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Fans often argue about which quarterback is better the Jets' Sam Darnold or the Bills' Josh Allen. The season opener provided some answers. Without fans in the stands, the Jets and the Buffalo Bills apparently decided to do what they usually do only bigger. Behind by 21 3 entering the second half after a slow start, the Jets tried to break through in the third quarter, starting when wide receiver Jamison Crowder scored on a 69 yard touchdown pass from quarterback Sam Darnold. It was Crowder's longest reception as a Jet. Later, running back Josh Adams pushed a touchdown over from the 2 yard line with about a minute left in the game. But it wasn't enough. The Jets lost their season opener on Sunday, 27 17, at Bills Stadium. The misses were significant, and it soon became clear that it was Bills quarterback Josh Allen's game to lose. He passed for 312 yards and two touchdowns, and rushed for 57 yards and another touchdown. Where Allen made his marks, Darnold could not. The two quarterbacks are often compared to each other because of their backgrounds, friendship and draft position. (Darnold was the second quarterback drafted, Allen the third, in 2018.) But Allen competed 33 of 46 pass attempts on Sunday to Darnold's 21 of 35 for 215 yards, and it was clear which quarterback was a greater threat, at least on this day. Even where Allen shined, he brought back an old habit with him: his tendency to fumble, with two in the first half. In the past two seasons, he fumbled 22 times in 28 regular season games and twice in the team's playoff loss to the Texans last year. "I'll need to work on that," he said after the game. Although it was a disappointing first game for the Jets, safety Marcus Maye came out strong, making two sacks, forcing a fumble and notching 10 tackles (seven solo); he also defended two passes. The Jets held the Bills to 6 points in the second half. "We have to come out hot and fast, we can't wait until things get tough to get going," Maye said. The Bills' defense also held the Jets down, allowing them only 19 minutes with the ball. Old tendencies from both teams contrasted with the new way of playing football amid the coronavirus pandemic. In the absence of fans, fan noise was replaced by high volume cheers and boos at the Bills' stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y. The sound to people ratio was especially jarring when the arena was practically empty for the national anthem and the song "Lift Every Voice and Sing," with both teams remaining in the locker room. The 2020 season will feature several protests: Both teams wore helmets with the names of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd among civil rights messages, including "Black Lives Matter." The Jets canceled practices in solidarity with the walkout last month over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wis., and are one of many teams considering escalating protests this season. And it wouldn't be a Jets game without adding two more injured players to their ranks: running back Le'Veon Bell and linebacker Blake Cashman. Bell, a three time Pro Bowler and two time All Pro, was taken out with a hamstring injury in the third quarter, but not before six carries for 14 yards and two catches for 32 yards. He is hoping it's his comeback season after a career low 789 yards last year. The Jets will try to identify the common mistakes and prevent them from happening in their next game, their home opener next Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers. "Put your head down and grind," wide receiver Breshad Perriman said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Never miss a pop music story: Sign up for our weekly newsletter, Louder. The Internet imperceptibly melds hand played parts with loops and samples; whether or not it actually is, the music feels analog. Even where the drums are looped, the bass lines often drag and pull against the beat, breaking away from vamps to improvise and loosen things up; vocals arrive wherever they want, teasing expectations. Songs might just end with the sound of a tape slowing down, or its simulation. The Internet perfected its mixture of studio mischief and song structure on "Ego Death" in 2015. For most of that album, Syd the band's main songwriter sang about romances with women, inflected by ambition, celebrity and digital communication; there was also a glimpse of a troubled outside world in "Penthouse Cloud," which addressed police shootings with pain and prayer. Then, between Internet albums, band members vented their more eccentric ideas on solo recordings. "Hive Mind" falls ever so slightly short of "Ego Death," though it's still superb. The songs are a little more generalized, less specific; the music feels just a little more deliberate, though it's still full of surprises. The album opens with "Come Together," a distant 21st century echo of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," with thoughts about divisiveness and uncertainty over a jumpy bass line, wondering "What we gon' do"; then voices gather out of nowhere to insist, "They gon' get us to come together." In "Roll (Burbank Funk)," which follows it, Mr. Lacy urges, "Listen to your heart/What's it sayin'?," but what matters just as much is the suavely strutting groove. Then come the amorous chronicles. In "Stay the Night," "Come Over," and "Hold On," Syd gently negotiates her trysts: "Not saying I'm a pro/But you could learn from me," she coos in "Hold On." In "Mood," Syd reveals the tactical thinking during a date: "Right where I want you/I check my posture." And in "Wanna Be," she ponders how to move from friendship to romance, as creamy vocal harmonies part Chi Lites, part Beach Boys hint at blissful possibilities. But Syd is no pushover. In "Look What U Started," a skulking bass line carries withering accusations: "You blame it on your problems but it's no excuse/You can't keep playing innocent I know the truth." Meanwhile, in "La Di Da," she casually brushes off a guy: "Face it, I'm out of your league," she sings, adding, "Sorry that I'm so blase." Saving face, he insists, "I just came to dance, catch a groove," and the song provides a snappy one, peppered with wah wah guitar and Latin percussion.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
What books are on your nightstand? None on a nightstand, but a scattered collection on a coffee table next to the couch and fireplace, where I love to read. Right now I often come back to "The Jatakas" tales of the Buddha's countless previous lives, as a compassionate fish, a clever merchant or a holy man offering himself as lunch to a hungry tiger a book that my wonderful colleague Jonathan Gold suggested when we began planning our new course on Jesus and Buddha. Along with that, Oliver Sacks, "The River of Consciousness," with his incisive essay on memory; a book by the Dutch psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, on healing trauma in war veterans, called "The Body Keeps the Score"; and an old favorite called "Inside of a Dog," by Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist who studies dogs and took her title from Groucho Marx's marvelous line: "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; and inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." And two more: Anthony Appiah's most recent book, "The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity"; and Dani Shapiro's forthcoming memoir about family secrets, "Inheritance." What's the last great book you read? Most recently, "Beyond the Beautiful Forevers," by Katherine Boo. I'm astonished and moved to see how she intimately engages and clearly depicts the lives of people living in a slum village next to the airport in Mumbai. Which books by contemporary historians both academic and amateur do you most admire? So many but here I can mention only a handful: the work of Peter Brown, who combines enormous learning with historical imagination, as in his essays in "Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity"; Ramsay MacMullen's "Enemies of the Roman Order"; Noel Lenski's "Constantine and the Cities," which makes brilliant sense of sharply divergent views of Constantine; David Brakke's "Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism"; and the one I most recently read, Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen Zvi's new book, "Goy: Israel's Multiple Others and the Birth of the Gentile." And I'm delighted that Annette Gordon Reed's meticulously researched and intensely contested books on Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings and their families have succeeded in changing the previous consensus!	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Amar Ramasar was 11 when he first saw ballet. It was a video of the New York City Ballet dancers Heather Watts and Mel Tomlinson, in Balanchine's radical 1957 ballet "Agon," the dancers clad in minimal leotards and tights, performing spiky, extraordinary movements to Stravinsky's astringent score. Mr. Ramasar, an outgoing, talkative boy from the Bronx, knew right away what he thought. "That's the ballet I want to dance, and that's the company I'm going to get into," he said. Mr. Ramasar, 33, danced that role in "Agon" twice this season, a part he has performed since 2011. He has been a principal at City Ballet since 2009, dancing a remarkably wide range of roles, and has long been a favorite for the creation of new ballets. But it is relatively recently that Mr. Ramasar has entirely come into his own, showing a new technical refinement and polish that have embellished the dynamism and muscular attack of his dancing. Reviewing Justin Peck's new "Rodeo" in The New York Times in February, Alastair Macaulay wrote, "Mr. Ramasar, who in the last two years has become an endearing and central artist at City Ballet, seems to carry whole sections on the tide of his immense good humor and large scaled prowess." The path from the Bronx to Lincoln Center was not an obvious one. Mr. Ramasar's father, a former Marine who worked as a computer technician, is of Trinidadian Indian ancestry; his mother, who was a nurse, is from Puerto Rico. "No one knew anything about ballet in my family," Mr. Ramasar said in an interview backstage at the David H. Koch Theater, where City Ballet performs. "My father didn't prevent me from doing it, but he didn't make it easy." Mr. Ramasar is tall with an athletic build and a ready smile. He retains his boyish eagerness and enthusiasm, and it's easy to imagine him as an active, engaging child who was the storytelling champion of his elementary school and a prizewinning debater. When he was 10, a music teacher suggested he audition for TADA! Youth Theater, which selected children from schools in the five boroughs to perform in original musicals. Two out of 300 children auditioning in the Bronx were picked; Mr. Ramasar was one. His mother, working full time, couldn't take him to the rehearsals at the Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side, so Mr. Ramasar learned how to use the subway by himself, commuting daily to rehearsals after school. At Henry Street, he met Daniel Catanach, the choreographer working with TADA, who had danced with the Kansas City Ballet under Todd Bolender, a former City Ballet principal. It was Mr. Catanach who showed him the video of "Agon" and who encouraged him to audition for the School of American Ballet, the feeder school for City Ballet. "It was 1993; I was 12 and had no ballet training at all," Mr. Ramasar recalled. "I borrowed Danny's shoes to audition." He was accepted into the school as part of a boys' program, started by Peter Martins, the director of both the School of American Ballet and City Ballet, which offered scholarships in an effort to recruit more male dancers to the school. "My family didn't even have the smallest amount of extra money," Mr. Ramasar said. "I could never have done it otherwise." Mr. Ramasar performing in "Agon" at the David H. Koch Theater. Mr. Martins said that initially the program was aimed at developing male dancers, and not focused on diversity. "It turned out that a lot of the kids were minorities, which was a good thing," he said. (There are six other boys' program graduates at City Ballet and many in other professional dance companies.) Mr. Ramasar commuted every day from his school in the Bronx to ballet classes in Manhattan, taking his place at the barre among boys as young as 6. "I had a lot of catch up to do, because I started so late," he said. "I would look around and see all these boys who were turned out and beautiful, and I was just a clumsy Bronx boy. It took a lot of willpower." Doubting himself, Mr. Ramasar told his teacher, Olga Kostritzky, that he should perhaps become an actor. "You want to play a robber, be in movies," he said she told him. "You want to be a prince, stay in the ballet." But racial typecasting still abounds in the ballet world, and even though the African American Mr. Tomlinson had been his first glimpse of classical dance, Mr. Ramasar said it was often hard to believe in his future as a ballet prince. "I would look around and think, there are no other dark skinned Puerto Rican Indian guys around. Is it really possible?" Encouraged by his teachers, Mr. Ramasar persevered, won rave reviews for his performances in the school's end of year workshops and became a full company member in 2001. Soon after, Mr. Martins gave him the principal role of the Cavalier in "The Nutcracker." He was a prince, and his father came to watch him dance for the first time. "I think then he understood," Mr. Ramasar said. Even before his promotion to soloist in 2006, Mr. Ramasar was a regular presence in the core Balanchine and Jerome Robbins works in City Ballet's repertory, and in new ballets by choreographers as diverse as Christopher Wheeldon, Jorma Elo, Mr. Martins, Mauro Bigonzetti, Alexei Ratmansky and Mr. Peck. ("I keep asking Justin, 'Can I be your muse?' " Mr. Ramasar joked.) "He is game to try anything, which is so important for a choreographer," said Mr. Peck, who has used him in three pieces. "And he has an amazing ability to replicate movement almost instantaneously. In that way he is the perfect City Ballet model." Mr. Ramasar is hard to categorize, Mr. Martins said: "He can do contemporary work like no one else in this company. He is as good as it gets in the Balanchine black and white ballets" that is the choreographer's spare, modernist pieces, usually performed in simple practice dress. "He can do it all," Mr. Martins concluded. He hasn't, however, done many of the princely roles of the Balanchine repertory; Mr. Ramasar said he would love to dance in ballets like "Apollo" and "Diamonds" and that he is still focused on refining his academic classical technique. Asked whether he felt typecast, he said no. "I have never really thought about race, just what I could do as an artist," he said. "But I would like to be looked at as a role model for young dancers of color. I hope that I'm looked at in that way in terms of breaking boundaries and showing this is possible."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Two years ago, when Jules Miller, the co founder and chief executive of the Nue Co., a line of vitamin supplements, tried to get her brand on shelves at Barneys New York, a buyer at the store was horrified that Ms. Miller wanted to sell products for bloating and constipation next to high end skin care and makeup. It was easy to get behind ingestible beauty: the idea that consuming capsules or powders could make skin radiant, nails stronger or hair lustrous. But Barneys, now closed, could not conceive of placing items promoting gut health, specifically one that claimed to relieve chronic bloating, on its beauty floor. "It wasn't always an understanding that retailers had," Ms. Miller said. Even so, the Nue Co.'s Prebiotic Probiotic and Debloat Food Prebiotic cocktail of digestive enzymes and prebiotics was not a taboo concept to consumers. Combined, the two products make up almost a third of the Nue Co.'s sales, according to Ms. Miller. Barneys, she said, came back a year later and started stocking the line. "We get it now," she said the store told her. Katie Sturino, the founder of Megababe, has built an entire brand around products for thigh chafing, breast sweat and melasma mustaches (skin discoloration from sun exposure on the upper lip). In early days, Ms. Sturino said she was met with "giggling" and "snickers" when she came out with Thigh Rescue, an anti chafe stick, but now Megababe is sold in Target and Ulta Beauty stores. The Nue Co. and Megababe are part of a group of brands that address unsexy beauty and grooming concerns using slick packaging and candid, unconventional messaging. These companies are encouraging consumers to discard the embarrassment or shame we typically feel about butt acne, dandruff or toe hair. The key, Ms. Miller and Ms. Sturino believe, is using traditional beauty brands as a blueprint, at least when it comes to their aesthetic and the kinds of stores to sell their products. The Nue Co.'s gut health supplements and Megababe powders that absorb breast sweat (Bust Dust) give off cool Gen Z vibes. They are not products that remind you of a doctor's office or GNC. What sets Ms. Sturino, who is also a plus size influencer with more than half a million Instagram followers, apart from some of the biggest names in beauty is the way she talks about her brand. She approaches Megababe the same way she does her body: with unabashed positivity, acceptance and no filter. Ms. Sturino reminds customers that thighs rubbing together, a breakout on your behind and a post summer mustache are normal. "We had an example of a beauty editor who used our product but wouldn't write about it because she didn't want to be associated with chafe," she said. Jupiter, a new hair care line started by Robbie Salter and Ross Goodhart, who call themselves "lifelong flake fighters," is trying to do something similar. The two are gunning for Head Shoulders' younger customers, armed with the tagline "Zero Flakes Given" and what they describe as a youthful alternative to a decades old drugstore aisle product. Jupiter's Balancing Shampoo contains zinc pyrithione, the active ingredient in Head Shoulders that treats dandruff, and also looks good in the shower. "Existing brands have intentionally stigmatized the category," Mr. Goodhart said. "From our angle, a significant percent of the population has it, and we say, 'Just use our products and don't worry about it.'" What's going on in these markets is not much different from what happened with soaps and household cleaning products: taking something inherently unsexy hand soap or all surface cleaner and repackaging it to appeal to millennials. That is what put Method soaps on the map. In 2017, Method was acquired by SC Johnson, the owner of Windex, Scrubbing Bubbles and Shout. Soap may be an easier sell for the TikTok generation (and their parents) than dandruff shampoo, but Kevin Spight, a brand consultant, believes you can create a multimillion dollar company around a taboo concept. "You need that niche or hero product to carve your space," Mr. Spight said. "From there, you create your following and your advocates. People want brands that represent their personal ethos. It's a badge of honor now." Billie, a women's razor line that came out in 2017, has worked to reduce the stigma associated with women's body hair, including with ad campaigns with toe hair and a close up of a bikini bottom with pubic hair peeking out. In 2018, its Project Body Hair video amassed millions of views over several months on YouTube and other platforms. It took months for Georgina Gooley, a founder of Billie, to figure out how a razor brand should talk about (and celebrate) body hair. Billie not only acknowledges that body hair exists, she explained, but also endorses the belief that shaving is a choice, not an expectation. For decades, ads for women's razors showed only legs that were a mile long and completely hairless. "You couldn't even get a good visual of a product demonstration," Ms. Gooley said. Body hair was so taboo, she said, that commercials didn't even acknowledge that women had hair. Decades ago, she said, women sneaked out of bed to put makeup on while their partners were asleep, pretending that's how they woke up. (Cue Midge Maisel of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," who waits for her husband to fall asleep so she can take off her makeup only to wake up before he does so she can apply a fresh face of it.) "You're going to see that very direct advertising a lot more often because women have become a lot less embarrassed," said Monique Woodard, the managing director of Cake Ventures, a venture capital firm. That may be true, but only recently have brands like Billie started to challenge industry norms. In 2004, Dove's Real Beauty campaign showcased "real" women's bodies, and 13 years later Glossier did the same with Body Hero, but these are exceptions. Much of the beauty industry is still fueled by marketing that conveys unrealistic physical ideals.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
One of the city's most expensive apartment listings a rambling triplex perched atop the venerable Pierre Hotel overlooking Central Park has finally sold after more than four years on and off the market. But last month's closing price was nowhere near the 125 million initially sought. This 16 room penthouse co op, which occupies the 41st, 42nd and 43rd floors of the Pierre, built in 1929 at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 61st Street, sold at a discounted 44 million. It was still, however, the most expensive transaction in August, according to city property records. There were other big apartment sales last month, too, though at newer buildings. A condominium on the 81st floor of 432 Park Avenue, the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere, between 56th and 57th Streets, sold for 37.75 million; and a penthouse at the Jenga like glass skyscraper 56 Leonard in TriBeCa sold for 26.5 million. Both purchases were of four bedroom sponsor units and made through limited liability companies. Danny Bennett, a son of the singer Tony Bennett and his longtime manager, sold a townhouse in Greenwich Village. Nick Kenner, the founder of the Just Salad restaurant chain, bought a townhouse, in Carnegie Hill, where the family of F. A. O. Schwarz once resided. THE PENTHOUSE AT THE PIERRE has five bedrooms and seven baths, along with an enormous living room that once served as the original hotel ballroom. A grand staircase and a private elevator connect its three high ceilinged levels. On the 42nd floor are four corner terraces that provide stunning panoramic views of the park, the Hudson and East Rivers and beyond. The celebrated financier and author Martin Zweig, who predicted the 1987 stock market crash just days before it happened, had purchased the apartment in 1999 for the then record setting price of 21.5 million. He and his wife, Barbara Digan Zweig, filled the space with opulent furnishings and pop culture memorabilia, including the guitars of major rock musicians, like Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Springsteen, and the team jerseys of sports icons like Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky. Shortly after Mr. Zweig's death, in February 2013, Ms. Zweig downsized to a smaller, 12 million unit on the 24th floor of the Pierre and put the penthouse up for sale for 125 million. With no takers, the sky high price tag was lowered several times. In 2015, with the list price at 63 million, the property was removed from the market for six months and the apartment underwent a makeover. The most recent asking price was 57 million. Mary Rutherfurd and Leslie Coleman of Brown Harris Stevens were the listing brokers. The monthly maintenance is 51,840, according to StreetEasy.com. Not much is known about the buyer, whose identity was shielded under the limited liability company 795 Properties. Like all purchases in the building, it was all cash. The Pierre, which was once owned by J. Paul Getty, who bought it in 1938 and converted the non hotel part of the building to a co op in 1959, does not permit financing. MR. HOLT'S APARTMENT, No. 2L at the limestone and brick 225 Fifth Avenue, also known as the Grand Madison building, sold for 6.4 million. The 2,168 square foot unit, between 26th and 27th Streets, has three bedrooms and two and a half baths, along with a spacious living dining area and open kitchen that offers views of Madison Square Park, according to the listing with Town Residential. All of the bedrooms open to a 48 foot long terrace. The buyer was listed as the Turhan Trust. Mr. Rivera and his wife, Erica Rivera, received 6.1 million on the sale of their four bedroom three bath apartment on the 40th floor of 45 East 89th Street at Madison Avenue. The unit, No. 40EFG, has stellar views from its oversize windows that include Central Park and the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, according to the listing with the Corcoran Group. The buyer was Bruce Taragin. THE TOWNHOUSE SOLD BY MR. BENNETT was at 48 West 10th Street, near the Avenue of the Americas. The sale price was 10.5 million; the buyer made the purchase through an LLC. The Federal style brick house with a mansard roof has 4,479 square feet of space over five levels and is about 22 feet wide. It includes five bedrooms and three full and two half baths, along with a large office space at the garden level. There are also three spacious terraces one off the dining room and kitchen and two others off bedrooms as well as a 22 by 29 foot rear garden, according to the Corcoran listing. Mr. Kenner of Just Salads and his wife, Ashley Stark Kenner, paid 8.9 million for their townhouse at 8 East 93rd Street. The house, which is close to Fifth Avenue and the Central Park reservoir, is around 19 feet wide and five levels high, with 5,700 square feet of interior space, according to the listing with the Leslie J. Garfield brokerage. It contains nine bedrooms, four full baths and one powder room. There is also a 19 by 39 foot rear garden and small terrace off a fourth floor bedroom. The seller was listed as the estate of Henry H. Cooper Jr.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here. Tim Brooke Taylor, who helped define British comedy in the 1970s as a star of the long running television sketch show, "The Goodies," died on April 12. He was 79. His death, from the coronavirus, was announced by the BBC, which did not say where he died. He had been a regular on the BBC Radio 4 parody game show, "I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue," since 1972. Mr. Brooke Taylor got his start as a performer at Cambridge University alongside the future "Monty Python's Flying Circus" stars John Cleese and Graham Chapman. And "The Goodies," seen on the BBC from 1970 to 1980 and later briefly on ITV, shared an anarchic, anything goes sense of humor with "Monty Python," which made its debut in 1969. But whereas the Pythons mixed silliness with a certain degree of sophistication, "The Goodies" to the delight of its audience, which largely consisted of children was mostly just silly.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
As cities and states reopen slowly after coronavirus lockdowns, more people are stepping out, cautiously, into a changed world. If they are being careful not to spread disease, they are also in masks. And that means many of us are missing a small but important social lubricant: the smile. In anxious times, we may want to put neighbors, mail carriers, store clerks and others at ease with a casual smile. But if smiles can't be seen, how do you greet people? How do you reassure them? How do you flirt? Are there workarounds a squint, a head tilt, a raised eyebrow? It's a conundrum that is stumping many people who want to be both socially responsible and friendly. Coco Briscoe, 38, a comedian in Los Angeles, wears a mask to walk her dog, Daisy, and has been thinking about how to show friendliness to passing strangers. "It's like you're both staring at each other, and you're smiling, but they can't see that you're smiling," she said. "So it's just a very awkward interaction with people, and I think it's going to be that way for a while." "I'm almost a little bit over expressive now," Dr. Trebach added, "to try and compensate for the mask." Of course, not everyone is an extroverted smiler, and some people find face coverings liberating including women who are tired of being told to smile on the street. But masks not only hide grins; they can also make it harder for people to display a whole range of emotions including discomfort, dismay or disdain. Facial expressions of all kinds are a very important component of human interaction, said David Matsumoto, a psychology professor at San Francisco State University and the director of Humintell, a research company that trains people to read nonverbal cues. When we wear masks, "we're missing a major piece of that entire communication package," he said. But he added that people could adapt their body language. They can nod, for example. Or wave. Jasmine Gregory, 29, of Winston Salem, N.C., said that wearing a mask had prompted her to put in a little extra effort. "You just make more of an attempt to laugh, show your emotions and say what you're thinking, rather than just listening and nodding," she said. Ms. Gregory, a lawyer focusing on family and juvenile law, feels the limitations of masks acutely when she is trying to put clients at ease as they testify in court, she said. That is already a scary experience for many people. "There's a lot of reassurance on my end," she said. "I'll be actively smiling so they can tell by my eyes that I'm encouraging them and telling them: 'You're doing just fine.'" Not all smiles are the same, and some consider the so called Duchenne smile to be the gold standard. Named after Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne, a French neurologist who studied it, it's the kind of smile that lights up the whole face, engaging not only the zygomaticus major muscle to lift the corners of the mouth, but also the orbicularis oculi to raise the cheeks and squint the eyes. The typical social smile, by contrast, is a lips only display given to strangers and acquaintances. But its importance should not be ignored, Dr. Matsumoto said. A genuine Duchenne smile can light up a room, but social smiles do a lot of work in daily interactions. But masks are essential for slowing the spread of Covid 19, especially indoors or in large groups, experts say. So while some might struggle with this new glitch in communication, it's worth getting creative about signifying warmth. "Other nonverbal cues can compensate for the lack of a social smile," Dr. Matsumoto said. Ms. Gregory, for example, has been wearing her hair back so people can see her eyes. "When you make eye contact with someone and you feel happy or warm toward them on the inside," she said, "I think that creates the true, sincere smile that is more likely to spread across your face." Dr. Trebach has been sitting down with his patients more, to put them at eye level. He also takes more time to make small talk or share pictures of his cats, Mako and Bucket.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
WHEN he was 5 years old, Steven Elson built pretend skyscrapers out of blocks. It was the start of a love affair with buildings. At 60, his passion hasn't subsided. Today, after being laid off from a top commercial real estate job in Connecticut in 2008, he is working in the nonprofit sector, overseeing the development of affordable housing projects. "Every day is fascinating, and every day is a new problem," Mr. Elson said. "It's like Rubik's Cube. And I can't stop smiling. We're helping people rebuild their lives." For the reconstruction of his career, Mr. Elson can partly thank EncoreHartford, a 16 week fellowship program he completed last summer. Begun by the University of Connecticut's Nonprofit Leadership Program and now in its fifth year, it has helped more than 100 unemployed corporate professionals, mostly older than 50, make the transition to professional and managerial jobs in the state's nonprofit sector. The average salary: 50,000. Mr. Elson's pay is significantly less than what it was when he was senior vice president of finance at a major regional commercial real estate developer in Farmington, but the other rewards make up for it. "You know what? I don't care," he said. "I'm so happy and learning so much, and, thankfully, the youngest of our three children is through college now." As baby boomers like Mr. Elson face downsizing, layoffs and mandatory retirements, a growing number are enrolling in programs like EncoreHartford at colleges to learn ways to convert their corporate expertise to the nonprofit world. And nonprofit jobs are on the rise. Forty five percent of nonprofit groups plan to hire more workers this year, up from one third three years ago, according to a new survey of more than 400 organizations by Nonprofit HR, a human resources consulting firm. A wide array of jobs is in demand, including finance, fund raising, management and marketing, according to the report. Encore.org, a nonprofit group based in San Francisco that promotes "Second acts for the greater good," reports that 31 million people ages 44 to 70 are interested in making the leap to a new kind of work with some kind of social purpose. To help them do that, the organization is working to increase learning opportunities through its Encore College Initiative and a limited number of fellowship programs outside the classroom. In November, Pace University in New York started the Encore Transition Program, aimed at helping executives and professionals explore changeovers from midlife careers to nonprofit and public service organizations. (Pace's program, like the one at the University of Connecticut, has no ties to Encore.org.) The tuition is 1,250, and classes are limited to about a dozen students. The five session program provides an overview of New York's nonprofit and public service industries. Leaders in the arts, education, health care, social services and government meet with the group to share stories and allow students to make connections to tap for possible job openings or informational interviews. "This is not a job placement program, but an exploration of opportunities," said Joan K. Tucker, the program's director. "What I learned is that when you think that you might be at the end of one career, that's not necessarily so," said Patricia Carroll, who enrolled in the inaugural course. For the last 20 years, Ms. Carroll, 56, a Rutherford, N.J., nurse has held executive level positions in health care administration. But, she says, she is ready to explore all alternatives. So she signed up for the Pace program. "The course helped me explore what my 'next step' might be," she said. "Hearing from people working in the nonprofit sector who have already made the transition showed me that I'm not too old to have five , 10 , 15 year goals just like my children in their 20s do." Students are also encouraged to check out complementary programs at the university. For instance, Pace offers a Master of Public Administration with a track for nonprofit management, as well as certificate courses on topics like grant writing. On the West Coast, LA Fellows was created in 2010 at Los Angeles Valley College to offer unemployed midlevel managers an opportunity to find a job at a nonprofit or commercial organization. Fellows receive seven weeks of training covering executive level topics like critical thinking, advanced computer skills and generating business leads. Each fellow volunteers 100 hours as an intern at local nonprofits, which eliminates gaps on resumes and provides networking opportunities with potential employers. The program was originally financed by Los Angeles's Community Development Department and is now supported by local WorkSource Centers. Leadership Pittsburgh Inc., another nonprofit, offers a 10 month program in which participants spend about a dozen hours a month exploring ways to make a difference in the Pittsburgh area. Afterward, graduates are offered 10 month stints on nonprofit boards. Their interests and skills are matched with the needs of local nonprofit organizations and state commissions that serve the region. Tuition for the current program is 4,900 a participant. The EncoreHartford program costs 2,850, though grants are available, and it includes a crash course in nonprofit management and finance: 64 hours of classroom training held in local nonprofits and two months' full time work at the managerial level at a Connecticut nonprofit. A searchable list of nonprofit management courses offered at universities across the country is on the website of Seton Hall University and includes undergraduate, graduate and noncredit courses. Sometimes, all that is needed is a course or two to bolster skills and catch a hiring manager's eye. For example, Betsy Werley, 58, an "innovation fellow" with Encore.org, spent 26 years working first as a corporate lawyer and then leading projects at JPMorgan Chase. When she decided to move to the nonprofit industry, she took courses at New York University in areas where she felt she needed some help technology for nonprofits, for instance, and an introduction to fund raising.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Education
Although Whitney Houston collected six Grammy Awards and sold around 50 million albums in the United States between her debut in 1985 and her popular peak in 1999, the recurring dream she describes at the beginning of a new documentary, "Whitney," didn't involve breaking records or winning awards. Instead, she is being chased by a faceless man, a giant. "I always walk away," she says, but "when I wake up I'm always exhausted." On Feb. 11, 2012, Houston was found dead in her bathtub at the Beverly Hilton hotel, where she drowned after consuming what toxicology reports later determined to be a cocktail of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and prescription drugs. How could someone so beautiful and so gifted have thrown herself away so completely? This is the question posed by Kevin Macdonald, an award winning director whose other credits include a documentary about mountain climbing, "Touching the Void," and the feature film "The Last King of Scotland." "Whitney," which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday and arrives in theaters in the United States on July 6, is the first film completed with the cooperation of Houston's family and featuring interviews with her ex husband, Bobby Brown, and her mentor in the music industry, Clive Davis. In life, Houston was their singing cash register. In death, she continues to earn them coins. There have been memoirs by her mother, Cissy Houston, and by Mr. Brown and Mr. Davis. As well as a reality show on Lifetime called "The Houstons: On Our Own." It had its premiere eight months after Whitney Houston died. The new film ranges farther afield, using frank interviews with colleagues such as Houston's hairstylist Ellin LaVar, Houston's former assistant Mary Jones, and Houston's producing partner Debra Martin Chase. If the broad strokes of the story they tell are similar to that of "Whitney: Can I Be Me," it's nevertheless powerful to see them confirmed by her own family amid great archival footage. Both films describe Houston growing up in Newark during the time of the race riots. Both describe her as a beautiful child, prone to trouble, and granted a formidable gift. Both films assert that when she was signed by Mr. Davis in 1983, she was marketed with maximum crossover in mind and then became devastated when her middle of the road image led to a backlash from black audiences. (Al Sharpton called her "Whitey Houston" and urged black people to boycott her records. She got booed at the Soul Train Awards in 1989.) Numerous colleagues interviewed for Mr. Macdonald's film, including Ms. Lavar, add credence to earlier claims that she had a relationship with her close associate Robyn Crawford. As Ms. LaVar tells it, the later marriage to Mr. Brown was part of an attempt to have the sort of relationship that was "expected" of her. Rickey Minor, who worked as Houston's musical director for many years, calls Houston's sexuality "fluid," and describes Ms. Crawford as one of the few people who truly had her best interests at heart. A number of the players interviewed for the new documentary describe Houston as having had an impossible time forming a healthy relationship with either of her parents. Cissy had sung backup for Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley but failed in her solo career. According to Gary and Michael Houston, Whitney Houston's older brothers, Cissy pushed their sister to achieve the stardom she didn't, with love but considerable friction. Mr. Houston, the subject of much fresh reporting in this film, went on to take a large role managing his daughter's career. But a number of the people interviewed describe him as an opportunist who stole millions of dollars from her. In 2001, when Houston got a 100 million deal to stay at her record label, he sued her unsuccessfully for the full amount. Mr. Houston died soon after, and his daughter declined to attend his funeral. According to Michael Houston, no one in the family realized early on how destructive cocaine was. It was "the '80s," he says. Bobby Brown says in an interview that Whitney Houston's attraction to him had a lot to do with her attempt to reclaim her blackness after experiencing criticism from people like Mr. Sharpton. Another colleague theorizes that Mr. Brown operated as a kind of romantic stand in for both of her brothers. Late in the film, Gary Houston says that he and his sister were molested as children. This account is supported by Houston's former assistant Mary Jones. She says they were sexually abused by Dee Dee Warwick, the younger sister (and singing partner) of Dionne Warwick. This is the sort of revelation few celebrity documentaries contain. But the film also tends to place the most blame for Houston's troubles on those who are dead, desperate, or done. Mr. Brown, for example, looks like a fool as he declines to discuss his drug use with Whitney. But despite lots of talk from other interviewees about how Houston reduced herself to help boost his ego, there's no screen time given to previous claims that she was actually responsible for introducing Mr. Brown to cocaine. Cissy Houston makes a dramatic entrance early on and then has little to say other than that she taught Whitney everything she knew about how to sing. And Clive Davis basically disappears from the film after trotting out the same old story about how remarkable Whitney Houston was the first time he saw her perform. At this point, why would Mr. Davis bother saying anything else? He's sworn previously that he knew nothing about her and Ms. Crawford's romantic relationship. He's professed to have had no idea she had a drug problem until years after she suffered her first overdose. Never mind that he was the principal creative partner in Houston's recording career, the man who put her under contract when she 19 years old and can precisely recount all 11 songs of hers that went to No. 1 on the Billboard charts. Or that many of the people covering up her drug problem in the 1990s were on his payroll. The documentary benefits from access to songs like "I Will Always Love You." Mr. Davis is the chief creative officer at Sony Music, which holds the rights to them. The scrutiny he deserves won't take place this summer at a theater near you.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
If Brian Williams's future as the anchor of "NBC Nightly News" rests on his trustworthiness and ratings, new research delivered some sobering news on Monday. Before Mr. Williams apologized for exaggerating an account of a forced helicopter landing during the Iraq war, he ranked as the 23rd most trusted person in the country on par with Denzel Washington, Warren E. Buffett and Robin Roberts. On Monday, he ranked as No. 835. That puts him on the same level as the actor Gene Hackman, the basketball player Russell Westbrook and Willie Robertson, who stars in A E's "Duck Dynasty" reality series, according to the Marketing Arm, a research firm whose celebrity index is closely watched by advertisers and media and marketing executives. The new research came as NBC tried to decide whether Mr. Williams can continue as anchor and managing editor of its evening news broadcast. The network's internal investigation into Mr. Williams was underway Monday, with NBC News reporters contacting other staff members who have worked with Mr. Williams as well as soldiers involved in the Iraq helicopter incident, according to people who have been contacted. The crisis has reached to the highest level of NBCUniversal. Stephen B. Burke, its chief executive, held a meeting at his house this weekend to discuss the next steps. Among the options the network is likely to consider is whether Mr. Williams should apologize again and return to the air, whether he should be suspended or whether he should be pressured to resign, television industry executives said. Mr. Williams, who on Saturday said that he would step aside for several days as "Nightly News" anchor, is distraught, according to people close to him, telling friends that if he could go door to door and apologize to each of his viewers he would do so. NBC declined to make its executives or Mr. Williams available for an interview. For NBC, the decision is about more than journalistic ethics. It is also about business. The news group is in fierce competition with rival networks for ratings that ultimately affect advertising spending. NBC generated 200 million in advertising sales for its evening news broadcast in 2013, compared with 170.6 million for ABC and 149.9 million for CBS, according to WPP's Kantar Media. (That is the first full year for which the data is available.) Current and former NBC News staff members find themselves in the same position as many viewers unsure whether the allegations against Mr. Williams represent a storm that will sink him, or one he can weather. Many were surprised to find a well liked and very successful anchor in such a crisis this quickly. Dan Rather, the former CBS anchor, has come out in support of Mr. Williams, but other public statements of support have been sparse. One former NBC staff member said that Mr. Williams has contacted some who have worked closely with him in the past to ask them to cooperate with NBC's investigation. Like the others who spoke, the person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was still in progress. Elizabeth Holmes Hones Her Defense in Day 2 of Testimony Kevin Spacey was ordered to pay 31 million to the 'House of Cards' studio after sexual harassment allegations. That investigation has been moving quickly, according to two people contacted by NBC journalists who identified themselves as being from the network's investigative unit. The journalists, seeking information on the 2003 Iraq incident that Mr. Williams said he described inaccurately, were at pains to point out that they did not work for Mr. Williams, one of the people said in an interview on Monday. The journalists seemed to want to move quickly, the person said, and sent several messages imploring a response. A person close to Mr. Williams said he knew that his initial apology did not go far enough in addressing the scandal. Crisis management executives agree. The story involves the military, said Andrew D. Gilman, chief executive of the crisis communications group CommCore Consulting, and a war in which "a lot of people died, a lot of people came back permanently injured and you're making stuff up to make yourself look better?" People hold anchors to a higher standard of honesty than politicians, Mr. Gilman said. "We trust them to moderate debates when we're electing presidents," he said. At this point, he said, it is an issue of trust in the broader brand NBC News and even a star like Mr. Williams is not bigger than the show, or the network. The "NBC Nightly News" Facebook page has become something of a forum for viewers debating Mr. Williams's future. Some were disparaging the anchor. Underneath a story about the astronaut Neil Armstrong, some had joked that Mr. Williams had also been on the moon a version of the social media joke BrianWilliamsMisremembers, which inserts him into various historical news events. But another wrote, underneath a story about snowstorms in Boston, that she would "change networks if Brian Williams doesn't come back! Why is this called a scandal?" Matt Delzell, managing director of the Marketing Arm, owned by the advertising giant Omnicom, said that it would be particularly difficult for Mr. Williams to regain that trust compared with athletes like Tiger Woods or Lance Armstrong, who faced similar reputation crises, because of the position Mr. Williams's holds as a truth teller. "People at some point will forgive, people at some point will forget, but it may be harder to forgive and forget Brian Williams," Mr. Delzell said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
We Caribbean carnival devotees, counting down the days until the region's biggest bacchanal erupts on the streets of Port of Spain, Trinidad, on Feb. 27 and 28, have a dream. A dream that one day carnival will grace us with its life affirming presence not once a year but once a month. That one day all of humanity can pause during mundane daily routines and take solace in the fact that right now, somewhere in the world, life is being measured out in music and dance and feathers and glitter, not conference calls and crowded commutes: Somewhere, it is carnival. That dream may be turning into reality. Throughout 2016, tens of thousands of revelers flocked to over a dozen destinations to partake in carnival celebrations. From Jamaica to Los Angeles, London to Bermuda, Cayman to Toronto, they indulged in costumed parades, extravagant fetes and frenetic soca concerts, and were living proof that Caribbean carnival culture is growing globally, thanks, largely, to one island: Trinidad. "Carnival to Trinidadians is like soccer to Brazilians," said Wayne Henry, a founder of ValeVibe, a 23 year old Trinidadian events company. "In the past, we've tended to keep our culture to ourselves, but now Trinis have gained the confidence to export something we certainly do well: party and have a good time." This exportation call it the Trini fication of carnival has become the antidote to what Trinidadians call tabanca: heart wrenching post carnival pain fueled by the knowledge that the next bacchanal is a whole year away. Now there's a calendar that starts in Trinidad during the traditional pre Lent celebration and concludes in October at Miami Carnival, with global and regional carnivals scheduled almost monthly in between. It's a movement documented by booming media entities like the fastidious TriniJungleJuice.com, a global carnivalgoer's bible and piloted by young Caribbean entrepreneurs who take having a good time very, very seriously. Trinidad style carnival fetes, after all, are not mere parties but full on productions, transforming the days surrounding the parade into an unofficial competition: Which modish fete will not only eclipse the more traditional elements of carnival the parade, the calypso contests, the competition for carnival king and queen but outdo others in terms of venue, food, D.J. lineup and musical guests? Think of a raucous dance party against a backdrop of flamingos in Miami; amid the roller coasters of Coney Island in New York; on a boat down the Thames in London; deep in the sugar cane fields of Barbados. "If I can give a party in a volcano before it erupts, I'll do it," said Jules Sobion, the chief executive of a Trinidad events company called Caesar's Army. Having attended his signature event, A .M. Bush, on three islands, I believe him. Annually thousands of revelers including, last year, Rihanna, who partied with Caesar's Army on her home island, Barbados scramble for tickets to line up at 3 a.m., follow music and drinks trucks through fields, cover themselves in paint and hose themselves down as the sun comes up. The dancing persists till noon. "We do the unexpected," Mr. Sobion explained. "What does Caesar's Army do? We export fun." The result is more than fun it's a financial boon. "Carnivalgoers are a niche market that's growing and will continue to grow," said Roscoe Dames, the chief executive and managing commissioner of the Bahamas National Festival Commission. Four years ago his team was given a government mandate to create a carnival as part of an effort to lure tourists and stimulate the creative sector. The result, started in 2015 in Nassau and Grand Bahama Island, was Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival, which fuses the country's carnival traditions (known as Junkanoo) with a contemporary festival. The Bahamas, like many islands, wanted to maintain its own inimitable flavor while importing Trini styles. "The bedrock of the festival is our local music and culture," Mr. Dames said, "but we looked at presenting the full spectrum of the Caribbean: Cuban bands, reggae, soca, Haitian zouk, as well as local rake and scrape and goombay music." Last year, he added, it attracted upward of 60,000 participants and established itself "as a major player in the Carnival market." Other destinations Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Grenada, Washington, D.C. have long staged carnivals outside the traditional pre Lent time frame, but are seeing their festivities flourish as Trinidadian brands move in and bring avid fans with them. Among the biggest draws to any carnival is a party presented by Scorch, a Trinidad entertainment company that includes a media and publishing arm, a local TV show and a music production house. Its raucous parties held in places like London, Toronto, Barbados and, this year, Dubai are the ones many desperately try to get into but few can fully remember the next day (there is no hangover like a Scorch hangover, many a carnivalgoer has avowed). "Scorch is really a regional thing, meant to connect all the islands' cultures," said its chief executive, Kwesi Hopkinson. "So when we arrive at a particular carnival, it's an endorsement, a seal of approval that, 'Yes, this carnival is officially happening.'" Not all islands are eager for that Trinidadian seal, though. When Bermuda started a carnival in 2015 on its Bermuda Heroes Weekend, it barred promoters from other islands, unless they partner with a majority owned Bermudian entity. "When the Trini promoters come into any jurisdiction, the local promoters lose out," explained Jason Sukdeo, the president of BHW Ltd., the carnival's corporate entity on the island. "I want Bermuda carnival to be for Bermuda, to make money for Bermuda. For us to set up a carnival and watch money go overseas is not what we want." But Jeremy Nicholls, a Barbadian promoter who runs some of the most popular events at Barbados Crop Over, that island's carnival, which is the region's second biggest, disagreed. "Trinidadians coming here bring people with them," he said. "They have a wider reach, and this has a ripple effect; these visitors will go to the big Bajan parties, too. So at the end of the day, it's about us coming together." His company, Roast, exports its brand to five other carnivals, he said. For other enterprising Trinidadians, concerns are cultural, not financial: Will the dissemination of its carnival water down its profound history in the region, a history that stretches back to the 18th century, as European colonizers feted Lent with masked balls and their slaves followed suit, incorporating West African traditions into the revelry? "What I definitely don't want to see, with Trinis carrying our culture throughout the region, is the homogenization of carnival," said Anya Ayoung Chee, a designer who is a onetime Miss Trinidad and Tobago and the 2011 winner of Bravo's "Project Runway." Ms. Ayoung Chee's online Canyaval shop sells all things modish; her company also stages parties and has its own costume section in the parades of six carnivals. "My focus is always, how do we think about it beyond copy and paste, from island to island?" she said. "How do we preserve traditions, but also how can we hybridize, recognizing that carnival culture is always evolving?" To that end, the kickoff event she staged at the Afropunk Festival in Atlanta last October was inspired by J'Ouvert, the sunrise carnival ritual populated by folkloric characters such as stilt walkers and jab jabs, or devils.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday for just the second time since the 2008 financial crisis. Economists talk a lot about the impact this will have on markets, but what about everyday consumers? The Fed's decision can affect the cost of housing, cars, student loans and even the interest on your credit card though not all necessarily right away. And when the Fed raises rates, all sorts of other expenses eventually tick up. The move is part of what will be a slow, upward climb for what's known as the federal funds rate. Banks are ordered by law to have a certain amount of money in reserve, so they typically make overnight loans to each other to keep those balances up. The federal funds rate is the level of interest that applies to those short term loans. Because the rate has been close to zero since 2008, as part of the Fed's strategy to bring the nation out of a recession, there's hardly anywhere for it to go but up. As the economy improves and President elect Donald J. Trump unveils his stimulus package, economists expect rates to rise steadily over a period of years. "The bottom line, ostensibly, is that the economy is getting stronger," said Dean Baker, co director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "Nobody in their right mind would say, 'I'd rather have higher unemployment and lower interest rates.' Nobody wants to pay a higher interest rate, but I think that's an easy choice for most people." If you're going to buy a home, chances are that you will opt for a 30 year, fixed rate mortgage. Most home buyers do. Those loans have become remarkably affordable, especially since the financial crisis, with their interest rates bottoming out at around 3.5 percent. In general, movement of the Fed's rate does not have a large, direct impact on long term mortgage rates. But when the Fed's rate goes up, banks find ways to pass their higher borrowing costs along to consumers. And because long term mortgage rates are set in stone, they also factor in the anticipation of future rate increases. That's part of why mortgage rates have been shooting up in recent months: The Fed has suggested that interest rates are likely to continue rising for years. The average interest rate on a mortgage this month is 4.3 percent, according to LendingTree, and the average loan on a 30 year, fixed rate mortgage is worth about 237,000. If the borrowing rate were to rise by, say, another percentage point in the coming year, this would mean an additional 138 a month on the average mortgage leading to nearly 50,000 in added interest over the duration of the loan. As mortgage rates go up, people are a little less likely to buy a house, and those with fixed rate mortgages are less likely to refinance (because they probably will not end up with a better deal). An interesting wrinkle is that as a result, volume that is, the amount of new mortgage contracts being issued goes down. So brokers could also start loosening their requirements for new mortgages. The annual percentage rate on your credit card can be anywhere from 15 percent to 20 percent much higher than the interest rate on a mortgage or a car loan. An uptick in the Fed's interest rate might cause your credit card's A.P.R., if it's variable as opposed to fixed at a specific rate, to bounce by one or two percentage points. The effects of that can be larger than they may initially seem, in part because the interest compounds. That is, you begin to pay interest on what you owe and the interest that you have been accumulating on that. "If you're accumulating credit card debt for a year," said Markus K. Brunnermeier, a Princeton economist, "moving from 13 percent interest to 15 percent is a much bigger deal than moving something from 1 percent to 3 percent." Rates for student loans, like other forms of borrowing, are at a relative low. But as the Fed's rate rises, that will change for those just starting to think about paying for college. Federal loans are tied to the 10 year Treasury rate, which factors in the Fed's anticipated interest rates over the coming decade. Because these rates are projected to tick up steadily by the Fed's own forecasts, students planning to take out loans in the next few years can expect the government's student loan rates to rise. "Students taking out new debt will be looking at higher payments," Dr. Baker said, adding that he expected rates could rise by one or two percentage points in the next few years. Rates for car loans, too, are already climbing in response to the Fed's expected move. Auto loans tend to last only a few years, so there is still time for car buyers to get ahead of the curve. That's because the Fed, in its most recent economic projection, predicted that interest rates will continue climbing into the next decade. A few years from now, a car loan issued in 2017 could be fully paid off, and interest rates may still be on the rise. "If you're thinking of buying it now or in two years' time, you should buy it now," Dr. Brunnermeier said. What about renters? An interest rate increase may also affect them just not as directly. Higher rates mean that landlords must pay more to purchase and renovate their properties, so in the long run, those are costs they could easily pass on to renters though it's not necessarily a given that it will happen. And with the labor market improving, workers' wages could rise at about the same time as rent prices, said Stephen D. Oliner, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and former member of the Federal Reserve Board. "It's possible that with their wages rising, people will be able to keep up with the higher payments on their rents," he said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
