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Budget travelers interested in exploring art often barely need to roll out of bed these days, as a growing number of hostels embrace the display of original work in their public spaces and guest rooms. "Art adds character and a warm feeling and helps travelers have a connection to the local community," said Marek Mossakowski, global head of brand for the booking firm Hostelworld Group. The main goal, he said, is not selling a work but rather to serve as a showcase and incubator for artists and to support local businesses. "It's all about the experience, helping travelers to discover a new destination," said Mr. Mossakowski, who recently stayed at the Local NY, a hostel in Long Island City, Queens, during a visit from London. Guests ranging from backpackers to students to business travelers can sample original contemporary work at many of these hostels, including comic book and tattoo art, and reproductions of the great masters. Some hostels host traveling exhibitions and artist in residence programs; others lead tours to local art museums. Several hold "hostel takeovers," multiday multimedia events that feature the creation of art as well as live music and other performance arts. "Hostels are very supportive of local and emerging artists," said Paul Halpenny, group director of supply for Hostelworld, which has properties in more than 170 countries. Matt Roth, general manager of the Local NY, housed in a refurbished elevator factory, said that its lobby was ideal for displaying art because of its wide open space, natural light and high ceilings, which can accommodate pieces as tall as 20 feet. "Many of the exhibitions include art created right here in our neighborhood," he said. "We are very community oriented and hope that the art brings people together our guests from all over the world and the residents of the neighborhood." Some hostels have devoted permanent gallery space to showcasing art. The family run Gallery Hostel in Porto, Portugal, in the city's art district, near several museums and more than 20 galleries, installs exhibitions that change every two months. Guest rooms celebrate well known painters, architects and writers, and the hostel offers city walking tours. A recent debut exhibition featured works by Madalena Serra, a woman in her 60s who had hoped to pursue art as a young adult but was forbidden to do so by her father, said Jose Joao Castanho, a manager at the hostel. "We are not a professional gallery," he said, so the hostel does not depend on the art for income. "That allows us to give opportunities to first time artists." The names of some hostels reflect their focus, like the Sevilla Kitsch Hostel Art in Seville, Spain, where its collaboration with universities and art schools allows students to work on their graduation projects; or the Art Factory in Buenos Aires, where each room features original work painted by a different artist. Many hostels today are highly focused on design, said Mr. Halpenny, citing Generator Hostels, which has a dozen properties in Europe and two more scheduled to open later this year in Madrid and Miami. Fredrik Korallus, chief executive of Generator, said that "all the hostels are very different, starting with the buildings themselves." "But all incorporate local furniture, local art and up and coming artists in each of the cities we serve," he said. "It is very much art that is of the moment relaxed, accessible and engaging presented in day to day experience." "It is a great introduction to the city," he said. "Travelers get to see the real Paris, where the real people live, not the Eiffel Tower Paris." At Generator Amsterdam, he stood atop the elevator cab and painted playful graphics of clouds, the sun and other cosmic images on a five story double shaft. "When guests look through the glass of the elevator, they see a wall sliding by," he said. "It's like a little story," he added, or "a trip from Earth to space." Generator Berlin Mitte has embraced the city's prolific street art culture. The hostel features permanent installations commissioned from the Berlin based French street artist Thierry Noir, one of the artists who painted on the Berlin Wall, and offers walking tours that involve viewing exterior walls, looking below bridges and taking in street signs. "The exciting thing about street art is that it is always changing," said Rosa Hohn, the hostel's general manager. Tours typically include stops at the East Side Gallery, a section of the Berlin Wall, painted with murals, that is now a memorial to freedom. "It's an open air gallery; it's basically a street art museum," she said. Generator Stockholm looked to history for its muse. At Hilma, a restaurant that opened at the hostel in early November, the colors and abstract designs of the 19th and early 20th century Swedish artist Hilma af Klint have inspired the entire decor, even the floor. "Her work was not recognized during her lifetime," Mr. Korallus said, adding that he felt that it would engage young travelers, who are better informed today than ever. "Travelers today don't want the same ole, same ole," he said. The restaurant and hostel proper also feature works by emerging Stockholm based artists. Some hostels have a D.I.Y. component. In winter months, Generator Berlin Mitte hosts an "art club" at its bar; several artists create works and invite guests to join in. At the Chillawhile Backpackers Art Gallery in Oamaru, a small harbor town in New Zealand, works by visitors created during their stays at the Chillawhile hostel cover the walls. The owner plans to design a deck of playing cards that will feature the art. The Local NY hosts a weekly "Drink and Draw" night for neighborhood regulars and guests. "We roll out butcher paper across the entire length of the bar, hand out crayons, colored pencils and markers," Mr. Roth said. "As the night goes on, and the drinks are flowing, the art gets pretty interesting." Fabio Coppola, co founder of YellowSquare in Rome (which has a new salon, where guests can get haircuts and tattoos) said that featuring art was one way to achieve his goal of establishing "a place where everybody goes artists, locals and travelers like an old town square or piazza, to share ideas, inspirations and conversation." Given the prevalence of social media, he said, "it's important to create a social environment where people actually talk to each other." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
In almost every corner of the college sports world including the football playoff committee members speaking to Vice President Mike Pence there has been a precise, unwavering benchmark for football to return in the fall: If the coronavirus pandemic keeps students out of the classroom, there will not be players on the field, either. All of the details the length of the season, starting on time, whether fans will be permitted would be negotiable, dependent largely on local public health recommendations. But as N.C.A.A. President Mark Emmert emphasized last week in an interview streamed by the N.C.A.A.: "If a school doesn't reopen, then they're not going to be playing sports. It's really that simple." When California State University's chancellor, Timothy White, announced on Tuesday that the 23 campus system the largest in the country would conduct almost all of its fall semester classes online, it seemed as if a key Jenga block was being pulled from the precarious college football season. Hours later, the California Collegiate Athletic Association a group of Division II schools like Chico State and Cal State Dominguez Hills announced that fall sports like soccer, women's volleyball and cross country would be canceled. The conference does not play football. But Fresno State, San Diego State and San Jose State the only C.S.U. colleges that play in the elite Football Bowl Subdivision seem to have taken a more lawyerly reading of White's edict, which stated that a small number of in person classes would be allowed if such instruction could not be accomplished virtually and was considered indispensible to the university's core mission. Exceptions will be allowed only where rigorous health and safety requirements are in place. They might include, for example, nursing students training with clinical mannequins. Lab classes required to complete science degrees could be another. Capstone projects for architecture, agriculture and engineering might also get special consideration. The exceptions, according to White's official announcement, would be determined by "thoughtful consultation" with academic senates, students, staff councils and union leadership, and would be based on "compelling educational and research needs." Two things were remarkable about White's statement. The first was how unequivocal it was. The second was how Fresno State, San Diego State and San Jose State interpreted it: Are you ready for some football? Speaking on condition of anonymity because no plans have been finalized, an official at Fresno State explained that agriculture classes that require students to be out in the fields would be permitted, so for now football and other sports would fit into that category. An official at San Diego State, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the C.S.U. announcement about virtual classes had yielded misleading headlines, particularly about how the rules might apply to sports. Mary A. Papazian, the San Jose State president, said in a statement that as many as 25 percent of classes at her school would be candidates to remain open. So naturally, the Mountain West Conference, in which Fresno State, San Diego State and San Jose State play football, issued a statement in conjunction with the three university presidents saying that no decision on athletics had been made. The universities said in separate statements that they would be evaluating athletics. Leaders of the University of California, the state's other four year university system, are expected to discuss their plans at a meeting next week. Their decisions will directly affect schools like U.C.L.A. and Cal Berkeley, but will also have implications for many other universities in Division I. This sticking a foot in a closing subway door is reminiscent of how everything unraveled in mid March. On a Tuesday, five days before the brackets were to be unveiled for the men's N.C.A.A. basketball tournament, the Ivy League canceled its conference tournament and was denounced as a bunch of reactionary killjoys. By Thursday, nearly the entire sports world had shuttered. Now, two months into the pandemic related shutdowns, there is fidgeting in some quarters. Fine. When a billion dollar industry grinds to a halt, there is no shortage of reasons to get it rolling again. It would just be nice if the health and well being of the performers were at the top of the list. But Major League Baseball, instead of huddling with its players to develop detailed protocols for keeping them safe, asked the athletes to take a bigger financial haircut. And the U.F.C. deviated from a number of its written safety protocols when it put on a series of fights on Saturday. What the declaration by White, the Cal State chancellor, did was speed up the timetable for decisions about the season. Administrators have largely circled mid July as the time football teams must be back on campus and preparing to play in order for the season to begin on time in early September. That means they must know by mid June whether they will be allowed to return to campus so that protocols can be put into place. Last week, Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon said there would be no large gatherings in the state through at least September, which raised the question about whether one of the most anticipated football games of the season Ohio State's visit to Oregon, scheduled for Sept. 12 might be moved to another site. "That's not something we've discussed yet," Pac 12 Commissioner Larry Scott said in an interview after Brown's decision. "But these are the kinds of questions we'll have to consider. We're going to have to stay flexible." (Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith said in a text message on Monday that it was too soon to comment on whether an alternative site was being considered.) By Tuesday, the thought of such logistical pretzels over the coming weeks and months began to feel like folly. Imagine if the starting left tackle tested positive for Covid 19 the day before a game. What would happen to the rest of the offensive line that had been in meetings with him all week or the defensive ends that had been knocking heads with him in practice? And for what purpose? Is the prospect of Oklahoma State Coach Mike Gundy firing up his charges supposed to provide inspiration for front line workers? Would the sight of Clemson Coach Dabo Sweeney putting his troops through practice while wearing a mask be a comfort for the laid off and the furloughed? | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
Each week, we review the week's news, offering analysis about the most important developments in the tech industry. Want this newsletter in your inbox? Sign up here. Hi, I'm Jamie Condliffe. Greetings from London. Here's a look at the week's tech news: How much trust does a company need among its customers? It's nice, but it's clearly not essential. A lot of people don't trust Uber to look after its drivers or Amazon to pay taxes, but they still use their services. It can often come down to a judgment call. With Facebook, until now, that has been: Do you trust it with your data enough to use the service? And for most people, the answer is still (just about) yes. Soon you may have another: Do you trust Facebook with your cash and transaction history enough to use it for a bank? The company on Tuesday unveiled plans for a new cryptocurrency called Libra. Due to be in use next year, the digital token's value would be tied to traditional currencies like the dollar or euro to keep it stable. It would initially be used for money transfers. But one day, the company hopes, it will lead to other financial services, like loans and credit. And ultimately, Facebook would like it to become a universal digital currency for the internet. Many people's first taste of Libra would be through Facebook's own financial platform, Calibra, whose app and integration with Messenger and WhatsApp could allow billions of users to make and receive payments. "It's the first time we have the prospect of a cryptocurrency being accessible to so many people," said Michel Rauchs, a cryptocurrency expert at the Center for Alternative Finance at Cambridge University. This could be Facebook's lifeboat if targeted ad revenues decline in the privacy focused future that the company is pursuing in the wake of its data scandals. Libra could allow Facebook to become intimately intertwined with the e commerce industry, noted Rajesh Kandaswamy, an analyst at Gartner. From that, it could skim a healthy cut. It could also win part of the financial transactions market in developing countries. Unsurprisingly, Facebook is doing what it can to gain trust for the initiative. It says it will vest control of the currency to members of the so called Libra Foundation, which already comprises 27 companies like Visa, Mastercard, eBay, PayPal and Uber, so it will have only limited influence on how it works. And its privacy document is surprisingly extensive. But there's no escaping the deep links to Facebook. The underpinning technology has been created entirely by the company. Its staff put together the Libra Foundation. Most people will experience it on the company's platforms. Scratch at the documentation that describes Libra, and there's more to be skeptical about. Its promise to diffuse control at some point in the future relies on technology that is not yet developed. And its privacy promise says Calibra would not share financial data with Facebook except in "limited cases," but that seems to provide plenty of wiggle room. It's not just journalists looking for holes: Regulators and lawmakers are skeptical, too. The Senate Banking Committee plans to scrutinize Libra at a July 16 hearing. And the Group of 7 nations is apparently planning to investigate so called stablecoins like Libra and how they will affect financial stability and money laundering. Such concerns are obviously heightened by Facebook's data privacy and election interference scandals. And now, it will ask users to accept all that and still trust it with their money and transaction records. Libra's success maybe even Facebook's may depend on it. So, back to that question: How much trust does a company need among its customers? We're about to find out. Feel aggrieved that a social network took down your post? Why not sue, claiming that the company provides a digital public square that's protected by First Amendment free speech rights? That's increasingly a concern for big tech companies, as demand for takedowns of troubling content swells. They had been holding their breath for the outcome of a seemingly unrelated court case about cable TV that could have made dealing with the problem harder. The Manhattan Neighborhood Network disciplined two contributors after a film received complaints for allegedly inciting violence. The contributors sued, claiming that MNN violated their First Amendment rights. If the contributors prevailed and a ruling was vague enough, it could have left the tech companies open to being sued, too. Even the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group that frequently criticizes Big Tech's content moderation, thought it could be problematic. "If you force platforms to not moderate speech at all, you have a free for all online," Sophia Cope, a senior staff attorney at the foundation, said. "There are benefits to moderated platforms," she continued say, to create coherent, niche communities. In a 5 to 4 decision this past Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that MNN couldn't face the lawsuits. Merely providing a forum for speech wasn't enough to open an organization up to free speech rights. So, Big Tech dodged a bullet. But later in the week, Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, proposed a bill that would dent immunity of social media platforms from liability for illegal content posted by users. The new bill would demand that companies prove their content removal practices were "politically neutral" to maintain immunity. The tech industry wasn't thrilled. "This bill forces platforms to make an impossible choice: Either host reprehensible but First Amendment protected speech, or lose legal protections that allow them to moderate illegal content like human trafficking and violent extremism," Michael Beckerman, president and chief executive of the Internet Association, said in a statement. Senator Hawley's bill is unlikely to become law. But it underscores the narrow line that social media companies have to walk as they balance free speech, moderation, regulation and legal action. The United States has been hacking Russia's power grid. The Trump administration used new authority to deploy potentially crippling malware deep inside the Russian systems. YouTube is being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission over video for kids. There's a chance of a fine for the way YouTube collected data about children and allowed them to see harmful content. The company has been weighing changes to the way it handles children's videos. You don't want to work at a Facebook moderation center. At its worst performing such sites in North America, one contractor has died at his desk and conditions are often unsanitary. Slack went public. After Slack listed its shares directly on the New York Stock Exchange, they began trading on Thursday at 38.50, valuing the company at 23.1 billion more than triple the 7.1 billion valuation from its last funding round. Huawei predicts a huge hit from President Trump's attacks. Sales expectations fell to 100 billion for this year and next, from estimates of 125 billion for this year, after the company was blacklisted from trading with American businesses. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
Mary Mattingly, an artist whose work focuses on the ecological spaces and resources that people share, will have a new communal setting to explore in 2020: the Brooklyn Public Library, as its artist in residence. "The work that I've been focused on all has to do with some kind of commons, whether it's water or air or food," she said in an interview on Wednesday. Her hope is that the library, as a public space dedicated to sharing knowledge, can be used to "strengthen those others commons." Ms. Mattingly has had experience working on New York's waterfront, which, she said, taught her how much a project can be enhanced by the public's involvement. "It's integral to co learning," she said. Her project Swale, a floating garden she created in 2016 that docked at various piers in New York, allowed visitors to forage for free fresh food. The plans for that and other projects of hers were "filled out and became much better and stronger by virtue of just being set in a space where so many people with different experiences go to and add to." "Stars Down to Earth," a joint exhibition with the conceptual artist Dario Robleto at the library's main location at Grand Army Plaza, will kick off Ms. Mattingly's tenure on Jan. 13. Her contributions will include a spherical sculpture embedded with plant fossils from the Eocene epoch and living plant life, as well as a window display of photographs focusing on the industrial supply chain. Intricate and carefully researched sculptures by Mr. Robleto will supply the cosmic dimension. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
Directed by Thomas Caruso, "Emojiland" is a little slow to start. It floats along at first on the candy colored cleverness of its design (set by David Goldstein, lighting by Jamie Roderick, projections by Lisa Renkel Possible) and the pop pleasantness of its songs. (The music director is Lena Gabrielle.) But with the arrival of Nerd Face, played with wonderfully sweet dorkiness by George Abud ("The Band's Visit"), you can feel the air turn electric. There is a very good chance that you will be as instantly smitten with him as he is with Smize (Schein) in her polka dotted fit and flare dress. (The delightful costumes are by Vanessa Leuck, who also designed the excellent makeup.) Nerd Face, our bespectacled, argyle vest clad hero, has the geek's perennial trouble fitting in. Shunned by Sunny (Jacob Dickey), who is the hotshot leader of the pack and, no surprise, a jerk to Smize the lonely Nerd Face starts hanging out with Skull (Lucas Steele, deathly pale in black leather and mesh, and oozing an almost Victorian dark charisma). Too naive to be wary, and probably as entranced by his new pal as we are, Nerd Face believes Skull when he says he wants to delete himself, and cooks up a virus to help. That virus will, alas, come to endanger all of Emojiland. It will be up to Nerd Face to save the realm. That includes not only the Princess but the dimwitted Prince (a deliciously campy Josh Lamon), also added with the update. Just as shallow as the Princess, he's like a 5 year old, but very sexual. ("Trust fall!" he announces, collapsing onto Sunny.) The Princess, the alpha of the two and a hilariously vicious mimic, has an emotional age of about 7. And she can do the splits. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
A month before he was supposed to begin his second season in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball league, Zach Neal, an American pitcher, received what he called the highest honor in his career. The manager of his team, the Saitama Seibu Lions, gathered the players for a clubhouse ceremony in February to announce that Neal would be the Lions' opening day starter. For a player who struggled to find a regular spot on an American major league roster after being drafted in 2010 and then endured a similarly bumpy start in Japan, the news felt like a crowning achievement. "I'd have to put this above even my M.L.B. debut at Fenway Park," Neal, 31, said in a telephone interview from Tokyo. Little did he know at the time of the announcement, however, that he would face several more difficult months before realizing his big moment. After a 91 day delay because of the coronavirus, Japan's league is set to begin on Friday, and Neal is expected to be the only foreign born pitcher in the 12 team competition to start on opening day when his Lions face the Nippon Ham Fighters. While Japan has contained the virus better than most countries, with fewer than 1,000 confirmed deaths from Covid 19 through Thursday, the pandemic has decimated sports in the country, forcing the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the cancellation of cultural mainstays like the national high school baseball tournament and Grand Sumo's spring matches. So as the exasperated island nation looks to baseball for hope, part of the responsibility for healing will be placed in the right hand of a resident of Fort Worth who bounced around four M.L.B. organizations before finding himself in Japan. "Baseball is one of the favorite pastimes of this country, so finally being able to start playing is a very symbolic thing and a huge lift for the country," Neal said. "For the manager to give me the ball is a huge privilege." For Neal and the rest of the league, it has been an agonizing wait of twists, turns, stops and starts. As the coronavirus hit the country, fans were prohibited from training camps in late February, but the league forged ahead in the hopes of being able to start the season on time, or with only a short delay. An April 10 targeted start was moved to April 24. When that became unrealistic, the season was pushed to May, and eventually June. All the while, Neal and his wife were living in an apartment in the far western reaches of suburban Tokyo, a 30 minute drive from Seibu's home park. Neal said he quelled his restlessness by reading John Grisham novels and painting American western themes in acrylic. Eventually, Seibu's stadium opened four days a week for voluntary workouts, and then a second spring training began May 18. Exhibition games resumed June 2, with Neal getting two starts before Friday's opener. Once again, he had to accept a new normal of health protocols. "We get our temperature taken before we're allowed to enter the ballpark every day," he said. "We wear masks in the weight room, and there's hand sanitizer everywhere. If you lick your fingers on the mound, they throw the ball out. Each night we get an email asking a bunch of questions. We're not supposed to eat out, play golf or go anywhere except the field, the grocery store and home. It's definitely different." Despite the heightened health concerns, two Yomiuri Giants players received positive results from a coronavirus test hours before an exhibition game against Neal's Lions. It was abruptly canceled, and all players were sent home. The two players, Hayato Sakamoto and Takumi Oshiro, were held out for 14 days. In the aftermath, Nippon Professional Baseball determined that all game related employees, including players, coaches, managers, staff members and umpires, would be required to give a saliva sample for a test once a month beginning in June. For Neal, it was just another speed bump in his baseball odyssey in Japan. Last season, he stumbled to a 1 1 record and an ugly 5.95 E.R.A. in four April starts. Those struggles earned him a demotion to the minor leagues, the termination point of many journeymen's journeys, especially foreigners cast there on the flimsiness of a one year contract, as Neal was. But he was determined to adapt, even in the loneliness of Japan's minor leagues. As he struggled to get accustomed to the barrage of unfamiliar hitters, Neal also found himself scuffling to get used to a longer routine between starts: Pitchers typically get six days off between starts in Japan, whereas four days is the norm in the U.S. "I didn't like it at first," Neal said. "How much and when should I throw? What about weight lifting? It was tough to adjust, but I understood I would have to if I wanted to stay." He sought advice from his coaches on pitching techniques necessary to survive in Japan. One minor league coach from Taiwan had done exactly that over an unspectacular yet productive career in Japan that lasted 14 years. He told Neal to develop a cutter to complement his sinker and changeup. Neal listened. He was recalled on June 20 last season, wielding a new arsenal that led to a stunning turnaround: He went on to become the fourth foreigner in Japanese baseball to win 11 consecutive decisions. From June 20 forward, he was 11 0 in 13 starts with an earned run average of 2.12. Bob Melvin, the Oakland A's manager who gave Neal the ball for his debut at Fenway Park in 2016, was unsurprised that Neal had earned the respect of his manager in Japan, Hatsuhiko Tsuji. "Zach's a grinder," Melvin said in a telephone interview. "He's persevered, and that takes mental toughness. Managers spend spring training making roster cuts and difficult decisions, so believe me, you look forward to being able to recognize a guy with the honor of starting opening day." The delays and added protocols have not fazed Neal, and his endurance has earned him an unlikely role in delivering a dose of optimism to the country of his latest journey. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
The new Netflix animated film "Latte the Magic Waterstone," the latest entry in a long, distinguished tradition of cute animals embarking on perilous Odyssean quests, serves up some sweetness but otherwise keeps its laughs mild and its themes unimaginatively simple. Based on the children's book by Sebastian Lybeck, and directed by Regina Welker and Nina Wels, the movie is about an impetuous, grouchy hedgehog named Latte and her anxious squirrel friend Tjum, who journey to reclaim a magic stone stolen by a bear king. The script, by Andrea Deppert and Martin Behnke, offers little by way of surprises, and the few idiosyncratic details (say, an eccentric, seemingly psychic frog and a sleuth of dancing, water ballet performing bears) aren't exploited for their full comedic effect. The C.G.I. animation is generally too slick and oversaturated, though scenes when the film shoots for a mystical quality, with phosphorescent pink flowers and radiant, electric blue crystals, are satisfying eye candy. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
The best way to sell a product is to convince people that they need it. This concept fuels the overriding fear within Major League Baseball these days. The coronavirus pandemic shut down the league just before the regular season would have started. If baseball remains on hold until 2021, many people will learn to live without it. They will not need the product. Maybe things would not play out that way. Maybe a 17 month gap between Game 7 of the 2019 World Series and the 2021 opening day would make people so desperate for baseball that they would return in record numbers. But those with long memories doubt it. If baseball does not return until 2021, the gap between games would be twice as long as the eight and a half month absence during the strike that canceled the World Series in 1994. Teams averaged 31,256 fans per game before the strike and did not reach that level again for 12 years. People found other ways to spend on entertainment. Yet the players and team owners appear headed for another labor impasse that could scuttle what might remain of the 2020 season. The league wants to split any revenue 50 50 with the players' union, which views the idea as akin to a salary cap the sticking point in the 1994 strike. Unlike their counterparts in other major sports, baseball players have resisted firm limits on team payrolls. They seem as committed as ever to that principle at a time when returning to the game could endanger their health. The sides agreed in March to "discuss in good faith the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators," but so far the league has not made a formal economic proposal. While the N.B.A. and the N.H.L. have played most of their seasons, and the N.F.L. opener is still months away, baseball needs an agreement soon to avoid a protracted and painful disappearance. 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. Any proposal for a season this year would have to include a ban on spectators, at least early on. But whenever the game returns in full force, the effects of the pandemic on the economy presumably will limit fans' ability to spend. And if players and owners scuttle this season over finances, that could devastate a sport that has already experienced four consecutive seasons of declining per game attendance. Even with that drop to an average of 28,198 fans per game baseball has been thriving, largely because of media rights. Gross revenues have risen annually for 17 years and reached 10.7 billion in 2019. Each owner sits atop a gold mine: Since the end of the World Series, the Kansas City Royals have sold for 1 billion, and the Wilpons nearly sold the Mets for 2.6 billion. But on CNN Thursday night, Commissioner Rob Manfred said the owners could lose 4 billion without a season in 2020. He also said that, in the 82 game season the league has proposed to the players' union, games would go on even if a player tests positive for the coronavirus. "Nothing is risk free in this undertaking," Manfred said during the network's "Global Town Hall" with Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta. "We're trying to mitigate that risk with the repeated point of care testing to make sure that people who have had contact have not been exposed, and by obviously removing those individuals that have a positive test. They will be quarantined until they have two negative tests over a 24 hour period." The league, which has converted the Utah laboratory it uses for performance enhancing drug testing into a coronavirus testing hub, will soon formally present to the union an 80 to 100 page document detailing health protocols for a return in early July, after two weeks or so of training. It must satisfy the players that returning will be worth the risk. That may not be easy. Dr. Preeti Malani, the chief health officer for the University of Michigan and a professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases, emphasized the many unknowns related to the pandemic. "There are some things we do every day that require risk we get in a car and drive, getting in an airplane and flying. We can kind of quantitate that risk in our minds," said Malani, who is not working with M.L.B. but has been advising the Big Ten Conference commissioner as part of a task force on sports issues related to the pandemic. "With coronavirus, we don't have a good quantification of risk. It feels like it's pretty dangerous sometimes, and other times it feels like maybe it isn't a big deal. We're still at such an early point in the epidemic that we don't have good numbers." Even if M.L.B. convinces the union that it can create a safe workplace, the sides would then have to bridge their philosophical divide on finances. Players agreed in March to prorate their salaries based on the number of games played, and now M.L.B. wants the players to share in the expected losses from holding games without fans. If M.L.B. persists with its revenue sharing idea, it stands to reason that the players would hold firm against it; guaranteed salaries in a free market are the underpinnings of their union. Owners do not give unexpected profits to players, the thinking goes, so why should players give back money to help owners cover unexpected losses? The union has asked the league to see more detailed financial information, but if the league provides it, it would probably prompt another thorny conversation about just what constitutes baseball related revenue. What about team owned businesses around a ballpark, for example, or profits from M.L.B.'s lucrative advanced media company? This group of players has never been on strike, but some union officials were active in the 1980s, when owners illegally colluded against free agents, and in 1995, when owners used replacement players in spring training. The players, then, have a natural skepticism toward owners, and the health crisis adds another layer of concern. The Tampa Bay Rays' Blake Snell gave voice to the players' mind set on his Twitch stream this week. "I'm not splitting no revenue. I want all mine," Snell said. "Bro, y'all gotta understand too, because y'all going to be like, 'Bro, Blake, play for the love of the game! Man, what's wrong with you, bro? Money should not be a thing.' Bro, I'm risking my life. What do you mean it should not be a thing? It 100 percent should be a thing." Snell explained that the players would already make far less money than their contracts call for (because the season would be shorter) and would be asked to assume a higher risk. "I love baseball to death," he added. "It's just not worth it." The players would stand to lose billions without a season, but so would the owners and that is only for this year. If the sides satisfy the health question but kill the season over money, the long term impact could be catastrophic. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
A roundup of motoring news from the web: Audi said this week that it was testing a driverless RS7 at a test track in Germany, running the car at speeds of up to 190 miles per hour. In a race between two identical cars one with a human driver and the other computer driven the driverless car won by five seconds. Peter Bergmiller, an Audi technician, told Bloomberg that the car memorizes the track's boundaries and picks the most efficient driving lines. (Bloomberg) A bill that would stop Tesla from selling its electric cars directly to consumers in Michigan has reached the desk of Gov. Rick Snyder. The governor's office said it was reviewing the legislation, which must be signed by Oct. 21. (Crain's Detroit Business) Honda has come under fire from the Center for Auto Safety, which has accused the automaker of underreporting injuries and deaths resulting from defective air bags. On Wednesday, the consumer advocacy group asked federal regulators to refer the case to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation. (Bloomberg) BYD Motors unveiled this week what it said was the first electric articulated bus in the United States at the American Public Transportation Association Expo in Houston. The California based company said that the bus which features a hinged midpoint connected by flexible, accordion shaped material has a 170 mile range and could carry 120 passengers. (Businesswire) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
Once again, Robert De Niro got in front of a crowd and used profanity while referring to President Trump. Before introducing a special performance by Bruce Springsteen at the Tony Awards on Sunday night, Mr. De Niro walked to the microphone and shouted: " Trump. It's no longer 'Down with Trump!' It's just ' Trump!'" He received a standing ovation from the friendly crowd. Read more: Hope and restrainst at the Tonys. Then came Robert De Niro. Mr. De Niro then flexed both of his arms before quipping, "Now I'll get to my introduction." The national television audience did not hear what Mr. De Niro said, as the censors immediately bleeped out the curses. This wasn't the first time Mr. De Niro, an outspoken critic of Mr. Trump's, had done something similar. In January, before introducing Meryl Streep at the National Board of Review awards gala, he used several profanities when referring to Mr. Trump. He also called him a "fool," a "baby" and the "baby in chief." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
THE CHOREOGRAPHER Reggie Wilson has keen instincts for both danciness and theatricality. Specializing in bridging postmodern dance and the cultural heritage of African Americans, he has often shown himself an appealing and original dancemaker. Even so, his work sometimes demonstrates a huge divide between theory and practice. For his latest creation, "Citizen," he's provided a long, thoughtful program note about the history of black people (as individuals and collectively) in the West. Yet this turned out to be little use when it came to watching his piece, which had its world premiere last Wednesday at the BAM Harvey Theater. "Citizen" proved to be weirdly schematic and highly fragmented. Several simultaneous film montages on tall screens around the stage allowed the five dancers to come and go. A range of taped music was played (uncredited in the program), largely showing different kinds of descent from African music, but there were also extensive passages of silence. Most of the dance's 70 minutes were taken up by extended mini marathon solos for one woman (white) and three men (black). Now they seemed independent of any music, now they seemed connected to their accompaniment. Each soloist stayed isolated from the others; each solo had a different handful of movements, obsessively reiterated. Though the music made us listen for African diaspora qualities, the movements almost all looked emphatically Western. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
With its amphitheater shape, stagelike plot of grass, and handmadeness, the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia "feels receptive and usable," writes the critic. "Power is not its language. Closure is not its goal."Credit...Sanjay Suchak for The New York Times With its amphitheater shape, stagelike plot of grass, and handmadeness, the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia "feels receptive and usable," writes the critic. "Power is not its language. Closure is not its goal." CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. "Can we forget the crack of the whip, cowhide, whipping post, the auction block, the hand cuffs, the spaniels, the iron collar, the negro trader tearing the young child from its mother's breast as a whelp from the lioness? Have we forgotten that by these horrible cruelties, hundreds of our race have been killed? No, we have not, or ever will." So wrote Isabella Gibbons, a formerly enslaved Black woman, two years after the end of the Civil War. She was writing here in Charlottesville, where, in the 1840s, she had worked as a cook at the University of Virginia, on a campus designed by Thomas Jefferson, third United States president, shaper of the Declaration of Independence, author of the words "all men are created equal," and lifelong enslaver. Gibbons, who was owned by a university faculty member, a science professor, remained in Charlottesville after Emancipation. By the time she wrote, in 1867, she was a teacher in a Black primary school. She may well have continued to teach until her death in 1889, though the facts of her later life are uncertain. It's composed of two concentric open carved granite rings surrounding a circular patch of clipped grass. As with any abstract form, this one invites many readings. (Comparisons to a broken shackle and a ceremonial dance floor have been floated.) But it's also embedded with hard factual data. The inner ring, low to the ground, carries an inscribed timeline of the lives of American enslaved people with an emphasis on their presence at the university from the early 17th century through Gibbons's death in 1889. A channel cut into the wall is designed to send water flowing beneath and over the incised passages. Charlottesville is a city of monuments. One, a statue of Jefferson on the campus, was a rallying point, on the night of Aug. 11, 2017, for a large crowd of white supremacists gathering to protest the city's plan to remove another monument, this one of the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, from a nearby park. When the rally reconvened the next day it was met by counterprotesters, some aligned with Black Lives Matter; in the melee a counterprotester was killed when a car plowed through the crowd. If you want evidence, head to Richmond, Virginia's capital, an hour from Charlottesville. Drive down wide, stately Monument Avenue, famed for more than a century as an open air museum of Jim Crow era Confederate pride, and you'll see the astonishing sight of what's no longer there. In June, after the Floyd killing, protesters pulled down a statue of Jefferson Davis that had stood on the avenue since 1907. In July, a bronze figure of "Stonewall" Jackson was crane lifted from its pedestal and trucked away to city storage. An equestrian sculpture of Lee still stands, pending a court decision, but its three story high base is bright with a rising tide of graffiti and ringed with Black Lives memorials like flowers in a garden. Corrective alternatives to these monuments are already in place. A sculptural tribute to the Richmond born tennis star Arthur Ashe has stood on the avenue since 1996. And last December, a bronze equestrian figure titled "Rumors of War" by the contemporary African American artist Kehinde Wiley was unveiled a few blocks away at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Conceived as a response and rebuke to the cavalcade of white Confederate heroes, Mr. Wiley's mounted warrior is a young Black man dressed in urban streetwear. When "Rumors of War" went on temporary display in Times Square last fall, it didn't make much impact. Its positioning in Richmond near Monument Ave. enhances its critical bite. Yet whether, in the post MeToo present, any triumphalist male warrior figure can automatically have positive political weight is a question. In Richmond, the Wiley piece comes across as being a little too close in spirit to the bellicose models it is meant to confront. Maybe for this one reason some of the most effective commemorative work of the past several decades has been formally abstract. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington is a pioneering example. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice (also known as the National Lynching Memorial) in Montgomery, Ala., is another. The Memorial to Enslaved Laborers in Charlottesville, far more modest in scale, follows this lead, particularly in its use of language in place of images. And on the wall's outward facing side, Gibbons makes a ghostly appearance. The New York artist Eto Otitigbe has engraved an image of her eyes, enlarged from a 19th century photograph, into the stone, but so lightly that they are clearly discernible only in early and late day light. Gibbons, along with her husband and children, were among some 4,000 enslaved people working on the university grounds between 1817, when construction began, and the end of the Civil War. The school owned some of these people; others were rented from local enslavers; at least one came from Jefferson's Monticello. Much has been written about Jefferson's complicatedly racist views. He wrote of slavery as a moral evil, but implied that it was a necessary one as long as whites and Blacks lived together, Blacks being, in his view, innately inferior. (His version of social justice was to align with a movement that proposed shipping all African Americans to Africa.) No surprise that the student body he envisioned for his new university was composed primarily of sons of Southern plantation owners, future masters of an agrarian universe, a universe impossible to support without enslaved people's labor. They stayed below the elevated sightlines of the Academical Village, in basement level quarters and cramped work yards screened by eight foot high brick walls. It was there that the laundry workers; gardeners and cooks listed on the wall of the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers spent most of their lives. By the early 21st century, those lives finally began to be noticed and studied. And in 2007, the university installed, in the floor of the Rotunda, a slate commemorative plaque reading: "In honor of the several hundred women and men, both free and enslaved, whose labor between 1817 and 1826 helped to realize Thomas Jefferson's design for the University of Virginia." Students objected. They found the plaque inadequate and misleading. Its location was out of the way; its words sidelined the labor of enslaved people in favor of calling attention to Jefferson. They organized a competition for an alternative memorial. In 2016, the school, through its President's Commission on Slavery and the University, commissioned the present Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, with the Boston based Howeler Yoon Architecture (Eric Howeler and Meejin Yoon) designing, in collaboration with Mabel O. Wilson, a professor of architecture at Columbia University; Gregg Bleam Landscape Architect; Frank Dukes, a community facilitator and professor of architecture at the University of Virginia; and Mr. Otitigbe. Then began a yearslong series of community consultations, with students, with Charlottesville citizens, and with descendants of slave laborers. A chapel like grove of trees deep into the campus had initially been favored as a site, until someone pointed out that, historically, local Black people tended to avoid the school grounds. A spot on the edge of the campus adjacent to downtown was chosen. There were tussles, too, over what form the memorial would take. Some stakeholders wanted one along traditional lines, with figures and recognizable symbols. But the argument for abstraction a mode that affords equal representation, through words, for all the people honored now and to come prevailed. The result is the visual antithesis of the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, and its Charlottesville counterpart, which now stands, creating its pernicious karma America slavery may officially be gone but institutional racism lives on and on behind protective plastic fencing in its park. If, from afar, the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers doesn't announce its theme and purpose, even looks somewhat impersonal and unresolved, that's all right. With its amphitheater shape, stagelike plot of grass, and soon evident handmadeness, it feels receptive and usable, a place for things to happen, for performances. (You're part of one as you bend in close to read the names and stories.) Power is not its language. Closure is not its goal. Active, additive remembrance is. Is this what distinguishes a memorial from a monument? A monument says: I am truth. I am history. Full stop. A memorial says, or can say: I turn grief for the past into change for the present, and I always will. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced Tuesday that "Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer" had surpassed "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty" to become the 10th most visited exhibition in the museum's history. The exhibition, which ended Monday, drew 702,516 visitors over its three month residency. The works by McQueen, a fashion designer, attracted 661,609 people between May 4 and Aug. 7, 2011. Despite its manifest success, the collection of drawings, paintings, sculptures and other works by the Renaissance maestro did not threaten the museum's top two exhibits. Both "Treasures of Tutankhamun," which appeared at the museum for almost four months in 1978 and 1979, and "Mona Lisa," which was up for less than a month in 1963, broke the one million visitor mark. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
How can parents know if a doctor is touching a child in an inappropriate way? After scores of young women testified about being sexually molested by Dr. Lawrence G. Nassar, the former doctor for the American gymnastics team who was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison on Wednesday, their parents wondered how they could have missed the signs. Some were even in the exam room at the time but were unaware that anything was wrong. Detecting sexual abuse in a medical setting can be challenging. We teach young children that doctors are among the only people allowed to touch their genitals. That can make it confusing if a patient encounters an abusive physician like Dr. Nassar. "The natural inclination is to trust a doctor, especially when they tell you, 'This is something that will make you feel better,' " said Scott Berkowitz, president of the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, or RAINN. That said, parents should trust their instincts. If they're alarmed by a health provider's practices frequent genital exams, unconventional medical treatments that involve genital manipulation, disregard for rules about using gloves during sensitive exams or having an adult chaperone present during a child's exam, even inappropriate jokes or comments they should question the doctor, get another opinion or switch doctors, experts said. "If you're in a situation where the physician does genital exams for medical complaints that don't seem to warrant them, or does a genital exam that takes an extraordinary amount of time it should really just be a quick look, unless there's something notable, a specific reason those are red flags," said Dr. Cindy Christian, a co author of the American Academy of Pediatrics's policy on protecting children from sexual abuse by health care providers. "If the complaint is a sore throat or a hurt finger, there's no need to examine the genitals." The most telling indication that something may be wrong is when a child signals discomfort or distress. Most physicians who treat children and adolescents go to great lengths to put their young patients at ease, talking the patient through an exam or procedure in advance so the child knows what to expect, explaining the reasons for the procedure, and making sure the child is on board. "It's very important that people not feel uncomfortable with what's happening to them at the doctor's office, particularly children and adolescents," said Dr. Julia Potter, an adolescent medicine specialist at Boston Medical Center. "They should not be made to feel that something is happening to their body that is out of their control. If a child says, 'I don't want you to check my breasts,' or, 'I don't want you to do a genital exam,' that's a valid opinion that most pediatricians would respect." And if your children share their distress with you, don't dismiss it. "Believe your children when they tell you that what's happening to them feels uncomfortable," said Katelyn Brewer, president and chief executive of Darkness to Light, a nonprofit organization that educates adults on how to recognize and prevent child sexual abuse. "Come straight out and ask your child: Did the doctor touch you in a way that you're uncomfortable with?" Ms. Brewer said. Annual physicals for children and teenagers usually entail a full body examination, including a check of the genitals that can help monitor development as children go through puberty. But unless the child has a specific complaint, these exams are usually brief. Boys usually have a testicular exam once a year, but should be able to opt out if they're uncomfortable. These typically last less than a minute. The boy usually stands, removing only as much clothing as necessary; the doctor feels each testicle for masses and generally will use gloves, though there is no internal penetration of any part of the body. Parents are usually in the room when young children are being examined, but teens may not want a parent present. Doctors should offer to have an adult chaperone come in during a sensitive procedure like a genital exam; if no one is available, the patient should have the option of postponing the exam, Dr. Christian said. For girls, visual and manual breast exams may be done to assess growth and development during puberty, but manual exams are not required and should be carried out only with the adolescent's permission. A breast exam is done with the pads of the fingers, not the finger tips or palm of the hand, and the patient should wear a gown, with only one breast exposed at a time. Even in a gynecological visit, there is rarely any reason to do an internal pelvic exam on girls younger than 21, the age when screening for cervical cancer is recommended. Unusual symptoms like pelvic pain could trigger a pelvic exam earlier, but the doctor should explain to the patient exactly what's entailed, step by step, before initiating the exam, and always wear gloves. What Parents Can Do Talk with children and listen, said Jenny Coleman, director of Stop It Now!, an organization that works to prevent child sexual abuse. "It's never too early to talk to children about healthy sexual development and how their bodies work, and what's private and to make them feel comfortable asking questions, and know that you're a trusted person to come to." If you're unsure about an exam or treatment a doctor recommends for your child, ask if alternatives are available there is almost always another option or postpone it until you have more information. Get a second opinion, do your own research, and ask other parents, family members and trusted friends. The American Academy of Pediatrics urges parents to report suspicions of sexually inappropriate behavior by a provider to an office manager, clinic medical director or hospital administrator, who should evaluate the concerns and take steps to protect other patients while an investigation is ongoing; parents who are reasonably certain that abuse has taken place can make a report directly to law enforcement. If you or your child have a bad feeling about your doctor, find a new one. Teenage girls often prefer a female pediatrician. But don't forget that women may also be abusive or that boys can also be abused, and may be even less likely than girls to report it. "You always have the right to change physicians if you're unhappy or even just uncomfortable with your child's care," Dr. Christian said. "There might be nothing wrong it just might not be the right doctor for you." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Well |
