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Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, the drug widely seen as igniting the opioid crisis, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday night, a move at the center of the company's efforts to shield itself and its owners from more than 2,600 federal and state lawsuits. The terms of the filing, which include a proposed resolution of most of those cases, are expected to be fiercely contested by a group of states led by Massachusetts and New York that have refused to settle with Purdue and are intent on pursuing the company's owners, the Sacklers, considered one of the wealthiest families in the United States. A showdown in bankruptcy court in White Plains could come as early as this week. Restructuring the company through bankruptcy was at the heart of a tentative settlement agreement reached last week between the company and thousands of cities and counties that have sued it in federal court for its role in the opioid epidemic. Twenty four states and five United States territories have also accepted the agreement. Purdue's board of directors voted Sunday evening to approve the settlement in principle. "This unique framework for a comprehensive resolution will dedicate all of the assets and resources of Purdue for the benefit of the American public," Steve Miller, chairman of Purdue's board of directors, said in a statement. "This settlement framework avoids wasting hundreds of millions of dollars and years on protracted litigation, and instead will provide billions of dollars and critical resources to communities across the country trying to cope with the opioid crisis. " Purdue hopes to restructure completely, with an expectation that the Chapter 11 bankruptcy will prompt an automatic stay of current civil litigation against the company over the opioid epidemic. The details of the settlement proposal have been reported in recent weeks: the Sacklers would give up ownership of the company and pay 3 billion cash to the plaintiffs over seven years. They would also have to sell their Britain based drug company, Mundipharma. The proceeds from that sale could add "substantial further monetary contributions" to the settlement pot, according to a company statement released Sunday night. Purdue would be restructured into an entity known as a public benefit trust. Profits from its production of OxyContin and other drugs would pay the plaintiffs' claims, and also support research and development of medicines to treat addiction and overdoses, which would be donated to the public. The new company would abide by restrictions on the marketing and sales of opioids. The worth of the settlement has been a subject of contention. In its statement announcing the filing, Purdue said it assessed the value at 10 billion. But the states that have opposed the deal have disparaged those numbers, saying they are highly speculative and based on optimistic calculations that may take years to realize. The opposing states also object to the deal because its structure allows the Sacklers, through Mundipharma, to participate in the drug manufacturing business until it is sold. These states note that the resolution of the lawsuits will be paid in part from ongoing sales of OxyContin in the United States and abroad rather than all of it from the Sacklers themselves. The states that have not signed on to the settlement deal, including Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, Virginia, Delaware, North Carolina and others, as well as the District of Columbia, are almost uniformly those that have sued the Sacklers in addition to Purdue, or are about to. What remains unclear is whether the individual Sacklers who have been sued will benefit from the automatic stay of litigation that will most likely be accorded to their company. In a statement, the Sackler family expressed "deep compassion for the victims of the opioid crisis," concluding: "We are hopeful that in time, those parties who are not yet supportive will ultimately shift their focus to the critical resources that the settlement provides to people and problems that need them." The 24 states that have signed onto the deal, including Tennessee, Florida, West Virginia and Texas, as well as the municipal plaintiffs in nearly 2,300 cases consolidated in federal court, have said they wanted to secure guaranteed money from a bankruptcy that seemed inevitable. They want to begin addressing opioid gouged public funds, they say, and to end litigation, which itself is crushingly expensive. The possibility of bankruptcy had been in the works since at least the summer of 2018, when Purdue named Steve Miller, a restructuring specialist who is widely known by his nickname, "the Turnaround Kid," to chair its board and hired the law firm Davis, Polk Wardwell, which has a large bankruptcy practice. The filing itself comes scarcely 48 hours after an announcement late Friday afternoon by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, that her office had uncovered almost a billion dollars in previously undisclosed wire transfers from Purdue to private accounts held by one of the Sacklers. The discovery came from just one of 33 subpoenas the state issued recently to financial institutions and advisers that have done business with the Sacklers. The dismantling of a corporation to resolve litigation is not without precedent. The signature example is the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust, set up in 1988 from the 1982 bankruptcy restructuring of Johns Manville, the asbestos manufacturer, to resolve hundreds of thousands of claims for mesothelioma and other lung diseases. Another notable example is Dow Corning, a maker of silicone breast implants, which sought bankruptcy protection in 1995 to address thousands of lawsuits. But the Purdue case is, in some respects, unique. The list of Purdue's creditors consists overwhelmingly of the state and federal litigants. But the many thousands of claims that Johns Manville and Dow Corning had to settle were brought by individuals. Here, each of the 2,600 cases against Purdue represents thousands, and often, millions of citizens. Because the plaintiffs are governments, the states objecting to the proposal are expected to argue that their police authority to protect their citizens permits them to override the bankruptcy protections claimed by the Sacklers. But bankruptcy courts are federal; whether state law would be persuasive is unclear. Many other questions remain. The federal bankruptcy judge must decide whether the objections by the opposing states are sufficient to scuttle the deal or whether those states will have to be bound by the deal as well. Other nettlesome issues include the order in which the plaintiffs and their private lawyers will be paid, the respective amounts and, eventually, how those funds will be allocated to address the disaster. New York and other states have said in their filings that OxyContin, and opioids developed, distributed and sold by other companies, laid waste to hundreds of thousands of lives, depleting governmental resources. But throughout the two decade long public health crisis, the states say, the Sackler family transferred billions of dollars from Purdue to shell corporations and private accounts. These moves amount to "fraudulent conveyance," the states say, a claim that may pierce the bankruptcy shield against litigation. Moreover, many states say, the Sacklers have violated individual states' consumer protection and fraud laws, which could give them the authority to pursue the Sacklers in their own courts.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
During these strange times, it seems the only TV series I can get into have short episodes, a darkly humorous outlook, are often poignant, have a sense of the absurd while still being grounded in a familiar reality, aren't afraid of the ambivalence of human existence, center friendship and family as often as romance, and often use great music. My brilliant friend also pointed out that in these kinds of series, people do grow, no matter how painfully. I watched "Fleabag." I watched "Catastrophe." I watched "You're the Worst." I watched "Insecure," "Baskets," "Feel Good," "Flaked," "Work in Progress," "Casual" and "Togetherness." I can't get over "Better Things" or "I May Destroy You." What should I watch next? Georgia "Atlanta." Donald Glover's gorgeous and lyrical dramedy follows Earn, an aspiring music manager trying to facilitate his cousin's burgeoning rap career, figure things out with his on again off again girlfriend, raise his daughter and just kind of ... hatch. It's emotionally rich, very funny and capable of true surprises both stylistically and narratively. Some episodes are full on parodies; others include flashes of magical realism. But they all have that sense of intimacy and reality that it sounds like you're looking for a show that's about being alive. Its two seasons are streaming on Hulu, and FX recently announced that the show's third and fourth seasons, which will be filmed back to back, will go into production in 2021. Then watch "BoJack Horseman," which might seem too fantastical for your vibe, but trust me: If you want a show where smart characters muse on the agonies of life but also make jokes, this is it (on Netflix). Then watch "Enlightened," and let its tenderness and depth destroy you and then rebuild you anew (HBO Max). Follow those with "Ramy," (Hulu) and then "High Maintenance" (HBO) and then "One Mississippi" (Amazon Prime Video). Michaela Coel's first TV show, "Chewing Gum," is less depressing than a lot of shows on your list, but it has that dazzling specificity that defines the best auteur comedies (on Netflix). "This Way Up" (Hulu) is not as good as "Catastrophe" or "Fleabag," but it hits similar notes in a lot of good ways; "The Other Guy" (Hulu) is cruder and less polished than other shows on your list, but has that compelling fearlessness around lousy behavior. "Crazy Ex Girlfriend" (Netflix) is 44 minute episodes, but I think otherwise meets your needs, and it's terrific. Since the pandemic started, I have lost my attention span. It's completely gone. At first, it felt like I would miss some important Covid update if I wasn't glued to my phone for approximately 22 hours a day. Next, I got laid off and suddenly I had the option to fill my workdays with watching TV, which instead of energizing me, overwhelmed me. I used to seek out old shows and keep up with new ones. Now I've basically forced myself to watch all three seasons of a mostly average period drama on Netflix just to feel something about TV again. I thought that escaping to a period drama would help, because whenever I watch shows set in the present day I just keep thinking, "They have no idea what's coming." Why is my old friend and sweet comfort blanket suddenly so unappealing? Am I doomed to stay in this Covid induced TV inertia forever? Are there any shows that can break me out of this funk, or help me start to enjoy watching TV again? Hayley First, I'm sorry you got laid off. Second, you're definitely not alone in suddenly feeling like you fell out of love. So third, give yourself a break! Not just "be nice to yourself, you deserve it" though that too but take a big break from TV completely. Don't force yourself to watch something just because, and don't buy into "power through" hogwash. The "thrill" is gone because TV has moved from comforter to caretaker, which is not quite the same thing (see: partner versus parent), and that shift has robbed it of its appeal for the moment. You and TV need to take some time apart. So let couch time be something different for a little while. Play the phone game of your choice and also download tons of different podcasts. I'm currently really into "Other People's Problems," a CBC podcast of therapy sessions that, unlike "Where Should We Begin?" or "Dear Therapists" follows patients over multiple sessions. Also on my recent binge list: "Dead Eyes," which reminds me a little bit of "Mystery Show," and is about the time the host, Connor Ratliff, got fired from the mini series "Band of Brothers" because, he claims, Tom Hanks said he had "dead eyes." I loved "The Dream," an investigative podcast that tackles multilevel marketing companies in Season 1 and the wellness industry in Season 2. "Everything Is Alive" is interviews with inanimate objects, like a soda can who dreams someone will drink him one day, or a baseball hat who was once left on the subway. It's really lovely. "Heavyweight" helps people reconcile unresolved beefs, like figuring out why they were kicked out of a sorority or why their favorite babysitter quit 20 years ago. "The Pitch" is just "Shark Tank" but a podcast. "Strong Songs" is a thoughtful and thorough analysis of different pop songs, with an emphasis on composition. Don't be stingy with podcasts. Sample as many as possible. You're channel surfing; give an episode a few minutes and if you don't like it, delete it and move on. If part of you is saying "shouldn't I give it a real chance, though?," the answer is: Nah. That's fine in other circumstances but the goal here is to listen only to things you like, period. Pleasure is not a reward, it's a necessity. Once you're out of your current emotional feedback cycle with TV, it'll be a lot easier to remember what you liked about it. You can't iron the clothes you're wearing, you know? Get some distance, shake up the routine a bit, and then try the fun and juicy magical grad school drama "The Magicians" (Netflix). Series' availability on streaming platforms is subject to change, and varies by country. Send in your questions to watching nytimes.com. Questions are edited for length and clarity.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
When Annie Coissieux tried to stand up for the first time after weeks in the hospital battling Covid 19, she couldn't get on her feet. "My first day after I.C.U., I couldn't leave the chair without the help of two nurses," she recalled from her home in the Drome region in southeast France. She felt breathless and exhausted after walking for just a few minutes. "Going to the bathroom was a real mission that required time and effort." Ms. Coissieux, 78, was sent to a nearby pulmonary rehabilitation clinic, Dieulefit Sante, where a physical therapist taught her breathing exercises to help restore her lungs and the muscles involved in breathing. When she went home three weeks later, Ms. Coissieux could walk close to 1,000 feet, albeit with a walker. As she continued exercising at home, she grew stronger. "Now I can walk 500 meters with no walker," or about 1,600 feet, said the retired schoolteacher. "I can walk up the stairs at my cousin's house." And while she still feels fatigued in the afternoons, she cycles on her indoor bike and swims. Lingering shortness of breath and diminished stamina have dogged many Covid patients whose lungs were viciously attacked by the coronavirus. Early in the pandemic, doctors worried that Covid might cause irreversible damage leading to lung fibrosis progressive scarring in which lung tissue continues to die even after the infection is gone. According to the World Health Organization, about 80 percent of patients have mild to moderate symptoms, 15 percent develop a severe form of the disease and roughly five percent like Ms. Coissieux escalate to critical. While global or nationwide statistics on post Covid lung recovery are not yet available, hospitals and clinics are assessing their cases. About 20 percent of hospitalized Covid patients wound up in intensive care units, where many needed ventilators, according to Dr. Gabriel C. Lockhart, a pulmonologist at National Jewish Health, a respiratory hospital in Denver, who also volunteered at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. "Of the ones who get intubated at least two thirds will survive but will require some physical therapy," he said. It's not known yet how many people will rebound to their pre Covid status, because so many are still recovering, said Dr. Jafar J. Abunasser, a pulmonologist at Cleveland Clinic. He added that one study of SARS, another coronavirus, published in the journal Chest found that about 59 percent of survivors had no lung impairment after one year, while one third still had some lung abnormalities, which he described as "mild." During this year's pandemic, few patients suffered such severe lung damage that they required lung transplants, still a rarity worldwide. But that number may climb as some patients' lungs will not improve sufficiently, Dr. Sadia Shah, a pulmonologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., said. At a recent European Respiratory Society meeting, doctors presented early results of a few small studies that offered a glimmer of hope, indicating that in at least some cases, patients' lungs show signs of recovery especially with intensive aftercare and exercise. "They spent months in bed and lost their muscle and respiratory capacity," Ms. Al Chikhanie explained. "It seems that most of these more severe patients recover from severe lung injury," said Dr. Frederic Herengt, who oversaw the study at Dieulefit Sante. Longer range studies still have to be conducted to assess the potential for permanent effects. Doctors at the University Clinic of Internal Medicine in Innsbruck, Austria observed similar improvements in their 86 patients, who were also in the hard hit category and endured long hospital and I.C.U. stays. Even after rehabilitation, many were still coughing and short of breath as they went home, equipped with exercise instructions and breathing devices small, inexpensive plastic tubes that require one to breathe in and out with force. But as they came back for checkups weeks later, their CT scans showed improvement, doctors said. Fluids were clearing from their lungs, and the white glass lesions often seen in Covid pneumonia were lessening, sometimes disappearing entirely and sometimes noticeable only as thin white bands. "There are some signs of reversible damage," said Dr. Thomas Sonnweber, who conducted the study with his colleagues Dr. Judith Loffler Ragg and Dr. Ivan Tancevski. At the time the patients were discharged from the hospital, 88 percent had lung damage, but 12 weeks later, only 56 percent did. Their symptoms also improved. They coughed less, breathed and walked more easily, in some cases with markedly improved endurance. "We have seen patients who went on wheelchairs to rehabilitation but they start walking again," Dr. Loffler Ragg said. She cited one particular case of an elderly man who needed oxygen before rehabilitation, but now walks up the stairs to his fourth floor apartment with only mild shortness of breath. "Despite his 78 years, despite Covid pneumonia, he can manage this," she said. Neither study has been peer reviewed or published in a scientific journal. But the patients' improvement was encouraging to others who have been treating Covid patients. Our lungs have good inner healing mechanisms, said Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, an assistant professor who specializes in pulmonary and critical care at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore. The infection leaves behind a mess of dead cells, damaged tissues and fluids, caused by the coronavirus and the overzealous response of the immune system that often occurs in Covid patients. But once the infection is gone, the lungs begin to rebuild themselves, using specialized cells devoted entirely to healing. "They create new cells to replace the diseased ones," Dr. Galiatsatos explained. "There are also other cells that try to not only create new cells but promote the architecture of the lungs not just recreating it, but recreating it to look exactly as it did before." When that's not possible, scars will form and some may become permanent, but that serves a purpose too. The lungs know that the scarred spot can't perform oxygen exchange, so they won't send blood there. "It's called a shunt," Dr. Galiatsatos said, adding that the lungs will adapt. "They're going to send the blood to the more healthy parts." Breathing and physical exercises can aid this recovery. Even some patients originally deemed as candidates for a lung transplant managed to recuperate and go home without needing one, said Dr. Tiago Noguchi Machuca, a lung transplant surgeon at the University of Florida. He had treated patients on ventilators and ECMO machines devices that infuse oxygen into the blood stream and remove carbon dioxide who managed to get them off life support and breathing on their own. His team keeps such patients on ECMO machines, but tries to take them off ventilators to restore their breathing capacities, he said. One patient was about to go home soon. "We had brought him here really thinking he was going to need a transplant," Dr. Machuca said. "And he recovered." Doctors don't yet know how long it will take patients to regain their pre Covid strength and endurance. In the case of acute respiratory distress syndrome or ARDS, which has been caused by other viruses and has similarities to Covid 19, full recovery can take over a year, but there are no such statistics for Covid yet. However, the earlier patients start their rehabilitation, the faster they begin to bounce back, which may be another reason for doctors to take them off ventilators sooner, Ms. Al Chikhanie said. That may be possible, especially as scientists understand how to manage the acute infection phase better. Doctors at Mount Sinai found that Covid doesn't break down the lung's blood vessels but rather dilates them, which makes the blood flow too fast for the oxygen to be absorbed, causing hypoxemia or low levels of oxygen in the blood. Dr. Hooman Poor, a pulmonologist and co author of the Mt. Sinai paper, said that more research was needed to identify efficient ways to reduce Covid induced hypoxemia in patients. Some people who spent a long time on life support can recover, though they will need a great deal of help and perseverance. "Stay active, move and walk around the house, go up and down stairs," Ms. Al Chikhanie said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
HAMBURG One reason Schumann's "Scenes From Goethe's 'Faust'" is so rarely performed is its hybrid shape: part literary oratorio, part opera. Another handicap is his selections. While other composers drawn to Goethe's tragedy about a dissatisfied man who makes a pact with the devil have focused on the dark scenes from Part I Faust's ruinous love for Gretchen and the destructive vortex of events wrought by Mephistopheles Schumann set his sights on the epilogue in heaven. Here Goethe imagines a metaphysical tug of war over Faust's soul that zooms toward redemption in a way that is brainy, sublime and devilishly hard to stage. An entrancing new production by Achim Freyer for the Hamburg State Opera, though, argues that it's well worth trying. Mr. Freyer, an artist and director with a penchant for dense symbolism, takes a restrained approach to this overlooked gem. He conjures a world that, for all its surreal touches, has a zany beauty that gently smooths over Schumann's dramatic flaws. Between scrim and covered pit, blocking the audience's view of the conductor, is a stylized copy of "The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog," Caspar David Friedrich's painting of a man, seen from behind, looking out over swirling mists. Mr. Freyer's "Wanderer," though, is missing its head. By stepping behind the copy, Mr. Gerhaher's Faust could merge with the painted seeker either while gazing through the scrim toward the dark mystery of music, or out at the detritus of life and, beyond, the judgment of the audience. As with so many classic works of Romanticism, Friedrich's image came to be co opted by the Nazis as a symbol of national exceptionalism. Thus the duality in Faust knowledge and destruction blends with the duality of the Romantic mountaineer who is the model of, simultaneously, contemplation and conquest. The shadowy stage workers creep about cradling objects that sometimes seed a wealth of associations and sometimes pull into focus a narrative thread dropped by Schumann. A fragment of Goethe's color wheel, a kabbalistic tetragram, and two dwarves with a Snow White apple all appear and vanish. But in Schumann's most operatic scene, in which Gretchen prays in church, plagued by guilt, a pantomime of props tells the full story. Bloodied rags, a naked baby doll, and a pair of wings remind the audience that the desperate Gretchen killed her illegitimate child in desperation. Schumann assembles that scene brilliantly, with the solo soprano (here the glowingly effusive Christina Gansch) offset by a churning orchestra, taunted by Mephisto (Franz Josef Selig, singing with kid glove sarcasm). Soon the choir muscles in with a ferocious "Dies irae." The composer wields his large forces in a way that doesn't overpower individual voices or the text. In the magisterial baritone Christian Gerhaher he found an interpreter able to let Goethe's densely brilliant lines shine through the music. Mr. Gerhaher has the power to project clarion vigor where needed. But more often his voice seems to become a vehicle for the words, with some passages delivered with a tone so lightened of vibrato that it approached the near spoken style more commonly heard in modernist works. In the latter part of the evening, when he embodied the allegorical Dr. Marianus, whose worship of the Holy Virgin paves the way for Faust's redemption, Mr. Gerhaher's voice turned velvet and weightless. The final apotheosis is a magnificent blend of soloists, choir and orchestra that pays homage to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy." By then Mr. Freyer's objects had been abstracted into geometric shapes of pure color, while video projections of the faces of Faust and Gretchen drifted upward on the scrim. It would have been nice to lift that scrim for the applause, which the ensemble musicians rightfully shared with the soloists. The conductor Kent Nagano, who had led a burnished reading of the exquisite score, came to the front for his bow. But the choir and orchestra remained partially obscured in Mr. Freyer's realm of music and mystery.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
El Museo del Barrio announced on Monday that it was canceling a survey of the work of the Chilean born artist and director Alejandro Jodorowsky, who was quoted as saying he had raped an actress while filming a scene in a movie. In a written statement Monday the museum said that the decision to cancel the exhibition was made after an assessment of Mr. Jodorowsky's remarks "regarding an act of sexual violence he perpetrated" during the making of his 1970 film "El Topo." "While the issues raised by Jodorowsky's practice should be examined, we have come to the conclusion that an exhibition is not the right platform for doing so at this time," El Museo's director, Patrick Charpenel, said in a statement. The museum's decision was first reported on Monday by Art News. Coming less than three weeks after the museum reversed a decision to honor a socialite from Germany who has ties to archconservative opponents of Pope Francis, the cancellation raises questions about the vetting process that El Museo employs while arranging programming and events.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Tallent's singular and haunting new memoir, "Scratched," offers some of the answers. But in its refusal to provide more than "slim green shoots of story," it is also an artful ducking of the full reveal that we have come to expect from such accounts. Subtitled "A Memoir of Perfectionism," the book approaches the mysteries, gaps and obstacles in Tallent's own story with the same psychological precision and elliptical motivation she applies to her fictional characters. We learn about the particulars of her life without fully understanding how she became the person she presents herself as being: her ordinary looking 1950s 60s childhood in suburban Washington, D.C.; her early sense of shame and self rejection in the face of an uninterested mother and a disapproving father; her original wish to become an archaeologist; her marriage to her college boyfriend; her job as a bookstore clerk in Santa Fe, where she made her first tentative efforts at writing on a "hunky olive green electric typewriter"; her second marriage (to her former analyst) and the birth of a son; her becoming a professor. This central blurriness in the midst of hypercharged description, furthered by a non chronological structure, is both fascinating and confounding. It is also, I think, exactly the tantalizingly elusive effect Tallent intends. Early in the book she confides, "I have always loved hiding." She refers to her "inassimilable self" and her "wrong self," which leaves us with the question: How does someone with an admitted lifelong perfectionism first developed as "a defense against despair," which then blossomed into a "closed circuit viciousness" that attacked every attempt to write as "mistake hideous miscarriage" ever allow herself to put "wrong sentence after wrong sentence" on a page? Because she is canny about her own "affliction" and has given a lot of thought to the strategies that writing requires, Tallent almost convinces us that her obsessive perfectionism is just a variant of the problems every writer faces: "How bad," she slyly asks, "was that perfectionist seizure, how different really from the impediments writing presents to most writers? after all," she adds, "A writer is someone for whom writing is a problem." Except that the winding trail of Tallent's memoir, replete with quotes from Freud and run on sentences that no fifth grade teacher would allow, stunningly demonstrates that she no longer believes her own rationalizations: "Stories thrive," she observes almost as an aside, "on exactly those risks perfectionism forecloses." The title of "Scratched" refers to an anecdote that Tallent's self involved and glacial mother relates to her when she is 19 and just back from an archaeological dig: Because her mother deemed her to be an insufficiently perfect newborn, owing in part to her black hair and a scratch near one eyelid, she refused to hold the infant Elizabeth, despite nurses' attempts to coax her into maternal feeling. When Tallent presses her for more details, her mother conjures up a vision of infantile beauty: "The baby on the Gerber's baby food jar, do you know the one I mean? Babies came out like that, was what I assumed perfect, smiley, those great big eyes. I had no idea the Gerber baby was 6 months old." The retroactive hostility of this incident seems lost on the mother: "As she told it to me on the couch I was aware of not having a clue what the story meant to her," Tallent writes. But it establishes a pattern that dictates their relationship going forward, throwing Tallent into the hopeless task of trying to undo "my sense of being loathed by her" by becoming unassailably without defect. "Perfectionism," she writes, "is a terrifying mistake of the mind." Elizabeth Tallent's gift has never been in doubt, ever since she started publishing books in her 20s. She has written a subtle and idiosyncratic account that tries to elucidate her decades long writer's block even as she recognizes that as with so much in anyone's life she cannot fully grasp it. I'm not sure I've ever read a memoir quite like this, one that spills its many dark secrets with so little self pity, so much acuity and such a deliberate lack of authorial certitude.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
BIG SISTER, LITTLE SISTER, RED SISTER Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth Century China By Jung Chang If you were a child growing up in 1980s China, as I was, Chinese Communist Party education began as soon as you could spell your name. The lessons were blissfully simple: The party is unimpeachable; those who assail the party are despicable; the family is a metaphor for our great nation, whose members are all lovingly allied because unity is the most important principle. Around the time I learned to write my name, I heard about the Soong sisters, whose reputation permeated Chinese society like some heady, if slightly unholy, perfume. Once upon a time, the story goes, there were three sisters. One loved money, one loved power and one loved her country. The tale of their divergent paths was like a politically incorrect parable, a lesson in what not to do if one wished to build a cooperative, functional family. Indeed, if the Soong sisters had not actually existed, the story of their operatic lives, had it been conjured in fiction, would surely have been branded by censors as salacious spiritual pollution. In her introduction to "Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister," Jung Chang recalls her first impression of the Soong sisters as "fairy tale figures" who, in contrast to the subjects of her previous biographies Mao and the Empress Dowager Cixi seemed free of "mental conflicts, moral dilemmas or agonizing decisions." For that reason, she had not intended to profile the sisters at all but arrived at them circuitously as she set about researching the founding father of modern China, Sun Yat sen. Like her beloved memoir, "Wild Swans" (1991), which recounts the evolution of China through the lens of her own life and those of her mother and grandmother, Chang's new book tells her country's story through three women of the same family. Before wading into the sisters' lives, she devotes detailed chapters to two men: Sun, who amassed power mostly by being a ruthless, thuggish blowhard; and Charlie Soong, the paterfamilias of the Soong clan, a former Methodist preacher turned wealthy businessman and underground revolutionary. Soong's ardent support for Sun came at least in part from the fact that both men visited the West early in life and harbored admiration for outspoken, confident, learned women. Were it not for Soong's determination to give his daughters a thoroughly Western education and Sun's attraction to westernized women, the last 100 years of Chinese history might have turned out very differently. 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. Around the turn of the 20th century, the Soong daughters became some of the first Chinese women to be educated in America, which led to jobs as English translators for Sun. Big Sister Ei ling was the first to captivate Sun, but she chose to marry H. H. Kung, a wealthy widower, instead. It was Ching ling, the middle sister, 25 years Sun's junior, who went on to be Mme. Sun Yat sen. In an attempt to emulate the selflessness of Joan of Arc, Ching ling ended up devoting herself to a man unworthy of her worship. In one harrowing episode early in their marriage, Sun fled the presidential palace and used his wife as bait to ensure his escape. But being the wife of an internationally known firebrand would leave its mark on the young Ching ling. In the early 1920s, when Sun collaborated with the Soviet Politburo out of political convenience, it was Ching ling who emerged the true believer and committed Leninist. Meanwhile, Big Sister Ei ling, a master strategist who detested the Communists, engineered the union of Little Sister May ling and Generalissimo Chiang Kai shek, a dour army commander who positioned himself as Sun's heir and leader of China's first modern political party, the Nationalists. Like Sun, the generalissimo craved power and exhibited few scruples. When he assassinated a political rival, the one man Ching ling loved after Sun's death, the battle line in the family was drawn for good. If Red Sister Ching ling was Mao's most glamorous ambassador, little sister May ling proved her mettle in the United States, where she toured for eight months to secure support for her husband's regime during World War II. In 1943, when she addressed Congress dressed in a silk cheongsam and speaking impeccable American English, she mesmerized every politician in America and earned a four minute standing ovation. However, six years later, after the Nationalist defeat, which prompted May ling and Ei ling to flee the country, it was Ching ling's turn to shine. When Mao proclaimed the People's Republic in 1949, Ching ling walked directly behind him onto Tiananmen Gate and served as the new republic's vice chairman. Deeply researched, Chang's book is a riveting read, but at times her focus on disproving her initial bland impression of the sisters can feel narrow. The extraordinary lives of the Soongs were made possible by a confluence of globalization, modernization and Western penetration of an ancient, tottering empire. Culturally deracinated, the sisters had much in common with both Sun Yat sen and their father, Charlie, who was once derided upon his return from the West as a "denationalized Chinaman." As China struggled to define itself against the Western world, the sisters were discovering how to be a new kind of Chinese: cosmopolitan, enlightened and, most unprecedented for a woman, liberated. Chang's desire to credit the sisters' contributions can overshadow the crucial question of how Ching ling came to be so deluded about Mao's revolution and why May ling and Ei ling were ultimately unable to save the Nationalist regime, with its many financial and tactical advantages, from devouring itself. Cocooned in wealth and privilege, the sisters dreamed noble dreams but were buoyed by naivete and sometimes led astray by bourgeois idealism. Although the sisters had ample intelligence and irrepressible spirit, they had almost no contact with ordinary Chinese, and, at the most critical juncture of their country's modern history, found themselves to be baffled foreigners in the place of their birth. For all her grace and magnetism, May ling was a woman fatally addicted to luxury, and Ei ling spent much of her life playing politics to maintain an opulent lifestyle for the Soong clan. The Nationalist regime's signature policy the New Life Movement, highlighting loyalty, honor and good manners which May ling helped the generalissimo execute, showed just how out of touch the first lady was with her countrymen. At a time when the population was freshly traumatized by terror and war, she asserted that "if a man were sloppy and careless about his personal appearance, about his bearing ... he would also be untidy in thought." When critics questioned the prudence of the policy, May ling's response was tone deaf: "If everyone from the highest social order to the lowest wheelbarrow coolie would conscientiously practice these principles in everyday life, there would be food for all." Ching ling fared no better, heedlessly sacrificing herself for a revolution she didn't fully understand until it was too late. Red Sister might have begun life emulating Joan of Arc but her fate more closely resembled that of Dorothea Brooke. Ching ling lived out the rest of her life in Beijing (according to party dictates, even though she preferred Shanghai), largely a figurehead for the dictatorial regime over which she had increasingly little control. Ei ling flitted between America and Taiwan, and May ling spent her last days in the one city she considered her true home, New York. Until the end of their lives, Ching ling never reconciled with her family. Unlike in a fairy tale, there was no magical ending to the Soong saga. Each sister made her choice early and by the time she paused to consider the arc of her life, the world had moved on and she was no longer in a position to walk back her youthful convictions. As Ching ling coolly put it during her last years, in words that sound like an attempt to persuade herself as much as anyone else, "I made my choice and I have no regrets."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
The only new name on the fiction list this week is , whose book "The Reckoning" debuts at No. 1. It made us wonder: What novelists were popular 25, 50 and 75 years ago? Well, 25 years ago, Grisham was. In November 1993, his fourth novel, "The Client," had been on the list for 33 weeks. The Times gave it a double edged review: "Once again ... Mr. Grisham enraptures us with a story that has hardly any point." Plenty of other familiar names joined Grisham on the 1993 list: Stephen King, Danielle Steel, Anne Rice, Ken Follett, Dean Koontz. The top spots, though, were occupied by Robert James Waller. His word of mouth hit, "The Bridges of Madison County," was at No. 2, having spent 66 weeks on the list, and his follow up, "Slow Waltz at Cedar Bend," was at No. 1. The Times was not a fan: "'Slow Waltz at Cedar Bend' and 'The Bridges of Madison County' are out of the same mold. But the self conscious preachiness and gaseous prose of the first book have been toned down. Some." Go back another 25 years, to November 1968, and the fiction list gets more interesting. No. 1 was Helen MacInnes's Cold War thriller "The Salzburg Connection," which The Times loved sort of, admitting that the author "has won and deserved a far wider readership than the average whodunit carpenter." John Updike's "Couples" derided by many as titillating and graphic was No. 4. The Times, however, did not find it salacious. "If this is a dirty book, then I don't see how sex can be written about at all," Wilfrid Sheed wrote in his review. "Updike's treatment of sex ... is that of a fictional biochemist approaching mankind with a tray of hypersensitive gadgets." The paper was a big fan of the novel at No. 8, Charles Portis's "True Grit," calling it "a western in a yarn spinning tradition that goes back at least to Mark Twain."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Q. For future reference, are there any measures that can be taken to resurrect a laptop after a serious coffee spill into the keyboard? A. Coffee is a common accessory to life with a laptop, but accidentally dumping the cup into the keyboard often proves fatal to the computer. The acidic properties of the coffee itself and milk proteins, sugar or artificial sweeteners, caramel sauce, chocolate syrup and any other flavorful additions to the brew can seep between the keys to short out circuits or corrode the components. If you do flood the laptop with a latte or another other beverage, turn off the computer immediately and unplug its power cord and any other hardware attached to it, like external drives. If your model has a removable battery, take it out. Tilt the computer to drain any excess liquid from is innards. Mop up as much of the spill as you can with a towel or other absorbent material, preferably by blotting instead of wiping (and potentially pushing liquid deeper into the machine). You may be able to revive the laptop by letting it drain and dry upside down overnight if water or small amounts of non sugary liquids were spilled onto it. If significant amounts of a complex coffee creation, juice, soda, cocktails or other alcohol were the culprit, consider taking the machine to a computer repair shop as soon as possible for a professional cleaning and consultation. (The laptop may need to be taken apart and wiped down to remove sticky residue and then reassembled, possibly with replacement parts.)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
How the 'Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World' Got Its Logo It began life as a tiny emblem, something to adorn a 45 r.p.m. single or the band's letterhead. It quickly became ubiquitous and, ultimately, the most famous logo in rock 'n' roll. Over 50 years, the legendary "tongue and lips" of the Rolling Stones has been emblazoned on everything from T shirts and lighters to stage sets, appearing in countless variations throughout the decades. And while many who love it are fans of the band, the logo has in many ways transcended the Stones. But when it was commissioned in April 1970 its designer, John Pasche, had little idea how popular and lucrative it would become. The logo was to be displayed later this month in "Revolutions: Records and Rebels 1966 1970," an exhibition at the Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris that has been postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak. But I caught up with Pasche, 74, in London by telephone last week, for a glimpse into its back story. (I included other witnesses to its history, as well.) Early in 1970, the Royal College of Art in London was contacted by the Rolling Stones' head office. The band was looking for an artist to create a poster for its 1970 European tour. The art school recommended Pasche, a Master of Arts student in his final year. Pasche met with Mick Jagger to discuss ideas for the poster, and returned to the frontman with a design a week later. Jagger was not satisfied. "I think it was possibly to do with the color and composition," Pasche told the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2016. The second and final version, which harked back to the aesthetics of the '30s and '40s but also included a Concorde turbojet, was more pleasing. Pasche was contacted shortly after by Jo Bergman, the band's personal assistant. This time, in a letter dated April 29, 1970, Bergman specifically asked Pasche "to create a logo or symbol which may be used on note paper, as a programme cover and as a cover for the press book." In a meeting with the designer some months later, Jagger was more specific, Pasche recalled: He wanted "an image that could work on its own ... like the Shell Petroleum logo. He wanted that kind of simplicity." During the same meeting Jagger showed Pasche an illustration of the Hindu deity Kali, which Jagger had seen in a shop near his home and asked if he could borrow. Jagger, according to Pasche, said he was "more interested in the Indian nature of it," Indian culture in Britain being quite trendy. But the designer was struck by Kali's open mouth and protruding tongue. "I just immediately picked up on the tongue and mouth," Pasche said. Contrary to popular belief, the logo, originally created in black and white and used to create subsequent versions, was not at least intentionally intended to represent Jagger's tongue and lips. "I said, Surely those were Mick Jagger's lips!"' recalled Victoria Broackes, a senior curator at the V A Museum, who in 2008 bought the original logo design online from an auction house in Chicago on behalf of the V A. Pasche, she said, "looked rather nonplused and said, 'Well, maybe subliminally, but no.'" Pasche contends his logo was also intended to be a protest symbol. "It's the kind of thing kids do when they stick their tongue out at you," he said. "That was the main reason I thought it would work well." The logo was executed quickly toward the end of 1970. The release of the band's classic "Sticky Fingers" album in April 1971 marked its first public appearance. It was used on the back cover, on the label and, most prominently, on the insert. However an alternate version of the logo was used for the United States release "slightly modified by Craig Braun," said Andrew Blauvelt, curator at large for design at the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan. At the time, Braun was working with Andy Warhol to realize Warhol's idea of a working zipper on the album's cover. Pasche says that Braun modified the design not because it was lacking in any respect but because it had been faxed to the United States in a rush. The fax "was very grainy and gray" and the logo, Pasche admitted, "needed redrawing." It is Braun's elongated version, with extra lines and highlights, that continues to be used officially. In Pete Fornatale's book "50 Licks: Myths and Stories from Half a Century of the Rolling Stones," Braun said that he had been given Pasche's logo by Marshall Chess, the president of Rolling Stones Records, and "basically outlined the highlights, the lips, and the tongue." And Pasche's logo continues to be attributed to others. "A lot of people think Andy Warhol designed it," Broackes said, "which of course he didn't." She believes it was because Warhol was credited for the rest of the artwork on "Sticky Fingers." According to Blake Gopnik, author of "Warhol: A Life as Art," a new biography, the tongue and lips "could absolutely not be by Andy Warhol." "It has nothing to do with the look of his art," he said, "especially the conceptual framework that he always worked in." Why the longstanding confusion? "Warhol's like a giant cultural magnet," Gopnik said. "Everything adheres to him. And he made no attempt to clarify matters." He added, "He preferred factual confusion to clarity, so the idea that he be credited with the logo would have been something that he would have absolutely encouraged." Pasche said he was paid just PS50 in 1970 (about 970 today), and also received a PS200 bonus. It was only in 1976, when an official contract was drawn up between himself and Musidor B.V., the band's Netherlands based law firm, that the designer began receiving royalties for his work. Pasche remembers his share as 10 percent of net income on sales of merchandising displaying the logo. He estimates he made "a few thousand pounds" in total in royalties until 1982, when he sold his copyright to the band for PS26,000. Pasche chuckles when he says, "I'd probably be living in a castle now" had he retained his copyright but say the decision was forced by a gray area in copyright law at the time regarding usage rights if a company had been using something for a number of years and it was recognized as part of the company, it could try to assume copyright. His lawyer told Pasche he could lose in court, so they negotiated a fee. O'Toole said Pasche's lawyer was right to take that road. "There's a good argument," he said, that the Rolling Stones could have argued that they had "an implied license to make use of the copyrighted work." Had Pasche fought and lost, he would have been "liable for his own legal fees, and also the legal fees of the Stones, which are probably going to be humongous." "It's almost like David and Goliath, really," he added. "The one designer up against the Rolling Stones."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
The director Anne Kauffman has described the playwright Amy Herzog as "an inexhaustible excavator." Anyone familiar with Ms. Herzog's work is likely to agree. In plays like "After the Revolution" and "4000 Miles," Ms. Herzog has dug deep into the terrain where generations intersect, in ways political as well as personal, with a perspective as cleareyed as it is compassionate. Expect the same traits to be in evidence in her latest offering, "Mary Jane," which opens on Monday, Sept. 25, at the New York Theater Workshop. Staged last spring at the Yale Repertory Theater, "Mary Jane" is a portrait of a mother's relationship with her chronically ill young son, and of the women she meets in dealing with a life that seems suspended in a state of crisis. The vibrant actress Carrie Coon (of "The Leftovers") takes the title role. Ms. Kauffman, with whom Ms. Herzog collaborated on "Belleville" four years ago, directs. (New York Theater Workshop; nytw.org.)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