Last summer, Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, convened the executive committee of the company's board to announce the end of one of the highest profile, messiest feuds in the Met's nearly 140 year history. A bitter court battle had concluded between the company and the conductor James Levine, who had shaped the Met's artistic identity for more than four decades before his career was engulfed by allegations of sexual improprieties. Mr. Gelb told the committee that the resolution was advantageous to the Met. But the settlement, whose terms have not been publicly disclosed until now, called for the company and its insurer to pay Mr. Levine 3.5 million, according to two people familiar with its terms. The Met had fired Mr. Levine in 2018 after an internal investigation uncovered what the company called credible evidence of "sexually abusive and harassing conduct toward vulnerable artists in the early stages of their careers." Rather than going quietly, Mr. Levine sued the company for breach of contract and defamation, seeking at least 5.8 million. The Met countersued, revealing lurid details of its investigation and claiming that Mr. Levine's misconduct had violated his duties. It sought roughly the same amount. A year later, and after millions of dollars in legal fees on both sides, the company agreed to pay Mr. Levine, though millions less than he had sought. The terms of the settlement have not previously been disclosed because a confidentiality agreement has kept both parties from revealing its details. The Met's multimillion dollar payment to Mr. Levine came before the coronavirus pandemic forced the company to close its theater leaving many employees, including its orchestra and chorus, furloughed without pay since April. Even when the deal was struck, the Met's finances were precarious. Now the company is fighting for its survival. The size of the payment to Mr. Levine, whom the Met had accused of serious misconduct, casts doubt on the strength of the company's case had it gone to trial. Mr. Levine's contract, which had been amended over the years but was essentially based on agreements struck decades ago, lacked a morals clause, an increasingly common feature in the entertainment world that prohibits behavior with the potential to embarrass an employer. It has not been uncommon for high profile figures forced from their jobs after accusations of sexual misconduct or harassment to leave with big payouts, often to satisfy the terms of their contracts. Two of Fox News's most prominent personalities received large payments after they were forced out amid allegations of harassment: Roger Ailes, the network's former chairman, got about 40 million when he left, and Bill O'Reilly, one of Fox's biggest stars, received roughly 25 million. But it is rare for someone who leaves under pressure because of sexual misconduct allegations to publicly challenge the firing in court. In his suit, Mr. Levine had sought 3.4 million for breach of contract after the Met stopped paying his 400,000 a year salary as music director emeritus, just a year and a half into a 10 year agreement. He also sought more than 1.6 million for the remaining performances he had expected to conduct during the season he was fired and the season following, as well as 707,500 for defamation; he argued that the Met's statements about him led other orchestras to fire him and cost him a book project. And he sought other, unspecified amounts for defamation, pain and suffering, and attorney's fees. Before the Met's investigation and Mr. Levine's firing, it appeared that Mr. Gelb had succeeded in easing the revered but ailing maestro into a dignified career coda, making way for Mr. Levine, now 77, to be succeeded by the young and dynamic Yannick Nezet Seguin. After ill health forced Mr. Levine to repeatedly cancel performances and miss two full seasons, he had reluctantly agreed to become music director emeritus. He would continue to oversee the young artist program he had founded and to conduct many of his signature operas, with a gala celebration of the 50th anniversary of his 1971 Met debut on the horizon. Mr. Levine's continued role came at considerable cost to the company. In addition to his 400,000 salary, the Met agreed to pay him his customary 27,000 fee for each performance he conducted 10,000 more than what the Met usually described in public as its top fee. That arrangement came to an abrupt end in December 2017, after The New York Times published the accounts of four men who said that they had been sexually abused by Mr. Levine as teenagers; Mr. Levine denied the accusations. Coming at the height of the MeToo movement, the accounts caused a furor, and the Met suspended Mr. Levine without pay and began an investigation. Other orchestras and festivals immediately cut their ties with him, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Ravinia Festival outside Chicago, where he had longstanding relationships. After a three month investigation, in which its lawyers interviewed over 70 people, the Met fired Mr. Levine in March 2018, saying the investigation had uncovered additional troubling incidents and that it would be "inappropriate and impossible" for Mr. Levine to continue at the Met in any capacity. The company resisted paying Mr. Levine severance, or any money owed under his existing contract. Although Mr. Levine's lawsuit included defamation claims all but one of which were later dismissed it was essentially a breach of contract suit. With no morals clause, about the only basis for ending the agreement, apart from rare acts of god that would prevent the Met from functioning, was Mr. Levine's death or disability. But, armed with the findings of its investigation, the Met countersued. It cited seven unnamed people who had been the victims of what it called "sexually abusive and harassing conduct." Mr. Levine was undeterred by the potentially embarrassing public disclosures. People familiar with his thinking said the conductor, who has never publicly discussed his sexuality, felt he could rebut the allegations. And he was already so humiliated that he felt he had nothing further to lose by litigating. The Met did not name any of the seven accusers. But one of the men in the Met's court filing was identified by Mr. Levine's lawyers as Ashok Pai, whose account of being molested by Mr. Levine as a teenager figured prominently in articles in The Times and The New York Post. Another accuser was a longtime Met employee who, the Met said, Mr. Levine had propositioned while wearing a bathrobe and had subsequently "inappropriately touched" at least seven times between 1979 when the man was 16 and auditioning for Mr. Levine and 1991. In a third incident, from 1985, the Met said Mr. Levine had driven an opera singer home from an audition, then locked him in the car and groped and kissed him against his will, later placing him in "a prestigious program" at the company. In another incident reported by the Met, Mr. Levine asked an artist if he "had a large penis." Mr. Levine's lawyers denied all the allegations, and were eager to question witnesses under oath, and to ask the Met's leaders about other sexual improprieties at the company over the years and the degree to which they had been tolerated. The Met's lawyers zeroed in on another sensitive area for Mr. Levine, demanding his medical records. Just as depositions were about to begin in earnest, the parties agreed to submit the case to mediation. Even then, tensions ran high as Mr. Gelb and Mr. Levine faced one another at the opening session, according to two people familiar with the proceedings. An exasperated Mr. Levine even left the session before being persuaded to sign off on the 3.5 million agreement. The resolution was announced publicly on Aug. 6, 2019, just days after the end of the Met's fiscal year. As a tax exempt nonprofit institution, the Met files annual disclosure statements that include revenues and expenses, as well as specific large payments to independent contractors, such as Mr. Levine. But filings for the period in which the Met paid Mr. Levine are not due until mid 2021.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
DAVID AMRAM There's no more suitable send off for the Cornelia Street Cafe which will close next week after 41 years as a home of offbeat poetry, jazz, cabaret and theater in Greenwich Village than a David Amram show. A remarkable musical polymath and conservationist of beatnik culture, he has played at the club monthly for 13 years and has come to epitomize its essence. At 10:30 p.m., Cornelia Street Cafe, Manhattan; 212 989 9319, corneliastreetcafe.com. (Giovanni Russonello) AS THE CROW FLIES AND THE MARCUS KING BAND Chris Robinson has had a prolific career outside the Black Crowes, whose throwback British blues rock made them a multimillion selling band in the 1990s; the band announced its breakup in 2015. But hits are hits, and Robinson has put together As the Crow Flies to play them along with some cover songs probably in jammier versions than the originals. The Marcus King Band, a Southern rock group with a horn section, shares the bill. Dec. 30 at 8 p.m., New Year's Eve at 10 p.m. at the Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, N.Y.; 877 987 648, thecapitoltheatre.com. (Jon Pareles) A SWING SWANG SWINGIN' NEW YEAR'S EVE Jim Caruso, the buoyant showman who brings Broadway, jazz and cabaret talent to Monday night open mics, hosts a holiday special showcasing the fluid and charismatic vocalists Veronica Swift, Gabrielle Stravelli and Benny Benack III, and the musical theater veteran Lesli Margherita. (Swift will do double duty, also performing a few numbers with the Birdland Big Band in a separate 11 p.m. set.) They'll join forces at 8 and 11 p.m., accompanied by the pianist Matt Baker, the bassist Pat O'Leary and the drummer Curtis Nowosad, along with hats, horns, balloons, a complimentary champagne toast and an a la carte menu. At Birdland, Manhattan; 212 581 3080, birdlandjazz.com. (Elysa Gardner) DARK STAR ORCHESTRA A tribute band grounded in punctilious research, the Dark Star Orchestra doesn't just play the Grateful Dead's repertoire. It plays the full sets from specific nights of the Dead's 50 year itinerary, and some audience members can probably name the original date. On Dec. 30 and New Year's Eve at 8 p.m., Wellmont Theater, Montclair, N.J.; 973 783 9500, wellmonttheater.com. (Pareles) JOHN DIGWEED After six years, the durable Williamsburg dance club Output is closing following this New Year's Eve party that goes until 8 a.m. John Digweed the long running British house D.J., producer and label head will provide the soundtrack for this farewell event, putting both the year and the club to bed. With Tara Brooks, Desna, Chilly Mox and Alex Raouf. At 10 p.m., Output, Brooklyn; outputclub.com. (Jon Caramanica) NATALIE DOUGLAS A witty, ebullient entertainer with a sweetly dusky, soulful voice, and a winner of 10 MAC (Manhattan Association of Cabarets Clubs) Awards, Douglas will mark her 20th anniversary ringing in the new year with reflections on the year gone by and a mix of familiar and new material. She'll take requests, too. "A Very Natalie New Year" unfolds at 7:30 p.m., then again at 10:45 p.m., with music direction by Mark Hartman. At the Duplex, Manhattan; 212 255 5438, theduplex.com. (Gardner) GOV'T MULE Warren Haynes, the guitarist, singer and songwriter of Gov't Mule, is a jam band all star who has done long stints with both the Allman Brothers Band and the Dead. His own band plays dark, low slung Southern rock that borders on grunge, facing down dark thoughts with bluesy determination. On Dec. 29 at 8 p.m. and Dec. 31 at 9 p.m. at the Beacon Theater, Manhattan; 212 465 6500, msg.com/beacon theatre. (Pareles) MACY GRAY Twenty years ago, before the Motown sound revival (Sharon Jones, Amy Winehouse, Leon Bridges), Gray was making music that felt right in touch with soul's golden era, but that went its own way. "Ruby," released this year, shows that she hasn't changed her formula much; her raspy, mischievous singing and earnest songwriting still bear charms. She performs sets at 7 and 10 p.m.; the latter includes a three course meal with open bar. At the Iridium, Manhattan; 212 582 2121, theiridium.com. (Russonello) DAVID GUETTA Guetta was one of the D.J. producers who, over the past few years, helped to bring EDM into the global pop mainstream, even if it didn't quite stay there. But underneath his big tent anthems beats the heart of a classic house D.J. This will be his second straight year bringing in the new year in a Brooklyn warehouse. At 9 p.m., 63 Flushing Ave., Brooklyn; guettanye2019.com. (Caramanica) CARLOS HENRIQUEZ The bassist in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Henriquez is increasingly showing up on Lincoln Center stages as a bandleader. A master of both classic jazz and Afro Cuban styles, he released an album this year featuring ankle breaking arrangements of Dizzy Gillespie tunes in a Latin jazz mode. At Dizzy's, Henriquez plays sets at 7:30 and 11 p.m., with a stellar nine piece band including the trumpeter Terell Stafford, the tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana and the drummer Obed Calvaire. Tickets include a three course meal. At Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, Manhattan; 212 258 9595, jazz.org/dizzys. (Russonello) HOP ALONG AND DIET CIG This year, Hop Along released "Bark Your Head Off, Dog," its best and most flexible album, full of curiously detailed stories delivered with piercing singing and dynamic indie rock and folk adjacent arrangements. The band's opener at this show is another sharp woman fronted group, the wry, potent and efficient pop punk duo Diet Cig. At 9 p.m., Asbury Lanes, Asbury Park, N.J.; 732 361 6659, asburylanes.com. (Caramanica) HOUSE OF YES AND ZERO PRESENT NEW YEAR'S EVE Acid Pauli, known for his prolific, adventurous mixing of house and techno, leads an international roster of D.J.s that includes Behrouz, Mira, Be Svendsen and Oceanvs Orientalis. Guests can arrive at 9 p.m. and linger until 5 a.m. while enjoying other enticements such as a New Orleans jazz band, a body art and beauty parlor, a sound healing lounge, fetish goddesses at the "Temple of Sacred Sin" and a midnight countdown with accompanying spectacle in each room (the most spectacular guaranteed in the Grand Ballroom). At Grand Prospect Hall, Brooklyn; houseofyes.org/NYE. (Gardner) THE LONE BELLOW AND COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS The Lone Bellow is a three member band from Brooklyn with roots from elsewhere: from Appalachian picking, the Band, 1960s soul, 1970s Nashville and Laurel Canyon. Its songs build from everyday events to impassioned close harmony choruses. Courtney Marie Andrews has a striking voice, high and tremulous with reserves of power, that matches the fierce immediacy of songs that often come across as roots rock hymns. At 9 p.m., Bowery Ballroom, Manhattan; 212 260 4700, mercuryeastpresents.com/boweryballroom. (Pareles) HAROLD MABERN This pianist was born in Memphis, in the cradle of midcentury soul music, but he's been a New Yorker since the tail end of the 1950s, when bop still reigned. His experiences in both cities shine through in his richly harmonic playing and swiftly grooving music. Mabern has released four albums in the past four years on the Smoke Sessions label; at Smoke, the venue behind the label, he'll be joined by the boisterous bop vocalist Mary Stallings, the tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, the bassist John Webber and the drummer Joe Farnsworth. Tickets to either the 6:45 or 9:45 p.m. set include a four course meal; the later option includes admission to a bonus late night set. At Smoke, Manhattan; 212 864 6662, smokejazz.com. (Russonello) RICH MEDINA Since the 1990s, Medina has been a reliably knowledgeable party D.J., with a tool kit that spans house, soul, funk, hip hop and beyond. At 10 p.m., C'mon Everybody, Brooklyn; cmoneverybody.com. (Caramanica) TONY MIDDLETON Since joining the doo wop group the Willows as lead singer in the early 1950s, Middleton has wielded his textured baritone in Broadway musicals and European jazz clubs, and at the Apollo Theater, while collaborating with Burt Bacharach, Smokey Robinson, Cissy Houston and Della Reese. A frequent presence in various New York venues of late, he'll welcome 2019 with his quartet, featuring the pianist Tadataka Unno, the saxophonist Eric Person, the bassist Jim Cammack and the drummer Dwayne Broadnax, with shows at 9 and 10:30 p.m., the latter including a champagne toast. At Zinc, Manhattan; 212 477 9462, zincjazz.com. (Gardner) MINGUS BIG BAND This band devoted to the repertoire of Charles Mingus captures the elements that made him so successful as a bassist and composer: his rangy power and the earnest, searching quality to his music. Assembled and managed by Mingus's widow, Sue Mingus, this big band has held down a weekly residency at Jazz Standard for a decade now. It performs a couple of special New Year's Eve shows at 7:30 and 10:30 p.m., both of which include a three course meal. At Jazz Standard, Manhattan; 212 576 2232, jazzstandard.com. (Russonello) MURPHY'S LAW The most pummeling New Year's Eve lineup is headlined by the New York hardcore stalwarts Murphy's Law, capping off a year in which the frontman Jimmy Gestapo suffered from serious health issues. Also performing: U.S. Bombs, Total Chaos, the Krays, Ice Cold Killers. At 7 p.m., the Kingsland, Brooklyn; 718 383 1900, kingslandbargrill.com. (Caramanica) THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS The New Mastersounds are British fans of vintage American soul and funk, a proudly retro sounding instrumental band that devises hand played grooves harking back to the 1960s and 1970s. For this band, wah wah guitars, crisp backbeats and steamy electric organ never went out of style. At 8 p.m., Gramercy Theater, Manhattan; 212 614 6932, mercuryeastpresents.com/thegramercytheatre. (Pareles) 'NEW YEAR'S EVE SPECTACULAR' As close as you'd ever want to be to Times Square without having to stand in the cold for 12 hours, Carolines on Broadway is hosting an all star stand up showcase in its comfy, cozy basement club, plus you can still watch the ball drop onscreen. Performers include Yamaneika Saunders, seen on Netflix this fall as one of "The Degenerates," Alex Edelman, named the Edinburgh Festival Fringe's best newcomer, and others. The later show includes a D.J. and dancing after midnight. At 7:30 and 10 p.m., Carolines on Broadway, Manhattan; 212 757 4100, carolines.com. (McCarthy) 'NEW YEAR'S EVE WITH MIKE YARD' This comedian grew up with tropical holidays in his native Virgin Islands before moving to New York City in 1986. Yard has appeared on Comedy Central's "Inside Amy Schumer," and broke out as one of the main correspondents and panelists for that network's "The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore." Yard also appeared this year on "The Break With Michelle Wolf" on Netflix. At 8 and 10:30 p.m., Gotham Comedy Club, Manhattan; 212 367 9000, gothamcomedyclub.com. (McCarthy) NOTHING The Philadelphia band Nothing has been rebuilding shoegaze from within, replacing the dreamier components with a heft borrowed from hardcore and grunge while maintaining the genre's fundamental elegiac nature. Also: more neo shoegaze, but less rugged, from Weekend and Teen Body. At 8 p.m., Knitting Factory, Brooklyn; 347 529 6696, bk.knittingfactory.com. (Caramanica) JOHNNY O'NEAL This virtuoso pianist and endearing vocalist lives to thrill. He wants to bedazzle, but also to evoke a strong emotional response. He plays everything from Tin Pan Alley ballads to Stevie Wonder tunes, in a stride jazz piano style and a bluesy baritone. At Smalls, O'Neal will perform separate sets at 9:30 and 11 p.m., and just 50 tickets will be sold for each. They'll be available only at the door, on a first come, first served basis. At Smalls, Manhattan; 646 476 4346, smallslive.com. (Russonello) OTEIL FRIENDS The bassist Oteil Burbridge was with the Allman Brothers Band from 1997 until its retirement in 2014, and has made plenty of other jam band connections as a founding member of Dead Company, the Tedeschi Trucks Band and Aquarium Rescue Unit. His own groups lean toward funk, jazz and gospel infused Southern rock. Burbridge's latest Oteil Friends lineup includes Melvin Seals, the longtime keyboardist for the Jerry Garcia Band; Eric Krasno, the guitarist from Soulive; John Kadlecik, a guitarist who was a founding member of the Dark Star Orchestra, and Jennifer Hartswick, a singer and trumpeter with the Trey Anastasio Band. At the Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, N.Y., on Dec. 27 and Dec. 29 at 8 p.m., and at Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn, on Dec. 30 at 8 p.m. and New Year's Eve at 9 p.m.; thecapitoltheatre.com and brooklynbowl.com. (Pareles) 'QED'S NEW YEAR'S EVE SPECTACULAR' Astoria's top comedy club will not disappoint, with headlining entertainment provided by Christian Finnegan, Myq Kaplan and other comedians. Kaplan reached the finals of NBC's "Last Comic Standing" in 2010, while Finnegan graduated from joking about the week's headlines on VH1's "Best Week Ever" to providing a little levity for viewers of MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann." Admission includes an appetizer buffet. The later show includes noisemakers and a champagne toast at midnight, with live streaming of the ball drop from Times Square. At 8 and 10 p.m., Q.E.D., Astoria, Queens; 347 451 3873, qedastoria.com. (McCarthy) RAVEN O The downtown night life fixture, who over decades has channeled pop icons from Bowie to Sinatra while remaining an androgynous, boundary shattering exemplar of alternative cool, will offer song and commentary, accompanied by the renowned jazz bassist Ben Allison. Shows begin at 8 and 10:30 p.m.; each includes a three course dinner and a half bottle of Cava per person. At Pangea, Manhattan; 212 995 0900, pangeanyc.com. (Gardner) THE RUB The Rub has been one of Brooklyn's defining and very fun dance parties for a decade and a half, long enough that it recently released its own commemorative photobook, "Sixteen Years of the Rub." Its New Year's Eve event features DJ Ayres and DJ Eleven, the party's resident D.J.s, and guest Nicole Sky (of Nina Sky). At 10 p.m., the Bell House, Brooklyn; 718 643 6510, itstherub.com. (Caramanica) SNOOP DOGG True story: The sole full length album Snoop Dogg released this year was "Bible of Love," a not bad gospel rap album. In this moment, he's perhaps more visible as a TV personality: charming host of the revamped "The Joker's Wild," and even more charming co host of "Martha Snoop's Potluck Dinner Party." But don't expect any of those versions of Snoop to come out at this concert, likely to be a hits revue of gangster rap classics and saucy modern funk. At 9 p.m., Terminal 5, Manhattan; 212 582 6600, terminal5nyc.com (Caramanica) 'THE STAND PRESENTS NEW YEAR'S EVE' This comedy club has remained technically homeless since closing its doors in Gramercy in June in preparation for a move to a larger spot in Union Square. In the meantime, The Stand's owners will put on four shows in two different locations to ring in 2019. Tim Dillon, with new specials out this year on both Comedy Central and Netflix, performs during at least three of the shows. Other performers will include Jim Norton, Todd Barry, Ron Bennington, Marina Franklin, Janeane Garofalo and Vladimir Caamano. At 8 and 10:30 p.m., SubCulture, Manhattan; 212 533 5470. At 8:30 and 10:30 p.m., Rockwood Music Hall Stage 3, Manhattan; thestandnyc.ticketfly.com. (McCarthy) 'SASHA VELOUR'S 'NIGHTGOWNS': NEW YEAR'S EVE' Nightgown began as a monthly theatrical drag showcase in Brooklyn, but has since toured theaters around the world thanks to its host, Sasha Velour, and her win on the ninth season of "RuPaul's Drag Race." You may or may not hear Velour replicate her TV lip sync performance of Whitney Houston's "So Emotional," but you'll definitely experience a drag show like no other, with regular cast members Vander Von Odd, Untitled Queen and Neon Calypso, and after party beats by DJ Hannah Lou. At 9:30 p.m., National Sawdust, Brooklyn; 646 779 8455, nationalsawdust.org. (McCarthy)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Meghan Hughes is the president of the Community College of Rhode Island. This article is part of our latest Learning special report, which focuses on the challenges of online education during the coronavirus outbreak. Forty eight miles long and 37 miles wide, Rhode Island is the smallest state in the country. With a population of about a million people, we're made up of towns and small cities, and that means you almost always see someone you know when you go to the grocery store. We had our first confirmed case of Covid 19 on March 1, and that day changed our college forever. C.C.R.I. is the only community college in Rhode Island, and the largest in New England. What I learned right away is that my team and I would need to make decisions quickly, with imperfect and incomplete information, to maximize the safety of our 13,000 students and 1,300 employees. It's hard to describe to outsiders the kind of effort that was required to make that move in just 12 days. Well run colleges are known for thoughtful planning and intentional execution. The pandemic forced us to work in a new way and to do it instantaneously. This semester, our faculty members are teaching 2,400 sections of 600 different courses. Before March 23, just 13 percent of our courses were delivered online, and only 19 percent of our faculty had taught an online course before. That's true for a lot of American colleges. What makes it even more challenging for community colleges is that many of our students come from low income families. More than 900 students let us know they didn't have access to Wi Fi at home, or a device like a laptop to attend classes remotely. Half of our students had never taken an online class. So we had faculty who needed to learn how to teach their courses in a new way, and students who needed to learn how to go to college in a new way. We had administrators, including me, and staff members who all had to learn how to work entirely from home. And we had to learn it while doing it. The faculty spent the week before we launched doing virtual training with our instructional design team and getting support from our I.T. group. Our student services team started doing video meetings with students for services like admissions coaching, advising and tutoring, and our finance team figured out how to move a 50 year old paper payment system online in a week. We had wanted to adapt our work in this way for a long time, but the urgency imperative to do it hadn't been there, and other priorities took its place. The foundation board, our executive director and his team went into overdrive to find the money to pay for the new student devices, the wireless access, and emergency student support. Our union leadership reached out right away and asked how they could help. Community colleges educate nearly half of all American college students. We spend our lives jury rigging solutions with limited resources. We know what's at stake in this crisis: our students' ability to stay in college so they can graduate and get good jobs. The economic crash in our state now means unemployment numbers exceeding those of the great recession. Our students work in restaurants, malls, casinos and other industries that have been hit hard by what is going on, and they have been laid off in significant numbers. We hear from them around the clock through our texting tool. "This is extremely hard. My entire family got laid off this week," wrote one. Another said, "I'm trying to take care of my two kids, ages five and seven, and figure out online schooling for all of us." Or: "We're making the best of it. I'm juggling one computer with two younger siblings who are both trying to do high school online." It's too early for me to predict what the fallout will be, but I know what wakes me up at night. First, it's our students who won't be able to stay in college because they just can't right now, either because they couldn't make the switch to remote learning quickly enough or because what they are shouldering in their own families because of the virus means their education gets put on hold. Second, it's people in this community getting the virus our faculty, our staff, our administrators, our students. This pandemic has already changed higher education, and this fall I believe we will see early indicators of what the lasting change may be. The return on investment of a college degree will be under the microscope with college students and their families forced to reconsider their pre pandemic selection of a college and identify more affordable options. Instead of going to a four year college out of state, a student may stay in the state, possibly living at home and attending a four year institution as a commuting student or enrolling at the local community college. Now that students have spent half of a semester going to college remotely, some will likely look to online coursework and online degrees to reduce the cost of a degree and increase flexibility. I agree with Patrick Methvin, the head of postsecondary success programs at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, that some colleges will close. Tuition dependent colleges that are facing diminished fall enrollment, running operating deficits, and have dwindling endowments are at the greatest risk. Both private and public institutions will need to quickly build a strong online presence in order to compete for students and stabilize enrollment. How we measure learning may change. Will competency based learning gain widespread acceptance, or will the traditional credit hour remain in place and largely unchallenged? Finally, I think we will see continued expansion of delivery models, both hybrid models combining in person and online learning and exclusively online models.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Education
AL BLACKSTONE at the Joyce Theater (July 23, 7:30 p.m.; July 24, 7 p.m.; July 25 26, 8 p.m.; through Aug. 4). Dance as long form narrative storytelling tends to be the domain of ballet and Broadway, but Blackstone brings it to the contemporary dance stage in his Joyce debut, "Freddie Falls in Love." Blackstone, known for his choreography in "So You Think You Can Dance," infuses his work with humor, theatrical flair and sharp technique a combo that has earned him many fans. Here, his wordless tale about two people losing and finding love proves an entertaining journey, thanks to his brisk staging and charming performances by the Broadway alumni Melanie Moore and Matt Doyle, as well as a stellar ensemble. 212 242 0800, joyce.org FIRE ISLAND DANCE FESTIVAL at Fire Island Pines (July 20, 5 and 7 p.m.; July 21, 5 p.m.). Since 1995, the service organization Dancers Responding to AIDS, now under the umbrella of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, has produced this fund raising festival. It is now a popular event on Fire Island's summer calendar and, increasingly, a notable commissioner of new work. Artists presenting premieres this year include Christopher Wheeldon, a festival regular; Michelle Dorrance, who offers a tap piece performed by Robert Fairchild; and Al Blackstone, with a work inspired by the history of the Pines. Also on the program are performances from Kyle Abraham's A.I.M., Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Paul Taylor Dance Company and James Whiteside. dradance.org	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. I walked into the spring training locker room of the Houston Astros with a question for the assembled players. What is going on with the slow pace of free agent contracts this winter? Alex Bregman, the Astros' star third baseman, had just finished taking his morning hacks on the field and is likely to be a future occupant of baseball's penthouse. He could earn a munificent contract of the sort handed out to Bryce Harper ( 330 million) and Manny Machado ( 300 million) these past two weeks. But he sees many dozens of ballplayers who have fallen short of stardom without contracts, and that angers him. Worse, he sees teams content with mediocrity: Fewer clubs are competing to sign the stars. "A lot of teams seem fine with losing and getting TV money and making no attempt to sign players," he said. "That is bad for the game." I wandered over to Josh Reddick's locker. Lithe and a free spirit, he's a good right fielder and a careful observer of the game. He suggested that perhaps baseball players should follow the lead of N.B.A. players and speak out. "A lot of guys are pissed off," he said. "There are a lot of guys who should have jobs who are just hanging there. If it takes another bad strike to change this, then that's what we need to do." We have arrived at a hinge point in sports. From angry baseball players talking strike to quarterback Colin Kaepernick to running back Le'Veon Bell to the N.B.A. players LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Chris Paul, professional athletes are splendidly outspoken. They opine on President Trump and popular culture and their sport's economics, and it is indisputably stirring to see young men and women looking beyond the horizon of wins and losses. Yet politicization plays out in radically different ways and not invariably to the benefit of athletes. Baseball grooves on and is constrained by its traditions. It has a powerful union, the strongest in pro sports, and that coexists with the sense that individuality is suspect and no player is as big as the sport itself. So baseball players sail toward a possible confrontation with the owners without leaders who possess the transcendent cultural cachet and business power of, say, a LeBron James. "It feels like baseball lives in the past, and that undercuts player power," noted Adrian Burgos, a history professor at the University of Illinois and editor of La Vida Baseball, which studies the Latino influence on baseball. "Whereas the N.B.A. imagines itself as the future, and it has to create a world in which players have more power." None Week 11 Takeaways: Here is what we learned this week. N.F.L. Tightens Covid Protocols: As cases rise and Thanksgiving approaches, the league is requiring masks inside team facilities and increasing testing. The Jets Lose Again: Falling to the Miami Dolphins, the Jets' receiver Elijah Moore offered consolation. The Long Path to the Super Bowl: With 18 weeks in the regular season and fewer teams earning byes in the playoffs, the Super Bowl is still a long way off. Playoff Simulator: Explore every team's path to the postseason, updated live. The N.B.A., players in many sports will tell you, stands as the zeitgeist prototype, the most free spirited of the leagues and with the youngest fan base the average age of an N.B.A. viewer is 37, compared with 55 in baseball. Its stars have become hybrids: players, power brokers and globe spanning businessmen. So James, who signed with the Los Angeles Lakers with an eye toward building an entertainment empire, spent much of February trying to force the New Orleans Pelicans to trade its star center, Anthony Davis, to the Lakers. James's heist failed amid complaints he had stepped out of his player's lane and tampered with another team's star. Suffice to say James did not appear chastened and Davis could try to force a trade this summer. James has a television show, "The Shop," on HBO, and guess who was one of his scheduled guests on the Season 2 premiere on Friday night? The N.B.A. life is nothing if not an intersectional experience. Baseball and football are more tightly bound by their cultures and history. The N.F.L. long ago went all in on Death Star dominance, sated on money and nose wrinkled in distaste for dissent. The owners cut a presumably very large check to Kaepernick, who almost certainly was blackballed for taking a dignified knee during the national anthem. There is no assurance he will again run out onto an N.F.L. field. Player solidarity in football is a barely flickering lamp. When Bell refused to report to the Steelers' training camp last fall, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported that teammates removed his name plate and plundered his locker of shoes. Bell decided to sit out the 2018 season rather than accept a constraining franchise tag deal. The N.B.A. is the antithesis of this. Player and even coaching personas see Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich's scathing takes on Trump have become central to its marketing appeal, a Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagrammed world of hooping and opining. Adam Silver, the commissioner of the N.B.A., may not groove on athletes' desire to bend teams to their will, but that is woven into the league's DNA. Bill Russell, the 85 year old basketball legend who took a photo of himself wearing a T shirt with the words, "I'm with Kap," and tweeted it out, serves as a reminder, too, that its athletes have been outspoken for generations. "N.B.A. players are taking a role in their own marketing and their own futures," Leonard said. "You see a concerted effort not only to wield power but to create power." This has not escaped the notice of baseball players. In their world, too much individuality, wearing a hat backward or tossing a bat like a baton after a home run, can draw a roll of eyes. Reddick, the Astros' right fielder, has watched N.B.A. players with admiration. "Basketball players are very outspoken about their opinions," he said. "Baseball has always been about giving the generic cliche answer that keeps you guessing. Basketball players are much more outspoken and go into it with a lot of depth." Analytics border on Holy Writ in baseball front offices and for many sportswriters, and this too acts to strangely diminish stars even in their moment of glory. So we're told that Harper, an intense and seemingly transcendent young star, is less than he appears because his WAR rating last year (wins above replacement and a rather subjective statistic) was low. There is the implicit suggestion that players and fans would do well to yield to numeracy triumphalism.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Annrene Rowe was hospitalized for 12 days with coronavirus symptoms earlier this year. Since then, she has noticed her hair falling out in clumps. Losing Your Hair Can Be Another Consequence of the Pandemic Annrene Rowe was getting ready to celebrate her 10th wedding anniversary this summer when she noticed a bald spot on her scalp. In the following days, her thick shoulder length hair started falling out in clumps, bunching up in the shower drain. "I was crying hysterically," said Mrs. Rowe, 67, of Anna Maria, Fla. Mrs. Rowe, who was hospitalized for 12 days in April with symptoms of the coronavirus, soon found strikingly similar stories in online groups of Covid 19 survivors. Many said that several months after contracting the virus, they began shedding startling amounts of hair. Doctors say they too are seeing many more patients with hair loss, a phenomenon they believe is indeed related to the coronavirus pandemic, affecting both people who had the virus and those who never became sick. In normal times, some people shed noticeable amounts of hair after a profoundly stressful experience such as an illness, major surgery or emotional trauma. Now, doctors say, many patients recovering from Covid 19 are experiencing hair loss not from the virus itself, but from the physiological stress of fighting it off. Many people who never contracted the virus are also losing hair, because of emotional stress from job loss, financial strain, deaths of family members or other devastating developments stemming from the pandemic. "There's many, many stresses in many ways surrounding this pandemic, and we're still seeing hair loss because a lot of the stress hasn't gone away," said Dr. Shilpi Khetarpal, an associate professor of dermatology at the Cleveland Clinic. Before the pandemic, there were weeks when Dr. Khetarpal didn't see a single patient with hair loss of this type. Now, she said, about 20 such patients a week come in. One was a woman having difficulty home schooling two young children while also working from home. Another was a second grade teacher anxiously trying to ensure that all her students had computers and internet access for online instruction. In a July survey about post Covid symptoms among 1,567 members of a survivors' group, 423 people reported unusual hair loss, according to the group, Survivor Corps, and Natalie Lambert, an associate research professor at Indiana University School of Medicine, who helped conduct the survey. Dr. Emma Guttman Yassky, the incoming chairwoman of the dermatology department at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine, said she has treated many frontline medical workers for hair loss, including her hospital's employees. "Some of them had Covid, but not all of them," she said. "It's the stress of the situation. They were apart from their families, they worked for many hours." For most patients the condition should be temporary, doctors say, but it could last months. There are two types of hair loss the pandemic seems to be triggering, experts say. In one condition, called telogen effluvium, people shed much more than the typical 50 to 100 hairs per day, usually beginning several months after a stressful experience. It essentially involves a shifting or "tripping of the hair growth system," said Dr. Sara Hogan, a dermatologist at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, who has been seeing up to seven patients a day with the condition. In healthy hair cycles, most hairs are in a growing phase, with a small percentage in a short resting phase and only about 10 percent of hairs in a shedding or telogen phase. But with telogen effluvium, "people are shedding more, growing less," Dr. Khetarpal said, and up to 50 percent of hair might skip ahead to the shedding phase, with only about 40 percent in the growth phase. The phenomenon, which some women also experience after pregnancy, typically lasts about six months, but if stressful situations persist or recur, some people develop a chronic shedding condition, Dr. Hogan said. The other hair loss condition that is increasing now is alopecia areata, in which the immune system attacks hair follicles, usually starting with a patch of hair on the scalp or beard, said Dr. Mohammad Jafferany, a psychiatrist and dermatologist at Central Michigan University. "It is known to be associated with or exacerbated by psychological stress," said Dr. Jafferany. Dr. Guttman Yassky said that she has seen "a huge increase in this type of alopecia." Not all of the patients had Covid 19, she said, but the ones who did tended to progress very quickly from one or two bald patches to "losing hair all over the body," including eyebrows and eyelashes. She said that might be because the storm of inflammation that some Covid patients experience elevates immune molecules linked to conditions like alopecia. Experts don't know exactly why stress triggers these conditions, which affect both women and men. It might be related to increased levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, or to effects on blood supply, Dr. Hogan said. The hair loss itself can cause more stress, Dr. Khetarpal said, especially for women, whose hair is often more closely tied to identity and self confidence. "It's your trademark," said Mary Lou Ostling, 77, a retired educator who lives in the Stuyvesant Town neighborhood of Manhattan. She was hospitalized for Covid 19 for eight days in the early spring and later noticed that "my hair started coming out in chunks," she said. "I always was clearing hair out of the comb, brush, the sink." Ms. Ostling said she also could tell that her hair wasn't growing much because she wasn't seeing roots that contrasted with the color she had previously dyed it. "I've always had very long, very thick, very curly hair," she said. But in July, "I simply had a lot of it all cut off. I couldn't deal with it anymore." When she came home from the hairdresser, she said, "my husband was just staring at me. He said, 'I think I have a different wife.' It was very depressing." She said she has finally begun to detect some hair growth. Mrs. Rowe, who managed the front desk for a wellness spa, has gone further. "I tried putting my hair in one of those messy buns, but it looks terrible with the bald spots on the sides," she said. So, she got wigs: "a really short pixie one, a pageboy one, a long curly one and a strawberry blonde one," she said. "I'm trying to make the best of it." Dr. Hogan said some patients find the situation so upsetting they avoided washing or brushing their hair because they noticed the hair loss more during those activities. She tells them they shouldn't be afraid of normal grooming. She added, "Patients don't like this when I say this, but they come around to it: Hair is not crucial for your survival."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
Acorn woodpeckers are renowned food hoarders. Every fall they stash as many as thousands of acorns in holes drilled into dead tree stumps in preparation for winter. Guarding these "granary trees" against acorn theft is a fierce, familial affair. But all hell breaks loose when there are deaths in a family and newly vacant spots in prime habitat are up for grabs. The news travels fast. Nearby woodpecker groups rush to the site and fight long, gory battles until one collective wins, according to a study published Monday in Current Biology. These wars also draw woodpecker audiences, the researchers reported, who leave their own territories unattended, demonstrating the immense investment and risks the birds are willing to take in pursuit of better breeding opportunities and intelligence gathering. "I think these power struggles are major events in the birds' social calendars," said Sahas Barve, an avian biologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and lead author of the study. "They're definitely trying to get social information out of it." Acorn woodpecker societies are complex. Each family consists of up to seven adult males, often brothers, which breed with one to three females, often sisters but unrelated to the males. They live with nest helpers who are typically their offspring from previous years. Together they defend 15 acre territories, on average, encompassing one or more granaries in the oak forests along coastal Oregon down into Mexico.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
SAN FRANCISCO Ian MacDonald, a 14 year old in Portland, Ore., got a treat from his parents the other day. He was allowed to go outside. It was for less than five minutes. "I let him take out the garbage. We wore N95 masks," said his father, Dr. Kelvin MacDonald, who has been insisting his family stay in the house as wildfires flare nearby. Dr. MacDonald is a pediatric pulmonologist, and he is concerned about the health risks to children from the ashen thick air. "It is unethical to expose them and find out what happens 50 years from now," said Dr. MacDonald, who is also an associate professor of pediatrics at the Oregon Health Science University. While the science is still emerging, he said, the thrust is already clear: "This does not look good for children." The fire that is breathing down the Pacific Northwest and parts of California poses particular peril to young lungs, and is especially acute for children with medical conditions like asthma, which afflicts one in 12 children. Their lungs can become so inflamed by the micro particles that airways may close, creating in extreme cases mortal threat. Healthy children exposed to wildfire smoke at the current levels, even for just a few weeks, can become vulnerable to infection, too, in some cases triggering latent asthma. Such exposures can heighten existing asthma symptoms and increase hospital visits, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and research from the Environmental Protection Agency. In the short term, smoke can kill immune system cells that protect the lungs from pneumonia and other disease. In the long run, doctors fear, such toxin exposure could prompt asthma in children with a genetic predisposition but who might otherwise not have contracted it. Much of 2020 has been spent focusing on imperiled lungs of the older and the infirm, who are at greater risk of Covid 19, but these fires prey on developing lungs, experts said. Dr. John McQueston, a pediatric pulmonologist who works for Randall Children's Hospital in Portland and serves satellite clinics in some of the hardest hit regions in the state, predicted a spike in asthma related illness. "I would not be surprised if six months from now, when children have problems with asthma, I'll ask their parents, 'When did it start?' And they'll answer, 'It happened right after the fires,'" he said. In recent days, Dr. McQueston has dealt with a handful of other cases involving asthmatic children living just downwind from fires; they had intensified symptoms but had been treated at home with medication. Dr. McQueston said there might well be more acute issues in the region if not for the coronavirus pandemic, which was already keeping so many children at home and less exposed to infection. In Oroville, Calif., near some of the state's worst fires, Dr. Sidharth Bagga, a pulmonary critical care specialist for children and adults, said he and his colleagues were receiving "drastically more phone calls" about lung health for people of all ages. He's particularly concerned about the children, though, because many seem to be playing outside still. "My fear is parents don't realize it is unhealthy," he said, and that the smoke can act as a "trigger" for long term respiratory challenges. "We're creating the next generation of smoke or respiratory cripples by letting them be exposed to this without realizing this is what is actually happening," Dr. Bagga said. To support this concern, he estimates that 5 to 10 percent of patients he sees regularly and who come in with new asthma or respiratory distress say they first felt symptoms after a fire. Longstanding evidence from more polluted nations shows the risks of unhealthy air to developing lungs, with one estimate showing that, worldwide, 237,000 children under age 5 died in 2015 from asthma and other conditions associated with air pollution, mostly in Asia and Africa. The research on wildfires is more recent, reflecting the fact that industrial pollution has been considered more common. But researchers say the differences might not be so pronounced in that the wildfire air carries tiny particulates that threaten lungs from scorched trees, cars, homes and businesses and industrial areas, Dr. MacDonald said. "It could be pretty bad if man made objects are being burned." If the science remains murky, the bottom line seems plain, experts said. "In the absence of a compelling reason, it's best to keep the kids at home," said Dr. David Cornfield, chief of pulmonary, asthma, and science medicine at Stanford Children's Health. He was involved in cases of two children with severe asthma who died after exposure to smoke from wildfires, one in 2016 and one in 2013. Air quality is measured by the density of pollutants; when a widely used index of air quality developed by the E.P.A. reads below 50, conditions are considered safe. That index has well exceeded 400 in the areas around Portland, causing them to be labeled "hazardous" and an "emergency situation," while the levels in the San Francisco Bay Area, hovering between 200 and 300, are "very unhealthy." Dr. Cornfield said he didn't want to be too prescriptive about what precise level should keep children inside but said a decent guideline is to cease outdoor activity at 100. Above 150, he said, "you don't really want to have people sitting outside." That puts a major crimp in school reopening plans, which are predicated on keeping windows open, having ventilation, even holding outdoor classes to stanch the spread of the coronavirus. That, too, preys on the lungs, so administrators are now caught between wildfires that would call for tightly insulated schools and the threat of the virus, which argues for open air. Now, the air outside has smelled "like a campfire," Ms. Murphy said, and thanks to the aging windows in their fixer upper home in the Portland suburb of Tigard, they "are getting lots of smoke in the house." For the last few days, Cora hasn't seemed like her usual chipper self, her parents said. She has been sleeping in later than usual and falling asleep at night without a fight. "Usually at bed time, when I go to lay down with her, she's flapping all over the place," her mother said. "But yesterday, she laid down next to me and went right to sleep." It has left Cora's parents to wonder if lethargy could be tied to the fires and the asthma, but so far Ms. Murphy said she was trying not to panic. Ms. Murphy said she would take the girl to the doctor if she developed pronounced symptoms. The couple also has a 2 year old son, Benjamin, who does not have asthma and has clamored to go outside, to no avail. "We bought a swing set during Covid so they could go outside," said the children's father, Mr. Jensen. "Now they can't go into the backyard." During fires in 2008, researchers in Northern California allowed infant rhesus macaque monkeys to be exposed to 10 days of wildfire smoke and compared their lung function at the time and in the years that followed with the lung function of a group of rhesus monkeys that had not been exposed to the smoke. Research shows that human children face challenges, too, from pollution over all and wildfire. A study of a fire that burned 4,200 acres in San Diego in 2017 a blaze far smaller than the ones in the West today found sharp increases in emergency room visits 16 excess visits per day at a children's hospital in the region during a span of around 10 days during the fire. A study of hospital visits during and just after wildfires in San Diego in 2007 found a 136 percent increase in asthma related emergency room visits for children ages 4 and under. The study concluded: "Young children appear at highest risk for respiratory problems during a wildfire, which is cause for particular concern because of the potential for long term harm to children's lung development." Children have been less well studied than adults but experts said the challenges of youth are very likely intensified by at least three key differences: children's lungs remain in development, which means their immune systems may be altered; their airways are narrower; and they simply breathe more often and faster. That leads to more toxic intake for their body mass. "Infant respiration may be double or triple adults," said Dr. Cornfield of Stanford. At the particularly high levels of smoke in places like Portland, Dr. Cornfield said, at the least, families should consider getting an air filter or using air conditioning to the clear the air inside. In a perfect world, he would urge stronger measures, at least for the short term. "I honestly think that if there's the potential to relocate to a less challenged environment, one should really do that," he said. "Most people are not so blessed with a plethora of options."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
BEACON, N.Y. Sam Gilliam, an abstract painter of 85, proves that optical prettiness can have depth. A longtime resident of Washington, he is loosely associated with color field painting, which once turned our nation's capital into a capital of contemporary art. There is no easy way to explain how a city whose architecture and statuary can seem consistently colorless became, in the '60s, the locus of an art "ism" that spewed bright color in every direction. This was the movement that, following the lead of Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, endowed painting with the casual radiance of watercolor. Mr. Gilliam, too, soaked and stained unprimed canvas with pools of thinned down acrylic pigment. It mattered at the time, at least to theory inclined critics, that the paint merged with the weave of the canvas rather than sitting in clumps on top of it. A soaked canvas is likely to be at least half an inch flatter than a brushstroke laden one, a distinction that helped spawn the now historic Cult of Flatness. It was led by the critic Clement Greenberg, who believed that modern art lived its best life when it proclaimed the inherent limitations of its medium. Color field painting, which produced some bona fide masterworks and more than its share of decorative fluff, fell into eclipse in the last quarter of the 20th century. But Mr. Gilliam's early efforts have sprung into view again, and one hopes they remain vividly present. It's heartening to report that art world fashion is now beginning to favor once overlooked abstract paintings by major African American artists, who include, besides Mr. Gilliam, Ed Clark (whose first show at Hauser Wirth opens this week); William T. Williams (whose recent paintings are on view at the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery); and the late Alma Thomas (whose work is at Mnuchin). Born in Tupelo, Miss., the seventh of eight children, Mr. Gilliam grew up in the shadow of the Great Depression. He was still in grade school when his family moved to Louisville, Ky., where his father worked for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. His mother, Estery, was a seamstress who belonged to a sewing group, and the artist later credited her for encouraging his boyhood love of art. In 1962, after graduating from the University of Louisville with both a bachelor's degree and a master's in fine art, Mr. Gilliam settled in Washington, where he developed his signature style. The artist is best known for his so called Drape paintings, which he began in 1968, when he did away with the tradition of the rectangular canvas by ditching stretcher bars, the wooden strips used to lend a painting its drum taut surface. Instead, he hung up his canvases as if they were full length curtains, creating droopy, sometimes swoopy objects that could be described, in mathematical terms, as a series of catenary curves. They could sway gently, or subtly change their shape. They remind you that the history of art, wherever it roams, is inseparable from the history of humble cotton cloth. "Double Merge" is a rousing sight. It conjoins two of the artist's early Drape paintings into an exuberant, site specific configuration that occupies a gallery of its own. At first, it appears to be floating or levitating in midair. It is monumental and carnivalesque, and can put you in mind of American architecture at its most vernacular, especially old fashioned circus tents, with their bold stripes and peaked, cascading tops. But its heavy folds of cotton duck also convey a sense of gracefulness. Some observers have likened the Drape pieces to cathedrals. At the very least, they hint at a form of shelter, a cheerful one festooned with a startling rainbow of trippy, hippie, tie dye colors and patterns. The two canvases that were tapped for the installation are both titled "Carousel II" (1968), and each one unfurls at a length of about 75 feet. Which is not to say that they're twins. The one on the left hews closer to the wall, and has soft edged bars of color melting into each other with the unapologetic allure of a pink streaked sunset. The second painting, which stands to the right, is comparatively chaotic and crossed with long lines that were apparently created by folding and creasing a still wet canvas, a technique that resembles the Japanese craft of shibori, or hand dyeing. The painting protrudes aggressively into the viewer's space, and raises a favorite art historical conundrum: Is it a painting or is it a sculpture? Another work in the exhibition the only other one, in fact might seem to pose a similar question. "Spread," a large, horizontal, cherry red abstraction crackling with citrusy oranges and yellows, has poles that tilt across its surface as if to offer a dyed fabric version of Pollock's "Blue Poles." Although "Spread" is not a Drape painting it stays in place on the wall much the way paintings are supposed to do it, too, comes with a novel twist. It belongs to Mr. Gilliam's "Beveled Edged" series, in which he slants his stretcher bars at a 45 degree angle, making them instantly visible to the viewer and adding an element of bulk or boxiness to the painting. Is this detail important? An accompanying handout that is intended for the general public can feel a bit academic, emphasizing how Mr. Gilliam's methods "transition his two dimensional paintings away from the flatness traditionally associated with the medium and toward three dimensional space." He's presented as a kind of post Minimalist whose concerns happen to jibe with those of the sculptors collected in depth by Dia. They include Robert Morris, the master of draped industrial felt, and Anne Truitt, who is also from Washington, and whose spare, platonic, monochromatic objects occupy a teasingly ambiguous realm where painting leaves off and sculpture begins. But Mr. Gilliam himself has not characterized his work in Minimalist or post Minimalist terms. If anything, he has said that his work derives from more earthy and accidental inspirations. His Drape paintings, he said last month, "might have been inspired by seeing laundry hanging on a clothesline." He made the comment in an interview with the art historian Barbara Rose, and added, intriguingly, that he could not discount the possible influence of a coterie of artists he had met in Paris in the early '60s who branded their efforts "sans chassis" which is French for "off the stretcher." At any rate, one wouldn't want to pin the Drape paintings to a single source. They are richly and dreamily allusive. "Double Merge" has many layers of meaning, and its spirit, however festive at first glance, can also feel mournful. As it hangs down from the ceiling, or rather from wooden slats that attach to points along the top of the canvas that are bunched and tied with brown leather straps, the piece can evoke an unsettling sense of hanging bodies, of lynchings, and the incalculable sorrows of the American past. "When artists leave the South," Mr. Gilliam once said to the historian William Ferris, "their southernness takes on guises."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
