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LOS ANGELES Disney set off a sonic boom in Hollywood by unveiling plans to start two Netflix style services: For the first time in the streaming age, the world's largest media company had decided that embracing a new business model was more important than clinging to its existing one. Disney's decision to better align itself with consumer trends deemed "a rare and impressive pivot" by RBC Capital Markets instantly reverberated through the entertainment industry. Disney's cable channels, which include ESPN, have long been seen as the reason many viewers were refraining from cutting the cord entirely. If Disney was going all in on streaming, the impact would be felt by almost every television company and cable operator. As part of its announcement on Tuesday, Disney said that it would spend heavily on original programming for its entertainment streaming service and pull future Disney and Pixar movies from Netflix. That sent Netflix shares downward. The question seemed to be, how would Netflix, even with its head start in terms of audience and reach, manage without the mighty mouse? And would Disney's plunge into streaming encourage the likes of Discovery and Viacom to do the same, intensifying competition? And would viewers who want to eschew traditional cable subscriptions eventually find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer number of streaming services they would need to cobble together to watch what they wanted to watch? On Wednesday, as analysts and investors scratched for answers, few firm ones emerged. In a research report, Doug Creutz, an analyst at Cowen and Company, summed up Disney's streaming plans, especially for movies and television, as "aggressively" pushing "the traditional content business into terra incognita." Underscoring the uncertainty, Disney's shares declined by more than 4 percent on Wednesday, to 102.83. The company reported a 9 percent decline in quarterly profit on Tuesday, which may have led to the sell off. Wider weakness in financial markets did not help. Disney investors may also be worried about the enormous spending it will take to build two streaming services. Some might have been underwhelmed by the company's plans or might have thought that the decision came much too late. While a few ardent Disney critics held that view, most analysts applauded the company's move. "What Disney is doing is a really big deal in terms of trying new things, and I don't think it even has answers to some of these questions, including what the services will cost," said Michael Vorhaus, president of Magid Advisors, a media and digital video consultancy. "But it's clearly not the end of linear television. It's not the end of Netflix." Disney's streaming plans call for the introduction early next year of a subscription service to be built around ESPN's sports programming. It will be powered by BamTech, a technology company that handles direct to consumer video for baseball teams and HBO, among others. Disney paid 1 billion a year ago for a 33 percent stake in BamTech. On Tuesday, Robert A. Iger, Disney's chief executive, announced that Disney had accelerated an option to spend 1.58 billion for an additional 42 percent share. But this still unnamed subscription service is designed to protect the cable bundle, at least initially. The service will offer only sports programming that is not available on ESPN's traditional channels. Only people who also pay to receive ESPN the old fashioned way (via a cable or satellite hookup) will be able to stream ESPN's core offerings, including N.F.L. and N.B.A. games. Mr. Iger has also made an important calculation that Disney unlike most of its competitors has programming that is must have in the old model (cable and satellite) and in the new (streaming). Put another way, Disney has the power to introduce streaming offerings around ESPN, Pixar films and Disney Channel shows without worrying about being dropped by third party distributors, including upstarts like Sling TV and PlayStation Vue. Jeff Bezos gives 100 million to the Obama Foundation. Stocks rise after President Biden says Jerome Powell will stay atop the Fed. PlayStation Vue, for instance, tried to introduce a "skinny" television package without ESPN in March 2015 and drew little consumer interest. When PlayStation Vue started offering ESPN in spring 2016, the distributor quickly started gaining traction. Children's programming, an obvious strength for Disney, has proved especially important for streaming services. Amazon last year acquired a significant amount of PBS's library of original series to exclusively stream on its service, and Netflix has said it expects to have 75 original children's programs by the end of next year. Disney's announcement had an immediate impact on Netflix, as the news media raced to pit the two companies against each other, and some investors worried about Disney taking back its movies. (Starting in late 2019, new release Disney and Pixar films will move to Disney's entertainment focused streaming service.) On Wednesday, Netflix shares declined 1.5 percent, to 175.78. Omar Sheikh, an analyst at Credit Suisse, said Disney's move "arguably reduces the consumer value of Netflix." But most analysts contended that the news was less worrisome for Netflix than it would initially seem. "We don't view this as a strike at Netflix, as the content being pulled is actually rather limited," said Mr. Creutz of Cowan and Company. Disney has not yet decided whether to pull its Marvel or "Star Wars" movies from Netflix. Netflix will not lose access to Marvel branded television shows like "The Defenders" because Netflix is a co producer of them. Executives at Disney and Netflix declined to comment publicly on Wednesday. In a statement on Tuesday, Netflix said, "We continue to do business with the Walt Disney Company on many fronts, including our ongoing deal with Marvel TV." Notably, Netflix has been building up a huge original movie operation, including spending the 90 million "Bright," a forthcoming Will Smith movie. Netflix plans to start making as many as 50 of its own movies annually. BamTech, which Disney plans to use as the backbone of its streaming services, has substantial operations. But Disney faces a steep learning curve. By the time Disney even introduces its entertainment based service in 2019, Netflix will have about 64 million subscribers in the United States and 158 million worldwide, according to BTIG Research. Disney would probably contend that Netflix's head start is irrelevant. "It's high time we got in this business," Mr. Iger told analysts on a conference call on Tuesday. "The profitability, the revenue generating capability of this initiative is substantially greater than the business models we're currently being served by." In the end, there was only one aspect of Disney's move that everyone seemed to agree on: The streaming boom is only beginning. Netflix, Amazon, HBO Now, CBS All Access and Hulu (part owned by Disney) are all barreling ahead online. FX is dipping a toe in the water with Comcast. AMC has done the same. And now comes Disney with two services, which will undoubtedly prod other entertainment giants to move beyond niche direct to consumer offerings. The race for streaming supremacy, Mr. Creutz said, "may well accelerate problems for the whole ecosystem via atomization of content and an overpopulation of content apps."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
A manager for R. Kelly turned himself in to the authorities in Georgia on Friday on charges that he threatened a man who accuses the R B singer of holding his daughter captive. The manager, Henry James Mason, 52, of Mableton, Ga., was wanted on a warrant for terroristic threats and acts against Timothy Savage, whose daughter Joycelyn is believed to be living with Kelly. Savage told the police that after he tried to contact his daughter, Mason told him over the phone that he would do "harm" to Savage and his family and threatened to kill him. Mason surrendered to the Henry County Sheriff's Office, near Atlanta, and was released on 10,000 bond on Friday. In a statement released by his lawyer, Mason denied that he had "engaged in any acts of bullying, harassment, or aggressive acts." He said he had, in fact, tried to help Timothy Savage and his wife, Jonjelyn, re establish a relationship with their daughter. Read about RCA's decision on Friday to drop R. Kelly from its label. The police report was filed last May, but a storm of controversy has surrounded Kelly in recent weeks, after "Surviving R. Kelly" aired on Lifetime. The documentary series chronicled decades of allegations against Kelly, including that he operates a so called sex cult in which he physically and emotionally abuses women and keeps them from their families.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Before this novel coronavirus ever reached American shores, I heard dark tones of reassurance. Don't worry, people said. It kills only the old and the sick. The thought, a temporary (and misleading) escape from rising panic, crossed my mind, and surfaced in conversation. When I spoke last week to Jessica Smietana, a 30 year old doctoral student in French literature at New York University, she admitted the thought had occurred to her, too. "I remember saying, 'Well, you know, when it's reaching people that aren't in vulnerable populations, that's when I'll worry about it.'" And then, like many of our unsavory national tendencies, the sentiment took an exaggerated, grotesque form in the statements of President Trump. "We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself," he tweeted in all capital letters, signaling that he might urge states to lift protective restrictions on gatherings and businesses rather than continue to incur economic costs. In that calculus, the lives of the sick and dying became a mere data point in an actuarial account of the coronavirus pandemic's economic impact. Mr. Trump has since changed his view, saying, "the economy is number two on my list. First, I want to save a lot of lives." Rightfully so. Such an easy dismissal of the sick and elderly is a ghastly indictment of one of our most cowardly cultural reflexes: an abandonment of the dying as a means of wishing away death. It's a weakness only the lucky can long afford, and in the midst of this pandemic, their numbers are swiftly shrinking. As coronavirus cases in the United States multiplied, Ms. Smietana, like many of us, found reason to reconsider her initial response. Her 63 year old father, Bruce Smietana, began chemotherapy treatment for early stage pancreatic cancer last month. "I realized what a terrible attitude this is," she told me. "We shouldn't think of that as an acceptable outcome 'Well, all these people were going to die soon enough.'" In America, Ann Neumann writes in "The Good Death," "death has been put off and professionalized to the point where we no longer have to dirty our hands with it." But with the coronavirus, death has drawn too near to ignore. And this is a good thing. The dying, their value and their particular wisdom should never have been banished from our common life in the first place. The physicians who accompany people as they face death have a unique perspective on mortality, perhaps thanks to the example of their remarkable patients. I spoke to Christopher D. Landry, a postgraduate trainee in the Columbia University psychiatry department, last month, during his emergency medicine rotation. "A lot of young people feel that life in the shadow of death is no life at all," Dr. Landry said. "But everybody approaches that shadow eventually. And then, even people who were previously young and healthy learn to appreciate the many good things in life that they're still able to have." The prospect of death also prompts a philosophical evaluation of life. These reckonings can bring the blur of ordinary life into sharp and brilliant focus. At 19, Ms. Smietana lost her mother, and later, her older sister. From that point on, her family consisted of herself and her father, a stoic and steadfast garbage man who worked for the city of Chicago for some 30 years. Ms. Smietana told me that she had always been close with her father, but that their relationship became even more vital after the loss of her sister and mother. "That's made this whole situation a little more intense," she said. Her father's battle with a miserable disease has led her to contemplate justice, or the lack of it. He had already lost so much. Because the chemotherapy weakened his immune system, she wasn't permitted to visit him during his treatment. He would be alone. As we spoke, her voice thinned with tears. "It feels tremendously unjust," she said. What Ms. Smietana saw was that the presumption of fulfillment that the elderly have lived life, and can ask little more from it is mistaken. As much as any young person can hope to feel more love, happiness, curiosity, satisfaction in the balance of life, so can the aged and the ill. In fact, they may experience those good things in life even more acutely for recognizing their scarcity. In that respect, the dying may be more alive than any of us more awake to the truths that emerge at the end of all things, and more aware of the elements of life that lend existence its meaning. When I spoke to Mr. Smietana on the telephone, he was recovering from chemotherapy in the midst of a pandemic. But he didn't ruminate on pain; instead, he talked about gratitude. He told me about Jessica, how she would be the first doctor in the family. He looked forward to her graduation, and to all of the other things he had no doubt she would accomplish; "she's an amazing daughter," he said. And then he drew a labored breath, still exhausted from his treatment. "I've had a relatively great life," he reflected. "I lost my wife, and I lost one of my daughters. But besides that, I've been pretty damn lucky." Mr. Smietana died a week later, on a cold Sunday morning in Chicago. He awoke that day with breathing trouble, and passed shortly thereafter. When I spoke with Ms. Smietana, she was still thinking about justice, or the lack of it. "Coronavirus is the reason I didn't get to see my dad during what turned out to be the last week of his life," she said. "It was the right thing to do. But I will regret it forever." The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter ( NYTopinion) and Instagram.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
SEATTLE Yellow and black stickers indicating a donor to the local broadcaster KEXP are a common sight on bumpers and laptops in this music loving town. But the venerable independent station found at 90.3 FM on Puget Sound airwaves would have to exhaust its sticker supply to thank its most recent donor. On Monday, the 46 year old station announced a bequest of just under 10 million from an anonymous donor known as Suzanne. The station's executive director, Thomas Mara, believes it is the largest ever gift to a single U.S. public radio station. The donation will create a permanent endowment, secure six months' continuous cash reserves and fund a full time education and outreach team. While the nature of a 24 hour live radio station doesn't easily allow for an all hands office meeting, Mr. Mara, 54, described the jubilant atmosphere at the station after informing the staff via email. "It was deeply moving to simply watch people's expressions," he said. "A lot of smiling, head shaking, even some tears." Suzanne died in 2016 and her estate lawyers informed the station of the gift in February 2017. For the last year, the station's leadership and board kept the gift under wraps while they received a crash course in setting up a permanent endowment. "There is not a manual for this," Mr. Mara said. The gift is larger than the station's average two year cash budget of 8 million, half of which comes from individual donations. In addition to providing financial stability, he intends for the gift to allow more musician workshops on topics like securing festival bookings, understanding contracts and staying healthy on tour. "Thanks to Suzanne we'll be able to play a better role as a guide to musicians," Mr. Mara said. KEXP began in 1972 as a 10 watt student run operation at the University of Washington under the call sign KCMU. In 2001, the former Microsoft executive Paul Allen donated 3 million to build an off campus studio. The station changed its name to KEXP to align with the nearby, Allen funded Experience Music Project (now the Museum of Popular Culture, or MoPOP) and began operating under a nonprofit organization independent from the university. After outgrowing the cramped studio, KEXP launched a capital campaign in 2012 to raise 15 million for larger, state of the art facilities at Seattle Center. The station began broadcasting from the new home in December 2015 and opened to the public with a cafe, record store and public gathering space for live performances in April 2016. Suzanne toured the facility while it was under construction and signed her name on an interior wall that was later covered. "As staff we know her name is literally on the walls of KEXP," Mr. Mara said. On Monday, the afternoon D.J. Kevin Cole, one of several staff members who knew the donor's tastes in soul, new wave, punk and ska, played a 45 minute tribute with songs by the English Beat, Sharon Jones and the Cure. "We are humbled and honored to receive this incredible generosity from Suzanne," he said after starting the set with Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne." As streaming services and algorithms increasingly dominate music consumption, KEXP's cheeky slogans like "Robot Free Radio" resonate with listeners. "Because our D.J.s have been given the exclusive responsibility to select the music that you hear, you get to know our D.J.s by listening to the songs they think need to be heard," Mr. Mara said. "That creates a powerful connection and I think that was a major reason why Suzanne connected so strongly with us." Suzanne, who lived out of state but has Seattle area family, was a listener since the 1990s. She described KEXP's role in her life in a testimonial that she recorded before her death and that was broadcast during the tribute. "When I told my uncle that my favorite radio station had just gone off the air, he turned me on to KEXP," she said. "Music is one of the best ways to unite people globally, and I love an organization which spreads that goodness." She concluded with donors' customary signoff during testimonials, whatever their gift: "I'm Suzanne, and I power KEXP."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
When "Captain Marvel" opens next Friday, it will be a moment of great satisfaction mixed with lingering frustration. The film, which stars Brie Larson as that spacefaring comic book superhero, is the 21st entry in the interconnected Marvel movie franchise since it began in 2008 but only the first to focus principally on a woman. By now, audiences have grown accustomed to superhero movies that put women in the spotlight. In 2017, "Wonder Woman," based on DC Comics' Amazonian warrior, was a worldwide hit for Warner Bros. Marvel has built its own fortunes on a decades old supply of costumed adventurers that doesn't lack for women. And the studio has been criticized for its slowness to create movies emphasizing its female characters. So what took Marvel as long as it did to reach this point? And will "Captain Marvel" be the movie that makes good on this long unfulfilled potential? Mar Vell explained. Meet the cats who played Goose in the movie. The answer to the first question, at least, lies in a tangle of social, cultural and economic factors. They parallel similar issues that Marvel has faced in making strides toward female representation in its comic books over the past 60 years efforts that gradually helped bring Captain Marvel to prominence in the publisher's pantheon and make the movie more likely. The people behind "Captain Marvel" the movie as well as the comic books that inspired it acknowledge the problematic history that led to these more welcome developments. "What Captain Marvel needed to be when she debuted in the 1960s is very different than what she needs to be in 2019, when she's anchoring a major film," said Kelly Thompson, the current author of the Captain Marvel comic book series. "The film has her poised to be more important to more people than ever, and comics gets to be the proving ground for the character." Marvel, the Disney owned home of the Avengers superteam, has become an important bellwether of diversity in Hollywood. The studio has broken ground with films like "Black Panther," its 2018 blockbuster with a black director, screenwriters and leading actors. In recent years Marvel has also gained a reputation for giving opportunities to filmmakers who don't have a background in tentpole action movies. That category includes the "Captain Marvel" directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who are better known for low budget offerings like "Mississippi Grind" and "It's Kind of a Funny Story." Recalling an early meeting with Marvel, Boden said they told the studio, "All we have is the character stuff. And they said, 'We know how to explode things we need directors who can tell a story.'" Larson, an Academy Award winner for the 2015 drama "Room," said she was initially wary when she was approached for "Captain Marvel" and unsure if she wanted to take on such a high profile role. But the actress, who has called for greater participation by women and people of color in the film industry and in the media covering it, said the global rollout of "Captain Marvel" could help bring her advocacy to a wider audience. She said she felt invested in the moral lessons of her smaller films like "Short Term 12." But when it came to "Captain Marvel," Larson said she asked herself, "Could I still do the same thing of caring about the content and making sure it has a message while also playing all over the world? Being able to shape the conversation is what female leadership looks like." In Captain Marvel's favor, Larson said that while other Marvel heroes are weak and lowly at the start of their origin stories, "she was a badass before she got her powers." A former Air Force test pilot named Carol Danvers, she gains superhuman abilities from an alien race, and Boden described the movie as a mystery of sorts in which Danvers must investigate her own past. "As she gets to know herself and embrace what makes her her, she really achieves her true power," Boden said. "Part of that means rejecting the voices of people who tell her she's not strong enough and doesn't belong. I feel like a lot of people will be able to relate to that, particularly women." THE CHARACTER OF CAROL DANVERS has been on a journey of her own since Marvel introduced her in the comics in 1968. At the time, she was not much more than a Lois Lane type love interest for a male hero (an extraterrestrial soldier who was the publisher's original Captain Marvel). The character would go in and out of vogue over the years, a period when many women would drift away from comics. The publications became harder to find at bookstores and newsstands, and female readers were alienated by sexist story lines and artwork that reduced women to sidekicks and stereotypes. "In the '80s and '90s, we made comics that were actively insulting to women," the writer Kelly Sue DeConnick said. "Women left in droves. Because why are you going to read stuff that's actively insulting to you, that you have to get at a specialty store where you're not always welcome?" DeConnick sought to counteract this when she reintroduced Carol Danvers in a 2012 series in which the character finally assumed the title of Captain Marvel and donned a jumpsuit more appropriate to her military background. In the preceding years, DeConnick said, "she had gone from wearing a gymnast's leotard with thigh boots to a thong. It was the most disingenuous thing in the world." DeConnick, whose father served in the Air Force for 20 years, said she wanted to inscribe Danvers in the tradition of the pilot aces she'd long admired. "I grew up on Air Force bases and have a real soft spot for the history of aviation," DeConnick said. Citing pilots like Pappy Boyington and Chuck Yeager, she added, "You can have swagger and you can still be military." At the same time, female readers were returning to comics, encouraged by new publication formats and more inclusive plots and characters. The revitalized Carol Danvers had become a central player in Marvel's comics universe, and the publisher successfully introduced a diverse array of characters like a young new Spider Man, Miles Morales, who is of black and Puerto Rican descent, and a new Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan, who is a Muslim teenager. Most crucially, said Thompson, the current Captain Marvel author, "Marvel put their support behind these characters. You have to put good talent on their books, but you have to support and advertise for them and push them as premier characters. Let's not ignore that part of the equation." MARVEL'S MOVIES, HOWEVER, DID NOT KEEP PACE. The studio's earliest releases were focused on establishing core male heroes like Iron Man, Captain America and Thor; though its cinematic universe had included female characters like Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson) and the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) as members of larger teams, there were no solo films in development for them. That perception of the studio appeared to be reinforced by the leak of a 2014 email from Isaac Perlmutter, the chairman of Marvel Entertainment, in which he disparaged female superhero films like "Supergirl" (1984), "Catwoman" (2004) and "Elektra" (2005) for their poor box office performances. Similarly, when the Marvel studio was reorganized in 2015, allowing its president, Kevin Feige, to report directly to Disney and sidestep Perlmutter, industry observers assumed that this gave Feige the freedom to pursue more diverse movies like "Black Panther" and "Captain Marvel." (Marvel and Disney declined to comment on this.) Boden and Fleck, the "Captain Marvel" directors, said it was difficult to escape the grip of Hollywood tradition, in which most genre movies still focus on male leads. "Even looking at our own films, why did it take us five films to have one about a female protagonist?" Fleck said. "Hopefully we get to the point where these stories are being told all the time." Asked what conclusions he and Boden had reached by reflecting on their own body of work, Fleck replied, "We haven't arrived at the insights yet. I think they're coming though." For all of the unresolved questions that "Captain Marvel" raises, MacDonald, the Beat editor, said that Marvel still deserved credit for getting the movie produced and generating enthusiasm for the character. "There's definitely a lot of history that they had to buck to get 'Captain Marvel' made," she said. "They built a real basis for this character and a passion for what she stood for" as well as a fan base that is "very powerful." She added, "Is it millions and millions of people? No, it isn't. But it doesn't need to be. It needs to be that core, that spark." There is no expectation that "Captain Marvel" will match the monumental box office results of last year's "Black Panther," which grossed 1.3 billion worldwide, or "Avengers: Infinity War," which took in 2 billion globally and ended on a catastrophic cliffhanger that fans have waited almost a year to see resolved. By comparison, Marvel's "Ant Man and the Wasp," a summer 2018 release that starred Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly, had global grosses of 622 million. Recent tracking reports estimate that "Captain Marvel" will bring in more than 100 million in its opening weekend, and MacDonald said the movie will probably appeal to multiple constituencies: not only fans of the character and women who want to watch female led films, but also Marvel obsessives who want to see how it ties into Marvel's next battle royale, "Avengers: Endgame," which opens April 26. "Kevin Feige is very smart," MacDonald said. "He's releasing the movie that would be the hardest sell in a position where it's going to lead into the greatest final act in movie history." It's unclear whether "Captain Marvel" will be the start of a trend or an outlier for Marvel. Hollywood trade publications have reported that the studio is preparing other female led projects, including a Black Widow movie, starring Johansson and directed by Cate Shortland ("Lore"), and a film adaptation of the Eternals, directed by Chloe Zhao ("The Rider"). But Disney said it could not confirm Marvel's development slate. Whether "Captain Marvel" can be a harbinger for other movies like it, Larson said, "is a larger question, a systemic thing." "That change is scary," she said, "and it takes time for it to come. It's slow but it's happening." The only way such progress can happen, Larson said, is if she and her peers use the influence afforded by movies like "Captain Marvel" to strive for further changes and to make them permanent. "Part of why I'm pushing really hard now is because I do have a little bit of power, and I'm going to use it," she said. "You don't know when it's going to shift again or who's going to have the power next. But I'll push it as far as I can. Because it's the right thing to do."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
The second half of the year is off to a slow start for retailers, who reported Thursday that sales at stores open at least a year were weaker than expected in July, increasing 2.9 percent from July of last year, according to a tally by Thomson Reuters. Discount stores and department stores posted some of the best results, with discounters' sales increasing 3.9 percent, and those for department stores up 3.6 percent. But almost two thirds of all stores reporting sales data missed analysts' estimates, with retailers catering to teenagers faring particularly badly, increasing 1.5 percent. Even with the uptick, the disappointment is based in part on the fact that the July comparison is being made against a lackluster month a year ago. In July 2009, revenue at stores open at least a year a crucial indicator called same store sales was down 5.1 percent over all, making this year's increase especially unimpressive, analysts said. Other measures of consumer activity in July have shown mixed results, just as efforts by economists to assess the strength of the economic rebound have been mixed. Economists were encouraged by sales of automobiles in the United States, which rose 5 percent over July 2009. But an index of consumer confidence slipped to 50.4 points in July, from a revised 54.3 in June, according to the Conference Board. Given that it accounts for about 70 percent of the United States economy, consumer spending is considered critical to a recovery. Many Americans have become reluctant to spend because of a rocky job market and indications of a slowdown in the second half of the year. In the face of that uncertainty, consumers have been paying down debt or saving more. In June, Americans saved 6.4 percent of their after tax income, about triple the rate before the recession. Economists have been warning that the second half of the year may grow more slowly than expected, and the July same store sales numbers reflected the slowing pace of recovery. In July, same store sales volume in every category, from luxury to discount, was below the average of same store sales so far this year, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, which tracks about 30 mass retailers. "How well discounters and department stores fared versus the teen retailers is striking," Mr. Long said. With the back to school season beginning, "it is concerning that the start we're seeing has not been positive" for the teenage stores, he said. "But it's still theirs to lose. There is time to do in store promotions." Over all, stores catering to teenagers reported an increase of 1.5 percent; analysts expected a 2.3 percent gain. Last year's July same store sales for such retailers were down 12.1 percent. Retailers like Buckle (same store sales down 9.3 percent), Hot Topic (down 9 percent) and Wet Seal (down 4.3 percent) were hit particularly hard. Another teenage retailer, Aeropostale, where sales increased 1 percent, missed analysts' estimates of a 7.1 percent increase by a big margin. The company cited "a change in consumer shopping behaviors" in a recorded message from a spokesman, Kenneth Ohashi. Aeropostale's results were "a huge disappointment" and "the only real big surprise," Robert Samuels, an analyst at Phoenix Equities, wrote in a client note. Retailers said that deal hunting consumers were part of the reason for the weak sales. At Ross Stores, where same store sales increased 2 percent, "We believe that increased promotions at other retailers may have negatively impacted our business early in the month," the vice chairman and chief executive, Michael Balmuth, said in a statement. J. C. Penney, where sales dropped 0.6 percent, said in a statement that it had sold clearance inventory at a faster rate and at lower prices than in July 2009, when its same store sales decreased 12.3 percent. And Nordstrom cited its anniversary sale as part of the reason for its strong performance, with same store sales increasing 7.6 percent. (Nordstrom missed analyst expectations by 0.5 percent, however.) Discount stores had the best results among the categories followed by Thomson Reuters. The discount warehouse Costco Wholesale reported a 6 percent gain, while BJ's Wholesale Club rose 2.8 percent and Target rose 2 percent. The best performer for the month among retailers tracked by Thomson Reuters was Limited Stores, where sales were up 12 percent, well over the estimate of 5.2 percent and a big turnaround from a decline of 7 percent in July 2009. Limited attributed the increase in part to more sales of full priced merchandise at its Victoria's Secret division. Several retailers also said that Western and Southern states were strong contributors to sales. Nordstrom said sales were strong in the Midwest, South and Northwest. Gap said that Southern sales were strong, with the weakest sales in the Northeast. Aeropostale said that the West and South were its best regions for the month, and Ross Stores said Florida and the Northwest were outpacing other areas. Costco said the Midwest, Texas, the Southeast and the Northwest were its best performers.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
Fred, last name unknown, has set himself an unrewarding task: sallying into his uncle's office each Christmas Eve to wish the grizzled grump a happy season. His uncle being Ebenezer Scrooge, it never does go well. "I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you," Fred persists, all kindliness. "Why cannot we be friends?" This year, I confess, I find myself sympathizing with Scrooge. Not about Christmas itself, my favorite holiday, but about "A Christmas Carol" about not getting to see a live performance of a play that I have cherished since childhood, uncynically. It's a petty complaint, I know, when so many have been sickened and killed by the coronavirus, and with infections climbing so alarmingly. I understand the urgent need to be safe. Even so, I can't help yearning to be part of a festive group of mostly strangers, coming out of the chill into the warmth of a softly lit theater, shrugging out of our winter coats as we pack in tightly side by side. This year offers instead a great multitude of pandemic prompted virtual theater productions, each going about with a Fred like "Merry Christmas" on its lips, and me grousing in response like old Ebenezer. The thing is, I love a "Christmas Carol" that wants something from us, that asks something of us: our company, in the audience. Yet the perfectly practical online relocation of this play's many iterations leaves me channeling Belle. You remember Belle, don't you? Some adaptations skimp on her, which always makes me tetchy. She's the fiancee who oh so gently releases young Scrooge from their long engagement because, to her sorrow, his essential nature has warped. "That which promised happiness when we were one at heart," she tells him, "is fraught with misery now that we are two." For me the ritual of "A Christmas Carol" has never been about screen adaptations, or even about Dickens's original story, which he wrote in 1843 in the hope that it would get him out of debt. No such luck but stage versions did spring up almost immediately, and that's the tradition I was raised to love. His were my first ghosts of the theater. As much as presents and trees and "The Nutcracker" live, as much as my dad hushing the living room so he could play his record of Dylan Thomas reading "A Child's Christmas in Wales," Milwaukee Repertory Theater's "A Christmas Carol" was part of my growing up Christmastimes. The year my parents skipped it and sent my brothers and me on our own to the Pabst Theater, we sat in the nosebleeds, where the sharp angle of the rake scared me almost as much as the hulking, black clad Ghost of Christmas Future, and the silent, crouching figures of Ignorance and Want. Even from there, I delighted in the exuberant party at the Fezziwigs' warehouse, where young Ebenezer apprenticed. By high school, Scrooge's line about prisons and workhouses was so embedded in my brain that I borrowed it for my AP European History exam. To this day, I call fingerless gloves Cratchit gloves, in honor of poor Bob Cratchit, freezing there in the counting house. And in recent years, this one most of all, I have fervently wished for a Ghost of Christmas Future to terrify us, en masse, into averting some looming, horrendous fate. There are those who find only mawkishness in "A Christmas Carol" (certainly I've seen gooey handling send it over the edge), but to my family that play was as entwined with the holiday as was midnight Mass. If one was more choral and candlelit, both were communal, each drawing a kind of faithful to hear familiar, necessary messages of morality and generosity. Not a bad sermon, really: Dickens on avarice, economic injustice and the plight of the working poor. If this were an ordinary year, at least one "Christmas Carol" would have figured in my holidays. After Matthew Warchus's lamplit Old Vic production hit Broadway last season, I looked forward to making it a tradition, won over by the way it cajoled the audience's warmhearted participation. But when I tune in this month to Warchus's online version, as I will to several others, my curiosity will be professional, not personal. However good they are and Jefferson Mays's solo interpretation, already streaming, is very impressive each will be performed in one place, live or recorded, while I will watch and listen in another. Which, to me, misses a fundamental dimension. And, oh, this would have been an excellent December to be in the room with Scrooge. That miser understands what it is to come untethered from time, just as we all have these many months. Even before the Ghost of Christmas Past appears, Scrooge wakes in the night, rattled by his visit from dead Jacob Marley and unsure what day or hour it is. Like any play that becomes a tradition, "A Christmas Carol" changes for us according to who we are, and where we are in our lives, each time we see it. And we are all, right now, as thickly shrouded in miasma as Scrooge is on Christmas Eve, when the fog is so impenetrable that afternoon resembles night. Jolted into urgent awareness of the care he owes his fellow humans, he emerges at last into a bright, clear morning, determined to act for the collective good while we, having failed at length to protect one another, continue our slog through the gloom of a worsening plague. Our miasma will dissipate, eventually; we, too, will emerge with some lessons learned. And next year, when in person stagings of "A Christmas Carol" return, companies will once again be free to ask of us the one thing that Fred does, after all, request of his uncle.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night's highlights that lets you sleep and lets us get paid to watch comedy. If you're interested in hearing from The Times regularly about great TV, sign up for our Watching newsletter and get recommendations straight to your inbox. 'We Have to Talk About It' James Comey sat down with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday and described the shock of being summarily fired from his position as F.B.I. director nearly a year ago. He also explained why he decided to write a book criticizing President Trump. Comey's book, "A Higher Loyalty," hit stores on Tuesday. Comey admitted to Colbert that he had been surprised by his firing, given that he was leading an investigation that had to do with the Trump campaign's own dealings with Russia. COMEY: I actually was quite surprised, because I thought, 'I'm leading the Russia investigation.' Even though our relationship was becoming strained, there's no way I'm going to get fired or whacked. COLBERT: Why? Why wouldn't you get fired? COMEY: Because that would be a crazy thing to do. Why would you fire the F.B.I. director who is leading the Russia investigation? COLBERT: Because you're leading the Russia investigation! I don't know if you've dealt with mob bosses before, but they don't like to be investigated.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
They breed fast, eat almost anything and live just about anywhere. You can find them in fields, forests, backyards, parks and even parking decks. They're living in cities like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. They've even made it to the Florida Keys and Long Island. In 2010, they crossed the Panama Canal. Now, the only thing keeping them from entering Colombia is a dense patch of forest called the Darien Gap. And camera traps have caught them heading that way. "I don't think anyone's betting against the coyote getting to South America eventually," said Roland Kays, an ecologist at North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. "They have to be one of the most adaptable animals on the planet." To understand how these wily wanderers roamed so far, Dr. Kays and James Hody, a graduate student, sifted through thousands of museum specimens, fossil records, peer reviewed reports and records from wildlife agencies and traced the animals' paths back 10,000 years. Their resulting maps, published Tuesday in ZooKeys, show how wrong we've been about the historical range of our continent's toughest canids. The maps also provide a foundation for scientists to start asking questions about what happens when new predators enter a habitat, and how hybridization influenced coyote evolution.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Next school year, fourth graders in the United States and their families will be entitled to free admission to America's national parks, federal lands and waters. The program is part of the White House's "Every Kid in the Park" initiative, in collaboration with the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
"I'm almost certain Trump has no idea what TikTok is. I'm betting TikTok was one of the answers he wrote on his cognitive test." SETH MEYERS "Apparently this is a real national security threat, the Chinese government knowing which Americans can and can't dance." JIMMY FALLON "I am sure it has everything to do with national security and nothing to do with the TikTok teens who sabotaged his Tulsa rally." JIMMY FALLON "Trump gave Microsoft 45 days to make a deal, although they'll spend the first 44 days clicking 'remind me tomorrow.'" JIMMY FALLON "It's a big day for the three TikTok fans that also love Excel spreadsheets." JIMMY FALLON "Trump doesn't know anything about TikTok, and he doesn't actually care he just says stuff like this because it's his favorite thing to do. He loves to stand on the White House lawn next to a giant whirring helicopter and shout empty pronouncements at reporters because it makes him feel like he's actually the president and not just some soulless husk who fell ass backward into a job he wasn't qualified for because some dummy made fun of him at a dinner once." SETH MEYERS, referring to his jabs at Mr. Trump while hosting the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in 2011.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
Lincoln Caplan's review of Eric Foner's "The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution" (Oct. 13) states that the 14th Amendment guaranteed equality and citizenship to anyone born in America. But American Indians did not receive citizenship until 1924. In her review of Susan Rice's "Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For" (Oct. 20), Abby D. Phillip writes that "like many women who choose to work in high intensity jobs in government or in the private sector, Rice succeeded with the help of a flexible and supportive partner." Men who make this choice also benefit from flexible and supportive partners, and have for a very long time. A double standard in an otherwise excellent review. In his absorbing review of Lloyd Spencer Davis's "A Polar Affair: Antarctica's Forgotten Hero and the Secret Love Lives of Penguins" (Oct. 13), Jon Gertner suggests that "perhaps the most famous diary entry of the 20th century" is a passage in Robert Falcon Scott's journal that was composed as he was freezing to death in Antarctica in 1912: "We are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far. ... For God's sake look after our people." Quantifying such things is hard, of course, and maybe impossible. But when I recently turned to Google, a search for this phrase of Scott's returned 6,370 results.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
I am medium brown skinned neither rich dark chocolate nor creamy cafe au lait. I am a B cup and have, for a black girl, a barely there butt. I have flat feet and oily skin. And like so many American women of reproductive age, I've had an abortion. I, and I alone, made the decision to terminate a pregnancy more than a decade ago so that I could be the best mother I could be to the two children I already had. The Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, guaranteeing a woman's freedom to obtain an abortion without undue government restriction, was issued 47 years ago Wednesday. A 47th anniversary may not seem like a huge milestone. But it is critical at this moment in history. It is a call for deliberate action to safeguard the most basic and ordinary right of all: to control your own body. Despite what some politicians would have us believe, most Americans support that right. There is no state in the country where the majority favors an outright ban on abortion. Seven in 10 Americans, across party lines, say they do not want to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Nearly a half century after Roe, we must not allow some warped, anti feminist ideology to take away our freedom. That means we all have to speak up. Shouting is O.K., if that's your thing. What's most important is that we stand together and stand up against the beat down on sexual and reproductive health in this country. Just last week, the Supreme Court agreed to consider whether employers can limit women's access to free birth control under the Affordable Care Act because of moral or religious objections. Last summer the Trump administration forced Planned Parenthood and other providers out of Title X, the federal program that ensures people struggling to get by can afford birth control, cancer screenings, and testing for H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted infections. In the past year alone, legislators in 47 states filed more than 300 bills to restrict abortion access. This administration, at a lightning pace, has appointed more than 180 judges, many with records showing them blatantly hostile to reproductive rights, to lifetime posts on the federal courts. And in the coming months, the Supreme Court will review an abortion case from Louisiana that could further erode the protections of Roe or worse, overturn it. If our constitutional right to safe, legal abortion is not upheld, more than 25 million Americans of reproductive age could lose the freedom to decide when and if to have a child. What I took for granted the freedom to have agency over my body and life choices is a right my daughters and their daughters may well be denied. Roe has never been perfect. The right to safe, legal abortion didn't mean equal access to it. In communities where people have low incomes and in many areas where black and brown people live, the cost of abortion often makes it out of reach. So this anniversary should be about protecting and expanding the health and freedom of all people regardless of their race, income, gender identity, sexual orientation, abilities or immigration status. In a new short documentary film, "Ours to Tell," which will be shown at the Sundance Film Festival next week, we see how access to abortion should play out. The movie depicts four people: myself, another black woman, a nonbinary trans person and a Latina. It celebrates the full and empowered lives each of us is now able to live because we had agency. This is not complicated or political. When you have bodily autonomy and the freedom to get the health care you want, need and deserve, your whole world changes and you are able to thrive. Nearly 15 years after my abortion, I am at peace. I now have three children, ages 12 to 20. The most important gift I can give them is the best me I can be. My daughters and my son know I had an abortion just as they know I have a mole on one side of my face, and dimples. My abortion is a part of me, my story. And I have no shame that I made the best decision for myself, my family and our future. Whether they yell it from the rooftops or not, many other people have experiences like mine. Research shows the most common post abortion feeling is relief. Ninety five percent of us do not regret our decision. This anniversary of Roe v. Wade isn't golden or even silver, but it should spur us to redouble our efforts to make access to sexual and reproductive health care a reality for everyone.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
