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In 2015, Khaled Jarrar, a Palestinian artist and filmmaker living in Ramallah, read an ad in a local newspaper. It was an appeal for assistance placed by a refugee from the war in Syria who was stuck with her family in Istanbul including the writer's elderly mother, who was a refugee for the second time, having been forced to leave Nazareth for Syria during the 1948 Arab Israeli war. Moved by the story, Mr. Jarrar spent 31 days traveling with the family to Germany, living as a refugee and filming the journey. This experience inspired "Where We Lost Our Shadows," a multimedia work for orchestra, video and three soloists that Mr. Jarrar created with the composer Du Yun. The American Composers Orchestra, which commissioned it with Carnegie Hall, played the premiere on Thursday at Zankel Hall. Ms. Du and Mr. Jarrar decided to broaden the work's focus to encompass timeless themes of human migration, exodus and refugee flights. Ms. Du, who won the Pulitzer Prize in Music for her 2016 opera "Angel's Bone," an allegory of human trafficking, turned to the heritage of ragas, a structure for melodic improvisation that itself migrated over centuries throughout Arab, Central Asian and Indo Pakistani regions. Working with the Pakistani vocalist Ali Sethi, she chose ragas dealing with themes of water, rain and thunder; these raga inspired passages were sung by Mr. Sethi on Thursday with both rawness and plaintive delicacy. These elements are integrated into a score that shifts and heaves, qualities captured in the restless performance led by George Manahan. There are stretches of misty orchestral sonorities in which fidgety figurations get batted around over dense harmonies. Shayna Dunkelman, a dynamic percussionist, drove episodes of the piece with pummeling drum bursts one moment, tingling effects the next. The vocalist Helga Davis brought radiance to Ms. Du's tender, high pitched setting of the Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan's "Pillow."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
"Legion" isn't that hard to follow the attentive viewer will generally be able to tell when the action is taking place in real life and when it's in the ether, except when Mr. Hawley is intentionally coy. He indulges the opportunity to dip in and out of unreliable narration, but he doesn't abuse the privilege. He's good about dropping in shots of people lying unconscious or standing frozen to let us know when we're watching their minds wander. What can be distracting in "Legion," though, is Mr. Hawley's seeming determination to continually top himself to give each new setting, each new idea, its own distinct visual and conceptual identity. It makes sense: a show set inside the mind reflects the infinite variety of the mind. In practice the constant embellishment and novelty can be wearying, especially at series length. Does a comic book scenario in which crowds of people are being rendered catatonic require a parable about the nature of delusion that includes an animated Chinese fable, gigantic eggs and a man hacking off his leg in the shower? The formal inventiveness deployed by Mr. Hawley and his crew of directors, who include the noted cinematographer Ellen Kuras ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind") and the indie filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour ("A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night"), is consistently impressive. It also consistently outstrips the storytelling. It's easy, if maybe unfair, to think that all the filmmaking razzle dazzle comes at the expense of the drama, which, when stripped down, consists of the usual series of battles and superhero cliches about friendship, honor and the toughness of the outsider. The sense of comic book business as usual is more acute in Season 2, now that David's origin story brilliantly extended over the course of Season 1 is established. Spoilers here: David and his crew, including his body swapping girlfriend, Syd (Rachel Keller), are now allied with Division III, the government mutant hunting outfit that had imprisoned him. The focus is on finding the evil mutant Farouk, a.k.a., the Shadow King, a search that takes on apocalyptic dimensions.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
"Westworld" isn't a western anymore. So what is it? It's been nearly two years since HBO's dystopian amusement park sci fi action thriller, owner of a relatively small but disproportionately passionate audience, ended its second season. After 10 episodes of bloody insurrection against the humans who made them and used them, a number of robot "hosts" escaped from the Wild West themed entertainment zone of the title, some to a digital paradise called the Sublime and one, the deadly revolutionary Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood), into the real human world. Season 3, beginning Sunday, follows Dolores into futuristic but otherwise ordinary urban landscapes and into new frontiers of genre. With Westworld itself shut down for a deep cleaning, what we mainly get in the early episodes (four of the season's eight were available) is a pretty straightforward version of Los Angeles corporate noir, with debts to "Blade Runner" and the films of Michael Mann. Dolores's outfits have progressed from frontier frocks to black sheaths and her weapons from Winchesters to assault rifles. And her ambition has grown from freeing her fellow Westworld hosts to something grander and more frightening, involving perhaps the elimination or the subjugation of the human race. (As always, she keeps her cards close to her vest.) But the ideas that animate the action, or at least try to lend it some gravitas, remain the same. Dolores, cluing in the hosts to their own exploitation and lack of freedom, is both avatar of revenge and leader of the class struggle. And technology is the Big Bad, isolating us, controlling us and trading on our personal data. The new urban settings provide convenient and apt shorthand for those themes. Characters spend more time talking to their houses, holographic assistants and the comforting simulated voices of dead friends than to actual people. A major new character, Caleb (Aaron Paul), is a troubled veteran who ekes out his construction salary by checking in on a jobs app for minor criminal work a new facet of the gig economy. Paul's hangdog nobility is a fine addition to the show, even if Caleb reads an awful lot like a gloss on Harrison Ford's Deckard in the original "Blade Runner." None of the other new cast members, who include John Gallagher Jr. as a tech mogul, Vincent Cassel as a shadowy trillionaire and Lena Waithe as one of Caleb's employers, makes a major impression in the early going. The returning cast, though, still offers the value that the show's writing and plotting can't consistently deliver. Wood has perfected Dolores's combination of vulnerability and cool lethality. Jeffrey Wright also returns as Bernard, the host made in the image of the man who helped create the hosts, and Thandie Newton as Maeve, the sharp witted robot who shares Dolores's determination toward freedom but with less murderous intent. They're as good a central trio as a drama could hope for. That they can't always jolt the show to life, or overcome its tendency toward a critical mass of self consciousness and ponderous seriousness, isn't their fault. Wood, with a half smile, and Newton, with an arched eyebrow, can give any line an amusing spin, but humor is otherwise a precious commodity in "Westworld." (The one good joke in the early episodes is a fleeting visual reference to another popular HBO show.) And too much of the dialogue "I don't concern myself with the present, my business is the future"; "This isn't exactly the ideal moment for introspection, Bernard" still sounds as if it was written by robots who haven't received the freewill update. Those problems are exacerbated, if only slightly, by the show's overall need to reboot itself now that it has left its previously self contained environs. That's not just a matter of settings the semi apocalyptic conclusion of Season 2 required that all the main characters be reintroduced to some degree, with their survival explained and their current situation sketched in. So Bernard, Maeve and the formerly human, now synthetic Charlotte (Tessa Thompson) each get the equivalent of a mini origin story, slowing down the development even though the season will have fewer episodes than did the first two. The show's production remains sleek and eye catching, however, and its ideas at least superficially intriguing, as long as the stellar cast can hold onto your attention. And the moment may be exactly right for a paranoid meditation on the possible end of the human race. As Dolores says: "They made it so easy, the way they built their world. It won't take much to bring it all crashing down."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
Jewelry books are having a sparkling moment: More titles, more vivid illustration and easier than ever to find. While the stories of classic jewels still have the edge, books on contemporary designers are flourishing "as we are more aware of modern day design," said Robin Dixon, senior bookseller of Hatchard's, London's oldest bookshop, which now places jewelry books near the store's entrance to take advantage of their visual appeal. Technological advances have helped. "We can now show real colors and see the setting more closely as we can blow up or zoom in to the images," said Philip Watson, a commissioning editor at Thames Hudson, "so jewelry books look like a good investment." And less expensive to buy than the real thing. Here are six recent choices: With fans like Rihanna, Madonna and Catherine Deneuve, and a 20 year career, it is surprising that "Lydia Courteille: Extraordinary Jewellery of Imagination and Dreams" is the jeweler's first monograph. From "Lydia Courteille: Extraordinary Jewellery of Imagination and Dreams," by Juliet Weir de La Rochefoucauld, published by ACC Art Books. Covering her life story and 20 collections, the book is a comprehensive look at how Ms. Courteille became a jewelry designer, "explaining her train of thought and how she arrived at certain designs from one gemstone, idea or story in her mind," said the author, Juliet Weir de La Rochefoucauld. A fresh side to Ms. Courteille's work is revealed, too. While she is best known for her oversized turquoise rings or skull jewels, "people don't necessarily know about her Maracaibo collection or Scarlet Empress collection, which show a different way to use gold," Ms. Weir de La Rochefoucauld said. "Lydia Courteille: Extraordinary Jewellery of Imagination and Dreams" by Juliet Weir de La Rochefoucauld, ACC Art Books, 75. "A labor of love" is how the jeweler Temple St. Clair, described writing her book, "The Golden Menagerie," which unveils her trilogy of 28 animal jewels that have been seven years in the making. From "The Golden Menagerie," 18 karat gold Fantasy Bird Earrings with diamonds and topaz. "I wanted to communicate exactly what I was doing the creative process, the thought process and the anthropological to environmental context," Ms. St. Clair said, adding that each chapter mirrors a part of the trilogy, exploring "our visceral relationship to the natural world and what it means to us." There are the mythical creatures like flying fish bracelets in seacolored sparkling stones; winged creatures from bejeweled nesting falcons to fantasy bird earrings; and the last piece, completed in August after about 11 months' work by seven craftsmen, a glittering sapphire and diamond bracelet depicting a bee with emerald leaves and topaz honey. The pages of the clothbound book are adorned with Ms. St. Clair's original sketches. "There is a lot of hand finishing and artisanship in the work and I wanted to reflect this in the book's production," she said. Photographs of the artisans' handmade tools are featured, too, as, she said, "no one works like this anymore so it is important to show the work of these artisans and draw out their craft." As pearls are shimmering back into fashion, thanks to Lady Cora of "Downton Abbey" and Betty Draper of "Mad Men," the pearl necklace is the subject and title of a new picture packed volume. Mikimoto Akoya and South Sea white and golden cultured pearl necklace with diamonds, 2011. From "The Pearl Necklace," by Vivienne Becker published by Assouline. Through fabled fans like Elizabeth I, Coco Chanel and Grace Kelly, the book charts how the pearl necklace has changed through time from its symbolism (pure to sensual) to how the piece was worn "showing the wearer's individuality," said the author, Vivienne Becker. Marie Antoinette, for example, wore two strands around her neck, her wrist and woven loosely through her hair, while today, Sarah Jessica Parker mixes an opera length strand with other necklaces. "This social and fashion context gives both the piece and the book a different twist," Ms. Becker said. The book's more than 180 images of famous fans wearing their pearl necklaces range from old master paintings to Marilyn Minter's erotically charged photograph, "Split," of a red lipped woman eating her pearls. Two anthologies showcase the widening pool of contemporary talent in jewelry making. "Jeweler" contrasts the diverse styles of 17 international masters and mavericks, from Viren Bhagat's delicate pieces and exceptional stones to Mark Davis's gem studded Bakelite bangles. "Each one has a distinct aesthetic and point of view that is immediately recognizable with a style that is their signature," Stellene Volandes, the author and editor in chief of Town Country, said. Then there's "Fine Jewelry Couture" with 35 jewelers, ranging from the Russian enamel specialist Ilgiz Fazulzyanov to Elie Top, whose clever pivoting pieces and hidden diamonds have been sold on Matchesfashion.com since June. "Each one has out of the box designs," the author, Olivier Dupon, said, "as this is the only way independent jewelers can compete with blockbuster houses." "Octopus" brooch in 18 karat gold by Mousson Atelier. From "Fine Jewelry Couture: Contemporary Heirlooms" by Olivier Dupon, published by Thames Hudson. "Jeweler: Masters, Mavericks and Visionaries of Modern Design" by Stellene Volandes, Rizzoli, 85. "Fine Jewelry Couture: Contemporary Heirlooms" by Olivier Dupon, Thames Hudson, 60.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
PALO ALTO, Calif. "Success!" read the subject line of the email. The text, in imperfect English, began: "Good News! The women is pregnant, the genome editing success!" The sender was He Jiankui, an ambitious, young Chinese scientist. The recipient was his former academic adviser, Stephen Quake, a star Stanford bioengineer and inventor. "Wow, that's quite an achievement!" Dr. Quake wrote back. "Hopefully she will carry to term..." Months later, the world learned the outcome of that pregnancy: twins born from genetically engineered embryos, the first gene altered babies. Reaction was fierce. Many scientists and ethicists condemned the experiment as unethical and unsafe, fearing that it could inspire rogue or frivolous attempts to create permanent genetic changes using unproven and unregulated methods. A Chinese government investigation concluded in January that Dr. He had "seriously violated ethics, scientific research integrity and relevant state regulations." Questions about other American scientists' knowledge of Dr. He's plans and their failure to sound a loud alarm have been an issue since Dr. He revealed his work in November. But now, Dr. Quake is facing a Stanford investigation into his interaction with Dr. He. That inquiry began after the president of Dr. He's Chinese university wrote to Stanford's president alleging that Dr. Quake had helped Dr. He. "Prof. Stephen Quake provided instructions to the preparation and implementation of the experiment, the publication of papers, the promotion and news release, and the strategies to react after the news release," he alleged in letters obtained by The New York Times. Dr. Quake's actions, he asserted, "violated the internationally recognized academic ethics and codes of conduct, and must be condemned." Dr. Quake denied the allegations in a lengthy interview, saying his interaction with Dr. He, who was a postdoctoral student in his lab eight years ago, had been misinterpreted. Dr. Quake showed The Times what he said were the last few years of his email communication with Dr. He. The correspondence provides a revealing window into the informal way researchers navigate a fast moving, ethically controversial field. The emails show that Dr. He, 35, informed Dr. Quake, 49, of milestones, including that the woman became pregnant and gave birth. They show that Dr. Quake advised Dr. He to obtain ethical approval from Chinese institutions and submit the results for vetting by peer reviewed journals, and that he agreed to Dr. He's requests to discuss issues like when to present his research publicly. None of the notes suggest Dr. Quake was involved in the work himself. They do contain expressions of polite encouragement like "good luck!" Though Dr. Quake said he urged Dr. He not to pursue the project during an August 2016 meeting, the emails, mostly sent in 2017 and 2018, don't tell him to stop. As global institutions like the World Health Organization work to create a system to keep cowboy scientists from charging into the Wild West of embryo editing, Dr. Quake's interactions with Dr. He reflect issues that leading scientific institutions are now grappling with. When and where should scientists report controversial research ideas that colleagues share with them in confidence? Have scientists acted inappropriately if they provide conventional research advice to someone conducting an unorthodox experiment? "A lot of people wish that those who knew or suspected would have made more noise," said R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin Madison who co led a 2017 national committee on human embryo editing. The correspondence Dr. Quake shared provides new details about Dr. He's project, also called germline editing, including indications that the twin girls were quite premature and remained hospitalized for several weeks. They were born in October, contrary to previous reports. Dr. Quake is an entrepreneur whose inventions include blood tests to detect Down syndrome in pregnancy and to avoid organ transplant rejection. He is co president of an institute funded by the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan. He does not do gene editing and said he was surprised when Dr. He told him during a 2016 visit to Stanford that he wanted to be the first to create gene edited babies. "I said, 'That's a terrible idea. Why would you want to do that?'" Dr. Quake recalled. "He kind of pushed back and it was clear that he wasn't listening to me." Dr. Quake changed tack. "I said, 'All right, if you're not going to be convinced that I think this is a bad idea and you want to go down this path, then you need to do it properly and with proper respect for the people who are involved, and the field.'" That meant obtaining ethical approval from the equivalent of American institutional review boards (known as I.R.B.s), Dr. Quake advised, as well as getting informed consent from the couples participating and only editing genes to address a serious medical need. "I didn't think it was something he would seriously do," said Dr. Quake, adding that he assumed if Dr. He sought ethical approval and was rebuffed, "presumably he'd stop." Soon afterward, Dr. He emailed: "I will take your suggestion that we will get a local ethic approve before we move on to the first genetic edited human baby. Please keep it in confidential." In June 2017, Dr. He, nicknamed JK, emailed a document saying a hospital ethics committee had approved his proposal, in which he boasted that his plan could be compared to Nobel winning research. "It was good to see that he had engaged with his I.R.B. equivalent there and had approval to do his research, and I'm thinking it's their responsibility to manage this," Dr. Quake said in the interview. "If in my interactions with JK I had any hint of misconduct, I would have handled it completely differently. And I think I would have been very aggressive about telling people about that." Dr. He was "bright and ambitious," Dr. Quake said, but "he was, I felt, always in too much of a hurry and I, you know, worried that he was a sort that would cut corners a little bit." After leaving for the university job in China in 2012, Dr. He sought Dr. Quake's help with starting a company based on a genome sequencing technique Dr. Quake had invented. Dr. Quake, whose American firm selling that technique had gone bankrupt, made introductions that helped Dr. He license patents for his company, Direct Genomics. Dr. Quake visited in 2015 but eventually declined an offer to serve on the company's scientific advisory board. In Dr. He's 2017 correspondence, he said he would be editing a gene called CCR5, altering a mutation that allows people to become infected with H.I.V. Many scientists have since argued it was medically unnecessary because babies of H.I.V. positive parents can be protected other ways. Dr. Quake said he believed there was not scientific consensus about that. In early April 2018, Dr. He's "Success!" email said "the embryo with CCR5 gene edited was transplanted to the women 10 days ago, and today the pregnancy is confirmed!" Dr. Quake did not reply immediately. Instead, he forwarded the email to someone he described as a senior gene editing expert "who I felt could give me advice." He redacted the name of the expert. "FYI this is probably the first human germ line editing," Dr. Quake wrote. "I strongly urged him to get IRB approval, and it is my understanding that he did. His goal is to help hiv positive parents conceive. It's a bit early for him to celebrate but if she carries to term it's going to be big news I suspect." The expert replied: "I was only telling someone last week that my assumption was that this had already happened. It will definitely be news ..." Six months later, in mid October, Dr. He emailed again: "Great news! the baby is born (please keep it in confidential)." Dr. He asked to meet on a planned visit to San Francisco, saying, "I want get help from you on how to announce the result, PR and ethics." In that meeting, Dr. Quake recalled, Dr. He walked him through what he had done. "And I pressed him on the ethical approval, and I said this is going to get an enormous amount of attention, it's going to be very closely scrutinized. Are you sure you've done everything correctly?" Dr. He's response unsettled him, he said. "The little corner cutting thing came up again: 'Well, there were actually two hospitals involved and you know, we had approval from one and we did work at both hospitals.' And I said, 'Well you better make sure you have that straightened out.'" Back in China, Dr. He wrote: "Good news, the hospital which conducted the clinical trial approved the ethic letter," adding, "They signed to acknowledge the ethic letters from another hospital." He advised Dr. He to submit the research to a peer reviewed journal, and Dr. He did so. Then, because journal review takes time, Dr. Quake said he advised Dr. He not to go public in Hong Kong, but to speak privately with key experts there so they can "get socialized to what's coming and will be more likely to comment favorably on your work." But Dr. He was not persuaded. "I do not want to wait for 6 months or longer to announce the results, otherwise, people will say 'a Chinese scientist secretly hide the baby for 6 months.'" Dr. Quake pushed back: "It is prudent to let the peer review process follow its course." But Dr. He went forward with his Hong Kong talk. Two days before it, after news of the twins broke, Dr. Quake emailed, "Good luck with your upcoming presentation!" But he added, "please remove my name" from the slide acknowledging people who had helped. "He was spinning up this huge press thing around it," Dr. Quake explained in the interview. "It was going to go well or poorly, I didn't really know. But it wasn't something I was involved in and I didn't want my name on it." Dr. Quake is not sure what consequences he thinks Dr. He should face. But he believes that the shock and horror some scientists now express belies the unruffled response of the experts he consulted. Asked if he should have handled things differently, Dr. Quake said: "Well, hindsight is 20 20. I mean, you could say yes I should have done many other things." "But," he continued, "as these things unfold, you're in the moment, and you know, he's doing legitimate scientific research many people would define it that way. He's got I.R.B. approval and his institution is regulating the human subject stuff and you sort of believe all that." He added: "To the extent that it wasn't obvious misconduct, what does a person in my position do? Encourage him to do it right, his research, right? I mean, that's what I believed I was doing."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
'HUMA BHABHA: WE COME IN PEACE' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Oct. 28). This spare and unsettling sculptural installation for the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden Commission includes two figures: one that is somewhat humanoid but with a ferocious mask face and that visually dwarfs the jagged Manhattan skyline behind it, and another bowing in supplication or prayer, with long cartoonish human hands and a scraggly tail emerging from its shiny, black drapery. The title is a variant on the line an alien uttered to an anxious crowd in the 1951 science fiction movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still," but it ripples with other associations: colonization, invasion, imperialism or missionaries and other foreigners whose intentions were not always innocent. The installation also feels like an extension of the complex, cross cultural conversation going on downstairs, inside a museum packed with 5,000 years of art history. (Martha Schwendener) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI SCULPTURE: THE FILMS' at the Museum of Modern Art (through Feb. 18). This show is built around works by the Romanian modernist (1876 1957) that have been longtime highlights of the museum's own collection. But in 2018, can Brancusi still release our inner poet? The answer may lie in paying less attention to the sculptures themselves and more to Brancusi's little known and quite amazing films, projected at the entrance to the gallery throughout the duration of the exhibition. MoMA borrowed the series of video clips from the Pompidou Center in Paris. They give the feeling that Brancusi was less interested in making fancy museum objects than in putting new kinds of almost living things into the world and convey the vital energy his sculptures were meant to capture. (Blake Gopnik) 212 708 9400, moma.org 'CANOVA'S GEORGE WASHINGTON' at the Frick Collection (through Sept. 23). When Canova's statue arrived in Raleigh, N.C., in 1821, the American press went wild for the likeness by the Italian neoclassical sculptor of the first president, wearing Roman military dress and drafting his farewell address. Ten years later it was destroyed by fire, but the Frick has brought the full scale plaster model of the lost statue over from Italy for this smashing show that reveals how European artists were inspired by American revolutionary ideals. Canova's Washington, looming all alone over the Frick's circular gallery, wears thickly curled hair instead of the pulled back style he sports on the dollar bill, and in both his costume (leather skirt, strappy sandals) and his bearing, he embodies the ideals of the new republic, where principles come before power. Supplementary materials include a life mask of Washington and several smaller Canova models, including a nude Washington with some rather nice pecs. (Jason Farago) 212 288 0700, frick.org 'CHARTING THE DIVINE PLAN: THE ART OF ORRA WHITE HITCHCOCK' at the American Folk Art Museum (through Oct. 14). Love in the time of science that could serve as the catchphrase for this ravishing exhibition of botanical and geological illustration from the first decades of the United States. Born in progressive Amherst, Mass., a few years after the Revolution, Orra White received a first rate scientific education like few girls of her day; then, with her beloved husband, Edward Hitchcock, she painted the plants, reeds, flowers and mushrooms of New England in exquisite folios. Later, Edward became president of Amherst College, and Orra painted and drew large scale illustrations for his lessons: Paleolithic skeletons, brightly striped cross sections of volcanic earth, a massive octopus munching on a three masted schooner. While the plant and mushroom paintings are delicate and painstakingly exact, the classroom aids are boldly imaginative but both are evidence of an extraordinary life in which carnal love and religious conviction intertwined with scientific discovery. (Farago) 212 595 9533, folkartmuseum.org 'MARY CORSE' at Dia:Beacon in Beacon, N.Y., and 'MARY CORSE: A SURVEY IN LIGHT' at the Whitney Museum of American Art (through Nov. 25). Light, and specifically the radiant light of Los Angeles, shaped Ms. Corse's career. She became interested not just in representing light, but also in making objects that emitted or reflected it. This duo of shows features her light boxes or "light paintings" made with argon gas and Tesla coils, as well as her paintings on canvas that include glass microspheres, like those used in the lines that divide highway lanes. Both shows are overdue representations for Ms. Corse, who was an early member of the loosely defined Light and Space movement of the 1960s and '70s in California. (Schwendener) 212 570 3600, whitney.org 'CROWNS OF THE VAJRA MASTERS: RITUAL ART OF NEPAL' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Dec. 16). Up a narrow staircase, above the Met's galleries of South and Southeast Asian art, are three small rooms of art from the Himalayas. The space, a bit like a treehouse, is a capsule of spiritual energy, which is especially potent these days thanks to this exhibition. The crowns of the title look like antique versions of astronaut headgear: gilded copper helmets, studded with gems, encrusted with repousse plaques and topped by five pronged antennas the vajra, or thunderbolt of wisdom. Such crowns were believed to turn their wearers into perfected beings who are willing and able to bestow blessings on the world. This show is the first to focus on these crowns, and it does so with a wealth of compressed historical information, as well as several resplendent related sculptures and paintings from Nepal and Tibet. But it's the crowns themselves, the real ones, the wisdom generators, set in mandala formation in the center of the gallery, that are the fascinators. (Holland Cotter) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'HEAVENLY BODIES: FASHION AND THE CATHOLIC IMAGINATION' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cloisters (through Oct. 8). Let us pray. After last year's stark exhibition of Rei Kawakubo's irregular apparel, the Met Costume Institute is back in blockbuster mode with this three part blowout on the influence of Catholicism on haute couture of the past century. The trinity of fashion begins downstairs at the Met with the exceptional loans of vestments from the Vatican; upstairs are gowns fit for angels in heaven (by Lanvin, Thierry Mugler, Rodarte) or angels fallen to earth (such as slinky Versace sheaths garlanded with crosses). The scenography at the Met is willfully operatic spotlights, choir music which militates against serious thinking about fashion and religion, but up at the Cloisters, by far the strongest third of the show, you can commune more peacefully with an immaculate Balenciaga wedding gown or a divine Valentino gown embroidered with Cranach's Adam and Eve. (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 storyboards and rediscover some old friends. (Farago) 718 784 0077, movingimage.us 'HISTORY REFUSED TO DIE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE SOULS GROWN DEEP FOUNDATION GIFT' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Sept. 23). This inspired foundation is dispersing around 1,200 works by black self taught artists from the American South to museums across the country. The Met's exhibition of 29 of the 57 pieces it received proposes an exciting broadening of postwar art. It is dominated by the dialogue between the rough hewed relief paintings of Thornton Dial and the geometrically, chromatically brilliant quilts of the Gee's Bend collective. But much else chimes in, including works by Purvis Young, Joe Minter and Lonnie Holley. (Roberta Smith) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'ALEJANDRO G. INARRITU: CARNE Y ARENA' at 1611 Benning Road NE, Washington (through Oct. 31, 9 a.m. 9 p.m.). Perhaps the most technically accomplished endeavor yet in virtual reality but closer in form to immersive live theater, created by a two time Oscar winner has arrived at a former church in Washington after outings in Cannes, Milan, Los Angeles and Mexico City. In "Carne y Arena" ("Flesh and Sand"), you explore the exhibition on your own with a motion sensitive headset that transports you to Mexico's border with the United States; brutal encounters with border guards interweave with surreal dream sequences, which you can perceive in three dimensions. The characters are computer renderings of the bodies of actual migrants; the landscapes are photographed by Mr. Inarritu's brilliant longtime cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki. It remains too early to say whether virtual reality will reshape art institutions, but this is a rare achievement, and not only for its political urgency. Tickets will be released only on the website at 8 a.m. Eastern Time on the 1st and 15th of each month of the exhibition's duration, which has just been extended. (Farago) carneyarenadc.com 'BODYS ISEK KINGELEZ: CITY DREAMS' at the Museum of Modern Art (through Jan. 1). The first comprehensive survey of the Congolese artist is a euphoric exhibition as utopian wonderland, featuring his fantasy architectural models and cities works strong in color, eccentric in shape, loaded with enthralling details and futuristic aura. Mr. Kingelez (1948 2015) was convinced that the world had never seen a vision like his, and this beautifully designed show bears him out. (Smith) 212 708 9400, moma.org 'THE LONG RUN' at the Museum of Modern Art (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 'THE MAGIC OF HANDWRITING' at the Morgan Library Museum (through Sept. 16). With polemicists lamenting that cursive is going the way of the dodo and old school devotees of pen and paper posting their work on social media with hashtags like snailmail and penpal, this exhibition at the Morgan might seem at first glance to be part of this nostalgia. Instead, it simply luxuriates in the humble, intimate and sometimes very messy traces that some of the great figures of history have left behind. The show features some 140 items including a papal bull from Pope Anastasius IV and a photograph signed by Rasputin from the encyclopedic holdings of the Brazilian collector Pedro Correa do Lago, who owns thousands of letters, notes, receipts, manuscripts, signed photographs and other pieces documenting notable lives in the arts, politics, science and other fields. (Jennifer Schuessler) 212 685 0008, themorgan.org 'OBSESSION: NUDES BY KLIMT, SCHIELE AND PICASSO' at the Met Breuer (through Oct. 7). The highlight of this uneven but jewel studded show of erotically charged nudes from the bequest of an eccentric woolen goods heir is Egon Schiele's incandescent "Seated Woman in Chemise." The 1914 drawing shows a nearly naked model seated on the floor holding apart her folded legs with her hands. From the top of her egg shaped, doll like head, so idealized it's practically inhuman, to the blunt exposure of her sex, rendered as simply and honestly as the medium allows, she's an unresolvable contest of fantasy and reality. (Will Heinrich) 212 731 1675, metmuseum.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 dilettantish. But always, the Jewish Museum conceives of art and religion as interlocking elements of a story of civilization, commendably open to new influences and new interpretations. (Farago) 212 423 3200, thejewishmuseum.org 'THE SENSES: DESIGN BEYOND VISION' at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (through Oct. 28). There's a serious, timely big idea at this exhibition: As social media, smartphones and virtual reality make us ever more "ocularcentric," we have taken leave of our nonvisual senses and need to get back in touch, literally. Thus "The Senses" features multisensory adventures such as a portable speaker size contraption that emits odors, with titles like "Surfside" and "Einstein," in timed combinations; hand painted scratch and sniff wallpaper (think Warhol's patterned cows but with cherries cherry scented, naturally); and a device that projects ultrasonic waves to simulate the touch and feel of virtual objects. The show also presents commissions, videos, products and prototypes from more than 65 designers and teams, some of which address sensory disabilities like blindness and deafness, including Vibeat, which can be worn as a bracelet, brooch or necklace and translates music into vibrations. And if you bring the kids, they will likely bliss out stroking a wavy, fur lined installation that makes music as you rub it. (Michael Kimmelman) 212 849 8400, cooperhewitt.org 'CHAIM SOUTINE: FLESH' at the Jewish Museum (through Sept. 16). The Russian Jewish artist Chaim Soutine (1893 1943), who spent most of his life in Paris, is best known for bloody, ecstatic paintings of beef carcasses. But it wasn't death that interested him it was the immaterial life force of the material world. Along with an instructive lineup of naked fowl, silver herring and popeyed sardines, this indispensable tribute to the transcendent but still undervalued painter centers on a stupendous 1925 "Carcass of Beef," glistening scarlet, streaked with orange fat and straddling a starry sky. (Heinrich) 212 423 3200, thejewishmuseum.org 'WAYNE THIEBAUD: DRAFTSMAN' at the Morgan Library Museum (through Sept. 23). Mr. Thiebaud has won a place in American art history for his densely slathered paintings of cakes, pies, ice cream cones, burgers, fruits and crudites. His drawings have been less celebrated, and this sweet show at the Morgan is the first devoted to his work in pen, charcoal and pastel. Mr. Thiebaud trained in commercial art and came to New York to work as a cartoonist. You can see the influence in his still lifes from the 1960s: The watercolor "Nine Jelly Apples" (1964) depicts the candied fruits to advantage from a high angle, while the pencil drawing "Ice Cream Cone" (1964) places the titular treat front and center, its edges as carefully teased as a model's coiffure. Mr. Thiebaud is sometimes called a realist, but that's not precise; his drawings (and paintings, too) rely less on artful imitation of appearances and affects than on a translation of low advertising into high art. (Farago) 212 685 0008, themorgan.org 'THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS: STANLEY KUBRICK PHOTOGRAPHS' at the Museum of the City of New York (through Oct. 28). This exhibition of the great director's photography is essentially Kubrick before he became Kubrick. Starting in 1945, when he was 17 and living in the Bronx, he worked as a photographer for Look magazine, and the topics he explored are chestnuts so old that they smell a little moldy: lovers embracing on a park bench as their neighbors gaze ostentatiously elsewhere, patients anxiously awaiting their doctor's appointments, boxing hopefuls in the ring, celebrities at home, pampered dogs in the city. It probably helped that Kubrick was just a kid, so instead of inducing yawns, these magazine perennials struck him as novelties, and he in turn brought something fresh to them. Photographs that emphasize the mise en scene could be movie stills: a shouting circus executive who takes up the right side of the foreground while aerialists rehearse in the middle distance, a boy climbing to a roof with the city tenements surrounding him, a subway car filled with sleeping passengers. Looking at these pictures, you want to know what comes next. (Arthur Lubow) 212 534 1672, mcny.org 'TOWARD A CONCRETE UTOPIA: ARCHITECTURE IN YUGOSLAVIA, 1948 1980' at the Museum of Modern Art (through Jan. 13). This nimble, continuously surprising show tells one of the most underappreciated stories of postwar architecture: the rise of avant garde government buildings, pie in the sky apartment blocks, mod beachfront resorts and even whole new cities in the southeast corner of Europe. Tito's Yugoslavia rejected both Stalinism and liberal democracy, and its neither nor political position was reflected in architecture of stunning individuality, even as it embodied collective ambitions that Yugoslavs called the "social standard." From Slovenia, where elegant office buildings drew on the tradition of Viennese modernism, to Kosovo, whose dome topped national library appears as a Buckminster Fuller fever dream, these impassioned buildings defy all our Cold War vintage stereotypes of Eastern Europe. Sure, in places the show dips too far into Socialist chic. But this show is exactly how MoMA should be thinking as it rethinks its old narratives for its new home next year. (Farago) 212 708 9400, moma.org 'DAVID WOJNAROWICZ: HISTORY KEEPS ME AWAKE AT NIGHT' at the Whitney Museum of American Art (through Sept. 30). This artist was there when we needed him politically 30 plus years ago. Now we need him again, and he's back in this big, rich retrospective. Wojnarowicz (pronounced Voyna ROH vich), who died at 37 in 1992, was one of the most articulate art world voices raised against the corporate greed and government foot dragging that contributed to the early AIDS crisis. But he was far from a one issue artist. From the start, he took outsiderness itself, as defined by ethnicity, gender, economics and sexual preference, as his native turf. And from it he attacked all forms of exclusion through writing, performing and object making. In the show, we find him working at full force in all three disciplines, and the timing couldn't be better. Not long before his AIDS related death, during the culture wars era, he wrote, "I'm convinced I'm from another planet." In 2018 America, he would have felt more than ever like a criminal migrant, an alien combatant. (Cotter) 212 570 3600, whitney.org 'JOHN AKOMFRAH: SIGNS OF EMPIRE' at the New Museum (through Sept. 2). Mr. Akomfrah's extraordinary survey at this Bowery museum should be required viewing for those who consider themselves activists, artists, critics or leaders or people who simply want to expand their worldview. His four video installations, which take up the museum's entire second floor, explore postcolonial history, nature and migration. What's most notable about this show beyond the weight of history and the creation of new cultural vocabularies, or the identifying of overlooked ones is Mr. Akomfrah's facility in working with moving images on multiple screens. This method of presentation allows him to create works whose nonlinear development echoes newly evolving ideas about history and culture in philosophy and postmodern and postcolonial theory. (Schwendener) 212 219 1222, newmuseum.org 'THOMAS BAYRLE: PLAYTIME' at the New Museum (through Sept. 2). In the digital fever dream of Mr. Bayrle's work, pixelated pictures twist and bend and resolve into fuzzily warped images. Abstract films and videos pulse with psychedelic patterns. But if Mr. Bayrle's art seems like the apex in early computer design, most of the 115 paintings, prints, films and sculptures in his first major New York retrospective are actually handcrafted, generally using his signature "superform" of a large image made up of hundreds or thousands of smaller ones. Ultimately, Mr. Bayrle's work instead offers a window on digital thinking or, it could be said, how we got to where we are now. (Schwendener) 212 219 1222, newmuseum.org 'SUE COE: GRAPHIC RESISTANCE' at MoMA PS 1 (through Sept. 9). In the East Village in the early 1980s, this British American artist showed some of the strongest political art of the day, and in the most traditional of media: figurative painting, drawing and printmaking. But her kind of directness has had a hard time in a market driven world that favors the convenient slipperiness of ambiguity. As a result, Ms. Coe was left out of many of the big "political" shows of the 1980s and '90s, and has had spotty visibility since. Some the artist's great early pieces are in this long overdue survey, including the 1983 mural size collage painting titled "Woman Walks Into Bar Is Raped by Four Men on the Pool Table While 20 Watch." The show also features later pictures like "Road to White House" (1992) and selections from her recent sketchbooks. Together they indicate that her style has changed over the years, growing at once more abstract and more naturalistic, but her view of the ethical mission of art has not. (Cotter) 718 784 2084, momaps1.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 'GIACOMETTI' at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (through Sept. 12). This museum filling outing for the signal sculptor of Western modernism is rather cautious but revisionism can wait another day when the art looks as good as it does here. The Swiss artist's witty and erotic early sculpture, such as the still shocking "Disagreeable Object" (a phallic torture device with a spiked business end), enraptured the Surrealists in early 1930s Paris, but Giacometti was never content with an art of ideas, and in his filthy studio, he soon started making elongated, emaciated humanoids that have since become emblems of Europe's postwar trauma. If you know Giacometti best for the bronzes that now go for obscene sums at auction, it's a particular pleasure here to see his work in plaster, a medium he adored; the humility of the handwork testifies to his anxious mastery. (Farago) 212 423 3800, guggenheim.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 'RENOIR: FATHER AND SON/PAINTING AND CINEMA' at Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (through Sept. 3). Jean Renoir transformed the history of cinema with humanistic, precisely edited films like "The Grand Illusion," and especially "The Rules of the Game" considered one of the greatest films ever made, though it was a box office flop on its release in 1939. Yet the critic he strove most to please was his father, the Impressionist painter Pierre Auguste Renoir. This terrific dad and lad exhibition, organized with Paris's Musee d'Orsay, interweaves painting and cinema into a heartfelt survey of Jean Renoir's career, and finds paternal influence in the pastoral romance of "A Day in the Country" or the bright landscapes of his 1959 color film "Picnic on the Grass." The irony? It is Jean Renoir who now seems the more inventive artist, even if he was convinced that "I have always imitated my father." (Farago) 215 278 7000, barnesfoundation.org 'WORLD ON THE HORIZON: SWAHILI ARTS ACROSS THE INDIAN OCEAN' at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington (through Sept. 3). The Swahili coast of East Africa is home to a crossroads culture. For millenniums, the port cities in Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique have been centers of long distance trade and cultural exchange from multiple directions. To the west, they were anciently connected by caravan with Central Africa; to the east, by ship with India, China and Japan; to the north, with an Arab world that included Oman, Iran and Yemen; and to the south, via roundabout shipping routes with Europe and the Americas. This exhibition makes evident both the great beauty and the deep disturbance of those connections East Africa was a nodal point on the international slave trade. (Cotter) 202 633 4600, africa.si.edu	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
THE Landmarks Preservation Commission has proposed designating a gawky 39 block long stretch of Riverside Drive and West End Avenue north of 70th Street as a historic district. The anchor of this mix of town houses, brownstones and apartment towers will surely be the clutch of four mansions at the curving northeast corner of Riverside Drive and 72nd Street, a sweep of architectural refinement interrupted by a belch of boxy modernism. After the Upper West Side opened up in 1880, it was speculated that millionaires would give up crowded Midtown for big villas cooled by Hudson River breezes. But only a few of the rich saw the benefits. In the 1890s John S. Sutphen, a glass manufacturer, bought the Riverside Drive end of the block, from 72nd to 73rd, and started parceling out house sites. Four of the houses are now left: from east to west, 309 West 72nd, 311 West 72nd, 1 Riverside Drive and 3 Riverside Drive, all built from 1898 to 1902. The house at 309 went up in 1901, built by a doctor and real estate entrepreneur, William Diller. Designed by Gilbert Schellenger, it is handsome although hardly unusual. In 1902 Sutphen built himself a house at No. 311, a Beaux Arts essay by C. P. H. Gilbert, grand but predictable steak without sizzle, you might call it. The Sutphen house is a nominal match for its neighbor at 1 Riverside Drive, built in 1901 by Lydia and Frederick Prentiss, he a yarn merchant. Again by Gilbert, it's not much to look at, but the wide wedge shaped yard between the two is a distinctive feature. The lot at 2 Riverside Drive was vacant until 1964. No. 3 Riverside was built in 1898 by Philip Kleeberg, an inventor, who put up a delicate French Renaissance style town house. Kleeberg was also a lace merchant, and this is a particularly lacy work, with very fine carving, also by Gilbert. There was another member of this little group, a cool, crisp mansion: No. 4 Riverside, designed by Trowbridge Livingston in 1906 for a marble dealer, Carl D. Jackson. It was demolished in 1936. The early residents were the usual prosperous 1 percent, with exceptions like William d'Alton Mann of No. 309. Mann was a publisher widely accused of extorting money from the rich in exchange for not printing scandalous news about them, real and invented. In 1906 The New York Times noted that Mann had received what he described as loans from a number of millionaires, including 25,000 from William K. Vanderbilt. Things fell apart for Riverside Drive mansions around World War I. For instance, by 1920 No. 3, with the lacy details, was a boardinghouse, with tenants like Mignon Hawkes, a vaudeville actress, who played in the 1926 "Garden of Glorious Girls." The 1930 census found seven lodgers there. All of this is surprising, since No. 3 was owned and occupied by William Guggenheim, of the mining family. The Times said his wealth in 1901 was 5 million, but after his death in 1941 it was reported that he had been renting out rooms because he was short on cash. He left his estate to four showgirls, two from the Ziegfeld Follies, but at the final tally it was barely enough to allow them 1,200 apiece. A 19 story apartment house, 5 Riverside Drive, went up in 1936 on the 73rd Street corner. A photo that year in The New York Sun shows the entire group: the Jackson house, No. 4, in demolition; the light and lacy Kleeberg house, No. 3; the empty lot at No. 2, with a big billboard; the fraternal Prentiss and Sutphen houses at No. 1 and No. 311 West 72nd; and the Diller house at No. 309. The Times reported in 1956 that the Nippon Club had bought the Prentiss house, but actually it was the Mosque Foundation, and the house is still a mosque. Then, in 1964, a grim and brutally simple brick box a six story apartment house went up on the long vacant lot at 2 Riverside Drive. The developer was a violinist, Irving Polk, and the strange horizontally striped facade was meant to appeal to performing artists moving to the area because of Lincoln Center. The architects, Wechsler Schimenti, used cork and asbestos between the floors for soundproofing. The rent for the one and a half room apartments was 155 a month. The four older houses received landmark designation in 1991 and have remained pretty much unchanged, although the mosque at 1 Riverside recently put polished marble on the limestone walls, and enhanced the details and columns at the entrance with bright colors and marbleizing. The Landmarks Preservation Commission says this was done without permits, and it will be complicated to remove. The commission will probably approve the historic district along Riverside and West End later this year. When it does, it will of necessity include the strange little musicians' apartment house, a perfect spoiler for this century old cynosure of Riverside Drive living.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
When Lee Victorian was looking for an upscale car to complement his wife's BMW last year, he was leaning toward an Audi A6 a sedan whose acceleration, refinement and dazzling array of advanced technologies, like automatic braking and radar based cruise control, he found alluring. But what he drove off the lot was an entirely different kind of premium vehicle, and one more luxury buyers are choosing: a pickup truck. Mr. Victorian, a retired Michigan state trooper, bought a Raptor version of the Ford F 150. The Raptor is a truck with the soul of a racecar: It has a 450 horsepower engine, a 10 speed transmission, electronic ride settings for seven different road surfaces, big chrome wheels, a power tailgate, cameras at all four corners and an adaptive cruise control system similar to the Audi's. With all those options, the sticker price came to about 80,000. "Man, this truck is so slick," Mr. Victorian said. "I stop at a light and people give me the thumbs up and take pictures of it. The truck is the celebrity." For the last few years, the auto industry has been roiled by a significant shift in consumer tastes. In droves, Americans are turning their backs on family sedans and small cars and flocking to bigger, roomier models like sport utility vehicles and trucks. In January, two of every three new vehicles sold were classified as trucks, including S.U.V.s, pickups, minivans and the lighter cousins of S.U.V.s known as crossovers. Now a new dimension to this trend is emerging: Even upscale buyers who long favored Lexus, Cadillac, Jaguar and the German luxury brands are gravitating to trucks and S.U.V.s. What they are buying are often special edition, fully loaded models, like Mr. Victorian's Raptor, that sell for as much as or more than BMW's flagship 7 Series sedan. "We are seeing it," said Tom Libby, an auto industry analyst at the research firm IHS Markit. "There is movement from luxury cars to luxury trucks." General Motors' GMC brand which sells only trucks and S.U.V.s accounted for 11.3 percent of domestic sales of models with an average price of 60,000 or more in 2017, according to data from Edmunds.com. Five years earlier, the brand made up a mere 0.1 percent of those sales. That is providing a tailwind for the Detroit automakers when overall new vehicle sales in the United States are slowing. General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler, with its Jeep brand, dominate in trucks and S.U.V.s, and now they're scrambling to roll out more high end versions. It's a competitive and crucial segment. With demand for cars shriveling, the Detroit three and even some foreign manufacturers acknowledge they are now losing money on many of the cars they sell. But a 60,000 truck can generate tens of thousands of dollars in operating profit. At a recent investor conference, G.M. outlined a plan to produce more of the pricey Denali versions of GMC S.U.V.s and trucks. The company showed data indicating that the Denali line had an average sale price of 56,000 more than the average price of a BMW, a Mercedes Benz or an Audi. "This thing," G.M.'s president, Dan Ammann, said of the Denali line, "is a money machine." The other Detroit carmakers are heading in the same direction. In October, Ford began making new versions of its eight passenger Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator full size S.U.V.s, and already has decided to make 25 percent more this year than it originally planned. In January, Navigators sold for an average of 77,000, thanks to strong sales of the top of the line Black Label edition. Fiat Chrysler is preparing to add more Jeep models, including a pickup and a full size Grand Wagoneer. In 2017, S.U.V.s and crossovers made up 41 percent of the market in the United States, up from 30 percent in 2013, according to Autodata. Luxury cars have gone in the opposite direction: They made up 5.4 percent of the market last year, down from 7.5 percent four years earlier. And the priciest S.U.V.s and trucks are selling fastest. The high end Lariat, King Ranch and Raptor models make up more than half of all F 150 sales, up from one third a few years ago. Denali editions account for 29 percent of GMC's sales, up from 21 percent. Low gasoline prices are one reason that sales of high end trucks are rising. Years ago, pickups and big S.U.V.s often traveled only 11 or 12 miles on a gallon of gas. Today, their fuel economy is often double that. "The complaint that S.U.V.s are horrible on gas is not such a roadblock anymore," said Mark Scarpelli, owner of two Chevrolet dealerships and a Chrysler Dodge Jeep franchise in Illinois. At the same time, automakers have appointed special edition S.U.V.s and trucks with the same kinds of advanced technologies and comfort features that consumers once found only in luxury cars. Want an interior trimmed in African mahogany? You can get it in the Black Label Navigator. Want an S.U.V. that accelerates like a Porsche (and isn't a Porsche)? Try the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk and its 707 horsepower V8. Chuck Ducher, a retired school psychologist in Onsted, Mich., just bought an F 150 Lariat with a bevy of options, including heated rear seats. "I can put my mother back there, and she's in heaven," he said. "There's no doubt in my mind this is a luxury vehicle." Wes Lutz, owner of a Chrysler Dodge Jeep dealership in Jackson, Mich., said he was surprised at the way customers were snapping up the most expensive models on his lot. This month, he had two Trackhawks this month, each with a sticker price of 93,000. "They won't be here more than a few weeks," he said. "It's incredible. We never used to play in that price range." Increasing competition from upmarket S.U.V.s and trucks is adding to the struggles of the luxury makers. Most have long relied on cars for the bulk of their sales, and are suffering now that bigger vehicles are in favor. In 2017, for example, BMW's sales to individual customers at dealerships in the United States fell more than 5 percent, according data shared among automakers. The decline in BMW's total sales was less because of a big jump in sales to rental car fleets, a type of customer that luxury brands tended to shun in the past. Out in Tacoma, Wash., Gary Gilchrist sees the trend just about every week at his GMC dealership. "We've been taking in Lexuses on trade ins, BMWs," he said. This month, he said, a customer turned in a 2012 BMW 550i and bought a 71,000 GMC Sierra Denali pickup. "People used to want German cars for the image factor," Mr. Gilchrist said. "Now, if you have a Denali, you get that. People turn their heads to look."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