WASHINGTON On Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive and chairman, held a conference call with reporters to discuss how the social network manages problematic posts and its community standards. The call quickly went sideways. For more than an hour, the 34 year old billionaire instead fielded questions about how he and his No. 2, Sheryl Sandberg, obfuscated problems such as Russian interference on Facebook and how the company had gone on the attack against rivals and critics. In response, Mr. Zuckerberg at times defiant and at times conciliatory defended the social network, Ms. Sandberg and his own record. "The reality of running a company of more than 10,000 people is that you're not going to know everything that's going on," he said at one point. Yet even as Mr. Zuckerberg was making his case, a furor against his company was gathering momentum. In Washington, Republicans and Democrats threatened to restrain Facebook through competition laws and to open investigations into possible campaign finance violations. Shareholders ramped up calls to oust Mr. Zuckerberg as Facebook's chairman. And activists filed a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission about the social network's privacy policies and condemned Ms. Sandberg, the chief operating officer, for overseeing a campaign to secretly attack opponents. The outcry followed a New York Times article that raised questions on Wednesday about Facebook's tactics in dealing with disinformation and other problems on its site, as well as the way it treats competitors and opponents. "Facebook cannot be trusted to regulate itself," said Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the House antitrust subcommittee. "This staggering report makes clear that Facebook executives will always put their massive profits ahead of the interests of their customers." The social media giant has faced a succession of crises since 2016, when it was accused of influencing the outcome of the American presidential election in favor of Donald J. Trump. Facebook has since acknowledged that its platform was a critical conduit for Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, and it has grappled with leaks of customer data to a British political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica. But while previous scrutiny of Facebook largely focused on its business model and how its platform promotes viral posts and ads, the latest fallout was directed specifically at Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg. The Times article on Wednesday described how Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg passed off many critical security and policy decisions in recent years and delayed responses to abuse on Facebook or played down its significance. More recently, Facebook went on the attack, employing other companies to divert attention to critics and competitors. In one case, an opposition research firm, Definers Public Affairs, worked to discredit protesters by trying to link them to George Soros, the liberal financier. That has raised questions about the accountability of Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg. Mr. Zuckerberg exercises near total control of the social network because he owns 60 percent of its voting shares and is the head of the board. Ms. Sandberg is his handpicked No. 2. On Thursday, Facebook's board said it supported Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg. While the board acknowledged that the two executives responded slowly to Russian interference on Facebook and that directors had pushed them to act faster, it said in a statement that "to suggest they knew about Russian interference and either tried to ignore it or prevent investigations into what had happened was grossly unfair." In his conference call, Mr. Zuckerberg echoed similar sentiments. "To suggest that we weren't interested in knowing the truth, or to hide what we knew, is simply untrue," he said. "We're in a much stronger place today than we were in 2016." Still, he acknowledged missteps, including the use of Definers Public Affairs. Mr. Zuckerberg said he terminated Facebook's relationship with Definers late on Wednesday after he learned about some of the opposition research firm's tactics. "In general, we need to go through all of our relationships and evaluate what might be more typical D.C. relationships and decide if we want to continue with them," Mr. Zuckerberg said. He declined to answer questions about personnel changes, but said Ms. Sandberg was "doing great work for the company." In a statement on Facebook late Thursday, Ms. Sandberg said allegations that she stood in the way of fixing the platform's problems "are also just plain wrong." She also distanced herself from Definers and expressed support for Mr. Soros. "I did not know we hired them or about the work they were doing, but I should have," Ms. Sandberg wrote. "I have great respect for George Soros and the anti Semitic conspiracy theories against him are abhorrent." Shareholders said they were concerned about Mr. Zuckerberg's concentration of power at Facebook. Last month, several shareholders filed a joint resolution to remove him as board chairman. On Thursday, one of those shareholders, Scott M. Stringer, the comptroller of New York City, who administers the city's public pension fund, said Mr. Zuckerberg's grip over Facebook protected him from being answerable for the company's mistakes. "Renegade executives who are focused only on growth regardless of the risks and withhold information from the board put their company, shareholders and, in Facebook's case, our democracy in jeopardy," Mr. Stringer said. The New York City pension fund owns 4.5 million shares of Facebook. Mr. Zuckerberg said on the conference call that he was not willing to step down as chairman. "I don't particularly think that that specific proposal is the right way to go," he said. "But I am quite focused on ways to get more independence around our systems in different ways." Mr. Zuckerberg may have other trouble on his hands. Facebook, which has grown tremendously as a business in recent years, is dealing with a slowdown. And advertisers, the lifeblood of the company's 40 billion business, are increasingly criticizing its tactics. "Up to now, whatever you said about Facebook, you couldn't say it was a two faced company," said Rishad Tobaccowala, chief growth officer for the Publicis Groupe, one of the world's biggest advertising groups. But now it is clear that "it says one thing to you and does something completely different," Mr. Tobaccowala said. "This is very hard if you are a marketer." In Washington, Republicans and Democrats alike blasted Facebook. Senator Rand Paul, Republican from Kentucky, said in an interview on CNN that he was concerned over Facebook's power as a "monopoly." Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat from Minnesota, said at a hearing on Capitol Hill that she planned to ask the Justice Department to investigate whether Facebook's hiring of opposition research firms to influence politicians violated campaign finance rules. A coalition called Freedom From Facebook, which represents public interest groups like Demand Progress and Public Citizen, also filed a complaint on Thursday with the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Facebook's violations of users' privacy. And Color of Change, a civil rights group that has been critical of the company, blasted it for hiring Definers to discredit the group. "Facebook is violating its most fundamental mission of building human connection, as well as the trust placed in it by billions of people, by advancing extremist far right conspiracy theories that are aimed at denigrating Jews and belittling people of color," said Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change. Lawmakers from five countries Britain, Canada, Argentina, Ireland and Australia called on Mr. Zuckerberg to testify at a session of what they are calling a "grand committee" in London on Nov. 27. Mr. Zuckerberg previously turned down the invitation. Damian Collins, the British lawmaker leading the effort, said in an interview on Thursday that The Times's article appeared to contradict Mr. Zuckerberg's previous statements to regulators about his knowledge of Russia's interference on the site. "People at the top of the company were aware of what the Russians were doing and sought to keep it to themselves for commercial reasons, and that's a betrayal of trust," Mr. Collins said. "They now need to fully account for what they knew about Russian activity on Facebook, when they knew it and why they did not report it to authorities much sooner."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve remains on course to raise its benchmark interest rate in December as investors generally reacted with equanimity to the election of Donald J. Trump as the next president of the United States. And some analysts said Mr. Trump's economic plans could prompt the Fed to keep increasing the rate. The president elect has promised to stimulate faster economic growth with measures that include a large tax cut and as much as 1 trillion in spending on infrastructure. He has also promised new barriers to imports, which could drive up inflation. Economists appear deeply divided on the impact of such policies. "His market positive agenda will begin to emerge and, with a Republican Congress behind him, the potential for many of these policies to become law is high," said Stephen Auth, chief investment officer for equities at Federated Investors. Others, however, took a bleaker view of the likely consequences of Mr. Trump's election, arguing that he could push a fragile economy into recession. "A blanket of uncertainty now hovers over the private sector of the economy," wrote Bernard Baumohl, chief economist at The Economic Outlook Group. "The cost of that uncertainty should be palpable. Growth will reverse course fairly significantly." Markets fell sharply overnight Tuesday as it became clear that Mr. Trump would win, then bounced back Wednesday morning. By midday, the odds of a December increase as implied by asset prices had stabilized, down to 72 percent from 76 percent. The yield on the benchmark 10 year Treasury note topped 2 percent for the first time since the first quarter of the year, suggesting that investors are anticipating higher rates. The quick rebound appeared to reflect a first impression among investors that Mr. Trump's partnership with congressional Republicans was likely to lift the economy. But analysts cautioned that the market's mood could change. Looming over all such deliberations are the president elect's trade policies. He has promised to impose more tariffs and to tax sharply goods imported from American companies that move operations overseas. That could increase inflation and depress productivity gains. The Fed has signaled in recent months that it would like to raise rates for the second time since the financial crisis, barring any signs of fresh economic weakness. The Fed's policy making body, the Federal Open Market Committee, said after its most recent meeting last week that the case for higher rates "continued to strengthen." Mr. Trump's election was viewed as one of the few developments that might throw a wrench into the works. The Fed, which started the year predicting that it would raise rates four times, has instead left rates untouched in a range between 0.25 percent and 0.5 percent. The low rates are intended to stimulate economic activity by encouraging borrowing and risk taking. If financial conditions tighten in the coming weeks, or volatility rises, the Fed might decide to delay a rate increase again. "Faced with such a tightening in market driven financial conditions, the Fed would be less likely to add a higher federal funds rate to the mix," wrote Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at Standish Mellon Asset Management, a division of BNY Mellon. But a growing number of Fed officials are publicly advocating a rate increase, and the Fed has carefully prepared markets for the likelihood that it would raise rates. Moreover, the Fed has several weeks to watch and wait before its next meeting on Dec. 13 and 14. "While fiscal and economic policy uncertainty has increased, it would be a challenge for Fed rhetoric to maintain an aura of being above the political fray if that were the only rationale for not moving next month," said Michael Feroli, chief United States economist at JPMorgan Chase. He said he still expected a rate increase in December. Mr. Trump will also have the opportunity to quickly overhaul the Fed's leadership. Once in office, he can fill two vacancies on the Fed's seven member board. And in 2018, when their terms end, he can replace the Fed's top officials, Janet L. Yellen, the chairwoman, and Stanley Fischer, the vice chairman. Mr. Trump sharply criticized Ms. Yellen during the campaign, claiming without evidence that the Fed was delaying increasing rates until after the election to improve the fortunes of Democrats. Raising rates, he said, would pop "a big, fat, ugly bubble." Under Ms. Yellen, the Fed has embraced a responsibility to reduce unemployment by holding down interest rates to stimulate economic growth. Some conservative economists have sharply criticized this campaign, arguing that the Fed is trying to do too much, and that it is sowing the seeds of financial instability and higher inflation. Officials appointed by Mr. Trump are likely to urge the Fed to focus on fighting inflation, meaning they probably would favor raising rates more quickly. "A reasonable assumption is that these nominees will all be more hawkish than would have been the case under Clinton," Krishna Guha, head of central bank strategy at Evercore ISI, said, referring to Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. Mr. Guha noted that Mr. Trump's selections would be constrained by the need to win the support of congressional Republicans.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
By the time we were sitting at Cafe Sjiek, sharing a pot of zoervleis a Limburgian delicacy that translates to "sour meat" my husband, Tim, and I were on our third ultra indulgent restaurant meal of the day and feeling like failed Olympians. The waiter, a rather severe man with a shaved head and the arty eyeglasses of a museum curator, had seemed surprised that I ordered the dish. When the crock of vinegar marinated meat in a glistening mahogany hued sauce of apple syrup, clove and dissolved Dutch gingerbread turned out to be horse, Tim was surprised, too. "I feel like a cannibal," he said, leaning in and lowering his voice at our communal table. "But these are the best fries I've had in my life." We had arrived on a train from Cologne, Germany, 65 miles east, the day before. It was the Sunday of last July's World Cup final, and the mood in the Dutch city Maastricht was as gray as the weather. The Netherlands' national team had beaten Brazil on Saturday, but the win had secured only a third place spot, not the championship the country had craved. Later, I would realize that what I interpreted as dreariness or disappointment was more likely a collective hangover from the previous night of parties. Maastricht is nothing, I would soon learn, if not festive. The city, with just 120,000 people, is more cosmopolitan than its small size suggests. Maastricht is a college town, and the largest city in Limburg, the region at the southernmost tip of the Netherlands. On the map, the province looks like a landlocked island, surrounded on all sides by a patchwork of languages and cultures. To the east is Germany, while the rest of Limburg's border is shared with Belgium specifically, Flemish speaking Flanders to the west and French speaking Wallonia to the south. From the moment we arrived, I was disoriented. When traveling with Tim, I have traditionally been the compass, the one with the intuitive sense of direction. But in Maastricht, I was lost. We'd been retrieved from a station in a nearby town by an old friend, Max Bobbitt, who now lives in Brussels, and his wife, Katarzyna, a Polish lawyer and social rights advocate. The station was only a half hour from Maastricht, but the four of us immediately hopped on the autobahn going the wrong direction. It would be the first wrong turn among many in my four days in Maastricht, where unlit, unmarked alleys might lead to hidden restaurants of exquisite quality, grand bookstores housed in converted cathedrals and candlelit neighborhood bars. Our first day our only day with Max and Katarzyna was spent scurrying from one canopied overhang to the next, as the soot colored sky emptied itself periodically onto the cobblestone streets. We lingered over Belgian ales while waiting for one outburst to subside, then rushed on before the next deluge arrived. It may have been the beer, or the intoxicating newness of the place, but there was a giddiness to the day. We took childlike, puddle stomping delight in the passing storms; we reveled in never quite knowing where we were or what to expect. Our 56 a night Airbnb apartment, in a middle class neighborhood within walking distance from Vrijthof, the city's unofficial center, was a bargain. It had more space than we needed and came with bicycles and, true to stereotype, shoulder high pot plants in the backyard (as well as the unfortunate stench of cigarette smoke and rotten fish). Once Max and Katarzyna had left us, Tim and I used the bikes. Following rough directions, we rode past suburbs, where modern homes with sharp angles and abundant glass sat alongside old brick houses with colorful wooden shutters and blooming window boxes. We watched as the city gave way to a countryside of fields and farmland. I'd made an appointment with Apostelhoeve, a family run winery that makes use of an unusual sight in the Netherlands, a modest hill, to produce seven varietals and 45,000 to 70,000 bottles of wine a year. "In Roman times, there were many more vineyards here," said Julka Hulst, the winery's owner, as she walked us through chilled rooms filled with large stainless steel vats, barrels of French oak and slate floors. The winery's tasting room looked out over the vines; beyond them, the gray sky hung over a landscape punctuated with church steeples. Among Apostelhoeve's successes was a Muller Thurgau that had been recommended to me the night before at Cafe Sjiek, where the bartender was bemused by my insistence on trying the local wine instead of the restaurant's French or Italian offerings. The "new breed" grape, which was designed to marry riesling's complexity with sylvaner's early ripening, is popular next door in Germany. "You must not drink with any heavy sauce," Ms. Hulst said, noting the wine's extraordinary lightness, as I flashed back to the glistening gravy of horse meat stew. Last year's riesling had a particularly good year, Ms. Hulst said, pouring a taste. "It was like oil coming out of the wine press very concentrated. It was beautiful to see." Around us, watercolors and weavings decorated the room, a converted stable. The property, Ms. Hulst explained, has been a farm for nearly 130 years. In the Hulst family, hers is the fourth generation to work the hillside above Maastricht, which had been home to apples and pears, horses and cows before wine grapes took over some 40 years ago. It was barely midday, but Tim and I had already drunk a flight of wine and bought a bottle for the road. Lunch was overdue. Tipsy on our sturdy Dutch bikes, we thanked Ms. Hulst and shoved off from Apostelhoeve, flying down a steep hill, along gravel lanes and through fields of full headed wheat and wildflowers. Take three rights, we were told, and Chateau Neercanne, the birthplace of the European Union, would be just down the road. You can't miss it. As we approached, the castle grew until it was inescapable, an imposing stone edifice with an immaculate, geometric garden at its base. We rode uphill beneath a tangled canopy of branches and leaves, where mysterious doors opened into the rocky hillside. The doors, we learned, were the terminus of a 50 mile network of caves that had been carved over the course of centuries as marl a type of mudstone used to construct buildings in Maastricht was mined in the area. In the castle's courtyard, white patio tables were populated with couples sharing bottles of wine, their cheeks flush. Despite being underdressed and generally out of place, Tim and I joined them, ordering drinks and taking in the opulence of the scene. But overwhelmed by the menu's prices, we opted to share a salad itself a beautiful thing, adorned with elegant coils of smoked fish and a tidy pile of tiny pink shrimp and to eat a proper lunch back in town. This is how our days in Maastricht went. We would set out in search of simple sustenance and, several indulgences later, find that we'd been guided through the city by our stomachs. One afternoon, a caffeine craving led us to an outpost of Coffeelovers, the local equivalent of Starbucks, in the chancel of the Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicanen, a 13th century Dominican church turned bookstore.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
Last week, Netflix decided to have some holiday fun courtesy of its user data. So the streaming service took to Twitter to pose the question, "To the 53 people who've watched A Christmas Prince every day for the past 18 days: Who hurt you?" The tweet was meant to be an entertaining jab at a cheesy holiday film that the company released last month. But while many saw the humor, others were creeped out by the specificity of the information, with some complaining that Netflix appeared to be using its data in a flip manner that mocked some customers. It's no secret that companies, especially those born in the digital age, are amassing deep and detailed troves of information on the habits and preferences of their consumers. For streaming services, that data fuels the recommendations. But companies are also taking a bit of a risk when they turn those findings into marketing, whether through conversational social media posts or advertisements from Spotify with lines like "Take a page from the 3,445 people who streamed the 'Boozy Brunch' playlist on a Wednesday this year." A message that one person might see as clever and unexpected can just as easily be seen by another as an ominous reminder that Big Data is often lurking just around the corner. "This gives the public a kind of view into the ways that the major content companies are gathering and using our data," said Jeffrey Chester, head of the nonprofit Center for Digital Democracy, which advocates for consumer protection and privacy. "Behind the ease of being able to access video and audio content are very sophisticated customer surveillance and analytics applications, and there's nothing funny about that." Others scoffed at such concern last week, saying Netflix's joke was harmless and noting that people were complaining on a social media platform that engages in similar data collection practices. "Deliver burns as well as the person who streamed 'Bad Liar' 86 times the day Sean Spicer resigned," one proclaims. Another says, "Eat vegan brisket with the person who made a playlist called 'Leftist Elitist Snowflake BBQ.'" Spotify ran a similar campaign last year, bidding farewell to 2016 with messages like "Dear person who played 'Sorry' 42 times on Valentine's Day, what did you do?" One message even referred to a specific Manhattan neighborhood: "To the person in NoLiTa who started listening to holiday music way back in June, you really jingle all the way, huh?" The company said this year that it had more than 140 million regular users, with 50 million paying for monthly subscription plans and others using a free service that comes with targeted ads. Spotify's marketing executives said last year that they avoided lines that appeared to be laughing at people's habits in favor of those that celebrated unusual behavior. They also said they sought permission from people when using their playlist names in ads. The people were usually delighted to be asked, the executive said, who noted that the data collection wasn't a surprise given that that's how Spotify provides users with its weekly recommendations and year end lists. People and publications such as AdWeek and AdAge called the campaign "amusing," "playful" and "hilarious." While that has largely continued this year, there has also been criticism that some of the messages veer too close to making fun of users. Netflix, which has more than 100 million members, emphasized that the use of data to better serve users was a main part of its business and that its behavioral data was collected anonymously. The company has frequently shared interesting information about viewers' habits in the past, said Jonathan Friedland, a Netflix spokesman. He added that last week's tweet might have inspired an intense reaction in part because "it was brought down to an individual level as opposed to a broader trend level." But he pointed out that Netflix does not use customer data to sell ads on its platform, as Google and Facebook do, or sell it to other entities. Tidbits on Netflix viewing habits are "fascinating to people," Mr. Friedland said. "It's not like you're breaching anybody's privacy, because the core proposition here is we know you and try to put the right" films and TV series in front of you.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
new video loaded: 52 Places to Go: Grand Teton	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
The actors might forget their lines. The crew might forget to turn on the lights. And the set might be on fire. But "The Play That Goes Wrong," the Monty Python esque murder mystery farce, will go on, by transferring to an Off Broadway production at the New World Stages after its Broadway production closes on Jan. 6, 2019, the creative team announced Thursday. Performances in the new space will begin on Feb. 11. The show, a parody of British theater which counts J.J. Abrams as a producer, won a 2017 Tony for best scenic design. It opened on April 2, 2017, and in August 2018, the play announced it had recouped its 4 million investment, officially classifying it a Broadway hit. It was initially supposed to close on Aug. 26. But in an unusual move, the producers announced that the play would remain at the Lyceum Theater until Jan. 6, 2019, where it will end after 27 previews and 745 performances. In the fall, the production started a national tour as well. It is at the Kennedy Center in Washington until Jan. 6. Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, "The Play That Goes Wrong" originated in London with the British theater company the Mischief Theater. It won a 2015 Olivier Award for best new comedy and has now run for four years in the West End. The Broadway production was directed by Mark Bell, but the Off Broadway show will be helmed by Matt DiCarlo. According to a news release, casting will be announced at a later date.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Dr. Denton A. Cooley, the renowned surgeon who was the first to implant a totally artificial heart in a patient and in the process set off one of medicine's greatest feuds, died on Friday at his home in Houston. He was 96. The Texas Heart Institute, which Dr. Cooley founded, confirmed his death. He stopped performing surgery on his 87th birthday but had never retired, remaining active at the institute as its president emeritus. The institute said he last showed up there on Monday. A former college basketball star who was a towering presence in the operating room, Dr. Cooley had by age 50 performed more than 5,000 cardiac operations, including 17 heart transplants. For more than six decades his name was inextricably linked to that of his mentor and former partner, Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, the developer of the artificial heart. Their pioneering techniques for surgery on the heart and blood vessels have helped tens of thousands of patients. Dr. Cooley long defended his action as a doctor's obligation to do whatever is necessary to save a patient's life. "If you are a ship out in the ocean and someone throws you a life preserver, you don't look at it to see if it has been approved by the federal government," he said in an interview for this obituary. The implantation was performed at the Texas Heart Institute; the patient was Haskell Karp, 47, from Skokie, Ill. About 16 months earlier, Dr. Christiaan N. Barnard had performed the world's first human heart transplant in South Africa, a milestone that led many other surgeons to try the operation. One was Dr. Cooley, a professor of surgery at Baylor and the chief of cardiovascular surgery at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston, who in 1968 performed what he claimed was the first successful heart transplant in the United States. The rush to transplantation led researchers like Dr. DeBakey to renew their attempts to develop an artificial heart to keep patients alive until a donor heart could be found. He was believed to be the first to perform surgery using a partial artificial heart, known as a ventricular assist device. Dr. DeBakey, who had led a campaign to persuade the federal government to support such research, had been developing his artificial heart with a colleague, Dr. Domingo S. Liotta of Argentina, under a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. DeBakey believed the device, which had been tested only on calves, was not ready to be tried on a human patient. But Mr. Karp's failing heart could not pump enough blood. When efforts to repair it failed, Dr. Cooley enlisted Dr. Liotta to deliver the artificial heart from Dr. DeBakey's laboratory and, with a 16 person medical team in a three hour operation, removed Mr. Karp's heart and implanted the artificial one, a half pound device made of plastic and Dacron connected by tubes to a bedside control console. The device worked for 64 hours, longer than it had in animal tests, while a frantic search began for a donor heart. When one was found, Dr. Cooley performed the operation. The new heart sustained Mr. Karp for another 32 hours, until he died of pneumonia. Dr. Cooley said that use of the device to save a patient's life, even experimentally, did not violate the grant contract. He later maintained the operation was also an act of patriotism: He did not want the Russians to be the first to implant a total artificial heart and beat the United States as they had with their early space program. Dr. Cooley resigned from Baylor, and the American College of Surgeons censured him for his unauthorized use of the device, which is now in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. For decades after that, Dr. Cooley and Dr. DeBakey rarely spoke to each other or were even in the same room. (The feud became so intense and so widely talked about that it became the subject of a cover story in Life magazine.) "Once Mike and I became rivals," Dr. Cooley said, "he seemed to go out of the way to establish the fact that it was he who was responsible for all of the developments" in heart surgery techniques, many of which he and other members of Dr. DeBakey's staff had performed. Denton Arthur Cooley was born in Houston on Aug. 22, 1920, to a wealthy family. His paternal grandfather, Daniel Denton Cooley, was a founder of the planned community Houston Heights. His father, Ralph, was a prominent dentist. Dr. Cooley attributed his surgical skills to his athletic prowess. As a freshman at the University of Texas, he was told by his basketball coach to add at least 25 pounds to his 6 foot 4 frame to avoid "getting murdered" on the court. He gained even more weight and went on to play forward and center for the team. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, he graduated in 1941 with a degree in zoology. He was attracted to surgery at age 17 when he visited an emergency room in San Antonio and observed a friend sewing up knife wounds inflicted in Saturday night brawls. After starting medical school in Galveston, he transferred to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, earning a medical degree in 1944. After serving in World War II and then continuing his training on a fellowship in England, where he studied with the heart surgeon Russell C. Brock, Dr. Cooley returned to Houston to work under Dr. DeBakey. Over the next few years, the two surgeons had important roles in virtually every major development in heart and blood vessel surgery. Dr. Cooley said that "if there is any contribution I should be recognized for," it is reducing the need for blood transfusions in open heart operations. Dr. Cooley, who believed that the outcome of an operation was related to its length, became an exceptionally fast surgeon despite athletic injuries that damaged a few fingers and a wrist. "I was always surprised how seemingly slow all his movements were in operating," Dr. Roland Hetzer, a onetime colleague and former director of the German Heart Institute in Berlin, said in an interview there in 2010. "But every stitch was just perfect the first time, and he never had to do something a second time. So in the end he was very fast, a very good technical surgeon." In 1962, Dr. Cooley founded the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's and became its president. He also taught at the University of Texas and Baylor medical schools in Houston. He worked in an era when federal regulation of the development of new medical and surgical devices was limited. Doctors could make their own devices and instruments and use them on patients with little outside oversight. Human experimentation committees, whose approval is needed before doctors can conduct an experiment on a patient, did not yet exist. "All the progress we made in that period would take us a century now," Dr. Cooley said. "We would just try something in the lab, have some personal conviction that it was a meaningful thing to do and try, and then we would go ahead and apply it." At his peak, Dr. Cooley was said to be the busiest heart surgeon in the United States, performing many operations a day using an assembly line approach. Patients were assigned to separate operating rooms where younger doctors opened their chests and exposed the hearts. Dr. Cooley then scurried between operating rooms to do the crucial part of each operation. Some of his critics have questioned the quality of the surgery. "My athletic experiences taught me endurance and competitiveness, with perhaps an emphasis on endurance," he said. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan presented Dr. Cooley with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, for "charting new territory in his search for ways to prolong and enrich human life." Dr. Cooley had homes in Houston and in Galveston, Tex. His wife of 67 years, the Louise Thomas Cooley, died before him, as did a daughter, Florence Talbot Cooley. His survivors include four other daughters, Mary Cooley Craddock, Dr. Susan Cooley, Dr. Louise Cooley Davis and Helen Cooley Fraser; 16 grandchildren; and 17 great grandchildren. Dr. Cooley had his failures, both professional (a sheep to human experimental heart transplant was unsuccessful) and personal (he declared bankruptcy from failed real estate investments in the early 1980s). And though he and Dr. DeBakey reconciled, their rivalry never completely abated. Dr. DeBakey has been called the greatest surgeon ever. Before his death in 2008, he said in an interview that Dr. Cooley was "one of the best cardiovascular surgeons" he had ever known. Asked in a separate interview whom he considered the greatest surgeon, Dr. Cooley replied, "Besides myself?"	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
UnitedHealthcare Says It Will Pass On Rebates From Drug Companies to Consumers In response to growing consumer frustration over drug prices, UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation's largest health insurers, said on Tuesday that it would stop keeping millions of dollars in discounts it gets from drug companies and share them with its customers. Dan Schumacher, the president of UnitedHealthcare, said the new policy will apply to more than seven million people who are enrolled in the company's fully insured plans, beginning next year. "The benefit could range from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars to over a thousand," Mr. Schumacher said. Not all drugs come with rebates that are paid to the health plan. People in plans with high deductibles who buy drugs that carry large rebates will see the greatest savings, Mr. Schumacher said. Insurers like UnitedHealthcare, whose parent company also owns a large pharmacy benefit manager, OptumRx, have come under increasing public pressure as drug prices especially for brand name drugs continue to rise, angering consumers and lawmakers. The decision by UnitedHealthcare is the latest in a series of steps taken by drug makers and health plans to try to lessen public discontent over drug prices, even as the companies spar over who is to blame. Aiming to deflect criticism, the pharmaceutical industry has increasingly pointed the finger at both insurers and pharmacy managers for not sharing the rebates with customers filling prescriptions. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry trade group, rolled out an advertising campaign, "Share the Savings," last year to make the case that by passing on the discounts, plans could significantly lower patients' out of pocket bills. The group called UnitedHealthcare's decision "a step in the right direction." Insurers, including UnitedHealthcare, contend that they already use the money from discounts to lower premiums for all their customers, and argue the real issue is the high cost of so many drugs. But UnitedHealthcare seems to have blinked, signaling what could be a coming shift away from the system of convoluted deals struck between the drug companies and these middlemen, said Adam J. Fein, president of Pembroke Consulting, a research firm. Although the new policy will only affect a fraction of the company's customers, "it's one more step on the path of creating a more transparent pharmacy supply chain," Mr. Fein said. The amount of rebates can vary widely, with some drugs, like Humira and Enbrel that treat rheumatoid arthritis, being deeply discounted. Others, like medicines for rare conditions where there is no significant competition, have little to no rebates. Patients, employers and the public have little information on what any one drug costs and whether the discounts ultimately flow back to customers. "The industry is taking criticism from a lot of different people," said Erik Gordon, a business professor at the University of Michigan. It is significant that UnitedHealthcare "felt compelled to do something," he said. The Trump administration recently floated the idea of requiring private drug plans under Medicare to pass on the savings to consumers at the pharmacy counter. On Tuesday, Alex M. Azar II, a former executive at Eli Lilly and the new secretary of health and human services, called UnitedHealthcare's move "a prime example of the type of movement toward transparency and lower drug prices for millions of patients that the Trump administration is championing." But insurers have resisted the idea that they be forced to pass on the savings in Medicare drug plans, arguing that it would result in significantly higher premiums for everyone. Federal officials estimate that consumers buying the drugs would save, on average, from 45 to 132 a month under the proposal. But then premiums for all Medicare beneficiaries would increase anywhere from an estimated 14 to 44 a month. UnitedHealth Group, UnitedHealthcare's parent, opposes the Medicare proposal because it would raise premiums sharply for older people. By contrast, the company's plans offered through private employers would have a minimal effect on premiums, Mr. Schumacher said. "The benefit to the individual is meaningful." Employers who self insure already have the option of passing the discounts onto customers, Mr. Schumacher said. CVS Health, a large pharmacy benefit manager, allows employers to share the discount with their workers and has offered rebates to its own employees since 2013. OptumRx also offers the option of sharing the discount directly with consumers.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
Our columnist, Jada Yuan, is visiting each destination on our 52 Places to Go in 2018 list. This dispatch brings her to Zambia. A Zambian park took the No. 14 spot on the list; the country is the 41st stop on Jada's itinerary. For more coverage, or to send Jada tips and suggestions, please follow her on Twitter at jadabird and on Instagram at alphajada. Word had begun to spread throughout South Luangwa National Park in east Zambia : A male leopard had killed an aardvark and dragged the carcass up a tree. My guide, Abraham Banda of Norman Carr Safaris, shook his head when he heard. Aardvarks, he explained, are an incredibly elusive animal. They are nocturnal and spend most of their lives burrowed in the ground. Abraham grew up in a nearby village and has been guiding for 27 years. Just the night before he had been chasing down what would have been the 11th aardvark sighting of his life. "And now," he said, "I think the leopard is eating my aardvark." Our little group on this game drive me and two delightful retirees from Pennsylvania, Bob and Kay McClenathan missed seeing the leopard and his kill that night. But the next morning, Abraham still had aardvark on the brain, and suggested we see what had become of the ant eating animal. Scanning the area, Abraham and our scout, Viyato Zulu (who wore a black beret and carried a rifle to deal with "situations"), agreed that the leopard was gone. We exited our Land Rover for a 50 yard "walking safari" toward the tree where we thought we'd find the aardvark's remains. We'd nearly reached the spot when a dark shape dropped out of a different tree. The shape was the leopard. He ran away for a few yards, and then, faster than any of us could have reacted, ran back, stopping maybe 30 feet from where we were, and let out a loud, menacing growl. "O.K., we're just going to back up very slowly," Abraham whispered. None of us breathed again until we were inside the truck. I had arrived two nights earlier at Chinzombo lodge, the fanciest of the luxury safari company Time Tide's five camps in the riverine and woodland savanna landscape of South Luangwa. My 52 Places list had actually featured another Zambian game park, Liuwa Plain National Park, which also has a Time Tide property, in the far western grasslands of the country. But it wasn't open yet for the season during the Africa leg of my trip, and would have been difficult to revisit later on, so I chose the closest approximation. We were ushered in by a young male lion ambling up the road in front of us. He was making a low mewing sound. "He's lost his mate and he's looking for her," Abraham explained. Chinzombo is near the city of Mfuwe, on a bend in the Luangwa River, which meanders with twists and turns that leave ecologically rich oxbow lakes behind when the river changes course. Animals gather in and around the river year round, including one of the highest densities of hippos on the continent. From our camp and on our twice daily drives, we'd hear their chorus of grunts, groans and squeaks like a bunch of rusty doors having a conversation. They weren't the only animals making their presence known. Several times, I came back from lunch to find elephants near my villa (one of six in the camp). I'd wake up from a nap and see troops of vervet monkeys or baboons using my patio as a thoroughfare. The capriciousness of nature never ceased to amaze Abraham, which is why he was such a fantastic conduit for this rugged terrain and its inhabitants. "Wow!" he would say, stopping the vehicle and turning off the engine so we could hear birds chirping and warthogs grunting. I also spent a day at Nsolo, one of Norman Carr Safaris' four South Luangwa bush camps, where I went on a walking safari, a fascinating journey into animal world forensics, analyzing plants, insects and droppings to guess what had happened the night before. As for that lion, we followed his soap opera drama. He reunited with his mate one day, and by evening she was wandering off without him. "He has no use for her right now," Abraham said, explaining that they'd eaten and it wasn't mating season. Still, the next night we heard him mewing for her again. Our Land Rover stopped on a cliff at the edge of the park just as a procession of some 30 elephants was making its nightly river crossing. Through binoculars, we watched their hesitant march. Bulls with their great tusks forged ahead, making sure the coast was clear of predators, and moms paused every few minutes to give their calves time to catch up. There must have been seven families of majestic mammals forming a line of tiny shapes in the distance, silhouetted against the setting sun. This was Abraham's secret spot for a safari tradition known as a sundowner: a happy hour of double strength gin and tonics served in crystal glasses from the hood of our vehicle. It was that rare moment when we could get out of the vehicle after Viyato had made his safety inspection in a particularly picturesque spot. On the way to Chinzombo lodge, we had passed through Mfuwe, which is really a 20 mile series of connected villages that stretches from the airport to the park's border. The villagers grow mangoes, and it turns out those adorable elephants we'd been watching have developed a taste for them. They were heading across the river to conduct a fruit robbery.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
It can often take millenniums for organisms to evolve. But for crumb size acorn ants in Cleveland, a single human life span may have been enough for them to become adapted to city living. In a recent study published in The Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, scientists found that city acorn ants were more tolerant of heat, and less tolerant of cold, than their rural counterparts. Because Cleveland became significantly urbanized only in the last century, this adaptation would have arisen in no more than 100 years, or 20 acorn ant generations, said Sarah Diamond, an assistant professor of biology at Case Western Reserve University and an author of the study. In their study, Dr. Diamond and collaborators collected acorn ants which live inside acorns in colonies of up to 200 from Cleveland and surrounding forests. There is a difference of about 5 degrees Fahrenheit between these environments, Dr. Diamond said, because concrete and asphalt in the city absorb a lot of heat.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
W.H.O. Elects Ethiopia's Tedros as First Director General From Africa Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia was voted director general of the World Health Organization on Tuesday, the first African ever to head the agency. The election was the first conducted by the W.H.O. under more open and democratic rules. After nearly two years of public campaigning, originally by six candidates, the voting took place in a closed door session in which the health ministers of 186 countries cast their ballots in secret. Dr. Tedros a malaria expert who campaigned under his first name ultimately beat Dr. David Nabarro of Britain after three voting rounds. The final tally was 133 votes to 50, with three abstaining or not voting. Dr. Sania Nishtar, a Pakistani cardiologist and expert in noncommunicable diseases, was eliminated after receiving 38 votes in the first round. Dr. Tedros, 52, replaces Dr. Margaret Chan of China, who has held the post for a decade. He is best known for having drastically cut deaths from malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis and neonatal problems when he was Ethiopia's health minister. He trained 40,000 female health workers, hired outbreak investigators, improved the national laboratory, organized an ambulance system and oversaw a tenfold increase in medical school graduates. He promised as the head of W.H.O. to pursue health insurance in even the poorest nations, strengthen emergency responses and make the agency more accountable and transparent. He backs greater access to birth control and preventive care for women and is committed to having more gender and ethnic diversity in the agency. He also has promised to fight the health effects of climate change. Dr. Nabarro, 67, has led the campaigns of various United Nations agencies against avian and swine flu, cholera, Ebola, malaria, hunger and other crises. "It's a joy, the continent is celebrating at last," said Janine Barde, a Rwandan delegate, flashing a victory sign to another African representative. "I feel stakeholders are now in charge, not bureaucrats." The race, which began in 2015, turned bitter in recent weeks as an adviser to Dr. Nabarro accused Dr. Tedros of having covered up repeated outbreaks of cholera in Ethiopia, which may have delayed the international response and, more recently, the use of a cholera vaccine there. Dr. Tedros was also accused of complicity in his country's dismal human rights record, which includes massacring protesters and jailing and torturing journalists and political opponents. Dozens of Ethiopians opposed to his candidacy demonstrated outside the Palace of Nations in Geneva, where the vote took place, and one person who interrupted the proceedings was escorted out. Dr. Tedros is from the Tigray tribe, which holds political power in Ethiopia; many protesters are from the rival Amhara and Oromo tribes. Although the W.H.O. directorship is the pre eminent health policy post in the world one in which bold leadership can turn the tide against epidemics the organization itself is in peril. The agency was accused of fumbling the response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic, and it is seriously underfinanced. Dues from member countries make up less than third of its 2.2 billion budget. The rest comes from large donors, including the United States, Britain, the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary International and Norway. Some of that money comes with strings attached, directing the organization to pursue specific projects, like polio eradication. The United States is its largest donor. But President Trump has shown little interest in the United Nations and has strongly suggested that his administration will push for funding cuts. Dr. Tom Price, the secretary of health and human services, issued a statement congratulating Dr. Tedros. He did not threaten any cuts, but focused heavily on the need for change at the W.H.O., saying all members "must commit to further enhancing the transparency and accountability" of the agency. Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, who until recently led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and who came to Dr. Tedros's defense last week in a letter to The New York Times, called him "an excellent choice." In Ethiopia, Dr. Frieden said an email, Dr. Tedros "rapidly reformed a sclerotic bureaucracy and implemented effective community based services." "Precisely the same thing is needed to make W.H.O. effective," he added. The W.H.O. is accused of fostering a culture in which bureaucrats live comfortably on tax free United Nations salaries in Switzerland while making constant appeals for money to fight epidemics. On Sunday, The Associated Press released a scathing report, based on internal W.H.O. documents, on its travel spending. The report said the 200 million the agency spent on travel each year was more than it devoted to AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Staff members, it said, routinely broke internal rules against flying business class and staying in luxury hotels. Amir Attaran, a University of Ottawa expert on law and global health, called Dr. Tedros "a good choice because he was very diligent on malaria," but argued that geopolitics played a greater role than personalities in the election. "Choosing an African to head W.H.O. was past time," he said. "And Britain is in the doghouse for choosing Brexit and undermining global stability it's their Guantanamo, their Tiananmen."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
HOUSTON The Houston Ballet, recovering from the flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey, has lost performances and had to move to a different theater. Yet when it opened its season on Friday, it did so in a big way as the first North American ballet company to perform Kenneth MacMillan's three act "Mayerling." The four performances (six were originally planned) were at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts instead of the nearby Wortham Theater Center, the company's main home, which suffered extensive damage in the storm. Orchestral numbers had to be reduced; sound is subtly amplified. But already this production is much the finest work I have seen by Houston Ballet, America's fifth largest company. MacMillan died, 25 years ago next month, backstage at the Royal Opera House in London during a performance of "Mayerling." He was intense, uneven, problematic, important. He was almost invariably a flawed craftsman and often valuably sometimes thrillingly large spirited. "Mayerling" (1978) is his most exceptional achievement. A child could tell you what's wrong with it it's exceptionally hard to know who's who amid the many important characters and yet it's a masterpiece. More than any ballet I know, "Mayerling" creates a multifaceted world as vividly absorbing as that of a 19th century novel. Taking the seemingly brilliant milieu of the Viennese court in the 1880s, it shows the hypocrisies beneath the polished facade. The choreographer George Balanchine once said, "There are no mothers in law in ballet," implying that stage action must explain itself. In "Mayerling," though, the Empress Elisabeth has both a mother in law and a daughter in law, though neither is clearly identifiable as such. The protagonist is Elisabeth's son, Crown Prince Rudolf, heir to the throne of the Austro Hungarian empire. Most of Act I occurs on Rudolf's wedding day. He openly flirts with his new sister in law (Princess Louise), is caught in a compromising position with his ex mistress (Countess Marie Larisch), and terrifies his wife (Princess Stephanie) on their bridal night. Though Rudolf is at the center of court life, he is alienated from it and he's strongly sympathetic (though MacMillan fails to make this clear) to the cause of Hungarian secession. Ballet, with partnering and pointwork as central components, is an essentially Romantic art. "Mayerling" shows an uncannily profound sense of the morbid heart of 19th century Romanticism. Rudolf like so many heroes and heroines of that century's dramas and novels seeks redemption, escape, alternatives. He does so by means of adultery, drink, an obsession with skulls and guns, and morphine. It's astonishing how these ingredients are built into a framework for the ballet's many pas de deux above all the phenomenal duets, acrobatically and intensely sexual, that conclude each of the three acts. Sex is always an undercurrent in ballet's view of heterosexual relations; MacMillan brings it to the surface. Act I ends with the happy never after wedding night of Rudolf and Stephanie, in which he plays with a skull, fires a pistol, and treats her with violence. Act II ends with his first consummation with his final mistress, Mary Vetsera, who at once shows she is on his skull gun sex wavelength. And Act III culminates in a series of duets in which Mary and he, now addicted to morphine, make clear how guns and death and sex can bring them the release they both crave. When "Mayerling" was new, ballet audiences had never seen duets of such sustained, unpretty sexual intensity. Almost 40 years later, they remain viscerally exciting, and it's brilliant how MacMillan makes us see them (and the ballet's other duets) from the points of view of both man and woman. Dancers who have played Rudolf describe this as the Everest of male ballet roles. Apart from its titanic partnering requirements, Rudolf has solos in each act charting his descent from questing elegance to psychological torment; we're shown his reactions to 15 or more different people. Even here, though, MacMillan's response to his music a superb tapestry of Liszt items arranged by John Lanchbery is wonderfully alert. "Mayerling" was the fourth of MacMillan's six full length ballets; his "Romeo and Juliet" (1965) and "Manon" (1974) remain better known, but this is the one where at every point he makes the music the heartbeat of the action. It's also his best company showcase, with a panoply of vivid, varied roles that extend and enrich dancers as actors. Houston's two Rudolfs both admirably carried the entire ballet in its large arc from high society to suicide. On Friday, Connor Walsh was touchingly vulnerable but explosive; and on Saturday afternoon, Charles Louis Yoshiyama was impulsive, ardent, anguished. Mary Vetsera was played by Karina Gonzalez (Friday) and Melody Mennite (Saturday afternoon), both ideally reckless in passion. Though the older female roles are not yet given full weight, the ballet's complex society is always alive and detailed. The sets and costumes, by Pablo Nunez, are often close to the originals by Nicholas Georgiadis, still used by the Royal Ballet. The sets, more detailed and realistic in evoking period Vienna, are often superior than the Royal's; the costumes' fabric look flimsier. This is a work to revisit. It deserves revival here soon.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
A roundup of motoring news from the web: After Mercedes Benz unveiled its Vision Gran Turismo Concept at the Los Angeles Auto Show last month, an American company is tentatively planning to build five real world versions of the car two for the Middle East, two for Europe and one for North America. Beneath its voluptuous carbon fiber curves and long snout, the 1.5 million Vision G.T. clones, which, like the original, were derived from a car designed for a video game, will pack a 591 horsepower 6.2 liter V8 that will launch the car from zero to 62 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds (Top Gear) In an effort to counteract losses in Europe, Fiat Group announced this week that it would invest 12.3 billion into developing its Italian brands. According to the automaker's plan, Fiat will kill the subcompact Punto nameplate, moving more resources into the economy oriented Panda and upscale 500, while its high end brands, Alfa Romeo and Maserati, will get new models built in Italy. (Automotive News, subscription required) With demand for luxury vehicles in Brazil on the rise, Jaguar Land Rover announced this week that it would open an assembly plant there. The British company plans to build the factory in Itatiaia, which it says will create 400 jobs and capacity to build 24,000 vehicles a year when production begins in 2016. (Motor Authority) The government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel supported levying a tax on foreign users of the autobahn, the European country's no speed limit, cars only highway. Detractors of the targeted toll plan say it runs contrary to Germany's open euro zone borders and that the 352 million it will raise will not go very far toward improving existing infrastructure. (Bloomberg)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
An almost dry Mae Chang reservoir in Lampang Province, northern Thailand, in March. The effects of the current El Nino have been exacerbated by global warming. This year is off to a record breaking start for global temperatures. It has been the hottest year to date, with January, February and March each passing marks set in 2015, according to new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. March was also the 11th consecutive month to set a record high for temperatures, which agencies started tracking in the 1800s. With the release on Tuesday of its global climate report, NOAA is the third independent agency along with NASA and the Japan Meteorological Association to reach similar findings, each using slightly different methods. The reports add a sense of urgency at the United Nations, where world diplomats are gathered this week to sign the climate accord reached late last year in Paris, when 195 nations committed to lower greenhouse gas emissions and to stave off the worst effects of climate change. Since the initial agreement was reached, other global anomalies have been reported that punctuate the threat of climate change, including troubling trends on Arctic sea ice, floods, drought and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Some of these warm temperatures and heavy rains in particular can be explained in part by this year's El Nino phenomenon, which scientists predicted would release large amounts of heat from the Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere, causing irregular weather patterns across the globe. But the effects of the current El Nino have been exacerbated by global warming, a result of emissions of greenhouse gases by humans, said Jessica Blunden, a climate scientist with NOAA and lead author of the report. El Nino is on its way out, and ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific peaked in November, said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. But the heat the ocean had stored had to go somewhere: "It's come out and been distributed around the world," which helps explain record warm temperatures and wildfires in the Southern Hemisphere, Mr. Trenberth said. To get an idea of how much of the record heat is caused by El Nino and how much by global warming, Dr. Blunden said that scientists at NOAA compared this El Nino to the last strong one, in 1997 98, which was also record setting for its warmth. This one has pushed past those records by raising global temperatures an additional 0.8 degree or so, Dr. Blunden said. The high temperatures in March probably signaled the last gasp of El Nino, and surface temperatures across the globe are likely to begin to fall this year. Often, El Ninos are followed by La Nina storm systems, which can usher in cooler periods, Dr. Blunden said. 1. Time for action is running out. The major agreement struck by diplomats established a clear consensus that all nations need to do much more, immediately, to prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperatures. 2. How much each nation needs to cut remains unresolved. Rich countries are disproportionately responsible for global warming, but some leaders have insisted that it's the poorer nations who need to accelerate their shift away from fossil fuels. 3. The call for disaster aid increased. One of the biggest fights at the summit revolved around whether and how the world's wealthiest nations should compensate poorer nations for the damage caused by rising temperatures. 4. A surprising emissions cutting agreement. Among the other notable deals to come out of the summit was a U.S. China agreement to do more to cut emissions this decade, and China committed for the first time to develop a plan to reduce methane. 5. There was a clear gender and generation gap. Those with the power to make decisions about how much the world warms were mostly old and male. Those who were most fiercely protesting the pace of action were mostly young and female. But after more than two record setting hot years 2014 and 2015 and an extremely warm few months in 2016 many of the devastating effects of the one two punch of global warming and El Nino may be inescapable, setting the world on a course for an extended period of rapid global warming, after a period of relatively slow warming that began in 1998 and lasted for about a decade. Dr. Blunden said that the Arctic was seeing some of the most abnormal weather on earth, with temperatures about 6 degrees warmer than the average over all. These highs could lead to record melting of Arctic sea ice this summer; the ice cover is at its lowest since measurements began to be taken in the late 1970s.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
