text
stringlengths 1
39.7k
| label
int64 0
0
| original_task
stringclasses 8
values | original_label
stringclasses 35
values |
|---|---|---|---|
Irvin Mayfield and Ronald Markham, a pair of musicians turned impresarios who had worked to put New Orleans's jazz scene back on its feet after Hurricane Katrina, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiracy to commit fraud, capping a precipitous fall from grace that now leaves them each facing up to five years in prison. The charges stem from a yearslong scheme that federal prosectors said redirected over 1.3 million from the New Orleans Public Library Foundation into the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, which Mr. Mayfield and Mr. Markham ran and into their own pockets. Mr. Mayfield, a trumpeter, and Mr. Markham, a pianist, had maintained their innocence since their indictment more than three years ago on charges that included fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors dropped all but one charge for each: conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Mr. Mayfield and Mr. Markham signed a plea deal in July, but because of the coronavirus pandemic the courthouse had remained closed until this month. "We made the decision to make a deal mainly just to put this behind him and move forward," Claude Kelly, Mr. Mayfield's lawyer, said in an interview. "These charges stem from events in 2011, 2012 and 2013, and it's just time to put this behind us and move forward." U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey accepted the plea deal, and is scheduled to sentence the men at a hearing on Feb. 9. Among the city's leading trumpeters, Mr. Mayfield had founded the nonprofit orchestra in 2002, before Katrina devastated the city. After the storm, which took the life of Mr. Mayfield's father, the pair redoubled their commitment to the orchestra, which aimed to celebrate New Orleans culture while going toe to toe with the finest straight ahead jazz big bands on the international stage. And they hatched a plan to create the New Orleans Jazz Market, a community arts center in the heart of the city aimed at giving the orchestra a permanent home and making jazz accessible to city residents of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. "I'm born and raised in New Orleans and love where I'm from," Mr. Mayfield told The New York Times in an interview last year. With the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and the Jazz Market, he said, he sought to remind the world "that there's a lot of beauty inside of this city, no matter how poor it is." During the 2000s and early 2010s, Mr. Mayfield's profile in the city rose. He taught at the University of New Orleans, where he led the New Orleans Jazz Institute. President Barack Obama named him to the National Council on the Arts. He wrote a theme song for the New Orleans Hornets basketball team. The orchestra won a Grammy for its sophomore album, "Book One." Mr. Mayfield leased his name and likeness to Irvin Mayfield's Jazz Playhouse, a club on Bourbon Street. And he joined the board at both the New Orleans Public Library and the Library Foundation, a charity that raises money for the city's libraries. From 2008 to 2010, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra received steady funding from the city via the Wisner charitable trust, but that revenue dried up after Mayor Ray Nagin, a Mayfield ally, left office. By then Mr. Markham had joined Mr. Mayfield on the library foundation's board; each served as its chairman at various points, and they adjusted the bylaws to give themselves greater discretion over the allotment of funds, according to federal prosecutors. Between 2011 and 2013, they made up the orchestra's shortfalls by diverting over 1 million in charitable donations meant for the library toward the ensemble, the indictment said. The money was used to pay for the band's operating expenses, prosecutors said, but also for a long list of indulgences: It allowed, according to investigators, Mr. Mayfield to purchase a 24 karat, gold plated trumpet; it paid for both men's six figure salaries, on top of their other income; and it furnished Mr. Mayfield with stays at luxury hotels. A local TV station reported on the spending in 2015, creating a scandal just as Mr. Mayfield and Mr. Markham were celebrating the opening of the New Orleans Jazz Market in Center City. It lost sponsors and was forced to slash its staff. Mr. Mayfield and Mr. Markham resigned from their positions. After the pleas today, Mr. Kelly, the lawyer for Mr. Mayfield, said: "What Irvin and Ronald did was always what they thought in the best interest of the city, and we have standing down in Center City right now, an area that was predominantly poor and African American, a state of the art Jazz Market." "Were mistakes done in the process? Absolutely," Mr. Kelly continued. "We'll take responsibility for that today and through the sentencing." The New Orleans Jazz Market and its orchestra have persevered under the guidance of the drummer Adonis Rose, who took over as the orchestra's leader after Mr. Mayfield and Mr. Markham were charged. "The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra remains committed to its mission of sustaining and enhancing Jazz music and the musicians who create the music," Latoya Bullard Franklin, the orchestra's board chairwoman, said in a statement. "We will continue to rebuild a sound reputation in the birthplace of improvisation New Orleans."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Music
|
It's understandable if it seems as though Marcus Samuelsson never sleeps. The affable New York based chef and restaurateur, who recharged the Harlem dining scene with his restaurant Red Rooster in 2010, recently opened its first outpost, Red Rooster Shoreditch, along with the taqueria Tienda Roosteria, in London. He now operates a total of 15 restaurant brands, from Streetbird Rotisserie, also in Harlem, to Norda Bar Grill in Goteborg, Sweden, where he grew up. Two restaurants are planned for downtown Newark and Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Last October, Mr. Samuelsson released a cookbook, "The Red Rooster Cookbook: The Story of Food and Hustle in Harlem," an ode to the neighborhood's cultural diversity, and he now narrates a tour of Harlem on the app Detour. "I'm committed to telling a layered journey of the African American experience, which you have to really dig to find," he said. "I think people have a strong thirst for this history, and a big part of it is here in Harlem." Below are edited excerpts from a conversation with Mr. Samuelsson at Red Rooster. What influenced you to narrate an app tour of Harlem? When people come to Harlem, they see the Apollo Theater, stop by one of the famous restaurants, take a picture and get back on a bus. I want them to engage with us the way they would in other communities of culture. I'd like for them to go to Marjorie Eliot's Parlor for jazz and see how a bakery looks in our eyes at Make My Cake. In Little Senegal, you can see what a market in Senegal would look like, but in an American city.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Travel
|
Almost 15 years ago, the men of the Danish String Quartet they were in their 20s, at the time, and still called themselves the "Young" Danish said in an interview that they would need to become more mature before daring to play Beethoven's late string quartets in public. It didn't take that long for these prodigiously gifted musicians to get over their youthful reticence. In 2014, for their first Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center performance at Alice Tully Hall, they ended a program with an urgent, yet cogent, spacious and mystical account of the Quartet in A minor (Op. 132). And they were back there this month for a series of six concerts, again presented by the society, devoted to all 16 of Beethoven's quartets performed in chronological order. Over the years, the Danish quartet has played these pieces individually. But this is only the second time they attempted a daunting complete cycle about nine hours of music. Tully was packed for all six programs, which opened on Feb. 7 and concluded on Tuesday. This year, the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth, is going to offer lots of complete cycles. It's always difficult to bring fresh takes to pervasively familiar repertory, but the standard set by this quartet will be especially hard to top. As a rule, I'm not keen on complete Beethoven cycles, precisely because these scores remain such fixtures of our musical lives. I prefer programs that take on Beethoven by juxtaposing his pieces with works by other composers. That's the approach the Danish quartet took in two recent recordings on the ECM label, "Prism I" and "Prism II," which place two late Beethoven quartets in context with Bach fugues and 20th century quartets by Shostakovich and Schnittke. But perhaps Beethoven's string quartets could benefit from being heard complete if they're in order, spanning the composer's career. And how many opportunities do we get to hear, say, the "Serioso" Quartet? Or, for that matter, the six early quartets published together as Op. 18. For all the command these probing musicians demonstrated in their riveting accounts of the late quartets, their excellence came through most in bracing performances of the early works. Beethoven modeled those Op. 18 quartets on Haydn his teacher, who essentially invented the genre of string quartet. Here Beethoven was honoring him by writing works within the protocols of form and style that Haydn had developed. But there is an element of one upmanship at play. Beethoven is taking on the master, showing what, in a sense, a "Haydn" quartet could really be. There was some of that impish quality in the Danish quartet's playing, despite its elegance and brilliance. From the first phrase of the opening work, the Quartet in D (Op. 18, No. 3), the blissfully lyrical violin melody, soaring over seemingly supportive harmonies in the other strings, sounded cozy and alluring, but just a touch sly. Sure enough, before long an episode of spiraling passages in triples seemed like a warning for us to listen below the sunny surface. It's difficult to explain what makes the Danish String Quartet's playing so special. Other ensembles arguably match these players in technical excellence and interpretive insight. To say that their performances represent a marvelous balancing of qualities suggests that they occupy some place in the middle of the road. The results are anything but: There is a winning mix of studied concentration and willful freedom in their playing. "All Scandinavians feel like they have a bit of an anarchist inside them," Asbjorn Norgaard, the group's violist, said in a 2016 interview. That came through during this entire series. Their technical command resulted in precise execution. Yet they played with enough leeway to allow instinctive responses to take over in the moment. You might assume that musicians in their 30s would bring youthful energy to bear, but I was struck by how often they opted for a raptly restrained tempo. Rhythms were dispatched with clarity and exactitude, without a trace of rigidity. They have a shared sensibility and richly blended sound. But that doesn't stop their individual musical characters from continuously shining through. (The members, besides Mr. Norgaard, are Frederik Oland and Rune Tonsgaard Sorensen, who trade playing first and second violin parts, and Fredrik Schoyen Sjolin, a Norwegian cellist who has been with the ensemble since 2008.) The big endurance test of the cycle was the third program, in which they played the three "Razumovsky" Quartets (Op. 59), from 1806. Here is the towering Beethoven, the composer as revolutionary, striding across the pages of these scores brash, adventurous and ingenious. I found the performance here of the middle one, in E minor, especially distinguished. The Danish quartet brought out both the brooding weightiness and near crazed intensity of the music. The ebullient third, in C, ends with a quasi fugue finale, a breathlessly fast tour de force with streams of rapid fire notes. For an encore, they repeated the final large section of that movement. And, with nothing to prove, they played with an extra dose of daring. It's hard to single out movements, or even moments, from the ensemble's accounts of the late quartets. I loved how they began the Quartet No. 12 in E flat (Op. 127), which opens with what seems a fanfare, in thick chords, that soon spins off into a genial exploration of a winding theme. The Danish quartet underlined this passage with grit and urgency that sent a signal: A gate to a new path had been opened. They ended the Quartet No. 13 in B flat (Op. 130) with the original finale, the Grosse Fuge, not the benign substitute Beethoven replaced it with at the urging of his publisher. That section still comes across like the fugue to end all fugues, with outbursts of sputtering rhythms, obsessively hammered attacks and tangles of wayward counterpoint. As played here it sounded audacious, extreme and, finally, exhilarating. The players showed imagination in closing programs with short encores, including a harmonically juiced up arrangement of Beethoven's popular piano piece "Fur Elise" and, on Valentine's Day, "My Funny Valentine." But after the series ended on Tuesday with the Quartet in F (Op. 135), they returned to the stage without their instruments, joined arms shoulder to shoulder and smiled to the cheering audience. They gave Beethoven the last word. Which was right.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Music
|
Mr. Deb is a writer for The New York Times and the author of "Missed Translations: Meeting the Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me." Call, I demanded of myself. Call her now. It was Mother's Day in 2018. I picked up the phone and dialed a cellphone number I had for my mother, knowing that she never used it. It was still on the family plan I had set up for us 10 years ago, and I noticed the usage was mostly zero. No one picked up. I sighed and wondered whether there was no way to get in touch with her. A part of me would have been relieved. I called another number one from my childhood several residences ago with a somewhat ridiculous expectation that it still belonged to her. It didn't. Buried in an email from 2014, I found yet another number. My heartbeat steadily increased as I pressed each of the 10 digits. This time, the rings stopped short and I heard a soft greeting from my mother. The surprise in her voice when she recognized mine was evident, though she quickly covered it with a calm that I was also trying desperately to project. She sounded tired. The last time we had talked four years prior we were both angry. They each tried, in their own way, to be parents. But I never learned even the basics about them, like where either was born, their birthdays, how they got to this country or how many siblings they had. There were no family vacations, game nights or holiday traditions. Much of my childhood was spent eating dinner alone in front of the television or with a friend's family, seeking the warmth I so craved. We became increasingly estranged after I left for college in 2006, the distance between us gradually widening as might happen with an old acquaintance. My father called sporadically from somewhere in India, where he had unexpectedly moved back to when I was a freshman in college, but from my mother there was only silence. As the years without contact piled up, the space between us felt increasingly insurmountable. A prerequisite to ending any estrangement is at least one party wanting to reconcile. My brother, nine years older than me, cut ties definitively and decisively. When I was 19 years old, he got married, leaving our mother and father behind. While my brother built a new family for himself, he remained close with me. His wife and in laws welcomed me at every holiday table. I have never faulted my brother for his approach. Some parents commit unforgivable sins. We do not owe our affection to those who share our DNA but have not earned a place in our lives. But the discord gnawed at me. Around my 30th birthday, I decided that I needed to sit down with each of my parents, face to face, and try to address the deep rooted issues keeping us apart. I worried about how they were managing on their own. And if nothing else, I did not know how much longer they would be around. I did not want them to die without us giving our relationships a chance. There were unanswered questions I had for each of them. With my father, I needed to ask him why he disappeared to India without telling me and never came back. With my mother, I needed to understand why she locked herself in her room for the better part of my eighth grade year. I wanted to hear their stories before it was too late and perhaps make sense of my own. It occurred to me that I had not tried to understand my parents' struggles as immigrants or what they hoped their lives would be. To end our entrenched estrangement, I realized I would have to learn to empathize with my parents as humans and take responsibility for my role in our family's disintegration. I could have and should have reached out to them more. That Mother's Day marked the beginning of an effort to give my mother and me the chance to get to know each other. Journalistic instincts engaged, I inched in slowly and kept my emotional distance when I could, starting with a polite lunch over my favorite mustard fish curry at her apartment. As the months passed and trust started to build, we made our way to my kitchen counter in Manhattan, rehashing the past as my girlfriend made lamb curry. I learned about the books my mother read as a child in Durgapur, the difficulties of assimilating when she first emigrated to Canada as a young adult and her struggles with depression that had gone untreated. I walked her delicately through the way those struggles had affected me. Through the conversations with her and similar conversations with my father during a trip I took to India, I began to see my own history in a new light. I told each of them what I wished I had done better. My parents, like many immigrants in the generation before me, had built their lives from nothing, whereas I had the privilege to contemplate my emotions and aspirations. Said another way: They aspired to survive. I aspired to live. I made a conscious effort to translate between our divergent worldviews. The conversations were challenging and sometimes hit dead ends. Often I needed to look in the mirror as much as I needed them to see me. After growing up in a household in which feelings other than anger were rarely shared, just being heard was cathartic. During one difficult phone conversation with my mother, I told her how remarkable I found the woman I had to come know: an immigrant who started with very little in Durgapur and was repeatedly forced to change her life, often without any say in determining her own path, whether through immigration, marriage or divorce. "Thank you," she said. "Maybe. I don't know. One thing for sure: I tried my best to build a family." As her tears subsided, she broached one more topic. "The turkey thing." The turkey thing? I had to search my memory for a second. And then I remembered. This was how she wanted our call to end? When I was about 8 years old, a flock of turkeys planted itself on our front lawn. As I left to walk to a friend's house, with my mother watching me from our steps, it started drizzling. I jogged to get out of the rain, which turned into an in fear for my life sprint as the turkeys began chasing after me. My mother jetted out and got in her car to disperse them. I have never been able to overcome my resultant fear of animals. "You were the talk of the town," my mother said, cheering up. "Every time I see someone: 'Remember, Shambo was running with the turkeys!' It's funny now, but it wasn't funny back then." Despite the terror we both felt at the time, it is definitely funny now. But she probably remembers the turkey story for a different reason. So many of our stories come from a place of darkness, but in this one she was the protective force she meant to be as a mother. As we laughed about our shared history, she wasn't just a footprint from my past. She was my mother. But even as I found peace in those moments of joy, I struggled to create familial bonds from scratch. Some schisms will take a long time to fix. Some grudges will permanently cling to us. But I take comfort in knowing that I am taking all the steps I can toward reconciliation. I hope my parents feel the same. A year or so after that Mother's Day phone call, I awoke to an email from my mother. "I am getting to know you more," it said. "There are so many things in my mind I wanted to tell you. But always remember I love you, no matter what." Sopan Deb is a writer for The New York Times and the author of "Missed Translations: Meeting the Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me." 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
|
There is only one surprise in "A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby," and I don't intend to spoil it. That leaves you no choice but to watch it, but be warned: It isn't for everyone. A flimsy fairy tale from John Schultz, set in a picturesque and imaginary snow spangled kingdom, "The Royal Baby" comes just as the newest generation is toddling around England. The movie monarchy of tiny, vaguely European Aldovia is nearly as old as Britain's, but far less engaging. As Christmas approaches, so does an anniversary, that of an ancient treaty with another peculiar kingdom, Penglia. This treaty is renewed every century, with a deadline that falls inconveniently on Christmas Eve, not long before a baby is due in the palace.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Movies
|
Seth Meyers was incredulous too, but for a different reason. "I gotta say, I find it hard to believe Trump would voluntarily run inside a place of education. The only way you would run inside is if a reporter asked you a question outside." SETH MEYERS Many companies have decided to cut ties with the National Rifle Association after the shooting in Parkland, Fla., provoked a public outcry over gun violence. "Several businesses have canceled their partnership with the N.R.A. over the past week, including United Airlines. You know you messed up when the company that dragged the guy off the plane is like, 'You're making us look bad.'" JIMMY FALLON "With the Olympics over, 90 countries have departed South Korea. Yep, 90 groups waving goodbye or as the N.R.A. calls those, sponsors." JIMMY FALLON Trevor Noah thought carrying a gun sounded like a pretty smart way to get yourself a discount. "I'm less surprised that corporations are canceling N.R.A. discounts than I am that corporations were giving them discounts in the first place. Like, how does the N.R.A. even get discounts? Were all the N.R.A. members just there like, brandishes weapon 'We'd like a discount.'" TREVOR NOAH "A new CNN poll has found that Democrats have a 16 point lead over Republicans in a generic congressional ballot. Which means that with a little hard work and some elbow grease, they can still blow this thing." SETH MEYERS "A couple in North Carolina recently had their wedding at a Whole Foods store which explains why, when the officiant asked if there were any objections, someone said, 'Twelve dollars for milk!'" SETH MEYERS "At the annual meeting of conservatives called CPAC, a woman who criticized Donald Trump was booed and escorted out by security. Yeah, this is the third time this has happened to Melania." CONAN O'BRIEN In his first broadcast since the shooting in Florida, Jimmy Fallon expressed solidarity with the students pushing for gun control legislation and said he would join them at the March for Our Lives, a protest in Washington scheduled for March 24.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Television
|
THE RENTERS Andrew and Ashley Greenspan in their new place in Long Island City, Queens. While Mr. Greenspan is in charge of the laundry, both appreciate having a washer dryer in their new three bedroom apartment. With Baby on the Way, Laundry Comes First When Ashley and Andrew Greenspan found out their first child would arrive in June, upsizing was in the offing. The couple had been renting a one bedroom in Leonard Pointe in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They planned to make the leap to a three bedroom elsewhere Leonard Pointe doesn't have any with the extra bedroom reserved for a live in au pair. "I was kind of excited at how many options there were, and at the prospect of finding something quickly," said Ms. Greenspan, 29, who works in marketing. "I wanted to be settled well in advance." The priority for Mr. Greenspan, 37, who works in the field of corporate sustainability, was a washer dryer largely because he is in charge of the family's laundry. He had had his own washer and dryer when he lived in Chelsea, and he knew a baby would mean endless laundry. "When we have the baby, we are going to be throwing in the bombed out onesies, and it is going to be a constant cycle," he said. Rents for three bedrooms there were around 4,000. But the unit they saw had few closets, and adding more would have consumed precious bedroom space. And the balcony faced the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, with its noise and exhaust. "It wasn't a place you wanted to go out and enjoy your morning coffee," Mr. Greenspan said. They rarely used the balcony they had, which faced the same highway. They were ready for an older and less transient neighborhood, too. "As much as the youthfulness of Williamsburg contributes to its vibe, the people weren't really friendly," Ms. Greenspan said. In their building, people didn't talk in the elevator, which they found awkward. Ms. Greenspan grew up in Harlem, where "everyone talks to everyone, and you feel like you are family," she said. Concerned about the looming shutdown of the L train for repairs, the Greenspans cast their eyes toward Long Island City, Queens, where they liked the transit options as well as green spaces like the Gantry Plaza State Park. Jackson Park, a huge new rental complex that opened in January, is known for its mega amenities, including two swimming pools, a private park and courts for sports like basketball, squash and shuffleboard. But the complex, which has nearly 1,900 units, was so big that the Greenspans worried the atmosphere would be impersonal and hotel like. Three bedrooms, which currently rent in the 5,000s, were over their budget, and it seemed unwise to pay extra for so many amenities they might never use. (The amenity fee structure is not yet finalized, a building spokeswoman said.) At a new 56 unit condo building, the Jackson recently built on the site of a former parking area they found their home. The apartment faced a courtyard, a refreshing change from a busy street view. "It had the right kind of balcony not one that opens up onto a highway," Mr. Greenspan said. The two happily signed on for around 4,900 month, and arrived in the winter. The three bedroom feels big, but "it has a steady stream of boxes" containing furniture and supplies that fill the space, Mr. Greenspan said. And while they have more room, they don't have much more storage. Given all the bulky baby gear, "having four small closets is not as nice as having one really large closet," Ms. Greenspan said. To her surprise, she finds herself using the washer dryer now that it is right at hand. "Even though I am the laundry guy, Ashley has developed a fondness for throwing a load in," Mr. Greenspan said. "It takes a long time, and you can't let it get too full, but it's right there in your unit." They miss Williamsburg's many retail offerings. "We are trying to figure out what our spots will be," Ms. Greenspan said. "We don't have our 'Cheers' bar yet." In their building, still so new it is not fully occupied, the neighbors are older than in their previous place, and many have small children. "We were right in predicting that the culture would be closer to what we were looking for," Ms. Greenspan said. "In the gym, everyone says hello, and there are full blown conversations." One drawback is busy Jackson Avenue out front, but there won't be much reason to cross with the baby; they will head the other way, toward the waterfront. And they find the high tech intercom system frustrating, as it calls a person's cellphone rather than ringing in the apartment. But by happy coincidence, they are across from MoMA P.S. 1, the museum where they met at a music festival six years ago. "As cheesy as it sounds," Mr. Greenspan said, "it's fun to come full circle and have a baby across from where we met."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Real Estate
|
EL GRAN COMBO AND LA SONORA PONCENA at Radio City Music Hall (Feb. 16, 8 p.m.). That two of the world's most enduring and renowned salsa bands are booked at a theater with permanent seats is a bit of a head scratcher, but few performance spaces are large enough to accommodate the legions of fans both El Gran Combo and La Sonora Poncena have accrued during their decades of performance. Both bands hail from Puerto Rico; the former was founded in 1962 by Rafael Ithier, who still leads it today, while the latter was established in 1954 eight years after its current leader, Enrique Lucca Jr., was born. Expect plenty of dancing in the aisles. 212 465 6225, radiocity.com INTERPOL at Madison Square Garden (Feb. 16, 8 p.m.). This show is a homecoming for these indie stalwarts, who met at N.Y.U. and started making dark, stripped down rock music in the late 1990s. Fifteen years after their breakthrough album "Antics" and on the heels of their 2018 release "Marauder," Interpol is back at the Garden with a remarkable opening lineup that provides a good snapshot of alternative rock music today. You'll want to get to the arena early to catch Snail Mail, the name under which the buzzy singer songwriter Lindsey Jordan performs, and the breezy indie favorites Car Seat Headrest. 212 465 6741, msg.com METRIC AND ZOE at Kings Theater (Feb. 18, 7 p.m.). The brash, synth driven, dance inspired rock of Toronto's Metric has remained relatively constant over the 16 years since the band's first studio album, "Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?" the zeitgeist, though, has shifted dramatically. When they came onto the scene, Metric was surrounded by like minded alternative rockers such as TV on the Radio and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But even as Metric's music veers from the trend, they appear indefatigable; 2018's "Art of Doubt" is a testament to their artistic vitality. The Mexican rock band Zoe, who have shown similar endurance over their nearly two decades at the forefront of their genre, co headline this Brooklyn show. 718 856 5464, kingstheatre.com ETHNIC HERITAGE ENSEMBLE at Nublu 151 (Feb. 21, 8 p.m.). A master percussionist and eminence of Chicago's creative music scene, Kahil El'Zabar channels a deep sense of history into his music, coming away with something timeless and universal and enchanted. For over 40 years, he has led the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, usually as a trio featuring a rotating cast of horn players and flutists. But he recently expanded it into a quartet, with Alex Harding on baritone saxophone, Corey Wilkes on trumpet and Ian Maksin on cello. At Nublu the band celebrates the release of "Be Heard," which will be out in March on the audiophile Spiritmuse Records. nublu.net MORGAN GUERIN QUINTET at the Jazz Gallery (Feb. 15 16, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). Though still in his early 20s, Guerin has already started to accrue a reputation as a jaw dropping musical polymath. On Friday, he will play drums and bass in a quintet performing new, original music; on Saturday, he will again perform his own tunes with a five piece band, but this time he will be on a saxophone, an electronic wind instrument and a synthesizer. If the music is anything like his two releases thus far ("The Saga" and "The Saga II"), it will be a broadly sourced form of contemporary electric fusion, centered on luminous, morphing textures and elegantly lyrical songwriting. 646 494 3625, jazzgallery.nyc KIRK KNUFFKE TRIO at Zinc Bar (Feb. 20, 7:30 and 9 p.m.). A cornetist, Knuffke has a strong sense of his instrument's history and expressive range, but his playing seems always tinged with a playful optimism. He has been one of the most compelling sidemen on the New York scene for at least a decade now, and more recently he's been quietly releasing a series of fascinating albums of his own. The most recent, "Witness," found Knuffke teaming up with the operatic baritone Steven Herring, plus two fellow jazz improvisers. It was unlike any other album in recent memory and at times utterly transporting. Here Knuffke appears in a trio featuring the bass guitarist Stomu Takeishi and the drummer Bill Goodwin. 212 477 9462, zincjazz.com JOE LOVANO, DAVE LIEBMAN AND GREG OSBY at Birdland (Feb. 19 23, 8:30 and 11 p.m.). Three of the best saxophonists in straight ahead jazz and its affiliated territories, Lovano (tenor saxophone), Liebman (soprano) and Osby (alto) join up this week with a trio of all star side musicians: the pianist Phil Markowitz, the bassist Cecil McBee and the drummer Billy Hart. All six of these players have been among jazz's most respected figures since at least the 1980s, and all continue to barrel forward creatively. 212 581 3080, birdlandjazz.com DIANNE REEVES at the Rose Theater (Feb. 15 16, 8 p.m.). For the eighth year in a row, Reeves will headline Jazz at Lincoln Center's main stage during Valentine's Day weekend. She became a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master last year, adding a punctuation mark to a career already known to be one of the most distinguished in jazz. Her voice has the power and clarity of Sarah Vaughan's, and her repertoire only continues to expand: Her most recent album, "Beautiful Life," from 2014, which won a Grammy, included riveting, personalized renditions of tunes by Fleetwood Mac, Bob Marley and Esperanza Spalding, as well as some Reeves originals. 212 721 6500, jazz.org DAYNA STEPHENS QUARTET at the Village Vanguard (Feb. 19 24, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.). A tenor saxophonist of svelte articulation and beaming tone, Stephens plays contemporary jazz with an emphasis on emotive clarity. His improvisations hold your attention thanks to careful, smart pacing, and Stephens's willingness to sprinkle moments of simple beauty into his counterintuitive flights. This week is the 40 year old saxophonist's debut as a bandleader at the Village Vanguard, where he's joined by Aaron Parks on piano, Ben Street on bass and Gregory Hutchinson on drums. 212 255 4037, villagevanguard.com GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Music
|
Serious and fatal bouts of malaria in the United States are a greater problem than has been previously reported, according to a new study. Most appear to be in immigrants who have made summer or Christmas visits to their home countries without taking precautions against infection. The typical victim appears to be a man ranging in age from 20 to 50 who is from Africa or the Caribbean, said the lead author, Diana Khuu, an epidemiologist at the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. But among the hospitalized women, an unusually high number 14 percent were pregnant. Because pregnancy lowers immune defenses, malaria can be lethal to both mother and fetus. Although the study was based on hospital data rather than interviews with patients, the authors suspect that many of the victims grew up in malarial areas, developed immunity in childhood from repeated infections, and then did not realize that their childhood immunity had disappeared after years in the United States.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Health
|
Here's Ronnie Fieg, the obsessive king of sneaker shopping, in his own words, with top picks from his personal collection (in no particular order). I wanted Pumps growing up, but instead my mom came home with these. At first I didn't like them, but after I started wearing them I never took them off. I wore them until there were holes in the sock liner. The Gel Lyte III is also the first sneaker I collaborated on, so it has a very special place in my heart. The 1 is my favorite Jordan. It's the one that started it all. It's also a sneaker that has transcended the sport and has become a silhouette accepted in all levels of fashion. The Bred colorway is my personal favorite because of how classic it is, and also because how Nike was able to spin the marketing campaign around it. Everything about this shoe is timeless.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Style
|
When we speak of a world, we are often speaking of both the most intimate of human interiors and the land and nations that surround it: our ribcages and throats and dreams, yes, but also our neighborhoods, our hillsides, our harbors ending in seas. Considered in this light, is there anything capable of surviving the apocalyptic wreckage of a world? It's one of the central questions in "Zo," the debut novel by Xander Miller. And while Miller seeks the answer in a situation whose narratives are so familiar as to feel quotidian romantic love, desperate to cross socioeconomic class the novel's setting, Haiti, may yet have something surprisingly new to say. We meet the novel's namesake as a 5 year old orphan in a humble coastal village, from which he quickly decamps as a young adult, on a string of throwaway jobs that help establish the tone and terms of his world including, apparently, a central concern with the carnal. There are at least three sex scenes in the first 20 pages, more than one of his partners of advanced age. But then he meets Anaya, a dazzling young woman who hails from a privileged upbringing and will become the focus of the rest of Zo's life. The real strength of this opening section lies not in the interiority of the characters or the chance of a surprise plot twist. Instead, interest and momentum emerge from the specificity of place Miller establishes around us: the daily rhythms of Haiti, the stark demands of a life lived amid capricious, grinding poverty, and the marvelous, salty exchanges that occur alongside it all: "I was hoping you'd be the one to help," Anaya says, as she's building a makeshift children's clinic. He asks her why, "because you've seen me naked?" She grins at him: "Because I've seen how well you carry furniture into the grass."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Books
|
Basic tool kits, with all of the essentials and minimal filler, usually sell for under 50 which isn't much considering that an upgraded screwdriver alone costs about 25. Now that you're spending nearly all your time at home, you may be noticing little things around the place that require your attention a door that won't close right, or a loose handrail. If you can't wait until quarantine ends to take on these projects (or if a wobbly hinge is driving you nuts), you can tackle most home repairs with a set of basic tools. As a staff writer at Wirecutter, my job includes evaluating and testing the infinite array of tools available and figuring out which ones are best for around the house use. I've been using tools on a near daily basis for more than 20 years, including a decade working in construction as a carpenter, foreman and site supervisor. If you're starting from square one, I recommend getting a basic and inexpensive tool kit and slowly upgrading certain items as you take on more advanced projects and gain more skills. The screwdriver I use most often for tightening hinges, assembling furniture and swapping out toy batteries is the MegaPro 13 in 1, which sells for under 30. We've tested almost 30 screwdrivers, and none come close to matching the distinct features of the MegaPro. The six double headed bits all you could ever need for around the house work are stored in a spinning carousel that pops out of the back of the handle. The teardrop shaped handle fits snugly in the hand, and the storage cap at the end spins freely so you can bear down on the screwdriver and still turn it a big help for loosening a stuck or rusted screw. Tape measures are essential for spacing pictures on a wall, measuring a room for painting or checking if a piece of furniture will fit. A good tape measure is accurate, easy to read and designed with a durable blade, which is always the first thing to break. The Stanley PowerLock Tape Measure, a classic of the genre available for less than 20, excelled in our tests. Not only is it the cheapest, but it also offers the best combination of accuracy and durability. Even after scrubbing the blade with 60 grit sandpaper, we could clearly read the measurements. Cheap hammers with wood or fiberglass handles can break, or the head can loosen over time. The Estwing E3 16C, which sells for around 30, is a single piece of steel from tip to tail, making it virtually indestructible. The curved claw is great for nail pulling, and the padded handle is grippy but not squishy like some others. I've relied on Estwing hammers for decades and can attest to their longevity: The one I use most is almost 20 years old and hardly shows any wear. Wrenches really shine for bathroom upgrades such as replacing a leaky shower head or installing a new bidet. Cheap wrenches loosen as you use them and can strip the corners of a nut. They also have minimalist handles, which make it difficult to lean into a stuck bolt. The Channellock 8WCB WideAzz 8 Inch Adjustable Wrench, available for about 25, is an upgrade in all respects. The smooth and easy adjustment holds over time, the handle has excellent padding and the jaws come to a point, so the Channellock can fit in tight spots. It easily cradles the end of a garden hose, something that most similarly sized wrenches can't do. To avoid disaster, you should hang heavy items, like a set of shelves or a big mirror, on a stud. Finding those studs isn't always easy. Electronic stud finders are notoriously unreliable and require a fussy calibration each time you use them. I've always had much better luck with small, inexpensive, magnet based stud finders such as the C.H. Hanson 03040 Magnetic Stud Finder, which sells for less than 10. This little tool, hardly more than a plastic covering over two powerful magnets, finds the screws that are in the stud holding up the drywall. Cheap hex wrenches come included with knockdown furniture, unassembled toys and towel bars you might even have a few loose ones in the kitchen drawer. Nicer ones, such as those in the Tekton 25282 26 piece Long Arm Ball Hex Key Wrench Set, are longer, easier to use and sold with a carrying case for about 15. The Tekton wrenches have a rounded end so they still fit the fastener at an angle, which helps with adjusting a loose doorknob, for example, or tightening a toilet paper holder. The folding case holds the wrenches snugly but not so tightly that we needed pliers to get them out, as we did with other sets we tested. Some projects, like putting up curtain rods or hanging closet shelving, simply need a drill. But don't be put off by the massive tools that contractors use. Smaller, 12 volt models are lighter and easier to handle, and they have more than enough power for around the house work. The DeWalt DCD701F2 Xtreme 12V Max Brushless 3/8 in. Drill/Driver Kit sank more than 100 three inch screws into solid wood in our tests, and it has the most comfortable, form fitting handle we've ever used on a drill. It sells for about 100 and comes with an LED light that illuminates the front of the drill for when you're putting up that closet shelving. Once you start collecting your own tools, you'll need a place to store them. Most toolboxes hold only a jumbled pile of tools, but the Milwaukee 13'' Jobsite Work Box, which sells for about 100, stores tools vertically so they stay organized and easy to grab. Because of the taller design (it's roughly the size of a five gallon bucket), the Milwaukee is easy to carry, and with the lid on it doubles as a seat a good thing to have when you're working on a door handle or a cabinet hinge. The box has a relatively small footprint and a flat top, so you can easily store it in a hall closet and pile things on top of it.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Real Estate
|
Mother's Day is hard for anyone who has lost their mom, but this year must be particularly so because of coronavirus. So many people have lost a parent suddenly, without being by their side, able to care for them and return their love in the way they'd always imagined. I lost my mother in my thirties. When I look back to that time, I can see how much her death changed me. It was not sudden, but so much shifted inside. Losing a mother's love and warm, soft embrace is like having someone rip away a protective blanket. I got a small tattoo on my right hand after my mother died, knowing that hand tattoos fade. It looks to others like a letter "m." But it wasn't an "m" for Marcheline, her name. It was a "w" for "Winter" the Rolling Stones song she sang to me as a baby, and that I remember loving as a little girl. "It sure been a cold, cold winter," she would sing to me. And at the line, "I wanna wrap my coat around you," she would wrap me up in my blankets and snuggle me. I loved my mom. She was raised Catholic on the South Side of Chicago. My grandfather, who fought in World War II, loved bowling, M A S H, Benny Hill and my grandmother, Lois. My grandmother died before I was born, when my mother was in her twenties. "Diamond Lois," my mother's boyfriend called her. Not because she was a socialite but because she scrubbed the floor in her diamonds. Before my grandparents moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s, they ran a bowling alley. Their parents before them ran a bar. She loved to feel alive. She loved to laugh. When I was down, she would break out those rock songs and remind me of the fire within. One of my early memories is of her lighting candles and placing Beatles albums around the house the night John Lennon was killed. The other time I recall her being worried about a public figure's health was when Pope John Paul II was shot. Losing her mother made her deeply sad. When my father had an affair, it changed her life. It set her dream of family life ablaze. But she still loved being a mother. Her dreams of being an actor faded as she found herself, at the age of 26, raising two children with a famous ex who would cast a long shadow on her life. After she died, I found a video of her acting in a short film. She was good. It was all possible for her. Before her death, she told me that dreams can simply change shape. Her dream to be an artist was in fact her mother's dream. And later she hoped it would be mine. I think of how true that must be for so many women before us, whose dreams have taken generations to realize. Listening to "Winter" now, I realize how lonely and afraid my mother must have been, but also how determined she was to fight to make sure her children were all right. As the "w" faded on my hand, so did that feeling of home and protection. Life has taken many turns. I've had my own loss and seen my life take a different direction. And it hurt more than I imagined it ever would. But now, with my girls growing up and being the ages I remember so well as a daughter, I am rediscovering my mother and her spirit. She was a girl who danced all night on the Sunset Strip and loved rock 'n' roll. She was a woman who loved, even after loss, and never lost her grace and her smile. I now know what it's like to be alone and to wrap my coat around those I love. And I know the overwhelming sense of gratitude at being strong enough to keep them safe and warm. When your children come into your life, they immediately and forever come first. This Mother's Day, I think of refugee mothers I have met, living in poverty and displacement. Every one began her journey of motherhood with a promise to do all she could to protect her child. To lay down her life if necessary. And if she is defeated and silenced, few things are more tragic. Through refugees, I've come to believe that a mother is the strongest person on earth. The softness of her skin is deceptive. She is a force driven by love and loyalty. There is no one who solves more problems. When she has only love to give, it pours from her soul. When a mother comes to you for help and you do not provide it, she may weep. But she will never give up. When you deny her child safety and shelter, she may seek it in a hostile land where her body is vulnerable to abuse. Her heart will be sick with loss. But she will fight on for her child. Because she is a mother. Women who are abused aren't "weak women," they are often mothers. They are often trying to manage danger with no way out. They will stand between their child and harm. They will face isolation and criticism. But their only thought will be: "Hurt me, not my child. Insult and ignore me, not my child. Take away my food, but not my child's." A woman like this will suffer unimaginable pain in war or in a refugee camp, but she will not leave her child and seek another life. She will sit for 10 years, 20 years or more if necessary. I remember all the beautiful faces of the refugee mothers I have met, like pages in a family album. Their eyes full of exhaustion, but never giving up. Because they who were once daughters must now wrap their own child in a blanket. Nothing is more painful for a mother or father than to be unable to provide their child with the things they need. This is a reality many more families are facing during this pandemic, even in America. But I have learned that when children know how much you love them, sometimes that understanding counts for more than the thing itself. And when they grow up, knowing that you never abandoned them, or left them in an unsafe situation, or ever stopped fighting for them, will be what counts. So to the mothers everywhere who feel helpless yet who still give every last bit of energy, every last bite of food and the only blanket to their children I honor you. And to anyone who is grieving this Mother's Day, I hope you will find consolation and strength in your memories. Angelina Jolie is a filmmaker and special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 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
|
WASHINGTON The United States and France are racing to reach a compromise in a digital tax dispute that could result in hefty American tariffs on French wine, cheese, handbags, cookware and more. Speaking in Paris on Tuesday, Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, said that he had spoken on Monday with Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, about a new French tax on Facebook, Google and other American technology giants. The tax has angered the Trump administration and prompted the United States to propose a range of retaliatory levies on French goods. Mr. Le Maire said he and Mr. Mnuchin would redouble their efforts to find a compromise before their meeting this month on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, where they will be joined by United States trade representative, Robert Lighthizer. "I made it clear to Steven Mnuchin that as long as we are discussing, as long as we are negotiating, there could not be any American sanctions," Mr. Le Maire said, according to an English translation of his comments provided by the French Embassy. Efforts to reach a resolution came as representatives from a variety of industries that could be hit by tariffs gathered in Washington to argue against the administration's plan. Executives from industries including handbags, cookware, porcelain, champagne and cheese described the prospect of American tariffs of up to 100 percent on French imports as a threat for their businesses and begged to be exempt. "How can you just gut my family business?" Mary Taylor, the founder of a company that brings European wines to the American market, asked a panel of government officials in a hearing room south of the Capitol. "I've read about farmer subsidies. Will my family be subsidized?" "Never could I imagine my business would be threatened like this from the federal government," Ms. Taylor added. "What do digital services have to do with European wine? Nothing." The Trump administration has turned to tariffs as a source of leverage in trade negotiations and other diplomatic matters. The threat of painful levies has coaxed China, Mexico, Canada and other countries into signing trade agreements with the United States, but the Trump administration has yet to make much progress negotiating new trade terms with Europe. Instead, the trans Atlantic trade relationship has become increasingly strained, with Mr. Trump criticizing the European Union for running a trade surplus with the United States and accusing it of being "worse than China" in its trade practices. "If the Americans start to hit France with sanctions because it has introduced national digital taxes, it will have to go tomorrow to also hit Italy, Austria, Great Britain," Mr. Le Maire said. "We will enter a commercial conflict between the United States and Europe." Mr. Trump and many of his supporters have argued that tariffs on foreign goods do not have much effect on American companies, and have largely dismissed complaints like those shared at Tuesday's hearing. Other officials have acknowledged that the tariffs impose some costs on American businesses, but have argued the price is worth it to secure other changes. The businesses that are paying the levies have protested, and loudly. Ms. Taylor, the wine expert, said she had woken up at 2 a.m. that day to get to Washington, and insisted on testifying before the panel disbanded early, before an afternoon snowstorm. Her passionate testimony was followed by cheers and applause from dozens of wine merchants in the audience of a normally staid hearing room. Other executives complained Tuesday that the tariffs would cause them to put the brakes on hiring or expansion plans, and could force their businesses to close altogether. Faye Gooding, the recently retired chief executive of Le Creuset of America, called the tariff "an existential threat" to the company's existence in South Carolina. Le Creuset's candy colored Dutch ovens which feature prominently on many American wedding registries are manufactured in France. But the company employs more people in warehouses and retail locations in the United States than in any other country, Ms. Gooding said. A tariff of up to 100 percent on the company's premium cookware could prove catastrophic for its about 900 American employees, including around 300 in South Carolina, she said. Benjamin Aneff, the managing partner of Tribeca Wine Merchants, called the prospect of a tax on French wine and champagne the "greatest threat to the industry since Prohibition." Even if wines originate in France, they are typically sold in the United States by American distributors and retailers, businesses that would be hurt by higher taxes, he said.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Economy
|
What "Troop Zero" lacks in complexity, it makes up for in heart. This straightforward dramedy, which is Amazon's first foray into the streaming only movie space, follows Christmas Flint (Mckenna Grace), an eccentric girl growing up in rural Georgia. It's 1977, Jimmy Carter is president and Christmas is determined to make contact with aliens by recording a message on NASA's Golden Record, a time capsule of sounds and images launched into space and intended for extraterrestrial life. All Christmas has to do is win the statewide Birdie Scout talent competition. But after the local troop rejects her for being a social outcast, she recruits the town's other misfits and starts her own group. There's Joseph (Charlie Shotwell), her best friend whose interest in fashion and disinterest in athletics gets him the moniker "boy girl"; Hell No Price (Milan Ray), her former bully; Smash (Johanna Colon), a relatively mute child who communicates by destroying objects; and Anne Claire (Bella Higginbotham), a shy evangelical. Christmas also recruits Miss Rayleen (Viola Davis), the woman who works at her father's unsuccessful law firm, to be the troop mother.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Movies
|
Powfu's "Poems of the Past" EP is just one drop in the glut of music he has released in the last two years. Want to learn about pop music? Pay more attention to the songs that bubble up to the masses, like gases desperately seeking escape, than to marquee artists' event releases. Take, for example, the story of "Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)." Powfu, a 21 year old rapper from Vancouver, initially found its beat online it was by Otterpop, a little known producer when he was looking for lo fi hip hop to rap over. The instrumental had a loop sampled from "Coffee," a 2017 song by Beabadoobee, a British singer who'd already had a bit of success making sweet indie pop. Powfu completed the song and posted it online early last year, never having cleared the original sample. The internet, though, doesn't slow down for copyright law, and early this year, "Death Bed" became the soundtrack for thousands of TikTok videos, many involving young people filming themselves as they attempted to kiss their best friend on whom they had a secret crush. (Results, unsurprisingly, varied.) All of which is to say that an effective pop song and "Death Bed" is one of the best of this year (or last year, depending how you're thinking about it) can triumph over an obscure, afterthought initial release, a not quite authorized production, and a selective edit on an app devoted to viral video. "Death Bed" is sturdy an nth wave blend of emo and hip hop that also underscores how the post Drake singing rapping paradigm has trickled into pure pop. This approach powers Powfu's impressive major label debut, the "Poems of the Past" EP, which is just one drop in the glut of music he has released in the last two years, much of it excellent. Powfu's "Poems of the Past" EP is his major label debut. Mostly he writes about fractured relationships, or ones that get fractured before they can even form. He has said "A World of Chaos" is based on his parents' relationship struggles, and the desire to persevere through challenges. (In one interview, he said he watches Nicholas Sparks movies for inspiration.) There are echoes of the early years of Slug, of the foundational emo rap outfit Atmosphere, and maybe even more directly, a piercing, sighing vocal tone that recalls Dashboard Confessional's Chris Carrabba and Saves the Day's Chris Conley. That's especially true on "Im Used to It," which begins with a harmony of coos and oohs and zzzzs, and unfolds into a lovelorn tale about not feeling good enough about yourself except for when one special person pays attention. "I didn't want to ask you out, 'cause I'm not who you talk about," Powfu raps just before the chorus, at which point he turns to pained nasal singing: "Your boyfriend's a douche that thinks he's cool/And doesn't deserve a girl like you." That dynamic also shapes "Popular Girl, Typical Boy," which is a "You Belong With Me" for socially reluctant e boys. The song begins with an off kilter ukulele esque figure that's slow and wobbly, adding to the awkward tentativeness with which Powfu talk raps his anxieties: "Quiet kid but when I see you do my best to misbehave/Yeah, because I saw once in a movie/These hot girls thought the mean guys were groovy." And then there's "Death Bed," a seamless blend of melancholy and certainty. What's most absorbing is how the verses and choruses function in tension with each other singing the hook, Beabadoobee (the Dido to his Eminem here) sounds reluctant and a little distant, but the lyrics teem with sweetness. Rapping the verses, Powfu is confident and steady, but his lyrics are somewhere beyond worrisome, as if he's rapping to his love from death's doorstep: "I hope I go to heaven so I see you once again/My life was kinda short, but I got so many blessings/Happy you were mine, it sucks that it's all ending." The result is a hopeful song that's utterly broken at the core, a modern concoction that has the feel of a private diary. It's exactly the sort of pop song that feels so specifically interior that it could only grow to what it's become, one broken soul at a time.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Music
|
BOSTON The Boston School Committee is set to vote Wednesday night on a new health policy that would make condoms available in the district's high schools, bringing this city in line with New York and Los Angeles. It was more than 20 years ago that those cities, along with many others, made the controversial decision to distribute condoms in schools, in part to counteract the spread of H.I.V./AIDS. But since then, widespread distribution of condoms in schools has made halting progress a 2006 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that condoms were provided in just 5 percent of the nation's high schools, although that number may have risen since then. Some schools have taken piecemeal approaches: in Chicago, condom availability is decided by a school's principal, while Philadelphia has added condom dispensers in some of its schools. "Most would agree that the absolute number of schools offering such services has increased over the past 10 years or so," said Bill Albert, the chief program officer of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Education
|
Ballet conductors and concert conductors tend to be separate species. Ballet music requires a maestro (or, occasionally, a maestra) to set tempos to make the choreography effective, accompany individual dancers with sensitivity and elicit good orchestral playing. New York's current exemplar of this genre is David LaMarche, of American Ballet Theater, notably in scores by Delibes. Occasionally a guest conductor I've heard Adrian Boult, Colin Davis, Bernard Haitink, Antonio Pappano and Gennady Rozhdestvensky conduct the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden shows further dimensions in ballet music. Valery Gergiev's work with the Mariinsky Ballet, on the other hand, has shown the problems that can arise: Though he is a great conductor, his harsh, heavy emphasis is often hostile to the buoyancy needed for ballet. Andrew Litton became music director of New York City Ballet in late 2015. Because he combines this job with performances elsewhere, his appearances still sometimes seem like those of a guest. But he conducted the entire closing week of the company's spring season at the David H. Koch Theater the traditional block of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" performances and showed all the virtues of his appointment. This was an unusually powerful and eloquent rendition of the music, which is a singular collage of items by Felix Mendelssohn, culled from multiple scores by George Balanchine for his two act drama. The sections from Mendelssohn's "First Walpurgisnacht" music, near the end of Act I, acquired a special force. It has always seemed perfect that the huntress Hippolyta executes fouette turns "fouette" means "whipped," and the step sums up the hunt's drive and thrill but the power of Mr. Litton's conducting made the fouettes seem more musically judicious than ever. Many remarked on the exceptional emphasis that Mr. Litton brought in the overture to the "heehaw" music illustrating Bottom as ass. (Balanchine's stage action at this moment shows us Bottom, but before his transformation: one of several musical imperfections in this marvelous ballet. When the motif is echoed in the Scherzo, Bottom is not onstage.)