In the Andes Mountains near the village of Jardin, Colombia, the hillsides abound with coffee bushes.Credit...Federico Rios Escobar for The New York Times In the northern reaches of the Andes where the coffee bean is as central to life as corn is to small town Iowa a welcoming spirit prevails. In the Andes Mountains near the village of Jardin, Colombia, the hillsides abound with coffee bushes. There are more than 20 restaurants and cafes that sell coffee by the cup in the lively pastel splashed plaza of Jardin, a quaint Colombian pueblo, or village, nestled in the northern reaches of the Andes Mountains. I chose one and settled in at a streetside table painted bright blue like an Easter egg, and ordered a cafe tinto straight black for 800 pesos, about 25 cents. It was a Monday morning, and the Paisas, as the folks in this region south of Medellin are called, were socializing. Some looked to be friends and family chatting and laughing in the shadow of the double spired basilica. Some, I was told, were shopkeepers who took the day off after a busy weekend catering to tourists. At the table next to me, a campesino relaxed with his cowboy hat pulled over his face and his chair tilted back against the wall. Had I been here on a certain day during the harvest season, I might have seen farm owners standing outside the Bancolombia branch with bags of paper cash, surrounded by police officers for security and workers who came to be paid. On Saturday nights, this plaza is a raucous cacophony of pounding discoteca beats and campesinos parading into town astride show horses, but there are still tintos among the cervezas on the trays waitresses carry between tables. This was why I had come: to indulge my love of coffee. And Jardin is a perfect place, in the heart of a coffee belt in southwestern Antioquia, the largest volume coffee producer of Colombia's 32 departments. In the 1990s, a collapse in commodity coffee prices hit Colombia hard. Half of its coffee market value vanished, and thousands of families in coffee growing regions were pushed into poverty. As a strategy for the future, the Colombian government began encouraging and supporting farms to grow higher quality beans that qualify for specialty coffee markets, where prices are higher and more stable. Jardin embraced the specialty trend with gusto. Most of the beans sold at the town's coffee cooperative warehouse go straight to Nespresso, the high end Swiss company selling coffee makers through George Clooney on TV ads. The hills here are bustling with family fincas, or farms, competing with one another to grow the best coffee. With the help of a hired guide Jose Castano Hernandez, himself the son of coffee farmers I was ready to see where the rich brew in my cup came from, to explore the coffee terroir of the northern Andes. Tell your relatives that you're going to Colombia and you may still provoke a shudder and a warning to be careful in a country where there were once rampant drug violence and kidnappings by a rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Last year the government signed a peace deal with FARC to end more than a half century of bloody conflict. Jardin is in a relatively safe area where the unrest was never as bad, because the many coffee farms grounded the local economy in legitimate commerce. In the plaza, Mr. Hernandez, 41, picked me up in his car and we drove through a military checkpoint just outside of town. After the soldiers waved us through, he told me we would be taking the scenic route to visit a coffee finca above 6,000 feet in elevation. By scenic, he meant a route for equestrians. At the mountain foothills, he parked at the roadside and we met up with another guide who had horses saddled and ready to go. The ride up a cobble strewed path was a series of pinch me moments glorious vistas of the northern Andes, rays of morning sun shooting through fluffy clouds, the occasional ridiculous beaked toucan flying by. After a few hours we stopped and tied up the horses, and Mr. Hernandez unlocked a gate at a barbed wire fence. This was the backdoor to the Cueva del Esplendor. The public entrance to this tourist attraction is a parking lot on the other side of the ravine, where people leave their cars and walk a path to the cave. From this side, we rappelled down wire cables into jungle. At the bottom we entered a small cave with a sunlit waterfall shooting through the rock ceiling another pinch me moment. After another hour of scenic equine touring, it was time for lunch at the finca, a simple farmhouse near the mountaintop with white stucco walls and dandy blue trim. That same popping blue accented the pedestal for a shrine to the baby Jesus and also a cross erected at the drop off to a million dollar view: more than a dozen Andean peaks rolling out as far as could be seen, with bushy coffee plants climbing up every mountainside. "Colombians eat a big lunch; it's their main meal," he explained when asking what I thought of the food. "It takes a lot of food to work this farm." After the empty plates were collected, one woman poured me a cup of the house coffee, served tinto. I smiled and sighed at the pure flavor: so earthy and saturating on my palate, yet exiting cleanly without a trace of aftertaste. Then the farm's manager, Juan Crisostomo Osorio Marin, beckoned me to follow a dirt path up into the coffee bushes. Mr. Marin runs the farm's field operations for his father, who is the owner. We arrived at a spot where bundles of green and bright red coffee berries weighted down seemingly every branch. These are prodigious plants, each one growing the equivalent of a pound of finished, ground coffee. The red coffee berries, resembling cranberries, were ripe and ready to pick. I challenged Mr. Marin to a quick coffee picking contest, and in 30 seconds I had 50 berries in a basket. Mr. Marin had more than 200. The trick, he showed me, was to move a hand underneath the branch while flicking berries with the thumb. In one sweeping motion he could dislodge 10 or more berries. "Si, claro, claro," Mr. Marin said, nodding his head. The answer came back through my guide that the ash made these soils rich and fertile: "Like a blessing, the land is better up here." Back at the farmhouse, I got a tour of the depulping grinder that expunges beans from the fruit (like extracting pits out of cherries), and the drying rack for beans before they go to the co op. For 15,000 pesos (about 5), I got a bag of his Triple A coffee and thanked Mr. Marin for his hospitality. On the ride back to Jardin, Mr. Hernandez told me I was only his second coffee tourist in seven years of guiding. All of his other clients are birders, but he would like to do more trips like this, as his grandfather settled and started the coffee farm nearby where he grew up. When the coffee crisis hit, his parents divorced and he left college in Medellin to come home and help his mother climb out of debt. It was during this troubled period that Mr. Hernandez sought emotional refuge at a Taoist temple and found his calling in a life of guiding, helping others find meaning in this land he loves. His mother is still on the family finca, but coffee, like all farming, is a tough business, and he isn't sure she can continue. "The stories in these hills," he told me while we bumped along a dusty road, "they give me hope." Mr. Hernandez dropped me off at the inn where I was staying outside of town and told me he would take an afternoon siesta, but he would be back in a few hours. I did likewise and stretched out in the rainbow colored hammock strung up on the balcony of my second floor room overlooking Jardin. At 6 p.m. Mr. Hernandez retrieved me for dinner at another finca, also up in the hills but shrouded in a forest canopy. At the farmhouse, a family bustled out of the door father and mother, flanked by a little boy and a toddler girl to warmly greet me, the first North American to visit their home. (Swiss men from Nespresso had been there before.) The farm owner, Francisco Javier Angel, grinned and waved us to the dining room table on the open air porch. A single light bulb on the ceiling attracted moths and other insects from the forest, and they occasionally smacked my head in their orbits around the light. But nothing was biting, no mosquitoes, another advantage of the farm's elevation. Mr. Angel, 37, seemed young to own a farm, but he was enterprising. He had worked this farm when a local priest owned it, and the priest, impressed by his work ethic, sold him the land. His wife, Monica, disappeared into the kitchen and came back bearing glasses of fresh squeezed lemonade sweetened with panela, a form of unrefined sugar. Through Mr. Hernandez, Mr. Angel explained that panela can also be used as a sweetener for chaqueta cafe, "jacket coffee," served when days turn cold or to give coffee pickers a boost of energy for the fields. Dinner soon followed, served family style beans, plantains and chicharron, this time accompanied by strips of beef, fresh off farm avocado slices and arepas (cornmeal cakes). It was familiar but gratifying, and better than any of the meals I ate at restaurants in town (where the chicharron can be a chewing marathon). Over dinner, Mr. Angel related through Mr. Hernandez how his farm is certified by the Rainforest Alliance and his beans earn specialty grades. The co op in Jardin has an entire laboratory devoted to cupping and grading beans upon delivery. As Mrs. Angel collected the plates, I asked whether I could follow her into the kitchen to observe as she prepped the after dinner coffee. She smiled: "Si." Brewing coffee is a rustic and ritualistic process on a Colombian farm. First, she heated a liter of water in a pot on the gas stove to just near boiling, when bubbles first formed on the bottom. Then she stirred five spoonfuls of grounds from the house coffee into the pot, turned off the gas and let it sit for five minutes. "Silencio," she said. In the meantime, she rinsed four cups in hot water so a sudden change in temperature hot coffee hitting a cold cup wouldn't shock the coffee. Finally, she poured coffee through a tiny sieve into each cup. It was a gorgeous midnight black brew with a light brown foam halo on the edges. Back at the dinner table, I took a sip and was astounded by a simple cup of coffee for the third time today: such force, so rich, yet no hint of bitterness. I asked what made this coffee unique. Mr. Angel and Mr. Hernandez exchanged some Spanish, and the back story was relayed to me. If You Go Jose Castano Hernandez guides all inclusive trips around Jardin and other regions in Antioquia, including visits and meals with families at coffee farms. Trip fees include everything: transportation, meals, visits, lodging. Coffee farm tours from Jardin start at 180 a person per day; he accepts dollars. Contact him at josefc11 gmail.com. La Boira (hospedajerurallaboira.com) is a charming inn on a hillside overlooking Jardin. The owners, Xavier Roca and Soleil Enriquez, are warm and welcoming. Breakfast is included, served with Ms. Enriquez's herbal coffee (mixed with mint, oregano, lemon seeds, ginger slices and panela). Room rates are just over 200,000 Colombia pesos, about 70, for two. Finca Hotel Arrayanes (fincahotelarrayanes.com) is a fourth generation coffee farm and hotel with simple rooms and a swimming pool. Arrayanes is renowned for its specialty coffee. Meals are included, are served family style and feature local produce. Rates run from around 75,000 Colombia pesos a person per night. Las Margaritas is on the downtown plaza in Jardin and serves typical Colombian food and fresh fruit juices. Meals run about 12,500 Colombia pesos. Pastalatte Gourmet is off the main plaza along Carrera 4. It offers more modern dishes (stir fry, burritos) and specializes in pastries and desserts. Meals run around 12,500 Colombia pesos. Delos Andes, the local coffee cooperative, operates a coffee house that offers the perfect spot for people watching on the plaza. It offers specialty coffee drinks, such as mochas and affogatos. Medellin has the closest international airport to Jardin (about a four hours' drive away). Within Jardin, a motoraton literally "motor mouse," a motorized rickshaw on three wheels zips passengers from hotels to restaurants for about 3,000 Colombia pesos. A taxi to locales within a half hour of Jardin costs about 30,000 pesos. A driver with a Jeep is about 300,000 pesos per day.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
Jon Huber, a pro wrestler known in the ring as Luke Harper and Brodie Lee, died on Saturday. He was 41. His death followed a battle with a "lung issue" unrelated to Covid 19, his wife, Amanda Huber, said on Instagram. Aside from his wife, he is survived by his two children. Mr. Huber rose to fame with World Wrestling Entertainment, where he was known for his soft spoken intensity in the ring. During his time with WWE, he found success in the independent circuit before joining the NXT brand. He battled other wrestling stars, including The Shield, Kane, Daniel Bryan, John Cena and the Usos, using a combination of "aggressive offense and demented mind games," WWE said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
LUXEMBOURG European Union ministers thrashed out a deal to begin trade negotiations with the United States late Friday after bowing to French demands to protect state sponsored film and television industries. The breakthrough, which came after 13 hours of tense talks, should enable Britain to hail the start of the trans Atlantic trade discussions when the leaders of the Group of 8 biggest economies hold a summit meeting on Monday in Northern Ireland. "The formal launch of negotiations between the world's two largest trading blocs is now imminent," Vince Cable, the British business secretary, said in a statement shortly after the deal was announced. "Achieving an agreement is in all our interests and would deliver a much needed boost to the economies of all involved." The divisive issue of shielding films, TV shows and other audiovisual services from competition could be debated again at a later stage, and that promises more wrangling ahead between European nations over what to offer the United States in exchange for lower tariffs and streamlined regulations. Although the French position could be scaled back, the fact that the other 26 trade ministers in the European Union acceded to France's demand could make negotiations with the United States that much more difficult, given the protectionist impulses on both sides of the Atlantic that are likely to come into play. A trade pact would aim to lower barriers between the world's two biggest trading partners. But before formal talks can start, the European Union's 27 trade ministers needed to reach a unanimous deal to give the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, the formal authority to start the negotiations. The decision in Luxembourg was a preliminary victory for France, which fought hard for months to protect Europe's so called cultural exception, which is, in practice, a thicket of quotas and subsidies for audiovisual productions that promote locally and regionally produced content. "We are satisfied because we have the exclusion from the mandate for everything that is to do with audiovisual," Nicole Bricq, the French trade minister, told a news conference. The guarantee was "written in black and white" in the agreement, she said. The main sticking point on Friday was France's demand to exclude audiovisual services, including future digital services, from the talks. The high cost of gas is forcing families to cut back on activities and essentials. Clearview AI does well in another round of facial recognition accuracy tests. Elizabeth Holmes will resume her testimony in her fraud trial. Britain, along with countries including Spain and the Netherlands, was concerned that such an exclusion would prompt the United States to require protections of its own. The exclusion of audiovisual material from a trade deal would especially disappoint American technology and media companies, including the online movie distributor Netflix, which want easier access to European markets. The deal that emerged was a classic European accommodation allowing a flagship initiative a trans Atlantic trade pact to move forward while leaving decisions on the thorniest questions, like how to manage digital services, for a later date. The compromise leaves the European Commission with the option to make a proposal, once the talks with the United States are under way, to use audiovisual services as a bargaining chip so long as all 27 member states agree that the advantages are sufficiently attractive. "There is no carve out on audiovisual services," Karel De Gucht, the European Union trade commissioner who will lead the negotiations with the United States, told a news conference."We are ready to discuss it with our American counterparts and to listen to their views on this issue." In a sign of the bitterness that nearly led to the collapse of the talks on Friday, Ms. Bricq, of France, accused some member states of pandering to American demands to keep the audiovisual industries as a bargaining chip. And, earlier in the day, in a thinly veiled reference to the European outcry over recent disclosures that the National Security Agency in the United States had gained access to online data from many of the biggest Internet companies, she added that "current events unhappily remind us" of American influence over the online world. How much progress Europe and the United States can make is an open question. Tariffs are already low, and the main goal harmonizing regulations is likely to pose a huge challenge for negotiators. There are also questions about their differences over regulations on a host of industries, including new technologies, car safety, pharmaceuticals and financial derivatives.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
Emancipation wasn't a gift bestowed on the slaves; it was something they took for themselves, the culmination of their long struggle for freedom, which began as soon as chattel slavery was established in the 17th century, and gained even greater steam with the Revolution and the birth of a country committed, at least rhetorically, to freedom and equality. In fighting that struggle, black Americans would open up new vistas of democratic possibility for the entire country. To return to Ira Berlin who tackled this subject in "The Long Emancipation: The Demise of Slavery in the United States" it is useful to look at the end of slavery as "a near century long process" rather than "the work of a moment, even if that moment was a great civil war." Those in bondage were part of this process at every step of the way, from resistance and rebellion to escape, which gave them the chance, as free blacks, to weigh directly on the politics of slavery. "They gave the slaves' oppositional activities a political form," Berlin writes, "denying the masters' claim that malingering and tool breaking were reflections of African idiocy and indolence, that sabotage represented the mindless thrashings of a primitive people, and that outsiders were the ones who always inspired conspiracies and insurrections." By pushing the question of emancipation into public view, black Americans raised the issue of their "status in freedom" and therefore "the question of citizenship and its attributes." And as the historian Martha Jones details in "Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America," it is black advocacy that ultimately shapes the nation's understanding of what it means to be an American citizen. "Never just objects of judicial, legislative, or antislavery thought," black Americans "drove lawmakers to refine their thinking about citizenship. On the necessity of debating birthright citizenship, black Americans forced the issue." After the Civil War, black Americans free and freed would work to realize the promise of emancipation, and to make the South a true democracy. They abolished property qualifications for voting and officeholding, instituted universal manhood suffrage, opened the region's first public schools and made them available to all children. They stood against racial distinctions and discrimination in public life and sought assistance for the poor and disadvantaged. Just a few years removed from degradation and social death, these millions, wrote W.E.B. Du Bois in "Black Reconstruction in America, "took decisive and encouraging steps toward the widening and strengthening of human democracy." Juneteenth may mark just one moment in the struggle for emancipation, but the holiday gives us an occasion to reflect on the profound contributions of enslaved black Americans to the cause of human freedom. It gives us another way to recognize the central place of slavery and its demise in our national story. And it gives us an opportunity to remember that American democracy has more authors than the shrewd lawyers and erudite farmer philosophers of the Revolution, that our experiment in liberty owes as much to the men and women who toiled in bondage as it does to anyone else in this nation's history.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
There are different responses to unexpected hardship, and when Marion Sheppard began to go blind, she cycled through many of them. She pitied herself and cried long and hard, because this wasn't right this wasn't fair. Her hearing had been severely impaired since early childhood and she'd endured schoolyard teasing about that, so hadn't she paid her dues? Done her time? She raged. "Why me?" she asked, many times. It's a cliche, but for a reason. She really did want to know why she'd been singled out. She trembled. This was the end, wasn't it? Not of life, but of independence. Of freedom. She spent months wrestling with those emotions, until she realized that they had pinned her in place. Time was marching on and she wasn't moving at all. Her choice was clear: She could surrender to the darkness, or she could dance. She was teaching about a dozen students the steps to the electric slide and similar favorites. But, really, she was teaching them defiance. She was teaching them delight. She was teaching them not to shut down when life gives you cause to, not to underestimate yourself, not to retreat. She'd briefly done all of that, and it was a waste. "Ladies and gentlemen, I need your attention, please!" she shouted over the music. Most of her students are people over 60 whose eyesight deteriorated when they were already adults and who can remember different, easier times. She told them: "Just because we can't see well, we can still do things, and one of those things is dance." Her chin was high, her shoulders pulled back and her chest pushed forward. That's how she approaches the world now: ebulliently. Emphatically. I met Marion because, as I've described in previous columns, I've had my own brush with blindness or at least with the specter of it. The vision in my right eye was severely and irreversibly diminished about two and a half years ago, by a condition that puts me in danger of losing the vision in my left eye as well. Since then I've educated myself about blindness, seeking out visually impaired people and the professionals who work with them. I asked the executive director of Visions, Nancy Miller, about programs that upend assumptions about people with disabilities and that illustrate their tenacity, optimism, resilience. "My dance instructor is deaf and blind and in her 70s," she said. "Your dance instructor?" I responded. That didn't fit my ignorant vision of Visions. I dropped in on Marion's class. Her students are devoted regulars, and while Marion can't make out their faces, she knows them by their shapes and their voices, which her hearing aids render sufficiently audible. She and her students have memorized the layout of the basement room in which the class is held, and she figures out which of her discs of music to load into the boom box by placing them under a machine, the Aladdin Ultra, that functions as a gigantic magnifying glass. It enlarges the letters on a disc's case to a point where Marion can make them out. Blindness is a spectrum, and for many blind people, the world isn't all cloud; it's just foggy enough to pose formidable challenges and force clever adaptations. Marion uses her fingers to "read" the controls of the boom box. She uses her hands to determine if her students are moving as instructed. The students with more sight automatically help the ones with less, in accordance with an unspoken covenant. Sometimes, though, someone just bluntly asks for assistance, as Marion did when fiddling with an attendance sheet. "I need you for a second," she told a student standing nearby. "I need your eyes. Can I borrow your eyes?" Marion's own eyes were fine until she was in her 40s, she said, and began to experience episodes of scarily compromised vision. She got a diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive disease that usually shows up at an earlier age. For her, blindness was delayed, but it was coming all the same. And it was hardly the first test of her strength. Marion didn't tally her misfortunes for me, but her daughter, Kokeda Sheppard, filled me in, to communicate how tough her mom is how indomitable. Marion, who has lived most of her life in the Bronx and still resides there, never really knew her father and was just 14 when her mother died, according to Kokeda. While relatives stepped in to help, Marion nonetheless functioned as a sort of parent to her younger siblings. She got a college degree and, as it happens, worked for decades at The Times, though we didn't know each other. She was first a key punch operator and then a library clerk. She left about two decades ago. By then, her vision had degenerated badly. Kokeda is her only child and remembers how hard Marion, who separated from Kokeda's father, always worked to make sure that she didn't want for anything. Marion routinely drove nearly four hours from their apartment in the Bronx to the private boarding school in Pennsylvania that Kokeda attended and then made nine hour road trips to visit Kokeda in college in Virginia. "My mom is one of the most reliable people I've ever met in my life," said Kokeda, 47, who now lives in New Jersey. "I think she's awesome, in case you haven't gotten that. If I can be half the woman she is, I'll be OK." It was partly because Marion was so active and proud of her autonomy that her failing vision devastated her at first. She felt powerless. Vulnerable. "I was really terrified," she told me, and that terror was distilled into a recurring thought: Unable to see a stranger's approach, she'd be mugged.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
She is famous for moving very slowly, and slowness and stillness are still crucial aspects of her wraithlike persona, imparting the sense that she is there and not there. Moaning, whimpering, crying like a baby bird, she can appear as vulnerable as a fetus. You worry about her safety. When she stops moving, you might worry if she will ever move again. When, in Dashwood Books, she lifted a full bowl of water to drink, the suspense of a potential spill was excruciating. But surges of speed are just as important in these solos. Suddenly, she lurches, stumbles, crashes into a wall, beaches herself on a table. Her quick motions look panicky, like those of someone drowning. There is violence in her, and it erupts when she tears paper or stuffs a flower into her mouth and spits out the petals. The violence is frightening, all the more so in a tight space. Eiko brushes very close to audience members, sometimes handing one a piece of her clothing. Yet the fear that she might expect something from you is never stronger than when she looks you in the eyes. Her eyes, most often closed or unfocused, occasionally snap open as if she were waking from a coma. It's not clear whether she sees what we see or something else: memories, another dimension. When her gaze briefly meets yours, it's still unclear whether she sees you, but the possibility is enough to be harrowing. It's a look you might have seen on a homeless person or a refugee, a piercing look that reminds you of your sins and makes you count your blessings. In the solo on Tuesday, we found Eiko at noon on a bench outside Liquiteria and stalked her down the sidewalk into the tiny fashion boutique Anna. Eiko seemed more sanguine than usual, using gentle gestures to encourage us to keep up. But some dissipation of intensity could also be ascribed to the outdoor setting and the quizzical looks of passers by and the wary, semi comical retreat of schoolchildren.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Just when you thought it was warm enough to venture outdoors again, health officials are warning that the number of Americans infected by mosquito, tick and flea bites has more than tripled in recent years. Tick borne diseases like Lyme and Rocky Mountain spotted fever have been increasing in the Northeast, Upper Midwest and California, and mosquitoes may be carrying West Nile virus and, in some parts of the United States, Zika. The only flea borne disease is plague, but it, thankfully, is extremely rare. There's no magic pill or vaccine to prevent disease infections, but you can take steps to protect yourself and your family from bites and it all starts with awareness, physicians and consumer advocates say. "Recognize that this is a problem that's worthy of your time and attention," said Dorothy Leland, director of communications for Lymedisease.org, a patient advocacy organization. "This is one concern in life that's preventable by following some simple guidelines, so it's worth taking precautions," said Dr. David Weber, a professor of medicine and medical director of UNC Hospitals' departments of epidemiology and occupational health service, and a member of the hospitals' Zika Response Working Group. Here are measures you can take, some of which provide two for one protection against both ticks and mosquitoes. Cover up, even when it's hot out "Build a protective shield around yourself," Ms. Leland recommends. If you're going hiking in tick country, wear long pants, long sleeves, shoes and socks, and tuck your pants into your socks to avoid any exposed skin around the ankles. Wear a hat and a bandanna around your neck to cover up even more skin; if you have long hair, pull it back into a ponytail or braids. Consider purchasing clothing that has been pre treated with the insecticide permethrin, which repels both ticks and mosquitoes, though it may be less effective against ticks. Just spraying closed shoes with permethrin can be effective, Ms. Leland suggested. "There are studies that show that just protecting your feet can do an amazing job against ticks because they tend to be low to the ground, so their entry point is that they often climb up on your shoes and keep going and get to your skin," she said. Mind where you're going, and avoid areas that are especially attractive to ticks, like tall grassy fields, said Dr. Weber. "Ticks don't fly and they don't jump," Dr. Weber said. "They live on grasses, and when a human goes by, they leave the grass and attach themselves to the human." He recommends staying in the center of a trail when walking in the woods and avoiding bushy areas and grasslands. Avoid sitting on downed logs, where ticks like to nestle, Ms. Leland said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency recommend using mosquito repellents that have as their active ingredient either DEET; picaridin; IR3535; oil of lemon eucalyptus (OLE) or para menthane diol (PMD); or 2 undecanone. Only DEET, picaridin and IR3535 are effective agents against ticks, and will require higher concentrations than when used against mosquitoes, so read the package labels carefully and reapply as needed. (Wirecutter, a New York Times Company that reviews products, has a list of the best bug repellents.) Adults should apply repellent to children, but not to very young infants, Dr. Weber said. Babies under 2 months should not use repellents and OLE and PMD should not be used on children under 3. For all children, avoid putting repellents on their hands, or near their eyes and mouths. If you're also using sunscreen, apply the sunscreen first, and then the mosquito repellent afterward. Check yourself for ticks after a hike Take a shower after your hike and check yourself for ticks. Make sure to feel your scalp under your hair, and check folds of skin, your private parts, behind your ears and behind your knees. Parents should check their children, and adults should have someone else check their backs. "Look in your clothes for ticks," Dr. Weber suggested, and throw them in the dryer on high heat if you're concerned. "Do a full body check by looking in a mirror, and check hidden spots: behind the knees, the waist area, the bellybutton. That's where they like to hide." Showering may wash away ticks that are riding on you, but if you find a tick that's embedded in the skin, use pointy tweezers to remove it (you can get more detailed instructions online). "Grasp it and pull it straight out, slowly but firmly," Ms. Leland advised. And don't forget to check your dogs when they come in from outside, taking care to protect yourself while you're checking them. "Dogs, particularly those with long hair, can be a magnet for ticks," Ms. Leland said. Minimize exposure in your home and yard Mosquitoes breed in fresh water and can reproduce in as little as a bottle cap full of water, so rid your yard and deck of empty flower pots, bird baths or bowls where water can accumulate. (If you keep a dog's water bowl outside, empty and refresh it frequently). Make sure your window screens are intact "it doesn't take a very big hole to let mosquitoes in," Dr. Weber said. It's best to use air conditioning if you can, as mosquitoes are less active in cooler air. Practice defensive gardening to make your yard inhospitable to ticks. Use fencing to keep out deer that carry ticks, prune trees, keep the grass cut short by mowing often (sorry!), clear leaves and remove overgrowth from the outdoor areas you use the most. (Wirecutter also has a list of the best bug killing gear.) Depending on where you live, you may want to use sprays as well. Check your local, state or county health department website to learn more about local conditions. For more information, consult the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station Tick Management Handbook. Another surprisingly easy low tech way to protect yourself from mosquitoes is to set up an electric fan on a table near your seating area. The breeze it creates disperses the human scents that draw female mosquitoes, and mosquitoes have a hard time flying into the wind. The method is endorsed by the American Mosquito Control Association, a nonprofit group that publishes a journal. And if you're camping outdoors or don't have screens on your windows, use mosquito nets around your bedding.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Well
Cruelly amoral and only marginally credible, "Flower" is nevertheless wildly entertaining and at times even touching. Antic and impulsive, Erica is a smart, damaged bully whose father is in prison and whose mother, Laurie (the great Kathryn Hahn), would rather befriend than parent. The teenager also has a strange fixation on penises, which she gratifies by having close encounters with as many as possible and sketching them in a notebook. It's all very cute, until Laurie's boyfriend and his deeply troubled son (Tim Heidecker and Joey Morgan) move in and the narrative dives off a cliff. Even so, the fall is propelled by such zippy dialogue and unexpectedly sweet moments (Erica and Laurie's relationship, especially, is warmly believable) that you may not care. The supporting players including Adam Scott as a possibly skeevy high school teacher are all strong, and the director, Max Winkler (son of Henry), never breaks stride. Making liberal use of dizzying close ups, he swerves from dark coming of age comedy to outright horror, refusing to punish Erica for behavior that grows ever more appalling.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
David Velasquez learned his first clinical lesson early on: The health care system wasn't made to care for people like him. Mr. Velasquez, 24, never had a primary care physician, because his parents, immigrants from Nicaragua, couldn't afford the bills. When he was 12, his undocumented godmother died of cancer, having avoided hospitals until it was too late. Mr. Velasquez , the only college bound member of his family, knew he needed to become a doctor. When he registered for the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT, his junior year, he called the Princeton Review to ask for a discount on a 1,200 preparation package. He felt that, coming from a poor Los Angeles community without connections, he would need an especially strong test score to compete for admission. "I thought maybe they'd hear I was desperate and put me on a payment plan," said Mr. Velasquez, now in his third year at Harvard Medical School. The company refused his pleas for a discount, so he worked overtime to scrounge up the money. After purchasing the package, he checked his bank account to see what remained: 4.80. American medical schools are the training grounds for a white collar, high income industry, but they select their students from predominantly high income, and typically white, households. Ten years ago, a national study found that over 75 percent of medical school students came from the top 40 percent of family income in the United States, representing an annual income above 75,000. A study last year from the Association of American Medical Colleges re examined medical school demographics and found that the numbers had barely budged. Between 1988 and 2017, more than three quarters of American medical school students came from affluent households. Students from low income families who choose to apply to medical school find the path lined with financial obstacles. The application phase entails MCAT registration ( 315) and preparation, application fees ( 170 for the first school and 40 for each additional one), travel and attire for interviews (on average more than 200 per school). After enrollment, students are expected to purchase equipment and study aids. Each year brings new certification tests, with registration fees running upward of 600. Aspiring doctors know that tuition is costly; the median educational debt held by medical school graduates in 2018 was 200,000, up 4 percent from the previous year. But less advertised are all the hidden costs of a medical education. Shawn Johnson was born just outside Stockton, Calif., but he moved around growing up, settling wherever his truck driver father found work. He enrolled at a commuter college in Oregon, unsure what he wanted to study. When his best friend became ill with Hodgkin lymphoma, he began to wonder if he could apply his scientific aptitude to cancer research. A teacher encouraged him to apply for a summer research internship at Harvard. Photos of the campus "looked like the White House," he said. When he got the email notifying him of his acceptance, sitting in the back row of class, he "flipped out." "I called my dad and he was like, 'Do they have black people at Harvard?'" Mr. Johnson said. "For a kid like me, Harvard's like a movie." As soon as Mr. Johnson began medical school classes, the costs began to pile up. There was an itemized list of equipment he had to buy, including a stethoscope and ophthalmoscope, totaling nearly 1,000. There were study aid subscriptions that were considered essential: the test prep site UWorld ( 499), the question bank SketchyMedical ( 200), the exam review book First Aid ( 40). Then the test registrations: 630 for the United States Medical Licensing Exam Step 1 ("the boards"), 1,290 for Step 2 Clinical Skills, 630 for Step 2 Clinical Knowledge. He watched his classmates whip out their credit cards "like they were ordering something for 5 on eBay." "You have to decide, do you use your loans for a study aid or for a rainy day fund in case someone at home gets sick?" Mr. Johnson said. "I haven't had dental insurance in two years. When tuna is on sale for 80 cents a can, I go buy 30 at CVS." Mr. Johnson worked at a Harvard cancer lab just before starting medical school. He sublet his apartment and slept on the medical school campus for several months so he could send his parents the money for a down payment on their home. He had a complication from a knee surgery but delayed visiting the hospital for weeks. The nurses were dismayed to see that a medical student had put off seeking treatment, as he struggled to explain that he could barely cover the bill. Sarah Burns, a third year student at Ohio State University College of Medicine , said the psychological stress of her debt weighed on her constantly, adding to the pressure of exams and clinical rotations. When she saw that the fee for the Step 2 C.S. exam was more than 1,200, she "started hyperventilating," aware that she would have to lean on her parents for assistance, or she would be unable to pay her rent. In addition to registration, she would have to pay for travel to one of the five cities that administers the test. America's medical certification process is managed by the Federation of State Medical Boards and the National Board of Medical Examiners, a nonprofit organization. Its Step 1 and Step 2 exams are mandatory for anyone who wants to be a doctor. A 2019 analysis of the N.B.M.E.'s tax records conducted by Dr. J. Bryan Carmody, at Eastern Virginia Medical School, showed that the program revenue has more than tripled in the last two decades, which the organization attributes to its growth and diversification in services. Some of that revenue is coming from students and schools purchasing pricey practice assessments . In that time, the organization's executive compensation has also markedly increased. That anxiety serves as fuel for the lucrative test preparation engine. "The more anxious you get, the more you're inclined to panic and buy a product, thinking it'll make the difference studying for a high stakes exam," said Amanda Tomlinson, a third year medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. And the options for panic purchases flashcard services, private tutoring are endless. For some students, the pressure of medical school expenses becomes a limiting factor as they survey their professional options. A well paying field like plastic surgery begins to look more appealing, while lower paying jobs in family medicine lose their luster. All the while, many students feel the pull to return and serve the people who raised them. "I want to show my community that it's possible to be a brown face in a white coat," said Jose Calderon , a second year medical student at the University of Vermont's Larner College of Medicine, who grew up without health insurance. "That's empowering to the kid considering medicine in the slums of Houston or South Central Los Angeles." Some medical school students said they are taught to view their mounting academic expenses and costs of living through the distorting prism of debt. It is already assumed that they will take out loans to cover tuition, so an extra 500 here or there is shrugged off. "There's this idea that because we'll all be doctors one day, the loans don't matter and it'll all even out," Mr. Johnson said. "But that doesn't account for day to day expenses now, like if my mom texts me asking for help." Ms. Tomlinson said that with every expense she takes on now, such as a 20 dinner out, she calculates what she will have to pay off in 10 years, at 7 percent interest. She struggles to make rent on her student housing at Mount Sinai, which she said is more than she would pay for a family house in Oklahoma City, where she lived previously. Randall Tassone, a medical student at Harvard, was raised in a low income household in rural Pennsylvania. Now surrounded by wealthier classmates, many of them the children of doctors, Mr. Tassone has come to understand money as something intrinsic to medical school culture, structuring social as well as academic life. Earlier this year he walked past a classroom poster advertising a service trip; it included a student testimonial: "It was nice to feel like we did something to help the poor community." "It was identifying the poor as outsiders who aren't part of our community," Mr. Tassone said. It made him realize, he said, "I've been invited into this institution that favors rich people." Mr. Johnson said he experienced almost daily reminders of his socioeconomic status. A professor recently asked students, as an icebreaker, to describe their favorite family vacation spot. Mr. Johnson began to sweat, racking his brain for an answer before awkwardly offering the truth: His family had never taken a vacation. That top medical schools seem to favor the rich is especially disturbing to low income students because they know that their diverse experiences and perspectives are an asset, not a liability. A 2018 study showed that black patients have better health outcomes when treated by black doctors. Mr. Johnson said that emergency room patients have told him they feel more comfortable having a doctor who is African American and from Stockton, someone who, like them, struggles to afford his medication. "I have a Ph.D. in not having money," Mr. Johnson said. "That's not easy to explain." When he graduates from medical school, Mr. Velasquez plans to work in an emergency room where he can treat patients who are homeless, undocumented and "the poorest of the poor." He wants to treat patients who look like his family, he said. But already he has learned that the dream comes at a cost.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
'Cops' Is Off the Air. But Will We Ever Get It Out of Our Heads? "Cops," they finally came for you. The reality show, which since 1989 has taken viewers along on police raids across America, was canceled by the Paramount Network just before its 33rd season would have begun. The decision, of course, follows the nationwide protests over police brutality and racism after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. I won't miss the show. If I'm being totally honest, I write about TV for a living, and I would not have been able to tell you it was still on the air without looking it up. (If this sounds dismissive, I'm not alone. By the time Paramount canceled it, the series had an average of only 470,000 viewers per episode, small even for cable.) But people other than me have already weighed in on the problems with "Cops" and shows like it. Let's hear from one of them: "The dominant image is hammered home again and again: The overwhelmingly white troops of police are the good guys; the bad guys are overwhelmingly black ... a policeman snares white drug buyers in a black neighborhood and warns, 'Don't you know what happens over here to white boys like you?' The racism is so casual, so taken for granted, that the only response might well be despair." That was the TV critic of The New York Times, but not me. It was John J. O'Connor, reviewing the premiere of "Cops" on Fox in January 1989. "Cops" survived that criticism, and others at its beginning. It survived the Rodney King beating videotape and the subsequent 1992 unrest, then it came to shoot episodes in Los Angeles in 1994. It outlasted protests by groups like Color of Change, which got it canceled in 2013, but for only a few months. It endured schedule changes and network changes moving from Fox to Spike Network, which became Paramount and was followed by police reality shows like "Live P.D.," which captured and later erased video of a black man's death in police custody last year. (That show itself was canceled Wednesday night by A E.) By the time I became a TV critic, "Cops" was so much part of the cultural wallpaper that, honestly, I rarely thought about it. It eventually grew old enough that, were it a person, it would not only have been able to vote, it would also have been eligible to serve in the U.S. Senate. Which is the point, and the problem. This now little watched show is going off the air. But its effects, and those of the blue wall of crime shows that have dominated prime time, go back decades. America is run and governed by people who grew up on TV cops. The police built prime time. As Alyssa Rosenberg wrote in a 2016 deep dive for the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Police Department gave Jack Webb ideas and financial assistance in making "Dragnet," the radio show that moved to TV in 1952, in exchange for script approval censorship and the burnishing of the department's image. Good times, bad times, liberal eras, conservative eras crime shows were a constant. The 1970s era of urban decay saw a rise in violent (at least for the times) series like "S.W.A.T." and "Kojak." But the police procedural boom of the early 21st century coincided with a period of broadly decreasing violent crime. When reality fails to create sufficient mayhem, TV can always generate more. "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," which premiered in 2000, appealed to the fantasy, after the O.J. Simpson trial and the increasing focus on DNA evidence, that criminals could be caught with scientific precision and infallibility. (Of course the accused is guilty; the lab report says so.) After the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, police shows fit the larger regimentation of daily life airport checks, color coded alerts in the name of security. "CSI," "NCIS," "Law Order" and more procedural franchises metastasized. Sometimes, as in the dark, brilliant FX serial "The Shield," a series would pointedly ask, Is safety worth giving up civil rights? A generation ago, David Simon, formerly of NBC's "Homicide," created HBO's "The Wire," a rebuttal in part to the traditional police show, which, he said, "demonized the underclass and made them out to be subhuman." The more numerous and more widely watched broadcast crime shows didn't consider the issue as deeply. They spoke through sheer volume. The audience of a network like CBS, inundated by serial killers, rapists, psychopaths and the professionals who pursued them, got the implicit message: It's a sick, sad world, and if you're going to step out into it, you need protection. Maybe some attitudes are changing now, even among the people making the shows. Aaron Rahsaan Thomas, an executive producer of the reboot of "S.W.A.T." and a rare African American creator of a police drama, recently wrote about the need to "address the image of the hero cop." The police comedy "Brooklyn Nine Nine," whose goofy cops have been criticized for putting a smiley face on a police department rife with real life abuses, has explicitly addressed racism within the force and the vulnerability of even black police to racial profiling. Still, the gestalt remains: cops, cops, cops. As Kathryn VanArendonk wrote in Vulture, TV's default is to make police the main characters, and that is a message in itself. A TV series is a ride along. It places you in the perspective of the protagonist, whether that protagonist is valorized or not. We have spent innumerably more hours looking through the windshield from the perspective of the police than of the policed. If we're going to continue to have crime shows, better to have more thoughtful, nuanced ones. But I'm less optimistic about the ability of TV to overcome its cultural wiring, which is to use the easy, perpetual engine of conflict that crime stories provide: Someone bad did something bad, and someone good needs to catch them. The changes coming from the wave of protests across America may be deep and have lasting effects. They may even mean a generational change in attitudes among the people participating, or those listening to them. But that will run up against generations of narratives in the minds of Americans who have unwound in front of the TV for decades. No one, after all, forced those broadcast audiences to sit down for those still relatively popular nightly hours of crime. And when a politician goes on Twitter or stands at a convention declaring for "LAW ORDER!" those viewers have an enormous mental library of images to illustrate the slogan. Someday, if you are a TV programmer, you will be choosing a schedule at a time when there are different headlines in the news. Maybe there won't be protests in the streets, at that moment. Maybe no one will be directly pressuring you, at that moment. Maybe you will feel that you already made your statements, gave your donations, did your bit, back then. And now, you have a lineup to fill and money to make. When that day comes, as the "Cops" theme song asked: Whatcha gonna do?	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
Perhaps you remember Jeremy Meeks, the handsome felon turned Internet sensation. Last June, the photograph of the 30 year old "mug shot hottie" ricocheted around the web, from the Facebook page of the police department in Stockton, Calif., to a Twitter hashtag FelonCrushFriday to, soon after, stories on "The Colbert Report" and "Good Morning America." Mr. Meeks signed with an agent who was quoted in The Daily News saying that he could earn up to 100,000 a month for modeling and other gigs. So where is Mr. Meeks today? He remains incarcerated. That agent, Gina Rodriguez, no longer represents him. And the Twittering class has moved on. As the medium gets smaller, so does the fame. Enter nanofame, the one hit wonder, famous for an eye blink Internet netherworld occupied by the likes of Mr. Meeks, Alex From Target (the Texas checkout heartthrob turned Twitter star), Scott Welch (the JetBlue passenger who videotaped himself during a smoke choked emergency landing last September), Left Shark (Katy Perry's awkward, fish suited Super Bowl backup dancer, who became a social media sensation) and many, many others. They join an ever growing number of self made "stars" like Jerome Jarre and Shaun McBride (known as Shonduras) who sprout from social media ecosystems like Vine and Snapchat, with their snippets not much longer than the average sneeze. Internet fame isn't new. Back in the aughts, a new generation of YouTube celebrities and bloggers emerged, people like the pop culture blogger Perez Hilton (he was micro back then; now he's arguably famous) and Tila Tequila, the buxom siren who leveraged her Myspace notoriety to secure a recording contract, book deal and the MTV reality show, "A Shot of Love With Tila Tequila." A 2008 article in New York magazine, "The Microfame Game," cemented the phenomenon and pondered whether these "microcelebs represent naked ambition, talent justly discovered, or genius marketing." But as social media has splintered into ever tinier subcultures, the atomization of fame has only accelerated. There are simply too many microcelebs on too many platforms to keep track of. Microfame, in other words, has evolved into nanofame. While occasionally used as a synonym for microfame over the years, nanofame appears to be evolving into a distinct concept. Microfamers tended to be overtly careerist. They worked in (relatively) longer form media such as YouTube and blogs, and enjoyed a modicum of mainstream appeal. Nanofamers, by contrast, enjoy no staying power. They work in snippets of bite size content (six second Vines, say) and are confined to niche audiences (often teenagers). Nanofamers may be idolized by their million plus followers, but they are often unknown to those on the outside. The concept made a debut of sorts at the 2012 ROFLCon, a convention on Internet memes held every two years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That year's conference included a panel called "From Microfame to Nanofame," which featured Internet stars like Nate Dern (whose reading of a line "Huh" in an AT T commercial went viral) talking about what it was like to be "famous." To Brad Kim, the editor of Know Your Meme, an online database of viral content, the shrinking of web fame mirrors how TV stars became smaller when the Big Three networks gave way to the era of 500 channel cable. "When the number of competing media platforms multiply from a few big 'networks for all,' like Myspace and Facebook, to, say, hundreds of smaller ones geared toward niche interests, it opens up more prospects of fame for more individuals, although on a smaller scale and at a more fleeting pace than before," Mr. Kim said. The same stratification now applies to social media, where there are so many stars in the firmament that the Hubble telescope could not track them all. Consider Vine, the video platform started two years that lets users share six second videos. It has 200 plus stars with one million plus followers, according to Rankzoo, an analytics tool for Vine creators. While a few of Vine's heartthrobs, like Cameron Dallas, have achieved wider fame, including a movie ("Expelled") produced by AwesomenessTV, most are famous largely to their fellow Viners. They include Austin Miles Geter, a 23 year old former fitness club employee from Texas who has 1.4 million followers and posts videos of himself clowning with his Rottweiler and his football loving friends. "I remember when having 5,000 followers was a huge deal," Mr. Geter said. And that's just one social media platform. There are now stars specific to each platform, from Vine to Snapchat, Instagram, Medium and Pinterest. (By contrast, YouTube, which has more than 1,000 channels with more than a million followers, basically qualifies as a legacy media outlet today.) To be sure, the Web has always had its one hit wonders like "Charlie Bit My Finger," a 2007 YouTube video featuring an infant in Buckinghamshire, England, biting his brother's finger. But in the days when YouTube was pretty much the only web video game in town, the fame had a longer half life. Several years after that video was posted, it was still being written into a Gerber spot and a "30 Rock" episode. A Google Trends search of "Charlie," which measures the web popularity of a search term over time, looks like a mountain range: a series of valleys and peaks that barely decline over time. Compare that chart with a search for Jeremy Meeks, the hot mug shot guy. His Google Trends chart consists of a single, jagged spike centered around June 2014. There was a time when fame was seen as everlasting, rather than fleeting, said Leo Braudy, a literature professor and cultural historian at the University of Southern California and the author of "The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History." "The Pharaohs built statues like those at Abu Simbel," he said. "Stone was going to be lasting. That was their claim on posterity." That changed with the digital age. "The more transient the media, the more transient the fame," Mr. Braudy said. "When there are lot of people making a public claim for their own importance, each gets a smaller bit." That is particularly true in the ephemeral social media age of the moment. Snapchat, for example, now has a feature called Snapchat Stories that lets users share videos that disappear after 24 hours. "Platforms are emerging and growing that are less celebrity robust, where it is harder to build and maintain fixed fan bases over time," said Tim Hwang, an executive at Imgur, an image hosting company, and one of the organizers of ROFLCon. The last ROFLCon took place in 2012, in part because the viral stars of the moment lack staying power. "When we first started in '08, people would still say, 'Oh, Charlie Bit My Finger, David After Dentist, I remember that,' " Mr. Hwang said. By 2012, however, "we started to see Internet memes that were really fleeting, only lasted a couple of hours," he said. "Now, it's the rule. So many things are so momentarily famous." Even so, many who experience nanofame still cling to the hope that it will lead to something more. That's even true for convicted felons. On Thursday, Mr. Meeks, who pleaded guilty to one count of firearm possession in November, was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison. He still has a manager, Jim Jordan, who remains convinced that Mr. Meeks can be a male model or a reality TV star when he is free. "Today, it's really about the social media number," said Mr. Jordan, who noted that Mr. Meeks has name recognition with millions, and countless fan sites (although his official Instagram account has, to date, six followers). "With Jeremy," he added, "he's proven in a way."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
From about 80 euros, or about 93. Ruby Lissi, which opened this past spring, is the third and newest hotel in culture packed Vienna from the Munich based Ruby Group and is billed as offering its guests "lean luxury." This outpost is housed in an 18th century Neoclassical stone building that has accommodated a disparate collection of tenants over the years, among them a monastery, a post office and a shopping mall, which helps to explain the cavernous entrance at Fleischmarkt 19. (Another entrance is at Laurenzerberg 2.) The hotel is just minutes by foot to the Danube Canal (an offshoot of the famed river), the Schwedenplatz U Bahn station and the tram system for getting to the Vienna State Opera or the famed Volksgarten rose garden at the Hofburg palace. It's also an easy stroll home after a slice of chocolate cake at Cafe Sacher Wien or a manhattan cocktail at the tiny Loos American Bar. I booked what's billed as a "Lovely Room," the second largest of the hotel's four accommodation categories, which is outfitted with an artsy glass toilet/shower cubicle. But I learned upon my late (and guaranteed) arrival that the only remaining room was a "disability friendly" space, which meant a separate traditional bathroom modified for wheelchair users. Both the bedroom and the bathroom were spacious but there were issues: The metal sink stopper was stuck in a closed position and its rim was grimy. The soap dispenser didn't dispense. The bathroom heater was scalding and a worker was unable to turn it down or shut it off. I found hairs on the sheets and a pillow. (When I complained, I was offered apologies and a free drink at the lobby bar but not a change of sheets. Because it was late, I decided just to brush the hairs aside and go to sleep.) All that aside, the room was nicely furnished with a comfortable bed and a flat screen, wall mounted television. But the desk/shelf seemed too shallow to work comfortably and was crowded by a shiny, silvery Rococo desk lamp, guides to Vienna's food, drink and fashion hot spots, and a device that played loud music as you entered the otherwise serene space. In keeping with the "lean" theme, there was no minibar or room service. A large window, which overlooked a side street, lent loads of natural light. The slate colored wall tiles gave a sense of elegance. Above the wide, white sink was a mirror surrounded by Hollywood style bulbs. There was no makeup mirror for the nearsighted but there was a hair dryer stored in a black fabric bag hanging from a hook in the back of the bedroom closet. As this was the accessible room, there was a fold down seat in the shower area and metal bars flanking the toilet. The bar is open 24 hours , with at least one staffer on duty all night, and the lobby area has a fun travel theme with vintage style suitcases, eclectic chandeliers, a tufted red velveteen circular sofa and a tongue in cheek "Departures" board with destinations like Atlantis and Far Far Away. Rooms feature a Marshall amplifier in case you want to borrow an electric guitar from the bar or happen to travel with your Stratocaster. There's no gym on the premises, but there is a discounted arrangement with one that's about a 10 minute walk away. The hotel doesn't have its own restaurant, but a wall of windows in the lobby looks down onto the entry to Frank's American Bar Restaurant Music. Before you think that's an inappropriate choice in schnitzel city, remember that you are on Fleischmarkt, or Meatmarket, street. The smallest cut of beef is a six to seven ounce filet for about 20 euros. Side dishes are a la carte. A buffet including whole grain breads and fresh fruit, along with plenty of cheeses and cold cuts, costs 15 euros (13 if booked online in advance). Items are advertised as being organic, vegetarian or vegan. The eggs are boiled. There's no toaster. The bar staff can make you a latte or brew an organic tea. While my stay had its hiccups, Ruby Lissi, Vienna offers trendy design touches at a reasonable price in a convenient location. As for its "lean luxury" theme, this is a winning formula on paper but there were times when I wished they had bulked up on housekeeping and maintenance. The next morning, after I sought out the manager to tell him of the issues concerning my room, he offered to refund the cost of my breakfast and provided a late checkout at no additional cost, which is normally half the daily price of the room.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
