuade Norman to come live with him in San Diego, it's obvious he just wants the money. And the pool. According to Orth's book, Lincoln Aston was, in fact, a wealthy gay man who was murdered in May 1995, after his relationship with Cunanan had cooled, but there is nothing to suggest that Cunanan was present for the crime. A man named Kevin Bond was convicted of the murder. The case was re examined after Cunanan's 1997 serial killings, but the police found no evidence that he was involved. Andrew tells his mother, Mary Ann, that he met Versace in San Francisco and now plans to travel the world with him. (We know from an early episode that the first part, at least, is true.) But when she begs Andrew to take her to Paris, she risks exposing his lies and clearly stokes his guilt. He lashes out, shoving her into a wall and fracturing her shoulder blade. It's an ugly scene, and it reminds us just how dangerous Andrew's hair trigger temper is. He has a genius for rage, manipulation and deception, but not for basic human decency.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
LONDON Prime Minister Theresa May has struggled to build support for her plan for Britain's exit from the European Union. Now, it turns out, some of the opposition has come from an unknown organization posting ads to millions of people on Facebook. In the past 10 months, the organization spent more than 250,000 pounds on ads pushing for a more severe break from the European Union than Mrs. May has planned. The ads reached 10 million to 11 million people, according to a report published on Saturday by a House of Commons committee investigating the manipulation of social media in elections. The ads, which disappeared suddenly this week, linked to websites for people to send prewritten emails to their local member of Parliament outlining their opposition to Mrs. May's negotiations with the European Union. "We voted to leave the E.U., to take back control of our money and borders," one ad said. Who was behind the campaign remains a mystery. The name attached to it was Mainstream Network, a group that does not appear to exist in Britain, beyond the ads and a website. There is no information on Facebook or on Mainstream Network's site about who is behind the organization. The parliamentary panel, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, said the posts highlighted Facebook's continuing problem monitoring political advertising on its social network. "Here we have an example of a clearly sophisticated organization spending lots of money on a political campaign, and we have absolutely no idea who is behind it," Damian Collins, the chairman of committee, said in a statement. "The only people who know who is paying for these adverts is Facebook." The panel has been investigating the role of social media in elections, including Facebook's influence on the country's contentious 2016 vote to leave the European Union. It is expected to release a full report in the coming weeks. Rob Leathern, director of product management at Facebook, said the company will update its disclosure policy in Britain next month. It will require political advertisers to verify their identities and then attach accurate information about their identities to the ads. The changes are part of new political advertising policies that Facebook announced this week for users in Britain. Not only will political ads need to be more clearly labeled, but the company is establishing a searchable archive of political ads that have been published on the site. "We know we can't prevent election interference alone," Mr. Leathern said, "and offering more ad transparency allows journalists, researchers and other interested parties to raise important questions." Britain isn't the only country grappling with unknown financiers of political ads on Facebook. In the United States, Facebook advertisements from unknown donors have also begun appearing in congressional campaigns. To oversee its response to a growing number of regulatory challenges around the world, the company announced on Friday that Nick Clegg, a former deputy prime minister in Britain who is politically well connected in Europe, would become its new head of global public policy. The Mainstream Network ads were taken down after Facebook announced its new political advertising rules in Britain, said Mike Harris, the chief executive of 89up, a social media marketing company that the parliamentary committee hired to help with its investigation. The group behind the ads appears to be well funded. Based on what comparable political Facebook ad campaigns cost in the country, 89up estimated Mainstream Network spent PS257,000, or about 335,000. Mainstream Network also maintains a polished website that mixes commentary favoring a hard break from the European Union, alongside straighter coverage of events such as Amazon's announcement that it will add jobs in Britain. Mainstream Network doesn't give any clue of who is publishing the content. No contact information is listed on its website or Facebook page. "There is no indication of who's behind it, or who's backing it," Mr. Harris said in an interview. "This could be a wealthy individual, this could be a group of volunteers that has come together that decided to hide its identity, or it could be a foreign state. It's totally unclear." The