WASHINGTON The letters have come from all around the United States from the Nutmeg Big Brothers and Big Sisters in Connecticut, the Houston Area Urban League and even the Dan Marino Foundation in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. some praising the Comcast Corporation, others urging the federal government to stand aside and approve Comcast's proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable. The argument has been reinforced by a blitz of academic papers from groups like the International Center for Law and Economics in Portland, Ore. More endorsements have come in from elected officials like Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican of Mississippi, and Fred Crespo, a Democratic state representative in Illinois. "The merger will not hinder competition but will bring better technology to more consumers," Mr. Bryant said. But there is a common element to dozens of these appeals: The senders received money from Comcast in recent years, either as a charitable donation, corporate support or a political contribution, records show. It is a demonstration of how Comcast, the media conglomerate long known for its aggressive lobbying operation, has enlisted a vast network of allies to press federal regulators to approve the 45 billion transaction, much as it did in 2010 as it sought to acquire NBCUniversal. But even while Comcast has been busy working to mobilize this support it had a huge team of 124 federal lobbyists working for it last year there is growing chatter in Washington that it has been less successful this time in making the public case for its deal. Several hundred thousand comments have been sent directly or through third parties to the Federal Communications Commission opposing the acquisition, representing a vast majority of those submitted, a review of the files shows, and relatively few members of Congress have signed letters endorsing the transaction, compared with the dozens who signed letters during the NBC review. "Comcast obviously has a very strong organizational capacity to message," said Juleanna Glover, a corporate consultant and former lobbyist. "But they have had an extremely hard time coming up with a simple, clean message that advocates of the deal can understand and carry forth." David L. Cohen, Comcast's executive vice president who oversees the company's sprawling lobbying and public relations program, said in an interview on Friday that he was proud of the job the company had done in campaigning for the deal, as well as documenting for regulators why it made sense. He did not dispute that many of the voices supporting the deal received donations from Comcast. But he said he was offended by the suggestion that their endorsements had been made in return for the financial help. "We have never provided financial support to an organization in exchange for support in a transaction," he said. "Our support is based on the quality of the work they do in the community." Comcast said recently that it expected the Justice Department and the F.C.C. to finish their review by the middle of this year, at which time the F.C.C. will vote on the deal. The analysis by outside policy specialists in academia, law and technology is one of the most important parts of the extensive public comment record, because they typically have an intimate understanding of the federal regulations and can raise important points the government must consider. But nowhere in these statements does Mr. Manne directly disclose that Comcast is among a small group of donors that finances his nonprofit group, a fact that Mr. Manne confirmed in response to a question late last week. "We are no value to our donors or ourselves unless we maintain our independence and academic rigor," he said, before adding that "maybe there is some subconscious thing there." Mr. Manne's group is hardly alone. Letters detailing the benefits of the Comcast deal were submitted to the Federal Communications Commission by staff members from Americans for Tax Reform, the American Enterprise Institute, the Institute for Policy Innovation, Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Free State Foundation and the Center for Individual Freedom, as well as by a professor at a technology program at the University of Pennsylvania, all of which received support from Comcast or its trade association, tax documents and other disclosures reviewed by The New York Times show. A similar pattern is evident with charities like the Urban League and more than 80 other community groups that supported the media company and that also accepted collectively millions of dollars in donations from the Comcast Foundation over the last five years, documents reviewed by The Times show. The Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, for instance, received 95,000 from Comcast over the last three years. What is clear is that Comcast has tried to make the most of these endorsements. Varsovia Fernandez, the president and chief executive of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, wrote a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, as well as a commentary piece in The Philadelphia Daily News, titled, "Comcast Deserves a Fair Shake." The company maintains a list on its website of organizations that have sent in endorsements, and at times issues news releases and sends Twitter messages to make sure they are noticed. The list includes dozens of state and local officials, many of whom have received financial support from Comcast. The company has contributed millions to candidates in state elections in the last four years, including 15,000 to Governor Bryant of Mississippi, whose spokeswoman said his positive words about the company had nothing to do with the donations. Representative Tony Cardenas, a California Democrat who is one of the few lawmakers in Washington to take a definitive stand on the deal he opposes it said that the relative silence from members of Congress did not surprise him. He said the deal was bad for the country and would result in a single company with too much control over cable television and the Internet. "Comcast is huge, and they have 130 plus lobbyists running around Washington, who keep reminding you that they are here," Mr. Cardenas said. "But this is not a healthy deal." Mr. Cohen rejected any suggestion that the deal did not have widespread support among members of Congress. It is just that fewer are directly affected by it, compared with the NBC deal, and Comcast has not pressed as many to provide letters this time, he said. What matters most, he added, is the legal and technical case that has been made to federal and state regulators. He said he was convinced that they would support the transaction based on its merits. "We have done an outstanding job of creating an extremely strong record that this transaction should be approved," he said. "And that is the record the regulators are going to make the decision on." In the interview, he also conceded that the widespread complaints about Comcast's customer service, which the company is trying to address, have probably contributed to the number of people writing in opposing the deal even though, he said, that is not relevant to the decision. But he attributed most of it to organized efforts by some of Comcast's corporate rivals, which are helping to finance coalitions to oppose the deal. "The atmospherics around our customer service clearly stir some antipathy among some consumers," Mr. Cohen said. "And it does provide a basis for opponents of the transaction to gin up three sentence, nonsubstantive communications to the F.C.C. saying that they don't like Comcast or they don't like Time Warner Cable."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
PISA, Italy Six years ago, the Swedish retail giant Ikea planned a 60 million euro megastore just a few miles from where the Tower of Pisa leans into the earth. Backers said the huge construction project, new roads and wave of shoppers would bring hundreds of sorely needed jobs to this bucolic corner of Tuscany. But things got tangled as they often do in Italy, where bureaucracy and politics can easily overwhelm economics. Each application that Ikea filed seemed to require yet another. Each mandatory impact study begat the next. By May, when a local mayor had still not decided whether the company could get a building permit, Ikea put out word it would abandon the plan. As Italy teeters on the edge of the European debt crisis, it can ill afford more debacles like that one. Otherwise, despite having the world's seventh largest economy, Italy may have little hope of outgrowing the staggering debt load that could threaten its financial future and that of the euro monetary union. Already, investors seem skeptical whether Italy and other debt saddled European countries can right themselves, despite the financial rescue plan for Greece that Europe's leaders agreed to last week. On Thursday, Italy's borrowing costs jumped almost a full percentage point at an auction of 10 year bonds, compared with just one month ago. At 5.77 percent, the interest rate was more than twice what financially buoyant Germany must pay on bonds of the same maturity. As higher interest rates make it even harder for Italy to reduce its debt, the main recourse would seem to be faster growth. "This is the only major issue for Italy now to resume growth," said Francesco Giavazzi, an economics professor at Bocconi University and a research fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research in London. Italy must not only encourage big corporate investments like the Ikea project, experts say, but it must also remove impediments that stifle growth in the thousands of small and medium size companies that make up the backbone of its economy. One small business man, Mauro Pelatti, says he has given up on expanding his business in Florence, an hour east of here. "Bureaucracy is so strong, and taxes are so high, that it's virtually impossible," said Mr. Pelatti, whose privately held company, Omap, makes parts for steel stamping machines used on products like Vespa scooters. Italy's economy experienced paltry growth starting in the late 1990s, when the country's manufacturing was overtaken by competitors in Asia. Then came the global financial crisis in 2007, which shrank Italy's economy by more than 6 percent. Growth has resumed, but the International Monetary Fund predicts "another decade of stagnation," with Italy's gross domestic product expanding by only about 1.4 percent annually in the next few years. (The German economy, Europe's growth leader, grew 3.5 percent in 2010 and grew by 1.5 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period a year ago.) Hindering growth is Italy's heaving government debt, which at 119 percent of gross domestic product is second only to Greece's among euro zone members. Although it has run a budget surplus, minus debt costs, for several years and recently passed a 48 billion deficit reduction plan, the Italian government now spends 16 percent of that budget on interest payments a bill that will rise if investors and creditors continue to fear that Italy cannot escape Europe's debt crisis. Currently, the amount of Italy's debt held by foreigners nearly 800 billon euros is more than that of Greece, Ireland and Portugal combined. Should Italy stumble, the aftershocks would be more disruptive than anything the euro zone has felt so far in the crisis. The barriers to growth make for a daunting list. For starters, national leaders like Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and even mayors of the smallest towns tend to be caught up in politics that distract them from the economy's plight. What is more, productivity has been flat for a decade. And corporate taxes are around 31 percent, not counting an array of local taxes assessed to businesses. Italy is also plagued by an incorrigible black market that is estimated to make up 20 percent of the economy and that exists partly because of the market's dysfunctions. The related tax evasion deprives the Treasury of an estimated 100 billion euros in revenue each year. Few believe the government can easily eliminate some of its biggest problems, namely the Mafia and the black market economy. But Italy's leaders do have the means to foster growth in the legal economy, many experts say. Specifically, Rome could start untangling the bureaucracy that ensnared Ikea and put a stranglehold on thousands of smaller Italian companies. "Just to start a business, you usually have between 10 and 20 authorities you need to deal with," said Giampaolo Galli, the general director of Confindustria, Italy's main business lobby. "Then you go to the government for help, but you don't find any." Ikea hit the bureaucratic burden head on when it sought to build a store near here in the town of Vecchiano, on a large vacant lot that now dances with sunflowers. Although Ikea has 20 stores across Italy, Vecchiano proved to be a special case. On average, it takes five years from the moment Ikea requests a building permit in Italy to the day it opens its doors. In Vecchiano, however, six years went by while the mayor at the time called for studies and town hall meetings. Many voters did not want a big box retailer in the countryside or the traffic it would bring. But many others wanted the Swedish retailer to be present, said Anna Pullace, a local bookstore owner. In a region besieged by high unemployment, Ikea would have brought 350 new jobs and help stimulate the larger Tuscan economy. Six years was simply too long for Ikea. "We're not an N.G.O. we're a profit making company," said Valerio Di Bussolo, a company spokesman in Italy. "We need certainty about our investments." On the day Ikea announced it was pulling out, the president of the Tuscany region, Enrico Rossi, rushed to offer his help. Now the nearby towns of Pisa and Livorno are both courting Ikea. Meanwhile, the new mayor of Vecchiano the previous mayor was voted out wants Ikea to reconsider. But the company says it is too late, and that it wants to consider building in one of the nearby towns. It is an opportunity squandered for now, in the view of Ms. Pullace, the bookstore owner. "In this moment of crisis in the country," she said, "we need to take every opportunity we can get." Ikea's lament is echoed by businesses of all types. Mr. Pelatti, owner of the parts maker Omap in Florence, complains of continual streams of government mandated paperwork, inspections and even state doctors' visits to check on his employees all at his expense. Because Italy protects guilds, Mr. Pelatti says he must outsource the writing of paychecks for his five employees, at an average expense each month of 50 euros a check. "A company like ours has costs of up to 20,000 euros a year just for the paperwork," he said. And then there are the taxes. On a 200,000 euro profit, he says, he has a tax bill of about 100,000 euros. "Even if I make a profit, I never make enough cash to get bigger," he added. A two hour train ride to the northeast of Pisa lies Padua, one of Italy's major industrial centers. But there, too, hundreds of small family run firms, usually employing five or six people, face similar problems. Mario Carraro is one of the few businessmen in Padua who managed to break the mold. Years ago, seeing the challenges of globalization, he focused on improving technology and productivity at his factory, which makes tractor transmissions for companies like John Deere and Caterpillar. Now his company, Carraro, is publicly listed and employs 2,000 people in Italy and another 2,000 in China and India. Italy needs more of its companies to become like his. But when Mr. Carraro looks around, he sees stagnation. "We used to call these firms the 'piccolo bello' small is good," he said. "But now they are dying."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
Blame it on God, or the fates, or to use the metaphor of choice here the stars. But when Billy meets Julie in the heartfelt, half terrific revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Carousel" which opened on Thursday night at the Imperial Theater, you can tell they've been felled by a force beyond their comprehension or control. Look at the dazed, questioning expressions on the faces of Billy Bigelow (Joshua Henry), the restless carnival barker, and Julie Jordan (Jessie Mueller), the homebody mill worker, as they sing that greatest of all ballads of romantic ambivalence, "If I Loved You." They're scared, all right, him especially. You sense that if they do get together and though they've just met, it's already a done deal it's going to end in tears, and they know it. But to borrow a lyric from a later song in this ravishingly scored musical from 1945, "What's the use of wond'rin'?" Erotic attraction, as cruel as it is transporting, is not to be denied. The tragic inevitability of "Carousel" has seldom come across as warmly or as chillingly as it does in this vividly reimagined revival. As directed by Jack O'Brien and choreographed by Justin Peck, with thoughtful and powerful performances by Mr. Henry and Ms. Mueller, the love story at the show's center has never seemed quite as ill starred or, at the same time, as sexy. Both sides of that equation are given equal weight in this probing production, which takes the liberty of beginning not on the grounds of a carnival in Maine, as is customary, but in heaven, where destinies are foreseen. Clearly, this is not going to be a gritty, social realist "Carousel" in the vein of Nicholas Hytner's benchmark London born incarnation, which came to Lincoln Center in 1994. Instead, Mr. O'Brien and Mr. Peck (and director and choreographer justly receive equal billing here) are taking a really long view as in cosmic of one short, fraught relationship. A celestial character named the Starkeeper (the great Shakespearean actor John Douglas Thompson) assumes new visibility throughout, taking on the role of Billy's angelic supervisor. But don't worry that flesh and blood will not be given their due. Julie and Billy may be mere mortal specks in a divine scheme. But they also pulse in the foreground of a palpable here and now, in which people exult in the pleasures afforded the body, from lingering kisses to hard eating clambakes. As Jigger Craigin, Billy's pal and nemesis, the ballet dancer Amar Ramasar makes an electric Broadway debut. Margaret Colin offers a razor sharp take on toxic possessiveness as Billy's boss and older paramour. And the fabled opera star Renee Fleming is a delightful, refreshingly hedonistic Cousin Nettie. (Oh, she can sing, too, and makes fine, purifying work of that enduring sentimental war horse "You'll Never Walk Alone.") It is gloriously clear throughout that what animates these disparate souls, who wear Ann Roth's handsome period costumes as easily as if they were track suits, is the mating instinct. What's bustin' out all over in June, to crib from the show's sunniest set piece, is sex. And Mr. Peck, the resident choreographer of New York City Ballet, has channeled that urge into some of the most thrilling and original dancing seen on Broadway in years. That includes, as you might expect, the opening fairground number, in which dancers become both the horses and riders of the titular carousel, and that spirited serenade to the merry month of June, in which lust seems to spread across the stage like an epidemic. But Mr. Peck's great choreographic coup comes, unexpectedly and exhilaratingly, toward the end of the first act with, of all things, "Blow High, Blow Low." That's the song with the repeated lyrics, "a sailin' we will go," which usually comes across as a blustery, hokey ode to the maritime life. But this production expands that number (with some artfully extended orchestral music) to become a display of hormonal energy run rampant. Led by Mr. Ramasar the male corps de ballet configures itself into a sea ploughing boat, its industrious crew and, most dazzlingly, the very waves of the ocean. In such moments, the performers become conduits for an irresistible life force, the same spirit that pushes Billy and Julie into each other's arms. Santo Loquasto's picturesque, deliberately artificial sets suggest that the world is but a provisional stage in a larger, more mysterious universe. In contrast, Mr. Henry ("Violet," "The Scottsboro Boys") portrays Billy as a figure of agitated, unceasing rebellion. He refuses to let himself relax into his genuine love for Julie. In the "Blow High, Blow Low" number, he's the dancer who can't find his feet. Billy's great solo, "Soliloquy," performed with a heaven rumbling voice by Mr. Henry, is a battle of conflicting feelings. You are always aware of this man's anger, and where it comes from. That rage propels him to commit the crime in which he loses his life and, most notoriously, to hit Julie. This act of violence is not seen but described, and it is echoed in an awkwardly muffled encounter in the play's second act. That's when Billy's ghost returns to earth years later to visit his unhappy teenage daughter, Louise (Brittany Pollack). The mother daughter dialogue that falls so abrasively on contemporary ears about it being possible to be hit loud and hard and "not hurt you at all" is delivered quietly and unconvincingly, almost as if hoping to pass unnoticed. A similar queasiness pervades much of the rest of the second act, especially in the scenes set in heaven, which looks like a rough draft of a starry paradise by Rockwell Kent, inhabited by angels who quaintly bring to mind arty Denishawn dancers of the early 20th century. Even back on earth, Mr. Peck's usually sure hand feels a bit shaky. The danced sequence in which Louise is rejected by prim Maine society and seeks comfort with a vagabond fairground worker doesn't entirely track. (It was only then that I started to miss Agnes de Mille's more lucid story ballets for the original.) I always squirm through the undeserved uplift and optimism of the final scene, and this time was no different.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
The January issues of fashion magazines usually contain extra lashings of diet and exercise advice (and the fewest ads of the year), but this month's Elle, with Nicole Kidman on the cover, offers something new. To celebrate its third decade, the magazine announced, it is convening "a board of 43 female powerhouses who are joining forces to improve the lives of women that's you! for the next 30 years." Following are headshots of these powerhouses among them, the fashion designer Tory Burch; Sylvie Picquet Damesme, fashion publicist; and the cosmetics entrepreneur and former model Iman as well as digestible little energy bars of their advice, like having the courage of one's convictions and maintaining an open mind. "You just hit the mentor jackpot," the magazine promises. But is this a jackpot or a bottomless pit? After years of women fearing that their career advisers may chase them around the conference table ("9 to 5"), or stab them in the back ("Working Girl"), is it possible that they now suffer from a surfeit of supportive you go sister pompoms? That the presidential race of 2016 may be less crowded than the race to be America's Next Top Mentor? Looming like the Cheshire cat above all the cheerleaders has been the beatific countenance of Sheryl Sandberg, 45, the Facebook chief operating officer who started the great Lean In wave of 2013 with a book that still lingers on best seller lists and generated countless if occasionally vague consciousness raisings about inequities in the workplace. "She was the gateway drug," said Andy McNicol, a literary agent at William Morris Endeavor whose colleague Jennifer Rudolph Walsh represented Ms. Sandberg in the deal with her publisher, Knopf. (All profits from the book are being plowed into the tax exempt foundation Leanin.Org, according to its website.) Responsibility for the mentoring moment, though, cannot be pinned squarely on this one executive's lapel. Consider the fall of the man in the gray flannel suit on the commuter platform, vanquished by the guy at home freelancing in his yoga pants. As well as the rise of reality shows, with tough love celebrity judges ("You're fired!") softening of late into gentler "coaches" ("The Voice.") And the mushrooming of social media, which has empowered a fresh pack of self styled leaders like one of Ms. McNicol's clients, the online retailer Sophia Amoruso of Nasty Gal. Indeed, it was just a year after the publication of "Lean In" that Ms. Amoruso's pink covered book " Girlboss" was published by Portfolio, a Penguin imprint that specializes in business titles. "Each one has a special flavor," said Portfolio's founder, president and publisher, Adrian Zackheim, about mentor books (which he considers just a variant of the advice genre). Ms. Amoruso's was particularly salty, filled with curse words and tales of Dumpster diving and school hating in the years before she turned to selling vintage clothes on eBay. "You're going to take over the world and change it in the process," she promised her readers. "People told Sophia she should write a style book," Ms. McNicol said with an air of triumph, and Ms. Amoruso, 30, will probably do so ere long. A disproportionate number of the New Mentors seem to emanate from the image business, perhaps because they are already used to being groomed for the spotlight, or perhaps because they are adept at catering to the out of control appetite for personal brand management that the Internet has stoked. One who is leveraging branding to the max is Aliza Licht, 40, the senior vice president for global communications at Donna Karan International, who is better known as DKNY PR GIRL. Ms. Licht has parlayed her half a million plus Twitter followers into speaking engagements, like at a TEDx conference in 2013 (TED and its ilk being essential pit stops for New Mentors) and a deal with Grand Central Publishing for a book to be published in May titled, "Leave Your Mark: Land Your Dream Job, Kill It in Your Career, Rock Social Media." The cover image shows a Starbucksish coffee cup with a lipstick print. To Women's Wear Daily, Ms. Licht unequivocally called the book to be a "mentorship." And if your dream job has nothing to do with clothes? No problem. "Fashion in general could be an amazing boot camp for your life," suggested Ms. Licht, calling from a company car that was swooshing her home after a trip to Art Basel in Miami Beach. "Fashion people work really hard." Ms. McNicol said she sees a link between the publishing world's "fascination with youth" and the surge of such books from the fashion, cosmetics and other glamour industries. The mentoring book by Aliza Licht, who is better known online as DKNY PR GIRL. An event called Fun Fearless Life held by Cosmopolitan magazine in November at the David H. Koch Theater that she helped organize was chock a block with New Mentors Ms. Amoruso, Spanx's Sara Blakely, Christene Barberich of the website Refinery29 and Hannah Bronfman, a founder of an app called Beautified, among others offering career tips to a sold out, mostly millennial crowd. "Those girls 18 to 24," Ms. McNicol said, "they want to learn." At 28, Devon Brooks, a founder of Blo, the blow dry franchise, is an elder stateswoman to this demographic: a popular speaker represented by the Lavin Agency, whose client list includes Salman Rushdie. "She actively mentors and coaches start ups and developing professionals," Ms. Brooks's biography reads. "Millennials, start your engines!" Ms. Brooks, of Toronto, does not have a book deal yet. (Publishers, start your engines!) But if she gets one, she will be jostling for shelf space with her fellow countrywomen Janet Kestin and Nancy Vonk, alumnae of Ogilvy Mather, the advertising agency, who came up with Dove's "real beauty" campaign and now oversee Swim Program, a so called "creative leadership consultancy" serving "ambitious people." Alan Webber, a founder of Fast Company magazine, calls this duo's own book, "The how to follow up to 'Lean In.' " Its title, taken from the condescending advice of a male boss who advised against combining children with a career, is "Darling, You Can't Do Both: And Other Noise to Ignore on the Way Up." Replacing this old, punitive John T. Molloy model of male mentor (Mr. Molloy wrote "Dress for Success" and the lesser known "Live for Success") is the gentler Tim Gunn, 61, the former chairman of the fashion department at Parsons, the design school. He refined his persona on the cable show "Project Runway," and his second book of career advice, "The Natty Professor: A Master Class on Mentoring, Motivating and Making It Work!" is scheduled for March. His first, "Gunn's Golden Rules," in which he established himself as a personal life coach, was "to date his best seller," said Jennifer Bergstrom, Mr. Gunn's publisher at Gallery Books. She said that a recent style book he wrote, "Tim Gunn's Fashion Bible," had not performed as well. "We decided we wanted him to shift his focus back to that mentoring, teaching imparting life lessons once again," Ms. Bergstrom said, adding with a laugh: " 'Lean In' to me was a little intimidating, but I don't feel that way with Tim Gunn." Also offering a sudden populist relatability is the fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, 68, wife of first an aristocrat and now a billionaire, who has a column in InStyle magazine and a recently published memoir, "The Woman I Wanted to Be." It has a blurb from Ms. Sandberg on the back. Its release, in November, was timed to the debut of a show on E!, "House of DVF," that established Ms. von Furstenberg as a glamorously exacting overseer of aspiring "brand ambassadors" for her label. During a party for the book at the Manhattan headquarters of Michael Bloomberg's philanthropic foundation, the young designer Joseph Altuzarra praised the real life mentoring abilities of Ms. von Furstenberg, the longtime president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. "She's incredibly nurturing and I think tells you the truth," he said. "She told me when I was going off course, doing things that weren't wearable or just she felt weren't in the brand. She's not shy about her opinions, and I'd say she's pretty much always right."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
In Tamil, farewells are never final. As pointed out in a 2017 interview, the Tamil equivalent of goodbye is poyittu varen, meaning "I'll go and return." These are parting words especially suited to the refugee: ever running away, ever looking back. Kumarasamy poignantly illustrates this tension in her debut story collection, "Half Gods." Across decades and continents, her characters are haunted by catastrophic violence, their emotional scars passed from one generation to the next. Wisely, Kumarasamy takes a muted approach to the violence. In "The Office of Missing Persons," a Sri Lankan Tamil father engages with the police to find his teenage son this during the final and bloodiest phase of the nearly 30 year Sri Lankan civil war between the Sinhalese majority and the separatist Tamil Tigers. From the outset, it's obvious that Jeganathan, an entomologist beloved for his research by the Sinhalese government, will never find his son, and so the story's momentum feeds on a growing dread that is crystallized when "the officer asked for Jeganathan's son's name and he knew it was a trick. He needed his name to find him and then have reason not to find him." Between those lines exists an entire world in which killing a man is as easy as erasing his name from a ledger of missing persons. On the other side of the world, in New Jersey, Jeganathan's friend Muthu is tormented by what he has already lost: his wife and twin sons killed by a mob. In his old age, Muthu and his remaining family watch television to track the end of the civil war in 2009, when the Sri Lankan government besieged whole northern villages, and brutality from both sides resulted in the massacre of tens of thousands of Tamil men, women and children. Yet only state sanctioned celebration is televised, with the sitting president declaring "in Sinhala that there were no casualties from the war and the people of Sri Lanka were finally free from terror."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
HENDERSON, Nev. The Regal Sunset Station multiplex in suburban Las Vegas reopened on Thursday night after sitting empty for five months in eerie pandemic forced exile. One of the first people to take a center seat, popcorn and orange soda in hand, was Brian Truitt, who bought tickets to "The New Mutants," a Marvel superhero movie, a week in advance. "I figured it would be jammed, with pent up demand to come to the movies again," Mr. Truitt, 38, said as he sat back in his reclining seat and tugged at his face mask. He looked around the mostly empty auditorium, with capacity for 172, and shrugged in surprise. "I guess not." For the first time since March, big budget movies are being released again in theaters. "The New Mutants" cost at least 70 million to make and market. Coming next week is Christopher Nolan's "Tenet," a hotly anticipated 200 million thriller. But the willingness of Americans to return to theaters to sit inside a closed room with strangers for hours, regardless of the safety protocols remains anything but certain. For Hollywood, which has come to rely on superheroes and star directors like Mr. Nolan as relatively sure bets, releasing these films is like stepping off a ledge without knowing where the ground lies. Maybe it was the movie. "The New Mutants," a long delayed "X Men" thriller, has been beleaguered by bad buzz and was lightly marketed by Walt Disney Studios. It epitomizes what many people think is wrong with Hollywood: endless overreliance on superheroes ("New Mutants" is the 13th installment in the 20 year old "X Men" franchise); corporate consolidation (the film was delayed because of Disney's takeover of 20th Century Fox); filmmaking by committee (at least eight writers worked on the project). Theater executives have pointed to "Tenet" as the film that will send people cascading back into seats and restore a sense of normalcy to an industry that was essentially brought to a standstill by the pandemic. The economics for "Tenet" and other megamovies work only if lots of people leave their houses and buy tickets to see them in theaters. Put another way, if people don't return to the theaters, it may change what is available to watch studios may have to start making less expensive films. Maybe it was the still threatening coronavirus. Studio research has indicated that the majority of Americans are not ready to immediately return to theaters, even with theater companies promoting a wide array of safety procedures: capacity limited to 50 percent, enhanced air filtration, aggressive cleaning, masks required except when eating or drinking. Nevada reported 632 new coronavirus infections on Friday, reversing a week of declines. Or maybe moviegoing has changed forever. With theaters closed, studios have made films like "Hamilton," "Trolls World Tour" and, coming up, "Mulan" available on streaming or on demand services, training people to expect instant access to big movies in their living rooms. "Consumer interest in moviegoing will be meaningfully reduced," Rich Greenfield, a founder of the LightShed Partners media research firm, wrote in an Aug. 6 report. "Moviegoing will not disappear, but there will not be enough demand (nor supply of content) to support 40,000 screens in the U.S." (The country has 40,998 movie screens, according to the National Association of Theater Owners.) Theater executives from companies like Regal, AMC and Cinemark disagree. They are betting that a Covid 19 vaccine will arrive and that studios will soon return to their decades old system of releasing movies, first in theaters for an exclusive period of several months and then in homes. Mark Zoradi, the chief executive of Cinemark, recently told analysts on a conference call that the box office should become relatively "normalized" by 2022. 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. "There is significant pent up demand for the theatrical out of home experience, with the gigantic screens, immersive sight and sound technology and, of course, that irresistible movie theater popcorn," Mr. Zoradi said. But the trial balloon that is "New Mutants" suggests that the road ahead for Hollywood will be anything but easy. "It felt odd," Shawn Mitchell, 25, said about returning to the movies as he left Regal Sunset Station on Thursday. "It was harder to just zone out during the movie. Now you're more aware of what's happening around you in the theater." Was that the sound of someone shaking kernels in the bottom of a popcorn bucket or a dry cough? (Whew, popcorn.) Were any workers monitoring the theater as the movie played and reminding patrons that they had to wear masks if they weren't eating or drinking? (Not that I ever saw.) Is that woman sitting nearby seriously going to watch the entire film with her mask dangling from one ear? (Yup.) By the end of the 98 minute movie, many of the attendees were mask free, their popcorn long since munched. At one point, my mind wandered away from the mutants trying to escape a marauding computer generated bear. I couldn't stop thinking about a trailer for a coming disaster movie that had played before the film in which a voice had instructed: "Seek shelter immediately! Seek shelter immediately!" I comforted myself by tightening my own mask and using some Clorox wipes to make a little pillow for my head on the reclining seat. But no one else seemed concerned. "I'm young and healthy, so I'm not really worried about it," said a mask free Malary Marshall, 24, before the movie started.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Does a drink a day really prevent heart attacks? A clinical trial by the National Institutes of Health and largely paid for by the alcohol industry will try to find out. It may be the most palatable advice you will ever get from a doctor: Have a glass of wine, a beer or a cocktail every day, and you just might prevent a heart attack and live longer. But the mantra that moderate drinking is good for the heart has never been put to a rigorous scientific test, and new research has linked even modest alcohol consumption to increases in breast cancer and changes in the brain. That has not stopped the alcoholic beverage industry from promoting the alcohol is good for you message by supporting scientific meetings and nurturing budding researchers in the field. Now the National Institutes of Health is starting a 100 million clinical trial to test for the first time whether a drink a day really does prevent heart attacks. And guess who is picking up most of the tab? Five companies that are among the world's largest alcoholic beverage manufacturers Anheuser Busch InBev, Heineken, Diageo, Pernod Ricard and Carlsberg have so far pledged 67.7 million to a foundation that raises money for the National Institutes of Health, said Margaret Murray, the director of the Global Alcohol Research Program at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which will oversee the study. The decision to let the alcohol industry pay the bulk of the cost has raised concern among researchers who track influence peddling in science. "Research shows that industry sponsored research almost invariably favors the interests of the industry sponsor, even when investigators believe they are immune from such influence," said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University who is the author of several books on the topic, including "Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health." The international effort to study the benefits and risks of alcohol will recruit nearly 8,000 volunteers age 50 or older at 16 sites around the world, starting at medical centers in the United States, Europe, Africa and South America. Participants will be randomly assigned to quit alcohol altogether or to drink a single alcoholic beverage of their choice every day. The trial will follow them for six years to see which group the moderate drinkers or the abstainers has more heart attacks, strokes and deaths. The study organizers conceded that it would be a challenge to recruit volunteers, who will not know in advance whether they will be assigned to abstain or be required to drink. Those in the drinking group will be partly reimbursed for the cost of the alcohol. George F. Koob, the director of the alcohol institute, said the trial will be immune from industry influence and will be an unbiased test of whether alcohol "in moderation" protects against heart disease. "This study could completely backfire on the alcoholic beverage industry, and they're going to have to live with it," Dr. Koob said. "The money from the Foundation for the N.I.H. has no strings attached. Whoever donates to that fund has no leverage whatsoever no contribution to the study, no input to the study, no say whatsoever." But Dr. Koob, like many of the researchers and academic institutions playing pivotal roles in the trial, has had close ties to the alcoholic beverage industry. Dr. Koob served from 1999 to 2003 on the medical advisory council of the Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation, now called the Foundation for Alcohol Research, an industry group that also provided him research grants of up to 40,000 a year between 1990 and 1994, said John Bowersox, a spokesman for the N.I.H.'s alcohol institute. Indeed, many of those involved in the study have financial links either personally or through an institution to alcohol industry money. Harvard, the hub of the clinical trial, has a long relationship with the alcoholic beverage industry. In 2015 the university accepted 3.3 million from the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility, a group founded by distillers, to establish an endowed professorship in psychiatry and behavioral science. Harvard's School of Public Health also came under fire in 2005 when a professor teamed with Anheuser Busch to promote the health benefits of beer, and Anheuser donated 150,000 to fund scholarships for doctoral students. One of the trial's principal investigators, Dr. Eric Rimm of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, has acknowledged through various financial disclosures that he has been paid to speak at conferences sponsored by the alcohol industry and received reimbursement for travel expenses. He said it had been at least eight or nine years since those events, and he has no current relationship with the alcoholic beverage industry. Dr. Diederick Grobbee, another principal investigator, who is based in the Netherlands and is in charge of clinical sites outside the United States, said in a telephone interview that he has received research money from the International Life Sciences Institute, an industry group that supports scientific research. In Baltimore, the trial will be run by Dr. Mariana Lazo Elizondo of Johns Hopkins, who received research grants in 2013 and 2014 totaling 100,000 from the Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation. She declined to be interviewed. In Copenhagen, the lead researcher will be Dr. Lars Ove Dragsted, who disclosed in a scientific paper last year that he has conducted research at institutions that received industry support. He has not responded to requests for comment. The principal investigator of the new study, Dr. Kenneth J. Mukamal, a Harvard associate professor of medicine and a visiting scientist at the school of public health, said he has never received funding from the industry. Dr. Mukamal, who has published dozens of papers on the health benefits of alcohol consumption, said he was not aware that alcohol companies were supporting the trial financially. "This isn't anything other than a good old fashioned N.I.H. trial," he said. "We have had literally no contact with anyone in the alcohol industry in the planning of this." A spokeswoman for Pernod Ricard, one of the beverage firms that has pledged money to pay for the study, said company officials signed on because they were impressed by the ambitious scale of the trial. "We've never seen a study of such scope or caliber," said Sandrine Ricard, deputy director for corporate social responsibility for Pernod Ricard. She noted that the businesses will "have no say" in the research and "don't want to have any say." "We're hoping the results nevertheless are going to be good," she said. "And we're optimistic they will be." Gemma R. Hart, vice president for communications at Anheuser Busch, said the company has been investing heavily in efforts to promote responsible drinking, and has an interest in generating research to guide evidence based approaches to changing consumer behavior. "It's part of our overall commitment to reducing the harmful use of alcohol," Ms. Hart said. Though the company is helping to fund the trial, "Our role is limited entirely to the funding we provided," Ms. Hart said. "We have no role in the study. We will learn the outcome of the study when everybody else does" Scientists first floated the hypothesis that moderate alcohol consumption is good for one's health nearly 100 years ago, when a Johns Hopkins scientist published a graph showing that modest drinkers lived longer than not only heavy drinkers, but also abstainers. Critics of the alcohol hypothesis say moderate drinking may just be something that healthy people tend to do, not something that makes people healthy. Despite the heart healthy hypothesis, plenty of studies have linked moderate drinking to more health problems. One study found an increased rate of atrial fibrillation among moderate drinkers. And a 2017 report on breast cancer from the American Institute for Cancer Research determined there is strong evidence tying consumption of a single serving of alcohol a day to an increased risk of both pre and post menopausal breast cancer. Proponents of the moderate alcohol hypothesis, on the other hand, pointed to alcohol's anti clotting effects and its apparent ability to raise the level of so called good cholesterol to help explain its benefits. The new trial defines moderate drinking as one serving a day, defined as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits. The definition is significantly lower than what has typically been considered a moderate level of drinking for men, which has long been defined as up to two servings a day. Moderate drinking for women has been defined as one serving a day. The recruits will be men and women 50 or older, all of whom either have cardiovascular disease or are at high risk for developing it. Problem drinkers and individuals who have never consumed alcohol will be ineligible, as will be certain women at high risk for breast cancer and people with certain medical conditions. Investigators have not determined how they will verify that participants are sticking to their regimens of one drink a day or no alcohol at all. The study has several limitations. Adverse events related to alcohol, including car accidents, major falls, heart conditions, alcohol abuse and new cancer diagnoses will be tracked, but the study is not large enough or long enough to detect an increase in breast cancer. And while the investigators' goal is to recruit an equal number of men and women, and analyze results by gender, Dr. Mukamal said the trial most likely would not be able to detect gender differences unless they are pronounced. The lack of focus on gender differences related to alcohol consumption has drawn criticism. It is already known that women metabolize alcohol more slowly than men, and that heart disease in women is different than it is in men. Women respond differently than men to many medications because of differences in body fat, size, liver metabolism and kidney function. In addition to the higher risk of breast cancer linked to alcohol, studies have shown women are more susceptible than men to the toxic effects of alcohol on the liver for any given dose. As currently planned, the alcohol trial "makes the assumption that men and women are the same biologically, and that's not true," said Dr. Anne McTiernan, a physician and researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, who was one of the authors of the American Institute for Cancer Research review on breast cancer. "This sort of thing has been a problem in some N.I.H. studies for a long time." Art Caplan, the director of medical ethics at the N.Y.U. School of Medicine, said the role of the industry should be disclosed when the results eventually are disseminated to the public. "People will react differently if it says the study is 'sponsored by N.I.H.' or 'sponsored by Anheuser Busch,'" he said. The concern, he said, is that any findings supporting the benefits of alcohol could easily be misinterpreted. "If there is some health benefit for people over 50 from one drink a day, many people will just hear that alcohol is good for you, and some will say, ' I can drink all the beer I want,'" he said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Well
Jessica Lange in Netflix's Manhattan office. Ms. Lange, who is appearing in Netflix's new series, "The Politician," is publishing a book of photographs, titled "Highway 61." DULUTH, Minn. When Jessica Lange finally admitted that her driving was a bit unpredictable it came as a relief. I was afraid to bring it up from the passenger seat. "My kids used to say, 'Mom, pick a lane!'" the two time Oscar winner said, chuckling. On a day with silvery light coming through clouds and Lake Superior to our right, she was piloting us northward from Duluth , on Highway 61. We had a perfect car for an August road trip: her green 1967 Mercedes Benz 250S, heavy as a tank and with seatbelts of questionable functionality. But Ms. Lange exuded confidence and so I didn't worry too much. She knew where she was going. For her, a Minnesota native who summers in what she called a cabin an hour or so away , Highway 61 was more than a conveyance; it was a creative wellspring dating back to her childhood. In fact, this was Ms. Lange's third trip along this route over the summer, toward towns with names like Castle Danger and Beaver Bay, past dense stands of trees and signs for smoked fish and homemade pies. The road itself is the subject of her latest book of photographs, "Highway 61," which comes out Oct. 1. Inside, the 84 black and white photographs document all manner of life along 61, which runs first as a state road, then for most of its route as a United States highway from the Canadian border down to New Orleans, a city where she lived and owned a home for a time. She was born in the town of Cloquet, Minn., and the route was a central artery for her family, but the book also chronicles the changes she has witnessed stretches of the road that she describes as "empty, forlorn, as if in mourning for what has gone missing." It's not that Ms. Lange, 70, who starred in "Tootsie," "Grey Gardens" and dozens of other movies and TV shows, has given up acting. Her latest production from Ryan Murphy who kept her busy through many seasons of "American Horror Story," which earned her two of her three Emmys is "The Politician," which debuts Friday on Netflix. But photography is much more than a hobby for her, as I discovered over our four hour road trip. Wherever we stopped, she paused to take photographs. Ms. Lange, though now based in New York, has spent time over the last six years documenting all eight states where Highway 61 unfolds. In the book's afterword, Ms. Lange writes about how her first album purchase was "Highway 61 Revisited," released in 1965 by Bob Dylan, a fellow Minnesotan. When she left home at 18, she hit the road, "headed south out of town," she wrote, "on my way to Europe and beyond, the start of a new life." The photographs themselves are grainy, suffused with intense light and shadow, capturing small moments featuring people, road signs, horizons, carnivals, diners. The book's cover has one of her most striking images, an African American child looking right at the camera with an intense gaze. "It's expressive, emotional street photography," said the veteran dealer Howard Greenberg, who is giving Ms. Lange a show of the Highway 61 images from Nov. 21 to Jan. 18 in his New York gallery. "It's not a tourist view. She gets close to her subjects." But her favorite practitioner is someone less famous, the Czech photographer Josef Koudelka, noted for his work with the Magnum agency and high contrast, black and white images, as in his seminal "Gypsies" series. "I never use a flash or carry lights or anything," Ms. Lange said when we stopped for lunch and a beer in the town of Beaver Bay. A few people registered that a famous person was in their midst, but Ms. Lange was unfazed. "I never crop," Ms. Lange added. "I think it's a conceit. I always loved that Henri Cartier Bresson showed you the whole image." Ms. Lange reads up on photography she said she had been reading Roland Barthes's "Camera Lucida" that very week but her take on the medium is more instinctual than theoretical. "When you're seeing through Jessica's lens, it's immediate and feels visceral," Ms. Paulson said. "It's the same alchemy that makes her so extraordinarily powerful as an actress." Anne Morin, whose company, diChroma Photography, produces traveling photography exhibitions, met Ms. Lange through Mr. Greenberg and became enough of a fan to send her work on tour. Ms. Lange can be "as quick as Garry Winogrand," Ms. Morin said. It's true. When we arrived at Black Beach Park in Silver Bay so named for its tiny black stones Ms. Lange at first took a few pictures of moody Lake Superior, but she seemed uninspired by the landscape. Too generic. After we greeted a mother and two children who had braved the lake's cold water for a dip, her camera suddenly was up and she snapped several pictures of the family as they walked away, cloaked in towels. "The boy turned as I was taking it, and it produced a great shape," she said. At the University of Minnesota, photography accidentally ended up in her curriculum when she couldn't get into a painting class. She met a group of photographers through her professors there, including Daniel Seymour and Paco Grande. She married Mr. Grande in 1970, but not before ditching school to travel to Europe with them , including to Paris during the May 1968 protests. Once she moved to New York, she found herself living in a loft on the Bowery with Robert Frank (Mr. Seymour's collaborator in a 1972 documentary about the Rolling Stones on tour). She recalled Mr. Frank taking stills of her for a film she was working on at the time. In the age of Instagram, when "everyone is a photographer," as she put it, it's a treat for her to take control of the lens. It's a break from fretting that someone is taking her picture in a supermarket: "I don't have to worry about being absurd." Once we were heading back south to Duluth, I wondered, given her success as an actor, exactly how seriously she wanted to be taken as a photographer. "You know how this works," she said, sounding not bitter but realistic. "You're an actress, therefore you're not considered a photographer. So you're an actress who photographs. It's a kind of mindless categorizing; if you're one thing, you can't be another." But Midwestern optimism, and what I gleaned was one of Ms. Lange's core personality traits what Ms. Paulson called her sense of "freedom and abandon" won the day, as the clouds actually parted for the return home. "I've got a day job," she said, and laughed again. "I just love taking photographs. That's the only reason I do it."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
The connection between the three plays was so striking, and they all came so close together, that it was hard not to draw a direct line through them all. One was perhaps the easiest play to make in baseball, a short toss from shallow right field to first base. But Jose Altuve, the Houston Astros' normally sure handed second baseman, botched the throw, and it led directly to the second: a three run home run by Manuel Margot. The third play happened only a few minutes later when Margot, playing in the outfield for the Tampa Bay Rays, went tumbling over a retaining wall completely out of the playing field and onto hard cement to make one of the most spectacular and potentially dangerous plays of the season. The Rays beat the Astros, 4 2, in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series to take a commanding 2 0 lead in the series, with Game 3 on Tuesday. The Astros, who had put up plenty of scoring in their first two series, have managed only three runs in the first two games of this series, which is almost as rare as an Altuve making a throwing error something that happened twice on Monday. "Oh, no, it's not business as usual," said Astros shortstop Carlos Correa, who homered in Game 2. "Tomorrow is a must win situation for us." None Everyone Loves Ohtani: The Angels' two way star was a unanimous pick for A.L. M.V.P. and his superfans redefine devotion. Phillie Phavorite: Bryce Harper truly committed to Philadelphia and now he's back on top of baseball, winning the N.L. M.V.P. Cy Young Winners: Milwaukee's Corbin Burnes and Toronto's Robbie Ray had hit rock bottom before they worked their way up to stardom. Baseball Is Stuck in Neutral: The potential of a lockout has a star studded group of free agents waiting for the dust to settle. Free Agency Tracker: Get the latest updates on signings, contract extensions and trades. All the games in the series are being played at Petco Park, a neutral site in San Diego, because of the coronavirus pandemic, but it is familiar territory for Margot, who played four seasons for the San Diego Padres before being traded to the Rays in February. But he had never played right field in the park before, and never had to negotiate the fence down the right field line. But he became intimately acquainted with it on his highlight reel catch in the top of the second inning. With runners on second and third, Astros center fielder George Springer lifted the ball high down the line, and Margot reached over it to make the catch. But as he did so, his side hit the top of the fence, his momentum carried him over it and he disappeared down into the cement well. "Once I actually started to flip and realized it was a little bit further of a drop, I kind of got a little scared," he said in Spanish through an interpreter. But he immediately stood up, glove held high, to show an umpire he had made the catch, then collected himself briefly before running back to the dugout. He said he was unhurt other than a scrape on his leg and also noted that he thought his home run was a bigger play. Margot, like many on the Rays, is not a widely known player. A 26 year old from the Dominican Republic, he was originally signed by the Boston Red Sox in 2011 and was eventually traded to the Padres in a deal that sent the closer Craig Kimbrel to Boston in 2015. Margot hit only one home run in his first regular season with Tampa Bay, batting .269 as he persevered through personal loss. His father, Enmanuel, died in early August after contracting Covid 19, and Margot revealed on Monday that earlier this year he and his family had been involved in a frightening incident in which a fire broke out in the car they were in. "Our entire family was in the car and, thankfully, bystanders were able to pull one of my kids out," he said through the interpreter. "Luckily, I'm able to be here to tell you guys about it," he said through his interpreter. Margot and the Rays got some help on Monday from some uncharacteristic mistakes by Altuve, who did not speak to reporters after the game. But Astros Manager Dusty Baker acknowledged that he was concerned that Altuve might develop the so called yips, a mental block preventing players from making the simplest throws. "You just hope that he isn't getting the yips because invariably, they come in bunches," Baker said. "Everything comes in bunches: errors, hits, homers. I just told him to flush it. This guy has been awesome for us, but you've got to flush it and move on, or else it multiplies." After the two errors, Altuve responded with a strong throw in the seventh inning, but at one point he and Correa changed places on the defensive shift, which Correa said was to allow him to range wider in a greater space. Offensively, the Astros hit the ball extremely hard several times but were thwarted by terrific defensive plays not only by Margot, but also by Joey Wendle at third base and by Willy Adames at shortstop, plus several good stretches by the elastic first baseman Ji Man Choi. The infield defense was so good, it even outshone Margot's spectacular catch in right field, especially for those who had an obscured view of it. "Joey's defense and Willy's defense were as bright a spot as anything going for us today," said Tampa Bay Manager Kevin Cash, who could not see Margot's catch from the Rays' dugout. Adames snared two line drives, and Wendle robbed Altuve of a potential base hit, as the Rays' defenders helped the veteran pitcher Charlie Morton survive five scoreless innings. A former Astros starter, Morton said he has been the beneficiary of good defense for the past four seasons on both teams, and that included Altuve. "It allows you to go out and pitch your game with reckless abandon," Morton said. He allowed no runs in five innings and became the third A.L. pitcher to win four consecutive playoff games allowing one run or fewer, joining Masahiro Tanaka and Whitey Ford, who did it exclusively in the World Series. But Lance McCullers Jr. outpitched Morton. He struck out 11 and set down 14 in a row at one point, until catcher Mike Zunino's home run in the seventh. But the Margot homer in the first was the decisive blow, even if all three runs were unearned because of Altuve's errors.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