When Somerset Maugham staggered from the Bangkok train station one steaming day in 1923, he knew exactly where to head: the Chao Phraya the River of Kings whose fresh breezes and open skies were even then a relief from the intensity of the Thai capital. Feeling the onset of malaria, Maugham checked into the Oriental Hotel, where verandas overlooked the busy waterfront. As his temperature climbed to 105 degrees, the writer, soaked in sweat and addled by hallucinations, overheard the Oriental's owner telling his doctor that it would be bad for business if the author should die on the premises. Maugham's verdict on Bangkok would make a brutal TripAdvisor review today. In his travel memoir "The Gentleman in the Parlor," he reviled the city's "dense traffic," its "ceaseless din," its "insipid" cuisine and "sordid" houses. The Thais, he declared petulantly, are "not a comely race." But once he recovered, Maugham experienced a rush of euphoria at the waterside setting. He watched the parade of barges, sampans and tramp steamers pass by with "a thrill of emotion," and conceded that the wats, the gilded and glittering temple complexes rising along the river, made him "laugh out loud with delight to think that anything so fantastic could exist on this sombre earth." Laden with literary reference, the Oriental now the Mandarin Oriental, although nobody calls it that is still the obvious introduction to the Chao Phraya, which has in recent years returned to its status as an escape from the city's urban chaos. The colonial era edifice where Maugham stayed is now called the Author's Wing. Although overshadowed by a 1970s addition, its exterior looks much as it did when it opened in 1887 and astonished the city with its luxurious imported carpets, Parisian wallpaper and electrified chandeliers. And the setting has not lost its soothing effect. I pulled up a chair feet away from the "liver coloured water swirling by," as another famous guest, Noel Coward, put it. A parade of ferries, barges and steamboats still battles the surging currents, while islands of vegetation float past, washed downriver from the jungles of the northern provinces. It was a step back into a leisurely past, worlds away from the explosive neon energy of the central city. It's no secret that, despite recent political disorder, Bangkok has emerged as the unofficial capital of Southeast Asia. Everyone from Swedish aid workers to Vietnamese I.T. specialists prefers to live there and commute around the region to less dynamic cities. The most alluring consequence for travelers has been the revival of the Chao Phraya, which was once the heart and soul of Bangkok. It was by its shores that the sumptuous royal district was built in the 18th century and, although Thailand is one of the few Asian countries never to be colonized, where European powers erected their legations and warehouses in the 19th. It was along the river that Bangkok's first road was built (an elephant track that became known as the New Road) and where a raucous Chinatown sprang up. The river was then so alluring that Bangkok was affectionately called "the Venice of the East," a serene warren of canals, floating markets and stilt houses. But after World War II, the focus of Bangkok moved north and east. The river districts fell into decay, their waters polluted. Travelers mostly stayed away and visited the waterfront as part of a day trip to the famous wats. It is only over the last two or three years that the river has been rediscovered by bohemian Thais and intrepid expats, creating a mix of decay and contemporary chic that evokes an Eastern New Orleans. "The Chao Phraya is a lifeline of history, culture and spirituality," said David Robinson, director of Bangkok River Partners, founded in 2013 to help coordinate the revival. "It's changing but keeping its traditions. There are roast duck and congee shops there that are 100 years old." The novelist Lawrence Osborne, who moved here from New York three years ago, agreed: "The modern city was thrown up over the last 40 years in gimcrack style. It looks like it might collapse any moment. You don't feel that at all by the river there's a real sense of continuity." The parallels to New York's adventures in urban renewal are not lost on Thai preservationists. Last year, Bangkok River Partners invited Joshua David, the co founder of the High Line, to speak at a conference. He became fascinated by the Chao Phraya. "The river allows you to experience Bangkok in a completely different way," said Mr. David, now president of the World Monument Fund. "An amazing variety of watercraft is still used by local communities and will take you to places you would never imagine existed." My inspiration would be less the jaundiced Maugham than Jozef Konrad Korzeniowski, a Polish sailor soon to be renowned as the author Joseph Conrad, who found himself in 1888 frequenting the Oriental Hotel saloon for a little over two weeks, chatting with the barflies, as was his wont, "of wrecks, of short rations, and of heroism." Conrad had taken over command of an Australian ship, the Otago, but was stuck in Bangkok waiting for his crew to recover from tropical illnesses an experience that is reworked in his novel "Lord Jim" and the shorter works "The Shadow Line," "Falk" and "The Secret Sharer." Although he had his life savings of 32 pounds stolen by his Chinese steward (who thoughtfully brushed and folded his clothes before disappearing), Conrad still felt fondly toward Bangkok, and never forgot its "gorgeous and dilapidated" temples, or the city's "vertical sunlight, tremendous, overpowering, almost palpable, which seemed to enter one's breast with the breath of one's nostrils and soak into one's limbs through every pore of one's skin." As Conrad would surely agree, if the river traffic was hypnotic to watch, it was more satisfying to join. The variety of watercraft churning between the bobbing jetties was bewildering, ranging from high speed long tail boats to private vessels and public ferries. I found the ferries definitely the most exotic, if not always the most comfortable. In peak hours, crowds squeezed into the sweltering below decks like sardines, with yellow robed monks and dapper businessmen alike jostling for elbow room while harangued by boat workers with megaphones, who bellowed "Go down! Go down! Go down!" Grilled Kurobuta pork collar at the Never Ending Summer. Lauryn Ishak for The New York Times There are no continuous walkways along the river, so I made surgical strikes from the piers on foot, ducking in and out of laneways to the lapping waves. All along the right bank stood poetic ruins. The splendid 1887 offices of the East Asiatic Company sat vacant and awaiting rescue, while the stately Old Customs House had become a fire station sprouting greenery from gaping cracks. Catholic cathedrals and European embassies staggered on in crumbling glory, while the iron pins used to moor steamers that Conrad may have used quietly rusted. One crooked lane led to the river temple where albino elephants were cremated, another to the sacred slab upon which Thai royals could be executed. (It was forbidden for royal blood to be spilled, so a bag was placed over the victim's head and he was cudgeled to death a considerate gesture.) And yet, around every corner, ventures of startling modernity were sprouting: boutique hotels, restaurants and bars, often housed in small antique buildings, alongside a pioneering art gallery called Speedy Grandma or a bespoke furniture store like P. Tendercool. A new "Creative District" is even being marked out by the city on both sides of the river to promote local talent. Its marquee site is the Jam Factory, a renovated warehouse complex set around a grassy courtyard with a high end restaurant called the Never Ending Summer, all designed to appeal to natives first, tourists second. "Our real ambition is to get Bangkokians back to the river," said Mr. Robinson of River Partners. "Travelers will follow. People want authenticity." A tray of shots of ya dong, ancient whiskey infused with exotic herbs, at Tep Bar. Lauryn Ishak for The New York Times To get a sense of the potential for the grandiose historic structures, I headed a few minutes away to Sathorn Road on the back of a motorbike taxi. A century ago, this was the Fifth Avenue of Bangkok, lined with the palatial mansions of Thai sea merchants. Today, a lonely vestige from 1896, the House on Sathorn, is dwarfed on three sides by glassy skyscrapers. Originally the residence of a rice baron, it survived the demolition blitz that has ravaged Bangkok since the 1960s because it housed the Russian Embassy. The landmark reopened last year after a multimillion dollar renovation as a glamorous restaurant and event space and has become a symbol of a new spirit of preservation. "It has been an epic journey," said Christine McGinnis, then the director of the Bangkok office of the United States design company AvroKO, which has overseen the project since 2008. "If this house was a child, it would be speaking and in school by now." Construction problems included dealing with the ghost of the first owner's mistress, who regularly spooked workers by overturning paintings she didn't like during the night. ("It's Thailand; there is always a story," Ms. McGinnis said, laughing.) Working with the city's Fine Arts Department, the designers had to maintain the building's historic integrity while making it commercially viable. Its Corinthian columns have elephant motifs carved into their wooden pediments; the color scheme is drawn from the Royal Thai costume, but the tapestries and artworks are all by contemporary local artists. Afterward, we strolled back to the nearby pier to catch ferries in different directions. "Everyone is getting back to the river," Ms. McGinnis said. "Everyone is getting inspired." "There is definitely a new interest in preserving Thai history," said Dan Fraser, a Canadian expat who qualifies as a walking atlas to forgotten Bangkok, as we plunged by foot along the dark waterfront of the Talat Noi ("small market") neighborhood. Here, the streets were built only broad enough to allow two rickshaws to pass, while shoulder width alleys snake to the docks. "Wealthy Thais are coming back from trips to Europe, looking around and asking, 'What have we done? Why are there so many 7 Elevens,' " Mr. Fraser said. "For the first time, people are openly admitting that unchecked development has all but destroyed Bangkok." Even a year ago, the conventional wisdom was that the river is thriving by day but dead after dark. All that has changed if you know where to look. At least that was what I had been assured by Mr. Fraser, who has one of the most colorful resumes in the Thai expat world. He first arrived 15 years ago to tutor the children of the royal family in English and tennis, and he later achieved minor celebrity status as the star of Thai language TV shows exploring local culture and food "through the eyes of a foreigner." The riverfront at night is his ideal stamping ground. "This used to be the real core of the city," he said, as we zigzagged from the old Portuguese district toward Chinatown. "But since the 1960s, people have wanted to get away from here. So development has bypassed this area altogether, which is perfect for me. It's maintained its Old World charm." In Talat Noi, the alleys were dark and deserted, but concealed secret worlds. Behind one screen door lay a bar with a broad wooden porch opening directly onto the river and decorated with mismatched retro furniture as if for a backyard barbecue. On the edge of Chinatown, a carved portal marked Teens of Thailand turned out to be the entrance to a bar by that name, with a dozen rickety seats and erotic photographs hanging on distressed concrete walls. Shouldering open the door, we found an establishment called Tep Bar, whose interior was lined with century old worn teak and crowded with arty Thais; the ambience lay somewhere between a speakeasy and an opium den. The bar's co owner, Kong Lertkangwarnklai, was so excited that a pair of farang (foreign) explorers had arrived by accident that he insisted we sample an array of ya dong, ancient whiskey infused, he said, with 20 exotic herbs. A half dozen shot glasses materialized on a sumptuous golden tray adorned with mango pieces and pickled grapes. "Technically, ya dong is medicine," Mr. Kong said, pushing the potent spirits forward. As I knocked the first glass back, I had a sudden vision of myself waking up in an alley with my memory of the night erased, perhaps with a tattoo across my forehead and a monkey on my shoulder. A bartender garnishing a drink at the House on Sathorn. Lauryn Ishak for The New York Times Dressed in jeans and a white T shirt and sporting the suggestion of a goatee, Mr. Kong seemed an unlikely cultural revolutionary. But he said that he had given up a successful career in advertising for this attempt to keep Thai history alive which starts with the bar's name, a nod toward the Thai title for the city, Krungthep, roughly, "City of Angels." "Everyone in Bangkok is trying to be someone else," he said. "But what about our roots? Why are we throwing everything away?" At first, the retro impulse behind the bar, which Mr. Kong opened last year, felt like a quixotic gamble, he recalled. "Nobody believed in us. They thought the location, the concept, everything would fail! They didn't think Thai people would come to such a place." The bar was packed with a crowd that seemed spellbound by the music (enhanced, no doubt, by the ya dong). It was about 3 a.m. when I wandered back to a lonely pier, staring out at the inky waters reflecting the lights of passing barges. A decade from now, Mr. Robinson, of the Bangkok River Partners, predicted, the Chao Phraya would be transformed but still be recognizable. "Our vision is of a cleaner river, with more walkable areas, enriched with creative industries and renovated warehouses and clusters of art galleries you can visit without sitting all day in a taxi," he said. "But at the same time, all the old roast duck shops and congee stores will still be there. They'll just be 10 years older." Even Somerset Maugham would have to approve. If You Go An excellent resource for finding out the latest on the ever changing waterfront is the website of the Bangkok River Partners, bangkokriver.com. The grande dame of Bangkok hotels, the Mandarin Oriental, is celebrating its 140th anniversary this year with a major renovation. Even if you can't afford to stay there, a meal on the veranda, high tea in the Author's Lounge or a cocktail in the Bamboo Bar are rites of passage; 48 Oriental Avenue; mandarinoriental.com/bangkok; rooms from 340. The most theatrical recent addition to the waterfront is The Siam, an over the top resort owned by the family of the Thai rock star and actor Krissada Sukosol Clapp and filled with antiques from their collection, many of which are like enigmatic objets d'art rusted musical instruments from the Jazz Age, stuffed crocodiles dancing on their hind legs; 3/2 Thanon Khao, Vachirapayabal, Dusit; thesiamhotel.com; rooms from 393. Among newer boutique hotels by the river, the Sala Rattanakosin is a standout for its proximity to wats, or temple complexes, and outdoor restaurant views of the Wat Arun, temple of dawn; 39 Maharat Road, Rattanakosin Island; salaresorts.com/rattanakosin; rooms from 84. To savor the lesser known corners of the riverfront, track down the Teens of Thailand cocktail lounge (76 Soi Nana; facebook.com/teensofthailand), the Tep Bar (69 71 Soi Nana) and Samsara Cafe and Meal (which can be best be located via a map link on its Facebook page).	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
Dr. Murray is the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington. The Trump administration has declined to release critical data to outside public health experts that would enable them to devise strategies against the virus that has killed 223,000 Americans and counting. Federal agencies have told us that since March they have been compiling basic data for each county and city on Covid 19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, the timing of social distancing mandates, testing, and other factors. This information can provide insights into how combinations of public health mandates masks, social distancing and school closures, for instance can keep the virus spread in check. But the government, inexplicably, is not sharing all of its data. Researchers have asked federal officials many times for the missing information, but have been told it won't be shared outside the government. In just one example of the pointless suppression of data that pervades the federal response to the coronavirus, The New York Times had to sue the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain basic information on cases tabulated by race and ethnicity. The information showed, as the paper put it, that "Black and Latino people have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus in a widespread manner that spans the country, throughout hundreds of counties in urban, suburban and rural areas, and across all age groups." The institute I run at the University of Washington specializes in making rigorous assessments of health problems around the world and using the data to develop or evaluate strategies to address the challenges. We provide this information to policymakers so that they can make informed decisions. That's why we are interested in obtaining the data the federal government has on hand on the coronavirus. So are other researchers. But we've run into a wall. That's not to say the government is keeping all of its data secret. On its website, the Department of Health and Human Services does provide details about daily hospital bed capacity and the percent of beds occupied by patients with Covid 19 at the state level. But it does not provide individual hospital data, nor data by age and sex or on hospital admissions, which are some of the best indicators of the trajectory of the epidemic. Nor does the department provide information on how many hospitals in each state reported their numbers on a given day. The C.D.C. provides data at the national level for cases by age and sex and race/ethnicity, but not for both together at the state or county levels. We have asked the C.D.C. for such data but have been told by officials that they cannot share it. These breakdowns are essential to make sense of what is happening. And now, because the government has not allowed outside access to all of its data, key questions are still unanswered nine months after the virus gained a foothold in the United States: Has coronavirus transmission really shifted to younger ages? Adjusting for age and comorbidities, has the death rate among Covid 19 patients improved because of better treatment? Have local mandates influenced the case rate or the hospital admission rate taking these other factors into account, and how? I don't know why the government is withholding some of the information it has gathered, when releasing it would so clearly be in the public interest. Perhaps it is driven by a concern that more data will lead to greater scrutiny and criticism over the handling of the pandemic, or misplaced concern that somehow anonymized tabulations of medical information could infringe on individuals' privacy. Prior administrations, too, have tended to err on the side of releasing less data than more on public health problems. But the urgency of determining how to manage this pandemic requires a much more open and collaborative approach. For instance, access to information on which mandates were imposed where and details on the number of cases, hospital admission and subsequent deaths could help us decide whether new lockdowns are needed. Shorter closures, along with mask requirements, restrictions on large group gatherings, shutdowns of bars and limits on indoor dining, may be sufficient until a vaccine is widely available. We may also discover that given the much greater toll being suffered among Black and Hispanic people, strategies like regular testing of essential workers may also be needed. But the scientific community needs access to the data to give more precise direction. And precision will matter with the changing of the seasons. It is increasingly clear that Covid 19 acts like pneumonia and the flu, which spread more quickly during the winter. If our forecasts are anywhere close to accurate, hospitals may be overwhelmed in many places as colder weather descends. Our modeling, updated weekly, currently forecasts more than 17,500 daily deaths globally by Jan. 1, nearly 2,250 of them in the United States. We may be able to prevent many of these deaths, but we need the complete data to start planning now. Christopher J.L. Murray is the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington. 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
BRITTANY RUNS A MARATHON (2019) Stream on Amazon. This comedy follows the success story of Brittany, a 27 year old party girl who feels her life is getting away from her. When Brittany, who is played by Jillian Bell, visits her doctor in search of an Adderall prescription, she instead receives a suggestion to abandon her unhealthy lifestyle and lose 55 pounds. Deterred by a gym membership fee, Brittany instead decides to train for the New York City Marathon. Paul Downs Colaizzo directs this feel good film with a heavy focus on physical health and not the character's low self esteem. "Brittany's kneejerk self deprecation often feels punishing not only to the character but also to the audience," Teo Bugbee wrote in her review for The Times, adding that Bell "is working within the framework of a story that seems hellbent on robbing her character of joy." VITA VIRGINIA (2019) Stream on Hulu; Rent on Amazon, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube. Inspired by a true romance and a 1994 stage play, "Vita Virginia" tells the story of two brilliant writers: Virginia Woolf (Elizabeth Debicki) and the socialite who pursues a relationship with her, Vita Sackville West (Gemma Arterton). Their scandalous romance, recorded through the 20 years' worth of letters they sent to each other, incited upset from Vita's mother, as well as both of their husbands. Despite Vita and Virginia's real life passion, "the movie feels muted and joyless and almost suffocatingly well appointed," Jeannette Catsoulis wrote in her review for The Times.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
Clockwise from left, Drew Anthony Smith for The New York Times; Firstview; John Lamparski/Getty Images; Firstview; Erin Baiano for The New York Times; Firstview	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
Before this week, Paul McCartney, a Billboard behemoth with the Beatles, had not achieved a No. 1 album of his own in 36 years. To do it this time, he had to take on Eminem. "Egypt Station," the new solo album by Mr. McCartney, managed to inch past the second week sales of Eminem's beef driven surprise album "Kamikaze," selling a total of 153,000 album equivalent units, including 147,000 in traditional sales and 6 million streams. "Kamikaze" fell to No. 2 with 136,000 units, primarily from its 100 million streams. Never miss a pop music story: Sign up for our weekly newsletter, Louder. Like many top selling albums of late without a large streaming base, "Egypt Station" was boosted by packages that included the album as an add on with concert tickets or merchandise. The album is also the first ever solo McCartney release, including his work with Wings, to reach the top of the chart in its first week (a rarity before sales tracking changed in 1991). Mr. McCartney's last album to reach No. 1 was "Tug of War" in 1982. Also on the chart this week, the Christian singer songwriter Lauren Daigle debuted at No. 3 with "Look Up Child," earning the best first week sales for a Christian release in nearly a decade, according to Billboard. At No. 4 is the rapper Russ's "Zoo," which also benefited from a merchandise and ticketing bundle, followed by Drake's enduring "Scorpion" at No. 5 in its 11th week.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Despite President Trump's call on Twitter for a boycott, shares of AT T, which acquired CNN last year, rose 1.7 percent on Monday. President Trump on Monday floated the notion of a consumer boycott of AT T, the telecommunications firm turned media colossus, an apparent attempt to punish the company for the news coverage produced by one of its subsidiaries, CNN. "I believe that if people stopped using or subscribing to ATT, they would be forced to make big changes at CNN, which is dying in the ratings anyway," the president wrote on Twitter, shortly after touching down in Britain for a state visit. "It is so unfair with such bad, Fake News! Why wouldn't they act. When the World watches CNN, it gets a false picture of USA. Sad!" Mr. Trump, who had apparently been watching CNN during his trans Atlantic flight, complained about the channel's coverage in an earlier tweet: "All negative so much Fake News, very bad for U.S." He added: "Why doesn't owner ATT do something?" Complaining about CNN is typical for Mr. Trump, who has vilified the network since his presidential campaign. And this was not the first time that he had attacked an American news organization while on foreign soil. In July, at a news conference in Britain with the prime minister, Theresa May, the president denounced CNN as "fake news" and refused to take questions from its correspondent Jim Acosta. Still, Mr. Trump's message on Monday was a notable public lashing of AT T in the wake of its 85 billion acquisition of CNN's parent company, Time Warner, which catapulted the Texas based telecom giant into the sharp elbowed sphere of national media. Representatives for AT T and CNN declined to comment on Monday. Advocates of press freedom have raised alarms about Mr. Trump's treatment of news organizations, particularly the signal it sends when he is abroad. Autocrats around the world have echoed Mr. Trump's recitations of "fake news" in suppressing independent journalism. Mr. Trump's comments on Monday attracted attention from lawmakers back home. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democratic presidential candidate, wrote on Twitter that it was "Un be lievable" to see Mr. Trump "advocating boycotting an American company because the press isn't covering him favorably." The president's animus toward CNN flared up in the buildup to AT T's acquisition of Time Warner, which was completed last year and placed the 24 hour news network along with HBO, Turner Broadcasting and the Warner Bros. entertainment studios under AT T's control. Mr. Trump frequently impugned CNN and its journalists as his Department of Justice sued to block the deal, and White House advisers discussed the pending merger as a potential point of leverage over the news network. AT T ultimately prevailed in court and placed the erstwhile Time Warner properties in a new division, WarnerMedia. The Trump administration's handling of the AT T merger contrasted with another major media deal, the Walt Disney Company's acquisition of a majority of 21st Century Fox, the Rupert Murdoch controlled parent company of the president's preferred news network, Fox News. (Fox News stayed with the Murdoch family after that merger.) The Disney Fox transaction received government approval six months after it was announced, an unusually short time frame. The president's call for a boycott did not appear to worry AT T's investors. Its stock price closed on Monday at 31.09 a share, up 1.7 percent.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Ninety years ago, in Rome, Davide Cenci's grandfather opened a shop that specialized in men's shirts and pajamas. Its customers included members of the Italian Parliament, who worked next door. Today there are four Davide Cenci shops two in Rome (one for children's clothing), one in Milan and one in New York. Mr. Cenci took a few moments away from the racks at his homey Madison Avenue location, which has an emphasis on men's wear, to discuss the family business. You've been working in men's retail for more than 30 years. What's the biggest change you've seen? Men have become more aware of fashion. Meaning that even in an environment like ours which is more traditional different fits, more modern fits, have become important. We really have to offer the clientele not only just one standard fit; we need to also offer a more modern fit. That has sometimes confused people, but not as much as casual Friday confused people 15 years ago. You carry a strong selection of tailored clothing. Have you noticed a change in men's relationship with suits?	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
There are holiday embracers and holiday dissenters. Those for whom the season is about celebration and those who seek solace as soon as the evergreens come out. For both groups, however, there is new music this year a soundtrack for all the seasonal moods. There are traditional holiday tunes polished to a sheen; songs that approach festive joy through completely new musical lenses; and numbers that use familiar frameworks to deliver subversive messages. So whether your Christmas is a merry one or a grumpy one, press play. Christmas celebrations take place in homes, in offices and at performance venues. But they also happen in bars, the darkened sort where glee goes to die, or at least drown itself in a pileup of pints. Eric Clapton's "Happy Xmas" is for those places: the anti celebrations. This set of modestly scaled blues remakings of classics finds dignity in the downtrodden. Clapton sings with emotion that ranges from worn out to weepy, and his guitar is a cudgel of cloudy gloom. Together, they make for songs that hold the exuberance of the rest of the world at bay, at least for one eve. A rollicking Christmas album from an old country punk with a rich skepticism about holiday traditions, Rodney Crowell's "Christmas Everywhere" is good natured and wry, an album about how adults struggle to process a holiday oriented toward children. The jaunty "Christmas Everywhere" is a quizzical shrug about scrambling to satisfy everyone's needs. And "Merry Christmas From an Empty Bed," a stark duet with Brennen Leigh, refracts the holiday through the tragic loneliness it can engender. That aside, throughout most of this album, Crowell is having fun singing with arched eyebrow and tongue firmly in cheek. But it's telling that the happiest song here is called "Let's Skip Christmas This Year." Read about some of this year's holiday themed events. Let warm oil pour over you this holiday season the perfect croon of Engelbert Humperdinck is back. "Warmest Christmas Wishes" is his second album of new recordings in two years, following a several year drought, and it is peak holiday schlock, a hearty and unerringly smooth nog. He still has a meaty voice, his phrasing polished to a gleam by thousands of nights on Vegas stages. There are a couple of originals here, but skip right to the chestnuts "I'll Be Home for Christmas," "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" platonic ideal versions delivered without an ounce of camp. If you imagine Christmas as a fireworks display, as a Busby Berkeley routine, as a series of small scale exploding bombs that inspire awe and then severe terror, Jessie J is the holiday singer for you. "This Christmas Day," produced by David Foster, is ostentatious, maximalist, overdecorated. Several songs are like medieval jousts, Jessie J's yelps answered by shrieking horns. But when she's most restrained, like on "Let It Snow," it's clear she's having no fun at all. Hip hop has been extending its tendrils into gospel for well over a decade now, but sometimes the influence is overt. You can sense the very long arm of Chance the Rapper hovering over this compilation produced by J. Drew Sheard brother of Kierra, son of Karen Clark. His exuberant production and jaunty rapping exude Chance ian dynamics, but he is still from one of gospel's first families, as is clear on "You," when Mom shows up, bracing old school vocals in tow: "You may not wanna hear what I gotta say! But I'm gonna say what I gotta say!" She bends, she squeals, she yelps the future, she's insisting, can be found in the past. Moments of surprise pepper John Legend's austere first holiday album, "A Legendary Christmas." There are the savvy song choices, including rarities like Marvin Gaye's pulpy "Purple Snowflakes." There's the beginning of "Merry Christmas Baby," on which Legend dips into a deep blues register he doesn't often access. The album is executive produced by Raphael Saadiq, who on songs like "Christmas Time Is Here," injects familiar big band arrangements with frisky swing, and who mines luscious 1970s soul on "Wrap Me Up in Your Love" and "Silver Bells." But the biggest jolt is "Waiting for Christmas," one of a handful of originals here (written with Saadiq and Dan Wilson) a song about a hollow, lonely day that lands like a eulogy. The beginning of "Hey! Merry Christmas!" the first holiday album by the country music interrogators the Mavericks strolls along at a friendly pace, their original songs touching on Western swing, 1950s rock, traditional country and more. But midway through comes a bawdy new cabaret esque number, "Santa Wants to Take You for a Ride," that feels less like an apostate take on holiday good will and more like a lost Blowfly original: "Santa's gonna stuff your stocking full/He knows what you want 'cause he's no fool/Got a treat he's saving, saving just for you." These words are sung lusciously by Raul Malo, a precise vocalist who sprinkles his singing with dry wit. It's a testament to his deftness that he makes this raunch sound utterly wholesome. JD McPherson is a vivid reinterpreter of the strutting rock 'n' roll of the 1950s. His holiday album, "Socks," is a collection of original songs with startlingly original conceits. The mopey "Socks" is a tongue lashing to unoriginal gift givers. "Bad Kid" is a lite rockabilly boast from someone with "a black leather jacket and a real mean streak" who wants to find a way to enjoy the holiday: "I can't help it, I was born like this/A permanent spot on the naughty list." And "Hey Skinny Santa!" encourages Kriss Kringle to pack on the pounds after several months of slacking. The peak might be "Claus vs. Claus," a duet with Lucie Silvas, which portrays the North Pole as a site of domestic disappointment, where a long married couple air out their gripes, then settle them just in time for the big flight. Polite and precise Golden Age Christmas carol revivalism from Ingrid Michaelson, who is a better singer the less affect she deploys. And so the ornate first half of this album is pleasant, but the looser second half with a cheeky "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve," a spunky duet with Grace VanderWaal on "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" and a surprisingly understated and tactile version of "All I Want for Christmas Is You," with Leslie Odom Jr. has real joy. This is the fourth Pentatonix Christmas album in six years, a mercenary pace for a holiday mascot group that specializes in an especially synthetic brand of mirth. Refreshingly, "Christmas Is Here!" is the least antic of its holiday albums, with a patient "Where Are You Christmas?" and non asphyxiating moments of expanding the holiday canon, including a cover of the Neighbourhood's "Sweater Weather." But this a cappella group still loves its laser pointer syllables, which arrive like cruel bullets on "Here Comes Santa Claus," and make for a genuinely harrowing "Making Christmas." And it's jolting when more lustrous, nuanced singers arrive for duets Maren Morris on "When You Believe" and, most strikingly, Kelly Clarkson, warm and robust on "Grown Up Christmas List." But they are a temporary dam: The Casio preset vocals are an unstoppable torrent, and these eerie, plastic songs may well make Pentatonix the Mannheim Steamroller of the 2030s, the 2050s, maybe even the 2110s. Say Sue Me, 'Christmas, It's Not a Biggie' This EP by the South Korean indie rock band Say Sue Me refracts holiday music through several different unexpected lenses. "Out of Bed" is morbidly downtempo it sounds like seasonal affective disorder. "After This Winter" is a slowcore lament about dark winter nights. And the title track is a rousing surf rock number that exuberantly calls into question why people even bother singing about Santa at all: "Christmas, yeah, it's not a biggie/It's not your birthday/Wonder why people look so excited." Could we not? Signed, the Grinch. The gospel singer Deitrick Haddon has over the last decade been one of the genre's limit pushers, tugging at its musical and ideological boundaries. In the producer Zaytoven, one of the architects of Atlanta trap music and also a church trained musician he has found a worthy collaborator. "Greatest Gift," out Dec. 14, includes hip hop inflected gospel on "Christmas With U" and the title track. But hearing Haddon lean in to the secular songs here is the real holiday surprise: "I'll massage you from head to toe," he sings on the cheesy adult contemporary R B number "Holiday Bae cation," while the excellent "Make Love on Christmas" is deeply sweaty: "It ain't gon' be a silent night/Ain't trying to wake up the kids with the noise/But she can't take it when I unwrap the toys."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Westbrook is, in fact, the star point guard for the Oklahoma City Thunder, so this was a somewhat jarring question to pose to his fellow players during the National Basketball Association's All Star weekend in 2013. Nonetheless, they played along. James Harden thought Westbrook was more of a dog. Dwyane Wade hedged. "He's a cat dog," he said. Finally, Westbrook weighed in. "Wolf," he said. The cat or dog question came from a host of "The Basketball Jones," an N.B.A. podcast started in 2006 by three Canadian basketball fanatics who will bring their blend of deep basketball analysis and irreverent, goofy attitude to the N.B.A.'s All Star festivities this weekend in New York. "I always think we were made for All Star weekend, because it's supposed to be fun," says Phil Elder, one of the hosts, who is known professionally as J. E. Skeets. But this year, the hosts of "The Jones" will be broadcasting for the league itself. A little more than a year ago, "The Jones" podcast was rebranded as "The Starters," a television program shown weeknights on NBATV. It is available to stream live and download as a podcast but it exists primarily as a television broadcast. In its second season, "The Starters" is growing quickly in popularity. According to the network, viewership has increased by 24 percent this season, with podcast downloads up 22 percent. NBATV says it will continue to raise the show's profile. Plans for this weekend include an hourlong live show at 6 p.m. Friday, with player interviews and an appearance by the basketball great George Gervin. "They prove you can be entertaining and smart on TV without being overbearing and loud about it," said Zach Lowe, an N.B.A. writer for the Grantland website and a podcaster. In the wake of the hit true crime show "Serial," podcasts are widely acknowledged to be growing. A recent report from Edison Research indicates a "dramatic increase in podcast consumption." Elizabeth Holmes Hones Her Defense in Day 2 of Testimony Kevin Spacey was ordered to pay 31 million to the 'House of Cards' studio after sexual harassment allegations. Jeff Ullrich, the co founder of the podcasting network Earwolf, says the shift has been palpable. "My 70 year old retired dentist in St. Charles, Ill., is telling me that he can relate to the thing that I have done in my career, when 18 months ago my best friends didn't know what a podcast was," he said. "The Starters" hosts are part of a wave of podcasting personalities jumping to television, including the soccer commentators "Men in Blazers," the comedian Marc Maron and the hosts of "Comedy Bang Bang." But the basketball enthusiasts acknowledge that the shift can be challenging. "The Starters" television show occasionally feels less rich to longtime fans of the podcasts. "What you're hearing on the podcast is years of repetition and experience, so it's kind of ingrained in us, and it's pretty easy," said one of the hosts, Tassos Melas, who goes by Tas. "While on the TV side, not that we're not good at it, but it's different every year. It's just not shooting the breeze as easily," he said. "They're two completely different mediums," Mr. Elder said. "Everyone was telling us, 'It's not the same, it's not the same.' Well it's not the same because it's a TV show we're making." Though "The Starters' " television audience is growing, Mr. Elder and Mr. Melas, with the show's other personalities, Trey Kerby and Leigh Ellis, have not abandoned podcasting. This season they introduced "The Drop," a weekly, podcast only show that is downloaded 70 percent more frequently on average than the podcast of the daily "The Starters" television show, according to the network. Last week's episode featured references to Katy Perry's Super Bowl halftime show and a discussion of some of the more handsome N.B.A. stars. "The Starters" TV show has tried to incorporate the lighter elements of "The Basketball Jones" podcast in a way that recreates the spontaneity of its hosts' old material. On their show last Thursday, in a segment called "Meme Team," the hosts counted down some of the goofiest moments from the N.B.A. that week. Number one on the countdown was Westbrook's reaction to being stiffed on a high five by a teammate. In the video, he turned around sharply and glared at the offending player. "That screams cat to me," Mr. Elder said. "Case closed, right? He's more like a cat."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Justin Elghanayan stood on a roof, gazing at a forest of half built towers. "For a long time this neighborhood was about what will be," said Mr. Elghanayan, the president of Rockrose Development, "and now I think it's about what is." That neighborhood in the making is the Court Square section of Long Island City, Queens, a longtime industrial area by the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge that is experiencing a surge in residential construction. While past efforts to add apartments to Long Island City focused largely on the banks of the East River, developers have started to push inland to create a skyline in a place that never really had one, save for the Citigroup Building. The latest contribution from Rockrose, a firm that has played a major role in reinventing the area through the years, is the Hayden, a 51 story tower at 43 25 Hunter Street that soars above rivals and gives the 50 story Citigroup tower, also known as One Court Square, a run for its money. Named for Levy Hayden, who in the mid 1800s ran a dry dock facility and who coined the Long Island City name, according to historical accounts, Rockrose's rental offers 974 studio to two bedroom apartments. With wood floors, granite counters and stacked washers and dryers, the Hayden also has 30,000 square feet of amenities, including a rare full size basketball court, a two level gym and a yoga studio overlooking a grassy garden. In contrast, at the Linc LIC, a 709 unit, 42 story Rockrose owned rental around the corner that opened in 2014, there is 20,000 square feet of amenities, including a half size basketball court, Mr. Elghanayan said. The Hayden, whose construction is being phased, put its first market rate units up for rent earlier this year. Prices at those 190 units start at 2,400 a month for studios and 3,000 a month for one bedrooms the most common unit type though Rockrose is also throwing in a free month of rent on a one year lease. In late April, after two months of marketing, those units were about 95 percent leased, Rockrose said. Not too long ago, renters might have breathed a sigh of relief that the Hayden had so many entertainment options under its own roof, as the neighborhood, a mix of factories, garages and court related businesses, was not exactly exciting. Court Square might still have a ways to go until achieving the buzziness of, say, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But in recent months, it has taken steps in that direction. Last winter, Toby's Estate, a New York coffee chain, opened its first store in Queens at 26 25 Jackson Avenue. In this red brick Rockrose owned three story building, two interior floors had been removed, allowing customers to gaze up into a lofty beam crossed space. While creating a cool look was one goal, removing those floors also allowed Rockrose to increase the size of the Hayden by transferring the smaller building's unused floor volume, about 20,000 square feet, to the nearby tower. Two doors away, at 26 21 Jackson, Rockrose has installed Levante, an Italian restaurant from Stella Management Group. It is to open by summer, as is Sapps, a sushi joint at 27 26 Jackson, Mr. Elghanayan said. Ink on paper fans may also be heartened to learn that Book Culture, which has several Manhattan locations, has leased a 2,300 square foot space at 26 09 Jackson, another Rockrose berth. And to increase the likelihood that Book Culture survives after it opens next year, Rockrose is discounting its rent until it can turn a profit, Mr. Elghanayan said. "We think it's important for the soul of the neighborhood," he said. Those businesses join a branch of Foodcellar and Co. Market, a 14,000 square foot high end food store that ended the area's run as a relative grocery desert when it opened in 2015, on the ground floor of Linc LIC. But for all the changes afoot on the ground, the most dramatic shifts seem to be happening in the sky. Indeed, rising a few blocks away is a three tower residential complex with nearly 1,900 units from the developer Tishman Speyer. The first high rise to open will be 28 10 Jackson Avenue, a shimmering 44 story building that will have 670 apartments, with leasing starting in the fourth quarter. Tishman's second tower, at 28 34 Jackson, will have 53 stories and 650 units, while its third to open, 30 02 Queens Boulevard, will have 42 stories and 550 units. Offering on site shops, a 1.5 acre private park and a 50,000 square foot, amenity laden clubhouse, the complex is expected to be completed by 2019. Other major planned residences include 23 15 44th Drive, from a team that includes United Construction and Development Group; the project aims to be an 802 unit condominium tower but awaits zoning approval, said Jiashu Xu, United's president. United has demolished buildings and hopes to start construction this summer. Another huge project is at 43 30 24th Street, where Stawski Partners plans to develop 923 apartments in a 66 story building, according to city records. Even more commanding is 22 44 Jackson, with about 1,150 rental units, from the Wolkoff Group. The two towered building, called 5pointz, should open in fall 2018, said Jerry Wolkoff, a principal of the firm.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
What are the top Facebook pages engaging users on Tuesday's presidential debate and their share of the conversation on the social network ahead of the event? It might not be what you expect. The three public pages on Facebook that are seeing the largest share of the debate conversation on the site all leaned conservative. At the top was Fox News (with a 25 percent share of the conversation), followed by Breitbart (15 percent of the conversation) and then the conservative commentator Ben Shapiro (12 percent share). The rankings were generated by CrowdTangle, the Facebook owned tool that analyzes interactions on the social network. CrowdTangle measured the share of the debate conversation by using keywords like "2020 debate" and "presidential debate."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
Credit...Kyle Johnson for The New York Times Tradition dictates that the musical calendar year ends, for most concertgoers, with Handel's "Messiah." But 10 years ago, a plucky early music ensemble rang in the New Year with an even older choral masterpiece, full of pomp, glitter and moments of deep contemplation. When Jolle Greenleaf, a soprano and the artistic director of Tenet, organized a performance of Monteverdi's "Vespro della Beata Vergine" ("Vespers of the Blessed Virgin") on Jan. 3, 2010, in New York, she meant for it to be a one off event. After all, that year marked the 400th anniversary of the work, informally referred to as the 1610 Vespers. But Ms. Greenleaf's production, with the musicians volunteering their work, attracted a crowd of 800 and the attention of critics. (James R. Oestreich, writing in The New York Times, called it "quite simply terrific.") Along the way, Ms. Greenleaf established Tenet as an independent force on the city's early music scene, among the most important outside of major institutions like Trinity Wall Street and the Juilliard School. And the group will have ample activities after this season's performances of the 1610 Vespers, next Thursday and Friday at St. Jean Baptiste Church on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. These will be the final salvo of the Green Mountain Project, and Tenet's first rendition of the Vespers without a conductor. A tour to Venice will follow, where the musicians will sing at Monteverdi's grave and perform in churches across the city. I started it out of a real sense of despair that I wasn't going to perform this piece that I was madly in love with. I had gone through a major illness and had recently given birth to my daughter and wasn't really being hired anywhere. So when we decided to do it, it felt like a gift. It was a big year with the 400th anniversary of the piece, and we wanted to put our stamp on it. How did you put your stamp on it? What are the qualities you look for in the singers and instrumentalists you work with? When I listen to some of the older recordings, I think it was hard for people to understand how this music functioned best. Having large choirs sing this music it's hard to digest. Monteverdi really meant it to be sung one singer to a part, so you get this vivid clarity. For the singers, it's essential that they can offer a variety of sounds. A lot has to do with understanding strong and weak syllables and making sure that comes through in the singing. Monteverdi cared deeply about the text; for all the syllables to sound the same would create the wrong color palette. With instrumentalists you want the same: They are essentially singing. If they match our strong and weak inflections on the syllables, they basically boost our sound, and our diction carries over. What have you learned about Monteverdi over these years immersed in his music? It's hard for us to know exactly what he was like. He could be a curmudgeon. He was obviously a masterful composer, no question. He had a very fun and light side that you can see in his work, as well as a deeply religious side. This piece uses everything he has on offer. You get so many aspects of his personality and his compositional style, all in one work. Were you surprised by the popular success of this music? In New York in early January, right after the glut of "Messiah"? I've heard stories of people getting married after hearing this piece with their partner and deciding, "Oh, they understand the Monteverdi Vespers, I'm going to marry this person." I find a lot of scientists and mathematicians are drawn to this music in a big way. If our world had the opportunity to hear it more, I think it could be as popular as "Messiah." And I do see it being done more often now than in the decade before the anniversary of 2010. Clearly everybody got the bug. What does it mean to you to bring this music to Venice? I felt like ending this project needed to be done in a way that really honored everything that everybody did over the years. It feels like the crowning glory we are going to do it where Monteverdi flourished and was buried. But it's a little crazy. There's so many pieces to the organization. There are no cars; there are so many rules. Getting a chamber organ meant renting it from pretty far away and then putting it on a boat. In New York, you will perform the Vespers without a conductor for the first time. How much of that is about empowering the singers? As a woman, trying to run an ensemble has its tricky moments. I spent years feeling that my ideas were not worthy enough to stand on their own, and I brought in a lot of guest directors. And yet each time I knew exactly what I wanted the music to sound like and I knew what I wanted to say with it. But I didn't know if I could say those things and have them be reacted to in the way that a male counterpart could. Part of that is about being a singer, and about the place that we hold in the music community which is not what it was in the Baroque. And part of that is being a woman with a high speaking voice, a high singing voice. I often felt that no one was taking me seriously. But I'm trying to be braver, to have the courage of my convictions. I know that this music does not need, nor did it originally have, a conductor. I feel that as long as singers are constantly under the thumb of a conductor, they will not use their full musical abilities. And that is a very tough road to be on in a community where conductors really want a job and where donors really want to give those conductors a job. Tenet performs Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers on Thursday and Friday at St. Jean Baptiste Church, Manhattan; tenet.nyc.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Robyn, the young daughter of a British soldier overseeing a province and the surrounding forest in 17th century Ireland, stumbles upon a mother and daughter who are "wolfwalkers," that is, humans who can take lupine form. Trouble ensues, of course, because the townspeople are fearful of wolves, etcetera. This is one of those movies where you know just what's going to happen after the line, "You must do as you're told, my girl" is uttered. And what happens after that. And so on. It is kind of funny, if you can roll with it, that the movie eventually endorses the "pagan nonsense" its title characters embody. And that, in a bit of dialogue near the end, offers an almost explicit denunciation of Christianity. Not many animated movies (or movies from Ireland, really) have that particular kind of nerve. Wolfwalkers Rated PG for themes, action. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
WHEN it comes to John Maynard Keynes and his economic theories, the economist has long been a lightning rod as tall as the Empire State Building. Yet examining his investment success is another matter, and far less prickly. Although this is a largely unknown side of his life, Keynes, while scourging Wall Street and advocating public spending to create jobs, was creating several fortunes by managing money. This part of his life should be of great value to anyone interested in creating and managing wealth. The Keynes whom history knows best was the guiding light behind the many New Deal job creation programs and several Keynesian stimulus programs since then, including the Obama stimulus plan of 2009. He was the intellectual father of the Bretton Woods postwar economic accords. He was also a bon vivant at the heart of the quasi bohemian Bloomsbury group, a patron of the arts and a philosopher. While he was extolling what eventually became known as "Keynesian economics," he was also managing money for himself, as well as King's College at Cambridge, his Bloomsbury friends and family, two British insurance companies, and investment funds that we would call hedge funds today. After a few near catastrophic market turns, he became one of the most innovative investors ever, inspiring investors and economic thinkers from Warren E. Buffett to Robert J. Shiller. In researching a book on Keynes, I was astounded to find that none of his many biographies contained meaningful detail on his investment activities, although they were fairly well known by the cognoscenti in London and New York during the 1920s and 1930s. What I found was that Keynes stumbled several times before he succeeded he was almost financially wiped out three separate times but he got back in the game and altered his thinking to build wealth long term. Most of what Keynes did in terms of investment innovation has been intricately documented by David Chambers, a professor at the Judge School of Business at Cambridge, and Elroy Dimson, emeritus professor at the London Business School. "Discovering a high degree of overlap with his personal stock portfolio," Professor Chambers notes, the two researchers took an incisive look at Keynes's portfolios at the King's College endowment he managed from 1922 to 1946, when he died. What emerges from Professor Chambers and Professor Dimson's research, published in a Journal of Economics Perspectives paper, is a surprising portrait of an investment pioneer who started out as a "top down" manager relying upon macroeconomic predictions of the economy's movement and switched to become a "bottom up" value investor focused on finding solid companies that paid dividends and had promising, long term prospects. Keynes vaulted into professional investing with a cocksure insider's attitude. He had been an adviser to the British Treasury during World War I until he walked out of the Versailles Treaty talks. Although he maintained and enhanced his Treasury and London financial district connections, he would publicly denounce the Versailles reparations forced upon Germany. Keynes correctly predicted that the treaty would lead to catastrophic economic instability in Germany, which he detailed in his classic "The Economic Consequences of the Peace." After the war, Keynes speculated heavily in currencies, but lost most of his capital in 1920 when several European currencies he was betting against recovered. Undaunted, he broadened his portfolio to commodities and eventually common stocks, which at the time was a rarity for institutional investors, who preferred safe bonds and real estate. Although he was building wealth for his own account and the institutional funds throughout the 1920s, he did not see the 1929 debacle coming and was almost cleaned out again. The 1929 crash and resulting Great Depression left Keynes intellectually shellshocked, so he changed his strategy. Professor Chambers and Professor Dimson discovered that sometime in the early 1930s he backed away from short term trades and commodities and focused on stocks. No longer would he pay attention to overarching economic theories or short term sentiment: The "animal spirits" of the market's unpredictable pixies could not be trusted. He sensed that security prices were not true indicators of company values. "Keynes anticipated Eugene Fama, the 2013 Nobel Economics Prize co winner, in that he clearly did not believe that stock prices must be good indicators of fundamental value," Professor Chambers said in a recent email. "Consequently, there could be periods when the irrational behavior of investors and what he called animal spirits play a significant role in determining prices on both the upside and downside." Unlike millions of modern investors, who latch onto every headline and interview on business television shows to gauge market sentiment, Keynes went about face in the early to mid 1930s to concentrate on a company's "enterprise" value, which is also known as "book" or "breakup" value. This intrinsic view of a company's true worth stripped out the overly emotional component that is often reflected in stock prices. As a result, he often picked companies that had promising futures, but were unloved at the time. When Keynes adopted his new investment strategy which paralleled work by Benjamin Graham, a Columbia University professor and mentor to Mr. Buffett he did quite well. Even with setbacks in 1929 30, 1937 38 and the early years of World War II, Keynes managed a 16 percent annualized return in the Cambridge discretionary portfolio, which mirrored his other holdings. That compares with 10.4 percent for a basket of British stocks over the same period, Professor Chambers and Professor Dimson found. More important, Keynes staged some striking rebounds after two major declines from 1929 to 1940. According to Professor Chambers and Professor Dimson, although his Cambridge discretionary portfolio lagged the British market by a cumulative 12 percent in 1930 from inception, his performance rallied in the 1930s and '40s and posted a 0.73 risk/return or Sharpe ratio during his tenure, compared with 0.49 for the British market. Considering that Keynes was investing during some of the worst years in history, his returns are astounding. How did he do it? In addition to focusing on bargain priced small and midsize stocks, Keynes carefully evaluated managements. Could they prosper long term? Did they have a plan for when the economy turned around? "I get more and more convinced that the right method in investment is to put fairly large sums into enterprises which one thinks one knows something about and in the management of which one thoroughly believes," Keynes wrote in 1934. Shades of Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett, and the whole school of value investing. Keynes also loved dividend payers, some of which were paying up to 6 percent during the deflationary 1930s. His portfolios were full of old line companies in mining, railroads and shipping. Although they were perhaps boring and suspect choices at the time, he bought more shares when they became cheaper and predicted they would be worth more when the general economy recovered. Ultimately, Keynes was vindicated, building wealth for all of his institutional clients, and he built a personal fortune worth more than 30 million in 2013 dollars at the time of his death, which did not include a tally of his extensive collection of artwork and rare manuscripts. Keynes was not only an investment innovator, but one of the richest economists ever. While Keynes was most likely the recipient of price sensitive information during his career, it is hard to discern if he profited from it. Insider trading was not broadly restricted in Britain until 1980. It is also hard to pin down whether Keynes invested along the lines of his famous economic theories, although it is clear that his investment activities informed his view of economics. Nevertheless, one of Keynes's most important insights was one that most investors still ignore: A prudent plan does not include timing the market, but focuses on long term value and total return. It is a view that has not only worked for millions of investors who now invest in index funds and do not time the market but is also the foundation of a long term strategy. Although Keynes's economic persona may still be the St. Sebastian of intellectual debate, Keynesian investing has proved to be a solid way to build wealth over time.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Your Money
Now Less Interesting, and All the Better for It THE most interesting thing about the 2007 Acura RDX compact crossover was that, unlike most of its luxury competitors, it didn't have a 6 cylinder engine. Instead, it used a turbocharged 2.3 liter 4 cylinder engine. The most interesting thing about its successor, the new 2013 RDX, is that the turbo 4 has been dropped in favor of a V 6. The 240 horsepower turbo engine made the first RDX quick but not all that fuel efficient. Inside Line, the online enthusiasts magazine of Edmunds.com, clocked an '07 RDX ripping from 0 to 60 in 6.8 seconds. But calculated with today's methodology, the E.P.A. rating of that all wheel drive RDX was just 17 miles per gallon in town and 22 on the highway. (A front drive version was added for 2010.) Owners who regularly revved the engine hard enough to keep the turbocharger spooled up could experience considerably worse fuel economy. The old RDX had the dumpy body of a grocery cart and the frantic heart of a sports car. In contrast, the new RDX and its 273 horsepower 3.5 liter V 6 are perfectly matched. It's a more handsome and tightly tailored machine than the departed model, but not so handsome or tailored that anyone would notice it in a sea of crossovers. And it's now a better, easier going instrument of family utility. The V 6 is a version of a silken, effortlessly athletic, single overhead cam engine found in several Honda products, including the Odyssey minivan and the Acura TL and TSX sedans. It is mated to a new 6 speed automatic transmission (an upgrade from the old RDX's 5 speed) and includes a cylinder management system that lets two or three cylinders loaf when engine loads are light during, say, highway cruising. The new all wheel drive model is rated at 19 m.p.g. in town and 27 on the highway and the front drive RDX at 20/28. The five seat crossover is based on the same unibody structure that underpins the immensely popular Honda CR V which comes only with 4 cylinders and assembled alongside the CR V in East Liberty, Ohio. The engineering is strictly conventional. The engine sits crosswise in the nose, the suspension has MacPherson struts in front and a multilink independent system in back. An antilock disc brake sits behind every wheel, and the rack and pinion steering has an electric assist. At 182.5 inches over a 104.3 inch wheelbase, the RDX is nearly four inches longer than the CR V on a wheelbase that's 1.2 inches longer. Every 2013 RDX will be, from the outside at least, virtually indistinguishable from any other. The 35,215 front drive model includes perforated leather upholstery, power front seats, a rear backup camera and several ways to jack personal electronics into the sound system. Adding all wheel drive lifts the price to 36,615. Adding a "technology package" which includes a power tailgate, navigation system, a wicked loud stereo and high intensity headlamps, among other things pushes the front driver's price to 38,915 and the all wheel drive machine's to 40,315. Other options are dealer installed items. The RDX performed flawlessly on a Huffman family trip from the District of Columbia to New York City. The V 6 was powerful when it had to be and transitioned seamlessly to 4 and 3 cylinder operation. The transmission shifted almost without notice, and the deep overdrive sixth gear let the engine run at barely more than an idle while cruising at 65 m.p.h. In fact the RDX drives so similarly to its big brother, the seven passenger MDX, that it's hard to come up with a reason, other than the MDX's third row of seats, to buy the larger, more expensive crossover. The ride is controlled, the 18 inch Michelin Pilot tires are quiet if not particularly grippy, and the seats are about as ergonomically accommodating as those in any vehicle not made by Gulfstream Aerospace. The RDX isn't exciting to drive, but it's reassuring, confident and a bit muscular. Inside Line timed it at 6.5 seconds from 0 to 60 m.p.h. 0.3 second quicker than the old model, with less turbo drama. The old RDX had one of the best all wheel drive systems, which Acura calls Super Handling All Wheel Drive. First used on the flagship RL sedan, the system is truly full time and features torque vectoring that sends power to the wheels with the most traction, improving handling through corners. The system made the original RDX a great handling crossover, but few crossover customers seemed to crave it. The new system is simpler. Most of the time the RDX operates in front wheel drive, but when the system senses wheel slippage, up to half the torque can be diverted to the rear wheels. During a cloudburst in Maryland I think I felt the system kicking in, but I can't be sure. For how most people use their crossovers, all wheel drive may be irrelevant. Almost all new vehicles have electronic traction and stability controls, and these have been refined to the point that they can keep almost anyone out of trouble when the weather turns slushy. All wheel drive adds about 120 pounds to the weight and 1,400 to the sticker price. It also shaves the fuel economy ratings. And while it might be a desirable asset for an RDX that will spend its life in Alaska, Vermont or North Dakota, it could be harder to justify where the winters are milder.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
What is a Muppet made of? One of the first corrections I ever had to make in this newspaper, and still the best, involved my review of the 2015 ABC sitcom "The Muppets." I referred to the covering that makes up the outside of Jim Henson's creations as felt; a reader informed me that it was, in fact, fleece. Noted. That truth, however, is only skin deep. What Muppets are really made out of is television. This goes back to the earliest days of "Sesame Street," in the 1960s, when the creators conceived a kids' show with the metabolism and spirit of "Laugh In," full of TV parodies and faux sponsorships. It continued through that ill fated ABC comedy, an unsettlingly edgy behind the scenes look at a talk show starring Miss Piggy. And that maniacal meta spirit powered "The Muppet Show," a comedy about a faux variety show that was also, itself, one of TV's best variety shows (and the inspiration for a series of movies). Stressed out Kermit, melodramatic Piggy, hyperactive Animal and the rest lovingly embodied the craziness of showbiz, for a mass media era when TV delivered dance, romance and seltzered pants for audiences of all ages under one big tent. As the show's original pitch reel to TV executives promised, accurately: "Small children will love the cute, cuddly characters! Young people will love the fresh and innovative comedy! College kids and intellectual eggheads will love the underlying symbolism of everything!" Cut to 2020, when TV is splintered and siloed, and so are the Muppets as a property. The kids' end of the franchise, "Sesame Street," belongs to HBO Max, after a move to the gentrified neighborhood of HBO in 2016. The kids of all ages end, populated by "Muppet Show" alumni, wear the sigil of House Disney. So what, in the streaming era, is a Muppet now? That's the question of, appropriately, "Muppets Now," on Disney , which recaptures some of the bomb throwing brio of the 1970s "Muppet Show," but in a more compartmentalized format. Like its forebear, this is a show about the making of the show that you're watching. This time, the puppety pals are not putting on a giant theater scaled production but uploading a package of mini episodes, on an unforgiving deadline, to a streaming service. Goodbye, Rainbow Connection; hello, broadband connection. Kermit and his lieutenant Scooter still sweat deadlines and suffer fools, but virtually, through a teleconferencing screen. There are so many chat windows in the new show, you might think it was developed under coronavirus quarantine. It wasn't, but it all seems awfully familiar right now. Each half hour episode collects a handful of recurring, Quibi sized segments. Miss Piggy hosts a lifestyle (rather, "lifesty") mini show, with sporting appearances from Taye Diggs and Linda Cardellini (the latter joined by a talking hunk of brie). The Swedish Chef is ruining dishes and endangering lives on a celebrity cooking competition show. Gonzo is shooting a wilderness survival show that we may never see because bringing along a camera "would be cheating." "Muppets Now" improves on the ABC sitcom because it understands what the Muppets are and why we love them. They're not mopey stand ins for us but wild, demonic imaginings of ourselves, unburdened by impulse control and the laws of physics. Like Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, the bespectacled scientist of Muppet Labs, this show knows there's no point in getting access to a budget and a camera if you're not going to blow things up. But with the segmented format of "Muppets Now," you lose the big scale interaction among characters that animated the 1970s variety show. The connective tissue here mostly consists of Kermit and Scooter teleconferencing. There are some nice throwaway jokes there. (Scooter's shared computer desktop includes the random folder "UFOs?") But just like all the Zoom webinars you're attending these days, it's not quite the same. The best segments don't lean too hard into the "Now" part of "Muppets Now, but use the premise of quickie reality TV to resurrect the old fashioned appeal of entertainment made by maniacs. Pepe the King Prawn steals the new episodes as the host of a game show whose complicated rules and questions he invents on the fly. ("What was Christopher Columbus's maiden name?") The Muppet Labs update, "Field Test," finds an apt reality video corollary: the alleged science show whose real purpose is creative destruction. Features include "Will It Melt or Will It Burn?," a question to which the only legitimate Muppet answer is "Fetch me a blowtorch." You may retain the odd scientific fact from it, but Honeydew captures the show's, and the Muppets', true spirit: "Let's stop learning and let's start burning!" You may remember Elmo as the adorable/exasperating toddler Muppet who gradually hijacked "Sesame Street" starting in the 1980s. If you're not a fan to begin with raises hand , "Not Too Late" will not convert you. But it's charmingly true to the character, who in retrospect has the kind of insistent energy, nosiness and thirst for attention that makes him perfect for late night. "Not Too Late" is actually closer than "Muppets Now" to the format of the old "Muppet Show," with chaos backstage and Bert and Ernie squabbling in the control room. But the spirit is all Elmo. Each episode has a featured guest, a well chosen group that includes Andy Cohen (in disguise as Grover) and John Mulaney, fresh off his own brilliant "Sack Lunch Bunch" kids' show sendup. There are also musical guests, delivering sweetly oddball covers of lullabies and "Sesame Street" standards, like Lil Nas X taking "Elmo's Song" down the Old Town Road.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
