Our writer took four ear-popping elevator journeys high above Midtown Manhattan to experience adventures ranging from mild to thrillingly intense.
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Things should have been settled. The weary delegates should have already chosen a presidential nominee, packed up their Welcome to New York souvenirs and returned home in time for the nation’s celebration of what it stood for.
Instead, the study in indecision that was the Democratic National Convention of 1924 staggered through the Fourth of July weekend, its 3,000 delegates all but ensnared in the red-white-and-blue bunting adorning a tired Manhattan arena slated for demolition.
The convention, which lasted 16 days and an astounding 103 ballots, is notorious both for being the longest in history and for being infected by the Ku Klux Klan, which cast a long shadow over the America of that time. Just a few dozen miles to the south, it was celebrating a white-nationalist Independence Day with a hood-and-robe parade right down the Broadway of a beachside New Jersey city.
The simultaneous events reflected the divide over what it meant to be an American. Instead of proudly asserting who we are, that distant summer day raised a question being debated over the July Fourth weekend a century later: Who are we?
At play were the tensions between the rural and the urban; the isolationist and the world-engaged; the America of white Protestant Christianity and the multiracial America of all faiths; the America that distrusted immigrants and the America that saw itself in those immigrants, and wished to extend a hand.
Exploiting these conflicts was the Klan, the post-Civil War white-supremacist organization that had been resurrected a decade earlier. Its “America First” mantra resonated with an aggrieved Protestant middle class — some Republicans, some Democrats — who sensed their power slipping away.
Today, in the quickening of a presidential campaign that both parties call a battle for America’s very soul, the historian Jon Meacham hears rhyming between 2024 and 1924, when the country was reeling from war and a pandemic, adapting to a transformative medium — radio — and setting exceedingly restrictive immigration quotas.
“Given the demographic and technological changes, the anti-immigrant and racist sentiments, and the anxiety about the loss of a largely white-dominated culture, 1924 has long struck me as an analogous period to our own,” Mr. Meacham said.
The thousands of out-of-towners who assembled for the Democratic convention in late June found a Manhattan determined to shed its image in the hustings as Gomorrah on the Hudson. The streets were swept of pickpockets and debris, delegates were greeted with flowers and boutonnieres, and 25,000 city employees staged a welcoming parade led by the silk-hatted mayor, John F. Hylan, who combed his hair at every pause along the Fifth Avenue march.
The convention took place just off Madison Square, in the second iteration of Madison Square Garden, a massive Gilded Age confection with a tower topped by a 13-foot copper statue of the goddess Diana. But the dazzling allure of the arena — scene of countless balls and prizefights, flower shows and the scandalous murder of its architect, Stanford White — had dimmed. The convention would be this Garden’s last as a venue of consequence.
Still, Diana, as envisioned by the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, continued her vigilance over the metropolis from her heavenly perch, a weather vane turning with the fickle wind. Her thick portfolio included goddess of the crossroads, a fitting responsibility given the stark political choices unfolding beneath her.
The two leading candidates for the Democratic nomination to challenge Calvin Coolidge, the Republican incumbent with the mien of an undertaker, almost seemed to represent different parties.
One was William Gibbs McAdoo Jr., a tall, well-educated Protestant lawyer from the South. Stage-ready handsome and as stiff as his starched-neck collar, McAdoo was a reform-minded progressive who disdained political machines like New York’s Tammany Hall and supported the prohibition against the manufacture and sale of alcohol. But he was no progressive on matters of race, and as Treasury secretary, he had enforced the policy of his father-in-law, President Woodrow Wilson, to segregate federal agencies.
The other, Al Smith, governor of New York, wore his Irish Catholic mutt heritage like a sash, and spoke with a gravelly voice that conjured the multilingual street song of his native Lower East Side. Smith had little formal education and often boasted of being an F.F.M. man, for “Fulton Fish Market.” Still, the work ethic developed at the market served him well as he rose from Tammany Hall functionary to a master negotiator who studied proposed legislation as though cramming for college exams. He favored immigration, opposed Prohibition and was determined to thwart the favorite, McAdoo.
The two candidates differed sharply on the nettlesome question of the Klan, whose supporters at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland weeks earlier had snuffed out a resolution to denounce the organization. (Time magazine nicknamed the gathering the “Kleveland Konvention.”)
Smith, who decried the Klan as a threat to democracy, championed a proposed plank in the Democratic Party platform to condemn the Klan by name. McAdoo, though, opposed such specificity and declined to repudiate the Klan, for fear, perhaps, of alienating its admiring delegates and voters.
“The Klan influence on that convention was enormous,” said Linda Gordon, a historian and the author of “The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition.” “And, like many social movements, progressive as well as reactionary, they built themselves up through claims of victimization.”
The June 20, 1924, issue of the Klan’s newspaper, The Fiery Cross, reflected the ideology coursing through the Democratic convention and the national conversation. Tirades against “Romanistic influences.” Antisemitic riffs. Warnings about miscegenation. A call for “militant, old-fashioned Christianity and operative patriotism.”