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. It was not a season. For the Los Angeles Lakers, it was an obstacle course. It was 12 months packed with tragedies and togetherness. It was disjointed and odd, unprecedented and often unpleasant, an odyssey that began for them in a Chinese hotel amid a geopolitical feud and ended in a mostly empty arena at Walt Disney World, the site of the world's most famous bubble since the invention of chewing gum. But for all the disruptive forces that rocked the N.B.A., the Lakers triumphed in the end. The Lakers won their 17th championship and their first with LeBron James as their centerpiece with a victory over the Miami Heat on Sunday night in Game 6 of the N.B.A. finals. A mere 355 days after the Lakers played their season opener before a packed crowd at Staples Center in Los Angeles, they toppled the Heat, four games to two, to finish off their playoff run on an elaborate made for TV sound stage that lacked spectators, aside from a few of the players' family members and friends. Read more about the Lakers' road to the championship here. It's not the crown he's after, of course, but LeBron James has moved to No. 1 on the N.B.A.'s career list for most playoff games no matter how Sunday night plays out. This Game 6 is the 260th playoff game of LeBron's career, taking him one beyond the longtime former Lakers guard Derek Fisher. The Lakers need one more win for the fourth championship in James's 10 career trips to the N.B.A. finals. Goran Dragic is active for the Heat. Goran Dragic, the Heat guard, has missed the past four games after tearing a ligament in his left foot during Game 1. It's unclear how much playing time he'll get, if any, but at the very least, his presence should be a morale boost for Miami. Alex Caruso is starting for the Lakers. Entering Game 6, the Lakers are making an adjustment right from the start: Alex Caruso will make his first playoff start in place of Dwight Howard. Howard has struggled on the defensive end for the finals and having Caruso take his place will allow the Lakers to play small from the outset. Danny Green, the Los Angeles Lakers guard, told reporters on Sunday that he and his fiancee had received death threats following Game 5. "I've gotten so many messages," Green said. "I can't even hit the delete all button. I just don't read them. I know she probably doesn't get as many, and she doesn't have as many followers so she probably can see more of it. I had to ask. I said, 'Are you getting death threats?' She's like, 'Yeah, you are too.'" He continued, "I don't know, because I don't really pay attention or care, nor am I shaken or worried about it." At the end of Friday's game, Green missed a wide open jumper that could have won the game for the Lakers and sent the team to their 17th championship. Green finished the contest with 8 points on 3 of 8 shooting. Several of his teammates had far worse games, but Green was targeted in particular for scorn, especially on social media. One of the most high profile Lakers fans angry at Danny Green was Snoop Dogg, who on his Instagram story, posted several expletives directed toward Green. "I'd give anything to get that shot back again, trust me," Green said Sunday. "You're going to make some. You're going to miss some. It's part of the game." Jimmy Butler is in survey mode early for Miami. He has taken only one shot from the floor in the game's first eight plus minutes, but the Heat are hanging in just fine, trailing only by a point (17 16). The Lakers' LeBron James, by contrast, has a quick 6 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists early. The Lakers started out slowly, but Miami's turnovers allowed the Lakers to build some momentum, as Los Angeles took a 28 20 lead into the second quarter. LeBron James scored 9 points and grabbed 5 rebounds. Anthony Davis had 8 points and added 3 rebounds, but he also picked up two fouls, which may cause issues as the game progresses. No surprise, then, that the Lakers, fueled by James and a rejuvenated defense, have hiked their lead to a robust 64 36 heading into halftime. James has 11 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists . An uber aggressive Rajon Rondo, turning back the clock with a recharged first step, has supplied an unexpected 13 points, including several pretty drives and a 3 pointer while shooting 6 for 6. Anthony Davis leads the Lakers with 15 points. The Heat have already played nine players, after gutting out Game 5 with just seven, but they look weary. Miami is shooting just 34.2 percent from the floor against the Lakers' swarming defense, benefiting little from the six minutes Goran Dragic logged in the first half in his first action since sustaining a torn plantar fascia in his left foot in Game 1. The Lakers' lead reached 30 points, at 64 34, on consecutive 3 pointers by Kentavious Caldwell Pope (who also has 15 points). 3rd Quarter: Anthony Davis is almost out of fouls. Miami is having a bad shooting night (at a bad time). The Heat have played the Lakers virtually to a draw halfway through the third quarter. Which would be fine, except that Los Angeles entered the second half with a 28 point lead. Miami is shooting a dismal 34 percent from the floor and has just one more assist (12) than turnovers (11). Jimmy Butler looks tired or, rather, like a mere mortal with 8 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists. End of 3rd Quarter: The Lakers' stars are getting help. The Miami Heat ended the third quarter essentially on life support, as the Lakers entered the final frame with a 87 58 lead. Rajon Rondo continued his hot shooting from outside, hitting multiple 3 pointers. LeBron James (19 points, 11 rebounds, 9 assists) entered the fourth just one assist shy of yet another playoff triple double. The Lakers are getting lots of help from players outside of James and Anthony Davis. Kentavious Caldwell Pope has 17 points and Rondo added 19 points off the bench. The lone bright spot for the Heat has been Bam Adebayo, who has 15 points and 7 rebounds on only 10 shots. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
Is It OK to Take a Walk? In a bygone era last week, in other words the best way to cut through New York City stress was, for many, a stroll to the nearest restaurant, bar or maybe (for the virtuous or vain) the gym. Not anymore. With Mayor de Blasio's closure of the city's restaurants (except for takeout), bars and gyms, which took effect this morning at 9 a.m., along with schools, movie theaters and any other place where people congregate, the stroll, it seems, is all that's left. But that is hardly nothing. Both transportation and meditation, the leisurely New York walk, long celebrated in literature, has come to symbolize not only a crucial thread in the city's social fabric, as we migrate our social and, in many cases, work lives online, but a thread to sanity itself. "When you walk, you're utterly in touch with the drama of the city," said the writer Vivian Gornick, whose 1987 memoir, "Fierce Attachments," reissued last year, focused on long, illuminating strolls through the city with her mother. "You're constantly overhearing conversations, and catching all kinds of snatches of people in odd expressions and conditions. No small city in the world can duplicate that experience." "When you're out on the street," she added, "it's a continuous stream of momentary connection, and that has its own life, its own particular vividness, and it's irreplaceable." The same can be said of cycling or jogging, although those activities tend to be more focused and goal oriented. But whatever your preferred means of locomotion, local governments are attuned to the social and psychological benefits of head clearing, heart stimulating jaunts, even in the age of self quarantines and social distancing. On Monday, seven counties around Silicon Valley announced a shelter at home order that would take effect on Tuesday. San Francisco's mayor, London N. Breed, issued an order for city residents to stay at home except for "essential needs," such as medicine or food, but made an exemption for "engaging in outdoor activity, such as walking, hiking, or running provided that you maintain at least six feet of social distancing." In Milan, where life in the coronavirus "red zone" amounts to virtual house arrest, residents are still free, if not encouraged, to enjoy a walk or jog "for the sake of outdoor physical activity," as The Washington Post reported, as long as social distances are respected. In New York, too, the mayor is weighing a shelter in place order, and it is uncertain how much exercise might be allowed under the plan. For now, however, New Yorkers are still relying on walks through the city as a form of mental cleansing. Another writer, Erin Khar, who recently published an addiction memoir called "Strung Out: One Last Hit and Other Lies That Nearly Killed Me," said that long meanderings through her increasingly empty neighborhood, Greenwich Village, or along Hudson River Park, may now come with plastic gloves and a pack of sanitizing wipes, but they seem crucial now that she has stopped taking the subway and hanging out with friends. "As someone who struggled with years of depression, anxiety, and addiction, I am well acquainted with the feeling of needing to escape, wanting to jump out of my skin," she wrote in an email. "When I feel that way, going for a long walk alleviates the pressure." Ms. Khar is experiencing panic attacks like she hasn't in many years, she said. "I need these walks more than ever. They help significantly, by getting me out of my head and boosting the release of much needed neurotransmitters." Ms. Khar, 46, is hardly the first writer to discover the medicinal value of a New York walk. Authors such as Walt Whitman, Hart Crane and Alfred Kazin have long celebrated walks in New York as a tonic against despair or anxiety, said Stephen Miller, the author of the 2014 book, "Walking New York: Reflections of American Writers From Walt Whitman to Teju Cole." As Whitman wrote in his 1882 collection, "Specimen Days and Collect," a walk in New York, with its "daily contact and rapport with its myriad people," was "the best, most effective medicine my soul has yet partaken." In the current state of anxiety, even short walks make a giant difference. This past Friday evening, as tension in the city began to crest, Taylor Davies, a 34 year old copywriter who lives in the East Village, took a stroll from her apartment on Second Avenue through Alphabet City to the east. "It was kind of incredible how quickly my mood rebounded from a sort of directionless despair working from home and checking social media constantly to somewhat hopeful and calm once I'd gone a few blocks," Ms. Davies wrote in an email. "The cherry trees in Tompkins Square Park were in bloom, and brick buildings were bathed in glowy orange light. The more I walked, the better I felt." "Just putting one foot in front of the other a few thousand times has proved to be kind of a great reminder to take things as they come right now, day by day," she added. Granted, lazy urban strolls are newly fraught in the current climate. You are less Baudelaire's famous, sauntering flaneur than a cautious creature ready to swerve. People looking to get out of the house for a jaunt should at least take extra steps to maintain their personal space cushion, said Carolyn C. Cannuscio, a social epidemiologist at the Center for Public Health Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania. "We're trying to avoid face to face contact with other people, so all of our decisions should be made with that in mind," Ms. Cannuscio said. "I would suggest that people walk at times that streets are less busy, walk in locations where there are fewer people and there's an opportunity to spread out, and don't stop and talk with all your neighbors." Before each stroll, she said, "scout it out. Peek out the window and see if there are lots of people on the street. If there are, then wait until later. For people who need to pick up their medication at the pharmacy, or need to get food, if you get to the store and it's crowded, turn around and go home, then go back later." Attempts to preserve a six foot safety radius might seem comical if they weren't so deadly serious. Even in brownstone lined streets of Brooklyn, where sidewalks are relatively light in traffic, close quarter encounters on the city sidewalks seem for now, at least inevitable. On an afternoon stroll to the market, you find yourself suddenly face to face with a stranger who suddenly turns the corner, quickening your pulse in a way little known since the mugging heyday of the 1970s and '80s. Crossing a crosswalk, say, west, you find yourself triangulated on the corner by one person walking north and another walking east. Even on the wider sidewalks of the borough's main arteries, any attempt to avoid a near brush with pedestrians passing the other way would require serpentine style evasive maneuvers typically associated with soldiers dodging gunfire on the battlefield. But as caution increasingly trumps carefree meandering, even public health officials who specialize in risk assessment recognize the need to blow off steam for those confined between apartment walls. "If you're not within about six feet of somebody, in almost every case you're not taking much risk," said Crystal Watson, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "So I think people should get out in the sunshine. Taking your dog out for a walk, or going to a park and keeping your distance, is safe and necessary." "It's probably going to be a beautiful spring," she added, "and we do need to save our own sanity." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
PRESERVATION groups are circling the deliciously decorated Con Ed powerhouse at 11th Avenue and 59th Street, as the 1904 structure, designed by Stanford White, nudges up for a third time to landmark designation. At the same time, a similar grand structure sits alone without fuss or bother, just working hard in elegant industrial simplicity. Few today notice the giant 1902 powerhouse at the foot of East 74th Street, or have heard of George H. Pegram, the engineer who designed it, but on the day he was buried, thousands of New Yorkers stopped in their tracks, literally. Electricity reshaped urban transit, which in the 1880s was powered by smoke spewing locomotives, balky cables and dung dropping beasts of burden. The locomotives of Manhattan's elevated lines rained cinders and ash on the streets, and those of the railroad running up a cut in Park Avenue did the same, with the added horror of periodic gruesome collisions in the below grade tunnels. It is not clear how White became involved, but he designed the exterior an irrelevance, of course, to the engineers in a creamy tan brick with light terra cotta. Its delicate Renaissance style exterior could just as well have clothed an opera house, although the five colossal stacks gave it away. At the same time the operators of the elevated lines on Second, Third, Sixth and Ninth Avenues had to contend with transshipping their coal inland to their refueling yards and keeping their engines watered. So in 1899, as the subway builders were refining their plans, the Manhattan Elevated Railway Company, which operated the Els, began constructing a 200 by 500 foot generating station right on the East River, between 74th and 75th Streets. The 74th Street powerhouse is a rich piece of industrial archaeology, with walls on the scale of imperial Rome running down each street. The marmaladelike orange brick was the signature of Pegram, the chief engineer, who worked, it appears, without help from some fancy architect. Unlike the 1842 opening of the Croton water system, or the 1904 opening of the subway, this one drew no crowds. There were no huzzahs when the electric trains started running in 1902, just a backhanded swipe by The New York Times that "really, they have been a long time about it." The newspaper expressed relief that the "shower of black hail" would finally end. But how sharper than a serpent's tooth is a thankless public. Two years later The Times reported "Passengers Furiously Angry" because ice on the third rail had closed down service. It was a fine mess; coal locomotives could have handled that weather with ease. In 1903 The New York Herald said the third rail posed no danger since the current was "hardly enough to kill a healthy person." Apparently The Herald had forgotten the case a year before of John Coughlin, who touched the third rail while working on the track near Third Avenue and 28th. The Times said he had "suffered untold agony" from certainly mortal wounds. A co worker, John Wolfert, was thrown to the street but walked away. There were regular deaths from contact with the third rail, although it would have been hard to prevent the demise of Snooky the chimpanzee, who in 1933 escaped her cage at a Coney Island sideshow, climbed up an elevated pillar and was killed instantly. Thirteen years old, she was worth 10,000. Con Edison now owns both powerhouses and uses them to produce steam for 1,800 customers. For some time, preservation groups, now led by Landmark West!, have pushed for landmark designation for White's 59th Street powerhouse, which it richly deserves, although Con Ed has so far successfully opposed it. During several years of hoopla, no one has mentioned Pegram's East 74th Street station, but then people often buy by the label. There are dark murmurings about the demolition of the 59th Street powerhouse, but neither Landmark West! nor the Preservation League of New York State could explain how Con Ed might discontinue steam service to its customers, buy another location and rebuild. Con Ed says it has no such plans. A visit inside the East 74th Street power station is awe inspiring, an industrial grade Grand Canyon. The south half of the building, originally for generators, is almost empty. The space soars like the interior of Grand Central, but in work clothes instead of fancy dress. The north side of the building, originally used for the boilers, is chock full of equipment, with multiple levels of catwalks and gratings, like the engine room of some Ridley Scott space station. There's a deafening two pitched wall of sound, the massive whoosh of fans and the thrumm thrumm thrumm of the boilers. If you know a Con Ed executive, pull every string you have to get inside. Stanford White was great, everyone agrees. So what about George H. Pegram, who served as chief engineer for the elevated railroads and then the subway? On the day of his funeral in 1937, all the trains in the city stopped for two minutes. When White was shot in 1906, the trains ran on time. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
A Massachusetts couple have donated seven Rembrandt drawings to the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as part of an estimated 25 million gift of art and financial support. The donation, made by Sheldon Peck, a retired orthodontist and former Harvard professor, and his wife, Leena, encompasses 140 works on paper valued at 17 million, including 134 European old master drawings, along with an 8 million endowment to support development of the museum. The gift is "transformational" for the museum, said its director, Katie Ziglar. "It's certainly the most generous and largest gift the Ackland has ever received; it's just mind blowing," Ms. Ziglar said in a telephone interview. "To be honest, it would be a big gift anywhere, even at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or another huge institution. I've been working in museums for 30 years, and it's the largest gift that has been given to any museum I've worked for." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
DORSET, Vt. About a week before rehearsals started for David Mamet's "American Buffalo" at the Dorset Theater Festival in southern Vermont, Stephen Adly Guirgis realized it was too late to make up an excuse and bail without causing major harm. A Pulitzer Prize winning playwright who began as an actor and got sidetracked long ago into writing shows for his friends, Mr. Guirgis had said yes instantly when the director John Gould Rubin asked him to be in this "American Buffalo." Acting is one of the things Mr. Guirgis loves most, and he was eager to return to it. But anxiety and fear often overpower his best intentions. He hadn't had a stage role in 13 years, and his health has been poor recently so much so, he said, that he withdrew from this summer's Shakespeare in the Park production of "Julius Caesar." That was just a small part. In "American Buffalo," opening on Aug. 25, he is one of the stars. Yet the temptation to back out persisted. "I was still like, I've known John Rubin forever. He'll understand," Mr. Guirgis said over lunch on the playhouse's patio this month, halfway through the second day of rehearsals. So would Dorset's artistic director, Dina Janis, he figured: The two go back to the days when the Off Broadway Labyrinth Theater Company, of which Mr. Guirgis is a former co artistic director, held its summer retreats in nearby Bennington. What nagged at him was the guilty prospect of letting down his co star, Treat Williams, who was already a movie star when Mr. Guirgis was in college. A veteran Mamet actor, Mr. Williams now lives year round not far from the playhouse, on 16 rolling acres with a little orchard and a pond. His excitement about doing the play a verbally explosive dissection of male power dynamics, set in a Chicago junk shop had been palpable in the months leading up to production. "He would always text me or leave voice mails like 'I can't wait to do this,'" said Mr. Guirgis, who is 52 to Mr. Williams's 65. "And sometimes I wouldn't call him back because I didn't know what to say." If casting Mr. Guirgis was a risk, Mr. Rubin who first directed him in the late 1990s and "never got over thinking of him as an actor" says he didn't believe Mr. Guirgis would cancel on him. "When he was writing, he was regretting not acting," Mr. Rubin said. "He procrastinated as a writer, he had trouble as a writer, but he never had trouble as an actor." Mr. Guirgis arrived in Dorset only an hour before the "American Buffalo" meet and greet, a first day ritual where the theater staff and visiting artists introduce themselves to one another. He was a day later than originally expected; he had put off traveling as long as possible. That morning in New York, when he caught a train at Penn Station, he took a photograph of himself with his ticket and texted it to the people he's closest to, to show that he really was going. "And they needed to see that the proof," he said. In the lobby of the playhouse, he sat down with Mr. Williams who plays a shady character nicknamed Teach, the Robert Duvall role in the 1977 Broadway premiere and the third member of the cast, Oliver Palmer, a 23 year old fresh out of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. When it was Mr. Guirgis's turn to introduce himself to the room, he offered to hold a writing workshop if anyone was interested. "But after I learn the lines," he added, and got a big laugh. What was scaring both Mr. Guirgis and Mr. Williams, they said later, was having just 12 days of rehearsals to get the play down before technical rehearsals begin. They have only a single preview before opening, and the run ends Sept. 2. Ambitions for the production beyond Dorset, possibly a tour to regional theaters, might allow them to delve further. In recent years Mr. Guirgis has had small roles in films, including "Birdman" and Kenneth Lonergan's "Margaret." He would have been in Martin McDonagh's coming "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," a job he was thrilled to have, but he never got on the plane to go to the shoot. For that, his acting manager fired him. "And I still haven't reached out to Martin," Mr. Guirgis said, attributing his no show to "depression, anxiety, darkness. Self destruction." Donny, the junk shop owner in "American Buffalo," is his first stage role since Brett C. Leonard's "Guinea Pig Solo" at the Public Theater in 2004. "When I'm acting, it's the only time that I feel O.K. in my skin, where I feel O.K. about who I am, where I am," he said. "And if that's true, which it is, and you don't do it for years and years and years, it's going to make you feel worse." Similarly, Mr. Guirgis loves being around actors. His career making early plays, like "Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train" and "Our Lady of 121st Street," were directed by his friend Philip Seymour Hoffman, whose movie career was taking off then, and they were both deeply involved in building Labyrinth. "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot," also originally directed by Hoffman, put Mr. Guirgis in the news this month when he reluctantly shut down a production at a small San Francisco theater that had cut his text, in violation of copyright. In 2011 Mr. Guirgis made his Broadway debut with a comedy whose earthy title this newspaper cleans up as "The With the Hat"; he won a Pulitzer in 2015 for "Between Riverside and Crazy." Until January, he'd spent three years working with Baz Luhrmann on their sprawling and poetic Netflix series, "The Get Down" during which period, Mr. Guirgis said, he gained more than 100 pounds and chain smoked while he wrote. One night this spring, he said, he woke up at 4 a.m. thinking he was having a heart attack. An ambulance took him to the hospital, where he was told he had pericarditis. Frightening though it was, he didn't adjust his lifestyle. A recurrence landed him in the hospital a second time, he said, when a gallon of fluid had to be drained from around his heart. He is trying to change his habits. Sixteen days before "American Buffalo" rehearsals started, worried about being able to breathe, he quit cigarettes cold turkey. He is mostly off sugar. And he did get on that train. On his first night in Vermont, he was in bed by 11, hours earlier than usual. The next morning, well rested, he biked to the playhouse to work on his lines before rehearsal. In the room, Mr. Rubin had the actors sit around a table reading from their scripts to get Mr. Mamet's rhythms. But even then, just trying things out, Mr. Guirgis gave a beautifully modulated performance: tender tough, supple, funny in surprising places. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
Each Friday, Farhad Manjoo and Mike Isaac, technology reporters at The New York Times, review the week's news, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry. Mike is off this week, so Nicole Perlroth, who covers cybersecurity, took his place. Farhad: O.K., it was a big week in tech. We should probably start with the thing we've been talking about every week for, what, 300 years now? Facebook and Russia. In a report this week, a couple of our colleagues found that when Russian operatives set out to sow civil unrest in America on Facebook, they turned to an obvious source political messages posted by Americans. The Russians created Facebook pages that had names like "Being Patriotic" and "Blacktivist," and they populated their pages with videos and memes created by Americans for instance, a hoax story about Muslim men collecting welfare checks for multiple wives. I found the story fascinating because the whole thing is so banal. You have this picture of foreign spies using James Bond type technology to go after an enemy's political system. Nope, turns out they went about it exactly how you or I might do it they found some videos online and posted them on Facebook. Nicole: Yup. It turns out the Kremlin has found their sweet spot in the ugly fault lines in American politics. They've truly exploited our country's political grievances, cultural resentments, news literacy and diminishing faith in once trusted institutions like the news media to bring out the worst in us, simply by creating some Facebook pages. Who would have thought that Russians would be behind a pro Texas fan page disseminating pro secessionist Texas messages, or a "Blacktivist" page advocating for more protests against racial inequality? Farhad: It wasn't just Facebook. Google disclosed this week that Russian operatives also bought ads on its platform to interfere with the 2016 race. The amounts were small about 4,700 in ads from the Russian government but they added to the overall story line, which is that the tech giants' platforms are being used in ways they probably had never foreseen. Nicole: Did we really think Russia was going to try to hack election databases in 21 states, and pour that many resources into Facebook and not touch Google, the No. 1 source of information for most Americans? It's frustrating that this is only coming out now, but to be fair, much of the Russian activity was not exactly obvious. The silver lining is that we may finally be getting some answers. This week, the House Intelligence Committee said it would turn over Russian Facebook ad content, after meeting with Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg. Farhad: Let's turn to another story about Russian spies, this one not at all banal. The United States recently discovered that a Russian antivirus company, Kaspersky Lab, had been compromised by the Russian government. The software was essentially being used as a kind of search engine for spying the Russians could search through the files of people who'd installed the software, and in some cases it led them to classified documents, including from an employee of the National Security Agency who had stored files on a home computer. That's pretty amazing by itself. But what was most amazing was how the spying was discovered because Israeli spies were watching the Russians spy on the Americans, as you and Scott Shane reported. That's crazy! Can you explain how it went down? Nicole: So in 2014, the Israeli government hackers managed to compromise Kaspersky Lab, a Russian antivirus company with 400 million users, many of them in Western Europe and the United States. Here I should mention that some two dozen American federal agencies used Kaspersky's software, including some of the most critical agencies like the Department of Energy, which oversees our nuclear program. Kaspersky was so thoroughly "owned" by the Israelis, that nearly a year later when Kaspersky's researchers discovered the intrusion, its own researchers called the Israeli attack code "the best we have ever seen." As it turns out, the Israelis were so deep inside Kaspersky's systems that they watched in real time as Russian spies used Kaspersky's systems effectively as a Google search box for American classified government programs. The Israelis caught Russian spies searching any computer that contained Kaspersky's software for the words "Top Secret," in a sense abusing Kaspersky's deep access to the innards of more than 400 million people's machines to search for American government classified programs. In at least one case, the spies struck gold: They discovered a trove of highly classified National Security Agency programs on an agency employee's personal computer. Apparently the employee had installed the Kaspersky software on his home computer, not knowing that in doing so he was giving Russians full access to some of the N.S.A.'s most coveted programs for penetrating foreign networks. Israel was able to capture all of this in real time and provided the N.S.A. with evidence in the forms of screenshots and other documentation, which is how the N.S.A. learned the source of this particular leak. The tip also prompted tons of internal discussions and studies within the United States intelligence community, which eventually led to a government ban on Kaspersky products last month. Farhad: Kaspersky is a real mystery in this. They've denied any wrongdoing, but is it plausible that they wouldn't have had an idea that their tools had been infiltrated by the Russian government? Nicole: This is the mystery indeed. I sent Kaspersky a detailed list of questions that gave them ample opportunity to offer any explanations. But they declined to answer any of those questions. Instead they put out a short vague statement and sent me a Rihanna GIF on Twitter. There are still some possible technical explanations for how Russia could have used Kaspersky as a backdoor without Kaspersky's knowledge. But most counterintelligence experts, including one we quoted from the Central Intelligence Agency, insist there is no way these kinds of broad scans for United States intelligence could have been conducted without Kaspersky's knowledge. And even if Kaspersky was not complicit, these experts say, that would still mean Kaspersky is either grossly incompetent or horrendously compromised. As a security company, neither is optimal. Farhad: That's been quite the week! Thanks for joining me, Nicole. See you! Nicole: Ciao! Or as they say in Russian "Proshchai!" Farhad Manjoo, who joined the Times in 2013, writes a weekly technology column called State of the Art. Nicole Perlroth joined The Times in 2011 and covers cybersecurity. You can follow them on Twitter here: fmanjoo and NicolePerlroth. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
The Philadelphia 76ers and Daryl Morey seem like an ideal match. For the Sixers, who introduced Morey on Monday as president of basketball operations, he is an executive who gives their front office instant credibility. And for Morey, the job is a chance to transform a franchise with marquee players into a championship contender. But transformations require institutional buy in from all corners of a franchise. Morey's track record as an analytics driven tinkerer willing to blow up "good" in order to be "great" may not jibe with other parts of the organization the ones that judge or are judged on straight wins and losses, or that need wins to make money. And Philadelphia has been here before: Sam Hinkie, a Morey acolyte, took the reins of the Sixers in 2013 for an ill fated partnership. Yet, with Morey, this can and should work. He will give the franchise much needed stability and direction. But it will require something owners always say they have but often don't: patience. The Morey pursuit began in earnest two years ago, when Philadelphia made a push for him to replace the ousted Bryan Colangelo but was rebuffed. Morey, who helped usher in the analytics movement in the N.B.A., finally made his way to Philadelphia after unexpectedly announcing his intent last month to resign from the Rockets in Houston, where he had been general manager since 2007. But just adding a big name to the front office won't magically fix the Sixers, who were swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Boston Celtics despite preseason championship aspirations. Afterward, the Sixers' general manager, Elton Brand, announced that changes needed to be made "top to bottom" including in the front office. Morey is one of those changes. The Sixers also announced Monday that Brand had signed a multiyear contract extension, but he will most likely answer to Morey, and it is unclear how that dynamic will shake out. In August, Brand said "collaboration days didn't work too well" with the front office last season. Philadelphia, under Brand's leadership, doubled down on going big in the frontcourt with Joel Embiid, a franchise cornerstone, and Al Horford while the rest of the league trended toward a smaller and faster style of basketball supported by analytics. No team embraced the concept more than Morey's Rockets, who traded a productive center in Clint Capela in February to play a smaller lineup. While the Rockets often relied on 3 pointers for their offense, Philadelphia's other franchise player, Ben Simmons, has shot just 24 of them in three seasons. "The best way to win in the N.B.A. is to take your talent and figure out how to utilize them best," Morey said at a news conference on Monday. "It's not to take your talent and hammer it into a particular system." One insight into Morey's style of thinking comes from before his time in Houston, when he was an executive with the Celtics. In the 2003 4 season, the Celtics were 36 46, made the playoffs as an eighth seed and were swept in the first round. On whether the Celtics should have tanked, Morey told ESPN last year: "We should have. We didn't. We were trying to win every game. But that would have been a year to not be in the eighth seed." That's Morey, at least partly. He would rather start from scratch than languish in mediocrity. (He has also since spoken out against tanking, saying it is bad for the N.B.A.) There is an open question as to how radical the team's ownership group will allow Morey to be. He made 77 trades in his 13 years in Houston, and his influence has made an impression in Philadelphia. In 2013, the Sixers hired Hinkie as team president and general manager, commencing an era known to Sixers fans as the Process. Hinkie based roster decisions on analytics and eschewed short term gains for bigger, future ones. (Or, in N.B.A. terms: The Sixers tanked.) He honed that approach working alongside Morey in Houston from 2005 to 2013. Hinkie focused on accumulating higher draft picks and tradable contracts rather than wins. While Hinkie's supporters argue that the Process was successful because it netted the Sixers Embiid and set up the pick to draft Simmons, his detractors said his strategy was detrimental to the league. In 2016, Hinkie resigned. When he was in charge, the Sixers were among the worst teams in the N.B.A. Two years later, Embiid and Simmons led the Sixers on a surprising run to the second round of the playoffs, which only further entrenched Hinkie as a cult hero among Sixers fans. On a recent podcast with ESPN, Hinkie spoke glowingly of his friend Morey's willingness to make unpopular moves. "That kind of being willing to do the hard right thing, I think, is the kind of thing Daryl will help with a bunch," Hinkie said. "He's proven with patient ownership that he can be successful." Under Morey, the Rockets never had a losing season. He often opted to rapidly retool rather than wholly rebuild, such as by swapping Chris Paul for Russell Westbrook "often" being the operative word. Morey kept the team competitive, seamlessly transitioning from the era of Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady to one led by James Harden. To acquire Harden, though, Morey overhauled the roster, trading away several productive veterans and letting others leave in free agency. The Rockets made the playoffs 10 times during Morey's tenure, including two trips to the Western Conference finals. But Houston never made the N.B.A. finals with Morey, and critics have questioned whether his approach can build a champion, given that other teams rebuilt themselves and won rings in less time. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
ARNE SUCKSDORFF at the Metrograph (Jan. 12 15). In a retrospective that's simultaneously obscure and universally accessible, the Metrograph celebrates the career of Arne Sucksdorff, a Swedish documentarian most associated with nature films. The black and white "The Great Adventure" (Friday and Saturday) is in some ways a precursor to the life on Earth genre that gave us untold Imax films and "March of the Penguins" albeit with human intervention still in the equation. (A particularly horrifying sequence finds a farmer using explosives to rid himself of troublesome fox cubs.) And it's not all documentaries, or the wild: "My Home Is Copacabana" (Saturday through Monday) is a narrative feature set among orphans in Rio de Janeiro, with a script based on interviews with its young cast members. 212 660 0312, metrograph.com 'DARK STAR' at Spectacle (Jan. 12 and 24). Made in 1974, John Carpenter's low budget feature debut is a tongue in cheek science fiction comedy centered on some of the most ragged astronauts in film history. Mr. Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon wrote it while attending the University of Southern California, and Mr. O'Bannon stars as a crew member who engages in a particularly memorable game of chicken with the ship's resident alien, which looks like a beach ball. Expanded from a student project, the movie is showing as part of Best of Spectacle '17, a series bringing back titles that played in Williamsburg last year. spectacletheater.com | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
A desk doesn't have to be a heavy, baronial expanse of wood that dominates a room. Especially at home and especially at a time when many of us are trying to shoehorn an additional work space into anyplace it will fit something smaller and more sprightly is often preferable. "Different types of work require different types of spaces: If it's just a laptop, you don't need a large desk," said Chad Dorsey, a Dallas based interior designer who sells turnkey home office furniture packages. Just how small can a small desk be? "Thirty six inches wide would be the minimum," Mr. Dorsey said. But if you have notebooks, binders and lots of papers, he noted, a desk that's closer to five feet wide might work better: "Almost anyone could fit within that." As for depth, he likes a desktop that is about two feet deep. Such a nimble piece of furniture doesn't require a dedicated office. It could be tucked into the corner of a bedroom, living room, dining room, entrance hall or even a large closet, Mr. Dorsey pointed out: "It could almost go anywhere." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Just weeks after resolving shortages in swabs, researchers are struggling to find the chemicals and plastic pieces they need to carry out coronavirus tests in the lab leading to long waiting times. Labs across the country are facing backlogs in coronavirus testing thanks in part to a shortage of tiny pieces of tapered plastic. Researchers need these little disposables, called pipette tips, to quickly and precisely move liquid between vials as they process the tests. As the number of known coronavirus cases in the United States passes 4 million, these new shortages of pipette tips and other lab supplies are once again stymieing efforts to track and curb the spread of disease. Some people are waiting days or even weeks for results, and labs are vying for crucial materials. "That's the crazy part," said Dr. Alexander McAdam, director of the infectious diseases diagnostic laboratory at Boston Children's Hospital, one of many institutions seeking the prized pipette tips. "Whenever there's a shortage, it's lab versus lab, city versus city, state versus state, competing for supplies." Fed into automated devices, pipette tips can help researchers blaze through hundreds of coronavirus tests in a matter of hours, sparing them grueling manual labor. The Swiss company Tecan, which supplies pipette tips for machines used by hundreds of laboratories in the United States, has been slammed with orders from U.S. customers in recent months, according to Martin Brandle, the firm's senior vice president of corporate communications and investor relations. The demand has been so high, he said, that Tecan has tapped into an emergency stash, and is racing to install new production lines that he hopes will double the company's output by fall. Pipette tips aren't the only laboratory items in short supply. Dwindling stocks of machines, containers and chemicals needed to extract or amplify the coronavirus's genetic material have clogged almost every point along the testing workflow. The crisis is an eerie echo of the early days of the pandemic, when researchers scrambled to find the swabs and liquids needed to collect and store samples en route to laboratories. "It's like Groundhog Day," said Scott Shone, director of the North Carolina State Laboratory of Public Health. "I feel like I lived this day four or five months ago." In New York, researchers running low on chemicals are running machines at half capacity as test specimens pile up at the door. In Florida, where cases are spiking, labs are reporting turnaround times of seven to 10 days. And in New Mexico, researchers at TriCore Reference Laboratories the state's largest medical laboratory have revved up testing in the days after deliveries arrive, only to find themselves hamstrung by faltering supplies at week's end. "It's a merry go round of shortages," said Karissa Culbreath, the laboratory's scientific director of infectious disease, research and development. "Just when we think we've dealt with one issue, another challenge pops up." TriCore and many other laboratories are now having to prioritize testing for the sickest patients, a trend that has troubled many as evidence mounts of the virus's ability to spread from infected people before symptoms appear, if they do at all. For months, experts have underscored the need for more widespread testing, particularly among elderly people and the most vulnerable racial and ethnic groups, to slacken the coronavirus's grip on the nation. In interviews, public and private lab staffers in a dozen states said they were exhausted from marathon days of running tests on a shoestring supply chain. Some are regularly working 12 hour days. Others are taking overnight shifts to babysit machines running never ending batches of tests at full capacity. "I've come in at 4 a.m., I've come in at 3 a.m.," said Felicia Rice, a laboratory technologist who conducts coronavirus tests at Mayo Clinic Arizona, where local demand has skyrocketed in lock step with the recent crest in cases. As demand ratchets up, it's these commercial labs that have been left in a lurch. In a statement released on July 20, Quest noted that the dearth of equipment and chemicals comprised "the most significant gating factor" in its testing pipeline. And members of the American Clinical Laboratory Association, a group that represents many of the country's private labs, have lamented the spotty availability of materials like chemicals and pipette tips, Julie Khani, the organization's president, said in an email. "Any one constriction in the chain of supply can suddenly create a bottleneck," Ms. Khani said. "With more supplies and platforms, we could perform more testing, but the global supply chain remains constrained." Sputtering supply chains have started to shunt the onus of testing from some private laboratories to their public counterparts, Peter Iwen, director of Nebraska's Public Health Laboratory, said in an email. "We are now getting backlogged and will need to start rejecting specimens," he said. In California, where the number of new cases has surged above 10,000 per day, regional public health laboratories, like the one in Sonoma County, are fighting tooth and nail to keep pace. "We've been over capacity for a long time," said Rachel Rees, the institution's director of laboratory services. Dr. Rees's lab is currently processing samples from local hospitals that have run out of supplies. To avoid halting testing entirely, many laboratories are maintaining stocks to run multiple types of tests at once requiring technicians to maintain both the materials and mental wherewithal to perform many protocols, often at the same time. Researchers at Mayo Clinic Arizona must juggle four or five protocols; at TriCore, in New Mexico, that number has soared to seven. This sort of bet hedging wasn't the norm for laboratories before, said Omai Garner, the director of clinical microbiology for the U.C.L.A. Health System, where he runs a laboratory of more than 100 people. "No single manufacturer can give a laboratory enough tests to cover the entire volume they need to cover," said Dr. Garner, who is in the process of adding a fifth type of coronavirus test to his team's repertoire. Shortages are so widespread that even backup options don't always pan out. Marilyn Freeman, who is deputy director of Virginia's D.C.L.S. public health laboratory, said her team had been waiting months for its orders of machines that can automate coronavirus test processing, which would ease the burden on staff. Two of the devices in highest demand the Hologic Panther and Hologic Panther Fusion, the same ultraefficient robots that take Tecan's sought after pipette tips most likely won't ship to Dr. Freeman's lab until the fall. What's more, some of the biggest issues from the early days of the pandemic haven't yet resolved. Erin Graf, who regularly clocks 80 hour weeks as the director of microbiology at Mayo Clinic Arizona, said her laboratory was still strained by an inconsistent supply of the specialized swabs needed to collect specimens an added stress on top of the new round of obstacles her team is contending with. "We're used to dealing with challenges. We welcome challenges," Dr. Graf said. "But it feels like the challenge is coming almost daily now." As fall approaches, many researchers are growing increasingly worried that the flu season will exacerbate shortages. The coronavirus isn't the only pathogen circulating through the human population, or the only infection that laboratories need tools to test for. Though the C.D.C. and many private companies are currently developing tests that can detect multiple pathogens at once, the sheer volume of autumn illnesses is still expected to hit labs hard and may force some teams to delay testing for other infections. Already, labs like Dr. Graf's have had to cut corners with testing for sexually transmitted infections, in part because several manufacturers have had to pivot supply chains toward coronavirus testing. "Some of the most basic tests that we do, we can't do anymore," Dr. Graf said. "Every resource is going toward Covid. That's something we never would've thought would happen." Shifts toward point of care coronavirus tests, which are fast and simple enough to perform without the need for specialized equipment, could ease some of the burden on laboratories. Pooled testing for the coronavirus, in which samples from multiple people are combined and analyzed in batches, could cut down on material consumption as well. But these tests are not yet in widespread use, and depend on many of the same manufacturing pipelines. In New Mexico, TriCore's Dr. Culbreath worries that her next big shortage may be the laboratory's most valuable supply of all: its people. "I worry about my own staff, and burnout. Their ability to take care of themselves," said Dr. Culbreath, who has pulled many weekend shifts and 10 hour days. Eventually, she'll "find someone to manufacture a plastic pipette tip," she said. "But I can't find someone with the years of training and certification of these amazing scientists." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
All together these create a world of intense visual richness and power that is unidentifiable by logo or look. And all of it has the effect of elevating the whole out of a world ruled by designers and recognizable global names and into a personal aesthetic statement. Recently, it has become trendy once again for musicians to team up with brands for their tour wardrobes this year Adele is being outfitted by Burberry; Florence Welch by Gucci and it would not have been surprising if, for a project such as "Lemonade," Beyonce had chosen to work with a single designer. (At the very least, there's probably a compelling financial reason for such collaboration, and it is more efficient.) But if that had happened, said designer would have been stamped with Beyonce's endorsement, and her name would have been forever linked with that designer. Some of her influence would have rubbed off, and some of the focus on her work would have, too. Many of the stories that appeared about the most recent Coachella festival focused more on the fashion than on the music, to the extent that the fashion messaging overwhelmed the music messaging, and it began to feel a bit like an extended ad campaign. By contrast, on "Lemonade," the clothes support the point, or points; they are not the point. Which is as it should be and is totally in line with Beyonce's past approach to fashion. In their breadth and diversity and unpredictability, the costumes emphasize the idea, embedded in the lyrics as well as the album's narrative chapter structure (Intuition to Denial to Anger to, ultimately, Hope and Redemption), that the power in this world belongs to Beyonce and to her alone. That includes the power to decide, to declare her feelings and needs and pain, to decide to go back on her promise to leave and to stay, to yes, even this choose what she wants to wear that expresses all of the above. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Fox News suspended Eric Bolling, a longtime host at the network, on Saturday pending an investigation into reports that he sent lewd photographs to three female colleagues via text message. Fox News learned about the allegations against Mr. Bolling after an inquiry from HuffPost, the network said in an emailed statement. In an article published Friday night, HuffPost cited a dozen anonymous sources who said Mr. Bolling "sent an unsolicited photo of male genitalia via text message to at least two colleagues at Fox Business and one colleague at Fox News." It said the messages were sent several years ago and on separate occasions. A lawyer for Mr. Bolling, Michael J. Bowe, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Saturday. Mr. Bowe told HuffPost that "Mr. Bolling recalls no such inappropriate communications, does not believe he sent any such communications, and will vigorously pursue his legal remedies for any false and defamatory accusations that are made." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
A two month investigation into the conduct of Peter Martins, the former chief of New York City Ballet and its school, did not corroborate any allegations of sexual harassment or physical abuse that several former dancers and others made against him this winter, according to a statement on Thursday. Still, the ballet and school announced new policies to assure that dancers "feel safe, respected and able to voice their opinions and concerns freely." The mixed signals that there was no verifiable abuse, yet new policies were needed infuriated some former dancers who had accused Mr. Martins of misconduct. Yet there were also bound to be frustrations among supporters of Mr. Martins, who retired last month under the pressure of the allegations, even though he professed his innocence and the investigation wasn't complete. Some said they wished he still led the ballet or want to hold a tribute honoring him. Mr. Martins, in a statement provided by his lawyer, said he was "gratified for the conclusions" of the investigation, conducted by an outside counsel, Barbara Hoey; her report will not be publicly released. "I retired to allow those glorious institutions to move past the turmoil that resulted from these charges," Mr. Martins, 71, said. "It is my hope that, with the investigation concluded, they can refocus, without distraction, on their roles as the world's pre eminent ballet company and school." The investigation, which was initiated by the company and its School of American Ballet, was denounced Thursday by two former dancers who had come forward with accusations. They said Ms. Hoey, who interviewed them, had seemed sharply skeptical of their accounts of abuse. One of the dancers, Kelly Cass Boal, said she believed that the investigation was a whitewash meant to protect management and Mr. Martins. Ms. Hoey, reached by telephone Thursday, said in response: "We did not discount anyone's experience. We took all views and all facts into consideration in preparing the report." Charles W. Scharf, the chairman of the ballet, defended the thoroughness of the investigation, which included interviews with 77 current and former dancers and others. "I think we've done all that we can at this point. I think we've done what's appropriate, I think we've done what's fair," he said in an interview. "We encouraged people to speak." The inquiry was prompted by an anonymous letter sent in early December to the company and school that accused Mr. Martins of sexual harassment. In the wake of the letter's allegation the specifics were never released several former dancers came forward with reports of physical and verbal abuse by Mr. Martins. Other former dancers described a culture of fear about speaking up, retribution for whistle blowers and enabling by the board and management. According to the statement from the ballet and school, "Ultimately the investigation did not corroborate the allegations of harassment or violence both made in the anonymous letter and reported in the media regarding Mr. Martins." Victor Ostrovsky, who had described being handled violently by Mr. Martins as a 12 year old student at the ballet school, said on Thursday he was surprised by that conclusion. "The investigation was improperly done," he said. "They weren't able to prove through witnesses anything? That just doesn't make sense. I was on stage with a bunch of kids they all knew what happened." Mr. Ostrovsky said the outcome only confirmed his misgivings after meeting with the investigator, Ms. Hoey, the management lawyer. "She wasn't blatantly discrediting me, but it felt like she was suggesting that maybe I didn't experience that," Mr. Ostrovsky said. Ms. Boal, a former City Ballet soloist who in December described having been choked by Mr. Martins, said talking to Ms. Hoey "felt like she was trying to make it sound like what I'm saying is false. They were doing the investigation just to say what they're saying right now." "They're going to make it look pretty," said Ms. Boal, who is married to Peter Boal, artistic director of Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle and director of its school. Many of those who say they were mistreated by Mr. Martins have remarked on the lack of any public statement or apology from the board in response to their accusations regarding Mr. Martins. In particular, several have expressed being disappointed by the public silence from Sarah Jessica Parker, the vice chairwoman of the board, who has been vocal about the Time's Up movement in Hollywood. Ms. Parker, in a text message Thursday, said "it was very important to me that any allegation was taken seriously" and that she had supported "a rigorous outside investigation." She said she and many current company dancers "continue to be in conversation" and that "their safety and a healthy, creative work environment is paramount to me, always has been and always will be." A number of current dancers, as well as some current and former board members, have remained loyal to Mr. Martins and continue to regret his departure. Megan Fairchild, a principal dancer with the company, said Thursday, "This is what I thought would happen, because that's the experience that I had, so I'm not surprised at all." She added, "I felt that when he was leaving it was a sad thing and a shame and that we would not be our best company." Earle Mack, a former trustee, whose wife, Carol D. Mack, continues to serve on the board, said in an interview before the investigation's conclusion that the board "acted prematurely" in letting Mr. Martins go. "It was a kind of knee jerk reaction," Mr. Mack said, "and he did not deserve that kind of treatment after 34 years of his life running the company, rebuilding the company." "If they're not going to give him his due and a fair send off," Mr. Mack added, "then I will do it." Mr. Scharf, the board chairman, said of Mr. Martins' departure, "I feel very comfortable that we're in a place where people are in agreement about going forward this way." Asked if there would be a tribute to Mr. Martins at some point, Mr. Scharf said, "We haven't gotten to that point yet." It remains unclear when a successor to Mr. Martins will be named; Mr. Scharf said the ballet had only begun the search process. A team of dancers is leading the company in the interim: Justin Peck, Rebecca Krohn, Jonathan Stafford and Craig Hall. Because Mr. Martins had been in charge for more than 30 years, Mr. Scharf said, the ballet has an opportunity to examine the role anew, including whether it should be held by just one person and whether that person should head both the company and the school. The statement said that "enhanced policies and practices" are being put in place, and that the ballet now has mandatory training programs "covering employee interactions"; a strengthened code of conduct on equal employment opportunities and nondiscrimination; and "practices to ensure a workplace that is free from bias, prejudice or harassment." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