As hundreds of movie buffs waited in line to see Alfonso Cuaron's "Roma" at the Telluride Film Festival in August, an S.U.V. rolled up and a tall, tanned man wearing sunglasses stepped out. He smiled and waved before breezing into the theater with his entourage. "Was that some sort of celebrity?" one ticket holder asked. Moviegoers may not know Scott Stuber, but he is fast becoming one of the most important and disruptive people in the film business. A former Universal Pictures vice chairman, Mr. Stuber, 50, is Netflix's movie chief. His mandate is to make the streaming service's original film lineup as formidable as its television operation, which received 112 Emmy nominations this year, the most of any network. With the rapturously reviewed "Roma," which arrived on Netflix on Friday, Mr. Stuber has pushed the internet giant into the center of the Oscar race. Mr. Cuaron's subtle film about life in 1970s Mexico City is likely to give Netflix its first best picture nomination. To make sure, the company is backing "Roma" with perhaps the most extravagant Academy Awards campaign ever mounted. But "Roma" is just the start of Mr. Stuber's cinematic onslaught, one that is forcing old line studios and multiplex chains to confront a panic inducing question: Will the streaming company that prompted many people to cut the cable cord now cause people to stop going to theaters? Having disrupted the television and music businesses, the internet is finally threatening the heart of Hollywood. Mr. Stuber, armed with Netflix's debt financed war chest, has films coming from Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, Dee Rees, Guillermo del Toro, Noah Baumbach and the king of spectacle, Michael Bay. "If you're going to build a great film studio, you have to build it with great filmmakers," Mr. Stuber said, noting that Hollywood royals Meryl Streep, Ben Affleck, Eddie Murphy, Sandra Bullock, Dwayne Johnson had also signed on for Netflix movies. Mr. Stuber's operation is set up to supply 55 original films a year, including some with budgets as high as 200 million. Add in documentaries and animated movies, handled by other divisions, and the number of annual Netflix film releases climbs to about 90. To compare, Universal, one of Hollywood's most prolific traditional studios, releases roughly 30 movies a year. Until now, moviedom has been relatively protected from the digital forces that have reshaped the rest of media. Most films still arrive in the same way they have for decades: first in theaters, for an exclusive run of about 90 days, and then in homes. Multiplex chains, including AMC and Regal, have fought off efforts to shorten that period. They worry that people will be reluctant to buy tickets if they can see the same film in their living rooms just a few weeks (or days) later. "Given the marginal profitability of the theatrical business, if you lose 10 percent of the audience some people stay home some cinemas go out of business," said John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, a group whose members believe big screens are part of the very definition of film. Netflix mostly bypasses theaters. To qualify for awards, a handful of Netflix movies appear simultaneously online and in art theaters in New York and Los Angeles. Pressed by Mr. Stuber, Netflix unveiled a third release model in October, making "Roma" and two other prestige movies available in cinemas first but only for one to three weeks and on its service second. Most theaters have refused to comply, although Netflix has cobbled together about 140 theaters in North America for "Roma" and nearly 600 more overseas. (The other two films are "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs," directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, which only played in 21 domestic theaters last month; and "Bird Box," a thriller starring Ms. Bullock, that arrived in four theaters on Thursday.) Netflix's newfound attention to theaters is an olive branch to Oscar voters. Heavyweights like Steven Spielberg have chafed at Netflix's policy of streaming films immediately, suggesting that all of the service's content should be considered television. But Netflix needs the Oscars and the validation they bring to compete with traditional studios for top talent. "We're trying to build a new studio that is exciting for artists," Mr. Stuber said. "As we do that, it's important to be open to criticism. When a great artist says, 'Hey, this doesn't work,' then we'd better try to fix it. For some of our filmmakers, that means having a theatrical release and contending for awards." Don't expect Netflix to bend much further, however. "In a world where consumer choice is driving everything how we shop, how we order groceries, how we are entertained we're trying to get to a place where consumers have theatrical viewing as a choice," Mr. Stuber said. "But we also think it is critical that, if you don't have the means or the access or the time to go to a theater, you are still able to see movies without a long wait." Mr. Fithian of the theater owners association called Mr. Stuber's comment about access "absolute hogwash." He added, "For filmmakers who want to go to Netflix, they are kind of selling their soul the pot of money versus how they know a movie should be seen." Ford and Rivian no longer plan to work jointly on electric vehicles. Elizabeth Holmes took the stand in her trial. Follow along with our reporters. Ken Griffin, head of Citadel, bid highest for a copy of the Constitution. Mr. Scorsese disagrees. Netflix adopted his coming mob drama "The Irishman," starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci, after Paramount balked at its cost. "Some might say, 'It's Netflix, it's not about theatrical, it's all about streaming,'" Mr. Scorsese said in an email. "To a certain extent that's true, of course, and, for me, coming from the theatrical era, it feels odd and uncertain Joel and Ethan and Alfonso Cuaron and Tamara Jenkins would probably say the same. But we're all making the films as big screen experiences, and they're giving us theatrical windows. And, most importantly of all, Scott and his team are actually making our movies, from a place of respect and love for cinema, and that means everything." "Roma" was financed and produced by Participant Media, which approached six companies, including traditional ones like Fox Searchlight, as potential distributors. All of them, with the exception of Netflix, Mr. Cuaron said, were concerned about the commercial viability of a black and white, subtitled film. "I'm excited about this Netflix distribution model developing," Mr. Cuaron said. "It will bring back diversity to cinema." He added: "I trust Scott. I've known him for a long, long, long time." Mr. Stuber, who has a mellow, genial style that stands out in monomaniacal Hollywood, is the consummate film industry insider. He got to know Mr. Cuaron in the early 2000s, when Mr. Stuber was a senior executive at Universal and Mr. Cuaron was making "Children of Men" at the studio. In an interview, Mr. Stuber casually spoke about projects with "Sandy" and "Marty" between sips of golden oolong tea. (That would be Ms. Bullock and Mr. Scorsese.) Mr. Stuber left his job at Universal in 2005 to become a producer, specializing in bro culture comedies like "Ted" and "You, Me and Dupree." Despite a mixed record his misfires included "A Million Ways to Die in the West" and "Battleship" he was courted to run Paramount in 2017. Netflix reached out around the same time. At Netflix, Mr. Stuber has had to bridge the cultural gap between Hollywood, where decisions are made by gut instinct, and his own company, where data and algorithms rule. "It can't be easy, but Scott seems to be everywhere at once," said Susanne Bier, who directed "Bird Box." "I'll send him a text and there will be a quick text back." The Netflix film department has two major groups. One is called Originals, intended to supply about 20 movies a year with budgets of 20 million to 200 million. The Indie group is set up for about 35 films a year, with budgets of up to 20 million; about 75 percent of its output will be genre movies aimed at specific audiences (like the romantic comedy "Kissing Booth," a summer hit), with the balance dedicated to art house directors like Nicole Holofcener. Mr. Stuber has greenlight authority for all Netflix films but delegates some of those decisions. Mr. Stuber, who is married to Molly Sims, the actress and lifestyle entrepreneur, grew up in Granada Hills, Calif., where his father worked for Lockheed Martin and his mother at an import export company. He knew no one in Hollywood. After graduating from the University of Arizona with a film degree (he went there to play baseball), Mr. Stuber got a job at Universal in 1992 as a publicity assistant. His duties included delivering news clippings at 8 a.m. daily to the studio's all powerful chief, Lew Wasserman. After about six months, Mr. Wasserman, apparently impressed by Mr. Stuber's punctuality, spoke to him for the first time. "He said, 'Hey kid, what do you want to be when you grow up?'" Mr. Stuber recalled.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Why make a dance film? What does the medium offer that a theater, with a live audience, doesn't? Those questions hovered around the digital program that American Ballet Theater presented on Monday night, "A.B.T. Today: The Future Starts Now," a virtual gala featuring new works by the choreographers Gemma Bond, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Christopher Rudd and Pam Tanowitz. Of the four, Ms. Tanowitz, who choreographed the six minute film "David," for David Hallberg, seemed most concerned with excavating "something that can't be done live," as she said in a short introduction. Developed at locations in upstate New York and Connecticut where each creative team worked together as an isolated group, or "ballet bubble" the premieres signaled the beginning of a new institutional chapter for Ballet Theater, what the company is calling "A.B.T. RISE: Representation and Inclusion Sustain Excellence." In one of several promotional videos inserted throughout the program, staff and dancers elaborated sort of on what this means. "We are actively engaged in a transformation that will weave diversity, equity and inclusion into the fabric of A.B.T., on and off the stage," Kara Medoff Barnett, the company's executive director, said. A more candid overview might have named, in less vague terms, some of the imbalances that make such a transformation necessary: for instance, that it's been 20 years since Ballet Theater commissioned a work by a Black choreographer (Christian Holder's "Weren't We Fools?" from 2000), or that of the approximately 50 works to enter the company's repertory from 2010 to 2019, only about 20 percent were by women. (Sadly, for a major ballet company, that's actually kind of a lot.) With works by two Black men (Mr. Rudd and Mr. Moultrie) and two white women (Ms. Tanowitz and Ms. Bond), "A.B.T. Today" which will be available on the company's YouTube channel for a month gestures toward a future ballet world less dominated by white male choreographers. Another sign of change: Each work begins with a written acknowledgment that it was filmed on land forcefully taken from Indigenous peoples. While these digital commissions are a positive step, the artists should be invited back to Ballet Theater when they can benefit from a full stage and a live audience. With the exception of Ms. Tanowitz, who collaborated with the filmmaker Jeremy Jacob and the cinematographer Daniel Rampulla, all created works in which the camera seemed more obligatory than revelatory in which the dance could have existed without the camera. And that's fine: We shouldn't expect choreographers reared in theaters to suddenly become experts in making work for screens. Ms. Bond's "Convivium" and Mr. Rudd's "Touche" were both filmed at the Silver Bay YMCA in upstate New York, in a small theater lined with black curtains. Shot in black and white, the pleasant "Convivium," for four dancers, looks like a rehearsal that we happen to be peering in on. In one of its more striking moments, Thomas Forster clasps the hands of his fellow dancers, drawing them close to him, then gravitates away, pulled toward the perimeter of the space. As he reaches in the direction of the curtains, the room seems smaller than it did before, the dancers lonelier and more confined. Mr. Rudd created "Touche," an intimate duet for Calvin Royal III and Joao Menegussi, in an effort "to normalize gay love and lust," he said in a brief introduction. The work charts the phases of the men's relationship, from shame, secrecy and internal conflict, toward a more tender and vulnerable connection, ending with a kiss. The "Touche" team worked with the intimacy director Sarah Lozoff, whom Mr. Royal recently interviewed on Ballet Theater's Instagram ( abtofficial). Their discussion about consciously navigating consent during a choreographic process as rare in ballet as an unapologetic depiction of male lovers is worth watching on its own, or as a companion to this dance. Mr. Moultrie's "Indestructible Light," for six dancers, was filmed at the arts center PS21 in Chatham, N.Y., on an indoor proscenium stage. Propelled by a jazz compilation (Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Neal Hefti, Billy Strayhorn), it is the most joyous of the four works, like an unleashing of pent up energy. As if to capture the buzz of being backstage, the camera roves through the wings; yet in doing so, it also betrays an emptiness. It's clear this dance is happening in a vacant theater. With "David," Ms. Tanowitz and her collaborators conjure an eerier isolation. Filmed on the grounds of the Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan, Conn., the work cuts between scenes of Mr. Hallberg sitting in a plush living room paging through images of Michelangelo's "David" and dancing among the pillars of Pavilion in the Pond, a stone structure that could be his own island. About as tall as the pillars, Mr. Hallberg roams introspectively among them, at once tranquil and troubled, elegant and awkward, as he paws the ground or sinks into a deep plie with limp arms. It feels like the prelude to a horror movie, bristling with enough mystery to merit watching again and again.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
'TARSILA DO AMARAL: INVENTING MODERN ART IN BRAZIL' at the Museum of Modern Art (through June 3). The subtitle is no overstatement: In the early 1920s, first in Paris and then back home in Sao Paulo, Brazil, this painter really did lay the groundwork for the coming of modernism in Latin America's most populous nation. Tired of the European pretenders in Brazil's art academies, Tarsila (who was always called by her first name) began to intermingle Western, African and indigenous motifs into flowing, biomorphic paintings, and to theorize a new national culture fueled by the principle of antropofagia, or "cannibalism." Along with spare, assured drawings of Rio and the Brazilian countryside, this belated but very welcome show assembles Tarsila's three most important paintings, including the classic "Abaporu" (1928): a semi human nude with a spindly nose and a comically swollen foot. (Jason Farago) 212 708 9400, moma.org 'BEFORE THE FALL: GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN ART OF THE 1930S' at Neue Galerie (through May 28). An exhibition in the form of a chokehold, the third of the Neue Galerie's recent shows on art and German politics pushes into the years of dictatorship, with paintings, drawings and photographs by artists deemed "degenerate" by the Nazis as well as by those who joined the party or who thought they could shut out the catastrophe. (You will know the dissidents, like Max Beckmann and Oskar Kokoschka; the fascists and sellouts are less known.) Gazing at ornery still lifes of dolls and dead flowers, or dreamy landscapes in imitation of an earlier German Romanticism, you may ask to what degree artists are responsible for the times in which they work. But then you see "Self Portrait in the Camp," by the Jewish German painter Felix Nussbaum made between his escape from a French internment camp and his deportation to Auschwitz and you know that there can be no pardon. (Farago) 212 628 6200, neuegalerie.org 'THOMAS COLE'S JOURNEY: ATLANTIC CROSSING' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through May 13). The Met's exhibition of the nation's first major landscape artist and progenitor of what would be called the Hudson River School is gorgeous, politically right for right now and a lesson in the mutability of art history. Politically, Cole's art is conservative, but it's also work that challenges and complicates that term. And this show is precisely about complication. Just as Cole is most realistically and revealingly seen and judged against the background of his time, so is the exhibition, coming as it does in this confounding MAGA moment. (Holland Cotter) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'DIAMOND MOUNTAINS: TRAVEL AND NOSTALGIA IN KOREAN ART' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through May 20). Mount Kumgang, or the "Diamond Mountain," lies about 90 miles from Pyeongchang's Olympic Stadium, but it's a world away: The august, multipeaked range lies in North Korea and has been impossible to visit for most of the past seven decades. Featuring stunning loans from the National Museum of Korea and other institutions in Seoul, South Korea, this melancholy beauty of a show assembles three centuries' worth of paintings of the Diamond Mountain range, and explores how landscapes intermingle nostalgia, nationalism, legend and regret. The unmissable prizes here are the painstaking paintings of Jeong Seon, the 18th century artist who is perhaps the greatest of all Korean painters. And later impressions of the mountains, including a blotchy vision from the Paris based modernist Lee Ungno, give a deeper historical weight to very live geopolitics. (Farago) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'THE FACE OF DYNASTY: ROYAL CRESTS FROM WESTERN CAMEROON' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Sept. 3). In the African wing, a show of just four commanding wooden crowns constitutes a blockbuster in its own right. These massive wooden crests in the form of stylized human faces with vast vertical brows served as markers of royal power among the Bamileke peoples of the Cameroonian grasslands, and the Met's recent acquisition of an 18th century specimen is joined here by three later examples, each featuring sharply protruding cheeks, broadly smiling mouths and brows incised with involute geometric patterns. Ritual objects like these were decisive for the development of Western modernist painting, and a Cameroonian crest was even shown at MoMA in the 1930s, as a "sculpture" divorced from ethnography. But these crests had legal and diplomatic significance as well as aesthetic appeal, and their anonymous African creators had a political understanding of art not so far from our own. (Farago) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'THE JIM HENSON EXHIBITION' at the Museum of the Moving Image. The rainbow connection has been established in Astoria, Queens, where this museum has opened a new permanent wing devoted to the career of America's great puppeteer, who was born in Mississippi in 1936 and died, too young, in 1990. Henson began presenting the short TV program "Sam and Friends" before he was out of his teens; one of its characters, the soft faced Kermit, was fashioned from his mother's old coat and would not mature into a frog for more than a decade. The influence of early variety television, with its succession of skits and songs, runs through "Sesame Street" and "The Muppet Show," though Henson also spent the late 1960s crafting peace and love documentaries and prototyping a psychedelic nightclub. Young visitors will delight in seeing Big Bird, Elmo, Miss Piggy and the Swedish Chef; adults can dig deep into sketches and story boards and rediscover some old friends. (Farago) 718 784 0077, movingimage.us 'PETER HUJAR: SPEED OF LIFE' at the Morgan Library and Museum (through May 20). It's hard to say which is more surprising: that Peter Hujar's photographs of underground life in New York in the 1970s and '80s have found their way to the Morgan Library and Museum, or that the classically minded institution has become unbuttoned enough to exhibit them in this heartbreaker of a show. Hujar (1934 87) lived most of his professional life in the East Village and, through studio portraits and cityscapes, captured a downtown that has since been all but erased by time, gentrification and AIDS. Although he was little known by the mainstream art world in his lifetime, this show, startlingly tender, reveals him to be one of the major American photographers of the late 20th century. (Cotter) 212 685 0008, themorgan.org 'THE INCOMPLETE ARAKI' at the Museum of Sex (through Aug. 31). It remains a bit of a tourist trap, but the for profit Museum of Sex is making its most serious bid yet for artistic credibility with a two floor exhibition of Japan's most prominent and controversial photographer. Nobuyoshi Araki has spent decades shooting Tokyo streetscapes, blossoming flowers and, notably, women trussed up in the baroque rope bondage technique known as kinbaku bi, or "the beauty of tight binding." Given the venue, it's natural that this show concentrates on the erotic side of his art, but less lustful visitors can discover an ambitious cross section of Mr. Araki's omnivorous photography, including his lastingly moving "Sentimental Journey," picturing his beloved wife, Yoko, from honeymoon to funeral. (Farago) 212 689 6337, museumofsex.com 'ZOE LEONARD: SURVEY' at the Whitney Museum of American Art (through June 10). Some shows cast a spell. Zoe Leonard's reverberant retrospective does. Physically ultra austere, all white walls with a fiercely edited selection of objects photographs of clouds taken from airplane windows; a mural collaged from vintage postcards; a scattering of empty fruit skins, each stitched closed with needle and thread it's an extended essay about travel, time passing, political passion and the ineffable daily beauty of the world. (Cotter) 212 570 3600, whitney.org 'LIKE LIFE: SCULPTURE, COLOR AND THE BODY (1300 TO NOW)' at the Met Breuer (through July 22). Taking a second run at the splashy theme show extravaganza, the Met Breuer has greater success. This one is certainly more coherent since it centers entirely on the body and its role in art, science, religion and entertainment. It gathers together some 120 sculptures, dolls, artist's dummies, effigies, crucifixes and automatons. Many are rarely lent and may not return any time soon. (Roberta Smith) 212 731 1675, metmuseum.org 'THE LONG RUN' at the Museum of Modern Art (through Nov. 4). The museum upends its cherished Modern narrative of ceaseless progress by mostly young (white) men. Instead we see works by artists 45 and older who have just kept on keeping on, regardless of attention or reward, sometimes saving the best for last. Art here is an older person's game, a pursuit of a deepening personal vision over innovation. Winding through 17 galleries, the installation is alternatively visually or thematically acute and altogether inspiring. (Smith) 212 708 9400, moma.org 'SALLY MANN: A THOUSAND CROSSINGS' at the National Gallery of Art, Washington (through May 28). All of this photographer's strengths are on view in this deftly chosen and admirably displayed exhibition that covers most of her 40 plus year career. The 108 images here (47 of which have never been exhibited before) provide a provocative tour through Ms. Mann's accomplishments and serve as a record of exploration into the past, into this country's and photography's history, stamped with a powerful vision. (Vicki Goldberg) 202 737 4215, nga.gov 'MILLENNIUM: LOWER MANHATTAN IN THE 1990S' at the Skyscraper Museum (through June 24). This plucky Battery Park institution transports us back to the years of Rudy Giuliani, Lauryn Hill and 128 kilobit modems to reveal the enduring urban legacy of a decade bookended by recession and terror. In the wake of the 1987 stock market crash, landlords in the financial district rezoned their old skyscrapers for residential occupancy, and more than 20 towers were declared landmarks, including the ornate Standard Oil building at 26 Broadway and the home of Delmonico's at 56 Beaver Street. Battery Park City flowered; yuppies priced out of TriBeCa came down to Wall Street; a new Guggenheim, designed by a fresh from Bilbao Frank Gehry, nearly arose by South Street Seaport. From this distance, the 1990s can seem almost like a golden age, not least given that, more than 16 years after Sept. 11, construction at the underwhelming new World Trade Center is still not finished. (Farago) skyscraper.org 'OUTLIERS AND AMERICAN VANGUARD ART' at the National Gallery of Art, Washington (through May 13). Tracing the interaction of taught and untaught artists over the past century, this exhibition tackles an impossibly immense subject and starts stronger than it finishes. But it presents quantities of stunning art in all mediums, revealing the vastness of American creativity and the many attempts by museums to do it justice. It proves more forcefully than ever that the distinction between the works of the self taught and that of the professionals has outlived its relevance. (Smith) 202 737 4215, nga.gov 'REBEL SPIRITS: ROBERT F. KENNEDY AND MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.' at the New York Historical Society (through May 20). Featuring stark black and white photographs of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, as well as faded ephemera that memorialized them, this exhibition reveals the various ways in which the lives of these two influential figures were juxtaposed. It also traces the circuitous routes that belatedly pointed Kennedy toward the more incendiary goals King set first regarding civil rights, poverty and the Vietnam War. (Sam Roberts) 212 873 3400, nyhistory.org 'ALBERTO SAVINIO' at the Center for Italian Modern Art (through June 23). The paintings of this Italian polymath have long been overshadowed by the brilliant work of his older brother, Giorgio de Chirico. This show of more than 20 canvases from the late 1920s to the mid 30s may not change that, but the mix of landscapes with bright patterns and several eerie portraits based on family photographs are surprisingly of the moment. (Smith) 646 370 3596, italianmodernart.org 'SCENES FROM THE COLLECTION' at the Jewish Museum. After a surgical renovation to its grand pile on Fifth Avenue, the Jewish Museum has reopened its third floor galleries with a rethought, refreshed display of its permanent collection, which intermingles 4,000 years of Judaica with modern and contemporary art by Jews and gentiles alike Mark Rothko, Lee Krasner, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman and the excellent young Nigerian draftswoman Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze. The works are shown in a nimble, nonchronological suite of galleries, and some of its century spanning juxtapositions are bracing; others feel reductive, even dilletantish. But always, the Jewish Museum conceives of art and religion as interlocking elements of a story of civilization, commendably open to new influences and new interpretations. (Farago) 212 423 3200, thejewishmuseum.org 'STEPHEN SHORE' at the Museum of Modern Art (through May 28). Not staged, not lit, not cropped, not retouched, the color photographs of this American master are feats of dispassionate representation. This must see retrospective curated with real wit by Quentin Bajac, MoMA's photo chief opens with Mr. Shore's teenage snaps at Andy Warhol's Factory. Then it turns to the road trip imagery of "American Surfaces" and the steely precision of "Uncommon Places" landmarks in photographic history that scandalized an establishment convinced the camera could find beauty solely in black and white. Mr. Shore is revealed not only as a peripatetic explorer but also a restless experimenter with new photographic technologies, from stereoscopic slide shows to print on demand books. The only flaw is his recent embrace of Instagram, allowing museumgoers to lazily flick through images on MoMA's smudged iPads. New technologies are great, but not at the expense of concentration. (Farago) 212 708 9400, moma.org '2018 TRIENNIAL: SONGS FOR SABOTAGE' at the New Museum (through May 27). This Bowery museum's fourth triennial exhibition, "Songs for Sabotage," is the smallest, tightest edition of the show so far. Immaculately installed, it's also the best looking. There's a lot of good work, which is global in scope and not by a list of prevetted up and comers. (Zhenya Machneva, Dalton Paula and Daniela Ortiz are artists to look for.) Less admirably, it's a safe and unchallenging show. Despite a politically demanding time, it acts as if ambiguity and discretion were automatically virtues. In an era when the market rules, it puts its money on the kind of art easily tradable, displayable, palette tickling objects that art fairs suck up. (Cotter) 212 219 1222, newmuseum.org 'DAHN VO: TAKE MY BREATH AWAY' at the Guggenheim Museum (through May 9). This is the first museum survey of the Vietnam born Danish artist, who draws his art from his life and the history he has lived through, recycling family mementos, found letters and artifacts, as well as random materials, into a very spare, poetic and astute study of power, colonialism, and the lives of refugees and of objects. The Guggenheim's rotunda looks nearly empty at times, and there are lots of labels to read, but it is ultimately worth it. (Smith) 212 423 3500, guggenheim.org 'GRANT WOOD: AMERICAN GOTHIC AND OTHER FABLES' at the Whitney Museum of American Art (through June 10). This well done survey begins with the American Regionalist's little known efforts as an Arts and Crafts designer and touches just about every base. It includes his mural studies, book illustrations and most of his best known paintings including "American Gothic" and "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." Best of all are Wood's smooth undulant landscapes with their plowmen and spongy trees and infectious serenity. (Smith) 212 570 3600, whitney.org 'MARKUS BRUNETTI: FACADES GRAND TOUR' at Yossi Milo Gallery (through April 21). Micro and macro collide to visceral, even wondrous effect in these large, astoundingly detailed photographs of European cathedrals and churches, most dating from the 11th to the 14th centuries. Stitched together from hundreds of small digital images, the photographs ignore the laws of perspectival recession. The structures are implacably frontal, powerful expressions of fervent religious belief that also convey how they once sat, and sometimes still do, above their town and cities like large, protective beasts. (Smith) 212 414 0370, yossimilo.com ORCHID SHOW at the New York Botanical Garden (through April 22). This weekend is the last chance to take in the 5,000 plus orchids that have been mingling with the bromeliad, palm and cactus residents at the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. Daniel Ost, the floral designer who created the three main installations at this year's show, aimed to blur the line between nature's magnificence and human intervention, Kathryn Shattuck wrote in The New York Times. If you can't enjoy this beauty by day, savor an Orchid Evening on Friday, starting at 6:30, while sipping cocktails. (Danielle Dowling) 917 633 2682, nybg.org 'THE VIETNAM WAR: 1945 1975' at the New York Historical Society (through April 22). In contrast to the PBS series "The Vietnam War," this exhibition delivers historical data, a lot of it, quick and dirty, through labels, film and audio clips and objects, some of which fall under a broad definition of art. Along with paintings by contemporary Vietnamese artists, there's graffiti style drawings on combat helmets and Zippo lighters, and period design in album covers and protest posters. Words and images work together in murals labeled "Home Front" and "War Front" that put you in the middle of the war's primary issues and events. (Cotter) 212 873 3400, nyhistory.org 'ZURBARAN'S JACOB AND HIS TWELVE SONS: PAINTINGS FROM AUCKLAND CASTLE' at the Frick Collection (through April 22). More devout than Velazquez, more shadowy than Murillo, Francisco de Zurbaran was little known outside Spain until the mid 19th century, when Manet and his friends found the seeds of modernism in his frisky, open brushwork and streamlined form. The Frick is now showing a baker's dozen of the Spaniard's biblical portraits, of an aged, hunched Jacob and the sons who would become the founders of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, with most of the paintings on loan from a castle that until recently belonged to the Church of England. The gents pose in a startling variety of crisp, supple fabrics, whose glamour or grittiness echoes Jacob's foretelling of their destinies in Genesis. Two are especially compelling: Judah, child No. 4, decked out in a fur trimmed coat and vamping alongside a kindly lion, and Joseph, who forgoes the Technicolor dreamcoat for a blue sash and a belt stitched with gold. (Farago) 212 288 0700, frick.org	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
On "Shots Fired," the song that kicks open Megan Thee Stallion's new album "Good News," the 25 year old Texas M.C. unleashes such a sustained and eviscerating torrent of ridicule toward a man that she says assaulted her that it (almost) feels like an act of violence. In under three minutes, locked into a relentless flow, Megan makes a vivid mockery of this unnamed man (presumed to be Tory Lanez, the rapper charged for shooting her in the feet): his height ("shrimp, stay in your place"), the caliber of his gun, his internet presence, his bank account and, perhaps most hilariously, his birthday ("I just thought it was another Thursday"). Occasionally, deep in the mix, Megan's gleeful cackles ring out. Like all of Megan's music, "Shots Fired" is a provocative invitation to consider what it means when a woman wields sexual, economic and artistic power in a world designed and defined by men. Listening to it for the first time, an oft repeated quote sometimes attributed to Margaret Atwood came to mind: "Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them." Such is her power: For three fleeting minutes, Megan very nearly makes these possibilities seem equally threatening. Produced by Buddah Bless, "Shots Fired" borrows, and speeds up, the beat from "Who Shot Ya?," the Notorious B.I.G.'s famous 1995 Tupac diss track. And though none of the following 16 songs match the specificity of its fury, it is, aesthetically, a fitting scene setter: "Good News," like the strong run of mixtapes that preceded it, draws on the precision cut bars and braggadocious charisma of the '90s gangsta rap that Megan grew up on, updating it for the era of read receipts and strategically declined FaceTime calls. Though it's being billed as her debut studio album, "Good News" is Megan's second full length (last summer's "Fever" was considered her "debut mixtape") and also her second release of 2020. In early March, she put out the brisk 24 minute "Suga," an EP largely focused on Megan's lyrical dexterity and, on songs like "Ain't Equal" and "Crying in the Car," some of the challenges she'd faced since rising to prominence, like loneliness, fake friends and the tragic sudden death of her mother. The EP's highlight was "Savage," a sumptuously confident song of self. It produced one of the pandemic's first viral TikTok dance challenges and, even more impressively, a remix that fellow Houstonian Beyonce lovingly embroidered with sultry backing vocals and some of her sharpest rapping to date. (This week it picked up three of Megan's four Grammy nominations.) Rather rapidly, Megan has achieved a level of pop stardom without quite going pop: Her biggest successes, like "Savage" and the Cardi B duet "WAP," have eschewed formulaic hooks and instead doubled down on hard rapping and gleeful, uncompromising raunch. Save for the glaring misfire "Don't Rock Me to Sleep" a sleek, synth kissed tune that finds Megan rapping in a sing songy voice, sounding bored with the midtempo beat "Good News" wisely avoids attempts to sand down the edges of her sound. Just listening to Megan find her footing atop a kinetic beat on "Good News," like the one Lil Ju provides on "Body," gives off a secondhand thrill. Her exhortations are often ecstatic: "If you in love with your body, bitch, take off your clothes!" she hollers on "Work That," a libidinous bop produced by her idol turned frequent collaborator Juicy J. (The Southern rap of Juicy's Three 6 Mafia and early Cash Money Records is her other prominent '90s touchstone.) In her songs, videos and expert Instagram presence, Megan preaches to her fellow "hotties" a doctrine of self love through body positivity and unabashed celebrations of female sexual pleasure. Megan may cut a singular figure standing 5'10", as she reminds in several of her songs but the radical power of her music is in the contagious confidence it inspires in all sorts of bodies. "People say I'm full of myself," she raps on the lively Young Thug collaboration "Don't Stop." "You're right, and I ain't even made it to dessert." If anything, "Good News" could have used more of that Megan featuring Megan singularity. It sometimes gets stymied by high profile but ultimately unnecessary features, a recurring major label debut cliche. Guests like SZA, on the winning throwback "Freaky Girls," or the Miami duo City Girls on the rowdy "Do It on the Tip" fare better, though, than most of their male counterparts. On the lopsided "Movie," Lil Durk's sensual imagination sounds vague and uninspired next to Megan's. The dancehall star Popcaan similarly breaks the show don't tell rule during an awkward hook that finds him crooning, quite literally, "Sexuallll innnnnntercourse." One of the album's most compelling moments comes on "Circles," when Megan briefly lets down the armor of her impenetrable Hot Girl persona: "Bullet wounds, backstabs, mama died, still sad," she raps. "My clothes fit tight, but my heart need a seamstress." That's a double take moment, though it's delivered almost as an aside. A few other striking lines pass too quickly, when Megan flashes glimpses of a personhood much more richly dimensional than the supernaturally empowered avatar that dominates the rest of "Good News." In "Shots Fired," Megan offers an allusion to the Breonna Taylor case, deftly connecting her own experience of gun violence to the larger systemic injustices faced by Black women (and recalling a forceful op ed she recently wrote for The New York Times). In a much lighter moment, Megan commands her man to please her while she's busy watching anime and makes a reference to the manga "Naruto," casually flexing her low key geek bona fides. Megan Thee Stallion clearly contains multitudes upon multitudes, and toggled between so many this year: the candid exhumation of her personal trauma on social media, the courage to make political statements about race and gender on "Saturday Night Live," the bold and carefree erotic bliss she embodies in her music videos. They haven't all found effective ways into her music yet. "Good News" proves Megan's prodigious talent, but it also suggests that, with a bit more digging, this gem could emit an even more prismatic shine.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
It seemed like a sensible advertising strategy. When a company discovered that women accounted for less than one third of the purchases of its products, it shifted direction to appeal more directly to them. But when the company is the largest condom seller in America, at a time of heightened divisiveness regarding reproductive rights and women's health, the situation can get a little more complicated. That is not stopping Church Dwight Company, the makers of Trojan condoms, from unveiling a campaign on Monday that it considers the most ambitious in the brand's history. It includes 30 second commercials that will air during prime time on CBS and NBC a first for Trojan as well as on networks like MTV, VH1, Bravo and Comedy Central. In early June, Trojan will be featured at the top of YouTube for 24 hours. The campaign introduces a new product, XOXO, that is basically a typical condom. But it comes in more gender neutral purple packaging and includes a carrying case that could slip easily (and discreetly) into a purse. The marketing for XOXO is also intended to convey a sense of shared responsibility when it comes to safe sex. The ads, made by the Joey Company, feature couples kissing intimately on doorsteps and a pier, along with a female voice over. But it is a perilous time for brands, in which social media outrage can be prompted with one misstep. Witness the recent vociferous criticism aimed at Pepsi after it released an ad that invoked the Black Lives Matter movement. Similarly, after the Women's March, and political debates over funding for organizations like Planned Parenthood, Trojan is trying out its new campaign in a potentially unforgiving environment. Could some see it as suggesting that it is a woman's responsibility to ensure that she and her partner practice safe sex? Bruce Weiss, the brand's vice president of marketing, said he was not overly concerned about people misinterpreting Trojan's message. "We consistently hear from people as they shop for condoms, especially from women, that they feel the weight of everyone's eyes on them when they purchase condoms," Mr. Weiss said. "There is a big embarrassment factor." According to a 2016 study by the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University, which was funded by Trojan, 68 percent of women disagreed that it was solely the man's responsibility to buy a condom, though only 18 percent of women claim to have purchased the condom for their most recent sexual experience. Retail earnings and Black Friday: the week in business. Elizabeth Holmes will resume her testimony in her fraud trial. Sixty five percent of the women surveyed said they had never bought a condom. Andrea Miller, the president of the National Institute of Reproductive Health, said the notion that women might be encouraged to buy more condoms was not necessarily a bad thing as long as there was still an agreement between partners to engage in safe sex. "The fact that it's predominantly considered a male method of contraception," Ms. Miller said, "it's not surprising that it is predominantly men that are purchasing it." Naomi Wolf, an author of several books that have focused on female sexuality, said she applauded the effort as empowering for women and a welcome departure from the traditional male oriented condom ads, which she likened to commercials for Gillette men's razors. She also noted that law enforcement officers in New York State could use possession of a condom as evidence of prostitution. "It wonderfully addresses women as adults who can take responsibility, not victims of whatever the guy happens to have in his pocket or not," Ms. Wolf said. "It addresses women as adults who are thinking about their sexual health." But others wonder if Trojan, which is placing advertisements in female oriented magazines like Glamour and Cosmopolitan, is reinforcing a notion that women should bear even more responsibility for providing their partners safe sex. Heidi Sieck, the founder of VoteProChoice, a political action platform, said the timing of Trojan's campaign could come off as insensitive within the current political climate. "At a time when repressive legislation restricting our reproductive rights and choices are at an all time high, Trojan asks women to take responsibility for birth control and S.T.D. protection for their partners," Ms. Sieck wrote in an email. "If Trojan really valued women owning our sexuality and celebrating our reproductive freedoms, then highlighting the need to preserve these rights should lead any future marketing campaigns." It is not the first time Trojan has released a product with the aim of gaining more female consumers. In 2005, it introduced Elexa, a line of condoms in pastel packages that was mainly sold in the feminine hygiene aisle. It was discontinued after a few years. Mr. Weiss said that while the company was trying to reduce the condom buying disparity between men and women, it did not want to discourage men from continuing to purchase prophylactics. "We did not want to make this pink washed," he said. "This is not a girl's condom." He added: "It's not just like, 'Hey, I'm the guy, I bring the condom.' It's people involved together making decisions for their sexual health." If that is indeed the message that viewers take home, Ms. Miller said, she will consider Trojan's effort a success. "To the extent that this encourages women to be empowered and take the initiative to ensure or even demand that their sexual partners use condoms," Ms. Miller said, "then I think it's a good thing."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Obesity: It's as American as a double serving of apple pie. That may be an exaggeration, but the reality is that the United States is exceptionally overweight. And, according to a new study, that may affect perceptions of who is and is not American. The authors of the study published last week in Psychological Science, the journal of the Association for Psychological Science found that heavier Asian Americans are more likely to be perceived as "American" than those of a normal weight. The researchers also found that overweight Asian American men were less likely than those of a normal weight to be viewed as being in the country illegally. "We found that there was a paradoxical social benefit for Asian Americans, where extra weight allows them to be seen as more American and less likely to face prejudice directed at those assumed to be foreign," said Sapna Cheryan, an author of the study and an associate professor of psychology at the University of Washington, where the research was conducted.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Just days after Google, Facebook and Apple purged videos and podcasts from the right wing conspiracy site Infowars from their sites, the Infowars app has become one of the hottest in the country. On Wednesday, Infowars was the No. 1 overall "trending" app on the Google Play store, a metric that reflects its sudden momentum. Among news apps, Infowars was No. 3 on Apple and No. 5 on Google, above all mainstream news organizations. And the app stood at No. 66 overall on Google, excluding game apps, while on Apple it reached No. 49, above popular apps like LinkedIn, Google Docs and eBay. The Infowars app, which includes news articles and the shows of the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, had likely been downloaded a few hundred to a few thousand times a day on average after its introduction last month, said Randy Nelson, head of mobile insights at Sensor Tower, which tracks app data. Now, it is likely getting 30,000 to 40,000 downloads a day, Mr. Nelson estimated based on its ranking. The Infowars app includes news articles and shows from the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. The surge suggests the tech industry's recent action against Infowars has drawn new interest to the fringe outlet and the conspiracy theories it peddles. "This is such a niche app with niche content, that for it to make that sort of jump means it has become very interesting to a much broader audience," said Jonathan Kay, a co founder of Apptopia, an app analytics firm. "Essentially, it's gone from being niche to being mainstream." Still, the action by the tech companies likely reduced the overall audience for Infowars because it had relied so much on viewers from Apple, Faceook and YouTube, a unit of Google. After months of increasing their scrutiny, tech companies have deleted content from the right wing provocateur Alex Jones. Alex Jones is the internet's most notorious conspiracy theorist. And with his site, Infowars, he's peddled a number of dark and bizarre conspiracy theories. "Sandy Hook, it's got inside job written all over it. You want us to cover Pizzagate. We have covered it. We are covering it. And all I know is God help us we're in the hands of pure evil." After weeks of criticism, YouTube, Facebook, Apple, and Spotify all acted to essentially erase many of his videos and posts from their services. In many cases, the companies are saying he violated their terms regarding hate speech and a number of other rules. Alex Jones today in his show dedicated nearly all four hours to what he called censorship of his platform. "And President Trump, the Republican Congress, the statehouses, independent media all need to rally together against this global move to censor America and the planet." And this is something that he essentially has been warning his followers of because there was sort of ticky tacky enforcement for several weeks, and he sort of saw this coming. "This is the internet purge, people." I think for those who have tracked the social media policies by some of these big tech firms, today was a significant moment, because these tech companies have really struggled with this dilemma of wanting to combat misinformation online, but at the same time not wanting to become arbiters of truth. "Can you define hate speech?" "Senator, I think that this is a really hard question. And I think it's one of the reasons why we struggle with it." For months, and really for years, the tech companies have been reluctant to weigh in on a lot of these controversial speech issues. But it appears after months of criticism, that tech companies have finally said, in the case of Alex Jones, that enough is enough. After months of increasing their scrutiny, tech companies have deleted content from the right wing provocateur Alex Jones. Ilana Panich Linsman for The New York Times Apple banned five of the six Infowars podcasts from its popular podcasts service on Sunday, saying it "does not tolerate hate speech." Yet the Infowars app that Apple has deemed acceptable for its app store after a review is essentially a portal to some of the same podcasts that Apple removed. The Infowars app streams live and rebroadcasts the most recent episodes of three shows, "The Alex Jones Show," "War Room with Owen Shroyer," and "Real News with David Knight." Apple removed The Alex Jones Show and War Room from its podcast service; it left Real News. An Apple spokeswoman said in a statement that the company works to curate its app store. "We strongly support all points of view being represented on the App Store, as long as the apps are respectful to users with differing opinions, and follow our clear guidelines, ensuring the App Store is a safe marketplace for all," she said. "We continue to monitor apps for violations of our guidelines." Google said it deleted Mr. Jones's channel from its YouTube site because he flouted a previous punishment not necessarily for the content he posted. Google has since left up Mr. Jones's podcast and his Infowars app. Google said it has different policies for YouTube and its Play Store. A Google spokesman added in an email, "If an app violates our policies, we take action." From July 12 through Sunday, the Infowars app ranked on average as the 23rd most popular news app on Apple and 32nd on Google, according to Apptopia. After Sunday, the app's rank among news apps on Apple jumped to 7th on Monday, 4th on Tuesday and 3rd on Wednesday, Apptopia said. The rankings were slightly lower on Google for those days. A conspiracy theorist. Mr. Jones, who founded the website Infowars in 1999, has spread conspiracy theories and misinformation for years, including false claims that the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax. A far right broadcaster and pitchman. Mr. Jones built a substantial following by appealing to conspiracy minded, largely white, male listeners via his website and radio show, where he amassed a fortune by hawking diet supplements and survivalist gear. A spreader of misinformation. Facebook and YouTube, among other tech companies, have removed most of Mr. Jones's content in an effort to curb the spread of misinformation. The bans have drastically reduced his reach. A Trump ally. Mr. Jones was an early supporter of Donald Trump, who has adopted many of Mr. Jones's conspiracy theories. Mr. Jones also has echoed the former president's false claims about the pandemic and the 2020 election. Held liable for defamation. In four lawsuits brought by the families of 10 Sandy Hook shooting victims, judges found that because Mr. Jones refused to turn over documents ordered by the courts, including financial records, he lost the cases by default. Researchers from Apptopia and Sensor Tower said Apple and Google use a number of signals to determine rankings, including the velocity of downloads and total downloads, but they are secretive about the exact formula. Mr. Jones has achieved infamy and financial success for spreading lies, such as many mass shootings are government hoaxes and Democrats run a global child sex ring. Many of his most outlandish claims are made during his show, which runs live for four hours each weekday and is streamed and rebroadcast across the internet. The Infowars app has a tab for people to buy merchandise. YouTube, Facebook, Spotify and Apple's podcasts service were all important distribution points for the show, but Mr. Jones and his Infowars colleagues this week have urged viewers to find the show on Infowars' website and app. He and Infowars did not respond to requests for comment. The Infowars app has three main tabs: one for the shows, one for news articles and a third for merchandise. (There is also a settings tab and a "you" tab for saved articles.) On the tab that led to the outlet's news articles, a sampling of the app's stories on Wednesday showed a mix of headlines that ranged from highly partisan ("Democrats Blame Russians For Ohio Loss, Turn On The Green Party!") to sensationalist ("Shock: FDA Acquiring 'Fresh' Aborted Baby Parts to Make 'Humanized Mice'") to humdrum ("Calorie Counting Menus Help Diners Lose One Pound Over Three Years Study").	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
Henry and Marie Josee Kravis give an annual 250,000 prize for leadership in services to the poor. Mr. Kravis says the prize adds credibility to the winner. NOT long ago, a wealthy philanthropist would be content with having a building named after him or her, or simply donating to medical research. But in the last decade, more of the wealthy have been creating prizes in hopes of drawing attention to a particular cause. It doesn't hurt that their names are on the prizes. According to a report released last year by the consultant McKinsey Company, the dollar amount for prizes over 100,000 has tripled in the last decade to 375 million a year. There has also been a shift from prizes that recognized past accomplishments to what McKinsey calls "inducement style prizes that focus on achieving a specific, future goal." The Kravis Prize fits into this category. Established by Henry and Marie Josee Kravis five years ago, the 250,000 prize seeks to recognize leadership among nonprofit groups worldwide and share their best practices. "We're hoping the winners can leverage the prize in order to get additional grants to expand their reach," Mr. Kravis said in an interview. Past winners have ranged from a project on rural land development to this year's recipient, Pratham, which educates children in rural India. The group will receive its award on Tuesday in Manhattan at the Museum of Modern Art. But creating prizes is not as straightforward as setting aside a pot of money. If the amount is too small, the prize may fail to attract enough high quality entrants to accomplish the stated goals. If it is too large, it could draw people away from other fields where their skills would be better served. Then there is the cost of administering and publicizing the prize. So if you're a wealthy philanthropist, here are some issues to consider before you decide to create a prize: WHY A PRIZE? Prizes are nothing new. Determining longitude at sea was discovered through an incentive prize set up by the British government in the 18th century. But the growth in prizes over the last decade has been driven by the desire to effect change and bring attention to a social issue or a practical problem. The McKinsey study said that 10 years ago a third of all prizes went to the arts, but today only a 10th do that. The focus now is on the environment, science, engineering and aviation, where the dollar amounts of prizes have increased sevenfold, according to the study. Entrepreneurs who made their money in fast growing industries of the last decade, like technology and biotechnology, particularly like prizes because of their ability to spur people to do work in a particular area, said Tom Riley, vice president of the Philanthropy Roundtable, an organization of philanthropists. "There's an increasing recognition that setting up prizes is a good way to spur innovation and bring about the outcomes they want," Mr. Riley said. "Fortunately, money is a great tool to bring about the outcomes you want." He argued that wealthy individuals are far better placed than governments or businesses, with their bottom line concerns, to spur innovation. GOALS Once philanthropists decide on setting up a prize, they still have to ask themselves what they want to accomplish with it. Then, they have to decide whether the prize should be a reward for past work, an incentive to do more of what someone is already doing or an inducement to draw new people to a cause. On the surface, the goal of the Kravis Prize is to help a service oriented organization expand what it is doing. But for the Kravises, there are at least two other objectives. Mrs. Kravis, an economist by training, said she was interested in identifying institutions that delivered their services efficiently and then sharing those best practices with other nonprofit groups. She said the work of the Rural Development Institute, the first Kravis Prize recipient, has become a case study at the Stanford Business School for how it addressed rural landlessness in India. The other goal was to use the prize to add to the work already being done at the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College in California, Mr. Kravis's alma mater. Yet not all prizes have such clearly defined objectives. Lisa Philp, the global head of philanthropic services at J. P. Morgan Private Bank, administers the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. Its goal, Ms. Philp said, is to recognize "an artist who has made the world a more beautiful place." The best known new example of an incentive award is the X Prize, which gives out a prize of at least 10 million for the first group to achieve a specific goal. The winner of the Ansari X Prize for space flight had to create a spacecraft that could carry three people to 100 kilometers above the Earth twice in two weeks. "That clarity is helpful," Mr. Riley said. "It's a nice sorting mechanism as opposed to 'We have a huge pot of money and we'll judge if you cross our threshold.' " SCOPE Once the goal is defined, another major issue is the scope of the prize. How broad or narrow do you want the prize to be? And how will the prize fit into your overall philanthropic goals? Ms. Philp said prizes were rarely the starting point for philanthropists and usually came after more traditional ways of donating, like financing research. This was the case with the Kravises. Their prize is only a small part of their overall charitable giving to arts and educational institutions. (BusinessWeek estimated the Kravises gave 239 million to charity from 2004 to 2008.) Mr. Kravis is honest about the relatively small size of the prize. His hope for it lies elsewhere. "The 250,000 isn't huge, but it helps the institution," he said. "The prize gives them added credibility." COST In traditional grant making, a philanthropist is financing a particular program or area of research to achieve a goal. If no one knows about it, the money still advances a cause. Prizes, on the other hand, need publicity to attract applicants and give the winner a boost beyond the dollar amount. "If you give a prize and no one knows about it, it's a waste," said Melissa A. Berman, president and chief executive of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. "Getting it known costs money." Ms. Berman said it commonly cost as much as the value of the annual award to administer and publicize the prize. If the prize is under 250,000, she said, the cost can actually be more than the value of the prize. CONSIDERATIONS The problem with this uptick in interest in prizes is that certain fields are becoming overrun, and this can dull a prize's effectiveness. This is why not all ideas should be supported through prizes. Ms. Berman said there were generally three reasons for not setting up a prize. The first is if there are too many prizes in a field. The second is having inadequate resources to support and publicize the prize. And the third is a lack of a structure to manage the prize thoroughly and fairly. Entrants, after all, need to believe that winning your prize will mean something to their careers or their efforts. Ms. Philp cautioned that some donors could be disappointed if the objectives of their prizes were too broad. This could make it hard to measure their effectiveness. "You may not succeed in changing perceptions," she said. This is why a prize often works best as part of a broader philanthropic effort. Five years into their prize, the Kravises are happy with how their prize is evolving having learned from past mistakes. "It's trial and error," Mrs. Kravis said. "You're not going to hit a home run each time."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Your Money