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Dance
|
Buffalo hasn't always been a destination city, but it has transformed in recent years. A new waterfront features rock climbing and kayaking for the adventurous or just beautiful views for the more laid back. Old architecture meets modern design downtown, and of course, no trip to Buffalo is complete without a plate of wings. We asked Amy Thomas, author of our guide to Buffalo, to name a few items she was glad to have on her last visit or wished she had packed. Then we turned to Ria Misra, an editor at Wirecutter, for the best products to fill those needs as well as her expert suggestions. Here are their picks. Buffalo's Riverworks is a great place to practice climbing. But having your own harness, sized and adjusted just for you, will make it much more comfortable, Ms. Misra said. She said Edelrid's Jayne II and Jay II harnesses stayed comfortable for Wirecutter testers whether climbing, belaying or even falling, plus their movable waist belt padding made them especially easy to adjust. "You might be surprised by the local and internationally acclaimed art and artists you'll come across and will want to jot down names and notes," Ms. Thomas said.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Travel
|
All Donated Blood in U.S. Should Be Tested for Zika, F.D.A. Says The Food and Drug Administration on Friday took steps to safeguard the nation's blood supply from the Zika virus, calling for all blood banks to screen donations for the infection even in states where the virus is not circulating. The recommendations are an acknowledgment that sexual transmission may facilitate the spread of Zika even in areas where mosquitoes carrying the virus are not present. Officials also want to prepare for the possibility that clusters of local infection will continue to pop up in parts of the United States for years to come. "There could be multiple outbreaks of Zika happening outside the known current ones in South Florida, but because we are not actively looking they could be happening silently," said Dr. Peter J. Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, who applauded the F.D.A.'s move. Without federal funds, it is generally not possible for local health departments to conduct active surveillance for Zika virus in the blood or urine of patients with fever or rash, he added. "In some ways the inaction from Congress has forced the F.D.A. to adopt this position," Dr. Hotez added. "They have no other choice." The agency urged blood centers to use one of two experimental tests intended to detect active infections, called nucleic acid tests, before releasing donated blood for use in transfusions. As an alternative, banks may decontaminate plasma and platelets with so called pathogen reduction technology. But the recommendations are likely to pose a significant challenge for some blood banks and for the third party labs that perform much of the blood screening nationwide, some experts said. Eleven states must put the new safeguards into place within four weeks. They include Alabama, Arizona, California, Georgia, Louisiana, New York and Texas, which have many residents who travel to Zika affected countries or are near an area that already has locally acquired mosquito borne cases. Other states have 12 weeks to carry out the recommendations. "This is a bombshell, because this is extremely rapid introduction of a new test nationwide that's almost unprecedented," said Dr. Jeffrey McCullough, emeritus professor of laboratory medicine and pathology at the University of Minnesota Medical School. "To try to implement this, in four weeks, is really, really difficult." Yet the new safeguards also are necessary, Dr. McCullough said. Under current guidelines, it is too difficult to identify infected donors by "trying to sort out risky donors by history of where they've been or what they've exposed to." Nationwide, nearly 14 million units of whole blood and red blood cells are collected each year from about seven million donors. Every day, as many as 36,000 units of red blood cells are given to patients, along with 7,000 platelet units and 10,000 units of plasma. Consistent screening of the blood supply is an enormous task. There are more than 11,500 confirmed cases of Zika virus in states and territories, according to the C.D.C. Nearly 2,500 of them are people in the continental United States who traveled abroad where Zika infected mosquitoes are circulating. More than 30 cases were acquired in Florida. Puerto Rico has been screening all blood donations since March. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in June found that a surprisingly high percentage of donors had signs of active infection with the Zika virus. The F.D.A. provisionally approved two screening tests for Zika in blood donations on an investigational basis in March and June respectively. The first is made by Roche Molecular Systems, and the second by a collaboration between Hologic Inc. and Grifols. Neither test is fully F.D.A approved yet, and the facilities using them are enrolled in a continuing study. As part of Roche's investigation, four centralized testing labs that screen blood for multiple banks in the South have been "collecting and testing blood for weeks now," said Tony Hardiman, who leads the blood screening operations at Roche. For the 11 states that need to be ready in a month, he said, "we are pretty much locked and loaded." "Our focus now is what do we do for the rest of the country to bring them up in 12 weeks," he added. Officials at Blood Systems, which operates blood banks in 24 states, said they will be able to test blood donations in California and some Southern states like Mississippi in a month. The company will then work on getting sites in the Rocky Mountain States operational, said Dr. Ralph R. Vassallo Jr., the chief medical and scientific officer. Creative Testing Solutions, a large blood donor testing lab, already is using both experimental Zika screening tests. In Tampa, the company has relied on Roche's test since the Zika outbreaks began in Miami Dade County. In its Dallas and Phoenix outposts, C.T.S. has installed two so called Panther machines to be able to screen tubes of blood with the Hologic Grifols test, in case Zika infected mosquitoes arrive along the Gulf Coast. In light of Friday's F.D.A. recommendations, officials said they will have to train more employees to use new tests and significantly scale up. "We test 35 percent of the blood supply, so in order to be able to do that in all states in 12 weeks, we are going to need additional pieces of equipment," said Marc Pearce, a spokesman for C.T.S. 12 more Panthers and one more machine that runs the Roche test. Asked on a conference call with reporters about funding the new safeguards, Dr. Peter Marks, the director of the F.D.A.'s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said, "I can't speak to the cost of implementation at this time."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Health
|
Who's the Greatest Star of 'The Prom'? Me. Me. Me. Me. There are plenty of vain actors. But there are those who are way worse: vain, past their prime actors who want to recapture their former glory. And what better way to get attention than (big smiles, the cameras are snapping) charity work? And what better roles for veteran but not past their prime Broadway actors who have a sense of humor about themselves? In the new musical comedy "The Prom," a farcical quartet of self centered theater stars who descend on a small town in Indiana are played by a farce loving quartet of real theater stars who have been encouraged to portray their roles as heightened versions of their own personalities. The show, which opens on Nov. 15 at the Longacre Theater, originated with the producer Jack Viertel, who was struck by news reports of gay high school kids who were denied the chance to go to their proms. He suggested it as a project for the musical theater director Casey Nicholaw ("Mean Girls"), who recruited his collaborators on "Elf," Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin, to write the script and Matthew Sklar to compose the score. Enter the acting foursome, who lend their support to a high school student testing boundaries in her conservative community: Brooks Ashmanskas as Barry Glickman, who reminds everyone within earshot of his Drama Desk Award; Beth Leavel, a real life Tony Award winner, as the Tony winning diva Dee Dee Allen, now reeling from a flop; Angie Schworer as a character named wait for it Angie, a veteran of the ensemble who is wishing for a lead; and Christopher Sieber as Trent Oliver, a waiter who can't stop talking about his days at Juilliard. How did the creators find inspiration in their cast? What's it like playing an exaggerated version of yourself? In conversations that have been edited and condensed for clarity, the performers and writers describe how the roles came together. They would all like you to know that the actors are not as selfish as the people they play onstage. Why her (according to her) I think they wanted a wisecracker, showgirl type. I had only done "Minsky's" for Bob Martin and Casey in Los Angeles. I don't do anything great I just do a little bit of everything. Why her (according to Chad Beguelin) Originally, the character was going to be Elphaba's understudy from "Wicked" . She never got to go on and she also had slightly green makeup. Before we did our table read, we started to think this is a one trick pony. I think Casey said, "What if it was someone who was an Angie Schworer type?" We said, "Why don't we get Angie?" What does Angie do that you never would? Quit. I would suck it up. In "The Prom," I've been in "Chicago" for 20 years and I finally quit because they would never let me go on for Roxie Hart. Real Angie would not. I love to work, especially as you get older, and it's all about pension weeks. Why him (according to him) I can't imagine what they see in me other than neediness and tiredness. Why him (according to Bob Martin) Brooks is a guy, when you hang out with him, he is constantly on. He is extremely funny all the time. When you break through that, you get to somebody who is carrying a lot of emotional weight. That's what we see in the show. We see Brooks as the skilled comedian who is deflecting criticism and barbs left and right. But he gets to this place that makes you cry. Why her (according to her) Bob Martin and I go back to "The Drowsy Chaperone," and he knows my comedy so well. The same with Matt and Chad writing it. Matt goes, "I'm hitting your power C." He just knows my range. He knows where the strong notes in my storytelling are. Why her (according to Mr. Martin) She was so good in "The Drowsy Chaperone" because she could play the self conscious diva. So, she's a diva, but she's aware that she's a diva. This role, we take that up a notch. This character doesn't know how to deal with people in a normal way anymore. Beth is both a celebrity and an incredibly normal person. What does Dee Dee do that you never would? Put myself ahead of everyone else. I'm more of a team player. Why him (according to him) I don't know, and that terrifies me. I've played characters before who are very full of themselves, like Sir Dennis Galahad in "Spamalot." I have, through the process, stolen behaviors that I know of other actors that are similar to Trent Oliver. I hope they don't notice. Why him (according to Mr. Beguelin) Chris is really good at doing pretentious being very full of himself to the point of hilarity. What does Trent do that you never would? Trent holds on to the past a lot. He used to be a Broadway star and now he's a waiter. I don't really live in the past. I know actors that I've worked with that have they even dress the way they did in their glory days.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Theater
|
Brandon Lowe rounded third after his second home run of the game on Wednesday. Early indications that the Los Angeles Dodgers would simply sweep away the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series were momentarily checked on Wednesday, when good competition returned to the Fall Classic. The Rays responded after bad loss in Game 1 by beating back the Dodgers, 6 4, in Game 2 at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. Brandon Lowe, the Rays second baseman who had been in a slump, clouted two home runs and knocked in three runs over all to lead the Rays' offense, and Blake Snell limited the Dodgers to two runs in four and two thirds innings to help ensure the Rays recorded a vital victory. With Lowe shaking off his slump and the team registering 10 hits, the Rays have newfound hope that their entire offense will break out during this Series, as well. "He can go quiet for a little while," Rays Manager Kevin Cash said of Lowe. "But he can get as hot as anybody in baseball. Hopefully that's the trend that we're looking at going forward." Game 3 is Friday night at the same ballpark all the games of this World Series are being played at a single, neutral site because of the coronavirus pandemic. Lowe, who hit 14 home runs for the Rays in 56 games during the regular season, entered Wednesday's game batting just .107 in the postseason with one extra base hit. Though the Rays progressed through the playoffs, Lowe's frustration built as he wondered when he would hit again, and hit for power. None Everyone Loves Ohtani: The Angels' two way star was a unanimous pick for A.L. M.V.P. and his superfans redefine devotion. Phillie Phavorite: Bryce Harper truly committed to Philadelphia and now he's back on top of baseball, winning the N.L. M.V.P. Cy Young Winners: Milwaukee's Corbin Burnes and Toronto's Robbie Ray had hit rock bottom before they worked their way up to stardom. Baseball Is Stuck in Neutral: The potential of a lockout has a star studded group of free agents waiting for the dust to settle. Free Agency Tracker: Get the latest updates on signings, contract extensions and trades. The answer came on the 10th pitch of the game, when Lowe drilled a 3 1 fastball from Tony Gonsolin, the Dodgers' opening pitcher, over the wall in left field. Lowe said after the game that he was appreciative that Cash had maintained faith in him, never threatening to bench him or lower him in the lineup. But Lowe acknowledged that the mental anguish of the slump could be as much of a challenge as opposing pitchers. One night after a strong performance by starter Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers went with a so called bullpen game, using a series of pitchers for short stints instead of one starting pitcher to eat up several innings. The strategy was originally popularized by the Rays, but it did not work well for the Dodgers on Wednesday, as Tampa Bay scored six times against five Dodgers pitchers in the first six innings. Lowe hit his second home run off Dustin May with Austin Meadows on base with two outs in the fifth inning, giving the Rays a 5 0 lead. At that point, Snell, the 2018 American League Cy Young Award winner, seemed unhittable. Behind a crisp slider, he had thrown four dominant innings with eight strikeouts and just two walks. But things deteriorated quickly in the fifth after he registered two outs, and then it would be Tampa Bay's turn to call on a series of relievers. First, Snell walked Enrique Hernandez in the fifth, and then Chris Taylor followed with a home run to right field. Cash left Snell in the game, and the left hander walked Mookie Betts before giving up a single to Corey Seager. That prompted Cash to emerge from the dugout and signal to his bullpen, and Nick Anderson, Pete Fairbanks, Aaron Loup and Diego Castillo emerged in succession to preserve the Rays' advantage. Snell said he felt he had a good game plan: being more aggressive in the strike zone with his breaking pitches to make the Dodgers swing and miss. But he was not enamored of his own performance, finding fault in his four walks, and said he could not blame Cash for removing him from the game when he did. "He's trying to win a World Series game," Snell said, "and I'm out here, I walked two guys in the last three at bats. I've got to do a better job." After Anderson ended the fifth by striking out Justin Turner, the Rays extended their lead to 6 2 in the top of the sixth when they scored a run on a sacrifice fly by Joey Wendle who also hit a two run double in the fourth. But Will Smith homered for the Dodgers off Anderson, a hard throwing right hander, to draw to 6 3. Seager, the winner of the Most Valuable Player Award for the National League Championship Series, homered off Fairbanks in the eighth to make the score 6 4. Turner followed with a bloop double and that brought Max Muncy, the potential tying run, to the plate. Fairbanks induced a fly ball by Muncy, but the next batter was Smith, and he lined a shot directly at Wendle at third base, the ball stretching the webbing of Wendle's glove right in front of his face before he secured it for the second out. Still, the hard liner by Muncy indicated that the Dodgers were now zeroed in on Fairbanks, so Cash replaced him with Loup, who struck out Cody Bellinger to end the eighth. Loup notched the first two outs in the ninth. and then Castillo struck out Taylor to end the game, knot the series, and give the Rays new hope that it will be more competitive than it initially looked. "That game was more indicative of the type of team we have," Wendle said.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Sports
|
Photographs of cars are easy to take for granted. Every time a new model comes out, it is accompanied by a bombardment of images not unlike the wartime dumping of propaganda leaflets. They're everywhere. Rene Staud, who shoots photographs for Mercedes Benz, Aston Martin, AMG, Porsche, Kia and many other automakers, has been photographing automobiles since 1983 and had a few thoughts to share when I saw him at the Mille Miglia last month. He was, naturally, behind his DSLR, taking pictures of the many beautiful classics as they drove by. One of the cars participating in the Mille Miglia in May. "It's a question of the concept," he said. "Sometimes it can take a day and a half to set up a shot, and for some images, it can take 100 200 hours of editing for one shot." What does it take to set up a shot? Consider the images in automotive brochures and promotional material. The cars look stunning, framed and lighted in such a way that even a '93 Chevrolet Cavalier could seem appealing. Many of the shots seem striking. The darks are dark, like those in an 18th century romantic painting. The highlights pop, and the motion blurred background can make just about any car look like it's a Grand Prix entry. Mr. Staud says that for outdoor shots, his team sets up huge portable lighting banks and wets the road to make it look black and shiny. The motion blur that make a car look like it's speeding around a curve at 100 miles per hour is a bit misleading, he said. Usually, his team attaches a camera to the car with a long arm, then puts the car in neutral and rolls it about 10 feet to create the effect. According to a new book about car photography that Mr. Staud recently published, the indoor shots are every bit as involved. Many of the photos his studio takes are a team effort, with members hoisting vehicles up into the air at odd angles so that lighting equipment can be better utilized. All of that takes time to set up and informs the outcome of the shot. But how the photo turns out also depends on what the client wants, Mr. Staud said. "In China, they like putting everything together in just such a way, but in the United States and Europe, they tend to want reality and emotion," he said. "It's a little bit editorial, but the car must be perfect." One of the artistic car images featured in Car Photography. Mr. Staud said he began his photography career in 1971 and that the bulk of his work for the first decade was centered on fashion, jewelry, watches and the like. But he says that working with the fashion industry was a strain on his family life. Since he's from the outskirts of Stuttgart, Germany, he said making the transition to automobiles came naturally. For the first year, he said, he wasn't making much money. Then he made a breakthrough discovery; a lighting system he designed and called Magic Flash. "I had been shooting small things like jewelry for Cartier, and I thought to myself one night, why not shoot cars like jewelry?" he said. "I needed a huge light box, between nine and 18 meters long, and the investment was huge, too." But it paid off, and by 1983, his work had caught the attention of Porsche, which was getting ready to release its new all wheel drive 959. "They said, 'For the new car, we need a new photographer, a new style and a new effort,' and they came to me," Mr. Staud said. Since then, he has worked for a variety of auto manufacturers and said that one of his biggest projects was for Mercedes Benz, when the company brought out the Smart car in the mid '90s. "Mostly, companies call me when they have a new car or a new segment," he said. Now, he has a team of 28 people. and travels all over the world on shoots. When he wants to take breaks, he goes back to his studio in Leonberg, just outside of Stuttgart. Business has been good; he even has a cigarette boat, which he named Magic Flash, after the lighting system he says has been the key to his success. Like many photographers, Mr. Staud doesn't stick to just one thing and has occasionally veered from promotional photography to focus on the artistic side of his craft. Last year, he said he published books dedicated to the Porsche 911 and the Mercedes 300SL, and this year he published one on Aston Martin cars. His most recent book, "Car Photography," explains the concept of shooting cars as an art form and tells Mr. Staud's story.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Automobiles
|
Each year thousands of tourists flock to a reservoir along the Yellow River in China to witness a ritual cleansing so violent that it can look as if the earth just exploded. At the end of June and the start of July, for as long as two weeks before the flood season, Chinese officials open large portals along the walls of the Xiaolangdi Dam, releasing clear and muddy water simultaneously from the reservoir above to the river below. It gushes out, and in some years clouds the color of doom ascend beyond the dam's walls. The Yellow River is considered the cradle of China's civilization but also its sorrow. Its vast floodplains coaxed people in for agriculture. Yet its violent floods have killed millions. The precautionary purging at the Xiaolangdi Dam, which has occurred annually since 2002, is the latest high tech attempt to prevent flooding and tame the Yellow River, which today threatens more than 80 million people. It carries sediment more concentrated than in any other river in the world so much that tiny particles of sand and silt clog reservoirs, raise riverbeds, break levees and cause potentially catastrophic floods. During what is called the Water and Sediment Regulation Discharge Project at Xiaolangdi Dam, muddy water evacuates sediment from the reservoir, and clear water washes sand out from the channel below to reduce flood risk. The annual purge can lower the riverbed by about six feet a year on average, but a surprising discovery about the river's bottom, as well as its unusual capacity to carry high loads of sediment, could one day mean that the purge may not be as effective at preventing floods. In a study published last month in the journal Science Advances, researchers suggest new considerations to take into account when conducting this yearly event.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Science
|
Nicole Kidman's string of award show victories continued on Sunday when she won a Screen Actors Guild Award for her role in HBO's "Big Little Lies." She had already won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the part. A sniffly Ms. Kidman, who said she was fighting the flu, used her speech at the SAG Aftra ceremony to champion shows and films that include prominent roles for women "beyond 40 years old," urging studios and financiers to continue supporting age diversity for female actors. "I'm incredibly grateful. To receive this at this stage of my life is extraordinary and at this time in the industry, when these things are going on, and for this role. I would like to acknowledge the other actresses in this category: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern my girlfriends, first and foremost, but my beyond talented acting partners I share this with you. And also I want to say, Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange, I revere you, I've watched you, and I've learned from you. And there's others: Meryl Streep, Jane Fonda, Judy Davis, Isabelle Huppert, Shirley MacLaine, Judi Dench. The list is so long and I'd love to say so many more names, but I can't right now. But I want to thank you all for your trailblazing performances you've given over your career. "And how wonderful it is that our careers today can go beyond 40 years old. Because 20 years ago, we were pretty washed up by this stage in our lives. So, that's not the case now. We've proven and these actresses and so many more are proving that we are potent and powerful and viable. I just beg that the industry stays behind us, because our stories are finally being told. It's only the beginning. And I'm so proud to be a part of a community that is instigating this change. But I implore the writers, directors, studios and financiers to put passion and money behind our stories. We have proven that we can do this we can continue to do this, but only with the support of this industry and that money and passion."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Movies
|
The Drama Book Shop has a new home. Lin Manuel Miranda and three of his collaborators on "Hamilton," seeking to breathe new life into the cherished but challenged Midtown retailer, said they will reopen it in the spring on West 39th Street, in a garment district storefront just a block south from its previous location. "It was both a destination for tourists and it was also our hub, and so we wanted to keep it close to the theater district," Miranda said. "And, too, we're in the business of creating community, and that's another thing the Drama Book Shop does, and that's incalculable I can't tell you how many creative teams on theater companies say 'Let's go meet at the book shop and talk there'." The book shop is a century old mainstay of the city's theater community, selling scripts and books about the stage. But recently it has struggled to stay afloat in a pricey real estate market. Earlier this year, after the book shop's owners said they were being forced out of their most recent home on West 40th Street, the "Hamilton" team purchased the operation in an effort to rescue it. The new owners are Miranda, who wrote and starred in the blockbuster musical; Thomas Kail, who directed it; Jeffrey Seller, who was the lead producer; and James L. Nederlander, whose company operates the Broadway theater where the musical is running.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Theater
|
A single, moderate workout may immediately change how our brains function and how well we recognize common names and similar information, according to a promising new study of exercise, memory and aging. The study adds to growing evidence that exercise can have rapid effects on brain function and also that these effects could accumulate and lead to long term improvements in how our brains operate and we remember. Until recently, scientists thought that by adulthood, human brains were relatively fixed in their structure and function, especially compared to malleable tissues, like muscle, that continually grow and shrivel in direct response to how we live our lives. But multiple, newer experiments have shown that adult brains, in fact, can be quite plastic, rewiring and reshaping themselves in various ways, depending on our lifestyles. Exercise, for instance, is known to affect our brains. In animal experiments, exercise increases the production of neurochemicals and the numbers of newborn neurons in mature brains and improves the animals' thinking abilities. Similarly, in people, studies show that regular exercise over time increases the volume of the hippocampus, a key part of the brain's memory networks. It also improves many aspects of people's thinking. But substantial questions remain about exercise and the brain, including the time course of any changes and whether they are short term or, with continued training, become lasting. That particular issue intrigued scientists at the University of Maryland. They already had published a study in 2013 with older adults looking at the long term effects of exercise on portions of the brain involved in semantic memory processing. Semantic memory is, in essence, our knowledge of the world and culture of which we are a part. It represents the context of our lives a buildup of common names and concepts, such as "what is the color blue?" or "who is Ringo Starr?" It also can be ephemeral. As people age, semantic memory often is one of the first forms of memory to fade. But the Maryland scientists had found in their earlier study that a 12 week program of treadmill walking changed the working of portions of the brain involved in semantic memory. After four months of exercise, those parts of the brain became less active during semantic memory tests, which is a desirable outcome. Less activity suggests that the brain had become more efficient at semantic memory processing as a result of the exercise, requiring fewer resources to access the memories. Now, for the new study, which was published in April in The Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, the scientists decided to backtrack and parse the steps involved in getting to that state. Specifically, they wanted to see how a single workout might change the way the brain processed semantic memories. So, they recruited 26 healthy men and women aged between 55 and 85, who had no serious memory problems and asked them to visit the exercise lab twice. There, they rested quietly or rode an exercise bike for 30 minutes, a workout the scientists hoped would stimulate but not exhaust them. Afterward, the volunteers lay inside an M.R.I. brain scanner and watched names flash across a computer screen overhead. Some of the names were famous, such as, say, Ringo Starr, while others were lifted from the local phone book. Famous names are an important element of semantic memory, and the volunteers were asked to press one key onscreen when they recognized celebrities' names, and a different key when the name was unfamiliar. Meanwhile, the researchers tracked their brain activity over all, as well as in the portions involved in semantic memory processing. The scientists had expected that the areas needed for semantic memory work would be quieter after the exercise, just as they were after weeks of working out, says J. Carson Smith, an associate professor of kinesiology and director of the Exercise for Brain Health Laboratory at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, who oversaw the new study. But that is not what happened. Instead, those parts of the brains most involved in semantic memory fizzed with far more activity after people had exercised than when they had rested. At first, the researchers were surprised and puzzled by the results, Dr. Smith says. But then they began to surmise that they were watching the start of a training response. "There is an analogy to what happens with muscles," Dr. Smith says. When people first begin exercising, he points out, their muscles strain and burn through energy. But as they become fitter, those same muscles respond more efficiently, using less energy for the same work. The scientists suspect that, in the same way, the spike in brain activity after a first session of biking is the prelude to tissue remodeling that, with continued exercise, improves the function of those areas. Our brain's memory centers become, in other words, more fit. This study is short term, though, and does not show the intervening steps involved in changing the brain with regular exercise. It also does not explain how activity alters the brain, although Dr. Smith believes that a surge in certain neurotransmitters and other biochemicals after workouts must play a role. He and his colleagues are hoping to examine those issues in future studies and also zero in on the best types and amounts of exercise to help us maintain our memories of that genial Beatles drummer and all the other touchstones of our pasts.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Well
|
Every year for decades, advertising executives from across the country have flocked to New York for the feeding frenzy known as the television upfronts. During elaborate presentations at some of the city's most celebrated locations, TV networks present their slate of programming for the next fall season to advertisers. The goal this year: Attract what could amount to more than 9 billion in advance ad sales. Perhaps those with the most power at this event are ad buyers, who work for agencies on behalf of companies like Coca Cola and Royal Caribbean. Their decisions help determine which networks win and which lose. For them, the week doesn't just mean presentations. It also means lunches (sometimes two in one day), drinks with clients, fancy dinners and plenty of schmoozing. Carrie Drinkwater, director of investment activation for the agency MullenLowe Mediahub, has been attending the upfronts for two decades. For her, Monday was a day spent running all over town, some of the time with a New York Times reporter in tow. NBCUniversal has combined its broadcast and cable upfronts this year for the first time, meaning it will showcase shows on NBC alongside those on cable networks like Bravo, Syfy and E!. But it has promised that the presentation will last no more than two hours. Ms. Drinkwater is skeptical. The presentation begins shortly after 11 a.m. "It's a celebration of TV," Ms. Drinkwater says about the upfronts as the lights dim. She takes a sip of water. Here we go. Jimmy Fallon begins the show dressed like a character from the Broadway show "Hamilton." "I love him," Ms. Drinkwater whispers. The presentation also includes a sizzle reel of NBCUniversal's new shows, grouped into buckets with titles like "Laugh Out Loud" and "Rule Breakers." The presentation does indeed last about two hours, apparently much to everyone's relief. As she makes her way out of Radio City, Ms. Drinkwater says one new show in particular caught her attention: "This Is Us," starring Mandy Moore and Milo Ventimiglia, about people whose link seems to be that they share a birthday. She will have to think about whether any other shows work for her clients. Ms. Drinkwater decides to walk to her lunch with Peter Olsen, the head of ad sales at A E Networks. The restaurant is quiet and fairly empty when she arrives. She heads to a table in the corner, where Mr. Olsen is sitting with one of Ms. Drinkwater's colleagues, Dustin Johnson, and Paul Greenberg, general manager of A E's FYI network who also oversees A E's in house digital agency 45th Dean. Conversation turns to different ad formats and the explosion of digital advertising opportunities. As ads evolve, and as spending continues to flow to digital media, Mr. Olsen says, the upfronts have in some ways lost their sense of urgency. "The upfront madness isn't that mad anymore," he says. Over pear and endive salad and halibut, Ms. Drinkwater and Mr. Olsen discuss how her clients, which include Scotts Miracle Gro and Royal Caribbean, could use A E's programming and ad offerings. They try to organize drinks with another advertising executive on Wednesday. ("Just email her," Ms. Drinkwater says.) This is a week for networking. Mr. Olsen mentions that on one day, he has not one, but two client lunches. Netflix buys a visual effects company in a move to support its global ambitions. 15 minimum wage for federal contractors will take effect Jan. 30. 3:20 p.m., in the back of a taxi Fox's upfront is on the Upper West Side, so Ms. Drinkwater hops in a taxi with Mr. Johnson. NBC is already advertising its new shows on the taxi TV. Since Ms. Drinkwater is an upfront veteran, she is well positioned to opine on the changes. "The biggest evolution over time was the disruption of the space," she says. People now watch shows, oftentimes without ads, on their computers, smartphones and tablets. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Snapchat have prompted advertisers to come up with new ways to promote their products. She predicts that this year, the upfronts will see a 2 percent increase in ad spending commitments compared with last year, when the total was considered fairly weak. Will the upfronts ever disappear? "I think they will be around for as long as there is demand for the supply," she says. About television, she adds, "It's still a mass vehicle." The taxi lets Ms. Drinkwater out a few blocks away from the theater. A crowd has already formed, and Ms. Drinkwater searches for clients from National Geographic. More hugs and handshakes. As she waits for the presentation to begin, she recalls her first and perhaps most memorable upfront. She was at Lincoln Center for NBC's upfront waiting at the open bar. When she got her drink, she turned around, and there was George Clooney. Fox promotes its hit show "Empire," and a number of new shows, including "Pitch," about a woman who is a baseball player, and "The Exorcist," which looks terrifying. Ms. Drinkwater gets in an Uber and makes her way to Fox's party, which started around 6 p.m. after the network's upfront ended but is still going strong. Hours earlier, people sipped grapefruit mojitos (one agency executive described it as overly leafy) and munched on sushi, hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, and warm chocolate chip cookies. Ms. Drinkwater finally leaves around midnight. But her upfronts are far from over there are still three days to go before she heads home to reflect on how her clients should spend their money.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Media
|
Mark Collie and his son Blake at home in Washington, N.C. When Blake suffered an aneurysm, Mr. Collie turned to a Christian health cost sharing ministry to help cover the costs. It Looks Like Health Insurance, but It's Not. 'Just Trust God,' Buyers Are Told. Eight year old Blake Collie was at the swimming pool when he got a frightening headache. His parents rushed him to the emergency room only to learn he had a brain aneurysm. Blake spent nearly two months in the hospital. His family did not have traditional health insurance. "We could not afford it," said his father, Mark Collie, a freelance photographer in Washington, N.C. Instead, they pay about 530 a month through a Christian health care sharing organization to pay members' medical bills. But the group capped payments for members at 250,000, almost certainly far less than the final tally of Blake's mounting medical bills. "Just trust God," the nonprofit group, Samaritan Ministries, in Peoria, Ill., said in a statement about its coverage, and advises its members that "there is no coverage, no guarantee of payment." More than one million Americans, struggling to cope with the rising cost of health insurance, have joined such groups, attracted by prices that are far lower than the premiums for policies that must meet strict requirements, like guaranteed coverage for pre existing conditions, established by the Affordable Care Act. The groups say they permit people of a common religious or ethical belief to share medical costs, and many were grandfathered in under the federal health care law mainly through a religious exemption. These Christian nonprofit groups offer far lower rates because they are not classified as insurance and are under no legal obligation to pay medical claims. They generally decline to cover people with pre existing illnesses. They can set limits on how much their members will pay, and they can legally refuse to cover treatments for specialties like mental health. "Nothing is guaranteed," said Dr. Carolyn McClanahan, a physician who is also a financial planner in Jacksonville, Fla. "You have to depend on the largess of the program." But state regulators in New Hampshire, Colorado and Texas are beginning to question some of the ministries' aggressive marketing tactics, often using call centers, and said in some cases people who joined them were misled or did not understand how little coverage they would receive if they or a family member had a catastrophic illness. On Monday, Washington State fined one of the larger health sharing ministries, Trinity Healthshare, 150,000 and banned it from offering its product to state residents because it was operating as an unauthorized insurer. In December, Nevada insurance regulators warned consumers to beware of these plans. "They may seem enticing because they may be cheap, look and sound like they are in compliance with the Affordable Care Act ('A.C.A.'), when in reality these plans are not even insurance products," the department said. The Texas attorney general brought a lawsuit last summer against Aliera Healthcare, which marketed Trinity's ministry program, to stop it from offering "unregulated insurance products to the public." The Houston Chronicle featured one couple who was left with more than 100,000 in unpaid medical bills. Trinity said most members are satisfied with its services. Aliera, which says it has stopped offering its plans in Texas, said it is working with regulators to resolve their concerns. The company says it has taken steps to make sure its customers are not confused about what they are buying. Families who have joined the groups recount winding up with medical bills not covered by the ministries, with no legal way to appeal decisions to reject coverage for care. Some groups ask their members to push hospitals and doctors to write off their bills rather than use members' money to pay their expenses. "These plans offer a false sense of security," said Jenny Chumbley Hogue, who runs an insurance agency in the north Dallas area of Texas. She refuses to offer them to her clients. Several states have taken action against one ministry they say has deceived people about what they are buying. "The nature of what we're hearing from consumers around the state is absolutely heart breaking," said Kate Harris, chief deputy insurance commissioner in Colorado, one state that is trying to prevent the ministry from operating there. But health share ministries have become particularly attractive to people like the Collie family who don't qualify for a federal subsidy and can't afford an A.C.A. plan. Even though premiums in the A.C.A. market have stabilized, critics of the law insist people need alternatives. "That's the real driver behind the growth," said Dr. Dave Weldon, a former Republican congressman from Florida who is president of the Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries, which represents the two largest groups. When Dan Plato left his job to become self employed as a consultant, he discovered that an A.C.A. policy for 2018 would cost his family around 1,300 a month. "It was very expensive and beyond our needs," he said. Membership in Liberty Healthshare, a ministry established by Mennonites in Canton, Ohio, was less than half the price, according to Mr. Plato, who blogged about his experience. But some Liberty members reported trouble getting their medical bills covered. Mr. Plato says a small bill for flu shots went unpaid and ended up in collection. At the end of the year, he was left wondering if Liberty would be able to cover the family in the event of a serious medical emergency. "It's not something we could trust in that situation," said Mr. Plato, who switched to one of the plans offered by United Healthcare also exempt from the A.C.A. rules for 2019. Robyn Lytle, who works as an event planner in Chicago, joined Liberty for 2018, only to find that her daughter's medical tests were never paid. "It's been a year and a half, and I've been sent to collection," said Ms. Lytle, who says Liberty had covered some of her family's other expenses. She switched to an A.C.A. plan for 2019. Mr. Snider says Medi Share urged him to plead with the hospital after determining he would owe more than 100,000. He said he had assumed the 800 a month he paid into a pool would help cover the expenses. After he tweeted his frustrations, the ministry told him that he would owe only 1,500 for the surgery because the hospital had forgiven the rest, he said. He now owes thousands of dollars in related medical bills and is unsure of their status. If Medi Share decides not to pay, Mr. Snider knows he has little recourse: "It is completely and solely up to them." He has since gotten a job where he is covered under his employer. Medi Share says that more than 80 percent of the 774 million it collected last year went to members' medical bills. "We take great care to ensure prospective members understand what is considered a pre existing condition and what is eligible for sharing," it said. It does its part to reduce medical spending, it says, through negotiating with doctors and hospitals and claims it saved members more than 500 million last year. "We consider this process to be one way in which we contribute to the overall objective of reducing medical costs," the ministry said in a statement. Medi Share says it has an extensive network of more than 700,000 providers. But even if a member goes to an in network provider, the ministry may still decide not to pay the bill. "Fundamentally, we have found that there is often a lack of understanding of what is covered," said Brendan Miller, an executive with MultiPlan, which arranges networks for Medi Share as well as insurers. That uncertainty has led some hospitals and doctors in the MultiPlan network to refuse to treat ministry patients rather than absorb unpaid costs. Colorado is one of several states, including Washington, Texas and New Hampshire, that are trying to stop Trinity Healthshare, and its administrator, Aliera Healthcare, from operating in their states because they say the ministry is misleading its residents. In a statement, Aliera said "it's deeply disappointing to see state regulators working to deny their residents access to more affordable alternatives offered by health care sharing ministries." Trinity says its website makes clear that the ministry does not offer health insurance. Regulators also worry about these plans siphoning off healthy individuals from the A.C.A. marketplaces, leading to higher premiums for Obamacare policies. "The ministries have been very concerned about bad actors invading this space," said Dr. Weldon, the alliance president, who says his members are very clear that they are not insurance companies. "They all operate call centers, and they all bend over backward to inform people inquiring that it is not insurance," he said. In the case of Samaritan, which says it covers 271,000 people, the ministry pointed to its Save to Share program, where members can contribute extra to cover more of their bills. In some states, officials are starting to consider requiring the groups to register, to obtain more information for consumers. Peter V. Lee, a former Obama administration official who now runs the California A.C.A. marketplace, said ministries should be subject to some oversight, including disclosure of how much of the money collected is spent on care. "There should not be a religious exemption for transparency where the money goes and if it will be there if consumers need it," he said. California is also requiring brokers, who are paid hefty commissions by some of the ministries to enroll members, to make sure their clients understand they are not buying insurance.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Health
|
Our columnist, Sebastian Modak, is visiting each destination on our 52 Places to Go in 2019 list. His last dispatch was from Senegal where he was attacked by dancing lions. The sun was beginning to set at the Tanji fishing port, about 20 miles from the Gambian capital of Banjul. Just offshore, dozens of colorfully painted fishing boats were turning to silhouettes, their crews offloading buckets of freshly caught barracuda and grouper. A thick crowd of fishermen, buyers and intermediaries from at least five different West African countries worked within an intricate commercial system that seemed inexplicable to me. Runners clicked out warnings as they torpedoed through the crowds, pushing wheelbarrows full to the brim with still twitching sea life, and crumpled dalasi bills exchanged hands at a furious pace. Just out of the main scrum, an argument broke out between four women. "If you keep supporting him, we won't sell you any fish and we'll tell everyone to do the same," one shouted in Mandinka, with two others nodding in agreement, as my guide, Kemo Manjang, whispered a translation. "I don't care," the other responded, her wrinkled face screwing up into a clear expression of rage. "If you don't leave me alone, I'll bring him back." It's this drastic change "a new era," as many Gambians I met called it that put Gambia on the 52 Places to Go list for 2019. For decades, the country's coastline has been a winter escape for sun starved northern Europeans and Britons. But the political changes have brought in more investment and opened up parts of the country to travelers seeking more than just beach resorts. When my brother Nimesh and I stepped off the plane and waded into the sopping humidity that hangs over the country in late September, we encountered a country that was speaking about decades of national trauma for the first time. Around the capital and beyond, people from all walks of life from market sellers to hotel staff to fishermen on break were glued to cellphones, televisions and radios. They were following the hearings of the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, a two year process that began in January and is bringing perpetrators and victims of atrocities before a panel of investigators and lawyers to share their stories for the first time. While Mr. Jammeh is credited by his supporters for building the infrastructure that does exist, the country is far behind some of its neighbors, including Senegal, which encircles Gambia on three sides, like a Pac Man of land. This became clear upon leaving Banjul and the tourist zone around the beaches just west of the capital. After hiring Mr. Manjang, an independent guide and taxi driver, for a two night excursion to the more remote reaches of the River Gambia, which cuts through the length of the country, we hit our first hurdle before we'd even left the capital. With bridge construction costly, river crossings usually involve ferries and ferries usually involve waiting. In our case, three hours. Many people traders, day workers and shoppers lose entire days to waiting. We meandered around the port, seeking shade wherever we could, settling eventually in the shadow cast by an ancient looking truck. The minutes passed slowly, the temperature and humidity rose, and then, when the ferry did eventually pull up, idleness turned into intense action. The crowd disembarked: women carried impossibly heavy buckets of mayonnaise and milk on their heads and vendors brought out carts of live chickens, sheep on leashes and suitcases full of clothes and shoes to sell in the capital. When we eventually were loaded onto the ferry, the cars and people were packed so tightly that it was impossible to even open the car door. I tried not to think about the incident, 17 years ago, when a Senegalese ferry capsized and sunk off the coast of Gambia, killing almost 2,000 people. Eventually, I dozed off in the unrelenting heat like most of the cars I encountered in the country, this one's air conditioning had fizzled out years ago and woke up as we approached the other side of the river. Five hours of travel; 10 miles traversed. This would be a long trip. And it was, but it was also stunningly beautiful. A country of just 2 million people, Gambia is sparsely populated, and the daytime din of Banjul and its immediate surrounds quickly gave way to wide tracts of empty, bright green land. Baobabs dotted the horizon with gnarled branches that make the trees look like they're in perpetual pain. Colorful birds flew across the road at regular intervals. Family compounds of thatch roof houses sat just off the main road, smoke billowing out of open air kitchens. Almost every village we passed carried the visible stamp of the foreign aid industry. Hanging over the clay and corrugated iron houses, billboards advertised the development projects of various nations and nongovernment organizations. The paragraph long names of the projects sounded like Ph.D. dissertations and the rusty signs and obsolete references like to the United Nations's Millennium Development Goals, which were replaced by a new framework in 2016 showed their one off nature. By the tenth sign in as many miles, I had the eerie feeling that I was in a postcolonial development testing ground. We reached our destination, a guesthouse in Janjanbureh or Georgetown, its colonial name that's still in use just as dusk set in. As in Senegal the week before, it was the "wrong time" to be in Gambia, especially upriver, as the area around the River Gambia National Park is known. The rainy season was in its final weeks, and though there was only one passing shower, the humidity made being outside for extended periods of time difficult. The mosquitoes were even more dangerous than usual. ("Everyone I know who has gotten malaria, has got it in September," Mr. Manjang told us. ) In fact, most accommodations were closed for the season. The five star overwater cottages of Mandina Lodge in the Makasutu Cultural Forest near Banjul were shuttered until the end of October, and the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project, a conservation initiative deep in the national park, wasn't taking guests as it does for most of the year. So, we had no option but a ramshackle hotel in Georgetown. A collection of hilariously decorated rooms (ours, inexplicably, had a blown up photo of a pair of loafers as the only wall art), Baobolong Camp sits on the shore of the River Gambia, but faces away from it. There was no air conditioning, just a ceiling fan the size of a dinner plate that did nothing but move around faint wisps of hot air. Our bathroom door hung off a single hinge, necessitating a careful game of lift and shove every time we wanted to go in and out. There were two bare mattresses covered by mosquito nets. Somehow, despite frequent power outages and everything else being extremely hot, the beer was ice cold. Nimesh and I ordered as many rounds as we thought would help us sleep in the suffocating heat and then ordered one more. I slept in fits and starts, nodding off in between fantasies of sleeping in whatever fridge those beers came out of. The next day revealed what this unheralded corner of West Africa has to offer and made the long journey, and longer night, feel worth it. After stopping at the Wassu Stone Circles, a site of monoliths of uncertain origin that mark the burial sites of royalty past, Mr. Manjang took us to the edge of the River Gambia National Park. Crouching under a makeshift shelter, we dug into plates of freshly caught fish, while an old man reclined on a bench nearby listening to the proceedings of the truth and reconciliation commission. Then, with someone who only identified himself as "Mr. Hippo" at the helm of the outboard motor of a small long boat, we went out on the river. The river was too high for us to see hippos or crocodiles. But tiny village weaver birds with jet black heads and luminescent yellow bodies darted along the shoreline, with blades of grass in their beaks, the raw materials for their hanging, basket like nests. Bright red firefinches fluttered by so fast I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me and fleets of hooded vultures circled high above something dead, miles away. And then we hit the main event: The chimpanzee colony on Baboon Island (there are some baboons there as well). None The beaches of Gambia are popular for good reason: they are huge and the water is delightfully swimmable. But be wary of star ratings when booking hotels. We found "five star" options like the government owned Ocean Bay Beach Hotel Resort disappointing (at one point, we were told they had "run out" of soap for the rooms.) The "four star" African Princess Beach Hotel, on the other hand, was delightful, with "swim up" ground floor rooms , and an infinity pool directly in front of a happening stretch of beach. None Taxis can be confusing. Yellow taxis work basically like buses, driving along routes if you hail one, you'll pay next to nothing but have to make sure your destination is along whatever path the driver is taking. Green taxis are "tourist taxis," which you can hire for one off drives, round trips or day excursions. They're supposed to follow rates set by the tourism ministry but often don't, so be prepared to bargain. None In general, Gambians really don't like having their picture taken. In the labyrinth of Serekunda Market, just outside of Banjul, even the appearance of a camera can elicit loud protests from shopkeepers and shoppers alike. I found that asking permission and promising to send the photos to the photographed (and following through with it) helped. Be prepared to rely on mental photography. Once hunted to extinction, chimpanzees were reintroduced to Gambia in 1979 by the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project. Since then, the population of chimpanzees, three generations of them now numbering 127, has thrived. They're fed every day by workers who throw fruit and bread onto shore from the water, but they're still wild. Direct interaction is strictly forbidden for fear of spreading human diseases and the heavily wooded island is off limits to foot traffic. That unique situation wild animals who are accustomed to humans makes for good viewing. Families of chimpanzees, babies hanging tight off the torsos of their mothers, watched expectantly from the shoreline. Others swung impatiently from tree branches. One particularly precocious juvenile stretched out his palm, making a "give it here," gesture. The occasional fishing boat floated by, but there wasn't a single other tourist in sight. After our journey "upriver," we made our way back toward Banjul, stopping along the way to meet various members of Mr. Manjang's family. During the long drive, he told us stories of Mr. Jammeh's unfathomable excesses empty mansions built in the middle of the jungle and huge parties thrown for his most loyal voters. We stopped more than once to buy rounds of roasted corn, grilled to death over open flames on the side of the road. We reached the beaches. Restaurants and bars line the Senegambia Strip, where sweet talking hustlers, known locally as "bumsters," offer to show visitors around and then surprise them with a hefty fee for a "tour." The resorts, by and large, are shabby and run down after years of neglect, but the mind bogglingly wide beaches that, come sunset, turn into open air gyms, continue to draw tourists from cold, foggy cities in the far north. Sitting on the beach, and thinking back to our three day adventure, the recent developments also felt like an opportunity. Traveling in Gambia at the hottest, wettest time of year tested my physical stamina, my relationship with my older brother (still intact) and my ability to sleep in puddles of my own sweat. We came face to face with animals that I'd only ever seen on television, shared fresh fish with several friendly Gambians and listened to them talk about a bright future for a country scarred by trauma. We experienced delayed ferries and never ending police checkpoints and laughed along with the locals for whom these are everyday struggles. Maybe, I thought, a part of the country's "new era" could involve more tourists experiencing what we had and spending their money in Gambia's interior, instead of at the carbon copy beach resorts that make you forget where you are.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Travel