WASHINGTON It had already been a long day, but Judy Woodruff wasn't in the mood to slow down. Ms. Woodruff, the anchor of "PBS NewsHour," was seated under the chandeliers in a ballroom at the State Department on April 27, attending an event celebrating powerful women. Chilean sea bass and compulsive networking were on the menu. One table over sat Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and Dina Powell, a senior counselor to President Trump and a deputy national security adviser for strategy. At Ms. Woodruff's table was the rare person she hadn't seen before: Julie Radford, Ivanka Trump's new chief of staff. The sea bass would have to wait. "It's an opportunity to get to know them," Ms. Woodruff said of the women nearby. "And then I can ask questions." This was an average day for Ms. Woodruff, who tends to stuff her calendar with luncheons, dinner parties and, of course, a daily hourlong news broadcast that may need to be reformatted in the time it takes for Mr. Trump to post a message on Twitter. On this evening, wearing the same dark teal dress she had worn during that day's newscast, Ms. Woodruff worked the room. "Yesterday it was health care and tax reform," she said, rattling off the week's news in between posing for selfies with a few admirers. "Today it was Nafta." Ms. Woodruff has been working in Washington since 1977, when she landed in the capital to cover President Jimmy Carter's administration. The modern news cycle is a little different now less of a cycle and more like a cyclone, the informational equivalent of standing in front of a tennis ball machine. At "NewsHour," long known for its slower pace, viewership is up 20 percent over this time last year, with an average of 1.24 million viewers a minute, according to Nielsen. "We don't feel the need to go off on a tangent and cover something that's the Twitter story of the day," she said. "Not the bright shiny thing that someone threw up in the air for a moment." That is easier said than done when the person lobbing shiny objects is the president. Ms. Woodruff is keeping pace with the news demands, but she was not supposed to lead "NewsHour" alone. She was part of a milestone moment for women in journalism when she and Gwen Ifill a trailblazer for black journalists were named co anchors in 2013, making it the first network broadcast to be anchored by two women. Ms. Ifill's death from cancer last November, six days after the election, stunned even the people closest to her. After covering the aftermath of the election and grappling with the loss of Ms. Ifill, Ms. Woodruff and "NewsHour" producers recently began a cautious search for another co anchor. Until then, Ms. Woodruff is at the helm on her own, and the news isn't stopping. Ms. Woodruff, 70, often begins the first thing on her packed calendar around 6:30 a.m., when she starts reading up on the news. And she will usually fit in a workout before driving to the "NewsHour" studio. The offices are a six mile, traffic clogged drive from Washington, in Arlington, Va. Over lunch at a nearby restaurant, Ms. Woodruff said that getting her start wasn't easy, and that she was told she could not be hired as a reporter by one prospective employer he already had one "woman reporter" on staff and wouldn't be needing another. She was eventually hired at the CBS affiliate in Atlanta in 1970. She was modest as she considered a younger generation of reporters brought up in a digital news landscape: "I'm convinced that I could not keep up with the women out there in print and on TV now." Nice try, her younger colleagues say. Rachel Wellford, a 27 year old politics producer, said Ms. Woodruff set a high standard in the newsroom, starting with the daily morning news meeting, where she is known for asking pointed questions. "We all struggle just to keep up with her," Ms. Wellford said. "She's just a workhorse." Aside from its slower paced broadcast, "NewsHour" is distinct for another reason: Its newsroom is majority female. Fifty nine journalists are women, and 55 are men. The anchor and the executive producer are women. Many of the program's regular contributors Marcia Coyle, Tamara Keith and Amy Walter among them are women. Several "NewsHour" journalists say this has created a more diverse report. "We realize that women's voices have been left out for so long," said Gretchen Frazee, a 26 year old production assistant. "We don't want that to be the case for any other group of people." This is Ms. Woodruff's second time at PBS. She first arrived in 1983, as chief Washington correspondent for "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour." A documentary series, "Frontline With Judy Woodruff," came a year later. She left PBS in 1993 to work for CNN but returned in 2006. "We really rely on her to anchor us down," Ms. Frazee said. "We always try to buttress up Judy in any way we can. We'll go get her lunch or coffee, but really she's the one who's keeping us all afloat here." Adjusting to the Trump era news cycle is just one obstacle in a newsroom where Ms. Ifill's absence still looms large. Ms. Ifill, who was widely known as a lively, personable journalist with deep connections in Washington, was seen as a balance to Ms. Woodruff, who has those same connections but thinks of herself as more reserved. "Gwen was more outgoing than I am," Ms. Woodruff said. "I consider myself a people person, but Gwen was really a people person." Ms. Woodruff has been closely involved in the search, said Sara Just, the executive producer of "NewsHour." "Judy and Gwen had tremendous chemistry," Ms. Just said. "I don't think we're trying to create the same scenario, but we are thinking about who works well sitting next to Judy." If Ms. Woodruff seems as if she is built for this moment, one defined by a divided American public and a relentless news cycle, it is probably because she has seen tumultuous times before. She graduated from Duke University in 1968, not long after the drinking fountains in nearby Chapel Hill, N.C., were desegregated. In Durham, home of Duke, members of the Ku Klux Klan were known to march downtown. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in the spring of her senior year. Louise Dunlap, one of Ms. Woodruff's classmates at Duke, met her in a political science class, where media was the focus. The two began dating after she moved to the capital to cover the Carter White House, and they married three years later, in true Washington fashion "equidistant between the New York and Pennsylvania primaries," Mr. Hunt said. The couple has three children: Jeffrey, 35, Benjamin, 30, and Lauren, 28. Jeffrey was born with a mild case of spina bifida, a birth defect in which the spinal column is not fully formed, and in 1998 underwent surgery that left him disabled and brain damaged. Ms. Woodruff, by that time at CNN, reduced her workload to commute from Washington to the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, where her son required constant care. It was a trauma strong enough to knock anyone out of her career, but on the advice of a doctor, Ms. Woodruff returned to work. She and Mr. Hunt rearranged their schedules to care for their son, who eventually went on to graduate from college. "She has stared down adversity and dealt with it," Ms. Dunlap said. "And I think it strengthened her." When the subject of slowing down comes up, Ms. Woodruff and those close to her say there is no reason for her to stop now. Mr. Hunt offered another example of Ms. Woodruff's packed calendar: On Monday, she flew to North Carolina for a meeting; a few hours later, she was back in Washington, speaking at an awards ceremony named for the journalist James Foley, who was killed by Islamic State militants in 2014. "'They lost their kid,'" he said his wife replied. "'I'm going to do it.'"	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
As evenings turn colder, blankets are useful just about everywhere: by the fire, in front of the television, on top of the bed. But they work well as decorative accents at almost any time of year especially when they have vibrant colors and patterns. A large scale textile like a blanket "can add a lot of interest to a bedroom," said Katie Ridder, the New York based interior designer. "Most of the space is usually taken up by the bed, so it's a nice place to have beautiful textiles." Ms. Ridder changes blankets with the seasons "Cotton for the summer and wool for the winter," she said often using them to add a punch of color to a room. And because wool blankets can last for decades, she has amassed a large collection over the years. "In my closet, I have stacks of different sizes and colors," she said, including a pair of blankets with a herringbone design that she and her husband, the architect Peter Pennoyer, received as a wedding gift 32 years ago.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Bill Murray's indelible performance as a jaded, delightfully obnoxious weatherman in the 1993 film "Groundhog Day" is a hard act to follow even if the movie proved that repetition offers comic rewards. In any case, after a well received run in London last summer, a new musical based on the movie about that weatherman having to relive the same day repeatedly, arrives on Broadway this month (hopefully bringing spring weather along with it). Andy Karl ("Rocky") stars as Phil Connors, assigned to Punxsutawney, Pa., for the annual weather prediction event, who gets stuck in a world with no future. Directed by Matthew Warchus, the show features a book by Danny Rubin (a writer, with Harold Ramis, of the screenplay) and songs by Tim Minchin ("Matilda the Musical"). (Previews begin Thursday, March 16, August Wilson Theater; groundhogdaymusical.com.)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
"These are things that people are dealing with," D'Antoni said. "We're not going to get into why not. They're on their way." It was unclear when Westbrook would be able to join the Rockets or when his quarantine period began. According to the N.B.A.'s guidebook on health protocols, Westbrook will be allowed to join others on the campus when he tests negatively for the coronavirus in two separate tests at least 24 hours apart. He must also be cleared by a league approved infectious disease physician and undergo a cardiac screening. The Rockets were 40 24 and tied for fourth place in the Western Conference before the pandemic suspended the season in March. Westbrook, the team's second leading scorer, struggled with his shooting throughout the season, but still averaged 27.5 points a game, with eight rebounds and seven assists a game. The N.B.A. also announced on Monday that two other players had tested positive for the coronavirus upon arriving in Florida. In total, 322 were tested, the league said in a statement. The two players, who were not identified, "never cleared quarantine and have since left the campus to isolate at home or in isolation housing." Shortly before the N.B.A. announced its findings, one player, Richaun Holmes of the Sacramento Kings, said that he had left the campus to pick up a food delivery order and now has eight days left in another quarantine.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Diana Silvers has been seen in just three movies in her short career, but she has quickly ascended from a bit part in the superhero thriller "Glass" earlier this year to major roles putting her on thousands of screens this weekend: she plays a high school love interest in the female centric comedy "Booksmart," and the main teenager menaced by Octavia Spencer's psycho in the horror tale "Ma." The name Diana Silvers may suggest a golden age of Hollywood starlet, but she is as au courant as they come. Discovered as a model on Instagram, she's beginning her film career in the MeToo era. "I feel lucky to be entering the industry at this time because people are being held accountable," the 21 year old said over orange juice at a downtown Manhattan hotel recently. "I just feel safe. I'm not anxious about anything, except maybe saying something stupid in an interview. And so far, I've been extremely lucky." She also talked about female mentors, her love for Taylor Swift and fighting John Malkovich. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation. You grew up in Los Angeles, but you don't come from a showbiz family. Your father is a psychiatrist, and your mother was an architect. How did you discover acting? I'm the fifth of six kids, and we're quite an eclectic family. People call us the Royal Tenenbaums, because we're that kind of wonky. My dad took me to a birthday party at the Santa Monica Playhouse when I was 7, and I thought it was cool, so I tried it out. My first play was called "My 13th Birthday." I remember my lines: "Happy 13th birthday!" and "I want sushi." I'm still waiting for my Tony. You've said you really knew you wanted to act after you saw Juliette Lewis's performance in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." She plays your mother in "Ma." How long did you wait before you told her she was your inspiration? Day 2! Laughs It was a little bit creepy, but she was stuck with me on set anyway, so I figured I might as well tell her. She gave me a hug, and I was totally crying. To me, it was a sign from the universe that I'm doing exactly what I should be doing. How lucky am I to have these experienced, seasoned, patient people guiding me through the steps. I never feel alone. I always feel like I belong. I just want to do roles that are going to change one person's life. Judging by the online reaction to your "Booksmart" character, you've succeeded. The coolest thing was someone DM'd me on Instagram and said, "I came out to my parents after, and I don't think I would've been able to do it if I hadn't seen this movie." I don't want to cry right now because I just did my makeup laughs , but that's amazing. Taylor Swift reposted your Instagram story urging her to see "Booksmart." I can't even. She means more to me than she will probably ever know. Taylor Swift has seen my face. Cool! Sick! Your Twitter bio says you're a huge fan of "The Office," and Mindy Kaling has tweeted repeatedly about her love for "Booksmart." It's just really wild and weird that people you think so highly of are watching a movie you're in and maybe think you're cool. It's like in any community, it's only successful when you cooperate and build each other up. In Hollywood right now, there's a shift in the paradigm. People are realizing if we support each other, good things happen. You present a pretty realistic picture of yourself in your Instagram posts. That's not what I mean, but your photos are refreshingly unfiltered. I never edited a photo of myself in my life. I don't have the energy. Once you look at yourself that way, you think, "What do I need to edit in real life?" Nothing we're all beautiful and perfect because of who we are.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
This three and a half acre property sits on an 80 foot bluff overlooking Nonsuch Bay, on the east coast of the Caribbean island of Antigua. The 3,500 square foot main house was built about 30 years ago on a peninsula that once was part of an 84 acre plantation, said Hilton Ramseyer, an owner of the property. Now part of the gated Emerald Cove development, the house was constructed of solid concrete, which helps it weather storms. From a roadside gate, a walking path of Antiguan stone winds past flowering hibiscus to a vaulted portico with exposed beams shading the front entrance. Beyond the arched doorway is a large living room with a vaulted ceiling and exposed beams. Windows have a mirrored treatment, to deflect heat. Floors throughout are handmade white ceramic tiles from Sardinia. The kitchen, off the entrance hall, was redone about a decade ago with two large refrigerators, a pantry, mahogany cabinets, a wine rack, a white Corian countertop and a white tile backsplash scattered with colorful ceramic fish. A tinted, arched window above the cooktop filters the sun, and a door opens to a terrace. Outside, steps lead to three rooms beneath the house, including a laundry room and a tool room large enough to hold two beds. An archway to one side of the living room leads to two bedrooms, each with a beamed, vaulted ceiling and a sliding door to its own covered terrace, which means "you have privacy," Mr. Ramseyer said. "You can sit and read a book." The master bedroom and second bedroom have en suite tiled bathrooms with tubs. A third, smaller bedroom is off a private hallway with a pink tiled bathroom. All the bedrooms are air conditioned and have ceiling fans. The recently completed guest cottage has a porcelain tile floor, a large bedroom with a view of the bay, an en suite bathroom and a walk in storage area. A separate entrance door connects to a cabana bath. The terrace leads to a deck with white coral stone tiles surrounding a kidney shaped pool. A path from the pool deck continues down a slope to the L shaped dock. More than 30 coconut palms dot the landscape. The house has a standby generator and a half walled carport with room for two cars. The West Indian nation of Antigua and Barbuda is about 250 miles east of Puerto Rico, in the Caribbean Sea. This property is a 25 minute drive from restaurants, shopping and the public market in St. John's, the capital and main port of Antigua and Barbuda. Smaller shops and restaurants in English Harbour, on the south coast, are about 20 minutes away. V.C. Bird International Airport, on the northern coast, is a 35 minute drive. Prices have recovered about 90 percent of their value after an approximate 40 percent decline caused by the 2008 global downturn, said Bradley Esty, the chief executive of Stanley's Estate Agents, in Antigua. In 2017, hurricanes Irma and Maria barely affected Antigua, but Barbuda, its sister island 28 miles away, was hit hard. "In the media, it was always 'Antigua and Barbuda,' and we suffered a lot because of that perception," said Sam Dyson, the chief executive of Luxury Locations Estate Agents, which has the listing for this property. "That limited the foreign investment coming into Antigua." Prices "were not overly adversely affected" by the hurricanes, Mr. Esty said. "But demand softened and transaction velocity declined about 10 percent." During the past year, he added, "Brexit uncertainties" and the decline of the British pound have caused prices to fall about 5 to 10 percent. This summer, however, the market has begun to pick up. "Waterfront property is going up," Mr. Dyson said, attributing the uptick to a strong American economy. "We are getting more sales." Sales of waterfront properties to people with boats to dock are also on the upswing. Buyers include investors who are flipping homes and those interested in vacation homes they can rent when they're not in residence. With some 365 beaches, Antigua has abundant beachfront real estate. The market offers "a very wide range of property for sale, from affordable condos up to ultraluxury beach houses," said Robert Cooper, the director of 7th Heaven Properties, a London based luxury real estate agency specializing in the Caribbean. Prices range from about 250,000 for a two bedroom townhouse style villa in Jolly Harbour, on the west coast, to 10 million to 25 million to buy a lot and build a beachfront home in nearby Pearns Point. Plans for new luxury resorts with residential components include the Rosewood Half Moon Bay Antigua, expected to open in 2021, and the Waldorf Astoria Antigua, scheduled for a 2023 debut. "We would expect the launch of these new luxury brands to provide a halo effect for the market as a whole," Mr. Cooper said. Who Buys in Antigua and Barbuda Antigua and Barbuda declared independence from the United Kingdom in 1981, and the country has traditionally been popular with British buyers, Mr. Esty said. But as the British pound has declined in value, those buyers have diminished in number. At the same time, the island has become more popular with American buyers because of an increase in available flights. Recently, Mr. Esty said, he has been seeing buyers from Sweden, Austria, Belgium and Ireland. Antigua and Barbuda is also popular with buyers from Canada, France, Italy and Germany, Mr. Dyson said. For some high end buyers, particularly those interested in homes priced over 2 million, "citizenship fees, with a passport to boot, is a better deal, costing about 100,000," Mr. Dyson said. (Antigua and Barbuda permits dual citizenship.) The seller is responsible for paying the real estate commission, which is typically 5 percent of the sale price, Mr. Dyson said. Because the real estate market in Antigua and Barbuda is unregulated and unlicensed, buyers are encouraged to seek assistance from a professional real estate agency, Mr. Esty said. Typically, the seller negotiates with the real estate agent, and lawyers prepare documents needed for the property transfer. The annual property tax on this home is about 2,000, Mr. Ramseyer said. For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: nytrealestate.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
SEATTLE Seven words. That's how it started. "Can you take care of the collection?" As Arvi Ostrom lay dying more than 20 years ago, he made that request of his grandson Ken Carlson. Mr. Carlson immediately said yes, of course, even though he really had no idea of the magnitude of the commitment. Mr. Ostrom had been a mostly self taught artist, and his grandson figured that "the collection" might add up to a hundred or so sketches and paintings. In any case, he said, you don't deny the last wishes of a grandfather you love. Over the course of more than 70 years, starting in the 1920s through his final days at age 91, Mr. Ostrom produced about 10,000 drawings, paintings and wooden sculptures. Whimsical cartoons of tough guys, clenching cigarettes in steel trap jaws. Portraits of sad eyed people who might have been patrons at the Snug Harbor, the bar Mr. Ostrom ran in Astoria, Ore. Haunting images of ghost ships sailing off into the Pacific, laced in shadow and gloom. He let his imagination roam the world as he sketched in the quiet hours beside the cash register or at home. Leaving the collection to Mr. Carlson no one else in the family wanted it created its own questions. He looked into publishing a family book about Arvi's art, or buying back the building that had housed the Snug Harbor to open a cafe, or a little museum, but the plans all foundered. And every year that no answer was found raised Mr. Carlson's worry that the promise had been too much. Mr. Ostrom's art was simple in its goals, lacking the grander message that art buyers and critics look for. No major museum or local gallery is likely to beckon. Years ago, an appraiser had come to look and figured the collection might be worth 10 a piece as folk art. But selling the work was never part of Mr. Carlson's plan anyway, nor has he ever tried to sell it. This wasn't high art, but that wasn't really the point. This was about a family relationship across generations, the weight of old promises that can keep you awake at night and, perhaps most of all, the mystery of a creative impulse quietly, relentlessly sustained. "I had to honor him and his commitment, that he just kept at it," said Mr. Carlson, who is 59 and a musician, carpenter and music teacher. "Arvi didn't give up, and I couldn't either." There were shadows in the Ostrom household that could make you expect hidden messages. Family members said Mr. Ostrom was stoic and taciturn, raised in a corner of the Pacific Northwest near the mouth of the Columbia River where Finnish immigrants came in the 1800s for the fishing. He was scarred, his relatives said, by the sudden and never explained death of his father, a fisherman and farmer, when Arvi was 5, and by the hard life that came after. Loss always seemed to lurk on the horizon. Mr. Ostrom refused to tell his five children all daughters that he loved them, for example, the oldest said, because he said he didn't want them to be too sad when he died. The Snug Harbor was never a place Mr. Ostrom loved, either, despite decades behind the bar, selling sandwiches and coffee to fishermen heading out in the mornings and beer when they came back at night. The bar put food on the table for the big family. His daughters were forbidden to set foot in the place. A heartbreaking truth about Mr. Ostrom and his passion: The pieces of art he felt best about, and proudest of, were ones he hid away. Perhaps, his grandson said, he feared the prospect of rejection or loss. He had tried to sell some work early in life and eventually gave up. In an art correspondence course he took in 1928 from Federal Schools Inc. of Minneapolis, he was given a grade of "fairly good," according a letter he kept along with the stacks of work. So he created a snug harbor of his own, beaming himself out of the world of beer and pickled eggs and cigars by sketching and drawing nonstop, until his death. Mr. Carlson, the grandson, lives in a house that he calls an artistic creation too. He sleeps in a loft by the kitchen. His bathroom has no door, and he has for years rented bedrooms upstairs at bargain rates to artists who needed help. Arvi's art is stored on shelves, in binders, in the basement. His mother, Lois Carlson, said that Mr. Carlson's devotion to his grandfather has opened eyes in the family to the idea that Mr. Ostrom may have bequeathed something greater than they realized at the time. "We didn't think there was anything special about it growing up, it was just what Dad did," Ms. Carlson, 83, said. Last month, the biggest show ever of Arvi Ostrom's art, more than a 150 portraits, cartoons and sketches, went up on the walls of the Redwing Cafe, a coffeehouse and vegetarian restaurant a few blocks from Mr. Carlson's house here. A photograph taken in the 1930s of Mr. Ostrom, standing behind the bar at the Snug Harbor in a white shirt and bow tie, greets visitors as they walk in. "It's so weird to see it in another place," Mr. Carlson said, standing on a ladder as he helped mount the show. He hung an unframed portrait, protected in its plastic sleeve, onto the wall. The art had left the basement.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
The astoundingly prolific Theroux once described the act of writing a book as "turning the big wooden crank on my chomping meat grinder," and though his prose can read like the pressed wienerwurst of whatever happened to him that day, he's also capable of executing a pointed celebrity profile with the formalism the genre requires, along with a little something extra. While riding in a helicopter over Santa Barbara, Calif., with Elizabeth Taylor on assignment for the now defunct Talk magazine, he first notes her childishly delighted squeal at flying low enough for the windows to be nearly splashed with sea foam. But in the next moment Taylor shifts into a learned observation about the sunset, made in "a different tone, thoughtful, adult, a little sad, with the characteristic Elizabethan semiquaver, from a lifetime of lotus eating." One pitfall with republished essay collections is that they can read like authorial shelf cleanings or, worse, attempts at a career retrospective without an obvious thread. But with Theroux, a clear through line was never the point; he is a master of elliptical maximalism. Taken together, these essays draw a picture of a cheerful polymath thoroughly enjoying even those conversations that he later pretends to find tiresome. The most emotionally affective writing in this collection, in fact, comes from one of its longest entries: a recollection of the author's father, written during a trip on the 5,772 mile Trans Siberian Railway. The elder Theroux was a leather salesman, a kind man who never swore, believed in forgiveness and declined to read any of his son's books. The son has an abundance of recollections, but no answers to the enigma that was his father. "On reflection, I see he was strange, and he seems to recede as I write, as sometimes when I asked him a question about himself, he backed away. In writing about him like this, I realize I do not know what was in his heart." Appropriately enough, Theroux professes irritation with writers who draw road maps to their souls, even as he compulsively writes about himself. Thus the final essay is titled "The Trouble With Autobiography," which he derides as "a hinting form." He coquettishly denies that he will ever write one. But he doesn't need to. His essence has been captured by indirection, via a gigantic lifetime write around. If you seek his monument, look at the "also by" page in the front of this book.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Gawker's parent company, Bustle Digital Group, has named the journalist Dan Peres as the editor in chief of Gawker.com, the latest move in its bid to revive the dormant website brought down by a high profile legal battle. Bustle and its chief executive, Bryan Goldberg, acquired the Gawker.com domain in July after an invasion of privacy lawsuit brought by the former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan and bankrolled by the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel left Gawker Media bankrupt in 2016. Gawker.com, the boundary pushing news and commentary website, shut down that year, and the website appears to have been preserved in amber since then, with its farewell article still at the top of the page. Mr. Peres, who was editor in chief of the Conde Nast's men's fashion magazine Details for 15 years, will lead the effort to revive the website. It is expected to relaunch later this year. In a phone interview, Mr. Peres, 47, emphasized that the site would not be "Gawker 2.0," touching on the old website's reputation for a brash writing style and a willingness to publish information that more traditional news organizations shied away from. "In the later years they probably took things too far," Mr. Peres said. "There was a lot of gratuitous meanness and sort of misguided decision making." He added, "There's an opportunity to draw on the great things that they did and dismiss some of the not great things that they did." The Gawker reboot has faced trouble from its start. In January, its only two full time writers, Anna Breslaw and Maya Kosoff, left the company within three weeks of joining because they objected to the behavior of Gawker's newly appointed editorial director, Carson Griffith. They said at the time that Ms. Griffith had "disregarded the need for diversity on staff" and that they had gone to the human resources department about her troubling behavior. The writers told The Daily Beast that Ms. Griffith had made a series of inappropriate comments, including remarks involving black writers and the gender identity of a potential hire.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
In the first, frenzied moments of Alexei Ratmansky's "Shostakovich Trilogy," a man hurls his body through the air horizontally, trusting other men to catch him. It's a jaunty, carefree gesture, befitting a brass fanfare in the score. But it is characteristic of how the Russian born Mr. Ratmansky hears the music of this great Russian composer that the act also feels reckless, foolish. The leaping man is caught, but later, people are dropped. At the Metropolitan Opera House on Tuesday, American Ballet Theater presented Mr. Ratmansky's "Shostakovich Trilogy" in its complete form for the first time since the work's debut performances in 2013. It remains a fascinating, thrilling, bewilderingly ambiguous evocation of life in Shostakovich's Russia, life under Stalin: a world of terror, grief, camaraderie, triumph, hope and joy, but also of false hope, false joy. Everything is suspect. Nothing is stable. This kaleidoscopic tone is matched by kaleidoscopic choreography. The corps de ballet is a society, yet it is also an atmosphere or dreamscape, gorgeously assembling and ever dissolving. It frames the principals and screens them, buoys them and absorbs them. As much as this complexity of ensemble activity is what makes the work distinct, it is equally packed with virtuosic roles and private duets that are like conversations. If the current cast lacks some of the firepower of the original one, it supplies other virtues. Filling in for an injured Herman Cornejo as the guiding spirit of the first section, "Symphony 9," Joseph Gorak was more contained: The force of his turns and jumps didn't register as much as his control and the finish of his beautiful form.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Even before the impeachment inquiry against President Trump was announced on Tuesday, the president's re election campaign blasted an email to supporters, urging them to defend Mr. Trump against the "baseless and disgusting attacks." Facebook quickly filled with ads for impeachment themed merchandise, including 3 "Impeach Now!" bumper stickers and 35 "Impeach This!" T shirts. In a private chat room, pro Trump internet trolls discussed which memes, videos and news stories to push on social media in order to reclaim the narrative. The last time America watched an impeachment inquiry, it was largely an analog affair. When the House voted to begin impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton in 1998, only one in four American homes had internet access. AOL and Yahoo were the biggest websites in the world, and "tweet" was a sound birds made. If the inquiry opened by House Democrats this week results in a formal impeachment of Mr. Trump, it will be the first of the social media era. In many ways, it is a made for the internet event. The political stakes are high, the dramatic story unspools tidbit by tidbit and the stark us versus them dynamics provide plenty of fodder for emotionally charged social media brawls. "We've seen quite a surge in disinformation in the last two days, most of it from trolls and bots, to a degree we haven't seen in a while," said Yoel Grinshpon, vice president of research at VineSight, a start up that detects disinformation on social media. "We assume that this will last a few days, and then come back in waves, whenever a new development in the Biden story or the impeachment process comes to light." In the past, Democrats have been caught flat footed by Mr. Trump's internet fans, who have proved to be adept at inserting noise and confusion into political controversies in real time. When the Mueller report was released this year, the pro Trump internet rushed to claim victory, blaring "NO COLLUSION" headlines even before the proverbial ink had dried. Fox News and other conservative media outlets joined in the celebration. By the time it emerged that the report had not totally exonerated Mr. Trump, Democrats found themselves shouting through a fog of exaggerations and half truths. If Democrats want their impeachment narratives to stick, they will need to do a better job of controlling the online battleground, where partisan opportunists jockey to set the narrative in real time and undermine the opposing side. "Politics is being consumed like entertainment," said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist. "It's a choose your own adventure reality." On Wednesday morning, when a memo summarizing Mr. Trump's call with the Ukrainian president was released by the White House, the pro Trump internet seemed unusually sedate. Breitbart, the right wing website, called the whistle blower's report "another deep state coup" the equivalent of a ho hum, "move along, folks" headline. The top ranked post on Reddit's biggest pro Trump forum, r/the donald, urged followers to pray for Mr. Trump, saying that "he is fighting the American Communist Party all by himself." On Infowars, the website started by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, the impeachment news appeared below a story about Mattel's new line of gender neutral dolls. But by the afternoon, these sites had found their voices, and the battle was raging. Right wing websites recycled misleading claims that congressional Democrats requested an investigation into Mr. Trump in 2018. Trump partisans stoked a years old conspiracy theory involving CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that has been falsely accused of helping Democrats conceal Ukraine's involvement in meddling in the 2016 election. They also circulated negative claims about Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, whose business dealings in Ukraine are at the center of the impeachment firestorm. On Wikipedia, volunteer editors scrambled to remove dubious information from Mr. Biden's page. Democrats have also seized the impeachment moment, using social media to solicit donations and gather names and email addresses for voter outreach lists. Julian Castro, the Texas Democrat running for president, bought Facebook ads urging his supporters to sign an impeachment petition. So did Senators Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren, two other presidential contenders. Facebook ads bought by Mr. Trump's re election campaign offered membership in the "Impeachment Defense Task Force" to people who donated or gave their email addresses and phone numbers, while other ads offered spots on the "Impeachment Defense Team." Both groups appeared to be primarily marketing tactics, rather than official entities, and the ads gave few details about their activities or mandates. "When we fund raise online, we're always looking for ways to create a sense of urgency, like a deadline," said Mr. Wilson, the Republican digital strategist. "This is like the ultimate deadline." Impeachment is a lengthy, drawn out process, and it remains to be seen how long it will capture Americans' attention. Several partisan online publishers said that the appetite for news about Mr. Trump's potential impeachment appeared to be lower than the appetite for other four alarm internet events, like the release of the Mueller report or the confirmation hearings of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh last year. Mark Provost, a manager of the left wing Facebook page The Other 98%, said that progressives' interest in impeachment was "there but tentative." He added that stories about Greta Thunberg, the 16 year old climate activist whose impassioned speech to the United Nations General Assembly this week became a viral sensation, were outperforming impeachment related stories on the page by a 100 to 1 ratio. A moderator of the pro Trump Reddit forum r/the donald, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity, speculated that interest in impeachment would increase in the coming days, as more details emerge about the contents of the whistle blower's report. In the pre internet world, impeachment was a dramatic, singular event the last ditch option enumerated in the Constitution as the remedy for a lawbreaking president. But today, it's just one more skirmish in a long running information battle being fought between partisan keyboard warriors using Twitter threads, YouTube clips and Facebook memes to seize control of the national conversation. "They've been through this time and again," said Jeff Giesea, a Washington based communications strategist. "This is just another day at the office."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
When Odell Beckham Jr. of the Cleveland Browns took the field wearing a 190,000 Richard Mille wristwatch during a blowout loss to the Tennessee Titans on Sept. 8, the question was: Was he violating league rules, or just the rules of common sense? His decision to carry a work of fine Swiss art onto the field in a tackle sport seemed new and also a little bizarre like a mixed martial arts fighter carrying a Picasso sketch into a cage match. But Beckham's much dissected fashion statement was also emblematic of the big money sports culture of 2019, in which eight figure athletes increasingly flash six figure watches as a branding opportunity for player and watchmaker alike. "A pop cultural arms race has definitely emerged over the last decade or so when it comes to high end watchmaking and top athletes," said Stephen Pulvirent , the managing editor of Hodinkee, an influential watch site. "It's become the norm now. And for most people, seeing a watch on the wrist of someone they respect and admire is a pretty powerful entry point to the world of high end watches." While Law 4 of the FIFA rule book prevents players from wearing watches, necklaces, or earrings during matches, to prevent injury to players, "the second the final whistle blows and the post match interviews begin," Mr. Bennett said, "the players ice up in their Pateks, Chopards, and Breguets ." "Watches and footballers have become so symbiotic," Mr. Bennett said, "that you only have to mention any elite player and their fans can name their watch sponsor almost as quickly as they can the club they play for." The benefits for brands are obvious. Many of the most coveted luxury watches these days are, technically, sports watches a 34,000 Rolex Daytona in 18 karat gold is, at least in theory, a timing tool for auto racers. It makes sense that the manufacturers would use the wrists of famous athletes as a sales device. For the stars, endorsement money is obviously part of the allure, although the terms of those contracts are rarely disclosed. But perhaps it is not the only inducement. In an era when athletes such as Russell Westbrook and LeBron James have become staples on the front row at fashion shows, athletes clearly have learned that the right watch is the linchpin of any drop dead ensemble. Fine watches send a signal to fans that fans that today's multimillionaire athletes are not sweat drenched gladiators, but men and women of taste and refinement, who appreciate exquisite timepieces just as they would fine wine or contemporary art. Basketball players such as David Robinson, Andre Iguodala, and J.J. Redick, for example, have all geeked out on their watch collections on the Hodinkee interview series Talking Watches.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
BECKET, Mass. L.A. Dance Project came east to Jacob's Pillow here on Wednesday with three works in tow and a new associate artistic director: the exceptional, recently retired Pacific Northwest Ballet principal Carla Korbes. The company's Pillow performance also coincided with the final appearances of another esteemed dancer, Charlie Hodges, who served as the group's rehearsal director. L.A. Dance Project formed by Benjamin Millepied, a former principal with New York City Ballet who has since become the artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet is a group of New York transplants. Ms. Korbes danced with Mr. Millepied at City Ballet, and now Banu Ogan, a former Merce Cunningham dancer, is L.A. Dance Project's rehearsal director. Clearly the company is in transition; the hope is that it will set a course on a more adventurous path. Judging by the Pillow program, its current one tells the usual story: strong dancers, less than stellar dances. The standout is Justin Peck's "Murder Ballades," which unfolds in front of Sterling Ruby's vivid backdrop of colored patterns to Bryce Dessner's score. Choreographed in 2013 by Mr. Peck yes, another member of City Ballet the work is loosely inspired by the tradition of American murder ballads, which infuses its athletic, often cheery movement with a sinister undercurrent. The dancers wear sneakers as they bop in front of a visual design that could be a painterly arrangement of Dexter's blood spatters. At first the stage is covered in sneakers; Julia Eichten claims the pair in the middle, and soon her body is a blur of quick, contained jumps. "Murder Ballades" is bookended by extravagant energy the finale is a series of frenetic solos that twist, reach and unravel but at its center are two duets that hint at the ominous title. One alternates playful flirting with tilts in which a woman, once upright, stares straight ahead like a zombie. Before a blackout in another duet, a dancer, lying on the floor, stretches an arm up to her partner, who suddenly drops it. Mr. Peck's darker embellishments don't last long, but they have bite.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
From left, Bingo, Drooper, Snorky and Fleegle (all voiced by Eric Bauza) in the new "Banana Splits Movie," before things get heavy. The Banana Splits Got a Movie. It's Probably Not What You Think. The new Splits have split from the old Splits, which may split Splits fans. Because this time the Splits aren't just sidesplitting. Translation: "The Banana Splits Adventure Hour" was a Saturday morning children's variety show that ran on NBC from 1968 1970. It featured four furry, mascot sized members of a fictional rock band called the Banana Splits Fleegle the beagle, Bingo the ape, Drooper the lion and Snorky the elephant who sang silly songs and took goofy trips to amusement parks. But now, a half century later, the Splits aren't quite themselves. A little less silly, a little more murder y, they're the gleefully sinister villains in the new "Banana Splits Movie," a darkly comic R rated horror film that includes death by lollipop . (The movie was made available to buy through multiple online platforms on Tuesday and will air on Syfy in October.) Some fans of the sugary original are sure to balk at the change of sensibility. But for the creative team behind the movie, the logic was obvious. Set in the present day, "The Banana Splits Movie" circles around a young boy (Finlay Wojtak Hissong) whose love of "The Banana Splits" TV show still running since 1968 makes him an outsider. For his birthday, his mother (Dani Kind) gets him tickets to a taping. But when the Splits learn that their show has been canceled, their true nature is revealed in a twist as over the top as the many creative ways they find to start butchering the studio audience. For horror fans, it's not an outrageous idea given the genre's history of finding evil in the comforts of childhood (like the doll in "Child's Play," itself recently rebooted) if not in children themselves. And the Banana Splits' frozen smiles, manic driving and happy go lucky theme song ("Tra la la, la la la la") align with some of horror's most treasured conventions. There's also just something uncanny about anonymous adults dressing up in big furry suits. "You don't know who's in that suit or what they do when they go home or what messed up things they do on their own time," said Scott Thomas, who wrote the film with Jed Elinoff . "Seeing a kid trust this character to be nice is a pretty awful thing. But it's also a pretty fantastic thing when you're writing a horror movie." Recasting a sweet children's show as a macabre, gory horror movie is, nevertheless, a renegade move. It's especially startling considering the source material comes from Hanna Barbera (now owned by Warner Bros.), the animation studio behind such family friendly 1960s favorites as "The Flintstones" and "The Yogi Bear Show." As Bill Hanna wrote in his 1996 memoir, the characters he developed with Joseph Barbera "were likable, they were funny, and you could tell that they cared about each other." It was a working formula. "The Flintstones" became the first animated show to air in prime time, and cartoons like "The Jetsons" and "Scooby Doo" helped establish the Saturday morning cartoon. "The Banana Splits Adventure Hour" was Hanna Barbera's first live action addition to the Saturday morning lineup, modeled after the psychedelic pop music romps of "The Monkees." The new movie's sinister twist is, to put it mildly, a departure from that formula. Jesse Kowalski, who curated a 2016 exhibition about Hanna Barbera for the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., said Hanna and Barbera "would have hated it ." "They were very protective," added Kowalski, who had not seen the film . "They were trying to make feel good shows." Attitudes, like the corporate ownership, may have changed. L ast month, Warner Bros. Animation announced it was rebooting "The Flintstones" as a prime time animated adult comedy series . And the idea of a grown up, "flipped genre" reboot for the Banana Splits had been kicking around Warner for some time, said Peter Girardi, executive vice president of alternative programming for Warner Bros. Animation and of Blue Ribbon Content, a division of Warner Bros. Television Group. Executives at Blue Ribbon, who conceived the movie idea before commissioning the script and hiring a director, saw an opportunity in the original show's ultra mod design to draw upon the chic, lurid stylings of 1960s and '70s Italian horror films from directors like Dario Argento and Mario Bava, said Girardi. "Their films, and the saccharine, candy nature of kids' television at the time, were garishly lit, with oversaturated colors on incredible sets," he said. "There's a corollary there, and that's something we wanted to explore." Much of the original series's look and feel resulted from costumes and sets designed by the brothers Sid and Marty Krofft, who were behind other popular live action children's shows of the 1970s like "Land of the Lost" and "H.R. Pufnstuf." Far from hating the horror twist, Marty Krofft said he was cautiously optimistic that the demonic Splits would forge a new generation of fans. "The take is interesting, so who knows?" he said. "I think it's a good idea. We've always said that the kids' shows we've done could be prime time ideas."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Mr. Iger gave few specific answers, promising that more details would come at a future investor conference. He assured analysts that the successful introduction of the streaming service would be Disney's "biggest priority" in 2019, which will also bring the integration of 21st Century Fox assets. Mr. Iger indicated that he would seek subscription sales for the service from every corner of the Disney empire: theme park pass holders, holders of Disney branded credit cards, the masses who own Disney time share properties. He also confirmed that content from National Geographic, which Disney is buying from Fox, would appear on the service. He mentioned that Disney also sees promise for National Geographic in Disney's vacation business as an "eco tourism" offshoot. But do not expect a high volume of new original series and movies on the Disney branded service, at least initially. Mr. Iger said that he did not see Disney's service as needing "anything close to the volume that Netflix has," largely because Disney has strong brands like Pixar, Marvel and "Star Wars" at its disposal. For the quarter, Disney's major businesses largely performed as they had over the last year. Weakness continued at the cable division and in the consumer products unit, where the decline in shopping malls has hurt the Disney Store chain. But theme parks remained a reliable engine and Walt Disney Studios continued to deliver growth. Walt Disney Studios had operating income of 708 million, an 11 percent increase from the same quarter a year earlier. "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Incredibles 2," both runaway hits, were largely the reason. The studio would have had even better results had it not taken a 100 million write down related to animated films in its pipeline that will no longer proceed, including a third "Planes" movie.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
One study promised that popular blood pressure drugs were safe for people infected with the coronavirus. Another paper warned that anti malaria drugs endorsed by President Trump actually were dangerous to these patients. The studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet, were retracted shortly after publication, following an outcry from researchers who saw obvious flaws. The hasty retractions, on the same day this month, have alarmed scientists worldwide who fear that the rush for research on the coronavirus has overwhelmed the peer review process and opened the door to fraud, threatening the credibility of respected medical journals just when they are needed most. Peer review is supposed to safeguard the quality of scientific research. When a journal receives a manuscript, the editors ask three or more experts in the field for comments. The reviewers' written assessments may force revisions in a paper or prompt the journal to reject the work altogether. The system, widely adopted by medical journals in the middle of the 20th century, undergirds scientific discourse around the world. "The problem with trust is that it's too easy to lose and too hard to get back," said Dr. Jerome Kassirer, a former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, which published one of the retracted papers in early May. "These are big blunders." If outside scientists detected problems that weren't identified by the peer reviewers, then the journals failed, he said. Like hundreds of other researchers, Dr. Kassirer called on the editors to publish full explanations of what happened. Dr. Jerome Kassirer, a former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine said the publication of the flawed studies were "big blunders." In interviews with The New York Times, Dr. Richard Horton, the editor in chief of The Lancet, and Dr. Eric Rubin, editor in chief of the N.E.J.M., said that the studies should never have appeared in their journals but insisted that the review process was still working. "We shouldn't have published this," Dr. Rubin said of the study appearing in the N.E.J.M. "We should have had reviewers who would recognize the problem." Dr. Horton called the paper retracted by his journal a "fabrication" and "a monumental fraud." But peer review was never intended to detect outright deceit, he said, and anyone who thinks otherwise has "a fundamental misunderstanding of what peer review is." "If you have an author who deliberately tries to mislead, it's surprisingly easy for them to do so," he said. In addition, the editors said, there is an urgent need to rapidly publish new findings to improve treatments for desperately ill coronavirus patients. Since the pandemic began, The Lancet is receiving three times the usual number of papers for consideration, Dr. Horton said. And the N.E.J.M. has fielded as many as 200 submissions in a day, including essays, according to Dr. Rubin. "I'm an infectious disease doctor, I treat Covid 19 patients," Dr. Rubin said. "I've been in the hospital recently treating patients, and we have no idea what to do. I'm the primary driver at the journal of saying, 'We have to get data out there that people can use.'" "We are very careful," he added. "At our editorial meetings, this comes up almost every day. 'If we publish this, will it hurt people?' That's our biggest concern." A report in one of these journals can have immediate repercussions both for patients and for research. After The Lancet's initial publication of the study concluding that the antimalarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine endangered the lives of coronavirus patients, the World Health Organization and other groups halted clinical trials of the drugs while safety reviews were conducted. Hydroxychloroquine clinical trials were halted based on one of the flawed studies. The reputation of these journals rests in large part on vigorous peer review. But the process is opaque and fallible: Journals generally do not disclose who reviewed a study, what they found, how long it took or even when a manuscript was submitted. Dr. Horton and Dr. Rubin declined to provide those details regarding the retracted studies, as well. Critics have long worried that the safeguards are cracking, and have called on medical journals to operate with greater transparency. "We are in the midst of a pandemic, and science is moving really fast, so there are extenuating circumstances here," said Dr. Ivan Oransky, co founder of Retraction Watch, which tracks discredited research. Who should get a booster shot? It depends, Dr. Scott Gottlieb says. Virginia's new lieutenant governor elect says she won't force vaccines. "But peer review fails more often than anyone admits," he said. "We should be surprised it catches anything at all, the way it's set up." Journals used to take many months, or even a full year, to scrutinize and edit a complicated study, a process that included several weeks for outside experts to peer review the research. It's not just the journal editors who are inundated. Knowledgeable scientists who donate time as peer reviewers are already stretched thin, trying to understand how the coronavirus affects the body, or to find treatments and vaccines. The research is happening at an unprecedented pace. "I think the academic system is saturated it's at capacity," said Dr. Peter Juni, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Toronto who has reviewed papers for scientific journals. "People are tired; they're working at the edge of their limits," he said. "They struggle to get good peer reviewers and try to do as well as they can, but the system is at risk of failing, as you see here." The retracted paper in The Lancet should have raised immediate concerns, he added. It purported to rely on detailed medical records from 96,000 patients with Covid 19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, at nearly 700 hospitals on six continents. It was an enormous international registry, yet scientists had not heard of it. The data were immaculate, he noted. There were few missing variables: Race appeared to have been recorded for nearly everyone. So was weight. Smoking rates didn't vary much between continents, nor did rates of hypertension. "I got goose bumps reading it," said Dr. Juni, who is involved in clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine. "Nobody has complete data on all these variables. It's impossible. You can't." Both retracted studies were led by Dr. Mandeep R. Mehra, a widely published and highly regarded professor of medicine at Harvard, and the medical director of the Heart and Vascular Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital. In a statement last week, Dr. Mehra apologized for the retractions, which he attributed to an eagerness to publish helpful information during the pandemic. He stopped short of calling them fraud, saying only that the data could not be verified by independent auditors. The data in both studies were produced by a small company outside Chicago called Surgisphere, run by another of the papers' authors, Dr. Sapan Desai. In an interview with The New York Times in May, Dr. Desai vigorously defended his work and the authenticity of his data registry, which he said included patient records from 1,200 hospitals and other health facilities around the world. But when the N.E.J.M. and The Lancet demanded independent audits, he refused, citing confidentiality agreements with client hospitals. Following the retractions, Dr. Desai has declined further comment. "This got as much, if not more, review and editing than a standard regular track manuscript," Dr. Rubin, the editor in chief of the N.E.J.M., said of the heart study appearing in the N.E.J.M., which was based on a smaller set of Surgisphere data. "We didn't cut corners. We just didn't ask the right people." On Friday, he said he chose to publish the hydroxychloroquine study only because it showed an immediate danger in widespread use of the drug. The clinical trials should not have been halted, he added. "Because of the political context, and people using this drug on the basis of minimal evidence in its favor, it seemed very important to publish work that at least gave some sense of whether the drug was safe or not," he said. "That was the motivation behind the publication." Journal editors are caught in a Catch 22 of sorts, said Dr. Hassan Murad, of the Mayo Clinic, who works with a federal project to review medical evidence. "You want to push the information out quickly to practitioners," he said. "It's a pandemic, it's an urgent situation." "At the same time, you want quality control."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
