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Until the coronavirus pandemic, their meetings took place quietly, every day, discreet gatherings in the basements of churches, a spare room at the YMCA, the back of a cafe. But members of Alcoholics Anonymous and other groups of recovering substance abusers found the doors quickly shut this spring, to prevent the spread of Covid 19. What happened next is one of those creative cascades the virus has indirectly set off. Rehabilitation moved online, almost overnight, with zeal. Not only are thousands of A.A. meetings taking place on Zoom and other digital hangouts, but other major players in the rehabilitation industry have leapt in, transforming a daily ritual that many credit with saving their lives. "A.A. members I speak to are well beyond the initial fascination with the idea that they are looking at a screen of Hollywood squares," said Dr. Lynn Hankes, 84, who has been in recovery for 43 years and is a retired physician in Florida with three decades of experience treating addiction. "They thank Zoom for their very survival." Though online rehab rose as an emergency stopgap measure, people in the field say it is likely to become a permanent part of the way substance abuse is treated. Being able to find a meeting to log into 24/7 has welcome advantages for people who lack transportation, are ill, juggling parenting or work challenges that make an in person meeting tough on a given day and may help keep them more seamlessly connected to a support network. Online meetings can also be a good steppingstone for people just starting rehab. Todd Holland lives in northern Utah, and he marvels at the availability of virtual meetings of Narcotics Anonymous around the clock. He recently checked out one in Pakistan that he heard had a good speaker, but had trouble with some delay in the video and in understanding the speaker's accent. Some participants say the online experience can have a surprisingly intimate feel to it. "You get more a feel for total strangers, like when a cat jumps on their lap or a kid might run around in the background," said a 58 year old A.A. member in early recovery in Portland, Ore., who declined to give his name, citing the organization's recommendations not to seek personal publicity. Plus, he added, there are no physical logistics to attending online. "You don't go into a stinky basement and walk past smokers and don't have to drive." At the same time, he and others say they crave the raw intensity of physical presence. "I really miss hugging people," he said. "The first time I can go back to the church on the corner for a meeting, I will, but I'll still do meetings online." Mr. Holland, who for decades abused drugs until Narcotics Anonymous helped him stay sober for eight years, said the online meetings can "lack the feeling of emotion and the way the spirits and principles get expressed." It is too early for data on the effectiveness of online rehabilitation compared to in person sessions. There has been some recent research validating the use of the technology for related areas of treatment, like PTSD and depression, that suggests hope for the approach, some experts in the field said. Even those people who say in person therapy will remain superior also said the development has proved a huge benefit for many who otherwise would have faced one of the biggest threats to recovery: isolation. The implications extend well beyond the pandemic. That's because the entire system of rehabilitation has been grappling for years with practices some see as both dogmatic and insufficiently effective given high rates of relapse. "It's both challenging our preconceived concerns about what is necessary for treatment and recovery but also validating the need for connection with a peer group and the need for immediate access," said Samantha Pauley, national director of virtual services for the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, an addiction treatment and advocacy organization, with clinics around the country. In 2019, Hazelden Betty Ford first tried online group therapy with patients in San Diego attending intensive outpatient sessions (three to four hours a day, three to four days a week). When the pandemic hit, the organization rolled out the concept in seven states, California, Washington, Minnesota, Florida, New York, Illinois and Oregon where Ms. Pauley works and has since expanded to New Jersey, Missouri, Colorado and Wisconsin. Ms. Pauley said 4,300 people have participated in such intensive therapy which entails logging into group or individual sessions using a platform called Mend that is like Zoom. Preliminary results, she said, show the treatment is as effective as in person meetings at reducing cravings and other symptoms. An additional 2,500 people have participated in support groups for family members. If not for Covid, Ms. Pauley said, the "creative exploration" of online meetings would still have happened but much more slowly. One hurdle to intensive online rehab involves drug testing of patients, who would ordinarily give saliva or urine samples under in person supervision. A handful of alternatives have emerged, including one in which people spit into a testing cup while being observed onscreen by a provider who verifies the person's identity. The sample then gets dropped at a clinic or mailed in, though the risk of trickery always remains. In other cases, patients can visit a lab for a drug test. "It's been a mixed blessing," said David Teater, who wears two hats: he's in recovery himself since the 1980s, and he's executive director of Ottagan Addictions Recovery, a residential and outpatient treatment center serving low income patients in western Michigan whose therapy typically gets paid through Medicaid. In that capacity, he said online tools have been a godsend because, simply, they allowed service to continue. Through 25,000 in grants, the center got new computers and other technology that allowed it to do telemedicine, and set up a "Zoom room." It includes a 55 inch monitor so that people who are Zooming in can see the counselor as well as the people who feel comfortable enough to come in person and sit at a social distance wearing masks. "We think it works equally well, we really do," Mr. Teater said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
THE mass imprisonment of Japanese in World War II remains a painful blot on our history. There were no internment camps for the Japanese on the East Coast, but you didn't need to live in the West to be touched by the hand of fear, as Yasuo Matsui found out. Even though he had lived here for four decades, designed one of New York's tallest buildings and ran a major construction company, the Japanese born architect was rousted out of bed on the night of the Pearl Harbor attack, held at Ellis Island for two months and spent the war under house arrest. Born in 1877, Matsui came to the United States around 1902, and attended the University of California; later he worked for Ernest Flagg, Warren Wetmore and Starrett Van Vleck. In the late 1910s, he oversaw construction of several of projects in Japan for the George A. Fuller Construction Company. In practice on his own, in partnership with other architects, and as president of the architectural firm of F. H. Dewey Company, Matsui designed buildings upstate, in Connecticut and in Philadelphia. But his big commissions were in New York City. The F. H. Dewey apartment house at 510 Park Avenue, typical of its type, was one of his favorites. He also did the handsome Romanesque style office building at the northeast corner of Seventh Avenue and 48th Street. Matsui was at his peak when he was interviewed by The New York Sun in early 1930, just as his 71 story skyscraper for the Bank of Manhattan Company, at 40 Wall Street, was topped out; the principal designer was H. Craig Severance. It was at the time the tallest in the world, but The Sun's interviewer found him modest but boyishly enthusiastic. When asked about traditional Asian architecture, Matsui said he preferred the Italian Renaissance, "but sometimes goes in for modified Tudor design." New York, Matsui told the reporter, is "the greatest city in the world and it's full of beautiful things." He estimated that the useful life of skyscrapers like 40 Wall Street was at most 40 years. Asked if he had any hobbies, Matsui said, "Why, no; I plan buildings." The commission for the huge, streamlined Starrett Lehigh Building, at Twelfth Avenue and 26th Street, came in soon after; he designed that with Cory Cory. But the Depression killed building in New York for the next decade, and in 1931 Matsui did a 3,000 alteration of the Whist Club. Matsui maintained Japanese connections; in 1933 he took visiting Japanese students to visit Gov. Alfred E. Smith. And he designed the Japanese pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in New York. By 1941 the F.B.I. was quietly investigating people of German, Italian and Japanese descent. Three weeks before Pearl Harbor an investigator spoke to a man who lived near Matsui in White Plains who claimed that one of Matsui's relatives was commander in chief of the Japanese Army and called Matsui "highly temperamental," adding that he had "expressed nothing but disgust for the American people." This pre Pearl Harbor research came in handy at 1:30 a.m. on Dec. 8, 1941, when Matsui was arrested and taken to Ellis Island. Matsui said he was completely loyal to the United States, had tried to become a citizen in 1912 and that his sympathies were "wholly with the United States." Case reviewers agreed that the accuser had a land dispute with Matsui, and all other interviews supported Matsui's patriotism. Matsui apparently chose not to mention a dinner he gave in 1940 at the Plaza Hotel for a diplomat and former Japanese Army officer to meet the isolationist Congressman Hamilton Fish; at the time of the dinner Matsui wrote in a letter, "I think it is wise to avoid publicity of this meeting because of present conditions." Three days after Pearl Harbor Matsui and 367 aliens of enemy citizenship in the New York area had been detained; it is not clear how many American citizens of Japanese descent, if any, were also detained. The 110,000 detainees from the West Coast sent to camps like Manzanar included both citizens and noncitizens. Matsui was paroled on Feb. 7, 1942, and during the war he was prohibited from flying or having a camera, and required to report every month on his activities. In 1943 he said that business was almost nonexistent and he was "tending grounds around my home." A case officer reported in February 1945 that Matsui was "not resentful of the fact that his race is denied citizenship" and that he was "hopeful of an early American victory." But he was not released from parole until October 1945. In 1948 Bradford Smith published "Americans from Japan" with interviews with Japanese Americans. He had wanted to include Matsui but the architect was "shy of publicity and will not be interviewed." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
SEATTLE The other week, 218 cities and states lost in the sweepstakes to be the home of Amazon's second headquarters, failing to make the list of 20 finalists. But Amazon thanks them for playing. That is because the hundreds of applications gave Amazon a hidden benefit: free research that the company can mine when picking spots for future warehouses and satellite offices. Amazon asked every city and state applying for its second headquarters for details about local resources, like available talent and transit options. Local officials were also prodded for tips on local education programs and tax incentives. The answers most of which have not been released publicly essentially do Amazon's homework for it, providing valuable information that the company otherwise would have needed to dig up on its own or obtain through one on one negotiations. The application from the Kansas City, Mo., region detailed a program for teaching technical skills to preschoolers through 12th graders, according to a person briefed on the submissions, who would speak only anonymously because the discussions were private. A local coalition that helps military veterans make the transition to civilian jobs, which could help Amazon's efforts to recruit veterans, also caught the company's eye. The company did not realize until it saw the application from Louisville, Ky., the person said, that there is a large pool of technical talent within 200 miles of the city and a local public private partnership that helps train students to become entry level software developers. The Montreal submission stood out, the person said, with its thinking about attracting foreign talent to the region. "Through this process we learned about many new communities across North America that we will consider as locations for future infrastructure investment and job creation," she said in a statement. Amazon's plans are another illustration of how its search contest is about more than a second headquarters, or HQ2, as the company calls it. The winning location, Amazon says, will get up to 50,000 high paying jobs and billions of dollars in construction. Those promises have generated extraordinary genuflection from politicians across North America, and a lot of glowing news coverage, at a moment of heightened scrutiny about Amazon's market power. By getting 238 communities to give their best pitch, Amazon has also gotten insight into the kinds of accommodations that places are willing to make to bring it to town. "This is not just about HQ2," said Richard Florida, an authority on urban development and a professor at the University of Toronto. "It's about a broader locational strategy. HQ2 is the carrot. That's the only thing that makes sense." The proposal from Detroit, which did not make the final 20, offers another peek into the sort of incentives that Amazon has received from the HQ2 bids, and how the inducements could factor into Amazon's planning for other projects. The city offered to let Amazon operate for 30 years without paying real estate and personal property taxes and a variety of other local taxes, according to a report in Crain's Detroit Business. Ari B. Adler, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan, confirmed the report's accuracy. "We heard from Amazon that some of the key things in our favor during the review process were our commitment to partnerships, the creativity of our proposal and the investments being made in the region's growth," Mr. Adler said. Only about 40,000 of Amazon's 540,000 global employees work in Seattle, its home base. Its work force is largely spread across warehouses and other parts of the logistics network that deliver the billions of items Amazon ships every year. There are more than 300 warehouses and other shipping centers in the United States alone, according to estimates by MWPVL International, a supply chain and logistics consulting firm. The company is adding new ones at a fast clip. Amazon warehouses are often close to metropolitan areas so orders can be delivered to population centers as quickly as possible. A company site selection team scouts potential locations. The company also has more than a dozen satellite offices focused on research and development Amazon calls them "tech hubs." It has a large robotics unit near Boston, a machine translation team in Pittsburgh and a video game development group in San Diego. State and local officials have been enthusiastic about the jobs at the warehouses, offering tax breaks and raving about Amazon's arrival in news releases. Since 2000, Amazon has received over 1.1 billion in public subsidies for its facilities and other operations, according to estimates by Good Jobs First, a nonpartisan research group that tracks economic development. The city boasted about the large number of faculty at the University of Colorado, in nearby Boulder, focused on computer science. Denver also suggested a handful of possible development sites for Amazon, though those locations were redacted from the public material. "There is no better place for Amazon's second home than Colorado," John W. Hickenlooper, the state's governor, said in a cover letter with its application addressed to Jeff Bezos, Amazon's chief executive. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
A new documentary on HBO chronicles the baffling Theranos story. And a legal drama series begins on ABC. THE INVENTOR: OUT FOR BLOOD IN SILICON VALLEY (2019) 9 p.m. on HBO; streaming on HBO platforms. After Elizabeth Holmes claimed that she had revolutionized personal health care with a breakthrough blood testing technology, Inc. magazine hailed her as "the next Steve Jobs." But an investigation by The Wall Street Journal revealed that no such technology existed, and that Holmes's company, Theranos, had taken hundreds of millions of dollars from investors under false pretenses. (Holmes and Theranos's former president were indicted on charges of conspiracy and wire fraud last year.) This new documentary from Alex Gibney ("Going Clear: Scientology the Prison of Belief") traces how Holmes was able to swindle high profile investors and bamboozle the world to reach her dream of becoming "a billionaire." 9 1 1 9 p.m. on Fox. Ryan Murphy's procedural drama about a group of emergency responders in Los Angeles makes its midseason premiere. The crew receives a bizarre call about a man who was attacked by a tiger shark on a freeway, and a plastic surgeon's office falls into disarray after a gas leak. And of course there's the frothy drama outside of work: After taking their relationship to the next level, Athena (Angela Bassett) and Bobby (Peter Krause) reach another milestone, and Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) tries to put her marriage behind her once and for all. THE FIX 10 p.m. on ABC. Some have speculated that this new legal drama series is based on the 1994 O. J. Simpson murder case. (One of the writers and executive producers of the show is Marcia Clark, who was the lead prosecutor on the Simpson trial.) Clark has said "The Fix" is not based on her experiences from that time, but it does bear some resemblance: A stone faced Robin Tunney ("The Mentalist") stars as Maya Davis, a district attorney who left Los Angeles for Washington after she lost a high profile murder case involving an actor, Sevvy Johnson (Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje of "Lost"), who may or may not have killed his wife. Eight years later, Sevvy is suspected of murdering his girlfriend, and Maya is lured back to California for another chance to put him behind bars. ASSASSINATION NATION (2018) Stream on Hulu; rent on Amazon, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube. Take the social issues that have rattled the United States in the past few years, throw in commentary on the detrimental effects of social media and add some references to President Trump, and you get "Assassination Nation." This horror comedy is set in a fictional town that goes haywire after an anonymous hacker exposes half of the residents' dirty little secrets. "Often it feels like reading a Twitter thread of ideas and hashtags, rather than watching a movie," Aisha Harris wrote in her review in The New York Times. Yet the final, vengeful act, she adds, "is aesthetically arresting." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
Others acknowledged that gentrification has already arrived in the South Bronx. "Gentrification is already here," said John Matos, a graffiti artist known as Crash, who owns the WallWorks New York art gallery. "You can't fight it, you can't deny it's here." Others point to its authenticity as a reason to visit the neighborhood. "Come see the South Bronx and come see things that are genuine," said Giuseppe Gonzalez, 40, a former Bronxite and the owner of Suffolk Arms, a bar in Manhattan. "I grew up in the '80s in the South Bronx and you can't romanticize it," he said. "But," he added, "if you really want a picture of what New York City used to be like come to the Bronx." As a business owner, Mr. Gonzalez said that he wanted businesses to open up and thrive in the Bronx, but that he also wanted them to be responsive to the community around them. "It is the last true borough in New York City with the true flavor of New York," Mr. Garcia Conde said. Here are some alternative suggestions for visitors, from Mr. Garcia Conde and others: 1. Longwood Art Gallery at Hostos Community College. "They've been around for a long time. They are very supportive of local artists," Mr. Matos said. 2. Pregones Theater and Puerto Rican Traveling Theater. "They are a staple in the Bronx and continue to bring authentic arts and culture to the community," Mr. Peres said. 3. The Bronx Documentary Center. A nonprofit site that hosts photography and film events. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
A roundup of motoring news from the web: Honda says it is the first Japanese automaker to become a net exporter from factories in the United States. In 2013, 88,537 Honda vehicles were imported to the United States from Japan, but 108,705 made in America Hondas were shipped abroad, the company said. Honda has been building cars in the United States since it opened a plant in Marysville, Ohio, in 1982. (Reuters) Karl Slym, the 51 year old Tata Motors executive who fell to his death at a hotel in Bangkok over the weekend, quarreled with his wife, Sally, not long before he died, the police said. Thai police say that evidence indicates that Mr. Slym committed suicide. (Bloomberg) Ross Roberts, who managed the Ford Division of Ford Motor in 1991 98, died Tuesday at 75. Mr. Roberts pushed the Taurus into its five year run as the best selling car in the United States, and he is also credited with playing a major role in changing the public's perception of trucks and sport utility vehicles from enthusiast models into everyday conveyances. (Automotive News, subscription required) Although General Motors' Opel unit has struggled for years, Mary Barra, G.M.'s new chief executive, called the European susidiary a "vital part of G.M." Since 1999, G.M.'s European operations have incurred cumulative losses of 15 billion. (The Wall Street Journal, subscription required) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
Two weeks after concerns arose about air safety at a government lab that handles deadly pathogens, officials said tests had found no risk. Research was suspended on Feb. 16 in the lab, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, but resumed a few days later after the test results came in. The concerns involved 180 nylon hoses that pump air into the protective suits that scientists wear while working with dangerous germs like the Ebola virus. The suits fully enclose the wearer, like a spacesuit, and provide their own air supply to prevent any possible risk that scientists could inhale an airborne germ. On Feb. 13, the C.D.C. learned that the air hoses, which had been in use since 2005, had not been designed or tested for breathing safety. The potential worry was that the hose material might emit chemicals into the air supply that were unsafe to breathe. About 100 workers had used the equipment. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Bob Biggs, the founder of Slash Records, in 2003. "Bob wasn't a music geek," John Doe of the band X said. "But he wanted to affect the culture through art." Bob Biggs, who sensed opportunity in the Mohawk filled mosh pits of the Los Angeles punk movement in the late 1970s and founded Slash Records, which became one of the most successful independent record labels of its era, died on Oct. 17 at his ranch in Tehachapi, Calif. He was 74. His wife, Kim (Truch) Biggs, said the cause was complications of Lewy body dementia. At Slash Records originally part of Slash magazine, the underground Los Angeles punk scene's bible Mr. Biggs signed bands, like the Germs, X and Fear, that were dominating the moment. The label later expanded into other kinds of rock with artists like Los Lobos, the Blasters, Violent Femmes and Faith No More. When it entered a distribution deal with Warner Bros. Records, Slash's sound traveled far past Southern California. "L.A. was still part of the dream factory, and we didn't have a Warner Bros. willing to back bands like us," John Doe, X's bassist and vocalist, said in a phone interview. "The labels were hoping this annoying punk rock thing would go away so they could get back to the business of classic rock. Slash was our best alternative." "Bob wasn't a music geek," he added. "He didn't pore over credits on the backs of LPs and stuff like that. But he wanted to affect the culture through art." Indeed, Mr. Biggs didn't seem like a guy destined for punk rock history. Standing 6 foot 3, he had played football in college. He was passionate about painting. And by his own admission, he didn't really even love punk music. But he was effortlessly entrepreneurial, and in 1978 he found himself living next door to the Fairfax offices of Slash, whose scrappy staff was chronicling the frenzied, anarchistic speed rock being played nightly at Hollywood clubs like the Whisky a Go Go and the Masque, which was located in the basement of a pornographic movie theater. When the magazine needed money to fund a recording by the Germs, Mr. Biggs put up 1,000 to record the EP "Lexicon Devil," which the magazine sold to readers via mail order. It became Slash Records' first release, and it also gave Mr. Biggs a new job. In Penelope Spheeris's 1981 documentary, "The Decline of Western Civilization," which explores the Los Angeles punk scene, Mr. Biggs gives a tour of Slash's offices. As wiry staffers with pierced ears inhale cigarettes while editing copy, a writer known as Kickboy Face picks up a phone to listen to a tip. "Yeah, Slash magazine," he says. "There was a riot at the Hong Kong last night?" Ms. Spheeris asks Mr. Biggs why people like punk music. "Nothing else is going on," he says. "It's the only form of revolution left." (Mr. Biggs and Ms. Spheeris were married at the time; they divorced in 1984.) In 1979, Mr. Biggs took over Slash after its founders, Steve Samiof and Melanie Nissen, left the scene, and he started handling things with a businesslike touch. He stopped publishing the magazine, and Slash Records had its first success the next year with X's "Los Angeles," widely regarded as one of the most influential punk records of all time. Mr. Biggs's talent for signing bands that sold well became the envy of competing labels, and he expanded his roster beyond punk to other genres. He signed the band Violent Femmes, giving them the radio hit "Blister in the Sun," and he released Los Lobos' acclaimed debut album, "How Will the Wolf Survive?" The Blasters also joined Slash's roster, expanding its sound into rockabilly and American roots music. Warner Bros. took notice in 1982 and offered the label a manufacturing and distribution deal. When The New York Times visited Slash's new offices in West Hollywood that year, Mr. Biggs had developed a mogul's swagger, interrupting himself repeatedly during the interview to sign documents a secretary brought him. With success came accusations of selling out, but Mr. Biggs wasn't chafed in the slightest. "Some people think the way Slash developed was politically incorrect, but I feel no obligation to stand by a particular style of music to the bitter end," he told The Los Angeles Times in 1987. "I've never felt that the label stood for a specific set of ideals I was obliged to uphold." "I wouldn't describe myself as a music fan," he said in the same interview. "I put out records I think are necessary, and the challenge of getting a mass audience to agree they're necessary is what's fun for me." Mr. Biggs graduated from La Serna High School and attended U.C.L.A. on a football scholarship with hopes of going pro. But he blew out his knee during his first season, and the injury ended his athletic career. He reinvented himself, majoring in fine arts and immersing himself in the city's theater scene, and he showed his drawings and paintings at some local galleries. Before long, he was living next door to Slash's offices. In addition to his wife, he is survived by a son, Montezuma Ariel Alexander Biggs, and a sister, Judy Biggs. His marriages to Leslie Ward, Ms. Spheeris and Stella Marmara ended in divorce. Slash released its biggest commercial hit, Faith No More's album "The Real Thing," in 1989, and it also released music by Rammstein, the Chills and L7. The label was sold to London Records in 1996, but Mr. Biggs stayed on. After a series of corporate mergers, Slash closed as an active label in 2000, but Mr. Biggs reacquired the rights to the name a few years later and Slash eventually relaunched as a reissue label. Mr. Biggs lived in New York during the London Records era, but he later moved back to Southern California with his family, settling in a mountainous desert area of Tehachapi, where he built a ranch with an art studio to work on his large scale oil paintings. A collection of his pastel paintings featuring a series of babies' heads was used as the art for "To Be Kind," a 2014 album by the experimental rock band Swans. In 2016, Mr. Biggs learned that he had Lewy body dementia, a neurological disease that affects movement and cognition. This year marked the 40th anniversary of X's "Los Angeles," and as Mr. Doe reflected on Slash Records during his phone interview, he disagreed with the snobbish notion that Mr. Biggs had no punk spirit. "In the best definition of punk rock, Bob was actually very punk," he said. "He wanted to change things, and he didn't accept the status quo. When someone told him, 'You can't do that,' he said, 'Oh really? I'm going to try.'" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
After an extended hiatus, HBO's hit comedy "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is coming back, the premium cable channel announced on Tuesday. The eighth and most recent season of the show, created by its star, , was broadcast in 2011. Mr. David, who was also a creator of "Seinfeld," has said for years that he was unsure if there would be a ninth season. HBO did not announce when the series' ninth season would begin filming or when it would air. "Curb Your Enthusiasm" was broadcast from 2000 to 2011 with a total of 80 episodes. Mr. David's vaguely autobiographical character became a beloved avatar of misanthropes everywhere. The show was nominated seven times for the Emmy Award for outstanding comedy series , and it won the Golden Globe for best comedy in 2002. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
OSLO On July 22, 2011, the Norwegian filmmaker Erik Poppe was driving home to Oslo from southern Norway when he got a phone call from a panicked assistant. His employee, he recalled, said that a bomb had exploded near Mr. Poppe's office, in the center of the Norwegian capital. Although it wouldn't become clear until later, a right wing extremist called Anders Behring Breivik had set off a car bomb in the city's government quarter, killing eight. That evening, Mr. Poppe said, he followed in horror as news broke of a further attack a mass shooting at the Norwegian Labor Party's summer youth camp on the island of Utoya, about 19 miles northwest of Oslo. Disguised as a police officer, Mr. Breivik had murdered 69 people and injured many more, almost all teenagers, before giving himself up when the security forces arrived. "We were sitting there, completely in shock," Mr. Poppe said. "It wasn't just an attack on those kids on the island, or the victims downtown, but also an attack on our democracy." Six and a half years later, Mr. Poppe, one of Norway's best known directors, has channeled his outrage into a film, "U July 22," the first cinematic depiction of the attack. The movie, which opened in Norway on Friday, has prompted a wider debate about the ethics of fictionalizing the traumatic event. After its premiere in February at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it played in competition and screened just days after the shooting in Parkland, Fla., in which 17 people were killed, the movie also spurred a discussion about gun control and about the dangers of right wing extremism. Two other movies and a television series about the attacks are currently in the works, including a film for Netflix helmed by Paul Greengrass, the director of "United 93." Norway has struggled in recent years to pay tribute to victims of the attack. A planned memorial near Utoya was canceled after public complaints, and many have argued that the media's focus on Mr. Breivik, who has filed complaints about his treatment in prison and recently changed his name to Fjotolf Hansen, has taken attention away from the victims. "I realized there should be a story from the young people's perspectives entirely, that brings that into our collective memory again," Mr. Poppe said. "U July 22" is a rigorously faithful reconstruction of the events on the island. It closely follows a fictional 19 year old named Kaja (Andrea Berntzen), who is separated from her younger sister when the attack begins, and is forced to scramble for shelter in a small building, among trees and along the island's rocky shoreline as others are murdered around her. In an impressive technical feat, the 90 minute film was recorded in one take, with two invisible cuts to hide geographical differences between Utoya and the neighboring island on which it was filmed. When Mr. Poppe first approached the national support group for victims of the July 22 attacks about his plans to make a film, some members of the group voiced concerns that not enough time had passed. "We were worried it might be too early, because many people want to shield themselves," said Lisbeth Royneland, the chair of the group's board. Mr. Poppe's decision to make the film has been heavily debated in the Norwegian media. In an article last summer for the website of NRK, the national broadcaster, one survivor accused Mr. Poppe of "turning my life's nightmare into popular entertainment" and argued that Norwegians should instead be discussing the spread of Mr. Breivik's ideology. Mr. Poppe said that he could not argue with survivors' personal feelings but that he believed that in an era of rising right wing populism across Europe and in the rest of the Western world, he felt it was especially important to show the consequences of extremist ideology. In preparing the film, Mr. Poppe and his team conducted interviews with over 40 survivors and incorporated their experiences into the script. One scene in which Kaja sings Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" to calm down other hiding youths, for instance, replicates a real moment on the island, even down to the song. Mr. Poppe and his team filmed with a cast of amateur actors over five days in September last year, using loudspeakers to replicate the exact number of shots fired by Mr. Breivik. The speakers, he said, were turned away from the shoreline to avoid traumatizing neighbors, and several survivors were on set to ensure the film's accuracy. Mr. Poppe, who has previously worked as a war photographer, also partly drew on his experience working in conflict areas like Afghanistan. To get the role of Kaja, Ms. Berntzen a 20 year old whose only previous acting experience had been in high school theatrical revues had to undergo eight auditions and a psychiatric evaluation. And to maintain secrecy, she was only told midway through the process what the film was actually about. "I remember thinking I should be happy if I don't get a role," she said in an interview, referring to the unusual approach. But when Mr. Poppe explained his ideas and motives, she was convinced, she said. "A whole generation is being born now for which July 22 is becoming as distant as World War II," Ms. Berntzen added. "That's why it's important to have this movie." The reaction to the film in Norway has been generally positive, with a strong performance at the box office and many critics praising its intensity and faithfulness to the events. One writer in the newspaper Dagbladet, however, argued that the film lacked any interest in exploring a bigger "problem or tension," and complained that it "is more interested in reproducing history than adding anything to it." Before the movie's Berlin premiere, the filmmakers held screenings for the survivors and relatives across the country. Renate Tarnes, now the secretary general of the Labor Party's youth organization, who survived the shooting by hiding in a cafe on the island, said that when she saw the film, her first reaction was "relief, because I really felt he and his crew understood what we've been through." Afterward, she texted Mr. Poppe to say that she had "been really skeptical, that I didn't think it was possible to do it in a good way." But the director, she said, "surprised me." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
The actor and sound designer Ben Williams says he's never been scared at a show. But he shudders as he recalls what happened one night in 1985, after watching "The Exorcist" on television as a 6 year old. "I had a dream watching my grandmother's old green 1979 Oldsmobile going down the street and Linda Blair in the back seat spinning her head to turn around and watch me as it was going by," said Mr. Williams, who has worked regularly with the Wooster Group and Elevator Repair Service. "I was more freaked out by what I dreamt than the movie itself." Despite that scare, Mr. Williams, 37, became a horror fan, a bona fide he brings to his body rumbling sound design for "The Terrifying," Julia Jarcho's new nightmarish drama that runs through April 2 at the Abrons Arts Center. Inspired by the literary grotesquerie of the writer Nikolai Gogol and the gothic fright films of the British studio Hammer, the play is about an unseen, bloodthirsty monster who noisily eats its way through a village. Mr. Williams's soundscape, some of which is improvised during each performance, surrounds the audience via speakers overhead and under the onstage risers, on which the audience sits, facing the auditorium. "A lot of the sound design goes back and forth between creating a place that's safe and soothing Julia asked for moments where things seem really nice and other moments with actual violence," Mr. Williams said. "It's a question of keeping it unpredictable." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
Role Models Tell Girls That STEM's for Them in New Campaign Bonnie Ross, head of Microsoft's Halo game studio, says, "You have the power to bring new worlds to life." Maya Gupta, a Google research scientist, advises, "Don't just solve the problem, write the code." And Lisa Seacat DeLuca, a distinguished engineer at IBM, suggests, "If you can imagine it, it's possible." They are among the women featured in a public service campaign, debuting Monday, that encourages girls ages 11 to 15 to get involved in science, technology, engineering and math. The "She Can STEM" campaign was put together by the Advertising Council in collaboration with General Electric, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Verizon. The companies advised the Ad Council and the New York office of McCann Worldgroup, which did creative work pro bono, on the campaign's development. Each also identified a female employee in a STEM field to be featured in the campaign, alongside women who work at Boeing and the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. The centerpiece of the campaign are videos in which the seven women discuss with girls (actresses with an interest in STEM subjects) what they do professionally and what the opportunities are. The professionals are also featured on the campaign's website, SheCanStem.com, and in individual profiles on Instagram and in more traditional media. "When girls don't feel encouraged and empowered in STEM, we see serious consequences not only for girls and women, but also for the future of innovation in our country," said Lisa Sherman, president and chief executive of the Ad Council. "If we want women at the forefront of the next generation of STEM leaders, we must show young girls that it is possible." The women featured in the campaign, or their employers, will post photos of them taken when they were girls, with a note that says, "If she can STEM, so can you." The Ad Council will also encourage women in all STEM fields to do the same. Michelle Peluso, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of IBM, pointed to "so much imagery of cool, nerdy Silicon Valley guys in sneakers" in the technology industry. "We want the girls to see all the amazing women in STEM and be inspired," she said. Others involved with the campaign include Karina Garcia, the YouTube star known as the Slime Queen; the Disney actress Olivia Rodrigo; Alyssa Carson, a space enthusiast and astronaut hopeful; and Mari Takahashi of the YouTube channel Smosh Games. Nonprofit partners include the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., Black Girls Code, ChickTech, Girls Who Code and the Society of Women Engineers. 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. According to research by the Department of Commerce, women make up half of the college educated work force in the United States but only 25 percent of the STEM work force. Studies by the Girl Scout Research Institute and National Center for Education Statistics show that many girls begin losing interest in STEM subjects when they are in middle school, a path that continues in high school and college. Linda Boff, chairwoman of the Ad Council and chief marketing officer of General Electric, said it was "important to get the attention of young girls and inspire them through real STEM role models they can relate to." "It's about inspiration it's about insight," she continued. "If you show young girls women who have achieved in STEM, hopefully you're showing them the pathway." The Ad Council's message to girls "could have a big effect," said Amy Fitzgerald, the outreach coordinator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Edgerton Center. The center, which is supported by G.E., provides educational resources for M.I.T. students, faculty and staff, as well as for students and teachers in kindergarten through grade 12. It is vital that the campaign features "mechanical engineers, aviation engineers, women who get their hands dirty, not just in research lab coaty positions," Ms. Fitzgerald said. "I want to see hard hats. Girls, especially, do not have an idea of the range of possibilities." The Ad Council is not the only organization trying to raise the consciousness of young girls about STEM. In June, Mattel introduced a robotics engineer Barbie and joined forces with Tynker, a game based platform that teaches kids how to code, to offer Barbie inspired coding lessons. In addition, in the past few years, the Girl Scouts organization, which has offered STEM related programming for over a century, has introduced new programs in space science and exploration, cybersecurity, mechanical engineering, robotics and computer science. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
'We Will Be a Voice for the Voiceless': The W.N.B.A. Season Is Dedicated to Breonna Taylor None The W.N.B.A. season started with 26 seconds of silence and an empty court. "We are dedicating this season to Breonna Taylor," Layshia Clarendon, a New York Liberty guard and member of the new W.N.B.A. Social Justice Council, said at the game's start on Saturday. "We will be a voice for the voiceless." The 2020 season, which is being played in a 22 game "bubble" environment at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., is expected to be charged with social justice initiatives alongside a full championship schedule. Symbols and logos declaring "Black Lives Matter" and "Say Her Name" were prominent on the court, and players wore jerseys that bore the name of Taylor, a Black emergency medical technician in Louisville, Ky., who was killed by the police in March. The opener pitting a young Liberty roster against the Seattle Storm's more seasoned team ended with a 87 71 Seattle victory. The Storm brought back Sue Bird, the W.N.B.A.'s career assists leader, and Breanna Stewart, the 2018 most valuable player, after both were unable to play last season. The team started with the same lineup that captured the 2018 league title. Both Bird, who missed last year with a knee injury, and Stewart, who tore her Achilles' tendon while playing in Europe in April 2019, appeared comfortable on the court: Bird with 11 points and five assists; Stewart 18 points, eight rebounds, two assists and a personal best four steals. The team's defensive strategy forced the Liberty into 20 turnovers and 35 percent shooting from the field. "I have no problem saying it," Liberty Coach Walt Hopkins said in a pregame Zoom call with reporters. "They're probably the favorite to win it this year." While the Storm sent out a more experienced lineup, the Liberty are entering the season with a new set of players, staff members and strategy. Hopkins, a first time head coach who previously was an assistant coach for the Minnesota Lynx, has pushed for a faster pace and more 3 point attempts. Sabrina Ionescu, the No. 1 pick in the 2020 draft, played for nearly 34 minutes in her first league game. She closed her debut with 12 points, six rebounds and four assists. But the player, known for her triple doubles during her record setting college career at Oregon, had no 3 pointers, and made only 4 of 17 shots. "I definitely think we did have some letdowns," she said in a postgame Zoom call. Ionescu is the only N.C.A.A. basketball player to record 2,000 points, 1,000 assists and 1,000 rebounds. "But we have to play in a few days and I have to learn from those mistakes." She is one of seven rookies on the Liberty's roster, which started its season without Asia Durr, who has the coronavirus, and the rookie Megan Walker, who will join the team on Monday after completing the quarantine protocols required of her after she tested positive for the coronavirus just over two weeks ago. Jazmine Jones, another new face to the W.N.B.A., was also absent after sustaining an ankle sprain in practice last week. And the Liberty lost Kia Nurse, their second leading scorer last year, with eight minutes left in the second quarter with an apparent ankle sprain. The Liberty will return to the court with a game against the Dallas Wings on Wednesday. The Storm will play the Lynx on Tuesday. Those games, and all the others during the W.N.B.A.'s shortened season, will marked by more social justice initiative. "We're not just slapping her name on a shirt and saying, 'Here we go,'" Clarendon said. "We're being intentional about this and working with her mother." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
Venice's ornate opera house, La Fenice, has survived floods and been rebuilt after devastating fires. So it was determined to keep going after the coronavirus forced it to cancel its performances: This week a string quartet gathered in the empty, eerily silent theater and played Beethoven, streaming the concert online and winning an ovation of handclap emojis. The company's general manager, Fortunato Ortombina, said that the virtual concert had been intended to send a message: "We still play in this place." While the coronavirus has taken a big toll on the arts world in terms of closed venues and canceled events, it has also spurred plenty of show must go on creativity in some of the hardest hit areas, as performers and organizations have tried to adapt to trying circumstances. "All the doctors and nurses were working so hard to help people, so we thought: what can we do as musicians?" Hao Jie, the orchestra's principal trombonist, said in a telephone interview. "With everyone staying home for so long, we thought of doing something for young people, for students interested in learning how to play musical instruments." The videos have proved popular, with hundreds of thousands of views. "People love it," he said. The pop world is reeling, too. When the K pop superstars BTS released their latest album last month, coronavirus fears and restrictions on big events forced them to rethink the elaborate news conference they were planning. "We have decided to carry out the press conference without any members of the press," they announced before streaming it live online. The theater started looking for a solo pianist to play a piano reduction of the complex score, which was written for one of the largest ensembles in opera and is often performed by more than 100 players. "We had a sold out house, so the intendant of the theater called me that morning at 9 a.m. to ask me to play," recalled the head of the theater's music staff, Valeria Polunina. Ms. Polunina knew the piano score well, but feared she could not do it justice by that evening. But she began working on it, and grew more comfortable, so when she got another call that afternoon saying that the show could not go on without her, she agreed to play. "It was an adventure," she said, estimating that she played the piano more than 10 hours straight that day between her all day practicing and the performance that evening. "There was a full house, and they were so appreciative, with everything canceled." Many events in Switzerland were canceled after the government banned performances before more than 1,000 people. The Zurich Opera House, which holds more than 1,100 people, found a novel solution to allow it to perform: It limited audiences to 900 people, buying back tickets when necessary, as it had to this week with some performances of Puccini's "La Boheme." But the company did have to cancel one of its biggest fund raisers of the year, the Opera Ball, which had been expected to draw 1,600 people on March 14. Bettina Auge, a spokeswoman for the company, said that while it was offering refunds, the opera hoped that patrons would waive the refund as a way to support its educational programs. Even television, the ultimate home entertainment, is adjusting to the coronavirus, at least in China: On many shows, live audiences are out. A musical reality show called "Singer" that used to feature performers before a live audience and a panel of judges recently broadcast an episode in which the judges and other contestants called in from home, the BBC reported. And some talk shows are being streamed from home, almost like video conferences. There is still a lot of uncertainty going forward. BTS, the K pop band, had a successful album rollout, but was forced to cancel several major upcoming concerts in Korea because of the outbreak. The members of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra are symptom free and at the end of their quarantine, and expect to be back playing "Salome" on Saturday, Numa Bischof Ullmann the orchestra's general director, said in an email. But the Swiss ban on large performances has already forced the orchestra to cancel two major concerts. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
As other college students head out to party on a Saturday night, Julie Linneman, a sophomore at Villanova University, rides the subway to a small rowhouse in West Philadelphia to meet with "her people," a posse of students who understand what it's like to be taken down by opioids. Ms. Linneman is a bespectacled 22 year old who favors shredded jeans. She is a fan of cooking shows, fantasy fiction and Paul McCartney. She spent her first attempt at sophomore year the one at Northern Kentucky University in her dorm room, high on heroin. Coming to terms with a habit that nearly killed her, she has found support at the Haven at Drexel, Drexel University's housing for students in recovery. Seven students from colleges in the Philadelphia area including the University of Pennsylvania, Temple and Villanova live, eat and socialize here, where they can abstain without temptation. More converge during these Saturday night meetings. "Sometimes you just need to be around other students who know what you have gone through," Ms. Linneman said. They share snacks, drink water instead of beer, and talk about their life threatening addictions. Ms. Linneman, who agreed to be named because she hopes to pursue a career in recovery advocacy, got her first pills Vyvanse and Adderall, stimulants for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in high school from the boy with the locker next to hers. She soon moved on to prescription painkillers like Percocet. The "warm blanket" effect alleviated debilitating anxiety and loneliness. Once at college, she replaced pills with bags of cheap heroin. Her roommate moved out. The drug rendered her friendless. "It was one of the most lonely times of my life," she recalled. She grew thin and pale. She would sit in the cafeteria alone, barely eating, occasionally nodding off. The workers would ask, "Are you O.K.?" She still managed to get decent grades and to keep her addiction hidden at her job. By the end of the semester, Ms. Linneman's father knew something was wrong. Over winter break, he gathered her sister and brother for an uncomfortable intervention. She wasn't ready to seek help and went back to school. She began skipping classes and eventually dropped out. Then she was ready. Nasty withdrawal symptoms make stopping doubly hard. She spent four and a half months in a New Jersey rehabilitation center before joining the Haven, first as a resident, now as a frequent visitor. She has been clean for a year and a half. The opioid epidemic has ravaged communities around the nation deaths from overdoses now outnumber deaths from car crashes prompting President Trump to establish a federal task force and, on Oct. 26, to declare a public health emergency, allowing some grant money to be released to combat the problem and some laws and regulations to be eased. Sean Esteban McCabe, a Michigan researcher who has studied student addiction for close to 20 years, said misuse is most prevalent on competitive campuses, where students are more affluent and have better access to prescribed pills. Studies have indicated that athletes in high contact sports like ice hockey and wrestling, who are often prescribed painkillers, are particularly vulnerable. Campus users, Dr. McCabe said, tend to be white, live in fraternity or sorority houses, and have lower grade point averages. Thanks to better prevention education and treatment, heroin use among college students has flattened out, and abuse of painkillers seems to be dropping. A decade ago, 9 percent in the Michigan survey said they had misused within the previous year. This news has not heartened advocates, though, largely because the number of deaths has actually risen. Public health officials blame a black market flooded with more dangerous options like fentanyl, a highly addictive synthetic that is 100 times more potent than morphine. It is the opioid that killed Prince. Opioid related deaths among Americans age 24 and under almost doubled from 2005 to 2015, when 3,165 were reported, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of opioid related emergency room visits by young people also nearly doubled over five years, from 52 per 100,000 patients to 97 in 2014, according to the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Last May, four students at Johns Hopkins University were hospitalized after overdosing on opioids during a late night fraternity party. Furman University in Greenville, S.C., lost a student a day before his graduation last spring when he overdosed on fentanyl. A sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who had just spent the weekend with his mother at a Tar Heel football game, was found dead in his bedroom. In his system were traces of the opioids he had tried desperately to kick. States have urged colleges to take action. New York and Colorado are earmarking millions of dollars to their public colleges for prevention education and research. Maryland now requires colleges and universities to offer arriving students a drug prevention class that focuses on the risks of opioid use. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who heads the federal addiction task force, announced this year a 1 million increase for recovery dorms on public campuses in his state. It is not uncommon for stores near campuses, health centers and dorms to stock free overdose reversal kits of naloxone. And the return to school now includes a bustle of overdose prevention training sessions for residence hall assistants, campus police officers and health care workers. Last year, West Virginia University, in a state that leads the nation in fatal drug overdoses, started a parent support group. Mothers and fathers of young users gather monthly, some calling in remotely, to tell stories of spoons going missing from kitchen cutlery drawers and students calling home, desperate for money, dropping out of classes or getting arrested. Sometimes the parents cry uncontrollably. Prescription pills are part of the party mix. Xanax, a highly addictive anxiety drug, has become a popular accompaniment to beer and vodka shots. Adderall is crushed for snorting. And Vicodin is ingested as a relaxant, available from students with prescriptions or on an online black market. Dr. Joseph Lee, medical director for youth services at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, says that students act as mixologists, creating dangerous drug and alcohol cocktails for themselves and friends. "They are alarmingly familiar with what they can do to get high, but not the danger," he said, "and they don't know where to get help." Students in recovery confirm this. Many of them say that in high school and college they were purposeful about their drug use, smoking pot to calm down and taking stimulants to speed up. The technique worked well, until overuse and mixed use began to alter the impact. Drugs that were supposed to do one thing did another. Mr. Arconti hopes his story might inspire others to get help. He stopped taking opioids four and a half years ago after several stints in rehabilitation. He says users destined to become addicts generally experiment until they find the drug they want. "There is a lot to choose from," he said. It should not be a surprise that today's 20 somethings have developed a taste for prescription pill cocktails. Pills are ubiquitous in homes, schools and offices. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health in 2015 found that 119 million Americans, 12 and older, take prescription painkillers, tranquilizers, sedatives or, increasingly among children and young adults, stimulants like Adderall. That's nearly half the population. Painkillers in particular have surged. The sale of opioids quadrupled between 1999 and 2010, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine. By 2012, doctors were writing 259 million opioid prescriptions a year, enough for every American adult to have his or her own bottle. The National Institute on Drug Abuse has been encouraging doctors to reduce the number of addictive pills they hand out. Parents are being told to dispose of unused painkillers, and drug companies are producing opioids in gel forms, so they can't be crushed to snort. Dr. Andrew Kolodny, the co director of Opioid Policy Research at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management, describes the drug surge as "a pill for everything culture," which he says has significantly affected how young people feel about prescription pills when they go off to college. Multiple studies have shown that the more available pills are to young people, the more likely they are to use them. "Today, if you grow up in a home where pills are used for every little problem," he said, "you are likely to leave for college with a lot less fear about them." Throughout October, a wall of painted sneakers has greeted visitors to the University of North Carolina's student union. It's part of an exhibit entitled "Step Into the Soles of Recovery," sponsored by the university's four year old recovery program. Alongside the shoes are the personal accounts of the students who decorated them. The laces of one sneaker are wrapped tightly around it. On a piece of paper nearby, the student wrote: "For me, addiction always felt suffocating." Frank Allison used heroin and drank heavily until he was 40; now 51, he heads the U.N.C. recovery program. He said the exhibit was a way for some of the four dozen students in his program to talk candidly with the campus about their struggles, part of a push to destigmatize addiction and shift attitudes about treatment. Mr. Allison wants to see a move away from a "moral model" that treats students with substance issues like failures with no self control instead of like people with a chronic illness, which is how the American Society of Addiction Medicine defines it. Physicians believe that this viewpoint will help frame the opioid problem for parents and educators, and help funnel recovery and prevention funds onto campuses. U.N.C. offers a cadre of services that largely depend on where students are in their recovery six months substance free or 60 months substance free. Two years ago, Mr. Allison persuaded administrators to offer beds on a drug and alcohol free dorm floor. Three of his students currently live there. Some choose to be closely monitored, through breathalyzers and urine tests. The university helps them find therapists and coaches who accompany them to multiple recovery meetings a week. Others have chosen more autonomy but attend Mr. Allison's workshops on meditation, mindfulness and balanced living. Like others in the movement, he refers to addiction as a "substance use disorder" and refuses to use the word "failure" when referring to relapses. "People don't misuse substances because they are bad people," he said. "I wasn't a bad person. I was a sick person. Having a substance use disorder is like having diabetes or a heart condition." When there are U.N.C. basketball games Mr. Arconti watches with his recovery friends. Together, they go to Durham Bulls games and amusement parks. But it is at weekly meetings where the recovery ethos shines. Students talk about sober dating, relapse temptations and struggles to make time for studying and recovery. When they speak specifically about their addictions, they are quick to play down the drugs they gravitated toward. Instead, they focus on the illness they share, and the future. During a recent meeting, when it was his turn to talk, Mr. Arconti said: "I'm happy to be here. I'm mentally and spiritually feeling well." Nationally, more students are seeking treatment. Last year, about one in two patients at the Minnesota youth treatment center of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation were being treated for opioid addiction. In 2010, one in six were. And the number of opioid related claims for coverage by Blue Cross Blue Shield has almost doubled since 2010 for college age patients. The Haven at Drexel is part of a network called the Haven at College, which started in 2012 with one residence, at the University of Southern California, where young people could bond over a common struggle. Now there are five four on or near California campuses and the one at Drexel housing more than 50 young adults. The umbrella organization is run by two former users alcohol and heroin were their drugs of choice. The cost is 1,900 to 3,800 a month, which can be defrayed by financial aid, alumni funds earmarked for recovery and Haven work study. Students who live in the houses receive meals, coaching from a licensed clinician and support from a house manager who monitors their whereabouts. There are curfews for newcomers, penalties for missing them and chores for everyone. But mostly, students say, there is camaraderie. Most of the houses are near dorms or fraternity houses, in what Holly Sherman, a founder and the executive director, calls the "war zone of party central." Still, or perhaps because of this, it is not uncommon to have dozens of people show up for the Saturday night meeting. Ms. Sherman says students arrive on campus and wonder: "'How am I going to stay sober if I can't find a sober community?' What we do is work with the university to establish that community for them." Matthew, a 24 year old former varsity athlete, sometimes attends the meetings. A May graduate of Albright College in Reading, Pa., he asked that his last name not be used because he wants to work as a financial adviser or analyst at a Fortune 500 company. But the opioid obsession he developed in college is getting in the way. He hopes the experiences of other students, many of whom know well the allure of opioids but have managed to kick the habit, will rub off on him. He was handed a "Perc" freshman year by an older teammate he looked up to. At the time, he was at a small Catholic college in a Philadelphia suburb. "I'm in college," he recalled thinking. "Let's experiment, let's party. He's cool. I want to be cool." Soon after, a dealer introduced him to heroin. He began snorting before class, while doing homework and instead of going to parties and drinking. The heroin made all the drudgeries homework, dining hall food, boring classes seem manageable. "During Accounting 101, I'm in the bathroom snorting heroin, thinking: 'I've got to get back to class.'" When he transferred to Albright College, he dialed back on the heroin and returned to Percocet. Last summer, shortly after graduating, he went to a rehabilitation center in Florida. "I'm not ready to just throw my life away for a stupid blue pill," he said, perched on a weathered couch in the recovery center living room. Still, he acknowledged, he struggles to kick the habit. "I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. I've got really big goals." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Education |