SAN FRANCISCO Oracle and the Handpulled Noodle would seem to have little in common. One is a multibillion dollar software company in Silicon Valley with tens of thousands of employees all over the world. The other is a small Harlem spot that serves Chinese comfort food and is known for its tasty dumplings. But they both say Google is unfairly hurting their businesses, and they have a new audience in Washington eager to hear about it. After years of showing little interest, Congress and regulators at the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department plan to scrutinize the power, influence and market dominance of Google, as well as fellow tech giants Amazon, Apple and Facebook. "Obviously there is something going on in terms of monopoly," President Trump said about large tech companies in an interview on CNBC on Monday. Scores of other tech companies and critics, as varied as software firms and shoemakers or musicians and newspapers, have stewed for years over how, they say, some of the biggest tech firms have used their power and scale to bully them and upend their businesses. "We're in the moment where regulators hang a shingle and say, 'We're open,'" said Luther Lowe, the policy chief at the reviews site Yelp and the loudest antitrust antagonist against Google. "The dozens of companies who have been quietly venting in Silicon Valley can begin to form a single file line around the D.O.J." Google, Apple and the other tech giants have pushed back vigorously against the idea that they act anticompetitively. They say that they compete with a broad array of firms not just online companies and that their services enable the growth of many small and large businesses. The big tech companies have assembled large teams of lobbyists to make their case. But when the F.T.C. asked for comments last year on whether the modern economy required a new approach to consumer protection and competition, the commission received more than 750 letters, many targeting the tech companies. The Retail Industry Leaders Association, the lobbying group that represents Walmart, Target, Home Depot and other major retailers, complained that the internet was now at the center of consumers' decision making and "controlled by a relatively small number of highly influential firms." Sixteen advocacy groups and think tanks jointly wrote a manifesto that argued for tough antitrust enforcement against the tech giants, accusing them of a wide variety of misbehavior, including mishandling people's data, crippling small retailers or causing internet addiction. And the Handpulled Noodle, echoing complaints from other small businesses, told the F.T.C. that Google sold ads on its listing in search results. The ads direct customers to delivery apps that charge steep fees and cut into the restaurant's already thin profit margins. "As a small business, it's like David versus Goliath," said Andrew Ding, the owner of the Handpulled Noodle. The shop's Google listing is how most customers find his restaurant, yet, he said, he has no control over how his business is represented. There is no way for him to get rid of the ad next to the Google listing. "Google is it," Mr. Ding said in an interview. "I would love for small business owners that don't have the clout or the influence to have more say about how their business is represented." Google said it allowed companies to place ads next to the listings of other businesses to give users more options. The Justice Department is examining complaints against Google and Apple, while the F.T.C. will handle antitrust issues related to Facebook and Amazon. Last week, the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust also announced plans for an investigation into whether the tech companies stifled competition and hurt consumers. The first hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. In his interview on Monday on CNBC, Mr. Trump said European regulators saw "easy money" in imposing large fines against American firms. "They are actually attacking our companies, but we should be doing what they are doing," he said. News Corporation and Axel Springer, the biggest German publisher, have voiced concerns to European regulators about the influence of Google and Facebook over the news business. The publishers lobbied heavily for a new European Union wide copyright law, passed in March, requiring that large internet platforms pay a license for content shared on services like Google News. Oracle and Yelp have also taken their complaints to Europe. Ken Glueck, Oracle's executive vice president and policy chief, said that Google's dominance of the market underpinning online ads had enabled it to stifle competition, including from Oracle. "We'd like to be bigger. But when you have one party who dominates the space and is acting with exclusionary conduct, that affects the market," Mr. Glueck said. There is a bit of a revenge back story to Oracle's complaints about Google: The two companies have been locked in a nine year legal battle with billions of dollars at stake. Yelp contends that Google favors its own services over rivals in search results in both Europe and the United States, even when the Google content is lower quality or less relevant. Google has said it tries to give people quick answers to their questions instead of sending them to another site. In 2013, the F.T.C. closed an investigation into Google's search practices after the company agreed to some narrow changes. "For so many years, U.S. companies were having to seek relief abroad because our own enforcement agencies weren't critically examining the questionable behavior of large firms like Google," Yelp's Mr. Lowe said. The European Commission also opened an investigation of Amazon last September and has received informal complaints from eBay and the European e commerce site Zalando, according to a person involved in the discussions who was not authorized to disclose them. A central argument against the tech giants is that other companies must use their platforms because that's where their customers are. With that leverage, the argument goes, the tech giants force terms on other companies that are unfair and deepen their dominant positions. Apple makes developers use its App Store to distribute their apps on iPhones and collects up to 30 percent of revenue made through activity inside the app. Spotify recently argued to European competition authorities that Apple used its App Store to punish Spotify's app and favor Apple's competing service. Apple has said that it welcomes competition and that it has long helped Spotify reach customers. The only time it has requested changes to Spotify's app is when it "tried to sidestep the same rules that every other app follows," Apple said in a statement in March. Spotify had directed customers to pay it directly so Apple wouldn't get a cut. News publishers rely on Google and Facebook to send readers their way. But publishers say that to appear high on those sites, they are encouraged by both companies to use technologies that make Google and Facebook, instead of the news sites themselves, destinations for news. Google and Facebook also dominate the digital advertising market, the publishers say, squeezing one of their main revenue streams. Google and Facebook said they competed for ad dollars with a wide range of online and offline platforms, including television, radio, newspapers and billboards. Both said their technologies helped news publishers increase ad revenue. Google in recent years dropped an effective requirement for publishers to make their news free via Google search results, and introduced a program to help news sites increase subscriptions. A Facebook spokeswoman said the company was working on products and training to help news outlets make more money from their articles on Facebook and had committed 300 million in the next three years to support local news. Some companies that sell goods on Amazon have argued that they have to be on its site to reach customers. Yet they fret that Amazon can use data about their sales to develop its own competing products. The trade group for major shoe brands, including Nike, Crocs and Dr. Martens, asked the F.T.C. to look into the "dual role" of platforms like Amazon. An Amazon executive, Jeff Wilke, said at an event last week that those in house brands were "a tiny fraction" of Amazon sales. "We do not allow anyone inside Amazon to have access to individual sellers' data in order to build a private label product," he said. A Senate hearing last month offered a preview of the potential drama to come in Washington. Brian O'Kelley, founder of an ad technology company called AppNexus, testified that in 2008 he invented an automated bidding system for advertisers that "turned every ad on the internet into a real time auction." AppNexus grew to 600 employees. "Google's response to the threat from AppNexus was that of a classic monopolist," he said. Google told AppNexus clients that they would need to also use Google's ad technology if they wanted to serve ads on YouTube, he testified. AppNexus's business slumped, and it laid off 100 employees in 2016. AT T bought it last year.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
When Patrick Soon Shiong, a billionaire doctor in Los Angeles, invested 70.5 million last May in what was then Tribune Publishing, the deal was viewed as not just an alliance between him and , the company's new chairman, but a commitment to journalism itself. Mr. Ferro and Tribune were trying to fend off a takeover by the Gannett Company, and Dr. Soon Shiong's investment provided Tribune with some muscle. For Dr. Soon Shiong, who grew up in apartheid South Africa, the move was also intended to help preserve a free press. "I believe it is critical to our democracy and to our way of life that we have a strong, vibrant media and that it continues to function as the fourth estate," he said in a statement at the time. But the relationship between Mr. Ferro and Dr. Soon Shiong soon deteriorated. As a public battle brewed between Gannett and Tribune, now called Tronc, Dr. Soon Shiong became alarmed by Mr. Ferro's lavish spending, particularly for the use of a private plane, and his crass language, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Gannett abandoned its effort to buy Tronc for 18.75 a share in November. Since then, the clash between Mr. Ferro and Dr. Soon Shiong has intensified. This month, Tronc removed Dr. Soon Shiong from the slate of directors that shareholders will vote on at the company's annual meeting in April, meaning he will no longer serve on its board. Both men have also raced to increase their stakes in Tronc, which owns some of the country's most prominent papers, including The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune. This week, Dr. Soon Shiong revealed in regulatory filings that he had increased his stake to 24 percent, nearly as much as Mr. Ferro's 24.8 percent stake, after buying 950,000 shares from the investment firm Oaktree Capital, a major Tronc shareholder. On Thursday, Tronc said it had agreed to purchase Oaktree's remaining 3.75 million shares in the company at a price of 15 a share, according to regulatory filings. Should Tronc sell itself within a year for more than 15 a share, the company would owe Oaktree the difference. (When Mr. Ferro, a brash Chicago entrepreneur, took a 44 million stake in Tronc last year, he paid 8.50 a share.) As part of the regulatory filing, Tronc also said it was increasing the cap on the stake that Mr. Ferro can acquire, from 25 percent to 30 percent. Dr. Soon Shiong's cap remains at 25 percent. In a statement, a spokesman for Dr. Soon Shiong said his client "was surprised to learn" that Tronc was allowing Mr. Ferro to increase his stake beyond 25 percent. The spokesman added that Dr. Soon Shiong's lawyers intended to "request his contract also be amended to allow his stake to also be increased to 30 percent from 25 percent." Dr. Soon Shiong was not aware of Tronc's purchase agreement with Oaktree, according to one of the people with knowledge of the matter. The purchase of Oaktree's stake, and Dr. Soon Shiong's quick response, are only the latest salvos in the escalating feud between Mr. Ferro and Dr. Soon Shiong. Dr. Soon Shiong believes he is being removed from Tronc's board because he had become a thorn in Mr. Ferro's side, according to the two people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations. Dr. Soon Shiong had expressed concern at board meetings about how much Mr. Ferro was spending on the use of a private plane according to a regulatory filing, Tronc spent 2.7 million to sublease an aircraft from Merrick Ventures, Mr. Ferro's investment firm at the same time the company was laying off employees and talking about budget restrictions. Dr. Soon Shiong was also angered by Tronc's purchase of nearly 250,000 in tickets for the Chicago Bulls, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Chicago Bears from Merrick, the two people said. He was given the wrong dial in numbers for board meetings on occasion, one person said, and some meetings were scheduled at inconvenient times and when he was in South Africa. It is not clear what Dr. Soon Shiong's long term intentions are with Tronc whether he intends to mount a bid for the entire company or wait to nominate a new slate of directors.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Franz Welser Most led the Cleveland Orchestra in a pair of virtually flawless concerts. Yet only one of them showcased the ensemble at its best. Programming matters: What an orchestra plays can be just as important as the quality of the playing. It can even be the difference between a concert that feels endless, and one you don't want to ever end. As if to offer a case study, the Cleveland Orchestra opened Carnegie Hall's season on Thursday and Friday with two contrasting programs. In both, the players were virtually flawless under the reliably commanding baton of their music director, Franz Welser Most. Yet one concert never quite took flight, while the other soared in a showcase of the Clevelanders at their most magnificent. Linking the two evenings was a sense of place: Vienna. It's where Beethoven made his career, and in the 250 years since his birth an anniversary Carnegie is observing by devoting roughly a fifth of its season to his already over programmed works the city is also where many other musical luminaries have done the same, including Strauss, Mahler and, for a time, Mr. Welser Most. The first concert which was often impressively dull and featured two pieces by, yes, Beethoven started with fare by a less famous contributor to Vienna's rich music history: Otto Nicolai, who, before dying in his 30s, co founded the Vienna Philharmonic and composed, in 1849, an operatic adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor." That opera's fizzy and festive overture has an easy listening friendliness befitting a season opening gala. But, as played by the Clevelanders, with the discipline and clarity that make them one of the finest ensembles in the country (if not the world), the piece was more dignified than light. Mr. Welser Most carefully traced the progression from pastoral calm to rollicking merriment, and teased out the comedy in moments like boisterous lower strings answered by mischievous higher voices. But although Mr. Welser Most lifted the Nicolai score, little could be done to help the two works that followed: Beethoven's Romance for Violin and Orchestra in G, and his Triple Concerto in C. Neither is often performed; neither really deserves to be, either. You would be hard pressed to find fault with the Cleveland Orchestra's performance. Not a note was dropped; not a single interpretive choice seemed misguided. All the same, it remained lukewarm, never even approaching a simmer, much less a boil. Not even the concert closing suite from Strauss's "Der Rosenkavalier" arranged by Robert Mandell with edits by Mr. Welser Most could waltz the evening out of its slump. In the Romance, the violinist Anne Sophie Mutter was as warmly expressive as always, with precise articulation that didn't waver even in passages of precarious double stops. But her earnestness was almost sadly out of place in music that wouldn't be challenging for a young student. She was, however, the star of the sedate Triple Concerto, effortless and authoritative among her fellow soloists: Yefim Bronfman, making the most of an unremarkable piano part, and the veteran cellist Lynn Harrell, whose technique repeatedly slipped with crunching bow strokes, imprecise intonation and a tired legato. Mr. Bronfman returned on Friday for the second Cleveland Orchestra concert, which was far better for its focused programming: Mahler's Fifth Symphony, preceded by Jorg Widmann's 2014 piano concerto "Trauermarsch" (technically not a Viennese piece or composer, but inspired by the first movement of the Mahler). The Widmann echoes the atmosphere of the funeral music that opens Mahler's Fifth, but not necessarily its rhythms and melodies. Indeed, where the symphony offers an elegy, the concerto is pulled constantly downward as if by gravity. Mr. Bronfman played the breathless solo part, which was written for him, with unpretentious wisdom and mastery, like a noble march to the grave. Mahler's symphony was the capstone on a long crescendo that began with the modest Nicolai overture the evening before and swelled to a magisterial finale a trajectory Mr. Welser Most followed within the Fifth's five movements as well. He maintained the opening march's solemn steadiness, which never sank into ponderousness and occasionally shocked with whooping brasses that flared and receded like fireworks. Mr. Welser Most resisted histrionics in the stormy second movement; and while his insistence on control and restraint sometimes robbed the symphony of its power, it also achieved a remarkable transparency where many conductors would be content with translucence. Few orchestras could better render the score's architecture so clear, the dense layers of sound so balanced. Which is not to say Mr. Welser Most's reading was without character. In this movement, the hopeful, major key passage that arrives unexpectedly near the end was hurried, if crazed, almost like a mad scene for plunging, again, to gloomy melodrama. When that happy melody returned at the close of the symphony, after the contented warmth of the Adagietto and the brazen triumph of the finale Mr. Welser Most and the Clevelanders slowed it down with relish, as if there were no shame in such unbridled joy.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. Four bridge players stared down at their cards, trying to determine which team would play the role of the so called declarer and dummy. Then one of the four, Max Plati, 8, dissolved into laughter as he mouthed to the boy sitting across from him: "You're the dummy!" Their teacher, Eileen Crowley Bloss, reminded her second grade students at the Thomas Jefferson School that in bridge, the meaning of "dummy" is "silent partner." Even more unfamiliar, though, may have been the students' quiet play and earnest concentration, all without the involvement of an electronic device. Chess is still the game of choice among educators, but bridge is catching on at a growing number of schools, community leagues and recreational centers across the nation, many of which see the card game as offering similar mental benefits to those of chess, but with a social component. The Lakeland district in this northern Westchester County town began teaching bridge this year as a way to both reinforce math and problem solving skills and to socialize a generation of children raised on solitary pastimes like playing video games and listening to iPods. Now kindergartners here learn to sort suits and high and low numbers, while older students play in bridge clubs and compete online in virtual tournaments. Their efforts to promote bridge among students have helped revive a game that peaked in popularity in the years after World War II, and have redefined it from a leisurely pastime for the elderly to a game fit for interscholastic contests in which young players vie for trophies, scholarships and bragging rights. In 2009, a 9 year old Georgia boy, Richard Jeng, became the youngest player to earn the rank of life master from the American Contract Bridge League, the nation's largest bridge organization; the average age of its 165,000 members is 67. Three hundred top junior players are expected to compete in the fourth annual Youth North American Bridge Championships in Toronto in July, while hundreds more will play in local tournaments this year. "To see seventh and eighth graders sitting and concentrating for three hours, it never happens except in bridge," said Bud Brewer, whose nonprofit group, Reno Youth Bridge, held a tournament in April after teaching the game to 160 students in 14 public middle schools and three private schools in Reno and Sparks, Nev. Similar youth bridge programs have cropped up in more than a dozen other cities, including Atlanta; Raleigh, N.C.; Pensacola, Fla.; Phoenix; and Honolulu. Atlanta Junior Bridge, which was started by bridge players in 2006, has taught the game to 1,700 students in after school classes and summer camps, and this year it developed a math based bridge curriculum that is being taught in schools like Buford Middle in the Atlanta suburbs. Leslie Markes, an eighth grade math teacher at Buford, recalled that puzzled students asked at first whether they were going to build bridges. Now the 30 minute bridge class is so popular that she has to turn away students. "We wanted to teach them math in a new way," she said. "But we didn't bill it as 'come take an extra math class.' " Bridge is a challenging game even for adults, requiring strategy and the memorization of complex rules. Yet evidence of its academic benefits is still largely anecdotal. A 2005 study by Christopher C. Shaw, a retired business professor and bridge player, found that a group of bridge playing fifth grade students in Carlinville, Ill., made larger gains on standardized tests than their classmates, but academic scholars have called these findings limited and preliminary. Mr. Shaw is conducting a similar bridge study with students in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. "My intuition says bridge is a really good tool to develop critical thinking and inferential reasoning, plus it gives them a lifetime recreational skill," Dr. Shaw said. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett were persuaded by their own experience as bridge players to pledge 1 million in 2005 to promote bridge in schools. Max Plati, 8, a second grader at Thomas Jefferson School, says, "Bridge is more fun than chess." The money was used to help create School Bridge League, a program that generated interest in the game through introductory classes, online tournaments and presentations at teacher conferences. The efforts fell short, in part because schools were cutting programs, not adding them, and students found it hard to learn the game let alone become regulars with just a handful of lessons. School Bridge League's founders eventually returned 400,000 to Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett in 2010. Nevertheless, they tried again last summer, reorganizing the program under Enith Berg, a retired teacher and bridge player. They are trying to build more comprehensive programs in fewer districts Lakeland is one by starting with younger children and a pared down version of the game, known as mini bridge. This time, the program is being run on a shoestring budget with donations from, among others, Jon Sandelman, a hedge fund financier, and David Barger, chief executive of JetBlue, who donated 25 free airline tickets, some of which have been used as prizes in tournaments. In New York City this year, School Bridge League helped introduce the game at the Anderson School, a citywide school for gifted and talented students that teaches bridge to third graders. The school also created an elective class for middle school students, and held a family bridge night in March. Another school, Midtown West, has formed a bridge club for fourth and fifth graders and a bridge group for parents. "Unlike chess, it forces students to collaborate together," said Dean Ketchum, the Midtown West principal. "And we're providing families with an academic activity they can share for a lifetime." Even schools where money is tight are finding a way to teach bridge. The Orange Township school district in New Jersey started bridge clubs for 30 students at two elementary schools last year after a gifted program offering bridge lessons was eliminated in budget cuts. Next fall, the district plans to expand the bridge clubs to two more schools in response to growing interest. George Stone, the superintendent of the 6,200 student Lakeland district, said he decided to introduce bridge in five elementary schools after learning the benefits from Ms. Berg, who is also his neighbor. He said he hoped to expand it to the middle and high schools. The School Bridge League, which pays for the program, has spent about 5,000 on cards, materials and bridge instructors for the students and staff. Dr. Stone is not a player himself. "I tried to learn, and I wasn't as successful as our students," he said. "Between the rules and memorization and thinking skills and logic and teamwork, it's astounding the kids can adapt to it so quickly." In Ms. Crowley Bloss's class recently, the second graders sat at desks arranged in fours and calculated points from their cards by writing out addition problems. Then the games began. Max, glancing at his partner, threw down an ace to win a trick.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Education
"Nobody cares how good you used to be," said Paul Smith, the forward thinking septuagenarian whose quirkily detailed tailoring has made him a perennial standard bearer for English design. With annual sales of around 200 million pounds (or roughly 245.5 million), Mr. Smith is that rarity, an independent survivor in a business dominated by multinational conglomerates and a marketplace increasingly challenged by the effects of e commerce and fast fashion behemoths like Zara and H M. Last year, Mr. Smith performed radical surgery on a label he founded in 1976 in which he still has a 60 percent stake eliminating a diffuse range of offerings and licenses to focus on just two yearly collections with designs for women and men. "I can do that because the Paul Smith label is owned by somebody called Paul Smith," the designer said. This month, in addition to a runway show in Paris, Mr. Smith will also show his latest offerings at the influential men's wear trade show Pitti Uomo in Florence, Italy, where he is one of two specially invited guest designers. A self taught polymath whose name appears on over 370 stores around the world, Mr. Smith spoke by telephone on subjects ranging from the perils of the high street to finding fashion cues in the frescoes of Fra Angelico. Given that your label is based in London and you show in Paris, what is it that lured you to Florence and Pitti Uomo? I was talking to Raffaello Napoleone director of the Pitti Immagine trade group and he said, "We'd love to have you back, but please don't do a fashion show." He said, "Let's just have a presentation and a bar, because people love to talk to you." I started doing men's wear in the year the wheel was invented, and everything has changed absolutely massively since then. When I started out, there was a lot less selection of fabrics, a lot less awareness of fashion with everyday people. There was no fast fashion and no e commerce. We have gotten so many more men's magazines since then, and so there is much more interest in things like personal grooming and men just generally thinking about how they look. Now you could argue that there's saturation too many products and too many designers. I think that argument makes itself. Look at the sheer volume of product that's available. Look through the list of shows from 10 years ago and look now. There are many, many more brands trying to break into the market in the world of men's. And can the market sustain them? Personally, as a company, we're doing fine. We're pretty level at the moment. But I think a lot of people are going through a difficult period because of oversaturation. Does so called oversaturation lead to a kind of commercial aesthetic blur, where consumers have difficulty differentiating one label from another? Yes, but that is true not necessarily only in fashion. I hate the expression, but you need a DNA of your brand, a point of view. Someone like myself, I now do runway or catwalk twice a year and that's it. So by reducing your offerings and show schedule, are you doubling down on core identity? Especially in the United States, there is so much good nonfashion fashion: a good chino pant, a good Oxford cloth shirt. There are so many of those brands making good quality basics. And then, on the other hand, you've got the high fashion brands. And do you fall somewhere in the middle? We've been around a long time. We're an independent company owned by me. We're not under the pressure or the greed of shareholders, and so the brand identity can be more spontaneous and natural. We can go with our guts, which you probably can't do if you're part of one of the big groups. Haven't you always to some extent existed just outside the system? I never trained as a fashion designer. My teacher was my girlfriend then, who is now my wife. My design ability luckily developed a bit more organically. I started with just a few pieces and the question, "Why would somebody buy a shirt from me, a nobody, age 21 and from a provincial English town?" And the answer you came up with? Well, it wasn't a shirt with seven zips. I came up with the idea of a colored buttonhole or having each button a different color, or putting a pattern in the lining. I was the first to use photo print fabrics for linings. That is the famous "classic with a twist" tagline. Even Wikipedia attributes it to you. Essentially, for me it was about an easy to wear, non instruction book garment. A Paul Smith jacket looked like a jacket but had a sense of humor about it. When you reached for a pen or a handkerchief or glass of wine, you suddenly saw the lining was floral. With the possible exception of Gucci, it seems playfulness has disappeared from design. So many of the brands are part of global money machines that designers are probably too nervous to be playful. What do you mean by a "gentle street culture"? In England, we had the Mods, the Punks, the New Romantics, the skinheads, and those movements were not about self expression through aggression or rioting. They came out of people wanting to look different from other people. Are those movements less possible in a digital culture? With your label and your stores filled with an eclectic array of offerings from striped socks to vintage vinyl to cuff links you're a flag bearer for the analog. The room where I'm sitting right now is full of many, many objects, lots and lots of vinyl. The first thing I do when I get to work is put on a record. The ideas come from there. For your spring 2017 men's wear show in Paris, a kind of sartorial homage to Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer that could have been taken literally. In the late 1950s, a lot of the Caribbean community came to live in London and embraced the area of Notting Hill Gate, where they'd have a carnival every August. In the late 1960s, when I was a young man, I used to stay in a pal's squat in Notting Hill Gate and sleep on the floor. The whole area then was full of dub and reggae music, and that was such a wonderful period for me. I happened to hear some of the music again, and suddenly it all just popped back into my head. And what can we expect of the collection you'll show at Pitti Uomo? When I first came to visit New York in 1974 or 1976, I went straight to SoHo, which was still the artists' area then. You had the wonderful Leo Castelli Gallery and Pace Gallery and OK Harris doing photorealism, and you had Pearl Paint, where all the artists bought the materials they wanted, and lots of specialty shops that don't exist anymore. I remember sitting in the window of Fanelli's Cafe, and who should go by but the British sculptor Richard Wentworth. I thought, "This is the place to be." So I'm basing the spring '18 collection on that visit. Is it the decade that's important or your experience of that New York that resonates for you? Both, really. A lot of designers now are looking over each other's shoulders and mostly referencing what other people are doing, which is so boring. The references are from the internet or whatever decade people are obsessed about. You wish they'd open their eyes and think a bit more laterally. Of course, you've got to know what the other trends are and what other designers are doing, so you know what not to do. But I'm blessed by the fact that I'm open to lots of influences. On a trip I took along the Piero della Francesca trail in Italy, I finished up in Urbino and you're looking at the sandals in one of his paintings and suddenly you think, "Oh, Manolo Blahnik!" On a tour we did of Palladio's work in the Veneto region outside Venice, you saw the perfect classical proportions of those villas and can easily translate it into design. You looked at a jacket and thought immediately of Palladio's symmetry: pocket pocket is equivalent to window window, a portico is equivalent to a jacket's opening.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
The tax overhaul promised by President Trump and Republican congressional leaders is lugging a remarkably heavy load. The goal is not only to reduce the tax bills of corporations and small businesses, but also to stimulate investment, create jobs, increase global competitiveness and promote economic growth. Whatever the intentions, though, pushing the world's largest and most diversified economy in any particular direction is a colossal undertaking. In addition, there is a large and sophisticated tax avoidance industry dedicated to frustrating the most carefully worded proposals. And as Mr. Trump prepares to outline his corporate tax overhaul ideas in a speech on Wednesday in Springfield, Mo., economists and tax experts warn that the path is likely to be treacherous. Consider the tantalizing 2.6 trillion in global profits that American companies are keeping out of their home accounts and out of the Internal Revenue Service's reach. A pro growth tax policy would presumably aim not only to reach profits kept abroad as a tax dodge, but also to encourage companies to use that money to expand their business and hire more workers. That was what President George W. Bush set out to do in 2004 when he imposed what was meant to be a one time reprieve and lowered the tax on those funds to 5.25 percent from a potential top rate of 35 percent. More than 300 billion flowed back into the United States, but despite safeguards, companies used most of the money to pay shareholder dividends or buy back stock, not to reinvest. "Repatriation has little effect on real investment in the United States," said Alan Viard, a tax expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and a former senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. That's because repatriation is not really about geography. Most of the money is not stashed in some underground vault overseas, but already in American financial institutions and capital markets. Repatriation is in effect a legal category that requires a company to book the money in the United States and pay taxes on it before it can be distributed to shareholders or invested domestically. The whole notion of earnings trapped offshore is misleading, Steven M. Rosenthal, a tax lawyer and senior fellow at the Urban Brookings Tax Policy Center. "The earnings are not 'trapped,'" he said. "They're not offshore. They're not even earnings. They're accounting gimmicks that allow earnings to be shifted abroad." What's more, companies already get something akin to tax free repatriation by borrowing against those funds, with the added bonus of being able to deduct the interest paid on those loans from their tax bill. A shortage of cash does not seem to be what is holding back companies from expanding. Corporate profits are higher as a share of the nation's gross domestic product now than they have been in decades, said Kimberly A. Clausing, an economist at Reed College who studies the taxation of multinationals. According to a study by Treasury Department economists, "excess" or above average profits by a few global giants have increased. "It's not clear that giving them an even higher share of profits, or a windfall, is going to lead to extra investment," she said. A recent survey of business leaders by the international accounting and advisory firm Friedman, for example, found that just 23 percent would reinvest repatriated funds. Most would use the money to pay dividends or engage in share buybacks. Jeff Bezos gives 100 million to the Obama Foundation. Stocks rise after President Biden says Jerome Powell will stay atop the Fed. To some economists, offering technology companies like Apple and Microsoft and pharmaceutical companies like Merck and Pfizer a discount on the corporate taxes they would normally owe simply rewards bad behavior. "A lot of the funds got overseas in the first place via tax dodges, so giving firms a tax break on the money coming back seems like compounding the problem," said William Gale, co director of the Tax Policy Center and a former economic adviser to the first President George Bush. Repatriation at a discount rate "is a tax break," he said. If taxing foreign earnings that have already accumulated overseas is difficult, so is eliminating incentives that reward companies for continuing to keep profits in tax havens. To that end, Mr. Trump and the Republican leadership have pushed to slash the corporate tax rate and switch to what is known as a territorial system that would tax only profits earned in the United States and not those earned in other countries. Mihir Desai, an economist at Harvard Business School, likes that approach. "We currently have the worst of all worlds," he wrote in an email. "We have a high marginal rate," which encourages companies to avoid taxes and puts the United States at a global disadvantage. "And we have low average rates" because of all the loopholes "which indicate that we're not collecting as much as we used to, given the very high level of corporate profits." The crucial questions are how to pay for a lower rate and how to prevent abuses. Corporate tax cuts that lead to huge deficits could hobble the economy. And a territorial system without sufficient safeguards could end up encouraging even more businesses to shift profits, operations and jobs to countries with lower tax rates. Other nations with territorial systems have tried to prevent companies from wriggling out of paying taxes, while tax experts have suggested proposals ranging from a minimum global tax to tighter rules to prevent companies from relocating their patents and copyrights to tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. But skeptics worry that making the system airtight is impossible. "It's an endless cat and mouse game," said Matthew Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a research group based in Washington. "What's driving companies to engage in paper transactions is not our 35 percent tax rate," he said, but other countries' willingness to undercut whatever rate the United States settles on. "You can never win if you are competing against their zero tax rate." Mr. Gardner argued that a broader definition of American competitiveness is needed that includes not only the tax system, but also the business infrastructure that the tax system supports bridges and roads, health care, education and research and development. "If all you think about is the tax rate, then it should be zero," he said. "Competitiveness is about finding the right balance."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
Fans can debate whether this season's records count. But M.L.B.'s official historian insists this year's achievements including Alec Mills's no hitter on Sunday are as real as any other. Javier Baez was already celebrating when he fielded the ball. The shortstop for the Chicago Cubs gathered himself, threw to first, and gave Alec Mills the second no hitter of this pandemic shortened baseball season. There weren't any fans in attendance, and there wasn't an asterisk in sight. Baez made it clear after the game that he planned to savor the moment forever, regardless of the unusual circumstances. "This is something we'll be part of for life," he told reporters. "Like a championship type thing. No one can take it from you." The concept of asterisks in baseball record books has swirled around the sport ever since it was announced that this season would be drastically altered because of the coronavirus. But John Thorn, Major League Baseball's official historian, said that conversation was always much ado about nothing: We are witnessing a season that is as real as any other, he said. "In baseball there is neither crying nor the asterisk," Thorn said via email. "No excuses, no pointless shorthand directing you to wrinkle your nose." Thorn praised baseball fans for having a keen sense of historical context, citing numerous examples of records that might raise eyebrows for casual fans but are well known and accepted by people who truly love the sport. None Everyone Loves Ohtani: The Angels' two way star was a unanimous pick for A.L. M.V.P. and his superfans redefine devotion. Phillie Phavorite: Bryce Harper truly committed to Philadelphia and now he's back on top of baseball, winning the N.L. M.V.P. Cy Young Winners: Milwaukee's Corbin Burnes and Toronto's Robbie Ray had hit rock bottom before they worked their way up to stardom. Baseball Is Stuck in Neutral: The potential of a lockout has a star studded group of free agents waiting for the dust to settle. Free Agency Tracker: Get the latest updates on signings, contract extensions and trades. "Advanced fans will take note that in 1930 or 1894 everyone batted .300, or that in 1968 a pitcher with an E.R.A. of 3.00 was below average," Thorn said. "That sort of fan will be sufficiently curious to find out why." The concept of an asterisk was thrust into the mainstream sports conversation during Roger Maris's pursuit of Babe Ruth's season home record in 1961. Since Maris had 162 games to reach 61 homers, rather than the 154 Ruth had to reach 60, Commissioner Ford Frick floated the idea that separate records should be kept, and the journalist Dick Young suggested that would require an asterisk in record books. That theoretical asterisk became ingrained in the record's story it inspired the name of a movie, "61 " but as Allen Barra detailed in The Village Voice, there isn't an asterisk on Maris's record, and there never has been one. Frick was merely stating an opinion, and baseball, to that point, did not even have an officially published record book, with "Total Baseball" not appearing until three decades later. In his 1973 autobiography, "Games Asterisks and People: Memoirs of a Lucky Fan," Frick confirmed that no asterisk ever existed. The clarification hardly seemed necessary, as Frick spoke openly about his decision not to push for an asterisk before Maris even broke the record, inspiring a memorable headline in The New York Times: "No Will Mar Homer Records, Says Frick With for Critics." For single game accomplishments, like Mills's no hitter on Sunday, the realness of the feat is undeniable, as Mills had to get the same 27 outs as any pitcher would in a normal season. But Thorn said the same philosophy applies to season long accomplishments this year, even with 102 fewer games. You will often see baseball records limited to seasons that came after 1901 including regularly in this column but Thorn says that is incorrect, and that the Special Baseball Records Committee in 1968 69 clarified things by saying, "Major league baseball shall have one set of records, starting in 1876, without any arbitrary division into nineteenth and twentieth century data." As a result of that ruling, Ross Barnes is credited with an official batting average of .429 in 1876, a season in which his team played just 66 games, lending credence to the idea that a .400 average this season should be viewed as legitimate. Thorn said that splitting the game into pre and postmodern records is a "bad habit" and that no one should deny Barnes, or anyone else, his accomplishment. The bigger question going forward is how people will view the 2020 World Series champion in the years to come. Plenty of past seasons, while not quite as unusual as 2020, were played under circumstances that spurred debate: The 1919 Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago White Sox, who were later found to have accepted money to intentionally lose games; the 1951 New York Giants had an elaborate sign stealing scheme; the 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers would not have qualified for the playoffs if not for a split season that changed postseason eligibility; and the 2017 Houston Astros were found to have used technology to one up the Giants' sign stealing. Thorn called the sport's implausible outcomes over the years "legion and delightful," and said that 1919 stands alone as the pinnacle of infamy. As for this season, he is reserving judgment, while enjoying the show. "My crystal ball is cloudy as to what folks might think a decade from now, but I view this as a season of unparalleled strangeness," he said. "The upside beyond the fine fact that baseball is being played at all is that fans and pundits, although grumbling all the way, have given M.L.B. license to experiment with the grand old game. Some innovations were hated at the outset but then worked their charms on even grizzled veterans like me."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Honor Blackman as Cathy Gale in the 1960s British TV spy series "The Avengers." She gave up the show to join the cast of "Goldfinger," the third movie in the James Bond series. Honor Blackman, an actress who achieved fame as a beautiful pilot with judo skills and a highly suggestive name in the 1964 James Bond movie "Goldfinger," then went on to a long screen career in her native England and abroad, has died at her home in Lewes, in southeastern England. She was 94. Her family announced her death in a statement released to The Guardian in London on Monday. She was a breast cancer survivor, having undergone a lumpectomy in 2003. Ms. Blackman may have been unknown to American audiences when she played Pussy Galore opposite Sean Connery as the dashing secret agent James Bond, but she had already become a star in Britain on television. She joined the spy series "The Avengers" for its second season in 1962, replacing Ian Hendry as the co star of Patrick Macnee, who played John Steed, an almost painfully cultured British intelligence agent. Her character, Mrs. Cathy Gale, was an anthropologist who enjoyed martial arts and dressing head to toe in leather while saving the world from increasingly bizarre plots and conspiracies. It was only after Ms. Blackman left the series two years later that the show was exported to the United States; American viewers were introduced instead to her successor, Diana Rigg, as Mr. Macnee's newest partner, Emma Peel. Ms. Blackman gave up "The Avengers" to take the role in "Goldfinger," the third movie in the Bond series. In her late 30s when she made the film, she turned out to be one of the oldest "Bond girls" in the series, although she always objected to that term. "I consider Bond girls to be those ladies who took one look at Bond and fell on their backs," Ms. Blackman told the website Cambridge News in 2012. Early on in "Goldfinger," Ms. Galore declares to Bond, "I am immune to your charms" and judo flips him into a haystack. (It turns out not to be a permanent immunity, however.) Honor Blackman was born on Aug. 22, 1925, in London, the third of four children of Frederick Blackman, a civil service statistician, and the former Edith Eliza Stokes. Her father was a crucial influence on her decision to pursue an acting career, she recalled. When she was a teenager, he gave her a choice of a bicycle or elocution lessons (he felt his own East London accent had held him back in life); she chose the lessons. She later attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and began performing onstage. Her first credited screen role was in "Daughter of Darkness" (1948), a British crime film with horror elements; that came after she died in a horseback riding accident in an uncredited part in "Fame Is the Spur," a 1947 movie starring Michael Redgrave. Before "Goldfinger," she made dozens of appearances on British television and more than 20 feature films, among them "A Night to Remember" (1958), Roy Ward Baker's drama about the sinking of the Titanic; "The Square Peg" (1959), a comedy with Norman Wisdom set during World War II; and "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963), in which she played the goddess Hera. Ms. Blackman continued her screen acting career well into her 80s, including taking a small part as a glamorous party guest in "Bridget Jones's Diary" (2001) and a recurring role on the classic British soap opera "Coronation Street" in 2004. She worked in the theater for decades as well. In the 1980s she did a British tour of "A Little Night Music" (she deemed Desiree Armfeldt in that show her favorite role "That part just fit me like a glove," she told the British Huffington Post) and played Captain von Trapp's child averse love interest, the Baroness, in a West End revival of "The Sound of Music." In later years, she played Henry Higgins's mother in a national tour of "My Fair Lady" (2005) and Fraulein Schneider in the West End revival of "Cabaret" (2007). Ms. Blackman returned to the television spotlight in 1990 on "The Upper Hand," a British version of "Who's the Boss?" Her character (played by Katherine Helmond in the American version) was a glamorous, sexually eager grandmother, and she continued in the role for six seasons. Ms. Blackman had a singing career as well. She recorded "Kinky Boots" with her former co star Mr. Macnee in 1964, although it became a hit only when it was rereleased in 1990. (Her "Avengers" character had a taste for thigh high, spike heeled black boots, but the later "Kinky Boots" film and stage musical were unrelated.) She released a new single, "The Star Who Fell From Grace," in 2009, when she was in her 80s. Her final movie was the 2012 horror comedy "Cockneys vs. Zombies," in which bank robbers unwittingly unleash an army of the living dead in East London. Her last screen role was in a 2015 episode of the British sitcom "You, Me Them."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
PRINCETON, N.J. It's hard to imagine a more exuberant wake for Sam Shepard than the party being thrown and I mean thrown, like a beer bottle in a bar fight at the McCarter Theater Center here. That's where A Red Orchid Theater's revival of his strange "Simpatico" is running and jumping, stumbling, falling down drunk, writhing on the floor and gleefully reminding us of the fierce and anarchic humor of Shepard, who died in July. Though Shepard is, in my book, a great American playwright, "Simpatico," first staged at the Public Theater in New York in 1995, is not a great play. On the page, at least, it finds its author awkwardly trying to shoehorn his fabled sense of a melting American identity into the intricate plots and counterplots of the genre known as noir. But as lyrical as Shepard could be as a prose writer, he is best experienced not on the page but the stage, where the raw physicality of his brand of theater can be given space to roam wild. That's the space so jubilantly occupied by this production out of Chicago, directed by Dado and starring the off center film star Michael Shannon in expertly demented form. Goofball farce and existential despair are by no means incompatible in this antic world. This is a show that begins with a preening John Judd dumping baskets of dirty laundry onto the stage from the movable bridge of Grant Sabin's self deconstructing set, while shimmying to a country rock beat. Figuratively speaking, that's everybody's dirty laundry piling up. "Simpatico" is about how easy it is to get lost in the messes we make of our lives, especially when we think we're in control. Featuring blissfully idiosyncratic performances by a cast that also includes Guy Van Swearingen, Mierka Girten and Jennifer Engstrom, the Red Orchid "Simpatico" artfully creates the impression that it is letting chaos reign. The revival belongs to a distinguished (but roguish) family of Shepard classics that have been born again in Chicago, including two definitive interpretations from the Steppenwolf Theater: its 1982 "True West," starring John Malkovich and Gary Sinise, and a "Buried Child," directed by Mr. Sinise, that landed on Broadway in 1996. These were red blooded, nose bloodying shows that lived up to Carl Sandburg's characterization of Chicago as "Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action." They made the most of the Shepard tradition of having actors literally tear down the house and left you feeling both wiped out and exhilarated. If Dado's "Simpatico" doesn't provide an equivalent catharsis, it's only because Shepard's elaborately mapped tale of double crossing and horse racing will never hang together as a consistent story. (When a character, wistfully recalling movies like "The Maltese Falcon" and "Double Indemnity," asks, "Who decided to do away with plot?," you feel like answering, "You did, Sam, because you knew that plots were lies.") Its structural illogic can nag at you whenever it gives you a chance to breathe and reflect. Fortunately, moments of contemplation are rarely afforded by a high adrenaline staging that turns all American angst into high and lowdown comedy. The best known earlier incarnations of "Simpatico" made the mistake of striving for a shadowy Raymond Chandler esque sex appeal, enhanced by the use of high gloss stars. (Ed Harris, Marcia Gay Harden and Beverly D'Angelo were in the original Public Theater version, directed by Shepard; Nick Nolte, Jeff Bridges and Sharon Stone appeared in Matthew Warchus's 1999 film adaptation.) If this latest version brings old Hollywood to mind, it's more likely to be "Duck Soup" than "Double Indemnity." For Mr. Shannon and company achieve an ecstatic Marx Brothers style delirium, but without sacrificing the scarier strains that pulse in all of Shepard's work. That includes the notion of a fixed individual identity and particularly a heroically independent American identity as being so much, well, horse feathers. Like many Shepard plays, "Simpatico" operates according to what might be called a perverse buddy system, in which twinned, seemingly dissimilar characters gradually change places and roles. The central pair here is made up of the tightly coiled, impeccably dressed Carter (Mr. Shannon) and the unraveled, slovenly Vinnie (Mr. Van Swearingen). Carter and Vinnie were childhood pals who became partners in crime specifically, in a blackmail scam that unseated a racing commissioner named Simms (Mr. Judd). Somewhere in the course of these sordid events, Carter ran off with Vinnie's wife, Rosie (Ms. Engstrom), with whom he established a life of prosperous respectability in Kentucky. Vinnie, in the meantime, has been vegetating in squalor in a motel in Cucamonga, Calif., striking up an almost romance with an Anglophile supermarket checkout worker, Cecilia (Ms. Girten) and living on hush money from Carter. Improbably (an adverb that defines much of what happens here), Carter and Vinnie have remained friends. But Vinnie is at last ready for vengeance. How this is, or perhaps isn't, achieved is almost irrelevant. What counts is the Looney Tunes conviction with which these performers invest their roles, from Mr. Van Swearingen's festering sad sack to Ms. Girten's overage, teetotaling ingenue, who winds up flirting disconnectedly with Mr. Judd's temporarily reformed rake.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