Lil Uzi Vert, perhaps the defining rap star of the past few years, is a cipher, a whirlwind, an alien. An accident of history. A chemical recombination of what hip hop success sounds, looks and, maybe most importantly, feels like in an era in which the old gatekeepers have been all but sidelined. Breakout hits? One or two. Radio? Not so much. Promotional dog and pony show? As if. For a straight to the internet age, he is an unmediated presence a tough talker and an in the clouds dreamer, a visual eccentric who deploys mystery to his advantage. He's as thrilling in the shadows as in the spotlight. Few artists in any genre inspire more fervor, more devotion, more curiosity, more exuberant joy. It's been three years since his last album, but raucous festival performances, occasional bursts of social media activity and an online black market in leaked songs reinforce his fame he is a rapper far more successful than the sum total of his hits. The release of his long awaited second studio album, "Eternal Atake" followed a week later by the deluxe edition, subtitled "LUV vs. the World 2," with a whole new album's worth of songs is a relief: Finally, a new data dump. "Eternal Atake" topped the Billboard chart with the most streams for any album since 2018; this week, with numbers for the deluxe edition included, it holds strong at No. 1. Of the rap surrealists of the last few years Young Thug, Playboi Carti, Gunna and so on Uzi is perhaps the most pointed, the most familiar with the structuralists who preceded him, and the one who still harbors affection for them. The sometimes blistering, sometimes disorienting "Eternal Atake" resolves these interests. It is part old fashioned bluster, part flamboyant style exercise, all rowdy thrill. As ever, Uzi's rapping voice is a whimsical chirp. His melodic approach borrows from pop punk and R B as well as the digitally decaying style popularized by Lil Wayne in the late 2000s (though in a couple of places here, he appears to lean back from the affectation, rapping with a more conventional tone). And the production throughout is anarchic: video game and anime soundtracks, plenty of rough edged low end, the occasional elegiac pop flourish. His lyrics rely on variations on a handful of themes: the particularities of his sexual escapades, the ease of relieving other men of their girlfriends, his enemies, how proximate his enemies are, the tightness of his pants. (It's true, and comes up at least twice: "My pants they so tight don't know if they for her or him," "I can't do my dance 'cause my pants, they from France.") Occasionally, how he talks about these things is surprising. "I look the moon in its face/me and the moon relate" is as psychedelic as any Jim Morrison musing. "Now statistically I can't win every time/but you know the score prolly like 10 to 3" is a strikingly specific admission of humanity. His most invigorating rapping comes during the first few songs of "Eternal Atake," one blown speaker tremor after the next: "Lo Mein," then "Silly Watch," and then "Pop," a kind of free associative narrative of excess with a casually blunt rhyme scheme. This is Uzi rapping at his most sturdy, using pacing and cadence as much as melody. But that sort of orderliness isn't an essential part of his arsenal the typical Uzi song is one filigree after the next, lace not denim. He creates his own funhouse mirror reality. While the original "Eternal Atake" is an almost wholly solo affair, the deluxe addition includes a raft of collaborations, featuring the similarly melody melting classmates Chief Keef, Young Thug, Nav and others. The songs here are a more motley mix, but almost as effective as the ones on the main album. To his guests, Uzi offers a worldview to get lost in he doesn't cede an inch. For the outsiders, it's a brief visit to an extraterrestrial land. For Uzi, the Earth never held much meaning.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
"Native Son," the 1939 Richard Wright novel, is a murder story without a mystery. In the first minutes of this stage adaptation by Nambi E. Kelley, we watch Bigger Thomas, a 20 year old African American man, suffocate the white daughter of his employer. Admired and controversial since its publication, "Native Son" codes Bigger as both a perpetrator and a victim. He is a bully and a coward, roundly unsympathetic. But he is also a casualty of systemic racism. When he looks in the mirror, he sees what the white world, or perhaps even a more diverse contemporary audience, sees, which is, in Ms. Kelley's script, "a black rat sonofabitch." In the Acting Company's production, directed by Seret Scott at the Duke on 42nd Street, Ms. Kelley, in a riff on W.E.B. Du Bois's concept of double consciousness, has dramatized that mirror. Wherever Bigger goes, a shadow self, identified in the program as the Black Rat (Jason Bowen, insinuating), follows, stoking Bigger's anger and fear, and reminding him that, as a black man, he will never be accorded full humanity. How humane is Bigger? In an essay, "How 'Bigger' Was Born," Wright described basing Bigger on boys and men he had known, men who felt estranged from religion and community and attracted to the glitter of the white world with no legal or moral way to satisfy that attraction. Wright wrote that he wanted Bigger's story to "be so hard and so deep" that readers "would have to face it without the consolation of tears."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
It sounds simple, even innocuous, as greetings go . But if an email is sent en masse to a group of women (be they friends or connected acquaintances) and it starts with "hey ladies," it is sure to require something. It means an event is coming up usually wedding related: a bachelorette party, a bridal shower, or some other girls only gathering. It means everyone needs to pitch in with their time, money or help usually all three. It means a slew of emails with a ton of exclamation points. This genre of correspondence is what inspired Caroline Moss and Michelle Markowitz to write their new book, "Hey Ladies: The Story of 8 Best Friends, 1 Year, and Way, Way Too Many Emails," which is based on a series they wrote for the humor website The Toast for nearly three years. It's a 200 plus page infographic that reads like an extended email thread among friends, one of whom is newly engaged and planning her wedding for New Year's Eve. The book satirizes the many ways making plans for big celebrations the kind in which heightened emotions, complex logistics and considerable expenses collide easily gets out of hand. It all started in 2013 when Ms. Markowitz was included on an email chain that wouldn't end. "The thread was 80 emails deep," she said recently by phone. She was so irritated that she tweeted, "the worst part of bachelorette parties are all the emails beginning with, 'Hey Ladies!'" It didn't exactly go viral. (At the time of this writing, it had one retweet.) But Ms. Moss saw it, and even though the two had never met, she reached out to Ms. Markowitz to suggest they write something on the subject. At the time, both women were single and living in New York City. Ms. Markowitz, then 31, was a freelancer writer who performed in comedy shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade. Ms. Moss, then 25, had just started reporting for Business Insider. They were at an age when "both of us had been attending lots of weddings," Ms. Markowitz said. The series "came out of a very real experience." They began a back and forth conversation over email, inhabiting the aggressively enthusiastic character of a "hey ladies" bachelorette party planner. Ms. Moss's agent, Kate McKean, who still represents her and Ms. Markowitz, suggested passing it along to Nicole Cliffe and Daniel Mallory Ortberg, who had recently launched The Toast. The first "Hey Ladies" installment published a month later, and it quickly became a regular feature. The website developed a passionate, niche readership that delighted in the particular style of writing that the "Hey Ladies" series fell into: The tone was feminist, happily strange and a little absurdist. "We definitely felt that we had hit a nerve in a good way, pretty quickly," Ms. Moss said over the phone. Ms. Markowitz added, "A lot of people would tweet at us and say they're on a million threads like that." The two women soon established a pattern to their column, and comic guidelines for the quintessential "hey ladies" email: It must have "a million exclamation points to show how excited you are," said Ms. Markowitz. And "throw in a sentence about how excited you are just in case the exclamation points don't do it," said Ms. Moss. It should include "some 'friendly reminders," written in a passive aggressive tone, Ms. Moss said, plus a pointless inquiry, like "asking 26 people what dates in June are good for them." Through some kind of wedding industrial complex magic, she said, someone always owes money by the end of the email. The authors "always thought a book would be fun," Ms. Markowitz said, but didn't formally begin planning one until 2016, around the same time that The Toast was shutting down. (Their final column for the site, "Take It to Slack," was published June 30, 2016.) "Writing a book was a good way to keep the ladies around," she said. The book which tells the story of one year in a female friend group entirely through their emails, off thread text conversations about emails, and social media posts was also a good way to "create a world where these women really are friends, and actually really do care about each other, and want to be near each other, and want to talk to each other," said Ms. Moss. The characters vent, date and debrief, in addition to booking a destination bachelorette to South Portugal, which they inexplicably abbreviate as "SoPu." For Ms. Moss and Ms. Markowitz, friendship is the whole point. "There's a little bit of an inner struggle" when one receives a "hey ladies" email, Ms. Markowitz said. You're stuck between feeling "this is going to be a lot of work, and how much is this going to end up costing me" and gratitude for the relationship that landed you on the email chain in the first place. "You want to be a part of something and make your friend feel special," she said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
As the Democratic presidential candidates bandage their wounds and assess their strategies after Wednesday's debate, one thing is clear: Bernie Sanders owes Mike Bloomberg a big thank you bouquet. Maybe even a box of chocolates. Sure, the multibillionaire former mayor, in his debate debut, took a swing or two at Mr. Sanders, the race's front runner pro tem, repeatedly asserting that he had no chance of beating President Trump. But nothing said to or about Mr. Sanders mattered nearly so much as Mr. Bloomberg serving as the evening's pinata, drawing blows away from the Vermont senator. Without Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Sanders not only would have suffered more hits, but more people would have focused on how clumsily he handled those he did draw. In debates, Mr. Sanders has one mode: shouty. It fits with the chronic crabbiness his fans find so charming evidence of his passion and authenticity. But when you combine shouty with defensive, the result is not so charming, which is where he found himself now and again on Wednesday night. Predictably, he was asked about the controversy over his medical records. Mr. Sanders is 78 years old and suffered a heart attack last fall. Afterward, he promised to make his medical records public. On Tuesday, he told CNN that his campaign wouldn't be sharing anything beyond the three letters from doctors that it had released earlier. "I'm comfortable on what we have done," he said. His campaign then set about attacking those who voiced concerns. His national spokeswoman likened questions to a "smear campaign," before falsely claiming that Mr. Bloomberg, who had two stents implanted back in 2000, had also had a heart attack. (She later said she "misspoke.") Mark Penn and Andrew Stein write that "only a broader course correction to the center will give Democrats a fighting chance in 2022" and beyond. Tory Gavito and Adam Jentleson write that the Virgina loss should "shock Democrats into confronting the powerful role that racially coded attacks play in American politics." Ezra Klein speaks to David Shor, who discusses his fear that Democrats face electoral catastrophe unless they shift their messaging. Ross Douthat writes that the outcome of the Virginia gubernatorial race shows Democrats need a "new way to talk about progressive ideology and education." For those not so "comfortable" with Mr. Sanders's Trumpian lack of transparency, the debate offered little reassurance. When pressed on the issue, the candidate grew ever more flustered. He wound up in an embarrassing back and forth with Mr. Bloomberg over each other's stents just in case anyone watching had forgotten that both men are pushing 80. And he took to citing his cardiologists' verdict that "Bernie Sanders is more than able to deal with the stress and the vigor of being president of the United States" an echo of the 2015 letter from Mr. Trump's doctor, stating that the then candidate would be "the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency." Worse still was Mr. Sanders's response to questions about the divisiveness of his campaign, most particularly the vitriolic slice of supporters known as Bernie Bros. An aggressive subset of these fans, known for harassing those who criticize their man, were a problem in 2016, and they are a problem today. In Las Vegas on Wednesday, Pete Buttigieg pointed out that some of the senator's acolytes were currently tangled up in a nasty fight with a powerful local labor union, the Culinary Workers, that had criticized Mr. Sanders's Medicare for All plan. The candidate's response was, first, to play down the problem. "If there are a few people who make ugly remarks," he said, "I disown those people." He then sought to turn the tables, lamenting the "vicious, racist, sexist attacks" that the African American women on his campaign had endured. He then suggested that it wasn't his real supporters behaving badly, but maybe Russian bots. "I'm not saying that's happening, but it would not shock me." Or as a certain president might put it, "A lot of people are saying. ..." Mr. Buttigieg turned the screws. "We're in this toxic political environment. Leadership isn't just about policy," he said. "Leadership is also about how you motivate people to treat other people. I think you have to accept some responsibility and ask yourself what it is about your campaign in particular that seems to be motivating this behavior more than others." This is not to pick on Mr. Sanders alone. The Las Vegas event was far more combative than previous debates, providing a clearer look at how most of the field responds to sharp attacks a useful bit of knowledge considering whom the eventual nominee will face in the general election. The nominee needs not only to be able to throw a punch, he or she needs to be able to take one. Elizabeth Warren fielded attacks reasonably well. This may be in part because she got some hard won experience back in the fall, when she was briefly the front runner. She grew frustrated when Mr. Buttigieg insulted her Medicare for All plan, and she and Joe Biden sparred over the party's handling of the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell. But she didn't respond much above her baseline demeanor a mild to moderate exasperation and she didn't get nasty or lose her line of argument. Amy Klobuchar spent much of the evening visibly miffed, especially when clashing with Mr. Buttigieg. Ms. Klobuchar is often at her best when fired up about an issue. But Mr. Buttigieg pushed her to lose her cool on several occasions. Most vividly: In a recent interview, Ms. Klobuchar could not come up with the name of the president of Mexico (Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador). Mr. Buttigieg kept tweaking her about that until finally she demanded: "Are you trying to say that I'm dumb? Are you mocking me here, Pete?" Mr. Buttigieg, as is his way, kept calm, staying on message and deflecting personal attacks about his experience or lack thereof. On occasion, he drifted over the line into smugness or condescension, dangerous ground when going up against Ms. Klobuchar. (Nobody likes a mansplainer.) And his unflappability will continue to infuriate those who find him too smooth and aloof, seeing it as proof that he does not feel their pain and outrage. Mr. Biden didn't take much of a beating it feels as though no one has the heart to really go after him at this point and he handled criticism in an unremarkable fashion. Then of course there's Mr. Bloomberg, who responded to the beat down by turning peevish and evasive, stumbling through grudging non apologies for past misbehavior on matters of both policy (stop and frisk) and character (his reputedly sexist and demeaning treatment of women who worked for him). He has the time (and money!) to recover, but he did real damage to his Trump slayer narrative. With yet another debate, in South Carolina, less than a week away, Mr. Sanders in particular would do well to up his game. A bloom off the rose Mr. Bloomberg is unlikely to provide as much cover for the front runner next time around.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
The fun fair is not always fun: clockwise from top left, a scene from HBO's "Euphoria," the Gravitron ride in Netflix's "Stranger Things," a doomed Russian in "Stranger Things" and a kiss in the 1996 thriller "Fear." Last month, "Euphoria," HBO's druggy, sexy teenage soap, took a trip to the carnival. One high school student had sex in the shadow of the Ferris wheel, another brought herself to orgasm with a carousel horse. Some middle schoolers smoked weed behind the Gravitron . A prepubescent boy with face tattoos sold molly from a pretzel stand. The sinister carnival is a staple of American popular culture. It arrives in a town, often in the summer , trailing tinsel and the aroma of deep fryer fat, promising rebellion and reversal, a breather from ordinary life. The rides mess with physics. The noise, lights and corn dogs mess with everything else. "It doesn't get more American than this," says Murray, the private eye on "Stranger Things," in a fun fair episode that also premiered this summer. "Fatty foods, ugly decadence, rigged games." In midcentury works , often tasked with reinforcing social norms, the carnival itself is dangerous. Think of the death via carousel in "Strangers on a Train," the pleasure island that distracts Pinocchio from his true path. Step right up for degradation, as in the film noir "Nightmare Alley," or disfigurement, as in the Tod Browning shocker "Freaks." In "Something Wicked This Way Comes," the Ray Bradbury novel that terrified me as a kid, a carnival is a locus of pure evil. The carnivals of the last 20 years have been arguably less lethal. On "Carnivale," the moody period drama that ran from 2003 to 2005 on HBO, the big bad was the anti pleasure minister , not the carnies he preached against. In the "Freak Show" season of the "American Horror Story" anthology, the townspeople were as murderous as the freaks. Maybe we've become more comfortable with the carnival as a temporary challenge to social conventions. Maybe we've acknowledged that the Tilt a Whirl is a lot less likely to hurt you than the people jostling alongside you in the line. In "Fear," the 1996 thriller that will see a remake, Reese Witherspoon's teenage heroine has an early sexual experience atop a juddering roller coaster. The ride itself? Safe. Mark Wahlberg's handsy Boston accented sociopath? Not so much. How's this for a public service announcement: Rides have to submit to safety inspections. People don't. Growing up in Los Angeles, I remember visiting the yearly carnival at the University of California, Los Angeles, first with my parents, and then with school friends. One "Fear" era spring, there were four of us, 15 or 16, dressed in lace up boots and flannel shirts and too much eyeliner, looking for boys who hadn't known us when we wore braces, trying on adulthood. I remember waiting, later that night, on the Sunset Boulevard sidewalk, for someone's dad maybe my own to pick us up while the cars honked for us as they went past. How scary that was, how exciting. My favorite ride back then: The Gravitron, a place where having no control over your own body was expected. On the fourth episode of "Euphoria," Rue (Zendaya) goes to the carnival to chaperone her little sister. Lexi (Maude Apatow), Rue's childhood friend, asks if she wants to hit some rides. Rue declines. "I don't want to die," she says. A once and future addict now chasing the high of a crush on her new friend, Jules (Hunter Schafer), she doesn't need the sham danger of a Ferris wheel. Her classmates, however, use the carnival to experiment with adult pleasures sex, drugs, spiked slushies and personalities. "I'm looking at a thousand versions of myself," Maddy (Alexa Demie) says, rolling in the hall of mirrors. Her friend Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) is equally high. "I feel like this is a turning point," she says. "We should just pick the hottest, most confident, bad bitch version of ourselves and be that for the rest of the school year." On "Stranger Things," the fun fair rides terrify the grown ups. Winona Ryder's Joyce and David Harbour's Hopper find themselves trapped on the Gravitron (it's everywhere) and clasp hands as it begins to spin. Still, "Stranger Things" knows that the Gravitron isn't the bad guy. It's the interdimensional creature menacing Joyce's son. And it's the hit man who shoots the Russian scientist Alexei as he clutches a plush prize. (The killer meets his own end, at Hopper's hand, inside the fun house, in a mirrored gun battle like the one in "The Lady From Shanghai.") "Euphoria" knows it, too. The rides are ultimately harmless. The drugs, too. The problem is Nate (Jacob Elordi), the titanium jawed quarterback. After Maddy insults his parents, he chokes her in an alley between the rides. Later, he threatens Jules. As a teenager, roving beneath the blinking lights, the carnival felt free, it felt precarious, it felt like what I thought adulthood would be. But freedom's just another word for your dad slipping you a 20 for funnel cake. The dangers that would come for us later bad boyfriends, bad bosses would be found within our lives, not in the transitory escape from them that a carnival implies.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
It should have been as good as over: Bob Gibson on the mound in Game 7 of the World Series, facing the bottom of the Yankees' order with a four run lead in the ninth inning. But Clete Boyer homered with one out, and Phil Linz homered with two out. Due up was Bobby Richardson, who somehow had seven hits off Gibson in the World Series. The dangerous Roger Maris would follow Richardson. Gibson was pitching on two days' rest and coming off a 10 inning complete game. Yet Johnny Keane, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, left his ace on the mound. The 1964 World Series would be Gibson's to decide. "I had a commitment to his heart," Keane said later, a telling and touching comment about both Gibson who died of pancreatic cancer on Friday, at age 84 and his era. But while logic said Gibson was tired that day, his stuff did not show it. Gibson's final pitch was a fastball, just high enough that Richardson could not hit the line drive he wanted. He swung under the pitch and lifted a harmless fly to second base. The Yankees' glory years were over, and Gibson was a champion. "That fastball I popped up was just as good as it was at the start of the game," Richardson said on Sunday from his home in Sumter, S.C. "I never thought for a moment that Johnny Keane would take him out." Gibson died on the final day of the season for the Cardinals, the only team he played for in his Hall of Fame career. They were eliminated from the playoffs with a shutout by the San Diego Padres, who used nine pitchers to do what Gibson often did by himself, especially in October. 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. Gibson made three trips to the postseason, all in the years when the regular season champions advanced directly to the World Series. He made nine starts and threw 81 innings, going 7 2 with a 1.89 earned run average and is the only pitcher to win Game 7 of the World Series twice. The second time was in 1967, at Fenway Park in Boston. The Red Sox used their Cy Young Award winner, Jim Lonborg, on short rest, and the Cardinals battered him. Gibson struck out 10, hit a homer and went the distance for his third win of the Series. "You knew you had to stay close to beat him, and Lonborg just didn't have his stuff," Rico Petrocelli, Boston's shortstop that day, said by phone on Sunday. "He was exhausted, and with Gibson, there was no change. It was like the first game, same thing boom, breaking ball, boom, fastball in, right on the black on the outside corner. He had it all." Gibson saved his most dominant performance for the opener in 1968, when he set a World Series single game strikeout record with 17 against Detroit. He won again in Game 4 and was pitching a shutout in Game 7 when center fielder Curt Flood misjudged a two out fly ball by Jim Northrup in the seventh, turning it into a decisive two run triple. Though he pitched a complete game that day of course Gibson lost to Mickey Lolich, ending a season in which he was never pulled from a game in mid inning. Gibson had a 1.12 earned run average, a modern record, and won the National League Cy Young and Most Valuable Player Awards. With offense waning across the game, Major League Baseball lowered the mound in 1969 from 15 to 10 inches, hoping to give hitters a better chance. Gibson responded with a 20 win season and even more strikeouts than he had had the year before. "It didn't affect me much, because I was probably more of a three quarter pitcher anyway," Gibson said in a 2015 interview, referring to his arm angle. "I think it would affect the guys who threw overhand, the guys who threw a lot of curveballs, because that curveball started being up in the strike zone. But my slider, I just had to adjust that just a little bit and I was OK." Gibson's slider was a devastating weapon but a physical hazard; try turning a doorknob as hard as you can, over and over. His success with the pitch inspired a young teammate, Steve Carlton, to use it as well but Carlton modified his release and used innovative training techniques, all to minimize the pain he saw Gibson endure. Carlton pitched longer than Gibson and also wound up in the Hall of Fame. At a reception before his induction ceremony, in 1994, Tim McCarver saluted Carlton in a speech, with Gibson in the crowd. McCarver, who caught both pitchers in their primes, told the crowd that if Carl Hubbell had the best screwball ever, Nolan Ryan the best fastball and Sandy Koufax the best curveball, then surely Carlton had the best slider. "Everybody applauded, it was very emotional, very fitting," McCarver said a few years ago. "And we're hugging, and I look over Steve's shoulder and I see this figure swinging through the crowd a 'he had to get to me' type of deal. Well, that figure was Gibson. He gets about six inches from my face and says: 'The best left handed slider in the history of the game!' He kind of skulked away and laughed. He had to have the last word." Gibson's intimidating persona has only grown lately, as M.L.B. tries to eliminate brushback pitches with fines and suspensions to promote player safety. But Gibson never actually led the league in hit batsmen, and when he did hit a batter, it was usually a right hander moving up on the plate to reach the slider. Their fault, Gibson would say. "When you go guessing for a ball outside and you go out there to get it especially with that slider out there a lot to right handers they would start out there to get that ball," Gibson said in 2015. "Well, if I threw a fastball inside, especially a two seamer, it's going to hit them. And I wouldn't acknowledge, 'Oh, I'm sorry.' I would never acknowledge that. I just said, 'Gimme another ball, let's go,' so they thought I was throwing at everybody. And that was OK." Deep into retirement, Gibson pitched in an old timers' game and gave up a home run. The next batter was Richardson, just as it had been at the end of the 1964 World Series. With nothing at stake but pride, Gibson decided to play to his persona. "The guys on the bench said, 'I wouldn't go up there if I were you!'" Richardson said, laughing. "And I said, 'Surely not.' I'm 65 years old, no helmet. Well, I got up and the first pitch was right behind my head. I was glad to pop up later on and get out of there. But he was quite a competitor."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Worthy of a Romance Novel, With a Touch of Mystery Lauren Rae Pomerantz, an Emmy winning writer and producer, was new to Tinder when she came across the profile of Elizabeth Higgins Clark, also a writer. "I was nervous about the swiping," said Ms. Pomerantz, 38, of that moment in Los Angeles three years ago. "Elizabeth had a great photo with just her name and age. I was intrigued." About the same time, Ms. Clark, 34, who is a granddaughter of the best selling author Mary Higgins Clark, landed on Ms. Pomerantz's profile and also swiped right. More texts ensued. A meeting date, time and location were set: Saturday at 3 p.m., at Laurel Hardware, a store turned restaurant in West Hollywood, Calif. Both also made post drink plans in case the evening was a bust. Ms. Pomerantz was the first to arrive. "I watched her come in," she said of Ms. Clark. "She had a good swagger strut. It was confident. She was wearing a bright blue dress, had long flowy hair, and I thought, 'Who is this?'" But, Ms. Clark wasn't feeling confident at all. She met a friend for coffee that morning and had mentioned that she was contemplating returning to New York. "I had been dumped a few months before, which had blindsided me," she said. "I was having a tough time. I wasn't where I wanted to be professionally or relationship wise. I felt a little untethered." Ms. Pomerantz, she said, put her at ease. "Lauren was easy to talk to. She was together and humble and very funny. We had a really fun two drink date." Ms. Clark paid for drinks and goodbyes were said. The following day someone was expected to text first. "I have a thing it's weird with women," Ms. Clark said. "Usually the one who doesn't pay should reach out and say, 'Thank you.' But I didn't hear from Lauren. I broke my own rule. I wanted to see her again so I texted her. It took her six hours to get back to me. I was horrified. I was confused. I thought our date went well." Ms. Pomerantz happened to be on a bike trip. "I didn't know what to say," she said. "Elizabeth was only my third date with a woman. I wasn't really out to anyone. I was very reluctant to deal with it but knew I had to." Ms. Pomerantz redeemed herself when she texted back that evening, suggesting they have dinner at Pace Restaurant, also in West Hollywood. It turned out to be one of Ms. Clark's favorites. Their second date surpassed the first. Wine was shared. Stories about family and work lives were swapped. Ms. Pomerantz's late texting was forgiven. After dinner, they went to retrieve their cars. Ms. Pomerantz had valeted hers. Ms. Clark had not, and was parked a block away. "I consider this her 'move,'" Ms. Pomerantz said. "Elizabeth said, 'Walk me to my car and I'll drive you back.' We shared our first kiss in her car." The third date consisted of watching the movie "Grandma" at Ms. Pomerantz's home. They had pizza, and a heartfelt talk on her deck. "Lauren wasn't out to her parents or any of her family," Ms. Clark said. "I thought, maybe this isn't going to work. She was amazing but had a lot of work ahead of her. I knew things could get complicated. I'd have to keep my expectations in check." "I was proud of her for telling her parents," Ms. Clark said. "I found her to be remarkable. When she got back from the trip, everything seemed more possible." Tinder accounts were ceremoniously deleted and exclusivity followed. Thanksgiving and Christmas brought about the meeting of each other's families. New Year's was spent together at Ms. Pomerantz's friend's home in the Berkshires. "It was an important moment: It was the first time I had anyone romantic and significant to kiss on New Year's," Ms. Pomerantz said. "I knew early she was the one. I say no a lot to things because I'm scared. I didn't say no to being with her. I kept going forward." In August 2016, they celebrated their first anniversary by going to an Adele concert, and with Ms. Clark moving into Ms. Pomerantz's Beachwood Canyon home in Los Angeles. "I hadn't had a roommate since I was 23, but it became clear this was a real thing," Ms. Pomerantz said. By fall, both had fallen into a groove of togetherness: writing, eating, going to the gym. Almost a year later, on July 27, 2017, Ms. Clark proposed. They drove to Calamigos Ranch, in Malibu, Calf., where Ms. Clark had booked a room. She suggested they have a drink in the lobby and do The New York Times crossword puzzle she had brought. (Both crossword enthusiasts, Ms. Clark had contacted Brendan Emmett Quigley, a crossword constructor, to create a custom one.) By the 10th answer, Ms. Pomerantz realized all the clues had to do with her. "I could see my last name start to form; I was very confused," she said. "My brain was not computing. It didn't occur to me that she made a fake one." "We're both the same size. Why not be happy," Ms. Clark said. The couple married on May 27 before 250 guests at Ms. Clark's grandmother's home in Saddle River, N.J. Ms. Clark's aunt, Marilyn C. Clark, a New Jersey Superior Court judge, officiated, while Ms. Pomerantz's best friend, Kevin Leman, an executive producer for the "Ellen DeGeneres Show," played master of ceremony. "It's going to be a wonderful wedding and not a backdrop for a murder," he said, and gave a playful wink to Ms. Higgins Clark. "I always thought I would marry Lauren," he continued, "just not like this." The ceremony included the reciting of "You Are My Sunshine" by Ms. Clark's young brother David F. Clark and her cousin Courtney Morrison; a short reading from the Supreme Court Ruling of Obergefell v. Hodges; the brides' original Tinder exchange; and deeply moving vows each had written to one another. During the cocktail hour, four synchronized swimmers performed routines in Ms. Higgins Clark's pool. "They are both so lovely," said Ms. Higgins Clark, whose forthcoming novel, "I've Got My Eyes On You," is dedicated to the brides. "And they look at each other so lovingly." Ms. Clark's mother spoke similarly. "They are so well matched: Both are bright, talented, and sensitive. They understand each other," said Mary Jane Behrends Clark. "I saw them looking at each other last night at the rehearsal dinner and thought, 'They are really, really in love.'" Decorative lanterns hung from the glamorous clear top frame tent, which was decked with couches, love seats, and array of tables and chairs. Buffet stations, from Peter Luger dishes to infused mozzarella bombs, were among the offerings. "We both had our own challenges in coming out and getting to this place," Ms. Pomerantz said. "For everyone to be here supporting us is overwhelming and amazing. The fact that it all worked out and I got to marry Elizabeth is mind blowing." Ms. Clark, beaming, said, "I am very excited I have a wife. I hope being with her every night is as wonderful as this one."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
Before Xinjiang, there was Tibet. Repressive policies tested there between 2012 and 2016 were then applied to the Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in northwestern China: entire cities covered in surveillance cameras, ubiquitous neighborhood police stations, residents made to report on one another. Now that process also works the other way around. Xinjiang's coercive labor program which includes mandatory training for farmers and herders in centralized vocational facilities and their reassignment to state assigned jobs, some far away is being applied to Tibet. (Not the internment camps, though.) Call this a feedback loop of forcible assimilation. It certainly is evidence of the scale of Beijing's ruthless campaign to suppress cultural and ethnic differences and not just in Tibet and Xinjiang. I analyzed more than 100 policy papers and documents from the Tibetan authorities and state media reports for a study published with the Jamestown Foundation this week. Photos show Tibetans training, wearing fatigues. Official documents outline how Beijing is rolling out for them a militarized labor program much like the one in place in Xinjiang: Tibetan nomads and farmers are being rounded up for military style classes and taught work discipline, "gratitude" for the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese language skills. Tibet has long posed a particular challenge for the Chinese authorities. The region is very far from Beijing and strategically important because of its long border with India. Its people's culture is distinct, and the devotion of many Tibetans to the Dalai Lama, who simultaneously embodies religious and political power with a government in exile in India is a double threat in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party. The people of what the Chinese government refers to as the Tibet Autonomous Region about 3.5 million, mostly nomads and farmers scattered throughout the vast Himalayan plateau have resisted its encroachment for decades. Notably, riots broke out in the capital, Lhasa, in 2008, just weeks before the Olympic Games in Beijing, following years of tightening restrictions on cultural and religious freedoms. The main action plan also states that Tibetans are to be "encouraged" to hand over their land and herds to large scale, state run cooperatives and become shareholders in them. One state media account from late July about progress with poverty alleviation describes the program as an effort to get Tibetans to "put down the whip, walk out of the pasture and enter the market." Becoming wage laborers forces Tibetans to give up herding and farming, and cuts them off from ancient traditions and sacred landscapes. And that's just the point. Many of the program's main features, and objectives, bear a striking similarity with the plan in place in Xinjiang. So do other measures designed to marginalize Tibetan culture. For example, Beijing has drastically accelerated in recent years its efforts to minimize the teaching of the Tibetan language, including outside Tibet. In late 2015, Tashi Wangchuk, a Tibetan from the remote nomadic region of Yulshul in Qinghai Province, tried to sue his local government over the curtailment of Tibetan language education. In 2018, he was sentenced to five years in prison for "inciting separatism." I reviewed official recruitment notices for teaching jobs in Yulshul and noticed that the number of advertisements for posts for Tibetan and subjects to be taught in Tibetan declined by 90 percent between 2014 and 2019. Between 2010 and 2018, other Tibetan regions in Qinghai had recruited as many teachers for subjects taught in Tibetan as for subjects taught in Chinese. But in 2019 and this year so far, those regions advertised more than three times as many teaching positions for classes taught in Chinese than for classes in Tibetan. Similar shifts have happened in other Tibetan areas of China, like Ngawa Prefecture in Sichuan Province. Tibetan Buddhism is also under attack. In the spring of 2019, the mayor of Lhasa claimed that the year before "the number of days major religious activities were held and the number of people attending them both reduced to below 10 per cent." Last fall, Beijing started forbidding former government officials from practicing circumambulations at sacred sites. The authorities of the Chamdo region of Tibet, after announcing in 2017 plans to set up video surveillance systems in main Buddhist temples, have spent 275 million yuan (more than 40 million) on a cloud computing system that enables, among other things, what they call "intelligent temple management" a euphemism for comprehensive digital surveillance and control. This strategy has old roots. Back in 1989, the eminent Chinese anthropologist Fei Xiaotong wrote that through a long process of "mixing and melding," the Han majority and other ethnic groups in China would eventually combine into a single entity: the Chinese nation race. In Fei's view, the Han would be at the center of this fusion, because they were the superior culture into which so called backward minority groups would inevitably assimilate. The Chinese government adopted Fei's vision, and for a time tried to help it along with a large dose of top down economic development. In 2000, President Jiang Zemin launched the Great Western Development Campaign, bringing infrastructure and numerous Han to the western part of China. Local ethnic minorities would benefit from the new economic activity and employment opportunities so long as they were willing to assimilate culturally and linguistically. Many resisted. Local expressions of ethnic identities flourished. Tibetans and members of other minority groups flocked to schools that taught their languages, and kept their distinct religions alive. In a speech in the fall of 2019, President Xi Jinping reaffirmed Fei's vision of ethnic fusion. But Beijing's means to achieve it have changed.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
LOS ANGELES The planned sale of the Weinstein Company collapsed yet again on Tuesday, when the investor group that had agreed to purchase the embattled studio said that it had called off the deal after receiving "disappointing information." The investor group, led by Maria Contreras Sweet, who ran the Small Business Administration under President Barack Obama, and the Weinstein Company's board announced last week that an agreement to buy most of the assets of the near bankrupt studio had finally been reached. The deal called for the group to pay off the Weinstein Company's debt, which it believed totaled around 225 million. In return, the group would receive the majority of the studio's assets, which include "Project Runway" and a 277 film library. But once the buyers began looking deeper into the Weinstein Company's finances, they discovered that it had more debt than they had been led to believe, according to two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information. Additional liabilities totaling between 55 million and 65 million were discovered, including 27 million in unpaid residuals and profit participation; and 20 million in accounts payable. The Weinstein Company's board said in a statement that it was "disappointed" by the investors' decision to pull out of the agreement. "The investors' excuse that they learned new information about the company's financial condition is just that an excuse," the board said. "The company has been transparent about its dire financial condition." The board vowed that it would not stop trying to find a way to avoid bankruptcy. "We will continue to work tirelessly as we have for months to determine if there are any viable options," it said. Ms. Contreras Sweet declined to discuss the decision beyond a statement issued by the investor group, which included the billionaire Ron Burkle, who has a long history with the Weinstein Company, and Lantern Capital, a Texas private equity firm. "I believe that our vision to create a women led film studio is still the correct course of action," Ms. Contreras Sweet said in the statement. "To that end, we will consider acquiring assets that may become available in the event of bankruptcy proceedings, as well as other opportunities that may become available in the entertainment industry." Ms. Contreras Sweet went on to thank numerous parties, including Mr. Burkle and Tarak Ben Ammar, a Franco Tunisian financier and film producer who is one of three remaining members of the Weinstein Company's board. Conspicuously absent were the other two: Lance Maerov, an executive at the advertising giant WPP Group, and the co owner Bob Weinstein, who has been struggling to keep the studio afloat since October, when The New York Times and The New Yorker disclosed decades of sexual harassment allegations against his brother, Harvey Weinstein. The on again, off again effort by Ms. Contreras Sweet's group to buy most of the Weinstein Company's assets encountered its first major snag last month. Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, filed a lawsuit against the company and the Weinstein brothers on Feb. 11 alleging that they had violated state and city laws barring gender discrimination, sexual harassment and coercion. How Theranos changed tech coverage: 'You can't just buy what they're selling.' One meme stock lawsuit against Robinhood is dismissed, but others loom. At the time, Mr. Schneiderman said that the deal being discussed between Ms. Contreras Sweet and the Weinstein Company was unacceptable because it did not adequately compensate victims, protect employees and ensure that those who enabled or perpetuated Mr. Weinstein's conduct would not be rewarded. The Weinstein Company and the investor group moved to address those concerns, but the studio's board announced on Feb. 25 that it would file for bankruptcy because Ms. Contreras Sweet had not delivered on a promise to fund the studio's operations until a transaction was completed. Mr. Schneiderman got the deal back on track late last week, when he hosted a meeting between the two sides at his offices. He did so after the buyers and sellers had committed to terms that satisfied his concerns. The deal reached in that meeting, for instance, included a victims' fund worth up to 90 million. Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who jointly own about 42 percent of the Weinstein Company, would receive no cash from the sale. Amy Spitalnick, the press secretary for the attorney general, said in a statement on Tuesday that Mr. Schneiderman's lawsuit against the Weinstein Company and the Weinstein brothers remained active and an investigation into wrongdoings at the studio was ongoing. The attorney general's office also did not rule out the possibility that an already protracted sale process could have further twists. "We'll be disappointed if the parties cannot work out their differences and close the deal," Ms. Spitalnick said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
How would you like to be in a show called "Ballet"? No training is necessary, though some is allowed. The choreographer is a famous Frenchman, but he won't help you with your technique, only give you some basic instructions, expecting you to be yourself. An audience of art connoisseurs will watch and judge. Interested? At the Marian Goodman Gallery in Midtown on Friday, 13 men and women who answered yes to that question performed in Jerome Bel's "Ballet (New York)." Mostly amateurs as dancers, they formed a collective portrait of New York diversity. Some were young. Some were old. One was in a motorized wheelchair. All were asked to perform the same tasks. One by one, they crossed and recrossed the gallery's concrete floor, assigned a different task for each trip. First, while ballet music played (a Chopin prelude used in "Les Sylphides," the grand pas de deux music from "Don Quixote"), each did his or her idea of pirouettes and a grand jete. Then they waltzed to Strauss's "Blue Danube," grabbing one partner for their first pass and switching to another for the way back. For five minutes, they all improvised at once, and then, one by one again, everyone attempted Michael Jackson's moonwalk to the accompaniment of "Billie Jean." The exercise was leveling. Megan LeCrone, a soloist with New York City Ballet, executed the ballet steps most correctly, though in this context that didn't make her the best. Her moonwalk in point shoes was more impressive and more in the spirit of trying something outside her realm of expertise.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
The Dutch choreographer Jan Martens does not put on airs. At the Abrons Arts Center on Friday, he introduced himself to New York in shorts and sneakers, sitting onstage taking selfies with a laptop. The images were projected on the wall behind him, along with the words he typed: a list of 10 fairly simple things he was attempting in the solo he was performing. This was "Ode to attempt," the first of two works he brought to the Queer New York International Arts Festival. The piece was funny in a cute, mostly winning fashion. The frame cleverly lowered the stakes, but there was more to the work than its light humor. Mr. Martens built a little dance out of an athletic vocabulary of lunges and windmilling arms. It changed character when he added speed metal accompaniment. His "attempt to have an interlude" began as a joke but acquired a lovely sketched in quality, free in rhythm. The "attempt to go minimal" worked by accumulation, culminating in a jig step, and the bouncing took on new emphasis when he repeated it with his shorts pulled down.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