ads were disclosed at a politically fragile time in Britain, where Mrs. May is trying to balance the position of those who want to retain closer ties to the Continent against those who want a harder break. Mainstream Network's ads have strongly targeted Mrs. May's central negotiating position, known as the "Chequers plan," which would maintain a tight trading relationship with Europe. Two members of her cabinet resigned over her approach. Pro Brexit hard liners want her to scrap the plan and propose a more distant relationship, like the European Union's trade agreement with Canada. The disclosures released on Saturday are a prelude to other investigations into online misinformation scheduled to be released by the end of the year. In addition to the parliamentary committee's final report, highly anticipated findings are expected from the Information Commissioner's Office after its investigation of Cambridge Analytica, the London based political targeting firm that harvested the personal data of millions of Facebook users.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
Robert Mackey of The Intercept tweeted this week: "I give up. It's pointless to report on anything other than the president of the United States having a personal social media feed that reveals he's a lunatic." I am going to try to report on other matters but first I must say that Donald Trump consumes the bandwidth of 330 million Americans with the language of an 8 year old. (Apologies to all 8 year olds.) No oxygen left in the room. No way to keep track of his verbiage careening through superlatives Phenomenal! Fantastic! Outstanding! Tremendous! as he attempts to describe his "record the likes of which nobody's ever seen before." The relentless gush of gibberish and indecency from the Orange "Regeneron" Man is so giddying that the temptation to engage in absolutely pointless refutation of it becomes irresistible. Americans turn into gerbils on Trump's wheel. The president's sinister genius is a form of hypnosis. That oily voice clogs the synapses. Four more years of this and Orwell's doublethink will be the norm. The American Ministry of Truth, run by Mike Pompeo, will deal in lies and the American Ministry of Love, directed by Stephen Miller, in torture. With that warning, I will break from Trump's spell to note an anniversary, that of the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. On Nov. 4, it will be a quarter century since Rabin was killed by a fanatical Jew who could not accept Rabin's readiness for territorial compromise with the Palestinians in the name of peace. Yigal Amir, the assassin, was a religious nationalist who viewed all the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River as the Jews' God given real estate. History has proved the assassination effective. Amir's views are ascendant in Israel, the quest for peace in tatters. Rabin was a warrior who fought ruthlessly to safeguard Israel before realizing that war could not achieve this. He learned and changed. Late in life, with immense political courage, he embarked, through the Oslo Accords, on a quest to end the cycle of wars, recognizing the Palestine Liberation Organization as the "representative of the Palestinian people," shaking hands with Yasir Arafat as his partner in the search for a peace. He gave his life for the idea of ending Israeli Palestinian bloodshed. On Sept. 15, Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez accepted an invitation from Americans for Peace Now, a peace advocacy organization, to participate in a virtual event on Oct. 20 memorializing Rabin. Announcing her participation nine days later, on Sept. 24, the organization said in a tweet she would "reflect on fulfilling the courageous Israeli leader's mission for peace." For a progressive Democrat who has fought with courage to bring greater balance to the Israel skewed American approach to the conflict, it seemed a natural fit. The next day, however, Ocasio Cortez withdrew. She slunk away with scarcely a word after Alex Kane, a journalist for Jewish Currents, noted in a tweet that Palestinians remember Rabin for "his brutal rule suppressing Palestinian protest during the first intifada" and criticism from Palestinians began pouring in over Twitter. Pulling out was a mistake by Ocasio Cortez and using a process argument to justify it is craven: "My involvement was presented to my team differently from how it's now being promoted," she tweeted on Sept. 25. In fact, the invitation from Hadar Susskind, the president for Americans for Peace Now, said: "While some of the speakers will be sharing their memories of Prime Minister Rabin, or focusing their remarks on Israel Palestine, I am also looking for speakers to speak to the broader themes of the event. These include the willingness to take risks for peace and the need for leaders to grow and change and be willing to do so in the pursuit of justice." Ocasio Cortez's decision was typical of the effects of an age of absolutist moral judgments, where Twitter bombardments allow for no nuanced positions and people cave or are canceled. If "the pursuit of justice" and taking "risks for peace" are not rich themes for her, I have to wonder. What stopped her, I believe, was not some misunderstanding about whether she would explore broad themes or focus on Rabin, but rather critics