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There is something peculiar about time during the pandemic. On the one hand there's a feeling that the normal calendar has simply stopped, school schedules and sports seasons evaporating, one homebound day passing much like another. It's a feeling of hiatus, intermission, like the days between Christmas and the new year, or some extra season invented by a Renaissance pope to fix a lagging calendar. Yet at the same time there's a feeling of acceleration, of changes that might have otherwise dragged out across a decade piling one atop the other. The George Floyd protests and their electoral consequences, the transformation of liberal institutions by internal agitation, the changes happening to cities and corporations and colleges and churches in each case, trends that were working slowly have seemingly speeded up. This means that when the coronavirus era finally ends, there will be a Rip Van Winkle feeling a sense of having been asleep and waking to normality, except that we will have time traveled and the normality will resemble the year 2030 as it might have been without the virus, rather than just a simple turn to 2021 or 2022. What will this 2030 in 2022 look like? First, certain key cultural institutions will be increasingly consolidated and concentrated, academia and journalism especially. In the newspaper industry much of this process happened already, but Covid is delivering a swifter coup de grace to midsize daily newspapers and online start ups, and handing advantages to a few national entities (ahem) that they might have otherwise taken five or 10 more years to gain. In higher education a similar transformation is being pulled forward: Colleges were expecting a grim landscape in the later 2020s, because 2010s birthrates were so low, but now a decline in foreign enrollment and an acceleration of online learning will threaten marginal state schools and possibly close small liberal arts colleges much sooner. (The coronavirus experience is also likely to push birthrates still lower, delaying any higher ed recovery by years or decades more.) The likely winners will be the prestige schools and big state campuses, who will have the resources to survive and expand and the name brands to leverage in new online markets though so long as pandemic fears keeps kids close to home, the state schools may gain some ground at the prestige schools' expense. In religion, the pandemic may strengthen certain forms of faith, but that won't save institutional churches from what Fordham's David Gibson calls a "religion recession" caused by falling donations and shrunken attendance. Smaller churches may suffer most, for the same tight margins, high overhead reasons that restaurants are going under. But big religious bodies like Roman Catholicism and the Southern Baptists will probably decline as well, in a hurried up version of the decay that awaited them with the next decade's worth of generational turnover. (Any Catholic diocese that had a 10 year plan for closing or consolidating schools or parishes, for instance, can expect to do the same thing but much faster.) In politics, similarly, what was likely to be a slow motion leftward shift, as the less married, less religious, more ethnically diverse younger generation gained more power, is being accelerated nationally by the catastrophes of the Trump administration, which is putting states in play for Democrats five or 10 years early. A political shift is certainly accelerating within elite institutions, where the younger generation is trying to establish a new ideological consensus, a new set of standards and boundaries for behavior and opinion, that otherwise would have advanced more slowly, with more contestation, over the next 10 years. (That these institutions are subject to the consolidating forces described above makes the battle to control them more important, and the professional stakes more fraught.) Finally in corporate America, there may be trends toward both consolidation and dispersal. The former, because even federal intervention probably won't prevent small businesses from going under while bigger businesses ride things out, accelerating the pre existing drift toward a less entrepreneurial, more monopolist America. But the latter, because the remote work experience, pandemic fears and possibly rising crime rates may encourage more companies to abandon the great consolidated hubs of the digital age, or at least fling more satellite campuses out to Idaho and Iowa and other lower cost of living states, dispersing talent back into the heartland for the first time in two generations. Of the trends I've described, only this last one seems like a hopeful sign that post pandemic America might become less sclerotic, less decadent than the America of 2019. If one wanted to be especially optimistic, one could add that maybe maybe a corporate dispersal will reduce social stratification, and help create new intellectual, journalistic and even religious centers. But overall, the pandemic seems likely to bring us more quickly to a future of consolidated power, weakened human scale institutions and growing ideological conformity. Along with far too many lives, that's what's likely to be lost in this strange between time: a decade's worth of chances to take an off ramp, choose a different direction, or just stand athwart 2030 yelling stop. 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, join the Facebook political discussion group, Voting While Female.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
At Fifty Third and Eighth, a condominium development at 301 West 53rd Street, almost everything is for sale. Beyond the apartments themselves, the modern leather sofas, nubby rugs and factory inspired lamps displayed in model units are all available for purchase. So are the crisp bedsheets, fluffy towels, multicolored bowls and streamlined flatware used to accessorize the spaces. That offering is the result of a partnership between the HFZ Capital Group, the developer, and the furniture retailer Design Within Reach, which dressed up five model units with product availability in mind. If buyers fall in love with a particular model apartment, they can buy the whole furniture package, ranging from about 39,000 to 60,000, for their new home. If they want to expand the selection, or change a few of the pieces, they can meet with a member of the retailer's sales team. Or, if they're smitten only with the 9,400 sofa, they can order just that single piece. At a time when it seems as if every new development offers increasingly chic model units, and as upscale home staging becomes ever more commonplace, a number of developers in New York are taking showcase apartments to the next logical step offering complete turnkey homes to buyers through furniture packages, interior design consultations and move in ready apartments where all the decorating is already done. Rather than merely showing buyers aspirational model units that demonstrate what their apartments could potentially look like, these developers are presenting comprehensive design visions that can be bought on the spot. When sales began at Fifty Third and Eighth, in February 2015, the development team had created preliminary model units designed by Ash NYC, a design and development firm, purely for show. But when people began inquiring about buying those units furnished, the team switched strategies and partnered with Design Within Reach to create new model units in a similar modern style, where such purchases are encouraged. "The more that people were asking, the more we thought it would be a great idea to offer this to the market," said Reid Price, an associate broker at Douglas Elliman Real Estate who is the director of sales for the project. "It's one more way to differentiate our product." Jordan Feldman, an associate of HFZ, noted that "a lot of people are first time buyers here," who sometimes struggle to envision a completed home. "Even though we already had model units, we thought we could attract a lot more buyers by making them feel like everything's been done for them already." The program has attracted four buyers since it was introduced last November, including some who will use their apartments as pieds a terre, said Daniel Gaouette, an account executive at Design Within Reach. "I have a client right now who needs it done quickly because she's going to be gone for the next three months," he said. "She just wants some in stock pieces, so she feels comfortable." At 101 Wall, a financial district condominium, the developer, the Claremont Group, is offering something similar. It has created a range of furniture packages with the project's designer, Amsterdam based Piet Boon, and Lepere, the New York showroom that sells Mr. Boon's muscular, minimalist furniture collection. Each design scheme includes a number of suggested furniture layouts and three color palettes from which to choose. Mr. Boon said, "It's a total concept, but customized for the customer," noting that Lepere will coordinate changes and personalization of the packages with his office. "My intention is not to make a standard unit, but something special for each person." Dominic Lepere, the owner of Lepere, added: "It's full service. We'll meet with buyers throughout the process, help select everything, and then coordinate the shipping logistics and final installation." The development's sales team will begin offering the packages, which range from about 90,000 for a one bedroom apartment to about 150,000 for a three bedroom, to buyers in the coming weeks. Riham El Batanouny and Oussama Jamal, who live in Cairo and Dubai, are in contract to buy a two bedroom pied a terre at 101 Wall for about 2.3 million, and plan to take advantage of the program. "We went to the sales office, and asked if they had this kind of offering, because it's so beautiful," Ms. El Batanouny said. "We live overseas, and it would be very difficult for us to go through the whole process of furnishing. To have it given to you as one package is just amazing." At 160 Leroy, a condominium in the West Village, the developer Ian Schrager is offering his own twist on turnkey apartments. "We're offering design services that allow you to walk into an apartment that has absolutely everything," he said. "You just have to bring your toothbrush." The French designer Christian Liaigre has already designed some furniture pieces exclusively for the building. Working with Mr. Schrager's design staff, buyers have access to those and other pieces designed by Mr. Liaigre, along with a range of other products and accessories to create a complete home. "You can buy pieces of furniture with consultation and help from my staff, free of charge, or even hire Christian Liaigre to design your apartment," Mr. Schrager said. "We do all of it." Some developers are taking the concept a step further by offering complete turnkey apartments that are fully decorated before they're even listed for sale. At Ralph Walker Tribeca at 100 Barclay Street, the Magnum Real Estate Group and the CIM Group are offering a handful of such apartments designed by the firm Grade. Ben H. Shaoul, the principal of Magnum, said he discovered the demand for turnkey apartments after buyers asked to purchase model units at his previous developments. "Some are international and don't want to buy their own furniture or hire a designer," he said. "Some are busy businesspeople who don't want to deal with it, and some are people who just like the furniture." The first of four initial turnkey units at Ralph Walker Tribeca is now listed for 12 million, which Mr. Shaoul said is about 1 million more than it would cost empty. It comes complete with Alvar Aalto bentwood armchairs, a Holly Hunt cocktail table and dining chairs, and a Lindsey Adelman branching dining room chandelier. "As we sell them, we'll continue to furnish more units," he said, "because we feel there's demand for this in the market." At One57, a condominium at 157 West 57th Street, the Extell Development Company recently hired the designer Jennifer Post to give a three bedroom unit the head to toe designer treatment. Ms. Post not only selected a whole home's worth of furniture, rugs and light fixtures, but also changed the interior architecture. She dropped the living room ceiling slightly to add recessed lighting and create drapery pockets, enclosed structural columns, and built out a living room wall to add light coves and showcase art. She also covered every wall with Venetian plaster or wallcovering, and added custom built in furniture. "I've been doing this more and more for international buyers," said Ms. Post, explaining that she designs luxury homes from start to finish for clients who just want them completed. "These people have three or four homes, and they do not want to come to New York and oversee design and construction." The apartment, which would have been 19.15 million empty, is now listed for 20.1 million. If someone buys it, he or she will get everything but the art (which is on consignment from galleries), right down to the soap, candles and books. It wouldn't be the first furnished apartment to sell in the building, which is about 80 percent sold. A previous apartment that had been designed by Jamie Drake as a model unit sold with all its furniture last September for 28.5 million, 1.5 million above its price empty, when a buyer just had to have the complete package. "We were thrilled to sell that residence, and realized there really is a market for people who just want to come in, take it, and move in," said Graham Spearman, a senior sales executive at Extell. The company plans to build more turnkey units at One57, Mr. Spearman said, and at other properties in its portfolio. "For us, there's no risk involved," he added, "because we know it's going to sell."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
MILAN The kooky utterances fashion designers sometimes spout (and some fashion journalists often parrot) seldom offer much indicator of what's actually going on in the collections. Both in his elaborate show notes and backstage before a beautiful final stand alone show of men's wear for Gucci on Monday, the label's creative director Alessandro Michele alluded to the metaphysics of journey: real travel, time travel, armchair travel, metaphoric and philosophical voyages, everything but budget trips to Las Vegas on a Greyhound bus. It doesn't really matter that the blather bore minimal relation to what he showed on the runway. In just a few seasons, Mr. Michele has revived the flagging fortunes of this venerable luxury goods label, one whose revenue for the year is predicted to top four billion euros (or 4.5 billion). Thus when Mr. Michele offers a men's wear collection (and it was emphatically a men's wear collection, notwithstanding the inclusion of a smattering of female models) before an audience that included his Hollywood BFF Jared Leto (they attended the Oscars together this year), Ryan McGinley and the blond ephebe boy star Olly Alexander in a plush bordello space lighted the color of absinthe, two of the three dressed in glorious half drag, you know you are in for a trip. And Mr. Michele delivered with souvenir jackets scrolled with dragons; flower patterned suits and contrast piped rowing blazers; Mary Janes with jeweled buckles; slickers and rain caps straight off a box of Fisherman's Friend lozenges; over embroidered jeans jackets; Fair Isle sweaters with Donald Duck woven into the pattern; satin kimono lounge jackets; tunics ornamented with military braid; drawstring painter's pants and evening clothes stitched with what looked like trapunto flora. Travel, as others have pointed out, has been a leitmotif throughout the Milan men's wear season. And while this is probably not the place for cranky opprobrium, it feels necessary to call out the obliviousness of designers who presented collections rife with references to campsites, tarpaulins, tents and displacement when millions of Syrian and Afghan refugees crowd Europe's borders or wash up dead on its shores. Naturally there is a temptation to sit back and enjoy the spectacle when Thom Browne stages one of his usual displays for Moncler Gamme Bleu (a subsidiary line of the puffer giant Moncler, founded in 1952 and reinvented five decades later by Remo Ruffini as a fashion concern) in a glamping show rife with references to scouting and Smokey Bear. What is the harm? Mr. Browne is a skilled entertainer, albeit one occasionally in need of a dramaturge. As with past collections, the tableaux vivant devised here ended without plot resolution. In a bunkerlike show space on the edge of town, Mr. Browne laid sod, installed mature fir trees and piped in the sounds of crickets and birds. He erected 40 translucent pup tents in four parallel rows, and then had his models march out in hooded floor length coats that were half sleeping bag, half cagoule jacket. One by one, the guys installed themselves before their bivouacs. Soon two mascot bears appeared, stopping by turns to help the models wriggle out of their bag coats, revealing beneath them suits with short pants that formed the collection's core. Some were in blanket plaid. Some were channel quilted. Some were in techno fabrics. Some had sequins, and several were constructed using astrakhan, the fleece of newborn or fetal lambs. (Memo to PETA: Don't blame the messenger.) Most were worn with knee socks and either safari or field jackets, all adorned with so many bellows pockets you'd need a compass to find your keys. Once revealed, the models paraded around the space, dragging their cloaks behind them before returning to their tents and, unfurling the bags, bedding down inside. That was it. The show ended. The audience filed out. And as they did, some wondered what may become of those tents. "Exaggerated utility," was his theme, Mr. Browne said later. Given recent events in Europe, the phrase struck an unwittingly callous tone. That many of the clothes had been printed with random motifs like watermelons, sombreros or the Buddha suggested that Ms. Prada has more in common with a designer like Mr. Michele than you may imagine. Is there anyone left whose creative process is not influenced by the mysterious algorithms of Google Image? Probably not. The imaginative set for Prada by AMO, a research arm of the Dutch architecture studio OMA recast the interior of Prada's space as a series of raked ramps constructed from structural metal mesh. Entering under eerie green light, and with Frederic Sanchez' distorted remix of Bjork's "Army of Me" as an aural backdrop, the models climbed ever uphill toward some unseen vanishing point. As at Moncler Gamme Bleu, exaggerated utility was Prada's tacit through line. And as at Moncler Gamme Bleu, the show provoked questions that even a designer of Ms. Prada's sure intelligence seems unprepared to answer. The sunniness of Angela Missoni's relationship to travel is not easy to square with her personal experience of its perils. It was just three years ago last January that a chartered plane carrying her brother Vittorio, 58, his wife and four others (including a pilot and co pilot) vanished as it left the Caribbean archipelago of Los Roques. The loss was devastating for a family whose label Mr. Missoni ran with his siblings. Yet there on Sunday, almost exactly on the anniversary of the discovery of the wreck and the identification of the bodies, Ms. Missoni mounted a show that harks back to travel in happier times. "We went on a family trip to Guatemala when I was 15," Ms. Missoni said backstage. "And I never forgot it." A jacket she bought on that trip was the point of departure for a collection that used Missoni's signature knitwear patterns for shorts and cropped trousers, tracksuit tops and shirts, relaxed suiting, Breton striped undershirts and roomy jackets embroidered with toucans. The woven leather Malibu hippie sandals had closed toes. Cuban heeled boots were transformed into sling backs. Many of the models in what was by far the most racially diverse casting of recent memory wore straw jibaro hats more characteristic of Cuba or Puerto Rico than Central America, but no matter. Even with rain falling in the loggia of the university courtyard where the show was held, the mood was celebratory, even redemptive. Giorgio Armani also alluded to travel in his show on Monday, largely into his own back pages. Mr. Armani, undisputed king of Italian fashion, surveys a realm that however remote it may occasionally seem from developments in contemporary design sooner or later must acknowledge him. It is not rote obeisance. Mr. Armani laid down the codes other designers flout. He devised silhouettes many decades ago that have sustained him, snapshots from a long and memorable journey. If there was little novelty in a collection that offered variations on his customary snug knit jackets and tunics, worn over voluminous bottom hugging linen trousers as feminizing as anything Alessandro Michele ever created, the collection served to remind viewers that the past is also, for some, a destination. The future is, of course, uncertain. The present, at the moment, is in certain ways a pretty ugly place.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
As the Second Avenue subway marks its first six months in operation, developers have taken note. "What was the overwhelming encumbrance of that area? It was the lack of mass transportation," said Nikki Field, an associate broker with Sotheby's International Realty and a longtime agent in the district. "Now, properties are going to move." Along the new subway route, which extended the Q line through the Yorkville neighborhood, more than a dozen rentals and condos are planned or underway, according to analyses from Halstead Property Development Marketing and Brown Harris Stevens Development Marketing. And, some existing buildings between First and Third Avenues, from East 63rd to East 96th Streets, are seeing values climb, too, brokers and developers point out. Developers, of course, have flocked there for other reasons. Indeed, the fact that the area had been service starved meant that land, until recently, was relatively cheap, a situation that can translate into reduced prices for buildings yet to be completed. "This is sort of on the fringe," said Michael Belkin, a partner at Wonder Works Development Group, which is erecting Vitre, a glassy 21 story condo rising at 302 East 96th Street, just east of Second Avenue. Offering finish work like Italian cabinetry, and amenities like a second story lounge that opens to a fenced in patio, the building has 48 one to three bedroom apartments with prices starting at 915,000, Mr. Belkin said. Sales began last month at Vitre, which will open in summer 2018. The developers, who bought the site in 2015 for 22 million, according to city records, considered it a bargain relative to places like TriBeCa or Chelsea. But they didn't come just for the subway, which opened to the public on Jan. 1, 2017. "It wasn't the primary determining factor," Mr. Belkin said, "though it definitely came into our thoughts." Since then, however, Vitre seems to have embraced its location. Adorning its website is a large photo of the new vaultlike glass subway entrance at East 96th, about a minute from Vitre's front door. CityRealty analyzed 28 buildings in the area, including Carnegie Park, from the Related Companies, at 200 East 94th Street, and the Charles, from Bluerock Real Estate, at 1355 First Avenue, both of which opened in 2015. Long considered a more affordable region on the Upper East Side because of its distance from the Lexington Avenue line, Yorkville apartments have typically sold for about 20 percent less than those located west of Third Avenue, Ms. Field said. But "the gap is absolutely narrowing." The gradual escalation of prices, which also can be explained in terms of a recovery from the last downturn, has been apparent on a personal level for Shai Shustik, a developer who lives at 300 East 71st Street, a red brick co op near the new East 72nd Street subway stop. In 2007, Tali Haddad, whom Mr. Shustik would later marry, bought a one bedroom in the building for 520,000, he said. From within the third floor unit, which faced Second Avenue, the subway construction sounded like a "bombing," said Mr. Shustik, who stayed there often. Six years later, in 2013, Ms. Haddad, who by then had become Ms. Shustik, sold the unit for 685,000 as construction was still plodding along. They made money on the deal, but the value was hurt by a two story temporary structure that served as an office for subway workers, which blocked views from the window, Mr. Shustik said. Once the subway opened and the structure came down, prices went up, though overall market conditions may also have played a part. Indeed, in May of this year, the apartment sold again for 900,000, according to property records, representing about a 30 percent spike in just four years. "I was definitely shocked they were able to achieve that number," Mr. Shustik said. Mr. Shustik, who works as the principal of Manhattan Residential, a development firm that owns several rental buildings in nearby East Harlem, is now undertaking a project closer to home. At 327 East 84th Street, near Second Avenue, inside a three story former garage with an ornate brick facade, he will create a four or five unit condo where each apartment will include a private, enclosed parking space. The project is awaiting some building permits, which are expected this summer. In 2015, city records show, the site cost about 12 million, a price some brokers said would be hard to match for a comparable site today. In the meantime, Mr. Shustik is heartened by the arrival of new restaurants, like an outpost of La Esquina, the trendy downtown taqueria, which opened this spring in a long empty space at East 73rd and Second. "Now that the subway construction is out of the way, you can feel better energy around here," he added. While the eastern Upper East Side has seen booms before a thicket of condos sprouted in the 1980s the latest wave offers more opulence than in the past, brokers say. The first in a planned chain, the 300 million development is supposed to open in the spring of 2019, at rents starting at 12,000 a month, a price that includes three farm to table meals a day. Although Inspir's residents, who will be between 75 and 85, may not be regulars on the new subway line, Mr. Smith said easier access may make the area more appealing to their families, especially ones that may want to live nearby. "That gentrification is certainly a bonus for us," he said. Other projects proposed for the area include a full block mega development from AvalonBay Communities, the real estate investment trust, on Second between East 96th and East 97th Streets on land leased from the city, part of which had been used to store subway construction equipment. The nearly 1 billion undertaking proposes 1,100 rental units across 68 stories, plus three public schools and park land, though as of late June, the deal had not yet closed, an AvalonBay spokesman said. "It's a pretty exciting location," said Matt Birenbaum, the chief investment officer. "It's right on top of the new Second Avenue subway line." Elsewhere, Icon Realty Management is planning condos for two empty lots it owns on Second Avenue. One, at 301 East 81st Street, will have 32 units across 19 stories, and another, at 301 East 80th Street, will offer 72 apartments and 30 stories, with both expected to break ground this year. While the gleaming new subway stops, where stations are air conditioned and lined with art, at least give developers a talking point, they may not be enough to make up for an overall softening in the luxury market. To wit: The Kent, an 83 unit condo from the Extell Development Company at 200 East 95th Street at Third Avenue, which some brokers have held up as a bellwether of the area's rejuvenation, is about 25 percent sold, after a year of marketing, according to StreetEasy. That slow pace, brokers add, came despite some discounting. A spokeswoman for Extell declined to comment. Still, even if sales are sluggish, the trip to Midtown is speedier. Plus, a sense of isolation seems to have lifted, according to Ms. Field. Yorkville, she said, "is no longer Siberia."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Prices Are Rising for New Homes, and the Land They Are Built On MINNEAPOLIS A few months ago, Michael N. Felix's phone started ringing again after four years of silence. Mr. Felix is a land broker whose business dried up when the housing market crashed. But with home prices now rising faster than anyone expected, builders are again looking for what, in the land trade, is referred to as dirt. Already, developers report that the cost of land in the most desirable areas is double what it was two years ago. At least three golf courses in the Minneapolis St. Paul area are being carved into millions of dollars' worth of residential lots. The race has even sent builders back to outer suburbs like Otsego, 30 miles from downtown Minneapolis, where bulldozers are laying the groundwork for four bedroom houses with three car garages, in subdivisions bordered by cornfields. "Lot buyers and sellers!!!!!!!!" Mr. Felix's Web site reads. "It is time to get moving again....!" Or past time. The latest land rush is in full swing, as developers realize that they have failed to feed the zoning, permitting and mapping pipeline, which can take months or years to turn raw fields into buildable lots. They are realizing another thing, too: they have been sorely missed. "For the first time, I've seen cities want to work to help figure it out, rather than doing us a favor all the time to let us develop," said Scott Carlston of Hunter Emerson, a development partnership. Hunter Emerson won a victory when the city of Eagan, a suburb of Minneapolis, allowed Parkview Golf Club to be converted into a high end single family subdivision. The hunt for dirt is not limited to the Twin Cities. After builders across the country spent decades feeding acre after acre of raw land into the maw of demand for single family homes, the housing crash left them with a land surplus so large that lots were selling for pennies on the dollar. At the peak of supply, in 2009, there were enough lots to last almost eight years, according to MetroStudy, a firm that tracks housing data. Now there is less than four year's worth, and only about a quarter of that is in the more desirable A or B rated locations. "We have gone from a situation where five years ago everyone was saying, 'There's too many lots,' to today, builders are literally crying on our shoulder saying, 'There's not enough lots. We can't find any,'" said Bradley F. Hunter, the chief economist at MetroStudy. The shortage of lots is slowing the housing recovery, the National Association of Home Builders said last week. In August, 59 percent of builders surveyed said lot supply was low or very low, the association said. Housing is a critical driver for the economy, not just because of the jobs and supplies needed to build homes but also the appliances and furnishings that new occupants buy. At the peak of the housing boom, builders were finishing more than 1.6 million single family houses a year. That number plunged to less than half a million during the recession. This year, the industry is on track to complete more than 570,000 homes, still substantially below the level considered necessary to replace aging homes and provide for new households. A return to more normal rates of construction would substantially lift the economy's anemic growth rate of about 2 percent over the last year. Mr. Carlston said some cities in the Twin Cities area had adjusted their rules to allow fewer parking spaces or smaller lots. Otsego has lowered some of its development fees and allowed a developer to change an approved plan so that a partly built town house project could be finished with more salable detached homes. Rick Packer, a land development manager for Centra Homes, said some suburbs were relaxing requirements that homes be made of brick or stucco. Even the Sierra Club, which once placed Minneapolis among the top 10 sprawl threatened cities, has backed off a bit. An annual bike ride by the local chapter, once known as the "Tour de Sprawl," has been given a less pejorative name and refocused to include not just threatened green space but what the group considers model development and transportation projects. Mayor Mike Maguire of Eagan, a co chairman of the Regional Council of Mayors Housing Initiative, said one reason his city had approved a land use change for the golf course was that so little new housing was built in the last few years. "When there's no new development, you have stock that's increasingly out of date and that tends to bring your home values down," he said. "That was one of the things we were hearing back from Realtors, was they had people who wanted to move to Eagan but couldn't find the home they wanted." Last year, Hunter Emerson agreed to pay 8.6 million for the golf course, wagering that the city would approve the land use change. The partnership sold the property to a national home builder for 13.1 million, Mr. Carlston said. The houses will cost from 400,000 to 700,000, he said. The excess left from the boom land in various stages of development ranging from untouched to what builders call PVC farms, named for the hard plastic plumbing pipes that, with electrical lines, were virtually all that was on the lots is quickly being absorbed. Developers have gone from buying foreclosed acreage from banks to buying from farmers, family trusts, manufacturers and even homeowners with outdated homes on single lots. "What we've seen is the inner ring of the suburbs, all those areas have come back," said Rod Just of Key Land Homes, a Twin Cities builder. "The outer ring, they've taken just a little bit longer because of gas prices, but they're going to come back." For builders, there is even a sense of deja vu. "The new lots that are coming out," Mr. Just said, "are almost the prices that they were in 2005 when everything crashed."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
RIGGED America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference By David Shimer On Election Day 2016, the United States braced for a crippling sneak attack by a foreign power. "It was very high alert," Barack Obama's deputy adviser for homeland security, Amy Pope, recalled for David Shimer, a journalist and current graduate student at Oxford, whose extraordinary and gripping "Rigged" not only reveals the drama on that fateful day and the weeks that led up to it, but is also the first book to put the story of Russian interference into a broader context. The attack that President Obama and his lieutenants most feared a Kremlin effort to engineer chaos by deregistering voters or altering outcomes in swing counties didn't occur. But, as most of us know, an enormous and consequential Russian mind bending intervention involving hacking Democratic servers, releasing politically embarrassing materials and using social media to spread disinformation did. In a sense, having feared a nuclear attack, Washington watched as Moscow won a conventional battle instead. Shimer provides a subtle and evenhanded portrait of a White House in an unprecedented crisis. President Obama's Cold War predecessors would have envied the quality of intelligence available to him at this time. After the public release of emails stolen by hackers from the server of the Democratic National Committee in June 2016, the American intelligence community quickly determined that Russian intelligence was responsible for the hack and, even more strikingly (thanks to a still highly classified source), that President Vladimir Putin had ordered it. Confidence in Putin's complicity raised the stakes enormously, sparking debate within the Obama administration over whether to go on the offensive. Among the options, Shimer reveals, was a deniable media attack on Putin himself that would involve releasing vivid information about Putin's lavish lifestyle and the ill gotten gains he had hidden from ordinary Russians. Secretary of State John Kerry discussed this option with the White House. By August 2016 Obama had said no to any retaliation before Nov. 8. With the pacing of a thriller and the insight of a superb work of history, the book paints an understandable yet dismaying picture of a missed opportunity. We have heard before about two of the reasons behind Obama's actions the likelihood that Hillary Clinton would be elected and the likelihood that a defeated Donald Trump would claim he had been cheated. Want to keep up with the latest and greatest in books? This is a good place to start. None Learn what you should be reading this fall: Our collection of reviews on books coming out this season includes biographies, novels, memoirs and more. See what's new in October: Among this month's new titles are novels by Jonathan Franzen, a history of Black cinema and a biography by Katie Couric. Nominate a book: The New York Times Book Review has just turned 125. That got us wondering: What is the best book that was published during that time? Listen to our podcast: Featuring conversations with leading figures in the literary world, from Colson Whitehead to Leila Slimani, the Book Review Podcast helps you delve deeper into your favorite books. But these well known concerns hardly explain the absence of a covert cyberattack or any other countermeasure before the election. In part, Shimer discovers, it was because the Obama White House initially underestimated the scope of Russian mischief. Although it had identified Putin's complicity quickly, it was slow to connect the dots of Russian intelligence's multiplatform assault, which ultimately reached about 220 million Americans on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Michael Morell, then the second in command at the C.I.A., calls it "an intelligence failure." The failure was not just of counterintelligence, but also of analysis. The administration had no understanding of the damaging effect of digital disinformation on our democracy. "It was kind of a shock to me personally how disconnected I was from flyover America," Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said. But it has never been the job of American intelligence to assess the effect of foreign disinformation on our society. That's the job of elected leaders. The Obama team worried less about what Putin had done than what he could do, and, as a result, they missed the fact that Russia's interference represented the greatest degree of Kremlin risk taking aimed at the United States since the Cuban missile crisis. "Our overriding objective was to prevent Russia from doing more and worse than they had already done when we discovered it s operation," the national security adviser, Susan Rice, recalled. Obama "was always worried about escalation," the former assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland added. In the Cold War, the most successful foreign policy presidents were those who didn't overestimate the Kremlin's capabilities. To give just two examples: Harry Truman defied Stalin's blockade of West Berlin and Dwight Eisenhower ignored Khrushchev's threats toward that same city. But in 2016, as Shimer reveals, President Obama concluded the United States would lose in a game of tit for tat risk taking with Putin. To contextualize the mind sets of Obama and Putin and their secret warriors in the fall of 2016, Shimer skillfully reconstructs the history of how both Washington and Moscow got into the business of election interference in the first place. While not breaking much new archival ground, he provides a powerful primer, at the same time avoiding the reflexive "whataboutism" that mars so much analysis. Intervening in other countries and covertly supporting allies was in the Bolsheviks' DNA in 1917. It would take another generation and a second world war for Americans to start playing the same game. Fearful that the Communists would win enough votes to dominate the Italian parliament, the United States intervened to help the anti Communist Christian Democrats to a landslide victory in that country's 1948 election. The Truman administration didn't just pour money into the effort. Foreshadowing the microtargeting of the Facebook era, Shimer recounts how Italian Americans were encouraged to participate in a huge letter writing campaign. An estimated 10 million messages were sent to relatives back home warning of the dangers of Communism. America's successful covert intervention in 1948 became a touchstone for the C.I.A. The Italian example was, in the words of the agency's official historian, David Robarge, "a template" that would be energetically applied to Cold War elections elsewhere. Meanwhile the Soviets were having some successes in Europe by focusing on individual politicians. But they had little success at influencing American elections. Unlike the C.I.A., the K.G.B. had no feel for how democracies or election campaigns worked. Once the Cold War ended, the Kremlin and the White House gradually developed divergent views on the utility of interfering in elections. For the United States, covert electoral interference would become, in the words of the C.I.A. veteran Douglas Wise, "a tool of last resort," whereas Russia not only developed a new taste for it but also a broader skill set. After Russia gobbled up the Crimea in 2014 and President Obama joined Europe in trying to stop the Kremlin's expansionism, Putin ordered this tool kit to be used against the United Kingdom during the Brexit campaign, and against us. The book's concluding section is sobering. The vulnerability of America's patchwork quilt of 50 separate electoral systems contributed to the Obama administration's fears of Putin's "escalation dominance" in 2016, and there is no reason to believe our election infrastructure is any less vulnerable to attack today. In refusing any federal assistance four years ago, Georgia's secretary of state (now governor) Brian Kemp explained, "They now think our whole system is on the verge of disaster because some Russian's going to tap into the voting system." Some of the same voices are now opposed to mail in balloting, the safest way to avoid both the coronavirus and Putin's hackers. And the Kremlin can be sure there will be no threat of retaliation as long as Donald Trump remains in office. But beyond the Trumpists, we are all the biggest reason for the continuing vulnerability. American conspiracy thinking is as old as the Republic. Add the disappointments caused by the worst income inequality in a century, a health care system whose inequities are highlighted by the pattern of Covid 19 lethality, and the virulence of bigotries and you have a petri dish for both multidirectional hatred and democratic apathy. The pot the ideologically blinkered Soviets couldn't figure out how to stir is now being roiled by their pragmatic successors. The Russian assault on America in 2016 could be considered the original sin that begot the Trump years. On the eve of our national referendum on Trump and Trumpism, this book is nothing less than essential reading.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
In a world where content is king, can a magazine editor replace a creative director? Andrew Rosen, chief executive of Theory and of Helmut Lang, thinks so. By using Helmut Lang the minimalist label that helped define the 1990s, and that was reinvented as a contemporary brand when its founder left and the Prada Group sold it in 2006 to Fast Retailing, where Mr. Rosen is a group senior vice president he is putting his, well, theory, into action. Instead of naming a designer to the brand's top creative spot (as creative director, artistic director, chief creative officer or any of the other titles that have come to be synonymous with "designer"), Mr. Rosen has named Isabella Burley, editor of the British youth culture magazine Dazed Confused, to the new post of "editor in residence." "It's exactly what it sounds like," Mr. Rosen said by telephone from Tokyo. In effect, Ms. Burley will be in charge of all creative aspects of the brand, from digital content to working with the in house design team and engaging in a variety of "special projects" with collaborators, the first of whom will be Shayne Oliver, founder of Hood by Air. Which sounds a lot like the job of a ... creative director. But no, Mr. Rosen said, "I don't see this as a creative director at all." "Creative directors come and go," he said, in a direct reference to the current, and seemingly endless, round of designer musical chairs now roiling fashion, and the increasing lack of loyalty on the part of designers and their corporate kin. "This gives me more flexibility." Which is another way of saying it makes him less dependent on a named designer. Instead, he can work with all and be attached to none. "I'm interested in the idea of multiple voices," Mr. Rosen said. "Why stay with the status quo? I believe there are opportunities to do things outside the system." Helmut Lang a brand with a history of changing things, including moving its show to New York from Europe, and then moving that show from the end of the season to the beginning "gives us the permission to be innovative," he added. Mr. Rosen said he began to feel that the old model was not working in 2014, when the creative directors at the time, Nicole and Michael Colovos, departed and he began rethinking his options. He was introduced to Ms. Burley through Brian Phillips, founder of the New York based image management hub Black Frame. Mr. Rosen liked her connection to readers, and to the next generation which is to say, those elusive consumers known as millennials. To this end, she is staying in London, and at her magazine job, and coming once a month or so to work with the Helmut Lang team in New York, and other buzzy people she wants to bring into the fold. Mr. Oliver is the first. Indeed, the dual choices of Ms. Burley and Mr. Oliver seem an unabashed bid to make Helmut Lang both younger and cooler. It is also, however, an unexpected approach for a brand in the contemporary space, a market based on the idea of accessibility of both price and aesthetic. "Cool," after all, is by definition a niche concept: Once a cool product is widely embraced, it's usually no longer cool. Mr. Oliver, for his part, is known for being something of an urban provocateur, thanks to his in your face, "post gender" streetwear. Though Hood by Air received a special prize in the 2014 LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers competition and the next year won the Swarovski Award for Men's Wear at the CFDA Awards, he is largely a fashion world phenomenon, and not necessarily that well known outside it. "Is Shayne only Hood by Air?" Mr. Rosen asked. "Just because he does one thing at his brand doesn't mean he has to do the same thing at Helmut Lang." Mr. Oliver's "special project" a one off for both men and women will be unveiled in September and will go on sale around November or December. It will be followed by other collaborations that will exist alongside the more standard Helmut Lang offerings designed by the brand's team. As it happens, this sort of reinventing the system strategy has been tried before, albeit in different ways. In 2016 Brioni made a big deal about thinking out of the box when it came to choosing a new creative director, naming Justin O'Shea, a former buying director, to the post. He lasted a whole six months. In 2013, Diego Della Valle conceived Schiaparelli as a similar "creative factory" venture: a brand with "guest stars" that would design special collections once a year alongside a creative director. His first collaborator was Christian Lacroix, and that idea lasted ... about a year. So he returned to the traditional model with Marco Zanini as creative director (Mr. Zanini has since left the brand and has been replaced by Bertrand Guyon). The risk of such a strategy is that engaging many different, powerful voices, with different perspectives on a brand will create not just newness but also confusion. Instead of engaging consumers, it will alienate them. "That's the editor's job!" Mr. Rosen said. "To control the message and keep it focused, the way you do in a magazine." The bada bing bada boom was implied.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
If what Uber is experiencing right now is something akin to adolescent growing pains, then the ride hailing company is going to be one giant outfit when it grows up. If you haven't been paying attention, Uber, based in San Francisco, has had a few problems lately, including concerns over a toxic, win at all costs culture and a lawsuit accusing the company of relying on plans for autonomous car technology that were stolen from Waymo, the new name for Google's self driving car project. Then there was the video recording of Travis Kalanick, Uber's chief executive, getting into a testy exchange with an Uber driver over fees. As a rule, it's never a good look when wealthy men tell less well off people to "take responsibility for their own" problems, as Mr. Kalanick said to the driver (he used a more colorful word than "problems"). And don't forget the disclosure of Uber's so called Project Greyball, a technology effort used in part to help Uber drivers avoid law enforcement in cities where the legality of the service was called into question.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
The Best Advice During a Year on the Road (So Far) None Like any globe trotter, Jada has learned a lot of lessons on how to travel the easy way, the hard way and, occasionally, in a different language. She's also been given advice from fellow travelers, proud natives, and followers and fans across social media. Here's a look at some of the best advice Jada has received from readers and some of the best advice she's shared right back. You can also read all of her dispatches so far, and follow her travels on Instagram and Twitter. Before her trip to the Rogue River in Oregon, Jada asked Twitter followers what she couldn't miss in the area. Followers responded with recommendations for caramels, road trips, hikes and sausages. She followed the advice of many, and also had her own recommendations. "When you do eat, though, make sure it involves blue cheese," Jada said of her time in Oregon. The creamery she went to was recommended by a Twitter user, Katie D.: "Rogue Creamery has won awards for that moldy goodness, and a farm stand on its dairy in Grants Pass served a grilled cheese sandwich made of Oregon blue cheese, a type of mild Cheddar called TouVelle, and honey, on locally made white bread basted with grape seed oil, that I'd commemorate in song if I could." "Even more indelible was Jasper's Cafe in Medford, a roadside burger joint near the airport," Jada wrote. The cafe was another recommendation from Katie D. "I craved it every day I was in Oregon and was nearly late to my flight getting another one on the way out." For many, the 52 Places traveler position is a dream job. For Jada, that dream, while not always totally dreamy, is a daily reality. And in that reality, you sometimes land in a hotel where there's ice cream for breakfast. In Prague, she tweeted the following: Some readers had a few things to say about ice cream. In Cincinnati, the consensus was clear: Go to Graeter's, they said. And get the blackberry chip in a pretzel cone. And when someone suggests a chocolate factory, never, ever, say no. It goes without saying that when you're traveling the world for a year, there will be some high highs and low lows. When Jada's car was stuck in the mud on a remote beach in Sao Tome with no cell service, to boot the following happened: "This," her guide, Juliano, said, "is just part of the Sao Tome culture; no one would ever leave anyone stranded." In Lucerne, Switzerland, Jada faced a different kind of crisis: a lost bag with her laptop inside. "My hotel desk clerk said not to worry; Swiss people return things they find," she writes in this Instagram caption. The next morning, she woke up to a direct message on Twitter from a man named Anton. "Hi Jada Yuan, please contact me if you lost something," he wrote. Anton was in Jada's hotel lobby with her bag 10 minutes later. A few months later in Fiji, Jada was tasked with voting in the U.S. midterm elections from the South Pacific, about 8,000 miles away. She credits a team of locals from hotel staff to newfound friends for helping her ballot make it back to New York City. In June, Jada answered many questions about her packing strategy. "Blogs, travel writers, foreign correspondent friends, and flight attendants all gave me great advice, but the past five months of hopscotching through climates and national borders have been figuring out what works for me, with trial and a ton of error," she writes. She shared a handful of her own tips and her biggest concern: "What happens when I get my period?" she asked. Tampons and Duane Reades aren't everywhere, and that includes the African bush: Because why have a neck pillow when you could have an animal neck pillow, as spotted in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International airport? While traveling in Bolivia, Jada ate at Gustu, a restaurant in La Paz, Bolivia. Perhaps the most important advice in a restaurant comes from the chef. In this case, the advice was: Eat it. Jada held the hand of the co head chef, Marsia Taha Mohamed, while taking a bite of a queen ant taco . "Smoky and crunchy," she wrote. "This Gustu tasting menu had at least 3 other proteins I've never tried (oxtails, beef hearts, and alligator ceviche). I won't eat any of them again, but once seemed worth it." Nothing against chefs, but bus drivers also have some good advice (if unintentional): Follow NY Times Travel on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Get weekly updates from our Travel Dispatch newsletter, with tips on traveling smarter, destination coverage and photos from all over the world.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
On camera, talking about the time her husband tried to kill her, first with a hibachi knife and then with a Glock, Dee Crosby is the picture of professional composure. A boxing champ, she knows her way around an interview. "So what did you do to fight back?" the reporter asks, and this is the question that finally flusters Dee. "I know you didn't go down without a fight." "The Wholehearted," a multimedia, almost solo play by Stein/Holum Projects, unfolds in the grubby back room of a gym where Dee is hiding for the night. Charlie, her husband and trainer, is getting out of prison and heading home. With a gun of her own, Dee is preparing to seek revenge. Then, if all goes well, she'll drive cross country to California and restart the life she left behind more than 20 years earlier.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
This kind of alternative history can be illuminating when it's done well, as in "The Plot Against America," Philip Roth's novel about what might have happened if Charles Lindbergh had won the presidential election in 1940 instead of F.D.R. But there have also been myriad forgettable "what if" novels about Hitler winning World War II or the Confederacy defeating the North. Fun to read, they are rarely literary treasures. What Sittenfeld tries is more ambitious, an entire alternative biography: Hillary striding into the history books without Clinton at the end of her name or all the Bill baggage. This may work as an exercise in wish fulfillment for her most ardent admirers. But for other readers, the familiar anecdotes that fill the first section of the novel verge on the tedious. Why repeat Hillary's famous 1969 speech at her Wellesley commencement, or the stories about meeting Bill at Yale Law School? Sittenfeld's imagined life for Bush worked so well because we never knew the real one. Not so this time around because Hillary's life is so well known, parts of "Rodham" feel slow and stale. Sittenfeld is a smart, funny writer. She is often best when she places her characters in cringingly embarrassing situations. In her debut novel, "Prep," a painfully out of place Midwestern girl at an elite boarding school suffers all kinds of pratfalls; in "American Wife," Alice has a terrible attack of diarrhea on a visit to her future in laws at their sprawling Wisconsin retreat. And in "Rodham," when Hillary teaches her first class as a young law professor in Arkansas, she is unaware that her backside is exposed to the entire class because she stuffed her skirt into her pantyhose after a hasty bathroom visit. Alice was a sympathetic protagonist in "American Wife" so likable, in fact, that I had a hard time understanding why she had married such an imbecilic man, someone who delighted in farting in front of people. In "Rodham," Hillary does not make the same mistake because she discovers early on that Bill is a sex addict and possibly a predator; there is an incident during their courtship that is clearly based on Juanita Broaddrick's allegations. So why does Hillary follow him to Arkansas after law school? Well, partly because the sex is good. (Though it's so detailed it made me wince. Definitely TMI.) I breathed a sigh of relief when Hillary finally extricates herself from Bill and drives away, reflecting, "The margin between staying and leaving was so thin. Really, it could have gone either way. Sometimes I think that my years of diligent schoolwork and political idealism had given me the erroneous notion that if one choice, one plan, was hard and the other was easy, doing the hard thing was inherently better, more upstanding." Here the novel takes off, but it's almost too late; the long runway wait has been wearying.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Jeroboam Bozeman, whose broad shoulders and velvety fluidness give him a singular, rugged grace, has been having a breakout season with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. So far, he has triumphed in lead roles in works by Robert Battle and Rennie Harris. His "Sinner Man" variation in the company's signature "Revelations" was reckless, desperate, taut. Many Ailey dancers know how to sell a dance with sizzle, and that's fine, but Mr. Bozeman's steely performances are more of a slow burn, and that's even better. Apparently, he needed time to grow into himself. Now it's hard to fathom that Mr. Bozeman auditioned for the Ailey company five times before landing a spot. And that as a teenager, he was turned down for a summer program at the Ailey school. "Didn't get in," he said with a grin during an interview at City Center, where the company is in residence through Jan. 3. When Mr. Bozeman was finally offered a place in Ailey II, the group's second company, he didn't hesitate. Others in his position might have. He had already been a member of Philadanco, or the Philadelphia Dance Company, led by Joan Myers Brown, for about three years; from there, he moved to Seattle to join Donald Byrd's Spectrum Dance Theater. In terms of pay and, to a degree, clout, Ailey II was a step down. At 22, Mr. Bozeman was older than most of the other dancers in both age and in life experience. "I remember telling Donald Byrd, and he was like, 'What?'" Mr. Bozeman recalled. " 'You're going to dance for Ailey II?'" But for Mr. Bozeman, now 25, it was entry into an organization that he had always dreamed of being a part of. After just a year, in 2013, he joined the main company. His life to that point, though, had not been a dance fairy tale. He grew up in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, with his parents and six siblings, including a fraternal twin, whom he regarded as a protector. Mr. Bozeman described himself as a shy, timid boy who, by choice, was mute; he learned American Sign Language as a way to communicate. "Being in dance helped me feel comfortable with expressing myself," he said. "I felt very odd growing up. I was always very isolated from everyone, and I enjoyed playing double Dutch and doing all the stuff that the girls liked to do." Now loquacious and animated, Mr. Bozeman recounted his story. He began dancing around 10 with Ruth Sistaire at the Ronald Edmonds Learning Center and went on to train with Jamel Gaines, a choreographer who directs Creative Outlet Dance Theater of Brooklyn. At 14, he quit, but not out of choice. His family left Brooklyn for a homeless shelter in the Bronx, and he could no longer continue his dance classes. He was devastated. "My parents had a big van, and I decided to sleep in it," Mr. Bozeman said. "I remember lying in the van with my dad, crying my eyes out." When he was 16, his parents moved back to Brooklyn, where Mr. Bozeman joined Mr. Gaines's group as an apprentice and, a year later, Philadanco, where, he said, Ms. Brown helped turn him into a man. "I was always complaining," he said, laughing. At one point, he said, she sat him down and told him: "It's not going to be easy. You're going to be lifting girls for the rest of your life. You're tall." At 6 foot 2, Mr. Bozeman has a grounded stage presence that radiates both heat and inner calm. For Robert Battle, Ailey's artistic director, Mr. Bozeman, the second cast lead in his new "Awakening," is refined but a little rough. "That can be tricky, because it doesn't fit every choreographer's aesthetic in terms of being correct," he said. "There's always just a little grit, and I tend to gravitate toward that. Everything is to the bone with him, without having to draw it out. It's not forced." Mr. Bozeman doesn't project outward as much as draw you in. In Mr. Harris's "Exodus," Mr. Bozeman portrays a savior of sorts or, as the dancer put it, "a positive light." He has known Mr. Harris, a hip hop choreographer, since his Philadelphia days, but Mr. Bozeman's natural affinity for that dance form with its silky melding of weight and sharpness dates to when he first started studying hip hop and African dance in Brooklyn. "For me, that character is me finally embracing who I am," he said. "I feel like I'm my own savior. I saved myself." As a boy, Mr. Bozeman was tormented for liking dance and was once so brutally attacked by a group of boys that people jumped out of their car to help. "A lot of things that I have experienced and endured, I've kept to myself," he said. "I don't want people to see me and have pity: Oh, Brooklyn boy with such troubles; oh, living in a shelter, being attacked." What compels a young boy to dance? In the case of Mr. Bozeman, it was an uncontrollable longing. "Dance has always been so healing for me, no matter how many hours I was putting in, no matter how many cuts and bruises, the rejections, you're not as good as so and so," he said. "To me, dance made sense. Dance is a language that I am trying to understand. But because it has given me so much insight, I feel as though when I dance, I'm sharing who I am. It's not a facade. It's me."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