Spend the night with a world famous serial killer! That's the promise, proffered with the hopeful luridness of a penny dreadful title, behind the site specific "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," which opened on Wednesday night at the Barrow Street Theater. It must be said that the Tooting Arts Club's deftly, uh, executed stunt of a show, which originated in London, delivers on its ingenious, if limited, objective. As directed by Bill Buckhurst, this latest version of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's 1979 musical macabre puts its audience within throat slashing distance of its sociopathic title character. That means you'll have the opportunity to look straight into the eyes of Mr. Todd, eyes that widen to expose 360 bulging degrees of whiteness when he's especially excited. Portrayed by Jeremy Secomb like an animated refugee from Madame Tussauds Chamber of Horrors, this Sweeney has a habit of getting into the faces of the customers at the modest eating establishment run by his dear friend, accomplice and possible future victim, Mrs. Lovett (Siobhan McCarthy). For an additional 22.50, ticket buyers can dine at these tables before the bloodletting commences. It goes without saying that pies are the plat du jour, though there is a vegetarian option. This concession to the snowflakes among us is something that Sweeney, a vengeful former convict who converts much of London's populace into carcasses for Mrs. Lovett's cuisine, would surely sneer at. While I did not partake of this crusty fare, it seems safe to say that those who do are in little danger of serious indigestion, even psychologically. This "Sweeney" may raise your pulse rate. How could it not when a cleaver wielding man leaps with pantherine ease onto the center of your table? Yet unlike almost every previous "Sweeney" I've seen (last count: eight), this one rarely penetrates your heart and mind. What we're presented with is a self contained, darkness steeped spook house. (Much of Amy Mae's lighting comes from candles and lanterns.) And as with many amusement park entertainments, the jolts it elicits leave few aftershocks. This is "Sweeney Todd" as a date night diversion. It allows you to squeeze your partner's arm in delighted anxiety, without paying the price of insomnia to come. At the same time, hard core fans of "Sweeney Todd," an exacting and combative lot, need not worry that one of the most exciting and innovative musicals in the genre's history has been reduced to cheap thrills. . Though the musicians here number just three, their performance (neatly supervised and arranged by Benjamin Cox) often allows you to grasp more clearly than usual the score's brilliantly calculated idiosyncrasies of timing and phrasing. It's often easier to understand the basics of anatomy, after all, by studying a skeleton instead of a fully fleshed body. The eight principal cast members who also include Matt Doyle, Betsy Morgan, Duncan Smith, Alex Finke, Joseph Taylor and that affable Broadway veteran Brad Oscar all sing adequately, if not ravishingly, move with shadowy stealth and make synchronized percussive use of cutlery. (Georgina Lamb is the choreographer.) In a few cases, you may gain a new appreciation for the expansive psychological potential in Mr. Sondheim's songs. Ms. Finke, who plays the virginal Victorian dream girl Johanna, delivers the pastiche ballad "Green Finch and Linnet Bird" with a twittering skittishness that adroitly signals a nervous breakdown ahead. And I enjoyed Mr. Taylor's sparkling music hall turn as the young, simple minded Tobias. Ms. McCarthy brings a jaded, film noir calculation to a Mrs. Lovett who sizes up her prospects with furtive side glances. But you rarely feel the great, daft folly of her love for Sweeney, which means that this little old pie maker exerts the abstract fascination of a figure in a juicy crime story but little of the empathy that actresses as different as Angela Lansbury, Christine Baranski and Patti LuPone have brought to the role. Nor does Mr. Secomb fully evoke the tragic obsessiveness (and woundedness) of Sweeney that makes the character easier to identify with than, say, Jack the Ripper. With his paradoxically buff and cadaverous physique, this Sweeney looks more like a natural born killer than any I've encountered. Mr. Secomb's take on Sweeney's songs tends to be relentlessly intense, which leaves little room for exploring the exquisitely perverse tenderness of numbers like "My Friends" and "Epiphany." His voice certainly projects, though, to the extent that you may feel like retitling this production "Screamy Todd." That high decibel interpretation is not out of keeping with the production as a whole. This demon barber and his friends are here to rattle you with a sustained, cathartic "Boo!" that sends you into the night with few nagging worries that Sweeney may still be waiting for you, in your dreams if not your building lobby. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
Radha, goddess and lover, consumed by love for Krishna, has awaited his arrival all night long. But when he comes, his eyes are heavy with sleepiness and his lips are dark with kohl from the eyes of another woman. Radha disregards his excuses. She tells him to leave her alone. Radha here is Arushi Mudgal. And her dance monologue, "Ashtapadi Yahi Madhava," is taken from a 12th century Sanskrit poem, the Gita Govinda, by Jayadeva. The item perhaps seven minutes long was part of Ms. Mudgal's 90 minute solo recital on Monday at La MaMa, the opening dance event of Drive East, New York's annual festival of Indian dance and music. The Indian classical forms tend to divide into abhinaya, expressional movement with a striking mime emphasis; and nritta, dance as pure form. Ms. Mudgal, dancing to taped music, had already proved herself a beautiful exponent of nritta, marvelously coordinating lower body steps, upper body gesture, facial expression and changes of direction. But in the third item on the program "Ashtapadi," a sustained example of abhinaya her spell immediately deepened. Watching Ms. Mudgal's program I began to feel, as I have sometimes in the past, that no other dance forms match the classical ones of India. I had seen her dance before, but sharing the space with other performers. On Monday, when she danced alone, I was amazed by how fully she seemed one of India's most remarkable dancers. Other moments of stillness occur as Radha looks toward Krishna always on the same stage diagonal, to show he is approaching her threshold by way of a known path. Her body, face and eyes all sustain the same image of quiet sorrow, as if preserving it in amber. Dancers everywhere actors, too can and should learn the language of the eyes from watching the best Indian dancers; there are moments when the rest of the body seems to fade, so that all you see are eyes, eyes, eyes. Ms. Mudgal's acting is wonderfully eloquent, entirely stylized, utterly convincing. Radha expresses herself in a lexicon of gestures she indicates Krishna's sleep heavy eyelids, for example but it is her larger poignancy, so quietly and ruefully conveyed, that makes a deeper impression than any specific. As this performance showed, the range of thought emotional, philosophical, religious covered by an Indian recital is immense. The carnal and the divine meet in the loves of Krishna and Radha; order and destruction are joined in the person of Shiva, lord of the cosmic dance; masculine and feminine meet in the androgyne Ardhanarishvara. Movement and stillness both alternate and combine in the dancing itself, as do communicative expression and formally academic classicism. All these profound elements coexist in Ms. Mudgal's long, final solo, "Murta Amurta" ("Form Formlessness"). Lasting more than 20 minutes, it contemplates the energy that is variously identified as Brahma, Shiva, Shakti, Krishna, Rama, Allah and Christ. There are many details that will register far more precisely to those acquainted with Indian culture: I recognized the physical motifs associated with Shiva and Krishna. But the solo passes through so great a range of moods and textures that its expression transcends these details: It goes through one mystery after another, with long rhythmic phrases of footwork, strikingly differentiated gestures, and marvelous pauses. At one central moment, she folds forward over onto the floor as if in obeisance. When she rises, she is changed, opening a new thought. The genre practiced by Ms. Mudgal is Odissi, deriving from the temple dense Odisha or Orissa on India's eastern coast. She's a niece of the great Madhavi Mudgal (her dance guru), one of Odissi's foremost exponents, who choreographed two of her numbers. Arushi Mudgal's father, Madhup Mudgal, composed most of her music. Three other numbers on this recital were choreographed by Kelucharan Mohapatra (1926 2004), the most influential of the teachers who restored Odissi to renown after it had come close to extinction in the mid 20th century. I find Odissi the most sensuous of the Indian dance forms: It moves different planes of the torso (notably shoulders, waist, pelvis) against each other with subtly gorgeous tension. I also find it the most lyrical. Although I have visited Orissa and other parts of India, I watch as an outsider. Yet Odissi, as seen on Monday, speaks movingly and on many levels, even to those of us who are strangers to its language. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
"Godard Mon Amour," the latest offering from the pasticheur Michel Hazanavicius ("The Artist," "OSS: 117"), chronicles an eventful year or so in the life of the cineaste Jean Luc Godard. The period covered by the film includes the 37 year old Godard's marriage to the 19 year old actress Anne Wiazemsky (on whose memoir it's based) and the uprising of French students and workers in May 1968, a revolt that, among other things, shut down that year's Cannes Film Festival. On being informed of the existence of Mr. Hazanavicius's project, Mr. Godard who is now 87 and whose latest film, "Le Livre d'Image," will be in Cannes next month is reported to have called it a "stupid, stupid idea." Au contraire! (All due respect.) It's a brilliant idea. It just happens to be a terrible movie. But not without a certain morbid fascination. For hard core Godardians, "Godard Mon Amour" will be an indispensable hate watch. For the Godard ambivalent, the critical outrage of the partisans will provide its own kind of amusement. But you don't need to have strong feelings about Godard to notice the off flavors in this airy, brightly colored macaron. You may know two or three things about him when the movie starts or about France, politics, sex and cinema but rest assured that by the time it's over, you will know less. Godard, for better and for worse, is a cinematic thinker, someone who has tried, over the course of a prolific and contentious career, to locate the philosophical potential and the intellectual essence of the medium, to make it a vessel for ideas and arguments as well as for stories, pictures and emotions. Mr. Hazanavicius is the opposite: an unmistakably skilled maker and manipulator of images and styles with nothing much to say and no conviction that anything needs to be said at all. His appropriation of Mr. Godard's most imitable signatures counterpointed voice overs, chapter titles that pop onto the screen, jaunty editing, naked women speaking in riddles amounts less to homage than to revenge. "Godard Mon Amour" works tirelessly to implicate its subject in its own shallowness. Godard in 1967 and 1968 is a famous and controversial director, a culture hero of the times chafing against his fame and trying to adapt his art to the volatile political climate. Wiazemsky (played by Stacy Martin), granddaughter of the conservative writer Francois Mauriac, has recently starred in "La Chinoise," Godard's contribution to (and satire of) the Maoist turn in left wing French youth culture. She marries him and gladly takes on the role of muse and erotic ideal, finding his grumpiness charming and his intelligence very sexy. Godard's charisma is made plausible partly by the fact that he is played by Louis Garrel, whose casting is a bit of a French film in joke. (Mr. Garrel's father, Philippe, is a director who has been called "the child of Cocteau and Godard.") Mr. Garrel is a formidable actor, and also, it turns out, a clever celebrity impersonator. In a different pop culture universe, his Godard, with a voice like a sibilant bullfrog and a permanent air of mild indigestion, might be a fixture of "Saturday Night Live," showing up as an occasional commentator on "Weekend Update" or a contestant on "Black Jeopardy." Here, the running joke is that he keeps breaking his glasses, sometimes at the demonstrations that provide Mr. Hazanavicius with opportunities for walking and talking exposition and cast of dozens action sequences. Occasionally, amid the chanting and banner waving, a fan will approach to praise Godard's early 60s movies like "Breathless" and "Contempt." The devolution of the director's response from awkward politeness to outright nastiness is a sign of his creative, ideological and emotional crisis. Godard wants to find an approach to filmmaking that will answer to his sense of political urgency, an insurgent cinema that will be adamantly critical of everything conventional and bourgeois. Nothing is easier, at present, than to mock this ambition, and much of the politicized art of the late '60s must have seemed naive, pretentious or overstated even at the time. But the notion that film might offer more than capitalist entertainment and reflect impulses beyond individual self expression that it might provide a weapon against oppression or a route to collective imagination shouldn't be dismissed. Godard's post 68 experiments, lazily evoked here as a dead end, could more productively be seen as a road not taken. This version of Godard must choose between cinema and politics, a predicament that would be more credible if Mr. Hazanavicius had a credible conception of either term. As for love, the ostensible focus of the movie, it represents another squandered opportunity. No one would argue that Mr. Godard is a nice guy. Misanthropy has been part of his persona since his days as a film critic, and his biography is littered with broken friendships and burned bridges. But in spite of Mr. Garrel's mischief, this movie doesn't even make him an interesting creep. Ms. Martin is a charming and dedicated performer, but the film is no better than Godard himself at appreciating Wiazemsky as a fully dimensional person. She loves her husband until he makes it impossible. He is narcissistic, professionally jealous and sexually possessive, freaking out when his wife is cast in an Italian movie that requires her to appear naked. His reaction leads to a scene in which Mr. Garrel and Ms. Martin, in their birthday suits, debate the ethics and aesthetics of on camera nudity. This is the kind of self referentiality that might be labeled "Godardian" by students in an introductory film class trying to bluff their way to a C. Which describes Mr. Hazanavicius pretty well. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
Students at Ithaca College who sign up for intergroup dialogues in the coming semesters may have some interesting classmates: their professors. The discussion groups, where students, and now faculty and staff, come together to talk through challenging issues are among the many changes, big and small, that Shirley M. Collado, the incoming president of Ithaca College, has in mind as she sets out to usher in a new era at the institution. "Imagine an entire first year class participating in an intergroup dialogue right as they come into town," she said. "They're living in the same residence hall, and they're going to the first year seminar, and they're talking about religion and politics not just intellectually, but also in terms of their own lived experience, with people across roles." Diversity how to address it, cultivate it and promote it has become a pressing issue in higher education. Across the Northeast, many of the prestigious private college campuses like Ithaca College are grappling with creating a true sense of diversity at institutions that have largely white and upper middle class student bodies, especially in response to the growing protests and racial tensions that have erupted on campuses across the country. Two years ago at Ithaca College, the scene may have appeared familiar to a city that has a proud tradition of activism, but the tone was notably different. A sense of anger and frustration, of urgency, seeped into the die ins and protests, as students and faculty flooded dining halls and the campus quad calling for the resignation of the president, Thomas R. Rochon, for his handling of numerous incidents involving racial issues. After a semester of turmoil, Mr. Rochon announced in January of last year that he would retire after the 2017 school year. In his wake, Ms. Collado, the first person of color to lead Ithaca College, takes over an institution that is newly committed to diversity. "What we were looking for was a leader who would be leading I.C. going forward that would encourage people to be talking, to be heard, that would really seem to be looking to bring the community together," said James W. Nolan Jr., a board member and chair of the presidential search committee at Ithaca College. Ms. Collado, the former executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer at Rutgers University in Newark, speaks of diversity with the academic flair of someone with a doctorate from Duke centered around "trauma and dissociative disorders in multicultural populations," and she professes "multifaceted approaches" to "diversity, equity and inclusion." But as much as she leans on her studies to help her draft a new course for Ithaca College, the heart of Ms. Collado's relationship with diversity lies in her life experience. She is a first generation college student, from Dominican parents, and grew up in a decidedly working class home in Brooklyn. Her dad drove a yellow cab, her mom worked in a factory. College was never the assumed next step in life, like it is for so many who attend Ithaca College, but she was able to chart a path that began at Vanderbilt University as part of the inaugural class of the Posse Foundation. The pilot program grouped five students from mixed backgrounds in New York City together into a "posse," offering them scholarships and introducing them even before their orientation, to help forge a sense of community from the start. Ms. Collado attributes a lot of her success to that experience, and she said it is a key element in how she personally looks at addressing diversity. Central to her diversity plan is just that: making diversity a core principle of how the college operates at every level, not just set apart into task forces and studies. "I don't have to be the chief diversity officer to be doing chief diversity officer work," she said. At the same time, she views the position as absolutely essential to a college's success. "A president would never say, 'You know, well, finances are important for a college but I don't really need a C.F.O.'" And part of putting diversity at the center of an institution is also emphasizing it up front, so that students know exactly what the college is about well before they step onto campus as freshmen. Ms. Collado looks toward orientation as a major opportunity to foster that identity. "What was really important about that, and about that whole experience and set of days, is it didn't matter if you can afford it or not, you are all going," she said. "It didn't matter if you were a student athlete whether you had a game scheduled which, by the way, was no easy task for me, I got a lot of heat for that but I wanted the student athletes to be fully integrated. And you were going to be in a group where you got, at the end of that week, a sense that there are going to be some difficult questions in this community that we're not going to shy away from." She said a college can only truly move toward a more diverse student body and college experience when it incorporates diversity into every aspect of the institution. At Middlebury, she instituted an audit, asking administrators to make a list "of everything that you do you think is related to diversity equity and inclusion and tell me how many people and how many dollars are behind them." A college cannot truly diversify until it has fully embraced all the aspects of diversity into its bloodstream, she said. Simply trying to recruit a diverse student body without centralizing the issue would just lead to the same diminishing returns many colleges have faced as they look for a more diverse student body. The faculty, staff and curriculum need to represent a diverse institution in order to bring about a truly diverse class. "You can't change who's coming in if you're not willing to shift who you are," Ms. Collado said. She also sees a vast resource in partnerships with local community colleges to help usher in students with a wider array of life experiences. And right in downtown Ithaca is a branch of Tompkins Cortland Community College. "Community college students add a really interesting intergenerational component because they live different lives than the first year students," she said. Amid all of her ambitions for the college, Ms. Collado is also planning to be an ever present force on the campus. At Middlebury, she used to block out time to eat in the student dining halls, and at Rutgers she kept open office hours regularly, for students, faculty and staff. She prefers to hold meetings with staff at their offices and work spaces, rather than her office. And she also hosted what she referred to as her "kitchen cabinet," a group of students from all different backgrounds, whom she dined with once a month to probe for ideas and a sense of what was happening on campus. "I'll have to watch what I eat," she said, joking, but said she was looking forward to having similar lunches at Ithaca College. While the tensions from the protest two years ago have calmed somewhat at Ithaca College, the free speech protests that have turned aggressive and occasionally violent recently at schools like Middlebury and the University of California, Berkeley, mark another flash point for colleges across the country. But Ms. Collado sees these issues as an opportunity to showcase how a solid community foundation anchored in diversity can address those issues. She prefers to use the phrase "brave space" instead of "safe space," and that embracing the "messiness" that comes with these protests is exactly what an institution committed to diversity is all about. "I'm not interested in sanitizing academic spaces that don't push the boundaries of people's thinking or aren't going to conjure up some difficult tensions that we see in America," she said. "We're not going to avoid hard things happening or having a real tension arise over political ideologies or something that might by one person be viewed as hate speech and another being viewed as academic freedom." But, she added, that doesn't mean an open invitation for anyone to come speak at Ithaca under her watch. "It's a real question that I'm grappling with, because most college campuses are not prepared, they don't have all of the things that they need in place to have some of these difficult conversations," she said. In Ithaca, both downtown and at the college, if a controversial figure were to be in town, there would likely be protests. This penchant for activism is what makes the town vibrant. And it's part of the draw for Ms. Collado. "I feel like Ithaca is prime, you know?" she said. "It has a rich history of kind of going across all kinds of boundaries." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Education |
One of the most painful things about the first two episodes of the second season of "The Handmaid's Tale" is how they play with what we're willing to take. There's already some background anxiety simply because the show has gone quite literally off book. The first season traced most of the major events of the source novel by Margaret Atwood, including the limbo of its final moments. But from here on out, anything can happen, and in Gilead, it's almost always going to be terrible. Because of that uncertainty, Episodes 1 and 2, both of which debuted Wednesday on Hulu, feel nightmarishly long. (Later episodes will arrive one at a time, Wednesdays through mid July.) They aren't boring, of course there are plenty of viscerally harrowing scenes, including one in which the handmaids are dragged to the gallows en masse, and another in which Offred escapes into the Gilead Underground. But with 13 episodes and a blank canvas to play with this season, there's room to slow down and linger in the agony if the writers choose. This season, they seem less content simply to shock us with Gilead's draining and ultimately fictional cruelty. We're familiar with that by now. With these two episodes, it feels as if their writer, Bruce Miller, wants to make us just as afraid of the world as it was before Gilead, which feels awfully close to home. The flashbacks so far point to the ways in which a slightly uncomfortable present can snowball into a horrifying future, lingering on moments just before the fall when things seemed ridiculous, frustrating, unacceptable, but not yet too late. And yet it was too late, even then, and "The Handmaid's Tale" wants us to know what that looks like. It isn't hard to imagine why. As June (formerly Offred, formerly June) tries to escape by degrees with the help of an underground resistance, she takes shelter inside the empty offices of the Boston Globe, where multiple signs (bullet holes, nooses, messy desks abandoned in a hurry) bear testament to a bloody massacre of its staff. The scene of wordless horror when she discovers what happened has the feel of someone's unearthing an ancient artifact. But the massacre wasn't long before at all. It doesn't take long for everyday life to become unrecognizable. Occasionally this message gets muddled, as the show demonstrates some of the same blind spots it had about race and class last season. Back then, June chastised herself: "I was asleep before. That's how we let it happen." And yet, "it" is already happening for many women today. Being questioned about one's fitness to parent, as June is in a flashback, is presented as a sign of encroaching fascism, but it is also nothing new for many less privileged mothers. Having one's documents rejected by customs officials, as Emily and her wife do, is offered as a reminder of how quickly one's human rights can be taken, but it also echoes the experiences of many refugees currently coming to the United States. No single series can be or say all things at once, but there's a sense that the writers imagine viewers will be as shocked by these experiences as June and Emily are consciously or not, the audience is assumed to share the same privilege. Taken together, scenes like these suggest that however angry you are right now, there's a good chance it isn't angry enough. Still, those flashbacks are tense and poignant suggestions of an uneasy present on this side of the TV screen. Emily bristles at being asked to hide her family life, but before she knows it, the bigots' prejudices have become law. Even June and Luke's conversation about trying for another child has sinister undertones: If Luke wanted another child, he could force the situation by simply withholding his signature from the birth control form (echoes of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby). It's already his decision, not June's, which hardly seems to bother Luke their home is already a smaller version of Gilead. Those red cloaks didn't happen overnight. Everyone, in increments, had to agree to them. Given how hard "The Handmaid's Tale" can be to watch, it's amazing how beautiful it is. While it doesn't avoid some truly gruesome and upsetting images, the show is stunning even in its most horrifying moments. The rich visual aesthetic established by Reed Morano, who directed the first three episodes of Season 1, is still felt, as in the stark, terrifying, Francis Bacon like surreality of the scene at Fenway Park, where Aunt Lydia takes the handmaids for their mock execution. In contrast, we later get a first look at the Colonies, where Gilead sends its female transgressors called Unwomen by their oppressors to do punishing environmental cleanup until the radiation kills them. The women there, almost too exhausted for despair, are like drab dots in an Andrew Wyeth landscape, bathed in a dusky light that further deadens everything it touches. But this show's greatest strength is still its cast, and the best thing the series does is give them all room to breathe, even in the smaller moments. Yvonne Strahovski is consistently gripping as Serena, who stews in the very pot she filled to boil other women in, but never becomes two dimensional. Alexis Bledel is a revelation as Emily, and being part of the makeshift community inside the Colonies has only made her brittleness more interesting. Marisa Tomei, a guest star in Episode 2, is likewise incredible as a Gilead mistress who's sent the Colonies for adultery, a true believer who suddenly finds herself surrounded by the women she helped oppress. ("I had an M.F.A. before the law changed, in interior design," she tells Emily in a tone deaf attempt to relate, one of the funniest beats this show has ever had.) She's so earnestly faithful, and yet so deeply poisonable, that it's both surprising and cathartic when Emily slips her a deadly dose. There are hints that the show wants to make more of Ann Dowd, as any show would. Her Aunt Lydia is a fascinating amalgam of contradictions glimpses of sympathy and true belief amid blatant hypocrisy, sadism and condescension. ("You'll just have to be my very good girl," she coos at June while forcing her to eat under threat of solitary confinement.) But what makes Dowd's standoff with Elisabeth Moss in the premiere so electric is the sincerity of Lydia's anger. No doubt some of that rage is just frustrated power now that June is pregnant and can't be harmed too badly, Lydia has been robbed of an object lesson. But there's something genuine when she sneers to June: "Such a brave girl, aren't you? Standing in defiance but risking nothing." I both wonder and dread what more we have to learn about Aunt Lydia, in the same way that I can only imagine what June will do if she ever has Aunt Lydia even momentarily in her power. The decisive moment of the Season 1 finale was the handmaids' refusal to stone Janine: an act of mercy and a passive exercise of power. Episode 1 focuses on the emotional and physical torture Lydia puts the handmaids through in order to discourage any more rebellion, although her sadism at the gallows and her smugness as she handcuffs Alma (Nina Kiri) to a burning stovetop underscore how little the handmaids have to lose by fighting back if it's pain either way, you might as well fight. This montage of agony is a reminder that violent revolution will be the only way out of Gilead, and that we can expect a lot of blood if it comes. Crucial to this season, it seems, will be the question: What are the limits of mercy? In the novel, Offred was an observer of a world that stripped her of humanity and largely directed her narrative. Her complexity drew you inward, while the story carried her forward in its wake. Moss, a riveting screen presence, answered every call the character made of her in the first season. Her monologues grounded Offred's periods of hopeless stasis, her gaze pierced the camera, and her despair and determination were the center of the series. But the core of her performance is her ability to make silence staggeringly important observation as an action rather than as a passive state. Her quiet, incandescent anger powers the bulk of Episode 1 this season. And that rage is so powerful that, once June is removed from immediate danger in Episode 2 and left to her own devices, the uncertainty of her situation consumes her. While sitting helplessly in the Commander's house last season, she dreamed of doing something, and this new limbo begins to make her desperate. It's no wonder she considers a suicide mission to rescue her daughter and drive for the Canadian border. At this point, anything, even certain death, seems better than more waiting. I'm excited that this season seems to be scaling back June's voice over. The writers last season understandably wanted to incorporate the book's narrative voice, and the monologues still make good grace notes. But at this point, Elisabeth Moss has the emotional immediacy well in hand. A vital undercurrent in the relationship between June and Nick is that we've seen her suffer so much that his drop ins this season to express concern and guilt feel somewhere between facile and insulting. We understand why she needs him, but by the end of "Unwomen" it's clear that she's beginning to resent it. Interesting to see sincere expressions of faith from June, even in Gilead, in her solo vigil for the Boston Globe staff. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
Good shows often have mediocre pilots the nature of pilots usually makes them awkward (too much exposition and the characters aren't developed, for example). So when you watch a pilot that isn't any good, how do you decide how much of a chance to give it? Joanna The difference between a bad pilot with potential and a bad pilot without is often execution versus taste. Some jokes don't land, some moments are overly broad, some characters a bit too reminiscent of an actor's previous role those all feel conquerable to me. Trafficking in bland stereotypes, demonstrating a lack of imagination or relying on anonymous, naked dead women as vague motivation all feel more urgently terrible. "They didn't achieve what they were going for" is easier to look past than "the thing they are going for is bad." There are always going to be genre hiccups: Shows that have high concept premises or unusual settings often suffer from pilot itis, but as a viewer I know they won't explain the world in every episode. Sitcoms often have "the day everything changed" pilots, but presumably the "new" character will be warmly subsumed into the rest of the ensemble in the second episode. Great pilots still exist in both of these formats for example, "Battlestar Galactica" and "Cheers" but I am more likely to forgive a familiar failure. I also try to look at the world the show is set in, if I can imagine myself spending more time there. On the pilot of "Madam Secretary," we're meant to find drama in the protagonist agonizing over whether to become secretary of state. We know that she will do it, because that is what the show is going to be! Ugh. But I liked a lot of the characters, and I liked the vibe, and I like hopeful political stories and that turned out to be a show I enjoyed tremendously. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
Eleven months after striking a deal with Netflix, the Obamas have a slate of programming. Barack and Michelle Obama's new production company, Higher Ground Productions, on Tuesday announced seven projects that are in the works for Netflix, including several documentaries and a movie about Frederick Douglass. The former president and first lady struck a multiyear production deal in 2018 to produce shows and films for the streaming service. With the deal, the Obamas will be able to reach 148 million paying subscribers, and they have said their production company will cover a wide spectrum of programming. But there is something they apparently have no interest in: mounting an attack on the current presidential administration. The Obamas are intent on avoiding any material that could inflame tensions at a red hot political moment, particularly as the 2020 presidential election begins to ramp up. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
LONDON Cigarette packs in Europe would have to carry bigger health warnings, and cigarettes with menthol or other flavorings face a total ban, under an agreement that European Union ministers struck on Friday after spirited negotiations. A small group led by Poland won a reprieve for slim cigarettes, which are popular among female voters in several formerly Communist nations and had also been considered for a ban. The agreement is not the final decision, as the new tobacco rules require approval by the European Parliament before being put into effect. But the compromise was a milestone because it secured the support of national governments, including some that had fought hard to soften measures opposed by the tobacco industry and some smoker advocacy groups. The measures reflect a concerted effort by European policy makers to reduce the attractiveness of tobacco to young people in hopes of preventing them from taking up a habit notoriously hard to kick. Cigarettes with menthol and other flavorings are considered easier for novices to smoke. Under the deal, a health warning combining pictures and text must cover 65 percent of the front and back of all cigarette packs. That represents a reduction from the proposal going into the meeting of a 75 percent minimum, but it is an increase from the current 40 percent figure. James Reilly, the health minister of Ireland, which holds the European Union's rotating presidency, said at a news conference in Luxembourg that about 700,000 Europeans die every year of tobacco related causes and that smoking is "one of the greatest preventable and avoidable threats to health." Packaging that appeals to younger smokers, he said, was tantamount to "entrapment of our young people." The health ministers also agreed on regulation of electronic cigarettes, requiring authorization by relevant agencies in the member states before exceeding a certain nicotine threshold. Open or closed on Thanksgiving? Here are stores' plans for Thursday and Friday. The high cost of gas is forcing families to cut back on activities and essentials. Clearview AI does well in another round of facial recognition accuracy tests. Currently, only some of the European Union nations apply such restrictions on electronic cigarettes, which produce vapors from a nicotine liquid rather than burning tobacco. But Tonio Borg, the European commissioner in charge of health and consumer policy, said e cigarettes "can give a false sense of security." The debate over flavored cigarettes mirrors a longstanding discussion in the United States. In 2009, Congress passed a law prohibiting flavorings but exempted menthol after heavy lobbying by the tobacco industry. Although Congress gave the Food and Drug Administration the authority to ban menthol if this was deemed appropriate on health grounds, the F.D.A. has taken no action. In Europe, a ban on menthol cigarettes would not go into effect for some time. National governments would have up to three years to carry out the rules after the new tobacco law came into force. And the rollout of the new law itself, if finally approved later this year, could take about 18 months, Mr. Borg said. Slim cigarettes, which were exempted from the compromise on Friday, had been a target because of the fear that they attract young women to smoking. Though slim cigarettes would still be legal, new packaging and health warning requirements would prevent their sale in the small packs in which they are currently sold. "Tobacco should look like tobacco and not like a perfume or a candy," Mr. Borg said. "And it should taste like tobacco." In light of the compromises, antismoking campaigners expressed disappointment that the larger pictorial warnings were not made mandatory on all cigarette packs. Florence Berteletti Kemp, director of the Smoke Free Partnership, a European organization that promotes tobacco control and research, described the outcome on Friday as "disappointing." "Despite the formidable efforts of the Irish presidency, the agreement adopted goes against key measures such as large pictorial warnings, which cost nothing to governments but would better protect millions of European children," she said in a statement. "It is outrageous to see so many concessions made to an industry that buys its wealth and influence by marketing a deadly product." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Global Business |
"Hi, I'm Nisha Ganatra, and I'm the director of "Late Night.'" "Can I just remind everybody here that the stakes could not be higher?" "So in this scene we have Emma Thompson, who's playing Katherine Newbury, who is the star of a late night talk show, and she has hit a slump in her ratings. So she's called all her writers into the writers room to pitch ideas to try to improve the show. It's also one of her first times back in the writers room. It's sort of that she's not been in the writers room for quite some time. And we also have the character Molly, played by Mindy Kaling, who is a new writer. She's the diversity hire in the room. She's the only woman, the only woman of color, as you can see. And she is there to kind of try to shake things up a bit. And in this scene, she has her first attempt at sort of pitching her ideas for how to make the show better. So I really wanted to place them at opposite ends of the table because one of the things that I was doing visually in the movie was kind of telling the audience that these two women are really on the same journey. They're just at different points in their career." "So I thought I would take a step back and see what wasn't working. This is what I do at quality control at the chemical plant, and I thought I would do that here. The headline of my analysis is complacency." "And so we always were trying to mirror both in the sound design and the score and in the shooting that Mindy Kaling's character Molly and Emma Thompson's character Katherine are really very similar, even though they couldn't be further apart. It just was always challenging for how do we make, you know, a writers room, which really is just people sitting around a table pitching ideas, visually interesting." "Third, I think people get very excited when you share your beliefs. So what you just said about the Miss America Pageant, that was awesome. When you reveal those kind of strong opinions, it's when you really come alive as a performer." "That's when I come alive as a performer?" "Yeah." "Could I see that?" "Absolutely." "This is one of my favorite moments right here is when Molly has to put forward her pitches, and it gets passed all the way down the table, and it just seemed like the perfect blocking to get a sense of all the sort of untruthfulness that happens in this room. And Molly sort of cuts through it by daring to tell the truth." "What's the solution?" "Oh, I don't have one." "Just to be clear, you don't have any new ideas or jokes." "And it does not go so well for her." "O.K., I've been doing this job for nearly 30 years, and I know what works, and I'll tell you what doesn't work an absurdly confident newcomer coming in criticizing my show and giving me her assessment of my comic persona. Without " "So here we have Katherine approaching the camera as we sort of counter dolly away from her. It's to show her sort of growing in size as she's imposing onto Mindy and coming towards Molly's character and putting her in her place, really." "I have not changed. The audience has changed. They don't want smart comedy. They want Kevin Hart on a slip and slide. So let's just give them what they want. Who's the most tacky famous person out there?" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
On Saturday, with audiences largely quarantined in their homes because of the coronavirus, and comics putting on a six hour benefit online, Laugh Aid, to help struggling performers, Louis C.K. completed the last stage of his comeback with the surprise release of a new special, "Sincerely." It was his first special since he confessed in 2017 to sexual misconduct, which he referred to in the show as "global amounts of trouble." In a nod to the timing of the special, he wrote an email to his fans saying there are two kinds of people: those who deal with difficult, tragic times by laughing at them, and those who choose to approach such times with sober gravity. He said that the new special was for those who need to laugh, but added in a postscript: "It's not free or anything." (It cost 7.99 and was available on louisck.com.) The comedian, who wore his usual black shirt and jeans onstage, directed the show himself at the Warner Theater in Washington, before the pandemic. It began, like the 2019 comeback special from Aziz Ansari, with a scene of the comic filmed from the back as he walked onstage, and ended with onscreen notes thanking the French comic Blanche Gardin, his girlfriend, and a dedication to his mother, Mary Louise Szekely, who died last year. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
In the hectic days that followed Hurricane Sandy, the only place that John Ambrosini could find cell service was on a hill near his home on the North Shore of Long Island. There he would sit, his phone plugged into the car lighter the only available source of electricity and run operations overseeing some 60 Manhattan office buildings, many of which were without power and inundated by corroding floodwaters. "Sandy took us all by surprise; we were really unprepared," said Mr. Ambrosini, the head of property management at ABS Partners Real Estate, which manages some seven million square feet in New York. "There was no food, no ability to shelter in place, no traffic lights. And there I was stuck at home, trying to coordinate getting contractors, electricians and plumbers in and out of the buildings to pump the basements and get the systems up and running again." As the mayhem receded, Mr. Ambrosini began to rethink his preparedness for future disasters. In particular, he wanted to make sure that those whose job it was to run the buildings during a disaster were outfitted with sufficient food and protection to do their tasks effectively. The result is a 21 piece survival kit that ABS has begun installing in many of its buildings, including 44 Wall Street in the financial district and 210 11th Avenue in Chelsea, which were particularly hard hit by flood damage. The kits include gallons of distilled drinking water, which has a longer shelf life than typical bottled water; military grade food rations that have high caloric value if not much taste; and rubber suits to protect underclothes. Depending on how many people need them, these survival kits can cost 4,500 to nearly 7,000 apiece. "All of the material is of the best quality. It is stuff that is durable and won't just be useful during a storm but can be reused for the next disaster," said Steven Mark Palladino, the president of SMP Supply Corporation, which provided all of the items in the ABS Partners kits. Mr. Palladino, who is 21 and in his final semester of college at the State University of New York Maritime College, is also a member of the Air National Guard, where he serves as an Air Force emergency manager. "Being in the military, I know what it is like to sleep in a pile of mud and not have any assistance," Mr. Palladino said. He used that background to guide decisions on what to put inside the kits. A priority was hygiene, and he outfitted the kits with miniature toothbrushes and toothpaste, shampoo, razors and shaving cream. "It is very easy to get sick when you are surrounded by so much nastiness, sitting in your own sweat or freezing cold," Mr. Palladino said. The kits also include enough clothes to last several days, emergency cots, heavy duty work gloves, a multiuse tool, batteries, a first aid kit, flashlights, battery powered radios, sump pumps, boots, a generator, bleach, five gallon gas drums, duct tape and even a closet with a lock. ABS Partners was not the only management company that revised disaster preparedness after Sandy. For Ken Walsh Jr., the director of operations at Adams Company, which manages 33 Manhattan office buildings, the realization came when his men were stuck living without electricity for a week. "We always kept a go bag, but it had just enough equipment to last a few days. No one expected they would need it for a week." After the storm, Adams Company requested that its building managers expand their go bags to include glow sticks that could be cracked and used to light stairwells, blankets, extra clothes and a lot of drinking water. Joe Toledo, who works for Adams, manages a staff of nine at 53 West 23rd Street, a complex of three buildings between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. During the storm, "there was no electricity at all and my guys were using pails to take the water out of the basement and dump it in the street," he said. "We ran out of things and stuff stopped working, like batteries. You don't think about how dark a basement gets when there aren't lights." Mr. Toledo has since filled his go bag with, among other things, a week's supply of canned food like tuna fish and soup, wash cloths, socks and a hand cranked radio with flashlight. The building complex has also installed a 5,500 watt portable generator. Residential buildings are also improving their plans for the next disaster. Halstead Management Company, which oversees 174 residential condominiums, cooperatives and rentals in New York, has created a workbook for its buildings' staff. The 31 page workbook, which includes checklists and procedures to follow, was the result of an internal task force that spent five months researching the project. "We contacted sources like the Coast Guard and the New York City Office of Emergency Management to figure out what was needed," said Paul Gottsegen, the president of Halstead, which had 42 buildings without power and six buildings that flooded during Sandy. The task force's resulting requirements are less comprehensive than the survival kits some of the large office buildings are employing. "We found that you can be prepared with the basics for about 1,500," Mr. Gottsegen said. Among the items the company requires are face masks, goggles, markers and poster board for making signs, plywood sheets, buckets, shovels and inflatable mattresses. There are also some homegrown attempts to put in place emergency systems around New York. Lili Gross Barasch, a real estate broker at Stribling and the vice president of the co op board at 135 East 71st Street, is part of the Community Coalition for Emergency Preparedness, a local nonprofit organization. The group hopes to create clusters of five to 10 apartment buildings that are near one another and can cooperate in case of an emergency. While goals are not final, the group may collect residents' emergency contact information, stockpile supplies and train some residents to help in an emergency. So far, two clusters have formed one around Carnegie Hill and another around 72nd Street, Ms. Barasch said. Whatever the strategy, vigilance and self reliance are critical. "People think of this storm as once in a century, but climate change means that these storms are going to be more frequent," Mr. Ambrosini said. "New York has this wonderful waterfront, but we are also extremely vulnerable and the real estate industry has to be thinking of how it can protect itself." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
For many travelers, Honolulu is just a stopover en route to Maui or Kauai, with a goal of avoiding the overtouristed maze that Waikiki has become. In 2018, nearly 6 million travelers arrived by air to the island of Oahu, up 16.2 percent in five years. But there is still plenty to do and see in the multicultural capital while skirting the edge of the crowds: Museums shed light on historic Hawaii; chefs offer updated takes on traditional ingredients; and bars concoct new versions of kitschy aloha cocktails. Because many things cost more than on the mainland, it can be paradise at a price. Still, there are ways to experience today's Honolulu beyond the beach and without busting the budget. Some visitors will head straight to the beach but the Bishop Museum is a better place to understand the physical and cultural evolution of the islands and the sensitivity to who, or what, is considered "Native Hawaiian" versus "local." Named for Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, a philanthropist who was the last descendant of the Kamehameha royal family, the museum offers insight into precontact Hawaii, as well as the forced abdication of its final queen, Lili'uokalani, in the 1890s. Check out the model of a heiau or sacrificial temple; the colorful feathered capes, leis and helmets; the kapa barkcloth blankets; the wall of antique poi pounders; the sperm whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling; and find the costume alcove where you can try on styles inspired by the Pacific islands including, yes, a grass skirt. Adults 24.95, seniors 21.95, children 4 to 17 16.95. The struggle between the traditional and the trendy is evident here, amid signs of gentrification and poverty. Within Chinatown's gridlike layout, you can spot a few examples of the low rise Italianate brick or white stucco and corniced buildings that predate a devastating fire in 1900. Admire the colorful neon marquee at the refurbished 1922 Hawaii Theater. Take in the colors and tuberose heavy scents at lei stands where floral necklaces are still strung by hand and note the steamed bun sign at Char Hung Sut where hand formed dumplings are sold earlier in the day at about 1 a piece. See street signs in English and Chinese characters, but also the living evidence of the city's homeless population. Don't be deterred, though. Chinatown offers a glimpse of the culture that developed after migrants, originally recruited in the 1850s to work in sugar plantations, left those jobs to open their own businesses. Book ahead to score one of the five seats at the counter in the Fete kitchen where a crew led by the chefs Robynne Maii and Emily Iguchi prepare what they market as seasonal New American farm to table cuisine, with dishes like Kauai Ranch beef cheek risotto a San Francisco style cioppino soup of tomato forward broth with chunks of shrimp and mahi and pineapple carrot cake. Expect to spend around 45 or more for three courses, not including drinks. The Skull Crown Trading Company is a new kid on the block (across the street is Smith's Union Bar, which combines dive bar atmospherics with kooky karaoke lounge vibes and advertises itself as the oldest bar on Oahu, dating to 1934). Open since June, Skull Crown is filled with tiki and horror themed items in a marginally ghoulish Indiana Jones meets Gilligan homage accented by skulls and shrunken heads, fishing nets and buoys, pineapple shaped lamps, large tiki idols, a mermaid sculpture and an eerie soundtrack complete with thunderclaps. The cocktail list includes the unusual 'Awa 'Awa Mai Tai ( 15), made with Campari and served with crushed ice and a flaming sugar cube inside the half shell of a fresh lime. Authentic Hawaii? Maybe not, but a fun place to channel your inner tiki goddess. Head early to Pier 38 to see where much of the fish you might eat this weekend is sold at auction to restaurants in Hawaii, Japan and the mainland United States. In the chilly sales room, buyers crowd around pallets loaded with ahi tuna, moonfish or swordfish as the auctioneer takes bids, jotting the final price per pound on a piece of paper that is then attached to the fish. Entering to observe the spectacle is free to the public, although earlier 90 minute, 25 tours can be booked through the Hawaii Seafood Council. Afterward, walk to the nearby Nico's Pier 38 for a breakfast (about 25 for two) of fish of the day and eggs; pancakes with passion fruit butter; or a mini loco moco (beef and egg on rice, smothered with gravy). Skip the crowds along the Manoa Falls Trail and head instead to the nearby Lyon Arboretum to commune with biodiversity in a tropical rainforest. The lush grounds, with seven miles of foliage lined hiking trails, serve as an outdoor ecosystem laboratory for the University of Hawaii. Parking and entry are free, as is a trail map that will help you find hibiscus species and other plants native to Hawaii and those used in traditional island culture, as well as plants in peril. Keep your ears open for the calls of cockatoos. Book ahead for events, which might include a yoga and mindful hiking class ( 20), or a guided "forest bathing" experience ( 70). Venture beyond kitschy key chains in the ubiquitous Waikiki souvenir stands to find Honolulu's active crafts scene at the South Shore Market, a sort of mini mall housing boutiques, art exhibitions and even a family owned sweets shop selling macadamia "snowball" cookies and chocolate dipped mango. Pick up cotton sarongs at Kealopiko; handcrafted jewelry made with found items like shark teeth, sea glass and sunrise shells edged in 24 karat gold at Flotsam Co.; and greeting cards drawn by local artists at Mori, where you also might spot some vinyl by Dick Dale or Maryanne Ito, among the eclectic offerings. Honolulu is known for its blend of cultures but the Scandinavian twist on Pacific Rim cuisine at Tango Contemporary Cafe is one of the more unexpected. The space blends comfy banquettes and an industrial exposed pipe ceiling with airy Scandinavian decor accented by floral black and white Marimekko wall hangings, one with splashes of purple posies. The weekend brunch offerings from the Finland born chef Goran V. Streng include French toast ( 10.25) made with Hawaiian sweet bread, paper thin Swedish pancakes ( 10.25) with a berry compote, and a frittata ( 12.50) with mushrooms from Hamakua Heritage Farms on the Big Island. Start a design it yourself walking tour of this neighborhood east of Waikiki by browsing the Hawaii related titles and the charming children's section at the independent bookseller da Shop. Then amble over to Gecko Books Comics, where Ted Mays has been offering pop culture classics like Wonder Woman, Spider Man and Star Wars collectibles since 1987. Try your luck combing through the Goodwill Store on Waialae Avenue for discount prices on Reyn Spooner "aloha shirts" or comb the racks of hand loomed wild silk or linen gauze clothing and scarves at Indige Design. Stop at Brew'd Craft Pub to try a 3 to 4 tasting portion of Hawaiian pours like Hop Island I.P.A. or Pau Hana Pilsner. Kaimuki is crowded with dining options, but two of the best are the product of the same man, the Oahu born chef Ed Kenney who espouses local first, organic, if possible. At Town, his more upscale, semi industrial design option, standouts might include a raw tuna tartare on risotto cakes ( 15), a generous market lettuce salad with sprouted lentils, orange and pecans ( 12) and a filling plate of gnocchi with a ragu of pork, beef and porcini mushrooms ( 22). But for the more adventurous eater, head cater corner to the more hipster environment of the newer Mud Hen Water to try pickled seaweed and beet poke with smoked macadamia nuts ( 9); smooth taro root hummus with kukui nut lavosh ( 9); and starchy buttered 'ulu (also known as breadfruit) with fermented black beans ( 8). Repair back toward central Honolulu for a nightcap at Harry's Hardware Emporium, a vintage look speakeasy with a lengthy menu of craft cocktails. If you can find the place, that is. This is one of those "secret" bars with no windows and no TVs, where you are supposed to call or text in advance (808 379 3887), receive a password and enter through the adjacent burgers and beers, sports themed Pint Jigger restaurant and on through a door marked "closed for renovations." But Harry's has mood lighting, a chandelier, a tin look ceiling, and a menu that includes Taittinger Comtes de Champagne ( 210) and Imperial Ossetra caviar ( 110). Try a Tag Along (gin, apricot syrup, almond liqueur, 16), a carbonated Mai Tai (three types of rum, fresh lime juice, orange Curacao, orgeat, 16) or a Burn One Down (small batch bourbon and Averna, smoked with mesquite and finished with a Grand Marnier mist, 18) with a side order of smoked opah crostini ( 12). The lines can be long for the sugar dusted Portuguese malasadas at Leonard's Bakery. But another sweet breakfast option is the Purve Donut Stop, where the doughnuts actually have holes and a whole lot of interesting toppings. Enter from a rooftop parking lot to watch these being made fresh and in small batches. Order a hot coffee and try the O No! Grindz (a play on the phrase 'ono grinds, meaning delicious eats, with a coffee flavored chocolate glaze); the Alohamac (macadamias and a caramel drizzle); or the Ala Wai Tea Bag (matcha glaze with a Kit Kat). Single doughnuts at 3.25 each. Or cheaper by the dozen at 2.75 each. From its past as an area of salt ponds and then a zone for wholesalers and warehouses, SALT at Our Kaka'ako is now an open air shopping and dining block with an artsy flair. Restaurants feature live music in genres like ukulele and slack key guitar, roots reggae and pop music by local performers, and shops sell trendy products like artisanal island chocolate and reproductions of 1930s to '50s Hawaiian shirts. But the streets surrounding the mall are even more eye catching, with dozens of murals painted by artists from around the world during Pow! Wow! Hawaii, a weeklong event each February. Don't be surprised if you spot newlyweds in fancy attire posing before a favorite. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