For a while, Rupert Murdoch seemed invincible. First, the mogul emerged relatively unscathed from a 2011 phone hacking scandal involving his British tabloids that threatened to upend his empire. Then, he installed his sons, Lachlan and James, in leadership roles at 21st Century Fox. And, last year, the thrice divorced Mr. Murdoch married Jerry Hall, a former supermodel 25 years his junior. But even Mr. Murdoch, a self made billionaire whose range of media assets wield enormous political influence on three continents, was no match for Silicon Valley. Like King Lear confronting his mortality, Mr. Murdoch, 86, is preparing to divide up a lifetime of spoils. And as he moves to sell off wide swaths of his media and entertainment business, he is also throwing into confusion the line of succession and testing the ties that bind the family run fief. The Walt Disney Company announced on Thursday it had reached a deal to acquire most of 21st Century Fox Inc., the Murdoch owned company that includes the storied movie and television studio, national cable networks like FX and National Geographic, 22 regional cable channels dedicated to sports and a 39 percent stake in Britain's pay TV service, Sky. The 52.4 billion deal which would not include Fox News, the Fox broadcast network or the FS1 sports cable channel, which will be spun off into a newly listed company has come about as part of the consolidation sweeping over traditional media companies as they try to fight off threats from Amazon, Apple and Netflix. It also represents a remarkable shift for Mr. Murdoch, a visionary businessman who has long lived by a single credo: Buy, buy, buy. After all, Mr. Murdoch didn't grow a single newspaper in Adelaide, Australia, into a 100 billion media business by selling. "Rupert has always been a collector, a builder," said Laura Martin, an analyst at Needham Company. In 2007, when newspapers were facing a decline, Mr. Murdoch defied Wall Street investors and his own advisers to pay 5 billion for Dow Jones, the company that publishes The Wall Street Journal. Why? Because he wanted to. In 2012, under pressure in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, Mr. Murdoch split his entertainment assets into a separate publicly traded company, 21st Century Fox, from News Corporation, the company that includes The Journal, the New York Post and other newspapers. For a time Mr. Murdoch's enterprise looked like an entertainment company with a newspaper problem, with glitzy Hollywood assets and lucrative Fox News keeping Mr. Murdoch's true love, printed papers, afloat. Mr. Murdoch must have known he needed to get even bigger to survive. But lately his buying prowess has taken a hit. In 2014, investors rebuffed him when he tried to gain scale with an 80 billion offer for Time Warner Inc., the company that owns HBO and CNN and which may end up the property of AT T, if a deal long in the making survives the scrutiny of a skeptical Justice Department. Regulatory hassles have also thwarted Mr. Murdoch's efforts to pay 15 billion for the 61 percent stake in Sky not already owned by 21st Century Fox. "He tried to buy, and when that didn't work, he doesn't sulk he sells," Ms. Martin said. Disney's planned acquisition of 21st Century Fox Mr. Murdoch's confidants call it a merger makes economic sense, analysts say, and may be the best way for Mr. Murdoch's broader empire to thrive. But it also makes the identity of his heir less apparent. Mr. Murdoch's younger son, James, 44, has reinvented himself since an intense legal imbroglio in Britain that sprang up after the News of the World tabloid hacked into the voice mail of a 13 year old murder victim. James Murdoch, who is said to be supportive of the Disney deal, left his post in London, moved to the United States and took over one of his father's jobs: chief executive of 21st Century Fox. 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. Lachlan Murdoch, the elder brother at 46, has been caricatured as the prodigal son. He left the family business in 2005 and was happily living out of the fray in Australia, with a supermodel wife and a trust fund. But as part of Mr. Murdoch's succession plan, Lachlan returned to the United States in 2015 to serve with his younger brother and alongside his father, as co executive chairman at 21st Century Fox. Seen by some insiders as a daddy's boy, he moved into his father's former office on the company's palm tree lined lot in Beverly Hills. Questions abound about which son would carry on the family legacy, should the Disney deal go through. (Mr. Murdoch's older daughters, Prudence and Elisabeth, have stayed mostly out of the business, and his younger daughters, Grace and Chloe, are teenagers.) "You have this issue with two sons who are seemingly capable of commercial success and, if you're Rupert, you want to leave them both in a good spot, for lack of a better spot," said Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research. A company insider who could only discuss ongoing deal negotiations anonymously said it was too early to know what roles the Murdoch sons would take on, and added that James Murdoch could decide to strike out on his own. Robert A. Iger, the chief executive of Disney, has agreed to stay on after his planned retirement in 2019. Analysts widely agreed that, despite speculation, James Murdoch would not be in serious contention for Mr. Iger's job. Unlike Sumner Redstone, the 94 year old billionaire magnate behind Viacom and CBS Corp. who lusted after Paramount Studios and the red carpet prestige of owning a movie studio, Mr. Murdoch has always been more enamored with ink stained newsrooms. The Disney deal would leave him without a seat at the Dolby Theater for the Academy Awards a string of Fox Searchlight Pictures films including "Slumdog Millionaire," "12 Years a Slave" and "Birdman" have won best picture Oscars but Mr. Murdoch would maintain his seat at the White House. In August, the family patriarch had a private dinner with President Trump; Mr. Trump's son in law Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser; and the White House chief of staff John F. Kelly. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
'HILMA AF KLINT: PAINTINGS FOR THE FUTURE' at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (through April 23). This rapturous exhibition upends Modernism's holiest genesis tale that the male trinity of Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian invented abstract painting starting in 1913. It demonstrates that a female Swedish artist got there first (1906 7), in great style and a radically bold scale with paintings that feel startlingly contemporary. The mother of all revisionist shows regarding Modernism. (Roberta Smith) 212 423 3500, guggenheim.org 'ARMENIA!' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Jan. 13). The first major museum exhibition ever devoted to the art of Armenia officially its "medieval" era, but in fact spanning nearly 1,500 years bulges with weighty stone crosses, intricate altar frontals and flamboyantly illuminated Bibles and Gospel books unlike any manuscripts you've seen from that time. Armenia, in the Caucasus Mountains, was the first country to convert to Christianity, in the fourth century, and the richly painted religious texts here, lettered in the unique Armenian alphabet, are a testament to the centrality of the church in a nation that would soon be plunged into the world of Islam. By the end of the Middle Ages, Armenian artists were working as far afield as Rome, where an Armenian bishop painted this show's most astounding manuscript: a tale of Alexander the Great that features the Macedonian king's ship swallowed by an enormous brown crab, hooking the sails with its pincers as its mouth gapes. (Jason Farago) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI SCULPTURE: THE FILMS' at the Museum of Modern Art (through Feb. 18). This show is built around works by the Romanian modernist (1876 1957) that have been longtime highlights of the museum's own collection. But in 2018, can Brancusi still release our inner poet? The answer may lie in paying less attention to the sculptures themselves and more to Brancusi's little known and quite amazing films, projected at the entrance to the gallery throughout the duration of the exhibition. MoMA borrowed the series of video clips from the Pompidou Center in Paris. They give the feeling that Brancusi was less interested in making fancy museum objects than in putting new kinds of almost living things into the world, and they convey the vital energy his sculptures were meant to capture. (Blake Gopnik) 212 708 9400, moma.org 'CHAGALL, LISSITZKY, MALEVICH: THE RUSSIAN AVANT GARDE IN VITEBSK, 1918 1922' at the Jewish Museum (through Jan. 6). This crisp and enlightening exhibition, slimmed but not diminished from its initial outing at Paris's Centre Pompidou, restages the instruction, debates and utopian dreaming at the most progressive art school in revolutionary Russia. Marc Chagall encouraged stylistic diversity at the short lived People's Art School in his native Vitebsk (today in the republic of Belarus), and while his dreamlike paintings of smiling workers and flying goats had their defenders, the students came to favor the abstract dynamism of two other professors: Kazimir Malevich and El Lissitzky, whose black and red squares offered a radical new vision for a new society. Both the romantics and the iconoclasts would eventually fall out of favor in the Soviet Union, and the People's Art School would close in just a few years but this exhibition captures the glorious conviction, too rare today, that art must serve the people. (Farago) 212 423 3200, thejewishmuseum.org 'DELACROIX' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Jan. 6). The first full dress retrospective in North America devoted to the enigmatic giant of French Romanticism is a revelation of nearly 150 paintings, drawings and prints. Their staggering range of often traditional themes from crucifixes to historic battles to rearing, almost kitschy stallions and damsels in distress are belied by a radical use of color and paint that inspires artists still. (Smith) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'DOWN THESE MEAN STREETS: COMMUNITY AND PLACE IN URBAN PHOTOGRAPHY' at El Museo del Barrio (through Jan. 6). This show's title comes from the 1967 autobiography of the New York writer Piri Thomas, a community organizer of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent who grew up in what was then called Spanish Harlem. Five of the show's photographers Frank Espada (1930 2014), Perla de Leon, Hiram Maristany, Winston Vargas and Camilo Jose Vergara took as their beat that neighborhood, or Latino sections of Washington Heights, the South Bronx and Brownsville, Brooklyn. Others were working in Los Angeles. The pictures are a blend of documentary and portraiture. They see what's wrong in the world they record the poverty, the crowding but also the creativity encouraged by having to make do, and the warmth generated by bodies living in affectionate proximity. (Holland Cotter) 212 831 7272, elmuseo.org 'EMPRESSES OF CHINA'S FORBIDDEN CITY' at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass. (through Feb. 10). Every emperor of the Qing dynasty had dozens of wives, concubines and serving girls, but only one of them could hold the title of empress. The lives of women at the late imperial court is the subject of this lavish and learned exhibition, which plots the fortunes of these consorts through their bogglingly intricate silk gowns, hairpins detailed with peacock feathers, and killer platform boots. (The Qing elite were Manchus; women did not bind their feet.) Many empresses' lives are lost to history; some, like the Dowager Empress Cixi, became icons in their own right. Most of the 200 odd dresses, jewels, religious artifacts and scroll paintings here are on rare loan from the Palace Museum in Beijing you will not have a chance to see these again without a trip to the People's Republic. (Farago) 978 745 9500, pem.org 'EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED: ART AND CONSPIRACY' at the Met Breuer (through Jan. 6). A dark, fatalistic exhibition of 30 artists, mostly Americans, examines a country that has lost its grip on the truth. The show's hero is the Mike Kelley, who died in 2012. His models and prints here evoke hysterical episodes from the late 1980s and '90s when parents across California accused schools of satanic child abuse; a similar gaze on American unreason animates the art of John Miller, Cady Noland, Jim Shaw and Lutz Bacher. You may be put off by this show's equation of real investigations of wrongdoing in Jenny Holzer's LED displays using declassified Iraq documents with outlandish, often crazed conspiracy theories. What Kelley would say, and what this grimly up to the minute show implies, is that when facts lose their purchase in both art and politics, mental breakdown is the logical outcome. (Farago) 212 731 1675, metmuseum.org 'THE JIM HENSON EXHIBITION' at the Museum of the Moving Image. 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 'BODYS ISEK KINGELEZ: CITY DREAMS' at the Museum of Modern Art (through Jan. 1). The first comprehensive survey of the Congolese artist is a euphoric exhibition as utopian wonderland, featuring his fantasy architectural models and cities works strong in color, eccentric in shape, loaded with enthralling details and futuristic aura. Kingelez (1948 2015) was convinced that the world had never seen a vision like his, and this beautifully designed show bears him out. (Smith) 212 708 9400, moma.org 'THE LONG RUN' at the Museum of Modern Art. The museum upends its cherished Modern narrative of ceaseless progress by mostly young (white) men. Instead we see works by artists 45 and older who have just kept on keeping on, regardless of attention or reward, sometimes saving the best for last. Art here is an older person's game, a pursuit of a deepening personal vision over innovation. Winding through 17 galleries, the installation is alternatively visually or thematically acute and altogether inspiring. (Smith) 212 708 9400, moma.org 'SARAH LUCAS: AU NATUREL' at the New Museum (through Jan. 20). Lucas emerged in the 1990s with the YBAs (Young British Artists), a group that included Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin and that didn't focus on a particular medium or style. They were postpunk which is to say, more focused on attitude than aptitude with a Generation X nihilism and malaise, as well as the clear message that anything, artistically, could be borrowed, stolen or sampled. Self portraits are among Lucas's weapons. Instead of sexualized, made up or fantastic portraits, hers are plain, androgynous and deadpan. And this exhibition, with its 150 objects many of them sculptures created in plaster or from women's stockings and tights stuffed with fluff is populated with penises and with cigarettes penetrating buttocks, rather than the breasts and vulvas modern artists have used to demonstrate their edginess. At just the right moment the MeToo moment Lucas shows us what it's like to be a strong, self determined woman; to shape and construct your own world; to live beyond other people's constricting terms; to challenge oppression, sexual dominance and abuse. (Martha Schwendener) 212 219 1222, newmuseum.org 'FRANZ MARC AND AUGUST MACKE: 1909 1914' at Neue Galerie (through Jan. 21). Marc and Macke worked at the forefront of German art in the early 1900s, experimenting with audacious simplifications of forms, infusing colors with spiritual meanings and, in Marc's case, specializing in dreamy portraits of otherworldly animals. With the Russian born Wassily Kandinsky, the two friends also helped found a hugely influential circle of Munich painters known as the Blue Rider. But this dizzying, overstuffed exhibit at the Neue Galerie ends abruptly: Both men were killed in combat in World War I, Marc at 36 and Macke at only 27. (Will Heinrich) 212 628 6200, neuegalerie.org 'BRUCE NAUMAN: DISAPPEARING ACTS' at the Museum of Modern Art (through Feb. 18) and MoMA PS1 (through Feb. 25). If art isn't basically about life and death, and the emotions and ethics they inspire, what is it about? Style? Taste? Auction results? The most interesting artists go right for the big, uncool existential stuff, which is what Bruce Nauman does in a transfixing half century retrospective that fills the entire sixth floor of MoMA and much of MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens. The MoMA installation is tightly paced and high decibel; the one at PS1, which includes a trove of works on paper, is comparatively mellow and mournful. Each location offers a rough chronological overview of his career, but catching both parts of the show is imperative. Nauman has changed the way we define what art is and what is art, and made work prescient of the morally wrenching American moment we're in. He deserves to be seen in full. (Cotter) 212 708 9400, moma.org 718 784 2084, momaps1.org 'LILIANA PORTER: OTHER SITUATIONS' at El Museo del Barrio (through Jan. 27). This exquisite survey of 35 objects, installations and video by this Argentinian born American artist covers nearly half a century, but feels unanchored by time and gravity. In pieces from the early 1970s, Porter adds spare pencil lines to a photographs of her own face as if to challenge optical perception: Which is more real, the artist or the artist's mark? Later, she began assembling and photographing groups of toys and figurines found in flea markets and antique shops to tease out political puzzles. And despite a witty use of miniaturist scale, cruelty and loss run through the work. In the 2009 video "Matinee," tabletop statuettes live tragic lives: A ceramic child is suddenly beheaded by a hammer. (Cotter) 212 831 7272, elmuseo.org 'POSING MODERNITY: THE BLACK MODEL FROM MANET AND MATISSE TO TODAY' at Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University (through Feb. 10). This landmark show uses a new lens on 19th century French art history. Progressiveness both artistic and social is measured by the way black women are depicted in the paintings of the period; this yardstick is also applied to subsequent generations of European, American and African artists. A revelatory thesis, brilliantly executed. (Smith) 212 854 6800, wallach.columbia.edu 'THE PROGRESSIVE REVOLUTION: MODERN ART FOR A NEW INDIA' at Asia Society (through Jan. 20). The first show in the United States in decades devoted to postwar Indian painting continues a welcome, belated effort in Western museums to globalize art history after 1945. The Progressive Artists' Group, founded in Bombay (now Mumbai) in the afterglow of independence, sought a new painterly language for a new India, making use of hot color and melding folk traditions with high art. These painters were Hindus, Muslims and Catholics, and they drew freely from Picasso and Klee, Rajasthani architecture and Zen ink painting, in their efforts to forge art for a secular, pluralist republic. Looking at them 70 years on, as India joins so many other countries taking a nativist turn, they offer a lovely, regret tinged view of a lost horizon. (Farago) 212 288 6400, asiasociety.org/new york 'SCENES FROM THE COLLECTION' at the Jewish Museum. After a surgical renovation to its grand pile on Fifth Avenue, the Jewish Museum has reopened its third floor galleries with a rethought, refreshed display of its permanent collection, which intermingles 4,000 years of Judaica with modern and contemporary art by Jews and gentiles alike Mark Rothko, Lee Krasner, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman and the excellent young Nigerian draftswoman Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze. The works are shown in a nimble, nonchronological suite of galleries, and some of its century spanning juxtapositions are bracing; others feel reductive, even dilettantish. But always, the Jewish Museum conceives of art and religion as interlocking elements of a story of civilization, commendably open to new influences and new interpretations. (Farago) 212 423 3200, thejewishmuseum.org 'SOUL OF A NATION: ART IN THE AGE OF BLACK POWER' at the Brooklyn Museum (through Feb. 3). It will be a happy day when racial harmony rules in the land. But that day's not arriving any time soon. Who could have guessed in the 1960s when civil rights became law that a new century would bring white supremacy tiki torching out of the closet and turn the idea that black lives matter, so beyond obvious, into a battle cry? Actually, African Americans were able to see such things coming. No citizens know the national narrative, and its implacable racism, better. And no artists have responded to that history that won't go away more powerfully than black artists have. More than 60 of them appear in this big, beautiful, passionate show of art that functioned as seismic detector, political persuader and defensive weapon. (Cotter) 718 638 8000, brooklynmuseum.org 'THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS: STANLEY KUBRICK PHOTOGRAPHS' at the Museum of the City of New York (through Jan. 6). This exhibition of the great director's photography is essentially Kubrick before he became Kubrick. Starting in 1945, when he was 17 and living in the Bronx, he worked as a photographer for Look magazine, and the topics he explored are chestnuts so old that they smell a little moldy: lovers embracing on a park bench as their neighbors gaze ostentatiously elsewhere, patients anxiously awaiting their doctor's appointments, boxing hopefuls in the ring, celebrities at home, pampered dogs in the city. It probably helped that Kubrick was just a kid, so instead of inducing yawns, these magazine perennials struck him as novelties, and he in turn brought something fresh to them. Photographs that emphasize the mise en scene could be movie stills: a shouting circus executive who takes up the right side of the foreground while aerialists rehearse in the middle distance, a boy climbing to a roof with the city tenements surrounding him, a subway car filled with sleeping passengers. Looking at these pictures, you want to know what comes next. (Arthur Lubow) 212 534 1672, mcny.org 'TOWARD A CONCRETE UTOPIA: ARCHITECTURE IN YUGOSLAVIA, 1948 1980' at the Museum of Modern Art (through Jan. 13). This nimble, continuously surprising show tells one of the most underappreciated stories of postwar architecture: the rise of avant garde government buildings, pie in the sky apartment blocks, mod beachfront resorts and even whole new cities in the southeast corner of Europe. Tito's Yugoslavia rejected both Stalinism and liberal democracy, and its neither nor political position was reflected in architecture of stunning individuality, even as it embodied collective ambitions that Yugoslavs called the "social standard." From Slovenia, where elegant office buildings drew on the tradition of Viennese modernism, to Kosovo, whose dome topped national library appears as a Buckminster Fuller fever dream, these impassioned buildings defy all our Cold War vintage stereotypes of Eastern Europe. Sure, in places the show dips too far into Socialist chic. But this is exactly how MoMA should be thinking as it rethinks its old narratives for its new home next year. (Farago) 212 708 9400, moma.org 'ANDY WARHOL FROM A TO B AND BACK AGAIN' at the Whitney Museum of American Art (through March 31) and 'SHADOWS' at Calvin Klein Headquarters, 205 W. 39th Street (through Dec. 15). Although this is the artist's first full American retrospective in 31 years, he's been so much with us in museums, galleries, auctions as to make him, like wallpaper, like the atmosphere, only half noticed. The Whitney show restores him to a full, commanding view, but does so in a carefully shaped and edited way, with an emphasis on very early and late work. Despite the show's monumentalizing size, supplemented by an off site display of the enormous multipanel painting called "Shadows," it's a human scale Warhol we see. Largely absent is the artist entrepreneur who is taken as a prophet of our market addled present. What we have instead is Warhol for whom art, whatever else it was, was an expression of personal hopes and fears. (Cotter) 212 570 3600, whitney.org diaart.org 'CHARLES WHITE: A RETROSPECTIVE,' at the Museum of Modern Art (through Jan. 13). What a beautiful artist White was. Hand of an angel, eye of a sage. Although White, who died in 1979, is often mentioned today as a teacher and mentor of luminaries like David Hammons and Kerry James Marshall, his is no case of reflected glory. In this career survey, he shines, from a 1939 mural called "Five Great American Negroes" to his astonishing late masterpiece "Black Pope (Sandwich Board Man)." (Cotter) 212 708 9400, moma.org 'DIANE ARBUS, UNTITLED' at David Zwirner (through Dec. 15). Departing significantly from the work that built Arbus's reputation, the photographs in this series, taken at an all female institution in Vineland, N.J., include some of the most mysterious, haunting pictures of her 15 year artistic career. Arbus arrived at two great insights. The first was that it would be more poignant to show her subjects happy. Her second brilliant stroke was to photograph outdoors, amid trees and fields, scrubbing off the institutional settings and entering the realm of dream and myth. One of Arbus's lifetime quests was to expose what she called the "flaw," a telltale detail that reveals the crack between the way people wish to present themselves and how they actually are seen. In the "Untitled" series, she was dealing with subjects devoid of guile. For an artist who had deployed a battery of strategies to coax sitters into dropping their masks, it was novel to photograph people who revealed their unguarded selves. One of the towering achievements of American art, this series reminds us that nothing can surpass the strange beauty of reality if a photographer knows where to look. And how to look. (Lubow) 212 727 2070, davidzwirner.com 'CROWNS OF THE VAJRA MASTERS: RITUAL ART OF NEPAL' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Dec. 16). Up a narrow staircase, above the Met's galleries of South and Southeast Asian art, are three small rooms of art from the Himalayas. The space, a bit like a treehouse, is a capsule of spiritual energy, which is especially potent these days thanks to this exhibition. The crowns of the title look like antique versions of astronaut headgear: gilded copper helmets, studded with gems, encrusted with repousse plaques and topped by five pronged antennas the vajra, or thunderbolt of wisdom. Such crowns were believed to turn their wearers into perfected beings who are willing and able to bestow blessings on the world. This show is the first to focus on these crowns, and it does so with a wealth of compressed historical information, as well as several resplendent related sculptures and paintings from Nepal and Tibet. But it's the crowns themselves, the real ones, the wisdom generators, set in mandala formation in the center of the gallery, that are the fascinators. (Cotter) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
I n "Phil," Greg Kinnear acts and directs, which has left him without at least one important person to say "no." Still, even the most exacting auteur might have labored to help him make sense of this title character. The film opens with Phil, a suicidal dentist, preparing to throw himself off a bridge, then backing off, despite the encouragement of onlookers and the thematically appropriate musical accompaniment of "(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden" on his car radio. Phil is still getting over a divorce and, it seems, is clinically depressed. Kinnear strains to convey the character's inner torment while making him outwardly comic or at least that appears to be the intent, judging from Rolfe Kent's sprightly laugh track of a score. Like all depressed people, Phil goes to work with his hair uncombed. Soon he becomes obsessed with a patient, Michael (Bradley Whitford), who has written a successful book on Socrates and looks to have life figured out. Desperate to learn the secret to Michael's happiness, Phil begins stalking him and finds him hanging from a tree. Phil starts posing as Michael's long lost friend from Greece and insinuates his way into the life of Michael's widow, Alicia (Emily Mortimer). If Kinnear's impersonation of sorrow is cringe worthy, his "Mrs. Doubtfire" routine Phil, having agreed to remodel Alicia's bathroom, learns a few Greek words and tries to smoke a Turkish cigarette is simply painful. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
Concerned by rising rates of prescription drug abuse, the Drug Enforcement Administration announced Monday that it would permit consumers to return unused prescription medications like opioid painkillers to pharmacies. The move is intended to help reduce stockpiles of unneeded medicines in homes, which are often pilfered by teenagers. Under the new regulation, patients and their relatives will also be allowed to mail unused prescription drugs to an authorized collector using packages to be made available at pharmacies and other locations, like libraries and senior centers. The new regulation, which will go into effect in a month, covers drugs designated as controlled substances. Those include opioid painkillers like OxyContin, stimulants like Adderall and depressants like Ativan. Until now, these drugs could not legally be returned to pharmacies. The Controlled Substances Act allowed patients only to dispose of the drugs themselves or to surrender them to law enforcement. "This is big news and long overdue," said Dr. G. Caleb Alexander, co director of the Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "It's baffling that it's so easy to get a prescription for opioids and yet so difficult to dispose of these drugs safely." Injuries and deaths from prescription drug abuse, particularly opioids, have soared in recent years. More than 70 percent of teenagers say it is easy to get prescription drugs from their parents' medicine cabinets, according to a 2014 Partnership for Drug Free Kids study. "The sooner we get those unused medications out of the home and medicine cabinets, the better and safer it is for everyone," said Carmen A. Catizone, executive director of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. Until now, consumers have had limited options for the disposal of controlled substances. Twice annually, citizens could anonymously return them to police departments during thousands of national "take back" events organized by the D.E.A. In the past four years, these events have removed from circulation 4.1 million pounds of prescription medications. (The next one is Sept. 27, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) Still, about 3.9 billion prescriptions were filled at pharmacies alone in 2013, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. "They only removed an infinitesimal fraction of the reservoir of unused drugs that are out there," said Dr. Nathaniel Katz, an assistant professor of anesthesia at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston who studies opioid abuse. "It's like trying to eliminate malaria in Africa by killing a dozen mosquitoes." Dr. Katz is optimistic that the D.E.A.'s decision could have a powerful impact. Putting drop off receptacles for controlled substances in pharmacies will mean consumers have year round access to disposal services. It would be a "very positive" development if such access gets consumers in the habit of returning unused drugs to the pharmacies from which they were obtained, Dr. Katz said. "It's more likely to accomplish the objective of minimizing the reservoir of potentially fatal medications in our medicine cabinets than can be accomplished by intermittent programs," he said. Flushing controlled substances, especially prescriptions that might kill a child or pet with a single dose, remains an option for consumers, as is throwing out other prescriptions in zipped plastic bag mixed with cat litter, but both are discouraged because of environmental concerns. The Environmental Protection Agency favors disposal through drug take back programs over flushing to keep medicines from entering streams and rivers. Yet the Food and Drug Administration recommends flushing unused medications when the potential for harm to someone in the household is great. The new programs will be voluntary. Pharmacies may choose to register with the drug agency to take back controlled substances or to receive leftovers through the mail. To minimize the risk that returned drugs might be stolen, the D.E.A. will require authorized collectors running mail back programs to have and use an "on site method of destruction to destroy returned packages." Organizations collecting unused drugs could be pharmacies, including those within a clinic or a hospital, narcotic treatment programs or so called reverse distributors companies contracted by other collectors to destroy controlled substances. Retail pharmacies or hospitals and clinics with on site pharmacies may manage collection receptacles at long term care facilities. But some experts warn that there is no guarantee that pharmacies will establish take back programs or set up collection receptacles, and that a number of issues must be resolved. Police departments often use incinerators, for example, to destroy seized illicit drugs, but a local pharmacy might not be able to accommodate an incinerator, limiting the number that could accept packages of prescriptions by mail. The new rules do not require a particular method of destruction, as long as the drugs are permanently and irreversibly altered. Reverse distributors must do so within 30 days. Whether communities, pharmacies, insurance programs, patients or pharmaceutical companies must pay for disposal costs also is not addressed in the new rule. Mitch Rothholz, the chief strategy officer of the American Pharmacists Association, which supports the idea of pharmacy take back programs generally, suggested that the costs of the system should not be "a burden on the pharmacy." To get prescribed drugs off the streets, police stations in 49 states have installed roughly 1,500 permanent steel boxes made by MedReturn, a Wisconsin company. Anytime the boxes "are available to the public, they have to be under law enforcement eyes, because they are gold at the end of the rainbow for someone with an opioid addiction," said Gary Tennis, secretary of the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs in Pennsylvania, which has 200 MedReturn boxes and plans to install 100 more. In a letter to the D.E.A. last year, the American Pharmacists Association expressed concern that pharmacies might be held legally liable should a secure drug drop off receptacle be broken into and its contents stolen. Without more clarification, the association cautioned, "there may be limited participation by pharmacies." But the biggest obstacle may be convincing the public that it is irresponsible to hold onto medications that are no longer needed. "With our opioid crisis, the level of overdoses we have and the amount of kids who are stealing these drugs, to be a good citizen you must get rid of your prescription drugs as soon as you're finished with them," Mr. Tennis said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Land, location and transportation have lured four office projects, totaling 1.25 million square feet, to Conshohocken, Pa., which is northwest of Philadelphia. CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. The view from the 15th floor of the Eight Tower Bridge office building here looks over two interstate highways, a commuter rail line, an old warehouse and a riverside stand of woods. It is a snapshot of the attractions for developers in this former steel town on the banks of the Schuylkill about 15 miles northwest of central Philadelphia. The area has been gradually adding commercial buildings since the late 1980s, but is now the site of a surge in plans for new office space. Four buildings totaling 1.25 million square feet are proposed, in what would be the first big additions to the town's commercial real estate since the recession. They are 400 West Elm, a 340,000 square foot, 10 story structure on a wooded site; Seven Tower Bridge, covering 260,000 square feet on 10 floors; Millennium Four, a 300,000 square foot project; and One Conshohocken, covering 350,000 square feet. The first three would be built on riverside sites. The recent increase in development plans reflects the geographical advantages of Conshohocken, which is near the intersection of Interstates 76 and 476, its accessibility to central Philadelphia by commuter rail and the availability of its land, in contrast to some nearby western suburbs where land for development is scarce. With its location at the intersection of interstates, Conshohocken could become the region's new "Main and Main," said Jeffrey E. Mack, executive managing director at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, an international real estate firm that provides brokerage and other services. He argued that the town was poised to take the title from an area at Route 1 and City Line Avenues on Philadelphia's western outskirts, which has been heavily built. That location, in Lower Merion Township, "ran out of land," he said. The prospect of a big addition in local office space also reflects a desire by companies to attract educated employees in their mid 20s to mid 30s who are expected to seek jobs in industries such as technology, finance or health care but who do not want a traditional suburban lifestyle. "Those folks want to live in new urban type environments where the amenities and the urban setting and the transit orientation are also important," said Steve Spaeder, senior vice president for development at Equus Capital Partners, developer of the 400 West Elm project. "Conshohocken has all of those elements." Equus and other developers are betting that employees in the planned buildings will be turning their backs on tract homes on quarter acre lots and opting instead for apartments or town homes in places where they can ride mass transit, bicycle or walk to work. That is why all the planned developments are within a few minutes' walk of two train stations, where the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority drops riders about 35 minutes after leaving central Philadelphia. "Transit oriented real estate has become more desirable recently than ever," said Esther Pulver, vice president of marketing for the Oliver Tyrone Pulver Corporation, the developer of the Seven Tower Bridge project. The transit stops are adjacent to a bike path connecting the town with central Philadelphia, a feature that developers hope will offer an additional incentive to employees who live in the city but work in the suburbs. In an effort to meet the millennial generation's desire for an urban lifestyle, Conshohocken's boosters draw attention to the town's 42 restaurants. And they argue its well financed public schools will prove a powerful draw compared with the notoriously underfinanced public schools in Philadelphia when couples have children even if the targeted demographic group is currently reluctant to give up urban living. In an appeal to a collaborative work style that is increasingly favored by employers of younger workers, some of the projects will be built on relatively large footprints, allowing wider, more open floors than would be possible on smaller sites. If all the new space is built, it could accommodate up to 5,000 new workers, Mr. Mack said, in a town of 7,800 residents. To its west, Conshohocken benefits from its proximity to wealthy residential enclaves such as Villanova and Gladwyne, which can be expected to attract executives of companies occupying the new space. For employers, rents in the new buildings will be in the mid 30 per square foot range, a level that is comparable to that in central Philadelphia but that is significantly lower than city rates when taxes there are taken into account, said Mr. Mack, who represents tenants and brokers land sales in the Conshohocken area. He estimated that Philadelphia taxes add 10 15 per square foot to commercial rents there. He predicted that the West Elm and Seven Tower Bridge projects would be the first to be built because they had been designed, and were likely to be ready for occupancy in 2016. The town's commercial vacancy rate edged up in the second quarter to a three year high of 14.8 percent because of a "modest loss of occupancy," according to a report from Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. But the vacancy rate is expected to drop below 10 percent by mid 2015 in response to anticipated leases totaling 475,000 square feet, the company said. "If leases are signed with these companies in the short term, all of the losses incurred during the last two quarters will be erased, and overall occupancy will grow to its highest levels since 2008," the company said in a report. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
When John Horton Conway, the Princeton "mathemagician" who died in April at age 82, first found fame in the late 1960s and early '70s, he joined the academic equivalent of the jet set. Then at the University of Cambridge, he would fly to Montreal or New York, deliver a lecture on his Conway group an entity in the realm of mathematical symmetry that inhabits 24 dimensions and return home all within the space of a day. Occasionally, he made a detour to visit Martin Gardner, the mathematical games columnist for Scientific American, at his house in Hastings on Hudson, just north of New York. Mr. Gardner taught him magic tricks: Try tying a knot while holding onto both ends of the string, without ever letting go. Dr. Conway, in turn, regaled Mr. Gardner with puzzles and games Sprouts, for instance, a pencil and paper game he had invented with Michael Paterson, a grad student, and which quickly charmed the entire math department, administrative staff included. Writing Dr. Conway's biography, I spent many mind bending hours trying to keep up. His office at Princeton University was a perpetual mess, so he had relocated to a hallway adjacent to the math department common room. The corridor was lined with window alcoves, each furnished with two armchairs and a chalkboard. In Dr. Conway's alcove, loose leaf works in progress were filed beneath a seat cushion. From there, he delivered a master class, to a parade of visitors, on how to spend all of one's time as he would boast doing nothing, being lazy and playing games. His syllabus might include a riff on the science of rainbows (primary, secondary, tertiary), or "chemical p" (memorizing pi using a mnemonic based on the periodic table of elements), or his Doomsday rule for speedily calculating the day of the week for any given date. Sometimes we ventured out. Once, we took the train to Poughkeepsie to meet George Odom, an accomplished amateur geometer and an inpatient at the Hudson River Psychiatric Center. Mr. Odom had made a few discoveries pertaining to the golden ratio a ratio describing aesthetically pleasing proportions of certain shapes, usually rectangular. Mr. Odom's discoveries intrigued Dr. Conway because they related the golden ratio specifically to the cube. "I've always felt the primacy of the cube," Mr. Odom told him. Dr. Conway was partial to the triangle, for which he discovered the Conway circle theorem: If you extend the sides of any triangle beyond each vertex, at a distance equal to the length of the opposite side, the resulting six points lie on a circle. (A "proof without words" was recently featured in "The Big Lock Down Math Off.") In September 2009, with his son Gareth, then 8, we traveled to Liverpool, England, Dr. Conway's hometown, and Cambridge, his alma mater, to clear up some counterfactuals. (He was a notoriously unreliable narrator of his own life.) During our visit with his daughters from his first marriage Annie, Ellie, Rosie and Susie we played his One Bit Word Game: Try conversing using words containing only one syllable or "bit." (When an opponent slips up, shout "Bang!") Dr. Conway once challenged himself to deliver a number theory class in one bit words, no small feat given the word "number" itself: "Those things you count with you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or more...." Cambridge was peak Conway, especially with regard to games. With his collaborators, Elwyn Berlekamp and Richard Guy (who died in March at 103), he purportedly invented or reinvented 10 games a day, assisted by a regular rotation of students: Simon Norton devised the game Tribulations; Mike Guy countered with Fibulations. (Both are Nim like games based on triangle numbers and Fibonacci numbers.) The group amassed folders of "games without names" and "names without games." In 1981, after 15 years, they published the multivolume, best selling book "Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays." Chapter 22 contained Phutball, short for Philosopher's Football, a two player board game with stones, driven by negative feedback. "Every move is bad," Dr. Conway warned. Chapter 25 covered Dr. Conway's Game of Life, prefaced by Oscar Wilde's advice that "Life is too important to be taken seriously." First published in Mr. Gardner's October 1970 column, the Game of Life is a "no player, never ending" game, as Dr. Conway liked to say, and it is considered one of the earliest, most remarkable and most popular examples of a cellular automaton according to only a few simple rules, cells on the screen evolve from iteration to iteration to produce an astoundingly complex bestiary of "Life forms." "LIFE IS UNIVERSAL," Dr. Conway wrote to Mr. Gardner in December 1970, in all caps. That is, the Game of Life could be programmed to do any calculation; it was a metaphor for, and contained, all of mathematics. "The Game of Life has contributed to the public perception of mathematics in a way that few mathematical discoveries in modern history have," said Manjul Bhargava, a mathematician and a colleague of Dr. Conway's at Princeton. All of this gaming could be classified as serious research, of course; as both player and spectator, Dr. Conway was analyzing games, observing strategy and classifying the moves available to each player. He noticed that games behaved like numbers, and numbers like games. This led to his theory of surreal numbers a huge new number system containing not only all the real numbers, but also a boggling collection of infinites and infinitesimals, like p minus 1 divided by the cube root of infinity. To explain his theory, Dr. Conway wrote a book, "On Numbers and Games," and two papers, "All Games Bright and Beautiful" and "All Numbers Great and Small." He told me, "You know the hymn: 'All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small.' But in the case of this theory, it's all games bright and beautiful that come first. The games are logically prior to the numbers." He viewed this discovery as so fundamental that he named it simply "No," in bold, meaning all numbers, capital N. Donald Knuth, the Stanford computer scientist and author of "The Art of Computer Programming," came up with the more enduring name while writing the novelette "Surreal Numbers: How Two Ex Students Turned On to Pure Mathematics and Found Total Happiness." On hearing of his friend's death, Dr. Knuth said that Dr. Conway was his second favorite mathematician, outshone only by the 18th century Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler. "John gave pleasure to connoisseurs who appreciate deep thinking. That's real beauty, for me, and touches off deep emotions." He noted that Dr. Conway has been mentioned more than 25 times so far in "The Art of Computer Programming," for different contributions: "I expect the citings to continue long after his death (as happened to Elvis)." How to beat children at their own games In March of 2010, we set out for "G4G9," the ninth biennial gathering honoring Mr. Gardner, in Atlanta. Over five days, 10 minute presentations followed one after another. Dr. Conway offered an "Untitled Talk," in which he lectured (during a special 25 minute session) on "The Lexicode Theorem Or Is It?" "I'll cast some doubt on this theorem, to say the very least, but all turns out well in the end," he told the audience, and proceeded to convert his work with sphere packing into game theory (drawing from a paper written with Neil Sloane, "Lexicographic Codes: Error Correcting Codes from Game Theory"). "Conway is the rare sort of mathematician whose ability to connect his pet mathematical interests makes one wonder if he isn't, at some level, shaping mathematical reality and not just exploring it," James Propp, a mathematician at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, said afterward. Sphere packing and games are two separate realms that Dr. Conway had investigated on different paths, with no obvious intersection, said Dr. Propp. "But somehow, through the force of his personality and the intensity of his passion, he bent the mathematical universe to his will." Our mathematical journey continued that August at Canada/USA Mathcamp, an international summer program for high school students keen on math, which was being held that year at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass. Dr. Conway was a perennial star attraction; I first met him at Mathcamp in 2003 he was doing his signature trick, spinning a wire hanger above his head with a penny balanced on the hook and every summer he bestowed and inflicted his usual bewildering repertoire. He displayed a special fanaticism for Dots and Boxes, a 19th century pencil and paper game. Our last trip together was in January of 2019. We headed out from Dr. Conway's Princeton care residence he lived there after suffering a number of strokes to a favorite restaurant, Tomo Sushi, with mathematicians Joseph Kohn and Simon Kochen and the New York magician Mark Mitton. (Dick Esterle, the inventor of geometric toys like the "Icosa" fidget ball, joined by text.) While waiting for lunch, Dr. Conway recalled a visit with Mr. Gardner. During dinner at a restaurant, the waitress had dealt plates onto the table with a clatter. Mr. Gardner responded with a sleight of hand gag: He dropped his cutlery straight through his plate. The waitress screamed, and then Mr. Gardner repeated the trick around the table. Sitting there at the sushi joint, Mr. Mitton grabbed a plate and knife and improvised an encore on the spot. Dr. Conway was appreciatively agog; 50 years earlier, he had asked Mr. Gardner to teach him that trick. "Later," Mr. Gardner promised. But "later" proved elusive. Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
