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For Some in the Hamptons, It's Not a Home Without a Dock A love of boating has brought Marybeth and Ed Condon of Nissequogue, N.Y., on the North Shore of Long Island, to the Hamptons every summer. For two years, they spent weekends in Hampton Bays, living aboard their 34 foot Sea Ray Sundancer powerboat at a local marina. But with the ceiling in their two staterooms too low to stand up, "it was claustrophobic," said Ms. Condon, 63, an office manager. When they were in the Hamptons, they would scour tag sales, go out for brunch and visit open houses, limiting their search to waterfront properties. "We were hoping to have a place with a dock," said Dr. Condon, 71, an endocrinologist who used to race sailboats with his three sons in Manhasset Bay. "We looked at other places where we could mushroom in the water," he said, referring to a type of permanent anchor or mooring off shore reached from land by a tender or small craft. About a year and a half ago, the Condons finally found their boaters' paradise in Hampton Bays: a 975,000 four bedroom, three bathroom house on a 0.56 acre lot with a balcony off the master suite, an in ground swimming pool and a dock on a canal off Shinnecock Bay. "During the summer, the boats are going back and forth like street traffic" along the canal, said Dr. Condon, who prefers to dock his boat at home to save on marina costs, which can run as high as 15,000 a year. "It's so beautiful. You really feel part of the maritime community." While the Hamptons may be widely recognized as a summer resort and party hub for the rich and famous with oceanfront homes often commanding eight figure prices it is also a haven for boaters and water enthusiasts, from paddle boarders, kayakers and sport fisherman to powerboat and mega yacht owners. And when it comes to real estate, it is not just any waterfront home that these boating aficionados covet. For some people, "the vision of having a house in the Hamptons is having a boat at the end of their dock," said Gary DePersia, an associate broker with the Corcoran Group, noting that a dock will add a premium of about five percent to the value of a house. Whether they like to fish, water ski, explore creeks and bays or cruise to the North Fork, "if they are boaters, they need a dock," said Enzo Morabito, an associate broker with Douglas Elliman. Living on the water, he said, "is no fun if you don't have a boat." The Hamptons communities most likely to have homes with private docks are Hampton Bays and Sag Harbor. In Hampton Bays, about 25 percent of buyers insist on a dock, said Constance Porto, a sales agent for Douglas Elliman. Boaters "want to be able to go to a restaurant on the water; they want to watch the boats go by," Ms. Porto said. When the Sea Ray is tied to the dock, the younger of the Condons' 11 grandchildren and 15 nieces and nephews play pirate ship on board. This summer, the Condons plan to regularly breakfast on the boat, cruise out to Shinnecock Bay, "drop anchor and read the paper," Dr. Condon said. Mrs. Condon said she planned to jump in the water off the boat's three foot long swim platform "as long as there's no jellyfish." For boaters who live "south of the highway" or south of Route 27, the main artery on the South Fork "there is a lot of interest" in moving to Sag Harbor, said Edward Haugevik, an associate broker with Brown Harris Stevens. The village's protected cove, he said, is "one of the few places you can keep a yacht." Larger yachts sometimes anchor in the middle of Sag Harbor, tying their launches at the public docks or at a yacht club. Last summer, Robin Baker Leacock, an artist and filmmaker, and her husband, Robert Leacock, who is also a filmmaker, traded the ocean breezes of Water Mill for a 3 million house on two acres in a gated community in Sag Harbor that has a beach on Peconic Bay and a newly redone communal dock, large enough for a 70 foot yacht. Mr. Leacock likes to sail and boat, Ms. Leacock said, and they are working on a vessel to call their own. Premium properties in Sag Harbor with a dock "are commanding almost as much as oceanfronts," Mr. Haugevik said. Two years ago, he sold a home on three acres in North Haven for 16.5 million. In Sag Harbor, "if you have a dock or can guarantee you can get a dock, you can get 6 million" for .6 to .7 acre properties, he said, and an acre of land with a dock in the village can fetch as much as 8 to 9 million. For Stefanie DiRienzo Smith, 53, a former retail industry executive, and her husband, Mark Smith, 52, a surgeon, of Brooklyn Heights, a 50 to 60 foot bulkhead was what sold them on the three bedroom Cape Cod they bought and renovated 11 years ago. The house is on Little Fresh Pond, an inlet off Peconic Bay in Southampton, and its bulkhead allows Dr. Smith, an avid fisherman, to dock his 27 foot fishing boat at home. "We were eyeing that spot for a long time," Ms. DiRienzo Smith said, although the bulkhead had to be redone. "We could have docked at a marina in Sag Harbor, but we really wanted a house where we could jump in the boat and go to the North Fork for lunch," she said, or anchor in the bay and go swimming. "We fish constantly. We always have a pole in the water," Ms. DiRienzo Smith said, adding that even their six year old twin sons are "into it now." The Hamptons market recently had 64 properties with docks for sale, said Jonathan Davis, a salesman with Douglas Elliman. Prices ranged from 219,000 for a one bedroom condo in Hampton Bays to 4,395,000 for a new four bedroom contemporary on a .30 acre lot with a deepwater dock in Sag Harbor. "The bay is very different from the ocean," Mr. Davis said, and has special appeal for those who enjoy jet skiing, water skiing, tubing and other water sports. "Having a deepwater dock is like the icing on the cake. It allows you to fully utilize the Hamptons in a very unique way from the rest of the market." Of course, at the very high end, if you can afford it, you can have it all. Listed for 54 million, a 10,000 square foot house on Southampton's prized Meadow Lane meets the ocean at the beach end of its 3.35 acre lot; at the other end are a dock and a mooring on Shinnecock Bay. There are few properties where you get ocean and bay front with a dock, said Harald Grant, an associate broker with Sotheby's International Real Estate, who has the listing. "That's part of the attractiveness of this home. People are first looking at oceanfront; when they see the dock, that adds a perk to it." Because of the shallow water, the 100 foot dock can only accommodate a cruiser of up to 27 feet. But its proximity to the Shinnecock Canal, Mr. Grant said, "allows you the ability to go to the ocean or Shelter Island." The Hamptons has a host of marinas and yacht clubs for boaters who don't have private docks, but only those in Sag Harbor and Montauk can accommodate mega yachts of more than 100 feet. Seasonal rates at the village docks in Sag Harbor, which are calculated by the size of a boat, are 67 a foot for residents and 180 a foot for nonresidents, or about 2,500 for residents with a 37 foot boat and 6,660 for nonresidents. (The season runs from April through October.) Mega yachts of 100 feet or more can stay overnight at Sag Harbor's Long Wharf for about 600 a night. Seasonal fees at private marinas can run as high as 270 a foot, or about 8,100 for a 30 foot boat. "Ocean people and bay people are real different," said Aram Terchunian, owner of First Coastal, a dock builder. "Ocean people are buying on the ocean because they like sand between their toes, walking on the beach, diving in the ocean, and they like to hear the sound of the ocean." Bay people, on the other hand, like that "the bay is calm and serene," Mr. Terchunian said. "All they want to do is come out and get on their kayak and explore a creek, and when done, paddle to a different creek." Along the eastern bank of the Shinnecock Canal in Hampton Bays, ground will be broken next month for the Boat Houses at Shinnecock, a development with 37 two and three bedroom townhouses, 20 boat slips and a floating dock for transient boats, said Gregg Rechler, a managing partner of Rechler Equity Partners, the developer. Prices will range from about 1,000 to 2,000 a square foot. Though several condominiums from Water Mill to Hampton Bays have docks, the new development will be "one of the first places on the East End where you can get into Shinnecock Bay, into the ocean or Peconic Bay," Mr. Rechler said. Years ago, the site was a marina; later it became Tiderunner, a restaurant frequented by boaters. When Blaze Makoid, an architect, built his own house on Morris Cove in Sag Harbor 10 years ago, he included a 100 foot ramp and a 20 foot dock, although he grew up in Philadelphia and knew nothing about boating. Bill Collage, a screenwriter and friend who lived in Sag Harbor, gave him a 10 minute boating lesson. "We bartered sharing his boat for my dock for three years," said Mr. Makoid, 56, who subsequently designed his own 26 foot dual console outboard, collaborating with Vanquish Boats, in Newport, R.I. Mr. Makoid named the boat It's Just Lunch, after the dating service where he met his wife, Tracy Mitchell, 55, executive director of Bay Street Theater, in Sag Harbor. They take the boat out three or four times a week, heading to Sunset Beach, Greenport or Montauk with friends for lunch or a picnic and a swim in a cove off Shelter Island. "Boating opened up an entirely new world for us out here," Mr. Makoid said. "It really did change things dramatically." Although they are now a two boat family his wife and daughter share a 14 foot whaler their life is still more sedate than the fabled Hamptons party scene. Friends with boats often cruise over and tie up at the Makoids' dock for a barbecue. "I find that way more pleasurable," Mr. Makoid said. On weeknights, he will often take a 20 minute sunset cruise, savor a glass of wine aboard, watch a sailboat race with a friend or head to Greenport for cocktails. "The advantage of being docked at our house is we can turn on the key and take off," he said. And when he gets up in the morning, Mr. Makoid loves seeing his boat at the end of the dock. "I can't wait to get home and get on it," he said. "It's my blood pressure medicine." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
Two years ago, archaeologists excavating an ancient grave at Pylos in southwestern Greece pulled out a grime encrusted object, less than an inch and half long, that looked like some kind of large bead. They put it aside to focus on more prominent items, like gold rings, that also were packed into the rich grave. But later, as a conservator removed the lime accretions on the bead's face, it turned out to be something quite different: a seal stone, a gemstone engraved with a design that can be stamped on clay or wax. The seal stone's image, a striking depiction of one warrior in battle with two others, is carved in remarkably fine detail, with some features that are barely visible to the naked eye. The image is easier to appreciate in a large scale drawing of the original. "The detail is astonishing, especially given the size. Aesthetically, it's a masterpiece of miniature art," said John Bennet, director of the British School at Athens, an archaeological institute. "The stunning combat scene on the seal stone, one of the greatest masterpieces of Aegean art, bears comparison with some of the drawings in the Michelangelo show now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art," said Malcolm H. Wiener, an expert on Aegean prehistory and a trustee emeritus of the Met. The seal stone comes from an untouched shaft grave near the ancient palace of Pylos. The grave was discovered in May 2015 by Jack L. Davis and Sharon R. Stocker, archaeologists at the University of Cincinnati who had been digging at Pylos for more than 25 years. "It was after cleaning, during the process of drawing and photography, that our excitement slowly rose as we gradually came to realize that we had unearthed a masterpiece," they wrote in the journal Hesperia. The seal stone's owner, known as the Griffin Warrior after the mythical animal depicted in his grave, was buried around 1450 B.C. He lived at a critical period when the Minoan civilization of Crete was being transferred to cities of the Greek mainland. Local chieftains, as the Griffin Warrior may have been, used precious items from Crete to advertise their membership in the Greek speaking elite of the incipient Mycenaean civilization, the first on mainland Europe. Their descendants, a century or so later, built the great palaces at Pylos, Mycenae and Tiryns, places mentioned by Homer. Dr. Davis and Dr. Stocker believe that the seal stone, like other objects in the Griffin Warrior's grave, was made on Crete. Work of such quality was not being produced anywhere on the Greek mainland at the time. The detail is so fine that it seems the engraver would have needed a magnifying glass, as would admirers of his work. Yet no magnifying implements have been found on Crete from this era. Perhaps the engraver was nearsighted, the two archaeologists suggest. Fritz Blakolmer, an expert on Aegean art at the University of Vienna, argues that the seal stone is a miniature copy of a much larger original, probably a stucco embellished wall painting like those found at the Palace of Knossos on Crete. He said the seal must have been engraved by someone with a magnifying glass, even though none has been found, and dismissed the possibility that people of that era had sharper eyesight than today. The seal stone's possible relevance to the Homeric epics is intriguing but elusive. Early archaeologists, such as Heinrich Schliemann, who first excavated Troy and Mycenae, believed the "Iliad" recounted historical events and were quick to see proof of this in the artifacts they found. Later archaeologists were more doubtful, but allowed that the destruction of Troy in 1200 B.C. could have been remembered in oral poetry for 500 years until the Homeric poems were first written down, around 700 B.C. The Griffin Warrior was buried around 1450 B.C., distancing him even further from the first written version of Homer. Still, there is some evidence that the oral tradition behind the Homeric epics traces as far back as Linear B, the first Greek writing system. Linear B was adapted by the Mycenaean Greeks from Linear A, used by the Minoans. The oldest known Linear B inscriptions date to 1450 B.C., and the script disappeared after the collapse of Mycenaean civilization around 1200 B.C. Some of the scansion problems in the Homeric poems "can be resolved if you restore older forms of Greek which are consistent with the dialect recorded in Linear B documents," said Dr. Bennet of the British School at Athens. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
FLEABAG Stream on Amazon. It's been nearly three years since this dark comedy series debuted in the United States, but it's hard to forget the protagonist. The writer, creator and star, Phoebe Waller Bridge, plays a grieving, self destructive owner of a failing guinea pig themed cafe in London. She has sex to numb the pain of her best friend's death, loves aggravating her cruel godmother (a glorious Olivia Colman) and struggles to connect with her perfectionist sister (Sian Clifford). In the second and final season, set a year after the first, Fleabag (we never learn her real name) starts seeing a counselor (Fiona Shaw, who appears in Waller Bridge's other wildly popular show, "Killing Eve") and falls for a "hot priest" (Andrew Scott). James Poniewozik named the return a Critic's Pick in his review for The New York Times, writing that Waller Bridge puts on a "spellbinding performance." If you've yet to give this a try, know that it demands very little commitment: Each season comprises only six half hour episodes. THE KID WITH A BIKE (2012) Stream on Hulu or Mubi; Rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes or YouTube. While Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne unveil new work at the Cannes Film Festival this month, this earlier heart wrenching drama from the brothers, which was a hit at the festival in 2011, is resurfacing on Mubi. The kid in question is Cyril (Thomas Doret), an 11 year old boy in Belgium who is abandoned by his father and left to live in a children's home. He runs away and ends up in the hands of a caring hairdresser, Samantha (Cecile de France). She shows him what unconditional love looks like, yet it's not always enough to heal the wounds left by his father. In her review for The Times, Manohla Dargis called the movie "a quietly rapturous film about love and redemption." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
There has been no dance in this year's Mostly Mozart season, which ends this week. We might ask why, but a better question is this: Why have so few lasting works of choreography even been created to Mozart's music? I'm among those who feel that George Balanchine's "Divertimento No. 15" is the hallowed exception, a ballet that in the best performances floats on Mozart's music to seem the most sublime of all classical works of art. It's never fallen out of the New York City Ballet repertory and is danced by companies around America. And even this masterwork raises reservations among Balanchine devotees. Nancy Goldner writes in "More Balanchine Variations" (2011): " 'Divertimento' realizes everything that is exquisite in the music, but I don't think his choreography adds to one's pleasure in it, in that it does not reveal hidden structures or tonalities or even emotions. As perfect as the music is, it did not stir Balanchine's imagination." And yet Mozart's music abounds in dance rhythms, as the German symphonic tradition of the 19th century does not. (This was one of Nietzsche's chief complaints about Wagner; you can't dance to his music as you can, at least in rhythmic terms, to all of Mozart's.) There has never been any shortage of choreographers tackling Mozart in 2006, Mark Morris, the choreographer today most praised for his musicality, made a Mozart triple bill, "Mozart Dances" but in most cases the choreographers (I include Mr. Morris here, though many would differ) burn their fingers. Yet there are many lasting dance works to Bach's music; Balanchine and Paul Taylor have made the most remarkable ones. Something in music changed with the classical style of the late 18th century, as introduced by Haydn and developed by Mozart and Beethoven: a perfect equilibrium of structure, melody, harmony and rhythm, defeating choreography. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
Think of it as the hive approach to car navigation systems: One driver, like a worker bee, finds the quickest way from Point A to Point B and then shares that route with all the other drivers. It's the basic idea behind all crowdsourcing, the sharing of free user generated content to create information like restaurant ratings and contractor recommendations. Now it's poised to become the main strategy for keeping the maps of route guidance systems current. Fortunately, you don't have to wiggle and buzz to join in just use your smartphone. For the first time, according to Telenav, a navigation services company, an established program is switching from maps that are professionally produced to ones that are crowdsourced, using data and updates provided by volunteer contributors. Telenav, which uses TomTom maps in its Scout navigation app, in May started to use crowdsourced maps from OpenStreetMap in the iOS version of its navigation software. The Android app will be similarly updated later this month. Until now, most makers of navigation apps have bought commercially available maps such as those produced by TomTom and Nokia's Here (formerly Navteq). To verify the map data, those companies sent cartography teams on the road, marking name changes and speed limits, correcting intersection errors and noting routes that close during snow or monsoon seasons. By contrast, OpenStreetMap is based on information provided by amateur users who send in corrections and road changes. The fixes are submitted two ways: manually by users or automatically by voluntary GPS traces that track drivers' smartphones as they travel, much the same way that many apps track users' locations. The maps are in turn available free for anyone to use on websites or in software. "It's the first time an open source map has been deemed high enough quality to be used in a commercial navigation product," Steve Coast, founder of OpenStreetMap and now head of OpenStreetMap at Telenav, said in a telephone interview. Mr. Coast argues that rather than worrying whether a navigation app based on crowdsourced information will steer them off a pier, users should consider OpenStreetMap to be more accurate and up to date than commercial maps because of the 1.6 million contributors providing local knowledge of roads. To add new road and map information, registered volunteers draw and label new roads online at the OpenStreetMap site. Whenever a change is made, volunteer editors familiar with particular locales are alerted; they can correct discrepancies such as a restaurant that is displayed on the wrong side of a road. Mr. Coast said that disagreement is rare, with some notable exceptions. "We do have a few conflict areas, such as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," he said, citing an example of where there may be two different names for the same road because of local language and cultural differences. Telenav adds an additional layer of verification to OpenStreetMap by having professional editors conduct spot checks. Changes involving road deletions, for example, will draw an editor's attention, and route segment changes are compared against GPS traces. Maps are updated monthly, but Mr. Coast said he hoped that weekly updates would be available soon. Telenav's shift in strategy may signal further disruption in the navigation market. Google paid nearly 1 billion last year for another crowd based traffic and navigation company, Waze. The main advantage of Waze is that as the number of users increases, so does the accuracy of its live traffic reports, which are based on real time speed and location data from users' phones. However, not all navigation information is generated by users. In the United States, for example, Waze uses Census Bureau data for streets and addresses, which is then laid over the maps for navigation. Even so, the volunteer community of users is important, Di Ann Eisnor, head of growth for Waze, said. "There's that core community that really cares a lot," she said. Fixes can be made using an online editor similar to the OpenStreetMap approach. Many changes temporary road closures, for example can be gleaned only from drivers who actively input such submissions. Increasingly, however, mapmaking is becoming a more passive pursuit. Simply by driving, users are automatically submitting information over their phones about their routes and the roads they travel. It's the collection of such data that acts as a check on possible crowdsourcing errors. Telenav says it spent several years working to integrate OpenStreetMap with Scout. If the new strategy improves directions for drivers, other navigation programs may be tempted to stop buying maps and follow the open source crowd. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
For blacks and Radical Republicans, Reconstruction was an attempt to secure political rights for the sake transforming the entire society. And its end had as much to do with the reaction of property and capital owners as it did with racist violence. "The bargain of 1876," W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in "Black Reconstruction in America," was essentially an understanding by which the Federal Government ceased to sustain the right to vote of half of the laboring population of the South, and left capital as represented by the old planter class, the new Northern capitalist, and the capitalist that began to rise out of the poor whites, with a control of labor greater than in any modern industrial state in civilized lands. Out of that, he continued, "has arisen in the South an exploitation of labor unparalleled in modern times, with a government in which all pretense at party alignment or regard for universal suffrage is given up." Du Bois was writing in the 1930s. A quarter century later, black Americans in the South would launch a movement to unravel Jim Crow repression and economic exploitation. And as that movement progressed and notched victories against segregation, it became clear that the next step was to build a coalition against the privileges of class, since the two were inextricably tied together. The Memphis sanitation workers who asked Martin Luther King Jr. to support their strike in 1968 were black, set against a white power structure in the city. Their oppression as black Americans and subjugation as workers were tied together. Unraveling one could not be accomplished without unraveling the other. All of this relates back to the relationship between race and capitalism. To end segregation of housing, of schools, of workplaces is to undo one of the major ways in which labor is exploited, caste established and the ideologies of racial hierarchy sustained. And that, in turn, opens possibilities for new avenues of advancement. The old labor slogan "Negro and White, Unite and Fight!" contains more than a little truth about the necessary conditions for economic justice. That this unity is fairly rare in American history is a testament to how often these movements have "either advocated, capitulated before, or otherwise failed to oppose racism at one or more critical junctures in their history," as Robert L. Allen and Pamela P. Allen note in their 1974 study of racism and social reform movements. Which brings us back to the present. The activists behind the Black Lives Matter movement have always connected its aims to working class, egalitarian politics. The platform of the Movement for Black Lives, as it is formally known, includes demands for universal health care, affordable housing, living wage employment and access to education and public transportation. Given the extent to which class shapes black exposure to police violence it is poor and working class black Americans who are most likely to live in neighborhoods marked by constant police surveillance calls to defund and dismantle existing police departments are a class demand like any other. But while the movement can't help but be about practical concerns, the predominating discourse of belief and intention overshadows those stakes: too much concern with "white fragility" and not enough with wealth inequality. The challenge is to bridge the gap; to show new supporters that there's far more work to do than changing the way we police; to channel their sympathy into a deeper understanding of the problem at hand. To put a final point of emphasis on the potential of the moment, I'll leave you with this. In a 1963 pamphlet called "The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker's Notebook," the activist and laborer James Boggs argued for the revolutionary potential of the black struggle for civil rights. "The strength of the Negro cause and its power to shake up the social structure of the nation," Boggs wrote, "comes from the fact that in the Negro struggle all the questions of human rights and human relationships are posed." That is because it is a struggle for equality "in production, in consumption, in the community, in the courts, in the schools, in the universities, in transportation, in social activity, in government, and indeed in every sphere of American life." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
The novelist Anne Tyler, whose 22nd novel, "Clock Dance," comes out July 10, has been around for so long, reliably turning out books of such consistently high quality, that it's easy to take her a little for granted. Oddballs, misfits, sad sacks, melancholy, messed up families by now we know, or think we know, exactly what we're going to get. Nor has Tyler made much of an effort to publicize herself. She doesn't do book tours, almost never gives interviews. She doesn't need to. She has a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Critics Circle Award and legions of satisfied fans, among them writers like Jodi Picoult, Emma Donoghue, Nick Hornby. John Updike, another admirer, once said that she wasn't just good but "wickedly good." Tyler is not a recluse, exactly or, as one critic called her, the Greta Garbo of the literary world but she's a creature of rigorous habit, rooted in Baltimore, her home for the last 51 years and one she seldom leaves. She doesn't do interviews, because she dislikes the way they make her feel the next morning. "I'll go upstairs to my writing room to do my regular stint of work," she said recently, "and I'll probably hear myself blathering on about writing and I won't do a very good job that day. I always say that the way you write a novel is for the first 83 drafts you pretend that nobody is ever, ever going to read it." So why was she sitting in front of a voice recorder now? "I don't know." She laughed. "Maybe because I'm getting old and easier to push around." For the last 10 years, since her husband died and her children moved away, Tyler, who is 76 now but looks much younger, has lived in a high end Rouse development on the edge of Baltimore's leafy Roland Park neighborhood. Furnished in contemporary Shaker style, with lots of polished wood, her house is almost disturbingly neat. Her upstairs writing room is so uncluttered and antiseptic you could safely perform surgery there, and what actually takes place at her desk is only a little less complicated. She writes in longhand, draft after draft, and when she has a section she's satisfied with, types it into a computer. When she has a completed draft she prints it out and then rewrites it all in longhand again, and that version she reads out loud into a Dictaphone. The result is a style that she modestly calls no style at all, but is nevertheless unmistakably hers: transparent and alert to all the nuances of the seemingly ordinary. Tyler, who is as unpretentious as most of her characters, insists that she did not set out to be a writer and is still a little surprised that she became one. Her parents were Quakers and conscientious objectors, and until she was 11 she grew up in a commune in the mountains of North Carolina. "I can perfectly remember my childhood, but nothing else," she said. "I remember when I was 7, making crucial decisions about the kind of person I was going to be. That's also the age when I figured out that, oh, someday I'm going to die, and the age when I decided I couldn't believe in God." She smiled. "I've never been as intelligent as I was at 7. I have never been as thoughtful or as introspective." As a child she read a lot sometimes books like "Little Women" over and over again but even in high school it never occurred to her to be a writer, because she was assigned books like "Silas Marner," and "Julius Caesar" and she knew she could never write like that. When she was 14, living outside of Raleigh, she had a revelation when she read Eudora Welty's "A Curtain of Green and Other Stories." "I was handing tobacco in the summers," she recalled, explaining that her job was passing tobacco leaves to someone who tied them on sticks for curing. "The stringer was always a black woman, the handers were mostly farm wives and a few teenaged girls. And they talked, talked, talked. It was a real education. I'd go home every night and my arms would be covered in tar up to my elbows, which tells you something. I realized the people Welty was writing about were country people just like the people I was handling tobacco with. I was just flabbergasted. I said, she's writing my life, people I know, and it's not Shakespearean English. She's just telling what's real out there that she sees. Later I even got to know her. She was like her stories. There was something wondering about her as she spoke, as if she was marveling at everything she looked at." Welty notwithstanding, Tyler went to Duke and majored in Russian, not because of any particular interest in that language or its literature, but because she "just wanted to do everything different from my parents." She said, "If I could have majored in outer space I would have." This was at the height of the Cold War and another thing that greatly appealed to her was that the head of the Russian department had a personal F.B.I. agent trailing him around. "I still had no intention of becoming a writer," she recalled. "I had a series of really good high school English teachers, then an English professor at Duke, and then Reynolds Price, who taught writing there, and every single one of them would say, you're really good, you ought to be a writer, and I'd just say O.K. I wanted to be an artist, though it's just as well I'm not. I honestly sometimes think to this day, I wonder what I'm going to be?" Baltimore was also unplanned. Tyler moved there from Montreal in 1967 because her husband, Taghi Modarressi, an Iranian child psychiatrist, was offered a job at a hospital there, and at first she hated it. "Now I don't know where else I would live. It's a very kindhearted city, friendly and gentle. That sounds ironic to say but it's true." Almost all her books have been set there, so that by now her Baltimore has become a sort of urban Yoknapatawpha. For the most part the Baltimore she writes about a place part real, part imaginary couldn't be less like the neighborhood she actually lives in. The Baltimore of Tyler's novels is mostly middle class, or even working class a place of crowded streets and small houses whose first stories sometimes double as offices for podiatrists and insurance agencies, and where people are probably a little kinder than they are elsewhere. "I never consciously decided that from now on I'll just write about Baltimore," she said. "Part of it is just laziness it's a lot easier to set a story in the place where you live. Part of it is admiration. I like the grit and character. If I'm in the supermarket and hear two women talking, I'll be kind of making notes in my mind. It's a very catchy way of speaking, the way Baltimoreans speak." (In the new book, someone unused to the accent thinks that one of the characters is named Sir Joe until it turns out he is really Sergio.) "Clock Dance," Tyler's fans will mostly be relieved to know, is hardly a departure. It's almost a compendium of familiar Tyler tropes and situations. It mostly takes place in Baltimore, though the main character is not from there. There's a difficult mother and some estranged siblings, just as in "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant"; a marriage of mutual (and perhaps deliberate) misunderstanding, as in "Breathing Lessons;" and, above all, a curious exploration of what it means to be part of a family. Some of the characters watch a TV show called "Space Junk," which is practically an emblem of the novel; it's about some aliens who kidnap random earthlings on the assumption that they must be related and then try to figure out why they behave the way they do. "Every time I begin a book I think this one is going to be completely different, and then it isn't," Tyler said. "I would like to have something new and different, but have never had the ambition to completely change myself. If I try to think of some common thread, I really think I'm deeply interested in endurance. I don't think living is easy, even for those of us who aren't scrounging. It's hard to get through every day and say there's a good reason to get up tomorrow. It just amazes me that people do it, and so cheerfully. The clearest way that you can show endurance is by sticking with a family. It's easy to dump a friend, but you can't so easily dump a brother. How did they stick together, and what goes on when they do? all those things just fascinate me." She has no plan to retire. "What happens is six months go by after I finish a book," she said "and I start to go out of my mind. I have no hobbies, I don't garden, I hate travel. The impetus is not inspiration, just a feeling that I better do this. There's something addictive about leading another life at the same time you're living your own." She paused and added: "If you think about it, it's a very strange way to make a living." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here. Jay Johnstone spent 20 seasons as a major league outfielder and played in the World Series for the 1978 Yankees and the 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers. Although he had a solid career, he was never an All Star and often saw only part time action while playing for eight teams. When he died on Saturday in the Granada Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles at 74, he was remembered chiefly for his greatest hits when he wasn't wielding a bat. Jay Johnstone was among baseball's most creative pranksters. His finest moment in the batter's box came when he delivered a pinch two run homer in the sixth inning of Game 4 of the 1981 World Series, helping to propel the Dodgers to an 8 7 victory over the Yankees that tied the Series at two games apiece. The Dodgers won the championship in six games. "When the game was on the line, he was able to transform that little 7 year old child that was always in a playful mood into serious," said Rick Monday, Johnstone's former Dodger teammate and now a broadcaster for the ball club. "If the team was in a spot where you felt your backs were against the wall, he was one of the reliable guys." Johnstone's most ambitious stunts, like his most memorable at bat, came as a Dodger. During a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1981, he and the pitcher Jerry Reuss dressed up as groundskeepers and joined the grounds crew in grooming the infield in the fifth inning. Then they rushed back to the locker room to change back into their uniforms. "Jay went up and hit a homer," Reuss recalled. "Who in the history of baseball has dragged the infield in the fifth inning and hit a pinch hit homer in the sixth?" During the Dodgers' 1982 spring training camp in Vero Beach, Fla., Johnstone locked Lasorda in his motel room one evening, after Lasorda had gone to bed, by tying a rope from his doorknob to a palm tree. Lasorda was freed by a laundryman who heard his hollering, and he made the team bus just in time for a trip to Orlando for an exhibition game. John William Johnstone Jr. was born on Nov. 20, 1945, in Manchester, Conn. His father, an accountant, and his mother, Audrey (Whebell) Johnstone, moved the family to Southern California when Jay was a child, and he starred in baseball, basketball and football at Edgewood High School in West Covina. Johnstone was signed by the California Angels in June 1963 and made his major league debut with them in July 1966. In addition to the Yankees and the Dodgers (with whom he did two stints), he played for the Chicago White Sox, the Oakland A's, the Philadelphia Phillies, the San Diego Padres and the Chicago Cubs. A left handed hitter, he had a career batting average of .267, hit 102 home runs and drove in 531 runs. After his playing days were over, Johnstone was a broadcaster for ESPN, the Yankees, the Phillies and Fox. He told some of his favorite stories in collaborating with Rick Talley on the books "Temporary Insanity" (1985), "Over the Edge" (1987)" and "Some of My Best Friends Are Crazy" (1990). A former Marine Corps reservist and the son of an Army veteran who saw combat in the Pacific during World War II, Johnstone in 2010 became a spokesman for the newly created Hope for Heroes organization, whose programs benefit veterans with physical or emotional problems. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
On June 1, Tom Ford, the chairman of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, sent a letter to the board about its meeting the next day. He wanted the board to address the Black Lives Matter protests against racial injustice, he said, and systemic racism in the fashion industry. Almost everyone Zoomed in: Michael Kors, , Prabal Gurung and Vera Wang among them. It was, said someone who was there, an "animated" but not angry discussion. The group agreed that a statement would be released and an action plan written. Everybody was invited to email their thoughts. Two days later, the statement appeared. "Having a clear voice and speaking out against racial injustice, bigotry and hatred is the first step, but this is not enough," it read, listing four initiatives to follow. Those included an employment program charged with placing black talent in all sectors of the fashion business to help achieve a racially balanced industry. But not every idea that had been submitted was included. And not everyone liked the result. It was, Kerby Jean Raymond, the designer of Pyer Moss and a CFDA board member, told Highsnobiety, a "watered down, bubblegum ass statement that didn't address the issues." Specifically, he said, it didn't address police brutality and what fashion could do about it. (Mr. Jean Raymond was not available to comment for this story.) And then it turned out that another organization, the Black in Fashion Council, was being created by Lindsay Peoples Wagner, the editor of Teen Vogue, and Sandrine Charles, a public relations consultant. "Founded to represent and secure the advancement of black individuals in the fashion and beauty industry," according to the mission statement, it unites "a resilient group of editors, models, stylists, media executives, assistants, freelance creatives and industry stakeholders" to "build a new foundation for inclusivity." Suddenly the debate was no longer just about systemic racism in fashion but rather just how far the industry was willing to go to be at the forefront of social change, and who was best positioned to lead the charge. "Revolutions always begin fragmented," said Prabal Gurung, a CFDA board member and designer who was raised in Nepal and who has been a champion of inclusivity. "Then, when united, the real change happens and history gets made." But can these distinct groups work together to reshape the American fashion world, or will the ideological and strategic differences that this singular moment has exposed diffuse their long term effectiveness? It may seem like an inter industry problem, but because of fashion's position as a cultural touchstone, the answer has broad repercussions. "This is not a time for compromise" , the founder of Off White and the men's wear designer of Louis Vuitton as well as a CFDA board member, said that as far as he was concerned, the CFDA needs "to stand for the rights of black people in the fashion industry." "Anything less than that is a compromise," he said, "and this is not a time for compromise." For decades, the Council of Fashion Designers of America, which was founded in 1962 by the publicist Eleanor Lambert to promote American fashion, has functioned as a central industry body. It is most famous outside of fashion for the annual CFDA awards, which tend to be called "the Oscars of American fashion." The organization has been active, as well, in lobbying for such fashion issues as intellectual property protection and immigration rights, as well as raising money for scholarships, breast cancer and H.I.V./AIDS related issues. In recent years, it has also focused on issues of model health and safety. But though the CFDA is often thought of as fashion's "governing body," it is not. It has no power to regulate its almost 500 designer members. Nor does it have authority over retailers or associated industry creatives, like beauty professionals. As a result, Mr. Gurung said, the "CFDA is doing the job it always does, and while they offer support to the industry, in the face of so much raw and immediate feeling, that job might not be enough anymore." That letter from the Kelly Initiative named after Patrick Kelly, the African American designer who in 1998 was the first American member inducted into the Chambre Syndicale du Pret a Porter, the French fashion organization of designers was conceived by Kibwe Chase Marshall, a writer; Jason Campbell, an editor; and Henrietta Gallina, a creative director, and signed by a broad range of black fashion professionals, not just designers. It demanded that the CFDA conduct an industrywide census to collect and publicize the racial demographics of its member organizations; that those companies partner with headhunting firms to recruit black talent; and that they participate in third party audits to ensure accountability and transparency. "One of the key elements of change making, especially in regard to diversity and inclusion, is metrics," Mr. Chase Marshall said. "You need to collect some data, develop benchmarks of what a truly inclusive space would look like, and then goal set, and calendar change as well." Ms. James, of Brother Vellies, who was unaware of the Kelly Initiative, also saw metrics as the key when she introduced the 15 Percent Pledge. "The pledge started as an emotional response that needed a quantitative fix," she said. "I was seeing all of the messages that people were sharing in my email and on my grid about these retailers saying that they stand with us. So while my black woman was really in a space of despair, my black business owner self was like, 'OK, well, what is the metric that I can associate to the release of this grief?'" According to Ms. James, black owned businesses constitute 1.3 percent of total retail sales in the United States compared to the 88 percent of overall sales for white owned businesses. Given that black people comprise 15 percent of the United States population, the pledge is partly about having equal representation in shelf space. It is also about creating infrastructures and networks to sustain these black owned businesses once they do have representation. "It is often about lack of access to capital," Ms. James said. "Even getting in front of some of these retailers is really hard." The fashion model Joan Smalls has also gone out on her own, introducing Donate My Wage and committing half of her salary for the rest of the year to grass roots organizations that support Black Lives Matters. IMG, her agency, signed on, and she is asking fashion brands that hire her to share a portion of their earnings as well. "They have the funds to continue the movement, and you're going to need those funds to make it stronger and to make it a force to be reckoned with," Ms. Smalls said. That is why the Black in Fashion Council, which will be officially announced this week, aims to be an umbrella organization for different types of initiatives, while also creating an index to score brands on progress. This will be what the founders call a "yearly public report and report card to hold fashion and beauty brands accountable for the great work they've done and the areas that need improvement." (The council also could include media and marketing companies like Conde Nast, Ms. Peoples Wagner's employer, and all member organizations will have to commit to being tracked for three years.) Ms. Peoples Wagner and Ms. Charles said they already have 400 members signed up from across the black fashion community. "We are in a state of cancel culture right now, but we want to move to accountability culture," Ms. Peoples Wagner said. "Any brand can pledge 1 million to the N.A.A.C.P. on Instagram, but who will follow up and check that they did it?" "There is strength in numbers, and no point in being divisive," she continued. "To effect change, we really need to come together. It's a big dream and a big goal, but we think it's attainable." Though Ms. Peoples Wagner and Ms. Charles are in contact with the CFDA, they declined to discuss the Kelly Initiative. At the same time, the founders of the Kelly Initiative said they had not received any response from the CFDA as of June 23. Mr. Chase Marshall said that the only sense the Kelly Initiative had of the CFDA's response to their letter came from a statement given to Vogue Runway. In it, he said, the CFDA "said that they had been contacted by multiple sorts of efforts, and they've selected a curation that they're going to support." "I was militant once," she said. "We used to put down the N.A.A.C.P. That's what you do when you are mad and want change. But am I glad it didn't fall under our put downs and stood the test of time? Yes, I am. Lots of people are mad now, I know it. And you can't change anger. But I'm going to work with the CFDA because I can use it. I can use it as it uses me." Given the complexity of the problem, some believe a multipronged approach may be the most effective and enduring strategy. This is why Jason Bolden, a stylist, is on both the advisory board of Black in Fashion Council and a signatory on the Kelly Initiative. "It is about unity for me," Mr. Bolden said. "One does not outdo the other. We have to keep nurturing them all and keep on keeping on." Tracy Reese, who recently left New York to create the sustainable clothing line Hope for Flowers in her hometown Detroit, is vice chairwoman of the CFDA and its longest serving black board member. "This is a white industry, and unless you are black within it, you can't begin to understand what that is like," she said. "If we are going to make meaningful progress, there has to be a joint effort, not a factional effort or 20 different efforts." "The people forming these factions know what they want to say they are brave," Ms. Reese continued. "They are stepping up, and that's important to do. But it will go further if we are all working toward a common goal: equity, equality, anti racism." "It's really a conversation that needs to be had," she said. "It's multiple conversations, about the present and where we are and the future and where it is going, and there are grievances from the past that need to be heard." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
When Ashley Mabbitt was growing up in a four bedroom house outside Chicago, her grandmother gave her this advice: "When I have people over, I like to feel I'm coming to a party. I like to take off my apron, put on lipstick, and step into a separate space." Those words made such an impression that when Ms. Mabbitt, 36, went apartment hunting last summer, a separate kitchen topped her must have list. When she found one in an Art Deco building in Kensington, Brooklyn, she moved fast. "Unlike lots of New Yorkers, I don't do takeout," said Ms. Mabbitt, who is the director of international rights at John Wiley and Sons and paid under 200,000 for the one bedroom space. "I like to cook, I like having people over for dinner and parties, and after we've eaten, I like having a separate space where you don't have to look at the dirty dishes." Not long ago, open kitchens and dining areas tucked into vast great rooms were fixtures of well appointed New York City apartments, thanks to the popularity of loft living and the lure of large open expanses. That is changing. Retrofitted and even some new buildings now feature separate kitchens and formal dining rooms, gracious attributes of prewar design that many residents find increasingly alluring. George Case, the Citi Habitats broker who helped Ms. Mabbitt find her apartment, hears the "dirty dishes" line a lot these days. He also hears requests for separate dining rooms, recently from Jennifer Lame, a film editor, and her husband, Craig Shilowich, a film producer. Last month the couple paid about 700,000 for a century old red brick townhouse in Ditmas Park with a separate kitchen and a formal dining room. The dining room is set off by pocket doors and framed with the original lustrous wainscoting Mr. Case thinks it's oak and built in china cabinets. Karsten Moran for The New York Times "Both my wife and I grew up in houses outside Philadelphia that had separate dining rooms," Mr. Shilowich said, "so they reminded us of our childhoods." Mr. Case isn't surprised by such enthusiasm. "So much new construction features open floor plans that there's a pent up desire for apartments with separate dining rooms and kitchen," he said. "They offer charm, they're better for entertaining, and you don't have to see your partner first thing in the morning. For a certain demographic, they're a definite selling point." At Halstead Property, recent listings include a renovated three bedroom postwar in Hudson Heights with a separate dining room ("The last of the Upper West Side Woody Allen apartments," said the broker, Robin Adler Errico); a two bedroom on West End Avenue with a pass through kitchen that opens onto a dining area; and units with separate dining areas at Gotham West, a sprawling new rental complex in West Midtown. "It all depends on the size of the apartment," said Diane M. Ramirez, Halstead's chief executive. "If you had limited space, the dining room was the first thing to go because it used to come alive only at parties and holidays with its flowers and candles. Otherwise it just sat there, gathering dust. But now people lead such busy lives, the idea of a dinner party at your home has tremendous appeal. Restaurants are so noisy. You want to be able to say, why not come to my house?" Enclosed eat in kitchens paired with separate dining rooms, or what are diplomatically called designated dining areas, are sprouting up all around the city. The penthouse at 60 East 86th Street, a new condominium by Glenwood, will feature a designated dining area and an enclosed kitchen. At 737 Park Avenue at 71st Street, a new prewar conversion by Macklowe Properties, most of the 60 apartments include areas clearly intended for formal dining special wiring to accommodate a chandelier is a clue that adjoin separate kitchens with Dutch doors to facilitate service. Prices range from 8 million to 30 million. "We get lots of requests for separate dining areas," said Jarrett White, the vice president for marketing for Macklowe. "When it comes to dinner events or holiday events, owners want a more defined space." Lilla Smith, the director of architecture and design for Macklowe, added: "We're seeing a more formal state of mind out there, and a separate kitchen is one of the results. People appreciate a separate space, especially when it comes to cleaning up, and the benefits are both visual and aural. You don't see what's going on, and you don't hear the clanking of pots and pans." In the five bedroom condop on the 14th floor of the Mark Hotel on East 77th Street, a prewar space on the market for 17.5 million, selling points include a formal dining room topped with a white on white coffered ceiling. The room seats eight and adjoins a separate kitchen outfitted with stone countertops. Olivier Lordonnois, the building's general manager, who grew up in France where separate dining rooms were a fact of life, noted that the dining room's two exposures made the ambience especially cozy after dark. A new condominium at 155 East 79th Street developed by Anbau Enterprises will offer dedicated dining rooms in each of its seven duplexes, along with kitchens that can be closed off from the rest of the entertaining areas. According to Barbara van Beuren, a managing partner of Anbau, the configurations reflect many buyers' near obsessions with their dining tables. Karsten Moran for The New York Times "The issue of where to put the dining table kills more deals than anything else in real estate," Ms. van Beuren said. "Especially if a family is moving, the dining table is the one thing they say they can't part with." The revitalized concept of separate spaces for cooking and eating is proving so attractive that architects are concocting twists on the idea, among them what they call hybrid kitchens, which can be open or closed using pocket doors. This feature is on display at 560 West 24th Street, a condominium opening later this year with apartments starting at 7 million. "We monitor trends in our buildings, so we know what people request," said Leonard Steinberg, the agent for Douglas Elliman Real Estate who is handling sales. "The developer asked us if people wanted opened or enclosed kitchens, and our research showed that people want both. Some people don't want to watch the hostess chop up carrots. This option offers the best of both worlds." Even some studios are featuring enclosed kitchens, for example at 250N10 in Williamsburg, a new rental project developed by LCOR whose first residents will arrive this month. Of the 234 units, 40 percent are studios, and a third of those have single opening galley kitchens separate from the living area. These studios, which range in size from 450 to 550 square feet, rent for about 2,500 a month. David Sigman, an executive vice president of LCOR, traces the attractiveness of the separate kitchens in part to Williamsburg's ever more vibrant food scene. "People say, I've been looking for this," Mr. Sigman said. "Not a majority, but you hear it from people who like to cook. Nevertheless, they don't want to cook in the middle of their living room." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
With their two productions this season, the folks at the Public Theater's Mobile Unit, a touring company that offers free shows in communities all around New York City, have proved what they know how to do better than anyone else. It's not creating a dynamic dialogue between the works onstage and the audience, although they're wizards at it. It's not making Shakespeare feel urgent and fresh by turning the plays on their head, although I can't think of any other company that has made me want to sit through "The Tempest" twice. Where they excel, in miraculous ways, is in finding solutions to the Bard's "problem plays." In "Measure for Measure," running at the Shiva Theater through Dec. 8, they have taken the icky plot about a greedy Duke trying to coerce a novice into sleeping with him, and transposed it to recent history, creating a more believable frame for the play's themes of amorality arising from hedonism. The director LA Williams has set the action in New Orleans in 1979, on the Fat Tuesday when a police strike led authorities to threaten citizens with the cancellation of Mardi Gras. The mayor, the appropriately named Ernest Morial , asked people to stay home and sit this one out. But of course he couldn't stop the holiday, and although some parades were axed , the people flooded the streets to celebrate anyway. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