The Russian artist Pyotr Pavlensky and his partner, Oksana Shalygina, in Paris. The couple deny the sexual assault allegations by an actress at an avant garde theater, saying that an encounter was consensual and that the case is politically motivated. PARIS He has nailed his scrotum to the cobblestones of Red Square, sewn his lips shut to protest free speech restrictions and set fire to the doors of Russia's Federal Security Service. Now, Pyotr Pavlensky, Russia's best known anti government performance artist, has fled to France, where he intends to seek political asylum. Russian authorities questioned Mr. Pavlensky and his partner, Oksana Shalygina, last month after an actress at an avant garde Moscow theater filed a complaint accusing them of sexual assault. The couple deny the allegations, saying that the encounter was a consensual threesome and that the case is politically motivated. Amid the ambiguities and at a time when violence against women is a topic of intense debate in the country Russia's cultural opposition is now divided over a figure once seen as a symbol of the resistance to President Vladimir V. Putin's Russia. Mr. Pavlensky and Ms. Shalygina have not been formally charged, but were questioned by the police in Moscow on Dec. 15 and informed that they could face up to 10 years in prison. Told not to leave Moscow while the case was pending, they said they saw what was likely to happen and took their daughters, ages 6 and 8, to France over the weekend after spending a month in Ukraine. The situation with its charges of a honey trap and "kompromat" (compromising material gathered by the authorities) reflects the climate of suspicion and growing authoritarianism in Russia, where artists like the female punk band Pussy Riot have faced jail, but, for the most part, outright Soviet style censorship has given way to artistic self censorship in the face of changing laws and cuts to culture funding. The accusations, however, have prompted even some supporters of Mr. Pavlensky to question his behavior. The theater where the actress works, Teatr.doc, is known for documentary style plays that have criticized and angered the Russian government, and it has supported Mr. Pavlensky in the past. But its leadership has seconded the assault accusations and defended the actress against the couple's assertions that she was working for the state. This is not the first time Mr. Pavlensky has found himself in the cross hairs of the Russian authorities. Over the years, they have ordered him to undergo a dozen psychiatric evaluations, a technique long used to quash political dissent. In 2014 he chopped off his right earlobe for a piece called "Segregation," inspired by van Gogh and intended, he said, to show that "psychiatry is a collection of subjective opinions." After setting fire to the doors of Lubyanka, the Moscow headquarters of Russia's infamous security service, in 2015, he served seven months in pretrial detention on charges of vandalism. (He called that action "Threat" and said it was intended to illuminate "what people prefer to forget," that the security apparatus hadn't changed since Soviet times.) He was released last June with a fine, a move human rights activists said was intended to avoid an international incident of the kind that ensued after members of Pussy Riot were jailed in 2012 on charges of hooliganism for performing an anti Putin song in a Moscow church. Soon after, Mr. Pavlensky said, he gave some lectures at Teatr.doc. It was at one of them last September that he met the actress who later filed the assault complaint. Mr. Pavlensky said that on Dec. 4, the actress texted Ms. Shalygina. The couple who say they have an open relationship invited her to their Moscow apartment that evening. "We talked about art," he said. "We sat and drank coffee. We drank Cognac, but not a lot." "There was some form of intimacy," he added. "And then she said she wants to leave. We said, 'Fine, no problem.' We parted as friends." Both Mr. Pavlensky, 32, and Ms. Shalygina, 37, said it was the first time the three had had sex together. Yuri A. Lysenko, a lawyer for the actress, said that Mr. Pavlensky had committed a "crime," a rape, and that he wanted to portray the police investigation as politically motivated to avoid punishment. Adding to the confusion over the allegations, this week Teatr.doc posted on its Facebook page a video dated Oct. 31 that it said showed Mr. Pavlensky and others beating up a man they said was the actress's boyfriend, in the theater's parking lot. Mr. Pavlensky said that the video was "murky" and that he didn't recognize himself in it. But he said he had been involved in a physical altercation with the actress's boyfriend in October, when he and others confronted the man over allegations that he had beaten her. The Interfax News Agency reported that the police told him that a criminal case had been opened about the fight. Mr. Pavlensky said that was not the case. Mr. Lysenko said the fight with the boyfriend and the sexual assault allegations were "not related." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
Decisions, decisions. What fragrance to wear when you are stuck at home? If it's Monday, it must be Hinoki. Today, I am feeling Hinoki. It is Monday, or at least I think so. Nine weeks into lockdown, each morning dawns another Blursday. Time torques, the compass shrinks and with it the conviction that a horizon exists and, beyond it, an end to the pandemic. As a balm for a latent terror of lethal microscopic airborne particles, I spritz myself each morning in a benign aerosol cloud. This is what the droning experts from the increasingly competitive self care sector refer to as coping. Other people drink. I drink, too, but I find I need something to give shape to the 12 hours between waking and cocktails. That thing is fragrance, a substance with well established powers to alter mood, unlock memory and evoke foreign vistas, a significant fact for anyone that has spent months gazing at four walls and a bonsai tree. For years the stuff I've worn has been Marinella 287, a freshly citric, almost barbershop eau de toilette produced by the underrated Neapolitan haberdashers of the same name. Like the label itself, Marinella 287 is to be admired for its modesty. Lately, though, I find myself hankering for more complex stuff, fragrance heavies acquired over my travels and yet seldom worn because I lacked the occasion or the nerve. As it is Monday, I begin light with Hinoki, a fresh and arboreal scent created in 2008 for Comme des Garcons by the perfumer Antoine Maisondieu. Because fragrance is all but impossible to describe, its makers often resort to narrative drivel. According to some printed text that accompanies the bottle, Hinoki (one in a group of fine numbered releases from Comme des Garcons in collaboration with Monocle) is meant to evoke the sensation of soaking in a hinoki wood tub in the garden of a Kyoto ryokan. Who knows? What is certain is that its airiness is a delight when I pull off the stale smelling N95 protective mask I must wear to go out for coffee. As though packing for a real trip, I map out the next week, planning a daily changing fragrance wardrobe. Tuesday, I decide, will be Angeliques Sous La Pluie, a sprightly if fugitive (you have to renew it 25 times a day) unisex fragrance created for Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle by Jean Claude Ellena. The celebrated Mr. Ellena was formerly the "parfumeur exclusif" for Hermes, the man behind First for Van Cleef Arpels, Eau Parfumee au The Vert for Bulgari and the author of a 2012 memoir, "Diary of a Nose," a volume that crams a surprising load of pretension into a mere 145 pages. Almost as much as wine talk, I dislike the notion and lexicon of "noses." I resist the trashy clutter of adjectives often deployed to fancy up simple chemistry in the flavors and fragrance business. The ineffable magic that occurs when gorgeous molecules of smell and taste stimulate our pleasure receptors is best left to imagination unless, that is, you are Proust. By Wednesday, I anticipate a mood shift because, even more than during ordinary times, Humpday feels like a trick to dupe you into forgetting the coming three days of labor. Glad as I am to have paid work, I miss the real rhythms of the office, the camaraderie, the proverbial water cooler, the supplies. Absent all that, I will douse myself in Guerlain's Mouchoir de Monsieur, a powdery granddad concoction first formulated in 1904, and then fire up the old laptop. I will imagine while writing that I am that rake who dabs cologne on his handkerchief before making sorties into the belle epoque salons of Paris, and not a wage slave who has to remind himself to wear pants for Zoom. Thursday, I will sport Dior Homme as a deeply affectionate nod to an old school classic. By this I mean the dusty, woody lavender and sage version first created in 2005 by the perfumer Olivier Polge, streamlined in 2011 by Francois Demachy and still available online and in certain countries in its first iteration. Though a further updated Dior Homme was released just before the pandemic, its butch rectangular bottle is a mite too assertively branded for me, its fragrance almost anachronistically sweet. Sensing that by Friday I will want to put some celebratory punctuation on the week gone by, I weigh two unalike though equally tempting options. One is Krigler's Oud for Highness, a densely sensual fragrance created in 1975 by this heritage label for King Hussein of Jordan. The other is Baccarat Rouge 540 from Francis Kurkdjian, the gifted creator of Jean Paul Gaultier's metrosexual best seller, Le Male. Baccarat Rouge 540 is a fragrance that while its components include wholesome substances like jasmine, saffron and cedar dries on the skin with a singed finish evocative of the term "gateway drug.'' Yet that is deceptive. Each of these fragrances is intoxicating and yet exists in a universe far removed from the drug counter crack created by marketers and doomed to die on the dusty shelves of discount outlets. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
While renting in the West Village paying a hefty 3,875 a month for a large duplex studio in the historic red brick Archive building on Greenwich Street Andrew Dumas decided he was "ready, financially and mentally, to commit to buying a place." He assumed he would follow in the footsteps of friends who had made the move to Brooklyn, seeking more space for the money. So last year, with the help of Florence Ng of Citi Habitats, who was referred by a friend, Mr. Dumas, 32, began the hunt for a one bedroom. He planned to spend 700,000 to 900,000. His rental, however, was nicer than much of what he saw for sale. "I didn't want to take a downgrade in lifestyle just to own," he said. "I've been saving for this for 10 years, and I wanted it to feel like the consummation of my life savings." He thought a brand new condominium would be ideal. But he found himself considering a one bedroom at 110 Livingston Street, a 1926 building by McKim, Mead White in Downtown Brooklyn that had recently been a Board of Education headquarters. The price was 750,000, with monthly charges of almost 500. Mr. Dumas loved the building, but not the boxy layout of the apartment. The price included a private rooftop cabana, but he knew from experience that he probably wouldn't use it. The apartment later sold for 728,000. Mr. Dumas soon found a two bedroom in a Federal style town house on State Street in Brooklyn Heights. It had a wooden deck out back and a washer dryer in the bathroom. The price was 850,000, with monthly maintenance in the high 500s. He was interested until he learned that subleasing wasn't permitted for the first five years of ownership. He thought about "being handcuffed to that apartment for five years," a problem if an opportunity arose to move overseas for work. "He went back three times," Ms. Ng said. "It was perfect except for the subletting policy." Meanwhile, the same friends who had moved to Brooklyn returned to Manhattan. And Mr. Dumas decided that Brooklyn wasn't the right place for him after all. He works in Chelsea, where he runs advertising sales for ShareThis. "I decided I wasn't ready to move to Brooklyn just for the reason of more space," he said. "I underestimated what convenience meant to my lifestyle." Mr. Dumas realized that a smaller apartment in the right neighborhood the West Village or Chelsea was better than a bigger one farther away. By then he had lost interest in living in a brand new building. In Brooklyn, the nicest apartments were in prewars or brownstones, so "I kind of did a 180 on what I wanted," he said. Character became more important than newness. One possibility was in the West Village on Barrow Street. The location was ideal. The 700 square foot one bedroom, which included a tiny balcony, was listed for 865,000; monthly maintenance was in the mid 1,300s. But the layout was "your standard two rectangles," Mr. Dumas said. He returned with a friend "to validate that 900,000 expenditure," and his friend pronounced the place too small. Mr. Dumas decided to increase his budget to nearly 1 million and also to focus on Chelsea, where he figured he could get more value than in the Village. "I started seeing places in Chelsea that were really aspirational," he said, "whereas before I wasn't seeing anything." And so he came to a corner one bedroom in a 1937 co op building in the West 20s. The price had dropped to 899,000 from 925,000, and maintenance was almost 1,500 a month. It was a well laid out 725 square feet in size, with new appliances, beamed ceilings and ample closets. Mr. Dumas arrived last month, getting off to a bad start with no air conditioning in the summer heat. He bought two window air conditioners the first chance he got. "You can envision yourself living in a place," he said, "but it all changes the first night when you spend the night there. You are surrounded by all new sounds and sights. I got to see the apartment only two times, and each time was for five minutes, so I spent 10 minutes in person on an 870,000 decision. So it is a leap of faith there is no try before you buy, no taste this glass of wine." But once the air conditioning issue was resolved, his new place exceeded his expectations. "There are so many details I didn't see during my walk through" one being the view of the Empire State Building from the shower. "I haven't been disappointed yet." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Henrik Ibsen described his 1867 epic verse drama, "Peer Gynt," as "reckless and formless, written with no thought of the consequences." Which sounds pretty punk rock. The Ma Yi Theater Company apparently thinks so. In "Peer Gynt and the Norwegian Hapa Band," conceived by the director Jack Tamburri and written by Michi Barall, the company has twinned an updated version of Ibsen's text to a dozen or more original rock and pop songs. It's a fun idea and a brash one (Roger McGuinn of the Byrds once tried something similar), but here it mostly makes a fragmented story feel even less forceful. Peer (Matt Park, who composed the songs with his castmate Paul Lieber) is a Scandinavian lad with an overactive imagination, an underwhelming patrimony and a habit of snarling, "Norway's gonna know my name" into his standing mike. This fails to impress his mother (Mia Katigbak), who snipes, "You think you're some kind of rock star?" In the midst of his sexual adventures making off with a bride on her wedding day, impregnating a troll princess he falls in love with a virginal maiden, Solvay (Rocky Vega), but has to abandon her when the troll princess finds him. He then embarks on a round the world journey, with sojourns as a motivational speaker and a patient in an insane asylum, but in the course of several decades, he can never quite figure out who he is, hero or villain, dupe or dastard. He reinvents himself often and enthusiastically, but how much self is really there? | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
Some youngsters retreat entirely, their eyes empty, bodies limp, their isolation a wall of defiance. Others cannot sit still: watchful, hyperactive, ever uncertain. Some compulsively jump into the laps of strangers, or grab their legs and hold on for life. And some children, somehow, move past a sudden separation from their parents, tapping a well of resilience. The Trump administration's policy of separating migrant children from their parents has alarmed child psychologists and experts who study human development. It is not clear how long the administration plans to hold onto the 2,000 children in detention centers near the border, nor how long before they are returned to their families. But psychologists have learned a great deal about what happens to institutionalized children over time, and in that research there are clues to the potential emotional harms faced by migrant children severed from their parents. A number of medical organizations, including those governing psychology, psychiatry and pediatrics, have issued letters of protest, citing an increased risk of anxiety and depression in the children, as well as post traumatic stress and attention deficit disorder. "Traumatic life experiences in childhood, especially those that involve loss of a caregiver or parent, cause lifelong risk for cardiovascular and mental health disease," wrote the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. The longer term consequences of separation and institutionalization are hard to predict and depend on many factors, like the age of the child at separation and the time away from family. Lengthy deprivation between infancy and school age, for example, raises the risk of lasting emotional problems. The risk of mental health consequences also depends on the holding facility itself the staff, the turnover, whether children know where their parents are, and how long they'll be held. And much depends on the individual child. Resilience can be forged in such situations, for reasons no one understands. But success for the institutionalized child is far from the norm. Institutions even the best and most humane by their nature warp the attachments children long for, the visceral and concentrated exchange of love, tough and otherwise, that comforts, supports and shapes a child's heart and mind. In orphanages and other institutional settings, "turnover rate of caregivers is high, as is the number of children per caregiver," Marinus van IJzendoorn, a professor of human development at Erasmus University Rotterdam, said in an email. "This causes impersonal, unstable and fragmented care, which not only impacts on attachment or stress regulation but also on physical growth parameters such as height, weight and head circumference, and brain development." Children in institutions, Dr. van IJzendoorn continued, "bide their time hoping for better, personalized care that only families can provide." Once these children enter foster care or are adopted, their development accelerates, and many catch up to peers within two or three years, Dr. van IJzendoorn said. But much depends on how long they were held in detention: a longer stay at a later age requires the longest recovery period, he noted. "So many of these parents are fleeing for their lives," Dr. Colleen Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, wrote in a public statement after a recent trip to the border. "So many of these children know no other adult than the parent who brought them here." Even the study of parental deprivation has been ethically fraught. In the 1950s, the American psychologist Harry Harlow took young rhesus monkeys from their mothers and found that the youngsters became reclusive. In one experiment, he found that they would quickly cling to "cloth mothers," inanimate figures with a soft exterior. Those sad images still haunt the psychological literature. Early in this century, American researchers working with Romanian officials found that children moved from that country's notorious orphanages into foster care later had higher I.Q.'s on average than a comparison group of their peers deliberately left behind in the orphanages by the scientists . Perhaps the most influential of them all, to modern child psychologists, was John Bowlby, the British scientist whose writings in the mid 20th century argued that infants were evolutionally primed to form attachments, not only for protection but also for emotional and cognitive development. The quality of the primary attachment to (usually) a mother whether strong and loving, uncertain, or absent helps determine the trajectory of a child's unfolding life. Dr. Bowlby's attachment theory informs many approaches to the treatment of children torn from their parents by circumstance or, in the case of current administration policy, by design. Kalina Brabeck, a psychologist at Rhode Island College who works with immigrant children who lose their parents to deportation or for other reasons, said that the experience of loss often leads to a form of post traumatic stress the paralyzing vigilance, avoidance and emotional gusts first identified in war veterans. Most of the children held on the border will have accumulated traumas, Dr. Brabeck said. Even before their parents were detained, many already had run the gauntlet of immigration itself, fleeing with little resources from often violent communities. One goal of treatment, she said, is to overcome what is a daily identity crisis. "We try to get them to tell a story: who they are, where they were born, what they're good at, their migration story," she said. "We may do that with pictures and drawings, as well as words to walk through it in very detailed way." The therapy includes grief counseling, she said, and prodding the children to confront unconscious assumptions for example, that the world is an inherently unsafe place. "We also work to connect them to other supports, like coaches, teachers and churches," she said. For all the dislocation, strangeness and pain of being separated forcibly from parents, many children can and do recover, said Mary Dozier, a professor of child development at the University of Delaware. "Not all of them some kids never recover," Dr. Dozier said. "But I've been amazed at how well kids can do after institutionalization if they're able to have responsive and nurturing care afterward." "The earlier they're out, the better," she added. "The most important thing for these children now is what we do next." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Hidden in the lush greenery of the East Khasi hills of Meghalaya State along the Indian border with Bangladesh lies the pristine village of Mawlynnong . The rolling green hills and topaz watering holes serve as a backdrop for 500 residents, a number that swells during high season with a couple of hundred tourists daily. At a time when major Indian cities such as Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata are facing a growing waste crisis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned the spotlight on this pristine village as a source of inspiration, highlighting Mawlynnong as a model for the rest of the country in a monthly radio address in 2015. "I was happy to know that in our country there is such a village in the northeast, in Meghalaya, which is passionately carrying forward the mission of cleanliness for years," he said. "It has become the habit of the residents to maintain cleanliness." It is held forth as an example of what concerted efforts to clean up can yield, and used to bolster the "Clean India Mission" campaign to sanitize the nation by 2019, which is the 150th bi rthday of Mahatma Gandhi (who advocated community cleanliness and sanitation in India). One of the goals of the Clean India Mission program is to increase the use of toilets in rural India. In Mawlynnong, every household has a toilet. Today, Mawlynnong grapples with the blessing and the curse of tourism while trying to maintain the essence of the village, protecting the core reason people want to visit. Laphrang Khong Thohrem, 62, and other members of the village council and wider community have come together to address the problems that the influx of visitors bring. Their solutions: Streets are swept daily by villagers who pitch in; bamboo dustbins are placed at every street corner ; and trash is composted and used to nourish the village's agriculture, in particular production of the betel nut. "Our grandparents and their grandparents had clean habits at that time; nobody dreamed that the village would become a tourist attraction," said Mr. Thohrem, who is a member of the village council, which regulates the building of new homes. The council has declared that people can't build anything higher than a two story house, as a way to preserve the village's look. "Otherwise the village will look ugly and tourists won't want to come here anymore," he said. Protecting the village's unique feel and community is something that is important to locals. The majority of those who live in Mawlynnong are Khasi people, part of one of the oldest matrilineal tribes in the world. (Children take the name of their mother, and traditionally mothers hand down their property to the youngest daughters.) To buy land here you have to be Khasi (or approved by a Khasi person), and the land rights are protected by the Meghalaya Transfer of Land (Regulation) Act of 1971 (which governs the transfer of land from a tribal person to a nontribal person). Villagers, who are predominantly Christians, also pitch in for the maintenance of the village and its three churches. One of them, the Church of the Epiphany, is more than 100 years old. Its black and white spire reaches out from a tangle of foliage and flowers . Gardening is an integral part of the village tradition. When entering the village, visitors see a sign: "Welcome to Mawlynnong (God ' s own Garden) ." The Rev. Lumlang Khongthrem, 48, of the Church of the Epiphany traces the oral history of gardening in the village, where there are beautiful personal gardens at every house, through generations . The oldest home in the village belongs to Patrolyne Khongsni, 60, and was built in the 1940s . (People settled there around the beginning of the 1900s, according to a village resident, Embor Klamet, 32, but the older homes have not been preserved .) She tends to her garden every day, pruning and managing the magenta bougainvillea, flowers and greenery outside her home, where she lives with her brother and his family. Ms. Khongsni credits her mother with instilling the tradition of gardening in her. Her parents are buried in a family compound marked by gravestones and flowering bushes. When the road connecting the village to the outside world was built in 2000 and tourism became a possibility, some of the people of Mawlynnong were hesitant to open up the village to outsiders. Inevitably the village changed, and some bemoaned the loss of old traditions. Reverend Khongthrem believes that when people in Mawlynnong started earning more money because of the increase in visitors, their mind set changed. "We have lost a lot of charm, and that is very important." But with the attention of travel magazines and prime ministers, and as possibilities for profit materialize, more people want to open guesthouses, according to Lormary Khonglament, 60, whose son runs a guesthouse. One family built a treehouse and charges visitors 30 Indian rupees (about 50 cents) for an elevated view of Bangladesh. Baieng Skhem , 28, said that some days they could have up to 100 visitors and that it had given their family extra income. Sunita Khongtiang, 30 and the mother of four, has been running a restaurant with her husband, serving dishes like rice, chicken and dal. Their restaurant still has no name but is open seven days a week. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
Mr. President and The First Lady, the two bald eagles nesting in a tulip poplar in Washington, D.C., made headlines earlier this month after millions of people watched them become parents on a live webcam in the National Arboretum. If you are one of those viewers who just couldn't get enough, we offer some other cams and real life opportunities for eagle watching at different stages of their life cycles. As you check out these videos, keep in mind that the call of America's national bird is not the fierce cry you hear in movies that's a red tailed hawk. It's always mealtime in the eagle's nest captured by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and Minnesota Bound's Live Eagle Cam shows eagles nesting along the Crow River in Central Minnesota. Another particularly good camera feed is the Decorah Eagle Cam in nearby Decorah, Iowa. Check out The American Eagle Foundation's multiple angle cameras in Florida where two juvenile eagles, Liberty and Justice, are expected to leave the nest this summer. You can watch more juvenile bald eagles live in Southwest Florida here. Best Places to See Bald Eagles in Person Alaska has reported 40,000 individual bald eagles, according to this interactive map from CNN, but among the lower 48 states, Minnesota leads. At last count, a few weeks ago, there were around 2,300 eagle pairs nesting throughout the state. In Duluth, Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory, which monitors migrations, reported more than 600 bald eagles at their spring count site, earlier this month. There are more than 300 active nests in The Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge. To increase your chances of observing eagles and other raptors migrating during spring, walk on trails near open water on a clear day between around 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., said Frank Nicoletti, a raptor expert and Banding Director at Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory. That's when the earth has warmed up enough to release heat into pockets of air called thermal currents on which the eagles glide. Adult bald eagles are hard to miss with their distinguished white heads and tails, but juveniles, while full grown, are all brown and may be confused with other large birds. Unsure if what those wings you see at a distance belong to a bald eagle? "When they're flying, their wings are flat like a plank," said Mr. Nicoletti. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Beyonce is headlining Coachella for real this time, it seems. After pulling out of last year's festival because she was pregnant with twins, she will return to anchor the Indio, Calif., event along with Eminem and the Weeknd. Coachella will take place over two weekends, April 13 15 and April 20 22, with the lineup hinting at a genre shift for a festival once dominated by rock bands like Guns N' Roses, AC/DC and Radiohead. This year, the guitars are much more scarce, with St. Vincent, the War on Drugs and Haim representing a younger generation taking rock in disparate directions. Instead, there's plenty of hip hop, with Eminem headlining on the heels of a new album, "Revival," and sets lined up from Cardi B, Migos, Vince Staples, Post Malone and Tyler, the Creator. Other performers include SZA, King Krule, Odesza and David Byrne. The main draw, of course, will be Beyonce, whose booking last year was seen as a huge victory for the typically pop averse Coachella. But with the writing on the wall an Instagram announcement and a Grammy performance in which she cradled her stomach she canceled her set "following the advice of her doctors." Lady Gaga performed in her place, and Beyonce's twins, Sir Carter and Rumi, were born in June. Beyonce had a sizable impact on 2017 despite not releasing an album or playing any major concerts besides the Grammys. "Perfect," a duet with Ed Sheeran, topped the Billboard singles chart; she sang on a warmly received remix of J Balvin and Willy William's "Mi Gente," and released duets with Eminem and her husband, Jay Z. And she was cast as Nala in the upcoming live action remake of "The Lion King." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
Just a few years ago, Thomas M. Siebel often faced skepticism when encouraging big companies to adopt internet style cloud computing. Many companies, he said, had qualms about relying on the faraway data centers. Now his customers have a different concern: One cloud service isn't enough. "They don't want to be tied to one big tech company," said Mr. Siebel, chief executive of C3 IoT, a software company that uses cloud computing to analyze data coming from industrial machines. And Mr. Siebel is adapting. After initially working closely with Amazon, a pioneer in cloud computing, C3 IoT now also has a technology and marketing partnership with Microsoft. And it is negotiating a similar agreement with Google. For a few years, it looked like Amazon would run away with the cloud computing business, piling up market share as it has with online shopping. But in the past couple of years, many companies have decided that they don't want to depend on Amazon alone, and are spreading out their business. That has helped Microsoft most of all. And the software giant has emerged as a strong No. 2 in the cloud market. Microsoft provided further evidence of its rise in the cloud business on Thursday, when it reported its most recent quarterly financial results. Microsoft's Azure unit, which supplies cloud based computer processing and storage, and competes most directly with Amazon Web Services, grew by 89 percent over the same period a year ago. The company also reported strong growth in its other cloud offerings. Microsoft's profit increased 5 percent to 8.8 billion, or 1.13 a share. That was slightly above analysts' average forecast of 1.08 a share, as compiled by Thomson Reuters IBES. Revenue rose 17 percent to 30.09 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter that ended in June, higher than the Wall Street consensus estimate of 29.21 billion. The competition to supply the foundation layer of computing and software the cloud era equivalent of an operating system is heated and costly. The biggest players, analysts estimate, are spending up to 10 billion a year on their global networks of data centers. This core cloud business is a 60 billion a year market, which grew by 50 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to Synergy Research Group. In that fast growing market, Amazon holds a 33 percent share, unchanged since the end of 2015. Over the same span, Microsoft's share climbed from 7 percent to 13 percent, and Google's doubled to 6 percent. John Dinsdale, chief analyst at Synergy Research, predicted that the cloud giants will get bigger and capture a steadily rising share of corporate technology spending especially as they add new capabilities, like machine learning and artificial intelligence, to their services. "The information technology market is going to increasingly gravitate towards a small number of hyperscale cloud providers," Mr. Dinsdale said. In a recent research report on that market, Gartner identified three top tier companies Amazon, Microsoft and Google. And it listed only three others, Alibaba, Oracle and IBM, as their competitors. "It's a two horse race between Amazon and Microsoft at this stage," said Raj Bala, a Gartner analyst. "Google is making headway, nipping at their heels, but it's still behind the leaders." For Amazon and Google, cloud computing services were a natural outgrowth of their original businesses e commerce for Amazon and search for Google. Both companies were born on the internet. Not so for Microsoft, which has made the most striking transition to the cloud. Its heritage, corporate wealth and industry dominance was based on selling packaged software and its Windows operating system for personal computers. Microsoft's later forays into new markets were typically late and hobbled by the company's Windows fixation. Its failed mobile operating system, for example, was widely criticized as a kludgy attempt to shoehorn Windows onto a smartphone. The company's path to cloud computing was lengthy and sometimes halting, even if the technical roots stretch back many years. Its MSN online service and Internet Explorer browser had their heydays in the 1990s. More recently, the company poured resources into its Bing search engine. In late 2005, Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief technical officer, wrote a lengthy memo, "The Internet Services Disruption," laying out the challenge and opportunity ahead for the company. In 2008, two years after Amazon entered the cloud market, a team of the Microsoft's brightest scientists set to work on a cloud project, code named Red Dog. In 2010, Microsoft introduced its cloud service, but it did not have an offering comparable to Amazon's until 2013, analysts say. Before he became Microsoft's chief executive in 2014, Satya Nadella held senior roles in its cloud, online services and search businesses. Once he took over, Mr. Nadella accelerated investment in the cloud unit and focused Microsoft's sales teams on the business, analysts say. Unlike his predecessor, Steven A. Ballmer, Mr. Nadella's career was not steeped in Windows and the business model of packaged software. The traditional software business relied on product licenses with hefty payments up front rather than the pay for use subscriptions of the cloud world. "Technology was not really the obstacle for Microsoft, the problem was the business model," said Michael A. Cusumano, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. "Nadella has changed the strategy and the culture." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
'THE CRANES ARE FLYING' at Film Forum (July 12 18). When Boris (Aleksey Batalov), a young man in Moscow, volunteers to serve in World War II, his sweetheart, Veronika, known to him as Squirrel (Tatiana Samoilova), is separated from him without even a proper send off. This feature from the Soviet director Mikhail Kalatozov won the top prize at Cannes in 1958, and while its camera logistics aren't quite as fancy as those in as the subsequent "I Am Cuba," it does feature one of the most haunting combat deaths ever captured on film, and and there is a universal quality to its depiction of a romance enduring through the compromises of war as Veronika contends with bombings and Boris's self interested cousin (Aleksandr Shvorin). 212 727 8110, filmforum.org Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead. IN MEMORIAM: CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN at Anthology Film Archives (July 15, 7:30 p.m.). The theater pays tribute to the feminist performance artist and filmmaker, who died in March, with a program that in some ways combines filmmaking and performance at least to the extent that a dual projector screening of "Kitch's Last Meal," an autobiographical work in which the loss of Schneemann's cat serves as just one entry point, counts as a performance. Also screening is "Infinity Kisses The Movie," which Holland Cotter wrote may be Schneemann's "most unguardedly sensual work." 212 505 5181, anthologyfilmarchives.org | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
ARLINGTON, Texas Before Kenley Jansen threw the final pitch of a World Series game for the ages, Dan Johnson threw the first virtually, anyway. Johnson tossed it on a snow covered youth diamond in Minnesota, and the video beamed from the scoreboard high atop Globe Life Field. Only die hard fans, like Brett Phillips, know Johnson's story well. Johnson played 18 years of professional baseball, mostly in the minors. He appeared in the majors for six teams, batted .234, and never got to play in the World Series. But in 2008, when Phillips was in eighth grade, Johnson hit a pennant race homer for his favorite team, the Tampa Bay Rays, that helped propel them to their first playoff berth. Three years later, on the final day of the season, Johnson struck again with another homer, saving the Rays from elimination on their way to the postseason. They were down to their last strike when Johnson delivered, and it was his first hit all month. On Saturday night, in Game 4 of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Rays were down to their last strike again. They needed another miracle and Phillips came through, smacking a cutter from Jansen into center field to score the tying and winning runs, with help from a bundle of Dodger misplays. It was Phillips' first hit of October. "That's an at bat you dream of when you're little," said the Rays' second baseman, Brandon Lowe. "You always tell yourself 'World Series, bottom of the ninth, winning run on.' He had the outcome that everyone wanted." It was the first time a team went from losing to winning on the final pitch of a World Series game since Joe Carter's homer won the title for Toronto in 1993. But Phillips seemed just as awestruck to join Johnson in the pantheon of clutch hitting Rays. "To be mentioned with his name now? Wow, that's special," said Phillips, who went to high school in Seminole, Fla., 14 miles from the Rays' Tropicana Field. "I feel blessed especially in St. Pete, my hometown, that's crazy. So shout out to Dan Johnson. You've always got to give credit to the people before you, because they paved the way. He definitely was a hero, and still is, in the Tampa Bay area." And it all happened because Phillips Brett Phillips! ignited one of the wildest endings ever, putting his name beside Hal Smith, Brian Doyle and Geoff Blum among the least likely World Series stars. 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. Phillips, 26, has been traded three times in the last six seasons, most recently from Kansas City to Tampa Bay in late August. He is a .202 career hitter, but appealed to the Rays as a pinch runner and defensive replacement. He appeared in those roles in the early playoff rounds going hitless in two at bats but was dropped from the roster for the American League Championship Series. Until Saturday, Phillips was best known as the guy with the breathless, honking laugh on YouTube, the dugout cheerleader with a whiteboard salute for his hot hitting teammate, Randy Arozarena: "Rakes All Night Day Year." (The first letters spell "Randy," get it?) He was not the hitter Manager Kevin Cash wanted as the team's last hope. "I'm sure he was probably like, 'Oh no, we've got to go to the last guy on the bench,'" Phillips said, stifling a laugh, but he was right. The Rays had only one other position player, catcher Michael Perez, and they needed to save him for defense in case of a tie. (Cash had just removed the starter, Mike Zunino, for a pinch hitter.) Phillips had entered as a pinch runner for Ji Man Choi in the eighth, when the Rays left two men on to stop the game's string of eight consecutive run scoring half innings, a World Series record. They had fallen behind, taken a lead, fallen behind again, tied it, and then fallen behind a third time. "I'd say outs 1 through 26 were very Rays like, going back and forth," said center fielder Kevin Kiermaier, who shattered his bat (the barrel flew all the way to the outfield grass) on a one out single in the ninth. "But with that last opportunity to come to the plate, I don't know if that's a Rays win or a win that anybody can describe or imagine." A coach, Paul Hoover, had told Phillips between innings that he would win the game, inspiring Phillips to take a few swings in a batting cage. But he did so against a left handed staffer, guessing that if his spot came up, the Dodgers would call for a lefty. Jansen stayed in, so the session had been a waste. Even so, the Rays had fast runners on base when the left handed Phillips dug into the batter's box Kiermaier on second, Arozarena on first after a two out walk. Phillips took a ball, then a strike, and the third base coach Rodney Linares who had managed Phillips in the Houston farm system yelled encouragement from beneath his mask: "Swing the bat, kid, c'mon, swing the bat, you can do it!" But Phillips took another pitch, a borderline strike that brought the count to 1 2 and further tilted the odds against Phillips. In his regular season career, he is 6 for 57 on 1 2 counts, striking out 40 times. Jansen, 33, is past his prime but still had the Dodgers' best strikeout rate among right handers this season. Yet he could not get his final cutter by Phillips, who punched it into shallow center. As soon as he did, Linares furiously wind milled his right arm, sending Kiermaier home with the tying run. When the hit skipped off Chris Taylor's glove for an error, Linares stayed in motion as Arozarena rounded third. Arozarena might as well have been Enos Slaughter in the 1946 World Series, dashing from first with the winning run in Game 7 for the St. Louis Cardinals except that Arozarena lost his helmet, and then his balance, tripping between third and home. He scrambled to retreat, but the Dodgers' catcher, Will Smith, did not notice. "He was trying to catch the ball and put a quick tag down," Justin Turner, the Dodgers' third baseman, said of Smith. "Obviously, if he would have known that he fell, he would have taken his time, made sure he caught it and started a rundown." In his haste, Smith let Max Muncy's relay throw carom off his glove and skitter away. Jansen, who momentarily dropped to his knees as Phillips' hit carried to the outfield, was not backing him up, and Arozarena scored the winning run, sliding headfirst into the unguarded plate. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
When his father was ailing, Bernard Lumpkin felt a new urgency to understand the elder man's experience as an African American who grew up in the Watts neighborhood in South Los Angeles before moving to New York to become a physicist. "During those last months of his life, he and I talked a lot about family," said Mr. Lumpkin, 47. "I was interested in learning more about what his roots meant to him. And what his experience was as a black man and how it was different from my experience as a child of an African American man and a Sephardic Jewish mother from Morocco." "A lot of times people didn't perceive me as being African American," he added. "Passing has its rewards and its challenges. Invisibility can be a wonderful thing sometimes and other times it can become a burden." After his father died in 2009, Mr. Lumpkin said, "It was more important to me that people know my heritage." So he used his earnings as a producer in MTV's news and documentaries division where he no longer works to begin buying art by minority artists. "Sometimes people still come over who don't know me well and they say, 'Bernard, why do you have so much African American art?'" he said. "It's something I'm constantly reminded of. The collection became a way for me to continue that conversation with my father." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
The exploration of Africa by David Livingstone, the 19th century Scottish doctor, has been written about extensively. Indeed, Petina Gappah lists at least 30 books in the bibliography of her scrupulously researched new novel. This being the case, one imagines the author might well be dealing with subject matter that leaves precious little room for her to reinvent, to present us with a new view of a man whose story has been so thoroughly picked over. However, Gappah has chosen an ingenious way to approach Livingstone's life: She focuses on his death. The opening lines of the novel arrest our attention: "This is how we carried out of Africa the poor broken body of Bwana Daudi, the Doctor, David Livingstone, so that he could be borne across the sea and buried in his own land." The first part of the novel is narrated by Halima, one of Livingstone's young slaves, a witty cook who has been purchased as a partner for Livingstone's expedition leader, an abusive man called Amoda. Halima accompanies the body across the 1,500 miles from Livingstone's place of death in the interior to the eastern coast; through her observations, we gain insight into the life of this man who has dedicated himself to discovering the source of the Nile. Then, in the second half of the novel, the narration is taken over by another member of the group, Jacob Wainwright, a freed slave who has been educated by Christian missionaries and whose pompous voice and deeply religious convictions remain constant throughout his "journal," which he hopes to publish. This book was one of our most anticipated titles of September. See the full list. Halima is the more compelling of the narrators, since she is willing to pass judgment on the white explorer, admitting that "his death was everything to me." She has dreams of her own: She hopes one day to be set free and own a house in Zanzibar with an impressively decorated door that will suggest her independence and worldliness. But in the meantime, she trudges to the coast with the corpse of the Scotsman, relieved that they have come to the end of "Bwana Daudi's Nile madness." She is also hopeful that Amoda might consider her more than just his "road woman." Her phrasemaking is lively, and her observations often thought provoking for she is unafraid to ask difficult questions. "Why any man would leave his own land and his wife and children to tramp in these dreary swamps to inquire into the flowing of a river, and into that which does not concern him at all, is beyond my understanding, but Bwana Daudi had no wife, poor thing, he did not take another after his first wife, Mama Robert, died, more is the pity. Perhaps it was her death that made him abandon his children." The main problem with Halima's narrative is that all but one of her 14 chapters are prefaced with a quote from the journals of either David Livingstone or the explorer Henry Morton Stanley, who tracked him down and famously greeted him with the words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" This continuing return to brief extracts is a distraction, particularly when these extracts suggest a complexity of character for Livingstone that isn't fully achieved when he's viewed through the eyes of Halima. Our narrator can speculate on the explorer's feelings regarding children, but when we're presented with Livingstone's own words on the subject, we very quickly leave Halima's idle musings behind. "It is rather a minute thing to mention," he writes, "and it will only be understood by those who have children of their own, but the cries of the little ones, in their infant sorrows, are the same in tone, at different ages, here as all over the world. We have been perpetually reminded of home and family by the wailings, which were once familiar to parental ears and heart, and felt thankful that to the sorrows of childhood our children would never have superadded the heart rending woes of the slave trade." The 25 entries in Jacob Wainwright's journal are deeply imbued with his Christian beliefs, but his self righteous voice lacks the necessary dramatic energy to keep the story moving with any pace. Trapped in a single low gear, the narrative chugs along, prefaced by a series of lackluster imitations of 19th century chapter headings that announce what is to follow. ("Fourteenth Entry from the Journal of Jacob Wainwright, entered at Kumbakumba; in which Wainwright suffers a Great Shock and the Party receives Succor from an Unlikely Alliance.") As he and the others make their 285 day journey to the coast, Wainwright reads Livingstone's own somewhat disturbing journals and slowly begins to understand that the Scotsman has betrayed Wainwright's Christian ideals with his colonial actions. At the close of the novel, in perhaps its most successful passages, we hear from both Halima and Wainwright. Halima, we learn, is now living in Zanzibar, Livingstone's son having freed her from slavery. A woman of the world, she is admired by those who pass her house with its impressive door, but she is not truly satisfied with her life. In a sense, she is trapped inside her own home; although free, she seems, somewhat ironically, to have inherited the great explorer's restlessness: "There were many things that happened on that journey with Bwana Daudi, part while he was living, part when he was dead, but one thing that it left with me is the feeling I get sometimes: as though I am hemmed in all round, and all I want is to go somewhere no one has ever been, and gaze at the sky and look for miles around to see nothing but trees and hear nothing but birds." Wainwright's concluding journal entry is more engaging than those written on the trek to the coast, for his pious facade is beginning to crack. He has traveled to England and met "Bwana's children," but the encounter was disappointing because the children took little interest in him. And the members of the society that sponsored his visit turned against him when he began to tell the truth of Livingstone's association with slave traders. In the aftermath, a disconsolate Wainwright confesses, he found himself both unpublished and unordained as he puts it, "a priest without a collar, a servant of God without a church." If only some of the pathos of Wainwright's final predicament could have found its way into the main narrative. Petina Gappah is a skilled writer whose well received collection of stories, "An Elegy for Easterly," and her debut novel, "The Book of Memory," deal with the destruction of innocent lives across artificial divides of rich and poor in the tumultuous, largely contemporary world of her native Zimbabwe. "Out of Darkness, Shining Light" is a novel rooted in history that, according to the author, was "almost 20 years in the making." Although Gappah's Livingstone is dead, his voice is still resonant in the extracts from his journals. One wishes she had arranged things so that Livingstone's silvery tongue had remained absolutely still. After all, the real heroes of this carefully crafted novel are Halima and Wainwright and the other Africans history has hitherto condemned to suffer in silence. It is to the novel's credit that after 150 years we can now hear their voices. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
The director of comic book adaptations like "300" and "Watchmen," Snyder kicked things off with the 2013 "Man of Steel," which cast Henry Cavill as Superman. That film grossed 668 million worldwide, but instead of following it with a traditional Superman sequel, Snyder next directed "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" (2016), which added Affleck and Gadot to the mix and featured cameos from Ezra Miller (as the Flash) and Ray Fisher (as Cyborg), that were meant to tease their inclusion in "Justice League." Though "Batman v Superman" made 873 million worldwide, reviews were scathing, and Warner Bros. executives worried that Snyder's increasingly dark take on these classic comic book characters skewed too adult, alienating audiences that preferred Marvel's more family friendly sense of humor. Still, there was little time to course correct: Snyder was set to begin production on "Justice League," originally conceived as a two film project, just weeks after "Batman v Superman" had been released. On the London set of "Justice League," Snyder assured reporters that he had taken the reviews of "Batman v Superman" to heart, but after he completed principal production, Warner Bros. announced in May 2017 that Snyder would be stepping down from the project. Snyder said at the time that he was leaving "Justice League" to attend to his family after his daughter's suicide. After screening Snyder's rough cut of "Justice League" for a small group of filmmakers including the "Straight Outta Compton" screenwriter Andrea Berloff, the "Wonder Woman" scribe Allan Heinberg and "The Avengers" director Joss Whedon, Warner Bros. hired Whedon to helm a substantial round of reshoots that included almost 80 new script pages. This version gave Gadot and "Man of Steel" holdovers Amy Adams and Diane Lane far more to do, significantly trimmed subplots involving the Flash and Cyborg (one character, a love interest for Miller played by Kiersey Clemons, was cut entirely) and added more jokes. The studio had hoped that Whedon could bring to "Justice League" the same light touch that had lifted "The Avengers" to 1.5 billion at the box office, but Whedon was ultimately thwarted by significant production issues including a lead actor, Cavill, who was busy shooting "Mission: Impossible Fallout" and whose facial hair from that film had to be erased in postproduction. In the end, it was all for naught: The Whedon cut of "Justice League" was released in November 2017 to poor reviews and a box office total that came in well below both "Batman v Superman" and "Man of Steel." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