The Banado Sur neighborhood in Asuncion, Paraguay, last month. The most recent storms fueled by El Nino swelled the Paraguay River to its highest level since 1983. In rural villages in Africa and Asia, and in urban neighborhoods in South America, millions of lives have been disrupted by weather linked to the strongest El Nino in a generation. In some parts of the world, the problem has been not enough rain; in others, too much. Downpours were so bad in Paraguay's capital, Asuncion, that shantytowns sprouted along city streets, filled with families displaced by floods. But farmers in India had the opposite problem: Reduced monsoon rains forced them off the land and into day labor jobs. In South Africa, a drought hit farmers so hard that the country, which a few years ago was exporting corn to Asian markets, now will have to buy millions of tons of it from Brazil and other South American countries. "They will actually have to import it, which is rare," said Rogerio Bonifacio, a climate analyst with the World Food Program, a United Nations agency. "This is a major drought." But adding all that energy to the upper atmosphere can also introduce a ripple in a jet stream that may affect weather halfway around the world. "It's like waving a paddle back and forth in the stream and generating planetary scale atmospheric waves," said Michael McPhaden, a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That leads to patterns of precipitation, or lack of it, that can pop up in far flung regions at different times heavy rains in south central South America from September to January, increased dryness in Central America for much of the year and a reduced summer monsoon in India, among other effects. Because these patterns often recur in different El Nino years, the effects can be predictable. Nonetheless, they can still test the ability of governments and aid agencies to respond. El Nino often affects parts of Ethiopia, for example, and this time was no exception. It is among the countries worst hit by drought, Dr. Bonifacio said, with as many as 10 million people in need of food assistance. Yet Ethiopia is handling the problems largely on its own. "They made a decided effort to deal with the situation," he said. But as the lack, so far, of prolonged rains in Southern California this winter shows, the effects of El Nino can still be difficult to forecast. Dr. Bonifacio noted, for instance, that the Sahel in Africa often suffers drought in El Nino summers, but last year, after a dry June, rains picked up. "From July onward, things just flipped over completely," he said. El Nino does not just affect people. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said this month that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere an important climate change measurement had the greatest year to year increase in 56 years, and that the rise was partly because of the effect of El Nino related weather on vegetation. More drought, for example, means less growth of plants that absorb carbon dioxide from the air. "I've never seen something like this," he said, outside his two room mud hut in Thurat, a village of several hundred homes surrounded by dried ponds and mostly barren fields that in years past were green with a harvest of wheat and lentils at this time of year. "It's all dry. I didn't even sow the seeds." Compounding the effects of the El Nino induced drought this past year is that much of India also suffered from mild El Nino in 2014 that reduced monsoon rainfall by 12 percent. Two successive years of drought hit farmers so hard that Prime Minister Narendra Modi focused his annual budget message last month on programs to improve crop insurance and credit, build irrigation systems and continue the rural employment program on which Mr. Yadav now relies. These programs have existed to varying degrees for years in rural India but have been inadequate, said Vineet Kumar, a climate change officer at the Center for Science and Environment, a New Delhi nonprofit organization that studies farmers' problems. He said Mr. Modi's plans had the potential to help farmers but would be too late for millions like Mr. Yadav. D. S. Pai, the deputy director general of the long term monsoon forecasting division at the Indian Meteorological Department, said India predicted the blow to the summer monsoon, which had happened in previous El Nino years. (This El Nino was also linked to heavier than normal rainfall last fall in the southern tip of India and Sri Lanka.) Dr. Pai said his department worked with district officials to inform farmers by text message of long term predictions and warned them about more immediate outbreaks of bad weather. Mr. Kumar, of the nonprofit group, said that though the warnings may be issued from the top, there was not enough coordination in many states and districts for the news to reach farmers on time. And so Pratap Singh, 65, in the Kidhari village, also in the Mahoba district, had not been alerted when, after months of dry weather, rain suddenly arrived in October, soaking the small harvest of wheat he had laid out to dry. The heavy rainfall rotted the 220 pounds of grain, which was only 20 percent of his usual harvest, he said. Now, with no harvest at all, Mr. Singh said, he and his two adult sons are working when they can as day laborers at a brick kiln. The days they are not hired, he said, they just sit around "whiling away our time there's nothing to do." Mr. Yadav, the farmer working in the government jobs program, said he prayed for water every morning and evening. He does not pray for anything else, he said, because "if you have water, you have everything." ASUNCION, Paraguay The brutal human cost of El Nino is plain to see here in Paraguay's capital. Downtown plazas and the median strips of thoroughfares are crammed with temporary houses made of plywood, plastic sheets and corrugated steel, thrown together after heavy rains caused the worst flooding in more than three decades. Seated one recent evening beneath black lapacho trees outside the shack that she is calling home for now opposite this city's 19th century cathedral Esther Falcon, 32, who runs a kiosk in a slum along the Paraguay River, said she had never experienced rains like those in December. "The water came so quickly," Mrs. Falcon said, adding that her home flooded up to about shoulder height. "We didn't have time to save everything." The water has now receded, but Mrs. Falcon's young family cannot return because the usual rains, which forecasters say should come in April, are expected to cause the still swollen river to surge again. Despite the risk of further flooding, some people have returned home here, tired of living in the squalor of encampments, where families share portable toilets provided by the government and a United States aid agency, use buckets to shower, cook on portable charcoal stoves, and survive on infrequent handouts of rice, pasta and beans. Paraguay is historically susceptible to floods, and since mid 2014 Asuncion has had unusually regular bouts of heavy rainfall, displacing thousands of families. Still, the most recent storms fueled by El Nino were the worst, swelling the Paraguay River to its highest level since 1983. In the neighborhood of Santa Ana, Teresa Castro, 51, had just returned home after two months in one of the estimated 140 encampments that the authorities say have cropped up in Asuncion, in addition to five government shelters on military grounds. Outside Mrs. Castro's house, wood canoes still floated on stagnant water; inside, the floods had flaked away walls and destroyed head high plug sockets. "I have to start from zero," Mrs. Castro said as she cleaned her electric oven and attended to her young grandchildren. "We wanted to come home," she added, "even if it is only to rest for a month," referring to the probability that she will have to leave again when the rains come in a few weeks. Mr. Roa said the government had planned for the flooding. For instance, he said, stocks of hospital equipment were secured, and schools readied mobile buildings for future victims so children would continue to go to class. The government also prepared an aid response with the military and the police that included work to ensure that trucks with emergency supplies could reach riverside slums. But some people stood defiant. Bernardo Olmedo, 40, who reads water meters for a living, moved his furniture upstairs as his house flooded. Refusing to abandon his home, he instead built a temporary staircase that climbed 13 feet from the street to an upstairs window. During the floods, his daily commute to work involved descending the steps, hopping onto a raft made of wood planks and polystyrene wrapped in plastic, and paddling for five minutes, out of the flood zone. Nearby, in the neighborhood of Republicano, Maria Vera Villalba, 31, a recycler at Cateura a vast landfill close to the river, where there were fears a giant pool of tainted water might overflow said she and her family had little choice but to flee when the rains came and a stream by her home broke its banks. Ms. Villalba said the rain had fallen hard for two consecutive mornings. After the water did not recede, as it usually did, it soon gushed into her home. Like tens of thousands of others, the family fled and built a shack in the median strip of a road beneath a willow tree, using an orange truck tarpaulin for extra protection from the elements. Displaced residents like Ms. Villalba said the government had repeatedly offered them houses in safer zones outside the city. But they resist because a move would drive them away from their work and social lives. Still, Ms. Villalba admitted that she may soon be left with no option. "It's not a safe place anymore," she said. "Nature is changing things." JONATHAN GILBERT SOWETO, South Africa On a recent evening at Esther Thobagale's modest four room house in this township outside Johannesburg, she was preparing pap, the traditional cornmeal porridge that is a staple food of low income families across South Africa. A few days before, Ms. Thobagale, who lives with her daughter and two grandsons, had learned that she was going to have to pay a much higher price for cornmeal 80 rand (about 5.20) for a two week supply, up from 50 rand (about 3.25). That's a barely affordable increase for Ms. Thobagale, an unemployed grandmother who supports the household on a government pension and other income totaling 1,730 rand (about 112) a month. "I'm now forced to cut down on nonessentials, like treats for my grandkids," she said. "I'm forced to stick to what is important only." Part of the problem, said Shukri Ahmed, an official with the Food and Agriculture Organization, is that corn yields were down in early 2015, too. "Last year there was a 30 percent decline," Mr. Ahmed said. "So there was already some strain in the market." South Africa grows far more corn than any other country in southern Africa, and regularly exports to many of its neighbors. Mr. Ahmed said the 2015 crop decline had wiped out any surplus available for export, putting some of these countries' populations at risk. "This is now one of the biggest worries for us," he said. Mr. Sihlobo said that of the corn that South Africa will import, about 700,000 tons would be sent on to Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland. But other countries in the region have been badly affected by the drought as well, including Zimbabwe, which probably has a shortfall of about 1.3 million tons, Mr. Sihlobo said. "The question is where is this going to come from," he said. "This might put added pressure on South Africa." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
BMW is recalling about 156,000 vehicles equipped with 6 cylinder engines because a defect could cause stalling or engine damage, the automaker said in a news release Thursday. The action comes almost two years after the automaker began fixing the same models in China, according to a report the automaker filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. BMW said "in very rare cases the bolts holding the variable camshaft timing (Vanos) unit housing may become loose or, in extreme cases, break." In such cases, the driver would be alerted by a check engine warning light. Power to the engine could be reduced and "if ignored, the problem can become progressively worse, eventually leading to no start conditions, stalling and engine damage." Vanos is BMW's variable valve timing technology. The models affected by the recall are the 1 Series, 3 Series, 5 Series, 5 Series Gran Turismo, X3, X5, X6 and Z4 from the 2010 12 model years, as well as the 2012 6 Series. The automaker is not aware of any accidents related to the problem, David Buchko, a spokesman for BMW, said in an email. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
Opinion is divided on the Arizona Diamondbacks' chances this year they are talking about contending, though they are 30 1 to win their division. Arizona also traded its slugging first baseman, Paul Goldschmidt, to the Cardinals in the off season. Still, no matter what, the Diamondbacks can always count on their ace, Zack Greinke. But the optimists were shaken on Thursday. Greinke didn't look so good against the defending National League champion Dodgers on opening day, continuing a pattern of poor performances at Dodger Stadium since he left the team as a free agent after the 2015 season. Greinke gave up seven runs in three and two thirds innings, including four home runs. In all, the Dodgers had eight homers, breaking the opening day record of six set by the 1988 Mets (Darryl Strawberry and Kevin McReynolds had two each that day) and tied by the White Sox last year. The homers also set a Dodger Stadium record. Only two teams, the 1987 Blue Jays and 1999 Reds, have ever hit more homers in a game. The fourth inning was particularly ugly. The Dodgers, already ahead by 3 0, got back to back home runs by Enrique Hernandez and Austin Barnes, then a two out blast by Corey Seager that finally chased Greinke. The final score was 12 5. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
TURNERS FALLS, Mass. It seemed like the perfect setting for a shy, thoughtful 10 year old boy's first steps on stage: a kids' Shakespeare program that doesn't hold auditions, guarantees everyone a substantial speaking role, emphasizes community, and excludes no one. Unless, as Mason Wicks Lim and his mother Ali discovered, you have a life threatening nut allergy. The conflict that ensued over how the theater could accommodate Mason's allergy eventually grew into a legal battle that created a rift in the community, highlighting the social struggles that people with food allergies often contend with, even as they fight for equal access. The turmoil began when the family tried to enroll Mason, now 14, in Young Shakespeare Players East, a revered institution in this small historic town that takes pride in its arts community and progressive activism. The theater's director, Suzanne Rubinstein, at first rebuffed efforts to register Mason, citing concerns that no one on staff could be trained to administer an EpiPen, a shot of epinephrine used to treat severe allergic reactions. Then, following months of negotiations, she threatened to close the program if he joined. As word got around that Mason was not welcome, some of his peers in the program urged Ms. Rubinstein to reconsider. Sam Picone Louro, who was then 12 and had played a soldier and a senator in the spring production of "Julius Caesar," accused Ms. Rubinstein of discrimination. "You said yourself there are no rejections and you are rejecting Mason," Sam wrote in an email. Ms. Rubinstein told Sam to apologize or find a different acting program, and then emailed other families warning them that she would brook no criticism. The program, Ms. Rubinstein said, "is not for everyone." Sam did not apologize and was not allowed to continue in the program. On Dec. 31, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination concluded that Sam was right. The Shakespeare group may have not only illegally discriminated against Mason, the commission said, but also retaliated against Sam for speaking up. Two years earlier, in June 2016, the United States Department of Justice had reached a similar conclusion, saying that the theater violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by failing to make reasonable modifications to accommodate Mason. The Massachusetts commission has ordered the Shakespeare group to settle with the families by Feb. 5 or face a public hearing and possible sanctions, said Mary Vargas, the lawyer who represents the two families. Ms. Rubinstein did not agree to an interview, but YSP East's lawyer, Frank DiPrima, said that "Mason was always welcome to register." He said that Sam, who is transgender and uses the pronouns "they" and "them," would have been welcomed back, had they been more respectful. "We're going to try, for the benefit of children past and future, to conciliate," Mr. DiPrima said. "No other program of this size has done as much to accommodate children with disabilities." For Mason and Sam, the legal victories are bittersweet. The repercussions of the ouster from the theater group, which included many of their friends, affected the families as well as the children. Friendships frayed, and some ties were severed. Many children with food allergies experience exclusion and discrimination, which "can be more detrimental than the allergy," said Dr. James Baker Jr., a professor of medicine and director of the Mary H. Weiser Food Allergy Center at the University of Michigan. "We hear this all the time, where people isolate kids, tell them they can't go places, tell them they can't participate in after school activities or that their parents have to be there if they're in a soccer game," Dr. Baker said. "The child starts to feel like he or she is the problem." Though legal claims are rare, the number is likely to grow, due in part to a 2008 amendment to the Americans With Disabilities Act that has made it easier for people with food allergies who are perfectly healthy most of the time to qualify as a protected class, Ms. Vargas said. In Mason's case, his mother said she tried for six months to find a solution that would make it possible for Mason to join the Shakespeare group. "My approach to Mason has always been that 'you can do anything anyone can do, except eat nuts,' " Ms. Wicks Lim said. "And before this happened, it had never occurred to him that he might not be welcome in a place." After a lawyer informed her that the law required accommodating a child with a disability like a food allergy, Ms. Rubinstein reversed herself and emailed Ms. Wicks Lim that she was seriously considering "whether to close shop!" A few weeks later, Ms. Rubinstein said that the theater would implement a peanut and tree nut free snack and lunch policy and that she and another adult staff member would learn to use an EpiPen. But the same email said that the children in the program ages 8 to 18 were often left without adult supervision "for hours at a time (full days)." In September, Ms. Wicks Lim decided she could not safely enroll Mason. She let Mason make the call about whether to file a discrimination complaint. The rift in the community intensified after the complaints were filed. The local newspaper printed letters from residents saying the YSP should not be getting negative press because "of one or two disgruntled parents whose children have food allergies." YSP East portrayed Ms. Wicks Lim as a mother "who refused to accept responsibility for her son's medical condition." She was barred from a mommies list serve. Sam became disillusioned when friends from the theater group who had been "like a second family" failed to stand up for Mason, and soon became alienated from their old community. "So much of who I am is about standing in your truth and standing up for people, and having your moral judgment shape your decisions," Sam said. "But everyone turned a blind eye." Both children have pursued other interests. Sam joined another local theater group, and Mason has taken up competitive rock climbing and is active in kung fu, where the group often asks him to choose the snacks. In 2016, two organizations honored Sam and Mason with awards for their advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Well |
When the European Fine Art Fair arrived in New York and set up in Park Avenue Armory four years ago, it was enough to be exactly what it was: a fair that boasted European old master paintings and antiquities and catered to museum curators and high end connoisseurs. Several years in, Tefaf is examining its clientele and tweaking its game plan. Among many of its 90 vendors, "cross collecting," or assembling private collections of art from different eras and categories, is a trend now, and Tefaf has responded by including 7 collaborative booths on its upper floor. Here, modern or contemporary art is displayed alongside ancient artifacts or Renaissance works in jarring, imaginative and sometimes radical ways. (It's long been a signature of Axel Vervoordt, the antiquarian, designer, and founder of his Belgium based company.) F rance grabbed the world's attention when Notre Dame cathedral caught fire in April . Cultural programming feels particularly French focused this year, with a report on Sunday for plans on rebuilding Notre Dame; a panel on early 20th century French fashion; and the American premiere of "Decoding Da Vinci," a film co produced by the Louvre Museum commemorating the death of Leonardo 500 years ago while in the employ of the French court of King Francis I. For aficionados and collectors of Chinese and Latin American art, these works are the subjects of panels (though not much represented in the fair itself ). The educational offerings, titled Tefaf Afternoons and Tefaf Coffee Talks, sound casual, but they are helmed by experts, the same way every object in the fair is vetted by specialists, including other dealers. At 55 per single entry ticket ( 25 for students), Tefaf is an investment, both in time and money, but the assumption is that you can afford it. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
48 West 55th Street (Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas) Built in 1920, this five story, mixed used building in Midtown Manhattan has 5,968 total square feet, with six vacant residential units and one retail space home to a French bistro, La Bonne Soupe. The price per square foot is 1,343. Sharp Entertainment, a television production company, recently moved into its seven month lease on a part of the 25th floor of this 26 story building in the garment district. The 2,637 square foot space will house the company's executive offices. Other tenants include the Movado Group and the New York Youth Symphony. The property at 16 St. Marks Place in the East Village has two retail spaces on the ground floor and 18 one bedroom apartments. 16 St. Marks Place (between Second and Third Avenues) This five story, mixed use building in the East Village has an estimated 11,908 square feet. The property has two retail spaces on the ground floor and 18 one bedroom apartments, which are a mix of free market and rent regulated units. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Bernard Pomerance, a playwright whose biggest success, "The Elephant Man," became the talk of Broadway and the 1979 Tony Award winner for best play, died on Saturday at his home in Galisteo, N.M. He was 76. His agent, Alan Brodie, said the cause was cancer. Mr. Pomerance was a somewhat out of the mainstream playwright living in London in 1977 when Foco Novo, a theater company he had founded with Roland Rees and David Aukin, began thinking about staging "The Elephant Man," based on the true story of Joseph Merrick, a man with severe physical deformities who became a celebrity in Victorian England in the 1880s. "There was one small problem," Mr. Rees, who died in 2015, once wrote. "The play at that time was called 'Deformed,' a title which would not endear itself to producers or audiences." Also problematic was how to depict Merrick (who is named John in the play). Rather than call for elaborate makeup, Mr. Pomerance envisioned the actor unadorned, suggesting Merrick's deformities through movement and contortions but not hitting the audience over the head with them. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
WASHINGTON The Kennedy Center's first expansion in its nearly half century history had just opened, and its new spaces were being put through their paces for the first time. A mid September breeze swept over the lawn, where a free outdoor screening of "The Black Panther" on a giant new video wall had drawn an audience of hundreds the previous night. In the nearby Moonshot Studio, middle schoolers were making zoetropes inspired by the children's book author and pigeon portraitist Mo Willems. Olmeca, a hip hop artist, was getting a small crowd to clap to his beat in Studio K, just past studios J and F , while, in a nearby lecture hall, Rosdely Ciprian, a 14 year old actress in the play "What the Constitution Means to Me," spoke with an interviewer who had some thoughts on that subject: Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The expansion called the Reach, a complex of versatile studios, classrooms and a cafe is the most concrete (in this case, titanium white concrete) example yet of how Deborah F. Rutter has put her mark on the Kennedy Center since becoming its president five years ago. Building it was not easy: Ms. Rutter had to raise more than 250 million in private money for construction related costs and programming, double the initial estimate. And the project was delayed after its original plan to build a floating performance space on the Potomac River was scuttled amid environmental concerns and the objections of boaters. But Ms. Rutter got it done, succeeding while the nation's largest performing arts complex , Lincoln Center, was cycling through short term leaders and delaying its own big capital project. Ms. Rutter, 63, said she viewed the expansion as part of her overall efforts to increase access to the Kennedy Center. "Most important is this concept of feeling welcome," she said. "When you walk into the Kennedy Center, it's kind of like walking into any concert hall: The space is big and grand. There's value to being inspired and knocked out by the grandeur. But there's also something really important about feeling welcome, that this is really for you." The expansion, designed by Steven Holl Architects, offers a softening counterpoint to the Kennedy Center's austere main building, which is so huge that the Washington Monument could be laid on its side in its main foyer with room to spare. It adds smaller spaces for rehearsals and performances; classrooms; outdoor areas; and a footbridge over the traffic of Rock Creek Parkway, linking the isolated arts complex to a trail along the Potomac. If its ultimate uses seem inchoate, the Reach fits in neatly with the "build first, plan later" ethos of several new cultural buildings, including the Shed in New York. But it gives Ms. Rutter more options as she works to shape the Kennedy Center and navigate what it means to be the National Cultural Center as it was designated in the original legislation that created it in Trump era Washington. It was perhaps unsurprising that Ms. Rutter, a respected veteran of the orchestra world, would win praise for helping turn around the underperforming National Symphony Orchestra by hiring the dynamic conductor Gianandrea Noseda as its music director. But she has also branched out, making the Kennedy Center a destination for stand up comedy and expanding its hip hop offerings under the aegis of Q Tip, of A Tribe Called Quest, the center's first artistic director of hip hop culture. At times the Kennedy Center feels more like a regional arts center than a national one, presenting theater tours and visiting dance companies. But it also runs Washington National Opera and the National Symphony Orchestra (whereas at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic are independent organizations) and produces some theater work . It is best known nationally for its televised Kennedy Center Honors; unlike past presidents, President Trump has chosen to stay away from the performances after some honorees criticized him. Ms. Rutter said she did not believe the center's art should be "overtly political" because it is officially a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy. (As a memorial, it gets roughly 40 million a year in federal aid to maintain its buildings and grounds; the rest of its budget, which ranges from 210 million to 230 million a year, comes from ticket sales, earned revenues and donations.) It was David M. Rubenstein , the chairman of the Kennedy Center's board, who pushed to update the center. He was inspired by the renovation of Lincoln Center, where he was a major donor, which was completed in 2012. He decided not to go to Congress for money; more than a decade ago, a far more ambitious 650 million rebuilding project collapsed after legislators balked at federal aid. Mr. Rubenstein made the lead gift of 50 million; the rest was donated by other philanthropists, some of whom are seeking good will in Washington, including the Boeing Company and the governments of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. And he was instrumental in bringing Ms. Rutter to the center to succeed Michael M. Kaiser as president. "It turned out that she had two jobs," said Mr. Rubenstein, a co founder of the Carlyle Group, the investment firm. "One was to run the Kennedy Center, and the other was to get this addition off the ground." Ms. Rutter quickly put her knowledge of orchestras to work. She pressed the National Symphony Orchestra to move fast to hire Mr. Noseda so fast, The Washington Post reported, that a board member resigned in protest. "I really was on the point of going somewhere else" when she acted, Mr. Noseda said in a telephone interview. New Yorkers will get to hear the orchestra under his direction this month at David Geffen Hall, in a concert presentation of the second act from Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde." A free, 16 day festival inaugurated the Reach in September, bringing in roughly 100,000 new people for the Kennedy Center's databases. As it was nearing its end, Ms. Rutter was walking around the original building's dated lobbies. "It's the next project," she said, looking around. "Updating all this." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
We interrupt your daily newsfeed with this message brought to you by purple, which traveled all the way from ancient times to become the color of 2018. The Pantone Color Institute, which helps makers of products select color for designs, announced this week that it chose to paint the coming year Ultra Violet, a purple highlighter shade. It's "the most complex of all colors," Leatrice Eiseman, the institute's executive director, told The New York Times in an article in the Fashion and Style section published Thursday. "Because it takes two shades that are seemingly diametrically opposed blue and red and brings them together to create something new." The word Ms. Eiseman used in her description of purple, "complex," shares a root with "complicit," which Dictionary.com selected as the word of the year for 2017. But where "complicit" has dark undertones, "complex" promises hope with its mysteriousness. We may welcome that after a year steeped in uncovering sexual harassment complicity. In ancient times, coveted purple dye was made from the mucus of sea snails in the Phoenician city of Tyre, according to a 2015 report in The Guardian. Tyre engaged in trade with Jerusalem, that long prized city that again finds itself in the news. The biblical Lydia was a seller of purple. Historically, purple has been highly valued, driven by its burdensome production and its association with wealth, power and royalty. Do Prince Harry and his fiancee, Meghan Markle, know that it is said that in the 16th century Queen Elizabeth I of England didn't permit anyone but close relatives of the royal family to wear purple? In 1856, a British chemist named William Henry Perkin made the color more accessible to commoners when he patented a process for synthetic purple, which he achieved as he was trying to concoct a treatment for malaria. The Purple Heart is awarded to United States Armed Forces members who are wounded in action (or in their name to their next of kin if they are killed). Purple has also been worn for mourning in some cultures; fans of Prince, no doubt, celebrate that he used the color as an exclamation point. Gucci and other fashion designers of recent collections already have, too. And the N.W.S. turned to it to indicate "extreme fire danger" in Southern California, where fires have been raging and conditions have pushed past red. On the other hand, rather than a warning, the color is an invitation to many who practice mindfulness, that movement that trains your mind on the present moment. An internet search will show the movement's fondness for the color, which has often been connected with meditation (even when your flight is delayed) and spirituality. The Pantone Color Institute has been choosing a color of the year since 2000 (Rose Quartz think millennial pink shared the title with Serenity blue in 2016, and Greenery was the choice for 2017). For 2018, Ms. Eiseman said, "We wanted to pick something that brings hope and an uplifting message." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
Real estate developers the successful ones, at least have a healthy appetite for risk and a sixth sense for what will ultimately sell. Gary Barnett, the president of the Extell Development Company, likes to think he carefully "runs the numbers" before rolling the dice. Mr. Barnett said that was what he did in the darker times of 2010 in deciding to outbid other suitors for the Helmsley Carlton House on Madison Avenue at 61st Street, paying 164 million for the 16 story building. Since then, the process of converting the 63 year old hotel to luxury condos has given the developer more than a little heartburn. Set in a landmark district, the Carlton House is undergoing an extensive restoration. Extell and its partner, the hedge fund Angelo Gordon Company, are shrinking the ground level retail space on the Madison Avenue side to two floors from three to create higher ceilings in those spaces, and are adding two floors on the roof to create an almost 9,000 square foot duplex penthouse listed for 65 million. And around the corner on 61st Street, they are building a five story attached town house of almost 10,000 square feet, with about 5,000 square feet of outdoor space and a private entrance. It, too, is being offered for 65 million. More broadly, the developers are restoring the facade; they have carefully filled in the old spaces for air conditioners with similarly colored brick. They have also done substantial structural reinforcement while moving the building's core, which contains things like staircases and elevators, farther back. Three teams of engineers have worked full time on the project, Mr. Barnett said. "We had to be really careful stabilizing the building to do all this," he said this week while giving me a tour of the project's sales center. "Thank God we are past the danger stage with all this." The Carlton House is one example of the sometimes complicated conversion project, a breed of development that some big names have settled for amid a shortage of quality sites for new residential buildings in Manhattan. Some, like the Carlton House; or 530 Park Avenue, a rental building that Aby Rosen is converting to condos; or the two prewar rental buildings that Harry Macklowe is converting to condos on the Upper East Side, were in locations too good to pass up, developers said. With bidding wars for scarce sites heating up, developers are feeling stressed to make those projects profitable amid the high costs. "We like to take an existing building, deal with its limitations and then explore how we modernize this building," he said. "Rental properties you can convert are a dying breed. And development sites are really hard to find as well." At 530 Park, a 19 story building dating to 1941, Mr. Rosen is spending 75 million on his upgrade. The developer began selling condos in the building in November. He would not disclose sales data but said that apartments were being sold at an average of 3,200 a square foot. His team installed Smallbone of Devizes cabinets in the kitchens and, in some units, large windows that offer a view down Park Avenue. Prices range from 1.6 million, for studios, to more than 10 million for four bedroom units. Mr. Rosen reclaimed ground floor space that had been a doctor's office and converted it into a sumptuous common living room with an adjoining billiard room for residents to enjoy. He is also offering a sort of internal town house that would be the product of combining two apartments of almost 6,000 square feet each into a single second floor residence; a hydraulic elevator and maid's quarters would be optional. Asking price: about 40 million. None Testing the Limits: Only three of New York's 25 tallest residential buildings have completed safety tasks required by the city. The Downside to Life in a Supertall: 432 Park faces some significant design problems, and other luxury high rises may share its fate. Luxury Developers' Loophole: Soaring towers are able to push high into the sky because of a loophole in the city's labyrinthine zoning laws. An Evolving Skyline: The high rise building boom has transformed the city's skyline in recent years. Its impact will echo for years to come. Hidden Feats: Our critic looks at some supertall N.Y.C. buildings and how the ingenuity of engineers helped build landmarks. Mr. Rosen paid about 150 million for 530 Park in 2010. He has to accommodate the 30 or so rent regulated tenants who are still living there, but his project is less complicated than the one Extell has attempted one avenue over. In a conversion, Mr. Barnett said, the pressure to get things right is magnified. He said he was spending more than 350 million to convert the Carlton House, at least twice what he had paid for the building. "It is actually more expensive than if we tore the damn building down and built it again," he said. "It is just so complex." Converting the Carlton House has been more nerve racking, Mr. Barnett says, than building his Midtown monument to excess: One57, the 90 story condo tower atop a Park Hyatt hotel that has attracted several of the world's billionaires. Even the gut renovations of the two duplex apartments there by their mystery buyers has proved less annoying. (The developer, by the way, said that a contract for another full floor apartment had been signed this week, leaving two full floor apartments remaining at One57. The biggest prize still on the market is Unit 87, now being offered for 67 million, or about 10,700 a square foot.) Mr. Barnett defrayed one potential expense at the Carlton House the land lease by selling off the 35,000 square feet of retail space to Thor Equities for 277 million, making Thor responsible for paying the 156 year lease. But the structural changes he decided on proved challenging and expensive. One notable example was the pushing back of the building's core to create better layouts for both the retail and the residential spaces. The Carlton House will have 69 units, including the town house, when it opens in the summer of 2014. The finishes are elegant if unspectacular, with glass panels and lacquer cabinets, and open kitchens with 24 bottle wine chillers. Since the start of sales this month, contracts have gone out for about 40 percent of the units, Mr. Barnett said, though signed contracts have yet to come back. The most popular units so far have been two bedroom apartments of 1,450 square feet, which have been selling for 4 million to 5 million. Apartments facing out the back of the Carlton House will not get great light, and even the penthouse will have its view of Central Park partially obstructed by 800 Fifth, the 33 story rental tower. "You get a decent view of the park once you get above the low rise," Mr. Barnett said. "It is not perfect, of course." But the calculation he made is that the Carlton House has a prime location in the heart of high end shopping and close to Upper East Side schools, churches and synagogues. In the end, running the numbers paid off. "In this kind of complicated redevelopment messy old building doing the homework actually helped us," he said. "Even if the market had not moved in our direction, we still would have done very well. Notwithstanding the fact that it is costing us an absolute fortune to build this building." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
They have long been oddly far flung collaborators. She was a Colorado museum consultant known for her esoteric lectures on ancient gold adornments or nomadic Chinese tribes. He was a buccaneering Bangkok art collector who trekked through Cambodia's war ravaged jungles in the 1970s, exploring moss encrusted temples built a thousand years earlier, during the heyday of Khmer civilization. Over the course of a 30 year friendship, Emma C. Bunker, 87, and Douglas A. J. Latchford, 86, became authorities on Southeast Asian antiquities whose approval could ensure an object's value and legitimacy. Together they wrote three seminal volumes "Adoration and Glory: The Golden Age of Khmer Art," "Khmer Gold" and "Khmer Bronzes" that are core reference works for other experts. The books contain letters of tribute from Cambodian officials who applaud the pair's dedicated research and support for the national museum in Phnom Penh. In particular, they hail Mr. Latchford, who has donated rare artifacts and money to the museum, acts of generosity that led the government to knight him in 2008. The complaint says that over a period of years the co conspirators and others helped a prominent New York gallery owner, Nancy Wiener, falsify the documentary history of looted Cambodian relics, making them easier to market. "Misrepresenting the true provenance of an antiquity is essential for selling stolen items in the market," Brenton Easter, a federal agent, said in the complaint. Neither expert has been charged, and neither is identified by name in the complaint. Mr. Latchford is described in the complaint as "an antiquities dealer based in London and Bangkok" and Ms. Bunker as "a research consultant for an American museum." But people familiar with the case have confirmed their identities. The accusations in the case are hardly novel in the annals of art fraud, where the pathway to profit has long been paved with misplaced trust. But experts say this case highlights the vulnerabilities of the art world, where authenticity and ownership disputes are common and where scholarship, and the people who can wield it, often provide the imprimatur that dealers need to close sales. Ms. Wiener, 61, who has pleaded not guilty, is accused of using her business "to buy, smuggle, launder and sell millions of dollars worth of antiquities stolen from Afghanistan, Cambodia, China, India, Pakistan and Thailand." Her lawyer, Michael McCullough, declined to comment but said several weeks ago that "Ms. Wiener has every reason to expect a favorable conclusion to the case." The complaint asserts that the two experts benefited by aiding Ms. Wiener. It cites an email seized by investigators where Mr. Latchford tells her he gives bronze statues to Ms. Bunker in exchange for false provenances. As for Mr. Latchford, the complaint says some of the phony provenances were used to help market items he sold to Ms. Wiener or had bought in tandem with her. Ms. Bunker said in a short phone interview from Wyoming that she did not recall the matters cited in the Wiener case. "I never gave a cover for anything," she said, and referred questions to a lawyer who did not return calls. Mr. Latchford, a Bombay born British citizen, did not respond to requests for an interview. A close relative declined to comment. In previous interviews, Mr. Latchford has denied any wrongdoing and defended his collecting practices as the norm for an era when far less rigor was attached to provenance and sales documents. He said in 2012 that Westerners who acquired Southeast Asian objects during the decades of war in Cambodia and Vietnam should be seen as rescuers who lavished care and scholarship on objects that might have crumbled in the jungle or been destroyed. A dedication in the book "Adoration and Glory: The Golden Age of Khmer Art," by Emma C. Bunker and Douglas A.J. Latchford. "If the French and other Western collectors had not preserved this art, what would be the understanding of Khmer culture today?" he said. The three books Mr. Latchford has written with Ms. Bunker display hundreds of Khmer items deities, mythic creatures and royal treasures in sandstone, gold and bronze that are as unique and valuable as any found in Cambodia's national museum. Cambodian officials say they have no record of most of the objects and rely on the books for confirmation of their existence. Asked about this in a 2014 interview, Mr. Latchford said they were held by private owners who trusted him to keep their identities confidential. "Their books are very important for me and our own scholars," said Chan Tani, secretary of state for Cambodia's Council of Ministers. "There are so many objects in them that we as Cambodians have never seen." Ms. Bunker "Emmy" to a legion of admiring scholars is author of some dozen volumes on Asian art. A graduate of New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, she has been affiliated for more than 40 years with the Denver Art Museum, where she sat for five years on its board, served as a volunteer researcher and last lectured in 2012. The New York gallery owner Nancy Wiener in 2011. A criminal complaint filed by the Manhattan district attorney says she helped two experts falsify the documentary history of looted Cambodian relics. "Bunker is a well known authority on personal adornment in China, the art of the horse riding tribes of the Eurasian Steppes, and Khmer art of Southeast Asia," the museum said in introducing her last lecture, adding, "Her numerous publications have presented groundbreaking research on these subjects." Her husband, John Birkbeck Bunker, who died in 2005, was a son of Ellsworth Bunker, a former United States ambassador to South Vietnam during the war. A Wyoming rancher, sugar executive and trustee of the Denver museum, John Bunker joined his wife in making substantial donations of art and money to the museum, and she has given other items on her own, either in tandem with family members or Mr. Latchford. Kristy Bassuener, a spokeswoman for the Denver Art Museum, cited Ms. Bunker's long association with the institution, but said officials were aware of the allegations against her and were seeking "to gather any new facts about objects in our collection." The case now entangling Ms. Bunker and Mr. Latchford is just the latest to roil the world of antiquities. Long a partner with her mother, Doris, who died in 2011, Ms. Wiener is charged with criminal possession of stolen property and conspiracy, the result of a raid on her gallery last year that investigators say netted thousands of emails and other documents. One item that Mr. Latchford had consigned to Ms. Wiener for sale was seized at the time. The complaint says she used "a laundering process that included restoration services to hide damage from illegal excavations, straw purchases at auction houses to create sham ownership histories, and the creation of false provenance to predate international laws of patrimony prohibiting the exportation of looted antiquities." The complaint says that some of the seized emails show Mr. Latchford and Ms. Bunker concocting phony ownership histories. In one, from November 2011, Ms. Bunker asked Mr. Latchford what sort of document Ms. Wiener needed regarding a bronze 10th century Khmer statue of a Naga Buddha that Mr. Latchford was selling the dealer for 500,000. The Wiener gallery was preparing to resell it for 1.5 million. "I wonder," Ms. Bunker wrote to Mr. Latchford, "whether it might not be better to say that you bought it from a Thai collector when you first moved to Bangkok in the 1950s. Who, other than Neil and Yothin, knows when you acquired it." A month later, Ms. Bunker sent Mr. Latchford a provenance letter in which she wrote "I first saw the Naga Buddha in Douglas Latchford's London flat sometime in the early 1970s, when I was there on my way to China." She identified herself in the letter as "Research Consultant Asian Department Denver Art Museum." In another instance, according to the complaint, Ms. Wiener and Mr. Latchford jointly bought an 11th century statue of the Hindu god Shiva in 2008 for 250,000 from a supplier. "The Cambodians in Phnom Penh now have clear evidence that it was definitely stolen from Prasat Chen at Koh Ker as the feet are still in situ," she emailed a Sotheby's officer. She counseled against selling it at public auction because "the Cambodians might block the sale and ask for the piece back." A few weeks later, just back from Cambodia, Ms. Bunker reported that the Cambodians had no plans to ask for it back. Sotheby's could proceed with the sale, she advised, "but perhaps not good to show or mention the feet still in situ at Koh Ker in the catalog." Sotheby's ended up putting the statue on the cover of its sales catalog. But the Cambodians did object, and the United States attorney in Manhattan at the time, Preet Bharara, initiated a seizure action in court. The auction house challenged whether the piece had been looted, but the case was settled and the statue was ceremonially returned to Cambodia in 2014. At the time of the dispute, one expert spoke to how the passage of time had created new legal parameters that veteran collectors and dealers would need to observe. "We live in a different world," said Matthew F. Bogdanos, a Marine Corps Reserve colonel who had led the hunt for ransacked treasures during the Iraq war, "and what was acceptable 50 years ago is no longer so." As it turns out, Mr. Bogdanos, who is also a prosecutor in the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., is now leading the Wiener investigation. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
Donald J. Trump, left, and Jay Z, neither of whom wear wedding rings. Jay Z and his wife, Beyonce, do have matching tattoos on their fingers. During an exceptionally cringe worthy Republican debate in March, Donald J. Trump raised his hands to show people that they weren't abnormally small. While it is unclear whether this display settled the underlying matter, one thing was indisputable: He wasn't wearing a wedding ring. He's not alone. No band adorns the fourth finger of Prince William's left hand, or that of Graydon Carter, or more recently, of Jay Z. And Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have been spotted without rings, which has added to tabloid speculation about the state of their union. The question remains: Can a naked finger be just a naked finger? Mr. Trump, whose representatives declined to comment or to make him available for this article, has not explained why he no longer wears the band he wore when he and Melania Knauss were married in 2005. The public is undoubtedly aware of his marital status, so he's not exactly putting anything over on anyone. He appeared to not wear a ring during his marriage to Ivana Trump, and only occasionally with Marla Maples as well. Before Prince William married Kate Middleton in 2011, the palace issued a statement, noting that the couple had discussed it and that the prince's decision not to wear a ring was "personal preference." The statement continued, "He doesn't even wear a signet ring and decided he didn't want to." Popular perception is that some men and, yes, women too go ringless in order to broadcast an availability that their spouses may know nothing about. And there are many who subscribe to the notion that affairs may be avoided if both sexes would simply adhere to this public signifier that they are "taken." (Of course, this doesn't account for those who are attracted by wedding rings precisely because they signal no possibility of a longer attachment.) Judi Winston Katz, 45, a real estate agent in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., agrees. She believes that ambivalence played a role in her decision not to wear a ring during her 20 year marriage. While her former husband, whom she loved as a "best friend," wore his ring right up to the day they signed their divorce papers, she found hers a "nuisance" and removed it after their first year of matrimony. "I always wondered if it was subconsciously because I didn't want to be married to him," she wrote in an email. Just as customs about weddings have become less conventional, so, too, have rules about rings, both in the type of band or whether you wear one at all. Many gay men have exchanged wedding bands, but it may be too soon to say that these rings are here to stay. Dominick Miciotta and Jason Smith of Huntington, N.Y., however, always wear the matching titanium bands they gave each other at their October 2013 wedding. "The ring is a part of marriage for both of us," said Mr. Miciotta, 46. "We are both fairly traditional. We both feel the same way about commitment and love." In England, the appearance of wedding rings for men is a relatively recent phenomenon. In his 1996 book, "Debrett's New Guide to Etiquette Modern Manners," the etiquette expert John Morgan wrote that in Britain "it is customary for the bride alone to sport a wedding ring, and although some brides have adopted the Continental habit of presenting the groom with his own band during the vows, this remains not quite comme il faut.'" In the 16 years that Nick Sullivan, the English born fashion director of Esquire, has been married, nothing has adorned any of his fingers. While he was "very happy" to get married, he didn't feel the need for an extra symbol. "My wife doesn't care," he said. Neither does Evin Lowe, whose husband, Robert Schwartz, won't wear a ring. For him, though, it is more about trauma. During his first marriage, Mr. Schwartz, 47, who has a consulting business in New York, wore the conventional gold wedding band. After divorcing, he decided that "the ring represented a failed marriage" and flushed it down the toilet. Before marrying Ms. Lowe, he expressed his reluctance to (literally) put a ring on it. She understood. "If I felt like I needed him to wear a ring all the time, I wouldn't have married him," said Ms. Lowe, 41, a lighting technician for film and television. "To me it's a matter of trust." There are practical reasons for not wearing them. Haim Hazan, 40, the owner of a Manhattan hair salon, finds that rings get in the way of his work. "Everybody knows I'm married," he said. "But it's convenient not to wear one." Craig Savel, 53, a developer of computer apps and programs in New York, said, "Rings never entered the equation." He and his wife, Marion Stein, eloped to Niagara Falls without rings for either of them. "We're two kind of aging hippies," Mr. Savel said. "I think we're also both afraid we are so ditsy we'll lose it, with all the attendant symbolism." The way Dr. Safer sees it, going ringless does tend to symbolize that there is something deeper going on an inability to fully commit or a desire to be free. She and her husband, the historian and writer Richard Brookhiser, have been married for over 30 years and both wear rings. "It never occurred to me that we wouldn't," she said. In marriage, she believes, "you exchange your pathologies. You should exchange rings, too." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
With no advance fanfare, Eminem released a surprise album late Thursday, using the opening track to address the aftermath of last year's freestyle rap aimed at President Trump and his supporters. The new, 11 song album, "Kamikaze," comes less than a year after the 45 year old rapper's last album, "Revival," which was his eighth in a row to debut at No. 1. Eminem and Dr. Dre are credited as executive producers on the album, whose cover pays tribute to the 1986 Beastie Boys album "Licensed to Ill." The LP includes two skits and "Venom," a song that will be featured on the soundtrack to the Marvel movie. Within hours of the rapper announcing his latest album on Twitter, his post had been shared nearly 50,000 times. "And any fan of mine/who's a supporter of his/I'm drawing in the sand a line/you're either for or against," he rapped, shortly before giving the middle finger to the camera. In "The Ringer," the opening track of the new album, Eminem appears to second guess himself, rapping that "if I could go back, I'd at least reword it/and say I empathize with the people this evil serpent sold the dream to that he's deserted." That line in the sand, was it even worth it? 'Cause the way I see people turning Is making it seem worthless It's starting to defeat the purpose I'm watching my fan base shrink to thirds And I was just trying to do the right thing, but word He also said, referring to the president, that "Agent Orange just sent the Secret Service/to meet in person to see if I really think of hurting him/or ask if I'm linked to terrorists/I said, 'Only when it comes to ink and lyricists.'" It had not been previously reported that the Secret Service had visited the rapper, and the claim assuming it was meant seriously could not immediately be verified. Asked if it had met with Eminem or followed up on the rapper's comments in his 2017 freestyle, the Secret Service said that it would not confirm or comment on "the absence or existence of specific investigations. We can say, however, the Secret Service investigates all threats against the president." The agency did not immediately respond to a follow up question about whether it considered Eminem's words a threat. In 2003, the Secret Service took notice of a lyric from an unfinished Eminem song that said "I'd rather see the president dead," but opted not to investigate him. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
For generations Americans tended to see art museums as alternatives to crass everyday life. Like libraries, they were for learning; like churches, for reflection. You went to them for a hit of Beauty and a lesson in "eternal values," embodied in relics of the past donated by civic minded angels. You probably didn't know and most museums weren't going to tell you that many of those relics were stolen goods. Or that more than a few donor angels were plutocrats trying to scrub their cash clean with art. Or that the values embodied in beautiful things were often, if closely examined, abhorrent. Today, we're more alert to these ethical flaws, as several recent protests against museums show, though we still have a habit of trusting our cultural institutions, museums and universities among them, to be basically right thinking. At moments of political crisis and moral confusion we look to them to justify our trust. The 1960s was such a moment. At least early in that decade we had hopes that universities would take a principled stand on evils war, racism that were burning the country up. But when it became clear that our figurehead schools were, in fact, hard wired into the machinery that fueled the conflict in Vietnam and perpetuated global apartheid, faith was shattered and has never really been restored. At present, we're locked in another crisis, what might be called an internal American war on the environment, on the poor, on difference, on truth. And it's the turn of another cultural institution, the art museum, now popular in a way it has never been, to be the object of critical scrutiny. Since early March, an activist collective called Decolonize This Place (D.T.P.) has been bringing weekly protests to the Whitney Museum of American Art. Their immediate demand is the removal of a museum trustee, Warren B. Kanders, the owner of a company, Safariland, that produces military supplies, including a brand of tear gas that has reportedly been used at the United States Mexico border. Finally, long existing art museum collections have been under a heightened ethical searchlight since the French president, Emmanuel Macron, proposed in 2018 that objects looted from Africa during an earlier colonial era be returned, on demand, to their places of origin a project which, if ratified, could easily apply to a wide spectrum of Western and non Western art. In short, in the space of barely a year, the very foundations of museums the money that sustains them, the art that fills them, the decision makers that run them have been called into question. And there's no end to questioning in sight. Recently, the American Museum of Natural History came under fire for renting out space for a dinner honoring Jair Bolsonaro, the outspokenly racist, homophobic, anti environment president of Brazil. (The rental arrangement abruptly ended.) In late April, the Art Institute of Chicago took heat for planning a major show of culturally sensitive Native American pottery by the ancient Mimbres people including sacred objects without consulting indigenous communities with ties to the Mimbres people. (The show has been postponed while the museum seeks counsel from Native American nations.) Politically driven museum protests are not new. In 1969, members of a collective called the Guerrilla Art Action Group gathered in the Museum of Modern Art's lobby, drenched themselves in cow's blood and scattered copies of a scathing manifesto titled: "A Call for the Immediate Resignation of All the Rockefellers from the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Modern Art." It accused the brothers David Rockefeller and Nelson Rockefeller (then governor of New York) of "brutal involvement in all spheres" of the Vietnam War. In the same year, African American artists, under the name Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC), boycotted the Met exhibition "Harlem on My Mind." The show was advertised as bringing African American culture, for the first time, into the museum's august precincts. But it included no black art or curatorial participation, and served to confirm race based exclusion as an institutional norm. Such museum targeted work has since earned a genre name, "institutional critique," which, problematically, has served as a marketing handle. Once critique became collectible, as it almost inevitably did, it was absorbed into, and neutralized by, the institutions it was meant to correct. (Groups like D.T.P., which call their protest work art, naturally have to be alert for such co option.) An omnivorous, sleepless market is the defining feature of the 21st century art landscape. Money is the universal solvent. It converts everything into itself. Aesthetic value measured in dollars has, of course, always been part of the talk about art. Now it's pretty much the whole conversation, amplified by auctions and art fairs, and directed at a population of new big budget buyers. Consumption is contagious, competitive, circular. Private collectors buy contemporary work of a kind museums can no longer afford. Museums, trying to attract gifts of such work, go on expansion sprees. To pay for expansions, they have to beef up their boards with rich recruits (often collectors), the source of whose fortunes are sometimes, as in the case of the Sacklers and Mr. Kanders, of a kind best left unadvertised. In practical terms, museums are on the spot. Even without expansion bloat, they're too expensive and unprofitable to be fiscally self sustaining. Government art support in the United States is less than meager (and would be zero if the current administration had its way). Which leaves private, frequently corporate, money to lean on, and the good possibility that some of that money is tainted. What to do about Sackler patronage became easy to decide after evidence surfaced that certain family members associated with OxyContin production had known of its addictive properties, but suppressed the information. When this news broke several museums, including the Guggenheim, quickly cut ties. (The Met, more cautious, said it was "engaging in further review of our detailed gift acceptance policies." Its report is due later this month.) Meanwhile, the Sackler Foundation finessed the need for further debate by calling a temporary halt to new art philanthropy. By contrast, the reaction to Mr. Macron's proposal to restore art pilfered from Africa has varied widely, and no consensus on action has been reached. Here Western institutions are on quaking ground with, it must seem, everything but good karma to lose. No doubt many are reluctant to even consider the idea of restitution. But if justice prevails, they'll have to. Otherwise, colonialism rolls on and on. In any case, at this point, generally applicable algorithms for restitution are still unformed, though one guideline seems indisputable: that the first responsibility on the part of all concerned is to insure the safety of the fragile objects and materials under negotiation. Where ethical debate is in full, heated progress right now is at the Whitney. The museum's administration has stonewalled on the issue of Mr. Kanders leaving the board, even though nearly 100 Whitney staff members, and more than half of the artists in the 2019 Biennial, which opens on May 17, have signed petitions demanding it. One Biennial artist, Michael Rakowitz, made a principled withdrawal from the show. Another participant, the artist collective called Forensic Architecture, plans to respond to the controversy with its contribution to the exhibition. Early on, Mr. Kanders himself issued a statement of self defense, arguing that he's not responsible for what purchasers do with Safariland defense gear; he only makes the stuff. And the Whitney's director, Adam Weinberg, has sent a fuzzy hug of a letter to staff. ("I write to you now as one community, one family the Whitney.") In the middle of which he lets himself off the executive hook: "As members of the Whitney community, we each have our critical and complementary roles: trustees do not hire staff, select exhibitions, organize programs or make acquisitions, and staff does not appoint or remove board members." (This church and state separation is hardly a firm one, but never mind.) The letter ends up being a very long way of saying "Sorry, we need Mr. Kanders's money." In his letter Mr. Weinberg walks a calculated line between boosterism and selective silence. He's right in saying that the Whitney has championed some "progressive and challenging" exhibitions, pointing to recent Zoe Leonard and David Wojnarowicz retrospectives and the Latinx group show "Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay." But he's wrong in refusing to acknowledge the moral issues raised by Mr. Kanders's resume, and those raised by his own decision, as Whitney director, to clear the subject from the communal table, which his letter effectively does. Mr. Kanders, for different but comparably expedient reasons, asserts a similar position of no fault neutrality. Yet if you are in a position to support the arts, and you accept a position on the board of a museum, and it develops that your presence is disapproved of by the staff and detrimental to the reputation of the institution, isn't it your duty to step aside until the issues in question have been, one way or another, resolved? The answer is yes. Mr. Kanders should remove himself from the board. In the present American political climate, with nationalism and racist, ethnic, and xenophobic violence at high tide, neutrality is not an option for institutions that have ethical imperatives, represented by art, built into their DNA. We need these institutions, which include our art museums, to be proactive alternative environments, in which standardized power hierarchies are dissolved, a poly cultural range of voices speak, the history of art is truthfully told, and truth itself is understood as an always developing story. All museums have ethical practice guidelines in place, but these can't cover the full range of potential objections to trustee appointments (which at present include issues involving arms manufacture, corporate drug production and climate change). Surely the moral intelligence of the entire institution should be brought to bear on judging, case by case, the nature of the support being offered, with the trust that a balance of idealism and pragmatism will prevail in decision making. And that method of assessment will succeed only when an upstairs/downstairs structuring is eliminated within the museum. In the end, the question of Mr. Kanders's staying or going may be less important than the discussion and protest his presence has raised, which should lead to further discussions about institutional ethics, and more protest. I believe it will. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