"My maternal grandfather, who was a humble gardener, loved Verdi and Puccini," the Danish composer Poul Ruders recalled recently. "And when I was 10 or 11, he took me first to see 'La Boheme,' and then to see 'Aida.'" "But the experience," he added, "did not turn me into an opera freak. I only know a few operas perhaps four or five." He was being either modest or mischievous: Mr. Ruders has by now composed five operas of his own. As he spoke, seated alongside Becky and David Starobin the librettists of his most recent opera, "The Thirteenth Child" in a Boston hotel room in May, Mr. Ruders, 70, was awaiting the opening of Boston Lyric Opera's starkly powerful new production of "The Handmaid's Tale" (2000), his second and most acclaimed work for the stage. "The Thirteenth Child" is an unusual entry in Mr. Ruders's acidic, politically charged operatic portfolio. Based on a lesser known Grimm fairy tale, it presents a battle between good and evil, with good triumphing, though not without cost a first for Mr. Ruders, whose earlier operas are uniformly more pessimistic. Oddly for opera, which revolves around commissions, Mr. Ruders undertook the work with no idea what company might stage it. And it was recorded before any house had even had a look at the score. These departures have to do with the Starobins, first time librettists who are better known for running Bridge Records, a respected label that focuses on new music. (Mr. Starobin is also a renowned guitarist, with specialties in contemporary and early 19th century repertoire.) The couple met Mr. Ruders at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music in 1986 and became fast friends with the composer after being impressed by a performance of his "Manhattan Abstraction." "Here was this Danish guy," Mr. Starobin recalled, "who's figured out how to describe New York City in music. There's atonal stuff, there's tonal stuff, and they're butting up against each other there's a tension between the two." Mr. Starobin commissioned a few guitar works from Mr. Ruders, and started a series devoted to the composer on Bridge; the recording of "The Thirteenth Child," released in June, was the 11th installment. In 1988, Ms. Starobin became Mr. Ruders's manager, a job that has involved arranging commissions (including his third and fourth symphonies) and suggesting, in 2013, that it was time to think about a new stage work. "We had worked out a lot of plans together," Ms. Starobin said, "and it just felt to me that it was time for Poul to write another opera. But I thought that he should write something very different from what he had written in the past. And I thought a fairy tale might lead Poul to a different area, sound wise." Until then, Mr. Ruders's operas had been focused mostly on tragic historical figures or dystopian fiction. His first, "Tycho" (1986), is about Tycho Brahe, the 16th century Danish astronomer who, despite his notable discoveries, spent his final years in exile and lived to see some of his theories upended by his assistant, Johannes Kepler. Though the score remains available from his publisher, it has not been recorded, and Mr. Ruders has all but disowned it. "It bombed, and disappeared without a trace," said Mr. Ruders, who noted that he was working with an inexperienced librettist. "I was not exactly young I was 36 but I'd never written an opera before." "The Handmaid's Tale," which brought the grim world of Margaret Atwood's novel to the opera stage without, as Ms. Atwood initially feared, turning the handmaids into a high kicking chorus line was more successful, as was its successor, "Kafka's Trial" (2005), which mixes incidents from Kafka's life with parts of his posthumous novel, "The Trial." A mixed response greeted "Selma Jezkova" (2007), the tragic story of a desperate mother who is tried and hanged for murder, inspired by the Lars von Trier film "Dancer in the Dark." These are fierce works, about struggle rather than hope, and they focus on principal characters who are at odds with those around them, and with the world. And, for the most part, these operas are etched in a searing chromatic language that suits their wrenching emotions. "The Thirteenth Child" does have its forbidding moments. The first act revolves around the paranoid King Hjarne and his greedy cousin Drokan the regent of the neighboring kingdom, who covets both Hjarne's land and his queen, Gertrude, and whose Iago like insinuations turn Hjarne against his 12 sons. Some angular vocal writing and cluster rich orchestration were inevitable. But although Hjarne and Drokan create the plot's conflicts, it is Gertrude who provides the human core, sending her sons into exile before Hjarne can have them killed, and later sending her daughter, Lyra the 13th child of the title on a quest to find them. Along the way, there is a mishap involving fantastical lilies and ravens, and a magical solution to it that requires Lyra to remain silent for seven years. Gertrude, Lyra and Frederic Drokan's selfless heir, who falls in love with Lyra are responsible for the increasingly lyrical music as the story advances. "A wall to wall atonal piece can be fantastic," Mr. Ruders said. "But if you want a foreground and background, mentally and audibly, you need this juxtaposition between tonality and chromaticism, because that's where you get the space." It was Mr. Ruders who chose "The 12 Sons," the story on which the opera is based. He sent an outline to Ms. Starobin, who began writing the libretto on her own. Mr. Starobin at first had no intention of collaborating with them. But he did have suggestions, and after a few months of batting around ideas, they realized that they were collaborating after all. Along the way, the Starobins reconfigured the Grimms' story, adding the villainous Drokan and deleting an evil second queen, Frederic's mother. "There was a really strong pull," Ms. Starobin said, "to make this about family, and how families can strengthen each other, or rip each other apart." In working with the Starobins, Mr. Ruders violated the rule he established in the aftermath of "Tycho": that his librettists be theater professionals. But Mr. Starobin had long ago gotten a practical education in musical theater from his brother, Michael Starobin, a composer and busy orchestrator for theater, film and television. "I've been following my brother's career for decades," Mr. Starobin said, "watching both the good shows he did, and the turkeys. He always knew which ones would succeed, and which had no chance, and he would enumerate his reasons." Mr. Ruders, in any case, was pleased astonished, really, given that this was the Starobins' first libretto. He said he made few suggestions, and, when he did, the revisions would arrive the next day. As it happened, Santa Fe Opera was searching for a new work for its 2019 summer season, and a finished but unheard opera by Mr. Ruders fit the bill. The company and the Odense orchestra worked out an arrangement: The opera house would present the premiere and then ship the physical production directed by Darko Tresnjak, with sets by Alexander Dodge and costumes by Rita Ryack to Denmark, where the orchestra will perform it in 2021. "There were some great advantages for us," said Brad Woolbright, the director of artistic administration in Santa Fe. "First, Poul's stature as a composer, and the success that 'Handmaid's Tale' has had. Also, it's a small cast, and it's in English. The libretto is very economical, and all of Poul's music in the opera has both a mysterious quality and a sense of resolution. I think it's a breakthrough from his darker period, and you have the Starobins to thank for that." For the librettists, though, there was some nail biting as the premiere approached. "Poul and I were at the dress rehearsal for 'The Handmaid's Tale'" in Boston, Mr. Starobin said, "and I was kind of overwhelmed. Here's a large, powerful, complex and obviously very serious piece, dealing with emotions at the very extremes. And I said, 'Our poor little piece is nothing compared to this.' But Poul said: 'No, no, no, no. 'The Thirteenth Child' is the polar opposite of this. It's a feel good piece!"	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Apple said on Tuesday that profits were flat and revenues were down in its most recent quarter, indicating a difficult road ahead for a company that five months ago became the first American firm to be valued above 1 trillion. The disappointing financial performance had been expected since Jan. 2, when Apple, for the first time in 16 years, revised its forecast for the quarter because of an economic slowdown in China and diminishing demand for new iPhones. Now, after years of expansion and record setting profits, Apple appears to be entering a period of vulnerability. While it has had some success with new products like the Apple Watch, the company has not found another product with the global impact of the iPhone, which was introduced more than a decade ago. Apple is also uniquely vulnerable to slowing consumer demand in China, as well as potential tariffs on Chinese made products. Apple's stock price is down a third since its peak last summer, and now it is worth less than several of its longtime rivals in the tech industry. Apple could face more financial pressure if the Trump administration places tariffs on phones made in China something President Trump has threatened to do. The bulk of Apple's products are made in Chinese factories. There are also new concerns about a security flaw in the iPhone. On Monday, Apple customers said an iPhone user could call someone else who had an iPhone and listen in on that person's conversations through the device's microphone even if the recipient did not answer the call. The problem was the result of a bug involving Apple's FaceTime app. The company promised to have a fix by the end of the week. Apple's total revenue for the quarter was 84.3 billion, a 5 percent drop from a year earlier and in line with the revised forecast earlier this month. Sales of iPhones, following a global trend for smartphones, have been leveling off for several years. Their revenue was 51.98 billion, a 15 percent drop from a year earlier. It's harder now to offer more specifics on iPhone sales because Apple recently stopped disclosing how many units it sells each quarter. Luca Maestri, Apple's chief financial officer, said in an interview that sales had slumped largely because current iPhone owners were waiting longer to upgrade their devices, a trend that has continued into the current quarter. He blamed fewer subsidies from wireless carriers, a strengthening United States dollar and cheaper battery upgrades that consumers have used to extend the lives of their old phones. Apple has attributed some of its issues in China to a trade war with the United States. And there is concern that some Chinese customers are shying away from Apple products out of national pride, particularly since the authorities in the United States brought charges against the Chinese telecom giant Huawei and its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou. Prosecutors cited a decade long attempt to steal trade secrets, obstruct a criminal investigation and evade economic sanctions on Iran. Let Us Help You Protect Your Digital Life None With Apple's latest mobile software update, we can decide whether apps monitor and share our activities with others. Here's what to know. A little maintenance on your devices and accounts can go a long way in maintaining your security against outside parties' unwanted attempts to access your data. Here's a guide to the few simple changes you can make to protect yourself and your information online. Ever considered a password manager? You should. There are also many ways to brush away the tracks you leave on the internet. "We did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in greater China," Timothy D. Cook, Apple's chief executive, said this month. But some data suggest Apple faces more fundamental problems with its business in China. Chinese consumers appear to be opting for less expensive but similar smartphones from Chinese makers, particularly Huawei. Some of Apple's latest phones top 1,000, far above the typical cost for its Chinese competitors. Total sales in the region that includes China were down 25 percent in the fourth quarter to 13.17 billion. Outside China, revenues increased slightly. "We've actually seen the economic situation in China continue to deteriorate over the course of the quarter," Mr. Maestri said. "From mid November onwards, we've seen a deceleration of economic activity in China." But he added that Apple had recovered some business by cutting prices in China for the iPhone XR, the lowest priced new iPhone, to offset the strengthening dollar. Apple declined to disclose the exact size of the price cut. Mr. Cook said in a call with financial analysts that he believed the iPhone's high price had hurt sales in emerging markets, and that Apple had dropped prices in a number of them.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
Dyanne Thorne in "Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS" (1975). The film and her character, a Nazi doctor with a taste for sex and torture, became cultural touchstones of sorts. Dyanne Thorne, who starred in one of the most notorious sexploitation movies of the 1970s, "Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS" a head spinning mix of Nazi fetishism, sadism and female empowerment that is still talked about by grindhouse film aficionados as well as by more serious scholars died on Jan. 28 in Las Vegas. She was 83. Her husband, Howard Maurer, said the cause was pancreatic cancer. Ms. Thorne began in show business as a singer and comedian before veering into risque movies like "Sin in the Suburbs" (1964) and a version of "Pinocchio" decidedly not for children (1971). The release of "Ilsa," though, in 1975, elevated her to an entirely different level of fame, at least among moviegoers of a certain stripe. The film and her character, a Nazi doctor with a taste for sex and torture, became cultural touchstones of sorts, inspiring, among other things, songs by several rock bands. The movie, directed by Don Edmonds, begins with Ms. Thorne's character having sex with a prisoner and then presiding over his castration, her frequent punishment for those who do not satisfy her. "This was the sweetest actor in the world that they castrated," Ms. Thorne told the website Horror Cult Films in 2011. Ilsa also conducts medical experiments on female prisoners, hoping to show that women can tolerate pain better than men and should therefore be allowed to serve in combat. The movie, shot in nine days on the studio set once used by the prisoner of war sitcom "Hogan's Heroes," became an unexpected hit, catching on overseas as well as in certain markets in the United States, including New York, when it had a long run in a then seedy Times Square. "To our surprise, 'Ilsa' went through the roof," John Dunning, a founder of Cinepix Film Properties, the production and distribution company behind the film, wrote in his memoir, "You're Not Dead Until You're Forgotten" (2014, with Bill Brownstein), adding, "It played more than a year in Brussels alone." The whip wielding Ilsa was so popular that, even though she died at the end of the movie, she was brought back for "Ilsa: Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks" (1976) and "Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia" (1977). (Ms. Thorne also starred in another film released in 1977 under various titles "Ilsa: The Wicked Warden," "Wanda: The Wicked Warden" that is sometimes regarded as a sequel and sometimes not.) Mr. Maurer said in a phone interview that Ms. Thorne, whom he married shortly after the first "Ilsa" movie was released, was simultaneously in demand and untouchable because of the reaction to "She Wolf." He ended up representing her in negotiations for the sequels because no agent would, he said. Her interests outside of acting included, perhaps incongruously, the ministry. She was an adherent of Science of Mind, a religious movement established in the 1920s by Ernest Holmes, and was an ordained nondenominational minister, Mr. Maurer said. The two of them had a wedding business in Las Vegas, with Ms. Thorne generally writing the ceremonies and Mr. Maurer, a musician, providing music. Some clients would opt for an "Ilsa wedding." "She would do it in costume, in some of the things she wore in the films that we still had," Mr. Maurer said (though never, he added, with any swastikas). "She would put in little nuances from the films that every fan recognized. Sometimes she'd use the whip. It was all done tongue in cheek." She did her last Ilsa wedding in November. She was born Dorothy Ann Seib on Oct. 14, 1936, in Park Ridge, N.J., to Henry and Dorothy (Conklin) Seib. She was raised largely by her mother, who held various jobs, including seamstress and jeweler, Mr. Maurer said. She took courses at New York University and studied acting, including with the teacher Uta Hagen, he said. The theater was her first interest. She was a "Casino Cutie" in the original cast of "This Was Burlesque," a revue that opened at the Casino East Theater in Manhattan in 1962 and ran for more than 1,000 performances before transferring to Broadway in 1965 (although by then Ms. Thorne was no longer in the cast).	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Tracing how women have been depicted in art history as objects of purity or desire, Diana Al Hadid will exhibit new architecturally scaled sculptures riffing off timeworn female types at Madison Square Park in New York this May. Titled "Delirious Matter," the show will be the first major outdoor public art project for Ms. Al Hadid, a Syrian born, Brooklyn based artist, and will open in tandem with the presentation of her monumental 2012 sculpture "Nolli's Orders" at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Known for her organic looking plaster sculptures that can appear to be simultaneously eroding and growing, Ms. Al Hadid is making two 14 foot tall lacy wall fragments framed by hedgerows that create an outdoor room visitors can enter. One wall section is based on Hans Memling's painting "Allegory of Chastity" (circa 1475), in which a woman with arms folded politely seems bound at the waist by a mountain that also looks like her skirt. The facing segment is modeled on "Gradiva," a Roman bas relief of a woman in midstride with swirling drapery that was elevated to a figure of fixation through the writings of Wilhelm Jensen and Sigmund Freud.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
The Italian conductor Gianandrea Noseda, whose American career has taken off in recent years with his appointment as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington and with high profile performances at the Metropolitan Opera, announced on Thursday that he was leaving the Teatro Regio Torino, the Italian opera house he has helped restore to prominence over the past decade. It was the latest instance of a renowned Italian conductor finding disharmony at an Italian opera house: In 2005, Riccardo Muti resigned from the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Mr. Noseda, 54, said in a statement that he had been told that the Teatro Regio, which has been going through administrative upheaval this year, had canceled its planned tour of the United States next spring, which would have taken it to Carnegie Hall, Chicago and Washington. Carnegie confirmed that the Teatro Regio had informed it that the company was canceling its United States tour. The Teatro Regio appointed a new superintendent, William Graziosi, this week, which means Mr. Noseda would have had to reapply to keep his post as music director, the position he has held since 2007. Instead, he took his name out of contention, calling the theater's recent actions "disappointing and disheartening."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
IN BRIEF When Pam Jenoff introduces herself to a new group of students at Rutgers Law School, she doesn't usually talk about what she's up to outside the classroom. But at some point during the year, a prospective lawyer might mention that a relative is reading one of her books and that's when Jenoff will open up about her other career as the best selling author of 10 novels, with another on the way in May. Recently, her sophomore effort, "The Diplomat's Wife," was reissued with a new cover and popped up at No. 14 on the trade paperback list. The book was published in 2008, so its sudden stardom was an "utter surprise," one Jenoff attributes to the tireless support of independent booksellers. Of her day job, Jenoff says, "I bring a lot of fiction writing techniques into the legal writing in my classroom. And I also tell my students that if they're too shy to show me their work, they should go on Goodreads or Amazon and read all the cruddy things people say about mine. I actually tell them to go do that."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
The Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday that it was seeking court orders to stop two clinics from using unapproved stem cell treatments that in some cases have seriously harmed patients. The clinics remove fat from patients' bellies by liposuction and then inject an extract of it into various parts of the body like knees or the spinal cord, on the theory that the extract contains stem cells that can provide replacement cells that will repair the damage from injury or illness. The agency filed two complaints seeking permanent injunctions in federal court, one against U.S. Stem Cell Clinic L.L.C. of Sunrise, Fla.; its chief scientific officer, Kristin Comella; and its co owner and managing officer, Theodore Gradel. The second complaint was against the California Stem Cell Treatment Center, with locations in Rancho Mirage and Beverly Hills; the Cell Surgical Network Corporation of Rancho Mirage; and Dr. Elliot B. Lander and Dr. Mark Berman. The U.S. Stem Cell Clinic marketed stem cell products to patients without F.D.A. approval and "while violating current good manufacturing practice requirements, including some that could impact the sterility of their products, putting patients at risk," the F.D.A. said in a statement. The agency said it was acting because the U.S. Stem Cell Clinic did not address violations outlined in a warning letter from the F.D.A. last August. Three patients lost their sight after the material extracted from fat by the U.S. Stem Cell Clinic was injected directly into their eyes in 2015 to treat macular degeneration. During an interview in 2017, Ms. Comella said the clinic did not need F.D.A. approval because it was treating patients with their own cells, which are not a drug. In response to the F.D.A. injunction filings on Wednesday, Ms. Comella issued a statement that said, in part: "It is my life's work to pioneer regenerative medicine and educate the public about its healing potential. I remain steadfast that no government agency should deprive individuals of their right to harness the cells that exist in their body." In the complaint against the California Stem Cell Treatment Center, the F.D.A. said it had acted in August to prevent the use of a "potentially dangerous and unproven treatment belonging to StemImmune Inc. in San Diego," and given to patients at the clinics in Rancho Mirage and Beverly Hills. In August, United States marshals, acting on behalf of the F.D.A., seized vials of smallpox vaccine that was being used to create a stem cell product that was being given to cancer patients at the California clinics. The product posed a risk to those patients of inflammation of the heart and surrounding tissues, the agency said. The California center trains other physicians in how to extract stem cells and has affiliates around the country. A Florida woman, Doris Tyler, lost her sight after being treated at an affiliate, the Ageless Wellness Center in Peachtree City, Ga. Cells from her fat were injected into both eyes. Dr. Berman said that many people had been helped by his clinic and that he had tried to work out a compromise with the F.D.A. but was unable to do so. He also said he believed the cells that are harvested from individuals do not constitute a drug and should not be regulated as such. In its statement, the F.D.A. also said that both the U.S. Stem Cell Clinic and the California Stem Cell Treatment Center were using cell extracts to treat serious conditions including Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease but that their products were not approved for any use. The F.D.A. oversight of stem cell therapies and regenerative medicine is still in flux. In August, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the agency's commissioner, called the field one of the most promising areas of science and medicine, holding great promise for some of the world's most intractable illnesses. He vowed that the F.D.A. would ease the path to approval for researchers and companies that were developing legitimate treatments a program authorized by Congress in the 21st Century Cures Act. At the same time, however, Dr. Gottlieb vowed to crack down on clinics making hollow claims and marketing unsafe treatments. He also announced the action against the California Stem Cell Treatment Centers in Rancho Mirage and Beverly Hills and against the U.S. Stem Cell Clinic. In November, the F.D.A. continued work along both themes. The agency acknowledged the difficulty in pursuing rogue clinics and suggested that consumers check up on stem cell clinics before receiving treatment.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
In mid March, as the coronavirus raged across New York, Washington State, California and New Jersey, and the crisis in personal protection equipment shortages grew, Dov Charney of Los Angeles Apparel was one of the first clothing retailers to step into the void. In reopening his Los Angeles factory to produce face masks, Mr. Charney, the former chief executive of American Apparel who was ousted amid allegations of misuse of funds and knowingly allowing sexual harassment, was transformed from industry pariah to champion. Los Angeles Apparel, his new company, was deemed an essential business. The federal government became a client, Mr. Charney said. The long road to redemption seemed, suddenly, much shorter. But on July 10, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health ordered Mr. Charney's manufacturing facility to close: An investigation found over 300 confirmed infections among the garment workers, and four deaths. Three of the deaths were in June, and one in July. In a news release detailing the closure, the health department cited "flagrant violations of mandatory public health infection control orders" and failure "to cooperate with DPH's investigation of a reported COVID 19 outbreak." This is one of the first forced closures of a factory in Los Angeles because of coronavirus related outbreaks, according to Jan King, the regional health officer for South and West Los Angeles. Though the health department conducts numerous investigations, they are usually resolved through action with the companies involved. "Business owners and operators have a corporate, moral and social responsibility to their employees and their families to provide a safe work environment that adheres to all of the health officer directives this responsibility is important, now more than ever, as we continue to fight this deadly virus," said Barbara Ferrer, the director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, in a statement about the closure, which contained a timeline of the investigation. In a phone call, Mr. Charney called the announcement "media theatrics," and said: "I don't think that press release represents the point of view of the people I am working with at the department of health. Some of them have apologized to me. It's not truthful." He also issued a lengthy statement of his own in response, which stated, in part: "In all fairness, it's morally irresponsible for the Health Department to speak on the infection rates at our factory without also addressing its connection to the issue at large: that the Latino community in Los Angeles is left vulnerable to Covid 19 in a healthcare system that provides no support with testing and no support or assistance for those that test positive." Now both Mr. Charney and the health department say they are working together to resolve the issues so the facility can reopen and business (and employment) can continue; both say their only concern is for the safety of the workers. Who should get a booster shot? It depends, Dr. Scott Gottlieb says. Virginia's new lieutenant governor elect says she won't force vaccines. However, the drama is playing out under a spotlight, because of Mr. Charney's complicated professional history, and because of recent revelations about the Los Angeles garment sector. The phrase "Made in the U.S.A." is often considered as a shorthand for products that are ethically made. But reports over the last years of sweatshop conditions and salary levels including an investigation by The New York Times into factories in Los Angeles that supply the fast fashion brand Fashion Nova have upended that myth. Los Angeles Apparel opened in 2016, and employs just under 2,000 workers in three buildings according to Mr. Charney. Since the coronavirus began, they have produced, Mr. Charney said, more than 10 million masks, about 80 percent of which have gone to government agencies. Mr. Charney said all employees had been wearing face coverings, and that machines were spaced six feet apart. He said the equipment and the space were regularly disinfected, and that the company had been regularly testing employees for the last five weeks. On June 19, a nurse contacted the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health about a potential outbreak at Los Angeles Apparel, according to officials. The health department opened an investigation, which included a request that the company send over a list of all employees a request the health department said was not met even after multiple appeals. On June 26, the health department conducted a site visit, and the next day the factory was closed. According to Ms. King, the violations discovered included cardboard barriers between worker stations, and coronavirus guidance materials that had not been translated into Spanish (the first language of most of the employees). An official also found a lack of training on health protocols such that, when asked by a physician, the employee who was supposed to be screening fellow employees for symptoms could not list what they were even though they were posted on the wall behind the employee. The Landscape of the Post Pandemic Return to Office None Delta variant delays. A wave of the contagious Delta variant is causing companies to reconsider when they will require employees to return, and what health requirements should be in place when they do. A generation gap. While workers of all ages have become accustomed to dialing in and skipping the wearying commute, younger ones have grown especially attached to the new way of doing business. This is causing some difficult conversations between managers and newer hires. How to keep offices safe. Handwashing is a simple way to reduce the spread of disease, but employers should be thinking about improved ventilation systems, creative scheduling and making sure their building is ready after months of low use. Return to work anxiety. Remote work brought many challenges, particularly for women of color. But going back will also mean a return to microaggressions, pressure to conform to white standards of professionalism, and high rates of stress and burnout. While some of the infractions were minor, Ms. King said, there was a sense the company was not taking seriously the documents the health department had sent that listed the changes that need to be made. As a result, the investigation team went from one person to around 10. The factory reopened briefly on July 9 before being forced to close again. Mr. Charney disputed almost all of these facts. He said that it was the company itself that first alerted the health department to the situation; that the company had been making best efforts to provide the employee list requested but that there were privacy issues involved; that the cardboard was in addition to social distancing regulations (and had been recommended by a consultant because the virus does not live long on cardboard). He also said that it was the responsibility of the health department to translate their documents into Spanish not the responsibility of the company. The legal department of the health department, he said, had told him the factory could reopen on July 9, though Ms. King said a written document permitting reopening was required first. Mr. Charney attributed the confusion to "miscommunication" in an overburdened department.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
A look at this glistening blue blob floating through the cosmos could give that impression. But what looks like a celestial mix of soap and water is actually something much dirtier: a colossal cloud of dust and gas. An image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, shows the aptly named Bubble Nebula, which is some 8,000 light years away. Astronomers at NASA and the European Space Agency released the photo on Thursday to celebrate the 26th anniversary of the telescope's launch, which is Sunday.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
A Muslim, an Orthodox Jew and a religious Christian walked into a room, but it wasn't a bar and this was no joke. On the contrary, representatives from each of the Abrahamic religions had gathered during fashion month at New York University for the Meeting Through Modesty fashion symposium to discuss something they take very seriously: modest style. A generous smattering of hijabs, skullcaps and discreet wigs were spread throughout the room, along with Proenza Schouler skirts and Rachel Comey shoes. "There's a general misconception that modest clothing is inherently oppressive," said Michelle Honig, the keynote speaker and an Orthodox Jewish fashion journalist. "But if women in so called 'liberated countries' still choose to cover their bodies, then they have made a choice. They have agency." Ms. Honig had layered a Tanya Taylor top and Marc by Marc Jacobs skirt under a striped Prada dress to keep her elbows and knees concealed, in addition to wearing a wig to keep her head covered, per Orthodox custom. Interpretations of modesty differ across religious boundaries and even within them. "Modesty" in a Muslim context may be expressed by wearing loosefitting pants and covering one's head with a hijab, while an Orthodox Jewish woman may wear skirts or dresses only and cover her head with a wig. Christian women, like the swimwear designer Jessica Rey, may express their vision of modesty by eschewing bikinis in favor of bathing suits that expose their legs but cover their midriffs. Still, the shared interest in staying relatively covered up while still looking stylish is enough to connect women across religious, racial and cultural boundaries. Many of them cite devotion to God and a desire to present themselves as "more than a collection of body parts," in Ms. Rey's words, as the motivation behind their affinity for modest dress. "Making connections with other Christians, as well as Muslim and Jewish women, has probably been the most exciting benefit of blogging," says Liz Roy, a Christian who runs the personal style blog Downtown Demure. "We all have different standards for modesty, but we share this common goal, which can be a bit contradictory to secular standards." These connections have the potential to yield more than just warm, fuzzy feelings, according to the Jewish Orthodox sisters Simi and Chaya Gestetner of the modest indie label the Frock. While they enjoy the personal connections they build with customers of any faith (including their Orthodox neighbors in Brooklyn and their Mormon fans in Salt Lake City), they also see the mobilization of the modest fashion community as a real boon for business. The sisters report seeing a significant increase in sales every time the Jewish Orthodox street style star Adi Heyman posts Instagram images of herself wearing their pieces, often mixed with separates from brands like Gucci or Chanel. Since Ms. Heyman's blog, Fabologie, flows from her desire to find more modest options in mainstream fashion, the continued success of brands like the Frock is something she is deeply invested in. And while linking commerce and religion may seem distasteful to some, modest fashion entrepreneurs like Melanie Elturk see it as a natural way to live out their faith and serve their communities. Ms. Elturk, a former lawyer who founded the online retailer Haute Hijab in 2010, uses her online following to offer style inspiration and practical resources to young Muslim women who are seeking to honor the tradition of wearing hijabs in the face of cultural pushback. "I have a whole network of psychiatrists, therapists, social workers and community leaders who I put in touch with girls who are struggling so they can hash out any issues," said Ms. Elturk, whose responsive social media presence engages many younger followers. "I want to see a thriving community of girls who are proud to wear hijab." Like many of her peers across religious lines, she would argue that modesty is required of both men and women, and that it's as much about how one carries oneself as how one dresses. And like Ms. Rey, whose line is made in America, Ms. Elturk would assert that her religious beliefs have made her as committed to ethical production as she is to modesty in fashion. But perhaps the greatest point of consensus about modest fashion across a range of faiths is that it need not be experienced as a limiting factor in style or in life. At the N.Y.U. panel, the Indonesian designer Dian Pelangi showed a video by Hijup, a Muslim fashion store, that showcased herself, a member of a hard core band known for social critique and a martial artist who all pursue their passions while wearing the hijab. Ms. Honig chimed in with anecdotes about her experiences sky diving, rock climbing and rappelling while wearing a skirt, asserting that while it may not be easy to participate in certain activities while honoring strict modesty dictates, "it's possible." "You want to experience life," Ms. Honig said. "Modesty shouldn't hold you back."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
They arrive in California each winter, an undulating ribbon of orange and black. There, migrating western monarch butterflies nestle among the state's coastal forests, traveling from as far away as Idaho and Utah only to return home in the spring. This year, though, the monarchs' flight seems more perilous than ever. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit group that conducts a yearly census of the western monarch, said the population reached historic lows in 2018, an estimated 86 percent decline from the previous year. That in itself would be troubling news. But, combined with a 97 percent decline in the total population since the 1980s, this year's count is "potentially catastrophic," according to the biologist Emma Pelton. "We think this is a huge wake up call," said Ms. Pelton, who oversees the survey and lives in Portland, Ore. The society has preliminary counts from 97 sites, most of them along California's coast, representing an area that traditionally accounts for nearly 77 percent of the state's winter monarch population. In 2017, the sites hosted about 148,000 monarchs. But in 2018, that dropped to an estimated 20,456 monarchs, with large numbers of them counted in Pismo Beach, Big Sur and Pacific Grove. In November volunteers fan out across California's coastal cities to find and count the monarch population. Ms. Pelton said the total count could be higher once final numbers from the census arrive next week. Monarchs in the western part of the United States migrate for the winter to California, where they gather mostly among fragrant eucalyptus trees, which provide hospitable living conditions. Monarchs from the eastern part of the United States, by contrast, winter in Mexico. Ms. Pelton said the count of eastern monarchs had not been released. Ms. Pelton warns that if nothing is done to preserve the western monarchs and their habitat, the butterflies could face extinction. In a 2017 study, scientists estimated that the monarch butterfly population in western North America had a 72 percent chance of becoming near extinct in 20 years if the monarch population trend was not reversed. One of the study's researchers, Cheryl Schultz, an associate professor at Washington State University Vancouver, said at the time that an estimated 10 million monarchs spent the winter in coastal California in the 1980s. Butterflies are important because they quickly respond to ecological changes and serve as a warning about an ecosystem's health, Ms. Pelton said. They pollinate flowers, too. Monarchs require milkweed, a herbaceous plant that grows throughout the United States and Mexico, for breeding and migration. Acreage of milkweed, though, has been declining in recent years because of pesticide use and urban development, Ms. Pelton said. "A lawn does not provide a home for a butterfly," she said. "It doesn't help to raise them in your house, either." Harsher than usual weather, too, has threatened the monarch's existence. From 2011 to 2017, California had one of its worst droughts on record, which led to ecological devastation among fishing communities and forested towns. In 2016, for example, the United States Forest Service estimated that 62 million trees died in the state. Last year the state experienced the deadliest wildfire season in its history, with residents affected from Redding to Los Angeles. Ms. Pelton said the trend could reverse if citizens and governments act now. Gardeners, for one, can plant milkweed to support the surviving monarchs. And towns could help local habitats thrive by planting new trees now so that in 20 years, generations of monarchs have new places to winter. "We don't think it is too late to act," she said. "But everyone needs to step up their effort."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Intricacy is often matched with simplicity, but there's a recurring sense of paradox. Just what are we seeing? Moment by moment, the answer changes. The music, taped, covers several centuries, starting with two of Thomas Ades's "Three Studies After Couperin" (2010), moving on to two works by Debussy ("Syrinx" and "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun"), and then, after a transitional duet to the Sarabande from Bach's Cello Suite No. 4 in E flat (BWV 1010), ending with Suite No. 2 from Ravel's "Daphnis and Chloe." Mr. Andersen's musicality is among the most subtle facets of his talent; he often avoids the most obvious pulse in the music, but he catches many layers. "Syrinx" is all female, both ritualistic and rapturous. The "Faun," one of the two finest sections of "Round," is all male; and what's remarkable is how a dance that could so easily tip over into soft core pornography (nine men in just their undies) stays calmly chaste and indeed classical. The men here are at ease with nature, and we see them lifted, walking on air, descending spiral staircases, climbing steps, plunging into flight. Although the focus is often on a male soloist, it sometimes shifts to a different dancer, creating a marvelous ambiguity of identity that is one of the work's most haunting accomplishments. The Bach dance is a male female duet in which an enigmatic relationship keeps us in suspense. The behavior is both formal and intimate; the woman seems both the mother and playmate of the man. He lies in her lap; they run around the stage with his waist wound in her arm; and in one phrase, he tenderly pushes her backward with his head aimed at her stomach. The other highlight, is the "Daphnis and Chloe" finale. This begins with the evening's most wonderfully complex passage, with the ensemble fragmented into five or more different groups, all musically motivated and all in changing geometries. Gradually a kind of story emerges Daphnis and Chloe are reunited by a god but it's abstracted, multiplied. There are two Daphnises and two Chloes, and sometimes they dance different duets at the same time, all within a larger community.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Credit...Clifford Prince King for The New York Times Was Lydia Grant, the dance teacher Debbie Allen played in both the film and television versions of "Fame," really a fictional character? Wielding a cane in homage to one of Ms. Allen's own ballet teachers, Madame Tatiana Semenova Grant tells her students: "You've got big dreams; you want fame. Well, fame costs, and right here is where you start paying; in sweat." To my great delight, Ms. Allen shares that no nonsense perspective it's not about coddling. The new film "Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker" is certainly about the vibrant and charming reimagining of the holiday classic that the Debbie Allen Dance Academy presents each season. But it is just as much about Ms. Allen herself. It shows that this dancer, actor, choreographer and director is also something else: an educator, and a formidable one at that. In doing so, the movie provides an unvarnished look at Ms. Allen's tough love approach to running a dance academy. "I know some of you still need to learn how to point your toes and your feet," she says at the start of the film. "But none of that will come if you don't learn how to be quiet and listen!" At her academy, in Los Angeles, technique is offered in many genres, but the training is more expansive than just learning steps. Ms. Allen's students study dance history; they must know about the choreographers Katherine Dunham and Bob Fosse; but they also must know about the artist Jean Michel Basquiat because, to her, understanding dance is about understanding all the arts. "They have to know everything about 'West Side Story,' the quintessential American musical," Ms. Allen, 70, said in a phone interview. "Who is Irene Sharaff, the great costume designer? These are things that will get lost, and I want my young people to speak the language of dance anywhere on the planet. And they do." At the first audition in the documentary, she tells some young girls that they need more training before they will get a part in the show. A moment later, she consoles a sobbing girl while simultaneously studying a sheet of paper. "You just need more class," she says. "It hurts my feelings, too." (Love.) To a group of teenage girls on the floor, their legs parted in a straddle, Ms. Allen stresses that they won't make it to the next level by "going around to the mall and being cute in heels." She tells them: "Take those high heels off and get down on the floor and stretch." (Tough.) Ms. Allen doesn't need a script to be a quote machine. She recently spoke about her own journey as a student, her twist on "The Nutcracker," and why dance and all of the arts should be considered essential. What follows are edited excerpts from the conversation. The director of "Dance Dreams," Oliver Bokelberg, has a daughter at your school. How did the project begin? He wanted to capture a few pictures and before you knew it he was there all the time. And then one day he said, "Debbie, can I put on this microphone?" I said, "Oliver, get out of my way, you can't interrupt me!" And then I honestly would forget that he was in there. He was shooting all the time. It's real cinema verite, where you're a fly on the wall. I was true to what the moment needed. And when the students needed to be blasted for coming in late or not working hard enough, it's what I do, it's how I train them every day. Why was it important for you to feature so many children in your "Nutcracker"? In the middle of a traditional "Nutcracker," my son screamed out loud, "Mom, when is the rat coming?" So I knew they wanted to see a rat. I decided to let the rats take over the story. I created these characters that kind of take you through the journey. But more important, I focus on the young performers because I wanted to create something where they would see themselves on that stage. You're busy with other projects, including your work on "Grey's Anatomy" (acting, directing and as a producer). Why is having a dance school so important to you? I had to send my child Vivian across the country to go to the Kirov School in Washington because there was no school here that I thought was the right kind of school. She was there for several years. And when she finally called home crying, I was like, OK, that's it. Vivian was told she could never be a classical dancer. It was time to have a school. I call it an academy. Something that they would commit to. And if they would commit, I would commit. I have missed directing so many movies or starring in this or starring in that because of the children. I just missed doing something with Lin Manuel Miranda . But I can't leave my kids. And this is something that helped me when I was young. In the film, you speak about the racial injustice you faced in studying to become a ballet dancer. What do you hope for in terms of more equality in dance? I don't just hope, I do. I create an environment that is welcoming to every person who has the spirit of the dance in them regardless of their body type or their ethnicity or their economic background. I'm curious about your time in New York and when you discovered choreographers outside of ballet, like Martha Graham. What was that like? I discovered them when I was at Howard University. I was a freshman, and my mother feared I might get lost in the academia and the fraternities and the cultural richness of it all. So she found a dance festival in New London, Connecticut. Martha Graham was there. Twyla Tharp was there. Donald McKayle was there. Katherine Dunham's protege Talley Beatty was there. Alvin Ailey was there. In one summer. Can you imagine what that was like? Judith Jamison and Dudley Williams wanted me to join Alvin Ailey because I was killing that "Revelations." Alvin said, "She's too young," and I'm like, "No, I'm not, I'm not." Laughs I was 17, and I was ready to drop out of college and, oh God, did I want to go. But that was the beginning. By the time I graduated from Howard and stepped foot on the street they called Broadway, I was in class with Richard Thomas he and his wife ran the New York School of Ballet. You'd look up and Margot Fonteyn would be in class. Nureyev would be in class. New York, my God, it was a training camp. I remember auditioning for a show and not being chosen. And at the end of the audition, the director came over to me and told me how talented I was, but that he didn't need another brunette in the show. And we know what that is code for. OK? So what I'm passing on and giving to my kids is that they know they belong everywhere. Because isn't passing on that confidence what helps to make a dancer, too? Yes, it is. You can go run the world. You could train as a dancer and go to Washington, honey, and pull that thing together. I always say I wish I could put them all in dance class right now and get this mess straightened out. What would dance class do? It would remind them that there's something more powerful than they are. And that it's not just you. When you're dancing in the ensemble, you have to be a part, and if you're the leader of that group, then you have to absolutely know where you're going. Everyone's following you. You cannot take the wrong step and end up in the pit.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Yao Li in an undated photo. She began singing in the 1930s and became one of the "seven great singing stars of Shanghai," performing and recording in wartime. Yao Li, a celebrated singer in Shanghai in the midst of war in the 1930s and '40s, whose music remained popular after she moved to Hong Kong when China turned communist, died on July 19. She was 96. The death was reported by the newspapers Ming Pao in Hong Kong and The Malay Mail in Kuala Lumpur. No other details were given. Ms. Yao was called "the silver voice" in Shanghai, her music influenced by jazz and Chinese folk. She was not famous well beyond Asia, but at least two of her songs made an impact in the United States. An English language version of one of her hits, "Rose, Rose, I Love You" (1940), was recorded by the American singer Frankie Laine in 1951 and rose to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. And last year, "Ren Sheng Jiu Shi Xi" (or "Life Is Just a Play"), which she released in Hong Kong in 1959, was used on the soundtrack of Jon M. Chu's romantic comedy "Crazy Rich Asians" (2018), a movie about a New Yorker who travels to Singapore to meet her boyfriend's wealthy family. With her soft, high voice, Ms. Yao was long referred to as one of the seven great singing stars of Shanghai, along with her idol, Zhou Xuan, who was known as "the olden voice." The music of Shanghai bore not only the rhythms of jazz, but also global sounds like Cuban rumba and the Hawaiian steel guitar. Ms. Yao thrived in that milieu, working at times with her brother, Yao Min, a leading songwriter with whom she also sang duets. "They created a modern Chinese popular music that moved elegantly between swing, the blues, Hollywood standards and Chinese folk," Andrew F. Jones, who teaches modern Chinese literature and media culture at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in an email, "while incorporating traces of many other styles and sounds from the multinational soundscape of colonial era Shanghai." She continued to record after the outbreak of the Second Sino Japanese War in 1937 and during Japan's occupation of Chinese cities through 1945. One number, "Congratulations" (1946), sung by Ms. Yao and her brother, became a familiar song to celebrate the Chinese New Year. But it was also a commentary on the defeat of Japan in World War II, Professor Jones said. "The song's rather melancholy tone," he wrote, "reflects both the exhaustion and misery wrought by eight years of Japanese occupation" and the distress that ensued over the social unrest and civil war that engulfed China in the wake of the Allied victory. Ms. Yao (whose name was sometimes spelled Yao Lee) was born on Sept. 3, 1922, and raised in Shanghai. As a girl in the early 1930s she listened to Zhou on the radio but was too poor to buy her records. Ms. Yao herself began singing on the radio at 13 at least once on a program with Zhou and signed her first contract, with Pathe Records, a part of EMI, three years later. She became a popular nightclub attraction. "Big movie stars like Li Lihua would come every Sunday to watch me perform and request specific songs," she recalled in an interview in 2013 with The Glass, a cultural magazine. She married Huang Baoluo in the late 1940s but did not stay in Shanghai much longer. The Communist Party took power in 1949 and, fearing that she might have to endure re education by the new regime, she fled to Hong Kong with her husband the next year. "I was so scared and very sad," she told The Glass. "I thought my life, and career, were finished." They were not. The musical world of Shanghai was largely recreated in Hong Kong, which was then a British colony. EMI opened offices there and invited her and other Pathe artists to record. She also started working in the film industry, providing vocals that were lip synced by the actress Chung Ching in a series of pictures, including "Songs of the Peach Blossom River" (1956). By then Ms. Yao had begun to emulate the pop and country singer Patti Page by deepening her voice. She continued to sing into the mid 1960s. After her brother's death, in 1967, she took an executive job at EMI. Information about her survivors was not available. Ms. Yao stopped making records, she said, because of the encroachment of modern studio technology.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Apple unveiled a new series of Mac computers on Tuesday that use processors it created for the first time. Since 2005, Apple has relied on Intel to make the processors that underpin Apple's laptops and desktop computers, meaning those computers used virtually the same chips as many other PCs. The move away from Intel was the latest sign of the growing power and independence of the technology industry's largest companies. Apple is large enough and rich enough to design and make those chips itself. Apple has already made the chips inside iPhones, iPads and the Apple Watch, and now it creates essentially all major parts of the Mac, from the software to the hardware to the components that power the computer. Apple had announced the transition in June, and said then that it would show off the first Macs with Apple processors later this year. Apple said on Thursday that it was making "a family of chips" and that it would take two years to transition all of its Mac computers to the new components. Apple announced new Macbook Air and Macbook Pro laptops, as well as a new Mac mini desktop computer. All of the computers went on sale on Tuesday.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
Shortly before Halloween in 2018, an administrative building at Glacier Bay National Park Preserve in Alaska began to sprout a beard. But the strands that composed the furry fringe weren't fine brown hairs. They were the spindly legs of hundreds of tightly clustered daddy longlegs, letting their glorious gams dangle free. Park officials snapped photos of the spookily well timed growth and posted them to Facebook and Twitter, and shared them again this sinister season, terrifying onlookers anew. The ability of Opiliones species, also known as harvestmen, to form these woolly knots has fascinated arachnid enthusiasts for years. But "we still don't really know what triggers these aggregations," said Mercedes Burns, an evolutionary biologist who studies the eight legged creatures at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values . It is separate from the newsroom. After years of passively watching nationalist governments in Hungary and Poland undermine democratic rule, the European Union finally drew the line this year and declared that disbursements from the E.U. budget and a special coronavirus relief fund would be contingent on each member's adherence to the rule of law. Hungary and Poland have shamelessly retaliated by threatening to veto the Union's next seven year budget, emergency funds and all, unless the condition is scrapped. The governments in Budapest and Warsaw couched their defiance with their usual plaints that the bloc was behaving like their former Soviet overlords. "This is not why we created the European Union, so that there would be a second Soviet Union," declared Viktor Orban, the proudly illiberal prime minister of Hungary. But such posturing has long been discredited, especially as both right wing governments have happily reaped huge subsidies from the European Union. The cynical reactions of Mr. Orban and the right wing Law and Justice government in Warsaw demonstrated how far they have strayed from the fundamental principles they signed on to when they joined the European Union. They make no bones about it: Hungarian and Polish officials recently met to set up a joint institute to combat the "suppression of opinions by liberal ideology." Mr. Orban in particular has systematically worked to curtail the independence of the judiciary, bring the press to heel and curb civil society. With Fidesz, his nationalist party, in full control of Parliament, he took advantage of the coronavirus pandemic in March to assume broad and open ended emergency powers that effectively allow him to rule by decree for as long as he wants. Poland's Law and Justice Party, run from behind the curtain by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has faced more opposition and so has moved more slowly, but in the same direction, and with the same illiberal zeal. Its latest effort was to have the Constitutional Court, packed with followers, sharply narrow already restricted access to abortion in Poland last month. An eruption of protests which are continuing forced the government to delay implementing the decision. The European Union has long been cognizant of the illiberal drift of this duo, but the focus on unanimity in E.U. decision making rendered it largely powerless to do anything about it. Hungary and Poland are the only two countries in the history of the Union to have been investigated by the executive arm of the bloc, the European Commission, under Article 7 of the Union treaty, which authorizes suspension of a member's voting rights if it is found in "serious breach" of E.U. values. Actually doing so would require a unanimous vote by the rest of the Union, and either Hungary or Poland would block punishment of the other. Withholding funds from wayward members, by contrast, would not require unanimity. The budget, however, does, so that's where Hungary and Poland made their stand. If the 1.8 trillion euro ( 2.1 trillion) budget is blocked, E.U. rules allow for some emergency spending, but the sorely needed, and painfully negotiated, EUR750 billion emergency stimulus package would be delayed, dealing a serious blow to a continent in the grips of a major second wave of the coronavirus, and especially Spain and Italy, the hardest hit E.U. members. Though Hungary and Poland would also lose, they are betting that they can outbluff the rest. So far, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, whose country currently holds the bloc's rotating presidency, has been reluctant to enter into an open war with Mr. Orban or Mr. Kaczynski. After a video conference of E.U. leaders on Thursday including Mr. Orban and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland Ms. Merkel declared only that it was "a serious problem that we have to solve and we will work hard and earnestly on it." That work should focus on compelling Hungary and Poland to back down. Whatever other disagreements E.U. members may harbor and, as Britain's exit showed, these are many and deep the concept of the Union as a community of democratic values has remained at its heart. If Hungary and Poland succeed in what amounts to blackmail, other wavering members Slovenia, for one, has already signaled that it is sympathetic to their cause would follow suit, and liberal democracy would suffer a major setback. It is not by chance that Mr. Orban, in particular, has openly lauded President Trump and has found common cause with the likes of Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan or Mr. Trump's former political strategist Steve Bannon. The European Union has finally found a lever to compel members to hew to the fundamental tenet of Western democracy, the rule of law. The Union must make clear that it is prepared to use it.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