As a kid with a precocious mind for science she made it to the Intel competition semifinals in high school, after all dreamed of becoming an astronaut. But acting eventually grounded her among less celestial stars. So the role of Lucy Cola, whose encounter with the vastness of the universe during a space station mission triggers an existential crisis back on Earth in Noah Hawley's "Lucy in the Sky," was "a little bit of wish fulfillment," Portman admitted. And it wasn't merely the prospect of climbing into a spacesuit. "Just to see a woman in complete humanity, with flaws, with strengths, is so lucky," she said. "So often, a woman is adorable, or a badass, or a villain. You could sum her up in one word." "You don't have a simple feeling about Lucy at the end," she added. "Lucy in the Sky" is loosely based on the tabloid ready tale of Lisa Nowak, the astronaut who in 2007 drove from Houston to Orlando to attack her former lover's new girlfriend reportedly wearing a diaper to save time on her journey. Alas, there's no diaper in "Lucy in the Sky," an omission that has whipped expectant audiences into a froth. "This is fictional, other than the sort of jumping off point," Portman said. An Oscar winner for "Black Swan" and an outspoken Time's Up advocate, Portman will soon be embracing another Type A woman: In July at San Diego Comic Con, she lifted the hammer high as it was revealed that her Marvel character, Jane Foster, would be anointed female Thor in "Thor: Love and Thunder," due in 2021. Calling from Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband, the choreographer and filmmaker Benjamin Millepied, and their two young children, Portman, 38, spoke about navigating a traditionally male world, both onscreen and off. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. Let's begin with the mystery of the diaper. Why isn't there one, and what's with our fixation? Well, I think that it was the salacious element of the real story. For us, that wasn't what it was about. We were trying to get into the heart of humans and not make it salacious. It seems to be a symptom of clickbait culture that getting my name and diaper in the same sentence is probably helpful for journalists. Lucy has a mind altering experience while floating alone in space that makes life back in Houston suddenly feel so small. Have you ever experienced anything similar? You mean, like an existential crisis? Laughs Realizing our insignificance, and then weighing that with how much you feel everything. I don't know a human that hasn't faced that at some point. And yet when Lucy behaves much like a man might in competing for the next mission, her supervisor castigates her for getting too emotional. Noah had me watch "The Right Stuff" in preparation to get a sense of that very competitive, arrogant, hazing environment that goes on at NASA to get those seats. These daredevil personalities that are willing to strap themselves to a bomb and splash down in the ocean in basically a metal shell that just drops out of space. I mean, it's really wild what they're doing, and it's a very specific personality. And when you see the men doing it in "The Right Stuff," it just seems so fun, and good natured guys just messing with each other, you know? But when you see me and Zazie Beetz, playing Lucy's rival doing it, it comes off like, "Oh, that's a catty woman in the workplace." That's the same thing that I think she experiences when her suit starts filling up with water. She feels like if a man did that, they'd be like, "Oh my God, look. He'll do anything just to finish the mission. What a hero." With her they say, "Oh, you're reckless and emotional." You didn't actually have water in your helmet in that scene, did you? We did fill up the helmet with water, which was scary, because apparently that's a difficult thing to do with current special effects technology. I am not that daredevil personality, so that was definitely a challenging day. Basically, I held my breath as long as I could, and then I could remove myself from the helmet as soon as I couldn't hold my breath anymore. Laughs Oh, yes, it was a less pleasant scene to do, I must admit. What struck you most from your research into female astronauts? It's interesting to note a profession where there's usually one woman at a time. Even that recent story about how two women were scheduled to do the first all female spacewalk , but they only ended up having one suit, and one of them couldn't go which was so insane shows this idea that there's one slot for a woman that exists so often in powerful positions. There is one seat for a woman at the board table or whatever. Lucy's plight reminds me of the speech you gave in which you advised, "Stop the rhetoric that a woman is crazy or difficult." Which leads me to Time's Up. What are you most proud of accomplishing? It's been a really impressive thing how Time's Up has been able to shape the conversation around pay equality and promote that. Of course, the U.S. women's soccer team was really crucial in shaping that conversation. Michelle Williams just furthered it in her Emmy acceptance speech . It was really incredible to get to see how culture is shifting in talking about it. Then the recent changes in the New York law that was pro survivor of sexual harassment, abuse and assault was also really incredible. I think all of the conversation women talking to each other, women talking publicly more is inspiring to each of us. It makes us more capable of knowing even how to articulate what we're feeling, what we need. There's so much to do still, but it's also been a very rapid change and definitely feels like all of us have had a light speed evolution in the past few years. And now you're about to embark on a new Thor film, your first since "Thor: The Dark World" in 2013. Three years ago you said that as far as you knew, you were done. How did the franchise lure you back? | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
Charlotte Moss wishes people would pay more attention to the hardware on their doors. "It's one of those items that sometimes gets left to the end" of renovations, said Ms. Moss, the well known interior designer. "To me, it's equivalent to a buzzkill when you spend all this money decorating or building a house and forget about those details." While doorknobs are relatively small, they have a "huge impact" on the way people perceive a space, she said: "It's like a woman putting on jewelry. If you've got a great dress on and put on a pair of terrible earrings, that's the first thing everybody's going to notice." As it happens, Ms. Moss has recently been thinking a lot about the parallels between jewelry and door hardware. Earlier this month, she introduced a collection of cuff bracelets based on archival patterns from the architectural hardware company P.E. Guerin. Whether you're accessorizing an outfit or a door, she said, when you choose pieces that are appropriate yet distinctive, "it just notches it up and takes things to a different level." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
La Punta, on Oaxaca's Pacific Coast, is known for its surfing. It is just one of several enclaves, each with its own personality, on the Costa Chica.Credit...Adrian Wilson for The New York Times La Punta, on Oaxaca's Pacific Coast, is known for its surfing. It is just one of several enclaves, each with its own personality, on the Costa Chica. Stepping off the plane in Puerto Escondido, on the Pacific Coast of Oaxaca, I gulped the thick, tropical air. After three days in Mexico's high elevation capital, inhaling the vital, pungent smell of sea and damp vegetation felt like a resuscitation. I hired an "authorized" taxi and drove northwest from the airport, passing papaya farms and low hills strewn with boulders. The landscape was bright green and pale yellow with pops of fuchsia bougainvillea and flame hued lantana a planter box ornamental at my home in California that here grows to the size of an apple tree. There were delays: a young man on horseback wrangling a white steer and a crew of road workers with machetes waging an endless war against the encroaching jungle. Finally, we turned off the highway and onto a narrow dirt lane lined with branch and barbed wire fence and tall grass that lashed the windows, as if we'd entered a dusty carwash. With each oncoming vehicle, the taxista played the world's slowest game of chicken. By the time we were passing Casa Wabi, which was founded by Bosco Sodi, one of Mexico's most celebrated contemporary artists, I was painfully hungry. Between Wabi and Hotel Escondido, the glamorous 325 a night boutique hotel next door, I'd assumed there'd be somewhere, anywhere, to eat nearby. A palapa style beachfront seafood shack, a simple tienda something. It seemed I was wrong. The road dead ended in sand and the driver pointed to a wooden gate built into a wall of dry tropical forest. There, but out of sight, was my lodging for the night, a diminutive cabin I had been daydreaming about since the year before, when I'd profiled its Mexico City based architect, Aranza de Arino. It was Ms. Arino's first major project (she was a recent graduate at the time); photographs of the simple structure, which is listed on Airbnb, had stayed with me. And suddenly, there I was. Before I could fully consider my situation no one in sight, no phone or Wi Fi, food or transportation my suitcase was on the sand and my driver was gone. I dragged my roller bag along the serpentine path through a tunnel of trees, lizards rustling at my feet. The owner, Claudio Sodi (Bosco Sodi's younger brother) had messaged me that his caretaker, Juan, would be there to meet me. But when I arrived at Casa Tiny, with its pitched roof of poured concrete and monumental doors of local parota wood, the key was in the lock. Juan was nowhere in sight. It was just me and the Henry David Thoreau inspired cabin (copies of "Walden," in several languages, occupied a nearby shelf). I admired the textural contrast of smooth concrete against pebbled floors, the basket of rustic must haves (mosquito coils, a portable speaker, a deck of cards, candles and matches), the sturdy earthenware and rusty two burner stove. A long concrete table was the cabin's focal point; on it, was a decorative bowl of apples, cucumbers, green oranges and a few spotted bananas. I opened the mini fridge. Empty. This confirmed my fears: I might be eating fruit for the next 24 hours. Back at Casa Tiny, I spent the afternoon between a faded hammock and the cabin's small, rectangular pool. I floated in the translucent green water as dove like birds hopped through the understory and a huge black insect buzzed overhead, so loud it could pass as a distant jet. When the light through the cabin's shutters turned pink, I headed for the beach. The moon was nearly full, and the shoreline was a mess of white caps, foam and spray. A single pelican glided above the shoreline, riding the updraft from the crashing waves. Down the beach, I could see the lights of the wedding party, but when I returned to Casa Tiny, it was impossibly dark. So dark that when I crawled into bed in the cabin's life threatening, rail less loft, I was disoriented by what looked like stars flickering a mayday signal overhead. Fireflies had found their way in through the open windows. Geckos chirped. Mosquitoes whirred. I awoke covered in bites, yet better rested than I'd been in months. While the Casa Wabi enclave is a baffling mix of cosmopolitanism and casualness, my next stop, Brisas de Zicatela, is a rowdy, bohemian surf town. After a 40 minute ride I was deposited at La Punta (The Point) as the area, just south of Puerto Escondido, is known by locals and Hostel Frutas y Verduras, a brightly painted backpacker hostel where I'd booked a modest room with shared bath for 500 pesos, or about 27, a night. After my time alone at Casa Tiny, the scene at La Punta was a culture shock. An international crowd of beautiful people wore the beach's unofficial uniform: women in ultrashort jean cutoffs and blond dreadlocks, and muscular young men in bare feet and man buns, arms scrawled with tattoos. Everyone seemed to be with someone a friend, lover or soon to be lover and music pulsed constantly, as if I'd arrived at a never ending party. I longed to be back at Casa Tiny. Over the next two days, I lay under a palm frond umbrella on the party ready beach, people watching. I sipped a mezcal cocktail at a feet in the sand beach bar with swings as stools. I ate at a palapa roofed restaurant run by a charming Argentine couple, watching them pass babies back and forth, sipping wine and mate, socializing with friends. I watched body surfers get tossed by La Punta's shore break but didn't dare go in myself. Not there. Instead, I walked and watched, walked and watched. When I got tired of watching, I hopped a cab to Puerto Escondido's Playa Puerto Angelito, about four miles north a local beach that's sheltered and swimmable. On a Sunday afternoon, it was crowded with families and vendors. I sat at a plastic table and ordered a dozen fresh oysters for 100 pesos, or less than 5.50, from Los Buzos, a simple palapa style seafood spot. Puerto Escondido's local beaches were more my scene, and I returned the next day, this time to Playa Carrizalillo, on another little bay with white sand and gentle surf. A restaurant I'd been wanting to visit for years, Almoraduz which serves cocina de autor, as innovative, modern cooking is called here was nearby, so I stopped in for a late lunch. Again, I ordered oysters. This time three immaculate half shells arrived on a smoldering bed of hot rocks, their glistening flesh bubbling in butter and oregano. They were aromatic and pricey: 180 pesos, or about seven times what I had paid the day before. It was my final day in Zicatela and I wanted to make the most of it. So, despite an aversion to tours, I signed up for an evening trip to the bioluminescent Manialtepec lagoon. For 350 pesos (about 17), along with five other travelers I was chauffeured to the lagoon, where we were introduced to our captain and his crew, a father and his grade school age son. They wrestled the small skiff through a tangle of overlapping lines, pulling it to the narrow dock. The water was glassy, and the air, at nearly 8 p.m., was balmy and motionless. I was buzzed from my after dinner mezcal and the rush of easy adventure. I'd been warned that the moon, one day shy of full, might drown out the bioluminescence. But when the captain instructed us to dip our hands over the side, we left comet like trails through the warm, black, brackish water as thousands of tiny aquatic organisms defended themselves with light. When we stopped, I lifted my dress over my head and threw myself overboard, my arms and legs turning the water blue and gray as the water became alive. The next day, I shared a taxi with German backpackers, dropping them in the little hippie town of Mazunte before continuing to Casa Sol Zipolite, a boutique hotel by the founders of Mexico City's Red Tree House, a favorite from my childless days. (It, like Casa Sol, doesn't allow kids.) I'd been a fan of the couple behind the hotel, Craig and Jorge, for years, so when the pair bought a former nudist resort on this remote stretch of Oaxacan coast, I was curious. Zipolite is known for its openly nude beach, one of the few in Mexico, and the week I arrived was a particularly amusing moment for a first visit. A convention of swingers mostly older Americans had descended on the tiny pueblo. The hotel next door had a sign out front, "Welcome, naughty friends," which became a running joke among the guys at Casa Sol. Every night, Ernesto, Craig's and Jorge's right hand man and the soul of Casa Sol, hosts a happy hour for guests, who gather for margaritas and conversation. During my stay, the place which often has reservations a year in advance was uncharacteristically quiet. It was just me and two couples. After drinks, I tagged along with one of them, Renee and Matt, from Vancouver. Around my age, they'd offered to help me find my way from Casa Sol's cliffside perch in the dark. I took Ernesto's advice and hopped a cab to Mazunte's Pizzeria. The area around Zipolite is overrun with Italian restaurants, so in the spirit of "If you can't beat em, join em," I found a seat at an outdoor table beside a blazing pizza oven and beneath string lights. The place seemed to be run almost entirely by kids, including a teenage girl who manned the kitchen, rolling dough with an empty Corona bottle and baking beautifully charred, Neapolitan style pizza. A boy who looked no older than 14 was the pizzeria's lone server and covered the tables like a seasoned professional. At the long table beside me, there was a group that I imagined were foreign exchange students on vacation. I struck up a conversation with one of them, a young woman from London. She was there, she said, "working on her trauma" likely a guest at one of several spiritual and healing centers in the area. She mentioned that there was a "jam session" at a bar around the corner and invited me to join. I'd had just enough wine to agree. The bar was packed with young seekers from around the world, dancing ecstatically. Later, when I asked Craig, a former professor from Oregon who still wears the round framed glasses of a big city architect, about the Mazunte scene, he described the crowd as "dress up hippies." Wannabes. Zipolite, he said with a wry smile, "has the real thing you can spot them from their gray ponytails." It's easy to poke fun at a place like Zipolite. But during my five days on the Costa Chica, I was struck again and again by how different each of these countercultural enclaves some of coastal Mexico's few remaining pockets of weirdness and eccentricity, artists and bohemians are from each other. While it's tempting to dismiss places like this as "not the real Mexico," whatever that means, they are spectacularly varied. Like Mexico itself. Freda Moon is a freelance writer who lives on a houseboat in San Francisco Bay. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
TOKYO Malaysia's AirAsia and All Nippon Airways of Japan announced the dissolution of their joint ownership of the struggling Japanese budget carrier Tuesday, attributing the split to fundamental differences over cost control and customer service. In separate statements, the airlines said that All Nippon, also known as ANA, had agreed to buy out AirAsia's 33 percent stake in the venture and operate it as a wholly owned subsidiary. Neither airline disclosed how much All Nippon would pay AirAsia for relinquishing its stake. Signs of discord had been apparent for some time at AirAsia Japan, a low cost carrier formed two years ago as a number of airlines raced to crack open Japan's lucrative aviation market. The new carrier based its operations at Narita Airport, about 70 kilometers, or 40 miles, east of Tokyo, and offered budget flights to Sapporo, Fukuoka and Okinawa in Japan as well as two cities in South Korea. But the budget airline has been slow to generate sales, prompting each partner to accuse the other of undermining the business. AirAsia Japan's passenger load factor, a measure of average occupancy on an airline's routes, was 53 percent in May, a critically low level for a budget carrier that makes up for low fares by flying lots of passengers. The venture ate into All Nippon's operating profit to the tune of about 3.5 billion yen, or about 36 million, in the latest fiscal year through March, according to the company. On Tuesday, All Nippon said ineffective marketing, a poorly designed Web site and poor customer service had doomed the venture. Shinzo Shimizu, senior vice president at All Nippon, said that the airline had learned a lot from its Malaysian partner on how to cut costs by adopting simpler reservation systems, turning planes around faster on the ground and getting employees to multitask. But cutting costs was not enough to win over Japanese travelers, Mr. Shimizu said. "AirAsia may be almighty in Southeast Asia, but it wasn't fit to provide the meticulous service called for in Japan," Mr. Shimizu said. "Even a low cost carrier requires attentive service, and the airline was not up to task." For example, the official said, AirAsia required passengers booked on domestic flights to check in 45 minutes before departure unthinkably early for passengers in Japan, who are used to being whisked onto flights when they arrive even 15 minutes before takeoff and having those flights still depart on time, to boot. The online reservation service was also problematic, the All Nippon official added, because it featured unclear Japanese and limited payment options. Open or closed on Thanksgiving? Here are stores' plans for Thursday and Friday. The high cost of gas is forcing families to cut back on activities and essentials. Clearview AI does well in another round of facial recognition accuracy tests. Meanwhile, Tony Fernandes, AirAsia's chief executive, appeared to call out All Nippon for not being committed to a genuinely low cost carrier. AirAsia had previously criticized its partner's generally lax approach to cost management. "I have great respect for ANA as the leading legacy airline in Japan, but it is time for us to part ways and focus our attention on what we do best," which is running a true low cost carrier, Mr. Fernandes said. "Despite the cost issues, the AirAsia brand has resonated with Japanese customers." The Center for Aviation in Sydney called such differences in approach irreconcilable. "The AirAsia ANA partnership has not been a happy place," the industry research group said in a report this month, as tensions between the two airlines surfaced. "Although there was an excellent rapport between the heads of the two organizations, lower down the body the chemistry simply did not match. When a low cost airline is forced to adopt high cost practices, the flaw is unavoidably fatal." All Nippon's Mr. Shimizu said that it would pick a new name for the AirAsia venture and decide by July how it would be run. He said the airline was considering a possible merger of AirAsia with Peach, another low cost venture backed by Hong Kong investors that All Nippon runs out of Kansai International Airport in Osaka. AirAsia's troubles underscore the difficulties low cost carriers have had in entering the highly insulated Japanese market, where domestic fares have stayed above global norms for decades. Japan's other flagship carrier, Japan Airlines, started a joint venture with Qantas Airways two years ago. The venture, JetStar Japan, operates flights from both Narita and Kansai. Those three low cost carriers together hold a mere 5 percent to 6 percent of the domestic Japanese market, according to the Center for Aviation. Skymark Airlines, which is also relatively low cost, holds an additional 7 percent share. AirAsia's retreat from Japan comes at a time when the airline is focusing on a new challenge closer to home a venture by its Indonesian rival, Lion Air. Still, Mr. Fernandes hinted that his airline might take another crack at the Japanese market. "I remain positive on the Japanese market and believe there is tremendous opportunity" for a low cost carrier to succeed, he said. "We have not given up on the dream of changing air travel in Japan." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Global Business |
WASHINGTON When the journalist Kurt Eichenwald opened an animated image sent to him on Twitter in December, the message "You deserve a seizure for your posts" appeared in capital letters along with a blinding strobe light. Mr. Eichenwald, who has epilepsy, immediately suffered a seizure. On Friday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it had arrested John Rayne Rivello, 29, at his home in Salisbury, Md., and accused him of sending the electronic file. The agency charged Mr. Rivello with criminal cyberstalking with the intent to kill or cause bodily harm. The charge could carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years, according to the United States district attorney in Dallas, who is prosecuting the case. The unusual case has shown how online tools can be deployed as weapons capable of physical harm. The F.B.I. and the Dallas police led the investigation into Mr. Rivello, and the police said he sent the strobe light knowing that it was likely to lead Mr. Eichenwald, who has publicly discussed his epilepsy, into a seizure. Steven Lieberman, Mr. Eichenwald's lawyer, has argued that the use of the strobe light in a GIF, or moving graphic, was akin to sending an explosive or poison in the mail. "This electronic message was no different than a bomb sent in the mail or anthrax sent in an envelope," said Mr. Lieberman, who is working on the case as a pro bono service. "It triggers a physical effect." (Mr. Lieberman represents The New York Times as outside counsel, and Mr. Eichenwald was a reporter for The Times from 1986 to 2006.) That comparison makes Mr. Eichenwald's case different from other claims of harmful attacks using social media. Lawsuits involving stalking and bullying on the internet have focused on how online content, such as disparaging and abusive messages and pictures, can harm victims emotionally and even increase the risk of suicide. But with this case, Mr. Rivello is said to have designed the attack specifically around the victim's medical condition. "This is an interesting and unique case in that there are lots of online attacks that can have physical consequences, such as an attack on an electrical grid or the control of air traffic control," said Vivek Krishnamurthy, an assistant director at the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard Law School. "But this is distinguishable because it is a targeted physical attack that was personal, using a plain Jane tool." Investigators found evidence of the plan to attack Mr. Eichenwald from a search of Mr. Rivello's Twitter account, the Justice Department said in a statement. After obtaining a search warrant for Mr. Rivello's social media account, investigators found direct messages to other Twitter users about Mr. Eichenwald, including one that read, "I hope this sends him into a seizure." Other Twitter messages from Mr. Rivello included one that read, "I know he has epilepsy." Investigators also searched one of Mr. Rivello's digital accounts and found a screenshot of Mr. Eichenwald's Wikipedia page that had been altered to show a fake date of death of Dec. 16, 2016, the day after the strobe light attack, the Justice Department said. The digital account also contained screenshots from epilepsy.com with a list of commonly reported epilepsy seizure triggers. The attack drew attention from the news media as thousands of Twitter users witnessed the sequence of events unfold live on the social media site. Mr. Eichenwald, 55, who has about 318,000 followers on Twitter and has written four books, including "The Informant," had been critical of Donald J. Trump throughout his presidential campaign. Mr. Eichenwald suspected that the attacker, who operated under the pseudonym " jew goldstein" on Twitter, was a supporter of Mr. Trump. Twitter has since suspended the account. Late in the evening on Dec. 15, Mr. Eichenwald went to his home office in Dallas and saw that jew goldstein had replied to a Twitter post with a GIF. When Mr. Eichenwald clicked on the file, the strobe light triggered the seizure, his lawyer said. Mr. Eichenwald fell to the ground. His wife, Theresa, found him on the floor and saw the Twitter post on his computer screen. She called 911 and then replied on Twitter: " jew goldstein This is his wife, you caused a seizure. I have your information and have called the police to report the assault." Mr. Eichenwald was incapacitated for several days, lost feeling in his left hand and had trouble speaking for several weeks, according to his lawyer. Soon after, he contacted the Dallas district attorney's office. In state court, Mr. Eichenwald's lawyer filed for permission to serve a subpoena of Twitter to gain access to the account for jew goldstein. The social media company indicated it would cooperate, which drew protest from an anonymous "John Doe" filing that was intended to quash the subpoena. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
As the college sports world is in chaos, with some teams playing, some dropping out and the Big Ten suddenly changing its mind about playing football this fall, it might get overlooked that there is another slate of games this weekend. And, partly because of the confusion and cancellations, that slate of games is absolutely terrible. Even a last minute addition to the schedule, a hastily arranged showdown that might have actually been the weekend's best matchup, was abruptly called off on Friday. The result is that any fan hoping to forget the state of the world for a few hours and enjoy some high quality football is going to be at a severe loss on Saturday. Is there even one game worth watching? Let's look at what's left of the lineup. Only two members of The Associated Press Top 10 are in action this weekend, and neither game seems likely to be an edge of the seat contest. No. 7 Notre Dame is usually a popular team to root for or against, but how much uncertainty will there be this week against South Florida, a 25 point underdog that finished 4 8 last year? At least No. 1 Clemson is playing ... against The Citadel. Trevor Lawrence, Travis Etienne and company are usually exciting to watch, but their F.C.S. opponent is playing the second of what is expected to be only a four game schedule. Clemson is a 45 point favorite, and frankly plenty of people will line up to bet them anyway. Willing to dip a little out of the top 10? No. 11 Oklahoma State and their speedy running back Chuba Hubbard are 23 point favorites over Tulsa. And No. 13 Cincinnati is a 33 point favorite over Austin Peay. Don't expect surprises. "College GameDay" has chosen to travel to No. 18 Louisville and feature its game against No. 17 Miami. It's the only game between ranked teams this week, so there's that. But a closer look shows it might be far from a classic. While Louisville was a respectable 8 5 last season, finishing three games behind Clemson in their A.C.C. division, Miami was 6 7, its season culminating in a 14 0 loss to Louisiana Tech in the Independence Bowl. The Rest of the Rankings No. 14 Central Florida against Georgia Tech isn't an awful matchup. Central Florida is a few years removed from when it had actual national title aspirations, but it still has a 35 4 record over the last three seasons. Georgia Tech is coming off a bad year, but it opened the season with a 16 13 victory over Florida State as a 13 point underdog. Because Big Ten and Pac 12 teams are not currently ranked by the A.P., quite a few lesser lights suddenly are considered "top 25" teams. Though No. 19 Louisiana Lafayette just defeated Iowa State, its game this week against Georgia State doesn't set the pulse racing, nor does No. 24 Appalachian State against Marshall. There aren't any, although a few A.C.C. games are being played. Aside from Miami Louisville, there's No. 25 Pitt against Syracuse and Wake Forest North Carolina State. Not even an A.C.C. fanatic is canceling other plans for those. Baylor had a problem. Its game against Louisiana Tech had been canceled after an outbreak among Tech players. That left the Bears with no warm up games no games at all, in fact, before Big 12 play begins next weekend. Houston had the same problem. An outbreak at Memphis had caused a postponement of the teams' game this weekend. So after some frantic calls and negotiations, Baylor and Houston agreed to face off on Saturday. The deal took days, rather than weeks, to arrange, and was made barely a week before the game, an increasingly common timeline in these pandemic days. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
In Julie Doucet's comics, body parts are often changing: growing, detaching, breaking, leaking, morphing. On the letters page of an issue of her comic book "Dirty Plotte," which ran from 1987 to 1998, one reader wrote in, "Stay cool and don't be sad if you run out of bodily functions." He need hardly have worried. Doucet, a Montreal based French Canadian artist, is known for her influential 1999 graphic autobiography, "My New York Diary," the chronicle of a very bad relationship, but the seething, exuberant comics world she creates is not only tethered to reality. It includes all sorts of fanciful, surrealistic stories with invented or hoped for bodily functions, like one in which men insert tampons into their urethras, or "The Double," in which the Julie protagonist happily turns into a man, only to later encounter the prior female self as a separate body. The two Julies then pleasurably have intercourse. Doucet brilliantly toggles between charting dailiness and fantasy. DIRTY PLOTTE (Drawn Quarterly, 119.95), a gorgeously designed box set offering two hardcover volumes collecting Doucet's entire comics oeuvre, arrives at an opportune moment. It's a lavish history lesson for those who might take today's outpouring of feminist comics for granted, returning readers to the skimpier landscape of the 1990s, when Doucet's work, in both concept and style, broke new ground. Its aesthetic echoes forebears like Lynda Barry and Aline Kominsky Crumb, yet its execution and vision are different. (Doucet's dense panels, full of precise, stylized shading and characterized by heavy black and white contrast, swarm with details; they appear as the comics equivalent of a deep focus shot, the film technique used by Orson Welles and others in which the foreground, middle ground and background are all in focus. In Doucet's comics, a coffee cup has personality; the objects in a room seem to dance.) And while most of the material dates from 20 to 30 years ago Doucet abandoned comics in 2000 the wonderment and rage at virulently gendered behavior feels fresh, and relevant for this moment. The physicality of Doucet's work is still shocking. The box set includes a stand alone, stapled, digest size pamphlet a reproduction of the very first iteration of "Dirty Plotte," which was a self published fanzine before Doucet turned it into a proper comic book. (Doucet's success in shaping alternative culture is testament to the power of self publishing; the collection is dedicated to "all the zine makers in the world," followed by the injunction "Don't do nothing.") On its third page a woman, as if performing a striptease for readers, sheds her clothes, then rips her breasts off, leaving bloody patches on her chest. She then proceeds to gut herself with a knife; finally animals pounce into the frame to eat her entrails. It's a darkly funny, jolting vaudeville. But if Doucet's work leans heavily on violence to both women and men's bodies (there are many cut off penises), it is also unapologetically about female desire; the last issue of "Dirty Plotte" concludes with a story about jubilant masturbation with an elephant's trunk. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
In the race to find someone anyone to lash out at over the immigration and travel restrictions ordered by President Trump last Friday, many consumers settled on an odd target: Uber. It had, supposedly, undercut prices for non Uber taxis just as protesting taxi drivers went back to work. A boycott brigade formed almost immediately. On Sunday, in response to the same executive order on immigration, Starbucks announced plans to hire 10,000 refugees around the world. Then another boycott action began, started by people who couldn't understand why the company wasn't hiring 10,000 unemployed people in the United States. Both groups had the same goal, whether they were trying to stick it to the president or stick with him: to bring the fight to the companies that may (or may not) do the literal bidding of the new administration. And their weapon was their daily budget. Both actions, however, were not actual boycotts, at least if you ask a purist. "They are calls for boycotts," said Monroe Friedman, the unofficial dean of American boycott studies and an emeritus professor of psychology at Eastern Michigan University. Sustaining a true boycott, he noted, requires more than a hashtag. So what makes a true boycott work? And was it the call for a boycott of Uber that prompted the company's founder, Travis Kalanick, to quit Mr. Trump's economic advisory council on Thursday? THE TARGET A good boycott starts with picking the right company to put on the defensive. Sometimes, in the desire to make big changes fast, activists take a fire hose approach. Consider the efforts of the anti Trump organizers at Grabyourwallet.org. They offer a helpful list of the top 10 companies to boycott. Then, the small font spreadsheet lists several dozen more, from "most boycott able to least." Uber was midway down that list. As well intentioned as it may be, this makes for some exhausting reading. It's also exhaustive so much so that the organizers felt duty bound to include a list of entities not being boycotted at this time. It is O.K., for instance, to shop in a bookstore, even if that store sells a book by Mr. Trump. THE REASON Why boycott? Outrage tends to fall into two general categories, according to Daniel Diermeier, who is the provost at the University of Chicago and wrote about the topic for Harvard Business Review back when he was a business school professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. First, there are the one sided issues. No one, he said in an interview this week, is on the side of child labor, for instance. These kinds of boycotts tend to draw more supporters and have a greater chance of success. But if you're organizing a boycott around a more polarizing issue say, who deserves to come to a country, for how long and for what reasons you can expect that for any consumer action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction. The DeleteUber campaign prompted BoycottLyft after that company announced a 1 million donation to the American Civil Liberties Union. At the same time, Starbucks fans who support the company's outreach to refugees gleefully tweeted about supersizing their Frappuccinos to start this week. VICTORY After Mr. Trump won the election in November, Bill Penzey, the chief executive of Penzeys Spices in Wauwatosa, Wis., wrote a message on Facebook informing Trump voters that they had "just committed the biggest act of racism in American history" in more than 50 years. Boycotts ensued but good luck to you if your goal is to change the mind of a guy like that. And if you're going to try, don't send him letters telling him that you're not going to buy his tea anymore. (He doesn't sell it.) And don't give him a reason to disparage your intellect by misspelling "chef" as "chief." Dan Savage, the columnist, podcaster and co founder of "It Gets Better," a project that supports lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths, helped organize a boycott of Stolichnaya in 2013, to protest Russia's treatment of gays and lesbians. He knew he could not change the company's identification with Russia. But by picking on a company strongly associated with a particular type of country, the boycotters could send a message to other nations that their prejudice would not go unnoticed. "These are failing countries attempting to assume moral superiority over the West," Mr. Savage said. "Whatever else is wrong there, at least they're beating up queers and keeping them from getting married or speaking about themselves publicly." Separately, in the boycott world, the movement that led to the end of orca breeding at SeaWorld in San Diego is one good example of a well chosen goal. "It was something the company could do that was within their control, without ceasing to be who they were," said Robert N. Mayer, a professor of family and consumer studies at the University of Utah. EASE Deleting the Uber app from a smartphone is easy enough, especially when Lyft and others offer reasonable substitutes. Caffeination is available everywhere and third wave cafes offer better coffee than Starbucks anyhow. Other boycotts may not be so simple, though. For instance, no one makes a chicken sandwich quite like Chick fil A, so people who crave one but dislike the company's historical support of organizations that oppose same sex marriage are in a pickle. A friend of mine once suggested a solution: gay marriage offsets. Have a sandwich, then take the same amount of money and donate it to, say, the Human Rights Campaign. Mr. Diermeier invoked the Disney example: Good luck talking a child out of a promised trip to its theme parks. (Disney has, for whatever reason, stayed silent on the travel ban thus far, even though it has this built in protection of the youth vote.) SIMPLICITY For a boycott to take hold, the precipitating action must be easy to explain. In Uber's case, however, it wasn't. It had sent a tweet noting that the surge pricing it puts in place when demand is high had been lifted. That led to accusations that it was trying to undercut prices of taxi drivers who had just been involved in a work stoppage to protest the president's travel ban. But if the company had left the surge on, the same protesters would have probably accused it of profiteering off the work stoppage. So there was no way for Uber to win, though if it had posted no Twitter message at all it might have escaped notice. Still, this alone is hardly the cause for a boycott. So what's really going on here? In some ways, Uber is getting exactly what it deserves. After all, it has run roughshod over various regulatory bodies for years, blithely waved away insurance concerns and then left town as it did in Austin, Tex. when the authorities put reasonable rules in place. Even worse, these tactics worked brilliantly. The internet, apparently, means never having to follow the rules. As useful as Uber is, there are likely large numbers of consumers whose loyalty to it is begrudging. So, how many of them deleted the app, perhaps having long wanted to? More than 200,000 according to my colleague Mike Isaac enough that Uber had to install a new mechanism to make it easier for people to delete their accounts. We'll probably never know exactly how much the boycott affected Mr. Kalanick's choice to quit Mr. Trump's advisory board, or whether he did so because his employees urged him to. It's possible they could no longer stand the perception that their boss was helping a president whom many of them loathe. According to Mr. Friedman, the boycott dean, a true, successful boycott requires a sustained campaign and plenty of money or time. Consumers who don't have much of either, however, can take heart in one big change that the travel ban controversy has revealed. For the last week, scores of companies have felt compelled to make statements about a new president and an important piece of policy. Few, if any, of any size offered full throated support of the ban. It is now more clear than ever that the companies where we spend our billions answer to us. Pummel the ones that you disagree with for their views, or criticize the ones that are too cowardly to side with the man their country elected. But no matter what you feel about what is going on in Washington, isn't it rather nice to see large corporations back on their heels a bit? | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Your Money |
Quibi, the beleaguered short form content company started by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, announced on Wednesday that it was shutting down just six months after the app became available. The mobile streaming service offered entertainment and news programs in five to 10 minute chunks intended to be watched on phones by people on the go, but it struggled to find an audience with everyone stuck inside their homes during the pandemic. Despite raising a combined 1.75 billion in cash from each of the Hollywood studios, the Chinese e commerce giant Alibaba and other investors, Quibi will wind down its operations and begin selling off its assets. It had searched for a buyer for the company but found no takers. "Quibi is going to go down as a case study at Harvard Business School on what not to do when launching a streaming service," Stephen Beck, the founder and managing partner of the management consultancy cg42, said in an interview. The news of Quibi's shutdown was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Katzenberg announced the news to his 200 person staff on Wednesday afternoon. Quibi did not give an exact date for when the app would no longer be available. "The world has changed dramatically since Quibi launched and our stand alone business model is no longer viable," Mr. Katzenberg said in a statement. Ms. Whitman added that while the company had "enough capital to continue operating for a significant period of time, we made the difficult decision to wind down the business, return cash to our shareholders and say goodbye to our talented colleagues with grace." Quibi produced more than 100 original series, along with offerings like news from NBC and CBS, and sports programming from ESPN. Marquee names like Steven Spielberg, Sam Raimi, Antoine Fuqua, Jennifer Lopez and Chrissy Teigen were involved. But it struggled to attract subscribers from the start and those who did tune in groused that Quibi wasn't giving them what they wanted. Consumers complained that the programming couldn't be watched on television sets (something that became more important with people stuck at home) and they criticized the app's inability to allow them to share content on social media, a feature that could have helped generate word of mouth excitement. 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. Quibi is also embroiled in a lawsuit with Eko, a tech company that accused Quibi of misappropriating trade secrets and infringing on a patent for the technology that allows viewers to shift seamlessly between horizontal and vertical viewing on a phone. The activist hedge fund Elliott Management has committed to funding the lawsuit. And as the pandemic continued for months, the company's backers began looking for a return on their investment. One major challenge in trying to orchestrate a sale was the fact that Quibi doesn't own any of its content. In an attempt to lure the brightest lights in Hollywood, Quibi offered each of its partners sweetheart deals where Quibi would pay both to produce the content and then to license the programming for an exclusive two year period. After that two year term ended, Quibi would still be able to show the programming on its app, but the content creator would be allowed to stitch together the short episodes into a television show or a film and resell it to another buyer. "Katzenberg created something that was beneficial to content creators," said Michael Goodman, an analyst with Strategy Analytics. "But when push came to shove, the market spoke that chunking up premium content is not what consumers want. They like short form video: news clips, sports clips, beauty. There is a market for that. It's just not a premium market. It's not a new lesson but a lesson that has to be continually taught over and over again." Despite its shortcomings, Quibi did win two Emmy Awards last month, for the actors Laurence Fishburne and Jasmine Cephas Jones in the series " FreeRayshawn" from Mr. Fuqua. Two of the company's other shows also scored nominations: "Most Dangerous Game" starring Christoph Waltz and Liam Hemsworth, and a reboot of the comedy "Reno 911!" "We continue to believe that there is an attractive market for premium, short form content," Ms. Whitman said in the statement. "Over the coming months we will be working hard to find buyers for these valuable assets who can leverage them to their full potential." Hollywood is marveling at the pace of Quibi's demise. The company's advertising campaign for its April introduction included a series of commercials featuring characters facing imminent death, whether by quicksand or from a zombie bite. They all had about "a Quibi" before disaster struck. In the end, the company's life cycle didn't last much longer. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Media |
A wild mink in Utah has tested positive for the coronavirus. Mink on fur farms in the area have been infected with the virus, and the U.S. Agriculture Department, with other government agencies, was testing wild animals looking for potential infections spreading from those farms. The department notified the World Organization for Animal Health of the case, stating that this appeared to be the first wild animal to have naturally been infected with the virus, which has infected mink at a number of fur farms worldwide. The virus has spread from people to mink, and back again in a few instances. A mutated strain of the virus that jumped from mink back to people led Denmark to kill all its mink, wiping out a major industry. No further evidence has supported initial concerns that the mutated variant of the virus might affect the usefulness of vaccines, but scientists are still concerned about how easily the virus can spread on mink farms. "This is an important reminder that spill back from farms (and from people) into wildlife is also a real thing and needs to be on our radar," Jonathan Epstein, vice president for science and outreach at EcoHealth Alliance, said of the positive test in the wild mink. Dr. Epstein and other scientists and conservationists have warned about the possibility that the coronavirus could become established in some species of wild animal. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
What's better than a springtime getaway to Paris? There may be only one answer: a trip to the City of Light that's more affordable this year compared with the past several seasons. Data from Expedia.com show that the price of plane tickets to Paris has dropped 30 percent from Los Angeles, 60 percent from Chicago and 65 percent from New York City, compared with last spring and spring 2015. The decline, according to Sarah Gavin, a company spokeswoman, is because airlines are seeking to woo travelers back to Paris after a rough tourism climate in 2016. More recently, a gunman killed a police officer on the city's tourist heavy boulevard, the Champs Elysees, on April 20. "The terrorist attack in Paris in late 2015 and the attacks in Europe, in general, has led to fewer travelers visiting the city and better deals to be had from airlines," Ms. Gavin said. Numbers from the travel search engine Kayak.com also indicate a decrease in airfares: Ticket prices from the United States to Paris between April 1 and Sept. 1 are an average of 625, 32 percent lower compared with the same period last year. Luxury hotels, too, are offering better values this spring in comparison with the last five years, said Paul Tumpowsky, the chief executive of the online travel agency Skylark.com. They are also throwing in amenities for guests such as guaranteed room upgrades, breakfast and hotel credits. "There are more luxury hotels in Paris than ever before," he said, "so travelers get better deals because there is excess supply compared to demand." Expedia.com has several hundred offers. One example, from May 18 to 21, includes round trip airfare from Los Angeles International Airport to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris on Scandinavian Airlines and accommodation at the upscale Hotel Plaza Athenee. The price is 2,000 a person. Skylark.com has several travel packages. One offer in May is for a stay at the upscale Le Royal Monceau Raffles Paris. It includes round trip airfare from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City to Charles de Gaulle Airport, three nights' accommodations, a guaranteed room upgrade, daily breakfast and a 100 food and beverage credit. The price is 3,795 for two people. Mama Shelter Paris, a Philippe Starck designed boutique hotel, has a half dozen offers with nightly rates from 109 euros (about 116). One is the Love, which includes accommodations, breakfast, a welcoming bottle of Champagne and late checkout. From EUR179 a night. The boutique four star property C.O.Q. Hotel Paris has a spring deal that includes three nights' accommodations, breakfast, a bottle of wine, the use of two scooters throughout the stay and a dinner in the hotel's bar with a glass of Champagne. From EUR199 a night. Grand Pigalle, a boutique hotel in the Pigalle neighborhood, has nightly rates from EUR174 through spring, a 20 percent discount off regular rates. The price includes breakfast. The luxury apartment rental company Paris Perfect, which has more than 100 apartments around Paris, each with upscale furnishings and a fully stocked kitchen, is offering a 20 percent discount on apartment rentals in April and May. Nightly rates start at EUR158. Book a stay at Sofitel Paris Le Faubourg through an agent who is part of the Signature Travel Network and receive a room upgrade (if space is available), a EUR50 food and beverage credit, two glasses of Champagne or two cocktails, and early check in and late checkout. Rates from EUR400 a night. To book, email the Signature agent yaron.yarimi frosch.com. Other agents can be found by emailing info signaturetravelnetwork.com. A package for luxury seekers who also enjoy fine dining is expensive, but it's still a saving compared with the cost of accommodations bought separately. Four Seasons Hotel George V, Paris has the three night Culinary Discovery offer. The property's three restaurants Le Cinq, Le George and L'Orangerie received a total of five Michelin stars in the latest Michelin guide. In addition to accommodations, breakfast and a private tour of the hotel's 50,000 bottle wine cellar, guests get either a multicourse lunch or dinner at each restaurant. From EUR1,550 a night. The all business class airline La Compagnie, which operates between Newark Liberty International Airport and Charles de Gaulle Airport, has a Solo Offer in which round trip airfare begins at 1,800 a passenger. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
This article is part of David Leonhardt's newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it each weekday. About 70 percent of Americans identify themselves as either politically conservative or moderate, polls show. A large number of Americans also consistently say that they want politicians to work together in a bipartisan way. It's true that these broad principles often don't translate to individual issues: Voters are quite progressive on specific matters of economic policy, for example. But many Americans clearly like to see themselves as supporters of common sense compromise. Given this desire, the smart thing for politicians to do is signal their own support for compromise especially if they're able to do so in vague ways that won't cause them future problems. Joe Biden is quite good at sending these signals. He's done so several times in the current campaign, most recently this week, when a voter in New Hampshire asked if he would consider naming a Republican as his vice president. Biden replied: "The answer is I would, but I can't think of one now." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
This year marks the sixth anniversary of the Black Mamba Anti Poaching Unit, South Africa's predominantly female team of anti poachers. Established in 2013, the 36 women patrol the Balule Nature Reserve, a 100,000 acre private wildlife reserve in northern South Africa, on the western boundary of Kruger National Park. The women, some of whom are as young as 18, are there to protect the country's lions, pangolin, elephants and rhinos, whose horns are thought to have medicinal properties and can garner hundreds of thousands of dollars on the black market. The Mambas track about 78 miles of the park's border for eight hours a day, looking for snares or traps, inspecting the border fence and searching cars for weapons or contraband. But while they may look like soldiers in their camouflage uniforms, the Mambas are completely unarmed. In addition to the pride of working in a traditionally male environment, being a Mamba gives the women the opportunity to show their children especially their female children that women can hold meaningful work outside of the home. Their beginning salary is about 3,500 South African rand, or about 224 dollars , monthly, with the chance to earn more the higher they go. Pandoro Safari Game Lodge and Roar Africa both offer tours to visit with the Mambas. "These women are part of the changing face of the male dominated safari industry, and without them our wild spaces and wildlife would perish," said Deborah Calmeyer, Roar Africa's founder and chief executive. Collet Ngobeni has been a Black Mamba since 2013. Now 34, Ms. Ngobeni lives in Bushbuckridge, a small community nearly two hours away from the Reserve, with her husband and two young children. As a young girl, did you ever imagine you would one day be patrolling a park, saving animals from poachers? When I grew up, I only knew that wild animals are for white people! They didn't belong to black people. But that's not true. Wild animals belong to all of us because it's nature. What kind of work did you think you'd be doing? I only knew that if you go to university, you need to be a teacher or doctor. We changed that mind set. They can be a photographer. They can be anything that they like as long as they love it. We go to the school here, called Bush Babies, to educate these kids on nature. When they see us in schools, because of our uniforms they call us soldiers and they get excited to see us. They pay attention to us. We tell them that they must tell their parents that it's not good to kill wild animals. We have people who have a lot of money they check for the boys that are poor, then recruit them to be poachers. How did your family react to the news that you would be out in the bush without any guns or weapons? My husband was very positive about this. He said, 'You are going to make a change in our communities and in our kids and in our future generations.' My mother was scared. She said, 'These people are going to kill you!' I explained that it's not only for me but for future generations. They need to see wildlife in real life, not in postcards. She is not scared anymore because she realized how great a job we are doing. My life is not in danger. These poachers are not in the reserve for the human beings, they are there for the animals. If they see us they don't come after us. They just run away. I know how to interact in the bush. So, I don't feel in danger when I'm in the bush. I don't go alone. We work in a group. What was your scariest moment? In 2014, I was with two of my colleagues patrolling the fence. There was a car parked next to the fence. They were outside the reserve and we were inside. If we see cars we greet them with smiles, but these people did not want to speak to us. They were poachers. I was scared. But we were not going to leave them there. We needed to show them that we are here with pride and we know what we are doing. They saw us try to take their number plate. We managed to scare them. They drove away. But that raises a good question. How do you stay safe? We have smartphones with an app that let's everyone know where we are. When we go out to patrol we tell the others where we're going. If we see rhinos we take pictures and send to the office so they know where to send people to patrol at night. What was your training like? The first one was very hard: They were training us how to survive in the bush without bathing for seven weeks! That was very hard because we would wake up early in the morning, and run or walk along the fences. We made our houses with branches. They showed us how to interact when we see the Big Five elephant, lion, leopard, rhinoceros and Cape buffalo . The second training was two weeks. I stay in the reserve now for 21 days and go home for 10 days. People donated houses to us in the bush. We call them compounds. We share with two or three people. What do people say when they run into a group of women patrolling the park? At first they thought it was a man's job what we are doing. They were not giving us the respect they were supposed to give us. Now they see that this woman can do the job they are doing. When they see us they love us! Especially when we are at the gate doing road checks. Because in their lodges they tell them what we do in the reserve. We go there to educate those people that they don't have to poach animals, or take firewood with them because it's illegal. This interview was edited and condensed for clarity. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