ALLENTOWN, Pa. More than 600,000 square feet of office and retail space is being built in the long depressed center of this city, spurred by an unusual state sanctioned project that permits revenues from tenants' tax bills to be used to pay down some of the debt incurred during construction. A five block area of downtown characterized by dollar stores and low budget pizzerias signs of the decades old decline in manufacturing and urban flight is undergoing revival efforts that include plans for a hockey arena and a hotel. The new development in this city of 119,000 has been spurred by the Neighborhood Improvement Zone, a state program that encourages businesses to move in by allowing developers to use designated tax revenues to pay off bonds and loans issued for capital improvements in the zone. Aided by tax dollars that would otherwise go to state or local general funds, developers should be able to offer attractive rents to companies that bring in new workers who in turn might move into or buy new apartments and support new shops and restaurants in what had been a blighted urban landscape. National Penn Bancshares, one of the development's anchor tenants, will be paying 20 to 25 percent below the suburban Class A market rent for its new offices spanning 125,000 square feet, said J.B. Reilly, president of City Center Lehigh Valley, the developer. The bank began moving employees in this week. The 11 floor building, which will be National Penn's new headquarters, contains 272,000 square feet of office space plus 28,000 square feet for restaurants and retail on the first floor. Mr. Reilly said in an interview that some tenants are attracted not only by the favorable rents but also because they want to take part in reviving Allentown. "You are trying to incentivize development in challenged urban areas," he said. The development also includes a seven floor, 186,000 square foot office building whose principal tenant will be Lehigh Valley Health Network, Allentown's biggest employer, which is scheduled to move into the new building on June 1, bringing about 500 employees to the city center. Dr. Ronald Swinfard, chief executive of the nonprofit, said it would benefit by paying less rent per square foot than it does in its current suburban location where it will retain some operations but that it was mainly attracted to the new building because it will add to facilities for the community medicine that the group already offers elsewhere in Allentown. "We wanted to be part of the revitalization of downtown Allentown," he said. The construction boom that dominates the intersection of Seventh and Hamilton Streets in central Allentown includes an 8,500 seat hockey arena that is physically linked to the health network's building but is not a part of the private development. The arena, which will be home to the minor league Lehigh Valley Phantoms, is owned by the Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone Development Authority, a city run body. The City Center developers are due to break ground in April on a 167,000 square foot office building, will renovate some historic properties along three blocks of Hamilton Street and will extend an existing walkway to include shops, restaurants and apartments within walking distance of the arena. The total development cost will be some 340 million, of which 135 million comes from the state program, Mr. Reilly said. The rest is privately financed. Eligible tax revenues from companies in the zone include those from corporate net income tax, personal income tax and business privilege tax but not real estate tax, in order to protect school district funding. The Neighborhood Improvement Zone, known as "NIZ," was established specifically for Allentown in legislation spearheaded by Pat Browne, the city's Republican state senator, and passed by the Pennsylvania Legislature in 2009. Two other Pennsylvania cities, Bethlehem and Lancaster, have recently been designated as City Reinvestment and Improvement Zones ("CRIZ") under a more recent law that is similar to the NIZ but restricts the tax benefits to revenues from out of state companies or, in the case of companies moving from elsewhere in Pennsylvania, to additional revenues that are generated in the new location. The strength of the improvement zone model is that it depends on the developer's ability to attract revenue generating tenants and is not based on state handouts, Mr. Reilly said. "They are pledging the tax revenues related to the developer's project to the developer's lender," he said. "It's really market driven. If the developer can't attract tenants, then the developer's going to be on the hook for repaying the loan." But the program has its detractors. Stephen F. Thode, a professor of real estate at Lehigh University, argued that the improvement zone legislation is flawed because it does not require developers to create jobs in return for what he called "subsidies" in the zone. "It's not true economic development. It's simply moving existing businesses and existing jobs from one location to another. No new jobs are being created," he said. But Mr. Thode said the legislature "got smart" when it passed the city improvement zone because that law links the use of tax dollars to job creation. Don Cunningham, president of the Lehigh Valley Development Corporation, a public private partnership that tries to attract and retain businesses in the region, said that some of the jobs at the neighborhood improvement zone's employers will be moved from elsewhere in the city or the region but that most will be new jobs. "It's taking an area that was an eyesore and breathing life into it," Mr. Cunningham said. Although Allentown is unique in the tax treatment spurring its development, its economic decline in the last several decades has mirrored many other smaller cities that may also benefit from such a program, Mr. Reilly argued. "Allentown is very typical of a lot of Northeast Rust Belt cities," he said. "In the last three or four decades there has been an exodus of population from the urban areas to the benefit of the suburban areas. We are trying to reverse that process." To rebuild a city center, it is necessary to create a compact, safe, walkable environment that meets the needs of younger workers, not only for good jobs, but also for an urban lifestyle that is replacing the suburban environment sought by the previous generation, Mr. Reilly said. "People are not clamoring to that suburban lifestyle like they were in the '70s," he said. "It's a different day."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Credit...Eli Durst for The New York Times For chicken hatcheries, the weeks leading up to Easter are always the busiest. Spring is in the air for people shaking off long winters spent watching Netflix under a blanket who had hoped to emerge into a world of budding flowers, green grass and baby animals. While spring might be calling people to congregate outside, health authorities are saying the opposite. Many schools and businesses are closed, and states and cities are implementing "shelter in place" orders to keep cases of the new coronavirus from skyrocketing. The combination of an enormous rise in unemployment, anxious free time for those not struggling with illness, and financial instability has created a number of strange moments in economics. Here's another: For the next few weeks, baby chickens are next to impossible to find. Murray McMurray Hatchery, of Webster City, Iowa, ships day old poultry through the Postal Service, and is almost completely sold out of chicks for the next four weeks. "People are panic buying chickens like they did toilet paper," said Tom Watkins, the vice president of the company. Down at your Tractor Supply Company, a national chain of farm stores, long lines snake out the door into the parking lot before the store opens on the morning of a chick delivery. Many feed stores report they are selling out of chicks almost as fast as they can get new orders in. Some of these buyers are simply replenishing their flocks, having put in orders weeks or months ago. But many people who have bought chicks in the last week are first timers. Amy Annelle, 48, is a musician in Austin, Texas, who hadn't planned on getting chickens until the South by Southwest festival and an upcoming tour were canceled. Suddenly she found herself with plenty of time at home to raise birds, just as eggs and chicken began to run low at her local grocer. According to the Agriculture Department, last week wholesale egg prices rose more than 50 percent in some parts of the country, because of demand; eggs have been running low if not sold out altogether in many stores in the United States. The egg supply is normal, of course; demand just grew significantly. Ms. Annelle bought four hens and a rooster a week ago. "I thought I'd get some chicks before everyone panics at once and buys them," she said. "We also wanted a fun project to keep us busy," she added, referring to her and her partner. Though Ms. Annelle cited food security as one of the reasons she wanted to have chickens, she realized that it would be at least five months before her hens are old enough to lay eggs. She doesn't know how long the quarantines and business closures will last, but said "it just seems like having a steady food source is a good idea right now." The chicks have also been comforting in another way. "It's just very hopeful watching them grow," Ms. Annelle said. Dominique Greenwell in Spokane, Wash., bought four chicks on March 23 from a nearby breeder (the feed stores were sold out) after a few days of internet research on how to care for the birds. The hair salon she works at closed the week before, which has given her a lot of time to obsess over her new charges. "I go in there every 15 minutes to make sure the temperature is OK or to hold them," Ms. Greenwell, 26, said. She's an animal lover with a miniature pig, a bearded dragon, two dogs and a cat already living in the household. "You can't control the world around you but you can control the love you give to your animals," she said. Compared with usual chick sales in March, sales at Hackett Farm Supply in Clinton Corners, N.Y., have nearly doubled. "People are willing to take breeds that aren't their first choice just to get a flock started now," said Stephanie Spann, the store manager. Because of concerns about spreading the new coronavirus, the store is open for only one person at a time. People have to wait in line to select their chicks or do curbside pickup, creating a drive through where instead of getting a Happy Meal, customers take off with a cardboard box of living animals. The people at Hackett Farm Supply said they had been inundated with calls from prospective chick raisers asking questions like "What do we do?" "Are the chicks really coming in on schedule?" "What do we need to be prepared?" "It's like anxious parents preparing for an infant," Ms. Spann said. New chicken owners aren't always prepared to make great lives for chickens. What seems like a great idea when everyone's at home with plenty of free time won't be so appealing if or when life returns to normal. People making last minute decisions to raise chickens may not know what they're getting into, which results in cruelty. In one online chicken forum, a woman asked for help after her new chicks started dying. She didn't know they needed a heat source. (Chicks can't regulate their temperature until their feathers grow in, which is why they have to be in a brooder with heat or a mother hen to snuggle up with.) Even with the closing of physical locations of libraries, there are many e books available on raising backyard chickens, as well as popular forums like BackYardChickens, so newbies can get answers to their questions. "People should get a coop or outside area prepared for them because the eight weeks they're inside goes real quick," Ms. Spann said. "Just be ready. Have the supplies you need before bringing the chicks home." "I didn't know I was jumping on a bandwagon," said Erin Scheessele, 42, of Corvallis, Ore., of her decision to start a flock of chickens. Her two sons, Simon, 9, and Peter, 11, had been out of school since March 11. "They've been asking for chickens for a while," Ms. Scheessele said. She'd been reluctant to commit to chickens as a pet that she knew could live for 10 years. (Chickens lay fewer eggs after two years and go through "henopause" around 5 or 6 years of age, but can live much longer. Owners should be prepared to kill the birds or keep them as a long term freeloading pet.) After days of frantic searching, she found a woman over an hour's drive away who had some chicks to sell. "They haven't hatched yet so we're on hatch watch, which might be one day or eight days from now," Ms. Scheessele said. In the meantime she's been plotting how she can use the chickens as both a fun distraction for her sons and a home schooling aid. Her sons are engrossed in what her husband calls "chick lit" reading how to guides for raising backyard chickens. "Chickens are a great way of tying in biology, animal behavior, math and other subjects," Ms. Scheessele said. "I had my math resistant 9 year old help calculate the perimeter of the coop to figure out how much hardware cloth we had to buy." He did it but later that day accused his mother of sneaking in a math lesson, noting, accurately, that Ms. Scheessele could have done the calculations herself. She was unapologetic about her trickery. "I'm really going to try and milk this for every educational drop of value I can get," she said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Stephen Sullivan was eager to buy a place that he could renovate himself. For two years, Mr. Sullivan, now 30, had shared a West Village rental with a friend. His tiny room, on the top floor of a five story walk up, cost around 1,250 a month. "I don't even think it was a legal bedroom," he said. He wanted to live within walking distance of his office in Dumbo. But his budget was in the 200,000s, so pricey Dumbo was out of the question. Mr. Sullivan felt that finding a place in need of a lot of work was "the only way I would be able to afford anything." He had some things going for him that would be useful to a do it yourselfer. He has a master's degree in architecture from the University of Colorado, Denver, and is employed at an architectural firm that often renovates row houses in Brooklyn. He knows a lot about construction, having learned from his father, a contractor in Rhode Island, who would be able to contribute tile, trim and other leftover materials to his fixer upper. At another co op building, the 1964 Robert Livingston on Livingston Street in Downtown Brooklyn, studios priced in the high 200,000s to mid 300,000s included a sleeping alcove. The studio he went to see, listed in the low 200,000s, had a buckling floor. "It's one thing if it's ugly trim or something cosmetic," he said, "but water damage to the floor? You don't know the extent of that." And he thought the location was too commercial. The unit was rear facing with an interior view, said the listing agent, Deirdre Poe Sanders of the Corcoran Group. The apartment sold for around 224,000 after the floor was repaired, she said. The Remsen, a lovely 1929 co op building in Brooklyn Heights, had studios in the low 200,000s, with monthly maintenance in the 700s. But the kitchens were tiny. "There was nothing you could do about the kitchen," Mr. Sullivan said. "It was a space constraint." His girlfriend, Alexandra Filanowski, would be joining him in his new place. He started reconsidering the kind of home he was after: "I was, like, what am I doing, I am 30 years old, do I want to be living in a studio?" he said. "My girlfriend says no." But he didn't know whether he could afford a larger place. "I felt maybe I had unreal expectations," he said. Ms. Filanowski, 26, was reluctant even to look at studios. "It's one thing to live in a studio if you're living by yourself," she said. "But for a couple, if you ever want to have people over, it helps to have a separate space. It's nice to be able to be reading in the bedroom with one of us watching TV in the living room." Both were drawn to Cobble Hill Towers, a group of nine six story buildings that went up in 1879 as model housing for workers. The units were red brick walk ups, with decorative ironwork and lovely exterior stairwells. At the complex, a conversion to condos from rentals, units are being sold renovated or "as is." Mr. Sullivan, of course, wanted one of the latter. The purchase took much longer than Mr. Sullivan expected. When his lease expired, he crashed with Ms. Filanowski and her roommates on the Upper East Side. Someone was already lined up to take her place, so the couple moved into Cobble Hill Towers ahead of schedule. "We had to live in this dumpy apartment that hadn't been renovated," Mr. Sullivan said. Living through the project was dreadful, he said. The couple crammed all of their stuff into the bedroom. Dust settled everywhere. With no kitchen, they ate out every night, "which was kind of expensive and exhausting after a while," Mr. Sullivan said. "You just want to make something simple like mac and cheese, and you can't do it because you don't have a microwave or a kitchen."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
In January 1920, when Prohibition went into effect, the demand for flasks was so great that manufacturers couldn't keep pace. Devoted tipplers pressed baby bottles into service and filled hollow walking canes and faux books with spirits. A century later, as we stare down another, colder season of coronavirus induced social isolation, with restrictions on New York's bars and restaurants already in place, the humble flask is undergoing a resurgence, if less flamboyantly than a hundred years ago. Pleasingly pocket size, leakproof and designed expressly for covert sipping, flasks confer espionage style savoir faire to public drinking in a way that the cumbersome water bottle, with its wholesome VSCO girl connotations, can't even hope to rival. "Based on that, we can conclude that generally more individuals are purchasing and using hip flasks during the pandemic," said the owner Chris Barton. The Economy Hip Flask ( 3.56) means even the cash strapped can join the walktail party. "Flask sales are up 505 percent year over year!" said Anthony Barzilay Freund, the editorial director at 1stdibs.com, with frank astonishment, when I asked. "Of course, we don't tend to sell many flasks to begin with," he said. "But since the pandemic began we've sold 36 flasks, which is up 385 percent from last year." So far, the biggest sale was a pair of English porcelain "moon" flasks made by Minton in around 1880 (listed at 38,250). If you're an outdoorsy type, or have ever served in a wedding party, you possibly already own a flask. I knew I did ... somewhere, though rummaging for it was hardly worth the effort, once found: a delicate silver plated "ladies' flask" that held two ounces at most, if only I could unscrew the top, stuck to its grooves by time and grime. By then, I was so taken with the notion of a flask fueled stroll with a friend that I had no choice but to find a replacement. Online browsing was an evening's pleasure all its own. My requirements were eight ounces and an attached cap (given how often I misplace my glasses). When I spoke with Joe Derochowski, a home industry adviser at the market research firm NPD Group, he pointed out another advantage of the flask I hadn't thought to consider. When the pandemic hit, sales of margarita glasses went up 191 percent industrywide presumably for virtual happy hours. "This time around, people might be looking for closed containers that won't spill on their laptops," he said. In the end I bought two flasks, both from Stanley, one for myself, one for whoever deigns to join me. I like how the Classic Easy Fill, in Hammertone green, conjures can do campfires and my father's Vietnam era Army fatigues perfect for my apocalypse go bag. Stanley's Master Unbreakable Hip Flask 8oz ( 40) is slightly contoured, to match the curve of the wearer's hip or thigh, and though slightly shorter and squatter than the Classic Easy Fill, weighs 0.17 ounces more, giving it the pleasing heft of a heavy bottomed cocktail glass. For this one, I chose urban chic matte black. I invited my friend Apoorva to come by on a Tuesday evening. That afternoon, I mixed the equivalent of four Manhattans, decanted them (sans maraschino cherries, which didn't fit) into my new portable containers, and stuck them in the freezer. When she buzzed her arrival, voila. Today public drinking remains banned in all but 11 states. But in New York, at least, the open container law has relaxed (depending on the neighborhood, and who's doing the drinking). In 2016, the Manhattan district attorney's office announced it would no longer prosecute the low level offense of drinking in public unless there's a demonstrated public safety reason to do so. This March, the state's liquor authority allowed drinks to go, though there have been subsequent crackdowns against congregation. Nothing can replace the cozy pleasure of intimate conversation at a dimly lit bar. But from our bench on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, Lower Manhattan twinkling before us, I hardly felt put out. I liked not risking the health of essential workers just so I could drink with a friend. When the wind gusted, yellow leaves from the beech trees we sat beneath blew into our hair, like shooting stars. None of this is a silver lining, exactly, but in this grim moment I'll settle for stainless steel.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
After his 2013 graduation from Syracuse University, Michael Yormark landed a job in New York and returned to Westport, Conn., to live at home. All his friends in the city were renting. But his plan was to remain at his parents' house rent free for a year, save money and buy a place. He even set himself a deadline of last summer. His Metro North train commute was costly and lengthy over an hour and half each way, including the drive to the station and the walk to his office near Rockefeller Center, where he works as a technology project manager. He arose early every weekday to be at his desk by 8:20. Most important to him was a commute of no more than 30 minutes door to door. He assumed he could afford a place priced at up to 300,000 and planned to make a down payment of 20 percent, or 60,000. Mr. Yormark sought the help of his friend Philip Scheinfeld, a real estate salesman at Miron Properties, whom he had met at sleepaway camp in the Adirondacks. The men visited a condominium in a building on Riverside Drive near West 143d Street in Hamilton Heights. The one bedroom was just over 500 square feet. The listed price was 290,000, with monthly charges in the mid 600s. The apartment, on the ground floor, faced an alley. "Even though it was broad daylight, it looked like the sun was going down," Mr. Yormark said. The renovation seemed low end and was not to his liking. The apartment later sold for 266,000. On West 150th Street near Jackie Robinson Park, another one bedroom condominium, slightly larger, was listed for 367,000, with monthly charges in the mid 500s. This one had been nicely renovated, but "it felt like it was reproduced," Mr. Yormark said, with nothing unique about it. Besides, it was too expensive. "Looking online, it was all statistics," like square footage and price, Mr. Yormark said. In person, "it was a different learning process. The education was in 'feel,' instead of 'fact.' " He learned that his financial calculations were off. A mortgage broker told him he would not be able to get a mortgage for more than the low 200,000s. He learned most buildings required liquid assets beyond the down payment. So Mr. Yormark a tinkerer who restores antiques and cars lowered his price range. He knew he would enjoy renovating a place. "I wanted something to fix," he said. One day on the train, he entered 100,000 as his top price on Trulia.com. He assumed nothing would show up. When a place did, he thought it was a mistake. It wasn't. The building, an income restricted co op in Central Harlem requiring all cash buyers, turned out to have two apartments for sale. One, a one bedroom for 65,000, was in poor condition but filled with light. The other, a slightly larger two bedroom listed at 90,000, was in equally bad shape. Mr. Yormark found it "moldy and disgusting," with a nice view of Jackie Robinson Park. He loved it. "It smelled. He was very excited," Mr. Scheinfeld said. "He had this vision of how he wanted to do it." Mr. Yormark returned with his father and a contractor, who found his ideas feasible. He offered 95,000 "to scare off another buyer," he said. His father gave him a loan so he could complete the purchase, and he closed in the summer. Monthly maintenance is just over 700, and the fee for his new washer dryer is an additional 35 a month. The other apartment has been removed from the market and is being renovated, said the listing agent, Pat Simmons, a broker at Esra Realty. At the closing, a board member noted that a similar last name existed in building records. In 1968, the building had been purchased by one Elias Yormack. "I thought, that is a fluke, so I called my grandma," Mr. Yormark said. "I call her the family historian. She knows everything." His grandmother, Ida Yormark, informed him that Elias had been a distant cousin who had changed his last name slightly. He died in 1973. With fees, taxes and construction costs, Mr. Yormark's home has cost him about 165,000. He did some of the demolition himself. His contractor wouldn't allow him to help with construction, because he wasn't insured. Mr. Yormark made his deadline for the purchase, but not for his move. He arrived early this winter. The kitchen is not quite finished. He has only a microwave, and "my first meal was Eggo waffles," he said. Because the neighborhood is short on sit down restaurants, he has most of his evening meals delivered. "There are places that know me by name already because I've had to order so much," he said. He has been sleeping on an inflatable bed, which he stows away when construction workers are present "urban camping," he calls it. Mr. Yormark finds his neighborhood blissfully quiet, at least at night. "I am on little Bradhurst Avenue," he said. "Most cabdrivers don't know where it is. There are speed bumps on the street, and I could be in the countryside. There's no reason to come to Bradhurst unless you live on the street or are delivering something." He achieved his primary goal. His commute, via the D train, is just about 25 minutes. He now gets an extra hour of sleep. And, "if I don't dawdle, I get to work before 8," he said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
SAN FRANCISCO Amazon said this week that it would not let third party retailers sell products that feature Nazi and white nationalist symbolism on its platform, amid pressure from nonprofit groups and lawmakers. In a letter dated Tuesday to Representative Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota, Amazon said it had removed products that violated its policy against product listings that promote hatred, violence or discrimination. "We have reviewed the products and content referenced in your letter, and removed the listings that were found in violation of our policies and permanently blocked the seller accounts that were in violation of Amazon policy," Brian Huseman, Amazon's vice president for public policy, wrote in the letter, which was earlier reported by BuzzFeed. "We are also reviewing the seller accounts for potential suspension." Amazon sent its letter after two nonprofit groups the Partnership for Working Families and the Action Center on Race and the Economy called attention last month to product listings on the e commerce site that included an infant onesie with a burning cross graphic and jewelry emblazoned with Nazi swastikas.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
George Floyd and Derek Chauvin Might as Well Have Lived on Different Planets Victor J. Blue for The New York Times None Mr. Orfield is a law professor at the University of Minnesota and the director of the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity, where Mr. Stancil is a research fellow. Like many segregated cities before it, Minneapolis is burning. George Floyd's killing by a police officer is tearing the city and the country apart. But this tragedy is also the result of two Americas, increasingly separate from each other, coming into wrenching conflict. Mr. Floyd was from a different world than Derek Chauvin, the police officer who has been charged with third degree murder in Mr. Floyd's death. Mr. Floyd grew up in Houston's Third Ward, one of that city's poorest and most racially segregated areas. The street corner on which he died itself sits inside one of Minneapolis's racial borderlands, where miles of majority white residential neighborhoods begin transitioning into a cluster of majority nonwhite blocks, in which black residents outnumber white residents two to one. Mr. Chauvin made his home in different circles. Public records indicate that he lives in Oakdale, Minn., a suburb of St. Paul, in a neighborhood that is nearly 80 percent white, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. (This is the norm for Minneapolis police: more than 90 percent live outside the city.) He owns a second home, where he is registered to vote, near Windermere, Fla., an Orlando suburb that is 85 percent white. Severe segregation in the Twin Cities region is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Minneapolis region was one of the most racially integrated in the nation. This was partially the product of a carefully designed "fair share" program that required all municipalities within the region to develop affordable housing within their borders, preventing suburbs from effectively barring low income residents, as had occurred in most major American cities. Minneapolis also operated an aggressive school desegregation plan. But over time, both programs broke down under pressure from special interests and were substituted for by less politically troublesome programs. This new approach focused more on improving segregated schools than eliminating them, and uplifting impoverished neighborhoods without directly addressing the region's racialized living patterns. Combined with an increase in the region's racial diversity, this policy shift caused residential and educational segregation almost always closely linked to rapidly spike. The population of segregated census tracts, where more than four fifths of the population was nonwhite, grew 108 percent between 2000 and 2018; the number of K 12 schools more than four fifths nonwhite grew nearly 200 percent over the same span. Demographically similar cities, like Portland and Seattle, saw no comparable increase. Today, Minnesota has some of the largest black white welfare gaps in the nation, in education, income and employment. The state has America's 11th largest educational achievement gap, ninth largest earning disparities, sixth largest employment disparities and the second largest gaps in poverty and homeownership. This all echoes a deeper truth: Racially segregated regions don't work. They're politically and economically unstable. They result in societies where people can't understand each other or work together. Research shows that segregation can create and reinforce stereotypes and that it erodes people's ability to interact across racial lines. Segregated cities are more likely to produce racism not just within the police force but throughout any political or civic institution with power. For people of color, segregation has never been a choice. It is imposed by discriminatory practices, like exclusionary zoning or mortgage lending discrimination. Segregation erodes the economic well being of families of color by funneling them into economically destitute neighborhoods, where they often fall prey to exploitative practices designed to extract wealth from them, like predatory banking. In Minneapolis, black families earning more than 167,000 are less likely to be given a home loan than white families earning 42,000. In a segregated city or metropolitan region, this can all add up to disaster: segregation fosters prejudice in affluent, predominantly white residents and at the same time it inevitably brings some of them into contact with economically vulnerable communities of color. Policing is often the thing that turns this contact into full blown conflict. In the 1960s individual acts of police brutality exploded into widespread rioting and civil disturbance across the nation, hollowing out the core of cities like Los Angeles, Detroit, Milwaukee and Cleveland. When police forces live in neighborhoods that are racially and socioeconomically distinct from the areas they serve, the police themselves can start to feel less like community representatives, and more like an occupying force. A police officer who lives out of town, interacting with the resident of a poor or segregated neighborhood, is a microcosm of the embedded racial tensions across an entire geographic region. Now something similar is happening in the Twin Cities, as local civil rights advocates had long feared. After George Floyd's killing, protests in Minneapolis and St. Paul spiraled into arson, vandalism and looting. Most of these disturbances have taken place along the racial boundaries created by residential segregation. After protests escalated into violence last Wednesday, storefronts were smashed and burned up and down Lake Street, a major commercial area near the site of Mr. Floyd's death that happens to separate majority nonwhite and majority white residential neighborhoods across much of its span. Fire and vandalism spread to other parts of the Twin Cities before being quelled by a National Guard deployment. Other places affected, such as the Midway area of St. Paul, looked a lot like Lake Street: corridors on the border between low income, segregated areas and more affluent neighborhoods. Minneapolis has abandoned its vision of an egalitarian society, stopped enforcing civil rights rules and let inequality and division fester. The region is now paying an enormous price for those decisions. It should restore its commitment to equality by coordinating with the entire metropolitan area to plan for integrated housing and schools. Only in an integrated region can racial divisions even begin to dissipate. Myron Orfield ( MyronOrfield) is a professor of civil rights and civil liberties law at the University of Minnesota Law School, and director of the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity, where Will Stancil is a research fellow. 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
This article is part of David Leonhardt's newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it each weekday. There are two plausible explanations for William Barr's surprising criticism of President Trump yesterday. The first is the literal one. Barr, the attorney general, lashed out at Trump for "a constant background commentary that undercuts" the Justice Department because Barr is legitimately upset. He's upset not only about the perception that Trump is inappropriately interfering in investigations but also the reality of it. The second explanation is the performative one. Barr criticized Trump, perhaps even with Trump's approval, to shore up the Justice Department's credibility as an independent agency that makes decisions based on the law, not the president's whims. In this scenario, Barr is happy to use the Justice Department to help Trump but would prefer the help to be less obvious.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
Early on Tuesday, the Census Bureau provided some long awaited good news for the beleaguered working class: The income of the typical American household perched on the middle rung of the income ladder increased a hearty 5.2 percent in 2015, the first real increase since 2007, the year before the economy sank into recession. Households all the way down the income scale made more money last year. The average incomes of the poorest fifth of the population increased 6.6 percent after three consecutive years of decline. And the official poverty rate declined to 13.5 percent from 14.8 percent in 2014, the sharpest decline since the late 1960s. The numbers are heartening, confirming that the sluggish yet consistent recovery of the American economy has finally begun to lift all boats. They fit the story coming from the job market, which is about as tight as it has been in a very long time. They follow rises in the minimum wage across many states and municipalities. "This shows the importance of robust labor markets," said Jared Bernstein, a former top economic adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. "If working age Americans are going to get ahead, it is through a paycheck." And yet this positive news while clearly undermining Donald J. Trump's unbridled pessimism about the American economy does not justify unbridled celebration, either. "The next question is why did it take such a long time for things to look good?" said Arloc Sherman of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left leaning policy analysis group. As Sheldon H. Danziger of the Russell Sage Foundation put it, it's great news that men's earnings from work increased 1.5 percent. But they are still lower than in the 1970s. The answer does not just involve sluggish growth. It is also about its distribution. Gains may be finally trickling down to those at the bottom of the ladder. But the numbers still offer a lopsided picture, with a gargantuan share of income rising to the top. While the bottom fifth of households increased their share of the nation's income, by the census's definition, to 3.4 percent from 3.3 percent, the richest 5 percent kept 21.8 percent of the pie, the same as in 2014. Against the backdrop of the last few decades, the income gains revealed on Tuesday underscore how difficult the American economy has made it for average workers to get ahead. In nearly every successive economic cycle, progress came slower and harder than in the previous one. The data, which measured how Americans were doing six years into the economic recovery, show that incomes in the middle, measured in 2015 dollars, were still 1.6 percent below the previous peak of 57,423 a household, which was attained in 2007, just before the economy sank into what has come to be known as the Great Recession. How does that look compared to the nation's recent history? After the economy slipped into recession in 1969, it took only three years for incomes in the middle to rebound and surpass their previous peak. After the downturn of 1973, it took five; after back to back recessions in 1981 and 1982, it took seven. Netflix buys a visual effects company in a move to support its global ambitions. 15 minimum wage for federal contractors will take effect Jan. 30. And, except for the long expansion that ran from 1991 through 2000, it has been getting worse. The economic growth from late 2001 to about the end of 2007 never even managed to deliver incomes above the previous peak for the typical household, reached near the end of Bill Clinton's presidency. The expansion underway today may not get there, either. Today, median household incomes are still 2.4 percent below the absolute peak they hit in 1999 when Facebook had yet to come into existence, the big news in the music business was Napster, and the good times in Silicon Valley were about to come crashing down with the collapse of the dot com bubble. At the bottom of the ladder, households at the 10th percentile those poorer than 90 percent of the population are still a bit poorer than they were in 1989. Americans have managed to develop an internet economy, invent social media and build driverless cars since then, but not to improve the lot of those at the bottom. What's more, changes starting in 2013 in the way the census asks people about their incomes can distort comparisons with previous years. After adjusting the data for these changes, according to Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute, the income of American households in the middle of the distribution last year was still 4.6 percent below its level in 2007 and 5.4 percent below where it was in 1999. The official poverty line, moreover, is assessed using a basket of necessities defined in the 1960s which has little to do with people's lives today. Over the last few years the census has also published an alternative Supplemental Poverty Measure which keeps a better tab on Americans' income and expenditures. Using that count, poverty dipped to 14.3 percent, the lowest level since the census began compiling it in 2009. Analysts like Scott Winship of the right leaning Manhattan Institute have argued for some time that long term income numbers, like those published by the Congressional Budget Office, suggest that Americans in the middle of the income distribution and below have not done badly over recent decades. He concludes that the best strategy to promote the welfare of working Americans is to focus on improving overall economic growth. The fixation with inequality and income distribution, he says, will produce bad policy. The current census data does suggest that growth can ultimately bring prosperity to average Americans. Still, it also points to the persistence of wide inequality as being at the center of the story. Across the entire bottom 60 percent of the distribution, households are taking home a smaller slice of the pie than they did in the 1960s and 1970s. The 3.4 percent of income that households in the bottom fifth took home last year was less than the 5.8 percent they had in 1974. With their share shrinking with almost every economic cycle, it is hardly a surprise that it takes longer for them to experience any income gains at all. Growth, alone, is not adding to their prosperity as it once did. By contrast, households in the top 5 percent have profited nicely from America's expansions. In 2015, they took in 350,870, on average. That is 4.9 percent more than in 1999 and 37.5 percent more than in 1989. Historical precedent suggests the latest economic expansion is getting long in the tooth. Lawrence Summers, Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and a top economic adviser in President Obama's first term, says there are better than even odds today that the United States will tip into a recession within three years. In July, Deutsche Bank said the probability of a recession within the next 12 months had jumped to 60 percent, the highest since August 2008. JPMorgan thinks the odds are 37 percent. For all but Americans at the very top, that means that the punch bowl may well be taken away again before the party really gets going. That is not how a well functioning economy should work.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
They had left their former show homes in the ready to wear season in search of inspiration and aesthetic meaning (and commercial growth), hoping to find it in the hallowed frame of the first day of the Paris haute couture shows. From New York came Proenza Schouler. From London by way of Milan, Peter Dundas. From California, Rodarte. And although couture has a reputation as the most traditional of all fashion forms, rule bound and elitist, they were welcomed. Sometimes personally: Mr. Dundas, who left his post as creative director of Roberto Cavalli in October, held the debut of his namesake brand in a friend's private home, built in the 17th century and filled with tapestries and antiques. "We've never had anything like this here," one of the owners said, seemingly not worried about the possibility that Champagne glasses sweating in the late afternoon sun might leave rings on mahogany side tables, nor about the risk of someone spilling something on the zebra pattern needlepoint seat of an armchair from Versailles. It turns out President Emmanuel Macron is not the only new breath of fresh air. And did the foreigners live up to the promise? What they brought to the runway wasn't couture, officially or otherwise, and they didn't pretend it was in the case of Proenza Schouler, it combined resort and spring 2018 ready to wear; for Rodarte, spring ready to wear; for Dundas, 2018 resort (and yes, this is the couture fall 2017 season, but it has become almost impossible to keep track of which designer is showing what or when as good an argument as any for abandoning the pointless nomenclature). It didn't involve the same level of handwork as couture, or employ the same number of artisans. But at their best, these outsider collections had a clear connection to the idea of couture, an aspiration to that level of creation that was not pretentious (thank goodness), but palpable. And that had its own currency. Certainly, this was true of Rodarte, where the almost cinematic sartorial fantasies of the sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, which sometimes seemed overblown and undisciplined in New York, had a new rigor in the leafy, rose strewn courtyard of a 17th century cloister. It was as if the setting romantic and historic and timeless as it was took some of the pressure off the clothes, and allowed viewers to simply glory in the details of their twisted prettiness as opposed to drowning in it. Sheer frocks in swiss dot and tulle had skirts cut by an asymmetric ruffle falling below the knee; cropped motorcycle leather jackets were studded in pearls, as were the matching low slung motocross pants; and feather coats came in bird of paradise shades. Tea dresses bristled with three dimensional posies of baby's breath, and negligee gowns cut on the bias bloomed with embroidered poppy appliques. To leaven the fragility, there were big metallic bow cuffs and leather stiletto boots. The Mulleavys may have taken flight to France, but they, and their clothes, are still grounded in the New World, just to the east of kitsch. And the connection was true of Proenza Schouler, where the designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez cross fertilized their past signatures (leather halters, peekaboo slicing, asymmetry, collage) with a certain French classicism, so that the basics of old couture corsets and smoking jackets and intricate handwork were knocked off their pedestals into the mosh pit. They proceeded to shimmy and shake to their own easy tune. Oversize white jackets were given a nipped in abstracted black waist and were paired with elongated slit skirts or flared lace trousers; skinny knits were tamped down by wrapped leather bra tops. Sleeveless sheer stretch jersey was layered over skirts composed of tiers of minute tulle ruffles, or dripped a single ruffle from neck to thigh. There were flapper dresses with seams picked out in hook and eye closures orbited by feather rings, and floral lace strung from tiny ribbon roses. They may have been complicated to make, but they looked slouchy. Unfortunately, however, the connection was less true of the Dundas collection. Though Mr. Dundas said, backstage in a room piled with books, that he had come to Paris because it was where he learned fashion, and that he had his show in his friends' home because it was "personal," his first collection felt more like a greatest hits retread of his time at Cavalli and, before that, Pucci (and before that, Ungaro), than like a fresh start with a honed vision. From sequin sweatshirt dresses splashed with a leaping panther to billowing caftan gowns, Lurex embroidered silks cut long and flowing at the back and thigh high at the front, faded denim mixed with leopard fur and fussy ruched taffeta or sheer cocktail frocks trailing long neon bright bows at the back, he's been here before. Mr. Dundas observed that the 28 looks were "what I'm into," which he summed up as "the palace of Versailles meets Le Palace" (the famous Paris club of the late '70s and early '80s). Fair enough. But when a designer turns to his past work for inspiration, ideally it is to make it relevant for a new day and for an ever evolving woman, rather than simply to repeat to prove he knows it so intimately, he knows where it is going next. Emphasis on the last word.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
WASHINGTON The United States economy grew at a surprisingly robust 4.1 percent annual pace in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said on Friday. It was the strongest advance in nearly two years and only the third time the economy had expanded that quickly from one quarter to the next since 2006. It is the latest evidence that the generally sluggish recovery is gaining strength, though economists noted that the rate of growth over a longer period remained at a trot, not a gallop a pace of about 2.5 percent a year. "We continue to believe that underlying growth will remain on a moderate trend," said Joshua Shapiro, the chief United States economist at MFR, a consulting firm. "The outlook is greatly dependent on the direction of the labor market, and hence the path of wage and salary growth and the ability of consumers to expand spending." With stronger growth, the job market is improving, but earnings and employment remain far from healthy levels, economists say. The unemployment rate fell to 7 percent in November from 7.8 percent a year earlier. But that improvement is to a substantial extent because workers are leaving the labor force, not because of a greater number of jobs. At the same time, many working households continue to struggle because stagnant incomes have barely kept up with the modest pace of inflation. Still, the Commerce Department data, which raised the estimate of third quarter growth from an earlier 3.6 percent, shows more evidence of broad based growth that might lead to a healthier labor market and more solid growth in 2014. President Obama seized on the figures at his news conference on Friday. "We head into next year with an economy that's stronger than it was when we started the year," he said. "Our businesses are positioned for new growth and new jobs. And I firmly believe that 2014 can be a breakthrough year for America." The refined estimate is based on "more complete source data," the department said, that showed personal consumption and business investment to be higher than previously thought. Those figures came in "dramatically better than initially expected after an unusually large series of surprises," said Morgan Stanley economists in a note to clients, calling the government release a generally "strong report." Economists had expected the final estimate of growth to be unchanged from the earlier 3.6 percent. But the data showed that consumers stepped up their spending on health care, houses and cars as the strengthening recovery led businesses to hire, and that rising home values had improved household balance sheets. The Commerce Department increased its estimate of growth in consumer spending, which accounts for more than two thirds of economic activity, to a 2 percent rate from 1.4 percent. The economy's general strength has spurred the Federal Reserve to begin to unwind its bond buying program, cutting its monthly purchases of Treasury and mortgage backed debt. "In light of the cumulative progress toward maximum employment and the improvement in the outlook for labor market conditions, the committee decided to modestly reduce the pace of its asset purchases," the Fed said in a statement this week. The third quarter growth came from a broad range of other sources: personal consumption, exports, investment in new factories and houses, state and local government spending and a rise in business inventories. Federal spending cuts and rising imports were a drag on growth, the department said. Economists expect growth to retreat in the fourth quarter, in part because of the temporary government shutdown in October, but mostly because some of the upswing was driven by businesses building up their inventories. That activity is expected to slow this winter. While Wall Street "has been concerned with the swing in fiscal policy between 2013 and 2014, they should be focused on the swing likely in inventory," said Steven Ricchiuto, the chief economist at Mizuho Securities USA, in an email. Even so, economists said that the underlying pace of growth remained strong enough to expect a better 2014 than 2013. "The third quarter's stellar growth rate is not destined to be repeated, but is it a harbinger of a better year for the economy in 2014," said Douglas Handler, the chief United States economist for IHS Global Insight, who cited strength in the housing market and in exports. Macroeconomic Advisers, a forecasting firm based in St. Louis, expects growth to slow to a 2.3 percent pace in the fourth quarter roughly in line with the 2.5 percent rate during the second quarter before picking up again next year. "Receding fiscal drag, the waning effects of the sharp rise in yields since earlier in the year, continued improvement in credit terms and equities and building confidence underlie the move to growth of 3 percent or above over the next few years," the firm said this week. The easing of cutbacks and uncertainty from Washington should also bolster growth in the months ahead, analysts say, This year, the end of a payroll tax holiday and the imposition of broad based spending cuts, known as sequestration, cut into the economy's expansion.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