saying Rabin was a war criminal and murderer and nobody should be involved in honoring him. Yitzhak Rabin in the 1990s. He was assassinated in 1995 by a Jew who couldn't abide his efforts to achieve peace with Palestinians. The congresswoman might have shown political courage. She might have spoken at the event of how Rabin's brutality in putting down the first intifada led to his reflection on the ultimate futility of such methods and his embrace of peace. She might have mused on the painfulness and necessity of compromise in any healthy society. She might have suggested that every human being contains Whitman's "multitudes." She might have said Rabin was not perfect but was heroic in his about face from sword to plowshare. She might have spoken of how two mortal enemies, Rabin and Arafat, came to respect each other. She might have given voice to the plight of the Palestinians and reminded people that in 1993, in a letter to Rabin, the P.L.O. recognized "the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security." She might have asked: And what did the Palestinians get over the years for that from the nationalist Benjamin Netanyahu, who likened Rabin to Chamberlain? And how has the Palestinians' own leadership so failed them?	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
"Death doesn't have to be a morbid thing," Diamond Stingily said . A sculptor and installation artist whose star is rapidly rising, Ms. Stingily is enacting her demise again. Her first exhibition, in Chicago five years ago, was staged as a funeral, complete with flower arrangement and obituary. Her new show at Queer Thoughts, in TriBeCa, opening May 4, will include sleek metal coated death masks, made from a mold of her face that friends helped her take. "It's a self portrait in a way," she said. "Because I can't paint." It's more than that, of course. When she senses an imminent life change, Ms. Stingily, who is also a poet and has kept journals since childhood, takes control of her story. Her "funeral" was her farewell to her home city when she knew it was time for fresh horizons; soon after, she came to New York, invited by the artist Martine Syms to participate in a video work, and stuck around with 300 to her name. Now Ms. Stingily, who is 29 and based in Brooklyn, feels another page turning as she embarks on her 30s. "Where I come from most people have kids by now," she said. "I'm at a time when a lot of things are changing, and my career is going in a way I never thought it would." A rusting basketball hoop, police surveillance lights, Little Hug fruit juices, Ms. Stingily's improved Double Dutch jump ropes made of braided telephone cords the items, supplemented by video, distilled private memories into a kind of visual tone that Ms. Stingily said people like her, who are black and working class, might recognize. "I think the work that I make is relatable," she said. "People can see themselves, family members, or just issues and topics." Ms. Stingily is a creature of community. Her father, the singer and producer Byron Stingily, led Ten City, an important group in Chicago's pioneering house music scene. Her mother is a hair stylist, and Ms. Stingily grew up around the salon. For a recent commission by the fashion brand Balenciaga, Ms. Stingily made a video work full of relatives and familiar locations a warm, rough hewed tribute. For the new show, Ms. Stingily is making pieces from synthetic hair, a medium she had set aside for a time, tired of having to explain it to non black people. "Those questions are microaggressions," she said. But her draw to the material and its private meaning for her ended up prevailing. It's her journey, after all. "I love making hair pieces," she said. "It's very meditative to me, and the result is pretty." When the riots consumed South Los Angeles, Delano Dunn was 13 years old. Today, those five days in 1992 are often called an uprising, to denote the eruption of community frustration after a jury acquitted four Los Angeles police officers of assault charges in the infamous beating of Rodney King. But what Mr. Dunn saw from the family house off Central Avenue was, in fact, a riot. "I sat on the porch and watched the neighborhood burn," said Mr. Dunn, a painter and collagist who confronts these memories in new mixed media works at the Lesley Heller Gallery on the Lower East Side. He recalls sounds: fights, sirens, gunshots. Looting was real. "I remember seeing a guy pushing a shopping cart with a safe in it down the alley. My grandfather owned two shops, and he was on the roof with his shotgun." On the last day, Mr. Dunn saw National Guard armored vehicles coming down his block. When he returned to school, in Santa Monica, he got odd looks. "My white friends asked me what I looted, what did I get," he said. "I thought, this is what it means to be black and from a poor neighborhood. This is it." He filed it away, and returned to his comic books. In 1997, Mr. Dunn moved to New York City to attend the Pratt Institute, and later received his M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts. A few months ago he moved to Illinois, as a teaching fellow at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Mr. Dunn's work started out spare, and has grown more involved and personal. Racial perception was always a main concern, but sometimes