"It's a little bit off the beaten path, but at the same time, a higher line car like a Mercury can offer more enjoyment than the higher priced collectible Chevys and Fords, because it was a bit more car," he said. Mr. Kraman said he did not expect Mercury's demise to affect the values of older models. "We've been down this road with established brands Oldsmobile, Plymouth and Pontiac going away," he said. "There's been no real impact, up or down." Values of Mercury vehicles trail those of their Ford counterparts in most cases, according to the bimonthly C.P.I. Collectible Vehicle Value Guide. The key exceptions are the woody wagons of the late 1940s, which are on par with their Ford counterparts, and the 1949 51 models, which can greatly exceed the same year Fords and other American cars. "There are collectors who always admired Mercurys," said the editor of the value guide, Eric Lawrence. "Growing up, maybe your dad was a Ford guy who got a promotion and bought a Mercury. It's a sentimental collector." Mr. Kraman of Mecum suggested a top five list of collectible Mercurys (listed values, from C.P.I. and Cars That Matter price guides, are the top of the range for rare cars in excellent condition): All other 1950s convertibles, 63,000 (for a '56 Montclair). Late '60s and early '70s performance models like the Cyclone, 30,000, and the '69 70 Cougar Eliminator, 70,000. "The '49 '51 has a cultlike appeal, and many who are attracted to it were not even alive when those cars were new," said Mr. Kraman. "It's a car that jumps generations." This model might also be the rare example of a customized car adding value. "A high end, high quality custom, especially if done in that era, can be a six figure car, while a high quality restored or stock model might be a 50,000 car," Mr. Kraman said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
You Won't Find This Runway on the Fashion Week Calendar On Thursday, the first official night of New York Fashion Week, while the industry and its disciples kiss kissed at Calvin Klein and Kim Shui, nine very young, very new designers walked their creations in the fifth annual Project Streetwork Fashion Show. The event, staged in the sanctuary of Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, was the culmination of a four week mentorship between designers from PVH, the global clothing company that owns Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, and homeless youth from Safe Horizon's Streetwork Project, which operates two drop in centers and an overnight shelter. A bracing alternative to the stoic runways at Skylight Clarkson Sq, the show was also a burst of joy from an increasingly vulnerable population. "For young adults and teens, there are so many barriers to stable permanent housing," Liz Roberts, the deputy C.E.O. of Safe Horizon, said in a phone interview. "They don't have experience living on their own. They don't have the life skills to navigate a lease and a landlord. They typically have limited work experience. They're homeless because of a history of abuse and neglect from their families, and they need a lot of support. There's a need for housing options that are different." Mayor Bill de Blasio's plan to expand New York's homeless shelter program, Ms. Roberts added, has improved their odds. "We've been able to move more of our clients into supportive housing than in the past," she said, referring to housing initiatives for people with mental health and substance abuse issues, and vouchers that offset rent costs at privately owned buildings. "And they've added beds to the youth shelter program, which is very welcome. We work with 1,000 young people every year, and on any given night we can only shelter 24." The fashion show allowed some of those very people to express their creativity. PVH provided sewing machines, fabric and art supplies, and guided the first time designers from inspiration boards to execution. At first the designer models walked cautiously, with downcast eyes. After a few steps, they looked up, to applause and cheers. And after a few more, they smiled. Blue and white crinoline bounced from shoulders and waists, a lime green hat twinkled with rhinestones, and a hoop skirt lifted a train of binder clipped Bubble Wrap. At least half the looks were winged. "I'm kind of a goth, so the first thing I thought was: Angel of Darkness?" said Delonte, 21, wearing a black and white outfit of his own design with bicolor wings. "Then, let's mix it. Half good, half evil." He kicked his feet to show off his cropped, billowing pants. "And I wanted to form it with a genie/ninja look." Delonte's family, who moved to Connecticut from Jamaica last December, did not welcome his coming out. "They told me I was a disgrace, that I should kill myself," he said. "And I was like, 'O.K., I'm going to give you people what you want,' and I did something that I shouldn't have." After two days in the hospital, he moved to New York, and for the last seven months he has been homeless. Streetwork helped him secure housing at Marsha's Place, an L.G.B.T. shelter in the Bronx. "Every day when I wake up, I go straight to Streetwork," he said. "The food there is amazing. I'm a foodie, trust me. I get to watch TV, play games and be creative. They treat us like they're a parent. They're the nicest people on this earth." Gimella, 22, landed at Streetwork when she was 18, after fleeing abuse at home. She now lives at True Colors, an affordable L.G.B.T. youth residence that Cyndi Lauper helped found, and is pursuing a medical assistant degree in addition to aiding Streetwork's women's sexual health outreach. "I had a lot of episodes doing my look," said Gimella, wearing a sheer dress she affixed with heart shaped panels covered in rhinestones. "I have social anxiety sometimes. But being around good people, it helped me be more comfortable, to be proud of who I am today. Good things like this, they don't come a lot, so you have to take advantage." For Joean Villarin, an assistant director of the program, Project Streetwork is also a positive shared experience. "It's nice to be in an environment where the focus isn't on problems, or on fixing something," she said. "It's on creating something." Daniel Armosilla, a designer and Project Streetwork mentor, said, "When we say, 'This is a great idea, here are the tools and supplies, let's band together and help you realize this,' all that's happened to them washes away. They feel peace and elation surprised by what they're capable of." "The runway saves lives," the M.C. said, near the end, to cheers. "Tonight meant a lot to me," Delonte said. "I feel like a star. If they had something like this I could continue on, that would be so perfect. That would be the best." He described his second look for the evening: gray sweatpants and a top he shredded with scissors. "Oh, the top. ..." He clasped his hands together. "You're going to love it." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
JUILLIARD DANCE at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Lincoln Center (March 21 23, 7:30 p.m., through March 24). For their seasonal showcase, the wunderkinds of this prestigious school present two works from the 1970s by American dance giants and a newer work from an astute contemporary voice. "Spring Dances," as the program is called, includes Twyla Tharp's 1973 genre busting gem "Deuce Coupe" to the music of the Beach Boys, Merce Cunningham's rigorous 1975 "Sounddance" to music by David Tudor, and Crystal Pite's 2012 "Grace Engine," which sets her forceful, fluid movement against a moody electronic score by Owen Belton. 212 799 5000, juilliard.edu/calendar NICK MAUSS at the Whitney Museum of American Art (through May 14). In recent years, art museums have taken note of contemporary dance, curating and commissioning work for their galleries. Ballet has largely been excluded, which the visual and performance artist Nick Mauss attempts to rectify with his exhibition "Transmissions." It comprises ballet scores, scenic designs and a modernist ballet conceived by Mr. Mauss, and weaves in explorations of gender, history and ballet's relationship to other art forms. Pieces from the Whitney's collection and other institutions, like the New York Public Library and the Kinsey Institute, are included as well. 212 570 3600, whitney.org NEW YORK THEATER BALLET at the 92nd Street Y (March 16, 8 p.m.; March 17, 4 and 8 p.m.). This year marks the centenary of the birth of Jerome Rabinowitz, better known as Jerome Robbins, one of the most influential choreographers of the 20th century, from Broadway ("Fiddler on the Roof," "West Side Story") to ballet. To honor his contribution to the latter, New York Theater Ballet presents a trio of some of his lesser known, more intimate works as part of the Harkness Dance Festival. "Rondo," "Septet" and "Concertino" are all from the early 1980s; the second two were part of Robbins's "Four Chamber Works" to music by Igor Stravinsky. 212 415 5500, 92y.org | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
Dances can spring from surprising sources. Take the two full evening productions at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. One is inspired by 20th century art, the other by aeronautical history. At the Ted Shawn Theater (Wednesday, July 20, to Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m.; July 24 at 2 p.m.), BalletX of Philadelphia dances one of the most unusual narrative ballets in recent years: Matthew Neenan's "Sunset, o639 Hours," which traces the career of Edwin Musick, the pilot of the inaugural trans Pacific flight in 1938. The Doris Duke Theater (Wednesday to Friday at 8:15 p.m.; Saturday at 2:15 and 8:15 p.m.; July 24 at 2:15 p.m.) offers ZviDance in Zvi Gotheiner's "Escher/Bacon/Rothko," inspired by the works of three artists: M. C. Escher, creator of dizzying spatial illusions; Francis Bacon, known for portraits of grotesque tormented figures; and Mark Rothko, creator of paintings in which blocks of colored rectangles convey an unexpected sense of transcendence. (Becket, Mass.; 413 243 0745; jacobspillow.org.) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
Q. Your recent tip on managing iOS apps without the old capability in the new iTunes update did not address seeing apps beyond pages available on a device (I have hundreds more not visible) and organizing them on a computer, as was so easy before iTunes 12.7. Help! A. By confining apps management to the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, Apple has made the process more challenging for those who preferred to organize their collections in the desktop iTunes program but there are a few tricks that may help make more of your apps visible and easier to move around. For example, sorting your apps into folders on your home screen (a feature that was introduced for the iPhone in 2010) allows you to keep at least 12 tiny app icons in the same amount of space as a single standard icon. Depending on the screen size of your hardware and the version of the iOS software you are using, you can have anywhere from 2,160 to 49,140 apps displayed on your device's home screens. Whether or not your phone or tablet has the storage capacity for a potential 49,140 apps is another matter, but the icon visibility is possible based on the number of home screens, space for folders and number of apps that can be stored in those folders. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
's deeply reasoned sixth novel tangles with the nature of truth and conviction in a society split by racial violence and a runaway media. But this is the 19th century, not our own; this is the story of her own family's past. Isn't history familiar? Isn't familiarity unsettling? The hero of "Dawson's Fall" is Robinson's great grandfather Frank, an Englishman turned Confederate captain turned liberal newspaperman, one of the few white voices in Reconstruction South Carolina trying to tip the scales toward humanity. More prosaically, he's also caught up in the affair of one of his domestics, a Swiss governess who has been seduced by the drooping mustache of the doctor next door, and not everyone makes it through the scandal alive. Weaving excerpts from her great grandmother Sarah's diaries and Frank's editorials into her fiction, Robinson embarks on a grand and worthy experiment: to test the sturdiness of truth against the lure of unreality, of embellishment, of fervor. What stands in the way of her family's heroism is the era they're caught in. How, Robinson asks, could ancestors of hers, descendants of a freedom loving Welsh clan, live with the same dedication to honor in a society built and bloodied by slavery, "that dark basilisk reign"? The journey toward an answer is as good as we can hope for: both majestic and faltering. A green Frank Dawson comes to America in the 1860s because the Confederacy feels righteous; the myth of the (white) oppressed that's already snaking around the South's neck is persuasive to this gentleman of principle. As he falls into journalism, we follow the wartime plight of his future bride, whose evacuation during the bombardment of Baton Rouge comes alive in diary fragments. "White and black were all mixed together," she observes in the chaos, "and were as confidential as though related." Against these beautiful fragments from the archives, Robinson's scenes are lovingly crafted, both stark and intimate, and we watch in suspense as the Dawsons begin unraveling purpose from prejudice. When Frank, now the editor of The Charleston News and Courier, encounters the black educator John Langston, he mistakes the man's light skin for whiteness. The slow revelation of his error unnerves Frank, upsets his liberality. "What was confusing was that Langston spoke like a white man," Robinson writes. "His lack of deference: He acted like a white man." Frank remains polite, but as Southerners will tell you, politeness here can come cheap. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
Each week, we review the week's news, offering analysis about the most important developments in the tech industry. Greetings from the alternate reality we call Silicon Valley. I'm Nicole Perlroth. Here's a look at the week's tech news: Arguably, the biggest news to come out of the Apple event on Tuesday was Uber's layoffs. Usually anytime Apple unveils anything new, it dominates the entire week's tech news cycle. But Uber stole Apple's thunder, and not in a good way. Soon after Apple executives unveiled their latest shiny objects lower priced iPhones, a new iPad and a 5 a month streaming service Uber announced that it had laid off nearly 8 percent of its global product and engineering group, its second round of layoffs in less than three months. By late Tuesday, the day had gotten worse for the ride hailing service after California legislators approved a landmark bill requiring companies like Uber and Lyft to treat their contract workers as employees. The bill, which is expected to go into effect Jan. 1, would guarantee employment benefits, like a minimum wage, overtime and workers' compensation to hundreds of thousands of independent contractors. It would also drive up costs for companies like Uber, which is already bleeding billions of dollars in losses. California's Assembly Bill 5 could reshape the gig economy and would apply to the entire constellation of on demand, internet companies that popped up over the past decade: Instacart, Postmates, DoorDash and any company that counts on independent contractors for work that is part of their regular business. Uber, Lyft and DoorDash previously pledged 90 million to try to block the law. On Wednesday, Uber's chief legal officer, Tony West surprising the many, many people who have hailed a ride with Uber's service said that the company did not expect to have to reclassify its drivers as full time employees because they are not core to its business. Uber's business isn't providing rides, Mr. West said, but simply "serving as a technology platform for several different types of digital marketplaces." He added that Uber was "no stranger to legal battles." Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm, is backing Palmer Luckey's virtual wall start up at a 1 billion plus, unicorn valuation. This is the same Palmer Luckey who left Facebook after it was revealed that he was backing right wing internet trolls and anti Hillary Clinton meme factories in 2016. Mr. Luckey's surveillance start up, Anduril, has gone where many Silicon Valley tech workers have refused to go. The start up, which is also backed by the Palantir co founders Joe Lonsdale and Peter Thiel, is testing digital cameras and artificial intelligence technology that tracks people crossing the southern border. Tech workers have made clear in recent months that they want no part of similar military and surveillance projects. In June, Google said it would not renew a Pentagon contract after thousands of its employees protested and some resigned. Employees at Microsoft and Salesforce have similarly protested the companies' projects with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Andreessen Horowitz, which eagerly offers up investors for interviews timed to such funding announcements, has been unusually tight lipped on its investment in Anduril. For a deeper dive on "virtual" border wall technology, read my colleague Cade Metz's excellent article last year. The Trump administration announced plans to ban the sale of non tobacco flavored e cigarettes just one year after Juul Labs, the dominant e cigarette company, raised money from the tobacco giant Altria at a 16 billion valuation. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Technology |
Scenes from the long royal wedding arrivals Serena Williams, and Amal Clooney, and Idris Elba, and James Blunt. And the beef baron William Vestey, of course. None Serena Williams is keeping her royal wedding prep in her Instagram stories. Naturally, her fans are screenshotting and posting those, as she poses with her husband, Alexis Ohanian (and their infant, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr.). Other celebrity arrivals include David and Victoria Beckham, Oprah Winfrey, and George and Amal Clooney. Ms. Clooney arrived in a bold yellow dress and hat. Amal and George Clooney arrive for the wedding. Ms. Clooney was wearing Stella McCartney. The guests included the British actor Idris Elba; his fiancee, Sabrina Dhowre; the British singer James Blunt; and Oprah Winfrey, who was wearing Stella McCartney. Here's Violet Henderson, a contributing editor to British Vogue, and her husband, William Vestey. Mr. Vestey, referred to in the English press as "the beef baron," is the son and heir of Lord Vestey. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
New Yorkers are used to living in shoe box apartments. Now, more of them can see what it is like to live in something even smaller. Leasing begins Monday at Carmel Place, the city's first micro unit development, a nine story, modular building at 335 East 27th Street with 55 studios ranging from 260 to 360 square feet. The development, previously called My Micro NY, has tapped into a desire common among many singles to live alone. The building includes 14 units designated as affordable, for which some 60,000 people applied, or nearly 4,300 applicants per apartment. The lottery for these units was held earlier this month, and winners will be informed in January. The building is set to open on Feb. 1. "It shows the need that people feel for affordable, private space in the city," said Tobias Oriwol, a project developer for Monadnock Development, of the number of applicants. Monadnock is developing the building with the Lower East Side People's Mutual Housing Association. Most of the affordable apartments will rent for 950 a month to tenants who meet income restrictions, less than half of what will be charged for market rate apartments. Apartments in New York City ordinarily can be no smaller than 400 square feet, but the city waived those restrictions for this development. A zoning proposal by the Department of City Planning could open the door for smaller living quarters, if it is approved by the City Council. It calls for eliminating the 400 square foot minimum to allow for smaller apartments and loosening some density restrictions to fit more units into buildings. But even if these changes prevail, a building consisting entirely of micro units would still be illegal. For the foreseeable future, Carmel Place will remain an outlier and something of a social experiment. The development is the product of a 2012 design competition intended to address one of the city's more vexing housing problems: How do you build safe, legal and reasonably priced apartments for single New Yorkers who do not want to double or triple up with roommates? Carmel Place answers that question with studios that were prefabricated in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, delivered by truck over the Manhattan Bridge and assembled on site in Kips Bay. Kitchenettes are outfitted with mini refrigerators, two burner electric stovetops and microwaves in lieu of ovens. Bathrooms are large enough to accommodate a wheelchair, but have stall showers instead of bathtubs. Renters will pay a premium for a furnished unit. For example, a furnished 355 square foot apartment on the second floor is listed at 2,910, while an unfurnished 360 square foot unit on the same floor is listed for 2,750 a 160 a month discount. The lowest priced unit listed, at 2,540, is a furnished 265 square foot studio on the third floor. The remaining market rate units, including a 323 square foot studio on the eighth floor, with a 268 square foot terrace, will become available over the next few weeks, and priced based on how quickly the first apartments rent, according to a spokeswoman for the developer. Small apartments are not new to New York. Thousands of apartments that predate the city's 1987 zoning restrictions would be considered micro units by today's standards. In Manhattan, some 3,000 apartments measure less than 400 square feet, according to Jonathan J. Miller, the president of the Miller Samuel real estate appraisal firm. Many of them are tucked away in prewar buildings, some converted from hotels or rooming houses. "There's all this concern and wondering, 'Is it going to be accepted?' " Mr. Miller said of the new micro units. "But it's really not about the physical size, it's about how they're priced." The smallest units at Carmel Place are about half the size of an average studio in Manhattan, which was 550 square feet in October, according to a report by Douglas Elliman. The median rent during the same period was 2,555, about the starting rent at Carmel Place. So renters will be paying considerably more rent per square foot for these micro units. But for some renters it might not matter their rent check is about the same, even if the size of the space is smaller. 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. "It's like buying a Prius, it's a niche," Mr. Miller said. "This is one of those things that the market will determine ultimately whether or not they're accepted." Forty percent of households in New York City are not families, according to census data, yet most of the city's housing stock is designed to house families. Studios account for only 7 percent of the housing stock, according to the Citizens Housing and Planning Council. Single New Yorkers often subdivide apartments, squeezing several roommates into configurations that are often illegal and unsafe. Adding locks to bedroom doors can violate fire codes. And a provision in the city's housing maintenance code prohibits more than three unrelated people from occupying the same apartment, a rule that is often ignored and considered antiquated. "There is this idea that bigger is better, and that we need housing for families," said Sarah Watson, the deputy director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council and manager of its Making Room initiative, which ultimately led to the city's micro unit competition. "But people change, lifestyle changes, technology changes and the housing needs to change." The micro units' design, by nArchitects, tries to resolve the potential for claustrophobia with ceilings that are more than nine feet tall and sliding glass doors that open onto Juliet balconies. The building also provides communal space, including a gym, two lounges and an outdoor courtyard. A lounge in the cellar will have a pool table and a television, and the eighth floor lounge will open onto a shared roof deck with a barbecue. "People don't want to be limited by the size of their apartment," Mr. Oriwol said. A communal lounge might make tight living quarters more tolerable, but it does not make it any easier to squeeze a bed (and maybe a table and chair, too) into a tiny space. For that, Monadnock enlisted Stage 3 Properties to offer a brand of furnishings and services that it calls Ollie. The 17 market rate apartments are furnished by Ollie with pieces distributed by Resource Furniture. Among them is a sofa designed by the Italian manufacturer Clei that allows a tenant to take off the cushions and pull down a bed from the wall, transforming a living room into a bedroom. A white lacquer desk can be extended into a dining table that seats 10. Tenants who are unsure about how to decorate such a small space can buy an Ollie Box, an assortment of decor options like throw pillows, rugs and table lamps. All market rate tenants receive an Ollie amenity package that includes weekly housekeeping by Hello Alfred, an app based personal butler service; Wi Fi; cable; and access to events, some of which are free. Tenants living in the 14 affordable units would have to pay 163 a month extra for access to these services. An additional eight apartments, furnished and supplied with the Ollie amenity package, will be set aside for formerly homeless veterans. "The market has already decided that space is just one attribute that renters consider when they're looking for housing," said Christopher Bledsoe, a founding partner of Stage 3 Properties. Other attributes like housekeeping and free Wi Fi, he said, might convince some renters to pay more for less room. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
The coronavirus pandemic has set loose a recession of shocking speed and severity. In the coming months, the actions taken by both the public and the private sectors will have economic and public health repercussions that will reverberate for years. As a member of Gov. Phil Murphy's Restart and Recovery Commission in New Jersey, I have worked to help put together an effective reopening strategy, one that not only will allow the state's economy to move forward but also will address the glaring inequalities the pandemic has revealed. The experience has been eye opening. It's become abundantly clear that the responsibility for responding to the pandemic cannot lie only with local and state governments. Congress must act decisively and it must act in ways that don't repeat mistakes of the recent past, during the Great Recession. Our state governments serve a dual role as providers of critical services health care, public safety, education and mass transit as well as large employers. Many states, including New Jersey, are responsible for tens of thousands of jobs and the paychecks that go with them. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
On a quiet night, farmers say they can hear corn grow. But for most others, the constant sounds plants make are inaudible without technology like Ms. Adar's to bring them to life. By allowing visitors to interact with audible plants, she hopes to evoke a new perception of these photosynthesizing organisms: not as inanimate objects for humans to control, but as living co inhabitants, just as important to this planet as we are. Sound plays an important role in scientific discovery. Researchers found gravitational waves, mapped the seafloor and created pictures of babies in wombs just by listening to vibrations bounce and shift when they struck otherwise invisible objects. Listening to plants, and understanding how they interact with sound, could lead to discoveries, too To make the invisible visible, Ms. Adar "audiolizes" plants. At the garden, she has also planted sensors with succulents and cactuses indoors. When visitors touch the plants , sensors pick up vibrations, normally inaudible to humans. For a one on one experience, these sounds travel through a wire into a machine for amplification and delivery through headphones. For others, a prerecorded track of these plant bodies plays through a large speaker mounted in the room. "That way the plants can listen to each other," Ms. Adar said. Here's the sound of flicked cactus spines, brushed trunks or rubbed leaves between fingers. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Votes Are In, and the Fin Has Won IN retrospect, perhaps, it should have seemed inevitable: the Tatra won the 2010 Collectible Car of the Year Contest on nytimes.com. Yes, the Tatra. Of course. From 30 finalists (culled from 651 entries), including a restored Checker taxicab and an elegant Packard roadster, readers of the online Automobiles pages cast 1,510 votes for the unusual Czech built Tatra T 87, a 1941 model in basic black punctuated by a single huge dorsal fin. (A total of 9,359 votes were cast this year, some 3,000 more than in the previous contest.) If you find the Tatra's popularity surprising, you are not alone. The win caught even the owners Paul Greenstein and his girlfriend, Dydia DeLyser off guard. Mr. Greenstein said that upon hearing the good news, he thought, "This has got to be a joke." What is the attraction of a 69 year old car from an obscure company in a small country in east central Europe? "The Europeans have always had a big interest in them, the Americans never had and the Czechs were never able to afford them," Mr. Greenstein said of Tatra, which has made only trucks in recent years. "But now, the Czechs can afford them, the Europeans are still really hot for them and the Americans are going, 'Hey, those are kind of cool.'" Still, Mr. Greenstein added, "You have to be a nut to want to be near something like this." He spoke affectionately, of course. Mr. Greenstein, whose father is Czech, had wanted a Tatra after seeing a photo of one when he was a child in California, but he thought they might be out of his reach, "since they were Eastern European weirdos." Tatra's history dates to 1850, when it manufactured coaches and carriages, although it did so under different names first, as Schustala Company; then, as Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau Fabriksgesellschaft. The company says its Prasident, which went into production in 1897, was the first passenger car for Central Europe. The T 11 followed in 1923 and the T 77 in 1934, the year the company officially registered the name Tatra, after a mountain range. The T 87 replaced the T 77, and while the T 87 "had the same kind of crazy, radical streamlining" as its predecessor, "it handled well and ran well and did everything a lot better." Mr. Greenstein added: "It had a smaller motor, but it went faster and got better mileage. Even though the T 77 is probably most desirable in the series, I'd rather have the T 87 anyway, because it's a better car." Tatra, which stopped making passenger cars in the late 1990s to concentrate on trucks, has even suggested that it might make a limited production run of T 87s again. Although the auction description promised the vehicle was "90 percent complete," when the couple picked it up in upstate New York, "it was completely clapped out," she recalled. Mr. Greenstein concurred. "It was pretty frightening to look at," he said. Their winning bid was 8,000, and "I probably ended up paying more than it was worth," he said, adding, "But less than it's worth to me." Fortunately, the seller had many of the original parts in boxes, so the question was whether Mr. Greenstein would pay a shop to restore the car or do the work himself. He already had hands on experience restoring cars and motorcycles. (Between the two of them, they claim ownership of two dozen of each.) Realizing that such a deep restoration would be an all consuming task, they sent the car to the Czech Republic: not only was labor cheaper, but parts were more readily available. They shipped the car to a shop in Koprivnice, where the Tatra factory is located. The couple made some five trips to Koprivnice during the three and a half year restoration process to ensure that the T 87 was being rebuilt to their standards. On one of those trips, they visited the Tatra Museum to learn more about their T 87. "The museum archives have everything about the factory," Mr. Greenstein explained. "They have ledger books of who bought what car, so since everything from prewar was in such small production, there was actually writing in a book, by hand, of who bought the car and where." But it may be a bargain in the big scheme of things: "At the time that we got ours, you could go to the Czech Republic and, if you could find one, it would cost 35,000 to 45,000," Mr. Greenstein said of restored T 87s. "Now, the last one that sold there sold for 125,000." While one might expect such a rare car to be the center of attention wherever it roams, Mr. Greenstein says his Tatra is a fairly stealthy ride on the streets of Los Angeles despite its big black dorsal fin and "Osmivlc" license plate. That is short for osmivalec, which is Czech for 8 cylinder, a reference to the air cooled, rear mounted V 8 engine. "This car is just so weird that it doesn't fit in the Honda, Chevy or Hyundai cosmology of cars, and people will pass us on the freeway and not even look," Ms. DeLyser said. Added Mr. Greenstein: "I'm driving the coolest car and everyone's going to be looking at me, right? Nobody looks at you! Sometimes I have to remind myself that it's kind of like a precious item." At this point, they are still breaking in the engine and making sure everything is running properly. "We're just really enjoying it, and we take pictures of the car when we go places," Ms. DeLyser said. "I call it my life savings on wheels." By voting for the Tatra, readers of nytimes.com again demonstrated a fondness for the unusual: the winner of the previous contest was a custom car called the Marquis de Soto, built from the bones of a Mercury and parts from 11 other old cars, including a '57 De Soto. Like the Marquis, the Tatra will reside in the Share and View Photo Gallery at nytimes.com/autos, where readers can post photos of their cars. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
The Popcast is hosted by Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic for The New York Times. It covers the latest in pop music criticism, trends and news. As we come into 2018, streaming has firmly established itself as one of the dominant modes of music consumption, and almost certainly the dominant mode of music distribution. Vast catalog, free access (with ads), immediacy: what could go wrong? | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
TOUR DE FORCE Surely there are writers across the land reading aloud from new books at intimate, socially distanced backyard gatherings, but Elin Hilderbrand appears to be the summer's only best selling author to preside over in person public events. To date, she has signed copies of "28 Summers" at four independent stores Bethany Beach Books and Browseabout Books on the Delaware coast, Books Greetings in Northvale, N.J., and Warwick's in La Jolla, Calif. At each location, up to 25 fans were scheduled to arrive every 15 minutes. "It seems like a lot, but it's not; you really only have one minute per person or less. People wore masks. I told them, if they stood six feet away, they could take masks off for pictures," Hilderbrand says. "The only qualms I had were about traveling and even then I didn't look at anyone, talk to anyone or touch anything." Including stock to be sold later, she estimates that she signed about 1,000 books in Delaware alone. She says, "It was well worth it for me to go. These are devoted readers and bookstores that I trust, so it was a no brainer." "28 Summers," now No. 3 on the hardcover fiction list, is Hilderbrand's 25th book. For the past seven years, she has published two novels a year, adhering to a strict schedule that brings her from Nantucket to a villa in St. John to a studio apartment in Boston, depending on where she is in the process. She writes on legal pads a habit dating back to when her kids were little and she'd work on the beach using "lucky" blue pens from Nantucket Bank: "Once or twice a year, I go to the main office where I got my mortgage and they hand me a bag of probably 50 pens." She has never lost a legal pad. After she gets a draft on paper, Hilderbrand types it, prints out the manuscript, edits that, enters the changes into her computer, then prints and edits again. She estimates (jokingly) that she does this 59 times until a book is finished. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
For luxury carmakers, no technological parade is complete without a hybrid. And with Infiniti floating the Q50 sedan as a technology leader, the Q50 Hybrid makes a fair statement by luxury sedan standards: It actually has a noticeable effect on mileage. You might see saving fuel as a given. But several luxury hybrids, from the Lexus LS 600h L to BMW's 5 and 7 Series ActiveHybrids, have had their math out of whack, costing a king's ransom while delivering a sack of change in savings at the pump. The Q50 Hybrid is also an expensive way to save money, at 45,205 to start for the Premium model, or 47,005 with all wheel drive. There's also a sport tuned Q50S Hybrid at 47,605, or 49,405 with power to all four wheels. Those prices are roughly 4,400 more than the nonhybrid versions, which may relegate the Hybrid to the usual niche status. But at least the Infiniti is rated at 29 miles per gallon in town, and 36 on the highway, or 28/35 with all wheel drive. That's a healthy 35 percent bump over the conventional versions. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Automobiles |
"Mean Girls" is back. This time with smartphones. The cult classic film, a 2004 comedy about high school girls, has been adapted as a stage musical, and the adaptation is set in the present time. That means the Plastics have Snapchat and Instagram in their arsenal. The musical is heading to Broadway next spring beginning previews March 12 and opening April 8 at the August Wilson Theater following a run at the National Theater in Washington from Oct. 31 to Dec. 3. The musical features the same characters and the same basic storyline as the film. Tina Fey, the comedian who has already succeeded in television, on film and with a memoir, has written the musical's book, based on the film's screenplay, which she also wrote. The music is composed by her husband, Jeff Richmond, with lyrics by Nell Benjamin ("Legally Blonde"). The show is being directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw ("The Book of Mormon"). Lorne Michaels, the musical's lead producer, said adapting and updating the show provided an opportunity for improvement. "There are lots of things you can do better in a musical," he said. "The characters are fuller." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
LAS VEGAS The photos spread out on a coffee table tell the story of a career. In one, a woman wears a fairy costume and rides a flying horse. In another, the woman lounges on a desert rock at sunrise, in a gold bikini draped with red silk. In a third, she wears an Uncle Sam outfit and poses on three foot stilts. These are photos of Heather Burdette, a Las Vegas entertainer, at work. Not on the table are audition reels from Ms. Burdette's other career, one in which corporations pay her 500 to 1,000 a day to present their products, including tires and cybersecurity products, at trade shows. It is work for which she wears business attire instead of hot pants. These jobs are lucrative but infrequent. The overlapping careers have this in common: The work is temporary, one freelance job after another. Ms. Burdette is among the millions of Americans who piece together a living. Freelancers, the self employed, temporaries all know the current job will end and they need to keep looking for the next one. Increasingly, even many people with full time jobs feel insecurity about their work. Ms. Burdette knows the trajectory of insecurity. She has worked in Las Vegas as an entertainer since 1996, sometimes in jobs that quickly disappeared. Right now, she is busy. A freelancer since 2008, she works with 30 agents. Some help her book conventions. Others set her up with entertainment jobs. In addition to her presenting, this year she has worked as an astrologer and stilt walker, and she helped dress fashion models at a mall. She is fortunate to live in a city with huge entertainment and convention industries that rely on temporary workers. "It's the land of opportunity," she said. But as Ms. Burdette gets older, she has no choice but to consider new ways to earn a paycheck. In both of her careers, looks matter. At 43, she knows she cannot do these jobs indefinitely. "I'm really proud of the moments and the things these represent," she said, touching the photos on her coffee table. One is a profile of her, not in costume, with the words "Remember who you are ... and always keep growing." This is to inspire her, to encourage her to work on the skills she will need for whatever work will come next. "Whether that means getting a 9 to 5 job and putting on the big girl pants," she said, "or whether it just means going into something where people are not looking at me, and I'm not covered in rhinestones every day." There has been no official count of insecure workers in years. In 2006, the Government Accountability Office estimated that about 30 percent of the work force was "contingent," including those with temporary and part time jobs. The number of people paid by temp agencies like Manpower has grown 46 percent since 2009, according to Labor Bureau data. "The staffing industry has added more jobs than any other sector since the end of the recession," said Erin Hatton, a sociology professor at the University at Buffalo and the author of "The Temp Economy." There are contingent office workers and factory workers. There are contingent computer programmers and corporate executives. "We know that temps are everywhere," Professor Hatton said. Starting with the recession, employers have slashed costs, and a major way to do that has been to lower labor costs. Temporary workers often are paid less than regular employees. Under the Affordable Care Act, companies can avoid health insurance costs by hiring part time workers (who may qualify for subsidized insurance). "What we call contingent workers is really hard to define, because to some extent we're all contingent now," said Arne Kalleberg, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of "Good Jobs, Bad Jobs." "Work has become much more insecure, much more precarious," he said. "So everybody is a temporary in one sense, because their levels of job security have really decreased in recent years." Ms. Burdette is familiar with financial insecurity. She declared bankruptcy in 2005. When she married in 2008, she brought to the marriage a few thousand dollars in credit card debt. She and her husband, Jozef Bobula, met in January and married in May. They were in love, she said, but he also needed a green card for immigration reasons. He's from Slovakia. Mr. Bobula, 37, is a bass guitarist. He, too, pieces together work in Las Vegas, and is playing a regular gig at the Stratosphere casino. He also has a jazz trio and a duo, plays solo and teaches music. Part of what attracted Ms. Burdette to Mr. Bobula was his ability to manage money. "He is accustomed to saving first and spending second," she said. Today, her credit card debt is paid off. Her 2000 Nissan Xterra is paid for. She says the last four years have been her first without debt since she was 18. Ms. Burdette calls her financial situation stable right now. She and her husband, combined, make 55,000 to 75,000 a year. Their apartment is cozy, but comfortable. Ms. Burdette calls the style "Craigslist chic," because she bought most of her furniture on the resale website. The most valuable things in their apartment are her husband's guitars. The couple do not have retirement savings, but they do have an emergency fund and are considering investing a portion of it in the stock market. Her husband had the savings account when they married, and they only recently added her name to it. They waited, she said, because they wanted to see if the marriage would last. "To have my name on it," she said, "it brought still another level of peace and comfort that I didn't think could even have existed." "I can say no to gigs I don't want to do," she said. "I can be more discerning. I don't have to stand around in a showgirl costume if I'm not feeling physically up to it in terms of my appearance." Ms. Burdette wants to find a new set of gigs in which people are not looking at her quite as closely. She has explored voice over work, recording audiobooks. She has considered doing more with her astrology experience. She would consider a full time job, but as a last choice. She said her parents spent years planning and worrying and stressed about the future. "It didn't get them any more secure than me," she said. "I'm actually more secure right now, because I understand that the bottom can fall out at any time." One of her old business cards said, "Whaddya need?" Her current card says, "singularly multitalented." Under the new health law, which includes a mandate to buy insurance or face a penalty, Ms. Burdette has coverage for the first time in years. "It does provide people with a cushion," Professor Kalleberg said, "so that they can search, so that they can look for opportunities." Now, Ms. Burdette has to figure out what those opportunities will be. Reinvention is a word heard a lot in today's labor market. Jobs keep changing. People have to change to keep up, especially people without employers that provide training. But many temporary and self employed workers do not have the money or time to reinvent themselves and their skills. Even if they do, it is not clear which jobs will be available. "The path ahead is not going to be laid out for you," Professor Kalleberg said. The advice to reinvent is "easy to say, sitting in a job that has a fairly clear career path like I do," he said. "But it's a difficult situation and it's stressful." Figuring out what's next may be a little easier for Ms. Burdette. She has been doing just that for years. "I don't know what it's like not to reinvent," she said, "I'm just used to that." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Your Money |
These days, seasons just don't know how to stay in their lanes: The weather, like dancers, can turn on a dime. It's fitting, then, that Alexei Ratmansky, in his latest choreographic venture for American Ballet Theater, has taken on Glazunov's "The Seasons." A weather like primal force runs throughout his ballets, which demand that dancers move with urgency and purpose. Mr. Ratmansky's best dances are like expressions of nature: both raw and refined, told through dynamic, articulate bodies. Certainly, "The Seasons," which had its premiere on Monday at Ballet Theater's spring gala, is a dance born from joy. Mr. Ratmansky celebrating his 10th year as artist in residence with the company created it, a program note stated, as "a declaration of love, expression of gratitude and gift to the company." The work overflows with steps, which is usually not a point of complaint. But while many moments retain a sleek effervescence, like the brisk, nimble opening "Winter" movement, others are overstuffed. Dancers can't keep up with the music or, when necessary, hold onto unison; it gets choppy. A messy storm of a dance can be appealing Mr. Ratmansky's ballet is full of risks but visual details, from the confused palette and fabrics of Robert Perdziola's costumes to Mark Stanley's dull lighting, are off. In this ballet, where so much happens at once, there are patches of airlessness and a sense that Mr. Ratmansky is on a mission to not allow one note to escape his choreographic grasp. An interview with Mr. Ratmansky about his decade with Ballet Theater. On Monday, the premiere was paired with Mr. Ratmansky's "Serenade After Plato's Symposium" (2016), a ballet that, for me, has become mired in mannerism; dancers sweep across the stage with more furrowed eyebrows than abandon. In a subsequent program, "The Seasons" is being paired with two other Ratmansky works; unfortunately, it runs only through Thursday. The dancers need more stage time for this ambitious, intricate, large scale ballet, in which Mr. Ratmansky is honoring classicism as well as the 19th century choreographer Marius Petipa. Glazunov composed the score for Petipa, who has inspired Mr. Ratmansky deeply; in recent years, he has used archival materials to restage many of Petipa's works. For "The Seasons," no choreographic notations exist, but Mr. Ratmansky has used Petipa's scenario to create his own rendering. At the ballet's premiere, in 1900, the great Anna Pavlova played Frost in the "Winter" section; here, it is the sleek Katherine Williams, a Ballet Theater soloist who is finally getting her due. In the commanding role of Winter is an impressive Aran Bell, radiating composure and elegance. Along with Ms. Williams, who takes a running leap and lands on his bent thigh, he pairs up with Hee Seo (Ice), Catherine Hurlin (Hail) and Luciana Paris (Snow). They are a mesmerizing group, employing razor sharp footwork that gives the appearance especially in Ms. Hurlin's crystalline form as she soars across the stage in fleet footed turns of gliding across ice. Two gnomes chase off winter by waving flame colored fabric they're funny paving the way for "Spring," in which James Whiteside (Zephyr) partners Sarah Lane (The Rose) and Skylar Brandt (The Swallow). There's little ease as Mr. Whiteside boomerangs from one to the other, but in "Summer," the welcome appearance of Isabella Boylston (The Spirit of the Corn) has a calming effect as she extends her lithe legs and feet with a nonchalant, gracious air. She is all warmth. All the while, Cornflowers and Water Men frolic with Poppies girls, around the ages of 12 to 14, from Ballet Theater's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School. The adults partner the girls in lifts and supported pirouettes: one generation helping the next. After a Faun (Blaine Hoven) and two Satyrs (Tyler Maloney and Arron Scott) tear across the stage they're after Ms. Boylston Mr. Whiteside returns to rescue her. In "Autumn," led by the excellent Cassandra Trenary as Bacchante and Calvin Royal III as Bacchus, the dancing has an invincible beat: It's like watching runners sprint though a marathon. Ms. Lane, the Rose, returns with six partners and strikes an attitude balance with one leg bent behind her. With a sped up, almost deranged intensity, they move her arms in homage to the Rose Adagio from "The Sleeping Beauty." They nearly knock her over in the process, but she hangs on, as does Ms. Trenary when she punctuates her pirouettes with small, floor skimming hops. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
NASA invited the artist Robert Rauschenberg to Cape Kennedy, Fla., for the launch of Apollo 11, the first manned spaceflight to the moon, in July 1969, hoping that the experience would inspire him to commemorate it in art. Rauschenberg (1925 2008) was predisposed to take on the project. His use of existing photographs made him very much an artist of American public life and history. Case in point: the portrait of John F. Kennedy that appears in his "Buffalo II," a 1964 silk screen painting that was recently auctioned for a record 89 million. Rauschenberg had a longtime interest in both flight and technological innovations, including the magical solvent transfer process that produced the pale, drifting images of his "Thirty Four Drawings for Dante's 'Inferno'" (1959 60) and that was replicated in his silk screen paintings. In both cases, the layered, translucent motifs float in space, defying gravity and orientation. Rauschenberg's time at Cape Kennedy (its name was restored to Cape Canaveral in 1973) yielded "Stoned Moon," a suite of 33 lithographs produced by the print publisher Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles. But he wanted to make an artist's book about the project, to be titled "Stoned Moon Book." All the parts were assembled, but it was never issued. But most engaging and least familiar are layouts of 11 pages for which the artist collaged photographic images and lines and blocks of typewritten text in angular, vaguely Russian Constructivist compositions. The words juxtapose Rauschenberg's poetic observations typed completely in capital letters, like old telegrams with the more ruminative prose of Henry T. Hopkins (then the director of the Fort Worth Art Center, which is now the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth). For example, in "Stoned Moon Book, Page 7," the artist declares: "IN ONE DAY APOLLO 11 HAD DIGESTED ME. I WAS SOME OF ITS MUSCLE." On the same sheet, Hopkins evocatively frames a picture of the burned out command module of Apollo 1, where a flash fire killed three astronauts in January 1967, with the words "Three who lived with the possibility/and found the reality." Throughout, Rauschenberg establishes parallels between the technologies of NASA and those of printmaking, as well as between the collaborative natures of both endeavors. Several works contrast images from Cape Kennedy with views of Rauschenberg a rare presence in his art at the Gemini G.E.L. print studio. The 11 collages of "Stoned Moon Book" link poetry and fact, language and pictures and personal and public experience, creating an unusually sharp portrait of the artist. Luckily, the exhibition's catalog will publish all this material for the first time, along with a perceptive text that Michael Crichton (1942 2008) wrote about Rauschenberg and the project. It exists only in a hand corrected manuscript, and will be reproduced as such. ROBERTA SMITH As the official photographer of the Venice Biennale from 1954 until his death in 1973 , Ugo Mulas had extraordinary access to the contemporary art world. After the 1964 Biennale, when Robert Rauschenberg won the Golden Lion for his paintings, Mulas's artistic interests extended to American shores. Intrigued by the new generation of artists, he began to travel to New York, photographing a thriving scene. The lavish book that resulted, "New York: The New Art Scene" (1967), inspired this show at Matthew Marks. Marked up galleys for the book are on view in display cases, as well as photographs of a moody, gritty New York. The exhibition focuses especially on six luminaries: Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Barnett Newman and Marcel Duchamp, a longtime New York resident who was being rediscovered by this generation of artists. Mulas didn't speak English, but he was a canny interpreter of art and the process of making it. Some of the best photographs here function like portraits, even when the artists are not in the frame. Fragments of comic strips pinned to Lichtenstein's studio wall echo his Pop paintings. Mr. Johns, map in hand, paints a picture of it on canvas, while Duchamp, a chess aficionado, sits before an empty chess board in Washington Square Park. A photograph of Thanksgiving dinner in Rauschenberg's studio suggests the art world 's familial aspect; the police breaking up a dance party at Warhol's Factory reflects its more debauched one. Mulas's project, true to its day, celebrates Great White Men. It does include, however, photographs of modern dance pioneers like Trisha Brown and Deborah Hay, and of the sculptor Marisol, as bit players rather than protagonists. (Ms. Brown is shown nursing a baby rather than choreographing a dance.) The show has also been organized to capture the New York of the 1960s, as well as to resonate with current events: A 1965 vintage print showing a billboard of the Statue of Liberty that reads "Keep America Strong" feels like a slap in the face. Mulas found his own vibrancy in the New York art scene. MARTHA SCHWENDENER Ugo Mulas: New York the New Art Scene Among Others: Photography and the Group "Among Others: Photography and the Group," at the Morgan Library Museum, presents a cross section of multiple figure imagery from the 1860s to today, exploring the drama produced when a photographer puts two or more people in the same frame. It includes both on the street reportage and choreographed portraiture, and mixes high art images by August Sander, Irving Penn and Susan Meiselas with vernacular photography and snapshots. You won't find much to tie it all together. Best to do as you would with any crowded scene: Focus on individual prints here, and examine the various ways that figures inform and influence one another within a single shot. Most early photographs of multiple figures were static portraits; a Civil War era salt print here, made by Mathew Brady's studio, features dozens of men, presumably nurses, posing stiffly before an improvised hospital. Unposed photographs of groups became viable as shutter speeds decreased in the late 19th century Erich Salomon used a concealed camera to photograph unsuspecting statesmen at a 1932 disarmament conference while posed imagery could become more theatrical. A mass military portrait from 1947, shot by Eugene Omar Goldbeck from a 110 foot high platform, features more than 20,000 new recruits who together appear to create the winged star insignia of the United States Air Force. It's technically proficient but undeniably kitsch, and the grouping of black airmen to outline the star's borders appears more than a little distasteful. A photo montage here by an unnamed Soviet photographer, made some time in the mid 1950s, portrays a dozen fur hatted soldiers and women in head scarves grinning in front of the 600 foot tall Stalinist wedding cake that is Moscow State University. Their intersecting gazes and midstride stances suggest a new generation moving forward, but these Russians never stood outside this building and probably never met one another. Sometimes you have to make the drama yourself. JASON FARAGO Among Others: Photography and the Group A serious fashion photography book, "Issues" is a necessary corrective to the genre's presumed superficiality. Fashion pictures incorporate all types of photography, from still life and documentary to portrait and landscape, while codifying our collective ideas surrounding sex, race, beauty and gender. The book begins with several issues of Harper's Bazaar from the late 1920s. Each publication features chic, romantic black and white shots by Adolf de Meyer, who is credited with bringing fashion photography to America as Vogue's first staff photographer. Then Mr. Aletti steadily moves through the ages, noting Irving Penn's sublime portraiture and Clifford Coffin's debt to Rene Magritte's brand of Surrealism in Coffin's pre Pop pictures of models in bathing suits and monochromatic swimming caps, sitting on sand dunes in the June 1949 issue of Vogue. Later he lists the Autumn/Winter 1999 2000 issue of Vogue Hommes International Mode, highlighting the Nigerian photographer Samuel Fosso's character driven self portraits, which capture what it means to stylize self determination. In the pages of Mr. Aletti's book, a visual history of the evolution of image making unfolds. Although photography was f irst used in the 19th century as a tool of realism, to document daily life without flourish, technological advances and movements like Pictorialism have developed it into the sophisticated medium it is today. As "Issues" shows, the art owes a great debt to fashion image makers, who powerfully create fantasy, capture mood and constantly reinvent the possibilities of photography itself.ANTWAUN SARGENT | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