|
Nicolaas Bloembergen, a Dutch born American physicist who studied quantum mechanics by the light of an oil lamp while hiding from the Nazis in the Netherlands in World War II and later shared a Nobel Prize for his contributions to laser spectroscopy, died on Sept. 5 in Tucson, Ariz. He was 97. His death, at an assisted living facility, was caused by cardiorespiratory failure, his son, Brink, said. Dr. Bloembergen, who spent more than 40 years at Harvard University, was considered the father of nonlinear optics, which investigates how electromagnetic radiation interacts with matter. In the 1960s, physicists knew that ordinary light sources, like headlights or lamps, were affected by the material with which they interacted. But the newly created lasers were so powerful that they could transform the very properties of what they passed through, creating newfound phenomena and optical effects. "He was the first to realize and show that materials behave differently when you have very intense beams of light falling on them," said Jim C. Wyant, a professor emeritus at the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona, who met Dr. Bloembergen in 1969. An analogy would be the striking of a tuning fork: When it is struck gently, you hear a pure tone; but when it is struck hard, you hear the harmonics. Similarly, when matter is struck with an intense enough laser beam, you get a light harmonic, which is a nonlinear optical effect. Dr. Bloembergen shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics with Arthur Schawlow, a physicist from Stanford University, and Kai M. Siegbahn, of Sweden. His major contribution to the development of the laser was the creation of a three level pumping system, which made it much easier to pump atoms from their ground state to a higher energy state, allowing the device to operate continuously. The pumping scheme was originally designed for the laser's predecessor, the maser, which amplified microwaves instead of light. It offered a much more practical and easier way of making lasers. "He was one of the major intellectual forces in the explosion of science and applications related to the laser," said John Armstrong, a retired IBM research director who worked as a postdoctoral student in Dr. Bloembergen's lab in the 1960s. "There are a thousand applications of lasers, not only in surgery but in all forms of manufacturing and all forms of diagnostics for material properties." Before his major advancements in nonlinear optics and laser development, Dr. Bloembergen found early success as a pioneer in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, a method of detecting the faint magnetism of the atomic nucleus, which is used to study molecular structures and measure magnetic fields. His doctoral thesis, "Nuclear Magnetic Relaxation," explored what controlled the shape of spectral lines, which can occur when atoms in their excited state emit radiation. It was used to produce a paper published in 1948 with his Harvard colleagues Edward M. Purcell and Robert V. Pound that became one of the most cited works of physics and was turned into a widely read book in the field. "That was a giant contribution to spectroscopy that covers every field of science," said Eli Yablonovitch, a physicist at Berkeley who completed his doctorate under Dr. Bloembergen. "The Nobel committee could have mentioned any of these three things, or could have mentioned others, and it would have been equally noteworthy." Nicolaas Bloembergen, who was often called Nico, was born on March 11, 1920, in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, the son of Auke Bloembergen, an executive at a fertilizer company, and Sophia Maria Quint Bloembergen. He was the second of six children. He graduated from the municipal gymnasium as valedictorian in 1938, giving his speech in white tie and tails. Little did he know that he would wear the exact same suit to accept, at 61, a Nobel Prize in Stockholm many years later. He entered the University of Utrecht to study physics. There, he took an experimental physics course with Leonard S. Ornstein, who allowed him to assist a graduate student with his Ph.D. research project. That led to Dr. Bloembergen's first publication of a scientific paper in 1940. That same year Adolf Hitler launched a massive airborne invasion westward. Without warning, German troops parachuted into Holland and took control of the nation. The next year, Dr. Ornstein, a Jew, was removed from the university at the same time that Jewish students were expelled. (Dr. Ornstein died six months later from what Dr. Bloembergen had said was stress and malnutrition.) Though Dr. Bloembergen was not Jewish, he was still a potential target for deportation or even death; the Nazis were deeply suspicious that any student could be part of the Dutch resistance. Despite studying under German occupation, he received the Dutch equivalent of a bachelor's degree in 1941 and the equivalent of a master's degree in 1943, mere weeks before the Nazis closed the University of Utrecht. After graduating, Dr. Bloembergen spent the next two years hiding from the Nazis, including during the "hunger winter" of 1944, when food was scarce and many died of malnutrition. "I remember eating bitter tulip bulbs to fill my stomach. They were hard and indigestible despite hours of boiling," he wrote in his book, "Encounters in Magnetic Resonances: Selected Papers of Nicolaas Bloembergen." "I read through the book 'Quantum Theorie des Elektrons und der Strahlung,' by H. A. Kramers, by the light of a storm lantern." The Allied forces liberated Holland in 1945, and Dr. Bloembergen later left the shambles of Europe for the United States. He enrolled in Harvard and worked under Dr. Purcell on nuclear magnetic resonance. Dr. Purcell would win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1952 for his work with NMR. Dr. Bloembergen would go on to say that it was his good fortune to have arrived at the lab six weeks after Dr. Purcell and his colleges detected NMR in condensed matter. He had come upon a field that was ripe for discovery. Dr. Bloembergen returned to the Netherlands to earn his doctoral degree at the University of Leiden, in 1948, and defend his thesis. While there he met Huberta Deliana Brink, whom he called Deli. During the war she had been in a Japanese concentration camp in Indonesia, where she was born. Dr. Bloembergen returned to Harvard in 1949 and she followed shortly after. They married in Amsterdam on June 26, 1950, beginning a 67 year marriage. Both became citizens in 1958. She survives him. In addition to his wife and his son, he is survived by two daughters, Antonia Bloembergen and Juliana Dalton, and two grandchildren. Dr. Bloembergen became a professor at Harvard in 1951 and stayed there until his retirement in 1990. He received the National Medal of Science from President Gerald R. Ford in 1974. After retiring from Harvard, he moved to Tucson and became a professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, College of Optical Sciences, in 1991, though he would not accept a salary. In 2010, for his 90th birthday, his friends, family and scientists he had mentored the "Nicolettes," as one colleague called them gathered at the university for an optical sciences symposium followed by a tennis tournament. "He was so well loved by colleagues and especially former students and postdocs," Dr. Wyant said.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Science
|
Minutes before Donald J. Trump took the oath of office on Friday, Fox News announced that Nigel Farage, the right wing British politician, would join the network as a paid on air contributor. The move provides an unlikely American megaphone for Mr. Farage, a chief architect of the campaign in Britain to leave the European Union and a friend of Mr. Trump, who can now command the audience of the country's most watched cable news network. Mr. Farage, the former head of the United Kingdom Independence Party, is one of Europe's leading proponents of nationalism, and his appointment comes at the start of a year of critical elections in Europe, where right wing groups are mounting significant bids for power. It also showcases the extent to which Fox News has become a friendly venue for Mr. Trump and his circle, with stars like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly offering daily affirmations of the new president. The network brought on Steve Hilton, another leading proponent of the so called Brexit, as a contributor last month.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Media
|
Senator Ron Johnson has previously used his committee to investigate Hunter Biden and to elevate fringe theories about the pandemic. Two days after the Electoral College confirmed President elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory, a Senate committee provided a platform on Wednesday for another round of specious legal arguments and falsehoods about widespread voter fraud that have been repeatedly rejected by courts across the country. The hearing was the latest effort by the Republican chairman of the homeland security committee, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, to amplify the claims and concerns of President Trump. Mr. Johnson previously used his committee to investigate Mr. Biden's son, Hunter, and to elevate fringe theories about the coronavirus pandemic. Though Mr. Johnson conceded in his opening remarks that fraudulent voting did not affect the outcome of the election, he said that "lax enforcement, denying effective bipartisan observation of the complete election process, and failure to be fully transparent or conduct reasonable audits has led to heightened suspicion." "The fraud happened. The election in many ways was stolen," Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said at one point. Those claims are false. The Trump campaign has failed to provide evidence in a number of lawsuits that Republican observers were barred from witnessing vote tabulating. Recounts and postelection audits in several battleground states have either concluded and reconfirmed Mr. Biden's victory, or are underway. There is no evidence that the election was "stolen." Witnesses called by Mr. Johnson included three men two lawyers for Mr. Trump and a Pennsylvania state representative who have unsuccessfully sought to overturn election results. They also included Ken Starr, who represented Mr. Trump during the impeachment hearing this year. Even as several witnesses insisted there was proof of widespread fraud and as their claims were echoed in viral posts on social media Christopher C. Krebs, the former head of the government's cybersecurity agency, testified that the election was the most secure in American history. James Troupis, a lawyer for Mr. Trump in Wisconsin, claimed that 200,000 people had voted improperly in the state. He argued that accepting absentee ballots in Dane and Milwaukee Counties two Democratic bastions before Election Day violated state law, and that those votes should be thrown out. But the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected the case on Monday, and a conservative justice said that one of Mr. Troupis's four claims was "meritless" and that time had run out on the other three. Justices also noted during the trial that Mr. Troupis was not seeking to throw out ballots in other counties that used the same procedures but that Mr. Trump had won. A Republican member of the state's elections commission observed this month that the Trump campaign "has not made any claims of fraud in this election" but rather leveled "disputes in matters of law." 'No proof' of 130,000 cases of voter fraud in Nevada Similarly, Mr. Trump's campaign lawyer in Nevada used the hearing to rehash false claims and arguments rejected by courts in the state. The lawyer, Jesse Binnall, said that the campaign's experts had identified "130,000 unique instances of voter fraud" in Nevada and that their evidence had "never been refuted, only ignored." A district court in Nevada rejected those claims and dismissed the lawsuit this month, and the Nevada Supreme Court upheld that decision last week. The lower court said that it found "no credible or reliable evidence that the 2020 general election in Nevada was affected by fraud" and that the campaign's expert testimony "was of little to no value." Mr. Binnall and others on the legal team "did not prove under any standard of proof" their claims about double voting, deceased people voting, and noncitizens and nonresidents voting, the court wrote. The state's highest court, in upholding that decision, wrote that it asked the Trump campaign to identify findings from the district court that it took issue with, but "appellants have not pointed to any unsupported factual findings, and we have identified none." State Representative Francis Ryan of Pennsylvania also repeated a number of claims that appeared in Texas' lawsuit seeking to toss out election results in Pennsylvania and other swing states. The Supreme Court rejected that lawsuit last week. Mr. Ryan said that a data portal initially and erroneously listed 508,112 ballots counted in Philadelphia County despite only 432,873 ballots being issued to voters. He then acknowledged that the 500,000 figure was corrected later. He also claimed that the state reported that 3.1 million mail in ballots were sent out, but the number was 2.7 million "the day before the election." Pennsylvania, in a filing responding to the lawsuit, noted that Mr. Ryan's analysis was "fundamentally faulty" and that the 3.1 million figure included 2.7 million mail in ballots and 400,000 absentee ballots. Additionally, Mr. Ryan expressed skepticism that more than 1,500 voters reported being over 100 years old. But that figure includes dozens of instances where a birthday is entered as Jan. 1, 1900, as a placeholder. It is also consistent with reports from the census and the Centers for Disease for Control and Prevention on the number of people that age in Pennsylvania and the United States. Mr. Starr separately argued that Pennsylvania "flagrantly violated" state law in expanding mail in voting. A lawsuit making the same point was rejected by the state's Supreme Court, which was then upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Starr also cited Democratic officials who had previously raised concerns about election security to suggest that Republicans were being unfairly maligned in their efforts to cast light on the issue. "I don't recall the media or anyone else accusing these eight congressional Democrats of indulging in, quote, quackery and conspiracy theories, unquote," Mr. Johnson said as he read passages from three letters written by Democratic senators. Those three letters were about potential foreign efforts to hack election security software and the involvement of private equity firms in companies that make election equipment. Mr. Starr repeatedly referred to a 2005 commission led by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III that issued a "warning" about mail in ballots.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Technology
|
There are a handful of adjectives that frequently feature in Broadway marketing materials. "Transgressive" is not one of them. This fall, a group of producers is planning to change that. They are making the risky move of bringing to the Golden Theater one of the most buzzed about Off Broadway shows of last season "Slave Play," a daring, provocative, unsettling, polarizing, and yes, transgressive look at race relations through the prism of the sexual hangups of three interracial couples. The play was written by Jeremy O. Harris, 30, who began working on it in 2016, during his first semester at the Yale School of Drama; he graduated from the program this spring, and the play will be his Broadway debut. "I'm very excited, mainly because when I was growing up, all the plays I revered were by writers who had worked on Broadway," Mr. Harris said in an interview. "Slave Play" is intentionally outrageous, set in a group therapy workshop testing an imaginary technique called "antebellum sexual performance therapy," in which the couples use explicit sexual role play, set on a plantation but punctured by pop songs, to work through their issues. "The play is about entanglement, and about the wound inside of America that has gone unhealed for too long," Mr. Harris said. The production will be directed by Robert O'Hara and produced by Greg Nobile, Jana Shea and Troy Carter, along with Level Forward, which is Abigail Disney's company, and Nine Stories, which is a venture from Jake Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker. Mr. Nobile and Ms. Shea are partners in Seaview Productions, which is also producing "Sea Wall/A Life," a pair of monologues performed by Mr. Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge, on Broadway this summer. Mr. Carter, producing on Broadway for the first time, helped guide the careers of Lady Gaga and John Legend. A former Spotify executive, he this year started a new music company, Q A. "Slave Play" is scheduled to begin previews Sept. 10 and to open Oct. 6. The producers said that they would make 10,000 tickets to the show available for 39 in an effort to broaden access. The run is scheduled for 17 weeks; casting has not yet been announced. "Slave Play" had a production last winter at New York Theater Workshop, also directed by Mr. O'Hara; it attracted rave reviews, but also prompted controversy and criticism that could intensify as the play gets more attention. Mr. Harris said that much of the controversy over the Off Broadway run was prompted by a photograph of the production, rather than the play itself, but that he was ready for a variety of reactions. "People have a lot of unchecked emotions around these histories, and they should feel explosive, because it's explosively relevant to who we are," he said. "I just hope the controversy is a controversy of ideas and not a controversy of hyperbole." Writing in The New York Times, Jesse Green called the drama "willfully provocative, gaudily transgressive and altogether staggering," while Wesley Morris said "'Slave Play' is the single most daring thing I've seen in a theater in a long time." Many critics agreed, but not all; in The Guardian, Hubert Adjei Kontoh wrote that "the play may simply give white people yet another platform to gaze on black bodies exposed to physical and sexual violence while simultaneously patting themselves on the back for 'surviving' the experience." Mr. Harris said he did not plan to make substantial changes before the play is presented at the Golden. He said he was heartened by the success last season on Broadway of plays like "What the Constitution Means to Me," which is about the treatment of women in American legal history. "People are ready to see something that feels different and is more challenging," he said. "We're at this moment, after the last season, where maybe the freaks can come hang out in the commercial landscape." He also argued that the play's provocations are not that unusual in American culture. "The ideas inside of 'Slave Play' are not so radical," he said. "And the things that happen on the stage happen every week in 'Game of Thrones.' "
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Theater
|
Scenes from Tangier. Clockwise from top right: Peppers for sale in the medina; the Banyan Tree Resort in Tamouda Bay; the nearby Caves of Hercules; ancient Phoenician grave sites overlooking the sea. This thriving Moroccan city and its sense of lawlessness and anything goes ethos has inspired Western men for decades. Traveling while female, though, proved to be a challenge. Our columnist, Jada Yuan, is visiting each destination on our 52 Places to Go in 2018 list. This dispatch brings her to Tangier, Morocco, which took the No. 47 spot on the list; it is the 30th stop on Jada's itinerary. "Sientese, sientese" sit down, sit down, she said, patting the seat next to her. I had already noticed her in the terminal of the 11 p.m. ferry we were taking from Tarifa on the southern tip of Spain to Tangier on Morocco's northern coast. Among all the young, cosmopolitan Spanish tourists in their linen palazzo pants, she stood out. She was wearing a traditional black head scarf and a black embroidered tunic, and looked to be about 40 years older than the next oldest person there, who might have been 40 year old me. Her name was Mina, she said in Spanish. When I asked how to spell it, she gave me her passport, because she can't read or write. The only words not in Arabic were her last name, M'rabet, and her birth year: 1939. I needed to be careful in Morocco, she told me. Keep my purse always at my side. Don't walk by myself as a woman and be prepared for everyone to ask me for money. I'd heard all of this and worse before, of the particular discomfort that greets women traveling in Morocco. This is a thriving city, with a sense of lawlessness and an anything goes ethos that has inspired Western men for decades. And while it was easy to see Tangier's many appeals the warm hospitality, the delicious food, the stunning desert by the sea landscape I couldn't help but feel jealous of those who had been able to enjoy that idyll without being followed (quite literally) by harassment and verbal degradation. It was 1 a.m. Ferry passengers had disembarked in Tangier, and Mina was still with me, having stayed to help as a police officer rifled through my bag, and then to join me in a taxi to my sweet, modest hotel in the medina, Dar Yasmine. Despite the hour, the streets were packed when we pulled up; summer days in Tangier are so hot the city comes alive mostly after sundown. A young man who spoke English tried to walk me to my hotel which was right in front of me as Mina blocked his way and kept whispering to me in Spanish to be careful, that everyone here wanted my money. Traveling to so many places on my own, I have developed a set of safety triggers around strangers. With Mina, though, I felt a kinship as journeywomen who had crossed continents and the Strait of Gibraltar together in the middle of the night and, I thought, maybe she did, too. Instead of going into the hotel, I threw off caution and followed Mina uphill through the brick streets of the medina with my backpack and roller suitcase to an open wall, street side food stand named Ray Charley essentially six stools and a counter with a little kitchen and two cooks, both named Sayed. It was a beautiful night of cultural immersion that ultimately turned a tad worrying when Mina walked me back to my hotel, sat down in reception and refused to leave. She was confused, the manager said, because she thought I was staying with her. He reassured her that he had a room for me. "Mi amiga, mi amiga, el es un hombre bueno," she said, kissing my cheeks goodbye. "Remember, nothing can happen to you here, you are a friend of mine." I had wanted to see Mina again, to take her up on her offer of tea and couscous, but she didn't have a telephone and couldn't tell me her address. But I have thought about her often. Was my gut wrong? All I know is that travel has made me believe that most people around the world are fundamentally good. And it's exhausting to always have your guard up, expecting the worst. Two friends, Linda and Melanie, had come to join me in Tangier. They represented strength in numbers. We were all eager to explore the city, and none of us wanted to do it as a woman traveling alone. Female tourists, locals assured us, are fine without headscarves and with their knees showing (I was the only one in our group who did the latter), but you will get stares. We decided against tea at the famed Cafe Tingis in the medina because there was not a woman among the 50 or so crowded inside and out. Every time we took a walk, we'd get catcalled. Mostly that meant a lot of "holas," but we were also followed for blocks, and Melanie said that multiple men hissed in her face. A trip to the popular Caves of Hercules and Plage Achakar beach about 30 minutes away brought further cultural nuances. Nearly every woman waded into the ocean in whatever long dress she'd worn there, while shirtless men in swim trunks played soccer and body surfed. The women seemed happy, wet fabric and all. And the few who wore swimsuits moved about freely, without extra attention. Every morning we had breakfast on Dar Yasmine's rooftop terrace overlooking the harbor and at the exact height of the green and white marble tower of the city's Grand Mosque right across the street, an example of the wealth of ornate, colorful architecture around the city. We felt lucky to be there during Throne Day, a national holiday celebrating the anniversary of the accession of the current King Mohammed VI, and to see fireworks light up the entire medina. Where Woman Can Go in Peace By nature, a Moroccan city's medina quarter, or old town, is its throbbing with life traditional center. Tangier's is enclosed in the walls of a 15th century Portuguese fortress, with charming, twisted, narrow streets painted in a riot of colors. It is here that you will do your best shopping for tunics and gold patterned silk shoes, and indulge in an abundance of fresh marinated olives and other delights, piled high at stand after stand in the souk (marketplace). I would have come back every day for prickly pear fruits peeled at a roving cart, and avocado and milk smoothies at the World of Juices stand just outside the wall. If you want to buy an entire severed cow's head, they have that too. Harassment was thickest in those close quarters, but I felt O.K. about safety, when not faced with careening cars and mopeds. Tangier had earned a spot on the 52 Places list not for its old town, though, but because of its rapid modernization: a refurbished port, new highways, a high speed train connecting it with Casablanca and Rabat. (It missed its scheduled summer start date, but a cabdriver told me he'd seen a 400 kilometer per hour test run "with my own eyes!") The "new Tangier" comes with welcome breathing room. we particularly enjoyed strolling along Tangier's long, wide waterfront at night, which seemed to be a regular pastime for many locals. Tourist filled but tasty restaurants like El Morocco Club and Rif Kebdani provided for restful dinners and in the case of El Morocco, the only proper cocktails we had during our stay. Our favorite nighttime spot was The Tangerinn Pub, a famous hangout for the Beat Generation, outside the medina. It was small and dark, with paintings of Burroughs and quotes from "Naked Lunch" on the walls, and a neon nightclub vibe that it likely didn't have in the '50s. We sat at the bar, unbothered, and were later joined by two young Moroccan woman, who told us this was their favorite place in town. One, named Awatif, wore tight jeans and an orange ruffled blouse that exposed both her shoulders. "I never cover up," she said. "You can live however you want. You can choose your own life." Getaways: The Blue City and Luxury That Makes Sense It was in Chefchaouen, nestled in the Rif Mountains, about two hours by car from Tangier, that we had our first experience of walking around with complete ease. Part of that was because we'd signed up for a Viator guided tour with Ahmed Achtot ( 176 for two to four people). He had grown up in Chefchaouen, and every shopkeeper knew him. It felt like being with the mayor. Long ago, the people of Chefchaouen started painting their buildings blue. Ahmed said it was to keep the mosquitoes away and also was inherited as a tradition from Jewish immigrants, who started coming over in 1492 from Granada and left en mass in 1948, thanks to the founding of Israel and tensions over the Arab Israeli War. I asked if it was also for the purpose of drawing in tourists. "Of course," he said. While enjoying mint tea at Tangier's famous Cafe Hafa, a spot with tiered outdoor seating perched on a cliff overlooking the sea, I was fortunate enough to bookend my trip with a budding Moroccan journeywoman half my age. Her name was Asmae, a recent engineering graduate. She was from Errachidia, a conservative town in the country's East, and was visiting on a two week vacation with a male friend and his sister. The only way a woman can travel is in the company of her family or a man, she said. "My dream is to have a backpack and go off on my own," she said, expressing a hope that so many Western kids take for granted. She had never been outside Morocco, though, because getting a visa seemed impossible. Tangier, she said, struck her as such an incredibly modern place compared to her hometown. The streets were clean, and she got harassed so much less than usual. "Everyone here is so polite!" Canada was the first place she wanted to see, she said, both because it's the home of an idol of hers, the YouTube star Lilly Singh, and because it seemed more attainable than America. "I don't know if you know the show 'The Handmaid's Tale'," she said. "I sometimes feel like it is here. Women are always under a man."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Travel
|
"The River and the Wall" comes on as innocent and glossy as a travelogue, but its scenic delights are the sugar coating on a passionate and spectacularly photographed political message. Traveling 1,200 miles along the Rio Grande, from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico, the director, Ben Masters, and four friends slowly and genially build an ecologically devastating case against the construction of President Trump's much ballyhooed border wall. Taking to mountain bikes, horses and canoes, this hardy group comprising conservationists, an ornithologist, a river guide and a National Geographic explorer is tested by treacherous terrain and dangerous river currents. The adventurers aim to document the possible impact of the proposed barrier on the region's wildlife and residents; but a more personal, pro immigration note is struck when two team members recall the emotional toll of growing up with undocumented parents.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Movies
|
The new play "Master of the Crossroads" has range: The tone goes from frenzied to hysterical to off the charts bonkers. Fine, so it is a narrow range. There may be nuances buried deep, but they're hard to find when you're being bludgeoned. Written and directed by Paul Calderon, the show, at Shetler Studios, depicts a harrowing, one way trip to hell. This is not spoiling anything: When a story begins with its intensity needle as firmly in the red as this one does, there are no options left besides self combustion. It all starts when Yolanda (Sarah Kate Jackson) visits Jim Bo (Obi Abili, memorable in "The Emperor Jones" in 2017) to inform him of a sticky situation: Jim Bo's brother, Cornbread (who happens to be Yolanda's ex husband), is holding a man captive and threatening to crucify him. Cornbread, an Iraq war veteran like Jim Bo, has gone off the deep end and kidnapped a Middle Eastern man although Yolanda is pretty sure he is actually Hispanic. Why nobody is calling 911 is a question you will ask yourself repeatedly during the show.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Theater
|
In "Represent," a documentary about women in local politics, getting the vote is only part of the battle. The film, directed by Hillary Bachelder, follows three women Myya Jones, a mayoral candidate in Detroit; Bryn Bird, a township trustee candidate in Ohio; and Julie Cho, a state representative candidate in Illinois as they campaign to win their local elections. Jones is a 22 year old Black woman determined to make Black constituents feel empowered in local politics. Bird, a mother of two and a Democrat, launches a campaign to disrupt a conservative, male dominated network of trustees in her rural Ohio town. And Cho, a Korean American Republican, struggles to find support in her liberal district while going up against a popular Democratic incumbent.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Movies
|
Repetition is an art of infinite variety as it's practiced by Andy Karl in "Groundhog Day," the dizzyingly witty new musical from the creators of "Matilda." Portraying a man doomed to relive a single day over and over and over again in a small town that becomes his custom fitted purgatory, Mr. Karl is so outrageously inventive in ringing changes on the same old, same old, that you can't wait for another (almost identical) day to dawn. That might also be said of the bounteous surrounding production that opened on Monday night at the August Wilson Theater, which features songs by Tim Minchin and is directed by Matthew Warchus (collaborators on "Matilda"), with a book by Danny Rubin. Based on Harold Ramis's 1993 movie, "Groundhog Day" reimagines a much loved film about instant karma with such fertile and feverish theatrical imagination that you expect it to implode before your eyes. Perhaps that accounts for the gremlins that have plagued this show in its previews. Mr. Karl injured his knee near the end of Friday night's performance and finished the show with a walking stick. (His opening night costume was to include a knee brace.) And during the critics' preview I attended on Thursday, a technical glitch stopped the show in the first act during a car chase number, if you please, of particularly intricate mayhem. It sort of made sense. How many blazingly bright ideas can a single musical contain before it sets fire to itself? The 10 minute delay was a bummer, and I wondered if this cartoon colored production, designed as a whirling wonderland by Rob Howell, would regain its momentum. But then, hallelujah, the curtain rose again, and there was Mr. Karl, back in the driver's seat (literally). And when he crossed himself, Roman Catholic style, before beginning again the song we'd just heard a drunken country western rouser called "Nobody Cares" he had us back in the palms of his never idle hands. He had evidently taken to heart the show's lesson that improvisation is the mother of redemption, a tenet surely to be tested by his injury. Such infectious quick thinking was also the hallmark of the leading man of the original film, which was written by Mr. Rubin and Mr. Ramis. I mean, of course, Bill Murray, a comedy star with a peerless gift for leavening snark with a pinch of sentimentality. You would think that in any adaptation of the movie, the biggest shadow would be cast not by its weather predicting title critter but by Mr. Murray. The morning alarm clock isn't a welcome sound to Phil Connors, played by Andy Karl, in "Groundhog Day." Yet while you're in the presence of Mr. Karl, which, thankfully, is for most of the show, he unconditionally owns the role of Phil Connors. Phil is a burned out TV weatherman who winds up, through a bolt of metaphysical magic, being forced to relive the same day in the snug little town of Punxsutawney, Pa. (That's the home of the celebrity groundhog, also named Phil, whose Feb. 2 sighting, or not, of his shadow is said to foretell the duration of the winter.) In translating this story to the stage, this production plies the bold but risky idea of making entrapment in a hick burg feel like being caught in an all too chipper song and dance show, the kind of musical that makes people allergic to musicals. The citizens of Punxsutawney are first discovered prancing and crooning in ways you might at first mistake for a parody of the sentimental earnestness of another of this season's arrivals, "Come From Away." But this show, like the movie that inspired it, is to Groundhog Day what "A Christmas Carol" and "It's a Wonderful Life" are to Christmas. And during the production's two and a half very full hours, Phil gradually trades in his cynicism for a grateful acceptance of life's simpler pleasures. These, of course, include the love of a good woman, who, in this case, is a morally grounded young television producer named Rita Hanson, charmingly embodied and sung by Barrett Doss, who provides ballast without being boring. It's Phil's journey more than his destination that makes "Groundhog Day" such joy, as Mr. Karl previously seen as the punch drunk title contendah of the "Rocky" musical gives many splendored life to each faltering on the road to self discovery. Anger, prickliness, outrage, wonder, godlike omnipotence, drunken what the hell exhilaration, suicidal angst, Zen like resignation Mr. Karl turns these different feelings into a replete gallery of self portraits, drawn with both comic panache and genuine feeling. He uses every tool in the musical arsenal, too, often to devastating effect. Even his antic dancing traces a precise evolution of character. (Peter Darling, of "Billy Elliot" fame, did the choreography, with Ellen Kane.) And his pliable baritone covers the waterfront of emotions, from sardonic, pattering blitheness ("Small Town, USA") to heavy metal despair (the paradoxically titled "Hope"). The insanely talented Mr. Minchin writes songs in many shades, though he's probably most at home where shadows lurk. As in "Matilda," his undulating melodies and whip smart lyrics tap into the brooding sides of the supporting characters, extending the reach of existential anxiety beyond Phil's solipsism. There are unexpectedly poignant solos for supporting characters, like the town beauty (Rebecca Faulkenberry) and a bereaved insurance salesman (John Sanders). And the riotous "Nobody Cares," in which Phil goes driving drunk with a couple of barflies (Andrew Call and Raymond J. Lee, both hilarious), becomes an ingeniously staged exercise in hedonistic hopelessness. (Let's pray that glitch is fixed permanently.) Will Broadway audiences be willing to follow "Groundhog Day" into its darkest corners? (A repeated suicide sequence is a demonic doozy.) The bigger problem for many might be the plenitude of styles in which the movie traffics. The show is tighter and more consistent than when I saw it at the Old Vic in London (where the show and Mr. Karl picked up Olivier Awards). But it could still shed a number or two, including a long sequence in which Phil consults various fraudulent doctors. But Mr. Karl is a very persuasive guide to the show's mercurial moods. And as he maps out the many phases of Phil, New York audiences have the rare chance to witness the full emergence of a newborn, bona fide musical star. Thanks to his character's successive reincarnations, Mr. Karl is giving not one but many of the best performances of the season.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Theater
|
Matt D'Arrigo said the Clare Rose Foundation, which supports arts organizations in the San Diego area, gave grants of 500 to 1,000 to teaching artists. "You don't realize what an impact that made." Charitable giving both increased this year and went in new directions, as donors, big and small, responded first to the pandemic and then to social justice causes after the killing of George Floyd in May. The Foundation Source, which advises smaller corporate and family foundations, recently surveyed its members and found that 39 percent of respondents had shifted their foundations' missions in response to the events of this year, while 42 percent had increased their giving. And some said they had used their foundations to make grants directly to individuals, award scholarships or engage in direct charitable activities. "We've seen a change in behavior," said Stefanie Borsari, national director of client services for Foundation Source. "Of the top reasons that people shifted their mission or focus, the biggest was certainly Covid, but about a third of respondents also noted social justice concerns," she added. "It's hard to separate social justice and Covid." Fidelity Charitable, the largest grant maker in the country, found similar increases in donations in the pandemic in a report in June that detailed how people used its donor advised funds to make charitable grants. That report found grants to food assistance programs were up 667 percent nationally, but donors also continued to give to their regular charities. What smaller foundations and individual donors have often lacked, though, was knowing which nonprofits in which communities would best use their donations. Two new philanthropic databases are aiming to fill that breach by highlighting nonprofits that are addressing social justice and pandemic issues. Both are efforts to help channel a desire to help organizations ready to effect change. The two are also aiming to bring recognition to lesser known nonprofit groups that are doing work specific to the year's crises. The first, Give Blck, which went online Friday, was started by two philanthropists to call attention to Black founded nonprofit organizations that were little known or too small to be highlighted by some of the leading philanthropic rating services. It is going live with about 200 nonprofit organizations in 18 categories, like education, arts and culture, and health and human services. The second is an interactive map created by Vanguard Charitable, the mutual fund company's donor advised fund arm, set to be released next month. Vanguard's charitable choice map allows donors to search for pandemic focused nonprofit groups by a variety of factors, such as those that operate in severely affected areas or focus on areas with fewer health care resources. For example, the Clare Rose Foundation, which supports arts organizations that help children mainly in the San Diego area, struggled at first to fund programs and organizations that had almost immediately ended in person programs. It knew that stay at home orders would jeopardize the support that these groups gave children, including food and mental health counseling. In the first nine months of this year, the foundation began to focus on grants to people who were laid off by its partner organizations. Since the start of the year, it has given 65 percent more to nonprofit groups than it had in all of 2019. "We gave about 42 micro grants, between 500 and 1,000 to teaching artists, who were the first to be let go," said Matt D'Arrigo, director of creative youth development at the Clare Rose Foundation. "You think, how could that amount matter? You don't realize what an impact that made. This was before P.P.P. and enhanced unemployment," he added, referring to the Paycheck Protection Program and jobless benefits in the federal virus relief law. The foundation has joined with others in San Diego to create a larger fund for arts teachers struggling to find work. Likewise, the Voorhis Foundation, set up by Silicon Valley investors Grace and Steve Voorhis, had been focused on a multiyear research project on how to achieve more equitable educational outcomes. But given the new travel restrictions, the project was shelved. Instead, the foundation found ways to make individual grants to the neediest families of children enrolled at KIPP Public Schools Northern California, part of a national network of charter schools. From late March to mid June, the foundation gave 239,000 in direct grants to 330 families. "We got it up quickly," Ms. Voorhis said. "I don't think I'd do this every year, because I think the audit process is going to be a nightmare with 330 individual families, some without a mailing address. But it's been a very rewarding process." That's where these new databases hope to step in. Both the Clare Rose and Voorhis Foundations were giving to individuals connected to organizations that they were already supporting. They credited the Foundation Source with having legal documents ready so they could give to individuals, which the Internal Revenue Service allows under an extreme situation with a limit of 5,000 a person. The databases aim to apply a similar principle to finding lesser known nonprofit groups that are able to spread the money into their communities. They also seek to highlight well established ones, like the Children's Defense Fund, that can put large donations to quick use. "I've seen it my whole life that Black nonprofits are cash starved," said Christina Lewis, a philanthropist who founded Give Blck with Stephanie Ellis Smith, a philanthropic adviser. "You can help Black people by doing more than donating to social justice organizations. You can give to food organizations. You can give to mental health, to technology and careers, to arts and culture institutions. But there was no easy way to find these organizations." Ms. Lewis said the Give Blck database focused on Black founded organizations because "I know that the founder identifies the problem that needs to be solved." Khary Lazarre White, executive director and co founder of the Brotherhood/Sister Sol, a youth development and social justice organization, said unsolicited grants to his organization rose when Give Blck's research on the group was featured by Charity Navigator, which assesses nonprofits. "We saw an uptick from a few in a month to dozens in a month, with lots of small donations from around the country," Mr. Lazarre White said. The group has an annual budget of about 7 million. He said he hoped that the database would help maintain public awareness around social justice and help push Black founded charities into public view. "There are more people aware and participating and looking for racial justice in the country," he said. "But the energy that was there in the spring has already dissipated." Vanguard's mapping project allows donors to use three major criteria to assess the coronavirus's impact: an area's vulnerability, its incidence rate and the amount of donations to local nonprofit organizations. The tool starts with geography, but allows donors to filter for specific areas within a region to find places lacking in medical resources or with higher concentrations of people with underlying conditions. "Part of what we're trying to correct for is the communities that are being overlooked with charitable donations," said Magda Guillen Swanson, research project strategist at Vanguard Charitable who helped create the tool. The map includes some 300,000 nonprofit groups, including small local ones, that are focused on virus relief. "Those communities that are already vulnerable if they get hit hard, then they really get hit hard," said Jane Greenfield, president of Vanguard Charitable. "You can search within the region. But you can also say, if I'm in the state of California and I want to help those that are hardest hit, you can search for those, and then you're looking at charities that perhaps you haven't seen before." And that's possibly a way to translate passion into progress.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Your Money
|
Wendy Rhoades stares at the man opposite her. And stares. And stares. And stares some more. The man opposite her is the artist Nic Tanner, the recent recipient of a gigantic commission from Bobby Axelrod. This Renaissance Italy style largess has him dealing with perhaps his first bout of artist's block. Wendy has some wise words for him, but the staring comes first. Why? Because he needs fight his own way out of his artist's block; stonewalling his demurrals and excuses is how she's teaching him this. According to Wendy, any obstacles between him and success as Bobby's artist in residence are self imposed. She tasks him with envisioning a better future, then getting off his duffer and doing whatever it takes to get himself there. That Wendy's act of artist whispering is successful nearly goes without saying. She's a performance coach, a great one in fact, and figuring out how to unlock people's potential is what she does. So is striking up a nearly instant interpersonal chemistry with her clients; if you look at it from the right angle, it's almost as if she were coming on to Tanner rather than coaching him. Something similar happens later when she and Bobby have dinner in their shared apartment, as a comfortable silence between friends starts feeling like ... something more. But you can also see her skill at work with Taylor Mason the person who, I'll remind you, nearly ended Wendy's career for using her case notes to brutally sabotage Taylor's personal and professional life. But you can't argue with success, and that's exactly what Wendy helps Taylor achieve when they sit down for a second meeting with an oil executive they're attempting to persuade to "greenwash" their company. From mortal enemies to a potentially permanent partnership in a matter of minutes? That's the power of Wendy Rhoades. What is Bobby's power? I wonder if, more than anything else, it's knowing when to get the hell out of Dodge. In a grim way, that's how his rise to the top began: He narrowly escaped death on 9/11 and made a fortune that very day. And he's been known to high tail it from investments that have gone belly up, as he did when the upstate New York town of Sandicot proved to be less than the lucrative business opportunity he had anticipated. So when he puts himself in contention for investing in an "opportunity zone" in an economically depressed area of Yonkers, his hometown, it's easy for both the town worthies and his chief rival, Mike Prince, to paint him as a serial lam artist, one who will abandon Yonkers the moment it no longer proves useful to him. It takes all of his interpersonal skill heavily influenced by his years under Wendy's tutelage, might I add to convince the decision makers otherwise, by drawing on his indisputable personal history in the area. But even though he beats both Prince and Charles Rhoades Sr. who had been sicced on the project by his son, Chuck, as a way to rattle him and wins the day, that habit of leaving dies hard. All it takes is some thinly veiled mockery by Prince, who tells Axe he "stinks" of Yonkers, to cause Bobby to skip out on the elaborate dinner he had planned with the family currently living in the house where he grew up. He slings mild expletives at Yonkers as he leaves, as if attempting to verbally scrub off that stink of growing up poor, of having something to prove, of needing to feel valued. For Bobby, it's better to just beat it. And what about Chuck, the third corner of this bizarre triangle? In this episode, at least, he appears only partially committed to his own power: legally boogie woogieing until his enemy gets tripped up. His plan to use his father to scoop the Yonkers opportunity zone out from under Axe flops thanks to his father's inveterate racism, while a potential partnership with Prince comes up short thanks to Prince's sense of morality. (Yeah, sure, that'll last.) Chuck seems much more alive in the hallowed halls of his alma mater, Yale. He's not just teaching there he's being taught. His election day speech, in which he went public about being a sexual masochist, is on the syllabus of Catherine Brant (Julianna Margulies), a best selling writer and sociology professor who seemingly specializes in sexuality. (A quick comparison of Brant and Wendy reveals her as Chuck's type almost immediately.) While he at first doesn't want to speak to her class about this infamous speech, he eventually gives in. Was his public confession an act of submission, or an attempt to play the dominant by strategically surrendering? Chuck frames the speech as an emotional release rather than a "carnal" one, but this is the big question about his character, isn't it? Are his personal and professional spheres distinct, or do they overlap like a Venn diagram master sometimes, servant others, driven always by the imbalance of power and the question of who wields it? This is a jam packed episode of "Billions," for what it's worth. (As if there were any other kind?) In addition to the adventures of Wendy and Taylor and Bobby and Chuck, we see Wags try and fail to reconnect with his baby faced Christian son, George, and decide that fathering a whole new child is easier. We see Kate Sacker warn her father, Franklin (Harry Lennix), against partnering with Axe to bring diversity to his Yonkers scheme, then divulge to Chuck that the pair plan to go into the banking business together. We see Mafee settle back into the easy camaraderie of Axe Cap, to the point where Taylor allows him to change his seat in the office rather than keep him sequestered with the Mase Cap quants. But as is custom on "Billions," the plot beats pertaining to our main characters do much more than advance story lines. They reveal who these people are just as surely as a stare down from Wendy Rhoades does. None The episode ends with another great heavy metal music cue: "Home Sweet Home," by Motley Crue. To be honest, I would have thought Bobby's taste in metal was a bit more refined than these hair metal exemplars, but maybe that's just me. None Speaking of "maybe that's just me," I'm not sure how I feel about the show's portrayal of Chuck and Catherine's students. They're a touchy feely bunch whose aversion to discipline and espousal of concepts like "privilege" seem torn from your average right wing "what's wrong on campus these days" essay. Personally, I expect heavy discipline from the masochist professor. The joke practically writes itself. None On the other hand, the show subtly but unmistakably highlights its gender nonbinary character Taylor's discomfort at being misgendered as a woman by that oil exec. "Billions" may score a few points at the expense of privilege discourse and safe spaces, but it also recognizes how much all of that simply comes down to the respect we're willing to afford people who aren't like us.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Television
|
A man child with a good deal of self pity and almost zero empathy, Moose is particularly fixated on the action movie star Hunter Dunbar (Devon Sawa). After failing to get his movie collection signed at a store appearance, Moose starts encroaching on Hunter's personal space in ever more aggressive ways. This territory was more profitably explored by Martin Scorsese's "The King of Comedy." For that matter, it was more profitably explored in the miles more trashy Tony Scott movie "The Fan." Durst has a good eye for L.A.'s seamy underbelly. But he's also annoyingly disingenuous, as when he signals Dunbar's regular guy quality by having him play a Bizkit tune for his kid while out for a drive. As it lumbers to its climax, the movie delineates the border that separates the merely stale from the genuinely rancid. For all the heavy lifting "The Fanatic" does, it winds up on the weaker side of the divide.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Movies
|
Directed by Anthony Jerjen from a script by Andrew Crabtree, "Viper" is a terse, controlled thriller about how the family ties that bind love, loyalty, survival are tested by criminality and amorality, which here aren't always analogous. Hartnett's Kip and his sister, Josephine (the superb Margarita Levieva), are inheritors of their dad's opioid dealing franchise in their unnamed, gray tinted, hardscrabble Ohio town. Josie's arrogance and little brother Boots's eagerness to enter the family business spell more trouble for Kip, who's trying to arrange a quieter life for himself and his pregnant girlfriend. As the movie heads for its quietly ghastly denouement, its plot mechanism gets a little wobbly, which is ultimately forgivable. It's a genuinely tough picture, but it also has a real undercurrent of compassion. While it doesn't pack quite the wallop of the cult classic 1992 film "One False Move," its makers show sufficient talent to suggest they might be able to concoct something of that caliber in the near future.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Movies
|