I've always envied those who find peace and grace when they swim laps. My relationship with the pool has been more warlike. I was a sprinter in my heyday, and a good one. My sole reason for swimming was to finish before anyone else. Fast twitch muscles and razor sharp focus propelled me into a scholarship to swim for the University of South Florida, 17 All American titles, a national championship and a qualifying time for the 1988 Olympic trials. When a rotator cuff tear and shoulder surgery ended my swimming career after my graduation from college, I felt like Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid when she became a land creature: uncomfortable and uneasy. Still, I managed to redirect all my adrenaline seeking energy into other pursuits. I spent the next three decades working as a freelance writer for newspapers from Abu Dhabi to Seoul, and as a swim coach for collegiate teams from Vermont to Virginia, with short volunteer stints with the Singapore National Team and a women's club program in the Middle East. I got married, had a child. I was crossing a lot of oceans during those years, but I mostly stayed out of the water. When people asked me why I didn't swim anymore, I generally lashed out: I never swam to relax. Until this year, my 50th, when I started swimming again. I had to be at the pool anyway for my 12 year old son's practice with his YMCA team in Vermont, so, I told myself, why not make the most of my time? I started slow, a speed heretofore unknown to me. My strokes, once renowned for their length and leverage, were weak and inefficient. Even more bothersome to me was that a handful of other middle aged women were passing me in the lap lanes. I was a long way from the athlete who had dominated the sport in Florida back in the mid 80s. How long would it take until I got her back? The answer wasn't going to be 23.69 seconds, which had been my best time in the 50 yard freestyle. I lived and died by the clock in those days, every minute of my life relentlessly timed, including trips to the grocery store and breaks for sex. After two months of swimming twice a week with the masters program at the YMCA, I was able to complete 3,000 yards in an hourlong workout. I was surprised by how good it felt to smell chlorine on my skin and to see goggle marks around my eyes. But could I race? There was only one way to find out. I signed up to compete in a masters swim meet choosing the shortest distance, 25 meters, in my best event, the freestyle. Essentially, I'd be swimming one length of the pool for the title of fastest 50 to 54 year old woman in Vermont. And suddenly I was 18 years old again on a pool deck, in a skintight Speedo, with a heat sheet in my hand. I hastily scanned the stapled papers for my seeding in the race and laughed mightily at what I discovered. I had inadvertently entered 38 seconds a rather conservative time for a race of 50 meters, which was twice the distance I'd actually be swimming. As a result, I was seeded all by my lonesome in the first heat. "Talk about nothing to lose," I told my son, who'd come to watch me race. When race officials announced that participants could change their seed times before the meet got underway, I ran to the desk waving my pen to slash the error. "I entered the time for a 50," I said. "My 25 free is probably around 18 seconds." The revised heat sheet put me in a middle group, with actual people to beat in the one length dash. When the time came to race, I took my spot on the starting block. I steadied myself as I bent over to grab the front, making every effort not to jump the gun quite unlike my former lightning fast reflexed self who readily teetered on the brink of disqualification for a chance to be the first swimmer in the water. Yet, I still had every intention of being first to arrive at the other end of the pool. Diving in, I felt the water rush over my chest, then push my swimsuit down to expose my left breast. But instead of freaking out, which is what I certainly would have done in my college years, I actually laughed underwater. My battle with the water persists, I told myself, just in a new form. I devoted my first awkward stroke to pulling my suit back up as the swimmers around me pulled ahead. I tried to find a rhythm in the water, even though it felt more like sand slipping through my hands. I'd planned not to take a breath for the entire length, but wound up taking three. Before I knew it, the race was over. My timer said I'd clocked in at 15.39 seconds my speed as a 10 year old girl. I broke into a big grin anyway. It turned out I'd reached the wall first in my heat, even after my awkward start. My performance, I later learned, even ended up breaking the meet record for the race in my age group, ranking me in the top five in the country for masters swimming. Even more remarkably, I felt as if I'd finally reached a truce between my sport and myself. I was back where I belonged at home in the water, content with the fight. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Well |
LONDON In the 1980s, Nathan Coley became transfixed by the Glasgow School of Art's main building, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Mr. Coley was an awkward teenager who stood out at his high school because of both his 6 foot 2 height and his interest in art. The building offered an escape. "I knew of this strange, romantic building on the hill, and the idea of studying in it was such a powerful promise the idea that you could go through those beautiful wooden doors and be transported into another world," Mr. Coley, today a Turner Prize nominated artist, said in a telephone interview. As a teenager, he went through those doors for Saturday morning drawing classes. Then he got in to study a degree. It changed his life. Mr. Coley started crying as he recalled his time in the building he loved "I'm not ashamed of you writing I'm crying, as I am" because it is now in danger of being lost forever. On Friday, a large fire ripped through the school, leaving it gutted. The building was coming toward the end of a restoration that cost 35 million British pounds (about 46 million) following a previous fire four years ago. An investigation into the cause of Friday's blaze is underway, according to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, which said no casualties were reported. The 2014 fire was caused by gases from a student artist's canister of expanding foam. The school's Art Nouveau building has long been seen as a gem of world architecture, especially its library, which was filled with ornate carving reminiscent of Japan as much as Scotland. Students there have included the artist David Shrigley; several Turner Prize winners, including Simon Starling and Douglas Gordon; and musicians including Robert Hardy of the indie band Franz Ferdinand. The fresh damage is being deplored by architects and politicians, with questions being asked about how the fire could happen in a closed site, but some alumni described the emotional loss as just as significant. "Everyone says it was an eccentric building, but my memory is it was deeply romantic," Mr. Coley said. "In cold, northern, industrial Glasgow, it's very unusual for anyone to be deeply romantic, let alone a building." "I feel personally bereaved," she added. "I feel a great sense of grief. Of course a building isn't a person, but this is a huge loss to me and to the city." She was struggling to take in what had happened. "Is there a demon that wants to destroy the art school?" she said. Ms. Lochhead studied painting and drawing, but she also wrote initial drafts of her first poetry collection in the library. She said she did not appreciate what a masterpiece of design it was until one day the room was inundated by Japanese historians who were filming a documentary: "I saw them and suddenly went, 'Oh, wow.' I remember the penny dropping." "It's like New York without the Chrysler Building," Ms. Lochhead said. "It's like Paris without the Eiffel Tower. It's like London without Big Ben. You can't underestimate its importance to the city of Glasgow." Stuart Robertson, director of the Glasgow based Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society, said it was hard to put into words how he felt. "You feel like someone's pulled your heart out," he said. He felt lucky to have been occupied with interviews on the morning after the fire. "It was therapy for me being asked so many questions," he said. The fire was particularly hard to take as it came just days after the society had celebrated the 150th anniversary of Mackintosh's birth. The restoration of the art school was to be completed next year, and the mood around the anniversary was exuberant. Mr. Robertson said the building always surprised people, no matter how much they learned about it. "You go around, and things appear you didn't notice before," he said, speaking in the present tense as if the damage had not occurred. "Someone said you didn't need to go to the school, the building told you everything you need to know about art and architecture." Mr. Gordon, who won the Turner Prize in 1996, studied at the school in the 1980s. "All the professors were smoking, and all the students were smoking, and there was this joke that it was a bit of a tinderbox and yet it survived," he said. "Ironically, as soon as the health and safety brigade came, it went wrong." He loved the library: "It was a little oasis of space and time that could take you out of the everyday and into the special, the place where ideas happen." But he said the best part of the building was how Mackintosh had filled it with twists and turns, a series of villages that you would discover by accident. "It provided you with opportunities for fantasy," he added. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
In March, the French rapper Medine released "Bataclan," a song about how, ever since he was a boy, he had dreamed of playing the Paris music venue, where 89 people died in a deadly terrorist attack in 2015. When he announced a show there in October, it quickly sold out. A second date was added. On Saturday, however, a member of the far right National Rally party previously called the National Front launched a petition calling for the concerts to be canceled. The petition says it would be "the height of indecency" for Medine to perform at the Bataclan, adding that the Muslim rapper was known for "violent lyrics in the name of Islam." The petition, which had over 15,000 signatures on Monday morning, cites Medine's 2015 song "Don't Laik," which includes the line "I put fatwas on the heads of idiots." The petition also mentions photographs of Medine wearing a T shirt that features the word "Jihad," the name of an album he released in 2005. While the lyrics of the song itself are not threatening, the petition acknowledges, wearing a T shirt with that word is "shocking and aggressive." Medine has repeatedly criticized Islamic fundamentalism and objected to the divisions that both Islamists and the far right have stirred in France. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
When Report Cards Go Out on Fridays, Child Abuse Increases on Saturdays, Study Finds Report card day can provoke anxiety and dread among students. It may also lead some of them to fear for their physical well being. A new study found a nearly fourfold increase in confirmed reports of child abuse on the Saturdays immediately after the distribution of report cards at Florida public schools. The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics on Monday, focused on children ages 5 to 11 and relied on reports called in to the Florida Department of Children and Families abuse hotline during the 2015 16 academic year. Melissa A. Bright, the lead author of the study, said the idea for the research arose from the personal accounts of pediatricians and teachers who saw a pattern of abuse shortly after report cards were released. Dr. Bright, a researcher at the University of Florida who focuses on child maltreatment, said some teachers told her they worried about some of their students after grades were distributed. Dr. Randell C. Alexander of Jacksonville, Fla., a pediatrician who specializes in treating victims of abuse, said that for years he and his colleagues had heard children recount episodes of violence arising from unsatisfactory grades. They would see children with black eyes, marks from belts and electrical cords, and at times more serious injuries, he said. "When you say, 'How did you get it?,' they say it's because of their report card," said Dr. Alexander, an author of the study and the chief of the child protection and forensic pediatrics division of the University of Florida's College of Medicine, Jacksonville. When doctors asked parents why they hit their children, sometimes they would answer, "Because they got a C," he said. Researchers set out to collect data that could shed light on whether there were patterns in the timing of the abuse. "We know a lot about what predicts child abuse," Dr. Bright said. "But we don't know when. If we have a better idea of when child abuse happens, then we can target our prevention efforts more effectively." Researchers were surprised to find an association between verified reports of abuse and report cards only when the grades were released on a Friday. On weekdays, caregivers may have been too "distracted" to punish their children, researchers speculated. Dr. Bright added that children might have been spared punishments on weekdays because they would be attending school the next day, and teachers are legally bound to report evidence of abuse. Alcohol use by caregivers on weekends might also have played a role, she added. The link cited in the study was by no means definitive, however. Researchers did not seek to verify that a disappointing report card was the direct cause of instances of documented abuse, or to narrow down the child abuse cases only to students attending public schools. The study also looked only at public schools that distribute paper report cards, excluding potential reactions from caregivers who looked at grades online. And, of course, the data excluded instances of child abuse that went unreported. The study analyzed 1,943 verified abuse cases called in to the hotline from the 64 counties that publicly released their report card distribution days, which typically occur four times a year. Of the counties researchers tracked, Fridays were the most popular day to release report cards, accounting for about 31 percent. In the period covered by the study, the hotline received more than 167,000 calls regarding children in the specified age range, but only about 7 percent of the calls were verified as physical abuse. "Physical abuse included physical injury, bizarre punishment, asphyxiation, burns, bone fracture or internal injuries," the study said. It focused on what researchers identified as corporal punishment that "crossed the line," Dr. Alexander said. Last month, the American Academy of Pediatrics released its most strongly worded policy statement yet on corporal punishment, advising parents that they should not spank their children because it is harmful and ineffective. In Florida, corporal punishment in the classroom is also a subject of debate. State law permits paddling students, but each school district can set its own policy. Researchers are planning more work to definitively explain the reasons behind physical abuse at home. This preliminary data gave educators and health care professionals the opportunity to try to reduce cases of child abuse, wrote Dr. Antoinette L. Laskey, the chief of the child protection and family health division of the University of Utah, in an editorial for JAMA Pediatrics. Dr. Bright said one practical solution would be shifting report card distribution from Friday to a day earlier in the week, giving teachers an opportunity to keep tabs on their students after they get their grades. But Dr. Laskey said that solutions needed to go deeper than just changing the calendar. Pediatricians and educators should be trained to talk with caregivers about supporting their children to work hard in school. "The answer is not spanking or hitting or whipping them," she said. "It's a healthier approach. It's talking with them. 'Why are you having trouble in school? How can we do better?'" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
ATLANTICS (2019) Stream on Netflix. This debut feature from the French Senegalese director Mati Diop won one of the top prizes at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Set in Dakar, the film centers on Ada (Mama Sane), a young woman with a problem: She's in love with Souleiman (Ibrahima Traore), a construction worker, but she's engaged to a businessman. The plot kicks off when Souleiman unexpectedly sets off on a boat bound for Spain. "It's around this point that 'Atlantics' transforms itself, almost imperceptibly, into something entirely different from what it had seemed to be," A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The New York Times. "Without letting go of its grounding in the lives and desires of its characters, especially Ada, it becomes an unusual kind of ghost story, more unnerving than terrifying, a supernatural fable of resistance and revenge." HARLEY QUINN Stream on DC Universe. The DC Comics super villain Harley Quinn will return in the flesh early next year in the live action movie "Birds of Prey." In the meantime, comic fans can turn to this new, adult aimed animated series, in which that supervillain the sometimes sidekick to the Joker is voiced by Kaley Cuoco. Lake Bell, Alan Tudyk, J.B. Smoove and other big names also lend their pipes. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
Speak Into My Wrist The Apple Watch was released on Friday and the device is a target for many travel apps. Some are betting the smart watch will be convenient for translation. (The Economist) Be Careful Where You Twerk Three Russian women were sentenced to short periods of administrative arrest for taking part in a video that featured the suggestive dance move in the foreground of a World War II monument in the city of Novorossiysk near the Black Sea. The parents of one dancer who is still a minor were charged with "failing to perform parental duties for raising minors." (The Guardian) Behave The Chinese government wants its people to be more polite when they travel abroad. Chinese tourists spent 500 billion last year but seem to have amassed a bad reputation along the way. To improve the image, guidelines that require a monitor for big groups are taking shape. (Financial Times) Seeking More Than Just a Getaway "Spiritual Tourism" is on the rise and travel companies are shaping more faith based pursuits. Baby boomer believers with free time as well as a broad existential curiosity may be pushing the trend. (The Boston Globe) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
A roundup of automotive news from around the web: Popular Mechanics chose the redesigned 2014 Mazda 6 as its car of the year. Technology options, advanced fuel economy and good handling characteristics had the publication rooting for this offering from Mazda, the independent underdog of Japanese auto manufacturing. (Popular Mechanics) Porsche Cars North America, which is based in Atlanta, filed a lawsuit against Champion Porsche in Pompano Beach, Fla., accusing the dealership of upsetting a marketing plan for the introduction of 2014 and 2015 Porsche vehicles when it recorded trade secrets during a conference in Atlanta. (The Atlanta Journal Constitution) In advance of its official debut at the Los Angeles Auto Show next week, Chevrolet released some details about the 2015 Colorado pickup. Production of the Colorado and its GMC counterpart, the Canyon was halted after the 2012 model year. The new Colorado will be based on a global midsize truck platform, but the pickup will be exclusive to North America. (Automobile Magazine) The 2015 Subaru WRX will also be unveiled in Los Angeles next week, but the automaker has kept quiet about the car's specifications. According to a report from Autoweek, there is speculation that the all new WRX will feature tamer styling than the WRX Concept introduced at the New York auto show in March. (Autoweek) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
'ARTISTIC LICENSE: SIX TAKES ON THE GUGGENHEIM COLLECTION' at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (through Jan. 12). Displays that artists select from a museum's collection are almost inevitably interesting, revealing and valuable. After all, artists can be especially discerning regarding work not their own. Here, six artists Cai Guo Qiang, Paul Chan, Richard Prince, Julie Mehretu, Carrie Mae Weems and Jenny Holzer guided by specific themes, have chosen, which multiplies the impact accordingly. With one per ramp, each selection turns the museum inside out. The combination sustains multiple visits; the concept should be applied regularly. (Roberta Smith) 212 423 3840, guggenheim.org 'AUSCHWITZ. NOT LONG AGO. NOT FAR AWAY' at the Museum of Jewish Heritage (through Jan. 3). Killing as a communal business, made widely lucrative by the Third Reich, permeates this traveling exhibition about the largest German death camp, Auschwitz, whose yawning gatehouse, with its converging rail tracks, has become emblematic of the Holocaust. Well timed, during a worldwide surge of anti Semitism, the harrowing installation strives, successfully, for fresh relevance. The exhibition illuminates the topography of evil, the deliberate designing of a hell on earth by fanatical racists and compliant architects and provisioners, while also highlighting the strenuous struggle for survival in a place where, as Primo Levi learned, "there is no why." (Ralph Blumenthal) 646 437 4202, mjhnyc.org 'PIERRE CARDIN: FUTURE FASHION' at the Brooklyn Museum (through Jan. 5). He was never a great artist like Dior, Balenciaga or Saint Laurent, but Pierre Cardin still at work at 97 pioneered today's approach to the business of fashion: take a loss on haute couture, then make the real money through ready to wear and worldwide licensing deals. He excelled at bold, futuristic day wear: belted unisex jumpsuits, vinyl miniskirts, dresses accessorized with astronaut chic Plexiglas helmets. Other ensembles, especially the tacky evening gowns souped up with metal armature, are best ignored. All told, Cardin comes across as a relentless optimist about humanity's future, which has a certain retro charm. Remember the future? (Jason Farago) 718 638 5000, brooklynmuseum.org 'ELECTIVE INFINITIES: EDMUND DE WAAL' at the Frick Collection (through Nov. 17). How does a contemporary artist enter a scene as formidable as Henry Frick's Gilded Age mansion? For de Waal, the English ceramist and author of the acclaimed family memoir "The Hare With Amber Eyes," the answer is with modesty. Only as you follow de Waal's site specific installations in nine of the museum's galleries does his own restrained music begin to ring out. Below Ingres's dangerously seductive "Comtesse d'Haussonville," he installs little strips of solid gold leaning against two huddles of white porcelain; in the richly appointed West Gallery, two pairs of overlapping flat screen shaped glass boxes ("From Darkness to Darkness" and "Noontime and Dawntime") distill the experience of being overwhelmed by painted imagery into a lucid kind of serenity. (Will Heinrich) 212 288 0700, frick.org 'THE JIM HENSON EXHIBITION' at the Museum of the Moving Image (ongoing). The rainbow connection has been established in Astoria, Queens, where this museum has opened a new permanent wing devoted to the career of America's great puppeteer, who was born in Mississippi in 1936 and died, too young, in 1990. Henson began presenting the short TV program "Sam and Friends" before he was out of his teens; one of its characters, the soft faced Kermit, was fashioned from his mother's old coat and would not mature into a frog for more than a decade. The influence of early variety television, with its succession of skits and songs, runs through "Sesame Street" and "The Muppet Show," though Henson also spent the late 1960s crafting peace and love documentaries and prototyping a psychedelic nightclub. Young visitors will delight in seeing Big Bird, Elmo, Miss Piggy and the Swedish Chef; adults can dig deep into sketches and storyboards and rediscover some old friends. (Farago) 718 784 0077, movingimage.us 'ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER' at the Neue Galerie (through Jan. 13). You could be forgiven for drawing a connection between Kirchner's shocking color palette and his character. It would be understandable enough, considering his problems with morphine, Veronal and absinthe; the nervous breakdown precipitated by his artillery training in World War I; and his suicide in 1938, at the age of 58, after the Nazis had denounced him as a degenerate. But to linger on Kirchner's lurid biography would be unfair to the mesmerizing technical genius of his style, amply on display in this exhibition. Surrounding more or less sober portrait subjects with backgrounds of flat but brilliant color, as Kirchner did, wasn't just a youthful revolt against the staid academic painting he grew up with. It was also an ingenious way to articulate subjective experience in an increasingly materialist modern world. (Heinrich) neuegalerie.org 'ALICJA KWADE: PARAPIVOT' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Oct. 27). This shrewd and scientifically inclined artist, born in Poland and based in Berlin, has delivered the best edition in five years of the Met's hit or miss rooftop sculpture commission. Two tall armatures of interlocking steel rectangles, the taller of them rising more than 18 feet, support heavy orbs of different colored marble; some of the balls perch precariously on the steel frames, while others, head scratchingly, are squinched between them. Walk around these astral abstractions and the frames seem to become quotation marks for the transformed skyline of Midtown; the marbles might be planets, each just as precarious as the one from which they've been quarried. (Farago) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'SIMONE LEIGH: LOOPHOLE OF RETREAT' at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (through Oct. 27). Leigh's sensuous, majestic sculptures of black female figures fuse the language of African village architecture and African American folk art, and sometimes racial stereotypes, like the "mammy" figurines produced and collected in earlier eras in America. Sculpture is only one part of the practice that earned Leigh the Hugo Boss Prize 2018, but it is the one that inspired this show of three large objects in a gallery off the rotunda. The title comes from the writings of Harriet Jacobs, an enslaved woman who spent seven years hiding in a crawl space to escape her master's advances. In the exhibition, the "loophole" becomes a kind of artistic conceit, too, in which Leigh moves deftly between mediums, styles and messages, addressing multiple audiences but always, as she has stated, black women. For Leigh, loopholes might include representations of women that link back to ancestors or empower women by drawing on the freedom available through art. In that sense, these sculptures are sentinels, and placeholders. (Martha Schwendener) 212 423 3840, guggenheim.org 'THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ALVIN BALTROP' at the Bronx Museum of the Arts (through Feb. 20). New York City is a gateway for new talent. It's also an archive of art careers past. Some come to light only after artists have departed, as is the case with Baltrop, an American photographer who was unknown to the mainstream art world when he died in 2004 at 55, and who now has a bright monument of a retrospective at this Bronx museum. That he was black, gay and working class accounts in part for his invisibility, but so does the subject matter he chose: a string of derelict Hudson River shipping piers that, in the 1970s and '80s, became a preserve for gay sex and communion. In assiduously recording both the architecture of the piers and the amorous action they housed, Baltrop created a monument to the city itself at the time when it was both falling apart and radiating liberationist energy. (Holland Cotter) 718 681 6000, bronxmuseum.org Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead. 'NATURE: COOPER HEWITT MUSEUM DESIGN TRIENNIAL' at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (through Jan. 20). Plastics transformed the material world after World War II. Today, they pollute our oceans. A better future will be made with ... algae. Or bacteria. That's the dominant theme of this sweeping exhibition. On display here at the Smithsonian's temple to the culture of design are objects you might once have expected only at a science museum: Proteins found in silkworms are repurposed as surgical screws and optical lenses. Electronically active bacteria power a light fixture. The triennial displays some 60 projects and products from around the world that define a reconciliation of biosphere and technosphere, as Koert van Mensvoort, a Dutch artist and philosopher, puts it in the show's excellent catalog. "Nature" provides us with a post consumption future, in which the urgency of restoring ecological function trumps the allure of the latest gadget. (James S. Russell) 212 849 2950, cooperhewitt.org 'NOBODY PROMISED YOU TOMORROW: 50 YEARS AFTER STONEWALL' at the Brooklyn Museum (through Dec. 8). In this large group show, 28 young queer and transgender artists, most born after 1980, carry the buzz of Stonewall resistance into the present. Historical heroes, including Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, are honored (in a film by Sasha Wortzel and Tourmaline). Friends in life, Johnson and Rivera are tutelary spirits of an exhibition in which a trans presence, long marginalized by mainstream gay politics, is pronounced in the work of Juliana Huxtable, Hugo Gyrl, Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski and Elle Perez (whose work also appeared in this year's Whitney Biennial). (Cotter) 718 638 5000, brooklynmuseum.org 'OCEAN WONDERS: SHARKS!' at the New York Aquarium (ongoing). For years, the aquarium's 14 acre campus hunkered behind a wall, turning its back to the beach. When aquarium officials last year finally got around to completing the long promised building that houses this shark exhibition, maybe the biggest move, architecturally speaking, was breaking through that wall. The overall effect makes the aquarium more of a visible, welcoming presence along the boardwalk. Inside, "Ocean Wonders" features 115 species sharing 784,000 gallons of water. It stresses timely eco consciousness, introducing visitors to shark habitats, explaining how critical sharks are to the ocean's food chains and ecologies, debunking myths about the danger sharks pose to people while documenting the threats people pose to sharks via overfishing and pollution. The narrow, snaking layout suggests an underwater landscape carved by water. Past the exit, an outdoor ramp inclines visitors toward the roof of the building, where the Atlantic Ocean suddenly spreads out below. You can see Luna Park in one direction, Brighton Beach in the other. The architectural point becomes clear: Sharks aren't just movie stars and aquarium attractions. They're also our neighbors as much a part of Coney Island as the roller coasters and summer dreams. (Michael Kimmelman) 718 265 3474, nyaquarium.com 'PUNK LUST: RAW PROVOCATION 1971 1985' at the Museum of Sex (through Nov. 30). This show begins with imagery from the Velvet Underground: The 1963 paperback of that title, an exploration of what was then called deviant sexual behavior and gave the band its name, is one of the first objects on display. Working through photos, album art and fliers by artists like Iggy Pop, the New York Dolls, Patti Smith and, yes, the Sex Pistols, the exhibition demonstrates how punk offered a space for sexual expression outside the mainstream. In the story told by "Punk Lust," much of it laid out in placards by the writer and musician Vivien Goldman, one of the show's curators, graphic sexual imagery is a tool for shock that frightens away the straight world and offers comfort to those who remain inside. While some of the power dynamic is typical underage groupies cavorting with rock stars images from female, queer and nonbinary artists like Jayne County and the Slits make a strong case for sex as an essential source of punk liberation. (Mark Richardson) 212 689 6337, museumofsex.com 'AMY SHERALD: THE HEART OF THE MATTER ...' at Hauser Wirth (through Oct. 26). The realist painter goes big with her New York debut, starting at the top of the gallery food chain, and confirming the talent that landed the commission to paint Michelle Obama's official portrait in the first place. But by limiting herself to fewer than 10 meticulously worked paintings, she also makes this art palace look less mercenary than usual. (Smith) 212 790 3900, hauserwirth.com 'STONEWALL 50 AT THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY' (through Dec. 1). For its commemoration of the anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion, the society continues with two micro shows: "By the Force of Our Presence: Highlights From the Lesbian Herstory Archives" documents the founding in 1974 by Joan Nestle, Deborah Edel, Sahli Cavallero, Pamela Olin and Julia Stanley of a compendious and still growing register of lesbian culture. And "Say It Loud, Out and Proud: Fifty Years of Pride" turns a solo spotlight on charismatic individuals: Storme DeLarverie (1920 2014), Mother Flawless Sabrina/Jack Doroshow (1939 2017), Keith Haring (1958 90) and Rollerena Fairy Godmother. (Cotter) 212 873 3400, nyhistory.org 'T. REX: THE ULTIMATE PREDATOR' at the American Museum of Natural History (through Aug. 9). Everyone's favorite 18,000 pound prehistoric killer gets the star treatment in this eye opening exhibition, which presents the latest scientific research on T. rex and also introduces many other tyrannosaurs, some discovered only this century in China and Mongolia. T. rex evolved mainly during the Cretaceous period to have keen eyes, spindly arms and massive conical teeth, which packed a punch that has never been matched by any other creature; the dinosaur could even swallow whole bones, as affirmed here by a kid friendly display of fossilized excrement. The show mixes 66 million year old teeth with the latest 3 D prints of dino bones, and also presents new models of T. rex as a baby, a juvenile and a full grown annihilator. Turns out this most savage beast was covered with believe it! a soft coat of beige or white feathers. (Farago) 212 769 5100, amnh.org 'VIOLET HOLDINGS: LGBTQ HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE N.Y.U. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS' at Bobst Library (through Dec. 31). With the Stonewall Inn now a National Historic Landmark (and a bar again; it was a bagel shop in the 1980s), nearby New York University has produced a homegrown archival exhibition at Bobst Library, across the park from Grey Art Gallery. Organized by Hugh Ryan, it takes the local history of queer identity back to the 19th century with documents on Elizabeth Robins (1862 1952), an American actor, suffragist and friend of Virginia Woolf, and forward with ephemera related to the musician and drag king Johnny Science (1955 2007) and the African American D.J. Larry Levan (1954 92), who, in the 1980s, presided, godlike, at a gay disco called the Paradise Garage, which was a short walk from the campus. (Cotter) 212 998 2500, library.nyu.edu 'ILLUSTRATING BATMAN: EIGHTY YEARS OF COMICS AND POP CULTURE' at the Society of Illustrators (through Oct. 12). Batman turned 80 in April, and now the character is being celebrated with this visual feast of covers and interior pages, teeming with vintage and modern original comic art that shows the hero's evolution. The exhibition includes "Bat Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan," a display devoted to a Batman story originally printed in Japan, and "Batman Collected: Chip Kidd's Batman Obsession," featuring memorabilia belonging to the graphic designer Chip Kidd. (George Gene Gustines) 212 838 2560, societyillustrators.org | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
Some 66 million years ago, forests burned to the ground and the oceans acidified after the Chicxulub asteroid hit Earth in the Gulf of Mexico. Around the same time, on the other side of the planet, erupting volcanoes were busy covering much of the Indian subcontinent with lava, forming the Deccan Traps. One of these forces drove all dinosaurs except for the birds extinct, and opened the evolutionary door for mammals until, eventually, humans arose. In the geologic equivalent of a murder mystery, which calamity actually did the deed is a debate that stretches back decades. Now, it seems, the case may finally be cracked. The asteroid, according to a team of scientists, was the chief perpetrator, while the volcanism, driving climate change in the background, might have affected life's recovery in the wake of the impact. "A lot of people have wanted to argue that both the impact and the volcanism mattered in the extinction," said Pincelli Hull, a paleontologist and geology professor at Yale University who led the research, which was published Thursday in Science. "And what we're seeing is, it doesn't look like it. It's just the impact." "This is an elegant study that might finally untangle what happened at the end of the Cretaceous, when the dinosaurs died," said Stephen Brusatte, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh who was not involved in the research. The untangling began in 2012 when Dr. Hull set sail aboard the Joides Resolution, a research vessel, as part of the International Ocean Discovery Program. She and a team of scientists drilled into the seafloor below the North Atlantic and retrieved cores containing ancient ocean sediment. One of their cores came from sediment coincidentally close to the wreckage of the Titanic. Sediment can deposit as layers, which, like the pages of a novel, can hold clues that tell the story of what the ancient world was like. In this case, it was like flipping to the last chapter of the dinosaurs' story, and finding out whether it was the asteroid or the volcanism that triggered the Cretaceous extinction. Dr. Hull and her team drilled for layers that deposited around the time of the extinction. They knew those layers can preserve things like fossil plankton, which record information about global temperatures in the chemical makeup of their shells. For years, such volcanic driven warming seemed like a potential culprit because large amounts of lava erupted both before and after the extinction. With that idea in mind, Dr. Hull's team says that ancient temperatures should have been relatively high around the time of the crisis. "We put together a global compilation of temperature change," Dr. Hull said. The group found that global temperatures were much lower around the time of the extinction than they should have been if volcanoes were expelling large amounts of carbon dioxide. The volcanism, Dr. Hull explained, stopped seeping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere some 200,000 years before the Cretaceous ended and the age of mammals began. That means any harmful warming caused by carbon dioxide was already over by the time the asteroid hit. Volcanoes can erupt lava without emitting large amounts of gases, "suggesting carbon dioxide and lava aren't necessarily coupled," said Michael Henehan, a geochemist at GFZ Helmholtz Center in Potsdam, Germany, a co author of the study who led a team last year that discovered that the oceans acidified right after the asteroid hit. This volcanism induced warming, far removed from the extinction, casts blame squarely on the Chicxulub event. "I'm sure the debate will rage on, because there are entrenched voices on either side," Dr. Brusatte said. "But it's getting harder and harder to fathom that the asteroid was innocent." After the asteroid struck, volcanic eruptions in India continued. On land, mammals proliferated relatively rapidly on the scale of hundreds of thousands of years, according to recent research. In the oceans, it took about two million years for sea creatures like plankton to fully recover from the destruction. Dr. Hull suspects the ways in which life recovered on land and in the sea may have something to do with climate change driven by the volcanism that occurred after the extinction. But the precise reason for this isn't clear. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Billions of dollars looted from the public coffers. Scores of powerful politicians and wealthy businessmen ratting on each other in hopes of avoiding long prison terms. A small but valiant team of prosecutors and investigators trying to bring the white collar crooks to justice. Brazil's ongoing scandal, known as Operacao Lava Jato, or Operation Car Wash, is as perversely spectacular as the most extravagantly imagined crime novel or Machiavellian episode of "House of Cards." So it was perhaps inevitable that it would be turned into a Netflix series by the same director who made "Narcos" for the streaming service, no less. The result is "The Mechanism," whose eight episodes will be available beginning March 23. Like most of his 200 million countrymen, the Brazilian director and screenwriter Jose Padilha has been transfixed as the scandal has metastasized from a simple investigation of money laundering at a gas station in the capital of Brasilia into a national crisis that threatens the foundations of the world's fourth largest democracy. "The mechanism" is Mr. Padilha's term for a sweeping corruption and kickback scheme that, he argues, seized control of democracy in Brazil almost from its return in 1985, after a 21 year military dictatorship. He and millions of other Brazilians believe that politicians, bankers, businessmen and judges have conspired to steal vast sums from the state, regardless of who is in office. "The fact that the mechanism has no ideology is fundamental," Mr. Padilha said. "My thesis is that the mechanism operates in all elections at all levels of government in Brazil, everywhere. Companies that are big clients of the government, usually construction companies but also big commercial banks, finance them all, either legally or through secret slush funds." In return, whoever is in power "hires those companies to perform services, and the companies inflate the contracts heavily, with kickbacks either to individual politicians or their parties." Virtually all of the 20 odd parties with seats in the Brazilian Congress have been stained by the scandal, soon to begin its fifth year. One president has been impeached; her predecessor has been convicted of corruption and money laundering; and her successor is being investigated by the real life equivalents of the prosecutors and police officers that Mr. Padilha portrays. "Brazil is very interesting as a case study, in the sense that the corruption is not in the politics," he said. "The corruption is the politics." "I'm from the generation born during the dictatorship, when all of civil society was united in opposition to the military, so I've never experienced anything like this," said Elena Soarez, who wrote the script of "The Mechanism" with Mr. Padilha. "The country has been riven, with families divided and lifelong friends quarreling, and that makes this a special challenge to write." Rather than focus on politicians and business magnates, the series revolves around three fictionalized characters: a well connected and morally warped money launderer and two tenacious police investigators, an older man and a younger woman. Though the intricacies of the Brazilian legal and political system may not be familiar to foreign viewers, the series' political thriller format cast and creators referenced works like "All the President's Men," "Scandal" and "Three Days of the Condor" certainly will be, as will be the idiosyncrasies of the main characters. "I've always enjoyed watching noir detectives, and now I finally get to play one, a guy who is fighting against his external and internal demons," said Selton Mello, cast as the investigator Marco Ruffo. "Ruffo is an obsessive in a search for justice, an almost solitary figure amid the machinery of corruption, a kind of Quixote with a lot of personal dramas." Throughout his international career, which began in 2002 with "Bus 174," a documentary which used a bus hijacking to examine how Brazil's criminal justice system treats the poor, Mr. Padilha has focused on the related issues of crime, justice and violence. scrutinizing both those who mete it out and those who are on the receiving end. Regardless of where, what language or in what medium he has worked, whether in a pair of "Elite Squad" movies about SWAT like teams in Rio, his 2014 remake of "RoboCop," or in "Narcos," the police have always been central to the stories he tells. "For the state to sustain itself, there must be some repressive force that it manages and controls," he explained. "So the police are not a detail, they are an essential feature of any complex society. They offer a glimpse into all kinds of social systems, because they are very, very much on the edge, the fringe of society, where institutions meet." In "7 Days in Entebbe," a new feature film that opened March 16, Mr. Padilha offers a variation on some themes he first raised in "Bus 174," this time with a hijacked airplane instead of a bus. In the new film he shows not only the workings of the Israeli army and political establishment, but also the motivations of the terrorists who in 1976 seized an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris with 248 passengers aboard, nearly half of them Israelis or Jews of other nationalities, and had it flown to Idi Amin's Uganda. The Entebbe crisis ended violently, with soldiers of the Israel Defense Force storming an airport terminal and rescuing more than 100 of the hostages: All of the German and Palestinian terrorists were killed, as well as the leader of the Israeli commandos (the older brother of Israel's current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu), four of the hostages and 45 Ugandan soldiers. Though the Entebbe raid is often described as one of the most spectacular military missions of modern times, Mr. Padilha sees it as an ultimately Pyrrhic victory. "As soon as the operation succeeded," he said, "it played into the hands of people who thought that everything can be solved by violence," which in turn contributed to the persistence of conflict in the Middle East. "The Mechanism" tells a much less familiar story, but Mr. Padilha and his collaborators are convinced that the series, which contains an optional voice over in English and minimal violence, will travel well. As if to prove his point, during an interview in the lounge of a New York hotel last month, an American guest who had been eavesdropping and was fascinated by what she was hearing interrupted the conversation to ask Mr. Padilha the name of his series and when she would be able to watch it. "I can't wait to see it," she told him. "Corruption is a universal theme, and that is going to generate empathy everywhere," said Caroline Abras, who plays the police investigator Verena Cardoni. "People the world over, in all of the countries this is going to be seen, will understand what is going on." Of course, since Mr. Padilha wrapped the first eight episodes of "The Mechanism," the Car Wash scandal has taken even more unexpected turns, which he recognizes would be ideal fodder for future seasons. The generalized disgust with the political class, for instance, already seems to be having an effect on a presidential election scheduled for October. Possible candidates include a former army parachutist famous for his stridently alt right views and the host of a weekend TV variety show who has never held public office but has 13 million Twitter followers. "Nobody knows how this is going to turn out," Mr. Padilha said. "Brazil is at a crossroads, and everything is up for grabs. It's a crazy situation, but it's my role as a political filmmaker to tackle these issues." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
There's a line near the start of the new musical "The Lucky Ones" that's a deliberate hedge an explanation of the rules of the show that also leaves those rules a little murky. "This is a true story," Shaun Bengson tells the audience from the stage of the Connelly Theater in the East Village. "Even the parts that never happened." And with those words, Mr. Bengson and his wife, Abigail the other half of the folk rock duo the Bengsons, the indie theater darlings who created the show for Ars Nova attempt to draw a cloak of privacy around themselves and the people they love. Ms. Bengson, 35, has a tale to tell about the autumn she was 15, when her family shattered and the seemingly safe Eden she grew up in was lost forever. Yet she is terrified of compounding anyone's anguish. So "The Lucky Ones" is wounded autobiography veiled in fiction. Set in crunchy small town New England ("a part of Vermont that happens to be in Maine"), it's a follow up to "Hundred Days," a musical memoir of the Bengsons' beginnings as a couple that was a hit last fall at New York Theater Workshop. Like "Hundred Days," "The Lucky Ones" is directed by Anne Kauffman and has a book co written by the playwright Sarah Gancher, who is the Bengsons' neighbor across the hall in Ridgewood, Queens. In the new show, an extended family runs a school together, raising their children Abigail, her sisters and their cousins in a kind of hippie idyll. Then, in one cataclysmic season, it all falls apart, beginning with a killing that might have been prevented if only the parents hadn't been so committed to a you choose your feelings worldview that they dismissed the signs of mental illness in one of the kids. "It's possible that we have all been raised in a way that hurt us," Abigail says in the show. "And maybe hurt us so badly that we will hurt other people." Like Abigail, the character she plays in "The Lucky Ones," Ms. Bengson grew up in an extended hippie family that revolved around a school. In reality, though, the person in her clan who killed someone was not a blood relative but rather a person she had been raised to consider an older sibling someone she loved and admired, who "wrote strange and beautiful music," who claimed to hear voices and did as they instructed. This is the person, no longer institutionalized, whose life Ms. Bengson is most fearful of harming with "The Lucky Ones," an ensemble piece in which a cascade of events results in the dissolution of her family, including her parents' marriage. A large scale show with a chorus, it's intended as the second part of a trilogy that will continue with a musical about Mr. Bengson's early life. Critical reception of "The Lucky Ones" has been mixed, with Jesse Green of The New York Times calling it "a gawky, powerful work in progress," while Sandy MacDonald, in Time Out New York, found it "harrowing." Ms. Bengson is sure of her right to tell such a story onstage because it is a fundamental trauma of her past, overlapping though it does with other people's pain and struggles. Yet the acceptability of drawing bystanders into one's own art is one of the great ethical debates in any kind of autobiography. That's true even when you change names and details, and create what Mr. Bengson called "the novel myth version" of the story. "Is it possible to tell the truth kindly?" Ms. Bengson said. "I don't know. But it's what I'm trying to do." "One of my sisters, she said, 'Don't let your fear get in the way of the truth of this,'" Ms. Bengson added. "I know that in taking this on, I can't be meek, I can't glaze over, I can't allow fear or denial to be the story of our family, because that was toxic, too." Ars Nova, which also co produced "Sundown, Yellow Moon," a Rachel Bonds play with music by the Bengsons, has an estimable record with nontraditional musicals that includes birthing "Natasha, Pierre the Great Comet of 1812." It was the company that matched Ms. Gancher with the Bengsons several years ago. To whatever degree "The Lucky Ones" is fictionalized, she finds it "really lovely to be working on a true story." "I spend so much of my life making up characters or brainstorming situations or coming up with scenarios," Ms. Gancher said. "The beauty part of this is that any question that I can think of to ask, there's an answer to, and the answer is always weirder and more interesting and more surprising and sort of brighter than anything that I could make up." And she has a deep affection for the Bengsons. "They're people with a lot of pain and a lot of damage," she said, "but also a lot of strength and a lot of magic." They are also so intertwined, personally and professionally, that they share a bio in the program for "The Lucky Ones." "Is that gross?" Ms. Bengson asked recently, in the tone of someone checking to make sure she doesn't have lipstick on her teeth. "I recognize it's a little codependent." Mr. Bengson, 34, cracked up at this, seated beside her in the apartment in Alphabet City where they stayed through early previews, to be close to the theater. Ms. Bengson says that she and her husband are both "profoundly introverted," but you wouldn't know it from talking with them. He seems gentle, diffident but steely underneath, while there's a sparkle to her, and a healthy dash of punk spicing her earth mother serenity. Louie, their blond ringleted toddler, is a year and a half old, and Ms. Bengson throws up her hands at the challenge of not swearing in front of him. "He's going to be a pirate by 5," she said, and her husband laughed again. "But I can't stop. So, you're welcome, Louie." The Bengsons married 10 years ago, three weeks after their first date. Four years ago, shortly after they got the commission from Ars Nova that would result in "The Lucky Ones," Ms. Bengson had a miscarriage an event that "rocked us very deeply," she said, and "set us on this path of wanting to write about family and trauma." Part of that was an awareness, new to Mr. Bengson, of what a fragile thing a family can be. Part of it was a wish to examine how to go about making a family thoughtfully, unconventionally, as their own parents did even while aware of the unintended harm that parents can cause children in the process. At least at the start, they also nursed the naive wish to repair what had been broken in Ms. Bengson's adolescence "to Parent Trap the family," as Mr. Bengson put it. "Sometimes there are wounds so deep that they never all the way heal," he said. "And I really hoped that wasn't so." Some people in the family Ms. Bengson grew up in don't talk to one another anymore, but for the musical the Bengsons interviewed all of them including the older sibling, so called, who committed the crime. Those interviews became part of the piece. Primarily for ethical reasons, Ms. Bengson said, they did not contact relatives of the person who was killed. In her own family, opinion about the existence of the show is divided some of those depicted vehemently in favor, some opposed. Some have come to see it. The Bengsons' nightmare scenario is to have family drama break out in the audience, where they would have to witness it from the stage. A few performances deeper into previews, after they had moved back home to Queens, Ms. Bengson sat at their blond wood kitchen table, a plastic bag of old cassette tapes in front of her. Some of those tapes, she said, have been to prison and back cassettes on which her budding songwriter self set down in music the fraught emotions she couldn't speak. Her older sibling, so called, would respond with feedback on her craftsmanship that helped to shape her as an artist. "I'd be like, 'Hey, it's Friday,' talking about nothing, and then I'd sing this heavy piece of music, talking about everything," she said, and she realized that's not so different from what she's doing with the show itself. "I'm like, here I am, sending tapes to them, 20 years later." By "them," she means her family. A half hour into an emotionally delicate interview, there was a soft knock on the front door: Ms. Gancher, bringing over some eggs in the shell. "Thank you," Ms. Bengson said from the kitchen. "I'll eat those eggs. I love you so much!" "I love you, too," Ms. Gancher said, and exited. A while later, this cameo struck Ms. Bengson as curious. "I wonder if she really wanted to give me eggs, or if she just wanted to make sure I was O.K." Either way, the closest Ms. Bengson has felt to how she did before her family cracked apart is with the artistic family behind "The Lucky Ones," a show that allows her to spend time again in her childhood Eden, if only in her imagination. But she thinks of Eden now as a place you have to outgrow, accepting the complexity of life and the presence of darkness without fixating on the darkness. "The task, I think, of storytelling," she said, "is the reintegration of the dark and the light going back and saying, 'Yes, this darkness is here and it's true.' And, 'There was light on us once, and there will be again.'" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