BUSTED IN NEW YORK And Other Essays By According to a rumor in New Orleans, an old family restaurant used to give a free ham to any police officer who killed a black person in the line of duty. The restaurant stopped doing this only in the 1980s, the story goes, when a black police officer came in to claim his ham. The lesson: In white America, a black man in a uniform is still just a black man. Observations like this one are at the heart of "Busted in New York," a new essay collection by the novelist and essayist . Pinckney has written for The New York Review of Books for decades, and most of the 25 essays here appeared there first. In his two novels, Pinckney focused on the interior lives of his black characters in settings including Berlin, Chicago and Indianapolis, where Pinckney was raised. Here, he reveals himself to be a skillful chronicler of black experience in literary criticism, reportage and biography. In the essays, written between 1994 and 2018, Pinckney reports from the streets of Ferguson, Mo., in the aftermath of the death of Michael Brown. He traces the ways in which the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fiery sermons nearly derailed Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2008. He charts, block by block, the gentrification of Harlem, and visits a recovering New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, where he tells the story of the ham. Read an excerpt from "Busted in New York." In "How I Got Over," he reflects on black expatriates from Richard Wright to James Baldwin, Pinckney's lodestar who left for Europe to escape Jim Crow, only to witness racism by another name: Islamophobia. But what stands out in this collection are the moments when Pinckney turns his eye toward the contradictions of the black bourgeoisie, of which he is a longtime member. Pinckney grew up in a middle class family, in the 1960s, when being black and middle class often meant being accused of "trying to act white," he writes. His mother and father were civil rights foot soldiers who in their spare time would do things like sue their hometown police department to force it to desegregate. His father "hawked N.A.A.C.P. memberships in airport men's rooms." His mother's cousin was lynched in 1931, while a student at Atlanta University. Pinckney's parents make appearances in several essays in the book, and even when they don't, he finds ways to make their spiritual presence tangible. In the title essay, he considers just how much has changed from his parents' generation to his own as he recalls being arrested on the Lower East Side with two female friends a banker and a scientist for smoking a joint on the street in Rudy Giuliani's New York. "Injustice had only to ring their doorbell, and they were off to the poorhouse," he writes of his parents. "And here was frivolous me letting a white man put me in handcuffs for something other than protest." A hazard of growing up black and middle class is the misguided belief that money and education will provide refuge from discrimination. Pinckney shows how those presumptions are often manifestations of internalized racism, and that even he is not immune to them. In his essay on Ferguson, he describes being afraid of two young black men on the street who turned out to be peaceful protesters. "I had to ask myself, and not for the first time, when did I become afraid of black youth?" Similarly, Pinckney wonders if the successful black men who complain of racial profiling in Charles Ogletree's book "The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Race, Class and Crime in America," written after Gates was arrested by a white police officer while trying to enter his own home, knew they sounded elitist and out of touch. Though their grievances are troubling, he writes, "one quickly understands the irritation of the black working poor with the outrage of black professionals at the social indignities they encounter. There are worse things than not having one's high social status acknowledged by whites." Not all of the essays have aged well. In "Dreams From Obama," from 2008, Pinckney writes that "however unpopular it has been as a public policy, affirmative action has succeeded in integrating the middle class," a statement that rings hollow now, especially in light of the recent college admissions scandals. His prose can also seem belabored and overwrought. Writing about Louis Farrakhan in 1995, in the aftermath of the Million Man March in Washington, he notes, "By locating disunity in the historical conspiracy of whites against blacks, he showed that acclaiming him was not a personal but a collective triumph over those who did not want to see blacks united." The crown jewel of this book is "Banjo," an essay that first appeared last year in the literary magazine Salmagundi. In it, Pinckney pinpoints a devastating irony of growing up in a privileged, intellectual milieu like his: Frequent conversations with his parents about race became a way for the family to deflect real intimacy. "To talk about the black condition made conversation seem personal," he writes, "a way of not talking about myself while seeming to." The pressure to live up to his parents' expectations led to its own kind of oppression, one he sought to escape by traveling to Europe but addresses head on in this essay, which captures his journey toward self discovery. Through race, Pinckney implies, we hide from each other and ourselves.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Nearly 20 years ago, after a chess playing computer called Deep Blue beat the world grandmaster Garry Kasparov, I wrote an article about why humans would long remain the champions in the game of Go. "It may be a hundred years before a computer beats humans at Go maybe even longer," Dr. Piet Hut, an astrophysicist and Go enthusiast at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., told me in 1997. "If a reasonably intelligent person learned to play Go, in a few months he could beat all existing computer programs. You don't have to be a Kasparov." That was the prevailing wisdom. Last month, after a Google computer program called AlphaGo defeated the Go master Lee Se dol, I asked Dr. Hut for his reaction. "I was way off, clearly, with my prediction," he replied in an email. "It's really stunning." At the time, his pessimism seemed well founded. While Deep Blue had been trained and programmed by IBM with some knowledge about chess, its advantage lay primarily in what computer scientists call brute force searching. At each step of the game Deep Blue would rapidly look ahead, exploring a maze of hypothetical moves and countermoves and counter countermoves. Then it would make the choice that its algorithms ranked as the best. No living brain could possibly move so fast. But in Go, an ancient board game renowned for its complexity, the ever forking space of possibilities is so much vaster that sheer electronic speed was not nearly enough. Capturing in a computer something closer to human intuition the ability to seek and respond to meaningful patterns seemed crucial and very far away. Other seemingly distant goals included the ability to translate automatically between two languages or to recognize speech with enough accuracy to be useful outside the laboratory. Computer scientists had already spent decades trying to crack these problems. For many, the aim was not just to make an artificial intelligence, but to understand deep principles of syntax, semantics and phonetics, and even what it means to think. Now anyone with a smartphone or laptop (communing by Internet with a supercomputing cloud) can get a rough translation of text in many languages. They can dictate instead of type. Photo software can sort not just by date and location but by the faces of the subjects. The results are imperfect and often clumsy, but they would have been mind blowing in 1997. What happened between then and now? Of course, computers became ever more powerful. But even today's fastest aren't able to anticipate all of the permutations of a situation like playing Go. Success on this and other fronts has come from harnessing speed in other ways. The breakthrough in translation came from setting aside the question of what it means to understand a language and just finding a technology that works. The automated systems start with a text that has already been translated, by human brains. Then both versions are fed to a computer. By rapidly comparing the two, the machine compiles a thicket of statistical correlations, associating words and phrases with their likely foreign counterparts. Similar approaches, more artificial than intelligent, have led to surprisingly rapid improvements in recognizing speech and facial images, as well as with playing championship Go. In AlphaGo, learning algorithms, called deep neural nets, were trained using a database of millions of moves made in the past by human players. Then it refined this knowledge by playing one split second game after another against itself. Tweak by algorithmic tweak, it became ever more adept at the game. By combining this insensate learning, which amounts to many human lifetimes of experience, with a technique called Monte Carlo tree search, named for the ability to randomly sample a universe of possible moves, AlphaGo prevailed. That was an enormous victory. But the glory goes not to the computer program but to the human brains that pulled it off. At the end of the tournament in Seoul, South Korea, 15 of them took the stage. They represented just a fraction of the number of people it took to invent and execute all of the technologies involved. Lee Se dol was playing against an army. Back in 1997 I wrote, "To play a decent game of Go, a computer must be endowed with the ability to recognize subtle, complex patterns and to draw on the kind of intuitive knowledge that is the hallmark of human intelligence." Defeating a human Go champion, I wrote, "will be a sign that artificial intelligence is truly beginning to become as good as the real thing." That doesn't seem so true anymore. Ingenious learning algorithms combined with "big data" have led to impressive accomplishments what has even been called bottled intuition. But artificial intelligence is far from rivaling the fluidity of the human mind. "Humans can learn to recognize patterns on a Go board and patterns related to faces and patterns in language and even patterns of patterns," said Melanie Mitchell, a computer scientist at Portland State University and the Santa Fe Institute. "This is what we do every second of every day. But AlphaGo only recognizes patterns related to Go boards and has no ability to generalize beyond that even to games similar to Go but with different rules. "Also, it takes millions of training examples for AlphaGo to learn to recognize patterns," she continued, "whereas it only seems to take humans a few." Computer scientists are experimenting with programs that can generalize far more efficiently. But the squishy neural nets in our heads shaped by half a billion years of evolution and given a training set as big as the world can still hold their own against ultra high speed computers designed by teams of humans, programmed for a single purpose and given an enormous head start. "It was a regrettable game, but I enjoyed it," Mr. Lee said during the award ceremony. (Regret, enjoy these words do not compute.) He added that the contest "clearly showed my weaknesses, but not the weakness of humanity." Picking up the plaque and bouquet he had been given as consolation prizes, he laughed nervously and stumbled from the stage. Several days later, he said he would like a rematch.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
"If it remains a hashtag and it remains a movement, then it's going to die. It's got to become a part of our lives that women should no longer be in silence about sexual assault. It's a crime." "This is a really unusual moment in our history." "There's sort of a magic in the air, that's pushing systemic change." "I think that the Academy can bring a little pressure to bear on agencies and studios. You know, I don't know who else really can." "Tonight will be a continued message, a voice." "Hollywood sets a standard and it helps raise the bar. And it has trickled out into other fields. But I think the focus has to shift at this point." "I've been a feminist for years, and we fought for many rights. But slowly it moves." "As long as we continue to support each other as women, Time's Up will never go away. And as long as the consequences remain, you know, people will stop doing what they're doing." "As I become more and more of a producer, it's very important for me to continue to make sure that we hire not only women in front of the camera and as directors but women as cinematographers and all the other positions as well. And I think we just have to do that until we don't have to do it anymore. Until it's equal." "You know, generally we need to broaden the conversation. So white, straight men are asked to comment on this on the red carpet. You know, sometimes it works out where men talk about the craft, women talk about the issues. And I think men should be forced to interrogate their identity. I'm constantly interrogating what it means to be a woman. I'm constantly asked to figure out what it means to be black. I'm constantly asked to interrogate what it means to be a lesbian." "If you study ancient civilizations that have lasted a long time it's because they put women up in the society. We held women up. And I think that is something that we can learn from. And I think it's a beautiful thing, you know? I love my mama." "It makes me very excited for the new generations. And I hope they don't forget, so they can appreciate the opportunities, and they work harder than ever so that we can be proven right. That the female force, it's an untapped potential that can really make a difference everywhere." "There's probably a lot of things wrong about Hollywood, but I stay away from that part. And I don't allow myself to be in places I shouldn't. That's how you fix it. Know your surroundings. And if you don't know, wear a chastity belt." "Legislation needs to be passed; people need to be held accountable for what they've done." "I can't think of what the legislative way would be. But I always think of same sex marriage as, like, that was a really they changed the law. And I don't know what came first, but the thinking and the law changed, and the world really changed around that. I hope MeToo has the same effect." "If we can continue to find purpose and me at my particular age purpose in what we do. That purpose, we carry that translated into another way, in which we deal with ordinary citizens and young actors and young producers and young directors and young actresses who are coming up." "Thank you so much." "Have a great night."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Clothes may make the man, but does that apply to supermodels? On Monday, at Milk Studios in Chelsea, seven former European supermodels paraded in the most basic of outfits: black turtlenecks, black tights, black heels. Some added white shirts or smocks, but they all wore two most unusual accessories: a headset microphone and a battery pack. This was "Models Never Talk," a performance organized by the fashion curator and historian Olivier Saillard for the French Institute Alliance Francaise's Crossing the Line festival and MADE Fashion Week. In gentle defiance of the title's assumption, these models did talk. They reminisced about their glory days, recalling first fittings and final showings. They invoked designers they had served in the 1980s and '90s: Yves Saint Laurent, Jean Paul Gaultier. And tenderly, in sensual detail, the models remembered what they once wore. These women remembered clothes the way some people remember lovers. (Mr. Saillard edited their memories into a script.) But they did not just talk. As they described how fabric gathered at the waist or broke softly at the shoes, they made motions that crossed tracing the shape of the outfit with pretending to put it on. Between the words and the actions, it was possible to imagine the couture and how it felt to be inside it. The models talked about tightness and looseness, and without any lecture demonstration dryness, they showed how cut, style and footwear affect gait. These are women who know how to walk. Although there was music (some odd submarine pinging, some Satie or Glass like piano), the segments closest to dance (with one model mirroring another) were less interesting than those highlighting such basic fashion show choreography as the lineup and the militaristic advance toward spectators.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
The word "ballerina" simply means, in Italian, a female dancer. But in the Anglo Saxon dance world, it means quite specifically a female practitioner of ballet and not just any female practitioner, but one who has reached the summit of her art, who exemplifies the essential attributes of classical dance. (France and Italy still don't use the word in this sense, although the Paris Opera Ballet gives us "etoiles" or stars.) What those attributes must be has probably changed from era to era. Today we value, indeed expect, absolute technical mastery from a top ballerina, and we want musicality, dramatic power, charm, assertiveness and radiance, too. Within the top ranks of ballerinadom, there are subtle gradations. While major ballet companies usually have plenty of dancers who fully deserve the title of ballerina, most don't boast more than one or two who will define their generation and redefine its accomplishments. At New York City Ballet, however, there are, right now, at least five ballerinas Ashley Bouder, Sterling Hyltin, , Tiler Peck and Teresa Reichlen who are at the peak of their powers and among the greatest exemplars of the art form right now. (The company's other female principals are no slouches either.) These five all did their final years of training at the City Ballet affiliated School of American Ballet, and all joined the company between 2000 and 2005; perhaps there was something in the water. Of course there have been major figures Maria Kowroski, and until their retirements, Jenifer Ringer and, most of all, Wendy Whelan over the past 15 years. City Ballet watchers will evoke similar convergences of talent Suzanne Farrell, Merrill Ashley, Darci Kistler, Kyra Nichols among others in the 1970s and 1980s. (At that time a singular choreographer, Balanchine, was developing dancers, although this is not the case now.) When Ms. Mearns was cast as Odette/Odile in "Swan Lake" in January 2006, she was just 18 and unknown to most ballet fans. She had joined the company two years earlier, and for the first 18 months, she said in a telephone interview, she danced little and entertained grave doubts about her career. Then, in a bold stroke, Peter Martins, the company's ballet master in chief, gave her one of the most important roles in the ballerina canon. The beauty and breadth of Ms. Mearns's dancing left audiences agog. Her physical eloquence, her immensely expressive eyes, the drama and authority of her musical timing have grown only fuller and richer over the last few years as she has found her way through the Balanchine and Robbins repertoire and in new work. The slow movement in "Symphony in C," and "Serenade," which she will dance next week, are among her greatest roles, but you can rely on the unpredictable nuance and detail of her interpretations to keep evolving and surprising. There is danger in the full on passion and scale of her dancing (in 2009, I wrote that her Dewdrop in "The Nutcracker" was "mesmerizing, almost alarming"). You feel, in every nerve ending, the risks she is willing to take, how far she will expose herself onstage. It's never less than thrilling. Small, dimpled, bouncy, a California girl with irrepressible energy and a batten down the hatches technique, Ms. Peck doesn't conform to the old fashioned idea of a glamorous, remote ballerina. She grew up (in Bakersfield, Calif.) doing, as she put it, "ballettapjazz" at her mother's dance school, focused on dance competitions, and by 11 was on Broadway in a featured role in Susan Stroman's 2000 revival of "The Music Man." (Ms. Peck recently reprised her song and dance career, to much acclaim, in "The Little Dancer," another musical by Ms. Stroman.) But during that year, she began to take ballet classes at the School of American Ballet. "I fell in love with the Balanchine technique," Ms. Peck said in a telephone interview. "It was so, well, difficult." That liking for a challenge is evident in her dancing, which combines exceptional speed with incisive clarity. Although she is known for her allegro work and the kinds of Balanchine demi character roles once brilliantly performed by Patricia McBride (Swanilda in "Coppelia," "Donizetti Variations," "Tarantella"), she can also demonstrate lyricism and grandeur. Perhaps the most wonderful quality of Ms. Peck's dancing is the way she can stretch time, even within the fastest sequences. Her luscious plunges into backbend in the "Nutcracker" pas de deux, her crystalline footwork in "Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux" these moments seem offered to us like individual jewels, brought out just for our delectation. Balanchine famously told his dancers to "just do" the steps, not to interpret them a calming injunction to subsume the self in the movement, to become the dance. (Not, as some take it to mean, a command not to think.) For those who missed the Balanchine glory days, Ms. Reichlen might best sum up this philosophy. Tall, leggy and cool, she is a kind of chameleon; while we have little sense (as we do with some other dancers) of her personality offstage, her accounts of her roles are breathtakingly compelling. In "Agon" (which she will perform next Sunday), she is all geometric clarity; in "Rubies," she is cheerleader glamorous and sexy; in "The Firebird," she is, quite literally, a force of nature; in "Prodigal Son," a ferociously predatory Siren. Ms. Reichlen said in a telephone conversation that she had thought she was too tall for City Ballet when she was a student, and was surprised to be offered a place. "I am typecast sometimes because I'm tall," she said. "But I want to dance everything." It looks like perhaps she can. The Texas born Ms. Hyltin has a delicate, fly away physique, with long thin limbs and an ephemeral delicacy that has made her a natural for Aurora in "The Sleeping Beauty" and a "Nutcracker" Sugar Plum Fairy of every little girl's dreams. But Ms. Hyltin, who said that she had wanted to dance with City Ballet from the moment she arrived at the School of American Ballet ("I never wanted to do 32 fouettes every day") has a gift for comedy, and gravitas, too. Her performances in Balanchine's "Symphony in Three Movements" are filled with an implacable force; she commands your attention by the sheer focus and inwardness of her dancing. "Was 'Duo' really this good in the 1970s?" asked Alastair Macaulay, the chief dance critic for The New York Times, writing in 2013 of her performance, with Robert Fairchild, in Balanchine's "Duo Concertant." Like Ms. Peck, she possesses the gift of musical anticipation; the art of seeming to occasionally make the music respond to her movement; and of revealing new accents and dynamics within a score. With Ms. Hyltin, we feel something that can often get lost in an onrush of technique and craft she is really dancing. When Ms. Bouder was thrown onstage at 17 in the demi soloist role in Balanchine's "La Source," seasoned watchers actually gasped at her incredibly buoyant jump and insouciant confidence. (I was one of them.) She has continued to make audiences marvel at her energy and authority as she has marched up the City Ballet ranks, winning a fond reputation among ballet fans for often falling onstage. In Balanchine lore, this is considered a good thing, if mortifying; it shows the dancer is holding nothing back. That's certainly true of Ms. Bouder, who is sometime criticized for performance overkill. (In a City Ballet video, she says that if she wasn't a dancer, she would probably be a politician; this seems right.) But she is never less than fully herself onstage, instantly recognizable for the blazing glee of her dancing and the wit of her timing. Next week, she is in Balanchine's "Serenade" and "Donizetti Variations," in which she is at her best.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
City Center's Fall for Dance Festival is supposed to be a varied sampler, with the four selections of each program spanning a wide range. This year's Program 4 encompassed dancers from several countries, students and professionals, doing ballet, contemporary and hip hop. But as seen on Thursday, the show revealed a sedative level of sameness. The world premiere was "Ostinato," created by Tim Harbour, the resident choreographer of the Australian Ballet, and performed by three of its dancers. The title points to the score, Bill Evans's "Peace Piece," in which (as played live by Brian Cousins) the pianist's left hand keeps up a Satie like, two chord ostinato, as the right hand wanders into dissonances and rhythmic complexity. It's beautiful music, reflective and lonely, but it offers no impetus for dancing. Mr. Harbour's trio begins with two men, and when the woman enters, the possibility of a love triangle arises. The choreography flirts with that possibility, but the work, like the ostinato, doesn't go anywhere. It has the dancers respond to the dissonances with cringing and tacked on body part isolations that are cringe inducing. But, mainly, it unspools pretty ballet as the music lullingly rocks a cradle.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Kenneth Berry, 41, with his 10 year old son, Keing, in Los Angeles in September. Mr. Berry, who was shot more than 20 years ago, has struggled with pain since. A Medicaid card has brought him more treatment. Why Gunshot Victims Have Reason to Like the Affordable Care Act Kenneth Berry can feel the bullets in his body move. One jiggles down his leg toward his ankle; another presses on his sciatic nerve; a third has migrated to his hip. The three bullets have been inside Mr. Berry, 41, for more than two decades, pumped into him when he was a teenager near St. Louis. Now, after years without health coverage, besieged by untreated nerve pain and hunched over a cane, he finally has the golden ticket to get the medical procedures that will bring relief: a Medicaid card. This is a surprising effect of the Affordable Care Act, the landmark health care law that now faces an uncertain future given the Republican Party's victory in the presidential election and its control of both houses of Congress. By funding the expansion of state Medicaid programs beyond the traditional populations of poor mothers and children, the law has brought coverage to tens of thousands of previously uninsured shooting victims, often young African American men, who, once stabilized in emergency rooms, missed out on crucial follow up care and have endured unremitting effects of nerve injuries, fractured bones, intestinal damage and post traumatic stress disorder. The same states that have opted to expand Medicaid, including California, Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Maryland and Pennsylvania, suffer high numbers of firearm injuries. The law is profoundly changing how gunshot victims in these states heal from grievous injuries by guaranteeing access to specialists, physical therapy, nursing home care, antibiotics, wound supplies and wheelchairs, according to dozens of interviews with trauma surgeons, rehabilitation specialists, anti violence groups and shooting victims. "Some of my patients would be missing their skulls three months after the injury and have to wear helmets," said Dr. Michael Ajluni, a traumatic brain injury specialist at the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan in Detroit. "Now they can get their skulls back in place." Officials at urban hospitals across the country estimated that before the health law, more than half of their gunshot patients were uninsured. Obligated under federal law, hospitals provided hundreds of millions of dollars in unreimbursed services. Trauma surgeons called in favors for scarce charity openings with specialists, but more often grudgingly sent uninsured patients home, knowing they were unlikely to receive essential follow up care. Patients needing bowel diversion surgery, for example, a common necessity for those shot in the abdomen that should be surgically reversed after the intestines heal, instead walked around for months or even years with temporary colostomy bags because many hospitals would not treat them without health insurance. The first bullet that flew through Jerold Exson's car window pierced him just below his right eye, ricocheted off his jaw and lodged in his throat. Six more bullets shattered his left forearm as he sought to shield his head. Another two went into his chest, and the last gashed his scalp. The gunman who fired at him on July 13, 2014, had the wrong man. Mr. Exson, out on an errand in his neighborhood on the west side of Chicago and anxious to start a construction job with full benefits the next day, was rushed to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital. Seven months earlier, in January 2014, the Affordable Care Act began allowing states to enroll most adults with annual incomes below 16,000 into Medicaid. So far, 31 states and the District of Columbia have chosen to do so, and over 14 million people are newly covered by Medicaid more than all Americans who gained coverage under the health law's insurance exchanges. For Mr. Exson, the benefits were immediate. Medicaid paid the 100,000 bill for his two week hospital stay and gave him access to specialists that even safety net hospitals like Stroger have long struggled to provide. Mr. Exson's arduous recovery has involved ongoing care from an ear, nose and throat doctor, an orthopedist, a neurologist, a dentist, a urologist and a psychiatrist and psychologist. Occupational therapists have helped him relearn how to tie his shoes, button his shirt and hold a pen. "You start getting treated like anybody else when you need care, like a regular citizen," said Mr. Exson, now 41 and recently employed as a limo driver. He has had seven surgeries, with perhaps more to come; doctors are considering replacing a tendon to quiet severe pain in his arm. Medical professionals around the country said exhaustive and continuous medical care like this was the exception before the Medicaid expansion. "One of my nurses used to shop for medical equipment at garage sales," said Mary Sajdak, the senior director for integrated care at Cook County Health and Hospitals System in Chicago. "The improvement has been palpable," said Dr. James Tyburski, chief of trauma surgery at Detroit Receiving Hospital. Since the Medicaid expansion began, hospital trauma department revenue has skyrocketed, said Dr. Adil Haider, director of the Center for Surgery and Public Health at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. The financial boon has made administrators more willing to manage the post acute needs of new Medicaid patients. Researchers at the Urban Institute found that before the Medicaid expansion, uninsured shooting victims were admitted for inpatient care less often than insured victims and received less intensive treatment when they were admitted. Still, even in states that have embraced the Medicaid expansion, some doctors have been slow to shed old protocols designed to keep people out. Four weeks after a bullet knocked his teeth akimbo, split his tongue and burst through his neck, Martise Gray, 21, sat at a Starbucks in South Chicago in a black tank top that read "Born in the 90s." He learned that he was eligible for Medicaid only after he was discharged from Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Ill., he said, when his case manager from CeaseFire, an anti violence group, urged him to enroll. Weeks passed before he received an acceptance letter from CountyCare, the Chicago Medicaid plan, and even with the letter, receptionists at an orthodontist and an ear, nose and throat doctor have refused to schedule him until he has a Medicaid card. Without the card, a pharmacist told him, the prescription grade gauze needed for his bullet wound would cost 49. Pointing to a paper towel taped to his neck that covered a drainage tube, Mr. Gray said proudly, "That's my own little creation." Impatient to heal up so he could start a truck delivery job with Frito Lay, Mr. Gray said he changed the paper towels when they became saturated. The opaque rules of managed care plans can bewilder and frustrate new Medicaid patients. And as the number of new enrollees has surged, states have struggled to provide and enforce adequate access to specialists who complain they are woefully underpaid by Medicaid. Legal aid groups in several states have raised concerns that trauma patients are facing unreasonably long waits for appointments, especially for mental health care. Referrals are often far away, and low income patients who rely on public transportation to reach their appointments seemingly have no recourse. "People say, 'It's taken me months to get these services,' and I'll say, 'It should take three weeks,'" said Elizabeth Landsberg, a former director of policy advocacy at the Western Center on Law and Poverty, a legal aid group based in Sacramento. Despite the growing pains associated with the expansion of Medicaid, the improvements in care and quality of life for men like Kenneth Berry are evident. In a sleekly decorated waiting room at a clinic in Beverly Hills, Calif., Mr. Berry shifted in a white leather chair, his long estrangement from the health care system finally over. Now enrolled in L.A. Care, a Medicaid managed care plan in Los Angeles, Mr. Berry sought an orthopedic surgeon to relieve the pain he had long felt with every step. To his disappointment, the surgeon recommended against removing the bullet in his right hip and the one in his shattered shinbone for fear of causing more nerve damage. Instead, the doctor recommended cortisone shots from the pain specialist in Beverly Hills. He'd since had two shots and waited nervously in the doctor's office for his third. "My posture is better, and I'm walking a little faster," Mr. Berry said. "I had been bent over and felt like an 80 year old man." His Medicaid card has replaced uncertainty with security. Without it, he said, "I would still be waiting."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
Mila and Emma Stauffer, 2 year old twin sisters who live with their parents and three older siblings near Phoenix, were sitting on the floor, having a discussion about what they might be when they grow up. "Maybe a teacher?" Emma said. "Emma, you hate blood," her sister said. The video of this conversation was filmed by their 14 year old sister, Kaitlin, this past summer. It appeared originally on their mother's Instagram page, where it has since been viewed 4.4 million times. Mila and Emma have done advertising work for Amazon, Nest, Dollar Rental Car, Macy's and Walmart, among other companies. They're flying to New York in October to shoot video spoofs of movies including "Clueless" and "Mean Girls" for Harper's Bazaar. "It is really lucrative," said Katie Stauffer, their mother. "But I wish people knew that this is my job now." She wouldn't detail exactly how much money the children are bringing in, but she said she was recently able to leave her position as an escrow officer after 12 years, much to the relief of herself and her husband, a doctor. With her working outside the home, "my kids weren't getting what they needed," she said. Still, Ms. Stauffer often gets criticized in the comments of her Instagram feed, where people frequently remark on the food she lets her children eat and the brands she takes money from. After a sponsored post for a brand of chicken, "we got a lot of flak," she said. Instead she stages photo shoots many times a week, during which the girls do relaxed toddler things: make princess cakes; drag dolls dressed like the twins; or sit in wagons while having staring contests in front of the family's stately red doored home. The images are then posted to Ms. Stauffer's 2.2 million followers. Recently a Stauffer video got a coveted repost from Kris Jenner, perhaps the ultimate authority on building daughters' brands. " iminlove," Ms. Jenner wrote. Kaitlin often cues the children their more sophisticated lines. In one recent video, Mila addresses a date with her friend Sawyer that went boringly wrong when he paid more attention to his sports league than to her. "Fantasy football?" Mila said, while raising her palm talk to the hand style. "So basic." Ross Smith, a 25 year old social media star (he has four million Facebook followers, 1.5 million on Instagram, and an average Snapchat post gets about one million views), has collaborated with several children. "Kids are the new social influencer," he said. He is not a parent himself, but he understands the instinct to seize on corporate offers when they arise. "Kids grow up and become less relevant. The sweet spot is between 2 and 4," after which, Mr. Smith said, "they're not that cute." Mr. Smith lives in Columbus, Ohio, and is best known for videos he shoots with his 91 year old "Granny" (whom he prefers not to name). They have worked with Mila, making a video of Granny giving her dating advice. It posted in September and has been viewed more than 31 million times on Mr. Smith's Facebook page. He has also teamed up with Korbin Jackson, a 3 year old from Dothan, Ala., who is best known for his soccer and Ping Pong ball trick shot videos. Their video pitted Korbin against his sparring partner (whose T shirt said, "Straight Outta the Nursing Home") in a trick shot battle. It has been viewed 18 million times on Mr. Smith's Facebook page. To film it, Mr. Smith flew Korbin and his parents to Ohio. Upon arriving to Mr. Smith's house, Korbin said he needed a nap, so the production was halted for an hour or so. "It's hard to work with kids, but it's fun," Mr. Smith said. Korbin got his start in social media accounts after his parents made accounts to share videos and pictures of him with friends and family. His father, a former professional arena football player with his own large social media following, began to post videos of the bespectacled, ebullient child doing sports tricks. Ten of Korbin's videos have been featured on ESPN, and he has been interviewed by news stations in Japan and Romania. His Instagram feed has nearly 65,000 followers. Born with a disability, Korbin spent two and a half years doing physical therapy. "He finds so much joy and happiness in life, and we are so proud to share his good energy," said his mother, Stephanie Jackson. She said when Korbin arrives at school with his father, the older children surround him and ask to take selfies with the local celebrity. "When Korbin gets to high school, his following will be huge," she said. "That Instagram just set him up for greatness." Korbin receives a lot of free stuff in the mail, and his parents often tag the brands in posts. Unsolicited, Ms. Jackson said, GoPro sent about 2,000 worth of camera equipment. Many sportswear companies send packages. Korbin's feed frequently promotes Under Armour. "They send him boxes once a month," his mother said. "It's not a paper deal, it's not a contract, they are inspired by him." Aware of the existence of online predators, she tries to limit the number of people who know the family's home address. "We do get weird emails and DMs like 'We will meet him no matter what you say,'" Ms. Jackson said. In May, a video of him putting out the candle on a birthday cake by kicking a ball that hits and extinguishes the flame went viral. His parents sold the licensing rights to Jukin Media, and took him to the bank to open an account in his name, where any payment related to his videos would be deposited. He has earned about 5,000. "That's Korbin's money, not ours," she said. Laws that regulate children's rights to money earned by parents using their images on social media aren't clear, lawyers say. In California, the so called Coogan Law named for the child star Jackie Coogan, who worked with Charlie Chaplin in "The Kid" mandates that a portion of money earned by child actors be placed in trust for the children. But the law is written about children being employed or placed under contract with third parties. When parents are paid by brands to post images and videos of their children on social media, or they make money from YouTube ads, are children owed anything? "These are uncharted waters," said Anthony Amendola, a partner at the Los Angeles law firm Mitchell Silberberg Knupp. There are plenty of parents eager to jump in. Destiny Bennett and her husband, Devonte, moved to Los Angeles earlier this year and decided that acting would be a good career for their son Caidyn, 4. But when he didn't get the audition callbacks that his parents had hoped for, they decided to try marketing his talents through videos posted to Instagram and YouTube. "We told him, 'We can do our own auditions, and you can talk about anything you want.'" Earlier this month, they posted a video in which Caidyn laments the way people touch his dreadlocks without his permission. "I hate when I am with my mommy and people say, 'Oh, are those braids?' And it's like, 'No, Susan, those are dreads.'" Caidyn says. "But my mommy says I have to be polite." The video was a success, giving rise to a hashtag NoSusan and bringing a total of 15,000 followers to his personal Instagram feed. His parents have been contacted about brand sponsorships. Ms. Bennett says Caidyn is not yet sure if he will continue to focus on making viral videos, or the clothing line that she says he is preparing with his brother, who is 1. "We are a family of entrepreneurs," she said. Josh Gaines, known on social media as "Josh Darnit," previously used the six second video loop platform Vine, which was introduced on Twitter in 2013, to post videos of his children, most successfully his young son Evan smacking his dad. Making Vine videos was easy, he said, and he could repackage them on YouTube to generate revenue in addition to sponsorships. When Vine shut down in 2016, Mr. Gaines recalibrated his focus on videos for Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. These videos require more production resources. Evan, now 7, has grown bored. "What I don't like about doing them is they take a superlong time, and sometimes Dad tells me to say hard words. Like 'subscribe,'" Evan said. Fortunately, his older sister, Johnna, 11, has stepped up. "Once we got to that age that Evan resisted a lot, I shifted more to my daughter," Mr. Gaines said. "She is a little workhorse." Improvised videos are easier. "I like to be in the spotlight," Johnna said. "If we have to do a script and Dad is telling us what to say, like an ad for a toy, or when we were doing the ones for the drones that had a script, that felt more like work." For a deal he cut with Best Buy, Mr. Gaines enticed Evan and Johnna to spend their last week of summer vacation taking a road trip to a Nintendo World Championship qualifiers, which were taking place at a few Best Buy stores. On the trip, Mr. Gaines would post pictures and videos to Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Each of the children got a new Nintendo Switch game system, he said. He and his wife, Sarah, said they don't pay the children or split revenue with them. The family's standard of living is improved when the social media business is going well, and all members benefit, they said. Best Buy wanted to team with the "Darnit Family" because they have broad reach across many digital platforms and are known for family fun. "They are on a road trip as a family and are having fun through Best Buy, and that's exactly the message we want people to get excited about," said Shane Kitzman, a Best Buy spokesman. He would not disclose any financial details about the partnership. She looks for exciting experiences for Ava, who is 7. In August, W magazine flew Ava and her mother to New York to shoot a video of Ava taking on the character of a fashion editor, uttering phrases including "This is what I wear when I eat a big pint of ice cream. Wait, I haven't eaten ice cream in 17 years." The video has been viewed 35 million times across various Conde Nast magazine Facebook pages, according to Anne Sachs, W's executive digital director. Though Ava writes her ideas for video in a journal and will ask to do them regularly, "sometimes I tell her, 'Let's just got to the park instead of doing a video right now,'" Ms. Ryan said. "This is like her little side project in life. She's happy and that's all that matters." Zoie Fenty, a former Starbucks shift supervisor in Atlanta who now earns a living making videos, also finds joy in children's online performances. Mr. Fenty has done mash ups of him "FaceTiming" with youngsters in viral videos, including Mila. As she described her experience of visiting a preschool ("The kids are insane, throwing staplers, pooping everywhere!") Mr. Fenty appears in the bottom left corner of the screen, shaking his head in sympathy and horror. ("What? Ohmaga!") "Kids are entertaining, they don't care what anyone thinks," Mr. Fenty said in a phone interview. "There used to be a show called 'Kids Say the Darndest Things.' This is it today."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
The economic contraction we're experiencing is the fastest on record, by a large margin; we've probably lost as many jobs over the past two weeks as we did in the whole of the Great Recession. The policy response is also gigantic, several times as large a share of GDP as the Obama stimulus. But it seems to me that we're still not having a very clear discussion of the economics of what's happening, why we're doing it, and what implications all this will have for the longer term, once the pandemic ends. So I've been trying to think it through in terms of a simple model not even one involving any explicit equations, although I don't think that would be hard to do. The main moral of this analysis is that what we should be doing and to some extent what we are doing is more like disaster relief than normal fiscal stimulus, although there's a stimulus element too. This relief can and should be debt financed. There may be a slight hangover from this borrowing, but it shouldn't pose any major problems. The nature of the problem What we're experiencing is not a conventional recession brought on by a slump in aggregate demand. Instead, we're going into the economic equivalent of a medically induced coma, in which some brain functions are deliberately shut down to give the patient time to heal. To simplify things, think of the economy as consisting of two sectors, nonessential services (N) that we can shut down to limit human interactions and hence the spread of the disease, and essential services (E) that we can't (or perhaps don't need to, because they don't involve personal interaction.) We can and should close down the N sector until some combination of growing immunity, widespread testing to quickly find and isolate cases, and, if we're very lucky, a vaccine let us return to normal life. For those (like me) still receiving their regular paychecks, this period of shutdown call it the coronacoma will be annoying but not serious. I miss coffee shops and concerts, but can live without them for however long it takes. Things will, however, be very different and dire for those who are deprived of their regular income while the coronacoma lasts. This group includes many workers and small businesses; it also includes state and local governments, which are required to balance their budgets but are seeing revenues collapse and expenses soar. How big is the N sector? Miguel Faria e Castro of the St. Louis Fed summarizes estimates that are as good as any: 27 to 67 million people, which he averages to 47 million. That's a lot; we could be looking at a temporary decline in real GDP of 30 percent or more. But that GDP decline isn't the problem, since it's a necessary counterpart of the social distancing we need to be doing. The problem instead is how to limit the hardships facing those whose normal income has been cut off. What can be done to help those cut off from their normal incomes during this period of national lockdown? They don't need jobs we don't want them working at a time when normal work routines can spread a deadly disease. What they need, instead, is money. That is, what's needed now is disaster relief, not economic stimulus. OK, a few qualifications. Some idled workers may be able to switch to doing other things at fairly short notice say, Uber drivers making deliveries for Amazon. But that can't absorb more than a small fraction of the idled work force. A more important point is that if we fail to provide enough help to those afflicted by this crisis, they will be forced to sharply cut their spending even on goods and services we can still produce, leading to a gratuitous further rise in unemployment (and a multiplier process as laid off workers cut spending even more.) So aid to those in the shutdown sector actually does include an element of conventional fiscal stimulus, even though that's not its central goal. Finally, the sudden shutdown of revenue streams for many businesses is creating financial stresses that resemble those of 2008 2009, with prices of risky assets plunging and investors trying to pile into government bonds. So the Fed is right to be going all out doing "whatever it takes" to stabilize financial markets. In other words, there are pieces of this crisis that resemble conventional recession fighting. But the core issue remains disaster relief for those hit hardest by the lockdown. How do we pay for relief? Where will the government get the money for the 2 trillion bill Congress has already passed, a bill that's much better than nothing but still far short of what we should be doing? The answer is, borrow. Real interest rates on federal borrowing are negative; the markets are basically begging the feds to take their money. But why is borrowing so cheap? Where's the money coming from? The answer is private savings that have nowhere else to go. When we finally get data on what's happening now, we'll surely see a sharp rise in private saving, as people stop buying what they can't, and a fall in private investment, because who's going to build houses or office parks in a plague? So the private sector is going to be running a huge financial surplus that's available for government borrowing. And this is no time to worry, even slightly, about the level of government debt. Still, the pandemic will eventually end. Will there be a debt hangover? From the point of view of government solvency, none at all. We live in a world in which interest rates are consistently below the growth rate, so that government debt melts instead of snowballing. The government won't have to pay back the money it's borrowing, just return to a sustainable level of deficits (not zero) and let the debt/GDP ratio decline over time. There might, however, be a slight macroeconomic issue when the pandemic ends. The private sector will have added several trillion dollars to its wealth via more or less forced saving; between that wealth increase and, perhaps, pent up demand, there might might be some inflationary overheating when things return to something like normal. This may be a nonissue in an era of secular stagnation, when we might welcome the extra demand. Even if it is an issue, however, it's unlikely, given the numbers, to be something the Fed can't contain with modestly higher interest rates. You could imagine a world in which the costs of the immediate crisis eventually require some future fiscal austerity, but I don't think we're living in that world. Let me summarize where we are. We're facing a period of unknown length when much of the economy can and should be shut down. The principal goal of policy during this period should not be to boost GDP, but to alleviate the hardship facing those deprived of their normal incomes. And the government can simply borrow the money it needs to do that. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter ( NYTopinion) and Instagram.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
Other cats have tested positive for the virus, SARS CoV 2, including a pet in Belgium and a tiger at the Bronx zoo. After the tiger who showed mild symptoms tested positive, the zoo collected fecal samples from other big cats and found that a total of five tigers and three lions had been infected. One of the tigers didn't show any symptoms. All of the big cats are doing well, the zoo reported Wednesday. In an experiment in China, cats were shown to be susceptible to infection with the coronavirus, showing mild symptoms. The researchers said the experiment also showed that cats could pass the virus to other cats. But that was in a laboratory setting. The virus was detected by tests done after the cats had been euthanized. The researchers noted in the paper, "It was difficult to perform regular nasal wash collection on the sub adult cats because they were aggressive." The Agriculture Department and the C.D.C. emphasized that "there is no evidence that pets play a role in spreading the virus in the United States." Other experts agree that people should not start looking at their cats with suspicion. If anything, it's the other way around. Karen Terio, the chief of the Zoological Pathology Program at University of Illinois's veterinary college, where the Bronx Zoo tiger sample was tested, noted that hundreds of thousands of people have tested positive in the United States, as opposed to two cats. Dr. Terio said that while the tests and the earlier experiments did show that cats appear to be somewhat susceptible to the virus, "If this was going to be a serious problem for cats, we would have seen greater numbers." Either very few cats are being infected, or their symptoms are so mild that their owners don't notice them or think they warrant a trip to the vet. The direction of infection "is not going to be cat to human," she said. "It's going to be us to our pets. Thankfully, they're having very mild disease."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