The advent of film streaming has met stubborn opposition from exhibitors in France, where the law dictates a 36 month window between showings in theaters and on streaming. Ever since the Netflix titles "Okja" and "The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)" played in Cannes two years ago, those exhibitors have successfully pressured the festival and Fremaux to give Netflix the cold shoulder. Last year, Netflix films available for Cannes, like Alfonso Cuaron's "Roma," were shut out of the competition. Netflix claimed it had no films ready for this year's edition. (The service's Martin Scorsese drama, "The Irishman," isn't due till later in the year.) But some sort of future compromise seems likely, given the influx of deep pocketed streamers on the way: Apple, which will soon unveil its own streaming content, is on board the next film directed by the Cannes veteran Sofia Coppola. Fremaux would also prefer not to lose more prestige films like "Roma," which wound up at the Venice Film Festival last year. "What really is at stake now is the way we are experiencing films," said Inarritu, who praised moviegoing as a communal experience but said, "I have nothing against watching on a phone, an iPad or a computer." "One should not cancel the other," he added. The two time winner of the best director Oscar, Inarritu will preside over a jury that includes the actress Elle Fanning and is top heavy with directors, including the recent Oscar nominees Yorgos Lanthimos and Pawel Pawlikowski, as well as Kelly Reichardt and Alice Rohrwacher. "It's the first time I'm not trying to get out of jury duty," Reichardt joked, though she bemoaned the news media's inevitable focus on her gender: "I look forward to a time that will come when we don't have to say 'woman directors' or 'as a woman.'"	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Cynthia LaFave had a word of warning when she first met T Kira Madden in 2015. "She said, 'If you hurt my daughter, I'll kill you,'" Ms. Madden recalled. And that, by Ms. Madden's reckoning, was a fair enough thing for her to say about her relationship with Hannah Beresford. Years earlier, Ms. Beresford had fought an episode of depression so crippling she required hospitalization. Ms. Madden was no stranger to pain, either: Her 2019 memoir, "Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls," outlines her trauma filled coming of age as the queer, biracial daughter of a pair of well to do addicts in South Florida. That Ms. Madden's pain may have affected Ms. Beresford was a reasonable concern for her mother. It proved unwarranted. "Their relationship has brought so much peace to them both that, as it stands now, if anyone tries to hurt Kira, I'll kill them, too," Ms. LaFave said. Ms. Madden had just received a master's degree in fine arts from Sarah Lawrence College, where she is now a professor in the M.F.A. writing program. A career in social services wasn't in her future, but the shelter job attracted her for its proximity to a population that felt familiar. "My parents were pretty severe addicts," she said. By the time she moved to New York at 17 for college at Parsons School of Design, both were in recovery from drug and alcohol abuse. Then, "we had this second sort of beautiful life together," she said. "They were sober and we had these happy adult relationships. My parents always loved me. They weren't bad people." Just complicated ones. Ms. Madden's Hawaiian Chinese mother, Sherrie Lokelani Madden, lives in Atlantic Beach, a part of Hempstead, N.Y., and is the general manager of the Dop Dop Salon in SoHo. Her father, John Laurence Madden, was Jewish and, after a career as stockbroker, headed his brother Steve Madden's international fashion accessories business; Mr. Madden died in 2015 of complications from lung disease. In addition to their addictions, they had secrets. Ms. Madden found out as a child she had two half brothers on her father's side from a marriage that her parents' affair broke up. As an adult, she learned about another half sister on her mother's side and a brother, whom her parents had placed for adoption. Still, her childhood in Boca Raton, Fla., had a shiny exterior. She grew up winning equestrian ribbons and attended an exclusive high school, North Broward Preparatory School, in Coconut Creek, Fla. "Hannah noticed me first," Ms. Madden said. "She remembers me reading at the picnic table, a Joy Williams book called 'Escapes'." In 2013, before Ms. Beresford and Ms. Madden found a chance to be properly introduced, the shelter's horse program ended. But Ms. Madden's love of horses lingered. She returned to the stable to ask the barn manager if there was someone who could give her lessons. She was reconnected with Ms. Beresford, whose job at the stable overlapped with her graduate studies in poetry at N.Y.U. Ms. Beresford earned her master's degree from N.Y.U. in 2014 and now teaches poetry at Drew University in Madison, N.J. She grew up in rural Voorheesville, N.Y. Her parents, Ms. LaFave, a trial lawyer from Albany, and Jon Beresford of Canon City, Colo., the owner of Beresford Remodeling, divorced when she was 5. At 4, she had started horseback riding. "It became pretty consuming," she said. In 2007, Oklahoma State University recruited her for its N.C.A.A. Division 1 equestrian team. But by then, after years on the road touring, distractions from her athletic career were mounting. "I had struggled most of my teen years with anxiety and depression, and it all piled up," she said. In 2008, she hit what she called rock bottom. "I was hospitalized for a while, and in the hospital, I came out," she said. She called friends and family to tell them she was gay. "As they say, it got better." Ms. Madden noted "that we both were in relationships at the time. But right after that lesson I texted my friend, 'This lesbian in breeches is so hot!' I felt very crushy toward Hannah." Not so much, though, that she was willing to break up with her girlfriend and ask Ms. Beresford out. Instead, life got in the way, she said, and after six months she stopped taking lessons. More than a year passed. "But I always thought of Hannah, how I wished I could be her friend." In late 2014, she scoured Yelp for the names of Jamaica Bay Riding Academy instructors, hoping to find Ms. Beresford's last name and contact info. Eventually, she reached Ms. Beresford through Facebook. "I was like, 'Hey, remember me?'" Ms. Madden said. Both were nearing the ends of their relationships; Ms. Beresford, who considers herself more a country than a city person, was about to move to Austin, Texas. But after exchanging and reading some work each had written (Ms. Beresford a manuscript in progress and Ms. Madden short stories and part of a novel), they decided to meet for a first date in February 2015 at the Stonewall Inn. "In the back of our heads we were thinking, this could be really painful, because I was moving in a matter of weeks," Ms. Beresford said. But their book swap had already connected them. "When you're reading something autobiographical, you not only learn the facts of the person's life but the lens through which they see the world," Ms. Madden said. Sign up for Love Letter and always get the latest in Modern Love, weddings, and relationships in the news by email. By then, they had become experienced road trippers. "Hannah and I always joke that we spent most of our relationship in a car," Ms. Madden said. In addition to the U Haul trip, by the end of 2016 they had driven to Buffalo for a horse show and to Kansas to visit friends of Ms. Beresford's; they also drove to upstate New York regularly to ride horses and spend time with Ms. LaFave. Ms. Madden's mother had also become a fixture in their lives, through regular visits to the home in SoHo she shared with Mr. Madden before he died, and later to Long Island. Ms. Lokelani Madden felt close to Ms. Beresford immediately. "Hannah really grounds Kira," she said. "She has this soothing effect. I admire so much how they bring out the best in each other." In 2017, Ms. Madden and Ms. Beresford moved to Provincetown, Mass., where Ms. Beresford had accepted a yearlong residency at the Fine Arts Work Center. The next year they moved to Inwood in Manhattan, spending the bulk of their time teaching, writing and editing the literary journal Ms. Madden founded, "No Tokens." They had already traveled to 30 states when, in July 2018, Ms. Beresford planned a surprise 30th birthday trip for Ms. Madden. "We went up the California coast through the Pacific Northwest and stopped in Powell, Wyo., to ride horses at this campsite ranch near Heart Mountain," Ms. Madden said. On the evening of July 12, they climbed back in their rented Toyota to watch a meteor shower. "There were so many mosquitoes we turned the lights out in the car. Hannah started talking to me about how she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me. It was corny in a great way." She spoke Ms. Madden's whole name T Kira Mahealani Ching Madden before saying, "Will you marry me?" After Ms. Madden said a tearful yes, Ms. Beresford opened her car door and found her way to Ms. Madden's side in pitch blackness to present a ring. They counted down from three before turning on the car lights so Ms. Madden could see it: A teardrop shaped opal surrounded watermelon tourmalines and gray diamonds, designed collaboratively by Ms. Beresford and Misa Jewelry, a Hawaiian designer. N. Michelle AuBuchon, a friend and fellow writer who was ordained by the American Marriage Ministries, officiated during a 30 minute ceremony celebrating their devotion to each other. "To know T Kira and Hannah is to know how fiercely they love, with no boundaries, barriers or divisions," she said. A dozen attendants, including Justine Champine, who the couple called "dyke of honor," stood by the couple as they exchanged handwritten vows. "You and I have dedicated our lives to words and the arrangements of those words, but it's these moments, our moments of silence and understanding without explanation that matter most to me," Ms. Madden said. Ms. Beresford was characteristically poetic: "The universe may be limitless, but I can count my life in moments of seeing you, of hearing your voice, of disbelieving in scale," she said. Yards away from the water's edge, with coconut trees swaying and the majestic Ko'olau mountains in the background, Ms. AuBuchon pronounced them married.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
"Thoughts flash in your mind of incredible nights here, whether it was Jay Z, or Junior Vasquez, or the thousands of people inside and outside, waiting in line," said Peter Gatien, the nightclub impresario who lorded over the 1990s club scene in New York City. It was a brisk Wednesday in early March, a few days before the city shut down because of the new coronavirus, and Mr. Gatien was at La Colombe, a cafe inside the brick warehouse that once housed the Tunnel, the massive nightclub on West 27th Street that is now celebrated as a crucible of hip hop. "Just the raw energy, the exuberance," he said, sipping an iced tea. "You don't see it anymore." Times change. The Tunnel, a former warehouse where Biggie Smalls and Busta Rhymes once barked out raps to frenzied throngs, is converting to offices and luxury retail, blending seamlessly with the gleaming Hudson Yards to the north. With his memoir, "The Club King," published on April 1, he hopes for a degree of catharsis after an epic rise and fall, but also to celebrate a lost New York, when clubs felt mysterious and transgressive, luring the misfits and outcasts from the city's creative underground, and every night felt like a Mardi Gras on Mars. "It was the last of an era: predigital, pre social media," he said. "People didn't even have cellphones. You really had to go out to find out what was happening." Mr. Gatien, too, no longer looks quite so swashbuckling, his razor cheekbones now softer, his eye patch (worn since childhood, after he lost an eye in a baseball game in which a broomstick was being used as a bat) now replaced by dark glasses. Wearing a vintage Gaultier spring coat over a black hoodie, with oversize white headphones cradling his neck, he seemed at ease just to blend in. "I like being anonymous," he said. Over the past two decades, he has certainly accomplished that. Mr. Gatien was acquitted of his drug racketeering and conspiracy charge in 1998 but was deported to Canada after pleading guilty to subsequent state tax evasion charges. He now lives a quiet life in a three bedroom apartment in Toronto with his third wife, Alessandra, and has spent the bulk of the last two decades trying to put his life back together. And a 2011 documentary, "Limelight," offered a kaleidoscopic look back to that sordid netherworld, but Mr. Gatien was not exactly effusive in the film. "Perched palely on a tall stool, rocking dark sunglasses or his signature eye patch," the New York Times review read, the gangly club kingpin "remains largely an enigma." Even so, the memoir provides Mr. Gatien a chance to set the record straight. Portrayed over the years as a genius and a hustler, a megalomaniac and a Sphinx, he is looking forward to the chance to control the narrative for a change. "If you only read The New York Post from 1996 to 2000, then I'm a villain," he said. "It hurts. I was a hard working guy who spent nearly 20 years in nightlife in the city." But, he added, "I was an easy target. I was the guy in the eye patch." Whatever else you may say about Mr. Gatien, who is 68, he never aimed small. He opened his first club in the mill town of Cornwall, Ontario, when he was in his early 20s and managed to lure a young band from Toronto band by the name of Rush for its opening week, he says in the book. He later moved to Miami, where he converted a nightclub called Rum Bottoms into a discotheque called Limelight, and booked rising acts like Grace Jones and the Village People. In following years, he opened Limelights in Chicago, London and Atlanta, where, he writes in his book, a live panther briefly roamed beneath a tempered glass dance floor. The stunt prompted the ire of a local animal rights organization, but the buzz also lured the likes of Rod Stewart and Andy Warhol, he writes. Along with goths, drag queens, rockers, leather boys and slumming socialites, the Limelight became the home to the '90s club kid moment. Arty outsiders and fashion iconoclasts favoring lip piercings and pancake makeup reframed dance floor revelry as an art movement of sorts a swirling blend of techno music, Carnival level costumery and, yes, drugs (particularly Ecstasy). "I'm a good shepherd," Mr. Gatien said. "I was a shepherd of talent. I always got a lot of gratification standing in the back of the balcony, seeing 3,000 below waving their hands in the air." At Limelight, he added, "we had people in sequins showing up alongside people in tuxedos coming from a dinner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If everybody is dressed in Armani, it's boring. If everybody is super sequins, it's boring. The most important thing you can do in a club is to draw an eclectic crowd. In the end, they entertain each other." Mr. Gatien found success in his adopted city, but he did not find universal love. The Village Voice called him "a bit of a cold fish." New York magazine described him as "a provincial money man who didn't make the scene, but made a fortune off it." Even his staff nicknamed him "the Ghost." "I don't know if it's because I'm a small town Canadian kid," he said, "but I'm much more comfortable in the shadows." The Tunnel, too, served as a clubhouse for a marginalized population in need of one, he said. Located in a neighborhood that was then an industrial backwater, the club provided a safe space in downtown Manhattan for large groups of young African Americans. As Datwon Thomas, the editor of Vibe, wrote in 2018: "You couldn't go to the notoriously badass function that took place on Sunday nights if you were faint of heart. Meanwhile, you weren't a top tier rapper if you didn't perform at the perpetually packed venue." With Funkmaster Flex wrangling talent, big names including Dr. Dre, Lil' Kim, 50 Cent, Missy Elliott, Jay Z, Nas and Snoop Dogg all played Sunday night at the Tunnel. And they played for free, Mr. Gatien said, because, well, it was Sunday night at the Tunnel. It was the days before bottle service, and the Tunnel was also a place for the elites of rap to scale the heights of conspicuous consumption. Leaning over the massive bar at the center of the room, Sean Combs and Jermaine Dupri used to compete to see who could line up more empty Cristal bottles, Mr. Gatien writes in the book. "Everybody was dancing," Mr. Gatien said. "Even the security girls, once the rush was over. And when everybody was leaving the place, there were so many smiles." He remembers thinking, he said, that everyone who had been at the club was going to have sex that night. It would not last, however. None of it would. "The owner of three of Manhattan's largest nightclubs was accused yesterday of turning two of them the Limelight and the Tunnel into virtual drug supermarkets," The New York Times reported on May 16, 1996, "peddling the drug known as Ecstasy to a clientele made up largely of college students and teen agers." When police raided the Limelight in the fall of 1995, his empire was living on borrowed time. As the investigation widened, undercover agents were soon swarming Limelight, some, he writes in the book, dressed in highly unconvincing drag, or wearing dog collars. After his arrest, the legal odyssey lasted two and a half years until he was acquitted of all drug charges in 1998. Jurors "clearly rejected the testimony of a drug dealing former club director and five other dealers who pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy charges and agreed to testify against Mr. Gatien in return for leniency," The Times reported. Even so, the government found a way to get rid of him, deporting him to Toronto in 2003 after his guilty plea to state tax evasion charges. (He paid some club employees in cash.) On visits to New York in the ensuing years, he has made a point of avoiding the former Limelight church, which over the years has housed boutiques, restaurants and a gym. "It's very emotional for me," he said. "I had it for almost 20 years. That's like an eternity in the nightclub business. Most clubs a year and a half, two years, and that's it." While he has entertained the idea of getting an investment group together and creating a boutique hotel, with the Limelight building as the lobby, he will never return to the nightclub business, he said. "I've been approached by Vegas," he said. "I don't even respond to the calls. It's a young man's game."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
The Lincoln Navigator first appeared in 1998 as an upscale Ford Expedition, which in turn was a larger version of that era's Ford Explorer. If you saw the 2015 model coming from far away, or in low light, you might not be able to tell that anything had changed over the last decade and a half. But the Lincoln Motor Company assures us that the Navigator, familiar in profile as it is, is better than ever. The most visible change on the 2015 model, which was unveiled at the Washington Auto Show this week, is the grille Lincoln has foregone the horizontal shapes of the previous iteration for a split grille more in keeping with other models in the automaker's current lineup. Crisp hood creases garnish either 20 or 22 inch aluminum wheels to round out the freshened up new look. Bigger changes lurk below the Navigator's skin. Since its debut, the S.U.V. has been powered by Ford's 5.4 liter modular V8. That engine is gone from the 2015 model, replaced by a 3.5 liter twin turbocharged EcoBoost V6. Lincoln says that "according to preliminary test data," the new EcoBoost will produce 370 horsepower and 430 pound feet of torque, a 60 horsepower increase from the 2014's 5.4 liter V8. Technology that will come with the 2015 Navigator includes the latest version of the Sync with MyLincoln Touch infotainment system, as well as blind spot hazard indicators and illuminated "welcome mats" that activate below the front doors when the vehicle is unlocked.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
new video loaded: Bending the Rules of Geometry	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Our temporarily European contingent remained busy. Joshua Barone interviewed the conducting dean of the Bayreuth Festival, Christian Thielemann, who talks colorfully about cutting off his ears (metaphorically) to attune himself to the unique Bayreuth covered orchestra pit. Josh then moved on to the Salzburg Festival in Austria, where Romeo Castellucci is applying his trademark poetically enigmatic style to "Salome." Tony Tommasini will be in Salzburg next week, so stay tuned for his reports, as well as for David Allen's summary of his recent Wagner marathon. In other news, Joel Rozen filed a review of "West Side Story" and "Silent Night" from the Glimmerglass Festival. There's a fascinating glimpse into the factory that produces Zildjian cymbals, which are turning 400 this year. Coming to you from London: a sobering look at the possible effects on classical music of Brexit. And I wrote about the escalating salaries of American conductors. Enjoy these! ZACHARY WOOLFE Last Friday, I attended this season's final concert by The Dream Unfinished, an ascendant ensemble that describes its work as that of an activist orchestra prompting "dialogues surrounding social and racial justice." This effort typically includes inviting speakers to address topics of political concern during concerts (this year's theme was immigration), and asking audience members to create a sense of community even if only by asking people to introduce themselves to a neighbor. (No small thing.) For me, it was easy to imagine a cadre of classical music's past radicals including Hans Werner Henze and Leroy Jenkins (listen above!) nodding in approval at the evening's concept. That lineage was particularly apparent during the concert's final piece, a kinetic version of the composer and pianist Vijay Iyer's James Brown inspired work for strings, "Dig the Say," in which pizzicato passages are required to resound with the force of rhythm guitar breaks. Originally written for the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, the work can be augmented for additional forces, as on the live recording below, part of a dance performance that also adds the Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier to the mix. SETH COLTER WALLS The final set of the composer and performer Annie Gosfield's residency at the Stone was also indebted to the legacy of pop styles, right down to its title: "21st Century Dance Crazes." Given Ms. Gosfield's interest in dizzying glissandos, droning electronics and eerie near unison effects, the headline was a bit tongue in cheek. (Nobody was confused about whether these vibrant, unusual works were pop chart fodder.) But neither was the concert's conceit insincere. The 6/8 pulse of "Rattling Beeps and Serging Sweeps" with Roger Kleier on guitar and Billy Martin on drums made good on the promise of danceable groove. An earlier performance of the piece from the 2015 Ecstatic Music Festival along with other pieces in Ms. Gosfield's series can be heard on this page, hosted by Newsounds.org. SETH COLTER WALLS In a notebook about the search for identity at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, I praise the 17 year old violinist Daniel Lozakovich, who made his New York debut on Wednesday in one of the festival's "A Little Night Music" programs at the intimate Kaplan Penthouse. I'd never heard this immensely gifted emerging artist, who already has a Deutsche Grammophon recording contract. But I had heard the brilliant pianist George Li, 22, who shared this program with Mr. Lozakovich. The two joined for a vibrant account of a Mozart sonata. Mr. Li also played one of my favorite early Beethoven piano pieces: the Sonata No. 6 in F (Op. 10, No. 2). This seemingly humorous work is actually quite wild, even a touch scary, when played right, as Mr. Li demonstrated. His account had the playfulness and manic energy that my childhood hero Rudolf Serkin brought to the piece. The main theme of Mozart's Violin Sonata in B flat (K. 378) is conversational and charming, like a well rehearsed anecdote performed for effect. It can easily come across as glib: the contour formulaic, the flourishes more calculated than graceful. But at the Kaplan Penthouse on Wednesday, Daniel Lozakovich seized upon a detail that made all the difference. Punctuating the string of legato scales and curlicues are staccato eighths notes that are clearly articulated and separated from their neighbors and he dug into each of these with bite and more than a touch of roughness. I liked how these notes, each time they recurred, seemed to insist on their individuality. They also heightened the competition between piano and violin, since both instruments trade the same phrase. George Li rendered those eighths just as crisply, but there was a more worldly polish to them. Mr. Lozakovich's playing suggested a youthful impetuousness that suited the music and the situation he's 17, after all. CORINNA da FONSECA WOLLHEIM For most of Mozart's String Quintet in G Minor (K. 516) the hierarchy among the violas is clear. The first viola gets all the melodies enough, anyway, to put it on an equal footing with the first violin. The second viola does what violas normally do in music of the Classical period, filling out harmonies and juicing up the texture. But in the Adagio, it gets to upstage its neighbor right at the somber plot twist in the music. The violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama played this tiny, creepy solo to shattering effect at Alice Tully Hall on Monday during her guest appearance with the Emerson String Quartet. Then the second viola muscles in like an unwelcome memory with a coldly insistent motif. It disappears almost as soon as you've noticed it in fact, the first violin seems determined to put it firmly in the past, veering into a syrupy little dance. But Ms. Ngwenyama's intervention was enough to cast a pall over the rest of the movement, so that the moments of sweetness now smacked of desperation and denial. CORINNA da FONSECA WOLLHEIM	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
The comedy "Banana Split" hits the ground running with a montage that recaps a two year high school relationship. While most of the movie doesn't run on fast forward, it never quite loses its snap. The plot centers on April (Hannah Marks), who, while still reeling from her breakup with Nick (Dylan Sprouse), discovers that he has found a new girlfriend, Clara (Liana Liberato), who has just moved to Los Angeles. Then April and Clara meet at a booze soaked party, and Clara is not at all the heartless, gorgeous threat April imagined when she stalked her on Instagram. In fact, she is a ton of fun. Soon she and April are as close as two friends can be, screwball bantering in perfect synchronization and even brushing their teeth side by side, all the while agreeing never to mention Nick (whom Clara continues to see) and postponing the inevitable day when he will find out that they know each other.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
The Justice Department's approval of the 69 billion merger between CVS Health and Aetna on Wednesday caps a wave of consolidation among giant health care players that could leave American consumers with less control over their medical care and prescription drugs. The approval marks the close of an era, during which powerful pharmacy benefit managers brokered drug prices among pharmaceutical companies, insurers and employers. But a combined CVS Aetna may be even more formidable. As the last major free standing pharmacy manager, CVS Health had revenues of about 185 billion last year, and provided prescription plans to roughly 94 million customers. Aetna, one of the nation's largest insurers with about 60 billion in revenue last year, covers 22 million people in its health plans. The two companies say that they will be better able to coordinate care for consumers as the mergers help tighten cost controls. Larry J. Merlo, the chief executive of CVS Health, said in a statement that the approval "is an important step toward bringing together the strengths and capabilities of our two companies to improve the consumer health care experience." But critics worry that consumers could end up with far fewer options and higher expenses. Just last month, the Justice Department also approved the takeover of Express Scripts, a major CVS rival, by the big insurer Cigna. "This type of consolidation in a market already dominated by a few, powerful players presents the very real possibility of reduced competition that harms consumer choice and quality," George Slover, senior policy counsel for Consumers Union, an advocacy group, said in a statement. The consumer organization had opposed the Aetna CVS merger, arguing that people enrolled in Aetna health plans could be forced to seek care at CVS retail clinics, and that those who were not insured by Aetna could pay higher prices for drugs than those who were. "The combination of CVS and Aetna creates an enormous market force that we haven't seen before," Mr. Slover said. The Justice Department had undertaken an antitrust review of these types of deals, approving many because they involve distinct businesses. It granted conditional approval to the CVS Aetna deal as long as Aetna sold off its private Medicare drug plans. Amid the growing outcry over the high price of medicines, pharmacy managers have been vilified alongside big drug makers. Critics say pharmacy managers' secretive deals under which price setting strategies are not publicly disclosed enrich companies on all sides of the prescription drug pipeline while failing to benefit consumers. In addition to the two major entities now attached to powerful health insurance companies, OptumRx, another major pharmacy manager, is owned by UnitedHealth Group. Anthem, which operates for profit Blue Cross plans in several states, is developing its own in house pharmacy operation. "There are going to be mammoth organizations," said Adam J. Fein, the chief executive of Drug Channels Institute, a research firm. Now that generic drugs account for about 90 percent of all prescriptions, the role of pharmacy benefit managers, known as P.B.M.'s, has changed over time, with higher drug prices largely a product of the increase in expensive specialty medicines for conditions like rheumatoid arthritis or cancer. "The job of the P.B.M. is being transformed," Mr. Fein said. Facing the prospect of competition from outsiders like Amazon, whose tentative forays into the pharmacy business have already shaken up the industry, established players have also been looking for ways to stay relevant to their customers and enlarge their share of the health care market. The companies "are feeling pressure to do something different or it will be done to them," said Brian Marcotte, the chief executive of the National Business Group on Health, which represents large employers. "It's a disruptive period of time when the players are rearranging themselves," said David W. Johnson, the chief executive of 4sight Health, a consultant. Five state attorneys general from California, Florida, Hawaii, Mississippi, and Washington joined with the Justice Department in conditionally approving the Aetna CVS deal. The merger is expected to be finalized sometime before the end of the year. The preliminary approval was based on Aetna's decision to sell its plans to WellCare Health Plans to address the government's concerns that the combined companies would control too much of the market. But state regulators and consumer groups have also raised other concerns about the impact of the merger, saying that the lack of large pharmacy managers that aren't affiliated with insurers could make it difficult for smaller competitors in either sector. Previous mergers in the industry have left consumers with fewer choices and higher drug bills, said David A. Balto, an antitrust lawyer who is a critic of the pharmacy managers. "This is a marketplace that hasn't done well because of lack of transparency, and transparency may be even weaker," said Mr. Balto, who had worked at the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department. Affiliations with large insurers could change that dynamic, he added. "It might correct some of the more pernicious practices." Mr. Balto warned that while state officials have not traditionally overseen pharmacy managers, the combined mammoths "could bring them into the cross hairs of regulation." The mergers also show how far organizations are crossing the traditional line between insurance companies responsible for paying for care and providers responsible for delivering it. There have always been organizations that perform both functions, but the lines have are increasingly blurred. UnitedHealth, for example, has been aggressively buying physician practices and surgery centers, while Humana announced plans to become the nation's largest provider of hospice care. "The nature of the last six to 12 months is much more vertical and the size of the deals are significantly larger," said Gurpreet Singh, a partner specializing in health care services at the consulting and advisory firm PwC. Much of the enthusiasm over CVS's acquisition of Aetna has focused on the insurer's addition of a retail component and the potential use of CVS's 10,000 pharmacies and 1,100 retail clinics to deliver care, particularly to Aetna customers. Imagine a single hub where someone can go to get care for everything from a sore throat to their diabetes. CVS stores could become places to get blood tests for monitoring chronic conditions, not just toothpaste or prescription refills. "You could see the store as a base of operations for a lot of these delivery channels," said George Hill, a senior analyst at RBC Capital Markets. Mr. Merlo will be the chief executive of the combined companies, and Mark T. Bertolini, Aetna's chief executive, will step down and join the CVS board. CVS has committed to keeping Aetna at its headquarters in Hartford for the next decade. "In our new health care model, we provide people access to more affordable care when, where and how they need it," Mr. Merlo said. "Care will be coordinated among the health care providers, caregivers and their health care teams, leveraging the connectivity CVS will provide."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
Nearly a third of hospitalized Covid 19 patients experienced some type of altered mental function ranging from confusion to delirium to unresponsiveness in the largest study to date of neurological symptoms among coronavirus patients in an American hospital system. And patients with altered mental function had significantly worse medical outcomes, according to the study, published on Monday in Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology. The study looked at the records of the first 509 coronavirus patients hospitalized, from March 5 to April 6, at 10 hospitals in the Northwestern Medicine health system in the Chicago area. These patients stayed three times as long in the hospital as patients without altered mental function. After they were discharged, only 32 percent of the patients with altered mental function were able to handle routine daily activities like cooking and paying bills, said Dr. Igor Koralnik, the senior author of the study and chief of neuro infectious disease and global neurology at Northwestern Medicine. In contrast, 89 percent of patients without altered mental function were able to manage such activities without assistance. Patients with altered mental function the medical term is encephalopathy were also nearly seven times as likely to die as those who did not have that type of problem. "Encephalopathy is a generic term meaning something's wrong with the brain," Dr. Koralnik said. The description can include problems with attention and concentration, loss of short term memory, disorientation, stupor and "profound unresponsiveness" or a coma like level of consciousness. "Encephalopathy was associated with the worst clinical outcomes in terms of ability to take care of their own affairs after leaving the hospital, and we also see it's associated with higher mortality, independent of severity of their respiratory disease," he said. The researchers did not identify a cause for the encephalopathy, which can occur with other diseases, especially in older patients, and can be triggered by several different factors including inflammation and effects on blood circulation, said Dr. Koralnik, who also oversees the Neuro Covid 19 Clinic at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. There is very little evidence so far that the virus directly attacks brain cells, and most experts say neurological effects are probably triggered by inflammatory and immune system responses that often affect other organs, as well as the brain. "This paper indicates, importantly, that in hospital encephalopathy may be a predictor for poorer outcomes," said Dr. Serena Spudich, chief of neurological infections and global neurology at Yale School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. That finding would also suggest that patients with altered mental function in the hospital "might benefit from closer post discharge monitoring or rehabilitation," she added. In the study, the 162 patients with encephalopathy were more likely to be older and male. They were also more likely to have underlying medical conditions, including a history of any neurological disorder, cancer, cerebrovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart failure, hypertension or smoking. Some experts said that President Trump, who was hospitalized with Covid at Walter Reed military hospital beginning on Friday, is of the age and gender of the patients in the study who were more likely to develop altered mental function and therefore could be at higher risk for such symptoms. He also has a history of high cholesterol, one of the pre existing conditions that appear to increase risk. But the president's doctors have given no indication that he has had any neurological symptoms; the White House had released videos of him talking to the public about how well he was doing. And Mr. Trump returned to the White House on Monday evening. Dr. Koralnik urged caution in drawing inferences from the study to Mr. Trump's condition. "I think we should be careful trying to ascribe a risk to an individual, based on this retrospective study," he said. "We need to know more about that individual's health records, which are not public." Altered mental function was not the only neurological complication the Northwestern study found. Over all, 82 percent of the hospitalized patients had neurological symptoms at some point in the course of the disease from symptom onset through hospitalization, the study found. That is a higher rate than what has been reported in studies from China and Spain, but the researchers say that may be because of genetic factors or that the Northwestern hospitals may have had more time to identify neurological issues because they were not as overwhelmed with patients as the other hospitals. "This is an important study, since the neurological complications of the infection seem to be frequent and in many cases long lasting, but yet have not received much attention," said Dr. Avindra Nath, chief of the section on infections of the nervous system at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, who was not involved in the study. Among the neurological symptoms, muscle pain occurred in about 45 percent of patients and headaches in about 38 percent. About 30 percent had dizziness. Smaller percentages had disorders of taste or smell. Younger patients were more likely to develop neurological symptoms over all, except for encephalopathy, which was more common in older people, the study said. The researchers speculated that the younger people might have been more likely to seek hospital care for symptoms like muscle pain, headache or disease, or that doctors paid more attention to those symptoms in younger people because they were less worried about their risk of respiratory failure. About a quarter of the patients had severe enough respiratory problems to require ventilators, while the rest were considered moderately ill and were treated either in intensive care or in a Covid ward. The study found that Black and Latino patients were not more likely than other groups to develop neurological symptoms. It found that patients at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, an academic medical center in Chicago that is the health system's flagship hospital, were younger, more often Black residents and had more pre existing medical conditions than patients in the suburban hospitals in the network. The patients at Northwestern Memorial were more likely to have overall neurological symptoms, but were not more likely to have encephalopathy. They also had lower mortality rates and were functioning better when they were discharged, even though patients at the non academic suburban hospitals weren't more likely to be sick enough to need ventilators. That suggests patients may have received more specialized care or better resources at the academic hospital, the study said. "It is also interesting but concerning that they found differences in the outcome of patients between the various hospitals which they attribute to differences in the quality of care provided," Dr. Nath said. "This means that the hospitalized patients require a high level of care, which is not readily available in most places."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
To Michael Klien, choreography is more than a dance on a stage, but something akin to an archaeological dig. In "Excavation Site: Martha Graham U.S.A.," that Austrian choreographer, with the dramaturge Steve Valk, organized a one time event as part of the Coil festival in which 24 dancers all but one associated with the Martha Graham Dance Company investigated their shared bond with that luminary of modern dance. In the end, "Excavation Site," a come and go presentation presented on Saturday by Performance Space 122, the New Museum and the Graham company, was a tepid attempt to fuse dance theory and dance history. It was, however, bustling. Audience members were greeted by guides who led them into the performance area at the Graham company's Westbeth headquarters in the West Village. This wasn't the only place to experience the excavation: Along with a tearoom in the lobby, there was a library and an archive space. On hand to answer questions were hosts, including Janet Eilber, the Graham company's artistic director, and Richard Move, a choreographer, filmmaker and theorist who has a long history of impersonating Graham. I kind of wish he had put the wig back on for the occasion. There were references to Graham everywhere in photographs, in videos and in dancers like Marnie Thomas Wood, a company member from 1958 to 1968 but Graham herself was never the main event. This attempt to make the company relevant was strung together by an ambiguous phrase, developed by Mr. Klien in collaboration with Mr. Valk: "social choreography." No one could tell me what it meant. The performance studio was sealed by black curtains where Volkmar Klien's atmospheric electronic score buzzed and clicked. (He is Michael Klien's brother.) Graham dancers mostly from the current generation mainly wore jeans and T shirts and traded customary bare feet for socks as they bounced in place and roamed the stage, occasionally melting onto one another for run of the mill trios or duets.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
LONDON Carmen Busquets, the Venezuelan businesswoman and founding investor in Net a Porter who is often referred to as the fairy godmother of fashion e commerce, sat in her palatial rooftop suite at Claridge's hotel on a muggy Monday morning discussing the power of reinvention. "It is vital vital that one reinvents oneself every 10 years," Ms. Busquets, 51, said as she threw her hands in the air. She was wearing a kaleidoscopic Mary Katrantzou shift dress, hair in tight braids and diamond solitaire studs the size of quarters glistening in her ears. "Look at me: I'm half a century old now, embracing my silver hair and my wrinkles, and openly accepting a new stage of my life," she said, pointing to her cornrows. "People want to change the world, but in order to do that you have to be willing to change, too. It is scary, of course, but not if you have a strong sense of self belief.'' A trailblazer in the fashion technology space since it first emerged 15 years ago, Ms. Busquets, who was born to a family of wealthy industrialists, has personally invested more than 50 million to date in a raft of start ups based in Britain and the United States, from Business of Fashion to Farfetch, Moda Operandi and Lyst. She has also made a fortune in the process. And in 2006, she introduced CoutureLab, an e commerce site that she called "a laboratory of ideas" for young entrepreneurs and craftspeople but that evolved into a vehicle for her to invest in emerging luxury ventures. This month, the site underwent a face lift, re emerging as carmenbusquets.com with a profile, portfolio listing and journal, a prominent move into the public eye from an angel investor who is dyslexic and partly deaf, and who was content in the past to stay out of the spotlight. So why is this the right time for her to appear from behind the curtain? "People were getting confused," Ms. Busquets answered matter of factly. "Many thought they were still able to buy things from the site, while others looking to discuss investment opportunities didn't know where to look." Even more important, she said, "I realized there needed to be more female voices at the table, and that we needed to show that investors today aren't just white men.'' "I felt a sudden sense of responsibility," she said. Increasing female voices became something of a crusade after a high profile falling out between Natalie Massenet, the founder of Net a Porter, and the Swiss luxury giant Richemont's majority shareholders when it chose to merge Net a Porter with a rival, Yoox, in September 2015. Johann Rupert said on a conference call, " 'It's time for the big boys to take over'," Ms. Busquets said, referring to remarks made by the chairman of Richemont about fashion e commerce as a whole, and the maturation of the sector to one dominated by established companies instead of start ups. "It made me so angry. How can you say that when more women are buying your clothes and jewelry for themselves than ever? Your clients are top women, this company was built by a woman and there are more women in power than ever before. Do you even understand your own market anymore? I invest in businesses that complement my lifestyle, do you think I don't understand mine?" As to what exactly hers is: Unlike venture capital firms, which shower start ups with tens of millions of dollars, creating colossal valuations of young companies, Ms. Busquets (who has homes in Spain, Switzerland, Miami and Paris but says she spends most of her time on airplanes) invests small amounts as a company needs the money. Her average investment can range from 50,000 to 250,000 the same cost, she says, as a master's degree but she says she believes the cash is better value than further education for a budding technology entrepreneur. "I take a microlending approach, and give to these businesses little by little, in part because these companies can rarely offer returns for at least 10 years, but also because it is all my own money I am investing, so I can't take the same risks as the funds," she said with a shrug, adding that she never reads business publications and does the majority of due diligence on companies herself. "These aren't public companies, they don't have track records, so timing is everything. I simply couldn't, and wouldn't, give away a million dollars upfront today." It is an approach she learned from her father, though his focus was on metallurgy, not fashion: "He'd give me a hundred dollars and only give me another hundred once I'd made a hundred." There have been plenty of mistakes, however, and she says she has lost money on bad investments, mainly from putting money into start ups too soon. Lookk, a social networking clothing design business, closed in 2013; Caratime, an online jewelry marketplace, has also shuttered. Yet Ms. Busquets remains philosophical. "I don't see losing in the same way as other people see it," she said. "To me it is all about acquiring a learning experience. It is a bit like being a modern charity to give someone the opportunity of success." According to Chris Morton, Lyst's chief executive: "Most investors go broad, but Carmen is different. She goes deep, with enormous understanding of and connections within our sector, which have made her really invaluable to us as we grow."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
HONG KONG The Chinese government is continuing to block shipments of crucial strategic minerals to Japan, according to industry executives, analysts and a Japanese official. The blocked shipments of minerals known as rare earths, despite previous signals that China was lifting the ban, could increase tensions at the meeting of the Group of 20 leading economic powers, now under way in Seoul, South Korea. And it could place China at odds with Germany, which has been an outspoken critic of the rare earths policy but has recently been an ally of China's on a separate matter that is a hot topic for the G 20 the weak United States dollar. The continuation of China's unannounced embargo against Japan highlights the delicate balance that Beijing officials are trying to strike as world leaders converge on Seoul. Chinese customs and port officials have been blocking exports of raw rare earths to Japan for seven weeks, despite suggesting in late October that they were about to allow a resumption of shipments. Rare earth shipments to the United States and Europe did resume, after a brief suspension in October. But for Japan, "as far as we're aware, that temporary ban, although still unofficial, remains in place," Dudley Kingsnorth, an Australian rare earths consultant, said in a speech in Hong Kong on Wednesday morning. Mr. Kingsnorth and many executives in the rare earth industry spoke at the annual industry conference here organized by two British companies, Roskill Information Services and Metal Events Ltd. Rare earths are essential for a wide variety of products, including wind turbines and smartphones, gasoline electric hybrid cars, oil refining and the tiny electric motors that control the guidance fins on missiles and smart bombs. Beijing officials have sought this autumn to assert their country's interests more fully within Asia, across a range of issues. They successfully demanded the return of a Chinese fishing captain detained by Japan near Japanese controlled islands, and they have insisted on sovereignty over much of the South China Sea, to the dismay of countries like Vietnam and the Philippines. But they have also been seeking international allies to confront the United States on currency policy. A result has been a sometimes contradictory set of positions, with China aligning itself with Germany in particular on some issues and against Germany on others. The German government and a broad range of German companies have led international calls for the Group of 20 to discuss China's broad restrictions this year on all exports of rare earths, not just to Japan. A wide range of German manufacturers depend on rare earths, and China produces 95 percent of the world's supply. But at the same time, Germany and China have been among the most vocal critics of the Federal Reserve's recent decision to buy more long term Treasury bonds. The Fed's so called quantitative easing could cause a decline in the dollar in currency markets, which by making American exports cheaper could eventually erode both Germany's and China's large trade surpluses. After blocking all shipments of rare earth minerals to Japan since Sept. 21, and some shipments to the United States and Europe as well beginning in mid October, Chinese customs officials abruptly began granting approval on Oct. 28 for most exports to resume. But a day later, Chinese port officials quietly began blocking the loading of ships with containers of rare earths destined for Japan. That reversal came after high level China Japan talks in Hanoi on Oct. 29 failed to produce a thaw in bilateral relations, industry executives and analysts said. Several industry executives said that they had initially interpreted the port difficulties as a minor logistical problem and a coincidence. This week, though, they say it appears to be a continuation of a ban that began seven weeks ago. Normal shipments have resumed to the United States and Europe, three rare earth industry executives said in interviews on the sidelines of the industry conference here, which began on Wednesday and ends on Thursday. And Chinese customs officials have been more willing to process the paperwork for shipments to Japan in the past week, executives said, even as the actual loading of vessels is now suspended. Japan had no official confirmation that rare earth shipments from China resumed even briefly at the end of October, a senior Trade Ministry official said in Tokyo. The official, who demanded anonymity, said that rare earth shipments to Japan continued to be held up at Chinese ports and that the Japanese government had not seen any signs that trade would be normalized in recent weeks. Japan, the biggest importer of rare earths, is still asking China to clarify and correct the situation, the official said. He added that it was Japan's understanding that the United States shared its concern over China's action, and would continue to seek opportunities to discuss and cooperate on the issue. He said that ministry officials expected the issue to be raised by Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan at two conferences this week by heads of state: the G 20 session in Seoul on Thursday and Friday, and a weekend meeting in Yokohama, Japan, under the auspices of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. Mark A. Smith, the chief executive of Molycorp, which owns and is trying to reopen the main American rare earths mine at Mountain Pass, Calif., said at the conference in Hong Kong that he had been working with White House officials on rare earth issues in connection with President Obama's trip to Asia. It is "highly likely" that Mr. Obama will raise the issue with President Hu Jintao of China when the two meet in Seoul, Mr. Smith said. China's commerce ministry has denied repeatedly that a regulatory ban on exports has been imposed. Most rare earths are not actually rare. But China dominates world production because the rare earths in its major ore deposits are unusually easy to extract for geological reasons. China has also been more willing than other countries until recent months to accept the environmental damage that often accompanies rare earth mining. Prices have surged up to ninefold this year for some rare earths, as China sharply reduced its export quotas in July and then began blocking companies in late September from using their export quotas for shipments to Japan. Mr. Kingsnorth and Roskill Information Services predicted in their annual market forecast, released at the industry meeting Wednesday, that rare earth demand would grow a little less quickly in the next five years than previously predicted. Users of rechargeable batteries, including automakers with hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius, are responding to high prices and shortages by accelerating a shift to lithium ion batteries instead of nickel metal hydride batteries, which require lanthanum, a rare earth. But demand for rare earths is still accelerating for clean energy industries like wind turbines, Mr. Kingsnorth said. George Bauk, the managing director of Northern Uranium of Australia, said that after his company announced last winter that it had located a rare earth deposit in Australia, a Chinese state owned company made an offer in August to buy 51 percent of Northern Uranium. The Australian company declined the offer as its share prices rose, but a Chinese mining magnate then bought 13.5 percent of its stock on the open market in September, Mr. Bauk said. The same Chinese state owned company, East China Exploration, did buy 25 percent of Arafura, another Australian rare earths company, in a deal last year. Another Chinese state owned company reached a deal last year to buy nearly 52 percent of Lynas Corporation, which plans to open a large rare earths mine in central Australia next year, but the Australian government blocked that deal on national security grounds. Chinese state owned companies have also made three unsuccessful approaches in the past five years to acquire the Mountain Pass mine in California. By contrast, the Chinese government does not allow any foreign purchases of minority or majority stakes in its rare earth mining sector.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Global Business
THE ABSENT HAND Reimagining Our American Landscape By Suzannah Lessard Not long ago, I called the National Park Service in Richmond, Va., wanting advice about visiting Civil War sites with the family. "What kind of site do you want to visit?" asked the cheerful park ranger. I rambled on about our having once wandered the battlefield at Fredericksburg, in the flush of a sunny summer morning, feeling that its pretty fields, hills and gullies had told the story of the carnage that transpired there quite movingly. "Uh huh," the ranger replied. Clearly, I hadn't answered his question. "Are you looking for a certain historical perspective?" he said. The penny dropped. Richmond has battlefields where the South prevailed and battlefields where the North did. Were we looking for one or the other? I pretended not to understand, turning the conversation toward where to go for the best walk in the countryside, and sensed the ranger's relief. This seems to be where we are now, barricaded in different fortresses of selective memory. Civil War sites lend themselves especially well to such tribal instincts. But our shifting national identity is inscribed everywhere from sea to shining sea. Every place carries meanings that accumulate like sediments over time. "Is not landscape itself whether purposely preserved or merely lasting beyond its time also, ultimately, most precious to us not as an elegiac reminder of the past but as a mirror of ourselves, then and now, in all our complicated humanity?" Suzannah Lessard asks in "The Absent Hand." Want to keep up with the latest and greatest in books? This is a good place to start. None Learn what you should be reading this fall: Our collection of reviews on books coming out this season includes biographies, novels, memoirs and more. See what's new in October: Among this month's new titles are novels by Jonathan Franzen, a history of Black cinema and a biography by Katie Couric. Nominate a book: The New York Times Book Review has just turned 125. That got us wondering: What is the best book that was published during that time? Listen to our podcast: Featuring conversations with leading figures in the literary world, from Colson Whitehead to Leila Slimani, the Book Review Podcast helps you delve deeper into your favorite books. Half memoir, half cri de coeur, Lessard's lambent, thoughtful, exquisitely written collection of interconnected essays dissects as an art historian would a picture, a literary critic a text, a medical examiner a cadaver a diverse swath of America, from Gettysburg and the King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania to Truth or Consequences, N.M.; from the seat of an airplane, 30,000 odd feet above Alaska, to the stoops and sidewalks of Brooklyn during the 1990s; from Georgetown, in Washington, where the author used to live, to Youngstown, Ohio, where "no matter how hard I tried," Lessard says, "I could not identify with this misfortune, this extreme vulnerability of an entire urban society." A longtime staff writer for The New Yorker, author of "The Architect of Desire," one of the first editors of The Washington Monthly and self described suburbophobe, Lessard devotes much of the book to exploring what she terms America's "atopia," our vast, seemingly unplanned, inchoate, exurban sprawl, which remains to her largely inscrutable and tragic. She writes about such places from what you might call an exalted literary remove. The mode is epistolary, poetic, occasionally honest to a fault (the Youngstown remark, for example) and moral. "Because we have so far failed as effective stewards, yet are as dependent as ever, nature also represents our ungovernedness: our inability in this very basic matter of self preservation to take care of ourselves," she writes. At the same time, Lessard notes how "the healthier the ecology of a region, the more people and businesses it attracts," which "in turn, puts ever more pressure on the environment, escalating the challenge of protecting it" and at the same time exacerbating class conflicts, a problem to which she admits contributing as a second home owner in New York's Hudson Valley. These class conflicts, indicative of "the national blue red divide," can "make local politics almost violent," she writes. "The farmer who hopes to make some money off his land by developing it, working class families who have seen employment shrink to nearly nothing but have been offered a meaningful sum by a fracking company such people see landscape preservationists, like environmentalists, as the enemy." "I see that I myself am a part of that," she acknowledges, recounting a meeting with a deputy sheriff and a garbage collector from where she lives in the country who both farm on the side because "well, it's hard to say why," she writes. "They just do," suggesting to her that they care at least as much about the landscape as the preservationists and second home owners do. The truth in many poor areas, which I'm not sure Lessard fully addresses, is that people also farm for food. Any conclusion "about class and landscape," she decides, will "be contradicted, maybe within minutes." But she doesn't leave it there. The environmental movement, she notes, born during the era of the moonshot, when earthlings first saw the planet as it is a tiny, vulnerable blue marble dangling in the abyss of space disastrously ignored the implications of those images by pitting people against nature and failing to seek common ground with urbanists, pacifists and social justice advocates. "We can see clearly today that, from the point of view of the moon, the distinction between city and country of any kind, or even city and 'wilderness' was meaningless: that it was all our 'environment.'" This is a familiar but timely point. Our siloed interests have thwarted collective progress. Crumbling infrastructure and runaway housing prices are ultimately inseparable from sprawl and pollution; climate change accelerates rural desertification and contributes to flooding, wreaking havoc on billions of lives, causing unrest and fueling the refugee crisis. We separate such issues at our peril. Lessard laments that American students, intent on business careers, are not more interested in these things, that they eschew social activism today, a fogyish plaint that seems the exact opposite of true. I wondered how many of them she had interviewed for the book. I found myself wishing for the voices of more local residents when she was on her jaunts into what appeared to her to be the haphazard zones of atopia and on the outskirts of troubled cities that to her seemed "the middle of nowhere." Surely these places aren't nowhere to all the people who live there.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