When I exited my Megabus a few weeks ago in Milwaukee, Wis., saying goodbye to my fellow passengers and ending what had been an extremely eventful, harrowing trip, I had a sinking feeling that the events of the day would quickly be glossed over and forgotten. The bus I was on had erupted into a ball of fire on the Interstate, endangering our lives and destroying the bus and most of my fellow passengers' baggage (I did not lose any property). Thankfully, we all managed to get away unharmed. But while my tweetstorm garnered attention, I knew that because there were no injuries, Megabus would very likely not be taken to task for the incident, beyond some bad P.R. Let me be clear: We were all grateful and fortunate to have escaped without injury. There have been several high profile Megabus accidents in the last decade, including a Philadelphia to Toronto coach that slammed into a railroad bridge in 2010; four passengers were killed and one seriously injured. What many passengers on my Megabus have encountered, however, is a lack of recourse to collect compensation on thousands of dollars in lost property. "I called a lawyer in Chicago and they said, 'We're not touching it,' " Michelle Grant said. "They basically hung up the phone in my face." Ms. Grant, who estimates the value of her destroyed property at about 1,500, said she was offered "four or five hundred dollars" by Megabus's liability administrator, Sedgwick CMS. (The adjuster I spoke to would not comment for this article.) Ms. Grant, who works for a textbook distributor, says she's missed days of work and lost sleep because of emotional distress. More than that, though, she feels betrayed by the claims process. "The person at Sedgwick told me that even with receipts, I'm not going to get the full amount," Ms. Grant added. "It's a no win situation." Jared Jaskot, a partner at Burke Jaskot, a law firm in Baltimore that specializes in civil litigation and which is not involved in this case, acknowledged the professional quandary of taking cases dealing with a couple of thousand dollars in damages. "We can't take them because the legal fees would outstrip the value of the case," Mr. Jaskot said. He said that the effort to prepare even a simple case against a large company like Megabus could easily rack up 10,000 in fees. "I can sometimes refer people to Legal Aid," he added, "but they're completely overworked." The result, then, is that passengers who have lost possessions, especially those in dire financial circumstances, can feel compelled to take whatever they are offered. Darnell McKinney, who was moving from St. Louis and who said he lost most of his belongings, worth thousands, in the fire said he would most likely accept the 500 offered to him by Sedgwick CMS and Megabus. When I spoke to Mr. McKinney, he was using a cellphone that belonged to his mother, who had just picked him up from his new job at a sausage processing plant. "I don't have nothing," Mr. McKinney said. "I have to take the first thing available to get me back on my feet." Deandre Bea wasn't as inclined to accept Sedgwick's offer. He estimates he lost 3,000 worth of possessions between two suitcases. "I had a PlayStation 4 in one bag; that's 450 right there," Mr. Bea said. Sedgwick CMS emailed Mr. Bea a claim form offering him 500; if he signed, he would forgo the right to further legal action and acknowledge the settlement as "the compromise of a doubtful and disputed claim." Mr. Bea had not yet decided whether he would accept. When passengers ride Megabus, they agree to the company's terms and conditions, which state that Megabus "assumes no liability for the loss of or damage of baggage in excess of two hundred and fifty ( 250) dollars." That is the "industry standard," Sean Hughes, the director of corporate affairs for Megabus.com, wrote in an email. I asked Mr. Hughes why four fellow passengers I spoke to said that Megabus offered them between 400 and 500 a seeming indication that the "industry standard" was not ironclad but rather was adjustable. "The 250 is an accepted norm for the industry which Megabus.com adheres to," Mr. Hughes responded. "However, in exceptional circumstances such as this incident, Megabus.com will be flexible." But liability terms such as those of Megabus "are the opposite of ironclad; they're tin," said Michael K. Demetrio, a partner at Corboy Demetrio, a Chicago law firm that specializes in personal injury law and which obtained a 5.1 million settlement against Megabus in 2014. The 250 figure "is their attempt to limit liability," he said. "I've never seen an instance where that type of provision is enforceable." Illinois (the departure point of my Megabus trip) provides a potential remedy for property damage up to 10,000 in small claims court, which does not require the hiring of an attorney. I asked Mr. Demetrio what would happen if I dragged Megabus into small claims to collect a few thousand dollars in property damage, bringing receipts and affidavits. What would their defense be? "Depreciation," he replied. A pair of jeans may have cost you 85, Mr. Demetrio said, but Megabus will claim it's not their responsibility to replace the jeans, only to provide what they deem fair value. "They might say that the jeans are now only worth 15. That's when fighting starts." That's exactly what happened with Alice Taylor, who lost her laptop in the fire. "They told me, 'It depreciates.' They should be responsible! I lost my laptop on there and they should buy me a new one," she said. Ms. Taylor, like others, was offered 500. She said she's been unable to sleep since the incident, and has been failing out of school. Her attempts to find a lawyer have been unsuccessful. "If there are no personal injuries, they just say no." Incidents like this concern Jacqueline S. Gillan, the president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a lobbying group that promotes highway safety measures. The federal Department of Transportation, Ms. Gillan said, has "delayed and ignored issuing stronger safety measures and regulations to address fires and improving occupant protection in crashes." A recent New York Times Op Ed article noted that the D.O.T. required that new buses have seatbelts only in 2013. Ms. Gillan considers it embarrassing that such a fundamental safety precaution was instituted so recently. The National Transportation Safety Board, another agency, "has recommended seatbelts since the 1960s," she said. She added that the regulation applied only to newly manufactured buses older buses would not be required to go back and retrofit. Gordon Trowbridge, communications director of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is part of the D.O.T., responded by email: "D.O.T. considered a number of factors in issuing the requirement in 2013 for seatbelts on motor coaches, including consideration of whether to require owners to retrofit used buses with seatbelts." He added: "From a technical standpoint, a retrofitting requirement would have required structural improvements to many older buses, which would have been difficult and in some cases impossible." Ms. Gillan also expressed concerns regarding initial inspections for new commercial carriers. Up until 2012, the federal government had 18 months to inspect new commercial motor carriers. A law passed that year shortened that time frame to 120 days. Mr. Hughes of Megabus.com wrote that his company "maintains the highest safety compliance rating (Satisfactory) from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration." In addition, he said, "Megabus.com requires more hours off between shifts than is required by the federal and state regulators, has had seat belts on our bus since 2007, and has had GPS tracking on all of our buses since 2006." The company's rules, he wrote, "far exceed both federal and state requirements." According to the D.O.T., in the last 24 months, Megabus USA LLC, the branch of Megabus that serves the Midwest United States, including Illinois, has had 74 inspections resulting in 35 violations for its fleet of 42 vehicles. In that time, there were 14 crashes, seven of which resulted in injuries. (That's for "reportable" crashes that result in injury or a physical tow; it's not specified whether that counts incidents like bus fires.) Megabus USA LLC has been assessed no penalties from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, a D.O.T. agency that oversees truck and bus safety, over the last six years. Inspection records for my Megabus were not available in time for publication. Still, my fellow riders and I felt compelled to question the safety procedures of our bus and its driver. Multiple passengers, including Ms. Grant, noticed a burning smell from the bus immediately after departure. Roughly an hour into the trip, after having made two unscheduled stops on the side of Interstate 94, the driver announced over the intercom that we were turning around to switch buses. We continued for several miles, eventually heading back toward Chicago on Highway 41. Soon after, a tire blew, we disembarked and, within minutes, fire consumed the bus. But why did we keep driving for several miles after the driver announced we had to switch buses? On the way, we passed businesses and parking lots presumably safe places to pull over and wait for a replacement bus. When we reached our destination, I asked the driver, who would not tell me his name, why we kept driving. His response was, "We didn't." Confused, I asked him to clarify and he responded, "I was looking for a safe place to pull over." When I asked him again why we kept driving, he shrugged and walked away. According to Mr. Hughes of Megabus: "The driver did the correct action by contacting dispatch and finding a safe place for the passengers to unload. Thankfully no one was injured in this incident, which is a testament to our safety procedures and driver training." Lastly, I asked Mr. Hughes about obtaining a refund for the price of the ticket. None of the passengers I had spoken to said they were issued or offered one. Mr. Hughes responded that refunds are usually issued based only on how long a bus is delayed. In incidents where a bus is delayed more than four hours, full refunds are automatically issued. In my case, since our replacement bus arrived in Milwaukee a hair under three hours late, usually that's not grounds for a refund only a voucher worth 50 percent of the ticket price (my ticket cost 11, plus booking fee). However, Mr. Hughes said, "In this specific incident, since it was a major incident, Customer Service was instructed to give the passengers a full refund if contacted by the passengers." I decided to try that out, and called Megabus customer service to ask for my money back. After taking my reservation number and placing me on a brief hold, the agent informed me that I was ineligible to receive a refund. I asked again, just to confirm, that they would not issue me a refund. No, he said I would be issued a voucher, worth 5.50. I told them I wouldn't be needing one.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Travel
|
News publishers have long had a fraught relationship with Facebook. But tensions have become more public in recent weeks, with news organizations openly criticizing the tech giant for new policies that they say are harmful to journalism. The most recent salvo came on Thursday, when Mark Thompson, the chief executive of The New York Times Company, accused Facebook of unintentionally "supporting the enemies of quality journalism" by using algorithms that can mischaracterize news as partisan political content. Mr. Thompson was speaking at a panel discussion in New York, which also included Campbell Brown, Facebook's head of global news partnerships. Ms. Brown defended a policy Facebook recently introduced in response to criticism over how its ad network was able to be manipulated during elections. Ms. Brown cited the importance of safeguarding elections and said the problems with political ads were "something we are deeply concerned about. We hear you." In criticizing Facebook, Mr. Thompson showed two advertisements that The Times had recently purchased on the platform. Both had been flagged as political. One ad promoted a news article about President Trump's summit with Kim Jong un, the North Korean leader. By calling it political content, Mr. Thompson said, Facebook was blurring the line between reporting on politics and politics itself. The other ad was a promotion for The Times's NYT Cooking site, with manicured image of a pistachio rose water cake. There was no indication why that had been labeled political content by the algorithm. Tensions between Facebook and publishers have been building since at least January, when the social network changed its News Feed algorithm in a way that demoted content from publishers in favor of posts from a user's friends. Executives like Robert Thomson, the News Corp. chief and lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch, and Jonah Peretti of BuzzFeed have consistently called for increased payments from Facebook which, along with Google, has been gobbling up more of the online advertising revenue that publishers need to survive. But the latest fight has more to do with the treatment of content than the economics of the media industry. Last month, with public and political pressure growing over Facebook's role in the 2016 election, the company unveiled a policy that created a publicly searchable archive for ads that its algorithms deemed to be political. In addition, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, said the company would start ranking publishers by their perceived "trustworthiness." "I don't want trust to be a popularity contest decided by users of Facebook," Lydia Polgreen, the editor in chief of HuffPost, said at the panel discussion, which was held at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Ford and Rivian no longer plan to work jointly on electric vehicles. Elizabeth Holmes took the stand in her trial. Follow along with our reporters. Ken Griffin, head of Citadel, bid highest for a copy of the Constitution. The panel, moderated by Emily Bell, the director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia, also included Erica Anderson of Google News Lab and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, the director of research at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, who presented the institute's annual Digital News Report. Publishers have been vocal in their protests of being included in the same archive as political ads. This month, organizations representing more than 20,000 publishers in the United States wrote to Facebook to object to the policy, and some outlets, like New York Media and The Financial Times, have vowed to suspend their paid promotions on Facebook if the policy is not changed. Facebook has agreed to create a distinction between publishers' content and political ads, but it has not yet built a separate archive. Moves like those have only inflamed tensions with publishers, said Jason Kint, the chief executive of Digital Content Next, a trade group that represents entertainment and news organizations, including The Times, and who signed the publishers' letter last month. "Facebook communicated poorly," Mr. Kint said. "They have not built trust with publishers." Although Facebook remains a vital outlet for publishers, its power has diminished. According to data from Chartbeat, an online analytics company, publishers' traffic from Facebook has declined about 15 percent in the last year. At the same time, traffic from Google is up 20 percent since last August. During the discussion on Thursday, Mr. Thompson sparred with Ms. Brown, who was an NBC News correspondent and a CNN anchor before joining Facebook.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Media
|
In Hempstead, a Long Island town where the typical property tax bill tops 10,000, residents have lined up all week to prepay those taxes for next year. They have been trying to save thousands of dollars before the new federal tax bill, which goes into effect on New Year's Day, sharply limits deductions for state and local taxes. But late on Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service issued new guidance that those people may not be able to save the money after all, because a loophole that they were hoping to exploit might be narrower than thought. So when Donald X. Clavin Jr., Hempstead's receiver of taxes, showed up to work Thursday morning, the lines were still there but residents had fresh questions. Mr. Clavin had few answers. "Everybody on line, they're going, 'Don, are we going to be able to do this?' " Mr. Clavin said. "And I can't give them a yes or a no." The new tax bill, and its 10,000 cap on all local and state tax deductions, has generated a variety of strong emotions including anxiety and frustration in places like Hempstead. By Thursday, however, that stew of emotions had been replaced by utter confusion, as well as rage, including among people who had shelled out money only to discover that they might not get any benefit. This week's tax prepayment roller coaster could be just the beginning. Republicans pushed through their tax overhaul at blistering speed, giving lawyers and accountants only about a week to study the bill before it goes into effect. But already, those people studying the law have uncovered internal conflicts and unintended consequences, as well as broad areas of uncertainty the I.R.S., the Treasury Department and, ultimately, the court system will be left to resolve. "It's fun if you're a tax lawyer," said David Herzig, a professor of tax law at Valparaiso University. "I'm not sure it's fun if you're a person going through it." The confusion this week stems from the provision in the new tax bill that caps the previously unlimited deduction for state and local taxes, and the I.R.S. guidance about the ability of people to prepay property taxes this year. In Hempstead, and in other high tax, high cost of living communities across the country, tax bills routinely run far above the new 10,000 threshold once state income and local property taxes are taken into account. In Nassau County, which includes Hempstead, the average state and local tax deduction in the county, including property taxes, topped 20,000 in 2015, among the highest in the country, according to data from the I.R.S. The new cap does not take effect until January, however. The tax bill explicitly prevented people from prepaying state income taxes, but it did not address prepayment of property taxes. That gave homeowners a brief window to pay their 2018 property taxes in 2017, and to take the full deduction when they file their federal returns this spring. Officials in Chicago, Washington, Fairfax, Va., and other communities reported huge surges of residents prepaying taxes, often showing up in person, checks in hand. Democratic politicians, who have opposed the bill, egged them on, arguing that the bill targeted states that tend to vote for Democrats. Even before President Trump signed the bill into law last week, local officials in Washington announced they would accept prepayments in what the city's mayor, Muriel Bowser, called a bid to "protect Washingtonians from the negative impacts of this devastating legislation." Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York last week signed an executive order opening the door for prepayment, a move he freely described as a bid to circumvent the new law. Local officials in Maryland, Virginia and other states made similar moves. 15 minimum wage for federal contractors will take effect Jan. 30. Jeff Bezos gives 100 million to the Obama Foundation. Even Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey and an early supporter of Mr. Trump's, on Wednesday signed an executive order instructing local officials to accept prepayments. The I.R.S. memo, however, threw many of those efforts into question. The memo said that property taxes paid this year would be subject to the old 2017 rules but only if the taxes are actually assessed in 2017. That means that payments based on estimated assessments, or for years further in the future, probably would not qualify for the deduction. Final answers might not be available anytime soon. The I.R.S. guidance left plenty of room for interpretation and was, in any case, nonbinding. But the memo had an immediate impact. In Prince George's County, Md., the County Council had been planning to hold an emergency session on Thursday to discuss letting residents prepay their taxes, a step already taken by neighboring Montgomery County. But within hours of the memo's release, the council canceled the meeting. Dannielle M. Glaros, chairwoman of the Prince George's County Council, said the I.R.S. guidance left her little choice. T he decision to cancel the meeting resolved the immediate uncertainty, but it did little to ease residents' larger confusion about the effects of the bill. "It's this sense of the unknown," Ms. Glaros said. "That is what's creating a lot of this anxiety that we're seeing." Anxiety and also anger. Steve Halliwell, who lives with his wife, Anne, in Irvington, a village in Westchester County, N.Y., began asking town officials several weeks ago about paying next year's property taxes this year. Mr. Cuomo's executive order last week was meant to make that possible. But the order came too late for the county's residents: Officials there said this week that they would not be able to issue tax assessments by the end of the year. "There are a lot of angry people here because they feel powerless and they are not used to feeling powerless," Mr. Halliwell said. "This shows the venal side of politics." Other communities happily accepted the money but offered no guarantees that prepaying would work out for taxpayers. In Clarkstown, in Rockland County, N.Y., residents began lining up at the tax office before 9 a.m. on Thursday. The line snaked down the hall as hundreds of residents waited to get their property tax bill and then pay it. Outside, the parking lot was so crowded that police officers directed traffic. "We brought in extra staff and extended the hours," said George Hoehmann, the town's supervisor. "We have gotten thousands of calls. Normally, it would be quiet this time of year, but there is a lot of anxiety because people don't know what the impact of the tax bill will be." In the last two days, more than 3,500 people came in to prepay their 2018 property taxes, 2,000 of them on Thursday. "I've seen nothing like this ever," said Mr. Hoehmann, who has been town supervisor for three years and was a councilman for seven years before. Mr. Hoehmann said he believed the town's residents would get the tax break under the I.R.S. ruling. The town had already assessed the 2018 property tax bill, allowing residents to prepay their town, county and special district taxes in 2017, he said. But he also made no promises. "Ultimately that's between the individual taxpayer and the I.R.S.," he said. "We advised people to speak to their accountant. What we wanted to do was give them the opportunity." Some taxpayers took the uncertainty in stride. Chacko Kurian, who lives in Rockland County, was in line Thursday morning to pay some of the 30,000 in property taxes he owed on his house, which he described as a "mansion" with a fish pond and a waterfall. Mr. Kurian, a 70 year old retired engineer for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said he did not know whether prepaying his taxes would work out. But he figured it was worth the risk. "My accountant said prepay and see what happens," Mr. Kurian said. "You can't fight the system. It is what it is."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Economy
|
You know a play has become a classic when directors start messing with it. Now, 20 years after opening on Broadway, Yasmina Reza's "Art" is back for a run, Oct. 4 6, at the experimental Crossing the Line Festival in New York, and it's ready for its deconstructed close up. Created in Paris in 1994, this lacerating comedy dissects the bonds among three friends when one mocks another for buying an expensive all white contemporary painting, and the third is stuck in the uncomfortable middle. "Art" the word itself is self consciously in quotation marks in the title, though it is rarely rendered that way won prestigious prizes in Paris and London, as well as the best play Tony Award on Broadway, and has enjoyed the kind of global success rare for a modern script. Let alone a French one. Let alone one by a woman. It has been produced in 45 countries and translated into some 30 languages. And it tends to attract actors of stature, who enjoy sinking their teeth into the meaty dialogue. The original 1996 London production starred Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay, and ran for six years with numerous replacement casts. In France, the play has drawn Jean Louis Trintignant and Charles Berling, while the original Broadway ensemble consisted of Alan Alda, Victor Garber and Alfred Molina. "What's so interesting is that, like certain plays by Pinter, perhaps, the play adapts itself to its actors, so it doesn't seem to matter if you cast it with men in their 60s or their 30s," said Christopher Hampton, who translated it, by telephone. "I've seen lots of productions, some great, some good, some not so good, but somehow the play always works." (It does not have to be men, either: Earlier this year, an all women production briefly played in Pakistan.) The show received largely positive reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, and Ms. Reza earned a second Tony in 2009 for "God of Carnage" another tight chamber play in which upper middle class, seemingly well behaved folks end up at each other's throats. The high octane take on "Art" about to hit New York City is a departure. A joint effort by two experimental European collectives, Belgium's TG Stan and the Netherlands' Dood Paard, this "Art" doesn't have marquee stars and will be performed in French with supertitles. But it does have surprises in store which is the least you could expect from companies whose monikers stand for Stop Thinking About Names and Dead Horse, respectively. "Our version is a bit of a chaotic mess," said Frank Vercruyssen of TG Stan, who plays Marc, the character questioning his friend's shopping spree. "We shout a lot, we're very crude." Among other wrinkles, the companies chip at the fourth wall by having cast members occasionally use their own names, introducing doubt as to who is arguing, and about what. "The distinction between the characters and ourselves is blurred a bit, and you can't hide behind the story, behind the perfectly written play," explained Kuno Bakker of Dood Paard, who takes on the painting purchasing Serge. "As a spectator you don't know what's real and what's not anymore." The notoriously exacting Ms. Reza authorized the changes but only for this specific production after checking out an earlier version in Dutch. (The playwright, who is preparing to appear in a revival of her own "On Arthur Schopenhauer's Luge" in France, declined to be interviewed.) One reason the play can withstand this treatment is because it has changed over the years because the world we live in has changed. "The early previews were very volatile," Mr. Warchus, 51, said by telephone. "There was a group of people that had wanted to laugh at a white painting for a long time and felt they couldn't, and there was a group that wanted to take every opportunity to defend art and artists' right to do work like that. Once someone stood up and shouted at the audience, 'What are you people laughing at? Modern art is not a farcical matter!' Someone shouted 'Wanker!' back. All hell broke, and we had to suspend the play 40 minutes before it all calmed down." Reviews helped; not only were they generally positive, but they made clear to audiences that the play was meant to be a comedy "a hate comedy," according to the director. But as Mr. Alda pointed out, the show's concerns have always been elsewhere. "A lot of people think it's just a satire about one person's reaction to a white painting, when it's really about what happens when that's introduced into this three way friendship, how much lack of support a friendship can tolerate," he said. "If it wasn't the white painting, it could have been a new girlfriend or a book it could have been anything." In our current landscape, however, relationships seem to get tested more fiercely than before. "I think globally people argue differently, we're more combative now, probably," Mr. Warchus said. " The play is about tolerance and intolerance between two tribes. But not only on the subject of art and not only those two tribes: It's about general tolerance of what we allow in our relationships, with our friends, in our marriages, with our children and parents. Does our love extend to the fact that we tolerate somebody revolting against our political or religious beliefs?" This newfound prickliness could have altered the 2017 London production's impact. "It may have been the performances, but it seemed a harsher, more sort of cutting piece than the first time out," said Mr. Hampton. "The emotions were quite violent, I thought." And so "Art" continues to mutate, inviting new projections and interpretations, as if, as Mr. Alda said, the show itself was a white painting. "I was sort of surprised and relieved at how much I enjoyed revisiting the play and how well it still works," said Mr. Warchus, who added that he might bring the London revival to New York at some point. "Unless of course the Belgian and Dutch version turns out to be a nine year run."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Theater
|
While competitors in the Mainstream class and the Tandem division of the Alternative class of the X Prize were eventually reduced to just one team each, the fight in the Side by Side division of the Alternative class was fierce. The winner eventually had to be determined in a tie breaker held at the Michigan International Speedway on July 27. The Li Ion Motors Wave II won the 2.5 million prize with a 0.179 second victory. Here were the division's finalists: Li Ion Motors Wave II: Call it Nascar's sucker punch. This team from Mooresville, N.C., the area where many Nascar teams are based, wrapped a radical but elegant composite body around a frame of welded steel tubing and a battery electric power plant to win its division. RaceAbout Association RaceAbout: The team, formed through a consortium from Finnish industry, research institutes and technological universities, performed impressively, despite the vehicle's weight of 3,700 pounds. (It had four electric motors.). It finished second.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Automobiles
|
Albert Finney, the distinguished British thespian and five time Oscar nominee, died Thursday at 82. Although he retired from the screen several years ago (his final film appearance was in the 2012 James Bond film "Skyfall"), he left behind a rich variety of astonishing roles from a career that spanned nearly six decades: the working class "angry young men" of British films like "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning"; the flawed middle age men of "Under the Volcano" and "The Browning Version"; and his unforgettable roles in big budget movie musicals like "Scrooge" and "Annie." Luckily, many of his most acclaimed performances are streaming right now. Here's where to find some of his very best. How to watch: Rent it on Amazon and iTunes. Finney received his first best actor Oscar nomination for this best picture winner. And although it was made with his fellow "angry young men" Tony Richardson (the director) and John Osborne (the screenwriter), "Tom Jones" was a noticeable diversion from much of all their earlier, socially conscious work. Finney stars as the title character, an 18th century ne'er do well with a lust for life (among other things). Watching him throw off the shackles of the Serious Actor this early in his career and engage in some good old fashioned winking and mugging is a blast. This is a cheerfully ribald picture, with hearty doses of sex and slapstick: The Times's Bosley Crowther called it "a roaring entertainment that develops its own energy as much from its cinematic gusto as from the racy material it presents." How to watch: Stream it on Amazon; rent it on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube. Finney's next Oscar nomination came over a decade later and for a markedly different role, in which he led the peerless ensemble cast of this all star adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel, directed by Sidney Lumet. Donning a French accent and an appropriately pointed mustache, Finney takes on the persona of Christie's beloved super sleuth Hercule Poirot, which he seems to see as an acting dare: Can one convey the ornate theatricality inherent the role without overplaying to the camera? Unsurprisingly, he's up to the challenge, finding humor in the character's brilliance, anchoring him in something resembling reality, and (perhaps most important) convincingly dominating a room of stage legends and Oscar winners. How to watch: Rent it on iTunes, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube. Finney is by turns, fragile, monstrous, vulnerable and impossible in the complicated role of a novelist who chooses to leave his wife (Diane Keaton) and four daughters for his mistress. But this is no simple breakup: His wife's subsequent relationship revives jealousy and passion he thought were long gone, and preserving his bonds with his children proves more difficult than he imagined. The film, and Finney's work in it, brilliantly capture the trickiness of masculinity in its era, in which forward thinking sensitivity and cave man machismo seemed in constant conflict. Finney's scenes with Keaton are emotional minefields, but the most heartbreaking moment in the picture finds Finney trying, and failing, to give a birthday gift to his oldest (and angriest) offspring. The Times critic Vincent Canby wrote that Finney "gives the kind of anguished, biting, full length performance one associates with his best work." How to watch: Rent it on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube. Finney and Tom Courtenay both picked up Oscar nominations for this adaptation of the stage play by Ronald Harwood: a two hander that stars Finney as the veteran stage actor and manager of a Shakespearean company and Courtenay as a longtime backstage dresser who also serves as the actor's confidante, nursemaid and punching bag. Finney (47 at the time, playing a man much older and more weathered) spent enough time in these provincial English theaters to know his character through and through, and the film feels like a story told from the inside out, full of lived in moments and offhand accuracy. It's an actor's showcase, in which Finney shows us both the virtuosity of the workaday thespian and the demons that drive him. How to watch: Stream it on Starz; rent it on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube. Finney's juiciest role of the 1990s came to him from the Coen Brothers, who placed the actor (and his considerable gravitas) at the center of this throwback gangster movie. As Leo O'Bannon, an Irish crime boss and political puppeteer, Finney conveys the character's long held power in every impatient look and gesture. But he also lets you glimpse, right behind his steely eyes, that he knows it is all slipping away. The Coens indulged Finney's playful side, not in the role of the tough gangster, but in a blink and you'll miss it cameo, disguised as an aging female maid who crosses herself when Gabriel Byrne bursts into a ladies' dressing room. How to watch: Stream it on Starz; rent it on iTunes, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube. Finney's fifth and final Academy Award nomination was for this drama from director Steven Soderbergh, based on the true story of Erin Brockovich, who led a successful class action suit against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company of California. As Brockovich, Julia Roberts won the Oscar for best actress, and understandably so: It's a showstopper of a performance, full of big acting moments and emotional high points. But Finney's quieter work is just as revelatory, capturing the head down doggedness of this lifelong and (until then) small time attorney who suddenly finds himself dealing with the both the case of a lifetime and a force of nature intent on seeing it through. Finney deftly captures the character's frustrations, tenacity and (particularly in his priceless closing scene) good humor. How to Watch: Stream it on Hulu and HBO; rent it on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube. Finney found one of his last great roles in Tim Burton's visually arresting adaptation of the Daniel Wallace novel, fitting comfortably into the baggy pants (and convincing Southern drawl) of Ed Bloom: lover, fighter and spinner of tall tales. The narrative is propelled by his son (Billy Crudup), who hopes to understand who his father really was on the eve of the old man's death. But the elder Bloom is a bit of a fabulist, and his baroque, convoluted history (starring Ewan McGregor as Finney's younger self) gives Finney plenty of charming speeches to chew on. And his onscreen death as well as his funeral, attended by the many colorful characters he brought to such vivid life feels especially poignant now.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Movies
|
This article has been updated to reflect news events. Since Donald Trump's surprising victory in 2016 seemed to defy statisticians' election models, there have been many questions about how much attention we should pay to electoral forecasting. The case for ignoring it became overwhelming in the past 24 hours. Why do we have models? Think about this. If we're worried about getting drenched on the way to work, we take a look at what meteorologists' computer models say about the weather. If the weather report tells us there's an 80 percent chance of rain, we bring an umbrella. With all the anxiety about Tuesday's vote, it's understandable that many of us looked to statisticians' election models to tell us what will happen. If they say your candidate has an 80 percent chance of winning, you feel reassured. With Joe Biden's eventual victory still possible, but far from certain, any reassurance we drew from election models seems to have been false. If anything, it's plausible that too much focus on models and their predictions, once again, affected the election itself why show up and wait in line if victory appears all but certain? Why do experts try to use models, rather than just considering polling averages? Well, presidents are not elected by a national vote total but by the electoral votes of each state, so national polls do not give us the information we need. As two of the last five elections showed in 2000 and 2016 it's possible to win the popular vote and lose the Electoral College. Models give us a way to process polls of various quality in 50 states to arrive at a forecast. There are two broad ways to model an event: using "fundamentals" mechanisms that can affect the event and probabilities measurements like polls. For elections, fundamentals would be historically informed lessons like, "a better economy favors incumbents." With polls, there is no theory about why they are the way they are. We just use the numbers they produce. Electoral forecast modelers run simulations of an election based on various inputs including state and national polls, polling on issues and information about the economy and the national situation. If they ran, say, 1,000 different simulations with various permutations of those inputs, and if Joe Biden got 270 electoral votes in 800 of them, the forecast would be that Mr. Biden has an 80 percent chance of winning the election. This is where weather and electoral forecasts start to differ. For weather, we have fundamentals advanced science on how atmospheric dynamics work and years of detailed, day by day, even hour by hour data from a vast number of observation stations. For elections, we simply do not have anything near that kind of knowledge or data. While we have some theories on what influences voters, we have no fine grained understanding of why people vote the way they do, and what polling data we have is relatively sparse. Consequently, most electoral forecasts that are updated daily like those from FiveThirtyEight or The Economist rely heavily on current polls and those of past elections, but also allow fundamentals to have some influence. Since many models use polls from the beginning of the modern primary era in 1972, there are a mere 12 examples of past presidential elections with dependable polling data. That means there are only 12 chances to test assumptions and outcomes, though it's unclear what in practice that would involve. A thornier problem is that unlike weather events, presidential elections are not genuine "repeat" events. Facebook didn't play a major role in elections until probably 2012. Twitter, without which Mr. Trump thinks he might not have won, wasn't even founded until 2006. How much does an election in 1972, conducted when a few broadcast channels dominated the public sphere, tell us about what might happen in 2020? Interpreting electoral forecasts correctly is yet another challenge. If a candidate wins an election with 53 percent of the vote, that would be a decisive victory. If a probability model gives a candidate a 53 percent chance of winning, that means that if we ran simulations of the election 100 times, that candidate would win 53 times and the opponent 47 times almost equal odds. In its final forecast in 2016, FiveThirtyEight gave Hillary Clinton a 71.4 percent chance of victory. (The digit after the decimal providing an aura of faux precision, as if we could distinguish 71.4 percent from 71.5 percent.) All that figure really said was that Mrs. Clinton had a roughly one in three chance of losing, something that did not get across to most people who saw a big number. Most sites gave an even bigger number, with The New York Times predicting Mrs. Clinton had an 85 percent chance of winning on the day of the vote. Since 2016, sites like FiveThirtyEight have gotten much better at presentation, focusing on odds and scenarios, and even explicitly urging people to remember that upset wins are possible. Still, the point of a forecast is to predict, and people may not be that likely to think "anything can happen" when they see what appear to be overwhelming odds in one direction. One key problem in 2016 was the assumptions pollsters made when modeling the electorate the people who would actually show up to vote. Pollsters were a little off in estimating the educational level of the electorate, especially in the Midwest. What's more, people who settled on a preference late were a bit more prone to vote for Mr. Trump, and his supporters were a bit more likely to turn out than the models assumed. Even small shifts like that matter greatly; if it's happening in one state, it's probably happening in many similar states. In 2020, it was even harder to rely on polls or previous elections: On top of all the existing problems with surveys in an age of cellphones, push polls and mistrust, we're in the middle of a pandemic. What would the unprecedented early voting numbers mean when polls don't necessarily stop polling those who already voted? How would the early forecasts that run for many months before the election, and so are even more uncertain, affect those who vote early? Would the elderly, at great risk from the pandemic, avoid voting? How would voter suppression play out? Would Republicans end up flocking to the polls on Election Day? These were big unknowns that added great uncertainty to models, especially given the winner takes all setup in the Electoral College, where winning a state by as little as one fourth of 1 percent can deliver all its electoral votes. There's an even more fundamental point to consider about election forecasts and how they differ from weather forecasting. If I read that there is a 20 percent chance of rain and do not take an umbrella, the odds of rain coming down don't change. Electoral modeling, by contrast, actively affects the way people behave. In 2016, for example, a letter from the F.B.I. director James Comey telling Congress he had reopened an investigation into Mrs. Clinton's emails shook up the dynamics of the race with just days left in the campaign. Mr. Comey later acknowledged that his assumption that Mrs. Clinton was going to win was a factor in his decision to send the letter. Similarly, did Facebook, battered by conservatives before the 2016 election, take a hands off approach to the proliferation of misinformation on its platform, thinking that Mrs. Clinton's odds were so favorable that such misinformation made little difference? Did the Obama administration hold off on making public all it knew about Russian meddling, thinking it was better to wait until after Mrs. Clinton's assumed win, as has been reported? Indeed, in one study, researchers found that being exposed to a forecasting prediction "increases certainty about an election's outcome, confuses many, and decreases turnout." Did many people think like Edward Snowden, who famously tweeted to millions of followers 18 days before Election Day, "There may never be a safer election in which to vote for a third option," appending a New York Times forecast claiming that Hillary Clinton had a 93 percent chance of victory to his tweet? Did more Clinton voters stay home, thinking their vote wasn't necessary? Did more people on the fence feel like casting what they thought would be a protest vote for Donald Trump? We'll never know. When probability models first came on the scene, I was hopeful that they would lessen the horse race journalism that sometimes exaggerated the uncertainty (because what's the thrill otherwise?) and the search for narrative turning points (Better than expected debate performance! It's an underdog comeback!). I had hoped that we would instead get more substantive, policy oriented coverage. Instead, modeling has been incorporated into the horse race coverage. And given all the uncertainty, misunderstanding and fragility of electoral forecasts, I'm not sure there is a meaningful difference between, say, a 20 percent and a 40 percent chance of winning. That's another way of saying these forecasts aren't that useful, and may even be harmful if people take them too seriously. Instead of refreshing the page to update predictions, people should have done the only thing that actually affects the outcome: vote, donate and organize. As we have found out, everything else is within the margin of error. 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
|
Procuring and exhibiting art in all forms has been synonymous with the hotel experience for several decades now, with both luxury and midlevel brands highlighting local artwork and museum quality pieces rather than predictable poster reprints. Guests like it: In a 2018 survey conducted by the nonprofit organization, Americans for the Arts, 72 percent of respondents said they enjoyed the arts in "non arts" venues including hotels. Art centric hotels are popping up in many cities, including the ART in Denver and the upcoming Hall Arts Hotel in Dallas, hoping to attract a new breed of clients who want to be surrounded by sculptures, video installations, paintings and mixed media. But of late, some properties have begun to push the boundaries of what it means to be a hotel with great art. Artists once depended only on galleries to showcase their work and be "discovered," but more hotels now actively seek and support new talent in that role. "We didn't want to commission art merely for the purposes of decoration," said Carson Glover, vice president of brand marketing at The Peninsula Hotels. The company created the "Art in Resonance" program, highlighting midcareer artists whose works were unveiled at the Hong Kong property in March. "Nurturing the artist is an aspect that is so often lost in the business," he added. For the first installment of "Art in Resonance," the American sculptor Janet Echelman created a netlike sculpture whose shape constantly changes with the wind. The Australian born artist Timothy Paul Myers hand wrapped everyday items like cups, saucers and chairs in red felt, creating a site specific sculpture called "Alizarin" that stood out in the neutral tones of the lobby. And Shanghai based MINAX architects created a modern version of the traditional Chinese teahouse using 999 pine and bamboo wooden pieces. "For over twenty years I found myself making these large environmental installations that I can't afford to build on my own," says Mr. Paul Myers. His work and that of the other artists will travel to other Peninsula locations over the next few years, much like a museum exhibit. Prices start from 650 at the Peninsula Hong Kong per night inclusive of taxes and fees, based on double occupancy. Two contemporary art collectors, Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, opened The 21c Museum Hotels in 2006 in Louisville, Ky., with a vision to save the downtown. The hotel has amassed more than 3,000 works, now spread over public areas, lounges and rooms, and exhibits are open to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In this aspect, this group of museum hotels opening its ninth location this year operates differently than a traditional gallery, which typically has more restricted exhibit hours. The brand also co curates exhibitions with museums like the North Carolina Museum of Art with the mind set that hotel art does not necessarily need to take the place of gallery art. After the film and video artist Christina Zeidler took over the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, Canada, the 37 room boutique hotel began holding rotating exhibits annually as well as live events. Artists also helped with the interior design of the rooms. "Artists are given free rein to think about the design of the furniture, window coverings, wallpaper or wall treatment," said the exhibitions director Lee Petrie, who explains that apart from the permanent room art, the hotel shies away from commissioning anything. They believe continuously changing exhibits are draws for repeat visits. Room rates at the 21c Louisville property start from 200. Rates at the Gladstone start from around 239 per night with a breakfast discount and free cocktail if you book directly on their site. Installing murals has become an increasingly popular way for hotels to spice up room design. In Philadelphia, the artist King Saladeen grew up as a "super inner city, super low income kid," and became the first artist in residence at the new Fitler Club, a "work/stay/play" destination. His gym mural is hard to miss; he used house paint, acrylics and spray paint to create "a burst of energy to stay motivated," he said. Rates at the Fitler Club start at 450 for a King size room; there is a monthly membership to use the club and workspaces from 225. As funding for the arts is always a struggle, some properties have taken to raising contributions in more creative ways. Saint Kate, the Arts Hotel that opened in Milwaukee, Wis., in July, invited local artists to each design and decorate its "Canvas" rooms. Each Canvas room stay has a percentage of proceeds donated to organizations including The Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Artists Working in Education and even a local radio station. Rates range from 209 459 depending on weekday or weekend check in; choose the room type with study access for breakfast. 52 PLACES AND MUCH, MUCH MORE Follow our 52 Places traveler, Sebastian Modak, on Instagram as he travels the world, and discover more Travel coverage by following us on Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our Travel Dispatch newsletter: Each week you'll receive tips on traveling smarter, stories on hot destinations and access to photos from all over the world.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Travel
|
The Palais de Tokyo's "Visite Naturiste" was organized in association with the Paris Naturist Association. Visitors removed their clothes for a tour of the exhibition "Discord, Daughter of the Night." PARIS The most uncomfortable thing about being naked in a museum, it turns out, is the temperature. A half hour into the first nudist tour of the Palais de Tokyo, a contemporary art museum in Paris, I had gotten used to the feeling of exposure, but I hadn't acclimatized to the cold air circulating through the cavernous galleries. Standing in a politically themed exhibition by the French Algerian artist Neil Beloufa, I began shaking my arms for warmth. Museums, I was discovering, are not temperature controlled for people wearing only sneakers. In drawing this conclusion, it seemed, I wasn't alone. Jacqueline Bohain, a 65 year old retiree who had taken an eight hour bus trip from the Alsace region of eastern France to attend the event on Saturday, tried to warm herself in a sliver of sunlight. Other members of the group jiggled around to heat up. "Maybe we should walk around the corner, so we can stand in the sun," Marion Buchloh Kollerbohm, the tour guide, suggested, and maneuvered us to another area of the exhibition. "I was imagining about 100 or 200 people might want to come, not 30,000," he said in a telephone interview before the tour. At 10 a.m., I joined the 161 people who had managed to get one of the limited tickets, and we undressed in an ad hoc changing room on the second floor of the museum. For the next two hours, we took part in one of six tours by (clothed) museum guides of "Discord, Daughter of the Night," a series of exhibitions spread across the museum, which is the largest in France for the presentation of contemporary art. The shows consist of one large, suspended sculpture and five separately curated but thematically related exhibitions in different parts of the museum, dealing mostly with issues of political strife and resistance. Mr. Beloufa's contribution "The Enemy of My Enemy" consisted largely of artifacts related to war and to other horrific historical events, like the My Lai massacre and the bombing of Hiroshima, arranged on platforms that were constantly moved around the space by small robots, similar to those used by Amazon in its warehouses. Ms. Buchloh Kollerbohm, who is also the museum's head of education, told me that she was mindful of the potential awkwardness of combining nudism with the exhibition's serious subject matter. "We didn't want to make this into a conference on the post colonial subject, because that would really kill the atmosphere," she said. Nevertheless, she added, "I am hoping the experience of leaving their clothes at the door will help them leave some part of their identity with it, and experience it with more openness." Other museums have organized similar tours for temporary shows thematically connected to nakedness, including a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition in Montreal and a show of male nudes at the Leopold Museum in Vienna. Mr. Luft said that it was "actually more pleasing to me to find something that had nothing to do with nudity." Mr. Luft and I walked into a small room in one corner of the exhibition where Mr. Beloufa was exhibiting an Iranian propaganda video from the Holy Defense Museum in Tehran that showed a simulation of a bomb attack on a marketplace. It felt insensitive to be watching a video of an atrocity (albeit a staged one) while standing in nothing but my running shoes, but Mr. Luft saw it differently. In his view, the exhibition confirmed his belief that nudity was a great social and political equalizer. "If world leaders had their meetings naked," he said, "they'd stay a lot calmer." Mr. Luft said that he had proposed the tour to the Palais de Tokyo at a meeting in December. The idea, he said, was to expand the activities of the nudist association beyond sports the group, he pointed out, held the world record for the largest number of people participating in a nude tenpin bowling. He expressed hope that cultural events like the one at the museum would lead to an influx of more diverse members. In a one time concession, the Palais de Tokyo closed its doors to non nude visitors on Saturday morning. Ms. Buchloh Kollerbohm said the museum saw the event as being part of its mandate of cultural and social outreach. The results seemed promising: The attendees were slightly more male than female, but there was a broad mix of ages, and there were many newcomers to public nudity like Junyu Deng, a 29 year old Parisian who seemed thrilled by the tour. She said that being nude had allowed her to have a more "intimate" interaction with the art. Our group moved into a space created by the British artist George Henry Longly, where several suits of armor used by the daimyo, feudal lords who reigned over Japan from the 10th to the 19th centuries, were exhibited. It felt oddly poignant to stare at an exhibition of ornate battle armor while being so physically vulnerable. Ms. Buchloh Kollerbohm explained that the suits of armor had been crafted to look like aggressive animals, such as wasps, and that they consisted of a kind of "exoskeleton." "Putting on clothing, or an armor, it's a statement," Vincent Simonet, a 42 year old singing teacher who offers naked classes, told me as we left the room. "Today, nudism is seen as a statement, but really it's the opposite, it should be seen as a pure state." As for me, I was inclined to revisit the exhibition, especially its more political works, in a clothed context, when I wouldn't have to worry about feeling insensitive. Ms. Buchloh Kollerbohm said she had enjoyed leading the group, but that the Palais de Tokyo was undecided about doing another nudist tour. Standing on the patio, Ms. Bohain told me that although she had not enjoyed all the art, she had enjoyed the experience. "I'm standing in the sun, naked, staring at the Eiffel Tower," she said. "Life is great."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Art & Design
|