The Academy Award winning actor, producer and director, 90, filed two lawsuits Wednesday in federal court in Los Angeles against three CBD manufacturers and marketers that had posted online articles falsely claiming that he endorsed CBD products and 10 online retailers who he alleged had manipulated search results to make it look like he had done so. He is seeking millions of dollars in damages and a court order that the companies be forced to give up their profits. "Mr. Eastwood has no connection of any kind whatsoever to any CBD products and never gave such an interview," the court documents say. The first lawsuit, claiming defamation, targets three CBD companies Sera Labs Inc., Greendios and For Our Vets LLC that produced fake news stories claiming that Eastwood endorsed their products and that he was leaving filmmaking to focus on the CBD business. The second suit argues that 10 companies and individuals are using programming code to insert Eastwood's name into online search results for CBD products, misleading consumers into thinking the filmmaker is manufacturing or endorsing them. Eastwood's lawyer, Jordan Susman, said that he believed that the first articles appeared last year and that they are still being posted. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
Credit...Ana Cuba for The New York Times "A rude woman is really what we need right now," a veteran of the New York art scene said to me last May, just weeks before several assertive female political candidates started to emerge and even win some primaries. In this case, however, the rude woman under discussion was the pre eminent British sculptor Sarah Lucas, whose first American museum retrospective and largest exhibition of her work yet will open at the New Museum on Sept. 26. It may cause some art world jaws to drop. Prolific and provocative, yet not widely known this side of the Atlantic, Ms. Lucas is an original member of the Young British Artists (Y.B.A.s), the group Damien Hirst while still in art school introduced in 1988 with the "Freeze" exhibition, helping to rocket the London art scene to international status. She established herself abruptly in London four years later with "Penis Nailed to a Board," her first solo gallery show. The title came from a work that incorporates a sensational article and its headline from The Sunday Sport, a British tabloid that's now defunct. Never miss a show again. Add this fall's most anticipated cultural events directly to your calendar. She wasn't even sure what art was for. She said the issue bothered her quite a bit. Also, the male Y.B.A.s were getting most of the attention. "I was quite reconciled to people not being so interested in me, but that freed me up," she said. "I could experiment with materials, only pleasing myself." She came to realize, she added, that "I could really have a lot of fun, humor, between me and me." By 1991, Ms. Lucas was making big collages from the most offensive Sport spreads. (An example, "Fat, Forty and Flabulous," is in the retrospective.) Reading the feminist Andrea Dworkin helped her "see the extent to which everything is stacked against women," she said. Dworkin also wrote about exploitive tabloid images, which encouraged Ms. Lucas to think she "could mobilize this hateful stuff to my own purpose," she added. Part of that purpose was to explore an unsettling ambiguity: Are such images titillating, offensive, tragic or some combination thereof? Ms. Lucas feels that the tabloid spreads symbolize the position of all women, not just those in the images. And more: "You can identify with men as much as women," she said. "They coexist." Since then, Ms. Lucas's art has specialized in rudeness although unvarnished honesty with a moral undertone may be more accurate. The phallus whose depiction in Western art has been one of the most persistent taboos since the end of the Classical era is a ubiquitous form in her work. (You might think that she wants to equal the attention male artists have lavished upon female breasts throughout history.) Intercourse is frequently intimated, and a tender sarcasm is the prevailing tone. Titles can include profanities and other slang learned on the streets of Islington, the London borough where she grew up. Her materials are cheap and familiar: old furniture, toilets, cinder blocks, underwear, cans of Spam and the stuffed pantyhose. Cars, traditionally a male obsession, also figure in: variously crushed, bisected, burned or carefully collaged with a layer of cigarettes, as are other objects. Fruits and vegetables, kebabs and whole raw chickens do double service, portraying erotic body parts. Even if you know how good Ms. Lucas is as an artist, there's a chance you don't know all the different ways she's good, how consistently tough her fusion of politics, aesthetics and the grit of life has been, and how it has deepened over the years, especially formally. Ms. Lucas speaks of "the necessity of actual boldness" in art. "It's hard to keep that sense of necessity," she said. She has succeeded to an unusual extent, perhaps partly because she has never had a permanent studio, which may enforce an implicitly improvisatory mode that keeps her work fresh and on edge. There's also the increasing richness with which her art connects to the history of modern sculpture, beginning with Dada and Surrealism. For starters, her toilets could be seen as female rejoinders to Duchamp's urinal, and, of course, her work is riddled with variations on the ready made. Magritte, Louise Bourgeois, Gilbert George, Martin Kippenberger and especially the sculptor Franz West are among her influences, as well as the humble materials of Italian Arte Povera and Post Minimalism. Her work is dotted with amused asides, including fluorescent light fixtures a signature of the Minimalist Dan Flavin used as penises. The New Museum show includes a short video, "Egg Massage," made with her partner, the artist Julian Simmons, with whom she lives in Suffolk, northeast of London, and frequently collaborates. (They also have a London residence.) In it Mr. Simmons lies naked on a kitchen table, while Ms. Lucas breaks eggs and smears them over his body. A spontaneous event, it happened after dinner at the house of Ms. Lucas's close friend and longtime art dealer, Sadie Coles. (Her two dinner guests had a lot of eggs in their car: Christmas was coming.) The New Museum show may have its own egg splattered wall. "I'm quite a domestic person," Ms. Lucas told me. She described working for the New Museum show at her friend Matthew Barney's studio in Long Island City, Queens, where she was readying one of the exhibition's two largest pieces: a 2003 Jaguar that had been cut lengthwise, with one half burned and the other collaged with cigarettes. (Its title, "This Jaguar's Going to Heaven," rephrases the Pixies song title "This Monkey's Gone to Heaven" and also weaponizes it, since jaguars, one of the world's great predators, have probably dispatched plenty of monkeys.) The other work will be an 11 foot tall pair of over the knee platform boots in cast concrete, redolent of sidewalks, streetwalkers, drag and great man public sculpture. I'd met Ms. Lucas in the early 1990s in New York, but hadn't seen her, except in passing, in 20 years. She seemed nearly unchanged: tall and thin, with slack brown hair just above her shoulders, and a lean, no frills yet delicate British face, devoid of makeup, that she has called "plain." As usual, she wore a shirt, jeans and substantial, thick soled shoes, an ensemble that might have been determined by the age of 11 or 12 and barely altered since. This is the uniform seen in her frequent self portraits, and is by now as familiar as Joseph Beuys's vest and hat or Andy Warhol's navy blazer and school tie. Born in London, Ms. Lucas, 55, grew up on a council estate, one of four children. She held part time jobs from the age of 13 until she graduated from Goldsmiths College where many of the initial Y.B.A.s met in 1987. A D.I.Y. atmosphere prevailed at home: Her family "was always making things," she said. Ms. Lucas's father, a milkman, could build cabinets. Her mother, who would later oversee art programs in primary schools, had a plot in a community garden, where she grew vegetables. She made clothes as well as toys, including stuffed animals (Ms. Lucas's introduction to fluff) and taught her daughter the basics of gardening, sewing and cooking. Ms. Lucas was, in her own words, "a shy, reserved kid" who read voraciously and seems to have gradually discovered her own gregariousness. "In my early teens, I found my feet with it and learned to banter," she said. "It was a great joy." The love of banter is reflected in her fondness for collaborating with other artists and her preference for enlisting friends to help make work. Yet one of the most resonant things she said during our talks was: "Making things is company. Like reading or cooking." It doesn't take long to get the joke: We're seeing their primary sexual characteristics, and they're ready for action. You can apprehend the couple as clearly as you might two figures in an early work by Edward Kienholz; they seem similarly seedy, given the stained yellowish mattress. Nonetheless, the still life of fruit and bucket remains equally present. As usual, Ms. Lucas makes every texture, color and shape count; the ensemble put me in mind of the lightness and delicacy of a painting by Watteau. The piece is caustic, yet joyful about the persistence of desire and connection. The main arc of the New Museum show, on view through Jan. 20, is from early assemblages like "Au Naturel" to the distinctive 2010 "Penetralia" series, made with Mr. Simmons, which involves pieces of wood and rock found around their Suffolk house. My favorite is "Tree Nob 2," in which an expressively sculpted white plaster phallus rises like a mushroom from a small chunk of wood. From the Biennale, there are several plaster casts of the lower bodies of the artist and nine girlfriends, which they made together. Lolling about on tables and chairs, with cigarettes protruding from unlikely places, they resemble impertinent secretaries or artists' models relaxing for a moment, casting shade on the male artists for whom they are posing. At least those are two possibilities. In total, this trajectory shows an artist becoming much more of a sculptor or form maker, veering between the found and invented in new ways that imply that the avant garde might still exist. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
When drivers cross the Housatonic River into the Litchfield County town of Kent, Conn., about a mile from the New York State border, they must stop before entering Bull's Bridge, a historic one lane covered bridge that invites those passing through to slow down. It's an apt welcome to a town set in the foothills of the Berkshires, scattered with forests, lakes and rolling fields. Slowing down was one reason Sarah Bacon, 44, came to Kent. Ms. Bacon, a writer, was living in a loft she owned in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, in 2013, when she was diagnosed with a progressive lung condition. A year later, she closed on a weekend home in Kent: a 1,900 square foot, three bedroom, 18th century colonial on five acres. After a bidding war, she paid 760,000, 15,000 over the asking price. These days, she divides her time between Kent and a three bedroom rental in Harlem (she sold her loft in 2018), making the drive in under two hours with her cat, Sake, and dog, Lucky. "I still want a toehold in the city," she said. "But Kent has become my favorite place." Of Kent's population of approximately 2,850, roughly half are part time residents like Ms. Bacon. Last April, Peter and Abigail Hanby joined the full time half when they moved with their 2 and 4 year old sons into a 2,000 square foot, three bedroom ranch. They paid 430,000 for the house, which was built in 1940 on two acres. Mr. Hanby, 40, is an architect who works at Hendricks Churchill, an architecture and design firm in neighboring Sharon. Ms. Hanby, 38, commutes twice a week to Manhattan, where she is a director at Brightspot, an educational strategy consulting company. They came to Kent in search of more space and a different lifestyle when they outgrew the parlor level apartment they were renting in a Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, brownstone. True, but Kent faces challenges. One is a decades long dispute with the Schaghticoke Native Americans, who assert that portions of Kent belong to them. A faction of the tribe is currently petitioning the Bureau of Indian Affairs for federal recognition. If granted, Bruce K. Adams, who stepped down last month after a 10 year stint as Kent's first selectman, said, "it could change this town dramatically." Another issue is economic. Kent has a food bank that feeds 25 to 30 families weekly, Mr. Adams said: "There's affluence here, but there's also an underbelly that people don't see." As a community, many residents are quick to help one another when need arises, he added: "People of all types and walks of life are very generous." With about a third of its nearly 50 square miles preserved as open space, Kent contains three state parks: the 2,302 acre Macedonia Brook; Lake Waramaug, bordering a lake of the same name; and Kent Falls, where 17 waterfalls cascade 250 feet. The town is crisscrossed by Route 341 and Route 7, which follows the Housatonic River and parts of the Appalachian Trail. At the intersection of those roads, Kent's downtown covers a few blocks lined with independently owned shops, businesses and restaurants, as well as the Kent Memorial Library. There are 138 condominiums in four complexes, one rental building with 10 apartments and three affordable housing complexes with 58 units. There are no cooperative buildings. Ira Goldspiel, an agent at William Pitt Sotheby's International Realty, noted a wide span in home prices. "There are houses between 200,000 and 300,000, usually on a main road and in need of work," he said. "Then you can go all the way into the millions." Because high end properties are typically bought by weekenders, Mr. Goldspiel said, the luxury market in Kent reflects the market in the city: "Ours is a New York market." Over the past year, the housing market in Kent has been soft, said Bonnie Sue Bevans, a broker and owner of BRealEstate.Net LLC. But "prices are dropping," she said, "and activity is picking up." Based on information compiled by SmartMLS, Inc., as of Dec. 6, there were 39 single family homes on the market, from a 718 square foot, two bedroom bungalow, built in 1930 on 1.8 acres and listed for 127,500, to an 8,933 square foot, six bedroom colonial, built in 1991 on 389 acres and listed for 8.995 million. There were five condominiums for sale, priced from 169,000 to 262,000, and eight rentals, from a 645 square foot apartment for 990 a month to a 3,066 square foot contemporary home with a pool for 20,000 a month. The median sales price for a single family home during the 12 month period ending Dec. 6 was 378,000, down from 425,000 the previous 12 months. The median for condominiums was 186,000 this year, up from 177,000 last year. Mr. Goldspiel, who met and married his husband, Howard Schissler, in Kent, described the town as "liberal and inclusive, a place where you can be anyone you want to be." Nature lovers can swim, fish, boat and hike on miles of scenic trails. Foodies can choose from the locally sourced Swyft or the frank. food company, from Fife 'n Drum Restaurant Inn, with its extensive wine cellar, to Chinese, Korean and more. Full timers and part timers can mingle at events like the 43 year old Pumpkin Run and a Holiday Champagne Stroll downtown. Though rural, Kent is set apart from its neighbors by its downtown, with its array of boutiques along with basics including a hardware store, dry cleaner and the family owned Davis IGA supermarket. Kent Barns, a complex of modern barnlike structures, is filled with galleries and businesses like the vast R.T. Facts antiques showroom and the independent House of Books. Kent is served by Regional School District No. 1, which also serves the towns of Salisbury, Cornwall, Sharon, Falls Village/Canaan and North Canaan. Each town has its own school for kindergarten (and, in some cases, prekindergarten) through eighth grade; this year, 208 students, including 20 prekindergarteners, attend Kent Center School, in Kent. Most of the district's 1,364 students converge at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, in Falls Village. Pamela Vogel, the superintendent, said districtwide enrollment has declined in recent years. "We want to stabilize our enrollment," she said. "But at the same time, many families like that we have smaller class sizes." Fast forward to the 1980s, when Jacques Kaplan, a charismatic furrier and collector, arrived from New York and opened the Paris New York Kent Gallery. "He was determined to make Kent a mecca for artists," said Marge Smith, the Kent Historical Society's curator and archivist. Today, artists and art patrons alike live in Kent's hills, and the town has eight galleries, including one at the still active Kent Art Association. The newest additions, Kenise Barnes Fine Art and Craven Contemporary LLC, opened last May in Kent Barns. When their landlord asked Ms. Barnes how she would feel about being opposite another gallery, she responded in the spirit of Kent's legacy: "I told him, 'It would be awesome. Bring it on!'" 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 |
Like the rest of the world, Natasha Cloud and Bradley Beal were watching history unfold. They saw the Milwaukee Bucks refuse to take the court for a playoff game against the Orlando Magic in protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Wisconsin, the Bucks' home state. They saw the N.B.A. postpone the remainder of the playoff games scheduled for that night, and the next two, as more players indicated they would not play, either. "I was surprised initially," Beal, a Washington Wizards guard, said in a phone interview. "But at the same time, you had no other feelings but respect, joy and this mind set of: 'That's the right move. It's the only move.' "They set the example, and the rest of the league followed," continued Beal, who is not at the N.B.A. restart in Florida because of an injury. "That just shows how much of a league we are, how much we pride ourselves on being more than just ballplayers." Hours later, Cloud saw her colleagues in the W.N.B.A. follow suit, causing the postponement of two days of games. Cloud, a guard for the Washington Mystics, was not there with them because she had opted out of the season to focus on social justice after the police killings of George Floyd, a Black man in Minnesota, and Breonna Taylor, a Black woman in Kentucky, gave rise to protests against racism and police brutality around the nation. Cloud chose not to enter the W.N.B.A.'s bubble at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., amid a swirl of emotions. "I had every emotion you could think a human being could feel from sadness to frustration to straight rage to feeling not safe, feeling hurt, being fearful," Cloud said. "I didn't need to know George or Breonna or Ahmaud because we are them." Ahmaud Arbery, a 25 year old Black man, was shot and killed in Georgia while he was out jogging in February. His death gained widespread attention because of the unrest over the Floyd and Taylor killings, leading to murder charges against three white men. Cloud said she didn't feel like she could give her full effort to both basketball and activism. "When I'm with the Mystics I want to be 100 percent in, focused on winning the championship, and with the community I'm the same way," she said. "I want to be on the front lines, I want to be in person, standing side by side with our community, letting them know I'm not only here as a public figure but I'm here as a Black woman. "To be impactful is to be present, and that was huge for my decision." A shoulder injury was the impetus for Beal's decision to opt out of the N.B.A.'s resumed season in a bubble at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla. He planned to spend the time off resting and rehabbing, but the events of this summer have taken precedence. "I didn't make my opt out decision on social justice issues. I always felt like we could continue to play as well as address those issues and continue to bring about change," Beal said, adding that "100 percent" he wanted to be there last week as the players walked out in protest of Blake's shooting. "It has propelled my attention to want to do more and to want to be more involved." Cloud said that even though she opted out, she backs the W.N.B.A. players who are still competing. "I think a lot of people when I opted out were thinking 'she doesn't support the women going into the bubble.' Absolutely wrong. I completely, 100 percent support every single woman that went into that bubble and is doing their part creating and shining light on the issues we are facing in America." Cloud admitted to having a little bit of FOMO a term for the fear of missing out "because I love the game of basketball. I love our team. We just came off a championship and, especially because they're struggling right now, it's really hard to sit and watch and not feel like, man, if I was there I feel like I could make a little bit of a difference. "But I'm so happy with the work I am doing socially for reform and against social injustice and inequality within our country." Beal and Cloud led more than 20 of their teammates and over 1,000 participants in a Juneteenth rally and have spent time in the Washington area on voter outreach, including creating videos. They've been speaking out on social media, and Cloud has made public appearances to discuss social justice. "Our players see injustices, and they are calling it out," said Ted Leonsis, chief executive of Monumental Sports Entertainment, which owns the Wizards, the Mystics and several other pro sports teams. "They are helping to force a conversation." He added, "They understand the tremendous influence they have to inspire an evolution in hearts and minds, and create change." John Thompson III, who leads athlete development and engagement for Monumental Basketball, said Beal and Cloud are "extremely bright, smart and are very passionate about the times in which we live in." That influence has been cultivated through a unique relationship between the Mystics and the Wizards. "Being in the most powerful city in the world, we know we have the ability to reach these politicians and these people who are able to make changes," Beal said. Cloud calls the synergy between the Mystics and the Wizards special. "You don't really see a W.N.B.A. and an N.B.A. team not only working together, but who are actual friends on and off the court," she said. She applauded the N.B.A. players who support the women players, such as by wearing W.N.B.A. apparel and attending games. "They do a very good job, and that's dope, but our relationship with the Wizards runs much more deep than that," Cloud said. "I know that in this fight for social reform, if at any point I run into a roadblock and I need Brad for something, I know that I can call him or text him and he would help me immediately without even batting an eye, and vice versa." While the N.B.A. playoffs roll on, Beal is home rehabbing, but with an eye on getting people to vote. "I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, but we know that the guy in office isn't necessarily bringing about the change that we want, so that's our first initiative," Beal said. "Then we have a busload of other things that's wrong with society, and I think that's what's so crazy like what is the next step? Do you address police brutality? Do you address the education system? Do you address the financial opportunities present to communities?" Beal said the public often puts athletes on pedestals, but they understand their role and know they are not politicians. "There's a lot of things we can and cannot do, but we understand what our platform is able to do and we're just utilizing it to the best of our abilities," he said. Cloud said she plans to rejoin the Mystics in 2021. For now, she is focused on expanding her social justice work. "I'm from Philadelphia, and we're one of the worst cities right now when it comes to violence," she said. "That just means I need to do more. "As athletes, we always step up to the occasion, we always figure out how to adapt, so I'm really excited to get back on the court. But getting back on the court doesn't take away my love and passion for my community. I'm trying to make sure I'm doing what I can with my God given platform to give back and be a voice for the voiceless." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
The protest by tens of thousands of low wage workers, students and activists in more than 200 American cities on Wednesday is the most striking effort to date in a two and a half year old labor backed movement that is testing the ability of unions to succeed in an economy populated by easily replaceable service sector workers. Labor has invested tens of millions of dollars in a campaign for a 15 an hour minimum wage that goes beyond traditional workplace organizing, taking on a cause that has captured broad public support. But the movement is up against a hostile business sector sheltered by a decades old federal labor law that makes it difficult for workers to directly confront the wealthy corporations that dominate the fast food and hospitality industries. For political activists looking to the 2016 presidential campaign and beyond, the wage fight is coming at a potentially pivotal moment, the first concrete, large scale challenge in decades to an economic system they view as skewed toward the wealthy. "There is a huge upswelling of anger around jobs in this economy that are low wage jobs," said Jonathan Westin, director of New York Communities for Change, a grass roots organizing group that has played a key role in both the Occupy Wall Street movement and the current fast food workers' campaign. "This economy we're living in now doesn't work for people." The protests began with morning rallies that attracted crowds in the hundreds at McDonald's franchises in Atlanta; Brooklyn; Chicago; Kansas City, Mo.; Los Angeles; and Raleigh, N.C., along with other locations. A noon rally in front of a McDonald's restaurant on Manhattan's Upper West Side attracted throngs of protesters, many of them carrying signs that read "Why Poverty?" and "We See Greed." They included fast food workers, laundry workers, carwash employees and sympathetic bystanders. "America, period, is unequal," said Chasten Florence, 26, a construction worker from Jamaica, Queens. "Once we accept that, we can change that." McDonald's said in a statement: "We respect people's right to peacefully protest, and our restaurants remain open every day with the focus on providing an exceptional experience for our customers," The protests have coincided with an extraordinary shift in the political consensus on the minimum wage. In the last two years, Seattle has moved to gradually increase its minimum wage to 15 an hour, from 9.32. Oakland, Calif., established a new minimum wage of 12.25, while Chicago approved an increase to 13, from 8.25, over the next four years. Alaska and Arkansas passed minimum wage increases by referendum in 2014. In 2013, President Obama endorsed raising the federal minimum wage to 9, from 7.25 an hour, then increased that to 10.10 by the fall of that year. Democrats in the Senate are now working on a proposal to raise the national minimum wage to 12 by 2020. "The labor movement has been stuck," said Janice R. Fine, an associate professor of Labor Studies at Rutgers University. "They deserve a lot of credit in deciding that, in a situation this bleak, you needed 'climate change' " that is, a change in how the public views low wage work "before you'd actually get an opportunity to organize again." 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. Partly in response to the political shift as well as competitive pressure from tighter labor markets, several major employers of low wage workers have moved to raised their base pay in recent months. Walmart, Target and McDonald's have all announced plans to increase their minimum wage to or near 10, though for McDonald's it would apply only to the roughly 10 percent of its workers employed directly by the company, not by its franchisees. But business groups argue that a substantially higher increase would force employers to reduce hiring, accelerate automation and even threaten the basic economic model of some industries. For Mary Kay Henry, the president of S.E.I.U., the investment in the Fight for 15 campaign was initially controversial among her colleagues, many of whom wondered why the union should spend millions of dollars on a campaign that did not immediately net it dues paying members. But it was the result of a calculation that the 20th century model of organizing workers was rapidly becoming obsolete for those in a growing sector where employers considered it essentially costless to replace them. "We can no longer change our lives, and our kids' lives, without the support of a broader movement of workers," Ms. Henry said. The origins of the Fight for 15 campaign date back to early 2012, when organizers from New York Communities for Change, which had built support for Occupy Wall Street activists among more established progressive activists and labor organizers, began canvassing low income New Yorkers, many of them employed in the fast food industry. At the same time, public opinion was shifting. According to the General Social Survey, regarded by researchers as the gold standard in public opinion data, the share of Americans who agreed that "inequality continues to exist because it benefits the rich and powerful" spiked by more than 10 points from 2010 to 2012, to over 60 percent. "People know Walmart and McDonald's are doing pretty well, people at top," said Leslie McCall, a professor of sociology at Northwestern University, who has closely analyzed the opinion data on inequality. "It was like: 'Wait a minute. We're into the recovery, the unemployment rate is going down. But most people aren't doing well.' " Even politically moderate voters appear to believe that it is the responsibility of corporations to mitigate the problem. In her own preliminary surveys, Professor McCall found that, when asked to choose who should be most responsible for reducing inequality the poor, the rich, the government, major companies, or that it did not need to be reduced a plurality of Republican respondents, about 37 percent, chose "major companies." The Fight for 15 campaign hopes to harness these sentiments in ways that Occupy Wall Street never quite succeeded in doing. In Seattle, Steve Gelb, who makes above minimum wage at a work force training outfit, said he supported the protests because "the disparity of wealth has reached alarming proportions and the salaries of business owners and executives are way out of proportion." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
What kind of music does M. Lamar play? It's a simple question, but there's no easy answer. Mr. Lamar's lush and gloomy new show, "Funeral Doom Spiritual," is an assemblage of old spirituals but it isn't your usual Sunday at church. And while he has over time trained his penetrating, whooping soprano register with the help of an opera coach, it isn't like any opera you've ever heard, either. Mr. Lamar who is the twin brother of Laverne Cox, the transgender "Orange Is the New Black" actress, and has appeared on that show as Ms. Cox's pretransition self inhabits a musical genre pretty much his own. He embodies, as he put it in an interview after a rehearsal this week, a "gothic devil worshiping free black man blues tradition." He plays death soul. Or maybe blues metal. Or maybe apocalyptic lieder gospel. The hourlong "Funeral Doom Spiritual," which has its New York premiere on Friday at National Sawdust in Brooklyn as part of the Prototype festival of contemporary music theater, is fueled by the anger and sadness of the Black Lives Matter movement. But instead of explicit protest, this otherworldly, goth tinged projection into the distant future of our violent, racially and sexually charged present offers a space of melancholic, alluring, ultimately stirring reflection. Charting the stylized journey of a man mourning the loss of his love, "Funeral Doom Spiritual" follows him over the centuries as he hopes for a resurrection. The songs' lyrics may describe movements from life to death, but the work tries to reverse that course, seeking a state that Mr. Lamar calls deathlessness. "What the dead gotta say," he sings at one point. "They say, 'Don't give up on me.'" While the focus of the piece is the gangly, black draped Mr. Lamar, 32, sitting at the piano and singing, no singer songwriter has ever sounded quite like this, unless you've imagined the love child of Tori Amos and Marilyn Manson. But he does have antecedents and contemporaries. His malleable, ferocious voice and his taste for despondent political contemplation may remind you of the transgender singer Anohni and the anti AIDS siren Diamanda Galas. Trippy and unhurried, his compositions echo black avant garde jazz masters like Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. And two young artists, the soprano Julia Bullock and the composer Tyshawn Sorey, recently created an evening of Josephine Baker arrangements that slowed her songs into a desolation as glacial as that of "Funeral Doom Spiritual." The new piece has its roots in Mr. Lamar's childhood in Alabama, where he was a boy soprano in his church choir. He grew up obsessed with the opera stars Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman and Marian Anderson, imitating their style. Mr. Lamar hung around with the musicians in school but initially followed a visual art path. He enrolled in graduate studies in sculpture at the Yale School of Art before dropping out when his dabbling in performance began turning more serious. He moved to San Francisco and then, in 2006, to New York to study with Ira Siff, a noted vocal coach who is still his teacher and was for years the chief diva of the lovingly campy drag opera troupe La Gran Scena. "We go a lot through diction and enunciation," Mr. Lamar said. "Like, pronouncing things when you're singing with a bel canto line is a thing. You want a beautiful sound but also to always be intelligible. And lots and lots of scales and technique so the voice has dexterity, has flexibility, has movement between registers." He started off writing individual songs; they gradually gathered into larger pieces, mostly set in the historical past of slave ships and the Jim Crow era, but clearly resonant with our current moment. When his multimedia work "Negrogothic, a Manifesto, the Aesthetics of M. Lamar" was presented in 2014 at the Manhattan gallery Participant Inc., Ken Johnson wrote in The New York Times that he "plumbs the depths of all American trauma with visionary verve." "Funeral Doom Spiritual" arose as Mr. Lamar was singing one of his favorite spirituals: the gently defiant "My Lord, What a Morning," a Marian Anderson calling card (and the title of her autobiography). Hearing the words as if for the first time, he asked himself, using notably sharper language: What the hell was this about? He researched the lyrics online and found alternate versions. "I realized, oh, it's this end times thing, like when the Rapture comes," he said. "And I thought, wouldn't it be lovely if it had a setting, a piano setting, that reflected that content?" The idea of a doomsday spiritual dovetailed with what he called "this Negro zombie apocalypse idea I'd had," an extension of concepts he'd been exploring in works like "Negro Antichrist" and a requiem, "Speculum Orum: Shackled to the Dead." He found common ground in an image from the work of the legal scholar Anthony Paul Farley: "The idea that the dead are singing means that they're not really dead," Mr. Lamar said. "They're asleep, which always leaves the possibility of waking." Dark costumes with executioner style hoods and projected film images of lynching trees and burning cities echo the boiling music. The visuals have continued to develop through a stretch of workshops (under names that included "Destruction" and "The Demon Rising") and since the official premiere last spring at the University of Southern California. "In order for me to get to this stage of a piece," Mr. Lamar said, "I have to play it a lot. Not just rehearse it, but actually perform it a lot." However you classify it, the work exerts a strange, dark power. At the rehearsal, in a cramped studio a few blocks south of Penn Station, Mr. Lamar and a small ensemble read through "Oh, Graveyard," a combination of trembling piano, rueful string quartet harmonies and spidery electronics. His wailing falsetto turned repeated phrases into a keening litany. "There is this thing where you're singing well when you feel sort of superhuman," he said a few minutes later. "And it doesn't happen in the low register. It happens up high. You're in the stratosphere. You can transcend any muckiness of the world." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
If there were a hierarchy of furniture in your home, you might think that ottomans would be way down on the list, after sofas, tables and chairs. But Frank de Biasi, a New York based interior designer with an international clientele, sees it differently. "The ottoman is as important as the sofa," he said, because it helps make a room feel relaxed and inviting. "It's a comfort thing." That's why ottomans are especially well suited to "rooms where people are going to watch TV and hang out," he said. "Oftentimes, we'll do an ottoman as a centerpiece between a sofa and two chairs you can put a tray of drinks on it, as well as your feet." When you're choosing an ottoman, Mr. de Biasi said, "Size is crucial especially the height. You want the ottoman to be at least an inch lower than your sofa or chair. You don't want your feet going uphill, or down too low." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
'ARTISTIC LICENSE: SIX TAKES ON THE GUGGENHEIM COLLECTION' at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (through Jan. 12). Displays that artists select from a museum's collection are almost inevitably interesting, revealing and valuable. After all, artists can be especially discerning regarding work not their own. Here, six artists Cai Guo Qiang, Paul Chan, Richard Prince, Julie Mehretu, Carrie Mae Weems and Jenny Holzer guided by specific themes, have chosen, which multiplies the impact accordingly. With one per ramp, each selection turns the museum inside out. The combination sustains multiple visits; the concept should be applied regularly. (Roberta Smith) 212 423 3840, guggenheim.org 'AUSCHWITZ. NOT LONG AGO. NOT FAR AWAY' at the Museum of Jewish Heritage (through Aug. 30). Killing as a communal business, made widely lucrative by the Third Reich, permeates this traveling exhibition about the largest German death camp, Auschwitz, whose yawning gatehouse, with its converging rail tracks, has become emblematic of the Holocaust. Well timed, during a worldwide surge of anti Semitism, the harrowing installation strives, successfully, for fresh relevance. The exhibition illuminates the topography of evil, the deliberate designing of a hell on earth by fanatical racists and compliant architects and provisioners, while also highlighting the strenuous struggle for survival in a place where, as Primo Levi learned, "there is no why." (Ralph Blumenthal) 646 437 4202, mjhnyc.org 'PIERRE CARDIN: FUTURE FASHION' at the Brooklyn Museum (through Jan. 5). He was never a great artist like Dior, Balenciaga or Saint Laurent, but Pierre Cardin still at work at 97 pioneered today's approach to the business of fashion: take a loss on haute couture, then make the real money through ready to wear and worldwide licensing deals. He excelled at bold, futuristic day wear: belted unisex jumpsuits, vinyl miniskirts, dresses accessorized with astronaut chic Plexiglas helmets. Other ensembles, especially the tacky evening gowns souped up with metal armature, are best ignored. All told, Cardin comes across as a relentless optimist about humanity's future, which has a certain retro charm. Remember the future? (Jason Farago) 718 638 5000, brooklynmuseum.org 'ELECTIVE INFINITIES: EDMUND DE WAAL' at the Frick Collection (through Nov. 17). How does a contemporary artist enter a scene as formidable as Henry Frick's Gilded Age mansion? For de Waal, the English ceramist and author of the acclaimed family memoir "The Hare With Amber Eyes," the answer is with modesty. Only as you follow de Waal's site specific installations in nine of the museum's galleries does his own restrained music begin to ring out. Below Ingres's dangerously seductive "Comtesse d'Haussonville," he installs little strips of solid gold leaning against two huddles of white porcelain; in the richly appointed West Gallery, two pairs of overlapping flat screen shaped glass boxes ("From Darkness to Darkness" and "Noontime and Dawntime") distill the experience of being overwhelmed by painted imagery into a lucid kind of serenity. (Will Heinrich) 212 288 0700, frick.org 'THE JIM HENSON EXHIBITION' at the Museum of the Moving Image (ongoing). The rainbow connection has been established in Astoria, Queens, where this museum has opened a new permanent wing devoted to the career of America's great puppeteer, who was born in Mississippi in 1936 and died, too young, in 1990. Henson began presenting the short TV program "Sam and Friends" before he was out of his teens; one of its characters, the soft faced Kermit, was fashioned from his mother's old coat and would not mature into a frog for more than a decade. The influence of early variety television, with its succession of skits and songs, runs through "Sesame Street" and "The Muppet Show," though Henson also spent the late 1960s crafting peace and love documentaries and prototyping a psychedelic nightclub. Young visitors will delight in seeing Big Bird, Elmo, Miss Piggy and the Swedish Chef; adults can dig deep into sketches and storyboards and rediscover some old friends. (Farago) 718 784 0077, movingimage.us 'ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER' at the Neue Galerie (through Jan. 13). You could be forgiven for drawing a connection between Kirchner's shocking color palette and his character. It would be understandable enough, considering his problems with morphine, Veronal and absinthe; the nervous breakdown precipitated by his artillery training in World War I; and his suicide in 1938, at the age of 58, after the Nazis had denounced him as a degenerate. But to linger on Kirchner's lurid biography would be unfair to the mesmerizing technical genius of his style, amply on display in this exhibition. Surrounding more or less sober portrait subjects with backgrounds of flat but brilliant color, as Kirchner did, wasn't just a youthful revolt against the staid academic painting he grew up with. It was also an ingenious way to articulate subjective experience in an increasingly materialist modern world. (Heinrich) neuegalerie.org 'THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ALVIN BALTROP' at the Bronx Museum of the Arts (through Feb. 20). New York City is a gateway for new talent. It's also an archive of art careers past. Some come to light only after artists have departed, as is the case with Baltrop, an American photographer who was unknown to the mainstream art world when he died in 2004 at 55, and who now has a bright monument of a retrospective at this Bronx museum. That he was black, gay and working class accounts in part for his invisibility, but so does the subject matter he chose: a string of derelict Hudson River shipping piers that, in the 1970s and '80s, became a preserve for gay sex and communion. In assiduously recording both the architecture of the piers and the amorous action they housed, Baltrop created a monument to the city itself at the time when it was both falling apart and radiating liberationist energy. (Holland Cotter) 718 681 6000, bronxmuseum.org 'NATURE: COOPER HEWITT MUSEUM DESIGN TRIENNIAL' at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (through Jan. 20). Plastics transformed the material world after World War II. Today, they pollute our oceans. A better future will be made with ... algae. Or bacteria. That's the dominant theme of this sweeping exhibition. On display here at the Smithsonian's temple to the culture of design are objects you might once have expected only at a science museum: Proteins found in silkworms are repurposed as surgical screws and optical lenses. Electrically active bacteria power a light fixture. The triennial displays some 60 projects and products from around the world that define a reconciliation of biosphere and technosphere, as Koert van Mensvoort, a Dutch artist and philosopher, puts it in the show's excellent catalog. "Nature" provides us with a post consumption future, in which the urgency of restoring ecological function trumps the allure of the latest gadget. (James S. Russell) 212 849 2950, cooperhewitt.org 'OCEAN WONDERS: SHARKS!' at the New York Aquarium (ongoing). For years, the aquarium's 14 acre campus hunkered behind a wall, turning its back to the beach. When aquarium officials last year finally got around to completing the long promised building that houses this shark exhibition, maybe the biggest move, architecturally speaking, was breaking through that wall. The overall effect makes the aquarium more of a visible, welcoming presence along the boardwalk. Inside, "Ocean Wonders" features 115 species sharing 784,000 gallons of water. It stresses timely eco consciousness, introducing visitors to shark habitats, explaining how critical sharks are to the ocean's food chains and ecologies, debunking myths about the danger sharks pose to people while documenting the threats people pose to sharks via overfishing and pollution. The narrow, snaking layout suggests an underwater landscape carved by water. Past the exit, an outdoor ramp inclines visitors toward the roof of the building, where the Atlantic Ocean suddenly spreads out below. You can see Luna Park in one direction, Brighton Beach in the other. The architectural point becomes clear: Sharks aren't just movie stars and aquarium attractions. They're also our neighbors as much a part of Coney Island as the roller coasters and summer dreams. (Michael Kimmelman) 718 265 3474, nyaquarium.com 'PUNK LUST: RAW PROVOCATION 1971 1985' at the Museum of Sex (through Nov. 30). This show begins with imagery from the Velvet Underground: The 1963 paperback of that title, an exploration of what was then called deviant sexual behavior and gave the band its name, is one of the first objects on display. Working through photos, album art and fliers by artists like Iggy Pop, the New York Dolls, Patti Smith and, yes, the Sex Pistols, the exhibition demonstrates how punk offered a space for sexual expression outside the mainstream. In the story told by "Punk Lust," much of it laid out in placards by the writer and musician Vivien Goldman, one of the show's curators, graphic sexual imagery is a tool for shock that frightens away the straight world and offers comfort to those who remain inside. While some of the power dynamic is typical underage groupies cavorting with rock stars images from female, queer and nonbinary artists like Jayne County and the Slits make a strong case for sex as an essential source of punk liberation. (Mark Richardson) 212 689 6337, museumofsex.com 'BETYE SAAR: THE LEGENDS OF "BLACK GIRL'S WINDOW"' at the Museum of Modern Art (through Jan. 4). "Black Girl's Window," which consists of an old window frame that Saar filled with a constellation of images, is the focus of this exhibition, one of several helping to reopen MoMA. Concentrating on Saar's early years as an artist, it tracks the experiments in printmaking and assemblage that led her to arrive at the titular work. Despite the unusual color of the gallery's deep purple walls, the show is relatively modest a scholarly study of a specific period, anchored by MoMA's recent acquisition of a group of 42 of her works on paper. Two pieces from 1972 that represent her shift from the mystical to the political "Black Crows in the White Section Only," which brings together a variety of racist advertisements, and "Let Me Entertain You," which shows a minstrel singer with a guitar transforming into a black liberation fighter with a rifle serve as a kind of coda. Their appearance at the end offers a tantalizing glimpse of the iconoclastic artist Saar was on her way to becoming. (Jillian Steinhauer) 212 708 9400, moma.org 'STONEWALL 50 AT THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY' (through Dec. 1). For its commemoration of the anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion, the society continues with two micro shows: "By the Force of Our Presence: Highlights From the Lesbian Herstory Archives" documents the founding in 1974 by Joan Nestle, Deborah Edel, Sahli Cavallero, Pamela Olin and Julia Stanley of a compendious and still growing register of lesbian culture. And "Say It Loud, Out and Proud: Fifty Years of Pride" turns a solo spotlight on charismatic individuals: Storme DeLarverie (1920 2014), Mother Flawless Sabrina/Jack Doroshow (1939 2017), Keith Haring (1958 90) and Rollerena Fairy Godmother. (Cotter) 212 873 3400, nyhistory.org 'T. REX: THE ULTIMATE PREDATOR' at the American Museum of Natural History (through Aug. 9). Everyone's favorite 18,000 pound prehistoric killer gets the star treatment in this eye opening exhibition, which presents the latest scientific research on T. rex and also introduces many other tyrannosaurs, some discovered only this century in China and Mongolia. T. rex evolved mainly during the Cretaceous period to have keen eyes, spindly arms and massive conical teeth, which packed a punch that has never been matched by any other creature; the dinosaur could even swallow whole bones, as affirmed here by a kid friendly display of fossilized excrement. The show mixes 66 million year old teeth with the latest 3 D prints of dino bones, and also presents new models of T. rex as a baby, a juvenile and a full grown annihilator. Turns out this most savage beast was covered with believe it! a soft coat of beige or white feathers. (Farago) 212 769 5100, amnh.org 'VIOLET HOLDINGS: LGBTQ HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE N.Y.U. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS' at Bobst Library (through Dec. 31). With the Stonewall Inn now a National Historic Landmark (and a bar again; it was a bagel shop in the 1980s), nearby New York University has produced a homegrown archival exhibition at Bobst Library, across the park from Grey Art Gallery. Organized by Hugh Ryan, it takes the local history of queer identity back to the 19th century with documents on Elizabeth Robins (1862 1952), an American actor, suffragist and friend of Virginia Woolf, and forward with ephemera related to the musician and drag king Johnny Science (1955 2007) and the African American D.J. Larry Levan (1954 92), who, in the 1980s, presided, godlike, at a gay disco called the Paradise Garage, which was a short walk from the campus. (Cotter) 212 998 2500, library.nyu.edu 'ALICJA KWADE: PARAPIVOT' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Oct. 27). This shrewd and scientifically inclined artist, born in Poland and based in Berlin, has delivered the best edition in five years of the Met's hit or miss rooftop sculpture commission. Two tall armatures of interlocking steel rectangles, the taller of them rising more than 18 feet, support heavy orbs of different colored marble; some of the balls perch precariously on the steel frames, while others, head scratchingly, are squinched between them. Walk around these astral abstractions and the frames seem to become quotation marks for the transformed skyline of Midtown; the marbles might be planets, each just as precarious as the one from which they've been quarried. (Farago) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'SIMONE LEIGH: LOOPHOLE OF RETREAT' at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (through Oct. 27). Leigh's sensuous, majestic sculptures of black female figures fuse the language of African village architecture and African American folk art, and sometimes racial stereotypes, like the "mammy" figurines produced and collected in earlier eras in America. Sculpture is only one part of the practice that earned Leigh the Hugo Boss Prize 2018, but it is the one that inspired this show of three large objects in a gallery off the rotunda. The title comes from the writings of Harriet Jacobs, an enslaved woman who spent seven years hiding in a crawl space to escape her master's advances. In the exhibition, the "loophole" becomes a kind of artistic conceit, too, in which Leigh moves deftly between mediums, styles and messages, addressing multiple audiences but always, as she has stated, black women. For Leigh, loopholes might include representations of women that link back to ancestors or empower women by drawing on the freedom available through art. In that sense, these sculptures are sentinels, and placeholders. (Martha Schwendener) 212 423 3840, guggenheim.org 'AMY SHERALD: THE HEART OF THE MATTER ...' at Hauser Wirth (through Oct. 26). This realist painter goes big with her New York debut, starting at the top of the gallery food chain, and confirming the talent that landed the commission to paint Michelle Obama's official portrait in the first place. But by limiting herself to fewer than 10 meticulously worked paintings, she also makes this art palace look less mercenary than usual. (Smith) 212 790 3900, hauserwirth.com | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
ROME The thieves who took "The Crucifixion," a painting by the Flemish artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger, from a church in a Northern Italian town on Wednesday, knew what they were doing. They planned the heist at the church, Santa Maria Maddalena, for lunchtime, when the parish priest was sure to be out. They worked quickly, smashing the showcase protecting the 17th century work with a hammer, before jumping into a getaway car (a white Peugeot, according to Italian news media reports) that screeched out of town. The speeding car attracted the attention of a resident, who saw that the church door was wide open (unusually so), and raised the alarm. What the thieves didn't know was that the painting was a copy that had been substituted for the original artwork a few weeks earlier, after the carabinieri, Italy's military police, were tipped off that burglars had their sights set on the Brueghel. The only people besides the carabinieri who knew about the substitution were the priest of the church and the local mayor, and in the hours after the theft, they pretended to be distraught. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
The Miami Heat were not in the mood for a coronation Friday night. They pulled off yet another surprising win in Game 5 of the N.B.A. finals, beating the Lakers in a thriller, 111 108. They pushed the series to a Game 6 on Sunday. The Lakers lead the series, 3 2. Jimmy Butler put the Heat on his back, accumulating a triple double (35 points, 12 rebounds, 11 assists) and going one on one against LeBron James down the stretch. His free throws with 16.8 seconds left put the Heat up for good. Miami led by double digits in the first half and then again in the final quarter. Duncan Robinson (26 points) and Kendrick Nunn (14 points) also provided sparks for the Heat. Robinson hit a 3 pointer early in the fourth quarter to put the Heat up by nine and drew a charge on James minutes later. Lakers Coach Frank Vogel unsuccessfully challenged the call, which meant the Lakers had only one timeout for the rest of the game. This left the Lakers vulnerable, and forced them to go the length of the floor to try to tie the game with less than two seconds left. With 6:18 remaining in the fourth quarter, Kentavious Caldwell Pope hit a 3 pointer, giving the Lakers their first lead since the first quarter. From there, the Heat and Lakers continued to exchange haymakers. James hit a layup and was fouled with 1:34 left to give the Lakers the lead, and then he made another layup with under a minute left. But Butler continued to answer, even after Anthony Davis hit a layup off an offensive rebound with 21.8 seconds left to put the Lakers up briefly for their last lead of the game. China Central Television, the state run TV network, announced Friday that it would televise an N.B.A. game for the first time since a dispute with the league began last fall after a team executive expressed support for pro democracy protesters in Hong Kong. The move suggested a softening of tensions between the N.B.A. and China that the league estimated had cost it hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and that elicited criticism from fans and politicians. The change was to begin with Game 5 of the N.B.A. finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat on Friday night. "On the morning of October 10, the channel of CCTV Sports will broadcast the fifth game of the N.B.A. finals," the network said in a post in Chinese on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. "Welcome everyone to watch at the time!" Find out why China made the change now. End of 1st Quarter: The Heat lead, and the Lakers have an injury scare. One win away from the 17th championship in franchise history, the Lakers were immediately confronted by a major scare when Anthony Davis sustained an injury to his right foot while challenging for a rebound late in the opening quarter. Davis has a habit of getting shaken up often and finding a way to play through it, which has to give the Lakers some comfort. But Davis looked to be in distress, clutching at his right foot, and that situation more than an early 25 24 deficit is surely the Lakers' immediate concern. The good news for the Lakers: As quiet as the AdventHealth Arena fell after Davis went down and then hobbled to the Lakers' bench, he did not leave the court to go to the locker room. Davis led the Lakers with 8 points in the opening quarter and opened the second quarter on the bench but still with his teammates rather than seeking treatment from the team's medical staff out of view. The Lakers said Davis re aggravated a heel contusion that has bothered him at various points in these playoffs, but Davis is expected to return. 2nd Quarter: LeBron is keeping the Lakers in the game. Before the season, Marc Stein talked to Butler about his road to stardom in the N.B.A. Butler has done a lot of changing since his arrival in the N.B.A. as the 30th overall pick of the Chicago Bulls in 2011. He blossomed into a four time All Star with a reputation as a hypercompetitive and demanding teammate, unafraid to also challenge coaches, team executives, whomever. In an interview with Yahoo Sports last season, Butler acknowledged that he could rightly be described as "confrontational." He has also described himself as "a little extra at times." Butler said he does what he wants, despite what people may think of him. As he prepares to begin his new work life with the Heat, Butler is pushing back harder against those around the N.B.A. who have criticized him for how much he has changed from his early days in the league. Back then, he was known as a coach pleaser who liked to accentuate his Texas roots by wearing cowboy boots and oversize belt buckles, and listening to country music. "I like it," Butler said of the knock that he has changed too much. "I am different. I've picked up a lot of different hobbies. I don't want to stay the same. "I do what makes me happy. Some people just don't like it. Some people just don't want people to be happy." The Heat raced out to an 11 point lead in the second quarter, but the Lakers recovered and Miami entered halftime clinging to a 60 56 lead. Jimmy Butler led Miami with 22 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists, including a 3 pointer with one second left in the half. He made all 7 of his throws, which was more than the entire Lakers team took combined. Miami got a much needed boost off the bench from Kendrick Nunn, who scored 11 points. The Heat only played two players off the bench, the other being Andre Iguodala. As for the Lakers, they were led by who else? LeBron James, who scored 21 points on 11 shots, and was key in keeping the Heat from running away in the first half. Anthony Davis shook off his foot injury and entered halftime with 13 points and 7 rebounds. Both teams are shooting well from the field the Heat at 47.8 percent and the Lakers at 56.1 percent. The difference was in free throws (11 6 in favor of Miami) and in offensive rebounding, where the Heat had 6, while the Lakers just had 2. If the 171st game staged in the N.B.A. bubble turns out to be the last game at Walt Disney World, at least it is, rather fittingly a good one. Miami's Jimmy Butler continues to hold his own in a one on one duel with the Lakers' LeBron James. Somehow Butler is also making a run at approaching the remarkable levels he hit in the Heat's Game 3 victory which few expected him to repeat. Butler had 40 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds in that triple double Game 3 masterpiece. Butler had 22 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists by halftime this Game 5 and recorded perhaps his toughest bucket of the series with 6:41 to play in the third quarter, when he followed a missed 3 pointer by Jae Crowder with a rugged rebound basket. The Lakers' Dwight Howard, who scuffled with Butler along the baseline in the first quarter, was whistled for committing a flagrant 1 foul on the play; Howard's right arm connected hard with Butler's head as Butler made the layup. Butler made the free throw to increase his total to 27 points. He then grabbed an offensive rebound on the ensuing possession which Miami retained after the free throw to set up Duncan Robinson for a 3 pointer and a 76 70 Miami lead. Also making an impact: Jae Crowder. Every time the Lakers get on the doorstep of tying or taking the lead, the Heat punch back. Crowder just converted a 4 point play to put the Heat up 5 with 3:01 left in the third. 3rd Quarter: Robinson and Crowder come through for the Heat. The Heat were the beneficiaries of two four point plays in the third quarter. They needed both, too, because they can't shake the Lakers even with Jimmy Butler surging and Duncan Robinson having contributed a welcome 20 points entering the fourth quarter. Miami took an 88 82 lead into the final period thanks in part to the four point plays converted by Jae Crowder and Robinson. And Butler needs just one rebound for another triple double. He has 27 points, 10 assists and 9 rebounds to lead the Heat. LeBron James (28) and Anthony Davis (22) have combined for 50 of the Lakers' 82 points. The Lakers and Heat are matching 3 pointers. San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich says that the 3 point category is the first place he always looks in an N.B.A. box score. It's certainly hard not to be drawn there tonight. LeBron James is 6 for 8 from long range in this potential closeout game for the Lakers as crunchtime approaches. The two teams have likewise shot nearly identical from deep Miami is 12 for 26 and the Lakers are 12 for 27 with 9:05 to play and the Heat holding a 93 85 edge. The Lakers never know who will step up on any given night to serve as their third most reliable player but it was Kentavious Caldwell Pope in Game 4 and it's happening again in this Game 5. Caldwell Pope's third 3 pointer, with 6:20 to play, gave the Lakers the lead, at 97 96. Caldwell Pope is up to 14 points in support of LeBron James and Anthony Davis. The Heat have only used seven players and may be fading. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