LISBON Antonio Cunha Vaz, along with his mother and sister, was part of a mass exodus of Portuguese from Angola in 1975, when it gained independence before descending into a devastating civil war. But in 2008, Mr. Cunha Vaz opened an office of his Lisbon based public relations consultancy in Luanda, the capital of Angola, and last year, the company derived 37 percent of its 22 million euros ( 28 million) in revenue from Angola. Portugal, one of Europe's ailing economies, is increasingly placing its hopes of recovery on Angola, a former colony that has established itself as one of the strongest economies in sub Saharan Africa thanks largely to oil and diamonds. The shift comes as competition is getting stiffer in Brazil, another booming former colony, and as Portugal's traditional European trading partners, led by Spain, struggle under a mountain of debt and soaring joblessness. Angola has already become Portugal's largest export market outside of Europe, accounting for 7 percent of Portuguese exports last year, compared with 1 percent in 2000, according to the Portuguese statistics institute and Eurostat, the European Union's statistics agency. Machinery and industrial equipment lead the list, along with food, beverages and metals. Perhaps even more spectacular than the trade flow has been the arrival of a new generation of Portuguese working in Angola, a trend that is expected to gather pace as more Portuguese companies shift operations there and Angola moves ahead with investment friendly plans like the opening of a local stock exchange. Last year, 23,787 Portuguese moved to Angola, compared with only 156 in 2006, the Portuguese immigration observatory said. Underlining Angola's growing importance, Anibal Cavaco Silva, the Portuguese president, is expected to make his first trip to Luanda on Sunday with a delegation of about 80 Portuguese executives for a weeklong visit. The Portuguese are not alone in setting their sights on Angola. China has recently been at the forefront of Angola's economic re emergence, trying to secure access to its natural resources in return for help building roads and other infrastructure ruined during three decades of war. Although Portuguese companies do not have the financial clout to compete with the Chinese and other larger investors, a common language, coupled with cultural links, may give the Portuguese an advantage. Still, Mr. Cunha Vaz, the public relations consultant, emphasizes the need to tread carefully when rekindling Portugal's historical relationship with his native country. "Clearly, we share the same language and have much more in common with Angolans than the Chinese and others, but Portuguese investors also need to make huge efforts not to be seen as pushing for a return to colonial times," he said. "Little can be achieved in Angola without full help and cooperation from local partners." The Portuguese have previously bet on former colonies, most notably Brazil, to help offset dwindling revenue at home. A case in point has been the Lisbon government's recent efforts to prevent Telefonica of Spain from taking control of a wireless joint venture in Brazil with Portugal Telecom even though a takeover bid had been approved by Portugal Telecom shareholders. Jose Socrates, the Portuguese prime minister, said at the time that having a presence in the lucrative Brazilian market was "strategic and fundamental for the development of Portugal Telecom." Underlining Angola's growing importance, Anibal Cavaco Silva, the Portuguese president, is expected to make his first trip to the capital of Angola on Sunday at the helm of a delegation of about 80 Portuguese executives. Still, the general view among analysts is that Brazil is large and already advanced enough to achieve further growth on its own. Furthermore, Portuguese companies have had a patchy investment record there. For instance, Portuguese retailers made ambitious forays into Brazil in the 1990s, only to run into currency devaluation problems and strong domestic competition. "The Brazilian market has always been on our radar screen, but we've made various attempts there that haven't always been successful," said Cristina Casalinho, chief economist of BPI, a Portuguese bank. She added: "In this past year, we've been witnessing some progress in the trade relationship with Brazil, but I'm not sure that it's the beginning of a trend. In fact, I'm skeptical about Brazil, while with Angola, it is something that should continue, with direct investments in Angola gradually replacing exports as a more important part of the relationship." For the last year, Ricardo Gorjao, a project manager for CPI, a Portuguese company that produces software for banking and other services industries, has spent two thirds of his time in Angola, where banks are building a countrywide network almost from scratch, after initially restricting operations to Luanda. "We're going through a huge recession in Portugal, while here, the banking sector is having an amazing development, so it has made a lot of sense to be shifting our business toward Angola," he said by phone from Luanda. Although life in Angola's capital can be "tough, dangerous and expensive" compared with Lisbon, "When you see the unemployment that there is in Portugal, I think more people are certainly going to be ready to move here for a good job." Portugal's gloomy economic outlook was underlined on Tuesday when Moody's downgraded its government debt rating by two notches, to A1, from Aa2. Moody's justified its decision, which follows recent downgrades from other credit rating agencies, on poor growth prospects and on a prediction that "the Portuguese government's financial strength will continue to weaken over the medium term." The outlook for Angola, on the other hand, is strong. The World Bank recently raised its 2010 growth forecast for Angola to 8.5 percent, from 7.5 percent. Still, analysts highlight Angola's corruption, coupled with excessive bureaucratic procedures, as serious hurdles for foreign investors. The country ranked 162 out of 180 nations in last year's corruption perceptions index compiled by Transparency International, a global organization that measures corruption. Given its booming economy and windfall oil profits, Angola has also become a leading foreign investor in Portugal, spearheaded by family members and advisers to Jose Eduardo dos Santos, Angola's president since 1979. They have snapped up assets as varied as olive groves and vineyards in northern Portugal and stakes in leading companies. Santoro, a financial holding company controlled by Isabel dos Santos, the president's daughter, has a 9.7 percent stake in BPI. Sonangol, the state oil company, has invested in another major Portuguese bank, Millennium Bcp, and acquired an indirect stake in Galp, the Portuguese energy company.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Global Business
LONDON It was Sunday morning, the fourth day of London Fashion Week, and as sunlight streamed through the vaulted skylights of the Victoria Miro art gallery in East London, Victoria Beckham was preparing to unveil her latest collection. There was no runway, however, or front row or backstage scrum. Like all but two of the designers showing as part of a pared back schedule here, Ms. Beckham had dispensed with a fashion show. Instead, she welcomed three journalists at a time, all wearing matching VB branded striped silk masks provided at the door, as she talked through just 20 looks that hung on nearby clothes rails. Several weeks ago, she said, the tentative plan had been to host a salon presentation like the ones she held in New York in the earliest days of her brand. But after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced new coronavirus restrictions that banned gatherings larger than six people (barring a handful of exceptions, including the English country pursuit of grouse shooting), she had returned to the drawing board. "Still, I've always felt the best way to really see fashion is up close," Ms. Beckham said, smiling as she leafed through items like vintage style high waist jeans with wide legs, frilled knitwear separates in shades of "banana" and superlong tailored pants in "hollandaise," palette names inspired by the cooking hobby her husband, David Beckham, had developed during lockdown. Similar sentiments could be heard in other studios, galleries and hotels across London. In recent years, the fashion week carousel has spun madly, pushing the business almost permanently off balance with the pace of relentless newness it demanded. Now, in London anyway, it had been forced to stop. Interestingly, no one really appeared to miss the fashion shows, not for now anyway. In their place were scores of videos and digital presentations, staggered and streamed on the London Fashion Week website on a tight digital schedule that tried to mirror the way things had once been done. For a handful of editors and buyers, after signing a medical declaration form, dosing up on hand sanitizer and a submitting to a temperature reading, designers in masks were on hand, sharing candid stories about how lockdown had reshaped their lives and businesses. Few appeared keen to dwell on any darkness. Instead, most seemed determined to move onward, conscious that while beauty is not a solution, it can still be a balm. Standing in her white East London studio in a puffed blouse, black mask and oversize fluffy slippers (part of a collaboration with Ugg), Molly Goddard, known for her supersize layers of tulle, said she had initially been fearful of what the pandemic might do to her business. She began her collection with fewer than a dozen simple cotton pieces, she said, but gradually wove in grass greens, magenta pinks, bright oranges and checkerboard neon prints that flowered into one of her most colorful and exuberant to date. Osman Yousefzada built a scaled back collection out of his signature draping and tailoring and a new blueprint for his business, using "last yards" of fabric and artisanal communities in India and Pakistan to whom he would pay a proportion of proceeds from sales. Emilia Wickstead continued to precisely plot an elegant course via ladylike separates tailored maxi skirts, bralettes and Bermuda shorts in block pinks, yellows and ochers or inky sailboat prints inspired by "Faery Lands of the South Seas," a 1920s travel diary. Roksanda Ilincic took things home, offering fine fashion and conversation in a Kings Cross apartment for which she had designed the interior. Each guest walked alone through the rooms, encountering not just models but artists, dancers and activists in the designer's signature hues like raspberry pinks, burnt ambers and cobalt blues who drew them into conversation, at the dinner table or in bed, discussing the climate crisis and mental health, migration and literature. "What do women need now?" Ms. Ilincic asked from the balcony, the still largely empty streets of London below. "Who do we dress for? Where will we wear that? How do I make my clothes feel relevant for the spheres we now live in?" Needing for a sip of water, she stood at a distance so she could safely remove her mask. (Food and drink, although occasionally offered by awkward looking masked waiters, was not a feature of the season.) "These questions have been my focus," Ms. Ilincic said. "But so has a hope that confusion and grief can give way to unexpected positivity, and dreams. It has been a moment of reset, but also resolve." As the week progressed, however, it became impossible to forget that for thousands in fashion, this remains a frightening time. London is home to a vibrant spring of talent that surfaces from its fashion schools. This season felt lesser without their runway shows filled with the kicky, fearless exuberance of youth, even though some still presented on the digital calendar. Several designers who hosted appointments, Ms. Beckham among them, have laid off employees since March; all said they had scaled back their collections. Pity, too, the freelance makeup artists, drivers, security guards and photographers for whom fashion weeks are usually a lifeline. This season there were no parties, backstage scenes or gatherings of stylish masses on sidewalks. "It is really tough out there right now," said Anna Stokland, a photographer lingering outside Ms. Goddard's studio, who often relies on street style shots to boost her earnings. Every 20 minutes or so, a lone masked visitor would arrive or leave the building. Then the wait began again.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
A critical drug that serves as the backbone of treatment for most childhood cancers, including leukemias, lymphomas and brain tumors, has become increasingly scarce, and doctors are warning that they may soon be forced to consider rationing doses. Persistent shortages of certain drugs and medical supplies have plagued the United States for years, but physicians say the loss of this medication, vincristine, is uniquely problematic, as there is no appropriate substitute. "This is truly a nightmare situation," said Dr. Yoram Unguru, a pediatric oncologist at the Herman and Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital at Sinai in Baltimore. "Vincristine is our water. It's our bread and butter. I can't think of a disease in childhood cancer that doesn't use vincristine." Shortages of the chemotherapy drug, which is on back order, will likely affect children throughout the country, he said, obligating physicians to make difficult decisions. "There is no substitution for vincristine that can be recommended," Dr. Unguru said. "You either have to skip a dose or give a lower dose or beg, borrow or plead." Vincristine is one of the drugs used to manage acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common childhood cancer. Vincristine is also an important agent in the treatment of Wilms tumor, a rare kidney cancer that mostly affects children. The Children's Oncology Group, a collaboration of researchers at hospitals and cancer centers, has made recommendations for altering clinical trial treatment protocols involving vincristine, including checking the hospital pharmacy's supply before trial enrollment; considering using half the dose if the full amount is not available; skipping doses during the maintenance phase of treatment; or in some cases omitting the drug altogether. "We are all devastated," said Dr. Michael Link, a pediatric oncologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine and a former president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. Without vincristine, many children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia will still be cured, "but this is a difficult disease to treat in general, and with one hand tied behind your back, it makes it much more difficult," Dr. Link said. Until earlier this year, there were two suppliers of vincristine: Pfizer and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. In July, Teva made a "business decision to discontinue the drug," according to the Food and Drug Administration. Since then, Pfizer has been the sole supplier, and the company lately has experienced manufacturing troubles. "Pfizer has experienced a delay, and we are working closely with them and exploring all options to make sure this critical cancer drug is available for the patients who need it," the F.D.A. said in a brief statement. Jessica Smith, a spokeswoman for Pfizer, said the company would expedite additional shipments of the drug over the next few weeks to "support three to four times our typical production output," in an effort to make up for Teva's withdrawal from the market. Teva did not return numerous calls for comment. The American Society of Health System Pharmacists tracks more than 200 medications in short supply, among them everyday necessities like antibiotics, dextrose and several vaccines, including the rabies vaccine. The shortages tend disproportionately to involve older, generic injectable drugs, which are difficult to manufacture but command low prices, a combination that often leads manufacturers to get out of the business of making them. Those withdrawals may leave just one or two companies continuing to supply the drugs in the United States. Their factories must run at peak production to turn a profit and provide a sufficient supply, but the moment there is a quality problem and production shuts down, shortages follow. Generic drugs play a vital role in the treatment of cancer. Of the 19,000 American children and adolescents younger than 19 who develop cancer every year, 85 percent are cured. But treatment hinges largely on inexpensive, older drugs like vincristine, which have been off patent for decades. Shortages cause disruption in treatment. According to a survey published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2013, 83 percent of oncologists said that they were unable to prescribe the chemotherapy agent they wanted to use because of a shortage, and that they had to substitute a different drug or delay treatment. Dr. Unguru said the survival rate for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which accounts for nearly one quarter of all cancers in children, is nearly 90 percent. But eight of the 10 drugs most commonly used to treat it have been unavailable at times over the past decade. A drug shortages task force established in 2018 by the former F.D.A. Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is supposed to submit a report with findings and recommendations to Congress by the end of the year. "This shouldn't be happening in the United States," said Dr. Peter Adamson, chair of the Children's Oncology Group. "It's hard enough for any family having a kid with cancer, and having a child with cancer likely to be cured except we can't give them the drug is beyond the imagination. How can we do that to families?"	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
When the pandemic prompted companies to furlough or lay off thousands of employees, some chief executives decided to show solidarity by forgoing some of their pay. But it turns out that their sacrifice was minimal. A survey of some 3,000 public companies shows that the cuts which, so far, have come in the form of salary reductions were tiny compared with their total pay last year. Total pay includes things like bonuses and stock awards that typically make up the bulk of what corporate bosses take home. Only a small percentage of the companies cut salaries for their senior executives at all, which is surprising given that the pandemic has crushed profits and sales for many companies, forcing large layoffs. But even among businesses that did cut the boss's pay, two thirds of the chief executives took reductions that were equivalent to only 10 percent or less of their 2019 compensation, according to an analysis by CGLytics, a compensation analysis firm. Companies in this group include the Walt Disney Company, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Marriott International. All of those businesses have laid off or furloughed employees or pressed workers to take pay cuts. This compensation analysis offers another example of how the coronavirus pandemic has walloped the working and middle classes while mostly sparing the people at the very top of the economic hierarchy. "These salary cuts were more window dressing than anything else," said Liz Shuler, secretary treasurer of the A.F.L. C.I.O. The labor federation on Wednesday released a report showing that companies in the S P 500 stock index last year paid chief executives on average 264 times as much as median employees, down from 287 times in 2018. Of course, this analysis is incomplete because the year is not over. In the coming months, corporate boards could decide to significantly reduce the bonuses and stock options they hand out to top executives for 2020. That would represent a big break from recent years when boards, which are primarily made up of corporate executives and investors, approved ever higher pay packages. A few chief executives have already taken a sizable hit. The survey showed that Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, a Seattle based real estate brokerage, took a pay cut that was equivalent to the 284,000 he got in 2019. "The reason we did it is because we had to furlough or lay off more than a thousand people," Mr. Kelman said when asked what motivated the decision to withhold his salary. "It's not just about the pay cut; it's about the general sense that capitalism is not working for everyone." CGLytics surveyed the companies in the Russell 3000 index, which comprises most of the publicly traded businesses in the United States, and found that 419 companies had disclosed details of salary cuts. Only about 10 percent of those companies cut salaries by more than 25 percent of the executive's 2019 total "realized" compensation, a figure that CGLytics came up with by adding up all the money and stock each boss received last year. The firm values the stock at the price at which trading ended on Dec. 31. Disney awarded Robert A. Iger, its former chief executive who stepped down in February, large compensation packages over the nearly 15 years that he led the company. Mr. Iger, who is now executive chairman, gave up his salary from the end of March through the end of the year. The 2.25 million in forgone pay is equivalent to 3.3 percent of Mr. Iger's total realized compensation in 2019, according to CGLytics. Disney furloughed tens of thousands of workers in March. The hotel industry has also been hit hard by the pandemic and companies like Marriott International have been furloughing and laying off workers. The company's chief executive, Arne M. Sorenson, took a salary cut that was equivalent to less than 2 percent of the 66 million in total compensation that CGLytics says he was paid in 2019. Connie Kim, a Marriott spokeswoman, said nearly 50 million of the compensation for last year was related to stock appreciation rights granted nine to 10 years earlier. Some companies merely deferred salary payments for senior executives, rather than make outright cuts. General Motors deferred 30 percent of the salary of its chief executive, Mary T. Barra, and other top leaders, and 20 percent of other white collar employees. The deferrals, which began on April 1, were going to last for as long as six months, but on Tuesday, General Motors told employees that it was ending the 20 percent deferrals on Aug. 1. Ms. Barra and the other senior executives will continue to defer 10 percent of their salaries. She made 30 million in total realized compensation last year, according to CGLytics. When asked why the deferrals were ending sooner than expected, James R. Cain, a company spokesman, said, "The business demanded that we conserve cash and it is recovering faster than we expected."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
Watching the suffocation of George Floyd in Minneapolis raises disturbing questions. Why is the officer kneeling on this man's neck? Why won't the officer respond to his pleas for help? Why won't the other officers intervene? Five years ago, Baltimore residents asked the same questions after a young black man by the name of Freddie Carlos Gray Jr. died in police custody. Why were the officers sitting on his back? Why did they throw Mr. Gray into the back of a police wagon head first, handcuffed and shackled where his spine was subsequently severed? Since the eruption of the Floyd case, I've wrestled with other questions. What happened before the cameras rolled? Why was Mr. Floyd arrested in the first place? The answer to these questions can help shape how we respond to this moment. Mr. Floyd was detained for allegedly buying groceries with a counterfeit 20 bill. It is infuriating that amid a pandemic, law enforcement saw fit to arrest someone for something so trivial. George Floyd is not the first person of color whose arrest on a charge of a minor transgression engendered dire consequences. Eric Garner was allegedly selling a loose cigarette. Sandra Bland was pulled over for failing to signal a lane change. Michael Brown was confronted on suspicion of shoplifting. Freddie Gray merely made eye contact with a police officer in a high crime neighborhood and decided to run. It is to America's everlasting shame that these actions led to a death sentence, delivered on the street. Prosecutors must recognize their power to shape the criminal justice system and must realize that when we criminalize minor offenses we expose people to needless interaction with law enforcement. For people of color in America, an arrest can lead to life altering trauma. Prosecutors must examine their policies and use discretion to diminish the possibility of such deadly interactions. In Baltimore, we stopped prosecuting marijuana possession in January 2019. We did so because these arrests yielded no public safety benefit, were disparately enforced in minority communities and wasted limited law enforcement resources. Most important, the arrests were hugely detrimental to police and black community relations. The police initially complained but ultimately complied. When the coronavirus took hold, we stopped prosecuting a range of low level offenses including drug possession, prostitution and minor traffic offenses. Some argue that not prosecuting such offenses sends the wrong message, but the sanctity of black life far outweighs these quality of life infractions. Solutions to these issues lie beyond the police and prosecutors, and should be the purview of harm reduction, mental health treatment and housing. Right now, people are marching to express their pain and anger, while the president appears determined to take even more black lives by deploying the military against American citizens. The most powerful prosecutor in the country Attorney General William P. Barr has provided President Trump with legal cover for his actions. It is no surprise that Mr. Barr has also relentlessly attacked the use of prosecutorial discretion by progressive district attorneys like Larry Krasner, Rachael Rollins, Dan Satterberg and Kim Gardner. By simultaneously attacking protesters and rejecting solutions to the protests, the president and attorney general fan the flames on the streets and perpetuate the cycle of police brutality. There comes a time when those in authority must be held accountable, and we need prosecutors willing to apply one standard of justice. The woefully low number of police brutality prosecutions illustrates that this is not easy. In a country with thousands of prosecutors, I remain an anomaly to this day for prosecuting police misconduct. The first challenge to making such a prosecution is not legal; it is political and personal. Prosecutors are often scared to bring charges against rogue officers because they fear a backlash. I faced death threats and racist vitriol; photos of my daughters were posted online along with my address; and I was sued. The law enforcement lobby is powerful and vicious and will not let you go after one of its own. Second, the police and prosecutors are typically partners who work hand in glove. That relationship and reliance can become very challenging once you decide to prosecute an officer. In the Freddie Gray case, warrants were not executed and the most pertinent questions were not asked of witnesses by the police. Officers were witnesses in the case but somehow were assigned to work on the investigation, a clear conflict of interest. Evidence was given to the defense and not the prosecution. That's why each prosecutor's office must have the ability to independently investigate and prosecute the police. No occupation should investigate their own and unfortunately after three years of lobbying to change the laws, the investigators in my office still don't have police powers. Many prosecutors recognize that when they take on a case, there is always a risk of losing. Nothing is certain, but when it comes to police brutality the pressure to win is enormous. As a famous fictional Baltimorean once said, "You come at the king, you best not miss." Proof beyond reasonable doubt becomes proof beyond all doubt. And while typically the public view officers as enforcers not violators of the law, in a community where police corruption is rampant and the distrust of police is prevalent, police officers often bypass the community they serve and elect to be tried in front of a judge, who more often than not is far more deferential to them. Lastly, police brutality cases rely on officers as witnesses and they often retreat behind the "blue wall of silence" lest they be accused of snitching. Beyond any trial, there must be internal processes in place for officers who break the law. Too often, police chiefs cannot fire problematic officers because of contract rules or because an administrative review board is stacked with officers instead of civilians. Despite these challenges, my office has convicted 21 police officers since the death of Freddie Gray. But there are also times when a prosecutor investigates alleged crimes and decides not to bring charges. In these cases, prosecutors must be transparent about why, so that the public understands the rationale. In Baltimore, every declination to charge a police involved shooting or in custody death is posted online with detailed arguments for the media and public to digest. People may not agree with our decision, but at least they can understand it. Prosecutors have a role in preventing brutality and addressing it when it happens. We must be willing to use our discretion to prevent needless interactions between police and the community, and we must be willing to take on those in authority when they violate their oath. This is a moment for innovative ideas, reform, and ultimately courage. Prosecutors, and the public, must seize this opportunity.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
Fred Kellerman, a retired car salesman from Los Angeles, was bedridden with a rare neuromuscular disease when he started taking a drug in the 1990s at Duke University in North Carolina. It changed his life. "I had to have a wheelchair to get onto the airplane, but by the time I left, I could walk on," he said. Mr. Kellerman has been using the drug ever since, paying nothing but postage. In an unusual act of charity, a small family run drug company in Plainsboro, N.J., has been giving it away. The drug was never formally approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but was provided under an obscure federal drug provision. But one company's generosity is another's opportunity. Catalyst Pharmaceuticals, a Wall Street traded company, last week completed an application to the F.D.A. for formal approval of a slightly modified version of the drug that does not need refrigeration. In a presentation to investors last spring, Catalyst estimated that it could make 300 million to 900 million a year from the drug, named Firdapse, that could eventually benefit as many as 8,000 patients. That works out to possibly more than 100,000 per patient. Catalyst's move has brought fears among patients of a punishing price increase and led to a recent call from more than 100 neuromuscular doctors for "ethical and just pricing." Catalyst says it has not yet chosen a price and that patients' fears are misplaced. Jacobus Pharmaceutical, the private company that has been giving away the drug, says it will also seek F.D.A. approval. The winner is likely to receive seven years of exclusive rights to sell the drug. The F.D.A. does not consider price in its evaluations, though the doctors argue that perhaps it should. The showdown between the companies powerfully illustrates the growing tension in the United States over the rising prices of drugs. The issue has drawn increased scrutiny from policy makers and prompted rising public outrage, much of it directed at Martin Shkreli, a former hedge fund manager who has become a symbol for pharmaceutical price gouging. Turing Pharmaceuticals, the company he formerly headed, and others have been harshly criticized for abruptly raising the prices of medicines after acquiring them without having taken the risks involved in research and development. The neuromuscular doctors who signed an editorial in the journal Muscle and Nerve this month argue that Catalyst is seeking to profit from old medical research. But other experts credit the company with spending the time and money to get the drug approved. That will eventually make it possible for doctors everywhere to write prescriptions, instead of the few willing to fill out paperwork for each patient, said Kenneth I. Kaitin, director of the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. Catalyst's drug has been granted special status under the Orphan Drug Act, a law passed by Congress in 1983 to stimulate the development of drugs for rare diseases that would otherwise not be profitable, offering fast track approval, tax breaks and seven years of market monopoly. But the law has been abused, critics say, with drug companies "salami slicing" more common diseases into small categories, or repurposing older drugs that have been in general use for many years but never had F.D.A. approval, or were approved for different treatments. "The Orphan Drug Act has been turned on its head in recent years," said Henry A. Waxman, the former Democratic congressman who sponsored the law. "It has created a special status for orphan diseases that offer large potentials for making generous profits." In an analysis published in November in the American Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dr. Martin A. Makary, a professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, calculated that 44 percent of drugs approved by the F.D.A. last year qualified as orphan drugs. Prices for orphan drugs have soared, but insurance companies often cover them because they affect such small populations of patients. "The Orphan Drug Act was intended to promote new drug development, not price gouging of old drugs," Dr. Makary said. Catalyst's chief executive, Patrick J. McEnany, said in an interview that the company would offer financial assistance to any patients who couldn't afford the medicine, and that the presentation to investors last spring was not a benchmark. Still, the drug's approval will change its unusual status and patients like Mr. Kellerman fear rising costs. "I'm really worried," said Mr. Kellerman, who now lives in Las Vegas, and whose disease, Lambert Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome, or LEMS, causes disabling muscle weakness of the limbs, body, eyes and face. "If I don't get my drugs, I'm back to being in a bed." Only a fraction of Americans who need the drug are getting it, Mr. McEnany said, largely because it lacks F.D.A. approval. Leigh Shell, whose daughter was confined to a wheelchair in 2013 and is now better on Firdapse, said in two years of searching for medicine she had never heard of Jacobus. Mr. McEnany denied that Catalyst was repurposing an old drug. The chemical composition that allows Firdapse to be kept at room temperature makes it somewhat different from the original drug, he said, adding that he had acquired the rights from a third company one that sells the drug in Europe. Mr. McEnany noted that Catalyst had done many scientific and clinical studies. Dr. Ted M. Burns, chief of the neuromuscular division at the University of Virginia and lead author of the editorial calling for fair pricing, disagreed. "It's like putting a fence on public land and charging a huge entrance fee," he said. The origin of the drug dates back decades. Researchers in Scotland discovered compounds in the 1970s that increased the efficiency of how nerves work, said Dr. Anthony Windebank, a professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. In the early 1980s, researchers in Sweden showed how the drug could work in LEMS patients. Firdapse, he said, "is still basically the same drug." Dr. Donald Sanders, a neurologist at Duke University who has been treating LEMS patients since the 1980s and helped Jacobus Pharmaceutical design its trial, said that in the early days, he bought the raw materials for the drug from a chemical company in Morton Grove, Ill. "It was a simple chemical," he said. The current raw chemical price for the drug puts a year's supply per patient at about 600, he said. In the early 1990s, Jacobus began supplying the drug after a request from doctors working with the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The company has been giving it away ever since. It is run by a father and daughter team, David and Laura Jacobus. She said they should have applied for F.D.A. approval long ago, but the process would have cost millions and the company's other work, including on antimalarial compounds and tuberculosis drugs, was more pressing. Asked why the company gave the drug away, she said, "We just decided that it was the right thing to do."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
"Gary Indiana Veiled," from 1981. Peter Hujar captured the downtown Manhattan arts scene of the 1970s and '80s, and now his works are being exhibited at the Morgan Library Museum in "Peter Hujar: Speed of Life."Credit...Peter Hujar "Gary Indiana Veiled," from 1981. Peter Hujar captured the downtown Manhattan arts scene of the 1970s and '80s, and now his works are being exhibited at the Morgan Library Museum in "Peter Hujar: Speed of Life." He did most of his indoor photographs there, using available furniture a kitchen chair, his bed as props. His sitters were often neighborhood friends, usually male, frequently nude, sometimes in a state of sexual arousal. Whether identified by name or not, the likenesses went well beyond being those of studio models; they had a particularity that made them read as portraits. He also shot outdoors all over the city: Midtown skyscrapers, downtown loading docks, the Hudson River "sex piers." And for many years in the summer, he headed out of town for upstate or Long Island and turned his eye to photographing animals, wild and domestic, he found there. Born in 1934, Hujar grew up with animals. His father disappeared before he was born and his mother deposited him with her parents on a semirural New Jersey farm. Ukrainian was the household language, and Hujar seems to have spent more time with the local livestock than he did with other children. He very early picked up a camera. Like a tourist unnerved by culture shock in a foreign land, he could distance, control and communicate with the world through it. By 11, he was living in Manhattan with his remarried mother, an unhappy arrangement. By the end of high school he was on his own, but with some valuable guidance from one of his teachers, a gay poet named Daisy Aldan (1918 2001), who encouraged his acute sense of difference. His 1955 studio portrait of her Joan of Arc haircut, hand raised in self amused benediction is the show's earliest picture and a true beauty. Back in New York, he dropped salaried jobs in favor of flexible freelance gigs in fashion and advertising that would support his own work. With his magnetically reticent personality, he moved with ease through the overlapping countercultural spheres that comprised the downtown avant garde, from Judson Dance Theater to the Warhol Factory and the nascent gay movement. He was around for the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion. And when, in its wake, his then lover, Jim Fouratt, became a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front, Hujar contributed to the cause the only way he knew how, with a photograph of GLF members staging a protest march for his camera. It remains one of the signature images of the time. But Hujar himself had no interest in activist politics. By this point, he was 35 years old, struggling professionally, cash poor, but rich in downtown connections. The world he cared about was the one he could view, edit, speak to and shade through his camera. And in the '70s and early '80s, that's what he did by initiating his own personal golden age of portraiture. A few of his portraits of famous figures the singer Peggy Lee, for example may have been a product of freelance assignments. Most others were self assigned. Some were of high profile personalities like Susan Sontag. But the fame of most of his sitters extended little farther than a few blocks downtown. Occasionally he would shoot "on location," as he did in the case of the Warhol transgender superstar Candy Darling (born James Lawrence Slattery), who, dying of cancer at 29, vamped for him in her hospital bed. But generally, people came to his Second Avenue studio. To create this effect, he used a technique that could easily have been lifted from therapy. He asked many of his 1970s portrait subjects, male and female, clothed and nude, to pose lying down on his bed, where they seem to be drifting toward asleep, or just waking up, or lost in post coital trance. And nowhere is a sense of tenderness and vulnerability more evident than in Hujar's photographs of animals that he encountered in the wild or on farms belonging to friends. He would slowly approach cows or sheep or birds, talking softly, conversationally, calming them into stillness. He seems to have regarded the animal portraits along with his several portraits, early and late, of children as, in some sense, self portraits. They certainly feel like images understood from the inside: emblems of innocence threatened. Yet more than even the most composed of his human subjects, Hujar's animals seem self controlled and self contained. They have the inviolate dignity of bodhisattvas. A few of these photographs, along with several of the prone human portraits, appeared side by side in the only book Hujar published in his lifetime, "Portraits in Life and Death," which arrived, with an introduction by Sontag, in 1976. And intermingled with those pictures were some of his shots of corpses from the Palermo catacombs. The book got a mixed reception. Some people hated it. They thought the combination of living and dead, human and animal, was perverse and grotesque. I loved it, still do. And damage did come, with the emergence of AIDS. Many of the people in Hujar's photographs Eichelberger, Ludlam and Wojnarowicz lead a long list died as a result of the disease, which makes the show itself a portrait in life and death. Hujar, who remained little known to the art world at large while the reputations of near contemporaries like Robert Mapplethorpe soared received his diagnosis in 1986. He put down his camera in despair and never worked again. He died a year later, at 53. In a way, the Morgan has picked up the thread of his art for him. Its exhibition catalog, with essays by Philip Gefter, Steve Turtell and Mr. Smith, gives the first full account of his life. And the museum itself has acquired a substantial chunk of his work more than 100 lifetime prints and thousands of contact sheets for its permanent collection. In the process, a venerable institution has refreshed itself, and a resistantly singular artist has become the Classic he always was and will always be.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Did you ever wonder what it might be like to be one of the three pigs of children's story and animated cartoon fame? Is this a bad time to ask that question? Bear with me. "The Wolf House," an astounding new animated film from Chile, has a cheeky meta film opening that purports to be from "La Colonia" a slight variant of the very real life Colonia Dignidad, a German founded isolated colony in Chile renowned for its honey and disdained for its exploitation of the labor of Chilean natives. The first clever conceit of this movie is that it, too, is a product of that colony, one with a lesson. What follows is the story of Maria, an escapee from there, who finds a house in the forest where she holes up with two pigs who become her adopted children. Together they live in terror of a wolf at the door.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Five years after the nation emerged from a crippling recession, the economy finally appears to be on track for a more robust recovery, bolstered by strong recent job gains and an unemployment rate that dipped below 6 percent in September for the first time since the summer of 2008. But the surprisingly rosy jobs report released by the government on Friday appeared to be too little, too late to bolster the prospects of Democratic candidates facing voters in struggling campaigns for next month's midterm elections in the face of rising disenchantment with President Obama's performance. And the signs of improvement were tempered by evidence that wage gains remained meager and that millions of Americans were still so discouraged by their job prospects that they had lost contact with the regular employment system. President Obama, visiting an automotive steel supply company in Indiana, seized on the strong jobs numbers as evidence that his economic policies had helped spur the recovery. "There is a lot of good stuff happening in the economy right now, but what we all know is, there are still some challenges," Mr. Obama said. September's unemployment rate was 5.9 percent, down from 6.1 percent in August. Mr. Obama blamed Republicans for obstructing his proposals to help ordinary Americans. "Too much of the growth in income and wealth is going to the very top not enough of it is being spread to the ordinary worker, and that means that we've still got some more work to do to put in place policies that make sure that the economy works not just for the few, but it works for everybody." The nation added 248,000 jobs in September across almost all sectors of the economy, according to the Labor Department, which also revised what had originally been a discouraging August report, now estimating that 180,000 jobs were added that month. The latest gains put 2014 on pace to be the best year for job growth since the late 1990s, when Bill Clinton was in office. The private sector has now added 10.3 million jobs over 55 straight months of job growth, a record that White House economists trumpeted in their own analysis of the data. The strong showing on Friday was the last monthly jobs report before next month's midterm elections. But voters' opinions on the economy tend to lag considerably behind the actual numbers, so political analysts warned against expecting any huge improvement in mood in time for the voting. If the gains continue, however, they could help lift President Obama's party in 2016. For Democrats, there was also a dark underbelly in Friday's bright news. The employment rate among the constituents they need most on Election Day women, young people and black voters did not improve in September. Nor did the numbers of people employed part time because they could not find full time work. The actual percentage of working age people with jobs 59 percent has not changed for four months, a reflection of just how many people have stopped looking for work. In statements on Friday, Republicans blamed Mr. Obama's economic policies for leaving the labor participation rate at its lowest level since 1978. Representative Kevin Brady, the Republican chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said the president's leadership "has held our economic recovery back" and that Wall Street was the only sector that was thriving. Kevin Spacey was ordered to pay 31 million to the 'House of Cards' studio after sexual harassment allegations. Netflix buys a visual effects company in a move to support its global ambitions. "Hard working Americans want to know when the recovery is finally going to come to their street," Mr. Brady said in a statement. Adding to the gloom, average hourly earnings are stuck in the mud, down slightly in September and up only 2 percent in the last year, barely ahead of inflation. Economists said the slow pace of wage gains despite the sharp drop in the unemployment rate was a continuing puzzle that would test the Federal Reserve's ability to balance its interest in promoting broad based prosperity against the responsibility to curb the risk of future inflation. Political consultants had thought opinions this year could shift more quickly, given how social media, cable news and information sources saturate the public consciousness. But Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster who teams up with William McInturff, a Republican pollster, on polling for NBC News and The Wall Street Journal, said the severity of the Great Recession had proved such predictions wrong. As for news of the recovery, Mr. Hart said in describing a typical voter's reaction, "What you're telling me is the water in my basement has dropped a third, but what I'm telling you, I've got water in the basement." In August, Mr. Hart and Mr. McInturff released polling that found four in 10 Americans had been directly harmed by the recession caused by the financial crisis of 2008. What is worse for Democrats, political independents the most coveted voters were hit hardest of all. Fifty one percent of independents said either they or a member of their household had lost a job in the last five years, compared with 39 percent of Republicans and 38 percent of Democrats. "The political zeitgeist that needs to change," said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster working on several congressional campaigns, "is not that the economy is in good shape but that the president is fighting hard to create jobs." "The challenge is to continue the pace of job growth and ensure these rising tides lift all the boats," he said. After recent dips in the markets, investors were encouraged by the job figures. Stocks moved higher and the dollar rose against many major currencies. Another bright spot on Friday was news that the trade deficit narrowed slightly in August, defying economists' expectations. With consumer confidence generally growing and business investment showing strength, many analysts are optimistic that in the next six months the economy will strengthen further. A sign that hiring is likely to continue to pick up is that the average workweek in manufacturing rose to 42.1 hours in September, near its highest level in more than 60 years. The average workweek across all sectors rose to a postrecession high. But 4.8 million workers are missing from the job force, neither employed nor actively looking for work. Some of that is attributed to demographics: As the large baby boomer population ages, many in that generation will leave the work force. But the participation rate for Americans 25 to 54, considered prime working age, is also at troubling levels. The latest jobs data is likely to sharpen a debate among Federal Reserve officials about how long to wait before beginning to raise interest rates. The Fed has held short term rates near zero since 2008 to stimulate the economy. Fed officials, like many economists, are having a hard time judging the health of the labor market. The unemployment rate is falling toward the range that Fed officials regard as normal more quickly than they had expected. Most Fed officials predicted last month that the rate would be no lower than 5.9 percent at the end of the year the level achieved in September. But the 2 percent rise in hourly wages over the last 12 months suggests that hiring was still unusually easy for companies. Some Fed officials argued even before the September jobs report that the central bank was retreating too slowly. James B. Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said on Thursday that the Fed's bond buying campaign, expected to end this month, had stimulated job growth beyond expectations. As a result, he said, the Fed should not wait until the middle of 2015 before raising rates. But the latest data is unlikely to shift the majority of the Fed's policy making committee from the view that patience is the best policy. The Fed's chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, said last month that she still saw clear problems in the labor market, and that the Fed's stimulus campaign was helping to ease them. And as long as inflation stays sluggish, officials say they see relatively little risk. Most say they would rather err on the side of pushing a little too hard to create jobs than retreat too soon.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
When the Joyce Theater began its annual ballet festival, in summer 2013, it was as a useful showcase of small companies from around the United States. Upstart and offshoot troupes needed New York exposure but maybe weren't ready to fill the Joyce for a week on their own. Later iterations have continued in that vein, but this year is different. This year is all about a single company. It's from Britain, and it's big, very big: the Royal Ballet. As organized by the Royal's artistic director, Kevin O'Hare, the two week festival is both intimate and large scale. It's one major company presenting many small items no fewer than 21 pieces in four programs. Selecting the opening program himself, Mr. O'Hare has delegated the other three to the designer Jean Marc Puissant and the Royal stars Lauren Cuthbertson and Edward Watson. Ms. Cuthbertson and Mr. Watson are also performing. Chances to see them and their expert colleagues in New York come far too infrequently for this up close look to be anything other than a welcome treat. It's the choice of repertory that's suspect.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here. Anthony Bailey's mother packed her seven year old son off in 1940 for safekeeping to an American foster home, far from the German bombers pulverizing their dockside hometown Portsmouth, England. Two weeks later, Mr. Bailey found himself in the Dayton, Ohio, mansion of Otto Spaeth, a wealthy factory owner, philanthropist and art collector who owned paintings by Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Edward Hopper and Paul Gauguin. "It was imprinted on him, art, from that moment forward," his daughter Annie Bailey said in an interview. Mr. Bailey would go on to a prolific career as a staff writer for The New Yorker and as the author of 23 books on topics that spanned multiple continents and genres. But those four years of enlightenment and dislocation inspired Mr. Bailey's best remembered projects two memoirs of childhood chronicling his "divided loyalty" to both countries and biographies of artists, including Rembrandt, John Constable, J.M.W. Turner and "Vermeer: A View of Delft," which shortlisted for the Whitbread biography prize in 2001. Mr. Bailey died in Harwich, Essex, England on May 13 of the novel coronavirus, contracted in a recovery area following surgery to repair a broken hip, his daughter said. He was 87. He had been living on Mersea Island, near Colchester, at the time he suffered his fall, with his wife Margot, an artist. Mr. Bailey was born on Jan. 5, 1933, to Cowper Goldsmith Bailey, a bank manager, and Phyllis Molony, a homemaker, in Portsmouth. He read history at Merton College, Oxford, served a tour in the West African Frontier Force in modern day Ghana and bounced around in bookseller's shops around London, before heading back to the United States, under Mr. Spaeth's sponsorship, to embark on a writing career. In the mid 1950s, after failing to find a job at a newspaper, Mr. Bailey sent a story about Ivan Illich, a young priest ministering to the poor in Harlem, to the New Yorker editor William Shawn. Mr. Shawn responded with an offer to work on the Talk of the Town section, and an office next to a young John Updike, who would become one of his closest friends. He would remain on staff until 1992. He wrote a book about his banged up sailing yacht and, in the 1960s, a candid portrait of his then hometown of Stonington, Conn. ("In the Village," 1971). In the 1970s, he moved back to seaside England and, later, wrote accounts of walkabouts through Wales and the Outer Banks. He also wrote a novel based on the life of John Andre, a co conspirator of Benedict Arnold. Over the last three decades, he focused on his artist biographies. Mr. Bailey was, his friends recalled, a patient listener happily afflicted with a kind of literary restless leg syndrome. He became known, even as a young writer, for taking long walks that often yielded friendships and story ideas. His writing style matched his gait, unhurried but purposeful. "Tony was a very peripatetic guy," said the writer Paul Brodeur, who began his New Yorker career with Mr. Bailey. "He loved to walk and to meet people along the way. He had a wonderfully imaginative, descriptive style."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