"These problems are only going to grow more intense," said Melissa Zukerman, a partner at Principal Communications, which has clients like Marvel Studios, Imax, Legendary Entertainment and the art film studio A24. "It's the result of a collision of two things: a new cultural intolerance for harassment and bias; and the accessibility of everything, from a decade of Twitter posts to videos taken at high school parties to college term papers." Ms. Zukerman and another Principal Communications partner, Paul Pflug, pointed to the furor that broke out on Friday around Ralph Northam, the Democratic governor of Virginia, after the discovery of a racist photograph on his 1984 medical school yearbook page. Mr. Northam first acknowledged that he was one of the people in the image, which showed a person in blackface with another in a Ku Klux Klan robe. He later reversed himself and has refused calls for his resignation. With Edgeworth as its partner, Foresight will have the ability to review online information in 200 languages, scour social media networks, search court records and even plumb the so called dark web. Foresight will offer multiple services, but its core offering, Red Flag, involves exhaustively scrubbing a person's online footprint and recommending how to remedy anything problematic although the firm will stop short of saying whether a person should be hired at all. Take the situation with Mr. Hart and the Oscars. Had Foresight existed, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences might have contacted the firm while he was under consideration to host. Foresight's research would have turned up his circa 2010 anti gay comments. The firm would have flagged them for the academy and provided suggestions (should the organization still want to hire him) to address the matter: Have an apology ready, for instance, and perhaps ask Glaad, the L.G.B.T. advocacy organization, to assess whether Mr. Hart's views had changed. "How might something be used as a teachable moment?" Ms. Zukerman said. "If you are really going to mitigate risk, you also have to take a hard look at what reparation looks like."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Media
|
The runways will be empty during this season's New York Bridal Fashion Week as designers shift to digital presentations for their spring/summer collections because of the coronavirus outbreak. By now, fashion designers would have been putting their final touches on dresses as they planned lavish runway shows and collection previews in preparation for New York Bridal Fashion Week, which runs April 16 20. But the coronavirus outbreak has forced them to rethink how they should present their latest fashions. In February, the Bridal Council, a New York based member organization that supports bridal focused designers, retailers and media, met at Manhattan Manor, an events space in Manhattan, to discuss alternate plans should the virus continue to spread throughout New York. "It was becoming clear we wouldn't be able to come together in the traditional ways we had before," said Rachel Leonard, the editorial director of the organization. "But we didn't plan on the lockdown." Suddenly stores were closed. Designers were unable to travel. Fabrics became harder to obtain, and manufacturers took a forced pause. Then, finally, social distancing made it impossible to produce or attend runway shows. Ms. Leonard sees some drawbacks to shifting designers' presentations to online platforms. "It's still a touchy feely, emotional business," she said. "It's hard to see a fabulous wedding dress on the internet. The wow factor you felt when presenting in front of people and Instagram moments only an insider got, will be gone." Still she remained optimistic. "For designers, there will be a reinvention for how they do business and present their collections," she said. "They will gain better relationships with their stores and brides, which might make them focus more on what's going to sell, how to create newness, and make them smarter business people." Some designers have already begun to find inventive ways to communicate with their customers. Anne Barge is hosting weekly online events called Wedding Wine Wednesday. "Every week she's meeting with her stores on the web to talk about the issues of the day," Ms. Leonard said. "Sareh Nouri is doing live Instachats with her brides." We spoke with five bridal designers, each of whom was taking a different approach to reaching press, retailers and brides during this season's Bridal Fashion Week. "It became clear a physical show was out, and we were not able to complete the collection's photography, so we'll be sending dresses to two or three models who can take the photos themselves, or are in a relationship with a photographer to produce images of the line," said Neil Brown, the chief executive who was married to Ms. Aberra. This season the designer will be showing five collections, each with approximately 10 looks, all which fall under the brand's umbrella. "This month we're launching a virtual try on on the site where a user, media person, or retailer, will have the ability to try on apparel digitally, or on an avatar of their choice that represents their body type," Mr. Brown said. The brand is also offering digital marketing appointments via Zoom, the videoconferencing app, where retailers and editors can have a one on one dialogue with the design director, Margo LaFontaine, or meet with the sales team to view the latest collection. Last year the designer Sarah Abbasi, the founder of Sahroo, previewed her first bridal collection by showcasing 25 looks at the Whitby Hotel in Manhattan. Her focus was sleek, upscale white pantsuits and close fitted bejeweled matching sets. This year the virus coincided with a decision she had already made to produce one collection, rather than the standard two. "We were fortunate and have done four photo shoots since we launched last year," Ms. Abbasi said. "Many of those photos have never been seen. Since we can't present in person, we'll be repurposing and recycling from previous collections by re sharing visuals from old posts mixed with fresh ones from past shoots." Before the lockdown, Hayley Paige, the head designer and creative director of Hayley Paige, a bodacious and of the moment bridal brand, said she was planning a 12 to 20 piece collection, with a small show highlighting real brides wearing her new designs. "We would have done virtual videos and lookbooks, those are the given needs for any collection launch," she said. "But in light of what's happening, we're going to put together a capsule collection with six to eight pieces featuring designs that were already completed when the virus started to happen and a corresponding lookbook so we have something going out." Ms. Paige also noted the emotional toll the virus was taking. "I want brides to know I'm here for them," she said. "Right now we're about reassuring people that orders will be fulfilled." Ms. Paige will be making live video chats on Instagram, where she will speak with brides and field questions. "My social media has been really important," she said. "We are putting the emotional side upfront. Bridal fashion week might be canceled, but love isn't." Sign up for Love Letter and always get the latest in Modern Love, weddings, and relationships in the news by email. But the coronavirus outbreak derailed those plans, along with a scheduled fashion show in Barcelona. "So it's made us rethink and look at connecting virtually," he said. This month he will invite 100 members of the media to an hourlong live stream presentation via Zoom. "We're lucky, in February we shot product video at the Beekman Hotel for each of our 26 styles for the Justin Alexander Signature Collection," he said. "We'll walk media through our content, show videos, and present our campaign images." Then there are the five hour webinars, which will cover his more commercial collections which he will present to editors and buyers for six consecutive days, each in a different language. There will also be virtual Q and A sessions, educational seminars, and consultations for retailers. "So far more than 200 stores have signed up," Mr. Warshaw said. "We anticipate a surge of brides shopping for dresses when this is over. We want to help prepare them for the new normal when they reopen." The first beaded mask, created with European fabrics and Swarovski crystal embellishments, took two days for her to complete in her home in Los Angeles. Four masks two for men and two for women were designed to keep couples feeling safe and protected without sacrificing fashion. Each is crafted with couture fabrics and elements, like glittering crystals and plumes of lace. "Our design house in China started making them last week," she said. " It's a very beautiful, delicate piece that's an accessory to complete his or her look." All of the proceeds from the 163 masks that have already been sold will be donated to Direct Relief, a nonprofit organization that provides personal protective equipment and essential medical items to health workers responding to the coronavirus. Other's designers like Rita Vinieris and Ines Di Santo are also putting their efforts into making masks for local hospitals and those on the front lines. Continue following our fashion and lifestyle coverage on Facebook (Styles and Modern Love), Twitter (Styles, Fashion and Weddings) and Instagram.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Fashion & Style
|
Friends in Rome had warned me: no one should eat pasta all'amatriciana nonstop for a week. The sauce a glutton's glorious punishment of pork, pecorino and tomatoes produces one of the most satisfying dishes on the Roman table. But what's the best way to make it? I planned to eat my way all the way to the source waters, in the mountain village of Amatrice, about two hours north of Rome, to find out. My amatriciana journey began, in a sense, several years earlier. On the evening of Aug. 23, 2016, I prepared bucatini all'amatriciana, for my son, Sandro , and myself. I remember this not because I'm one of those obsessive foodies who documents every meal. I remember it because my wife, Mindy, who doesn't eat pork, was not around for dinner that night, and the dish is a guilty pleasure. I remember the date even more acutely because when we woke up the next morning, we learned that a magnitude 6.2 earthquake had struck Amatrice overnight, killing nearly 300 people and causing widespread devastation. So this is the oddest of travel articles: urging a trip to a place that, according to a former mayor, Sergio Pirozzi, mostly doesn't exist anymore. But it is still worth going. Not just for the food, which is the ultimate farm to table version of amatriciana, but for a moving reminder of human resilience in the face of a devastating tragedy. There is muscle memory, and there is taste bud memory. I first encountered amatriciana in 1976, shortly after I had come to live in Rome, at a now extinct restaurant near Parliament called La Pentola. Known as a classic "piatto popolare" (everyday proletarian fare), the sauce was simplicity personified: a savory ooze of guanciale (pig jowl), tomatoes and grated pecorino cheese, with a hint of hot pepper to deliver a subtle afterthought of heat, piled upon the thick, hollow and slithery noodle known as bucatini. A Roman born chef I know in New York put it this way: "It's a very strong dish. You either love it or hate it." I loved it. I got an education, and some remonstration, in every restaurant. Gabriele Perilli, the 81 year old head chef of La Conca, raised his hands as if fending off a vampire when I confessed to using pancetta when I cooked the dish back home (about the only way you found guanciale in the United States in those days was the way my Abruzzese grandfather obtained it by butchering his own pigs). "Guanciale comes from here," Mr. Perilli said, tugging his cheek in admonishment. "Pancetta comes from here," he continued, patting his flank. "It's a completely different taste." The amatriciana at La Conca, which was excellent, was presented not as bright red, but rather an off red. This reminded me of the color of the Hazan dish when I made it at home, and when I mentioned that his sauce was not a full bodied red, Mr. Perilli nodded his head in a conspiratorial manner, leaned forward and exclaimed, "Rosato!" Pinkish. That may seem like a modest distinction, but Mark Ladner, the former head chef at Lupa and Del Posto in New York City , made a telling point when I mentioned Mr. Perilli's remark about color. If you add enough cheese, he said, it forms a kind of emulsion with the pig fat , producing an almost orange ish color. When Mr. Ladner makes amatriciana, in fact, he uses a half and half mixture of pecorino and parmigiano, sheep and cow cheese. That strays from the classic Amatrice recipe but that same mixture of two cheeses is also a feature of the Hazan recipe. When did tomatoes enter the scene? Marco Crisari, proprietor of Da Giovannino, in Amatrice, said half jokingly, "The tomatoes came into it, they say, when Columbus discovered America." So gricia, the precursor of amatriciana, was around before 1492? "Before Columbus, for sure," he said. (The tomato historian David Gentilcore places the arrival of the tomato in Italy by way of Spanish and Italian missionaries to Mexico around the mid 16th century, although he points out it was often grown as an ornamental plant for centuries and did not enter mainstream use in the Italian kitchen until the 19th century.) When I returned to Ristorante Roma a couple of days later, Arnaldo Bucci, the 86 year old family patriarch, showed me a picture of his mother sitting on a horse; until the era of truck transport after World War II, she herself would drive flocks of sheep down centuries old mountain paths to Rome. When I asked about the proper ingredients, he waved me into the kitchen. "Talk to my wife," he said. "She's been making it for 60 years." Back in a large, modern kitchen, his wife, Maria, stood sentinel over a simmering pot of tomato sauce, next to a large bowl of glistening cooked guanciale. I described to her the Hazan recipe, and she scowled with motherly disapproval. Onions? "No," she said, with a sharp dismissive shake of the head. Butter? "Noooo," she cried, shaking her head in exasperation. She pointed at the ingredients surrounding her: guanciale, tomato sauce, pecorino. And with that, she scooped up an ample handful of pecorino and snowed it over a platter of "white" amatriciana before sending it out. A few moments later, I was eating that same pasta. If anything, the gricia is tastier than the red amatriciana: The marriage of pasta, pig fat and Amatrice's earthier pecorino must have tasted much like it did to the shepherds centuries ago. When I first wrote about an earthquake zone, in 1977 in Friuli, I was struck by the generosity of the survivors, who had lost everything but insisted on offering coffee or grappa to people who had everything. Sometimes travel should be about giving back, and a splendid way to give back to Amatrice would be to venture into this most beautiful, ferociously remote part of Italy. You can savor the wonder of amatriciana at its fountainhead. You can explore the nearby Gran Sasso or Monti Sibillini, in spectacular national parks. And you can still hear the tinkle of sheep bells in town, which will remind you that you've arrived in the birthplace of one of Italy's greatest gifts to the world of food. Stephen S. Hall, a science writer based in New York, has written often about Italy since living in Rome in the mid 1970s. Follow NY Times Travel on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Get weekly updates from our Travel Dispatch newsletter, with tips on traveling smarter, destination coverage and photos from all over the world.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Travel
|
MID90S (2018) Stream on Amazon; rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube. A "Street Fighter II" T shirt. CDs by the Brooklyn hip hop duo Gang Starr. A straight to tape Sony camcorder. This directorial debut from Jonah Hill doubles as an exhibition of artifacts from a skateboarders' slice of 1990s California culture, bottling up the feeling of that time and place through the eyes of a young protagonist. That would be Stevie (Sunny Suljic), a 13 year old in Los Angeles who starts hanging out with a group of older skaters. Structured loosely as, well, a day in the life of a young person skating with friends, the movie follows Stevie as he rides, smokes and roughhouses his way into teenage life, ricocheting (emotionally and physically) off his troubled older brother (Lucas Hedges) and transforming before the eyes of his mother (Katherine Waterston). In his review for The New York Times, A. O. Scott wrote that, "Like its hero, 'Mid90s' struggles to figure out what it wants to be, and the struggle makes it interesting as well as occasionally frustrating." LORDS OF DOGTOWN (2005) Stream on Amazon and Crackle; rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube. This movie is a fictionalized account of the maturation of skateboarding, centered on the mid 70s skating boom in Los Angeles. Heath Ledger plays Skip Engblom, a figure behind a Santa Monica surfboard shop that was key to skating's popularity; Emile Hirsch plays a member of a crew that starts there. The movie was written by the pioneering skater Stacy Peralta, and directed by Catherine Hardwicke. A. O. Scott noted in his review for The Times that Hardwicke and Peralta share "an enthusiastic interest in young people that is neither condescending nor exploitative." And he wrote that their movie "from start to finish, is pretty much a blast."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Television
|
It is beyond belief that, as we stand on the brink of economic, moral and reputational collapse as a nation and the most consequential election in our history, anyone should see fit to air a past grievance real, embellished or false that would imperil Joe Biden's candidacy. This is a species of vainglorious righteousness run amok, and does no honor to the principles the MeToo movement has embraced. Have we taken no measure of the "carnage," metaphorical or real, of the Trump presidency as well as the sexual predations of the man? No circling firing squads, please. This is the moment to stand united for the greater good of the nation. As a female clinical psychologist with 40 years of experience, I can tell you that while it's true that women who accuse men of sexual harassment should be given the benefit of the doubt, these women don't always tell the truth. I never knew of a man who committed a sexual assault only once. It would be a pattern of behavior, repeated over time. Joe Biden has a long history of public service. If he had been committing these kinds of behaviors there would be a trail of complaints, as there is around President Trump. There really are some men who tell the truth and do not commit crimes against women, and they also deserve the benefit of the doubt.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Opinion
|
GREYHOUND (2020) Stream on Apple TV . Take three tablespoons of "Saving Private Ryan," add two shots of "Captain Phillips" and a heaping spoonful of C.G.I. and you'll get something like "Greyhound." Set in 1941, in the early days of United States involvement in World War II, the film casts Tom Hanks as Ernest Krause, a Navy commander. (Hanks also wrote the screenplay, which was adapted from "The Good Shepherd," a 1955 novel by C.S. Forester.) The story follows Krause as he ferries soldiers and ships across the Atlantic Ocean to join the war. It gives "an account of not just the action but of Krause's shifting interior states as tension and casualties mount," Glenn Kenny wrote in his review for The Times. Still, Kenny added, it "feels like a movie that was conceived as an epic but could not quite muster the necessary force." UNITED WE FALL 8 p.m. on ABC. The comic performer Will Sasso and the actress Christina Vidal play a married couple with young children in this new sitcom. The first two episodes, airing Wednesday night, involve a parent teacher conference and a bitten kid.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Television
|
Growing up in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, Irina Krush often went to Asser Levy Park at Coney Island and beat the men playing chess there. Many of those who fell were sharp characters, too. More than a few had been toughened by life in the former Soviet Union. But they welcomed the little girl with a ponytail, even though she often demolished them on a chessboard. "I was so small I would sit on my feet so I could reach my opponent's pieces," Krush, 36, recalled recently in an interview from her home in Brooklyn. "But from an early age, the chess world was a welcoming place for me. I felt like those people always rooted for me." Almost 30 years later, that is still true. Krush grew up to become one of the stars of American chess, the only woman to earn the title of grandmaster while playing for the United States and a mainstay at international competitions in her prime. Then, in March, word spread in the chess world that Krush was ill. She had contracted the coronavirus and was suffering badly. Most did not know what Krush had been through until afterward, when she discussed it on her Facebook page. She spent two nights at Community Hospital in Brooklyn not far from where she played chess as a child and only weeks later did she start to feel significantly better. A popular player known for her aggressive style and outgoing nature, Krush received a flood of support once friends and fans learned of her condition. "We were all so worried and devastated," said Jennifer Shahade, a longtime friend and chess rival of Krush's who wrote the book "Chess Bitch." "She's a great hero of American chess, and there was a real outpouring in the chess community." During her long recovery, Krush played chess, and did well, too. She tied for first place in Isolated Queens II, an online women's tournament organized by Shahade in response to the pandemic. Krush also played a central role in helping the United States to a runner up finish this month in the first Online Nations Cup, a team event involving most of the top players in the world. "Without her, we never would have finished second or made it to the playoffs," John Donaldson, the captain of the U.S. team, said. Krush started feeling sick on March 12, a full 10 days before nonessential businesses in New York State were ordered to shut down. Her symptoms faded within a couple of days, but on March 17 she developed breathing problems. She went to an urgent care center the next day. With no cough and only a moderate fever, she lacked some of the symptoms that, at that time, were the most easily recognizable signs of Covid 19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. But a doctor there was concerned that her shortness of breath might have been an indication of blood clots in her lungs. She sent Krush to an emergency room, where she tested positive for the coronavirus, and the hospital promptly admitted her. The state had fewer than 3,000 confirmed cases at that point, less than 1 percent of the current number, but Krush said she could already see the signs of stress in the emergency room. "The doctor hadn't gone to the bathroom in like six hours," Krush said. "They were getting overwhelmed." The hospital released Krush after two days not because she felt any better, she said, but because more serious cases were coming in. She returned home, still feeling miserable, but somehow played in the inaugural Isolated Queens event two days later. On March 22, though, she developed more severe breathing problems that left her in agony. She could barely sleep, and could do so only when sitting upright to alleviate the pain in her chest. Fearful that she might not survive, she reluctantly returned to the emergency room that night, and again the next night. "I didn't want to just die at home alone," she said. In the days that followed, Krush began to think about how her ordeal had mimicked the trajectory of a difficult chess game and how everything she had learned through chess was helping her now like staying calm, moving quickly in a difficult situation to prevent further damage and maximizing her chances. "It's not just a disease," she said. "It's a life trial. Chess players know what it's like to be in a bad position, to suffer. I realized it was going to be a long game, with no easy victory." Krush was born in Odessa, Ukraine, on Dec. 24, 1983, the daughter of bookkeepers who dreamed of life in the United States. Her father, Boris Krush, was a college chess player and taught Irina the game. When she was 5, the family moved to the United States in a wave of Jewish emigration from the U.S.S.R. Eventually they settled in Sheepshead Bay, and Irina attended P.S. 254, where she learned English, and later Edward R. Murrow High School. But most of her time was spent playing chess around the world. At 6, she won her first tournament, at the Marshall Chess Club in Manhattan, and took home a 20 check. She now teaches at the club. A year later, she represented the United States in Poland at the world youth championships for girls under 10, and received the prize for being the youngest player. Donaldson, who was at the tournament, recalled that when Krush won a game, her father would toss her in the air and catch her, to Irina's delight. Pretty soon, Krush became too good to play against other children, and her father began taking her to Asser Levy Park, just across Surf Avenue from the boardwalk. There were no women playing there, and for some it might have been an intimidating environment. "Not for a little girl who was used to it," Krush said. "In chess, your skill level paves the way for you." At 14, Krush became the youngest U.S. women's champion, winning just weeks after the start of her freshman year in high school. She won six more U.S. titles, including four straight from 2012 to 2015. At age 29, she earned grandmaster status from FIDE, the international chess federation. In recent years, her primary focus has shifted from competitive chess to teaching. After her last class at the Marshall Chess Club before getting sick, a student told Krush she wanted to avoid taking the subway home for fear of the coronavirus. It was the first time, Krush said, that she even began to consider the implications of the disease in the United States. In April, when the Online Nations Cup was announced, Krush was eager to play, even though she still felt lingering effects of Covid 19. Chess, unlike many other competitions, is uniquely positioned to succeed online, and without the added stress of travel, Krush felt she was physically and mentally prepared to play. A week later, Krush reported feeling much better, although she still reports soreness in her chest. But with those victories in hand, she has contemplated refocusing her life, again, this time away from teaching and back to competitive chess. After all, the world of chess has always welcomed and supported Krush, in times of triumph and misery. "I do feel like now is a good time," Krush said. "If the chess life is all coming online and there are going to be good tournaments, I should maximize my chances."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Sports
|
In the 1950s, the choreographer Merce Cunningham became an early exponent of what would become the Theater of the Absurd, alongside the playwrights Beckett, Ionesco and Pinter. With "Crises" (1960), he made a nonnarrative dance drama in which human behavior becomes inscrutable, absurd and dark. Its dances show one man and four women; what's still startling is how wild, independent and driven the women are. As a work of radical art, "Crises" looked completely at home on Friday afternoon in the performance space at the new Whitney Museum, the Susan and John Hess Family Theater. This theater has already presented concerts; as configured for the first of four showings of "Crises" over the weekend, it became a dance space, too. Behind the stage area is a window that, though lightly curtained, shows a view of the meatpacking district and the Hudson. This is the kind of view that Cunningham would have loved; his company's final home at Westbeth, not far away, afforded similar prospects. The "Crises" performances were part of the Whitney's current festival of the composer Conlon Nancarrow's music. His "Studies for Player Piano" that accompany this drama are strange and compelling; their several simultaneous strains and fragments contain blues, jazz and chaos within a larger modernist collage. The former Cunningham dancer Jennifer Goggans supervised the reconstruction of Cunningham's choreography, Dominic Murcott that of the music. Even though I'm acquainted with "Crises" (there is a 1961 film of the original cast, and there was a major revival in 2006, in which Ms. Goggans danced), their question and answer session after the dance proved enlightening. Nancarrow's music for player piano went deliberately beyond what was possible for an ordinary piano played live. It would take so long to load each of the seven rolls needed for "Crises" onto the player piano that the Cunningham company always danced to a recording made by John Cage. That recording has grown dim; Mr. Murcott (who played a bit of it in the after performance conversation) has made a new one, and Friday's audience was the first to hear it. Cunningham's choreography, without responding to the music, coexists with it, occasionally with uncannily close timing.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Dance
|
It started with a wine cooler, said Paige Cederna, describing that first sweet, easy to down drink she experienced as a "magic elixir." "I had no inhibitions with alcohol," said Ms. Cederna, 24. "I could talk to guys and not worry about anyone judging me. I remember being really proud the day I learned to chug a beer. I couldn't get that feeling fast enough." But before long, to get over "that feeling," she was taking Adderall to get through the days. But it was now more than three years since she drank her last drop of alcohol and used a drug for nonmedical reasons. Her "sober date," she told the group, many nodding their heads encouragingly, was July 8, 2011. Ms. Cederna's story of addiction and recovery, told in a clear, strong voice, was not being shared at a 12 step meeting or in a treatment center. Instead, it was presented on a cool autumn day, in a classroom on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, to a group of 30 undergraduate students in their teens and early 20s. On the panel with Ms. Cederna were two other Michigan graduate students. Hannah Miller, 27, declared her "sober date" as Oct. 5, 2010, while Ariel Britt, 29, announced hers as Nov. 6, 2011. Like Ms. Cederna's, Ms. Britt's problems with drugs and alcohol started in her freshman year at Michigan, while Ms. Miller's began in high school. All three are participants in a university initiative, now two years old, called the Collegiate Recovery Program. Staying sober in college is no easy feat. "Pregaming," as it is called on campus (drinking before social or sporting events), is rampant, and at Michigan it can start as early as 8 a.m. on a football Saturday. The parties take place on the porches and lawns of fraternities, the roofs and balconies of student houses, and clandestinely in dormitories everywhere but inside the academic buildings. For this reason because the culture of college and drinking are so synonymous in September 2012 the University of Michigan joined what are now 135 Collegiate Recovery communities on campuses all over the country. While they vary in size from small student run organizations to large embedded university programs, the aim is the same: to help students stay sober while also thriving in college. "It shouldn't be that a young person has to choose to either be sober or go to college," said Mary Jo Desprez, who started Michigan's Collegiate Recovery Program as the director of Michigan's Wolverine Wellness department. "These kids, who have the courage to see their problem early on, have the right to an education, too, but need support," she said, calling it a "social justice, diversity issue." Matthew Statman, the full time clinical social worker who has run Michigan's program since it began in 2012, added, "We want them to feel proud, not embarrassed, by their recovery." Ms. Cederna also remembers what it felt like to return to Michigan sober her senior year. Not only did she lose most of her friends ("Everyone I knew on campus drank," she said), but she also dropped out of her sorority ("I was only in it to drink," she said). "I ended up alone in the library a lot watching Netflix," she said. Molly Payton, 24 (now a senior who once fell off an eight foot ledge, drunk and high at a party), said, "I read all the Harry Potter books alone in my room my first months clean." Everything changed, however, when these students learned there were other students facing the same issues. Ms. Cederna first found Students for Recovery, a small student run organization that, until the Collegiate Recovery Program began, was the only available support group on Michigan's campus besides local 12 step meetings, most of which tend toward an older demographic. "Through S.F.R., I ended up having five new friends," she said of the organization, which still exists but is now run by the 25 to 30 Collegiate Recovery Program students; both groups meet every other week in the health center. The main difference between the two is that students in the Collegiate Recovery Program have to already be sober and sign a "commitment contract" that they will stay clean throughout college through a well outlined plan of structure. Students for Recovery is aimed at those who are still seeking recovery, may be further into their recovery or want to support others in recovery. When a young student incredulously asked the panel, "How do you possibly socialize in college without alcohol?" Ms. Britt, Collegiate Recovery Program's social chairwoman, rattled off a list of its activities sober tailgates, a pumpkin carving night, volleyball games, dance parties, study groups, community service projects and even a film screening of "The Anonymous People" that attracted some 600 students. "But we also just hang out together a lot," she said. Indeed, looking around the organization's lounge just before the holidays (a small, cordoned off corner on the fourth floor of the health center, minimally decorated with ratty couches, a table and a small bookshelf stocking titles like "Wishful Drinking" and "Smashed"), it was hard to believe some of these young adults were once heroin addicts who had spent time in jail. On the contrary, they looked like model students, socializing over soft drinks and snacks as they celebrated one student who had earned back his suspended license. "By far the biggest benefit to our students in the recovery program is the social component," said Mr. Statman, who is hoping a current development campaign may provide more funding. (The program is currently supported by a mandatory student health tuition fee.) "Let's just say, we all wish we could be Texas Tech," he said. The Collegiate Recovery Program was established at Texas Tech decades ago, and it is now one of the largest, with 120 recovery students enrolled (along with Rutgers University and Augsburg College in Minneapolis). Thanks to a 3 million endowment, the Texas Tech program now offers scholarships as well as substance free trips abroad. The students there have access to an exclusive lounge outfitted with flat screen TVs, a pool table and a Ping Pong table, kitchen, study carrels and a seminar room. Entering freshmen in recovery even have their own dormitory. "We found that simply putting them on the substance free halls didn't work," said Kitty Harris, who, until recently, was the director for more than a decade of Texas Tech's program (she remains on the faculty). "Most of the kids on substance free floors are just there to make their parents happy." (The Michigan students in the recovery program mostly live off campus for the same reason; they do not have their own housing.) It is at the drop in Students for Recovery meetings where one often sees nervous new faces. At the beginning of one meeting at Michigan last semester, a young woman introduced herself as, "One day sober." Shortly afterward, a young man spoke up, "I am five days sober." Danny (who asked that his last name not be published), a graduating recovery program senior applying to medical schools, later explained an important tenet all of them know from their various 12 step programs. "The most important person in the room is the new person," he said, adding that after the Students for Recovery meetings, members try to approach any new participants, directing them to the C.R.P. website and to Mr. Statman, who is always on call for worried students. "In the same way a diabetic might not always get their sugar levels right, part of addiction is relapsing, and we really don't want our students to see that as a failure if it happens," said Mr. Statman, adding that it is often the other students in the program who tell him if they suspect a student is using again. Jake Goldberg, 22, now a junior, arrived at Michigan three years ago as a freshman already in recovery. "I did really well the first five months," he said. "I was sober. I was loud and proud on panels, but I had internal reservations. I had few friends and felt like I wanted to be more a part of the school." He recalled that in the spring of his freshman year, he suddenly found himself trying heroin for the first time. "I should have died," he said, remembering how he woke up 14 hours later, dazed and bruised. After straightening up, Mr. Goldberg relapsed again his sophomore year when he thought he might be able to have just one drink. "That drink led to drugs and to more drinking," he said, remembering how Mr. Statman and Ms. Desprez called him into their office one day. "They told me this is not going to end well," he said. Now sober two years, Mr. Goldberg said: "I now live recovery with all the structure, but I also am in a prelaw fraternity. When they drink a beer, I drink a Red Bull." Ms. Miller echoed Mr. Goldberg's feelings over coffee one day on the Michigan campus. "Most of us did not get sober just to go to meetings all the time," she said. "We want to live life too." She also said that socializing with nonrecovery students is still challenging. "I went to a small party recently where everyone was eating pot edibles and drinking top shelf liquor," she said. "I got a bit squirrely in my head and had to leave." But now students in the Collegiate Recovery Program have a new place in Ann Arbor they can frequent: Brillig Dry Bar, a pop up, alcohol free spot that serves up spiced pear sodas and cranberry sours and features live jazz. And in March, four of the students in the program are joining dozens of recovery students from other colleges on a six day, five night, "Clean Break" in Florida, arranged by Blue Community, an organization that hosts events and vacations for young adults in recovery. (The vacation package includes music, guest speakers, beach sports and daily transport to local 12 step meetings.)
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Style
|
When the world outside looks frightful, you might be tempted to put on the blinders. The accelerating development of virtual reality technology which lets you escape into another world through a blackout headset is finally rumbling the art world, always more skeptical than cinema and television about new technologies. A new generation of artists is beginning to produce virtual reality artworks some for display in galleries, others freely accessible online that plunge viewers into fully articulated spaces. Forget contemplative distance; say goodbye to Brechtian alienation. In these works, immersion is all. Last year, there was surging interest in virtual reality thanks in part to two hardware innovations, one closer to "Total Recall" and the other more "MacGyver." The first is the Oculus Rift, an immersive headset, which retails for 600, and whose 110 degree field of view and inbuilt speakers drown users in artificial environments. The other is Google Cardboard: a nifty kit that sells for 15 and that holds a smartphone in place in front of biconvex lenses. Both use gyroscopes and sensors to sync your head's movement to the views onscreen. Where the Oculus Rift is newfangled, Google Cardboard operates on much the same principle as the 19th century stereoscope: The lenses intertwine two images at skew angles to create an illusion of depth. These developments have inspired some museums to imagine new presentations beyond their walls. Google has partnered with numerous museums to produce walk throughs, and you can now stream 3 D imagery of the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, BOZAR in Brussels, the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro and the Robben Island Museum in Cape Town. Other museums have produced virtual reality apps: The Renwick Gallery, an institution of the Smithsonian in Washington, recently released a virtual reality re creation of its exhibition "Wonder," a selfie magnet of a sculpture show from 2015 to '16. But smartphone resolution remains too low, and lenses too finicky, to truly recreate a museum visit. And the stationary positions of the virtual reality tours you can move your virtual eyes, but not your virtual legs make them feel like just the latest in a long chain of panoramic gallery views. Artists themselves have embraced virtual reality as a medium in its own right. Ian Cheng, who will have an exhibition at MoMA PS1 this April, presented one of his dynamic simulations on an Oculus Rift in 2013. The technology found a larger audience at the 2015 New Museum Triennial, where Daniel Steegman Mangrane used the Oculus Rift to transport viewers to a Brazilian rain forest, whose leaves rustled and grass waved as you acted like a fool in the white cube. The coming Whitney Biennial, beginning on March 17, will feature a virtual reality project by Jordan Wolfson, and last month the artist and designer KAWS debuted a trippy project at the New York Public Library. Now virtual reality art is pouring out of the museum and onto your phone. Last month, the New Museum, in partnership with its new media arm, Rhizome, opened an exhibition of six newly commissioned digital artworks, to be viewed wherever you like, on an Android or iOS device, at no cost. The works in this exhibition, "First Look: Artists' VR," all make use of animation far cheaper than filmed virtual reality, which requires 360 degree camera rigs and all employ a more or less surreal vocabulary: Objects float in space, spaces collapse into one another. Unlike video games, these artworks are not responsive to users; many of them are tentative explorations of the medium's potential rather than full fledged achievements. Some are frankly slight, though they're still memory hogs; you'll have to delete lots of photos to make space on your phone's hard drive. The most intriguing work in "First Look" comes from Rachel Rossin, an artist who oscillates between painting and virtual reality projects. Her work "Man Mask" plops you in a hazily defined, whited out world, derived from scenes from the video game "Call of Duty" and she has distorted the game's soldiers and mercenaries into translucent shades while a woman's voice recites an EST style mantra of "happiness, peace and cheerfulness." Ms. Rossin's obscure figures and cynical voice overs find an echo in "Transdimensional Serpent," by the virtual reality veteran Jon Rafman, which places you amid white humanoids, satyrs and snakes in an empty space, a forest, and a ruined interior. Other works are less manifold. Jayson Musson has produced a maudlin elegy for victims of state violence; you gaze at a night sky and constellations appear, labeled with names of the dead, while elevator music plays in the background. Jeremy Couillard's project is a jokey portal to the afterlife, in which you rise from a cartoon cadaver and ascend through colorful, heavenly tubes. Mr. Couillard has also devised video games in the past, and many artists using virtual reality seem closer to game designers or cinematic animators than to painters or sculptors. What's unexpected, therefore, is that so few of the virtual reality artworks I've seen really require its immersive capabilities. All of the projects in "First Look" can be streamed both in stereoscopic form, to be seen through the goggles, or as flat images, to be watched on your phone's screen, and the difference is often negligible. Some works, such as Jacolby Satterwhite's "Domestika" another in his many astral mock ups featuring men in titillating positions actually function better without goggles on, and exhibit little difference from two dimensional video works. Though the virtual reality imagery has been rendered in a sphere, rather than a flat plane, the effect is the same, and if that's so, must we really put a silly cardboard mask on our faces? New technologies have promised to uproot artistic conventions many times, but rarely do the promised revolutions ever arrive. The development of the web in the early 1990s led to a boom in "net art," which busted along with the dot com bubble. At MoMA PS1 last summer, the excellent retrospective of the Chinese artist Cao Fei featured an offline computer running an archived copy of Second Life: a defunct alternate universe game from the early 2000s, in which Ms. Cao constructed a surreal environment inhabited by her alter ego, China Tracy. There might be more applicability for augmented reality, which layers digital material atop the real world. Last summer, the Seattle Art Museum commissioned Tamiko Thiel to develop an augmented reality artwork viewable in the Olympic Sculpture Park, which overlaid the natural greenery with strange, ecologically worrying additions. But the crashed and burned Google Glass remember when those were going to "revolutionize the art museum"? should serve as a caution that even the less immersive augmented reality can seem too disruptive for many. What works for video game designers may be less applicable for fine artists, for whom the creation of images is supposed to be a means to something larger, and not an end in itself. That was the great lesson of modernism: Art is more than mere illusion, and it gains further meaning by pushing media to the limits of their capabilities. Virtual reality, by contrast, is a medium without limits a medium that tries to parallel life itself. The wonder I felt when I first put on an Oculus Rift, and lost myself in Mr. Steegman Mangrane's rain forest or Ms. Rossin's floating world, is undeniable. Now the challenge is to put virtual reality in the service of something more complex, for it would be a pity if wonder was all we got.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Art & Design
|
The higher seeds had a good day and the blueboods Kentucky and Kansas won big, but on the first day of the N.C.A.A. tournament, no one won bigger than Gonzaga. The Zags, the No. 1 seed in the West Region, backed up their top billing with an 87 49 thrashing of Fairleigh Dickinson in Salt Lake City on Thursday. Rui Hachimura, one of five Zags players in double figures, led Gonzaga (31 3) with 21 points. Kentucky, a 35 point winner against Abilene Christian, and Kansas, which beat Northeastern by 34, were nearly as impressive, but then most of the higher seeds enjoyed the first round. Last year mid major Montana gave Michigan a brief scare in the first round, scoring the game's first 10 points before the Wolverines regrouped and advanced. Michigan Coach John Beilein reminded his players of that repeatedly after learning the Wolverines were paired again with the Big Sky Conference champion Grizzlies. This time, Michigan jumped to a 10 2 lead never looked back in Des Moines. Charles Matthews had 22 points and 10 rebounds in his best performance since coming back from injury, and No. 2 Michigan put away Montana early in a 74 55 victory. Ignas Brazdeikis added 14 points and 7 rebounds, and Jon Teske had 11 points and 9 rebounds for the Wolverines, who led by as many as 27 points in the second half. The Wolverines (29 6) are in the round of 32 for the third straight year. They will play Florida on Saturday. Villanova lost four critical members of its championship team to the N.B.A. draft after last season, but the inexperienced Wildcats managed not only to capture the Big East title but also their opening round game Thursday, outlasting Saint Mary's by 61 57 in the South Region. The No. 6 Wildcats endured the 11th seeded Gaels' slow pace, playing at a tempo Coach Jay Wright called "excruciating," to win for the 14th time in 15 N.C.A.A. tournament games. Villanova anticipated a close game against St. Mary's, and coming off the conference tournament, where the Wildcats won their final two games by a combined 6 points, they felt comfortable in those circumstances. "St. Mary's is one of the best in grinding out like that in close games," said guard Phil Booth, who led Villanova with 20 points. "You saw what they did against Gonzaga in their conference tournament. So the Big East really helped us for that." Villanova will face Purdue, a 61 48 winner over Old Dominion, in the second round. Purdue's win capped a 5 0 day for the Big Ten, which has three more teams playing on Friday. Fletcher Magee led Wofford to the first N.C.A.A. tournament victory in school history. A senior guard, Magee made seven 3 pointers and scored 24 points to lead the Terriers to an 84 68 victory Seton Hall in the Midwest Region. Wofford trailed by 54 53 with just over 10 minutes remaining but outscored the Pirates, 31 14, from there. In the process, Magee became the most prolific 3 point shooter in Division I history, going past the mark of 504 set by Oakland's Travis Bader in 2014. Magee has now connected on 509 shots beyond the arc. Wofford (30 4) was 0 4 in the N.C.A.A. tournament before its win over the Pirates (20 14). Its reward is a date with second seeded Kentucky on Saturday. But the most encouraging note for the Zags is the crisp play of Killian Tillie, their multiskilled but oft injured big man. He scored 10 points, making both 3 pointers he attempted, and also kept the ball flowing with crisp passes and moved his feet well on defense. Tillie has missed much of the season with a stress fracture on his ankle and then plantar fasciitis. But on Thursday night, he looks a picture of health. The Zags look even better. BILLY WITZ Ja Morant Watch: Ja Morant Is Really, Really, Really Good Morant finished with 17 points, 11 rebounds and 16 assists, and Murray State, the 12th seed in the West, closed out its first round tackling dummy Marquette, 83 64. If you haven't seen Morant play yet, make a point to clear some time Saturday to see him and the Racers take on No. 4 Florida State. Three teammates joined Morant with double digit point totals, led by the freshman Tevin Brown, who scored 19. Marquette's Markus Howard, one of the nation's top scorers all season, led all players with 26 points, though he was only 4 for 14 on 3 pointers. Murray State had other notable performers, including guard Shaq Buchanan and forward Darnell Cowart. But Morant was the undeniable star, making passes of unsurpassed creativity to the point that his teammates could not always handle them. Any doubts about his N.B.A. draft stock were dispelled. If it weren't for Duke's Zion Williamson, he might be considered a possible No. 1 overall pick. MARC TRACY Bradley (20 15), the Missouri Valley Conference champion, led by 35 34 at halftime on the strength of six 3 pointers, then added the first two baskets of the second half on a layup and dunk by Elijah Childs (19 points, 6 rebounds). The lead went back and forth until two foul shots by Cassius Winston with 6:24 to play began a decisive run of nine consecutive points for Michigan State. Winston finished with a game high 26 points. Henry's floater in the run made up for a thunderous dunk attempt that clanged high off the rim and out of bounds minutes earlier. Bradley never led again. Xavier Tillman added 16 points and 11 rebounds for the Spartans, who made 25 of 26 foul shots. Around the same time, sixth seeded Maryland, fifth in the Big Ten this season, rallied to beat No. 11 Belmont, 79 77. Belmont actually had the ball last, but turned it over on an ill advised pass in the lane with only seconds left. Maryland (which faces L.S.U. on Saturday), Minnesota and Michigan State are all in the same corner of the East Region bracket. PAT BORZI New Mexico State was left to rue all those chances, especially that last one to win the game. But Coach Chris Jans said he was proud of his team for making a game of it even when all seemed lost. "We all understand this is big boy stuff and there's no moral victories," Jans said. "But at the same time, I think a lot of teams would have picked up their tent and went home. They were fighting and scratching and clawing and they finally put themselves in a position to have a chance to win the game." BILLY WITZ Auburn goes 1 for 2 at the line, and New Mexico State rushes the ball upcourt with six seconds left. Eschewing an open layup and overtime for a Terrell Brown 3 point attempt. Auburn, for some reason, FOULS HIM! Brown missed the first attempt, made the second, missed the third on purpose but the rebound goes out of bounds and New Mexico State will get one final chance!! Auburn alum Charles Barkley, watching in the studio, is not handling the tension well. Read John Branch's article about the officials here. When Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim sat down to speak with reporters on Wednesday afternoon in Salt Lake City, he took a deep breath, let out a long exhale and squinted into the T.V. lights at the back of the interview room, as if to say, "not again." Syracuse had just announced that the senior point guard Frank Howard had been suspended "for an indefinite period of time" and would not play in Thursday's first round West Regional game against Baylor. "Very difficult to make that change now," Boeheim said. Boeheim knows this from experience. In 2012, Fab Melo, then the No. 1 seeded Orange's starting center, was declared academically ineligible just before the tournament. In 2005, two reserves were suspended for failing drug tests just before Syracuse's first game; the Orange were upset by 13th seeded Vermont that year. The loss of Howard is significant. He has a team high 84 assists and had been playing well lately, scoring 28 points in an A.C.C. tournament loss to Duke a game in which he appeared to try to trip the Duke star Zion Williamson. BILLY WITZ
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Sports
|