At this point in the art market, it's hard not to get inured to the superlatives: the most valuable private collection sold at auction (the Rockefeller sale last week at Christie's); the highest price ever paid for a painting ( 450 million for Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi" in November at Christie's) and what Sotheby's had confirmed was the highest estimate ever placed on a work at auction: 150 million for Amedeo Modigliani's 1917 painting, "Nu Couche (Sur Le Cote Gauche)." The Modigliani barely made it past that figure Monday evening at Sotheby's, selling for 157.2 million with fees at a sale that otherwise featured what many agreed were B offerings. "You cannot find any more masterpieces," said the dealer David Nahmad, adding of Sotheby's, "Considering what they had, they did well." Although it was the highest auction price ever for a work sold at Sotheby's, equally noteworthy is that the painting also carried the highest guarantee ever given by the company. This meant that the auction house was willing to assure a minimum price to the owner, potentially risking millions. Sotheby's was able to offload that risk to a third party, who became the buyer at the auction. The scale of the guarantee confirms that buyers can be secured in advance for trophy works. The results on Monday, the first night of the spring auctions, seemed to bear that out although the Modigliani sold on one bid to the third party without any other buyer interest (despite valiant efforts by the auctioneer, Helena Newman, to bring in Patti Wong, the chairwoman of Sotheby's Asia, who was working the phones). "It cleared the mark painfully," said Christian Ogier, a Paris dealer in Impressionist and modern art. "It's difficult to get money out of China at the moment," he added, referring to the absence of bidding on the Modigliani from Ms. Wong. "Everyone knew what was expected. The high guarantees break the dynamics of an auction, somehow." The overall atmosphere in the salesroom on Monday evening was muted, with few lots selling above their high estimates at a pace that, at times, felt glacial; 13 lots failed to sell. The only applause of the night was when the hammer came down on Jean Arp's curvilinear sculpture "Ptolemee II" for 2.2 million with fees, selling to the dealer Eykyn Maclean in the room. And the price of the Modigliani fell short of the last auction high for a work by the Italian modernist: 170.4 million for the more overtly sensual 1917 18 canvas, "Nu Couche," which in 2015 sold at Christie's to Liu Yiqian, a former taxi driver turned billionaire art collector. Still, the 100 million club keeps adding more members, including Jean Michel Basquiat, whose untitled painting sold for 110.5 million last year; Pablo Picasso, whose "Women of Algiers" sold for 179.4 million in 2015; and Andy Warhol, whose car crash painting sold for 105.4 million in 2013. The Modigliani for sale on Monday was one of a celebrated series of nudes commissioned from by his Paris dealer Leopold Zborowski (for a stipend of 15 francs per day). The painting was consigned to Sotheby's by the billionaire Irish horse breeder and art collector John Magnier, who had bought the work at auction in 2003 for 26.9 million, which at the time was a high for the artist. The seller sought to capitalize on the painting's recent inclusion in the Modigliani retrospective that closed last month at Tate Modern in London, where it was featured on posters and on the cover of the catalog. If a lot sells for the guarantee, the winning bidder becomes the owner. But if it exceeds the guarantee price, the guarantor earns a percentage of the surplus amount, a quick way to earn potentially millions of dollars. (The identity of the buyer of the Modigliani was not revealed.) "In order to win the painting, they had to come up with a strong guarantee and a strong deal structure," said Brett Gorvy, a former Christie's executive who is now a private dealer, referring to Sotheby's. "When you look at rest of their sale, it's very O.K., but nothing exciting." "They needed that Modigliani, specifically going up against Rockefeller," he added, recalling last week's 833 million auction at Christie's. There are many art world professionals who bemoan the increasing trend toward guarantees, arguing that it takes the democratizating suspense out of the auction only those who can commit large sums in advance can compete (sometimes that is the auction house itself). The result is that the biggest lots have essentially been presold, without publicly available information about the financial terms of each deal. "What drives some of these huge presale estimates is actually the negotiation that takes place with the prospective third party guarantor, the sale before the sale," said David Norman, an art adviser based in New York, who until 2016 was Sotheby's vice chairman of Sotheby's Americas and its co chairman of Impressionist and modern art worldwide. "Basically 100 million is where one has to begin to price a truly great work by any of the major artists." Valuation increases of between four and fivefold also characterized significant works by Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso that had been acquired by their sellers back in the early 2000s.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. The 9 year olds have matc hing button noses; toothy grins; roaming, smiling eyes. Noah and Josiah are Nordic blond and fair, Nariyah and Maliyah olive and deeply brunette, and their four brothers Jonah, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Makai run the gamut. Octuplets. "Hand me the spoon," said Maliyah, standing at the stove. "I'm already mixing the potatoes," Josiah said. The children moved in unison, weaving around the tight kitchen and adjacent living room of their three bedroom Orange County townhouse while their mother checked on their brother Aidan, 13, who has autism. One kid chopped veggies, one boiled water, one readied the silverware and on and on. Twelve year old Calyssa was coloring quietly while the eight hustled like "Top Chef" contestants. A fat gray striped cat named Penelope slinked by. Two teenage brothers were playing Fortnite in another room. A boogie board was propped up on a wall with chipped paint; a giant stuffed Minnie Mouse rested along a row of couches. A pumpkin spice candle flickered at a dinner table, which despite the size of the family somehow had only two chairs. There are 14 siblings in all, so many that they eat in shifts. Some sleep on the couch. The octuplets are small for their age, but they're polite, they cook, they're vegan, they read two books a month and do their homework without being prompted. In spite of all of the horror stories in the tabloids since birth, they're model fourth graders. How did she do it? It was hard to believe the octuplets all came from the same father an unidentified sperm donor and even harder to process that Ms. Suleman didn't know she was having so many babies at once. But that's what she says. It took 46 scrambling doctors and nurses to perform the C section when Ms. Suleman went into labor at 31 weeks. The babies weighed between 1 pound 8 ounces and 3 pounds 4 ounces. Six boys and two girls. Never before had so many been born at once and survived, a medical marvel overshadowed by its treatment in the supermarket glossies. Ms. Suleman played the callous brood mare, a cartoon character called the Octomom. She spent hundreds of thousands on plastic surgery to resemble her idol Angelina Jolie, the magazines accused: a single mom on food stamps, a crazy who'd do anything to build a family. In other words, a character perfect for our so called reality era, when circus sideshows become the main act. It wasn't surprising that Ms. Suleman cashed in. But when the money ran out, she turned desperate: a short lived pornographic film career, stripping, boxing. A suit by Gloria Allred followed accusations of child endangerment and exploitation, and Ms. Suleman went on "Oprah" and "Dr. Phil" to shore up her side. Public interest eventually waned, and tasked with caring for so many, Ms. Suleman said, she turned to booze and Xanax from 2011 to 2013 , before briefly checking into rehab. During this time, friends and family helped take care of the children. "I was pretending to be a fake, a caricature, which is something I'm not, and I was doing it out of desperation and scarcity so I could provide for my family," she said on the phone in October. "I've been hiding from the real world all my life." "I'm at work on a book," she said, one 13 years in the making. She hopes it will set the record straight. "That's why I want to do this interview. I've been writing this manuscript since graduate school." "I was the classic victim," Ms. Suleman said at her home in November, a day before the worst wildfire in California history turned the skies red. A victim of having an alcoholic father, she said, a victim of having been an only child, hungry to fill that void. A victim of fate since she couldn't conceive naturally. Most of all, she said, "I was misled by my doctor." Ms. Suleman said she only wanted twins, but that Dr. Kamrava, a graduate of Case Western Reserve University with 30 years of experience, pushed her to consent to implanting additional embryos while she was strapped to a gurney and under the influence of heavy narcotics. "He told me we lost six embryos, he said they were expelled out of me, and that's why he wanted to implant another six," said Ms. Suleman, who grew up in nearby Fullerton, Calif. She has a B.S. in child development and worked for a state mental hospital for three years before suffering an injury that resulted in over 80,000 in disability payments. A subsequent family inheritance of 60,000 helped fund her IVF. Dr. Kamrava has said she pressured him into the multiple rounds of implants, an accusation echoed recently by David Shofet, a rabbi and a childhood friend of the doctor. " Michael invented a technique where every egg could be fertilized that was his problem," Rabbi Shofet remembered. "He told me he suggested to her not to keep all of them, but she said no." January is the octuplets' birthday. They'll be 10. Ms. Suleman said the doctor has had no contact with her or the children. Dr. Kamrava, an Iranian national, lost his United States medical license in 2011. Unable to practice, he left the country after a failed medical board appeal in 2016 . At least two doctors believe that he is teaching his methods abroad. (Attempts to reach Dr. Kamrava were unsuccessful.) "Most doctors would not do something like that just because the patient will do it," said Dr. John Zhang, who faced similar criticism for helping create a three parent baby this year. Medical guidelines suggest a woman in her 30s should be transferred no more than two embryos at once, but it's not law. "Human reproductive technology is very lightly regulated," said Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, the director of Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. Insurance companies don't always cover IVF , which adds to the lack of regulation. "If a third party payer wasn't involved, there's no assessment," Dr. Kahn said. The guidelines are there for health reasons. Multiple embryos are more vulnerable: Twins are 12 times more likely to be born prematurely, 16 times likelier to have low birth weight and five times likelier to have respiratory complications. One of Ms. Suleman's children is severely autistic, another is on the spectrum, and many are small for their age. "I was selfish and immature," said Ms. Suleman, now 43. She doesn't admit fault, she wouldn't change the past, she loves her angels too much. But she admits to an ever consuming "need for more." "I never wanted the attention," she said, somewhat contradictorily. She said that hospital staff breached her records and sold her out to the media: "There were helicopters flying over the hospital while I was giving birth." "I have PTSD from all the reporters coming in over the years. I would take whatever I could back in the days, and I would let them in. I was spiraling down a dark hole. There were no healthy opportunities for Octomom. I was doing what I was told to do and saying what I was told to say. When you're pretending to be something you're not, at least for me, you end up falling on your face." Ms. Suleman won't reveal how much she was paid by The National Enquirer or Star, maintaining: "Octomom was media created. I believe most media is filtered and fake. They created this caricature." With a nervous laugh, she said, "Once I finally ran away from all of the pretending, I was able to be me." But physically at least, that "me" has been irrevocably transformed. "My back is broken because of the last pregnancy," Ms. Suleman said, damage exacerbated by years of running half marathons. The whole family, she said, would run a 5K after Thanksgiving. Sipping alkaline water and crouching at the foot of the table, she listed her ailments with a kind of pride: "Four out of the five discs in my lumbar spine are ruptured, herniated fully. Think of a jelly doughnut being squashed, and it hits nerves , causing bilateral sciatica. And I have irreparable sacral damage. And I have peripheral neuropathy. I haven't felt my toes on my foot on the right side for many years, and my fingers are numb all the time every day. The pregnancy caused it. The eight. My size, my abdomen was all the way out here." She stretched a hand for emphasis. There's also what Ms. Suleman calls her genetic predispositions: migraines and endometriosis. Despite agony every day, she says she won't take traditional medicine . "I'm a raw vegan, and I perceive pharmaceuticals to be poison." she said. She relies on prayer, and home exercise. "If I didn't climb 40 miles a week on the StairMaster, which acts as a buffer, then I'd be completely incapacitated." She seems fit, head to foot in Nike, but contorted she looked uncomfortable. "I can adjust the pain based on my posturing," said Ms. Suleman, who has a raspy voice, clearing her throat. "I'm not sick, I don't get sick. I think it's from being loud and yelling for what feels like the last 18 years. I have 14 children!" The children don't get flu shots, but they do see doctors and have been vaccinated. "But my kids don't get sick, and neither do I," she said. "Well you know my daughter, my teenager, she got a cold, but that's about it. From Day 1, I've been giving them healthy food all the time. I hate cooking. I am not domestic." Ms. Suleman said that she is working full time as a counselor, but then added that she is focusing on family and relies on government assistance and "international photo shoots. " As with other statements she made, it was hard at times to get an entirely clear picture. She doesn't date, she said, and she doesn't have contact with the men who donated sperm to achieve her dreams. She did have breast augmentation, which she regrets, but she called the Angelina Jolie accusations false. So is the child endangerment. She said Protective Services is among her strongest supporters. If they believed she was a danger, they would have taken the children . (According to Ms. Suleman, her representative beat Ms. Allred's suit; Ms. Allred declined to comment.) Ms. Suleman does have clear social phobias, but she isn't the monster the public may expect. There's a fragility to her that makes one want to root for her, and then there are her children, who appear to be thriving. " They're the only surviving eight octuplets in the history of mankind, " Ms. Suleman said, beaming. "I've raised them to be wide awake." Their mother's sex tape, her drug use, "we talk about everything," Ms. Suleman said. "They know, they went through it with me. It's a huge weight lifted off of all of them when I went back to who I was. We were struggling financially, but it was such a blessing to be able to be free from that. Those were chains." For a time, her manager was a pornographic film star who led her into the XXX world; if Ms. Suleman puts that in her book, it could be a great guilty read. "I wanted to quit, but my manager said, 'If you do, I'm reporting you to welfare for fraud.' I gave my bank account to her to control because I was so overwhelmed and busy managing my family. Checks that were forged minimum 60,000 was stolen in six months . And she was selling stories left and right. She was a predator." What about their father? "Maybe the kids will meet him at 18, the donor," Ms. Suleman said. "I don't know." "She's been fighting for our family for 10 years now," said Amerah, who's like a second mother to the eight, which is what everyone calls them. Like her siblings, she has a preternatural responsibility. Not many teenagers would put up with sleeping on a couch or accepting such choices. "No matter what, she's never going to give up and I know that," Amerah said. The children themselves live largely insulated. "Most of my friends don't know about the eight," Amerah said. "When they were born, I was in elementary school. I would get questions about everything. But I would answer and say it's my mom and my family. I was a little confused about that. I get that you're interested, but I wouldn't intrude on your family, why intrude on mine?" Joshua, the 15 year old gamer, said: "Some of my friends don't have any siblings, so they want to know what it's like. It's nice to have someone to play with, but it can be overwhelming at times." Days begin at about 6:20 with a one woman car pool in a battered Ford E 350 Super Duty van she calls "the dump truck" and caretaking. After school: cleaning, chores, bed by 8:30. Saturday family fun nights with vegan junk food and TV are a treat, but most outings aren't as a group. "She'll get anxiety, everyone staring, so she'll take whoever's behaving the best. There's ups and downs," said Amerah, who hopes to be an orthopedic surgeon and have a large family of her own. "Not 13, 14 kids," though, she said. "Four. That's big enough."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
FAFSA Says How Much You Can Pay for College. It's Often Wrong. Like millions of other parents, Julie Phipps filled out the federal form last November that determined her college bound daughter was eligible for financial aid. She also learned how much the federal government figured her family could contribute to the bill: 14,000. That figure, known as the expected family contribution, was generated immediately after she completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. But with every dollar from their solidly middle class income already accounted for, Ms. Phipps, 53, said she and her husband, Andy, were stunned at what they were expected to pay. The real shock came later, when they learned that the expected contribution was only about half of what their daughter's chosen school expected the family to pay. "If we were paying our expected family contribution, we would be thrilled," said Ms. Phipps, of South Portland, Maine. "But we are paying twice our expected family contribution, so it means absolutely 100 percent nothing." Now that the latest FAFSA is out it became available on Oct. 1 millions of families are plugging in their numbers. The form is the first step to unlocking any potential federal financial aid, including grants, loans and work study jobs, as well as aid from states and some colleges. But it also generates their expected family contribution, or E.F.C. a number that can easily be misleading. It's often higher than many households can afford, and yet in many cases, like the Phipps family's, it's still not enough. "For a long time, there has been this growing chasm between the need analysis formula and accurately reflecting a student and their family's ability to pay for college," said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, which has members at nearly 3,000 schools. The gap has grown wider not just because of the exponential rise in college prices, but also because of the E.F.C. formula itself. The formula, which stretches across 36 pages, often assumes families have far more income available to pay for college than they actually do, financial aid experts said, particularly in high cost areas. The reason lies in its basic assumptions: that a family of four, for example, can subsist on less than 30,000, no matter where they live. "Students have a lot more need than we are recognizing," said Eddy Conroy, an assistant director at the Hope Center for Community, College and Justice at Temple University. "But the system isn't really capturing that properly." Colleges use the E.F.C. to determine a student's financial need the difference between the college's cost of attendance and the family's expected contribution. Then, schools come up with a financial aid package. (About 400 schools and programs, mostly private colleges, also use another formula, known as the CSS Profile, to determine institutional aid, according to the College Board, which created the calculation.) But unless a student attends a college that promises to meet 100 percent of his or her need and the vast majority do not students and their families will probably pay more than what the FAFSA estimates. "The expected family contribution is a terrible measure of what people can actually afford," said Robert Kelchen, associate professor in Seton Hall University's department of education, leadership, management and policy. "It's more of a way for colleges and government to rank people by how much need they have. It's really more of a rationing tool." Ms. Phipps and her husband agreed that an art school would be the best fit for Isabella, who wants a career in animation. Specialized schools can be expensive, even when they're public: The cost of attendance at the school where she's now a freshman, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, was about 55,400 for out of state students. A program offering a discount to New England residents knocked the price down to a bit over 47,000. A 14,000 expected family contribution meant the Phippses were eligible for an aid package of about 33,000. They got 16,700 a 10,200 grant from the college, 1,000 for a work study program and 5,500 in subsidized and unsubsidized federal loans, the maximum for first year students. She said their daughter was a dedicated worker and saved 5,000 by working at a movie theater, which went straight to school costs. And Mr. Phipps, who works as a contract specialist for an insurance company, took a second job driving a limousine at night. Ms. Phipps does not work but receives disability because of an autoimmune disorder, and she dipped into their emergency fund two years ago to cover medical bills from a mastectomy. The couple took out a home equity line of credit to cover other unexpected expenses that may arise, like the 6,000 in braces they just learned their 13 year old son needs. The E.F.C. calculation does not take all of those kinds of expenses into account (though colleges can be asked to consider special circumstances), nor does it adjust for the cost of living in different areas. And its assumptions for the costs of food, clothing and shelter are unrealistically low for even the cheapest places in the country. For a family of four, the so called income protection allowance or the amount shielded from the formula is 29,340. For a single parent with one child in college, it's a mere 19,080. "It's a very harsh assessment of the ability to pay," said Mark Kantrowitz, a financial aid expert and publisher of Savingforcollege.com. "The assumptions they are using to calculate all of this have no connection to reality." The income protection allowance is subtracted from the family's adjusted gross income, along with some other items (like taxes), while other items are added back (retirement savings contributions, for example). The final figure is the family's so called adjusted available income. Using a progressive table similar to tax brackets, the formula assumes parents should dedicate anywhere from 22 percent to 47 percent of that amount to college costs each year. Many middle class families and above are assessed at 47 percent. The formula also considers parents' and students' assets and some allowances have actually become less generous over the years. Retirement savings and home equity are excluded from the federal formula, but the amount of other savings that parents can shield has plummeted over the past decade. Take, for example, a 48 year old parent, the median age of a person with college age children: That parent was able to shelter 52,400 from the formula in 2009 10; now, the parent can shield only 6,000. Mr. Kantrowitz said that meant a parent with at least 52,000 saved would have an E.F.C. that is about 2,600 higher now than a decade ago. House Democrats proposed several tweaks to the need analysis formula in a giant bill introduced last month, which would update the Higher Education Act of 1965 for the first time in a decade. The bill would enable more families to qualify for an E.F.C. of zero by increasing the income threshold to 37,000 from 26,000. The bill would also shield more of a student's income from the formula, according to aides for Representative Robert C. Scott, a Virginia Democrat and chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor. But parents with dependent children wouldn't receive anything extra when it came to sheltering income. Adjusting the federal formula, however, goes only so far. Even if families' expected contributions decrease, the gulf between that figure and the cost of attendance will only widen. "It will not be enough to just get the formula right," said Jessica L. Thompson, director of policy and planning for the Institute for College Access Success, a nonprofit advocacy group. "To truly bring college costs within realistic reach will require much broader federal investments in financial aid and in public colleges." For now, students and their families facing steeper costs of attendance for their schools of choice are faced with tough decisions: Find a cheaper institution? Borrow? Find some other creative mix of solutions? Ms. Phipps explored private loans, but said she was blown away by the interest rates. Next year, they will continue to tap their savings and use earnings from her husband's second job and their daughter's summer job and joked about finding a buyer for one of her kidneys. She's also going to suggest that her daughter move off campus, which may yield savings. Still, private loans are also likely in the family's future, Ms. Phipps said. "But we hope to postpone them as late as possible."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Your Money
Sony has received approval from the European Commission to complete its 750 million purchase of the half of the Sony/ATV Music Publishing catalog owned by the Michael Jackson estate, the commission announced on Tuesday. The transaction would give Sony full control of the songwriting rights to more than two million songs including works by Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and the catalog's jewel, about 250 Beatles songs more than 20 years after the company formed a joint venture with Jackson. Sony already owned the other half of the catalog. The deal had been opposed in Europe by Warner Music, a competitor to Sony, and by Impala, a trade group representing independent music companies, which had argued that it would give Sony/ATV an outsize influence. Sony/ATV also administers the music publishing catalog of EMI, and together the two catalogs give Sony/ATV a global market share of about 28 percent, according to industry estimates. In a statement released on Tuesday, the commission said it had found that "the transaction would have no negative impact on competition in any of the markets for recorded music and music publishing in the European Economic Area."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
"American Idol" is back, with three new judges. And "Timeless" visits Marie Curie and the French front in World War I. AMERICAN IDOL 8 p.m. on ABC. You didn't really think "American Idol" was going away, did you? Two years after Fox announced the cultural behemoth would come to a close after 15 seasons, here it is back again on ABC. Ryan Seacrest is still around despite a swirl of controversy, but the judges box looks decidedly different, with Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan calling the shots. Ms. Perry will bring bursts of zaniness, while Mr. Richie will bring the sage perspective of an older generation. "For two days a week, Professor Richie is going to talk about the reality of what it takes to be an artist," he said in an interview with The New York Times. O.J. SIMPSON: THE LOST CONFESSION? 8 p.m. on Fox. In 2006, the editor and talk show host Judith Regan conducted an interview with O.J. Simpson in which he gave a hypothetical account of how he might have been involved in the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. But the interview and the accompanying book, "If I Did It" were pulled after an uproar. Now, Fox will run the interview, along with a panel segment with experts analyzing the footage. Ms. Regan will be on the panel, which will also include Christopher Darden, a prosecutor in the Simpson case. Soledad O'Brien hosts the two hour special. IHEARTRADIO MUSIC AWARDS 8 p.m. on TBS, TNT and TruTV. The iHeartRadio Music Awards are typically a breezy, bubbly and youthful affair, and this year should be no different, with the show anchored by performances from two of 2017's most explosive newcomers: Cardi B and Camila Cabello. Ed Sheeran, Eminem, N.E.R.D. and Kehlani will also perform, and Chance the Rapper will receive the Innovator Award. Taylor Swift, largely quiet since the release of her sixth album "Reputation," will debut her music video for the slinky "Delicate," from that album. TIMELESS 10 p.m. on NBC. On Thursday, The Times published some obituaries for remarkable women as part of a series called "Overlooked." The second season of "Timeless" similarly sheds light on underappreciated women and people of color throughout history, using a time travel premise to hop in and out of different eras. Abigail Spencer, Malcolm Barrett and Matt Lanter star as three people on a mission to stop a nefarious villain from changing the course of American history. In this episode, they find themselves alongside Marie Curie on the French battlefront during World War I, as she attempts to save as many lives as possible. NAKED AND AFRAID 10 p.m. on Discovery. There are plenty of batty premises in reality television, but perhaps none more so than "Naked and Afraid," which is exactly what it sounds like: The show leaves two naked strangers in the wilderness to scavenge for food and survive for 21 days. This season, contestants include a retired Marine, a biologist and a woman who lived in the desert with her family during the Iraq War; they face a brutal challenge as Hurricane Irma bears down on Florida.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
Pops of green can beautify a home or work space. But some people have a deeper connection to plants, and see them as more than just decor as living beings. Joe Sasto, the contestant with the epic mustache who recently made it to the final three on the latest season of "Top Chef," is one of those people. For him, the connection is familial. "I'm a plant father," the 30 year old chef announced proudly on air, using a term that would not sound strange to Instagram's plantparents. The Los Angeles apartment Mr. Sasto shares with his girlfriend, Bella Bennett, and their cat, Uni, is also home to about 50 plants that are "like family" and have their own personalities, he said. "I know each one of them very personally."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Our weekday morning digest that includes consumer news, deals, tips and anything else that travelers may want to know. Over the weekend, merger partners American Airlines and US Airways began to integrate their reservations systems, a technology move considered the most delicate phase of the carriers' two year old marriage. The 90 day process is scheduled to conclude Oct. 17 when all US Airways flights will be converted to American flights. A similar merger by United and Continental in 2012 resulted in service delays and check in glitches. US Airways went through its own messy experience while merging America West's reservation systems in 2007, an overnight move that current management has acknowledged influenced the slower switchover with American. American Airlines said only about four percent of passengers book flights more than 90 days in advance and that it would begin notifying affected fliers this week regarding reservation changes from US Airways to American. "On the one hand, it's hard to imagine they can pull it off in a way that customers won't notice, but they've taken some impressive steps to have it more or less be that way," said Seth Kaplan, managing partner at Airline Weekly. For lovers of the great outdoors and spontaneity two outfitters are offering deals on late summer trips. The rafting specialist Row Adventures is selling its six day trips on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho, departing Aug. 31 and Sept. 9, at 1,765 per adult, a 200 discount. The company said the popular trip tends to be fully booked a year out and that it rarely has availability in season.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
After the 2016 election I saw a side of America that I had fully believed was going to run rampant for the next few decades. I had no idea how much angst I had been holding inside until this moment. I feel lightheaded from relief. I am so overwhelmed with pride to be American again. I don't have to worry anymore about having to tell my Muslim child one day that his own president didn't want him here. He will believe me as I raise him with the understanding that character matters and that honesty is rewarded. There is still so much work to be done, but it is a beautiful thing to know that we have just shown the world and one another that we are ready to begin to heal. And for now, it feels nice to breathe. Jenan A. Matari New York The writer is the founder and editor in chief of MissMuslim. We all exhaled hard when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were elected. Now is the time to elevate the values on which they campaigned and to honor those whose efforts were integral to their election.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
Brian Rogers, artistic director of the Chocolate Factory, at a barn belonging to the church in Stuyvesant, N.Y., where he lived for about a year feeling haunted. He's turned that experience into a film, "Screamers." Location (location, location) is everything. For about a year beginning in 2013, Brian Rogers, a film director and video and sound artist, found himself living half a week, every week in a former Catholic church in upstate New York. It was winter. His marriage was breaking up. The church frightened him. (Watching Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" on repeat didn't help.) But week after week, he returned and out of that experience a horror movie was born. "I wrote a screenplay in a day and a half," Mr. Rogers, 45, said. "It's a weird place. I think it's haunted." "Screamers," Mr. Rogers's first feature film, will be screened at Abrons Arts Center on the Lower East Side on Aug. 24 and 25. An eerie ghost story, it was shot mainly at the church, in Stuyvesant, N.Y., which belongs to the puppeteer Dan Hurlin, who needed a tenant while he was out of the country. And while it isn't a film about dance, it has a choreographic sensibility, and features familiar figures from the dance and performance world, including Jim Findlay, Daniel Fish, Vallejo Gantner, Keely Garfield and Jon Kinzel. As the artistic director of the Queens performance space the Chocolate Factory, which Mr. Rogers founded and runs with his former wife, Sheila Lewandowski she is its executive director Mr. Rogers has connections. One is Jay Wegman, who plays a creepy priest; he is the director of the N.Y.U. Skirball Center for the Performing Arts and an ordained Episcopal priest. "Screamers" produced by Madeline Best, a designer and the Chocolate Factory's director of production was made on a tiny budget of 60,000. If it has a star, it's Molly Lieber, a contemporary dancer who somehow manages to be at once grounded and ethereal. She plays a depressed married woman, who doesn't so much inhabit rooms as seem to drift through them. Early on, Ms. Lieber said, she recognized similarities between her character and Mr. Rogers. Both, she felt, were dealing with a deep sadness. She thought of her character as a little like furniture and at times played her, she said, as "less three dimensional, less like a person." But she had ideas about her inner life too: "I thought of her as wanting to be an artist and having that fail and then trying to be satisfied by a mainstream model of moving to the country and trying to be with her husband and have a kid." The constraints turned out to be liberating. There was no time to experiment, to deliberate, to waffle or to procrastinate. "If I stopped to think, Madeline would be yelling at me, so I'd just keep pounding away," Mr. Rogers said. "Making choices instinctually and not having any time to second guess can be really fun." Especially when directing films isn't your only job. Mr. Rogers is preparing for a busy season at the Chocolate Factory. Last year the organization bought a building near its current home in Long Island City and hopes to be open by late 2020. "The building itself is three times larger than the Chocolate Factory, and it's almost twice as tall," he said. "It's beautiful." But there is a downside too. When he thinks of buildings he's associated with, he said, "they give me nightmares." Yes, back to that church. What follows are edited excerpts from a recent interview with Mr. Rogers. What was your state of mind when you wrote the screenplay? I got into a pretty weird head space. I was living in a big drafty place in the winter in upstate New York it felt haunted. I felt like things moved. It was also the time that Sheila and I split up. Looking back, I was mentally disturbed probably for a lot of that time. Were you in a depression? Laughs Without a doubt. So I had this weird idea. I just wrote it down and then decided if I wrote this thing we should just try to make it. I didn't want to try to make a film in a professional way. I knew that I wouldn't know how to do that and I didn't want to surround myself with people that would be reminding me that I was doing it wrong. Can you describe the story of "Screamers"? Laughs When I wrote it, I didn't even think that it was a story, but a series of encounters. Now I think of it as the story of a haunted place that swallows a person. Molly is gradually being absorbed into the church over time. Is that what you felt was happening to you? There was something about being in that place by myself. It really did feel like there was some kind of energetic void in that place that I could fall into, like a vortex. That sounds melodramatic. I think also it as the experience of being in the country in the winter. What were you thinking in terms of Molly's character? The arc is very passive. Molly is just present while these things happen to her and she is willingly inviting them, but there is this kind of reactiveness to it that is different from how most film narratives are constructed where there's a protagonist who wants something and is trying to achieve it and a conflict emerges that they have to navigate. She's a steady presence at the center of these things that just keep poking at her. I didn't want to make a movie about a female being victimized over and over again.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Maligned though New York's rental market may be, a fortunate few do manage to stumble onto the ideal apartment early and easily. Such was the case with Sacha Moore, who scored a charming one bedroom with a working fireplace in Brooklyn Heights (with the help of her sister) when she and her husband moved back to the city from New Orleans in 2003. At 350 square feet, however, it seemed an unlikely candidate for the long haul. But 14 years, two children, two cats and a bunny later, Ms. Moore is still in her beloved Middagh Street walk up. "As soon as I moved to this neighborhood, I was like, 'I love it good job, sister!'" Ms. Moore said. She was delighted by its prettiness, how much everyone who lived there seemed to like it and how it felt both idyllic and down to earth, a place of not only stately houses but long term renters. Her husband attended law school and she got a master's in social work. He went to work for Brooklyn Defender Services. She prepared court reports. Though small, the apartment felt suitable for two. The birth of their daughter in 2008, however, made them reconsider. (The couple separated three years ago and are now divorced.) In Brooklyn, they looked in Windsor Terrace and Sunset Park, but found only slightly more space in the same price range. For about a day, they considered the suburbs. They abandoned the search after they saw an apartment in Bushwick with the bathroom in the hall that rented for 1,700 a month, 200 more than they were paying at the time. It drove home, Ms. Moore said, "that's what you got if you didn't want to pay more a bathroom in the hall." "When we thought about what we wanted, which was more space in Brooklyn, ultimately it came down to someone would have to make more money," she said. Her husband did not want to leave his job as a public defender and Ms. Moore, who has worked part time since Charlotte was born, wasn't willing to work full time. Her son, Hudson, came along a few years later. "I chose being with my kids," she said. "And I was O.K. with staying here because I knew we'd have to move to get more space and I didn't want to move. The question is: Can you make the space work?" The couple addressed the apartment's constraints by eschewing bulky items like a highchair, crib or stroller. She carried the children until they were old enough to walk, occasionally resorting to a laundry cart. Longer excursions are made on a cargo bike. The only real difficulty, Ms. Moore said, was when Hudson developed a proclivity for wandering when he was between 18 months and 2 1/2 . These days, Ms. Moore and the children share the two closets in the bedroom quite comfortably, thanks to their pared down wardrobes and the Marie Kondo folding technique, which mainly seems to involve intricately folded clothing standing upright rather than lying flat. While Ms. Moore does not subscribe to all the recommendations of the Japanese decluttering guru, she said that Ms. Kondo's method saves so much space they don't need dressers. "I always think, 'How many clothes do you need?' Because everyone wears the same outfit all the time anyway," she said. "There's some statistic that 80 percent of our clothes go unused most of the time." While not a clotheshorse, Ms. Moore does admit to a fondness for pottery and plants there are 42 plants in the apartment and to occasionally being tempted by furniture. "Sometimes I see a cool bench and I'm like, 'I want this, but I know it won't fit,'" she said. "But then I think about how I'm making those choices. I could work full time, or move out of the city or move to the South Bronx." The children sleep in the bedroom, taking turns between the double bed and the futon, while Ms. Moore stays on a futon in the living room. She reclaims the bed on nights when the children stay with their father. The cats avoid the bunny, Foo; though uncaged, he rarely leaves the vicinity of his food and litter box.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Clockwise from top left: Oprah Winfrey is scheduled to take her book club and more aboard the Holland America Line on a trip to Alaska in July; Melissa Etheridge will perform in Havana in June as part of a musical fantasy camp series in Cuba; Christian Vande Velde will lead a cycling camp in Aspen, Colo., in September; fans can sail away with the chef Jacques Pepin in June. Randy Moss may no longer catch passes from Tom Brady or Colin Kaepernick, but for at least one week this summer, fans can find Mr. Moss, a former N.F.L. wide receiver, at the BodyHoliday resort on St. Lucia running guests through gridiron drills on the beach, organizing touch football games and offering nutritional advice, including extolling his favorite breakfasts fruit salad and acai bowls. The celebrity focused wellness event, from July 16 to 22, is part of the resort's WellFit Families program that highlights an accomplished athlete, usually an Olympian, each week in July and August. The program joins a growing category of trips for fans of everything, including Ironman races and celebrities like Oprah Winfrey. "There's just something about bringing people together with a shared interest and a shared passion on vacation, not just out in a field listening to a band," said Anthony Diaz, the chief executive of Sixthman, which organizes music cruises featuring acts like Kiss, Paramore and Train. "They're sharing the same air with their heroes." And sometimes having coffee with Kid Rock by the pool, or playing Ping Pong with Jacques Pepin, or hauling in a pass by Mr. Moss. Unless she is nearest and dearest, Meryl Streep will not guide your next vacation. Fan trips tend to appeal to avid niches fiction readers, for example, or triathletes and offer varying degrees of interaction with the featured star. Four Seasons has a private jet trip departing in May that includes a culinary excursion in which you can spend a day with the celebrated chef Rene Redzepi in Copenhagen, whereas a series of new Aqua Expeditions river cruises are hosted by the conservationist Jean Michel Cousteau. Unleash your inner fan geek in the following ways. Ms. Winfrey and the journalist Gayle King will kick off O, the Oprah Magazine's new Share the Adventure cruise series aboard the Holland America Line on a trip to Alaska, July 15 to 22 (from 1,499). In addition to appearances by Ms. Winfrey, the cruise will feature an onboard book club, yoga classes and a presentation on how the magazine is assembled. The filmmaker Ken Burns is collaborating with Tauck tours on trips with themes of his films on baseball, jazz and more. The next trip, Oct. 5 to 9, will be in New York and includes a keynote presentation by Mr. Burns and a cocktail reception, as well as lectures by historians and a private gala at Ellis Island ( 7,290). Fans of Alexander McCall Smith, the author of "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" book series set in Botswana, can pepper him with questions like his inquisitive title character, Precious Ramotswe, during a six night safari at two Belmond luxury lodges in Botswana, Sept. 20 to 26 ( 9,325). If your tastes run to live stories, join the celebrated storyteller Donald Davis leading "walk and talk" hikes at the Swag, a retreat in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina in May, August and October (from 500 for two nights, all inclusive). Few headliners generate the crowds and the repeat business that musicians do. Sixthman contends that on average 56 percent of its passengers for music cruises are repeat customers who bond over their shared interest. "They come as fans and leave as family," said Mr. Diaz, the chief executive. Sixthman works with Norwegian Cruise Lines and erects five or more stages around a ship for music cruises that have featured various acts that have included Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Kid Rock, Pitbull and Diplo. In addition to concerts, fan events have included guitar pick flicking with Gene Simmons and pizza making with Paul Stanley, both members of Kiss. Fans of the singer songwriters Ben Folds, Melissa Etheridge and Rufus Wainwright can catch them as well as top level Cuban talent in coming trips to Cuba billed as musical fantasy camps. Havana Getaway, May 25 to 29, features concerts by Mr. Folds, including one with Cuban collaborators. He will also lead music and photography workshops ( 3,199). Ms. Etheridge visits Havana ( 2,999) June 22 to 26, and Mr. Wainwright ( 2,699), Sept. 21 to 25. From food festivals to remote cooking classes, chefs seem to be the most frequent flying in the fandom universe. As the executive culinary director for Oceania Cruises, Mr. Pepin often joins sailings where he might mingle with guests, demonstrate gnocchi making, take part in question and answer sessions and possibly engage in competitive table tennis. Join him on the 1,250 passenger Marina sailing from London to Copenhagen, June 2 to 12 (from 2,149). Seamus Mullen of Tertulia restaurant in New York will headline two coming "Chef on Wheels" cycling trips in Italy from the DuVine Cycling Adventure Company. A five night bike tour of Sicily, May 28 to June 2, includes shopping at local markets and making pasta with Mr. Mullen, who pedals along with the group ( 5,695). Guana, the 32 guest private island in the British Virgin Islands, attracts big names to its intimate Visiting Chef Series. Next up is Matthew Lightner, formerly of Atera restaurant in New York, May 3 to 7; the trip includes cooking demonstrations, dinners and a beach barbecue (from 720 a night, including meals). The Canadian chef Jakob Lutes will join Seascape Kayak Tours in coastal New Brunswick, Aug. 26 to 27. A maximum of 10 participants will forage for provisions with Mr. Lutes, who will turn their stock into meals (from 650 Canadian dollars, or 485). Plenty of athletes make the vacation circuit signing autographs, but a more active wave of sports trips caters to amateurs interested in gleaning training tips from champions. This year, Trek Travel will introduce mountain biking itineraries led by world class cyclists including Emily Batty, in Peru, Oct. 8 to 14 ( 4,499), and Tracy Moseley, in Norway, July 16 to 21 ( 3,799). Among road biking trips, the Tour de France veteran rider Christian Vande Velde will lead a cycling camp at the Little Nell resort in Aspen, Colo., Sept. 24 to 28 (from 5,750). Attendees will take team rides on scenic mountain roads aboard supplied bikes; the resort will organize social events atop Aspen Mountain and at area ranches. Allow Gabriel Jaramillo, a former coach of Andre Agassi and Maria Sharapova, to tweak your tennis serve during Body Mind weeks at Club Med Sandpiper Bay near West Palm Beach, Fla. Tennis, golf, volleyball and fitness professionals will gather at the all inclusive club, April 29 to June 3, for daily group lessons, tournaments, exhibitions and parties (from 909 for seven nights, all inclusive). Learn triathlon secrets from Dave Scott, a first six time winner of the Ironman event in Hawaii. Mr. Scott will train triathletes in swimming, biking, running, nutrition, strength and flexibility at the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai in Hawaii, May 1 to 5 and Aug. 28 to Sept. 1 ( 2,000, plus rooms starting at 795).	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
Linda Ronstadt remembers that night: "He came onstage and the place just exploded. He was so dynamic and he was so charismatic and he was so good. And he just ripped the hell out of that piano and sang his ass off." It was Aug. 25, 1970, the night Elton John became a star, at the Troubadour club in Los Angeles. In the audience were Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Randy Newman, Don Henley, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. And Linda Ronstadt. "We were all hanging out in the balcony," Ms. Ronstadt told me in an interview last week. "He came on and it was like a flash of explosives. And we were hanging over the balcony screaming our guts out." That night at the Troubadour was captured with a few surreal embellishments in the recent bio pic "Rocket Man." But if you want to hear what Elton John was actually like in those young days, you might listen to the album "11 17 70," which turned 50 years old last Tuesday. He played that night with the same trio he'd performed with during the Troubadour gig Nigel Olsson on drums and Dee Murray on bass. A live recording originally broadcast from the studios of WABC FM (later WPLJ) in New York City, the album captures a character whom it is now sometimes hard to remember: Young Elton, in the first months of fame. Young Elton has since been eclipsed by the other Eltons: the one who's owned a quarter of a million pairs of glasses; the one who performed live in Central Park wearing a Donald Duck suit; the one who, fueled by vodka martinis and cocaine, took off all his clothes on a video set, punched his manager and wrapped things up by smashing his hotel room into pieces. But if you listen to "11 17 70" (known as "17 11 70" outside of the United States), you'll encounter a 23 year old prodigy so new to his own stardom that he signed a number of autographs that year still using his birth name, Reginald Dwight. Fifty years on, the most surprising thing about Young Elton is his vulnerability. The original LP started with "Take Me to the Pilot," an inscrutable clutch of Bernie Taupin lyrics set to Elton's rock 'n' roll piano. That's the tune Linda Ronstadt remembers best, all these years later. "It really excited me," she said. "It was just sheer exuberance. I remember him pounding on the piano with his feet." Ms. Ronstadt remembers his voice, too: "There are three elements of singing story, voice and musicianship. And Elton checked all three." But there was a tension there, too, between the exuberance of the music and the singer himself, who seemed shy, diffident, almost embarrassed to be there. Mr. Taupin's lyrics amplify that uncertainty; in "Your Song," Elton's first big hit, you can feel it in the line "Anyway, the thing is, what I really mean ...." That tension between shyness and flamboyance was the thing that most struck me, too, when I first heard Elton's music. As a closeted queer teenager in 1970, I found something in that voice that gave me hope. It told me I was not alone, that the fear of my secret self need not paralyze me forever. You could be a shy person, this music said, and still make a very big noise. Elton John performing with Kiki Dee at the Troubadour in Los Angeles in the 1970s. As a piano player, I found the music liberating for me, too. One of Elton's particular strokes of genius was the use of unusual voicings playing one chord with the right hand and an unexpected octave with the left. Right after the line "Count the headlights on the highway" in "Tiny Dancer," for instance, you hear a G chord on the right hand paired with an A octave on the left. Elton didn't invent these kinds of voicings, obviously, but he was one of the first pianists to bring this kind of tonal complexity to rock 'n' roll. The combination is weird, joyful and gorgeous. If Young Elton was eventually eclipsed by Glam Elton, that Elton, in turn, has been superseded by Sir Elton an elder statesman of rock 'n' roll who has landed happily, in his 70s, in fatherhood and philanthropy. (His AIDS Foundation has raised 450 million worldwide and saved an estimated five million lives.) He's still making great music, too. The album "Wonderful Crazy Night" came out in 2016. And just last week he released "Jewel Box," a career spanning anthology of rarities, B sides and deep cuts. But Linda Ronstadt says Young Elton is not that far away. "Recently he called me up just out of the clear blue sky," she said. "I hadn't heard from him in probably 30 years. He wanted to say he liked my singing and how much he's listened to my records over the years. It was during Covid a lot of people reached out during Covid to tell people things they hadn't told them before."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