With the opening of its first hotel in January, the luxury fashion brand Shinola continues to boost its presence some would say omnipresence in Motor City. At this year's Oscar ceremony, the "Green Book" director, Peter Farrelly, gave a shout out to the luxury fashion brand Shinola, crediting it with "saving Detroit." While his claim remains controversial, one fact is inarguable: With the opening of its first hotel in January, Shinola is bigger than ever in Motor City. Located on Woodward Avenue, the main thoroughfare in Detroit, Shinola Hotel takes up most of a city block. It occupies five buildings, including two historic structures: the Singer Building, with its neoclassical exterior, and the T.B. Rayl Co. store, a former sports and hardware business with a red tiled facade. It also has a street front restaurant, San Morello, and a retail outlet, with back entrances into the hotel. The 129 room, eight story boutique hotel is part of a multimillion dollar development project by Shinola, founded by Tom Kartsotis of Fossil watches, and Dan Gilbert's real estate venture, Bedrock, which has acquired and developed more than 100 properties in the city since 2011. The project, which took two years to complete, also includes an alley behind the hotel with shops and two restaurants: The Brakeman, an American beer hall with an outdoor area, and Penny Red's, a fried chicken spot. Check in went smoothly for us as well as a cool couple with a canine. Shinola is a pet friendly hotel. Detroit's downtown district is the most pedestrian friendly area of the city, and a testament to the "revitalization" everyone touts following the bankruptcy. Not only can hotel guests stroll to all the major sports venues Comerica Park, Ford Field and Little Caesars arena it is also an Uber free distance from the Fox Theatre, the Detroit Opera House, and even the Fisher Theatre, courtesy of the two year old QLINE, a streetcar that runs up and down Woodward connecting the downtown to New Center , a commercial and residential district few miles away. (The "Q" stands for Quicken Loans, Dan Gilbert's mortgage company.) Also just steps from the hotel is the native Detroiter John Varvatos's store. Our sixth floor room felt spacious with a comfortable leather chair adorned with a blanket and reading light, a king bed and a bar stocked with enough booze for a block party: bottles of gin, vodka, tequila and bourbon were laid out on top of a credenza hiding a fully stocked minibar underneath. The snacks and beverages include nods to local brands: Great Lakes Chips, Drought cold pressed juice, Vernors Ginger Ale and Shinola Cola (who knew?). One serious highlight: a set of Bluetooth Shinola speakers we had to restrain ourselves from volume testing. Somewhat fascinating is a long price list of nearly everything in the room should we want to buy it or be charged if it went missing: the blanket ( 295), the speakers ( 1,500), the Runwell desk clock ( 295) a dual plug power cord ( 145), and a key fob with a leather tassel I did not dare lose at 65. I was tempted to buy the black terry cloth robes ( 150 each) and take home the mysteriously unpriced striped cotton slippers. Our room overlooked the site of the former J.L. Hudson's department store, where Mr. Gilbert is starting to build what is to be the tallest skyscraper in Detroit, a mixed use tower. There was no construction noise on the weekend. Nicely designed with an enormous shower that could easily fit two people. The bath amenities, labeled Rayl's after the former tenant, were made for the hotel with Shinola's "signature scent," which was unrecognizable but fragrant. With the San Morello restaurant booked that night, we enjoyed brunch in the bustling corner brasserie, sharing a delicious pizza with fennel sausage and pistachio pesto ( 19). Had we known the "Living Room" off the lobby served food, we might have eaten there. The high ceilinged room is decorated with colorful local art and filled with comfortable couches. The menu is simple (soups, salads, roast chicken), though the homemade Truffle Dog ( 17) stood out, as did the cocktail menu featuring drinks like "Death in the Afternoon," absinthe and Champagne ( 24) . After 5 p.m. it is open to the public, as is the "Evening Bar," a windowless, cozy room with curved wood millwork and warm lighting. But it has seating for only 30 people, and takes no reservations, and we were not up for the hourlong wait at 11 p.m. Room service the next morning made up for any disappointment. Within 30 minutes of ordering, a huge plate of fluffy lemon ricotta pancakes ( 14) arrived with the Sunday paper. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
MONEY HEIST Stream on Netflix. This Spanish crime drama is one of the most watched non English language shows on Netflix. (Stephen King is a fan.) The series centers on eight robbers who, led by a mastermind called the Professor (Alvaro Morte), carry out elaborate heists worth billions of euros. Part 3 ended with a cliffhanger: As the robbers went after the Bank of Spain, Nairobi (Alba Flores) the characters' code names are international cities took a shot to the chest and the police captured Lisbon (Itziar Ituno). Part 4, out this weekend, picks up right where the show left off, promising edge of your seat thrills. TALES FROM THE LOOP Stream on Amazon. The Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag's retro futuristic work, which juxtaposes rural landscapes with enormous robots and machines, has been adapted into an art book and a role playing game. Now it's getting the television treatment. This new sci fi series trades the Swedish countryside for a small Ohio town, home to an underground facility for experimental physics and the Loop, a machine that offers a window into the mysteries of the universe. The eight episodes feature Rebecca Hall, Paul Schneider and Daniel Zolghadri, and follow the lives of the town's residents, slowly uncovering how they're interconnected with the Loop. The show is an anthology, but it's best to watch in chronological order. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
The most problematic episodes of "Star Trek: Discovery" have involved Klingons, and "Through the Valley of Shadows" continues that trend of writers on the show having difficulty getting themselves out of self created holes from past episodes. But I'll say this: The scenes on Boreth, the sacred Klingon planet, gave a depth to Klingons rarely seen in the Trek franchise. Instead of lusting for battle and honor, we see a thoughtful, contemplative version of the race. (We've spent time on Boreth before, in a "Next Generation" episode called "Rightful Heir.") But I was distracted by how we got to the planet in the first place. The crux of the episode was about a new red signal appearing over Boreth and Discovery, with L'Rell's help, goes to investigate. L'Rell tells Pike that there are time crystals there very casually, I might add. This is a huge revelation. Some plot holes you can live with even the best iterations of Trek have them. But L'Rell openly making contact with Tyler and facilitating the trip so Pike could visit their son when both Tyler and their son are supposed to be dead was too much for me to bear. When we last left L'Rell, her hold on the Klingon Empire was tenuous at best. Powerful forces in the Empire saw her as a tool of the Federation, and her companion, Tyler, as too human to have honorable intentions. So L'Rell hatched a plan in "Point of Light" to fake their deaths when in reality, Tyler was sent off and joined Section 31 and the infant to Boreth. If L'Rell's rivals find out that Tyler and their son are still alive, the entire Klingon race could once again be plunged into war. And yet here L'Rell was openly appearing in the same room as Tyler. This season, the Klingons have been shown themselves to be sophisticated enough to dabble in manipulating time. They're definitely skilled enough then to track who L'Rell speaks to. (On top of that, she must have crew members and security who have some questions about what the chancellor is up to.) Instead of Tyler going to Boreth, Pike is the one to go raising the question again of what Tyler's exact role is on the show. The scenes at the monastery are the most compelling of the episode. Boreth is beautifully shot and it was refreshing to explore the religious aspects of being Klingon that don't involve strictly honor. We discover that the monk who will guide Pike to getting a time crystal (which many Klingons believe are a myth) is the son of L'Rell and Tyler. (Sorry, the Human Previously Known As The Klingon Voq.) "Time flows differently for those who protect the crystals," the son says. "The past, the present, the future are all equal in their presence." Pike gets a glimpse of his future when he tries a crystal on for size and sees exactly, in horrifying fashion, how he will end up in the wheelchair that has become part of Trek lore. By removing the crystal from the monastery, he seals himself to his fate, which he agrees to so he can, you know, to save the universe and all. O.K., so I have a couple questions here: The monk tells Pike, "Even if a crystal is revealed to you, even if it provides you with the answers you seek, you are not strong enough to accept them." Because ... he sees his future? What if someone like Saru went down there and had a perfectly pleasant resolution to his life? Could he take a time crystal with no issue? The suggestion by L'Rell and Tyler's son is that it is incredibly difficult to remove the crystal from Boreth. Meanwhile, all it seems to require is acceptance of your fate. Pike has a rough future, yes. But what if someone doesn't? And if one removes a crystal, is Pike then sealing in the fate of everyone around him too? (Shoutout to Anson Mount though: He plays the shock of seeing his eventual state perfectly.) I don't want to focus too much on the time crystals because the "Discovery" writers could either address the glaring plot holes they create in canon at some point in the future or they'll just leave it, leaving Trek fans like me to shake our fists. But I do have another question that keeps nagging at me: The existence of time crystals on Boreth doesn't seem to be a secret. Why didn't one of L'Rell's opponents go there, remove a crystal, and figure out a way to turn back time in a way so that Klingons could win the war against the Federation? Surely, not everyone believes it's a myth. L'Rell clearly doesn't. (Of course, it's possible somebody has, so who knows?) The episode's other arc features Burnham and Spock going to investigate a Section 31 ship that didn't check in at the right time. This hamfisted story line didn't make sense for several reasons. The brother and sister find that the entire crew of the Section 31 ship has been ejected into space except for one crew member who is somehow alive. Bafflingly, Spock and Burnham aren't suspicious that this is a trap, even while knowing how strong Control is. It turns out that the very living Kamran Gant, a former colleague of Burnham's on the Shenzhou, is actually possessed by Control. This is unbeknown to Spock and Burnham, who for whatever reason decide to check out the ship that Control attacked. By the end of the episode, it seems that the entire Section 31 fleet has been taken over by Control and they are coming for Discovery. Pike seriously considers destroying the Discovery and the sphere data along with it. The ending didn't quite hit home but that's in large part because important people or things don't actually stay dead in "Discovery." This was less a cliffhanger and more of a stopping point in the continuing story. Welcome back Tig Notaro! Where has Jett Reno been this whole time? And more to the point, using Reno to convince Culber that he should get back together with Stamets seems like a waste to me. If Culber doesn't have the same feelings for Stamets, that's perfectly O.K. He shouldn't be guilted into getting back with him. There is growing speculation that Control is an early form of the Borg. Even after this episode, I'm still a no on this, but I can see the case for it. It was a curious choice to have Amanda Grayson only speak to Spock and Burnham together, rather than with Sarek as well. I don't know where we're headed with this story, but the Discovery crew has a time crystal now. My assumption is that the resolution involves Stamets finding a way to manipulate time in the same way Burnham's mother did. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
The doping scheme was created to make Russia the unquestioned champion of the 2014 Sochi Olympics, to ensure Russian dominance on home soil, to claim victories for Russian athletes, to sweep up more gold medals than any other country. Instead, it produced a scandal with no end in sight. On Tuesday, more than six years after the Sochi Games, Russia's efforts to deny and defy the global sporting community's findings about its state backed doping program reached yet another low: The Court of Arbitration for Sport's antidoping division stripped the Russian biathlete Evgeny Ustyugov of the medals he won at the Vancouver and Sochi Winter Olympics. In taking back Ustyugov's gold from Sochi, the court also effectively revoked Russia's status as the big winner from the Sochi Games, which are now remembered not for Russian performances but for being among the most tainted competitions in sports history. The court's decision, announced by the International Biathlon Union, also suggested that Russia's punishments may be far from over. In its ruling, the court called the key whistle blower who revealed the scandal "a credible witness who had direct knowledge of circumstances," and said it had relied on the information he had provided. The ruling by CAS, which confirmed a decision reached earlier this year, is another reminder of how Russia's cheating scheme continues to alter the record books from world championships and Olympic Games long after it was uncovered in 2015. Norway, which won 11 gold medals in Sochi to Russia's 10, is now the outright leader in golds from those Games. In Tuesday's announcement, the court came to the same conclusion reached by the I.B.U. in February to disqualify Ustyugov and his winning relay team in Sochi. It also stripped Ustyugov of a gold and bronze medal he was awarded at the Vancouver Games in 2010. Russia, which is also appealing a four year ban from global sports because of its doping activities, continues to contest much of what has now been revealed by whistle blowers, investigators and laboratory data. Its lawyers tried to clear Ustyugov by introducing private tests, taken in 2017, that claimed his abnormal blood results were not a result of years of cheating but the natural outcome of a rare genetic advantage. That claim, which had been endorsed by senior Russian sports officials and even the country's president, Vladimir V. Putin, was dismissed by the court. The court's ruling also underscored the continued importance of the whistle blower Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Moscow laboratory at the heart of the doping scheme, to ongoing investigations. In interviews with The New York Times in 2016, Rodchenkov pulled back the curtain on Russia's huge doping program, and he continues to provide investigators with crucial details in ongoing doping cases. He is living under witness protection in the United States, where he fled shortly before revealing Russia's doping secrets. In the Ustyugov case, the court described Rodchenkov as "a credible witness who had direct knowledge of circumstances affecting and involving the athlete and had particular knowledge relating to the athlete himself." That validation of Rodchenkov's evidence is likely to undermine appeals by other Russian athletes and also play a part in a defamation suit against him in the United States by two female biathletes. Their lawsuit is being backed by Mikhail D. Prokhorov, the former billionaire owner of the Brooklyn Nets who led Russia's biathlon federation before and during the 2014 Sochi Games. Biathlon was among the sports most targeted by Russia for medals in Sochi. Several Russian athletes who competed at the Games have already been linked to the doping program, and the leaders of the sport's global governing body were forced out after prosecutors in Austria and Norway claimed that up to 300,000 had been paid to cover up doping infringements they said were carried out by Russian athletes. The verdict against Ustyugov is also a personal blow to Putin, who had expressed his hope that genetic tests taken long after the athlete had retired would lead to his exoneration. "I think it will be a highly valid argument in this issue," the Russian news agency TASS quoted Putin as saying earlier this year. The court, though, paid little mind to the genetic evidence, agreeing with the I.B.U. that it was inadmissible. "The sole arbitrator is not prepared to accept the inclusion of private blood tests taken over a period of five years since the athlete retired, taken in unknown circumstances and for unknown purposes," the ruling said. Instead, the arbitrator said it was clear beyond reasonable doubt that Ustyugov was a part of the broader cheating program directed by Rodchenkov. A panel of experts found Ustyugov's so called athlete biological passport showed an artificial spike in his hemoglobin levels before both the Vancouver and Sochi Games. "It is difficult to conclude other than that the athlete has had the benefit of protection and support to artificially augment his performance through doping and to avoid detection," the ruling said. "Given the diversity of support, its elaborate nature and its extent, it could not have been achieved other than with a significant degree of orchestration or common enterprise to commit the instant antidoping rule violation." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
They seem like nice people, Victor the doctor and Martha the maid, chatting away companionably in his comfortable office at the clinic. It's bitter winter in Winkelheim, Germany, and wartime has made coffee a luxury. But behind his desk Victor sips a precious morning cup, and while Martha tidies the room he asks after her son, whose chest cold is lingering. "You should take him to a doctor," Victor says. "Not me, obviously." No, not him, and certainly not here, where the young patients so called are intended to be killed. Directed by Ethan McSweeny in a powerfully performed production at the Sheen Center, Stephen Unwin's historical drama "All Our Children" takes place in 1941, as the Nazis are quietly exterminating thousands of children. The state has deemed them "unworthy of life" because they have Down syndrome or cerebral palsy or any number of other conditions. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
ARLES, France It was 90 degrees at 10 p.m. as the lights dimmed on a stage under the exposed trusses of a 19th century foundry. All was silent but for the humming of cicadas, all was still apart from the sultry breeze, and all was dark, except for the green flashing lights on the giant construction crane hovering overhead. The crane, 200 feet high, loomed over a 10 story gnarled tower of steel and glass designed by the architect Frank Gehry. It is the centerpiece of Luma Arles, a 175 million arts complex built on a 15 acre plot of parched earth and defunct rail yard, known as the Parc des Ateliers. Visible from just about every vantage point in this low lying Provencal landscape made famous by Vincent van Gogh, it is an ever present reminder that the Swiss art patron Maja Hoffmann is busy transforming this city. If you're not one of the 35,000 residents of Arles or don't run in art circles, it's likely that you've never heard of Ms. Hoffmann. An heiress to the pharmaceutical giant Hoffmann La Roche, this art collector, benefactor and film producer (with a net worth of about 4.2 billion, according to Bloomberg), sits on the boards of half a dozen major museums and galleries, including the New Museum and the Swiss Institute in New York, the Serpentine Gallery in London, and the Kunsthalle Zurich, but she prefers to remain out of the spotlight, behind the scenes. Simon Castets, the director of the Swiss Institute, described her efforts, as chairwoman, to help the art organization find a new home on St. Marks Place, oversee its renovation, and lead a successful 5 million capital campaign as "central" and "tireless." But the most self driven of all her projects is Luma Arles. "There came a moment 10 years ago when I made up my mind, and said I want to try to do production in Europe," she said in an interview in her apartment in New York in August. "I wanted to put my activities into one place, to have more weight and meaning." "It's enough," she said, seated at the head of a long polished wood table, wearing a regal red muumuu. "To be perpetually challenged is not interesting. The media, the people it's a perpetual scrutiny." She added, "This is preventing me from moving ahead." Ms. Hoffmann is trying to transform Arles through art, much in the same way that the artist Donald Judd reimagined a town called Marfa in Texas, or the Dia Art Foundation rebuilt the upstate New York town of Beacon, using art as a draw and an economic engine. In doing so, Ms. Hoffmann has taken on a role that was once reserved for public officials and city planners: imagining the future and then building it. Mr. Gehry's tower, the future Arts Resource Center at Luma, is central to her goal, Ms. Hoffmann says. She envisions the center not as a static showcase of art, but a working environment where people can conduct research and create projects. It is also a symbol: Mr. Gehry's gleaming titanium Guggenheim Bilbao is known worldwide as the landmark that helped an industrial port city in Spain reinvent itself through art, an impact known as the "Bilbao Effect." In a telephone interview, Mr. Gehry said that his idea for Luma was to try to build "a painterly building," to refer to van Gogh's "Starry Night" over the Rhone, painted in Arles in 1888. He conceived of a facade made of 10,000 stainless steel panels that would reflect light and color from thousands of angles, so that its surface would shift, shimmer and change throughout the day. Mr. Gehry described Ms. Hoffmann as more of a collaborator than a client. "She acts surprisingly like an artist," he said. The ambitious plans for Luma have met with opposition over the years. She and Mr. Gehry had to revise the design for the tower to win the approval of the city. Ms. Hoffmann also had a public fight with the annual Rencontres d'Arles photography festival, which was, before Luma, the main cultural draw to Arles (with about 125,000 attendees this summer). Its former director, Francois Hebel, objected to the local government's willingness to give Ms. Hoffmann control over the Parc des Ateliers, without mediating other public considerations, and he resigned in protest in 2014. "To my great sadness all the public authority people who were in charge at the time just sort of gave up because they were impressed that there was such generosity and they didn't know how to cope with it," Mr. Hebel said in a recent telephone interview. "It sort of crippled people." Today, Ms. Hoffmann has a working relationship with the Rencontres, which uses some of the Parc des Ateliers' space in the summer. Mayor Herve Schiavetti of Arles, unlike his predecessor, is a fan. "As the project is now close to completion, I am very impressed," Mr. Schiavetti said in an email. "The reality is exactly what I dreamed of. Arles has entered a new era of its long history, thanks to LUMA." When I visited, the complaints I heard from the townspeople were about the tower itself, which some felt didn't fit in to the Arlesian landscape; others said that it was only for the art elite, not the residents. Ms. Hoffmann waved away these objections. "Of course some people will say it's not aesthetically what I like," she said. "Some Paris people said, 'Why do you destroy our ville de plouc' which means 'town of peasants'? I'm challenging this way of thinking, that's for sure. But I'm more from there than they will ever be. It's not like I want to put my tower in that town. I know the town. I want to produce opportunities for the people who are from there." Ms. Hoffmann believes that Luma will help Arles become less of a seasonal economy that is dependent on summer tourism, thus helping local businesses. Arles now has an unemployment rate of about 13 percent, higher than the national average of 9 percent. Mr. Schiavetti attributes a slight drop here, from July 2017 to July 2018, "to the number of jobs created by and around the Luma Foundation." The daughter of the ornithologist Luc Hoffmann, a scientist and co founder of the World Wildlife Fund, Ms. Hoffmann moved with her family to this region, known as the Camargue, when she was a child, and went to school in Arles. Her father set up an ornithological station there, founded the Tour du Valat conservation center and became a leader in wetlands conservation. "I'm first generation," she said. "I certainly did not try to do the same as my father, but I can of course find some parallels. You engage in the country where you live and you try to say what you think and what you believe in, and discuss it with people. You act along with your beliefs." After her father initiated plans to build the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, when he was in his 90s, she became an organizing force for the museum, which opened in 2013; she is now its president. She also bought and restored two historic buildings as boutique hotels, the newest being l'Arlatan, designed by the Cuban American artist Jorge Pardo; and she owns a Michelin starred restaurant using locally grown produce, La Chassagnette. Luma Arles is almost finished; its opening is scheduled for spring 2020. Still to be built is a 10 acre public park with a lake and 500 new trees: a symbol of rebirth, turning the parched earth into a verdant landscape. The last leg of this journey may prove to be the trickiest for Ms. Hoffmann, as she will certainly need to face more scrutiny. She'd much rather focus on her work, though. "What's important today is to continue to be creative," she said. "I'm not saying I have answers, I'm just trying." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
Sandra McKinnon knew the drill after three trips from Oakland, Calif., to Tulsa, Okla., to visit her elderly father. When she went to pick up a rental car, she would have to decide whether to buy the insurance. Before her most recent trip last spring, she learned that she was covered through her personal auto policy and her credit card. So she made sure the Dollar Rent a Car clerk with the friendly, back home demeanor knew she did not want any coverage. "She went back to her big screen, which I could not see, and she clickety clickety clicked," said Ms. McKinnon, a 66 year old retired nurse practitioner. Then, as the clerk instructed, Ms. McKinnon signed her name on the electronic tablet. But 15 days later, when she returned the silver Ford Focus, Ms. McKinnon said she was handed a bill for 944, nearly twice what she expected to pay. She was charged an extra 23.95 a day for the loss damage waiver, an option that isn't technically insurance, but that generally "waives" the renter's responsibility for loss or damage to the vehicle. "I was instantly furious," she said. She may have even kicked a steel pole. The manager was called, but never came. Finally, Ms. McKinnon, still enraged, left to catch her flight home. What's curious about her story is that it seems to be occurring again and again at Dollar Rent a Car counters across the country. Just last month, something strikingly similar happened to Chris Hughes and his family when they traveled to Orlando, Fla., to visit Disney World, and rented a Dodge Avenger at the airport there. Ditto for Jay Seibert and his family, who flew to Denver in December to spend time on the slopes in Colorado ski country. "I practice insurance law," Mr. Seibert said, adding that he explicitly told the agent that he didn't need or want the coverage, "which made it all the more ironic that they want to saddle us with these costs." The problem, in all three cases, is that the customers said they unwittingly signed for the coverage on the electronic tablet even though they had verbally declined it. As for Dollar, which was acquired by Hertz last year for 2.3 billion, a spokeswoman said that the company complied with all laws and denied allegations that it sold customers products they didn't want. But at least a hundred customers, according to one consumer lawyer, contend that's precisely what happened (mostly at Dollar, though a smattering said they had experienced the same thing at Thrifty, a sister rental company). The lawyer, John Mattes, said he had heard from the consumers over the last year and a half. Four of them, including Ms. McKinnon, are at the center of two lawsuits against Dollar Thrifty seeking class action status. Ms. McKinnon's complaint, which was amended this week and filed in the Federal District Court in Northern California, alleges that the company engaged in unfair and deceptive business practices. A second separate complaint, filed in November with the Federal District Court in Colorado, is also still pending, according to Alan Mansfield, a consumer attorney in San Diego, who is working with Mr. Mattes on that case and representing the plaintiffs in the California case. The spokeswoman for Dollar Thrifty said the company intended to defend the cases vigorously. With the exception of joining a class action lawsuit, what sort of recourse would a consumer have in this situation? Consumer advocates say any effort should start with a letter to the company, and, if that doesn't work (it didn't here) to try lodging a dispute with the credit card issuer. But some Dollar customers tried that with little success: Dollar sent the credit card companies receipts with their signatures. A spokeswoman for Bank of America said it was bound by Visa and MasterCard regulations on disputed chargebacks, and, if the merchant has the customer signature accepting a charge, there's not much more it can do. As a result, this situation is likely to quickly devolve into a case of "he said, she said." In a letter to Ms. McKinnon, Dollar explained that while its agents were capable of making mistakes, the company strongly suggested that clients review the contract carefully before signing to accept. And the records indicated that she initialed to accept the "loss damage waiver" charge. But even here, there's the issue of potentially confusing language. Rental customers might say out loud that they want to decline insurance coverage, but then they may see something on the electronic screen that asks them if they agree to the loss damage "waiver." You can't blame a tired or inexperienced traveler for thinking that by clicking to accept the "waiver" they are waiving insurance, when, in fact, it means they are accepting that type of coverage. Perhaps these consumers should have caught the errors on their receipts before they put the keys in the ignition, or they should have been more vigilant about what they were signing on the electronic tablet. The customers I spoke with all said they did as instructed, taking the agents at their word. "We did not expect that, while the counter agent was smiling and verbally assuring us that we would not be charged for options that we had affirmatively declined and did not want, he simultaneously and apparently was including those very charges," Mr. Seibert said. In fact, if travelers believe they were intentionally misled, they can seek punitive damages through small claims court. Alexander Anolik, a travel lawyer and co author of "Traveler's Rights: Your Legal Guide to Fair Treatment and Full Value (Sphinx Publishing, 2003)," said to sue for misrepresentation, fraud or unfair business practices, all of which are torts and eligible for punitive damages. That may at least make the case worth your time and effort; Mr. Anolik said to ask for three times the amount you lost in damages. He, too, said he had heard about the issue at Dollar. And given the number of people complaining about the company, there seems to be something larger going on. After all, the fees collected from insurance and other add on options are big revenue drivers for the rental companies. Wall Street analysts said that Dollar Thrifty did not break out its "ancillary" revenue from insurance and other extras. But, according to Fred Lowrance, an analyst at Avondale Partners, total ancillary revenue at Hertz which includes insurance, roadside assistance and franchise fees, among other extras represented about 1.2 billion in revenue, or 13 percent of all revenue, last year. Sales agents are typically paid some sort of low wage, analysts said, but they're also typically paid a commission to "up sell" extras like insurance. "As in many sales roles, part of what they are taught is to use a concept known as FUD fear, uncertainty and doubt," said Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst with Hudson Crossing. "And they are trained to ask certain questions and to respond in certain ways that encourage the customer to buy the optional products like insurance and the loss damage waiver." "These optional products," he added, "are big, big sources of profit because frankly, most of us are good drivers, we return the cars in good condition, and the company pockets a considerable amount of that money." Mr. Hughes, who traveled to Orlando, said he believed he overpaid 171, while Mr. Seibert said he was overcharged by about 147 amounts high enough to rankle consumers. But the fact that they asked to decline the charges is what customers said they find most bothersome. The Federal Trade Commission said that it received more than 6,500 complaints about auto renting and leasing last year, though those figures tend to vary depending on how many agencies report to the F.T.C. each year. And it's far from clear how many complaints, if any, are related to the situations described in this column. The figure represents less than 1 percent of all F.T.C. complaints (for context, identity theft complaints totaled 369,132, accounting for 18 percent of all complaints). Ms. McKinnon said her lawsuit was not about the money. She said she had never sued a company before. "There used to be signs up saying that the customer is always right," Ms. McKinnon said. "And I've realized how far we've come from that. That not only is the customer not right, but we have customers so we can fleece them for as much money as possible." "I hope to see Dollar stop this kind of treatment," she said. "And I hope to put other businesses like Dollar on notice that it's not O.K. to do this to your customers. That's all I'm hoping for." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Your Money |
BERLIN Solid government debt auctions in Italy and Spain on Thursday indicated that efforts by the European Central Bank to avoid a regional credit freeze were continuing to show at least short term benefits. And while the central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 1 percent Thursday, the bank's president, Mario Draghi, indicated he was prepared to take further steps to ease credit, if necessary. The Italian Treasury found brisk demand Thursday in selling 8.5 billion euros ( 10.9 billion) of 12 month bills at an interest rate of 2.735 percent. It was the lowest interest rate Italy has been able to sell one year debt at since an auction in June and less than half the 5.952 percent Italy had to offer at the last sale, in early December. In Madrid, the Spanish Treasury said Thursday it sold a total of 10 billion euros ( 12.8 billion) of bonds twice the amount it had set as a target with yields down from previous auctions. For example, 4.3 billion in three year notes were sold at a yield of 3.384 percent, compared with 5.187 percent in December for three year notes. Both Spain and Italy have been under intense pressure from investors because of their public finances, with recently installed governments scrambling to push through additional austerity packages to rein in deficits and debt levels. Both countries' longer term debt yields, which reflect higher risk and uncertainty, remain relatively high. Another bellwether of the crisis comes Friday, when Italy tries to auction more than 9 billion in longer term debt. The question remains whether enough investors will bid on that debt and feel confident enough in Italy's fiscal health to justify declining yields. The interest rate on Italy's 10 year debt has dipped to 6.6 percent from 7.1 percent earlier this week, though it is still unsustainably higher than the 4 percent to 5 percent it traded at for much of the last two years. But Thursday's solid auctions were the latest sign that shorter term government debt has become more attractive to commercial banks and other investors since the central bank last month began a program of offering low interest three year loans to commercial banks in the euro currency region. While a large portion of that money has been used simply to pay off other lenders, it has clearly eased pressures on the banks and helped free up cheap money the banks can use to purchase sovereign debt. "We do think this decision has prevented a credit contraction that would have been much more serious," Mr. Draghi said Thursday. He said the central bank would continue to support commercial banks in the euro zone and predicted that the bank's next refinancing operation, in February, would attract even more lenders. The central bank, based in Frankfurt, left its benchmark interest rate unchanged Thursday, after having cut rates by a quarter point twice since Mr. Draghi became its president at the beginning of November. The rate cuts have been meant to help slow an economic downturn in the 17 countries in the European Union that use the euro. Mr. Draghi said the bank was pausing in its rate cutting amid what it called "tentative" signs of increased economic stability. But he indicated the central bank was prepared to take further steps, if necessary. Analysts took Mr. Draghi's comments as a clear sign that the central bank stands ready to reduce its benchmark interest rate below the already historic low of 1 percent to counter a recession. "He kept the door open," said Jacques Cailloux, the chief European economist for Royal Bank of Scotland. "He made a very clear statement that the E.C.B. stands ready to act." Earlier Thursday, in London, the Bank of England kept its benchmark interest rate at a record low of 0.5 percent as the British government's tough fiscal measures and the crisis in the euro zone exacerbated economic problems. The Bank of England also voted to continue with its existing bond purchasing program of PS275 billion ( 422 billion). Many economists expect the British central bank to expand the asset buying program at its next meeting in February in a bid to pump more capital into the economy. Some economists expect the central bank to move as early as next month for a rate cut. But others predict that the governing council will hold off until March, when a fresh growth forecast for the euro zone is to be issued. Economic data from Europe this week showed gains in German exports and French business confidence, but there were signs that Germany's robust economy had slowed sharply at the end of 2011. Investors, while clearly anticipating a slowdown in early 2012, see signs of future life. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index has gained 2 percent since the start of the year. The euro's 10 percent slide against the dollar since late October could also help soften the blow of any recession by making European goods more competitive in world markets. The euro rose to 1.2832 by midafternoon Thursday on Wall Street from 1.2707 late Wednesday. For all his encouraging words, Mr. Draghi also emphasized that the central bank could only provide so much support to Europe's financial system. He urged governments to accelerate proposed structural changes in labor markets that are aimed at creating more jobs in Europe. Mr. Draghi also called on European Union leaders to push ahead with a raft of new rules aimed at strengthening the euro zone's fiscal discipline. The plan was generally accepted at a summit meeting in December, but working out the details is taking time. Mr. Draghi said that reaching a final agreement by the end of January would be preferable to waiting until the next big meeting in March. The central bank meeting Thursday was the first for two new members of the six member executive board. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Global Business |
Josh Gipper, who lives in Denver, was considering getting his family a pet. He thought it would be fun for his 3 year old daughter and 6 year old son to watch a creature grow, and he hoped it would also bring meaning and love to their lives. But life has been overwhelming in the Gipper household, as it has for so many families, because of the coronavirus pandemic. "We were thinking about getting a dog, but everything is a little too crazy right now," he said. "There are so many things going on. We both work from home and the kids are at home, and we are constantly home schooling them." Mr. Gipper turned instead to caterpillars. Online orders for caterpillars in kits have spiked since sheltering in place orders went into effect, and the kits arrive with everything needed a habitat for the caterpillar (either a jar or one made of nylon and mesh); food; instructions; and family friendly guides to metamorphosis. You can order kits that contain live caterpillars or ones that carry a voucher that can be exchanged for a live caterpillar delivery when you are ready. Fancy kits also include packets of seeds you can plant in your garden to attract the butterflies back once they are released. Prices range from under 20 to about 40. The caterpillars don't look like much, but they are sturdy. Some suppliers guarantee 99.9 percent of caterpillars will turn into butterflies, while others say three out of five will. The insects have caught the imaginations of children, grandparents and even health care workers. Kit owners say it is engrossing to watch the steps it takes for caterpillars to turn into butterflies over the course of several weeks they stop eating, hang upside down from a leaf, spin into a cocoon and then emerge as a butterfly, which is then released into the wild. Watching the caterpillars go through their life cycle has also reintroduced the concept of time to his household, Mr. Gipper said. "While we are at home, time doesn't really exist, and this gives us something to anticipate," he said. "There is a time frame that we know about. We expect something to happen over the next two to three weeks, and we get to monitor it." Retailers, including one that has been selling the kits for more than 50 years, are hurrying to meet the demand. Insect Lore, a company in Shafter, Calif., that has been making and shipping caterpillar kits since 1969, has seen sales go up fivefold since the pandemic started. "With these caterpillars something new is happening every day for three weeks," said Marcus McManamna, president of Insect Lore, which sells the kits online and in neighborhood toy stores. Nature Gift Store in Bremerton, Wash., has experienced such high demand for caterpillar kits, it doubled its work force, adding 12 new employees to the payroll, mostly to pack and ship the kits. Most of the new workers "are from the restaurant industry," said Randi Jones, the owner. "We also have people who are house cleaners and can't go into people's homes right now. One is in the massage industry." Rebecca Puddy, a journalist for ABC News in South Australia, laughed about how much time she spent watching them with her son, age 7, and daughter, 5 (and with a 2 week old baby in her arms). "Bought my kids a butterfly kit," she posted on Twitter on April 2, with an eye roll meme. "Have stalked that caterpillar for two days, and he turned into a chrysalis when we were busy having dinner tonight." Understanding their entertainment value, nursing homes and hospice facilities are securing butterfly kits for residents who are in isolation during the pandemic. "It has given these residents something to look forward to everyday," said Brandy Jordan, 34, who works for a hospice company in Pittsburgh and has helped secure kits for 30 facilities in eight counties. "My job is literally to put a smile on as many people's faces that I possibly can." Lesa Haney, a fourth grade teacher in Austin, Texas, decided to take in 18 "orphan" caterpillars from a local community theater that originally bought them for a butterfly festival. They came in handy when her grandchildren came to live with her for five weeks (their mother is a nurse in a nursing home and didn't want to potentially expose them to the coronavirus). "They loved the experience," said Ms. Haney. "I think the butterflies represent hope in such a difficult time. Every time they see a butterfly on our property now, they say that is 'our butterfly.'" Among caterpillar owners there is some debate about whether these creatures are even pets. Rowan Minarcin, 26, a chef in Seattle, is considering getting them as a substitute for a furry friend. "I'm currently staying with my girlfriend during quarantine, and her roommate is allergic to cats and dogs," he said. "I thought it'd make a cute pet for a while since we had to be home anyway." Krystal Tranby, who lives in Fertile, Minn., said her 4 year old daughter considers their caterpillars part of the family. "The first thing she wanted to do was send pictures to her grandparents," she said. But Mr. Gipper feels differently. "They are curious creatures right now, but they aren't really pets," he said. "You can't even name them because there aren't traits to differentiate them. They are these crawling things inside a gross cup, and they will continue to get grosser and grosser as the weeks progress." Owners can feel good about the fact that released butterflies are beneficial for the environment because they act as pollinators. But Mr. McManamna of Insect Lore said some families don't get to that stage. "Our preference is that families release the butterflies into the wild, but we have heard stories of families releasing them into their homes," he said. "They have flower arrangements to just simply have them stay. It's because they've become attached to them." For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: nytrealestate. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
They would seem to make odd broadcasting bedfellows: the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and the Global Service Center for Quitting Chinese Communist Party. Yet the two organizations are partnering on the airwaves, with two radio stations starting next month at 105.5 FM in Queens. Weekday mornings and early afternoons, the diocese's WDMB will air daily Masses, rosary prayers and call in shows. At 2 p.m., the Global Service's WQEQ will take the microphone "to disseminate info about the Chinese Communist Party's crimes against humanity" as it declares in its mission statement. The common thread? Both stations will broadcast solely in Mandarin, focusing on the growing Chinese community in Queens. "We have a similar target audience," said Msgr. Kieran E. Harrington, the diocese's vicar for communications. These are just two of the nearly 2,000 FM stations across the country that have received new licenses from the Federal Communications Commission over the last two years. All are classified as Low Power FM operating at 100 watts with a broadcast range of roughly five to 15 miles, depending on the surrounding terrain and the proximity of other FM transmissions. About a third are already on the air. All of these new stations have received their licenses free. The F.C.C.'s only requirement was that the applicants be nonprofit organizations committed to broadcasting locally originating programs. The recipients encompass an array of churches, schools, municipal governments, artist collectives and activist groups, including South Florida's 1Miami, established by officials of the Service Employees International Union; San Francisco Community Radio, founded by volunteer D.J.s from the University of San Francisco's KUSF after the university abruptly sold the station to a classical music network; Razorcake, a magazine based in Pasadena, Calif., that covers the "do it yourself" punk rock culture; and the Maetreum of Cybele, a pagan convent and temple in Palenville, N.Y.. Those 100 watt signals pale in comparison to the 50,000 watts that many big commercial stations possess, but Monsignor Harrington said it was still enough to convey the church's message and perhaps change lives. Paul Bass, founder of WNHH, a Low Power FM station in New Haven, Conn., says listeners feel more connected to community radio. An Rong Xu for The New York Times "From our perspective, the largest group coming into the Catholic church and the Diocese of Brooklyn is the Chinese," he said. "But there are great fears in the community about public worship, about attending religious services and devotions. They are fearful that the Chinese government is surveilling them, and they're worried about the implications for their families back home." Radio offers "a way for them to express and learn about their faith without the fear of reprisal," he said. Low Power FM is another step in the evolution of radio since the 1990s, when there was widespread public concern over regulatory changes that significantly increased the number of stations one company could own. Critics lamented what they called the homogenization of the FM band. 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. "That's why the commission took steps to open the dial and increase the programming options," said Neil Grace, an F.C.C. spokesman. "Through the Low Power FM program, the commission's been able to empower community voices, promote media diversity, and enhance local programming by giving small stations a chance to make a big impact." Yet the emergence of this fresh crop of radio pioneers raises a question: Does FM still matter? In an era of online streaming and podcasting, is there an audience still scanning analog radio dials, hungry for more options? The trend lines aren't in FM radio's favor. A recent analysis from Edison Research and Triton Digital showed that 53 percent of all Americans listened to online audio last year, while 21 percent of American households no longer even own an FM radio and that number jumps to 32 percent among 18 to 34 year olds. If there's a bright spot for radio die hards, it's inside automobiles: 84 percent of all drivers still tune in to their car's AM/FM radios. Alejandro Cohen, executive director of Dublab, an internet radio station in Los Angeles and another new recipient of a low power license, said the station was relying on car radios as it prepares to broadcast at 99.1 FM. Matthew Lasar doesn't see any inherent conflict between streaming and FM broadcasting. Mr. Lasar, an instructor in the history department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the author of "Radio 2.0: Uploading the First Broadcast Medium," said the increasing fragmentation of audiences meant that low power stations had to be everywhere their potential listeners were. And, he added, they had to offer programming that couldn't be found elsewhere. "There's still a need for local news and information, which many public radio stations have abandoned," he said. "There's a lot of stations that just go on automatic pilot and play NPR and satellite downloads. That's Low Power FM's ace in the hole." An early low power success story is WNHH 103.5 FM in New Haven, Conn., started by Paul Bass, a veteran journalist. Mr. Bass founded The New Haven Independent, an online newspaper, in 2005; it has largely eclipsed the more than 200 year old New Haven Register as the city's civic watchdog. The key, he said, was eschewing the news industry's growing enthusiasm for click bait, hastily shot videos and incessant tweeting, all at the expense of actual reporting. "I felt the role of the reporter had to go back to old school 'shoe leather' fact gathering and analysis," he said. Mr. Bass hopes to apply the same formula and outcome to WNHH. After going on the air last year, "I was shocked by how much more excited people were about FM as opposed to web radio," he said. "People told me they really missed 'old fashioned' radio. In my opinion, what they're missing isn't just the radio. It's local, live, smart, real grass roots interactions, discussions and music." That has translated into a lineup of both hosts and guests "from all walks of life," Mr. Bass said, including New Haven's mayor, who sits in with Mr. Bass and takes listener calls every Monday morning, and a heroin addict, who spoke candidly about the deadly spread of fentanyl among local opioid abusers. "Community radio is unpredictable," Mr. Bass said. "As a listener you can feel connected to it in a special way you don't with reading a website." Mr. Cohen of Dublab agreed. "Where FM is going, we can't say," he mused. "But there's still something about terrestrial radio that is very enticing. Maybe it's the romantic idea of being on FM and literally floating through the air." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
Spotify will pay more than 20 million to music publishers to settle a long running and complex dispute over licensing, according to an agreement announced on Thursday between the streaming service and the National Music Publishers' Association, a trade group. Exact terms of the deal were not disclosed. But according to several people involved with the settlement on both sides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential financial terms, Spotify will pay publishers between 16 million and 25 million in royalties that are already owed but unpaid the exact amount, these people said, is still undetermined as well as a 5 million penalty. In exchange, the publishers will refrain from filing copyright infringement claims against Spotify. The settlement concerns mechanical licensing rights, which refer to a copyright holder's control over the ability to reproduce a musical work. The rule goes back to the days of player piano rolls, but in the digital era mechanical rights have joined the tangle of licensing deals that streaming services need to operate legally. Over the last year, it emerged that Spotify which has long trumpeted itself to the music industry as a law abiding partner had failed to properly obtain the mechanical licenses for large numbers of songs. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