In a flood of lawsuits, Roman Catholics, evangelicals and Mennonites are challenging a provision in the new health care law that requires employers to cover birth control in employee health plans a high stakes clash between religious freedom and health care access that appears headed to the Supreme Court. In recent months, federal courts have seen dozens of lawsuits brought not only by religious institutions like Catholic dioceses but also by private employers ranging from a pizza mogul to produce transporters who say the government is forcing them to violate core tenets of their faith. Some have been turned away by judges convinced that access to contraception is a vital health need and a compelling state interest. Others have been told that their beliefs appear to outweigh any state interest and that they may hold off complying with the law until their cases have been judged. New suits are filed nearly weekly. "This is highly likely to end up at the Supreme Court," said Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Virginia and one of the country's top scholars on church state conflicts. "There are so many cases, and we are already getting strong disagreements among the circuit courts." President Obama's health care law, known as the Affordable Care Act, was the most fought over piece of legislation in his first term and was the focus of a highly contentious Supreme Court decision last year that found it to be constitutional. But a provision requiring the full coverage of contraception remains a matter of fierce controversy. The law says that companies must fully cover all "contraceptive methods and sterilization procedures" approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including "morning after pills" and intrauterine devices whose effects some contend are akin to abortion. As applied by the Health and Human Services Department, the law offers an exemption for "religious employers," meaning those who meet a four part test: that their purpose is to inculcate religious values, that they primarily employ and serve people who share their religious tenets, and that they are nonprofit groups under federal tax law. But many institutions, including religious schools and colleges, do not meet those criteria because they employ and teach members of other religions and have a broader purpose than inculcating religious values. "We represent a Catholic college founded by Benedictine monks," said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has brought a number of the cases to court. "They don't qualify as a house of worship and don't turn away people in hiring or as students because they are not Catholic." In that case, involving Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, a federal appeals court panel in Washington told the college last month that it could hold off on complying with the law while the federal government works on a promised exemption for religiously affiliated institutions. The court told the government that it wanted an update by mid February. Defenders of the provision say employers may not be permitted to impose their views on employees, especially when something so central as health care is concerned. "Ninety nine percent of women use contraceptives at some time in their lives," said Judy Waxman, a vice president of the National Women's Law Center, which filed a brief supporting the government in one of the cases. "There is a strong and legitimate government interest because it affects the health of women and babies." She added, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Contraception was declared by the C.D.C. to be one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century." Officials at the Justice Department and the Health and Human Services Department declined to comment, saying the cases were pending. A compromise for religious institutions may be worked out. The government hopes that by placing the burden on insurance companies rather than on the organizations, the objections will be overcome. Even more challenging cases involve private companies run by people who reject all or many forms of contraception. The Alliance Defending Freedom like Becket, a conservative group has brought a case on behalf of Hercules Industries, a company in Denver that makes sheet metal products. It was granted an injunction by a judge in Colorado who said the religious values of the family owners were infringed by the law. "Two thirds of the cases have had injunctions against Obamacare, and most are headed to courts of appeals," said Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for the alliance. "It is clear that a substantial number of these cases will vindicate religious freedom over Obamacare. But it seems likely that the Supreme Court will ultimately resolve the dispute." The timing of these cases remains in flux. Half a dozen will probably be argued by this summer, perhaps in time for inclusion on the Supreme Court's docket next term. So far, two and three judge panels on four federal appeals courts have weighed in, granting some injunctions while denying others. One of the biggest cases involves Hobby Lobby, which started as a picture framing shop in an Oklahoma City garage with 600 and is now one of the country's largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 stores in 41 states. David Green, the company's founder, is an evangelical Christian who says he runs his company on biblical principles, including closing on Sunday so employees can be with their families, paying nearly double the minimum wage and providing employees with comprehensive health insurance. Mr. Green does not object to covering contraception but considers morning after pills to be abortion inducing and therefore wrong. "Our family is now being forced to choose between following the laws of the land that we love or maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful and have supported our family and thousands of our employees and their families," Mr. Green said in a statement. "We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate." The United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit last month turned down his family's request for a preliminary injunction, but the company has found a legal way to delay compliance for some months. These cases pit the First Amendment and a religious liberty law against the central domestic policy of the Obama administration, likely affecting many tens of thousands of employees. The First Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," and much attention has been focused in the past two decades on the issue of "free exercise," meaning preventing governmental interference with religious practices. Free exercise cases in recent years have been about the practices of small groups the use of a hallucinogen by a religious group, for example rather than something as central as the Affordable Care Act. The cases also test the contours of a 1993 law known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The law prohibits the federal government from imposing a "substantial burden" on any religious practice without a "compelling state interest." The burden must also be the least restrictive possible. Professor Laycock of the University of Virginia said: "The burden is clear especially for religious organizations, which ought to be able to run themselves in accordance with their religious teachings. They are being asked to pay for medications they view as evil." He added that because the health care law had many exceptions, including for very small companies, the government might find it hard to convince the courts that contraception coverage is, in fact, a compelling interest. But William Marshall, a First Amendment scholar at the University of North Carolina Law School, said the Supreme Court asserted in a 1990 opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia that religious groups had a big burden in overcoming "a valid and neutral law of general applicability." "You could have an objection of conscience to anything the government wants you to do pay taxes because they will go to war or to capital punishment, or having your picture on your driver's license," Mr. Marshall said. "The court has made clear that religious groups have no broad right for such exceptions." Mr. Laycock said that while judges are supposed to be neutral, they too can get caught up in the culture wars. Judges sympathetic to women's sexual autonomy would probably come down on one side of the dispute, and those more concerned with religious liberty on the other, he said. "There is a lot of political freight on this issue," he said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
The findings of a large federal study on bypass surgeries and stents call into question the medical care provided to tens of thousands of heart disease patients with blocked coronary arteries, scientists reported at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association on Saturday. The new study found that patients who received drug therapy alone did not experience more heart attacks or die more often than those who also received bypass surgery or stents, tiny wire cages used to open narrowed arteries. That finding held true for patients with several severely blocked coronary arteries. Stenting and bypass procedures, however, did help some patients with intractable chest pain, called angina. "You would think that if you fix the blockage the patient will feel better or do better," said Dr. Alice Jacobs, director of Cath Lab and Interventional Cardiology at Boston University. The study, she added, "certainly will challenge our clinical thinking." This is far from the first study to suggest that stents and bypass are overused. But previous results have not deterred doctors, who have called earlier research on the subject inconclusive and the design of the trials flawed. Previous studies did not adequately control for risk factors, like LDL cholesterol, that might have affected outcomes, said Dr. Elliott Antman, a senior physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Nor did those trials include today's improved stents, which secrete drugs intended to prevent opened arteries from closing again. With its size and rigorous design, the new study, called Ischemia, was intended to settle questions about the benefits of stents and bypass. "This is an extraordinarily important trial," said Dr. Glenn Levine, director of cardiac care at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. The results will be incorporated into treatment guidelines, added Dr. Levine, who sits on the guidelines committee of the American Heart Association. The participants in Ischemia were not experiencing a heart attack, like Senator Bernie Sanders, nor did they have blockages of the left main coronary artery, two situations in which opening arteries with stents can be lifesaving. Instead, the patients had narrowed arteries that were discovered with exercise stress tests. With 5,179 participants followed for a median of three and a half years, Ischemia is the largest trial to address the effect of opening blocked arteries in nonemergency situations and the first to include today's powerful drug regimens, which doctors refer to as medical therapy. All the patients had moderate to severe blockages in coronary arteries. Most had some history of chest pain, although one in three had no chest pain in the month before enrollment in the study. One in five experienced chest pain at least once a week. All participants were regularly counseled to adhere to medical therapy. Depending on the patient's condition, the therapy variously included high doses of statins and other cholesterol lowering drugs, blood pressure medications, aspirin and, for those with heart damage, a drug to slow the heart rate. Those who got stents also took powerful anti clotting drugs for six months to a year. Patients were randomly assigned to have medical therapy alone or an intervention and medical therapy. Of those in the intervention group, three quarters received stents; the others received bypass surgery. The number of deaths among those who had stents or bypass was 145, compared to 144 among the patients who received medication alone. The number of patients who had heart attacks was 276 in the stent and bypass group, compared with 314 in the medication group, an insignificant difference. But "there was no suggestion that any subgroup benefited," she said. Ischemia's results are consistent with current understanding of heart disease. Researchers have learned that a patient with a narrowed artery may have plaques not just in a single blocked area, but throughout the coronary arteries. There is no way to predict which of those plaques will break open and cause a heart attack. Stents and bypass treat only areas that are obviously narrowed, but medical therapy treats the entire arterial system. Yet when a cardiologist sees a blockage, the temptation for doctor and patient alike is to get rid of it quickly, said Dr. David Maron, director of preventive cardiology at Stanford University, the study's other co chair. When an exercise stress test indicates a narrowing, most doctors send patients to a cardiac catheterization lab to look for blockages, Dr. Maron said. If there is a blockage, the usual practice is to open it with a stent. If stenting is not feasible because of the configuration of the patient's arteries, for example bypass surgery is usually the next step. Patients with abnormal stress tests should talk to their doctors about the options, Dr. Maron said. If a patient has chest pain despite taking recommended medications, a stent or bypass might help improve quality of life. Still, he said, patients have time to make considered decisions. "You don't have to rush to the cath lab because, OMG, you will have a heart attack soon or drop dead," Dr. Maron said. "If you have had no angina in the last month, there is no benefit to an invasive strategy." Stenting costs an average of 25,000 per patient; bypass surgery costs an average of 45,000 in the United States. The nation could save more than 775 million a year by not giving stents to the 31,000 patients who get the devices even though they have no chest pain, Dr. Hochman said. But the conventional wisdom among cardiologists is that the sort of medical therapy that patients got in Ischemia is just not feasible in the real world, said Dr. William E. Boden, scientific director of the clinical trials network at VA Boston Healthcare System, who was a member of the study's leadership committee. Doctors often say that making sure patients adhere to the therapy is "too demanding, and we don't have time for it," he said. But getting a stent does not obviate the need for medical therapy, Dr. Boden noted. Since patients with stents need an additional anti clotting drug, they actually wind up taking more medication than patients who are treated with drugs alone. About a third of stent patients develop chest pain again within 30 days to six months and end up with receiving another stent, Dr. Boden added. "We have to finally get past the whining about how hard optimal medical therapy is and begin in earnest to educate our patients as to what works and is effective and what isn't," Dr. Boden said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
After years of budget overruns, testing problems and political difficulties, NASA's next great telescope has been delayed again, the space agency announced Thursday. The James Webb Space Telescope, which was proceeding toward a launch date of March 2021, will now be launched no sooner than Oct. 31, 2021. In a news conference Thursday, NASA officials blamed the delay on disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic and on schedule reviews that started last winter. "Mission success is critical, but team safety is our highest priority," said Stephen Jurczyk, NASA's associate administrator. NASA said the delay would not add to the project's overall cost, which was capped at 8.8 billion by Congress a few years ago, because the program had reserves in its budget. "Based on current projections, the program expects to complete the remaining work within the new schedule without requiring additional funds," said Gregory Robinson, the program director for Webb at NASA. Nor would it impact the ability of the Webb telescope to work with the Hubble Space Telescope, which the agency says will now last into the 2030s. The telescope, named after James Webb, who led the space agency in the 1960s, is the long awaited successor to Hubble. "Webb is designed to build upon the incredible legacies of the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes by observing the infrared universe and exploring every phase of cosmic history," said Eric Smith, Webb's program scientist. Seven times larger than the Hubble in light gathering ability, the Webb was designed to see farther out in space and deeper into the past of the universe. It may solve mysteries about how and when the first stars and galaxies emerged some 13 billion years ago in the smoky aftermath of the Big Bang. The telescope's main mirror is 6.5 meters in diameter, or just over 21 feet, compared with 2.4 meters for the Hubble. Its mission is to explore a realm of cosmic history stretching from about 150 million to one billion years after time began known as the reionization epoch, when bright and violent new stars and the searing radiation from quasars were burning away a gloomy fog of hydrogen gas that prevailed at the end of the Big Bang. Astronomers theorize that during that epoch, an initial generation of stars made purely of hydrogen and helium the elements created during the Big Bang burned ferociously and exploded apocalyptically, jump starting the seeding of the cosmos with progressively more diverse materials. But nobody has ever seen any so called Population 3 stars, as those first stars are known. They don't exist in the modern universe. Astronomers have to hunt them in the dim past. That ambition requires the Webb to be tuned to a different kind of light than our eyes or the Hubble can see. Because the expansion of the cosmos is rushing those earliest stars and galaxies away from us so fast, their light is "red shifted" to longer wavelengths, the way the siren from an ambulance shifts to a lower register as it passes by. So blue light from an infant galaxy bursting with bright spanking new stars way back then has been stretched, by the time it reaches us 13 billion years later, to invisible infrared wavelengths, or heat radiation which Webb is equipped to detect. It also turns out that infrared emanations are the best way to study exoplanets, the worlds beyond our own solar system that have been discovered in the thousands by observatories in space and on the ground since the Webb telescope was conceived. In order to see those infrared colors, however, the telescope has to be very cold less than 45 degrees Fahrenheit above absolute zero so that its own heat does not swamp the heat from outer space. Once in space, the telescope will unfold an umbrella the size of a tennis court to keep the sun off it. The telescope, marooned in permanent shade a million miles beyond the moon, will experience an infinite cold soak. The sun shield consists of five thin, kite shaped layers of a material called Kapton. Much too big to fit into a rocket, the shield, as well as the telescope mirror, will have be launched folded up, and testing the shield on Earth has proved devilishly difficult. It will then be unfolded in space over six months in a series of 180 maneuvers that look in computer animations like a cross between a parachute opening and a swimming pool cover going into place. Or at least that is the plan. That whole process will amount to what the engineers call "six months of high anxiety." In space, nobody will be there with a wrench to help. Which means it will be a long nervous wait for the next set of cosmic baby pictures. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
Whale watching season is in full swing in the Pacific through mid April, and travelers have their pick of themed hotel packages and tours on Maui; in Monterey, Calif.; and on Mexico's West Coast. In Monterey, where as many as 7,000 gray whales pass along the coastline between December and March, Portola Hotel Spa at Monterey Bay has a whale watching package that includes accommodations, breakfast and a boat tour. From 240 a night for two. Independent of hotels, Monterey Bay Whale Watch runs year round whale watching boat excursions guests are accompanied by a marine biologist. From 44 a person. In Baja California Sur, Mexico, Pachico's Eco Tours offers half and full day whale watching boat tours through April 15 to San Ignacio Lagoon, a breeding ground for gray whales. Half day tours are 75 a person; full day tours, which include lunch, are 110. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Travel |
On Saturday, Tulsa, Okla., and Oklahoma City joined 43 of the nation's 50 largest cities in America that had ordered residents to "shelter in place." The public response was swift and intense. Many people thanked me for taking action to save lives in our community. Others compared me to Hitler. That is what it is like to be a mayor in red state America during this crisis. The tension between individual freedom and community safety is not unusual, but it is particularly acute as people across the country are being asked to face an invisible enemy for an indefinite period of time. Not a day passes without one group of people pleading to "lock it all down," while another reminds you of their right to assemble. So how do you navigate that as you try to protect the people who elected you to keep them safe? By following logic and science adapting daily and communicating with other mayors. I gained an appreciation for this in the week after our first positive case came in on March 6. Throughout that week, we repeatedly heard that regulations to enforce social distancing need not be triggered until evidence of community spread had been identified. Our first and second cases were travel related. But as the week went by, I realized the fault in this logic: How could we find community spread if testing wasn't available to detect it? Mayors don't have time for philosophizing. We have to get things done. Either the street gets fixed or it doesn't. Either the police officers get hired or they don't. But what if you didn't know which streets to fix or how many officers you needed? How do you take on a virus in an epidemic if you don't know where it is? You assume the worst. I called our local health department director and talked with him about my concerns about the lack of testing. He told me he shared them and that he supported an event limit. Eight days after being notified of our first case, I announced a ban on events of 250 or more in city facilities, based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance to other states. We encouraged all groups to follow this guidance to slow the spread of the virus. That night, the governor of our state posted a photo on social media of him and his family enjoying a night out in a crowded food hall and encouraged others to do the same. While it created a national media firestorm, I understand why he did it. It's frightening for elected leaders not to know when this crisis will end and how badly it will damage our economies. Navigating that line between protecting people from a deadly virus and protecting them from poverty is one that elected leaders are grappling with at every level of government. Two days after that food hall post, again based on the guidance of our local health department, I ordered the closure of all bars, entertainment venues and restaurants (except for takeout and delivery). We also reduced our event attendance maximum to 50 people, in line with revised C.D.C. guidance. Aside from the death of family members, it was the worst day of my life. I was knowingly causing the unemployment of thousands in our city, and I was shutting down the dreams of so many entrepreneurs who have put their all into building a great restaurant scene in Tulsa. But I knew it was necessary to save lives in Tulsa. The pushback was immediate, but interestingly it was not from restaurant owners. Most of them with whom I spoke didn't want their staff exposed to the virus by patrons, and they didn't want to be the cause of people spreading the virus. They also wanted all restaurants to be treated the same way. The pushback was from local activists, whose advocacy of personal freedom I generally share. But the arguments were weak. On the one hand, you had the C.D.C. and the president of the United States issuing guidance that stated, "In states with evidence of community transmission, bars, restaurants, food courts, gyms, and other indoor and outdoor venues where groups of people congregate should be closed." And on the other hand, you had bumper sticker slogans and out of context quotes from the founding fathers. I'm sure Benjamin Franklin, one of the great proponents of scientific inquiry in his time, would not appreciate his thoughts on liberty being cited in defense of letting people thoughtlessly spread a virus. Fortunately, the weakness of these arguments and the sound guidance of our local health department carried the day in suburb after suburb that passed orders similar to our own. In the Oklahoma City metro area, the same phenomenon occurred. Municipal governments led the way. Our governor subsequently closed nonessential businesses in counties with a positive test case and issued a "safer at home" order for those most vulnerable to the virus. Which brings us to our own shelter in place order. Depending on the model you use, we expect contagion to peak in Tulsa between mid April and mid May. Every statistical model I've seen shows an overwhelming of our local health care system if we do nothing to isolate individuals and slow the spread of the virus over time. So on Saturday, I ordered shelter in place, restricting activity outside the home to those things necessary to survive: food, health and essential work. I know there are people in Washington who have focused on who is to blame for this pandemic's spread in the United States. It must be nice to have time for that. Meanwhile, we're out here trying to prevent our neighbors from dying because they can't get a ventilator. To be honest, I don't have a lot of time now to watch speeches from the nation's capital. But I do have gratitude for a handful of important federal initiatives. I am grateful for the president's travel ban on countries with high rates of the virus. Our first cases were travel related and we felt powerless that we couldn't prevent people from bringing the virus into our community. President Trump halted that and allowed us to focus on managing the local spread. It is a tremendous blessing to have world class experts like the C.D.C. and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, providing guidance we can rely upon when making decisions in a fog. The availability of Small Business Administration loans are a lifeline, and the relief bill passed by Congress will help defer the full economic brunt of this event over time (even if my great great grandchildren will be paying off the debt). But the greatest resource in all of this has been other local governments that are in the same spot. While Tulsa and Oklahoma City have historically had the kind of juvenile sibling rivalry you see in other neighboring cities around the country, Mayor David Holt and I have worked in tandem throughout this event so that both cities are under the same rules at the same time. Our two cities have never worked together more closely. Each opportunity I have to work with fellow mayors is a reminder that while fighting the spread of the virus feels very personal and very local, each local response is very much part of a larger collective effort. And while our own shelter in place order was met with the kinds of comments I mentioned at the opening of this column, on Sunday the streets of Tulsa were pretty quiet. Most people are willing to sacrifice a bit of freedom and convenience to protect the lives of the people they love. And in the end, love of neighbor is more important at a local level than political party or ideology. This is what will get us through the current pandemic together. G.T. Bynum is the mayor of Tulsa, Okla. 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 |
Ficre Ghebreyesus, "Solitary Boat in Red and Blue," circa 2002 07, one of 700 paintings the artist who was better known as a chef left when he died. It is in a show of his work online at Galerie Lelong. Mixing memories of his East African childhood with his day to day life as a husband and father in New Haven, Conn., Ficre Ghebreyesus conjured up an imaginary space of his own. He created this multilayered world in his studio, where, after his sudden death at 50 in 2012, he left behind more than 700 paintings and several hundred works on paper. And he performed a similar magic in the popular Caffe Adulis, where he earned his living by cooking hybrid recipes that drew on the culinary heritage of his native Eritrea and neighboring Ethiopia. If, by some chance, a habitue of the Caffe Adulis ventured to Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, and sought a beloved dish on a local restaurant menu, disappointment usually ensued. "People would ask for shrimp barka in Eritrea, and it doesn't exist," said Mr. Ghebreyesus's widow, the distinguished poet Elizabeth Alexander, who is the president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. "The thing that was cool about Ficre as a chef is that to him it was making art. It's like the dreaminess of the paintings. There's something remembered and something invented." Mr. Ghebreyesus very rarely exhibited his paintings publicly. "We disagreed about that," Ms. Alexander said. "I now see that he just wanted to work. He thought that self advocacy was inappropriate." But she thinks he would be very pleased that Galerie Lelong in Chelsea is now representing him. "Gate to the Blue," his first New York exhibition, was scheduled to open there in late April. Although the actual opening has been postponed until Sept. 10, the gallery has posted the images of the paintings in the show online. Born into a prominent Coptic Christian family in Asmara and educated in Catholic schools, he grew up in a strife torn country at the beginning of Eritrea's 30 year war of independence from Ethiopia. When he met Ms. Alexander in New Haven in 1996, they communicated their shared reverence for "The Diary of Anne Frank." "We understood it in different ways," she recalled. "He had soldiers breaking into his house." Mr. Ghebreyesus left Eritrea at 16 on a three year odyssey, traveling to Sudan, Italy and Germany, before finding refuge in the United States. He settled in New Haven, where he and his two brothers opened Caffe Adulis in 1992. In 2000, he was admitted to the Yale School of Art. "He was certainly distinctive for how dedicated he was to painting," said Pamela Franks, an art historian who knew him at Yale and is now director of the Williams College Museum of Art. "He was painting all the time." Like other refugees, he carried with him his loss, including the separation from his family and the pain of knowing the suffering in his homeland. His early paintings are often thickly painted nighttime scenes with a single source of illumination, such as truck headlights or a campfire. "What I found in all Eritrean art is there is an element of darkness in it," said Kassahun Checole, the publisher of Africa World Press and Red Sea Press, based in New Jersey. A native Eritrean, Mr. Checole met Mr. Ghebreyesus in New York, and they worked together politically for Eritrean war relief. "The depression that settles in all of us from our situation as exiles is expressed in the art," Mr. Checole continued. "With Ficre, that was transformed when he met Elizabeth, moved to Connecticut, and his children were born. His art becomes more bright and hopeful." Indeed, Mr. Ghebreyesus's distinctive talent as a colorist blossomed with his marriage to Ms. Alexander in 1997 and the birth of their two sons: Solomon, 22, and Simon, 20, who are both undergraduate students at Yale. As with his cooking, his sources as a painter were eclectic. The checkerboard motifs that he incorporated into many pictures bear a resemblance to the basketry and embroidery that he saw in his youth. The pinks and peachy oranges may derive from the colors of painted stucco houses in Asmara, a city that was occupied by the Italians in the late 19th century and became, under Fascist rule in the 1930s, a landmark of colonial modernism like Mr. Ghebreyesus, a hybrid. The saturated reds and blues of his paintings, however, seem indebted to the Western artists he loved, particularly Matisse. From Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel, which he saw in Padua, Italy, to the modernist paintings and African sculptures that he studied during his frequent visits to the Yale University Art Gallery, Mr. Ghebreyesus absorbed everything he was exposed to. He was also passionate about music, with eclectic taste. "He would put together a playlist that would include music we knew and didn't know Nina Simone and then this incredible Ethiopian jazz mixed in," said the musician Jason Moran, a friend. Reticence confined Mr. Ghebreyesus's reputation to his circle of devoted friends until his unexpected death. Complaining of feeling unwell a couple of days after his 50th birthday party, he continued working and exercising. No one recognized the seriousness of his ailment until it was too late. His younger son found him fallen off his treadmill, lying dead on the floor, of massive heart failure. Three years later, after coping with the shocking grief and moving her family to New York, Ms. Alexander wrote a New Yorker article that was expanded in 2016 into a best selling memoir, "The Light of the World," making Mr. Ghebreyesus's name more widely known. His art, though, awaited its audience. The most directly autobiographical painting, "Mangia Libro," normally hangs in the Mellon Foundation headquarters. In it, Mr. Ghebreyesus depicts himself as a child, reading a book as he walks, with a dusky rose building behind him and water teeming with fish and seaweed in front. As often in Mr. Ghebreyesus's paintings, there are abstract sections of checks and stripes, and enigmatic details. Allusions to Eritrean culture abound in such paintings as "Angel and Musician," which evokes the depiction of angels in Coptic Christian churches and the stringed lyre like krar played by traditional musicians. One of the delights of this beautiful exhibition is the evident joy that Mr. Ghebreyesus took in the deft application of paint. The watery reflections of the banded vessel in "Solitary Boat in Red and Blue" create a shimmery, ghostly presence in the foreground, and the sea shifts without clear demarcation into a crepuscular streaky green sky. The interior of the vessel (similar in its hollow form to the used coconut shells that Mr. Ghebreyesus brought by the box from the restaurant to the studio) is an opalescent blending of thinly applied acrylic paint that divides into four softly distinct sections. The picture represents a boat in the ocean; but just as much, it is a bravura demonstration of paint handling. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
Tony James and Teresa Ghilarducci are unlikely allies. He is president of Blackstone, the giant private equity firm; she's a labor economist who has long advocated replacing 401(k)'s with a universal, federally managed saving plan. But the two have teamed up to push what they are calling Guaranteed Retirement Accounts, a government sponsored plan that would require participation and contributions from any employer without its own 401(k). They both view the 401(k) defined contribution retirement system as a faulty experiment that covers too few workers, generates inadequate savings and replaces too little income in retirement. "There's really no alternative," Mr. James argues. "It needs to be mandated." Maybe so, but the notion of employer mandates has become anathema to Republicans in Congress since enactment of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, which requires employers above a certain size to provide health insurance for their workers. The bitter political battle over the health law killed any prospect for the White House's mandatory retirement savings proposal the auto IRA which was first proposed in 2009. "Anything that was a requirement for employers, and especially smaller employers, became incredibly toxic and politically charged," said David John, senior strategic policy adviser at AARP, the lobbying organization for older Americans. But the Ghilarducci James alliance is just one sign that the prospect of a future mandatory retirement system is not dead. The Obama administration introduced myRA accounts in November, offering a federally sponsored voluntary starter retirement account featuring payroll deduction, no fees, conservative investments and a guaranteed rate of return. Illinois, California, Oregon and other states are pushing to create their own mandatory plans. They received a green light to move forward when the Labor Department, which oversees retirement plans, recently proposed rules that would shield employers offering them from having to conform to the stringent rules of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. "After seven or eight states create their own plans, there will be critical mass for something national," predicted Brian Graff, chief executive of the American Retirement Association, a trade group. "Financial services companies and employers will be frustrated with all the different state rules they'll ask Congress for a national program." Ms. Ghilarducci, a professor at the New School for Social Research in New York, agreed. "The states that are passing their own employer mandates all prefer a federal plan," she said. "There's a practical case to be made for it." The case rests on the fact that as most private employers have abandoned traditional pensions and replaced them with self financed retirement accounts (usually with some sort of employer matching contribution), many Americans are not saving enough to ensure a comfortable retirement. Experts say employees should aim to replace 70 to 80 percent of their salary or wages in retirement. Social Security covers just 39 percent for the typical worker retiring at 65, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. The retirement center calculates that a worker who starts saving at age 25 needs to set aside and invest 10 percent of her income annually to hit a 70 percent replacement target. Roughly half of working age households are falling short, many by a wide margin. "More middle class workers will be at risk of downward mobility and poverty in old age than their grandparents and parents," Ms. Ghilarducci said. What would a mandatory universal savings plan look like in the United States? Programs introduced in other countries offer some insight. Australia has had a mandatory program since 1992; Britain and New Zealand both have had programs for less than a decade. Locast, a nonprofit streaming service for local TV, is shutting down Capital One's chief executive was fined after being called a 'repeat offender.' All three were begun in response to concerns about low savings rates and inadequate coverage from existing systems. Worries about rising longevity and the sustainability of traditional old age public pension programs similar to the Social Security system in the United States also played a role. Australia's program initially required all employers to contribute 3 percent of workers' pay to defined contribution accounts; over the years, the required employer contributions have been increased to 9.5 percent and are scheduled to rise further, to 12 percent in 2025. Employees are encouraged to make additional contributions. Last year, the average accumulation for men at retirement age was equivalent to about 170,000 in U.S. dollars, according to estimates by the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, an industry trade group. For women, it was 90,000. The mandatory defined contribution programs in Britain was created in 2012, by the Conservative government. Employers and workers covered by the plan each contribute 1 percent of pay; those rates will rise to 3 percent for employers and 5 percent for workers in 2018. Currently, the system has enrolled 5 million workers about half of the country's uncovered population. New Zealand's government sponsored KiwiSaver program, introduced in 2007, auto enrolls workers when they start a new job. Existing employees and self employed can join voluntarily. New enrollees initially contribute either 4 or 8 percent of their gross income; until this year they received a 1,000 government contribution as a kickstarter incentive. What are the results? Projections by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the official research arm for most developed nations, show that a young person entering the Australian work force this year who is paid an average income can expect a net income replacement rate of 58 percent at retirement. In Britain the comparable figure is 71 percent; in New Zealand 57 percent for those workers maximizing their contributions. The projected impact on low income retirees is even more impressive. The O.E.C.D. expects all three countries will replace nearly 100 percent of income for low earners. The mandatory savings programs in Australia, Britain and New Zealand all supplement public pensions, but those programs have been reshaped to reduce projected future expense. "The first, best solution is to expand Social Security," said Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, an advocacy group. "As long as expanding Social Security is the first step, improving employer based supplemental retirement plans is a reasonable second step." The White House is on record as supporting a mandatory saving plan, albeit a more modest one than the guaranteed account idea. And Mr. James says he is optimistic that Republican support can be found in the future. "I think we can sell it because it's not a tax," he said. "The G.O.P. does like the idea of people taking responsibility for themselves and not relying on the government." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Your Money |
LOS ANGELES Nicholas Hoult laced up his black Adidas sneakers, grabbed an orange jump rope and found a spot in the alleyway behind Trinity Boxing Club, a no frills gym behind Melrose Boulevard in Los Angeles. It was an early Wednesday morning, and the light was still soft. As the rope whistled under and over him in one seamless motion, Mr. Hoult appeared to hover in the air like a gorgeous human hummingbird. "Beautiful," said Eddie Arrazola, his trainer. "I train a lot of actors, and a lot of them don't pick it up, but Nick actually knows how to box." Mr. Hoult batted off the compliment with a shake of his head. After the 10 minute warm up, Mr. Hoult bounced inside the boxing club, which smelled like old leather and stale sweat. The gym resembled a set from a movie, its black walls plastered in rah rah quotes from great men of history handwritten on canvas panels. Which was his favorite? Mr. Hoult pointed to an epigram attributed (mistakenly) to Winston Churchill: "Success is Never Final." Mr. Hoult, 29, appears to be a man of some humility. At the age of 12, he worried that his career had plateaued. He had just starred opposite Hugh Grant and Toni Collette in the funny, whimsical movie "About a Boy," and was back home in Wokingham, the genteel market town in southern England where he spent chunks of his early childhood running around the garden and emulating the Lost Boys in "Hook." He wriggled a boxing glove over each hand and strode up to the ring. Reggaeton was playing over the sound system, and Mr. Hoult's body seemed to sway gently with the rhythm. That his career did not evaporate after "About a Boy" was in part thanks to some bold choices, including a role in the risque British high school series "Skins" and a well received performance in Tom Ford's 2009 debut, "A Single Man" "an important homosexual film," wrote former New York City Mayor Ed Koch in a review for The Atlantic. Although important homosexual films have become a resume staple for emerging stars, it was less common a decade ago. When Mr. Hoult flew to Los Angeles to meet with Mr. Ford for dinner, Mr. Hoult had no idea who Mr. Ford was. "I did an IMDB search and he just came up in 'Zoolander' as himself, and I thought, Interesting, he's gone from that to writing this script." He wrinkled his face. "In hindsight, I should have done a Google," he added. After a series of supporting roles, including in "The Favourite" and the "X Men" franchise, he now stars in "Tolkien," playing the title role in a drama about the early life of J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien lost some of his closest friends in the World War I, and the film depicts the tendrils of his opus, "Lord of the Rings," emerging from the mud and trauma of the trenches. Mr. Hoult moved easily in the ring, ducking and countering in fluid, graceful gestures. "It's muscle memory," he said, humbly. When Mr. Arrazola shouted "jab," his arm extended and retracted with a quick one two beat. "What you want to do is set your body up to where you don't have to think anymore," Mr. Arrazola said. It was Daniel Kaluuya, Mr. Hoult's co star on "Skins," who first got him into the boxing ring, when Mr. Kaluuya was training for a role in Roy Williams's boxing play, "Sucker Punch," at the Royal Court Theater in London. "There's a lot of technicality and beauty in the sport," Mr. Hoult said. "It's very difficult physically, but I don't enjoy, particularly, going to the gym because your mind wanders." In the ring, the mind is too busy avoiding punches to wander far. Has he ever delivered a sucker punch? Mr. Hoult shook his head quickly. "It's easy to hit a bag and feel you're a great boxer, but it's a different thing when someone is actually tapping you back," he said. Mr. Arrazola said: "He says that, but his punches say otherwise. He hits pretty hard." Not for nothing, perhaps, had Mr. Kaluuya bestowed him with the nickname "Headshot Hoult." After about 40 minutes, Mr. Arrazola held up his mitt for a final flurry of jabs and cuts from his student. Mr. Hoult unwound the boxing bandages from his hands. "I'd love to do a boxing movie, if the right one came along," he said. Like every other actor, he reveres "Raging Bull," and also "Rocky." As he packed his gloves, he said, "You can't not love 'Rocky.'" | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Style |
Elliot Page, the Oscar nominated star of "Juno," announced on Tuesday that he is transgender. "Hi friends, I want to share with you that I am trans, my pronouns are he/they and my name is Elliot," Page, who as Ellen Page starred in several critically acclaimed films, wrote in a statement that he posted on Twitter and Instagram. "I feel lucky to be writing this. To be here. To have arrived at this place in my life." Page, a 33 year old Canadian actor and producer, is also known for roles in the movies "X Men: The Last Stand," "X Men: Days of Future Past" and "Inception," as well as the recent Netflix series "Umbrella Academy." Page debuted as a director last year with the documentary "There's Something in the Water." "I can't begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self," Page, who married the choreographer Emma Portner in 2018, went on. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
The Second Season of 'True Detective' Wasn't as Bad as You Think. Here's Why. This article contains spoilers for "True Detective" Season 2. Agree with the writer's defense? Couldn't disagree more? Let us know in the comments. The first season of HBO's "True Detective," which aired in 2014, ended with Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) looking up at the night sky, lamenting the darkness. Still, Rust was optimistic: "You ask me, the light's winning," he said. Season 2 upended that optimism by transporting the series from Louisiana to Los Angeles, a place where the stars are smothered by smog. People hated it, complaining in particular about convoluted plotting, questionable casting and an unrelentingly bleak tone. The season was so widely considered a failure, that the fate of "True Detective" seemed to hang in the balance for almost two years before a third outing was confirmed. It debuts Sunday on HBO. With the third season already receiving positive buzz, Season 2 of "True Detective" is likely to disappear into the history books of prestige TV. But it doesn't deserve that fate. It was ambitious, complex television, anchored by strong performances and expert direction. (You heard right.) And its tableau of political corruption feels even more relevant today than it did in 2015. Read the review of Season 3 by our TV critic James Poniewozik. Season 2 stars Colin Farrell as Ray Velcoro, a cop in a fictional California city named Vinci (modeled after Vernon). Ray has close ties to the career criminal Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn), and their lives are upended by the murder of a double dealing city manager named Ben Caspere a case that also ensnares the highway patrol officer Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) and criminal investigator Antigone Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) within a tangled web that also involved a high speed rail boondoggle, a deadly shootout at a meth lab and secret sex parties of the political elite. Assessing the show's second season is easier if you put aside the expectations set by the first. It is, first of all, wildly, ambitiously different: While it once again explores the failures of modern masculinity, it does so through a different lens, de emphasizing the murder mystery conventions in favor of a multicharacter urban drama. The first season is driven by two strong protagonists a pair of unforgettable detectives obsessed with the same case. Season 2 supplants that relationship with a broader portrait of a corrupted city, as seen through the eyes of four characters who in some cases barely interact. By the time Caspere's murder was solved, most viewers had lost the plot and no longer cared, unwilling to accept that the season was never really about who killed Ben Caspere. But in hindsight, it is clear that the central mystery in Season 2 was always just a backdrop for the show's thematic undercurrents. For the second season, the series's creator, Nic Pizzolatto, presented viewers with a world in which everyone is shaped by trauma: Semyon's childhood, Woodrugh's combat experiences, Bezzerides's dark past, Velcoro's murder of his wife's rapist. Much of the criticism aimed at Season 2 was focused on the lack of a compelling mystery, but Pizzolatto was attempting something more ambitious than a straightforward whodunit. Season 2 is full of gorgeous overhead shots of Los Angeles freeways, but those freeways aren't so much linking people meaningfully as spreading poison. It's a vision of Los Angeles in which pain and desperation are everywhere, pressing people until they break, and the murder of Caspere is merely a catalyst. Loyalties are fleeting, the dots don't always connect, and justice is often deferred, if it comes at all. The acting was better than it got credit for Vaughn's clenched jaw performance received the most ridicule, much of it unearned. He embraces the pulpy tone of Pizzolatto's dialogue, and his scenes with Farrell are some of the series's best. Both characters are incapable of escaping their pasts, especially as their futures become increasingly dire. They are men with less and less to hold onto, and Vaughn and Farrell become avatars of the crumbling masculinity central to much of Pizzolatto's work. Woodrugh could have been defined purely by his issues post traumatic stress, closeted homosexuality, a false accusation but Kitsch finds subtlety in his body language. The tension in his jaw and body shows a man forcing himself to be outwardly strong in order to hide what he perceives as internal weakness. Bezzerides demands to be perceived in the same tough manner as her male colleagues, a defense mechanism against her trauma. But as admittedly cliched as the "overcompensating female cop" role can be, McAdams elevates it into something heartbreakingly genuine. She finds the truth in it by refusing to succumb to type, adding depth to her line readings and subtlety to her physical performance that reveal instead the emotional core her character over protects. The technical achievements of Season 2 got lost in the bad press as well. Yes, gone was the singular voice of Cary Joji Fukunaga, who directed all of Season 1. But he was replaced by a murderer's row of film and television directors including Justin Lin, John Crowley and Miguel Sapochnik all of whom brought undeniable craftsmanship, enhanced by sharp editing as well as a pulsing score from the music director T Bone Burnett. Almost every critic simply dismissed those qualities, obsessed with the ways in which Season 2 differed from Season 1. And sure, Season 1 was better. But the second season wasn't bad it just couldn't escape the long shadow of the first. Like its characters, it got trapped in the darkness. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in a Petri dish at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences, part of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. Federal health officials are debating whether to warn pregnant women against travel to Brazil and other Latin American and Caribbean countries where mosquitoes are spreading the Zika virus, which has been linked to brain damage in newborn babies. Officials say it could be the first time the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises pregnant women to avoid a specific region during an outbreak. Some infectious disease specialists say such a warning is warranted, although it could have a devastating effect on travel and tourism. A spokesman for the C.D.C. said the agency hoped to make a final announcement Thursday or Friday. "We can't make these decisions in a vacuum," said the spokesman, Thomas Skinner. "We're consulting with other experts outside." The virus first appeared on the South American continent in May. Although it often causes only mild rashes and fevers, women who have had it, particularly in the first trimester of pregnancy, appear to be much more likely to have children with small heads and damaged brains, a condition called microcephaly. Dr. Lyle R. Petersen, director of vector borne diseases for the C.D.C., said Wednesday that the agency had found Zika virus in tissue from four Brazilian infants, two of whom had microcephaly and died shortly after birth, and two of whom died in the womb. Microcephaly has several other causes, including genetic defects or rubella or cytomegalovirus in the mother during pregnancy. Samples from the fetuses "looked like what you'd see if an infection was the cause," Dr. Petersen said. Previously, Brazilian scientists had found the virus in tissue or amniotic fluid from three malformed fetuses. "This certainly provides much stronger evidence of the linkage," Dr. Petersen said. Although the travel advice would most obviously apply to Brazil, which is struggling with an alarming surge in newborns with microcephaly, it could soon apply to much of tropical Latin America and the Caribbean. Local transmission of Zika virus has been found in 14 Western Hemisphere countries and territories: Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Paraguay, Suriname and Venezuela. A few isolated cases have been found in the United States, including one in Texas last wee k. However, all were in people who had just returned from overseas. No transmission within the 50 states has been found. Only one case has been confirmed in Puerto Rico, but because testing is rare and many cases involve mild or no symptoms, doctors assume there are many more there. Some American virologists are already warning women who are pregnant or trying to have children to avoid such areas. "If my daughter was planning to get pregnant, I'd advise her not to go the Caribbean," said Dr. Peter J. Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. "This is going to decimate Caribbean tourism," he added. "But we can't wait to act until nine months from now, when congenital defects turn up in the labor and delivery suites." Press officers at three cruise lines Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Princess said this week that they had never heard of Zika virus and referred a reporter to their trade group, the Cruise Lines International Association. An association spokeswoman, Elinore Boeke, said travelers should check with public health officials about destinations they planned to visit and cited the C.D.C.'s current travel advisories, which suggest only that all visitors avoid mosquito bites by using repellent and long clothes. Cruise ships publish daily fliers on health and safety and instruct passengers on how to avoid bites, Ms. Boeke added. Reports of surging rates of microcephaly have already unnerved some travelers. On Tuesday, Ashley D'Amato Staller, 33, a lawyer in Haddonfield, N.J., who is pregnant with her fourth child, backed out of a planned February trip to Puerto Rico with 17 members of her extended family after reading articles about Zika arriving there. "Part of me feels you have to live your life, so let's go," she said. "I could skip going and still get hit by a car or catch West Nile, or someone could sneeze on me. On the other hand, this is my baby, and nothing's more important." Officials in Brazil said Tuesday that they were investigating more than 3,500 cases of microcephaly in newborns. Until last year, the country normally had about 150 cases of microcephaly each year. There is no vaccine for Zika, but the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has been working on one for the past month, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the institute's director. Dr. Stanley Plotkin, a leading vaccine inventor, said a Zika vaccine "should not be extremely difficult to make" because the disease is closely related to yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis, for which there are effective vaccines. Epidemiologists estimate that more than 1.5 million Brazilians have been infected. The alarm about microcephaly was raised in October, when doctors in the northern state of Pernambuco noticed unusual numbers of small headed babies. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