The suspension of a top coach last month for emotional and verbal abuse has galvanized gymnasts to share similar stories of misconduct, both privately and publicly, in a way that could signal a turning point in a sport desperate for a change in culture after the Lawrence G. Nassar molestation scandal. One former gymnast who trained at a large East Coast gym wrote on Facebook that U.S.A. Gymnastics' eight year suspension of Maggie Haney, the coach of the Olympic champion Laurie Hernandez, had validated her perspective on abusive experiences with her former coach. Now that woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she had not yet filed a formal complaint, is organizing a group of other current and former gymnasts who shared similar stories of abuse involving the coach. The group, the organizer said, is preparing to go public with its accusations. In interviews, that gymnast and others involved in the sport said they sensed a moment to hold U.S.A. Gymnastics, the sport's national governing body, more accountable for punishing coaches who mistreat athletes and to push for the adjudication of pending cases. A week after the Haney decision, according to the father of one of Han's former gymnasts, an investigator with SafeSport wrote in an email that Han's case was entering its final phase. The investigator also wrote that she was planning to contact Han soon to arrange an interview and that she was aiming to submit a report to the organization's leadership within 30 days. Although SafeSport officials do not comment on specific cases, Ju'Riese Colon, the chief executive of the organization, said in a statement on Tuesday that some cases had been in the system too long. "All reports of abuse are taken seriously, and while we must prioritize the most severe allegations, especially those involving minors, the Center is committed to reducing the time it takes to get to all matters," said Colon, who joined SafeSport last year. Ashton Locklear, an alternate for the 2016 Olympic team, and four other gymnasts from the Everest club made their complaints about Han public in interviews with The New York Times in 2018. SafeSport has had the case since 2017, a spokeswoman for U.S.A. Gymnastics said two years ago. The gymnasts said that Han's treatment of them was so cruel that it was nearly unbearable and that he had berated them daily at his gym, which promotes itself as a national team training center. Two of those gymnasts, including Locklear, said they had considered killing themselves so they would not have to face Han at practices and meets. "I don't know why Han never got in trouble for treating us the way he did, because what he did, in my mind, was a lot worse than Maggie Haney," said Locklear, 22, who retired last year because of injuries. Han, through his lawyer, Melissa Owen, continued to dispute the accusations against him, saying that an army of gymnasts and parents would defend him and that he would cooperate with SafeSport. Owen did not respond to a follow up question on whether a SafeSport investigator had contacted Han to arrange an interview. While Haney received an eight year ban considered the harshest penalty for emotional abuse in the sport's recent history the process leading to that decision felt both slow and murky to the gymnasts who filed complaints against her. But parents of Haney's gymnasts pushed the case forward until it was resolved. They ultimately felt compelled to hire a lawyer to help them, because U.S.A. Gymnastics was so hands off, three of the parents said. Several parents, including Hernandez's mother, Wanda, said there had been little or no follow up from the federation after they filed official complaints against the coach. Wanda Hernandez said she first complained about Haney to U.S.A. Gymnastics in 2016. Yet the federation only placed Haney on interim suspension in February, at the start of her disciplinary hearing. Li Li Leung, who took over as chief executive and president of U.S.A. Gymnastics in early 2019, acknowledged in a telephone interview this month that cases must be reviewed more quickly and that there must be more transparency in the process. She called Haney's suspension a step in the right direction because it demonstrated the federation's acknowledgment of a longtime problem in the sport and its willingness to take responsibility. "Athletes' voices are being heard and their perspectives and experiences are being validated and believed," Leung said, adding that sea change in the sport's culture cannot happen overnight, though the federation has prioritized it. "We believe that our athletes can be competitively excellent and compete at a very high level and also be happy and feel safe," she said. "And those are not mutually exclusive of each other." All sexual abuse complaints in Olympic sports are handled by SafeSport, which also investigates some cases involving other kinds of abuse. But U.S.A. Gymnastics handles most cases of emotional or physical abuse through an internal department that is, coincidentally, called Safe Sport, though it is separate from the United States Center for SafeSport. The gymnastics federation's Safe Sport department has grown to eight employees from one in recent years, Leung said. As a former gymnast, Leung said she realizes how difficult it might be for an athlete to report a coach. Jennifer Sey, a former national champion, said apprehension about reporting abuse was typical throughout the sport, in which elite athletes often reach their prime in their early teens and tyrannical training methods have long been common. "Part of the insidiousness is that you think the abuse is your fault and you carry that for a very long time," said Sey, who chronicled her anguish in a 2008 book, "Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams." "It was, 'If you weren't so lazy, I wouldn't have to scream at you,' or 'If you weren't so fat, I wouldn't call you a fat pig,'" Sey continued. "When you're 13, you internalize that and it's an orientation you enter into the world with. You don't always trust your perception of things, and you move through the world sort of broken." Sey said that she had even questioned her own pain after injuries, and that she doubted her feelings for years to come. Was she really in pain, or was she just weak and imagining it? That confusion, she said, can be devastating. Since the Haney suspension, several former gymnasts have called Sey seeking advice on how to publicly tell their stories of abuse. Sey said that she had encouraged them and other gymnasts to come forward but that many had kept quiet, in part because they feared losing friends or being ostracized from the sport. "When you put it all out there, it's scary and a little lonely," Sey said. "But it helps others and makes them feel not alone." With the help of a therapist, Locklear said, she is dealing with the debilitating effects of Han's treatment, but she still struggles with an eating disorder and is working to be more confident in her relationships. "A lot more of my problems come from the way Han treated me, not from what Nassar did to me," Locklear said, referring to the longtime national team doctor who molested her under the guise of medical treatment. Nassar is serving a long prison sentence for sexually assaulting more than 200 young girls and women. Locklear suggested that one way to help keep coaches in check would be for U.S.A. Gymnastics to hire compliance officers who would visit gyms and competitions to monitor coaches' behavior. "There needs to be someone constantly watching the personal coaches, because they are the main problem," Locklear said. "They literally need to be under a microscope so athletes can be kept safe. I think that needs to change before the sport is completely safe for kids, or anyone."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Fossils preserved in amber are giving paleontologists exceptional glimpses into the age of the dinosaurs, be it through the preserved tail of a dinosaur that still bears feathers, or a frog frozen in time. But much of the fossil rich amber is mined in Myanmar, a country recently ordered by the United Nations International Court of Justice to protect its Rohingya Muslim minority against genocidal acts. The mining and sale of the amber may also be a source of profit for the country's military. A report published last year in Science Magazine detailed how the amber is mined in a state where Myanmar's military has long fought another ethnic minority, the Kachin, and how amber gets smuggled into China, where it can fetch high prices, potentially fueling that conflict. These concerns are leading more scientists, especially in Western countries, to shun the use of this amber in paleontological research. "Ever since the Rohingya crisis, I've boycotted the purchase of Burmese amber, and have urged amber colleagues to do the same," said David Grimaldi, a paleontologist and the curator of amber specimens at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. But the animal is so out of the ordinary that the researchers who described it can't rule out that it might be a different reptile. When asked to comment on the scientific significance of the fossil and to muse on whether or not it is a bird two dinosaur experts declined. Paleontologists have been confronted with ethical dilemmas around scientifically significant fossil specimens in the past, like when a tyrannosaur fossil was smuggled out of Mongolia and ended up in the United States. (It was sold to the actor Nicolas Cage, who agreed to return it to the country.) But many scientists say the stakes are different when it comes to amber from Myanmar. Steve Brusatte, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh, was one of the scientists who declined to comment on the scientific value of the small birdlike fossil in amber. "This is a really tricky situation that paleontologists aren't used to facing," he said. "It concerns me greatly that the sale of these fossils may be funding war and violence in Myanmar, and for that reason I've recently decided to decline opportunities to study Burmese amber or review papers on the subject." Many of the fossilized organisms preserved in amber are extremely rare, and declining opportunities to study them means paleontologists could miss out on discoveries that could reshape how researchers understand evolutionary history. "Are we really going to turn our backs on this priceless scientific data?" said Jingmai O'Connor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who led Wednesday's study of the small dinosaur skull and whose research involves many prehistoric specimens preserved in amber. Her team, she said, acquired the specimen in Wednesday's Nature study legally, although she said that none of her colleagues knew how the fossil made it into those legal channels in the first place. "The take home is to wait for Myanmar to stabilize and get past this current conflict before touching that material," said Thomas Carr, a vertebrate paleontologist at Carthage College in Wisconsin, who also declined to comment on Wednesday's Nature study. "Now is not the time to be working on these fossils." Myanmar is on the verge of civil war. Following a military coup on Feb. 1, unrest has been growing. Peaceful pro democracy demonstrations have given way to insurgent uprisings against the Tatmadaw, the country's military, which ousted the country's civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is a polarizing figure. The daughter of a hero of Myanmar's independence, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi remains very popular at home. Internationally, her reputation has been tarnished by her recent cooperation with the same military generals who ousted her. The coup ended a short span of quasi democracy. In 2011, the Tatmadaw implemented parliamentary elections and other reforms. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi came to power as state councillor in 2016, becoming the country's de facto head of government. The coup was preceded by a contested election. In the Nov. 8 election, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi's party won 83 percent of the body's available seats. The military, whose proxy party suffered a crushing defeat, refused to accept the results of the vote. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi could face time in prison. She was detained by the junta and secretly put on trial. If convicted of all 11 charges against her, which include "inciting public unrest," she could be sentenced to a maximum of 102 years in prison. Dr. Carr said he only learned of the controversy over the amber specimens from Myanmar after the Science Magazine article was published last year, and he thinks other paleontologists were previously unaware, too. As scientists continue to discuss the topic among themselves, he called on the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, the chief professional organization for scientists in his field, to take a stance on how its members should conduct themselves with amber from Myanmar. That sentiment was echoed by Dr. Brusatte, who said the situation in Myanmar is the most ethically confounding one he's faced in his career. "We scientists need to make our own decisions based on our own ethics and values, and we could use guidance from our professional societies," he said. A spokeswoman for another institution whose members have conducted and presented such research, the Geological Society of America, said it does not have an official stance on the issue. Dr. Grimaldi, the amber curator at the American Museum of Natural History, says placing a moratorium on the purchase of amber from Myanmar a moratorium that would include paleontologists, geologists and private collectors would be a small price to pay if it denied "significant revenue" to Myanmar's military. There are so many other things researchers could be studying in the natural world, Dr. Grimaldi said, so he thinks the case for continuing research using Burmese amber is tenuous. For now, major journals continue to publish peer reviewed research involving amber from Myanmar. And Dr. O'Connor says there are benefits beyond scientific discovery from studies using specimens from the country.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Kary B. Mullis, a biochemist who won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering a way to analyze DNA easily and cheaply and thus pave the way for major advances in medical diagnostics, molecular biology and forensic science, died on Aug. 7 at his home in Newport Beach, Calif . He was 74. The cause was heart and respiratory failure brought on by pneumonia, his wife, Nancy Cosgrove Mullis, said. The process for analyzing DNA that Dr. Mullis invented is called polymerase chain reaction, or PCR . It replicates a single strand of DNA millions of times, enabling scientists to pinpoint a segment of the strand and amplify it for identification. Polymerase, an enzyme that synthesizes polymers and nucleic acids, is essential in creating DNA and RNA, the molecules that are responsible for coding DNA. Before PCR, amplifying DNA took weeks, because it had to be generated in bacteria. Once Dr. Mullis's process was perfected, it took only hours, opening up a world of possibilities. Today, his method is used to detect genetic mutations that can lead to diagnoses of diseases, like sickle cell anemia; analyze ancient sources of DNA, like bones; assist in obtaining crime scene evidence (he was recruited as an expert witness in the O.J. Simpson murder trial); and determine paternity. It was used as well to decode and map the entire human DNA as part of the Human Genome Project, the landmark international research effort that ran from 1990 to 2003. As he told the story in his Nobel lecture, Dr. Mullis found his inspiration one night in 1983 while driving to his cabin in Mendocino, Calif. At the time, Dr. Mullis was a lab director for Cetus Corporation, one of the first biotechnology companies, which had been founded in Berkeley, Calif. His lab made short strands of DNA molecules called oligonucleotides, and had become so efficient at it that it was making more than the company could use. Worried that some of his lab workers might be laid off because of their overproductivity, Dr. Mullis was searching for a way to use more of the molecules. As he drove, he considered the challenges scientists faced in decoding and identifying problems in human DNA. There are billions of DNA base pairs, he knew, but they had proved exceedingly difficult to analyze because there was no easy way to focus on small groups of them. Dr. Mullis knew that the oligonucleotides bond easily with DNA. The problem was how to isolate the DNA that scientists might want to analyze. Dr. Mullis, pondering ways to control the oligonucleotides, suddenly realized that they didn't have to be controlled at all. The bonding would have a useful side effect: It would double the amount of DNA that scientists were interested in. The process could then be repeated over and over, expanding the DNA sample exponentially. It would be like pumping up a microbe to the size of a dinosaur. Indeed, the science of PCR, because it allows for the unlimited replication of small bits of DNA, was one of the inspirations of "Jurassic Park," the Michael Crichton novel about a theme park of cloned dinosaurs that Steven Spielberg turned into a movie franchise. Though Dr. Mullis came up with the concept of PCR, proving that it worked was another matter; months after his breakthrough, he had still not done so. He had not written a paper to validate his idea. "Mullis as an experimentalist is sort of hit and miss," Thomas J. White, who got Dr. Mullis his job at Cetus, told The New York Times in 1998. As a result, two other Cetus scientists, Randall K. Saiki and Henry A. Erlich, were put on the project, and the three together with Stephen Scharf, Fred Faloona, Glenn T. Horn and Norman Arnheim published a paper about the process in 1985. No one, however, disputed that it was Dr. Mullis who had first figured it out. For his discovery, Cetus awarded Dr. Mullis 10,000, but the company later sold the rights to his PCR process to the pharmaceutical giant F. Hoffmann La Roche for 300 million. Dr. Mullis, believing he had been denied a just reward, remained bitter about it for the rest of his life. He shared his Nobel Prize with Michael Smith, a British born scientist, who was also cited for advances in DNA research. Kary Banks Mullis was born on Dec. 28, 1944, in Lenoir, N.C. He was the second of four sons of Cecil and Bernice Alberta (Barker) Mullis. His father was a furniture salesman. The family moved to Columbia, S.C., when Kary was 5. He got his start in science there one summer when, at 13, he designed and made his own rockets, inspired by the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik. Dr. Mullis attended Dreher High School in Columbia and the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, graduating in 1966 with a degree in chemistry. He then headed to California, arriving in Berkeley around the time of the Summer of Love in 1967. As he spoke and wrote about it in later years, he used L.S.D. liberally. He earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1972. Dr. Mullis took a detour from science after that, trying his hand at writing fiction and then managing a bakery for two years. He then headed for Kansas, where his wife at the time was enrolling in medical school. H e did a postdoctoral research fellowship in pediatric cardiology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, finishing in 1977. He returned to California and went to work at Cetus in 1979. After the discovery of PCR, his career trailed off. He quit Cetus in 1986 and thereafter mostly stuck to the lecture circuit. Dr. Mullis's marriages to Richards Haley, Gail Hubbell and Cynthia Gibson ended in divorce. He married Nancy Cosgrove in 1997. Along with her, he is survived by a daughter, Louise Olsen; two sons, Christopher and Jeremy; two brothers, Brent and David; and two grandchildren . Another brother, Robert, died several years ago.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Padraig O'Malley is a scholar and what one might call an amateur diplomat. He is the peacemaker of this film's title. The documentary, directed by James Demo, is not a portrait of an idealist. The Irish born Mr. O'Malley is an often dour man, and when he speaks of his work, there are no stars in his eyes. One of his recent books, about Israel and Palestine, is called "The Two State Delusion." In negotiation, as the movie shows, he is pragmatic, focused and often steely. His story is an unusual one, which the director unspools by showing Mr. O'Malley first in a war torn Iraq, then in the streets of Cambridge, Mass., where he teaches. (He travels so frequently he calls no place "home"). He enters a church, and we soon understand he's in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Filming an A.A. meeting isn't exactly kosher, but Mr. Demo doesn't show the faces of the other attendees. (It's not quite clear that this session hasn't been staged specifically for the movie.) A good part of the picture relies on Mr. O'Malley's account of his life with and without the bottle members call it a "qualification" during this A.A. gathering. He tells how he started in conflict mediation when, in the early '70s, he bought a Cambridge bar and funneled its revenue into hosting a negotiation between warring factions of Northern Ireland a first for these groups. "I don't love anybody," the lanky, white haired Mr. O'Malley admits during one interview segment. It's his peculiar detachment, perhaps, that makes him good at what he does, even when the summits he hosts he spent years in Iraq and in South Africa yield nothing more than agreements on bilingual street signs. The movie is a fascinating portrait that is if anything too brief.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Around July 4, a patient entered an emergency room in Miami Dade County with a fever, a rash and joint pain three of the four classic symptoms of the Zika virus. By this point, there had already been about 1,600 other Zika cases in the continental United States, but it soon became clear that this one was different. All the other patients had either traveled to Latin America or the Caribbean, where Zika had been raging for months or they had sex or close contact with someone who had been there. Not this patient. It was the case public health officials had been expecting and dreading: A person in the continental United States had been infected from the bite of a local mosquito. It would turn out to be the first of a wave of cases health officials are now scrambling to identify and contain. They are investigating 17 suspected cases of locally transmitted Zika including 13 linked to a an area with a radius of 500 feet that touches two neighboring businesses in the Wynwood section of Miami. Public health officials are also grappling with, well, the public: Some think that the authorities should warn pregnant women away from much more than one square mile, and still others seem unaware that Zika, while mild or inconsequential for most people, can cause devastating brain damage to the babies of infected pregnant women. "Obviously when people detect local transmission, there's a lot of different opinions," said Dr. Lyle R. Petersen, who is managing the Zika response of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "People panic and there's potential for irrational thinking in either direction, not doing enough and doing too much." Last week the agency took the unprecedented step of urging people to stay away from a place in the continental United States, warning pregnant women to avoid the square mile area of Wynwood that contains the patch and the two unidentified businesses. Dr. Petersen said because the continental United States has better mosquito control, more air conditioning and less standing water than other countries dealing with the Zika virus, there are most likely to be only "handfuls of local transmission and very rare outbreaks," which will be containable with a targeted response. "It's not the whole city it's a very small part of the city," Dr. Petersen said of the possible risk in Miami. "So the recommendation is just don't go there, particularly if you're pregnant. In the rest of the city, you're more likely to get killed in a car crash than you are to get Zika virus." The story of the homegrown Zika cases demonstrates both the value and the limits of planning when the enemy is an unpredictable and stealthy virus delivered by a hardy mosquito adept at hide and seek. In a 60 page blueprint this year, the C.D.C. outlined detailed steps to take, and officials have been assiduously tracking the patients, testing people close to them and amping up mosquito control. Still, battling Zika in Wynwood is challenging because its mixture of businesses, apartments and warehouses makes it a veritable urban mosquito mecca. Slices of the gentrifying neighborhood are bursting with art galleries, boutiques and condominiums, but they give way to a still tattered section of run down buildings where residents struggle in poverty. "This is low income," Tony Fonseca, 45, a construction worker, said as he stood outside the La Fama Supermarket at Northwest Second Avenue and 31st Street. "People live on welfare, they use drugs. You walk around here at night, you can get assaulted they'll steal your Ray Bans." That part of Wynwood, Mr. Fonseca said, has "lots of standing water," but he said people in this predominantly Latino neighborhood tend to blame foreign visitors to the arts district for bringing the Zika virus. A firefighter taking a break at a coffee shop on Northwest Second Avenue said two of his female colleagues, both pregnant, were temporarily transferred to a station several miles south, near Coconut Grove. But as Florida health department workers go door to door asking for urine samples to test, seeking to learn the extent of the Zika risk in Wynwood, not everyone sees the need. Diana Ozuna, 27, declined to be tested, even after her 53 year old mother, who lives nearby, submitted a urine sample of her own. Ms. Ozuna said she lowered her window screens and used repellent, especially on her 20 month old daughter. Still, because she is not pregnant and has no immediate plans to be, she does not perceive Zika to be a great menace. "It's bad," she said, "but it's not something that you die from." Zika is an enemy most people cannot see. While its effects can be catastrophic to developing fetuses, in adults the effects are usually mild or negligible, and health officials assume that for every person with symptoms, four more have undetected Zika infection. So when a homegrown case arises, officials need to test people close to the infected patient to see if the case is isolated or if there is active local transmission taking place in that community. Days later, around July 8, another homegrown Zika case showed up in Broward County, adjacent to Miami Dade: a person who had visited a family doctor, complaining of fever, rash, headache and joint pain. In Broward, the health department tested 70 contacts and neighbors of Patient No. 2. All tested negative. And Patient No. 2 had no connection to Patient No. 1. "They had never been even close to each other," Dr. Petersen said. And "there was no third person. It wasn't like you could say, 'Oh, Harry in the apartment next door has the same symptoms.'" That there were two isolated cases in different neighborhoods was, in some ways, a relief. It meant that there was no danger zone, no place rife with infected mosquitoes. Most likely, a person who had traveled to Latin America had landed in Miami with Zika, been bitten by an Aedes aegypti mosquito in Florida, which, now infected itself, had bitten a person in Miami Dade. The same thing had probably happened via a different mosquito in Broward, they believe. County workers unleashed mosquito control tactics where those patients lived, and the health department determined that those neighborhoods were not active Zika zones Then two other cases appeared one in Broward and one in Miami Dade, people whose symptoms started on July 9 or July 10. They were not connected to Patient No. 1 or Patient No. 2. But they were connected to each other. "They worked in businesses that were very close to each other," Dr. Petersen said. Because both businesses were in Wynwood, "obviously it looked like there was a potential link between the two. They were in close proximity, two people who were sort of in the same area working." On July 29, officials announced the four cases of local transmission. But it was still unclear whether Wynwood had an outbreak or just two local cases. Determining the answer would depend on two things: Were there other Wynwood linked cases besides the two workers, and was the mosquito killing campaign launched when those two cases were identified killing enough mosquitoes? The Florida health department began asking for urine samples from employees and people who lived or worked near the businesses, which are small and do not draw much public traffic, but have outdoor spaces that might have been attractive to mosquitoes. Over the weekend of July 30, lab results came in. Of 26 people closely connected to the Wynwood workers, four were considered to have Zika. Six of 52 people tested in the neighborhood did too. There were now 12 infected people with Wynwood connections, all between the ages of 20 and 45. None of the people infected in Wynwood was related or had sexually transmitted the virus to each other. Some were part of a group of "friends that hang out together," Dr. Petersen said, and two were housemates. Officials declined to say if either of the women was pregnant. The earliest infection in the group probably occurred in late June, meaning that Zika had been in Wynwood for at least a week longer than officials had previously known. "This had been going on for practically a month," Dr. Petersen said, so "you have to basically assume that there's ongoing transmission." Moreover, officials responsible for mosquito control reported in the last weekend of July that "despite daily use of spraying," they were "still seeing new larval mosquitoes and moderately high Aedes aegypti counts," said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden the director of the C.D.C., adding that the mosquitoes might be resistant to the insecticides being used, or simply hiding in pockets unreachable by backpack and truck spraying. "Aggressive mosquito control measures don't seem to be working as well as we would like." On Friday, after aerial spraying with a different insecticide began in Wynwood, the mosquito numbers were coming down, Dr. Frieden said. The C.D.C. will likely keep its Wynwood warning in place for weeks, lifting it only when about 45 days have passed without a new case being diagnosed, or when mosquito counts decrease substantially, Dr. Petersen said. As of yesterday, the health department said it had tested 437 people in the square mile active zone and identified only one additional case someone among the 26 close contacts of the two Wynwood workers. Wynwood is still the only area authorities consider an active local transmission zone. So far, a 10 block area in the northwest section of the square mile has been cleared, since no one there was found to be infected, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida said. But authorities expect more cases to be identified, some in Wynwood, some elsewhere. On Monday, they announced a 17th case: a person in Palm Beach County who had traveled to Miami Dade.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
Fans of Laura Benanti, the Tony Award winning actress of Broadway ("Gypsy") and television ("Supergirl," "The Sound of Music Live!"), know that she has an entertainingly complicated relationship with her mother, Linda. Linda Benanti, a voice teacher and former Broadway actress, is often name checked in her daughter's cabaret show and on her Twitter feed, portrayed in Laura's telling, anyway as a voice of well intentioned parental nagging, encouragement and reason. It's a bond that has grown even stronger since Laura gave birth to a daughter of her own, Ella Rose Benanti Brown, on Feb. 14. Linda and Laura Benanti will bring their delightfully sparring relationship, as well as some of their favorite songs, to audiences in a cabaret show, "The Story Goes On," that they will perform at Feinstein's/54 Below on Friday and Saturday. Recently, at Laura Benanti's home in West Harlem, Laura was settling into her new life as a mother, with Ella snoozing in her lap, while Linda looked on in appreciation. Together they tried to predict how Linda's mothering skills had been passed down ("I'm going to be that weird parent at the sleepover, trying to make sure everybody's nice to her," Laura announced), while also campaigning not so subtly for the performer's next Broadway role. These are edited excerpts from that conversation. How has your relationship changed since Ella's birth? LAURA BENANTI She was here for the first 10 days of Ella's life. LINDA BENANTI Pitched a tent, moved in, took care of Laura and Patrick Brown, her husband so they could take care of the baby. And then they came out to our house. LAURA Because I lost my mind. The first 10 days, it was like, everything's perfect! The baby's amazing! And then the day she left, everything went to hell. The baby was inconsolable. Did you always know Laura would grow up to be an actress? LINDA Oh, Laura knew. Laughs It wasn't me saying: "You know what, honey? I think you might like this." This was Laura getting up on her wooden Fisher Price slide, going, "Presenting !" LAURA Shy. Always shy. My first words were, "Can I have an agent?" LINDA I filmed her saying that. Laura, when did you realize that your mother was a talented performer in her own right? LAURA When I was 5 years old, I was coming up the stairs and I saw my mom standing there, singing "A Quiet Thing" a cappella, and it was such a differentiating moment for me. I realized that we are separate from each other she has dreams and goals. You weren't just there to bring me stuff. It stuck with me my whole life. LINDA You used to critique my voice students. This one particular student was not great. Laura was on my lap, I think you were about 2, and he sang and she looked at him and she went, "No." LAURA Telling people what to do since 1981. Linda, how could you be sure your professional assessments of Laura were objective, and not just coming from a place of motherly pride? LAURA I'm actually interested in this answer as well. LINDA It's complicated. I was trying not to go, "That's my daughter she's brilliant!," because I see a lot of moms like that. But as a voice teacher, I know someone's voice could develop really early and then plateau out. You wait and see. My husband and I both felt it was really important for her to develop who she is from the inside. LAURA You're going to get so much hate mail from the stage moms. The entire cast of "School of Rock" is going to come after you. What is it like now, to see Laura go through a negative experience, like not getting a role she wanted ... LAURA Never. No. Always got it. So, no that one. ... or getting a bad review? How do you process that as her mother? LAURA How do you process that? LINDA I think you process that like any parent would process anything that happens to their child. Having been in the industry before, I was probably more nervous than a normal parent would have been. And more excited than a normal parent. LAURA A bad review, you're like, meh. But when it's been personal, you want to protect me and correct someone's misinterpretation. Laura was in "Gypsy," a show about a notorious stage mother who comes to resent her daughter for achieving a stardom she did not. Did you feel any of those feelings yourself? LAURA She's like the opposite. Even in my speech, I called her the anti Mama Rose. Breathlessly When I won the Tony Award. LINDA I never, ever felt, "Oh, that should have been me." Not in a million years. LAURA You were saying for years I should play her Louise in "Gypsy" . LINDA There are a lot of roles that I always thought that about. Amalia in "She Loves Me" was one of them. Louise was one of them. LAURA Whispers Say "My Fair Lady." LINDA And "My Fair Lady" is definitely one of them. Gee! Obviously. LAURA Good job. When did you commit to these concerts at Feinstein's/54 Below? LAURA When I was pregnant, and, like, "Being a mom's going to be easy!" And now I'm like, "Great." LINDA It'll be fine. LAURA I'm excited to do this with you. I wish you had continued on, because you're so talented. I wish you'd been able to pursue that for yourself, and that you weren't in a position where you had to take care of me, and transition solely to being a voice teacher. I feel like 35 years later, you have an opportunity to share your gift with people, and it is a gift. Do you think Ella will follow in Laura's footsteps? LAURA My husband was playing the piano for Ella he was playing "Fur Elise," the only piano piece he remembers and her eyes welled up with tears. And we were like, whoa, O.K., that's a one off. He did it again the next day same thing. LINDA She's going to sing. LAURA She better. LINDA Laura had a very husky voice when she was a baby. And as her mom, I thought, "Where does she get this?" We called her Moose. LAURA I've talked to a lot of therapists about this.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
SAN FRANCISCO Emily Chang caused a mini earthquake in Silicon Valley last month when Vanity Fair published an excerpt from her new book, "Brotopia." With a headline that promised to bring us inside Silicon Valley's "secretive, orgiastic dark side," Ms. Chang laid out how drug fueled sex parties were happening behind the scenes at the homes of wealthy tech executives and investors. One party she described was later tied to the home of Steve Jurvetson, a venture capitalist who left his firm last year amid an investigation into his behavior with women. In "Brotopia," which hits book stores on Feb. 6, the secret sex parties are just a symptom of a much deeper problem that Silicon Valley's tech industry has with its treatment of women. Ms. Chang's examination of that issue coincides with the MeToo moment and the broader debate about gender equality that it has sparked. Ms. Chang, 37, who anchors a Bloomberg TV tech show, recently discussed the roots of Silicon Valley's gender imbalance and the predominance of tech industry bros you know, those cocky young men who swagger about. Edited excerpts follow. Pui Wing Tam How did Silicon Valley become the land of the bros? Emily Chang It didn't have to be this way and it wasn't always this way, importantly. Women played vital roles in the computing industry from the very beginning. Just think "Hidden Figures," but industrywide. Excerpts of "Brotopia," including one describing secret sex parties at the homes of tech industry luminaries, have caused a stir. What happened in the 1960s and 1970s was that the industry was exploding and was starved for talent. There just weren't enough people to do the jobs in computing. So they hired these two psychologists, William Cannon and Dallis Perry, to come up with a personality test to screen for good programmers. Those men decided, in screening about 1,200 men and 200 women, that good programmers don't like people that they have a complete disinterest in people. These tests were widely influential and used at various companies for decades. What happens with that is that if you search for antisocial people, you will hire far more men than women. There's no evidence to suggest that antisocial men are better at computers than women. But that stereotype has perpetuated to this day. PWT How intractable is the tech industry's exclusion of women? EC It is systemic. Bad behavior has been tolerated and normalized for far too long. And people simply have a narrow idea of who can do these tech jobs. If you're a woman in the tech industry, you're the only woman in the room over and over again. PWT What did you find were some of the most egregious examples of how women in tech were treated? EC The party and social culture was really shocking. For two years, I interviewed dozens of people familiar with the sex party scene or who were shut out because of it. I was shocked. It was a lot less about sex than it was about power, and the power dynamic is completely lopsided. PWT What surprised you the most of the tales that women in tech shared with you? EC One of the most surprising things to me was that they weren't surprised by what Susan Fowler (the former Uber engineer who last year publicly described sexual harassment at the ride hailing company) wrote. This is their life, day in and day out. The women talk about performing this emotional labor all the time that men simply don't have to do, and it's exhausting. At the end of the day, they're tired because they feel like they're doing two jobs, not one. PWT After the Vanity Fair excerpt, you were criticized by some in the tech industry for describing the secret sex parties. EC I understand that this is new territory and that it might make people uncomfortable, but no good change comes without people feeling uncomfortable. These stories have to be told; otherwise, it perpetuates a culture of keeping women down. PWT You have been trolled on Twitter, as many women in tech have been. Did you experience other forms of harassment? EC As a journalist, I've definitely found myself in situations that have made me feel uncomfortable. But I'm sure it doesn't compare to what the women in tech face every single day because they're simply so outnumbered. I talked to women engineers at Uber who were getting invited to strip clubs and bondage clubs in the middle of the day. The middle of the day! And often they would go because that's just what everyone was doing. It's what you needed to do to fit in and be cool. PWT What are the chances that Silicon Valley really changes how it treats women? EC I'm encouraged because I see great examples. The same people who want to change the world who are exploring the limits of outer space and building floating ocean communities and building self driving cars can do this. Change needs to come from the top and C.E.O.s need to make inclusion an explicit focus and priority and communicate that to people in the organization so that they, too, make it a priority PWT You have three young sons, who you dedicate the book to. What are the implications for them? EC When things got hard because it's not easy to report on sexism I'd look at the boys and think "I'm doing this for them." I really do think their lives will be better in a more equal world. More importantly, Silicon Valley is controlling what we see, what we read, how we shop, how we communicate, how we relate to each other. This is not just tech's problem. This is society's problem. This is the industry that is having a greater influence on humanity than perhaps any other. And the same industry that changed the world can change this behavior.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
Reading this article right now, you might resemble this 3,800 year old statue resting its cheek upon its hand. It's a common pose for computer browsing, but a rare sight in Bronze Age pottery. A group of high school students helped archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority unearth this clay vessel in the city of Yehud near Tel Aviv in September. They were excavating a burial site when someone came across the seven inch statue covered in dirt and surrounded by ceramic shards. "It was a very exciting moment for me and the other archaeologists who came to see it, and for the other students and workers," said Gilad Itach, an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority and a doctoral candidate in archaeology at Bar Ilan University. "For the best of our knowledge, no such jug had ever been found before."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
The strife, sorrow, fury, self doubt and atonement are over; it's time for a victory lap. That's the basis of "Everything Is Love" by the Carters: Beyonce and Jay Z's first full length album together after years of marriage, parenthood, musical collaborations and shared touring, including the London stadium concert on Saturday where they abruptly announced the release of the new album. The nine song "Everything Is Love" and a bonus track, "Salud!," were released at first only on Tidal, the streaming service they partly own. "Everything Is Love" arrives as the capstone of a trilogy. It proclaims a happy ending to the sequence of albums that began with Beyonce's prodigious 2016 "Lemonade": a grand statement, magnified by its dreamlike full length video and interludes of poetry, that set personal betrayal and resolve alongside a multigenerational history of African American women's travails. It continued in 2017 with Jay Z's "4:44," a stripped down, strikingly exposed album about accepting responsibility as a grown man, husband and father. With their new album as the Carters, Jay Z (born Shawn Carter) and Beyonce are once again a united force, celebrating their success on every front: artistic, financial, marital, erotic, historic. The joint album has been long in the making, Jay Z said in an interview with The New York Times; the care shows in tracks that can hark back to vintage R B or delve into eerie, disorienting electronic soundscapes. Never miss a pop music story: Sign up for our weekly newsletter, Louder. In the album's first single, "Apes t," Beyonce sings, "I can't believe we made it." But of course she can: The song is unapologetically arrogant and pugnacious over trap percussion and nagging, dissonant chords. Jay Z shrugs off his zero wins out of eight Grammy nominations in 2018 by pointing to the Carters' ecstatic, stadium sized audiences on tour; he adds, "I said no to the Super Bowl/You need me, I don't need you." The Carters often position themselves as equals to institutions and corporations, willing to take on the N.F.L., Spotify and a presidential tweet.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Although filing the form in early January is ideal, not all families are ready to do so. The form requires filers to use information from their federal income tax return from the calendar year that just ended so, January filers would use information from 2015. But most people will not receive their W 2 forms and other information necessary to file a 2015 tax return until later in January, at the earliest. This is the last year filers will face this situation. Starting in 2016, changes to Fafsa rules will eliminate this frustrating timing problem. The form for the 2017 18 academic year can be filed as early as Oct. 1, 2016, and will rely on income tax information from the previous tax year (or, in financial aid lingo, "prior prior" year tax information). So next year, students will file two Fafsas each using 2015 tax information. In the meantime, families who want to file in early January 2016, before they have filed their 2015 income tax return, can complete the Fafsa with estimated financial data. That will get their application in the system, and they can update it, if needed, when they actually file their return, "without losing your place in line," said Martha Holler, a spokeswoman for Sallie Mae. Filing estimated financial information and updating it later may raise the chances of your application being flagged for verification, Ms. Asher said. That means you may be required to submit extra documents before your financial aid package is completed. But estimating is the best option, she said, if you might risk missing an early state deadline by waiting. Here are some questions and answers about filing the Fafsa: Q. Do I have to file the Fafsa online? A. It is not required, but most filers do and there are benefits to doing so, Ms. Asher said. If you have already filed your income taxes, for instance, you can use the Internal Revenue Service's Data Retrieval Tool to automatically transfer tax data into your Fafsa form.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Your Money
Building blocks, removing socks, with their mamas, in pajamas almost anything you can picture a baby or toddler getting up to makes an appearance in this casually rhyming book. The result is a clever catalog of baby life, featuring a pleasing array of families of all backgrounds. Schwartz ("A Teeny Tiny Baby") gives babies lots to stare at, and grown ups may find themselves just as delighted by her exquisite illustrations. Her delectable babies have big heads, small features and even smaller feet and hands, and they wear outfits of detailed perfection. B IS FOR BABY By Atinuke. Illustrated by Angela Brooksbank. Who needs the whole alphabet when one letter can tell a story as entertaining as this one, set in a colorful, lively West African village? "B is for baby," of course, but each page adds a "B" word as the baby girl's brother rides his bicycle to visit their Baba grandpa in his bungalow. Turns out the tyke has stowed away in a basket of bananas, making for a funny, happy reunion. Atinuke and Brooksbank ("Baby Goes to Market") have created an appealing package of rhythmic repetition and vibrant images. "When you're new," asks this delightfully assured debut children's book from the acclaimed graphic novelist Knisley, "what can you do?" The comforting answers explain a baby's world to her ("You can fit in tiny spots / You get carried quite a lot") while also preparing her for adventures and challenges ahead ("You might not know just want to do ... / That's O.K. when you are new"). But it's the memorable digital art that makes this book a true standout the sweet looking babies who crawl and traipse through these pages have a refreshing hint of comics style edge. ANIMAL BABIES LIKE TO PLAY By Jennifer Adams. Illustrated by Mary Lundquist. The animal babies in this adorably drawn alphabet book include a bunny, a jaguar and a quail. They play with jacks and go fishing. They build with blocks and bake pie. It's simpler than it sounds they are all babies, wearing zip up animal suits. As Lundquist ("Cat Bunny") works through the letters, she also delivers a low key message that playing is fun by yourself, and also with friends. Eagle eyed babies might even spot Zebra hiding in the background of other letters' pages. Birthdays come once a year, but the excitement around them lasts ... possibly forever? Accordingly, this clever book about a first birthday party can be enjoyed any old day. Adorable babies tumble, squawk and dribble their way to the festivities. Cake time comes, the crowd begins to melt down, and the birthday kid is on to a bath, story and bedtime. Blackwood's loose pencil lines and brushy bright colors lend a lovely naturalistic look. UP UP UP DOWN Written and illustrated by Kimberly Gee Opposites loom large for babies, and Gee brings the concept to adorable life. Her action packed visual vignettes refreshingly feature a brown skinned baby and caretaker dad who dramatize the obvious ("no" and "yes") and the more subtle ("yay" and "uh oh"). Her touch is feather light, with many telling details to spot. The pages of this celebration of baby life teem with tiny friends of every stripe, doing baby stuff together. With the little ones collectively narrating ("We raise our sippy cups up high and give a baby cheer") and practically no grown ups in sight, Meyers ("Everywhere Babies") and Cornelison ("Lost and Found Cat") have created a buoyant mood of baby centric fun.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
LOS ANGELES There is a photograph taken on the coast of Cuba with the lights of Miami in the distance what a refugee would see just before setting out. Taken by Virginia Beahan, a large format photographer, it hangs in the home of Bruce Berman, chairman and chief executive of Village Roadshow Pictures and possibly Hollywood's most ardent photography collector. Mr. Berman said that he acquired Ms. Beahan's photo because its desolate beauty spoke to him. "A very magical picture it fit into the collection nicely," he said. Mr. Berman has overseen more than 100 movies including "Ocean's Eleven," "Training Day" and Steven Spielberg's coming "Ready Player One" but considered becoming a fine art photographer himself while an undergraduate at U.C.L.A., Bennington College and the California Institute of the Arts in the 1970s, when he shot roll upon roll of Kodak Tri X and Ektachrome film on road trips. "Those were great opportunities to take photographs of a part of America you don't see if you're born and raised in New York," he said. Mr. Berman's collecting aesthetic runs to the unsparing Americana of Walker Evans, William Eggleston and Dorothea Lange, as well as the contemporary acolytes Christian Patterson, Sheron Rupp and Joel Sternfeld, whose haunting photo of a condemned house in the toxic Love Canal neighborhood of Niagara Falls, N.Y., remains a favorite. Mr. Berman and his former wife, Nancy Goliger, amassed 2,600 photographs that they auctioned after their divorce in 2007 or donated (source for the J. Paul Getty Museum's 2006 7 exhibition "Where We Live: Photographs of America"). This year, Mr. Berman donated 400 additional photos from his collection to the Getty and other institutions.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
How big a difference does cutting 78 calories out of an American's daily diet make? It may depend on who's counting. That is the average amount a day that a study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation said was the result of a five year reduction of calories (totaling 6.4 trillion) in sales of food and beverages by 16 major companies. The tally was assessed through a foundation grant to University of North Carolina, and was part of a years long effort by the nonprofit organization to reduce childhood obesity in the United States. The companies involved, as varied as Bumble Bee Foods and Coca Cola and PepsiCo, account for 36 percent of the calories in all packaged foods and beverages sold. Dr. James S. Marks, senior vice president with responsibility for the foundation's health group, said he was encouraged by the progress made beyond the companies' original pledge to drop caloric contents in their products by 1 trillion calories by 2010. "Now we hope that others see the success these companies have had and make the same commitment." Nestle has marketed its Edy's "Slow Churned" ice cream as having less fat. Food policy experts were less impressed. Companies have been under intense pressure by consumers who are shunning high calorie, high fat foods in search of healthier alternatives. Nutritionists noted that the study may paint a rosier picture of calorie reduction because its starting point was 2007, when grocery store sales were strong, rather than in 2009 when the companies began planning their program and the recession had put a dent in such sales. The analysis also does not account for meals Americans eat in restaurants, where they could be consuming more calories. Nor does it distinguish between a reduction in calories that is attributable to company efforts and those that consumers have simply made on their own. "It's great to see companies selling fewer calories and reformulating their products to reduce fat and sugar, but it's hard to know how much is due to the proactive efforts of the industry rather than changes in Americans' eating habits, " said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "It's not as if Coke and Pepsi are encouraging people to drink less soda in fact, Coke and Pepsi are lobbying against state and local policies aimed at reducing consumption of soda." Nonetheless, Ms. Wootan said a reduction of 78 calories a day was significant, whoever is responsible. "The whole obesity epidemic can be explained by an extra 100 to 150 calories a day," she said. Sales of the processed foods that typically line the long rows in the center of grocery stores have been stagnant, and beverage companies have been scrambling as consumers abandon sugary carbonated drinks for water and diet varieties. "I see an evolution in the way consumers are looking at foods and beverages they purchase," said Chavanne Hanson, a dietitian and nutritionist who serves as "wellness champion" at Nestle USA, one of the 16 companies. "That challenges us, which is great for us and great for society because of how important it is to address the issue of calorie balance and the concerns we have from a public health standpoint about obesity and weight." General Mills has offered its Yoplait Greek 100 yogurt, with 100 calories. Other companies also started "healthy" foods. To that end and toward their goal, companies have shrunk package sizes, eliminated oils, reduced sugar and salt and introduced new products. Campbell's, for example, introduced a number of "light" products, like Campbell's Homestyle Light Italian Wedding Soup and diet V8 V Fusion Plus Energy drinks with 10 calories in an 8 ounce serving. Jimmy Dean, a division of Hillshire Brands, began selling sausage crumbles made from turkey. "Companies like these with a higher percentage of sales coming from 'better for you' products show strong growth, higher profits and better corporate reputations," Dr. Marks said. "That connection between offering healthier products and doing better in the marketplace is a message all of the food industry needs to heed." Nestle, for example, developed a new, proprietary technology to make what it calls "Slow Churned" Edy's and Dreyer's ice creams. "We were able to make an ice cream with half the fat and one third of calories just by the process we used to create it," said Ms. Hanson of Nestle. She said the company was now selling almost as much of the Slow Churned products as it does its basic ice cream products. Nestle also reduced the sugar in Nesquik by 25 percent; used seasonings and flavorings to help it reduce the oil in some of the sauces used in its Lean Cuisine and Stouffer's frozen food products; and began packaging its Haagen Dazs and other ice creams in single serve cups. "These things help consumers be mindful of how much they are consuming," Ms. Hanson said. The introduction of Yoplait Greek 100, a 100 calorie version of its Greek yogurt, was the largest new product debut in 20 years for the brand, said Kris Patton, a spokeswoman for General Mills, its corporate parent, with 150 million in sales its first year.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
Now the U.S. Has Lots of Ventilators, but Too Few Specialists to Operate Them As record numbers of coronavirus cases overwhelm hospitals across the United States, there is something strikingly different from the surge that inundated cities in the spring: No one is clamoring for ventilators. The sophisticated breathing machines, used to sustain the most critically ill patients, are far more plentiful than they were eight months ago, when New York, New Jersey and other hard hit states were desperate to obtain more of the devices, and hospitals were reviewing triage protocols for rationing care. Now, many hot spots face a different problem: They have enough ventilators, but not nearly enough respiratory therapists, pulmonologists and critical care doctors who have the training to operate the machines and provide round the clock care for patients who cannot breathe on their own. Since the spring, American medical device makers have radically ramped up the country's ventilator capacity by producing more than 200,000 critical care ventilators, with 155,000 of them going to the Strategic National Stockpile. At the same time, doctors have figured out other ways to deliver oxygen to some patients struggling to breathe including using inexpensive sleep apnea machines or simple nasal cannulas that force air into the lungs through plastic tubes. But with new cases approaching 200,000 per day and a flood of patients straining hospitals across the country, public health experts warn that the ample supply of available ventilators may not be enough to save many critically ill patients. "We're now at a dangerous precipice," said Dr. Lewis Kaplan, president of the Society of Critical Care Medicine. Ventilators, he said, are exceptionally complex machines that require expertise and constant monitoring for the weeks or even months that patients are tethered to them. The explosion of cases in rural parts of Idaho, Ohio, South Dakota and other states has prompted local hospitals that lack such experts on staff to send patients to cities and regional medical centers, but those intensive care beds are quickly filling up. Public health experts have long warned about a shortage of critical care doctors, known as intensivists, a specialty that generally requires an additional two years of medical training. There are 37,400 intensivists in the United States, according to the American Hospital Association, but nearly half of the country's acute care hospitals do not have any on staff, and many of those hospitals are in rural areas increasingly overwhelmed by the coronavirus. "We can't manufacture doctors and nurses in the same way we can manufacture ventilators," said Dr. Eric Toner, an emergency room doctor and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "And you can't teach someone overnight the right settings and buttons to push on a ventilator for patients who have a disease they've never seen before. The most realistic thing we can do in the short run is to reduce the impact on hospitals, and that means wearing masks and avoiding crowded spaces so we can flatten the curve of new infections." Medical association message boards in states like Iowa, Oklahoma and North Dakota are awash in desperate calls for intensivists and respiratory therapists willing to temporarily relocate and help out. When New York City and hospitals in the Northeast issued a similar call for help this past spring, specialists from the South and the Midwest rushed there. But because cases are now surging nationwide, hospital officials say that most of their pleas for help are going unanswered. Dr. Thomas E. Dobbs, the top health official in Mississippi, said that more than half the state's 1,048 ventilators were still available, but that he was more concerned with having enough staff members to take care of the sickest patients. "If we want to make sure that someone who's hospitalized in the I.C.U. with the coronavirus has the best chance to get well, they need to have highly trained personnel, and that cannot be flexed up rapidly," he said in a news briefing on Tuesday. Dr. Matthew Trump, a critical care specialist at UnityPoint Health in Des Moines, said that the health chain's 21 hospitals had an adequate supply of ventilators for now, but that out of state staff reinforcements might be unlikely to materialize as colleagues fall ill and the hospital's I.C.U. beds reach capacity. "People here are exhausted and burned out from the past few months," he said. "I'm really concerned." The domestic boom in ventilator production has been a rare bright spot in the country's pandemic response, which has been marred by shortages of personal protective equipment, haphazard testing efforts and President Trump's mixed messaging on the importance of masks, social distancing and other measures that can dent the spread of new infections. Although the White House has sought to take credit for the increase in new ventilators, medical device executives say the accelerated production was largely a market driven response turbocharged by the national sense of crisis. Mr. Trump invoked the wartime Defense Production Act in late March, but federal health officials have relied on government contracts rather than their authority under the act to compel companies to increase the production of ventilators. Scott Whitaker, president of AdvaMed, a trade association that represents many of the country's ventilator manufacturers, said the grave situation had prompted a "historic mobilization" by the industry. "We're confident that our companies are well positioned to mobilize as needed to meet demand," he said in an email. Public health officials in Minnesota, Mississippi, Utah and other states with some of the highest per capita rates of infection and hospitalization have said they are comfortable with the number of ventilators currently in their hospitals and their stockpiles. Mr. Whitaker said AdvaMed's member companies were making roughly 700 ventilators a week before the pandemic; by the summer, weekly output had reached 10,000. The juggernaut was in part fueled by unconventional partnerships between ventilator companies and auto giants like Ford and General Motors. Chris Brooks, chief strategy officer at Ventec Life Systems, which collaborated with G.M. to fill a 490 million contract for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the shared sense of urgency enabled both companies to overcome a thicket of supply chain and logistical challenges to produce 30,000 ventilators over four months at an idled car parts plant in Indiana. Before the pandemic, Ventec's average monthly output was 100 to 200 machines. "When you're focused with one team and one mission, you get things done in hours that would otherwise take months," he said. "You just find a way to push through any and all obstacles." Despite an overall increase in the number of ventilators, some researchers say many of the new machines may be inadequate for the current crisis. Dr. Richard Branson, an expert on mechanical ventilation at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and an author of a recent study in the journal Chest, said that half of the new devices acquired by the Strategic National Stockpile were not sophisticated enough for Covid 19 patients in severe respiratory distress. He also expressed concern about the long term viability of machines that require frequent maintenance. "These devices were not built to be stockpiled," he said. The Department of Health and Human Services, which has acknowledged the limitations of its newly acquired ventilators, said the stockpile nine times as large as it was in March was well suited for most respiratory pandemics. "These stockpiled devices can be used as a short term, stopgap buffer when the immediate commercial supply is not sufficient or available," the agency said in a statement. Projecting how many people will end up requiring mechanical breathing assistance is an inexact science, and many early assumptions about how the coronavirus affects respiratory function have evolved. During the chaotic days of March and April, emergency room doctors were quick to intubate patients with dangerously low oxygen levels. They subsequently discovered other ways to improve outcomes, including placing patients on their stomachs, a protocol known as proning that helps improve lung function. The doctors also learned to embrace the use of pressurized oxygen delivered through the nose, or via BiPAP and CPAP machines, portable devices that force oxygen into a patient's airways. Many health care providers initially hesitated to use such interventions for fear the pressurized air would aerosolize the virus and endanger health care workers. The risks, it turned out, could be mitigated through the use of respirator masks and other personal protective gear, said Dr. Greg Martin, the chief of pulmonary and critical care at Grady Health Systems in Atlanta. "The familiarity of taking care of so many Covid patients, combined with good data, has just made everything we do 100 times easier," he said. Some of the earliest data about the perils of intubating coronavirus patients turned out to be incomplete and misleading. Dr. Susan Wilcox, a critical care specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, said many providers were spooked by data that suggested an 80 percent mortality rate among ventilated coronavirus patients, but the actual death rate turned out to be much lower. The mortality rate at her hospital, she said, was about 25 to 30 percent. "Some people were saying that we should intubate almost immediately because we were worried patients would crash and have untoward consequences if we waited," she said. "But we've learned to just go back to the principles of good critical care." Survival rates have increased significantly at many hospitals, a shift brought about by the introduction of therapeutics like dexamethasone, a powerful steroid that Mr. Trump took when he was hospitalized with the coronavirus. The changing demographics of the pandemic a growing proportion of younger patients with fewer health risks have also played a role in the improving survival rates.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
WILD MINDS The Artists and Rivalries That Inspired the Golden Age of Animation By Reid Mitenbuler All swims were adult swims in the early days of American animation. Hand drawn shapes frolicked and misbehaved before an audience that reacted with shock at this new life they were witnessing. Cartoons could be delightful and winsome, but they could also be as unsettling as anything else that was breaking new in the early 20th century. Sex! Death! Dinosaurs! It was all onscreen and it was all new. The visionaries behind these early cartoons are the subjects of Reid Mitenbuler's rollicking history "Wild Minds: The Artists and Rivalries That Inspired the Golden Age of Animation," a fast moving account of the cartoonists, writers, inventors, hucksters and hopeful moguls who constructed the firmament of American animation and filled it with constellations of talking mice, rabbits, birds and pigs that have become more nameable than any actual stars in the sky. "Wild Minds" is at its best when minds are at their wildest, during American animation's dawn. Hovering over these proceedings is the great multiplatformer Winsor McCay, the newspaper cartoonist, illustrator, animator and vaudeville performer who in 1911 adapted his "Little Nemo in Slumberland" strip into a cartoon. Although not the world's first animator, McCay insisted that animation was an art, which makes him a guiding light in "Wild Minds." The rest of the early days is given over to an assortment of shady business dealings and fierce rivalries. There is the gifted Otto Messmer, creator of Felix the Cat, and his boss Pat Sullivan, who was gifted at taking credit for Messmer's work. But it's the divergent paths of Max Fleischer and Walt Disney that supply the most drama. Disney, of course, created an empire, but you get the sense that Mitenbuler's heart is really with Fleischer, who in a memorable passage is even allowed the last word.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
As a Latina, physical touch and embraces are part of how I cope with the pain of grief. The coronavirus robs us of those touches, of that intimacy. I miss the tears of my friends touching my own face as we hold each other, breathing the same air in silent mourning, in place of answers we can't give or have. In the past, my friend Lorena Borjas and I have grieved that way for others. The virus has now also taken that from me. On Monday morning, March 30, I woke around 7:30 to see I had a missed call from Coney Island Hospital. I had been calling the hospital daily for the last week to check on Ms. Borjas, who was hospitalized after falling sick with Covid 19. I dialed the number and eventually her doctor came on the line. She started to say "unfortunately ..." and I didn't have to hear the rest to know that she was gone. I was inconsolable. I met Ms. Borjas in 2005, at a club in Jackson Heights, in Queens, where she had organized H.I.V. tests. At the time I thought I was better than "those girls working in the streets." I was an escort, working out of my SoHo apartment. But later, as I spiraled into addiction, I found myself walking the streets near that club. There she was again, giving out condoms. This time, I needed them. Many of us have been forsaken by our families, found ourselves homeless and deprived of support from teachers, co workers and employers. We've lived through extreme poverty have made cohabitation with risk and danger part of our normal. Transgender women of color like she was, like I am know the uncertainty of taking each step as if it may be our last. We know the weariness of walking under the weight of transphobia, racism and misogyny. Ms. Borjas never presumed that anyone needed saving. She was simply there, ready to reach out if you needed help. And along the way, she enlisted us to help. "How are you planning to unwind this weekend, mama?" I'd ask her. "I'm organizing a group for my girls in Queens. Come help me serve food?" Eventually I was able to get my life back on track. Then in 2012, I persuaded the leadership at a community health center in Manhattan to hire me to run their new transgender health clinic. I wasn't sure if I had what it took to do the job, but they took a chance on me. My first day on the job, I reached out to Ms. Borjas for help. Together, we walked up and down Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, handing out condoms and referrals to my clinic to the girls. This was lifesaving work. At the time, police officers would stop and search sex workers, using condoms as evidence to support prostitution charges. For many sex workers, particularly transgender women, arrest meant facing degrading treatment and abuse at the hands of the police. "I must make sure they always have condoms, but they can never have more than two," Ms. Borjas said. As we walked, we talked about abuse, addiction, men, shame. We talked about how she felt she had a higher calling to help people who were walking the same path as she had before. How she found happiness through taking care of her own community, and, without knowing it, she inspired me. She ignited a spark, the idea that we can do good. That the work we do can matter. So often, society paints those of us who need a hand as victims of our own poor choices. As if we had many choices. We are considered a danger to society. And yet it is society that endangers our lives a life of suffering and surviving at the margins, where we have been pushed, hidden or expelled by the choices of others over whom we have no control. The respect and dignity that she gave to our struggle was the ultimate empowerment. She pushed us to shine authentically, to become an unstoppable insubordination, a scream of subversion that says, "I am here, and I deserve happiness, too." Some rare magic has left us. But Ms. Borjas leaves a network of activists who she nurtured, and who have mobilized in her wake. Jackson Heights is among the areas in New York City that have been hit especially hard by the coronavirus. As a result we've had to rethink what outreach looks like in the age of a pandemic, and what the specific needs of the community are at this critical moment. Trans sex workers and the undocumented folks in our community are not eligible for unemployment, and they most certainly will not be receiving stimulus checks. They need to know what their housing rights are, as well as food, medications and money to pay their phone bills. Most important, they need to stay connected and feel that someone cares for them. As Ms. Borjas is not here to do that, it's now up to us step up. We will pick up her work where she left it, work that is essential to the well being of "mis pajaras" as she called the trans girls of Queens under her wing. Without her we are a motherless brood, but we will thrive nonetheless. In the end, she gave us the greatest gift of all she taught us how to fend for ourselves.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