Employers are hiring at a more aggressive pace again after a winter cold snap, but the pace of job gains is only slowly making up for years of lost ground in the labor market. Nearly five years after the end of the Great Recession, the total number of private sector jobs is finally back to where it was as the downturn began in early 2008, the Labor Department reported on Friday. But that level is still far below what is needed to fully accommodate the millions of people who have joined the work force since then, or relieve the backlog of jobless workers anytime soon. Still, the addition of 192,000 jobs last month, all from private employers, represented an uptick from the anemic rate of job creation recorded at the turn of the year. That encouraged optimists, who foresee a slight strengthening as the wintry weather in many parts of the country in late 2013 and early 2014 yields to a more inviting spring. In addition, while the unemployment rate remained flat at 6.7 percent in March, an increase in the number of Americans looking for work also offered up some modest hope that better times could lie ahead in 2014. So too did an upward revision in the number of jobs that government statisticians estimate were added in January and February. "We've gotten back to where we were before the winter slowdown in terms of job creation as well as where we expect to be going forward," said Dean Maki, chief United States economist at Barclays. "This gets us back on trend." Statistically speaking, the estimated rate of job creation in March was nearly identical to the average monthly gain of 183,000 jobs recorded over the last 12 months. "Growth wise, in terms of the economy and the labor market, we think 2014 will look a lot like 2013 and 2012 did," said Guy Berger, United States economist at RBS Securities. "In all likelihood, we will see average monthly job gains of a little north of 200,000 this year." While that pace of job creation would gradually bring the unemployment rate down, it would take until nearly the end of the decade before the labor market returned to the level of robustness that prevailed in the mid 2000s, let alone the 1990s. Elizabeth Holmes Hones Her Defense in Day 2 of Testimony Kevin Spacey was ordered to pay 31 million to the 'House of Cards' studio after sexual harassment allegations. Experts with the Hamilton Project, a research group that is associated with the Brookings Institution in Washington, estimate that at the current rate it will take until early 2019 for the economy to accommodate new entrants into the work force and get back to where it was before the recession. While the Labor Department data showed that private payrolls in March stood at 116.09 million compared with 115.98 million as the recession began in January 2008 the size of the American work force has jumped by more than two million over the same period. Moreover, even as people joined the work force, millions of other Americans dropped out of it entirely in the last five years, having given up the search for work, and the question of just how many of them will ever return to full or even part time jobs is now being hotly debated in economic circles. The participation rate did edge up in March as more workers returned to the labor market amid increased openings, a central reason the unemployment rate remained flat even as a survey of households suggested that nearly half a million people found new jobs last month. The return of Americans to the job hunt not only underscores just how much slack remains in the economy but also means that the unemployment rate is unlikely to keep falling as sharply as it has in the last two years. That's because people who are again looking for work are counted as unemployed, while those who have given up and dropped out of the labor force are not. The plunge in the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent, from 8.2 percent in March 2012 has encouraged policy makers at the Federal Reserve to slowly begin easing back on their stimulus efforts. But even as that so called tapering process is likely to continue for the remainder of 2014, stabilization of the unemployment rate between 6.5 and 7 percent would encourage the Fed to be in no hurry to begin raising short term interest rates. The government conducts two separate surveys each month to come up with the jobs figures the figures for job creation come from the poll of private firms and the public sector, while the household survey yields the unemployment rate and more granular data on the work force itself. While the two move in tandem over time, the household survey in March was especially encouraging, showing an increase of 503,000 in the labor force, including 476,000 who reported they had found jobs. On Wall Street, stocks initially traded higher after the Labor Department report, only to turn sharply lower in the afternoon with profit taking in the highflying social media and biotech sectors. Hiring in March was paced by gains in construction, retail and professional services. Government employment over all remained flat, with federal and state governments shedding 11,000 jobs even as local governments added the same number. Over the last 12 months, total federal employment has fallen by 85,000. For nonsupervisory manufacturing workers, the length of the typical workweek rose to 42 hours, tying a postwar high and setting the pace for a slight gain in the workweek for workers in every sector. Across the economy, average hourly earnings in March were basically flat but the increase in hours meant slightly fatter paychecks over all. One especially strong sector in March was the broad professional and business services category, where employment rose by 57,000. Over the last two years, companies have added more than 1.2 million workers in this heavily white collar category. At Hagie Manufacturing, a farm equipment maker in Clarion, Iowa, that hired 12 workers last month, most of the new positions were in areas like marketing and engineering, rather than on the production line. And those jobs are heavily sought after, according to the company's chief executive, Alan Hagie. In the last 12 months, the company has hired 83 workers, bringing its total work force to 488; the company received 2,800 resumes for these openings. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
"Today you've witnessed it," the god Wotan tells his wife in Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen." "Learn that a thing can suddenly happen that's never happened before." His words rang true as I watched the four opera "Ring" over four evenings, 18 hours in all, at the Metropolitan Opera last week, the finale of the company's two month Wagnerian immersion. I hadn't thought it possible: Robert Lepage's much warred over production of the "Ring" now makes for decent drama. When it was new at the Met, nearly a decade ago, Mr. Lepage's "Ring" was simply a mess. Millions of dollars and a reinforcement of the theater's stage in the making, the 90,000 pound set kept malfunctioning. Plainly afraid of being injured, the singers seemed ill at ease, the acting an afterthought. The star soprano could barely make it through. Years of attention seemed to have gone into expensive, wonky animated projections that splashed onto the seesawing set to suggest the cycle's shifting locales, from the bowels of Nibelheim to Valhalla in the clouds. Falling well short of his goal of presenting Wagner's stage directions literally, Mr. Lepage didn't even convey the basic plot let alone the spectacle's larger issues, why it should matter. With the global economy in crisis and austerity measures strangling societies and opera companies worldwide, the exorbitant, empty headed staging felt out of step with the times, a creaky extravagance from an art form perennially dismissed as just that. Fast forward six or seven years. Thanks to yet more investment in it, Mr. Lepage's extravagant "machine" now creaks rather less. Last week's cycle, the final of three this spring, passed without major glitches. And an emboldened, articulate cast sang superbly and made the human stakes of the "Ring" far clearer than before. Read about seeing the "Ring" from the cheap seats. In 2012, it had taken until the entrance of Waltraud Meier as Waltraute, a couple of hours from the cycle's end, to convey the story's urgency. Now, that person to person drama was palpable from practically the beginning, as Michael Volle's already world weary, aging patriarch of a Wotan confronted Jamie Barton's fervent Fricka in "Das Rheingold," and they actually seemed to be listening to one another. Where the scenes for the Gibichung siblings in "Gotterdammerung" had been bland, there was now a curdled charge, and, in that opera, a crushing realism in Brunnhilde's acquiescence in what is, essentially, her own rape. There, as elsewhere in the cycle, Christine Goerke was a perceptive and responsive presence, her face an open book of emotion, building to a powerful yet modest, human scale Immolation Scene. If only the orchestra had been nearly so characterful. While Philippe Jordan's conducting had moment by moment fleetness, and agile responsiveness to the singers, there was no sense of long arching accumulations of intensity, little variety of mood or color. The sound was thin, murky and diffuse, like a cloudy broth; the brasses were inelegant even when not flubbing. There are arresting moments in the physical production. Back in 2011 I had found the projected avalanches that forlornly cascade down a mountain during Wotan's confrontation with Brunnhilde distracting in "Die Walkure"; now they felt poetic. When it was covered in 3 D images as it twisted into craggy formations, the set was still capable of taking my breath away. But for all its scenic sweep, the "Ring" is actually not in constant transformation. Whole hours pass with characters merely talking to each other, a spectacle closer to Ingmar Bergman than Cecil B. DeMille. Single mindedly focused on the DeMille aspects, the changes of scene that make up a tiny fraction of the run time, the Lepage "Ring" won't stop answering the wrong question. The production goes to the heart of a debate that still roils opera. No theater fan in 2019 thinks that "Hamlet" can only be mounted with Elizabethan costumes and the precise observance of Shakespeare's stage directions. But there's a loud contingent of operagoers who are scandalized if Violetta in "La Traviata" wears a red slip rather than crinolines, or if the "Ring" forgoes breastplates and spears. But though he cared deeply for the trappings of the myths from which he formed his "Ring," Wagner ultimately meant those horned helmets and realistically frolicking Rhinemaidens to be a vehicle for his philosophical preoccupations: tangled layers of social utopianism, anarchism, love conquers all humanism, renounce the world nihilism. All of the above is there in the libretto, even when you do it with horns and spears. But, if only given the cycle's length and complexity, it seems merely responsible for a director to offer some intervention; to guide the audience through the sprawl; to emphasize some themes more than others; to be explicit about contemporary connections; to interpret the characters afresh; to untangle Wagner's layered meanings with a personal slant. Mr. Lepage's fantasy of neutrality the denial that there might be more stimulating ways to spend many millions of dollars than trying, with varying degrees of success, to capture 19th century stage directions word for word strikes me as perverse. He might justify his relentless attention to the visuals, at the expense of a deep reading of this rich text, as a post ideological reaction to politically charged "Ring" stagings of the past half century. But his work simply pales in interest, intellectual heft and sheer beauty next to so many of those efforts. Thankfully the Met did eliminate a final indignity from the production's original run: the weakly exploding heads of statues of the gods as the world ends. Now, the statues poke up in the far background before keeling over unobtrusively. It remains telling that the Met's "Ring" the prime stated purpose of which is to evocatively handle scene changes is so incoherent in this final sequence of apocalypse, the grandest series of transitions in the cycle, precisely described in Wagner's libretto. Mr. Lepage soon just gives up: Much of the stirring parade of leitmotifs simply plays over a projected wall of rushing water, the return to the Rhine with which the "Ring" began, many hours before. Asked if the production would return in the future, Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager, said through a spokesman that "we're not planning that far in advance." But on Saturday evening, the water projection continued a moment too long, flashing onto the final curtain. Even in its new, less creaky, more compelling incarnation, the Lepage "Ring" has still overstayed its welcome. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
Can you smell the greasepaint and seam tape in the air? New York Fashion Week is here. Fashion Week, a nine day sprint in New York, is one of the key happenings not only in the fashion industry but in the city, too. According to a new report, it draws nearly 900 million to the New York metro area, more than the New York City Marathon or the United States Open. There are hundreds of shows and presentations and plenty of parties. Each day, we'll highlight the key events. You can keep up with complete coverage , on Facebook, Twitter ( NYTFashion), Instagram ( NYTimesFashion) and at NYTimes.com/styles. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
"Coffee With Polio Experts" will not be picked up by Hulu anytime soon, but there is something compelling in these short videos put out by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. The formula is simple: Doctors who have spent years fighting polio in the world's most remote regions sit down over coffee with a World Health Organization representative to tell war stories. The production values are amateurish cups rattle, the bustle of the coffee shop intrudes. But the tales can be gripping, and they are recalled by soldiers who save lives rather than taking them. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Chaim and Chaya do not meet cute. It's 1908 Halifax, and these new arrivals Jews who fled Romania have been shunted into a line for the sick. He might have contracted typhus; he says it's just a rash. She might have caught her sister's tuberculosis; she thinks it's just a cough. Will these two traumatized kids fall in love? Will immigration let them? Will they live long enough? A work of mingled genres and strong flavors, "Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story," produced by 2B Theater Company at 59E59 Theaters, mixes bitter herbs with apples and honey. Didactic and anarchic, tragic and comic, it's a klezmer musical and a love story, a particular family history (Chaim and Chaya are based on the Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch's own great grandparents) and a broad allegory for the refugee crisis of the present. The style is mostly story theater, narrated by the singer songwriter Ben Caplan, who created the piece with Ms. Moscovitch and the director and songwriter Christian Barry. It's Mr. Caplan we first meet, his top hat and bushy beard levitating above the shipping container. He looks like a rabbinical Deadhead and growls like a Yiddishkeit Tom Waits. To hear him recite euphemisms for sex ("forbidden polka," "four legged fox trot," "doing the horizontal greased weasel tango") is to give celibacy careful consideration. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
Elodie, left, and Jean Francois Piege at L'Epi d'Or in Paris, the couple's new addition to their restaurant empire. PARIS Forget Avenue Montaigne. The Les Halles neighborhood the area in the First Arrondissement once nicknamed "the Belly of Paris" for its sprawling food market is about to become a magnet for French fashion. In April, La Samaritaine, once one of the oldest department stores in the city, is to reopen as a luxury mall and five star hotel courtesy of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, owner of Dior, Vuitton and Givenchy. In June, the Bourse du Commerce, a former commodities exchange getting a second life with help from the celebrated Japanese architect Tadao Ando, is scheduled to become home for part of the Pinault collection of contemporary art (Pinault, as in the family that owns Kering, parent company of Saint Laurent and Balenciaga; there also is a museum in Venice). And the Louvre des Antiquaires is to morph into the Fondation Cartier in 2023. But as the well shod hordes prepare to descend on this previously less celebrated part of the city, where, oh where, will they eat? L'Epi d'Or. A small neighborhood bistro near the Bourse, it has been run by women for three generations and retains its unpretentious 1930s decor of copper pots, amateur still lifes, hydrangeas stuffed into ceramic jugs and, on the zinc bar, a mascot in the form of an owl shaped metal ice bucket. It's nothing if not authentic and these days fashion loves nothing so much as authenticity. Still, L'Epi d'Or might have become a convenience store had Elodie Piege not been tipped off that it was in search of support. She is the wife of Jean Francois Piege, a Michelin starred chef, formerly a judge on the French version of the TV show "Top Chef" and the author of 10 cookbooks. The couple already owned the two star Le Grand Restaurant, La Poule au Pot and the two restaurant Clover operation, had recently started a family and had no intention of expanding their little empire. But, Ms. Piege said, "Places like L'Epi d'Or are part of the soul of Paris: it's about what you eat but also so many other things. We need to preserve that heritage." So she took out a loan, handled the decorating herself and asked two women already working for her at another restaurant to help take the lead at L'Epi d'Or on Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau. Much like a heritage fashion brand, reinventing a restaurant can be a complicated and expensive proposition. At La Poule au Pot, a historical bourgeois favorite the Pieges reopened in 2018, they poured 3 million euros ( 3.26 million) into renovations that would look "the same, but better," Ms. Piege said. For L'Epi d'Or, they invested one third that amount to change "not much, but at the same time lots of things," she said. A new kitchen was installed and the electrical wiring updated, but they left the indentations on the ceiling that were the vestiges of Champagne corks past. Ms. Piege said that, for the first time, she decided to reference her Portuguese roots in the restaurant, adding ceramics to the decor. "It's the place that looks the least like us, but in the end, it's the restaurant that resembles us the most," she said. Giving the place what Ms. Piege called "a more freestyle and spontaneous" feel also included modest prices, with set price menus at less than EUR40, and reserving about half the 40 seats for walk in diners. As for the menu, the shortlist of a la carte classics includes a Croque Madame, the toasted cheese and ham sandwich topped with an egg, and there are traditional house signature dishes like seven hour lamb and steak tartare. On a recent Friday, the set menu was pot au feu vegetables with vinaigrette, cod a la Normande, and chocolate mousse; the clientele included the shoe designer Christian Louboutin and his team. "I know the place by heart. I knew it even before opening my shop in the Galerie Vero Dodat," Mr. Louboutin said, referring to a nearby arcade. "I know some very elegant people who rarely leave the Seventh Arrondissement, but they'll come here, and they tell me how lucky I am to be next door." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
On Salvora Island, off the coast of Spain, thousands of yellow legged gulls dot the grassy cliffs from April to late July. It is a riot of white wings and plaintive calls. Occasionally, the chorus changes as the seabirds engage in courtship and chick feeding. And when the adults notice a predator, such as a dusky coated mink, the chorus shifts again, to a characteristic alarm call ha ha ha. These acoustic cues reach not just young and adult gulls but unhatched embryos, too. In 2018, researchers found that when gull eggs hatch, the ones that were exposed to alarm calls were able to crouch and hide from predators a couple of seconds faster than others. A few other bird species, including quails, fairywrens and zebra finches, are known to relay similar cues about the environment to their unhatched young, to prepare hatchlings to fend for themselves. "Paying attention to cues from the outside is important for survival," said Jose C. Noguera, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Vigo in Spain, who led the study. Embryos that do so develop traits that provide an advantage in avoiding predators, identifying other species of birds or building their own nests in warmer temperatures later in life, he said. To study how yellow legged gull embryos learned social cues, Dr. Noguera and his colleague, Alberto Velando, camped out on tiny Salvora during the birds' egg laying season. Typically, the mother gulls lay an egg a day until they have a clutch of three. The researchers waited and collected a total of 90 gull eggs over a period of three days. The eggs were transferred to incubators at a field station nearby, and kept in groups equal in size to wild clutches. Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. Each day, the researchers removed two eggs out from each clutch and exposed them to audio recordings of adult gull alarm calls. Eggs from a control group were handled similarly, except they were not exposed to any sounds. Thus manipulated, the eggs were returned to their clutches. The researchers had created two groups of gull embryos. One in which two siblings had been "informed" of possible predators, with a third "naive" egg, just as if three had been laid a day or two apart in the wild. In the other group, all three gull siblings were naive. All three embryos from the test group soon exhibited the same adaptations. The two "informed" embryos made fewer peeping noises while in the egg. But so did the third embryo, even though it hadn't been exposed directly to the gull calls. And once the chicks hatched, all three showed stunted growth, higher levels of stress hormones and faster reflexes than the control group, responding to alarms by crouching and hiding more quickly. "That's completely unexpected," said Kevin McGowan, an ornithologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who was not involved in the study. "It's one thing if everybody is on the same page they hear the same thing and respond the same. But this study suggests that birds that are a day or two advanced can communicate their wisdom to their siblings." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
If history is any indication, we can expect to see the highest levels of enforcement in the same communities that have been hit hardest by Covid 19. This is especially concerning because those in working class retail and service jobs which black and Latino people are more likely to fill often don't have paid sick leave and are thus less able to practice social distancing than those who are more affluent. Surveillance and overpolicing in minority communities can cause their own health problems. New York's stop and frisk program, which a federal judge found was carried out in a way that violated the Constitution and deemed a form of racial profiling of young black and Hispanic men, was associated with poorer physical health and poorer psychological health among men and boys in neighborhoods with more police stops. Today, fear of police encounters could prevent or delay people in heavily policed black and Latino communities from getting groceries or medications, or taking short walks in their neighborhood potentially worsening health outcomes. The situation gets even more precarious for undocumented people: With Immigration and Customs Enforcement still conducting raids, an encounter with police could lead to deportation. One might point to images of crowded beaches and public parks as evidence that quarantines and social distancing measures need to be enforced. But we should ask ourselves how such policies and stay at home orders can be enforced most effectively and without racial bias. There are alternatives to punitive enforcement. In Alaska and Maine, police departments are reporting that their focus is on education and that they want to avoid arrests and fines as much as possible. States could deploy public health officials or trained volunteers to areas where the public tends to congregate, and remind people not to gather. These people could offer resources to those who are not complying with stay at home measures because they are homeless, do not have their own transportation, or are desperate for essentials like food and medicine. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
The N.C.A.A. canceled its 2020 men's basketball tournament. In 2019, Virginia beat Texas Tech in the final, and a crowd filled the stands. The N.C.A.A. will consolidate its usually sprawling men's college basketball tournament to a single city in 2021 instead of holding the games at 13 sites across the United States, in hopes of limiting travel during the pandemic. The N.C.A.A. announced Monday that it was in preliminary talks with local and state government officials to have Indianapolis host the 68 team Division I men's tournament. The men's basketball committee that oversees the tournament determined that a single location would be more conducive to the "safety and well being" of the event. "We understand the disappointment 13 communities will feel to miss out on being part of March Madness next year," said Kentucky's athletic director, Mitch Barnhart, who leads the committee. "With the University of Kentucky slated to host first and second round games in March, this is something that directly impacts our school and community, so we certainly share in their regret." The tournament is usually spread throughout the country in March and April. Barclays Center in Brooklyn was scheduled to host three games in the middle of the tournament next year. The 2020 men's and women's tournaments were among the first major sporting events in the United States to be canceled as the coronavirus spread in March. The committee said that while limiting travel, it was looking for a location that could offer enough courts as well as housing and medical resources. The Final Four was already scheduled for April 3 and 5 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, where the N.C.A.A. has its headquarters. "The committee and staff have thoughtfully monitored the pandemic to develop potential contingency plans," Mark Emmert, the president of the N.C.A.A., said. "The Board of Governors and my top priorities are to protect the health and well being of college athletes while also maintaining their opportunity to compete at the highest level." The committee is not currently conversing with representatives from other cities, said David Worlock, the N.C.A.A.'s press officer, but he noted that could change. Officials are not planning to hold the entire tournament to a single, highly restricted site. "We can't operate in a bubble like, for example, the N.B.A. did this year with its postseason, though we will have similar protocols in place to protect the health and safety of those involved," he said. Discussions concerning the Division I women's basketball tournament are still ongoing, said Lynn Holzman, the N.C.A.A.'s vice president for women's basketball. That tournament generally uses more sites than the men's tournament, with 16 teams hosting first and second round games that feed into regional sites and eventually the Final Four, which is scheduled for April 2 and 4 in San Antonio. "The committee intends to maintain a field of 64 teams, and a variety of contingency plans including reducing the number of first and second round sites or bringing the entire tournament to one location are being considered," Holzman said. Indiana's health department has reported an 11.7 percent positivity rate for virus tests over the last seven days. Daily cases have doubled in the state in the last 14 days compared with the daily average for the prior two weeks, and the state has had 87.6 cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days. In Marion County, where Indianapolis is, the positivity rate surpassed 10 percent last week, prompting the mayor and local health officials to institute more stringent social distancing protocols. Beginning Monday, indoor capacity for entertainment venues, gyms and fitness centers was cut to 25 percent. And Marion County health officials said they would need to approve any events that plan to host more than 50 people. Still, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett seemed hopeful that they would be able to host the full tournament this spring. "We are confident that, thanks to the collaboration of our city's civic organizations and the strength of our hospitality industry, Indianapolis can rise to this challenge," Hogsett wrote on Twitter. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
At least Wolfe got the "Lenny" right. Can you believe that a composer and conductor of symphonies, operas and sonatas was once known as colloquially to Americans as RiRi is today? But then Leonard Bernstein was a charisma bomb from the moment he first seized the podium of the New York Philharmonic in 1943, subsequently diffusing his radioactive talent through the theaters of Broadway, the concert halls of Europe, the state occasions of Kennedys, the walls of the Ivy League, the treetops of Tanglewood and now, in what would be his centennial year, the endless purgatory of YouTube. Though devoted to his legacy, his family felt the fallout of this celebrity. Having settled on oration and documentary filmmaking after an abortive musical career of her own, Jamie is in print a warm but unsparing eyewitness: peeking poignantly from the wings as her progenitor glories, sifting through the jumbo pillbox when he starts to fall apart. She grew up swaddled in cultural luxury, knowing Lenny, born Louis, variously as "Lennuhtt" (from a private childhood language), Maestro, El Caballero and when he grew older and more exasperating simply LB. The many nicknames bespoke a fundamental restlessness both professional and personal; Bernstein pere was ceaselessly teaching and talking, frugging and fretting. His marriage, which produced two more children, Alexander and Nina, permitted increasingly indiscreet affairs with men. That he employed a hair puller to keep the blood flowing to his signature pompadour seems not only proof of vanity but a physical manifestation of his insatiable craving for highbrow status; the same guy behind the hummable melodies of "West Side Story" also deployed Aramaic text and the 12 tone scale. "I want to see the can deee!" 4 year old Jamie wailed in 1956 as Leonard and Felicia prepared to depart for the premiere of his erudite "Candide," and indeed she would: pulled from summer camp to meet the Beatles, passed the salt by Bernstein friends like Mike Nichols and living in the same dorm as Benazir Bhutto at Harvard. But the glamour could be suffocating literally, considering the constant cloud of cigarette smoke, as deleterious to health as any satirist. How to forge an identity when the home fires burn so hot? Her father didn't just cross boundaries, he barged through them, naked under his cornflower blue djellaba, forcing tongue kisses with everyone, including his daughter, inviting her into the bathroom while he finished (blech) his latest "movement." When he wasn't drawing his children too close, he was far away, missing many of their important milestones, obfuscating his extramarital selves, containing and entertaining multitudes. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
Joanne Freeman of Yale and Selby Kiffer of Sotheby's at the auction house with Hamilton documents. Starting on Wednesday, Hamil fans will be able to enjoy a double dose of America's newly favorite founding father: a public exhibition of a trove of documents held privately for more than two centuries by descendants of Alexander Hamilton, in a display at Sotheby's designed by David Korins, the set designer for the musical "Hamilton." But one morning last month, many of the documents, which will be auctioned on Jan. 18, were spread on a table in a conference room at Sotheby's Manhattan headquarters. Joanne Freeman, a historian at Yale and a leading expert on Hamilton, had come to look through them. Ms. Freeman is a seasoned archive hound, but this was no ordinary day at the office. When Selby Kiffer, an international senior specialist at the auction house, pulled out a simple sheet inside a protective plastic sleeve, she fell into a hush. "Without this," he said, "we very likely wouldn't be sitting here talking about Alexander Hamilton." The wild success of the musical has turned the historical A.Ham himself into a cultural celebrity, and sent museums and other institutions into their back rooms, looking for Hamiltonia to show off. The hundreds of documents at Sotheby's, which were consigned by a sixth generation descendant of Alexander and Elizabeth Hamilton, had been stored in a trunk in the family basement, though some items, like that 1777 commission, had been put on a pedestal of sorts over the years. "I probably shouldn't say this, but the commission was on my grandfather's bathroom wall for years," David Key, a son of the consignor, said in a telephone interview. "He loved seeing it over the lavatory." Mr. Key, an agricultural economist who lives in New York City, said that his mother had always taught her children to take pride in their illustrious forebear, but not too much. "She would always say, 'You know, we come from a real bastard,'" he said. "But it wasn't enthroned in our family as some godlike thing." The commission, which carries an estimate of 150,000 to 250,000, is only one of the emotionally charged high ticket items in the sale, whose 77 lots are expected to fetch a total of 1.4 million to 2.1 million. There are several passionate early love letters from Hamilton to his wife, Elizabeth, as well as the only known surviving letter to Hamilton from his son Philip, complete with a hole, torn by sealing wax, that eerily evokes the younger man's death in a duel in 1801. And then there's a lock of graying hair snipped from Hamilton's head after his own fatal duel in 1804, which is being sold with a letter of presentation from Elizabeth. When Mr. Kiffer brought it out, Ms. Freeman recoiled slightly, recalling the various "founder hairballs" she had been shown over the years, including a particularly mangy sample from the head of the New York grandee George Clinton. "I shrieked," she said. "It was not taken well." Hair may be more dramatic, but it's paper especially paper that hasn't been fully mined by earlier scholars that really gets a historian's heart pumping. Ms. Freeman, who edited the Library of America edition of Hamilton's writings, said she had emailed the auction house "within nanoseconds" of hearing about the sale. "I've read through all 27 volumes of his papers many times," she said. "So just the idea of seeing something I'd never seen before, and all the new puzzle pieces I'd find, was beyond exciting." The collection, in addition to numerous unpublished family letters, includes previously unrecorded documents by Hamilton, like the manuscript for one of his so called Pacificus essays. Those were published pseudonymously in Federalist newspapers in 1793 and 1794 as part of a debate with James Madison over whether to remain neutral in the brewing war between revolutionary France and other European powers. There are also Hamilton's notes for Washington's third annual address to Congress, from 1791, dashed off on an envelope size scrap. "It's so of the moment," Ms. Freeman said, "like he jotted it down and said, 'Here you go, Mr. President!'" It's unclear whether the passage was obliterated by Hamilton or by someone else like his son John Church Hamilton, who prepared a 19th century edition of Hamilton's papers that "suppressed some correspondence," Mr. Kiffer said. There is also a group of letters relating to the first of the 10 "affairs of honor," or ritualistic negotiations over insults to one's reputation that did not result in an actual duel, that Hamilton is known to have been involved in. And there are seemingly banal documents that take on a foreboding quality in retrospect, like an anonymous memorandum, sent to one of Hamilton's brothers in law in June 1804, describing a recent town meeting in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Fierce arguments had broken out over whether, should a toast be called for President Thomas Jefferson at the town's Fourth of July celebrations, "the vice president should also be toasted as such" out of respect for the office, if not for the man himself. In the margin, someone has helpfully penciled in that vice president's name: Aaron Burr. Hamilton's fatal duel with Burr a few weeks later may seem utterly senseless to us now. But it was fought, Ms. Freeman said, out of Hamilton's belief that he needed to preserve his honor so he could lead the country through what he foresaw as an impending crisis of American democracy. Today's partisans do not generally come to physical blows. But Ms. Freeman, whose recently completed book about violence in Congress in the decades before the Civil War will be published next year, said that Hamilton's papers offered a timely reminder that the hard won norms of American democracy should not be taken for granted. "People tend to assume the system percolates happily along," she said. "But it sure wasn't percolating happily along here. This was a period where it could have collapsed at any second." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
When the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its wing devoted to Africa, Oceania and the Americas in 1982, the director, Philippe de Montebello, said, "We are closing the last gap in our encyclopedic coverage of the arts of man, placing works by artists from so called 'primitive' regions on the level of oriental, classical, medieval and other more recognized arts of the civilized world." His words alone "man," "primitive," "oriental" signify how much has changed over 36 years in thinking about objects from the cultures and peoples of places like Colombia, Peru, the Pacific Islands and Nigeria. Now, as part of its ambitious master plan, the Met is announcing a 70 million renovation of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, which will be designed by the architect Kulapat Yantrasast of the firm wHY, to begin in late 2020 and be completed in 2023. The project will reintroduce the collection's three distinct geographic regions in the context of "the global canon of art history," said Max Hollein, who is 100 days into his tenure as the new director. The Met has long needed proper galleries in which to display its storied collection of 20th and 21st century works, including Leonard A. Lauder's trove of Cubist paintings, drawings and sculptures, one of the most significant gifts in the Met's history. Work on the wing was delayed in 2017 so that the museum could address a looming deficit. Now that Mr. Hollein has arrived and the museum's finances have stabilized, the Met has reactivated the project, albeit in a scaled back form, aided by its decision in September to concentrate on the Fifth Avenue building and turn over the Met Breuer to the Frick Collection as of 2020. Some have questioned the Met's efforts to improve its Modern and contemporary program, given that New York already has the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Guggenheim. Mr. Hollein said he will not attempt to compete with these institutions, but instead will try to make a distinctive contribution to the discussion. "Our goal is not to put all our energy into acquiring one 100 million painting to go for the five highest market items," Mr. Hollein said. "We will base our presentation on quality and particular narratives and how can we present something that really adds to the understanding of Modern and contemporary art." While the new wing will juxtapose works from after 1900 with the museum's historic holdings, as the Breuer has, Mr. Hollein said the museum will also broaden the definition of what constitutes Modern and contemporary art, taking a global perspective from 1880 onwards. "What was happening in the 1950s in Egypt? What was happening in the '60s and '70s in Asia?" Mr. Hollein said. "If you think of Modern and contemporary art not just in terms of the Western canon, that's something we want to make sure people better understand and appreciate." The Met has been expanding its collection with global acquisitions from India, Egypt, Brazil, Mexico and more, according to a spokesman. One recent acquisition is a piece purchased at auction two weeks ago by the postwar Egyptian artist Abdel Hadi El Gazzar. Mr. Weiss said the Southwest Wing, with a revised design by David Chipperfield, was projected to cost 600 million, compared with an estimated final price tag of 800 million for the previous plan. Fund raising is advancing "to the next level," Mr. Weiss said, though he would not be more specific on timing or a possible lead gift. This and other Met building projects, Mr. Weiss said, can move forward now that the museum is on track to balance its 320 million annual budget by 2020. The Met has increased its revenue 41 percent over last year, he explained, largely as a result of the museum's new admissions policy which went into effect last March requiring non New Yorkers to each pay 25. Also important was waiting for Mr. Hollein to arrive and to take his vision into account. "It has to be his project," Mr. Weiss said. Mr. Hollein said he had discussed the decision to leave the Breuer before accepting the Met director position and agreed with the strategy. "It's clear for all of us that our energy our focus is on the Fifth Avenue building and getting Modern and contemporary right there," he said. "It wouldn't make sense in the long run to have a satellite. It is a logical part of the Met's overall collection." The Rockefeller Wing, a 40,000 square foot gallery on the museum's south side, has been hampered by condensation on the glass and excessive light. In addition to addressing these problems, the renovation provides the museum with an opportunity to tell discrete stories about each region (Africa, Americas, Oceania) rather than have the sections run into one another. Mr. Weiss said about one third of the funds for this wing have been raised so far, mostly from trustees. Already underway is the Met's 22 million refurbishing of 10 galleries devoted to British decorative arts and sculpture, to be completed in winter 2020, and its 150 million replacement of the skylights in the European Paintings galleries, to be completed in 2022. But it is the Met's Southwest Wing that has been the subject of the most curiosity, given the museum's bumpy experiment with showing Modern and contemporary art at the Breuer (the building has been costly to run and the exhibitions have received mixed reviews); the failed effort by Mr. Hollein's predecessor, Thomas P. Campbell, to get initial funding for the project; and Mr. Hollein's extensive experience in contemporary art. Under Mr. Hollein, contemporary art will not be limited to the galleries, but "in close collaboration with artists" will temporarily occupy other unused areas of the building in surprising ways, like the Great Hall at the museum's entrance and the eight empty niches on the building's facade, which for a couple of months each year will be the site of a major sculpture commission. "If your formula would be, the Met has to have the best of everything it has to have one piece by every important artist I think we will not deliver to your expectations," Mr. Hollein said. "We will give a very distinct, important, timely narrative about Modern and contemporary." At the same time, he said, the Met will celebrate the great works in its storied collection, which in any other city would make it the major museum for Modern and contemporary art. "Do you want to see Jackson Pollock's "Autumn Rhythm"? Do you want to see the greatest suite of Clyfford Still works and Rothko works?" Mr. Hollein said. "And I could go on yes, yes and yes." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
The meeting lasted less than a minute. By the time it was over, reporters and editors at The Daily News, the brawny New York tabloid that was once the largest circulation paper in the country, learned that the newsroom staff would be cut in half and that its editor in chief was out of a job. In the hours that followed, journalists in various departments, from sports to metro, received formal notification that they had been laid off by Tronc, the media company based in Chicago that bought the paper last year. "People were crying and hugging each other," said Scott Widener, a researcher who had worked at The News since 1990. "I've dodged a lot of bullets over the years, and I just couldn't dodge this one." In its heyday, The News was a staple publication of the city's working class, an elbows out tabloid that thrived when it dug into crime and corruption. It served as a model for The Daily Planet, the paper that counted Clark Kent and Lois Lane among its reporters, and for the scrappy tabloid depicted in the 1994 movie "The Paper." With Tronc's firing of more than 40 newsroom employees including 25 of 34 sports journalists and most of the photo department The News joins the ranks of walking wounded papers at a time when readers have gravitated toward the quick hit convenience of digital media. Under Jim Rich, the editor who lost his job on Monday, The News positioned itself as an unapologetically liberal counterpuncher to Rupert Murdoch's New York Post. Mr. Rich, who declined to comment for this article, transformed the front page "the wood," in tabloid parlance into a venue for criticizing and often ridiculing President Trump. "The web kind of changed the DNA of every paper," said Joel Siegel, a former managing editor at The News who is now managing editor of the cable news channel NY1. For New Yorkers, the thirst for local ink isn't what it used to be. Grant Whitmore, an executive at Tronc, presided over the brief meeting, which took place shortly after 9 a.m. in the paper's seventh floor newsroom in Lower Manhattan. About 50 staff members were in attendance, a group that did not include Mr. Rich or Kristen Lee, the managing editor, who was also laid off. Afterward, human resources workers delivered the bad news to employees, including the sports columnist John Harper, the arts reporter Joe Dziemianowicz and the City Hall reporter Erin Durkin. "I firmly believe that today's actions will position The Daily News for growth in the years ahead," Mr. Whitmore said in a memo to the remaining staff members at the end of the day, "and I look forward to working with this group to capture the opportunities in front of us." He added that Tronc remained "committed to print." As news of the firing became public, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York issued a statement critical of the move. "This will undoubtedly devastate many households and hurt an important New York institution and one of our nation's journalism giants," the governor said. After noting that his father, Mario M. Cuomo, had eased the sale of The New York Post to Mr. Murdoch while governor when that paper nearly died in 1993, he added, "I urge Tronc to reconsider this drastic move and stand ready to work with them to avert this disaster." 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. It is hard to fathom what the paper's next issues will look like, given that the newsroom had shrunk significantly under its previous owner, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the New York real estate developer and media mogul who bought the paper out of bankruptcy in 1993. Ambitious projects like the series on New York Police Department's abuse of eviction rules for which The News shared a Pulitzer Prize with ProPublica in 2017 would seem difficult to pull off with an even smaller staff. Sarah Ryley, the reporter on the series, who left The News last year, said it had taken three years to complete because she and the rest of the staff were stretched thin after the layoffs under Mr. Zuckerman. "You used to go into the office and feel the energy," said Frank Isola, a sports columnist at The News for nearly 25 years, who was among those laid off on Monday. "I've probably been in the office, I would say, maybe three times in the last three years. People tell me: 'Don't come in. It's depressing.'" Since Tronc bought the ailing tabloid from Mr. Zuckerman in September 2017 for a reported 1; yes, one dollar the company has been working to transform The News into something more digital. "But we have not gone far enough," the company said in a memo to the staff that announced its decision to reduce "the size of the editorial team by approximately 50 percent" and to shift its focus to breaking news. Some News employees started packing last week, after the media newsletter Study Hall reported that the company planned to lay off a large portion of the staff. Although daily print circulation had sunk to roughly 200,000, Mr. Rich breathed new life into the paper. During two stints as editor a 13 month run that ended in 2016, and an encore that began in January he regularly published front pages that captured the staccato energy of social media. He was typically combative in a Twitter post on Monday: "If you hate democracy and think local governments should operate unchecked and in the dark, then today is a good day for you," he wrote. Mr. Rich also dropped the Daily News affiliation from his Twitter bio. "Just a guy sitting at home watching journalism being choked into extinction," it reads. The News had a digital reach of 23 million, but it wasn't enough. The challenge of wringing profits from page views has eluded much of the industry, and the paper proved unable to end its losing streak. According to securities filings, it lost 23.6 million in 2016. Since then, its business has continued to suffer. In naming Mr. York as the replacement for Mr. Rich, Tronc is following a playbook that did not have success at The Los Angeles Times, when, in similar fashion, it gave the job of top editor to an outsider with a business background. Lewis D'Vorkin, an executive at Forbes Media who specialized in broadening the company's native advertising offerings, was Tronc's choice for the Los Angeles job. The newsroom greeted his appointment with skepticism, and Mr. D'Vorkin lasted two months in the role. After tensions between the newsroom employees and Tronc continued, the company sold the paper to Dr. Patrick Soon Shiong in February for 500 million. The longtime home of the columnists Jimmy Breslin, Dick Young and Liz Smith and the cartoonist Bill Gallo, The News reveled in its role as the voice of the average citizen. Etched into the stone above the entrance of its former home, the Daily News Building on East 42nd Street, is a phrase attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "God must have loved the common man, he made so many of them." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
The giant pits yawned on either side of the rickety walkway, piled with freshly churned dirt and two by fours, a yellow excavator abandoned and listing to one side in a corner. All around the high walls loomed, covered in scaffolding and plastic sheeting, creating an eerie amphitheater. In the middle: metal bleachers and a sound system. It was 8:30 p.m., it was 44 degrees Fahrenheit, the wind was blowing, rain was pelting down and the bass was making the trusses shake. People say the dark ages are back; they worry about the finger on the nuclear button. Well, on Tuesday night, on Day 1 of the final leg of the women's wear season, the apocalypse came: not to Washington, but to Saint Laurent. And miserable as the whole sadistic setup was models shivering, audience cold and cranky save those who managed to snag some blankets, headquarters so under construction it looked as if it had been bombed if you ever want to know what to wear to the end of days (which, in some people's minds, may be synonymous with next season anyway), Anthony Vaccarello has the answer. In his second collection at YSL, Mr. Vaccarello took the codes of the house, especially those set down in the 1980s by Mr. Saint Laurent as well as those from its more recent reinvention under Hedi Slimane, and owned them, trading the trashiness of last season for a tougher core. And thankfully fewer gratuitous bare breasted moments. Instead there were one shoulder distressed brown leather minidresses with a ruffle running up a hip; black sharp shouldered leather coat dresses cut to the thigh; skinny ribbed turtlenecks with giant detached shearling gauntlet sleeves and beat up jeans; crushed velvet gowns slicing across the collarbone and sliced up the leg. Also big men's bomber jackets and slouchy trousers, for men and women (there were men in the show, too; same story, same staples almost the same amount of skin). Tuxedo jeans with chiffon blouses dripping Shakespearean sleeves, and velvet minidresses snaked through with crystals all of which was paired with scrunched down leather rocker boots and a fierce reverb. It wasn't subtle, but then, subtlety tends to get blown over by the winds of change. Just lose the big leather rose at the neck and the weird ruffled New Wave apron skirts. Still, the whole had a force that was simply missing from the tale of the crisis in the bourgeoisie told by Olivier Theyskens in the turn of the century environs of Le Train Bleu, the historic restaurant in the Gare de Lyon. Mr. Theyskens can cut a sweeping marigold moire Victorian coat with a dash of poetry, disrupt it with denim, put a soupcon of Audrey Hepburn into a cap sleeved leather mini, and bring it back down to earth with raggedy thigh highs and black Beatle boots, but the clothes don't insist too much. Maybe they should. Just as Bouchra Jarrar's balletic black tie at Lanvin lovely as bits of it were, all lace and rosettes, crepe de Chine and layers of wafting georgette needed to get its head out of the blush toned sand. A glazed black leather perfecto vest added much needed edge to a ruffled ivory lace and silk gown, and a smoking jumpsuit edged in gold had a cool allure (ditto some great draped satin Jean Harlow gowns). But chain belts featuring jeweled and feathered hummingbirds, and a white satin suit with cherry blossoms languishing on one side, seemed more decorative than relevant. The balance between naivete and the feminine mystique is off. At least at Jacquemus there was overt acknowledgment of the world turned upside down, thanks to handbags literally turned upside down, and jackets and shirts shirred and pulled to the side, in a controlled kind of twisted romance. Also twisted matador hats, high waisted toreador trousers and big shawl like shoulders that hugged the body and looked as if a bullfighter was going to navigate the corporate seas via the South of France. But for how things may look after the storm, there is Maison Margiela, where John Galliano has finally moved beyond a pastiche of his former self and the heritage he found, to create a new signature in skeletonizing garments, reducing them to their bones. Or boning. Imagine trench coats sliced to reveal the fascia of Burberry tartan beneath, the spine framed by the negative presence of fabric in the shape of the Statue of Liberty's crown. Or black silk gowns hung together along their arteries over flesh toned leotards and baseball jackets veined in red wool. Or a knit tunic dangling the eyes of assorted peacock feathers instead of paillettes and shearling caps cut into the infrastructure of a crown. Or a handbag turned tribal headdress. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Credit...Jessica Lehrman for The New York Times One of the year's most successful hip hop producers a favorite of Drake, Migos and Travis Scott is a Canadian who resembles Shaggy from "Scooby Doo." LOS ANGELES Shane Lindstrom, an easygoing 24 year old from the undistinguished Canadian side of Niagara Falls, cuts a curious figure for a rap world star. He has a young man's beard, fuller off the edges of his face, and a feathered bowl of reddish blond hair that often flops onto his designer sunglasses. His cluster of diamond chains includes one depicting an oversized chef emoji, complementing his iced out, rose gold Audemars Piguet watch. But it's Lindstrom's producer name that is maybe most jarring for an amiable dude from north of the border: Murda Beatz, or just Murda to everyone who knows him. "People aren't expecting me to look how I do," he said recently. "But that's one of the main reasons it works so well: the surprise factor." It first worked about five years ago when, after some long shot social media networking, a less flashy Murda showed up on Chicago's South Side to collaborate with Chief Keef's GBE crew. And it worked again soon after when Murda appeared on the Atlanta doorstep of a then little known trio calling itself Migos. "They just really wanted to get me out there to make sure I was making my beats, because they were fire," Murda recalled. "They didn't believe that I was the kid making them." In the years since, Murda Beatz has moved steadily, alongside his old friends in Migos, through the mixtape circuit and onto the pop charts. As his instrumentals have evolved from faithful versions of the ominous, 808 heavy Atlanta trap sound perfected by Zaytoven and Lex Luger toward more melodic, sample based and elaborate compositions, his clientele has also expanded. But joining the rap establishment as an in demand producer can also mean that you've been stamped with an expiration date. Artists and listeners are fickle, always searching for the next sound, and hip hop is a veritable graveyard of producers who defined a moment only to wither. "People get content they buy their house, their cars, their grills, and they get comfortable," Murda acknowledged. "But I'm not here to be hot for a year." In an interview over a sushi dinner and, later, at a Koreatown driving range, a boyish Murda, who whacked golf balls with "Happy Gilmore" esque abandon, said he was steeling himself for the future now that he'd made it to the top. The five times platinum "Nice for What" was an inflection point. Rather than dropping off a premade digital beat pack, his biggest hit to date was made at Drake's house, over a game of "NBA 2K18," when the rapper ordered up a beat with a female vocal sample and Murda made it on the spot. (Drake located the song's additional Big Freedia sample himself on YouTube, Murda said; the producer BlaqNmilD later added the New Orleans bounce section.) The process was a throwback to Murda's pre fame days living in an Atlanta studio with Migos, creating five to 10 songs a day. But while Murda first made a name for himself on mixtapes like "No Label 2," he existed on rap's periphery until returning to Canada in 2014 and meeting Cory Litwin, a Toronto night life presence who became his manager. Litwin, a genial operator with a Star of David chain, was then working as a party and concert promoter while selling gold and diamond grills. He connected with Murda through the security guard at their mutual jeweler, and was baffled when Murda insisted on playing him beats. "He was very persistent," said Litwin, who was not exactly in the music business. "Murda hit me up like 15 times in five days." But because Litwin, 32, ran in the same circles as local artists like Drake and the Weeknd, "I thought I could use him to get me to everyone in Toronto," Murda said. Together, the pair practiced the timeless art of faking it like they'd already made it. "I would bring him out to the clubs and make sure he was treated like a superstar," Litwin said. "Everyone would be like, who the hell is this white kid?" In Los Angeles, if Litwin spotted a celebrity, he would make a mortified Murda pose for a photo to post on social media. Litwin added: "Every club we'd go to I'd be like, play 'Emmitt Smith,' and the D.J. would say he didn't have it. I'd tell them, 'You have 10 minutes to download it and play it or you'll never play in this city again.'" Murda had a similar knack for hustle and finesse, dating back to his days tweeting at rappers and their lower level associates to make connections and send free beats. In high school, as he transitioned from a drummer obsessed with Travis Barker to a bedroom beatmaker, Murda would identify obscure rappers that his peers enjoyed and target them for collaborations. Relentless networking worked in the actual music industry, too. Friendships lead to collaborations, especially in a business that includes a lot of late nights and downtime. Through work with artists like the Game, Jeremih and Partynextdoor, Murda, who has never been too shy to FaceTime a famous person, worked his way up the chain. Boi 1da, Drake's go to producer, credited Murda for his relentlessness, both socially and musically. And he said the unlikeliness of Murda's career often worked in his favor. "It's just so interesting that this little white kid from Niagara, who kind of looks like Shaggy from 'Scooby Doo,' is making these hard trap beats," he said. "It looks crazy, but people love it. And Murda can always back it up with the music." The rapper G Eazy, who took Murda on tour as a D.J. opener this summer, added in a text message: "He's almost like an alien because his origins don't seem to make a lot of sense. He's from the middle of nowhere in Canada, but somehow he's making some of the most culturally relevant music." In the studio, Murda can be easily distracted by, say, putting in an order for wings or hopping on the phone with an incarcerated rapper to play him unreleased music. But when it's time to create, he'll futz with a MIDI Keyboard melody or a drum sound with savant like focus. "When he works it's almost like he's unconscious, and the music just makes itself," G Eazy said. So even while Murda has considered slowing his pace in favor of longevity, it's proven hard to stop the itch. His beats are still popping up on nearly every major rap release of the moment, including Future and Juice WRLD's collaborative mixtape and Quavo of Migos's solo debut, where Murda has four songs, including one somewhat bafflingly featuring chopped up vocals from Madonna. He recently sent more beats to Drake, he said, and hoped for another hit soon with Cardi B. Any decline in productivity seemed unlikely, for now, if one studio session over the summer was any indication. It was past 2 a.m. and a producer that Murda had recruited for his Murda Gang collective offered tentatively, "Let's aim for five beats tonight." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