"Where may I kiss you?" You don't expect to hear that question while waiting around a theater lobby for a performance to begin, especially not from a veiled stranger. But Keyon Gaskin established a certain intimacy early on in his 40 minute solo, "its not a thing," at Abrons Arts Center on Friday. Cloaked in black with a scarf draped over his face, Mr. Gaskin approached individual guests, inquired about their fears ("When were you afraid today?") and offered a kiss, planted in black lipstick. In the sea of genre crossing work at American Realness, the festival of contemporary performance that comes to the Lower East Side each January, common threads emerge. (This year's edition packs 18 productions, plus discussions and parties, into 11 days.) Mr. Gaskin's was one of three (mostly) solo works on Friday that addressed related themes of racial identity and masculinity through drastically different means. I saw it after the vehemently mournful " negrophobia," by the Nigerian American artist Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, and before the Dominican born Ligia Lewis's transporting "Sorrow Swag." Mr. Gaskin provides little context for his work, with just a one line bio in the program: "Keyon Gaskin prefers not to contextualize their performances with their credentials." Sure enough, you want to know more. Once the audience was seated in the playhouse, he arrived unveiled, puttering around the shadowy stage while commenting on his "contentions" with live performance. These included dancing to music, audience participation and dealing directly with racism all of which he confronted in "its not a thing." After giving us permission to leave, then inviting us to sit onstage, Mr. Gaskin passed around a bottle of whiskey, cranked up Lil Wayne's "She Will" and clambered up to a grate above the stage, recklessly traversing its narrow length while smoking a cigarette. Back on our level, he darted among us, stuffed dice in his mouth and spit them out. Instructing one viewer to read from a book by the black feminist scholar Hortense Spillers, he removed his shorts (including American flag briefs) and did a half naked tap dance. Suddenly it was over. "Get your things and go," he said, "and please don't clap." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
President Trump is oh so proud of having mastered the ability to intone, "Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV." But the more pressing issue is whether he is a person who can master talking to women through a TV camera without sounding like a cave man. We continually debate whether Trump is a madman, but there's no doubt he's a Mad Man. He's a ring a ding ding guy, stuck in a time warp redolent of Vegas with the Rat Pack in 1959, talking about how "broads" and "skirts" rate. He was in his element bro ing out with Dave Portnoy in an interview for "Barstool Sports" that aired Friday. Trump's idea of wooing the women's vote, which is decisive in this election, was to tweet out a New York Post story headlined "Joe Biden's disastrous plans for America's suburbs" with the directive: "The Suburban Housewives of America must read this article." Clearly, the 74 year old president thinks that American women are in the kitchen, clutching their pearls a la June Cleaver, sheltered in the 'burbs in their gingham aprons, waiting for their big, brave breadwinners to come home after a hard day's work manhandling their secretaries. Trump believes that the coveted electoral cohort that used to be known as soccer moms are actually sucker moms, naive enough to fall for his schtick that the unleashed forces of urban America are marching toward their manicured lawns. How perfect that the pussy grabbing president whose personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, got in trouble over his boss's porn star payout wants to protect the desperate housewives of America. In a speech on drug prices on Friday, Trump took his strange brand of feminism for a spin, pausing while he talked about middlemen profiting in the Big Pharma arena, to say "and women, I guess." On the Bulwark, a conservative website, Sarah Longwell wrote about her three years worth of focus groups with women who voted for Trump in 2016. She found that they chose Trump over Hillary Clinton because they did not like Clinton and because they felt that Bill Clinton's bad behavior with women canceled out Trump's bad behavior with women. But the relationship with women voters has soured, not only because of his pugnacity and bullying, but because of his lack of compassion and competence dealing with the coronavirus and painful issues about race. "They don't see Trump as someone who can protect them from the chaos,'' Longwell wrote. "They think he's the source of it." And his party is on board with the antediluvian vibe. R Misogyny. Even on the 100th anniversary of women getting the vote, Republicans can't help themselves. It feels strange to be typing something positive in a sentence with the word Cheney in it, but it was disturbing to see a bunch of MAGA bros in Congress beat up on Liz Cheney because, among other offenses to the cult of Trump, she defended Dr. Anthony Fauci and shaded Trump on his denial on the virus by tweeting a picture of her father in a mask with the hashtag, "realmenwearmasks." One Trump disciple in the House, Rep. Matt Gaetz, tweeted that "Liz Cheney has worked behind the scenes (and now in public) against realDonald Trump and his agenda." He added, "Liz Cheney should step down or be removed." Donald Jr. chimed in on Twitter, "We already have one Mitt Romney, we don't need another." Ted Yoho, a Florida Republican, tried to slap down Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. A reporter overheard him muttering that the congresswoman was "a fucking bitch" as Yoho walked away after having an argument with her about crime and policing on the steps of the Capitol. (Yoho denies he said it.) The youngest woman to ever serve in Congress is so full of natural political talent, burning so bright, that the 2020 field seems dull next to her luster. It was a remarkable moment on Capitol Hill, where for years super achieving women have let such sexist remarks slide. She went to the House floor Thursday and schooled Yoho the Yahoo and the retrograde crowd. "Mr. Yoho mentioned that he has a wife and two daughters," she said. "I am two years younger than Mr. Yoho's youngest daughter. I am someone's daughter, too." She added, "I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter, and that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men." Showing her skill in a generational dimension foreign to Congress until now, A.O.C. posted a video of herself on Instagram Stories strutting to the rap tune "Boss Bitch" by Doja Cat, her long hair whipping to the music, with the Capitol in the background. "I'm a bitch and a boss, Im'a shine like gloss." She captioned it: "Shine on, fight for others, and let the haters stay mad." And that's the way you make Paleolithic men understand that they are history. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
JEEVES AND THE KING OF CLUBS By Ben Schott 316 pp. Little, Brown. 27. "As a large part of the planet slipped from Britain's grasp one man silently maintained the country's reputation." Coming across that sentence a dozen years ago in an otherwise persuasive volume of social history, I raised an eyebrow. One man? The masculine specimen the author had in mind was Ian Fleming's suave, sophisticated bullet dodger and lady killer, "Bond, James Bond." That's as may be, I thought. Entirely plausible. But what of Wooster, Bertie Wooster that blithe, hapless and unfailingly preux English gent dreamed up by P.G. Wodehouse in 1915? With the help of his brainy, discerning valet, Jeeves, Bertie had been dodging (sartorial) disasters and rogue (matrimonial) engagements for decades before Bond ordered his first martini. Was he not, in his breezy, feckless way (or "vapid and shiftless" way, as his fearsome Aunt Agatha would have it), an equally effective bulwark of his nation? Just imagine the boost to British prestige, not to mention morale, if the sang froid of Bond and the sunniness of Bertie could be blended in one person! This thought might be enough to prompt Jeeves to observe "Rem acu tetigisti,"... prompting Bertie to ask Jeeves what that means. ("Put my finger on the nub?" "Exactly, Sir.") It also, evidently, has prompted Ben Schott, the author of the Jeevesian compendium of British cultural trivia known as "Schott's Original Miscellany," to attempt this patriotic hybridization himself, recrafting Wooster as his fleet of ex fiancees only dreamed of doing, by injecting him with spine or, at least, by assigning him a mission of greater import than swiping a silver cow creamer. In "Jeeves and the King of Clubs," a fizzy new homage to Wodehouse, Schott infuses Bertie with extra bounce, transforming him from sheer pleasure seeker to shrewd (sort of) secret agent no wardrobe change necessary. The precise year of this metamorphosis is unstated, but the action occurs sometime in the 1930s, when cars were still called "motors" and the smart set dressed for dinner. As World War II looms, an emissary of His Majesty's Government, a Scottish lord named MacAuslan (who'd first met Bertie at a Burns Night frolic), visits the young toff at his Mayfair flat to enlist him to deploy his gadding skills to spy on the fascist demagogue (and recurring Wodehouse character) Sir Roderick Spode. Spode, also known as Lord Sidcup, is suspected of colluding with Britain's soon to be enemies. "HMG is concerned about Lord Sidcup," MacAuslan tells Wooster. "Are you sure you don't require Jeeves?" Bertie modestly asks. "Your help and Jeeves's, I should have said," Lord MacAuslan reassures him. Jeeves, it turns out, already is working for HMG through his club, the Junior Ganymede, whose members use their "unfettered admission to the country's most consequential drawing rooms, dining tables, libraries and bedrooms" to report the doings of their employers and their prominent, and/or nefarious, guests to British Intelligence. "Spying, Jeeves?" Bertie tsks. "We prefer 'reconnaissance,' sir," Jeeves replies. "I bet you do," says Bertie, and he means it to sting. Usefully, Bertie, who generally is "not frightfully up on the personnel of the political world," knows Spode personally, and considers him a loathsome "carbuncle." In past run ins he has described him as "a man with an eye that could open an oyster at 60 paces," and "a Dictator on the point of starting a purge." Nevertheless, he finds Spode's dress sense more disturbing than his politics. "Certainly he was an enemy of good taste, good manners, and good tailoring" Bertie muses. He doubts that such a buffoon could really be an enemy of the king, but takes on MacAuslon's task anyway, because the Code of the Woosters "Never let a pal down" demands it. "Eager to help His Maj in any way I can," Bertie declares, "so long as it does not impinge too momentously on the social calendar." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
Danny Cahill, playing the bass during a church service near Tulsa, Okla., won Season 8 of the NBC show "The Biggest Loser" by dropping 239 pounds. He has regained more than 100.Credit...Ilana Panich Linsman for The New York Times Danny Cahill, playing the bass during a church service near Tulsa, Okla., won Season 8 of the NBC show "The Biggest Loser" by dropping 239 pounds. He has regained more than 100. Danny Cahill stood, slightly dazed, in a blizzard of confetti as the audience screamed and his family ran on stage. He had won Season 8 of NBC's reality television show "The Biggest Loser," shedding more weight than anyone ever had on the program an astonishing 239 pounds in seven months. When he got on the scale for all to see that evening, Dec. 8, 2009, he weighed just 191 pounds, down from 430. Dressed in a T shirt and knee length shorts, he was lean, athletic and as handsome as a model. "I've got my life back," he declared. "I mean, I feel like a million bucks." Mr. Cahill left the show's stage in Hollywood and flew directly to New York to start a triumphal tour of the talk shows, chatting with Jay Leno, Regis Philbin and Joy Behar. As he heard from fans all over the world, his elation knew no bounds. But in the years since, more than 100 pounds have crept back onto his 5 foot 11 frame despite his best efforts. In fact, most of that season's 16 contestants have regained much if not all the weight they lost so arduously. Some are even heavier now. It has to do with resting metabolism, which determines how many calories a person burns when at rest. When the show began, the contestants, though hugely overweight, had normal metabolisms for their size, meaning they were burning a normal number of calories for people of their weight. When it ended, their metabolisms had slowed radically and their bodies were not burning enough calories to maintain their thinner sizes. Researchers knew that just about anyone who deliberately loses weight even if they start at a normal weight or even underweight will have a slower metabolism when the diet ends. So they were not surprised to see that "The Biggest Loser" contestants had slow metabolisms when the show ended. What shocked the researchers was what happened next: As the years went by and the numbers on the scale climbed, the contestants' metabolisms did not recover. They became even slower, and the pounds kept piling on. It was as if their bodies were intensifying their effort to pull the contestants back to their original weight. Mr. Cahill was one of the worst off. As he regained more than 100 pounds, his metabolism slowed so much that, just to maintain his current weight of 295 pounds, he now has to eat 800 calories a day less than a typical man his size. Anything more turns to fat. The struggles the contestants went through help explain why it has been so hard to make headway against the nation's obesity problem, which afflicts more than a third of American adults. Despite spending billions of dollars on weight loss drugs and dieting programs, even the most motivated are working against their own biology. "The key point is that you can be on TV, you can lose enormous amounts of weight, you can go on for six years, but you can't get away from a basic biological reality," said Dr. Schwartz, who was not involved in the study. "As long as you are below your initial weight, your body is going to try to get you back." The show's doctor, Robert Huizenga, says he expected the contestants' metabolic rates to fall just after the show, but was hoping for a smaller drop. He questioned, though, whether the measurements six years later were accurate. But maintaining weight loss is difficult, he said, which is why he tells contestants that they should exercise at least nine hours a week and monitor their diets to keep the weight off. "Unfortunately, many contestants are unable to find or afford adequate ongoing support with exercise doctors, psychologists, sleep specialists, and trainers and that's something we all need to work hard to change," he said in an email. The study's findings, to be published on Monday in the journal Obesity, are part of a scientific push to answer some of the most fundamental questions about obesity. Researchers are figuring out why being fat makes so many people develop diabetes and other medical conditions, and they are searching for new ways to block the poison in fat. They are starting to unravel the reasons bariatric surgery allows most people to lose significant amounts of weight when dieting so often fails. And they are looking afresh at medical care for obese people. The hope is that this work will eventually lead to new therapies that treat obesity as a chronic disease and can help keep weight under control for life. Most people who have tried to lose weight know how hard it is to keep the weight off, but many blame themselves when the pounds come back. But what obesity research has consistently shown is that dieters are at the mercy of their own bodies, which muster hormones and an altered metabolic rate to pull them back to their old weights, whether that is hundreds of pounds more or that extra 10 or 15 that many people are trying to keep off. Dr. David Ludwig, the director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children's Hospital, who was not involved in the research, said the findings showed the need for new approaches to weight control. He cautioned that the study was limited by its small size and the lack of a control group of obese people who did not lose weight. But, he added, the findings made sense. "This is a subset of the most successful" dieters, he said. "If they don't show a return to normal in metabolism, what hope is there for the rest of us?" Still, he added, "that shouldn't be interpreted to mean we are doomed to battle our biology or remain fat. It means we need to explore other approaches." Some scientists say weight maintenance has to be treated as an issue separate from weight loss. Only when that challenge is solved, they say, can progress truly be made against obesity. "There is a lot of basic research we still need to do," said Dr. Margaret Jackson, who is directing a project at Pfizer. Her group is testing a drug that, in animals at least, acts like leptin, a hormone that controls hunger. With weight loss, leptin levels fall and people become hungry. The idea is to trick the brains of people who have lost weight so they do not become ravenous for lack of leptin. While many of the contestants kept enough weight off to improve their health and became more physically active, the low weights they strived to keep eluded all but one of them: Erinn Egbert, a full time caregiver for her mother in Versailles, Ky. And she struggles mightily to keep the pounds off because her metabolism burns 552 fewer calories a day than would be expected for someone her size. "What people don't understand is that a treat is like a drug," said Ms. Egbert, who went from 263 pounds to just under 176 on the show, and now weighs between 152 and 157. "Two treats can turn into a binge over a three day period. That is what I struggle with." Six years after Season 8 ended, 14 of the 16 contestants went to the N.I.H. last fall for three days of testing. The researchers were concerned that the contestants might try to frantically lose weight before coming in, so they shipped equipment to them that would measure their physical activity and weight before their visit, and had the information sent remotely to the N.I.H. The contestants received their metabolic results last week. They were shocked, but on further reflection, decided the numbers explained a lot. "All my friends were drinking beer and not gaining massive amounts of weight," Mr. Cahill said. "The moment I started drinking beer, there goes another 20 pounds. I said, 'This is not right. Something is wrong with my body.'" Sean Algaier, 36, a pastor from Charlotte, N.C., feels cheated. He went from 444 pounds to 289 as a contestant on the show. Now his weight is up to 450 again, and he is burning 458 fewer calories a day than would be expected for a man his size. "It's kind of like hearing you have a life sentence," he said. Slower metabolisms were not the only reason the contestants regained weight, though. They constantly battled hunger, cravings and binges. The investigators found at least one reason: plummeting levels of leptin. The contestants started out with normal levels of leptin. By the season's finale, they had almost no leptin at all, which would have made them ravenous all the time. As their weight returned, their leptin levels drifted up again, but only to about half of what they had been when the season began, the researchers found, thus helping to explain their urges to eat. Dr. Proietto and his colleagues looked at leptin and four other hormones that satiate people. Levels of most of them fell in their study subjects. They also looked at a hormone that makes people want to eat. Its level rose. "What was surprising was what a coordinated effect it is," Dr. Proietto said. "The body puts multiple mechanisms in place to get you back to your weight. The only way to maintain weight loss is to be hungry all the time. We desperately need agents that will suppress hunger and that are safe with long term use." Mr. Cahill, 46, said his weight problem began when he was in the third grade. He got fat, then fatter. He would starve himself, and then eat a whole can of cake frosting with a spoon. Afterward, he would cower in the pantry off the kitchen, feeling overwhelmed with shame. Over the years, his insatiable urge to eat kept overcoming him, and his weight climbed: 370 pounds, 400, 460, 485. "I used to look at myself and think, 'I am horrible, I am a monster, subhuman,'" he said. He began sleeping in a recliner because he was too heavy to sleep lying down. Walking hurt; stairs were agony. Buying clothes with a 68 waist was humiliating. Before the show began, the contestants underwent medical tests to be sure they could endure the rigorous schedule that lay ahead. And rigorous it was. Sequestered on the "Biggest Loser" ranch with the other contestants, Mr. Cahill exercised seven hours a day, burning 8,000 to 9,000 calories according to a calorie tracker the show gave him. He took electrolyte tablets to help replace the salts he lost through sweating, consuming many fewer calories than before. Eventually, he and the others were sent home for four months to try to keep losing weight on their own. Mr. Cahill set a goal of a 3,500 caloric deficit per day. The idea was to lose a pound a day. He quit his job as a land surveyor to do it. His routine went like this: Wake up at 5 a.m. and run on a treadmill for 45 minutes. Have breakfast typically one egg and two egg whites, half a grapefruit and a piece of sprouted grain toast. Run on the treadmill for another 45 minutes. Rest for 40 minutes; bike ride nine miles to a gym. Work out for two and a half hours. Shower, ride home, eat lunch typically a grilled skinless chicken breast, a cup of broccoli and 10 spears of asparagus. Rest for an hour. Drive to the gym for another round of exercise. Dr. Michael Rosenbaum, an obesity researcher at Columbia University who has collaborated with Dr. Hall in previous studies, said the body's systems for regulating how many calories are consumed and how many are burned are tightly coupled when people are not strenuously trying to lose weight or to maintain a significant weight loss. Still, pounds can insidiously creep on. "We eat about 900,000 to a million calories a year, and burn them all except those annoying 3,000 to 5,000 calories that result in an average annual weight gain of about one to two pounds," he said. "These very small differences between intake and output average out to only about 10 to 20 calories per day less than one Starburst candy but the cumulative consequences over time can be devastating." "It is not clear whether this small imbalance and the resultant weight gain that most of us experience as we age are the consequences of changes in lifestyle, the environment or just the biology of aging," Dr. Rosenbaum added. The effects of small imbalances between calories eaten and calories burned are more pronounced when people deliberately lose weight, Dr. Hall said. Yes, there are signals to regain weight, but he wondered how many extra calories people were driven to eat. He found a way to figure that out. All this does not mean that modest weight loss is hopeless, experts say. Individuals respond differently to diet manipulations low carbohydrate or low calorie diets, for example and to exercise and weight loss drugs, among other interventions. But Dr. Ludwig said that simply cutting calories was not the answer. "There are no doubt exceptional individuals who can ignore primal biological signals and maintain weight loss for the long term by restricting calories," he said, but he added that "for most people, the combination of incessant hunger and slowing metabolism is a recipe for weight regain explaining why so few individuals can maintain weight loss for more than a few months." Dr. Rosenbaum agreed. "The difficulty in keeping weight off reflects biology, not a pathological lack of willpower affecting two thirds of the U.S.A.," he said. Mr. Cahill knows that now. And with his report from Dr. Hall's group showing just how much his metabolism had slowed, he stopped blaming himself for his weight gain. "That shame that was on my shoulders went off," he said. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Sergei Vikharev, a Russian ballet master and former dancer in the Mariinsky Ballet who sparked a continuing debate over how to stage 19th century works when he stunned international audiences with a four hour spectacular production of "The Sleeping Beauty" in 1999, died on Friday in St. Petersburg. He was 55. The Mariinsky Theater (formerly the Kirov), where he was a ballet master, reported his death but gave no cause. Friends of his in St. Petersburg said he had a blood clot. In attempting a so called "reconstruction" of "The Sleeping Beauty" rather than a simple revival, Mr. Vikharev sought to replace familiar, and shorter, streamlined versions of the work with a more complete staging that was closer to Marius Petipa's choreography for the original 1890 version at the Mariinsky. While most repertory works are passed down from rehearsal directors to dancers, several Petipa ballets were recorded in choreographic notation in Russia before the Russian Revolution. Nikolai Sergeyev, an emigre ballet master, took out the notations for stagings in the West. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
When Dr. Mello and his team analyzed the noise a triplet of syllables produced in rapid succession they discovered it was well above the normal hearing range of birds. Peak hearing sensitivity for most birds is believed to rest between two to three kilohertz. (Humans are most sensitive to noises between one and four kilohertz.) "No one has ever described that a bird can hear even above 8, 9 kilohertz," said Dr. Mello. But "the fundamental frequency of those calls was above 10 kilohertz," he said. "That's what was really amazing." The findings, published Monday in the journal Current Biology, suggest that black jacobins either can hear sounds that other birds cannot, or cannot hear the sounds they are making. Though additional study is needed to be sure, Dr. Mello considers it unlikely that a bird would evolve to make noises it can't detect. Instead, he believes the hummingbirds have adapted to the cacophony of their environment by finding their own wavelength on which to communicate. "There's high pressure to communicate and not interfere with other birds," in such a crowded environment, he said. "One possibility is they evolved to be able to sing what other birds cannot hear, and can hear back from other birds on their own private channel." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Science |
PASS IT ON People in the publishing world love to speculate about what will "move the needle" on book sales. Enormous marketing and publicity budgets help. So does an author interview with a major media outlet or the benediction of an influential club. It helps if the author has a track record as a best seller or is a household name or has an interesting story to tell about another person who is a household name. But the most elusive needle mover the Holy Grail in an industry that put the Holy Grail on the best seller list (hi, Dan Brown) is "word of mouth" book sales. This is the phenomenon whereby one reader recommends a book to another reader who recommends it to her mother who lends a copy to her co worker who buys the book for his neighbor ... and so forth, until the title becomes eligible for inclusion in this column. Robin Wall Kimmerer's essay collection, "Braiding Sweetgrass," is a perfect example of crowd inspired traction. The book was published in 2013 by Milkweed Editions. It did not have a large scale marketing campaign, according to Kimmerer, a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, who describes the book as "an invitation to celebrate the gifts of the earth." On Feb. 9, 2020, it first appeared at No. 14 on the paperback nonfiction list; it is now in its 30th week, at No. 9. Kimmerer has a hunch about why her message is resonating right now: "When we're looking at things we cherish falling apart, when inequities and injustices are so apparent, people are looking for another way that we can be living. We need interdependence rather than independence, and Indigenous knowledge has a message of valuing connection, especially to the humble." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
The continually surprising playwright Branden Jacobs Jenkins likes to rattle cages, especially those claustrophobic, categorical prisons in which we like to confine ourselves and one another. He has explored the American racial divide through a dizzying range of variations on classic, creaky forms: minstrel show ("Neighbors"); 19th century melodrama ("An Octoroon"); and even the Southern gothic potboiler, replete with closeted skeletons ("Appropriate"). Now he has moved on to the most cosmic of theatrical genres with a contemporary take on the 15th century "Everyman" morality plays, which he has given the more embracing title of "Everybody." As part of the Signature Theater Company's Residency Five program, this production now in previews has been staged by the fast rising director Lila Neugebauer and features a cast of Off Broadway stalwarts, whose specific parts will be determined anew at each performance nightly by lottery, if you please. (Through March 12, signaturetheatre.org.) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
Credit...Rahim Fortune for The New York Times Erykah Badu has always been a boss, but now she's closer to a CEO. When the Covid 19 pandemic halted concerts and the music industry scrambled to adapt, the iconoclastic neo soul singer and songwriter created a new artistic and business model, creating her own interactive streaming network less than two weeks after the country began shutting down this spring. "I've been touring for eight months out of the year for 22 years. This is the way that I had made my money," Badu said. She had family to take care of, and crew that have been part of her team for two decades. So she created a high production, interactive live show from her home (The Quarantine Concert Series: Apocalypse, Live From Badubotron), charging fans 1 to watch. And then she did it twice more, charging a little more each time three increasingly elaborate livestreamed performances in the space of a month, with costume and lighting changes, and fans voting on the set list and even what room she would perform in. In the last concert, she and her musicians appeared to be inside clear giant bubbles. "Every day and night, I was working and moving and experimenting and learning from mistakes quickly and fixing them," she said. According to a spokeswoman, over 100,000 people tuned in. And now she doesn't even miss being on the road: "A little piece of me dies every time I have to leave my home." These are edited excerpts from the conversation. How did you come up with this idea? First thing we had to figure out was what am I, besides this touring artist? And I quickly found out that I was many more things. It all came simple to me really quickly, as if I had been downloading the program through the Matrix. Take me through the technical setup. I didn't want to just put a phone on a tripod. I had to keep up my team's morale and keep them employed. I wanted the user to be able to interactively choose which songs we sing. When you're in the studio, you're perfecting a moment you get to go back and fix it. But when you're doing something live, you're creating a moment and delivering it at once, and I wanted the audience to feel like their money not only got them into the show, but they also got to help create the moment. I had to get a truck to broaden the bandwidth of my house. All the neighbors had high speed internet for a couple of weeks because of it. I was the director, the producer, the music director, co technical director, and I was also the switcher. I had a little iPad on the side switching camera angles as I went. We had four cameras. Camera A was right in front of me. B was behind me on a tripod that could swivel left and right. C was right above the whole group, like a good bubble eyed viewpoint, and then there was one on the musicians and singers. I can tell you like directing. I've been directing since I was 3. First it was the teddy bears. Then it was the neighbor kids. Then it was the kids in the church. What's the status of your plan to start a livestream company? My livestream company project is very much underway. It's ambitious, but I think I can do it. I think I can help artists build a platform very similar to mine where everything lives there. We are driving all the traffic to our socials, to our chat rooms, to our merchandise, and to our art, whether it's performance art or comedy or visual art or fashion. We don't have to abandon our other social media outlets, but we can incorporate them into our worlds and in ways that make it very easy for the user. I'm also trying to convince the user or the audience that it's OK to pay the artist directly. Because they're so used to using the streaming services to do that, and we only get pennies from the services . But we're also living in an era where capitalism is one of the enemies. So you have to be very careful to not become something that you didn't intend to become. You've said that the minimal fee you were initially charging is not sustainable. Have you landed on a better way to price this? I'm coming up with that, and I'm coming up also with the energy to be comfortable with that. Maybe a monthly fee is better than a one time fee. It's very important for us to be focused and organized right now, and also having places to release feelings of guilt and the feelings of suppression and pain and distance. And a lot of those things are released through music. Just creating the right vibration around the market will help people understand why it's valuable to us at all. Did you make any money from your streamed shows? I made a little bit more each time. Basically, I just wanted to be able to keep those staff people paid, to break even and make sure that I didn't, you know, make any foolish purchases. And I also wanted to make sure that this model could actually work. Now that I know it can actually work, I know what I need to do to be profitable with it. Do you track the data? Do you know where people are watching from, for example? Definitely. We are very keen on checking the data and the stats. We know the demographic and the age group and the geographical places where we're more welcomed. My following has had a steady pace. I perform to the congregation, pretty much. I was just surprised to see how many other people were watching, excited for us. You recently did a live show at Dave Chappelle's house. But we're still probably months out from regular gigs. What did you miss about tour shows? I didn't miss it. I've always wanted to perform from my bed at home. I'm the laziest artist probably in Dallas. I never wanted to do the packing and going through the car and luggage and the hotel and, "What's the password? What's the internet?" You get tired after years and years of doing it, you know? I enjoyed the moment when the audience and the artist become one living, breathing organism, when the band and I are locked in. I miss that synergy and energy between me and the audience. But I found a new way to express that, and it doesn't take its place. It just evolved it to another place. You had a poster of Yoko Ono above your bed in one of the streams. Is she a meaningful artist to you? Very much so. I thought about her a whole lot during 2010 when I did the "Window Seat" video in which Badu disrobes on a walk through Dallas, and then mimes being shot . I thought about all of the female performance artists who used nudity as a political statement to bring attention to an important issue or a passion that they had or something that they needed to erupt. You know how you call on deities? Well, for me, it was Yoko and it was Josephine Baker and Nina Simone and many others Ana Mendieta. Lots of visual artists and women who take risks to make these statements, even though they know that they will most likely be misunderstood, because they're generally ahead of their peers or time. But brave enough to still take those walks. And those women walked with me. Do you feel like you're reaching a different height with this project? For myself as a creative, yes. There's nothing like human beings and real breaths and eye contact and hearing your voice reverberate off the back wall of the club, come back at you and hit you in the jugular. Nothing like that. There's nothing like D.J.'ing at a club and having all the people at the same time's heart rates go up when we hear a song from our childhood that we loved, or when a guest walks onstage and everyone goes crazy because they didn't expect them. But there's also nothing like performing and filming and creating and delivering something in the same moment. And when you can pull that off successfully, everybody has to be on point in the room all of the camera people, all of the musicians, myself as a bandleader and a director. We are performing a two to three hour live music video, and everything has to be on cue. Everybody just exhales after it's over, and we are just all quiet. We did it. As a woman of color in a white male dominated industry, do you think owning your own platform, and asking to be paid what you're worth, directly, is revolutionary and challenging in its own right? Oh yeah. If I was doing a live show anyway, I'm going to get paid what I'm worth at this time in my career. I had to build that reputation from February 1997 when "Baduizm" was released to now. This is a whole new arena, and I'm willing to do the work. I'm going to have to build that reputation again to show this industry that I can deliver the things that I say I'm going to deliver, because there is a network in place already for this. And me, as a woman and as a nonconformist, building something outside of that network, is always going to be difficult. I know that already. Now, they've got to figure out how we're going to count my streams and deliver on time, and the publishing company had to get involved. I'm building a new machine. I may face a few obstacles. But I'm not even thinking in those terms. I'm not in a rush I don't think it's a race because I don't think that there's anyone else who's doing exactly what I'm doing. I'm willing to study and learn how this thing works because I definitely want to be in this game. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Music |
Ashleigh Barty, the world No. 1, reached her first Australian Open semifinal by beating Petra Kvitova, the seventh seed. Barty weathered a storm of powerful baseline rallies to secure the first set in a tiebreaker. Once the barrage abated, Barty took the initiative, using her slice backhand to dictate points against Kvitova, last year's finalist. Sofia Kenin, the 14th seed, has not faced a seeded player on the path to her first Grand Slam semifinal, but that should not make her achievement any less impressive. With her counterpunching style, she dropped only one set on her march to the final four. Last year, the two met three times on hardcourts. Kenin upset Barty in Toronto, but otherwise, Barty has held the edge. Expect plenty of points in which the two exchange powerful blows from the edges of the baseline. They are similar that way, but the variety of Barty's game can give her an advantage. It will be interesting to see how the players react to the pressure. Kenin's first semifinal may be intimidating, and Barty may feel pressure to succeed on the home stage and continue her quest to be the first Australian woman to win a singles title at the Australian Open since Christine O'Neil in 1978. Roger Federer, who played his first ATP Event in Gstaad, Switzerland, in 1998, has had plenty of time to reinvent his game. At this year's Australian Open, he has gained yet another designator: escape artist. He faced seven match points from Tennys Sandgren, his opponent in the quarterfinals, after surviving with a similar effort against John Millman in the third round. In a postmatch interview, Federer admitted: "It's just luck at some point. I've been on the other side as well. These ones just sting and they hurt. But I could have blinked at the wrong time and shanked. That would have been it." Federer played down concerns about a midmatch medical timeout and the length of his matches, saying: "It really depends sometimes how you're feeling inside, how much it takes away from you. But I must say I feel pretty good right now." Novak Djokovic, the defending champion, stumbled in his first match, dropping a set to the unseeded Jan Lennard Struff. But he has since won each match in straight sets. Djokovic, who relies on his movement to extend points and force opponent errors, showed off all of his best qualities against a resurgent Milos Raonic, the 32nd seed. The biggest testament to Djokovic's play is how he has been imitated in his career. To watch other players sliding on hardcourts is a pale imitation of the art Djokovic has perfected. These two greats will meet for the 50th time, two of the so called Big Three locked in what at times seems like an infinite struggle. But dynamics shift. Federer, beloved, finds himself in the unusual role of underdog. Though it may have been true in a few of their previous matches as well, the gap this time looks foreboding for the Swiss. Federer won their last match at the ATP Finals in November, but his inconsistencies this week will prove hard to overcome against the indefatigable Djokovic. Or perhaps it will be time for one more escape act. Simona Halep, the fourth seed, advanced to the second women's semifinal by beating No. 28 Anett Kontaveit, 6 1, 6 1, in the quarterfinals. She will now face unseeded Garbine Muguruza, who beat No. 30 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 7 5, 6 3, on Wednesday. Halep, the fourth seed, delivered her most convincing performance of the tournament in her quarterfinal win over Anett Kontaveit, a match that lasted just 53 minutes. Halep's defensive groundstrokes were on fine display, but her serve has been the decisive element of her game in Melbourne. The unseeded Muguruza has taken down three seeded players on her way to the semifinals. Her flat groundstroke game has looked more and more imposing with each round, but she struggled at times to control the points against Pavlyuchenkova. After impressively weathering Pavlyuchenkova's aggressive play in the first set, it was nervous serving from Pavlyuchenkova that handed Muguruza the second set. Muguruza should expect no such favors from Halep. The last time these two met was in the semifinal of the French Open in 2018, where Halep defeated Muguruza on her way to winning her first Grand Slam. Even if Muguruza can replicate her best performances from the earlier rounds, Halep's defensive capabilities should be enough to wear her down. Both players have been ranked No. 1 in the world and won two Grand Slam singles titles, Halep at the French Open in 2018 and at Wimbledon last summer, Muguruza at Roland Garros in 2016 and Wimbledon in 2017. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
PARIS The Paris shows and the whole ready to wear season came to a close on Tuesday in the Cour Marly of the Louvre, under an I.M. Pei glass pyramid and a darkening sky, amid heroic 17th and 18th century marble nudes and plunging horses. Through them ranged the road warriors of Louis Vuitton: women not bound by reference or decade; women rooted to the ground in thick soled knee high boots, mixing the pastoral and the urban, the folk and the futuristic. Even though some of them wore lace, they were absent fragility. The next day was International Women's Day, but as far as fashion was concerned, it had already arrived. There may have been less overt politics on the runways in Europe than there had been in New York (the slogan tee didn't make it across the water, though the pussy hat and the "tied together" bandanna did), but that doesn't mean that the current social climate wasn't a subtext in almost every collection. Designers were either trying to armor women for battle, or decorate them for battle, or take care of them so they could go into battle, or simply make the question of dress (literally) more streamlined so they could ... well, do battle. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Fashion & Style |
Despite his warm reception under the Queensboro Bridge, Bernie Sanders's left leaning message may not play well throughout New York State. After a second consecutive week of convincing defeats, Bernie Sanders is facing intense pressure to drop out of the Democratic presidential race. At noon Wednesday, his campaign suspended its Facebook advertising. The candidate has made no announcement yet, but according to a Politico article Tuesday, his aides were girding for the campaign to continue at least through April 28 the so called Acela Primary, featuring multiple Eastern Seaboard states, most notably New York and its 274 delegates. "Sanders' aides have long thought that he would have a good shot in the Empire State," read one sentence in particular that caught my eye. The idea that New York might back Mr. Sanders sounds plausible on its face. New York has a reputation for being liberal, even ultraliberal; Williamsburg and Bushwick, and the young left leaning voters therein, get a lot more media attention than Utica and Jamestown. Alas, history does not support the contention. In fact, history smothers it. I know. I covered it. In the recent past, there were three occasions when the nonestablishment candidate came into the New York primary riding a little momentum and hoping that the state's liberals would flip the narrative. All three times, the establishment candidate won, and it wasn't particularly close. The first was 1988, when Michael Dukakis was the establishment choice and Jesse Jackson the insurgent. Al Gore was also in that mix. Some readers may recall that this was the election when then Mayor Ed Koch said that Jewish supporters of Mr. Jackson "have got to be crazy," setting a match to the body politic as he was sometimes wont to do. Mark Penn and Andrew Stein write that "only a broader course correction to the center will give Democrats a fighting chance in 2022" and beyond. Tory Gavito and Adam Jentleson write that the Virgina loss should "shock Democrats into confronting the powerful role that racially coded attacks play in American politics." Ezra Klein speaks to David Shor, who discusses his fear that Democrats face electoral catastrophe unless they shift their messaging. Ross Douthat writes that the outcome of the Virginia gubernatorial race shows Democrats need a "new way to talk about progressive ideology and education." Mr. Jackson had thumped Mr. Dukakis in Michigan three weeks before. The Massachusetts governor was ahead in the overall race, but matters were up in the air enough that a Times reporter, Michael Oreskes, wrote on the morning of the April 19 New York primary that "even a close second" by Mr. Jackson "might leave the race uncertain and make it unlikely to be settled until after the last primaries, in California and New Jersey on June 7." I remember as a young reporter covering a debate between Mr. Jackson, Mr. Gore and the Illinois senator Paul Simon (Mr. Dukakis didn't show) at Fordham University that March. The only memory I carry of that event was the athletic grace with which Mr. Jackson bounded up onto the stage. But I do recall that in general Mr. Jackson, just like Mr. Sanders now, had the young people and the enthusiasm. Mr. Dukakis was exciting to few. Nevertheless, on Primary Day, Mr. Dukakis won handily, 50 percent to 37 percent (Mr. Gore, who in one of the less fortunate episodes of his career allied himself with Mr. Koch's view of things, albeit more discreetly, got 10 percent). The Jackson campaign was over. Four years later, Jerry Brown was breathing down Bill Clinton's neck coming into New York's April 7 contest. Mr. Clinton was ahead, but the Californian, who at the time had fashioned himself a strongly anti establishment figure, had pulled off a big upset in Connecticut in late March. New York's most important labor leaders backed him, as did some other progressives. I retain snapshot memories of this one, too. Mr. Brown and Jacques Barzaghi, his rather enigmatic amanuensis at the time, led a raucous march around Union Square; for a time, I was wedged right in between the two men, Mr. Brown screaming his points to me. It sure seemed like he was riding a wave. Mr. Clinton won by 15 points. The race basically ended there. Finally, in 2000, Mr. Gore was back, this time as the establishment candidate, being challenged by Bill Bradley, who'd positioned himself as the more progressive choice, inveighing for example against the lobbyists of "Gucci Gulch" and their distorting effect on legislative outcomes. Mr. Bradley had not won any run up primaries, but he was inching closer to Mr. Gore. A sense was afoot that if this ex Knickerbocker star could win New York, it would be a new race. This time, Mr. Koch, now long retired, backed the insurgent. He and a roster of New York progressives joined the candidate at an overflowing rally at Judson Memorial Church, the Washington Square Park locus of much progressive political activity over the decades. Again, I walked out of that rally thinking that the insurgent had a shot. Again, the establishment guy won, this time by two to one. In sum, New York, despite its reputation, is where insurgent candidacies have come to die. Why? New York is a liberal state, but it's a liberal establishment state. It's the home of Wall Street. It's where Democratic candidates come to raise money. Get on an Acela heading from New York to Washington some Monday afternoon while Congress is in session and count the House members heading back to work after a weekend spent trawling for checks in Manhattan. Life and politics are full of surprises, so things could be different. But the history is clear. Broadway ingenues aren't the only people who come to New York to see their dreams dashed. Michael Tomasky ( mtomasky) is a columnist for The Daily Beast, editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas and a contributing opinion writer. He the author, most recently, of "If We Can Keep It: How the Republic Collapsed and How It Might Be Saved." 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 December, a woman in Tulsa, Okla., used a Craigslist post to plea for holiday companionship. "Anybody need a grandma for Christmas?" she wrote. "I'll even bring food and gifts for the kids! I have nobody and it really hurts." More than three in five working Americans report feeling lonely. Now that the country is facing a disease outbreak that demands measures like "social distancing," working from home and quarantines, that epidemic of loneliness could get even worse. A paradox of this moment is that while social distancing is required to contain the spread of the coronavirus, it may also contribute to poor health in the long run. So while physical isolation will be required for many Americans who have Covid 19 or have been exposed to it, it's important that we don't let such measures cause social and emotional isolation, too. The Health Resources and Services Administration cautions that loneliness can be as damaging to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Feelings of isolation and loneliness can increase the likelihood of depression, high blood pressure, and death from heart disease. They can also affect the immune system's ability to fight infection a fact that's especially relevant during a pandemic. Studies have shown that loneliness can activate our fight or flight function, causing chronic inflammation and reducing the body's ability to defend itself from viruses. Across the country, people are being asked to work from home, universities are switching to virtual classes and large gatherings are being canceled. These are key strategies to prevent transmission, but they can come at a social and mental health cost: furthering our sense of isolation from one another, and making us forget that we're in this together. Already we're beginning to see suspicion and paranoia play out in public spaces. People struggling with allergies report that every cough elicits glares. In Sydney, Australia, reports say that a man died after he collapsed outside a Chinese restaurant and onlookers refused to perform CPR. Asian Americans have reported racist comments and harassment, based on the wrongheaded belief that they're more likely to be carrying the coronavirus. There is evidence that the more isolated people feel, the less likely they are to take measures to protect their fellow citizens. A study conducted in Germany found that, among a cohort of people aged 60 and up, increased loneliness was associated with lower rates of flu vaccination. In Taiwan, a feeling of closeness with neighbors was associated with the intention to get a vaccine, or to wash hands more frequently. Similarly, an analysis of H1N1 vaccination rates after the 2009 swine flu pandemic found that states with higher rates of vaccination also had high rates of "social capital," a measure of the extent to which people in a community have social networks and are willing to help one another. A study conducted in Hong Kong in the aftermath of the SARS epidemic of 2003 found that among the elderly, measures of subjective well being did not fall below normal levels. Researchers concluded that this was in part because of a sense of community connectedness. Loneliness and isolation are especially problematic among older people. Twenty seven percent of older Americans live alone. According to the H.R.S.A., among older people who report feeling lonely, there is a 45 percent increased chance of mortality. In a quarantine situation, this could become even more dire. Those who need lifesaving medication, require specific medical assistance, or have meals delivered to them may be unable to get those services. For solutions, we can look to countries where people have been dealing with coronavirus for some time. As the BBC reported, people in China are turning to creative means to stay connected. Some are streaming concerts and gym classes. Others are organizing virtual book club meetings. In Wuhan, people gathered at their windows to shout "Wuhan, jiayou!" which translates to "Keep fighting, Wuhan!" A business owner packed 200 meals for medical workers, while a villager in a neighboring province donated 15,000 masks to those in need. For those of us who know people, especially elderly people, who may be isolated, get connected. Check in daily and look for ways to spend time together, either through a FaceTime or WhatsApp call, through collaborative gaming or just by using the telephone. Of course, none of this behavior is a substitute for good government policy. Societies that have a more of a communal bent also tend to have a social safety net and better sick leave policies that facilitate efforts to contain the virus. Activists in Chicago have put out a list of demands, including free testing and medical care for people with Covid 19. In Detroit, activists have convinced the city government to reinstate water service to thousands who have been cut off for not paying their bills with no cost to them for the first 30 days. It may provide some comfort to know that thousands of other people are going through the same thing, and as in China, collective coping strategies will emerge. TikTok videos, memes, stories, essays and poems about living in isolation will all become part of the culture. We could come out of this feeling more connected to each other than before. Abdullah Shihipar is in the master's of public health program at Brown University. 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 |