A memorial for the former N.F.L. owner George Preston Marshall in Washington and a statue of the former baseball owner Calvin Griffith in Minneapolis were removed on Friday as cities and franchises continued to reckon with the legacies of figures from their racist pasts. The memorial for Marshall, whose team was the last in the N.F.L. to sign a black player and did so only after a government ultimatum, was removed from the spot where it had stood outside of R.F.K. Stadium by a city agency. It had been defaced overnight with red spray paint. The Minnesota Twins said they had removed a statue of Griffith, which had stood outside Target Field since 2010, because of infamous remarks he had made about African Americans in 1978. The removals occurred on Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. The Redskins did not respond to requests for comment on the statue's removal. The team played at R.F.K. from 1961 to 1996 before moving into a new stadium in Landover, Md. "We applaud EventsDC for their prudent action on this Juneteenth," said John Falcicchio, the chief of staff for Mayor Muriel Bowser. When Target Field opened in 2010, a statue of Griffith, a former Twins owner and the man responsible for moving the franchise to Minnesota from Washington in 1961, was one of several installed around the stadium. But early on Friday morning, the Twins announced that they had removed it, saying the team "cannot remain silent and continue ignoring the racist comments he made" at a community event in 1978. "While we acknowledge the prominent role Calvin Griffith played in our history, we cannot remain silent and continue ignoring the racist comments he made in Waseca in 1978," the Twins said in their statement. "His disparaging words displayed a blatant intolerance and disregard for the black community that are the antithesis of what the Minnesota Twins stand for and value."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Root, Root, Root for the Home Team (or Maybe the One You Bet On) In Europe, where sports betting thrives, wagering on N.F.L. and N.B.A. games has been fairly popular for years, but baseball, mostly unknown on the continent, has not made a huge impact. With the American market opening up after a Supreme Court ruling that struck down a gambling ban, baseball betting could be ready to take its place alongside hot dogs and apple pie. So if sports betting is legal in your jurisdiction, peruse these odds and try to find a bet that will keep you in peanuts and Cracker Jack. Sorry to bore you, but it's the Boston Red Sox and the Yankees again. The Red Sox won 108 regular season games and the World Series last year, losing only three postseason games. They are 6 to 1 favorites to repeat. Many bookmakers are putting the Yankees up at the same odds, and some are hedging even further by making the Houston Astros 6 1 as well. Just behind are the World Series runners up, the Los Angeles Dodgers, at 7 1 or so. Want to make the big bucks? The Baltimore Orioles were 47 115 last season. If you think that adding Nate Karns and Jesus Sucre will somehow allow them to emulate the Miracle Mets, you can get a price of as much as 500 or 600 1. A couple of the races seem like locks. The Astros are 1 6 to win the American League West (that means you must put up 6 to win a buck). The Dodgers in the National League West and the Indians in the A.L. Central are 1 4. Not a lot of moneymaking opportunities there. The Red Sox and the Yankees should finish 1 2 in some order in the A.L. East. But the two remaining races seem like barnburners. In the N.L. East, the Philadelphia Phillies and their big acquisition, Bryce Harper, are favorites along with the Washington Nationals at 2 1. The Atlanta Braves, the defending division champions, are getting a little less respect this year at 3 1. And the Mets, at 7 2, are far from out of the race. Only the Miami Marlins (150 1) are given no hope. In the N.L. Central, it's a three way race, with the Chicago Cubs, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Milwaukee Brewers closely matched at 2 1 or slightly above. Depending on where you bet, any one of them might be a slight favorite. Even if you don't like to wager, the odds can be revealing about which teams have a good chance of surprising, or slumping, at least according to the prevailing wisdom. It probably isn't too shocking to see the Orioles and the Marlins as long shots. But three teams that had discouraging seasons last year seem to be attracting some betting interest. The Chicago White Sox (62 100) and the Cincinnati Reds (67 95) would seem to have a long way to go. But each is about 10 1 to win its division, a real puncher's chance. So are the San Diego Padres (66 96), but the reason here is a lot clearer: the arrival of Manny Machado. It's unlikely that all three of these teams will turn it around this season, but the odds seem to be telling us that at least one will. If betting on teams isn't enough, most bookies are happy to take your action on the players as well. The players expected to hit the most home runs this year are the Yankees sluggers Giancarlo Stanton (7 1) and Aaron Judge (8 1). That leaves last year's home run king, Khris Davis of the Athletics, at 10 1. Davis hit 48 homers last season, while Stanton had 38 and Judge 27 (in 112 games), so the odds might well be testament to the legion of Yankees fans eager to support their favorites. Mookie Betts of the Red Sox and Jose Altuve of the Astros are favorites in the hits category, while last year's leader, Whit Merrifield of the Royals, is given little chance of a repeat: 25 1. The predicted runs batted in champ is J.D. Martinez of the Red Sox at 6 1 after a season with a major league leading 130. Pitching wins can be an unpredictable category. No one has repeated as the majors' leader since C.C. Sabathia in 2009 and 2010, and bettors have to weigh the quality of the pitcher and of his team. The odds reflect that. Chris Sale of the Red Sox is the favorite, but plenty of other aces including Max Scherzer of the Nationals, Corey Kluber of the Indians and Justin Verlander of the Astros are given a good shot. Season long bets are all well and good, but they certainly take time to resolve. Action hungry gamblers will be heading for more traditional fare and betting on the opening day games. The result of any single baseball game is unpredictable, of course, and many of the opening day contests seem like tossups. Well, except one. The Yankees, playing at home behind Masahiro Tanaka, are 3 1/2 1 favorites over, yes, the hapless Orioles.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
574 576 Atlantic Avenue (between Third and Fourth Avenues) A local real estate investor, mainly in retail properties, bought two adjacent four story mixed use buildings totaling 10,400 square feet in an all cash transaction. The buildings, built around 1910, have five market rate two bedroom apartments and three commercial spaces, including a grocery and a halal restaurant. It also offers 400 square feet in remaining air rights; all other air rights were previously sold. Muscle Maker Grill, a fast food franchise focusing on healthy preparations of mainstream dishes, is relocating from its Chelsea location at Seventh Avenue and West 17th Street to this five story mixed use walk up a few blocks south. It has taken a 10 year lease for the new 1,200 square foot ground floor space, with a storage basement and a 700 square foot backyard, and received three months rent free for its build out. The space was formerly occupied by Big Smoke Burger.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Ms. St. Hilaire is a home care aide. She told her story to Devi Lockwood, a fellow in the Times Opinion section. MIAMI For the past year, I have cared for a 95 year old woman. I went to her family's home, watched TV with her, talked to her and gave her medication. We shared stories. I made her food: bread with butter or peanut butter. Noodle soup was her favorite. We made each other laugh. On March 16, when I arrived at work, the woman's daughter opened the door and pulled me aside to talk. "I don't want anybody to bring the virus into my house," she said. "Friday will be your last day of work." She told me that she needed to have control over her home, her children and her mother. "I don't want any strangers coming in," she said. That included me. "What do you want me to do?" I asked. "When everything is under control, I'll call you," she said. I haven't heard from her since. I considered myself to be part of her family. It hurt. My boss viewed me as an outsider as a risk to her own health. I live with my son, Emanuel, who is 6. Right now, we are just trying to survive. In my job, I made 80 per day. My hours were flexible. Sometimes I worked three days a week, sometimes four or five. When the family called me, I would go. I never made enough to have savings. And I don't know how I will find another job now. Very few businesses in Miami are hiring. Restaurants are open only for takeout and have laid off many of their workers. A friend told me that working for Amazon might be a possibility. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that working in a big warehouse with lots of other people could be a bad idea during a pandemic. I don't have any health insurance and I can't afford to get sick. Who would care for my son, especially now that his school has shut down? It just seemed too risky. Rent for my apartment is 870 a month. It was due on April 1, but I wasn't able to pay. I've never missed a payment before, and fortunately, my landlord has been understanding. She said that she would give me free time and I can pay her back when I find a job. My family's health is more important than anything right now. I am trying to stay positive, but I don't know how much longer I will be able to live like this. More from "The America We Need" Last week I ran out of food. A friend who distributes food for domestic workers at the Miami Workers Center told me to come by. Now my son and I are eating canned soup, some small bags of rice, chicken and cans of tuna. They gave me milk, water and spaghetti. This food will last us for a week. It is just enough to get by. The National Domestic Workers Alliance is raising money to support domestic workers who have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus. Many of us do not qualify for the federal stimulus that is sending out checks to workers because we are not United States citizens. The alliance's goal is to raise 4 million for 10,000 care workers, which will amount to 400 per person. Hopefully this money will arrive within a week. While this is a help, it won't last long. First I'll buy food, then use whatever is left over to pay part of my rent to my landlord. The virus highlights how much domestic workers need protections, just like everyone else. Many nannies, house cleaners and other domestic workers are not entitled to severance pay, paid sick leave, health and unemployment insurance or other benefits that would help us survive this pandemic. Every day I wake up and worry about what will happen the next day, the next week. I don't know how I will make it through. For now, I am living day to day. But I keep faith. Everything happens for a reason. Maybe the coronavirus will teach us that we need to change the system that views domestic workers like me as disposable. We still have time to change. We need everyone to treat domestic workers like human beings. We deserve respect and a seat at the table. Our work has value. Without us, you cannot do your jobs. Just as we need you to survive, you need us. Devi Lockwood ( devi lockwood) is a fellow in the Times Opinion section.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
Like many of the cars that race through it, "Faster" adheres to a formula and keeps a brisk pace. After early successes, Dreyfus and Caracciolla both suffer serious crashes, and Schell trades rally driving for team building. Other racers, friends and rivals, die on the tracks. Hitler, looking to boost Germany's morale and prime its war machine, pumps money into the auto industry, whose burnished aluminum marvels, the so called Silver Arrows, stun Europe and transform the sport. Caracciola fights back from his injuries, and the Reich rallies around him, but Dreyfus finds himself on the outs a Frenchman in a sport dominated by Italian and German teams less and less hospitable to non natives, especially those with famously Jewish last names. Schell recruits Dreyfus to her fledgling team and puts him behind the wheel of its new car, the Delahaye 145. Germany annexes Austria, and Dreyfus, sensing the moment, drives the Delahaye to a shocking upset of Caracciola and Mercedes in the opening race of the 1938 season. If the outline feels familiar, the story itself is fresh, and told in vivid detail. Bascomb's research in racing periodicals in several languages and archival collections on multiple continents is to be applauded. He describes the twists and turns of the 1930s Grand Prix races as if he'd driven the courses himself. And he organizes his material thoughtfully. Rather than introduce Dreyfus with an account of his first Grand Prix win, in Monaco in 1930, Bascomb describes his strong showing in a less renowned but more symbolically charged race, the climb at La Turbie in 1926: From the moment we meet our hero, he's fighting an uphill battle. Though Bascomb focuses on the Grand Prix, he takes in all sorts of competitions, from rallies and climbs to trials, which are at least as exciting to read about as the more famous races. And there are some worthwhile detours into the early history of automotive manufacturing, the fascist obsession with fast cars and Hitler's plans to motorize Germany's civilians as well as its military. These digressions are absorbing but all too brief, as Bascomb hurries to the next starting line. By my rough count, the book features close to 50 race scenes and summaries. For me, this was too much I wished that "Faster" were slower but your mileage may vary.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
One dancer is clothed. The other isn't. They do the same precise motions, locked into the same rhythm, an endlessly looping drum track. The stage floor is outlined in tape, and after 20 minutes, they split it in half with more tape, restricting themselves to one side. Ten minutes later, they split it again and again after five more minutes, and so forth, as time and area keep diminishing by half until there isn't room for two. A dance with a design this schematic could be awfully dry. But Lucy Guerin's "Split" isn't. This Australian choreographer's duet, which had its United States premiere at the Baryshnikov Arts Center on Thursday, is nearly a thriller. That's largely because it's split in one more way. The choreography for the first and longest section is abstract. But the second is something completely different: a strange, two character drama of shamanistic gestures involving fingers and mouths (and fingers in mouths) that convey a strong threat of violence. These two modes alternate, putting two kinds of suspense into play. Time and space keep shrinking, the walls of tape closing in. But the formal sections also keep interrupting the drama, as in a cliffhanger.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Hamilton Morris has had some truly terrible roommates: the guy who overindulged on synthetic cannabinoids and covered the apartment with vomit; the one who locked himself out while naked (how and why is still unclear) and broke down the front door; and the Dumpster diver who brought home 50 boxes of crackers teeming with moths, which led to a vicious infestation that Mr. Morris, 28, believes has still not entirely cleared up. But for the last three years, he has enjoyed relative domestic stability with Thomas Morton, 32, a colleague at Vice Media who needed a place to stay after a divorce and never left. You can see how they might complement each other. Both men have fearsome gonzo reputations, as befits correspondents at Vice, the multiplatform media empire that now values itself in the billions but still owes much of its DNA to the goofy, adolescent ethos of Vice magazine. An indie freebie born in Canada in 1994, the magazine has long been beloved by young men for features like the Gross Jar, a column that chronicled the developments inside a jar filled with an ever expanding, ghastly smelling miasma of urine, hair, mucus and other disgusting items and effluvia. For "Vice" on HBO, one of the company's more recent mainstream partnerships, he has reported on the efforts of the Kurdish militia to carve out its own territory in Syria, as well as on a sex doll factory in China. Mr. Morris is also a correspondent for "Vice" on HBO, and he has his own Vice.com series, "Hamilton's Pharmacopeia," the video version of a column that began in the print magazine. As part of that, he has tracked down the venom of South American tree frogs, visited a Haitian secret society in search of zombie powder and talked shop with PCP chemists. Since Mr. Morris does research, under the auspices of the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, covering the pharmacology and chemistry of psychoactive drugs, his approach is perhaps more scholarly than experimental; more Oliver Sacks, say, than Hunter Thompson. His global forays, however, show he has grit enough to match Mr. Morton's. Yet in person, Mr. Morton and Mr. Morris are both soft spoken, slight and bookish looking (Mr. Morton, an English major, studied Chaucer and Joyce at New York University). You can't help but worry about their safety. Mr. Morton, who is 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs about 120 pounds, said his nonthreatening physique has also been a boon to his journalism. "I'm pretty short, not physically intimidating and open to being messed with," he said. Their loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is decorated with cactuses that were given to Mr. Morris by the family of Alexander Shulgin, the late chemist and psychedelic apologist who promoted MDMA, otherwise known as Ecstasy, and a hero to Mr. Morris. There are photographs of psilocybin mushrooms; molecular diagrams (including one, in a frame, sketched by Dr. Shulgin); and a poster depicting the geological time table. The enormous, slightly grubby orange sectional sofa was donated by Mr. Morris's father, the filmmaker Errol Morris (the documentarian behind "The Thin Blue Line" and "The Fog of War"), who had used it on the set of a Cingular Wireless commercial he made. There are also an awful lot of books about drugs: "Elephants on Acid," "Naturally Occurring Benzodiazepines" and "Confessions of a Dope Dealer" are just a few of the hundreds of titles. (In typical hyperbole, a Vice representative had described the place as "a drug addled apothecary meets Frankensteinian lair.") Their bedrooms are cubbylike spaces carved out under a plywood loft. In Mr. Morris's room, he was drying mushrooms he had gathered from Central Park; on a large scrap of paper pinned to the wall, he had sketched molecular diagrams. Mr. Morton's night stand sported a crocodile skull wearing a toucan feather headdress he bought from an Amazonian tribesman, a vole skull and a rubber fetus from an assignment about fake abortion clinics. The fetus, he explained later, had been a handout to young pregnant women by anti abortion protesters. The kitchen a few shelves on a stainless steel counter, a refrigerator, a stove is mostly storage for various supplements, herbs and nootropics (or smart drugs), including a vial of selegiline. It is an antidepressant and a treatment for Parkinson's disease created by Joseph Knoll, a Holocaust survivor and neurochemist who was interested in the brain mechanisms of the concentration camp guards, Mr. Morris said. There wasn't much actual food. Mr. Morris said he is a fan of Soylent, the powdered meal replacement designed to fuel Silicon Valley's young tech workers and named for the '60s era sci fi novel that inspired the '70s era dystopian film "Soylent Green." Mr. Morton prefers the offerings of Seamless. It taught him to write concisely and gave him a sense of responsibility and purpose, he said. He had to figure out what new horror to add each month, and to document the changes: Brewer's yeast, a dead rat and radioactive cat feces are just some of the items he provided (the latter came from his Silver Persian, which had a thyroid condition and was treated with radioactive iodine). The charm of the column, which is impossible to read without gagging, can be elusive. But Mr. Morton loved that jar, he said; he once took it on a road trip to the Love Canal, and was nearly fired for bringing it inside during a fashion shoot at Vice's Williamsburg offices. (The jar's stench was so potent Mr. Morton kept it on the roof.) In high school, Mr. Morris was an avid follower of the Gross Jar's fortunes. His first article for Vice was a roundup of emerging psychoactive drugs, which he wrote under a pseudonym, D.H. Ticklish, while he was studying at the New School and for which he was paid nothing. "I was a sophomore in college, so it seemed like a lot," he said. For his next article, a story about young Hasidic men who had broken away from their families and traditions and were converting, as Mr. Morris put it, to rituals involving psychedelic drugs, he was paid 500. A column soon followed. Mr. Morris said his knowledge of chemistry has endeared him to his subjects; when PCP chemists and drug kingpins have an opportunity to talk shop, he pointed out, they open up. "I think clandestine chemists in general are misunderstood," he said. On his first season on "Vice," Mr. Morton slept at home only nine times between Labor Day and New Year's, a travel schedule that made him an ideal roommate. That, and the care and attention he gives to Mr. Morris's cactuses. For the last few months Mr. Morton has been battling a tropical disease he picked up in Venezuela called leptospirosis. Since he was there on Vice business (reporting on Bitcoin enthusiasts in Caracas), you are not surprised when he tells you that its primary vector is dog urine. Mr. Morris travels as well. Mr. Morton recalled that when he first moved in and Mr. Morris was away on assignment, he was startled by "four or five very powerful alarm clocks" that went off during the day. Mr. Morris ducked his head. "It's hard for me to wake up," he said. "I also have a tri sensory alarm clock for deaf people, which vibrates under the mattress. Even though I might be working until 5 a.m., if you sleep until noon, you feel like a slob. There's a lot of shame. But I'm getting better." Mr. Morton looked worried. "I'm sorry to bring this up," he said. While Mr. Morton recalled their early adventures, Mr. Morris tended a coffee press filled with a viscous greenish brown liquid; Yerba mate, cacao and hemp, as it turned out, a coffeelike stimulant. When he offered it to a reporter, she shuddered and demurred.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Frank Biondi Jr. in 1989, when he was the chief executive of Viacom. "My basic job is to enhance the value of the assets and get some of the debt down," he said when he joined the company in 1987. Frank Biondi Jr., whose financial and managerial expertise helped earn him the chief executive jobs at three entertainment giants HBO, Viacom and Universal Studios died on Monday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 74. His daughter Anne Simonds said the cause was bladder cancer. Unlike some of the men he worked for, Mr. Biondi was not flashy . He was a quiet deal maker known for giving savvy financial presentations and allowing executives beneath him the freedom to do their work without his interference. "My basic job is to enhance the value of the assets and get some of the debt down," he said in an interview with The New York Times in 1987, when he took over at Viacom . "It plays on the financial skills that I have had." During his nine years with Viacom. the company acquired Paramount Pictures and Blockbuster Entertainment, the video chain. But Mr. Biondi operated in the all enveloping shadow of Sumner Redstone, the impulsive billionaire who acquired Viacom in early 1987 and became its chairman. "I'm C.E.O., but if you read the press, I don't exist," Mr. Biondi told The New Yorker when it profiled him in 1995. "Sumner is the embodiment of this place." Asked if his relative anonymity frustrated him, he added: "Sure. It's not his fault. It just works out that way ." But Mr. Biondi's enthusiasm about the entertainment colossus he was helping to build ended less than a year later, when Mr. Redstone fired him, reportedly over Paramount's faltering box office performance . Mr. Biondi said his relationship with the mercurial Mr. Redstone had soured as Mr. Redstone took an increasingly hands on role. "We weren't having as much fun as we did eight years ago," Mr. Biondi told The Times after his dismissal. But Universal's motion picture division had financial problems, and Mr. Biondi was forced out after two years in a corporate restructuring. He said at the time that Mr. Bronfman, like Mr. Redstone, had wanted to be more hands on. "Is it shocking? No," Mr. Biondi told The Los Angeles Times. "Is it a bit of a surprise? Sure." Universal would be his last corporate job. Frank Joseph Biondi Jr. was born on Jan. 9, 1945, in Manhattan and raised in Livingston, N.J. His father was a chemical engineer who had worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II and later for Bell Laboratories. His mother, Virginia (Willis) Biondi, was a homemaker. At Princeton University, where he played center field on the baseball team, Mr. Biondi graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology. He earned an M.B.A. at Harvard Business School. Mr. Biondi worked at several Wall Street brokerages and set up a financial consulting firm before he went to work in 1972 for TelePrompTer , an early cable television franchise in New York City. He left in 1973 to join the nonprofit Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) as assistant treasurer. The company was producing groundbreaking shows like "Sesame Street" and "The Electric Company ." "They've done something remarkable in the programming business," Mr. Biondi told the Cable Center, a nonprofit educational organization, in 2000, "and here we were trying to make sure it was institutionalized." During his time at HBO, the company, then a part of Time Inc., acquired exclusive rights to show films made by Columbia Pictures and Orion Pictures; started a new studio, Tri Star Pictures , with Columbia and CBS; and built a new satellite uplink facility on Long Island. Mr. Fuchs recalled in a phone interview that Mr. Biondi had not ruffled feathers and had not been a difficult outsize character, as many executives in the entertainment business were. "He was like a unicorn," Mr. Fuchs said. "At his level he was a singular exception. At HBO, I used him as my other half; he was more conservative and financial than I am. I'm all instinct." In October 1984, amid concerns at Time Inc . about the slowing of HBO's once dramatic subscriber growth, Mr. Biondi left over what were called "policy differences." He was replaced by Mr. Fuchs. Soon after, Mr. Biondi resurfaced as the executive vice president of Coca Cola's entertainment business sector, which included Columbia Pictures. He later became chairman of Coca Cola Television. While there, his biggest deals were the acquisitions of Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio's Embassy Communications and Merv Griffin's production company. He wasn't there long before Mr. Redstone hired him to run Viacom. In the Cable Center interview, Mr. Biondi recalled his last encounter with Mr. Redstone.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Brett Morgen's documentary about the British scientist Jane Goodall is on National Geographic. And Oprah Winfrey appears with the "A Wrinkle in Time" co stars Mindy Kaling and Reese Witherspoon on "The Late Late Show." JANE (2017) 8 p.m. on National Geographic and Nat Geo Wild. When Jane Goodall journeyed into the forests of East Africa to research chimpanzees, it was the early 1960s, she was 26 and had no scientific degree. But, despite her lack of traditional training, Ms. Goodall's quiet observations of primate interactions would help significantly deepen human understanding of chimps and our connections to them. Brett Morgen ("Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck") directs this documentary, which consists primarily of historical footage of Ms. Goodall taken by the wildlife photographer Hugo van Lawick, Ms. Goodall's first husband. In his review for The New York Times, Ben Kenigsberg wrote that the film "is such an absorbing account of her experiences at a reserve in what is now Tanzania that you may not pause to think about how its imagery was captured." It has a score by Philip Glass, and includes a present day interview with Ms. Goodall. Now in her 80s, she has spent her career pursuing her research and living as an outspoken conservationist. "It is a jolly tough way to live," she told The Times in 2010, "but it's worthwhile."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
Through Dec. 15 at the Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, Manhattan; 212 255 5793, thekitchen.org. Jibade Khalil Huffman started off as a poet and he uses images in his video installations as a sort of grammar, composing phrases, sentences and paragraphs with found or filmed footage. Rather than being watched as a single video or viewed on one or two screens, "Black Twitter in the Age of Chaos," the 45 minute work that dominates Mr. Huffman's show, "Tempo," at the Kitchen, is dispersed over nine screens mounted on the wall or placed on the gallery floor. Sampled, spliced or composed sound comes at you from above rather than from any one source. This sense of disruption and disorientation suits the overriding subject here, which relates to black bodies and their historic and continued vulnerability in the United States. Richard Pryor, in a sampled snippet, talks about a shooting; young black actors enact silent vignettes in cars and on the streets of Los Angeles; the 1970s sitcom actress Esther Rolle performs an anguished solo in a kitchen, wearing a maid's uniform (a repeated role for which she was best known). Little actual violence occurs in "Black Twitter in the Age of Chaos," but when a young black man who seems to be a doppelganger or alter ego of the artist stands on a darkened street with police lights flashing ... you get the idea. Elsewhere there is music and joy and ownership. "Black Music Is American Music" says a T shirt worn by def.sound, one of the musicians who composed the audio for the piece, filmed in a Los Angeles studio. Images of the singer Taylor Swift and a rap commercial for the cereal Fruity Pebbles, as well as various memes, attest to both the popularity and appropriation of black culture and its appearance in unlikely contexts. "Tempo" gently and somewhat abstractly points out the struggle and oppression that have driven and accompanied black music, comedy and performance, even prompting them to flourish, but at a heavy cost. MARTHA SCHWENDENER	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Getting the N.F.L.'s Big Picture Out of Any Screen How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Ken Belson, who covers football, discussed the tech he's using. So the N.F.L. season is in full swing. What are your favorite websites or tech tools for tracking stats, scores, games and players? Each morning, I read through a few football websites, like ProFootballTalk, that include good summaries and commentaries of the biggest stories. Since I cover the league nationally, rather than a single team, I'm looking for information about whatever story is resonating around the country. The travails of Antonio Brown are a good example. But there are any number of other leaguewide issues. Twitter, of course, is invaluable, though you can get lost in the feeds. I subscribe to several newsletters that also summarize stories. Those pop into my inbox early in the day as well as plenty of email queries from my editors. And my iPhone is with me everywhere. Sports is a 24 hour news cycle, and the phone has kept me in the loop more times than I can count. I've written entire stories on it in a pinch, including while overseas. None Week 11 Takeaways: Here is what we learned this week. N.F.L. Tightens Covid Protocols: As cases rise and Thanksgiving approaches, the league is requiring masks inside team facilities and increasing testing. The Jets Lose Again: Falling to the Miami Dolphins, the Jets' receiver Elijah Moore offered consolation. The Long Path to the Super Bowl: With 18 weeks in the regular season and fewer teams earning byes in the playoffs, the Super Bowl is still a long way off. Playoff Simulator: Explore every team's path to the postseason, updated live. What about your favorite tech tools for finding out things that the N.F.L. doesn't want you to know? This depends on what I'm working on. When the details of the concussion settlement in which the league settled claims that it concealed what it knew about the dangers of repeated hits to the head were being hashed out in court, I often checked the docket of the federal court in Philadelphia. The administrator of the settlement also posts information online. Sources also send cases they've filed or research they've published. Sports Litigation Alert is also a great storehouse of cases. Are you a cord cutter? Lots of people have cut the cord, but one reason people keep their cable subscriptions is to watch sports. I still have cable at home to watch games. I've watched games on my laptop, but the screen is too small to watch for too long. I'm usually checking other games on my cellphone. I don't watch RedZone , which shows when teams are within 20 yards of the end zone . Generally, I pick one game a weekend to watch usually the Sunday night game if I'm home. But there are so many replays and highlights, it's easy to catch up if I've missed a game that includes something notable. I've played fantasy football on and off for about 20 years, starting when I lived in Japan. When I began covering the N.F.L. full time in 2013, I joined a fantasy league with friends in the office to help keep track of which players and teams are doing well. I cover the draft in April, so I have a decent idea of who the good rookies are, and I follow the games just enough to decide who's worth drafting. But I also lean heavily on my nephew, who is in several leagues and keeps far better track of the players than I do. And how are you doing this season? We finished second last season out of a dozen teams. This season, we're leading our division, and our only loss was by one point. Not so bad so far. Our strategy was to focus on running backs. Our sleeper pick was Aaron Jones of the Packers . Outside of work and sports, what tech product do you love? I use Entrain to calculate hours of sleep to get over jet lag. And Qello, which has great vintage rock videos, something an N.F.L. friend showed me. Nothing fancy when it comes to television. I spend more time checking highlights online, especially if there is a play that is going to lead to a suspension or controversial penalties, things that I often have to write about. I don't attend Super Bowl parties, because I attend the games. I arrive in the Super Bowl city more than a week in advance to report on the buildup to the game. By the time the game arrives, I'm relieved the long week and season are coming to an end. The game, though, goes by in a blur because I'm on deadline and spend my time typing, which leaves me little time to enjoy the game like a fan. Is there anything that tech ruins about the sports viewing experience? Yes! The endless commercials and gimmicks on television ruin the sports viewing experience. So does all the artificial noise in stadiums. I find this distracting and unneeded. Fans know when to get excited. They don't need to be told.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
Two closely watched summer theater productions the first in the U.S. with union actors since the coronavirus pandemic exploded are being required to reduce their seating capacity to comply with changing local regulations. Productions of "Godspell" at Berkshire Theater Group and "Harry Clarke" at Barrington Stage Company will each allow only 50 people to be present down from 100 after the state of Massachusetts rolled back its reopening protocols in an effort to slow the spread of the disease. "They reached out to us right away, and although they wanted an exception to the revised order, they realized they had to come into compliance, so they're bringing their numbers down to 50," said Gina Armstrong, the director of public health in Pittsfield, Mass., where both productions are taking place. The productions, which began performances last week, are taking place outdoors, under tents, in the Berkshires region of Western Massachusetts. In each case, performers are regularly tested for the virus; audience members must wear masks and have temperature checks.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Q. Can I use Microsoft Office on a Chromebook? A. Chromebooks run Google's Chrome OS, which was introduced in 2009 as a streamlined operating system for netbooks and other lightweight laptops. While you cannot install the traditional Windows or Mac versions of Microsoft Office on a Chromebook and have the software actually work, Microsoft's Office apps for Android devices can now run on the newer Chromebook models that have the ability to download, install and run apps from the Google Play store. The Office apps are free for devices with screens smaller than 10.1 inches, though a free Microsoft account is required to create and edit files. For Chromebooks and tablets with larger screens, a paid subscription to Microsoft's Office 365 service is required; the least expensive plan is about 7 a month.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
I've been enthusiastic about Mike Bloomberg's race for president from its inception, partly on the theory that he was best positioned to rescue and represent the Democratic Party's moderate wing. After Wednesday night's debate debacle in Las Vegas, I'm starting to fear his candidacy might inadvertently destroy that wing while wrecking the party's chances in November. It was a debacle in three parts. The first part was Bloomberg's performance, the only virtue of which was its real time reminder of all the things money can't buy. Everything about it was bad. Bloomberg was ill advised to go onstage. He was ill prepared to be on it. He showed ill grace toward the people with whom he had signed nondisclosure agreements. He showed ill will toward Bernie Sanders for the sin of owning homes whose aggregate value probably doesn't exceed that of a maid's room in a Bloomberg mansion. His suggestion that Sanders's political program amounted to communism turned critique into parody. His apologies for stop and frisk made him seem like he was running away from his record, not on it. Bloomberg will now try to recover with another huge ad spend, and hopefully a better debate performance in South Carolina next week. But he will do so having lost the aura of formidability that, until Wednesday, had been his chief selling point. He entered the fray looking big but now seems all too small. The "Little Mike" moniker that Donald Trump has given him will stick. The second part is the Bloomberg effect on Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, his fellow moderates in the field. Instead of bolstering them, he is competing with them. Instead of blowing wind in their sails, he's piling dead weight on their decks. The moderates didn't help themselves with intramural squabbles about Klobuchar forgetting the name of Mexico's president (though I found myself wishing the senator could have explained to Mayor Pete that she had merely experienced a senior moment something that will happen to him, too, when he finally grows up). Nor did their own attacks on Bloomberg do them much good, beyond lending an assist to Elizabeth Warren's surgical act of political evisceration. The Democratic contest is essentially one between two camps the camp of infighters known as moderates, and the camp of out fighters known as progressives. Wednesday's debate served as another reminder of why the moderates aren't winning. Which brings me to the third part of the debacle: Wednesday's debate left Sanders unscathed. Nothing and nobody touched him. The Democratic Party's riskiest bet is now its likeliest. I say this as someone who wrote, a little earlier than most, that Sanders had the best chance of winning the nomination, and that he has just as serious a shot at winning the presidency as Donald Trump did four years earlier. But that shouldn't obscure the reality that Trump's victory was an electoral fluke against an overconfident opponent who didn't have the many advantages of presidential incumbency. And it mustn't diminish the fact that Sanders's candidacy would represent a large bet titanic, one might say on the willingness of the American public to embrace drastic economic and social change in an era of relative peace and prosperity. So why would Democrats want to take that chance? Maybe it's because they have overlearned the lessons of the 2016 election: that nominating the centrist and responsible candidate served them poorly. Or maybe it's because they've reasoned that "electability," being an insufficient requirement for the nomination, is an unnecessary one as well. Or maybe they feel that, when their hearts scream Yes, it's best to ignore the brain's screams of No. Alternatively a darker thought maybe Democrats aren't being entirely honest with themselves when they claim their first priority is to end Trump's presidency as soon as possible. There's a certain self righteous pleasure in hating Trump, as well as an entire cottage industry devoted to indulging that hatred, which would mostly vanish the moment he left office. What's more, the far left that Sanders represents has always been at least as interested in wielding ideological power within the institutions that matter most to it academia, journalism, labor unions, the Democratic Party as it has been in wielding political power beyond those institutions. If Sanders were to win the nomination and lose the election, many of his supporters might call the result a wash, even a modest victory. The struggle always continues. For the rest of us that is, those of us who want Trump and Trumpism defeated and replaced by something considerably and sustainably better the prospect of a Sanders candidacy is doubly depressing. He is the candidate Trump most wants to run against. And he would be the president least likely to govern well. This week, as Mike Bloomberg nearly achieved onstage spontaneous combustion, that prospect came appreciably nearer. To call this bad for the Democrats is an understatement. It's a fiasco in the making for the country, too. 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
This article contains spoilers for Season 8, Episode 3 of "Game of Thrones." If you're planning a battle against supernatural forces of ice, a red priestess with a magical relationship to fire should probably be on your speed dial. Fortunately for the folks at the Battle of Winterfell, as seen in Sunday's episode of "Game of Thrones," Melisandre (Carice van Houten) showed up offering exactly that, despite having been told that a return to the North would get her executed. Her actions setting weapons and trenches aflame, providing key pep talks helped give the living a victory over the dead, but it came at a cost. As she predicted, she had to die in this strange country, and she did so willingly. During a phone interview on Tuesday, van Houten looked back at her complicated character. Following are edited excerpts. This is a huge episode for Melisandre. Do you feel that it gave you a satisfying conclusion for your character? I sort of felt it coming, back when I said to Varys in Season 7 that we were both going to die, basically. I felt like I had it coming. And I was actually happy and quite sentimental when I read the script. I thought it could be a beautiful ending to this character. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the episode yet. I'm going to do it tonight. I'm very, very late to the party. I remember shooting it, though, very vividly. It ended on an elegant note, and it was emotional, which we haven't seen as much in her story line. I've gotten so many reactions from people, too, which really means a lot, to be honest. Read our recap of Season 8, Episode 3 of "Game of Thrones." I'm hoping you're getting much kinder responses than some of the hateful ones you used to get, and sometimes still do, when people conflate you with your character. Yeah. Laughs I've never felt personally threatened. I always just liked that they loved to hate me. I don't mind if they hate the character, but when they start mixing my character up with myself, then it becomes a bit weird and unpleasant. And Melisandre, at least, deserved that at some point. It's a logical, sane reaction to her deeds, to tell her to expletive off. If you're burning children alive, what the hell? That's also why I think the show is so good, because it keeps playing with people's morals and with people's sympathies. It confuses people about characters, and I love that, because the world's not black and white, and people are not black and white. I've also gotten some really lovely texts from Gwendoline Christie, Liam Cunningham and other cast members about how happy they are. I was just really happy that they felt for Melisandre. People underestimated her character arc and her complexity, and I was very happy that people don't see her as a flat character or just pure evil or whatever. I was happy to be able to give her some humanity in the end. Did you fill in the blanks for yourself in terms of what happened for her between when we last saw her, in Season 7, and this moment? She said she was heading to Volantis, and somehow between then and now, her power increased. Any idea of what happened during her time off, or how she determined to be at the Battle of Winterfell at just the right moment? You can speculate about all of that, but I don't know. Not really. Laughs The character has been a mystery even to myself all these years, and I've struggled with her. Like, what is she about, man? What is her goal? How old is she, really? But sometimes not knowing, I think, has helped me. I can project my own stuff onto her and use my own imagination, my own personal things. It always felt like it added up somehow, and she knew she was here for a reason, even if she couldn't always pinpoint it. She needed the visions in the fire to tell her where to go. She needed the Lord of Light, and he or she or it guided her there. And I don't think she thinks it's even her doing this. She doesn't think she has any power. She's always been really honest about that. "It's not me. I'm just a vessel." Read about Melisandre's history and her relationship with the gods of fire and ice. True, but she could have power that she mistakenly attributes to a god. She's been wrong before. Yeah. And that has definitely affected her. But bringing Jon Snow back definitely gave her some of her confidence back, I think. What was it like shooting the scene in the trench? That was literally the last scene I shot. It was funny because it was so undramatic, because it was happening in a big studio with lots of green screens and fake bodies. But it was also loaded with emotion because I had to say goodbye. It fit the scene for me. It was really clear to me in that moment that Melisandre wasn't there for her own sake. She has never been in it for her own sake. And I hope you can see that emotion coming out of her, that she has to save us all, in a way. There is a lot of empathy and hope there, even if you can't understand the words she's praying. So it was intense. It looks spectacular when she lights the Dothraki weapons, but that doesn't end up doing much good. It also looks spectacular when she lights the trench, but that doesn't last long. The most effective thing she does during this battle is give a pep talk to Arya. Exactly! I really loved that sort of girl power moment. I'm like, "You go get 'em." That sort of thing. "You go girl." I think that also gave some lightness to her character and brought some modern humanity to her, which I really loved. It was just so satisfying. And I knew they were going to come back at some point to the "brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes" thing. It wasn't random. It was significant. And of course, a lot of smart fans already picked up on that. They probably knew it before I knew it! How did you interpret the final scene when she removes the necklace, removes the glamour illusion, walks off as an old woman and collapses? What did the final image convey to you? My work is done here. I've served my purpose. I'm tired. In a way, it's a sort of sacrifice. I mean, suicide sounds a bit too strong, but it is. She's old. She longs for peace. She's done. And yet, she's not entirely done. There's still so much about her that we don't know that would have been great to explore. Her previous life, how she got to be where she was, the secrets she kept, what happened when she was a slave, what happened before she was even associated with this religion ... I agree! That has been not a frustration, but I have longed for that as well myself. I would have loved to know more, and see more, about that. Because she's so mysterious, it leaves you a bit hungry. But that's okay. I sort of like that. Better that than to feel fed up! Maybe they could fit her in one of the prequel successor series. Melisandre lived longer than most of the other characters, so she could be around during Aegon's Conquest or the Dance of the Dragons, or other historical events. And I can still do that! Laughs I'm still available to be hired as an actress. I can do more if people have fun ideas! You almost feel that she's been burdened by this religion, so you want to see her when she started out, when she was young and innocent. I would be really interested to see her as a child, in fact. I would love that. But as much as it was painful and sad to have this end, it always feels like this is just the way it had to be. It was a great seven years, and it was the perfect time.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday rolled out the next phase of his aggressive strategy to kick start Japan's economy, with plans to encourage foreign investment, nurture innovation and improve regulation. But almost immediately, a big question surfaced: Will they go far enough? Since taking office in December, Mr. Abe has promised to fight deflation and spur growth through a combination of aggressive monetary easing, public works spending and economic overhauls. The initial efforts of his program showed promise, helping to drive the stock market up 80 percent from late last year. But enthusiasm has waned in the last two weeks, as investors wondered whether the efforts were sustainable. The latest proposal did little to quell the concerns. The Nikkei 225 share index ended the day down 3.8 percent, another rout in an extended correction for the market. In the next wave of so called Abenomics, the prime minister laid out a wide range of policies aimed largely at the corporate sector. He plans to introduce tax breaks to increase foreign direct investment. He also said he would remove cumbersome regulations, for example in the medical industry, by removing a ban on sales of nonprescription drugs on the Internet. And he pledged to combine Japan's high grade infrastructure and manufacturing prowess with the daring and creativity of a younger generation. "For 20 long years of deflation, Japan suffered a deep loss of confidence," Mr. Abe said. "It is now time for Japan to become an engine of global economic growth." But some of the fundamental overhauls needed for an economic renewal, like bolder labor market changes, were conspicuously missing from Mr. Abe's policy plans, as were vital details, said Akio Makabe, a professor in economics at Shinshu University in Central Japan. For one, the plan did not go far enough in breaking down the distinctions between regular and nonregular work forces that has created a rigid and inefficient two tier labor force. "At the start, there was hope that Mr. Abe was as committed to economic reforms as he has been with monetary policy and government spending," Professor Makabe said. "But judging from this policy platform, that commitment appears to be wavering. Where is the labor market reform? Where is the real change? It seems he's given in to the naysayers and listed up policies that just sound good." If Mr. Abe fails to deliver on his promises for bold change, the euphoria that drove Tokyo shares to a five year high could evaporate further, economists warn. And without those fundamental overhauls, they say, Japan is at risk of sinking back into the economic torpor that has defined much of the last two decades. Mr. Abe also hopes to maintain momentum to the parliamentary elections this summer, his first major test at the ballot box for his economic policies. With ratings high and political opponents weak and divided, his Liberal Democratic Party is likely to make a strong showing. Many economists and younger business leaders say the crux of the overhauls lies in raising Japan's economic metabolism by making it easier for companies to enter the market and for fading old ones of which there are many in Japan to exit. That would need to be paired with a more flexible labor market to smooth the transfer of workers from ailing companies to promising new ones. Hope may lie in companies like Pijin, a start up based in Osaka with roots in a student venture that developed multilingual, "smart" Internet search technology. In March, Pijin released its first product: an online service that links quick response codes checkered symbols that can be scanned with a smartphone to cloud technology that provides translation into different languages. "Everything about the Japanese economy tends to be skewed in favor of large, established companies and toward Tokyo, and that needs to change," said Kenji Takaoka, the chief executive of Pijin. 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. A 2010 study by the economists Kyoji Fukao and Hyeog Ug Kwon at Tokyo's Hitotsubashi and Nihon Universities showed that Japanese companies set up after 1996 added the most jobs in the period to 2010, creating 1.2 million, compared with a net loss of 3.1 million jobs over the same period at all companies founded before 1996. Foreign companies added more than 150,000 net jobs to Japan. To economists, the discrepancy highlights the need for Japan to open up to more foreign direct investment. Those inflows came to less than 4 percent of economic output in 2010 compared to one fifth of the American economy and half of Britain's. That, economists say, would bring real change to a country known for world class exporters like Toyota and Canon but also chock full of laggards that are sheltered by regulations and kept alive by subsidies. To make strong productivity gains, economists favor competition both from inside Japan and overseas. One catalyst for such change would be Japan's participation in the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, already announced by Mr. Abe. Mr. Abe spoke on Wednesday of letting private sector entrepreneurism take the lead in innovation. He said he would set up special economic zones that would experiment with regulation and revive investment. Mr. Abe also said he intended to liberalize Japan's energy market by breaking up regional monopolies and overhauling the country's medical insurance system. His government is also pushing for an early resumption of power generation by Japan's mostly idled nuclear reactors. To tackle the problems of a graying population, he pledged to make it easier to balance work and family, although some worry that the proposals would be counterproductive to advancing women's participation in the work force. The stakes are high. If the overhauls fail to ignite growth, the aggressive government measures and spending could come back to haunt Japan, dealing a heavy blow to its already stretched finances. The latest plans prompted further worries. On Wednesday, Mr. Abe urged Japan's public pension funds, which control more than 2 trillion in investments, to shift those holdings toward higher return equities and overseas assets from a heavy focus on domestic bonds. Such a shift would put Japan's huge savings pool to more efficient use, helping to prompt corporate investment and consumer spending. But the move also raises the risk of driving the government's borrowing costs higher as it competes with the private sector for financing. Since last month, long term interest rates have already risen. "Even if fiscal and monetary policies work to stimulate the market, their effects are passing, and Japan will just be buying time," said Ryutaro Kono, Japan economist for BNP Paribas, in a note to clients. "But the kind of reforms that would truly raise economic growth rates have fallen by the wayside."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Global Business