By manipulating DNA, researchers are trying to create microbes that, once ingested, work to treat a rare genetic condition a milestone in synthetic biology. In a study carried out over the summer, a group of volunteers drank a white, peppermint ish concoction laced with billions of bacteria. The microbes had been engineered to break down a naturally occurring toxin in the blood. The vast majority of us can do this without any help. But for those who cannot, these microbes may someday become a living medicine. The trial marks an important milestone in a promising scientific field known as synthetic biology. Two decades ago, researchers started to tinker with living things the way engineers tinker with electronics. They took advantage of the fact that genes typically don't work in isolation. Instead, many genes work together, activating and deactivating one another. Synthetic biologists manipulated these communications, creating cells that respond to new signals or respond in new ways. Until now, the biggest impact has been industrial. Companies are using engineered bacteria as miniature factories, assembling complex molecules like antibiotics or compounds used to make clothing. In recent years, though, a number of research teams have turned their attention inward. They want to use synthetic biology to fashion microbes that enter our bodies and treat us from the inside. The bacterial concoction that volunteers drank this summer tested by the company Synlogic may become the first synthetic biology based medical treatment to gain approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. The bacteria are designed to treat a rare inherited disease called phenylketonuria, or PKU. People with the condition must avoid dietary protein in foods such as meat and cheese, because their bodies cannot break down a byproduct , an amino acid called phenylalanine. As phenylalanine builds up in the blood, it can damage neurons in the brain, leading to delayed development, intellectual disability and psychiatric disorders. The traditional treatment for PKU is a strict low protein diet, accompanied by shakes loaded with nutritional supplements. But in experiments on mice and monkeys, Synlogic's bacteria showed promise as an alternative treatment. On Tuesday, company investigators announced positive results in a clinical trial with healthy volunteers. The researchers are now going forward with a trial on people with PKU and expect to report initial results next year. Tal Danino, a synthetic biologist at Columbia University, said that a number of other researchers are working on similar projects, but no one has moved forward as fast as Synlogic. "They're leading the charge," he said. One of Synlogic's co founders, James J. Collins, a synthetic biologist at M.I.T., published one of synthetic biology's first proofs of principle in 2000. He and his colleagues endowed E. coli bacteria with a way to turn a gene on and off when they were exposed to certain chemicals "like a light switch for genes," Dr. Collins said in an interview. "I think anywhere there are bacteria in the body is an opportunity to engineer them to do something else." At first, the scientists envisioned using rewired bacteria as environmental sensors perhaps detecting airborne biological weapons and producing a chemical signal in response. But then came the microbiome. In the mid 2000s, microbiologists began charting our inner menagerie of microbes, the vast diversity of organisms that live inside healthy people. The microbiome is continually carrying out complex biochemistry, some of which helps shield us from diseases, scientists found. Synthetic biologists soon began wondering whether they could add engineered bacteria to the mix perhaps as internal sensors for signs of disease, or even as gut based factories that make drugs the body needs. "You can't overestimate the impact of the microbiome work," said Jeff Hasty, a former student of Dr. Collins who now runs his own lab at the University of California, San Diego. "That, in a nutshell, changed everything." Dr. Collins and Timothy K. Lu, another synthetic biologist at M.I.T., co founded Synlogic in 2013, and the company began looking for diseases to take on. One of their picks was PKU, which affects 16,500 people in the United States. Drugs have recently become available that can drive down levels of phenylalanine. But they only work in a fraction of patients, and they come with side effects of their own. To Synlogic, PKU looked like a ripe opportunity to use synthetic biology to create a treatment that might gain government approval. Company researchers selected a harmless strain of E. coli that's been studied for more than a century. "Most people have healthy, good E. coli in their intestinal tracts," said Paul Miller, the chief scientific officer of Synlogic. The researchers inserted genes into the bacteria's DNA so that once they arrived in the gut, they could break down phenylalanine like our own cells do. One of the new genes encodes a pump that the bacteria use to suck up phenylalanine around them. A second gene encodes an enzyme that breaks down the phenylalanine into fragments. The bacteria then release the fragments, which get washed out in urine. The Synlogic team wanted the microbes to break down phenylalanine only in the right place and at the right time in the human body. So they engineered the bacteria to keep their phenylalanine genes shut down if they sensed high levels of oxygen around them. Only when they arrived in a place with little oxygen the gut did they turn on their engineered genes. To test the bacteria, the researchers created mice with the mutation that causes PKU. When the mice received a dose of the bacteria, the phenylalanine in their blood dropped by 38 percent, compared with mice without the microbes. The researchers also tried out the bacteria on healthy monkeys. When monkeys without the microbes ate a high protein diet, they experienced a spike of phenylalanine in their blood. The monkeys with engineered bacteria in their guts experienced only a gentle bump. For their human trial, Synlogic recruited healthy people to swallow the bacteria. Some took a single dose, while others drank increasingly large ones over the course of a week. After ingesting the bacteria, the volunteers drank a shake or ate solid food high in protein. On Tuesday, Synlogic announced that the trial had demonstrated people could safely tolerate the bacteria. In addition, the more bacteria they ingested, the more bits of phenylalanine wound up in their urine a sign the bacteria were doing their job. The next step will be to see if the microbes can lower phenylalanine levels in people with PKU. "I'm amazed at how fast we got to where we are," said Dr. Collins, who was not involved in Synlogic's PKU research. In July, Dr. Danino and his colleagues published a review in the journal Cell Systems, cataloging a number of other disorders that researchers are designing synthetic microbes to treat, including inflammation and infections. Dr. Danino and Dr. Hasty are currently collaborating on another project: how to use synthetic biology against cancer. One huge challenge in developing drugs for cancer is that they often fail to penetrate tumors. But microbiome researchers have discovered that natural bacteria regularly infiltrate tumors and grow inside them. Now scientists are engineering bacteria that can also make their way into tumors. Once there, they will unload molecules that attract immune cells, which the researchers hope will kill the cancer. "I think anywhere there are bacteria in the body is an opportunity to engineer them to do something else," said Dr. Danino.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
It was also important to me to avoid the problems I occasionally confronted after Sept. 11, when angry siblings, parents and relatives declared war with one another over the victim's assets and argued over the 9/11 fund compensation. When millions of dollars are suddenly available for distribution, family members, fiances and same sex partners sometimes engage in bitter arguments. So I made sure that my wife and three children had a clear understanding of who gets what by providing each of them a detailed memorandum listing all of my assets and an explanation of how my wealth should be distributed after my death. I also bought substantial additional life insurance. I bought a mix of term and whole life insurance, because I wanted short term protection in the event of my untimely death and a long term investment vehicle. I was astounded to learn that over half the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks had no life insurance. Were it not for the 9/11 fund, such a grievous oversight would have placed many victims' families at financial risk. When it came to my investments, long term safety and gradual growth suddenly seemed far more important than any short term profits and quick gains. I wanted to be assured that the bulk of my wealth would be available for my wife, children and grandchildren. Finally, in managing my individual portfolio, I have become a firm believer in the "cushion" theory of investment. I have saved more of my annual income than many people would consider to be necessary. Hundreds of Sept. 11 victims failed to set aside sufficient funds to provide for their families, believing that future earnings would be available to make up for any current shortfall. But the terrorist attacks interrupted such plans. Saving today is a hedge against unknown events tomorrow. Nobody is immune from life's misfortunes. It need not be a terrorist attack or the acts of the gunmen at Virginia Tech; Newtown, Conn.; or Aurora, Colo. We all face uncertainty and risk. All the more reason to pause today and carefully plan for tomorrow.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Your Money
The worlds created by BalletCollective are mint fresh. They feel both attuned to life outside the performing arts and to the interior lives of the performers. The group's director, Troy Schumacher, has been working unlike most ballet choreographers for several years. The norm is to begin making dances within and for established companies; a rare few manage later to establish companies that they shape to their specifications. But back in 2010, Mr. Schumacher now 28 and a corps dancer with New York City Ballet (for which he created his first piece this September) set up BalletCollective. Though its dancers are members of City Ballet, they show new facets with this smaller ensemble: They're more vulnerable, more ardent. Artists of several other genres are involved. In the performances I've witnessed, the music by the composer and music director Ellis Ludwig Leone and played live makes an especially exciting contribution. In August 2103, when the Joyce Theater presented a season of six small American ballet companies in two weeks, BalletCollective was the most advanced example of a youthful new voice, not least with the world premiere of Mr. Schumacher's "The Impulse Wants Company." On Wednesday, it opened a two night run at the Skirball Center at New York University, with that work being joined by two world premieres. The chamber group Hotel Elefant makes Mr. Ludwig Leone's scores vividly atmospheric. The various string instruments produce sounds ranging from rustling to plucked, and from singing lines to pulsating rhythms that suggest now folk, now jazz. The pianist makes drumlike percussive effects during "The Impulse"; in the closing of "All That We See," a saxophone adds striking sonorities, while an electric guitar subtly changes the texture. "The Impulse Wants Company" uses all of the group's seven dancers. Two of them, Ashley Laracey and Mr. Schumacher, dance one of the world premieres, the pas de deux "Dear and Blackbirds," to music for string quartet, and the other five Lauren King, Claire Kretzschmar, Meagan Mann, David Prottas and Taylor Stanley perform the other, "All That We See." Each piece proceeds like fragments of suspenseful narrative: The dancers appear to discover themselves and one another as they go along. The group dances make some use of formal geometries, but the overall look is remarkably informal. Structures throughout are loose and flexible; each dance is presented as a series of separate incidents. Rhythms and phrasing are continually changing; the action is frequently interrupted by walking, gestures, gazes. The dancing comes out of a larger context and keeps returning to it. The solos, duets and group numbers of the larger pieces, "The Impulse" and "All That We See," contain imagery and phrases that are like nothing I've seen in ballet. Several of these salient incidents feature Mr. Stanley, a dancer whose multifaceted stage character has both an animal force and a questing human urgency. In "All That We See," a brief duet for him and the more authoritative, equally vital Mr. Prottas, is an intimate drama of mutual attraction; it has no particular sexual charge, but becomes a give and take colloquy of real intensity. There are marvelous solos throughout. Mr. Stanley has a circuit of turning jumps in "The Impulse" that you follow not as conventional bravura but as a thought process, as if he were working through something. Ms. Kretzschmar has a dance in "All That We See" where she keeps trying out balance, not as if trying to sustain it, but rather as if testing how to fall out of it. Ms. Mann just travels onto the stage, with her back to the audience, on point in bourrees. It's a standard step, but here, very simply done, it acquires a special magic. The "Dear and Blackbirds" pas de deux illustrates Mr. Schumacher's instinct for drama. This boy girl love duet is the most conventional number of the program (lights fall on what we assume is their first kiss), and it's studded with several conventional images of need: Here he presses his cheek to her hand, there she embraces his waist. But the dances keep the scene fresh, sometimes coexisting in parallel soliloquies, and often with a conversational immediacy, proceeding like question and answer, mutually responsive. Ms. Laracey, a beautiful dancer, and Mr. Schumacher make it very touching. I have some reservations. The dances' phrases seldom build to a sustained continuity or momentum. Seldom do the women project with the amplitude that ballet can particularly give the female form. There's too much emphasis on adolescent naivete. But the immediacy of the dancers is terrific, and the musicality of the choreography has real intricacy. Each dance leaves an impression of secret complexity. Program notes tell us that "The Impulse" and "Dear and Blackbirds" have grown from source poems by Cynthia Zarin. "All That We See" is based on art by David Salle. This information is almost distracting, leading us to wonder if we can't "get" these dances unless we know this source material. In fact, all of Mr. Schumacher's work stands on its own. I don't feel the need to know his inspiration as much as I simply want to see these dances again.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Early in Michael Mann's 1995 crime drama "Heat," his protagonist destroys a television set. It makes sense in the context of the film (well, sort of), but it also can be read as a wink: Mann, a writer, director and producer who made his name with the TV smash "Miami Vice" (not to mention "Crime Story"), taking a moment from his star studded, big screen epic to bite the hand that fed him. But that moment also plays as a swipe at the picture's obscure origins; even as "Heat" turned 25 on Tuesday, it has remained relatively unknown that it was, in fact, a remake. Mann had already told this story using many of the same scenes, and even some of the same dialogue in a 1989 NBC TV movie called "L.A. Takedown." That project was a mere rest stop on the long, winding journey that "Heat" took to the big screen. Mann first penned the screenplay in the late 1970s, inspired by the real life relationship between a Chicago cop, Chuck Adamson, and a master thief, Neil McCauley. The script was long, 180 pages, and so ambitious that Mann wasn't sure he could handle it; he offered it to the director Walter Hill ("48 Hrs."), who declined. Mann kept revising the script through the 1980s as he found success on television, and when NBC asked if he had any other series ideas when "Miami Vice" was winding down, he determined he would adapt his mammoth screenplay into a series pilot. He's right, of course. Comparing a big budget studio film and a quickie TV movie is a fool's errand (and undeniably unfair to the latter). But in considering "Heat," which is quite possibly Mann's best film and certainly his definitive one the purest distillation of the themes and preoccupations that have consumed him throughout his career it's helpful to look at the film in its embryonic form, and to see what Mann retained (an interest in crime, punishment, and the way fast cars stab through the Los Angeles night), what he changed and what he added. The broad strokes are the same. "L.A. Takedown" begins with a thief Patrick McLaren, played by Alex McArthur leading his crew on a tightly timed armored car robbery that ends up leaving three guards dead. Heading the police investigation is Sgt. Vincent Hanna (Scott Plank), who pursues the thief with a mixture of dogged determination and reluctant admiration: Asked for the M.O. of the thieves, Hanna replies, "Their M.O. is that they're good." Hanna and his Robbery Homicide Division detectives surveil McLaren and his team as they try to put together one more big score, a broad daylight bank robbery that results in a dangerous shootout in the streets. What makes "Heat" so special is the attention Mann pays to the complexities and humanity of both cop and criminal. Rather than the typical construction of antagonist and protagonist, he gives us, essentially, two protagonists both skilled, flawed, sometimes sympathetic, often less so and positions them in opposition, but with no clear "good guy" or "bad guy." The film is constructed as a series of points and counterpoints: cop (Al Pacino) and criminal (Robert De Niro), good and bad, light and dark. Throughout "Heat," Mann is telling these stories in parallel, underscoring their similarities with scenes, conflicts and characters serving as direct complements to each other. This careful character construction, and its balance of screen time and sympathy, is why the now legendary scene in which cop and criminal sit down for coffee and conversation carries so much weight. Neither raises his voice and neither loses his cool. They speak from a place of mutual respect, even affection; it's like a first date, two people marveling over all they have in common. "I do what I do best I take down scores," De Niro's McCauley (as he's called in this version) notes. "You do what you do best try to stop guys like me." "I don't know how to do anything else," Pacino's Hanna says, to which McCauley replies, "Neither do I." "I don't much want to," Hanna adds, to which McCauley again replies, "Neither do I." And that, in many ways, is the whole movie, in one exchange. But that equal distribution of narrative weight and sympathy isn't present in "L.A. Takedown," which is much more about Hanna than his target and that makes sense, since it was intended to be the first episode of a weekly cop show. That's not all that gets streamlined; themes are bluntly stated, complex relationships are sanded down, and the good guy bad guy dynamic is vastly simplified. If "Heat" is like an opera, "L.A. Takedown" is like its libretto the words, but not the music. "Heat's" path from small to big screen isn't unprecedented. The early days of television was filled with big screen remakes of recent live television dramas like "Marty" and "12 Angry Men." The evolution of "Heat" was unusual for the era, but the embryonic workshopping of the TV movie proved a key step in the picture's development, and Mann's understanding of the material. "'L.A. Takedown,' to me, constitutes something that I'd like to do actually on every film, which is get a chance to shoot a prototype to learn what's wrong and play around with it," Mann told the BBC, likening the experience to an out of town tryout for a Broadway bound play. When he returned to the screenplay, after the cinematic success of his 1992 adaptation of "The Last of the Mohicans," he could more clearly grasp its strengths and its weaknesses. But he could also see the value of the extraneous scenes and threads he'd sliced away to fit the massive script into that narrow television time slot, and restore them. What ultimately makes "Heat" so much more than a cops and robbers movie is Mann's huge canvas, which has room for plotlines and characters that could sustain films of their own: Hanna's suicidal stepdaughter, the money launderer who makes the mistake of tangling with McCauley's crew, the thief who moonlights as a serial killer, the noble ex con trying (and ultimately failing) to go straight. The original marketing of "Heat" billed it as "A Los Angeles Crime Saga," and that wasn't hype or hyperbole only a capital S Saga can cover this much ground. Viewed in retrospect, "L.A. Takedown" underscores the eventual genius of "Heat": When you boil this narrative down to its basics, to plot and even some dialogue, it's a fairly plain (pedestrian, even) crime picture. It was all of Mann's subsequent flourishes, all the details and atmosphere and character touches, coupled with the game raising skill of a once in a lifetime ensemble cast, that made "Heat" the classic it has become.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
It takes about five miles along a red dirt road in the semidesert of Andalusia to reach the 18th century ruins of the Cortijo del Fraile. Alone in the scorching sun and dry winds, the decaying Dominican farmhouse and chapel seems to stand through some sheer force of its literary fame. It holds together with stones and mortar a neglected national treasure that was the real life setting for a classic tragedy of betrayal and murder in Spain's southernmost region. The arid lands and immense nights inspired the early 20th century Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca to write his greatest drama, "Blood Wedding," based on the crime story in 1928 of a runaway bride who fled her arranged marriage on horseback to be with her true love. He was killed by her relatives, and she died decades later as an elderly recluse, buried in 1987 in a secret tomb. "I feel linked to it in all my emotions," Garcia Lorca remarked in a 1934 interview in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the publication Critica, describing this passion as his "agrarian complex." "My earliest boyhood memories taste of earth." To search for Garcia Lorca's Andalusia is to chase fragments of poetry and loss. He was silenced more than 81 years ago at 38 murdered in the summer of 1936 by a paramilitary death squad at the outset of the Spanish Civil War for his anti fascist sentiments and homosexuality. His burial site in an anonymous mass grave somewhere in fields outside Granada remains a mystery. But his powerful voice is still one that binds this nation as it struggles with tensions between the Catalan independence movement and the Spanish state, which threatened to remove the region's separatist government and initiate a process of direct rule by the central government in Madrid. In August, the poet's verses offered a measure of comfort after the deadly van attack along the Ramblas, the heart of Barcelona. Over booming loudspeakers, thousands of antiterrorism protesters listened to a recital of Garcia Lorca's tribute to his favorite thoroughfare: "The street where all four seasons live together. The only street I wish would never end." When he was 18, he set off from Granada in 1917 on the first of four expeditions by steam train with his art history professor and other students to tour Andalusia. It was then, he said, that "I became fully aware of myself as a Spaniard." He was seeking memories of "the ancient souls who once walked the solitary squares we now tread." My love of Garcia Lorca extends to all his writing that explores the rural tragedies of women in Andalusia and an earthy culture where death and love are deeply intertwined. I had never expected to visit his house in Granada, where the poet wrote his trilogy of greatest plays "Blood Wedding," "Yerma," and "The House of Bernarda Alba." But a reporting assignment took me to the city one day, and I met his niece, Laura Garcia Lorca, in his family home, Huerta de San Vicente, now a museum and whitewashed sanctuary, which is surrounded by linden trees and roses. The downstairs living room was dark and smelled faintly of jasmine. It was furnished with black and white photos from many decades ago, along with Garcia Lorca's baby grand piano and a pensive portrait of the writer, with dark wavy hair and sharp eyes, wearing a mustard robe. It was soon after that I decided to chase the spirit of this fractured nation through Garcia Lorca's literary inspirations in southern Spain. I began my first journey with a 10 day road trip with my husband, Omer, through Andalusia in a rented Fiat, hurtling on a smooth stretch of highway through golden hills and olive groves and white villages and ancient Arab fortresses. We toured Granada, the poet's hometown, where liberal and conservative political divisions still simmer in a lingering fight over control of Garcia Lorca's vast archives. In the meantime, the literary treasure has not yet moved from Madrid to a soaring new cultural center built to house it. But public authorities and the writer's family are close to settling their differences and the archives are expected to arrive within months at the center by the tranquil Plaza de Romanillo. Before his death, Garcia Lorca alienated the local society by complaining that Granada was inhabited by a cold, introverted ruling class. Yet, despite the mutual loathing, he held court here in the 1920s with his young literary circle of intellectuals, "El Rinconcillo." At a restaurant known then as Cafe Alameda, he would read his works aloud from the same corner table. For the writer, other cities like Seville offered more openness and tolerance something he considered a reflection of physical geography and the Guadalquivir River that flows within the city and outward to the Atlantic Ocean, shooting through, he wrote in a poem, like "a constant arrow." We traveled to Seville, where we sampled a boat trip along the olive colored Guadalquivir for about a 20 ticket. But the hourlong ride seemed more languid than Garcia Lorca's dynamic description and the riverside more neglected. The highlights on the trip centered on passing under bridges, the oldest Triana or Isabel II rebuilt by engineers for Gustave Eiffel. Instead we found more of the city's essential soul or spirit of "duende" in the sprawling San Fernando municipal cemetery. At its entrance is an exotic neighborhood of tombs and shrines devoted to the city's Andalusian aristocracy flamenco stars and fallen bullfighters such as Francisco Rivera Perez "Paquirri," who is sculpted in a matador's suit and poised to guide a bull's final attack. It was in Seville that Garcia Lorca befriended Ignacio Sanchez Mejias, a bullfighter who was also a poet and a playwright. After Ignacio was gored in a post retirement bullfight in 1934, Garcia Lorca wrote his classic elegy in tribute to him, a 1935 poem of disbelief and grief about his death at 43. There is no more affecting place to read aloud his lament "Oh white wall of Spain! Oh black bull of sorrow! Oh hard blood of Ignacio!" than beside the matador's simple grave. It lies in the shadow of an enormous tomb for his fellow bullfighter and brother in law, Joselito, who was killed in 1920 by a bull named Bailaor. That marble and bronze sculpture depicts Joselito in his draped coffin, shouldered by 18 distraught men and women. One of the figures is Ignacio, head cast to beseech the cloudless skies. Death, honor and frustration are themes that endlessly fascinated Garcia Lorca. In 1933, he staged the premier of "Blood Wedding" in Madrid, drawing on 1928 newspaper accounts of a defiant bride, Francisca Canadas, who abandoned her fiance her sister's brother in law to flee hours before a pending marriage deep into the countryside with her beloved first cousin. Her sister and her husband tracked them down, fatally shooting the cousin and strangling Francisca, leaving her for dead on the road to Nijar. The bride survived, living for decades with the enmity of her village who blamed her for provoking the tragedy. In his drama, Garcia Lorca transformed the key characters and heightened the bloodshed. He conceived of the set inside a spacious cave like the ancient enclaves in Purullena and Guadix, southern towns in the province of Granada known for mazes of whitewashed caves fashioned into homes and with inhabitants called trogloditas. He was struck by the rare accommodation of life and earth in the labyrinth of cave dwellings some that date back to the 16th century. Her kindness reminded me of another basic element of Andalusia that Garcia Lorca cherished its people. On the same day that she spoke to us, we stopped nearby in Graena, a small town that is home to spring fed thermal baths and an outdoor barbecue restaurant, Bar La Pradera, which specializes in lamb chops and steak grilled on hot coals. We had not dined there in five years, and tourists rarely stop there, at the terrace across from an open air municipal pool and garden. But the owners welcomed us back with kisses and then they invited us to their home. No journey like this could be complete without witnessing the last act of "Blood Wedding." We rumbled along a dirt road to reach the Cortijo del Fraile, the crumbling farmhouse where Francisca Canadas lived with her father who owned the property then. Today, it is a surreal landmark of ruin and romance in Europe's only semidesert, the Cabo de Gata Nature Preserve in Almeria, Spain's southeastern corner. The fragile farmhouse is surrounded by a wire fence to prevent entry of tourists. Its facade has been minimally restored but there is much more work to be done. A plain marker took note of its literary pedigree and also its star turn as a backdrop in various movies, among them, Sergio Leone's spaghetti western "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." From the ruins, we headed toward the town of Nijar and stopped at one of its oldest municipal cemeteries. Its white walls were full with rose and blue silk flowers and tribute plaques to the village's dead, including members of the star crossed Canadas family. Every time I visit Andalusia, I try to find some trace of the grave of the runaway bride. She never married and was essentially buried in life by the scorn of her village. And every year nothing changes in the essential rural tragedy imagined by Garcia Lorca. A lone cemetery worker offered me a vague hint that Francisca Canadas's tomb is placed near a soaring cypress tree, a symbol of mourning and hope. But a stone plaque was nowhere to be found. According to the family's wishes, the worker said, it is marked with a false name.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
It's hard to tear yourself away from New York City Ballet just now, in particular from its many excellent ballerinas. The company, almost halfway through its four week fall season, is being characteristically bounteous with repertory by its founder choreographer, George Balanchine, which in turn is bounteous with ballerina roles. A few of the women cast in Balanchine parts are too tame, too weak, too passive; but all the troupe's three ranks (principal, soloist, corps) contain women whose vivid individuality excites. Two in particular Tiler Peck and Sara Mearns set peak standards of musicality that enrich the entire art, showing the mysterious connection between space and music at its most fascinating. Ms. Peck, a prodigious virtuoso whose musicality is her most renowned asset, last week made her debut in the central role of the Mozart classic "Divertimento No. 15." Those coloratura legs and feet of hers show how her gift for musical rubato is connected to the skill of her technique. She has strength and time to anticipate the beat, to hover within it, to arrive a micro moment after it, all within the top speed cascade of a single phrase, and she has the attack to make each step arrive with wonderful force. There's a touch of calculation in her response to music. You can spot the moments when she seems to be saying, "Watch how I play with my music here." Such nudging, by trying to separate the dancer from the dance, diminishes both. Yet who could miss how she makes the steps radiate? They seem to give off halos of light. She's also been dancing the lead in "Symphony in Three Movements," a role she delivers admirably without its particularly suiting her. It's larger and more mysterious than she is. But she's intelligent. Each time she performs a role, you feel her varying her approach. When "Jewels" returned to repertory on Wednesday, she brought a new impetuousness to her part in "Emeralds," contrasting the rush of the music with moments of arrival. The conductor was the music director Andrew Litton, who this season has been tackling seven Balanchine ballets, all for the first time. He's marvelously propulsive. Ms. Peck, more than most, is equipped to rise to the challenge of new musical dynamics.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
"What Trump did here is like your best friend telling you he's getting a divorce and you're, like, 'I didn't know you were married!' 'Yeah, it didn't work out. She killed 11 people in Afghanistan. It was crazy.'" TREVOR NOAH "Next month he's taking Al Qaeda to Six Flags, did you know that?" JIMMY KIMMEL "So the Taliban refused to come to America and Trump tweeted out, 'No, I'm breaking up with you guys!'" TREVOR NOAH "Yeah, I know, I know, I'm thinking the exact same thing I really hope him canceling doesn't damage America's relationship with the Taliban." JAMES CORDEN "And if you're wondering where we are as a nation, my first thought was, 'I don't know, I'll believe it when I hear it from the Taliban.'" SETH MEYERS "Can you imagine if that meeting had happened and it had gone ... like if someone in their group complimented him? We'd have video right now of the president saying, 'I love the Taliban. They're great guys.'" JIMMY KIMMEL "Of course this is especially fascinating because back in 2012 Trump tweeted this: 'While Barack Obama is slashing the military he's also negotiating with our sworn enemy the Taliban, who facilitated 9/11.' That was written by the man who not only did he invite the Taliban over for a sleepover, last week he slashed 3.6 billion from the military to build his wall. " JIMMY KIMMEL	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear masks when they leave their homes. And yet when I look out my window very few people walking my city's streets appear to have heeded the advice despite more cases in my city than in at least 20 states. Perhaps they are following the lead of President Trump, who shortly after the announcement indicated he would not cover up. In a global pandemic, I'm taking the advice of our leading scientists and physicians at the C.D.C. and covering up whenever I go out. Of course Donald Trump will not be wearing a mask. The C.D.C. recommends masks because they help "you" not "me." In Mr. Trump's world there is only "me." As our country continues to wade through life in self quarantine, our collective consciousness has turned to the unforeseen side effects of this isolation: abuse. Your article focuses on the added fear, anxiety and potential harm for women who are locked at home with their abusers and with nowhere to go. Especially hard hit during this crisis are children, who often find escape at school. As a survivor of abuse, I was able to make it out by seeking refuge in a shelter and having safe adults to turn to. But amid mandatory isolation, finding a safe haven is increasingly challenging. The organization I lead now was my safe haven after my final experience with abuse; it is my hope to offer the same to any young person experiencing abuse amid this pandemic. As nonprofits and social service providers in education, we must not only provide resources to individuals, but we must also provide emergency funding, as we have done, to help families remove themselves from harmful emotional or physical situations. As social service providers we must all find ways to pivot our model to meet the needs of the moment, by finding safe spaces and funds to help those who may be in dangerous ones. "Travel Patterns Show Sharp Split, Swayed by Stay at Home Orders" (news article, April 3) provided interesting data but needs more context. In rural farming areas the data says people are traveling the same, but the question is why. Is it that they are ignoring the restrictions or that it is necessary for their jobs? If you have a farm or cattle operation, it's nice to think that it's right out your back door, but that's not the case anymore. Many small farmers drive around their county or to multiple counties to check on cows, fertilize fields, repair fences and do other farm chores. They are mostly by themselves or with an immediate family member. They are also doing truly essential jobs. Many of the farmers and other people who live in rural areas go to town only once a week or every other week as it is because town is just that far away. This group of people is not being irresponsible, but you can't see that from this data. Anne Marie Slaughter suggests that a potential benefit of the pandemic is that universities that had been "resisting online education for years" will be surprised that "online teaching can actually be better." Although advances in technology can benefit both teachers and students, Ms. Slaughter's comment seems to neglect the human side. Sensing the individuals in the classroom, how they are reacting, if they are shutting down or lighting up: These things are central to teaching. My fellow community college colleagues who have taught online classes report a significantly higher dropout rate. Indeed, as students became aware that this pandemic would end our face to face classes, several lingered after a class to tell me that they were nervous because they had tried online classes without success and needed in person instruction.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
What to do with a doob? They aren't sturdy enough to play with, like a Barbie or Star Wars figure. Last year Kim Phan, a clothing designer in Manhattan, decided she wanted a miniature version of herself. She wore a print dress from her label, Yumi Kim, and proceeded to a branch of Doob, where she stepped into a walled room the "Dooblicator" fitted with 54 cameras. The cameras captured her from every angle, and then Ms. Phan stepped out and reviewed the image on a monitor. "I wanted it to be a motion shot," she said. "I told them, 'I want you to capture my dress flying.'" Using a process called photogrammetry, a technology also employed by the film and video game industry, Doob converted the 2 dimensional image of her into a high resolution 3 D file. Then, through 3 D printing, a resin polymer figurine is produced. Ms. Phan was immensely pleased with the result. "You're able to have your own real life Barbie," she said. "It's actually you." Later, she returned with her fiance and had a figurine made of herself jumping onto his back, which she keeps on her desk at home. You can also see copies of Ms. Phan's figurines at a Doob store in SoHo (there's another branch on the Upper East Side, and stores in Los Angeles, San Francisco and elsewhere), along with dozens of other samples, ranging in size from four inches tall (the Buddy, 95) to 14 inches tall (the Diva, 695). How else to describe a Lilliputian rendition of a photograph that's so realistically detailed, one subject called it "creepily accurate"? A personal action figure? Mini Me, like the character in the Austin Powers movies? Doob, which was founded five years ago and whose headquarters are in Dusseldorf, Germany, is betting big that people want to see themselves made small: smiling alone; hugging their spouses in an eerily perfected version of the old wedding cake topper; astride a Harley Davidson, tattooed arms naked to the wind. Whether you consider them cute or creepy, they are perhaps the most currently relatable example of the much buzzed about, yet perplexing, 3 D printing. To visit the SoHo store and be in the presence of so many real New Yorkers looking exactly like they do on the city's streets, only shrunken and displayed on tables and shelves, is, initially, surreal. You have stepped into some version of the new Alexander Payne movie, "Downsizing," or that old Lily Tomlin Charles Grodin flick "The Incredible Shrinking Woman." One 10 inch figurine of a man dressed fashionably in a tan blazer, scarf and black frame architect's glasses, his dog lying obediently at his feet, was so lifelike that it captures his expression of self satisfaction. "All that detail is integral," Mr. Anderson said. "If it's you, but it's small and blurry, it's just a trinket. But sometimes, on the larger figures, you can see the time on a person's watch." The more thought given to one's appearance before the doobing process, the better the results, generally. Patterns and contrasting colors show up well, for instance. And a good pose can capture the inner you. One family gathered three generations together for a group doob. A musician stood knees bent, blowing his horn. Then there's the bodybuilder who took his shirt off, showing his waxed six pack abs. Heather Stern first got doobed in 2014, when she was eight months pregnant with her daughter, Rosie. She has celebrated Rosie's birthday every year since by getting doobed together. The naturalistic figures have made her think about "the toys we give to our daughters," Ms. Stern said, like American Girl dolls. "For your daughter to have an image of a normal female body is a positive thing," she said. But what to do with a doob? They aren't sturdy enough to play with. Displaying them in your house or office may seem narcissistic. Ms. Stern keeps her doobs on a bookshelf at home with the Legos she builds (she is a mechanical engineer), though "it's not like a centerpiece of the house," she said. She added: "People are shocked by it: 'Oh my God, that's amazing, what is it?'" One fitting use is to advance the self referential digital culture from which doobs sprung. That's what Ashley Holt did. A custom cake maker in Brooklyn, Ms. Holt had a doob made of herself posing mouth wide open, midbite. After she received the finished figurine, which takes about two to three weeks, she made a cake in the form of a peach. Then she posed her doob with the cake, took a picture and posted it to Instagram "to make it look like a tiny little person eating a giant peach," Ms. Holt said. "I wanted to bring a doob into a cake design, rather than the standard cake topper." For a finale, Ms. Holt returned to the Doob store weeks later and got a doob of herself holding her tiny cake eating doob. "I was wearing the same outfit," she said. "They call that a 'Meta Doob.'"	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
For J Balvin's big entrance on Saturday night in his concert appearance on the video game Fortnite, the Latin pop star rose through a giant glowing pumpkin, just as he might emerge from the bowels of Madison Square Garden on a lift to meet thousands of screaming fans. Appearing as a green haired, yellow suited Frankenstein's monster, Balvin strutted and vamped across the pumpkin throughout his opening number "Reggaeton," a tribute to his musical roots while light beams flashed against a sepulchral set. It was pure Vegas stagecraft. With concerts shut down, musicians have flocked to virtual platforms to reach their fans. A well timed Fortnite show in April by the rapper Travis Scott with eye popping graphics that placed Scott within the game's digital realm became a surprise cultural event, drawing nearly 28 million players and offering proof of concept to performers who had suddenly found themselves homebound. Balvin's 13 song, 38 minute set on Halloween was a lighthearted monster mash in Day Glo colors that resembled a futuristic translation of "Pee wee's Playhouse," with dancers in costume as ghosts, zombie Cyclopes and jolly animals. All the while, full moons, gravestones and spider webs swirled vividly around them. At a nondescript industrial building in Glendale, Calif., dancers lounged backstage waiting for their cues and members of a production crew a few dozen strong watched from a control room. When not thumping with Balvin's beats, the soundstage was quiet save the whir of an air purifier. But when the taping started, bright lights danced across the LED screens on the diamond shaped stage and two walls behind it, while monitors displayed those same scenes enhanced with 3D animation. The concert was being created in "XR," or extended reality, a blending of real and virtual worlds that allowed Balvin and his dancers' in the flesh performances to be augmented by animated effects. He has collaborated with Beyonce and Cardi B, and Balvin's Coachella set last year gave a taste of the aesthetic he would bring to Fortnite: dancers in bulbous costumes bounded around him while giant screens showed smiling, brightly colored anime clouds. (His latest album, released in March, is called "Colores.") The creative team behind Balvin for Coachella and Fortnite, Antony Ginandjar and Ashley Evans of The Squared Division, also choreographed Britney Spears's Las Vegas show, "Piece of Me." Besides Scott, other Fortnite concerts have featured Marshmello, the D.J. who wears cartoonish headgear; the producer Diplo; the rapper and singer Dominic Fike; and the K pop sensations BTS. In a phone interview before his second day of rehearsal, Balvin said he had big ambitions for the set, his first virtual performance of the pandemic. "You're approaching human beings, of course, but they are in a gamer position; they have their controller in their hands," he said. "For a lot of people it's going to be their first reggaeton concert ever, and it's going to be through Fortnite, so I have to give it all." Throughout the pandemic, musicians and tech companies have scrambled to find the best platforms to stream concerts as the live music industry has come to a halt, abruptly shutting off many artists' most important revenue stream. Instagram, YouTube and the gaming site Twitch have been crowded with performances, and a host of companies have attempted to charge money for virtual tickets and recreate some elements of attending in person shows, like preferred seats and artist meet and greets. While many livestreams began barely above DIY level production quality, innovations have emerged: Erykah Badu's series of shows featured a performance seemingly from inside giant bubbles; a summer festival took place in Minecraft, another game with a gigantic audience. In some ways, the scene in Glendale was like any film production during the pandemic. Everyone on set was given a rapid Covid 19 test. When Balvin arrived for the first day of rehearsal he wore a Lakers hat, a jeans jacket and, like everyone else, a mask. (Over the summer, Balvin came down with a case of Covid 19, and said he was nearly hospitalized. "It's not a game," he said of the virus.) But the set had far more advanced technology than any standard music video shoot. While Balvin and his dancers performed, images moved around them on the stage and walls, sometimes offering the naked eye only a partial glimpse of the ultimate shot. Animators in the control room, and working in postproduction, filled in the 3D scenery and Halloween creatures.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
The league's return to play plan, approved on what would have been the first day of the finals for this season, will next be reviewed by the players' union, which has scheduled a virtual meeting for its executive committee and individual team representatives on Friday, according to three people with knowledge of the timetable who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The league has been hopeful that the close working relationship that Oklahoma City's Chris Paul, the union president, maintains with Silver as well as its ongoing talks with Michele Roberts, the union's executive director, and other players on the board is indicative of the players' desire to approve the plan. "While the Covid 19 pandemic presents formidable challenges, we are hopeful of finishing the season in a safe and responsible manner based on strict protocols now being finalized with public health officials and medical experts," Silver said in a statement. "We also recognize that as we prepare to resume play, our society is reeling from recent tragedies of racial violence and injustice, and we will continue to work closely with our teams and players to use our collective resources and influence to address these issues in very real and concrete ways." To earn one of the 22 invitations to Disney World, teams had to be within six games of a playoff berth as of March 11, when the N.B.A. abruptly suspended the season in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Joining the 16 teams that occupied playoff spots on March 11 are five teams from the West (Portland, New Orleans, Sacramento, San Antonio and Phoenix) and Washington from the East. The season is thus over for Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Golden State, Minnesota and the Knicks teams that may wind up enduring a nearly nine month wait for their next competitive game. The N.B.A. revealed Thursday that it was considering opening the 2020 21 season on Dec. 1 rather than its usual start in October. After it ruled out inviting all 30 teams, the N.B.A. settled on 22 to build a competitive field while also reducing the number of people entering its planned safety bubble in Florida. The league spent much of May looking for a compromise ranging from 20 to 24 teams after deciding that proceeding straight into the playoffs with a 16 team field was not only unfair to the handful of teams within close range of a playoff berth when play was suspended, but that it was also potentially damaging to the overall quality of play.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Hidden City Tours, which specializes in walking tours led by the homeless and formerly homeless, has a new Street Life tour of Barcelona, Spain, focused on a side of the city tourists and residents don't often see. "The aim of the Street Life tour is how to survive 24 hours on the streets of Barcelona," shedding light on what it's like to be one of the city's estimated 3,000 to 6,000 people living without a permanent residence, the founder of Hidden City Tours, Lisa Grace, said. Street Life will give visitors a day in the life experience in an hour and 15 minute tour, Ms. Grace said. It's a way to provide jobs in a country where unemployment last year was estimated at 24 percent, but where tourism drives much of the economy, she said. The company's six guides offer tours in English, German and Spanish and share their stories while taking visitors through old town Barcelona.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