Our guide to plays and musicals coming to New York stages and a few last chance picks of shows that are about to close. Our reviews of open shows are at nytimes.com/reviews/theater. 'ERNEST SHACKLETON LOVES ME' at the Tony Kiser Theater (in previews; opens on May 7). Ernest Shackleton may have lost the race to the South Pole, but has Roald Amundsen had a show named after him? In this Joe DiPietro story, with music by Brendan Milburn and lyrics by Valerie Vigoda, a modern day single mother (Ms. Vigoda) finds herself in contact with that long dead explorer. Lisa Peterson directs. 866 811 4111, ernestshackletonlovesme.com 'THE GOLDEN APPLE' at New York City Center (performances start on May 10). This 1954 Jerome Moross and John Latouche show, an all American version of "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," is revived by Encores! for a seven performance run, with direction by Michael Berresse. The story of a traveling salesman, a farmer's daughter, a loyal wife and a man with a terrible sense of direction, it stars Lindsay Mendez, Ryan Silverman and Mikaela Bennett. 212 581 1212, nycitycenter.org | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
SHIRLEY CHISHOLM IS A VERB! Written by Veronica Chambers Illustrated by Rachelle Baker Verbs are words about "doing," Veronica Chambers explains at the beginning of "Shirley Chisholm Is a Verb!" "Verbs are words that move the world forward," as did Congresswoman Chisholm, a daughter of immigrants and the first African American, and first woman, to make a serious bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. She believed that "service to others is the rent you pay for your room on earth." Instrumental in the creation of programs like Head Start and W.I.C. (which assists women, infants and children in need of food) and the formation of the Congressional Black Caucus, Chisholm felt strongly about making room for others. Just as Chambers's words highlight a life punctuated by movement, Rachelle Baker's illustrations render Chisholm as a "doer," too, through expressive, determined lines and gestures. On almost every page, verbs such as speak, improve, listen, create and do, in teal capital letters, pop against a white background, illuminating the vision and drive of this woman who pushed against and cracked glass ceilings. Though a timeline would have enhanced our understanding of how she lived each day as a voice of "the people of America," "Shirley Chisholm Is a Verb!" succeeds as an inspirational exploration of what it means to be a true woman of action. KAMALA HARRIS: ROOTED IN JUSTICE Written by Nikki Grimes Illustrated by Laura Freeman Nikki Grimes writes in a similar vein of the vice president elect: "Kamala was like clay her parents molded for action." Framed by a mother's encouragement of her young daughter after a boy at school tells her that she can't become president, "Kamala Harris: Rooted in Justice" unfolds as a road map to how anyone can try for the job through hard work, dedication, caring and confidence. Raised by immigrant parents on civil rights marches, lectures by Martin Luther King Jr., readings at a local cultural center by James Baldwin and Maya Angelou, and Nina Simone's "gravelly voiced version" of "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," Harris learned early what it looked like to fight for freedom and speak out against injustice. This focused spirit is evident in a poignant exchange between baby Kamala and her mother, beautifully captured by Grimes: "'What do you want, little girl?' she asked. 'Freedom!' said Kamala, and a waterfall of laughter sputtered from her mother's mouth." Through bold, bright colors juxtaposed against the ethereal blue shadows of those who came before, Laura Freeman's illustrations complement Grimes's text, with subtle nods to Harris's roots in India, Jamaica and America. "Kamala Harris: Rooted in Justice" is an enlightening and, at times, lyrical portrait of a woman whose life has always been about advocating for others. NORTHBOUND: A TRAIN RIDE OUT OF SEGREGATION Written by Michael S. Bandy and Eric Stein Illustrated by James E. Ransome 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. Five years after Michael S. Bandy, Eric Stein and James E. Ransome collaborated on "Granddaddy's Turn: A Journey to the Ballot Box," they've come together again to show how Bandy's first train ride in the early 1960s from Alabama to Ohio opened his eyes to the unfair barriers created by segregation. Through Ransome's detailed and richly expressive watercolors of the lush fields and "glittery" cityscapes the passengers see as day turns into night, readers hear the chug of the train and feel its rumblings under their feet as Michael sets out to explore, only to be halted by a "WHITES ONLY" sign separating him and the other Black passengers from the rest of the train's offerings. Bandy and Stein give an intimate and affecting account of how segregation plays out in the everyday lives of two new friends one Black, one white who find companionship when the signs between cars come down as the train reaches Atlanta. Soon they're able to discover a dining car, sleeping nooks and each other, all because a city has "some different rules from home." Back up go the signs when they hit Chattanooga, and back down when they get to Cincinnati. Filled with touching slivers of a budding friendship sharing plastic green soldiers and even "battle" scars "Northbound: A Train Ride Out of Segregation" skillfully depicts how even the subtlest aspects of division cannot stand in the way of hope, goodness and friendship. WILLIAM STILL AND HIS FREEDOM STORIES The Father of the Underground Railroad By Don Tate In "William Still and His Freedom Stories," Don Tate chronicles the life of a man who understood the necessity of recording the lives of others. Still, the youngest of 15 children, was born free in 1821 to formerly enslaved parents. Many years earlier, his mother had made the wrenching decision to escape with her two young daughters and join her husband up north, leaving their two oldest sons behind in bondage. "Their new life was good, but living ached like an open sore," Tate writes. This enduring wound, and a night aiding a neighbor hunted by slave catchers, had a lasting effect on young William. At 23, "with 3 in his pocket, and a billion dollars in pride," Still moved to East Philadelphia, where he worked his way up to manager at the Pennsylvania Anti Slavery Society and opened his home as a "station" on the Underground Railroad. An unexpected and glorious reunion with one of his long lost brothers impelled him to write down the stories of other freedom seekers hoping to be reunited with kin. Tate's vibrant illustrations bring his often spare text alive. With a timeline, an informative author's note and additional back matter, Tate shines welcome attention on an overlooked figure who, with pen and heart, helped reconnect those whose lives and stories might have been forgotten. THIS IS YOUR TIME By Ruby Bridges Ruby Bridges who in 1960, at the age of 6, was the first Black child to integrate an all white school in New Orleans speaks directly to young readers in "This Is Your Time": "May my past, my story, inspire you." To that end, she pairs memories of being escorted to first grade by federal marshals, of the angry mob that rose up against her solely because of the color of her skin, and of the love and support of her white first grade teacher with accounts of visits during her adult years with a new generation of schoolchildren, who shared their own thoughts on bravery, equality and love. Black and white photographs provide a visual timeline of civil rights history, Bridges' own life and the young peace seekers of today speaking out around the world against injustice. In closing, Bridges exhorts: "Don't be afraid. This is your time in history." Her book is that guiding star, that reassuring hug, that needed call to keep going, keep pushing, keep demanding change. Leah Henderson's picture book "Together We March: 25 Protest Movements That Marched Into History" will be published in January. Follow New York Times Books on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, sign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar. And listen to us on the Book Review podcast. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
Look back to the end of the last housing cycle, and the downturn was marked by a flurry of complaints from condo owners and their boards against developers, claiming defects in new or renovated buildings. Roofs and pipes leaked, balconies crumbled and facades cracked. The ensuing lawsuits dragged on for years, as homeowners struggled to recoup their losses. Now, as another round of homeowners settles into new apartments, the complaints are rolling in again. Lawyers say they are fielding as many calls from anxious owners and condo associations as they did in the early 2000s. The problems, they say, are similar to those that plagued properties when the housing market crashed in 2008. "As the market softens and developers rush to get projects done, corners are invariably cut," said Steven D. Sladkus, a real estate litigator and founding partner of Schwartz Sladkus Reich Greenberg Atlas. So far, few condos built since late 2011, around the time the housing market began to recover, have filed lawsuits. This is partly because owners are just now beginning to assume control of the properties the developers typically control condo boards for a number of years after the building opens. But lawyers expect the lawsuits to pick up again soon. "There is going to be a spike in the next couple of years," as more buyers settle into their homes and begin noticing problems, said Robert J. Braverman, a real estate lawyer and the managing partner of Braverman/Greenspun. A May 24 New York State appellate court decision, however, may make it more difficult for some owners to go after the developers. For years, homeowners in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and other parts of the state have been able to sue a developer personally for breach of contract, simply because he or she signed what is known as a certification in the offering plan that is filed with the state attorney general. But the appellate court upended that practice, ruling that an individual principal of a corporation could not be held personally liable just because a certification was signed. The decision puts the three boroughs in line with Manhattan and the Bronx, where you already could not sue on these grounds. The recent ruling shines a light on the challenges that homeowners face when trying to recoup money spent on repairs. Developers invariably register projects as limited liability companies, an arrangement that shields individuals from liability. The principals of the L.L.C. may have millions of dollars of personal wealth, but the assets homeowners can go after are limited to whatever money is in the L.L.C. Once the shell company sells the apartments and depletes its funds, the pot may be empty. Lawyers are divided over the significance of the ruling. There are other, albeit more difficult ways to hold a developer personally accountable for problems with a building. A condo could sue him or her for violating the contract by arguing that the L.L.C. was a sham or a cover up, or try to prove that he or she engaged in fraud or breached his or her fiduciary duty, said Jared E. Paioff, a real estate litigator and partner at Schwartz Sladkus Reich Greenberg Atlas. "There are other ways to skin a cat," Mr. Sladkus said. The ruling "took away one of our tricks, but certainly didn't ruin the game." Others, however, see it as a game changer. "You'd have to be able to show that there was intentional fraud," Mr. Braverman said. "That's an incredible burden of proof." And as Adam Leitman Bailey, a Manhattan real estate lawyer, noted, "It's really hard to pierce the corporate veil. It takes a lot of money." Problems are not unique to ground up construction. Conversions can spell trouble, too, even among the city's highest end properties. Consider 150 East 72nd Street, a 24 unit condo converted in 2013 from a rental by Macklowe Properties, a developer of 432 Park Avenue, the super skinny, super tall tower where a penthouse sold last year for north of 87 million. At 150 East 72nd Street, a penthouse sold in 2015 for 15.27 million. Last December, the condo association sued the L.L.C. and its principal, Harry Macklowe, alleging failure to properly fund the reserve fund, fraud and "breach of contract and negligence resulting from the numerous construction defects," according to the suit. The owners sued Mr. Macklowe personally, arguing that the L.L.C. was "an alter ego" expressly intended to shield him from liability. According to the lawsuit, "the building was defective, and not constructed in a skillful manner." The board hired an architect who found insufficient fire stopping measures, lack of insulation and major facade problems. According to the suit, the architect also found: The H.V.A.C. tower froze in cold weather, so the apartments did not heat properly; odors passed between apartments; and old pipes caused "extreme damage" to some apartments. Mr. Bailey, who represents the condo association in the litigation, declined to comment on the case. Macklowe Properties also declined to comment. The cost of solving construction problems like these can be staggering, hitting particularly hard in a middle class building. To pay for lawyers and repairs, a condo association may have to impose hefty assessments on homeowners who have lived in their apartments for only a few months or years. In 2015, Nina Lubin, 34, bought a two bedroom duplex with her husband in a new condo in Riverdale, the Bronx, paying around 500,000. The building has had problems with its plumbing, its roof, its facade and its heating and cooling system. Common charges have gone up by 7 percent. This August, each owner will have to pay a one time assessment of 500 to 1,000 for repairs, and another assessment is coming next year. "We had hoped moving into a newer building that we wouldn't have these problems," said Ms. Lubin, who requested that the building address be withheld since the condo has not sued the developer. "It is frustrating to have so many issues going on that we were not made aware of when we were purchasing the property." The board is considering its legal options, but litigation is a long and expensive road to travel. "The last resort anyone wants to pursue is litigation," said Mr. Sladkus, who, with Mr. Paioff, represents Ms. Lubin's condo association. "The hope is that it resolves quickly." Once, water leaked into one of Ms. Lubin's closets, narrowly missing her leather handbags. Another time, water leaking from the ceiling damaged a bathroom. Last March, water spontaneously burst from the light fixture above the kitchen island during a birthday party, drenching the food and the cake. "The whole birthday spread was a waterfall," she said. Her reaction? "It was just another thing." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
THE number of people with health savings accounts has ballooned, but higher income families are much more likely to fund the accounts, a new analysis found. The number of health savings accounts, or H.S.A.s, has been growing by about one million a year, reaching more than 6.5 million in 2012, according to research published this week in the journal Health Affairs. The analysis covered eight years, although the accounts have been around for more than a decade. Balances are carried from year to year, and consumers can often invest the money for tax free growth. The accounts are not available to everyone, however. They must be used with a specific type of health insurance plan with a high deductible (at least 1,300 for a single person in 2015). The new study is the first H.S.A. analysis based on actual tax records, rather than on surveys of consumers and businesses, said Lorens Helmchen, associate professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University and the report's lead author. Researchers examined federal income tax data to analyze the number of filers who reported having an account. (Because contributions to the accounts are not subject to federal income taxes, they require the filing of a special tax form.) | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Your Money |
Danny Dyer in "The Dumb Waiter," one of two chilling Harold Pinter one acts presented at the Harold Pinter Theater in London. It is a fine, fine morning in the English countryside sparkling sunshine, cloudless skies, blooming flowers at their peak. And there is a wasp in the marmalade. That surely shouldn't be enough to destroy a beautiful day, much less an entire existence. Yet for the complacent husband and wife at the center of Harold Pinter's "A Slight Ache," a 1958 play, first performed on radio, which has been brought to chilling physical life at the Harold Pinter Theater here, that small, single insect is the beginning of the end. Yes, the wasp is soon taken care of, drowned by hot water. But then there's that sinister, silent match seller who's been standing at the couple's front gate, day after day after day, though it's only this morning that they have fully registered his presence. Why is he there? What does he want? Does he expect them to invite him in? There is so much, it seems, to be afraid of. Fear of the unknown, of the familiar, and of what happens when one becomes the other is stalking London's stages this winter, as Britain continues to squirm under the big, black question mark known as Brexit. The ghosts of economic catastrophes past also haunt two all too credible revivals of plays by Arthur Miller, both of which opened here last week. Both "The Price" (1968) and "The American Clock" (1980) consider the legacy of the Great Depression, a time when cherished American creeds of hope and self reliance seemed to be swallowed into emptiness. David Suchet doing the Yiddish equivalent of his Belgian detective Hercule Poirot delivers a crowd pleasing, vaudevillian turn as a wily old antiques dealer in "The Price," directed by Jonathan Church at Wyndham's Theater. But I was more affected by Brendan Coyle and Sara Stewart's pain filled portrait of a marriage shackled by the enduring clasp of a dead father, who was destroyed financially and spiritually by the Depression. The inventive American director Rachel Chavkin ("Natasha, Pierre the Great Comet of 1812") does about as much as can be done in animating the admonitory history class that is "The American Clock." In her version for the Old Vic, a changing, multiethnic, and gymnastic cast of performers share the same roles in embodying public and private views of the Depression's far reaching ravages. What's new onstage and off: Sign up for our Theater Update newsletter Neither production overcomes the repetitive didactism that encumbers both scripts, especially "Clock." But to see them close together, as I did, is to be reminded of how Miller never stopped asking the enduringly relevant, moral and existential questions posed by an era when "the System" failed, and all American optimism nearly flickered out. The nature of "fear itself" is being probed in very different terms at the Donmar Warehouse, home to "Berberian Sound Studio," a play in which a lone Englishman in a foreign land is forced to confront demons within him he hadn't even known were there. Though its plot concerns the creation of a favorite current form of escapism the horror movie "Berberian Sound Studio" is hardly made for cathartic hoots and shrieks. Adapted from Peter Strickland's 2012 film by the writer Joel Horwood and the director Tom Scutt, this compact comic drama never shows the simulated, gore drenched deaths that are the sine qua non of splatter flicks. Its scares are aural instead of visual, unless you count the increasingly rapt expressions on the face of an inhibited Englishman named Gilderoy, played with uncompromising geekiness by Tom Brooke. He's the sheltered, clueless English sound designer who's been imported by a director in Italy to devise the perfect noise for an unspeakable death by torture called the "bacio indelible," or indelible kiss. Not much happens in terms of real plot in this production, which is set entirely in the studio of the title (rendered by Anna Yates and Mr. Scutt, best known as an eminent theater designer). And there's little of the ticking bomb urgency associated with classic suspense. Pinter, of course, famously knew from silence. And it's appropriate that "A Slight Ache" began life as a radio play, a form in which what does or doesn't enter the ear is what triggers the imagination. In "Pinter at the Pinter Seven" expertly directed by Jamie Lloyd and the final offering of a much lauded season devoted to the dramatist's short plays it has been paired with the better known "The Dumb Waiter." Written in 1957, "The Dumb Waiter," an elliptical account of two hit men in limbo, was a breakthrough for the young Pinter, which has since been parsed, taught and revived many times. This version features two marquee stars: Martin Freeman (Watson in television's "Sherlock") and Danny Dyer (soap and action film actor, and notorious caller out on the subject of Brexit of the former Prime Minister David Cameron). Confined to a bare and squalid room (Soutra Gilmour is the designer), Ben (Mr. Dyer) and Gus (Mr. Freeman) are awaiting instructions to kill from an unseen boss. Mr. Dyer, as the surly top thug, and Mr. Freeman, as his fretful second banana, enjoyably elicit the music hall rhythms of these squabbling criminals, without milking the laughs. Their skillful thrusting and parrying reminds us of Ben and Gus's close kinship to Didi and Gogo, the bickering hobos of Beckett's "Waiting for Godot." But it's "A Slight Ache" that's the true eye opener (and spine tingler) here. This two character piece, which slyly evolves from a satirical sketch into an existential mystery, was staged to critical yawns at the National Theater in 2008, when it was generally concluded that "Ache" was indeed meant to be heard and not seen. Mr. Lloyd, however, has sensibly set his version in a radio studio, with his superb cast of two John Heffernan and Gemma Whelan speaking into microphones. This professional space turns out to be no safer than the sound studio at the Donmar, as the performers sink deeper and deeper into the roles of Edward and Flora, a husband and wife trying to figure out what to do with that tramp at the end of their garden. They have separate encounters with this shadowy figure (who is, at one point, mistaken for a bull), and each sees something different in him. Specifically, that would be their respective and elusive pasts, their equally muddled presents and, for the husband, a black hole of a future. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
GUEST HOUSE FOR YOUNG WIDOWS Among the Women of ISIS By Azadeh Moaveni Azadeh Moaveni has written a powerful, indispensable book on a challenging subject: the inner lives and motivations of women who joined or supported the Islamic State militant group. It is a great read, digestible and almost novelistic, but it is much more than that. "Guest House for Young Widows: Among the Women of ISIS" tackles many taboos that have hampered cleareyed discussion of Islamist extremism in general and ISIS in particular. The book provides an illuminating, much needed corrective to stock narratives, not only about the group that deliberately and deftly terrified officials and publics across the world, but also about the larger "war on terror" and the often ineffective, even counterproductive policies of Western and Middle Eastern governments. Moaveni follows 13 women and girls Tunisian, British, Syrian and German creating three dimensional portraits of their worlds, their logic, the choices available and unavailable to them. She made me hang on every turn to find out what would happen to them. This approach will likely infuriate some audiences, especially after years of media coverage that portrayed such women as uniquely evil, bloodthirsty extremists, or as brainwashed fetishists hot for jihadi men. Moaveni anticipates such objections, acknowledging "the extraordinary horror and centrality" of the suffering of women victimized by Islamic State, like the Yazidis whose enslavement and rape have received enormous, sometimes prurient, coverage. "But along the way," she writes, "we have been perhaps too caught up in revulsion to fully appreciate the conditions that gave rise to the group's female adherents." To truly understand these conditions, Moaveni argues, we must look at these women "with more nuance and compassion." Her call is urgent now, as hundreds of female ISIS members, or former members, and their children languish in camps and detention centers across the Middle East, subject to summary trials, the stripping of citizenship and indefinite incarceration in dangerously filthy conditions. Governments, including the United States and the United Kingdom, are dumping the problem of their own citizens who joined ISIS on ill equipped authorities in Iraq and Syria. This book was one of our most anticipated titles of September. See the full list. Moaveni's central observation, a theme that surfaces again and again in her detailed accounts, is that the decisions of female ISIS recruits some of them young girls made sense to them on their own terms. But almost no one bothered to address them on those terms when it mattered. The book highlights the failures of families, communities and governments to listen to the real and legitimate concerns of the women and girls, concerns that ISIS exploited, and address them in ways that could have made better sense to them than the call of the caliphate. As Moaveni writes, one challenge was, and is, that such discussions can come perilously close to sounding like sympathizing with ISIS. From the United States and Europe to the Arab states, counterterrorism dragnets too often equate any degree of Islam infused politics with support for Islamic State or Al Qaeda. Worse, in this atmosphere, any political discussion among young Muslims about the geopolitical or social issues most pressing to them increasingly risks being labeled "jihadist." Moaveni pulls no punches about what has helped to get us here. As ISIS carved out its so called caliphate amid larger, politically driven conflicts in Syria and Iraq, she writes, it used "highly manipulative and effective" tools to draw recruits, subjugate populations and eliminate "the gray zone" of coexistence for Muslims in the West. But by playing on the world's fears of Islam, they provided "cheap kindling for reporting that took the militants' religious claims at face value." Thus, Moaveni writes, "ISIS became, in the Western imagination, a satanic force unlike anything civilization had encountered since it began recording histories of combat with the Trojan Wars." It was seen as somehow uniquely incomprehensible, requiring a whole new class of "demonologists," as Moaveni slyly labels them, to inspect just how rooted ISIS was, or wasn't, in mainstream Islam. Less attention was given to the group's origins in "American policies and wars," or to the lived experiences of Muslims in the West and elsewhere, or to the "cold calculation" of many in the West that Syria's violently repressive president, Bashar al Assad, was preferable to any likely religious alternative. As Moaveni shows, Islamic texts may provide clues about some ISIS leaders and theologians, but they were rather beside the point for thousands of foot soldiers, administrators and go along to get along caliphate residents who mostly lacked religious expertise and were driven by a varied mix of politics, faith, economics and self preservation. The particular individuals Moaveni concentrates on have page turning life stories that make the book's analysis go down easy. Their starting points are diverse: Nour, a Tunisian teenager, was stifled by an authoritarian secular government, inspired by the peaceful revolution that toppled it and disillusioned when the revolt's promise faded. Emma, a lonely young German, converted because she loved the warm Muslim community of her German Turkish friends. Lina, a Lebanese German, left her abusive husband and found solace in increased observance, only to be rejected by her secular Lebanese father. Asma, Aws and Dua were not particularly religious residents of Raqqa, Syria, forced to game out survival when ISIS took over their city. Uncovering the truth. Over several months, The New York Times pieced together the details of a 2019 airstrike in Baghuz, Syria, one of the largest civilian casualty incidents of the war against the Islamic State. Here are the key findings from the investigation: The U.S. military carried out the attack. Task Force 9, the secretive special operations unit in charge of ground operations in Syria, called in the attack. The strike began when an F 15E attack jet hit Baghuz with a 500 pound bomb. Five minutes later, the F 15E dropped two 2,000 pound bombs. The death toll was downplayed. The U.S. Central Command recently acknowledged that 80 people, including civilians, were killed in the airstrike. Though the death toll was almost immediately apparent to military officials, regulations for investigating the potential crime were not followed. Reports were delayed, sanitized and classified. The Defense Department's independent inspector general began an inquiry, but the report containing its findings was stalled and stripped of any mention of the strike. American led coalition forces bulldozed the blast site. Civilian observers who came to the area of the strike the next day described finding piles of dead women and children. In the days following the bombing, coalition forces overran the site, which was quickly bulldozed. And then there are the three Bethnal Green girls, from a well regarded London high school. They were friends of Shamima Begum, and all four absconded to ISIS when they were in their teens. Begum, whose parents are from Bangladesh, recently resurfaced in a camp and was stripped of her British citizenship after being judged insufficiently apologetic. She had given birth to three children, one in the camp. All of them had died. As Moaveni acknowledges, some of her sources may have had incentives to play down involvement and emphasize dissent. However, her portrayals dovetail with what my colleagues and I learned in years of reporting, and she goes deep into her sources' experiences to provide convincing answers to crucial puzzles. For one, why was Tunisia, the relative success story of the Arab revolts, a top supplier of recruits? (She points to failed reforms and the dashed hopes of newly galvanized observant youth.) For another: Why were some academically successful second generation Britons drawn to the group, and how could their parents not have known, or stopped them? Here, Moaveni is particularly poignant and incisive. If these poor, sometimes non English speaking immigrant parents had time to notice daughters spending more time at mosques, they saw that as a sign of good values and safety. She brings to life the children's chafing between their freewheeling London environment, pressure to succeed and conservative family strictures. And she homes in on a prickly subject. The pain and anger over the West's treatment of Muslims, while exploited by ISIS, are entirely mainstream in Muslim households, including the vast majority that deplore any violence against civilians. But children alienated from their parents, like converts with no family context, were vulnerable to extremists. Even more disturbing, Moaveni reports that the Bethnal Green parents were not informed directly by the school, or the police, that one of their daughters' friends had run off to join ISIS. The British police, she writes, knew one girl was in Turkey on her way to ISIS but failed to have Turkish authorities stop her. Did they treat young teenagers as counterterrorism pawns, Moaveni and the girls' families wonder, rather than victims needing urgent rescue? For me, these questions raised another: Would they have treated white British girls the same way? Finally, for all its compelling material, one of the book's lasting accomplishments is its form. It is a master class in illustrating the big picture through small stories. And it uses women's experiences still so often framed as a subplot to reach the heart of ISIS. Centering a narrative on women leads, here, to a superior analysis of the overall subject, and this is a lesson with applications far beyond ISIS. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Books |
ROME An Italian court this month ordered one of the world's leading architects to pay damages to Venice for negligently building a bridge that failed to take into account "what everyone understands" about the city namely, that it has a ton of tourists with luggage. The five judges on a Roman court overseeing the use of public funds ruled on Aug. 6 that Santiago Calatrava, the Spanish Swiss architect globally renowned for his sleek and elegantly curved designs, had committed "macroscopic negligence" in constructing the glass and steel bridge that opened near Venice's train station in 2008. They fined him 78,000 euros. Mr. Calatrava's lawyers, reached by telephone on Friday, declined to comment or respond to questions about whether they would appeal the decision. The court said that the bridge required constant maintenance unforeseen in Mr. Calatrava's plans and that those problems were easily predictable given Venice's well known tourism problem. They said the lack of foresight raised doubts about Mr. Calatrava's judgment. Mr. Calatrava, who designed the PATH station in Lower Manhattan that admirers called visionary and detractors called way too expensive, has a reputation for breaking budgets. Compared to projects like that one in New York and the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain, the Venice bridge was a bargain, costing EUR11.6 million, though it was originally estimated to cost EUR7 million. In Venice, Mr. Calatrava's bridge is hardly the only victim of an out of control excess of tourists. The city has hired "decorum" police to keep tourists from eating on monuments, signs advise them not to dive in the canals and new technology is being used to get an accurate count on how many millions of tourists actually visit each year. Many of them arrive at Venice's train station, and it is the luggage they wheel over a large canal that has taken a toll on Mr. Calatrava's bridge, especially on the glass panels that form part of its steps. Mr. Calatrava's original plans estimated that the steps would require replacement every 20 years. But within four years after its opening, the city needed to substitute eight of them for a cost of EUR36,000, according to the ruling. And like a footbridge with a glass tile surface that Mr. Calatrava designed in Bilbao, Spain, the Venice bridge also drew complaints for its lack of grip. When it rained, its sloped glass floor turned into a starchitect's Slip 'N Slide. "It wasn't hard to imagine, from the beginning and in practice, that the elevated rate of falls would yield a more than proportionate risk of breaking the glass," read the ruling. In other words, one source of damage to the glass panels was falling tourists. Even some fans of the bridge agreed that it had its problems. Shaul Bassi, a professor of English literature at the Ca' Foscari university in Venice, said he admired the bridge's beauty and its strategic positioning, adding that it showed "that you could do something contemporary in Venice." Still, he said, "It's impossible not to slip on it, especially when it rains." Complaints about the bridge are not new. In 2014, the city sued Mr. Calatrava for negligence, but a lower court ruled in his favor, arguing that an "incorrect use of the structure" had caused its premature deterioration. As an example of "incorrect use," the 2015 ruling cited the "dragging of trolley bags," or wheeled suitcases. But the higher court in Rome, to which the city had appealed, ruled that since the bridge is close to the train station, the presence of wheeled bags should be considered "inevitable." Such an oversight was especially egregious, it said, "because it comes from a professional of world fame." In 2008, Venice authorities banned tourists from carrying luggage with wheels, which they said hurt the city's ancient pavement. But the court said the ban, officially lifted earlier this year, didn't eliminate the possibility that a "large portion of the transit population" rolled bags behind them. Dipping into its Latin, the court said the architect failed to "intelligere quod omnes intelligent," or to "understand what everyone understands." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
Montana Levi Blanco shops for accessories he will work into his costumes for the new play "'Daddy.'" At Earrings Plaza, a Herald Square emporium devoted to all things bright, beautiful and cubic zirconium, the costume designer Montana Levi Blanco plucked a pair of feathery blue danglers from the hook. "Something with a tassel might be fun," he said. Mr. Blanco, 34, is designing Jeremy O. Harris's "'Daddy,'" which begins performances at the Pershing Square Signature Center on Feb. 12. Set poolside, on the periphery of the Los Angeles art scene, the play (a coproduction from the New Group and the Vineyard Theater) namechecks Gucci sunglasses, an Hermes Birkin bag, a Tiffany bracelet items Off Broadway budgets won't cover. So you won't find him in Bergdorfs or Barneys. Try Rainbow and Forever 21. When a character has to look classy: Zara. Earrings Plaza has a special place in his heart and wallet. "It's like this encyclopedia of jewelry," he said, noticing the parrot pin he'd used in "In the Blood" and the 8 earrings in the shape of Africa that had graced "Fabulation." Since graduating from the Yale School of Drama in 2015, Mr. Blanco has quickly become the go to designer for Off Broadway and regional productions that demand something more than realism. Working tirelessly and pretty much constantly after "'Daddy,'" he moves on to "Ain't No Mo'" at the Public, "Djembe!" at the Apollo Theater Chicago, "Skylight" at Princeton's McCarter Theater, "A Strange Loop" at Playwrights Horizons, and that's just the spring he can conjure extravagances of color, pattern, texture and shape for less than the cost of a single Birkin bag. Way less. "He's part anthropologist, part conceptual artist," said Sarah Benson, a director who has worked with him on "In the Blood" and "Fairview." Speaking by telephone, she also marveled at his "amazing aggressive shopping." At Earrings Plaza that shopping yielded three pairs of tasseled earrings, some '80s style triangle numbers, restrained rhinestone clip ons ("I mean, I don't want to say church lady") and a bling y peace sign pin. Somehow it came to 50. Mr. Blanco kept the receipt. Born in Albuquerque to a single mother, Theresa Blanco, he had a close relationship with her mother, Stella Blanco, an artisan who designed lampshades. "I grew up playing with fabric and fringe and electrical wire, a lot of the things I now deal with on a daily basis," he said. He earned a dual degree in oboe and history at Oberlin College's conservatory program. While studying abroad in 2004, he saw an exhibit at London's Victoria and Albert Museum called "Black British Style." "It was the first time that I'd ever thought about the stories that clothing can tell," he said. In graduate school at Brown University, he worked toward a master's degree in public humanities, exploring he said, "the black experience through clothing." He figured he'd eventually look for work in a museum, but in his last semester he stumbled into a set design class. On his second try, and now focusing on costumes, he got into Yale School of Drama. The director Lileana Blain Cruz met him there. They worked together on Branden Jacobs Jenkins's "War," and Ms. Blain Cruz was immediately struck by "how he dealt with contemporary clothes in a heightened way," she said. "He thinks about color and palette like a visual artist does." A few years later, during an Off Broadway run of "The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World," he would tell her that the character Queen Hatshepsut absolutely needed watermelon fingernail polish. "And I was like, 'Yes. Yes, she does.' " Mr. Blanco's job, as he sees it, is "to figure out how best to tell the story and how to make it beautiful." After reading a script, he'll begin to visualize a character, often with just a single garment or accessory, like the blue green motorcycle jacket for Eddie Van Halen in the Atlantic Theater Company's current production of "Eddie and Dave." He isn't much of a tailor. "Nobody wants me to be doing a hem," he said. Instead he's a conceptualist who approaches clothing as adornment, as artifact, as potential signifiers of ambition, anxiety, desire. From college on, he's had a particular interest in exploring how people in less affluent communities show their style. "I feel like I'm participating in this long history of people of color who use what's available to create something beautiful and new," he said. To create the Brooklyn of "Fabulation," which recently ran at the Signature Center, Mr. Blanco made a close study of his own Bedford Stuyvesant surroundings and channeled that street style into more than 40 distinct, buoyant looks. "He wanted to honor the people in the neighborhood," said Cookie Jordan, a hair, wig and makeup designer who often works with Mr. Blanco. "The joy, the family, the humor." Mr. Blanco doesn't follow current fashion (see the Dickies uniform), and he has a complicated relationship to fast fashion, an industry that often exploits workers and generates waste. But when he has to outfit a dozen or more characters for under 10,000, fast fashion plus vintage stores and a few costume stock houses is a necessity, and a place like Earrings Plaza is a gift. And every trip pays off. On the street, on the subway, he has his eye out for a distinct outfit, filing away each image into a mental catalog. At a Korean bakery near Earrings Plaza, he clocked a grandmotherly woman, her puffer lined with leopard, her pants tucked neatly into her boots, storing that ensemble for later use. To outfit the characters in Suzan Lori Parks's play, which Ben Brantley called, "a fever dream from which there is truly no waking," Mr. Blanco explored African American archetypes and caricatures, creating haunting collages that he made into sketches. From those sketches, he bought and built costumes that brought the past explicitly into the present. "We wanted people to see the historical reference and then also understand who those people have become," he said. For the character Black Man With Watermelon, he began with clothing a sharecropper might have worn, then added a beanie. For Queen Then Pharaoh Hatshepsut, seen here in the gold dress, he asked himself "who are our urban queens?" and based her look around women he saw on his corner, "the girls with the door knocker earrings and the chains and the sequins." Each outfit, he decided, should mix men's and women's clothes, and he paid particular attention to fit and texture. After immersing himself in Van Halen pictures and the hair metal aesthetic, he went shopping. Here, the character Alex is dressed in a vintage black fringed jacket. Eddie wears a women's motorcycle jacket over a men's denim jumpsuit that Mr. Blanco found on ASOS. Dave's leggings are women's, the mesh shirt is men's and the fur topper is a grandma cardigan. For each look, "what was going through my mind was, is it too masculine? Is it too feminine?" Mr. Blanco said. "Really it's a true mix, even down to the shoes." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
Bolivia is moving ever closer to the edge of a military regime. At every turn since Evo Morales was ousted last November, the interim president, Jeanine Anez, has decided to take an authoritarian stance rather than a conciliatory tone, most recently against demonstrators demanding elections who blocked the country's main cities. Only free and fair elections, now scheduled for Oct. 18, but which are still far from certain, can get Bolivia out of its quagmire, which was brought on by Mr. Morales. The country's first Indigenous president, Mr. Morales could have left office with the stature of Nelson Mandela if he had accepted the results of the 2016 referendum on whether he could run for re election, which he narrowly lost. Perhaps seduced by the trappings of power, he weakened the independence of the judiciary and concentrated power on himself, neglecting to nurture new leaders within his party and get rid of those suspected of corruption. Most recently, the Bolivian press has published reports that Mr. Morales had a relationship with a minor (he has argued that there is not enough evidence to legally prosecute him). When Mr. Morales fled surreptitiously to Mexico in November, it was understandable that vast segments of Bolivian society wanted something new. However, rather than guiding the country to elections as soon as possible (which is what Ms. Anez had initially promised) and secure her place as an important figure in the history of Bolivian democracy, she initiated a series of sweeping policy directives. Most of these have gone disastrously awry, like the suspension of the new school year. The second reason is that Mr. Arce is most likely the only presidential candidate who would steadfastly defend the communitarian economic model of the MAS period in the face of neoliberal pressures to privatize industries. Bolivia's lithium reserves are geopolitically strategic assets. With the Covid 19 crisis, Bolivia needs a new economic engine, one based on green energy, using new and sustainable lithium extraction technologies. International leaders in the lithium industry have backed Mr. Arce's nonprivatization plan. Third, despite the humiliating end of the Morales period, MAS still has the highest level of support among the Indigenous and working class people of Bolivia; in other words, most Bolivians. David Choquehuanca, a vice presidential candidate for MAS, is an eminent Aymara intellectual with vast foreign affairs experience, something that would raise the profile of Indigenous leaders in a time of growing awareness of racism in the Americas. By contrast, the other parties seem unable to agree even on whether they should join forces against Mr. Arce. Mr. Mesa, who has remained largely silent over the last six months, already failed during his two years as president, when he took over in 2003 from Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, a United States raised businessman who tried to privatize gas with Mr. Mesa as vice president, with catastrophic social consequences. Known primarily as a journalist and historian, Mr. Mesa does not have the capacity to defend Bolivia's lithium and generate long term economic growth. Rather than accept a rising wave of authoritarianism under an Anez administration, the international community ought to support fair elections for Bolivia by Oct. 18, ideally monitored by the United Nations, the European Union and the Carter Center. If that happens, a return to the relative stability and prosperity of MAS under Mr. Arce is a more promising path than either the neoliberal road of Mr. Mesa or a right wing coalition route led by Ms. Anez. Diego von Vacano ( diegovonvacano) is professor of political science at Texas A M University. He is originally from La Paz, Bolivia. 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 |
WADA Still Waiting for Russia to Live Up to Its Promises When the World Anti Doping Agency's executive committee voted in September to reinstate Russia's corrupted antidoping laboratories, WADA's own athletes committee blasted the decision, and warned of what might come. "Having seen the conditions change once, we have little assurance in them not changing again," the committee said in a statement, criticizing WADA for letting Russia off the hook even though it had not yet met key requirements of a compliance agreement. Two weeks into the new year, the athletes' concerns look prescient. After two days of meetings in Montreal, a special WADA committee charged with overseeing Russian compliance held off on making any official recommendation, even though Russia has yet to turn over data it said it would. The committee's options ranged from recommending nothing to recommending harsh sanctions, but James Fitzgerald, a WADA spokesman, said the decision was made to make no recommendation because WADA currently has a team in Russia trying to collect computer data on the country's drug testing program that Russia was supposed to deliver by the end of last year. Collecting that data was supposed to take three days; Wednesday was day seven of the effort. Fitzgerald said not making an official recommendation was a precaution because the committee "did not want to do anything that could potentially put the mission at risk and wanted to have confirmed information from the team before finalizing their position." Fitzgerald said the WADA representatives seeking the computer data were making "excellent progress" and the organization would "expect the mission to be completed soon but it's not possible at this stage to give an exact time." The delay is sure to raise concerns among athletes who have pilloried WADA for months, arguing that Russia has thumbed its nose at WADA's efforts to punish the country for too long. The latest controversy involves Russia's promise to hand over computer data on about 10,000 suspicious doping samples by Dec. 31. But successive WADA teams sent to Moscow were rebuffed by Russian law enforcement, and the deadline passed without WADA receiving any of the data. A number of WADA critics called for the country to immediately be declared noncompliant. A three person WADA team was finally allowed into the laboratory last week. After the meetings this week, both Fitzgerald and committee chair Jonathan Taylor, a lawyer based in London, declined to say what the committee would recommend. The compliance review committee was supposed to provide its recommendation to WADA's ruling executive committee by Thursday, which would allow the executive committee a few days to digest the recommendation before its own meeting to decide what to do about Russia next week. The special review committee may miss that deadline as well. "It is taking longer than had been originally estimated but the team is facing no specific issues or difficulties in carrying out their task," Fitzgerald said of the efforts to collect the computer data, whose integrity still has to be verified, a process that will take months. "The quantity and complexity of the data, as well as the fact the servers and hard drives being accessed are not all brand new, means it is simply taking longer than originally anticipated." Taylor has repeatedly said that WADA must follow the proper procedures to ensure that any possible sanctions can survive Russian legal challenges. Taylor's committee wants either the data, "or else a ban that will stand up in court," he wrote earlier this month in a response to Swedish biathlete Sebastian Samuelsson's withering criticism. In an interview last week, Taylor emphasized that WADA has to use its declaration of noncompliance as a last resort. Russian recalcitrance wasn't unusual, he said, as compliance with WADA rules is often achieved at the last minute. "If we are going to treat RUSADA equally with everyone else," he said, using the acronym for the Russian Antidoping Agency, "then you let them comply late." Dick Pound, the founding president of WADA and author of a 323 page report on Russian doping, agreed. "When you are looking at the bigger picture, what really is important is that we get the data and access to samples," he said in a phone interview Monday night. "And we are in the process of getting access to the samples." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Sports |
Aerial view of "Project: Look Up," a moving art installation by Elizabeth Turk, created with residents of Mt. San Antonio Gardens, a retirement community in Pomona, Calif.Credit...Christopher Stobie Aerial view of "Project: Look Up," a moving art installation by Elizabeth Turk, created with residents of Mt. San Antonio Gardens, a retirement community in Pomona, Calif. POMONA, Calif. Deep within the verdant grounds of the Mt. San Antonio Gardens retirement community, the artist Elizabeth Turk was immersed in her latest project, an ambitious work of art that she could easily imagine but not yet see. "What do you tell yourself when you face adversity?" she asked the residents, drawing inspiration for a project that would create hope during the Covid 19 pandemic. With the 31 acre community as her canvas and its 500 residents and staff members as her medium, Ms. Turk envisioned "a wild garden on steroids" for a moving art installation titled "Project: Look Up." "Look Up" is modeled after her "Shoreline Project," a 2018 commission by the Laguna Art Museum that brought 1,000 volunteers to Laguna Beach at twilight, equipped with specially designed, illuminated umbrellas. Participants interacted as they meandered along the shore while hundreds viewed the spectacle from cliffs overlooking the area. Inspired by the resilience and optimism displayed by residents of the retirement community, Ms. Turk wanted to create an upbeat "Shoreline" like experience that would shatter myths of helpless senior citizens. This time, though, the privately funded installation would be closed to the public because of safety concerns. Ms. Turk plans to create a multimedia artwork featuring kaleidoscopic images from drone footage of participants as they move about in several locations across the expansive grounds. When the pandemic hit, Ms. Turk, who resides in New York City and Newport Beach, Calif., was working on plans to re create "Shoreline" in Laos. That project was quickly shelved. Officials there approached her in July about designing umbrellas for their gift shop. But the discussion quickly turned to the residents, who range in age from 64 to 104. "It just hit my heart," the artist recalled. "I thought what better community to engage with to remind us of joy and resilience vulnerable people leading us back to joy and togetherness." The Mt. San Antonio Gardens' chief executive, Maureen Beith, was initially hesitant about letting residents participate because of Covid 19, she said. "But because I knew that something positive was sorely needed, I felt it was important for us to go out on a limb a little bit." And so on a crisp November day last week, masked participants gathered, each carrying a colorful umbrella featuring the artist's drawings of plants that symbolize success in the face of adversity. The umbrella width helped encourage social distancing. To make "Look Up" more inclusive, the artist arranged to photograph residents who had been unable to participate. Those with mobility issues received a mechanism that allowed umbrellas to be attached to wheelchairs or walkers. In the weeks leading up to the event, residents prepared handwritten responses to Ms. Turk's question about adversity. Sayings such as "Be brave," "I am a warrior" and "Breathe," will be incorporated into Ms. Turk's final multimedia artwork. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Art & Design |
This ingenious, bare bones adaptation of Susan Hill's Gothic novel a long running hit in London allows audiences to take charge of their fear. In good times and bad but especially bad there's always a place among cultural self medicators for the comforting scare. I refer to those ritualized entertainments that air and arrange our nastiest fears, while scrupulously honoring quaint and orderly narrative traditions, soothing even as they frighten. The appetite for this genre would seem to be vast at the moment. How else to explain the unexpected success of a genial, middling film like "Knives Out," which revived the slumbering cinematic tradition of the country house murder mystery? So perhaps it's finally the moment for Manhattan audiences to embrace the sepulchral title character of "The Woman in Black," which opened on Thursday in the Club Car bar at the McKittrick Hotel. Stephen Mallatratt's ingeniously skeletal adaptation of Susan Hill's 1983 Gothic novel has been haunting London for more than three decades. (That makes it the second longest running production in the West End, bested only by the 67 year old "The Mousetrap," a but of course country house murder mystery play by Agatha Christie.) Yet when a touring version set up cobwebby shop Off Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theater in 2001, it managed fewer than 50 performances. I didn't see that incarnation nor the 2012 film, which starred a Daniel Radcliffe newly liberated from the "Harry Potter" franchise. I hadn't even read Hill's original novel before visiting the McKittrick (home to the deathless interactive spookhouse play "Sleep No More"). But I felt that in the raw maw of this bleak winter, I was definitely in the mood for whatever gently macabre release a cozy thriller might provide. My instincts were correct. This agreeably sinister production is directed by Robin Herford, the main man for "The Woman in Black" ever since he oversaw its low budget, pre London prototype as a "Christmas ghost story" at the bar space in the Stephen Joseph Theater in North Yorkshire, England. Herford has tried to recreate the feeling of that initial experience here. The Club Car (previously home to fare that includes Dave Malloy's ectoplasmic song cycle "Ghost Quartet") has been outfitted with what looks like a makeshift stage and rows of movable chairs, as if for a town hall meeting. (Michael Holt is the designer.) It is here we gather, with fortifying drinks in hand if we choose, to watch two exceptionally proficient actors (well, technically three, but that's telling) relate Hill's tale of a young lawyer who learns to believe in ghosts in a grand, isolated and uninhabited country house. And I can attest that even those familiar with Hill's novel are likely to be surprised. This is the character we meet first in the stage version, a diffident bourgeois gentleman named Arthur Kipps (David Acton), who arrives with a bulky manuscript containing his description of ghastly adventures of years earlier. He hopes that this account, which he intends to read to his family, will help him lay to rest a story that continues to torment him. So he begins to read very badly and unconfidently. Enter a younger man (Ben Porter), a professional actor whom Kipps has hired as an adviser and who tells the old boy he's doing it all wrong. His solution: The Actor should take over Kipps's role while Kipps portrays everybody (or almost everybody) else in the story. This allows Kipps to embody the joys of a theater virgin being initiated into the seductive craft of acting. (Amazing how a pair of prop eyeglasses can instantly improve a tyro's mimetic skills.) Porter's character demonstrates the less happy lesson of the dangers of an actor committing unconditionally to his part. As for the story being told here, you've heard it before, even if you haven't. The formula: Skeptical, modern minded innocent visits isolated manse, meets ghost; a baleful destiny ensues. This journey into fear set in a Britain still shaking off the picturesque dust of the Victorian era is achieved with little more than some sheets, a flashlight, a trunk, a few sticks of furniture, ambient sound effects (by Sebastian Frost) and lighting (by Anshuman Bhatia) that regularly plunges the audience into darkness. This means that, with our nerves conditioned to be exposed, we become acutely aware of every sound and movement around us. And, yes, people jump and shriek when the title character suddenly shows up in their midst. But they (read: me, too) often react in a similarly startled way when their fellow audience members shift abruptly in their seats or sneeze or gulp or clink the ice cubes in their drinks. Which reminds us that this is indeed a work of theater, a communal experience in which we're all involved. Thus we scare one another; we scare ourselves; we have agency in this process of scaring. And we can all laugh about having frightened ourselves when it's over. Ideally, that means we feel at least a bit more replenished than when we arrived, newly ready to face the really scary world that awaits outside. The Woman In Black Tickets At the McKittrick Hotel, Manhattan; mckittrickhotel.com. Running time: 2 hours. Credits Adapted by Stephen Mallatratt; directed by Robin Herford; design by Michael Holt; lighting by Anshuman Bhatia; sound by Sebastian Frost; original sound by Rod Mead; production stage manager, Carolyn Boyd; general manager, Tim Smith and Martin Platt. Presented by the McKittrick Hotel. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Theater |