I'm Dan Gilroy. I'm the writer/director of "Velvet Buzzsaw." playful music This sequence is the gallery opening of the deceased outsider artist Vitril Dease, who inhabits and and lurks through our film. We started with the split screen. And we come to our split screen, Jake Gyllenhaal is our protagonist. He's there. All of our characters are there in a Robert Altman like way. And now, the reason we came through a champagne glass was we were trying to sort of show this this world out of balance and maybe slightly supernatural. "He came from nowhere, knew no one" And Rene Russo is the foremost gallery owner in Los Angeles. The wonderful Zawe Ashton is her protegee who's found all this outsider art and kept it for herself. "I spotted it by streetlight over a dumpster." And what you'll notice if you start to watch is that we're going to stay in this tracking shot for quite a while. Robert Elswood, our cinematographer, did an amazing job with this, and we had a great Steadicam operator named Colin Anderson. "There's one we're very interested in." "Just know demand has people ready to kill." "Ah." Toni Collette plays a museum curator who's become an advisor. She's sold out. And from a camera standpoint, we're doing something which I think is interesting. We're sort of we're staying with them, but were pinballing back and forth, which we decided to do on the day, and I thought conveyed the scene really well. "Well, how hilarious for you." What they're talking about is the shenanigans economically in the contemporary art world, how a curator for a museum can become an advisor and advise people with money to buy things that they might not be inclined to buy in order to establish a relationship with the gallery owner. "I'll sell you two Dease if you buy three pieces at Damrish's opening next month." "What if my client doesn't respond to Damrish?" "Well, you're the advisor. Advise." John Malkovich plays the foremost contemporary art in the world who has stopped drinking and is now utterly creatively blocked. He's come to see this outsider artist because he's represented by Rene's character. And he's walking this space, and he comes upon Daveed Diggs, wonderful, wonderful actor. He's a street artist who's up and coming, and they are both now looking at this outsider artist's piece of work, which has to deal with childhood trauma. In our film, artists see something in the paintings that other people do not see, and are deeply affected and touched by it, which is what's happened now. John Malkovich, after two years now, has decided he's going to have a drink. And I love Marco Beltrami's ascendant score as he raises the glass to his lips.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Home but Not Alone? Here Are Four New Shows to Watch With Your Kids None With schools in New York and many other places closed or closing soon, there's a good chance that you and your children are about to spend a lot of coronavirus mandated time together. And let's face it, not all of that time will be spent on remote learning. You'll both need a break, and you'll probably already be in front of a screen. There is, of course, a world of classic content you can explore together, from film masterpieces like "Spirited Away" (for rent at Amazon, iTunes, Google Play and other sites) to vital series like "Adventure Time" (streaming on Hulu). But if you would like to try something fresher, here are four shows, new this year, that you can enjoy discovering with your children, or at least tolerate while you nod and check your email. They're roughly in order by target audience, youngest to oldest. What "The Powerpuff Girls" did for kindergartners, "Powerbirds" does for parakeets. The premise is simple but cleverly executed. Whenever Max, a comics obsessed teenager, is hanging out in his room, his pet birds Ace and Polly hop and tweet harmlessly in the background. As soon as he leaves, however, they start to talk like the pint size but intrepid crimefighters they are and zoom down to the Command Coop, donning their superhero tights along the way. Their missions around the neighborhood are not of the super dangerous variety one short episode finds them scrambling to keep leaves from falling into the wet cement of a new sidewalk. But the show, created by the editorial cartoonist and children's book author Stephen Breen, gives the costumed parakeets a snap, humor and sophistication that you might not expect in a series aimed at preschoolers. That's especially true with regard to Polly, a plucky dame out of a vintage Hollywood comedy who's played by the animation veteran Tara Strong, the voice of Bubbles in "The Powerpuff Girls." (Universal Kids, 10 a.m. Sundays; universalkids.com) It's the story of a girl and her horse, with a few contemporary twists: They live with her parents in a high rise apartment building and it's the pony who's the nosy, needy, irrepressible attention sponge who constantly gets them into jams. ("I'm friendly," Pony says. "It's who I am. It's never been a problem.") The girl, Annie, and her friends are a wise and patient group who grudgingly accept Pony's disruptions as the price of adolescence; the highly driven Annie, voiced by Jessica DiCicco ("The Loud House," "Adventure Time"), is a little like a kinder gentler version of Kristen Schaal's Louise in "Bob's Burgers," with the snark level adjusted for early tween viewers. The full gallop 15 minute stories, involving Pony's innocent derailment of school projects or the infinite forbearance of Annie's parents, are brisk and charming. But the real attraction of this standout show, which was created by the British animator Ant Blades, is the art, with its heavily outlined, scribbled, brightly colored characters moving across lulling, watercolor like backgrounds. "It's Pony" is an urban tale and the New York like cityscapes and apartment interiors are rendered with surprising depth and detail for a Saturday morning show. And it has an absolutely addictive theme song ("Pony on the sixth floor, pony in the bathroom ..."), which, for parents, may or may not be a good thing. (Nickelodeon, 11:30 a.m. Saturdays; nick.com) Yes, Virginia, there's still a Disney Channel, even though the streaming service Disney Plus is getting all the attention at the moment. And this supernatural comedy for tweens is a good reason to seek it out. It's a wisecracking, fast paced, pop culture savvy coming of age adventure in a classic sitcom style, with hints of Matt Groening (in the imaginative monsters) and Seth MacFarlane (in the lightly cynical repartee, pitched, at a guess, for 10 to 12 year old ears). A Dominican American teenager, Luz (Sarah Nicole Robles), stumbles into an alternate world where magic and an ambient ooze are facts of life, and humans are looked down on as talentless wastes of space. It's a setup for mean girl and gross out humor, and for positive lessons as Luz struggles for acceptance and tries to learn magic. The show's irresistible force, though, is the instantly identifiable, bourbon soaked voice of the wonderful Wendie Malick, who plays Eda, the impatient witch who takes on Luz as an apprentice and all around punching bag. (On midseason hiatus; streaming at Disney Now) 'Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts' This 10 episode eco fantasy comes from DreamWorks Animation and Netflix, and it has a visual sophistication that separates it from the other shows here. (The show's provenance also brings in voice actors like Sterling K. Brown, Dan Stevens, Lea DeLaria, John Hodgman and GZA for supporting characters.) Its story, about a 13 year old who ventures to the surface of a post apocalyptic earth and finds overgrown urban ruins and a colorful variety of mutant talking animals, is typical teenage adventure fare. But its artwork, an integration of practical American action and Miyazaki inflected anime splendor, will keep you in front of the screen after your bored teenagers have wandered off. (Netflix)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
A roundup of motoring news from the web: Toyota announced Thursday that it would recall 466,000 vehicles, some for a brake malfunction and others for a spare tire mount that won't hold the extra wheel in place under the vehicle. The recall, of which most of the vehicles are in the United States, includes about 450,000 Toyota Sienna minivans from the 2004 10 model years and 16,000 Lexus GS sedans from the 2013 model year. In the minivans, the spare tire retention cable was prone to rust, and the Lexus sedans had a faulty switch in the braking system that could cause the car to stop unexpectedly. Toyota says it is not aware of any accidents or injuries related to the defects. (Reuters) General Motors says it will start a pilot program this year to help promote seatbelt use. Joining with OnStar in support of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's "Click it or Ticket" campaign, G.M. announced its Belt Assurance System, which it said would not allow the driver to shift the vehicle out of park until the driver and front passenger seatbelts were buckled. (General Motors) In other General Motors news, the automaker introduced an upscale version of its 2015 Sierra pickup this week: the All Terrain HD. The truck will feature off road shock absorbers, a skid plate, a hill descent control system and either a 6 liter V8 or a turbodiesel engine. (USA Today) The Federal Mogul Holdings Corporation, an aftermarket auto parts supplier, announced Thursday that it would rename itself Federal Mogul Motorparts, effective immediately. The move is part of the company's strategy to promote its top products and spur global growth. (MarketWatch)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
Jason Witten, the ironman Dallas Cowboys tight end who retired from the N.F.L. and joined "Monday Night Football" last year, announced Thursday that he would return to the team. By the time the season starts, he will be 37. "The fire inside of me to compete and play this game is just burning too strong," Witten said in a statement. "This team has a great group of rising young stars, and I want to help them make a run at a championship. This was completely my decision, and I am very comfortable with it. I'm looking forward to getting back in the dirt." The Cowboys were 10 6 last season with a wild card playoff win. But their top tight end, Blake Jarwin, had only 307 receiving yards. Dallas missed the playoffs in Witten's last season. When Witten retired in May, he said of his decision, "Better three hours too soon than a minute too late."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Even as the art world in Los Angeles has grown more vital over the last decade, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles has often appeared to be on life support struggling with financial problems and leadership turnover. Now the institution is betting its future on Klaus Biesenbach, the charismatic sometimes controversial director of MoMA PS1 in Queens, who will become its next director. It is the third time the museum, known as MOCA, has picked a leader from New York. "He's exceptional," said Catherine Opie, who serves on the museum's board, citing in particular Mr. Biesenbach's strong relationship with artists. "One of the things MOCA has always prided itself on is being the artists' museum." Although he feels strongly attached to MoMA where he started in 1995 as a curator at PS1 (then called P.S. 1 Center for Contemporary Art) and also serves as MoMA's chief curator at large Mr. Biesenbach, 52, said he is excited to begin this next chapter on the West Coast. "It's a huge opportunity," he said in a telephone interview. His start date has yet to be determined. Mr. Biesenbach is not an uncomplicated choice. During his tenure at PS1, one of the largest art institutions in the United States dedicated to contemporary art, Mr. Biesenbach championed emerging artists made the institution a gathering place for multidisciplinary programs and expanded the board to 30 members from 11. But he has also been roundly criticized for curating shows at MoMA like the retrospective of the Icelandic musical artist Bjork in 2015 and the Marina Abramovic show "The Artist Is Present" in 2010. "MoMA Curator Klaus Biesenbach Should Be Fired Over Bjork Show Debacle," said one Artnet news headline. "The show reeks of ambivalence," said Roberta Smith, in her New York Times review, "as if MoMA, despite its frantic drive to cover the entire waterfront of cutting edge art and visual culture, couldn't quite commit." She also called the Abramovic show "cheesy." Maurice Marciano a chairman of MOCA's board, said that art is often controversial and that the board had satisfied itself that Mr. Biesenbach had learned from those experiences. "When you try to innovate and do really new things which have not been done before, sometimes you're very successful and sometimes it doesn't succeed the way you were hoping," Mr. Marciano said, adding that he thought Mr. Biesenbach would be "much more thoughtful" going forward. Glenn D. Lowry, MoMA's director, said that while he is sorry to see Mr. Biesenbach leave, that "he was an obvious candidate for MOCA" and "will do an outstanding job." (MoMA will begin a search for his replacement this fall.) Founded in 1979 by a group of collectors, MOCA over the years has built an internationally renowned collection of postwar art of more than 7,000 objects. In recent years, the museum has found itself struggling to stay afloat and grappling with controversy. Amid the economic downturn of 2008, having spent substantial portions of its endowment to finance current operations (in opposition to standard museum guidelines), MOCA even considered merging with the Los Angeles County Museum. And it cycled through directors, a troubling sign for any institution. In 2008, Jeremy Strick was forced to resign as director as part of a 30 million bailout from Eli Broad, the city's leading cultural patron. In 2013, the art dealer Jeffrey Deitch resigned as director after a stormy three year tenure during which all the artists on the museum's board John Baldessari, Catherine Opie, Barbara Kruger and Ed Ruscha resigned to protest the departure of the longtime chief curator Paul Schimmel. This year in February, Mark Grotjahn, one of the artists on MOCA's board, declined to accept an award at the museum's 2018 gala, citing a lack of diversity in the museum's recent honorees. In March, the museum was widely criticized for dismissing its respected and well liked chief curator, Helen Molesworth. And in May, Philippe Vergne formerly of the Dia Art Foundation confirmed that he was leaving his post as director after four years in the job. Mr. Biesenbach said he originally began conversations with the museum as an informal consultant who might help them into the next phase and then quickly became a candidate himself. (The board said it narrowed the pool from 40 to 4 before selecting Mr. Biesenbach.) Having started organizations like the Kunst Werke (KW) Institute for Contemporary Art (1990) and the Berlin Biennale (1996), Mr. Biesenbach said his experience is relevant to MOCA's needs. "I've done several times the reorientation of an institution in a moment of growth," he said. "The word curator also means taking care." Indeed, he has a track record of generating activity and attention. At PS1 working with Alanna Heiss, its founder he created the "Warm Up" outdoor summer series of live music and helped found the "Greater New York" exhibition series, which showcases emerging talent in the metropolitan area. In 2006, he was named chief curatorial advisor at PS1 and founding chief curator of MoMA's newly formed department of media, which he broadened through performance workshops and acquisitions, and, in 2009, he became founding chief curator of the parent organization's department of media and performance art. In response to Hurricane Sandy, he started the ongoing "Rockaway!" public arts festival, which has featured site specific works in Fort Tilden by Janet Cardiff, Patti Smith, Katharina Grosse, and Yayoi Kusama. "I really think L.A. is turning into the new Berlin," said Mr. Biesenbach, who lived in the German capital for 15 years. "So many artists are moving there. It's a completely different city right now." To all appearances, it looks as if the lines of visitors across the street at the Broad Museum haven't yet spilled over into MOCA's galleries, though Ms. Opie said attendance was up. Still, Mr. Marciano acknowledged that MOCA hopes to generate similar buzz about its own activities, and Mr. Biesenbach said he wants to work closely with the city's art museum directors, including Joanne Heyler at the Broad; Michael Govan at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Ann Philbin at the Hammer Museum. "I would love to reach out to them and say, how can we collaborate and listen to their feedback," Mr. Biesenbach said. "I think L.A. is at a moment where there is a change, where all of a sudden it looks like America is reorienting a lot of attention to the West Coast."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Credit...Gray Mortimore/Getty Images They gather every year, except for this cruel one, in the village where they are immortal. The men on the stage in Cooperstown, N.Y., at the annual Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, brought joy to millions. We look at them and see endless summer. Yet life goes on for them after the final out, and only their feats live forever. The further they get from the field, the stronger their sense of mortality. "It's kind of bittersweet, because each year you sit there and you look around and you say to yourself, 'Who's not going to be here next year?'" Ozzie Smith said recently. "And it happens so quickly. When you first go in, you see all these people and you don't think in those terms: 'When is this person going to leave this earth?' This year was a real tough one." They all overlapped for one season 1967 and Niekro played the most recently, in 1987, with Cleveland, Toronto and, for a final cameo, the Atlanta Braves, his primary team. He was 48 years old then, his fifth year in a row as the game's oldest player. Defying age, of course, is part of the magic of the knuckleball. Hoyt Wilhelm, the other knuckler with a plaque in Cooperstown, retired at 49. Charlie Hough was 46, Tim Wakefield 45, R.A. Dickey 42. The majors' oldest player this season was a designated hitter, Albert Pujols, who is 40. On a related note, the knuckleball is essentially extinct. None Everyone Loves Ohtani: The Angels' two way star was a unanimous pick for A.L. M.V.P. and his superfans redefine devotion. Phillie Phavorite: Bryce Harper truly committed to Philadelphia and now he's back on top of baseball, winning the N.L. M.V.P. Cy Young Winners: Milwaukee's Corbin Burnes and Toronto's Robbie Ray had hit rock bottom before they worked their way up to stardom. Baseball Is Stuck in Neutral: The potential of a lockout has a star studded group of free agents waiting for the dust to settle. Free Agency Tracker: Get the latest updates on signings, contract extensions and trades. The website Fangraphs, which tracks every pitch, counted only three pitchers who threw the knuckleball in 2020: Erik Kratz, Todd Frazier and Bryan Holaday, position players moonlighting as pitchers at the end of blowouts. The idea that his pitch would survive only as a joke must have dismayed Niekro. "Phil and Charlie and Wake, they all would share how important it is to perpetuate the craft," Dickey, who won the 2012 National League Cy Young Award while with the Mets, said by phone on Sunday. "We know how hard it is to do it, how rare it is to do it and it's so hard to evaluate. It's hard to catch it, it's hard to coach it. It's hard to predict what it's going to be." Niekro learned the pitch he used through 24 major league seasons from his father, also named Phil, a sandlot pitcher in Ohio who turned to it after hurting his arm. It worked so well for young Phil in pickup games with neighborhood kids including John Havlicek, the future N.B.A. Hall of Famer that he never saw the need for other pitches. "I didn't know there were knuckleball pitchers in the big leagues," Niekro said a few years ago. "I didn't even know what a knuckleball was. It was just something that I had fun with, playing catch with my dad." Jim Bouton, the author of "Ball Four," loved telling the story of meeting Niekro in Kearny, Neb., in 1959, when they were both 20 years old and just starting their pro careers. Bouton noticed Niekro practicing his knuckleball in the outfield before a game, and the pitch was dancing. Bouton threw several pitches, including a knuckleball, and asked Niekro what else he threw. Nothing else, Niekro replied, and Bouton felt pity for him. By 1963, Bouton was winning 21 games for the Yankees and starting in the World Series, while Niekro had still not surfaced in the majors. "I remembered him and I thought, 'Oh, that poor kid, he's still in the minor leagues and I don't know how he hangs on, because I'm on my way to the Hall of Fame,'" Bouton said, a few years before his death in 2019. "Well, guess what? That poor kid, limited to one pitch he's in the Hall of Fame now. It's a good reminder for me of the tortoise and the hare." Niekro was 27 before he reached the majors for good, in August 1966, but his mastery of that one pitch gave him a staggering kind of durability. He had just 31 victories by his 30th birthday, and 287 thereafter. He logged more than 1,000 innings from 1977 through 1979, when he averaged 19 wins and 19 losses per season. "I didn't coach him; he was too old to coach," Gibson said with a laugh in 2015. "Right before we got there, he'd be winning 19 or so, but also losing 19. So what we did, we would get into the sixth or seventh inning and we'd see him not pitching so well and we'd take him out. Oh, it would tick him off! "The first year we got there, he was 17 4 but he was mad at us because we were taking him out. We wouldn't leave him in there long enough to get whacked around, because in the seventh or eighth inning, he started getting pretty tired and because he was throwing a knuckleball, he figured he could just go ahead and pitch nine innings. But that knuckleball doesn't knuckle, either, when you get tired." Niekro would finish with 5,404 innings, fourth on the career list behind Cy Young, Pud Galvin and Walter Johnson, who were all born in the 19th century. But while the knuckleball is easier on the arm the pitcher is trying to kill spin, not impart it no other practitioners approached Niekro's innings total. The knuckleball only looks like an everyman pitch; it actually takes superhuman patience and persistence. Mastering it, Niekro would tell aspirants, requires complete fidelity. "My advice to them is take your fastball, curveball and slider and forget about 'em flush 'em down the toilet," he said. "You're going to be a knuckleball pitcher. That's all we're going to throw."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Robert Rosencrans, a daring cable television industry pioneer who was instrumental in creating C Span, the unfiltered public affairs network that faithfully covers government proceedings and civic events, died on Wednesday in Greenwich, Conn. He was 89. The cause was complications of a stroke, his son Richard said. "There probably wouldn't be a C Span without him," Brian Lamb, the network's founder and executive chairman, said in an interview on Thursday. C Span, a private, nonprofit, industry financed service, began as the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network in 1979, at a time when fewer than one in five homes was wired for cable. Today it comprises several television and radio channels and a web presence, offering a variety of gavel to gavel coverage of Congress, presidential campaign events and other public affairs programming, including lectures and forums, book reviews, viewer call in programs and interviews. After Mr. Lamb pitched the concept to cable operators, Mr. Rosencrans wrote a 25,000 check on the spot and persuaded other industry executives to pony up 450,000 in seed money to start the network. He became C Span's founding chairman. Mr. Rosencrans, joined by equally audacious engineers, investors and programmers, perceived that cable's potential was in exclusive programming, not merely serving viewers in sparsely populated areas beyond the reach of broadcasters. In conjunction with Madison Square Garden, he drove the creation of a sports channel featuring Knicks and Rangers games. When general programming was added, it evolved into the USA Network. (The MSG Network still exists separately as part of Madison Square Garden.) Investing nearly 100,000, his Columbia Cable Systems was credited with being the first cable operator to install a satellite receiving station in 1975, to deliver the Muhammad Ali Joe Frazier championship fight from Manila to its Florida subscribers. On Thursday, the National Cable Telecommunications Association said Mr. Rosencrans's early cable systems were "precursors to today's life changing television and internet infrastructure." Robert Morris Rosencrans was born on March 26, 1927, in New York City. His father, Alvin, was an immigrant from Austria who imported ornaments for women's hats. His mother, the former Eva Greene, immigrated from Russia and became a dress designer. Some of her creations, including an inaugural gown worn by the first lady Mamie Eisenhower, were credited to her sister in law and partner, Nettie Rosenstein, under whose label the fashions were sold. Mr. Rosencrans was raised in Woodmere, on Long Island, and planned to enroll in Dartmouth but decided to stay closer to home after his older brother died in combat during the final months of World War II. After enlisting and serving stateside in the Army Air Forces, he majored in economics at Columbia University and graduated in 1949 with bachelor's and master's degrees. (A fan of the Giants baseball team, he attended the 1951 game at the Polo Grounds in which Bobby Thomson's "shot heard 'round the world" home run won the pennant.) He is survived by his wife, the former Marjorie Meyers; three sons, Richard, Ron and Robert; a daughter, Robbie Heidinger; and 11 grandchildren. After Mr. Rosencrans had brief, unsatisfying stints in retailing, a friend referred him to Box Office Television, which was hoping to help movie theaters compete with television by offering closed circuit programming, like live theater, and Harlem Globetrotter basketball and Notre Dame football games. The company, whose investors included the comedian Sid Caesar, also produced programming for hotels. After Box Office Television bought TelePrompTer in 1956 to expand its closed circuit programming, Mr. Rosencrans received a call from a cable system operator in Casper, Wyo., who wanted to feed a boxing match to his subscribers. A quick study, he recruited other investors and in 1961, began buying up small town systems, brokered the 1975 fight broadcast (which was credited with persuading Time Inc. not to pull the plug on HBO); approached Madison Square Garden to start MSG; helped organize, with Kay Koplovitz, the USA Network, which was the first basic cable channel distributed by satellite; offered Robert L. Johnson a few hours of Friday night satellite time, which became Black Entertainment Television, or BET; and then answered Mr. Lamb's invitation to start C Span. Mr. Rosencrans, a political liberal, invested in C Span with his Columbia Cable partner, Kenneth S. Gunter, a conservative. In 1977 he said that he saw the channel as a public service and a promotional opportunity.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
BLACK WAVE Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East By Kim Ghattas Ayatollah Khomeini raised no objection when Salman Rushdie's 1988 novel "The Satanic Verses" was translated into Farsi and first sold in Iran not until Saudi Arabia started to campaign against it. The Saudis, jealous of their claim as guardians of Islam, caught wind of the allegations of blasphemy in the novel soon after its publication. The Saudi Embassy in London organized a push to ban the book. Muslims demonstrated in Bolton and Bradford. Then a Pakistani Islamist group staged a copycat protest in Islamabad, where security forces killed five and injured 80. That is when Ayatollah Khomeini heard the news and one upped the Saudis. The ayatollah did not just call for a ban. He ordered Muslims everywhere to execute Rushdie or anyone else involved in the book's publication. The Japanese translator was assassinated as the ayatollah had instructed, and attempts were made on the lives of the Turkish translator and Norwegian publisher. How did the Saudis respond? Beaten to the fatwa, Saudi religious authorities could object only to the process. They proclaimed that Saudi religious courts should have been the ones to try and sentence Rushdie for blasphemy in absentia not some upstart Persian pretender. The holier than thou intolerance race that produced the Rushdie fatwa is one of many deadly episodes recounted by Kim Ghattas, a Lebanese born journalist and scholar, in her sweeping and authoritative history, "Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East." Although Rushdie survived, Ghattas argues that his death sentence was a milestone on a dark road to the killing of other intellectuals as apostates from the liberal Egyptian thinker Farag Foda in 1992 to the liberal Pakistani politician Salman Taseer in 2011. "Death by blasphemy had now been introduced to the Muslim world," Ghattas writes, "by a strange twist in the competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia to position themselves as the standard bearer of global Islam." Want to keep up with the latest and greatest in books? This is a good place to start. None Learn what you should be reading this fall: Our collection of reviews on books coming out this season includes biographies, novels, memoirs and more. See what's new in October: Among this month's new titles are novels by Jonathan Franzen, a history of Black cinema and a biography by Katie Couric. Nominate a book: The New York Times Book Review has just turned 125. That got us wondering: What is the best book that was published during that time? Listen to our podcast: Featuring conversations with leading figures in the literary world, from Colson Whitehead to Leila Slimani, the Book Review Podcast helps you delve deeper into your favorite books. Ghattas has set herself an ambitious task. She wants to explain much of the chaos that has convulsed the Middle East and Southeast Asia for the last four decades the Iran Iraq war, the upheavals in Afghanistan, the assassinations in Pakistan and the civil wars in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. She argues convincingly that these conflicts are all in some ways fallout from the fierce competition between two parallel "Islamic revolutions" in the annus horribilis of 1979. Americans remember the revolution in Tehran, which brought to power the Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Republic, turned back decades of social liberalization in Iranian society and triggered the capture of more than 50 hostages in the United States Embassy in Tehran. Ghattas, though, gives equal weight to a more obscure uprising that unfolded just a few months later across the Persian Gulf in Mecca, when a band of Saudi militants seized the Grand Mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites. Faced with a devastating challenge to its credibility as the divinely sanctioned custodian of Mecca's holy places, the Saudi royal family was forced to rely on a team of French commandos to recapture the mosque. Dozens died in a blood bath. Then, to try to restore its authority while at the same time papering over the embarrassment of the French intervention, the royal family redoubled its historic reliance on the kingdom's puritanical religious establishment as the source of its legitimacy. The highest Saudi religious authority of the day Abdelaziz bin Baz, a legendary blind cleric whose vision of Islam was no less medieval than that of the ayatollah's extracted a high price for blessing the French commando operations. He used his new leverage "to force the royal family to live up to the Islamic ideals that he felt they had let slip," Ghattas writes. "He drove a hard bargain that would haunt the kingdom and the whole region for decades, a bargain that would make Saudis feel that time had stopped in its tracks." After 1979, the Saudi authorities removed women from television newscasts, blotted out the faces of women in newspaper photographs and cracked down on the already forbidden practice of women's employment. Beach clubs and cinemas were closed. The religious police the so called Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice were showered with funding and newly empowered. The consequences are personal for Ghattas, who still lives at least part time in Beirut. "What happened to us?" she asks on behalf of the people of the Arab and Muslim worlds. "The question may not occur to those too young to remember a different world, or whose parents did not tell them of a youth spent reciting poetry in Peshawar, debating Marxism late into the night in the bars of Beirut or riding bicycles to picnic on the banks of the Tigris River in Baghdad." She reminds readers of how almost unimaginably different the region once was, recalling the seaside garden of abstract sculptures by Henry Moore, Joan Miro and other modern artists that a daring mayor once assembled in the Saudi city of Jeddah. Too many in the West, she insists, wrongly attribute the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran to age old theological differences between Sunnis and Shiites. Sectarian animosities are described as "inevitable and eternal," and then blamed for pulling apart Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and other areas of the region. Ghattas's narrative upends this Western misconception. Instead of feuding over theology, Ghattas shows, Saudi Arabia and Iran transformed latent religious divisions into weapons wielded in the pursuit of political power, by cultivating and often arming sectarian militias across the region. "Before it was weaponized in the years following 1979, the Sunni Shia schism lay mostly dormant," Ghattas notes. Minorities like the Alawites of Syria or the Zaidi of Yemen had coexisted more or less peaceably throughout the area. And even after 1979 the hard line rulers of Iran and Saudi Arabia have sometimes overlooked sectarian disagreements in the interest of political expedience, sometimes pursuing short lived phases of rapprochement with each other. Ghattas tries to pinpoint the first moments when the Saudi and Iranian religious rivalries exploded into violence. In the summer of 1987, for example, the Saudi and American backed Islamist strongman who ruled Pakistan became the first modern ruler to deploy one sectarian militia against another: A two week battle in the district of Kurram near the Afghanistan border killed 52 Shiites and 120 Sunnis and left 14 villages all or partially destroyed. It was "the first premeditated, state sponsored attack by one sectarian militia against another sect, the first such killing that the Muslim world had witnessed in modern times," Ghattas writes. A car bombing in Najaf, Iraq, in 2003, after the American invasion, was the first time since a Saudi raid on Karbala in 1801 that Sunni Arab fighters "had specifically set out to kill Shias." Ghattas tells many of these stories through the eyes of myriad individual men and often women who spoke out in one way or another against the post 1979 conservative turn in the region "all progressive thinkers who represent the vibrant, pluralistic world that persists beneath the black wave."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Marielle Sophia Newman and Jason Leverett had originally planned on having their March 29 wedding and reception at Schubas Tavern in Chicago, a live music spot in the couple's Lakeview neighborhood. "We can walk to our wedding," said Ms. Newman, 37, a manuscript editor at the Journal of the American Medical Association, explaining her choice. It was going to be a "D.I.Y., homegrown" event. Ms. Newman, who goes by Sophia, would handle the flower arrangements. Mr. Leverett, 35, a lifelong science fiction aficionado, planned to create the table numbers by framing floral wreathed illustrations of Godzilla characters like Gigan, Gamera and Jet Jaguar. The couple also put together an eclectic song list, ranging from Bangladeshi music (a nod to the bride's time as a Fulbright scholar in South Asia in 2012 13) to the theme song to the 1980s cartoon "DuckTales." "I'm not a girl who spent her childhood dreaming of a wedding," Ms. Newman said in early March. "This is not my fantasy." But then, in an attempt to help curb the spread of the coronavirus, the United States began blocking European travelers. Fantasy or not, this meant that Ms. Newman's matron of honor, Kristin Hestmann Vinjerui, a physician from Levanger, Norway, could no longer fly in for the scheduled wedding weekend. It would have been her first time meeting the groom in person. The two women met in high school in the late '90s when Ms. Vinjerui went to Homewood, Ill., Ms. Newman's hometown, on a student exchange trip. "Back then she was a punk, with a mohawk and everything," Ms. Vinjerui said of her friend. She said she appreciated the fact that Ms. Newman called her by her first name, unlike some of the other students, who called her "Kris" or "Norway" or "Communist." "We would go to the cafe at the Flossmoor train station and eat French fries and chat," she said. Ms. Newman's flavor of "punk," she said, was less about music or anarchy or even a hair style and more about a state of mind. "Don't let anyone tell you you're not able to do something. Stand up for your rights," she said. Ms. Newman is the middle child (one of four sisters and a brother) of Robert T. Newman and Margaret L. Newman of Homewood, Ill. She graduated from Tulane with a degree in cell and molecular biology. She received a master's degree in public health from the University of Illinois and a certificate in global mental health from Harvard. After her time as a Fulbright scholar, she worked as a freelance global health journalist for several years, reporting from Nepal, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya and France. Eventually her wanderlust began to wane. "There should be a movie about people who are working and traveling abroad called 'How to be Single,'" she said. "It's hard to be in South Asia or Iraq or Africa and have a thriving career in the humanitarian sector or as an international researcher or journalist like I was and have a really thriving dating life." On her 35th birthday, in 2017, Ms. Newman decided to sign on to a dating app with a self imposed, one month deadline, or as she put it, "the maximum length of time I thought I could endure dating app nonsense." She was drawn to the writing and music interests Mr. Leverett listed on his profile. "There was something about his face," she said. "I just thought, 'He seems so nice.' Although he has pointed out that I failed to notice, he has very long, luscious eyelashes." Mr. Leverett, originally from Detroit, was intrigued that Ms. Newman listed that she spoke five languages, although he didn't have high hopes for any relationship. "She sent me an email saying, 'I hate dating sites,'" said Mr. Leverett, 35, a talent acquisition specialist for the Chicago recruiting firm Chamberlain Advisors. When they agreed to have their first date on Aug. 24 (exactly one month after Ms. Newman's self imposed online dating deadline), he recalls her saying, "I'm not really interested in dating right now, but I'm interested in having more friends. Why don't we go to the Art Institute, one of my favorite places?'" As she waited for him on the museum steps, Ms. Newman said she realized, "I am really ready for a relationship, whenever this time of being single comes to an end." After Mr. Leverett arrived, and by the time they had reached the top of the museum's atrium staircase, she said she "looked at him and thought, 'Yep, that's the end of that.'" Over the next two years, they introduced each other to their passions. Ms. Newman, who has appeared as a supernumerary in professional dance and opera productions, invited Mr. Leverett to accompany her to the Joffrey Ballet. "She was pitching the idea of going to the ballet with me, saying, 'I know you probably are going to hate this.'" But Mr. Leverett, the son of Brian S. Leverett, a retired music teacher in Detroit public schools, and Rita M. Leverett, a developer with Haiti Now and World Peace Center, had taken a fine arts curriculum at Cass Technical High School in Michigan before going on to play music professionally. He fronted a "nerdcore punk/anti zombie rock" band called Zombie Apocalypse Now! He hated ballet as a high schooler, he said, but "since we started dating, we've gone to the ballet several times. I've started to really enjoy it." Mr. Leverett turned Ms. Newman on to his love of movies. "It's a weird thing to be in your mid 30s and be like, 'I don't watch movies,'" Ms. Newman said, but until she met Mr. Leverett, she was too busy. "Now she's more interested," Mr. Leverett said. "She's proposed things to go do, like, 'Let's go see an El Santo marathon at the Music Box,' which is crazy." Mr. Leverett seemed to have inherited his passion for pop culture and science fiction from his parents. "My dad read a lot of the 'Star Wars' novels," said Arielle Leverett, Mr. Leverett's sister, a professional actress and a Universal Life minister who officiated the couple's wedding. "I remember at one point apparently the novels killed off Chewbacca." Her father was so angry, she said. "I'm pretty sure he wrote a letter." On their first date, Mr. Leverett, who studied creative writing from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, had told Ms. Newman about an idea he had for a fictional comedy blaxploitation podcast called Fisticuffs Jones, inspired in part by the old radio shows his parents used to play for him and his sister. By 2019, he had produced a pilot with his sister and some of her acting friends. Ms. Newman attended show meetings to provide feedback on story ideas and jokes. During one meeting, she recalled how an actor exclaimed in response to one of Mr. Leverett's ideas, "'Jason! Why are you so humble about your dopeness?' Jason was looking at his hands for a minute. He's not the guy to blow his own horn, but he is amazing." Mr. Leverett, in turn, was inspired by Ms. Newman's drive. "She has this will to succeed in everything she does," he said. "I wish I had even half of her ambition. She always seems worried about whether or not she's doing a good job at her place of work and she just kills it. They love her there." The pair share a passion for cooking, which Mr. Leverett says also reflects Ms. Newman's fearlessness. "She'll be like, 'I want to cook three new dishes in a row,' or, 'I found this recipe; I'm just going to do it right now,' and she just does it." Ms. Leverett, observing her brother's romantic relationships over the years, said, "I think the biggest thing is finding someone who is not only going to be happy to be with him, but someone who's happy with themselves and can support him and everything that he is. Because we're weirdos, you want someone who embraces that, is cool with it. 'You go to Comic Con? For what?' You want someone who's just like, 'Sure.'" On July 11, 2019, nearly two years after their first date, Mr. Leverett invited Ms. Newman back to the Art Institute, which was filled with people that day. He took her to the African exhibit, which was crowded like the rest of the museum, but he didn't want to wait to find a more private area. He got down on one knee, presenting a simple gold Claddagh ring he had purchased at Chicago's Jewelers Row. "She was very surprised; she was crying," Mr. Leverett said. "Some random person comes up to us and says congratulations and I was very upset. I didn't want a crowd." The couple had no such issues with their wedding ceremony on March 29, a chilly, wet, windy day. Schubas, or any sort of gathering, would no longer be possible after Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a stay at home order and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot threatened to cite scofflaws after a warm day drew crowds to the lakefront. The couple needed to wed, however, in order to get Mr. Leverett on Ms. Newman's health insurance. About a week before they were scheduled to wed, Ms. Newman noticed lingering symptoms that she suspected might be Covid 19. Then Mr. Leverett began to feel ill. Possibly facing quarantine, they contemplated having Ms. Leverett marry them in their apartment building vestibule after dropping off groceries. "We are grappling with our feelings about this awful situation and how much we don't want to get married alone, in our building lobby, while sick," Ms. Newman said in an email six days before the scheduled wedding date. As it turned out, they still got to walk to their wedding. Ms. Newman's coronavirus test was negative, and the couple's health improved. They met Ms. Leverett in front of a nearby mural to sign the license. "Due to social distancing, there were a lot of people walking down the street to avoid us," Mr. Leverett said. Ms. Leverett, a Shakespearean actress, recited Sonnet 116 before riding back home on her bicycle. Then it was over. "We went home immediately, changed, hung up our things and washed our hands thoroughly," Ms. Newman said. They read some congratulatory texts and emails from their parents and Ms. Newman's siblings. "The rest was an ordinary Sunday." The planned wedding and reception with their 59 invited guests was put on hold until late August. "I really would like to see people," Ms. Newman said. For now, she said, "Jason is proving to be the guy I'd most like to be stuck in a house with, and my new willingness to watch all the Marvel cinematic universe movies with him turned out to be well timed." Where 3637 North Southport Avenue, in front of a floral mural by the Chinese American artist Louise Jones, a.k.a. Ouizi, a chrysanthemum, Chicago's official flower. Wedding Attire Under a duffel coat, the bride donned a teal Anthropologie dress she had planned to wear for the rehearsal dinner; the groom wore a suit by Kenneth Cole and a coordinating blue green shirt. "We didn't want to go in full wedding regalia," Ms. Newman said. "We want to save that for the wedding wedding." The 'Reception' After signing the marriage license and posing for a few photos, the couple returned to their apartment, where they enjoyed cider and homemade chocolate chip cookies before putting on "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." "It was one of the best in the Marvel cinematic universe," said the bride. Continue following our fashion and lifestyle coverage on Facebook (Styles and Modern Love), Twitter (Styles, Fashion and Weddings) and Instagram.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
BECKET, Mass. A ballerina and a b boy fall in love. It sounds like the setup for a sentimental American movie about people with radically different backgrounds connecting. But what if she is German, with a Korean mother? And what if he is French, with Spanish and Catalonian parents? That sounds not just like a European variation but also one with potentially less predictable complications. It is the real story of Honji Wang and Sebastien Ramirez, and it is the subject of their 2011 duo "Monchichi," which began a run here at Jacob's Pillow on Wednesday. The language that bridges their differences, though, isn't some blend of ballet and breaking. It's an outgrowth of hip hop, and Ms. Wang dances it as adroitly as Mr. Ramirez. At one point, she even does so in high heels and a blond wig, for the tradition that "Monchichi" crosses with hip hop is not ballet. It's European tanztheater. They share the stage with a bare tree that might be from "Waiting for Godot," except that it later lights up white, red and green. The beginning of the dance is actually more Adam and Eve like, with the man and the woman wary of each other, yet interested. The staccato, robotic way they isolate parts of their bodies makes them seem especially isolated as people. Their first physical interactions have an experimental, what does this do quality. When they connect, it's with fingers at the ends of sinuous, worming arms. The choreography is striking, but only in flashes. Ms. Wang is cool and consistent, but the most remarkable aspect of Mr. Ramirez's elastic dancing is how he keeps stopping short, pulling up, putting on the brakes. He seems to let loose so that he might rein himself in.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
The New York Times received four George Polk Awards on Wednesday, the most of any news organization, including one for The 1619 Project, a series from The Times Magazine centered on reframing United States history by focusing on the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans. Long Island University, the institutional home of the Polk Awards, announced the 15 winners of one of journalism's most prestigious honors at the National Press Club in Washington. The award for political reporting was split between reporters at The Wichita Eagle, a Kansas newspaper owned by McClatchy, which declared bankruptcy this month, and The Baltimore Sun, a daily owned by Tribune Publishing, which recently disclosed that its largest shareholder is Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund with a reputation for cutting costs at newsrooms it owns. Reporting for The Eagle, Chance Swaim, Jonathan Shorman and Dion Lefler revealed that the Wichita mayor, Jeff Longwell, had steered a 524 million contract to friends and supporters, instead of the choice of a selection panel. The Sun reporter Luke Broadwater worked with colleagues to show that Mayor Catherine Pugh of Baltimore had collected 800,000 disguised as bulk purchases by hospitals and health insurers of her self published "Healthy Holly" children's books. The Sun's journalism led to the resignation of Ms. Pugh, who pleaded guilty to federal charges. Nikole Hannah Jones of The Times and other contributors to The 1619 Project won a special award. In a news release, the Polk Awards cited Ms. Hannah Jones's "powerful introduction," noting that it "examined efforts of black Americans to advance the nation's expressed ideals of democracy, liberty and equality in the face of centuries of oppression and exclusion." The project, which Ms. Hannah Jones created, has been adapted into an audio series and was featured in a recent television commercial for The Times starring the singer Janelle Monae. Five historians disputed what they characterized as the project's argument that "the United States was founded on racial slavery" in a letter to the editor and sought corrections; Jake Silverstein, the editor in chief of The Times Magazine, defended the project and declined to include the requested corrections. Other Times journalists who were named as Polk honorees included Azam Ahmed, the winner in the category of foreign reporting for his work on gang warfare across Latin America and the Caribbean, and Brian M. Rosenthal, who won the local reporting award for his investigation of the underground economy behind New York City taxi medallions. Mark Scheffler, Malachy Browne and others at the Times's visual investigations desk won the international award for their open source reporting on the bombing of hospitals, a refugee camp and a busy street in Syria by Russian pilots. The Washington Post's Craig Whitlock won the military reporting award for "The Afghanistan Papers," which showed that U.S. officials' real time acknowledgments of failures in the war in Afghanistan had been kept from the public. The Houston Chronicle's Lomi Kriel won in the national reporting category for uncovering the Trump administration's border policies. Ford and Rivian no longer plan to work jointly on electric vehicles. Elizabeth Holmes took the stand in her trial. Follow along with our reporters. Ken Griffin, head of Citadel, bid highest for a copy of the Constitution. Three reporters from Bloomberg News won the financial reporting award for a series on how some investors exploited and profited from the "opportunity zone" codicil of the 2017 federal tax law, which was designed to benefit impoverished neighborhoods. Four reporters from The Seattle Times won in the business reporting category for showing that the Federal Aviation Administration had approved the Boeing 737 Max's flight control system later found to be flawed, after two fatal crashes after its cooperation with Boeing's own inspectors. One of the reporters, Mike Baker, is now the Seattle bureau chief for The New York Times. Lizzie Presser won the magazine reporting award for an article published by the nonprofit ProPublica and The New Yorker about legal maneuverings that took land away from black families in the South who had owned it for generations. John Sudworth won for television reporting because of his BBC News investigation into China's camps for members of the Uighur ethnic minority. The staff of the Long Island tabloid Newsday won in the metropolitan reporting category for a multimedia investigative series, "Long Island Divided," that uncovered racial discrimination by more than 90 suburban real estate agents in violation of state and federal law. The project took three years to report. Several of the winners are expected to participate in a seminar moderated by the journalist Charlayne Hunter Gault at the Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts, part of Long Island University Brooklyn, on April 2. A luncheon ceremony in Manhattan is scheduled for the next day. The awards are given each year in memory of the CBS correspondent George Polk, who was murdered in 1948 while covering the Greek civil war. "In an age when much of our most incisive journalism is the product of multi organization collaboration and team reporting, it is heartening to note that eight of this year's Polk winners are the work of individual reporters," John Darnton, the curator of the awards, said in a statement. "This speaks to the legacy of the man whose work these awards continue to honor 72 years after his assassination."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
"Check, check," goes the razor. "Scha, scha, scha," goes the strop. But there is no razor; there is no strop. The only thing making noise onstage during John Lithgow's "Stories by Heart," which opened Thursday evening at the American Airlines Theater, is Mr. Lithgow himself. Reciting Ring Lardner's 1925 short story "Haircut," set in a small town barbershop in the Midwest, he brings an anthropologist's specificity (and a Foley artist's ingenuity) to every swoop of the apron and slap of the pomade that accompanies the main character's monologue. So, to begin with, give Mr. Lithgow a sound effects award. And then give him one for spiritual effects, because "Stories by Heart" is delightful: illuminating the stories, uplifting us. That was just what worried me: the possibility of past its prime ham. (Mr. Lithgow has never been uncomfortable with the grand style.) "Stories by Heart" seemed to be the kind of quick and cheap show that a theater company, in this case the Roundabout, mounts when there's a hole in its schedule or budget. (The production, directed by Daniel Sullivan, is luxurious only in Kenneth Posner's lighting.) Besides, who needs the equivalent of a bedtime fairy tale on Broadway when you can have your phone read you "Moby Dick" on the subway? Though golden enough for any nostalgist, "Stories by Heart" is neither soporific nor cute. For starters, the two stories that Mr. Lithgow recites "Haircut" in the first act and P. G. Wodehouse's "Uncle Fred Flits By" in the second are superb, outlandish and, in very different ways, hair raising. You wouldn't guess that from the opening of "Haircut," in which a professionally logorrheic barber entertains a new customer with tales of life in his two bit town. There's this practical joker, you see, and this gal who won't give him the time of day and this doctor she likes and so on. But the story soon asserts itself, or rather insinuates itself, as a scathing indictment of good old boy ism: the barely civilized tradition of men playing tricks on one another and arranging nasty traps (including marriage) for women. That's all in the Lardner, but Mr. Lithgow adds another emotional channel by showing us how the barber, himself a good old boy, is implicated in the nastiness he pretends only to describe. An astonishing collection of laughs whinnies, giggles, squeals, snorts, heaves gradually colors the narrative, until this seemingly harmless man becomes, in effect, not just a witness to savagery, but also an accessory. The seemingly harmless man I mean is the one in Lardner's story, but the same thought applies to the quite real man who plays him. The ease with which Mr. Lithgow inhabits the character, merely untucking his shirt to suggest a barber's smock, hints at the way all effective storytellers are complicit in their stories. So there is a touch of pathos in learning, from Mr. Lithgow's personal patter, that he first got to know "Haircut" when his father read it to him and his siblings during their peripatetic childhood. Arthur Lithgow, himself a man of the theater, with a "plummy voice and husky smell," spent his life teaching and acting and opening Shakespeare festivals around the Midwest, moving often to stay one step ahead of ruination. With however much love the younger Lithgow daubs the memory and "Stories by Heart" is in essence a son's tribute he cannot quite overpaint the other colors of that exciting life, just as the barber cannot help revealing more than he intends. And then in the second act, as the fiction gets lighter, the memoir gets darker. We now learn more about Arthur Lithgow at the end of his life, when depression almost completed the job disease had started. Seeking to raise Arthur's spirits as he hovered on the threshold of his final illness (he died in 2004), John Lithgow started reading aloud to his father the same stories his father had once read aloud to him. The one that turned the key to the elder Lithgow's mood was the Wodehouse, and if it doesn't turn the key to yours, you are not susceptible to British literary humor. Like all of Wodehouse's best tales, "Uncle Fred Flits By" is utter nonsense, a tightly plotted farce made of thin air. In this one, the first of a series published from 1935 to 1961, readers are introduced to a nervous Londoner named Pongo Twistleton, whose orderly life is disarrayed by the visit of his peremptory and mischievous uncle Fred from the country. A day trip to Fred's ancestral home now a suburban development of semidetached houses leads to all kinds of impostures and adventures involving an unhappy young woman, her disapproving parents, her "pink" fiance and a conspiratorial parrot. Wodehouse isn't as easy to read aloud as Lardner, but Mr. Lithgow takes a great deal of pleasure in mapping sentences whose verbs are barely in earshot of their subjects. And he revels in Dadaist assemblages like this one: "I know if someone came to me and said 'Jelly this eel!' I should be nonplused." Yet the Wodehouse, for all its airy wit, is not about nothing: It too is a story of deception, only in this case the kind that delivers delicious comeuppance to the puffed up and slow witted. And what could feel more current, more worthwhile, in the first cold days of 2018 than that? The imagination, Mr. Lithgow wants us to know, is a powerful weapon if we don't let it go dull.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Documentaries about film technology, at least those that aspire to reach some portion of a mainstream audience, have to make wonkiness ingratiating. "Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound," a cogent and winning picture directed by Midge Costin , does this in a variety of ways. After a pro forma but not overly pedantic verbal explanation of why sound matters to movies, it hits us with vivid examples, not just from contemporary films boasting big bang multichannel audio effects, but relative chestnuts such as 1931's "Dracula," which, we are reminded, still packs considerable scary noises mojo. The movie then rolls out the talking heads. Directors, including Peter Weir, David Lynch and Steven Spielberg, have their say, as do a lot of sound engineers, editors, effects creators and more. They're a diverse and chatty bunch, and they reveal a lot about both the overt and almost subliminal ways in which sound can take hold of our emotions while we're watching a film.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Over the holidays, many of us will drink, stay up past bedtime, eat an extra slice of pie and sleep in. Fun as they are, these activities can tamper with our circadian rhythms, the feedback loops that sync our body's functions to our external environment. The liver, which helps regulate your body's metabolism, gets thrown off by unhealthy patterns of sleep or by changes in diet or alcohol consumption. If you're experiencing indigestion or your energy levels are low after too many holiday parties, your liver could be out of sync. In recent years, more and more research in the field of chronobiology, the science of biological rhythms, suggests the importance of maintaining a consistent schedule for the sake of your liver, which has a clock of its own. Circadian rhythms are important for helping the liver anticipate the body's demands throughout the day, like stockpiling energy after meals and releasing it when we sleep, said Felix Naef, a professor of quantitative biology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. Recent studies have examined how alcohol affects circadian rhythms. This year, researchers reported that night shift workers given two to four glasses of wine each day for a week had altered circadian rhythms and "leakier" intestinal linings than day workers, which could put them at risk of alcoholic liver disease.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