MUSIC PLAYING I mostly care for people in their homes, people like parents, grandparents This is Nancy. This is my sweetheart. the most vulnerable population of our society, people who need help going to the bathroom, eating, taking the medications. This is for your bones. This is for your pain. Brendan is paralyzed from the neck down. We do everything for him. All right, so I've got to lift you up. Yep. All right? I work seven days a week, but I love my job. I wouldn't do anything else. I've worked for over 30 years doing this, and I make just over 15 an hour. I live in Massachusetts, and my salary is actually one of the highest in the country. 18 percent of us live below the poverty line. Nationally, we make just over 16,200 a year. And even though I work in health care, I cannot afford health insurance. I avoid going to the doctors. I have medical bills I haven't paid. My new tattoo is "We're all in this together," and it is the world as a heart. Since Covid, the federal government is giving out more than 100 billion of emergency money to hospitals, nursing homes, long term care facilities. That's great, but most of the money isn't going to people like me. I'm not a materialistic person, and I'm not asking to make a million dollars. I don't mind doing hard work, but I need to make a living. I need to be able to pay my bills, especially now with coronavirus. Most home givers aren't receiving hazard pay. I've had to pay for a lot of their P.P.E. out of my own pocket. If we are essential workers, we need to be treated like essential workers. I know. I know, right? If I were to go on unemployment and stop working, I would make about the same amount of money, if not more. And then there's not going to be anybody to take care of these people, and that's just crazy. It's a very broken system. These patients are sick, and they need to be cared for. This is every innocent person's nightmare. Last Tuesday, Nancy fell. She basically sat on the floor until she was found. I would hate to have her end up in a nursing home or a long term care facility, but that's what's going to happen if she doesn't receive the care. I give her a quality of life that she deserves, and I don't want her to lose that. That's why I do what I do. If she falls, she loses all of that. Crying I'm sorry. You all right? You want to change it? You all right? I love you. Get up. Don't cry. You're going to make me cry. Come on. It doesn't have to be like this. The federal government and the Department of Health and Human Services must require some of the money that is going out for relief to go to the front line caregivers. States could also use the Medicaid to increase our pay. Some states increased wages for all health workers, including home caregivers. Arkansas is doing it now. Arkansas did prove that it is possible. Even a few dollars more an hour would change our lives and make the health care system more sustainable and safer for our patients. All right, kiddo. But when this is all over in the post Covid world, the money shouldn't get taken away. Caregivers will still be needed, and we should be paid a living wage. We need help. And then when I get old, you can take of me, right? Oh, yeah. This is what I've always done. This is what I'll always do. I'm a caregiver. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
Highland Light, Cape Cod's oldest and tallest lighthouse, has stood on a bluff overlooking the ocean in North Truro since 1857. For more than a century, since agriculture and whaling gave way to tourism, Cape Cod in Massachusetts has attracted vacationers to its many miles of pristine beaches. For those wary of the water after last year's great white shark attacks, experiences on terra firma abound. There are nature walks and wine tastings, leisurely bike rides and gallery visits, lighthouse tours and shopping. The dining and cultural scenes have broadened, too. One way to narrow the scope of your weekend travels is to concentrate on the Outer Cape towns of Eastham, Wellfleet and Truro, all within the Cape Cod National Seashore, which protects tens of thousands of acres from development. With towering dunes, strong surf and pine forests, the area feels more rugged and wild than the Mid Cape and less hectic than the tourist mecca (some might say trap) of Provincetown at the very tip. And you can easily pack a weekend without so much as putting a toe in the water. Outer Cape Cod offers many ways to lose yourself in nature. One of the best is Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, with five miles of trails that wend through 900 acres of pine and oak woodland, salt marsh and bay shore. Explore the paths on your own, stopping first in the butterfly and hummingbird garden before heading onto Goose Pond Trail, which leads to a salt marsh overlook, a freshwater pond dappled with lily pads, a bird blind (for serious birders), and, finally, an expansive bay beach. Entry, 8. Or sign up for one of the many programs, whether seining in the tidal creeks ( 14) or a marine life cruise in Cape Cod Bay ( 52). Winemaking is more often associated with coastal areas like the North Fork on Long Island in New York. But Truro Vineyards of Cape Cod has been growing grapes and making wine for nearly 30 years. Across its five acres of vines, pearl sized grapes like cabernet franc are plumping up in the soft, salty air. Stop by for a wine tasting ( 10 per person) and a free tour. At a recent tasting, several varietals and blends were poured. They ranged from a dry riesling, and even drier cabernet franc, to selections from the "lighthouse series," semisweet wines that come in a lighthouse shaped bottle. "This is what we call our 'porch pounders,'" said the young man who led the tastings, referring to the blends' sneaky drinkability. Despite the name, Mac's Shack in Wellfleet is anything but. Ensconced in a 19th century white clapboard house, the restaurant one of the Cape's most eclectic and sophisticated has a down home vibe, at least on the outside. (A life size lobsterman in a skiff adorns the roof, a tribute to a 1970s restaurant that once occupied the space.) But the menu draws inspiration from around the globe, with starters like tuna tostadas and beet poke and main courses like lobster gnocchi and seared scallops in a coconut curry sauce. If you are craving some fried classics, you can't go wrong with fish and chips or whole belly clams. Before you tuck into dinner, however, savor a summery cocktail like the Great White (vodka, coconut infused rum and lime) at the outdoor bar, where oysters (Wellfleet, of course) are shucked to order. A three course dinner for one without drinks, about 45. Start the day with an outing on the Cape Cod Rail Trail, fashioned from a 19th century rail line that once ran all the way to Provincetown. The 25 mile trail unfurls south from Lecount Hollow Road in Wellfleet, past marshes and ponds. Stop at the Cape Cod National Seashore's Salt Pond Visitor Center in Eastham, where you can learn about the geological and cultural history of Cape Cod. (Fun fact: Milk on Cape Cod used to taste salty because farmers fed hay harvested from salt marshes to their cows.) From the visitor center, pick up the Nauset Bike Trail, which winds through dense stands of oak to Coast Guard Beach, where you can walk along the ocean and see seals at low tide. Bicycles are available to rent from Idle Times Bike Shop (about 20 for four hours) or Little Capistrano Bike Shop ( 16 for two hours), both with locations in Wellfleet and Eastham. At the northern end of the bike trail is PB Boulangerie Bistro, a bakery restaurant that has been transporting Cape Codders to France since 2010. That is when Philippe Rispoli, a native of Lyon, planted his flag in Wellfleet. In the evening, diners gather around a crackling fire pit outside the rose colored restaurant before dinner. But in the morning, it is not unusual to join a line of acolytes 50 deep, patiently waiting for a pain au chocolat, almond croissant or Kouign amann, a buttery confection originally from Brittany. With wind swept shorelines and muted hues, the landscapes of the Outer Cape serve as both magnet and muse for artists. Scores of galleries dot Cape Cod's downtowns, but Wellfleet has one of the finest clusters. Left Bank Gallery, now in its 49th year, represents 30 artists. Among them are Katie Trinkle Legge, whose whimsical oils depict vintage bathing suits, beach balls and summer fruit ( 500 to 4,800). Jim Holland's large scale landscapes and buildings ( 3,500 to 11,000) evoke Edward Hopper, who summered in Truro from the 1930s until his death in 1967. Not far away is the Frying Pan Gallery, whose owner, Steve Swain, is known for his sculptural reliefs, in particular, schools of fish crafted from plasma cut steel. A single fish is 12; a school of seven fish, 70. Shops beckon too, from the Customs House Fine Papers Fancy Goods to the Jewelry Studio of Wellfleet, where the owner, Jesse Mia Horowitz, and her sister, Neile, capture the shapes and colors of the Cape with sterling silver and semiprecious stones. For some real shellfish, PJ's Family Restaurant is a casual roadside destination churning out succulent lobster rolls, all manner of fried and grilled seafood and salads. Order from one of the windows and when your number is called, take a heaping tray to one of two dining rooms, which a recent renovation transformed from drab and dated to nautical and polished. Expect to pay about 17 for lunch. While a dip in the ocean might not hold much appeal these days because of shark fear, there are plenty of bay beaches and freshwater ponds for cooling off. Just down the street from Frying Pan Gallery is Mayo Beach on Wellfleet Harbor, whose calm surface is flecked with lobster buoys and pleasure boats. Park in the municipal lot and take a short path through the dune grass and bayberry to the narrow crescent beach. Besides the lapping of diminutive waves, the only sound might be the signature jingle of a nearby song sparrow. There is something about Moby Dick's Restaurant that seems to distill summer to its essence. Maybe it's the screened porch where diners dig into lobster dinners, complete with corn on the cob, while Billie Holiday or John Coltrane tunes drift on the breeze. Or maybe it's the retired wooden boat outside that serves as a makeshift playground for children, as parents queue up for a table. (The line moves quickly.) Whatever it is, Moby Dick's is worth a visit. The restaurant does not serve alcohol, but there are no corkage fees and the wait staff is happy to put bottles of wine on ice. Dinner for one, without wine, is about 45. Just because you are miles from a major city does not mean you have to forgo the pleasures of a night of theater. Now in its 35th season, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater stages several plays and musicals each summer. This summer's playbill includes Eugene Ionesco's absurdist drama "Rhinoceros" (about 25 to 39 per ticket). Children's theater and film screenings are also on the calendar. There is an active rental market in Outer Cape Cod, with private rooms available by the night or week, as well as one room cottages and large waterfront houses. Airbnb listings start from about 115 a night for a single room. The Wagner at Duck Creek hotel (70 Main Street, Wellfleet; thewagneratduckcreek.com) has 27 comfortable rooms in three buildings. Some rooms look across a moderately busy road to a marsh. Doubles start at 190; continental breakfast is included. Camping is a more affordable option. Maurice's Campground (80 Route 6, Wellfleet 508 349 2029; mauricescampground.com) has a range of accommodations, including cabins starting at 115 a night and sites for tents, R.V.s and trailers. Tent sites begin at 45 a night. 52 PLACES AND MUCH, MUCH MORE Follow our 52 Places traveler, Sebastian Modak, on Instagram as he travels the world, and discover more Travel coverage by following us on Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our Travel Dispatch newsletter: Each week you'll receive tips on traveling smarter, stories on hot destinations and access to photos from all over the world. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
Translating the latest success against the AIDS virus into a practical treatment will take years if it happens at all. Here are answers to some of the most pressing questions raised by the news. At a scientific conference in Seattle on Tuesday, researchers reckoned with a day that many thought might never arrive. A patient appears to have been cured of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, for only the second time since the epidemic began. A sort of electric hope hangs in the air, said Dr. Steve Deeks, an AIDS specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, who is attending the gathering: "The whole approach to a cure is shifting more from aspiration to something that people are realizing could be feasible." It is a hope that must be tempered with realism: H.I.V. is a wily adversary, and scientists and patients living with the virus are all too well acquainted with past failures in the fight against the epidemic. Here's what the news means right now. Will this change anything for people living with H.I.V.? Not yet. The second case does provide "proof of concept," shining a light on a potential path to an H.I.V. cure. Scientists intend to pursue it with vigor. But this apparent success does not mean that an easy cure is around the corner, and certainly not that infected patients should stop taking their pills. "Sometimes the amount of desperation for a cure is driven by the stigma that's still out there," said Richard Jefferys, a director at Treatment Action Group, an advocacy organization. "But while two or three people is a drop in the ocean compared to the 35 million H.I.V. positive people in the world, it's a whole lot better than zero." Both men believed to have been cured so far had H.I.V. and cancer. Both received bone marrow transplants to treat the cancer, not the H.I.V. In each case, the bone marrow donors carried a key genetic mutation, called delta 32, that hampers H.I.V.'s entry into certain blood cells. Bone marrow transplants are risky procedures, so this is not likely to be a treatment option for the majority of people with H.I.V. And it is worth noting that until now, most other attempts to repeat the first cure had also failed. Whatever the path to a cure turns out to be, it will not be simple. Cure means the virus seems to be gone forever. Remission is a more conservative term: The virus is under control in the body, but maybe not forever. Before scientists described the case Monday, there had been only one widely accepted example of a cure: Timothy Ray Brown, 52, who has remained free of H.I.V. for 12 years after two bone marrow transplants. After his case, there were many failed attempts to duplicate this success. Each time, the virus came back after the patient stopped taking anti H.I.V. drugs. The newly reported case, in a man described only as the "London patient," has been H.I.V. free for 18 months since stopping the drugs. Extraordinarily sensitive tests cannot find the virus in his body. To some scientists, that's a cure. Others are more skeptical. "We don't have any international agreement on what time without viral rebound is necessary to speak about cure," said Dr. Annemarie Wensing, a virologist at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands. It is worth noting that there have been patients who went into remission without a bone marrow transplant. In these cases, the immune system seems able to maintain tight control over the virus, even without drugs. For years, researchers have been trying to figure out how it happens. A transplant from a delta 32 donor essentially wipes out the immune cells that are vulnerable to H.I.V., replacing them with cells that are resistant to the virus. Already many groups of scientists are trying to mimic the benefits of a bone marrow transplant without the risks of the actual procedure. The delta 32 mutation occurs in a gene that directs production of a protein called CCR5, which sits on the surface of certain immune cells. A common type of H.I.V. needs this protein, among others, to enter cells in order to reproduce. The gene that directs production of CCR5 may be modified with newer gene therapy techniques, similar to treatments developed for hemophilia and sickle cell disease. And scientists have tried to edit CCR5 from a person's immune cells in the lab and to infuse the modified cells back into the body. But so far the numbers of cells derived with this method do not seem to be enough to make anyone resistant to H.I.V. In one trial funded by Sangamo Therapeutics, however, researchers reported a curious finding: Although the infusion did not cure H.I.V. infection, the amount of virus in the body seemed to decline by a thousandfold. The company is planning a follow up study to explore this further. Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. Another approach would be to deliver enzymes that edit the genes directly into the body. The real challenge is in targeting the enzymes: Many teams are looking into delivery via nanoparticles, for example, but this strategy is years from success, Dr. Deeks said. An even more intriguing option is to design a predecessor stem cell that would produce a steady stream of H.I.V. resistant immune cells in the body. At least one group in China is trying to edit CCR5 from stem cells that can be infused into patients with both cancer and H.I.V. Early studies at the University of Pennsylvania suggest that something like this might work, noted Dr. Mike McCune, a global health adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In addition, some scientists are trying to force the virus into remission with broadly neutralizing antibodies, immune molecules that can disable various types of H.I.V. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
A wife of the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has become the new owner of six Upper East Side properties, including a block of townhouses being combined into a mega mansion. The transactions, totaling 92.3 million, were apparently part of a property settlement between Mr. Abramovich and his third wife, Darya Zhukova, who announced their split last year. They were also among the largest closings for the month of September, according to New York City property records. But the single biggest sale last month, at 42 million, was a penthouse covering the entire 77th floor of One57, the vitreous skyscraper in the heart of Manhattan's Billionaires' Row, at 157 West 57th Street. Monthly carrying charges are 15,214. The unnamed European seller took a loss, however, having paid nearly 47.8 million for the unit in May 2015. The 6,240 square foot apartment has four bedrooms and five and a half baths, not to mention breathtaking views. Brooklyn had a record breaking closing in September. A grand historic brownstone in Bedford Stuyvesant sold for nearly 6.3 million, which was not only above the 6 million asking price but also the highest price ever paid for a residence in the neighborhood. In other noteworthy sales, Irwin S. Kruger, an early franchisee of the McDonald's fast food chain, sold a Park Avenue penthouse (with a bonus apartment tacked on); Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, the German socialite better known as Princess TNT, sold a full floor loft in the Flatiron district; and the artists Eric Fischl and April Gornik sold their loft in SoHo. And in another apparent property settlement this one between the billionaire hedge fund manager William Ackman and his former wife, Karen Ackman, Ms. Ackman acquired a Central Park West duplex. Mr. Abramovich, a former member of the Russian Parliament who owns the Chelsea Football Club of London, transferred to Ms. Zhukova, a former model and editorial director at Garage magazine, who is known as Dasha, four townhouses on 75th Street: Nos. 9, 11, 13 and 15. Also included in the deal were two 900,000 co op units one on the first floor of 215 East 73rd and one on the fourth floor of neighboring 225 East 73rd Street. Mr. Abramovich, who also owns stakes in steel, nickel and gas companies, had been in the process of combining three of the townhouses, Nos. 9 13, all of which were built between 1887 and 1889, into a single mansion. (At one point, he had included No. 15 in the combination.) The Bed Stuy mansion, at 247 Hancock Street, attracted seven offers, according to the listing agent, Ban Leow of Halstead. But he said the longtime owner, Claudia Moran, was adamant about selling to someone who would maintain the home's architectural integrity. "She didn't want to entertain developers," he said, adding that the unidentified buyer planned to use the house as a primary residence. The four story, detached Renaissance Revival building was designed by Montrose Morris and built in the late 1880s for the water meter magnate John C. Kelley. It is one of just a few free standing houses of its kind in the neighborhood and part of the Bedford Stuyvesant Historic District. Ms. Moran bought the brownstone in 1986, when it was an illegal single room occupancy or S.R.O. building, and spent the next few decades restoring and renovating it. (Property records show numerous mortgages taken out to help finance the work.) The house has around 7,500 square feet, with 10 bedrooms and five and a half baths, along with an oversize 81 by 100 foot lot. Ms. Moran had rented out the parlor and backyard gardens for private events. The previous record sale price for a residence in Bedford Stuyvesant occurred last year, according to Halstead, when the brownstone at 1 Verona Place sold for 3.3 million. In another downtown loft transaction, Mr. Fischl, who is known for his paintings of American suburbia, and Ms. Gornik, a landscape artist, sold their fourth floor, co op loft at 41 Greene Street for 4.25 million. The two bedroom, two bath unit is around 3,200 square feet. The couple have a home and studio in Sag Harbor, N.Y. Also on Greene Street: A triplex penthouse at building No. 95 that was owned by the celebrity photographer Ken Nahoum was transferred to his lender, Titan Capital. The value of the transaction was 13.55 million, according to public records. It followed years of bitter litigation between Mr. Nahoum, who filed for bankruptcy protection, and the condo board over the payment of common charges. For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: nytrealestate. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
It was only in February that the fast rising Spanish conductor Gustavo Gimeno made his debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, but they seem to have hit it off: The orchestra announced on Monday that he would become its next music director. "Right from our first rehearsal," Mr. Gimeno, 42, said in an email, he identified with the "sound and the musical intelligence of the orchestra." A former principal percussionist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, he began his international conducting career in 2012 as the Concertgebouw's assistant conductor under Mariss Jansons. He made his debut conducting the orchestra in 2014, standing in for Mr. Jansons, and his international conducting career took off. He will begin in Toronto during the 2020 21 season, succeeding Peter Oundjian, who became its conductor emeritus in June after 14 years as its music director. Sir Andrew Davis will be the orchestra's interim artistic director through the 2019 20 season. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
HUNTINGTON PARK, Calif. The "bodega clinicas" that line the bustling commercial streets of immigrant neighborhoods around Los Angeles are wedged between money order kiosks and pawnshops. These storefront offices, staffed with Spanish speaking medical providers, treat ailments for cash: a doctor's visit is 20 to 40; a cardiology exam is 120; and at one bustling clinic, a colonoscopy is advertised on an erasable board for 700. County health officials describe the clinics as a parallel health care system, serving a vast number of uninsured Latino residents. Yet they say they have little understanding of who owns and operates them, how they are regulated and what quality of medical care they provide. Few of these low rent corner clinics accept private insurance or participate in Medicaid managed care plans. "Someone has to figure out if there's a basic level of competence," said Dr. Patrick Dowling, the chairman of the family medicine department at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. Not that researchers have not tried. Dr. Dowling, for one, has canvassed the clinics for years to document physician shortages as part of his research for the state. What he and others found was that the owners were reluctant to answer questions. Indeed, multiple attempts in recent weeks to interview owners and employees at a half dozen of the clinics in Southern California proved fruitless. What is certain, however, is that despite their name, many of these clinics are actually private doctor's offices, not licensed clinics, which are required to report regularly to federal and state oversight bodies. It is a distinction that deeply concerns Kimberly Wyard, the chief executive of the Northeast Valley Health Corporation, a nonprofit group that runs 13 accredited health clinics for low income Southern Californians. "They are off the radar screen," said Ms. Wyard of the bodega clinicas, "and it's unclear what they're doing." But with deadlines set by the federal Affordable Care Act quickly approaching, health officials in Los Angeles are vexed over whether to embrace the clinics and bring them selectively and gingerly into the network of tightly regulated public and nonprofit health centers that are driven more by mission than by profit to serve the uninsured. Health officials see in the clinics an opportunity to fill persistent and profound gaps in the county's strained safety net, including a chronic shortage of primary care physicians. By January 2014, up to two million uninsured Angelenos will need to enroll in Medicaid or buy insurance and find primary care. And the clinics, public health officials point out, are already well established in the county's poorest neighborhoods, where they are meeting the needs of Spanish speaking residents. The clinics also could continue to serve a market that the Affordable Care Act does not touch: illegal immigrants who are prohibited from getting health insurance under the law. Dr. Mark Ghaly, the deputy director of community health for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, said bodega clinicas a term he seems to have coined that agree to some scrutiny could be a good way of addressing the physician shortage in those neighborhoods. "Where are we going to find those providers?" he said. "One logical place to consider looking is these clinics." Los Angeles is not the only city with a sizable Latino population where the clinics have become a part of the streetscape. Health care providers in Phoenix and Miami say there are clinics in many Latino neighborhoods. But their presence in parts of the Los Angeles area can be striking, with dozens in certain areas. Visits to more than two dozen clinics in South Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley found Latino women in brightly colored scrubs handing out cards and coupons that promised a range of services like pregnancy tests and endoscopies. Others advertised evening and weekend hours, and some were open around the clock. Such all hours access and upfront pricing are critical, Latino health experts say, to a population that often works around the clock for low wages. Also important, officials say, is that new immigrants from Mexico and Central America are more accustomed to corner clinics, which are common in their home countries, than to the sprawling medical complexes or large community health centers found in the United States. And they can get the kind of medical treatments including injections of hypertension drugs, intravenous vitamins and liberally dispensed antibiotics that are frowned upon in traditional American medicine. The waiting rooms at the clinics reflected the everyday maladies of peoples' lives: a glassy eyed child resting listlessly on his mother's lap, a fit looking young woman waiting with a bag of ice on her wrist, a pensive middle aged man in work boots staring straight ahead. For many ordinary complaints, the medical care at these clinics may be suitable, county health officials and medical experts say. But they say problems arise when an illness exceeds the boundaries of a physician's skills or the patient's ability to pay cash. Dr. Raul Joaquin Bendana, who has been practicing general medicine in South Los Angeles for more than 20 years, said the clinics would refer patients to him when, for example, they had uncontrolled diabetes. "They refer to me because they don't know how to handle the situation," he said. The clinic physicians by and large appear to have current medical licenses, a sample showed, but experts say they are unlikely to be board certified or have admitting privileges at area hospitals. That can mean that some clinics try to treat patients who face serious illness. Olivia Cardenas, 40, a restaurant worker who lives in Woodland Hills, Calif., got a free Pap smear at a clinic that advertises "especialistas," including in gynecology. The test came back abnormal, and the doctor told Ms. Cardenas that she had cervical cancer. "Come back in a week with 5,000 in cash, and I'll operate on you," Ms. Cardenas said the doctor told her. "Otherwise you could die." She declined to pay the 5,000. Instead, a family friend helped her apply for Medicaid, and she went to a hospital. The diagnosis, it turned out, was correct. Health care experts say the clinics' medical practices would come under greater scrutiny if they were brought closer into the fold. But being connected would mean the clinics' cash only business model would need to change. Dr. Dowling said the lure of newly insured patients in 2014 might draw them in. "To the extent there are payments available," he said, "the legitimate ones might step up to the plate." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
When you're planning a wall installation, play with the arrangement on the floor first, suggested Lisa Congdon, an artist and collector in Portland, Ore., who created this display of plates. How to Keep Your Collections From Looking Like Clutter Whatever you're drawn to whether it's antique ceramic plates, framed insect specimens or contemporary action figures a collection can add personality to a home. Without one, in fact, your home may not feel complete. As Tom Stringer, a Chicago based interior designer, put it: "They're essential." When his firm designs homes, Mr. Stringer said, "The whole point is to tell the stories of people's lives and experiences, and the stuff they pick up along the way is often the launching point. I find it interesting that many clients don't even see the power in their collections." With many of us spending more time at home these days, it may be a good moment to reconsider the stuff we have, whether it was acquired haphazardly or with the intention of building a collection. There is a fine line between a collector and a hoarder, and the difference often lies in intention. A hoarder will amass just about anything that seems remotely appealing, or might be needed in the future, while a collector tends to be choosier. "How do you define what's a collection versus an accumulation?" said Fritz Karch, a collector, antiques dealer and stylist; the former collecting editor at Martha Stewart Living magazine; and an author of "Collected: Living With the Things You Love." "It has to do with a kind of discernment and the energy you put in as an editor." One of the easiest and most powerful ways to display various collections is to keep each one separate. If you collect Scandinavian tableware, ceramic dogs and vintage postcards, for instance, mixing them together or scattering a few pieces from each collection throughout the house can result in an interior that looks messy. You're better off keeping each group of items contained and installed in different rooms. "There's power in numbers," said Rebecca Robertson, an interior designer in New York who worked on the "Collected" book with Mr. Karch, and who has decorated walls with unexpected objects like old farm implements and antique pie tins. "When you get 25 things together, it really starts to hold the wall and draw attention." Jesse Carrier and Mara Miller, the principals of Carrier and Company, used this technique when designing a house for a couple of avid collectors in Southampton, N.Y. The designers installed a collection of walking sticks in a glass case and a large ceramic crock in the entrance hall, blue and white Canton porcelain in the living room, boat dioramas and models in the dining room, and framed maps in the study. "It's more impactful when you see them amassed, versus scattered around," Mr. Carrier said. "It's just a simple way of organizing them visually." It's not verboten to mix objects from various collections, but doing so requires a bit of forethought. For a mixed display, Mr. Karch recommended grouping objects based on a common element maybe a similar mix of colors, shapes or materials. "There has to be one defining thing that ties it all together," he said. At his country house in Salisbury, Conn., Matthew Patrick Smyth, a New York based designer, grouped some of his favorite things on tables, combining objects with similar finishes. In the home's principal bedroom, a table holds a black painted model for a stage set; a dark, pitted bronze sculpture by Bruno Romeda; and stone, terra cotta and bronze African artifacts. "The colors and textures work together because there's a matte quality to them all," said Mr. Smyth, whose house will be featured in his upcoming book, "Through a Designer's Eye," next month. For a salon style gallery wall, you can tie wildly different pieces together by using the same color picture frame around every item. One way to frame a group of objects is to display them in a single bookcase, etagere or cabinet with glass doors. If the objects will be displayed on a coffee or side table, placing them on a tray can help pull them together visually. Another collector's trick, Ms. Robertson said, is to put items under a glass cloche or inside a glass box: "The minute you put a dome on something, or put it in a glass box, it feels much more special." For a wall mounted collection of butterfly and bug specimens in a house in Chicago, Mr. Stringer created an installation within a rectangle created by architectural molding. "If you draw a line around things, you make them seem more important," he said. If your display doesn't immediately look as appealing as you had hoped, play with the composition by moving pieces around. Lisa Congdon, an artist and collector in Portland, Ore., sometimes assembles vintage office supplies like interlocking pieces of a colorful puzzle. At home, she stacks her vintage Scandinavian enamelware in creative ways, using some pieces upside down or as pedestals for other pieces. "In the collector world, we talk about clustering things," Ms. Congdon said. "You can do that by stacking, or by placing taller things in front of shorter things. Think of it as composing a painting or making a quilt. You want the eye to travel around." Few collections are static, as many of us continue to stumble upon irresistible objects even when we're not actively looking, so consider how displays can evolve over time. It's usually easy to add to salon style gallery walls, because most arrangements have a somewhat random appearance, and no single piece will throw off the overall balance. Grid like and symmetrical installations aren't so forgiving. For objects displayed on shelves, it's often a good idea to leave a little extra space between the first few objects you acquire, to accommodate future acquisitions. Another option is to follow Mr. Stringer's lead: When he was presented with one client's extensive collection of blue and white ceramic plates, he filled up a hutch first and then began mounting plates to the wall around the hutch. "That's what happens when a client's collection of blue and white transferware gets out of control," he said. "It's a sign that they either need to keep going until the entire wall is filled, or that maybe they need to start collecting something else." For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: nytrealestate. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
"This has happened before," she tells herself. "It's nowhere near as bad as before, and it will pass." Robbie Pinter's 21 year old son, Nicholas, is upset again. He yells. He obsesses about something that can't be changed. Even good news may throw him off. So Dr. Pinter breathes deeply, as she was taught, focusing on each intake and release. She talks herself through the crisis, reminding herself that this is how Nicholas copes with his autism and bipolar disorder. With these simple techniques, Dr. Pinter, who teaches English at Belmont University in Nashville, blunts the stress of parenting a child with severe developmental disabilities. Dr. Pinter, who said she descends from "a long line of the most nervous women," credits her mindfulness practice with giving her the tools to cope with whatever might come her way. "It is very powerful," she said. All parents endure stress, but studies show that parents of children with developmental disabilities, like autism, experience depression and anxiety far more often. Struggling to obtain crucial support services, the financial strain of paying for various therapies, the relentless worry over everything from wandering to the future all of it can be overwhelming. "The toll stress wise is just enormous, and we know that we don't do a really great job of helping parents cope with it," said Dr. Fred R. Volkmar, the director of Child Study Center at Yale University School of Medicine. "Having a child that has a disability, it's all encompassing," he added. "You could see how people would lose themselves." But a study published last week in the journal Pediatrics offers hope. It found that just six weeks of training in simple techniques led to significant reductions in stress, depression and anxiety among these parents. The first group practiced meditation, breathing exercises, and qigong practices to hone mental focus. The second received instructions on curbing negative thoughts, practicing gratitude and reclaiming an aspect of adult life. Both groups were led by specially trained mentors, themselves the parents of special needs children. The parents were assigned some unlikely homework: In the mindfulness group, for instance, they were told to bring a moment to moment awareness to a daily activity like chopping vegetables. An assignment in the positive development group might entail taking a "guilt inventory" to assess if your guilt is healthy or counterproductive. Part of what makes the experiment innovative is that it was targeted to adults, not their children, and it was not focused on sharpening parenting skills. Instead, parents learned ways to tackle their distress as problems arise. The idea is to stop wasting energy resisting the way life is. The mindfulness treatment and positive adult development led to significant reductions in stress, anxiety, depression as well as improved sleep and life satisfaction among participants. But the mothers in the mindfulness group saw greater improvements in anxiety, depression and insomnia than those who receive positive adult development training. (As there was no control group, it's hard to know how many parents might have improved on their own.) Stress reduction groups like these could be a cost effective way for parents to help other parents, Dr. Volkmar said: "We could think about doing this more broadly to reduce stress and improve quality of life" for siblings, too. In August, manuals detailing the two strategies mindfulness and positive adult development will be available online for 200 each ( 350 for both manuals) for parents of special needs children who want to start groups. Learning to quell distress and anxiety is especially important for parents of children with development disabilities because it's often a lifetime caregiving commitment, said Elisabeth M. Dykens, the lead author of the Vanderbilt study. "Other 21 year olds move out and take jobs, but most of these children stay at home," said Dr. Dykens, the director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. "You have aging parents and aging offspring. You are each other's for life." Still, just as some middle aged caregivers of elderly parents are reluctant to shift the focus to themselves, so are some parents of special needs children. The Lexington Center in Fulton County, N.Y., is already using the positive adult development curriculum, after two people involved with the Vanderbilt research trained seven mentors last November. But to persuade parents to attend, the center has had vigorously advertise, call and email. Nicholas, left, whose engaging and playful nature earned him the nickname Happy at camp. "They are so stressed to begin with," said Nancy DeSando, the director of community supports at the center. "To get them to consider one more thing is very challenging." Karen Pilkerton, a registered nurse and a peer mentor who led mindfulness training at Vanderbilt, said participants tended to think, "I don't have time for self care." By the end of the six weeks, she said, they realized, " 'When I fill my own cup, I have more to give.' Sometimes, they didn't realize how depleted their cup was." Indeed, one 2008 study by psychologists at Swansea University in Wales noted that high levels of parent stress reduced the effectiveness of interventions for the child. Phil Reed, a psychologist at Swansea and author of the coming book, "Interventions for Autism, said, "It's good that people are beginning to look at how we can help parents in and of themselves." Janet Shouse, a mother of three including a son on the autism spectrum, led positive adult development groups for the study. One lesson entailed parents allowing themselves to grieve for the dreams they'd once had for their child but then to limit the time they dwell on that loss. Another lesson Mrs. Shouse had to learn herself: how to redirect anxiety into positive action. She spent years panicking that she wasn't doing enough to get her son Evan, now 18, to learn to talk by age 5, or 7, or 10. (She had been told if he didn't converse by a certain age, he never would, but the deadline kept changing). The first and last time he asked for food, he wanted an apple. She was thrilled. "It wasn't until that apple incident, I finally realized, if he's not able to communicate more adequately, I'm O.K. with that," Mrs. Shouse said. "It was such a huge relief that I wasn't striving to do all this therapy and to make every moment a teaching moment." During the sessions Mrs. Shouse led, she tried to help other mothers understand it's O.K. to "enjoy their kids as kids" and to not make "all moments edifying." In retrospect, Dr. Pinter said, it's easy to see how stressed she'd become caring for Nicholas, who just got a job at a church farmer's market on Sundays. She ground her teeth and chewed ice. At restaurants, she used to crinkle paper straw covers compulsively, but not when her son was at camp. "When we picked him up, I'd start back up again," she said. Practicing mindfulness has helped her live more in the moment. "So many people think it's just out there or 'I can do it on my own' or 'All I need is more money,'" she said. "They don't know how much it can help." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Once upon a time, the Hermes Birkin could arguably have been called the rarest handbag in the world. Urban myths abounded about how to buy and who was allowed to buy; rumors of wait lists were taken as gospel; and the lucky few able to acquire a bag guarded their insider status as if it were a state secret. Then the fashion resale market took off. On almost any given day, Prive Porter in Miami has a rotating lineup of nearly 80 of the newest Hermes Birkin bags, in pristine condition and all accessible with the click of a mouse or a tap on a mobile device. In barely five years, Prive Porter, tucked away in the palm tree lined confines of southern Florida, has sold more than 60 million worth of the bags , the company said, to anyone who wants and can afford one, the vast majority of those sales taking place on Instagram. The digitally native company is part of the booming resale ecosystem , which has seen a growing number of heavily funded and highly trafficked businesses bringing luxury wares to the web, among them the 10,000 plus marquee bags of the 182 year old Hermes empire. And Prive Porter is not alone. Another digital player, the market disrupting e commerce consignment website the RealReal, has more than 300 Birkin bags available for purchase, including a shiny midnight hued crocodile Birkin and a blindingly bright red Birkin. StockX, the resale site known largely for its system of selling the buzziest sneakers as if they are stocks, has expanded its offerings to handbags, including the most coveted Hermes bags; it currently has 235 up for grabs. Together with assorted other resale players, like Rebag, LePrix, Baghunter and Vestiaire Collective, along with Hermes specific sellers like Jane Finds, such sites have made it easier than ever for consumers to find what were once almost mythical accessories. Luca Solca, a senior analyst for luxury goods at Bernstein , an investment research and management company, estimates that there are now more than a million Birkins in the market . After all, few brands have been as successful at positioning themselves at the apex of sheer luxury and creating ravenous demand as Hermes. It is a status symbolized by the Birkin, the virtually logo less bag constructed from high grade calfskin that debuted in 1984 after the actress Jane Birkin met the Hermes chairman Jean Louis Dumas on a plane in 1981. (Mr. Dumas died in 2010.) In 35 years it has become as famous as an accessory can get, in part because of the difficulty of nabbing one. Before the advent of the internet, this was said to involve a waiting list, on which one's name would be placed after an inquiry about a Birkin in one of the company's stores. "There was a waiting list at one point, but because so many people wanted these bags, a list simply became unmanageable," said a former employee, speaking anonymously because of the nondisclosure agreement he signed. Hermes refuses to comment on the method for bringing home a Birkin. Jonathan Rimer, a former floor director at the Hermes flagship in Beverly Hills, Calif., attributed the bag's elusiveness to a simple problem of supply and demand, as did Robert Chavez, the Hermes president and chief executive for the Americas, who announced at last year's Skift Global Forum that "demand for the Birkin bag continues to be much higher than the supply." That is no longer necessarily the case. Julie Wainwright, the founder and chief executive of the RealReal, said that her company has been able to offer these bags by "unlocking the supply of luxury goods in people's homes globally," a bounty that Bain Company values at 307 billion. Jeff Berk, a founder of Prive Porter , said that his company maintains a stock of the newest Birkins thanks to close ties with a global network of Hermes V.I.P. customers, the big spenders with deep relationships with salespeople who reportedly offer Birkins as soon as they hit the stockroom. Many of these women, Mr. Berk said, buy the bags immediately, regardless of whether they like the color, size, skin or hardware, mostly because of Birkin FOMO. When a bag isn't a perfect match, some of them turn to Prive Porter to trade, upgrade or sell the bag. Industry insiders, like Ms. Wainwright, are adamant that resale sites can coexist peacefully with luxury brands, and even serve to bolster the luxury market by giving consumers a more affordable entry point to luxury goods as well as the confidence to invest in pricey handbags, knowing that if they tire of one, there will be a market for it. This paints a pretty picture of a circular system of consumption, one in which resellers are not predators, but a vital part of a larger luxury symbiosis. The principles of economics, however, seem to suggest otherwise. Scarcity, said Robert H. Frank, a professor of management and economics at the Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management, is achieved only when "goods that are highly desirable are not broadly available." Flavio Cereda, the managing director of equity research, consumer and luxury, at Jefferies International, said that the resellers are simply filling a void that was intentionally left open by stalwart luxury brands, many of which have been slow to adopt e commerce and almost all of which have shied away from making their top of the line products available on the web. In the past, this allowed companies to control the distribution of their wares and maintain the hard earned air of exclusivity upon which they and their price tags so thoroughly depend. But now, Mr. Cereda said, "some of the most coveted accessories are available on your phone in seconds." At any given point, these resellers tend to "have more Birkins in stock online than Hermes stores," and such volumes are "game changing." Resale is, he said, "the one channel that brands are so far largely unable to mold in terms of either volumes or pricing and that in itself is hugely disruptive." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Ms. Mulhauser is the chief of the conviction and incident review unit in the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office in Missouri. In 2003, Greg Elking wrote a letter to his minister. Mr. Elking was the sole witness to a murder nine years before. On the strength of his eyewitness identification, jurors convicted a man named Lamar Johnson of the crime. But it wasn't true, as Mr. Elking confessed in his anguished letter. "The reason I'm telling you this now is my conscience. I regret not coming to you or anyone else sooner. I don't believe it was right thing to do then more so now." The killer had been masked, and Mr. Elking wrote that he had never been able to see his face. When St. Louis police detectives first brought Mr. Elking in front of a lineup, he failed three times to identify Mr. Johnson. But then a St. Louis police detective pulled Mr. Elking into an elevator. He told him that the police knew that Mr. Johnson was the killer, and that only an identification by Mr. Elking would be enough to put him away. So he walked out of the elevator, sat down with the detective, and shakily signed a statement saying that Mr. Johnson was the killer. Mr. Johnson is still incarcerated today, 17 years after Mr. Elking recanted, 25 years after another man admitted to committing the same crime in return for a generous plea bargain, and a year after an investigation by the prosecutor's office revealed other serious constitutional violations, including 4,000 worth of witness payments to Mr. Elking that were not disclosed, and testimony from the same detective who coaxed Mr. Elking to make the identification that Mr. Johnson would have been able to travel six miles round trip, murder the victim, and be back at a party, all within a mere five minutes. The Missouri Supreme Court heard arguments last month about whether the prosecuting attorney who convicted him has any mechanism to get that conviction overturned. The lower court has already said no: Whatever the evidence of innocence may be, the prosecutor has no way of asking for the judgment to be reversed. The Missouri Attorney General made the same argument before the justices: that court rules prohibit the prosecutor from seeking a new trial on Mr. Johnson's behalf decades later. What the Missouri Supreme Court will do remains a question. How could this happen? How could an eyewitness recantation, a confession by the true killer, and evidence of perjury and prosecutorial misconduct not be enough to free a man from prison? The truth is, getting unjust convictions overturned is monumentally difficult work. Courts are deluged with petitions from prisoners pleading their innocence, some legitimate, some attempts to gain release from prison by any means they can find. Those petitions typically go to courthouses in the understaffed rural counties where the prisoners are incarcerated. How is a court supposed to separate the wheat from the chaff when there is no one to research the claims? Often, the petitions are stamped "denied" within days of receipt. A number of organizations have stepped in to fill the void. The first and best known is the Innocence Project, which initially focused on innocence that can be proven through DNA testimony. Other nonprofit groups have joined this effort, some of which take on cases involving false eyewitness testimony like Mr. Elking's or discredited theories like arson science or shaken baby syndrome. Over the last decade, prosecutors' offices themselves have stepped in by creating conviction integrity units, which investigate convictions obtained by their own offices. This movement is not a red state or blue state phenomenon: a number of the earliest and most active offices were in Texas, and they now exist in a majority of states. Five months ago, I quit my own job as a federal prosecutor to found St. Louis County's version of a conviction integrity unit, which we call the Conviction and Incident Review Unit. In the three months since we've started accepting applications, we have received dozens, and it is with a sinking heart that I recognize that we will soon have hundreds. The amount of hours it will take to review and investigate them is staggering, but my team and the prosecutor who heads my office, Wesley Bell, are committed to seeking justice. In a development that may surprise some, I have received nothing but support from the other prosecutors whose offices line the hallway where I sit or used to sit, before we were all confined to our houses. The vast majority of prosecutors, like the vast majority of police officers, know that the conviction of an innocent man, or a conviction obtained through perversion of the justice system, hurts all of us. On my second day, my next door office neighbor brought me flowers. And yet, there is a void at the top. The Department of Justice with one narrow, geographic exception does not have an entity to investigate wrongful convictions in the federal system. (The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, which serves as the local prosecutor for Washington, D.C., does have such an office.) Now, is it possible that federal prosecutors are simply more careful, and don't need a conviction integrity unit because they never wrongfully convict anyone? As a former federal prosecutor, I would love to believe in my own infallibility. (Many of us already do, as the joke goes.) But many or most wrongful convictions are not a result of deliberate misconduct or lack of care or judgment. They are the result of witnesses who lie or who are never found, of defendants who plead guilty out of fear of a long prison sentences, or of missed or misunderstood evidence that only now has come to light because of new technology. In short, they are often visible only with the benefit of time and resources, and they can happen to even the most careful and diligent prosecutors. The federal government should fill this void by creating a conviction review unit within the Department of Justice. The unit should investigate the innocence claims of federal inmates and support those that turn out to be meritorious. The unit should be staffed with attorneys, yes, but also with investigators and federal agents dedicated to researching the facts underlying these innocence claims. The unit should also provide legal and investigative support to local prosecutors trying to do the same in their own jurisdictions, a function the Justice Department already fulfills in numerous other law enforcement contexts. The unit should be supported by the department's Bureau of Justice Assistance in sponsoring grants to local conviction integrity units something that the bureau had supported before reversing course this year. Like conviction integrity units everywhere, this idea is not a red proposal or a blue proposal. It fits directly in line with the criminal justice goals of President Trump, who championed the First Step Act, which, among other things, modified sentencing laws, including mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. And it matches the goals of the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, who has promised criminal justice reform. Wrongful convictions are the most shameful part of our criminal justice system, and we have it within our power to correct them. In the words of Greg Elking, "I don't believe it was right thing to do then more so now." Dana Mulhauser is the chief of the conviction and incident review unit at the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office in Missouri. She previously spent eight years as a federal prosecutor. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter ( NYTopinion) and Instagram. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