This show of work by Native American artists organized by Erin Joyce Projects at a collaborative art space in Long Island City, Queens, has been in the works for a couple of years but is only getting more timely. This exhibition includes provocative and handsome photography (by Tom Jones), sculpture (Cannupa Hanska Luger) and film (Steven J. Yazzie), as well as the Winter Count Collective's memorable short protest video. The standout is Nicholas Galanin's take on the cult of white martyrdom that underlies and abets institutionalized American brutality. A suit of ceramic body armor at once threatening and fragile, the sculpture hangs on the wall in pieces, as if reconstructed empirically from a series of bruising discoveries. The suit's design, by Mr. Galanin, is a cross between ordinary riot gear and the uniform of a "Star Wars" Stormtrooper the ceramic is white with an oily, iridescent glaze, and a police baton hangs nearby. Its title, "God Complex," is overkill, since hanging the outfit in cruciform makes the point more effectively. But the insight is right on: A grandiose sense of victimhood, inflamed by epic fantasies and impervious to rational disproof, is one of the best tools there is for victimizing others. What's in a home? At the very least, a portrait of its occupants, and a fertile memory bank of rooms, light, objects and relationships for frequent visitors. This much is demonstrated by the captivating, often large paintings in "Homemaker," Becky Suss's excellent Manhattan debut at the Jack Shainman Gallery. These views of comfortable middle class interiors most of them from her grandparents' now demolished Long Island home are eerily still and shelter magazine neat. The furniture, rugs, books, art and artifacts are placed just so, yet they set a lot in play. Representing a range of world cultures, they appear to be tokens from the travels of well educated people: They conjure a complex mix of delight, taste, openness and an admiring, seemingly benign colonialism. Stylistically, these scenes are superhybrids. They have the detail and sweetness of folk paintings; a scale that's sometimes Abstract Expressionist; the sharp focus of photography and the geometry and spatial tricks of hard edge abstraction. In "August," with its facing armchairs and end tables beneath a framed rubbing from Angkor Wat, the vividly grained parquet floor recedes at one angle through a door and at another through a broad archway. In "Blue Apartment," a nearly flat blue patterned rectangle sort of resolves itself into a covered bed. These rooms and their contents must have helped Ms. Suss become an artist. We sense their hold on her and are alerted anew to the ones that haunt us. Richard Tinkler is an artist with a day job. There's nothing unusual about this, except that he has become known he was mentioned in a ARTnews article about moonlighting artists for working behind the front desk at one of Matthew Marks's galleries in Chelsea. Mr. Tinkler's exhibition "Paintings and Drawings," at 56 Henry Street, offers a chance to become better acquainted with his artwork. This Lower East Side gallery is essentially a storefront microspace, and Mr. Tinkler has used it wisely, wrapping seven of his abstract geometric paintings around three walls, with the canvases almost touching. Each painting was made in one day, using a wet on wet oil technique. Subtle brush strokes and hatch marks create patterns that resemble the warp and weft of textiles, and some of the paintings are reminiscent of work by Mark Tobey or Bradley Walker Tomlin or, in their coloring, Robert Delaunay and Sonia Delaunay Terk. The installation feels contemporary, however: You read the work collectively, as a system or an archive rather than as discrete, individual works. In the gallery's window bay are portfolios that also function as archives, holding 46 of Mr. Tinkler's vibrant drawings. These are like the miniature grids of Paul Klee or the intricate notebook drawings of Lori Ellison. It is rumored that he has, at times, worked on the drawings while on the job at Matthew Marks. Having written art reviews covertly while working in an office long ago, I can relate though I hope I don't get him in trouble for mentioning that here. Robert Bordo's paintings are visual haiku. Starting with a banal enough image something automotive like a roadside billboard he abstracts it nearly beyond recognition, ornaments it with colors and frills, and, most important, excises it from its ordinary context. The earliest piece in "Back Flip," a show of old and new work, is an untitled canvas from 1988 that shows a blotchy blue grid with what look like a couple of yellow stains at the sides. . Strictly speaking it's a close up of a map, but without any landmarks to anchor them, those colors and forms can expand with gentle, open ended ambiguity.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
The expletives start early in the new comedy "Good Boys." In one of the first scenes, 12 year old Max (Jacob Tremblay of "Room,"), playing in his bedroom, enhances a female video game character to make her breasts larger. "Fudge, yeah!" he says enthusiastically, except with a much saltier word in place of that "fudge." That sets the stage for a raunchy yet sincere movie that feels something like "Superbad" meets "The Sandlot," by way of "American Pie." Making their feature debuts, Brady Noon and Keith L. Williams star alongside Tremblay as sixth grade buddies who call themselves the Bean Bag Boys. The movie , which opens Aug. 16, follows them on a one day adventure that has them spying on high school girls, skipping school, going to kissing parties and cursing like sailors. It is the latest example of movies that have put naughty language into the mouths of youngsters to comic effect. In the 2010 action comedy "Kick Ass," Chloe Grace Moretz, 11 at the time of filming, used harsh words and harsher violence when playing Hit Girl , which rankled some critics. In the 2008 comedy "Role Models," Bobb'e J. Thompson spouted expletives like a fountain, and in the 1986 R rated "Stand by Me," its preteens used profanity liberally. "Good Boys" has plenty in common with that film , but more than its predecessors, it derives considerable humor from the characters' mistaken or uninformed views of sexuality. The filmmakers had to discover for themselves how to handle 11 and 12 year olds delivering very adult dialogue on risque topics. In some cases, the solution involved their parents. The movie, which was well received at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March, comes from the writers Gene Stupnitsky, 41, who also directed, and Lee Eisenberg, 42. They have known each other for 20 years , writing on "The Office" and penning the 2011 comedy "Bad Teacher." In conceiving the "Good Boys" screenplay to get the most mileage out of their kids say the darndest things premise, they remembered what their lives were like when they were their characters' age. "We thought about first kisses, peer pressure, bullying and all the other stuff that we experienced," Eisenberg said in an interview at The Times. "Usually when you see these types of movies, it's the Disney version of it. And we thought, what if it wasn't that?" When one of the boys finds a tampon and doesn't know what it is, another boy explains, based on information from an eighth grader, that girls put them in their bottoms to keep their babies from falling out. Or for a joke about a nymphomaniac, one boy supplies a definition: "someone who has sex on land and sea." "We gave them no context," Eisenberg said. "We didn't say to them, this is a sex doll. They would ask questions and we would say, 'Ask your parents.'" "Also, the great thing about having 11 year old actors is that you can give them line readings that you wouldn't be able to give Daniel Day Lewis," Stupnitsky said. "You can tell them, 'Say it exactly like this.'" The language got cleaner once the scene was over. In a phone interview, Tremblay broke down how he thought about the job. "Max swears, Jacob doesn't," he said. "When I'm on set playing the character, I'm allowed to swear. But when I'm at my house, I'm just Jacob, who's not allowed to swear. When Jacob swears, then he gets grounded." The actor said that he also didn't share adult information that he might have known with other kids on the set. "We would only talk about inappropriate stuff with our parents," he said, "because some kids don't know certain things, and some kids' parents don't want them to know certain things yet." During the casting process, a few parents were uncomfortable with the language and didn't want their children in the movie, the filmmakers recalled. And one boy would not use swear words during his audition, even though they were in the scene he was reading. "It was like watching the airplane version of your movie," Eisenberg said. Naughty language is a specialty of the film's producers, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, whose scripts for "Superbad" and "This Is the End" featured steady streams of profanity. But they said they loved that the screenplay for "Good Boys" gave greater weight to the childhood crises these kids experienced. "There's nothing funnier than stakes that seem really high to the character, but are not in actuality all that high in the grand scale," Rogen said by phone. While the producers helped develop the screenplay, they said they didn't make its language raunchier than what was there originally. "It was already fundamentally in the fabric of the project," Goldberg said. "And it is, in our experience, how kids that age actually talk when their parents aren't looking." While the crude humor is a selling point in the red band trailer, Rogen explains to the kids that they're too young to watch the promo its creators didn't want the movie to get too bogged down in the fact that preteen boys are dropping F bombs. "As we were editing the movie, we started stripping some of the language away," Eisenberg said. "If it wasn't elevating a joke, or feeling like something a kid would say, we thought too much of it would sound like white noise. "When we wrote the movie, the goal of it was to make it funny and put the kids in situations that are both relatable and comedically heightened. But hopefully people like the movie beyond thinking, this kid said ..." Well, this family newspaper can't say what he said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
The Dalles Country Club in Oregon. Many courses saw an increase in play this month, ahead of increased restrictions on public gatherings. Golf Rounds Surged as Coronavirus Advanced. Now the Game Is Retreating. As recently as a week ago, recreational golfers flocked to the fairways of public and private golf courses as a respite from stay at home guidelines and lifestyle prohibitions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Golf, with its wide open spaces, still seemed safe. In New Jersey's Somerset County, the five municipal golf courses recorded 6,501 golf rounds in the first 19 days this month, a 300 percent increase over the number of rounds played in all of March last year. A similar surge in play, with players observing social distancing and other limits on close interactions, was happening all over the United States. "The turnout almost overwhelmed us," said Matt Kammeyer, the director of golf for Salt Lake City's seven courses. "Just a lot of happy, grateful people enjoying a round." This week, it increasingly appears that golf's reprieve was short lived. With stricter measures on public gatherings, our games, like everything else, live in realms of past and present. "A few guys I play with are talking about going to Pennsylvania because some of their courses are open," Tom Avers, who plays about 100 rounds annually at the Somerset courses in New Jersey, said Monday morning. "But I think they'll probably close down soon, too." Kari Phenix, the head pro at the municipally owned Fort Myers Country Club in Fort Myers, Fla., said she was still seeing about 250 golfers at her course daily, but she wasn't sure how much longer that would last. "It's day by day, who knows?" she said. Fort Myers is home to the spring training complexes of the Boston Red Sox and the Minnesota Twins and is a popular winter destination for Canadians. But in a span of two weeks, the baseball fans and tourists have left. Nearby beaches, tennis courts and community pools have closed. Social gatherings at a voluminous number of retirement centers have been canceled. But thousands of retirees in the Fort Myers area have remained and been playing golf. "It's mostly males, and a lot of them are widowed and don't have anything else to do," Phenix said. "What are they supposed to do? It's walk, ride a bike and play golf. They're very thankful we're open everyone stops to say thanks." For a while last week, the pandemic had spurred a few notable changes in the recreational golf world that would have been unimaginable a month ago. For example, golfers seemed less prone to grumpily bemoan their poor shots, cruel bogeys and heartless bounces. "Complaints are way down," Bob Ransone, the deputy director of the Somerset park commission's golf division, said Saturday before his operations were closed. "People are just too appreciative to be out in a beautiful environment." Walking the course instead of driving a golf cart had become a new norm, something many in golf have advocated to no avail for decades because of the health benefits. And the customarily rigid United States Golf Association, warden of golf's laborious rule book, even went out of its way last week to make the game, and its rules, easier. To minimize contact between golfers, most courses had closed clubhouses and snack bars, removed bunker rakes and ball washers, gone caddie less and encouraged the use of online payment options. But one unsanitary condition of play remained: After putting out, golfers had to stick their hands into golf holes to retrieve their ball, after dozens of golfers had done so before them. Solutions proposed by golf superintendents soon abounded, including foam hole inserts that kept the ball near the top of the hole. Many golf courses even began raising the white liner cup, which is normally inserted into a hole, to about two inches above the ground. That way, an approaching ball could not fall into the hole but would instead bounce off the cup. On Friday, the U.S.G.A. temporarily amended its rules to say that a ball bouncing off a cup in such a manner would count as a sunk putt for official scorekeeping. Golf without close putts that pitilessly lip out? For a week, golfers had a new reason to smile. It is not clear when the majority of closed golf courses nationwide will reopen. Nor is it clear how long the courses that are currently open will remain so in many disparate regions of the country. Private golf clubs, where most clubhouses are already closed, may or may not discourage play, but it's unlikely that many will be willing to stop their members from walking onto the course with a golf bag. Golfers are also sneaking onto some public courses. Dr. Kryssie Woods, an epidemiologist and director of infection prevention at Mount Sinai West, a medical center in Manhattan, wrote in an email on Sunday that golfers should heed the advice of government leaders and medical professionals by staying home. "The more we embrace the advice to quarantine ourselves now, the sooner everyone will be able to resume normal life including getting back on the golf course," Woods wrote. Avers said that he accepted and understood the warnings and that he would heed them. "I guess I'll do more landscaping and read a lot of books," he said. "It's going to be pretty boring." A week ago, the sun was out and Avers was on a golf course. Monday brought heavy rain and even snow to parts of the northeastern United States. "It was great," he said. "Now it stinks."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
From left, Facebook, via Associated Press; Aaron Vincent Elkaim for The New York Times; Chad Buchanan/Getty Images From left, Facebook, via Associated Press; Aaron Vincent Elkaim for The New York Times; Chad Buchanan/Getty Images Credit... From left, Facebook, via Associated Press; Aaron Vincent Elkaim for The New York Times; Chad Buchanan/Getty Images SAN FRANCISCO In 2004, Geoffrey Hinton doubled down on his pursuit of a technological idea called a neural network. It was a way for machines to see the world around them, recognize sounds and even understand natural language. But scientists had spent more than 50 years working on the concept of neural networks, and machines couldn't really do any of that. Backed by the Canadian government, Dr. Hinton, a computer science professor at the University of Toronto, organized a new research community with several academics who also tackled the concept. They included Yann LeCun, a professor at New York University, and Yoshua Bengio at the University of Montreal. On Wednesday, the Association for Computing Machinery, the world's largest society of computing professionals, announced that Drs. Hinton, LeCun and Bengio had won this year's Turing Award for their work on neural networks. The Turing Award, which was introduced in 1966, is often called the Nobel Prize of computing, and it includes a 1 million prize, which the three scientists will share. Over the past decade, the big idea nurtured by these researchers has reinvented the way technology is built, accelerating the development of face recognition services, talking digital assistants, warehouse robots and self driving cars. Dr. Hinton is now at Google, and Dr. LeCun works for Facebook. Dr. Bengio has inked deals with IBM and Microsoft. "What we have seen is nothing short of a paradigm shift in the science," said Oren Etzioni, the chief executive officer of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Seattle and a prominent voice in the A.I. community. "History turned their way, and I am in awe." Loosely modeled on the web of neurons in the human brain, a neural network is a complex mathematical system that can learn discrete tasks by analyzing vast amounts of data. By analyzing thousands of old phone calls, for example, it can learn to recognize spoken words. This allows many artificial intelligence technologies to progress at a rate that was not possible in the past. Rather than coding behavior into systems by hand one logical rule at a time computer scientists can build technology that learns behavior largely on its own. "We met once a week," Dr. Hinton said in an interview. "Sometimes it ended in a shouting match, sometimes not." Neural networks had a brief revival in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After a year of postdoctoral research with Dr. Hinton in Canada, the Paris born Dr. LeCun moved to AT T's Bell Labs in New Jersey, where he designed a neural network that could read handwritten letters and numbers. An AT T subsidiary sold the system to banks, and at one point it read about 10 percent of all checks written in the United States. Though a neural network could read handwriting and help with some other tasks, it could not make much headway with big A.I. tasks, like recognizing faces and objects in photos, identifying spoken words, and understanding the natural way people talk. "They worked well only when you had lots of training data, and there were few areas that had lots of training data," Dr. LeCun, 58, said. But some researchers persisted, including the Paris born Dr. Bengio, 55, who worked alongside Dr. LeCun at Bell Labs before taking a professorship at the University of Montreal. In 2004, with less than 400,000 in funding from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Dr. Hinton created a research program dedicated to what he called "neural computation and adaptive perception." He invited Dr. Bengio and Dr. LeCun to join him. By the end of the decade, the idea had caught up with its potential. In 2010, Dr. Hinton and his students helped Microsoft, IBM, and Google push the boundaries of speech recognition. Then they did much the same with image recognition. "He is a genius and knows how to create one impact after another," said Li Deng, a former speech researcher at Microsoft who brought Dr. Hinton's ideas into the company. Dr. Hinton's image recognition breakthrough was based on an algorithm developed by Dr. LeCun. In late 2013, Facebook hired the N.Y.U. professor to build a research lab around the idea. Dr. Bengio resisted offers to join one of the big tech giants, but the research he oversaw in Montreal helped drive the progress of systems that aim to understand natural language and technology that can generate fake photos that are indistinguishable from the real thing. Though these systems have undeniably accelerated the progress of artificial intelligence, they are still a very long way from true intelligence. But Drs. Hinton, LeCun and Bengio believe that new ideas will come. "We need fundamental additions to this toolbox we have created to reach machines that operate at the level of true human understanding," Dr. Bengio said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
Now Lives: Ms. Barrera divides her time among a one bedroom apartment in Midtown Manhattan, a two bedroom apartment in Los Angeles and a "newlywed house" in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico. Claim to Fame: After making her mark on Mexican telenovelas including "Siempre Tuya Acapulco" and "Tanto Amor," Ms. Barrera stars in "Vida," a Latinx drama series on Starz about two Mexican American sisters who run a bar in Los Angeles. After getting the part, Ms. Barrera made such an impression on the "Vida" showrunners that they postponed the shooting schedule for her working papers to clear. Big Break: Ms. Barrera was 23 and fresh out of college when she auditioned and got cast in "Siempre Tuya Acapulco." "It was a big deal because I'd only done small parts in telenovelas prior to that and I was young compared to leading ladies in other telenovelas," she said. "I was shocked and nervous. I had never led a telenovela, which meant shooting 20 or more scenes a day, six days a week and basically carrying the story."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
There's an ancient Greco Roman poem that tells the tale of brave fishermen who harpooned a sea monster. Once they hooked the beast, the men reeled it in from their rowboats near the shore and hauled it onto the beach. The text, which is dated to the second or third century, describes one onlooker as standing on a cliff and beholding the "tremendous toil of the men in this warfare of the sea." But was this "sea monster," or "cetus" as it is called in Latin, actually a whale? A study published Wednesday provides the first direct evidence that two whale species, the gray whale and the North Atlantic right whale, may have lived near Mediterranean shores some 2,000 years ago. Today these whales are not found in the Mediterranean Sea. The finding, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, expands the historical range of the whale species and suggests they once roamed the same waters as the ancient Romans. "We show the Romans had the means, technology and the opportunity for a whaling industry," said Ana Rodrigues, an ecologist from the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology in France and lead author of the study. "But we don't prove that they did." Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. Dr. Rodrigues and her colleagues obtained ten suspected whale bones collected from sites in Spain and Morocco near the Strait of Gibraltar. The team genetically analyzed the DNA from the bones and found that two belonged to gray whales and three belonged to right whales. Most of the other bones belonged to sea creatures that live in the Mediterranean today, such as a fin whale, a sperm whale, a long finned pilot whale and a dolphin. Unexpectedly, one belonged to an African elephant. Unlike the other whale species discovered during the research, gray whales and North Atlantic right whales are known to swim near the shoreline to reproduce and birth their calves, which could have made them targets for Roman hunters. More bones and additional evidence will need to be uncovered before scientists can confidently say that ancient Roman whaling occurred. It is possible the whale bones the team analyzed belonged to stranded or dead whales that the Romans scavenged. Vicki Szabo, an environmental historian from Western Carolina University in North Carolina, who was not involved in the study, said although the finding does not provide strong enough evidence to claim that ancient Romans were whaling commercially, it does provide a starting point for that interpretation. She added that it also provides historical perspective to understanding the ecology of the two whale species. "This proposition that they were as far south as the Mediterranean, maybe breeding off the coast of Iberia and having a calving ground, that's exciting," Dr. Szabo said. She added that the findings may encourage other researchers to revisit their Roman period collections and genetically test their marine animal bones to see if they belonged to ancient whales, especially North Atlantic right whales which are on the brink of extinction, she said. Only about 450 remain in their population, and researchers have seen no newborns this year. "Their population is incredibly at risk," said Dr. Szabo. "If we can go into those bones and try to look at their genetic profile from the past we can better understand the species today."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Alessandra Ferri retired from American Ballet Theater in 2007, but that hasn't kept her off the stage. The latest sighting of the ballerina is as a guest artist with the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, a pairing that makes sense. Mr. Lubovitch is in the mood to tell stories this season; Ms. Ferri is one of the most cherished dramatic ballerinas of our time. The first half of Mr. Lubovitch's two act program, "Ancient Tales," which opened at the Joyce Theater on Wednesday, is devoted to "Artemis in Athens," a reimagining of a work created for Ballet Theater in 2003. The new dance is set at a summer camp, where the cast, including Ms. Ferri and an ensemble of 10 Juilliard dancers, wear scout uniforms by Naomi Luppescu. The musicians aren't let off the hook, either; Le Train Bleu performs Christopher Theofanidis's score in regulation khakis. Ms. Ferri is Artemis, the goddess of the hunt; her father, Zeus, has given her a forest glade and declared that if any mortal sees her, he will die. Akteon (Tobin Del Cuore), transfixed by the sight of her, is smitten, just as Artemis is of him. They mesh in flowing lifts and balances in which Ms. Ferri, wearing point shoes, delicately pricks at the floor with her finely arched feet. Patiently gliding through the choreography's twists and turns, and gamely partnered by Juilliard students, Ms. Ferri though, truthfully, more den mother than goddess is as sensuous as ever. To shield Akteon from death, Artemis transforms him into a deer; after the ensemble whips off Akteon's red beret and uniform to reveal a brown speckled unitard it's an impressive metamorphosis his hands form loose fists as he cuts across the stage in loping, two dimensional leaps.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
SEBERG (2019) Stream on Amazon. After her rise to international fame in the 1960s, the actress Jean Seberg was under F.B.I. surveillance for her support of the Black Power movement. "Seberg," directed by Benedict Andrews, explores the psychological toll that surveillance took, imagining a version of the actress (played by Kristen Stewart) hounded by a fictional agent, Jack Solomon (Jack O'Connell). "Despite its wearying preoccupation with Bureau mischief and Solomon's softening toward his target, 'Seberg' has an old fashioned glamour that can on occasion take your breath away," Jeannette Catsoulis wrote in her review for The Times. "The styling and production design are impeccable, and Rachel Morrison's radiant cinematography is as beguiling as Stewart's performance." BRAVERY AND HOPE: 7 DAYS ON THE FRONT LINE 9 p.m. on CBS. See some of the heroic work being done by emergency physicians and critical care workers during the coronavirus pandemic in this hourlong special. The program is built from footage from over a week at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
Q. I have been a dedicated PC user since the mid 1980s and have only used Windows based computers, but I am now contemplating a switch to Apple and have concerns. Will my external backup drives be accessed smoothly once connected to a Mac? I don't use the cloud because I don't want my stuff out there and don't want any additional storage expenses. How do I transfer my desktop items, Google bookmarks, etc.? Will I still be able to use Chrome? A. Switching computer platforms is much easier than it used to be, thanks to programs that help you copy over your data, applications that have both Windows and Mac versions and file formats like .JPG photos that can be easily opened on most desktop and mobile systems. Although getting comfortable with the Mac user interface after decades of Windows may take some time, the most labor intensive part of the process for many people is just transferring personal data from one computer to another. If your external backup drive is formatted with exFAT or another file system the Mac can read, you may able to copy backed up data from it to the Mac. If the Mac cannot read the format of the Windows backup drive, you may just want to start fresh by transferring the data you want to move from the Windows machine itself to the Mac, and then setting up a new backup system there. Apple's Mac operating system includes its own backup program called Time Machine, and if you intend to use it, you may want to invest in a new external drive that you can dedicate to the software. You do need to format the backup drive to work with Time Machine.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
The coronavirus is finding new victims worldwide, in bars and restaurants, offices, markets and casinos, giving rise to frightening clusters of infection that increasingly confirm what many scientists have been saying for months: The virus lingers in the air indoors, infecting those nearby. If airborne transmission is a significant factor in the pandemic, especially in crowded spaces with poor ventilation, the consequences for containment will be significant. Masks may be needed indoors, even in socially distant settings. Health care workers may need N95 masks that filter out even the smallest respiratory droplets as they care for coronavirus patients. Ventilation systems in schools, nursing homes, residences and businesses may need to minimize recirculating air and add powerful new filters. Ultraviolet lights may be needed to kill viral particles floating in tiny droplets indoors. The World Health Organization has long held that the coronavirus is spread primarily by large respiratory droplets that, once expelled by infected people in coughs and sneezes, fall quickly to the floor. Even in its latest update on the coronavirus, released June 29, the W.H.O. said airborne transmission of the virus is possible only after medical procedures that produce aerosols, or droplets smaller than 5 microns. (A micron is equal to one millionth of a meter.) Proper ventilation and N95 masks are of concern only in those circumstances, according to the W.H.O. Instead, its infection control guidance, before and during this pandemic, has heavily promoted the importance of handwashing as a primary prevention strategy, even though there is limited evidence for transmission of the virus from surfaces. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now says surfaces are likely to play only a minor role.) Dr. Benedetta Allegranzi, the W.H.O.'s technical lead on infection control, said the evidence for the virus spreading by air was unconvincing. Whether carried aloft by large droplets that zoom through the air after a sneeze, or by much smaller exhaled droplets that may glide the length of a room, these experts said, the coronavirus is borne through air and can infect people when inhaled. Most of these experts sympathized with the W.H.O.'s growing portfolio and shrinking budget, and noted the tricky political relationships it has to manage, especially with the United States and China. They praised W.H.O. staff for holding daily briefings and tirelessly answering questions about the pandemic. But the infection prevention and control committee in particular, experts said, is bound by a rigid and overly medicalized view of scientific evidence, is slow and risk averse in updating its guidance and allows a few conservative voices to shout down dissent. "They'll die defending their view," said one longstanding W.H.O. consultant, who did not wish to be identified because of her continuing work for the organization. Even its staunchest supporters said the committee should diversify its expertise and relax its criteria for proof, especially in a fast moving outbreak. "I do get frustrated about the issues of airflow and sizing of particles, absolutely," said Mary Louise McLaws, a committee member and epidemiologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. "If we started revisiting airflow, we would have to be prepared to change a lot of what we do," she said. "I think it's a good idea, a very good idea, but it will cause an enormous shudder through the infection control society." In early April, a group of 36 experts on air quality and aerosols urged the W.H.O. to consider the growing evidence on airborne transmission of the coronavirus. The agency responded promptly, calling Lidia Morawska, the group's leader and a longtime W.H.O. consultant, to arrange a meeting. But the discussion was dominated by a few experts who are staunch supporters of handwashing and felt it must be emphasized over aerosols, according to some participants, and the committee's advice remained unchanged. Dr. Morawska and others pointed to several incidents that indicate airborne transmission of the virus, particularly in poorly ventilated and crowded indoor spaces. They said the W.H.O. was making an artificial distinction between tiny aerosols and larger droplets, even though infected people produce both. "We've known since 1946 that coughing and talking generate aerosols," said Linsey Marr, an expert in airborne transmission of viruses at Virginia Tech. A study finds that stillbirths are higher in pregnant women with Covid. Canada expands its list of vaccines accepted for travel. Michigan recommends that all residents older than the age of 2 wear a face mask indoors. Scientists have not been able to grow the coronavirus from aerosols in the lab. But that doesn't mean aerosols are not infective, Dr. Marr said: Most of the samples in those experiments have come from hospital rooms with good air flow that would dilute viral levels. Experts all agree that the coronavirus does not behave that way. Dr. Marr and others said the coronavirus seemed to be most infectious when people were in prolonged contact at close range, especially indoors, and even more so in superspreader events exactly what scientists would expect from aerosol transmission. The W.H.O. has found itself at odds with groups of scientists more than once during this pandemic. The agency lagged behind most of its member nations in endorsing face coverings for the public. While other organizations, including the C.D.C., have long since acknowledged the importance of transmission by people without symptoms, the W.H.O. still maintains that asymptomatic transmission is rare. "At the country level, a lot of W.H.O. technical staff are scratching their heads," said a consultant at a regional office in Southeast Asia, who did not wish to be identified because he was worried about losing his contract. "This is not giving us credibility." The consultant recalled that the W.H.O. staff members in his country were the only ones to go without masks after the government there endorsed them. Many experts said the W.H.O. should embrace what some called a "precautionary principle" and others called "needs and values" the idea that even without definitive evidence, the agency should assume the worst of the virus, apply common sense and recommend the best protection possible. The Landscape of the Post Pandemic Return to Office None Delta variant delays. A wave of the contagious Delta variant is causing companies to reconsider when they will require employees to return, and what health requirements should be in place when they do. A generation gap. While workers of all ages have become accustomed to dialing in and skipping the wearying commute, younger ones have grown especially attached to the new way of doing business. This is causing some difficult conversations between managers and newer hires. How to keep offices safe. Handwashing is a simple way to reduce the spread of disease, but employers should be thinking about improved ventilation systems, creative scheduling and making sure their building is ready after months of low use. Return to work anxiety. Remote work brought many challenges, particularly for women of color. But going back will also mean a return to microaggressions, pressure to conform to white standards of professionalism, and high rates of stress and burnout. "There is no incontrovertible proof that SARS CoV 2 travels or is transmitted significantly by aerosols, but there is absolutely no evidence that it's not," said Dr. Trish Greenhalgh, a primary care doctor at the University of Oxford in Britain. "So at the moment we have to make a decision in the face of uncertainty, and my goodness, it's going to be a disastrous decision if we get it wrong," she said. "So why not just mask up for a few weeks, just in case?" After all, the W.H.O. seems willing to accept without much evidence the idea that the virus may be transmitted from surfaces, she and other researchers noted, even as other health agencies have stepped back emphasizing this route. "I agree that fomite transmission is not directly demonstrated for this virus," Dr. Allegranzi, the W.H.O.'s technical lead on infection control, said, referring to objects that may be infectious. "But it is well known that other coronaviruses and respiratory viruses are transmitted, and demonstrated to be transmitted, by contact with fomite." "What you say is designed to help people understand the nature of a public health problem," said Dr. William Aldis, a longtime W.H.O. collaborator based in Thailand. "That's different than just scientifically describing a disease or a virus." The W.H.O. tends to describe "an absence of evidence as evidence of absence," Dr. Aldis added. In April, for example, the W.H.O. said, "There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from Covid 19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection." The statement was intended to indicate uncertainty, but the phrasing stoked unease among the public and earned rebukes from several experts and journalists. The W.H.O. later walked back its comments. In a less public instance, the W.H.O. said there was "no evidence to suggest" that people with H.I.V. were at increased risk from the coronavirus. After Joseph Amon, the director of global health at Drexel University in Philadelphia who has sat on many agency committees, pointed out that the phrasing was misleading, the W.H.O. changed it to say the level of risk was "unknown." But W.H.O. staff and some members said the critics did not give its committees enough credit. "Those that may have been frustrated may not be cognizant of how W.H.O. expert committees work, and they work slowly and deliberately," Dr. McLaws said. Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the W.H.O.'s chief scientist, said agency staff members were trying to evaluate new scientific evidence as fast as possible, but without sacrificing the quality of their review. She added that the agency will try to broaden the committees' expertise and communications to make sure everyone is heard. "We take it seriously when journalists or scientists or anyone challenges us and say we can do better than this," she said. "We definitely want to do better."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
The Atlanta Falcons, winless through five games this season, have fired their head coach, Dan Quinn, and general manager, Thomas Dimitroff, becoming the second team to reassess its fading prospects for the 2020 campaign. "Decisions like these are very difficult, but the previous two seasons and start to this one have been especially hard for me because of the deep love, admiration and respect I and my family have for Dan, Thomas and their families," the team owner Arthur Blank said in a statement Sunday night. "But as everyone knows, this is a results business and I owe it to our fans to put the best product we can on the field." Rich McKay, the team's president, will take over daily oversight of football operations while Blank finds new leadership. Monday morning, the team announced that defensive coordinator Raheem Morris would take over as interim head coach for the rest of the season. Morris previously coached the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 2009 2011, where he amassed a 17 31 record. The firings in Atlanta came one week after the Houston Texans fired Bill O'Brien, the team's longtime coach who had also recently become its general manager. O'Brien's replacement, interim Coach Romeo Crennel led the team to their first win of the season Sunday against Jacksonville.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Images of immigration and societies undergoing change will be central to the seventh annual Photoville festival, which arrives in Brooklyn in September. From Sept. 13 through Sept. 23, the Brooklyn Bridge Plaza in Dumbo will turn into a pop up photography village, with more than 80 free exhibitions housed in shipping containers. John Moore, who photographs for Getty Images, will present "Undocumented," featuring a decade of his work on immigration and border security. One of the images displayed will be of a crying 2 year old Honduran asylum seeker at the United States Mexico border this year; the photo was widely shared online and was adapted for a Time magazine cover in June. Many of the exhibitions will feature either female subjects or female photographers. Makeba Rainey's "Soul(s) of ..." portrays black women in gentrified communities; Shiho Fukada's "Nowhere Left but Here" captures the growing phenomenon of petty crimes committed by older women in Japan. And "MFON ALTAR: Prayer, Ritual, Offerings" features more than 40 female photographers of African descent exploring Africa and its religious traditions. The festival, spearheaded by the nonprofit organization United Photo Industries, will include different types of events beyond galleries. The New York Times (Sept. 14), New York Magazine (Sept. 15), Getty Images (Sept. 21) and National Geographic (Sept. 22) will host events with projections and discussions about their work. (Mr. Moore will be presenting at the Getty event.)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Enthusiasm for cancer immunotherapy is soaring, and so is Arie Belldegrun's fortune. Dr. Belldegrun, a physician, co founded Kite Pharma, a company that could be the first to market next year with a highly anticipated new immunotherapy treatment. But even without a product, Dr. Belldegrun has struck gold. His stock in Kite is worth about 170 million. Investors have profited along with him, as the company's share price has soared to about 50 from an initial price of 17 in 2014. The results reflect widespread excitement over immunotherapy, which harnesses the body's immune system to attack cancer and has rescued some patients from near certain death. But they also speak volumes about the value of Kite's main scientific partner: the United States government. Kite's treatment, a form of immunotherapy called CAR T, was initially developed by a team of researchers at the National Cancer Institute, led by a longtime friend and mentor of Dr. Belldegrun. Now Kite pays several million a year to the government to support continuing research dedicated to the company's efforts. The relationship puts American taxpayers squarely in the middle of one of the hottest new drug markets. It also raises a question: Are taxpayers getting a good deal? Defenders say that the partnership will likely bring a lifesaving treatment to patients, something the government cannot really do by itself, and that that is what matters most. Critics say that taxpayers will end up paying twice for the same drug once to support its development and a second time to buy it while the company reaps the financial benefit. "If this was not a government funded cancer treatment if it was for a new solar technology, for example it would be scandalous to think that some private investors are reaping massive profits off a taxpayer funded invention," said James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, an advocacy group concerned with access to medicines. Dr. Rosenberg and Dr. Belldegrun in the mid 1980s. Dr. Belldegrun became a research fellow for Dr. Rosenberg at the cancer institute in 1985. The debate goes squarely to one of the nation's most vexing challenges: rising health care and drug prices. Kite is one of a growing number of drug and biotech companies relying on federal laboratories. Analysts expect the company to charge at least 200,000 for the new treatment, which is intended as a one time therapy for patients. While the law allows the government to demand drug price concessions from its private sector partners, the government has declined to do so with Kite and generally disdains the practice. Insisting on lower prices, federal researchers say, would drive away innovative partners that speed the drug development process and benefit patients. But with the government doing so much pivotal research, others say that the private sector cannot afford to walk away. "The market is so reliant on the knowledge and know how that comes out of the government and academic labs," said Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, director of the Program on Regulation, Therapeutics and Law at Brigham Women's Hospital in Boston. Price curbs, he said, "would not suddenly lead to a total abandonment of this pipeline. It couldn't possibly." Drug makers would be especially unlikely to turn away from immunotherapy, where the promising science has set off a "gold rush mentality," according to Mark Edwards of Bioscience Advisors, a company which tracks pharmaceutical licensing deals. The National Institutes of Health, the parent agency of the National Cancer Institute, currently has about 400 cooperative research agreements with companies, and licenses hundreds of patented inventions for private sector development. Kite's first drug, called KTE C19, could help thousands of patients each year in the United States with certain blood cancers. If it succeeds, it could generate sales of 1 billion to 2 billion annually, according to Wall Street analysts, making it among the most lucrative drugs to come from government research. But the government's share of any Kite success would be modest, much lower than some academic research groups have wrangled in immunotherapy deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Federal officials counter that the reward to the taxpayer is not money but the drug itself. "This is exactly the way things should work," said Dr. Steven Rosenberg, who has led the surgery branch at the National Cancer Institute for 42 years and led development of Kite's drug. Such partnerships, he said, are "absolutely essential or many discoveries will not see the light of day." Moreover, government officials say, companies in such deals must take significant financial risks and expenditures on their own, without any guarantee that the drug will be approved. Kite says it has spent more than 200 million on research and development, including running larger clinical trials than those conducted by the cancer institute, and recently spent about 30 million to build a factory that will be able to make treatments for up to 5,000 patients a year. When the fellowship ended in 1988, Dr. Belldegrun became a prominent surgeon at the University of California, Los Angeles, but the two men stayed in touch. Eventually, Dr. Belldegrun, 67, got the entrepreneurial bug. He co founded a biotech company, Agensys, which was acquired by a bigger company for more than 500 million. He was also involved with Cougar Biotechnology, which developed the prostate cancer drug Zytiga and was acquired by Johnson Johnson for 1 billion in May 2009. A month later, Dr. Belldegrun formed Kite with a group of colleagues and investors to pursue cancer immunotherapy. That same month, a Florida marine contractor named Eric Karlson, whose non Hodgkin's lymphoma was advancing despite four prior treatments, became the first patient treated by Dr. Rosenberg with what would eventually become KTE C19. The treatment entailed removing some of Mr. Karlson's immune system T cells from his blood, genetically engineering them to recognize and fight his cancer, multiplying the T cells to huge numbers in the laboratory and transferring them back into his body. After two such treatments, Mr. Karlson remains alive and cancer free eight years later. Kite initially thought it would pursue an approach to immunotherapy known as cancer vaccines, but in 2010, Dr. Belldegrun visited Dr. Rosenberg and was shown the X rays of Mr. Karlson and of a second patient. Dr. Belldegrun was bowled over. "I had no doubt that this is going to be a drug and, more than that, it will become a platform for multiple products," he recalled. "We never looked back." Over the next two years, the National Cancer Institute worked out a deal with Kite that was signed in 2012. It was the first of eight contracts between the government and the company that generally take two forms. In one type of contract, Kite licenses patented inventions and agrees to pay the government royalties, roughly 5 percent of sales of any commercial product arising from a particular patent. However, there is no such license specifically for KTE C19 because the underlying treatment was not patented by the N.C.I., so royalties will be minimal. Officials say the agency did not apply for a patent because the treatment was similar to what others had been developing. Also, at the time the treatment was first created, in 2007, immunotherapy was considered to have dim commercial prospects. "Back then, we didn't even think about commercial aspects," said Dr. James N. Kochenderfer, a scientist at the agency who designed the treatment when working in Dr. Rosenberg's group. The taxpayer has invested, too. Dr. Rosenberg estimated that the government has spent roughly 10 million over the years on what has become KTE C19. He said Kite's 3 million a year is about equal to the taxpayer funding in that area and has helped speed research. These days, researchers from Kite and the cancer institute, typically including Dr. Rosenberg and Dr. Belldegrun, confer by conference call every other Thursday for 90 minutes. Kite employees have spent long periods at the N.C.I., learning how to manufacture the therapy and how to treat patients in advance with chemotherapy. "We shouldn't underestimate the value and the importance of N.I.H., not only to Kite but to the whole field of engineered T cell therapy," Dr. Belldegrun said. When Kite signed its first deal with the cancer agency, he said, it "tapped into six years of monumental work that they had done." Some immunotherapy competitors marvel at the company's coup in tapping into the agency's expertise. "They got 20 years of research all together in one scoop," said Dr. Carlos Paya, chief executive of Immune Design, which is pursuing a different approach. But government officials say few, if any, other companies were interested in the technology at the time Dr. Belldegrun came calling. Dr. Rosenberg said that before Kite, a few companies, including Johnson Johnson, had looked at an earlier version of his technology but were wary because treatment involved processing each patient's cells. Government developed technology available to be licensed to companies is posted on the website of the National Institutes of Health. And when the agency intends to grant a license to a particular company, it publishes that in the Federal Register, inviting public comment and possible competing offers. Both steps were taken in the case of Kite, officials said. Kite did not get everything the cancer institute has developed in the field. Some other companies, including Opus Bio and Bluebird Bio, got rights to some products, in part because the companies had special expertise that the agency's researchers desired. But Kite seems to have gotten the balance of them and N.C.I. technology accounts for the majority of its pipeline of possible products, though the company is diversifying. Dr. Rosenberg professes no interest in the business side of the Kite relationship. He does not own stock in any company, even Kite, though he could get up to 150,000 a year in patent royalties if some of Kite's efforts pay off. Dr. Belldegrun, in contrast to his mentor, has commercial flair. He is known for his sharp business suits, lives in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, and seems as comfortable on Wall Street or in high society as in the operating room. Kite's relationship with the N.C.I. is an important part of its appeal to investors. In some presentations, Dr. Belldegrun has shown a photograph of himself with Dr. Rosenberg in their younger days. And he persuaded Dr. Rosenberg to speak at Kite's first big meeting for investors in June 2015, the only time he has ever spoken to Wall Street. In emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by Knowledge Ecology International, Dr. Belldegrun praised Dr. Rosenberg's talk and sent him copies of investment reports from the conference written by Wall Street analysts. "Thank you for making the effort to come to NY," Dr. Belldegrun wrote. "I heard only raving reviews about your presence and presentation." The reliance of private companies on government funded research goes well beyond obvious cases like Kite. In many instances, companies work with universities or medical centers that, in turn, have been funded from the 32 billion annual budget of the National Institutes of Health. Rachel Sachs, an associate law professor at Washington University in St. Louis and expert in innovation policy, said the government had every right to seek price concessions. She noted that the government, through Medicare and Medicaid, was effectively buying its inventions back from itself. "The public is paying for the research and to the extent that many people, if not most, will pay through public insurance, we're paying again," she said. Hillary Clinton, in her campaign for president, promised to set new rules for federal support of research so that Americans "get the value they deserve" for the money taxpayers spend in supporting research. It is not clear how President elect Donald J. Trump will approach these issues; he has said he favors reducing health care costs, but Republicans, who control Congress, too, have opposed a government role in price setting. One mechanism to control pricing already exists. It is called march in rights, and it lets the N.I.H. take back control of a patent on an invention made with federal funding if the drug is not being made available to the public on reasonable terms. The tool has gone unused. Earlier this year, Knowledge Ecology International and another advocacy group, the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment, petitioned the agency to exercise march in rights on Xtandi, a prostate cancer drug that was developed by federally funded researchers at U.C.L.A. It said the price in the United States of about 129,000 a year, two to four times that in other developed countries, meant the drug was not reasonably available. The effort was supported by other public interest groups and some Democratic members of Congress. U.C.L.A. made more than 500 million by selling its royalty rights to the drug. But the N.I.H. declined to exercise its march in rights on Xtandi, arguing that it was not qualified to judge whether a drug's price is reasonable and that a high price does not mean a drug is not being made available to the public. "N.I.H. has made it clear that its job is not to decide prices of drugs, period," Dr. Rohrbaugh said Kite says it has not decided what to charge for KTE C19, but Dr. Belldegrun hinted that Kite's therapy might be relatively expensive because ideally it would be a single treatment that would cure the patient, not a drug that would have to be taken continuously. He added that Kite would take steps to make sure that everyone who needed the drug could get it.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
What once seemed like a worst case scenario for Major League Baseball a regular season of roughly 50 games now appears to be all but inevitable. In yet another round of sharply worded statements and correspondence on Saturday night, the players' union rejected the league's latest salary proposal and essentially dared the league commissioner, Rob Manfred, to impose the severely shortened version of the season he has threatened. "It unfortunately appears that further dialogue with the league would be futile," Tony Clark, the head of the players' union, said. "It's time to get back to work. Tell us when and where." The strained relationship and the lack of trust between M.L.B. and the union have been on full display during their talks to begin the season after the coronavirus shutdown. While other major professional sports leagues, including the N.B.A. and the N.H.L., are further along in their resumptions, M.L.B. and the players' union are still mired in a nasty public feud, volleying accusations of bad faith negotiations back and forth. None of this bodes well for their immediate or distant future, with the collective bargaining agreement between the sides due to expire after the 2021 season. On Saturday, the union's chief negotiator, Bruce Meyer, sent a letter to his counterpart at M.L.B., the deputy commissioner Dan Halem, declaring that the union believed negotiations over the 2020 season were at an end. Meyer blamed M.L.B.'s repeated insistence on pay cuts that go beyond a March agreement between the two sides, which stated that players would be paid a prorated salary depending on how many games were played and that the sides would "discuss in good faith the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators." None Everyone Loves Ohtani: The Angels' two way star was a unanimous pick for A.L. M.V.P. and his superfans redefine devotion. Phillie Phavorite: Bryce Harper truly committed to Philadelphia and now he's back on top of baseball, winning the N.L. M.V.P. Cy Young Winners: Milwaukee's Corbin Burnes and Toronto's Robbie Ray had hit rock bottom before they worked their way up to stardom. Baseball Is Stuck in Neutral: The potential of a lockout has a star studded group of free agents waiting for the dust to settle. Free Agency Tracker: Get the latest updates on signings, contract extensions and trades. That pact allowed M.L.B. to set the new 2020 schedule and declared that the league should use its "best efforts to play as many games as possible, while taking into account player safety and health, rescheduling needs, competitive considerations, stadium availability and the economic feasibility of various alternatives." But as it became apparent that any games would most likely have to be played without fans, M.L.B. owners repeatedly sought further pay cuts for players, who have held firm on the issue of receiving their full, prorated salaries. The latest offer from M.L.B. came Friday, calling for players to make 70 percent of their prorated salaries over a 72 game season with the possibility of reaching 80 percent if the playoffs are completed. After the rejection of M.L.B.'s latest proposal, players expressed their exasperation and solidarity with the union on social media, with many echoing the union's message: "Tell us when and where." M.L.B., which interprets the March agreement differently, has argued that the shutdown has cost it billions of dollars already, and that games without fans would cut into revenues even more thus the demands that players take additional cuts. The players' union has asked for and said it hasn't received sufficient documentation from M.L.B., which earned more than 10 billion in revenue last year, to support its financial claims. The union's counterproposals have called for more games as many as 114 than M.L.B. has offered, with full, prorated pay. But the league desperately wants to protect its lucrative postseason revenue by wrapping up the World Series before a potential second wave of coronavirus infections in the fall, and to avoid a cluttered television sports schedule in November. M.L.B. has also sought an expanded postseason format, which would bring in more revenue, but that requires approval from the players. Last week, the St. Louis Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt Jr. said in a radio interview that "the industry isn't very profitable, to be honest," a claim that players resoundingly criticized given the billion dollar values of team franchises and large television contracts. In his statement, Clark, the union chief, alluded to owners crying poor and to reports of a new M.L.B. national television rights deal. (Sports Business Daily reported on Saturday that M.L.B. had reached a new, larger extension with one of its rights holders, Turner Sports, worth 3.29 billion from 2022 to 2028.) If M.L.B. is indeed going to set the 2020 season, which the March agreement allows, Meyer asked M.L.B. to tell players how many games would be played, and when and where to report for work. "It is unfair to leave players and the fans hanging at this point, and further delay risks compromising health and safety," he wrote to Halem. "We demand that you inform us of your plans by close of business on Monday." In its response late Saturday night, M.L.B. said it was "disappointed" that the players' union "has chosen not to negotiate in good faith." The league once again argued that the March agreement was "premised on the parties' mutual understanding that the players would be paid their full salaries only if play resumed in front of fans" a characterization the union disputes. M.L.B. also said that the union's position on pay "is not fair to the thousands of other baseball employees that clubs and our office are supporting financially during this very difficult 2020 season." It concluded: "We will evaluate the union's refusal to adhere to the terms of the March agreement, and after consulting with ownership, determine the best course to bring baseball back to our fans." While M.L.B. could still come back with another proposal, and the union could file a grievance over a proposed season from M.L.B., Meyer's letter on Saturday closed by addressing more immediate unfinished business.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