In a rundown school in Nekoosa, Wis. population 2,500 an old trainer tries to keep the hopes of small town boxers alive. NEKOOSA, Wis. At an abandoned school in a paper mill town in central Wisconsin, a piece of white paper is taped to a side door. Written in black marker it reads: "RAPIDS BOXING." Climb a stairway to the third floor and there's another handwritten sign. At the end of a dark hallway, you hear the drumming of a speed bag and the squeaking of shuffling sneakers. They are interrupted every three minutes by the buzz of a timer. Before entering, however, there's one more sign to consider: "First 3 Rules of Boxing." 3. After punching, bring your hands back fast and high. Then comes the final bit of instruction: "Annual Gym Fee. 20. Pay Ken or Karel. " Ken is Ken Hilgers, 69, a grandfather and retired paper mill powerhouse operator who will teach the art of boxing to any child who walks through the door. In a time when high school boxing teams are unheard of and university boxing programs have faded, this gym is home to one of the small town clubs that have kept the sport alive in the Upper Midwest. "They are a dying breed," Hilgers said of rural gyms like his. "We used to have a boxing club in every town. We used to compete every single weekend." Dale Horn, a successful boxer trained by Hilgers in the 1970s, had more than 100 amateur bouts and won five state championships. In contrast, Hilgers pointed to Taylor Smith Jr., a burly 10 year old who was pounding away on a heavy bag as if it had stolen his lunch money. "Taylor here has been looking for a bout for a year," Hilgers said. "We haven't found him an opponent of the appropriate age and weight." In 1975, when Hilgers started training at a Y.M.C.A. near here, the place had an abundance of boxers, and he had the most successful junior Olympic boxing team in Wisconsin. "They were all stars in their school system, and I've never had a run of athletes like that since," Hilgers said. He estimates that 1,300 boxers have been a part of his club over the years, and 30 of them became state champions. The most famous was Steve Zouski , who went on to post a 31 18 record as a professional. He got in the ring with the former heavyweight champions Mike Tyson and George Foreman. In 1986, Zouski caught Tyson, then 19 and 18 0, on his way up. Zouski was knocked out at 2 minutes 39 seconds of the third round at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y. It was the only time he lost by knockout. The next year, he was the first opponent Foreman, then 38, faced after being retired for 10 years. Foreman's age didn't matter: The referee stopped the fight in his favor early in the fourth round at Arco Arena in Sacramento. Hilgers still marvels at how Zouski could take a punch. "I knocked him down in practice once by mistake," he said. "When he got up, his eyes were an entirely different color. He started at the belt and worked his way up. Let me tell you, I never attempted to knock him down again." Hilgers has taught boxing in odder places than this abandoned school. The club was at a National Guard Armory for a year, and spent time in a senior center that was eventually condemned. "We worked out one winter there without any heat," Hilgers said of the senior center. "We had to supply our own. What a winter! Everybody smelled like kerosene and diesel fuel." Now, the old Nekoosa High School is its home. The ring at the center of the room is surrounded by a plywood ledge littered with gloves and tiny dumbbells. Old headgear and boxing gloves are reused as padding, duct taped to the red, white and blue corner posts. The ropes, frayed and buffered with pipe insulation, are secured by more duct tape. Two heavy bags, three double end bags and a slip bag hang from an A frame structure repurposed from the paper mill. The speed bag is mounted on a wood and cast iron structure made by Medart that might be more than 100 years old. "If we didn't get this site, I was going to quit," Hilgers confessed. But then two young brothers, Evan and Will Stenerson, walked through his door, and he conjured dreams of more title runs. They were hardworking and eager to absorb Hilgers's knowledge. Last year, Evan lost a close decision to a reigning state champion. "The kid came up to me and said I deserved the belt, and he handed it to me," Evan Stenerson , 13, said, referring to his opponent. Now the belt hangs in the gym. Will Stenerson, 14, has a 7 2 record, and the teenagers' younger brother, John, 9, followed them to the gym and trains here now, too. "Boxing makes you a lot more brave," Will said. "It gets your courage up." On one winter day in the gym, Hilgers nodded at the man in the ring holding punch mitts for Will Stenerson. The man, 24 year old Nick Maher, may also be the future of the gym as a successor to Hilgers. Maher was one of the club's most successful amateurs and, along with his two brothers, formed the backbone for Rapids's multiple state, regional and national titles. "He's obviously a really good coach, but there is a lot more to keeping everything in line here," Hilgers said. Maher is not ready for Hilgers to leave, but he shares his old trainer's commitment to keeping the gym alive. "This is where I grew up," Maher said. "If you're not in Madison or Milwaukee, and you don't want to go to a fitness gym and get trained like a machine, you have to go to the little towns that have these gyms with three or four guys in it, and those are the clubs that are molding boxers into national champions."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Transfer students whose challenges have often been ignored in higher education are feeling a surge in popularity as colleges and universities are increasingly wooing them. "This was a group that was always taken for granted," said Todd Rinehart, vice chancellor for enrollment at the University of Denver. But last month, the University of California system announced that it has accepted more transfer students than ever before. And in a move that is perhaps more symbolic than substantive, Princeton University has, for its 2018 class, accepted 13 transfer students, the first such students it has enrolled since 1990. Transfer students, who make up 38 percent of all students in higher education, have always helped a university's revenue by replacing students who leave after the first or second year. But behind the new interest in courting them lies one stark reality: Undergraduate enrollment is declining and has been for six years, according to the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit education research organization. That is because of a demographic shift as the number of high school graduates is projected to decline over the next decade, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast. In addition, when the economy improves, the job market becomes more attractive to some high school graduates than college. As if that weren't enough, fewer international students are enrolling in American colleges, after years of intensive growth, partly because of the nation's more restrictive views on immigration and partly because English speaking countries such as Canada and Australia are luring away such students. Transfer students can offer the racial, ethnic and socioeconomic diversity schools are seeking. Of the 13 Princeton accepted 10 of whom are enrolling in the fall eight served or are currently serving in active duty in the military and eight, as the university put it in its news release, "self identified as people of color." Transfers also help a college's overall yield (or how many students who are accepted actually enroll), something that is crucial to administrators. According to a 2017 survey of its members by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, almost two thirds of transfer applicants who were admitted to a university enrolled, compared with 28 percent of freshmen. Even though transfer students make up a significant part of the higher education population, they have been largely invisible, in part because, until last year, they were not included in federal graduation rates for colleges and universities produced by the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. These graduation rates are featured in the all important college rankings and are used by policymakers and the institutions themselves to judge college performance. But the data only reflected traditional students who entered as freshmen and stayed at the same higher education institution during their entire college career. "The biggest problem is no one claims accountability for transfer students because there is no federal accountability for transfer students," Dr. Marling said. Last year, the Education Department expanded the type of information it gathers from colleges and universities to include more nontraditional students, a move she called a good first step One of the major stumbling blocks for transfer students, especially those going from a community college to a four year institution, is finding out in an understandable and timely manner whether the course they already took will be accepted as credit not only toward graduation but also toward their chosen major. A report last year from the Government Accountability Office found that students who moved between public schools the majority of transfer students lost, on average, 37 percent of their credits. Those transferring from private for profit schools to public schools lost an estimated 94 percent of their credits. To address this issue, more and more universities now have articulation agreements partnerships with community colleges that explain and align credits that are needed for a specific academic program or degree. They are also offering advisers who concentrate largely on easing the way for transfer students and offering clearer and more transparent information online. Adelphi University on Long Island, for example, has become focused on the transfer students who make up just under 40 percent of its incoming class. It has invested in software to help students better figure out online how their credits will transfer and split its director of undergraduate admissions into two positions a few years ago, with one director focused on first year students and the other on transfers. "This ensures each group is getting the attention it deserves," said Kristen Capezza, Adelphi's associate vice president of enrollment management. In addition, Adelphi has instant decision and registration days, where students can apply, be admitted and registered in one day; last year the university experimented with summer "transfer Tuesdays", which have continued this summer; about 20 to 30 students attend each session, Ms. Capezza said. Nandy Brijlal, a 21 year old from Queens, never considered going anywhere but the City University of New York when she graduated from high school, and she never thought about transferring. But in her sophomore year she toured Adelphi with a cousin and was instantly wowed by the place and the idea of going to a much smaller institution. "I made an appointment with the admissions officer to find out about which credits would transfer, within one week I had my transfer credit evaluation, and I was enrolled as a junior in the fall," she said. Although she had some early trepidation about making friends, a job in the admissions office helped, and now she plans to get her masters in biology at Adelphi. Cost and financial aid are other serious barriers for transfer students, many of whom are low income. Universities typically have not offered them scholarships and grants available to first year students. Now, many institutions are increasing the money available; for example, Texas Christian University, whose incoming class last year was about one fifth transfer students, the highest number in its history, now gives full tuition scholarships for transfer students, something not available in the past, said Heath Einstein, the university's dean of admission. The National Association for College Admission Counseling last year addressed another problem transfer students often face being asked to make a deposit to guarantee their spot at their university before knowing how many of their credits will transfer or what financial aid they will receive. For the first time, the association published guidelines in its code of ethics specifying that colleges must provide transfer students with an evaluation of their credits and a good faith estimate of how they will be applied to their degree, as well as a financial aid notification, before requiring a deposit. The University of Central Florida, the second largest university in the country, has more transfer students in its incoming class than first year freshmen. Last fall, 62 percent of its incoming class consisted of transfer students. Many of those students 51 percent last year, or more than 6,000, come through its highly lauded DirectConnect to U.C.F. program, which began in 2005, and partners with six community colleges, or state colleges as they're called in Florida. Last year, the university also created 27 "success coaches" who work with students planning to transfer and academic advisers to make sure the students have the skills and credits necessary before and after transferring. "A freshman has four years to engage with our institution. A transfer student only has two years with us," said Jennifer Sumner, the executive director for U.C.F. Connect, which oversees the DirectConnect program. "We want to work with students so they feel a part of the university culture, and reduce the lag time to get them acclimated to the institution." A major sign of its success is that 71 percent of DirectConnect students graduate with a bachelor's within six years of starting their college careers, Dr. Sumner said. The nationwide college graduation rate is almost 60 percent for students who graduate within six years from the college where they started, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That compares to a graduation rate of 42 percent for transfer students within six years of starting at a community college, according to the National Student Clearinghouse. Since many transfer students lose credits when they switch schools and go part time, they often take longer to graduate.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Education
Welcome to the Running newsletter! Every Saturday morning, we email runners with news, advice and some motivation to help you get up and running. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. It's almost here: the New York City Marathon! The race is on Nov. 3, and I have two things I want to let you know about right now. Lindsay Crouse is hosting "Women Who Win: Top Runners Who Have Transformed Their Sport," a live event with the pros Lauren Fleshman, the United States 5,000 meters champion in 2006 and 2010 and one of the most decorated collegiate athletes of all time, and Alysia Montano, the focus of The New York Times Opinion department's video project "Dream Maternity," which helped bring industrywide change in maternity policies for professional athletes. Both runners have spent their careers insisting that the sports industry make way for women, whether through maternity rights, the wage gap, or tackling the host of other issues that women face in careers of all kinds. The event is at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 2 at The New School, 63 Fifth Ave. in Manhattan. It's 15 for general admission and 10 for Times subscribers and you can use the code RUN at checkout for 5 off the ticket price.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Well
The U.S. Lifted Its Advisory Against Traveling Abroad. What Does That Mean? The State Department lifted its blanket advisory warning American citizens against traveling abroad on Thursday, nearly five months after the department had issued the Level 4 "do not travel" warning its highest advisory against all international travel as the coronavirus spread. The advisory was lifted in coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the State Department said in a statement posted to its website on Thursday, adding that it would continue to follow guidance from the C.D.C. Here's what travelers need to know about the decision. Why did the State Department make this decision? Before the pandemic, the State Department issued advisories ranking the safety of every country in the world from Level 1 to Level 4. In March, the department issued a blanket Level 4 "do not travel" advisory that warned Americans against all international travel. That advisory also urged Americans abroad to "arrange for immediate return to the United States" unless they were willing to stay abroad indefinitely. On Thursday, the department said that current health and safety conditions varied so much among countries that it would return to its previous ranking system "in order to give travelers detailed and actionable information to make informed travel decisions." Carl Risch, the assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, said in a call with reporters after the announcement was posted that the move would allow officials to better guide people about conditions in specific countries, taking into account other potential hazards, such as civil unrest, natural disasters or terrorism, in addition to health concerns. "We continue to recommend U.S. citizens exercise caution when traveling abroad due to the unpredictable nature of the pandemic," the department's statement said. What are the advisory levels? The State Department's advisories, based on its assessment of crime rates, terrorist activity, civil unrest, health conditions, weather and current events, are meant to help travelers gauge the risk of traveling to another country. There are four advisory levels, ranked from 1 to 4. The least risky countries are ranked at Level 1, and the department suggests that travelers "exercise normal precautions" while visiting those countries. Level 1 countries currently include Taiwan, where there are few coronavirus cases. In Level 2 countries, such as Mauritius or Thailand, travelers are urged to "exercise increased caution." In countries with Level 3 advisories, such as Jamaica, Indonesia or Kenya, travelers are encouraged to "reconsider travel." Some of the top destinations for American travelers before the pandemic, including Italy, Britain and France, have Level 3 warnings. Officials did not offer specific guidance on what Americans traveling abroad should or should not do. If cases of the coronavirus begin to rise again in a country whose advisory was lowered, a Level 4 warning could be restored. What countries still have Level 4 advisories? Americans are still advised against travel to more than 50 countries, including Mexico, India, the Bahamas and Russia. Those countries retain the Level 4 "Do Not Travel" advisory because of coronavirus cases. The department also recommends that American citizens reconsider traveling to countries with Level 3 warnings. Does this mean Americans are free to travel to other countries? International travel for Americans remains very complicated and on a country by country basis: Many countries still have rules barring travelers from the United States from entering. Restrictions on travel to Mexico and Canada for U.S. citizens are in place until at least the end of the month. Americans are still barred from entering the European Union, and those who travel to the United Kingdom are required to enter quarantine for 14 days. State Department officials recommend that people wishing to travel abroad consult the department's travel advisory list for their destinations. Here is a list of countries, in alphabetical order, that are open to U.S. citizens. Mr. Risch also said that the department had made "tremendous progress" on catching up on its passport backlog. The 1.8 million pending applications in mid June have been reduced to one million. The Department said it hoped to return to normal passport operations in the next six to eight weeks.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
Airport terminals are nearly empty, there are no waits to get through security, and you don't need to maneuver your way toward the front of the boarding line so you'll get first crack at the overhead bin space. The coronavirus has temporarily, if perversely, erased some of the worst features of airline travel. Big carriers such as Delta and Southwest are limiting flights to 60 to 70 percent capacity instead of trying to pack planes full. Boarding on some planes is back to front to decrease passenger interactions, which also makes it less of a mob scene. There is plenty of room for your carry ons. And seat backs and tray tables, not to mention entire jets, are being sanitized after every flight with clouds of disinfectant. Finally. Still, planes are flying nearly empty. On April 14, the Transportation Security Administration clocked a record low 87,534 daily travelers, down from 2.2 million that day in 2019. Americans don't really believe they can fly without risking infection. How can you maintain six feet of distance in a cabin that is eleven and a half feet wide? Most planes are in the air thanks only to the mandates imposed by the CARES stimulus act, which is providing some 50 billion in grants and loans to carriers. The money is keeping America's air network operational and, most important, paying airline workers. But leaving the carriers to burn cash at a rate of 10 billion a month by flying to places few want to go is a flight plan for failure. So what happens next? When the CARES rules expire on Oct. 1, the airlines will be free to choose the routes they want, within F.A.A. limits, but they will have to figure out a way to fly and make a profit. The only way airlines know how to do that is to fly nearly full planes. In the last five years, airlines flew at about 85 percent of capacity and made record profits. Base fares were low, but the industry treated their passengers like ATMs, withdrawing money for everything from checked baggage to "coach plus" seats to water to the privilege of sitting with their family. And the seats got smaller and smaller. Those 17 inch wide coach seats allowed carriers to herd us like sheep and pluck us like chickens. Which is exactly the model the carriers will try to restore. Flying even two thirds full say, with the middle seats empty will not make them profitable. That's especially true for ultra low cost carriers such as Allegiant and Spirit. There are two broad choices: Pack the planes or jack up the fares. Do the latter and a lot of people won't be able to fly and a lot of airline jobs will never return. The airline industry has experience in upheaval that may serve it well. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, when planes were grounded and passenger traffic sank, several major airlines filed for bankruptcy; the mergers that followed erased US Airways, Continental and Northwest from the skies. That's less likely to happen this time; the major carriers have enough cash to cushion them for the year. But several foreign carriers such as Chile's LATAM and Avianca of Colombia have already filed for bankruptcy protection. The best way to get more people flying is to lower the probability that sick or asymptomatic passengers as well as flight crews, cabin crews and airport employees even get as far as the airport. There's been some discussion of "immunity passports" for people who test positive for antibodies for the coronavirus. But the testing isn't reliable nor is it clear whether people can become reinfected. While any kind of intrusive vetting seems unlikely to get off the ground in the United States, we can move toward a safer approach to flying. "Airlines need to make sure that their planes are not the source of the virus," said Andrew Medland, a partner and aviation expert at the consultancy Oliver Wyman, "but transportation oversight needs to prevent anybody from packing the virus with them." The airlines have taken the first steps, but aviation authorities need to look beyond the tarmac. The International Civil Aviation Organization, part of the United Nations, has proposed "public health corridors" to isolate and protect discrete parts of flying: crew, aircraft, airports, cargo and passengers. Flight crews would not interact with passengers, for instance, and would be restricted in their movements if they are overnighting. This system also means stepped up screening of passengers. Keeping infected passengers off planes will require a different level of federal oversight. Airlines have said wearing masks are mandatory on flights, but they can't enforce the rule unless the Federal Aviation Administration creates a regulation. And the agency has so far declined to act. Airports can conduct temperature screenings, but it's not clear they can prevent people from flying. That's why Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the chairman of the House Committee on Transportation, and other House chairmen have asked the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security to come up with new protocols for security, boarding and other routines to minimize risk. Passengers have to take responsibility, too. Until a vaccine comes along, the privilege of flying may require giving airlines more information about your health and recent location than Americans are usually comfortable giving. One start up, Authoriti, is promoting a technology that adapts the tech used to validate financial transactions to allow airports or the T.S.A. to confirm from a passenger's mobile phone app and without collecting personal data that they have had a recent coronavirus test or haven't recently been in a hot zone. Mammoth Biosciences and the pharmaceutical company GSK are working on a coronavirus test that yields results in 20 minutes. Maybe a quick, convenient test becomes part of boarding. For the love of travel or out of necessity, Americans have shown themselves willing to endure minor humiliations like partly disrobing to get through security and major annoyances like being stranded for days by canceled flights. In Covid 19, we have a new disaster to face, which will require a new set of rules, behaviors and annoyances to deal with. Bill Saporito is a contributor to the editorial board. 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
Luke Pritchard and Jonny Laxton were 13 when they met at a boarding school in Crowthorne, England, in 2011. They bonded over a shared love of underground music and in 2014 started a YouTube channel, College Music, to promote the artists they liked. At first, the channel grew slowly. Then, in the spring of 2016, Mr. Pritchard discovered 24/7 live streaming, a feature that allows YouTube's users to broadcast a single video continuously. College Music had 794 subscribers in April 2015, a year before Mr. Pritchard and Mr. Laxton started streaming. A month after they began, they had more than 18,440. In April 2016, they had 98,110 subscribers and as of last month, with three active live streams, they have more than triple that amount, with 334,000. They make about 5,000 a month from the streams. Live streams come in many different genres. Two of College Music's streams are part of a family of channels that broadcast what the broadcasters call lofi (low fidelity) hip hop, mellow music that would sound familiar to fans of J. Dilla and Nujabes. Such videos, with subscriber counts in the hundreds of thousands, are some of the most popular continuously streaming music stations on the site. Many are run by young Europeans, who may have only a passing familiarity with the history of the music they are spreading. And they don't know why, but their users really do insist on the anime images. Mr. Laxton said fans protested when the imagery of the video was changed, and provided a screenshot of a particularly upset user requesting that an anime clip be restored to one of its three stations. The channels occupy a precarious space between YouTube's algorithm and its copyright policing, drawing comparisons to the unlicensed pirate radio stations of the 20th century, recreated in the digital sphere. Many of the channels blink in and out of existence within a week, but their presence has become a compelling part of the site's musical ecosystem. And while competitors like Spotify are gaining, YouTube still dominates the streaming world, according to the latest Music Consumer Insight Report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. When Mr. Pritchard and Mr. Laxton started streaming, they ran the channel from Mr. Pritchard's dorm, which was right above the housemaster's room. "Every other day he'd tell me to turn it down because he could hear the bass bumping," Mr. Pritchard said. Mr. Pritchard, now 20, said there are so many new competitors now that it has become far more difficult to get the kind of instant success that he and Mr. Laxton discovered two years ago. A YouTube spokeswoman, Veronica Navarrete, said that while YouTube Live had been available since 2011 and continuous live streaming had been available since late 2012, the number of live channels that stream daily has quadrupled year over year since 2016. One of the most popular channels in the lofi family is called ChilledCow. It's run by Dimitri, a 23 year old who lives on the outskirts of Paris. He started his live stream on Feb. 25, 2017, and his listenership, well, as you can see from the below image, it grew. (Dimitri asked that his last name not be used.) YouTube disciplines stations that color outside the lines. Streams are shut down all the time and even veterans of the scene get dinged. Bas, 28, who runs one of the most popular channels in the lofi family, Chillhop Music, from his home in Rotterdam, was recently assessed a strike over a copyright violation. At the moment, he does not have an active live stream. The platform's willingness to enforce intellectual property rights, even casually, has forced stations like Chillhop Music, College Music, ChilledCow and others to form their own relationships with the artists. "The artists don't get angry with us cause we know them and a lot of the music is from our label," said Bas, who refused to use his full name because he did not want people bothering him on his personal accounts. "They rightfully get angry at some other channels though as a lot of people are just capitalizing on the artists." Channels like College Music, ChilledCow, Chillhop Music and others are unlikely to have a broad impact on the music industry. But they represent an underground alternative to the streaming hegemony of Spotify and Apple Music. The industry commentator Bob Lefsetz said that while the stations were not likely to become a lucrative endeavor, they were a way for members of the public to seize power back from cultural gatekeepers. Nico Perez, a founder of MixCloud, applauded the channels, and said they were a natural response to the homogeneity of traditional radio playlists. But he was troubled by the total power that YouTube yielded over the ecosystem. "If they grow large enough, YouTube will have to decide whether they want to support it or if it's not what they're looking for on the platform," he said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
That obsession fuels the play, and leads to scenes both cringe inducing and intense. It would be easy to chastise Philip were he not so recognizable to anyone who has, at one time or another, made inane decisions clouded by sex or desire. (It's no surprise that the play's subplots feature two substance abusing characters, who in their own ways mirror Philip's cravings.) Mr. Prest balances his darkly fascinating character's mania with an underlying sense of goodness. You can see it on his face: This man realizes he is being rash, yet is unable to control himself. His jealousy and passion are all the more unnerving for being so naked. Ms. Monteith, unafraid to parade her character's odiousness, knows how to deliver a line that plants seeds of doubt in Philip's mind. It's a bold performance of a manipulative character. (And a star making role for Bette Davis in the 1934 film version of the novel.) Stuart Hughes, as Cronshaw, one of Philip's pals, and Sarah Wilson, as Norah, a potential love interest, excel in the choicest supporting roles. "It's always the same, isn't it?" she says, sorrowfully. "If you want men to behave well, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it." That line, taken almost verbatim from Maugham, prompted a collective nod from the audience. In a note to his script, Mr. Thiessen suggests that "the play should flow around Carey without stopping," and the cast of 12, directed by Albert Schultz, the company's artistic director, stays in constant motion to follow the plan: Actors who are not part of a scene play musical instruments or create sound effects at the sides of the stage, fostering a sometimes eerie mood or supporting the script's humor. Lorenzo Savoini's lighting and sets, and Erika Connor's costumes, are first rate.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
In trying to bring freshness to standard repertory works, Mr. van Zweden has a tendency to overdo things. With his insightful account of this symphony, though, he did almost the opposite. He brought out inner details, revealing the rhetoric of the piece that is, the way phrases are written like sentences, grouped into paragraphs, even when the music seems on the surface to run on with overextended elaborations of themes. Rachmaninoff was in his mid 30s when he wrote the Second Symphony, first performed in 1908, and still felt bruised by the hostile reaction to his First a decade earlier. The slow Largo section that opens the piece unfolded like the introduction to an essay, with themes almost presented for consideration. The orchestral sound is rich and thick, with passages played over dark, sustained bass tones. Yet the performance had remarkable lucidity and breadth, which continued as the Largo segued into the restless, expansive Allegro main section of the first movement. Mr. van Zweden drew crisp, snappy playing from the orchestra in the exuberant, scherzo like second movement. The intriguing way he began the slow movement made it seem like it starts in the middle of some long melodic line. His approach set up the Adagio's true theme, a wistful, elegiac melody for solo clarinet, played gorgeously by Anthony McGill, the Philharmonic's principal clarinet. The account of the finale captured all its headlong energy, music at once festive and frenzied. Mr. Bronfman has made news in recent years at the Philharmonic in the premieres of daunting concertos written for him by Esa Pekka Salonen and Magnus Lindberg. There was plenty of sparkling passagework in his playing of Beethoven's ebullient Second Concerto. But he seemed intent on highlighting the music's reflective passages and poetic flights, especially in his dreamy account of the slow movement.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
It's World Backup Day, which is another way of saying it's a good time to safeguard your digital photos, videos, documents and emails by creating second copies, or backups, of them and storing them somewhere secure. As headlines about hacking and cybertheft remind us daily, our personal devices are vulnerable. The good news is that setting up a system to keep your files backed up automatically is easy. Spending a little time today could save you a lot of trouble in the future. Here's a quick guide to the basics, with tips from our partners at The Wirecutter, the product review website, and J. D. Biersdorfer, who writes the Tech Tip features for The New York Times. An automated backup system can preserve all the essential files, even your iTunes library, that are stored on your computer.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
WHAT IS IT? One of only two diesel station wagons sold in the United States. HOW MUCH? 30,290 for 2013 model as tested with sunroof, navigation system and 17 inch wheels. Base price of 2014 TDI wagon is 27,070. WHAT'S UNDER THE HOOD? 2 liter 4 cylinder diesel (140 horsepower, 236 pound feet of torque) with a 6 speed automated direct shift gearbox. IS IT THIRSTY? No, and that's the whole point: the E.P.A. rating is 29 m.p.g. in the city, 39 m.p.g. on the highway (or 30/42 with the standard 6 speed manual transmission). If you need proof that the press is not all powerful in shaping public opinion, check out the car market. Auto writers have long tooted the horn about the benefits of diesel engines, and a bunch of them have also argued that the old school station wagon is a far more efficient way to haul things around than a bloated high set S.U.V. Nonetheless, two things that American car buyers have spurned are diesels and wagons. Yet maybe because Volkswagen officials fell for the car talk, or because they believe the times are changing or indeed because the times are changing the company is now selling a diesel station wagon in the United States. So when it was time to pop up for my 50th high school reunion (gulp!) in Connecticut, I thought a Jetta SportWagen TDI would be just the conveyance for a plunge back into the future. I envisioned rattling up Route 7 trailed by a black cloud and then running out of fuel at the 10th gas station without a diesel pump as a perfect echo of those halcyon days. Seriously, though, I live in France, where station wagons are quite popular and almost everyone drives diesels including me, by choice, whenever I rent a car. I simply do not see the point of burning euros on gasoline, especially when the far higher torque of a turbodiesel can be quite entertaining. (Check out the winners of the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race the last eight years.) And the black smoke is a thing of the past. The only reminder that a modern diesel engine is burning oil is a faint rattle under the hood and the smell on your hands when you eventually do have to fill the tank. Alas, the diesel wagon test car never made it to school; a friendly neighbor backed into the front fender, and VW didn't have another Jetta test car available. I completed the trip in a Passat diesel sedan, which has the same engine and 6 speed DSG automatic transmission, but is a notch grander in accouterments, length (by a foot) and weight (by 211 pounds), and somehow gets slightly better mileage (rated 30/40 with the automatic and 31/43 with the manual). The Passat was great for eating up highway miles and avoiding gas stations, but the comparison helped to convince me that the Jetta wagon better represents traditional VW values. It seems the wiser substitute for the ubiquitous suburban S.U.V. I should note here that the Jetta SportWagen has not been subjected to the decontenting of other Jettas for the American market. I've not driven those, but the SportWagen remains pleasantly close in driving feel and quality to its Golf sibling, which has not been downgraded. My Toffee Brown test wagon with "cornsilk leatherette" interior (marketing speak for brown with admirably leatherlike tan vinyl) was the top trim level, with sunroof, navigation system, rearview camera and keyless ignition as the big attractions. Beyond that was a rather comprehensive and typically (for VW) convenient array of the power accessories and electronic driving aids you'd expect in a 30,000 car. I really liked the clean, uncluttered design, and VWs have always had a neat, functional and intuitive interior layout. The seats were supportive and amply adjustable, and the back seat folded in a 60 40 split. In short, it was all nicely finished and laid out. But let's be honest, all this can be said of a lot of cars today. What would nudge me toward investing in the SportWagen is, first, the TDI engine. I didn't have the Jetta long enough to do my own reckoning of its fuel economy, but the two diesels I drove gave no reason to question the E.P.A. figures on the window sticker, including a combined city highway rating of 33 m.p.g. That's hybrid territory, with a single tank driving range of over 500 miles. That economy also comes with a big surge of power at low engine speeds, conveying a typically diesel sense of a lot more power than the horsepower figures suggest. On a twisty road, the SportWagen confirmed that it was not a GTI, but it was a lot more fun than the crossover utility wagons I've driven. And the three gas stations I pulled into at random in Connecticut and on the New Jersey Turnpike all had diesel, though admittedly in the price range of premium grade gasoline. The second attraction is, yes, the time tested advantages of the wagon body style. The wagon was banished from suburbia when it became overly associated with runs to Safeway and the soccer field, but of course the reason the wagon was so popular in the day was precisely because it was so convenient for grocery and soccer runs. Nobody believes any longer that you need a Chevy Equinox in your driveway for combat duty, so why not get a car that offers as much or more space in the back (nearly 33 cubic feet with the rear seats up, and 67 cubic feet with the seats folded), gets far better gas mileage and is a hoot to drive?	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
As a prologue to a formal dance piece, a thunderous drum solo is a risky choice. It kicks the show off with a bang, but can the choreography match and maintain that excitement? The achievement of Anna Sperber's "Prize" is that it largely does. The hourlong work, which had its debut at New York Live Arts on Friday as part of the Joyce Theater's Joyce Unleashed series, has two centers of attention. One is the exceptional drummer Ryan Sawyer, who sits in a back corner coaxing rolls, shimmers, sand storms and other electrifying sounds from his kit. The other is the actual center of the space, the focal point for many of Ms. Sperber's kaleidoscopic designs. After Mr. Sawyer's opening salvo, Michael Ingle circles the stage in leaps, tilting toward the center. Once the work's five other dancers have joined him, they form a circle, facing inward. There's a cultish quality to how they stare at one another and conjoin by forehead, but also a tenderness in their touching of cheeks and chins and smalls of the back. That is, until Lizzie Feidelson breaks the spell with a shove. Similarly enlivening jolts of aggression return through the work, crucial counterparts to the unsettling crack of Mr. Sawyer's rimshots. Other aspects of drama emerge, particularly in the interactions between Elliott Jenetopulos's evocative lighting and Sara Walsh's elegantly spare set design of open wings, hanging strips and a white floor that Mr. Jenetopulos can darken or make gleam like ice. When the lights dim and the dancers twirl ropes above their heads, the whirling hum in the moon glow is hair raising.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Ruiz's film has no particular plot. Or, rather, there are many. Proust's "Time Regained" postscripts the action of his novel's six preceding volumes. The narrator revisits past events and, in effect, explains how the entire work came into being. The movie opens with Marcel on his deathbed, imagining his novel. His recent return to Paris is much on his mind. World War I is raging as he re encounters his old social circle, attends their soirees and observes their affairs. People are recalled at various ages; the writer is watched in memories by his childhood self. "If there were a prize for sheer ambition at this year's New York Film Festival, it would justly go to 'Time Regained,'" Janet Maslin wrote in her mixed review for The New York Times. Proust is a writer whose work defeated such distinguished adapters as Joseph Losey and Luchino Visconti; Ruiz succeeds because his movie is something of a search for Proust's own search. "Time Regained" lacks the majestic screwiness of Ruiz's earlier fun house labyrinths, like "Three Crowns of the Sailor" and "Life Is a Dream," but finds all manner of visual equivalents to its source not just the circular narrative or modernist, multiple perspective simultaneity but also the way that movies themselves are predicated on physiological memories. Photographs abound, as do match cuts, sound bridges and other forms of associative editing. All about remembering (cinema not least), this luxurious bath in the river of time is, to lift a phrase from Proust, consecrated to "the miracle of an analogy." The movie is also a testament to the Proustian notion that true paradises are those that are lost. "Time Regained" had its theatrical opening at the recently closed Lincoln Plaza Cinema; it may move some who see it again with an additional sense of time gone by.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
The regulations also state, "Astronauts or employees who are currently employed by NASA cannot have their names, likenesses or other personality traits displayed in any advertisements or marketing material." Neither SpaceX, NASA nor the Trump campaign replied to emails asking for comment Thursday night. Unlike his predecessors, who generally emphasized support by both Republicans and Democrats for the space program, President Trump has cast NASA in more partisan terms. After the launch, he gave a celebratory speech at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida during which he thanked a list of politicians for their support of NASA all Republicans. During the address, he also portrayed the space program as moribund when he took office in 2017 and gave himself credit for reviving NASA's human spaceflight program. "When I first came into office three and a half years ago, NASA had lost its way," he said. He criticized the Obama administration, saying it "presided over the closing of the space shuttle." That and other assertions in the speech were exaggerations. While Mr. Trump has elevated elements of space policy in his White House, the NASA program that led to Saturday's SpaceX launch started in 2009 during President Barack Obama's first term. It was shepherded by Charles F. Bolden Jr., a retired United States Marine Corps major general who served as NASA administrator during the Obama administration, and often encountered resistance from Republicans in Congress who criticized commercial crew and shifted money away to other programs. The current administrator, Jim Bridenstine, invited Mr. Bolden to the launch and lauded the prior administrator's efforts in getting commercial crew started.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead. ORPHEUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA at Carnegie Hall (Sept. 26, 8 p.m.). The Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki joins the Orpheus players for Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 2, a piece that they released on record, to some effect, in February. Also on the bill are Mendelssohn's "Italian" Symphony and the premiere of "Shift, Change, Turn and Variations" by Jessie Montgomery, a work in a long line of music that dwells on the turning of the seasons. 212 247 7800, carnegiehall.org 'PORGY AND BESS' at the Metropolitan Opera (Sept. 23, 6 p.m.; through Oct. 16). The Met's season opens with a gala performance of this Gershwin classic, in a new and reportedly strong production by James Robinson. David Robertson conducts a cast that includes Angel Blue as Bess, Eric Owens as Porgy, Golda Schultz as Clara and Latonia Moore as Serena. After its initial run, the production returns in January with a similar cast. Elsewhere in the Met's first week, Massenet's "Manon" returns (Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., through Oct. 26), with Lisette Oropesa in the title role and Michael Fabiano as the Chevalier des Grieux; and Anna Netrebko strides the stage she rules in Verdi's "Macbeth" (Wednesday at 8 p.m., through Oct. 12), opposite Matthew Polenzani, Ildar Abdrazakov and Placido Domingo, who will continue to sing at the house while it awaits the results of the Los Angeles Opera's investigation into accusations of sexual harassment against him. 212 362 6000, metopera.org ADAM TENDLER AND JENNY LIN at the Catacombs of the Green Wood Cemetery (Sept. 24 27, 7:30 p.m.). Liszt's "Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses" is hardly ever heard in its entirety, and makes such demands of its players that two pianists will be on hand here. They'll find themselves plentifully employed. A massive cycle of 10 piano pieces, "Harmonies" includes some of the composer's most famous and pyrotechnic music, not least "Funerailles," but also some of his most tender and gentle, including "Benediction de Dieu dans la Solitude." The performance begins at 7:30 p.m., but there's a whiskey tasting before that, starting at 6 p.m. deathofclassical.com	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
LOS ANGELES One of Marvel Entertainment's most sprawling superhero mythologies, the Inhumans, is headed to the small screen in a major way. But the Inhuman likes of Black Bolt, Crystal and Lockjaw, the teleporting dog, will first appear on big screens. As in the biggest. Imax Corporation, Marvel and the ABC broadcast network announced a partnership on Monday to introduce and finance a lavish new television series that will focus on the Inhuman royal family. Under the agreement, a version that combines the initial two episodes of "Marvel's The Inhumans," shot entirely with Imax cameras, will play exclusively for two weeks next September on Imax screens worldwide. Shortly thereafter, the episodes edited to include additional scenes will run on ABC, with new installments unspooling in typical prime time fashion. (The look of the series on TV will be enhanced due to Imax technology.) The series, billed as a family action adventure with signature Marvel humor, will be set in the present day, with some action seeming to take place on the moon. The deal is significant for several reasons. As their live audiences have dwindled and competition has increased, broadcast networks have struggled to create sizzle around new shows. ABC, which urgently needs new hits, is betting that Imax, with its strength among younger consumers known as fanboys, will help make "The Inhumans" a must see event. "In the incredibly crowded marketplace of television, we are very excited about this because it's a unique and innovative and bold way to debut our best new content," Ben Sherwood, president of Disney ABC Television Group, said by phone. The deal also indicates that Disney remains focused on telling Marvel stories on ABC after an unexceptional start to that effort. "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." has brought more male viewers to ABC, but it has been only a modest ratings performer. Another effort, "Agent Carter," was a misfire. ABC wants what Marvel Television and ABC Studios have supplied to Netflix buzz creating, widely watched series like "Luke Cage" and "Daredevil." A co financing arrangement with Imax will allow ABC and Marvel to spend more to make "The Inhumans," which will include cinema quality visual effects. (One criticism of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." has been that certain action sequences are less than dazzling.) Imax has never before served as a financing participant in a TV series, according to Richard L. Gelfond, the company's chief executive. What happened on Day 2 of Elizabeth Holmes's testimony. Kevin Spacey was ordered to pay 31 million to the 'House of Cards' studio after sexual harassment allegations. "We think this is a business for us," Mr. Gelfond said of the financing arrangement. "Because Imax has an equity participation both in the pilot and in the series, this deal will be financially advantageous to Imax on an ongoing basis." Imax has dabbled in the past at showing TV content on its supersize screens. Last year, for instance, it played a couple of Season 4 episodes of "Game of Thrones." But a series has never before made its debut through Imax, which has more than 1,000 locations worldwide. "We see it as a way to extend the Imax brand and diversify our revenue," Mr. Gelfond said. In particular, he hopes television content could help draw crowds to Imax locations at times of the year like fall when there is a dearth of blockbuster style movies. Imax worked for years to find a winning strategy for quieter times at the box office; most recently it tried showing films aimed at older audiences, which delivered weak results. "We're confident our exhibition partners will be excited about this," Mr. Gelfond said. "The response from conceptual conversations has been extremely positive." Marvel, which has been on a box office tear, initially expected to turn the Inhumans into a string of movies, even announcing its plans publicly in 2014. But the studio ultimately decided the property would be a better fit for TV, in part because there were already a lot of different Marvel movie franchises continuing. Mr. Sherwood, noting pains have been taken to make sure ABC affiliates are on board with the Imax debut, said the "sneak peek" of "The Inhumans" would include "big, theatrical moments specially conceived for the Imax screen." The series debut will also come at a time when no Marvel movies are playing in theaters. "We've worked very carefully with our friends at Marvel Studios and this is a critical point to make sure that calendar wise and content wise we are only enhancing the Marvel universe," he said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
When Nathalie Guedes and her husband, Christopher Zardoya, were planning their wedding at 501 Union in Brooklyn, they knew they wanted flowers and lots of them. "We're both from Miami, so we're used to tropical plants and flowers everywhere," she said. Still, they didn't want to spend too much money. Centerpieces and bouquets are often thrown away after the night ends, and as architects, they believe strongly in sustainability. "Weddings can be so wasteful, so we tried to reuse as much as we could," said Ms. Guedes, who budgeted 2,000 for florals. She and her husband used discarded squares of marble from finished architectural projects to make decorative table number plaques and seating number assignments. Then Ms. Guedes discovered Bloomerent, a company that finds ways for brides and grooms to share wedding flowers. "We loved that our flowers would have a second life," she said. And, of course, they saved cash. Couples can save thousands of dollars in these rent back arrangements. My Flowers Are Now Your Flowers Here's how it works: If you sign up with one of 60 participating Bloomerent florists, brides and grooms can rent back their wedding flowers to another couple locally, with florists picking up the designs at the completion of one wedding and delivering it to another wedding for use the following day. (Currently, the company works with florists in 26 states and the District of Columbia.) The reward: big savings on flowers for both brides. The first bride receives a 10 percent refund on the total cost of her flowers, while the second bride pays 40 to 60 percent of the original cost. (So if the flowers originally cost 10,000, the second bride is paying only 4,000 to 6,000, and the first bride gets 1,000 back.) Everyone wants their wedding to be beautiful, and florals are often considered crucial when completing the look and feel of a ceremony and reception space. But couples get sticker shock when they realize just how much those overflowing centerpieces they saw on Pinterest actually cost. They begin to wonder if there is any way to get the costs down, and the good news is, even beyond Bloomerent, there are. Erica Jones, the creative director of O Luxe Designs, a Boston based wedding design company that caters to high end clients around the world, says that floral budgets climb when couples meet with a florist with very specific ideas, often gleaned from a glossy social media post or swoon worthy magazine spread. "You'll save money by going in with an open mind," she said. You should still bring the photo, but ask how you can realistically achieve the look within your budget. Maybe the floral designer can suggest a similar color scheme using less expensive flowers, or maybe the flowers in the photo are particularly expensive at that time of year, but a similar flower is less at the same time. Sometimes a simple adjustment can save hundreds or thousands of dollars. Ranunculus flowers, which are often considered timeless and ephemeral, are readily available most of the year, but one popular variety, the Clooney, is available only for a few weeks, making them extra expensive. South American hydrangeas, which are white, light blue and pale green, are significantly less expensive than hydrangeas from Holland, which come in more vibrant shades of blue, pink and purple. There are certain times of the year when the cost of flowers skyrocket, mostly because of demand. If you are getting married around Mother's Day or Valentine's Day, you should expect to pay more no matter what flower you're considering. In the fall, especially Halloween, orange or mango toned flowers are more expensive than they are at any other time of the year. Some may think that greenery is less expensive, but it is not. "The kind of greenery brides want is often just as much as flowers," Ms. Jones said. Bigger Blooms, More Bang for the Buck Choosing flowers with more volume can also help couples save since they take up more space in a vase. You'll need many more tulips to fill a centerpiece than you would, say, garden roses, which take up more visual space. "Larger blooms can often give you more bang for your buck," said Courtney Nelson Lunsford, a lead planner with Pineapple Productions, an event planner in Washington. Also, don't think you have to put flowers everywhere. Ms. Nelson Lunsford encourages brides to consider focal points in the reception space. Think about areas where guests will spend the most time and consider making investments to create more visual impact in those spots. Maybe there's a gorgeous entryway, and you want to place a tall imposing arrangement on a circular table at the center. You might use floral arrangements at food stations since people will congregate there, or if all eyes are on a live band, then tall arrangements flanking them might be worth it. Do It Yourself, or Maybe Not The ultimate way to save money, of course, would be to do the flowers yourself. If you're having a casual barn wedding, for example, you might cut wildflowers and insert them in Mason jars on the tables. But Carly Cylinder, the author of "The Flower Chef: A Modern Guide to Do It Yourself Floral Arrangements," doesn't recommend D.I.Y. for wedding flowers. Ever. "Yes, you can do it, but why would you? In 20 years, you're not going to remember the extra thousand or two you spent on flowers. But you'll always remember the stress of running around the day before your wedding making centerpieces."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