Imagine that its two iconic shells have shrunk into a collar, fringed with jagged teeth, which it uses to gnaw through wood. Imagine that its digestive tract and most of the rest of its organs have gotten pushed out the backdoor of the shell, forming a long streamer of flesh that it keeps safe by burrowing into the wood it eats. And imagine that it is larded with symbiotic bacteria that aid the creature in the digestion of all that wood. Congratulations: You have arrived at the shipworm. Shipworms and their bizarre wood eating lifestyle loomed large in the fears of sailors for centuries, as they can send a vessel to the bottom with little more than concerted munching. Even today they can bring structures with wood pilings under them, like Pier 5 in Brooklyn, to their knees. But they are also intriguing as potential sources for new antibiotics, among other things, which led a team of researchers last year to a river mouth in the Philippines where they pulled up a piece of wood that turned out to contain a new species of shipworm, which they named Tamilokus mabinia. Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. The discovery, which was reported in the journal PeerJ on Thursday, occurred during a feverish episode of wading through mangroves and scuba diving in coastal waters looking for wood that contained shipworm burrows. The team brought their finds to the parking lot of a beachgoers' hotel, where, wearing headlamps and wielding axes, they extracted the worms and brought them up to their hotel rooms cum biology labs. "It's not what you expect when you book your beach holidays to see people doing this," said Reuben Shipway of Northeastern University, one of the study's co authors. But working quickly allowed the team, known as the Philippine Mollusk Symbiont International Collaborative Biodiversity Group, to identify, photograph and begin the process of sequencing the DNA of the animals and their bacterial symbionts right away.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Plenty of restaurants draw a crowd, not because of their cuisine but because of their star studded clientele. But that does not mean diners are in for great people watching at the risk of a lackluster meal. "The line is meant to be tongue in cheek," said Nicholas Gurney, who opened the restaurant last January with Tapos Singha, its chef, who is a Bangladesh native. "Since it's not the sort of place where celebrities flock, we thought it was funny." Lucky for these two, noncelebrities have flocked for the real attraction: the A list dishes put out by Mr. Singha that celebrate the street food of his youth. He always adds a twist, as in his favorite, inspired by the spicy omelets he ate as a child: a duck egg version with blue swimmer crabs, green chiles, grape tomatoes and garlic chives. Or a wagyu tri tip curry with chive flowers and shatkora. The rind of that last ingredient, a citrus fruit from Bangladesh, gives the dish a slightly sour flavor. "In Sydney, the trend is for waiters to wear white T shirts and neutral aprons," Mr. Gurney said. "But we wanted to counter that with a more unique look."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
As Perry Como used to tell us, "No matter how far away you roam / For the holidays you can't beat home sweet home." And all the more so if there are attractive books on the coffee table. Suitable for presentation under the tree, menorah or even a candelabra, these 10 tomes present an escape up, up and away from the pall of politics and toward the more palatable allure of, say, pearls. "The Pearl Necklace" (Assouline, 85, 300 pp.), by the jewelry historian Vivienne Becker, traces the history of the accessory through its association with the Mikimoto brand. History buffs can revel in the academic introduction to the pearl extending back to Cleopatra while the more aesthetically inclined can steep themselves in the rich mess of photos and illustrations portraying pearl draped icons from Queen Elizabeth I to Lady Gaga. Frippery even at its finest doesn't always do the trick in touchier times. For those looking to really skip town this holiday season, sans the hefty airfare, Conde Nast Traveller Britain's "Chic Stays" (Assouline, 85, 264 pp.) may suffice. Boldface names from entertainment and fashion (Sofia Coppola, Alessandra Ambrosio and Eddie Redmayne among them) reveal their favorite escapes: for Ms. Ambrosio, it's the languor of the UXUA Casa Hotel and Spa in Trancoso, Brazil; while Ms. Coppola prefers her family's Palazzo Margherita in the town of Bernalda, Italy. "Upstairs, there's a big salon with a movie screen, where my father" (Francis Ford Coppola to you and me) "has put the whole Martin Scorsese collection of the history of Italian cinema in the library," Ms. Coppola says in the book. "There's something very romantic about these old Italian films, in this old Italian house it makes you feel like you've stepped into another life." If only! For a trip to colder climes, "Russian Splendor: Sumptuous Fashions of the Russian Court" (Skira Rizzoli, 95, 448 pp.) mines the portraits, objets and costumes in the State Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg for a touch of the fur trimmed luxury of the 19th century Imperial Court. Ceremonies at the Winter Palace come to startling, tactile life within the folds of rosettes tracing the back of Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna's court dress from 1860, or in the sweeping velvet train of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna's blue and gold gown. Skip forward in time, and the court's masquerades of the 19th century find a 20th century parallel in the "cafe society" immortalized by Baron de Cabrol in whimsical collaged form. The author Thierry Coudert follows his 2010 "Cafe Society" with this year's "Beautiful People of the Cafe Society: Scrapbooks by the Baron de Cabrol" (Flammarion, 120, 264 pp.), a peek into a rarefied world that spanned continents in its pursuit of glamour and gaiety. With a decidedly Surrealistic bent, the baron's scrapbook pages blend text, photography and watercolors into a visual feast of balls, galas and other festivities featuring personalities with patrician names (see: Windsor). Though Frida Kahlo wasn't one of the luminaries chronicled by Cabrol, she shared an affinity for the avant garde (indeed, the surreal) as rendered through fashion's lens. Known for her portraiture and, later, her complex political entanglements, Kahlo has long taken her rightful place in the canon of style idols of great substance, a status reaffirmed in Susana Martinez Vidal's "Frida Kahlo: Fashion as the Art of Being" (Assouline, 195, 184 pp.). "The idea that we can author our own visual destinies, make up our own rules, turn our backs literally on physical limitations, is no doubt the reason that Kahlo's unflinching gaze continues to stare out from what seems like a million mood boards in a million ateliers," Lynn Yaeger, a Vogue contributor and an idiosyncratic style setter herself, writes in the book's introduction. Kahlo's blooming headpieces, intricate embroideries and appropriation of indigenous silhouettes are all au courant on today's runways. 4 Other Names to Know in Latin American Art Paving the way. Frida Kahlo is internationally renowned for the emotional intensity of her work. But she is not the only woman from Latin America to leave her mark in the art world. Here are four more to know: 1. Luchita Hurtado. For years, Hurtado worked in the shadow of her husbands and more famous peers. Her paintings, which emphasize the interconnectedness of all living things, didn't get recognition from the art world until late in her life. 2. Belkis Ayon. A Cuban printmaker, Ayon was a master in the art of collagraphy. She worked almost exclusively in black, white and gray. She used her art, focused on a secret religious fraternity, to explore the themes of humanity and spirituality. 3. Ana Mendieta. Mendieta's art was sometimes violent, often unapologetically feminist and usually raw. She incorporated natural materials like blood, dirt, water and fire, and displayed her work through photography, film and live performances. 4. Remedios Varo. Though she was born in Spain, Varo's work is indelibly linked to Mexico, where she immigrated during World War II. Her style is reminiscent of Renaissance art in its exquisite precision, but her dreamlike paintings were otherworldly in tone. Somewhere on the other side of the fashion equator lolls Brigitte Bardot: the cat eyed, beehived bombshell of French midcentury cinema, who, now in her 80s, is more associated with incendiary political and racial commentary than her wardrobe. That said, the journalist Henry Jean Servat, who has had the rare opportunity to cover Ms. Bardot over time, has elicited a recent interview about style from the reclusive actress for "Brigitte Bardot: My Life in Fashion" (Flammarion, 45, 256 pp.). Sprinkled with photos of Ms. Bardot in the gingham get ups, body skimming sweaters and shoulder baring tops that outfit her on and off screen personas, this book may well spur conversations about celebrity in the shadow of controversy, or just ardor. The designer Jean Charles de Castelbajac is one to court controversy in quite a different way: through his headline grabbing pieces. Who in fashion's flock could forget Lady Gaga's Kermit the Frog festooned jacket? Rihanna's Donald Duck sweater dress? Katy Perry's Barack Obama sequined shift? Well, if you have, they're all printed in lush, oversize splendor in "Jean Charles de Castelbajac: Fashion, Art Rock 'n' Roll" (teNeues, 95, 352 pp.). "To the Knights of Tomorrow," Mr. de Castelbajac addresses his readers in a handwritten introduction of charmingly broken English, meaning those who "want to change the world" with their ideas: "Don't be discouraged." Which bring us, unwittingly, back to the state of world affairs because, whatever one's beliefs, change seems certain. The illustrator Jean Jullien, whose simple "Peace for Paris" symbol became the image replicated around the world after last year's devastating terrorist attacks, is the subject of "Jean Jullien: Modern Life" (teNeues, 35, 160 pp.), a compact compendium of his recent work. The actor Jesse Eisenberg wrote the foreword, and who better to introduce Mr. Jullien's wry, pointed pen and ink renderings of our 21st century neuroses? A must for any of jean jullien's over 600,000 Instagram followers (and this, more likely than not, includes your snap happy son, daughter, sister or brother). Elyssa Dimant's "The New French Couture" (Harper Design, 85, 280 pp.) is an immersive introduction to the eight most stalwart bastions of the haute couture tradition, Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Dior among them. Ms. Dimant details the history of these establishments while simultaneously honoring the young voices who, upon receiving the mantels of these houses, have dared break established codes. It's a toast to a Parisian tradition that, against all odds, is still going strong. For Manhattanites (and those in the no longer outer boroughs), Andrew Marttila's photographs of "Shop Cats of New York," written by Tamar Arslanian (Harper Design, 21.99, 176 pp.), is proof that friendly felines are the best distraction when the world seems primed to topple off its axis.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
Elaine May is returning to Broadway for the first time in more than 50 years to appear in "The Waverly Gallery," the third Kenneth Lonergan play to reach Broadway since 2014. "The Waverly Gallery" will start previews in September at the John Golden Theater ahead of an Oct. 25 opening. Lila Neugebauer will direct, a first for her on Broadway, and the cast will also include Lucas Hedges and Michael Cera, who is currently starring in Mr. Lonergan's "Lobby Hero" at the Helen Hayes Theater. "Lobby Hero" is set to close on May 13.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
England and Scotland have a long rivalry on and off sports fields. But ultimately, they are both part of Britain and the United Kingdom. So it may come as a surprise to see how differently they are approaching the return of soccer. No date for games is yet set, but organizers are eager to begin as soon as feasibly possible. But Scotland announced Monday that its season would not continue. Celtic F.C., which was leading the Premiership by 13 points with eight games remaining, was declared the champion for the ninth straight year. With such a big lead, Celtic was very likely to win even during a completed season. But the situation at the bottom of the league was more fluid. When play stopped, Hearts was in last place, the sole relegation spot, but trailed Hamilton by only 4 points, a margin that would have been very possible to close. Now they will be relegated without another ball being kicked. One reason for the discrepancy between England and Scotland's plans is money. England has a huge TV deal worth more than a billion dollars per year, domestically alone. If England failed to finish its season, it would have to give back a portion of the money, and even a portion is still a ton of cash. Scotland's TV deal is much smaller, less than 20 million domestically, according to reports. But Scotland is getting a better deal next season, and no one wants to jeopardize that income. So calling it a season and moving on to a more lucrative future seemed to be the soundest move. Some teams in the Scottish leagues are not happy with the decision. Unsurprisingly, most teams' opinions depend heavily on how they finished in the partially completed season. Celtic reacted Tuesday with a blizzard of retweets of congratulatory messages for winning the title. Hearts' reaction was very different. "We have stated from the outset that we don't believe it is right that any club should be unfairly penalized because of the Covid 19 pandemic," the team said in a statement. "As previously intimated, the club has been taking legal advice throughout this process and are continuing to do so." The other two nations in the U.K., Wales and Northern Ireland, with leagues even smaller than Scotland's, have not yet made decisions on whether to try to resume their seasons. Preakness Will Be a Month After the Derby For decades, the Preakness Stakes has been run exactly two weeks after the Kentucky Derby in May. Because of the coronavirus, that tradition has changed. The Preakness was rescheduled to Oct. 3, nearly one month after the Derby on Sept. 5. There has been a push for more time between the Triple Crown races for years, as it happens. Top horses ran sometimes as often as once a week in the 1930s and '40s. But in recent times, the best horses will almost always wait at least a month between races. That has caused some trainers to complain that the two week gap between the Derby and Preakness is an anachronism that makes winning both more difficult. The Belmont Stakes, which is run three weeks after the Preakness in normal times, has not yet been rescheduled. If it sticks to the usual gap, it would be held on Oct. 24. But that seems to be too close to the big season ending event, the Breeders' Cup, still planned as scheduled on Nov. 6 and 7 at Keeneland in Kentucky. The Triple Crown races will already be significantly different because they're being run in the fall, as the 3 year olds will be bigger and stronger than they would have been in the spring. Group Hugs and a Kiss on the Cheek	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Lacrosse players at the New England Cup in Farmington, Conn. Parents say they've felt pressure to have their daughters attend such showcases, even during a pandemic and a recruiting dead period, to remain visible to recruiters. FARMINGTON, Conn. The Middlesex Bears had waited for months to compete in the New England Cup, an elite recruiting showcase for high school girls' lacrosse players. Already, the coronavirus pandemic had forced a postponement to late July from June and a change of venue. Then a legal battle between the women's collegiate lacrosse coaching association and the cup's organizers had threatened to cancel the showcase at the last minute. But here were the Bears, outside the Farmington Sports Arena, streaking down the field, sticks high. The masks they wore between games were wrapped around their biceps, hanging on their necks or stuffed into their pockets. For many of the girls, this was the first game they had played since the fall. "When they canceled our town league in the spring, I was so depressed," Grace Reilly, 16, said. As it has with almost every sport, the pandemic has wreaked havoc on lacrosse. Major League Lacrosse condensed its season into an eight day tournament in Annapolis, Md., in late July, only to lose two semifinal teams when they withdrew after players tested positive. The Boston Cannons won the championship, but were short five players who had prematurely left the so called bubble meant to reduce risks to participants, according to The Capital Gazette. At the same time, the politics of the sport have come to resemble the tense and divided national response to the pandemic itself, said Danielle Gallagher, a member of the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame and the founder and director of a prominent travel team, Long Island Liberty Lacrosse. "Some wear masks, some don't; some think it's a farce, some don't," Gallagher said, speaking in general of those who participate, organize and follow the sport. While pro leagues like the N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. are attempting to complete their seasons in a restricted environment, and universities and high schools are deciding whether it is safe to play at all, club teams and travel teams in sports like lacrosse, soccer, baseball and softball have operated during this chaotic summer in a gray area with little formal regulation. In interviews, some girls' lacrosse parents said they felt pressure for their daughters to attend showcases in order to remain visible, either in person or on video, to college recruiters. Some coaches and parents complained that they had received confusing, or conflicting, information from government officials about rules regarding permissible travel and play. But some club and travel teams also seem to have openly flouted restrictions, and at tournaments, parents and coaches reported, there has been uneven adherence to safety precautions and recommended social distancing. Alyssa Murray, a former all American at Syracuse who is a director of the Iron Horse club in Austin, Texas, recently wrote an anguished essay on Inside Lacrosse in which she said that "so many youth tournaments are pressing forward holding their events of several hundred people without much thought of the potential risks and pressure that it will put on players to attend." Twenty of the 100 summer events for girls and boys sanctioned by U.S. Lacrosse, the sport's national governing body, were canceled. U.S. Lacrosse also withdrew its endorsement of tournaments in Florida, Texas, California and other states where coronavirus cases were increasing, and issued recommendations about return to play protocols. In them, officials called for masks, social distancing and adherence to local rules, even as they acknowledged those rules and public support for them varied widely. "It's all over the place because the return guidance and what you are allowed to do in each state is so different," said Ann Kitt Carpenetti, vice president for lacrosse operations at U.S. Lacrosse. "We're trying to balance the desires of families to go back to play with what's safe for the kids and the community alike." In April, the Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association, known as the I.W.L.C.A., canceled its six recruiting tournaments for 2020, including the New England Cup. The association said it did not feel it could hold events and sufficiently protect the health of 3,000 to 14,000 players, parents and coaches who were expected to attend each showcase. After a coronavirus outbreak in Louisiana had been linked to Mardi Gras celebrations, Liz Robertshaw, the executive director of the coaches association, said the organization felt "we can't be the next New Orleans." The association directed Corrigan Sports Enterprises, the company that organized its showcases, to refund 1,700 of the 1,800 entry fee that each team had paid to participate. Instead, Corrigan decided to proceed with the showcases on its own. The I.W.L.C.A. sued, but even as the case is being contested in federal court in North Carolina, some games, including the ones in Connecticut, have gone ahead. "What went wrong was similar to hiring a contractor to build a beautiful house and they want to stay in it and say it's their house," said Kathy Taylor, the women's lacrosse coach at Colgate, who until July 1 was the president of the I.W.L.C.A. Lee Corrigan, the president of Corrigan Sports Enterprises, disagreed. He said that over a decade long partnership the coaches association had received about 6 million from his company, compared with the 10,000 it took in annually before the partnership began. The coaches association did not dispute those figures. "We're partners," Corrigan said. "They say they own everything outright, and we're working for them. I don't think that's fair, given that we do the majority of the work." When Corrigan Sports decided to proceed with the canceled showcases, including the New England Cup, the coaches association sought a temporary restraining order. It was denied. As a safety precaution, Corrigan Sports requested that only one adult per player attend its event, and temperature checks of players were mandatory when teams arrived at the fields. Social distancing was mostly observed on the sideline, but players routinely tangled in close quarters on the field. Coronavirus tests were not required; instead, each coach was responsible for monitoring the health of a team's players. "I feel like it's fine with the proper precautions," Corrigan said. In a normal year, the object of the summer showcases is to draw the attention of college coaches, the first step in securing a spot on a college team and, more important, a scholarship. But the N.C.A.A. has forbidden coaches in Divisions I and II from making in person contact with potential recruits at least until Sept. 1. Thirty one Division III coaches had registered for the New England Cup, but only 12 checked in shortly after the event began. To soften the blow to the participants' investment of time and money, Corrigan provided game film free to all players. The New England Cup usually draws as many as 150 teams on the first weekend in June. This year's delayed event, in late July, with the coronavirus raging, attracted 32 teams. Kasie Paton, whose daughter A.J. has Type 1 diabetes, said it had been a difficult decision to allow her to participate. In the end, she said she felt comfortable traveling from home in Exeter, N.H., given that new Covid 19 case reports in New England remained low and because cup organizers seemed to have made a good faith effort to hold a safe event. "Our son plays baseball, and that environment is really different," Kasie Paton said. Not all of the summer tournaments escaped the coronavirus. On July 12, a girls' team from ADK Lacrosse in Queensbury, N.Y., north of Albany, appeared to violate state guidelines by traveling to play a day of scrimmages in Mount Olive, N.J. Afterward, a 15 year old player tested positive for Covid 19 and the rest of the team was quarantined for 14 days. The affected player was exposed to the virus before traveling and has returned to practice, according to her mother. Warren County officials said they were unaware of any other positive cases. Julia Hotmer Drao, whose daughter tested positive after playing five games for ADK in New Jersey, said that her daughter had been exposed to the virus before traveling and that parents at the club did not intentionally violate New York State restrictions. "We were trying to get back to normal," Hotmer Drao said. "It never crossed my mind there was anything unusual about it." In retrospect, the mother said that it was naive to think the coronavirus which surged in the New York metropolitan region in March and April was now only a problem for other parts of the country. "It's still here," she said. As a precaution, Gallagher, the Liberty director, said that training for about 100 players was shut down for 10 days, and that it was recommended that those players be tested. No additional positive tests were reported, Gallagher said, but she said her teams would not be attending any more showcases or tournaments this summer. "We're trying to tell parents there's no reason to go to these events under the current circumstances," Gallagher said, especially during a so called recruiting dead period. "It's putting your kids in a position that's not safe. Some people don't see it as that." Joe Drape reported from Farmington, Conn., and Jere Longman from Philadelphia. Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
SAN FRANCISCO Over the last decade, Airbnb has upended the travel industry, riled regulators, frustrated local communities and created a mini economy of short term rental operators, all while spinning a warm narrative of belonging and connection. On Thursday, Airbnb sold investors on an even unlikelier story: that it is a pandemic winner. The company's shares skyrocketed on their first day of trading, rising 113 percent above the initial public offering price of 68 to close at 144.71. That put Airbnb's market capitalization at 100.7 billion the largest in its generation of "unicorn" companies and more than Expedia Group and Marriott International combined. Airbnb's offering raised 3.5 billion, making it the biggest I.P.O. this year. The hair bending offerings this week have raised talk of a new stock market bubble in the midst of a pandemic induced downturn, as more than 947,000 workers filed new claims for state unemployment benefits last week. With interest rates low and fiscal stimulus goosing parts of the economy, investors have chased ever riskier bets, driving valuations of unprofitable start ups to levels that seem divorced from reality. Robinhood, a stock trading app whose use has spiked in the pandemic, has also flooded the market with millions of day traders eager to get a piece of brand name tech companies. James Gellert, chief executive of Rapid Ratings, a provider of financial analysis, said the "absurd" valuations represented "the extreme exuberance and unprecedented liquidity in the market." He warned that sentiment could quickly turn, bringing I.P.O. investors "a participation hangover in the coming months." Brian Chesky, Airbnb's chief executive, said in an interview that he felt a "groundswell of enthusiasm" while pitching Airbnb to investors, but would not focus on the company's short term stock movements. "I can't control the stock price, but I can control the story," said Mr. Chesky, 39, whose stake in Airbnb is now worth 11.1 billion. The exuberance is a sharp turnaround from last year, when a lackluster I.P.O. from Uber and a failed I.P.O. attempt from the office company WeWork humbled the tech industry, leading to caution and layoffs at the beginning of 2020. The dismay intensified with the onset of the pandemic, with many start ups cutting back in anticipation of a slowdown. But over the summer, the tech industry surged and the stock market came roaring back. A wave of tech I.P.O.s delivered gushers of cash to Silicon Valley start ups, their investors, founders and employees. Airbnb's valuation now tops Uber's and approaches the level of Facebook's at its I.P.O. in 2012. The e commerce start up Wish, the game maker Roblox and the home buying company OpenDoor also plan to go public this month. Unlike the other start ups, which have seen demand for their products soar in the pandemic, Airbnb spent most of the year reeling as people canceled their bookings. In the first nine months, Airbnb brought in 2.5 billion in revenue, down from 3.7 billion a year earlier. It lost 697 million during that time, more than double last year. In April, it raised emergency funding, closed certain side projects and shelved its I.P.O. plans. In May, the company laid off a quarter of its roughly 7,600 workers. To convince investors it belonged in the same category as "Covid winners," Airbnb's offering prospectus presented a grand vision. The financial document featured magazine style spreads of guests and renters in beautiful settings. It argued that it had invented a new kind of travel while also providing economic stimulus, a cure for loneliness and spreading "healthy tourism." And it unfurled a well worn underdog narrative of resilience and redemption. A letter signed by Airbnb's founders Mr. Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharzyk included talking points that Mr. Chesky has repeated in numerous interviews praising the clarity the crisis had given him. The company emphasized that its home rentals could cater to travelers taking road trips outside cities and that its bookings began rebounding two months into the pandemic. The prospectus even argued that the pandemic had accelerated Mr. Chesky's bold prediction that people would someday "live anywhere." Those messages resonated with investors. "People are interested in the name, not the financials," Mr. Gellert said. "This is a company that is going in the wrong direction today, from a financial strength perspective." The pandemic was especially difficult for Airbnb because it has largely had a rocket ship trajectory that made it the toast of Silicon Valley. The company was founded in 2008 as a way to let people rent out an extra room and quickly expanded to a network of seven million home rentals around the world.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
Want more basketball in your inbox? Sign up for Marc Stein's weekly N.B.A. newsletter here. LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. The N.B.A. was rooting hard for Major League Baseball. Any league that hopes to return to something resembling standard operations next season was pulling for baseball to flourish in its attempt to stage a 60 game season in which teams allowed players to go home during homestands and travel as they normally do for road trips. M.L.B.'s concept lasted only a few days before a coronavirus outbreak ripped through the Miami Marlins. The instant crisis left the unmistakable impression throughout the N.B.A. campus at Walt Disney World that a "bubble" approach is the only kind that can work for team sports in the Covid 19 era at least for the foreseeable future. The N.B.A. hasn't announced positive tests for anyone on campus who had been released from quarantine, but concern about what baseball's woes mean for next season is mounting, even amid the relative prosperity of the league's three week run in its Florida bubble. We will be coming back often to the topic of the N.B.A.'s future, but the league's present, at last, is poised to deliver meaningful basketball that demands our focus. The full force of the N.B.A. restart hits Thursday 141 days after the Dallas Mavericks secured a 113 97 victory over the Denver Nuggets on March 11 in the last game completed before the season was suspended. The Clippers will play the Lakers after New Orleans faces Utah on Thursday night, in a doubleheader with games in separate arenas so TNT can televise them back to back without waiting for its main facility at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex to be sanitized. Anxiety about the coronavirus clearly persists, but there was tangible excitement on campus on Tuesday that games that counted were just two sleeps away. Here are eight big things, among many, that I am eager to see: I want to see how long it takes before this restart feels like a part of the season that was suspended. The slogan is WholeNewGame, seen on countless signs at game venues as a nod to the 22 N.B.A. teams being dumped, as Rivers calls it, into the same, first of its kind "village." But the signs nag at me because the message could so easily read WholeNewSeason. The layoff was long enough that numerous players, coaches and league executives have said it feels like a new season in a lot of ways. That is not a positive, but maybe the camaraderie that teams have established can ultimately help connect the two pieces of the most jagged season in league history. I want to see a slew of players whose return circumstances are fascinating. Ben Simmons at power forward for the Philadelphia 76ers, relegating Al Horford to a bench role. New Orleans's Zion Williamson getting his vengeance for the knee surgery that stopped him from playing on opening night the first time. Utah's Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert reuniting after coronavirus related tensions. Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis, Dallas's European duo, making their playoff debuts together. Nikola Jokic, Marc Gasol and Carmelo Anthony all looking so skinny, and making me so envious, compared with how they looked when we last saw them. Yes, please. I'm ready for all of it. I want to see (and hear) how much activity and noise come from both benches. Monitoring bench dynamics has always been a sport within the sport for me. Watching teammates react in concert to special plays is one of the true joys of the down low seats for reporters that are a rarity in arenas now but were commonplace when I was getting started as an N.B.A. beat writer. With no fans allowed in bubble arenas, apart from the lucky few who will be invited to log in virtually, bench noise has never been more important in the N.B.A. I want to see which players and teams have the ability and concentration to thrive without a crowd to fuel them. My Manchester City fandom is a well chronicled affliction by now. City may have stumbled recently in the F.A. Cup semifinals against Arsenal, but I have marveled at the team's ability, with four or more goals in six of 12 games starting June 17, to find its top gear and sustain it without a crowd's roar. None Week 11 Predictions: Here are our picks against the spread. N.F.L. Tightens Covid Protocols: As cases rise and Thanksgiving approaches, the league is requiring masks inside team facilities and increasing testing. The Packers' Defense Is Their M.V.P.: Green Bay's oft overlooked defense has kept the team from falling out of the Super Bowl chase. The Long Path to the Super Bowl: With 18 weeks in the regular season and fewer teams earning byes in the playoffs, the Super Bowl is still a long way off. Playoff Simulator: Explore every team's path to the postseason, updated live. Generating the energy required to hit those heights in mostly empty buildings will pose a new challenge to N.B.A. teams. We've gotten a glimpse of what games without fans look and feel like over a week's worth of scrimmages, but a better gauge will come when both teams are playing to win rather than experimenting with lineup combinations and managing minutes. I want to see if the crazy circumstances of the restart legitimately increase the chances for playoff upsets. I spoke to representatives from two teams, from would be sleepers in each conference, and received completely different forecasts about the impact of having just three weeks of full speed practices before stuffing eight games into a 16 day window before the playoffs. One said that the compact comeback could be a true equalizer. Example: Some league insiders see Portland as a threat to upset the Lakers in a first round series after welcoming back its previously ailing frontcourt pair of Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins. The other executive, by contrast, described the eight seeding games all teams must play before the postseason as a lengthy runway that will afford the Lakers, the Bucks and the Clippers time to regain their March form. I want to see what happens in the playoffs with no travel and no home court advantage. Referees, like the players, should be fresher than usual with travel excluded from the postseason equation. Harder to predict is how differently games will be called with no hostile home crowds to heap pressure on the officials. Another great source of curiosity: How hard will teams scrap in the playoffs after falling behind by 2 0 or 3 1 in a series? It is fair to wonder what sort of momentum swings are even possible when a playoff series, at most, can be played in three different venues but without a true change of scenery. It is also fair to question whether certain teams' resolve to try to rally out of a series deficit will erode because of bubble fatigue after being stuck here for weeks. I want to see all the fretting I've been doing about injury risk in the bubble prove to be unfounded. But here's the problem: My concerns were largely inspired by fretting from teams about the prospect of injuries caused by the combination of a long layoff and a short ramp up period. Don't forget that the league decreed, after players were asked to be back in their home markets June 23, that no five on five basketball could take place until teams arrived at Disney World. Some prominent players are dealing with various ailments, including Portland's Damian Lillard (foot), Sacramento's De'Aaron Fox (ankle) and Indiana's Domantas Sabonis (foot). Denver Coach Mike Malone deployed the slimmed down Jokic as a point guard in a supersize lineup for two scrimmages because the Nuggets have been short handed all month and were thus fearful of rushing Jamal Murray back from a hamstring injury. "The biggest concern we have as an organization is guys sustaining some of those soft tissue injuries, which are most prevalent when you take four months off and you get back to playing at a high level," Malone said. None We are supposed to get a daily email confirming our coronavirus test results. There actually have been a few days on this trip when no email arrived, but it's not too worrisome because there is also an online portal that stores all of our test results and because the league has made it known that any bad news on coronavirus testing will be delivered by phone. None I am among the many still struggling with recognizing people, whom we otherwise know well, when they are wearing masks. On Sunday afternoon, I briefly commiserated with Oklahoma City Coach Billy Donovan on how unexpectedly hard this is and then I promptly wound up on a bus with the veteran referee Zach Zarba and embarrassingly whiffed. None Coffee update: My AeroPress and electric kettle arrived last week. I don't have the time, patience or hands of gold (like my father Reuven did) to grind beans every morning, so I'm easing into the pastime with ground Ascension coffee I ordered from back home in Dallas. I'm not exactly a barista just yet, but I'm finally enjoying real coffee again on a regular basis. Thanks to all who expressed concern for my plight and those who wrote in with suggestions, especially my new musician friend David Brown, for steering me to the AeroPress. It's always good to learn a new skill. None I absolutely love receiving packages. The rumble of a UPS track in the neighborhood has had an ice cream truck effect on me, without the magical jingle, since I was 9 and the kind man in the brown uniform dropped off my first edition of the glorious Strat O Matic baseball board game in 1978. On Monday, I wrote about the cavernous delivery center that is processing more than 1,000 packages a day for people on campus. Below is a picture of my first big pickup from last week six or so of those items are mine and I had to borrow a cart to get all those toys back to the room. The coffee gear is included in that pile. The big box may or may not have contained the shipment of a certain glass bottled soft drink I have been known to take grief about. Members of the news media traveled to Florida commercially and were not getting regularly tested for the coronavirus in team practice facilities during the two weeks before they arrived. Players, coaches and team staff members began getting tested regularly on June 23 and arrived at Disney World earlier this month either by private plane or team bus. Q: Watching the first day of scrimmages, I was pleasantly surprised by the generous amount of empty space around the sidelines and baselines. I've often thought that players could make good use of that extra space if they were free from the worry of injury incurred from collisions with fans, cameramen and chairs. Do the players like this change? Paul George must be thrilled Noah Breuer (Little Compton, R.I.) Stein: Getting accustomed to the extra space on the sidelines is bound to be a challenge for some players, considering the lack of fans or typical benches. The new bench alignment features three rows of socially distanced chairs farther away from the sideline than normal. But it's clear that many players are enjoying the empty baselines. That was evident Saturday when the Lakers' LeBron James dove after a loose ball against Orlando that was already out of reach. He was laughing the whole way back down the floor. Even funnier was Dennis Schroder's reaction Sunday when Oklahoma City's injury plagued Andre Roberson hit his second of two late 3 pointers in the Thunder's comeback win over Philadelphia. Schroder leapt out of the bench area and ran along the baseline to the other side of the court in celebration. I have missed watching dunks badly. As a refresher, Utah's Rudy Gobert was leading the league in dunks this season, with 206, when the season was paused on March 11. Gobert's nearest pursuer is Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo with 174 dunks, because the Knicks whose Mitchell Robinson has 185 are one of the eight teams not participating in the restart. N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver must register three negative coronavirus tests to gain entry to the league's reopening doubleheader on Thursday. Silver is required to register two consecutive negative tests before he leaves New York and a negative test upon arrival in Florida before observing the two games (New Orleans vs. Utah and Lakers vs. Clippers) from high above court level at the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex. The San Antonio Spurs' Gregg Popovich appears headed for just the second sub .500 season of his head coaching career. The only way San Antonio can avoid that scenario is by winning all eight of its seeding games and then winning one or two play in games to qualify for the postseason. The Spurs were 27 36 before the season was suspended and appear likely to miss the playoffs for the first time since 1996 97, when Popovich went 17 47 after firing Bob Hill and taking over.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Looking Back to the '90s, When Berlin Was the Height of Cool BERLIN Just as a visitor to New York might be disappointed to find a high end clothing store where the notorious nightclub CBGB once stood, or wonder why it's so hard to get a cheap room at the Chelsea Hotel, visitors to Berlin today will find that things have changed since the city's hip heyday the years immediately after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. What sets Berlin apart from New York (and from virtually all big cities in Europe) is how rapid and complete that change has been. In the 28 years since the city's unification, the wall has almost completely disappeared and large areas have been rebuilt. In the process, the creative chaos has been relegated to the fringes and outskirts occupied houses have been turned into condos and once hip anything goes neighborhoods have become gentrified. What was once the party archive in the East German state is now a members only club, Soho House. The city has changed and moved on. But to a certain extent, it relies on the legend of a chaotic, dirty and incredibly creative center. Many of the millions of visitors who come to Berlin each year are drawn by that image. "Nineties Berlin" a multimedia exhibition in the city center, seems to have some of these visitors in mind. The show, which opened in August at the Alte Munze, a former mint, features 12 segments of the wall, 140 Kalashnikovs and an upside down, ceiling mounted scale model of the Loveparade, the huge annual street party that for many defined the era. Floating above the heads of the visitors in a mirrored room, the model gives an idea of the masses that turned out for the event in 2001. Filmed testimony, sound, pictures and video footage cover city life, politics, music and art from 1989 to the early 2000s. A video collage projected onto a 3,000 square foot wraparound screen acts as a visual and auditory introduction to the decade and the show. Filmed interviews with contemporary witnesses help explain the immensity of the change and the singularity of the moment. Images of posters and magazine covers, as well as the rhythmic beat of techno music diffuse nostalgia. The exhibition was organized by the people behind the D.D.R. museum, which gives visitors a taste of what life was like in East Germany. Now in its 12th year, it attracts more than half a million visitors each year. While the D.D.R. museum prides itself on the many artifacts visitors can touch, feel and experience, "Nineties Berlin" is sparser, more stylish and more interested in transmitting ideas and feelings. "It's more the case of explaining a concept, rather than showing objects," Quirin Graf Adelmann von Adelmannsfelden, one of the exhibition's four directors and a director of the D.D.R. museum, said of the new exhibition. He said that "Nineties Berlin" aims to explain playfully how Berlin came to be the city it is now. "We have to get people in the door," Mr. Adelmann von Adelmannsfelden said, "before we can explain some of the complexities of the era." Later this year, the museum will add a 250 foot wall mounted banner of explainers that will provide additional context to the exhibition's displays. The banner will be creased, to resemble the city maps tourists at the time might have used. Since many visitors even ones from Germany are unfamiliar with much of the history of the period, providing a historical context was a challenge, the curators said. Although it has been popular with visitors, "Nineties Berlin" is not without its critics. The Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel, criticized it not only because pieces of the wall are available for purchase in the gift store a serious affront to Berlin cool but also because the show's narrative touched on topics generally, without giving real and interesting examples beyond the places and events already mythologized by general public. The exhibition is both part of the process of mythologizing the early '90s and it benefits from doing so, said Dr. Danyel, the historian. "It targets things already in the consciousness of tourists," he added. And while modern Berlin has changed since the '90s, some things remain the same. In an echo of the productive chaos that ruled during the mythical decade, city officials contacted the show's organizers in the first month of its run. Instead of closing at the beginning of 2019 to let a permanent tenant in as had been agreed, the exhibition can now stay in the Alte Munze until at least 2022. "It's exactly like in the '90s," said Matthias Kaminsky, the show's creative director. "First you did something, and then you waited for approval afterward."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Welcome to the Mike Conference, named with characteristic humility by its founder, decabillionaire Mike Prince. It's a place for fireside chats that double as vicious duels, for charitable acts that serve to ameliorate an exponentially larger number of uncharitable ones, and for the occasional late night excursion to a strip club that doubles as a Wagner family reunion. Yes, Wags discovers the hard way that his daughter (Wags has adult children?!) is a stripper, thus failing "The Chris Rock Test" that gives the episode its name. He gets over it, more or less. He wouldn't be Wags if he didn't. But just as the Mike Conference was really about making deals, so too was Wags and Bobby Axelrod's ayahuasca excursion from the season premiere a business trip (emphasis on trip). Bobby is aiming to move into the "psychoceuticals" sector, so he and Wags spend their off hours at the conference buttering up Simon Shenk (played by the "Ozark" and "Affair" veteran Darren Goldstein), who looks poised to become the next head of the F.D.A. Impressed with Bobby and Wags's acquaintance with the shaman Bram Longriver (Henri Binje), he seems poised to greenlight the practice and thus line their pockets. But Mike Prince gets there first. Just as the conference is wrapping up with one last dinner, he presents his guest of honor: Bram Longriver. "You stole my shaman," Bobby tells Prince hilariously. (It reminded me of one of the best lines in the rock documentary "Dig!", in which the Brian Jonestown Massacre's lead singer, Anton Newcombe, angrily declares "You expletive broke my sitar, expletive !") Ever the one to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, however, Bobby comes up with a new plan while eyeing a gaggle of banking big shots. Turning Axe Cap into a bank would put his company in line for the "bailouts, bail ins" and "easings" that keep these institutions afloat through economic downturns. Why put himself through the inevitable lows of life as a trader when he can simply become too big to fail? Chuck's operation this episode runs comparatively smoothly. His old pal Judge DeGiulio (a perpetually grinning Cheshire cat of a performance by Rob Morrow) wants his help getting confirmed as a circuit court judge, a process gummed up by his unfortunate role in the drafting of a "torture memo" condoning waterboarding. In one of the episode's more memorable scenes, Chuck undergoes the procedure himself to see if it's as bad as it's cracked up to be. Spoiler alert: It is. "It's torture," the S M enthusiast attorney general sputters miserably as he recovers. "And if even I don't like it ..." But there are more moving pieces than meet the eye. Thanks to Axe's meddling, Chuck is unceremoniously dumped from the cryptocurrency case he was working on in the premiere by the governor, who favors the Manhattan district attorney's take no prisoners approach. This means that Chuck will need a new major stage on which to perform his acts of legal legerdemain and what better place than before the Supreme Court? It would be great, then, to have an ally in the solicitor general position, determining which cases go before "the Nine." (I always hear shades of the nine Black Riders from "The Lord of the Rings" whenever I hear that phrase.) And wouldn't it be great, then, if Judge DeGiulio became the acting solicitor, circumventing the senator and getting a plum position after all? If you guessed that Chuck is the person who leaked the torture memo in the first place just to set all this in motion, congratulations: You're as canny as his right hand woman, Kate Sacker, who observes it all with a sort of cynical awe. (Can awe be cynical? On this show, yeah.) Chuck's game of hardball doesn't stop there. He takes the fight directly to his soon to be ex wife Wendy, freezing her assets to prevent her from buying a new apartment; she winds up continuing to crash at one of Bobby's spare apartments. And this among the least of Wendy's concerns. An angry investor from the Ontario Educators' pension fund comes calling, demanding to know how their money is faring. With Axe out of town, it falls to Wendy to task Taylor Mason Capital's Lauren (Jade Eshete) with keeping the investor happy a decision that falls afoul of Mase Cap's major domo, Sarah (Samantha Mathis), who sees it as an erosion of her group's autonomy. (Taylor, too, is out of pocket at the Mike Conference, trying and failing to achieve a rapprochement with ex boyfriend Oscar Langstraat, played by Mike Birbiglia, who loses a game of speed chess before blowing Taylor off one last time.) A plot summary of any given episode of this incredibly dense and kinetic show can eat up the bulk of any recap's allotted word count. But to quote one of Bobby Axelrod's favorite bands, Motorhead, that's the way I like it, baby. The thrill of "Billions" comes from the feeling that you're barely keeping up with these people that, like Oscar Langstraat, you're playing speed chess against the best in the business and that delaying checkmate as long as possible is its own kind of victory. I don't want to unravel Chuck and Axe and Taylor and Wendy's moves before they make them; I want to be wowed when they do. On that count, "Billions" continues to win. None The episode concludes with a dedication to the actor Mark Blum, who plays Chuck's therapist in a beautifully restrained scene in which he tries to work past his grief over the dissolution of his partnership with Wendy. Blum died of complications arising from Covid 19; seeing him onscreen again is bittersweet. None Bobby makes a great point at Mike Prince's gathering: Events like this, or Davos, or the Allen Company conference in Sun Valley aren't about the conversation, they're about the invitation. What matters is being asked to attend, not what you do when you get there. None Wags offers Bobby a ton of advice on how to pick up a model in the age of MeToo; both Axe and the model in question promptly blow it off, knowing what they want and knowing how to get it. Ick. None The charity that the Mike Conference attendees are expected to support is an earthquake relief effort with the corny, trivializing name, "Shake the Quake." Again: Ick.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
New Clues to How the Biggest Dinosaurs Got So Big None No creatures ever stomped across the planet quite like the creatures scientists call sauropodomorphs. These long necked plant eaters were the largest dinosaurs, and they included the mighty 70 ton titanosaurs, as well as the Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus. Paleontologists have long wondered how these lumbering 100 foot long behemoths got so big. Now a group of researchers has uncovered a new, early sauropodomorph. It differed from later species in its group, with seasonal growth spurts leading to its giant proportions, rather than continuous, gradual growth. The finding, published Monday in the journal Nature Ecology Evolution provides insight into how certain dinosaurs became the biggest of the big. "This new dinosaur changes our understanding of how dinosaurs became giants," said Cecilia Apaldetti, a paleontologist from the Museo de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de San Juan in Argentina and lead author of the study. In 2015, Dr. Apaldetti and her colleagues discovered the new species while looking for Triassic Period fossils in northwest Argentina. They called it Ingentia prima, meaning "the first giant." "We didn't expect a big dinosaur in the Triassic rocks, because we know that at that moment dinosaurs were in general small, no more than 3 tons," Dr. Apaldetti said. Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. But the prehistoric beast they found weighed an estimated seven to 10 tons more than an African elephant and measured about 33 feet long. It lived from 201 million to 237 million years ago, which was about 47 million years before its colossal cousins, the Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus, and 30 million years before the titanosaurs. "Until now it was believed that the first giants to inhabit the Earth had originated during the Jurassic period," Dr. Apaldetti said. That sauropod was known as Vulcanodon and it walked the Earth around 180 million years ago and measured about 20 to 35 feet long. Researchers recovering the fossils of Ingentia prima in Argentina. Back at the lab, they spent months cleaning the fossil and comparing it with other dinosaur species. Dr. Apaldetti and her colleagues studied the Ingentia prima fossils along with remains from a previously known and closely related species called Lessemsaurus sauropoides. Together the two species belong to a group known as "lessemsaurids." In studying the dinosaurs' anatomies, she found that like the later Jurassic period giants, Ingentia prima had an avian like respiratory system, meaning it had air sacs in its neck. But she also found differences. "Just as growth seasons can be observed in a tree, the bony cuts in lessemsaurids show that it had cyclical, seasonal growth," said Dr. Apaldetti. "But the style of the bone deposition during these periods of growth is different from the other sauropods or eusauropods we knew so far." The lessemsaurids grew through quick bursts that occurred seasonally, she said, while their later counterparts grew at a consistent rate until they became adults. "The giant sauropods like the titanosaurs of the Jurassic or Cretaceous acquired big bodies through a slow and more complex way," said Dr. Apaldetti. That included developing extremely elongated necks and forelimbs, smaller skulls and thick, trunk like limbs. In contrast, Ingentia prima did not have a greatly elongated neck and its legs were more flexible and bent rather than straight and pillar like. These early giants showed that there was more than one way to climb to the top of the dinosaur world.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