LOS ANGELES The arrest of a public school teacher here early this month came with plenty of vivid details, thanks to hundreds of photographs that the police say show the teacher covering the eyes and mouths of children with tape and allowing cockroaches to crawl over faces. Those accusations alone were enough to prompt outrage. But more came: Another teacher at the same school was arrested on charges of sexually abusing children. Then came news reports that two aides at the school had been fired after being accused of abuse, and that one had been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Within days, other allegations surfaced at schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District: A high school music teacher was removed after being accused of showering with students; a third grade teacher was being investigated for more than a dozen accusations of sexual abuse; an elementary school janitor was arrested and accused of lewd acts against a child. And on Wednesday, a high school softball coach and special education teacher was arrested on charges of sending inappropriate messages to children over the Internet. There is no evidence to suggest that these abuse accusations are connected. But they have put an intense spotlight on the way the district monitors its employees and responds to reports of abuse. Most of the attention has centered on Miramonte Elementary, a working class school in South Los Angeles where, the police say, dozens of students were abused over several years. Many of the students are children of Latino immigrants, and some worry that parents were reluctant to report the allegations to the police because of their legal status. Mark Berndt, the teacher accused of photographing students as he abused them, was removed from the classroom last spring, but parents were not told of the accusations or the investigation. He has been charged with 23 counts of lewd acts upon a child. After the arrests of Mr. Berndt and the second teacher, many parents at the school said that they were worried for the safety of their children and that administrators had failed to fulfill their basic responsibility. John Deasy, who became the district's superintendent a year ago, responded by transferring the entire staff, shutting the school for two days and putting a new teacher and a social worker in each classroom. The rapid removal of a school's entire staff is unprecedented nationally, several education experts said. The old staff will remain at an unopened school until investigations by the sheriff and school district are completed. "We really need to be erring on the side of caution on behalf of our students," Mr. Deasy said in an interview. "When something like this emerges, our only choice is to act, and the last thing I wanted was any more surprises." Mr. Deasy said he was confident he had made the right decision. "When I told the parents about the decision, I stood in front of a room with thousands of people applauding," he said. The school district, the nation's second largest, covers the city of Los Angeles and all or parts of several neighboring communities and unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County, and as a result, it must work with several law enforcement agencies. Mr. Deasy said the district was trying to sort out each agency's policies. In Mr. Berndt's case, school district officials said, the sheriff's department told them not to speak to any staff members or parents about the matter until the inquiry was completed. On Wednesday, the state agency that accredits teachers sent Mr. Deasy a letter saying he should have informed it when Mr. Berndt was removed from the district last spring, rather than waiting for his arrest, to ensure that he could not be hired in another district. Perhaps the primary issue, Mr. Deasy said, is what happens after a teacher is accused of wrongdoing. He said that in many cases the district did not appear to keep any central records of accusations of abuse, even if they were substantiated, as long as no formal charges were pressed. "You can have something that is not criminal but is clearly inappropriate, and the question is: Why would we want that person teaching our children?" he said. School officials said Mr. Berndt was investigated 18 years ago on suspicion of trying to molest a girl, but prosecutors said there had not been enough evidence to charge him. It is unclear whether details about that inquiry were kept in the district's central files. Under state law, any school employee who suspects child abuse is required to report it to law enforcement officials. Warren Fletcher, the president of the city's teachers' union, said that every teacher knows the law and that there is no evidence that other teachers were aware of Mr. Berndt's actions. When the staff was transferred, Mr. Fletcher said, the district was unfairly penalizing innocent teachers. "To remove every teacher because of the actions of two is really using a hatchet where a scalpel might be better," he said. "These teachers are traumatized, and to suggest that they knew something bad was going on suggests that they are criminals, which is really irresponsible." Some question whether Miramonte's size contributed to the problem. With nearly 1,200 students, it is the district's second largest elementary school. Mr. Fletcher said the principal was the only manager at the school and suggested there was "evidence of failure of supervision." The district does not keep track of the number of teachers accused of sexual abuse, but 853 have been pulled from the classroom over the past year for a variety of reasons, a sharp increase largely because Mr. Deasy has encouraged the removal of teachers deemed incompetent. From 2008 until June 2011, 699 teachers were removed from the classroom because of accusations of wrongdoing.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Education
Halfway through the first Democratic primary debate in Miami Wednesday night, NBC brought on a second shift of moderators four hours over two nights, you've got to conserve your energy. Chuck Todd began to ask a question about gun violence. Then he stopped. What were those sounds? There was talking coming from everywhere. The previous moderators' microphones, it appeared, had been left on. Ten potential future presidents smiled and stood puzzled. There were so many voices, no one could make anything out. The snafu, on NBC's most anticipated planned political event of the year so far, forced the network to cut to commercial. But it was also the first debate in a nutshell: a lot of talking, but, with 10 voices hoping not to get lost in the mix, less actual debating. A degree of overwhelmingness was built into the event long before NBC went into "Please Stand By" mode. The debate had to accommodate, between Wednesday and Thursday, enough candidates to field two baseball teams plus managers. The Democratic Party took pains to divide the 20 eligible candidates so that there would be no undercard debate. But let's be real: This was an undercard debate. Or rather, it was a nine way undercard debate, interspersed with an interview with Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who received few direct challenges from rivals, despite, or because of, being the top polling candidate in the group. The tableau of the 10 hopefuls showed how this debate season would be different from those past: diverse in background (not to mention height), with three female candidates on this night alone. Ms. Warren received the first question and, as the participant with the highest polling numbers, gave the last closing remarks. But in between, there were a lot of guys jostling, and talking over one another, to grab attention. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, looming at one end of the stage, nudged and honked his way into the proceedings like an SUV cutting in to Midtown traffic. Former Representative Beto O'Rourke of Texas gave a lengthy chunk of his first answer in Spanish. Representative Tim Ryan and former Representative John Delaney called for notice, like hungry birds in a nest. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey carried the attention contest at least in terms of volume, speaking more than anyone else on stage. Highlights From the First Democratic Debate Ten candidates in the presidential primary faced off on immigration, health care and the economy. "Who is this economy really working for? It's doing great for a thinner and thinner slice at the top." "Senator Warren " "Senator Warren?" "Senator Warren?" "Senator Warren?" "You know, I'm very different than everyone else here on this stage." "Something that sets me apart " "I was an entrepreneur." "I've been raising a black son." "I'm proud to have been the first governor " "I think I'm the only one " " to stand up against Donald Trump's heinous Muslim ban." "I hear gunshots in my neighborhood." "I enlisted in the Army National Guard after the Al Qaeda terror attacks on 9/11." "I'm one of the few candidates in this race with executive experience." "Who here would abolish their private health insurance in favor of a government run plan just a show of hands to start out with?" "Why are you defending private insurance to begin with?" "They like their private health insurance, by the way. It should be noted that 100 million Americans I mean, I think we should be the party that keeps what's working and fixes what's broken." "I want to go back, if I can, to Congresswoman Gabbard." "Lester " "If I were president today, I would sign an executive order that would get rid of Trump's zero tolerance policy, the remain in Mexico policy and the metering policy. And it would go to the root cause of the issue, which is we need a Marshall Plan for Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador, so that people can find safety and opportunity at home instead of coming to the United States to seek it." "Wind turbines " "Electric vehicles " "Green energy " "Fossil fuels " "Solar and other renewables " "Our existential threat is climate change. We have to confront it before it's too late." "Senator Warren?" "Climate change." "Senator Booker." "Nuclear proliferation and climate change." "Secretary Castro?" "China and climate change." "And health care also has to mean that every woman can make her own decisions about her own body and has access to the care that makes that possible." "Let's also not forget, someone in the trans community, a trans female is poor doesn't mean they shouldn't have the right to exercise that right to choose." "And I am the only candidate here who has passed a law protecting a woman's right of reproductive health in health insurance." "I just want to say there's three women up here that have fought pretty hard for a woman's right to choose. So I'll start with that." "Weird." "What's happening?" "We are hearing our colleagues' audio. I if the control room can turn off the mics?" "Do you have a plan to deal with Mitch McConnell?" "I do." Ten candidates in the presidential primary faced off on immigration, health care and the economy. There was a scrambling for the lifeboats energy to the debate, everyone well aware that there will be only so many seats to carry rivals to the more selective debates of the fall. Candidates came with targeted pitches and zingers and catchphrases familiar to the faithful audience. (Ms. Warren got some of the night's biggest cheers referencing her "I have a plan" mantra.) It was, nonetheless, a change from the pro wrestling 2016 debates that introduced Donald J. Trump as candidate . The disagreements were sometimes sharp but not insulting. No one attacked a moderator, and the moderators, while calling out candidates for evading answers, didn't prod one on one fights as sometimes happened in the last cycle. If a season of debates is like a TV serial arcs developing over time, each episode drawing on conflicts introduced in the last this one was a big ensemble pilot with a lot of exposition and some quick sketching of themes, aspirants cramming bits of stump speech into one minute answers. This seemed to stifle candidates like Mr. O'Rourke, the former punk band member who favors long windups building to emotional choruses. Notably, the poll leaders did not come in for much direct attack, but perhaps seeming a more vulnerable or safer target Mr. O'Rourke did, from Mr. de Blasio and the former housing secretary Julian Castro, who stood out with passionate answers throughout the night. Even if the debate didn't shed much light, the stage did. NBC built a high luminosity arena of technodemocracy, every possible surface glowing, the candidates parked at translucent prisms that glowed blue and winked red when they spoke. (A bit of mixed partisan color messaging.) The opening backdrop, what appeared to be an elongated, low rise rendering of the White House or at least a white house matched the field: wide and with a lot of room, but with stature only toward the middle of the stage.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
When Steve Jobs introduced the first iPad in 2010, he described the tablet as a product that sat somewhere between the laptop and the smartphone, excelling at tasks like browsing the web, reviewing photos and watching videos. Five years later, Mr. Jobs's successor, Timothy D. Cook, took the iPad a step further. Unveiling the iPad Pro, a souped up tablet that worked with Apple's keyboard and stylus, he remarked that people would try the product and "conclude they no longer need to use anything else, other than their phones." That prediction has not appeared to come true. Many professionals say they use an iPad in addition to a personal computer, and sales of iPads have shrunk quarter after quarter for more than a year, an indication that hordes of people were not trading in their PCs for tablets just yet. That situation is unlikely to change with Apple's newest iPad Pro, which will be released this week. The professional tablet, which comes in two screen sizes 10.5 or 12.9 diagonal inches is incrementally improved from previous models. It is faster, with a brighter display and a higher refresh rate that makes motion look buttery smooth. In addition, the screen on the smaller iPad Pro has been enlarged slightly from 9.7 inches. But after about a week of testing the 10.5 inch iPad Pro, I concluded that Apple's professional tablet still suffers from some of the same problems when compared with a laptop. Most important, keyboard typing is not comfortable, and some tasks are better done with a mouse than with a touch screen. In the end, I would still recommend a traditional laptop for most professionals. The most significant improvement to the iPad Pro is speed. The new tablet is notably faster: In speed tests run with the app Geekbench, the new iPad Pro was roughly 50 percent faster than its predecessor. That means if you upgrade from an iPad older than last year's model, you will get a tremendous speed increase. The speed boost makes the new iPad Pro better at intense tasks like juggling multiple apps, editing high resolution photos and playing graphics heavy games. The new iPad Pros also include a higher screen refresh rate. That makes motion look smoother, which is noticeable when opening or closing apps and scrolling through documents or websites. It is also supposed to make some games look better, but as of this writing, game developers had yet to update their apps to support the higher refresh rate. The other notable change is the increased screen size of the smaller iPad Pro. Apple slimmed down the bezel or the border surrounding the screen to make more room for the display; the tablet's body is also slightly larger and heavier. Over all, this is a better size for the smaller iPad Pro, partly because the increased size also gave room for Apple to make a slightly larger version of its physical keyboard, called Smart Keyboard. Apple also made a nice improvement to its accessories for carrying and protecting the iPad Pro. It now sells a stylish 129 leather sleeve that includes a holder for its stylus, Apple Pencil, which addresses a concern that people could easily lose the stylus. The sleeve is just roomy enough to also hold an iPad Pro with a Smart Keyboard cover folded over it. Enlarging the smaller iPad Pro was an effort to address the tablet's greatest weakness: typing. The Smart Keyboard is essentially a protective cover for the screen with a keyboard and magnet built into it. When you open it, the tablet rests on top of the keyboard, held in place by the magnet. Here's the problem: The Smart Keyboard is thin and the keys do not click well or feel as satisfying to type on as the keyboards on a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air; after a long period of typing, the Smart Keyboard felt flimsy. The keyboard for the 10.5 inch model is still small and cramped compared with a MacBook keyboard. The other issue is ergonomics. Using the touch screen in combination with the Apple keyboard can be a pain on the wrist. Say, for example, you are using the keyboard to scroll through an email or website: If you want to open a link, you have to lift your hand away from the keyboard and tap the link. Or say you want to adjust the screen brightness or hit pause on a music track while typing: Both actions require reaching up and touching the screen. These keyboard to touch screen reps get tiring. In my experience, using a keyboard and trackpad on a laptop feels like a more comfortable combination for crunching through a busy day of emails, messages, documents, spreadsheets and calendar entries. The other issues with the iPad are related to software and may be resolved this year. For example, you can have two apps open side by side with the iPad Pro. You can use each app independently, but the two apps cannot interact with each other easily: You cannot drag and drop a photo or file from one app to the other, for example. Fortunately, Apple is set to release a drag and drop feature this fall in iOS 11, its next mobile operating system. The operating system will also add the ability to display up to three apps at the same time and introduce a file system, which could make juggling tasks between applications easier. In its current state, the iPad Pro is in an awkward position among Apple's product lineup. A small set of professionals who do not do much typing like artists and illustrators could probably get away with using an iPad Pro with a stylus as a stand alone computer. But most professionals would probably benefit from using a personal computer combined with a smartphone and tablet. There is little reason to consider an iPad Pro, which starts at about 649, if you are not also planning to purchase the optional 159 Apple Smart Keyboard or 99 Apple Pencil. It would be overkill to spend that much on an iPad without the accessories. If all you are looking for is a tablet for casual purposes like streaming Netflix, reading books or sending email, a standard iPad that lacks compatibility with the Apple keyboard and stylus costs 329 and will be powerful enough to suit your needs. (Or you could just get a big screen smartphone and skip tablets altogether.) As for me, I must confess: I used the iPad Pro in research and outlining for this review. But when it came to writing it while reviewing notes simultaneously, I switched back to my MacBook Air, largely because the keyboard felt better to type on and it was easier to multitask with several apps.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
As she began her junior year at New York University, Vanessa Csordas Jenkins planned to live with two friends. But the plan fell through, and she and her friends ended up in the Broome Street dorm along with four strangers. The students shared a suite with six bedrooms and a living room. Ms. Csordas Jenkins's room, classified as "low cost," was 6,090 for the semester. (A single room, which she had requested, was 8,632.) Worse, the walls had "ventilation gaps" near the top, so "they are essentially unfinished walls that let in noise and light," she said. If a roommate was in the living room, the noise kept her awake. Ms. Csordas Jenkins who had received a diagnosis of a sleep disorder five years ago was exhausted and cranky. "I checked the box that said are you willing to pay more, because I need to be a healthy person," she said. "That request was denied. Presumably there were no open spaces, which was understandable, but certainly didn't help me any." Earplugs combined with a white noise machine were not enough. "It was impossible for me to live comfortably in that situation," she said. Sullivan Street The main thing a ground floor studio had going for it was proximity to New York University. But the place seemed too dark. Ms. Csordas Jenkins, 21, who is from San Diego, was released from her housing contract. She had just over a week to vacate. She contacted Deborah V. Hughes of Bond New York, who had helped a friend find a new home. For a place that was quiet, bright and within walking distance of N.Y.U., her budget, funded by her parents, was 1,850 a month. "We raced to see everything that was on the market," Ms. Hughes said. For 1,795 a month, a ground floor studio on Sullivan Street was perfectly located, though tiny and dark. The entry was through a narrow gated alleyway. "I was unhappy in my dorm situation," Ms. Csordas Jenkins said, "and it would be pointless for me to move into a dark little hole that I wouldn't be happy in, just because it was my own." That attitude was familiar to Ms. Hughes. "I do think it depresses people when they don't have enough sunshine coming in," she said. "They say: 'I should have just waited it out or gone a couple of flights higher for the sunshine.' " On East 25th Street, near Second Avenue, a studio in the back of a small 1920 walk up building with a sleeping loft was available for 1,950 a month. Ms. Csordas Jenkins, an aspiring actress who is studying theater and dramatic literature, liked it but thought it was too far from campus. East 25th Street On the other hand, distance from N.Y.U. removed a one bedroom near Second Avenue from the running. She knew she would fret about rising early enough for class. "It seemed like the potential for a really stressful situation for me if I woke up late and had to wait for the train," she said. She also wanted to avoid the sirens that came with proximity to the hospitals along First Avenue. As they waited for the keys to a 1,745 a month studio nearby, Ms. Hughes saw on her iPad that two new studio listings had popped up in a building near Union Square. She was familiar with the building, a 1900 neo Renaissance style co op with a beautiful marble lobby and a virtual doorman. The co op is filled with small studios and one bedrooms, many of which are rented out. Ms. Hughes knew demand would be high. "Prewar buildings tend to be a little more solid," she said. And co ops generally encourage quiet among neighbors. It seemed a good bet. By the time they arrived, about 15 minutes later, one apartment had already been rented. The remaining studio was small not quite 240 square feet but "all of the wall space is usable aside from the kitchen area," Ms. Hughes said. The bathroom had a window and the closet was ample. The back view included plenty of sky. Ms. Csordas Jenkins "kind of lifted an eyebrow and said, 'It's a little bit small and I love it,' " Ms. Hughes said. "You can just tell when it feels right." They opened the windows to check the noise from outdoors. "That's all we could do at that point," Ms. Csordas Jenkins said. "We couldn't really watch to see if the neighbors were loud, because everyone was at work." She texted pictures to her parents, who also liked what they saw, and agreed to the rent of 2,100 a month. "I am grateful for my parents because I know how expensive my tuition is," Ms. Csordas Jenkins said. There wasn't time to be fussy. She had to be out of the dorm in three days. Her new building, however, didn't allow moves at night or on weekends, so she had to move that very same afternoon.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Illustration by The New York Times; photographs by Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi, Joshua Lott, Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times and Getty Images Illustration by The New York Times; photographs by Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi, Joshua Lott, Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times and Getty Images Credit... Illustration by The New York Times; photographs by Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi, Joshua Lott, Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times and Getty Images This article is part of the Debatable newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A little over a month ago, not very far from where I live, a small group of Brooklyn residents were enjoying a late night cookout near a local playground when two gunmen dressed in black approached the group and fired shots, killing a 1 year old child in his stroller. The child, Davell Gardner Jr., was another tragic victim of a wave of gun violence that swept New York City in June and July. And not just New York. Murders have spiked this summer in large cities across the country, even as other violent crimes have decreased. What's behind the rise, and how should cities respond when trust in law enforcement has sunk to record lows? Here's what people are saying. Fluctuations in crime rates are notoriously difficult to explain. In fact, criminologists still don't agree on what caused the major decline in crime in the United States over the past three decades, which makes accounting for this most recent spike especially difficult. Still, a few potential theories have emerged. Murder rates typically increase in the summer, but experts told The Times that the coronavirus has compounded the socioeconomic stressors that often give rise to gun violence, including poverty, unemployment, housing instability and hunger. In Kansas City, for example, my colleagues have reported that many recent shootings have seemingly had no clear rationale, often arising from petty arguments that devolve into violence. In many cases, economic hardship appeared to play a role. "The pandemic has exacerbated the root causes of gun violence," Michael Sean Spence, policy and implementation director at the nonprofit group Everytown for Gun Safety, told The Times. "What we're seeing is almost a perfect storm." The killings by police officers of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor that sparked protests around the country may also have contributed to a climate of despair and desperation. In Kansas City, the Rev. Darren Faulkner, who runs a program that provides social support to those deemed most at risk of violence, said that such cases had left many of his clients feeling "hopelessly trapped in a system in which they will never thrive." Some elected officials have suggested that law enforcement agencies may be partly to blame for the rise in crime. In New York, gun arrests started to plummet in mid May even as shootings began to surge, raising concerns that officers were staging a work slowdown as a form of retaliation against the protests. But police officials have denied the accusations; rather, they say, the decline in gun arrests resulted from a need to divert personnel and resources to the protests, which has prevented them from stamping out feuds between street gangs that they say are responsible for most of the recent killings. This would not be the first time that high profile killings by officers coincided with a spike in murder rates, which rose nationally in the wake of the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. Some observers called this phenomenon the "Ferguson effect," positing that the protests against police brutality had made officers more afraid or unwilling to do their jobs. But the Ferguson effect is a much disputed idea. Some crime experts have turned the theory on its head, claiming that high profile killings by the police make people, especially people of color, more loath to call the police in the first place. "When trust in police falls, more people decide they don't want to have anything to do with the police," Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri St. Louis, told HuffPost. "That means that when disputes arise, they're more likely to take matters into their own hands." In The Washington Post, Christopher Ingraham offers another simple explanation for the rise in gun violence: Americans are buying an extraordinary number of guns. Firearm sales between March and June exceeded predictions by some three million guns, and in June reached the highest levels on record since data collection began in 1998, according to a Brookings study. And where there are more guns, there are more shootings. The Brookings study found this most recent spike in firearm sales was different from previous ones in another crucial respect: Gun purchases have been higher in states with greater levels of racial animus. "Taken together, the findings paint a particularly bleak picture of the United States in 2020," Mr. Ingraham writes. "Reeling from a pandemic, an economic downturn and a national reckoning with racism and police brutality, many Americans are choosing to arm themselves in the hope, perhaps, of protecting themselves in the event that circumstances get worse." Despite this most recent increase in shootings, national crime rates are still at or near the lowest levels they've been in a generation. As German Lopez notes in Vox, even the cities experiencing spikes are still safer than they were just a few years ago. In New York, for example, murder numbers were up as of June from last year, but were comparable to those the city had in 2015. The key question, then, is whether the surge is an isolated event or the beginning of a longer term trend. Moving forward, though, no one can be sure about what will happen. "This is such a weird year in so many dimensions, and it's going to take us a while to figure out what caused any of these differences in crime," Jennifer Doleac, an associate professor of economics and director of the Justice Tech Lab at Texas A M, told The Times. "It is perfectly reasonable to think the first half of this year may not tell us what the rest of the year will look like." What can be done to stop more shootings from happening? Because the causes of the shooting spike are up for debate, the solutions are equally so. Still, in a report for the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan research organization, Dr. Rosenfeld and Ernesto Lopez argue that there are some evidence based measures that could help stem the tide. Concentrating law enforcement in "hot spots" of criminal activity, for example, is associated with modest reductions in crime. But not everyone thinks that more policing is the answer. In The New Yorker, Keeanga Yamahtta Taylor notes that the city of Chicago has nearly tripled its per capita police spending over the past 56 years, but Black residents are no safer, and its failures to curb community and police violence through conventional law enforcement have produced a crisis of mental health, particularly among Black residents. A task force report commissioned by the mayor in 2016 concluded that the Chicago Police Department's own data "gives validity to the widely held belief the police have no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to people of color." During the pandemic, many cities have maintained or even tried to increase their police budgets while making cuts to public services meant to mitigate poverty and promote social mobility, which in turn fuels calls for more policing. It would be better, Dr. Taylor argues, to reroute funding from the police to address the underlying causes of crime. Calls for such reinvestment proposals have grown louder in the wake of the George Floyd protests while also dividing local Black and Latino lawmakers, including Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago. "Many Americans Are Convinced Crime Is Rising In The U.S. They're Wrong." FiveThirtyEight "Chicago's Rise in Shootings" The New York Times Here's what readers had to say about the last debate: What does the Democratic Party stand for? Deb from Oregon: "Congressional progressive members can win liberal districts but a president has to represent all of us. Seniors tend to vote more consistently than most groups and most of those that lean Democrat are center left like Biden. Many of the platforms of the left of the party are wished for by voters but a huge ship like the United States takes a long time to turn safely." Randall from Texas: "Trump's drive toward authoritarian rule has been tempered by his own laziness and incompetence. If, as Biden promised his wealthy donors, 'nothing will fundamentally change' in a Biden administration, we will open ourselves to the election of another right wing populist authoritarian in 2024, and the next one is unlikely to be as lazy or incompetent. If centrist Democrats think President Trump is bad, just wait until they get a look at President Tom Cotton or President Josh Hawley." David from Indiana: "Much is unclear about the future of the Democratic Party and a Biden administration perhaps nowhere more than on arms control and foreign policy. Kamala Harris voted against an amendment that Bernie Sanders proposed this summer to cut the 740 billion military budget by 10 percent. Will Biden stop the new generation of 'usable' nuclear weapons that are designed for 'limited' nuclear war? As a group of former senior officials wrote to Congress, 'limited' nuclear war is a fantasy; the reality would be uncontrollable escalation."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
The psychological fallout from the coronavirus pandemic has yet to fully show itself, but some experts have forecast a tsunami of new disorders, and news accounts have amplified that message. The World Health Organization warned in May of "a massive increase in mental health conditions in the coming months," wrought by anxiety and isolation. Digital platforms such as Crisis Text Line and Talkspace regularly reported spikes in activity through the spring. And more than half of American adults said the pandemic had worsened their mental health, according to a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. But this wave of new mental problems is still well offshore, and it could yet prove to be a mirage. Psychiatrists and therapists who work with people in the wake of earthquakes, hurricanes and other disasters noted that surges in anxiety and helplessness were natural reactions that seldom become traumatic or chronic. Surveys that ask people about their emotions are poor predictors of lasting distress, and the prevalence of severe mental disorders, like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are stable and very unlikely to have changed because of the pandemic. Most people living with these conditions needed continuous care before the virus took hold and will still need it when outbreaks are contained. "In most disasters, the vast majority of people do well," said Dr. Steven Southwick, a professor of psychiatry at Yale who has worked with survivors after numerous cataclysms, including mass shootings. "Very few people understand how resilient they really are until faced with extraordinary circumstances. In fact, one of our first jobs in these situations is to call attention to just that." Prescription trends provide little evidence of an explosion in mental disorders in recent months. In March, at the height of the epidemic in many regions, prescriptions for anti anxiety drugs such as Xanax and Klonopin were up by 15 percent over February; antidepressants were up by 14 percent, and sleeping pills by 5 percent, according to data provided by OptumRx, the pharmacy benefit arm of UnitedHealth Group. But those rates began to decline in early April. And the total prescriptions in that month were 8.7 million for anxiety drugs and 27.4 million for antidepressants very close to their usual averages for April, according to data supplied by IQVIA, a health care analytics firm. Prescriptions for other categories of psychiatric drugs, like anti psychosis medications, remained at average monthly levels through March and April. "Modest transient rises in the use of antidepressant and anxiety medications allay concerns over the pandemic having driven steep increases in common mood and anxiety disorders," Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia, said in an email. The March bump in prescriptions for anxiety drugs in particular could partly reflect people stockpiling medications that they were already taking, or increasing their dosage, he said. In the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, many health officials also were concerned about a wave of new mental disorders that might overwhelm the system. In a 2004 study, researchers dug into prescription data for the month before and after the terrorist attack, comparing prescription rates across a range of psychiatric drugs. "The acute shock and fear of the events of September 11 were not accompanied by a commensurate increase in the use of psychotropic medications," they concluded, except for a modest increase in New York City. The evidence from recent surveys asking people about their emotions during the pandemic is not convincing one way or the other either, experts said. One reason is that these surveys often do not make distinctions between people in the thick of the action front line workers, in this case and everyone else. Millions of Americans have been juggling Zoom cocktail hours with Netflix binges: a time management challenge, perhaps, but not one that has been linked to prolonged trauma. Who should get a booster shot? It depends, Dr. Scott Gottlieb says. Virginia's new lieutenant governor elect says she won't force vaccines. Moreover, psychological distress usually takes time to consolidate into the kind of persistent condition that drives people to seek treatment, revealing a diagnosable psychiatric disorder. Generalized anxiety disorder, for instance, is defined in part by excessive anxiety for at least six months. Post traumatic stress requires, first, experiencing a life threatening event, either personally; through a loved one; or up close, like witnessing deaths in an intensive care unit. Nightmares and other reverberations of the trauma are common, but these typically must persist for at least three months to qualify for the full diagnosis of a chronic condition. "There are a number of surveys out there, and I think they are all useful, to some extent," said Emma Beth McGinty, an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "But they're using a mishmash of measures of symptoms of depression and anxiety, and not a validated psychiatric instrument," or questionnaire. The best American survey to date, posted early this month by JAMA and led by Dr. McGinty, administered a standard, widely studied psychiatric questionnaire online to a nationally representative sample of 1,468 adults. It found that 14 percent of people had high levels of psychological distress, compared with an average of 4 percent during the pre Covid era. It found little difference in respondents' feelings of loneliness, compared to averages before the pandemic. "The longer people experience these levels of psychological distress, the more likely they are to present with a diagnosis that would benefit from treatment," Dr. McGinty said in a phone interview. "But the question of whether that's really going to happen is an open one. We did this in early April, right as the shutdown and stay at home orders were implemented, when people were experiencing all this for the first time. One might hypothesize that the stress has eased, we've gotten more used to this and the world has opened up a bit." Dr. McGinty and her collaborators plan to conduct another such survey later this summer, she said, and possibly one in the fall, to see whether levels of psychological distress change as the epidemic changes shape through the year. The fear of infection and disruptions caused by the coronavirus, without question, have intensified the distress of many individuals, especially those who have lost regular access to care as a result, or who had pre existing dread of infections from obsessive compulsive disorder, for example.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
An insight into the peopling of Europe has emerged from an unlikely source the stomach contents of a 5,300 year old body pulled from a thawing glacier in the eastern Italian Alps. Since his discovery in 1991, Otzi the Iceman, as he was named, has provided a trove of information about the life of Europeans at that time. His long frozen tissues have now yielded another surprise: Scientists have been able to recover from his stomach samples of Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that infects about half the human population and can occasionally cause stomach ulcers. The bacterium is transmitted only through intimate contact, and its distribution around the world matches almost perfectly the distribution of human populations. The bacterium's genetic variations are therefore used by researchers as a supplement to human genetics in tracking ancient human migrations. Researchers led by Frank Maixner and Albert Zink of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman, at the European Research Academy in Bolzano, Italy, reported on Thursday in Science that they had been able to reconstruct the entire DNA sequence of the ulcer bacterium from samples taken from the iceman's stomach.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
In 2010, scientists made a startling discovery about our past: About 50,000 years ago, Neanderthals interbred with the ancestors of living Europeans and Asians. Now two teams of researchers have come to another intriguing conclusion: Neanderthals interbred with the ancestors of Asians at a second point in history, giving them an extra infusion of Neanderthal DNA. The findings are further evidence that our genomes contain secrets about our evolution that we might have missed by looking at fossils alone. "We're learning new, big picture things from the genetic data, rather than just filling in details," said Kirk E. Lohmueller, a geneticist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and co author of one of the new studies. The oldest fossils of Neanderthals date back about 200,000 years, while the most recent are an estimated 40,000 years old. Researchers have found Neanderthal bones at sites across Europe and western Asia, from Spain to Siberia. Some of those bones still retain fragments of Neanderthal DNA. Scientists have pieced those DNA fragments together, reconstructing the entire Neanderthal genome. It turns out that Neanderthals had a number of distinct genetic mutations that living humans lack. Based on these differences, scientists estimate that the Neanderthals' ancestors diverged from ours 600,000 years ago. Our own ancestors remained in Africa until about 60,000 years ago, then expanded across the rest of the Old World. Along the way, they encountered Neanderthals. And our DNA reveals that those encounters led to children. Today, people who are not of African descent have stretches of genetic material almost identical to Neanderthal DNA, comprising about 2 percent of their entire genomes. These DNA fragments are the evidence that Neanderthals interbred with the early migrants out of Africa, likely in western Asia. Researchers also have found a peculiar pattern in non Africans: People in China, Japan and other East Asian countries have about 20 percent more Neanderthal DNA than do Europeans. Last year, Sriram Sankararaman, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School, and his colleagues proposed that natural selection was responsible for the difference. Most Neanderthal genes probably had modestly bad effects on the health of our ancestors, Dr. Sankararaman and other researchers have found. People who inherited a Neanderthal version of any given gene would have had fewer children on average than people with the human version. As a result, Neanderthal DNA became progressively rarer in living humans. Dr. Sankararaman and his colleagues proposed that it disappeared faster in Europeans than in Asians. The early Asian population was small, the researchers suggested, and natural selection eliminates harmful genes more slowly in small groups than in large populations. Today, smaller ethnic groups, like Ashkenazi Jews and the Amish, can have unusually high rates of certain genetic disorders. Joshua M. Akey, a geneticist at the University of Washington, and the graduate student Benjamin Vernot recently set out to test this hypothesis. They took advantage of the fact that only some parts of our genome have a strong influence on health. Other parts so called neutral regions are less important. A mutation in a neutral region won't affect our odds of having children and therefore won't be eliminated by natural selection. If Dr. Sankararaman's hypothesis were correct, you would expect Europeans to have lost more harmful Neanderthal DNA than neutral DNA. In fact, the scientists did not find this difference in the DNA of living Europeans. Dr. Akey and Mr. Vernot then tested out other possible explanations for the comparative abundance of Neanderthal DNA in Asians. The theory that made the most sense was that Asians inherited additional Neanderthal DNA at a later time. In this scenario, the ancestors of Asians and Europeans split, the early Asians migrated east, and there they had a second encounter with Neanderthals. Dr. Akey and Mr. Vernot reported their findings in the American Journal of Human Genetics. Dr. Lohmueller and the graduate student Bernard Y. Kim approached the same genetic question, but from a different direction. They constructed a computer model of Europeans and Asians, simulating their reproduction and evolution over time. They added some Neanderthal DNA to the ancestral population and then watched as Europeans and Asian populations diverged genetically. The scientists ran the model many times over, trying out a range of likely conditions. But no matter which variation they tried, they couldn't find one explaining why Asians today have extra Neanderthal DNA. But when they ran a model that included a second interbreeding, another "pulse" of Neanderthal genes into the Asian population, the researchers had better luck. "We find that the two pulse model can fit the data really well," Dr. Lohmueller said. He and Mr. Kim published their results in a separate paper in the American Journal of Human Genetics. Dr. Akey is pleased that the two studies reached the same conclusion. "Together, they tell the same story, just from different perspectives," he said. Dr. Sankararaman agreed that the new research cast doubt on his proposal that natural selection stripped Neanderthal DNA from Europeans more quickly than from Asians. "The analysis from both papers gives strong support to the two pulse model in Asians," he said. But the two pulse hypothesis also poses a puzzle of its own. If Neanderthals became extinct 40,000 years ago, they may have disappeared before Europeans and Asian populations genetically diverged. How could there have been Neanderthals left to interbreed with Asians a second time? It is conceivable that the extinction of the Neanderthals happened later in Asia. If that is true, there might yet be more recent Neanderthal fossils waiting to be discovered there. Or perhaps Asians interbred with some other group of humans that had interbred with Neanderthals and carried much of their DNA. Later, that group disappeared. "That's a paradox the field needs to address," Dr. Lohmueller said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
As far as I can tell, most epidemiologists are horrified by America's rush to reopen the economy, to abandon much of the social distancing that has helped contain Covid 19. We know what a safe reopening requires: a low level of infection, abundant testing and the ability to quickly trace and isolate the contacts of new cases. We don't have any of those things yet. The epidemiologists could, of course, be mistaken. But at every stage of this crisis they've been right, while predictions of a quick end to the pandemic by politicians and their minions have proved utterly wrong. And if the experts are right again, premature opening could lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths and backfire even in economic terms, as a second wave of infections forces us back into lockdown. So where is the push to reopen coming from? Some of it comes from right wing crazies. Only a small minority of Americans believes that freedom includes the right to endanger other people's lives (which is what congregating in large groups in the midst of a pandemic does); that wearing a mask is un American, or unmanly, or something; that Covid 19 is a hoax perpetrated by liberals. But that minority has huge influence within the Republican Party. Some of it comes from Donald Trump's obsession with the stock market. His initial refusal to do anything to prepare for the pandemic reportedly reflected concern that any acknowledgment of the threat would "spook the market." And the push to reopen may similarly reflect a belief that going back to normal life would be good for the market, even if it kills many people. Let's die for the Dow!	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
Harvard Medical School sends out an email when an esteemed faculty member passes away, and more often than not I delete it without clicking. I feel shame for not taking the time to read about the death of colleague whose life was devoted to medicine or science, but I do think about death a lot for someone my age perhaps too much. As a Stage 4 kidney cancer patient at age 35, I ruminate more about legacy than I'd like. When I have encouraging follow up scans, as I did this month, the topic becomes less urgent, but I never stop wondering about the aftermath of my looming death whether it will be this year, five years from now, or some fantastical version of later life that I am capable of imagining only on my most aspirational days. I was a mere assistant professor of psychiatry when I learned that the statistical odds were that I'd most likely die before my career had a chance to take off. Would anyone care about the 20 or so academic publications I poured my heart and mind into these last five years? I always imagined that I would have the next 30 to contribute something of lasting value. Knowing what I do now, I sometimes wonder if that time and energy should have been spent in other ways. My ruminations become more intense when they transition to what I might leave behind in my personal and family life. Which of my older family members will have to endure the cruel task of attending my funeral? Will my wife be able to find happiness while being a widow who lovingly raises our little boy? He's only 2 years old now. Will he even remember me when this is all over?	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Well
After a 12 year tour of duty in Michigan, my stalwart purple Plymouth Voyager finally succumbed to the road salt and crumbled into what looked like Martian dust. I was about to sign for a solid little Ford sedan with all the sex appeal of pleated khakis when I caught a bright flash of presidential blue out of the corner of my eye. Sitting on the lot like a shiny secondhand Captain America, the car of my dreams all right, the car of the dreams I could afford was suddenly a 2009 Jeep Patriot. I forgot the Ford, saluted the salesman, and signed something on the dotted line, dazzled by fantasies of pulling on cowboy boots and saddling up for a drive from Gotham to the Golden Gate. My recollection of the salesman's recitation of my dream car's brief list of features is kind of fuzzy. But I vaguely remember the warnings from my mom, whose own automotive requirements are leather and luxury: manual locks would get old; I'd grow tired of cranking the windows; I'd have to reach across the car; I'd be fumbling with a key to open the liftgate. As usual, I wasn't listening to her. I was in love. I rationalized. I said things like: "There's no remote control to lose. It has fewer parts to break." I thought I was so hip and nonmaterialistic, so self reliant, so old school. Amazing what a girl can think when she's smitten. I was going to drive happily ever after. Except for the children. It's never the same when they are involved. Every time I park the car, I say, "Please lock your door." And after three very long years, my two darling daughters cannot manage this simple task. Push. Down. The. Little. Silver. Button. I have to do all the work. The car just sits there, as inert as a Marlboro Man billboard, while I run around it like an idiot, opening the doors to let children in, twisting my wrist to unlock a door behind me, reaching across to crank down the passenger window when I want to talk to someone, contorting my arm to roll up the back window on the highway when that telltale whistle signals that a small human has left it cracked. In the rain, does it unlock the door like a gentleman at the press of a dainty button? No. I get soaked for want of a doohickey that's pretty much been standard equipment since Cher started coloring her hair. I feel so old school, so charmingly retro, so self reliant. And 23 cubic feet of cargo space? Puh lease. That's not an S.U.V., it's a toaster oven. It's enough for a tent, a couple of sleeping bags, a can of SpaghettiOs, a pack of matches and my copy of "Walden." I wanted to take the girls camping, but I had to choose between one of them and the coffee pot. So, we stayed home and made s'mores over the barbecue. I still have fantasies about sojourning from Acadia to Arches, but now I am forced to envision a big U Haul tethered to the back of my steel superhero. Also, what's the point of having cargo space if you can't leave anything in it? Can't leave the laptop, the saxophone or the new Crock Pot in the car if my precious babies won't lock the doors. Maybe I'll have one of them make a sign for the window that says, "Free Stuff Inside." And the way the girls carp about the hardship, you'd think I canceled their cellphones. "Mommmmm," do we have to have this stupid car? Nobody else we know has to lock the doors when they get out of the car." A typical trip to the grocery store goes something like this: Park the car. "Don't forget to lock the doors." Open. Open. Open. Click. Close. Close. Close. "Did you lock your doors?" Open. Open. Click. Click. Close. Close. Grumble. Grumble. Shop. Open hatch. "Mommmmm, give me the keys. It's freeeeezing out here." Open. Open. Close. Close. Unload. "Hey, where are the keys?" Lock the hatch. Unlock my door. Open. Close. But as long as I live, I'll never forget the image of my daughter's best friend staring at the door of my blemished but beloved Jeep. Hands limp in her lap, she was baffled, completely at a loss as to how to put the window down. I felt a tiny thrill when my daughter proudly said: "Haven't you ever seen one of these before? You just crank it." My mom offered advice: "You know, sweetie, you could start over with another car. I know you were in love, but ..." I interrupted her: "No, Mom, I'm not that kind of girl. This is the real thing."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
"Camp sees everything in quotation marks," Susan Sontag wrote in her 1964 essay "Notes on 'Camp.'" "It's not a lamp, but a 'lamp'; not a woman but a 'woman.'" I suppose that makes "Paul Swan Is Dead and Gone," which opened on Wednesday, a "play." It's certainly not a conventional drama, any more than the real Paul Swan was a conventional artist. Long before (and after) camp was diagnosed, he was the kind of man for whom quotation marks were too subtle. Exclamation points, interrobangs and innumerable French diacritics were all part of his patois. And though the fearless actor Tony Torn doesn't stint on the theatrics, his incarnation of Swan never quite comes to life. How could it? Written by Claire Kiechel and presented by the Civilians, "Paul Swan Is Dead and Gone" is more of a found object than a drama, an exhibit in a museum of unnatural history. The museum is actually a performance space called Torn Page, on the second floor of a brownstone in Chelsea. (It's wittily named for Mr. Torn's parents, Rip Torn and Geraldine Page, who lived there.) The scenic designer Andromache Chalfant has done it up for the occasion as a gauzy salon, with a velvet draped spinet, mossy paintings, heavy curtains and fairy lights. "Gymnopedies" is the winking mood music. We are meant to take this as a simulacrum of Swan's actual salon, in the Carnegie Hall studios, where on Sunday evenings from 1939 to 1969 by which point Swan was 86 he performed barely clothed dance recitals that also incorporated song and poetry, paintings and sculpture. Once called "the most beautiful man in the world," he apparently thought he still was, at least in quotation marks. Where art was concerned, nudity was no obstacle. That's no doubt why Andy Warhol chose to feature Swan doing his strange shtick in the 1965 movie "Camp." To watch him perform for Warhol's camera and for long stretches refuse to perform is to have your capacity for sympathetic mortification sorely tested. The style Swan favored was almost out of date when he acquired it from the likes of Isadora Duncan in the 1920s; by the 1960s it was so bizarrely antique it caused audiences to "snigger." Or so Ms. Kiechel's script has it. (She is Swan's great grandniece.) And though the monologues she has given him feel believable enough some are derived from his work and letters there is a weird superstructure around them, as if to assert the play's avant garde bona fides. In a work about fustiness, such distancing effects seem like holding one's nose. What's new onstage and off: Sign up for our Theater Update newsletter So a man called Bellamy or is it his doppelganger, Bollany? accompanies Swan on the piano and serves as his awkward, temporizing major domo. (Both are played by Robert M. Johanson.) Also on hand are two women (Helen Cespedes and Alexis Scott) who at first appear as the Paul Swan Dancers, then as Susan Sontag and the novelist James Purdy, but are later revealed to be Swan's daughters, Flora and Paula. If at this point you are thinking it might be helpful to know more about Swan's marriage, forget it. When the pinkish eminence in a jeweled miter finally emerges from his gilded sarcophagus, 15 minutes into the 75 minute performance, he has little to say about his actual life. You will have to guess for yourself whether Bellamy or Bollany or a man named Fred Bates seen in a portrait were really his lovers or are just convenient composites. (Bates was real.) That might not matter in a play about a successful artist, whose art can be trusted to speak for itself. But what we are shown of Swan's work does not come close to clearing that bar. In what he calls his "most famous dance," "To a Hero Slain," he looks merely wooden and ridiculous, his maroon smock flapping, his comical sword flailing. (The evocative if merciless costumes are by An lin Dauber.) Because the play abjures psychology in favor of gesture, much as Swan apparently did in his choreopoems, nothing tells us whether he is in on the joke. It thus becomes difficult to know how to respond when he makes a fool of himself or when he offers "beaute secrets" laxatives and olive oil baths that can turn anyone into "an Adonis like me." To laugh or not to laugh? Both seem cruel. No wonder his Carnegie audiences sniggered. But if Mr. Torn's performance is meant to discomfit us in the same way Swan's performances discomfited them, I'm not sure the equivalence is a justification. After all, Swan could do no better. Surely Mr. Torn, a stalwart of the experimental theater, could if the director, Steve Cosson, wanted him to. I doubt he does; not improving things is a trademark of the Civilians, which often uses verbatim interviews as the basis for its plays. Instead, "Paul Swan Is Dead and Gone" tries to have it both ways. It enjoys making fun of Swan; Sontag, watching him perform "To a Hero Slain," says that camp is good only when it's awful, and "I don't know if this is awful enough." At the same time, it uses Swan to express the serious anxiety of being left behind, as an artist, as a human. That theme, at least, is touching: If we live long enough, we're all camp.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Las Vegas is not only about gambling, partying and making certain that everything that you do there stays there: it's just mostly about those things. If you're feeling a little grimy from the previous night or need to soothe your hurt pride from losses incurred at the blackjack table, take solace in the knowledge there's a wealth of natural beauty and interesting side trips at your disposal. Last week I discussed the underappreciated gems off the Strip but if you're willing to travel a bit farther, the rewards become a lot more beautiful. The Hoover Dam, Lake Mead and the Grand Canyon are among the most popular but here are a few more options that are both less obvious and, in some cases, a lot closer. Why can't more restaurants be like Jamms? Every diner has found herself in this predicament: hungry for breakfast, you order a giant omelet or stack of pancakes that is too large for an actual human to consume and inevitably you eat way too much. At Jamms, that's not an issue. You can order mini versions of many breakfast entrees omelets, pancakes, Benedicts, etc. and leave both full and with your self respect. For 5 I had an excellent "small plate" version of a Babalama omelet, with bacon, tomato, avocado and Cheddar. I saved enough stomach space that I was also able to enjoy the onion and savory Parmesan "pot of bread" (a moist, savory pull apart loaf with the texture of a fluffy biscuit) I got for free with a Yelp check in. Bonus frugal tip: Tag Jamms in your social media post and receive 10 percent off your bill. This state park, the largest and oldest state park in Nevada, is about an hour's drive from Vegas. The trip there is dreadfully boring for the first 30 plus miles up I 15, but once you turn off onto the Valley of Fire Highway, the enjoyment begins: It's a gorgeous drive to the park. Not only that but it's a fun drive, a serpentine trek through the desert, full of dips and dives. (Mind your speed: there are rangers on patrol.) The final descent into the park you'll know it when you get there is worth the 10 price of admission alone. As you drive down, slowly being enveloped by the looming red sandstone formations, it feels like, well, like entering a valley of fire. There's not really a better way of putting it. One inside the 24 square mile basin, the brilliant pink, ocher and umber colors are truly transporting; it's how you imagine Martian terrain might be. I was near Elephant Rock when the sun set and tourists were being ushered out of the park, and so was forced to discontinue my hiking. I look forward to returning, though if only to experience again the drive into the valley. It's not even close to being the tallest mountain in the state, but Mount Charleston is somehow the eighth most prominent peak in the entire country, if that kind of thing interests you. What that essentially means is that the mountain seemingly pops up from out of nowhere. Less than 40 miles out of Las Vegas, Charleston Peak, as it's also known, feels like a completely different world. For one thing, it's cold. And there's snow lots and lots of snow. It's also phenomenally pretty, the air is clean and crisp, and you won't believe that mere hours ago you were trying to convince a bouncer at Tao to waive the cover. There's a nice hike that begins at the parking area of the campground, as well as a big sledding hill that some kids were enjoying. If you're planning to climb the roughly 4,000 additional feet to the summit, come with the right equipment. "It's gonna be snowshoes and crampons all the way up," the woman working at the visitor center told me. "A guy tried it today but he turned back because the snow was up to here," she said, indicating a line at her stomach. The 10.3 mile North Loop trail will take you all the way to the top, if you're up to the task. (A fire compromised parts of the South Loop trail, the path typically taken.) No, not Red Rocks, the place on which John Tesh once inflicted his music, but the nearly 200,000 acre Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, just 15 miles west of Las Vegas. The gorgeous rust colored outcroppings of sandstone are the most obvious attraction the auburn cliffs, some thousands of feet high, look down on Joshua trees, agave and other flora and fauna of the eastern Mojave Desert. There's hiking, camping, bouldering and sheer face rock climbing, and, if you're more the stationary type, a 13 mile scenic drive that loops around the canyon. Admission to the park is 7 per vehicle and 3 for pedestrians. If you're feeling extra frugal, though, you can make a turn onto Calico Basin Road, just northeast of the main entrance; slowly zigzag north and west until you find yourself at the end of Sandstone Drive, and park your car in the lot there. (You'll know when you've reached the end. There won't really be anywhere else to go.) Several hiking trails of varying degrees of difficulty are now at your disposal: Layer up (it's hot in the sun and surprisingly chilly in the shade), grab your water bottle and enjoy the beauty and vivid colors of the ancient rock formations. This isn't so much a day trip as a quaint place to stop while visiting Red Rock Canyon. Blue Diamond was once primarily a company town, housing workers from the nearby gypsum mine. Now, in addition to being home to roughly 300 people, this sleepy town is a charming throwback that's also a sojourn for hikers and tourists looping around Route 159 through Red Rock. Blue Diamond is also well known in the mountain biking community and a jumping off point for a number of good trails I didn't rent a bike there but if I had, I would have gone to McGhie's, where mountain bike rentals begin at 45 per day, helmet and water included. It didn't take me long to survey the town on foot, which I recommend you do. At the heart of Blue Diamond is the Village Market and Mercantile, a general store that doesn't appear to have changed one iota since it was built in the 1940s. Casinos comp their patrons' drinks all the time, but that usually comes in the form of light domestic beers and watery cocktails. There's no need to settle for swill, though, as the last several years have seen Vegas catch up with the craft beer craze that has already overtaken the rest of the country. Tenaya Creek, Hop Nuts, and Banger Brewing are all mainstays in and around downtown Las Vegas. It's in Henderson, though, the second largest city in Nevada and a mere 20 minute shot down I 515, where you'll find some of the area's most exciting alcoholic newcomers. Bad Beat Brewing and CraftHaus Brewing, which are right next to each other, are at the center of the area's self styled "Artisan Booze District," which also includes a distillery and winery. The feeling in the area is slightly more industrial park than artisanal neighborhood, but the quality of the drink makes up for the lack of charm. Bad Beat and CraftHaus both have tasting rooms in addition to brewing facilities. I spent a fun evening at Bad Beat the same night Maria Ho, a poker player who is No. 11 on the women's all time money list, happened to be shooting a video there. I enjoyed a Gutshot, a delicious, dry Irish Stout, as well as a light, crisp Bluffing Isn't Weisse hefeweizen. (If you haven't already guessed, beers at Bad Beat are named after poker terms.) The best part? I was able to get my beers 4 ounces at a time for 2 apiece you can also get 8 and 16 ounce pours. Yet another addition to the Henderson craft brew scene, Lovelady Brewing, is scheduled to open this year. A friend recommended I try a seafood restaurant called Other Mama, Dan Krohmer's Asian tinged seafood place in a strip mall on Durango Drive. I went in and perused the menu and, while it looked fantastic, it was a bit beyond my frugal budget. Fortunately, Zaytoon, a Persian market and restaurant, was right in the same complex. I picked up a filling, hearty vegetable soup called aash e reshteh a traditional dish commonly served to celebrate Norooz, the Persian New Year full of thick, soft noodles, legumes, greens and herbs. It was the ideal thing to warm me up on a chilly evening on the way back into downtown Vegas. Not only that but it was only 5.99, making me feel a little better about the time I planned to spend (and money I would probably lose) later that night at the blackjack table.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