On the evening of Sept. 8, 1944, a rocket hurtled into the sky from a mobile launchpad in Nazi occupied Holland, carrying with it a one ton warhead and Hitler's last, desperate hopes of victory. It reached a height of 58 miles and a speed of 3,500 miles per hour, emitted a terrifying crack as it broke the sound barrier over London, and then slammed into Staveley Road in the suburb of Chiswick, killing three people: an old woman, a toddler and a soldier visiting his girlfriend. The V 2 rocket was the Nazis' last secret weapon and the world's first long range guided ballistic missile, the harbinger of a new science that would eventually land Americans on the moon. The V stood for Vergeltungswaffe, or vengeance weapon, and was intended as retaliation for the Allied bombing of Germany. With this powerful new armament, Hitler believed he could finally bomb Britain into submission, but the very name seemed to presage defeat: Only the vanquished seek vengeance. The science and story of the V 2 furnish the backdrop for the latest novel by , his 14th. Like "Enigma," "Munich" and "Fatherland," "V2" is another swiftly paced thriller that blends fiction with the facts of World War II. Running alongside the well known history of the German rocket is the hidden tale of Britain's attempt to stymie the rocket attacks with algebra. This book was one of our most anticipated titles of November. See the full list. British mathematicians believed that by using radar to track the path of each rocket, and working back from the point of impact, they could calculate exactly where it had been launched from. If this was done fast enough, they could in theory locate the position of the launchpads before the Germans dismantled them, scramble R.A.F. bombers from Britain and destroy them. Thus a team of female air force officers was dispatched to newly liberated Belgium, armed with slide rules and graph paper, to try to confound the Fuhrer's rocket program using the theorem of the parabolic curve. Each calculation had to be completed in under six minutes. On opposite sides of this strange military equation Harris places Kay Caton Walsh, a young woman who survives a rocket attack in London and joins the team of officers racing to calculate the coordinates of the launch sites, and Rudi Graf, a German civilian engineer sent to supervise the rocket launches from Holland. The figure of Graf may be familiar to readers of Harris's fiction: a good man in a bad world, seeking to reconcile his work with his conscience. 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. Behind Graf lurks the enigmatic character of Wernher von Braun, the real life space scientist, Nazi of convenience, sometime SS officer and the charming, politically agile head of the V 2 program who would throw his lot in with America at war's end and play a key role in the U.S. space program. "V2" was written, Harris explains, during the coronavirus lockdown, and it has the intensity of a book produced under abnormal pressure: Some of the strain we have all felt in recent months seems to be reflected in his characters as they struggle toward the end of an exhausting war. This is a book written fast, and it hurtles along, following its own, less predictable emotional trajectory. At a mass funeral for members of a V 2 launch crew, killed when one of the rockets explodes, an SS general declares: "There is not a building standing within 500 meters of Leicester Square. ... We are the Vengeance Division! We will prevail!" His lie captures the combination of bombast and mendacity that marked the final days of the Nazi regime. Equally true to history is the subdued assessment made by a British officer of the V 2 campaign: "a bloody nuisance." The rockets killed about 2,700 Londoners and destroyed 20,000 homes. But of the missiles aimed at London, only 517 hit the capital while 598 fell short, detonated in flight or otherwise failed. They caused widespread anxiety, but had little impact on the course of the war, and may even have hastened the end for Hitler by soaking up vast resources at a crucial moment: Germany was running out of food, but the alcohol to fuel each rocket had to be brewed from 30 tons of potatoes. The ingenious mathematical effort to stop the rockets did not work either. Not a single launch site was hit. The bombers simply could not be deployed with sufficient speed and accuracy to pinpoint the other end of a 200 mile ballistic curve. In the hands of a lesser writer, this damp squib of history might be an impediment, but in the course of this gripping novel Harris captures something of the real nature of war: good ideas that fail, perverted science, grandiosity, lies and unintended consequences. Hitler had hoped to defy fate with a last dramatic bang. In the end, the V 2 campaign and the attempt to stop it, despite the brainpower, planning and sacrifice on both sides, were failures. After the war, von Braun was among the 1,600 German scientists and engineers who were recruited to the United States as government employees in a secret program called Operation Paperclip. By 1960, his V 2 team had been incorporated into NASA. In 1975, he received the National Medal of Science. History can sometimes take unexpected trajectories, with incalculable outcomes.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
In Henry Alex Rubin's "Semper Fi," men are men, women are props and brotherhood whether literal or figurative is everything. Virtually sweating testosterone from every frame, the movie follows five longtime friends as they bicker, drink and roughhouse their way through a story that purports to be about honor and is really about stupidity. At its center is Cal (Jai Courtney), a stiff jawed police officer and, like his friends, a Marine Corps reservist. When not bowling, boozing or playing weekend warrior, Cal is pulling his younger half brother, Oyster (Nat Wolff), out of scrapes. A numbskull with a gigantic chip on his shoulder, Oyster can barely walk the length of himself without picking a fight.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Then she became the Scorned Wife after her divorce (and, later, Mr. Pitt's marriage to Angelina Jolie) ushered in the feverish "Team Aniston" era, which spanned several years and created an "insane Bermuda Triangle," as she told GQ in 2008. And the title of that GQ article, "Lordy, Lordy, This Woman Is 40," signaled a new era for Ms. Aniston. She became the Single Aging Woman. "If I am some kind of symbol to some people out there, then clearly I am an example of the lens through which we, as a society, view our mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, female friends and colleagues," she wrote in the Huffington Post essay. "The objectification and scrutiny we put women through is absurd and disturbing." Ms. Aniston's marriage to the actor Justin Theroux whom she wed in 2015 after years of speculative headlines about their relationship has entered the territory of constant conjecture over whether or not she is pregnant. As Ms. Aniston puts it, she has "grown tired of being part of this narrative." "Here's where I come out on this topic: We are complete with or without a mate, with or without a child," she wrote. "We get to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
A Museum Devoted to Survivors Now Faces Its Own Fight to Live The Tenement Museum, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, has always seemed fragile, with its creaky floors and cramped rooms in which striving immigrants once made their homes. Now it seems downright breakable. The coronavirus pandemic has shuttered cultural institutions all over the world, withering their staffs and canceling long planned initiatives. But the prospects are particularly dire for small institutions like the Tenement Museum, whose very survival is suddenly uncertain. They do not have large endowments or deep pocketed donors, and have long depended on admission fees to keep the lights on. "This crisis is hitting cultural organizations harder than any in recent memory," said Eli Dvorkin, the editorial and policy director of the Center for an Urban Future, a public policy think tank, which this month published the report "Art in the Time of Coronavirus: NYC's Small Arts Organizations Fighting for Survival." "Without more support for rent, payroll, utilities, insurance and other costs," Mr. Dvorkin added, "it's likely that many will be unable to reopen even once the worst is over." The report cited the Tenement Museum as among the hardest hit. Experts said its loss would be significant because, while many museums chronicle the history of the rich their mansions, art collections and aesthetic tastes few depict the history of the poor, and the cultural life of everyday Americans. "The Tenement Museum has so magnificently reconstructed that," said Tyler Anbinder, a history professor at George Washington University who specializes in immigration, "right down to the soap boxes and the scouring pads that immigrants used. If an institution like that were to go under, it would be a real tragedy." Other museums around the country are losing at least 33 million a day because of coronavirus closures, according to the American Alliance of Museums. Founded in 1988 in two once dilapidated buildings, the museum offers tours of the restored tenement rooms as well as a permanent collection of artifacts, including document fragments, photographs and furniture. Though the Tenement Museum has a relatively modest budget of 11.5 million, more than 75 percent of its revenue comes from admissions and gift shop sales. Its endowment 2.7 million is too small to generate significant operating income, so the museum has not been drawing from it. The museum also owes 9.5 million in mortgage loans on its buildings, which costs the museum 50,000 a month. So the Tenement Museum has pared down, laying off 13 employees and furloughing about 70 part time staffers and 30 full time staff reducing its operating costs by 70 percent. "We don't want to run with debt," said Morris J. Vogel, the museum's president. "We don't want to incur debt now." The monthly payroll for part time and full time employees has been slashed to just under 100,000 from about 700,000. "If absolutely necessary, we could cut that down," Mr. Vogel said. "One way or the other, we will get through this." The museum has also, quite simply, gone begging. Whereas cultural organizations typically cultivate donors through a lengthy courtship, the coronavirus has forced a more brazen and urgent form of fund raising. "Help the Tenement Museum Survive," implores the museum on its website (where it has raised 88,115 from 798 small donors and 170,000 from several major donors) and on its Facebook page ( 20,229 from 518 donors). "These are extraordinary times," the pitch continues. "The Tenement Museum is an extraordinary place. The Museum faces an extraordinary crisis." And Mr. Vogel has turned to the museum's friends, such as Stuart Gelwarg and Karen Lipkind, who live in the neighborhood and have taken about 20 tours at the museum over the last year. The couple said they were happy to make a donation of several thousand dollars (preferring not to disclose the exact amount). "We're hooked on this museum," Mr. Gelwarg said. "It's a time machine." The Zegar Family Foundation has donated a 250,000 challenge grant to encourage gifts to the gala. (Merryl Snow Zegar is a chairwoman of the board.) It isn't easy to ask, Mr. Vogel said, but he has no choice. "We're not earning anything for four months," Mr. Vogel said. "Any institution has to wonder what it's going to look like on the other side." Meanwhile, the Tenement Museum is trying to keep the trains running, including maintenance of its two Orchard Street properties, one of which still has a few tenants. "The last thing we're going to do is leave those buildings to the elements," Mr. Vogel said. Though Mr. Vogel, 74, is in a high risk category for the virus, he still goes into the museum once every other week to sign checks. Having served as president from 2008 to 2017, he came out of retirement last fall to serve on an interim basis, while the museum searches for someone permanent. Even as he cuts costs, Mr. Vogel is focused on beefing up the museum's online programming, with a digital exhibit on the census, for example. It offered a live craft making program for children "inspired by the resourcefulness of former tenement residents." And on Wednesday it will present "A Nickel for a Pickle" on YouTube, "a journey into the history of pickles on the Lower East Side," including "a short demo of how to make your own cucumber pickles at home!" With schools closed, the museum has also been pushing out educational materials to thousands of teachers, drawing on the expertise developed for tours like "Life and Death at the Tenement," developed in 2018, which explores past epidemics like cholera, yellow fever, tuberculosis and AIDS. Mr. Vogel happens to be familiar with pandemics; he spent most of his career as a historian of medicine and is particularly attuned to how viruses are sometimes attributed to "outsiders." The Federalists in 1793 blamed Philadelphia's yellow fever on French speaking refugees fleeing a slave revolt in Santo Domingo, he said. In 1892, Jews were held responsible for bringing typhus and cholera to New York. "Immigrants were seen as disease carriers," he said. In this period of adversity, Mr. Vogel said, he is strengthened by a bedrock faith in the institution's mandate. "A lot of what makes us strong as a people came from the strength immigrants found in themselves," he said. "It's important to focus on that. "I have absolute conviction that what we're doing is essential," he continued. "We may have to do it online, we may have to rely on philanthropy instead of earned revenue, we may have to do it with a smaller staff. But we're going to do it."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
If you're interested in total immersion in the genius of Jim Henson (1936 90) the creator of the Muppets along with his gifted cohorts and a sense of how their miraculous art evolved, a new option is at hand: "The Jim Henson Exhibition," which opens Saturday, July 22, in its own newly built gallery at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens. There you'll find some 300 artifacts, objects and ephemera, including sketches, scripts, photographs and costumes, as well as 47 puppets and examples of Henson's little known forays into experimental film. The display, an initial selection from a large donation to the museum from Henson's family, is accompanied by some 30 monitors and projections and includes an interactive opportunity to try puppeteering (onscreen). The museum seems to understand that Henson fans are numerous; tickets will be timed. (718 777 6800, movingimage.us.)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Re "What the Pandemic Means for Climate Change," by Meehan Crist (Sunday Review, March 29): In Los Angeles, New York, Manila and Milan, the skies clear as air pollution drops. In Venice, the canal water is clear enough to see fish, and dolphins are returning. What would the world be like if we decided to pursue this trend? Less asthma and cancer, fewer lung and heart diseases, fewer deaths. More beauty in our lives. A slowing of global emissions. Coronavirus is catastrophic, but it opens a new path. What if the frantic rush hours, relentless production of often unneeded or quickly obsolete items, and nonstop consumer spending were to calm? If we invested in renewable energy, electric cars and public transportation, and stopped funding fossil fuels, would we create good jobs and improve health for ourselves and the planet? Before, it was hard to envision such a change, but now we can see glimpses of what it might offer. Any new stimulus bill in the United States should include funds for a transition to a more sustainable world. We owe it to our children and grandchildren.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
Of all the figures due for cinematic canonization on the centennial of World War I's conclusion, a dog named Stubby might not seem like the obvious choice. But Stubby was famous the first dog given rank in the United States Armed Forces, according to the Smithsonian. Also, "Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero" is a computer animated film. Stubby's feats of derring do would upstage the human interest even if those humans didn't look eerily round and smooth. Before his heroism, Stubby was a stray from New Haven, Conn., who joined in training exercises with the man who adopted him, J. Richard Conroy (voiced by Logan Lerman), and proved adept at the regimen, even managing a canine version of a salute.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
MIAMI Camila Cabello has been in love only once. But when it comes to crushes, she's a connoisseur. The pop singer and songwriter, formerly of the girl group Fifth Harmony, has filled pages of notes on her iPhone with ruminations on the sugar rush of embryonic infatuation and its aftermath words of hunger and grit that her fans turn into Instagram captions and scream back at her in concert. A pair of suggestive duets in the last two years, "I Know What You Did Last Summer" with Shawn Mendes and "Bad Things" with Machine Gun Kelly, have been streamed over 520 million times, according to Nielsen Music. Along with her breakout solo smash from last summer, "Havana," which has led Billboard's pop radio chart longer than any other song by a solo female artist in the past five years, they've helped turn her into an avatar for young girls on the cusp of steeper emotional terrain. Though not yet of legal drinking age, Ms. Cabello has come a long way from the schoolyard. At 15, she was beamed into the homes of millions of Americans as a contestant on the United States version of the reality singing competition "The X Factor." The show placed her in a five woman vocal group modeled on One Direction that the viewers at home named Fifth Harmony. Two albums on Simon Cowell's Syco label in partnership with Epic Records and six tours followed in a span of five years, during which time Ms. Cabello was, if not officially the group's lead, a consensus favorite, with the biggest voice and those disarming eyes. And then it all went to pieces. As manufactured pop groups tend to do. Only in this case, the split seemed sudden and surprisingly vicious: One day, Fifth Harmony was performing at the final stop of the Jingle Ball tour, smiling and hair flipping. The next, a series of contentious and contradictory statements were released, and Ms. Cabello found herself on the lonely end of a sharp divide. That was just over a year ago. In the interim, Ms. Cabello has struck out on her own, putting her hands on the controls of her professional life for the first time. "It's not easy for anybody, regardless of your starting point," said Tom Poleman, the chief programming officer for the radio conglomerate iHeartMedia, which recently booked Ms. Cabello solo for its Jingle Ball. "The field is so competitive that you really need the planets to align." At times, sole proprietorship has been overwhelming, with people constantly asking Ms. Cabello for her creative input or asking what happened with Fifth Harmony a subject she does her best to avoid. "I think there's a healthy amount of space you need to give certain things," she said. And so for 11 days in late December, in the cocoon of her hometown, she took a break. She settled into old rhythms at her family home and came to Pinecrest to pick up her younger sister, Sofia, only after wresting herself from a savored "Sex and the City" binge. ("In my heart I'm a Carrie, but sadly I think I act like a Charlotte," she said.) On a tour of its green, al fresco campus, wearing True Religion overalls with one suspender undone and black hightop Chuck Taylors, she looked at ease and made everyone around her feel the same. An old teacher asked whether she would be going on tour soon and she said she was in no rush. "For now," she said, "I just want to be a kid." Ms. Cabello comes from a lineage of strivers. She was born in Havana to a Cuban mother and Mexican father and moved back and forth between Cojimar and Mexico City until the age of 6. One day, her mother, Sinuhe, told her she was going to Disney World, and the two spent the next month together riding by bus to an immigration center at the Mexican border with the United States. Sinuhe had been an architect in Cuba, but in Miami, where she and her daughter moved in with a close family friend, she found work in the shoe department at a Marshall's. "My parents' story helps me to know what's important in life," Ms. Cabello said. "A lot of times you can be here and be on Twitter and you think that the world is the internet. But I know what it's like in the places my family has come from and the struggles people go through." It caught Sinuhe and Alejandro by surprise when, for her 15th birthday in 2012, Ms. Cabello asked them to drive her to audition for the second season of "The X Factor." "She was so shy, so shy," said Sinuhe, who now travels with her daughter on the road, describing how her oldest child would regularly burst into tears at family parties with large crowds and loud music. "We didn't even think music was a possibility for her," Sinuhe said. In Fifth Harmony with Ally Brooke, Dinah Jane, Lauren Jauregui and Normani Kordei Ms. Cabello was living a dream. The group performed at the White House (twice) and released addictive hits like "Worth It" and "Work From Home" that alone racked up over one billion streams, according to Nielsen Music, and earned them legions of fiercely loyal fans. But dreams can change. In a statement released at midnight on Dec. 18, 2016, the four other members of the group suggested that Ms. Cabello had turned her back on them, communicating her intentions to leave "through her representatives." Ms. Cabello, in a subsequent statement of her own, said that she had long been open about her desire to explore a solo career and was blindsided by what amounted to a public excommunication. Over a feast of Cuban food at one of her family's favorite restaurants in Miami, and in a subsequent interview in New York a week later, she agreed to speak at length about how things fell apart. She said that her collaboration in late 2015 with Mr. Mendes the first time a Fifth Harmony member released music under her own name had created tension; that she had asked to help write lyrics for Fifth Harmony songs and was rebuffed; that she initially wanted to stay in the group while working on a solo album but the other members shut her out instead. Ms. Cabello during her school days in Cuba. She came to the United States when she was 6. "I was just curious and I wanted to learn and I saw all these people around me making music, writing songs and being so free," she said. "I just wanted to do that and it did not work." Ms. Cabello said that after the awkwardness of her collaboration with Mr. Mendes, things further soured when she began attending writing sessions with producers including Diplo, Cashmere Cat and Benny Blanco. Eventually, she said, she was given an ultimatum. "It became clear that it was not possible to do solo stuff and be in the group at the same time," she said. So she made her choice, basing it on what she said was her conviction that "if anyone wants to explore their individuality, it's not right for people to tell you no." Since the breakup, Ms. Cabello has tried to move on from hard feelings, throwing herself into "Camila." (She changed its name from "The Hurting, the Healing, the Loving" partly to wash her hands of drama.) But it hasn't always been easy. In August last year, the remaining members took a less than subtle jab at their former groupmate with a stunt that opened a high profile performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. As the camera zoomed in on a dark, elevated platform showing five women in silhouette, one was dramatically yanked off the stage as if hit by a truck. Ms. Cabello's eyes welled up as she recalled watching it live. She had been at home in the living room with her mother. "It definitely hurt my feelings," she said. "I wasn't expecting it, I wasn't prepared for it especially because at that point I'd moved on from it. I was just like, 'What? Why?'" She gathered herself. "I have to make space for the good stuff to happen in my life," she said. "I don't like holding onto the past, especially when it's stuff that, in my opinion, is just petty." "Crying in the Club" an arch, dancehall flecked power ballad released last spring was produced by Benny Blanco from an original demo written and recorded by Sia. The track underperformed commercially and was left off the final track list of "Camila." "The reality of that song is it doesn't feel or sound like Camila," said Roger Gold, Ms. Cabello's manager and a former lawyer for Fifth Harmony. Mr. Gold said it took time for Ms. Cabello, free of the army of handlers and tacticians who maintained creative control of the girl group, to feel comfortable asserting herself in front of more seasoned collaborators. "The most important learning in this whole thing was that we were most successful when Camila trusted in her own instincts," he said. A breakthrough came while she was working with the producer Frank Dukes, born Adam Feeney, who has made his name as a prolific but low key co conspirator of self styled stars like Drake and Lorde. Many potential collaborators had come to the studio armed with sleek, brassy Top 40 munitions in the style of Fifth Harmony hits. But Mr. Feeney's approach was more nonchalant. Over sushi during an early session with Ms. Cabello last winter, he played her a deceptively simple instrumental with a prominent salsa piano riff. It reminded the singer of her birthplace, and she wrote the chorus for what became "Havana" on the spot. "There's not another artist in the world who could have done that song she just owns it," Mr. Feeney said. Many of the songs on "Camila," which Mr. Feeney executive produced and includes writing by Ms. Cabello on every track, are infused with tonal or lyrical references to her Latin heritage. Ms. Cabello said she took inspiration from the Latin music that soundtracked her childhood, as well as more contemporary reggaeton revisionists like Calle 13 and J Balvin. Then she blended those sounds with the auteur pop of artists like her friends Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran, hoping to unearth her own original recipe. "I feel like the best way to come up with something new and different is just to be the you est you possible," Ms. Cabello said. "If you pull from all the different little parts of yourself, nobody can replicate that." Mr. Poleman, of iHeartMedia, said it is Ms. Cabello's sensibilities as a songwriter that will define her career. With "Havana" and "Bad Things," he said, "she has quickly established herself as one of the most important young artists in pop music. "It always comes down to whether or not you have a song that resonates," he added. "I know she spends a lot of time thinking about that." In an under lit, overpriced restaurant in Midtown Manhattan after her break in Miami had ended, Ms. Cabello, who has lately imagined herself as a vegan, provoked a kale salad while bopping along to Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel." The song had been a highlight from a recent Christmas Eve karaoke night with her family (she was the only one who knew its final "Give it to me" pre chorus), and she grieved for her cocoon. In 48 hours, she would perform before Mariah Carey at "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest" in a bejeweled, ankle length coat and metallic jumpsuit that made her look like a glamorous conquistador. Then she had a tour to design, and music video concepts to finalize and a social media campaign to figure out.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Justina Machado, left, and Marcel Ruiz in a drugs focused episode of "One Day at a Time," which its writers tried to expand beyond the corny trappings of the "Very Special Episode." When Penelope Alvarez caught her teenage son, Alex, vaping marijuana, her distress wasn't just about the pot not in California, and not when her own mother was off getting legally stoned at the opera. "The reality is, if a white kid like Dylan gets caught with a little weed, he gets a cool story," she told her son, referring to his friend. She and Alex, characters played by Justina Machado and Marcel Ruiz on the sitcom "One Day at a Time," are Cuban American. "You?" she went on. "You could wind up in prison." For the writers of "Nip It in the Bud" Episode 5 in that show's third season, which hit Netflix this month the juvenile drug plot was at once a reliable sitcom standby and an opportunity to broaden the kinds of teary eyed conversations it usually depends on. Gloria Calderon Kellett, the series's showrunner, said she had been keen to complicate the picture, beyond "Just Say No." "One of the things we were talking about was vaping and, in California especially, with pot being legal now, how it's confusing for some teenagers," she said. "The added thing in this family," she continued, going on to use a gender neutral term for people of Hispanic origin, "is that, yes, drugs are a big deal. But also, if you're a Latinx kid who looks like Alex and have darker skin if you're out with your white friends, guess who's going to get in trouble?" Call it the latest in a long line of "Very Special Episodes," updated for a more diverse, more politically thoughtful, more pot permissive age. Since the early 1970s, the Very Special Episode, as it has half mockingly come to be known, has provided sitcom writers with a ready template for speaking earnestly, and (sometimes) with levity, to families about societal issues, particularly drugs. But as the culture has evolved, the requirements of and the taste for such episodes have evolved with it. Viewed historically, "One Day at a Time" represents the most recent phase of that often corny, but obviously durable, convention. But where sitcoms in the '50s and '60s generally eschewed social messaging, there was a shift toward social realism evident in the sitcoms of the 1970s, part of a broader change in the demands of audiences, who increasingly wanted to see their own experiences represented onscreen. Networks at the time also had demographic concerns, said Mary M. Dalton, a professor of communication and film studies at Wake Forest University and a co editor of the essay collection "The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed." "We've got people rioting in the streets, and we've got the antiwar movement, and we have the generation gap," she said. "And we have CBS canceling its rural sitcoms because advertisers wanted a younger, more urban demographic, because those are the consumers they're targeting." Shows like "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Green Acres" disappeared, giving way to more topical, urban based sitcoms. The writer and producer Norman Lear, who created shows like "All in the Family," "Maude" and the original "One Day at a Time," pioneered a new kind of sitcom, in which humor was used as a bridge to address serious issues like divorce and sexual assault. The Very Special Episode such as when Maude decides to get an abortion in the two part episode "Maude's Dilemma" pushed the boundaries of that approach. As such, it was often characterized by a difference in tone. The subject of drug abuse was mostly absent from the groundbreaking sitcoms of the 1970s, but as Lear's influence spread, creators like Gary David Goldberg made early attempts in the '80s to take it on with that same kind of thoughtful, socially conscious approach. His sitcom "Family Ties" offers a prime example. The actor Michael Gross, who played that show's ex hippy father, Steven Keaton, noted the evident shift in tack. "This was not 'Happy Days,'" he said. "This was not 'Laverne Shirley.' This was not 'Joanie Loves Chachi.'" Creators like Lear and Goldberg "were out to say something without necessarily hitting you over the head." "Family Ties" aimed to strike that balance, including on the subject of drugs. An episode like "Speed Trap," in which the son, Alex (Michael J. Fox), takes amphetamines to increase his chances of getting into a good college, marked the show as an heir apparent to the kind of sitcom Lear had perfected. The topic was serious. But the jokes were still there. "Humor did make it all easier," Gross added. "There's nothing worse than feeling like you're being preached to, that somebody's nagging at you." But as Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign ramped up, the antidrug episode soon became a staple of 1980s family sitcoms. The tone taken by many other sitcoms was more stilted. Often, they felt like public service announcements for teenagers and their parents. After a group of cool girls pressures the 9 year old Punky (Soleil Moon Frye) to smoke a joint on "Punky Brewster," she just says no, lets the girls know "drugs are bad for you," then goes on to create a Just Say No Club and organize an antidrug march. Bruce Helford, who worked on "Family Ties" before writing for sitcoms like "Roseanne" and "The Drew Carey Show," joked that television writers probably wrote those episodes as easy Emmy grabs which, he said, was exactly what writers on "Drew Carey" did for "A Very Special Drew," its fourth wall breaking Season 5 finale that took on illiteracy, kleptomania, addiction and homosexuality. "During Norman Lear's time, those were truly Very Special Episodes," Helford said. "Very often what it devolved into and why it went away for a while is that it started to diminish the power of real problems." "Roseanne," which had already broken ground with its candid depiction of a blue collar family, also broke with convention when it came to discussing drugs. The 1993 episode "A Stash from the Past" features the requisite sit down talk between parents and a pot smoking teenager. Eventually the parents realize the stash was theirs all along and proceed to smoke it. The Conners soon discover that parenting while high is hard to do. The lesson is ostensibly the same (drugs are bad), but the irreverence turned the usual sitcom self seriousness on its head. Before Season 8 begins, sign up for our "Game of Thrones" newsletter for a rewatch guide for the first seven seasons. Given its propensity for self seriousness, the genre soon gave way to parody. Twenty first century sitcoms like "The Goldbergs," "Bojack Horseman" and "Family Guy" have mined the conventions of the drug focused Very Special Episode in order to poke fun at them part of a broader cultural attitude that values irony, self awareness and a more nuanced perspective on drug use. Still, an appetite for something like the Very Special Episode persists, as evidenced by the success of "One Day at a Time," which is crammed with heart to heart discussions. The challenge for today's creators has been figuring out how to have drug conversations meaningfully when the curtain on the old way has been pulled back. The writers for contemporary sitcoms like "Modern Family" and "The Conners" seem similarly interested in doing something different. In one "Modern Family" episode, weed supplies the jokey premise in which two strait laced characters finally let loose. "The Conners" debuted last year with a serious episode that took on the opioid crisis. It's not not earnest. But no one is running off to start a Just Say No Club. "On 'Roseanne' and 'The Conners,' we always try to not preach," said Helford, who today is an executive producer on "The Conners." "We would say things we thought were important, but we never have an agenda. It would just be: How is this thing going on in the world going to affect these working people? We were illuminating something. "But, as we like to say: 'It's a sitcom. It's not brain surgery.'"	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
Since childhood, Rachael Petersen had lived with an unexplainable sense of grief that no drug or talk therapy could entirely ease. So in 2017 she volunteered for a small clinical trial at Johns Hopkins University that was testing psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, for chronic depression. "I was so depressed," Ms. Petersen, 29, said recently. "I felt that the world had abandoned me, that I'd lost the right to exist on this planet. Really, it was like my thoughts were so stuck, I felt isolated." The prospect of tripping for hours on a heavy dose of psychedelics was scary, she said, but the reality was profoundly different: "I experienced this kind of unity, of resonant love, the sense that I'm not alone anymore, that there was this thing holding me that was bigger than my grief. I felt welcomed back to the world." On Wednesday, Johns Hopkins Medicine announced the launch of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, to study compounds like LSD and psilocybin for a range of mental health problems, including anorexia, addiction and depression. The center is the first of its kind in the country, established with 17 million in commitments from wealthy private donors and a foundation. Imperial College London launched what is thought to be the world's first such center in April, with some 3.5 million from private sources. "This is an exciting initiative that brings new focus to efforts to learn about mind, brain and psychiatric disorders by studying the effects of psychedelic drugs," Dr. John Krystal, chair of psychiatry at Yale University, said in an email about the Johns Hopkins center. The centers at Johns Hopkins and Imperial College give "psychedelic medicine," as some call it, a long sought foothold in the scientific establishment. Since the early 2000s, several scientists have been exploring the potential of psychedelics and other recreational drugs for psychiatric problems, and their early reports have been tantalizing enough to generate a stream of positive headlines and at least two popular books. The emergence of depression treatment with the anesthetic and club drug ketamine and related compounds, which cause out of body sensations, also has piqued interest in mind altering agents as aids to therapy. But the drugs' history of abuse and the still thin evidence base have kept the field largely on the fringes, and many experts are still wary. Psychedelic trials cannot be "blinded" in the same way most drug trials are: participants know when they have been dosed, and reports of improvement aren't yet standardized. "It raises the caution that the investigation of hallucinogens as treatments may be endangered by grandiose descriptions of their effects and unquestioning acceptance of their value," Dr. Guy Goodwin, a professor of psychiatry at Oxford wrote, in a recent commentary, in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. "Timothy Leary was a research psychologist before he decided the whole world should 'Turn on, tune in, and drop out.' It is best if some steps are not retraced." The scientists doing the work, at Hopkins, Imperial College and elsewhere, acknowledge as much, and say the new infusion of funding will help clarify which drugs help which patients, and when the altered states are ineffectual, or potentially dangerous. "It's been hand to mouth in this field, and now we have the core funding and infrastructure to really advance psychedelic science in a way that hasn't been done before," said Roland Griffiths, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins who will direct the new center. Dr. Griffiths said the new funds will cover six full time faculty, five postdoctoral scientists and the costs of running trials. Among the first of those trials are a test of psilocybin for anorexia nervosa and of psilocybin for psychological distress and cognitive impairment in early Alzheimer's disease. "The one that's crying out to be done is for opiate use disorder, and we also plan to look at that," Dr. Griffiths said. Trials using psychedelics or other mind altering drugs tend to have a similar structure. Participants, whether they have a diagnosis of PTSD, depression or substance abuse, do extensive preparation with a therapist, which includes a complete medical history and advice and information about the study drug. People with a history of psychosis are typically excluded, as psychedelics can exacerbate their condition. And those on psychiatric medications usually taper off beforehand. On treatment day, the person comes into the clinic, takes the drug and sits or lies down, under continuous observation by a therapist, who provides support and occasional guidance as the drug's effects become felt. In the Johns Hopkins trial that Ms. Petersen joined, participants wore eyeshades and headphones, lay down and listened to music. "The first trip lasted six and half hours, and I didn't move," she recalled. A week later, she returned for another dose; each dose was about twice what recreational users take. Therapy using psychedelics or other mind altering compounds typically involves just one or two sessions on the drug. "I would be lying if I said aspects of my experience weren't deeply challenging and upsetting," Ms. Petersen said. "The therapist would grab my hand would save me in a moment and encourage me to adopt a posture of welcoming everything, like a meditation." The literature so far, from trials like these, suggests that psilocybin is promising for chronic depression and addiction, and that M.D.M.A., or ecstasy, can help people with post traumatic stress, including veterans. Cannabis and LSD also have been tried, for addiction and other problems, with mixed results. One finding many drug studies share is that any positive effects are far more likely to last if the participant has an especially intense trip. The intensity is subjectively graded using a variety of measures, including what scientists call the MEQ, for "mystical experience, questionnaire," although Dr. Griffiths allowed that the term is misleading. " T hat was a significant branding mistake, because awe is not fun," he said. "T here's something existentially shaking about these experiences." It is that existential reckoning, the theory goes, that prompts many people to rejigger their identities or priorities in a way that reduces habitual behaviors or lines of thinking that cause distress. In a continuing trial, Matthew Johnson, an addiction specialist at Johns Hopkins and a member of the new psychedelic center, is investigating how psilocybin treatment compares to use of a nicotine patch in helping people to quit smoking. So far, in the 39 people who have been in the study for at least six months, the abstinence rate in the psilocybin group is 50 percent, compared to 32 percent using the patch. "The most compelling thing that makes psilocybin different from other addiction drugs is that it's showing this cross drug efficacy," Dr. Johnson said. "It appears to have a similar effect, regardless of what drug the person is addicted to." That great potential, across many different diagnoses, is what attracted a small group of donors to Johns Hopkins, said Tim Ferriss, who brought in half the donated amount from investors, including more than 2 million from himself. Mr. Ferriss, an investor and author, said that depression and addiction ran in his own family, and that available treatments were often inadequate. His investment in the center, he said, "was a chance to have a large output from a small input a real Archimedes lever." The Steven Alexandra Cohen Foundation provided the balance of the commitments. Ms. Petersen is convinced that her psilocybin trip made a lasting difference. She has had one relapse since the trial, she said, and continued on antidepressant drugs. As a result of the trial, she also reordered her life, committing more time to things that are emotionally sustaining, and letting go of those there weren't.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Ruth Sulzberger Holmberg, who challenged racial barriers, political skulduggery and environmental adversaries as publisher of The Chattanooga Times in Tennessee for nearly three decades, and who was a member of the family that controls The New York Times, died on Wednesday at her home in Chattanooga. She was 96. Growing up in a newspaper family in New York, Mrs. Holmberg was imbued from adolescence with journalistic traditions of social responsibility, and that heritage became manifest in Chattanooga as she presided over a newspaper known for aggressive, analytical reporting and editorials that denounced racial segregation, exposed government corruption and demanded cleaner air in a city of heavy industry and belching smokestacks. For years she was a pariah in a city where many regarded her as an Eastern liberal interloper. Mrs. Holmberg, who was publisher of The Chattanooga Times from 1964 to 1992, stayed on as publisher emeritus and chairwoman until 1999, when it was sold to a small chain and merged with a rival newspaper. (Though it was owned by her family, the paper was never part of The New York Times Company.) She was a granddaughter of Adolph S. Ochs, who bought The Chattanooga Times in 1878 and The New York Times in 1896, and the second of four children of Iphigene Ochs and Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times from 1935 to 1961. Her brother, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, who died in 2012, became publisher of The New York Times and chairman and chief executive of the Times Company. One sister, Marian Sulzberger Heiskell, became a New York civic and philanthropic leader. Another, Judith P. Sulzberger, who died in 2011, became a doctor affiliated with the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. A Smith College graduate who had been a Red Cross volunteer in England and France during World War II, Mrs. Holmberg (her name from a second marriage) was a 25 year old Sulzberger heiress when she and her first husband, Ben Hale Golden, arrived in Chattanooga in 1946 not to take over her family's newspaper but to begin Mr. Golden's career on it. With no journalistic experience, he was to be groomed for the publisher's post. Chattanooga, a city of 140,000 in southeastern Tennessee, was nothing remotely like the New York City where Mrs. Holmberg had grown up, in Manhattan. It did not welcome Eastern liberals or Jews, even secular Jews who were married to Christians, as she was. Racial segregation was practiced there and "outsiders" were distrusted. Music, art and other cultural offerings were limited. But the couple settled there, and after a long apprenticeship, Mr. Golden was named publisher in 1957. During his seven year tenure, The Chattanooga Times, a morning paper with a circulation of about 40,000, turned profits but was shunned by many readers and advertisers, who preferred a rival paper that often skirted local controversies and offered a deeply conservative viewpoint. The Chattanooga Times championed the racial integration of schools and universities, supported civil rights legislation in Congress and backed clean air laws, provoking anger in a city where industrial pollutants shrouded scenic mountain backdrops and whose air, according to a 1969 federal report, was the dirtiest in the nation. The Times also endorsed reforms to root out corruption in government, expand the voting franchise and give black residents, a third of the population, a larger voice in municipal affairs. In the 1970s, The Times fought pitched battles with its hometown competitor, The News Free Press, although the rivalry was muted under a joint operating agreement reached in the 1980s allowing the two papers to operate a single business department but separate newsrooms and editorial voices. In 1972, she married Albert William Holmberg Jr., who oversaw the production, advertising and circulation departments at the paper. He was later named its president. As her influence widened, Mrs. Holmberg became nationally prominent. She was elected president of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association in 1984, and in 1987 became the second woman, after Katharine Graham, the longtime publisher of The Washington Post, to be elected a director of The Associated Press, the dominant news service in the United States. She and her siblings transferred ownership to their 13 children in 1997. Over the next two years, Walter E. Hussman Jr., head of the Wehco Media Company, bought The News Free Press and The Times and merged them to become The Chattanooga Times Free Press. Mrs. Holmberg was on the board of The New York Times for 37 years. Stepping down in 1998, she remained a principal owner of the company under a trust that had passed to her and her three siblings on the death of their mother in 1990. Ruth Rachel Sulzberger was born in New York City on March 12, 1921. She and her siblings grew up surrounded by maids, butlers, nannies, chauffeurs and other servants. She attended the Lincoln School, an experimental adjunct to Columbia Teachers College; and Brearley, a private school on the Upper East Side, before enrolling at Smith, in Northampton, Mass. As a college student she wanted to work one day for The Times, and did some reporting on her summer and holiday breaks. She wrote a magazine article about wartime changes at women's colleges, and once spent two days driving a taxi in New York for a story. But after graduating in 1943, as World War II raged in Europe, she joined the American Red Cross as an unpaid volunteer and sailed for England. She was assigned to the 394th Bombardment Group of the Ninth Air Force near Chelmsford, 30 miles northeast of London and a few miles from the North Sea coast. There she lived in a drafty Quonset hut, walked planks over muddy paths and, with her Red Cross comrades, met the B 26 Marauders limping home from missions over the Continent. The airfield was sometimes bombed by German planes, she recalled. "Whatever they hadn't dropped on London, they dropped on us," she told Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones for their 1999 book, "The Trust," a history of the Ochs and Sulzberger families and The New York Times. At the military base, she met Ben Golden, a married Army Air Force officer who had been a manager for the Tennessee Valley Authority. After the Normandy invasion in 1944, they moved with the 394th to France and stayed for the duration. Mr. Golden's first marriage ended in divorce, and within a year after the war, Ruthie, as her father affectionately called her, was married and in Chattanooga, where she would settle, raise her children and make her mark. Mrs. Holmberg is survived by the four children from her first marriage: Stephen Golden, a retired lawyer who was president of the Times Company's forest products group; Michael Golden, who recently retired as vice chairman of the Times Company; Lynn G. Dolnick, a Ph.D biologist and retired associate director of the Smithsonian's National Zoo; and Arthur Sulzberger Golden, author of the best selling 1997 novel "Memoirs of a Geisha." Their father died in 1970. Mrs. Holmberg is also survived by her sister Ms. Heiskell; her stepdaughters, Jeanne Johnson, Meg Duckworth and Elin Holmberg Rowland; seven grandchildren, eight great grandchildren, seven step grandchildren and a number of step great grandchildren. Mr. Holmberg died in 2005. Her nephew Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. is publisher of The New York Times and chairman of the Times Company. One of her grandsons, Sam Dolnick, is an assistant editor of The Times. Mrs. Holmberg, who received an honorary doctorate in humane letters from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2007, contributed millions to cultural institutions, universities and educational programs for journalists, notably at the graduate schools of journalism at Columbia University and the City University of New York. After leaving The Chattanooga Times, she remained active in philanthropy and civic affairs. Among other positions, Mrs. Holmberg was a director of the Smithsonian Institution, a trustee of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, a founding member of the Tennessee Arts Commission, a member of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, chairwoman of the Public Education Foundation, director emeritus of the Hunter Museum of American Art, a director of the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera Association, president of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce (the first woman to hold that post) and a director of the Chattanooga Community Foundation, the Tennessee Aquarium and the Chattanooga Area Beautification Committee.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Homo sapiens is a pretty impressive species. We built the pyramids, landed on the moon and connected the internet. All of our successes are the fortunate result of a tremendous evolutionary journey from ape to the hominins who would become modern humans. Along the way, other human relatives emerged and disappeared. Most lived before we did; some of the more recent ones met up with our species before going extinct, for reasons that are still mysterious to scientists. On Wednesday, researchers welcomed the newest long gone relative: Homo luzonensis. Here's a quick guide to some of the other archaic humans that filled out the branches on our evolutionary tree, and what we have learned from them. Our most famous ancient relatives, the Neanderthals trotted across Eurasia some 400,000 to 40,000 years ago. Their bones were first discovered in 1856 in a cave in the Neander Valley in Germany. Neanderthals shared the world with Homo sapiens for a while, which led to competition and interbreeding. Today only people of purely African descent do not have Neanderthal DNA coursing through their veins. In the early 20th century, Neanderthals were thought of as simple minded brutes. But research over the past decades has helped burnish their reputation. Neanderthals, it turns out, made art, crafted jewelry, may have used speech, and even buried their dead. When it came to interspecies breeding, early Homo sapiens didn't just mate with Neanderthals. We also partnered with another ancient hominin species known as Denisovans. Traces of the encounters exist in modern DNA, too, especially in people who have roots in parts of East Asia. (Denisovans mated with Neanderthals, as well.) The first Denisovan bone, a molar, was discovered in 1984 in the Denisova Cave in Siberia. But it wasn't until 2010 that researchers identified the species after extracting DNA from a pinkie bone. They later sequenced the entire Denisovan genome. Some Denisovan remains uncovered so far are more than 100,000 old, and others may be just 30,000 years old. Homo heidelbergensis peered at the world through robust protruding brow ridges some 700,000 to 200,000 years ago. A mandible belonging to this ancient human relative was identified by a German scientist named Otto Schoetensack in 1908 near Heidelberg, Germany, and its fossils have been found in Africa and Europe. Sometimes this species is referred to as Homo rhodesiensis, because of very similar fossils found in what is now Zambia. Some scientists think that Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans all may have descended from Homo heidelbergensis. Within the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star Cave, the researchers discovered more than 1,500 fossilized remains from 15 individuals. The bones were between 335,000 and 236,000 years old. Homo naledi adults are believed to have been about 4 feet 9 inches tall. Last year researchers published a study that looked at the brain impressions left on the skulls of some Homo naledi specimens and concluded that despite their diminutive size, members of the species had a brain that had similarly complex structures to our own. Nicknamed the "Hobbit" because of its small stature measuring only about 3 feet 6 inches tall this tiny hominin was discovered in Liang Bua cave on the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia in 2003 by an archaeologist named Michael Morwood. The specimen was one of about a dozen such individuals that have since been discovered on the island. Homo floresiensis fossils date to as recently as 60,000 years ago. But there are also 700,000 year old fossils on the island that may have come from their ancestors. In addition to their small bodies, Homo floresiensis had small brains, about as big as a chimpanzee's. A study published in 2018 tried to determine whether the current population of Flores had any genetic links to Homo floresiensis. Though the researchers found evidence of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA among villagers, they came up short of Homo floresiensis DNA. Homo habilis was discovered in Tanzania in the early 1960s by a group led by Louis and Mary Leakey, a married pair of paleoanthropologists. It was dubbed the "handyman" because it was thought to have made stone tools. This species lived in eastern and southern Africa between 2.4 million and 1.4 million years ago. Of the multiple species in our genus, Homo habilis is the least humanlike in its anatomy and most similar to apes, according to the Bradshaw Foundation. Scientists found that for nearly 500,000 years, Homo habilis lived alongside Homo erectus in eastern Africa, a prehistoric gathering of multiple species of the Homo group, presaging the period when Homo sapiens would cohabitate in Eurasia with Neanderthals and Denisovans.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Now Lives: A one bedroom apartment in Battery Park City with Keziah Beall, his girlfriend and business partner. Claim to Fame: Mr. Carlson is a former member of the United States national rowing team and the entrepreneur behind a budding rowing brand first with a coffee table book, "Rowing Blazers," which chronicles the esoteric history of the colorful blazers worn by elite rowing clubs, and now with an upscale fashion label of the same name. Big Break: In 2010, as a doctoral student in archaeology at Oxford University, Mr. Carlson set out to publish an illustrated volume on the zany jackets worn for centuries by rowers. He didn't know any publishers or agents, but he did have a network of rowing friends who were willing to model, including Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who rowed for Harvard University. "It's a pretty close knit community," he said. "Rowers, in general, are willing to help each other out." He pitched the book to three publishers. Every one of them was interested, including Vendome, the publisher of art and illustrated books, which released the book in 2014. Another rowing friend introduced him to an executive at Ralph Lauren, which hosted parties for the book in London and New York.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