Sitting back, glass of wine in hand, John Kapon, the bespectacled chairman of Acker Merrall Condit, a 200 year old shop for fine and rare wines, leads scores of wine lovers in twice weekly tastings. Taking social distancing mandates to heart, Mr. Kapon conducts the tastings using the teleconferencing platform Zoom as an extension of his business, a virtual function that he and other small business owners had never contemplated before the pandemic wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy. More than 5.2 million workers joined the tally of the unemployed last week, the Labor Department reported on Thursday, bringing the four week total to about 22 million. Faced with plunging sales as nonessential businesses are closed and more Americans lose their jobs, entrepreneurs are getting savvier about reaching their customers. Mr. Kapon has set up a system in which wine aficionados can order ahead to have the bottles delivered before the tasting. The hourlong sessions are followed by continued discussions on Instagram Live with prominent wine figures who take questions from people at home. "The backbone of our company is to drink and share great wines with our clients," Mr. Kapon said. "Wine is meant to be shared. The Zoom format allows you to be with 50 or 60 people." When the pandemic passes, he plans to continue virtual tastings, as well as weekly online auctions, as long as people tune in. He said he missed the energy of the auction room, teeming with wine lovers and the bottles they bring to share while bidding on lots that sell for thousands of dollars, but was rethinking the business strategy given how strong wine sales had been online. Orders from the shop's website were up 300 percent last month, Mr. Kapon said. E commerce sales and online auctions contributed to a robust first quarter for Acker. In person auctions in Hong Kong and New York typically constitute the bulk of the company's sales, but the virtual versions in March and early April still sold 7 million worth of wine, compared with just over 9 million from the same auctions last year. Yet some entrepreneurs have created ways to connect with their customers and develop parts of their businesses they had never considered. These stopgap measures may prove to be new lines of business or new strategies for their old business whenever the economy restarts. Such nimbleness is one advantage that small business owners have over larger competitors, said Josh Baron, a partner at BanyanGlobal Family Business Advisors and an adjunct professor at the Columbia Business School. "When time is of the essence, the ability to move fast in a major way is a huge edge," he said. "I don't want to paint an overly rosy picture, but after you've mitigated the damage as much as you can, how do you turn your energy to getting to the other side of this, whenever that is?" One response seems to be reworking technology that's already in place. Digital Reasoning, a privately held data analytics company, was using artificial intelligence to scan medical test results and identify cancer diagnoses more quickly. Now it's using the same technology to quickly identify patients with Covid 19. "It takes very little work on our side to change the models," said Chris Cashwell, the company's senior vice president of health care solutions. Laurel Taylor, founder and chief executive of FutureFuel, which helps people select among the 127 federal repayment programs to reduce their student loan debt, said the company had added two features to respond to the enormous job losses and financial uncertainty. One program, FutureFuel Cares, automatically enrolls a person in a debt relief program it finds for free. (The company normally charges up to 6.99 a month for its service.) FutureFuel GiveBack, which starts on Monday, finds cash back savings from the goods that a borrower is buying online among some 450 brands. That money is used to pay down the principal on the borrower's loan. Other companies see the "work from home" move accelerating workplace issues they were pushing for already. JumpCloud provides cloud based security for its clients' servers. Most of them wanted to ensure that employees could gain access only while in the office, said Rajat Bhargava, the company's co founder and chief executive, but companies now have to provide secure access to their workers at home. The pandemic "has been a catalyst to shifting to the cloud," Mr. Bhargava said. "Going forward, this is going to be the new normal." Quick responses for businesses that counted on human interaction may be even more essential. After five years of building furniture out of wood he found washed up on Florida beaches, Aaron Moreno was doing the kind of large scale projects he had hoped to do with his company, Drift, in West Palm Beach, Fla. His craftsmanship drew attention, and he was soon creating tables, doors and cabinetry for restaurants and mansions in Palm Beach County. Now his workers have switched to building baby gates, shelving and small coffee tables. Everything has to be small enough for one person to build and for the customer to put it in place without help. "I didn't want to shut my doors," Mr. Moreno said. "I have a lot of quality craftsmen who have taken years to put together, and I didn't want to lose them." The strategy has not replaced what he was earning before: A 10 foot restaurant table would fetch as much as 7,000, but a small coffee table costs 500 to 1,000. But Mr. Moreno said he was optimistic that this could be a new line of business. "When the world reopens, I don't think things are going to be the same," he said. "What I hope to learn is how I can meet the needs of my clients moving forward." To be sure, many entrepreneurs are overwhelmed by the crisis and unable to find a way out. Millions of small business owners have applied for emergency loans, but the Small Business Administration has run out of money for its 349 billion Paycheck Protection Program. Gympass, which Cesar Carvalho helped found seven years ago to offer flexible gym memberships, had no backup plan. It worked with companies like Tesla and PwC to give their employees access to 50,000 gyms worldwide. "All the gyms and studios in all the countries we operate in shut down," Mr. Carvalho said. "The core of the model was always based on in person visits to our business partners. We had zero live streaming solutions." In the past month, he has added two online options to Gympass: a collection of wellness apps for people stuck at home and a system that allows the company's partners to be paid for live streamed classes. "We coached studios on how to charge for this and to encourage the sense of community," Mr. Carvalho said. He said these additions had brought in 20 new clients, including Zynga, the gaming company. "People are staying at home, but the need is still there to get active and have a healthier lifestyle," he said. Such rapid shifts are not without hiccups or learning to adapt on the fly. Mr. Kapon commands his wine tasting in a setup that is more akin to "The Wizard of Oz" than a tasting room in a New York wine shop. During the tasting, he discusses the virtues of what is in his glass and calls on people for their thoughts as if they were in the room. But if the camera pulled back, it would reveal Mr. Kapon sitting in front of a sheet in his bedroom in San Juan, P.R. He rigged household lamps to create the right lighting and bought a webcam. "I actually love it," he said. "You get to connect with so many people who you don't get to see that often." There is one downside to the tastings: What to do with four opened bottles of wine when the other attendees are virtual? | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Your Money |
Though Disney's fantasy sequel "Maleficent: Mistress of Evil" claimed the top spot at the box office this weekend, it fell below expectations. Initially projected to make close to 45 million domestically, the movie instead opened to an estimated 36 million in domestic ticket sales Friday through Sunday. It brought in an additional 117 million overseas, according to the studio. These figures did relatively little to offset the movie's hefty price tag, however: It cost roughly 185 million to produce and at least 100 million to market worldwide. The original "Maleficent" was a rethink of the fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty," from which the titular character, played by Angelina Jolie, was plucked. The sequel, set several years later, revolves around a war between fairy creatures and humans , also featuring Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The opening weekend misfire calls into question both the star power of Jolie who has been largely absent from screens since the 2014 original and the risky decision of Disney to release a sequel this long after that first movie, which opened to around 69.4 million in domestic ticket sales during its first weekend. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
On a snowy January evening in 2013, Sergei Filin, then director of the Bolshoi Ballet, was attacked by a masked man in the parking lot of his apartment complex in Moscow. A jar of sulfuric acid was tossed in his face; the assault, it was later discovered, had been engineered by a disgruntled dancer in the company. (The prosecution argued that he was upset that a fellow dancer, then his girlfriend, wasn't being offered the opportunities she deserved.) Even after several operations, Mr. Filin's eyesight is permanently impaired he is almost blind in one eye a condition he masks with designer sunglasses. His career, too, has suffered. Last July, almost two years after he returned to the Bolshoi from a series of operations in Germany, it was announced that his contract would not be renewed. A recent documentary, "Bolshoi Babylon," suggests that he fell out of favor at the theater, particularly with the new general director, Vladimir Urin. Then, this year, a surprise: Mr. Filin had been offered a position, created specifically for him, as head of a new workshop for young choreographers at the Bolshoi. Mr. Filin was in New York last week, judging dancers and presenting a choreography prize at the Youth America Grand Prix international ballet competition. Through a translator, he talked about the Bolshoi, his new job and how his life has changed since the attack. These are edited excerpts from that conversation. Do you feel safe at the Bolshoi? Mmm, I don't think I feel safe. Pavel Dmitrichenko, the dancer who organized the attack, has applied for a reduction of his jail term and it's very possible that he might leave prison. He was sentenced to six years in prison in December 2013. Could he come back to the theater? The decision would have to be taken by the new administration. Everything is possible in this world. In the documentary "Bolshoi Babylon,'' you say that when you took the top job at the Bolshoi, "I made the wrong decision." Do you still feel that way? I never regretted or doubted what I have done at the Bolshoi, but thinking back, the moment when I accepted the proposal was wrong, the timing was wrong. I didn't understand the internal situation in the theater. There were scandals in the company. The previous director Gennady Yanin had been forced to resign due to a sex scandal. I came to a company full of scandals and divided into different factions. It was too political. I did what I could, but the price was too high. How has the attack affected your life and work? Obviously my eyesight is not the same, and I have to take care of that all the time. I have to maintain the condition of my sight for the rest of my life. It's a major change and trauma created by that attack. But I don't think I was affected that much psychologically I've gotten over it. Still, it's a terrible thing that happened to you. I still cannot believe the reason. There is no reason for such a savage attack. The claim was that he Mr. Dmitrichenko did it for his girlfriend, but after it happened and he was sentenced, he got married to someone else, and she got married to someone else. The love evaporated very fast. There are only questions why and for what. Do you still have pain from your injuries? Are you confident you can do your new job? If I weren't sure I could keep going, I wouldn't have accepted. What are your plans for it? We're still figuring out the format, but I can say that the program is not a training or education program but a practicum or a workshop, an opportunity for those who have chosen this career to implement what they have learned. The ballets will be performed on the New Stage at the Bolshoi. Have you chosen your first choreographers? Yes. The first batch are mostly dancers from the Bolshoi. Some are finishing their dancing careers, but others are still early in their careers. I knew some of them because of work they did elsewhere. Some of them participated in various festivals. And there's one who works in Spain; he's Bulgarian but has a Spanish passport. At this point I have nine men and women. Do you see a lot of choreographic talent in Russia? I have no opinion yet. When I see the results of their work, I will have an opinion. What is your relationship with Vladimir Urin, the general director of the Bolshoi? We have working relations. I don't feel any tension toward him, and I don't generate any situations that would create tension. You would never find any public mention where I express hostility toward Vladimir Urin. If you have this impression, then the source of this tension comes from the other side. In our work together since he was appointed general director, there have been many wonderful productions. I haven't tried to sabotage anything or create hostility or unrest in the company. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Dance |
These Women Say a Trusted Pediatrician Abused Them as Girls . Now They Plan to Sue. Stuart Copperman was, to all appearances, an old fashioned pediatrician. For 35 years, he ran a bustling practice in Merrick, Long Island, where he was revered by parents as an authority on everything from colic to chickenpox. Well dressed, affable and tan year round, he was always available in an emergency, and even made house calls. When he told mothers that their daughters were old enough to see him alone without a parent in the room, so the girls could speak freely they accepted it as sound medical practice. Girls who told their mothers that the pediatrician had rubbed their genitals or inserted his fingers into their vaginas were often met with disbelief. "He was such a charming, affectionate, involved man we all thought he was a god," said Dina Ribaudo, 43, who lives in Arizona . "You just couldn't imagine this bright, shining light ever hurting anyone." Mr. Copperman started molesting h er when she was 8, she said. The state Office of Professional Medical Conduct received a steady stream of sexual abuse complaints about Mr. Copperman for nearly two decades, but did not strip him of his medical license until December 2000. By then, he was 65 years old and ready to retire. No criminal charges were ever filed. Mr. Copperman, 84, declined to comment for this story but in the past has denied any wrongdoing. His exams were thorough, he has said, and performed in accordance with standard medical practice. But Ms. Ribaudo and about 50 other former patients now hope to sue him for monetary damages under a new law in New York State, the Child Victims Act. The law opened a one year window, beginning in August, during which victims of childhood sex abuse may file civil lawsuits against abusers even decades a fter the crimes occurred . Kristen Gibbons Feden, a lawyer who prosecuted Bill Cosby for sexual assault and is now with the firm Stradley Ronon in Philadelphia, has agreed to represent the women. But even if they win in court, they are unlikely to reap significant compensation. Their dilemma highlights a major weakness in the new state law. Though Mr. Copperman is by all indications wealthy, he was a solo practitioner who ran his practice out of his basement. He lacks the assets of an institution like the Boy Scouts or a large hospital. Law firms that have eagerly taken on clients targeting such well insured and deep pocketed institutions anticipating a healthy cut of any jury award or settlement have shied away from cases against individuals like Mr. Copperman. Most of the more than 500 civil suits filed under the new law so far have targeted the Catholic Church. But doctors in particular can be uniquely positioned to abuse young patients, as some notorious cases recently have shown. Larry Nassar, the team doctor at U.S.A. Gymnastics, was sentenced to up to 175 years for sexually abusing gymnasts in his charge. Earlier this year, Johnnie Barto, a pediatrician in Johnstown, Penn., was sentenced to up to 158 years in prison for sexual abuse. Earl Bradley, a pediatrician in Lewes, Del., was sentenced to 14 life terms in 2011. Scores of men are using the new law to seek damages from Rockefeller University Hospital over sexual abuse allegedly committed by Dr. Reginald Archibald, who passed away in 2007. In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine has urged legislators to review 25 years of sex abuse complaints made to the state medical board after finding it failed to take action against an Ohio State University physician, Dr. Richard H. Strauss, despite evidence he had assaulted male students. Doctors, and pediatricians in particular, "are the next wave," said Marci A. Hamilton, chief executive of Child U.S.A., an advocacy group based at the University of Pennsylvania focused on child protection. "These guys have incredible access, and prosecutors were disinclined to prosecute powerful doctors. A lot of these guys got away with many years of abuse." Mr. Copperman's victims feel they were failed repeatedly by institutions that should have protected them. Many see the new law as their last, best chance for justice. Mr. Copperman lives in Boca Raton, Fla., and in Melville, N.Y., at The Greens at Half Hollow. It is a luxurious gated community catering to "active adults" with tennis courts, swimming pools, a gym with a sauna and a clubhouse for parties and community activities. The stone gatehouse, staffed 24 hours a day, sits before a lush 18 hole golf course. On a recent summer day, Mr. Copperman told the guard there not to admit a reporter. Reached on the phone shortly afterward, he said he did "not care to revisit" the allegations. "It's been 20 years," he said. "I've got a lif e here." Mr. Copperman's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, also declined to comment. Moving on has not been so easy for many of his former patients. In interviews with about 20 of these women, many said they still cannot bear to be touched in certain ways, and have difficulties with both emotional and sexual intimacy. Others have struggled with mental health issues, including post traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism, heroin addiction, eating disorders and agoraphobia. "I was sick a lot as a kid, and I was so scared whenever I got a sore throat and knew I'd have to go to the doctor that I couldn't sleep all night," said Ellen Dombrowski, now in her 50s, a small business owner in Vero Beach, Fla. She said that during her annual physical, Mr. Copperman rubbed her genitals so hard that she almost cried. For years, she was angry at her mother for not believing her when she said the doctor hurt her. "That's just what doctors do," she recalled her mother saying. One woman said her mother slapped her when she described her appointment and accused her of lying to get attention. Another said her mother told her she was crazy and should see a therapist. Even resilient survivors said they still experience flashbacks. Some still avoid male physicians, are reluctant to leave their children with male relatives and panic when they take their children to the doctor. Many said they had married and divorced abusive men and spent thousands of dollars on therapy. "A lot of us are fine, but a lot of us are really badly damaged," said Dana Marcus, 56, an administrator of the Victims of Stuart Copperman Facebook page. She said the doctor abused her at every visit, starting when she was about 10. "We had somebody whom we trusted, who our mothers and fathers trusted when we were children, and we were betrayed," she said. Ms. Ribaudo said the doctor would perform a "head to toe exam," rubbing her genitals and inserting ungloved fingers into her vagina at every visit. "I could go there for a paper cut, and he would have touched my vagina," she said. Many former patients felt violated by the abuse and knew something was wrong, but were unable to articulate what was happening or convince an adult to believe them. Terri Ackerman, 58, who still lives on Long Island, said that when she was 14, Mr. Copperman told her she needed a vaginal "cleaning." She assumed the procedure was similar to a dental cleaning. "I felt very uncomfortable, and I remember saying, 'Are you almost done?'" she recalled in a recent interview. "But I just assumed that, like when a doctor gives you a shot, it hurts. They give you a throat culture, it's uncomfortable." Learn more about how parents can teach children to recognize sexual abuse. At hearings before the board during the summer and fall of 2000, six former patients who lodged complaints during the 1990s described Mr. Copperman telling them that they were "dirty" and needed a "genital cleaning." He had them lie on their backs while he rubbed and scraped their genitals with his ungloved hands or finger, according to the women's testimony. One woman identified as Patient G told the state board she had become sexually aroused by the doctor's manipulations, and two others said they had orgasms. The three member panel said Mr. Copperman had displayed "moral unfitness" to practice medicine. "Rubbing the female genitalia during a physical examination is always inappropriate, whether or not gloves are used," the panel said. The state finally revoked Mr. Copperman's license in December 2000. But it could have acted much earlier. Ms. Limmer Salgado lodged a complaint with the state in 1985; she and another patient gave testimony in 1987. But the three person panel consisting of two physicians and a minister voted two to one to dismiss their complaints. The physicians did not believe the women. Mr. Copperman defended the examinations, citing American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines recommending an exam of the external genitalia as part of a routine physical. Experts say the exam is supposed to be extremely brief, but "I've always prided myself on being thorough," Mr. Copperman said in 2000. "I have always tried to live my life in such a way that if someone said something bad about me, no one would believe it," he said. The current trend in medical practice is to encourage adolescents to see a doctor without a parent in the room, so that they may raise issues too embarrassing to discuss otherwise, like sexual activity or drug use. According to the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, beginning in adolescence, "routinely spending at least part of each visit alone with each patient conveys" to patients and their parents that this is "a standard part of adolescent health care." In 1997, Mr. Copperman himself published a short article in the Archives of Pediatrics Adolescent Medicine in which he urged physicians to meet alone with adolescents, and described how he would prepare parents years in advance, so they were not taken by surprise when the time came. "He groomed the parents, as well," Ms. Ribaudo said. The vast majority of pediatricians are certainly not in the profession to harm children, said Dr. Cindy Christian, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia who co authored a policy statement on protecting children from sexual abuse by health care providers. But Dr. Christian acknowledged that pedophiles may be drawn to jobs that provide access to children. "I've always said that if you're a pedophile and you can get through medical school, being a pediatrician is a dream job," she said. In revoking Mr. Copperman's license, the state medical conduct office said the action was necessary to "ensure protection for the public." But prosecutors in Nassau County, where Mr. Copperman had served as president of the local pediatric society, did not press criminal charges, and he never had to register as a sex offender. The new law is intended to remove some of the legal barriers to bringing civil and criminal charges against perpetrators of child sexual abuse. But critics say it does little to help put pedophiles behind bars, which would protect children most. Though the law moves the statute of limitations for pressing criminal charges for child sex abuse by five years, giving child victims until age 28 to press felony charges and until 25 to press misdemeanor charges, it can take decades for adults to come to terms with abuse they experienced as children. For this reason, many other states have altogether eliminated statutes of limitations for bringing criminal charges against perpetrators of child sex abuse, though the changes are not retroactive and only affect cases going forward , said Ms. Hamilton of Child U.S.A. In that sense, the Child Victims Act "is a victory for perpetrators," she said. "They might be sued and named publicly, so the world will learn they are perpetrators. But they won't be behind bars." The women who want to sue Mr. Copperman know that he won't go to jail, and they say it's not really money that they seek. Lynn Barnett Seigerman, 5 2, a project manager in San Diego, said she was abused by Mr. Copperman at her annual physicals every year when she was a teenager. "I want my day in court," she said. "I want justice to be served, and I don't think it was. I want him to pay, not necessarily monetarily I want him to feel the shame that I felt." Roni Caryn Rabin is a science and health reporter at The Times. Reach her at roni.rabin nytimes.com. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Health |
Thanks to Michelle Goldberg for exposing Gov. Greg Abbott's use of the coronavirus to rationalize a ban on abortion in Texas. The ban is allegedly aimed at preserving medical supplies for those fighting Covid 19. But the pair of gloves (and now a mask) used to perform an abortion constitutes a fraction of the personal protective equipment needed to attend to a nine month pregnancy: gloves and now masks for multiple physical examinations, ultrasounds and blood draws, as well as gowns, gloves and masks needed for multiple personnel for deliveries. As an ob gyn in Texas, I have the freedom to decide which of my patients needs to be seen in person during the Covid crisis. Why is abortion being "exceptionalized" and not left to the provider's discretion? Central Park is an oasis, especially now that spring has sprung. Too many people of all ages seemed oblivious the other day to the epidemic that's hit New York City. Many did not wear any virus protection. Runners were sweating, spitting, running close together. They closed in upon those walking. Couples pushing baby carriages were gathering, chatting and blocking the bridle path; Frisbees were flying; balls were thrown by groups of dog owners; ballgames were in progress; picnic groups were spread out on the Great Lawn. This joyful mecca was going on while just down the road the peaks of 14 white tents were visible one of the makeshift hospitals set up to absorb the infected ill and dying overflow from the beleaguered hospitals. A wake up call is necessary. Central Park must be closed until life as we wish it can resume. Re "How to Catch Someone's Eye While Social Distancing" by Erin Aubry Kaplan (Op Ed, nytimes.com, March 31): It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone in the age of Covid 19 is starving for human connection. One unexpected side effect of the coronavirus is that my neighbors have gotten friendlier. I live in a small town outside Cincinnati, and though the small town stereotype of not being able to walk very far without seeing someone I know does ring true, I don't talk to my neighbors all that much. But Ms. Kaplan is right: Rules change the game. Now that we can't interact, everyone needs to. It wasn't like this before. We've all had those conversations: You're happily walking by yourself when someone you know stops to chat. You're stuck there, wondering: How long will this last? Why do they have so much to say? Can I fake a family emergency? This doesn't happen so much anymore; we all feel that urge to connect. Now, every time I go on a walk, I am stopped by multiple neighbors (standing more than six feet away) wanting to chat. And every conversation is refreshing. I am greeted by people I've never met, and it's great to hear how they're doing. Disease is universal, fear is universal. Maybe friendliness can be universal, too. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Opinion |
FRANKFURT Banks clamored for emergency funds from the European Central Bank on Tuesday, borrowing the most since early 2009 in a clear sign that the euro region's financial institutions are having trouble obtaining credit at reasonable rates on the open market. Indebted governments among the 17 members of the European Union that use the euro are also finding it harder to borrow at affordable rates as investors lose confidence in their creditworthiness. In a Tuesday auction, the Spanish treasury, for example, was forced to sell three month bills at a price to yield 5.11 percent, more than double the 2.29 percent interest rate investors demanded at a sale of similar Spanish securities on Oct. 25. Spain also sold six month debt at 5.23 percent Tuesday, up from 3.30 percent in October. Italy's 10 year bond yield, meanwhile, edged up once again to nearly 6.8 percent Tuesday as foreign investors withdrew their money from that debt staggered country. Together, the commercial banks' heavy reliance on the central bank to finance their everyday business needs, along with the growing borrowing burden for Spain and Italy, raise the risk of failure for some banks within the countries that use the euro and the danger that nations much larger than Greece could eventually seek a bailout or be forced to leave the euro currency union. European stocks were down broadly on Tuesday's gloomy news. In the United States, stocks closed lower, too, but were not down as much as they had been before the International Monetary Fund announced at midday that it would extend a six month lending lifeline to nations that might seek it in response to the euro zone crisis. At the same time, though, the central bank continued to resist calls that it stretch its mandate and expand the money supply, as the United States Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have done. The European debt crisis has crimped the flow of funds to banks by raising doubts about the solvency of institutions with a large exposure to European government debt. In particular, American money market funds have severely cut back their lending to European banks in recent months, leading many institutions to turn to Europe's central bank. Compounding the problem, many banks using the euro have also had trouble selling bonds to raise money that they can lend to customers. That raises the specter of a credit squeeze that could amplify an impending economic slowdown. In addition, some banks may fail if they are unable to raise short term cash. The central bank said Tuesday that commercial banks had taken out 247 billion euros, ( 333 billion), in one week loans, the largest amount since April 2009. And the 178 banks borrowing from the central bank on Tuesday compared with the 161 banks that borrowed 230 billion euros ( 310 billion) last week. Since 2008, the central bank has been allowing lenders to borrow as much as they want at the benchmark interest rate, which is now 1.25 percent. Banks must provide collateral. But the central bank is not supposed to prop up banks that are insolvent, only those that have a temporary liquidity problem. And while the central bank has been buying bonds from countries like Spain and Italy to try to hold down their borrowing costs, the amount 195 billion euros ( 263 billion) so far is modest compared with the quantitative easing employed by other central banks like the Fed. A growing number of commentators say the European Central Bank should be authorized to buy government bonds at levels sufficient to stimulate the economy. "It is essential to have a central bank free to use all the levers, including variants of quantitative easing," Adair Turner, chairman of Britain's bank regulator, the Financial Services Authority, told an audience in Frankfurt late Monday. The audience included Vitor Constancio, vice president of the central bank. Richard Koo, chief economist at the Nomura Research Institute, wrote in a note Tuesday that "the E.C.B. should embark on a quantitative easing program similar in scale to those undertaken by Japan, the U.S. and the U.K." "Doubling the current supply of liquidity," Mr. Koo said, "would not trigger inflation and would enable the E.C.B. to buy that much more euro zone government debt." But there has been no sign the central bank will budge from its position that it is barred from financing governments, and that purchases of government bonds are justified only as a way of keeping control over interest rates and fulfilling the bank's main task to keep prices stable. "By assuming the role of lender of last resort for highly indebted member states, the bank would overextend its mandate and shed doubt on the legitimacy of its independence," Jens Weidmann, president of the German Bundesbank and a member of the central bank's governing council, said Tuesday in Berlin. "To follow this path would be like drinking seawater to quench a thirst," he said. Lucas D. Papademos, the new prime minister of Greece and a former vice president of the central bank, met with Mario Draghi, the central bank's president, when he visited the bank on Monday. The bank did not disclose details of their discussions, but Greece's fate is to a large extent in the central bank's hands. Because of its bond purchases, the central bank is the Greek government's largest creditor, and the bank is one of the institutions that determines whether Greece will continue to receive aid from the 17 European Union members that use the euro. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Global Business |
From left: Bertrand Parres/Agence France Presse Getty Images; Damon Winter, via The New York Times; Gabriel Olsen, via FilmMagic, via Getty Images. From left: Bertrand Parres/Agence France Presse Getty Images; Damon Winter, via The New York Times; Gabriel Olsen, via FilmMagic, via Getty Images. Credit... From left: Bertrand Parres/Agence France Presse Getty Images; Damon Winter, via The New York Times; Gabriel Olsen, via FilmMagic, via Getty Images. It was a casual remark tossed off by Donald J. Trump that jolted Johanna Kandel from her seat during the recent presidential debate. An anonymous computer hacker, Mr. Trump said, "could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds." "The hair on the back of my neck definitely stood up," said Ms. Kandel, 37, of West Palm Beach, Fla., who has struggled with eating disorders and now works to raise awareness about the issue. Ms. Kandel recalled how vicious comments about size and appearance contributed to her own struggle. "How many of our youth were sitting there and watching these debates, and thinking that this is O.K. to talk about and shame people based on their appearance?" Mr. Trump's personal fixation on weight was on display during and after the debate. He reignited a feud with the comedian Rosie O'Donnell, whom he once said had "a fat, ugly face." He was unapologetic in responding to Hillary Clinton's comments that he had called a former Miss Universe, Alicia Machado, "Miss Piggy." "She gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem," he told Fox News the next morning, although he denied calling her the name. But it's the blithe comment about a hypothetical 400 pound hacker that helped trigger a national conversation about fat shaming. More than two thirds of American adults (including Mr. Trump himself) are considered to be overweight or obese. "It would make logical sense that if the majority of Americans are fat, that this would definitely do him in," said Kimberly Massengill, a self described fat person who specializes in photographing people who are fat. But she doesn't think that will happen because fat people often think poorly of themselves. "The fact is that the majority of fat people feel unworthy." After Mr. Trump's comment about the 400 pound hacker, Ms. Massengill, who lives in Manhattan, said her cellphone buzzed with text messages from friends. "They all said the same thing," said Ms. Massengill. "Wouldn't it be great if fat people were the ones to keep Trump out of office?" But obesity experts and activists say fat shaming is one of the last bastions of acceptable discrimination, and Mr. Trump's public body shaming simply reflects a culture in which it is still considered acceptable to mock people for their weight. "With two thirds of people struggling with weight, you would think that some of the shaming would be on the decline, or that acceptance or tolerance would increase," said Rebecca Puhl, a professor and the deputy director for the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut. "We are not seeing that." Dr. Puhl points to the paucity of laws protecting people from hiring discrimination based on their weight so far Michigan, she said, is the only state to forbid it. Studies show that overweight people, women in particular, are discriminated against in the workplace for their size. And research shows that even medical professionals provide worse care to people who are overweight. The concern is that cavalier comments about weight by a public figure can have far reaching effects. Being teased about weight is a strong contributor to both disordered eating and weight gain among young people, said Dianne Neumark Sztainer, the head of the division of epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. "In some ways it legitimizes making those types of comments, which we know from our research can be very dangerous," she said. "In my opinion, these things trickle down." Kristina Saffran, 24, who was hospitalized with anorexia nervosa in high school, said body shaming comments from a public figure, even when they aren't directed at an individual, still can be deeply painful to people who struggle with eating disorders. "They live in a society where everyone is thinking they are bad and stupid and lazy for being fat, and we have a presidential candidate who is championing those beliefs," said Ms. Saffran, who lives in San Mateo, Calif. "It is going to be even harder for them to seek help." Though Mr. Trump's comments may reflect a widely held view that being overweight or obese is a personal failing, some people fear that fat shaming comments by a presidential candidate will encourage others to go further. "Saying these negative things about people's weight and women's appearance will further embolden people to express similar ideas," said Lesley Kinzel, a Boston based author of a memoir about being fat. Until the debate, Ms. Kinzel said she had not focused on much of what Mr. Trump has said. But during the debate, it became personal. She said she realized overweight people like her were now "just one in a line of people he wants to dismiss as losers." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Well |
"My name's Tim Miller, and I'm the director of 'Terminator Dark Fate.' This scene starts in Dani Ramos and Diego Ramos's workplace. They go to work at the factory where they're making cars, and the terminator is tracking them there as well as Grace, the protector. So, you know, there are things that are hallmarks of the 'Terminator' movies, and then there are things where we feel like we could go freestyle and change things and bring something new. So the fight has this rhythm to it. There's a whole lot of moments in it, but I think my favorite moments are really the Grace ascendant moments where she has this sledgehammer and she's just beatin' the crap out of the Rev 9. And I think it's really the first time you see just how strong she is. We shot this in two locations that is supposed to feel like one. We shot the wider shots and some of the chase parts of the scene at a Mercedes factory outside of Budapest in Hungary. But in the middle, we go into an assembly line area where we have the main area of the fight. And when that happens, we're transitioning onto a set that was built on stage at Origo Studios in Hungary. And the reason we did that is because for stunts you really want a controlled environment because if people are going to get thrown on floors and into walls and onto work benches and have engines fall on them " "My name is Grace." " you really want all that stuff to be safe in a way that you can't if you're going into somebody else's house to do it." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Movies |
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE 11:29 p.m. on NBC. It's hard to believe that Will Ferrell, who was an "S.N.L." cast member for seven years and is credited with some of the show's most memorable characters, will just now be hosting the show for a fifth time. On Saturday, Ferrell will be inaugurated into the so called Five Timers Club, joining a group of stars that includes Bill Murray, Justin Timberlake and Tina Fey. Before becoming a major movie star, Ferrell got big laughs as the cowbell happy member of the Blue Oyster Cult and as Craig, the pep rally ready Spartan cheerleader, as well as for his spot on impressions of George W. Bush, Robert Goulet and Alex Trebek. The musical guest will be the 20 year old songwriter King Princess, making her "S.N.L." debut. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE MILLBROOK TWINS 7 p.m. on Oxygen. This two hour special attempts to unravel a decades old cold case. In 1990, Dannette and Jeannette Millbrook, 15 year old twins, went missing near their home in Augusta, Ga. Now, a former federal prosecutor, Laura Coates, and a former homicide detective, Page Reynolds, will re examine the case, speaking with experts close to the investigation, eyewitnesses, the local authorities and family members. | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Television |
For all the signs that the economy is humming, the current expansion doesn't resemble past booms. The scars of the Great Recession run deep, and even after 10 years of growth, the kind of euphoria that marked the technology sector in the late 1990s or the real estate market in the 2000s is conspicuously absent. The pace of the current recovery has been weaker than during periods like the 1990s, which is among the reasons wage gains were so tepid until recently. It even prompted some economists to assert that a subdued economy was the new normal. But the upside of slower growth during the last 10 years may be a longer, more durable expansion, said Michael Gapen , chief United States economist at Barclays. Consumers have been wary of borrowing to the hilt as they did before 2008, while businesses have been cautious about expanding too quickly. The April data show little threat of troublesome inflation or other signs of excess. The length of the average workweek actually fell, while wage growth for the month was slightly below what was expected. Still, with average hourly earnings up 3.2 percent from a year ago, ordinary workers are finally sharing in the economy's bounty. The continued boom in the American job market suggests that economic policymakers need to be open about when the lessons of history no longer apply, says The Upshot's economics correspondent. The not too hot, not too cold report was warmly received on Wall Street, where the S P 500 closed up nearly 1 percent on Friday. "We can all agree that AMERICA is now 1. We are the ENVY of the WORLD and the best is yet to come!" Mr. Trump declared Friday on Twitter. For policymakers at the Federal Reserve, the jobs report will most likely serve as another piece of evidence in favor of leaving interest rates unchanged, a stand that the Fed chairman, Jerome H. Powell, reiterated this week. Mr. Trump has said the Fed should cut rates, and Vice President Mike Pence made the argument again on Friday, citing low inflation. But Mr. Powell and his colleagues have repeatedly said they will not be swayed by political considerations. "The U.S. economy is in a very good place," the Fed vice chairman, Richard Clarida, said in the text of remarks that he delivered on Friday. He also said recent employment gains appeared to be sustainable and were not a sign of an overheating economy. As recently as the start of this year, investors were worried that the economy could falter because of headwinds like a slowdown in Europe, the trade war with China and Brexit. This report should put those fears to bed at least for the time being. "It's much more exciting than anyone had expected," said Torsten Slok , chief international economist at Deutsche Bank. "No matter how you slice and dice this, it looks like the economy is doing fine." "It doesn't mean these risks are gone, but it seems like the economy is rebounding from the turbulence of the first quarter," he added. Despite the bright picture over all, there were pockets of weakness. Retail employment fell for the third month in a row as stores closed because consumers are increasingly shopping on the internet. There was also a big drop in the number of people who said they were looking for work. The labor force participation rate, which measures the share of those 16 and older who are employed or seeking work, sank to 62.8 percent, from 63 percent in March. Covid's impact on the supply chain continues. The pandemic has disrupted nearly every aspect of the global supply chain and made all kinds of products harder to find. In turn, scarcity has caused the prices of many things to go higher as inflation remains stubbornly high. Almost anything manufactured is in short supply. That includes everything from toilet paper to new cars. The disruptions go back to the beginning of the pandemic, when factories in Asia and Europe were forced to shut down and shipping companies cut their schedules. First, demand for home goods spiked. Money that Americans once spent on experiences were redirected to things for their homes. The surge clogged the system for transporting goods to the factories that needed them and finished products piled up because of a shortage of shipping containers. Now, ports are struggling to keep up. In North America and Europe, where containers are arriving, the heavy influx of ships is overwhelming ports. With warehouses full, containers are piling up. The chaos in global shipping is likely to persist as a result of the massive traffic jam. No one really knows when the crisis will end. Shortages and delays are likely to affect this year's Christmas and holiday shopping season, but what happens after that is unclear. Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, said he expects supply chain problems to persist "likely well into next year." That helped reduce the unemployment rate to the lowest level since December 1969. Here's a primer on where the numbers come from and what they mean. "The drop in the unemployment rate was encouraging, but it was for bad reasons," said Michelle Meyer , head of United States economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. "The lower participation rate is a little bit of a disappointment, but it's a volatile number." One challenge in the economic recovery has been to provide better paid jobs to workers without a bachelor's degree. Here's where to find them. Second looks aren't limited to potential tech hires, and that's encouraging workers who might have been passed over before to seek jobs. At Indeed, the job search site, searches with the term "felony friendly" are up 37 percent since last May, while "no background check" is up 148 percent. To lure workers, employers have been dangling some notable perks, said Amy Glaser, a senior vice president at the staffing company Adecco. Among them are upgraded cafeterias, day care, and subsidies for essentials like gas and parking. Call center managers are letting more employees work from home. "The candidates are 100 percent in the driver's seat," she said. "If employers don't respond to job applicants in 48 hours, they're gone. Somebody else has called with a better offer. Or if you schedule an interview too far out, they ghost you." | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Economy |
Janet Leon, the superintendent at Addison Hall on West 57th Street, presides over the installation of a new vacuum pump on the boiler.Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times Janet Leon, the superintendent at Addison Hall on West 57th Street, presides over the installation of a new vacuum pump on the boiler. Until her Fitbit broke, Mary Kearney faithfully wore it to track her peregrinations up and down the corridors and stairs and across the lobby, the terrace, the garden and the workout room at Tribeca Park, a rental building in Battery Park City. "I should be skinnier," Ms. Kearney, 49, said with a rueful laugh as she stood in the lobby of Tribeca Park the other day greeting residents, offering to help a woman who was maneuvering a bulky stroller while simultaneously hoisting a bulky toddler, and asking another woman about the progress of her kindergartner. "You've been in the same spot all day," one tenant said teasingly as he crossed the lobby. "This is exactly where I left you this morning." As such, she is a member of a very exclusive group. Of the more than 3,000 unionized superintendents in New York City, "I think I can safely say that there are probably only a couple of dozen women," said Kyle Bragg, the secretary treasurer of Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, which represents building service workers. Gender bias is one explanation for that modest number. This is a profession whose glass ceiling seems impervious to the big hammers wielded by Ms. Kearney and colleagues like Janet Leon, who manages operations at Addison Hall, a 237 unit co op on West 57th Street, and Jennifer Davis, the superintendent of Greenwich Tower, a West Village co op with 149 apartments. But there are other contributing factors, among them a scarcity of role models and a belief among real estate executives that while they themselves may be all for hiring a woman, the residents of the buildings they manage would never go for it. And that goes double for the building staff. "There has to be assurance that male workers are going to be able to take direction from a woman," said Dee DeGrushe, an account executive at Orsid Realty Corporation, the managing agent for Addison Hall, where Ms. Leon has worked since July. Ms. DeGrushe added, "Also, we deal with workers of many cultures" with different attitudes about women. A managing director of a real estate firm, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to talk to the press, said: "It's an old boys' club. The supers have organizations and they all know each other, so there are all these connections, and there's a lot of 'Can you do something for my nephew?' Or they'll move to another building and pass their old job to their brother in law." Some think the issue is more basic, not so much "women need not apply" as "it wouldn't occur to women to apply." "I don't think many women are aware that being a super is even an option for them," said Martha Goupit, an executive vice president of the Halstead Management Company. "They don't think it's a job that's available to them because the profession is so dominated by men." "I was always mechanically inclined, always handy," said Ms. Leon, who went to the School of Visual Arts intending to become an art photographer. To earn some money, meanwhile, she answered an ad placed by a locksmith; she already knew how to install locks so there wasn't much of a learning curve. Her job, naturally enough, took her to apartment buildings, mostly to work on burglar alarms, and she began meeting landlords. Their enthusiastic sponsorship ultimately led to a job offer as a super. At first, she turned her nose up: Thanks very much, but she was going to be a photographer. Then came an offer to be a part time superintendent. Great, thought Ms. Leon, who saw it as the perfect arrangement. She could build up her bank account while pursuing her dream. "I didn't know I would fall in love with super ing," she said. Since that first job more than 15 years ago, Ms. Leon has been the super in several residential buildings and did a stint in facilities management at a university. Along the way, she went back to college and got an engineering degree (cum laude) from the City University of New York, hoping it would ease the way to larger, better buildings. "I think it's gotten me more interviews," said Ms. Leon, who declined to give her age. "I don't know if it's gotten me more job offers." The biographies of confreres like Ms. Davis and Ms. Kearney are similar. They were interested in fix it projects from an early age and expanded their know how with their fathers' encouragement. As young adults they began working in apartment buildings, taking varying paths up through the ranks. Ms. Davis, the super at Greenwich Tower for the last nine and a half years, was a theater major in college and brought her talent at set building to bear when she was hired as a maintenance worker at a building in Boston, receiving excellent on the job training to boot. Ms. Kearney began as a concierge and handywoman, while Kathy Lynch, 62, the superintendent at the Newbury, a co op on the Upper East Side, first worked in the building as a concierge, a job with some doorman responsibilities that also required her to work one day a week as a porter. The women burnished their resumes with coursework in carpentry, plumbing and electrical wiring as well as building technology heating, cooling and elevator maintenance at technical schools or at 32BJ. "I took every class I could," said Loretta Zuk, 54, who worked as a handywoman in an apartment house in Morningside Heights before becoming the super of an apartment building on Riverside Drive for graduate students at Columbia University, a job she's had for the last 22 years. Unfortunately, sterling credentials and decades of experience are no match for hidebound notions about a woman's place. At an interview for a super's job at a building on the Upper East Side, a man on the co op board asked Jennifer Davis if she knew how to change a light switch. Yes, she did. "And then he said, 'Well, what about a broken window?' " Ms. Davis, 55, recalled. "And I was like, 'Yes. Generally, things like that are done by an outside company, but I've done it, yes, if that's what you're asking.' He was kind of sexist and insulting." Happily, that job didn't come through. Ms. Leon recalled a meeting with a co op board during which "a man held up some tools and asked me to identify them," she said. "I wanted to tell the guy, 'My mother has better tools in her kitchen drawer.' Then he threw a screwdriver at me to see if I could catch it and asked me to lift a radiator. I asked why I would do that when I could put it on a handcart." Things went rapidly downhill from there. Some years later, Ms. Leon was set to take a super's job at a co op on Riverside Drive only to have the offer rescinded; she was told the building's much loved handyman had said, "It's me or her." Ms. Lynch of the Newbury has occasionally had a contractor push back "and maybe made me feel not as mighty as I thought I was," she said. "But I always have the upper hand. I can just say goodbye and show him the door. He can tell by the look on my face that something isn't being done right and he gets to it." "I've had managing agents look me in the eye," Ms. Leon said, "and say: 'You were such a good candidate. It's nothing personal, but we just don't feel comfortable hiring a woman at this time.' " What's been astounding to Ms. Leon is how comfortable these agents feel about expressing their discomfort. It is equally astounding to Steven D. Sladkus, a real estate lawyer. "It's shocking to me that a building would be so brazen in its improper attitude," he said. "Of course, it's illegal to discriminate against anyone in connection with employment opportunities based on gender. That said, I'm sure many people are loath to pursue the matter for fear of being blacklisted by any other potential employer." As Ms. Leon put it, "I love this profession and wanted to keep working in it." She is happy with how things turned out. "I have a good building," she said, "and I couldn't ask for a more welcoming staff and residents. I've been moved by it. But I believe that a man with the experience and education that I have would be able to get more benefits and a lot more money, and would have more opportunities, more choices of buildings to work in, than I've had." According to Mr. Bragg of 32BJ, individual buildings set a super's salary; the union contract spells out the rate of annual wage increases. Ms. Leon keeps a mini wet dry vacuum on her tool cart as well as a dust brush and scrupulously polices the area after finishing a repair, she said. "As a woman I understand how invasive it can feel to have someone come into the home to do work, and I am mindful that I'm in somebody's home." Residents of Tribeca Park, Tribeca Green and Addison Hall may see nothing particularly remarkable about having a female super, but visitors often express surprise. "One man who was here last week said, 'Wow, you're the first female resident manager I've seen,' " Ms. Kearney said, adding that she's had nothing but support from residents and staff. "And I answered, 'Yeah? Well, get used to it.' " At Greenwich Tower, "people see me as a selling point for the building," Ms. Davis said. "Realtors will say, 'Oh, this is the super. She's always here and she's great.' But I do find that contractors are often surprised. Every couple of weeks I'll hear from one of them, 'Please don't take this the wrong way, but I've never seen a female super before.' " "A long time ago," Ms. Davis added, "My father told me to 'get a sign that reads, "See the lady super: 5," and soon you'll be able to retire.' " | 0 | N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification | Real Estate |
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