This story begins, as so many do these days, on Twitter. Last May, Nicole Tersigni, a Detroit based writer, logged onto the social media platform at the end of a long day. She was tired and frazzled from looking after her 8 year old daughter, who was home sick at the time. "So I go online just to kind of scroll through Twitter and zone out for a little bit," she said, "and I see a dude explaining to a woman her own joke back to her something that has happened to me many times." In the past, Tersigni had let those kinds of irritating conversations go, but this one sparked something in her. She Googled "woman surrounded by men" ("because that is what that moment feels like when you're online," she said) and stumbled upon a 17th century oil painting by Jobst Harrich of a woman baring one breast in the middle of a scrum of bald men. She combined that image with the caption: "Maybe if I take my tit out they will stop explaining my own joke back to me." She kept tweeting, and her posts went viral, garnering tens of thousands of likes and retweets, including by the actors Busy Philipps ("THIS THREAD IS GENIUS," she proclaimed) and Alyssa Milano ("Might be my all time favorite thread ever") a platform specific indication that Tersigni had playfully captured everyday instances of misogyny that many women found uncomfortably familiar. 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. "It just snowballed from there because it was just so easy to consume and relate to and laugh about," Tersigni said. (Several men chimed in to explain her joke to her or point out that not all men do these things.) "I remember I got it, looked at it and just cracked up," said Rebecca Hunt, editorial director at Chronicle Books, who works on pop culture and humor books. "When it was time for me to share it with our editorial team, I printed out a lot of the pages and spread them on the table. We all didn't even need to say anything, we were all just reading and laughing," she said. "That's how you know right away that something will resonate." Just over a year after that first tweet, Tersigni's vision will leap from social media to print with "Men to Avoid in Art and Life," to be released on Tuesday. Each chapter of the coffee table book, which brings together works of art and razor sharp captions, explores the different "types" of men that Tersigni and many women encounter on a regular basis. She describes five of them, with some examples from pop culture, here. Concern trolls approach women with a sense of worry about something they are saying or doing, but it isn't sincere, Tersigni said. "They use their faux worry to undermine or criticize you." Think Gaston from "Beauty and the Beast," who feigns concern for Belle's well being when he sees her with a book ("It's not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts getting ideas and thinking!"). In the real world, Tersigni said, "They'll say things like, 'I agree with your point, but you shouldn't use that tone or you'll alienate your audience.'" The Comedian is not just someone who tells jokes. He is the unfunny person who is convinced of his funniness, "but if you don't laugh at his jokes, which are really tired, sexist, racist jokes, it's because you just don't understand comedy or you need to get a sense of humor," Tersigni said. "Todd Packer, from 'The Office,' is a great example of this guy," she added. "He tells the worst jokes and gets so mad when people don't like him that he gives them laxative cupcakes."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
With any luck, one's late teens and early 20s prove to be an especially queer time a time for questioning convention and breaking with family, for sexual license and rebellion. These are the years when phoniness chafes, when inherited morality reveals itself to be deserving of interrogation, when choosing safety and sameness over adventure and difference seems not just distasteful, but often impossible. For most, the tethers to the straight world are strong enough to endure some stretching, but others find themselves or get themselves entirely unmoored. Such is the case for the three main characters in 's heterodox third novel, "Running." Hoffman impressively evokes the combination of nihilism, idealism, rootlessness, psychic and economic necessity, lust and love that might set a young person adrift. Unlike the runaway heroes of many queer narratives, these characters are not cast out but looking to get lost; put another way, they are running away from, not toward, a sense of belonging. For Bridey, an orphaned white American raised by her survivalist uncle in the Pacific Northwest woodlands, familial roots never took hold; she is tough, self reliant, a wildling. Still a teenager in the late 1980s, she gets herself gone, across the ocean, and eventually ends up in Athens, where she meets the drifter couple Milo and Jasper. Milo and Jasper are both English but opposites in all other ways. Jasper, who is white, hails from spectacular wealth and is an Eton dropout, while the autodidact Milo is black and poor, from a council estate in Manchester. Jasper is fey and feisty, sardonic at best, more often caustic, severely alcoholic; Milo is a boxer and a poet, as broad and muscled as he is earnest and sensitive. In Athens their particular hustle is working as "runners," riding the trains and convincing gullible tourists to check in at the seedy Olympos Hotel. In exchange they're given a room on the top floor, and get a little money for every tourist they snare. When Jasper runs into Bridey on a train, there is a spark of rebel recognition, and attraction. He initiates her into the tribe of runners, brings her back to the shabby room he shares with Milo littered with books and booze and not much else and she stays, immediately warped into the fabric of the relationship. The twosome becomes a threesome. Fear no spoilers: We learn this all in the opening pages. In fact, the first words of the novel announce Jasper's death, and the major narrative thread chronicles the formulation and tragic unraveling of this triad. We watch them revel in their own abandon; we watch them scrounge and scheme, living on as little as possible; we watch them drink and drink, and love. "We washed our clothes in the sink with bar soap and hung them on the balcony to dry, and at night we walked across the city and up into the hillside paths where the trunks of the trees were painted white, to sit by the base of the Acropolis and see the sprawl of lights stretch back until they reached the empty dark where hills rose. We wandered until there was no one out beneath the haunted glow of distant morning but people to fear."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Britain has recently lurched from one constitutional and leadership crisis to the next in the wake of its decision to leave the European Union, with morale further damped by a humiliating loss to Iceland in the European soccer championships. So a second Wimbledon championship for Andy Murray was a welcome distraction on Sunday afternoon, with the local hero triumphing over the Canadian Milos Raonic on Centre Court in straight sets. But he was not the only winner. His wife, Kim Sears, seated in the family box, was herself something of an attention magnet for the duration of the tournament. Over the course of Wimbledon, she wore dresses from names like Burberry Brit, Whistles, Beulah London and Ted Baker, and chose a marigold yellow embroidered number with a price of PS2,200 ( 2,848) by Jenny Packham for the championship match on Sunday, later choosing a glittering gold gown, again by Mrs. Packham, for the Champions Dinner several hours later. The consistent thread? Ms. Sears's decision to almost exclusively support homegrown British brands and designers, following in the (nude L. K. Bennett pumps clad) footsteps of another Wimbledon regular, the Duchess of Cambridge, who has long used her clothes to promote the country's fashion business. With a weakening pound, sourcing concerns and uncertainty about new tariffs potentially triggering major challenges for British based fashion businesses post "Brexit," such eye catching boosts to sales fueled by high profile British women are more important than ever. And the move to this kind of diplomatic tradecraft by Ms. Sears an artist and mother to the couple's 6 month old daughter, Sophia should be applauded; whether they like it or not, tennis spouses are caught by the cameras during a match with far more regularity than their contemporaries in, say, soccer or football, in part because of the size of the crowd but also their proximity to the action for every nail biting moment. The recognition of the power she has during grand slam events for those two weeks in the limelight each time can only be a good thing. Not that Ms. Sears hasn't been aware of her sartorial powers in the past. After being caught swearing in January 2015 while watching Mr. Murray play Tomas Berdych in the Australian Open, she responded by wearing a "parental advisory" T shirt at his next match. Ace.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
Benny Blanco is a hitmaking songwriter and producer who estimates that "like 75 percent" of his success has come from being a good hang.Credit...Julian Berman for The New York Times Benny Blanco is a hitmaking songwriter and producer who estimates that "like 75 percent" of his success has come from being a good hang. On a recent summer morning in his Manhattan apartment slash home studio, Benny Blanco, one of the most successful producers and songwriters in contemporary music, was scrolling through his own Wikipedia page, trying to remember all the hits that he's made. Teeth freshly brushed, in a pajama like outfit that doubles as his regular uniform soccer shorts, vintage Cher T shirt, an unruly Chia Pet shrub of curls, tangled gold chains, Fenty slides Mr. Blanco rattled off the director's commentary on his discography as he tried to explain how he'd gone from an anonymous teenage goofball from the suburbs to the preferred studio goofball of pop stars everywhere. With motor mouthed enthusiasm, he reminisced about his feel good, hands in the air Top 40 anthems under the gurus Dr. Luke and Max Martin Britney Spears's "Circus," Katy Perry's "Hot N Cold" and "I Kissed a Girl," Kesha's "Tik Tok," Taio Cruz's "Dynamite" and took special pride in his run of smashes, post apprenticeship, with Rihanna, Trey Songz, Maroon 5 and Iggy Azalea. But Mr. Blanco, 30, lit up most describing his left turns: championing the understated British R B singer Jessie Ware; collaborating with the elusive yet ubiquitous pop specter Francis and the Lights; his fruitful BFF status with Ed Sheeran; and his recent, unlikely run of contributions to Kanye West's five album marathon. "I've produced every song I want to produce, I've done it every way I want to do it," Mr. Blanco said, "and especially now with this Kanye stuff, my bucket list dreams are pretty much checked off." (For years, he'd kept a computer folder labeled "Kanye drums," just in case.) In addition to his chart toppers, Mr. Blanco oversees two labels, Friends Keep Secrets and Mad Love, under Interscope Records, and is just as likely to pop up in the credits of a SoundCloud rapper (6 Dogs, Trill Sammy) as with the Weeknd or Lana Del Rey. While the variety keeps him mostly stimulated, he said, "It got to the point where I was like, 'What's going to make me happy?'" The answer, it turned out, was more hits but this time with his name in front. A decade on from his first string of No. 1s, Mr. Blanco is finally spending his cultural capital and cashing in some favors, inching toward name recognition with a run of singles credited to Benny Blanco that feature his big time collaborators. The first, "Eastside," was released this month, written with Mr. Sheeran and featuring vocals from Halsey and Khalid. Other A list cameos will follow, as will the more adventurous stuff that he's got tucked away with the likes of Juice WRLD, Rex Orange County, Francis and the Lights, Calvin Harris (as a vocalist!) and more. This fall, Mr. Blanco will release an official album, but he plans to continue adding songs to it after the fact, inspired in part by Mr. West's living, breathing "The Life of Pablo." By early next year, Mr. Blanco said, he hopes to have grown the album (playlist?) to some 30 tracks, a musical manifestation of his eclectic network and rarefied behind the scenes status. "I have so many friends that are artists, and I work on so many songs, and sometimes it's so hard to place them, even at my level," Mr. Blanco said. "Now I can be like, well, I'll put it out, and I get to do it exactly how I want. I happen to be the label, too." "Every rap producer in the world does it," he added. "Why aren't there pop guys doing it?" Not quite an electronic D.J. producer like Mr. Harris or Diplo, Mr. Blanco, who does not perform live, is part cheerleader (a la DJ Khaled, but without screaming "Benny Blanco!"), part social connector and part celebrity confidante and yet mostly anonymous. Still, Mr. Blanco, who is decidedly private about his personal life for such an extrovert, insisted that releasing his own music was less a bid for midcareer stardom than an experiment to keep from getting bored. "I definitely don't want to be famous at all," he said. "I beat the system I get all the luxuries of being famous without actually being famous!" Born Benjamin Levin to nonmusical but ever supportive (if skeptical) parents a father in the "intimate apparel business" and a mother who worked in assisted living Mr. Blanco was an aspiring rapper until he realized "no one cares what a chubby Jewish kid from Virginia thinks," and began making beats instead. He recalled spamming artists on Myspace from his school library, and weekend trips to New York, where he slept in a Times Square McDonald's and tried to land meetings. After graduating from high school in 2006, he moved to Williamsburg and fell in to a rowdy party scene that included the rapper Spank Rock. As a duo, they released the "Bangers Cash" EP, a 2 Live Crew homage that caught the ear of Dr. Luke, who would enlist Mr. Blanco into four years of pop music boot camp. "I didn't know anything about songwriting," Mr. Blanco said. "All my beats were like 40 seconds long." Even now, he considers his arsenal of traditional skills to be limited at best. "I couldn't sit down and play a concert for you or really wow you on any instrument," Mr. Blanco said, estimating that "like 75 percent" of his success comes from being a good hang. "What I can do is meet an artist, know what type of song I think we should make and be their therapist, make everyone feel comfortable." (The studio, he said, must be like a "nest for newborns.") Crucially, he added, "I'm good at knowing when something's really good." A gregarious Super Ball of energy with sparkly painted toenails, Mr. Blanco has an interpersonal genius that's immediately obvious, and he exudes the easy intimacy of someone who's rarely disliked. "I don't have any burned bridges with any artist," he said (though he lamented that he barely knows and has never recorded with Drake). In fact, "I think maybe once or twice in my career, maybe, I've done a song with someone who's not my friend," Mr. Blanco said. "I'll have made a song with an artist, and we're just hanging out with another artist, and they're like, 'Oh man, I've always wanted to work with you!' And then we're chilling, and it happens. I don't place songs through record labels everything's really organic." Some months later, Mr. Blanco said, Mr. Sheeran called him out of the blue intoxicated "out of his mind" at a festival just to talk. "After that, we became so tight," Mr. Blanco said. He often joins Mr. Sheeran on tour to write and served as an executive producer on the singer's outrageously popular third album, "/." Mr. Blanco has a million of these "stories from every artist that are the craziest story you ever heard." Like the time he lived in the Hamptons for a month with Jay Z and Beyonce (and his frequent collaborator Sia), writing for Beyonce's self titled album in between family meals and games of "Would You Rather?" that featured questions like "diarrhea or constipation for life?" It's these experiences and the way he relays them with genuine wonder that make Mr. Blanco's existence feel like the music industry equivalent of a '90s kids movie (think "Blank Check" or "Rookie of the Year") that trades on unbridled wish fulfillment. But for an Everyman, he's also slyly savvy, gossiping like the consummate insider, but giving only enough to prove he's plugged in without betraying anyone's confidence (or violating any nondisclosure agreements). John Janick, the chairman and chief executive of Interscope Geffen A M, said: "There's nobody on the planet like Benny. And I can say that without hesitation." Somehow, though, Mr. Blanco remains humble, or at least self deprecating, unable to forget his days of Myspace hustling, sleeping on couches and pretending to be Jay Z's lawyer to get on the phone with label execs, only to be hung up on anyway. He credited his longevity in the upper echelons of pop to "collaborating with other people who are much better than me," as well as "staying young, staying fresh and always looking for new talent." In his latest role as a trusted curator, both for his labels and his own songs, Mr. Blanco is proving nimble and adaptable, and hoping to avoid the cold gusts of irrelevance that have suddenly struck many producers and artists as streaming shifts the center. "This is like the first time and I'm not going to say names but the biggest pop artists have put out records and a lot of them flopped in the last year or two," Mr. Blanco said. "When we were kids, we were fed the single, we were fed what they told us to listen to, and you either didn't like it or you heard it so many times you began to like it," he continued. "Now, you put out an album, and the kids decide what the big song's going to be. Things are getting big that wouldn't have gotten big four years ago two years ago, even! It's crazy." Instead of threatened, he seemed thrilled.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Mai Hjelmgaard, a visitor, experiences an exhibit through VR goggles at "Arcadia Earth" in Manhattan. The creators of "Arcadia Earth" want to awaken your conscience. But they also plan to make that guilt trip extraordinarily fun. Entertainment, coupled with enlightenment, is the purpose of this pop up exhibition about ecological crisis, which opened at the end of August in Manhattan. An immersive experience consisting of 15 rooms, "Arcadia Earth" combines video projections, augmented reality and virtual reality with installations by more than a dozen environmental artists. Together, they evoke the landscapes, marine depths and life forms that global warming threatens. In "Oxygen Oasis," featuring the work of Justin Bolognino, Eric Chang and others from the company META, you see orbs of light float upward and proliferate, a metaphor for how phytoplankton make oxygen. In the room labeled "Our Land," another VR film, from Wild Immersion, places you directly in the path of regal looking lions, one female and one male, which advance toward you until you're nose to nose. "Climate change is always told in a very negative way," said Valentino Vettori, a n experiential designer who worked in the retail fashion industry before conceiving "Arcadia Earth." "I don't think negativity is powerful," he added. His goals were to make the exhibition "beautiful and positive." The displays counter such sobering statistics by listing ways that visitors can help. These include using public transportation instead of driving and avoiding single use plastic containers simple steps. "It's like, 'Do one thing,'" Mr. Vettori said. As you explore each room, you also hear a mellifluous voice over uttering the relevant environmental facts and recommendations, just in case you're too busy taking and posting pictures to read the wall texts. The 13,000 square foot exhibition, which was designed with social media in mind, requires a free iPhone app to experience fully. (If you have another type of phone, "Arcadia" lends you an iPad.) Downloading the app enables you to point your device at symbols on the walls, floors and ceilings, an action that unleashes another visual display. In the "Overfishing" exhibit, where the artist Jesse Harrod has created colorful weavings from salvaged fishing nets, scanning QR codes will give you lists of local businesses and restaurants that support sustainable practices. In other installations, pointing a cellphone at a marker causes the screen to fill with tiny images of trash. "I like the data visualization," said Basia Goszczynska (pronounced BASH a Gosh CHIN ska), a 34 year old Brooklyn artist who created "The Rainbow Cave" for "Arcadia." Her installation, which resembles the interior of a crystal palace but is actually made of about 44,000 plastic bags the estimated number used every minute in New York State celebrates New York's plastic bag ban, which takes effect in March. "Math is such an abstract thing," she said. "It's hard to have an emotional impact with a statistic. We're bringing that data to a wider public through art." Mr. Vettori, 48, traces the inspiration for "Arcadia" to 2017, when he took part in a Summit Series conference and attended a presentation by the environmentalist Paul Hawken, the editor of "Drawdown," a book on global warming. Mr. Vettori said he vowed not to take off the wrist band for admission to the series until he had created an environment that would lead people to take action on behalf of the earth. (He is still wearing it.) As Mr. Vettori planned "Arcadia" with his two partners, Kyle Calian and Aparna Avasarala, he sought to create a sustainable space incorporating recycled material. The artists he enlisted include Etty Yaniv, whose ghostly looking sculptures in "Plastic Tsunami (Sirens)" consist of waste collected from Manhattan offices, and Cindy Pease Roe, whose "Gyres" installation incorporates objects she collected on Long Island beaches, among them soda bottles, beach toys and flip flops. "It's important for it to be profitable so that I can just continue to do this," Mr. Vettori said. Income also means that he can further develop the space, which will be open at least through January. Ms. Goszczynska recently completed "Action Tracks," an installation that lines the exhibition's stairwell with cardboard signs collected after the city's climate strike. "There will be empty signs, too," she said, "so people can leave their own messages."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Timianne Sebright, four months pregnant, held a gate with one hand and a 500 pound zebra with the other and asked if I was ready to take over. Good question. "Can we go through this again?" I said. The problem was backup, of which we had none. Timianne had just returned from her first ultrasound (it's a girl!), so I couldn't expect her to jump in if things got hectic. That meant if I messed up, a quarter ton of a kicking, biting African equine could soon be thundering down the road toward the Michigan interstate. Timianne has been raising zebras since high school, and I'd come to see her after a truly awful idea led to a pretty good one. It began when my family and I adopted an ailing donkey and I discovered we'd not only have to nurse his body, but his mind back to health: Sherman needed something to do. Maybe we could run a marathon together? When the guys at our local feed store heard my plan, they knew exactly what I needed: Yes, I know how it sounds now, but follow the logic, and you'll see why back then it seemed brilliant. Zebras are natural runners, hair triggered to gallop off when they smell trouble. Donkeys are the opposite; they freeze when they sense something's amiss, which could be why I was struggling to get Sherman down the driveway. The solution, according to the feed store caucus, was to team Sherman up with a zebra and they knew just where to find one. Two of the guys dug phones out of their pockets to show me photos; they'd spotted a zebra at a farm on the far side of the county. How much could a zebra cost if a frugal Amish family had one as a pet? Intrigued, I went online and found "Rarity Acres," the Michigan farm where Timianne not only breeds zebras but also "zorses" (half horse, half zebra) and "zonkeys" (half donkey, half zebra). Yes, Timianne told me by phone, she had a zebra for sale; but nope, I couldn't have it. Timianne is very selective about her customers; if you want one of her animals, you'd better produce plenty of photos of an appropriate barn, fence, pasture and even household pets, and be prepared for some hard eyed Facebook stalking. Timianne rescued her first zebra from a vicious owner and she's determined never to expose any of her herd to risk.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Well
Pope Francis demands swift action to save the planet from environmental ruin, plunging the Catholic Church into political controversy over climate change. SHOWS: VATICAN CITY (JUNE 18, 2015) (CTV ACCESS ALL) 1. VATICAN NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS 2. VARIOUS OF EASTERN ORTHODOX METROPOLITAN JOHN ZIZIOULAS AT PODIUM, BEING INTRODUCED BY VATICAN SPOKESPERSON 3. JOURNALISTS LISTENING 4. (SOUNDBITE) (English) EASTERN ORTHODOX METROPOLITAN JOHN ZIZIOULAS SAYING: "This encyclical comes at a critical moment in human history and will undoubtedly have a world wide effect on people's consciousness. Those who read the encyclical will be impressed by the depth and the thoroughness with which the ecological problem is treated and its seriousness is brought out together with concrete suggestions and proposals on how to act in order to face its consequences. There is in its pages, food for thought for all, the scientists, the economists, the sociologists and above all the faithful of the church." 5. CARDINAL LISTENING 6. (SOUNDBITE) (English) EASTERN ORTHODOX METROPOLITAN JOHN ZIZIOULAS SAYING: "As it emerges clearly from the encyclical, the ecological crisis is essentially a spiritual problem. The proper relationship between humanity and the earth or its natural environment has been broken with the fall both outwardly and within us and this rapture constitutes what we call sin. The church must now introduce in its teachings about sin, the sin against the environment, the ecological sin. Repentance must be extended to cover also the damage we do to nature both as individuals and as societies." 7. JOURNALISTS TAKING NOTES 8. NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS STORY: Pope Francis on Thursday (June 18) issued a major encyclical on the environment, called "Laudato Si (Praise Be), On the Care of Our Common Home". In the first papal document dedicated to the environment, the pontiff plunged the Catholic Church into political controversy over climate change, squarely backing scientists who say it is mostly man made. In the encyclical, Francis calls for a change of lifestyle in rich countries steeped in a "throwaway" consumer culture and an end to an "obstructionist attitudes" that sometimes put profit before the common good. The most controversial papal pronouncement in half a century has already won him the wrath of conservatives, including several U.S. Republican presidential candidates who have scolded Francis for delving into science and politics. Eastern Orthodox Metropolitan John Zizioulas presented the document at a Vatican news conference. "Those who read the encyclical will be impressed by the depth and the thoroughness with which the ecological problem is treated and its seriousness is brought out together with concrete suggestions and proposals on how to act in order to face its consequences," he said. "The proper relationship between humanity and the earth or its natural environment has been broken with the fall both outwardly and within us and this rapture constitutes what we call sin," Zizioulas added. The papal document is being seen as a clarion call to the 1.2 billion members of the Catholic Church. It is also seen as the most controversial papal document since Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae upholding the Church's ban on contraception, and is expected to spur the world's Catholics to lobby policy makers on ecology issues and climate change.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
The family of Alexandre Arroyo, 10, went looking for a new home with his help. He is flanked by his sister, Annabelle, 8, and his mother, Yovanka Bylander Arroyo. A year and a half ago, Skye van Merkensteijn was shooting hoops with a friend who lives at the Aldyn, a condominium rental hybrid on Riverside Boulevard with its own indoor basketball court, climbing wall and bowling alley. Thirteen year old Skye was impressed and envious. Well, his worldly pal told him, he just happened to know of an apartment for sale on the 21st floor. Skye went home, jumped online and called up a video of the property in question a 12 room spread with a hot tub and private 37 by 15 foot outdoor pool. "When my husband, John, came home," said Skye's mother, Elizabeth van Merkensteijn, "Skye announced: 'We're moving and this is the place we're moving to.' " Mr. van Merkensteijn, an investor, told his son he couldn't afford a 14 million apartment. As for Mrs. van Merkensteijn, if you wanted her to leave the family's eight room apartment at the Beresford on Central Park West, she said, you were going to have to carry her out. In a box. Still, for a lark the couple strolled over to check out their son's find, which, in addition to the pool and an expansive terrace, had bedazzling views of the Hudson and the Palisades. "We looked at each other and said, 'This is unbelievable,' " Mrs. van Merkensteijn recalled. "The idea that you could own a place like this in New York City was amazing." Skye came along to the closing a few months later. In New York, teens and preteens are becoming savvy connoisseurs of real estate. Perhaps it's because they're so utterly at home on the Internet. Perhaps it's because they're lured by online images of condo amenities like an indoor pool or a children's playroom or because they're fans of "Million Dollar Listing New York" on Bravo. Or maybe it's because it's become business as usual for children in certain precincts of Manhattan to participate in family decisions. Bonnie Hut Yaseen, an associate broker at Fox Residential, is used to the youth vote by now. "I'm seeing this trend where parents are coming in to look at my listings and proudly announcing that it was their son or daughter who found it," she said. "They're finding an unexpected resource in their children." Of course, there is cinematic precedent for all this. In the 1947 classic "Miracle on 34th Street," a skeptical little girl will believe in Santa Claus only if he can arrange the acquisition of a house she saw in a magazine listing. Ms. Yaseen said that in the past children saw their homes to be only when it was time for the parents to assign them their bedrooms. "Now, in some cases, the kids are coming on the first visit to an apartment because they want to know if it's as good in reality as it looked online," she said. "They'll sometimes be there with paperwork, with a printout from a website." Their knowledge can be quite granular. "We had one teenager who knew the specifics of our floor plans. He knew that the C line apartments are 2,296 square feet and that the L units are 2,277," said Justin D'Adamo, the managing director of Corcoran Sunshine, the marketing and sales team for River Warren, a condominium development in Battery Park City. "He told his mother that the C line would be better because of his baby grand piano." Ultimately, he and his Steinway carried the day. When Yovanka Bylander Arroyo, a widow with two children, began going to open houses, it was her son, Alexandre, 10, an HGTV and Zillow fan, who asked about square footage and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. "And I was like, 'Gee, I don't know,' " said Ms. Arroyo, the executive director of a financial services firm. "Maybe I should be going on Zillow." Katie Haggerty, a fashion designer, has worked as a real estate broker. Her mother was a broker, too. She and her husband, Sean, who works in finance, own investment properties. So it makes perfect sense that their three children, most particularly their daughter Patty, 14, have become interested in the ins and outs of the business. Patty's frequent visits to the sites StreetEasy, Trulia and Zillow led her to Carnegie Park, a condominium on Third and 94th. "We looked at it and are still seriously considering it," Mrs. Haggerty said; they are also mulling over 515 East 72nd Street, another condominium. "I feel I've been a big contribution to the process," said Patty, whose wish list includes "a view of Central Park." Michael Schultz, an associate broker with Corcoran, affectionately refers to 15 year old Max Srulowitz as "the president." That's because last year, when Max's parents, Jeffrey and Jennifer Srulowitz, were looking for a summer rental in East Hampton, N.Y., Max went online and found some prospects that had eluded Mr. Schultz, including the winning property. Now, the Srulowitzes are hoping to buy in East Hampton, and once again, Max is playing a key role. Mr. Schultz even includes him in the emails he sends to Mr. and Ms. Srulowitz. "When I get listings," Ms. Srulowitz said, "I print them out and before I show them to my husband, I'll show Max. I take pride in his acumen, and he's very mature." All this speaks to the evolving parent child dynamic, according to Dr. Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist. "I think particularly in affluent areas, there's now less of a separation in terms of what children are privy to and what privileges they get to have," she said. "These parents aren't saying: 'We need to move and it's your responsibility to find us a place.' This is about children being helpful in ways that are fun for them." "Would it be more helpful for them to take out the garbage?" Dr. Saltz asked. "Maybe, but it's not as much fun. And of course it's easy for them because they're Internet savvy," she continued. "And I think it's fun for some parents to feel that their child is their friend: 'Oh, you found that great apartment. That's cool.' " Sometimes, as with the van Merkensteijns, the parents weren't looking for an apartment, great or not, until the children clued them in to the possibilities. And in some cases, parents have fixed on a move and a budget only to discover that their offspring have grander notions. "I had clients who were looking at places that were under 3 million, and their daughter, a high school junior, went online and found a visually stunning place on the Upper East Side that was 3.5 million," said a broker who requested anonymity so as not to scuttle a deal in progress. "She got her parents to go look at it and they loved it so much they decided to raise their price point." In a few instances, children are doing everything but writing the check. "There are international buyers who want to buy a pied a terre or want to buy an apartment for investment purposes, but they're not familiar with the New York market and don't speak English very well," said Bruce Ehrmann, an associate broker with Douglas Elliman Real Estate. "They have their children who are in the United States in boarding school or college do their research for them." At the moment, Mr. Ehrmann has a Manhattan apartment in contract thanks to a college freshman who found a long term investment property on the Internet for her Asian parents. Sometimes the children apply the brakes instead of stepping on the gas. Ms. Arroyo recently went to check out an apartment in Midtown, Alexandre in tow. It had three bedrooms and everything else the family was looking for, and the building was great. "My son saw me getting excited and began looking at the sell sheet," Ms. Arroyo said. "As I was asking the broker a few more questions, Alexandre was tugging at my sleeve and saying, 'Mommy, Mommy. Look at the maintenance!' " The number was astronomical, she said. "That's why the apartment was so well priced. He had noticed and I hadn't," Ms. Arroyo added ruefully. "And I was like 'O.K., broker, have a nice day. This deal is not going to happen.' " While many parents are happy to indulge their children's interest in real estate, they also want to educate them. The van Merkensteijns gave Skye and his brother, Jan, 17, a tutorial on mortgages, interest rates and bridge loans. Skye kept a flow chart that tracked the offers and counteroffers for the place at the Aldyn. Meanwhile, thanks to her mother and father, Patty Haggerty now knows the difference between a co op and a condo, and is learning about the advantages of buying versus renting, and vice versa. "Patty," Mrs. Haggerty said, "feels this is the time to buy." But parents don't necessarily want to share everything with their young consultants. "We don't discuss our financial situation with Max and we didn't discuss our budget," said Jeffrey Srulowitz, while acknowledging that on his own, "Max realized that we were looking in a certain price range." When one Upper West Side woman began looking at apartments, her architecture mad 10 year old son "starting injecting himself into the process," she said. "He found StreetEasy and then he started looking up where our friends live and he'd say, 'You wouldn't believe what so and so paid for their co ops.' I shut that down right away and told him he could only search the architects of the buildings his friends lived in." The boy's mother requested anonymity because she did not want her friends to know what her son had been up to. Elizabeth van Merkensteijn shrugs off such concerns. "You can't hide the ball on these kids," she said. "They hear the numbers. We talk about everything in front of everyone. I get it that the air is thin and that it's rarefied. But it's the reality of New York City."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
With this year's music festival season starting up, there is another jewel in the crown of Live Nation Entertainment, the company that has come to dominate live music through its concert and ticketing businesses. To its collection of top festivals like Lollapalooza, Electric Daisy Carnival and Bonnaroo, it has now added Governors Ball in New York. On Friday, Live Nation completed a deal to acquire a majority stake in Founders Entertainment, the parent company of Governors Ball, which was started in 2011 by a group of young promoters and has since beaten the odds by taking root in New York's difficult market. This year's Governors Ball will be held June 3 to 5 at Randalls Island with Kanye West, the Killers and the Strokes. For the annual event's promoters, Live Nation's backing will provide much needed support in a fiercely competitive environment. Indeed, just seven weeks after Governors Ball, A.E.G. Live the second largest concert company and the force behind Coachella in California is introducing its own New York music festival, also on Randalls Island, with LCD Soundsystem, Kendrick Lamar and Arcade Fire. It will be known as Panorama. The Live Nation deal follows months of lobbying in public and private, in which Founders trumpeted its indie bona fides and said that the arrival of A.E.G. had put its future in jeopardy. Live Nation and Founders did not disclose the terms of their deal, but Tom Russell and Jordan Wolowitz, Founders' majority partners, said it would help them expand further in the region. They insisted that they would have been able to continue presenting Governors Ball on their own, but also acknowledged that Live Nation's resources were essential for Founders to remain competitive and match the high costs of booking top talent for its events. "These events are so high risk for us that if we were to launch a new event and it were to fail, it would cripple us," said Mr. Russell, who, like Mr. Wolowitz, is 32. "By partnering up with a company that empowers entrepreneurs," he said, Founders would "not have the fear that a new venture would really put us in the street." The deal for Governors Ball follows a pattern for Live Nation, which in recent years has taken controlling stakes in a series of independent promoters around the country. In 2013, it bought half of Insomniac, the company behind Electric Daisy Carnival. In 2014, Live Nation made a deal with C3 Presents, which has Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits; last year, it acquired Bonnaroo. Michael Rapino, the chief executive of Live Nation, said that the high risks of establishing new festivals made it attractive to acquire proven entities. In New York, various companies including Live Nation and A.E.G. have tried and failed to establish festivals over the years, but among multiday pop festivals drawing a broad audience, only Governors Ball has had staying power, with 150,000 in attendance last year over three days. 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. "In the U.S., we were slow to evolve and build a festival capability," Mr. Rapino said. But "even if these cannibalize an arena or amphitheater show, they are a very important, viable channel for artists to play," he added. "We are going to make sure as the leader that we have a strong portfolio of festivals." Festivals are a crucial part of Live Nation's sponsorship and advertising operations, which last year reached 334 million in sales. That represented less than 5 percent of the company's revenue of 7.2 billion, but it yielded far higher margins than Live Nation's concert business, or ticket sales through its Ticketmaster subsidiary. Sponsorship deals represented about 40 percent of the company's adjusted operating income. And festival sponsorships are its most lucrative kind, representing about 10 per attendee each day a rate that the company says is about four times higher than what Live Nation is able to sell for regular concert tours. "Music in general is a tough industry to make money in," said Amy Yong, a media analyst at Macquarie Securities. "Live Nation is aware of that. They let artists keep the vast majority of the economics, and monetize everything else through sponsorships." One example of the changing nature of those deals is Live Nation's partnership with Snapchat, the mobile messaging service whose popularity with young consumers has drawn a wave of interest from media companies. Last year, 10 of Live Nation's festivals were promoted as part of Snapchat's Live Stories, which collect video snippets from fans, interspersed with advertising. Those segments drew 60 million viewers, the companies said. Live Nation has now renewed that partnership, covering 10 of its festivals in North America and Europe for multiple years. It will share advertising revenues with Snapchat, and while neither company would comment on the potential size of the deal, advertisers typically pay 100,000 or more to be part of a Live Story. Deals like those, and Live Nation's development of festival apps, which track the movement of fans throughout an event and send targeted messages from advertisers, reflect the growing importance of technology on the concert business and its young clientele. "Ten years ago, it was all about putting up banners and ticket promotions," said Russell Wallach, Live Nation's president of North American sponsorships. "Now the brands push all the time. They want to be involved in new things." By its own count, Live Nation controls or operates four of the top five pop festivals in North America, and 13 of the top 25 around the world. But Mr. Rapino said that it still had room to grow. "Our goal is to continue to be a global consolidator of the live music business," Mr. Rapino said. "There are still a ton of great festivals, in a ton of markets, in a ton of cities that we would love to continue to build our portfolio on."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Millions of public school students across the nation are seeing their class sizes swell because of budget cuts and teacher layoffs, undermining a decades long push by parents, administrators and policy makers to shrink class sizes. Over the past two years, California, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, Utah and Wisconsin have loosened legal restrictions on class size. And Idaho and Texas are debating whether to fit more students in classrooms. Los Angeles has increased the average size of its ninth grade English and math classes to 34 from 20. Eleventh and 12th grade classes in those two subjects have risen, on average, to 43 students. "Because many states are facing serious budget gaps, we'll see more increases this fall," said Marguerite Roza, a University of Washington professor who has studied the recession's impact on schools. The increases are reversing a trend toward smaller classes that stretches back decades. Since the 1980s, teachers and many other educators have embraced research finding that smaller classes foster higher achievement. Rachael Maher, a math teacher in Charlotte, N.C., said she had experienced the difference between smaller and larger classes. She has watched her seventh grade classes grow since her school system ran into budget trouble three years ago. Before, her classes averaged 25 students; this year they average 31. "They say it doesn't affect whether kids get what they need, but I completely disagree," Ms. Maher said. "If you've gained five kids, that's five more papers to grade, five more kids who need makeup work if they're absent, five more parents to contact, five more e mails to answer. It gets overwhelming." In Detroit, the authorities are so overwhelmed by financial troubles that they are debating a deficit reduction proposal that would increase high school class sizes to 60 students. Michigan's state superintendent of public instruction, Michael P. Flanagan, said that the plan was unlikely to be put into effect, but that "class sizes will be higher than you and I would like." In New York City, average elementary class sizes have grown to 23.7 students from 21.8 since 2008, according to official data. In Utah, one of the few states that collect class size data each year, median class size has increased by several students in many grade levels since 2008. It now ranges from 22 students in kindergarten to 31 students in high school chemistry classes. "All the budget cuts have started our class sizes on that climb upward," said Judy W. Park, associate superintendent of the State Office of Education in Utah. "During the last two years, our schools have really seen it." Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said a number of surveys had shown that parents cared more about small classes than anything except school safety. But budget cuts are forcing schools to raise class sizes, putting those who advocate shrinking them on the defensive. Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, a group that presses for smaller classes in New York and nationally, said many states enacted policies limiting student numbers during the late 1980s and 1990s. "But now, in the majority of states, you're seeing definite increases in class sizes because of the recession and budget cuts," Ms. Haimson said. "Unfortunately we've also seen the rise of a narrative that's become dominant in education reform that insists that class size doesn't matter." Research that convinced many policy makers of the benefits of small classes was conducted in Tennessee. "When it got to 35, I told the principal, 'I can't teach this many children,' " she said. In the 1980s, Ms. Bain persuaded Tennessee lawmakers to finance a study comparing classes of 13 to 17 students in kindergarten through third grade with classes of 22 to 25 students. The smaller classes significantly outscored the larger classes on achievement tests. In the decades since, researchers, including the Princeton economist Alan Krueger, have conducted studies that they say confirm and strengthen the validity of the Tennessee findings. Others, including Eric Hanushek, a Stanford economist, have argued that the impact of small classes on achievement has been exaggerated and that giving students a skillful teacher is more cost effective. Those who support that notion include Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who last Sunday told governors gathered in Washington to consider paying bonuses to the best teachers to take on extra students. Mr. Duncan said he would prefer to put his own school age children in a classroom with 28 students led by a "fantastic teacher" than in one with 23 and a "mediocre" teacher. Bill Gates made a similar argument to the governors, portraying the movement to reduce class sizes as one of the most expensive and fruitless efforts in American education. The federal Department of Education collects nationwide class size data every few years, and the average has declined steadily for half a century. In 1961, the average elementary school class had 29 students, and the average high school class had 28. In 2007 8, the most recent year with data, the elementary school average was 20, and the high school average was 23.4. Dr. Roza, who is an adviser to Mr. Gates, said she had measured a recent decline of half a percent in the total number of employees in American public education. "That's meant some growth," she said, but average class sizes have not ballooned. "Maybe the national average went up one kid," Dr. Roza said. "But I don't think we've jumped to 30 kids per class." The nationwide movement to shrink classes dates to the early 1980s, when Texas passed a law limiting class sizes, to 22 students in elementary grades. Tennessee followed with class size reduction measures for the early grades. In 1996, California lawmakers approved a measure to reduce class sizes to 20 for kindergarten through third grade. Today, more than 30 states have some form of programs to reduce class sizes. But many have been challenged since the recession. In Texas, the state comptroller in December proposed loosening the class size limit, saying it could save 558 million in teacher salaries. That proposal has found backers in a Legislature that is weighing 10 billion in cuts from public education over two years, but teachers and parent groups are outraged.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Education
HONG KONG Beijing says it wants to safeguard "one country, two systems," the principle that supposedly guarantees Hong Kong's semiautonomy from the mainland. In reality it is weaponizing the policy to crush the city's freedoms. On Thursday, the Chinese government announced a plan to pass national security laws for Hong Kong. It has long been after something like this, though previously it expected the local authorities to do the job. Not this time. This law would be ratified in Beijing at worst, as soon as next week. This sinister move caps several weeks of mounting acts of repression in Hong Kong, in almost all spheres of public life politics, law, education, the media. Last week, students sitting for a university entrance history exam were asked if they agreed with this statement: "Japan did more good than harm to China in the period of 1900 45." The Hong Kong Education Bureau promptly complained that the question was "leading" and asked that it be stricken from the exam, even though some students had already answered it. The Education Bureau also claimed that the question "seriously hurt the feelings and dignity of the Chinese people who suffered great pain during the Japanese invasion of China." For many traditional Chinese patriots there is simply no way the Japanese could have brought any benefit whatsoever to China; to merely ask that question is to somehow prettify the Second Sino Japanese War of 1937 45. Never mind that the exam referred to the years between 1900 and 1945, rather than solely to the war. And never mind that there is ample historical evidence showing that Japan's vast influence on China during that period also served China well in some ways. Sun Yat sen, the most famous early leader of post imperial modern China; major actors in China's socialist movement; even Lu Xun, arguably the greatest writer in modern Chinese literature, were all inspired or shaped to a certain extent by contact with Japan. More than anything, questions such as this one have been a fixture of history exams in Hong Kong. I studied history at university, and I remember this exam question from 2006: "Some people think Emperor Wen of Sui (541 604) did more harm than good. Do you agree with that?" Then this week pro Beijing lawmakers hijacked the election for chairperson of a committee of Hong Kong's legislative council, calling in security guards to control the scene, and placed at the committee's head a pro establishment legislator accused of abuse of power. "Headliner," a satirical show of the public broadcaster RTHK, was canceled after Hong Kong authorities complained that it denigrated the Hong Kong police. And the government, even as it is relaxing various social distancing rules to fend off Covid 19, just extended restrictions on group gatherings to June 4 the anniversary of the 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square. The commemorative protest vigil that has been held that day every year may not take place for the first time in three decades. (It occurred even during the SARS outbreak of 2002 03.) Next week, Hong Kongers face another blatant effort by Beijing to instill in them patriotism for China and loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party: The local Legislature will consider a bill that would criminalize the misuse of China's national anthem or insults toward it. And, of course, there is the national security legislation. The Chinese Communist Party is ambitious, and it is impatient. It doesn't just want to control Hong Kong; it wants to remodel the minds and souls of the Hong Kong people. Chinese state media said of the history exam controversy that it was an occasion for Hong Kong to "surgically detoxify" its education system so as to make it "compatible" with "one country, two systems." What they really were calling for is a radical change of the status quo. "One country, two systems" is designed, in theory, to safeguard the fundamental rights of Hong Kong's people. In fact, our rights are gradually being taken away in the name of safeguarding "one country, two systems" Beijing's version of it. The policy isn't dead so much as it is perverse. Which it always has been. "One country, two systems" was a ploy from the outset, a tactic for China to buy time, the better to absorb Hong Kong sooner or later. Preferably sooner, it seems. Lewis Lau Yiu man is a special correspondent for Stand News in Hong Kong and a contributor to Up Media in Taiwan.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