A rendering of 111 West 57th Street, a new Midtown condo that calls itself "the world's slenderest h igh rise." The 86 story tower is the latest arrival on Billionaires' Row. If the redevelopment of the Steinway Sons piano store in Midtown were a song, it would be a long one, with some dramatic pauses and a bit of dissonance. But despite the project's yearslong struggles with escalating costs, infighting and lawsuits, the developers of the sky high condo at 111 West 57th Street hope the building will still impress potential buyers. "As my grandmother said: 'Good food takes time,' " said Michael Stern, the managing partner at JDS Development Group. The firm has teamed up with Property Markets Group and Spruce Capital Partners on the condo, which is the latest to elbow into the elite group of high rises along Billionaires' Row. The 60 unit tower, which overlooks Central Park near Avenue of the Americas, has certainly tried to stand out in a crowd. At 1,428 feet (or 86 stories), 111 West 57th will be one of New York's tallest buildings when it's completed in 2019. By contrast, the office tower One World Trade Center, the city's loftiest spire, is 1,776 feet, while 432 Park Avenue, a new condo tower nearby, measures 1,396 feet, and One57, at 157 West 57th Street, is 1,004 feet. Taller residences, however, are under construction, including Central Park Tower, a condo at 217 West 57th, which is to be 1,550 feet. Height aside, 111 West 57th has tried to set itself apart stylistically. Rejecting the crystalline look so popular with new developments in the neighborhood, the condo offers an exterior detailed with terra cotta and bronze, in a nod to more traditional materials. Inside the tower, which rises adjacent to the prewar building that housed Steinway Hall for 90 years, and whose gradually tapered body recalls a clothespin, are 46 of the condo's 60 units; most take up a full floor, while seven units are duplexes. The most common layout has three bedrooms and three and a half baths. The remaining 14 units, including some studios, are inside the old Steinway facility. The Steinway showroom and store, where Rachmaninoff once practiced, closed and moved south to West 43rd and Avenue of the Americas (the former home of the International Center for Photography) in 2014. Designed in the 1920s by the firm Warren and Wetmore, of Grand Central Terminal fame, the limestone building has landmark status, both inside and out. "The juxtaposition of the old and new is really what this building is all about," said Mr. Stern during a recent tour of the condo, whose exterior is by SHoP Architects and whose interiors are by Studio Sofield. From the 61st floor, blankets in Central Park's Sheep Meadow resembled bits of confetti. Though "Steinway Tower" was for years a name associated with the project, the developers ultimately jettisoned it for trademark reasons, Mr. Stern said. Inside most of the units, elevators open to a private entry with floors lined with gray oak. Bronze handles, shaped like the tower and made by P. E. Guerin Hardware, adorn doors to the living rooms, which have floor to ceiling windows and, in some cases, an adjacent wet bar. Most kitchens have two dishwashers, three ovens and white quartzite counters. Amenities, which will sweep across about 20,000 square feet, include standard fare like a gym and pool, but also more old fashioned offerings like a barbershop and shoeshine stand. A Steinway grand piano, fittingly, will be the centerpiece of a lounge. Studios, which are reserved for buyers of larger units, start at 1.6 million, while the priciest apartment is a duplex penthouse with more than 7,000 square feet, for 57 million; average asking prices are 6,500 a square foot, developers said. Sales, handled by Douglas Elliman Development Marketing, start on Sept. 13, which in some ways is the latest twist in a tortuous history. In 2013, developers acquired the bulk of the site for 132 million, plus 46 million for a ground lease, according to city records. They broke ground the following year. In 2015, the state approved the condo's offering plan, and developers opened a sales office on Fifth Avenue. But soon after marketing launched, the developers, faced with a luxury slowdown, halted sales. Later, as construction costs swelled, they had to court additional investors though an existing partner, AmBase Corporation, condemned the move as an attempt by JDS and Property Markets to gain extra control. A 2016 suit filed by AmBase's chairman, Richard Bianco, accused JDS and Property Markets of devising "a scheme to increase their ownership interest in the joint venture at the expense of AmBase."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Bernard S. Redmont, a longtime foreign correspondent who was blacklisted in the United States during the McCarthy period and who in 1968 broke the news that the North Vietnamese were willing to enter into peace talks with the United States, died on Jan. 23 in Canton, Mass. He was 98. The death was confirmed by his son, Dennis. Mr. Redmont, the Paris bureau chief of the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company at the time, had long been pestering the North Vietnamese mission in Paris for an interview when he was abruptly summoned on Jan. 3, 1968, for what he was told would be "a conversation." A government official, whom he was not permitted to identify, informed him that North Vietnam was ready to start peace talks if the United States halted its bombing campaign and other acts of war. Mr. Redmont put out a bulletin. The story was picked up by publications around the world and made the covers of Time and Newsweek magazines. In May, after President Lyndon B. Johnson had ordered a limited halt to the bombing, the two sides entered into talks in Paris that led to the war's end five years later. For the story, the Overseas Press Club of America gave Mr. Redmont its award in 1969 for best radio reporting from abroad. He was born Bernard Sidney Rothenberg on Nov. 18, 1918, in Manhattan and grew up in the Bronx and Brooklyn. His parents, Morris Rothenberg and the former Bessie Kamerman, had come to the United States from Poland in their early teens, and his father ran a small shop in the garment district. At City College, Bernard was editor of the school newspaper, The Campus, and class president of the American Student Union, the most radical of the college's political organizations. After earning a bachelor's degree in 1938, he enrolled in Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where, on the advice of the dean, he changed his last name too long and too Jewish, he was told. He was awarded a master's degree in 1939 and, after receiving a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, spent time in Europe and Mexico. In 1940, he married Joan Rothenberg (no relation), who died last year. In addition to his son, formerly the Rome bureau chief for The Associated Press, he is survived by a daughter, Jane Redmont; two grandsons; and four great grandchildren. Returning to the United States, Mr. Redmont went to work for The Evening Telegram in Herkimer, N.Y. "I did everything from writing editorials to laying out the front page to sweeping the office and sharpening the pencils," he told The Canton Citizen in 2011. In 1940, he was hired as an editor by the Office of the Coordinator of Inter American Affairs, headed by Nelson A. Rockefeller and based in Washington. The agency broadcast news stories to Latin America in an effort to bolster hemispheric solidarity against the Axis powers. Mr. Redmont enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1943 and was a combat correspondent in the South Pacific during World War II. He was awarded the Purple Heart for shrapnel wounds sustained during the battle for the Marshall Islands. After the war, in 1946, he was hired as the first Latin America bureau chief for World News, which the conservative publisher David Lawrence had created as an international affairs counterpart to his magazine U.S. News. (They merged in 1948 to become U.S. News World Report.) Mr. Redmont was sent to Buenos Aires, where he had a ringside seat for the presidency of Juan Peron before being transferred to Paris in the early 1950s. Alarmed, Mr. Redmont issued a statement denying that he had ever been a Communist. He knew Ms. Bentley, he said, through William Remington, a government economist and an old friend who had introduced her as Helen Johnson, a reporter and researcher for the liberal newspaper P.M. and other publications. In interviews before the war, Mr. Redmont said he had discussed the programs of the Coordinator of Inter American Affairs with her but had revealed to her only information that was available to the public. He was later cleared by the House Committee on Un American Activities and a grand jury. When called as a defense witness in the perjury trial of Mr. Remington in 1951, however, he faced withering cross examination. "If you're trying to prove that I was a radical at college, I'll answer that," Mr. Redmont said. "I was a radical at college." He denied that he had named his son Dennis Foster in tribute to the Communist Party leaders Eugene Dennis and William Z. Foster. In 2009, however, in their book "Spies: The Rise and Fall of the K.G.B. in America," John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev cited Soviet intelligence reports from the 1940s that identified Mr. Redmont as a Communist Party member known as Berny and as a minor source of information for Ms. Bentley under the code name Mon. Some historians have challenged the K.G.B. files as ambiguous, arguing that many entries were the product of wishful thinking or exaggeration on the part of Soviet agents trying to please their bosses. In a 2008 interview, Mr. Redmont said, "I am not now a spy, and I have never been a spy." He added: "It was a very sad and poisoned period in American history where an allegation was equivalent to a conviction. I'd like to think we've moved beyond that, but maybe we haven't." Immediately after testifying, Mr. Redmont was fired by Mr. Lawrence, and his passport was seized by the State Department, leaving him stranded in Paris. His career ruined, Mr. Redmont struggled to patch together a living as a freelance writer and editor. He was a press agent for a nightclub, and as a talent scout for an impresario, he negotiated a South American tour for the singer Charles Trenet. "At one point, I set a record in amassing the largest number of jobs in Paris with the lowest aggregate income," Mr. Redmont wrote in his 1992 memoir "Risks Worth Taking: The Odyssey of a Foreign Correspondent." In time, his career recovered. After reporting for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and serving as Paris bureau chief for Westinghouse from 1961 to 1976, he made the transition to television, joining CBS News, for which he was the bureau chief in Moscow and a senior correspondent in Paris. He returned to the United States in 1981 to become a professor of journalism at the Boston University College of Communication. A year later, he was named dean. Mr. Redmont resigned as dean in 1986 after clashing with the university's president, John Silber, over the Afghan Media Project, a program to train Afghan refugees as journalists at a center in Peshawar, Pakistan. Mr. Redmont had proposed training them in Boston, arguing that political conflict and tribal rivalries made Peshawar too dangerous. He lost the battle to Mr. Silber, who demanded his resignation but gave him the title of dean emeritus.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Is That Dog (or Pig) on Your Flight Really a Service Animal? Sharon L. Giovinazzo, president and chief executive of World Services for the Blind, was recently walking through an airport with her trained service dog Watson when a "pocket pooch" growled and then bit him, she said. The owner apologized and said the dog was her service animal. Ms. Giovinazzo, an Army veteran who lost her sight to multiple sclerosis in 2001, was not having it. "'Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure, lady,'" she recalled telling the owner. "'Then your animal should be secured and trained not to do that.'" Ms. Giovinazzo said the dog was an untrained pet masquerading as a service animal in what advocates for people with disabilities said had become a growing problem in the last few years. "It's gotten to the point where it's almost funny unless you are the one with the legitimate guide dog," Ms. Giovinazzo said. Confusion over service dogs, which are specially trained to help people with disabilities, and emotional support animals, which can be pets that provide comfort and companionship but require no training, cloud the issue. Recent headlines about passengers trying unsuccessfully to board flights with what they said were support animals a peacock in one case and a hamster in another as well as federal regulations that are subject to misinterpretation or abuse have made matters worse, experts said. Regulators and airlines have taken notice. Delta and Alaska Airlines have tightened their rules for transporting service and support animals, and the federal Department of Transportation is exploring new rules to reduce the likelihood that airplane passengers falsely claim their pets as service animals. The department plans to solicit public comment about the "appropriate definition" of service animals, a spokeswoman said. Twenty two states already have some kinds of laws addressing the issue and lawmakers in Arizona, Iowa and Minnesota are considering cracking down on service dog fraud. The Americans With Disabilities Act defines service animals as either dogs or miniature horses that are specifically trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities, such as guiding people who are blind. The Air Carrier Access Act separately governs airlines in the area of service and support animals and that's one of the places prone to abuse. Passengers pass off their pets as support or service animals so they can remain in the cabin instead of the cargo hold, officials said. (While unusual pets, such as pigs, have been taken aboard as support animals, airlines are not required to accommodate others, like snakes, reptiles, ferrets, rodents and spiders.) Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, last week introduced legislation to have the definition of a service animal under the Air Carrier Access Act match the one in the Americans with Disabilities Act. The proposal would bar from flights animals whose sole function was to provide comfort or emotional support and require federal agencies to establish a standard of behavior training for animals that would be working on planes, according to a news release. Gerry DeRoche, chief executive of the National Education for Assistance Dog Services, said fraudulent service or support animals could displace legitimate ones because most airlines limit the number allowed in a cabin. Official looking paperwork is available online to make pets look legitimate: Owners answer questions about their need for a support animal, and a doctor issues an assessment without ever evaluating the client, Mr. Younggren said. "The whole thing is a mess," he said, adding that such websites have become a "growth industry" over the last five years. David Favre, a law professor at Michigan State University and editor in chief of its Animal Legal and Historical Center, said fraudulent cases eroded trust about service animals. "There are many thoughtless, ignorant or arrogant people out there who only think of themselves," he said. "Abuse is everywhere." Even for trained animals, maneuvering through crowds or traveling in confined places like planes can be stressful, but they are conditioned not to act out. Untrained animals in those circumstances are prone to misbehave by growling, biting or having accidents. Chris Diefenthaler, operations administrator at Assistance Dogs International, said one of the worst outcomes could be when a pet posing as a service dog attacks a legitimate one, leaving it so traumatized or injured it has to be retired or put down. "There are no standards for evaluating the need for an emotional support animal, whereas there are concrete rules to determine if someone is eligible for a service animal," Cassie Boness, a graduate student in clinical psychology in the department of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri, said in a post on the university's website.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
The NBC drama "Smash," though both loved and abhorred when it premiered in 2012, has since grown into a cult favorite among theater buffs. There were flashy musical numbers! Christian Borle sitting at a piano! The high stakes of putting on a show! (Critics were less thrilled.) But the series about two songwriters creating a Broadway bound Marilyn Monroe bio musical and the potential stars competing for the leading role burned bright and short, canceled after two seasons of declining ratings. Now, for the "Smash" loyalists waiting for a comeback, there is a glimmer of good news: The series is being reimagined for the stage, where perhaps it belonged all along. The adaptation will be based on the soapy ups and downs of "Smash" not its fictional show within a show "Bombshell," as originally announced under a different production team five years ago, nor its other show within a show, the grittier downtown "Hit List," that was staged as a concert at 54 Below after the demise of the series in 2013. And though the musical will include many of the same songs written for television by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, the plot will "depart liberally from the series," the production said in a release. (Theresa Rebeck was its creator.)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Two prominent museum organizations said on Tuesday they are "deeply opposed" to plans by the Berkshire Museum in Massachusetts to sell 40 works and use the proceeds for its endowment and to improve its building. The plan to sell works by artists like Norman Rockwell, Frederic Church, Albert Bierstadt and Alexander Calder would violate the ethical codes of both organizations, the American Alliance of Museums and the Association of Art Museum Directors, which emphasize stewardship and hold that artworks should be sold only in specific circumstances to add new works or care for existing works. "One of the most fundamental and longstanding principles of the museum field is that a collection is held in the public trust and must not be treated as a disposable financial asset," the two groups wrote in a joint statement. But the museum, which announced plans on Monday for a new "innovative 21st century institution," has said that the items it intends to auction are essentially superfluous to its plans for the future. It said in a statement that "the works that have been selected for deaccession have been deemed to be not essential to the museum's refreshed mission," which has a "heightened emphasis on science and history." The news that the museum, in Pittsfield, was planning to auction works was reported first by the Berkshire Eagle and sent a tremor through parts of the art world, as well as the area of western Massachusetts where the museum has been a well regarded local institution for more than 100 years. Disagreements over the museum's decision reflect differing views of how institutions ought to raise money in a time of tightening budgets. Critics have said that museum collections should be used only for the benefit and enrichment of the public. Those who support the Berkshire Museum would seem to challenge the widely held belief that museum collections are sacrosanct, even in times of fiscal crisis. Joseph Klem of the American Alliance of Museums said that someone from each of the two museum groups had spoken on the phone with a Berkshire Museum official about the planned sale. The American Alliance of Museums' code of ethics says that proceeds from the sale of collections shall not "be used for anything other than acquisition or direct care of collections." The Association of Art Museum Directors' code includes an even narrower definition of when sales are permissible, stating: "A museum director shall not dispose of accessioned works of art in order to provide funds for purposes other than acquisitions of works of art for the collection." The groups' statement said that the type of sale planned by the Berkshire Museum "sends a message to existing and prospective donors that museums can raise funds by selling parts of their collection, thereby discouraging not only financial supporters, who may feel that their support isn't needed, but also donors of artworks and artifacts, who may fear that their cherished objects could be sold at any time to the highest bidder to make up for a museum's budget shortfalls." The organizations have not said how they might respond if the auction proceeds, but repercussions can be serious. In 2014, the Delaware Art Museum, which sold a painting to settle an expansion debt and increase its endowment, became something of a pariah after it was sanctioned by the Association of Art Museum Directors, which asked members not to lend artwork to Delaware or assist with its exhibitions. Van Shields, the executive director of the Berkshire Museum, said that the institution had to find a way to address budget shortfalls that had existed for more than 20 years while maintaining programming and ensuring continued relevance. "We can't care for our collection if we don't exist," he said. "The fact is, we're facing an existential threat, and the board chose the interests of this institution over the interests of these national professional organizations." In announcing its plans, the museum wrote on Monday that it expected an auction by Sotheby's of the 40 artworks it had culled from its collection of 2,400 would yield about 50 million. Plans for the institution's new incarnation would cost about 20 million, the museum said, adding that it also intended to create a new endowment of at least 40 million. "The process undertaken by the museum to reach this point has been thoughtful and thorough, marked by intense community engagement and involvement," the museum wrote.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
HAMBURG Finally complete, the Elbphilharmonie here may not immediately prompt thoughts of Faberge eggs: The 18 story glass box with a concert hall inside sits bluntly atop an eight story former cocoa warehouse on the Elbe River, overlooking the harbor. But what the 26 story piggyback structure has in common with the jeweled eggs exchanged by the Russian imperial family is that its shell holds an unexpected world inside, a landscape in a box: Curving staircases cascade between and around a recital chamber and a 2,100 seat concert hall. Like rings inside an onion, the halls are wrapped by a hotel and a condominium complex. Only its roofscape of peaks and valleys hints at a roiling inner life. More on the Elbphilharmonie's opening and history Somewhat outside the city center, at a hinge point on a peninsula where the city pivots to the harbor, a huge waterfront depot for cocoa beans was built in the mid 1960s. Though not obvious historic treasures, Brutalist buildings of this generation are gaining respect, and the Swiss architects of the Philharmonie, Herzog de Meuron, used this one as their podium. Its outlines determined the four corners of their own glass structure above. "We just continued the box up," Ascan Mergenthaler, the project architect, said on a recent visit. Also the architects of the Tate Modern in London and its recent addition, Herzog de Meuron has a history of adapting old industrial structures.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Can we say that David Bowie changed the way people dance? The connection between the large genre called "dance music" and how people actually dance is tricky. Certainly, though, the best of Bowie's classic recordings were kinesthetically affecting: "Let's Dance" (1983) above all. Although I've bought a number of pop and rock recordings over the years because I've fallen for stage dances made to them, that record must be the only one I purchased simply because I needed to dance to it. I love its overlay of rhythms, its irresistible but seemingly changing pulse, its element of soaring release. One connection between Bowie and dance has surfaced in obituaries: the early influence on him of the choreographer Lindsay Kemp, who was his collaborator and lover. I don't remember people talking of this in the 1970s and 1980s, but it's no surprise to anyone who saw Mr. Kemp's choreography in that era. I remember both his all male "Salome" (1975) and "Cruel Garden" (1977), based on the life of Federico Garcia Lorca, that he choreographed with Christopher Bruce for Ballet Rambert. Though they came from the post Bowie period of his work, their ingredients of androgyny, camp and daredevilry now seem closely akin to Bowie. Kemp dance theater (also an influence on the young Matthew Bourne) was a worldwide cult in its day. Even before I became a critic, I disliked it; I have only to listen to "Let's Dance" again to know what Mr. Kemp was missing not the least of which was rhythmic urgency. Most critics felt the same way; check out 1970s reviews in these pages by Mel Gussow and Clive Barnes. But most theatergoers and dancegoers have grown far more used to gay theater and camp sensibility than we were then. Mr. Kemp was one of those who paved the way. If you see the movie "The Danish Girl," you can't miss its connection to ballet part of it is set in and around the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen in 1926 but that link is more complex and curious than the movie reveals. The film, based on the novel by David Ebershoff, partly fictionalizes the true story of Einar Wegener (Lili Elbe), a pioneer of and martyr to what we now call gender reassignment, and of Einar's wife, Gerda Wegener, nee Gottlieb. In both the film and real life, Einar and Gerda were artists. Though the film has yet to open in Denmark, the Arken Museum in Copenhagen is currently presenting an exhibition of Gerda's work. The movie starts in 1926. Gerda paints a Danish ballerina, Ulla, and the film shows the real Gerda's 1927 image of Ulla Poulsen (1905 2001), in the Michel Fokine ballet "Chopiniana." The film makes Ms. Poulsen a contemporary of Einar and Gerda actually they were 23 and 19 years older than she but she was already a leading light then. She danced the title role of August Bournonville's "La Sylphide" from 1923 to 1939; she long remained an exemplar in the memory of the Danish dancer Erik Bruhn, he told Anna Kisselgoff. She was also connected to George Balanchine, who for a few months in 1930 31 was chief choreographer to the Royal Danish Ballet. (When Poulsen was studying in London in 1929 with the ballerina Tamara Karsavina, she heard that the Royal Danish Ballet needed a choreographer; Karsavina advised her to seek out Balanchine; she did.) He began by making a new dance to Liszt's "Liebestraum." Decades later, Ms. Poulsen gave an interview to Francis Mason for his 1991 book "I Remember Balanchine" in which she recalled its "very emotional" pas de trois in which the man "loves two women, but one he loves more. I was the woman he was leaving behind." Tragedy struck four days later, after its first and only performance: The ballerina Elna Lassen, who danced the other role in this trio, committed suicide. Balanchine went on to stage his "Apollo" in Copenhagen. The title role was danced by Leif Ornberg, remembered now as uncle to Peter Martins, ballet master in chief of New York City Ballet. A fascinating photograph of this "Apollo" was published in 2014 in Erik Aschengreen's "Dancing Across the Atlantic, USA Denmark 1900 2014." Balanchine also created versions of several ballets by Fokine and Leonide Massine in Copenhagen. Ms. Poulsen danced the Miller's Wife in "The Three Cornered Hat," the Sultan's Wife in "Scheherazade," Potiphar's Wife in "The Legend of Joseph" (or "Josef Legende"), and the Young Girl in "Le Spectre de la Rose" (or "Rosendrommen"). Fokine had created "Le Spectre" for Karsavina and Nijinsky, and Ms. Poulsen learned this last role from Karsavina. Balanchine danced the Spectre. During these very months, Einar Wegener was making the visits to Dresden that would change his sex and finally make him into Lily Elbe. While Balanchine was in Copenhagen, a Danish court invalidated the Wegeners' marriage. Since Ms. Poulsen had been the subject of several of Gerda's paintings, Balanchine surely knew about this gender reassignment. Like Elna Lassen's suicide, it was an element of his Danish sojourn. In 1956, tragedy struck there again: Balanchine's wife Tanaquil LeClercq fell sick with polio. Ms. Poulsen, then living outside Copenhagen, traveled to the city to give support to her friend and colleague. The company Balanchine went on to found (with Lincoln Kirstein), New York City Ballet, starts its six week winter season on Tuesday at the David H. Koch Theater. (Bournonville's "La Sylphide" returns to repertory on Feb. 12.) With the prodigality that makes it unlike all other ballet troupes, it offers four different programs in this week alone, including nine works by Balanchine. Friday is his birthday. (He would have been 112.) According to a now annual pattern, he is especially commemorated by "Saturday at the Ballet with George": two programs on Saturday will show seven of his ballets, with special events before and between. The ballet world is laden with first name insider talk, but some reactionaries are still shocked that their Mr. Balanchine is, on this occasion, referred to as George. Much of the drama of any City Ballet season lies in casting. (Each week's is usually announced on the Tuesday two weeks previous.) The first weeks of City Ballet's season bring several important role debuts, notably Anthony Huxley in the "Tema con Variazioni" finale of Balanchine's "Mozartiana." (Saturday at 2 p.m. He will be missed, however, in its earlier Gigue, an elusive role in which he excelled.) I draw attention here to one other dancer: Joseph Gordon, who is still in the company's corps. He was nominated for this year's Clive Barnes Award; he didn't win. That's partly because he hasn't had the plum roles that American Ballet Theater's Gabe Stone Shayer, who did win, has had, and partly because he's less mature more remarkable in solos than as a partner. But there have already been performances in which no dancing has been more beautiful than his. He has line, elegance and elevation; and he's good to watch amid the corps. (Wherever he is in the opening party of "George Balanchine's The Nutcracker" as a parent, his corner of the room seems to have most fun.) Next week he makes two important debuts, in Jerome Robbins's "Fancy Free" (Jan. 28) and in the central role of Balanchine's "Who Cares?" (Jan. 30, 2 p.m.), and on Jan. 26 he returns to one of the roles in which he's been outstanding, the third movement of "Symphony in C." I make no predictions; but I'm one of many with hopes. At last year's Vail International festival of Dance, I saw him in "Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux" (partnering Misty Copeland) and the pas de deux from "Stars and Stripes" (Balanchine both): I remember the thrill of the momentum he showed in the shape of an extended solo variation. The choreographer Christopher Wheeldon's finest, if not most perfect, achievement in the last 10 years has been his three act ballet "The Winter's Tale," new with the Royal Ballet in April 2014. It's to an attractive commissioned score by Joby Talbot; the designs are by Bob Crowley. When it was new, it seemed that everyone felt that one of the three acts didn't work but they all disagreed on which act. And it succeeded in doing what a three act ballet does best: taking audience and characters through a large arc. What's more, it created three important and different leading roles for women. It was always planned as a coproduction with the National Ballet of Canada. This week that company gives the ballet its American stage debut at the Kennedy Center. To see how this ballet works with different interpreters will be an important test.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
SOMEDAY SOON Michael and Nicole Roushion, both Iraq veterans, with their children, Michael Jr., 3, and Kimora, 9 weeks, in front of one of the dilapidated houses in Yonkers that are being renovated by Habitat for Humanity for families like theirs. THEY met eight years ago at a Marine Corps combat center: Michael Roushion, 25, of Oakland, Calif., had served one tour of duty and was re enlisting; Nicole Burnett, 18, newly graduated from Lincoln High School in Yonkers, was fulfilling her childhood dream of becoming a Marine. As Sergeant Roushion tells their story, it was love at first sight. The problem was that he and Corporal Burnett were awaiting deployment to Iraq. Once there, they served in different parts of the country, keeping in touch by e mail and phone, meeting when they could and planning for a future that seemed at best uncertain. But their story, unlike that of many others, had a happy ending. They returned safely, married and are now raising a family: Michael Jr., 3, and Kimora, 9 weeks old. These days, they are also pursuing the increasingly elusive American dream of owning a home, although saving for a down payment is a tall order. Mr. Roushion, an electrician's apprentice, and Ms. Roushion, who is applying to nursing school, pay 1,600 a month for a three bedroom apartment in Yonkers. But the picture brightened for them a few months ago, when the Westchester affiliate of Habitat for Humanity, one of 1,500 in the country, joined the parent organization's campaign to help veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan become homeowners. Mr. and Mrs. Roushion never imagined they could afford a residence in Westchester, where the median price of a single family home about 500,000 is among the highest in the nation. Throughout the country, as troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan, Habitat is focusing on ways to support their transition, especially given the economic climate. According to the group: "More than 72,000 veterans spend at least half of their monthly income on rent. And as a result, home equity is out of their reach." In his New Rochelle office, Jim Killoran, the executive director of the Westchester affiliate, has earmarked six foreclosed homes in a downtrodden section of Yonkers to be among the first of about 20 to be renovated and sold to veterans like the Roushions. The Westchester division, which operates on a 1.7 million annual budget for all of its projects, has already bought several of the homes for about 50,000 each from lending institutions, using donations from corporations like Cisco Systems, a global networking company in San Jose, Calif.; the Lanza Family Foundation in Harrison; and Silverstein Properties, the real estate firm rebuilding the World Trade Center. Habitat will provide qualified veterans the mortgages an estimated 175,000 each interest free with no down payment required. Under the terms of the sale, the house cannot be resold for 10 years. Among the Yonkers properties that will probably be redone for returning veterans: a 2,400 square foot house being converted to a two family, and an abandoned three bedroom colonial (vandals stole its copper plumbing months ago), which Mr. and Mrs. Roushion hope to move into within a year. They are to work alongside volunteers to rebuild the place, and to clear the brush obscuring views of the Hudson River and the New York City skyline. Mr. Killoran describes the houses as "diamonds in the rough." They are on the west side of Yonkers in a formerly industrial area of mostly run down buildings, many of them abandoned and pockmarked by broken windows. There is scattered evidence of the new energy that Habitat for Humanity is infusing into the neighborhood: freshly painted buildings, tidy community gardens and, at street corners, wooden planters filled with spring flowers. "You can't just renovate a few houses and leave it at that," Mr. Killoran said. "You have to bring up the whole neighborhood along with them." Cisco has worked with more than 150 Habitat for Humanity groups worldwide and contributed more than 9 million to the organization's various projects since 1998, said William DeKnatel, a Cisco client service director. In addition to money for construction, the company offers grants to provide Internet wiring for low income families "who often have less access to information on the Web," said Mr. DeKnatel, who works in Cisco's Manhattan offices and lives in Westchester. He met Mr. Killoran several years ago at a Sunday service at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in New Rochelle and has since recruited church congregants, members of his Boy Scout troop and clients to volunteer for Habitat in Westchester. At Silverstein Properties, Marty Burger, who shares the chief executive post with Larry Silverstein, says he met Mr. Killoran three years ago when one of Mr. Burger's sons expressed an interest in volunteering for the group. Now Mr. Burger's synagogue, Congregation Emanu El of Westchester in Rye, has become involved, its members installing kitchen cabinets, replacing door frames, windows and siding, and otherwise remaking substandard housing. Also, subcontractors at the World Trade Center site, Mr. Burger said, have trucked in gravel, poured foundations and installed electrical circuitry for Habitat projects. Mr. Burger described the burly 50 year old Mr. Killoran, who has a master's degree in divinity and says he believes in the "theology of the hammer," as "a soldier who's out there every week gathering troops from temples, mosques, churches and colleges."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Underwater cinematography at Gardens of the Queen FABIAN PINA AMARGOS You see in this place things that you don't see anywhere else. In Cuba, in the Caribbean, or even in the world. DANIEL WHITTLE (EDF) Going to the Gardens of the Queen is like being in the Florida Keys maybe a 100 to 150 years ago. There is nothing there. ...there's just nothing there except fish and beautiful corals. TITLE: CUBA'S CORAL GARDEN Driving down road...; MAP; loading the boat 50 MILES OFF THE SOUTH COAST OF CUBA IS A LONG STRETCH OF PROTECTED MANGROVES KEYS AND CORAL REEFS THAT IS GIVING MARINE SCIENTISTS HOPE FOR THE FUTURE OF OUR OCEANS. CALLED THE GARDENS OF THE QUEEN, IT'S A PLACE THAT FEW PEOPLE EVER SEE. IN MAY, THE NEW YORK TIMES MADE THE JOURNEY THERE WITH A GROUP OF SCIENTISTS FROM THE UNITED STATES. OUR GUIDE WAS CUBA'S TOP MARINE BIOLOGIST, FABIAN PINA. Pina on the bow of the boat PINA (on boat) This is a really special place, because it's been protected since 1996. So, it's the closest that we can get to the pristine environment. This is like a living laboratory where we can try to understand ... the status of wild populations. AT THE GARDENS OF THE QUEEN, WE ENTERED A MAZE OF MANGROVE CHANNELS INHABITED BY HERMIT CRABS, IGUANAS AND LARGE RODENTS CALLED JUTIA. THEY SCAMPERED UP, EAGER FOR A DRINK OF FRESH WATER OR A SLICE OF MANGO. Have you ever seen this many iguanas outside of Cuba like this? NATALIA ROSSI Only in terreriums, but not in nature. This is pretty unusual. // Cuba, they sustain the healthiest populations because ... the habitat is pristine. The mangroves are in good shape, and they need the mangroves for feeding and refuge. BUT THE TRUE GARDEN WAS UNDERWATER. THERE WERE GROVES OF RARE ELKHORN CORAL TEEMING WITH COLORFUL FISH. MINUTES AWAY, WE DOVE IN AGAIN AND WERE SURROUNDED BY GROUPERS AND CARIBBEAN REEF SHARKS. PINA The Gardens of the Queen have ten times more sharks and large fish than the surrounding waters. // And the only explanation for that is because of the protection for twenty years. Fidel Castro speaking at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit CASTRO (trans) Use science to achieve sustainable development without pollution. Pay the ecological debt. IN THE MID 90S, AFTER THIS SPEECH CONDEMNING THE PLANET'S ECOLOGICAL DESTRUCTION, FIDEL CASTRO'S GOVERNMENT BEGAN A RADICAL PUSH TO PROTECT CUBA'S COASTAL WATERS FROM OVERFISHING. WHITTLE Cuba has by far the most ambitious system of marine parks in the entire Caribbean and a true model for the rest of the world. Pina in the boat talking with Jake about past setnets in the mangroves TODAY, THE GARDENS OF THE QUEEN IS THE LARGEST MARINE PROTECTED AREA IN THE CARIBBEAN. THE ONLY COMMERCIAL FISHING ALLOWED HERE IS FOR SPINY LOBSTER. AND THE MANGROVES, STILL ALMOST UNTOUCHED, PROVIDE A VAST NURSERY FOR YOUNG FISH. ROSSI Mangrove systems have been pretty much eliminated in the Caribbean. // Here you see everything in its biggest expression. Here you can really see how everything fits together, from the coast to the mangroves to the reefs and how all these ecosystems are connected. DR. PINA TRACKS THE HEALTH AND ABUNDANCE OF THE GARDEN'S TWO PEAK PREDATORS, SHARKS AND GOLIATH GROUPER. Pina we saw a grouper here last expedition... WE DID NOT SEE ANY GOLIATH GROUPERS OURSELVES, BUT A CUBAN DIVER WORKING IN THE GARDENS OF THE QUEEN SHARED THIS FOOTAGE OF THEM. PINA The goliath grouper is a critical endangered species // it's a fish that can weigh like a small car. So that animal needs a lot of food. // 00:33:57 And for that reason, it's important from the ecological point of view. But also it's very important as a tourist attraction. It's this huge animal that everybody likes. TO STUDY THESE LARGE PREDATORS, DR. PINA FIRST HAS TO CATCH AND TAG THEM. THE PROCESS CAN BE INTENSE, BUT LASTS ONLY A FEW MINUTES. SCENE: Capturing and tagging sharks; CU eyes and mouth; measurements WHITTLE Sharks have declined in many cases by 90% throughout the world, including in Cuba. // 00:13:45 The baseline data that they're trying to...to collect is absolutely critical. // You can't manage fishing if you don't know how many fish are in the water. You can't protect coral reef ecosystems if you don't know, you know how they're being impacted. Release the shark; Fabian whistles Obama announcement AS THE UNITED STATES AND CUBA PREPARE TO NORMALIZE RELATIONS, THERE'S CONCERN IN BOTH COUNTRIES ABOUT HOW THE GARDENS OF THE QUEEN WILL FARE AGAINST A FLOOD OF TOURISM AND BUSINESS. WHITTLE So many countries are eager to invest in Cuba, to trade with Cuba to develop you know golf courses, marinas, hotels. It's just a fantastic place and people from around the world will want to come here, to spend vacations here and do business here. All of that is fantastic for the Cuban economy, it's good for the Cuban people; it's a challenge to the Cuban environment PINA 00:17:08 Many, many Americans will come when the blockade, or what you call the embargo ends. // That could bring 100,000, a million visitors and their footprint on nature could be very high. PINA 00:31:21 If, if that happened in large numbers that could be devastating for, for this area because you see the coral, the elkhorn coral cannot stand a kick with the, with your fin. They break. DR. PINA'S FINDINGS WILL HELP INFORM POLICYMAKERS IN HAVANA WHO ARE BUSY REWRITING CUBA'S RULES RULES ABOUT HOW MANY SCUBA DIVERS AND FISHERMEN WILL BE ALLOWED IN THE GARDENS OF THE QUEEN AND HOW MUCH INFRASTRUCTURE CAN BE BUILT TO ACCOMMODATE THEM. Tourist lighting cigar near Jardines de la Reina sign "Success!" CURRENTLY, FEWER THAN 3000 TOURISTS COME HERE A YEAR. BUT THAT NUMBER COULD SOAR IF, SAY, THE U.S. EMBARGO ENDS AND REVENUE BECOMES A NATIONAL PRIORITY. DAVID E. SANDLIN, LODGE OWNER, AK It's just fun to see it the way it was when Hemingway left here. JOSEPH BRADY, JLL REALTY CHICAGO Turns out he drank everywhere. DURING OUR STAY, WE MET SEVERAL AMERICAN FLY FISHERMEN DOING CATCH AND RELEASE. THEY WERE STAYING AT THE ONLY HOTEL IN THE GARDENS OF THE QUEEN, A BOAT CALLED THE TORTUGA. SANDLIN Once they get the transportation and the infrastructure, maybe they'll be able to handle people. I think a lot of people will want to come here. And then of course eventually it would lose all of its wonderful charm. BRADY Unless it was conserved SANDLIN Because we'd have glass and metal highrises all over the place. WITH CUBA'S HISTORY OF CONSERVATION, DR. PINA HAS MORE CONFIDENCE THAT CHANGE WILL BE LESS DRAMATIC. PINA I have heard that Cuba is pristine because the blockade or the embargo, because we have no people coming here, that Americans haven't come here for many, many years. // Still we keep the environment in good shape. And that's because we have decided, Cuba have decided as a country to do it differently. END IT	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
What causes uterine fibroids, and why do they (sometimes) cause unusually heavy bleeding? Have a question about women's health? Ask Dr. Gunter yourself. Uterine fibroids, known medically as leiomyomas, are benign growths of uterine muscle. Genetics, race, hormones and previous pregnancies can all have a role in creating fibroids. There are several ways that these benign tumors can contribute to heavy menstrual periods. Tell Me More Fibroids are benign tumors of the muscle of the uterus, also called the myometrium . They are very common by 50 years of age 70 percent of white women and 80 percent of black women will have at least one fibroid. For many of these women, fibroids are very small and/or cause no symptoms. They are often found incidentally most commonly on an ultrasound, CT scan or M.R.I. that was performed for symptoms unrelated to fibroids. For other women, fibroids can cause heavy or prolonged menstrual periods. Other symptoms may include: None Irregular bleeding meaning bleeding not during the menstrual cycle. None Pelvic pressure and urinary incontinence, especially when fibroids are larger. None Complications in pregnancy such as miscarriage, preterm labor and even obstruction of labor, necessitating a cesarean section. Fibroids are hormonally responsive. They are influenced by the reproductive hormones estrogen and progesterone and as such are not seen before puberty, typically shrink with menopause and can grow rapidly during pregnancy	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Well
The former national security adviser has indicated that he would testify in the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump if subpoenaed. Leaked passages from the manuscript of his forthcoming book indicate that, contrary to assertions by Mr. Trump and his defenders, the president unequivocally conditioned the release of foreign assistance to Ukraine on whether its government would investigate Democrats, including Joe and Hunter Biden, and furnish politically damaging information about them. The revelations have bolstered the Democrats' heretofore flagging case for calling witnesses in the trial Mr. Bolton in particular and produced fissures between the White House and congressional Republicans. Mr. Bolton, an often vituperative and very hawkish conservative Republican, is ostensibly a political ally of Mr. Trump's. It's complicated, of course: Mr. Trump fired Mr. Bolton, reportedly because of the latter's overly aggressive views regarding Iran; then again, Mr. Trump ordered the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani of Iran, a move that Mr. Bolton presumably supported. So Mr. Bolton's motives for potentially undermining the president position may, at first blush, seem confusing. But there may be a method to the madness four of them, in fact. The first is patriotism. Although Mr. Bolton does hold extreme views about the use of American power, there is little doubt about his basic fealty to the United States constitutional system and to established American institutions. Having come of political age during the Cold War, he is a strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and an opponent of Russia's revanchism under President Vladimir Putin. When Mr. Trump mused about withdrawing the United States from the NATO alliance in 2018, Mr. Bolton was reportedly distressed and rallied to keep it from happening. And, in questioning fellow Republican Jon Huntsman's decision to serve as ambassador to China in President Barack Obama's administration in 2011, Mr. Bolton said, "There is no patriotic obligation to help advance the career of a politician who is otherwise pursuing interests that are fundamentally antithetical to your values." In other words, Mr. Trump's frequent demeaning of the Atlantic alliance, his obtuse bromance with Putin, and his apparent acquiescence in Russian interference with the American electoral process may have persuaded Mr. Bolton to desert the president on principle. Then there are his professional principles. Mr. Bolton, unlike Mr. Trump and some of the fiercest members of his inner circle, is a seasoned government professional with an informed respect for the institutional architecture and ethos of American foreign policy. Before becoming Mr. Trump's national security adviser, Mr. Bolton served as ambassador to the United Nations, undersecretary of state, assistant secretary of state and assistant attorney general. Mr. Bolton reportedly characterized Mr. Trump's meddling with aid to Ukraine as a "drug deal" a crude metaphor for actions that violate his sense of foreign policy professionalism. He also disdained the president's circumvention of normal diplomatic channels by informally enlisting Rudolph Giuliani, his personal lawyer, whom Mr. Bolton called a "hand grenade who's going to blow everybody up." Separate from his sense of patriotic duty, Mr. Bolton may have felt that Mr. Trump had so demeaned the integrity of the foreign policy structure that something radical had to be done. Well, maybe. Another explanation is personal indignation and greed. Mr. Bolton spent much of his career dreaming of the national security adviser job, and reportedly lobbied the president for it for years. And, of course, his book is due to come out March 17, and these revelations are sure to make it an instant best seller (a fact not lost on the president: Mr. Trump's backers have predictably cast him as a "disgruntled" former employee, and Mr. Trump himself has accused him of merely trying to sell books). Let's not judge John Bolton too harshly, though. He lasted almost a year and a half in a job under a famously mercurial president, and toward the end was reportedly unhappy in it. And his book, for which he received a reported 2 million advance, didn't need this revelation to make it a hot item or line his pockets. So while I'm sure Mr. Bolton doesn't mind a taste of revenge and higher book sales, in all likelihood the two more honorable factors feature more heavily in Mr. Bolton's decision making. But there's one more motive: personal ambition. This is not a man known for his humility. Don't forget that Mr. Bolton harbors presidential dreams; he came close to a run in 2015, and he maintains a political action committee, through which he doles out money to Republican politicians. And even if Mr. Bolton has let that particular dream die, it's unlikely that he has hung up his government spurs instead, he may judge that the Trump ship is sinking and figure that Mr. Bolton might as well accelerate the process and try to position himself for a post in the next administration. That short term calculation of Mr. Trump's political fortunes may not be sound, and Mr. Bolton may be a ruthless pragmatist. But if he does end up further exposing Mr. Trump's duplicity, in the fullness of time Mr. Bolton will end up, however fortuitously, on the right side of history. That's a better legacy than he might have secured merely as the third of Mr. Trump's four (and counting) embattled national security advisers. If nothing else, this week's revelations show Mr. Bolton, even after being unceremoniously fired by his president, is still one of the cagiest political fighters in town. Jonathan Stevenson is a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and managing editor of Survival. He was the National Security Council director for political military affairs, Middle East and North Africa, from 2011 to 2013. 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