SYDNEY, Australia Alongside the conventionally cuddly toy kangaroos, koalas and wombats that have long been sold in the Taronga Zoo gift shop here, a newcomer stands out: a fuzzy plush shark. It's bait for young visitors, of course, but it's also a symbol of efforts to explore the softer side of these widely feared animals. In September, the zoo unveiled an exhibit featuring a small group of Port Jackson sharks, a joint project with Macquarie University, where researchers are studying the social behavior of sharks to help battle the misconception that sharks are largely solitary creatures. The secondary goal of the project is to elevate sharks' social standing among humans a concern that is particularly relevant here in Australia, where shark attacks are often the subject of sensational headlines and there are frequent calls for culling, despite the fact that fatal attacks happen only once a year on average in the country. The project began four years ago after one of Dr. Brown's students proposed investigating whether sharks engage in the same kind of social behaviors as humans gathering together for the pure pleasure of others' company, for instance. While some species of sharks, like hammerheads, are known to form large schools, there has been little research that looks at why: Is it a social thing, or are the sharks simply attracted to a particular resource? "The general feeling is that sharks are robots that they're antisocial and they go around munching and killing things," Dr. Brown said. "Nobody knows about the social lives of sharks because it's notoriously hard to track them." Dr. Brown assembled a team of students and volunteers and spent three months at Jervis Bay, on the New South Wales coast, 90 miles south of Sydney, searching the waters for research subjects. Port Jackson sharks seemed to fit the bill at about five feet long, they are big enough to spot in the water, and they are plentiful. "They are probably the most common shark in Australian waters," and are relatively friendly, Dr. Brown said. "If you grab them, they tend to be passive. Kind of like a pet." Dr. Brown's team tagged and released the sharks, using a combination of tracking tools. Passive integrated transponder, or PIT, tags, slightly larger than a grain of rice, hold electronics that allow them to act as lifelong bar codes that can be detected and read without the animal having to be recaptured. The tags were inserted into each shark via a small incision on the animal's underside. An acoustic tag attached to the fin of each shark sends out a ping each time it comes within about a third of a mile of an underwater receiver, or within about 30 feet of another tagged shark. Each ping is time stamped, meaning it is possible to detect when a particular shark was at a particular location, and whether it came into contact with any other tagged sharks there. During the initial tagging process, Dr. Brown's team tagged 250 sharks in Jervis Bay with both PIT and acoustic tags. Last year, 38 more sharks were tagged. From the data analyzed so far, Dr. Brown found that the Port Jackson sharks tagged four years ago consistently returned to some locations. At first, it was thought they were coming together to breed, but Dr. Brown later discovered the sharks were of mixed ages and sexes, leading to another theory: that the sharks liked to dine together. To rule out the possibility that the animals were attracted to the location itself rather than one another, Dr. Brown needed an artificial environment in which to observe them up close. So he reached out to a former student, Jo Day, who had studied social interactions in bottlenose dolphins and now worked as a research and conservation coordinator at Taronga Zoo. While Dr. Day was enthusiastic about the possibility of creating a shark habitat there, zoo officials took some convincing the zoo hadn't had a shark exhibit for 25 years. In September, Dr. Brown brought in 10 sharks, which immediately took to their new home a pool 60 feet long, 10 feet deep and 23 feet wide, embellished with a waterfall and rock shelters at the bottom to replicate the kinds of spots where Port Jackson sharks gather in the wild. While the data has yet to be formally analyzed, early observations back the hypothesis that the sharks like being around one another. "Instead of being spread out around the pool, they are always together," Dr. Brown said. "We've seen this in the wild, too, but here, there's no reason they'd be attracted to anything in the shelter, because it's all artificial." In addition to the PIT and acoustic tags, the sharks in the pool had accelerometers attached to their dorsal fins, to measure their movement patterns in three dimensions. Three cameras were set up around the underwater viewing area, recording where the sharks swam and what they did. This allows the researchers to match the signature produced by each shark's accelerometer to a particular behavior: swimming, resting, eating or mating. Once a kind of template is established, it will be possible for Dr. Brown and his team to determine not just where the sharks go once they are released back in the wild, but also what they are doing. These high tech trappings helped make the shark experiment a hit for the zoo. "We always overhear kids saying things like, 'Let's go see the sharks!'" Dr. Day said. "One keeper talk on the exhibit drew a crowd of around 100 people, all squished into this tiny viewing area. It's one of the most popular exhibits on at the zoo right now." "The fear of sharks is an irrational one," he said. "It's hard to get over an irrational fear. But we're trying to teach people that sharks aren't mindless killing machines, that sharks are interesting and do interesting things. The reality is that humans kill millions of sharks every year. Most sharks are under threat from us, not the other way around." Recently, Dr. Brown's 3 year old son visited the zoo with his preschool class. "All he could talk about when he got home was the sharks," Dr. Brown recalled. "I mean, here you have giraffes, gorillas and God knows what else, and what does he do? Talk about the sharks."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Marcus Bridgewater says that caring for his garden of roughly 600 plants, made up of nearly 40 different verdure varieties, is a way of caring for himself. "I believe it relates in a way of helping someone slow down to appreciate nuances that our world today does not necessarily encourage," he said in an interview in July. Posting as Garden Marcus on TikTok, Mr. Bridgewater, 33, has shown his 653,000 followers how planting a sweet potato vine in a new spot can help it flourish, a reminder that many living things can benefit from a change of scenery. "It can be difficult to re root, establish new relationships, grow beyond the old form, but it can also be what's needed to create new and healthier roots in our future," he said. Mr. Bridgewater is one of several Black gardeners and farmers who have cultivated online followings in recent years. Christopher Griffin, who posts as plantkween, preaches the pleasures of tending to and surrounding oneself with houseplants on Instagram. Cheyenne Sundance, the founder of a Toronto farm called Sundance Harvest, posts about food sovereignty as a form of liberation. Ron Finley, known as the Gangsta Gardener, leads a MasterClass course that has been called "one of the most popular" yet. TikTok fame has been a relatively new development for Mr. Bridgewater; he had no idea the app existed until last December, when a college student he mentored suggested he make an account to share his gardening philosophy with the masses. Mr. Bridgewater started learning about plant care in the garden of his adopted grandmother in Florida; some of his earliest memories from childhood are of watering the vibrant hibiscus flowers and orange trees that bloomed in her yard. But it wasn't until adulthood that he learned how to keep his own plants alive and help them thrive. "I saw this kind of reciprocation," Mr. Bridgewater, who lives in Spring, Texas, and often dons a belt buckle befitting the state, said. "I found myself finding peace in my garden." Here, he explains how tending to a garden can be a symbiotic relationship, one that helps both plants and people flourish in their everyday lives. There is a joy in watching plants, like a propagated pineapple, grow slowly over time. "Think of how many people don't realize they're being impatient," Mr. Bridgewater said. "They put a little water here, and they rush through the process." Moving in a hurry, he said, may allow us to feel like we're getting things done faster, but it often leads to overlooked details and backtracking. Slowing down gives you the chance to be more intentional with your next steps. "I think we are experiencing high waves of anxiety and bombardment of information regularly," he said. "But for me, slowing down and thinking about what to do next comes seamlessly through the garden." Let nature be your healer Physical wellness is an instrument to mental wellness. And it comes in handy when shoveling soil and uprooting plants all day. Maintaining physical fitness can be achieved in traditional ways, like practicing yoga, stretching and breath work, or through slightly unorthodox methods such as walking on your toes through the garden, like Mr. Bridgewater does, to work on balance. There are other ways to encourage physical well being while tending to one's garden. Mr. Bridgewater recommended grounding, in which one makes direct contact with the earth with their bare feet or hands. "Our bodies are batteries, and we need to energize them," he said. "In a pot with 10 different plants, to just look at one plant is to sacrifice probably three others," Mr. Bridgewater said. "If I start coddling any one of my plants, I'm likely to fail many." After growing up in Northern Florida, where he was often singled out for his speech impediment and for being the "token Black guy," he came to equate living through adversity with being raised in a thorny rose bush. "In these recent times, many of us who've had thorns in our side for our entire lifetime are having to go back through a process of addressing them," Mr. Bridgewater said. "And because I have a ton of thorns all over, I am conscious of how wounded so many other people out there are." He said that navigating his own pain has taught him to be more compassionate toward others and their own experiences. "Many of us who have learned to grow in a pot with other people may be unrooting ourselves unintentionally because of these wounds," he said. He takes time to speak to his plants and give them positive affirmations (it helps them grow, he said), so checking his attitude each time he enters his garden is crucial to making sure his vibrations don't negatively affect his flora. "If I don't apply kindness in my voice, patience in my process and a peace in my spirit, chances are the things that I will do will prevent that growth from maximizing its potential," Mr. Bridgewater said. Feeling a little wilted lately? Whether you have space for a backyard garden or just a window box planter on the fire escape, join Marcus Bridgewater and The New York Times for a live conversation about the basics and joy of gardening. RSVP to "Happy Garden, Healthy You" and tune in at 5:30 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, Aug. 26.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
A key component of the costuming, backstage at the Lyric Theater, where "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" begins previews next month.Credit...Andrew White for The New York Times How Much Magic Can 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' Make on Broadway? A key component of the costuming, backstage at the Lyric Theater, where "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" begins previews next month. LONDON Joanne Kathleen Rowling looked slightly tense. She had just completed a television segment, alongside her collaborators on "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," the eighth and the only theatrical installment in her celebrated wizarding saga, which begins previews March 16 at the Lyric Theater on Broadway. Now she had another interview to do. Ms. Rowling is famously private. And crazily famous. Her Harry Potter novels have sold over 500 million copies worldwide since the first was published in 1997, spawning an empire that now encompasses movies, the spinoff "Fantastic Beasts" films, Harry Potter Wizarding World theme parks, and detective novels (written under a pseudonym) which have been made into a television series. Like much else she touches, her first theatrical venture has been a smash in London. It earned rave reviews and sold out houses, going on to win in a record breaking nine categories at last year's Olivier Awards, the British equivalent of the Tonys. 22 more highlights from the spring season 3 new faces in theater And yet Ms. Rowling, who started out as a struggling single mother, writing her first Harry Potter novel in Edinburgh cafes, seemed despite an armor of smart wrap dress and high heels determined to take absolutely nothing for granted. "We see this as a new challenge," she said, looking at John Tiffany, the show's cheerful director, and Jack Thorne, its tall and gangly writer, who were seated with her in a small room backstage at the Palace Theater in the West End. "Broadway is a scary place." Broadway is a scary place, with new productions even those based on beloved titles routinely failing to live up to their producers' hopes and dreams. And "Cursed Child" confronts challenges in New York that it didn't face when it opened here in July 2016 amid more mystery, excitement and anticipation than attends most presidential elections. (And what felt like just about as much media coverage.) Sign up for Theater Update to get the latest Broadway news and reviews Secrecy about the story line, collectively developed by Ms. Rowling, Mr. Thorne and Mr. Tiffany, fed a growing obsession with what the play would reveal about Harry and Company, and a keepthesecret campaign encouraged a clublike camaraderie among the preview audiences. But now that script has been published, reviews have been written and tweets have been tweeted, the plot a coming of age trajectory for Harry's second son, Albus is out there. (According to Scholastic, the Potter publisher, the book version of "Cursed Child" has sold over five million copies in North America to date.) Unlike most family oriented Broadway offerings, "Cursed Child" is a play, not a musical, and it will compete in the spring with Disney's musical adaptation of the animated blockbuster "Frozen." "It is unusual to take such a large brand franchise and not musicalize it," acknowledged Sonia Friedman, who, with Colin Callender, has produced the play in London and New York. (A third production heads for Melbourne next year.) She added that people still occasionally made the mistake: "In every place possible, we say 'A new play by ...'" Although seven original cast members are coming with the show including Jamie Parker as Harry, Noma Dumezweni as Hermione, Sam Clemmett as Albus, and Anthony Boyle as Scorpius none is a marquee name. One other thing: "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," which officially opens on April 22, has a running time of 5 hours and 15 minutes, and is staged in two parts (either seen on one day or on different nights). Will the magic apparate across the ocean? A circus was hurried out the door to help make sure. The play begins where the books end. We are at King's Cross station as Harry, married to Ginny Weasley and a father of three, sees his middle child, Albus, off to Hogwarts. The ensuing story encompasses Harry's difficult relationship with Albus, who develops an intense friendship with Scorpius Malfoy (the son of Harry's school era enemy, Draco Malfoy), and it suggests that the weight of the past is a continual influence on the present. It was Ms. Friedman and Mr. Callender who, six years ago, brought the idea of a play to Ms. Rowling, even though she had consistently rebuffed proposals to create stage versions of her novels. "Most of the ideas were about musicals, which I don't love," Ms. Rowling said, "or redoing the books on stage. I wasn't interested in doing Harry in every medium." Their proposition was different. They suggested extending the story and creating a new work, which intrigued Ms. Rowling. "We talked about loss, fear, bereavement, what it's like to try to make a family when your own is poor or nonexistent," she said. "I was really interested in making something more reflective than had been possible in the films. I don't think we ever deviated from those themes." Ms. Rowling said that she had been clear that she would commit to the project if she could work with a playwright she felt was right. After Ms. Friedman approached Mr. Tiffany (a Tony winner for "Once") to direct, he suggested Mr. Thorne, a self professed Harry Potter nerd with whom he had collaborated on the teen vampire play "Let the Right One In." Her willingness to put her characters in other hands is surprising, but Ms. Rowling said she had loved the entire process of cocreating "Cursed Child," and hadn't been prepared for the "emotional punch" the play delivered when she saw its final version. She and her collaborators are also proud to have brought new audiences to the West End. Mr. Callender said that market research in the first year of the London production showed that 60 percent of ticket buyers were first time theatergoers, and that 15 percent had subsequently bought tickets for other shows. How to stage a Harry Potter tale without the benefit of the whiz bang special effects movies can deploy? Mr. Tiffany approached the assignment with one guiding principle. "The idea that the magic we put onstage could be a version of playacting stories in your bedroom,'' he explained. "There was something about the aesthetic Jo had created, with cloaks and suitcases, that I wanted to harness directly and simply." Mr. Thorne predicted that even those loyal fans who've digested the best selling script will be in for a surprise. "The stagecraft is such a massive part of the story that you still don't know what will happen when you come into the theater," he said. Although the play will essentially remain the same on Broadway, the creative team is not taking anything for granted. "If we see audiences aren't getting anything, we'll obviously adjust," said Mr. Tiffany. "We're always working on the show, and there are certain things about the architecture of the Lyric which means some things will change. It's a theater with different kinds of possibilities, and I want to exploit them all." Mr. Callender and Ms. Friedman decided on the Lyric after looking at numerous Broadway theaters, all keen to lure the potential Potter gold mine. "All the theater owners were fantastically generous," Ms. Friedman said. But the British based Ambassador Theater Group (ATG), which owns the Lyric, she said, "made a proposition which was irresistible to the creative team and to us: They would invest in a space which we could create exactly as we wanted." Clearly anticipating an extremely lengthy and profitable run, ATG not only paid for the Lyric's renovation, but made it financially worthwhile for the Cirque du Soleil show "Paramour," which had cost 25 million, to move out. (ATG did not respond to questions about the price tag for the rebuilding.) An eight month renovation has resulted in a dramatic conversion of the cavernous theater, best known as the home to the ill fated musical "Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark." According to Ms. Friedman, the first balcony has been brought forward and certain side walls knocked down, "so that it's narrower and shallower." This, she said, reduced the seating from around 1900 to 1500. (The Palace in London seats 1300.) The main entrance has been moved from a clotted 42nd Street to the less crowded, almost discreet, atmosphere of 43rd Street, where elaborate signage has been installed. (There was enough room outside the more grandly placed Palace to build an oversized owl's nest to greet audience members as they headed in.) After years of peace in the Potterverse, "Cursed Child" deals with the forces of darkness and authoritarian power rising themes that might be read as echoes of real world events, in both Europe and the United States. But Ms. Rowling said she did not feel it was a political piece, even as over the years she has come to more full throatedly espouse her own viewpoints, especially on Twitter. "I'm mouthy," she said. "I feel like the rest of the world; I'm just venting." Yet the themes of exclusion and acceptance that Mr. Thorne picked up from the books were important, Mr. Tiffany asserted. Ms. Rowling nodded emphatically. Voldemort, she said, "was someone who had been excluded and isolated, and we continue to explore that." What in Mr. Thorne's writing had surprised her? Ms. Rowling pointed to the way he had imagined the character of Scorpius Malfoy. "He is such a beautiful character, and in many ways the emotional heart of the play," she said. "And such an amazing foil for Albus, who is tortured and self involved." The last Harry Potter novel came out in 2007, the final film in 2011. At one point it looked like that would be that. But with "Cursed Child" and the "Fantastic Beasts" films, the Potterverse lives.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Sometime near the dawn of the 12th century, the German Benedictine abbess and all around mystical soothsayer Hildegard of Bingen became obsessed with the concept of viriditas, a word she stole from the Latin root for greenery but twisted into her own ecstatic definition. For Hildegard, who was also, as of 2012, anointed by the pope for her early contributions to holistic medicine, the word was synonymous with health, of both body and mind. Viriditas was a feeling of lushness, of fullness, of overall well being, and it could come only from an engagement with the natural world. In other words, Hildegard was one of the original wellness mavens, pushing herbal poultices and ground up seed pod pastes as the path to enlightenment. Her woo woo cure alls may not be with us today, but her viriditas has turned out to be a viral idea. Healing via plants is a seductive concept. If only we could solve what ills us by loping through meadows carpeted in thyme. This year, perfumers have taken the concept of viriditas and transformed it into a bevy of zippy new fragrances. There is a hunger, it seems, for pungent, herbal smells that are almost medicinal in nature. These are wearable green juices, wheat grass shots for your collarbone. Perhaps our digital lives have left us starved for sylvan fantasy, because the hottest trend this summer is smelling like a bouquet garni. Some of the finest mint in the world comes from the Pacific Northwest. Oregon, for example, is the largest producer of peppermint in the country: More than 35 percent of the nation's crop is grown there. The Parisian house Diptyque looked to that verdant area to source the Altoidesque base for its new unisex cologne. Eau de Minthe is a traditional fougere (a word that comes from the French for "fern"), which means it has the spicy, woody base of oakmoss and top notes of bitter florals and tart citrus that you find in many traditional men's colognes. But the zing of cool mint turns it into something far more interesting. All perfume is genderless, but this scent manages to have something for everyone. It's like an ice cold martini that slides effortlessly down the throat. These days, cannabis is the plant most people associate with so called wellness. While the varietals containing THC may not be legal in most states, cannabidiol (or CBD), a compound found in cannabis that doesn't get you high but may help calm nerves and release happy making neurotransmitters, is the health craze of the day. It comes in lattes, body lotions, gummies, even dog biscuits. And now, perfume. "I've been wanting to develop a wee d inspired fragrance since 2016 but couldn't find the right blend of ingredients," said Douglas Little, a creator of Heretic. "I began looking at hemp derived CBD for another project and was blown away by its aromatic profile. It had a distinctive herbaceous, green and sagelike odor that I fell in love with." Each 15 milliliter bottle of Dirty Grass, which smells a bit like an Arnold Palmer made with bong water, contains 150 milligrams of CBD, which the creators say the wearer can absorb through the skin . Lavender is the elegant, begloved lady of the herb world; it smells like both decadence and delicacy. Yet the scent is difficult to capture in perfumery in all its French blue glory. Most lavender fragrances end up smelling like bedtime tea or shortbread. But this new offering from Tom Ford contains so much pure, unadulterated lavender essence that the smell is almost profane. It is bitter and absinthal and overwhelming. This isn't lavender as a sleep aid. This is lavender that awakens you to new possibilities. The motto of the Swedish fragrance house 19 69 is "bottling counterculture," which means that most of its perfumes draw inspiration from chaotic historical periods. (In other words: The revolution will be packaged and spritzed.) Chronic, according to Johan Bergelin, its founder, is a homage to the cannabis culture of Los Angeles of the early 1990s.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
This is an article from World Review: The State of Democracy, a special section that examines global policy and affairs through the perspectives of thought leaders and commentators, and is published in conjunction with the annual Athens Democracy Forum. Corporate social responsibility must protect democracy and favor open and just societies at home and abroad. As the Scottish Enlightenment thinker and economist Adam Smith wrote more than 250 years ago, "a lack of beneficence will make a society uncomfortable, but the prevalence of injustice will utterly destroy it." Corporations whose prosperity depends on liberal democratic institutions should reassess their strategic decisions to determine if they are, in any way, undermining those institutions. This isn't just about regulatory compliance such as adhering to sanctions or money laundering laws it's about thinking ahead with a stewardship perspective and a deep care for democracy, open societies, justice and the rule of law. Other issues, except possibly those related to the environment, pale in significance. In the post World War II era, the flourishing of international business led to considerable prosperity, particularly as American and European multinational corporations helped diffuse technology and best practices worldwide, especially to the newly industrializing countries of Asia. The creation or restoration of democratic systems in Germany, Japan, Italy, South Korea and Taiwan, coupled with the willingness of these nations to participate in a global system of reasonably free trade and intellectual property protection, led to prosperity from which shareholders and other stakeholders benefited. The success of multinationals, particularly those operating in the tech sector, stemmed in large measure from liberal democratic practices in their home countries, including public research funding, engagement with institutions of higher learning and adherence to the rule of law. An article from the National Science Foundation notes, for instance, that in 1998 Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, "obtained funding that allowed them to move their growing hardware facility from the Stanford University campus into a friend's garage and to incorporate Google Inc." Small dollars, maybe, but that was likely quite important at the time. However, as George Shultz, the former United States secretary of state, noted at Stanford last year, "we created a secure, global economic commons, which is now coming apart." Doing business abroad is difficult if the relevant regulatory structures don't treat domestic and foreign firms similarly, and if the letter and spirit of trade agreements are violated. Recent developments in China are particularly disturbing. Since President Xi Jinping took control in 2012, the Chinese Communist Party has pursued policies and actions that undermine many foreign firms in so called "strategic" industries. One example: After DuPont abandoned its joint venture with Zhangjiagang Glory Chemical Industry Company in 2013 because executives suspected that their former Chinese partner might be stealing DuPont's intellectual property, the company became subject to antitrust action for its unwillingness to license its technology to a local firm. The Chinese Communist Party has the ability to build the technological prowess to coerce and conquer competitors, and it does whatever necessary to win commercially, including undermining democracy when it stands in the way. This is true as it relates to the industries of the future 5G, artificial intelligence, biotech and to those of the present, including semiconductors and photovoltaic cells. The issues at hand involve what economists call "externalities," which range from pollution to the sale and theft of intellectual property. Positive and negative spillovers from commercial activities are not fully priced in the market. The willingness of one firm to sell or transfer technology will be amplified when it believes that if it doesn't, its competitors will. To avoid being penalized further, foreign firms expanding in China tend not to speak out about the unfair regulatory treatment they face. This works to China's benefit, as it is difficult for corporations to prevent their technology and trade secrets from being misappropriated or extracted through soft coercion if they do not discuss the regulatory challenges they face publicly. Short term profits are the bribe China pays to convince foreign firms to transfer their technologies and capabilities. But it isn't just the Chinese Communist Party that is at fault. Chief executives and board members of some American, British and European companies take the short term view and allow for the transfer (by grant, sale or theft) of technology. Corporate leaders also cut research and development funding when shareholder activists show up at their doors. These companies might also spend so much on hefty stock buybacks that they struggle to invest for the future. Such financial decisions impair leadership and stewardship, as well as diminish social and political responsibility. This behavior needs to be addressed by corporate management, not just by governments. Corporate boards and executive leaders need to speak out and act with a higher purpose, even if short term costs and implicit penalties are levied by Chinese authorities. Many issues are existential, as they impact not just international business, but democracy itself. Weak economies and job losses flowing from the forfeiture of technological leadership have serious political and social implications. The decreased economic prowess of corporations within liberal democracies has ramifications that extend to national and international security, all the way to the survival of the global economic commons itself. But it is important to note that the Chinese people are not the enemy. It is the Chinese Communist Party that has become the enemy of democracy by aggressively positioning China as a strategic rival of the United States, Europe and Japan. Still, multinational corporations cannot, and should not, decouple from China completely; there is simply too much to gain, for both parties. Multinationals should continue to trade with China in many categories, including some high tech products, but they must engage with their eyes wide open. Unilateral efforts to deny China access to leading edge products will rarely work in the longer term, hence the need for international collaboration in research and technology development. Only if Europe, the United States and the Indo Pacific region act as one will democracy survive. In addition, government involvement may be necessary to avoid having domestic antitrust laws stand in the way of enterprise level cooperative embargoes. Continued commercial engagement will be mutually beneficial, at least as interim arrangements, until broader strategic issues can be assessed. Liberal democracies must also double down on their commitment to provide sufficient financial and human resources to science, technology and innovation if they want to maintain their edge with respect to technological leadership a critical enabler of democracy and freedom. When investing in new technology, they must pay as much attention to capturing value as to creating value for their stakeholders. Adam Smith, the original champion of an open global nonmercantilist system, believed that individuals and businesses must have a clear moral compass, and they must act as if there was an "impartial spectator" looking over their shoulders. A good proxy for Smith's independent spectator is a well informed, next generation citizenry knowing that its freedom and prosperity are at risk. Many corporate codes of conduct already acknowledge the need for a moral compass. For instance, Google's founders in a 2004 letter filed with their initial public offering prospectus advocated "don't be evil" as the firm's guiding principle. This morphed in 2015 into "do the right thing" as the corporate motto of Google and its new parent company, Alphabet. Peter Thiel, the co founder of PayPal, recently critiqued what he says he believes is Google's naivete as it conducts A.I. research with China while simultaneously refusing to do business with the U.S. Department of Defense. Chief executives and boards that take corporate social responsibility seriously must recognize their duty to protect and enhance the health of the open societies in which they flourish and the democratic processes and the rule of law on which they depend. David J. Teece is a professor of global business at the University of California, Berkeley, the director of the Haas School's Tusher Initiative for the Management of Intellectual Capital and a co founder of the Berkeley Research Group.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
Isabel Leonard and Paul Appleby lead the cast of "Pelleas et Melisande," which starts on Tuesday night at the Metropolitan Opera. JULIA BULLOCK at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Jan. 16 17, 8 p.m.). Bullock's extraordinary, socially conscious residency at the Met continues with "Perle Noire," programs of Josephine Baker songs arranged with typical imagination by the composer Tyshawn Sorey. Directed by Zack Winokur, with text by Claudia Rankine and choreography by Michael Schumacher, the programs are set on the steps of the museum's Great Hall and feature the International Contemporary Ensemble. 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER at the Rose Studio (Jan. 17, 6:30 and 9 p.m.). New music from a series that has shaken off a previously crusty image, with the Escher String Quartet and the pianist Gilles Vonsattel on hand for Per Norgard's String Quartet No. 10, William Bolcom's Suite for Violin and Cello, Ed Bennett's "For Marcel Dzama," and "All Roads" by Anthony Cheung. 212 875 5788, chambermusicsociety.org SABINE DEVIEILHE at Weill Recital Hall (Jan. 17, 7:30 p.m.). Returns might be available for this recital by a distinctive, up and coming soprano, who partners with the pianist Mathieu Pordoy for music by Debussy, Poulenc, Delage, Ravel and Roussel. If you can find a ticket, snap it up. 212 247 7800, carnegiehall.org EKMELES at the Crypt of the Church of the Intercession (Jan. 17, 7:30 p.m.). "Madrigals and Animals," the title of this concert from a consistently enlightening vocal ensemble, includes three United States premieres. Amid Karola Obermuller's "mass:distance:time," Claus Steffen Mahnkopf's "void un delitto italiano" and Carola Bauckholt's "Instinkt," note in particular the first American performance of Salvatore Sciarrino's "12 Madrigali." ekmeles.com NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC at David Geffen Hall (Jan. 16, 7:30 p.m.; through Jan. 22). Jaap Van Zweden is back on the Philharmonic's podium this week, and the main event is Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2, a real test of whether the conductor's usually hard driven style can work in predominantly lyrical works. Also on the bill is Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2, with Yefim Bronfman at the keyboard. 212 875 5656, nyphil.org ORPHEUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA at Carnegie Hall (Jan. 12, 7 p.m.). On a program perhaps most notable for the appearance of the sensitive pianist Javier Perianes in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 27, there's also Mozart's Symphony No. 33, an arrangement of Dvorak's Bagatelles by Dennis Russell Davies and James Matheson's "Still Life." 212 247 7800, carnegiehall.org 'PELLEAS ET MELISANDE' at the Metropolitan Opera (Jan. 15, 7:30 p.m.; through Jan. 31). Jonathan Miller's production of Debussy's seductive, allusive opera returns, but unfortunately for only five shows. The Met's music director, Yannick Nezet Seguin, conducts all but one of them (Derrick Inouye leads the performance on Jan. 31), with a cast that includes Isabel Leonard as Melisande, Paul Appleby as Pelleas, Kyle Ketelsen as Golaud, Marie Nicole Lemieux as Genevieve and Ferruccio Furlanetto as Arkel. 212 362 6000, metopera.org For an overview of January and February's cultural events, click here.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
The enduring hotel has a lively history and now, a more modern style from the designer Adam Tihany. The rooms are larger too. New Delhi's Oberoi hotel has a dear place in my heart, as it does for many city natives. On special occasions, including my sixth birthday, my parents and grandmother would take my sister and me to the property's restaurant, the Cafe , for afternoon tea and pastries the flaky chocolate cake was a favorite. But my family's affiliation with the property predated me: my mother, Kiran, and my father, Vikesh, used to frequent the Oberoi's lobby in the early 1970s with their college friends; the hotel was the epicenter for India's glitterati, and they were always on the lookout for a boldface sighting. Now, the Oberoi, New Delhi has been reimagined as a more contemporary version of its old self and will debut a new look on Jan. 1, when it reopens following a nearly 100 million renovation that kept the property shut for more than 20 months the first closure in its history. The Oberoi, New Delhi, which initially opened its doors in 1965, is set in the city center, overlooking the 16th century garden tomb of Emperor Humayun, a Unesco World Heritage Site. Rai Bahadur M.S. Oberoi founded his eponymous brand, the Oberoi Group, in 1934, and although the Delhi location was the fourth hotel in the company's portfolio (there are now 32), it was the first that he actually had built from the ground up in an undertaking that lasted four years. Mr. Oberoi's wife, Ishran Devi, laid the building's foundation stone but before doing so, she placed five gold coins in the pit for good luck. Prithvi Raj Singh Oberoi, the company's current executive chairman and Rai Bahadur M.S. Oberoi's son, said that, compared with the Oberoi's other properties, the New Delhi location has the greatest sentiment for the Oberoi family. Luxury accommodations abound in India today, but back then, the Oberoi was one of a kind; it lays claim to be the first property in the country to offer 24 hour room service and butler service as well as have a 24 hour restaurant. My father told me that soon after opening, it became known as the fanciest hotel India had ever had. "There was nothing else like it," he said. A countless number of Indian and international luminaries stayed at the property over the course of its more than half century existence including Queen Mathilde of Belgium; Giorgio Armani; the former prime minister of Australia, Tony Abbott; the former president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai; and the renowned Indian film actor Roshan Seth, who wrote in the Oberoi's guest book: "There is an oasis of quiet, order and slanting shadows where the food is wickedly good and the service fit for a king; and, if you are lucky, they throw in a temptress, as wicked as they come, guaranteed to fire the imagination." Stories about the property are the stuff of legend all over India: the nightclub Tabela, for one, was part of the Oberoi's opening in 1965 and quickly became one of the most desirable after dark spots in the country. During the five hours Tabela was open, from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m., it was so crowded that crossing from one end of the room to the other took 10 minutes. The blockbuster Bollywood movie "Silsila," starring the superstar actor Amitabh Bachchan, was filmed partly at the property in 1980 and 1981. Mr. Bachchan stayed at the hotel during the shooting and came into Tabela one evening with five others where, according to a former staff member, he ordered "Champagne for everybody." But instead of serving the group glasses of Champagne, as Mr. Bachchan had requested, their server mistakenly presented them with a half dozen bottles. No matter over the course of the night, they were all consumed. Eventually, however, according to Mr. Oberoi, the hotel began to feel somewhat outdated. "Customers today are very demanding," he said. "I travel often and stay in many hotels besides Oberoi's, and I wanted a property that was luxurious by my standards and relevant for today." One of the biggest changes in the property's new incarnation is larger guest rooms with spacious baths: instead of 283, the old number, the Oberoi, New Delhi now has 220 rooms. Wi Fi will go from being fast to super speed, and there will be both indoor and outdoor heated swimming pools. To help counter New Delhi's increasingly problematic pollution, the hotel will have an indoor air purification system that it says prevents the entry of harmful air particles into the building. "Our guests will breathe the cleanest air possible," Mr. Oberoi said. The acclaimed New York City based interior designer Adam Tihany is behind the property's new, more contemporary aesthetic throughout the public spaces and in the guest rooms. "I wanted to bring the Oberoi into the 21st century without disrupting its DNA," he said. "That means a look that's brighter, less elaborate and a mix of old and new." For inspiration, Mr. Tihany looked to the English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, who died in 1944, and had most of the furniture custom built in a typical Lutyens style that favors woods such as oak and teak. And while Mr. Tihany describes the white Italian marble baths as almost minimal, in a nod to traditional India much of the upholstery throughout the hotel is mostly in vivid colors: reds, pinks and blues. And where will the Oberoi's guests dine and imbibe? Tabela and the beloved restaurant of my youth, the Cafe, are gone, but they have been replaced by seven new spots including Cirrus9, a rooftop bar that overlooks Humayun's tomb; an Indian restaurant, Omya; and a fine dining rooftop Chinese restaurant, Baoshuan, which offers a menu created in collaboration with the Michelin starred London based chef Andrew Wong, the chef and owner of A Wong. My family immigrated to the United States three decades ago, but the Oberoi's reopening is an occasion that we're awaiting with much excitement just like so many other Indians, whether they live there or abroad. The Oberoi, New Delhi; Dr. Zakir Hussain Marg; 800 562 3764; reservations oberoigroup.com; oberoihotels.com. Nightly rates from 390.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
With "Captain Marvel" touching down in theaters, perhaps it's no surprise that this week's batch of new trailers favors tales of superheroes and female empowerment. Mindy Kaling's latest project casts her as the first female writer on the staff of a talk show with a British host (Emma Thompson). Bought by Amazon for 13 million at the Sundance Film Festival in January, the comedy written by Kaling and directed by TV veteran Nisha Ganatra deals with the timely theme of workplace equality. The engaging initial trailer spotlights the film's impressive ensemble, including Kaling's former co worker on "The Office," Amy Ryan, as a network executive, and John Lithgow as Thompson's husband. After debuting a surprisingly funny trailer at Comic Con International last summer, DC's superhero origin story returns with an equally amusing follow up. "Superpowers? Dude, I don't even know how to pee in this thing!" the caped crime fighter (Zachary Levi) tells his pal. So what if he can't quite leap a tall building in a single bound? The new shocker from "Hereditary" director Ari Aster unfolds at a nine day outdoor gathering that takes place every 90 years in rural Sweden and quickly turns horrific. Attendees include Florence Pugh ("Fighting With My Family") and two actors from Kathryn Bigelow's "Detroit": Jack Reynor and Will Poulter. The teaser's idyllic tone gives way to a small handful of gory and grotesque images, proving maximum impact can sometimes be achieved by showing less, not more. "Smallville," it ain't. This superhero horror hybrid takes place in a bucolic Kansas town where an alien child (Jackson Dunn) crash lands and is raised on a farm by a kindly couple (Elizabeth Banks and David Denman). Only when his superpowers develop, he's tempted to use them for evil, not good. The unnerving trailer trumpets the presence of producer James Gunn, who was fired from the "Guardians of the Galaxy" franchise over offensive past tweets, but the film was actually written by his brother Brian Gunn and cousin Mark Gunn, and directed by David Yarovesky. Gina Rodriguez bombed as a would be action hero in "Miss Bala," but she seems better suited to Netflix's "comedy romance breakup film," as it's billed in the trailer. The "Jane the Virgin" star plays a music journalist whose nine year relationship with her boyfriend (Lakeith Stanfield, of "Sorry to Bother You") ends when she decides to leave New York City for San Francisco. But before she moves, she plans one last blowout with her best friends (Brittany Snow and DeWanda Wise).	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
If you are one of the millions of people who bought health care through a health insurance exchange, filing your tax return may require more effort this year: This is the first time taxpayers will have to report their health care status on their tax returns. The vast majority of taxpayers will simply have to check a box stating they were insured. But some uninsured people will be required to pay a penalty, while others will be exempt because of a hardship or some other reason. Dealing with these issues for the first time is likely to raise many questions: Who will qualify for an exemption and how do you get one? How does the penalty actually work? And if you bought insurance on a federal or state run exchange and received help paying your premiums through the premium tax credit what do you need to do? Here are some answers to those questions and others: I have health insurance, but not through a health care exchange. Do I need to do anything differently? Not really. If you and each member of your household had what is called minimum essential coverage including insurance through your employer, Cobra, Medicare or Medicaid just check the box expected to be on line 61 of your 1040 tax return, which indicates that you had coverage for the entire year. The same goes for people who bought insurance through a federal or state run marketplace and who did not receive any premium subsidies. (If you did receive help, you will have more work to do, which is explained below.) But if you went without health insurance for more than three consecutive months and do not qualify for an exemption for that time period, you may owe a partial penalty payment. Who is exempt from the individual mandate? There are several exceptions. People who cannot find coverage that costs 8 percent or less of their household's modified adjusted gross income are not required to have insurance, nor will they be subject to any penalties. Also exempt are people who had a gap in coverage that lasted less than three months, people with religious objections to health insurance and members of Native American tribes, among others. The full list can be found at HealthCare.gov. Alternatively, some people will qualify for a hardship exemption for part or all of the year. There are more than a dozen qualifying reasons at HealthCare.gov, like a recent bankruptcy, the death of a close family member or medical expenses that resulted in substantial debt. How do I apply for an exemption? Most hardship exemptions require sending a paper application and supporting documents to the marketplace. Tax experts say exemptions now take about two weeks to process. But other exemptions can be claimed only on your tax return, while some can be granted through your return or the marketplace. The Internal Revenue Service and HealthCare.gov keep lists on where to apply for each. Alternatively, you can try TurboTax's exemption check tool, which determines if you qualify and can help you apply. People who applied for coverage through HealthCare.gov are automatically considered for an exemption and may have already received a letter with an exemption certificate number. That number needs to be entered on their tax returns. You can still apply for retroactive exemptions through the exchanges after Dec. 31, but that could take longer, tax experts say, particularly if there is an influx of applications. Individuals who are not ultimately granted an exemption certificate can appeal that decision. Will I receive any new tax forms? People who bought insurance through a state or federal insurance marketplace will receive a 1095 A form in the mail by Jan. 31 or thereabouts. (It will be sent directly by the exchange.) This form, called the Health Insurance Marketplace Statement, will list which members of the household were covered and for how long, as well as premium costs and any advance payment you received for premium tax credits. Do I need to fill out any additional tax forms? If you or a member of your household already received premium tax credits (in the form of subsidized premiums), or if you want to claim the credit, you need to file Form 8962 with your tax return. The information on the 1095 A is needed to complete the form. Here is why: When you bought insurance through the exchanges in late 2013 or early 2014, the advanced premium tax credits paid were based on your 2012 income. So taxpayers need to reconcile any differences against their 2014 income, particularly if they did not update that information on the exchange. Form 8962 is used to reconcile those differences, as well as to account for any changes in life circumstances, such as a marriage or the birth of a child. Separately, if you want to claim an exemption, you need to fill out Form 8965. If I received too much in subsidies, will I have to pay the money back? Yes, though there are limits on the amounts that some families must pay back, which will vary, depending on their household size and income (using modified adjusted gross income). Those with income of at least 400 percent of the federal poverty line meaning 45,960 for an individual or 94,200 for a family of four will have to pay back the entire amount, according to the I.R.S. How will I be penalized if I do not have coverage? If you and your family members are not exempt, you will be expected to pay a penalty. The calculation is not as simple as you might think. For the 2014 tax year, families pay whichever is more: a flat dollar amount of 95 per adult and 47.50 per child (capped at 285 for families) or 1 percent of the portion of their modified adjusted gross income that exceeds the federal income tax filing threshold (which is generally 20,300 for married couples filing jointly). But the penalty is calculated on a monthly basis so you will owe one twelfth of the annual payment for each month you or a member of your household did not have coverage or an exemption. You can go three consecutive months without coverage before the penalty kicks in. Will the I.R.S. come after me if I refuse pay the penalty? The I.R.S. is not permitted to resort to its usual collection tactics, such as using levies like wage garnishment or liens to collect the penalty. It cannot criminally prosecute those who do not comply, either. But the agency can deduct the penalty from any refunds due. And if you are not owed a refund, the penalty will roll over and accrue interest for 10 years, which is the I.R.S.'s statute of limitations for collecting payments. Starting in the 2015 tax year, the I.R.S. will have a stronger system of checks, which will notify the agency about who had health coverage and who did not, because employers and insurers will be required to send that information to the I.R.S. That machinery is not fully in place for this tax year. Where can I get help with all of this? The I.R.S. Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program provides free tax help to people who generally earn 53,000 or less, while its Tax Counseling for the Elderly offers assistance to taxpayers who are 60 or older. See the agency's website for more specifics.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Your Money
Bioluminescence might seem uncommon, even alien. But biologists think organisms evolved the ability to light up the dark as many as 50 different times, sending tendrils of self powered luminosity coursing through the tree of life, from fireflies and vampire squids to lantern sharks and foxfire, a fungus found in rotting wood. Despite all this diversity, the general rules stay the same. Glowing in the dark or the deep takes two ingredients. You need some sort of luciferin, a molecule that can emit light. And you need an enzyme, luciferase, to trigger that reaction like the snapping of a glowstick. Some creatures delegate this chemistry to symbiotic bacteria. Others possess the genes to make their own versions of luciferin and luciferase. But then there's the golden sweeper, a reef fish that evolved a trick that hasn't been seen anywhere else, according to a study published Wednesday in Science Advances: It just gobbles up bioluminescent prey and borrows the entire kit. "If you can steal an already established, sophisticated system by eating somebody else, that's way easier," said Manabu Bessho Uehara, a postdoctoral scholar at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
HONG KONG As most countries agonize over how to keep their barely reviving economies growing, China is already looking to slam on the brakes. China's central bank moved late Friday to reduce lending to companies and individuals by requiring large commercial banks to increase the amount of cash they park with the central bank. The move, which came earlier than most economists had expected, was meant to slow China's breakneck economy and inflation. It was the second time in a month that the central bank had directed the country's banks to increase reserves. In spite of the earlier edict, which took effect on Jan. 18, banks actually lent more money in January than in the previous three months combined, illustrating just how hard it is for Beijing to modulate its rapidly expanding economy. Chinese economists now predict the economy will grow about 10 percent this year, while Western economists put the figure closer to 12 percent. The growth reflects a revival of exports, strong consumer spending and heavy government investment in infrastructure projects like high speed rail lines. But authorities in Beijing are walking a delicate and difficult line. They consider controlling inflation as key to domestic peace because in the past the erosion of the spending power of workers has led to unrest. At the same time, if China brakes too hard, it risks slowing global growth overall and throwing other countries, including the United States, back into recession. For the first time in history, China's economy is acting as a major engine pulling the rest of the world out of recession. Economic reports Friday showed that most of Europe's major economies either shrank or barely grew in the fourth quarter of last year. The United States had strong growth in the fourth quarter, leaving many wondering when Washington will start increasing interest rates. The Federal Reserve has signaled it will be months. Fears that China's move Friday would slow global growth sent share prices sliding across Europe and pushed New York markets lower when they opened, though they recovered some of the losses. China's commercial banks have become important lenders to the rest of the world as American banks have considerably reduced lending. "The timing is a surprise," said Qing Wang, an economist in the Hong Kong office of Morgan Stanley, referring to the central bank's action. Policy makers inject additional cash each year into the country's financial system before Lunar New Year to accommodate holiday spending. Raising the bank reserve ratio could prevent banks from turning that into loans for activities like real estate speculation. Jing Ulrich, the managing director and chairwoman of China equities and commodities at J. P. Morgan, said, "The message coming out of China has been quite clear policy makers are becoming more concerned about containing inflationary expectations and managing the risk of asset price bubbles as a result of last year's aggressive expansion of credit." Stephen Green, the head of greater China research in the Shanghai office of Standard Chartered Bank, said that he had been expecting one increase a month in the ratio for the foreseeable future as a way to slow the economy and the threat of inflation. The government began a stimulus plan of more than half trillion dollars last year, and even before that Beijing had a huge public investment program to strengthen the country's infrastructure. At the same time, Chinese families are snapping up cars, apartments and other big ticket items. China passed the United States last year to become the world's largest car market by number of vehicles sold. Car sales in January were more than double the level of a year earlier. Families, real estate developers and industrial companies have all been borrowing heavily and have started paying more for everything from food to apartments. Last month apartment prices surged and the pace of wholesale inflation doubled. Chinese families have the cash to buy cars now partly because they still have extremely high savings rates by international standards and partly because the state controlled banking sector went on a lending spree over the last year at the government's request. China's banks largely avoided investing in the mortgage backed securities, credit default swaps and other esoteric financial instruments that have caused tremendous damage to the balance sheets of Western banks in the last two years, leaving them less able or less willing to lend. The National Bureau of Statistics of China said Thursday that annual inflation in producer prices had more than doubled in January from December, to 4.3 percent. Average housing prices in large and midsize cities were up 9.5 percent last month from a year earlier, the fastest rate of increase in 19 months. Rising producer prices and asset prices have not yet fed into high inflation in consumer prices, which were up only 1.5 percent last month from a year earlier despite an increase in food prices. The central bank action Friday was aimed at keeping a tight rein on consumer prices. The central bank pushed up the reserve ratio by half a percentage point, to 16.5 percent, for large banks, and 14.5 percent for small banks, effective Feb. 25. Small financial institutions that mainly lend to farmers, like rural credit cooperatives, are temporarily exempted from the increase to make sure they can provide loans for spring planting. As the government tries to keep inflation in check, the conventional remedy in most industrialized countries would be to push up the interest rates that borrowers must pay for loans, typically through actions in money markets. But that would draw even more investment into China, at a time when the Chinese authorities are already struggling to control foreign cash that has been flowing in. Banks have been keeping about 18 percent of their assets at the central bank recently. But raising the minimum makes it less likely big banks will start lending that money.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Global Business