The N.F.L. must seal off players, coaches and team staff members in an enclosed community to safely play the 2020 season amid the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the country's highest ranking specialist in infectious diseases, said on Thursday. "Unless players are essentially in a bubble insulated from the community and they are tested nearly every day it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall," Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN. Dr. Fauci said if a second wave of cases sweeps the country, as many experts fear, "football may not happen this year." The N.B.A., Major League Soccer and other leagues have announced plans to create enclosed campuses where their players, coaches and staff members will live and play full time in venues without fans. The N.B.A., for instance, will house teams at the Walt Disney World Resort next month near Orlando, Fla., so it can finish the 2019 20 season.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
The story spends much of its time following Young soo in his abjection, which is well deserved the female friend in Young soo's circle speaks a universal truth about Hong's males, and perhaps the gender in general, when she pronounces "You men are really pathetic." The more intriguing story line involves the female protagonist, or perhaps protagonists. Early in the movie, before even cutting off Young soo, Lee's character is sitting in a coffee shop. An older man is startled to see her, and approaches her, calling her Min jung. She's not Min jung, she insists; she's never heard of such a person. A few minutes later she relents, and says, yes, she knows Min jung she's her twin sister! The man is placated, but he'll be agitated further when he happens upon her entertaining the aforementioned filmmaker. The mystery is part of the movie's fun, and because this is a Hong film, there's no assurance it will be explained. Hong's earlier films were realistic, minimalist comedic looks at romantic yearning and misery (almost always exacerbated by alcohol). In this phase of his career, he's infusing his stories with magic realism elements either overtly (as in his 2018 movie "Claire's Camera," which he made after this picture, and which rests on a temporal conundrum that's practically Borgesian) or implicitly, as in this film. Hong's formal confidence yields a movie that's very simply constructed and utterly engrossing. There are a lot of scenes done in a single shot, usually static, but when there's a zoom (his preferred camera flourish) it's unfussy and direct. He puts you in tune with the world of his sad sack characters immediately, and their rhythm becomes the rhythm of the story. By the end of the movie, we may suspect that one character has found an entirely novel and effective way of resetting a romantic relationship. Or that something weirder and creepier is going on. The pleasure is in not quite knowing. Yourself and Yours Not rated. In Korean, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. Watch on virtual cinemas.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
203 Ninth Street (between Third and Fourth Avenues) John Finn, a Brazilian jiu jitsu second degree black belt, who is known as Birdman, has signed a 10 year lease for a 2,000 square foot ground floor space, with a 645 square foot cellar, for his martial arts studio in this five story rental apartment building. Completed a few months ago, the building is distinguished by an exterior mural evoking local history. Birdman plans to open the studio early next year and is relocating from 548 Union Street, also in Gowanus. A three to 10 year lease is available for a 7,411 square foot prebuilt space with four glass offices, a conference room and an open layout on the eighth floor of this 13 story office building in Hell's Kitchen near Hudson Yards. The space has 15 foot ceilings and floor to ceiling windows offering Hudson River views. The 1916 white terra cotta building, with original interior details including brass banisters and a marble staircase in the lobby, was originally home to the Hill Publishing Company, which later merged to become McGraw Hill Publishing.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
California has received the 7,500 preorders required to begin reproducing its classic yellow on black license, says a report from Hemmings Daily. The plates, which were originally issued from 1963 69, will be made with a reflective finish that complies with state laws. The plates will be available in nine to 12 months. (Hemmings Daily) Tesla Motors, the electric carmakerof Palo Alto, Calif., is taking orders for its Model X crossover and announced this week that it planned to have prototypes ready by the end of the year. Production models, the company said, would be ready by early 2015. (CNN Money) In other Tesla related news, the New Jersey Legislature voted unanimously on Monday to let the automaker sell its vehicles directly to the public, without going through third party dealerships. The legislation, which still must be approved by the State Senate, specifies that Tesla can open up to four stores in the state, as long as it also maintains at least one service location. (The Los Angeles Times) Acura announced specifications of its 2015 ILX sedan Tuesday, but details about the hybrid model, which had previously been available, were conspicuously absent. The automaker told Autoblog that it would no longer offer the hybrid model and said it was "streamlining the ILX lineup to better align with customer demand." Models with 2 and 2.4 liter 4 cylinder gasoline engines will be available. (Autoblog)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
In 1966, Gladys Nilsson and five other young artists organized an exhibition of their work in Chicago's Hyde Park Art Center, and overnight became the talk of the town. The group called themselves the Hairy Who. Their art could be caustic, outre, vulgar and loud; psychedelic patterns and clashing colors abounded. It was bad taste and brilliant fun. Tattoos, graffiti, comic books, fanzines, games and toys, newspaper and magazine advertisements were all influences, as was the encyclopedic, global collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Rooted in the Surrealist traditions of Chicago's art scene, it was unlike anything else in America at that time. I first visited Ms. Nilsson and Mr. Nutt at home in suburban Wilmette, north of Chicago, three years ago. For this interview I reached Ms. Nilsson by video call (it was her first experience with FaceTime, and she was thrilled by the technology). The pair have lived in their art filled home on a tree lined, brick cobbled street since 1976; she keeps her studio up a narrow set of stairs in the attic. Despite her now white shock of curly hair and wire rimmed spectacles, Ms. Nilsson's mischievous smile is still recognizable from photographs of her as a fresh faced art school graduate at the Hyde Park Art Center, flushed with excitement. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. Unless I'm having an off day, I seem always to be ready to work. My usual is that I go up into the studio for anything from two to five hours in the afternoon. But if I'm finishing work on something, or I'm just starting something, and I need space, I'll go to the mall. Laughs. I go out for lunch, go through the stores, fondle a little fabric, try on some shoes, do that kind of stuff. Clear my mind. But I always have a snapshot on my phone of what I left the studio with. Jim can't understand how I can go to the mall and still think about my painting. But for me, it's very easy to do. Laughs. Your exhibition at Garth Greenan Gallery includes "Gleefully Askew" which is seven feet high the largest painting you've ever made. Where does the impulse to paint big come from? Every time I've walked past really big paintings in a museum, like Rubens' Marie de' Medici series in the Louvre, I've thought, "Oh my God I want to paint big." Moving paint around and making big motions with your arm is fun. It's as much fun as going through the department store and seeing what the new fashions are. I like to paint really tiny things too. What could be better than to be able to paint something really tiny and to then paint something really big? It kind of shows that I can do everything! Your technical prowess is so much a part of your paintings' impact. Beyond the imagistic content, what hits me first is color, form, texture, pattern, painterly incident. I really enjoy doing all of that, but when I look at work by somebody else it doesn't have to have that. I do appreciate the technical prowess in things like Charles Burchfield's watercolors. But after I've appreciated it, I get lost in where they're taking me on a visual level. Watercolor is my primary medium because I enjoy how far I can take those subtleties. My fingers and my brain and my brushes just die in the pigment, I love it so much. A lot has changed in your work over the past 50 or 60 years. What has stayed the same? Well, obviously, the use of the figure. There's a certain amount of pattern. The use of color I love to play with color relationships in pleasant manners and in jarring manners. Using the figure in inventive scenarios, a certain kind of distortion. I love to watch people. I collect postures, in my mind, when somebody doesn't think that they're onstage so to speak, when they're slumped or moving in a strange or exaggerated manner. It also comes from looking, say, at James Ensor's little etchings of people on the beach or "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by good old Hieronymus Bosch , where there's some really weird stuff going on! Are the female figures ever you? Not really, unless I set out specifically to do a self portrait, which is almost never. As I've aged, my women have aged. In that sense I'm following my physical shift through time. Hair has gotten grayer, things are drooping more, waistlines are expanding. Tell me about your training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I felt like I was a holding pattern until I got out of school, in terms of following my personal thread. But then in my last semester, one day I walked into the lunchroom and several people I knew but didn't like were all sitting together at the same table. It was an overwhelming experience to see them there. I couldn't control myself. I went up to painting class and I did a painting that really went beyond painting the model. It was a group of people that had sharp tongues and looked weird; it was not what you were supposed to paint in art school. That was the start of figuring out that I could paint what I wanted to paint, rather than what I was told to paint. Is there ever cruelty in your work now? No. That was just that one instance. I love all the people in my paintings. I would take care of them, no matter what they look like or what they are doing. They might be misguided, they might be a little naughty, but they're nice. Because I'm nice. Even the earliest paintings in this exhibition depict interactions between men and women. Was that a preoccupation of yours in the mid 60s? No. I was happily married, and everybody in my paintings had to have a significant other. In the early work, there would be a lot of times when I would be counting how many men and how many women were in the pictures, so that everybody would have a mate.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
David Letterman is one of the greatest entertainers in the history of television, but his legacy is more fragile than you may think. That's because the late night talk show is an ephemeral form, its hosts forgotten faster than teen idols. Onetime superstars like Steve Allen and Jack Paar have faded into obscurity, primarily because it's difficult to see their shows, and much of Johnny Carson's oeuvre was erased. Mr. Letterman's work is not so hard to find, thanks in large part to Don Giller, a superfan who stumbled into becoming a critical custodian of Mr. Letterman's comedy. Of the 6,028 late night shows that Mr. Letterman hosted, on NBC and CBS, Mr. Giller, 66, has videos of all but two. His YouTube page has been viewed more than 4.5 million times, and he has become an invaluable resource for journalists on the late night beat. (I couldn't have written my new biography, "Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night," without Mr. Giller's help.) Even staff members from "The Late Show" have asked him for assistance. "You wouldn't get it unless you watch a couple weeks and notice the story line to me, there's a story line," he said in his Upper West Side apartment. "You start getting his little asides: 'Oh, he did that a couple weeks ago. That's what that's in reference to.'" To Mr. Giller's right sat six recording devices stacked on top of one another. To his left was a computer. And all around him were towers of boxes, books and tapes that would make a Collyer brother feel right at home. When I asked if he knows where to find everything in his cluttered apartment, he said, with typical wryness, "I'd like to say, 'Yes.'" The origins of Mr. Giller's Letterman library can be traced, like so many other obsessions, to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Mr. Giller, who grew up in Baltimore the son of an accountant, was in seventh grade in 1963. His uncle gave him a reel to reel recorder, and the first thing he recalls taping was news of the death of the president. But his main focus became "Late Night With David Letterman," the 12:30 a.m. show that ran on NBC from 1982 to 1993. Mr. Giller recorded it on audio right from its first episode after having enjoyed Mr. Letterman's short lived morning show. He later bought a VCR and filled in the holes in his collection through trades with other fans. From the beginning, Mr. Giller took scrupulous notes that formed a Letterman database, with accounts of segments, Top 10 lists, even jokes. Why record everything? "That's what I do," he said. "I always liked making lists and trying to get a handle on something that interests me." His compulsion became useful to a larger audience in the 1990s, when Mr. Giller joined early internet message boards dedicated to Mr. Letterman. His exhaustive knowledge marked him as an authority, even among superfans. "It started when someone asked who played Flunky the Clown," Mr. Giller said, referring to a cigarette smoking clown who made cameos on "Late Night." "I said: Jeff Martin. People were like: 'Who's this guy?'" He became known as the Donz and found friendship in an AOL community made up of what he jokingly described as "like minded psychotics who are as interested in this guy as I am." When trolls infiltrated, fans migrated to a private Facebook page, which remains active. People working at "The Late Show," which debuted on CBS in 1993, noticed Mr. Giller on message boards and contacted him in 1995. They wanted his help tracking down old Academy Awards broadcasts, to aid Mr. Letterman as he prepared to host the show. When the talk show started its own website three years later, it went live with a Top 10 list, "Signs You're Spending Too Much Time Online." From his desk, Mr. Letterman finished with: "No. 1: Your name is 'The Donz.'" Mr. Giller has met Mr. Letterman briefly a few times, the first when he approached him outside the Ed Sullivan Theater in 1994 with a piece of dental floss, a reference to a joke made the night before. "I made one of the biggest mistakes a citizen can make with a comedian: I cracked a joke," he said. "I blew it." He said he hopes to have a longer conversation, but if not, that's fine. "I'd like him to know what I did," he said. "The question is: Will he give a crap? I need to be prepared that he won't and accept that." Mr. Giller said he is not at a loss now that Mr. Letterman is off the air. He is still fielding requests from fans, and hopes to be done digitizing all of "Late Night" by 2018. Pointing at his wall of tapes, he said, "This thing has now become 24/7."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
On Wednesday evening, a phalanx of Amazon employees known as "FC ambassadors" began tweeting again about how great it is to work at Amazon. When the ambassadors see others on social media discussing the brutal working conditions at Amazon fulfillment centers, its anti union actions or anything else unflattering about the company, they step in to offer an on the ground perspective. They are, at once, warehouse workers and public relations representatives. One ambassador, going by the name Hannah, responded to a thread on Thursday that described poor treatment of Amazon's workers. "I suffer from depression too, and at one point I wanted to quit Amazon," she wrote. "But I realized it was my fault for the problems I was dealing with, and not Amazon's. I'm allowed to talk to people, but sometimes I don't want to. Now I have some great coworkers to pass the nights with." Another ambassador, going by the name Rafael, responded to an accusation of being a robot. "That would be a crazy technology to artificialize thoughts," he wrote. "I am actually a picker inside the FC, (prep itms) and was given a chance to be an ambassador here." The FC ambassadors were introduced in 2018 and first attracted attention about a year ago. At the time, Krystal Hu, a reporter for Yahoo Finance, said that the company told her there were 14 FC ambassadors and that they were paid to patrol social media full time. They popped up again in February, when various accounts began spouting anti union talking points ("unions are thieves" that make it difficult for employers to "discipline, terminate or promote"). On Thursday, Amazon would not answer questions about how many ambassadors it employs or how exactly their jobs work. "FC ambassadors are employees who work in our FCs and share facts based on personal experience," said Lindsay Campbell , a spokeswoman for Amazon. "It's important that we do a good job educating people about the actual environment inside our fulfillment centers, and the FC ambassador program is a big part of that along with the FC tours we provide." The accounts have provoked suspicion. In January, it appeared that the accounts had changed hands; one that had belonged to a "Leo" had changed its display name and handle to Ciera. A "Rick" had become a "James," and a "Michelle" had transformed into a "Sarah." (Critics of the account occasionally call them the "Borg," a reference to an alien race in Star Trek who operate as a collective hive mind.) Tweets from the ambassador accounts suggest that workers shift in and out of their social media roles. In May, for instance, an account that now uses the handle AmazonFCBrianDJ tweeted a picture of a smiling man holding an Amazon package and announced that, after four months of tweeting, it would be his last day as an ambassador. About a week later, the account posted a picture of a different man who introduced himself as Brian D.J., an outbound picker at a fulfillment center in Jacksonville. The next month, an account using the name Mary Kate announced that she was returning to her role as a "picker and learning ambassador on the weekdays and modern dancer on the weekends." Alex Newhouse , a data analyst at a California gaming company, ran a simple analysis on the accounts and found that about 50 with the naming convention "amazonfc" in their handle were also using a social media management tool called Sprinklr. (Such tools are common for social media professionals; The New York Times uses one called SocialFlow.) Amazon confirmed that its ambassador accounts use Sprinklr. Amazon is not the only company that relies on what publicists call "employee advocates." Lizz Kannenberg , the director of brand strategy at Sprout Social, which advises companies on social media use, said that employee advocacy had developed over the last three to five years. The practice emerged as an alternative to influencer marketing, in which popular accounts on social media are paid to hawk products or recommend services. "People who work at a company are like the people you're trying to reach," Ms. Kannenberg said, adding that they are an "extension" of a brand's identity rather than endorsers of products. But using employees to address criticism was "something I haven't seen done successfully before," she said. But Amazon's drafting of its employees to defend its practices is nothing new, said Joseph A. McCartin, a labor historian at Georgetown University. He described a similar practice a century earlier. To deal with the fallout from a massacre involving the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, which John D. Rockefeller owned, the family hired Ivy Lee, widely seen as the inventor of modern public relations, and W.L. Mackenzie King, a labor consultant (who went on to become a Canadian prime minister). Mr. Lee and Mr. King used the company's workers to promote its image as a model employer, despite the fact its labor practices had set off strikes that led to the massacre. "In that sense, Amazon is currently operating from a venerable old playbook," Mr. McCartin said. By using Twitter this way, Amazon is reaching out directly to a public that is more confident in the company than in its local police force, its public representatives or its religious institutions, according to a 2018 Georgetown University poll. Jonathan Albright, the director of the Digital Forensics Initiative at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, said that the messages the accounts were spreading did not rise to the level of disinformation. But he said the practice could be deceptive in theory and had the potential to involve components of disinformation. He said that he preferred to refer to the campaign by what it was, calling it "dark art P.R."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Gossip From the Liz Smith Memorial, Just the Way She'd Want It "I am a garbage pail," the gossip columnist Liz Smith once said. "My best stories come from other newspaper people and media people. My best stories come from people at The New York Times and CBS and NBC and ABC and Time and Newsweek. People who are frustrated by what they know and don't have a place to print." Her favorite foods were fried, her favorite exercise was none, and when she dined at restaurants which was pretty much all the time she left inordinately large tips, saying, "no one ever got rich stiffing a waiter." Although she never won a Pulitzer Prize, Mike Wallace once said she was more widely read (and better paid) than almost anyone who did. She trafficked in gossip, but knew "The Odyssey" backward and forward. And, somewhat counterintuitively, she regarded benevolence as an essential requirement of her job. The crowd included people from virtually every sector of media and entertainment. Toward the front on the left was Gay Talese. Just behind was the film producer Jean Doumanian. A ways over was Tom Wolfe. Cynthia McFadden, a correspondent at NBC, was the first speaker and said that Ms. Smith had at first been against having a memorial. "But with a little loving encouragement, she seemed to soften," Ms. McFadden said. So much so, in fact, that by the time she died, there was an exit note left in her sofa with detailed instructions to friends that included the request ("in all caps," Ms. McFadden noted) that they hold this posthumous event at a Shubert Theater. Barry Diller spoke after Ms. McFadden and talked about how he shared a birthday with Ms. Smith and Elaine Stritch. One year, Mr. Diller, Ms. Stritch and Ms. Smith decided to celebrate at the 21 Club. That excursion came to an end after the third oyster, when Ms. Stritch said, "this place is a dump," grabbed everyone's coats and took them to 3 Guys. In the late 1980s, Mr. Diller worked as an executive at Fox, where one of his responsibilities was starting what he described as an "'Entertainment Tonight" type show. "Liz introduced me to a producer she had known and who I had never met before," Mr. Diller said. "He'd come from political campaigning, and I thought he'd be great. He was, but not for this show. We became friends, and later I introduced him to Rupert Murdoch. His name was Roger Ailes. So, Liz, it's all your fault." Other speakers included the actors Renee Zellweger (who described Ms. Smith traveling to Austin, Tex., in 2011, despite a hip injury, so she could accompany her to a film festival), Bruce Willis (who recalled Ms. Smith's habit of using her column for charitable causes) and Holland Taylor (who met Ms. Smith back in the mid '70s and received her last email from Ms. Smith around Nov. 5, a week before her death). Had Ms. Taylor and Ms. Smith enjoyed a summer romance back at the beginning of their relationship? Ms. Taylor alluded to that possibility from the stage, but said that what really endured between them was a friendship that "was for me the single safe harbor in what has always seemed a storm tossed scattered life in, let's not kid ourselves, the mean old world." The writer Billy Norwich said he owed his name to Ms. Smith. She had been a mentor to him when he was young, broke and looking to break into the publishing business. "'Honey,'" he recalled her telling him, "'the first thing we need to do is get you a better name if you're going to be a writer.' I was born Billy Goldberg in Norwich, Conn., and one day over lunch I became Billy Norwich from Goldberg, Conn. Which is very useful because you get the anti Semitism direct that way." Over the years, Ms. Smith promoted Mr. Norwich relentlessly to colleagues. She also admonished him for misspelling people's names in his columns at The New York Observer and The New York Daily News, advised him to always have two drinks before he went reporting at society functions, and stepped in front of Oscar de la Renta the night he was about to knock Mr. Norwich out for something he'd written. Long before President Trump began calling CNN "fake news," Ms. Stahl said he vowed to purchase The Daily News merely so he could fire Ms. Smith, who had written disparagingly about him during his divorce from Ivana Trump. And Ms. Smith did have a few shortcomings. For example, Ms. McFadden said, "she was not good at keeping a secret. Professional liability, I guess." Yet she rarely lost friends. "If she did, she would woo them and get them back," Ms. Stahl said. I can attest to both of these things being true. For many years, Ms. Smith was a close friend of my mother, Nora Ephron. I'm sure Ms. Smith was devastated by the loss, but her claim that she thought my mother had died when she posted the piece made no sense. In the piece itself, she said my mother hadn't died. But I couldn't stay mad at her. She was too kind. She was too smart. She was too much fun. And it was precisely the sort of thing my mother would have found amusing, had it happened to anyone else. (I could almost see my mother saying: "Well, what did you expect?" A scary thing about storytellers is that their central allegiance is to the story.) So seven weeks later, I called Ms. Smith for help on an article and stayed friendly with her until her death. Bygones. The world was a better place with her in it.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Klek, or squat, shops , in former basement bunkers in Bulgaria's capital are evolving with the times, transforming into modern shops, artist studios and speakeasies. Every day for the past 20 years, Lyudmil Kutev has lumbered three stories down the crumbling concrete steps of his Sofia apartment, descended into a basement Cold War bunker packed floor to ceiling with shoes, and swung open a rusty window panel just inches from the sidewalk. "My father hid here during the Allied bombing," Mr. Kutev said, polishing a pair of loafers in the cramped space and peering up at the feet of those passing by outside. "And in the last years of Communism, he hid this shoe repair business down here, too." Below Sofia's Ottoman mosques, Red Army monuments, and onion domed churches, some of the most intriguing relics of this city's tangled past are lurking just below the sidewalk and you'll have to crouch down and peer through tiny windows to find them. Known as klek, or squat shops, these knee high ateliers and stores are nestled in former storage cellars and bomb shelters, and they're only found in Bulgaria's capital. Today, as a record number of tourists visit Sofia, these squat shops are emerging as some of the city's most creative underground spaces. "Visually, kleks are incredibly unusual, interesting spaces," said Iara Boubnova, the director of Sofia's Institute of Contemporary Art. "The fact that they force you to bend down and shift your perspective offers so much artistic potential." In recent years, the institute has put on two pop up exhibits inside kleks, and Ms. Boubnova is showing a new klek inspired video installation through May 31 underneath Sofia's Eagle Bridge. Before World War II and during the Cold War, Bulgarians and Soviets designed bomb shelters in the basements of apartment buildings throughout Sofia, with separate spaces for each family. The rooms lining the perimeter often had a small window just above street level. As Communism unraveled in the late 1980s, many residents lacked money to open independent shops, so entrepreneurs started illicitly selling extra appliances and household goods while craftsmen offered shoe repair, tailoring, and other services to pedestrians from their dimly lit bunkers. By the 1990s, there were underground squat shops on most every street in Sofia. Yet, as more chains and supermarkets have opened downtown in recent years, these reminders of Sofia's early can do capitalist spirit are vanishing. According to Mr. Bondov, more than half of the city's kleks have disappeared since 2012, with only 27 remaining today. In their place, a wave of artists and entrepreneurs are transforming these spaces into studios or speakeasies, while some surviving kleks are evolving from hole in the wall convenience stores selling cigarettes and lotto tickets to incorporate a modern, locavore twist with local, natural food and drink. Wander through central Sofia today and you'll see elderly shoppers in flappy Russian ushanka caps and post Cold War cool kids crouching to buy Bulgarian chocolates, bold red wines from the Thracian Valley, and hand painted cooking pots from Troyan. Merchants often display their inventory in glass covered shelves where the sidewalk meets the building, while others bump upbeat Bulgarian pop folk chalgra songs from their spaces to draw the attention of those above. Across from the National Palace of Culture park, visitors peek down at Petranka Pedrova's bustling klek bakery, which like most of the other kleks has no formal name and is known to locals as Fornetti. Customers can choose from 32 freshly squeezed fruit juices from local apricots to imported kiwis to pair with her flaky banitsa phyllo dough pastries. Near the Ivan Vazov National Theatre, Radoslav Alexandrov tops the toasted ground beef and kashkaval cheese princessa sandwiches at his klek known as Filiite, with chopped chubritza savory herbs from his garden. Thirsty? Ask for minty tea made from a boiled bouquet of plants Alexandrov picks from Bulgaria's Rhodope Mountains. "Here, my monthly rent is 200 lev" (or 125), Mr. Alexandrov told me as I squatted on the sidewalk looking in. "Above ground, it might be 2,000." He generously slid a stool up through the window as my knees started to buckle.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
For more than a year, Sister Megan Rice, 85, a Roman Catholic nun of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, had caught occasional glimpses of the glittering World Trade Center from her living quarters: the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal prison on the Brooklyn waterfront. So when the Volvo she was riding in one morning last week crested the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and the skyscraper came into full view, it made a strong impression. "Oh, my gosh," Sister Rice exclaimed. Drinking in the scenery and the panorama of New York Harbor, she added, "We're well on our way." It was her fifth day of freedom after two years behind bars for a crime for which she is boldly unapologetic. In 2012, she joined two other peace activists in splattering blood and antiwar slogans on a nuclear plant in Tennessee that holds enough highly enriched uranium to make thousands of nuclear warheads. All three were convicted and sent to prison. But on May 8, an appellate court ruled that the government had overreached in charging them with sabotage, and ordered them set free. Since her release on May 16, Sister Rice, a Manhattan native, had been reconnecting with family and friends, as well as seeing doctors, lawyers and reporters. She took time to visit St. Patrick's Cathedral, and she made her first purchase: peanut butter frozen yogurt topped with hot fudge. Now, dressed in a sweatsuit that fellow inmates had given her, the nun was traveling to the American headquarters of her order in Rosemont, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia. The agenda was to confer with her superiors about her future one in which she plans to continue her antinuclear activism. One threat was that the federal government might challenge the recent ruling and try to have her thrown back in prison. "It would be an honor," Sister Rice said during the ride. "Good Lord, what would be better than to die in prison for the antinuclear cause?" Her family and friends seemed slightly agog at her fiery commitment and rabble rousing energy after so much time in jail. "It's unbelievable," said a cousin with whom the nun is staying, who asked that her name be withheld to avoid unwanted attention. "I would be semicomatose." Sister Rice, thin but seemingly healthy, was in high spirits and voluble as she talked about her religious order, her atomic radicalization, her life in prison and what may come next. Even before she broke into the Y 12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., Sister Rice had been arrested dozens of times for acts of civil disobedience. She and other peace activists once blocked a truck rumbling across a nuclear test site in the Nevada desert. Twice, she served six month jail sentences. The pacifists belong to the Plowshares movement, a loose, mostly Christian group that seeks the global elimination of nuclear arms. The Tennessee action took place on a Saturday night in July 2012. Sister Rice, then 82, Michael Walli, 63, and Gregory Boertje Obed, 57, cut through barbed wire fences at the Oak Ridge complex. Making their way to the inner sanctum, full of uranium, they splashed human blood on the windowless building, spray painted its walls with peace slogans, hammered at its concrete base and draped it in crime scene tape. After being convicted in May 2013, Sister Rice was sentenced to three years and the two men to five years. She was imprisoned in Tennessee, then Georgia, and in March 2014 was sent to Brooklyn, just off the Gowanus Expressway. The nun told how a single large room at the Brooklyn prison had housed more than 100 women. Early this year, The Daily News published an article calling the prison a "hellhole." After that, some inmates were moved. "The language bothered me," Sister Rice recalled. "But people wouldn't have listened otherwise." She said a gifted legal team, working pro bono, had seemingly materialized out of thin air to fight the government's sabotage charge. The court's overturning of the antinuclear conviction this month was hailed as a legal first. "This action was meant to be," Sister Rice said of the Tennessee protest. "Things fell into place unplanned. That's the unbelievable part of it." She said she had lost her access to email at the prison and learned the specifics of her release not from her lawyers or her family, but from a BBC News radio broadcast at 3 in the morning. Disbelieving, she listened again at 4 a.m. "I started packing," she recalled, "just in case it was true." Sister Rice occasionally paused her recounting to make or take calls on borrowed cellphones, including an old flip model. "All is well," she said into the phone as the Volvo neared Philadelphia. "I have too many funny stories to tell. And we'll get together and I'll tell them all. O.K., much love, dearie, and three cheers." As the Volvo sped through Pennsylvania, she explained the purpose of her meeting at Rosemont. After Sister Rice's conviction, Sister Mary Ann Buckley, the leader of the religious order's American arm, had issued a statement saying the order intended to "stand behind Sister Megan" and the Catholic Church's "clear teaching" against the proliferation of nuclear arms. The meeting, Sister Rice said, was "to figure out what we can look forward to this year." The order, she added, was founded on the philosophy that the nuns would meet the wants of their time. "If you can show that," she added, "there's no problem. That's why I had no qualms. I had a mission." Much later, on the way back to New York, Sister Rice said the meeting at Rosemont had gone well. But she was now hours behind schedule and had a television appearance set for that evening on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show." Asked about critics who advocate peace through strength, Sister Rice conceded that nuclear arms did have a certain power of intimidation. But she insisted that the United States, by keeping a vast arsenal, was violating its global disarmament pledges and ultimately courting disaster. "It's making other countries feel compelled to have nuclear weapons," she said, going on to mimic the me, too logic: "If you have them, we have to have them." Ms. Pyzel, the driver, heartily agreed. "It's madness," she said. Sister Rice added: "We don't want to end the industry. We want to transform it into something that's useful. What could be better than making something that's life enhancing rather than life destroying?" As the Volvo sped along the New Jersey Turnpike, Sister Rice joined in a conference call with the Plowshares team. A group of what seemed to be six or seven people talked for a half hour about the opportunities that the release of Sister Rice and her two accomplices had presented and about the possibility of public activities in August marking the 70th anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "To me," Sister Rice said, "what needs to be done is to firm up the fervor and awareness that has grown, to maximize the message around this particular action." As it turned out, that same day brought good news. In Cincinnati, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit gave federal prosecutors more time to decide whether to challenge the overturning of the three protesters' sabotage convictions. Their new deadline is June 22. For now, at least, Sister Rice is a free woman. After a long day, the skyscraper known as the Freedom Tower returned to view. Sister Rice and Ms. Pyzel breathed a sigh of relief when approaching the Holland Tunnel, certain they would have sufficient time to get to MSNBC's studios at Rockefeller Center. "We're still being led," the nun said, referring to the way things always seemed to fall into place. "It's the universe at work."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
During periods of hardship, laughter can lighten the load. Cracking up may be a better option than breaking down, or so the recent publications of three young adults with cancer suggest. Somewhat discomfiting, the jests of these authors serve as an antidote and alternative to the despairing negativity or fake positivity that plagues patients like me. Their punch lines zing with pleasure that offsets the pain of their edgy insights. In Nina Riggs's memoir "The Bright Hour," she tells of commiserating with a friend who is also dealing with triple negative breast cancer. They imagine starting a business called Damaged Goods, which would sell a line of morbid thank you cards: "Thank you for the taco casserole. It worked even better than my stool softeners." "Thoughts and prayers are great, but Ativan and pot are better." "Thank you for the flowers. I hope they die before I do." "All your phone messages about how not knowing exactly what's going on with me has stressed you out really helped me put things in perspective." "Xanax is white, Zofran is blue, steroids make me feel like throttling you." At 37, Ms. Riggs was told she had "one small spot" of cancer that, despite aggressive treatment, quickly spread to her bones. Inspired in part by her great great great grandfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ms. Riggs ponders "how simultaneously cruel and beautiful this world can be." In the process, she resembles her mother who liked to joke about her own terminal disease, "Dying isn't the end of the world." (Some readers may recall Ms. Riggs's Modern Love essay "When a Couch Is More Than a Couch," the response to which prompted her to write the memoir.) In lyrical passages of "The Bright Hour," completed just before her death, Ms. Riggs recounts her grief at the death of her mother from multiple myeloma; the support of her father, whose purchase of a motorcycle must have issued from a death pact "over my dead body" with her mother; and the loving intimacy of her husband and boys, who are poignantly portrayed as they reel through sunny and shadowy patches. This network helped Ms. Riggs rise to meet the challenge of her ancestor, Emerson: "to cease for a bright hour to be a prisoner of this sickly body, and to become as large as the World."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Well
Remakes and cartoons or, in the case of "Dumbo," a remake of a cartoon make up this week's crop of new movie trailers. Here they are, in order from most to least promising. It may have the same title as the 1971 blaxploitation flick and its 2000 reboot, but the trailer for this update reveals a more comic tone. Jessie T. Usher ("Survivor's Remorse") joins the cast as John Shaft Jr., the less than supercool son and grandson of the Harlem P.I.s played by Samuel L. Jackson and Richard Roundtree, who both make welcome returns to the franchise. Wisely using Isaac Hayes' Oscar winning original score, the clip packs in gags and action. Can you dig it? I can. Sometimes when studios release new international trailers, it's a lot of the same footage that's already been seen in American promos, slightly rearranged. But in the case of this British clip for the director Tim Burton's live action take on "Dumbo," Disney's animated chestnut, it's almost all fresh material. Much of it focuses on two veterans of Burton's "Batman Returns," Danny DeVito and Michael Keaton, who exhibit (and possibly exploit) the big eared flying elephant. The tagline promises, "A beloved tale will take you to new heights." Based on this uplifting teaser, I believe it. The second trailer for the new animated film from Laika, the studio behind the Oscar nominated 2016 "Kubo and the Two Strings," can't seem to decide if it's selling a slapstick farce or a more high minded adventure. Zach Galifianakis voices a monster who joins two explorers (Hugh Jackman and Zoe Saldana) on a journey to find the Yetis he believes are his cousins. Rather than Bigfoot or Sasquatch, the creature likes to call itself "Susan." If that makes you laugh, "Missing Link" could be the movie for you. Back in October, the first trailer for this new version of Stephen King's chiller didn't generate much excitement, but this follow up increases the fear factor. It also divulges more of the plot: A doctor (Jason Clarke) moves his family to a small town, and after his daughter dies, he reanimates her at a haunted burial ground. "They don't come back the same," warns the film's slogan, but aside from a gender switch with the demon child, this feels like the same old story that was turned into a perfectly serviceable 1989 horror picture. How many pop stars can you stuff into one cast? This animated musical based on the plush toy line tries to find out, with a roster that includes Kelly Clarkson, Nick Jonas, Pitbull, Blake Shelton, Bebe Rexha, Charli XCX, Lizzo and more. But as the strained line readings by Clarkson and Shelton in the trailer demonstrate, just because you've been a coach on "The Voice" doesn't mean you should voice a cartoon character.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Nicole Eisenberg's older son has wanted to be a star of the stage since he was a toddler, she said. He took voice, dance and drama lessons and attended the renowned Stagedoor Manor summer camp for half a dozen years, but she was anxious that might not be enough to get him into the best performing arts programs. So Ms. Eisenberg and others in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., the affluent suburb where she lives, helped him start a charity with friends that raised more than 250,000 over four years. "The moms the four or five moms that started it together we started it, we helped, but we did not do it for them," Ms. Eisenberg, 49, recalled. "Did we ask for sponsors for them? Yes. Did we ask for money for them? Yes. But they had to do the work." She even considered a donation to the college of his choice. "There's no amount of money we could have paid to have got him in," Ms. Eisenberg said. "Because, trust me, my father in law asked." (Ms. Eisenberg's son was admitted to two of the best musical theater programs in the country, she said, along with nine more of the 26 schools he applied to.) College has been on their radar since her son was in diapers. "We've been working on this since he was 3 years old," she said. To apply, she said, "I had to take him on 20 auditions for musical theater. But he did it with me. I don't feel like I did this. I supported him in it. I did not helicopter parent him. I was a co pilot." Or was she, perhaps, a ... snowplow parent? Helicopter parenting, the practice of hovering anxiously near one's children, monitoring their every activity, is so 20th century. Some affluent mothers and fathers now are more like snowplows: machines chugging ahead, clearing any obstacles in their child's path to success, so they don't have to encounter failure, frustration or lost opportunities. Taken to its criminal extreme, that means bribing SAT proctors and paying off college coaches to get children in to elite colleges and then going to great lengths to make sure they never face the humiliation of knowing how they got there. Those are among the allegations in the recent college bribery scandal, in which 50 people were charged in a wide ranging fraud to secure students admissions to colleges. According to the investigation, one parent lied about his son playing water polo, but then worried that the child would be perceived by his peers as "a bench warmer side door person." (He was assured that his son wouldn't have to actually be on the team.) Another, the charges said, paid someone to take the ACT for her son and then pretended to proctor it for him herself, at home, so he would think he was the test taker. The parents charged in this investigation, code named Operation Varsity Blues, are far outside the norm. But they were acting as the ultimate snowplows: clearing the way for their children to get in to college, while shielding them from any of the difficulty, risk and potential disappointment of the process. In its less outrageous and wholly legal form, snowplowing (also known as lawn mowing and bulldozing) has become the most brazen mode of parenting of the privileged children in the everyone gets a trophy generation. It starts early, when parents get on wait lists for elite preschools before their babies are born and try to make sure their toddlers are never compelled to do anything that may frustrate them. It gets more intense when school starts: running a forgotten assignment to school or calling a coach to request that their child make the team. Later, it's writing them an excuse if they procrastinate on schoolwork, paying a college counselor thousands of dollars to perfect their applications or calling their professors to argue about a grade. The topics new parents are talking about. Evidence based guidance. Personal stories that matter. Sign up now to get NYT Parenting in your inbox every week. The bribery scandal has "just highlighted an incredibly dark side of what has become normative, which is making sure that your kid has the best, is exposed to the best, has every advantage without understanding how disabling that can be," said Madeline Levine, a psychologist and the author of "Teach Your Children Well: Why Values and Coping Skills Matter More Than Grades, Trophies or 'Fat Envelopes.'" "They've cleared everything out of their kids' way," she said. In her practice, Dr. Levine said, she regularly sees college freshmen who "have had to come home from Emory or Brown because they don't have the minimal kinds of adult skills that one needs to be in college." One came home because there was a rat in the dorm room. Some didn't like their roommates. Others said it was too much work, and they had never learned independent study skills. One didn't like to eat food with sauce. Her whole life, her parents had helped her avoid sauce, calling friends before going to their houses for dinner. At college, she didn't know how to cope with the cafeteria options covered in sauce. "Here are parents who have spent 18 years grooming their kids with what they perceive as advantages, but they're not," Dr. Levine said. Yes, it's a parent's job to support the children, and to use their adult wisdom to prepare for the future when their children aren't mature enough to do so. That's why parents hide certain toys from toddlers to avoid temper tantrums or take away a teenager's car keys until he finishes his college applications. If children have never faced an obstacle, what happens when they get into the real world? They flounder, said Julie Lythcott Haims, the former dean of freshmen at Stanford and the author of "How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success." At Stanford, she said, she saw students rely on their parents to set up play dates with people in their dorm or complain to their child's employers when an internship didn't lead to a job. The root cause, she said, was parents who had never let their children make mistakes or face challenges. Snowplow parents have it backward, Ms. Lythcott Haims said: "The point is to prepare the kid for the road, instead of preparing the road for the kid." Helicopter parenting is a term that came into vogue in the 1980s and grew out of fear about children's physical safety that they would fall off a play structure or be kidnapped at the bus stop. In the 1990s, it evolved into intensive parenting, which meant not just constantly monitoring children, but also always teaching them. This is when parents began filling afternoons and weekends with lessons, tutors and traveling sports games. Parents now spend more money on child rearing than any previous generation did, according to Consumer Expenditure Survey data analyzed by the sociologists Sabino Kornrich and Frank Furstenberg. According to time use data analyzed by Melissa A. Milkie, a sociologist at the University of Toronto, today's working mothers spend as much time doing hands on activities with their children as stay at home mothers did in the 1970s. Texting and social media have allowed parents to keep ever closer track of their progeny. Snowplow parenting is an even more obsessive form. "There's a constant monitoring of where their kid is and what they are doing, all with the intent of preventing something happening and becoming a barrier to the child's success," said Laura Hamilton, the author of "Parenting to a Degree: How Family Matters for College and Beyond" and a sociologist at the University of California, Merced. The destination at the end of the road is often admission to college. For many wealthy families, it has always been a necessary badge of accomplishment for the child and for the parents. A college degree has also become increasingly essential to earning a middle class wage. But college admissions have become more competitive. The number of applicants has doubled since the 1970s, and the growth in the number of spots has not kept pace, remaining basically unchanged at the very top schools. Now, many of the students she works with are immigrants or first generation college students. "As I read about the scandal, I feel for those parents, I do," she said. But "first generation students coming through here are figuring out how to navigate an educational system that hasn't always been built for them," she said. "It is changing the course of their lives and the lives of their families." Cathy Tran, 22, a senior at the University of Pennsylvania, is the daughter of people who immigrated from Vietnam who did not attend college. "They do give me a lot of emotional support, but they haven't really been able to tell me about what I should be doing, like next steps," she said. Clearing her own path to college had some benefits, Ms. Tran said. "I actually think that I have a sense of independence and confidence in myself in a way that some of my friends whose parents attended college might not have," she said. "I had some friends who didn't even know how to do laundry. I guess in some ways I feel like I was forced to be an adult much earlier on." Learning to solve problems, take risks and overcome frustration are crucial life skills, many child development experts say, and if parents don't let their children encounter failure, the children don't acquire them. When a 3 year old drops a dish and breaks it, she's probably going to try not to drop it the next time. When a 20 year old sleeps through a test, he's probably not going to forget to set his alarm again. Snowplowing has gone so far, they say, that many young people are in crisis, lacking these problem solving skills and experiencing record rates of anxiety. There are now classes to teach children to practice failing, at college campuses around the country and even for preschoolers. Many snowplow parents know it's problematic, too. But because of privilege or peer pressure or anxiety about their children's futures, they do it anyway.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