MIAMI One recent sunny morning, Chalmers Vasquez, Miami Dade County's mosquito control manager, peered into a rain filled Miller High Life bottle in a weedy backyard. "This is very dangerous, this situation here," he said, surveying a glistening pile of dozens more bottles at his feet. A few steps away, his fears were confirmed. There, in a junked toilet lying on its side, he found in a small pool of rainwater the squiggling larvae of an Aedes aegypti mosquito, the type that is spreading the Zika virus and fear of grave birth defects throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Summer is coming, and the Aedes aegypti will soon be buzzing around its usual haunts in the United States mostly in the South and Southwest. But it is already here in South Florida, hatching from kiddie pools and rain catching flowerpots, recycling containers and bottle caps. Scientists do not believe that the United States will have a Zika epidemic, but most agree that mosquitoes here will eventually acquire it and that they could start infecting people, leading to local flare ups. "A woman could get bitten by a mosquito and have a child with a terrible malformation and that could happen in Florida or Texas or Arizona, or anywhere this mosquito is," said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We don't think the numbers will be large," he said, "but the impact could be very large." Stopping Zika's spread, he and other public health experts say, will require vigorous mosquito control across a broad swath of the United States. But the quality of services varies wildly. Some of the weakest spots for mosquito control are in places where the Aedes aegypti mosquito regularly appears in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas, and along the Texas coast largely because they lack the tax base to pay for it, said Joseph Conlon, a retired Navy entomologist who is a technical adviser to the American Mosquito Control Association. If there were ever a place most at risk for homegrown Zika, it is Florida, the state with the largest number of imported Zika cases in the continental United States 74 reported at last count. And Miami Dade the largest port of entry into the United States from the biggest countries in Latin America, according to federal statistics is the county in Florida with the most reported cases, 32. Despite its importance, Miami Dade County, population 2.8 million, spends just 1.8 million on mosquito control, enough for a staff of 17, of whom 12 are inspectors. In contrast, Lee County, home to Fort Myers and 660,000 people, spends 16 million a year and has a staff of 88. "It is odd that there's not more money, considering we are such a global entry point," said Whitney A. Qualls, a vector biologist at the University of Miami. Mosquito control in the United States is a crazy quilt of jurisdictions that includes powerful independent districts with their own taxing authority and threadbare county health, environment or public works departments. Scrambling to gauge mosquito control preparedness, the C.D.C. recently produced a map of mosquito districts known to have troubling blank spots. And some places that were colored in as having districts said district was too grand a word. And with local public health budgets still shrunken since the recession of 2008 and President Obama's 1.8 billion Zika funding request stalled in Congress, health officials are starting to worry. That concern pervaded a Zika Action Plan Summit meeting of several hundred local health officials organized by the C.D.C. on Friday in Atlanta. Their problems were different, but all had one in common: too little money. "There is a broad pattern of decline, and that kind of places us in a handicapped position to start this race," said E. Oscar Alleyne, the senior adviser for public health programs at the National Association of County and City Health Officials, which has calculated that local health departments where some mosquito control departments reside have lost about 12 percent of their staffs since 2008. Traditional spraying from trucks and planes is mostly useless against this mosquito, a stealthy urban dweller. Instead, beating it back will require a lot of mosquito workers like Mr. Vasquez dumping out a lot of water containers in a lot of backyards. Mr. Vasquez, a soft spoken man with closely cropped hair and a fondness for bugs, set out with his small team of mosquito inspectors one recent morning, armed with chemical larvae killer and turkey basters to suck up larvae infested water. The Aedes aegypti mosquito rarely flies more than a few blocks, so their mission was to destroy breeding grounds near the houses of people suspected to have been infected with the Zika virus. The team knows that as more Zika infected travelers come to South Florida, the risk rises that a healthy mosquito will bite a sick person, pick up the virus and infect healthy people. "Look at that!" Mr. Vasquez said, pointing to a cluster of the plants, their spiky stalks sticking up like rock star hair in front of a cream colored ranch house. "Perfect Aedes aegypti habitat." When pressed, Mr. Vasquez acknowledged that handling a serious flare up would require asking for additional funding. Dr. Qualls, of the University of Miami, put it more bluntly: "Miami Dade has great people, but their budget is not enough to handle a Zika crisis." If that happens, said Mr. Conlon, the adviser to the American Mosquito Control Association, the county, and others like it, would probably have to hire private contractors. (Mr. Vasquez said he was making such arrangements.) Dr. Frieden of the C.D.C. said the budget request to Congress included money for that. So far in Miami, resources have been enough. But summer is coming, and Mr. Vasquez is on high alert. He stopped at one house that looked abandoned only to have the homeowner, Robert Hoak, emerge, blinking into the sun. Mr. Hoak said he was so preoccupied caring for his terminally ill wife that his mostly empty swimming pool had turned into a mosquito breeding ground. "Do whatever you've got to do, guys," he shouted as Mr. Vasquez climbed down into the pool to sprinkle some larvae killer in the green water.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
If you get emotional listening to the noble melody and stirring words of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," long the unofficial anthem of Black America, you may not mind hearing it three times over a couple of hours. The song is the through line connecting the disparate episodes of "To America," a kind of nighttime musical walking tour of Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn and one of the precious few opportunities to experience live performance in New York City this pandemic fall. Running through Saturday, it has been organized by Andrew Ousley, whose production company, Death of Classical, is no stranger to Green Wood: Its series The Angel's Share has for the past couple of years taken place in the cemetery's eerily long, narrow, vaulted catacombs. (Mr. Ousley likes to wittily play on the cliche that classical music is dying; his other series is set in the crypt of a church in Upper Manhattan.) As it happens, James Weldon Johnson, the remarkable educator, journalist, translator and activist who wrote the words of "Lift Every Voice" at the turn of the 20th century, is buried at Green Wood. (His brother, John Rosamond Johnson, composed the music.) This has inspired Mr. Ousley and his collaborators, the Harlem Chamber Players, to create an evening length work riffing on the anthem, race and history: of the cemetery, and of the United States. It's a tall order, and while we are still very much in the stage of the pandemic when any production, instrument or voice is inspiring, the result feels incomplete, even slight. Perhaps inevitably: "To America" is composed, after all, from fragments. Each small, masked, socially distanced audience pod ticket times are staggered so that one of these groups departs every half hour moves through the winding, hilly paths with a tour guide, stopping six times for short concerts lit by electric tea candles. The opening section, in the cemetery's neo Gothic chapel, was my first time hearing live music indoors since February. It's a big, airy space, but even with the doors open and my group of about 20 people spread out widely, it was still a strangely unfamiliar experience to have someone sing to me without a mask on. This was the baritone Kenneth Overton, who gave a passionate rendition of H. Leslie Adams's "Sence You Went Away," a setting of a love poem by Johnson. Mr. Overton was accompanied by a string quartet (Ashley Horne and Claire Chan, violins; Amadi Azikiwe, viola; Wayne Smith, cello) that also played Patrick Cannell's instrumental arrangement of "Lift Every Voice" and Carlos Simon's brooding "An Elegy: A Cry From the Grave," dedicated to Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown and others "murdered wrongfully by an oppressive power." On a mild, misty night, walking though a softly illuminated, almost blurry Green Wood, we then moved to the grave and statue of DeWitt Clinton, the New York governor largely responsible for the construction of the Erie Canal. This was the occasion for our guide describing the canal as both a route for escaping slaves and, paradoxically, as a conduit for products that drove the slave trade. With the bass Paul Grosvenor singing "Deep River," this was the most pointed moment of "To America," when music, the cemetery's holdings and our country's conflicted racial past came powerfully together. But it wasn't quite clear why we then visited the ornate mausoleum of Charlotte Canda, a teenage debutante who died in a carriage accident in 1845. Were we meant to contrast the extravagance of her grave with the modest stone for Margaret Pine, believed to be the last person to die enslaved in New York State? In front of Canda's grandeur, the cellist Robert Burkhart played Caroline Shaw's flowing "in manus tuas" while the dancer Selina Hack artfully writhed. Near Pine's resting place, we stood under a huge tree for as unusual a juxtaposition of arboreal songs as I can imagine: Handel's "Ombra mai fu" (sung by Danielle Buonaiuto) and "Strange Fruit" (sung by Freddie June), both accompanied by the cellist Jules Biber. By a hillside dotted with the graves of Civil War soldiers, a brass quintet (Dan Blankinship and Hugo Moreno, trumpets; Eric Davis, horn; Burt Mason, trombone; Marcus Rojas, tuba) played "Lift Every Voice," the Chorale from George Walker's "Music for Brass, Sacred and Profane" and Rob Booth's rollicking arrangement of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." David Beck recited a Johnson poem, and the mezzo soprano Lucy Dhegrae sang a quiet version of "Somewhere" from "West Side Story." (I guess because Leonard Bernstein is also buried at Green Wood? And, while I'm wondering, why didn't we visit Johnson's grave?)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Anne Morrissy Merick, who as a television field producer persuaded the Pentagon to overturn an edict that prevented women in the press corps from covering combat during the Vietnam War, died on May 2 in Naples, Fla. She was 83. Her daughter, Katherine Anne Engelke, said the cause was complications of dementia. Even as a college student, Ms. Morrissy Merick began blazing trails for women. She was the first woman to be named sports editor of The Cornell Daily Sun and the first woman admitted to the press box at the Yale Bowl. In Vietnam, Ms. Morrissy Merick was working in Saigon for ABC News in 1967 when Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the United States commander there, was horrified to encounter Denby Fawcett, a 24 year old reporter for The Honolulu Advertiser, embedded with American troops on a dangerous mission in the Central Highlands. Ms. Fawcett's mother was a friend of the general's wife. Fearing for their safety, General Westmoreland decided to bar female journalists from remaining overnight on the battlefield. In effect, his draft order would have handicapped them from covering combat, because in a guerrilla war, the front could materialize suddenly anywhere, and there was no assurance that journalists could be evacuated quickly. In response to the Westmoreland order, Ms. Morrissy Merick and Ann Bryan Mariano, an editor of Overseas Weekly, organized the half dozen other women covering the war to join them in meeting with Phil G. Goulding, a deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, who was in Saigon, the South Vietnam capital (now Ho Chi Minh City). After an inconclusive meeting, he and Ms. Morrissy Merick adjourned for drinks in her hotel room, where she persuaded him to have Westmoreland's edict reversed. ("And if you're wondering if I slept with him, the answer is no!" she wrote in "War Torn: The Personal Experiences of Women Reporters in the Vietnam War," a collection of remembrances published in 2002.) "My objective was to get 'the story behind the story, not only what these men did but how they felt about it,'" Ms. Morrissy Merick said. The Westmoreland order and its reversal were not widely reported at the time, but the journalistic precedents she set as a student at Cornell University in 1954 did make headlines across the country. As Anne Morrissy, she defeated three male students that spring to be elected the first female sports editor in the history of The Cornell Daily Sun, the student newspaper, which was founded in 1880. (Its editor in chief at the time was Dick Schaap, who would become an accomplished sportswriter.) On Oct. 16, 1954, after having been admitted to the press box at Cornell's football stadium, she overturned another hoary tradition. Traveling to New Haven for a Big Red away game, she became the first woman credentialed to sit in the press box at the Yale Bowl. She was seated next to Allison Danzig of The New York Times, and her photograph appeared in The Times the next day with his article on the undefeated Elis' 47 21 victory. For the most part, her milestone at The Sun and her giant step for womankind in integrating the Yale football press box were greeted with condescension by the male dominated profession. Misspelling her surname, the syndicated columnist Red Smith wrote in The New York Herald Tribune, "Miss Morrisy is a slick little chick whose name probably will be linked in history with those of other crusading cupcakes such as Lady Godiva, Susan B. Anthony, Lydia Pinkham and Mrs. Amelia Bloomer." He continued, "The first sportswriting doll to thrust her shapely foot through the door of an Ivy League press coop, she has breached the last bastion of masculinity left standing this side of the shower room." In an editorial, The Chicago Tribune wrote that Ms. Morrissy might bring a fresh viewpoint to sports coverage, as a woman and as a philosophy major. "She can explain Cornell's victories and defeats in terms of the categorical imperative, the Platonic doctrine of ideas, or the pessimism of Schopenhauer, holding that the will is an irrational form in conflict with the intellect," the Tribune said. "Or she can write a fashion review, giving a description of the costuming in Dartmouth green or Harvard Crimson, and what accessories the athletes carried." She had earlier covered varsity crew, swimming and even intramural horseshoes for The Sun, agreeing to take sports assignments that her male colleagues had spurned. That left her at a disadvantage when, as The Sun's sports editor, she entered the Yale Bowl press box. Ms. Morrissy Merick, above, "was happy to play up her cute, attractive spunkiness in order to get a foot in the door, and then she walloped them with her knowledge and ability to ask good questions," her daughter said. "In my excitement over the opportunity to sit in the press box," she wrote in The Boston Globe. "I had forgotten to learn anything about football." "To me, the hardest part of covering football is being able to keep your eye on the ball," she added, "and I consistently found myself watching the wrong person." Anne Louise Morrissy was born on Oct. 28, 1933, in Manhattan to John Morrissy, an advertising executive with Time Life, and the former Katherine Harriett McKay, who had been an actress. After graduating from Cornell in 1955 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy, she toured Europe and became sports editor of the Paris edition of The New York Herald Tribune. She was on assignment in Syria for an Israeli newspaper when she was arrested as a spy and deported. Hired by ABC as a producer in 1961, she covered the civil rights movement, presidential primaries and spaceflights. Posted to Vietnam later in the '60s, she remained there until 1973. By then, she had married Wendell S. Merick, a U.S. News and World Report correspondent whom she had met in Vietnam, and had a daughter with him. The family moved when the magazine closed its Saigon bureau. He died in 1988. She later married Dr. Don S. Janicek, a physician, who died in 2016. In addition to her daughter, she is survived by a sister, Katherine Hemion; four stepchildren, Larry, Steve and Nancy Janicek and Julie Janicek Wilkey; four granddaughters; and 13 step grandchildren. "From the many articles I have read about her," her daughter, Ms. Engelke, wrote of her 5 foot 2 mother in an email, "it sounds like she was happy to play up her cute, attractive spunkiness in order to get a foot in the door, and then she walloped them with her knowledge and ability to ask good questions."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
A program for the world premiere production of "My Fair Lady" in New Haven. At First Performance of 'My Fair Lady,' the Drama Was Offstage NEW HAVEN The snow was coming down. The turntables didn't turn. The star refused to perform. The cast was dismissed, thinking that that night's show would not go on. Yet "My Fair Lady" opened improbably, triumphantly, to its first paying audience on that Saturday, Feb. 4, 1956, at the Shubert Theater here, making the night the stuff of theater legend. The out of town circuit for shows destined for Broadway and its pressure cooker atmosphere has largely been replaced with the more measured pace of readings, workshops and developmental productions at regional theaters and presenting houses. The latest, highly anticipated revival of "My Fair Lady," which opens on April 19 at Lincoln Center Theater, was developed in house. And the weather forecast is expected to be more kind. But in 1956, signs of trouble for the new musical, based on George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion," came early. In the days before opening, the production's turntables, a new kind of cable driven stage device, failed to work properly. Tensions, too, were rising a few blocks away, inside the rehearsal hall at the Jewish Community Center. Rex Harrison, the show's Henry Higgins and marquee star, was looking increasingly nervous, as the 20 year old Julie Andrews, who was to play Eliza Doolittle, was keeping her cool. In an era before microphones could supersize voices, actors had only their own vocal cords to project to the back of the theater, and Harrison a novice to the Broadway musical, though he had sung in London shows decades before was feeling insecure. The show's director, Moss Hart; its librettist and lyricist, Alan Jay Lerner; and its composer, Frederick Loewe, tried to reassure the temperamental actor, but when he faced an orchestra of 32 musicians in the 1,600 seat, two balconied theater in a final rehearsal for that first public performance, he became overwhelmed According to Lerner's 1978 memoir, when Harrison got to the "A Hymn to Him" number, he stopped the rehearsal. "Mossie! Mossie!," he cried out to the director in the darkened orchestra, stepping into the footlights. "We're not going to open tonight and I may never open." Among the backstage witnesses to that piece of theater history: Jerry Adler, now 87, who was an assistant stage manager. "He flung his hat into the orchestra and stormed off to his dressing room, slamming the door behind him," Mr. Adler recalled recently. As Mr. Adler remembers it, Harrison's British valet emerged from his dressing room to make a formal announcement: "Mr. Harrison would like to see Mr. Hart." Mr. Adler went on: "The rest of us were all standing around, like, what do we do now? So we did a little rehearsal of the next scene, which was 'A Little Bit of Luck' with Stanley Holloway. "Everything was fine and great with that number," he added. "Finally, Moss came out and told us to release the cast for the day." The creative team scurried in and out of Harrison's dressing room to urge the star to change his mind. Finally, an emergency telephone call was placed to Maurice H. Bailey, who ran the Shubert and was playing bridge at the local country club, according to Edith Goodmaster, his executive secretary at the time. Mr. Bailey rushed to the theater, remembered Ms. Goodmaster, 87, and told Harrison that if he didn't perform that night, Mr. Bailey would go onstage and tell the audience of the actor's refusal. Harrison's manager "turned white," Ms. Goodmaster said, adding: "Mr. Bailey later told me that he would never have gone through with the threat. He was bluffing." It's not clear whether Mr. Bailey's warning or the failure to perform lawsuits that were then being discussed with Harrison's lawyer and agent had an impact, but the actor relented, appeased by the promise that Hart would advise the theatergoers of the production's tenuous state before the curtain rose. "Moss told Rex that we would explain to them that there are technical problems, and that it's more like a rehearsal," Mr. Adler said. "He said, 'They won't mind at all, because audiences love things like that.'" Around 6 o'clock, Hart came out of Harrison's dressing room. "I'll never forget what he said," Mr. Adler recalled. "He said, grandly: 'Gather the players! We're opening tonight!'" Word of the performance's cancellation, which had been broadcast on the radio, was rescinded, and crowds started forming at the theater: Yale students, local fans and trainloads of theater folk from Manhattan. "I went across the street to the Loew's Poli," said Mr. Adler, referring to the movie theater opposite the Shubert, "and in the middle of the movie, I yelled out: 'Anyone here from 'My Fair Lady' cast? The show is back on tonight!' We got everyone but one Rosemary Gaines, who had an attack of appendicitis and was in the hospital." (She was an ensemble member who played a servant.) As promised, Hart stepped before the curtain around 8:45 p.m. openings were later in that era and addressed the audience with his famous elegant charm. "It was one of the great opening night speeches," said Mr. Adler, who watched from the wings. "He finished by quoting Blanche DuBois: 'We have always depended on the kindness of strangers.' The audience loved it." The orchestra started its overture as lights on the scrim revealed a tableau at Covent Garden. The first scene began with Harrison's revealing himself from behind a pillar. He was holding a notebook. "I could see that he was shaking," Mr. Adler said. The welcoming applause helped calm him, and he got through his opening number: "Why Can't the English?"	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the Libor scandal is how familiar it seems. Sure, for some of the world's leading banks to try to manipulate one of the most important interest rates in contemporary finance is clearly egregious. But is that worse than packaging billions of dollars worth of dubious mortgages into a bond and having it stamped with a Triple A rating to sell to some dupe down the road while betting against it? Or how about forging documents on an industrial scale to foreclose fraudulently on countless homeowners? The misconduct of the financial industry no longer surprises most Americans. Only about one in five has much trust in banks, according to Gallup polls, about half the level in 2007. And it's not just banks that are frowned upon. Trust in big business overall is declining. Sixty two percent of Americans believe corruption is widespread across corporate America. According to Transparency International, an anticorruption watchdog, nearly three in four Americans believe that corruption has increased over the last three years. We should be alarmed that corporate wrongdoing has come to be seen as such a routine occurrence. Capitalism cannot function without trust. As the Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow observed, "Virtually every commercial transaction has within itself an element of trust." The parade of financiers accused of misdeeds, booted from the executive suite and even occasionally jailed, is undermining this essential element. Have corporations lost whatever ethical compass they once had? Or does it just look that way because we are paying more attention than we used to? This is hard to answer because fraud and corruption are impossible to measure precisely. Perpetrators understandably do their best to hide the dirty deeds from public view. And public perceptions of fraud and corruption are often colored by people's sense of dissatisfaction with their lives. Last year, the economists Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson from the University of Pennsylvania published a study suggesting that trust in government and business falls when unemployment rises. "Much of the recent decline in confidence particularly in the financial sector may simply be a standard response to a cyclical downturn," they wrote. And waves of mistrust can spread broadly. After years of dismal employment prospects, Americans are losing trust in a broad range of institutions, including Congress, the Supreme Court, the presidency, public schools, labor unions and the church. Corporate wrongdoing may be cyclical, too. Fraud is probably more lucrative, as well as easier to hide, amid the general prosperity of economic booms. And the temptation to bend the rules is probably highest toward the end of an economic upswing, when executives must be the most creative to keep the stream of profits rolling in. It's difficult to know why corruption may be spreading. But there are a few plausible explanations. From globalization to rising income inequality to the growing role of corporate money in political campaigns, political and economic dynamics may have increased both the scope of corporate wrongdoing and the incentives for business executives to bend, or break, the rules. Just consider the scale of recent wrongdoing. Libor is one of the most important rates in the economy. It determines the return on the savings of millions of people, as well as the rate they pay on their mortgage and car loans. It is the benchmark for hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of financial contracts. Bigger markets allow bigger frauds. Bigger companies, with more complex balance sheets, have more places to hide them. And banks, when they get big enough that no government will let them fail, have the biggest incentive of all. A 20 year old study by the economists Paul Romer and George Akerlof pointed out that the most lucrative strategy for executives at too big to fail banks would be to loot them to pay themselves vast rewards knowing full well that the government would save them from bankruptcy. Globalization can encourage corruption, as companies compete tooth and claw for new markets. And the furious rush of corporate cash into the political process which differs from bribery in that companies pay politicians to change laws rather than bureaucrats to ignore them is unlikely to foment ethical behavior. The inexorable rise of income inequality is also likely to encourage fraud, fostering resentment and undermining trust in capitalism's institutions and rules. Economic research shows that participants in contests in which the winner takes all are much more likely to cheat. And the United States is becoming a winner takes all economy. It's hard to fathom the broader social implications of corporate wrongdoing. But its most long lasting impact may be on Americans' trust in the institutions that underpin the nation's liberal market democracy.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
I first laid eyes on a countertop dishwasher called Tetra at a consumer electronics convention in Las Vegas a few months ago. Just big enough to hold two place settings, it doesn't require a faucet connection, unlike most other models. I write about housekeeping, and I tend to be not overly impressed by new home appliances, but this was personal: As someone who lives in an exceedingly small, dishwasher less Manhattan apartment, I want this appliance and I want it now. (Unfortunately, it won't be available until later this year.) Small apartment dwellers and their close relatives, the tiny house set understand that maximizing space is crucial to living well in not very much square footage. I know this, because I am one. I'm also a cleaning expert, which makes the reality of my 325 square foot apartment which is short on amenities, leaving dishes to be done by hand and dirty clothes to be lugged to laundromats somewhat dispiriting. I live to do laundry! My kingdom for a washer/dryer! My life changed and I do not say that with even a touch of hyperbole when I got the Dyson DC44 Animal. I love this vacuum. In fact, I love this vacuum so much that I would marry it, in the event that any grammar school aged children are reading this and are considering an attempt at nailing me with that old chestnut of a comeback. Amazon tells me that I purchased my Animal on Nov. 11, 2013 and, while I don't use Smalls (that's his name) every day, every day that do I use him, I feel happy. He makes my life better by being a part of it, truly. When Smalls first came into my life, I had dark, Rapunzel length hair that wanted nothing more than to free itself from my scalp and transmogrify into tumbleweed like clumps that drifted all around my home. Post Smalls, that hair no longer has the option of assembling militia style, because I run my little vacuum as soon as I see a strand beginning its forward march. And here's where the beauty of this thing comes in: I can vacuum as much as I want, because Smalls makes it so easy for me to do so. He resides in a wall mounted holster, which means I don't have to dig him out of a closet. He's cordless, which means I don't have to fool with plugging him in. He's super lightweight, so I can grab him, zip around my apartment picking up hair or stray Golden Grahams (late night cereal habits are no joke) and hang him back up without exerting any effort at all. I have gone Full Oprah arms outstretched as I bellow to anyone who will listen, "I loooooove thiiiiiiis vacuuuuuuuuum!!!" when talking about this machine, that is how strongly I feel about it. Vacuuming alone isn't enough to keep my floors clean of New York City grime, and while my preferred method is to wash the floor on my hands and knees, which in my tiny kitchen only takes 7 minutes (I timed it!), the iRobot Braava jet Mopping Robot gets a lot of use especially in the bathroom. Unlike the Roomba, iRobot's popular robotic vacuum that is, frankly, far more vacuum than most small homes require, the Braava is tiny, measuring 7" by 3.3" and weighing 2.7 pounds. Her name is Cleana Gershon, and she is a love. (I'm a big Gina Gershon fan.) Here's a neat feature: The machine can switch between wet, damp and dry cleaning, and can be fitted with disposable or launderable, reusable cleaning pads. Cleana Gershon the Braava resides in my bathroom, in the space that was freed up when I swapped a full sized garment steamer and iron for the Reliable Dash Portable Garment Steamer, which features an ironing soleplate that can be used for pressing when steaming alone isn't enough. Though I held onto my full sized ironing board, which hangs out of the way from a wall mounted iron caddy, portable ironing blankets are a good option for homes that are short on space. It's harder than it should be to find small trash cans, but after years of looking up, down and sideways for the perfect bin in which to stash a day or two's worth of recycling, I finally found the perfect thing to fit in the tiny unused nook between my kitchen cabinets and front door. The Small Clear Rectangular Trash Can from The Container Store measures 6" x 9 1/4" x 11 3/4" and is deep enough to hold the stash of plastic grocery bags I use as liners to catch drips from bottles and cans, along with the bottles and cans themselves. While all of my toys have made my life and my home better, there are two upgrades I still dream of making: I would love to create a hand crank washing machine and wall mounted telescoping drying rack setup, so I can cut back on the number of trips I make to the laundromat each week. I've yet to identify the right spot for this fantasy laundry center. But you can bet your bottom dollar that come fall, that Tetra will be mine. Now I just need to think of a name.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
The Libyan revolution of 2011 brought lasting terrorist mayhem across a broad reach of Africa's former French colonies. Now France needs its allies to help pacify the region if that can be done. PARIS This is a war that escapes most radar screens. The French, whose troops have been fighting in the Sahel for seven years, ask few questions about their involvement. They should. In this crucible where Islamist insurgency, ancient local conflicts, fragile states, European hesitations and a shifting American strategy make an explosive mix, it is a war they may well be losing or, in the best case, a war they may never win. That is the somber warning that the chief of staff of the French armed forces, Gen. Francois Lecointre, delivered on Nov. 27, a day after his troops suffered 13 casualties in a helicopter crash in Mali during combat operations. "We will never achieve final victory," he told the public radio station France Inter. "Avoiding the worst must provide sufficient satisfaction for a soldier. Today, thanks to our constant action, we are ensuring that the worst is avoided." Welcome to the unforgiving, thankless fight against jihadis in the Sahel, an African region south of the Sahara as large as Europe, where 4,500 French troops were deployed in January 2013 to prevent the capital of Mali, Bamako, from falling to Al Qaeda. It is now the epicenter of the world's fastest growing Islamist led insurgency. Two weeks ago, the French government decided to send 600 extra troops to the Sahel. Hardly a surge, but a clear sign that "avoiding the worst" is proving more and more difficult. Bamako was saved, but since then Islamist groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have spread to neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso. After killing more than 4,000 people last year and displacing more than a million, these groups are now threatening four coastal West African countries south of Burkina Faso, a state that, as the International Crisis Group warned recently, may provide "a perfect launching pad" for operations in Benin, Togo, Ghana and Ivory Coast. How did France end up intervening in a region that it left about 60 years ago as a colonial ruler? It all started with the Franco British led Western intervention in Libya, in 2011. The turmoil that followed the insurrection against Col. Muammar el Qaddafi and his subsequent death drew significant quantities of men and weapons from Libya to Mali. In 2012, jihadist groups conquered Timbuktu and other towns in the north of Mali, imposing a regime of terror on the population. France rushed in troops, and French and local forces freed those towns, followed by a United Nations stabilization force. But the insurgents, spreading like the desert, dispersed, moving to central Mali and further south. Niger was the next target, and then, in 2015, Burkina Faso. As the Islamic State struck in Paris with mass terrorist attacks in 2015, the counterterrorism narrative for sending troops to the Sahel to reinforce local national armed forces made perfect sense to French public opinion. Europe faced a huge refugee crisis. Helping local armies in sub Saharan Africa to contain another jihadi threat seemed like a logical response. But containment has not worked, and France is asking for help. In a report released Feb. 10, "Militias, Armed Islamists Ravage Central Mali," Human Rights Watch painted an alarming picture of atrocities still being committed against civilians in the area. French, U.N. and European troops are confronted with a morphing conflict: Groups like the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (I.S.G.S.) feed on local and ethnic divisions, which they exploit to recruit in areas where state structures have disappeared. "True, the nations of Sahel have their own weaknesses," one leader of the African Union, Moussa Faki Mahamat, admitted in an interview with Le Monde last week. "Islamist extremists have taken advantage of these weaknesses to build a genuine force, with operational capabilities superior to those of the governments." The collapse of some of those failing states is a risk now taken seriously. Sending 600 extra French troops is not meant as a game changer on the ground, but as a morale booster for a country like Niger, badly shaken by devastating attacks against its armed forces. But here is the catch: In the process, France is seen as the former colonial power supporting weak and corrupt regimes, or accused of covering up extortions by local regular armies. The rise of anti French sentiment among parts of the local population and among intellectuals, notably in Bamako, led an angry President Emmanuel Macron to threaten to withdraw his troops if local leaders did not clearly state why such support was needed. This is only one of France's predicaments. Another is American assistance, which has been crucial for intelligence, surveillance and logistics, even though Operation Barkhane, as it is known, is French led. With the situation deteriorating, President Macron and the U.N. secretary general, Antonio Guterres, summoned the leaders of the so called G5 Sahel (Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Chad) to a meeting in France, where they decided on a new strategy to break the advance of the I.S.G.S. But French defense officials, who see the next six months as decisive, have been alarmed by announcements from the Pentagon's African Command center on "adjusting its presence" in Africa. French defense officials say this possible reduction of American involvement presents France with two challenges: First, withdrawing operational assistance (like drones) would break the military dynamics and create a political void that would be disastrous. Second, as one official told me, "Having the United States turn its attention elsewhere just as we are pleading with our European friends to send more troops certainly doesn't help." "Elsewhere" is China and Russia, which are ranked as top threats, in the current American defense strategy. Florence Parly, the French minister for the armed forces, flew to Washington two weeks ago to make her case, noting that an American citizen was among hostages freed by French special forces last year on the border between Mali and Burkina Faso in an operation that cost the life of two French commandos. France makes no secret of the destabilizing effect of growing Russian activity in Africa. In a press briefing on Jan. 30, the American defense secretary, Mark Esper, acknowledged that Washington was "adjusting numbers and how we allocate the personnel more toward global great power competition" in Africa, "and maybe less toward counterterrorism," but no decisions had yet been made. Simultaneously, the French are trying to adjust their own strategy. They are keeping up pressure on their European partners, some of which Spain, Britain, Denmark already contribute to Operation Barkhane, while German troops train local armies. Estonia is sending 90 men, half of them for a special forces unit, and the Czechs are expected to send another 60 elite soldiers. "What the French have been doing in the Sahel with only 4,500 troops is remarkable," a former British senior defense official reckoned behind closed doors. But is this enough? Critics suggest that the French strategy focuses on security and the military response at the expense of civilian efforts to fix bad governance and corruption. But if nation building is tricky, it is even more so for a former colonial power which is why France needs more help. In Paris these days, there is a sense of, "Damned if you do, damned if you don't." The French, though, should not be the only ones to worry. We should all pay more attention to the Sahel. Sylvie Kauffmann is the editorial director and a former editor in chief of Le Monde, and a contributing opinion writer. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter ( NYTopinion) and Instagram.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
AMERICAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at Carnegie Hall (Jan. 25, 8 p.m.). Who else but Leon Botstein and his ensemble would come up with a program like this, filled with orchestral music by New York composers from the middle of the last century. The most famous work is probably Schuman's Symphony No. 3, preceded by Robert Mann's "Fantasy for Orchestra," Vivian Fine's "Concertante for Piano and Orchestra" and Jacob Druckman's "Prism." Charlie Albright is at the keyboard. 212 247 7800, carnegiehall.org 'DON GIOVANNI' at the Metropolitan Opera (Jan. 30, 7:30 p.m.; through Feb. 20). Despite its rather downbeat reception, Michael Grandage's production returns again, for the first of two runs this season. (There are five performances in April.) Luca Pisaroni is Don Giovanni, with Ildar Abdrazakov as his Leporello. Rachel Willis Sorensen sings Anna, Federica Lombardi sings Elvira and Aida Garifullina is Zerlina, with Stanislas de Barbeyrac as Ottavio, Brandon Cedel as Masetto and Stefan Kocan as the Commendatore. Cornelius Meister conducts. 212 362 6000, metopera.org	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Yet another bitter battle over art, appropriation and censorship is being waged this week this time over a depiction of a Chinatown waiting room. The Berlin based artist Omer Fast presented his 3D film "August" at the James Cohan Gallery's Grand Street location starting in September. The film dealt with the German photographer August Sander and Nazism, but Mr. Fast hoped to better integrate the installation with the surrounding community: to "transform the gallery facade and interior into what they were like before gentrification," according to the gallery's news release. So he put up a yellow facade with faded red Chinese characters and constructed a waiting room, in a similar spirit to the airport lounges and doctor's waiting rooms he had devised in Berlin, Minneapolis and other places. This installation was especially meant to conjure a Chinatown bus stop, with its mismatched tiles, hanging red lanterns and unglamorous folding chair setup. A representative for the Cohan Gallery said Mr. Fast visited the space and surrounding area several times to get a feel for the aesthetic. But the Chinatown community saw it differently. "This exhibition is a hostile act towards communities on the front lines fighting tenant harassment, cultural appropriation and erasure," the Chinatown Art Brigade wrote in an open letter. "The conception and installation of this show reifies racist narratives of uncleanliness, otherness and blight that have historically been projected onto Chinatown."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
LONDON Can you scale Everest twice? Yes, and formidably so in the case of Ian McKellen, who first played King Lear in a world tour for the Royal Shakespeare Company just over a decade ago. Now 79 and so more age appropriate for the part, the rightly venerated actor has returned this summer to the same role, in a far more intimate but even fiercer production that opened on Thursday at the Duke of York's Theater here and runs through Nov. 3. It will be screened in movie theaters via National Theater Live on Sept. 27. This latest "Lear," smartly if unshowily directed by Jonathan Munby, adds to a London theater season thronged with royals. George III can be glimpsed twice over, in the musical phenomenon "Hamilton" and its satirical cousin, "Spamilton," which opened here on Tuesday night. Ken Watanabe is holding forth as an unusually playful King of Siam in "The King and I" at the London Palladium, and Rhys Ifans, as the vainglorious despot in a rare local sighting of Eugene Ionesco's "Exit the King," at times suggests a Lear in waiting. Mr. McKellen nonetheless exists a league apart, and not only because of his commitment to the theater at a time when so many colleagues of his generation have forsaken the stage. Writing in the "Lear" program that Shakespeare's most scalding tragedy felt like "unfinished business" for him, he seems to be working his way through familiar terrain entirely afresh. Listen, for starters, to the way he phrases "which of you shall we say doth love us most?" as Lear carves his kingdom among his daughters: A slight upturn on the word "most" implies that even he can't believe he is asking so hateful a question. And whereas his previous Lear, directed by Trevor Nunn, traveled to theaters described by the actor as "too uncongenially spacious," this iteration is happening in an auditorium that accommodates just over 500 people. No wonder it's a hot ticket. That Mr. McKellen and his supporting cast exceed expectations speaks to an unusually lively and vital take on a play that can sometimes seem embalmed. So propulsive is the three and a half hour production that it doesn't really need its percussive, thriller like soundscape, more suitable to a police procedural. No stranger to declamation, Mr. McKellen lends a welcome softness to Lear's decisive "howl," as if what matters most is not the decibel level but the sense of psychic excoriation as the wayward monarch comes to grief. The acting spoils are shared with a cast whose standouts include James Corrigan as a fully self aware Edmund and Sinead Cusack, a stage veteran of many decades, whose female Kent becomes the unfussy moral arbiter of the play. But when Mr. McKellen takes his solo bow at the end, the exultant response of the audience is bittersweet: He has intimated that this may be his Shakespearean swan song. If so, he's had quite a run. His belated and unwelcome reckoning with the grim reaper propels Ionesco's play, which has been revived at the National in a fresh adaptation by its director, Patrick Marber, and is running in repertory through Oct. 6; the production is the first time a work by the celebrated Romanian born French playwright has been at the National. A classic of the absurdist repertoire, "Exit the King" ("Le Roi se meurt") parallels "King Lear" in its defiant rage against the dying of the light ("I will remain standing and I will howl," says the fallen despot, who gets a mini storm scene of his own). Depicting a kingdom facing collapse, Anthony Ward's high walled set shows a crack running through a royal crest, and it flies away to reveal an inky, existential blackness for the closing sequence. And as in Mr. Munby's "Lear," Mr. Marber extends the action into the audience: Runways would seem to be in vogue this season. "I'm dying," Berenger bleats from his wheelchair, "so let everything die." Mr. Ifans brings a chalk faced, dark eyed eloquence to a play that is at its best when musing on mortality and considerably less involving when attempting a deliberately off kilter comedy that quickly palls. (Running about half the length of the new "Lear," "Exit the King" feels far longer.) The opening introduces a motley retinue of royal wives and hangers on, who include two contrasting queens, a doctor turned obituarist (the ever welcome Adrian Scarborough) and a bustling servant played by a game Debra Gillett, who also happens to be Mr. Marber's wife. Presumably, she doesn't mind playing a character noted in her husband's fresh take on Ionesco's script for her "ghoulish, bulging eyes." Positing a "proto dystopia" where "abnormal is the new normal," this "Exit the King" makes nods in the direction of today's skewed political landscape, but such social commentary as might exist is sacrificed on the altar of facetiousness I don't recall remarks about "the royal hemorrhoid" and the like in other productions. Mr. Ifans is the occasion here, in a performance light years removed from his scene stealing screen turn as Hugh Grant's slobby roommate in "Notting Hill," which first brought him to a broader public. Indeed, between Berenger and Mr. Ifans's direct acquaintance with "King Lear" he played the Fool to Glenda Jackson's diminutive monarch in 2016 the actor would seem to be circling Shakespeare's piteous ruler for himself someday. Let's hope it doesn't take him 483 years.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
On Fourth of July weekend in 2015, while Hillary Clinton campaigned in New Hampshire for the Democratic presidential nomination, theatergoers in Falmouth, Mass., got a look at a work in progress about her Lucas Hnath's play "Hillary and Clinton," now poised for Broadway. Set in an alternate universe during the 2008 primaries, as she fights for survival against a charismatic upstart, it was a comic tragedy, and it couldn't have been more topical. Unfolding around a pivotal moment in the contest, it examined how the strictures of her gender and the baggage of her marriage affected her ability to navigate the men's world of politics. Hal Brooks, the artistic director of the Cape Cod Theater Project, remembers his audiences loving the series of staged readings. But he was so sure of the real Mrs. Clinton's odds in 2016 that when he thought about the future of this play, rooted as it was in a failed White House run, he did have a concern. "Once she's president," he said, "will anybody really be interested?" Needless worry, that. Bad news for Mrs. Clinton seems to have been a stroke of luck for the play. So, apparently, has the uprising of feminist outrage that followed her defeat, propelling a wave of women into Congress this year and a pack of female candidates into the 2020 presidential race. Starring Laurie Metcalf as Hillary and John Lithgow as Bill, and directed by Joe Mantello, "Hillary and Clinton" arrives at the Golden Theater in March amid a raucous cultural debate about gender politics and the double standard that women face. Not a bad outcome, but a surprising one for a play that was written in 2008 and had to wait eight years for its world premiere until Mrs. Clinton was once again waging a primary campaign. Directed by Chay Yew, it opened at Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago in April 2016. Charles Isherwood, writing about that production in The New York Times, said that "Hillary" found Mr. Hnath (pronounced nayth) in "unusually cautious" form. But Chris Jones, in The Chicago Tribune, called the play "audacious, whip smart, highly entertaining" and "an important piece of writing." In the gap of years before he staged it, Mr. Yew said, the script "kind of bounced around to some theaters, and nobody knew what to do with it." "Also one wondered at the time, for some theaters, whether it was relevant," he added. Still, when he first read it in 2012, he recalls being smitten finding it "utterly feminist and tragic" as it confronted "the eternal question of the role of women in society." In the summer of 2014, he directed a workshop of the play at the Ignition Festival at Victory Gardens, where he is the artistic director. In 2015, he and Mr. Hnath took "Hillary" to Cape Cod. Then as now, it wasn't meant as biography. Guarded and battle scarred though she is, the Hillary in the play isn't quite the Hillary Clinton from the news. The same goes for the men around her her husband, Bill, though he's still a thousand times more cavalier than she'll ever be; her opponent, Barack (known in earlier versions of the play as The Other Guy); and her strategist, Mark Penn. Like Mr. Hnath's other plays about famous figures (Walt Disney, Isaac Newton), "Hillary" blends fiction with fact, aiming to subvert what audience members think they already know. But Laura Colleluori, who directed the play for Second Thought Theater in Dallas in January 2018, said the effect is to bring the audience closer to Mrs. Clinton. "Talking about her as a fictional character is kind of the only way that we can have a fair conversation about the real woman," she said. "It gives you the option, the chance, the request even, to grant her maybe a little bit of the humanity that 40 years in the public eye can kind of take away from you." In the version of the "Hillary" script published in 2017 by Dramatists Play Service, Mr. Hnath admonishes performers against imitating the real Clintons ("Don't do it!"), then adds for directors: "Don't even try to cast actors who look like these people." The opening monologue in the published script asks the audience to consider the likelihood of "an infinite number of planet earths." And then: "It would be very helpful if as you watch this play you were to imagine that the play takes place on one of those slightly different planet earths located billions of light years away from our own." Spectators, of course, don't always do as they're asked. Mr. Yew remembers that at Victory Gardens, "everyone brought their garbage, really, to the play"; whatever they were thinking about the election came into the theater with them. Some got upset, worried that "Hillary" would harm the real Mrs. Clinton's chances. That same spring, right after the Chicago run, Ken Rus Schmoll directed a production at the Philadelphia Theater Company. After the election, though, few other stagings followed. (Through a spokeswoman, neither Mr. Hnath nor anyone affiliated with the Broadway production would comment for this article, but Mr. Yew said that the playwright had been revising "Hillary.") The Hnath work that's truly taken off is "A Doll's House, Part 2," which opened on Broadway in April 2017 and, according to American Theater magazine, is the current season's most produced play. The first Broadway show for Mr. Hnath, who until then was a downtown darling known for brainy experimentation, it won Ms. Metcalf her first Tony. In "Doll's House," she played Nora, Mr. Hnath's reworking of Ibsen's classic character a strong minded, convention breaking woman, a figure important to the cultural imagination and much deliberated there. The same could be said of Hillary Clinton, except of course that she is also a living human being.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Lexi Shangraw, a San Francisco resident, flew to Phoenix in early March for what was supposed to be a brief visit. But when lockdowns started, she ended up staying longer than anticipated in hopes of waiting out Covid 19. Last month, she decided it was finally time to return home. Dubious about the safety of big commercial airlines, she chose JSX, a hybrid private jet service that departs from small, private terminals. In the world of private jet travel, Ms. Shangraw got a good deal. Her one way ticket on a semiprivate jet to Oakland, Calif., cost 159. That same day, a flight to the Bay Area on American Airlines would have cost 150, she said. Ms. Shangraw is among the growing number of Americans using private jets, seeing them as a safer alternative to the often cramped commercial flights filled with strangers during the pandemic. The day after the Fourth of July, when commercial airline travel was down 74 percent year over year, private jet flights were up five percent, according to an analysis of data from Argus, an aviation consulting firm, by Doug Gollan, who runs the website Private Jet Card Comparisons. On JSX, passengers still fly with up to 29 strangers (though Ms. Shangraw said there were fewer than 15 on her flight), but there's no need to arrive two hours early (the company recommends 20 minutes), because there are no security lines and no complex boarding procedures. JSX flights tend to cost between 300 and 500 one way, per person, but some shorter legs can cost less than 100. Compared to most private jet services, JSX is downright affordable. Some customers are opting for pricey, custom charter flights that can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to more than 10,000 per hour, based on factors like aircraft type and in flight service. Even when paying top dollar, many travelers are seeing value in springing for private flights amid a pandemic. That includes people like Franklin Antoian, the founder of the personal training website iBodyFit, who along with his wife and two kids took his first ever private jet ride last month from Palm Beach, Fla., to visit family in upstate New York. It cost 20,000, about six times more than Mr. Antoian's usual first class fares for his family of four. He justified the cost, saying this may be his family's only flight this year. A town car arrived at their home and shuttled them directly to the door of a small airport with plush chairs and no blaring loudspeakers. The plane left when the family was ready. It's a far cry from ever changing rules about middle seats, passengers refusing to wear masks and flight attendants telling off passengers for sitting in an unoccupied exit row for more space. And while travelers on commercial airlines report confusion over mask policies not being enforced, flying private means everyone has their face covered. "Flying private is much safer, and consistently so," said Sridhar Tayur, founder of OrganJet, a company that provides private jet travel for organ transplant patients. "Social distancing is easier. The pilots wear masks. The passengers usually a small number know each other." The major drawback for many travelers is, of course, the cost. A one way charter flight between New York and Miami with the private jet company Silver Air costs between 15,000 and 20,000 for the entire aircraft, depending on the jet (their planes seat between four and 10). Bring nine friends, and that still amounts to a few thousand dollars per person each way significantly more than the cost of your average first class ticket, and far more than the price of a basic economy seat. Another company, Jet It, charges 4,200 per hour (though purchasing a membership reduces the per hour rate to 1,600), not including airport fees. Their HondaJet Elite aircraft seats six. To reduce the price of the 8,000 to 10,000 per hour flight, Jamie Gibson, the founder of the website Flightess and a high end charter flight attendant, says more groups of first time fliers are chartering planes with friends and family, and thus reducing the per person cost. Prepandemic, her regular clients were executives who tended to travel alone. The cost is further reduced by the CARES Act tax break. Private jet customers aren't required to pay the 7.5 percent Federal Excise Tax between March 28 and Dec. 31, 2020, which is typically charged on all private jet flights and hours. Additionally, companies don't have to pay any fuel taxes during that period, which is one less cost they would otherwise pass onto consumers. While commercial air travel is getting pummeled, private jet travel has not been hit nearly as hard, said Mr. Gollan. In April, passenger count on commercial airlines fell 95 percent year over year, while passenger count on private jet charters was down 67 percent, according to Mr. Gollan's analysis of Argus's data. By June, private jet operators saw just a 22 percent decrease. "With virtually no business travel, the rebound was fueled by existing customers flying for personal reasons and newcomers to the market," Mr. Gollan said. "Private flying isn't fully back, but certainly the industry is in much better shape than airlines. There is a strong flow of new to private aviation customers." XO, which offers both private charters and the ability to book individual seats on private jets, saw a 19.8 percent decrease in hours flown in the first half of 2020 versus the first half of 2019, according to Argus data. But the company said monthly membership sales between March and May 2020 among first time private jet fliers averaged five times higher than their monthly averages. Two other companies have also seen increased interest. Sentient Jet said more than 50 percent of the 8,000 flight hours in June were sold to first time customers, up from about 25 to 30 percent in most months. And Air Charter Service said in a press release that in May and June, it saw a 75 percent increase in year over year inquiries from potential customers. The trend looks likely to continue as commercial air travel may only become more painful. JetBlue is blocking middle seats through at least Sept. 8 and Southwest Airlines is doing the same through at least Oct. 31 but it's unclear what happens after that. Luxuries like airport lounges are closed with no indication when they'll reopen. And passengers report flights being canceled at the last minute. Ms. Gibson said in addition to families and friends on vacation, she's recently flown students who needed to return from college or boarding schools and older passengers who feel especially at risk flying commercial airlines. And as airlines cut back on international flights in response to countries closing their borders to some foreigners, including Americans, she's also flying a number of repatriation trips. Private jet travel allows citizens of other countries to find a way home. For repatriation flights from the United States to a country where travel is restricted to citizens only, the plane can land, but Ms. Gibson and her crewmates can't set foot on foreign land. The passenger departs, and the crew immediately leaves the country. It is not advised to use a private jet to skirt entry restrictions just look at the five American travelers who chartered a private jet to Sardinia, but were turned away upon arrival. Even dogs are flying on chartered planes. Elsa Chen, a Bernedoodle puppy, was purchased by her owners through a website called PuppySpot. They paid the company's standard flat rate of 799 to send dogs via air cargo. But when Elsa's American Airlines flight from Chicago O'Hare to San Francisco was canceled last month and could not be rebooked for several days, PuppySpot rebooked Elsa on a private jet and had her arrive in San Francisco nearly on schedule. As a result, PuppySpot is now flying all of its dogs on private planes. These days, most passengers' biggest safety concerns center on Covid 19. Ms. Gibson and her crewmates now wear a mask and gloves throughout the flight, but she said some customers still opt out of most in flight service as a precaution. About 15 percent of her clients now prefer plastic plates in lieu of fine porcelain china to minimize risk, and about the same number ask to be mostly left alone in the cabin to maintain distancing. JSX said they've always wiped down high touch areas like seats, armrests and tray tables at the start and end of each day. Since the Covid 19 pandemic, they've ramped up cleaning to occur "throughout the day" with hospital grade disinfectant. With most of the modern stresses of commercial travel absent, Mr. Antoian said his private jet experience harkened back to the 1950s era of "the Golden Age of plane travel," a time when flying felt glamorous. "You're not just offering coffee or tea," Ms. Gibson said. "You're offering a cappuccino or espresso. You're not just handing them a bag of cookies or peanuts. I offer to bake them a souffle. Any custom food requests, we can order or make." Mr. Antoian didn't ask for any custom orders (his kids ate sandwiches from home) but it wasn't out of any coronavirus related caution. "I just didn't want to inconvenience anyone," he said. Even without a souffle, Mr. Antoian said the experience was well worth it for (most of) his family. "He knows how to work the Delta TV and how to navigate the Disney movies," he said. "He had to watch it on my wife's iPad. He was disappointed."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
There was a time when the Yankees landing Troy Tulowitzki would have been trumpeted an All Star shortstop treading the same patch of Yankee Stadium dirt as his boyhood idol, Derek Jeter. Now, though, the union carries more pragmatism than pomp. The Yankees need a shortstop to replace the injured Didi Gregorius for several months, and Tulowitzki, who has missed a year and half with injuries and was released by the Toronto Blue Jays last month, needs a place to resurrect his career. And so the Yankees are taking a low risk flier, signing Tulowitzki to a one year, major league minimum contract, pending a physical. The agreement, first reported by ESPN late Tuesday night, was confirmed by a baseball official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the deal until it is completed. The agreement does not preclude the Yankees from signing the free agent infielder Manny Machado, but it does give an indication that they have reservations about meeting an asking price that is expected to be in the 10 year, 300 million range.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