For several years, wealthy New Yorkers, even those relatively unscathed by the financial crisis, seemed to put their second home dreams on hold. But as the real estate market in the city has strengthened, many of these high end buyers have started shopping for beachfront retreats again. The Albany, a luxury resort in the Bahamas with boldface names like Tiger Woods and Ernie Els for investors, hopes to capitalize on this latest trend. And for a direct link between New York and this development, Howard M. Lorber, the chairman of Douglas Elliman and the chief executive of the investment firm New Valley, is developing a midrise condominium there. This is the first time that Mr. Lorber, who is based in New York, is developing in the Bahamas and also the first time Douglas Elliman is marketing there. "This is New York in the Bahamas," said Horacio LeDon, a Douglas Elliman broker who is heading up the marketing effort for Honeycomb, the condo being developed by Mr. Lorber and the Tavistock Group, Albany's developer. Named for the geometric pattern of its facade, Honeycomb was designed by the Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, who also designed a pyramid shaped apartment complex being developed by Durst Fetner Residential on West 57th Street. The Honeycomb is expected to break ground this summer, and when it opens in the first half of 2016, each of the 34 apartments will have a private terrace with a pool. The units will range in size from 3,000 to 8,000 square feet, and will be priced from 3 million to 12.5 million. "The idea was to give each home a really generous balcony, including a small pool," said Mr. Ingels, 39, who founded the Bjarke Ingels Group, "so you can sit there almost as if it is an outdoor living room." The design is interlacing so that each pool seems to sink into the level below. "This distorts the regular rectangular facade into a pattern of interlocking hexagons that makes it look like undulating honeycomb and gives it its distinctive character," he said. The Honeycomb condominium will join three other new buildings, each by relatively well known architects, including Gwathmey Siegel Kaufman, HKS of Dallas and Morris Adjmi of New York. These buildings have already sold out and are expected to open this year. The condominiums cluster around the marina, which is designed to harbor extra large yachts, and to offer unimpeded views of the expansive ocean. The condominiums are part of the resort's master plan, by Andres Duany, who is perhaps best known as the designer of the planned community of Seaside, Fla. The resort, which opened in 2010, is named for Albany House, a historic pink mansion on the 600 acre property that served as the home of the arch villain Alex Dimitrios in the 2006 remake "Casino Royale," the James Bond movie. On the island of New Providence, and close to Nassau, the capital, the Albany has sprawling beachfront villas, multiple restaurants, a gym outfitted for professional athletes, a championship golf course designed by Mr. Els, and an equestrian center. The two golf superstars, Mr. Woods and Mr. Els, are the Albany's second and third largest investors. The owners hope that this next stage of the development will extend the Albany's reach beyond professional athletes, industry leaders and pop stars, to New Yorkers more generally. The Honeycomb will be one of four midrise buildings rising in a mini city within the community. As with the private homes that are part of the resort, the owners of these apartments can choose to put their units in a hotel system to rent them out. Prices per night on the homes and apartments range from 3,500 to 30,000. The largest shareholder of the Albany is the British billionaire Joe Lewis, who was ranked the 308th richest person by Forbes last year and who made a fortune betting on the currency markets with George Soros. The Albany broke ground in 2008, just as Lehman Brothers was collapsing and the financial crisis was taking hold. Many other resorts in the area that had been under construction at the time stalled, but the Albany continued to push ahead, buoyed by Mr. Lewis's deep pockets. Each of the 34 apartments will have a private terrace with a pool. Now that bet seems to be paying off. The resort is capitalizing on a resurgent interest in second homes among New Yorkers and wealthy Americans in general. "We are seeing an increase in American second home owners coming to the Bahamas, especially over the past six months," said Heather Lightbourn Peterson, a broker at Coldwell Banker in Nassau. Jonathan J. Miller, the president of the appraisal firm Miller Samuel and the author of research reports for Douglas Elliman Real Estate, said the trend began more than two years ago. "Luxury real estate is the new global currency," said Mr. Miller, noting that data on the trend were hard to come by, because in many vacation areas, public documents are not required. "Everything is anecdotal," he added. Mr. Lorber said he first visited the Albany in 2008, when Raphael De Niro, a broker at his firm and a son of the actor Robert De Niro, rented Albany House for his wedding ceremony. Last year Mr. Lorber returned to the resort and was amazed by the variety of amenities. "There were two beach clubs, one for kids and one just for adults," he said. "It was all very family oriented it was like a newer, hipper Lyford Cay." He was referring to the exclusive gated community on the island. Mr. Lorber said he had noticed that many of the original buyers were selling their homes for 50 percent to 80 percent more than they had paid just three years earlier, "and so I told them I'd love to have some ownership in the project as well as do the sales." It is the first time that the Albany's ownership has developed a building on the property with an outside firm. As for hiring brokers to market the units, "we have found that most brokers don't deliver," said Christopher Anand, the fourth largest shareholder in the Albany and a senior managing director of the Tavistock Group. "We have had very little help from outside agencies, selling over 150 properties mostly through our own networks of friends and acquaintances. But when you have skin in the game, where you are a shareholder as well as a broker, there tends to be a much greater rate of success." "The idea with having Douglas Elliman on board is that the New York buyer hasn't been addressed," Mr. LeDon said. "Wealthy New Yorkers have been going down to the Bahamas for quite some time, and all without any proper marketing. We aim to change that." From the perspective of the Manhattan market, in which many new residential developments are asking 7,000 to 8,000 a square foot, these oceanfront condos are relatively inexpensive, Mr. Lorber said. With closing costs and other expenditures, apartments at the Honeycomb cost roughly 1,600 to 1,700 a square foot. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
I enjoyed this year's revival twice as much, thanks not only to the danciness of James Levine's conducting. Other welcome new ingredients were the further British additions to the cast Toby Spence as Eisenstein, Lucy Crowe as Adele, and Alan Opie as Frank. I don't say this because I'm British, too; but these three, with long records of singing the English language, did so with flair. And Mr. Spence, whom I've only seen and heard before in serious roles, proved to contribute the best dancing of the evening; just the way he twirled his cloak in Act I while anticipating the frolics of the evening to come was delicious. Performances continue this week (Wednesday evening, Saturday afternoon) and next. Before the 2016 season takes off, it's worth drawing attention to some out of town rarities that may need advance planning. "Leap Before You Look," the exhibition commemorating artistic experimentation at Black Mountain College (at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston through Jan. 24), has a number of live dance performances; those on Jan. 21 and Jan. 23 24 include extremely rare choreography by Merce Cunningham. I reviewed in October Silas Riener's performance of "Changeling," a solo hitherto performed solely by Cunningham, in the years 1957 64; in December I saw the no less rare performances by students (taught by Mr. Riener) from the Boston Conservatory. The Conservatory's junior students include some exceptionally gifted dancers (they will be joined in these January performances by senior students). But the great draw are the dances, which include items that, though a Cunningham devotee since 1979, I have never seen in live performance. (Places, most of them standing or on the floor, are on a first come, first served basis; space is limited, and early arrival is recommended.) The special highlight is the duet from "Springweather and People" (1955), not complete but reconstructed from a film recently discovered by the filmmaker Alla Kovgan. (Excerpts from Ms. Kovgan's "Cunningham 3D," a film in progress of his choreography in 3 D can also be seen at the Institute for Contemporary Art.) Originally made by Cunningham for himself and Carolyn Brown, "Springweather" has a sequence that has haunted me since those December performances; let's hope memory has not played tricks. The woman, on flat foot, takes an arabesque (leg stretched behind her); the line of her neck, torso, and leg are like those of a swan swimming. Then the man joins her and protectively places his arm around her waist. The image seems romantically complete and then comes the unexpected, as she hops forward, eluding his grasp. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
The Met confirmed Mr. Terfel's withdrawal after he canceled two upcoming recitals in the United States. First the Lyric Opera of Chicago announced that he had withdrawn from a concert planned for Feb. 2, which was to have been his first appearance there in nearly 15 years. Lyric Opera said that he had "fractured the three prominences of his ankle, causing the ankle to partly dislocate and requiring a surgery scheduled for later this week." Then Carnegie Hall announced that his Feb. 9 date was off. The Met now has a hole at the center of one of its most important productions of the year. It is a high profile assignment: The new production is being directed by Francois Girard, whose striking 2013 staging of Wagner's "Parsifal" was widely praised. The cast of the opera, conducted by Valery Gergiev, includes the acclaimed soprano Anja Kampe, making her Met debut as Senta. This is not the first time Mr. Terfel's long delayed return to the Met has been postponed: In 2017, he withdrew from a new production of Puccini's "Tosca," citing vocal fatigue. He has not performed at the Met since May 9, 2012, when he sang the role of the Wanderer in Wagner's "Siegfried," in Robert Lepage's much debated, high tech staging. He has occasionally been seen in the United States since then he made a memorable appearance in the title role of "Sweeney Todd" with the New York Philharmonic in 2014, opposite Emma Thompson but he has confined most of his appearances in staged operas to European houses. He has also gone through a number of changes in his personal life, including getting married last year, to the harpist Hannah Stone. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night's highlights that lets you sleep and lets us get paid to watch comedy. If you're interested in hearing from The Times regularly about great TV, sign up for our Watching newsletter and get recommendations straight to your inbox. Officials said Saturday that the financier Jeffrey Epstein had committed suicide in his Manhattan jail cell, after being indicted last month for sex trafficking girls. On Monday, the late night hosts plunged into the conspiracy theories that have arisen since, including one involving the Clintons that President Trump retweeted. "This has set off a wave of wild conspiracy theories online. The sort of stuff that only unstable, tin foil hat loons could possibly believe. So, Donald Trump." STEPHEN COLBERT " Imitating Trump Follow me down the rabbit hole here, O.K.? Who had the most to gain from Epstein's death besides me, who is on videotape partying with him and young women? And who controls all federal prisons? The president Bill Clinton!" STEPHEN COLBERT "I'm not saying the Clintons don't have any power they could definitely get a reservation at any restaurant in New York City, party of four, 7:00. On a Saturday? Maybe not. But masterminding a scheme to assassinate a high profile prisoner in a maximum security federal custody? They couldn't even mastermind a visit to Wisconsin." STEPHEN COLBERT "Yeah, the president did this, which is pretty wild, because this is the type of moment where you would think the president would be the voice of reason. Instead, Trump is jumping into the fray. You know, he's basically that dad that when a fight breaks out in the Little League game, he runs into the field, but instead of breaking it up, he starts to body slam the third graders." TREVOR NOAH "Yeah, they weren't checking in on Epstein and took him off suicide watch. Why? Look, I'm not an expert on psychology, but if someone tries to commit suicide, I don't think two more weeks of jail would suddenly improve their outlook on life." TREVOR NOAH "Seems like everybody thinks that something shady happened here. People on the right were saying it was the Clintons who killed Jeffrey. People on the left were saying Trump killed him. Jussie Smollett says it was two white Nigerian guys." TREVOR NOAH "Former Vice President Joe Biden apologized this weekend after misspeaking at an event and saying, quote, 'Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids,' adding, 'Sorry, that came out gay.'" SETH MEYERS "That's what happens when you let him out in the sun without a hat. Even Kellyanne Conway was like, 'What?'" JIMMY KIMMEL "Oh, I don't know what's worse, suggesting poor kids are synonymous with black kids or trying to cover it up by listing as many kids as he could and hoping no one would notice. White kids, black kids, Asian kids, Cabbage Patch kids, Gap kids, New Kids on the Block." TREVOR NOAH "Well, at least he's saying this stuff by accident." JIMMY KIMMEL Jimmy Fallon and Kate Upton tried some moves from 1980s exercise videos. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
A panel discussion at the American Economic Association conference in Atlanta in January. The association has announced several measures to combat harassment and discrimination against women and minorities in the profession. Nearly 100 female economists say a peer or a colleague has sexually assaulted them. Nearly 200 say they were the victim of an attempted assault. And hundreds say they were stalked or touched inappropriately, according to a far reaching survey of the field. The results, compiled by the American Economic Association, also reveal deep evidence of gender and racial discrimination within the field. Half of the women who responded to the survey said they had been treated unfairly because of their sex, compared with 3 percent of men. Nearly half of women said they had avoided speaking at a conference or a seminar to guard against possible harassment or "disrespectful treatment." Seven in 10 women said they felt their colleagues' work was taken more seriously than their own. More than 9,000 current and past members of the association, both men and women, took part in the survey. And the results have jolted the group's leaders, who announced several measures on Monday to combat harassment and discrimination. The moves include the appointment of an ombudsman empowered to investigate complaints of misbehavior by economists, and the threat of professional sanction including the potential loss of prestigious awards for economists who are found to violate a new anti harassment code. Ben S. Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chairman who now heads the economic association, said he was "concerned and disturbed" over what the survey revealed. "It's bad for economics," Mr. Bernanke said. "It's very unfair to those who are suffering that discrimination, because economics is a fascinating and interesting and lucrative field, and we don't want to be excluding people for no good reason. We appear to be dissuading talented people from entering the field." The alienation is not limited to women. Among black economists surveyed, only 14 percent agreed with the statement that "people of my race/ethnicity are respected within the field." Gay and lesbian economists and others who do not identify as heterosexual were far more likely to report discrimination and disrespect in the field than heterosexual economists. Only 25 percent agreed that "people of my sexual orientation are respected within the field." Twenty percent said they had been discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation. "The numbers are very troubling," Ms. Yellen said. "What you see in this survey is just an unacceptable culture." The profession is grappling with mounting evidence of its problems with issues of race and gender. Economics remains dominated by white men, even as women have made substantial gains in other science and engineering fields. And a growing body of research finds that women in economics face discrimination when it comes to hiring, publication and promotion. Those complaints grew louder late last year after revelations that a Harvard University investigation had found that Roland G. Fryer Jr., one of the field's brightest young stars, had sexually harassed employees and created a hostile work environment. Shortly after accusations against Mr. Fryer became public, he was elected to the A.E.A.'s executive committee; he later resigned, but the association faced criticism for not acting earlier or more aggressively. Harvard administrators are reviewing the investigation's findings, and Mr. Fryer has denied the accusations. The association's actions on Monday are in part a response to the Fryer case, Mr. Bernanke said. The executive committee is proposing to allow it to remove officers or even expel members for violations of its code of conduct. That provision will require a vote of the membership. 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. Other changes will take effect immediately. The committee adopted a new policy on harassment and discrimination to supplement a code of conduct adopted last year. Members will have to certify compliance to be considered for leadership positions or awards. The newly created ombudsman position is an attempt to address a structural challenge: Instances of harassment and abuse often cross institutional lines. In an open letter to the economic association's leaders last year, a group of graduate students and research assistants called for a "discipline wide reporting system" to document abuse. Jennifer Doleac, a Texas A M economist, said students and other young economists deserved credit for pushing for change. Alice Wu, an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley, helped bring attention to the profession's toxic culture in 2017 with a thesis that documented misogynistic comments on an online message board. Heather Sarsons, then a Harvard graduate student, later that year published a paper showing that women get less credit for work they do with male co authors. "There's tremendous talent there that we still have a chance to keep in the profession," Ms. Doleac said. "I'm glad that they're speaking up and giving us a chance to do something." The 47 question survey was sent late last year to more than 45,000 current and former members of the association. The 9,000 who completed it, including more than a quarter of current members, represented a high rate for a voluntary survey. About a third of the respondents were women, about a fifth were nonwhite, and about 4 percent identified themselves as gay or lesbian. Economists cautioned that people could have been more likely to respond if they felt they had faced discrimination or harassment, and that as a result the survey might not be representative of the profession as a whole. But Marianne Bertrand, a University of Chicago economist who oversaw the survey as the head of a special committee on the professional climate in economics, called the results distressing. "The responses are sort of a mandate" for the association and economics departments to act, she said. If anything, the survey probably understates the problems. Despite efforts to reach former members, it left out many people who left the profession after facing discrimination or harassment, or who decided against becoming economists at all. "We're certainly surveying the winners," said Lisa D. Cook, a Michigan State University economist who is one of the field's most prominent black women. Ms. Cook said women, and particularly black women, had long felt that their ideas were being dismissed or that they were not being given the same opportunities as their white male colleagues. But she said she and her peers often pushed those suspicions to the side. "I'm just going to keep being nice and one day people will believe me," she said she remembered thinking earlier in her career. "I'm going to keep being smart, and one day people will believe me. I'm going to keep sending out these papers, and one day people will believe me." Indeed, the survey results also showed how harassment and discrimination ripple through the profession. A third of black economists said they had "not applied for or taken a particular employment position" to avoid harassment or discrimination. Nearly half of women said they had not presented an idea or asked a question at a conference or at their school for the same reason. Martha Bailey, a University of Michigan economist and a member of the A.E.A.'s executive committee, said she was one of them. She said the survey and a broader reckoning within economics in recent years had forced many women to confront the possible impact that sexism had had on them and their careers. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
SHOWTIME : The design of the Fisker Karma, a plug in gas electric hybrid, has changed little since its debut at the 2008 Detroit auto show. LOS ANGELES MOVIE critics are always a bit suspicious when they aren't allowed to preview a film until it's already in theaters. Does the studio know that it has made a stinker, and fears that bad reviews will warn the public away? I felt similar trepidation when an invitation finally arrived to drive the Fisker Karma. After all, this luxurious plug in hybrid like the Chevrolet Volt, it is electrically driven, with a gasoline engine that extends the range of its battery pack has been on sale since summer, with cars delivered to customers in December. What took Fisker Automotive so long to show off its pretty baby? The road to market proved bumpy, with the Karma arriving two years later than promised with a base price ( 103,000) some 20,000 over the original estimate. Along the way, Fisker got a 169 million start up loan from the federal government for the car, which is assembled in Finland. Another disappointment was the rather dismal fuel economy rating of 20 m.p.g., on premium fuel, when the internal combustion engine is engaged. But none of that seemed relevant when I was finally able to drive the Karma, unsupervised, on a recent bright afternoon here. Admittedly, I was at the wheel only long enough for initial impressions not the usual weeklong test drive but I was able to do whatever I wished. Alas, I had no chance to flaunt Hollywood's latest environmental status symbol by pulling up to the red carpet at the Oscars. At first sight, the Karma seems a concept car come to life and, in fact, it is. Little of the design has changed since it was unveiled at the 2008 Detroit auto show. This includes its low set body, its voluptuous curves and even its huge 22 inch wheels and tires. Those caused a bit of consternation for designers of the distinctive, intricate double wishbone suspension, but any problems they encountered seem to have been solved. Like the similarly sized Aston Martin Rapide and Porsche Panamera, the Karma is a fastback sedan masquerading as a coupe. It's a handsome disguise, though with its handlebar mustache grille it comes off as one fourth of a barbershop quartet. My drive was delayed over and over as passers by volunteered praise for its rakish style. The interior is appealing as well, but low key. The minimalist treatment is largely free of the usual array of buttons, switches and dials; those functions are mostly consigned to a 10.5 inch touch screen that looks like a complex Etch A Sketch. Paddles on either side of the steering wheel engage two driving modes: thrifty Stealth or rowdy Sport, which provides an assist from the gas driven generator. Two "hill" settings increase the degree of regenerative braking when you ease off the accelerator. The gearshift is a small cone shaped device on the center console. The driving position is comfortable, but the seats are snug even for adults of average size and weight. The low roofline results in blind spots. My 116,000 test car had the EcoChic package that includes textile not leather upholstery and salvaged wood trim. Though the Karma is made for the slim, the car could stand a diet; at 5,600 pounds, it weighs nearly as much as the mammoth Rolls Royce Phantom. Despite its aluminum components, the Karma carries the weight of batteries, electric motors and a gas generator. Although Fisker says the Karma's performance was benchmarked against comparable grand touring sedans, it is not an electrifying performer. In battery only Stealth mode, it accelerates to 60 m.p.h. in 7.9 seconds, on par with a Honda Odyssey minivan. The top speed in that mode is 95 m.p.h. Running on either battery or generator power, the Karma is driven electrically by a pair of motor generators between the rear tires; they deliver a little over 400 horsepower to the single speed limited slip rear differential. Torque is stated to be nearly 1,000 pound feet a rather stunning figure all available as soon as the car starts moving. When I started my brief drive, the electric range was shown to be 48 miles (the E.P.A. rates actual electric range at 32 miles), with 286 miles for the potential combined electric gasoline range. In three hours behind the wheel, I never fully depleted the battery. And while I covered 34 miles, the meters showed I'd used up 40 miles of range. The E.P.A. estimates the gasoline equivalent mileage when running on electricity is 52 m.p.g.e. But like the Volt, if your daily drive is less than 40 miles or so, and you don't engage the gas engine's assist before recharging, you may use no fossil fuel at all. It takes about six hours on a 220 volt charger to replenish the depleted battery pack. The gas engine never drives the wheels. When it is running, it acts solely as a generator to maintain the battery pack's state of charge. While the engine could theoretically recharge the batteries, it was not designed to do so, Mr. Fisker said, as that would increase the car's emissions. As it is, the Karma carries an unimpressive "ultra low" emissions rating, not the partial zero emissions rating of many conventional cars. Although engaging the gas engine is easy enough, I seldom felt the need. Though not necessarily nimble or light on its feet, the Karma has very responsive steering and solid grip. The turning radius is rather large, but the car carves a smart line through sinuous twists and turns. The Karma is eerily quiet, even when the gas engine kicks in. At low speeds, the car emits a low frequency sci fi noise as a pedestrian warning. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
For weeks, U.S. government officials and hospital executives have warned of a looming shortage of ventilators as the coronavirus pandemic descended. But now, doctors are sounding an alarm about an unexpected and perhaps overlooked crisis: a surge in Covid 19 patients with kidney failure that is leading to shortages of machines, supplies and staff required for emergency dialysis. In recent weeks, doctors on the front lines in intensive care units in New York and other hard hit cities have learned that the coronavirus isn't only a respiratory disease that has led to a crushing demand for ventilators. The disease is also shutting down some patients' kidneys, posing yet another series of life and death calculations for doctors who must ferry a limited supply of specialized dialysis machines from one patient in kidney failure to the next. All the while fearing they may not be able to hook up everyone in time to save them. It is not yet known whether the kidneys are a major target of the virus, or whether they're just one more organ falling victim as a patient's ravaged body surrenders. Dialysis fills the vital roles the kidneys play, cleaning the blood of toxins, balancing essential components including electrolytes, keeping blood pressure in check and removing excess fluids. It can be a temporary measure while the kidneys recover, or it can be used long term if they do not. Another unknown is whether the kidney damage caused by the virus is permanent. "The nephrologists in New York City are going slightly crazy making sure that everyone with kidney failure gets treatment," said Dr. David S. Goldfarb, chief of nephrology at the New York campus of the New York Harbor VA Health Care System. "We don't want people to die of inadequate dialysis." "Nothing like this has ever been seen in terms of the number of people needing kidney replacement therapy," he said. Outside of New York, the growing demand nationwide for kidney treatments is fraying the most advanced care units in hospitals at emerging hot spots like Boston, Chicago, New Orleans and Detroit. Kidney specialists now estimate that 20 percent to 40 percent of I.C.U. patients with the coronavirus suffered kidney failure and needed emergency dialysis, according to Dr. Alan Kliger, a nephrologist at Yale University School of Medicine who is co chairman of a Covid 19 response team for the American Society of Nephrology. Hospitals' "usual supplies are very quickly running out," he said. One doctor in New York City, who was not authorized to speak publicly, recalled anguished exchanges with other physicians last week. "You're yelling at them. You're telling them you don't have a dialysis machine to give them. You hear the intensity and the desperation in the other person's voice," the doctor said. "My job was hell." As the coronavirus spread rapidly in New York and in other cities, governors and mayors clamored for thousands more ventilators. But doctors have been surprised by the scarcity of dialysis machines and supplies, especially specialized equipment for continuous dialysis. That treatment is often used to replace the work of injured kidneys in critically ill patients. The shortages involved not only the machines, but also fluids and other supplies needed for the dialysis regimen. Having enough trained nurses to provide the treatment has also been a bottleneck. Hospitals said they have called on the federal government to help prioritize equipment, supplies and personnel for the areas of the country that most need it, adding that manufacturers had not been fully responsive to the higher demand. The fluids needed to run the dialysis machines are not on the Food and Drug Administration's watch list of potential drug shortages, although the agency said it was closely monitoring the supply. The Federal Emergency Management Agency described the shortage of supplies and equipment as "unprecedented," and said it was working with manufacturers and hospitals to identify additional supplies, both in the United States and overseas. "Everybody thought about this as a respiratory illness," said Dr. David Charytan, the chief of nephrology at N.Y.U. Langone Medical Center. "I don't think this has been on people's radar screen." The supplies allocated by manufacturers are insufficient, Dr. Charytan said, adding that the hospital switched to another type of machine when it couldn't get additional equipment it had wanted. "It just doesn't come anywhere close to meeting the need," he said. It's not yet known whether the organ injury results from the virus infecting kidney cells or is a secondary effect of critical illness or the increased tendency for blood clots to form in people with the disease. The volume of patients needing dialysis is "orders of magnitude greater than the number of patients we would normally dialyze," said Dr. Barbara Murphy, who is the chair of the department of medicine at Mount Sinai Health System. At her hospital alone, the number of patients requiring dialysis has risen threefold, she said. The shortages in the United States highlight a lack of planning among state and federal officials to ensue that "hot spots like New York are given preferential access given the sheer volumes," Dr. Murphy said. Dr. Murphy said areas of the country that are planning for a possible surge in the demand for ventilators "also need to think about dialysis" and a national distribution system. Hospitals are now pleading with the major manufacturers to send more supplies. As the coronavirus reached the United States, Baxter and NxStage, owned by Fresenius, placed limits on what hospitals could order to prevent hoarding. Dr. Michael J. Ross, the chief of the nephrology division at Montefiore Health System in New York, said he spoke on the phone last Sunday with leaders of a company that produces dialysis supplies, "expressing how critical a situation this was for our patients." The call was about getting more machines, filters, pre mixed fluids and tubing for continuous dialysis, he said. The shortage of dialysis supplies in New York City hospitals was first reported by Politico. The two main manufacturers of equipment and supplies for dialysis said orders were up fivefold, and that they were ramping up manufacturing as well as sending equipment and nursing staff to the New York region. Baxter, which is based in Illinois, said it also saw an increase in demand from China and Europe, and was flying in extra products from Europe this weekend. "The demand spike was so fast and so high," said Lauren Russ, a spokeswoman for Baxter. "We're doing everything we possibly can." On Friday, Fresenius announced it was creating a national supply of machines that can be moved from place to place. "We are committed to supporting hospitals with continuous supply, particularly in markets most heavily impacted, so that patients can get the care they need," said Bill Valle, the chief executive of Fresenius Medical Care North America in Massachusetts, in a statement. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York was asked at his briefing on Thursday about hospital reports indicating that dialysis machines were in short supply. Dr. Howard Zucker, the state's health commissioner, said "there are not shortages across the board," and Mr. Cuomo said that hospitals in need of equipment would get it. In a statement, Jose E. Almeida, Baxter's chief executive, said that the company was trying to prioritize the delivery of products "where they are most needed hospitals that are being overwhelmed by an influx of patients who are critically ill from Covid 19." At Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Dr. Donald Landry, the chair of medicine, directly contacted Mr. Valle of Fresenius when other efforts failed and the situation grew desperate. While Dr. Landry said he was appreciative that the company responded by sending more machines, supplies and dialysis nurses, he described the experience as a warning to better prepare. "New York City gave us a glimpse of when a system comes up right to the edge," he said. One problem with peritoneal dialysis in the context of Covid is that it requires putting a catheter in a patient's abdomen. That makes it difficult to use in those with failing lungs who need proning, a technique in which patients are rolled onto their stomach to help them take in oxygen. Some hospitals, including Montefiore, are placing the catheter toward the patient's side to help with the problem. Some hospitals are also struggling to find enough nurses and technicians to provide dialysis, especially after some who were most skilled at providing the therapy fell sick with the virus themselves. "We did lose nurses to illness," Dr. Murphy of Mount Sinai said. "We're just getting some of those nurses back, but it's been a challenge. We've exhausted every avenue that we have within the state with regards to being able to increase nursing." Doctors say they are wrestling with how to ensure that patients who require immediate care receive it while assessing whether others can wait. "Now we have to think harder about whether or not that patient truly needs it and can we manage them medically without dialysis another day so we can provide dialysis to someone who more urgently needs dialysis," Dr. Ross of Montefiore said. "Those are not decisions we like to make." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Created in 1909, Queens Plaza in Long Island City was intended as an attractive gateway to the borough for which it was named. But in more recent decades it became known as a haven for drug dealing and prostitution and as a filthy, noisy eyesore where pedestrians risked their lives as they tried to cope with multiple lanes of traffic. But Queens Plaza just across the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge from Manhattan has recently undergone a 45 million face lift, shepherded by the city department of planning and financed mainly with federal funds. Streetscape improvements extending from Northern Boulevard to 21st Street include new crosswalks, bike paths, sidewalks, a pedestrian walkway, timed traffic signals and a 1.5 acre park at the eastern end, which replaced a commuter parking lot. The long neglected salmon colored elevated subway train trestles have been repainted a less conspicuous dark green. These changes part of a long term effort to capitalize on Long Island City's proximity to Manhattan and abundant subway connections are paying off, most notably in the development of new apartment buildings and hotels. Since 2001, when a 37 block area of low slung buildings was rezoned to allow high rises, more than 5,000 apartments have been added or are about to be nearly half of them within two blocks of Queens Plaza, city officials said. Eight subway lines stop either above or below the plaza. Two hotels a 16 story Hilton Garden Inn with 183 rooms and a 31 story Marriott with 160 rooms and 135 rental apartments are under construction right along the new park, known as Dutch Kills Green. Situated near the intersection of Queens Boulevard and Northern Boulevard, the park has nearly 500 trees, a wetlands area and pavers that were designed to direct storm water to a variety of native plants, said the lead designer, Margie Ruddick, a landscape architect in Philadelphia. "We wanted to make it a real refuge not an urban edgy thing but a place where people would feel comfortable, a place that could become a neighborhood park, which it is," said Ms. Ruddick, whose projects include the park at Battery Park City. On a recent wintry day, several people were sitting on park benches checking their smartphones, oblivious to the cold air and the screeching trains. The plaza will never be a quiet oasis, but Ms. Ruddick said the trees and the park's three foot elevation next to the roadway help to buffer some of the noise. David van der Leer, the executive director of the Van Alen Institute, a nonprofit architectural organization that helped sponsor a design competition for Queens Plaza in 2001, said: "It's very important to create a calm environment. It feels like a much more hospitable place." Although Queens Plaza has succeeded in luring residential and hotel projects, it has been slower to attract new office buildings. Turning Long Island City into a central business district to rival Jersey City was a Bloomberg administration goal, but brokers who specialize in commercial real estate say that a significant influx of office tenants is still years away. "It's been more of a trickle than a flood," said John Reinertsen, a senior vice president at the brokerage firm CBRE, who is based in Long Island City. The mayor's administration suffered a setback in 2006, when the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company announced plans to move two thirds of its employees back to Manhattan from the Brewster Building on Queens Plaza North. Only five years earlier, the insurance giant had made a heavily subsidized deal to relocate to Queens, but company officials said employees were unhappy about the absence of restaurants and the distance from Manhattan. Just as Dutch Kills Green was completed in 2012, however, JetBlue opened a 200,000 square foot headquarters in the Brewster Building, a former airplane assembly plant. JetBlue is subleasing space from MetLife, which still has a presence in the building. Last year, MetLife acquired another subtenant, the advertising and public relations firm Publicis. Kenneth A. Siegel, the Jones Lang LaSalle broker who represented MetLife in the sublease deals, said the city's decision to spruce up Queens Plaza and the area around it, including nearby Jackson Avenue, was an important factor in JetBlue's move. "As we would go around the neighborhood, we would see some commitment to improving it; it was not like this was a forgotten zone," Mr. Siegel said. "The park and these other things made a difference in how they looked at the area." Mr. Reinertsen said Tishman Speyer, the New York based developer, had to work hard to find a tenant for its new glassy 22 story tower on Queens Plaza South, known as 2 Gotham Center. Now fully leased to the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the building was sold in 2011 for 415.5 million to H R REIT, a Canadian real estate investment trust. The tower was intended as the first phase of a 1.5 million square feet commercial complex to replace the decrepit Queens Plaza Municipal Parking Garage, but Tishman Speyer, which controls the rest of the site, has not disclosed any plans for it and declined to be interviewed. Mr. Reinertsen said rents would have to reach at least 45 a square foot for an office project to be economically viable. (Tenants pay around 35 a foot at the Brewster Building, brokers said.) Mr. Reinertsen said the neighborhood lost one of its best incentives when the Relocation and Employment Assistance Program (REAP) program expired last summer. Under this program, a tenant could get 12 years of tax credits worth up to 3,000 per employee. Though not yet an office mecca, Long Island City has experienced a boom in hotel construction. More than a dozen hotels have been developed near Queens Plaza, which is only one subway stop from 59th Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, and others are coming. A groundbreaking was held last month at Crescent Street and 42nd Road for a new 11 story Crowne Plaza, with 224 rooms. "Most of it really is there as a price alternative to Manhattan," said John A. Fox, a senior vice president at PKF Consulting, which specializes in hotels. He said that nightly rates are 50 to 100 less than Manhattan hotels of similar quality. Adrian Kurre, the global head of Hilton Garden Inns, said the new hotel at Queens Plaza North would cater to middle management business travelers, with the new park serving as a "calling card" to attract them. "Everybody's feeling really good about the supply and demand metrics for that market," he said. Residential developers are also upbeat about the prospects for Queens Plaza and its vicinity, where new buildings offer sweeping views of Manhattan and are equipped with amenities like movie screening and fitness rooms. A new 27 story building on 42nd Road and 27th Street, called 27 on 27th, was fully leased when tenants began moving in last March, said Douglas Patrick, an owner of Heatherwood Communities of Islandia, N.Y., the building's developer. Annual rents are about 45 a square foot, much lower than similar units in Manhattan, said Mr. Patrick, who expects to begin construction soon of another high rise rental building on 28th Street. Though residents now have to travel to buy groceries and other goods, more stores are likely to open once the neighborhood's population reaches a critical mass. A Foodcellar market will open this year at the new 42 story Linc LIC apartment building, at 43rd and Crescent Streets, in nearby Court Square, said the landlord, Justin Elghanayan, the president of Rockrose Development Corporation. Rockrose will eventually have four apartment buildings between Court Square and Queens Plaza. Mr. Elghanayan said Queens Plaza showed that even relatively modest changes that were not "utterly transformative" could have an impact. "They have laid out the canvas that all these developments are going to be painted on," he said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Trying to Disrupt the Auto Industry With The Onion's Help PAUL ELIO, the innovative engineer behind the commercial three wheel car, had only a vague sense of what he wanted from his namesake company's latest major advertising campaign. He did know, he said, that he wanted it to be laugh out loud funny. His model: the popular Kmart ad from 2013 portraying customers gleefully boasting, "I shipped my pants." "I watched that thing 10 times and laughed every time," Mr. Elio said. "That was genius." It seemed like an odd marriage for a burgeoning Louisiana based vehicle manufacturer that is trying to persuade potential buyers of its very serious effort to disrupt the auto industry. Mr. Elio, though, said that was pretty much the point. "It's who we are," he said. "We're very transparent. We're a little lighthearted. We're not stodgy old Detroit. Not that there's something wrong with that, it's just not who we are." Mr. Andrews said the goal was to raise public awareness about the company in the hopes of securing more reservations for its gas powered, two person, three wheeled vehicle, which will not begin production until 2017. As of July, about 55,000 reservations had been obtained, although Mr. Elio said that only about 6 percent of Americans had heard of the company. That needed to change. To do so, Mr. Andrews thought about tapping into the political environment that had become so feverish in the buildup to the coming presidential election. Instead of falling on one side of the spectrum, however, The Onion wanted to help viewers laugh at both. Its first 45 second commercial, which was unveiled via The Onion's website last month, and was shared on social media over the summer, features two men one dressed in red, the other in blue arguing over who should take the keys to the Elio. Their argument is spiced with political jabs at both parties. ("You guys have already driven the country into the ground for the past eight years," the man in red says at the beginning. "Give me the keys." Later, the man in blue says, "This thing doesn't come with a gun rack so you may not like it.") The message: No matter what their political leanings, drivers want to get behind the wheel of an Elio. "I don't think there's anyone doing anything like they're doing right now," said Dean Crutchfield, a brand consultant based in New York who advises young companies on marketing strategies. 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. Most brands, he said, are leery of doing anything political during an election cycle because they fear alienating any customers. Even an attempt at a playful ad is too risky for many companies. "It's so intense right now, and uptight and aggressive," Mr. Crutchfield said of the political climate, "to position a brand flat in the middle of that fight that makes it friendly and tongue and cheek, I think it does stand out." Mr. Andrews said deciding if the company was comfortable was not easy. One complicating factor is that The Onion tries to be provocative in its advertising. "We always push a little further than probably most brands are comfortable with, just to see how far we can go," said Julie Scott, the general manager of Onion Labs, The Onion's internal agency, which has worked with companies and products like Ford, Bud Light and Overstock.com. She added: "We are always trying to maintain the same level of satire and comedy that we would write for ourselves. We're always thinking about what our audience expects from The Onion. And we ask brands to work with us at that same level." The back and forth between Ms. Scott's team and the Elio marketing department as they hashed out a campaign created some sleepless nights for Mr. Andrews. Car ads, in general, tend to adopt a more solemn, serious tone (think Matthew McConaughey and those saturnine Lincoln commercials). The focus is on the vehicle and things like its attributes, performance and safety record. Elio's Onion ad makes only a glancing mention of its claims of getting 84 miles a gallon and its base price of 7,300. Moreover, Mr. Andrews did not want the pursuit of a new audience to come at the expense of the existing reservation holders, a majority of whom, Mr. Andrews said, are older men who tend to be conservative. An early idea involved a donkey and an elephant trying to squeeze into an Elio car, with the elephant ultimately crushing the vehicle and ruining the day. Mr. Andrews balked. "A little too much inciting our audience in a negative way," Mr. Andrews said, calling it too "Onion esque." Ultimately, though, the creative process took just six weeks until the first digital ads were rolled out in June. In September, the commercial appeared on one of The Onion's politically themed pages, and Mr. Andrews said there were continuing discussions about another topical video production ahead of the November election. Ms. Scott said that the most successful campaigns were generally the ones that were more willing to allow The Onion to do what it does best. "We know our audience," Ms. Scott said. "We know the type of content they expect from us. When the content feels native to the voice and comedy of The Onion, those brands outperform other brands who don't give us that chance to let The Onion be The Onion." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
Perhaps the night sky has been saved. SpaceX, the private rocket company founded by Elon Musk, announced changes last week to a constellation of tens of thousands of internet satellites it plans to send to orbit. The alterations could prevent these false stars from polluting our views of the heavens and interfering with the science of astronomy though issues remain for scientists to contend with. When SpaceX launched the first batch of its Starlink orbiters one year ago, it caused an outcry among astronomers. Each satellite reflects light from the sun down to Earth making them bright enough to give the sky a massive face lift, particularly if the company receives permission to send forth as many as 42,000 of them to provide high speed connectivity to customers all over the world. As SpaceX has launched hundreds of satellites over the past year, its engineers have worked with two groups of astronomers to darken the satellites. Although scientists cannot yet say whether these methods will be fully effective, they remain hopeful that this will make them invisible to the naked eye and greatly reduce their impacts on astronomical observatories. The first effort to dim the satellites came in early January, when SpaceX launched one with an experimental coating meant to darken the orbiter's reflectivity. Nicknamed DarkSat, the satellite was indeed darker but only slightly. Now, SpaceX will tweak the orientation of the satellites as they fly toward higher orbits. By making the solar panels edge on relative to Earth, each orbiter will reflect much less sunlight back toward the ground after their initial deployment, when they are brightest. Additionally, they will deploy a shield similar to a patio umbrella or a car sun visor which will block the light from hitting the highly reflective antennas in the first place. Patrick Seitzer, a professor of astronomy emeritus at the University of Michigan who has been running analyses of the satellites, is hopeful that the changes will make them invisible to the naked eye. That is a huge relief to astronomers and night sky advocates who initially worried that the moving lights of the orbiters would make it difficult to pick out constellations. The changes also address a concern about the future of advanced astronomical research. When Starlink initially began, astronomers worried that the satellites would interfere with the view of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, an American telescope in Chile that will scan the entire sky every three nights when it begins fully operating in 2023. At that pace, scientists will build a movie of the cosmos and hunt for anything that goes bump in the night from near Earth asteroids to exploding stars and much more. That information will then get sent along to every major ground and space based observatory alerting the entire astronomical community to new discoveries within 60 seconds so that they can follow up as rapidly as possible. Any threat to the Rubin observatory will therefore ripple throughout the entire field, and Starlink might have created such interference. Whenever a satellite photo bombs an exposure, it causes a streak of light. And if that satellite is sufficiently bright, it can create ghost imprints elsewhere because of effects on the telescope's detector. To bypass those ghost images, Anthony Tyson, a physicist at the University of California, Davis, and the chief scientist of the Rubin Observatory, and his colleagues have built an extensive algorithm. But it only works for faint satellites. With SpaceX's newest plans, he is cautiously optimistic that interference from Starlink satellites will become ghosts of the past. But the satellite streaks won't disappear from view. And as more and more launch, they will crowd the skies during the hours surrounding twilight and dawn. "That's a prescription for disaster," Dr. Tyson said, because that is precisely when astronomers search for Earth threatening asteroids. The Rubin Observatory will also study the universe's mysterious dark matter and dark energy. Both can be surveyed when invisible clouds of dark matter act to distort background objects, creating strange rings, arcs of light and magnified images. But those signatures look eerily similar to the artifacts created when scientists imperfectly remove satellites from their images, making it hard to distinguish between the two. Over the next year, scientists will further simulate these effects and see if they can somehow solve the issue. In some cases, they might have to throw away Starlink images "a worst case scenario," said Dr. Tyson, because of the missed discoveries and the science lost. But many see the latest changes as a step in the right direction. "The really good news is how cooperative and how aggressive SpaceX has been in trying to fix this problem," Dr. Seitzer said. "It should be the standard for all future spacecraft construction." The problem is that there are no regulations that control how bright or dim a satellite needs to be. "It's the Wild West in optical astronomy," said Joel Parriott, the deputy executive officer and director of public policy at the American Astronomical Society. And that has caused many to fret about other satellite operators that plan to crowd the skies. To date, the British company OneWeb has launched 74 satellites, but it was slow to engage the radio astronomers who may have been affected by its proposed constellation. Although OneWeb filed for bankruptcy in March and its future remains uncertain, other companies including Amazon, Telesat and Samsung could soon launch their own constellations. "There's no guarantee that these other companies are going to behave the same," as SpaceX, Dr. Parriott said. But Dr. Tyson is hopeful that this example can only help. "The fact that SpaceX has taken an attitude that they want to solve the problem sets a moral high ground for other operators to follow," he said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. To the Secret Service, he is "Mogul" and she is "Muse." Donald J. Trump and Melania Knauss met in Manhattan in 1998 and married seven years later. He was a real estate guy and she had curb appeal. In a new book about Melania Trump's life, "The Art of Her Deal," the Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan suggests Melania kept her mogul's flickering interest by being an apt pupil of his literary output, which now runs to nearly 20 titles. In "The Art of the Comeback" (1997), written with Kate Bohner, Trump said about women: "There is high maintenance. There is low maintenance. I want no maintenance." Melania took notes. She is a sphinx, with a rubber eraser in place of a tail. She didn't keep friends as she moved through the stages of her life: her childhood in the former Yugoslavia, her years as a model in Milan, Paris and New York. There were no bridesmaids at her wedding. She has declined to talk about her past except in generalities. She is so camera ready at all moments that a friend tells the author, "I don't even know if she goes to the bathroom." Melania's remoteness prompts a cri de coeur from the author. "In three decades as a correspondent working all over the world, I have often written about the reluctant and the reclusive, including the head of a Mexican drug cartel and a Japanese princess, but nothing compared to trying to understand Melania," Jordan writes. "Most people I spoke to would not speak on the record. Many in the Trump world are governed by NDAs (nondisclosure agreements). Some had been warned by lawyers, family members and others close to Melania not to speak publicly about her, and many would talk only on the same encrypted phone apps used by spies and others in the intelligence community. Old photos that were once an easy Google search away no longer pop up online." As a result, "The Art of Her Deal," a well reported book, can't help but seem lopsided. Trump world stalwarts such as Corey Lewandowski ("She has amazing political instincts"), Roger Stone ("There's nothing dumb about her"), Chris Christie ("If she's developed a trust for you, she is an extraordinarily warm person") and Sean Spicer ("She lets the president know what she thinks") are quoted fulsomely. The less obsequious comments mostly come from unnamed sources. Jordan has drilled down, though, and brings new information about this unconventional first lady to the surface. Jordan writes that Melania was renegotiating her prenuptial agreement during the 2016 campaign, and her husband's "Access Hollywood" debacle almost surely gave her leverage. These negotiations, Jordan says, and not the need to remain in Manhattan for their son Barron's schooling, were why Melania and Barron delayed moving to the White House. Want to keep up with the latest and greatest in books? This is a good place to start. None Learn what you should be reading this fall: Our collection of reviews on books coming out this season includes biographies, novels, memoirs and more. See what's new in October: Among this month's new titles are novels by Jonathan Franzen, a history of Black cinema and a biography by Katie Couric. Nominate a book: The New York Times Book Review has just turned 125. That got us wondering: What is the best book that was published during that time? Listen to our podcast: Featuring conversations with leading figures in the literary world, from Colson Whitehead to Leila Slimani, the Book Review Podcast helps you delve deeper into your favorite books. There is news on the tensions between Melania and Ivanka Trump. Melania has been overheard referring to Ivanka as "The Princess," Jordan writes. Ivanka, when younger, called Melania "The Portrait" because she spoke as often as one. Jordan underlines how fiercely Melania embraces her Slovenian roots. She spends much of her time with Barron and her parents. Barron speaks Slovenian and, like his mother, is a dual citizen he carries a Slovenian as well as a United States passport. "Trump has complained to others," Jordan writes, "that he has no idea what they are saying." About Melania's own visa and citizenship issues, and how she brought her parents and sister to the United States while her husband railed about "chain migration," there is much we don't know. It irks Melania to be considered fragile, Jordan writes. She encouraged Trump to run for president; she was not merely a leaf sucked along by the wind. She's been an influential adviser to him on certain issues, such as choosing Mike Pence as his running mate. She encouraged Trump to back down from the "zero tolerance" policy that had separated many children from their parents at the Mexican border. She's not always been a voice for moderation. She joined her husband in his "birther" attacks on Barack Obama. She has impugned the integrity of women who have accused her husband of sexual harassment and worse. Woe to anyone, the author suggests, who crosses her. While she was growing up, Melania's father was a trained mechanic who sometimes worked as a chauffeur. Her mother was a seamstress who clothed her daughter impeccably from the day she was born. Melania briefly studied in the prestigious architecture program at the University of Ljubljana before dropping out. Jordan pays attention to the many interviews Melania gave as a model and afterward, and catches her in many exaggerations, including the fact that she speaks many languages. She appears to speak only two. Mary Jordan, whose new book is "The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump." Jordan never quite finds a voice with which to tell this story. She doesn't have a strong point of view, and shies away from acute analysis. "The Art of Her Deal" reads like a very long newspaper article rather than a tightly wound book. The author bends so far backward to be fair to her subject that, at times, you fear she may need chiropractic help. Has Melania had plastic surgery? The author quotes one of her former New York roommates as saying she returned from a 1997 Christmas trip to Europe looking more buxom. That same former roommate told the author that Melania, in those pre Trump days, liked to watch "Friends," ate seven fruits and vegetables a day, didn't drink alcohol and walked with weights on her ankles to keep toned. Jordan confirms that the first lady and her husband sleep in separate bedrooms. He likes darkly colored walls and rugs; she prefers light ones. They rarely seem to interact. He uses Irish Spring soap. Jordan quotes Jay Goldberg, one of Trump's lawyers during his playboy days, as saying that Trump often spoke romantically about business but never about women. What made him happy, Goldberg said, was chocolate: "Give him a Hershey bar and let him watch television." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, signaled once again on Friday that the central bank was prepared to act if the economy continued to weaken, as yet another economic report confirmed that the recovery had slowed to a crawl. Mr. Bernanke made clear that while the Fed could take various steps, including large purchases of government debt, "central bankers alone cannot solve the world's economic problems." Speaking at the Fed's annual symposium here, he hinted broadly that political leaders had to take steps to tackle the deficit and the trade imbalance. Hours before Mr. Bernanke spoke, the Commerce Department lowered its estimate of economic growth in the second quarter to an annual rate of 1.6 percent, after originally reporting last month that growth from April through June was 2.4 percent. Economists had been predicting a steeper decline, and stock prices rose after the markets opened. While Mr. Bernanke announced no new steps that the Fed would take immediately, he said the central bank was determined to prevent the economy from slipping into a cycle of falling wages and prices, a situation he said he did not think was likely. Instead he predicted that growth would continue modestly in the second half of the year and pick up in 2011. Mr. Bernanke said the Fed, having kept short term interest rates at nearly zero since 2008, had essentially four options: It can purchase more government debt and long term securities. It can try to coax down long term interest rates by announcing its intention to keep short term rates extremely low for even longer than the markets currently expect. It can lower the interest rate it pays on the funds banks hold at the Fed. And it can raise its medium term target for inflation, which would discourage banks from sitting on their cash. Mr. Bernanke suggested that the first of those options was the most likely, and all but ruled out the last two. While the Fed committee that sets monetary policy was prepared to take new steps "if the outlook were to deteriorate significantly," he said, it "has not agreed on specific criteria or triggers for further action." As Mr. Bernanke's remarks were released publicly, stock prices immediately fell, a sign that investors were hoping for some concrete signs that the Fed would step in to try to bolster the economy. But as the market digested the chairman's full remarks, prices rebounded and the Dow Jones industrial average rose 164.84 points, or 1.65 percent, to 10,150.65. The yield on the benchmark 10 year Treasury note rose to 2.64 percent, from 2.48 percent. The revised second quarter growth data came after a week that showed that the economic retrenchment that began in the second quarter had spilled into the summer, with a sharp slowdown in new home sales and a drop in sales of factory goods. In his first public remarks since the Fed took a modest step on Aug. 10 to lift the economy a decision to invest proceeds from its huge mortgage bond portfolio in long term Treasury securities Mr. Bernanke tried in some respects to dampen expectations that the Fed could make significant headway against the economic sluggishness. Alan S. Blinder, a former Fed vice chairman and a Princeton professor, noted that Mr. Bernanke focused his remarks on the costs as well as the benefits of additional action to help the economy. "The Fed has run out of the strong tools, and is turning to the weak ones," Mr. Blinder said in an interview here. "When you're fighting in a foxhole and you've used up the machine guns and hand grenades, then you pull out the swords and start throwing rocks." Mr. Blinder said that the economy seemed "substantially worse" than it did three months ago and that Mr. Bernanke had acknowledged the deterioration, cautiously. The Obama administration is looking to the Fed to do more to spur the recovery, since its own options are few, given the political paralysis in Congress as midterm elections approach. President Obama, vacationing on Martha's Vineyard, discussed the economy for about 15 minutes with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York before the two men played golf. Mr. Bernanke avoided wading into the rancorous political debates over fiscal policy, instead focusing on the two objectives that form the Fed's legal mandate: price stability and maximum employment. Inflation has been running well below the Fed's unofficial target rate of 1.5 to 2 percent. While conceding that inflation had fallen "slightly below" the desirable level, Mr. Bernanke said deflation was "not a significant risk" right now. He said the Fed would "strongly resist deviations from price stability in the downward direction." Mr. Bernanke predicted the economy would continue to grow the rest of this year, "albeit at a relatively modest pace." He said the "preconditions for a pickup of growth in 2011 appear to remain in place," as banks increase lending, worries over the European sovereign debt crisis abate and consumers save more. Strikingly, Mr. Bernanke acknowledged that the traditional tradeoff between inflation and employment had become all but obsolete, at least for now. "There is little or no potential conflict between the goals of supporting growth and employment and of maintaining price stability," he said. Mr. Bernanke explained in detail the Fed's decision to use money from its mortgage bonds to buy government debt. The Fed has gobbled up 1.25 trillion in mortgage backed securities and 175 billion in debts owed by Fannie Mae and other government entities a major reason mortgage rates are at historic lows. So far, the Fed has received about 140 billion through repayments of the principal on its holdings of those debts. An additional 400 billion or so could be repaid by the end of 2011. If the Fed had not taken the step it did, the central bank's balance sheet would have gradually shrunk, which would amount to a passive tightening of monetary policy what Mr. Bernanke called "a perverse outcome." He said the Fed's purchases of longer term securities had helped bring down long term interest rates and lower the cost of borrowing, contributing to the modest recovery that began in the spring of 2009. However, such purchases seemed to be most effective in times of financial stress, and additional purchases would further complicate the Fed's future "exit strategy" when the time came to return to normal monetary policy, he said. The Fed has said since March 2009 that "exceptionally low" levels of the fed funds rate, the benchmark short term interest rate, would be warranted for "an extended period." The Fed could try to lengthen those expectations, as central banks in Canada and Japan have tried. But Mr. Bernanke cautioned that the Fed might find it "difficult to convey the committee's policy intentions with sufficient precision and conditionality." The Fed currently pays 0.25 percent interest on excess reserves that banks keep at the Fed. But Mr. Bernanke said that slashing that rate even to zero might do no more than lower the fed funds rate by another 0.10 to 0.15 percentage points. He said doing so would harm the liquidity of short term money markets. Mr. Bernanke said he saw "no support" on the committee for setting a higher inflation target, as some economists have suggested. He called the strategy "inappropriate for the United States in current circumstances." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