Snopes, the fact checking website that once focused on debunking flimsy internet rumors but has expanded into a 16 person operation that calls out political leaders for dishonesty, is locked in a legal battle that it says has drained the money it needs to survive. The site, which gets all of its revenue from advertising, created a crowdfunding page on Monday, raising 500,000 from readers in one day to remain operational indefinitely. It says that Proper Media, the vendor that runs its advertising services, has withheld the site's revenue and has refused to relinquish control of the site. That leaves Bardav the company that owns and operates Snopes with no way of moving the site to a new host or installing its own ads, said David Mikkelson, a founder of the site. "We have had no income whatsoever for the last several months," Mr. Mikkelson said in an interview on Monday. When asked how long the site could last without a successful fund raising drive or legal victory, Mr. Mikkelson responded: "Not a whole lot longer." Proper Media and its lawyers tell a starkly different story. They say that Snopes employees will continue to be paid from the advertising revenue, and that Mr. Mikkelson should be removed from the company because of wasteful spending. The two sides, which have sued each other in separate claims, present entirely conflicting descriptions of who owns the company and what is being withheld from whom. The earliest chance for resolution appears to be a court hearing scheduled for next week. Whether the squabbling will affect Snopes's ability to produce its popular mythbusting remains to be seen, but the disputes are unlikely to be settled until there is legal clarity on the underlying structure of the company. Proper Media considers itself an owner of Bardav, not a vendor. As Proper Media tells it, Barbara Mikkelson, Mr. Mikkelson's ex wife, sold her 50 percent share to Proper Media in 2016, but for tax purposes it was bought in the name of its individual members "for the benefit of Proper Media." Two Proper Media officers, Drew Schoentrup and Christopher Richmond, would get 20 percent stakes in Bardav, while three others would own 3.33 percent stakes. Proper Media said the deal included Mr. Schoentrup taking a seat on a two person board alongside Mr. Mikkelson. But Mr. Mikkelson, who owns the other 50 percent of the Bardav shares, said that Mr. Schoentrup does not sit on the board, and that the five shareholders should be viewed individually, as opposed to collectively, giving Proper Media equal ownership. Stocks rise after President Biden says Jerome Powell will stay atop the Fed. Retail earnings and Black Friday: the week in business. Mr. Schoentrup's on or off status on the board is crucial in Mr. Mikkelson's decision to cancel Bardav's contract with Proper Media, which handles many of the technological and advertising services for Snopes. In March, Bardav gave Proper Media a 60 day notice that it would be terminating the contract, effective May 8. Mr. Mikkelson said the contract was agreed to when Snopes was a much smaller company, but now it had its own business focused employees and other services "can be obtained much more cheaply from other vendors." Karl Kronenberger, a lawyer for Proper Media, said in an interview on Monday that Mr. Mikkelson cannot cancel the contract without calling a board meeting which, in Proper Media's view, would include Mr. Schoentrup. The company has continued as if the contract remained valid. Last week, a court ordered Proper Media, which cannot directly pay Snopes employees, to release 100,000 of the advertising revenues to Bardav, on the condition that the money be used for expenses and not be paid to Mr. Mikkelson, according to Mr. Kronenberger. Proper Media sued Mr. Mikkelson in May, accusing him of mismanaging the company's funds and abusing his position. (Mr. Mikkelson said he hadn't received money from the company this year aside from expenses and salary, which he said made him the lowest paid employee at Snopes.) Mr. Kronenberger said Mr. Mikkelson has locked Proper Media out of Bardav's bank accounts and "key databases it needs to do its job," and he disputed that Proper Media had locked Bardav out from making technological changes. "Mr. Mikkelson has absolute control of this domain name,'' Mr. Kronenberger said. "He can move it within minutes." As for the advertising revenue, "Our position is nothing is being wrongfully withheld," he said. But on the crowdfunding page, Mr. Mikkelson wrote that "although we maintain editorial control (for now), the vendor will not relinquish the site's hosting to our control, so we cannot modify the site, develop it, or most crucially place advertising on it." Both sides hope a court hearing scheduled for Aug. 4 will begin to bring some clarity. Proper Media hopes the judge will remove Mr. Mikkelson from the company, while Bardav is hoping the judge requires Proper Media to hand over the rest of the advertising revenue, including some money from before the contract termination took effect. For more than 20 years, Snopes has been a destination for batting down the urban legends and viral misinformation all too commonly found on the internet, first in email forwards and later in popular but misleading articles. At first run entirely by David and Barbara Mikkelson, it developed a reputation as an authority on declaring simply whether such tidbits could be believed. In recent years, the site added staff as it took increasing aim at the routine falsities of the political process. In December, Facebook made Snopes a key part of its efforts to combat fake news, including it in a group of fact checkers that would be alerted if enough users flagged an article as fake. On Monday, Snopes used its website and social media accounts to promote its crowdfunding effort. It reached its 500,000 in about one day. "We're just trying to pick a number that we're sure we can continue operations for, let's say, through possibly the end of the year, or at least the next several months while all this is happening," Mr. Mikkelson said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Ben Smith, the editor in chief of BuzzFeed, who built a hard hitting news operation within a digital media organization better known for clickbait and listicles, will be The New York Times's next media columnist. Mr. Smith will leave the digital news outlet to replace Jim Rutenberg, who recently became a writer at large at The Times, splitting duties between the politics desk and The Times Magazine. Before Mr. Rutenberg, the columnist position was held for years by David Carr, the prolific media columnist who died in 2015. An announcement on Tuesday signed by Dean Baquet, the executive editor; Joe Kahn, the managing editor; and Ellen Pollock, the business editor called Mr. Smith "a relentless innovator who helped change the shape of modern journalism." He is expected to start on March 2. "Ben not only understands the seismic changes remaking media, he has lived them and in some cases, led them," the editors said. BuzzFeed hired Mr. Smith in 2012 as editor in chief to help start its news division, BuzzFeed News. Some investors questioned the viability of a news operation, which might struggle to bring in enough revenue to outpace its costs. Last year, BuzzFeed laid off about 15 percent of its work force around 200 employees in several departments, including the news division. It is not clear how Mr. Smith's imminent departure may affect the future of BuzzFeed News. In a note sent to BuzzFeed's staff on Tuesday, Mr. Smith said, "this place is built to last." "I fully expect you will keep on breaking news, telling the stories others won't in ways they haven't thought of, and doing the hard work that's made us who we are," he said. Ford and Rivian no longer plan to work jointly on electric vehicles. Elizabeth Holmes took the stand in her trial. Follow along with our reporters. Ken Griffin, head of Citadel, bid highest for a copy of the Constitution. He added, "I've been here for eight years and (as I'm sure many of you have picked up) am eager for a spell of writing and reporting and thinking." Jonah Peretti, the chief executive of BuzzFeed who helped found it in 2006 and has championed the news operation, said in a note to its staff on Tuesday that Mr. Smith helped grow BuzzFeed from "a digital news start up to a world class, global news organization in less than a decade." "With other news organizations existing for over a century, it is hard to express how incredible an accomplishment this is," Mr. Peretti said. BuzzFeed News was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 2018 for its work investigating operatives with apparent ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia engaging in targeted killings in England and the United States. In 2017, Chris Hamby, a reporter at BuzzFeed News, was a finalist for the Pulitzer in international reporting for a report about how multinational corporations undermined environmental laws. But in January 2017, Mr. Smith had to defend BuzzFeed News after he was the first editor to publish an unverified dossier containing salacious reports about President Trump compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, during the 2016 presidential campaign. Mr. Smith argued that it was worthy of release in part because its contents had been shared with Mr. Trump and others "at the highest levels of the U.S. government." Providing that level of transparency, he argued, was "how we see the job of reporters in 2017." Many of the dossier's more lurid claims proved false or unprovable. Mr. Smith was hired by BuzzFeed from Politico, where he had been a senior political writer since 2007. He had previously been a reporter at The New York Sun and The New York Observer. He was also a political columnist at The New York Daily News.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
For 24 years, the editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel has been the public face of The Nation, the oldest continuously published weekly in the United States. On June 15, she will give up her job as day to day editor, and be succeeded in the role by D. D. Guttenplan, an author long associated with the magazine. "It's possible to stay in a job too long," Ms. vanden Heuvel said in an interview. "It's a time of tectonic shifts, and a new editor is part of the change that I think is important to continue The Nation's work as a place of progressive ideals and ideas." The second woman to edit The Nation, Ms. vanden Heuvel, a part owner of the publication, will stay on as publisher and continue to provide advice to the editorial staff as editorial director, the magazine said on Monday. Since its founding by Republican abolitionists in 1865, The Nation has published work by, among others, James Baldwin, Noam Chomsky, Eric Foner, Henry James, Toni Morrison and I. F. Stone. Its circulation peaked at 186,000 in 2006 and has since settled at about 132,000, although its online traffic has been growing steadily. It endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential election.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here. David Maas, one half of a husband wife magic act who achieved YouTube stardom, performed on some of television's biggest stages and kept basketball fans nationwide nailed to their seats at halftime with their lightning fast costume changes, died on Nov. 22 in Chicago. He was 57. The cause was Covid 19, the couple's agency, Hoffman Entertainment, said. Mr. Maas and Dania Kaseeva married in 1996, when the couple first performed their "Quick Change" routine. Garishly dressed, they would dance around, then cover each other for mere seconds before emerging in new garb, the old outfit nowhere to be found. The illusion was performed under the veil of a sheet, or a toss of confetti. It landed the duo on programs like "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "Ellen" and a host of late night shows as well as the reality TV series "Big Brother." They helped the pop singer Katy Perry perform her own rapid costume changes during concert performances of the song "Hot N Cold."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Monica McCarthy, an academic counselor at City College of San Francisco for eight years, has worked with thousands of community college students hoping to transfer to state universities. But lately she has encountered more and more state university students clamoring to enroll in community college classes. "It's been crazy," Ms. McCarthy said. "I have a lot of students from San Francisco State saying, 'I can't get into my lower division classes at State. I need to come in here.' " Not that there are seats to spare at San Francisco's community college. From last fall to this spring, City College cut 710 classes of the 8,800 it planned to offer. This summer's session has been canceled, and with it about another 860 classes were lost. One thousand six hundred and fifty five students who tried to register in fall 2009 did not get into any classes at all, up from 635 in fall 2005, evidence that the ideal of universal access to education is increasingly unattainable. Some City College students are now turning to other Bay Area colleges, like Laney College in Oakland, to try to fit into summer classes. In the Continuing Student Counseling Department, Ms. McCarthy, 44, works with many students whose academic progress has slowed if not stalled. The California State University system closed the spring semester this year to students transferring in from other institutions. Shut out, City College students who had been poised to transfer find themselves in educational limbo, taking classes they do not really need, while waiting to move up to a university in the fall. "They're hanging out, taking up seat space," Ms. McCarthy said in her office on the Ocean Campus. "I say that with love." As some students are blocked from state universities, the community college system has trouble absorbing both them and the laid off workers who are going back to school for retraining. All are trying to fit into a community college system that lost 520 million in state financing over the last academic year, about 8 percent of its overall budget. "It's a perfect storm," said Michael W. Kirst, professor emeritus of education and business administration at Stanford University. "There's more demand and fewer courses. Four year schools can buffer themselves from this storm by restricting enrollment and drastically increasing their tuition. The community colleges take the top 100 percent of students, whether they're young or old." More students vying for fewer classes means fewer will meet their educational goals. "The longer students cannot take the classes they want or need, the less likely it is that they will complete the program they want," said Professor Kirst, a past president of the California State Board of Education. "They run out of money. They run out of time. They just give up at some point." This academic year, overall enrollment in community colleges has declined about 1 percent from last year's record enrollment of 2.89 million. "We're almost like a retail store that has more customers than it can handle," said Jack Scott, chancellor of California Community Colleges. City College of San Francisco lost 13.6 million in state financing this academic year. In October, it held a garage sale and flea market to raise money to try to save classes, offering donated items like bicycles, golf clubs and books. That effort preserved just two classes. Donations boxes at the college's Ocean Campus bookstore and cafeteria are now soliciting cash and checks to help restore more classes in the fall. In three weeks, students, faculty and staff members and administrators have pitched in 7,000. Peter DaSilva for The New York Times Even with all the cutbacks, the academic program has done better than services, like counseling. "Sacramento disproportionately cut student services," said Lindy McKnight, City College's dean of counseling and student support. An effect of the counseling reductions is student confusion about which classes to take, potentially delaying their progress. Andrew Todd, 21, a computer science major at City College, has also studied at California Polytechnic State University and Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, making it harder to figure out which classes will count toward a bachelor's degree at San Francisco State, where he hopes to enroll. "I've been trying to talk to counselors about this," Mr. Todd said. Yet, only once this semester has he met with one, and that was for a 15 minute drop in session. "I haven't been able to lay out an educational plan," he said. Mr. Todd counted on taking classes at City College this summer, but now he is looking for a full time summer job. Christa Collins, 35, had an associate's degree from Richland College in Dallas when she came to City College in 2008 to complete requirements for transferring to San Francisco State to study health education. Her goal is a master's degree in social work. "I'm stuck here at City College," Ms. Collins said. An administrative mix up with her out of state transcript prevented Ms. Collins's admission to San Francisco State last fall. Then, the California State University system closed spring admission. "It's been really hard to keep the momentum towards finishing my degree because I've had doors slammed in my face," said Ms. Collins, who has lived in San Francisco for more than a decade, working in sales for a skin care company and as a waitress. "She is the one who helped me figure out that there were a couple of classes I could take so I am not just completely spinning my wheels, wasting time," Ms. Collins said. Just three of the eight classes she took from last fall to this spring are transferable toward her degree. Ms. McCarthy and other counselors have less time to help students like Ms. Collins. At City College, more than 10,000 counseling hours have been cut this academic year. Counseling is no longer offered on Friday. Only very limited counseling will be available this summer when students register for fall classes. During "Xpress Counseling" hours, when students can drop in for sessions of 10 or 15 minutes, Ms. McCarthy finds herself saying "I'm sorry" a lot because there is rarely time to answer all their questions. Her hourlong counseling appointments are booked weeks in advance. "We're trying to figure out which way to go, but we're just busy bailing water out of the boat, so we're not sinking," she said. One of three children of a single, disabled mother, Ms. McCarthy was the first in her own family to get a college degree. Like many of those she counsels, she took a meandering path through higher education. After high school, Ms. McCarthy attended a community college in Los Angeles, where she was put on academic probation. Years later, after stints cleaning houses and selling cars, working in a candy factory and behind a hotel front desk, Ms. McCarthy came to City College, where a counselor inspired her to go on to become one herself, transferring to San Francisco State, where she received both a bachelor's and a master's degree. "I'm a product of community colleges," she said. Ms. McCarthy remains hopeful about the future of public education: "I'm forever an optimist. I think Sacramento has got to figure it out."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Education
At a time with more scripted television than ever, how long does it take to finish a season of a show? According to Netflix, not much time at all. Subscribers who finish the first season of a show generally do so in a week, Netflix says. And those viewers are dedicating a significant amount of time to do it: They watch about two hours a day. These are some of the findings from a study Netflix released Wednesday after tracking its global base of subscribers and how they watched the first seasons of more than 100 television series during a recent seven month stretch. "After three years of studying original series releases and nine years of streaming over all, we can now identify some patterns, finally," Cindy Holland, the vice president for original content at Netflix, said in an interview.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
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. Want this newsletter in your inbox? Sign up here. Estimable readers! My name is Ray Zhong, and I'm a tech reporter based in Beijing. My patch of the world is rarely out of the news these days; President Trump's trade fight has made sure of it. But with all the tariffs and talks, it's easy to forget how this all got started: China wants to build a high tech economy, and the Trump administration says it is doing so using unfair tactics, such as forcing American companies to share their know how. This is why the White House sounded so galled this week when Beijing responded to Washington's recent tariffs not by addressing those practices, but by imposing tariffs of its own. "We have been very clear and detailed regarding the specific changes China should undertake," Robert E. Lighthizer, the United States trade representative, said on Tuesday. "Unfortunately, China has not changed its behavior behavior that puts the future of the U.S. economy at risk."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve is watching carefully as financial markets bounce around, but the likely course of monetary policy remains the same, officials have said in recent public comments and interviews. The Fed still intends to finish its bond buying campaign at the end of the month. And it is still likely to start raising interest rates in mid 2015, although it now seems a little less likely that the Fed would act sooner, and more likely it would wait longer. "Just based on a short period of volatility, that's not enough for me to make much of an adjustment," Eric S. Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, said in an interview on Saturday. "We need more time to evaluate whether we should be doing any updating. And I would say the financial market movements have not been triggered by very many real economic indicators." Mr. Rosengren and other Fed officials say it is possible the market gyrations, and a downturn in inflation expectations, are early indications that they have once again overestimated the recovery. But the bulk of recent data has been more upbeat, and they see little harm in waiting for more information. "The stock market is much more volatile than the economy," Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a research note to clients last week. "Sooner or later, then, the incoming data will calm the markets' apparent growth fears, and talk of the Fed not beginning to tighten until 2016 will fade away." The Fed has methodically pulled back from bond buying over the last nine months. It plans to add a final 15 billion in Treasury and mortgage backed securities during October. Officials have pointed to the steady decline of the unemployment rate as evidence the economy no longer needs quite as much help. In recent weeks, however, market measures of inflation expectations have fallen sharply. On Friday, a measure called the break even rate, which is derived from asset prices, implied annual inflation would run around 1.37 percent over the next five years. The decline may show investors have growing doubts the Fed will meet its stated goal of 2 percent annual inflation. James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, told Bloomberg News last week that the Fed should consider delaying the end of its bond buying program. Tim Gruber for The New York Times Such a decision would show that "we are watching and we're ready and we are willing to do things to defend our inflation target," Mr. Bullard said. But that view appears to command little support among other Fed officials, in part because market based measures are viewed as relatively foggy. Mr. Rosengren noted that the measures, which compare Treasury securities with other assets, can also move because of changes in the perceived risks of those assets. Reminders of Europe's malaise have driven a "flight to safety" in recent weeks, as investors have piled into low risk assets like Treasuries. "Trying to draw inflation expectations from market prices is perilous," Mr. Rosengren said. "We need more time, and if it's a flight to safety that's a different story than if it's a story that inflation expectations are becoming unhinged." John C. Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said in an interview with Reuters last week that if the Fed did decide more stimulus was needed, he would prefer to respond first by delaying interest rate increases. That view is shared by most Fed officials, Michael Feroli, the chief United States economist at JPMorgan Chase, wrote last week. "We believe Williams' preference for communication about the expected path of the funds rate instead of more asset purchases is reflective of the majority attitude on the committee," he said. Officials are similarly doubtful that recent market volatility reflects a change in the underlying economy or that it will have broad economic consequences. "When risk assets dropped last summer, all financial conditions tightened sharply: credit spreads widened, equities fell and yields spiked," analysts at Barclays Capital pointed out in a note to clients last week. That has not happened this time. Indeed, some Fed officials had suggested in recent months that a little more volatility would be a good thing, helping to discourage excessive risk taking. Concerns about persistently low inflation, however, may be reducing the chances that the Fed would start raising rates before the middle of the year. Mr. Williams, an influential centrist, told Reuters he still thought a midyear increase was most likely, but that the greater risk was now that the Fed would need to wait longer. By the Fed's preferred measure, an index of personal consumption expenditures, inflation was just 1.5 percent over the 12 months that ended Aug. 31. Most of the 17 members of the Fed's policy making committee predicted in September that inflation would not increase to 2 percent in either of the next two years. And measures of inflation expectations based on consumer surveys are also drifting downward. The most prominent survey, conducted by the University of Michigan, reported on Friday that consumers expected 2.8 percent inflation over the next year the lowest forecast in the last four years. A survey created by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York also has drifted down since its introduction last year. Some Fed officials are concerned that the Fed risks waiting for too long before beginning to raise interest rates. In a recent interview, Loretta J. Mester, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pointed to research by her staff that found unemployment had "almost" returned to a normal level, based on an analysis of five measures of labor market slack.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
THE ENIGMA OF CLARENCE THOMAS By Corey Robin CLARENCE THOMAS AND THE LOST CONSTITUTION By Myron Magnet One of the most puzzling and disturbing aspects of our present crisis of populist extremism and racist revanchism is the fact that the nation's most zealous legal reactionary is a black man: Clarence Thomas, President Trump's favorite Supreme Court justice. How could a man whose rise from the depths of Jim Crow to one of the highest and most powerful positions in the nation so relentlessly turn against the civil rights movement and liberal state that made his ascent possible? How could a cruelly mocked victim of racism and intraracial color prejudice come to hold all victims in contempt? Why would someone from the impoverished inner city become the leading defender of the carceral state and American plutocracy? How could a black man who claims to loathe the memory of Jim Crow assail all integration policies, and defend states' rights and racially targeted gerrymandering, all while living happily with a white wife? What drives Clarence Thomas? These two works offer very different answers to such questions. In "The Enigma of Clarence Thomas," Corey Robin, a leftist political scientist at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, warns against dismissing Thomas as a mere extremist, or making the patronizing assumption that he does not have a jurisprudence. Myron Magnet, a right wing editor and writer, praises Thomas in "Clarence Thomas and the Lost Constitution" as the "Founders' grandson" as surely as Lincoln (in the historian Richard Brookhiser's words) was the "Founders' son." According to Magnet, Thomas is an intellectual heavyweight propounding the farsighted vision that "there is no government solution." His originalist jurisprudence "has blazed a trail to liberty that future justices can follow" in the dismantlement of the "administrative state." The secret key to understanding Thomas, Robin writes, is race: "Thomas is a black nationalist whose conservative jurisprudence rotates around an axis of black interests and concerns." The remarkable achievement of Robin's thoroughly researched, cogently argued work is that it makes a compelling case for what is, initially, a startling argument. Thomas, it is well known, was a black nationalist and disciple of Malcolm X during his college years: He rejected integration and strongly believed that race and racism were immutable, that liberalism and white benevolence were emasculating forms of patronage that led to dependency, the denial of black pride and any assurance in blacks' own achievements. All that they needed was to be left alone and guaranteed their right to be armed for self defense. Contrary to what Magnet and other white admirers assume, Robin shows that Thomas never gave up this deep seated black nationalism. He systematically goes through Thomas's copious work to show that race informs it all. Thus, Thomas rejects affirmative action not because it harms whites, as other conservatives claim, but because it harms blacks, brands them with a "badge of inferiority," elevates whites to the status of benefactors and perpetuates white supremacy. Policies aimed at the desegregation of schools and housing are rejected because they imply that blacks are inferior and need whites to learn how to create viable communities. Thomas has declared flatly that "the whole push to assimilate simply does not make sense to me."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
With "Avengers: Endgame" positioned to wipe out any competitors come Friday, only a couple of studios dared to roll out new movies this weekend. It worked fairly well for both of them. Warner Bros.'s "The Curse of La Llorona," the latest horror movie from some of the producers of the popular "Conjuring" series, topped the domestic box office with 26.5 million in ticket sales. That's a solid start; the movie reportedly cost just 9 million to make. While it pales in comparison to the 53.5 million that "The Nun," a recent "Conjuring" offshoot, made during its opening weekend in September, it is above the roughly 21 million opening weekend that analysts expected for "La Llorona." Directed by Michael Chaves, "La Llorona" stars Linda Cardellini as Anna, a widow. The plot involves Anna and her two children, Chris (Roman Christou) and Sam (Jaynee Lynne Kinchen), being haunted by La Llorona (Marisol Ramirez), a weeping woman based on a figure associated with Mexican folklore. In her review for The New York Times, Manohla Dargis called the movie "an enjoyably old fashioned ghost story." Read our critic's review of "The Curse of La Llorona." Warner Bros. also took the No. 2 spot with its lighthearted superhero movie "Shazam!," which brought in 17.3 million during its third weekend. Its domestic gross is now 121.3 million.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
William Rhodes wanted to buy a single family house in Fairfield County, Conn., not far from where he grew up in Darien. "I wanted to do some fixing," said Mr. Rhodes, who is known to his friends as Tip. "I didn't want it to be move in ready and immaculate." He and his girlfriend, Victoria Walsh, had been renting in Darien, which was far too expensive. There, a 700,000 house was on the low end of the market "and that was a knock down, start from scratch kind of place," he said. His budget was up to 400,000. Norwalk was a realistic choice. Mr. Rhodes, 32, a University of Connecticut graduate who is now a financial products salesman in Shelton, Conn., studied listings for a few years. Early last fall, having saved diligently, he visited a three bedroom house new to the market, not far from Norwalk Harbor. The 1925 house seemed to need just the right amount of work. "It was not hazardous, but plaster walls were falling apart and needed to be patched," Mr. Rhodes said. The stains and smells of once resident pets had soaked through the carpeting and were visible on the floors. The house did not seem to need exterior work, like roofing or siding. The asking price was 400,000. Mr. Rhodes returned with Sue Okie, a friend's mother, who is a sales associate at the Darien office of Halstead Connecticut. Because of the house's condition, he offered 330,000. The counteroffer was 395,000. No deal. Mr. Rhodes checked out an 1840 house on Silvermine Avenue, marked with a plaque. The price of the three bedroom had dropped to 330,000 from 400,000. Mr. Rhodes was concerned about the house's age. "It felt like you could open up a wall and find compounding issues," he said. "So where it was maybe a little less on the budget at first, I was concerned it would be much more on the budget in the long run." The house sold for 300,000. Another option was a 1959 bank owned four bedroom house on Old Belden Hill Road. The exterior was rundown, and he was reluctant "to be diving into that type of a project," he said. The yard, though large, was overgrown with vines and brush. Its slope made it unsuitable for a picnic table, he said. The house sold for 347,000 to Dan Raposo, a Realtor at the Higgins Group, a realty, and an investor in RPM Homes, which buys and flips single family homes. "To me, this was a moderate rehab," Mr. Raposo said. "An extensive renovation is stripping everything down to the studs and doing everything all over again." The roof was replaced and the siding repaired. "We took out two Dumpsters of just yard debris," he said. The house, now in move in condition, Mr. Raposo said, is on the market for 499,000. Meanwhile, the house near the harbor kept drawing Mr. Rhodes back. "There was a lot of upside potential," he said. "The amount of work was in the realm of my capabilities." A few weeks later, Mr. Rhodes offered 365,000. Another offer had just been received. So he raised his offer to 390,000, which was accepted. The inspection found pipes that needed replacing, and "some areas of concern that weren't issues yet, like keep your eye on them scenarios," Mr. Rhodes said. He also had a septic inspection. "Thankfully I did, because it was barely in working order, so the sellers replaced the whole septic system," he said. Mr. Rhodes closed last winter and since then has been fixing, patching, painting and cleaning, with the help of Ms. Walsh and others. "He always loved a project and is constantly tinkering with things," Ms. Walsh said. Contractors did plumbing and electrical work, refinished the floors and installed a new kitchen. Critiques? The garage is better suited to storage than a car. Ms. Walsh would have preferred a second full bathroom to the half bath they now have. "I don't know if I was fully prepared for the effort I put forth," Mr. Rhodes said. "I had to figure out how to hang a shower curtain on an angled ceiling. But I am extremely pleased with the results."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Annette Kolodny, a literary and cultural critic who was a pioneer in the field of ecofeminism, drawing parallels between the subjugation of the environment and the subjugation of women, died on Sept. 11 at her home in Tucson. She was 78. Her husband, Daniel Peters, said she learned she had rheumatoid arthritis when she was 19 and had been using a wheelchair for the last decade. She died of infections resulting from sores from prolonged sitting, he said. Dr. Kolodny was a prodigious author and scholar with many areas of interest, among them early American literature, Native American culture, women's studies and feminist literary criticism. Although she wrote books, she specialized in essays, and much of her most influential work including perhaps her most famous piece, "Dancing Through the Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory, Practice, and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism" (1980) was published in academic and literary journals. She was also one of the first Americans to delve into ecofeminism, a subgenre of feminist literary criticism that grew out of the environmental movement of the 1960s. Through this lens, Dr. Kolodny connected the ravaging of the land, particularly in the opening of the American West, and the ravaging of women. She explored that concept in the book "The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters" (1975). She was teaching at the University of New Hampshire when she wrote that book, and while it broke new ground and received positive reviews, she was denied tenure, even as men with similar credentials were promoted. That led her to sue the university for discrimination; the university settled with her out of court in 1980, but the experience was traumatic for her and would have lasting effects. "We lost almost all of the friends we thought we made," Mr. Peters, her husband, who is a novelist, said. "At a certain point, a number of the women suddenly started getting tenure, and they drummed her out of their group. She felt they had abandoned her." Still, Dr. Kolodny continued her scholarly and critical work. In 1984 she published another important book on ecofeminism, "The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630 1860." "Her interest in Native Americans arose with her interest in ecofeminism, because they both dealt with issues of cultural and economic appropriation," Adele Barker, a friend and former professor who worked with Dr. Kolodny in cultural studies at the University of Arizona, said in a phone interview. She added, "The issues that lay at the heart of feminism, issues of power and oppression, lay at the heart of all her work." Annette Kolodny was born on Aug. 21, 1941, on Governors Island in New York Harbor, where her father, David Kolodny, a dentist, was stationed while in the Army. Her mother, Esther (Rifkin) Kolodny, was a public school teacher. Annette grew up in Brooklyn and attended Brooklyn College, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1962. She went to work as a low level employee for Newsweek magazine's international editions, but, like many women there, she was frustrated. "Women were not being promoted," Mr. Peters said, "and she didn't see a way to go higher." She left after a year and studied English and American literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her doctorate in 1969. Her first job after that was teaching at Yale, where she met Mr. Peters, a senior in her class on the contemporary American novel; they were married in 1970. In addition to him, she is survived by her sisters, Nancy Weiner and Edie Kolodny Nagy. With the Vietnam War raging, Mr. Peters was worried about being drafted. The couple left Yale for Canada, where Dr. Kolodny taught literature at the University of British Columbia and Mr. Peters attended graduate school. They returned to the United States in 1974, and she landed a teaching job at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. When she was denied tenure, Dr. Kolodny, who was Jewish, charged the university under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with sexual discrimination and anti Semitism. After five years, she received an undisclosed amount that her husband and lawyers said was the largest settlement from a Title VII claim at the time. She used the money to found a legal defense fund within the National Women's Studies Association for female scholars fighting discrimination suits. A painful period followed for Dr. Kolodny. She was not teaching but supporting herself on grants while writing and raising money for her defense. She later described her anger in an essay, "I Dreamed Again That I Was Drowning," published in "Women Writers in Exile" (1989). "I will never be reconciled to the fact that the University of New Hampshire mired me in debt and emotional anguish during the last years in which I might reasonably have planned on pregnancy," she wrote. "Forced to concentrate all my energies on professional survival, I watched the biological time clock run out."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. Roaming off road through sandy, rock studded terrain in view of mountain peaks and windmill farms, a six wheeled rover about the size of a milk crate backed up and sped away from its creator. With infrared detectors to elude heat producing objects and other sensors to identify solid forms, the bot is in effect programmed to avoid human interaction. She's known as a "shy bot." "She doesn't have consciousness in the classical way, but she is sensitive," said the Italian artist behind the bot who, seeking to avoid celebrity himself, goes by the name Norma Jeane. "She does not want to be bothered." The shy bot is one of 16 art projects spread across the Palm Springs, Calif., area from Desert Hot Springs to Coachella as part of the sprawling new exhibition "Desert X," running Saturday through April 30. The bot is also one of several artworks in the show that play with fantasies of the desert as a great existential escape: a refuge for anyone (or anything) seeking to shed the straitjacket of civilization, to vanish from sight or just be left alone under the purportedly sheltering sky. Other disappearing acts include a mirror clad ranch house designed by Doug Aitken to reflect and dissolve into its surroundings, a nuclear bunker by Will Boone buried in the sand that holds a sculpture of John F. Kennedy inside and photo billboards positioned by Jennifer Bolande along the road in such a way so they blend into the mountain landscape behind them around dusk. (All works are free to the public, but some have limited hours.) "The mythology is the desert is a place to go to find yourself, but in order to do so you have to lose yourself," said Neville Wakefield, the New York curator who directed this inaugural show. "It's about letting everything go in order to find something." (He said the "Desert X" board, which includes local cultural leaders trying to boost the region's reputation as a visual art destination, has not committed to any schedule yet "biennial, triennial or unpredictable.") The Marlboro Man of appropriation art, Richard Prince, found in the desert a bastion of lawlessness as wild as the internet he so often trolls for images. He has taken over an old home in Desert Hot Springs so derelict that it looks like it might have been a meth den in better days. He has not cleaned up the place so much as trashed it with his own art: printing on paper and vinyl sheets images of his Twitter posts about fictional lowlife relatives "family tweets," he calls the series and plastering them throughout the property. Tweets are stapled to walls, pinned to the floor with rocks and tossed on the scrubby grounds outside, beside soda cups and dirty diapers. Those crumpled up papers blowing across the front yard like tumbleweed? Yes, those are family tweets, too. One reads: "I put an ad in a swingers magazine and my mother answered." The photos printed beneath the tweets range from tacky to pornography. Mr. Wakefield sees it as "a portrait of American family dysfunction" but also a self portrait of the artist. "The house is the home is the head," he quipped. Of the 16 artists in "Desert X," there are only four women "and too many machos," Norma Jeane offered when explaining the female gender he assigned to his bot. Asked about the imbalance, Mr. Wakefield said, "I'm not a quota curator." "The balance was more even at the early stages of conversation, but this is somehow what came out of it," he said. "I don't know if there's a gender affinity with the desert, but historically a lot of the mythologies of the desert starting with biblical examples of being cast into the wilderness are male." As it turns out, the work made by women in Desert X proved less spectacle driven and more contemplative. A sound installation by Lita Albuquerque (with performances not seen by this reporter) centers on a blue female sculpture with her ear to the ground. The work of the Swiss artist Claudia Comte, a wall nearly 10 feet high and 100 feet long at the base of hiking trails in Palm Desert, might at a distance seem a critique of President Trump's plans for reinforcing the border. But up close, it's clear that the artwork is a painting as much as a wall, covered with repeating black S patterns that gradually sharpen into zigzags as you walk along it. The wall appears to bulge in spots because of the curves, an optical effect that nods to Op Art painting as well as to heat haze, the shimmering visual distortion that can occur in the desert. At another trailhead further west, near the base of the Whitewater Preserve, the Los Angeles based Sherin Guirguis has built a domed, earthen sculpture like the pigeon towers popular in Egypt, where she grew up. The towers are typically used to breed the birds for food or sport (and, more rarely, for espionage missions). Her sculpture has niches for birds, but she doesn't expect any to actually use it; she wants viewers to wonder about its significance.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
"Babylon" is a 39 year old nugget of a movie about young British Jamaicans and their itinerant reggae scene built around sound systems, freestyling and parties with rich, low lighting. The film is making its American debut on Friday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and it's got an episodic vividness and blanket load of warmth, but also a harsh view of day to day life for black people in South London on its streets, in its public housing, at its video arcades. If the police aren't trying to shake down and beat up these guys, some fed up white lady has come to their chill spot to complain (not unreasonably) that their music is too loud by telling them (unreasonably) to go back to their country and calling them "jungle bunnies." The movie is more interested in what feels real than what seems right. What was real, when the movie opened in Britain in November 1980, was the poverty and racism its characters dealt with. Apparently, it was too real. The movie arrived with an X rating, which, in Britain, was basically like an R. But it ensured that the young black people whom "Babylon" was primarily made for wouldn't have been let into a theater to see it. The thinking might have been that censors would have been saving young impressionable audiences from themselves. That kind of paternalism is, in some way, the force being retaliated against. The movie comprises a bunch of tangents (a minor music deal, some vandalism, an engagement ceremony). But a soulful, genial mechanic named Blue (played by Brinsley Forde, a guitarist in the British reggae outfit Aswad) provides the film's spine: his rocky home life, love life and career prospects (he doesn't keep his repair job for long; he dallies with a couple of thugs who lure then rob a gay white man). Blue's close bond with a white kid named Ronnie (Karl Howman) and his love of reggae are just about all the stability he has. And once the racial stress of the neighborhood asserts itself into their group of friends, that bond seems rickety, too. Franco Rosso directed "Babylon" from a script he wrote with Martin Stellman. And you can receive it as a toothsome scrapbook of a moment in time a future Oscar winner, Chris Menges ("The Killing Fields"), shot the film, and the reggae polymath Dennis Bovell did the music. Critics then like, the filmmakers, white men seemed to get the movie's politics, immediately hailing "Babylon" as a crucial imaginative, representative step forward for a stagnant film industry, despite more than one writer feeling compelled to grapple with such an abundance of dreadlocks. Both anger and wonder course through the proceedings, and I'm not sure Rosso and Stellman knew what more to do about either than observe them, more the way an Italian neorealist director would than a psychologist might. The film's reggae culture makes it natural kin of Jamaican jams like "Rockers" and "The Harder They Come." But "Babylon" is a British movie about disaffected British people (disaffected British men), and, as such, seems just as seminal an entry in the English "angry young man" sweepstakes as the plays, novels and movies about alienation made in the 1960s. The final five minutes are bleakly abrupt, like being dropped off a cliff. And yet all of that observation in "Babylon" amounts to something that still feels new. You're looking at people who, in 1980 England, were, at last, being properly, seriously seen.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Lately, my favorite fiction has transported me out of the terrors of the present and thrust me back in time. Take Jess Kidd's utterly mesmerizing third novel, THINGS IN JARS (Atria, 369 pp., 27), set in a Victorian era London of gargoyles that "vomit rainwater" and "labyrinthian alleys, twisting passages, knocked up and tumbling down houses." Bridie Devine, a pipe smoking, cross dressing investigator, walks these streets solving crimes. The case at the heart of "Things in Jars" is that of a missing child, Cristabel Berwick. Cristabel is a "fair haired child" who "seems to glow ... as if she's carved from bright marble," with sharp, strong teeth. She can't speak, but she can hit shattering high notes with her voice, and her eyes change color, "from alabaster, to slate, to polished jet." The hunt for her is on. And what a magical hunt it is. Bridie moves through a Victorian London of ravens and ghosts, apothecaries and circuses, a foggy underworld filled with crypts and stuffy rooming houses. She is accompanied by a handsome ghost named Ruby, a "seafarer and champion boxer" whose tattoos animate in relation to his sentiments. As we learn more about Bridie, we understand that her talents were formed in the house of a Dr. John Eames, where she grew to admire the specimens Dr. Eames kept in jars, "the human heart ... the eye the size of a fist, a miracle of muscle and ventricle ... the lung country clean and pink" that had "drawn millions of breaths before Dr. Eames pickled it." One day in Dr. Eames's lab, Bridie discovered an infant in a jar, "sound asleep in its glass womb." Turning the jar, she sees "at the back of the head, just under the wispy curls at the nape of the baby's neck, there is a line of scales. Subtle at first, then swelling into a filmy dorsal fin, slight but proud, that follows the spine down to the end in the sweep of a curled tail." It is a winter mermaid, a "merrow. A memory reading, dry land drowning, man biting sea lunatic." The mythology of the merrow and mermaids informs the mystery surrounding the missing Cristabel, and adds layers to Bridie's investigation.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Follow our live coverage of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's commemoration and the Supreme Court vacancy. There was our justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg: "At the end of the day, the government is throwing to the wind the women's entitlement. ..." She was forcefully intervening at oral argument in the last months of her life, in a case about access to contraception under the Affordable Care Act. Her dissent, issued in July, condemned the majority for leaving potentially half a million women to "fend for themselves." It was her last opinion about gender equality after a lifetime of advocacy and leadership on the court. She was keenly aware, as she always was, of how the law affects real women in real life. And as always, nothing could stop her from speaking up. We clerked for Justice Ginsburg in the 1997 and 2003 terms. She was a role model for us in law and in life; how to work, how to write, how to advocate, how to partner, how to mentor. She was already famous when we clerked for her. But that she later became a feminist icon in her octogenarian years for millions of little girls around the world is nothing short of extraordinary. This didn't happen through loudness of voice, harshness of words or a biting cynicism about the world. It was through a remarkable legal intellect, an incomparable work ethic and a powerful vision of what justice and equal treatment for men and women mean in reality. Her once radical vision of gender equality penetrated the law in countless areas, not just reproductive rights but also workplace discrimination, class action law, criminal procedure in every aspect of how women interact with the world. And she lived that vision through every aspect of her personal life, too. Justice Ginsburg was the last justice on the court to have spent time before the bench as a legal advocate for equality. (Justice Thurgood Marshall was the last before her.) Today we take for granted her vision of gender equality. But we should never forget that it was not until 1971 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Constitution prohibits discrimination based on sex. That was Justice Ginsburg's case Reed v. Reed, which challenged the rule that men were the preferred administrators of estates of deceased persons, and that gave a grieving mother the right to administer the estate of the son she lost. For Justice Ginsburg, equality did not mean special she would say "pedestal" treatment for women. Equality meant the same treatment for women and men. Stories from her childhood as when she complained it was unfair that boys had wood shop while girls had sewing are renowned. As an advocate, her litigation strategy zeroed in on that radical vision and realized it for all of us. She often used male instead of female plaintiffs to show sex discrimination prevents all people from realizing their full potential. Why shouldn't a man, for example, receive the same Social Security benefits a woman would receive, so he could stay home to care for his child after his spouse died? She successfully brought that question to the court in the 1975 case Weinberger v. Weisenfeld. She has said in interviews: "The aim was to break down the stereotypical view of men's roles and women's roles." Over the next 45 years, Justice Ginsburg would extend that vision into every corner of American life. In 1996, she wrote a pathbreaking opinion striking down Virginia's provision of single sex public education for men only (at a military institute), giving us both the law and the vocabulary to describe her vision. She eschewed the term "women's rights." Instead, equal protection demanded that both women and men be given "full citizenship stature equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society." Then there were the dissents they had an extraordinary impact even before she became the leader of the court's liberal wing and gained the moniker "notorious R.B.G." In 2006, with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement, Justice Ginsburg became the only woman on the court. She spoke ever louder. In a case upholding a federal ban on late term abortions, Justice Ginsburg's dissent attacked the majority for its paternalistic concern that women could not be trusted to make decisions they would not regret: "The Court invokes an anti abortion shibboleth for which it concededly has no reliable evidence," she wrote. "This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women's place in the family and under the Constitution ideas that have long since been discredited." In a criminal procedure case about a strip search of a 13 year old girl for ibuprofen, the justice reacted to a male colleague's asking why stripping in the gym was "a major thing." Shaking out one's bra and underwear and then being forced to sit in the hallway for two hours, she said, was not mere locker room play. It was an "abuse of authority." In a 2007 equal pay case, Justice Ginsburg herself a victim of early career workplace discrimination chided her colleagues for deciding that a woman who does not file a claim immediately can never file at all. This ignored the actual "characteristics of pay discrimination." "Small initial discrepancies," she wrote, "may not be seen as meat for a federal case, particularly when the employee, trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment, is averse to making waves." In a 2011 employment discrimination class action, she faulted colleagues for overlooking how "subjective decision making can be a vehicle for discrimination." She referenced a favorite example from a favorite pastime: Orchestras with blind auditions hire more women. The magnitude of her legal legacy cannot be overstated. But her impact was even greater because she modeled for us and for women and girls around the world how to live a life that reflected her legal vision. She demanded a lot from her law clerks, but demanded even more from herself. She was the hardest working, most deliberate person either one of us has ever worked for. She taught us to be strong and to stand behind our work. She gave countless women and men opportunities and support in the life of the law. She got to know all of our children. Her famous faxes came across the channels at all hours of the night. Her black coffee always brewed strong. In her home life, she modeled to us how to translate the radical legal change she worked to the personal. She and her husband, Martin, were insistently equal co partners in marriage and parenting and had a marriage for the ages. Her commitments were always the same and grew ever louder. Even at the very end, she reminded us how much more work there is left to do. Abbe R. Gluck is a law professor and faculty director of the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School. Gillian E. Metzger is a law professor and faculty co director of the Center for Constitutional Governance at Columbia Law School.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
Q. Windows 10 has that Timeline thing, but on a Mac, how can I find a file I know I worked on recently? Especially if I don't remember what I called it or where I stored it? A. One place to look is in the Mac's running list of Recent Items, which keeps track of the apps, files and servers you have used during your past few sessions on the computer. To look for the file and reopen it, go to the Apple Menu in the upper left corner, select Recent Items and browse the list of files. If you find what you need, select it from the list to open it. You can see where the file is stored by right clicking (or holding down the Mac's Command key while clicking) the open file's name in the title bar. By default, the Recent Items list only shows you the past 10 items in each of those three categories, but you can make the Mac keep a longer list. To do that, go to the Apple Menu, select System Preferences and choose General. At the bottom of the General box, click the pop up menu next to Recent Items to select a list of 15, 20, 30 or 50 files, apps and servers instead; you can also show as few as five items, or none at all.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology

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