Musicians in the Vienna Philharmonic play both operatic and symphonic music throughout the year; the Met Orchestra, however, is limited outside the opera house to only a few concerts at the end of every season. This raises the question, among audience members and critics alike, of how well the Met players can handle the symphonic repertory. The answer, beyond their ability, can vary by conductor. At Carnegie Hall, Gianandrea Noseda conducted the Fifth Symphony on May 30, and Michael Tilson Thomas led the Fourth on Tuesday. The level of technical accomplishment was high during both evenings. But Mr. Noseda missed some of the Fifth's unbridled passion, while Mr. Thomas folded in the Fourth's ineffable warmth with a knowing hand. Mr. Noseda, who became music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington this season and is also a maestro of broad experience, kept a tight grip on most of the performance. Did he feel that he needed to do so with players who weren't seasoned Mahlerians? Still, it was a vast improvement over the chokehold that Jaap van Zweden imposed on Mahler's Fifth with the New York Philharmonic to start that orchestra's season in September and Mr. van Zweden had no such excuse.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Determined to get rid of the hepatitis C infection that was slowly destroying his liver, Arthur Rubens tried one experimental treatment after another. None worked, and most brought side effects, like fever, insomnia, depression, anemia and a rash that "felt like your skin was on fire." But this year, Dr. Rubens, a professor of management at Florida Gulf Coast University, entered a clinical trial testing a new pill against hepatitis C. Taking it was "a piece of cake." And after three months of treatment, the virus was cleared from his body at last. "I had a birthday in September," Dr. Rubens, 63, said. "I told my wife I don't want anything. It would take away from the magnitude of this gift." Medicine may be on the brink of an enormous public health achievement: turning the tide against hepatitis C, a silent plague that kills more Americans annually than AIDS and is the leading cause of liver transplants. If the effort succeeds, it will be an unusual conquest of a viral epidemic without using a vaccine. "There is no doubt we are on the verge of wiping out hepatitis C," said Dr. Mitchell L. Shiffman, the director of the Bon Secours Liver Institute of Virginia and a consultant to many drug companies. Over the next three years, starting within the next few weeks, new drugs are expected to come to market that will cure most patients with the virus, in some cases with a once a day pill taken for as little as eight weeks, and with only minimal side effects. That would be a vast improvement over current therapies, which cure about 70 percent of newly treated patients but require six to 12 months of injections that can bring horrible side effects. The latest data on the experimental drugs is being presented at The Liver Meeting in Washington, which ends Tuesday. But the new drugs are expected to cost from 60,000 to more than 100,000 for a course of treatment. Access could be a problem, particularly for the uninsured and in developing countries. Even if discounts or generic drugs are offered to poor countries, there are no international agencies or charities that buy hepatitis C medications, as there are for H.I.V. and malaria drugs. And some critics worry that the bill will be run up when huge numbers of people who would have done fine without them turn to the drugs. That is because many people infected with hepatitis C never suffer serious liver problems. "The vast majority of patients who are infected with this virus never have any trouble," said Dr. Ronald Koretz, emeritus professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. It is impossible to tell in advance whether an infected individual will go on to suffer serious consequences. For patients who can afford them, the temptation to take the new drugs before trouble arises will be powerful. An estimated three to four million Americans are infected with hepatitis C, and about 150 million worldwide three to five times the number who have H.I.V. Most people who are infected do not know it, because it can take decades for the virus to damage the liver sufficiently to cause symptoms. In the United States, the number of new infections has fallen to about 17,000 a year, from more than 200,000 per year in the 1980s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There has been a recent rise in cases among young people who inject pain medicines or heroin. About 16,600 Americans had hepatitis C listed as a cause of death on death certificates in 2010, though that might vastly understate the mortality linked to the disease, according to the C.D.C. Although there are fewer new infections, the number of deaths is expected to keep rising as the infections incurred years ago increasingly take their toll. Hepatitis C is spread mainly by the sharing of needles, though it can also be acquired during sex. The virus was transmitted through blood transfusions before testing of donated blood began in 1992. Dr. Rubens, the recently cured patient, believes he was infected when he worked as a paramedic long ago. The main treatment has been interferon alfa, given in weekly injections for 24 or 48 weeks, combined with daily tablets of ribavirin. Neither drug was developed specifically to treat hepatitis C. The combination cures about half the patients, but the side effects flulike symptoms, anemia and depression can be brutal. The new drugs, by contrast, are specifically designed to inhibit the enzymes the hepatitis C virus uses to replicate, the same approach used to control H.I.V. As with H.I.V., two or more hepatitis C drugs will be used together to prevent the virus from developing resistance. One big difference is that H.I.V. forms a latent reservoir in the body, so H.I.V. drugs must be taken for life to prevent the virus from springing back. Hepatitis C does not form such a reservoir, so it can be eliminated permanently. If no virus is detectable in the blood 12 weeks after treatment ends a measure known as a sustained virologic response there is almost no chance the virus will come back and the patient is considered essentially cured. The damaged liver can then heal itself somewhat, doctors say. Yet even if the virus is cleared, people who were once infected may still have an increased risk of liver cancer, especially if cirrhosis, a scarring of the liver, has set in. The new drugs now moving to market can achieve sustained viral responses in 80 to 100 percent of patients with treatment durations of 12 to 24 weeks, possibly shorter. "I became resentful for a little while, but I got over it," he said. With time possibly running out, he plans to try the first new drug to hit the market. To be sure, many of the new drug combinations have not been extensively tested yet. Side effects might still show up. And the drugs are not expected to work as well for patients with severe cirrhosis or those co infected with H.I.V. "I just don't think we know the answer until we get more widespread clinical experience," said Charles M. Rice, a hepatitis C expert at Rockefeller University. "We may be in for some surprises still." Researchers and patients have been disappointed before, when the first two direct acting antiviral pills, telaprevir and boceprevir, reached the market in 2011. The drugs, which inhibited the virus's protease enzyme, still required interferon and ribavirin, but they raised the cure rate to about 70 percent. There was a huge rush to treatment. But doctors now say that side effects were worse than expected, in part because the sickest patients had been excluded from the clinical trials of the drugs. "A lot of that didn't come to light until after the drugs were approved," said Dr. Brian R. Edlin, an associate professor of public health and medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. "Then it turns out they were just horrible." Among the new drugs, the one garnering the most excitement is sofosbuvir, from Gilead Sciences, which is expected to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration by Dec. 8. It inhibits the virus's polymerase enzyme, which builds new genomes out of RNA so the virus can replicate. Sofosbuvir is an evil decoy of sorts. It looks like a building block of RNA. But once it is mistakenly incorporated into the RNA chain, the chain cannot grow and the virus cannot reproduce. The effectiveness of the new drugs can vary depending on which strain of hepatitis C, known as genotypes, the patient has. People infected with hepatitis C genotypes 2 and 3 which account for 20 to 25 percent of cases in the United States will take sofosbuvir with ribavirin but without interferon, making this the first all oral treatment for hepatitis C. Treatment for genotype 2 will be 12 weeks, but for genotype 3 it will probably be 24 weeks. Genotype 1, which accounts for more than 70 percent of patients in the United States, will still require interferon and ribavirin along with sofosbuvir, but only for 12 weeks. In a clinical trial, about 90 percent of previously untreated patients taking this combination achieved a sustained virologic response. The combination is expected to be somewhat less effective in those for whom previous treatments did not work. But with the new more tolerable treatments, some experts say, it makes sense to treat early stage disease to prevent cirrhosis and the accompanying risk of liver cancer. And it is likely that more pre symptomatic patients will be found through wider screening. Both the United States Preventive Services Task Force and the C.D.C. have recently begun to recommend that all baby boomers people born from 1946 to 1964 be tested for infection with hepatitis C, since they represent about three quarters of all cases. "It will be test and treat," said Dr. Eugene Schiff, the director of the liver diseases center at the University of Miami, who is a consultant to drug companies. Pharmaceutical companies, of course, have a financial interest in seeing that more people get screened and treated, and they have been providing support for hepatitis C awareness campaigns and sponsoring studies on the benefits of screening and treatment. The all oral regimens also may make it more feasible to treat the people who are most likely to spread the virus intravenous drug users, the homeless and prison inmates, many of whom also have mental health problems. "I can't treat an unstable patient safely with interferon," said Dr. Diana Sylvestre, who runs a clinic in Oakland, Calif. that treats illicit drug users and former users. "But I can sure as hell give them a few pills."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
Netflix has placed "The Irishman" at the Belasco Theater on Broadway but did not reach a compromise with major theater chains for a big nationwide release. LOS ANGELES Netflix and the owners of the major theater chains could have made a lot of money together, if only they had seen eye to eye on the release of "The Irishman." And people across the country could have seen the film, Martin Scorsese's gangster epic, the way it was meant to be seen, on the big screen, in the dark, with tubs of popcorn on their laps. That is, essentially, the message from the big theater chain owners to Netflix, the company that financed and produced the 159 million movie starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. After negotiations between major chains and Netflix ended in a stalemate last month, "The Irishman," opening Friday, will have a 26 day run in a limited number of theaters before it starts streaming on Nov. 27. A sticking point in the talks was how long the film would play in theaters before being made available to Netflix's 158 million subscribers. The major exhibitors typically insist on a 72 day period of exclusivity for the films that play on their screens. During the monthslong talks with Netflix over "The Irishman," representatives of two major chains agreed independently to lower that number to around 60, according to two people familiar with the negotiations who were not authorized to discuss them publicly; Netflix signaled that it would not go above 45. And that's where it ended. "It's a disgrace," said John Fithian, the president of the National Association of Theater Owners, a group that works closely with, and represents the interests of, chains like AMC Theaters, the largest in the United States, and Cineplex, which has 1,600 screens in Canada. "The Irishman," which has received mostly rapturous reviews, is opening on eight screens in New York and Los Angeles. Netflix sent a bouquet to cinema lovers on the coasts by placing it in two grand venues, the 1,015 seat Belasco Theater, a Broadway theater in Manhattan, and the historic Grauman's Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. Starting Nov. 8, the run will expand to include select independent and small chain movie houses in the country's top 10 markets. That is a long way from what theater owners had envisioned when they learned that the director of "Goodfellas," "Casino" and "The Departed" was returning to his hit men and mob bosses. "It's a very big disappointment that Netflix and the leading theater owners couldn't figure out a way to put a significant movie from Martin Scorsese on a lot of screens," Mr. Fithian said, speaking publicly for the first time about the negotiations. "This is a major director, a cinephile, who has made all kinds of important movies for our industry. And 'The Irishman' is going to play on one tenth of the screens it should have played on, had Netflix been willing to come to an understanding with our members." Mr. Scorsese has made his recent films, including "The Wolf of Wall Street" and "Silence," at Paramount. If he had made "The Irishman" under the auspices of a traditional Hollywood studio, it would have been business as usual, and the film would most likely be playing at a theater near you. But Paramount declined, because of the hefty budget for the decades spanning film. Netflix was the only company willing to take a risk on the project a film that moves at a measured pace in its three and a half hours as it tells a tale of how organized crime was intertwined with the labor movement and government in the United States across the last century. Ford and Rivian no longer plan to work jointly on electric vehicles. Elizabeth Holmes took the stand in her trial. Follow along with our reporters. Ken Griffin, head of Citadel, bid highest for a copy of the Constitution. Netflix has little time for the old theatrical business model. It is devoted to keeping its subscribers happy, meaning that most of its movies make their debuts on the streaming service itself. Last year, Netflix tiptoed into the theaters, offering Alfonso Cuaron's "Roma," which went on to win three Oscars, a 21 day exclusive release at independent and small chain theaters before it started streaming. The film eventually played on roughly 1,100 screens around the world, roughly 250 of them in the United States. "The Irishman" will move on to more theaters domestically and internationally after its initial expansion on Nov. 8, but its run will fall far short of a major release. Two films that came out last month, "Joker" and "The Addams Family," have each played on more than 4,000 screens in the United States. For Mr. Scorsese, Netflix tried to work out something more robust than the 21 day exclusive theatrical release it had arranged for "Roma." Netflix's negotiating effort was led by Scott Stuber, the company's head of original films, who was previously the vice chairman of worldwide production at Universal. Two major exhibitors, AMC and Cineplex, offered what they believed was a reasonable compromise with the 60 day plan, according to the two people familiar with the talks. If Netflix had agreed to an exclusive 60 day run for "The Irishman," other studios would have most likely demanded the same for their films. A new industry standard would have been set in a business that has clung to the belief that you close the theatrical window at your peril. Mr. Stuber, who joined Netflix in 2017, has tried to bring peace to the two sides. "We do believe in box office," he said in an interview. "We do believe in the consumer getting to see a film how he or she chooses. That's what I'm trying to build toward without it being an all or nothing model." But the gap proved too wide for the two sides to bridge, and "The Irishman" is headed to venues content to show films that may be available on streaming services at the same time as their big screen runs. Mr. Fithian seemed flummoxed by Netflix's stance. He wondered aloud why the company would not want to add a revenue stream box office given the competition in streaming that's on the way from Apple TV Plus, Disney Plus and HBO Max, among others. "Netflix is leaving significant money on the table," Mr. Fithian said. "Think about 'The Departed,' in 2006. That Scorsese movie made 300 million globally. It garnered Scorsese the best director Oscar. It won best picture. It played for a long time in theaters and made a ton of money. Why wouldn't Netflix want to monetize that before it went to Netflix? It can still be exclusive on Netflix. It can still draw subscribers. It would still be the only place you can see it at home." Mr. Fithian and Mr. Jacob, of Cineplex, said a theatrical release would provide a marketing boost that a traditional advertising campaign cannot deliver. Mr. Stuber said he was not persuaded by that argument. "For 'The Irishman,'" he said, "it was important for us to give it that theatrical run, to put it in big houses where people could congregate and have the opportunity to see it that way. But I also think people are going to love it just as much on Netflix."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Dancers rehearse "10000 Gestures," which is set to have its premiere at the Manchester International Festival in England. MANCHESTER, England Ten thousand gestures, 25 dancers, an hourlong performance. "It's a one line idea!" said Boris Charmatz, the French choreographer, who was watching a rehearsal of his new work from the front row of seats in the cavernous, chilly Mayfield Depot, a former train station here. "10000 Gestures," which will have its premiere on July 13 as part of the Manchester International Festival, may be a one line idea, but it's an extremely complicated one. Mr. Charmatz's concept is that no gesture a word he uses to refer to any single movement, be it a dance step or a shoulder shrug is ever repeated; and that every dancer's sequence is unique. "It plays with the DNA of what is supposedly dance, with the usual ideas of choreographic pattern, style, structure," said Mr. Charmatz, who speaks rapidly in fluent, lightly accented English. "If you don't repeat, you are throwing your material away all the time. You cannot do 'good' choreography like this." But his rigor and concentration were perfectly evident as he watched the dancers go through the first 10 minutes of the piece. "Not too anecdotal, please," he called out to one; "fifteen seconds is a little too long for that sequence," he said to another. Only when a dancer ran into the audience and hurled herself onto his lap as part of her sequence did he lose his intense stare and laugh. Mr. Charmatz said the idea for "10000 Gestures" came to him while watching one of his own pieces, "Levee des Conflits Extended," at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2013. "The idea of "Levee" was that it was based on limited gestures, so you were constantly circling through the sequence, like a living sculpture changing shape," he said. "I thought, what if you flip that, and have a piece where none of the dancers ever repeat a gesture or do the same one as anyone else?" How do you create 10,000 completely different gestures? Over many, many hours working in a group on various themes, Mr. Charmatz explained. The themes included: "doing nothing," microscopic movements (raising an eyebrow, flicking fingers), violence, eroticism, dance history, obscenity, and politics a "Brexit means Brexit" gesture made by Theresa May is even in there. "Each person has a different idea about what an erotic or a violent gesture might be," Mr. Charmatz said, "so you get 25 variations on these ideas all happening together." All the themes come in a specific order and last for a predetermined amount of time, he explained, although the number of dancers onstage and the groupings they create vary constantly. When it was pointed out that structuring the work through changing configurations might verge on good choreography, he laughed. "Of course I want it to be compelling to watch," he said. "I'm bringing all my skills, even the ones I don't have, to this piece." A major name in the European contemporary dance world, Mr. Charmatz has never followed a traditional path. He made his name when still quite young: In 1993, at 19, he choreographed "A Bras le Corps" with Dimitri Chamblas, a friend from the Conservatoire de Lyon, where both had trained after defecting from the Paris Opera Ballet school to pursue a more contemporary dance orientation. The simplicity, physicality and direct attack of "A Bras le Corps," performed in a boxing ring with spectators seated on all sides, was a salutary shock in the highly theatricalized world of 1990s French dance. Mr. Charmatz continued on an iconoclastic path. He did not form his own ensemble or accept commissions for companies. He danced with various troupes and collaborated with fellow choreographers while creating relatively few pieces, which were often more like installation works than conventional dance performances. From 2002 to 2004, he ran a nomadic school for 15 students; he has written a book about contemporary dance and is a co author of two others. When he was appointed, in 2009, to lead the National Choreographic Center in Rennes, his first decision was to change its name to the Musee de la Danse. Unlike most of the choreographers who head regional centers in France, Mr. Charmatz has no permanent company, and works on a project to project basis. (His term in Rennes ends in 2018.) "Boris brings movement and ideas together in space in extraordinary ways," said John McGrath, the director of the Manchester International Festival, who added that he was keen to make dance an increasingly important part of the biennial event. "How do ideas manifest in art? The ambition of this work, the largest he has ever made, and the ambition of the idea felt like something we could really embrace." The experience of creating "10000 Gestures" has been grueling but exhilarating, said Mr. Chamblas, who still dances "A Bras le Corps" with Mr. Charmatz and is performing in "10000 Gestures." "It is all entirely fixed choreographically, and you have to be very precise, and switch from one parameter to another extremely fast," he said. He gave a quick run down: "At the beginning of the piece are the gestures of doing nothing, but very fast, 25 of them; then 15 movements going backwards, then 55 'crazy' movements, then five rest positions. All of that is about a minute." Mr. Charmatz said that an important early decision was to perform almost everything at high speed. "What's interesting is to create a storm, like snowflakes coming at you in the light," he said. "It's as if we keep running, the piece will hold together. Or like the idea that when you are dying, your life flashes before you. It plays also with the idea, which people are always saying, that dance is ephemeral, that no two moments are ever the same." The underlying idea of death, he added, felt important, and also the idea of being fully present. Referring to the recent suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert, he said: "We are in Manchester, with everything that happened here, so I have used Mozart's Requiem in the piece. And not to be too political, but it's easy to feel, especially in France, like you can't move for problems migrants, unemployment, Brexit. In some ways this is also about moving on. Every moment says 'now.'"	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Before and After the Golden Globes, From Red Carpet to the After Parties None	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Each week, technology reporters and columnists from The New York Times review the week's news, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry. Want this newsletter in your inbox? Sign up here. Hello readers! This is Erin Griffith, one of the newest members of The Times's tech team. I'm taking over the start up and venture capital beat, which judging from conversations on the V.C. summer party circuit consists entirely of scooters, cryptocurrency and SoftBank. While I plan to venture far beyond that, I'm now prepared for the inevitable day that SoftBank puts scooters on the blockchain and I get to write about all three at once. This week, though, I just needed to worry about SoftBank. Every SoftBank investment can make waves because of the size of the company's ambitions. SoftBank's 100 billion Vision Fund is larger than the total amount invested by all venture funds in the United States in 2017. The deals are so large, start ups can now can ask themselves: I.P.O. or SoftBank? That firepower is why SoftBank's name tends to strike fear, envy and longing into the hearts of investors and start up chief executives. Some investors accuse the Vision Fund of distorting the funding market by inflating start up valuations. Some founders are desperate to get access to the company's Scrooge McDuck pool of money. But others charge that the fund, which invests a minimum of 100 million per deal, is pushing companies to take on capital they may not want or need out of fear. (Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber's C.E.O., once said he did a deal with the firm because he'd rather have SoftBank's "capital cannon" behind him, rather than pointed at him.)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
In 2015, Vice President Joe Biden visited the Newark, Calif., laboratory of a hot new start up making medical devices: Theranos. Biden saw rows of impressive looking equipment the company's supposedly game changing device for testing blood and offered glowing praise for "the laboratory of the future." The lab was a fake. The devices Biden saw weren't close to being workable; they had been staged for the visit. Biden was not the only one conned. In Theranos's brief, Icarus like existence as a Silicon Valley darling, marquee investors including Robert Kraft, Betsy DeVos and Carlos Slim shelled out 900 million. The company was the subject of adoring media profiles; it attracted a who's who of retired politicos to its board, among them George Shultz and Henry Kissinger. It wowed an associate dean at Stanford; it persuaded Safeway and Walgreens to spend millions of dollars to set up clinics to showcase Theranos's vaunted revolutionary technology. And its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, was feted as a biomedical version of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, a wunderkind college dropout who would make blood testing as convenient as the iPhone. This is the story the prizewinning Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou tells virtually to perfection in "Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup," which really amounts to two books. The first is a chilling, third person narrative of how Holmes came up with a fantastic idea that made her, for a while, the most successful woman entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. She cast a hypnotic spell on even seasoned investors, honing an irresistible pitch about a little girl who was afraid of needles and who now wanted to improve the world by providing faster, better blood tests. Her beguiling concept was that by a simple pinprick drawing only a drop or two of blood Theranos could dispense with the hypodermic needle, which she likened to a gruesome medieval torture, and perform a full range of blood tests in walk in clinics and, ultimately, people's homes. The premise was scientifically dubious, and Theranos's technology was either not ready, unworkable or able to perform only a fraction of the tests promised. Many of the people who showed up at clinics actually had their blood drawn from old fashioned needles. And most of the tests were graded not by Theranos's proprietary technology, but by routine commercially available equipment. Despite warnings from employees that Theranos wasn't ready to go live on human subjects its devices were likened to an eighth grade science project Holmes was unwilling to disappoint investors or her commercial partners. The result was a fiasco. Samples were stored at incorrect temperatures. Patients got faulty results and were rushed to emergency rooms. People who called Theranos to complain were ignored; employees who questioned its technology, its quality control or its ethics were fired. Ultimately, nearly a million tests conducted in California and Arizona had to be voided or corrected. The author's description of Holmes as a manic leader who turned coolly hostile when challenged is ripe material for a psychologist; Carreyrou wisely lets the evidence speak for itself. As presented here, Holmes harbored delusions of grandeur but couldn't cope with the messy realities of bioengineering. Swathed in her own reality distortion field, she dressed in black turtlenecks to emulate her idol Jobs and preached that the Theranos device was "the most important thing humanity has ever built." Employees were discouraged from questioning this cultish orthodoxy by her "ruthlessness" and her "culture of fear." Secrecy was obsessive. Labs and doors were equipped with fingerprint scanners. The heart of the problem, Carreyrou writes, was that "Holmes and her company overpromised and then cut corners when they couldn't deliver." To hide those shortcuts, they lied. Theranos invented revenue estimates "from whole cloth." It boasted of mysterious contracts with pharmaceutical companies that never seemed to be available for viewing. It spread the story that the United States Army was using its devices on the battlefield and in Afghanistan a fabrication. Even for a private company like Theranos, disclosure is the bedrock of American capitalism the "disinfectant" that allows investors to gauge a company's prospects. Based on Carreyrou's dogged reporting, not even Enron lied so freely. Carreyrou's presentation has a few minor flaws. He introduces scores of characters and, after a while, it becomes hard to keep track of them. In describing these many players he sometimes relies on stereotypes. Of an employee "built like an N.F.L. lineman" the author writes, "his physique belied a sharp intellect." Actually, it didn't; big people can also have sharp intellects. Such blemishes in no way detract from the power of "Bad Blood." In the second part of the book the author compellingly relates how he got involved, following a tip from a suspicious reader. His recounting of his efforts to track down sources many of whom were being intimidated by Theranos's bullying lawyer, David Boies reads like a West Coast version of "All the President's Men." The author is admirably frank about his craft. He feels a "familiar rush" when he hears that patient false negatives could be life threatening i.e., that he's onto a big story. In the end, Carreyrou got the Boies treatment angry (but ultimately hollow) threats of a lawsuit. Holmes also pleaded with Rupert Murdoch the power behind The Wall Street Journal and, as it happened, her biggest investor to kill the story. It's a good moment in American journalism when Murdoch says he'll leave it to the editors. After Carreyrou's front page expose was published in 2015, Theranos's business prospects collapsed, directors resigned and the S.E.C. sued Holmes for fraud (she settled). The company also settled private suits. Federal regulators, already on the trail, found numerous violations, including sloppy lab procedures and unreliable equipment. Theranos, they determined, put patient health in "immediate jeopardy." Several of the labs have been shuttered. Carreyrou has reported that Theranos is under criminal investigation and probably headed for liquidation. The question of how it got so far more than 800 employees and a paper valuation of 9 billion will fascinate business school classes for years. The first line of defense should have been the board, and its failure was shocking. Some of the directors displayed a fawning devotion to Holmes in effect becoming cheerleaders rather than overseers. Shultz helped his grandson land a job; when the kid reported back that the place was rotten, Grandpa didn't believe him. There is a larger moral here: The people in the trenches know best. The V.I.P. directors were nectar for investor bees, but they had no relevant expertise. Even outsiders could have spotted red flags, but averted their eyes as if they wanted to believe. Fishy excuses Holmes blamed a production delay on an earthquake in Japan were blithely accepted. When a Walgreens team visited Theranos it pointedly asked for and was denied permission to see the lab. A company consultant pleaded that the chain not go ahead with in store clinics. "Someday this is going to be a black eye," he predicted. But Walgreens was plagued by a "fear of missing out." Like many executives, they were looking over their shoulder and not at the evidence. Surely, no one suspected a lie that big. The fundamental premise "was to help people, and not to harm them," Walgreens recounted, in a legal brief that sounded stunned. Yet another explanation is the gilt edged and magical status that society confers on Silicon Valley, as a place where fantasies come true.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
The French conductor Emmanuelle Haim, who makes her debut with the New York Philharmonic this week, rehearsing the orchestra at David Geffen Hall. The French conductor Emmanuelle Haim stopped a group of New York Philharmonic musicians who were rehearsing Handel's "Water Music" on a recent morning at David Geffen Hall. She turned to the violins. "Ti ya, ti ya, pa, pa, pa!" she sang, the last syllables ringing out like shots. Soon the music resumed, and with it Ms. Haim's animated conducting, which can be seen as she makes her Philharmonic debut in performances on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday in the Baroque repertory that is her specialty. It is an unusually challenging assignment, bringing the aesthetic of the early 18th century to an ensemble that makes only rare forays into that era. "It is so important for the musicians to play this music, to widen their palette," Ms. Haim, 56, said in an interview in her dressing room, her hands as expressive and roving as they were on the podium. "But it is also important to have specialist groups. You need those historical instruments because they tell you how to play the music." Referring to the organic strings on period instruments, she added: "The gut tells you how to play." Translating "gut" lessons into the world of symphony orchestras with modern forces, large halls and tight rehearsal budgets means choosing one's battles. Ms. Haim gets just three days to prepare the Philharmonic for a program of Handel and Rameau. She said her goal was not to force the musicians to sound as if they played on period instruments, whether by changing the way they hold the bow or telling the strings to rein in their vibrato. Rather, she said: "If I can get the music to speak, maybe take a walking bass and make it go places" her hands traced a subtle curve "then perhaps it also changes the way you hold your bow, the way you play a stroke." In other words, inspired music making will lead to idiomatic Baroque technique, not vice versa. At one point during the rehearsal, Ms. Haim encouraged the double basses to take charge of a line and give it a more distinct contour by varying the length and weight of the notes. "But you decide as you go," she told the players. When they repeated the passage, the music had taken on greater narrative freedom, the bassists visibly alert and responsive to each other. Ms. Haim's movements resembled a dance in which her torso twisted and bobbed while her expressive arms seemed to will the music into being with gestures that floated, beseeched, cajoled and commanded. Sometimes her hands descended onto the keyboard of the harpsichord in front of her and she played a few bars, then rose to her feet and shoved the stool out of the way with a swing of the hips. "Don't be afraid," she said at one point, "to make those accents very" she searched for the words in English "wild and daring." Unleashing the wild and daring side of the Baroque has been Ms. Haim's mission for decades. Le Concert d'Astree, the ensemble she founded in 2000, has become a powerhouse on the early music scene, bringing its temperamental playing to opera productions, concerts and Grammy nominated recordings. On her own, Ms. Haim has become a go to guest in this repertory with prestigious symphony orchestras like the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The influence of historically informed performance practice with Baroque music has been pervasive in tempo, with fast movements that can leave an audience breathless. In a Handel recording out this week from Le Concert d'Astree, rapid scales come off as quick and crisp as strobe lighting. And in rehearsal in New York, Ms. Haim took some of Handel's dance movements at an impetuous speed. The Philharmonic retained its rounder, more polished sound, but many passages seemed energetically charged, with one Bourree so swift that a whole section seemed to fly by in one gust of air. "It's in the dances," Ms. Haim said when asked how she determined her tempos. "I worked a lot with Francine Lancelot, who was a pioneer in Baroque dance reconstruction in France. And when you study harpsichord at the conservatoire, you have to take classes in Baroque dance." Ms. Haim's own dance studies were cut short when she was 10 and diagnosed with a curved spine. For the next decade, she wore a corset that severely restricted her movements. During this time, she switched from piano to the organ, adding harpsichord studies at conservatory. It was there that she met William Christie, the early music maestro who had been crucial in reviving interest in French Baroque music in the 1980s. He became her mentor. "His class was for singers only," Ms. Haim said, "but when I tried to look in" she mimed pressing her face and palms against a window "he invited me and asked me to play the harpsichord." She said she found the musicians in modern orchestras to be increasingly versatile and willing to experiment in approaching the Baroque. It's an echo of the spirit of openness that she most remembers from her days in Mr. Christie's class, reading historical treatises on declamation and trying out new forms of expression in front of her fellow students. "We had that spirit of curiosity that is so important," she said. If there was a gulf separating the early music world from the mainstream, she didn't notice. "I didn't know there was another world," she said. " I was so submerged in this one."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
LOS ANGELES The latest Shelby GT350 Mustang was put on display here at the 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show on Wednesday as something of a homage to the late performance guru Carroll Shelby. The car is based on the recently introduced sixth generation of Ford's classic pony car. The GT350 should be available for sale early next year, at a price still to be disclosed. No one would be surprised, however, if it cost at least double the 32,000 starting price of a stock Mustang GT. That is because the Shelby treated version has been stuffed with equipment from Ford's bag of performance tricks. Under the hood, which is striped like the rest of the car's exterior fore to aft, with Shelby signature twin racing accent lines, lurks a racing refined 500 plus horsepower 5.2 liter V8. Ford says the engine is "the most powerful naturally aspirated production engine we have ever built." It features what is called a "flat plane" crankshaft layout, with connecting rods attached to it at 180 degree angles rather than the usual 90 degrees to aid greater racing performance. A 6 speed manual transmission is needed to handle all that power and the more than 400 pound feet of torque, the company said. Ford describes the new Shelby as "track savvy but street friendly," characteristics aided by various aerodynamic and styling tweaks meant to improve the car's feel as well as its looks. A new driver control system features modes that adjust the anti lock system, stability and traction control, steering effort, throttle mapping, suspension damping and exhaust settings.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
BRESCIA, Italy No matter where his career has taken him, Mario Balotelli's home has always been here, in an apartment block sandwiched between a Volvo dealership and the campus of the University of Brescia. The bottom floor is taken up by a bicycle shop, a piadina joint and an interiors showroom. Balotelli has the penthouse. He bought it in 2012, when he was not just a sporting phenomenon, but a cultural one, too. That was the year he won the Premier League with Manchester City; the year he drove Italy to the final of the European Championship; the year he appeared on the cover of Time magazine. He could visit only occasionally while he played in England, but when he joined A.C. Milan in 2013, he moved in permanently. To the club's mild chagrin, Balotelli preferred the hourlong commute from Brescia to the idea of moving to the big city. The apartment sits at the southern pole of what Carlos Passerini, a Corriere della Sera reporter who has covered the peaks and troughs of Balotelli's career, has called the forward's "magic circle." A couple of miles north is Concesio, the village where he grew up. A mile or so east is the Oratorio del Mompiano, the sports club where he first played soccer, and to which he has always gone back, without fanfare and often without warning, to watch the children who dream of following his path. And just around the corner, within easy walking distance, is the Stadio Mario Rigamonti, home of Brescia Calcio, his hometown team. Balotelli was not a Brescia fan as a child; he admitted in 2009 that he supported A.C. Milan, his honesty apparently unencumbered by the fact that at the time he was playing for Milan's fierce city rival, Internazionale. The stadium, though, has long figured on Balotelli's horizon. There is a view across Brescia, the whole sweep of the city, from the south facing balcony of his apartment. His bedroom looks the other way. He can see the stadium's floodlights from its window. The Prodigal Who Never Left Last summer, out of contract after leaving Marseille, Balotelli had three choices. He could venture into the unknown and sign for Flamengo, in Brazil; he could earn an impossible, meaningless fortune in China; or he could take a substantial pay cut much of his 4.4 million annual salary is dependent on bonuses and join Brescia. Brescia, as a city, seemed to feel the connection, too. It returned Balotelli's affection. In the time he had been away, Brescia had changed. He remembers countless instances from his youth of feeling like he stood out: the only black player not just on a team, but the whole field. He once told a teacher that he was trying to "wash the color" off his skin; he asked if his "heart was black, too." Now, according to Stefano Brasetti, Balotelli's personal trainer, the city is "proudly multicultural." Some 19 percent of its inhabitants are extracomunitari, he said people who have come from outside the European Union, drawn by the wealth and the work available in Lombardy, one of Italy's richest regions. The province is now home to 156,000 immigrants, and Brescia itself has large communities from Pakistan, India, Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria. Balotelli returned, then, not only to a city that had always been happy to call him "one of our own," as one staff member at the Oratorio said, but one that had grown comfortable in its polychrome skin. Now, every team, every field, has black players. He could, at last, feel as if he belonged. During the summer, as he waited to see what his future held, Balotelli worked out at Brasetti's gym. Occasionally, to improve his fitness, he would go for runs in the city's parks with his brother, Enock Barwuah. He was stopped countless times and invited to join local pickup games. He never refused. "For kids, especially, he is a star," Brasetti said. "Whenever they come up to him, he dedicates himself to them completely." It was not just children. The news conference to announce his signing had to be moved to a hotel, such was the crowd that gathered to see him presented as a Brescia player. The Mario Rigamonti was sold out for his first game; fans had lined up for hours to get tickets. They were drawn by curiosity, and hope, but mainly they were captivated by the story of the prodigal son, playing out in front of their eyes. "It is not possible to ignore the image of that restless and talented child who looked at the Rigamonti from the pitch of the Oratorio in Mompiano, dreaming of Brescia," the journalist Stefano Scacchi wrote in La Repubblica. Balotelli had never really left Brescia, of course. He had always had the apartment, his sanctuary. The city had always been home. His only reservation was that Italian soccer had not always been quite so welcoming. "I don't know what sort of championship I will find," he said on the eve of his return to Serie A. "I hope the episodes that happened years ago will not be repeated." It is not possible to treat Balotelli's story as that of simply a soccer player. It is integral to its understanding that he is a black Italian soccer player or, to put it more bluntly, Italian soccer's black player. He did not make the cover of Time because he was a talented striker; he was featured, instead, because of a cultural significance that had been ascribed to him. As one friend puts it, in that context, what would success have looked like? Could it have been measured in goals or assists, or was it supposed to be gauged by social change? How many goals would he have had to score, how many trophies would he have had to win, to have met expectations? "He was set a task he hadn't asked for and that nobody could complete," the friend said. Balotelli could not even rely on the support of his own fans. One faction of Brescia ultras admittedly small, and unabashedly right wing released a statement that played down the racism of its Verona counterparts. A few weeks later, the man who brought him to Brescia, the bombastic club president, Massimo Cellino, responded to a question about how Balotelli was doing by saying: "What can I say? He's black but he's trying to lighten himself." The club later insisted it was a play on words, "a joke said as a paradox," designed to "protect the player." That is the world Balotelli left as a teenager. It is the one he has returned to as an adult. That is the climate in which he has been asked to succeed, in which the tension over who belongs and who does not still lingers. In Serie A, he is still not treated just as a player, but as a black player. He is the bellwether and the test case, co opted as territory in a culture war. There is always someone to make him feel like it is not his home. For all the romance of his return to Brescia, for all the city's warmth toward him, there is still a sense that Balotelli should not be at Brescia. Not yet, anyway. At 17, he was Italian soccer's great hope: He won the Italian title, and the Champions League, with Inter at 20. By the time he was 22, he was an English champion, too. Now, at 29, that prodigy should be enjoying the final couple of years of his peak. That he is, instead, embroiled in a desperate bid to avoid relegation with Brescia is proof that his career has not played out as he or anyone else expected it to. There are those who have worked with Balotelli who wonder if that is because the hype around him has always outstripped his talent. The oscillations of his career he has scored more than 10 goals in consecutive seasons only twice: during his first spell at Milan, and then at Nice are indicative of either a player who never fulfilled his potential or one who had the scale of his potential overstated. One former coach wondered if Balotelli suffered from being earmarked for stardom from such a young age. "Goals always came easy to him," he said. "He never had to worry about doing everything else, the defending, the tracking, the movement." Some wonder if perhaps the desire to see him as a totem of change all those years ago created unrealistic expectations; perhaps he was always merely just a good, slightly fitful, forward, rather than Italian soccer's next sensation; perhaps we saw in him something that he never could be. He is still, occasionally, mentioned as a prospective member of Italy's squad for next summer's European Championship, but just as often his name comes up as a transfer target, headed to Serbia, to Major League Soccer, to anyplace but Brescia. Balotelli is still box office, still click bait, still a source of fascination and intrigue. He has an ability to attract suitors at least in part because he has an ability to sell newspapers. He is a name, a brand, a star, regardless of what he does on the field. He still has the apartment, though, and he still has Brescia. He is "serene" in the city, one family member said. Money, for him, is a secondary concern. He has a lifetime deal with Puma, his apparel sponsor, signed at the height of his fame, that ensures his income even after he retires. What matters to the player, at least; his representatives are a different matter is that he is happy. He is delighted to be eating home cooked food every night. The club sends Silvia a menu every week so she can make sure her son is eating the same meals at her home in Concesio as his teammates are at theirs. And whenever they can, Balotelli and his friends will head into central Brescia in the evening. They will take a leisurely passeggiata through the city's beautiful piazzas, wandering its quiet, cobbled streets. They often stop at Piazzale Arnaldo, a long, thin piazza where they have a favorite spot on the corner: Vita is a restaurant, cocktail bar and club rolled into one. Balotelli and his friends do not ask for special treatment there. They take a table on the floor with everyone else, and deal with the furtive glances and the requests for selfies. Just outside is a statue of the man after whom the square is named: Arnaldo da Brescia, a 12th century enemy of the state, an inveterate challenger of orthodoxy and authority. He was exiled three times. Eventually, he was captured, hanged and burned. His ashes were thrown into the Tiber, in case he became a martyr. In Brescia, they built him a monument.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
The automobile connected to the internet, powered by electricity, driven with computer support is evolving faster than at any point in its history. Buying one, though, remains just about the same as always. But luxury dealers are betting that technology, and a healthy dose of more personal interaction, can vastly reduce bad buying experiences. "How do I have a sustainable business when everyone laughs thinking about car salespeople?" asked Peter Cooper, owner of Lexus of Lehigh Valley, in Allentown, Pa. "We're so out of touch with the consumer." Aware that many buyers hate haggling, Lexus introduced a fixed price program in May 2016, called Lexus Plus, in which the customer deals with only one person from beginning to end. Only 10 of its 238 dealers in the United States are involved so far; another three are preparing to enter. "Buyers won't have to wait 45 minutes to see a finance director," said Jim Dunn, general manager for JM Lexus of Margate, Fla., the world's highest volume Lexus dealer, which will offer Lexus Plus. "It's time to put your best price up front and live with that." At Mr. Cooper's dealership, the program has been well received. Unit sales are up 28.6 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period last year. Fixed pricing has been tried and abandoned before, most notably by General Motors' now defunct Saturn division in the 1990s. Now other companies have similar programs; Tesla sells its vehicles only at a fixed price, and Costco members can be referred to participating dealers handling a range of brands to pay a pre negotiated sum. Not getting a straight answer on price is one reason Will Kunkel, who wanted to acquire three new Audis for his family, left two dealerships in disgust. "The first dealer told me that I had to buy immediately because the car would be gone that night," Mr. Kunkel said. "And the second would only talk about monthly payments rather than price. They may as well call you an idiot to your face." Cadillac is testing a program whereby customers never buy any particular vehicle at all. Instead, they buy rights to a car and can change which one they want to drive using a mobile app. Book by Cadillac, being tested in New York City, offers the ability to switch among Cadillac models up to 18 times per year. Using the Book app, customers can reserve a vehicle that, if it is available, will be delivered the next morning to the location of their choice. The program costs 1,500 per month, which includes registration, insurance, service and repairs. All vehicles, including the Escalade, CT6, XT5, CTS V and ATS V, have high end trims, plus a 4G LTE connection and hot spot, OnStar and satellite radio. About 8,000 people have asked to be part of the program, the company said. And the high tech, no commitment approach has attracted younger drivers: Although the average age of a Cadillac owner is 62, the average age of those signing up for Book is 34, 90 percent of them first time Cadillac drivers. "We're a Netflix for cars," said Melody Lee, Cadillac's director of brand marketing. When customers do go to a dealership to buy, they have often done research online before leaving home, industry experts say. That makes it harder for dealers to keep the upper hand when discussing typical prices, features or available inventory. "It's definitely a challenge for dealers when customers have instant access to vehicle information," said Chris Sutton, vice president for United States automotive retail practice at the research firm J. D. Power. Alfa Romeo, trying to make a comeback in the United States, is arming its dealers' sales teams with iPads to help them communicate on more equal terms with their customers, said Pieter Hogeveen, director of Alfa Romeo North America. Lincoln Motor Company, Ford's luxury division, is approaching the problem of selling to a well informed, focused public by reshaping a car sale as a luxury experience. Customers don't want to submit themselves to one salesperson to haggle with, then to a closer and finally to a finance manager, surrendering the better part of a day. "For affluent customers, time is the key thing; it's their ultimate luxury," said Kumar Galhotra, Lincoln's president. To reduce the time that people spend buying and servicing their vehicles, Lincoln is offering at home test drives and service pickups and deliveries. Customers can even evaluate a vehicle over the weekend. Such convenience based initiatives are part of Lincoln's Black Label program, a sales and service package that was first offered in 2014 and is available at 106 of the company's 800 dealers, in 29 states. Black Label models have certain levels of trim and are offered in unique color and fabric combinations. Sales representatives visit customers at their homes or businesses with a sample swatch kit to determine how the car will look inside. Once purchased, Black Label vehicles are picked up and delivered for servicing, and replaced with a loaner car. Lincoln's theory is that a good sales process continues after the sale, so the company offers additional features to keep customers coming back.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
The comic books published by Dynamite Entertainment do not fall into easy categories. Series have starred the internet sensation Grumpy Cat, the government spy James Bond and the sword and sorcery heroine Red Sonja. Forthcoming books featuring Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys and a mini series teaming up the Bionic Woman and Wonder Woman, on loan from DC Comics, further broaden Dynamite's library. And that is exactly how Nick Barrucci, the company's chief executive and publisher, likes it. "I think we're more than a licensing publisher and more than a comic book publisher," Mr. Barrucci said in a telephone interview. Dynamite, which has an office in Mount Laurel, N.J., publishes comics with licensed characters like James Bond, instructional books that include Stan Lee's "How to Draw" series and lavish hardcover books that celebrate topics like the art of Atari. "The company looks at different categories and different opportunities to grow," Mr. Barrucci said. Randy Lander, the owner of Rogues Gallery Comics Games in Round Rock, Tex., said Dynamite "has a pretty far reaching philosophy, which means their odds of getting a hit are pretty good, but they're putting out a ton of books, which means their odds of short lived series are also pretty good." He added: "They've got relationships with comic legends like Matt Wagner. They've tapped creators who are perfect fits for a license, like Warren Ellis on James Bond or Jeff Parker on Flash Gordon." In 2011, Dynamite published a comic book version of the Bionic Man, based on an unproduced screenplay by Kevin Smith, which became a continuing series. It was replaced in 2014 with "The Six Million Dollar Man: Season Six," a comic book continuation of the 1970s ABC television series. The Bionic Woman was similarly revived. Next year, she will meet Wonder Woman '77, the heroine of a digital first series published by DC Comics and based on the CBS television series starring Lynda Carter. Andy Mangels will write the adventures of these heroines from the 1970s. "When Andy suggested this, it just seemed perfect," said Joseph Rybandt, the executive editor of Dynamite. "He was passionate about the project and a talent we had not previously worked with." As an added bonus, "Andy is a super Wonder Woman fan and a super Bionic Woman fan," Mr. Rybandt said. One of Dynamite's goals is to further diversify its audience, which is where Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys come in. Their new series, which will make its premiere next year, will take two tracks, Mr. Rybandt said "one, which aims for the mass market teen and tween reader, and also something for the comic book market that aims a little older." When asked about their company's achievements, both Mr. Barrucci and Mr. Rybandt recited a litany of expected projects and one surprise involving real estate. "Our real biggest success is that we've opened up New York offices and added to the sales and editorial team," Mr. Barrucci said. They made the move in part to be closer to publishing partners, including Random House and Scholastic, and to have a chance to acquire talent that became available when DC Comics moved its editorial operations to Burbank, Calif., last year. "In a lot of ways, it's the biggest risk we've ever taken. But in every way, it's the most exciting time of our careers," Mr. Barrucci said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media

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