at a remove for instance, in the cigarette ads aimed at black smokers that he used in a 2013 series of mixed media on board. Now, however, he stretches the definition of collage, making pieces that have multiple surface layers paper, plexiglass, wood onto which he applies photographs, paint, vinyl, resin, tape, shoe polish, even glitter. "The lesson was to chill, do something more like a memory," he said. "Don't try to build this whole new world." The riots were that memory. In his new pieces, birds filling the sky, perched with ambiguous intent symbolize people caught up in the events. (It is a more refined image than cockroaches, which is what he remembers a news anchor calling the rioters.) Images cut from period magazines depict people fighting, carrying goods, fleeing cops. In the background are flat monochrome sections or landscapes thick with deer and other allegorical animals that dissolve the documentation into reverie. Mr. Dunn says he remembers the draw of the fires destroying businesses nearby. "The colors were so beautiful," he said. "As I got older, I thought how crazy it was that something of such beauty could come from such destruction." It was affirming to compare notes with his mother and his grandfather, who just turned 100. The exercise has unlocked more themes to explore, some to do with police violence. "It felt sad but good to revisit this," he said. "To sort of exorcise it, and see it on the canvas." Esteban Cabeza de Baca grew up in the struggle. His father was a historian forged in Chicano and Native American political movements, and who taught in community colleges so as to reach black and brown students directly. His mother is a Mexican born union organizer. "But they were really cool with me being a painter," Mr. Cabeza de Baca said. "My dad would say, you look really gringo but that's the way you're going to infiltrate and change it from the inside." The prediction wasn't off. Having trained at Cooper Union and Columbia University, Mr. Cabeza de Baca, 34, is honing a method that draws on the American canon, the insights of Native artists, and his own sense of the Southwest as physical and cultural terrain. It's a political project, yes. Mr. Cabeza de Baca's ancestry is Spanish, Mexican, Apache, Zuni; his lineage goes back to Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, the 16th century conquistador who wandered for years in the Southwest after his mission went awry. The artist grew up partly in San Ysidro, Calif., across from Tijuana, and spends as much time as possible in New Mexico. Questions of conquest, forced removal, and the current border crisis are always on his mind. Ms. Washington's book, along with Rebecca Skloot's "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," and Ms. Garner's fascination with the body and medicine a younger sister died after multiple aneurysms did the rest. In "She Is Risen," her new exhibition at JTT downtown, Ms. Garner handles some unfinished business. There is an open abdomen packed with four tubes of glass beads in iridescent liquid. It conveys how Lacks, whose cervical cancer cells were harvested without her consent at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1951, was treated unsuccessfully with radium tubes. "It ended up burning her from the inside out," Ms. Garner said. She wants to return the attention to the suffering these women underwent, not their unwanted "immortality." Another work is a suspended American flag made of stitched black "hands," skin on one side, exposed flesh on the other. A piece involving a vintage gramophone plays from time to time the audio of the state trooper stopping Sandra Bland for a traffic violation in Texas; she was found hanged in a jail cell a few days after her arrest in 2015. In person Ms. Garner is warm and lively, not the least bit morbid. In her parallel practice as a tattoo artist, she brings beauty and desired modifications to people's bodies. Many of her clients are black women. "I'm almost acting as a healer," she said. 'Doreen Garner: She Is Risen,' through May 26, JTT, 191 Chrystie Street, Manhattan; 212 574 8152, jttnyc.com.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Subtitled television shows have always been a great way to travel vicariously, and that particular thrill has grown exponentially in a time of homebound self containment. Another advantage is that subtitles demand a single minded focus on the show. In other words, you can't multitask with one eye on the action and the other checking the news. Right now, taking a mental break is a good thing. The recommendations below offer a mix of stylish action, political and family dramas, white knuckle thrillers, soothing small screen balms and shows that are just plain fun. The only thing they share: None are in English. Stream it on Hulu; rent it on Amazon (all streaming information subject to change). Few historical series are as conceptually ambitious as this French saga, which manages to be intimate and sprawling as it looks at World War II through a tight lens on a small village. Each season covers a year, from 1939 to the liberation in 1945, and its consequences, and we follow what happens to a doctor and his wife, the cops, the teachers, the businessmen and other members of the local social, political and economical establishment as they try to