Before Debbie Bowers had surgery for breast cancer, her doctor promised that insurance would pay for reconstruction, and said she could "even go up a cup size." But Ms. Bowers did not want a silicone implant or bigger breasts. "Having something foreign in my body after a cancer diagnosis is the last thing I wanted," said Ms. Bowers, 45, of Bethlehem, Pa. "I just wanted to heal." While plastic surgeons and oncologists aggressively promote breast reconstruction as a way for women to "feel whole again," some doctors say they are beginning to see resistance to the surgery. Patients like Ms. Bowers are choosing to defy medical advice and social convention and remain breastless after breast cancer. They even have a name for the decision to skip reconstruction: They call it "going flat." Social media has allowed these women to become more open about their decision to live without breasts, as well as the challenges, both physical and emotional, that have followed. For a recent video created by wisdo.com, a social media platform, and widely shared on Facebook, Ms. Bowers and her friend Marianne DuQuette Cuozzo, 51, removed their shirts to show their scarred, flat chests. And Paulette Leaphart, 50, a New Orleans woman whose clotting disorder prevented her from having reconstruction after a double mastectomy, walked topless from Biloxi, Miss., to Washington this summer to raise awareness about the financial struggles of cancer patients. "Breasts aren't what make us a woman," Ms. Leaphart said. The nascent movement to "go flat" after mastectomies challenges long held assumptions about femininity and what it means to recover after breast cancer. For years, medical professionals have embraced the idea that breast restoration is an integral part of cancer treatment. Women's health advocates fought for and won approval of the Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act of 1998, which requires health plans to cover prosthetics and reconstructive procedures. Since then, breast reconstruction has become standard care. More than 106,000 reconstructive procedures were done last year, a 35 percent increase since 2000, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. While it is not known exactly what percentage of women opt for breast reconstruction after a mastectomy, one study found that in 2011, 63 percent of women who were candidates for the procedure chose to have it. In some parts of the United States, the number is closer to 80 percent today. In promoting the surgery, doctors cite studies that suggest breast reconstruction improves a woman's quality of life after cancer. But some women say that doctors focus too much on physical appearance, and not enough on the toll prolonged reconstructive procedures take on their bodies and their psyches. Up to one third of women who undergo reconstruction experience complications. A systematic review of 28 studies found that women who went without reconstruction fared no worse, and sometimes did better, in terms of body image, quality of life and sexual outcomes. "That's the dirty little secret of breast reconstruction: The risk of a major complication is higher than for the average elective surgery," said Dr. Clara Lee, an associate professor of plastic surgery at Ohio State University who performs the procedure. Ms. Cuozzo, who appeared in the Facebook video with Ms. Bowers, spent a year having her breasts rebuilt after a double mastectomy, but after four infections in five months, she had the implants removed. The reconstruction, she said, "was getting worse than the cancer." While some states, including New York, now require physicians to tell women about the availability of breast reconstruction, women say they often are not informed of the option to remain flat. "I was never told there was a choice," Ms. Cuozzo said. "I went from the breast surgeon to the plastic surgeon, and they said, 'This is what you're going to do.'" Dr. David H. Song, chief of plastic surgery at the University of Chicago and immediate past president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, said that the risk of complications was real, but that focusing on them was like focusing on plane crashes when "millions of flights land safely." Given advancements in surgical techniques, "the aesthetic result can be better than the native breast," Dr. Song said. "Patients can come out the other end looking more youthful, with a better aesthetic in her breast than before." But it is that kind of talk suggesting that a reconstructed breast is an improvement on a woman's natural breast that enrages many women who have undergone mastectomies. For starters, a reconstructed breast is often numb and can no longer play a role in sexual arousal. It often lacks a nipple, since the nipple is usually removed in a mastectomy. After looking at photos of reconstructed breasts, "I was slightly horrified," said Charlie Scheel, 48, of Brooklyn, who decided against implants after a double mastectomy. "You don't have nipples and you have scars everywhere." Rebecca Pine, a cancer survivor from Long Island who co founded a photography and writing project called "The Breast and the Sea," said, "It's a tremendous amount to put your body through, and it's not like we're going to get our breasts back." Ms. Pine, 40, had reconstruction after her first mastectomy, but had the implant removed later when she had a prophylactic mastectomy on her other breast. "They don't look or feel, in most cases, like our breasts," she said. "The nerves are cut, so they're not receptive to feel or touch." Dr. Susan Love, author of a best selling book about breast health, said that doctors aiming to expand access to reconstruction may have become overly enthusiastic about the surgery. "Surgeons became so proud of what we were able to do that we may have forgotten that not everybody may want it," Dr. Love said. Dr. Marisa C. Weiss, founder of breastcancer.org, said doctors should not assume every patient wants reconstructed breasts. "I've had go go dancers who do not want reconstruction and nuns who say, 'I need reconstruction,'" she said. Some women say physicians pressured them to get implants. When Catherine Stapleton, of Florida, woke up after her mastectomy, she discovered that her breast surgeon, a woman, had left unsightly flaps of skin and tissue that could be used for breast reconstruction later, in case she changed her mind. "When I woke up from anesthesia, I was in shock," said Ms. Stapleton, 58, who is now facing additional major surgery to correct the first procedure. Geri Barish, president of the Long Island advocacy group 1 in 9, said a doctor had chided her when she opted against reconstruction. "One doctor said to me: 'How can you walk around like that? You look deformed,'" she recalled. Support groups and social media have allowed women to share stories about the realities of reconstruction. "A lot of the women in my support group had infections, and they were surprised at how many surgeries were involved," said Alicia Staley, 45, who stayed flat after a double mastectomy. "As I compared notes, I wondered, 'Why are all these women doing this to themselves?'" Coming to terms with a flat chest after breast cancer can be difficult. While some women wear a prosthesis in their bra, it is not uncommon for them to stop using it. "They're heavy, they're uncomfortable, and they're in a sensitive area where you have scars," Ms. Pine said. Women say they take many of the clothes they wore before surgery to Goodwill and begin wearing scarves and long strands of beads to hide their flat chests. Others try to embrace their new form by having elaborate tattoos inked where they once had breasts. Ms. Pine has a lotus flower tattoo on one side and a dragonfly on the other. Sara Bartosiewicz Hamilton, 39, a technical writer in Kalamazoo, Mich., tried two types of implants but had a constant burning sensation and got rid of them. She then started a virtual support group called Flat and Fabulous. "We're not anti reconstruction," she said. "But many women never feel it's part of their body." For Kate Cloudsparks, 64, a farmer in southern Iowa who has been flat since a preventive mastectomy 21 years ago, discovering the Flat and Fabulous Facebook page this year led to her first communication ever with women who had made the same choice. "I didn't know anybody else like me. I was carrying it around for 20 years without having anywhere to share it," she said. "Finally, I had an opportunity to talk about what it's been like to live as a woman without breasts."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Well
This is a story about kids who make up stories. This is a story in which girls wield swords, queer kids are cool and nerds rule the earth. This is a story about "She Kills Monsters," and those who love it. Qui Nguyen's spirited play about finding your real and metaphorical families, as well as yourself, through Dungeons Dragons did well enough when it premiered at the Flea Theater in 2011 Eric Grode called it a "deceptively breezy and rather ingenious comedy" in The New York Times. The play ran, closed, and Nguyen moved on, most notably to his acclaimed semi autobiographical breakthrough "Vietgone," and writing gigs for Disney. "She Kills Monsters," meanwhile, had just gotten started. In the intervening years, it has blossomed into one of America's most popular shows, with 797 productions (performed and planned) between 2013 and next year. Of those, one was a professional revival, 144 were by amateur companies and a whopping 652 were done on school and college campuses. "We're dealing with themes that every high schooler, every college student confronts at some point, whether it be this idea of the underdog or familial struggle or sexuality or gender," said Kelly Trumbull, who is co directing an online production slated for July 12 at the University of Pittsburgh, where she is a teaching artist. (The live 7:30 p.m. webcast is free; the show will remain available for a small fee until July 26.) In the show, the teenage Tilly dies early on in a car crash and her older sister, Agnes, must deal not just with grief but with how little she knew about her sibling: reading a notebook left behind, she learns that Tilly was a role playing aficionado, for instance, and that she had a girlfriend in her game world. (The presence of strong female characters is another big factor for the show's popularity on campuses, as girls tend to be overrepresented in drama departments.) These subjects don't fly everywhere, but obstacles have only energized fans of the play. DeAnna Tart, who runs the theater department at Trinidad High School in rural Texas, had to overcome many hurdles before she could enter her production of "She Kills Monsters" in the 2017 18 edition of her state's University Interscholastic League contest. "It is very comedic, but it's also very tragic,'' she said by telephone. "It dives into sexuality, which some people deem controversial even for high school age students, unfortunately.'' Once her principal gave her the greenlight, Tart had to follow the contest's parameters, trimming for length and editing out some curse words, while preserving the show's integrity. "And we won the state championship," she said. "It was quite awesome." "I've never had a play or anything I've ever written take this weird life of its own," he said on the phone from his Los Angeles home. Amateur and youth companies started to produce the show. Winning the American Alliance for Theater and Education's Distinguished Play Award, in 2013, had created a major ping on teachers' radar, and momentum had built from there, with youth and amateur companies flocking to the show. Qui Nguyen is proud to say he's "not the model minority." Ariana Starkman, a 22 year old who played Tilly at the University of Pittsburgh in 2018 is back for the virtual version. "I definitely love being a badass warrior." she said. Annmarie Duggan, the chairman of Pitt's theater arts department, agreed that the chance for women to learn fight choreography is part of the appeal: "They don't just watch the men fight for them. And there is a love interest, but that's not what the play is about." For Emma Lynch, 18, the gateway was Dungeons Dragons, which she played at Minarets High School and Charter School in O'Neals, Calif. The show's humor did the rest. "The first few pages, I was laughing so hard," Lynch said via Zoom. She ended up co directing a production in May, before graduating. A play toggling between reality and fantasy, and featuring elaborate battles, should be daunting to stage. But Nguyen, who created the show with his troupe, Vampire Cowboys, purposefully left directors a lot of leeway. And that started with casting. "I made sure none of the roles were based on race at all," he said. "We wanted to see the diversity you would find on the New York subway onstage." The result is more than just matter of fact colorblind casting, as "She Kills Monsters" directly addresses what it means to be an outsider. "I brought my experiences sometimes being the only Black person in the class to Agnes," said Jasmine Mitchell, 22, who was in a virtual production at the University of Maryland in May. "The person playing Agnes's boyfriend was white, and I was using this information to figure out her psychology. Agnes's community at the end is with people from different races, and I think that's important to acknowledge." Role playing scenes also allow the designer and technical teams to go wild, and be resourceful. Kayla West, a teacher and Lynch's co director at Minarets, mailed costumes and props to cast members stuck at home by the coronavirus, along with tablecloths for the virtual backgrounds on Zoom. Proper green screens were too expensive. "I love them all because it's so pure, right?," Nguyen said of the choices he's seen, or heard about, over the years. For its new production, Pitt's theater department which wanted students who had lost summer stock jobs to still gain experience on a show decided to fully embrace a comic book aesthetic that makes the most of the 2 D platform. Openness, tolerance and resilience are more than the show's subjects: They are baked into its DNA. When "She Kills Monsters" started taking off in schools, Nguyen would receive requests to tone down the profanity and sexual references what was fine in colleges raised red flags when younger students were involved. So he retooled the script, tweaking some expressions and altering key elements. For example, Agnes is a teacher in her 20s in the original version and a high school cheerleader in "She Kills Monsters: Young Adventurers Edition," which now has totaled 434 productions (performed or licensed through 2021). "The regular play is often done on the coasts and in the middle it's the YA edition," Nguyen said, laughing. "Oh, I get what's happening here!" There was more fine tuning to come as the show, like a shape shifter with a high constitution score, has kept on changing. When stay at home orders went up in the spring, directors with planned productions had to scramble. David Marconi of Cranford High School, in New Jersey, started working on an audio version for a podcast. As Marconi was editing the sound files, Nguyen came up with "She Kills Monsters: Virtual Realms," a version for streaming platforms that the teacher, changing tack again, ended up doing instead. "Virtual Realms" retrofits the script and stage directions to maximize online formats in clever ways. At the end, for example, Agnes's battle with a dragon isn't represented physically anymore, but by her rolling D D dice as the beast's multiple heads appear in different Zoom windows. (Connoisseurs will wince in empathy as the game master character repeatedly calls "no damage.") Lisa Nathans, who co directed the recent University of Maryland virtual production, was taken with Nguyen's flexibility. "Our students were very attached to the original," she said, "and when 'Virtual Realms' became available, Qui very generously allowed the cast to be part of a devising process to blend elements of both stories together." The Maryland show, done on Zoom, made particularly impressive use of filters, with characters suddenly sporting digital horns or elf ears. Its audience also testified to the play's popularity: The livestream had twice as many viewers as a simultaneous YouTube reading of the David Mamet political comedy "November" starring John Malkovich and Patti LuPone. In "She Kills Monsters," role playing helps the sisters finally bond with each other. For many of those staging it, the play serves a similar purpose, especially in a time of social distancing. "At the end of the show, Tilly asks Agnes 'Did you have fun?'" Nathans said. "We used this as guideposts at the end of each rehearsal: 'Yeah, we're using this technology, we're doing this during Covid 19, this is a show about grief, but did you have fun? Were you able to find joy and artistry?' " Such enthusiasm means as much to the playwright as it does to the students. "With professional productions, I remember things, but they didn't change my life the way the shows I did in high school and college did," Nguyen said. "So I'm glad to be part of these people's artistic journey."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
And you thought the fine feathered avengers from that Alfred Hitchcock movie were scary. Wait until you get a load of the title characters of another classic called "The Birds," especially once they start exercising their right to bear arms. These winged gunslingers show up in the Greek director Nikos Karathanos's rowdy riff on Aristophanes' "The Birds," the 2,500 year old comedy about the quest for utopia, which opened in a cacophony of tweets and caws on Sunday night at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn. Embodied by a phalanx of defiantly bare breasted actresses, they advance toward the audience on a wave of fury. "I will massacre your mama and your auntie and your kids," one of them says. That's among the milder threats. These avian beings have had it with a human race that eats them for dinner and wreaks havoc with nature. "Today I am the beast," they chant in unison. "Today the Law is writ again." Yikes! Who knew that building a paradise for egg layers would be the bloody, messy business it becomes in this artfully anarchic, exhausting production? Then again, it is a homo sapiens who has planted the seeds for this rebellion, and people being people have a way of stirring up hatred in the name of progress. "Anthropos" (meaning human) is a term that the birds of "The Birds" which is performed in Greek, as well as in nonverbal song and squawk talk, with supertitles pronounce with fear and loathing. And though the play's tribal flocks eventually embrace the two two legged Athenians who wander into their midst bearing proposals for a brave new world, you can understand why "anthropos" is a dirty word. The longest and wildest of the surviving plays of Aristophanes, the great master of the Old Comedy style, "The Birds" is best known today for introducing "Cloud cuckoo land" into our cultural vocabulary. Suggesting an improbable and heavenly alternative universe, Cloud cuckoo land is the place we fantasize about when we're tired of existence on this strife torn planet. It is also the as yet unnamed city state that Pisthetaerus (Mr. Karathanos) and Euelpides (Aris Servetalis), two middle aged friends from Athens, are looking for when they wander into a labyrinthine forest at the play's beginning. They have come in search of Epops (Christos Loulis), a onetime Greek monarch who was turned into a hoopoe by the gods, because they too want to shed their human identities and fly. It is Pisthetaerus, the cleverer of this Laurel and Hardy like pair, who convinces Epops and his followers that, with the right strategy, birds could become masters of the universe, replacing even the gods of Olympus. The first order of business: Build a really, really big wall. The chaos that results from attempts to create new political orders is something with which latter day Greeks would definitely be familiar. But this adaptation of Aristophanes' text by Mr. Karathanos and Yiannis Asteris should not be construed as a literal minded commentary on contemporary events. Part of the Onassis Cultural Center New York festival of avian themed art this month, "The Birds" is less a pointed contemporary satire than a portrait of the atavistic urges that keep people restless and forever on the prowl for self improvement. "We have treated this play not as plot but as action," Mr. Karathanos writes in a program note. Dynamic his "Birds" undeniably is, and Dionysiac in a way New Yorkers have seldom seen since the heyday of the boundary busting Living Theater in the 1960s. Choreographed by Amalia Bennett, with music by Angelos Triantafyllou, "The Birds" often comes across as one sprawling, angry orgy, in which making love and waging war are hard to tell apart. So, for that matter, are individual genders among the eclectic, high energy ensemble that embodies the title characters. They have been dressed with free range imagination by Elli Papageorgakopolou, who also designed the cloud crowned forest set. (I was especially taken with the old crone black skirt and humpbacked top, accessorized with support hose and tighty whities, worn by Mr. Loulis.) The bones of Aristophanes' original central debate have been retained, as have some of the gorgeous catalogs of names used for purposes of description and invocation. Don't worry too much if you're not always following the English supertitles, by Orfeas Apergis. (And how could you be, when your eyes are fixed on things like the glittery, sky scraping cloak modeled by the goddess Iris, played by Galini Hatzipaschali?) The greatest thrills and chills here come from watching the ways in which the show's avian population resembles people from news footage caught up in the frenzy of a populist movement. In that regard, the actors bring to mind Euripides' "The Bacchae" as much as they do Aristophanes.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
It takes real directing talent to make offices look exciting, what with all those computer screens and carceral cubicles . In "The Post," the 2017 nail biter about The Washington Post's decision to publish the Pentagon Papers, Steven Spielberg turned offices into war zones, and Xeroxing into a heart thumping race to save democracy. The whistle blower in "Official Secrets" has only one memo to print out, a modest if mighty task that here looks like, well, a woman anxiously using an office printer in bad lighting. One of those ripped from the headlines jobs, "Official Secrets" revisits how a British intelligence officer , Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley), tried to stop a war. In 2003, a few months before the invasion of Iraq, Gun received an email that had been sent to her division in Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (a.k.a. GCHQ). It was from Frank Koza, identified as the chief of staff for the regional targets division at the National Security Agency of the United States. The agency was "mounting a surge," he wrote, for "the whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to US goals or to head off surprises." Specifically, the N.S.A. was asking its British colleagues at GCHQ for information on United Nations delegates whose votes on the Security Council were critical in the resolution authorizing the war. Outraged by the N.S.A.'s memo, Gun leaked the Koza email hence the printer scene which was published by The Observer, whose editors and reporters are portrayed as a bickering, absurd bunch. Despite this, the movie's faith in journalism is touching, conveyed by the likable actors playing its cynical yet noble rogues: the forcefully restrained Matthew Goode, a clownishly bellowing Rhys Ifans , a sly Conleth Hill as an ethically challenged editor. This is somewhat familiar story terrain for Knightley, who played a code breaker in "The Imitation Game," about the race to decipher Nazi intelligence during World War II. The job in "Official Secrets" is considerably less exciting. Each workday, Katharine settles into her cubicle in a sepulchral GCHQ office where she translates Mandarin Chinese and cheerfully stops a pal from nibbling her breakfast. She's pleasant, lives in a nice flat and has a cute, cuddly husband ( Adam Bakri ). As spies go, the character is pretty much a snore, which may be why Knightley comes across at first as overly emphatic, as if she were trying to fill in a sketch with smiles and her own magnetism.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Nancy Shaver's exhibitions often overload the senses. They are extravaganzas of stuff, colorful and tactile, mostly society's castoffs recycled into forms that expose false binaries, like high versus low, form versus function, masculine versus feminine and art versus craft. Ms. Shaver operates simultaneously as artist, curator, hoarder and stylist. She is also an astute frequenter of flea markets, seeking items for both her work and her secondhand store, Henry, in Hudson, N.Y. Her latest New York show, at Derek Eller, demonstrates her complex proclivities with special clarity. Its title, "A Part of a Part of a Part," suggests a parsing of her efforts. Some of the art is cobbled together from found materials or objects, most notably her signature wall pieces, called "Blockers": little wood blocks, individually covered with paint, fabric, paper or wallpaper, and arranged into grids, which evoke projects ranging from quilts to scrapbooks to works by Piet Mondrian and Joseph Cornell. A similar process is achieved in a beautiful, porous sculpture, "Drawing 30 Light and Air," in which stacks of little thread spools evoke Brancusi's "Endless Column," in embryo. But Ms. Shaver also uses things as they are, frequently in large numbers, as in the ambitious "Collections Love and Work." It includes wooden drawer knobs; baby hats from China, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan; beaded evening bags; and a handmade snow shovel. (Duchamp, anyone?) Some things have been borrowed from Robin Greeson, a collector of textiles and antiques, including the 19 colorful, exquisitely embroidered mola blouses from Panama. These figure prominently, with numerous "Blockers," in "Tapestry 3," an immense wall installation. A few things lent by Ms. Greeson and other sources are presented in isolation, including a suggestively beaded harem pant onesie said to have been worn by Nijinsky, and two works by Vanessa Bell, the British artist of Bloomsbury Group fame, the best of which is, fittingly, a textile design. There's more, including 17 small, free standing "Sentinel" pieces. They need either more thought or space, but don't let them stop you. ROBERTA SMITH Giorgione, Raphael, Caravaggio, Watteau, Gericault, Seurat, Schiele, Boccioni: All of them changed the course of European painting, and all of them died before they were 40. There are entire histories of art that never happened because of war and illness. Another name deserves a place on that list of trailblazers who were gone too soon: Domenico Gnoli, whose unsettling paintings of isolated bodies, clothing and furniture shook up the art world of 1960s Italy, but who was brought down by cancer in 1970, at the age of 36. Gnoli painted overlooked details of bourgeois Italian life a chair, a shoe, a forehead with slicked and parted hair at bizarre scales, some on canvases more than six feet wide. The close ups can be comically dull, as in that of a love seat fitted with a ghastly slipcover of Creamsicle orange, seen from a high angle, and with its back cushion cropped at the top. Or they can be fetishistic: Witness the sickly shiny gloss of a woman's leather heels, or the evocative dimple of a man's necktie, blown up to five feet square. Though these paintings are precise, they are not photorealistic. The silk of the necktie, for instance, looks like ridges of Plasticine, while the skin and hair of Gnoli's models recall the waxy figuration of Carlo Carra, Giorgio di Chirico and other Italian predecessors. Gnoli mixed sand into the acrylic paint, which gives them an archaeological undernote. And if his close ups have a parallel in contemporary American Pop Art, or in the French painting of Narrative Figuration, there is no apparent social engagement here, unless you count the alienated downward gaze and the extreme cropping of the images, which turns the amulets of the borghesi into things ornery, oppressive and comic. For his videos in the show "On Non Visibility," at Greene Naftali, Tony Cokes samples statements from political speeches, Twitter feeds and stand up comedy routines, and displays them in stark white lettering against bright monochrome backgrounds, accompanied by post punk pop music. "It's called the 'American Dream' 'cause you have to be asleep to believe it," one video says, quoting the comedian George Carlin. In another video, a deliciously mournful tune by the Smiths accompanies an essay like text that considers how television images helped mobilize the civil rights movement. Other works ruminate on the United States military's use of loud and ceaseless pop music to torture Muslim prisoners ("The New York Sun called it 'mood music for jolting your jihadi'"), or incendiary tweets and remarks by Donald J. Trump, Lars von Trier and Kanye West. Made over the last 30 years, the work here feels very postmodern, very 1980s, since it leans heavily on appropriation, pastiche, critical theory and graphic design. And yet it feels fresh partly because of renewed interest in text based art by people like Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer and Gretchen Bender, and partly because the media manipulation and coercion that Mr. Cokes identifies has become more exaggerated today. Since Mr. Cokes's video works are essentially essays, set to music, the only problem is that they challenge your reading in the gallery endurance. More than once, I felt my energy and attention flagging only to be yanked in again by a punchy Gang of Four pop song. Since the work here is often about how music and words can be used in sinister and destructive ways, it's also thrilling to experience them employed to critical and enlightened ends. MARTHA SCHWENDENER Rita McBride's installation "Particulates," at Dia:Chelsea, is like something out of a sci fi movie. When you approach the door to the gallery, a sign warns you of "DANGER" from laser radiation. It says, "Do not attempt to make contact with any laser beams!!" the perfect setup for a film scene in which hapless visitors accidentally touch a beam and gain a superpower or travel through time. The work inside maintains this impression. As you step into the cavernous, murky gallery, you're confronted by green beams of light lines that rotate as they extend from one end of the space to the other in a shape that's called a hyperboloid of revolution. Mist machines create clouds of condensation that roll on and off the beams, which appear to be moving, too: The green lights seem to snake along, as if on a network of conveyor belts. Getting closer reveals activity inside the beams. The lasers illuminate water droplets and bits of extra reflective dust left over from when the space was a marble cutting shop. These particulates swirl around in the light, looking like pixels set free of a screen. For decades, Ms. McBride has been making sculptures of elemental forms (fences, an amphitheater, keys) as a way of questioning how we relate to the constructed components of society. "Particulates" marries her interest in geometry she's used the hyperboloid before, most famously in her 170 foot tall public sculpture "Mae West" to her interest in science fiction. She commissioned stories in that genre for a book to accompany this show, and previously created a collaborative sci fi novel. Working with light, a new medium for Ms. McBride, allows her to achieve something both thoroughly material and profoundly otherworldly. Even as the installation illuminates the hidden life of the space it's in, it feels like a portal to another dimension, shimmering with the possibilities of an unknown future. JILLIAN STEINHAUER	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Resist the urges to call the fire department that you will probably experience during John Leguizamo's "Latin History for Morons," which opened on Monday night at the Public Theater. That's chalk dust, not smoke, rising from its star's feverish frame. Mr. Leguizamo, you see, has appointed himself our instructor in a class intended to rectify the omissions in standard school texts of his people's or peoples' contributions to American history. And this grandstanding (and leaping, sliding and hopping) actor and monologuist has equipped himself with the requisite accessories, including a blackboard and an industriously wielded eraser. It's understandable, though, if you mistake the chalky clouds in which he moves throughout this harshly funny, surprisingly poignant one man show for the smoke of firing synapses. Mr. Leguizamo, as is his wont, is churning up hot waves of improbably connected ideas in "Latin History for Morons," directed by Tony Taccone. As is also Mr. Leguizamo's wont, he is translating thought into action worthy of an Iron Man competition. There are those dances, for one thing freestyle choreographic interpretations of ancient rituals by Aztecs and Incas, as well as sambas, mambos, tangos and an Irish jig. Then there's his impersonation of his hard of hearing uncle, who annotates every word with a literal minded gesture. And his re creation of three way fisticuffs, with Mr. Leguizamo as the punching bag in the middle, to demonstrate the value of loyalty among friends, which somehow relates to the fall of the Inca Empire. "I'm getting too old for this," he mutters after falling to the ground. No, he's not. Mr. Leguizamo registers as hyperkinetic even on the rare occasions he's standing still during this 90 minute performance piece. And he will most likely remain a perpetual motion machine into his twilight years. But having now crossed into his 50s, the creator of signature angry young Latino works of the 1990s like "Mambo Mouth" and "Freak" has accepted the role of a middle aged father of two teenagers who are far hipper and savvier than their old man. It is a status he wears with humility and dignity. Well, as much dignity as is allowed to someone whose job is showing himself slipping on the banana peels that life continues to throw in his path. The humility is undeniable, though, remarkably so for a professional showoff. Attired in professorial jacket and tie, Mr. Leguizamo may score points off us, his ignorant students in the audience. But as he depicts his flailing attempts to help his son prepare a crucial middle school project on Latino heroes, he clearly counts himself among the "morons" of his play's title. "Latin History" is, most obviously, a forum for its creator to share his delightfully reprocessed research into the history of indigenous Americans and their European colonizers. (Rachel Hauck's set is a free range personal library of clippings and books.) The show slyly poses sharp and timely questions of what culturally defines American identity and who, in the nationalistic age of Trump, has "the right" to be here. Mr. Leguizamo, whose inspirational source material ranges from the Aztec Codex to Howard Zinn and Sigmund Freud, sees himself as being descended from "a bastardly people," bred by the intermingling of the Americas' original inhabitants and their Spanish invaders. He pricelessly describes the conquistadors among the Aztecs as being like "N.B.A. players at a Kardashian pool party." Woven amid the memorable one liners, most of which cannot be quoted here, is the story of Mr. Leguizamo's quest for the perfect Latino hero for his son's school presentation. Unfortunately, his son has little use for the mostly military (and mostly soundly defeated) figures that Dad comes up with. Dealing with such rejection causes Mr. Leguizamo to rethink his notions of not only what ethnic identity is but also what defines heroism. The results are startlingly touching. Fatherhood seems to have brought out the gentler side of Mr. Leguizamo's persona. Comedians need their anger, though, and Mr. Leguizamo holds on to what he describes as the "ghetto rage" he developed growing up in Queens, attending schools that were like "'Lord of the Flies,' but with a lot less adult supervision." A splenetic disposition can, of course, be a disadvantage when it comes to the fatherly tasks of dealing with headmasters and fellow parents of students. So he seeks out the help of a therapist, who in Mr. Leguizamo's rendering sounds just like Garrison Keillor. The therapist suggests that his patient may need to retire the "outmoded survival skills" of defensive humor that he developed during his boyhood and his continuing "creative yet pathetic need to win the approval of strangers." Should Mr. Leguizamo follow this advice, he might well be a happier, calmer, saner individual. Let us pray that metamorphosis never happens.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night's highlights that lets you sleep and lets us get paid to watch comedy. If you're interested in hearing from The Times regularly about great TV, sign up for our Watching newsletter and get recommendations straight to your inbox. Earlier this week, the official who spearheaded the federal government's effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine was dismissed from that role. The official, Dr. Rick Bright, led the Department of Health and Human Services's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, and alleged Wednesday that he was ousted from that role for demanding rigorous testing of hydroxychloroquine, an anti malaria drug President Trump has suggested as a potential treatment of Covid 19. When asked about the demotion Thursday, Trump denied knowing who Dr. Bright was or anything about him. "I'm not sure what's more depressing that our president demoted a doctor who's trying to prevent Americans from trying an ineffective drug that could kill us or that we're not even remotely surprised that he did." JIMMY KIMMEL "That's right. Trump has never heard of the guy in charge of finding a vaccine. And you know what? To be honest, part of me is not surprised. imitating Trump aide 'Sir, would you like to meet the scientist who is in charge of finding a vaccine?" imitating Trump A scientist? Ew, gross. I'd rather meet Eric.'" TREVOR NOAH "And here's my only question about Trump: Why does he never hear of the people trying to solve problems, but people who are trying to cause problems? as Trump Hello, Giuliani? Yeah, some guy has the cure in his lab. I need you to go in there and do your Tasmanian devil thing." TREVOR NOAH "I don't understand how Trump has never heard of the person in charge of finding the vaccine to the disease that has shut down the entire world and don't tell me it's because he's too busy. I mean, this is the same man the same man who says he's been watching every nightly news show plus CNN, MSNBC in the morning, Fox News on weekend afternoons, and even reruns of baseball. Reruns! Let me tell you something: If you have time to watch reruns of baseball, you have time for anything. Baseball is boring when it's happening. Watching it in reruns is like watching paint dry through a PowerPoint presentation." TREVOR NOAH "That's right, Trump fired a guy named 'Dr. Bright.' He also let go of Professor Smarty, Dr. Savior and Secretary 'I Have the Cure, Don't Fire Me.'" STEPHEN COLBERT " as Trump Hey, look, my ideas don't lack scientific merit they lack any merit. You ready for another idea? Boof some Listerine. Couldn't hurt. I mean, it stings, but that's how you know it's working." STEPHEN COLBERT "On Tuesday, Dr. Redfield told The Washington Post that 'there's a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through.' And if you don't remember how difficult this past winter was, it had Trump's acquittal, the Australian bush fires, and 'Cats: the Movie.'" STEPHEN COLBERT discussing Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "And the idea of corona and flu hitting us simultaneously is terrifying, because that means we're going to have to do double social distancing, we're going to wear two masks, we're gonna have to stay 12 feet away from people, we're going to have to watch celebrities sing 'Imagine' twice." TREVOR NOAH "These poor doctors working for Trump. If they don't give us the truth, they're not doing their jobs, but if they do tell the truth, there's a good chance he'll fire them, so their only option is to play dumb and hope Trump gets distracted by a Filet O Fish or something." JIMMY KIMMEL "So we just better pray that coronavirus is cured by pumpkin spice." STEPHEN COLBERT Inspired by Stanley Tucci, Roy Wood Jr. offers the recipe for a new quarantine cocktail.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
He added: "Now she's scared. That girl is scared for her life. Which I understand." The Miami Dade County state attorney's office, which dropped the charges against XXXTentacion after he was killed, said in a statement: "The defendant makes admissions to multiple criminal acts in the recording." But the office added that the tape may not have ever made it to court: "While both defense counsel and our prosecutor believed the tape had confessions of criminal activity on it, the tape would likely not have been admissible at trial because of the way it was recorded (without knowledge/consent of the other parties)." The prosecutor's office said it had obtained the tape from the attorney of the woman who made it; while the office identified the woman, it declined to provide additional information about her relationship to XXXTentacion. Representatives for XXXTentacion and his estate did not respond to a request for comment. In the 27 minute tape, XXXTentacion detailed his romantic entanglements, spoke of suicidal thoughts and took responsibility for a stabbing incident in Deerfield Beach, Fla., that had been covered in the local news. "How many people they put in the news?" he said. "They said three, it was eight." He also referred to a stabbing in Orlando, and how it affected his former girlfriend. "She knew," he said. "So she's scared. She thinks I'm going to kill her." Elsewhere, he added: "I disgust myself every day. And, you know? It's funny I love it." In a January 2017 deposition, XXXTentacion's ex girlfriend detailed a pattern of violent behavior in her relationship with the rapper, including him choking, punching, stomping and threatening to murder her. After one attack while she was pregnant, the woman said, he confiscated her phone and kept her in a bedroom for two days to heal, until she managed to escape.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
PARIS European car sales tumbled again in May, reaching their lowest level in 20 years, manufacturers' data showed Tuesday, but analysts and industry officials said the market might have finally begun to bottom out. Sales fell 5.9 percent in May from a year earlier, to 1.04 million units, the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association reported from Brussels. The association said it was the smallest number of vehicles sold in the month since May 1993, when the number stood below one million. The European auto market peaked in 2007 at nearly 16 million new passenger vehicles, but it has been in retreat ever since. In the five months through May, new car sales were declining at a 6.8 percent annual pace, somewhat worse than most forecasts at the start of the year. Five years after the financial crisis arrived, Europe is still struggling to restart economic growth, and households remain extremely reluctant about big purchases like automobiles. The unemployment rate of the 17 nation euro zone stood at a record high of 12.2 percent in April, and nearly 27 million men and women across the wider European Union were unable to find jobs. Among young people, a top demographic for the future of the auto industry, the jobless problem is even worse.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Global Business
THE RENTERS Kelly Irvolino, left, and Rachel Smisloff at home in their new apartment. Last fall, Kelly Irvolino landed a job she very much wanted in the field of interior design. "This was a career move for me," she said. Ms. Irvolino had been commuting to New York from her parents' house in Passaic County, N.J., and was ready to move to the city, but knew she would need a roommate to afford it. "I didn't know anybody," said Ms. Irvolino, who works at the headquarters of Innovations in Wallcoverings. "I was scared of the Craigslist thing." Fortuitously, at her new job she met a woman who was also ready to move, Rachel Smisloff, the company's showroom manager. Ms. Smisloff, who is from upstate New York, was living in a two bedroom in Stuyvesant Town with two others, paying less than 1,200 a month for part of the living room. She was eager for a new roommate situation. East 62nd St. A building that had a selection of places with the requisite two bedrooms was in a noisy neighborhood. Tina Fineberg for The New York Times "I felt like I was a mom and a maid," said Ms. Smisloff, who also knew she could not afford a place on her own. "Unless you are making 200,000, you can't comfortably live alone." The women, who both have degrees in interior design, decided to team up and hunt for an apartment to share, seeking a Manhattan two bedroom for a top price of 2,700 a month. Ms. Irvolino, 30, still paying off student loans, limited herself to no more than 1,200 a month. Ms. Smisloff, 28, was willing to pay 1,500. Everything they saw in their price range was small and outdated "not the vibe we wanted," Ms. Irvolino said. She was horrified when an agent suggested they convert a studio to a two bedroom. Nevertheless, "I was more the realistic one," Ms. Irvolino said. "I was thinking about the cost. Rachel was scared she was going to be homeless, but I didn't want her to keep raising her budget." Besides, in the worst case scenario, her friend could always temporarily bunk with her in her parents' four bedroom house in New Jersey. East 92nd St. The entrance was less than inviting, around the side past trash cans. And the apartment was a fifth floor walk up. Tina Fineberg for The New York Times Online, Ms. Irvolino found Jonathan Rogel, a salesman at Miron Properties. He showed the roommates a walk up apartment for 2,600 a month on East 33rd Street in Murray Hill. The women didn't mind the location, atop the Second Avenue Deli. But it was a one bedroom that, when converted or "flexed" into a two bedroom, would have stuck Ms. Irvolino, who would be paying less, with a space that was more hallway than bedroom. "It would have been fine if we were just out of college, but we were adults and wanted something a little bit nicer," she said. Farther uptown, a small walk up building on East 62nd Street had three available apartments. All were similar, with tiny second bedrooms. The price dropped as the floors rose, with the ground floor apartment renting for 3,150 a month and the top floor for 2,750. All were offered with a half month of free rent. Ms. Smisloff objected to the noisy location, near traffic leaving the Queensboro Bridge. The building was just five blocks from her workplace. "It would have been a great commute," she said. But she feared feeling confined if she lived and worked in the same neighborhood. Third Avenue The prospective renters liked another two bedroom, also on the fifth floor, but not the red tape it involved. Tina Fineberg for The New York Times They headed farther north. A walk up building on East 92nd Street near Third Avenue had two vacancies, one for 2,750 a month and the other for 2,800. Both were on the fifth floor. The entrance was through a gated area where trash containers were kept. They preferred a sister building around the corner on Third Avenue, where two apartments were also available, for 2,750 and 2,500 a month, again walk ups on the fifth floor. They planned to apply for the less expensive one. But they objected to the strict credit requirements, which seemed excessive because the landlord also required a guarantor. "There were so many documents," Ms. Smisloff said. "It was absurd, the amount of paperwork needed." Finally, they came to a two bedroom in the East 90s for 2,675 a month, just within their budget. This one was at the back of a walk up building. Though the living room was small and dark, the two bedrooms were big. One bedroom lacked a closet, but the kitchen had new appliances and even a dishwasher. East 90s The views weren't the greatest, but everything else was pretty much O.K. at a place with two large bedrooms and a workable kitchen. Tina Fineberg for The New York Times It had just hit the market. "If it is a good unit, they last maybe a day or two," Mr. Rogel said. "It had everything they were looking for at a price that was reasonable." The roommates agreed. They didn't mind the views of brick walls and other people's windows. "You can kind of see your neighbors downstairs," Ms. Smisloff said. "There's a window in the bathroom, though it is basically facing an air shaft." They left a deposit, lined up a guarantor, split the broker fee and arrived in early spring. Ms. Smisloff pays 1,500 a month for the larger bedroom. Ms. Irvolino pays 1,175 for the smaller room; she uses the closet in the living room.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
The messaging and workplace collaboration company's shares began trading at 38.50 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, up from a reference price of 26 that was set a day earlier. SAN FRANCISCO Slack shares soared on Thursday on its first day of trading on the stock market, in a sign that Wall Street remains tantalized by fast growing young technology firms even after the recent lackluster public offerings of larger companies like Uber. Shares in the company, which makes workplace collaboration software, opened at 38.50 on the New York Stock Exchange, up from a reference price of 26 that was set on Wednesday. The stock continued to rise before closing at 38.62. That gave Slack a valuation of 19.5 billion, almost triple its 7.1 billion valuation as a private company. Slack's performance underlined a bifurcation that is taking place in tech offerings this year. While many big tech companies like Uber and Lyft were hyped ahead of going public, their stock prices slid once they started trading. Many of these large companies, which operate in untested categories, were deeply unprofitable and faced questions about whether they could make money and maintain their growth. But smaller tech start ups that have gone public and which often have more room to grow and lose less money have been warmly embraced by investors. Those include Zoom, a video conferencing company; PagerDuty, a business software provider; Beyond Meat, a meat alternative purveyor; and CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity business. All have seen their values at least triple after they went public in recent months. Slack also fits into this category. The company, which is based in San Francisco, is small compared with larger rivals like Microsoft. In its offering paperwork, Slack estimated the entire market for workplace collaboration services was 28 billion less than Microsoft's revenue in a single quarter. Get the Bits newsletter for the latest from Silicon Valley and the technology industry. The performance of recent I.P.O.s shows that investors are hungry for high growth companies with a "reasonable" and "believable" ability to turn a profit, said Barrett Daniels, a partner at Deloitte who focuses on I.P.O.s. For those companies, "it's all systems go," he said. "There's never been a better time to go public than right now." The fervor for such companies pushed Slack's valuation above that of other recent newly public tech companies, such as Lyft, which has a market capitalization of about 18 billion. Lyft stock is down 13 percent since it went public in March. Slack is also now more valuable than Pinterest, the digital pinboard company that had been worth more than the messaging company in the private market. Slack went public in an unusual transaction called a direct listing, where the company does not issue new shares or raise capital its stock simply begins trading. That method of reaching the stock market was limited to small, lesser known companies until the music streaming service Spotify broke the pattern in 2017 with a direct listing. Slack's direct listing was led by Goldman Sachs, alongside Morgan Stanley and Allen Company. Slack was able to go public through a direct listing partly because it doesn't need new capital. The company is sitting atop 793 million in cash, according to its offering prospectus. And while it loses money, it is also growing quickly. In its most recent quarter, Slack reported a loss of 32 million and said revenue rose 67 percent to 135 million. It anticipates as much as 600 million in revenue this year. Shortly after ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, Stewart Butterfield, chief executive and co founder of Slack, said going public had benefits. It opens the company up to a degree of scrutiny that large customers will find helpful, he said. When Slack was private, some customers asked to see its financials to ensure the company was sustainable, he said. "Now that doesn't have to happen. Now there's a lot more transparency," he said. "Starting three years ago, we started trying to run Slack as a public company. We have been building toward this for a long time." Read about how Slack's chief executive, Mr. Butterfield, had to learn to dial back his mouthiness. Slack grew out of TinySpeck, a gaming start up co founded by Mr. Butterfield in 2010 that did not catch on. TinySpeck's internal chat tool, which uses an early internet protocol called Relay Chat to let colleagues exchange messages and collaborate, showed promise. Mr. Butterfield reoriented the company around the chat product, publicly releasing Slack in 2014. The tool quickly spread among tech start ups, catching the attention of Silicon Valley investors. Slack became a "unicorn," a term used to describe start ups valued at 1 billion or more, in less than a year. At the time, Mr. Butterfield said in an interview that the valuation was somewhat arbitrary and not based on the precise methods of valuing a business, given how young Slack was and how quickly it was growing. Over five years, investors poured more than 1 billion into the company. As it grew, Slack also attracted potential acquirers such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon. But Mr. Butterfield rejected any deal and Slack is now used by more than 600,000 organizations with 95,000 paying customers. Some of the rebuffed tech giants, such as Microsoft, have gone on to challenge Slack with their own workplace collaboration products. Wayne Kurtzman, a research director at IDC, said Slack was part of a shift in the workplace where people are moving from static files to collaborative applications. "It's a battle for the work space and where work will get done," he said. Slack's challenge, he added, is to show customers it is more than just a messaging app. In its investor materials, Slack differentiated itself from the incumbents by saying it was focused on collaboration and was not distracted by old products or other priorities. The company promoted a directory of 1,500 applications built by partners, designed to let people automate aspects of their jobs, like responding to customer service messages or monitoring social media comments.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
Credit...Anne Bequette for The New York Times Who Needs a Caribbean Yacht When You Can Take the Ferry? Orion was shining brightly in the dark sky above Anegada in the British Virgin Islands. But the constellation had some electric competition in the band of bright mast lights bobbing offshore "like a bejeweled Orion's belt," observed a new acquaintance who introduced himself as Spoons, the pilot of one of those yachts. He and his crew of five friends from the Boston area had paid 10,900 for eight days on a 45 foot catamaran to sail from island to island. Chartering a boat is one way to island hop in the B.V.I. and a popular one. According to the tourism board, slightly more than half of all visitors to the British overseas territory's 60 islands and cays stay on yachts. I, on the other hand, chose a far cheaper way to travel between islands. Using the B.V.I. ferry system, I spent 140 not including accommodations, which added about 700 to my expenses over a five day trip, reaching four ports in bargain, connect the dots style. In the Caribbean, several ferry companies offer opportunities for multi island vacations, such as the L'Express des Iles, which cruises from Guadeloupe to Dominica, Martinique and St. Lucia. Others offer domestic service, including ferries from St. Vincent to some of the outlying Grenadines, and those that link the United States Virgin Islands. A mix of day trippers, business commuters, yacht renters and one friendly couple from Tortola who helped me with my immigration form joined me on the windy trip aboard the 82 foot passenger ferry BVI Patriot. With four foot waves and occasional sprinkles, I sat on the upper deck inside the cabin, which was both strangely ordinary two flat screens tuned to CNN delivered news of the Democratic presidential debates and a snowstorm in New York and wildly exotic as we passed leggy cactuses growing out of rock islets, forested hillsides of undeveloped islands and a few stands of barren mangroves, evidence of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, which struck in 2017. (The damage inflicted by those hurricanes brought the hotel room inventory to about 1,500, down from 2,700.) Two cruise ships in the harbor dwarfed the 149 passenger BVI Patriot when we arrived. After clearing immigration, I hired a taxi driver, Conrad "Dodgy" Lewis "Dodgy doesn't describe my driving," he insisted to take me from the congested capital over the island's mountain spine to Cane Garden Bay, one of Tortola's most popular beaches, and back several hours later, in time for my late afternoon ferry to Virgin Gorda for 50. At Cane Garden Bay, lounge chairs and umbrellas colonized the sand in front of a series of restaurant terraces and beach bars, welcoming travelers from the cruise ships, arriving in open air buses. On an overcast day, I walked the beach between sporadic downpours to the more than 400 year old Callwood Rum Distillery where Matthew Callwood, a distiller, bartender, tour guide and member of the family that has owned the distillery since the 1800s, led me and two cruise passengers on a tour ( 5) of the mostly outdoor distillery works, including a 19th century sugar cane crusher originally powered by harnessed donkeys. "There used to be 28 distilleries on the island, and now there's just us," he said, pouring shots of Callwood's four rums, including white, spiced and the smoother aged version he recommended. "It's good for sipping, or putting in your coffee in the morning." Racing to make the late afternoon Speedy's ferry to Virgin Gorda ( 30 round trip), I was joined by a day tripping set of cruise passengers, another American couple bound for a week at a luxury resort, uniformed schoolchildren and several returning islanders clutching bunches of stuffed shopping bags. One visitor leaned over the port railing, welcoming the warm wind in his face for the entire 30 minute passage toward Virgin Gorda, said to have been named Fat Virgin by Christopher Columbus for its pregnant profile. You can tell a lot about an island by its ferry cargo. There were pallets of bottled water on the boat to Tortola. On Virgin Gorda, Speedy's deckhands unloaded cases of Veuve Clicquot and Cakebread Cellars wines. Virgin Gorda has long attracted the rich and famous. Taxi drivers pointed out Morgan Freeman's former home and Richard Branson's two nearby islands. Recently reopened after the hurricanes forced substantial rebuilding, Rosewood Little Dix Bay has catered to the affluent since Laurance Rockefeller developed the resort in 1964. Consequently, a solitary backpacker seemed an usual sight in Spanish Town, the main settlement on Virgin Gorda. I declined taxi offers in favor of a 15 minute walk to Fischer's Cove Beach Hotel, where blossoms were tucked in conch shells and towels in my tidy and spacious room ( 175 a night). Only when I stepped onto the flamingo pink patio and looked up did I realize there used to be a second story above, where rebar now pierced the blue sky. The Flax family, owners of the hotel, are gradually rebuilding after the hurricanes. Tropical foliage has sprung back on much of the mountainous island, home to a series of national parks, including Gorda Peak National Park, with its panoramic trail to 1,370 feet elevation. Staying overnight on Virgin Gorda offers a rare opportunity to visit its best loved beauty spot the Baths National Park, protecting a dramatic stretch of shore where massive granite boulders as big as 40 feet in diameter cluster in the shallows before the cruise ship crowds arrive. At 7 a.m. when the first blush of light began pinking the clouds, I started down the park path past cactuses and the occasional orchid to Devil's Bay where a septuagenarian foursome was quietly skinny dipping. I waited out a 10 minute rain shower in a shorefront cave weathered by the action of the waves. The path continued over and between the Baths' boulders, sometimes with the assistance of steps or rope holds bolted into the rocks, walling off calm, shallow, swim inviting pools. I saw evidence of other early birds at the Baths "M M 2020" seemed freshly written in the sand but I never saw them until I completed the roughly mile long circuit and returned to the entrance at 8:30 a.m. where a line was already forming. "Tortola is the big city to us," Dawn Flax, one of the family members who runs Fischer's Cove, told me when I checked in. "We go there when we need to go to the bank or the lawyer." A day later, I ran into her at the ferry terminal on Tortola, returning home after a banking run. It was an unintended stop, but when the Wednesday departure from Virgin Gorda to Anegada was canceled, I was forced to the B.V.I.'s hub to catch Road Town Fast Ferry's 300 passenger Lady Caroline from Tortola to Anegada ( 50 round trip). From the concrete ferry pier, I got the vaguest of directions to my hotel walk down the pier and take your first left which turned out to be accurate. By late afternoon, the outdoor, oceanfront bar at the Anegada Reef Hotel was packed, not solely with guests of the 10 room hotel (from 155 a night), but also with sailors from the many yachts moored in front of it. Other than the pre sunset rush for rum based Painkiller cocktails, the nightly hotel barbecue featuring the island's renowned spiny lobster, and a D.J. blaring "Love Shack" from a bar at Potter's by the Sea down the beach, Anegada is quiet. "You come to Anegada to swim and sleep under the sea grapes in the shade and wake up and swim and eat and drink and sleep again," explained an islander at the bar. "No one will bother you." I hoped not, especially when I rented a scooter the next morning for 50 a day from Michael Hastick, the co owner of L M rentals. He gave me, a scooter novice, a quick lesson in operating the vehicle and when I asked the speed limit, he smiled. Before leaving on the next day's 8:30 a.m. ferry to Tortola and onward to St. Thomas, I walked the beach to Neptune's Treasure resort where the aroma of cinnamon rolls from Pam's Kitchen served as an olfactory siren to sailors aboard the 50 some yachts tied up offshore. The Caribbean is rarely a thrifty destination. Food can be expensive (I paid 40 for half a lobster at the Lobster Trap on Anegada). There were unexpected fees, including a B.V.I. environmental tax of 10 upon arrival and a 20 departure fee. My hotels would have been a better deal if split with a companion. I spent close to 1,000 on the trip. But the compensation of taking the ferries went beyond financial. I traveled with commuting islanders of all ages, passed the time in terminal waiting rooms with women doing word search puzzles and joined them in bringing my own lunch aboard. These regular sailors knew to sit starboard to avoid the sun on the afternoon Anegada run and to move to the exit before docking to beat the disembarking crowds at Tortola.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel

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