After her recent high profile campaign for New York governor not to mention untold episodes of "Sex and the City" Cynthia Nixon struggles to convince as an Eastern European motelier and possible human trafficker. Playing the shady Una in "Stray Dolls," a small scale crime thriller, she delivers both performance and accent without fault. Even so, her casting is a problematic distraction, both from the movie's far less recognizable stars and from a story that's flimsy to begin with. "I got a big heart," Una tells her latest acquisition, Riz (Geetanjali Thapa), an undocumented Indian immigrant who has arrived in upstate New York hoping for a better life. Promised a room and a cleaning job, Riz crashes into reality immediately when she meets her roommate, Dallas (Olivia DeJonge), a grasping runaway who steals Riz's meager belongings at knife point. They will be returned when Riz has carried out Dallas's instructions to steal from the motel's guests, a crime that Riz is adamantly unwilling to commit. Given that we have already seen Una surreptitiously shred Riz's passport, it's clear that the newcomer's reluctance will be short lived.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Despite dysfunction in Washington and a 16 day government shutdown, the economy chugged along in October, surprising many analysts as private sector hiring bounced back after a spring slowdown. The latest figures, along with upward revisions for job creation in August and September released by the Labor Department on Friday, lifted the estimated monthly pace of hiring to 202,000 over the last three months. If that strength persists, the Federal Reserve will probably feel comfortable enough to begin easing back on its stimulus efforts, economists said, though probably not as early as its next meeting in December. Over all, experts said the new data showed an economy with more underlying strength than first thought, but not necessarily growing as fast as many policy makers would like. "Sometimes it's a little faster, sometimes it's a little slower," said Guy Berger, United States economist at RBS. "The labor market is in decent shape, but it's not doing that much better than six months or a year ago." Still, the addition of 204,000 nonfarm jobs in October eased fears about the impact of the shutdown and prompted some usually cautious observers to wonder whether the economy was finally finding its footing after four years of on again, off again growth. "Maybe this is the beginning of that long awaited period of better growth for the economy," said Ethan Harris, co head of global economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. "October was remarkably resilient." Although strong economic reports by raising expectations of a quicker move by the Fed to rein in its extra stimulus have sometimes spooked markets in the past, stocks surged on Friday as traders bet healthier growth and rising earnings would offset any damping effect caused by any Fed retreat. Some market veterans, however, recommended keeping the champagne on ice. "It's not a watershed yet," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago. "A few more months like this could make it a watershed. We need at least another month of good data and some confidence in fiscal policy for the Fed to pull the trigger in December." A separate question from the timing of the Fed tapering, which affects longer term interest rates for loans like mortgages, is when the central bank will begin raising short term interest rates from their current rock bottom levels. The Fed has signaled that will not happen before unemployment falls to 6.5 percent, suggesting no move until at least 2015. But now experts like Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs say they think policy makers will decrease that threshold to 6 percent or perhaps even lower. As a result, Mr. Hatzius said he expected the Fed would hold off on raising short term rates from near zero until early 2016. The payroll data come from a monthly survey of employers, and the Labor Department said on Friday that there were "no discernible impacts of the partial federal government shutdown" on these figures, which came out a week behind schedule. If anything, analysts said, the delay in conducting the survey could have added to the numbers. But the unemployment rate, based on a separate survey of households that counted furloughed federal employees as out of work, rose to 7.3 percent in October from 7.2 percent in September. One mystery buried in Friday's report was a drop of 720,000 in the size of the labor force, and the ensuing fall in the labor participation rate to 62.8 percent, a 35 year low. The labor participation rate has been falling in recent years as discouraged workers have dropped out of the work force, others have decided to stay in school or stay home to take care of children, and the number of retirements by baby boomers has picked up. But the drop in October was the biggest one month decline since the end of 2009. A smaller labor force has the effect of making the overall unemployment rate appear lower, but is a troubling sign for the long term health of the economy. "We're scratching our heads," said Mr. Berger. "You have to set this aside and look at the November report. Does it reverse? Does it keep declining? To us, it's puzzling." The economy's ability to seemingly shake off the effects of last month's showdown in Washington left both parties trying to spin the numbers in a way that favored their side. The White House stuck to its guns, with Jason Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, asserting "there should be no debate that the shutdown and debt limit brinkmanship inflicted unnecessary damage on the economy in October." Thomas Perez, the labor secretary, said in an interview that while the jobs gain was encouraging, "I'm confident we would have had more but for the shutdown." Representative Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican who is chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, had a very different take. "When the government simply gets out of the way of the private sector, we can see real job growth," he said in a statement. Mr. Brady said the real message in Friday's report was the big decline in the participation rate, "as too many workers have dropped out because they lost hope." Employment still has a long way to go before returning to its prerecession level, in part because the downturn was so severe and because job gains in this recovery have come more slowly than in past recoveries. Compared to when the downturn began in December 2007, the number of jobs is still about 1.5 million below that peak, a decline of about 1.1 percent. And that does not account for the fact that the working age population has continued to grow, meaning that if the economy were healthy, there should be considerably more jobs today than there were before the recession. Sharp disparities remain evident in the jobs figures. Unemployment for workers over 25 with less than a high school diploma rose to 10.9 percent in October from 10.3 percent in September, while joblessness among college educated Americans inched up to a modest 3.8 percent from 3.7 percent in the previous month. Similarly, the participation rate for the most educated workers stood at 75 percent, compared with 44.7 percent for the least educated ones. Average hourly earnings in October rose just 0.1 percent, but over the last year they are up 2.2 percent. That's far less than most workers would like, but with inflation very low, it does suggest some improvement in terms of spending power by consumers. The bump in job creation for October has many economists and traders already looking ahead to the jobs report for this month, due out Dec. 6, for guidance on whether the stronger gains are sustainable or if the numbers were influenced by any statistical quirks. Mr. Hatzius, echoing a widespread view of the report, summed it up this way: "2014 is going to be a stronger year for growth but I wouldn't use this report as confirmation of that. There is a lot of noise in there."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
The Knicks and Nets have had disappointing seasons thus far, punctuated by both teams losing to the Los Angeles Lakers this week. On some level, this was to be expected. The Knicks seemed to have a poorly constructed roster with too many forwards. The Nets, having traded D'Angelo Russell to make way for Kyrie Irving, were expected to be better than .500 but with lumps, given that this season is a bridge year as the franchise awaits Kevin Durant's likely return next season. The lumps have, instead, been mountains. It hasn't been all bad, though. There have been some rousing wins, great plays and signs of a bright future for each team. At the halfway mark of the season, we give you the good, the bad and the bizarre. Overview: This might end up being one of the worst seasons in franchise history. Barring some miracle, the Knicks will not make the playoffs, again. The team showed a spark after David Fizdale (4 18) was fired and Mike Miller (8 15) took over as the interim head coach. But most of the young players, like Kevin Knox, Frank Ntilikina and Mitchell Robinson, have not played much better than they did last year. The veterans Julius Randle, Bobby Portis, Taj Gibson haven't fit well together. Dennis Smith Jr. has missed half the season with injuries and has been unproductive when he has made it on the court. At least R.J. Barrett, even though he has struggled with his shot, looks to have a long career in front of him. He is a strong defender with a knack for hustle plays. But even so, this feels like yet another lost season for the Knicks. The Knicks got their first road win of the year in early November against a surprisingly good Mavericks team. The Knicks also got a strong all around performance out of Marcus Morris Sr. 29 points on 22 shots and they needed all of it, since Luca Doncic scored 38 points for Dallas. It was the first time Kristaps Porzingis had faced his former team as an opponent, and he dropped a line nearly identical to Morris Sr.'s: 28 points on 22 shots. The win came after blowout losses by 21 (against Sacramento) and 20 (at Detroit) and improved the Knicks' record to 2 7. At one point, this game was 0 0, which is about the best thing you can say for the Knicks. They were down 18 at the end of the first quarter and things progressively got worse. At halftime, the Bucks were up 72 45, effectively ending the game with two quarters left, giving Milwaukee its 12th straight win. The Knicks season had already become dreary. The loss put them at 4 17. Ntilikina drove the right side off a soft pick and roll set by Robinson early in the second quarter. Once Ntilikina got near the basket, he lobbed a pass near the rim that Robinson caught well behind his head and viciously threw down as some Nets defenders ducked for cover. It was the kind of alley oop that very few players can catch, but Robinson is one of them. While he still fouls too often, he has improved slightly this season and remains a reliable shotblocker. No one on the Knicks is more likely to generate highlight reel plays. After the Knicks were blown out by the Cleveland Cavaliers, dropping them to 2 8, Steve Mills, the team's president, and Scott Perry, the general manager, held an impromptu news conference to tell reporters that the Knicks brass was unhappy with the direction of the team. They did not take any responsibility for how that team was constructed, though, aside from Mills' saying, "We think we collectively have to do a better job of delivering the product on the floor that we said we would do at the start of the season." Mills said the team still had faith in Fizdale, whom he fired less than a month later. Morris Sr. is not a part of the Knicks future. He is a prospective free agent, and while he has said the right things about staying with the Knicks, there are certainly playoff contenders who will want to shell out some cash for his talents. But he is having the best year of his career and is the team's most reliable performer. He's averaging a career high in points (19.1) on a solid 58.3 true shooting percentage. His 3 point percentage is at the core of his efficiency 45.7 percent good for third in the N.B.A., behind George Hill and J.J. Redick. He's shooting better from outside than he is from inside the arc (42.8 percent), but he also is averaging a career high in free throw attempts per game (4.6). The team's offensive rating is 106.4 when Morris is playing and 99.9 when he is not. To put that in perspective, 106.4 would place the Knicks 22nd in the league in offense; 99.9 would be dead last by a large margin. Getting a win against a division rival is great. Doing it without your best player is even better. Spencer Dinwiddie put on a show, pouring in 32 points and dishing 11 assists, giving Nets fans early hope that the team could stay afloat without Irving. And they did. They moved above .500 for only the second time all season, after losing to Boston just two days earlier. The Nets would win six of their next nine, before hitting a seven game losing skid. It seems unfair to include any loss without Irving, so I won't. I'll pick an early November loss to Detroit because it was a winnable game, and Irving had a triple double (20 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists). The Nets even had a 13 point second half lead. This is the kind of loss that haunts you when it comes to seeding or just trying to make the playoffs. The loss dropped the Nets to 2 4. They had no answer for Andre Drummond, who scored 25 points and snatched 20 rebounds. The Nets have more talent than the Pistons, even without Durant. This one should have been a win. (The Oct. 27 loss against the Memphis Grizzlies warrants a special mention, but a heartbreaking loss at the buzzer in overtime against a decent team gets sympathy.) Play of the Half Year: Spencer Dinwiddie, Nov. 25 at Cleveland Dinwiddie hit a midrange pull up with 1.6 seconds left to win the game for the Nets, 108 106. The Cavaliers are not a good team, but any win without Irving was valuable for the Nets. There are plenty of dazzling ball handling displays from Irving that also merit consideration but we are partial to game winners. After a loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, Irving told reporters that the gap in talent between championship contenders and the Nets was "glaring, in terms of the pieces that we need in order to be at that next level." He would go on to list several players who he suggested were a part of the championship core. He did not list the whole team, of course, and the quote was seen as a slight to the unnamed. Of course, Irving was correct. Not all the players on the Nets right now will be part of a championship core. But as a leader, there are some things you just don't say out loud. What made the comment especially baffling was that it was only Irving's second game back from his injury and the Nets had performed better in his absence. He had a terrible game against the Sixers, shooting 6 of 21 from the field. In a game where the Nets lost by 11 points, the team was outscored by 29 points when Irving was on the floor. In addition, Irving has a history of throwing shots at teammates, particularly in Boston last season. All seems to be fine right now for the Nets, but Irving's track record suggests that as the losses pile up, there will be more flare ups. And even the prospect of having his close friend Durant to pass the ball to might not be enough to limit them.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Ronald Acuna Jr. is 21 years, 106 days old. He has played just 115 games at the major league level. He has not hit .300 in a season, nor has he reached 30 career home runs. Yet on Tuesday he and the Atlanta Braves agreed to a contract that locks him up for eight years at a record price for a player his age: 100 million. And the Braves, as ridiculous as it may sound, almost assuredly got a bargain. The contract for Acuna, which will carry him through his age 28 season and includes team options that could keep him in Atlanta until he's 30 continued a trend this spring in which players, seemingly wary of a slowing free agent market, are signing extensions with their teams earlier than usual. For the players, it can lock in a large payday at a relatively young age but postpone their entry into free agency, a process that for decades had been considered the best way to maximize career earnings. Mike Trout was the most prominent player to sign a huge extension this off season, agreeing to a 360 million extension with the Angels two years before he was set to become a free agent. Nolan Arenado, who was supposed to be the jewel of next year's free agent class, signed a 234 million extension with Colorado instead. Chris Sale got 145 million from Boston; Jacob deGrom got 137.5 million from the Mets; Paul Goldschmidt got 130 million from St. Louis; and Alex Bregman got 100 million from Houston. And those were just the nine figure deals. The extension spree may seem like baseball lavishing its players with cash, but for clubs wary of enormous free agent deals like the ones signed by Bryce Harper and Manny Machado before this season, it is a way to save money in the long run: lock players up early and they won't reach free agency at an age in which they can maximize their payday. And those players, unwilling to endure years of lower pay and the process that Harper and Machado went through, are agreeing to take less overall money in exchange for a dose of security.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Each week, technology reporters and columnists from The New York Times review the week's news, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry. Hello, readers! I'm Jack Nicas, a Times reporter covering technology in San Francisco. We're starting a new routine for this newsletter: A different tech correspondent will deliver it each week. (Bleary eyed from my birthday weekend in Mexico, I got picked first. Thanks, boss!) Most of us are news reporters, not opinionated columnists like Farhad Manjoo or Kevin Roose, but we'll still do our best to provide hot takes and corny jokes. This week it would feel inappropriate to sum up the week's news without addressing the controversy over the Trump administration's recently halted policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border. The story dominated the news, seeping into nearly every area of coverage including, of course, tech. As we've seen over the past two years, tech companies again threw themselves into the kind of political debate that they have long been eager to avoid. This week, my colleague Sheera Frenkel reported that more than 100 Microsoft employees signed a letter asking the company to halt business with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency separating families at the border. Executives from Apple, Google, Facebook and others also publicly criticized the policy.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
After moving to New York City nearly a decade ago, Mfoniso Udofia began to ask herself some hard questions: "Who am I?" and "What does it mean to be both African and American?" She was a recent graduate of the master's program at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, but the four to five auditions a week she was going to weren't resulting in work. As the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, she found it puzzling to be repeatedly told that she wasn't "African enough." "I wasn't right because somebody else had a different image in their head of what an African woman is supposed to look like, or be," Ms. Udofia, 33, said, adding that this image was tied to someone "skinnier." But those hard questions pushed her to write her first play: "The Grove," about a Nigerian American named Adiagha who tries to reconcile her American upbringing with her Nigerian heritage. That spawned a prequel with Adiagha's mother called "Sojourners," then another play, and then another. "It just started spiraling as I became more and more fascinated with the characters," Ms. Udofia said. That spiraling wound itself into "The Ufot Cycle," a planned series of nine plays looking at the history of Nigerian immigration in America through the eyes of one family. Two of the plays, "Sojourners" and "Her Portmanteau," have had their runs in repertory at New York Theater Workshop extended through June 11. (The Playwrights Realm, where "Sojourners" had its premiere, helped finance the run.) It's a one two punch of storytelling, and it's a feat because when Ms. Udofia began writing those stories, she didn't know if they would ever be produced. The reception has been positive. In The New York Times, Jesse Green called the two plays "extraordinary" and "stunningly acted." Taken together, he wrote, they "offer a moving and powerful corrective to the notion that what immigrants leave behind is always awful, and that what they find is always worth the trip." "Sojourners" takes place in 1978 and is about a young Nigerian couple, Abasiama and her husband, Ukpong, who immigrate to Houston to attend college. "Her Portmanteau" is set more than 30 years later, and sees Abasiama now with two daughters: Adiagha, raised in America, and Iniabasi, raised in Nigeria. It's a sprawling series, moving between the United States and Nigeria, and also across time and space. The plays' director, Ed Sylvanus Iskandar, describes them as "Ibsen cross pollinated with the Marvel cinematic universe." "It's the same level of demand every prop onstage has a story that will pay off as a part of the plot," Mr. Iskandar said. "Every incidental action in the play has a way to pay off." Ms. Udofia didn't plan to be a playwright. Her parents immigrated to Houston in the 1970s. Like the characters in "Sojourners," Ms. Udofia's mother was a microbiologist and her father was a scholar of West African studies. "That's quite a few of the Nigerians that I know, they were coming here to explicitly study and leave," she said. "And quite a few decided to stay." Ms. Udofia's parents eventually had three children and settled in Southbridge, Mass. At Wellesley College, Ms. Udofia pursued a political science degree and had planned to be a lawyer. But she dabbled in the arts; she had attended Broadway shows and played trombone in high school. In college, she was classically trained in opera and performed in plays put on by Ethos, the black student union at Wellesley. "That's when I bumped that career, that was kind of given to me, against myself, and I made a different choice," she said. When she began auditioning for roles in New York, Ms. Udofia noticed that Americans spoke about Africa as if it were a monolith. "Africa is not a country," she said. "It is a continent. In Nigeria alone, there's 500 different languages. There's so many people, and that one impression you had of Africa does not fit all of those people." War stories like Danai Gurira's "Eclipsed," which played on Broadway last year, are but a small slice of the African narrative. By writing "The Ufot Cycle," Ms. Udofia is determined to show the nuances within African immigrant experiences that the continent isn't tragic and its people aren't "broken." And it seems she has succeeded. For Chinasa Ogbuagu, a child of Nigerian immigrants who plays Abasiama in "Sojourners" and Adiagha in "Her Portmanteau," those plays mark the first time she has seen herself and her family's story represented onstage. "When I tell people I'm Nigerian, they ask: 'Oh my god, what is it like over there? Is it all dust, mud, and sadness?'" Ms. Ogbuagu said. "I'm like, 'No, we used to go swimming in my uncle's country club!'" Ms. Ogbuagu emphasized the importance of audiences' being able to witness "this narrative of an immigrant that has a house, and is coming from a place that they love, just going somewhere else for another sort of opportunity, and not escaping something horrible." While writing the "Ufot" plays, Ms. Udofia borrowed from her family's history. But she maintains that the works are not autobiographical. "There are bits and pieces that are extraordinarily, personally close," she said. "And there are huge bits and pieces that I make up." For example, similarly to Adiagha in "Her Portmanteau," Ms. Udofia has a half sister who lives in Nigeria, though they are not estranged the way the characters in the play are ("In my heart, she is my sister"). "That is also a classic immigrant story," she said, "where you come here to create and live, and what you had to do to survive sometimes splits and divides a family." Even though the plays are specifically about Nigerian immigrants, with unsubtitled Ibibio dialogue, the themes are universal. To James Nicola, the artistic director of New York Theater Workshop, the plays are a reminder that most Americans share a common origin story. "I can't tell you how many times, working on these plays over the last year or so, where I heard echoes of things that my immigrant grandparents, either on the Irish side or Italian side, expressed or mentioned in some ways," he said. "The endless questions of leaving the culture that you're familiar with, and arriving in a very different one that you don't know much about. And how much do you try to fit in and how much do you try to preserve who you are, and how much you pass along for your children and grandchildren." To Ms. Udofia, the themes within her plays are especially crucial now, as immigration becomes a contentious issue around the world and immigrants are vilified by some politicians. "Immigrants built America," she said. "Everyone, once they've come in, has had a hand in building this place, no matter how they came in. So what is the amnesia that makes us forget that?"	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
THIS DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU By Depending on how you read this two part book by , you'll either be going from a concrete account to disarray, or watching the threads of memory come together into a single story. The second work of nonfiction from the Sarajevo born novelist, the book is split into two halves "My Parents: An Introduction" and "This Does Not Belong to You" that proceed inward from the front and back covers, necessitating a flip upside down midway through. They can be read in either order and are both linked and separate, like two parents or two countries at war. I started with "My Parents," a sensitive and absorbing account of the author's mother and father from their life in Sarajevo through their move to Canada during the Bosnian war. Hemon creates thoughtful portraits of his parents: his mother, who struggled to reconcile the lessons of socialist equality with the expectations of a patriarchal society, and his garrulous, beekeeping father, whose stories inspire and frustrate his son. Hemon probes the way nationalism can structure ways of thinking and even lives. His mother was born into an ethnically Serbian family in what was then the kingdom of Yugoslavia. Socialist Yugoslavia, built around the charisma of authoritarian leaders, grew during her adolescence. She enlisted in the youth crews that constructed the country's infrastructure. "She built the country as she was building herself," Hemon writes. The death of Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia's dictator, and the violent dissolution of the country, shattered her political ideology. When she moved to Canada, "she lost, figuratively and literally, everything that had constituted her as a person." In contrast, the family of Hemon's father, or "Tata," emigrated to Bosnia from Galicia, in what is now western Ukraine, in the early 20th century. As he moves farther from Bosnia, Hemon's father turns to Ukraine as a lost home and origin point. In Canada, he socializes with members of the Canadian Ukranian community, which supported the couple during their forced displacement. But "the price was contracting a certain troubling amount of nationalist rhetoric, mythology and politics." He spends much of his time singing Ukrainian songs, watching Ukrainian language television and discussing the political situation in the country, which he has only visited once since it achieved independence in 1991. "Our history," Hemon observes, "is the history of unassuageable longing for the home that could never be had." Hemon gestures to today's boiling nationalism in both Europe and the United States, though these concerns never pierce the surface of the book. "The bad guys won in Yugoslavia and ruined what they could, as soon as they could; the bad guys are presently doing pretty well in the United States. But nothing is inevitable." Many centuries of history and conflict hide within the phrase "bad guys." Hemon focuses instead on the aftereffects of forced displacement, how the need to leave one's country continues to unsettle, years after relocation. His father once told him that it was family truth that one couldn't live for 50 years without experiencing war, a thought woven into the ideology of the former Yugoslavia. "We must live as though peace will last for a hundred years, and be ready as though war will start tomorrow," Tito used to say. Hemon's parents spend much of their time caring for their home, looking after bees and cooking Balkan foods, projects that don't ease their survivalist instincts. When Hemon's parents spend time with his in laws, who are African American, his father has an awkward conversation with Hemon's wife: "Tell me about your family. What bad happened?"	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown that lets you sleep and lets us get paid to watch comedy. What do you think of it? What else are you interested in? Let us know: thearts nytimes.com. Better to Leave the Lights Off? The government struck a deal on Monday to end the government shutdown. Seth Meyers wasn't exactly rejoicing. "The Senate reached a deal this afternoon to reopen the government. Though it's a little like when there's a power outage and then the lights come back on and you see how crappy your apartment is. 'Yay! Oh, right.' " SETH MEYERS Women's marches drew hundreds of thousands of people across the country on Saturday, most of them there in part to protest the president. Mr. Trump sent out a tweet that day suggesting that marchers ought to be celebrating him instead. Jimmy Kimmel wasn't buying it. "Boy, he's really bad at reading women. I mean, only Donald Trump could find a way to make a protest that's about him, even more about him." JIMMY KIMMEL "There were more than 200,000 protesters in New York, more than 300,000 in Chicago and 600,000 here in L.A. One thing you can say, Donald Trump got more women to exercise than Michelle Obama ever did." JIMMY KIMMEL "Saturday was the second annual women's march. Thousands of women held signs protesting the president, but Trump was like, 'Joke's on you: I can't read.' " JIMMY FALLON "Vice President Mike Pence today called the reports claiming that President Trump had an affair with an adult film star nothing more than 'baseless allegations.' That's right, it's just another case of she said, he paid." SETH MEYERS Mr. Kimmel talked to "Kellyanne Conway" as she celebrated the anniversary of Mr. Trump's inauguration. Nan Goldin, the photographer known for exposing parts of life that are often hidden, was addicted to opiates for three years. Now she's publicly confronting the pharmaceutical industry much of which has ties to the art world.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
As is so often the case, the party doesn't really get going until everybody is good and drunk. Then, after much wine, vodka and awkward conversation, comes a fabulous eruption of runaway hedonism. Maybe, you think, coming to this shindig wasn't such a bad idea, after all. You've known such moments, surely, when the spectacle of people going stark raving wild carries its own irresistible, anarchic logic. A feeling of vital connection saturates the room like the fizz from an exploded bottle of Champagne. Alas, the thrill is short lived, a lonely cascade of fireworks in a night of damp squibs. And the briefly, beautifully animated revelers go back to being their soggy, miserable selves. That's what happens in terms of both plot and performance toward the end of the first half of "The Present," the Sydney Theater Company's sprawling and confused adaptation of a sprawling and confused play written by a young Anton Chekhov. This fitful Australian import, which opened on Sunday night at the Barrymore Theater, chronicles the bad behavior at one ill fated birthday celebration. The mistress of these revels, I am happy to report, is the extraordinary screen star Cate Blanchett, making a long awaited Broadway debut. Ms. Blanchett is portraying the hostess and birthday girl, Anna, a ravishing widow who is unhappily turning 40. Ms. Blanchett knows how to hold a stage and, if necessary, hijack it. Her out there performances in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (at the Brooklyn Academy of Music) and "Uncle Vanya" (at New York City Center), both for the Sydney Theater Company, were as brilliant as they were brave. Such commanding, try anything charisma is useful if you're attempting to hold together a badly assembled party or, for that matter, play. But here Ms. Blanchett's take charge inventiveness is as sorely taxed as that of her character. Anna's party turns into the kind of disaster that ends not only in tears but also bloodshed. This production, on the other hand, feels moribund from the beginning. Frantic attempts at resuscitation by Ms. Blanchett and her valiant leading man (and unforgettable co star in "Uncle Vanya"), a tireless Richard Roxburgh as a hapless homme fatale, only occasionally succeed in eliciting a pulse. "The Present," which has been adapted by Andrew Upton (Ms. Blanchett's husband) and directed by John Crowley, is the Chekhov play that almost got away. Though the scholarship on its origins is uncertain, it appears that Chekhov began writing it as an 18 year old student, and it exudes a youthful, passionate untidiness. Its manuscript, a whopper in length, wasn't published until nearly two decades after his death. An uncut version would take at least five hours; this one is three. The eminent playwrights Michael Frayn and David Hare, among others, have done their best to domesticate this shaggy behemoth. Mr. Frayn reconceived it as an elegant sex farce, under the title "Wild Honey" (seen briefly on Broadway in the mid 1980s), while Mr. Hare's adaptation hewed closer to the more brooding, tragicomic template usually associated with Chekhov. That version is called "Platonov," and I saw a fine production of it at London's National Theater last summer. Directed by Jonathan Kent, it was set in the period in which it was written. And the vestiges of 19th century decorum served as an appropriately chafing corset for the flabby plot. Mr. Upton drags the story out of the twilight of the czars and into the post Communist morning after of the mid 1990s. As in the original script, it's a period of profound uneasiness, when a nation's future is murky and its citizens unsure of their roles. But despite the inclusion of several catch up soliloquies on recent Russian history, it's hard to comprehend what they're reacting against here. Exit the robber barons (and the real aristocrats); enter the cold eyed oligarchs and their murderous henchmen. Farewell, balalaikas; hello, the Clash. As for those without a fixed part in the new scheme of things, they're the same old kvetchers of yore, doomed to circular philosophizing and self destructive drinking. Chief among these is Mikhail Platonov (Mr. Roxburgh), a provincial schoolteacher of vaulting wit and unfulfilled aspirations. He knew Anna when she was the young trophy wife of a powerful general, now dead. It's at the general's summer dacha rendered with all the personality of an Ikea showroom by the show's designer, Alice Babidge that Anna has chosen to celebrate her birthday. Her guests include her stepson, Sergei (Chris Ryan), who as a youth was best friends with Nikolai (Toby Schmitz) and Mikhail, who is married to Nikolai's sister, Sasha (Susan Prior). Though Mikhail is a bloviator, a womanizer and a mean drunk, Sasha loves her bad boy husband. So, more problematically, do all the other women in the play, who, in addition to the patrician Anna, include Sergei's wife, Sophia (Jacqueline McKenzie), a humanitarian physician, and Nikolai's girlfriend, Maria (Anna Bamford). It's hard to fathom the attraction, but apparently once you've had your first whiff of him, Mikhail is as addictive and dangerous as crack cocaine. Maybe it's because he's livelier and more subversive than the other guys, who include Anna's rich older suitors, Alexei (Martin Jacobs) and Yegor (David Downer). But like most of his contemporaries, Mikhail can't stop talking about how directionless his life is. Such flailing is common in Chekhov. But usually you understand the specific, idiosyncratic places his characters are coming from. In this version, everyone seems to be flailing interchangeably, in the same stale vacuum, for all eternity. (Setting the play's third section in what looks like a fog filled dreamscape only compounds the impression.) Ms. Blanchett does bring colorful shades of excitement to being bored. Her Anna plays a great game of dramatically uninterested chess, and her response to a rambling speech by Mikhail at the lunch table is priceless. (Hint: it involves the removal of an undergarment.) That comes just before that rip roaring, scenery destroying bacchanal I wrote about earlier. It's one of the most memorable party sequences I've ever seen, a volcanic channeling of a displaced class's fear, anger and disgust. These people want to blow up their world, and in a way they do, most entertainingly. That leaves us with another full hour of tediously sorting through the ashes.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Two thirds of all full time employees in the United States are currently experiencing job burnout, according to a recent Gallup study. While we aren't great at taking advantage of earned time off a whopping 768 million vacation days go to waste every year a survey by the American Psychological Association last year found that even a two week getaway is merely a stopgap as work related stress returns before our tans have faded. Yet a growing number of people are finding new ways to cultivate stability and avoid or overcome burnout. Three years ago, after nearly a decade at design agencies, Ilyssa Kyu, 30, quit her job to catch her breath and spend more time with her newborn daughter. "I took a leap of faith and did my own sabbatical," said Mrs. Kyu, who went on to not only bond with her daughter but also explore the trails and tribulations of national parks over five months. The results? A book, "Campfire Stories: Tales from America's National Parks," and the creation of a crowd funded start up, Amble. The company's monthlong retreats pair creative professionals with budget strapped park conservancies that support National Park Service projects, such as wildlife protection and trail rehabilitation. For 1,400, which includes lodging, program benefits and some meals, these "Amble Creatives" devote 18 hours per week working on small yet transformative projects, be it redesigning a website or increasing audience engagement. The nonprofits return the favor with guided national park hikes, exclusive conservancy engagements and an America the Beautiful annual park pass. The architect and industrial designer "I reframed my approach to having work life balance because I was able to take the time to pause and shift," said Ms. Van Why, who worked with the Yosemite Conservancy, which has provided more than 100 million in grants to Yosemite National Park. While at Amble, she focused on the conservancy's Art and Nature Center Programs, making changes that included developing a more family oriented visitor experience and expanding the programs to other locations within the park. "I gave myself permission to question, explore, listen to myself and just be," said Ms. Van Why, who is now thriving in her new role as a project manager working on museum and nonprofit projects. "The combination of using my design skills to help a nonprofit with that of living in a national park was really exciting." "The experience of nature shifts individuals toward a state of relaxation, while also broadening the visual attentional scope," said Dr. Shelley Carson, a psychology professor at Harvard University and the author of the book, "Your Creative Brain." "Science suggests that whatever people are doing, they will do it better after a healthful nature break," she said. Following sold out retreats in Yosemite and the Sierra Foothills, Amble will host its third program from Oct. 7 to Nov. 10 in Glacier National Park, in partnership with the Glacier National Park Conservancy and Parks Project. Ten to 12 people are invited to join each program, and family friendly accommodations have ranged from a 340 acre ranch in Mariposa, Calif. , to a contemporary house on the Flathead River in Hungry Horse, Mont. The participants range widely from web developers to marketing experts and craft makers; the latest Glacier National Park retreat accepted an artifact photographer from a science museum in San Francisco, as well as a Second City comedian turned social media strategist. The program has so far attracted people from various career and life stages, said Mrs. Kyu. "People in a transition point who need to be inspired; people feeling burnt out, looking to recharge, get a new perspective and return a better employee; and the self employed person looking to take advantage of flexibility and give back." Mrs. Kyu sees participants like Ms. Van Why choosing Amble over other types of sabbaticals, such as artist residencies, Habitat for Humanity or work abroad programs, for its unique set of offerings. Chief among them: leading confidence building projects independently, forming lasting connections with different creatives and enjoying backyard adventures in America's wildest landscapes.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
AUSTIN, Tex. The Oscar winning actress Charlize Theron traveled to South by Southwest over the weekend for the premiere of her new romantic comedy, "Long Shot," in which she stars as a presidential candidate opposite Seth Rogen as her speechwriter. The film opens nationwide May 3. We asked readers if they had any questions for her during the festival, and I selected a handful of those to ask Theron on Saturday at the Four Seasons. She spoke about how "Monster" (2003) made her more empathetic, how her physical transformation for "Tully" took a toll and how she's still waiting for a part in a Marvel movie. Here are edited excerpts from her responses. Your performance in "Monster" was an absolute tour de force. It felt to me as if you did much more than study Aileen Wuornos. It seemed as if you were able to connect with her psyche in some way. Can you talk about your connection to this role a bit more? Deb, Wilmington, Del. I think the more you embed yourself in the information you have access to, the more alive things become underneath your skin. They executed Aileen on the day I said yes to the film. Patty Jenkins, who wrote and directed, had been writing her letters, but we never had the chance to meet with her. But her friend from her childhood years in Detroit became the custodian of her letters from prison. She invited us to her house and said, "Look, you can have access to all of it. I'm not sending it to you and I'm not making copies. So Patty and I flew out to Flint, Mich., and we spent three days in a guest bedroom, reading as many of Aileen's letters as we possibly could to just try and understand her. Many actors mention how playing a role can sometimes impact their views on issues in the world. Have any of the roles you've played had that effect on you, and if so which one, and in what way? Frank Komola, Bradford, Mass. Yes, I never really truly understood the difference between empathy and sympathy until I played Aileen. Once I empathized with her, I could understand her actions a little bit more. And I think it's sometimes a tricky thing to talk about, because we don't want to ever justify this person's actions. But I remember being done with that movie and walking through my life in this world, traveling, going to Africa, and just really understanding the power of empathy and how, I don't think, we encourage it enough. That's a question for Marvel. I've met with those guys and we've had some conversations, but I've never been offered anything. I would totally be open to it. That genre is becoming really fascinating to me, and that kind of physical storytelling is something that I'm really enjoying. So get with it, Marvel! Is there any physical change you won't make to play a role? Lanie, San Antonio There's nothing so far that a director has asked of me that I've said no to. But for the 2018 movie "Tully," I had gained all this weight and it was really, really hard in my 40s to lose it. I did a lot of damage to my body and I definitely went through a period of full frustration where I was like, I will never do that again. And then of course I know, if the right material came around, I would do it again in a heartbeat. The film industry seems to be making progress with more complex female acting roles (although there is still a lot to be done). But the industry still does not have nearly enough female directors. Why do you think it is so difficult for female directors to succeed? Cristina Salazar, Baltimore We've gone through a very long period where women weren't supported in that job, and so now we're in the recovery process. It's great because of film festivals like South by Southwest and Sundance and Telluride. There are more platforms for filmmakers who haven't had the opportunities in the last 20 or 30 years. And I also think the industry now understands the benefit. This stuff is not always generated by good thoughts and big hearts. The industry is realizing that there is something to be monetized here and that women are actually tapping into storytelling in a way that is really good for our business. You said in an interview that you were stalking the incredible director Lynne Ramsay. Is it working? Joao Xara, Lisbon, Portugal Not yet. I have to amp up my game a little bit more. We had a really nice period where she was in L.A. writing and not living far from me. We got to hang out a little bit. She has a little girl and our kids got together. She's an absolutely lovely person and I'm such a fan of her work. But she moves by the beat of her own drum, and unless she's going to be inspired by something, none of my stuff is flattering enough for her to change her process, which is what I admire most about her. How much credit do you give the directors for helping your performance shine? Screed, New York The majority of it. If I felt like I didn't need that or benefit from that, I think I would just be directing my own stuff. There's something really powerful about working with people, whether it's your director or your cinematographer, your entire crew. I often imagine them all sitting at a table, and what they each bring in their own expertise that makes what I do so much better. I feel like probably, but not right now. I have a passion for storytelling and exploring it in many different facets. I can literally see myself getting into production design. I just love all the tentacles of the process. So yeah, I can see it happening, but there's nothing in the near future that I'm imagining.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