Our full report on the 2016 Emmy Awards the list of Emmy winners red carpet looks our critic's review of the show THERE was a time several years ago when awards shows were on the upswing. As television ratings began to erode in an era of Netflix, the DVR and Facebook, awards shows, along with sports and other big live events, were among the few rock solid programming institutions that were immune to the changes, delivering grindingly sturdy results. Well, they used to, at least. Over the last two years, these shows have started to lose their ratings luster. The Academy Awards this year hit an eight year low in viewership. The Grammys hit a seven year low. The Golden Globes have shed about 2.5 million viewers in the last two years. Last year, the Emmys broadcast had its lowest ratings ever. Trying to buck this recent trend on Sunday will be the Emmys, which will be broadcast on ABC and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. Executives in the television industry are aware of the declines and are wondering if they are part of the cyclical rise and fall of awards shows, or if people's ever changing viewing habits are finally affecting the ratings for these three to four hour, commercial loaded TV events. "What prompts these trends?" said Don Mischer, the longtime TV event producer who is overseeing this year's Emmys. "As we've gone through time, there is so much more content available that the pieces of the pie are getting smaller and smaller." That's one theory: that viewers are instead turning to an ever expanding list of options instead of habitually tuning in to the Oscars or Emmys. Another is that with a growing number of awards programs, viewer fatigue is setting in. Yet another is that at a time when services like Netflix provide programming without commercials, the prospect of watching a prolonged awards show riddled with ads seems like too much to endure. It doesn't hurt that highlights from an awards show that happened the night before are always just a click away. "There are so many things fighting for your time, and live TV, even for live events, is fairly inefficient," said Rich Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG, a financial services firm. "Our tolerance for commercials and high ad loads is disappearing. Once you started to binge watch, it's just hard to go back to any form of live linear TV unless you're an absolute die hard fan." Finding an answer is critical for an industry that is desperately trying to maintain an ad supported business model. Big live events that drive viewership and provoke engagement on social media in real time, and in offices the day after are a crucial component of that strategy. Executives point out that awards shows have long been prone to seesaw ratings, with any number of factors affecting their appeal. For the Oscars, viewership is often dictated by whether a series of blockbusters, or movies with big name stars, were nominated for best picture. For other awards, the competition that night whether it's an N.F.L. playoff game that goes into overtime or a hit like "The Walking Dead" can dictate an up year or a down year. Still, the trends among the major awards programs are noticeable. After experiencing an unexpected rise in viewership the Oscars and the Globes had strong gains in 2012 through 2014, and the Emmys had a bump in 2011 through 2013 awards shows appeared to be finding new life. Some argued that social media platforms like Twitter spurred the growth, as the shows provided viewers a shared cultural experience. But in the last two years, the gains have stopped. The Oscars went from an audience of 43.7 million in 2014 to 34.3 million this year. The Golden Globes went from a total of 20.9 million viewers in 2014 to 18.5 million this year. The Grammys went from 28.5 million viewers two years ago to 25 million this year. And the Emmys went from an audience of 17.6 million in 2013 to 11.9 million last year. There are similar trend lines for many other awards programs, with big highs from a couple of years ago eroding by the millions. "Perhaps the outlier was the growth in viewership," said Michael Nathanson, an analyst at MoffettNathanson. "Maybe this is just the reality now." Dan Donnelly, a managing director at Publicis Media, said that even if ratings continue to fall, big live events still deliver an audience that few programs can match, and so might remain attractive to advertisers. "Even with that decline, if someone tells you, 'Oh, you can advertise in an environment with 18, 25 or 30 million viewers, even if they used to have 45 or 50 million,' well, then wow, that's still a great place to play," he said. The average price for a 30 second commercial also remains steady, according to Kantar Media. The Oscars charged 1.7 million for a 30 second spot this year, higher than three years ago, and the Globes charged 575,000, compared with 425,000 in 2013. The Super Bowl, of course, far surpasses other events, attracting 5 million for a 30 second spot. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
MIAMI Of the 22,000 condos created in downtown Miami during the boom years, only about 600 remain unsold thanks mainly to an influx of Latin American investors seeking a safe haven for their money. Developers are reacting to the unexpectedly swift condo recovery in a predictable way: they are building more condos. The most ambitious project by far is the 1.05 billion Brickell CityCentre, a 5.4 million square foot mixed use development that will add about 800 condo units in two 43 story towers to the central business district, a hotel, a luxury movie theater, and a wellness center aimed at tourists from Latin America. With the Brickell CityCentre, the downtown neighborhood will have its first upscale shopping center and its first office building since 2007. The Miami construction boom with its own local idiosyncrasies comes after a broad revival in the real estate market. As demand rises and supply shrinks, cities around the country are experiencing a residential rebound. In February, national home prices jumped by 9.3 percent over the same month a year ago, the highest growth rate since May 2006, according to data released on Tuesday by the S P/Case Shiller index, which measures 20 major cities. Miami fared better than most, with home values rising by 10.4 percent. The local condo market, which is not counted in the Case Shiller data, is equally robust. Prices of condos in downtown Miami increased to 440 a square foot in the last quarter, compared with 400 in the same quarter a year ago, according to Condo Vultures, a local brokerage. With foreign buyers scooping up properties, developers are trying to capitalize on the demand. In the last two years, 25 new condo projects have been announced in the downtown area, although it is far from certain they will all be completed. Within sight of Brickell CityCentre alone, eight residential buildings are under construction, including three being developed by the Related Group, an affiliate of the Related Companies of New York. "We seem to be on the cusp of another boom," said Peter Zalewski, a principal at Condo Vultures. "The question is whether this will be a controlled boom or another out of control boom, which is what we're known for." The developers of Brickell CityCentre, Swire Properties, a division of the Hong Kong conglomerate with deep roots in Miami, are trying to balance the various market forces. While the residential market is looking healthier, demand for office space is still weak. Swire also sees a strong need for high end shopping in the rapidly growing downtown neighborhood. The company's partner in the 500,000 square foot retail component at Brickell CityCentre is the Whitman family, the owners of Bal Harbour Shops, a hugely successful open air shopping center just north of Miami Beach. On the office side, Swire is remaining cautious. The vacancy rate in the city's financial district is well into the double digits at roughly 16.7 percent, according to CBRE, a real estate services firm. Swire hopes eventually to include an office tower with 750,000 square feet, but for now, the office component of the project will contain only 120,000 square feet. Diana L. Parker, a senior vice president at CBRE, said the new office space would be available just as a number of leases downtown were expiring. "Their timing is impeccable," she said. The plans for Brickell CityCentre reflect Miami's desire to bring its downtown in line with trends occurring in business districts across the country, where developers are being encouraged to provide convenience to public transportation, street level retail and underground parking. Occupying four blocks, the Brickell CityCentre is next to the 8th Street station serving Metromover, a free transit line that circulates downtown. Stephen L. Owens, president of Swire, said his company had been looking at the location, known as West Brickell, since 2006 when two of the sites were listed for sale at 110 million. Two years later, Swire paid 41 million for those properties, which were vacant except for several dozen 100 year old oak trees. (The trees were uprooted and transported by barge to Museum Park on the other side of the Miami River.) Subsequently, Swire added to its assemblage by buying the Brickell Tennis Center and 799 Brickell Plaza. That gave Swire 9.1 acres slightly more than it needed to qualify as a special area under Miami's new zoning code. This designation enabled the developer to work with the city to create a master plan that includes improvements to the streets and sidewalks. Officials are allowing Swire to build two bridges to make it easier for shoppers to travel from one building to another. These bridges will house shops and cafes, Mr. Owens said. "The biggest challenge was connectivity," he said. Many urban planners, however, frown on such bridges because they draw foot traffic away from sidewalk. Swire also won approval to build something rare in Miami an underground parking lot with 1,600 spaces for the project's commercial components. Shoppers will of course have the option of taking the Metromover and getting off at the 8th Street station, which Swire is also renovating. Though Miami is not exactly known for its public transportation, ridership on both Metromover and Metrorail, an elevated train that connects suburbs north and south of Miami, has been steadily increasing up 5.5 percent and 11.3 percent in February over the same period in the previous year. The increased usage, in part, comes after an influx of young residents to downtown. The recent condo boom was driven primarily by cash paying Latin American investors who either use the apartments occasionally or rent them out, often to young professionals working nearby, said Mr. Zalewski of Condo Vultures. Swire's focus on high end shopping also happened to coincide with a new direction in the Whitmans' business. Since Bal Harbour Shops opened in 1965, the family had luxury shopping almost exclusively to itself and fought strenuously to keep tenants from opening other stores in the area. The Whitmans say sales last year at Bal Harbour Shops their lone shopping center were 2,810 a square foot, compared to a national average of 526. But more recently, several longtime tenants, including Louis Vuitton, Cartier and Hermes, have decamped to the Design District across Biscayne Bay. Luxury shops are also opening at Aventura Mall, just north of Miami. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, continued to defend the Fed's efforts to control inflation and unemployment during an appearance Tuesday before the Senate Budget Committee. The Fed last month released a formal statement describing for the first time how it intended to pursue those objectives, as required by Congress, even though the dueling mandates of managing inflation and unemployment sometimes pull monetary policy in opposite directions. The core of this newly articulated doctrine, shaped by Mr. Bernanke, is that the Fed will not seek to encourage inflation, but if inflation should rise, it may rein it in more slowly to promote job growth. Senate Republicans on Tuesday, like their colleagues in the House last week, expressed concern that the Fed effectively was declaring that it would prioritize job growth over inflation. "Is the Fed sending a signal that keeping inflation in check is a secondary priority to achieving full employment?" asked Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
My earliest memories of Beethoven's symphonies are as a teenager, listening to old LPs. My parents had Furtwangler and Karajan recordings. And I remember finding the Karajan recordings brilliant and electric, but somehow a bit too slick and slightly distasteful, whereas I found the Furtwangler recordings more enlightening and a lot more profound. I also remember feeling that this surely couldn't be the only way of performing or interpreting this music. It felt a little gargantuan, a little inflated. I was longing for a cleaner, leaner sound, and I eventually found that in Toscanini. There was far greater visceral excitement to the interpretations, a gripping clarity, transparency and rhythmic zest. So of the three and I suspect I'm not alone in this I inclined toward Toscanini. As a violinist, I first came to them as an undergraduate at Cambridge, where I played at least three: the "Eroica," the Second and, I think, the Eighth. And I sang in the chorus for the Ninth as well. To be part of the chorus of the Ninth Symphony, it's incredibly exhilarating both because the setting of Schiller's "Ode to Joy" is so inspiring, and because there is the sense that while these are creatures of their time, they also resonate and belong in ours, too. It was clear right away to me that this isn't simply entertainment for princes or aristocrats, as one feels was the case for Haydn and Mozart, wonderful though their symphonies are. From the outset, Beethoven decides to use the symphony as a vehicle for expressing his very strong convictions, urgently and publicly. He was not somebody who was content to write elegant music for easy listening. He set out to encompass philosophical themes and even political themes, however unpalatable these might have been to the authorities in the repressive Vienna of his day. And because there are no words attached to eight of his nine completed symphonies, he gets away with it, without endangering life and limb. This is music written in one of the most exciting periods of revolution and counterrevolution in the history of Europe. The first 30 years of the 19th century are an incredibly exhilarating period. I think of Francisco Goya, the exact contemporary of Beethoven, and who also happened to go deaf. He charted the horrors of the Peninsular War that followed Napoleon's invasion of Spain, in graphic detail. For me, Beethoven is doing something similar in at least two of his symphonies, the Third and the Fifth, reflecting his conviction that the values of the French Revolution that had spread like wildfire throughout Europe were now under threat and needed eloquent defense. It helps as a player and as a conductor to appreciate the impact the Revolution had on European thought. To put Beethoven in context, you need to come to terms with why a supersensitive artist like him would consider actually moving to Paris to join the movement that advocated liberty, equality and fraternity, rather than to conservative Vienna. Long before I started interpreting Beethoven on period instruments, I studied some of the French revolutionary music that Beethoven either heard or had introduced to him. This included symphonies by Mehul, overtures and marches by Gossec, the hymns of Rouget de Lisle (author of the "Marseillaise") and, perhaps first and foremost, music by Cherubini, whom we know Beethoven admired a good deal. These composers have a kind of godparental relationship to Beethoven's symphonies. There is no question in my mind that in his Fifth Symphony, Beethoven is quoting from Cherubini's "Hymne du Pantheon," with its subversive message: "We swear, sword in hand, to die for the republic and for human rights." Imagine the fuss that would have caused in Vienna if it had been decoded. But if you take the words out, as Beethoven was obliged to do, its message is wonderfully ambivalent. Fate knocking on the door? V for victory? Either way, nobody could accuse him of subversion because there could be nothing incriminating in a wordless piece of orchestral music. It's similar to Shostakovich writing during the time of Stalin. When I was in my 30s and first conducted the symphonies, I did my best to de Wagnerize the music. Most orchestras in the 1970s tended to play Beethoven in a style that was pretty much identical to that in which they played Wagner or Strauss. Everything belonged to the same undifferentiated Romantic sound world. I felt very strongly that that was not doing full justice to Beethoven's radicalism, however enlightened and inspirational the interpreter. And of course there were wonderful, inspirational conductors: George Szell, Fritz Reiner, Eugene Ormandy, Lenny Bernstein in America. In Britain, Beecham, Boult and Colin Davis. Then along came the brilliant young Carlos Kleiber and Claudio Abbado really wonderful, committed and insightful conductors and interpreters. But even then I felt there was something missing: the specific sound world of Beethoven himself. And that's when it gets quite complicated, because we have to remember that Beethoven started to lose his hearing in the 1790s, when he was in his late 20s, and by the time he started to compose his symphonies he was already on the way to being deaf. What is remarkable is that he retained such a fresh memory of how an orchestra functions, in all its detail and with a complex array of colors, from the time before his hearing went. So in a sense Beethoven's orchestra never really existed; it was a figment of his vivid aural imagination. The performances he attended and went through the motions of conducting were with pickup orchestras made up of rather unmotivated Viennese musicians sight reading this new, incredibly complicated and challenging music on only one rehearsal. It wasn't until shortly after Beethoven's death that his symphonies were really scrupulously prepared for performance. And that was by the Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire in Paris in 1828 to 1831. For the first time they were rehearsed properly, with clear phrasing, articulations and unified bowings for the string players. This was an orchestra made up of Conservatoire professors and their pupils. They approached Beethoven very seriously, and their performances seem to have made a huge impact on the musical world. Berlioz was present, Wagner for some, Chopin for some others. When we started the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique 30 years ago, our aim was to see if we could actually reconstitute or reconfigure that imaginary orchestra that Beethoven had singing in his inner ear, but never truly heard. Our model, if we had a model at all, was this Paris orchestra. We know a good deal about them; we know, for example, they were playing on transitional instruments midway between Baroque and what we regard now as "modern," in terms of their construction and mechanism. We know they were already using modern style, inward curved bows with gut strings. Orchestras of the time were not a static phenomenon, but an evolving one, making use of the latest evolving technology as regards the woodwind and brass instruments, rather as Beethoven's symphonies evolved. After all, it's not as if his Ninth Symphony was written in the same style as his First. He goes through a series of incremental steps, developing his symphonic sound palette and his musical language in an incredibly ingenious and intense way. During rehearsals, my aim is always to try to ask for a style that is appropriate to each particular Beethoven symphony. For listeners who have grown up hearing their Beethoven played by regular modern symphony orchestras, our performances will present some striking differences. They may be surprised to hear more detail and more of the content of what's in Beethoven's score, as the different strands of the instrumental lines emerge with an enhanced clarity. The way the instruments were formed and constructed in that period make them much more distinct from one another than their more powerful modern equivalents. What you get in a period orchestra are three things: greater individuality of timbre, more transparency of texture and an increased dynamism once all the instruments are stretched to their absolute maximum capacity of volume and expressivity. If you attempt that with a modern symphony orchestra, there will always be a certain comfort factor, a plushness, which, I feel, doesn't help the listener to savor all that is most original in the score. It can sound a tad too comfortable. If you push the needle up to "fff," you'll get excitement of course, but there's a danger of it becoming too bombastic and hectoring. But if you ask them to pull back to compensate, it can sound half baked. The great advantage of the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique is that you can push them absolutely to the nth degree, so the instruments almost get to breaking point, but there will always be clarity as well as exhilaration. Another thing I think is important is to encourage the players to "speak" their lines, so that each phrase emerges as a kind of sentence made up of words that they articulate with consonants as well as vowels. Beethoven, it seems to me, is asking for declaimed narration. He conceives of his symphonies as developing and dramatic narratives, and that, in turn, demands an acutely conscious declamatory approach from the players. Nowadays historically informed orchestras are no longer regarded as an experimental oddity coming out of left field. There are still some naysayers and skeptics, and still a few famous conductors, pianists, violinists of my generation who think it is all a load of rubbish. They don't give credence to the historical or interpretive validity of what we've been trying to do. It doesn't particularly bother me, and overall there is much more interest and acceptance that this is a genuine and valid way of interpreting Beethoven than there was 30 years ago. I don't think Beethoven needs an anniversary to be played a lot. I'm sure he doesn't. But if we are going to go with this 250th anniversary, we must be very, very sure that we have something and that he has something to say to us now in 2020 that is pertinent to the way we look at life, society and culture. I definitely feel this to be the case. There are clear parallels between his situation in the early 1800s and ours today, between the political agitation and rebelliousness that he felt, the discomfort that he expressed in his symphonies, and the situation in which we now find ourselves. The danger is that these pieces become over familiar and lose their impact if they continue to be played only in an all purpose, generic early to mid 20th century style that's no different than Wagner or Strauss. Maybe it's a paradox that through the attempt to reconstruct Beethoven's own ideal, imaginary orchestra, it brings his music closer into our present world. But I firmly believe that that is the case. A listener attending our performances will, I hope, hear greater clarity, greater transparency, greater rhetoric, a greater sense of excitement, freshness and ebullience. All of those things. Ideally, listeners will be here for the whole cycle. Performing the nine symphonies in chronological order provides a unique access to an incredibly adventurous mind, and to an organic sense of development. If you just dip in for one or two concerts, that's fine, but you'll be losing out on that sense of growth and development. I think ideally it's the entire cycle. It's the journey we are on which we want to share with you. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
In recent decades, much deserved attention has been coming to Carl Philipp Emanuel, whose career was mostly based in Hamburg, and Johann Christian, Bach's youngest child known as the "London" Bach, since he thrived in that city. But Mr. Botstein's program opened with a rarity by the lesser known Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, "Erzittert und fallet" ("Tremble and falter"), a 30 minute church cantata. Like his father, W.F., the eldest of the concert's four Bachs, was a renowned organist. He held a prestigious post in Dresden for many years. But his career as a composer did not fulfill his early promise. Many of his scores are thought to have been lost. This cantata, with a text presenting God as the fearless victor over blustering dark spirits, begins with a startling dramatic stroke: the unaccompanied chorus sings sputtered declamations of the word "Erzittert" to grab the listener's attention. Sung by the excellent Bard Festival Chorale, it worked. The music plunges into a jubilant yet focused chorus of bustling counterpoint. The next movement, a melting tenor aria, presents Jesus as an entrancing prince. Later, a duet for tenor and soprano depicts the divine human relationship as the almost romantic connection of a shepherd and a beguiled follower. The work has somewhat stiff passages, but also music of inventiveness, especially a turbulent chorus that evokes thunder, lightning and rushing water. The soprano Amanda Woodbury, the mezzo soprano Taylor Raven, the tenor Jack Swanson and the baritone Chris Kenney all sang splendidly. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
WASHINGTON It's O.K. to eat romaine lettuce again, federal health officials said on Monday as long as you're sure it wasn't grown on California's north and central coast. The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said investigators had traced the romaine lettuce associated with an outbreak of E. coli that has sickened 65 people in 12 states and Canada to "end of summer" romaine lettuce harvested from that region. With the growing and harvesting season over there, according to the F.D.A., people may eat romaine lettuce that has been hydroponically or greenhouse grown, or has been harvested from the winter growing desert regions of the United States, and is labeled such. "If it does not have this information," the agency said in a statement posted on its website, "you should not eat or use it." Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the F.D.A. commissioner, said that, to protect consumers, the industry had agreed to label romaine lettuce with the harvest date and region. "The F.D.A. also has commitments from the romaine lettuce industry that such labeling will continue into the future and become standard for their products," Dr. Gottlieb said. The labels may be extended to other leafy greens, he said. The agency's announcement follows a stern warning issued two days before Thanksgiving, by the Centers for Disease Control, telling consumers nationwide not only to stop eating romaine lettuce, but also to scrub and sanitize drawers or shelves where it has been stored. Stores were told to pull all romaine from their shelves, and restaurants were ordered to stop serving it. The E. coli outbreak was first identified on Oct. 8, and the onset of the last reported illness was Oct. 31, according to the F.D.A. The agency said that 43 people had become sick in 12 states, and an additional 22 people in Canada also became ill. Federal investigators believe that the E. coli strain, known as O157:H7, causing the outbreak resembles the one that caused an outbreak in the fall of 2017 in the United States and Canada. The C.D.C. has said that these cases are genetically unrelated to another E. coli outbreak earlier this year that killed five people and sickened 200. That bacteria came from a tainted drainage canal near an Arizona lettuce farm, investigators said. The F.D.A. said there was no reason to believe that the romaine lettuce being grown in other large growing regions, including the California desert region of the Imperial Valley; the desert region of Arizona in and around Yuma; and Florida, would be contaminated. Romaine lettuce imported from Mexico should also be safe, the agency said. It suggested that last week's warning had rid the country of any tainted lettuce. "The F.D.A. believes it was critically important to have a clean break in the romaine supply available to consumers in the U.S. in order to purge the market of potentially contaminated romaine lettuce related to the current outbreak," Dr. Gottlieb said. "This appears to have been accomplished through the market withdrawal request of Nov. 20." The F.D.A. has urged growers, processors and sellers to label all individually packaged romaine products to identify the region and harvest date. If heads of romaine are being sold unwrapped, retailers are expected to prominently label the produce display, Dr. Gottlieb said. The commissioner also said that the industry would establish a task force to adopt standards for traceability of its products, as well as to determine how to stop future outbreaks. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
The new work, directed by Machel Ross, is called "Black Exhibition," because, Harris said, it asks: "What does it mean to be a black body on exhibition?" He is categorizing the new work as a "choreopoem," after Ntozake Shange's seminal "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf," which is now being revived at the Public Theater. Harris said that meeting Shange at a gathering had inspired him to use the dramatic form she pioneered. Emboldened in part by the surprise album drops of pop artists like Beyonce, he has chosen to keep his authorship a secret until now. The Bushwick Starr, which is planning to present the hourlong show from Nov. 6 to Nov. 23, has until now been promoting it as having been written by GaryXXXFisher, a pseudonym created by Harris. (Update: The Bushwick Starr has extended the run of the show through Dec. 15.) The show is being financially supported in part by Makeready, a film studio with which Harris has been collaborating on other projects. Harris and the Bushwick Starr's co founders, Noel Allain and Sue Kessler, said they had embraced the idea of pseudonymous authorship in the hope that new audiences would have a chance to get tickets before they were snapped up. The space is small a second floor walk up with just 72 seats and the initial run is just three weeks, although it could be extended. Harris, who is 30 years old, agreed to do "Black Exhibition" at the Bushwick Starr long before he knew "Slave Play" would go to Broadway, and he said this venture has become more meaningful now. "The goal of my playwriting work was to be in these kinds of spaces it was a no brainer to want to do a show there, but it became even more imperative while my play was uptown, to show younger theatermakers that commercial theater doesn't necessarily have to be the goal." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
The Canadian performance artist Dana Michel is a real original, peculiar to the nth degree and remarkably compelling onstage. She scarcely dances; she scarcely speaks; her manner is oblique. It would be easy to make what she does sound ridiculous. Yet no sooner does she take the stage than she creates a complex world. She's doing a singular form of acting, and we're caught up by the strangeness of both her outward behavior and her character's private thoughts. For me and others, she was the one important discovery of the American Realness Festival at the Abrons Arts Center in January. Now she's back in New York, performing an untitled 15 minute piece as part of a 90 minute anthology of dances and mixed media pieces presented by New Dance Alliance's Performance Mix Festival. The other five items on Tuesday's opening program were much easier to recognize as dancing, but what makes Ms. Michel remarkable is not the anti dance aspect of her performing she spends the first half of her piece slumped in a partly deflated black plastic armchair, digging among black plastic bags for food and household stuff but the drama of her imagination. In January, she made me think of that exceptional pair of performance artists Eiko and Koma in the way she sustains drama through a series of small and seemingly unimportant movements. That's still true. But her way of revealing a bizarre psychological interior also recalls Beckett dramas like "Happy Days," "Krapp's Last Tape," "Rockaby" and "Footfalls," and she has a Beckettian ability to disarm with humor. Who is this woman? What is she doing, thinking, expressing? Performing solo (bare breasted in the first half), she gives us a complex stream of consciousness in movement and words, but she or rather the persona she presents is limited, stunted, blocked. We're watching her at home in her lair, but even, or particularly, here, she can't marshal her thoughts. She's a figure of pathos, absurdity and occasional stubborn purpose. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
Growing up in the English Midlands, Rowan Papier always considered himself a "creative soul," he said. As a teenager, he showed photographs he had taken to some professional connections he made via a sister who was a child model. That led, several years ago, to an internship in the studio of Bruce Weber, later followed by one with David LaChapelle. When he arrived in New York in 2010, Mr. Papier whose father is American stayed with relatives in Bayside, Queens, for a few weeks. Later, he moved among Bushwick, Williamsburg and Harlem, rooming with friends and staying in sublets. Last year, Mr. Papier found himself in the 11th apartment he had inhabited in New York, a Chinatown two bedroom in a postwar midrise condominium. He paid a bit more than half of the 2,300 rent. It was close to the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown, "probably my least favorite neighborhood I've lived in," he said. The streets were crowded and dirty. "I had no feeling of familiarity in Chinatown. I was craving a neighborhood with cute coffee shops, where you have brunch with friends." Mr. Papier had been living frugally, working as a photographer and saving to be able to rent a place that felt like home. In the spring, he began hunting in Greenwich Village and on the Lower East Side, often finding himself faced with "a tossup, like space vs. recently renovated vs. neighborhood," he said. "I was aware I was going to have to downgrade in size" to end up in a coveted neighborhood, with a place filled with "charm and a feeling of authentic New York," he said. Mr. Papier soon found that a price in the 2,000s for a one bedroom was unrealistic. He figured he could find a nicer two bedroom in the mid to high 3,000s. If need be, he could rent the second room to a friend. In a nondescript postwar condominium in TriBeCa, a two bedroom was available for 3,900 a month. But the ceilings were low and the building plain. The location was less than ideal, too. Mr. Papier hesitated about being just two blocks from busy Canal Street. "Canal Street is so crazy it is like Times Square or Broadway or something, it is so intense." On the Lower East Side, a renovated two bedroom in a building with a roof deck and a gym was almost 4,000. "It was pristine," Mr. Papier said, but small in every way. "The staircases were tiny, the closets were tiny, you open the door to the bedroom and immediately walk into the bed." And it was on the top floor of a six story walk up. "That is a lot of money to have something that is an inconvenience to you," said Mr. Papier, who travels often, lugging suitcases. "If it is a dream apartment, you can suck it up," but this was not. In NoLIta, a two bedroom was advertised at around 4,100. Mr. Papier loved the location, "a stone's throw from Whole Foods." But this one wasn't a real two bedroom; a temporary wall had been removed. The mismatch of housing stock and neighborhood was sinking in. Mr. Papier didn't want a small walk up building, but his targeted neighborhoods were filled with them. "I am envisioning a TriBeCa loft with character in Greenwich Village, which is kind of impossible to find." But the character he sought, if not the loft, appeared when an agent took him to a co op building on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, originally built as a hotel, with a soaring interior atrium. The apartment had two bedrooms covering 850 square feet and the high ceilings Mr. Papier craved. The rent was 3,700. He loved it instantly. "It matched my aesthetic," he said. "I felt this was a rare find." After a lengthy application process, Mr. Papier paid a fee of 12 percent of a year's rent more than 5,000 and moved in over the summer. The neighborhood is full of cute coffee shops and places for brunch. On busy Bleecker Street, "when you step out on a Friday night, it is really crazy outside," he said. Inside, however, he faces an air shaft. "It's so quiet it's eerie. I have no idea whether I have neighbors or not." His bedroom, with two skinny windows, receives little light. That's fine with Mr. Papier, who sometimes does photo retouching there. He worked for hours on a full page photo just published in Vogue Australia. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
MEXICO CITY I was living in Sao Paulo in 1997 when, out of the blue, an investment banker I knew in London called to ask about Brazilian cocktails. He didn't want one. He needed a name for a potential economic crisis, in the vein of Mexico's Tequila affair in 1994 and Thailand's Tom Yum Kung debacle, which was unfolding at the time. As unlikely as it seemed to most Brazilians then, the crisis did arrive. A default by the Russian government in 1998 set off a run on Brazilian bonds, as investors rushed to pare their holdings in emerging markets by selling the most liquid among them. Suffering from large trade and budget deficits and a shrinking stock of foreign reserves, Brazil was forced a few months later to sever the real's link to the dollar and let it sink. That's when it dawned on me that we weren't living in my parent's economy anymore. The stable American economic order lasted more than three decades from the end of World War II, when economic cycles were essentially driven by the Federal Reserve's raising and lowering of interest rates to combat inflation. It started to crumble with the severing of the link between gold and the dollar and the twin oil crises of the 1970s. That ushered in an era of footloose capital, unshackled by three decades of increasing deregulation, that led to the global tides that, for better and worse, now drive economic ups and downs. That Brazilian morning 17 years ago has come to mind again as the Fed has started gradually reducing the amount of money it pumps into the economy. The move could hardly have been a surprise, because the Fed announced as early as last spring that it would begin doing so by the end of 2013. If anything, the Fed's action has had an easing effect on domestic interest rates. While higher than in the spring, yields on Treasury bonds were lower last Friday than they were a month before. And yet around the world, financial markets have swooned as if struck by lightning. The reasoning behind investors' abrupt change of heart makes a certain sense. China's economic slowdown will blunt the exports of commodity producers, weakening their trade balances. Macroeconomic management in many developing countries has been poor. Budget and trade deficits in some are way too high. Still, there is a deeper dynamic at play. The pullout of capital from developing countries around the world has an eerie resemblance to the seemingly unlikely financial wave that emerged from Asia, crossed through Russia and Eastern Europe and ended up walloping Brazil. That's hardly the only precedent. As Carmen M. Reinhart, a renowned international economist at Harvard's Kennedy School, put it, capital bonanzas, inevitably followed by financial crises, are "older than the hills." Problem is, the cycles of boom and bust seem to keep getting worse. Whether the Fed continues removing monetary stimulus at the same pace or it pauses, perhaps worried by sluggish job growth, long term interest rates eventually will rise. The world, evidently, is not prepared. And it's even less prepared for the bigger crisis that we seem doomed to suffer after this one. Lawrence Summers, President Obama's former top economic adviser, recently articulated an idea that suggests booms and busts, each one bigger than the last, might be with us for a while. At a speech at the International Monetary Fund last November, he said that the global economy was suffering from "secular stagnation," persistent low growth caused by the fact that there are more savings around than profitable investments to be made. Jose Angel Gurria, head of the O.E.C.D., advised developing countries: "Reforms, reforms, reforms and more reforms." There could be several reasons, including slowing labor force growth or declining productivity. Cautious consumers and businesses burned by the crisis might be prone to save more and invest less. Income inequality might blunt consumption. Regardless of the cause, a persistent savings glut would make bubbles much more likely. "In an era of secular stagnation, when equilibrium interest rates are low, there will be more financial stability problems," Mr. Summers told me. This rings a bell. Asian countries emerged from the 1990s intent on never suffering like that again. It's debatable whether their primary motivation was to build trade surpluses or to amass financial war chests against future attacks. The fact is they bulked up on savings, held back on consumption and investment, and amassed huge caches of foreign reserves. Sunk into Treasury bonds, these reserves drove a speculative boom in the "emerging market" of the moment: American subprime mortgages. It was a wave of money that to the confusion of Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman at the time the Fed seemed powerless to manage. When it did stop, as all such waves do, the housing bubble came to a cataclysmic end. Is there anything to be done about the new unstable order? "International monetary cooperation has broken down," said Raghuram G. Rajan, India's central bank chief, a couple of days after he was forced to raise interest rates to keep the rupee from sinking. "Industrial countries have to play a part in restoring that, and they can't at this point wash their hands off and say, 'We'll do what we need to and you do the adjustment.' " Andrew G. Haldane, executive director for financial stability at the Bank of England, also seemed to suggest that international cooperation was the answer. "What is going on with the head to head combat is people pursuing policies of individual countries," he said. "What is at stake is the system as a whole." Yet it is questionable what coordination could achieve. "It's not reasonable to think that somehow a cooperative solution will be found where everybody adjusts the policy slightly differently and the world is much better off," said Donald Kohn, a former vice chairman at the Fed who is now at the Brookings Institution. Mr. Kohn pointed out there were risks involved in committing to a coordinated course of action and then having circumstances change. What's more, it's not even clear what governments should do about presumed bubbles. Should they "lean against" them by raising interest rates as they emerge, potentially sacrificing investment and jobs along the way? "The conversation tends to presume that you are going to do the leaning right," Mr. Summers warned. "It is likely to be substantially imperfect." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