At a time when the failure to immunize children is driving the biggest measles outbreak in decades, a little known database offers one way to gauge the safety of vaccines. Over roughly the past dozen years in the United States, people have received about 126 million doses of vaccines against measles, a disease that once infected millions of American children and killed 400 to 500 people each year. During that period, 284 people filed claims of harm from those immunizations through a federal program created to compensate people injured by vaccines. Of those claims, about half were dismissed, while 143 were compensated. The data comes from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a no fault system begun in 1988 after federal law established it as the place where claims of harm from vaccines must be filed and evaluated. It currently covers claims related to 15 childhood vaccines and the seasonal flu shot. Over the past three decades, when billions of doses of vaccines have been given to hundreds of millions of Americans, the program has compensated about 6,600 people for harm they claimed was caused by vaccines. About 70 percent of the awards have been settlements in cases in which program officials did not find sufficient evidence that vaccines were at fault. "Vaccine injuries are rare," said Renee Gentry, a lawyer who has been representing people filing claims of vaccine injuries for nearly 18 years. Still, she said, "they are pharmaceuticals and people can react to them you can have a bad reaction to aspirin. They're not magic." In recent years, many of the program's payments have been related to flu shots, mostly involving adults. A total of 4.15 billion in compensation has been paid out since the program's inception. A small proportion of the claims involve deaths. In 30 years, about 520 death claims have been compensated. Almost half involved an older vaccine for whooping cough that has not been used for two decades. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that vaccines prevented more than 21 million hospitalizations and 732,000 deaths among children over a 20 year period. There were about two claims of injury for every one million doses of all vaccines distributed in the United States from 2006 through 2017, the period for which the injury compensation program has dosage data. It says more than 3.4 billion vaccine doses were distributed during that time. The rarity of claims is especially notable because the program aims to make it easy to file a petition. It frequently pays claimants' fees for lawyers and expert witnesses, whether the claim is compensated or not, said Dr. Narayan Nair, who oversees the program as director of the Department of Health and Human Services's division of injury compensation programs. Compensation for a death is capped at 250,000. In cases of injury, there is no limit on what the program pays for medical expenses, lost wages and other costs. The two largest awards to date were between 32 million and 38 million for claims involving children filed about 20 years ago, program officials said. Dr. Nair described the program's approach as "the vaccine is guilty unless proven innocent." It has a table listing injuries and conditions that could potentially be caused by each vaccine within a certain time frame after a shot is received. They include fainting, bowel obstruction and brain inflammation. Dr. Nair said if someone's medical condition matches a description on the table, "they get the presumption of causation." One condition that is not on the list of potential vaccine related effects is autism. In the early 2000s, after a now debunked study attempted to link autism to vaccines, the program received several thousand claims. The matter was exhaustively evaluated for several years by federal courts, which ultimately ruled that evidence showed autism is not caused by vaccines and is not a legitimate claim for the injury program. Autism related claims were dismissed. The government tries to make the program's existence known by printing its phone number and website on the vaccine information statements that doctors are required to give patients when they are immunized. Its advisory commission, whose members include parents of children injured by vaccines, evaluates any suggestion of a previously unknown vaccine related condition or injury, said Dr. H. Cody Meissner, the advisory commission's vice chairman and a professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine. Vaccine skeptics and opponents sometimes claim that the existence of the program suggests that vaccines are more dangerous than medical evidence indicates. Some people consider the amount of money given to claimants over the life of the program to be alarming. "If vaccines do not cause injuries, why has the vaccine injury trust fund paid out 4,061,322,557.08 for vaccine injuries?" asked Representative Bill Posey, a Florida Republican, in a letter defending the right of parents to make their own decisions about immunizing their children. But public health experts point out that the data is actually evidence of vaccine safety. "The overwhelming number of vaccine injections are completely safe and not associated with any adverse events," Dr. Meissner said. "This is in marked contrast to what the anti vaccine movement is trying to promulgate." A growing proportion of recent claims, about half of all petitions since 2017, do not involve the content of vaccines themselves. Instead, they refer to shoulder injuries, usually in adults, that occurred because a health provider injected a vaccine too high on the shoulder, or into the joint space instead of into muscle tissue. That may cause an inflammatory response leading to shoulder pain and limited motion. Angela Barry, 58, a fifth grade teacher in Niceville, Fla., said she had instantly felt intense pain and could barely lift her arm after receiving a tetanus shot from a drugstore clinic when her cat scratched her face in 2015. She said she later learned that the person who had administered the shot had just graduated from a physician assistants' program and apparently had injected the vaccine into the wrong location. Ms. Barry eventually needed cortisone shots, surgery and months of physical therapy, she said. She said she had quickly reported the incident to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, sponsored by the C.D.C. and the Food and Drug Administration. Through that process, she learned of the injury compensation program, which agreed that her injury had been vaccine related and paid for her medical costs and potential future expenses. Ms. Barry said she still gets vaccinated. "I would not want anybody to hear this story and say 'Oh, there's another reason not to go get vaccines,'" she said. The tetanus vaccine is considered so vital that 576 million doses containing it (often along with diphtheria and pertussis) were administered from 2006 through 2017 and 719 injury claims related to it were compensated, the data shows. Getting tetanus can be devastating, as a 2017 case in Oregon showed. According to a C.D.C. report on that case, a 6 year old boy who had not been vaccinated developed tetanus from a cut on the forehead and required 57 days in the hospital. For much of that time, he was in so much pain from muscle spasms that he had to be kept in a darkened room, wearing ear plugs. His care cost more than 800,000. The cost for a five dose regimen of the tetanus vaccine, which would have prevented his suffering, is about 150. In very rare circumstances, vaccines can cause death. A person can go into anaphylactic shock or have a fatal case of Guillain Barre syndrome. Since 1988, more than half of the 1,300 claims of death were dismissed because the program found insufficient evidence that the vaccine was responsible. About 90 of the 520 death claims that were compensated involved the flu shot. Nearly half of compensated death claims involved DTP, an early vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (also called whooping cough). The pertussis formulation, known as whole cell, was replaced in the 1990s with acellular versions contained in the current DTaP and Tdap vaccines. The vaccine compensation program was created because a flood of lawsuits, especially ones involving DTP, was prompting pharmaceutical companies to abandon the vaccine business. Public health officials and Congress worried there would not be enough manufacturers providing crucial vaccines. A 1986 law established the compensation fund, financed by a tax paid by vaccine manufacturers of 75 cents per dose. The law acts as a liability shield for drug companies: People claiming injury are required to seek redress first with the vaccine program in the United States Court of Federal Claims and with the Department of Health and Human Services before they can sue a manufacturer. There is a backlog of about 2,800 cases that need to be resolved, a process that takes an average of two to three years.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Health
|
The tallest tower in the Western Hemisphere, 432 Park Avenue, continues to fill up, with the official closings of two more luxury aeries, which were the most expensive transactions of the week, according to city records. The pricier of the two sponsor units, at 24,990,100.31, was No. 66A, which is 837 feet up the 1,396 foot, 96 story concrete and glass building on "Billionaires' Row," between 56th and 57th Streets. Its monthly carrying costs are 15,986. The 4,109 square foot apartment has three bedrooms, four and a half baths and a library. It offers stellar views of Central Park, the East River and beyond, along with the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center and the Empire State Building. Timothy Rothman of Compass brought the buyer, whose identity, like that of most other new owners in the building, was shielded by a limited liability company, 432 Park Avenue Ste 66A.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Real Estate
|
Deborah Dugan, the suspended chief of the Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammy Awards, said in a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Tuesday that she had been removed as retaliation for uncovering a range of misconduct at the academy, including sexual harassment, improper voting procedures and conflicts of interest among academy board members. Ms. Dugan's 44 page complaint details her clash with a number of powerful men at the academy during her tenure of just five months. But her accusations also represent an indictment of the academy itself, which has struggled to reform its reputation after coming under harsh criticism for its poor record recognizing women and people of color in the major categories. The document, filed with the E.E.O.C.'s Los Angeles office and technically called a charge of discrimination, alleges that Ms. Dugan's predecessor, Neil Portnow, had been accused of rape by an artist, and that the academy's board had been scheduled to vote for a bonus for him even though all of its members had not been told about the accusation. The complaint has little detail about the accusation, but said that a psychiatrist had said that the encounter was "likely not consensual." It also says that Ms. Dugan herself had received unwanted sexual advances from Joel Katz, a powerful industry lawyer who represents the Grammys. The various forms of behavior, Ms. Dugan's complaint says, were "all made possible by the 'boys' club' mentality and approach to governance at the Academy." Mr. Katz disputed Ms. Dugan's account and Mr. Portnow, who has not been charged with a crime, said on Wednesday that "the allegations of rape are ludicrous, and untrue." In a statement, Mr. Portnow said that the accusation had already been investigated "by experienced and highly regarded lawyers" and that he was "completely exonerated." The academy said in a statement: "It is curious that Ms. Dugan never raised these grave allegations until a week after legal claims were made against her personally by a female employee who alleged Ms. Dugan had created a 'toxic and intolerable' work environment and engaged in 'abusive and bullying conduct.'" The academy said that investigations into Ms. Dugan's conduct and the allegations she raised were ongoing, and that she "was placed on administrative leave only after offering to step down and demanding 22 million from the Academy, which is a not for profit organization." In her complaint, Ms. Dugan called the academy's claim that she had demanded a 22 million settlement "flat out false." Ms. Dugan, 61, who took over as the chief executive of the academy in August after eight years with Red, the nonprofit co founded by Bono of U2 that works to combat AIDS and other diseases in Africa, also says in her complaint the academy's voting procedures are rife with irregularities that seemed to steer nominations to artists affiliated with board members. For many of its award categories, the academy convenes committees of experts, including artists, to review the nominations pool and whittle down the choices to meet the number of slots on the ballot. According to the complaint, the nominating committee, when finalizing the ballot for the 2019 award for song of the year, for example, chose as one of its eight final nominees a song that had initially ranked 18 out of 20. The artist behind that song, the complaint alleges, was allowed to sit on the committee and was also represented by a board member. The complaint also says that the committees can add artists to the ballot who had not first been chosen by the general voting pool. For this year's awards, it says, 30 such artists were "added to the possible nomination list." The academy placed Ms. Dugan on administrative leave after what it said was "a formal allegation of misconduct by a senior female member of the Recording Academy team." That allegation, according to Ms. Dugan's complaint, was made by a former assistant to Mr. Portnow, who had remained attached to Ms. Dugan until she hired her own aide. After finding the work of this assistant unsatisfactory, Ms. Dugan offered her a new position, but she refused it and took a leave of absence, the complaint said. Eventually a lawyer for the assistant sent the academy a letter accusing Ms. Dugan of "being a bully," as Ms. Dugan's complaint puts it. By that point, Ms. Dugan's complaint says, the academy's board had begun to strip her of some of her powers. Harvey Mason Jr., a record producer who is the board chairman, sent Ms. Dugan a letter on Dec. 9, informing her that she was no longer permitted to terminate staff members without board approval, and could not assign any new initiatives or choose any outside counsel for the academy's legal work. On Dec. 22, Ms. Dugan sent a memo to the academy's top human resources officer detailing her concerns, and two days later a lawyer representing her notified the academy that she "intended to pursue legal claims," according to the complaint filed on Tuesday. In an interview with The New York Times before Ms. Dugan's complaint was filed, Mr. Mason and Christine Albert, the academy's board emeritus, said they were committed to changing the organization but that Ms. Dugan had been moving too fast, had not taken the time to understand how the organization functioned, and disrespected the staff by not listening to their opinions. "What we expected was change without chaos," Ms. Albert said. Ms. Dugan's complaint argues that the assistant's complaint was a mere pretext for dismissing Ms. Dugan after she reported problems at the academy and challenged the close business ties between the organization and two law firms that perform the bulk of its legal work, yielding millions of dollars in fees each year. In her complaint, Ms. Dugan said that these problems began even before she took her place at the academy. Last May, the complaint says, after Ms. Dugan had been selected for the job and signed an employment contract, Mr. Katz invited her to a private dinner the night before a board meeting. At that dinner, as Ms. Dugan wrote in her memo to human resources, which was attached to her E.E.O.C. complaint as an exhibit, Mr. Katz ordered "an outlandishly expensive bottle of wine," commented repeatedly on her appearance, called her "baby," and invited her to travel with him on his private plane to his many homes. She said she told him she was not interested but he attempted to kiss her anyway. "Needless to say," she wrote, "I found his behavior disconcerting and utterly inappropriate." At their dinner, Ms. Dugan wrote, she also pointed out to Mr. Katz that she wanted to hire an in house lawyer to help bring its legal costs down. The New York Times interviewed a colleague of Ms. Dugan's who said that Ms. Dugan had recounted the dinner in detail the next day and then continued to report further inappropriate behavior by Mr. Katz after that point.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Music
|
Using antacids during pregnancy is linked to asthma in offspring, a systematic review of research has found. Researchers pooled data from eight observational studies and concluded that the risk of asthma in childhood increased by 34 percent when the mother used proton pump inhibitors and by 57 percent with the use of histamine 2 receptor antagonists. The study is in Pediatrics. P.P.I.s and H2 blockers are considered safe and effective prescription drugs for treating gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, a common complication in pregnancy. They are also available over the counter. No observational study can establish causation, and genetic or environmental factors could explain the association. Yet even after controlling for maternal asthma, use of other drugs during pregnancy, age of the mother at birth, smoking and other variables, the association persisted.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Well
|
Sunday's final episode of "Game of Thrones" included one last pivotal burst of dragon fire. As the CGI beasts grew over the years, so did the series's reliance on spectacle. In the end, the dragons were just too big to control. When "Game of Thrones" began eight years ago, there were no dragons. It started as a more intimate story of family and politics, and Daenerys Targaryen's cat sized fire babies didn't hatch until the end of the first season. They got bigger and bigger, and stronger and stronger, and with them grew the series's reliance on spectacle and stunning set pieces. (As did the production scale; next to the show's final battles, Daenerys's conquest of Astapor, jaw dropping back in Season 3, looks like a pickup soccer match.) So it was fitting, if not entirely satisfying, that the climactic act and the tenderest emotional moment in the series finale, "The Iron Throne," belonged not to any human but to Drogon, Daenerys's last surviving lizard child. After eight seasons of carnage over the throne, it was Drogon First of Its Name, Flame Broiler of Cities who came upon Daenerys, dead at the hand of her soldier/lover/nephew/betrayer Jon Snow, reared back, belched fire and smelted the seat of power into a puddle of lava. HBO went to great lengths to keep the finale secret until it aired, professional bettors saw clear signs that key details had leaked and were trying to cash in. It was the perfect climax for the show that "Game of Thrones" finally became. Its key scene belonged to a massive CGI animation whose motivations we will never fathom. The image echoed the climax of "The Lord of the Rings," in which Gollum, reunited with his precious ring, tottered and fell into the magma of Mount Doom. But Gollum, though monstrous, was a person. We knew his reasons: His twisted covetousness gave him an inadvertent, pivotal role in the grand drama. Looking for something to watch now that "Game of Thrones" is over? Sign up for our Watching newsletter for film and TV recommendations. We'll never know. It just looked cool. And as Drogon tenderly scooped Daenerys's body into a claw and flew off into the gray sky, it was honestly more moving than the final interaction of the two humans in the scene. This was the endgame of "Thrones" in miniature: Stunning on the outside, affecting in small moments, inscrutable at heart. How well "Game of Thrones" ended depends largely on how well you think it pulled off the key turn of last week's "The Bells," in which Daenerys, having won the surrender of King's Landing, presses her attack and incinerates the defenseless townspeople. After a week, and especially after the finale, I've decided it was a botch. Leaving aside whether the attack "should" have happened, it failed the basic job of a story, to give us a clear sense of what the central figure did and why. Is Daenerys insane? Did she have a rationale for targeting the defenseless that she never spelled out? Or were the citizens simply collateral damage in an overzealous drive to eradicate Queen Cersei's troops? Read our recap of the series finale. I'm still not sure, and after the finale, I'm not convinced the makers of the show are sure either. In a Nuremberg like speech to her victorious troops which opened with the breathtaking image of Drogon's wings behind an imperious Emilia Clarke, as if unfolding from her own shoulder blades Dany spoke of having "liberated" the people of King's Landing, who, to all appearances, were mostly dead. Maybe she'd gone mad (an interpretation suggested in the attack, which she began with an expression so twisted that the bells may as well have been playing "The Merry Go Round Broke Down"). Or maybe most of the populace actually survived, like the Dothraki, whose encounter with the army of the dead at the Battle of Winterfell turned out to be a flesh wound. We could only guess, clued partly by a dialogue between Jon and Tyrion Lannister (the opening figure and moral heart of the episode) that felt like a meta recap of fans' defenses of "The Bells" online. Daenerys, Tyrion argued, had a history of cruelty. "Everywhere she goes, evil men die and we cheer for it," he said. "And she grows more powerful and more sure that she is good and right." Who created this monster? Dear viewer, it was us. On paper, honestly, it almost makes sense. The problem is that a TV series doesn't unfold on paper. The endgame had a great idea to work with: A woman, abused and traded like chattel, becomes so caught up in her zeal to do good that she sees anything but blind adoration as evil. But it never took us inside her perspective to make that change seem real and inevitable. "Game of Thrones" instead relied on propulsion, like Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff. If things feel right enough in the moment, momentum carries you to the next thing. Look down, and you plummet. Maybe that's the secret of dragon flight. Once Drogon disappeared, it felt like "Game of Thrones" proper had ended, replaced, for the finale's remaining half, by a smaller, thinner show concerned with checking off boxes, delivering farewells, comic relief and final answers. The biggest one who should rule? was settled in a gathering of lords that played as if the writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were workshopping acceptable compromise outcomes. (Samwell Tarly went so far as to propose a direct democracy, a popular fan theory, and was hooted down.) Finally, Tyrion nominated Bran Stark, the psychic Lorax who communes with the trees, with the elevator pitch that he had the most powerful "story." It was the most Hollywood of solutions: The best forum for deciding how to govern a country, it suggested, was a writers' room. ("There's nothing in the world more powerful than a good story" is a beautiful sentiment, and one no character in a story should ever utter.) Thus the three headed dragon gave way to the three eyed raven. I'll let you argue about who "deserved" the crown, a position that did not end happily for the last counts on fingers half dozen or so incumbents. But the resolution felt optimistic in a way that was justified by exactly zero of "Game of Thrones" to date. What in the series's history or view of human nature suggests that this won't end in a seven way civil war inside a few years? Everyone's suddenly cool with an extra monarchy for Sansa and no one else? Will every would be Littlefinger stop his or her scheming, pacified by the new administration's infrastructure plans? It was the small character moments that worked best here. There was Tyrion, in the silence before the final Small Council meeting, anxiously straightening the chairs around the table. (This was very much Peter Dinklage's episode, and as much exposition as he had to deliver, he sold Tyrion as a man desperate to redeem his mistakes.) There was Arya, permanently changed by a life of assassination and survival, sailing west of Westeros, a poignant, hopeful image that mirrored her setting off for Braavos at the end of Season 4. And as much as it made no practical sense that there's still a Night's Watch are they guarding against the suddenly vanished Dothraki? Jon rejoining the Wildlings, the outcasts among whom he once found a home, made emotional sense. As a finale, "The Iron Throne" was limited by the story arc that led up to it. But it also recalled the epic and intimate moments that made "Game of Thrones" a genuinely exciting, absorbing appointment. The thing about dragons is, you look at all that armor and musculature, and it's a wonder they're able to fly at all. "Game of Thrones" may seem like an obvious hit now, but it wasn't. It was a genre that hadn't worked at scale on TV before. It would require a standard of production it wasn't clear TV could achieve. Add in a sprawling geographical and political story line, and it could have and nearly did, with its legendarily bad unaired pilot crashed and burned on takeoff. It soared instead, but as it built mass and speed, it became hard to steer and seemed to have a mind of its own. It didn't manage the artistic greatness Tolkien as filtered through "The Wire" that it aspired to. But it was a staggering, if uncontrollable, entertainment. In succeeding and growing, "Game of Thrones" became HBO's 800 ton dragon. And where does an 800 ton dragon go? Anywhere it wants to.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Television
|
Herastrau Park in Bucharest opened in 1936, just five years before Romania joined its German allies in invading the Soviet Union.Credit...Susan Wright for The New York Times Herastrau Park in Bucharest opened in 1936, just five years before Romania joined its German allies in invading the Soviet Union. I had thought I was the last male Zuckerman in our family. Zuckerman is a fairly common Jewish name (see Pinchas , the Philip Roth character, my orthopedic surgeon), but my own family for the last few generations has produced an abundance of daughters, whose children inherited their fathers' last names. The only remaining Zuckermans I knew of were myself, my sister and my two daughters (see?). "Zuckerman" means sugar man, marking us as descendants of a sugar beet peddler; so Windsors we're not, nor Rockefellers, nor Kardashians. But even so ... Then cousin Motti in Israel (last name Klinger) told me about cousin Iancu Zuckerman, aged 95, resident of Bucharest, survivor of a Holocaust "death train," now happy and healthy and even somewhat prominent in Romania. Motti offered to translate if I ever wanted to visit Iancu. Iancu wasn't hard to find. When I arrived at my hotel, exhausted and jet lagged, he was waiting in the lobby. He is a small man, entirely bald except for white fringe at the rear. Motti had told me Iancu was in excellent shape, but how excellent could he be at 95? Sitting beside him was an attractive younger woman (whose name turned out to be Maria; her age, 45). Was she his home health aide? Did Iancu need an attendant? I whispered the questions to Motti, who was waiting with them. No, he said, she's his girlfriend. "She likes me for my personality," Iancu told us later. Clearly, he is doing fine. At dinner in the hotel restaurant, Iancu was chatty and happy to see us. He invited me to sample his meal (the chicken soup was excellent, the cow brain croquettes fortunately tasteless) and started to talk about his life. During Romania's long Communist era, he worked for the Ministry of Agriculture. His passion, however, was music. Today he scouts talent for a philanthropist friend who gives grants to promising young musicians, and he hosts a weekly classical music show on Radio Shalom Romania. During his working career, he played violin in the Ministry of Agriculture orchestra. Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of my daughters with the surprising announcement that they were fugitives from the Bucharest police. They'd been coming to the hotel on a bus, for which they had taken great care to purchase the proper tickets. The conductor, however, insisted they hadn't paid the right fare. He stopped the bus, put them on the sidewalk and said the police were coming to deal with them. A young Romanian woman whispered a word of advice through a bus window: "Run!" They didn't run. But they walked. There was no evidence of pursuit. Romania has a problem with corruption, from petty tourist shakedowns to high officials' malfeasance, and Bucharest, its capital, seems somewhat bereft. A large chunk of the center was razed by the Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, who was deposed and executed in 1989. Ceausescu had a vision of a grand socialist metropolis, its centerpiece the 1,100 room Palace of Parliament, the largest office building in the world after the Pentagon. The area that escaped Ceausescu's bulldozers is dotted with handsome French inspired buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many, however, are scarred and in need of cleaning. Even a monument in Revolution Square to those who were killed during the demonstrations that preceded Ceausescu's fall is in need of maintenance. Its base is crumbling. Iancu and Maria live in a Communist era apartment block on the west side of town. It has three small rooms bedroom, kitchen, and a living room mostly filled with a dining table upon which Maria spread petits fours and champagne on an afternoon we came to visit. While a small dog snapped at my older daughter, Iancu showed us a photo of his late wife, Clarissa, who died in 2010. He showed us a photo of himself and Maria, arm in arm with the Israeli ambassador at an embassy party. And he brought out two medals, with proclamations from two Romanian presidents declaring him a "cavaler" (knight) of two national orders, citing his "high moral and professional attitude" and his "contribution to preserving the memory of the Holocaust." Then Iancu told us, as he has told many Romanian newspaper and television interviewers, about the events in Iasi in June 1941. Iasi, in northeastern Romania, is where Iancu grew up, as did my grandfather Julius, Iancu's uncle, who emigrated to the United States shortly before the First World War. The family story is that Julius left Romania to avoid being drafted into the Romanian army, but that, shortly after arriving in the United States, he'd been drafted into the American army and shipped back to Europe. Fortunately, he was the company tailor, a low fatality position. Julius's two sisters emigrated as well, but Julius's brother Samuel, Iancu's father, remained in Iasi, which had a large Jewish population and had been an important center of Jewish culture for decades. Iasi was also a center of Romanian anti Semitism, birthplace of the Iron Guard, a precursor to the fascist Romanian government that allied itself with Nazi Germany in World War II. In June 1941, Romania joined its German ally in invading the Soviet Union. When Soviet warplanes bombed Iasi, Romanian authorities accused Iasi's Jews of being Communist sympathizers who had sent signals to mark targets for Soviet aircraft. A vicious pogrom erupted, planned and encouraged by the Romanian government. A day before it started, Jewish men had been conscripted to dig large trenches in the Jewish cemetery, and Christian families were advised to paint crosses on their houses. By June 28, Jewish men, women and children were being pulled out of their homes by soldiers, gendarmes and enthusiastic civilian volunteers, who spat on them, beat them and murdered them, with guns, iron bars and sledge hammers. Other Jews, Iancu among them, were marched through the streets, past battered bodies, to the central police station. Seventy seven years later, in his little apartment living room, Iancu showed us how he marched that day. Sturdy on his feet, between a couch and the table laden with petits fours, he raised his hands above his head and recalled how a Romanian officer slapped him and took his watch, saying, "Dirty Jew, you won't need a watch any more." Iancu was "lucky." His train traveled for only eight hours, but it was hellish enough. To avoid falling and being crushed or suffocated, one survivor said, he made benches of dead bodies and sat on them. One hundred and thirty seven people were crammed into Iancu's car. "The main thing," Iancu told us, "was not to exert yourself. Many exhausted themselves, crying, cursing, asking for water. When there were only 25 left alive, I knew my turn was coming, but I had no fear. I said to myself, I have to get out of this train car, I have to get out." He, and only seven others, did. After the train, Iancu was held in a local concentration camp, then worked through the war as a slave laborer. (Although Romanian soldiers murdered tens of thousands of Jews in territories they occupied, Jews in Romania itself did not face mass deportations to death camps.) When the war was over, Iancu studied agronomy. He treated us to a meal one afternoon at a pretty lakeside restaurant in Bucharest's Herastrau Park. He told us that he lectured about his Holocaust experience several times a year in schools. One student asked him, "Where was God?" Iancu replied, "God was on vacation." Now, he ordered a bottle of excellent Romanian red, and we toasted, four Zuckermans and Motti and Maria. The park is lovely. An excursion boat passed on the lake. Iancu took another sip of the wine, Maria by his side. "It is better to be here," he observed, "than in a mass grave in Iasi." The next morning we flew to Iasi. The city is a cultural center with a symphony orchestra, a national theater and a university district flush with parks and cafes. But we arrived with Iancu's story fresh in our minds, and it didn't help that a taxi driver, asked to take us to Iasi's Great Synagogue, professed ignorance of its existence. Recently restored, the elegant synagogue sits in a parklike setting ("Romanian Israeli Friendship Square") easily visible from a major intersection. But the driver said he'd never heard of it. Were we sure we didn't want to go to a church, he asked. "Biserica?" "No," said Motti, "Sinagoga, Evrei Jewish ." "Biserica?," asked the driver. We found it despite him, and, nearby, a small Jewish community office. Iasi once had 35,000 Jews. Now it has 300. The woman who runs the office knows Iancu and his story, and she walked us to the spot where Iancu had lived with his family. That building is gone, replaced by a modern hotel. Our guide left us there, and then the four of us (my daughters, cousin Motti, myself) retraced the steps Iancu had taken, hands raised, through a hostile mob, on a summer day in 1941. We walked down Cuza Voda Street, passing the Golia Monastery, tended by black robed Orthodox monks, and a variety of shops. Looking around, I tried to imagine what Iancu might have seen that day. Probably not the tattoo parlor, nor the obese male manikin wearing brown pedal pushers, nor the woman with long stringy hair haphazardly dyed turquoise. But a street sweeper wielded a broom that could easily have been from the 1940s, if not the 1640s. And, as an ancient looking tram clanked by, I looked at its driver, and he gave me what seemed an unfriendly look, and I recalled a line from a history of the pogrom: "The tramway ticket taker Constantin Ifras is reported to have used a crowbar to kill the Segals (father, mother, and two children), who happened to be passing him on the street." We walked by Philharmonic Hall, then turned into Vasile Alecsandri Street and reached the courtyard of the former police headquarters, where the Jews of Iasi had been herded and many beaten to death. Now it was a construction site; part will be a Holocaust museum. From there we walked, as Iancu had, to the train station, where thousands of Jews were crammed into the death trains. It was decorated with a large banner advertising a local film festival. A small plaque on the station wall memorialized " 2,713 Jews who died in turmoil after they were crowded into freight wagons, stabbed and tortured." Inside, passengers waited for trains to Timisoara, Vaslui and Ungheni Prut. Finally, we saw the mass graves where Iancu preferred not to be. There were four of them 15 feet wide, 90 feet long, flat concrete adorned only with blue Stars of David enormous. As we were standing there, the dogs found us and came, barking. Motti picked up a large branch and waved it, and the dogs retreated. Outside again, we could see an adjacent Orthodox Christian cemetery, well maintained and still in business. Below us, we had a panoramic view of Iasi. A woman arrived in a taxi. She got out and, through the fence, started to feed the dogs.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Travel
|
Re "Clusters Pop Up in New Locations as States Reopen" (front page, June 23): I live in Florida, one of the states that is accelerating reopening restaurants, fitness clubs, stores and bars. The rate of new Covid 19 cases is rising, too ("Florida and South Carolina Again Set Records as U.S. Coronavirus Cases Surge," nytimes.com, June 20). I religiously wear a mask in public, even when taking my daily walk. Yet I see fewer and fewer people wearing masks. Is it collective arrogance to think that I can't possibly get the virus? Is it collective disregard for my safety? If individuals won't comply voluntarily, then owners of these establishments should require masks for everyone. Simply don't let in anyone who isn't compliant. That doesn't seem like too much to ask. I just got back from my first haircut in three months. I live in Hilton Head, S.C., about a quarter mile from the Pope Avenue commercial area. I was amazed to see no one during my trip to the barber shop wearing a mask, except my barber. I must have passed 70 or 80 people. It's no wonder South Carolina cases are spiking!
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Opinion
|
The same day that President Trump hosted the Australian prime minister in New York aboard the decommissioned aircraft carrier Intrepid, a political meeting of a different sort took place farther north. I am talking, of course, about the sit down on Thursday between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and Prime Minister Enda Kenny of Ireland. And though you might think it was what Melania Trump wore to the black tie dinner on the Intrepid that should have made sartorial waves (it was a yellow one shouldered Dior, for the record), in fact, it was Mr. Trudeau's outfit in Montreal that got everyone talking. Specifically, his socks. Specifically, his mismatched "Star Wars" socks, one in blue and gray with R2D2 and the other in gold and black depicting C3PO. They were impossible to miss set against his dark suit, white shirt, and red tie. And they demonstrated that while Mrs. Trump may be a tentative player in the sartorial diplomacy game her dress was at least close to one of Australia's national colors, though it was not by an Australian or American designer Mr. Trudeau seems to understand as well as any of his peers that what you wear is a political tool, and a leader would be remiss not to use it in every way possible. Which brings us back to the meaning of his socks. May 4, after all, was not just the day of his summit meeting with Mr. Kenny, but also International Star Wars Day a.k.a. MayTheFourthBeWithYou, a.k.a. the day that thousands of "Star Wars" acolytes from around the world indulge their inner fan geek, dress up like Jedis and announce to everyone in sight, "May the force be with you," a now classic line from the movie franchise. So, while Mr. Trudeau's choice of ankle wear may not have been meant to underscore his position on Irish Canadian relations or a new trade deal with the European Union (the subjects of his meeting with Mr. Kenny), they absolutely signaled his membership in the group of unabashed pop culture fans. Indeed, he posted a picture of the socks on his Twitter account with the words "These are the socks you are looking for." That's another "Star Wars" reference, of course. As of Friday morning, the post had been liked more than 22,000 times. The socks served to reinforce Mr. Trudeau's image as a new gen world leader: one plugged into the zeitgeist and unafraid to shed, or even poke fun at, some of the trappings of office. One who understands the concerns of much of the electorate. Like Mr. Trudeau's tattoo, his occasional shirtless photograph and his appearance on the cover of a comic book, the socks humanized him and communicated to anyone who saw the photograph of the two politicians in their giant leather wingbacks that, while Mr. Trudeau may occupy the executive chair, he is made in a different mode: politically and personally. Indeed, almost immediately, the Twittersphere exploded with excitement. Male politicians have been using their ties as talking points for decades if you doubt this, consider that I once asked a friend who was a political fixer and who had worked on many campaigns in North and South America if candidates really spent as much time thinking about their ties as I thought they did. He replied: "I cannot tell you the hours I have spent discussing tie color when we could have been discussing the peace accords." But this is the first time in recent years I can remember socks coming into play. Clearly, it's a potentially effective accessory that has been overlooked. Perhaps it's time we all start paying attention.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Fashion & Style
|
How the Chiefs Beat the 49ers to Win the Super Bowl
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Sports
|
With Two Suitors for Fox, the Murdochs Consider Next Steps The Walt Disney Company has agreed to buy most of 21st Century Fox's assets in a deal worth 52.4 billion, but things got complicated last week when Comcast made a rival offer that valued the business at 65 billion. At stake are cable channels including FX and National Geographic, the "Avatar" and "X Men" film franchises, and a pair of international television networks. It may stoke visions of blistering negotiations between high powered media executives with big egos barking into phones or ruminating in closed door meetings, but there are rules of engagement around mergers that are designed to civilize the process. Fox and its chairman, Rupert Murdoch, will have a lot of say over how the process is managed. How will Mr. Murdoch and his board of directors proceed? Here's a breakdown of what to expect. Fox has already accepted Disney's offer, which means that the two companies are continuing to move forward with that deal. For now, Fox shareholders are scheduled to vote on that agreement on July 10. At the same time, Mr. Murdoch and the Fox board will be evaluating Comcast's terms to see if they like them better. That will start with a relatively quick inspection to see if the offer is serious enough and competitive enough to grant Comcast access to its books, known as due diligence. The Fox board already had a meeting scheduled for Wednesday. Now, Comcast will be the main topic of discussion. It's not as simple as saying Comcast's 65 billion offer is larger than Disney's 52.4 billion deal. First, Fox has to decide if Comcast's financing is good, just as someone selling a home wants to make sure the buyer has secured a mortgage. Also, the currency of both offers is different. Comcast is offering cash, while Disney is paying with its stock, which could carry some tax benefits and rise in value in the long run. Fox also wants to be confident that any bid would be approved by the government. The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates broadcasters, isn't a factor. Disney's proposal isn't undergoing F.C.C. review, and Comcast said its offer shouldn't be subject to F.C.C. approval since there wouldn't be any transfer of broadcast licenses. The Fox broadcast network, Fox News and the sports network FS1 aren't being sold. That leaves the Justice Department, which was dealt a blistering defeat last week in its attempt to block another media merger: AT T's purchase of Time Warner. That outcome could help Comcast, which will be challenged on two fronts: as a content distributor, through its cable and broadband service, and as a content provider, via its NBCUniversal division. 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. Last week's ruling allowed AT T, a distributor, to purchase Time Warner, a news and entertainment colossus that owns HBO, CNN and the Warner Bros. film studio. The decision could conceivably be applied to the Comcast Fox deal, according to at least one former lawyer for the Justice Department. When announcing his company's bid for Fox last week, Brian L. Roberts, Comcast's chief executive, said he was "highly confident that our proposed transaction will obtain all necessary regulatory approvals in a timely manner and that our transaction is as or more likely to receive regulatory approval than the Disney transaction." However, Fox owns 22 regional sports networks, such as the Yankees' YES channel in the New York area. Comcast's NBCUniversal group already operates nine regional sports networks, while Disney has control of ESPN, the dominant cable sports channel in the country. The Justice Department could see either of these combinations as potentially stifling competition. Mr. Murdoch and his board will want to see which side has crafted the better regulatory maneuver. Both Disney and Comcast are willing to divest the regional sports networks should the government require. Separately, Hulu would come under the control of either Comcast or Fox both of which currently own portions of the streaming service. The Justice Department could see Comcast as a possible threat here since it is also the largest broadband provider in the country. Disney is just a programmer. But according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss company deliberations, Comcast would also consider selling Fox's 30 percent ownership of Hulu as a concession. In other words, it might be a regulatory wash. If so, then it comes back to which offer is better. Mr. Murdoch is said to have favored Disney's offer last year, partly because an all stock transaction would not require an immediate tax payment. Comcast's bid is all cash and would be taxable right away. Insiders, however, say the Murdoch family the elder son, Lachlan, is Fox's executive chairman, and his brother, James, is chief executive will advocate for the best offer, regardless of the tax implications. The board, after all, has a duty to its shareholders to maximize their returns. Even a Disney stock deal would ultimately incur a tax hit once an investor cashed in those shares. Investors with a significant ownership in Fox are already smiling. "As a Fox shareholder, I'm the happiest guy in the world," said Mario J. Gabelli, chief executive of the investment firm Gamco Investors. "I have a bidding war for one of my largest holdings. I have over 500 million in this, and I think it's terrific." If the Murdochs and the board determine Comcast has the superior offer, they will alert the Disney chief, Robert A. Iger, and his directors of their new preference, and the July 10 shareholder meeting will be void. Disney then has five business days to respond. If Disney returns with a counter bid Fox likes, the ball is back in Comcast's court. But unlike Disney, Comcast wouldn't have the luxury of time. That's because it has to negotiate within the confines of the merger agreement already laid out between Disney and Fox, which has built in some protections for Disney, specifically what is known as the right of last refusal. In other words, Disney will always have a chance to counter Comcast until it decides it has had enough. There is still a potential gray area in the process. Before Fox officially notifies either party, it could try to stoke a higher bid by hinting of its intentions. This is where some gamesmanship could come into play. But whether Disney or Comcast winds up with the assets, it is Mr. Murdoch who will be the real winner.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Media
|
Last Thursday at the Bell House in Gowanus, Brooklyn as Hillary Clinton accepted her party's presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention the comedian Phoebe Robinson acknowledged the event not with a political button but a tank top that read "Dad Bod 2016." "That's about as political as we get," Ms. Robinson said, referring to "2 Dope Queens," a podcast she hosts on WNYC with Jessica Williams, a former correspondent on "The Daily Show." Recorded at clubs around the city, the performances by the two close friends in real life intersperse stand up sets by other comics with their own conversations about boys, SoulCycle and working in the entertainment industry when there are still few roles for minority women. As Ms. Williams said in a recent podcast: "I'm constantly running into Gabourey Sidibe at auditions. We're all competing for the same one Shequoia part." Nevertheless, Ms. Williams and Ms. Robinson seem to be doing pretty well. Ms. Robinson has been consulting on "Broad City" and recently started another WNYC podcast called "Sooo Many White Guys." Her first book, "You Can't Touch My Hair," is due out from Plume this fall. Ms. Williams has a development deal with Comedy Central. Last week, Ms. Williams turned 27 (Ms. Robinson is 31), and the two celebrated at the Bell House with a panoply of comedians that included Kevin Avery (a comic who tells lots of jokes about S.T.D.'s) and Jessi Klein (Amy Schumer's equally blue writing partner). After some banter, it was time for the hosts to map the show. "This is like the opening night of 'Chicago' with Bebe Neuwirth," Ms. Robinson said. "Or 'Hamilton,'" Ms. Williams said. "With none of the work." The opposites attract quality of their schtick was readily apparent. Where Ms. Williams is sharp and caustic, Ms. Robinson is goofy and sweet. But for the fact that these women are black, tell jokes about penises (one recent podcast was devoted almost entirely to the subject of Lenny Kravitz's), and have divergent taste in men (Ms. Williams has a heavily tattooed 26 year old boyfriend; Ms. Robinson is single and has made her interest in older guys something of a meme), they are more or less Betty (Ms. Robinson) and Veronica (Ms. Williams). A few minutes into the set, Ms. Robinson told a story about a recent misadventure involving a 42 year old guy with a "real man bun" (apparently good) as well as a girlfriend (apparently bad), while Ms. Williams stood to the side in her pleated gold Alice and Olivia skirt shaking her head. "He wasted your time," Ms. Williams said, dropping to the ground and feigning death. "That is time you will never get back!" From there, the duo waded into presidential politics, commenting not on the policy positions of either of the two major candidates, but on Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s septuagenarian sex appeal. There, a production assistant was waiting with news: The evening's surprise guest was on his way but had maybe gotten lost somewhere between the New Jersey Turnpike and the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. "Jon Stewart is having trouble getting here," the assistant said. But not too much. Five minutes later, the former host of "The Daily Show" moseyed into the backstage area in a baseball cap and gray jeans, peering at a stack of speakers on the walls and declaring himself displeased. "My rider said 10 speaker cases," he said, with mock disgust. "I only see eight." Soon, Ms. Williams, Ms. Robinson and Mr. Stewart were plotting his surprise entrance. It occurred a half hour later, after an onstage interview between the Dope Queens and Ms. Klein and a birthday video with appearances from Ms. Robinson, Carrie Brownstein of "Portlandia" and a male comic who sang to Ms. Williams in falsetto. ("Like Mariah Carey," he said.) Standing onstage with Ms. Williams, Ms. Robinson noted that the floor was filthy and that someone ought to come clean it. So a scruffy maintenance man with a 5 o'clock shadow waltzed out, his cap slung low as he wiped it up for them. When he took off his hat, the audience whooped and hollered, realizing that it was Mr. Stewart. For the next 15 minutes, they ("Three dope queens," Mr. Stewart said) hammed it up. A repeated meme was life at "The Daily Show," where the former host said he served primarily as Ms. Williams's first exposure to the frailties of seniors. "We would be in the morning meeting," he said, "and she'd be looking at me like she was trying to figure something out: 'O.K., I'm going to go with hepatitis and osteoporosis.'" "It's true," Ms. Williams said. "I also learned so much about Jewish people." Ms. Robinson got in on the action by flirting with Mr. Stewart. "Do you know I'm currently on the market for an older gentleman?" she said. "Jess is about to throw up, but I was wondering if you had any tips about how I should go about procuring one." "Don't hug them too tight," Mr. Stewart said. A little after 10, Ms. Williams got teary when a birthday cake shaped like her face was brought out. "This is like a 'Real Housewives' cake," she said, making it clear that there was no bigger compliment in the Western world. It even had an edible septum piercing and remarkably lifelike braids. "They're fondant," Ms. Robinson said proudly. "I don't know what that word means. I just heard some white people say it and was like, 'Yeah!'" So they took it backstage and cut it up for a group of about 15. Then, Mr. Stewart went home, and the party moved to a nearby bar, where meatballs were eaten and vodka shots thrown back. "This burns," Ms. Robinson said, as her comedy partner gave her a loving look, the kind a child gives upon discovering that her favorite sibling is covered in chocolate. "What am I going to do for your birthday?" Ms. Williams asked.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Fashion & Style
|
The term "sustainable travel" has a green glow to it, connoting eco friendly practices and environmental responsibility. But the human side of sustainability, as defined by the World Tourism Organization, addresses community impact, both social and economic, and is newly gaining traction among travel companies. Social impact travel aims to ensure money spent on a tour or a trip stays in the community. A vital source of income to developing nations, travel is the first or second source of export earnings in 20 of the 48 least developed countries, according to the W.T.O., yet a 2013 report from the organization noted that just 5 of every 100 spent in a developing country stayed in that destination. "There's a lot of people who think 'eco tourism' when they hear 'sustainable tourism,' but that's a piece of the puzzle," said Kelley Louise, the executive director of the Impact Travel Alliance, an industry nonprofit organization that focuses on sustainable travel. "Sustainability has a positive impact not only on the environment, but the culture and the economy of the destination you're visiting." Among new developments, the Jordan Tourism Board created the Meaningful Travel Map of Jordan in March, highlighting 12 social enterprises in the country, including a Bedouin camp stay, a women's weaving group and village tours that support local entrepreneurs. Last fall, the tour company Collette launched Impact Travel Tours, which spend half of the time sightseeing and the other half visiting community based improvement projects. Earlier this year, the safari company andBeyond launched philanthropic focused itineraries in Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa. Organizations promoting social impact travel aim to emphasize not just big do good trips, but to educate travelers about their smallest decisions, such as eating at a locally owned restaurant. "Every time you have a meal, get accommodations or do activities, you can have a positive impact just by traveling," said Paula Vlamings, the chief executive of Tourism Cares, a nonprofit organization representing the tourism industry that, among other programs, trains Good Travels advisers, travel agents who specialize in socially responsible travel experiences. "Leaving money in the community is such an important way to have a huge impact. The ripple effect, particularly for women, girls and the environment, demonstrates the power of travel." Some sustainable trips are priced like luxury vacations, a fact that prompted the 2015 launch of Giving Way, a platform linking volunteers directly with nongovernmental agencies, cutting out intermediaries that link the two. "Volunteering should be accessible to everyone, not just a rich man's privilege," said Orit Strauss, the founder and chief executive of Giving Way, which now works with nearly 1,900 organizations in more than 115 countries. About half are free and the other half charge nominal fees to cover food and lodging. Activities range from working on an organic farm in Costa Rica to mentoring youth in rural South Africa. Doing good doesn't require traveling through multiple time zones or long stays. New initiatives like Kind Traveler, which launched in 2016, aim to make each trip, however short, an opportunity to improve local lives. The hotel booking website offers discounted rooms to users who make a 10 donation to a charity affiliated with the hotel. Hotels are vetted for their sustainable practices, including environmental and community impacts. The company now offers hotels in 30 destinations in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica and the Caribbean and plans to add hotels in Aspen, Colo., Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Va., this spring. Day trips that take place in communities often give back to them. Ninth Ward Rebirth Bike Tours in New Orleans, for example, donates 5 of its 65 fee to local charities. Oyster hauling or crabbing with Virginia Watermen Heritage Tours provides a secondary source of income to fishermen in a string of coastal communities. The tour booking site Visit.org allows users to search for experiences by interests, including women's empowerment and human rights. When it launched its Experiences tours in 2016, Airbnb added social impact programs; 100 percent of the fees go to nonprofits and entrepreneurs highlighted in each tour. They may include an outing in Venice with the founder of a community garden, a LGBTQ history tour of New York with an activist or an experience making notebooks in Prague with the founder of a nonprofit that works with artisans challenged by mental and physical disabilities. For those who have the time, tour operators offer myriad ways to contribute to social causes. It's not uncommon for safari companies in Africa to add community tours to their itineraries, often to show off how they're spreading the wealth locally via education and health care. This year, andBeyond introduced Travel With Purpose trips, which spend more time visiting conservation and community projects based on the interests of millennial travelers interested in philanthropy. "Only when you actually get your hands proverbially dirty by rolling up your sleeves and engaging in these projects and initiatives can you really learn and understand the issues and how we can make an impact, however small," wrote Joss Kent, chief executive of andBeyond, in an email. Many high end tour operators such as Audley Travel and Scott Dunn partner with Me to We, the travel arm of the We Charity devoted to sustainable development, to offer social impact trips. African Travel, Inc. offers ME to WE Adventure to Kenya (four days from 2,195) in a Maasai Mara community, including learning traditional beading and helping to build a school. Me to We executives say half of its net profits go to the charity. At Nimmo Bay Wilderness Resort in British Columbia, guests can pay to attend its 10 day May guide school alongside resort guides. For each paying traveler, the resort will sponsor training for an indigenous youth from the area. The program, launched this year, is already sold out, but the lodge plans to offer it again in 2019 (5,000 Canadian dollars, or about 3,910). Village Ways, named best tour operator in the poverty reduction category in 2017 by Responsible Travel, a travel agency that specializes in sustainable travel, guides trips in Bhutan, India and Nepal that focus on village life. New this year, the company will offer trips with the Anwals, migratory shepherds in the Indian Himalayas, walking with them for two days as they drive their sheep to the high meadows. The rest of the time, guests walk from village to village, staying in local guesthouses (10 days from PS1,052, or about 1,480).