A sprawling aerie on the 53rd floor of One57, the sky piercing condominium that has attracted demigods of international business and finance, sold to a mystery buyer, one seemingly versed in the teachings of a much higher power, for 30,683,372.50 and was the most expensive closed sale of the week, according to city records. The monthly charges for the 5,475 square foot sponsor unit, No. 53B, which was combined early on with 53C for a total of five bedrooms and five and a half bathrooms, are 10,408. The purchaser, who was brought to the deal by Raphael De Niro and Danielle Sevier of Douglas Elliman Real Estate, was shielded, like many of the building's buyers, under a limited liability company. This one is named Hebrews 3:4, an apparent reference to a passage in the New Testament of the Bible that reads in part: "For every house is built by some man; but he that built all things is God." Mr. De Niro, citing a confidentiality agreement, said he could not disclose much about his client. But Gary Barnett, the founder and president of the Extell Development Company, which developed the 90 story skyscraper at 157 West 57th Street, said the buyer was domestic and, he believed, planned to live in the apartment with the family. Many buyers at One57 have been deep pocketed foreigners, among them, Guoqing Chen, a founder of Hainan Airlines, part of the HNA Group, one of China's largest private airline companies, who recently bought a floor through unit on the 57th floor for nearly 47.4 million.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Summer holds a special place in the hearts of horror movie fans. Maybe it's because summer camp is basically a genre, and it looks something like this: Heat makes randy campers sweaty, and that makes them strip off their clothes, and that makes deranged psychopaths extra crazy enough to plunge axes in faces. Summer is also one of my favorite times of the year to watch horror movies; give me AC and give me death. (Christmas is the other.) New York is a treasure island for horror fans, with robust first run and repertory calendars at the Quad, IFC Center, Nitehawk, Alamo Drafthouse, Metrograph and other theaters. When it's too hot to go outside, I'll turn off the lights in my apartment and watch slasher films until my Tater Tots and wine coolers run out. Whether you want to be immersed in maniacs for a night or an entire weekend, here's one horror fan's guide to films and series you can see in theaters or stream right now. (Just so you know: I don't care for zombies, and I don't do sharks.) Some of these picks are for newbies. Others are for the "I've seen 'Martyrs'" level aficionados. Most are for folks who like to be scared but still get to sleep at night. The movie on my mind right now is "The Nightingale," the brutal new revenge film from Jennifer Kent ("The Babadook"). Set in 19th century Tasmania, the film follows Clare, a young Irish convict, and Billy, an Aboriginal guide, who together seek justice against the lieutenant who subjected her to horrific acts of violence. The movie is dividing audiences over its female director's depiction of violence and rape, continuing a discussion about sex and the male gaze that the horror genre has been debating since at the very least 1972, when Wes Craven's "The Last House on the Left" shocked audiences with its depiction of brutality against women. Ms. Kent rejects the revenge and horror labels, instead calling her film "a true recounting of a historical horror." That's reason enough why as tough to watch as it is her film sits at the top of my list. Find the biggest screen you can to watch "Midsommar," Ari Aster's trippy and terrifying follow up to "Hereditary" that does for Swedish folk cults what "Leprechaun" did for, well, leprechauns. On Saturday, Aug. 17, Mr. Aster will do a Q. and A. after showing his nearly three hour director's cut as part of Scary Movies, Film at Lincoln Center's smartly curated summer horror series (Aug. 16 21). Also worth a trip to the movie theater is "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark," an adaptation of the best selling young adult horror books produced by Guillermo del Toro and directed by Andre Ovredal, whose "Autopsy of Jane Doe" is a solid choice for a Netflix Plan B if the film is sold out. For a real shocker, head to the Spectacle, an adventurous micro cinema in Williamsburg, for its Sunday Blood Brunch, a bimonthly horror matinee where the movie is a surprise. (The next is on Aug. 25.) The Spectacle prides itself on taking deep dives into obscure horror for its out there monthly programming, so expect to see an outlandish film that probably took a time machine from a 1980s bargain bin. For beginners, Shudder offers an essentials list of films like "Halloween" and "Hellraiser." New this month are the first six movies in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise. "Freddy's Revenge," the second film , is a favorite of L.G.B.T.Q. horror fans, a population that horror has shamefully ignored stereotypes as villains. There is no gay subtext here. How can there be with an S M shower scene and a male lead who cavorts in his underwear suppressing an evil secret in him, a.k.a. the murderous spirit of Freddy Krueger? ("Scream, Queen!," a new documentary about the film and its star, Mark Patton, is on the festival circuit.) Like Friday nights at Blockbuster back in the day, the pleasure of Shudder is in chancing upon under the radar stuff. "Here Comes the Devil" is an utterly bizarre Mexican film about what happens to a boy and his sister when they reappear to their parents after vanishing on a mountain. Intentional or not, the movie's Dollar Store makeup design, hammy zoom ins and imperfect effects root the horror in the real world to extra nightmarish effect. I adore it. Under the title Slashics, Shudder has curated a top notch group of slasher films, culled from the genre's Golden Age in the '70s and early '80s. The collection includes "Maniac" (1980), about a scalper in seedy New York City; "Pieces" (1982), about a killer who makes puzzles out of human body parts; and "Blood Feast" (1963), a blood soaked, proto slasher about a cruel caterer, directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, a 1960s horror pioneer whose shockingly graphic depictions firmly laid the groundwork for grindhouse and sexploitation fare of the 1970s. (All three are also available for streaming elsewhere, including Amazon Prime.) When it comes to Shudder's original programming, my favorite is "Deadwax," a stylish short form series starring Hannah Gross as a kind of vinyl detective hired to find a rare record album that's said to result in gruesome ends for anyone who listens to it. The gory eight episode series is equal parts neo noir and sinister David Lynch salute, with a lesbian subplot. At about 15 minutes per episode, it's a nice on the go watch; listen with headphones to get the most out of the macabre '80s synth soundscape. Another binge worthy series is "Channel Zero," a beyond spooky Syfy anthology that brings to life different "creepypastas," online stories about terrifying legends. In its first, second and fourth seasons, the show uses haunting production and sound design to turn sleepy suburbs into caldrons of eerie psycho trauma . (I'd skip the third season's not quite "American Horror Story" aspirations.) The fourth and final season, "The Dream Door," is about Pretzel Jack, a towering loose limbed figure who slaughters anyone who threatens the woman whose imagination birthed him. "Dream Door" is available on the Syfy app; other seasons are on Shudder. Finally, I can't shake "The Haunting of Hill House." Loosely adapted from Shirley Jackson's 1959 novella of the same name, this Netflix series toggles between decades in the lives of a family terrified by living in a haunted house. Carefully paced and totally harrowing, this one's for fans of the slow burn who also pray to the horror gods for a gotcha from a demon. Other Netflix series to add to your queue are "Slasher," a soapy Canadian whodunit about a masked killer, and "Glitch" (from Australia) and "The Returned" (from France), two surprisingly heart tugging shows about what happens when people return from the dead as humans, not zombies. Oh, and Netflix is home to my horror guilty pleasure: the hidden camera show "Scare Tactics." Think "Candid Camera" with a killer Bigfoot.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
When population was growing at its fastest rate in human history in the decades after World War II, the sense that overpopulation was stunting economic development and stoking political instability took hold from New Delhi to the United Nations' headquarters in New York, sending policy makers on an urgent quest to stop it. In the 1970s the Indian government forcibly sterilized millions of women. Families in Bangladesh, Indonesia and elsewhere were forced to have fewer children. In 1974, the United Nations organized its first World Population Conference to debate population control. China rolled out its one child policy in 1980. Then, almost as suddenly as it had begun, the demographic "crisis" was over. As fertility rates in most of the world dropped to around the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman with the one major exception of sub Saharan Africa population specialists and politicians turned to other issues. By 1994, when the U.N. held its last population conference, in Cairo, demographic targets had pretty much been abandoned, replaced by an agenda centered on empowering women, reducing infant mortality and increasing access to reproductive health. "Some people still regret that; some applaud it," said Joel E. Cohen, who heads the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University in New York. "I'm not sure we need demographic goals but we need forward thinking." Well, concerns about population seem to be creeping back. As the threat of climate change has evolved from a fuzzy faraway concept to one of the central existential threats to humanity, scholars like Professor Cohen have noted that reducing the burning of fossil fuels might be easier if there were fewer of us consuming them. "Population wouldn't be the whole story but it could make a big difference," Mr. Cohen said. An article published in 2010 by researchers from the United States, Germany and Austria concluded that if the world's population reached only 7.5 billion people by midcentury, rather than more than nine billion, in 2050 we would be spewing five billion to nine billion fewer tons of carbon dioxide into the air. Slower population growth could bring other benefits. The World Resources Institute has been looking into how the world will feed itself in 2050 without busting the carbon budget. On current demographic and economic projections, food production would have to increase 70 percent by 2050. "Population growth is responsible for about one half of increased food consumption," said Tim Searchinger of the World Resources Institute. "The other half comes from higher incomes and richer diets." Much of the expected population growth is set in stone, but sub Saharan Africa, expected to add 1.2 billion people by 2050 on top of its current 900 million, is an exception. If fertility in sub Saharan Africa slowed more rapidly than projected declining to 2.1 children per woman in 2050 from 5.4 today feeding the most undernourished region in the world would be a lot easier. And sparing African forests and woodlands from even greater deforestation would substantially reduce the amount of carbon entering the atmosphere. Kevin Spacey was ordered to pay 31 million to the 'House of Cards' studio after sexual harassment allegations. Netflix buys a visual effects company in a move to support its global ambitions. For all the benefits of slower population growth, population policies remain a highly touchy subject. In the 1970s and 1980s, rich nations' support for population control in poor countries smacked of just another form of colonialism. Coercive population control like India's forced sterilizations, which were abandoned after they led to the collapse of Indira Gandhi's government in 1977, or China's one child policy, which remains in place is now widely considered a blatant violation of human rights. Even China's one child policy is undergoing re examination in Beijing because of the skewing of the country's sex ratio countless pregnancies have been aborted and millions of girls have been killed or left to die by parents who had hoped for a boy and the tearing of the traditional safety net from so many elderly Chinese being forced to rely on only one child for support. Economists at the International Monetary Fund have even welcomed Africa's fast rising population as an opportunity to increase its pace of economic growth. "There is a strong case to be made that the world faces sustainability issues whether it has nine billion people, seven billion people or four billion people," said John Wilmoth, who directs the United Nations Population Division. "Nobody can deny that population growth is a major driving factor, but in terms of the policy response, what are you going to do?" Yet there are ways to make a difference on the population front that do not depend on coercive governments straying into people's bedrooms. Access to education is critical. Across human history, fertility rates have fallen when it has made economic sense for families to have fewer children. Education especially of girls has played a powerful role in expediting the decline. Across much of the developing world, more educated women have fewer children, and their offspring are more likely to survive. The spread of public education was accompanied by plummeting fertility rates in such disparate places as Brazil and Iran. The other obvious tool is access to reproductive health. In the developing world, 222 million women have an unmet need for modern contraception, according to one study. Providing them with it, at a relatively small cost of 4 billion a year, could prevent 54 million unintended pregnancies.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
Kobe Bryant's widow pays tribute to her 'adoring husband' and 'wonderful daughter.' Vanessa Bryant, the widow of Kobe Bryant, posted a statement to her Instagram on Wednesday evening paying tribute to her husband and daughter Gianna, who both died in a helicopter crash on Sunday that killed seven others. In the post, Bryant thanked those who had expressed their condolences following the tragedy. "My girls and I want to thank the millions of people who've shown support and love during this horrific time," Bryant wrote. "Thank you for all the prayers. We definitely need them. We are completely devastated by the sudden loss of my adoring husband, Kobe the amazing father of our children; and my beautiful, sweet Gianna a loving, thoughtful, and wonderful daughter, and amazing sister to Natalia, Bianka, and Capri." Bryant also said she was "devastated for the families who lost their loved ones on Sunday, and we share in their grief intimately." Earlier in the day, she changed the default picture on her Instagram to one of Kobe and Gianna. Bryant concluded her post by urging those to donate to the MambaOnThree Fund, set up to "help support the other families affected by this tragedy." Kobe Bryant was born in Philadelphia and spent much of his youth in Italy, but he got to Los Angeles as fast as he could. Southern California gave him his glittering 20 year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, his life with his wife, Vanessa, and their four daughters, his post N.B.A. career in coaching, and even an Oscar. His adopted home stood ready to offer its support this week, as his family took on the grueling task of making plans to say goodbye to Bryant, 41, and his 13 year old daughter, Gianna, who were among nine people killed when a helicopter plummeted into the foggy hills of Calabasas, Calif., on Sunday. "Laying him to rest will be something which we are here, ready to help support the family however, wherever and whenever," Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles has said. It took two days to recover all nine bodies at the site of the crash, and the details of any funeral plans were still being worked out on Wednesday. Any public memorial is likely draw thousands of mourners from across the city and around the country. Bryant, a practicing Catholic, spent some of his last moments at his church, Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach, Calif. "He was there to reflect and pray" and left shortly before the 7 a.m. Mass, said Tracey Kincaid, a spokeswoman for the Diocese of Orange. She said the diocese was "respecting the privacy of the family" and had not been involved in any funeral discussions as of Wednesday. Catholic funerals typically include a full Mass at a church, followed by a burial, an option that could be a possibility for a private goodbye. But if there is a public memorial service, a sports venue in the area might be needed to host. Staples Center, which previously hosted funerals for Michael Jackson and the rapper Nipsey Hussle, is where Bryant played as a Los Angeles Laker. The venue can hold about 20,000 people. A representative for the Staples Center said she could not comment or discuss funeral plans on Wednesday. The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, home to the University of Southern California Trojans, is an alternative to Staples Center. It is among the largest venues in Southern California and can hold more than 77,000 people. In a statement, the bishop in Orange County, Timothy Freyer, remembered Bryant "as a committed Catholic who loved his family and loved his faith." "Kobe would frequently attend Mass and sit in the back of the church so that his presence would not distract people from focusing on Christ's Presence," he said. The Lakers hold practice, but only the coach speaks to reporters. The hard job of informing the Lakers players of Bryant's death on Sunday fell to Coach Frank Vogel, who said he went to them "one by one" as the team flew home from a road trip that had ended in Philadelphia on Saturday night. "I just wanted to make sure everybody knew," Vogel said. "Some of them had heard, had seen the reports some had not. It's just a daunting task of grabbing each guy." Vogel's remarks at the team's practice facility on Wednesday afternoon were the organization's first public comments since Bryant and eight others, including his 13 year old daughter, Gianna, died Sunday in a helicopter crash near Los Angeles. After the Lakers' charter flight landed in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon, Vogel immediately went home, he said, to hug his wife and two young daughters. Vogel said he was thinking about how involved Bryant was with his own four daughters. At the Lakers' request, the N.B.A. postponed the team's game against the Clippers that was scheduled for Tuesday night. The Lakers practiced on Wednesday instead. Their first game since Bryant's death will be Friday night at home against the Portland Trail Blazers. Vogel was the only member of the organization to address the news media after Wednesday's practice. He said he told his players that they did not need to speak until they felt they were ready. LeBron James, who spoke by phone with Bryant on Saturday night after surpassing him on the N.B.A.'s career scoring list, has offered tributes to Bryant on his Instagram page. Vogel said that James and Anthony Davis, the team's two stars, had been vocal in the aftermath of Sunday's tragedy. "We've collaborated with them on what the next few days will be like," Vogel said, adding: "We want to represent what Kobe was about more than anything. We've always wanted to make him proud, and that's not going to be any different here." For the first time since Bryant was leading the team a decade ago, the Lakers have real hopes of a championship. At 36 10, they have the best record in the Western Conference and the second best record in the league behind the Milwaukee Bucks. "It's just strengthened what we've felt all year about our current group," Vogel said, "which is that we've become a family in a very short time. And it's something you talk about in the N.B.A. with your teams, but this group in particular has really grown to love each other very rapidly, and we understand the opportunity we have this year. This has just brought us closer together." Bryant hit his prime when the N.B.A. was desperate for a new torch bearer. Fans of Bryant were as relentless in his defense as he was on the basketball court. They felt like they had to be. Theirs was a different fandom than what had existed for past N.B.A. greats like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. It was severe tribalism as a counter to an aversion to Bryant outside of Los Angeles, a reaction to those constantly underrating Bryant's exceptional skill at least in their eyes. For each time a sports fan declared that Bryant was an all time good player instead of an all time great, there was an equal and opposite reaction from Kobe's fan base known as the Mamba Army feverishly pointing to his five championships. Bryant was one of the few superstars whose career spanned the explosion of both the internet and social media. N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver, during an interview on Monday, noted that Bryant had entered the league shortly after the league's website launched. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube emerged in between his championship runs. When he retired in 2016, two decades after he was drafted, he did so with a poem that quickly went viral on social media. LeBron James said he was "heartbroken and devastated." Michael Jordan said he was "in shock over the tragic news." But one basketball player will forever be associated with Bryant, sometimes even mentioned in the same breath: his friend, rival, and former Los Angeles Lakers teammate, Shaquille O'Neal. The two formed a Lakers duo that was dynamic, at times tense and widely acknowledged as one of the top tandems in basketball history, delivering three consecutive championships for the Lakers before O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat. The pair who have their own Wikipedia entry called the "Shaq Kobe feud" eventually reconciled, to the point that O'Neal told Bryant's daughters to call him "Uncle Shaq." In an emotional appearance on TNT on Tuesday, O'Neal shared that it felt like a "stabbing" in the heart when he learned that a helicopter crashed near Calabasas, Calif., on Sunday, killing Bryant, his 13 year old daughter, Gianna, and seven other people. "Haven't felt the pain that sharp in a while," O'Neal said, adding, "I lost a little brother. Emotion welled up in his voice throughout the appearance, but when a fellow sportscaster tried to offer him a break, O'Neal stopped him and pressed on. "I think a lot of times we take stuff for granted," said O'Neal, who recently lost his sister to cancer and lamented that he would never be able to joke with Bryant at his Hall of Fame ceremony. "It definitely changes me," O'Neal said. "I work a lot, you guys know. I work probably more than the average guy. But I just really have to now take time and call and say, 'I love you.'" Rick Fox said a rumor that he died in the crash 'shook a lot of people in my life.' Rick Fox, a former N.B.A. player, thought the many missed calls he was receiving Sunday afternoon were from friends who were checking in after hearing the news about Bryant's death. After all, Fox was teammates with Bryant for seven seasons before retiring after the 2003 4 season. But in fact, many of the calls came after rumors spread widely on social media that Fox himself had been aboard the helicopter that had crashed. That rumor flared Sunday afternoon before it was debunked. It was one of several false stories that circulated in the hours after the crash, as media outlets competed for scoops amid the fog of uncertainty. In an appearance Tuesday evening on TNT, Fox said that he first heard about the rumors of his own death from his best friend, King Rice, the head men's basketball coach at Monmouth University. "I'm seeing King's number repeatedly going and going and going," Rice said. "I think he's worried about me, so I said, 'I'm going to talk to my best friend.' And I answered and said, 'Hey man, this is crazy about Kobe.' And he just was bawling, and I started crying. And he was like, 'You're alive.' And I'm thinking, 'Well, yeah, what do you mean?'" Fox's recounting contained an implicit warning about the kind of misinformation that can crop up on social media and in established outlets in breaking news events. One of his daughters' biggest fears, he said, "is finding out that a parent one of her parents would be lost, through social media, instead of from a loved one or a family member." (This daughter spoke to Fox after learning of the crash, he said.) Officials have said that the helicopter was not outfitted with a system to warn pilots if they are getting too close to the ground, technology that is voluntary but has been recommended by the N.T.S.B. for more than a decade. It is too early to know whether the lack of the warning system played a role in Sunday's crash. The pilot, Ara Zobayan, 50, had years of experience and had made the same trip the day before in clear conditions, roughly 90 miles from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Calif., where Bryant lived, to Camarillo, near Bryant's Mamba Sports Academy, which was hosting a youth basketball tournament over the weekend. Zobayan had logged more than 8,200 hours of flight time, officials said, at least 1,250 of which were in the Sikorsky S 76B, the model of helicopter he was piloting on Sunday.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
In his 2012 poem "Rings," the Canadian writer turns a verse from Genesis, "Give me children, or else I die," into a wry refrain. As it appears alongside mundane domestic choices like whether to adopt a pet or redecorate, the desperation of the verse gives way to an offbeat calm. Child rearing may be life affirming, but in the end it staves off death just as well as anything else that is, it doesn't. "Reproduction," Williams's debut novel, expands that arch view of breeding into a peculiar odyssey through cycles of life and death. On its face, it's a love story: Two immigrants, Edgar Gross (from Germany) and Felicia Shaw (Caribbean, from parts unknown), meet in the palliative unit of a Toronto hospital in the 1970s. Their mothers are dying in adjacent beds, and within those grim, cramped quarters a bizarre courtship erupts like a laugh at a funeral. Initially, Williams sculpts the narrative around Edgar and Felicia's stark differences, in the vein of a standard romance. Middle aged Edgar is an evasive and self centered burnout; he smokes in the hospital and responds to his unconscious mother's refusal to die with childish impatience. Scolding him from across the room, youthful Felicia, a student, brims with anxieties and worries, fretting over everything from the appearance of her mother's breasts to macabre news from her home country. They are not a natural match. Straddling grief and flirtation, their conversations take weird, dizzying shapes. Williams presents their exchanges as compact vignettes built entirely of dialogue and inner thought. Their chats are fluid and offbeat, stripped of quotation marks: He wanted to know why her hair was shorn so aggressively. Are you some kind of feminist? he asked. But he meant lesbian. There's nothing wrong with it. He was relieved. Do you want to work? Not right now. She put her toque back on. I go work when I finish school. He could see that she was trying on the word for sophistication, admiring her calf in its hem. But I want to have children. The book's standard mode is comedy of errors: rhythmic, fleet and perforated with omissions and miscommunications that beget more of the same.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
A fossil from the Gobi Desert of Mongolia contained the remains of six protoceratops embryos in a curled position, as though still contained in eggs, but no fossilized egg shells. There's a problem with dinosaur eggs: A lot of them are missing. Dinosaurs dominated land from about 245 million years ago until an asteroid extinguished them some 66 million years before our time. But their eggs, a lot like those of other reptiles that lived on the planet during that time, are mostly absent from the first half of their fossil record. A new study published Wednesday in Nature, showcasing baby dinosaur remains from Mongolia and Argentina, offers a reason: The very first dinosaurs laid soft eggs like turtles do today, and their eggs decomposed long before they could ever turn into fossils. In a second study also published in Nature, paleontologists announced the first known fossil egg found in Antarctica. The egg, also soft shelled, looks like a deflated football. It's bigger than any dinosaur egg ever found, and the team that unearthed it thinks it might be the egg of a mosasaur. These rocket size marine reptiles patrolled the ancient oceans during the dinosaur era and, until now, were thought to give birth to live young, not lay eggs. Both studies scramble scientific understanding of ancient reptile reproduction. The dinosaur find explains a gap in the fossil record. But it also reveals how natural forces most likely guided the evolution of dinosaur reproduction over time, ultimately leading dinosaurs to evolve a completely different kind of egg laying ability. At the same time, the Antarctic egg find expands the known size limits that life can reach at birth, inviting questions about how big living things can truly grow. The idea behind the dinosaur egg research incubated for a long time. "This is actually an idea I had about 15 years ago," said Mark Norell, a vertebrate paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who led the team behind the dinosaur study. Dr. Norell was in Mongolia excavating dinosaur fossils in the Gobi Desert. There, he unearthed the fossil babies of a dinosaur called Protoceratops a beaked, herbivorous dinosaur in the same group as Triceratops. The Protoceratops babies died sometime between 75 and 71 million years ago, and they're curled in fetal positions. They look as if they should still be sheltering in their eggs. But when Dr. Norell found them, there were no fossilized eggshell fragments. Instead, a thin film surrounded the animals. That's when it hit Dr. Norell: The films could be residues of decomposed soft shells. Today, reptiles like turtles, snakes and lizards will lay soft shelled eggs, which are easier to hatch from, but offer little protection from the elements or some predators. "But I couldn't ever really prove it," Dr. Norell said. Dr. Norell said the idea bugged him, because paleontologists would regularly unearth large hauls of dinosaur eggs at excavation sites. But these eggs were always younger than the middle of the Jurassic Period, which runs from about 200 to 145 million years ago. Dr. Norell thought something important had happened around that time. But until there was more evidence, the question of the missing eggs would be "put down to the normal vagaries and biases and inadequacies of the fossil record, nothing more specific than that," said Stephen Brusatte, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh. So, the idea gestated. It wasn't until Jasmina Wiemann, a molecular paleobiologist at Yale University, joined Dr. Norell's team that the idea finally hatched. Ms. Wiemann analyzed the chemistry of hard and soft eggs from animals like chickens and turtles, and she found that each shell type produces a unique chemical fingerprint. She then looked at the chemistry of the Protoceratops films, as well as films from the egg of another dinosaur from Argentina called Mussaurus, and found that the dinosaur eggs matched the soft shell fingerprint. "That was incredibly exciting," Ms. Wiemann said. The team now knew that some dinosaurs laid soft eggs. After sorting out where the soft shelled trait fit on the dinosaur family tree, they realized that the common ancestor of all the dinosaurs must have laid soft eggs. The ability to lay the hard shelled eggs that turned up later in the fossil record evolved tens of millions of years later, closer to their extinction than when non avian dinosaurs first emerged. "The idea that the ancestral dinosaur laid soft shelled eggs like a turtle is a bold hypothesis, but I like it," said Dr. Brusatte, who was not involved in the study. "It's a stunning revelation and it's remarkable to think of these giant dinosaurs, larger than buses and in some cases airplanes, starting out as little pipsqueaks tearing their way out of a soft egg." "That's what really surprised us, because we didn't think that soft shelled eggs could grow that big without collapsing," said Lucas Legendre, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin who is the lead author of the new study. "We didn't think there were animals that large that might have laid soft shelled eggs." There's no embryo inside the egg, so it's hard to say for sure what kind of animal it was from. But dozens of mosasaur fossils have been discovered in Antarctica, Dr. Legendre explained, which has led other researchers to propose that the waters around the continent once served as a nursery for the large aquatic beasts. Jingmai O'Connor, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences who wasn't involved in the study, saw Dr. Legendre give a talk about the egg at a conference in South Africa. "When he gave that talk I was like, 'Whoa! That is so cool!'" Dr. O'Connor said. "It's the first time an egg from a marine reptile has ever been found," and now, she explained, paleontologists will know what to look for when they seek marine reptile fossils in the future. The same goes for dinosaur hunters, explained Matteo Fabbri, a paleontologist at Yale and co author of the dinosaur study. Now that we know dinosaurs could lay soft shelled eggs, paleontologists can no longer automatically assume that fossilized dinosaur embryos incubated in a hard shelled egg. For Dr. Norell, such an evolution in understanding is surprising but that's par for the course in his field. "I think the more we look at the evolution of basically anything, the more it just kind of blows your mind," he said. "That's just the way it works."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
"When did you first realize that you were white?" In "Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed," David Neumann and Marcella Murray's quiet, experimental dialogue about race, the question comes up again and again she, a young black woman, posing it to him, a middle aged white man who cannot answer it. Not that he doesn't try, grasping for childhood anecdotes like the time in second grade that he mispronounced Niger and spurred a classroom lecture on civil rights. When did Murray first realize she was black? Neumann asks, and her answer is instantaneous, her calm certainty in perfect counterpoint to his squirming self consciousness. "I always know," she says. "And of course I always knew." The difficulty that white people and people of color have in talking about race together is the knot that this Advanced Beginner Group production picks at, fumblingly a snarl as sensitive as nerve endings, and as American as our nation's history. "You know how at the root of everything we don't say to each other is slavery?" Murray asks. "Mm hm!" Neumann says, the brightness of his tone betraying that he has no idea.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
MUMBAI, India India's leading ride hailing service, Ola, said on Wednesday that it had raised 1.1 billion in new funding, giving it a bulging war chest to battle Uber in a country where only a tiny portion of the population owns cars. The lead investor in the funding round was Tencent Holdings, the Chinese technology giant that owns WeChat, an all purpose app that many Chinese use to send messages, buy products, transfer money, read news and hail cabs. SoftBank, a Japanese technology investor that was already Ola's largest shareholder, also put in money. The additional funding puts SoftBank in an awkward position, since it is also in the final stages of making a large investment in Uber. Ola recently changed its bylaws to limit SoftBank's control over its operations. In announcing the new investment, Ola said it was in advanced talks to land an additional 1 billion. Much of that is expected to come from investment firms based in the United States. American interest in India has been on the rise after a hemorrhage of cash at some high profile consumer internet start ups, including Ola, had cooled enthusiasm.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
Read the highlights from the 2019 Tony Awards. It was the sole award for "Network," which had five nominations. Wow. Finally a straight old white man gets a break. To all the producers of "Network," especially the National Theater in London, where it all started, thank you. Thank you to Mark Subias and Danny Raggett and Bill Timoney and all the stage management people that we have Tim and Sherry, Ray and everybody backstage who touches me in more ways than one. Not in a MeToo way, but really in a lovely way. And that's Tim and Mikey and Anna Marie and Cat and Noor. Thank you all very much. Lee Hall just adapted a magnificent play from a masterpiece by Paddy Chayefsky. It was then given to Ivo van Hove and his crazy unpredictable wonderfulness and his entire creative team just made a mesmerizing theatrical experience for us all. Especially the actors. We have a company that I worked with that are some of the finest human beings I've ever been associated with. I will miss you greatly. To my lovely wife, Robin, who always wanted me, encouraged me, to go be mad as hell every night, but just don't bring it home. Now, Howard Beale is a fictitious TV newsman who found his way in the line of fire because of his pursuit of the truth. And I would like to dedicate this to all the real journalists around the world, both in the press the print media and the broadcast media, who actually are in the line of fire with their pursuit of the truth. The media is not the enemy of the people. Demagoguery is the enemy of the people. Thank you very much. Goodnight.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Our guide to new art shows and some that will be closing soon. 'CALDER: HYPERMOBILITY' at the Whitney Museum of American Art (through Oct. 23). The Whitney has the world's largest holdings of the American sculptor who invented the mobile, but this rejuvenating presentation of works in motion is a different sort of Calder show, and never the same twice. Before he hit upon his elegantly suspended plates of cut sheet metal, Calder first created kinetic sculptures with small, hidden motors. Motorized mobiles and ones activated only by air hang together in a single, beautiful gallery, and several times a day attendants come through to make the sculptures boogie. The Calder Foundation will also be updating this witty, wily retrospective with one day presentations of more fragile kinetic works. (Jason Farago) 212 570 3600, whitney.org 'REI KAWAKUBO/COMME DES GARCONS: ART OF THE IN BETWEEN' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Sept. 4). The latest Costume Institute extravaganza is a beautiful yet challenging plunge through nearly 40 years of innovation and increasingly unwearable garments from Rei Kawakubo, the great Japanese designer, and her Comme des Garcons label. A village of blazingly white structures encourages concentration. Look, look, look, it says, at the clothes, their fabrics, colors, shapes, shocks, quotations, details, exaggerations and parodies. Art, fashion or in between, Ms. Kawakubo's creations bring us close to the unmistakable whir of artistic ambition. (Roberta Smith) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'IRVING PENN: CENTENNIAL' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through July 30). In this crystalline exhibition, nearly every gallery exhales its own delicious breath, offering up concentrated views of Penn's innovative still life and fashion work for Vogue; his portraits of cultural luminaries and tradesmen, as well as of indigenous Peruvians; his nearly abstract close ups of voluptuous nudes; and his colossal cigarette butts, with their tragicomic evocations of Roman columns, tombstones and even corpses. Also on display: his perfectionism, curious eye and innate classicizing style. (Smith) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Four college football games involving historically black colleges and universities have been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, making them the first casualties of major college football leading up to a season that appears tenuous just over two months before its scheduled kickoff. Two neutral site games Southern University versus Tennessee State in Detroit on Sept. 5 and Jackson State versus Tennessee State a week later in Memphis have been canceled along with Southern's home game on Sept. 12 against Florida A M. Jackson State also was forced to cancel its Sept. 5 season opener against Langston University, because Langston and other N.A.I.A. schools have been prohibited from playing before Sept. 12. Whether these cancellations are forerunners to more around the country and at more powerful football programs is uncertain, but they come as schools around the country are grappling with how to keep Covid 19 outbreaks from occurring as they push toward a season. Dozens of games have already been canceled at the lower levels of college football with Division II schools placing a 10 game limit on the season, and N.A.I.A. pushing its start date back two weeks, but these games are the first at the Division I level to be quashed. The N.C.A.A. Division I council approved a plan Wednesday that paved the way for teams to begin their seasons as scheduled, making no changes to the 29 day preseason practice period. "If I'm a student athlete and I'm thinking about the fall, yeah, I do have a high level of concern," said Mikki Allen, the athletic director at Tennessee State, who hopes to fill at least one of the two suddenly open spots on his schedule. The cancellation of the Southern Heritage Classic in Memphis the only decision that has been publicly announced and the Detroit Classic underscore the financial vulnerability of neutral site games during the pandemic, especially ones that are not underwritten by ESPN and thus depend more on live fans attending. A decision on the Sept. 6 game between Central State and Howard at the Pro Football Hall of Fame stadium in Canton, Ohio, will be made by July 1, according to an official briefed on the decision. There are close to 30 games that were scheduled for neutral sites this season, ranging from marquee events that could influence the College Football Playoff selections like Alabama playing Southern California in Arlington, Texas to seasonal rituals, like when Georgia and Florida play in Jacksonville, Fla., or the Grambling and Southern meeting in New Orleans on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. None Week 11 Predictions: Here are our picks against the spread. N.F.L. Tightens Covid Protocols: As cases rise and Thanksgiving approaches, the league is requiring masks inside team facilities and increasing testing. The Packers' Defense Is Their M.V.P.: Green Bay's oft overlooked defense has kept the team from falling out of the Super Bowl chase. The Long Path to the Super Bowl: With 18 weeks in the regular season and fewer teams earning byes in the playoffs, the Super Bowl is still a long way off. Playoff Simulator: Explore every team's path to the postseason, updated live. Even before Wednesday, the pandemic had forced Notre Dame's game with Navy, scheduled for Aug. 29 in Dublin to be relocated to the Naval Academy's 34,000 seat stadium in Annapolis, Md. As it becomes increasingly likely that fans will be limited or prohibited from attending, it is harder for third party promoters to pencil out a profit. Consider Alabama's game with U.S.C. on Labor Day weekend, one of two college games that the Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones plans to host in September. If the game drew anywhere near the 81,359 that showed up for their season opener there in 2016, Jones would reap upward of 16 million in ticket revenue alone, based on estimates from a price chart included in a game contract that lists rates for the public, starting at 100 for nosebleed seats. That plus parking where some of the 12,000 spots go for 75 and up at Cowboys games along with concessions, game merchandise, a 22 percent cut of each team's merchandise, sponsorships, suites and event revenues should leave a tidy profit after paying Alabama its 6 million guarantee and U.S.C. likely a comparable amount. But with coronavirus cases spiking in various states, it remains unclear whether fans will be able to attend. In some cases, broadcast networks may ensure the games are played as scheduled. Dennis Thomas, the commissioner of the Mid Eastern Athletic Conference, said that ESPN planned to still go forward with a game between one of his conference's schools, South Carolina State, and Grambling, on Sept. 6 at the Atlanta Braves' former stadium. "If you don't have the backing of a multimedia company, the numbers are not going to make sense," Thomas said. That turned out to be the case for the games in Detroit and Memphis. This was to have been the 31st edition of the Southern Heritage Classic, all but two of which have featured Jackson State and Tennessee State. Fred Jones, the event organizer, had built it into a three day extravaganza for the historically black colleges, which are both about 210 miles from Memphis. The weekend was scheduled to kick off on Sept. 10 with a concert by Patti LaBelle with Jeffrey Osborne, and in the next two days would include a coaches' luncheon, 3 kilometer race, golf tournament, parade, fashion show, battle of the high school bands and an extravagant tailgating scene leading up to a Saturday night kickoff. Holding those events while adhering to social distancing guidelines became untenable. "When they tell you that events like what we have the game, the parade, the tailgating are super spreaders and they tell you that's a problem, you don't have no other way to react," said Jones, who as a 72 year old black man with diabetes has a higher risk of severe illness if he catches the virus. Added Cheryl Parks Ajamu, the organizer of the Detroit Classic: "In Michigan, Covid 19 is the top concern and because our primary customer has the highest incidence of Covid 19, that's a top priority." The cancellations have left schools scrambling to fill holes in their schedule. Jackson State is working with Tennessee State to potentially move their game to Jackson, Miss., on Sept. 5, and speaking with Florida A M to fill its now open Sept. 12 date. Schools are also seeking to fill another hole in their budget: the two canceled games for Tennessee State were their two biggest paydays of the season 400,000 for the game in Detroit and 350,000 for the one in Memphis. "I'll say this," said Allen, who was hired as the athletic director at Tennessee State in April. "Covid 19, in the spirit of athletics, has been a juggernaut opponent."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
J. Press Is for the Ivy League Faithful (or Those Who Like Preppy Drag) Back in college, I used to walk by J. Press a couple of times a week, but it was invisible to me. You can't see what you don't know exists. At the time, I owned a couple of sport coats but not a suit. I'd seen my father in a suit only on the day of my bar mitzvah and (maybe) my cousin's wedding. I wore Polo and Hilfiger two sizes too big, jeans that could have sailed a yacht, Timberlands unlaced. I wore headphones the size of Big Macs and talked to no one. I knew every day I didn't quite belong. Over those four years, things began to change. I tried to play nice, tighten up, tuck in. Sandpaper off the burrs. It didn't really work, but I'm not sure how much I wanted it to work. And even though I bought a Calvin Klein suit at Woodbury Common on severe discount, that was as far as I went. J. Press remained a cipher. Once I began to see the windows, and what was in them, I was reminded largely of wealth I didn't have, rooms I would never be allowed into. Rooms I had to convince myself weren't worth craving. Maybe that's a small part of why, when I finally accepted tailored clothing into my life, my taste in suits skewed Italian. They had curve and swing and didn't feel like prisons. It would take years before I fully understood the panache on offer at J. Press, which began on Yale's campus more than a century ago, and became a default outfitter of the northeastern elite. I never aspired to acceptance by that world, but I began to admire its ties, its scarves, its fabric choices (even if the cut and flow of those fabrics was a disappointment). These were American dandies, with a spirit I could recognize, if not quite embrace. Here in New York, I'd pop into J. Press mostly to look, little doses of class tourism. As I've aged, I've crept slightly closer to its aesthetic, but only slightly. Still, I had high hopes for its new store, just north of Grand Central Terminal. The stretch of 44th Street that runs from Avenue of the Americas to Vanderbilt captures both the elegance of New York as it once was and the reality that New York is no longer that way. There are the Harvard and Cornell Clubs, the New York Yacht Club and the Algonquin, Brooks Brothers and Allen Edmonds. But also at least three huge empty storefronts. This street is as close to a conceptual cul de sac as Midtown can manage, but also reflects the receding influence of a certain generation of the city's elite. J. Press perseveres, however. The new location is cozy and carefully segmented: suits and sport coats and pants on the back wall, sweaters and ties on tables in the middle, slightly fancier jackets and blazers in a small alcove on the left, and a modest made to measure setup in the rear. No surprise, but the cut of the jackets was cylindrical, with little nuance. Not that Harris tweed ( 895) is the gentlest of fabrics, but the rigidity was a challenge. I tried on a cheeky pair of wool pants in a black and white check ( 330), but the legs were 1990s wide. In the back alcove, I found a compromise: a tweed Golden Bear varsity jacket ( 595) that had aristocratic zest. One of the salesclerks walked by and offered an assist: "It's a tweed jacket without looking like you're an extra on 'Downton Abbey.'" I admired what seemed like an out of season raw silk regimental tie with pastel pink, blue and yellow stripes ( 79), probably the only item in the store that could go with the pink velvet Gucci slippers I've been coveting for a year and not had the courage to buy. Such fabrics such garments, as Lil Uzi Vert might say were in short supply, though. Instead, I spotted corduroy. The return of corduroy is always unwelcome. It bespeaks a dowdy period to come. To this day, I've never met a pair of flattering corduroy pants (though I have a lovely forest green jacket). I did see a yellow pair here, but to be fair, I'm skipping the coming regatta season, so it was tough to feel at home. Before I left the store and stepped back out into the December icebox, I took a look at some lovely British wool knit caps in bold colors ( 58), but got distracted by something very unlikely: a corduroy baseball cap. It was floppy and unstructured, a dad hat made for actual dads. The way it sagged suggested wealth around long enough to have heated, and then settled, like the earth itself. I was trying on the green one when the clerk informed me there was a pink one as well. I couldn't decide between the two, so I got both.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
Deep in the somber second act of Tchaikovsky's opera "The Queen of Spades," an old countess suddenly turns curmudgeonly critic. The culture, she complains, isn't what it was when she was young, in the glory days of 18th century Russia. "They don't know how to dance or sing," she sniffs at the new generation. "Who dances or sings today?" Well, there's at least one easy answer to that question: the soprano Lise Davidsen, who made a radiant debut at the Metropolitan Opera in "The Queen of Spades" on Friday evening . Singing with confidence, power and purpose, with both freshness and maturity, Ms. Davidsen, just 32, staked a precocious claim to the great Wagner and Strauss roles that require equal parts youthful flexibility and sheer strength. The stakes could hardly have been higher. Before she'd sung a note in public at the Met, the company had already announced that in the next three seasons she would appear as Leonore in "Fidelio," Chrysothemis in "Elektra," Ariadne in "Ariadne auf Naxos," Eva in "Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg" and the Marschallin in "Der Rosenkavalier." This kind of commitment to any singer is rare let alone to one so young, let alone in this treacherous repertory. The Met is giving over some of the most storied and challenging roles in opera to a soprano who was all but unknown just five years ago. Then, in 2015 , she won the prestigious Operalia competition , and two years later burst onto the scene as Ariadne in England, turning excited whispers about her into a roar. She signed with a major record label; she had a triumph this summer at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, the very heart of Wagneriana. With the hype has come, inevitably, backlash. A recent post on the opera blog Parterre Box alluded darkly to opera lovers who "just don't get that Lise Davidsen." Someone, the writer reported, left a performance of "Ariadne " wondering "what all the fuss was about." So let this serve as backlash to the backlash: From her first rich, silky high note, mellow yet full bodied, sailing out of the quintet in the first scene, Ms. Davidsen sang with poise and acted with subtle moodiness as Lisa, a rich girl whose lover decides he cares less about her than about uncovering her grandmother's spooky secrets for gambling success. Ms. Davidsen's voice is creamy in texture, but with a silvery shimmer that gives it a penetrating spine. The high notes sometimes feel just separate from the rest of her voice, with the tone narrowing into bright focus, but they emerge easily, and she has the comfortably low center of gravity of a singer who started out as a mezzo soprano. She avoided the trap, so easy to fall into on a big night, of over singing. Much of her performance was affecting in its delicacy: the tone quiet and luminous in her first aria and, in her final scene, slightly hooded, as if veiled in tears. Even in that desperate scene , her presence was gracefully sad rather than melodramatic, with Lisa's suicide seeming both shocking and somehow preordained. It's easy to get applause with a blazing high note, but Ms. Davidsen brought down the house with the low, gorgeous howl of pain with which Lisa races off to drown herself. Her restrained yet exciting performance was matched by that of the conductor Vasily Petrenko , also making his Met debut and leading a refined, properly aristocratic performance of an opera that can be exaggerated almost into Grand Guignol. This wasn't the most viscerally thrilling interpretation, but it was effective, building steadily in fervor. He inspired a polished, well chosen cast in the Met's wintry production, originally directed by Elijah Moshinsky and revived crisply by Peter McClintock. Taking on the obsessive Hermann, a daunting role that's been called the Russian Otello, the tenor Yusif Eyvazov rang out eagerly when he pressed on his voice; his presence, like Mr. Petrenko's conducting, was admirably melanchol ic, not cheaply wild eyed.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
As a few giant galleries absorb ever more market share, thank the muses of art and commerce for Ramiken. The young dealer Mike Egan has piloted this enigmatic, protean gallery through a choppy decade for both art and real estate, and presented its ambitious exhibitions in a crumbling basement, an Upper East Side penthouse, a cave in Puerto Rico and, now, a 17,000 square foot warehouse floor in industrial Bushwick, Brooklyn, with a view of both refulgent skyscrapers and an infernal scrap metal recycling plant. Ramiken's first Brooklyn show, "Nobodies," goes to Andra Ursuta, whose six remarkable glass sculptures, resting on cinder block plinths, create an arresting tableau of sex, stress and self portraiture. Each conjoins the artist's face and body to heaped clothing, B.D.S.M. gear and drink bottles; faces melt into bags, heads balloon like the beast's from "Alien." Although Ms. Ursuta uses 3 D scanners to prepare molds, these works are traditionally cast glass sculptures in marbled amber or Perrier green which (thanks to the bottle spouts) also function as vessels. That makes them different, and more contemporary, than similar sculptures by Louise Bourgeois and Alina Szapocznikow, who also imagined bodies as permeable bundles of pell mell parts. These freakish personages, cinched by corsets or stretched out like yogis, cannot escape today's always on performativity; even in your most unsound form, you must still work. Other versions of some sculptures here appeared at this year's largely blah Venice Biennale. But Ms. Ursuta's exquisitely awkward glass feels far more urgent here in Bushwick, with a view out the windows to both capital and oblivion. JASON FARAGO Calling an artist's new work "transitional" is usually a lukewarm compliment, implying a striking out for new territory that remains unlocated. The latest paintings, oil studies and works on paper in Brice Marden's blazing exhibition, "It reminds me of something, and I don't know what it is," amp up "transitional" to mean unstoppable forward motion. The painter, now 81, has found new land on several fronts, leaving us to ponder what he might do next. The six largest paintings charge ahead by partly circling back, flanking the calligraphic circuitry that Mr. Marden has pursued for three decades with areas of solid color reminiscent of his early monochrome paintings. In their variety of chroma and brushwork, they vigorously explore different tensions between the flanking planes of color and the tangles of line between them. In "Elevation," a misty green softens the entire surface, creating a floating atmosphere in which the linear scaffolding is suspended. But in "Yellow Painting," the side color a bright lemon darkens at the center, tinted by the red and green lines that career back and forth across it, creating an unpredictable geometry. This same transformation occurs in "Oued," whose pale shade of cantaloupe is deepened toward burnt orange by a network of dark red and gray. In the oil studies, Mr. Marden pares down his surfaces to a light gray with grids of black dots, eccentrically connected by deep blue or red, perhaps signaling his next jumping off point. ROBERTA SMITH The title of Henry Taylor's large, robust solo at Blum Poe "Niece Cousin Kin Look How Long It's Been" suggests a big, raucous family reunion. The show does too; it's full of portraits, energized by tactility and individual personality. It includes a group of small punchy likenesses of unnamed people painted in Dakar, Senegal. Their big, staring black and white eyes could bore through you, like those on Nkondi idols from Central Africa. Things are more nuanced when Mr. Taylor paints people he knows. A 2013 seated portrait of Steve Cannon, a poet and publisher of the literary magazine A Gathering of the Tribes, reflects the artist's penchant for thrilling abbreviation: vigorously brushed areas imply furniture without losing their force as painted background. The sitter's intellectual intensity is balanced by casual intimacy as he apparently chews on his left pinkie. Several other as yet untitled portraits from 2019 have a similar power, including one of a tall woman in bright blue shorts who teeters anxiously on brightly striped lawn furniture. Behind her, the silhouette of another seated figure seems to have stepped out of Manet's landmark painting "Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe" (1862 63). Mr. Taylor pays tribute to the French artist's once shockingly physical paint handling. His own brusque brushwork, which sometimes overwhelms his images, extends it to new, radical extremes, and is a cornerstone of his greatness. ROBERTA SMITH There are eight mesmerizing photo collage constructions in "snake skin," Baseera Khan's new show at Simone Subal Gallery. Brightly colored plexiglass cutouts alternately highlight and obscure a mix of found and original imagery that includes a view of the oldest surviving mosque in India which happens to be in Gujarat, the site of terrible anti Muslim pogroms in 2002. There are images of the artist's own slender hands, ornamented with rings and black nail polish, holding an essay by Arundhati Roy about the politics behind those pogroms; and of another Indian mosque, this one built in Delhi on the site of a former Jain temple, using pieces of the ruined temple in its own design. There are also shots of Ms. Khan holding annotated copies of Mosaik, an East German satirical comic book with an anticapitalist bent and the occasional racist or anti Semitic caricature, that she bought in Berlin. And then there's the 14 foot high fluted foam column, upholstered with custom woven Kashmiri carpet. Sliced into two foot sections and arranged across the gallery, it looks like the cogs of some enormous, surreal machine. It's a lot of elements, but they all come together as incisively as scissor blades. There are the impersonal forces that shape people's lives religion, empire, ideology and there are the individuals who, like Ms. Khan, shape them right back. But as deeply as the forces and their subjects seem to affect each other, they can never truly communicate. WILL HEINRICH	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design

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