In her first year as an architecture student at the Pratt Institute in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, Kelly Cho lived in the dorms. In her second year, she moved nearby with a good friend. The roommates chose a two bedroom in a 2009 high rise, 163 Washington, with a balcony and a washer dryer. A Key Food supermarket was handy and Pratt was a seven minute walk. They split the rent of 4,200 a month. In a new building, "we didn't have to deal with plumbing issues and cockroaches," Ms. Cho said. In an old one, she worried that, even if renovated, structural issues and outdated heating and air conditioning systems might be a problem. Meanwhile, her boyfriend, Jaime Soriano, had graduated last May from Full Sail University in Florida with a degree in recording arts. Mr. Soriano, who is from Mexico City, headed to New York and is seeking an internship at a music or recording studio. Ms. Cho and Mr. Soriano, now both 22, decided to find a place together. The obvious plan was to downsize to a one bedroom in Ms. Cho's building. But a new management company required a local guarantor or a year's rent in advance, Ms. Cho said. The one bedroom available, for 3,000 a month, was on a low floor and seemed expensive for what it was. And the rapidly changing Clinton Hill area offered plenty of other options. With a budget of up to 3,000 a month, the two sought a cat friendly one bedroom within walking distance of Pratt. Ideally, they wouldn't need to give up a balcony or a washer dryer. "Everything we saw was more or less the same price," Mr. Soriano said, in the high 2,000 a month range. She also wanted a system for keeping deliveries safe. "I've seen where they just leave packages in the hallway and other people will take them," she said. "My friends have had that happen." One obvious choice was the Refinery, a 2015 rental building on Myrtle Avenue conveniently atop the Key Food supermarket. "That's where I do my grocery shopping with my Pratt student discount," Ms. Cho said. (Students receive 5 percent off.) From her balcony, she had watched the building rise, and she liked the landscaped roof deck. But no one bedrooms were available just a studio for around 2,300 a month, which she and Mr. Soriano decided against. Visiting friends would have nowhere to sit but the bed. At brand new 180 Franklin, they saw the amenities before they saw the one bedrooms for rent. The gym didn't interest them, but a pool table and roof deck did. Ms. Cho liked the workroom with tables "where you are allowed to cut things," she said. "It is like it was made for architecture students." There was a package room, too. Each apartment included a washer dryer. But they still had more places to see. At yet another new building, the unit they viewed was strewn with trash, and Ms. Cho was leery of potential poor maintenance. At a building that was renovated rather than new, a lobby upgrade was planned. They didn't want to endure construction. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Polly wants a cracker. Polly gets chopped vegetables, because parrots need a diverse array of nutrients. Polly eats one bite and flings the rest onto the floor. This is a common occurrence in the homes of parrot lovers across the world. No matter what sort of delicious, nutritious meal is prepared, "half of it lands on the floor and stuck to the walls," said Kat Gupta, the caretaker of a bronze winged pionus named Leia and a frequenter of online parrot message boards, where others swap stories of re tossed salads and overturned bowls. Polly, Leia and their peers aren't necessarily being picky. They're just being parrots. According to a study last month in Scientific Reports, wild parrots across the world also waste food an unusual and confusing habit in the animal kingdom, where making the most of a meal is generally an important part of survival. The new study provides "a comprehensive picture of parrots' food wasting behavior in their natural environment," said Anastasia Krasheninnikova, a biologist at the Max Planck Comparative Cognition Research Group in Spain, an independent commenter. Like parrot parents, researchers have long noticed their wild study subjects flinging around fruits, flowers and seeds that might have made perfectly good eating. Sometimes they'll take a bite or two before discarding them. Other times, "they just cut it and let it fall," said Esther Sebastian Gonzalez, a postdoctoral biology researcher at Universidad Miguel Hernandez in Spain, and the lead author of the paper. A group of ornithologists tracked this behavior in the wild over several years. They also watched for it in more controlled settings. The result was data covering 103 species in 17 countries, encompassing 30 percent of known parrot types. Every single one wasted food, from the blue and yellow macaw of South America to the sulfur crested cockatoo of Australia. In some instances, a single parrot was observed jettisoning 80 percent of food it picked. "We knew that it was going to be widespread, but we were surprised it was that much," Dr. Sebastian Gonzalez said. In some cases, "it looked like they were playing with the food instead of eating it." The data yielded patterns. Parrots are more likely to drop unripe fruits than ripe ones, and they're more careful with food during breeding season, when they are raising hungry chicks. But other factors didn't matter so much: the size of the bird , the number of other birds around, whether or not there were parasites in the fruit. Even birds that hadn't eaten for a while greeted their next meal by junking parts of it. "They do it in any situation, which is very curious," Dr. Sebastian Gonzalez said. This profligacy might actually help other members of the birds' ecosystems. The researchers observed 86 types of animals, from ants to cattle like zebus, eating food that parrots had dropped. A number of these secondary munchers might have then dispersed seeds, a boon to the plants as well. But this doesn't explain the biggest question what does it do for the parrots? In the past, observers have chalked the habit up to clumsiness. But that it happens with such regularity across species suggests that there could be "an intention in it," Dr. Sebastian Gonzalez said. Her best guess is that the parrots are planning ahead. "For human production, you cut fruits to make the crop better," she said. "So maybe the birds are doing something like that. They are pruning the trees to get sweeter fruits, and bigger fruits later." Parrots are known to make forward thinking decisions, so this wouldn't be a total surprise, but it's not clear yet how the behavior could have evolved, Dr. Kraheninnikova said. The researchers are hoping to test their hypothesis with more studies. In the meantime, people like Dr. Gupta are left to shoulder their brooms, and to try new foods and new strategies, likely in vain. "Based on our study, I don't think you can do much," Dr. Sebastian Gonzalez said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Less than a year ago, the Trisha Brown Dance Company performed what were to be its final programs of works for the traditional proscenium stage. But that plan didn't turn out as expected. The idea was that the company would leave the proscenium stage behind to focus on a new performance model, a series called "Trisha Brown: In Plain Site," in which the choreographer's signature works would be reframed by showing them in unconventional sites, often outdoors or in museums. It was an imaginative way, especially in the financially strained dance world, to keep Ms. Brown's work alive and in the public eye. And it worked so well, in fact, that presenters wanted more. The continued growth of the company, at the Joyce starting Dec. 12, is rare, given what often happens to dance organizations after their founder dies and there is no new repertory to tour. Ms. Brown, part of an influential generation that ushered in postmodern dance she was an original member of the experimental 1960s collective Judson Dance Theater was a maverick. She choreographed works meant to defy gravity that took place on rooftops and on the sides of buildings. With her winning combination of humor and intellect, Ms. Brown went on to choreograph many large scale dances, including "Set and Reset," her 1983 masterpiece with music by Laurie Anderson. Her articulate, silky movement sophisticated yet subtle is instantly recognizable. It passes through the body as a series of articulations that melt and ripple through the joints, creating an image of a person dancing not on land but in water. "It really has been taking it one step at a time," Ms. Madden said, "seeing what's in front of us and what the possibilities are. That was Trisha's approach to choreography in many ways." Ms. Lucas says "In Plain Site" has given the company a chance to build and test a larger inventory of repertory. And it continues; next spring performances include engagements in Nimes, France; at Emory University in Atlanta; and at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. "You have a hope and a dream," Ms. Lucas said. But early on, it wasn't easy to describe the site specific "In Plain Site" series. Every one, after all, is different. Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and the Clark Art Institute presented an outdoor "In Plain Site" that featured the company performing "Group Primary Accumulation" on rafts in a pond filled with lily pads. Ms. Lucas and Ms. Madden followed their guts. Now Ms. Lucas said that she and Ms. Madden try to make their decisions based on what feels right. In that way, they are influenced by Ms. Brown who always left room for instinct. She liked happy accidents. " 'In Plain Site' unfolded and developed into a really nice model and through that model people were like" 'Are you still performing the repertory? Why aren't you performing the repertory?' " Ms. Lucas said. "So this unfolding of momentum happened, and I think we just braved it. And went for it." For the Joyce season, the company is presenting "Groove and Countermove" (2000), set to music by the jazz composer Dave Douglas; "Geometry of Quiet" (2002), to Salvatore Sciarrino's flute score; and "L'Amour au Theatre" (2009), inspired by Jean Philippe Rameau's opera, "Hippolyte and Aricie." Adding dancers hasn't been easy for the organization financially, Ms. Madden said, but five were chosen from an audition held last November in New York. They were apprentices until August. Ms. Lucas's focus is on restaging the works she spends the bulk of her time with the dancers in rehearsals while Ms. Madden focuses on the educational component. This semester, she is at Sarah Lawrence College working on a reconstruction of a combination of Ms. Brown's "Set and Reset" and "Line Up" (1976). As for staging the proscenium program, Ms. Lucas hasn't done it alone: generations of Brown dancers have helped. This has made Ms. Lucas even more aware that the extended, multigenerational family of dancers that Ms. Brown left behind is a valuable resource, especially when the current group includes only one, Leah Morrison, who worked directly with Ms. Brown. "What I started to discover was that the dancers who didn't know Trisha had a pretty brave and trusting passion to her work," Ms. Lucas said. "They still wanted to do it. You really sense that the newer dancers are really there. It's extraordinary." And their sense of responsibility for the work is palpable. "Maybe we're not generating material," said the dancer Amanda Kmett'Pendry, "but everything is new again because we're trying it on for the first time. And I can also say that I miss her even though I don't know her, which is really kind of a sad feeling. She's really present in the room." The group still rehearses in Ms. Brown's SoHo loft, which is now the property of her son. (Ms. Brown's husband, the visual artist Burt Barr, died in 2016.) Ms. Lucas implemented a change this year, partly because of the new dancers: They warm up by dancing sections of Ms. Brown's repertory. Ms. Lucas said that, every day, Ms. Brown would perform "Locus," a 1975 work that moves through all parts of the body. "We never had company class," Ms. Lucas said. "There are dreams and movement toward having that on the horizon." Unlike Merce Cunningham or Martha Graham, Ms. Brown never created a codified technique. "It's all living within her repertory," Ms. Lucas said. "Her vocabulary is the technique, and she invented every single move. It's mind blowing. She toiled away every day at discovering every single movement that became a phrase, that became a form, that become a choreography." Ms. Kmett'Pendry eagerly asked, "Can we just do it?" They do and it is a delight. Ms. Lucas remembers the day in the studio when Ms. Brown invented the phrase. "Trisha was so excited," she said. "She went running around in the offices, saying 'We made a horse! We made a horse!' " After that rehearsal, the dancer Cecily Campbell observed how much of Ms. Brown's personality she finds in her dances. "It's such a pleasure to just keep unlocking more layers of that," she said. "There's so much DNA of a person inside of their work. With Trisha, it's different in every piece." And, for Ms. Lucas, woven into that idea is a guiding principle: "There really is no way of replacing Trisha. It's not possible. So it's wonderful not to try." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
President Trump must decide on Sunday whether to go ahead with his next round of tariffs on Chinese goods. WASHINGTON The United States has settled on final terms of a partial trade deal with China, several people familiar with the negotiations said, a development that could ease tensions between the world's largest economies just days before the long running trade war is set to escalate. President Trump met with his top economic advisers Thursday afternoon at the White House, where the president agreed to significant reductions on tariffs he has placed on 360 billion of Chinese goods in return for China's commitment to purchase American farm products and make other concessions, the people said. As part of the agreement, the president is expected to announce that he will delay or cancel tariffs on 160 billion of consumer products from China that are scheduled to go into effect on Sunday. Those additional tariffs would have resulted in the United States taxing nearly everything China ships into the United States and foregoing them would prevent another escalation in a trade fight that has inflicted economic damage on both sides of the Pacific. Mr. Trump said on Twitter on Thursday morning that the United States was closing in on a deal. "Getting VERY close to a BIG DEAL with China. They want it, and so do we!" the president wrote. Mr. Trump is expected to make an official policy announcement on Friday about progress toward a trade deal he initially announced in October. However, both sides have said before that they were on the verge of an agreement, only for the talks to collapse. The text of the agreement has not been finished and it is unclear whether China has agreed to all of the details included in the plan. Michael Pillsbury, a China scholar at the Hudson Institute who advises the White House on trade, said that he had spoken to the president on Thursday afternoon about the agreement. "This is a historic breakthrough," Mr. Pillsbury said, attributing the agreement to the strong relationship between Mr. Trump and his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping. Mr. Pillsbury said that Mr. Trump was agreeing to roll back some of the tariffs he had imposed on China in exchange for Beijing bolstering its annual purchases of American products to about 50 billion next year. As part of the pact, Mr. Pillsbury said, China would also enforce stronger protections for American intellectual property, open its markets to American financial institutions and commit to greater transparency surrounding the management of its currency. An agreement would come after 19 months of back and forth between the United States and China over trade practices that the president has criticized as unfair to American companies and workers. Mr. Trump, who campaigned on a promise to change the terms of trade in America's favor, has spent the better part of two years punishing China with tariffs on machinery, chemicals, food, apparel and other products. China has retaliated with its own penalties, including cutting off purchases of American farm goods, like soybeans and pork. Businesses across the globe have been hoping for a resolution that would help limit the damage from a fight that has pinched American farmers and manufacturers and contributed to slowing growth in China. An agreement with China would give the president something to promote on the campaign trail, along with a North American trade deal that was completed this week. The deal under consideration would not resolve all of Mr. Trump's issues with China. That includes China's history of coercing technology away from American firms, as well as industrial policies that economists say have helped China dominate global industries like steel and solar panels and put American companies out of business. Mr. Pillsbury said those concerns would be addressed in subsequent negotiations after the 2020 election. The Chinese Embassy in Washington directed inquiries to the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing. Stocks rose to a record on Thursday, with the S P 500 gaining nearly 0.9 percent, and the yield on the 10 year Treasury note touched 1.91 percent, the highest level in almost a month. Asian markets continued the rally on Friday morning, with stocks rising in Hong Kong and Shanghai. 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. The American benchmark has been trading in record territory as investors anticipate a de escalation of the trade war, and amid signs that the domestic economy is holding up. "We're encouraged that China and the United States seem on the verge of a breakthrough on the Phase 1 negotiations," said Myron Brilliant, the executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "If accurate, it would be a positive first step in improving our commercial relationship at a time of great uncertainty." On Thursday, three powerful Senate Democrats, including Chuck Schumer of New York, sent a letter to Mr. Trump, warning that any first phase deal that did not include meaningful changes to the way China structured its economy would be "a severe and unacceptable loss for the American people." Some mocked the president for solving a crisis of his own making. "China Phase 1 deal is the equivalent of a gunman, who had taken hostages, surrendering to authorities, with no one killed, but his manifesto never published," Jorge Guajardo, the former Mexican ambassador to China, tweeted. "No harm done to anyone, back to normalcy, madman contained, but the shopping mall lost a lot a customers during standoff." For a year and a half, Mr. Trump has alternated between praising China and ratcheting up tariffs on the country as he tried to press Beijing for trade concessions. In October, Mr. Trump announced that the United States and China had reached an agreement in principle on the first phase of a trade deal. But in the weeks since, a concrete agreement proved elusive as the two countries grappled over its precise terms. Chinese negotiators pushed their American counterparts to remove as many of the existing tariffs as possible, while the Trump administration pressed China to make more purchases of soybeans, poultry and other goods to help relieve the pressure the trade war had put on American farmers. Mr. Trump also wants China to buy more American products to help narrow the trade gap between what the United States sells to China and what it imports. To ensure that China keeps its commitments, the Trump administration has insisted on periodic reviews, as well as an agreement that China's agricultural purchases would not drop below a certain amount. If China violates the terms of the agreement, tariffs that the Trump administration had removed would snap back into place. China has been willing to discuss purchases of American agriculture, especially since a disease has devastated its swine population and led to spiraling pork prices. But in previous discussions, Chinese negotiators had pushed back against promising set purchase amounts far into the future, saying such an arrangement could anger its trading partners and violate its commitment to the World Trade Organization to treat all members equally. In recent months, American and Chinese officials have been locked in a contentious discussion of what proportion of American concerns about Chinese economic practices are being addressed in the Phase 1 deal, and whether a corresponding proportion of Mr. Trump's tariffs should be rolled back. The Chinese had enumerated the American requests into a list of more than 100 items, and have argued that if they resolve half of them, then half of Mr. Trump's existing tariffs should be removed. Some American analysts have criticized the approach, saying a significant reduction could leave the United States with less leverage for the second and third phase discussions that are planned, in which even more difficult subjects like Chinese subsidies would be included. They also point to the depreciation this year in China's currency, the renminbi, saying that drop would almost offset the effect of the tariffs. But others say an across the board reduction in the rate of all existing tariffs does offer the Americans some advantages, including not having to pick and choose among industries that would receive tariff relief. The last tranche of tariffs, scheduled to go into effect at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, would extend levies to cover nearly every shoe, laptop and toy that the United States imports from China a total of 539.5 billion of merchandise last year. Companies have been eagerly watching to see whether the administration would issue the official announcement that will stop those levies from going into effect. Many of Mr. Trump's advisers have been wary of increasing tariffs on China as negotiators from both sides are trying to reach agreement on the first phase of a trade deal. Still, the urge to delay the tariffs or to reach a deal has not been unanimous. Peter Navarro, Mr. Trump's hawkish trade adviser, circulated a memo this week that makes the case for forging ahead with additional tariffs and delaying any deal until after the 2020 election. On the Chinese side, Thursday's agreement appears to be a big victory for the more nationalistic wing of the Chinese government, which has argued consistently that the Trump administration will back down a considerable extent on tariffs if Beijing stands firm. Ana Swanson and Alan Rappeport reported from Washington, and Keith Bradsher from Beijing. Matt Phillips contributed reporting from New York. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
Twitter has failed to meet European standards for removing hate speech online, figures to be published Thursday show, as pressure mounts, particularly on the Continent, for tech companies to do more to tackle such harmful material. The battle between European policy makers and tech companies over what should be permitted online has pitted freedom of speech campaigners against those who say hate speech in whatever form has no place on the internet. In this standoff, European officials have called on Silicon Valley companies to take down at least 50 percent of the hate speech from their services once they are notified, and they signed up the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Google to a voluntary code of conduct last year to combat the rising tide of harmful content online. But findings to be published by the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, show that Twitter removed hate speech from its network less than 40 percent of the time after such content had been flagged to the company. While the social network failed to meet the European standard, it has improved significantly from a study published late last year, which found that it removed a mere 19 percent of hate speech when notified. It comes as pressure mounts on Twitter, whose revenue and user figures continue to stall, to clean up its act as the company has become one of the main mechanisms for internet trolls to spread their messages across the web. Google and Facebook, by contrast, now comply with the region's demands to take down at least 50 percent of hate speech, upon notification, according to the study. "We embarked in this process together, determined to bring about real changes for people who suffer from hatred and violence online," Vera Jourova, the European commissioner of justice, consumers and gender equality, said in a statement on Wednesday before the report's publication. "The code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online has delivered significant progress." In response, Twitter said it had invested in new reporting procedures to allow individuals to flag probable hate speech, and it was striving to balance people's right to freedom of expression with the need to police material on its network. "Our work will never be 'done,'" Karen White, Twitter's head of public policy in Europe, said in a statement. Google and Facebook also said they had made it easier for organizations and individuals to report hate speech and they were continuing to invest to tackle such material across the region and elsewhere. The European findings were based on about 2,500 potential instances of hate speech recorded by 34 nongovernmental organizations in 24 of the European Union's 28 member states. These groups notified the tech companies of the possible abuse and recorded how the companies responded. The study was conducted over seven weeks through May 5. Fifty nine percent of the material flagged by these nongovernmental groups was removed by tech companies, according to the report. Just over 50 percent of the notifications were assessed by tech companies within the first 24 hours. While the Pan European findings were greeted with praise by Ms. Jourova, policy makers in several countries have said that they will take more action against Silicon Valley companies if they do not go further in tackling hate speech online. After the recent terrorist attack in Manchester, England, Theresa May, the country's prime minister, called on tech companies to strengthen their monitoring of extremist speech online. And in Germany, lawmakers are planning new legislation that could lead to fines of up to 50 million if companies do not act quickly in policing harmful material on their digital services. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
College friends Lina Dorkhman and Olivia Zhang spent the first few years after graduating from New York University living at home, saving for what they assumed would be an eventual move back to the city. But after starting their apartment hunt from their respective New Jersey perches Ms. Dorkhman was living at her parents' house in Old Bridge, in Middlesex County, and Ms. Zhang was staying with family friends in the Newport neighborhood of Jersey City the women decided that, in fact, they would rather be in Jersey. Ms. Dorkhman and Ms. Zhang, both 25, reached that conclusion one afternoon in the fall of 2016, after touring their fifteenth Jersey City apartment of the day. It was a two bedroom walk up, on a corner Grove Street lot, and it was flooded with light. The apartment was both bigger and cheaper 2,550 a month than another place they had been seriously considering a few blocks away, and it was no fee. The exposed brick in the kitchen, the spacious living room, the in building washer and dryer, and the recent renovation were all strong points in the apartment's favor. And then they saw the bathroom. The women, who moved in last January, said there hasn't been one besides a few pretentious college friends who were surprised that they would choose to live in New Jersey for reasons other than financial necessity. "People crap on it all the time, but I love New Jersey," said Ms. Dorkhman, who, truth be told, had been leaning toward her home state the entire time. She keeps a map of Cape May on her bedroom wall and two paintings by a local Jersey artist, Steve Cote, hanging above the couch. Even their dish dryer, a gift from her mother, is shaped like New Jersey. "I think Lina's love of New Jersey has influenced me as well," said Ms. Zhang, who grew up in Shanghai, Washington, D.C., and Southern California. Having lived in Manhattan during college, neither had a strong desire to return. "I knew that I'd be able to find a place in my price range, but I also knew the kind of places you can get for that," said Ms. Zhang, who lived in a two bedroom share in Yorkville during her last two years of college, paying 1,300 a month. "I'd rather have more space. I don't remember anyone ever really having a living room in the city." As for Ms. Dorkhman, her last Manhattan apartment was a windowless closet in an East Village share for which she paid 1,250 a month. Brooklyn was more appealing, but they soon discovered that the apartments they could afford there weren't close to transportation or, more crucially, to neighborhood amenities like stores and restaurants. "In Bed Stuy we saw a couple nice buildings, but in our budget we were looking on the outskirts," Ms. Zhang said. "It's not like here, where you walk downstairs and there's a coffee shop and grocery store." Their location in downtown Jersey City, by contrast, is prime. The PATH train station is just a four minute walk away; also nearby is a park with a farmers' market on Sundays and 99 Ranch Market, a Chinese grocery where Ms. Zhang often shops. Razza, the pizza shop on their block, has been attracting hordes from across the Hudson ever since The New York Times's restaurant critic, Pete Wells, claimed in a September review that the best pizza in New York was in New Jersey. "I like that it feels like a community here," Ms. Dorkhman said. "There are parades, fall festivals, kids walking around in Halloween costumes. Sometimes I walk down the street and it feels like I'm in 'Beauty and the Beast': 'Bonjour, Bonjour.'" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
The project is conceived with Diller Scofidio Renfro, the architecture firm that worked on the High Line's rehabilitation as a park and is now a producer of this project, with sponsors including Target. Elizabeth Diller, one of the firm's founding partners, will co direct the production with Lynsey Peisinger. "After working on the design of the High Line for over a decade and witnessing the rapid transformation of the surrounding area, I thought a lot about the life cycle of the city its decay and rebirth full of opportunities and contradictions," Ms. Diller said in a statement. "This vantage presented an opportunity for creative reflection about the speed of change of the contemporary city and the stories of its inhabitants." The libretto, by the poets Anne Carson and Claudia Rankine, is inspired by interviews with people around New York who were asked: What does 7 p.m. mean to you? "I stepped into the 7 o'clock world initiated by Anne Carson and reached out to a random array of people who described their dining tables," Ms. Rankine said in a statement. "The writing became a series of encounters sites of personal theater. The tables formed landscapes that are invitations to eat, to gather, to work, to ponder, to rest, to wish, to share or in other words, to live." Performers will come from a wide reaching community initiative that involves partnering with organizations in each of New York City's boroughs. Admission to "The Mile Long Opera" will be free, but advance tickets will be required; additional details will be announced later. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
Hollywood has long tried to make films about auto racing that would strike a chord with general audiences. So far, the commercial successes have been few and, with rare exceptions, the racing has served as little more than a noisy background that fed speed and thrills to another story line. "I mean, there's John Frankenheimer's 'Grand Prix' from 1966, and that's about it," Mario Andretti said in a telephone interview, adding that he had seen almost every racing movie made. "Grand Prix" won three Academy Awards for technical achievement; an auto racing movie has never won an Oscar for Best Picture. "I'm sorry, that's it," Andretti said, offering a critique informed by the many championships to his credit. But that bleak assessment could change. Andretti said he had hope for the prospects of the new Ron Howard film, "Rush," which chronicles the 1976 Formula One season and the duel between Niki Lauda and James Hunt for that year's driver championship. The movie opens nationwide on Sept. 27. "It was probably a good choice for subject matter on the part of the filmmakers," said Andretti, whose opinion carries extra weight because he raced, and won, against both men. Moreover, he won the 1976 Japanese Grand Prix, the climax of both the racing season and the movie. It was a season full of dramatic twists. Lauda had won five races when the circuit came to the Nurburgring for the German Grand Prix, where his Ferrari spun into a guardrail and caught fire. His helmet came off, and he suffered extensive burns. Though Lauda missed two races while he was hospitalized, he still led Hunt in World Championship points when, despite his painful injuries, he returned to competition just six weeks after the near fatal crash. Pulling a helmet down over his burns was every bit as excruciating as depicted in the movie, Lauda said at the London premiere on Sept. 2. He said the movie was so realistic that it helped him to recall forgotten details of the crash. "Although I never lost consciousness, I never realized what my rescuers were doing to try to keep me alive," he said. "I was only concerned with my own survival." Although the battle for the championship was compelling in its own right, where the film has received the most praise is in the script and the highly charged chemistry between the actors who play the main characters Daniel Bruhl as the dour Lauda and Chris Hemsworth as the flamboyant Hunt. "Most modern era car racing movies, from 'Grand Prix' and 'Le Mans' to 'Days of Thunder', have been far stronger at portraying the excitement on the track than at developing interesting downtime drama among the characters," wrote Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter, noting that the reverse is true with "Rush," which devotes far more time to exploring the personalities of the drivers. "Mozart vs. Salieri. Kennedy vs. Khrushchev. Gates vs. Jobs," Variety's film critic, Peter Debruge, wrote, adding that "Rush" is "not just one of the great racing movies of all time, but a virtuoso feat of filmmaking in its own right, elevated by two of the year's most compelling performances. It's high octane entertainment that demands to be seen on the big screen, assembled for grown ups and executed in such a way as to enthrall even those who've never watched a race in their life." Closer to the sport, the retired Formula One driver David Coulthard said he found the racing scenes credible, although "no film can quite capture what really goes on inside the car." "But I thought the characters were compelling and believable," Coulthard said in an interview at the Italian Grand Prix last week. "I have a rather personal perspective on the two men, as I know Niki, of course, from my association with Mercedes, and I met James when I was a very young driver." The fast living Hunt died of a heart attack in 1993 at age 45. One of the few tempered comments about the movie or its performances came from Bernie Ecclestone, who controls the commercial rights to Formula One. At the Italian Grand Prix, Mr. Ecclestone said that no one could ever play Hunt like Hunt himself: "He would have livened the film up a lot." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
Full reviews of recent dance performances: nytimes.com/dance. A searchable guide to these and other performances is at nytimes.com/events. NICHOLE CANUSO, GEOFF SOBELLE AND LARS JAN (Wednesday through Oct. 1) The failure to connect on an interpersonal level in the digital age is a frequently explored theme. The choreographer Nichole Canuso, the theater artist Geoff Sobelle and the director Lars Jan put their spin on it in "Pandaemonium," a fusion of dance, theater, rock concert and cinema set in a sparse yet alluring desert landscape. Xander Duell composed and performs the music; Pablo N. Molina provides the nifty video design (1:05). At 7:30 p.m., New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, 212 924 0077, newyorklivearts.org. (Brian Schaefer) DANCE AT 92Y (Friday through Sunday) An eclectic weekend of dance at the 92nd Street Y begins with its one hour lunchtime series, Fridays at Noon, this time focusing on "the elegance of the male dancer and choreographer" and featuring men from New York and abroad. Saturday brings "Romnia," the flamenco dancer Belen Maya's tribute to her Gypsy ancestry, and on Sunday, a trio of male Korean choreographers will present works that provide insight into the spectrum of contemporary dance in their country, ranging from the acrobatic to the quietly theatrical (both approximately 1:15). Friday at noon, Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m., 1395 Lexington Avenue, 212 415 5500, 92y.org. (Schaefer) DANCE NOW (Thursday) This month, 40 artists took to the bite size stage of Joe's Pub for five minutes apiece as part of this long running festival. The 12 artists judged to have most successfully met the Dance NOW challenge have been invited back for a one night only encore, from which a winner will be selected. The finalists include veterans like Gus Solomons Jr., Jane Comfort and Heidi Latsky as well as newer voices like Jordan Isadore and Raja Feather Kelly (1:10). At 7 p.m., Joe's Pub, at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village, 212 967 7555, joespub.com. (Schaefer) FALL FOR DANCE (Monday through Oct. 8) The best sampler platter of dance in town and all year, for that matter. Program 1 on Monday and Tuesday features the fierce action heroes of Streb Extreme Action in a newly commissioned work; a take on Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" by the South African choreographer Dada Masilo; members of American Ballet Theater in Frederick Ashton's "Monotones II"; and the flamenco master Farruquito (1:42). Program 2 on Wednesday and Thursday includes the veteran British modernist Richard Alston's company; the fanciful Aszure Barton Artists; a tango tinged duet by Arthur Pita for the adventurous ballet favorites Wendy Whelan and Edward Watson; and the winning Brazilian troupe Grupo Corpo (2:12). At 8 p.m., City Center, 131 West 55th Street, Manhattan, 212 581 1212, nycitycenter.org. (Schaefer) BRUNO ISAKOVIC (Wednesday through Oct. 2) For several years, the Croatian choreographer Bruno Isakovic has been presenting iterations of a work called "Denuded," which, true to title, features performers au naturel. On Wednesday, as part of the Queer New York International Arts Festival, a previously seen 40 minute solo will be performed before the Thursday premiere of a new ensemble arrangement for nine dancers. The nudity isn't meant to titillate, but rather to reveal the effects of breath and tension on the body more clearly (1:00). Wednesday through Oct. 1 at 8 p.m., Oct. 2 at 6 p.m., La MaMa, 66 East Fourth Street, East Village, 212 475 7710, lamama.org. (Schaefer) JOHN JASPERSE (through Saturday) Long before the term was a techie buzzword, John Jasperse was a dance disrupter. Now, after a 30 year career of challenging convention, he is thinking about legacy. In "Remains," Mr. Jasperse samples from his own often darkly playful work over the last several decades and, with the help of six dancers, weaves in broader questions about the representation of the body in Western art. But ultimately, "Remains" is about a man wondering what he is leaving behind (1:00). At 7:30 p.m., BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, 718 636 4100, bam.org. (Schaefer) JENNIFER MONSON (Friday and Saturday, Thursday through Oct. 1) For more than three decades, Jennifer Monson has been experimenting with dance and improvisation. In the last 15 years, her work has focused on movement's relationship to the environment. Her new work at Danspace, "In Tow," concludes a three year process in which she and a cabal of fellow experimenters took inspiration from nature's sights, sounds and rhythms to create a fluid and evolving statement on happenstance, harmony and experimentation as a philosophy (1:30). At 8 p.m., Danspace Project, St. Mark's Church, 131 East 10th Street, East Village, 866 811 4111, danspaceproject.org. (Schaefer) NEW YORK CITY BALLET (through Oct. 16) This week, City Ballet highlights George Balanchine's connection to Viennese composers, from Mozart to Webern, featuring the grand "Vienna Waltzes" (Friday and Saturday evenings, Sunday matinee). The company also honors his inspired and fruitful relationship with the composer Igor Stravinsky with a quintet of works in the famously spartan black and white aesthetic (Saturday and Thursday). Tuesday brings an encore of the season's new works by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and the company members Justin Peck, Lauren Lovette and Peter Walker. Wednesday introduces the shimmering full length "Jewels" to the season. (See website for running times.) At various times, David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, 212 496 0600, nycballet.com. (Schaefer) ANNE NGUYEN (Friday and Sunday, Thursday through Oct. 1) The Paris based hip hop champion Anne Nguyen conquers New York this week as part of the Crossing the Line Festival with two works for very different spaces. On Friday and Sunday, in the Bronx and Times Square, she will gather 20 New York street dancers in "Graphic Cyphers," which plays with intimacy and perspective. On Thursday, she lands at Gibney Dance with "Autarcie (....): A Search for Self Sufficiency," starring four riveting women fluent, and poetic, in the languages of break dancing, popping and waacking (0:50). Sept. 23 at 2 p.m., Roberto Clemente Plaza, 149th Street and Third Avenue. Friday at 6 p.m., Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1040 Grand Concourse, at 165th Street, Morrisania, the Bronx, 718 681 6000, bronxmuseum.org. Sunday at 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., Times Square, Broadway Plaza between 46th and 47th Streets. Thursday and Sept. 30 at 8 p.m., Oct. 1 at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, 280 Broadway, near Chambers Street, Lower Manhattan, 646 837 6809, gibneydance.org. (Schaefer) NY QUADRILLE (Tuesday through Oct. 9) Four astute New York choreographers will take turns occupying the central stage of the Joyce Theater in Chelsea, temporarily reconfigured as a theater in the round. First up is Pam Tanowitz with "Sequenzas," a new work that furthers her keen deconstruction of ballet, drawing on myriad influences from a wide swath of dance history (Tuesday, Wednesday and Oct. 1, 0:45). Then, RoseAnne Spradlin makes her Joyce debut with "X," a trio pursuing her interest in body consciousness and the formal elements of dance structure (Thursday, Sept. 30 and Oct. 2, 1:00). Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday at 8 p.m.; Sept. 30 at 8 p.m.; Oct. 1 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Oct. 2 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., 175 Eighth Avenue, Manhattan, 212 242 0800, joyce.org. (Schaefer) SOAKING WET (through Sunday) This iteration of Soaking Wet, a choreographic showcase series organized by David Parker, will focus on female choreographers. Back to back programs each day will feature solos, duets, trios and quartets, some addressing female identity. For example, on Program A, Cat Wagner presents "The Lady Kids," which examines the archetype of the wild woman in Brothers Grimm stories. On Program B, Remi Harris contributes a trio exploring "the inner and outer tweaks we make as women to appease others." (Each program is one hour.) Program A at 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Program B at 8:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, at 4 p.m. on Sunday. West End Theater, 263 West 86th Street, thebanggroup.com/wet.php. (Schaefer) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
New York's school chaos is breaking us, too. I'm a high school librarian at an overcrowded school in Queens. My husband is a middle school math teacher in the Bronx. We have a kindergartner who will be attending class in person on Fridays only, but sometimes on a Monday or a Tuesday as well, and a 7 month old. We interviewed a nanny but told her we have no idea what the daily hours would look like or what the school calendar is. There is still no information about the mythical child care centers that will be opening. There likely won't be one in our neighborhood, or one with the hours we need. Plus, who is working there, and will there be personal protective equipment and an updated HVAC system there? Teachers can opt to work remotely only if they have a health issue. We are being told to head back to school buildings to support working parents, but now we are in a child care bind. Teachers are being asked to save the city's children, but who is saving ours? As a proud former New York City teacher and principal for over three decades, I can't help but applaud the announced opening of schools (now delayed until Sept. 21). We are engaged in two pandemics: Covid 19 and the pandemic of racism. Our youngsters face at the very least years of academic slide, if not trauma. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
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. The Census Bureau hasn't offered a clear explanation for its decision this week to bring an early end to the decennial enumeration of the nation's population, but the reason is clear enough: The Trump administration doesn't want a complete count, as the law requires. This is not a secret plot. Mr. Trump has been trying to whitewash the census since the moment he took office. First his administration tried to add a question about citizenship in an effort to depress the response rate of noncitizens. As one longtime Republican strategist concluded in a 2015 analysis, excluding noncitizens from the census would "be advantageous to Republicans and non Hispanic whites." After the Supreme Court poured cold water on that plan last year, Mr. Trump directed the government last month not to count undocumented immigrants for the purposes of reapportioning seats in the House of Representatives. (That's almost certainly unconstitutional.) The latest gambit is broader: Ending the crucial in person canvass one month early will ensure a significant undercount of minorities, as well as rural populations and other groups. Even in the best of times, counting roughly 330 million people is a monumental task. In the midst of a pandemic, it becomes incalculably harder. The bureau anticipated this back in April, during the first wave of the coronavirus, when it requested from Congress a four month extension to deliver its data. Current federal law requires the data to be turned in by Dec. 31; the extension would have run through April 2021. As part of its request, the bureau said it would continue knocking on doors, trying to reach every person in the country, through the end of October. The House of Representatives approved that request in May; the Senate has not acted on it. Instead of pressing harder, the census director, Steven Dillingham, said Monday that door to door data collection would end September 30, a month earlier than previously planned, to meet the Dec. 31 deadline. "We are committed to a complete and accurate 2020 census," Mr. Dillingham said. It's hard to see how. Just last month, the census's associate director, Albert Fontenot Jr., said, "we are past the window of being able to get those counts" by the end of the year. Why does an accurate and complete census matter? Because it is the anchor of representative democracy. The Constitution's framers made a national head count the first job of the federal government for a reason. Based on this count, we make some of our most consequential decisions as a society, from the states' representation in Congress to the distribution of more than 1.5 trillion in annual funding for a wide range of public programs. Businesses rely on the data to plan investments. School districts rely on it to decide how many teachers they need. Researchers use it to analyze the patterns of American life. The financial ramifications of any mistakes in the census count for state and local governments are particularly significant. Research by Andrew Reamer, a professor at George Washington University, provides a partial picture of the impact of undercounting. For each person missed by the 2010 census, he calculates that in the 2015 fiscal year, that person's state lost about 1,091 in federal funding for Medicaid and child welfare programs. Those programs comprise just a quarter of federal funding tied to the census. That's why it is essential for the census to be as precise and as comprehensive as possible. "Like the military, the census, the nation's largest peacetime mobilization, cannot fail," a former Census Bureau director wrote in The New York Times this year. "The stakes are too high, its numbers too consequential." To date, just under 63 percent of American households have responded to the census. In normal years, census workers would knock on as many doors as possible from the other 37 percent of homes, many in poorer and rural areas of the country. The arrival of the pandemic, only weeks before the start of the count on April 1, disrupted those plans. Census officials were hoping that the virus would fade by now, allowing for more in person data collection. But the outbreak hasn't abated, and could get even worse this fall when the traditional flu season begins. Add to that the many Americans who have been displaced by the virus, either temporarily or permanently, and you have the ingredients for a major distortion in the count. The president ought to do everything in his power to ameliorate that distortion. Instead, Mr. Trump and his Republican allies have repeatedly tried to exacerbate it. By their calculations, the fewer people of color and noncitizens who are counted, the better. It's true that people of color, who are more likely to be poor or marginalized than white people, are less likely to be counted in the census, perhaps more so this year than in decades. But the irony is that a rush to finish the counting process could hurt Mr. Trump's own voters, too. That's because the poorest states, which depend the most on federal funding, also tend to have lower census response rates. In West Virginia, federal funding from programs tied to the census accounted for 17 percent of economic activity in 2017, according to Mr. Reamer's calculations. The state has one of the lowest census response rates. And because so much federal funding is allocated to states based at least in part on census population estimates, an inaccurate census doesn't just harm people in undercounted communities. It harms everyone who lives in the same state. Whatever happens in the election, the effects of the census will be with the country for at least another decade a legacy that will long outlive this administration. Congress can intervene. The deadline for delivery of the final count needs to be extended to April 30, 2021, as the Census Bureau initially requested. That would force states to delay the process of drawing new legislative maps, and in some cases could make it impossible to meet deadlines written into state law. But the necessary adjustments are a small price to pay for 10 years of a fairer and more accurate democracy. Four former census directors, from Democratic and Republican administrations, called in a statement this week for Congress to commission outside experts to establish criteria for evaluating the accuracy of the final count. That's a good idea, too. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
Is Munich Getting Cool? Look for the Boat on the Bridge None Louisa Marie Summer for The New York Times Munich has long been known for its embrace of tradition, including Christmas markets, rowdy old school beer halls and the annual jamboree of drinking, rides and carnival games known as Oktoberfest. Much less has been said about its hip side. (Some, like many Berliners, might ask: "What hip side?") But those who want excitement beyond holiday shopping and mugs of hot mulled wine will be drawn in by several projects including the latest buzzy one by a group of friends turned entrepreneurs who wanted to invigorate Munich's night life scene. Alte Utting, a decommissioned, land bound boat that has been transformed into a bar slash event space slash food market, is the flashiest of their cool kid projec ts, and has attracted crowds and lots of attention since opening in July. Built in 1949, Alte Utting was a pleasure boat that sailed f or six decades around the Ammersee, a lake about an hour's drive from Munich. Today, its twinkling lights are easy to spot from afar, since the 120 ft. boat sits atop a bridge that hovers over a quiet stretch of road in southwest Munich. Daniel Hahn and a group of friends are behind the buzzy transformation of the land bound boat, Alte Utting. Louisa Marie Summer for The New York Times On a recent chilly evening, a woman perched cross legged on the bow of the boat, clutching a cappuccino and reading a mystery romance novel. Two older women sat at a table on the open air deck, flicking through a food menu, while a trio of 20 somethings sipped wine against a backdrop of low slung houses and train cars. Daniel Hahn, 28, the mastermind behind Alte Utting and various other cultural projects around Munich, was originally enticed by the boat's history. "There are so many memories from so many people," Mr. Hahn said. "People traveled on it, got married on it, celebrated christenings on it." When Mr. Hahn found out about two years ago that the boat would be destroyed, he decided to give it a second life. "When we bought the ship , everybody said you guys are crazy and dumb, and it's not possible to bring it here," Mr. Hahn said. But he and his friends had a plan. They cut the ship in half horizontally and transported it by night, an operation requiring a police escort. "They closed the autobahn for us," Mr. Hahn said . When the 144 ton boat arrived at its current spot in Munich 48 hours later, they reattached the two pieces, added a couple of bars, and invited restaurants serving vegan snacks, fusion baos, crepes and vegetable curry to open stands. Cafe Cronlein opened this summer in a building that used to be a public restroom. Louisa Marie Summer for The New York Times Besides Mr. Hahn and his friends' ventures , Geraldine Knudson, the director of Munich's tourism board, pointed to several other recently opened venues that are livening up the city's night scene. The High, a 1980s Miami themed bar in the trendy Glockenbach neighborhood, serves experimental cocktails like the Basilisc, with gin, peach, olive oil, lemon and basil. And Cafe Cronlein opened this summer in the Au Haidhausen neighborhood in a building that used to be a public restroom. The cafe has already attracted a steady stream of visitors with its unusual setting, craft beers, homemade sodas and a weekly outdoor concert series. Zum Wolf is a popular cocktail bar styled with date night lighting and touches of Americana. Louisa Marie Summer for The New York Times Of course, despite its staid reputation, the Bavarian city has always had bars and clubs that deliver both atmosphere and worthy libations. Two are standouts: Zum Wolf, a cocktail bar that opened in 2012 and is styled with date night lighting and touches of Americana (like a "Bourbon Street" sign hanging over the bar), has a wide range of whiskey and serves a mean old fashioned. Over at the Haus der Kunst, a museum of contemporary art that was built in the 1930s to house Nazi propaganda art , Goldene Bar offers an airy space decorated with large scale prints of antique maps, a patio among neoclassical columns, and cocktails with housemade bitters. After the war, Haus der Kunst served as an officer's club for members of the U.S. army and began exhibiting nonfascist art as early as 1946. The museum does not have a permanent collection, functioning instead as an exhibition space for rotating art shows. For his part, Mr. Hahn , who was born and raised in Munich, has been steadily injecting the city with creative energy since 2012, when he and his friends founded Wannda, an event organizing group. As one of their first projects, the group purchased two circus tents and began taking them to different locations, using them as space to run artistic workshops , holiday markets and more . That project, along with some of those that followed, helped them develop the contacts and bureaucratic know how to convince the city government to approve of their plan to haul in a boat from the countryside. "When buildings were taken down, we would use the time between the demolition and the new construction to go to this place and put up a tent," Mr. Hahn said. "It was legal but so difficult, so much energy and so much time." Bahnwarter Thiel is an event space spread out in an abandoned lot in Munich. Louisa Marie Summer for The New York Times Eventually, they built on the lessons they learned with the tents and constructed Bahnwarter Thiel. The event space, which is around the corner from Alte Utting, spreads out in an abandoned lot. Its indoor areas consist of a stand alone subway car and several abandoned, graffiti covered shipping containers, one of which hosts techno parties with a sound and light system that some of the country's best DJs are more than happy to travel hours for. During nonparty hours, Bahnwarter Thiel hosts flea markets, theatrical performances and exhibitions. Its yard is strewn with a mishmash of furniture even a lawn mower can be found among the fold up tables and chairs. At the end of the day, Mr. Hahn said, what drives him is simple: "Theater people go to the theater, flea market people go to the flea market," he said. "But to bring the party people to a painting workshop or the flea market people to a theater," you mix the people and "show them different ways." Follow NY Times Travel on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Get weekly updates from our Travel Dispatch newsletter, with tips on traveling smarter, destination coverage and photos from all over the world. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
On the surface, the Super Bowl halftime show by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira was a party: exultant voices, shaking hips in glittery costumes, irresistible global rhythms. They danced and belted through a quick cutting megamix of their hits, sweetly and determinedly uniting flirtatious sexiness with sheer mastery of rhythm, melody and motion. Yet the halftime show was also a no nonsense affirmation of Latin pride and cultural diversity in a political climate where immigrants and American Latinos have been widely demonized. The explosive final segment began with Lopez's daughter, Emme Maribel Muniz, and a choir of children some of them in lighted cages singing Lopez's "Let's Get Loud" and a snippet of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.," as Lopez appeared wrapped in a feathered American flag cape that reversed to a Puerto Rican flag. It looked like recognition for both Puerto Rico and for the Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who are brought to America as children. Shakira and Lopez were Latina superwomen, smiling pop conquistadoras backed by phalanxes of dancers. They sang, shimmied and thoroughly outshone the brief appearances by their guests, both reggaeton stars: Bad Bunny, from Puerto Rico, and J Balvin, from Colombia. Both Shakira, on her 43rd birthday, and Lopez, 50, are multicultural success stories. Lopez was born in the Bronx but has reveled in her Puerto Rican roots, recording hits in Spanish and English while also thriving as an actress and a producer. (Her film and television company is pointedly named Nuyorican Productions.) Shakira made her way from Colombia to international pop stardom, drawing on globally assorted sources the Americas, Africa, Europe and (flaunting her Lebanese ancestry) the Middle East for songs about passion and uplift. Both of them sing most often about romance and desire; both of them use songs and videos to insist that even with stardom, they are still just "Jenny From the Block" or a Colombian girl next door who dances barefoot in the street. Both are also among pop's most savvy beat seekers, finding and combining rhythms old and new merengue, rumba, cumbia, samba, paseo, rock, disco, hip house, reggaeton to keep fans dancing now. In some ways it was a no brainer to book two multimillion selling Latinas for a halftime show in Miami, where the city's population is 70 percent Hispanic. It was also a kind of truce. Lopez and Shakira performed a year after many musicians spurned the N.F.L. over its treatment of Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers who protested racism by kneeling during the pregame national anthem and was not signed to a team afterward. Last year, Jay Z's entertainment company, Roc Nation, entered a partnership with the N.F.L., including advising on performers for the halftime show, and joined the N.F.L.'s social justice initiative, Inspire Change, which this year included a Super Bowl spot about a police shooting. Shakira is a Roc Nation client; Lopez is not. But booking them steered the halftime show away from black and white racial tensions and toward the joys of motion and seduction. The N.F.L.'s pregame publicity had announced that there would be more songs than in any previous halftime show but not more time than the allotted 12 minutes. With two headliners, that meant cramming a whole career into six minutes: more like greatest hooks than greatest hits. The upside was that each segment Shakira first, then Lopez, then together was a kaleidoscope of rhythms, a demonstration of how much Latin (and Afro Latin) music has contributed to American pop. The downside was that individual songs barely registered, though Shakira let herself linger over two of her best blockbusters: "Whenever, Wherever" and "Hips Don't Lie." She showed off the interconnections of Latin music by turning "Chantaje," a reggaeton song, into an old school rumba and pushing "Hips Don't Lie" toward samba; she dared to crowd surf without missing a cue. She also invoked Arabic and later African rhythms, unwilling to confine herself to one hemisphere. Lopez placed herself as a New Yorker from the start, arriving on a skyscraper spire to sing "Jenny From the Block" and working through strenuous dance routines and wearing skintight leather and then even less. She perched on a pole, probably to remind fans of her role in "Hustlers" (for which she was snubbed by the Oscars); she did a slide on her knees that rivaled Bruce Springsteen's stunt in 2009; she flaunted her famous rump. Lopez leaned on the dance club part of her catalog of hits a reminder that disco, too, has Latin roots. And "Let's Get Loud" mingled with Shakira's "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)," some Congolese guitar and some New York mambo reached out to a wider world and more serious concerns than a one night party. This halftime show was euphoria with a purpose. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
In the otherwise absorbing "Summit," it's a puzzler why a new mayor (Dalia Davi) doesn't order her predecessor (Victor Slezak) escorted out of what is now her office. She keeps insisting she has a lot of work to do, but he stays around, needling her, belittling her and insisting they take a selfie together. Under Neil LaBute's direction, a few details feel off. Would a mayor really arrive for her first day at the office in stretch pants and a leather jacket? But Ms. Buchaca's play is so topical that it resists analysis. The spectacle of a female candidate competing against a self serving, bloviating male one still feels way too raw. (A central metaphor revolves around Edmund Hillary, for goodness' sake.) It also offers the notion, now quaint, that one careless tweet could destroy a political career. If only. Let's say this of Mr. LaBute: We always know why his characters stay in the room, or, as in "I Don't Know What I Can Save You From," at the cafe. He's a master at ratcheting up the tension and risk. But here he returns to his frequent and rather tired assertion that most men are brutes, and most women are witches. Not the pointy hatted kind. Simon (Richard Kind) and his adult daughter Janie (Gia Crovatin) are meeting at a cafe after a three year separation. Janie has a proposal. If Simon would like to meet his grandson, he must sign a contract making him responsible for heavy fines if his best behavior fails. Simon is not enthused. Maybe this seems like a fair fight. It isn't. Mr. LaBute has his thumb on the scales, weighting the play against Janie. Under Mr. Calvani's direction, she is eventually subject to a violent and highly sexualized scene of humiliation, made even more pervy by Jeff Mahshie's costuming. The script and Ms. Crovatin render her as such a mouthy, bratty little horror that the audience at a preview performance cheered and applauded, a reaction the play didn't ask them to question or regret. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
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