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Travel
|
She was all there, all the time: exuberant in describing her mania, savage and tender when recalling her despair. And for decades, she gracefully wore the legacy of her legendary role as Princess Leia, worshiped by a generation of teenage girls as the lone female warrior amid the galactic male cast of the "Star Wars" trilogy. In her long, openhearted life, the actress and author Carrie Fisher brought the subject of bipolar disorder into the popular culture with such humor and hard boiled detail that her death on Tuesday triggered a wave of affection on social media and elsewhere, from both fans and fellow bipolar travelers, whose emotional language she knew and enriched. She channeled the spirit of people like Patty Duke, who wrote about her own bipolar illness, and Kitty Dukakis, who wrote about depression and alcoholism, and turned it into performance art. Ms. Fisher's career coincided with the growing interest in bipolar disorder itself, a mood disorder characterized by alternating highs and lows, paralyzing depressions punctuated by flights of exuberant energy. "She was so important to the public because she was telling the truth about bipolar disorder, not putting on airs or pontificating, just sharing who she is in an honest to the bone way," said Judith Schlesinger, a psychologist and author of "The Insanity Hoax: Exposing the Myth of the Mad Genius." In a characteristic riff, answering a question about the disorder from the audience at the Indiana Comic Con last year, Ms. Fisher said: "It is a kind of virus of the brain that makes you go very fast or very sad. Or both. Those are fun days. So judgment isn't, like, one of my big good things. But I have a good voice. I can write well. I'm not a good bicycle rider. So, just like anybody else, only louder and faster and sleeps more." She then grabbed the mike and sang, in mock ballad voice, "Oh manic depression ... oh how I love you." That last line is a reminder too, that in Ms. Fisher's lifetime, even the name of the condition had evolved, to bipolar from what was once more commonly known as manic depression. Ms. Fisher has said that she was first given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder at age 24 but did not accept it until five years later. In time, she spoke often about her lifelong struggles with both addiction and bipolar disorder and her desire to erase the stigma of mental illness. She wrote her 1987 novel, "Postcards From the Edge," after a stint in rehab after a near fatal drug overdose. It was during her autobiographical one woman stage show, "Wishful Drinking," that she first posited the idea for "Bipolar Pride Day." Like the disorder itself, the wave of attention that occurred during Ms. Fisher's life had its excesses. Through the 1990s, research scientists many of them supported by drugmakers expanded the definition of the disorder, describing "sub syndromes" and permutations like bipolar II and "hypomania." By the 2000s, doctors were diagnosing the condition in groups of people who had never been identified before, mostly young children leading to thousands of children being unnecessarily treated with strong psychiatric drugs. In recent years, that overheated enthusiasm has finally begun to run its course. "I remember being at a psychiatric association event where Carrie Fisher was interviewed, and people were beginning to talk about the imperialism of bipolar," how the diagnosis was expanding beyond its bounds, said David Miklowitz, a professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. He added, "I think doctors are much more careful now, in being sure they're diagnosing the real thing." The American Psychiatric Association's latest diagnostic manual discourages applying the label to young children. Ms. Fisher's vivid prose, wicked humor and striking performances inevitably led many people, including herself, to wonder whether bipolar mania fuels creativity. "My experience is that it does spur creativity and insights and the ability to express connections you see but could not otherwise express," said Terri Cheney, author of the best selling memoir "Manic." "But normalcy is so much preferable, being able to remember what I did I tend to forget manic episodes." Scientists, scholars and writers have speculated for years about the connection between madness, and in particular mania, and artistic wizardry. The painters Edvard Munch and Vincent van Gogh, among many others, have been posthumously diagnosed with bipolar disorder. "There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness and terror involved in this kind of madness," wrote the psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison, a prominent proponent of this connection. "When you're high, it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones." But the debate remains contentious, and given the vagueness of so many diagnoses, not to mention the devastating effect of depression or psychosis on discipline and concentration, it is unlikely to be settled anytime soon. "The case has really been built on sand," Dr. Schlesinger said. "It's been oversold." She added, "Every course of bipolar is different, there is no one progression, no one symptomology, no one cure, so the effects are very individual." All the more reason that one particularly outspoken, charismatic and large personality could project so much toughness and vulnerability at the same time. Ms. Fisher learned to live a public life at a very early age, as the child of celebrities and with her early stardom.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Health
|
Neanderthals collected seashells by the seashore. They also may have swum underwater to retrieve live clams to later shape into sharp tools and scrapers, according to a new study. "Our findings enlarge our knowledge of the range of capacities Neanderthals had," said Sylvain Soriano, an archaeologist from Paris Nanterre University and an author of the paper. "Now we can say that they were able to dive in shallow water." The conclusion is based on more than 170 handmade shell tools found in an Italian cave. The finding provides insight into how Neanderthals, who hunted deer with flint tipped spears and used fire to produce birch tar, took advantage of their aquatic resources to fit their needs and fill their utility belts. The paper was published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One. Researchers uncovered Grotta dei Moscerini on the western coast of Italy at the base of a limestone cliff in the late 1930s. During an excavation in 1949, archaeologists using mesh sieves dug up dozens of seashells. The cave's Neanderthal inhabitants had sharpened or modified many of the shells into thin cutting tools, similar to how they had chipped flint into stone blades. Some of the shell tools dated back to around 100,000 years ago.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Science
|
The hashtag bouderbump was familiar to the many followers of the ballerina Ashley Bouder's Instagram account. And on May 4, a baby girl followed it: Violet Storm de Florio. Before that we had seen Ms. Bouder, a technical powerhouse and a principal at New York City Ballet, executing whipping fouette turns four days before her due date. Now, five months after giving birth, she is reclaiming her roles. On Thursday, Ms. Bouder performed, with Andrew Veyette, George Balanchine's "Stars and Stripes" (1958). It was her ballet life coming full circle. In 2000, she danced the part with Mr. Veyette at the School of American Ballet's workshop performances. Ms. Bouder, 32, with her serene balances, steady turns and playful phrasing, is still electrifying after all these years. She flirts with the audience with a gleam in her eye and a smile that reaches the back row. Next week, she'll make a debut in Jerome Robbins's "Dances at a Gathering" and on Oct. 16, she and Mr. Veyette will close the season with another rendition of "Stars and Stripes." Here are edited excerpts from a conversation Friday. How did it feel to perform the part you danced 16 years ago? It felt great. I was talking to a former dancer, Pauline Golbin, who's had two babies, and she said, "Doesn't your dancing just feel more efficient?" I said, "That's a great word for it." I don't use way too much energy anymore, and I can just dance. I'm calmer. I really felt that last night. What has been the hardest thing to regain? The quickness. My jump came back right away. Because I am such a big jumper, I'm always kind of nervous that it's going to go away. But it's the speed. I tried to do something really fast and my legs were like, no. Is Violet named after the dancer Violette Verdy? In part. Purple is my favorite color and I like old fashioned names. Violette had just passed away. I do so many of her roles. She was one of my idols. We didn't name her until I was being wheeled in for the C section. I was in labor for 43 hours, and it was raining and storming outside the entire time. So that, and she's born on Star Wars Day. Did you really just say 43 hours? It was bad. They induced me because her heart rate was dropping during contractions. She was under stress, and they couldn't figure out why, so they induced me to try to get me to deliver and I wouldn't dilate. My muscles were too tight and strong. I wouldn't go. Do you feel different as a ballerina now? I'm more O.K. with things going wrong. I'm so much more patient. Somebody at work can be really mean to me or I could fall down and I'm like, O.K., moving on. What was it really like to come back to the stage? There were a couple of weeks where I just thought, this is never going to happen. I signed up for all of these boot camp classes. I just felt like I was going to die. There were mirrors everywhere: I'm bright red and dripping with sweat and the skin of my stomach is hanging over my little yoga pants. Sigh I was so frustrated, but after about a week, my body scooped in. How much weight did you gain?
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Dance
|
Mr. Foner is the author of " The Second Founding : How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution." Early this month, a group of Democratic members of Congress introduced an Abolition Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Why, in the year 2020, does the Constitution need an amendment dealing with the abolition of slavery? Wasn't that accomplished over a century and a half ago? The problem is that the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865, which prohibits slavery throughout the country, allows for "involuntary servitude" as a "punishment for crime." This loophole made possible the establishment of a giant, extremely profitable, system of convict labor, mainly affecting African Americans, in the Jim Crow South. That system no longer exists but its legacy remains in the widespread forced labor of prisoners, who are paid far below the minimum wage. The Abolition Amendment would eliminate the Thirteenth Amendment's "criminal exemption" by adding these words to the Constitution: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude may be imposed as a punishment for a crime." When enacted, the Thirteenth Amendment was recognized as a turning point in the history of the United States, indeed the entire world. When the House of Representatives approved it as the Civil War drew to a close, wild scenes of celebration followed. Members threw their hats in the air and embraced one another. Passage, wrote one newspaper, was "the crowning event of the war, indeed of the century." The Amendment's wording, including the criminal exemption, was based on Thomas Jefferson's proposed but never enacted Land Ordinance of 1784, which would have barred slavery in all the new nation's territories. From there, it migrated to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery in territories north of the Ohio River. Scholars have not explained why Jefferson devised this language. Perhaps he thought that labor was good for the character and would aid in the rehabilitation of prisoners. But the coupling of a ban on slavery with an exemption for convicted criminals quickly became embedded in American law. By the time of the Civil War, it could be found in the constitutions of a large majority of the free states. Such language survives in nearly half the state constitutions. During the 1850s, Republicans, including Abraham Lincoln, popularized the claim that the Northwest Ordinance demonstrated that their new party was following the intentions of the founding fathers when it sought to bar slavery from the western territories. When it came time during the Civil War to write an amendment abolishing slavery, Charles Sumner, the abolitionist Senator from Massachusetts, proposed wording based on the 1791 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. His colleague Jacob Howard of Michigan rejected the idea of using a French model. "Good old Anglo Saxon language" was adequate, he declared, and Congress gravitated to the wording of Jefferson's ordinance. Because of its very familiarity, the text of the Thirteenth Amendment did not undergo necessary scrutiny. The criminal exemption was almost never mentioned in congressional debates, contemporary newspapers or at antislavery conventions that endorsed the proposed amendment. But the clause did not go unnoticed by white Southerners. The all white governments established in the South by President Andrew Johnson after the war's end enacted laws known as the Black Codes, which sought to use the courts to consign African Americans to involuntary labor. Black Americans who failed to sign a contract to work for a white employer could be convicted of vagrancy, fined and, if unable to pay, sold at public auction. "Cunning rebels," one congressman complained in 1866, were using "the exceptional clause" to reduce freed persons to slavery. In 1867, the National Anti Slavery Standard, an abolitionist journal published in New York City, called for the passage of a new amendment eliminating the words "except as a punishment for crime." Today's abolition amendment seeks to accomplish the same result by other means. Also in 1867, a Republican congressman from Iowa, John A. Kasson, introduced a resolution clarifying the "true intent" of the 13th Amendment. It was not meant, he insisted, to authorize the "sale or other disposition" of people convicted of crime. If prisoners were required to labor, this should be under the supervision of public authorities, not private individuals or companies. The resolution passed the House, but did not come to a vote in the Senate. By this time, Congress had enacted, over Johnson's veto, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which mandated racial equality in judicial punishments, and had approved the 14th Amendment, requiring states to provide to all people the "equal protection of the laws." These, senators thought, would prevent the use of the courts to victimize African Americans, rendering Kasson's resolution unnecessary. Time would prove them tragically wrong. During Radical Reconstruction, when hundreds of thousands of African Americans voted for the first time and large numbers held public office, racial bias in the criminal justice system and the forced labor of those convicted of crime remained minor problems. There were hardly any prisons or prisoners in the South. But with the overthrow of Reconstruction and the imposition of the comprehensive system of white supremacy known as Jim Crow, the prison population expanded rapidly. Southern states filled their jails with African Americans, often former slaves convicted of minor crimes. They then rented them out as labor for the owners of railroads, plantations and factories, or required them to work on chain gangs building roads and other public projects, or inside prison walls for private businesses. The labor of prisoners became a significant source of revenue for Southern states. The system also took hold, but in a much smaller way, in the North. Without violating the 13th Amendment, Republicans in post Reconstruction Texas complained, "the courts of law are employed to re enslave the colored race." Plantations, they added, "are worked, as of old, by slaves, under the name of convicts." Conditions were barbarous and the supply of convicts seemingly endless. "One dies, get another," became a popular refrain among those who profited from the labor of prisoners. With the expansion of private prisons, more and more inmates work for private contractors, sometimes in factory settings within prison walls. In recent years, many companies have used or benefited from the labor of prisoners. As late as the 1980s, the Department of Justice concluded that the 13th Amendment attaches "some of the characteristics of slavery" to prisoners, including exemption from minimum wage laws. Indeed, courts have ruled that inmates working in prisons have no constitutional right to payment at all. A few years ago, the documentary film "13th" linked the origin of today's racially biased mass incarceration to the criminal exemption clause. But the members of Congress who voted on the 13th Amendment did not anticipate the later emergence of a new system of involuntary servitude in the South. We hear a great deal in judicial circles about the "original intent" or "original meaning" of constitutional provisions. But the 13th Amendment shows that unanticipated consequences can be as significant as intended ones. The amendment, which destroyed the largest slave system the modern world has known, was deservedly an occasion for celebration. Especially given our heightened awareness of the inequities of our criminal justice system, it is high time the criminal exemption was eliminated, as the abolition amendment proposes. Like any change in the Constitution, the abolition amendment would need the approval of two thirds of Congress and three quarters of the states, a daunting requirement. It is certain to encounter resistance from those who profit from prison labor, now a multibillion dollar industry, as well as those who deem unpaid labor a just punishment. But approval would recognize the basic human rights of those convicted of crime. Reinforcing the idea that all people who work should be paid for their labor, it would be a major step in bringing to fruition the "new birth of freedom" promised by the Civil War. Eric Foner is an emeritus professor of history at Columbia and the author, most recently, of "The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Opinion
|
Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York Times "The maintenance on our co op was only going to go up," Mr. Salasky explained, "and with a house, we could have income from a rental apartment," which they created on the building's ground floor. The house, which Mr. Salasky said dates from around 1910, needed a thorough renovation. His goal was to beat what might be considered a baseline number for a custom designed interior gut renovation: 400 per square foot. That includes new electrical, heating and air conditioning, and plumbing systems. "These are not things you see, but I wanted them to be of high quality," he said. But the designer's ingenious use of inexpensive materials, particularly plywood as well as his sense of proportion, color and texture produced rooms that include a nod to the funky loft aesthetic of the 1960s and '70s in their comfortable, stylish mix. They embody a space in old house renovation between interiors that are lock step traditional and those that use historical architecture as a foil for starkly minimalist furnishings. You sense the balance when you walk in the front door. The entry and stairwell's original woodwork is painted a charcoal gray, and the walls are covered with a black on white wallpaper, by the New York artist and designer Jill Malek, with a web of connected lines that are meant to evoke flight map networks. Houses of this period, Mr. Salasky observed, "scream for wallpaper, because the walls of the stairwells are so high." From this space, double pocket doors, their raised wood panels replaced with textured wire glass a reference to the industrial chic craze that produced Joan Kron and Suzanne Slesin's influential 1978 book"High Tech: The Industrial Style and Source Book for the Home" open into the living room. But it's the chunky bookshelves each shelf is made of two three quarter inch thick lengths of plywood that are laminated together, then mounted on hardware store brackets and standards that steal the show, creating a sort of Minimalist sculptural counterpoint to the carved wood fireplace and its morning glory tiles. While Mr. Salasky was attracted to plywood for its low cost and loft living vibe, he credited Michael Andaloro, the project's construction manager, who "guided me, wisely, to a more substantial rendition that was more finely detailed." Against this backdrop, Mr. Salasky arranged a variety of 20th century modern furnishings, including a 1941 Ectoplasmic coffee table by Gilbert Rohde for Herman Miller, a Model 32 sofa by Florence Knoll covered in an Alexander Girard fabric from Maharam and a pair of square Paul McCobb stools upholstered in Pendelton blankets. A wood cabinet, designed in the 1950s by Merton Gershun for American of Martinsville, sits under a pair of contemporary posters by the London graphic designers MuirMcNeil; Mr. Salasky is particularly fond of the cabinet because it was made in Virginia, his home state. Nearby, a full length portrait of Mr. Salasky, painted in the 1980s by Jack Ceglic, the artist and designer who was one of the founders of Dean DeLuca, leans against an adjacent wall. He made two requests of his partner: a front loading washer and dryer "big enough to accommodate comforters" that occupy one corner of the kitchen and a ceiling fan in his study upstairs. A pair of Eames storage units stands next to the washer and dryer; Mr. Salasky said their shelves were shallower than those of most kitchen cabinets, making it easier to reach their contents. A vintage white dining table by McCobb sits on the black and white hexagonal tiled floor. Upstairs, the master bedroom has another wall of plywood bookshelves, while Mr. Gallo's study, with its drawing table and overflowing bulletin board, also has a luxurious looking bed for late night binge watching, napping or a guest. Next door, a narrow room serves as Mr. Salasky's dressing room, complete with hooks for his shoulder bags and his own bulletin board. An existing small, square skylight in the master bathroom was made more dramatic when Mr. Salasky dropped the ceiling and carved a larger, circular opening into it. The two men love their house and its more for less aesthetic. "I've always said that I like the most expensive and the least expensive," Mr. Salasky said. "And this is the least expensive."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Style
|
Q. How do I take 4K videos on an iPhone? A. Apple introduced official support for 4K video on its mobile devices in 2015 with the release of its iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus models, so first make sure you are using hardware that can handle the ultra high definition format. The 4K video option is typically off by default so once you have confirmed your iPhone model is 4K capable, open the Settings app on the home screen. On the main Settings screen, scroll down and select Camera. On the Camera settings screen, tap Record Video. The next screen displays all the resolutions and frames per second rates you can use for recording video. Higher frame rates capture more of the motion in the scene and make the action look smoother. The 24 frames per second rate is fairly standard for recording on film and used by movie theaters, while the 30 f.p.s. and 60 f.p.s. rates are often used for high definition video formats. The most recent iPhone models released last year (the iPhone 8, the iPhone 8 Plus and the iPhone X) can capture 4K video at 60 frames per second.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Technology
|
In the world of travel, April 18 this year's deadline for filing tax returns is an incentive for hotels to create packages to lure guests who might be feeling flush with extra cash. According to Nancy Millett, the global consumer business tax leader for Deloitte, many taxpayers get a refund because they don't adjust their withholding to take into account their projected deductions and exemptions. "As a result, they get money back at the end of the year," she said. Spending this money on travel is common, said Adam Weissenberg, the head of Deloitte's travel, hospitality and leisure group. "Travel deals pegged to tax day may be gimmicky, but they benefit the travel industry because people are more willing to spend on trips when they have a pool of cash," he said. Here are 10 offers designed with tax day in mind: The Danforth Inn in Portland, Me., has the File Your Taxes and Have a Drink package. It includes a two night stay, a Champagne breakfast daily, a three hour class on cocktail making with the property's mixologist, Trevin Hutchins, and a tasting dinner with cocktail pairings at the in house restaurant, Tempo Dulu. Prices from 795. Fairmont Miramar Hotel Bungalows in Santa Monica, Calif., is offering No Taxation Without Relaxation. Guests receive 15 percent off their room rate with a stay of at least two nights and a 100 resort credit per stay. Rooms from 389 a night.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Travel
|
When the artist Luciano Garbati made his sculpture of Medusa holding Perseus' severed head an inversion of the centuries old myth feminism was not what he had in mind. He wasn't thinking of the MeToo movement either: Mr. Garbati had created the work in 2008, nearly a decade before the movement went mainstream. Mr. Garbati, an Argentine artist with Italian roots, was inspired by a 16th century bronze: Benvenuto Cellini's "Perseus With the Head of Medusa." In that work, a nude Perseus holds up Medusa's head by her snaky mane. Mr. Garbati conceived of a sculpture that could reverse that story, imagining it from Medusa's perspective and revealing the woman behind the monster. A news release advertised the statue as an "icon of justice," noting that the towering, nearly 7 foot tall Medusa stood across from the building where men accused of sexual assault during the MeToo movement were prosecuted, including Harvey Weinstein, who had been convicted of two felony sex crimes there in February. (The idea for the site predated the trial, but the sentiment remained.) Standing in the center of Collect Pond Park, Medusa her gaze low and intense holds a sword in her left hand and Perseus' head in her right. The head was designed after the artist himself a convenient model. In his application to the city's Art in the Parks program, which reviews proposals for public art installations like this one, Mr. Garbati noted that Medusa had been raped by Poseidon in the Temple of Athena, according to the myth. As punishment, Athena turned her wrath on Medusa, transforming her hair into snakes. The application stated that the story had "communicated to women for millennia that if they are raped, it is their fault." At Tuesday's unveiling in the park, where the statue will stand until the end of April, Mr. Garbati talked about the thousands of women who had written to him about the sculpture. Many saw the image as cathartic, he said. Others wondered why, if the sculpture was intended to be about sexual violence, Medusa carried the head of Perseus and not Poseidon, her rapist. And some questioned the decision to depict Medusa as a lithe, classically beautiful nude figure when she was described as a monster. Mr. Garbati said in an interview that, by now, his sculpture had a sort of independence from him, a life of its own created by outsiders' observations and interpretations. "I would say I am honored by the fact that the sculpture has been chosen as a symbol," he said. He noted how the whole project had helped him realize that he was a "product of a patriarchal society" himself. As for the question of mythological accuracy, Mr. Garbati said his work was a direct response to Cellini's sculpture, which depicts the story of Perseus slaying Medusa and then using her severed head as a weapon, harnessing her power of turning people to stone with her stare. Bek Andersen, a photographer who worked with Mr. Garbati to install the sculpture in Lower Manhattan, isn't bothered by the gender of the artist. "To me, it's exciting that the artist is a man," she said in an interview. "I think men feel left out of the Me Too conversation, and I think they're afraid of what it means for them." In 2018, a decade after the creation of the original resin sculpture, images of Mr. Garbati's sculpture began to spread online. It gained meme status after he posted photos of the work on Facebook, and it was used as a symbol of female rage when the MeToo movement dominated the news.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Art & Design
|
Like hundreds of young dancers before her, Phoebe Pearl dropped everything to become a Rockette. Ms. Pearl was 19 when she quit the Boston Conservatory in 2009 to join the elite group of dancers strong, athletic and poised who are as emblematic of New York City as the Empire State Building and the yellow taxi cab. For eight years, she was proud to be a Rockette, and the company treated her well, with generous pay and health insurance. But in mid December, when management announced that the dancers would perform at the inauguration of Donald J. Trump, Ms. Pearl did something that a Rockette is never supposed to do. She stepped out of line, breaking with the silent, smiling solidarity that defines the 92 year old institution, to denounce the idea of celebrating a man with a well established history of objectifying women. In a rare collision of presidential politics and a venerable arts organization, current and former Rockettes find themselves in a new kind of spotlight a position both painful and empowering as they take sides over the inauguration, a split illustrating the cultural divide that President elect Trump has cleaved through the country. "We are a group of women that is encouraging young girls to be strong, independent women, to fulfill their dreams, to go for it," Ms. Pearl, 27, said in her first interview since the inaugural uproar began. "It's about women's rights." Best known as a Christmastime tourist attraction at Radio City Music Hall, the Rockettes are also regarded in artistic circles as some of the finest dancers in New York City. But the controversy has reignited sensitivities within the corps that they are seen as beauty pageant contestants more than skilled performers and that they are easy to lampoon. On last weekend's episode of "Saturday Night Live," Alec Baldwin, portraying Mr. Trump, said of the inauguration lineup, "Best of all, we've got the one Rockette with the least money in her savings." Dottie Earle DeLuca, a 54 year old former Rockette, said, "Here you have the most sophisticated women that are so well respected in this country." She added, "To put them on the same stage as this man, to me, is reprehensible." The individual Rockettes had no say in the inauguration booking: It was ultimately the decision of James L. Dolan, the executive chairman of the Madison Square Garden Company, which manages the Rockettes. Mr. Dolan is a longtime friend of Mr. Trump and donated to his campaign; he has supported both Democrats and Republicans in the past. A company spokesman, Barry Watkins, declined requests for interviews with Mr. Dolan and current leaders and members of the Rockettes. Mr. Watkins, in response to written questions about the Rockettes as well as the inauguration performance, wrote by email, "The New York Times has had an anti Donald Trump agenda for quite some time and now the Rockettes are on the receiving end of their bias." This article is based on interviews over the last three weeks with Ms. Pearl, who was a Rockette until this month, and nine former Rockettes, as well as others in the extended Rockette organization. Several people spoke anonymously for fear that if they were to speak publicly, the Madison Square Garden Company would take legal action against them. The backlash over the inauguration performance began on Twitter and Facebook after Ms. Pearl wrote a private Instagram post. "I am speaking for just myself, but please know that after we found out this news, we have been performing with tears in our eyes and heavy hearts," Ms. Pearl wrote. She believes a friend of hers shared her photo with the celebrity gossip blog Perez Hilton. That sort of attention came as a shock within the world of the Rockettes, which is devoted to a particular kind of team driven synchronicity, where no one person dominates the stage. A Radio City Rockette is a specialist in precision dance technique, a rare, regimented and intricate style that requires both athleticism and artistry. Rockettes must stand between 5 foot 6 and 5 foot 10 and a half and uphold a standard of elegance, along with an expertise in tap, modern dance, jazz and ballet. They must hit positions with military exactitude. It's a style that requires a dancer to step into a line not to take over and not to be left behind. It takes fortitude and humility. "You don't realize how much individuality you have as a dancer until you're asked to dance like 35 other women," said Jessica McRoberts, 39, a former Rockette. "Things down to your pinkie finger." Under the leadership of Linda Haberman, who began directing and choreographing touring productions of the "Christmas Spectacular" in 1993, the Rockettes gained artistic respect and became modernized with more challenging choreography. Ms. Haberman left the organization in 2014 and declined a request for comment. Despite requests, the Madison Square Garden Company did not make the troupe's current director, Karen Keeler, available for interviews. The rigors of performing and traveling as a company often allow dancers to form close and lasting bonds, according to Ms. Grantham, the alumnae president, who was a Rockette from 1959 until 1970. "One time we did benefits for both parties in one night," she said. "One was at the Sheraton, and the other was at the Hilton." This wouldn't be the first time the Rockettes performed for a controversial president, but the volatile media climate surrounding Mr. Trump's inauguration is unusual. Rhonda Malkin, a former Rockette who worked as a personal trainer to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner for two years, said that the Trump and Kushner families were supportive of her career as a Rockette. Once, they attended a performance to see her dance. "I think they would like to see the Rockettes perform at the inauguration," she said of the Trump family. "Whether or not that causes a rift throughout the brand is yet to be seen." Ms. Malkin, 38, said that several of the current Rockettes she knows are upset that a crew of 13 full time Rockettes were initially told by their union, the American Guild of Variety Artists, that they would be forced to perform. "There are some career Rockettes who are very upset about this," Ms. Malkin said of the inauguration plans. "I've also heard the women of color are very upset. From what I have heard, it has just caused a real rift in the company." Ms. Malkin, who was a Rockette for 12 years, said Ms. Pearl "took a real risk" for speaking out, but she doubts that the controversy surrounding the inauguration has caused any lasting damage to the brand. "I would honestly say that the majority of our audience members are white Christian conservative people," Ms. Malkin said. "And those folks probably supported Trump." Of Mr. Dolan, the Madison Square Garden chairman, she added, "He knows those are the people who buy tickets to those shows." While the Rockettes are an American symbol as much as Radio City Music Hall or Mr. Trump and his branded buildings the group's individual dancers remain fairly anonymous. They don't speak unless deemed interview appropriate by the Madison Square Garden Company, which has fiercely protected them against criticism surrounding the inauguration. "For a while we weren't allowed to say, 'I'm going to be on the 'Today' show with the Rockettes tomorrow morning,'" said Naomi Kakuk, 40, a former Rockette. "You'd say: 'Watch the 'Today' show tomorrow you might see a familiar face.' We couldn't even say we were on a show that was promoting the show." Ms. Kakuk, who loved her time as a Rockette, said, "You get six months of pay for three months of work, and it is six months' worth of work in three months because it's so incredibly intense." She added that some of the dancers live in New York during the Christmas show and then go home to Wisconsin or Florida to teach. "You have insurance for the year, you have a great paycheck, you do all these fun gigs and side things, and you're doing the show and dancing on the great stage," Ms. Kakuk said. "You're skinny as hell when you get out. You're bikini ready in January. It's amazing." Cheryl Cutlip, who danced as a Rockette for 15 years and left the company in 2008, said that benefits were ushered in quickly after the TV company Cablevision bought Radio City Music Hall in 1997. Ms. Cutlip, 45, remembered Mr. Dolan meeting with the Rockettes to go over their basic needs. She said he gave them his personal email address. Soon, Rockettes no longer had to rush out of the door to find coffee and a bagel in the 20 minute space between performance preparations. "He started bringing food in," Ms. Cutlip said of Mr. Dolan. "Once he saw the practical needs of the Rockettes, he started meeting them." "People have been calling me courageous," Ms. Pearl said at the toast, her voice cracking. "But I don't see it that way. I'm just standing up for human rights." Many in the dance world, including Yvonne Rainer, the postmodern giant who was part of the toast, and several former Rockettes, including Ms. Kakuk, have voiced enthusiasm for Ms. Pearl's action and her talent as a dancer. "When you see her onstage as a Rockette, you watch her," Ms. Kakuk said. "She's outspoken but less so than others. It was a bit of a surprise." With the latest holiday season behind her, Ms. Pearl has decided to leave the organization and forge a path in film and television. She found inspiration in the actress Meryl Streep, who spoke out against Mr. Trump at the Golden Globes. "She can speak freely," Ms. Pearl said. "I wish to have the opportunity to speak as freely as I can, without any repercussion." But stepping out of the line is just not the Rockettes' way. "Usually artists are more outspoken," Ms. Kakuk said, "but Rockettes as a brand is not very outspoken. You work for a giant corporation, and a lot of girls don't realize that. They just think they're dancing."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Dance
|
TIVOLI, N.Y. The day he learned he had cancer, Brice Marden, among the world's most celebrated artists, made one of his much coveted drawings: a field of dense interlocking loops loosely inspired by Chinese calligraphy, a signature theme. It is both abstract and hypnotic, begging viewers to look closely at the finely wrought composition. But what makes this drawing different is its raw intensity and the unusually dark, brooding palette. While the work was a private musing one page in a notebook filled with drawings his illness has been unusually public. The news shot cannon like through the art world when, on Sept. 6, 2017, Helen Marden, the artist's wife, who is also a painter, photographed her husband while he was undergoing chemotherapy at Memorial Sloan Kettering and posted it on Instagram. "I wanted to make it accessible," Ms. Marden defiantly explained . "The more you put it out there, the more comfortable people are with it. I also was hoping that by making it public it would help others." And it has. Ms. Marden said she has heard from total strangers who are going through similar treatments the artist has rectal cancer who have thanked her for her candor. After her initial post, many assumed that Mr. Marden would slow down a bit but instead he has become more prolific than ever, painting or drawing every day even when he travels, which seems constant. "I guess I was lucky," the artist said on a recent wintry afternoon, perched on a sofa in his studio here, a converted carriage house with sweeping views of the Hudson River that is part of Rose Hill, the couple's home. Looking as he always has, with gray curls peeking out of his signature wool cap, black jeans and a plaid scarf, he went on: "I have been able to work through it all. It hasn't made me hurry things up. It hasn't made me work any differently. It's just been an extra thing to think about." "When people stop in that room they suddenly get really quiet," Ms. Rales noted. The Raleses have been collecting Mr. Marden's work for years. Its enduring quality, they say, is one reason. Another is the artist's singular vision: he has spent his career exploring abstraction in many forms. "Who else do you know that has a style like his?" Mr. Rales asked. "There are very few painters who are so unique, so labor intensive and so accomplished." While Mr. Marden is reluctant to discuss his health and is determined not to make it the center of his life he did say that he has had good news from his doctors and is having regular sessions of immunotherapy, with minimal side effects. After his diagnosis, Mr. Marden said his first thought was "wait a minute, I'm supposed to die. It's a reality,'' adding that he feared the Glenstone project "might be my last, it had taken so long." But then he began creating new paintings that were all in terre verte, a green pigment made from the earth. "They came very fast," he said, explaining that he hasn't stopped working since. In July the artist had a sellout, one night only exhibition and dinner at Villa Malaparte, the 1938 Modernist house perched over a cliff on the Gulf of Salerno in Capri, Italy. Organized by the artist's dealer, Larry Gagosian, the evening attracted collectors from Qatar to Beverly Hills art world personalities like Steven A. Cohen, the hedge fund manager; Nicola Del Roscio, president of the Cy Twombly Foundation; and Jimmy Iovine, the record producer, who arrived with LeBron James. A few weeks later Mr. Marden was again in the spotlight, this time closer to home at Bard College, where four of his canvases were transformed into scrims for the new staging of T.S. Eliot's poems "Four Quartets," the work of the choreographer Pam Tanowitz and scenic designer Clifton Taylor. Alastair Macaulay, then the chief dance critic of The New York Times, called it "some of the finest stage imagery of our time." (The production opens at the Barbican in London in May.) A traveling show of 60 drawings will arrive at the Gagosian Gallery in Paris on April 4, having been on view at the Yves Saint Laurent museum in Marrakesh. It includes studies for six new paintings that are in various stages of completion in his Tivoli studio. (The new Menil Drawing Institute in Houston is also planning a major exhibition next February.) Drawings have long been a critical first step to what eventually ends up on the canvas. "I always have a notebook going so I'm not scared to death when I start painting," Mr. Marden said. When he is not traveling the artist spends most of his time in Tivoli, in a large studio composed of rooms filled with paintings and drawings; carefully labeled paint samples, as well as sticks gathered from the surrounding landscape, which he dips in ink to draw. The atmosphere is mostly quiet except for the occasional loud whistle of a passing train. That his studio is not far from either Olana, home of the painter Frederic Edwin Church, or that of another American painter, Thomas Cole, is not lost on Mr. Marden. The history of these artists has been ingrained in his memory since childhood. Growing up in nearby Briarcliff Manor, his father, a mortgage servicer, worked along the Hudson. "My father loved the river," Mr. Marden recalled. "Often after dinner he'd say let's go out and watch the sun set." Not surprising then, that the landscape the green of the moss on the trees; the light coming off the river; the changing seasons influences his color palette. These traditional references are also a reflection of his education, first as a student at Boston University, a place Mr. Marden described as "deliberately conservative," and later at the Yale School of Art. After graduating from Yale in 1963, he moved to New York and became a guard at the Jewish Museum just as Jasper Johns was having a retrospective. "Jasper has been a big influence on my work and my thinking," Mr. Marden said. "He added another dimension to what is reality in painting. Is a flag real?" Mr. Marden remembers being so shy during his time at the Jewish Museum that he enlisted a guard to ask Mr. Johns to sign the show's flag poster. Three years later, in 1966, the artist had his first one man show monochromatic paintings and drawings at the Bykert Gallery on West 57th Street in Manhattan. Reviews were mixed. Klaus Kertess, the gallery's co founder, advanced Mr. Marden 700 to buy paint for the show. "The money ran out the same time the show did," Mr. Marden said . Through his friend, the artist Dorothea Rockburne, he was able to get a job as Robert Rauschenberg's studio assistant, where he worked for four years. The New York art world was a small, cozy community in those days as Abstract Expressionism was fading from the spotlight and Pop and Minimalism were beginning to emerge. But these days Mr. Marden feels far more akin to the spontaneity of the Abstract Expressionists. "I'm a great believer in late Jackson Pollock," he said, showing a visitor a reproduction of "Scent," one of Pollock's last paintings, a dense work from 1955. "I have looked at that painting so hard I think I see things happening in it." It is that kind of depth and feeling of movement that he is trying to achieve in the six new canvases in various stages of completion in his studio. While most artists generally don't let outsiders see their works in progress, Mr. Marden is surprisingly candid, talking about what it takes to create a painting and his constant struggle to achieve the desired effects. He is soft spoken and direct when discussing his process and often, after explaining something, he pauses, and then bursts out laughing. "If there's a conscious thing and there is I don't want to say it's spiritual or get into some new age y kind of thing, but they're all based on intuition,'' Mr. Marden said . He often starts by drawing a grid of black markings, which become the underpinning of a work. In the body of this new canvas, the grid is made up of a square of 15 marks by 15, which is all that is visible right now. How did he choose 15? "A numerologist once told me that my number is 6 (1 5 6) and someone said it was a Buddhist number but nobody told me why," Mr. Marden said with a chuckle. It is from there that he starts to build the composition slowly, layer upon layer often scraping things off the surface that he doesn't like or simply painting over them, but leaving vestiges of what is underneath visible. These are in the early stages, he warned. "By the time they are finished, they could look very different." In his latest paintings Mr. Marden is going back to his more calligraphic motifs, but this time the perspective has changed. He has purposely left the sides of each painting spare with just a lightly, scraped down color so the viewer's eye is forced right to the center, where the composition is filled with interlocking shapes. He is also experimenting with bolder colors one canvas is the shade of a cantaloupe and there is even a painting in which he is experimenting with white. "White to me has always been a corrective color. You paint things out with white," Mr. Marden said. "I'm trying to break my own rules." These compositions reflect decades of reading the work of figures including Kenneth Rexroth, an American poet who was also a translator of Chinese, Japanese and classic Greek poetry. (Mr. Marden's Cold Mountain Paintings, perhaps his most famous body of work, from 1989 91, were inspired by the writings of the ninth century Chinese poet Cold Mountain (Han Shan.) While traveling Mr. Marden visits flea markets and galleries looking at ancient art and has taken to collecting the naturally occurring rocks from riverbeds and mountainsides admired by Chinese scholars, who believed they could find paradise inside these spirit stones. Their shapes and surfaces, smooth or textured, energize Mr. Marden, too. "At a certain point, I started looking beyond Western art," he explained. That was more than 30 years ago. Today, he is still experimenting. "I'm deliberately trying to be more intuitive and going for something that is more natural," he said. "I'm not thinking of these paintings as a kind of summation. I'd rather they lead to something else."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Art & Design
|
A four bedroom on the Upper West Side listed for 875,000 has been languishing since December. A 385,000 two bedroom in Manhattan Valley has been available for six months. And a studio in Chelsea with a 299,000 price tag only recently went into contract after nearly a year and 60,000 in price cuts. In this extremely tight real estate market, when practically any listing is snapped up instantly, why are some of the city's most affordable apartments struggling to find buyers? It's because they belong to a small and quirky breed of co op that requires buyers to meet income caps, yet have significant assets on hand a tall order for most. "It's a Catch 22, since they can't earn more than a certain amount, but cannot qualify for financing at that income unless they make a massive down payment," said Christopher J. Stanley, an associate broker with the Corcoran Group, who recently sold a 510,000 one bedroom in Hell's Kitchen that required the buyer to pay in cash yet earn no more than 67,000 a year. "Everybody wanted to buy, but most people could not qualify." Welcome to the world of what is known in real estate as the H.D.F.C., or Housing Development Fund Corporation a form of co op housing intended for low income New Yorkers. The bulk of these income restricted co ops came into being after thousands of derelict apartments were seized by the city in the late '70s. The city began fixing up the buildings, then allowed tenants to buy them for nominal amounts and turn them into low income co ops. The buildings were concentrated on the Lower East Side and in Upper Manhattan, Brooklyn and the South Bronx. Originally, the apartments were sold to residents for just 250 each. To keep them affordable, income ceilings were imposed on resales, as were hefty flip tax provisions to help deter anyone looking to make a quick profit. In return, tax subsidies helped keep maintenance low. Today, there are an estimated 25,800 of these apartments across some 1,200 buildings, according to the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. In the past, the apartments were resold for moderate amounts. But over the last decade, as some once blighted neighborhoods became more desirable, the script changed. Resale listings popped up for 300,000, even 800,000, putting them out of reach of most low income buyers. In rare cases the apartments have gone for more than 1 million. At the Grinnell, a century old building topped by corner towers at 800 Riverside Drive, a nine room income restricted apartment sold for 2.025 million in March 30,000 above the 1.995 million asking price. "I've seen every permutation," said Lee Ann Pinder, a real estate agent with Citi Habitats, who has worked on a number of income restricted deals over the last six years. They included buyers who "had a change in circumstance in their life" and buyers who had sold property and were going back to school, she said. Otherwise, "If you've got an income cap of 72,000 for an individual, and they are supposed to buy a property for 400,000, how's the math going to work?" she said. Gary Cowling, an actor and teacher who purchased the Hell's Kitchen apartment listed by Mr. Stanley of Corcoran for 510,000, had saved some money by living frugally in a rent controlled apartment. He came into a small inheritance after his parents died that allowed him to pay cash a crucial factor in closing the deal, as the co op lacked some financial records required by banks for lending. "You needed to be income poor, but savings rich," said Mr. Cowling, who met the 67,000 income cap. "Acting and teaching does not make a lot of money." Higher resale prices help Housing Development Fund Corporations to keep maintenance fees low. Many H.D.F.C. co ops impose flip taxes on resales of as much as 30 percent, with the money going back into building coffers for roof repairs, facade work and other maintenance issues. With Mr. Cowling's purchase, for instance, the co op received 30 percent of the seller's profit on the 510,000 sale. "I think H.D.F.C. boards are really trying to keep it for affordable housing buyers," said Karen D. Shenker, an associate broker with Corcoran who has sold 46 income restricted apartments since 2007. "On the other hand, they also need to sell at a particular price point that can help build the co op reserves so they can survive as an H.D.F.C." And who would blame a seller for trying to capitalize on his or her investment? Francisco and Cyntia Waltersdorfer bought an income restricted apartment three years ago in Morningside Heights when they were budding architects, fresh out of graduate school. "One of the bathroom walls was stiffened with packing tape," recalled Mr. Waltersdorfer, who now works for a Manhattan firm. "A portion of the ceiling was falling apart." Now, with a toddler and a newborn in tow, they have outgrown the place and need to sell. The building's income cap is fairly generous, allowing a buyer to earn as much as 225,000 for one or two people. The maintenance, 450 a month, is low, and the flip tax is just 3 percent of the sale price, as opposed to the 30 percent charged by some income restricted co ops. But finding a buyer hasn't been easy. With a listing price of 459,000, they hope to clear enough cash on the deal to recoup their investment and have enough for a down payment for a larger space."Hopefully the right person will come along and buy it," Mrs. Waltersdorfer said. "Sellers of all stripes are going to try to get the best and highest price for their properties," said Scott Harris of Brown Harris Stevens, the listing broker for an 875,000 four bedroom at 72 West 88th Street, a walk up building near Central Park. His clients bought the unit for a nominal sum when it turned co op in 1997, he said. Interest has been high, with roughly 250 inquiries, 80 showings and 15 offers over the course of the past 7 months, Mr. Harris said. But the offers either were too low or didn't work out because the buyers couldn't qualify for a loan or didn't quite meet the income requirements, which are capped at 165 percent of the area median income or 141,735 for a family of four. Though the apartment needs work, Mr. Harris noted, "in a building with an elevator, without the rigors of income caps, this is likely worth two times this asking price." The idea that these apartments would sell for anywhere close to today's prices was beyond belief some 40 years ago when the city started using foreclosure to combat the wave of abandonment that blighted many neighborhoods, said Andrew Reicher, the executive director of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, a nonprofit organization, known as UHAB, that provides training, technical and development services to create, sustain and preserve this type of cooperative housing. Tenants who banded together and purchased buildings from the city were bound by income restrictions, which varied depending on the type of government subsidy with which the co op was created and also when it was formed. One common standard is to cap incomes at six or seven times the annual maintenance plus a factor for utilities, depending on the number of people in the household. Another is to cap buyer earnings at some percentage of the area median income. But there have been few outright restrictions on resale prices. Even though many income restricted apartments are still below market rate, Mr. Reicher of UHAB said, "you do see prices that are much higher than what you would think of as affordable housing.," he said. "We don't think that's in keeping with the purpose and intent of H.D.F.C.'s." Some income restrictions come with term limits that range from 10 to 40 years. When the term is up, the co op must agree to continue the old income restrictions or adopt new ones, but price restrictions are typically not required. Mr. Reicher's group has been calling for consistent price caps on resales and for consistent income restrictions across all Housing Department Fund Corporations. In exchange for stricter regulations, including maximum resale prices, for example, buildings could receive a more substantial tax subsidy. At least 50 newer income restricted buildings have been created with such price caps in recent years, Mr. Reicher said. And there have been other steps toward regulation. After taking over a derelict building, the city now uses a "third party transfer" to turn the building over to a nonprofit group like UHAB or to a for profit developer. A couple of years ago, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development added a price cap based on bedroom size and year sold for new H.D.F.C. co ops created through this program. Some of the price creep has been a natural function of H.D.F.C. bylaws. In buildings where the income cap is based on a percentage of the median income and the neighborhood has become more affluent, prices have risen accordingly. "As Harlem, the Lower East Side and Williamsburg have become more gentrified, incomes have gone up," said Tracie Hamersley of Citi Habitats, who has sold several income restricted units over the years. As a result, these apartments are "attracting a different group of buyers that might be making more money than 5, 10, 15 years ago," she said. Heather Tierney, a designer and restaurateur, recently accepted an offer at the full asking price of 450,000 for her Lower East Side loft, which has an income restriction of 63,072 for one person or 69,084 for two people. She bought the unit, a fifth floor walk up, 10 years ago for 299,500. "I was a writer for a magazine and I made no money," she said. "When I first moved in, it was a lot of original tenants," Ms. Tierney said. "Now it's a bunch of young people young professionals, young couples, mainly single people." But with her business expanding to Los Angeles, she is looking for a place to live there. Without the proceeds from her New York apartment, she said, she wouldn't be able to buy in California. "A little one bedroom bungalow shack is like a million dollars out here," she said. Not every H.D.F.C. apartment is going for half a million dollars. At uhab.org/homeownership, where UHAB announces listings in H.D.F.C. co op buildings, resale prices are around 30,000 a room; the organization generally does not post listings for units more expensive than that. For example, recent listings in the Bronx ranged from 25,000 for a one bedroom to 75,000 for a three bedroom. In some newly converted buildings, an apartment can cost as little as 2,500. As with any real estate purchase, buyers must do their research. If the price seems way too low or an apartment has been lingering on the market for many months, ask yourself a few questions, said Ms. Pinder of Citi Habitats. "Why is it priced this way? Nine times out of 10 it might be something financial," like a lack of reserves for maintenance problems. Even if the co op is in good financial shape, a lack of reports and board minutes can mean banks won't lend to buyers. And some apartments may simply be overpriced. "As long as they are financially sound and they are well priced, they will fly off the shelves," said Karen D. Shenker of the Corcoran Group. Last month, she listed a renovated three bedroom in Harlem for 300,000 with income caps ranging from 70,500 for one person to 108,750 for five. The first open house drew more than 100 people and multiple bids. Within a week, the apartment had an accepted offer for more than 10 percent above the asking price. Yet, even at the higher prices, many income restricted apartments are still a bargain. And for those who can qualify, the apartments are a godsend. After a determined six month hunt, Anna Steegmann was considering giving up her search for an income restricted H.D.F.C. apartment. While she met the income cap of 72,150 for one person, she had been outbid for a 315,000 three bedroom in an elevator building in Harlem. "It's hard," said Ms. Steegmann, who is 60 and teaches writing for social sciences at the college level. "If you're a low income person, how are you going to have 315,000 in cash?" Then her mother died, leaving her a small inheritance that opened up her options. The buyer who had outbid her backed out and Ms. Steegmann stepped in, offering the full asking price of 315,000 in cash. She closed on the place in April. "It's a good old age apartment," she said, pointing out that the split bedroom configuration will suit a live in nurse if needed down the road. "Now my retirement is secure," she said, noting the building's tax subsidy should keep maintenance fees low. "I don't think I'll live another 30 years, but if I do, I can stay in New York City. I'm not going to be forced to leave if I don't want to leave."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Real Estate