In 1999, when Mozhan Marno was an 18 year old sophomore at Barnard College, one of her professors began talking with her about having an affair. Inside his office one day, the professor, Thomas Roma, removed her coat, lifted her shirt and pulled down her pants, she said. He put his mouth on her breast and placed her hand on his penis, she added behavior she described as consensual, overwhelming and "controlled and initiated by him from beginning to end." Afterward, Ms. Marno said, she heard that Mr. Roma a prominent photographer who teaches at Columbia University regularly pursued sexual relationships with students, and became uncomfortable when he made suggestive remarks after promising to act only as a mentor that semester. In January 2000, she made a written complaint to Columbia. But out of embarrassment, Ms. Marno said, she provided a watered down account to the school's investigative panel. The panel determined that she and Mr. Roma were both complicit in the incident, she said, a decision that left her thinking Columbia "should be ashamed of itself" for not investigating Mr. Roma more thoroughly. Ms. Marno, now an actress with credits on "House of Cards" and "The Blacklist," is one of five women who spoke on the record with The New York Times to describe sexual misconduct by Mr. Roma, the director of the photography program at Columbia's School of the Arts and a documentary photographer whose work is owned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and other museums. The Times also interviewed people with whom the women discussed Mr. Roma's behavior at the time of those events or later. The accusations depict behavior said to have occurred mostly in the 1990s and that followed a similar pattern: Mr. Roma started relationships with young women he taught at Columbia and at the School of Visual Arts, flattering and cajoling them, making sexual advances and, one woman said, placing his penis in her mouth. He would also often remind them of his professional stature, the women said. That stature carries considerable influence, beyond the usual power disparity between professor and student: In the field of photography, Mr. Roma could make a difference by providing letters of reference, recommendations for grants, and introductions to art dealers and collectors. Mr. Roma, provided with details about the accounts of the women, declined to be interviewed. His lawyer told The Times that Mr. Roma disputes any suggestion that his behavior was ever coercive and that the professor had cooperated fully with Columbia's inquiry into Ms. Marno's complaint. The lawyer, Douglas Jacobs, issued a statement saying that Mr. Roma was "shocked" by the accusations from the other four women. "The statements they are making about his asserted misconduct are replete with inaccuracies and falsehoods," Mr. Jacobs said. "All four have taken isolated, innocent incidents, none of them predatory, and have created fictitious versions of reality that are libelous and in the present political climate designed to damage his career and his personal life. Professor Roma's sympathies then and now lie with those who have been mistreated in any way and he completely fails to understand why these women have chosen to create these complaints two decades after the alleged facts supposedly occurred." Four of the five women attended the School of Visual Arts around the same time; some were friends there and have stayed close. Joyce Kaye, a spokeswoman for S.V.A., said the school "does not have a record of any complaints against Mr. Roma" when he taught there in the 1980s and '90s. Suzanne Goldberg, Columbia's executive vice president for university life, said in response to the accusations against Mr. Roma: "It is our standard practice to investigate whenever we receive a report that a faculty member may have sexually harassed a student." Ms. Goldberg said that university policy forbids faculty members from having sexual relationships with students they oversee. Columbia, like many schools, has been trying to navigate ongoing campus debates about how best to handle student allegations of sexual misconduct. Ms. Goldberg said Columbia "looks differently at these matters today than 20 years ago" when Ms. Marno filed her complaint. "Our policies on faculty conduct have been strengthened accordingly in recent years," she said. In December, William V. Harris, a professor of Greco Roman history, retired after accusations that he had harassed three students. Mr. Roma, whose best known work includes black and white images of worshipers in African American churches and portraits of people at the Brooklyn criminal courthouse, has received two Guggenheim fellowships and had solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art and the International Center of Photography. He is married to a daughter of Lee Friedlander, a giant in the world of documentary photography, and has published 15 monographs with introductions by writers like Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Norman Mailer. His teaching career includes stints at Fordham, Cooper Union and Yale, according to his website. The five women described Mr. Roma as a charming and charismatic teacher who cultivated a streetwise persona and emphasized perseverance, sacrifice and dedication to craft. The women, as well as some former students who posted anonymously online about Mr. Roma's teaching, said that he could be an unsparing critic, but also had the ability to instill confidence and inspire. One of the women, Ash Thayer, a filmmaker and artist in Los Angeles, said she studied with Mr. Roma in the mid 1990s at S.V.A., then in the graduate program at Columbia, where she was also his teaching assistant. In 1999, Ms. Thayer said, she was working in Mr. Roma's office at Columbia shortly after a mutual friend, the photographer Raghubir Singh, had died. Ms. Thayer said that she was sitting at a desk when Mr. Roma asked her to turn around. His penis was erect, she said, and he moved toward her. She repeatedly said "no," but Mr. Roma placed his penis in her mouth before she pushed him away and left, Ms. Thayer said, estimating that the encounter lasted perhaps 30 seconds. "I froze," she said. "He committed oral rape against me." Allison Ward, a student at S.V.A. in the mid 1990s, said she had several sexual encounters with Mr. Roma. One occurred in a classroom, she said, recalling that she "was mortified and embarrassed but went along with it." Ms. Ward said that she had wanted to please Mr. Roma and gain his acceptance, adding "he was the first person in my life who had connected my passion for photography with a path forward." Mr. Roma did not force any contact, she said, but had been "predatory" and had "crossed a line" by seeking a sexual relationship. "He was coercive and would keep trying," she said. "He was a little relentless." Another S.V.A. student in the mid 90s, Angela Cappetta, said that after repeated requests she allowed Mr. Roma to photograph her in her apartment. There, she said, Mr. Roma asked to touch her breast and put her hand on his crotch. "I thought I'd have to go along with it or it would be detrimental," she said. She drew the line when he asked to have sex, she added. On campus, Mr. Roma often surrounded himself with a coterie of male and female students who would sort his negatives and act as teaching assistants, the five women said, adding that Mr. Roma would regularly invite students on outings or to gatherings at his house in Park Slope. In 1997, Ilana Rein, a graduate student at S.V.A., said that Mr. Roma, who was then her thesis adviser, invited her to a backyard gathering. He asked her into his photo studio, then bluntly stated that he needed something from her and placed her hand on his crotch, Ms. Rein said. Taken aback, she did not object, but soon began feeling ill, removed her hand and left. "I was blindsided because I thought we were going to look at photographs," Ms. Rein, now a filmmaker in Los Angeles, said. "This is someone who I trusted." Some of the former students stayed in touch with Mr. Roma after these encounters, saying that they were intimidated, sought his help or wanted to believe that his behavior had been out of character. But, some added, Mr. Roma could be dismissive or even cruel to those who had rebuffed him. Ms. Rein said that during a trip to Coney Island with students after her encounter with Mr. Roma, he repeatedly singled her out for mockery, while others laughed. "There was a kind of violence to it," she said. "He had such a vise grip on us back then." Ms. Thayer said she blocked out memories of the office incident and, after graduating, remained in sporadic touch with Mr. Roma, exchanging emails and sometimes asking for recommendations or advice. In 2014, she said, she met Mr. Roma in Brooklyn and let him know that a book of her photographs was about to be published. He told her he might be able to help her get a teaching job at Columbia, Ms. Thayer said, but then implied that he would expect intimate contact in return. She has not seen or spoken with Mr. Roma since. "I just kept wanting him to be the mentor that he was supposed to be," Ms. Thayer said. "But I realized that there was not going to be a time when he was not inappropriate with me and asking for a sexual relationship." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
How Much Watching Time Do You Have This Weekend? None Every Monday and Friday, Margaret offers hyper specific viewing recommendations in our Watching newsletter. Read her latest picks below, and sign up for the Watching newsletter here. This weekend I have ... an hour, and I like art 'American Masters: Keith Haring: Street Art Boy' When to watch: Friday at 9 p.m., on PBS. (Check local listings.) This brief biography almost feels like a table of contents for what could be a dozen other episodes. It covers not only the artist Keith Haring but also street art of the 1970s and '80s, rad parties, the evolution of one intersection as a microcosm for gentrification in New York City, recreational drug use and the role of public art. In one archival clip, a woman with short gray hair asks Haring about a chalk drawing on a subway platform. "Who are you doing it for?" she says. "Um, for everybody, I guess," Haring replies, and a little smile spreads across the woman's face. ... an hour, and I like cuddling Leigh Leigh, top, and Rebecca in a scene from "Baby Chimp Rescue." 'Baby Chimp Rescue' When to watch: Saturday at 8 p.m., on BBC America. Every show about nonhuman primates includes a lot of impish snuggling, but this three part series about a sanctuary facility in Liberia is on another plane thanks to 21 affectionate baby apes who all want to be held, groomed and in on the action. Cuteness abounds, and depending on how many toddlers are in your orbit, so does familiarity: Why, what better to hang on and then fling myself from than this here doorknob? If you're more of a rescue dog person than a rescue chimp person, fear not, there are dogs on this show, too. Alexander Elliot, left, and Rohan Campbell in the new adaptation of "The Hardy Boys." Don't be fooled by the hazy visuals, retro aesthetic and moody lighting this isn't really part of the "Riverdale" darkly horny teen soap genre. It's a lot more wholesome, in a good way. Think "Everwood" crossed with "Stranger Things": It's the 1980s, some spooky stuff is afoot, and the Hardy boys (Alexander Elliot and Rohan Campbell) have moved back to the small town where their recently deceased mother grew up. While 13 episodes is a few too many, the show has a fun, confident energy. If you liked "Locke Key," watch this. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
They Were in Love. They Were the Last to Know. Jean Kim first spotted her future husband on a chilly day in 2002 at Amherst College. She was on the rooftop terrace of Valentine Hall, a dining facility that was doubling as a dormitory, when she looked out onto the campus grounds and Bryan Woo caught her eye. "He has this cocky strut," Ms. Kim, 33, recalled. "He was completely bald, he wore this giant puffy jacket and flip flops in the cold. I thought to myself, 'Who is this scary looking guy?'" Mr. Woo and Ms. Kim, it turned out, couldn't be more different. He is a New York City native, unnerved by the silent countryside of Amherst, Mass. She acclimated easier coming from a New Jersey suburb. He was private school educated. She went to public schools her whole life. At Northern Valley Regional High School at Demarest, N.J., Ms. Kim had a natural aptitude for both academics and athletics. She made the all state orchestra for violin and the varsity volleyball team, where she helped the team to a state championship her senior year. Although both Mr. Woo and Ms. Kim coincidentally enrolled in the same Japanese Aesthetics class he loved anime; she respected the culture they interacted mainly because of mutual friends. During their freshman year, Mr. Woo grew close to four of his Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity brothers, who quickly formed an inseparable crew. Three of them also lived in Valentine Hall, along with Ms. Kim. "They all looked after me as a little sister, but I was still one of the guys," she said. Then, in 2004, Ms. Kim fell between a stairwell banister, fracturing her right wrist and jaw and dislocating her hip. She took the year off to recover. In 2005, Mr. Woo started dating Ms. Kim's friend during his junior year. Upon Ms. Kim's return, the three of them would often spend time together. Mr. Woo, who had a double major in economics and psychology, returned to New York after graduating in 2006. He traded real estate bonds for NorthStar Realty Finance. Then, in September 2008, he moved to Seoul, South Korea, for a job at Mirae Asset Global Investments. He resided on Yeouido Island, which, coincidentally, was where Ms. Kim's parents and maternal grandparents had at one time lived. Ms. Kim graduated in 2007 with a degree in English, and that summer started a career in marketing analytics at Viacom in Manhattan. She currently works as a senior account manager of the Enthuse Marketing Group. Although both actively dated other people, their approaches were very different. "Dating was never just fun for me," said Ms. Kim, who viewed relationships as a means to finding a potential life partner and settling down. Mr. Woo courted women casually, with relationships lasting from one to six months. "I was very focused on work," Mr. Woo said. As the first son from an accomplished immigrant family, he felt a responsibility to continue his family's success. His father's real estate development firm, Youngwoo Associates, purchased the AIG towers with Kumho Investment Bank of South Korea for around 140 million in 2009 and won the bid to develop Pier 57 with RXR Realty that same year. After Mr. Woo returned from Seoul in 2010, he became the director of acquisitions at his family's firm. That October, Ms. Kim received an unexpected phone call from Mr. Woo. Eventually they caught up over dinner at BCD Tofu House in Koreatown but not before Ms. Kim had tried to reschedule. Mr. Woo insisted on their original date. The reason? His cousin's archery tournament was on the alternate day she had suggested. "I never expected him to prioritize his baby cousin or family," Ms. Kim said. "That stood out to me." From then on, their encounters were casual and often in group settings. "I would ask her about my dating life because she was the only female opinion that I trusted," Mr. Woo said. Ms. Kim was in relationships, but Mr. Woo never approved of her suitors. Nothing romantic transpired (much to those friends' disappointment), but the weekend revealed a different side of Mr. Woo. "I was surprised that Bryan wanted to get married and have a family," Ms. Kim said. "Until then, I thought he was just a playboy." Three weeks later, Mr. Woo invited Ms. Kim and some friends to a fund raiser. When Mr. Woo arrived with a date, Ms. Kim was surprised. "Three weeks ago, we were consoling each other, saying 'You'll find someone.'" Upon seeing the other woman, Ms. Kim believed that finding love "didn't feel like a big dilemma for him." Eventually the evening progressed to a Chinatown bar, then Mr. Woo's apartment. Once Mr. Woo's date left, his childhood friend, Charles Clinton, became frustrated. "When you see two people who are in love sometimes it's very obvious," Mr. Clinton said. "Clearly you're in love with Jean," Mr. Clinton said to Mr. Woo. "Just go tell her that." While Ms. Kim retreated to the restroom, Mr. Woo shooed everyone from his apartment. When she emerged, he confessed his feelings. "I think I really like you," Ms. Kim remembered him saying. Not wanting to hurt their friendship, she replied, "I think me too." The next morning, Mr. Woo left for a 10 day business trip. When he returned, he organized a formal "business meeting" over dinner at Gaonurri in Koreatown. Despite the risks to their friendship, they decided to give a relationship the old college try. A week later, Mr. Woo planned a romantic getaway to Cold Spring, N.Y. Although both describe the weekend as "very awkward," the butterflies were there. "I was so giddy," Ms. Kim remembered when they held hands. On New Year's Eve in 2014, Mr. Woo told Ms. Kim he loved her. "She's such a complement to me," Mr. Woo explained. "She's able to read me and understand my motivations in ways I don't fully comprehend." One year later, they discussed marriage. On Feb. 10, 2017, Mr. Woo proposed to Ms. Kim at his family's country house in Garrison, N.Y. He surprised Ms. Kim with two stacked bamboo steamers on an outside table. The first contained Ms. Kim's favorite food, dumplings. In the bottom, she discovered a ring box. On April 14, they were married before 260 guests (including Martha Stewart, who is a friend of the groom's family) in the Bronx Post Office. The building holds special significance for Mr. Woo, whose family firm purchased the landmark building in 2014. His parents also met 10 blocks away from the historic site his father had delivered rice from a Korean grocery store to his mother's apartment in 1972. Ms. Kim wore a pale blush, strapless lace dress by Monique Lhuillier. Mr. Woo donned a white tuxedo jacket and black pants by Ermenegildo Zegna. Mr. Clinton, who had prompted his friends to express their love four years ago, became ordained through the Universal Life Church. He officiated alongside his wife, Jacqueline Clinton. The bride's brother, Daniel Kim, read "Love in Action" from Romans 12:9 16. After Ms. Kim agreed to take Mr. Woo as her husband, Mrs. Clinton paused, asking: "Are you sure, Jean?" Laughter erupted in the room. Ivory and white velour curtains transformed the industrial space, which was finished only days before the wedding, into a romantic setting. After cocktail hour in the historic lobby, the 16 person bridal party emerged into the dimly lit reception area to Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." During the couple's first dance, Mr. Woo dramatically dipped his wife backward to Etta James crooning "at last my love has come along." While guests noshed on branzino, steak and pasta, the groom's brother, He myong, shared a slide show of Mr. Woo. His Korean name, He ryong, means bright dragon. For a time, Mr. Woo was pure dragon. Under Ms. Kim's influence, He myong said he saw his brother's lightness come back. "Jean isn't the light, but she's a source that brings out that light in him," he said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
After the protests began, the fence erected to block protesters in front of the White House became a tableau calling out racism and honoring victims. "I can't breathe." "Silence is not the answer." "Defund the Police," "Justice 4 George." Mr. Bryant said he and other curators inspected signs and banners now on a construction wall near the fence, and protest signs beyond the immediate fence area as well, including boarded up office windows that had been painted on. "I was captivated by the artwork that was on the boards," he said. The curators noted the names of artists and photographers, and identified objects that might be important to preserve. "If we don't collect this stuff, who knows what happens to it," Mr. Bryant said. The African American museum is working in coalition with the National Museum of American History and the Anacostia Community Museum which also had curators surveying the Lafayette Square area on Wednesday. The National Museum of American History said in a statement that it "recognizes that we are in a transformative time in the United States. We are listening to communities. We will document this important moment responsibly and respectfully through a variety of objects and stories from Washington, D.C. and across the nation." Mr. Bryant said he had collected two signs held by a young group of protesters from Salisbury, Md. a mother, daughter, son and one of their friends. He said he could not be more specific because the objects have to be processed to determine whether they will officially join the museum's collection. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Aisha Harris, assistant TV editor for The Times, discussed the tech she's using. What's your setup for watching the TV shows or movies you review? What could be better about it? Much of my TV and movie consumption for work involves screeners, which are sent out to the press ahead of release. For TV, these screeners are almost always in digital form, via the network's press site or a link sent by email, so I usually watch those on my laptop. On the rare occasion I'm not feeling too lazy or if it's a show, like "Homecoming," that really rewards viewing on a bigger screen I'll hook up my laptop to my TV. If I'm unable to attend a press screening in person for a movie I'm reviewing, I'll review the DVD at home on my TV. My fiance and I recently upgraded our home entertainment setup, with a 50 inch 4K Amazon Fire TV. We also own a Sonos soundbar and a two room Sonos Play:1 wireless speaker set that sounds incredible. The only downside is that the wireless speakers have been cutting in and out for some time when paired with our TV. Troubleshooting on our own thus far hasn't yielded great results, and the tech support hours coincide with when we're at work. It's a fairly common problem, according to the multiple message boards I've stumbled upon, so I'm hoping someone can help us find a quick, easy solution soon. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
This modern three level house, near the Mediterranean coast, is in the affluent neighborhood of Herzliya Pituach in the city of Herzliya, 10 miles north of downtown Tel Aviv. It is part of the Tel Aviv District, one of five administrative districts in Israel. Built in 2014, with five bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms, the villa has 7,100 square feet of living space, with glass railed balconies, patios, a four car garage and a stainless steel pergola in the rear that extends from the roof to shade the terrace. A swimming pool, pond, firepit and Japanese garden are also on the nearly quarter acre lot, said Eran Alayof, founder of the Alayof Group Israel, which has the listing. The house, which is situated on a flat residential street lined with other luxury homes built in the past decade, also has a smart technology system, an elevator and radiant floor heating. The Boffi kitchen has a glossy black walls of appliances, white perimeter cabinetry, two sinks, Miele appliances and a center island with a stainless steel counter extending to a breakfast bar. It is open to a dining room and a den with built in red and yellow seating alcoves. Up a metal and wood staircase, which encircles a tree suspended in a glass box, are three bedrooms, each with wood floors and an en suite tiled bath with shower, Mr. Alayof said. To the other side of the landing, the master suite includes a seating area and an office, both with broad sliding doors to balconies. The master bath has a free standing tub, a separate shower and a double vanity. On the lower level are a home theater and billiard room; a "safe" room to be used in case of an emergency like a missile or chemical weapons attack; a den/office; a guest room; and a laundry room. Walls of glass slide open to a vine draped, sunken patio. The property is a five minute drive or a 20 minute walk to a marina, shops, restaurants, bars, movie theaters and hotels, including a new Ritz Carlton and the beachfront Dan Accadia Hotel Herzliya resort. With around 100,00 residents, the city of Herzliya has "an upscale atmosphere that makes this a great place to relax," Mr. Alayof said. Ben Gurion Airport is a 30 minute drive from the property. Cranes are a common sight in Tel Aviv. Under new zoning rules, builders are renovating and earthquake proofing 40 and 50 year old apartment buildings, installing safe rooms and adding two or three additional floors of apartments on top, said Noam Dzialdow, an owner of Neot Shiran, a high end real estate agency. Units in renovated buildings on quiet streets sell for as much as 4,356 to 4,719 shekels (or about 1,200 to 1,300) a square foot, he said. Many developers are also converting commercial buildings to residential, Mr. Alayof said. Foreign buyers are drawn to condominium towers and condominium hotels along the "gold kilometer," the Tel Aviv promenade overlooking the Mediterranean, Mr. Dzialdow said. At the new 28 story David Promenade Residences, scheduled to open next spring, prices run from 12,705 to 14,520 shekels (or 3,500 to 4,000) a square foot. The business district along Rothschild Boulevard, where a 42 story residential tower designed by Richard Meier Partners Architects was completed in 2017, "is considered the most desirable for whoever likes the city," Mr. Dzialdow said, noting that prices there run from about 7,260 to 9,801 shekels (or 2,000 to 2,700) a square foot. Real estate in Tel Aviv "is always in a high demand, like Manhattan," said Inna Fleshler, marketing communications manager of Israel Sotheby's International Realty, citing the "unstoppable, meteoric increase" of 170 percent in price over the past decade. Although the 2008 global downturn caused concern, the Israeli real estate market has accelerated rapidly in recent years, fueled by international buyers who "specifically chose the solid Israeli market to invest" in, Ms. Fleshler said. In 2017, the market slowed sales volume was down 14 percent overall, and 12 percent for new developments but prices remained constant, she said, and demand from foreign buyers continued to increase. The rush of French buyers during the past decade has ebbed, and fewer buyers are coming from Russia, Mr. Dzialdow said. At the high end, South Africans are buying "because of the political situation over there," he said, and the United States and Canada are "a solid market." Recently, more Brazilians and Argentines have been buying in Tel Aviv, along with Swiss, Belgian and German citizens. "Though British buyers have dwindled since the Brexit vote, due to the weak pound, buyers are coming from Australia," said Debbie Goldfischer, the founder and owner of Buy It In Israel, a real estate valuation and investment advisory service. Some foreigners buy when making aliyah, a migration to Israel, or because of "rising anti Semitism, vacation, retirement planning, financial safe haven and diversification," Ms. Goldfischer said, adding that the current low interest rates are a factor as well. Some buy apartments as investment rentals, while others seek vacation homes in Tel Aviv and areas north of the city like Herzliya Pituach, where villas, which make up 95 percent of the market, start at 7.26 million shekels (about 2 million) and go up to more than 72 million shekels (or around 20 million) on quarter acre lots overlooking the Mediterranean. "It is the high, high end," Mr. Alayof said. Among the buyers of the country's priciest real estate are young entrepreneurs in the flourishing tech industry in Israel. Foreign buyers pay a 10 percent purchase tax and do not qualify for subsidized new homes, Ms. Goldfischer said. The buyer and seller each pay a two percent real estate commission. Legal fees are typically .5 to 1 percent of the sale price. Mortgages are available to foreigners, but lenders may require a 50 percent down payment, Ms. Fleshler said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Since last Sunday's Golden Globes, the question of what to wear to the various awards shows has become even more fraught than usual. It's not just about a pretty dress any more, but about solidarity, statement making and so on. Luckily, however, a solution to at least one such conundrum is at hand. Though there is as yet no official ceremony or red carpet attached to President Trump's Fake News awards, scheduled to take place next Wednesday (after being postponed from Monday), anyone who suspects that he or she may be in the cross hairs, has a perfect potential outfit. Or at least part of one. Topshop, the British retailer, has created a pair of jeans in semi stretch denim, with a red stripe down the side blaring, "Fake News" over and over again in white block letters. They look rather like a nod to artwork by Barbara Kruger. Just imagine them with a tuxedo jacket and heels instead of the sweatshirts they are paired with on Topshop's website, and bingo! "The term 'Fake News' became so ubiquitous last year that it was officially named the word of the year, so we thought we'd immortalize this of the moment phrase on a pair of our jeans," said Mo Riach, Topshop's head of design, by way of explanation. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Directed by Deon Taylor from a script by David Loughery, "Fatale" knows what you're thinking by this point, and it obliges by including some direct hat tips to "Fatal Attraction," among them a kitchen counter sex scene. But Val, who's also embroiled in a nasty custody conflict with an ex, has a lot more than bunny boiling in store for Derrick. While this latter day noir never builds up the froth of lurid delirium that brings genre pictures into a headier dimension, it's got enough juice to hold your attention. Swank, who is also one of the movie's producers, does good work here, keeping Val credible even as she enacts jaw dropping evils. The film eventually shows the influence of another famous thriller to handy effect. Though finally this is just a movie about a man who takes a too long time to discover the Voice Memos app on his phone. Fatale Rated R for all of that "Fatal Attraction" type content. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
It was a spark in the night. A flash of X rays from a galaxy hovering nearly invisibly on the edge of infinity. Astronomers say they do not know what caused it. The orbiting Chandra X ray Observatory, was in the midst of a 75 day survey of a patch of sky known as the Chandra Deep Field South, when it recorded the burst from a formerly quiescent spot in the cosmos. For a few brief hours on Oct 1, 2014, the X rays were a thousand times brighter than all the light from its home galaxy, a dwarf unremarkable speck almost 11 billion light years from here, in the constellation Fornax. Then whatever had gone bump in the night was over and the X rays died. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
In Hawaii, the spirit of aloha normally greets visitors with warmth and welcome. Now, while the state has discouraged visitors by requiring them to self quarantine for 14 days, that culture of generosity might extend to a free return ticket home. With a 25,000 grant from the Hawaii Tourism Authority, the nonprofit Visitor Aloha Society of Hawaii (VASH) has instituted a Covid 19 flight assistance program to return travelers who don't have the means to follow the mandatory 14 day quarantine including paying for lodging and food delivery required of incoming visitors. "The majority of travelers we have sent back in my opinion have been irresponsible in traveling to Hawaii during the Covid 19 pandemic when they know we are trying to keep Hawaii safe from the spread of this disease," said Jessica Lani Rich, the president and chief executive of VASH. The organization normally provides visitor support, including translation assistance and help with funeral arrangements. Though visitor arrivals are down nearly 99 percent, some residents have reported seeing visitors on beaches despite quarantine restrictions and stay at home orders. All beaches in Hawaii are closed, though individuals may cross them either to swim, paddle or surf while observing social distancing. "They either don't get or are ignoring the message," Lynne Matusow, a Honolulu resident, wrote in an email to The New York Times. "We have locals, in masks, scolding them for sitting on beaches, with towels, umbrellas, coolers, etc. That is forbidden." Ms. Rich said some of the visitors VASH has returned home have told her they were taking advantage of low airfares. A round trip ticket on Southwest Airlines from Oakland, Calif., to Honolulu, for example, was recently priced at 238 for travel in May. On April 22, nearly one month after the governor, David Ige, announced the mandatory 14 day quarantine restriction for incoming arrivals, the Hawaii Tourism Authority said a total of 421 passengers arrived via air, 109 of whom were nonresident visitors. The number of tourists among them is unknown. The tourism authority counts anyone without Hawaii state identification as a visitor, noting that visitors might include an essential health care or disaster assistance worker, or Hawaii natives now residing on the mainland and returning to stay with family. "I see maybe one or two tourists a day," said Ryan Houser, a restaurant "fish sommelier" and Waikiki resident, noting that he can usually spot a tourist by their hotel towel and water floatie from the popular souvenir chain ABC Stores. "It's a little offensive," he added. "I would love to go to the beach every single day if I could but I want to minimize the Covid 19 spread and make sure the curve stays flat." According to the state Department of Health, Hawaii has 596 cases of Covid 19 four newly reported and 12 deaths as of April 23. In a highly publicized case this week, the local TV station KHON reported on a couple who were cited on Oahu for violating quarantine more than once. "Our residents had to close their businesses and have financial hardships and to have people come here right now and want to vacation, it is reckless," Ms. Rich said, noting her organization did not pay for the couple, believed to be from Nevada and Australia, to leave. "Hawaii is known for aloha spirit. Let us get through this hardship then we'll welcome you back with aloha." Efforts to shut down tourism, Hawaii's economic engine, began March 17 when the governor asked travelers to voluntarily postpone trips for 30 days. On March 26, he imposed the 14 day self quarantine for both visitors and returning residents. The quarantine and stay at home orders are currently in effect until April 30. Jake Shimabakuro, the popular ukulele musician and Honolulu resident, said he had joined an initiative asking vacationers to postpone trips to the island. "As much as we want tourists to come and enjoy all that Hawai'i has to offer, we need to protect our hospitality service workers and at risk community, especially our seniors," he wrote in an email. Away from the most populous island, things are quieter. On Kauai, Judi Glass, a local travel adviser, praised the island's mayor with enacting a nightly curfew on March 20, about a week before the state's quarantine rule. Kauai has had 21 cases of Covid 19 and no deaths. "We have none of the daily traffic, and it is so peaceful and quiet now," she wrote in an email. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
Who Is the Villain in 'Spider Man: Far From Home'? Here's a Brief History None From left, Numan Acar, Tom Holland and Jake Gyllenhaal in "Spider Man: Far From Home." This article contains spoilers for the movie "Spider Man: Far From Home." He drove Spider Man into therapy. He manipulated Wolverine into committing a mutant massacre. He convinced Daredevil that a little girl was the Antichrist. Now the mind manipulating supervillain Mysterio is making his big screen debut in Marvel's latest film, "Spider Man: Far From Home," with Jake Gyllenhaal taking on the role. A master of illusion and psychological intrigue, Mysterio is known among comic book fans as one of Spider Man's greatest foes. In "Far From Home," he poses as a warrior from another universe determined to eradicate the threat of giant monsters called Elementals. But Mysterio is not quite what he appears to be, and his true intentions are more nefarious. While this new Mysterio has Gyllenhaal's chiseled looks, his fashion sense remains unchanged, including the green spacesuit, purple cape and fishbowl helmet that first appeared when the character made his comic book debut in 1964. So who is Mysterio? And what's up with that helmet? Mysterio was first introduced in "The Amazing Spider Man" No. 13. Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Mysterio is the alter ego of Quentin Beck, a stunt man and special effects artist who becomes frustrated after his efforts to make it as a leading man in Hollywood tank. A more sensible mind might consider a career as a magician; Beck instead decides on a life of crime and never looks back. Unlike other supervillains, Beck lacks any super powers of his own. Instead, he relies on his intelligence, stunt training and technical skills to take on his enemies, employing disguises, props and visual tricks to hypnotize, confuse and manipulate. His helmet looks wacky, but it can project three dimensional illusions and insulate him from the chemical gases he uses to disorient and weaken his opponents. In his initial comic appearance, Beck wears a Spider Man costume to commit a series of robberies and turn the public against the web slinger. Shortly thereafter, Beck appears for the first time as Mysterio and promises to rid New York of the "menace of Spider Man," winning the public's admiration in the process. The plot almost succeeds (the city even throws Mysterio a parade down Fifth Avenue), but Spider Man eventually exposes Mysterio and gets him carted off to jail. From that point on, Mysterio becomes hellbent on revenge. The Method to His Madness For Mysterio, it isn't enough to defeat his enemies in battle; he wants to psychologically crush them. On multiple occasions, Mysterio convinces Spider Man he is suffering from schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, leading Spider Man to seek out the help of a psychiatrist while in full costume. (In one instance, Mysterio poses as Spidey's shrink.) Other deceptions include an attempt to fake the death of Spider Man's Aunt May; a trick that convinces Spider Man to see himself as only 6 inches tall ; and an elaborate illusion of a zombie pirate attack. If nothing else, Mysterio is creative. After seven live action "Spider Man" movies, Mysterio (Gyllenhaal) is in the spotlight. One of Six Mysterio is also an original member of the Sinister Six, a group of Spider Man's enemies that occasionally bands together to try to take him down. Introduced in "The Amazing Spider Man Annual" No. 1 in 1964, the original Sinister Six includes five villains who have appeared in Spider Man films: Sandman, Vulture, Electro, Doctor Octopus and Mysterio (maybe next time, Kraven the Hunter). Members have come and gone as they are incarcerated, killed or resurrected, but Mysterio has maintained a fairly steady presence on the roster. A Sinister Six film was planned for release after "The Amazing Spider Man 2" (2014), but Marvel canceled the project after Spider Man's cinematic reboot in "Captain America: Civil War" (2016). Introduced in 1964, the Sinister Six are a group of Spider Man's enemies that occasionally bands together. Mysterio is one of its most consistent members. Although Mysterio is most closely associated with Spider Man, he has also battled other superheroes. In the eight issue "Guardian Devil" story arc of the "Daredevil" comics, published in late '90s and written by the "Clerks" director, Kevin Smith, Mysterio targets Daredevil with an elaborate psychological plot: As if the mood altering drugs weren't enough, it also involves demonic possession, the birth of the Antichrist and a hit man who murders Daredevil's longtime love interest, Karen Page. Mysterio killed himself after receiving a diagnosis of terminal cancer, caused by the radiation emitted by his suit, but he has since returned. In "Old Man Logan," a 2008 9 story arc from the "Wolverine" comics, Mysterio successfully tricks the X Man Wolverine into murdering all of the other X Men by making him think that they are all supervillains attacking their home. The series was later an inspiration for the 2017 film "Logan," but the Mysterio plotline was left on the cutting room floor . Now, after seven live action "Spider Man" movies, Mysterio is starring in a summer blockbuster. Beck is finally getting the A list treatment he always wanted. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
So, the sparkly dresses and heat tech have been worn; the ball, and the other shoe, has dropped. The year 2016 is over, and 2017 has begun. It's no longer time to look back, but to look forward. And what do we see? When it comes to fashion or more important, fashion as it affects life there will be interesting times ahead. Here are some opening thoughts on what to watch for in the coming months. A new look in Washington and Paris. Pantsuits at least on women are out. So are the smart casual no tie look and the hard working look of men in rolled up shirt sleeves. In Washington, we are entering the era of the boxy, oversize suit, the big knot, the taped together tie, and, maybe, European brands. As the Trump administration prepares to move into the executive wing, fashion and the American capital are preparing for a whole new style statement. The inauguration this month will throw down the gauntlet. What the president elect will wear (Brioni is my best guess) may ultimately be less significant than what his wife and eldest daughter will wear. Judging by the designs that Melania and Ivanka Trump wore on the campaign trail and on New Year's Eve, the age of American designers in the White House may be over. On Dec. 31, after all, Melania celebrated in a black Dolce Gabbana sheath (Stefano Gabbana, Instagramming the news, proudly joined the "I will dress Melania" camp). And previously, when stumping for her father, if not in her own brand, Ivanka opted for Roland Mouret and Alexander McQueen. If that pattern continues, that's as big an upending of the soft status quo as anything Mr. Trump has pledged. Come Jan. 20, we'll get the first real sense of what to expect. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Watch Tiffany Haddish's breakout role in "Girls Trip," or a documentary about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. GIRLS TRIP 8 p.m. on HBO. It feels as if Tiffany Haddish is a fact of nature these days, with a starring sitcom role, meme producing long form profiles and countless commercials and talk show appearances. But she didn't break into the public consciousness until last July, when her unrestrained, uproarious performance as Dina in "Girls Trip" made her the star of a movie that also featured Queen Latifah, Regina Hall and Jada Pinkett Smith. "Dina is the crazy snake in the can, the whoopee in the cushion and the movie's biggest, rowdiest laugh generator," Manohla Dargis wrote in her New York Times review. EMPIRE 8 p.m. on Fox. On the brink of a lucrative tech deal, Eddie realizes he must rebrand Empire. A girl group from the past threatens to expose secrets about Empire and Lucious. I AM MLK JR. 9 p.m. on Paramount. "He taught us how to live, and I think he taught us how to die," Congressman John Lewis says in this new special, which is one of several documentaries to explore the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 50 years after his assassination. This one zooms in on King's activism, including the Montgomery bus boycott and the march on Washington, and traces the lineage from those protests to the Black Lives Matter movement. Interviews are conducted with public figures including Jesse Jackson, Van Jones, Carmelo Anthony and the Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King. IRON CHEF GAUNTLET 9 p.m. on the Food Network. This cutthroat series features seven chefs who must first test their skills in the kitchen against one another. When one remains, they will battle the three Iron Chefs Alex Guarnaschelli, Stephanie Izard and Michael Symon in quick succession, in hopes of earning the title. NATIONAL TREASURE: KIRI on Hulu. The first season of this British import arrived last February and was eerily prescient: it depicted an entertainer in the twilight of his career who is facing accusations of sexual assault. The season received spectacular reviews; a new one, subtitled "Kiri," focuses on a young black girl who is set to be adopted by a white family. But right before the adoption is to take place, she disappears; her birth father becomes the top suspect in her kidnapping. As the story takes off in the news, the conflict entangles race, power and privilege in ugly and telling ways. THE IRON GIANT (1999) on Netflix. The titular robot of this film makes a cameo in Steven Spielberg's "Ready Player One" as a ferocious, empty battle prop. But the metallic giant is filled with emotion and a conscience in his own story; he befriends a boy named Hogarth but soon comes under attack from a frightened and trigger happy American government. In his Times review, Lawrence Van Gelder wrote that "adults, more than children, are likely to find stimulation, provocation and controversy" in the film. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
How long has it been since a dance changed the temperature of a Broadway show? In Daniel Fish's unnerving production of "Oklahoma!," the second act opens with a rumble of electric guitar. Its brooding, sexy sound fills the space until a familiar melody takes over: "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin.'" But is it really a beautiful day? By this point, a fog machine has created enough haze to sink a ship. And then comes an odd yet arresting sight: A dancer, Gabrielle Hamilton, walks to the center of the plywood stage. She lingers long enough to gaze at audience members, who ring the performance area on three sides. Soon she sets off, galloping around the perimeter with her hands in front of her body crossed at the wrists. Her glittering white top grazes her mid thigh and reads "Dream Baby Dream." For the show's choreographer, John Heginbotham, the shirt is an instruction for the viewer. As he put it in a recent interview: "Please, now, take this time to dream." When Rodgers Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" was first unveiled in 1943, its dream ballet, masterminded by the choreographer Agnes de Mille, was a game changer. Instead of incorporating dance as filler, it advanced the plot by showing the emotional trauma of the heroine, Laurey, who is being wooed by two men, one seemingly wholesome (Curly), the other sinister (Jud Fry). The year before, de Mille had explored the theme of sexual awakening with her ballet drama "Rodeo." The new dream ballet, which Mr. Heginbotham called an "expressionist explosion," also unlocks Laurey's sexuality. But Mr. Heginbotham, 48, has revised it for the modern world, making a dance about outsiders that brings to mind issues of race, inequality and the treatment of women. Both visually and sonically, it's different from anything else in the show. Mr. Heginbotham, a member of the Mark Morris Dance Group before forming his own company, has brought barefoot modern dance to Broadway. Read about the theater auteur Daniel Fish's unlikely debut on Broadway. It fits with this nontraditional staging of "Oklahoma!" The band is onstage, chili is served at intermission and the first row of audience members sits at picnic tables, part of the action. It's like being in a barn. There is a purposeful roughness to Mr. Fish's production the singing, the dancing, the acting and even the costumes. "These people are trying to survive," Mr. Heginbotham said. "What does it mean if you're trying to survive and you have a dream? What does it mean to sexually awaken when everything is so uncertain?" It's a stark contrast to the surreal dream ballet, which has gone through many iterations since Mr. Heginbotham began working with Mr. Fish at Bard College in 2015. At that time, Mr. Fish wasn't sure what role dance would have in the show. Mr. Heginbotham worked with the actors and the musicians there were no dancers trying out a variety of scenarios, including one in which Jud and Curly disrobed and changed costumes. "Throughout all of these experiments, the idea was really around trying to capture something narrative in the dream ballet," he said. "That is so much a part of the Agnes de Mille version. Even though there are surreal elements to it, you're still seeing versions of the characters play out a literal narrative. Whenever we tried to incorporate those narrative ideas in this production, it never felt satisfying." Then, in 2017, before "Oklahoma!" opened at St. Ann's Warehouse, where it became a big enough hit to warrant a move to Broadway, Mr. Fish returned to a previous question: What if there was a ballet? What if actual dancing happened? They decided to bring in dancers for a three day workshop. Mr. Heginbotham was a bit skeptical: "I was like, We're going to walk in and within 10 minutes it's going to be frustrating, and we're not going to want to continue with it." Instead, they started building a choreographic vocabulary that, to Mr. Heginbotham, seemed to be in line with what Mr. Fish wanted to accomplish with the dream ballet. "Change the space," Mr. Heginbotham said. "Change the way we experience the show." Mr. Heginbotham met Mr. Fish through mutual friends when Mr. Fish was working on the Bard SummerScape version of the show and needed a choreographer. "Musical theater was something I grew up with and was very loved by me and our family," Mr. Heginbotham said. "I was like, Oh my God I'm going to have an opportunity to maybe work on a musical?" Mr. Fish asked him questions about the role dance might have in the show, "which was very undetermined back in 2015," Mr. Heginbotham said. But now it's easy to see how the dance acts as a bridge between Act I, which while haunting is full of humor, and Act 2, which becomes increasingly menacing. The dream ballet has also changed for the better since St. Ann's. Part of that has to do with the size of the stage: At Circle in the Square it is slightly smaller, which lends it more intimacy. At the same time, it has an openness because the entire stage is visible. This is a landscape ballet, which suits the setting: It's kind of like looking at a prairie. And the captivating Ms. Hamilton bald, African American and just 5 foot 1 holds it. Keeping it so personal is perhaps what makes the number seem universal. It is, like Mr. Heginbotham said, a space for dreaming. At one point during its creation, Mr. Heginbotham questioned a choice Ms. Hamilton had made and asked Mr. Fish, "Is that how that character would behave?" Mr. Heginbotham winced at the memory. "He looked at me incredulously, and he said my name which I knew was really serious: 'John, what's the difference?' But what he meant was, what do you mean, character? It's Gabbie. We're watching Gabrielle dance." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
From left, Josh Hamilton, Danny McCarthy and Josh Charles are brainstorming but about what? in Annie Baker's "The Antipodes." Just exactly how many kinds of stories are there, anyway? The tallies vary in "The Antipodes," Annie Baker's in all ways fabulous new play about professional fabulators in pursuit of the ultimate yarn. One character in this endlessly fascinating work, which opened on Sunday in a Signature Theater production, puts the number of variations at 10. Another insists it's six. And still another has come up with 36 versions, though when he itemizes them, he only reaches 19. Whatever the quantity, it's hard to imagine a work that touches on as many of those possibilities as "The Antipodes," or makes as strong a case for the pervasiveness of storytelling in all aspects of our existence. What's more, unlike her perpetually thwarted characters, who chase their ideas with the exasperation of dogs running after their tails, Ms. Baker delivers a complete and confident narrative. Now "complete" may not be the term you'd apply to a play as steeped in ambiguities as this one. "The Antipodes" portrays a never ending brainstorming session for unspecified purposes in an unspecified place. Yet as directed with a time blurring seamlessness by Lila Neugebauer, and acted by a perfectly blended ensemble of nine, "The Antipodes" leaves you glowing with a wondering satisfaction. I mean the happy satiety that comes from being in the hands of a real right brain/left brain author who channels her ineffable instincts with a master artisan's practical skills. Granted, Ms. Baker, who during the past decade has established herself as one of the freshest voices in American theater, has never been everyone's cup of moonshine. Outraged theatergoers regularly walked out on the Playwrights Horizons production of "The Flick," her three hour, four character portrait of the rudderless employees of a dying movie theater. (Of course, "The Flick" then picked up the 2014 Pulitzer Prize and had a healthy commercial run Off Broadway.) "The Antipodes" is only 115 (intermission free) minutes long. But while it's anchored with the character defining specifics and social detail that naturalistic writers live for, it is also Ms. Baker's most abstract play. And it has very little plot except that, in another sense, it's nothing but plot. Or rather plots, of every conceivable stripe, which bubble and spurt from the mouths of everyone onstage. The setting is a conference room, which I would wager is somewhere on the West Coast, though spiritually we may as well be in the far flung regions of the title. As rendered by the set designer Laura Jellinek, this room is centered on a long oval desk over which hangs a long oval lighting fixture, which is put to subliminally unsettling use. (Tyler Micoleau did the whisper subtle lighting.) She also provides evidence of her peerless ear for contemporary language; in this case, it's the lingo of creative corporate speak, with its calculated humblebrag, masturbational jaw flapping and implicit sexism. (There's only one woman among the eight people at the table.) As usual, Ms. Baker is asking us to ponder just how we communicate, or fail to. There's a hilarious technologically facilitated (and garbled) exchange with an unseen Godlike eminence named Max, voiced by Hugh Dancy. But just what is the objective of all this feverish talk? The team's leader, Sandy (a perfect Will Patton), a weather beaten dude swathed in dressed down black and weary charisma, begins the session with an edict: "No dwarves or elves or trolls." So maybe it's a new video game they're trying to come up with? Or a Netflix series? Or a blockbuster fantasy movie? Don't bother trying to piece together an answer. Ms. Baker deliberately refrains from providing definitive clues. All we know is that these people are being asked to keep coming up with narratives, the more personal the better, in the hopes that something will jell. The important thing, says Sandy, is that "we don't feel like we have to self censor and we can all just sit around telling stories. Because that's where the good stuff comes from." So we start off with "how I lost my virginity" anecdotes, and move on to tales of professional mentors and crazy employees and (when Sandy's out of the room) anxious speculation on how it's all going. Gradually, an air of surrealism sets in, the distorting hyper awareness bred of too much talk and too little sleep, and the stories become more fantastical. A tale that might have come from the Brothers Grimm is presented, deadpan, as a true memory of adolescence. By the end, what we're hearing (and even seeing acted out) are the most primal of creation myths and sacred rituals. These are stories that float into the ether, beyond the think tanks' realm of commodification. Time is much discussed in "The Antipodes." (Is it vertical or horizontal?) And one of the production's many interwoven marvels is how it distorts our sense of time passing in the conference room. When did those plates of Japanese takeout materialize? How did that scrap of knitting turn into a full sweater without our noticing? Though there are few scene defining blackouts, we sense that an uninterrupted conversation might be a composite of many days of talk. Besides, pretty much every time Sandy's gal Friday, Sarah (a priceless Nicole Rodenburg), shows up, she's wearing a new outfit. (Kaye Voyce did the spot on costumes.) Sarah helps alert us as to what's going on outside, as Sandy takes more and more time off and the weather turns apocalyptic. Under the direction of Ms. Neugebauer, who presided over the dazzling ensemble of Sarah DeLappe's "The Wolves," the cast members fully and individually embody their characters' self conscious selves. I can't possibly single one out, so let me list those I haven't already mentioned: Phillip James Brannon, Josh Charles, Josh Hamilton, Danny Mastrogiorgio, Danny McCarthy, Emily Cass McDonnell and Brian Miskell. "The Antipodes" is also deeply funny, but it's naturally funny, and if it's a satire, it's an organic one. This playwright doesn't need to exaggerate to elicit what's absurd in the human condition. Ms. Baker hears the roar of eternity in the babble of our existence, and the futile heroism in our unending attempts to tell tales that might make sense of it all. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