survive. Moral ambiguity reigns, and the series makes viewers ask themselves uncomfortable questions. Oh, and if you think things are looking up when the Resistance starts fighting back, watch out for some startling revenge minded acts. This opulent period series explores the underbelly of the "divine decadence" extolled by Sally Bowles in "Cabaret." The dizzying story starts off in the German capital in 1929 and threads procedural elements (by way of the drug addicted, post traumatic stress suffering Inspector Gereon Rath, portrayed by Volker Bruch) into political intrigue (the Nazis are on the rise, aided by powerful industrialists). The show ricochets between grimy tenements and extravagant nightclubs, intimate relationship plots and big picture social changes. And it never looks less than fantastic, with a spellbinding reconstruction of a city teetering on the brink of the abyss. Rent or buy it on Google Play, iTunes and YouTube. Fans of "The West Wing" and anybody with a taste for political shows undergirded by sophisticated, thoughtful human drama should head to this essential Danish series, stat. Over three seasons, the show tracks Birgitte Nyborg (the formidable Sidse Babett Knudsen) as she becomes Prime Minister of Denmark and tries to balance backbiting political factions, the national interest, and an increasingly rocky domestic life. What may most astonish American viewers, however, is that Birgitte bikes to the office. Look for Pilou Asbaek (Euron Greyjoy on "Game of Thrones") as the tormented spin doctor Kasper Juul. The teenage Carole and Tuesday are a singer songwriter duo trying to make it in a music industry where songs are mostly written by artificial intelligence; the show is set on Mars, 50 years from now. Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe ("Cowboy Bebop," which is available on Hulu), this very funny anime series is a constantly inventive delight. This Mars is both exotic (gadgets abound) and familiar (Instagram and Teen Vogue still exist), and it's a perfect frame for the friendship between the women, which is the show's beating heart. Bonus: The tunes (in English) are total ear worms you may watch the first season's end credits every time just so you can hear "Hold Me Now" again and again. If anything can distract from the news, it's this German science fiction series. The plot is so convoluted that it requires undivided attention and possibly one of the many character maps to be found on the internet. This sounds daunting, but fear not: "Dark" exerts a powerful pull once you enter its mazelike structure. Set in a world where time travel is possible through a wormhole located in a tunnel, the action hopscotches between 1953, 1986 and 2019 (that's just for starters). What's most impressive is the complexity of the storytelling as we follow a small town's families across generations, and a cosmic level big picture eventually emerges. Let's face it: A lot of zombie fare tends to look a little cheap. But this period epic, set in 16th century Korea, is positively lavish. The costumes are eye poppingly beautiful; the crowd scenes actually feel dense; and the vast landscapes are varied and sumptuously photographed. Matching those high production values is an ambitious tale of political intrigue. The king has become a zombie, a fact that's kept secret by a court cabal led by a diabolical minister (Ryu Seung ryong). The heroic crown prince (Ju Ji hoon) must simultaneously fight for his right to the throne and prevent the spread of the zombie epidemic. Season 1 ended with a memorable plot twist; fortunately Season 2 just dropped. When many series strut like the TV equivalent of EDM or stadium rock, this humane, slightly melancholy Japanese series is more like chamber music. It is as intimate as its setting, a tiny restaurant with just a few counter seats, which is open from midnight to 7 a.m. The dispassionate chef, called simply the Master (Kaoru Kobayashi), quietly feeds his night owl clients while lending a sympathetic ear and occasionally imparting some advice. Mostly, the Master is a witness to myriad stories, some quirky and other seemingly banal, all of them affecting. The show has been compared to "High Maintenance," though its touch is gentler. Each of the self contained episodes, which average 24 minutes, make for a soothing nightcap. Stream it on Hulu; rent or buy it on Amazon and iTunes. There is something special about Israeli action series they tend to be smarter and more complex than American productions while still providing seat of the pants action. And "Prisoners of War" is pretty much the ne plus ultra of the genre. Oh heck, it's one of the best series you'll ever see, regardless of origin or genre. "Prisoners of War" inspired the initial premise of "Homeland," as Season 1 focused on the difficult homecoming of two Israeli soldiers who had been held hostage for a whopping 17 years. The show does not shy from violence (which never feels gratuitous), but it is best at exploring murky interpersonal waters. The first season is mostly a family drama both the men and their loved ones have irremediably changed over the years while the second adds white knuckle suspense without losing psychological integrity.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television

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