|
A boxing merchandiser and licenser, established in 1910, has taken a 10 year, five month lease for 12,582 square feet on the third floor of this 18 story building. This 7,452 square foot Lower East Side mixed use six story walk up, gut renovated in the 1990s, has two retail spaces entirely occupied by Alife, a sneaker boutique. Above it are nine free market apartments eight one bedrooms and a two bedroom penthouse with a terrace. The building, on the block of the Streit's Matzoh factory, also offers 2,151 square feet in air rights.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Real Estate
|
Every one of Phoebe Waller Bridge's facial features is intensely expressive, and that includes both eyebrows. But it's her mouth that holds center stage at the SoHo Playhouse, where her fabled and genuinely fabulous "Fleabag" opened on Thursday night. That mouth has been incarnadined in the deepest red, so it seems to have an autonomous life that's at odds with the cool, pale skin that surrounds it. And it rarely stays the same shape during this one woman play about sex, longing and what churns beneath them, directed with finely gauged precision by Vicky Jones. Ms. Waller Bridge's lips shrink to the size of a postage stamp to evoke a subway pickup her character calls Rodent Face (handsome only from the eyes up). They morph into a rapt rectangular gape to summon a guinea pig listening to rock music, and curve into an alarming, complicitous leer to tell us about eating "a very slutty pizza." Then there's that open, teeth exposing, wonder filled smile that poises sheer delight on the brink of a bottomless despair, two states of feeling that somehow both negate and enhance each other. The same ambivalence infuses the ever surprising sentences that fall from her mouth like jewels and toads in a fairy tale. Emotions never come singly in "Fleabag," in which Ms. Waller Bridge's onstage alter ego (the title character) describes grieving, fornicating, drinking and insulting her way through contemporary London. You are possibly already familiar with the title and basic story of "Fleabag." That's also the name of Ms. Waller Bridge's BBC 3 television series, which won her a clutch of awards after debuting in 2016 and began its second British broadcast season this week. But the "Fleabag" that has set up camp in New York through April 14 is a 65 minute monologue first seen five years ago at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. That show became the basis for the series, which was picked up in the United States by Amazon, and it made Ms. Waller Bridge who went on to create the demented rom com "Crashing" and the peerless spy drama "Killing Eve" a name to reckon with in the entertainment industry. Much of "Fleabag" the play was recycled in the television show's first season, which gave animate form to people described in the monologue by a cast that includes, if you please, Olivia Colman (and for the new season, Fiona Shaw and Kristin Scott Thomas). I would like to be able to tell you that if you've seen the series, you needn't bother with the play, which is already sold out. I'm sorry. I can't. Onstage, "Fleabag" throbs with a concentrated, combustible vitality that a camera is incapable of capturing, even with pore probing close ups. Sitting in a merciless spotlight, Ms. Waller Bridge never leaves the long legged chair, on a small red rug, that is the production's set (designed by Holly Pigott, with lighting by Elliot Griggs). But, oh, the places she takes us, the hilarious heights and the despondent depths (or do I mean the opposite?). Fleabag is a restless and unhappy hedonist whose best friend and business partner (in a guinea pig themed coffee shop) was recently killed in a traffic accident that was probably a semi suicide attempt. The show begins with Fleabag being interviewed for a clerical job, and it establishes her contradictory approach to others, including the audience, equally ingratiating and antagonistic. The interviewer is a man, who it emerges has recently been accused of sexual harassment. "That won't get you very far here anymore," we hear his recorded voice saying to Fleabag, when she starts to remove her sweater, revealing she has only a bra on underneath. Fleabag swears this flashing of flesh was inadvertent. Then again, pretty much everything she does is an act of self sabotage, even when it's in the name of self gratification. "I'm not obsessed with sex," she says. "I just can't stop thinking about it. The performance of it. The awkwardness of it. The drama of it." She masturbates a lot, inspired by online images of everyone from Zac Efron to Barack Obama, "especially when I'm bored or angry or upset. Or happy." And she registers all possible flickers of desire in the eyes of the men she sees, on the streets, in the subway, in her cafe. In most best selling confessional memoirs, such hypersexuality would be traced to a primal woundedness preferably caused by a single traumatic incident or abusive relationship and (or) a misogynistic society. Ms. Waller Bridge doesn't traffic in clear cut causes and effects. Yes, the script includes a late revelation about a life wrenching act of betrayal. But Fleabag seems to have been behaving in much the same manner long before that act occurred. And yes, the show takes place against an internet shaped landscape of vast and mutable carnality. (Listen to her listing the varied names of the porn sites she visits.) But while Fleabag is very much a woman of her time and place, a self described "bad feminist" who exploits and is exploited by what surrounds her in the urban here and now, she can't be entirely defined by them. Think of her as one of the great novelist Jean Rhys's lost, promiscuous heroines transplanted to the 21st century, but with a devouring sense of humor that goes far beyond irony. Ms. Waller Bridge understands that we are all laws unto ourselves, governed by our own special imps of the perverse. That universal distinctiveness is what's meant by the saw "character is fate," and it's the source of both the deepest comedy and tragedy. Ms. Waller Bridge deploys an ace stand up's sense of timing to plumb this most profound of paradoxes. Fleabag segues with canny purposefulness among earnest wistfulness and dismissive flippancy, scorching pain and echoing, hollow silence, giving equal weight to each. More than any current work of theater I can think of, "Fleabag" operates on the principle that no emotion is pure and simple. Society and sanity demand that we not acknowledge this in our daily interactions, and we do our best to adhere to a formula of true or false, thumbs up or thumbs down. In contrast, "Fleabag" keeps all contradictory shards and shades of feeling in play at the same time. That's why it's so gloriously disruptive. The show concludes with an abrupt insult, the commonest of angry epithets. Yet in Ms. Waller Bridge's rendering, an ugly, unprintable two word exclamation somehow encompasses self destructiveness, self assertiveness, self consciousness and the unconditional thrill and muddle of simply being alive.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Theater
|
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates The Louvre Abu Dhabi might seem to have all you could ask for in a world class museum. Its acclaimed design shades its galleries under a vast dome that appears to hover over the waters of the Persian Gulf. Inside are works by Rembrandt and Vermeer, Monet and van Gogh, Mondrian and Basquiat. Yet the work that the Louvre Abu Dhabi once promised would anchor its collection is conspicuously absent: "Salvator Mundi," a painting of Jesus Christ attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. Few works have evoked as much intrigue, either in the world of art or among the courts of Persian Gulf royals. First, its authenticity as the product of Leonardo's own hand was the subject of intense debate. Then, in November 2017, it became the most expensive work ever sold at auction, fetching 450.3 million from an anonymous bidder who turned out to be a close ally and possible stand in for the ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Now, the painting is shrouded in a new mystery: Where in the world is "Salvator Mundi"? Although the Abu Dhabi culture department announced about a month after the auction that it had somehow acquired "Salvator Mundi" for display in the local Louvre, a scheduled unveiling of the painting last September was canceled without explanation. The culture department is refusing to answer questions. Staff of the Louvre Abu Dhabi say privately that they have no knowledge of the painting's whereabouts. Officials in the French government, which owns the Louvre in Paris, are eager to include "Salvator Mundi" in a landmark exhibition this fall to mark the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's death and say they are still holding out hope that the painting might resurface in time. (A representative of the Louvre declined to comment.) But some Leonardo experts say they are alarmed by the uncertainty about the painting's whereabouts and future, especially after the announcement from Abu Dhabi that the painting would go on display to the public. "It is tragic," said Dianne Modestini, a professor at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts and a conservator who has worked on "Salvator Mundi." "To deprive the art lovers and many others who were moved by this picture a masterpiece of such rarity is deeply unfair." Martin Kemp, an Oxford art historian who has studied the painting, described it as "a kind of religious version of the 'Mona Lisa'" and Leonardo's "strongest statement of the elusiveness of the divine." "I don't know where it is, either," he added. Noting that it was never clear how Abu Dhabi might have acquired the painting from the Saudis in the first place whether by a gift, loan or private sale some have speculated that Crown Prince Mohammed might simply have decided to keep it. The Saudi embassy in Washington declined to comment. The 33 year old crown prince may not be the painting's first royal owner. Believed to have been painted around 1500, "Salvator Mundi" was one of two similar works listed in an inventory of the collection of King Charles I of England after his execution in 1649, Professor Kemp said. But the painting disappeared from the historical record in the late 18th century. The painting sold at the record auction later turned up in the collection of a 19th century British industrialist. It had been so heavily painted over that "it looked like a drug crazed hippie," Professor Kemp said, and it was attributed at the time to one of Leonardo's followers. In 1958, it was sold out of that collection for the equivalent of 1,350 in today's dollars. The claim that the painting was the work of Leonardo himself originated after a pair of dealers spotted it at an auction in New Orleans in 2005 and brought it to Professor Modestini of N.Y.U. She stripped away overpainting, repaired damage made by a split in the wood panel, and restored details. Among other things, one of Jesus's hands appeared to have two thumbs, possibly because the artist changed his mind about where the thumb should be and painted over the original thumb. It had been exposed by scraping later on, and Professor Modestini covered the thumb she believed Leonardo did not want. Its new attribution to Leonardo won the painting a spot in a retrospective of his work at the National Gallery in London in 2011. Two years later, a Russian billionaire, Dmitry E. Rybolovlev, bought it for 127.5 million less than a third of what he sold it for in 2017, when it was auctioned in New York by Christie's. Now the Louvre Abu Dhabi's failure to exhibit "Salvator Mundi" as promised has revived doubts about whether it is Leonardo's at all, with skeptics speculating that the new owner may fear public scrutiny. An expert on Leonardo's paintings, Jacques Franck, sent letters to the office of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, raising doubts about the attribution. Mr. Macron's chief of staff, Francois Xavier Lauch, wrote back that the president "was very attentive to the preoccupations." "Nonsense," she said in an interview, calling these "ridiculous claims." Auction house contracts typically include a five year authenticity warranty. But the extensive public documentation and debate before the 2017 sale would make it difficult for the buyer to recover the payment by challenging the attribution to Leonardo. The anonymous buyer at the auction in New York, Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al Saud, was a little known member of a distant branch of the Saudi royal family with no publicly known source of great wealth or history as a major art collector. But he was a close friend and confidant of Crown Prince Mohammed. A few months after the auction, the royal court named Prince Bader as the kingdom's first ever minister of culture. Christie's initially sought to guard Prince Bader's identity so closely during the bidding that it created a special account number for him that was known only to a handful of the house's executives. But contracts and correspondence obtained by The New York Times showed Prince Bader to be the anonymous buyer. American officials familiar with the arrangement later said that Prince Bader was in fact acting as a surrogate for Crown Prince Mohammed himself, the true purchaser of "Salvator Mundi." Prince Mohammed's aggression and impulsiveness have recently come under new scrutiny in the West after American intelligence agencies concluded that he ordered the killing last fall of the dissident Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who was ambushed and dismembered by Saudi agents in a consulate in Istanbul. But by the time of auction, the prince had already shown a taste for pricey trophies, paying 500 million for a yacht and 300 million for a chateau in France. In the meantime, any clues to the movements of "Salvator Mundi" have the art world abuzz. One person familiar with the details of the painting's sale said it had been sent to Europe after the completion of payment. And Professor Modestini said that she had heard from a restoration expert that he had been asked by an insurance company to examine the painting in Zurich last fall before further shipping. But the examination was canceled, and the Zurich expert, Daniel Fabian, declined to comment. After that, said Professor Modestini, "the trail goes completely cold."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Art & Design
|
DRAW IT OUT "My book came out last Tuesday. There was no event. My 45 day book tour? Happily, rightfully, canceled," says Jerry Saltz, author of "How to Be an Artist," which makes its debut at No. 12 on the hardcover nonfiction list this week. The art critic, self proclaimed "failed artist" and winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for criticism is weathering the pandemic with his wife, the Times art critic Roberta Smith, in northwestern Connecticut. Thankfully, he has some words of wisdom for cooped up people looking to put their nervous energy to good use: Creativity is a survival strategy. "It's in every bone in every person's body; it was there with us in the caves. And isolation favors art, which is an intimate practice. Right now, people are working over long periods of time at the kitchen table with the kids drawing or wreaking havoc nearby. Art has always been made under these circumstances. In many ways, this is closer to what art was for the last 50,000 years than it has been for a long time." You don't need fancy supplies. "As far as materials go: noodles, paper, cardboard, plastic, pencils. Your iPhone can do a hundred thousand things. You are actually making art out of yourself. As Louise Bourgeois said, 'Tell your own story, and you will be interesting.'" Be willing to be embarrassed. "Never, ever think about creating something good. Good is boring. Ninety five percent of what I write is crapola and I just cut it to find the 5 percent that might be worth putting out into the world. You have to open up and pursue that kind of radical vulnerability." There is no wasted time. "Nothing will happen if you're not working. Work is absolutely the only thing that will take away the foulness, the curse and the pain that comes from not working. And, once you begin, you will go to a place so strange, so filled with possibility, you've already put aside your fear. Allow yourself to get lost there; just follow whatever idiot thread you get on. I do! Art tells you something you didn't need to know until you know it."
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Books
|
Gloria Contreras, a leading Mexican choreographer who chronicled her development as a dance maker under George Balanchine's mentoring, and who created more than 260 ballets for companies she directed in New York and Mexico, died on Nov. 25 at her home in Mexico City. She was 81. Her son, Gregorio Luke, said the cause was respiratory failure. "Gloria was a Balanchine disciple, and she had a great belief that she could bring Mexican culture into neo Classical dancing," said Arthur Mitchell, who became a star of New York City Ballet shortly after he met Ms. Contreras at Balanchine's School of American Ballet in the 1950s. One of Ms. Contreras's major achievements was the company and school she founded in 1970 in Mexico City: the Taller Coreografico (Choreographic Workshop) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. There she showcased a signature style that avoided folk dance but used Mexican composers and motifs to infuse even plotless neo Classical ballets in leotards with a Mexican sensibility.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Dance
|
Lunchtime in the cafeteria at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. sometimes called the Institute for Advanced Dining is a heady scene, and Freeman Dyson, who died last week at 96, was a regular fixture, arriving with reading material tucked under his arm. One day about 10 years ago, Dr. Dyson put down his tray of food at the physics table and joined the conversation. Nima Arkani Hamed, a professor in the institute's School of Natural Sciences, was talking about recent research that had brought him into contact with some beautiful, elementary, albeit ancient, results in projective geometry. He was asking around to see if people knew of any decent books on the subject, since everything he could find was too abstract and fancy. "Freeman sat down next to me and immediately agreed that all the new books were too highfalutin and that he himself had learned projective geometry in school, from a great little practical book," Dr. Arkani Hamed said recently. When Dr. Arkani Hamed lamented that such books no longer existed, Dr. Dyson happily offered to pass along his own, dotted with his youthful jottings. "So that's how I came into possession of Freeman's book on projective geometry," Dr. Arkani Hamed said. "I learned a bunch of stuff that I now daily use in my work. It really brings me tremendous pleasure to have it." Dr. Dyson math whiz turned physicist, humanist, author and cosmic visionary was one of a kind, a polymath with a kaleidoscopic line of inquiry. Best known for his revolutionary calculations describing the interaction of light and matter, he produced valuable contributions to numerous fields, including solid state physics, ferromagnetism, astrophysics, biology and applied mathematics. Often he sat along the eastern side of the institute's dining room at a table for two, with a companion, or alone with his reading. Whenever I was there as a visitor, researching and writing, I sought him out. On one occasion in 2010, he suggested by email that we meet on the early side, at 12:15 p.m., "so as to be ahead of the mob of mathematicians." He invariably arrived looking spiffy, in a tweedy sports jacket, shirt and tie. He usually got an entree, maybe roast beef with natural jus and braised carrots and mashed potato. Over lunch on more than one occasion, I asked him about his 1983 paper "Unfashionable Pursuits." Notoriously contrarian, he sought to identify unfashionable ideas that might later emerge as essential for 21st century physics. "We ought to seek out and encourage the rare individualists who do not fit into the prevailing pattern," he wrote. But he acknowledged that communal interest in fashionable problems served a purpose: The news and the rumors, "every petty success and every ephemeral triumph," could be shared with friends at the lunch table. Dr. Dyson was an anti reductionist who liked to build bridges. His "Unfashionable Pursuits" paper surveyed the history of mathematics, and then, sixth eighths of the way in, arrived at "the monster and the moral": an entity that exists within the mathematical realm of symmetry, in the field of group theory. The "monster group" had been predicted to exist, and mathematicians hunted for verifying clues. Eventually, this creature was proved to live or, technically, to act in 196,883 dimensions, and to possess 808 sexdecillion or so symmetries. Dr. Dyson suggested that these symmetries might be connected to the symmetries of the universe. The monster and its ilk might seem like "a pleasant backwater in the history of mathematics," he said. "But we should not be too sure that there is no connection." I'd try to fill airtime and trigger his silent but shoulder bobbing laugh with trivial bits, like recounting a tale relayed by his son, George Dyson, an author and historian of technology, regarding an email the elder Dyson once received from a woman with a cleaning business. Subject line: "vacuum unsatisfied." Cindy had spent 500 on the DC14 model and had come to hate it with a passion, she explained in great detail. The suction on the rug was so strong that it threw "my shoulder out (NO LIE) having to push so hard." She signed off, defeated: "I know that I will not hear from Dyson." Dr. Dyson, ever the reliable correspondent, hit Reply: "Thank you for the hate mail which I enjoy reading. I get quite a lot of it because my name is Dyson. But I am sorry to tell you that I am the wrong Dyson. My name is Freeman and not James. I suggest that you take the trouble to find James's address and send the message to him. I wish you good luck and good health." Sara Seager, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at M.I.T., lunched with Freeman when she was a long term member of the institute. Sometimes, they talked about exoplanets and the underlying physics. Dr. Dyson was generous with his time and insight, she said: "He was kind even when he asked very tough questions!" And long after his lunches with other postdocs were over, she noticed, he would still be there, reading. At our lunches, Dr. Dyson always bestowed something unexpected. One day it was a problem he was toying with, which he called "Rank, Crank and Prank." It dated back to his undergraduate days and pertained to "partitions" sums of all the positive integers that add up to a desired integer, for example 4, which has five partitions: 4, 2 2, 3 1, 2 1 1 and 1 1 1 1. (The order of "summands" doesn't matter.) "The Prank isn't yet discovered," he said. "The Rank exists and the Crank exists. The Prank is just a dream" the prank was just his playing around with renewed investigations. Another day, jumping off the question of truth versus beauty in science, he mentioned an essay he had just finished on a related dichotomy, "Is Science Mostly Driven by Ideas or by Tools?" The essay, published in 2012, marked the 50th anniversary of "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," by the theoretical physicist and historian Thomas Kuhn. Dr. Kuhn's favorite word, Dr. Dyson reckoned, was "paradigm," a system of ideas that dominate a scientific era. "A scientific revolution is a discontinuous shift from one paradigm to another," he added. "The shift happens suddenly because new ideas explode with a barrage of new insights and new questions that push old ideas into oblivion." As a counterpoint, Dr. Dyson mentioned Peter Galison, a physicist and historian at Harvard, whose work focused more on experiments and instruments. Dr. Galison had published "a fatter but equally illuminating book" called "Image and Logic" a history dominated by tools, whereas Kuhn's was a history dominated by ideas. "Roughly speaking, Kuhn stands for beauty and Galison for truth," Dr. Dyson said. "My answer is that we need them both." He also pointed me toward his essay "Birds and Frogs," in which he described complementary species of mathematicians: "Some mathematicians are birds, others are frogs," he wrote. "Birds fly high in the air and survey broad vistas of mathematics out to the far horizon. They delight in concepts that unify our thinking and bring together diverse problems from different parts of the landscape. Frogs live in the mud below and see only the flowers that grow nearby. They delight in the details of particular objects, and they solve problems one at a time. I happen to be a frog, but many of my best friends are birds." Some might disagree with Dyson's assessment of himself. "Characteristically clever and self deprecating," the author James Gleick replied, when I posted that excerpt on Twitter. "I think he was a bird." He elaborated in an email. For a moment, Mr. Gleick said, in the case of quantum electrodynamics, Richard Feynman and Julian Schwinger were the frogs and only Dr. Dyson could see them both: "Schwinger had solved quantum electrodynamics with a difficult formalism that almost no one understood, and Feynman had solved quantum electrodynamics with his powerful diagrams easy for physicists to use and compute with but still hard to understand and it was Dyson who saw the thing whole, proving that Feynman's and Schwinger's solutions were mathematically equivalent." He added that Dr. Dyson should have shared their Nobel Prize. With the "monster group," it again turned out that Dr. Dyson had a prescient bird's eye view. His prediction bore out later in the 1980s and '90s, specifically with string theory and its proposed supersymmetries which, granted, so far lack experimental verification. But as Dr. Dyson noted, "We have strong evidence that the creator of the universe loves symmetry, and if he loves symmetry, what lovelier symmetry could he find than the symmetry of the Monster?" Last Tuesday, Dr. Dyson took a spill during lunch in the dining hall. It didn't seem too serious at first. But his wife, Imme, drove him to the hospital (he refused a ride in the ambulance), and three days later he died perhaps achieving the "Cosmic Unity of all souls" that, at 15, he firmly believed was possible. In his book "Disturbing the Universe," he reflected on his mother's decline and her favorite walk to a nearby graveyard. As they walked, he listened to her cheerfully talk about her approaching death.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Science
|
Internet killed the video store in the documentary "Circus of Books," which examines the history of a long running porn shop and adult goods store in West Hollywood that closed in 2019. When the film begins, Circus of Books is on its last legs. But 30 years ago, it was not only one of the biggest distributors of gay pornography in the area, but also one of largest gay porn producers in the country. Perhaps the most surprising piece of the story was that it was run by Karen and Barry Mason a straight couple who kept it a secret from their synagogue, friends and family. The documentary (streaming on Netflix) is directed by the couple's daughter, Rachel, and it promises an inside view of the pair's double life. But as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the people who are least equipped to thoroughly profile Karen and Barry are their children. The family business went undiscussed at home for years; even though the curtain has since been drawn, Karen and Barry still compartmentalize. They are strictly business when they discuss their most impossible decisions, even shrugging off the choice presented as Karen's to make to have only Barry face the charges brought against them during the Reagan administration's crusades against obscenity.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Movies
|
Which Allergens Are in Your Food? You Can't Always Tell From the Labels When you're shopping for someone who has a food allergy, a trip to the grocery store is like a police investigation. Each product must be scrutinized. Labels are examined, each ingredient studied. My 5 year old son, Alexander, is allergic to almonds and hazelnuts, so my wife and I spend a lot of time trying to decipher food labels. If you miss something, even one word, you risk an allergic reaction. Although federal law requires manufacturers to include allergen warnings on prepackaged foods, it's not always clear which products contain allergens and which do not. The regulation doesn't cover all types of foods, nor instances in which trace amounts of allergens may be present. This has created a confusing and risky marketplace for my family and millions of others roughly 8 percent of children have a food allergy. I set out to better understand allergen labeling and the problems consumers face. Here's what I learned. It's easy to tell when certain allergens are present Congress passed the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act in 2004, a rule book for manufacturers. Companies must tell consumers if prepackaged foods were made using certain allergens: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, peanuts, wheat, soybeans and tree nuts. If I grab a box of cookies from the store shelf, I might find a special warning printed near the ingredients list "contains almonds" because almonds are part of the tree nut family. Or I might find the allergen spelled out in the ingredients. If I don't see it, I can be assured that the product wasn't made using almonds. But some allergens aren't on the label Sesame is the ninth most prevalent food allergy among adults in the United States. But the food was left off the list of major food allergens in the labeling law passed by Congress. Manufacturers do not have to print a "contains sesame" message. It may even be hidden under "natural flavors" or "spices" on the ingredients label. "I can't even trust what's written on the label anymore," said Madeline L. Whitney, 18, a freshman at the University of Notre Dame who is allergic to sesame. One morning this past October, Ms. Whitney ate a protein bar before a statistics exam. She checked the label, which noted "natural flavors" on the list of ingredients but not sesame. When Ms. Whitney sat down to take the exam, she started experiencing signs of an anaphylactic reaction. She readied her EpiPen. "All of the sudden my tongue is just totally swollen and my throat is closing," said Ms. Whitney. The reaction was so severe that she had to be injected with two doses of epinephrine before recovering at the university's health clinic. Stories like Ms. Whitney's are driving a push by advocacy groups to mandate sesame labeling. The Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to add sesame to the list of major allergens. "Sesame should be included as one of the top allergens that needs to be disclosed on labels," said Lisa G. Gable, chief executive of Food Allergy Research Education, a nonprofit organization based in McLean, Va. Sesame labeling is already mandated in Canada, the European Union and Australia. Here's where it gets even more complicated. Even if my box of cookies doesn't include one of the mandated warning labels, the cookies may still contain an allergen. Let's say, back at the manufacturer, my cookies were put on the same conveyor belt used for almond cookies. Small bits of almond might have made it into my seemingly almond free cookies. This is called cross contact. And there's no surefire way I can know it happened the federal government does not require manufacturers to include labeling for possible cross contact of allergens. As a result, food manufacturers developed their own unregulated labeling practices to alert consumers to potential cross contact. Here's a sampling from a recent trip to the grocery store: None Chocolate bar: "Manufactured on the same equipment that processes almonds." None Bread: "Made in a bakery that may also use tree nuts." These short descriptions, often called "precautionary allergen labeling," may alert consumers to some risks, but because the labels are unregulated, their meanings differ from company to company. A 2017 study, published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice showed that consumers make "risk assessments" based on the words used in this kind of labeling. "We're making consumers decide, based on the wording of that precautionary allergen label, what seems safe for themselves or their child, and I think that's a huge issue," said Dr. Ruchi S. Gupta, a professor of pediatrics at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago and an author of the study. My child hasn't had a reaction from cross contact in prepackaged food, fortunately. But other children certainly have. "The whole world of food labeling is almost like a foreign language," said Allison A. Ososkie of Vienna, Va. Her 2 year old son, Lincoln, is allergic to egg, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, soy and shellfish. This past spring, he had an anaphylactic reaction to crackers that may have been processed on equipment with milk products. Anna M. Francis, an acupuncturist in Wheat Ridge, Colo., has a 6 year old daughter, Penelope, who is allergic to egg, dairy, cashew, pistachio, cherry and blackberry. In 2015, Ms. Francis thought the snack bar she was giving her daughter was safe. She even called the company to ask about its equipment cleaning process. "My daughter had a bite and had an anaphylactic reaction," said Ms. Francis. She wants the government's regulation to include labeling for possible cross contact of allergens. Sometimes the labels are just wrong There's something else consumers with food allergies have to worry about: incorrect packaging. Sometimes, during the manufacturing process, food made using one of the eight major allergens isn't properly labeled. In 2018, about one third of F.D.A. recalls involved prepackaged foods that were erroneously labeled, according to data compiled by the agency. It doesn't get better at the bakery or deli Remember my box of cookies? Let's say I put it back on the shelf and head over to the store's bakery for freshly prepared treats instead. Sadly, foods produced in a bakery or deli and "placed in a wrapper or container in response to a consumer's order" are not covered under federal labeling requirements. The label on my box of cookies, packaged by a bakery worker, will not have any federally regulated allergen labels on it. Manufacturers say safety is the priority The labeling on the side of my box of cookies whether it says "contains almonds," "may contain almonds" or nothing at all is determined by the food manufacturer. So what goes into making the food that ends up on a shelf? And what kind of consideration is given to people with food allergies? At Nestle's American operation, the key is applying "allergen management" across the expansive and complex operation, said David C. Clifford, director of food safety at Nestle USA. He described the company's approach as "objective, science based, risk based." "It's a very serious responsibility that we have to feed the public, and the responsibilities around these systems extend horizontally across the organization," said Mr. Clifford, who added that his team conducts allergen safety training throughout the company. The Hershey Company also runs a training program for employees, it said in a statement. The training "includes video interviews with allergic children and their families who face the challenges of allergen management on a personal level every day of their lives." So here are some tips for finding safe food Given everything we know about food allergen labeling, here is some advice. When you're scanning the shelves, if you spot precautionary labels beginning with "may contain" or "processed in the same facility as," don't buy them if they refer to your allergy, said Dr. Scott H. Sicherer, chief of pediatric allergy and immunology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. "You shouldn't make risk decisions based on what precautionary words are used on the label," said Dr. Sicherer. "But rather, to be 100 perfect safe, just avoid products that have the precautionary label, if that's a food that you're avoiding." Instead of guessing what a label might mean, a few parents I spoke to take a proactive approach: calling companies to get answers, even if it is time consuming. "Maybe once a month I'm calling and trying to track something down," said Julie V. Lunn, a bookkeeper and entrepreneur in Havre de Grace, Md., whose 3 year old daughter, Alafair, is allergic to a variety of foods. Look for products made in facilities that don't use allergens One way to simplify things is to seek out products made in allergen free plants. Enjoy Life Foods has one such facility, said Joel D. Warady, general manager of the company. He said employees are forbidden from bringing peanuts to work, and they must wear company issued shoes that don't leave the factory, in Jefferson, Ind. MadeGood Foods, based in Ontario, swabs hands and tables to test for allergens, said Janice A. Harada, the company's marketing manager. Manufacturers like these cater to the allergy community, using branding to make it clear their foods are clear of allergens. And that box of cookies I've been looking for? If its label says "made in a dedicated allergen free facility," it should be safe to give to my son.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Health
|
Torn between the maternal and the cosmic, the tactile and the unearthly, "Proxima" feels as unsettled as its heroine. And while the film's feminist thrust is admirable, Winocour's decision to sacrifice this for a cheap, sentimental finale is infuriating. As Sarah's reckless last minute actions jeopardize not only her lifelong dream, but the mission itself, they also disappointingly undermine the movie's own thesis: that the demands of motherhood and high stakes careers are not mutually exclusive. Making that point far more effectively are the beaming images of real life astronauts and mothers scrolling past in the end credits. They made me wish that "Proxima" had fully embraced its nonfiction instincts and delved into their stories instead. Proxima Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. Rent or buy on iTunes, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Movies
|
The nonprofit that popularized some of America's most recognizable public service campaigns and slogans, including "friends don't let friends drive drunk" and "only you can prevent forest fires," is teaming up with a gun control group to raise awareness of what both describe as a crisis: unintentional deaths or injuries to children caused by guns. The new campaign, "End Family Fire," begins on Wednesday and aims to educate the public on the importance of safe firearm storage. "Family fire," a phrase created for the campaign, refers to shootings that cause injury or death and involve improperly stored or misused guns found in the home. "We want everyone who is driving down the street, listening to the radio, watching TV, to hear this term, to go to our website and to internalize what family fire is," said Kris Brown, a president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the gun control organization leading a coalition of groups behind the campaign, which it produced in partnership with the Ad Council, the nonprofit. As with the Ad Council's other campaigns, "End Family Fire" will rely on space donated by online, print and broadcast media. Those that have donated services so far include Fox Networks Group, the Meredith Corporation and Conde Nast. The advertisements will start appearing this week on television, in print, on outdoor signage and online. In one commercial, a father and son are at home preparing for the day ahead when the child, still in his pajamas, asks a series of increasingly probing questions about his father's gun, revealing that he knows its location and suggesting how he might use it. Other advertisements, for print publications, show children discovering guns in a drawer or a purse. The date the outreach is beginning, the eighth day of the eighth month of the year, is a nod to a number central to the campaign: Eight children are unintentionally killed or injured by a gun each day, according to the coalition's analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. That count includes 19 year olds. Limiting the data to those 18 and younger, the number is closer to six a day. 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. On May 5, 2001, Josh Adames of Chicago became one of those statistics. That day, Josh, 13, was at a friend's house when the friend began playing with his father's handgun. The friend removed the gun's magazine, but did not realize that a bullet remained in the chamber. He pointed the gun at Josh and fired, striking him fatally in the stomach. "The fact that he died so young is totally preventable," said Hector Adames, Josh's uncle and guardian at the time of his death, who has since worked closely with the Brady campaign. Mr. Adames, a military veteran, said that while he respected gun rights, gun owners have a responsibility to keep firearms secure. "I understand that families own guns because they want to protect themselves," he said. "However, if you have an irresponsible gun owner in your neighborhood, your community isn't safe." About 4.6 million children live in homes where at least one gun is both loaded and unlocked, according to a study published this year in the Journal of Urban Health. And both the Brady Center and the Ad Council want to continue the campaign until that number goes down. "We focus on issues for the long haul, and when we take one on, our focus is to stay at it until the issue goes away," said Lisa Sherman, chief executive of the Ad Council, which has promoted firearm safety for almost two decades. Long before that, the group advanced famous campaigns on other subjects. Since 1944, it has helped promote wildfire safety through the use of Smokey Bear and his famous catchphrase. Starting in 1979, it called for crime prevention with McGruff the Crime Dog. And since 1985, it has promoted seatbelt safety, initially with a campaign featuring two lively crash test dummies. The "End Family Fire" campaign was created by Droga5, an advertising company founded in 2006, that was also responsible for The New York Times's ad campaign "The Truth Is Hard." The gun campaign has received support from a number of other groups, including the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, Bishops Against Gun Violence and Veterans for Gun Reform.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Media
|
THROW ME TO THE WOLVES By Virginia Woolf apparently thought that men couldn't be trusted with women's stories. In these two new novels, the women's stories are entirely in the hands of men, as are their fates. To make matters worse, those stories become fodder for media scandal. 's "Throw Me to the Wolves" begins with the discovery of the body of a murdered woman named Zalie Dyer, found among the weeds and trash on the outskirts of a city in present day southeast England. Among the first on the scene are the novel's narrator, a detective nicknamed Prof, and his partner, Gary. This somewhat ill matched pair will conduct the investigation of Zalie's death. Almost at once they have a suspect in custody: Wolphram, a retired schoolteacher. A public rush to judgment occurs. Wolphram is a loner who reads poetry and listens to opera box sets on his expensive music system. "It's all set up," Prof remarks. "Mr. Wolphram is going to be the nation's High Culture Hermit Ogre." This novel is digressive, but compulsively readable, in part because of the author's precise handling of the moral climate in which the story plays out. Quite aside from the crime at the heart of the plot, the demands of human decency are pitted time and again against acts of cruelty and cowardice. (One of McGuinness's fine set pieces shows the humiliation of a boy at the hands of a sadistic schoolmaster in front of his whole class.) More disheartening is the deeply cynical attitude of the press and public toward the murder suspect, whose character, on little evidence, is assaulted by rumor, innuendo and outright falsehood. Rare flashes of kindness and civility shine forth like beacons in all this murk. The story is bleak, but the prose bristles with caustic humor. "If he's innocent they'll just move on," Prof says of the accused man, "jettison him by the information roadside to make his broken way back to whatever life they've left him." Later he describes the situation as "like life stripped down to a western a crowd, some hate and a rope." Gary, a brilliantly realized English copper, thinks it's just "a spot of monstering." This is a novel very much about men, and also boys, and what boys go through on their way to becoming men. Only late in the story does the focus shift toward Zalie, the murder victim, who was strangled, then wrapped in plastic trash bags and left in dirty scrub land. The two detectives are aware that "under the police work, under the courts, the unseen plumbing of the system, is violence against women. ... Wife, daughter, girlfriend, the repeat beating, the 'one off' that keeps happening." But they also know that this murder is different. It's far more sinister. 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. "Throw Me to the Wolves" is sophisticated in its use of demotic language and police procedure, and keenly alert to the shabbiest impulses of both the British media and the British private school system. Its two central characters enjoy a lively relationship and are not without moral sensibility. But, as for the dead woman, Zalie Dyer is little more than a pretext. In a novel very much consumed with the past, the question as to who she was, what sort of life she lived, is only sketchily answered. As the police scrutinize her online activity, Prof notes the digital traces she left behind: "They can't leave her alone. It's not the dead who haunt the living, it's the living who haunt the dead." James Lasdun's "Afternoon of a Faun" is also narrated by an Englishman, this one a writer living in upstate New York. It too is set in the present day and shares with "Throw Me to the Wolves" a central concern with moral aspects of guilt and shame. The narrative is again controlled by a pair of men, and again involves female victimhood. Lasdun's narrator, who remains nameless throughout, has a friend, Marco Rosedale, another Englishman and a resident of Brooklyn. Marco is a stylish man of middle age and a celebrated maker of television documentaries. This is a timely story: It begins with the two men attending a talk on rape and memory, the relevance of which is underscored a page or two later when the narrator mentions "the cloud threatening the country in the form of a serial harasser of women having won the Republican nomination for the upcoming presidential election." We shall see more of this serial harasser of women. The plot properly kicks in when Marco learns that someone he worked with back in the 1970s, Julia Gault, has written a memoir, as yet unpublished, in which she alludes to a night in a hotel when, she says, he raped her. Marco understands all too well the implications should the book ever be published. A legal battle commences and Marco appears to succeed in suppressing the defamatory statement that would otherwise have destroyed his good name. Early on, as mixed feelings about his "victory" are expressed by his friend, readers may begin to feel they are not in the hands of an entirely reliable narrator. Marco speaks glibly of his so called "ordeal." He reflects that in the current climate there seemed to be "a tacit agreement that it was better that a few innocent men should be ruined than a single guilty one go free." He compares the present situation to old time Soviet political justice: "The morning denunciation. The noon denial. The evening firing squad." He even considers making a documentary about it. A well drawn portrait of two flawed but highly articulate Englishmen in New York, "Afternoon of a Faun" has a strong plotline, since Marco's "ordeal," to his dismay, turns out to be very far from over. Further legal complications arise, and the narrator's sympathies begin to shift yet again, as at last he confronts the powerlessness and pain of his friend's accuser, "poor Julia," as he now calls her. He claims to feel "thoroughly perplexed" by his own "lurching sympathies." Then comes his long encounter with Julia herself, which takes place in a rather sterile apartment in a nondescript area of London's East End. She talks angrily about Marco, his connections in high places and the stigma that attaches to women who admit to having suffered sexual abuse. We see again that the two lives in the balance here, abuser and abused, are very far from equally matched. The narrator feels himself "caught up in a more turbulent drama" than he'd first supposed. At the same time, ominously, the presidential election draws closer, with "fresh allegations about the Republican candidate's treatment of women." It's a dramatically apt reflection on female victimhood, the issue that informs these two novels, both focused on legally entangled men, that the final image of "Afternoon of a Faun" should be Donald Trump stalking Hillary Clinton onstage during a nationally televised debate. Seeing this, Marco says blithely, "We're going to win." In one sense, he couldn't be more wrong. But in his own conflict with Julia Gault, the outcome is no different from Trump's victory. In this novel, it seems that the victimizers are still very much in control.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Books
|
Madeleine Albright and Igor Ivanov attribute challenges in U.S. Russian relations to "the political climates in Washington and Moscow" and call for extension of the New START treaty. While President Trump's foreign policy is flawed in many ways, it cannot be put on the same scale as the Kremlin's aggressive strategy. The writers lament "the unfortunate dissolution of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty last year." The treaty was signed in 1987 after President Ronald Reagan firmly countered Soviet aggressiveness, and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet president, turned to domestic liberalization and cooperation with America. For a long time Washington and NATO criticized Moscow's violation of the I.N.F. treaty. President Trump, a far cry from Mr. Reagan in other aspects, finally took countermeasures. The decision to extend the New START treaty should be conditioned on a thorough assessment of the ongoing military buildup, especially in Russia, and be free from wishful thinking about the Kremlin's behavior or the interests of the reality show in Washington.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Opinion
|
What Does It Cost to Create a Cancer Drug? Less Than You'd Think What does it really cost to bring a drug to market? The question is central to the debate over rising health care costs and appropriate drug pricing. President Trump campaigned on promises to lower the costs of drugs. But numbers have been hard to come by. For years, the standard figure has been supplied by researchers at the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development: 2.7 billion each, in 2017 dollars. Yet a new study looking at 10 cancer medications, among the most expensive of new drugs, has arrived at a much lower figure: a median cost of 757 million per drug. (Half cost less, and half more.) Following approval, the 10 drugs together brought in 67 billion, the researchers also concluded a more than sevenfold return on investment. Nine out of 10 companies made money, but revenues varied enormously. One drug had not yet earned back its development costs. The study, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, relied on company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission to determine research and development costs. "It seems like they have done a thoughtful and rigorous job," said Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, director of the program on regulation, therapeutics and the law at Brigham and Women's Hospital. "It provides at least something of a reality check," he added. The figures were met with swift criticism, however, by other experts and by representatives of the biotech industry, who said that the research did not adequately take into account the costs of the many experimental drugs that fail. "It's a bit like saying it's a good business to go out and buy winning lottery tickets," Daniel Seaton, a spokesman for the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, said in an email. Dr. Jerry Avorn, chief of the division of pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women's Hospital, predicted that the paper would help fuel the debate over the prices of cancer drugs, which have soared so high "that we are getting into areas that are almost unimaginable economically," he said. A leukemia treatment approved recently by the Food and Drug Administration, for example, will cost 475,000 for a single treatment. It is the first of a wave of gene therapy treatments likely to carry staggering price tags. "This is an important brick in the wall of this developing concern," he said. Dr. Vinay Prasad, an oncologist at Oregon Health and Science University, and Dr. Sham Mailankody, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, arrived at their figures after reviewing data on 10 companies that brought a cancer drug to market in the past decade. Since the companies also were developing other drugs that did not receive approval from the F.D.A., the researchers were able to include the companies' total spending on research and development, not just what they spent on the drugs that succeeded. One striking example was ibrutinib, made by Pharmacyclics. It was approved in 2013 for patients with certain blood cancers who did not respond to conventional therapy. Ibrutinib was the only drug out of four the company was developing to receive F.D.A. approval. The company's research and development costs for their four drugs were 388 million, the company's S.E.C. filings indicated. Accurate figures on drug development are difficult to find and often disputed. Although it is widely cited, the Tufts study also was fiercely criticized. One objection was that the researchers, led by Joseph A. DiMasi, did not disclose the companies' data on development costs. The study involved ten large companies, which were not named, and 106 investigational drugs, also not named. But Dr. DiMasi found the new study "irredeemably flawed at a fundamental level." "The sample consists of relatively small companies that have gotten only one drug approved, with few other drugs of any type in development," he said. The result is "substantial selection bias," meaning that the estimates do not accurately reflect the industry as a whole. Ninety five percent of cancer drugs that enter clinical trials fail, said Mr. Seaton, of the biotech industry group. "The small handful of successful drugs those looked at by this paper must be profitable enough to finance all of the many failures this analysis leaves unexamined." "When the rare event occurs that a company does win approval," he added, "the reward must be commensurate with taking on the multiple levels of risk not seen in any other industry if drug development is to remain economically viable for prospective investors." Cancer drugs remain among the most expensive medications, with prices reaching the hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient. Although the new study was small, its estimates are so much lower than previous figures, and the return on investment so great, that experts say they raise questions about whether soaring drug prices really are needed to encourage investment.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Health
|
For travelers seeking to score some out of town Pokemon with the popular Pokemon Go game, the search engine Alltherooms.com has added a PokeView filter. Though the Pokemon critters tend to move around, using the filter during a room search shows the number of Pokemon within a radius of about 500 feet at the time of the search, specifying the type and number of Pokemon in that range. The website, which aims to function like the Google of accommodations searches, compiling all rooms available in a location from Couchsurfing and Airbnb accommodations to hotels and houseboats, also notes the proximity of stationary Poke "gyms" and "Poke stops," places where players may spend more time. While Pokemon players have annoyed some Poke stop neighbors, a number of hotels have embraced their transient game playing visitors. The historic Hotel Del Coronado near San Diego is home to seven Poke stops, the Peninsula Tokyo has two Poke stops including one at its 24th floor restaurant and the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco has a Poke stop near its Kanpai Lounge, offering a Pokemon happy hour from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays with 5 cocktails. Going further afield, Geckos Adventures is offering a new series of trips called "Pokemon: Let's Go." Led by local guides who are also versed in the game, the trips visit Peru, the Galapagos, Egypt and Cambodia. Prices start at 607 a person for 12 days of Pokemon hunting in Cambodia. The outfitter is bundling all four destinations in one six week trip price at 7,500 a person, departing Aug. 28.
| 0
|
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
|
Travel
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.