"Four More Shots Please!," set in Mumbai, has been compared to "Sex and the City" for its focus on four progressive women (played by, from left, Sayani Gupta, Bani J, Kirti Kulhari and Maanvi Gagroo). With 'Four More Shots Please!,' India Gets Its Own 'Sex and the City' When the HBO series "Sex and the City" first arrived on TV screens in 1998, sex had become "the reigning political story," according to the writer Julie Salamon. The show was a product and a catalyst of a zeitgeist in which financially independent and imperfect women had carved out a space for themselves and their casual, raging sex lives. Now, "Four More Shots Please!," an Amazon Prime Video series, hopes to be its direct descendant for India, where the mainstream TV and film industries have long shied away from showing even simple kissing onscreen, let alone steamy sexual relations driven by lustful women. The series is set in south Mumbai, one of the wealthiest districts in a country with staggering inequality, and much like "Sex and the City," it revolves around four female characters: Damini, an investigative journalist played by Sayani Gupta; Umang, a bisexual gym trainer played by Bani J; Anjana, a lawyer and divorced mother played by Kirti Kulhari; and Siddhi, the aimless, single child of a wealthy family, played by Maanvi Gagroo. And, yes, there's plenty of casual sex. There's also oral sex, gay sex, sex in an open marriage, sex in conference rooms, sex that disappoints. Some of India's more conservative viewers say there's too much sex. But overall, the reaction to the show since the release of the first season last year has been "overwhelmingly positive," the stars said repeatedly in a Zoom interview. "It is very glamorous, it is very aspirational, it's about female friendship and women bonding, which I think girls took very personally," said Gupta, who has starred in several other unconventional roles, including a blind woman who falls in love with a woman with cerebral palsy in "Margarita, With a Straw." "There's a certain kind of craze or cult following that the show has," she added, "and you can't really foresee these things." Season 1 of "Four More Shots Please!" was one of the top three Indian Amazon original series in 2019, becoming a success within India's successful and rapidly expanding market of streaming content. Since the debut of Season 2 in mid April, just as India went into lockdown because of the coronavirus, it has become Amazon's most watched original Indian series this year, said Aparna Purohit, head of the company's India Originals, beating more than a dozen other Amazon India shows. And just weeks after the release of Season 2, Amazon announced on Friday that another season was already in the works. All four stars noted that people have often called them by their character's names in public, which also resembles the reaction by women all over the world to "Sex and the City," who proclaim themselves as Carries or Charlottes or Samanthas. "I think that's when, as an actor, you know that your character has left a mark," said Kulhari, who has also portrayed complicated female characters in Bollywood films. Across two seasons, the four women grapple with complex gender issues, from the country's barely scratched corporate glass ceiling to homophobia, mental health and taboos around female sexuality a sharp departure from the content offered in mainstream Indian entertainment. Critics have claimed on social media that the show's provocative content clashes with "Indian culture" and other commenters, the stars said, have resorted to calling them vulgar names, like the Hindi word for prostitute. "We're a country and a culture that likes to sweep things under the rug," said Bani, who became famous for her stints in Indian reality TV shows. "We don't like paying attention to the ugly parts of ourselves, but this show kind of makes you do that." For decades, both Indian satellite TV and Bollywood, the Hindi filmmaking sector, served as mirrors of society, mostly reflecting the broader political and social norms of upper caste Hindus. On TV, melodramatic soap operas focused on family dynamics, portraying women as extensions of men as their mothers or wives or daughters. And Bollywood offered predominantly male focused narratives with women often playing purely decorative roles. Oftentimes, women appear in just one spicy song and dance spectacle that has absolutely no bearing on the plot. Credit for the provocative, envelope pushing nature of "Shots" goes in part to its platform: The show is also a byproduct of a blossoming streaming market that so far remains unfettered by India's sensitive censorship board a situation that has helped "democratize content," said Amazon's Purohit. And the series has been applauded for its female dominated crew. The show's producer, director, cinematographer and editor are all women, an extremely rare feat in India. (In 2014, a study by U.N. Women and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media found that for every woman behind the camera in the Indian film industry, there were 6.2 men.) "The stories that haven't been told before are now finally finding their way onscreen," Purohit said. "So it's an amazing time for the customers who want to be able to watch all these diverse voices, and also for creators." Some critics, however, argue that the show isn't necessarily feminist or empowering. "It's kind of like an account of the female experience in elite metropolitan Indian society," said Kamayani Sharma, a New Delhi based film and visual arts critic. In Season 1, Sharma said, the characters are India's version of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl: beautiful and endearing, fun and feisty, but lacking rich inner lives. They drink and have a lot of sex, which are simply "cosmetic devices to signify a certain kind of empowerment." But "just because something is not feminist doesn't mean it's not progressive," Sharma added. Season 2, despite its often absurd settings and awkward dialogue, raises the ante, Sharma noted, and the characters make bolder decisions, turning them into messier, more difficult to pigeonhole versions of themselves. After discovering she is pregnant, Damini considers an abortion, which is still a fairly restricted procedure and a social taboo in India. Umang is in a loving relationship but struggles with the pressure to cater to her girlfriend's career demands. Siddhi tries her hand at stand up comedy and decides to stay single. And Anjana quits her high paying job, despite having a young child to care for, and then knowingly sleeps with a married man. "I have a problem when people think the show is not aligning with their idea of feminism," Gagroo said. "It is a pluralistic concept, so it will have different meanings for you and me. But at the core of it is the agency of the female." A closer look at the class and caste divides that hold women back might have given the show greater depth, Sharma said. But at the very least, the show forces a discussion on feminism, she added what it is and what it isn't, and what the modern Indian woman looks like. It challenges the Indian audience to "confront its collective fantasies and anxieties," Sharma said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
If "X" marks the spot, there might soon be a stampede for 170 Amsterdam, a high end rental opening this month in the Lincoln Square neighborhood. The facade of the building, on Amsterdam Avenue at West 68th Street, is crisscrossed by thick concrete columns set at angles. The result is not just a single "X" but a whole series of them, up and down, left and right. No pirate map is needed: The letters on the 20 story, 235 unit tower are clearly visible from several blocks away. In breaking with the local Beaux Arts style and the look of most apartment buildings, for that matter Equity Residential, the developer, said it was trying to create more space in the apartments. By putting the building's skeleton on the outside, instead of the interior, where it typically goes, the developer was able to give the units much more space. And if the zigzag design, from Handel Architects, helps attract tenants, that wouldn't be a bad outcome either, said George Kruse, an Equity vice president. "We're charging a lot of rent; I think that you've got to give them something," said Mr. Kruse, as he stood on the building's roof deck. Studios in the building start at around 3,400 a month. In contrast, the typical studio in Lincoln Square averages 2,800 a month, according to StreetEasy.com, a figure that takes into account sublets of fancy condominium buildings and apartments that are furnished. Lincoln Square runs from Central Park to the Hudson River, and from West 59th to West 72nd Streets. At 170 Amsterdam, which has rear windows overlooking part of the 1960s Lincoln Towers co op complex, two bedrooms will start at 7,300 a month. Three bedrooms will start at 12,500. Sitting on land owned by American Continental Properties and leased to Equity for 99 years, for terms that Equity would not disclose, the building also offers a large below grade amenity area with a purple felt pool table on one side and a yoga room and gym on the other. Owing to a quirk in the layout, those columns on the facade actually extend down through the ceiling and slant through the amenity rooms. That is the only place they are enclosed in the building. Equity, a real estate investment trust, focuses on rentals and has 27 buildings in Manhattan, including 170 Amsterdam, and three in Brooklyn. If 170 Amsterdam turns heads with its concrete and glass, it wouldn't be the first building to shake up Lincoln Square. The Aire, a 310 unit rental nearby at 200 West 67th Street developed by A R Kalimian, also stood out when it opened in 2010, for its shimmering glass walls. Handel also designed it. With its own gym and yoga room, plus a half acre private garden, the Aire will likely be a rival of 170 Amsterdam, and the pricing reflects it. Two bedrooms there start at about 7,000 a month, said Albert Kalimian, the managing principal of A R. "We're probably not the cheapest in the neighborhood," he added. But the market appears deep for this type of pricey luxury product, said Dennis R. Hughes, an associate broker with the Corcoran Group who specializes in rentals.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
As terrorism fears have mounted and tensions have escalated toward Muslims in the United States in recent years, the Children's Museum of Manhattan is doing its part to help defuse the rising anxiety. Its exhibition "America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far" showcases the history, art and traditions of Muslims, with the belief that education will beat back ignorance and hate every time. "People really want to dig in and get a better understanding from a trusted source about Muslim cultures," said Andrew S. Ackerman, the museum's executive director. And the earlier people are exposed to diverse cultures, the better, he said. "Biases can form by age 6," noted Lizzy Martin, the show's curator. Mr. Ackerman said, "We want young children to be exposed to as much diversity as possible to better understand other people and themselves, and there's no question that reduces prejudice, violence and misunderstandings." The show has been so popular since its opening in February 2016 that its run has been extended another year, and plans are underway to take it on a nationwide tour in 2018. "I've been here 26 years and I can't remember another exhibit that had a sustained heavy attendance over a period of a year like this one has," said Mr. Ackerman, noting that more than 350,000 people have visited. "It's been a surprise blockbuster for us." He said he knows of only a handful of detractors asking why the museum wasn't showing Christian cultures instead. The institution, tucked between brownstones and apartment buildings on the Upper West Side, has allotted the exhibition 3,000 square feet on its ground floor. The show is divided into five areas, where a combination of ancient artifacts, art displays, music and hands on props take young people on a journey through Muslim cultures in more than 50 countries, from ancient history to the present. Many are interactive, giving children a fun and memorable way to experience these lifestyles. In the architecture section, for example, a room with a large, curved screen offers a 3 D like tour of 25 mosques around the globe. There's also a simulated courtyard, where local artists have recorded sounds from Middle Eastern instruments like the ney, the oud, the rebana, the tabla, the ghijak and the kora. Visitors can press buttons to hear each instrument and create their own harmonies. Glass cases are filled with ancient artifacts, like a 700 year old Egyptian candlestick, as well as contemporary Turkish ceramics and brass bowls each with its own story written next to it. The global marketplace area features samples of colorful fabrics, tiles and rugs from such countries as Iran; Egypt; Pakistan; and Spain, which has a large Muslim population and explanations of their various symbols and designs. It also highlights exotic Egyptian spices and fruits, where pushing buttons releases their fragrances. One fruit, the durian, emits such a putrid smell that it has been banned in some hotels, the display says. In a section devoted to the American home, members of local Muslim families tell their personal stories and showcase possessions like copies of the Quran, hijabs (head scarves) and tasbih (prayer beads). One woman contributed a pair of denim shorts, saying she was forbidden to wear these in public as a teenager, so she secretly wore them under her abaya (a robe). Elsewhere, children can climb onto a model of a multilevel dhou, a boat used to transport goods. They can decorate a small version of a Pakistani truck or sit atop a fiberglass Egyptian camel. "Children can pretend to be a salesman, wrap themselves in Senegalese fabrics, smell spices, roll a rug or pretend to fish in Zanzibar," Ms. Martin said. "Hands on is how children learn." More than six years of planning and research went into designing the show and rounding up all the artifacts, artwork, murals and props. The museum consulted hundreds of people, including Muslims from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut; consulates; scholars; and mosque leaders to ensure accuracy and authenticity. Funding came from the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others. "We focus on projects that increase understanding and relationships between Muslim and non Muslim communities in the U.S.," said Zeyba Rahman, senior program officer at the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art. This is critical, she said, considering that today there are more than 1.2 billion Muslims, or roughly one sixth of the world's population. Madelene Geswaldo, a teacher at the Manhattan School for Children, brought her second and third grade students last fall and used it as a starting point for a broader study of Islam. "We address Muslim culture in a positive way so that kids will not form ideas of having to be scared, or that all Muslims are terrorists or bad people," Ms. Geswaldo said. The exhibition helped to "humanize" the culture and showcase its contributions to the world, she said. The show has brought cultures together, even among visitors. Mr. Ackerman recalls a kindergarten class that visited the museum, where a young boy came across the rugs from Morocco. "He was from Morocco," he said, "and got up and told his classmates how the rugs were made and what the designs meant."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
My Co Anchor Is Pawing at the Door: Back to You in the Studio As TV meteorologists and reporters work from home, pets have become a part of their reports often by accident, and always to delightful effect. None	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
LONDON The cause of Jane Austen's mysterious death at the age of 41 has been much pondered over the years. Was it a hormonal disorder? Cancer? Complications from drinking unpasteurized milk? New research by the British Library suggests a more dramatic possibility: arsenic poisoning. Researchers at the library, working with the London optometrist Simon Barnard, recently examined three pairs of glasses believed to have belonged to Austen, and said that they show evidence that her vision severely deteriorated in her final years. That kind of deterioration further suggests cataracts, and cataracts may indicate arsenic poisoning, Sandra Tuppen, a curator of archives and manuscripts at the library, wrote in a blog post on the library's website on Thursday. "If Austen did develop cataracts," as the glasses indicate, Dr. Tuppen wrote, one likely cause is "accidental poisoning from a heavy metal such as arsenic." The optometrical revelation adds a wonky note of drama to the 200th anniversary of Austen's death in 1817, weeks after she had traveled to Winchester seeking help for an illness. The glasses, which cannot be said definitively to have belonged to Austen, were bequeathed to the library several years ago by her relatives. They had been kept in a desk belonging to Austen. 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. "We knew that she had trouble with her eyes, because on several occasions she refers to weak eyes," Dr. Tuppen said in an interview. She emphasized that the glasses did not indicate that anybody had set out to murder Austen, the author of "Pride and Prejudice." That possibility was floated in the 2013 crime novel "The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen," by Lindsay Ashford, who claimed to have found clues in Austen's writing and other sources hinting at arsenic poisoning. Arsenic was frequently found in water, medication and even wallpaper in Austen's time, Dr. Tuppen emphasized, and unintentional arsenic poisoning was, she said, "quite common." Janine Barchas, an Austen expert at the University of Texas at Austin, called the arsenic theory a "quantum leap" and referred to the blog post's splashy web headline (and the library's promotion of the post) as "a smidgen reckless." Dr. Barchas has been doing her own intensive study of Austen's prescription, summed up in a new paper, "Speculations on Spectacles: Jane Austen's Eyeglasses, Mrs. Bates's Spectacles, and John Saunders in 'Emma,'" set to be published in the journal Modern Philology. (This isn't the first time Dr. Barchas's Austen scholarship has gotten physical: Her project What Jane Saw, which recreated an art exhibition Austen visited in 1813, involved puzzling over Austen's precise height.) In the Modern Philology paper, she and a co author, Elizabeth Picherit, weave together an argument on Austen's late in life health and her social milieu based on her novels, her life and her glasses. Deirdre Le Faye, an independent critic in Britain who recently published a paper that maintains that Austen died of Addison's disease, is also skeptical. She said that while Austen could have ingested arsenic through medication, other elements of the British Library's biographical analysis seemed less persuasive. The library's post "says that the last pair of glasses is very strong, that she must have been almost blind by the end of her life," she said. But Ms. Le Faye, who has edited a collection of Austen's correspondence, said Austen was writing letters "perfectly ably" up to about six weeks before her death. Rapid deterioration of her eyesight would have had to be very sudden to fit the library's analysis, she said. Visitors to the library will soon be able to look at, if not look through, the glasses, which go on display on Friday. Ms. Le Faye said that she understood the desire to see excitement in Austen's fairly quiet life. "The trouble is, Jane Austen lived such a quiet, placid life that there isn't a great deal of drama in it," she said. "You just can't find it. So the trouble is, people start to invent drama."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Greetings, dance fiends, it's time to nail down your dance card for the week. As we know, this takes extra effort in the summer when pickings are slim, but here's a plan that even involves a couple of open air theaters. (Sightseeing is optional.) The Chilean artist Francisca Benitez explores communication and gesture in her new work "As you lean on me and I lean on you, we move forward." The piece begins at 7 p.m. at different points along the High Line on Tuesday (14th Street), Wednesday (22nd Street) and Friday (34th Street). In it, Ms. Benitez blends contact improvisation, a form of dance improvisation that involves physical contact, and sign language in three interrelated vignettes; each section is composed in reaction to its surroundings. She works with a group of collaborators, some of whom come from American Sign Language jamming and deaf poetry circles. The free event won't be, in other words, your usual walk in the park. Here is an idea of how Ms. Benitez's imagination works. As part of its exhibition "America Is Hard to See," the Whitney Museum of American Art draws on its collection that includes video of Yvonne Rainer's "Continuous Project Altered Daily," a 10 minute segment documented at the museum in 1970. "Continuous Project" took its title and concept from a Robert Morris work; just as he allowed viewers to observe him as he changed the arrangement of objects during his show's run, Ms. Rainer approached her dance as if it were continually permutating. In it, performers, including Steve Paxton and Douglas Dunn, use props, movement, spoken text and sound. You can watch the film and this is the most tranquil part on the sixth floor outdoor terrace during museum hours. Think of it as a private performance in the wind. Here, Ms. Rainer speaks about the work:	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
In 2006, the National Cancer Institute took the rare step of issuing a "clinical announcement," a special alert it holds in reserve for advances so important that they should change medical practice. In this case, the subject was ovarian cancer. A major study had just proved that pumping chemotherapy directly into the abdomen, along with the usual intravenous method, could add 16 months or more to women's lives. Cancer experts agreed that medical practice should change immediately. Nearly a decade later, doctors report that fewer than half of ovarian cancer patients at American hospitals are receiving the abdominal treatment. "It's very unfortunate, but it's the real world," said Dr. Maurie Markman, the president of medicine and science at Cancer Treatment Centers of America. He added, "The word 'tragic' would be fair." Experts suggest a variety of reasons that the treatment is so underused: It is harder to administer than intravenous therapy, and some doctors may still doubt its benefits or think it is too toxic. Some may also see it as a drain on their income, because it is time consuming and uses generic drugs on which oncologists make little money. Dr. Markman said that when a treatment involves a new drug or a new device, manufacturers eagerly offer doctors advice and instructions on its use. But this treatment involves no new drugs or devices, so no one is clamoring to educate doctors about it. They are on their own to learn, and to train their nurses, a commitment that will take time and money. This year, 21,290 new cases of ovarian cancer are expected in the United States, and 14,180 deaths. Dr. Markman said that for now, a patient's best option is to ask whether her doctor offers the treatment, and if the answer is no, to find a doctor who does. Some experts say that the ability to offer abdominal chemotherapy for ovarian cancer should be added to the list of basic "quality measures" such as making sure all heart attack patients receive certain drugs that Medicare and other payers use to evaluate hospital performance. A study published on Monday in The Journal of Clinical Oncology looked at the use of the abdominal treatment, known as intraperitoneal, or IP, treatment at six cancer hospitals from 2003 to 2012, and at patient survival rates. The six hospitals were all members of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of 26 cancer centers that calls itself "the arbiter of high quality cancer care" and creates widely used practice guidelines for cancer treatment, which include the use of IP. But even at these elite centers, IP treatment did not take off as much as experts thought it should. From 2003 to 2006, as research began showing it had benefits, overall use of the treatment rose from zero to 33 percent of patients. From 2007 to 2008 after the major, landmark study and the alert from the cancer institute the use rose to 50 percent of eligible patients. But then it reached a plateau. Rates varied from one hospital to the next, with 4 percent to 67 percent of patients receiving IP treatment. Researchers say that at smaller, less prestigious hospitals, the rates are even worse. The hospitals that participated in the study were named in the journal article, but their individual rates were not disclosed. "We suspected that even at the best centers there would be low integration of IP chemotherapy, but we were surprised to see how low it was across academic centers, and also to see how much variation there was between centers," said Dr. Alexi A. Wright, the first author of the study and a medical oncologist at the Dana Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center in Boston. "It's the best data we have for improving survival among patients with this cancer." Deborah Dennehy, 58, a second grade teacher from Amesbury, Mass., had IP treatment two years ago at Dana Farber. She said she gained as much as 10 pounds with each treatment from all the fluid infused, and felt like a "beached whale" for a few days afterward. She lost her hair and temporarily had some numbing in her fingertips from the chemotherapy, but medication prevented nausea. Now, she said, "I feel great." And given the data on the treatment, she said, "I felt it was totally worth the inconvenience." The new study confirmed earlier findings that IP treatment helps women live longer. Among women who had IP treatment, 81 percent were still alive three years later, compared with 71 percent in women who had only intravenous chemotherapy. The findings are based on the records of about 500 women. Another study, also published in The Journal of Clinical Oncology, in May, found that the benefits of IP therapy are long lasting: among women followed for 10 years, the risk of death was 23 percent less in those who had IP therapy. Ovarian cancer is usually not found until it has reached Stage 3, when it has begun to spread inside the abdomen. Studies find that two factors have the greatest impact on survival: removing every visible trace of the tumor with meticulous "debulking" surgery, and finishing the recommended amount of chemotherapy. Studies have found that many women do not have adequate surgery, because they are operated on by doctors who do not specialize in gynecologic cancer. IP treatment requires that a port be surgically implanted in the abdominal wall so that the drugs can be infused. At many centers, the patients are rolled back and forth on a bed to slosh the chemotherapy around inside them. The treatment is thought to work so well because it essentially soaks any cancer cells that remain after surgery in a highly concentrated bath of cancer killing drugs. Dr. Wright said her study was the first to analyze outcomes from IP treatment that was given as part of regular medical practice, and not part of a clinical trial. The results are important because doctors sometimes worry that findings from clinical trials will not hold up in routine medical practice because patients in the trials are carefully selected and may be healthier, more rigorously monitored and given more help with side effects than those in real world oncology practices. In this case, Dr. Wright said, the survival benefit proved that women do not have to be in a clinical trial to benefit from IP treatment, and that it can be given successfully in more ordinary settings. Her study also addressed another concern that some oncologists have raised the toxicity of IP treatment, which had led some women in the clinical trial to stop treatment without finishing it. In Dr. Wright's study, side effects were less severe and the rates of completing treatment were similar: 89 percent of women who received IP treatment finished the planned course, compared with 91 percent who received only intravenous treatment. Dr. Deborah K. Armstrong, a professor at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, and the leader of the 2006 study that proved the large survival benefit, attributed the failure of the therapy to catch on to reluctance by oncologists, especially senior ones who might influence colleagues. She said the cumulative data are so strong that oncologists have "no more excuses" for disregarding it. But to bring about change, patients will have to speak up, she said, adding: "I think it's going to have to be the advocate community, since they're the ones who have the most skin in the game, and can put the money where the mouth is, and say, 'If you can't give me the best treatment I'll go someplace else.' "	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
WASHINGTON A 30 second video ad that ran on Facebook this week falsely accused former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. of blackmailing Ukrainian officials to stop an investigation of his son. "Send Quid Pro Joe Biden into retirement," a narrator in the ad intoned. The video wasn't released by the Trump campaign, which has produced ads on Facebook with similar accusations in recent weeks. Instead, it was made by an independent political action committee, or super PAC. And it was allowed to run on Facebook with false information, in violation of the social network's policies on misinformation, the Biden presidential campaign wrote in a letter to Facebook on Thursday. In the letter, which was viewed by The New York Times, the Biden campaign acknowledged that Facebook had a policy of allowing all political leaders' speech and ads to remain up because the company considers them to be newsworthy. But the ad by the super PAC was not from a politician, the Biden campaign wrote, so it needed to be rejected. "This is a most basic test," Greg Schultz, Mr. Biden's campaign manager, said in the letter. "The ad contains transparently false allegations, prominently debunked by every major media outlet in the country over recent weeks. It should be rejected."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
"King For a Day," written by Mr. East with Chris and Morgane Stapleton, is a rollicking history lesson, and "Surrender" is a nod to the exuberant stomp of Ike and Tina Turner. Mr. East extends his approach even to covers, like his muscular soul update of the bluesman Ted Hawkins's "Sorry You're Sick," which is punctuated with bright horns. Executing at this level requires not just a vocalist who's dutifully studied, but also a team of equally faithful students. "Encore" is produced by Dave Cobb, who has made tactile, glossed revivalism his stock in trade in recent years; it is performed by an exceptionally sharp band that is unshy and enthused. The downside of this approach at least for a singer is that at times the music is so deeply reverent that it becomes the main character, the gasoline for the song's emotional narrative, rendering the lyrics, and even the singing, immaterial. Such is the case on "House Is a Building," which is a conversation between downcast piano and horns that Mr. East can't penetrate, and on his sweet but level cover of Willie Nelson's "Somebody Pick Up My Pieces." On these songs, Mr. East cedes his authority perhaps a bit too much, but they are the outliers. It's worth noting, though, that the most jolting song here is the one least preoccupied with yesteryear. "Cabinet Door" closes the album, and does so under dark clouds. It's a scorched song about loss, and Mr. East foregoes his shaky yelp for a tone that's lush but hollow, pregnant with dread.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
The story is as predictable as expected, with the usual guns, cars and money, though drawn out to an unhurried 158 minutes. There are ostensible good men turned bad, and one who is perhaps less bad. There are women (Jennifer Carpenter makes sympathetic a disposable character), a retinue of the negligible, the victimized, the soon to be dead. Most of the characters fit into three categories evil men, men who stand in evil's way and collateral damage and some from each will be sacrificed on the hard boiled altar. This includes a baby, whose sole function is to fool you into thinking that things won't turn really ugly. They do, which makes optimistic viewers suckers. Zahler likes to pull back to show you people in their environments, in vaulted and confining spaces. He plays around with light and dark, but mostly dark, and a lot of the story takes place in shadows or low illumination. Almost everyone lives in an impersonal home seemingly decorated by the same depressed interior designer, with muted colors and generic furnishings that turn each dwelling into a showroom. The characters are less blank largely because of Zahler's writing, his eccentric metaphors and monologues. More prosaic is his hard embrace of the same old fashioned American anti authoritarianism with its hatred for rules matched only by a love of guns that helped define Dirty Harry. The movie is generally watchable, even at its slowest and ugliest, simply because the actors are solid even when their characters are repellent. Gibson delivers a tamped down performance, going for stolid, while Vaughn runs his mouth and enjoys his flashy bits. The most sympathetic character, Henry (a fine Tory Kittles), occupies another story line that soon crosses Brett and Anthony's. A newly released ex con, Henry has a brother who uses a wheelchair and a mother who's been turning tricks while he's been in the pen. Brett has a daughter and a wife who has multiple sclerosis and uses a cane. Zahler seems to want to make Henry a counterweight to the detectives (Brett especially), as if to suggest that they're alike, though their worlds and power couldn't be more different. This spurious parallelism, though, does suit the movie's dog eat dog worldview or its baiting representation of the white characters' racism. Some openly voice their bigotry, which might have been a bold choice if Zahler had interrogated it rather than given himself convenient outs. Anthony makes a joke about Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He also has a black girlfriend, which is presumably meant to complicate his character but instead feels like a directorial hedge. When Brett's wife says that she wasn't a racist until she moved into their crummy neighborhood, her rueful delivery suggests that she was regrettably forced dragged across concrete, perhaps into prejudice. Zahler just lets her racism hang in the air unanswered, which says plenty.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
The first striking thing on "Baby Come Back to Me," the opening song on "Experiment," Kane Brown's second album, is Brown's honeyed, low voice. His vowels are slightly drawled, and his tone is rich with a heavy bottom, buoy shaped, like a more flexible Randy Travis. Behind him, a boot stomp beat and a throbbing guitar anchor the song firmly to the honky tonk. Jimmie Allen opens his debut album, "Mercury Lane," with "American Heartbreaker," a familiar kind of country ode. "If you were a song you'd be an anthem/'Sweet Home Alabama,'" Allen sweetly sings, then flirts by playing rural mad libs: freedom, slide guitar, muscle car. The object of his affection, he sings, is "red, white and beautiful." This is compliant country music: flaunting its lineage, eager to please, resistant to upheaval. So much of the anxiety in Nashville in recent years has been about the tension between belonging and exclusion, in terms of who the genre advances and promotes (white men, mainly) and what sounds can and should be at its forefront (production that rejects the flickers of hip hop and EDM that have lately been creeping in). In this context, especially, "Experiment" and "Mercury Lane" should come as sort of a relief to the establishment: Here are two of the year's stronger country albums, and also two of the more stylistically conservative. They are successful as well: "Experiment" debuted at the top of the Billboard album chart this week, and Allen's lead single, "Best Shot," just reached No. 1 on the Billboard country airplay chart, a triumphant conclusion to an almost yearlong climb. By those metrics, it is a robust time in Nashville for performers who are loyal to the genre's roots and tropes, fluent in its history and proudly advancing it without too much disruption. What complicates and deepens that narrative is that both Brown and Allen are black, and their success flies in the face of a genre that has often been ruthlessly closed minded about who can lay claim to the rural experience, at least when it comes to songs about it. Brown has been on the rise for the last three years his 2016 self titled debut album marked him as one of the more musically serious young singers working, and he had two breakthrough hits last year, "Heaven" and "What Ifs." But at the annual Country Music Association Awards last week, even as "Experiment" was heading to No. 1, Brown was not offered a performance slot, merely a presenter slot. That slight was made all the more obvious by the fact that Brown also was a presenter the following night at the Latin Grammys, an awards show for music he doesn't perform in a language that he only slightly speaks a signifier of his broad appeal. (Allen was also a presenter at the CMAs, but that felt more appropriate given how recent his success has come.) For the last decade, country music has had one very high profile black star: Darius Rucker, who's become a genre staple, a Grand Ole Opry member and regular chart presence. He had a bit of a head start thanks to his prior life in the 1990s mega platinum band Hootie the Blowfish, but nonetheless Rucker has carved out a distinct place in Nashville. There is a long and not always illuminated history of black performers in country, dating back to DeFord Bailey in the 1920s and 1930s. From the late 1960s through the early 1980s, Charley Pride was one of the genre's marquee names, notable for his gentle love songs. In the mid 2000s, the country rapper Cowboy Troy experienced a brief moment of embrace. The secret histories of less heralded performers are collected in two excellent collections, the boxed set "From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music" and the anthology "Dirty Laundry: The Soul of Black Country." The essay collection "Hidden in the Mix: The African American Presence in Country Music" details the ways in which black contributions were key to early country, but largely behind the scenes, and also how the genre conceptualized itself as white, and then set out to maintain that image. All of which leaves it ill equipped to navigate a time in which black performers are among its most successful and promising. Coming out of country's tepid gentleman era, full of edgeless men with thin voices singing about romantic fealty, Brown was a refreshing alternative: His voice is lustrous, if not especially powerful, and his reference points are often historically minded. One of the standout songs on "Experiment" is "Short Skirt Weather," a cheeky two step that's reminiscent of early Alan Jackson and Tim McGraw. Mainly, though, "Experiment" is filled with straight ahead songs about love and, sometimes, betrayal. He deploys his booming voice as a weapon, especially on the outstanding "Homesick," where he pivots quickly from burly to lovelorn and back. Despite its title, this album isn't about challenging the status quo; rather, its existence is a challenge to those whose ideas about the status quo are fixed in old modes. Brown's own skepticism, such as it is, comes through in small but meaningful ways. "American Bad Dream" speaks out about pervasive gun violence traditionally a country taboo and about devious cops (though only in so much as they make the jobs of good cops harder). And near the end of "My Where I Come From" the sort of rural pride anthem that is de rigueur for the genre Brown issues a little bit of a challenge: So if I like my music just a little too loud And I got a couple tattoos to show my Georgia pride And if what's on my mind is what's coming out my mouth And If I just can't seem to shut it down That's just my "where I come from" comin' out Brown also flirts with arrangements that at least suggest an awareness of hip hop, and occasionally opts for a more rhythmic cadence, like on the single "Lose It," where he melts several words into one: "Let'sstartwiththemLuccheses, Babykick'emtothefloorboard/Thembobbypinsholdin'yourhairup, Girlyoudon'tneed'emnomore." All of which is to say: a conventional country album. If Allen is fighting for anything here, it's for the right to be that conventional. His arrangements are largely optimistic, rock inflected country. He is most effective as a romanticist: As a group, the love songs are stronger than the rural pride anthems, especially "Best Shot," with its choked up weeping guitar pattern, and the crisply written and tenderly sung "How to Be Single." Allen and Brown's conservative streak can be read two ways: as an unencumbered reflection of their musical impulses, or as the path of least resistance to acceptance in a genre that has long been intolerant. Or perhaps both. In any case, they have effectively made the case that country music need not be and actually isn't as white as it long has been. How these two singers view their long term prospects in the genre might be captured by the final songs on their albums. On Brown's "Experiment" on streaming services, though not on the physical CD it's "Lost in the Middle of Nowhere," an amiable duet with the Mexican American pop singer Becky G that casually bridges country and Latin pop. As grounded as Brown is in country traditions, he understands instinctually that there is an appetite for him, and that his gifts might be more readily accepted elsewhere. Allen takes an opposite approach on his closing song, "All Tractors Ain't Green." It's an affectionate scold to the picayune. "Can't judge whiskey by the bottle/might go against the grain of that country boy model," he sings, later adding, "I might sound a little different than I look." Bridging that gap is Allen's ostensible goal, but really, it's other people's obstacle. The message of the song is clear: This is his home turf, and he's not going anywhere.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
To love is to worry in "Sundown, Yellow Moon," Rachel Bonds's quietly perceptive portrait of a family in simmering crisis at the McGinn/Cazale Theater. The characters in this beautifully acted production from Ars Nova and WP Theater, directed with probing sensitivity by Anne Kauffman, are united by a web of mutual concern that is as exasperating as it is reassuring. When a father and his grown daughter bid good night to each other in an insomniac haze, this is their exchange of endearments: "I'm worried about you"; "I'm worried about you, too." There's a competitive passive aggression in their solicitude, and plenty of ego within their altruism. That doesn't make their shared affection any less deep or genuine. Familial love, to crib Oscar Wilde's definition of the truth, is rarely pure and never simple in dramatic literature. Its fraught, seesaw emotions have been the stuff of tragedy for thousands of years, from Aeschylus' "Oresteia" to Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night," works in which hateful violence and tender care become almost interchangeable. Set in a Southern college town where anonymity is hard to come by, "Sundown" takes place in and around an underfurnished house that does not feel like home to anyone, including the man who lives there, a resentfully divorced schoolteacher named Tom (Peter Friedman). This is nonetheless a homecoming destination for Tom's daughters, fraternal twins in their mid 20s named Joey (Eboni Booth) and Ray (Lilli Cooper), who grew up in the area. The daughters are there partly because Dad has just been suspended from the school where he teaches; partly because Joey has received a Fulbright scholarship and will soon be leaving for two years in Berlin. Ray, who (sort of) writes songs, has (sort of) left her job, working for an arts endowment fund, and her romantic relationship with her boss. They are all between chapters in their lives, steeped in the tension that arises when both future and past seem vague and menacing. This aura suffuses every aspect of the production, including Lauren Helpern's stylized woodland set; Isabella Byrd and Matt Frey's crepuscular lighting and Leah Gelpe's sound, which abounds in the susurrus of crickets. Uncertainty is compounded by the characters' reluctance to talk about their own problems. (The problems of others are another matter.) An anxious stasis settles over the house, punctuated by outings (by the women) to a nearby reservoir and visits to Tom from a school appointed counselor, Carver (JD Taylor). The sisters remember this guy from high school as "Carver the Strange," when he was part of some scandal involving a priest. These days, Carver is prone to creepy behavior like driving by Tom's isolated house late at night. As Joey says, "I'm not sure he's the best judge of mental health." Then again, among this crew, who is? Like Stephen Karam's Tony winning "The Humans," "Sundown" is partly about the limits of understanding among people who would seem to know one another better than anyone else. Communication is regularly thwarted. And it feels appropriate that three of the characters are artists of a kind, all suffering from writer's block. Ray and Carver are both musicians who have given up on their craft. (Carver once belonged to a local band that has gone on without him to modest fame.) And during late night visits to the reservoir, Joey meets a dashing poet, Ted Driscoll (Greg Keller), who is teaching at the college and having serious problems putting pen to paper. How these people connect and don't is given exquisitely tentative and awkward physical life. The major instances of characters touching one another are occasions for bruising misinterpretation, and they are echoed in the (incomplete) accounts of why Tom has been suspended and what happened with Carver and the priest. The cast, which also includes Anne L. Nathan and Michael Pemberton as Tom's vigilant best friends, is expert at conveying the self consciousness that comes with such bumbling attempts. Each performer elicits a poignant eloquence from silence.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Credit...Daniel Dorsa for The New York Times On a recent chilly Wednesday, Lori Bloomberg, a horticultural therapist with NYU Langone 's Rusk Rehabilitation center in Manhattan, pushed a cart filled with bright green foliage down the hospital's hallways, past a row of wheelchairs and into the room of two patients, who were sitting propped up in their beds. Today's activity: arranging bamboo stalks in a vase. "How often do these get watered?" asked Rita Belfiore, one of the patients and a former paralegal from Brooklyn, who was recovering from hip replacement surgery. "It's not like watering a plant. It's a little less intensive," Ms. Bloomberg said. "These things drink pretty slowly." Ms. Belfiore and her roommate , Carol a food broker from Massapequa, N.Y., who was recovering from spinal surgery, and who declined to give her last name carefully wrapped rubber bands around their bamboo clusters, grazing the light brown roots that puffed out of each stalk. They filled glass vases with tiny red stones, then added water and the plants. There's nothing more happily out of place in a hospital than something green and delicate and alive. And in a setting where patients routinely feel poked and prodded, isolated and immobile, the act of nurturing a plant can be a transportive part of the recovery process. Horticultural therapy embraces the basics, using nature and gardening like activities, facilitated by a trained therapist, to help patients feel better. It's often used in hospitals, but horticultural therapists also work in addiction recovery centers, prisons and wilderness therapy programs for teenagers. At NYU Langone, horticultural therapy can involve propagating plants, arranging flowers, plus lotion making and other vaguely natural activities. The department also retains two very large, placid rabbits, Clovis and Lily, who pay visits to patients not inclined toward potting and pruning. "People can sometimes be a little resistant when you show up with dirt in a hospital," said Gwenn Fried, the manager of NYU Langone's horticultural therapy services department. "And then they'll participate once, and they're calling: 'Can I have it tomorrow?'" Working with plants can be a modest physical challenge Carol, 63, said it helps with her fine motor skills but at NYU Langone, it's often employed to promote a sense of mindfulness, and to distract or motivate patients during a tough physical therapy session. Some benefits are more clear cut than others. The American Horticultural Therapy Association's formal contention that "quality of life is related to the relationship between people and plants" reminiscent of Ralph Waldo Emerson's view that there exists an "occult relation between man and vegetable" suggests that horticultural therapy may facilitate a deeper kind of interspecies connection, one that would probably benefit us all. There isn't an enormous body of reliable research to back that up. But gardening is known to reduce stress and improve moods, and some studies have demonstrated the potential of horticultural therapy for elevated well being. "One patient specifically said to me, 'The best thing about horticultural therapy is that I'm no longer the subject,'" Ms. Fried said. Often patients are struggling with uncontrollable circumstances, and working with plants is "a gentle way of trying to process that," said Leigh Anne Starling, president of the American Horticultural Therapy Association. "It totally decompresses me," Carol said quietly, tearing up. "It's calming, and everything else is stressful." She believes her horticultural therapy sessions in the hospital have "absolutely" sped up the recovery process and, as a bonus, working with plants has brought her closer to her husband, whose gardening interests she now shares. "When we first started dating, I would say 'I'm allergic to dirt.' And he believed me! For years!" she said, hooting in laughter. The American Horticultural Therapy Association was founded in 1973, but the nonprofit credits Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, with the first modern Western documentation of the curative benefits of "digging in a garden." (The concept of nature as a healing agent certainly predates him. Enclosed gardens, in particular, were used in a hospital context at least as far back as the Middle Ages.) Horticulture therapy as it's known today in the United States took root (so to speak) following the first World War. It was used as a treatment for veterans suffering from PTSD and was later applied to a wider variety of purposes, including reforming "delinquent girls" in the 1960s. In 1959, Rusk Rehabilitation then the Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine added its first greenhouse, and their horticultural therapy program has been running steadily ever since. "On the one hand that's really good," Ms. Shoemaker said. "But what that means is that it's a continued struggle for the profession, because a lot of the people who are using the techniques of horticultural therapy are not horticultural therapists." Ms. Bloomberg, who left an advertising job several years ago to practice horticulture therapy full time, still sees it as a separate calling. It's "a very spiritual practice," she said. "When you're in the hospital, we focus on the physical, but there's all these other parts of us that we need to remember." She added: " I try to focus on the parts that may get forgotten. "	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Robots have taken our jobs, learned our chores and beaten us at our own games. Now researchers in Singapore say they have trained one to perform another task known to confound humans: figuring out how to assemble furniture from Ikea. A team from Nanyang Technological University programmed a robot to create and execute a plan to piece together most of Ikea's 25 solid pine Stefan chair on its own, calling on a medley of human skills to do so. The researchers explained their work in a study published on Wednesday in the journal Science Robotics. "If you think about it, it requires perception, it requires you to plan a motion, it requires control between the robot and the environment, it requires transporting an object with two arms simultaneously," said Dr. Quang Cuong Pham , an assistant professor of engineering at the university and one of the paper's authors. "Because this task requires so many interesting skills for robots, we felt that it could be a good project to push our capabilities to the limit." In recent years, a handful of others have set out to teach robots to assemble Ikea furniture, a task that can mimic the manipulations robots can or may someday perform on factory floors and that involves a brand many know all too well. "It's something that almost everybody is familiar with and almost everybody hates doing," said Ross A. Knepper, an assistant professor of computer science at Cornell University, whose research focuses on human robot interaction. In 2013, Mr. Knepper was part of a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that presented a paper on its work in the area, describing the "IkeaBot" the team created, which could assemble the company's Lack table on its own. But chairs, with backs, stretchers and other parts, pose a more complex challenge; hence the interest of the Nanyang researchers. Their robot was made of custom software, a three dimensional camera, two robotic arms, grippers and force detectors. The team chose only off the shelf tools, in order to mirror human biology. "Humans have the same hardware to do many different things," Dr. Pham said. "So this is kind of the genericity that we wanted to mimic." Also like humans, the robot had a little help to start: It was fed a kind of manual, a set of ordered instructions on how the pieces fit together. After that, though, it was on its own. The robot proceeded in three broad phases, spread out over 20 minutes 19 seconds. First, like humans, it took some time to stare at the pieces scattered before it. The robot spent a few seconds photographing the scene and matching each part to the one modeled in its "manual." Then, over more than 11 minutes, the robot devised a plan that would allow it to quickly assemble the chair without its arms knocking into each other or into the various parts. Finally, it put the plan in motion over the course of nearly nine minutes. The robot used grippers to pick up the wooden pins from a tray and force sensors at its "wrists" to detect when the pins, searching in a spiral pattern, finally slid into their holes. Working in unison, the arms then pressed the sides of the chair frame together.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
AFTER LIFE Stream on Netflix. "I still miss Lisa," Tony (Ricky Gervais) says near the start of Season 2 of this dark comedy series. The line is essentially a summary of the show's premise: The first season began with Lisa (Kerry Godliman) dying, leaving Tony to wrestle grief while carrying on life in his English town. With little direction left, he started treating everybody with a comic level of contempt. He resolves to do better in Season 2 with inconsistent success. "With other shows of mine, people come up to me on the street, and they usually say, 'I love the show,'" Gervais said in a recent interview with The Times. "But with this one and this was before coronavirus they come up to me and say, 'I just want to say, I lost my sister three weeks ago.'" He added, "You suddenly realize, of course everyone's grieving. And the older you get, the more you've got to grieve." WONDER WOMAN (2017) 8 p.m. on TNT. The celebrity laden online cover of John Lennon's "Imagine" recently orchestrated by Gal Gadot didn't get great reviews, but Gadot's performance in the title role of this superhero blockbuster very much did. See Gadot clobber bad guys alongside a World War I pilot played by Chris Pine, as she moves through an origin story that puts pieces in place for the upcoming sequel, "Wonder Woman 1984."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television

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