In January, the stand up comic Carmen Lynch told a joke on "The Tonight Show" about dating a man turning 50. "The other day, he came up to me and said: 'Please live with me'" she said, hands on heart. "I said: "Please live." The joke got laughs and a smattering of applause, but a killer set on late night doesn't mean what it did decades ago. "You get respect from your peers and your agent sends you an email, but I don't think it changes your life," Lynch explained over Skype. By November, however, a transformed version of that joke went viral, and in the process brought her new audiences and helped change her artistic process. The bit's evolution provides a case study in the life span of a joke in the age of social media, and how the pandemic is changing comedy. Lynch, who is five years younger than her boyfriend, has been a respected if not famous comic for years, a regular at the Comedy Cellar with six late night TV sets on her resume. Her dry delivery and concise jokes put her in the comedic family tree of Steven Wright and Mitch Hedberg. She had been telling that joke about her boyfriend in a fairly unadorned deadpan for three years. "It always worked because it's so simple," she said. Anticipating the shutdown in February, she recorded one of her last sets on the road in Bloomington, Ind., and released it as an album in July, with a similar version of the boyfriend joke. But this time she added a small laugh to soften its harsh tone. Sales were modest. After clubs closed, Lynch adjusted, trying rooftop, park and Zoom shows. She started two podcasts ("The Human Centipod," with the boyfriend from the joke, and "Conversando Con Carmen," in Spanish). But as weeks turned to months, Lynch started focusing more time on social media (her accounts are all named carmencomedian). Until this year, her attitude toward people doing jokes on TikTok veered between indifference and jealousy. She believed the live experience of stand up did not translate. But necessity forced experimentation. Her early attempts were halfhearted and sporadic, rerunning old late night sets, which earned hundreds of views. What changed everything was a sex joke. (Of course this is the internet.) She knew that divisive content generated traffic, so she tried a joke poking fun at her boyfriend for asking if her eyes rolled back during sex because she was experiencing so much pleasure. Then she erupted in mocking laughter. It instantly got attention, hitting tens of thousands of views right away and growing into the millions. This piqued her curiosity. Why did this one video work so much better than others? To understand, she signed up for an online class with a digital marketing consultant, and after looking at the video, he said the laugh was key. It engaged people. She noticed many of the comments were about the laugh. And something else he said stuck with her: "If it works, milk it." Lynch started thinking about jokes she told with laughs, gags she could isolate and redo for TikTok. Even though she wondered if the platform's young audience would relate, she thought of her joke about her boyfriend turning 50. She taped the joke on a bed, trying out different cackles, placing her face behind the pillows. Onstage, her laugh was meant to soften the punchline, but here, she leaned into it. This laugh was overtly fake, theatrical even. It was the focus. She began with the title: "My boyfriend will not like this joke." "It's clickbait," she said matter of factly. "Social media is visual and this draws people in." After a video is shot, TikTok suggests music to accompany it. She didn't like the suggestions, but they inspired her to add an instrumental version of "Mrs. Robinson" from "The Graduate." It wasn't just a knowing reference to the affair with an older person from the movie. "It's kind of a mean joke so I wanted to add a contrasting lovey song to it," she said. This new joke managed to be entirely different from the original without changing the words. What began as a deadpan quip became something much broader, more physical, exposing a sillier side of Lynch. Onstage, she can seem aloof. But here, in this intimate video, she was ingratiatingly goofy. Lynch said partly this was because she was performing home alone and felt relaxed, but paradoxically, she sees this version of her as more of a performance. "TikTok feels more like a character," she said. "More of a persona, like I'm just acting." Whatever she was doing, it worked. The video took off, rocketing to a million views, and in the past month, as she posted clips daily, her followers tripled. She even started receiving small payments from TikTok, earning 100 in the past month. "There are more old people on TikTok than I realized," she said. "I don't know if that's because of Covid and people are bored, but they're out there." After posting the video on other platforms, she found that the joke didn't have the same impact on each one. She was far less successful on Instagram and barely made a ripple on Twitter. TikTok is more likely to show videos from people who aren't following you, which can expose you to new fans. In an effort to compete, Instagram started a TikTok like service, Reels, in August. That's where Lynch had the most success with the boyfriend joke, racking up 2.5 million views. After struggling to raise her Instagram follower count, she's seen major growth since that joke went viral. "I was at 12,400 forever and even when I did Fallon, I might have gotten 500, but in the last two weeks, I had 5,000 new followers and that's from Reels." These are still small numbers compared with popular influencers, and most comics like Carmen Lynch are not going to make a living off social media. They are aiming to build their audience and hoping that translates to ticket sales when live shows return. Comics tend to be alert to the audience, but many veterans have chosen not to spend much time telling jokes on social media. Some aren't digital natives, some understandably think stand up is an inextricably live form and others see social media as beneath them. But like it or not, these platforms are where much of the comedy audience is now. The pandemic has accelerated the transition to digital, and there will be an impact on the business and aesthetic of comedy. It matters that a club crowd's laugh is less quantifiable than the raw numbers on social media. With those numbers, artists can tell what people like with more specificity. In the last few months, Lynch said, she learned that captions in black draw more eyeballs for her than red ones. And hashtagging doesn't always benefit her. Also, TikTok is quicker to censor than Instagram or the other platforms. Her "Queen's Gambit" parody was taken down because of a reference to drugs, and she joked that she had soured on TikTok. "I preferred Instagram and then when I went viral on TikTok, it's 'Instagram who?'" she said. "Now it's Reels. I go where I'm loved." This year, Lynch went from all but ignoring doing jokes on social media to spending eight to 10 hours a week making new videos. She's now talking with other social media consultants to see how she can increase her numbers. "I'm just trying to keep up with the Joneses," she said, adding it's the new normal. In an email, she wrote: "I miss stand up, but in the meantime, I'm learning a few things." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
Jaffa, the age old Abbott to youthful Tel Aviv's Costello, is an ancient port in the midst of a luxury renaissance. This 3,000 year old harbor is a labyrinth of white stone alleys, hushed mosques and markets brimming with antiques and spices. But the district, once claimed by King David, the Pharaohs and even Napoleon, has for decades been in the shadow of shiny Tel Aviv. It was absorbed into greater Tel Aviv in 1950 and has long been seen as the humbler, more downtrodden section of the city. Not so anymore: Historical Jaffa, it's fair to say, has gone full throttle luxe. Three new luxury properties The Setai Tel Aviv (in a former Ottoman prison with Crusader era origins); The Jaffa (an Aby Rosen recreation of a former hospice for malaria victims) and The Drisco, a revival of Jaffa's first luxury hotel, shuttered since 1940) opened last year, within spitting distance of each other. And that's not all: Add to the mix of this major makeover a new lush Japanese spa, a bustling night life district and a flea market packed with restaurants led by major Israeli chefs. "Jaffa is the hottest area in Tel Aviv the energy and authenticity, coupled with the creativity seen in the ancient architecture, the local artists, galleries and not to mention the amazing food and the sea it's all part of the appeal," says Mr. Rosen, the New York City based real estate mogul with a portfolio of more than 70 property investments and developments across the globe. "Jaffa has all the components to be the next big thing." The gentrification hasn't pleased everyone. Jaffa for centuries has been a stronghold of Arab and Muslim life. In 1948, when the State of Israel was founded, most of Jaffa's Arab residents were forcibly removed from their homes. Today the district is one of the few areas of the country with a mixed Arab and Jewish population, and as luxury projects have moved in, so have accusations that the city's Muslim history is being erased. The Israeli architect and conservationist Ramy Gil recalled that 20 years ago vacant buildings abounded in Jaffa, and he had become obsessed with one of them: a peeling 19th century plaza that once housed The School of the Sisterhood St. Joseph's Convent and Jaffa's French Hospital, so named because its founder, the Lyon based Francois Guinet, insisted on using entirely French building methods for its construction. Its walls were rotting, its central terrace was packed with garbage, and creeping weeds covered former malaria wards. Deep beneath its structure, however, Mr. Gil was sure there was a buried treasure: an intact stone wall, dating back to the Crusader period, that had once formed the perimeter of a 12th century fortress. His hunch was spot on. Today, when guests step into the cool, light washed lobby of The Jaffa Hotel, a sparkling property that opened last summer, their eyes are drawn to that graceful ribbon of stone, now excavated, shined up and extending through the glass enclosed seating area and out into the hotel's lush courtyard. The five star property takes its name from the famed Jaffa orange, a citrus with few seeds that is particularly sweet. The hotel, which was purchased by Mr. Rosen's U.S. based RFR Holding, designed by John Pawson and is now part of the Luxury Collection by Marriott, opened a stone's throw from Yoko Kitahara, an opulent new Japanese spa; from the handsome St. Peter's church, with its New Spanish Baroque architecture and towering belfry; and from Jaffa's elegantly restored Old City, anchored by its Ottoman era clock tower. Jaffa's resurrection began in 2007, when the Tel Aviv Jaffa municipality renovated its ancient port said to be where Jonah set out to meet his whale and brought in restaurants, businesses and a food hall. The municipality then invested 225 million in its downtrodden flea market, which today is a treasure trove of antiques by day and a bustling hub of twinkling lights, al fresco cafes and impossibly trendy bars by night. In 2016, OCD, a wild gastronomic experiment from the Tel Aviv prodigy Raz Rahav, raised the culinary bar in Jaffa, and a slew of restaurants led by celebrity chefs followed. Then came Beit Kandinof a buzzing gathering space that is part artists' studio and part bar and restaurant, housed in a 17th century villa. Lately, the pace of new bakeries (like the Instagram ready Milk Bakery), restaurants like the chef Uri Levy's Raisa Bar and creative spaces like 8 in Jaffa and Yafo Creative, has been dizzying. But the prologue to all this development moved at a much slower pace. Mr. Gil spent years trying to convince the Israeli authorities to allow excavations underneath the French Hospital before finally earning a permit to unearth the Crusader wall as well as original stone columns and a slew of archaeological treasures that he knew were buried there. "This is artwork enough," Mr. Gil says of the site. "You don't have to embellish an embellished product." A short walk away in Jaffa's American Colony neighborhood, where 100 year old clapboard houses offer a reminder of the Christian pilgrims from New England who settled there in the 1880s, another restored building has been revived as a grand hotel. The Drisco, a 42 room property breathes life back into a majestic Ottoman building from 1866. Formerly known as the Jerusalem Hotel, the Drisco's structure was built by two evangelical Christian brothers who wanted a luxury stopover for pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. The building, which was converted into British military headquarters during World War II before sitting abandoned for 50 years, now sports elegant tiling, sophisticated decor and hand painted recreations of the building's original murals. And across the street from the landmark Jaffa Clock Tower, a limestone column built by a Jew 100 years ago to honor the Ottoman reign in Palestine, sits the sprawling Setai Tel Aviv. This resort has layers upon layers of history. The basement level spa and gym were carved around Crusader era walls and the upper level guest rooms have been renovated from a former Turkish prison, which later became a Jewish run prison after the founding of the State of Israel, and housed notorious criminals including the Nazi Adolf Eichmann. The Jaffa Hotel opened to guests in August, and shortly after, The Chapel bar housed in the convent's original chapel hall became the site of nightly dance parties. Don Camillo, the on site restaurant run by the New York based Major Food Group, is also packed each night. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
In 2017, having realized how much business the gallery did through online previews before art fairs, the dealer David Zwirner decided to develop virtual viewing rooms. Now, as art fairs are canceled, museums close and auction houses consider whether to call off their spring sales in response to the coronavirus, Mr. Zwirner seems prescient. This week Art Basel will, for the first time, offer online viewing rooms to replace the Hong Kong fair that was canceled this month because of the pandemic. More than 230 dealers who planned to bring work to Asia will instead offer some 2,000 pieces through the virtual fair with an estimated value of 270 million, including 70 items over 1 million. And galleries throughout the United States are considering web based works and curated online exhibitions. The future has "arrived so much sooner," Mr. Zwirner said. "If galleries are closed, how can we sell art? The online platform is something we have envisioned as an important part of what we do." "In a funny way, the art world is late to the party if you think about other retail experiences," he added. Many in the art world say an online viewing room cannot replace the firsthand experience of encountering a painting or a sculpture in person. But collectors have grown comfortable buying based on PDF images of artists they know from galleries they trust. Both galleries and auction houses have even made some significant sales based on images posted on Instagram. And when visiting a work of art becomes impossible, a digital substitute is better than not seeing the art at all. Some point to the added value that online viewing rooms can provide, namely historical context through accompanying scholarly essays; the ability to reach collectors who can't easily travel to galleries or art fairs; and leaving much less of a carbon footprint by eliminating shipping and flights to fairs. Online art fairs could also foster a potential democratization by removing the intimidation factor of walking into a gallery or auction house and, perhaps most notably, by posting prices in an art market that is typically opaque. "You do need to eventually see things physically," said the artist Lisa Yuskavage. "However, dissemination is now digital and there is an upside to it. People don't have to know you're looking. You don't have to buy art to look at the viewing rooms." Marc Spiegler, the global director of Art Basel, said the quick pivot to online viewing rooms which will be available to V.I.P.s on Wednesday and to the public on Friday was possible only because of the decision sometime ago to develop online viewing rooms to supplement the fair experience. "The infrastructure was in place," Mr. Spiegler said. Such virtual buying experiences may become increasingly necessary for the art market, given current restrictions on congregating. The Tefaf Maastricht fair closed early last week after an exhibitor tested positive for the coronavirus. Art Cologne, the world's oldest art fair, has been postponed from April to November. Whether Frieze New York and Tefaf New York Spring will take place in May, as planned, or Art Basel Switzerland in June, has yet to be determined. After the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its decision on Thursday to temporarily close, the rest of the art world fell like dominoes, with one major museum after another following suit, as well as just about every gallery though some are shifting to appointment only visitation. Galleries are adjusting to this new reality. Not all of those in the Hong Kong fair have signed on for the online version (Mr. Spiegler said about 95 percent are participating). Some galleries are encouraging potential visitors "to visit and explore our exhibitions online," as Van Doren Waxter said in a recent email announcing its temporary closure, "and our Richard Diebenkorn exhibition is accessible here." Jack Shainman gallery in Manhattan said in its announcement that "digital walk throughs" of shows by the artists Becky Suss and Vibha Galhotra "are available upon request." Although Acquavella will have a viewing room in the online fair, this high end gallery has been slow to get on the digital train. "We've definitely thought about it, but we have not taken the necessary steps to do it properly," said Nick Acquavella, a partner. "We don't want to close our minds to something new that could be potentially beneficial, but we also don't have to be the tip of the spear." Artists might be expected to be less than enthusiastic about having their work purchased the way one would a sweater or shoes (though you can't click and buy yet; those interested have to contact the gallery through email). But several said they are intrigued by this new frontier. "They feel personal, they feel intimate," said the artist Jeff Koons of online viewing rooms. "I love looking at images. I can be just as happy to look at an image of a Manet painting online. It's really about the stimulation that a work has for you. "Of course it's great to see the original, but sometimes the lighting may not be as nice," he added. "There are always pros and cons to everything, but the positive aspect of having these platforms is that it's good for the dialogue of art." Pace, which first launched online viewing rooms privately last year, began offering them to the public on Monday, starting with one on the artist Sam Gilliam. The gallery will continue with a series of thematic online presentations including others on ceramics and photographic artists during its temporary closure. Mr. Zwirner has presented 50 viewing rooms in the last three years, and says that online sales increased 400 percent in just the last year. The gallery's viewing room for Art Basel Hong Kong its largest to date, with a total value of more than 16 million will debut a new work by Mr. Koons, along with art by Noah Davis, Marlene Dumas, Kerry James Marshall and Alice Neel. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
SAN FRANCISCO Nvidia said on Sunday that it would acquire the British chip designer Arm from SoftBank in deal worth about 40 billion, a move that could reshape the battle over technology that powers smartphones and data centers. Nvidia, best known for supplying chips that render images in video games, said it would pay SoftBank a combination of cash and shares in the transaction. Nvidia's market capitalization has skyrocketed to over 300 billion lately, partly owing to recent success in artificial intelligence applications and pandemic fueled growth in chips used for PC gaming. If completed, the transaction would instantly transform Nvidia into one of the most influential players in smartphone technology, a market that had previously eluded it. Arm, which licenses designs that other companies turn into chips, has long defined the computing technology found in most mobile devices. And Arm designs are starting to play a bigger role in cloud data centers. But the deal is likely to prompt close scrutiny by antitrust authorities around the world. Influential Arm customers potentially affected by the transaction include Apple, Samsung Electronics, Amazon.com, Qualcomm and Huawei. Arm, which was acquired by SoftBank in 2016, is widely perceived as an independent entity that gives equal treatment to all licensees. Industry executives and analysts have pointed to potential conflicts if a company received technical assistance from an Nvidia owned Arm that could give its own chip business unfair advantages over other licensees. "Arm's business model is brilliant," he wrote in a letter to Nvidia employees on Sunday. "We will maintain its open licensing model and customer neutrality, serving customers in any industry, across the world." Nvidia also said it would keep operating Arm from Cambridge, England, and honor commitments SoftBank made to keep investing in Britain. Mr. Huang said he and Simon Segars, Arm's chief executive, had already held initial talks with British officials, who were "delighted" with the company's expansion plans. But the deal is already facing some criticism in Britain. Hermann Hauser, Arm's co founder, said a takeover by an American company would lead to British job losses and leave businesses that use Arm semiconductor technology vulnerable to future American actions against China. As technology has become a geopolitical battleground between the United States and China, the Trump administration has taken steps to limit what technology American companies can export to China. "I think it's an absolute disaster for Cambridge, the U.K. and Europe," Mr. Hauser said Monday morning on the BBC's "Today" program. Under the terms of the transaction approved by the boards of Nvidia, SoftBank and Arm Nvidia will pay SoftBank 21.5 billion in stock and 12 billion in cash, which includes 2 billion payable at signing. SoftBank may also receive up to 5 billion in cash or common stock if Arm meets certain financial targets. Nvidia will issue 1.5 billion in equity to Arm employees. For SoftBank, the deal represents a respectable exit from a 32 billion acquisition that had not produced the benefits expected by its chief, Masayoshi Son. Arm has pushed into many kinds of internet connected devices, as expected, but profits have been squeezed by spending on hiring and other factors. "SoftBank is excited to invest in Arm's long term success as a major shareholder in Nvidia," Mr. Son said in a statement. For Nvidia, the transaction elevates a company that for decades labored in the shadows of giants like Intel in setting key technical directions for Silicon Valley. Mr. Huang was early to recognize that chores such as computer graphics weren't handled well by the general purpose processors of the kind popularized by Intel. Nvidia built a business on adding specialized accelerator chips, mainly through add in circuit boards plugged into PCs. Mr. Huang later bet shrewdly on modifying its chips and developing software to enable scientific and later artificial intelligence applications. In another aggressive move, Mr. Huang opted to pay 7 billion for Mellanox, an Israeli maker of networking chips, in a deal that closed in April. He told analysts in August that the Mellanox deal was essential because cloud services are increasingly not being run on a single server. Instead, portions of applications are being distributed among various chips and systems in a data center, requiring more and more communications between the machines, he said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
George Takei, who is perhaps best known for playing the helmsman Hikaru Sulu on the original "Star Trek" television and film series, is boldly going into a new arena: graphic novels. The story of Mr. Takei's life, particularly his time as a 5 year old when he and his family were sent to live in government internment camps during World War II, will be published as a graphic novel by IDW next year. "I have spoken publicly on numerous occasions during my life on the unjust internment," he said in a statement on Friday, describing his "ongoing mission of spreading awareness of this disgraceful chapter of American history." In October 2015, the Broadway musical "Allegiance," starring Mr. Takei, also told a version of his story. But the graphic novel would make it even more accessible, especially to younger readers, he said. Mr. Takei will narrate the graphic novel and guide readers through the family's life under confinement and the aftermath as well as his rise to fame and activism. The as yet untitled graphic novel will be published in 2018 and scripted by Justin Eisinger and Steven Scott. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
OAKLAND, Calif. Apple said it would close most of its retail stores outside mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, becoming one of the first companies to take such a drastic measure to fight the coronavirus outbreak. The move signaled that retailers might be the next part of society to shut their doors. Apple is closing more than 450 stores across 21 countries until March 27. "The most effective way to minimize risk of the virus's transmission is to reduce density and maximize social distance," Timothy D. Cook, the company's chief executive, said in a statement posted on Friday to the company's website. Apple said employees at its closed stores would be paid as normal. Apple's move was a stark example of how the epicenter of the virus has now spread well beyond China. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
While hotels have long offered daytime activities to introduce guests to local experiences, a number of properties are now staying up much later. Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco in Tuscany has moonlight horseback rides, with the option to stop at an osteria or farmhouse for Tuscan delicacies (about 210 per person with a guide, including dinner). For guests who want to stay fit, the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess is offering an LED HoopFit class, with glowing hoops in a twilight outdoor workout ( 55 per person). W Retreat Spa on Vieques Island in Puerto Rico offers free weekly glow in the dark yoga classes, complete with body paint, fluorescent black lights and glow bands. The Costa Rica Marriott in San Jose recently introduced a Candlelight Experience at its Kuo Spa, with massages that involve substances like volcanic ash. These are set in the property's 30 acre coffee plantation beneath Arabica trees (the Candlelight Experience costs 50 with the purchase of any spa treatment). In St. Lucia, Capella Marigot Bay offers lunar based spa treatments during the full and new moon cycles ( 210 for two hours). | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
In Butler's painting of the 1918 eclipse, a corona of burnished orange encases the void of the blacked out sun, while the sky is mottled by gray black clouds that recall the light effects of Frederic Edwin Church, Albert Bierstadt and other American landscape artists. It hangs here as part of a triptych of eclipse "portraits." His painting of the solar eclipse of 1923, which Butler observed from California, includes a flash of yellow on the border of the black sun: one of the so called Baily's beads, a phenomenon just before the totality when the disappearing sun condenses into a single excrescence of blinding light. Two years later, in Connecticut, he saw another eclipse, this one resulting in especially long shafts of white that cut through the cloud cover. Those are the ectoplasmic wisps of the corona that scientists obsess over, and that more art inclined observers may see as recalling the glowing halos of Renaissance painting. In an age before photography could fully capture solar eclipses, Butler's paintings were hailed as not just a personal impression but as a vital scholastic tool. In the mid 1920s he began to consult for the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and he designed a large astronomical wing whose construction was scuppered by the Depression. During this time Butler painted a number of otherworldly celestial scenes: our blue marble of a planet seen from the craggy lunar surface, or a vermilion Mars as viewed from its own two moons. Here observation gives way to imagination the surface of Deimos, the outer Martian satellite, appears as parched clay but these too relied on models and calculations of atmosphere, shadow and light refraction. He did allow himself one indulgence, though. At the bottom of "Mars as Seen From Phobos," in the shadow of the red planet, is the outline of a human head. Presumably it's the artist's own, painting en plein air where there's no air to speak of. If you can't make it to Princeton, check out the robust website devoted to "Transient Effects," which features not only Butler's beguiling paintings but also centuries of art, not on view at the museum, engaged with eclipses and the relationship between heaven and earth. Long before Shakespeare set his eclipse upon Scotland, the Gospel of Luke described the lights going out after the death of Christ, and eclipses frequently appear in Crucifixion scenes by painters such as Matthias Grunewald (who may have seen an eclipse in 1502). Japanese printmakers used eclipses to heighten the spookiness of ghost scenes, while modern artists from Joseph Cornell to Roy Lichtenstein and Alma Thomas painted eclipses with both an awe for science and a freedom reserved for artists. They were, perhaps unwittingly, following in the tradition of Howard Russell Butler, for whom painting had a vocation as fundamental as the sun. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times CROW AGENCY, Mont. Richard Long Feather is searching for his son Jace among the bareback riders as they storm toward the grandstand at the Crow Fair. Stepping away from the rail and onto the dirt of the track, Richard raises his arms above his head as a signal: In one motion, he is telling Jace where to aim and warning Jace's horse to slow down. Before Jace even reaches his father, he leaps from the back of his horse. Hitting the ground bounding, Jace grabs a handful of mane of a second horse, held by his brother, Jestin, and swings himself onto its back. Jestin slaps the second mount on the rump, and it fires back onto the track. Richard hands off the first horse to a fourth teammate and braces for the next exchange. Dust swirls. The crowd cheers. For the Long Feathers, races likes these are both a family undertaking and a deep rooted passion, a form of competition practiced and sustained by Native American tribes in the plains states. In Indian Relay's traditional form, one rider completes three circuits of a track, changing his mount after each loop. Each race features up to eight teams consisting of a rider, three steely handlers and three horses. The competitors ride bareback, using only reins and a whip to stay on. As the rider approaches the starting line for each successive lap, he leaps from a running horse onto a fresh one. It is dangerous, athletic and intensely competitive. Richard Long Feather, the head of his family and his team, was born in 1963 on the Standing Rock reservation, which straddles the border of North and South Dakota and which is home to the Hunkpapa band of the Lakota to which he belongs. Raised by his grandparents, he spoke only Lakota until he was 5. The first horse he rode was yoked to his grandfather's wagon as it delivered water and provisions to isolated families. As an adult, he and his wife, Virginia, settled their young family near Fort Yates, N.D., where Richard taught his children to ride. The Long Feathers entered their first Indian Relay in 2013. Jace Long Feather, 21, has ridden in relay races since he was 14. At 6 feet, he would dwarf a typical jockey, and he moves like a point guard. He prefers wrestling shoes to riding boots, and favors gym shorts and side cut T shirts. Training for relays is a constant. "You hate it; you don't want to wake up," Jace said of the 6 a.m. weight lifting and agility workouts that fill his winter months. Conditioning for the horses starts early, as well. "This year we started and there was still three feet of snow on the ground," he said. "Make 'em jump through those big snow banks. It just builds 'em up." In the springtime Jace and Jestin move to the track to train the horses in pairs, working on their exchanges. These split second handoffs are the key to Indian Relay success. The top relay teams all have quality horses, but every competitor knows a relay is won or lost in the exchanges: If the two transitions are not performed flawlessly, it will not make much difference how fast the horses are. At the Crow Fair in August, the Long Feathers draw the first heat in Saturday's preliminary races. The fair draws among the biggest crowds of the season as many as 50,000 attendees each year and families travel hundreds of miles to take in the events and celebrate their heritage. As post time nears, Richard fills a can with dried sage and lights it. While the boys wrap the legs of the three horses they will run Cabaret, Mr. Coke Man and Runaway Cal Richard makes his way from stall to stall, wafting the gray smoke over the horses' backs, half singing prayers in Lakota for speed and safety in the race Ken Real Bird, a Crow horseman, calls the races at the fair. He has seen the sport grow from a bush league pastime to a high stakes competition, with purses worth tens of thousands of dollars. No one knows for sure when Indian Relay began in its modern iteration. The Shoshone Bannock Tribe in Idaho claims to be the originator of the sport, but Real Bird notes that the first Crow Fair, in 1904, had horse racing. The first heat goes well for the Long Feathers. The exchanges are smooth, and Jace runs hard for second place but is caught at the wire and finishes third. It is good enough to secure a spot in the Sunday's championship race, but Jace knows it won't be easy. Teams are getting better every year. "Two years ago, you could be good and win anywhere," he said. "Now, you've got to be good just to keep up." It isn't just the riders who have to be skilled athletes. The setup man who holds the next mount as the rider circles the track on Richard's team, this is Jestin's job has to be a great horseman, too. "It's impossible to hold a horse still for longer than a minute," Real Bird said. "You've got to let a horse be a horse." And the catcher Richard, on Team Long Feather who must stop the speeding horse that arrives has to be fearless. "He's going to get run over," Real Bird said, "and he's got to be O.K. with that." The Crow Fair races offer unsatisfying results for the Long Feather team: Jace finishes in fifth place, though the family still heads home with a check. As the sun rises the next day, Richard pulls into his driveway and unloads the horses. Restless after hours in the trailer, they sprint off over the prairie. In minutes, they are out of sight. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
Via the family of Valery Volovenko "Papers Detail Soviet Hopes for Sanders" (front page, March 6) is a distortion of history. The truth is that Bernie Sanders, then the mayor of Burlington, Vt., opened a sister city relationship with Yaroslavl in 1988 with the encouragement and strong support of the United States government. The visit was not used as propaganda by the Soviet Union. I know because I was U.S. ambassador to the U.S.S.R. at the time and gave strong official support to Mayor Sanders's effort, along with those of other American mayors, to establish ties with cities in the Soviet Union. Expanding people to people ties was one of the important goals of President Ronald Reagan's policy toward the U.S.S.R., a policy that was continued by President George H.W. Bush. The explanation the Soviets gave to local Communist officials in Yaroslavl that sister city relationships are useful for "carrying out information propaganda efforts" was actually an effort to justify Mikhail Gorbachev's new openness to people who had no contacts with Americans and were trained to see all Americans as spies. In fact, the contacts played an important role in opening up Soviet society and facilitating Mr. Gorbachev's reforms. Jack F. Matlock Jr. Durham, N.C. The writer is the author of "Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended." In 1985, three years before Mayor Bernie Sanders of Burlington, Vt., visited the Soviet Union to set up a sister city link, The Times reported that President Ronald Reagan was urging "bold new steps to open the way for our peoples Americans and Soviets to participate in an unprecedented way in the building of peace." Sister cities were among the initiatives he promoted. This call came despite the fact that, as your article claims, the Soviet Union was "a country many Americans then still considered an enemy." Will you next publish an article about how President Reagan was the tool of a Soviet propaganda effort? "Florida Voting Barrier Could Tip Election" (editorial, Feb. 22) discusses how Republicans are trying to undermine Florida's Amendment 4, which restored voting rights to Floridians convicted of most felonies who have finished serving their sentences. That undermining consists of efforts to prevent those with outstanding fines and court costs a population that, as you point out, is "not, as a rule, flush with cash" from voting. Removing structural barriers to voting not just these and not just in Florida should be the key primary objective, of course. But how wonderful it would be if our former billionaire Democratic candidates, Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, would spend a fraction of their remaining fortunes helping such people pay off the debts. It would help those burdened thus to move toward financial independence, and it would help the former candidates' achieve their professed aim of doing what they can to ensure that a Democrat is elected president in 2020. Your editorial posits that Republican lawmakers "will be forced to confront the reality that they cannot sustain a major political party in the 21st century on a strict diet of voter suppression, discouragement and disenfranchisement," and I hope you're right about that. But I think that deceit the party's current go to strategy, regardless of the issue should head that list. I used to think Republican's goals were limited government, fiscal prudence and social conservatism. Now the only goal seems to be to attain and hold onto power, and anything anything done toward that end is OK with the once Grand Old Party. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Midway through "Odyssey: The Chamber Music Society in Greece," the camera brings us inside a tour bus snaking through a serene Greek countryside. Musicians from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center sit quietly, reading from a phone or a laptop or pensively gazing out the windows as the landscape slides by. In other words: "Gimme Shelter" this is not. Instead, "Odyssey" is something like a rock 'n' roll tour documentary for the chamber music crowd, following a group of world class classical musicians as they perform at venues around Greece. The locales range from the historic (the First Ancient Theater of Larissa) to the cutting edge (the Renzo Piano designed Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center). The musicians play Beethoven, Debussy, Bach and more. RUST CREEK (2019) 8 p.m. on Showtime. Sawyer (Hermione Corfield), a Kentucky college student, is on her way to a job interview in Washington when she gets stranded on a roadside early in this thriller. After a run in with a pair of unsavory locals, she flees into the woods only to soon find herself in the custody of an aggressive meth cook (Jay Paulson). In her review for The New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis wrote that the film falls squarely into the tradition of horror movies like "Wolf Creek" and "I Spit on Your Grave," which drop sympathetic characters into dangerous, forested surroundings. "What sets 'Rust Creek' apart from most of its genre predecessors, though, is that its director, screenwriter and cinematographer are all women," Catsoulis wrote. "Sadly (or happily, depending on your viewpoint), this hasn't made an appreciable difference to the broadly familiar beats of Julie Lipson's screenplay, even if Jen McGowan's direction is as attentive to stasis as action." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
An overcrowded, immigrant dominated public high school in Queens is the unexpected home of one of the largest Junior ROTC programs in the nation, and it produces impressive results. In 1994, when retired First Sgt. Richard Gogarty arrived at Francis Lewis High School in Queens to start an Army Junior R.O.T.C. program, only two staff members, one of them a custodian, would talk to him. The sergeant sat by himself in the teachers' cafeteria, hoping someone would say something, even if it was just "please pass the salt." The union representative, Arthur Goldstein, did not want him there. "I said, 'Oh my God, he's going to have kids marching in circles doing stupid stuff,' " recalled Mr. Goldstein, who teaches English to immigrant students and describes himself as "politically to the left." But Sergeant Gogarty, using his military training, disarmed Mr. Goldstein, volunteering to come in an hour early each day to tutor a Hispanic girl who was failing. "She was completely lost," Mr. Goldstein said. "But something clicked. She started passing tests it was Richard reading with her in the morning." Every year since, the Reserve Officers Training Corps program has grown. With 741 students, it is the largest of the 1,725 high school chapters in the country. Francis Lewis has more graduates at West Point 15 than any other school this year except for one near the academy that serves military families. In 17 years, no senior in the program has dropped out of school. The high point of Christina Liu's life so far was being part of the squad that won the national unarmed drill competition last year in Florida. "I probably had pure happiness for 10 minutes," she said. "I was able to experience a first place in my lifetime. What person can say that?" Until her first competition, Christina had never left Queens; with R.O.T.C., she has been to seven states. As much as they like R.O.T.C., most do not want to enlist in the service. "The military I don't think that's for me," said Glen Higgins, a junior who is a member of the drum corps. "I don't want to end up going to Iraq and risk my life or something." Christina, one of the highest ranked cadets, wants to be a pharmacist. "My mom always wanted me to be one," she said. "You get to stand behind a counter all day and there's not much stress." Sergeant Gogarty is the antithesis of the high pressured military recruiter out to fill a quota. "If they say they're going to enlist when they graduate, I tell them to go to college first," he said. Only one or two students a year go straight into the Army. The program which has a staff of six retired service members teaching 23 classes a day focusing on things like community service and public speaking costs 1 million a year, 180,000 of which is paid by the city. Francis Lewis is so crowded 4,000 students in a building meant for about 2,500 that J.R.O.T.C. usually cannot get the gym, so cadets often have lengthy training sessions on Saturdays. Its drill teams use the cafeteria, but cannot practice the rifle toss, which could punch holes in the ceiling. Membership reflects the school's demographics: half are Asian, 20 percent Hispanic, 15 percent black and 15 percent white; 99 percent go on to college. On Wednesdays, all 741 wear their uniforms to school. "It gives you something to look forward to," said David Artega, a senior. The military chain of command teaches them discipline, leadership and responsibility. "You learn you have to be on top of yourself," said Ashley Schwartz, a senior. Sergeant Gogarty knows his students are prepared when the Rockettes start to look sloppy to them. "Not enough economy of movement," he said. The senior cadets watch the freshmen make the same mistakes each year. "They think they're fine the way they are," David said. Sergeant Gogarty teaches them: not by a long shot. In the beginning, they are afraid of Sergeant Gogarty. "They think I know all their names and what they're up to," he said. "I don't, but I let them think I do." Once he remembers, he does not forget. Dana Walcott, the daughter of the schools chancellor, Dennis M. Walcott, went through the program in the 1990s. "Dana was a platoon leader," Sergeant Gogarty said. "She was enthusiastic and focused. She loved to cook and bake." "I noticed," Sergeant Gogarty said. "I started watching very hard in January." The J.R.O.T.C. room, 219, is one of the few places where a freshman like Brian Eco can talk to a real life senior like Ashley. "She motivates young students like me," Brian said. "She does not make mistakes, her uniform is tight." Several mentioned that the program helped them overcome shyness. "Before, I couldn't give a speech to 30 people," Tom Saini, a senior, said. "Now I can do 500, easy." Frank Chang said he was "one of those Asians kids sitting in the corner who doesn't talk to anybody." Not only were all the J.R.O.T.C. activities good for getting him out of the corner, but they helped him build his resume for college. "It got me up to two pages." Sergeant Gogarty no longer has to recruit. Jennifer Lewis was a member of the first cadet class, in 1994, and this year her daughter, Kiera, joined. Most likely next will be her little brother, Jaden, a fourth grader. "He loves staring at all my ribbons," Kiera, a sophomore, said. "He keeps asking, 'What's this one for? What's that one for?' " Memorial Day weekend the cadets marched all over Queens, in five parades. "My last parade," said Frank, who will attend Queens College in the fall, "a lot of things went through my head. I wanted to enjoy it, seize the moment." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Education |
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. The problem with most jukebox musicals is not that they have tiny brains, though many do, but tiny hearts. When they are not purely escapist or flat out inane, they are narrowly concerned with the airbrushed circumstances of their own creation. They reach only feebly, if at all, into the world. That is definitively not the problem with "Jagged Little Pill," the passionate if overwrought Alanis Morissette jukebox musical at the American Repertory Theater's Loeb Drama Center here. The show, with a book by the screenwriter Diablo Cody ("Juno") and staging by the director Diane Paulus ("Waitress"), takes on the good work we are always asking new musicals to do: the work of singing about real things. If only it didn't sing about all of them all at once. The reason it does so, at least in part, is that Ms. Morissette's songs are so rich, complicated and suggestive. Like most pop, they lead with attitude: often, as in hits like "You Oughta Know" and "All I Really Want," the furious sarcasm of a smart, spurned woman who recognizes her superiority but takes little comfort in it. Beyond that, though, Ms. Morissette's lyrics, no less than the daredevil melodies and chunky grooves of the music most of it written with the producer Glen Ballard do more than state and restate canned feelings in the manner of earworms by Abba or The Four Seasons. They establish a persona; they imply stories. Four of them are the wealthy, unhappy Healy family of Connecticut: mother Mary Jane (Elizabeth Stanley), a pill popper with a secret trauma; father Steve (Sean Allan Krill), a workaholic lawyer with a porn addiction; son Nick (Derek Klena), an overprogrammed high school senior whose moral compass goes briefly awry; and daughter Frankie (Celia Gooding), whom the Healys adopted in infancy. Frankie, who is black, basically lives in a permanent state of having her hair touched by white girls. When a friend witheringly describes her adoption as the "Pinterest fail" of an on trend mother, she doesn't disagree. Still, her rebellion, in the form of short shorts, gay dabbling and hand painted protest signs, hews closely to the musical comedy handbook. However thinly developed, Frankie's rebellion is healthier (and subtler) than her family's calamitous (and overpainted) denial. When we meet the Healys, Mary Jane is writing their annual Christmas letter, bragging about family accomplishments we immediately understand will be trashed by the time the next one gets written. That should be more than enough for one musical, but "Jagged Little Pill" focuses on four other characters as well: Frankie's sort of girlfriend, Jo (Lauren Patten); her sort of boyfriend, Phoenix (Antonio Cipriano); Nick's callow buddy Andrew (Logan Hart); and their emotionally fragile neighbor, Bella (Kathryn Gallagher). All get drawn into what we discover late in the first act is the musical's main subject: the trauma of rape culture. Much of this is movingly done, and it's moving in any case just to see it attempted. I like the way Ms. Cody connects so many dots as the story grows: between the family's habit of denial and the community's; between identity politics as true self expression and as mere virtue signaling; among different kinds of addiction in individuals and in society. But all that connecting of dots sometimes results in a scribble. It's confusing that most of the blame in this unapologetically feminist story is loaded, especially at first, on the brittle, SoulCycling mother. And though she eventually emerges as the spine of the story, it takes a long time to pick her out of the crowd. This makes it seem inaccurately, I think, for this is the rare jukebox musical without even a whiff of mendacity about it that the creators' top goal was to pack in as much of Ms. Morissette's catalog as possible. Still, "Jagged Little Pill" features an astonishing 22 of her songs, including all 12 from the 1995 album that gives the show its title. (Eight others come from later releases; two are newly written for the occasion.) They sound fantastic, if a little undifferentiated, in Tom Kitt's arrangements for a 10 piece band. And when they sit just right on the story they are dramatically compelling as well. "Hand in My Pocket" turns out to be a perfect musical comedy charm song, introducing the adorable Jo. "That I Would Be Good," divvied up among three of the teenagers, makes a surprisingly apt number for characters arriving at similar moments in their development. And "Forgiven," sung by Ms. Stanley at the Act I curtain, seems purpose written to dramatize the turning point of Mary Jane's addiction. Ms. Paulus stages these numbers simply on sets by Riccardo Hernandez enlivened by expressive video projections by Finn Ross so that you never lose track, despite the dense and sometimes abstract lyrics, of the specific story context in which they occur. "Forgiven," for instance, is placed in a church suggested mostly by shadowy congregants and a votive candle stand, letting Ms. Stanley's exquisite work shine as drama. But other songs are unable to shed their pop skin. Some don't even try: "Ironic," Ms. Morissette's biggest hit, is self consciously (if amusingly) shoehorned into the plot as Frankie's "essay poem story type thing" for creative writing class. And "You Oughta Know" is such a showstopper for Ms. Patten (a Medium Alison in "Fun Home") that it seems to leave the story behind. That's partly because of the sheer volume of musical material; the second act, with 13 songs, starts to feel like a concert, a problem Ms. Paulus often underlines as if not trusting the material. As a result, "Jagged Little Pill," though staged in the 560 seat Loeb, sometimes seems pitched to an arena. (Or at Broadway, anyway.) The band slides on and offstage for big numbers, the lighting by Justin Townsend blinds you with color and the ensemble of 13 performs Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's hip hop style choreography as if their lives depended on it. Slick earnestness is a tough swallow a jagged little pill of its own. At least for now, this well intentioned and intermittently thrilling musical makes you want to applaud its efforts at "wokeness" while also wondering if wokeness has become just another form of virtue signaling. It feels like what might have happened if the Tribe from "Hair" (which Ms. Paulus also directed, in 2008) had actually made it to college probably Mount Holyoke. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
A LAB OF ONE'S OWN Science and Suffrage in the First World War By Patricia Fara 334 pp. Oxford University Press. 24.95. BROAD BAND The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet By Claire L. Evans 278 pp. Portfolio/Penguin. 27. A woman scientist was such a rarity in early 20th century Britain that other women could not conceal their surprise at encountering one. Even the eminent suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst, when seated next to a female engineer at a formal dinner, was heard to exclaim, "But surely that's a very unsuitable occupation for a lady, isn't it?" The nation that employed two million women as domestic servants in 1900 counted 200 female doctors and two female architects. The Great War upset that imbalance. By the time the war ended, almost a million British women were carrying out chemical work in munitions factories, while others were synthesizing medicines, developing antiaircraft systems and code breaking in naval intelligence. As Patricia Fara recounts in "A Lab of One's Own," however, many wartime advances in women's employment were rolled back soon after the Armistice. Fara, who studied physics at Oxford, did not venture lightly into writing about suffrage and science. Her first book length biographies focused on Isaac Newton, Carl Linnaeus and Joseph Banks, but her research must have convinced her that there were many women toiling anonymously and sometimes secretly alongside such famous men. "A Lab of One's Own" is an engrossing, exciting tale of uncelebrated scientists who innovated and experimented against a background of grand historical events. The numerous heroines named in its pages, many of whom come and go with only a brief mention, challenge the reader to keep track. Yet their very multitude underscores Fara's underlying argument that there is nothing unusual about a feminine engagement with science. The love of botany, the passion for chemistry, the fascination with geology or cosmology is just as likely to animate a girl's mind as a boy's. If only her parents, her circumstances and the cultural norms of her country will answer her interest with education and opportunity, any girl may aspire to a lab of her own. 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. For all Fara's erudition and scholarship, not to mention her description of herself as a "pernickety academic" at Clare College, Cambridge, she writes without a trace of stuffiness. She also avoids whining about chances missed or credit denied. With the same refreshing approach to perceived injustice that she displayed in earlier books like "Pandora's Breeches" and "Science: A Four Thousand Year History," Fara bends her talents to a sprightly telling of what happened: "At Imperial College London, during the First World War, Muriel Baker wife of the professor of inorganic chemistry was isolated at home in a small laboratory where she experimented on using stockings stuffed with cotton wool to absorb poisonous gases." Among the women Fara singles out for chapter length treatment, Dr. Isabel Emslie Hutton led a particularly eventful life. "Taught by her parents to give away all but one of her Christmas presents on New Year's Day, she committed herself to medicine at the age of 17, renouncing with the dedication of a nun all thoughts of marriage." Eventually she did marry Maj. Thomas Hutton, but not before working as a pathologist in a Scottish mental hospital, carrying out research into chemical tests for syphilis, selling experimental guinea pigs to laboratories throughout Scotland and seeing in the outbreak of World War I the opportunity to practice surgery, "her favorite specialty but one normally reserved for men." Upon arrival in Salonika in October 1915, Emslie and her female colleagues "built incinerators, dug latrines, erected tents, installed X ray equipment and set up a dispensary in a disused silkworm factory." She operated on wounded soldiers in a wooden hut. Military invasions and outbreaks of malaria kept Emslie moving from one field hospital to another even serving as a commanding officer all the way until the end of the war. Even then she stayed on in the region for two more years to treat civilian surgical patients in Serbia and children in Sebastopol. Despite Emslie's distinguished war record, her marriage in 1921 disqualified her from future employment as a surgeon in Britain. Resuming a prior interest, she served three decades as honorary consultant psychiatrist at the British Hospital for Mental and Nervous Disorders in Camden, "playing a key role in the introduction of psychoanalysis to Britain." At the same time she campaigned for equal pay for women doctors and helped women achieve international pilot's licenses by demonstrating that they were not "incapable of flying during periods and pregnancies." When her husband was posted to India she gave up her own career to follow him. "Trapped there during the Second World War," Isabel Emslie Hutton became director of the Indian Red Cross. "A Lab of One's Own," with its title salute to Virginia Woolf, is primarily an English war story. "Broad Band," in contrast, mostly takes place in the United States of the 1940s through the 1990s, and is peopled predominantly with all American girls wanting, as Time magazine once quipped, "a ROM of their own." The author, Claire L. Evans, has met and managed to interview most of the principals in this recent history of technology. Her familiarity puts the reader on a first name basis with all of them, as well as with two important predecessors Ada (Countess of Lovelace, generally considered the world's first programmer) and Grace (Admiral Hopper, the Navy's much decorated queen of software). Evans proves a companionable guide for a tour through cyberspace. An insightful, intelligent observer, she speaks fluent tech lingo, has written about science and sci fi for the likes of Vice and Wired, and also sings in a pop group. "When we say the words 'internet' and 'web,'" Evans writes, "we often mean the same thing: the force, larger than nature, that emanates from our screens." But the internet predates the web by decades. It harks back to the time when folks "dialed directly into each other's machines and into host computers to exchange files and post messages" in text only format. "Many of these ad hoc networks interacted with, and eventually coalesced with, the infrastructure of the internet," a map of which today "is a tensile, crazy, fractal thing" akin to "a beating heart, a web of synapses, a supernova." The World Wide Web sits atop the internet, functioning as "a network of interconnected visual pages built in a shared language called HTML ... structured pages of text, images and video dotted with clickable links connecting individual points to one another. Those connections don't just influence how we navigate the web ... but how we communicate with one another, and ultimately how we understand the world." The women pioneers who penetrated the mostly male domain of early computing did not always fit the geek mold. When Radia Perlman, for example, enrolled in her first programming course as a high school student in the 1960s (and many more courses later as an odd woman out at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), she discovered that her classmates had been dismantling radios and other electronics from a tender age. "I never took anything apart," she told Evans. "I would have assumed I would break it or get electrocuted." Nevertheless, Evans reports, Perlman invented a protocol for moving information that is now fundamental to the way computers are networked. "Her work might be invisible to the everyday user, but it's invisible in the way that laws are invisible or the rules of traffic in a busy city are invisible: It directs the flow of information at a layer beyond our conscious awareness." Such contributions embolden Evans to declare, with emphasis: "Even when women were invisible, it never means they weren't there." It is tempting to think these unsung female presences of the past paved the way for today's women scientists. In fact they did not. They filled particular niches that opened briefly before closing again, leaving scant evidence, let alone a path to follow. Most people struggle to name even one woman scientist (usually Marie Curie). Both "A Lab of One's Own" and "Broad Band" along with numerous other recent titles like "Hidden Figures," by Margot Lee Shetterly provide much needed perspective, along with presumed absent foremothers and role models. As a genre, these true stories constitute a chorus of voices all saying the same thing: "Yes, Virginia, there are women who do science." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
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