The intolerance was buffed with a patriotic polish. Amid the odes to the American flag and founding fathers were advertisements catering to nativists. “EAT with Americans at the American Restaurant.” Or purchase a Kluxer’s Knifty Knife, intended for “for two-fisted Americans.” Or buy property in the “100 percent American addition” of the Hiawatha Gardens development in Indianapolis.
“Lots sold to white Protestant Americans only,” the ad said.
“It’s an old story,” said the historian David Levering Lewis, “of a country that is made up of immigrants, but some don’t count because they’re darker, or pro-alcohol, or they’re Catholic or Jewish or otherwise suspect. The great fear was that these people would get on ships and swamp us.”
On the first day of the convention, June 24, the delegates streamed into the Garden in Palm Beach suits and summery linen dresses. Women had won the right to vote a few years earlier and were well represented, but there was reportedly only one Black participant — an alternate who would replace a white delegate — in the excited sea lapping against the flag-festooned main platform.
Jackets were soon removed, and souvenir fans began to flutter. It was as if the delegates were at the circus, with the rising temperature from bloviation and body heat seeming to summon the animal aromas from the Garden’s big-top spectacle a couple of months earlier.
That was how it would be — hot and circuslike — for 16 days.
Democrats bickered for nearly a week over the proposed anti-Klan plank, which would have said the party opposed “any effort on the part of the Ku Klux Klan or any organization to interfere with the religious liberty or political freedom of any citizen, or to limit the civic rights of any citizen or body of citizens because of religion, birthplace or racial origin.”
But after bruising marathons of backroom bargaining and open-floor confrontations, the plank was defeated by a single vote. Instead, the party tiptoed past any mention of the Klan with language that said, in part: “We insist at all times upon obedience to the orderly processes of the law and deplore and condemn any effort to arouse religious or racial dissension.”
In the midst of this debate about the party’s direction, there suddenly appeared on the scene a Civil War veteran named James John Brady, an octogenarian runaway with poor hearing, no teeth and many opinions. Without a word to anyone, Brady had left Mrs. Gray’s boardinghouse in Vincennes, Ind. — in the midst of its own Klan Karnival — and traveled by train to New York City, using savings from his $72 monthly pension. The Travelers Aid Society had generated headlines by taking up his cause to attend the Democratic convention.
For a brief day or two, the penniless veteran was the toast of Gotham. Democratic leaders provided him with a convention ticket. An actress from Indiana invited him to her play on Broadway. (“He’s stone deaf and I don’t think he heard a word of the play,” she later said.) Then he was put on a train back home, his ticket covered by his landlady, his brief appearance like a spectral reminder of principles considered long since settled by brother-against-brother bloodshed.
Amid bobbing banners, tribal roars and shouted snippets of state anthems, the balloting for a presidential nominee began. In the first round, McAdoo won nearly 40 percent of the vote, well more than Smith’s 22 percent but far from the two-thirds needed to secure the nomination.
And so it went, ballot after ballot, through what remained of June and into July, past the scheduled closing indicated in the convention’s official program. The names of dark horses and favorite sons kept popping up, while the contest between the main contenders, McAdoo and Smith — between the rural Klan-adjacent “drys” and the urban Klan-averse “wets” — remained deadlocked.
Some delegates up and left the city, depleted of money or patience or both. As for the rest, the humorist Will Rogers jokingly grumbled that New York had invited these delegates to visit, not to live there.
The 10th ballot. The 20th. The 40th. The 60th. …
Now it was the Fourth of July. The day’s proceedings began with a reading of the Declaration of Independence. Then came the 62nd ballot. The 63rd. The 64th. The 65th.
Americans gathered in homes and the street to hear the first convention to be broadcast by radio. The drama gradually veered into farce, as time after time they heard the roll call of state delegations begin with a disembodied Southern voice declaring: “Alabama casts 24 votes for Oscar W. Underwood!”
Beyond the convention’s confines, Americans embraced the annual rituals of Independence Day. Baseball fans watched the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Phillies split a doubleheader at the Polo Grounds. Nearly half a million people jammed the beaches of Coney Island. And tens of thousands of Klan members and supporters claimed the Fourth as their own in towns around the country, including the Jersey Shore community of Long Branch.
More than 20,000 people wandered the grounds of a Klan-controlled estate just outside the small city. The festivities featured a wedding with bride and groom in hoods; the christening of 16 children; a softball game between New Jersey and Pennsylvania Klan members (who won is lost to time); and speeches, including one by a judge from Indianapolis who reported he had “just come from Jew York.”
“No matter what they do, there will not be anybody but a Protestant as a president or vice president,” the judge asserted.
According to a report in The New York Times, spectators were also invited to throw baseballs at an effigy of Al Smith, a whiskey bottle in its left hand. Three for a nickel.
Then, following the lead of a Klansman on horseback waving an American flag, a few thousand robed Klan members — merchants and businessmen and next-door neighbors, enjoying hooded anonymity — marched through a city by the sea. On one float, a Boy Scout held a sign that said, “We Want The Holy Bible In Our Schools.” On another, labeled “Clean Politics,” a Klansman mimicked casting a ballot under the watchful eye of Lady Justice.
Amid cheers and boos and silence, they paraded past the pharmacies and candy stores and luncheonettes, past the signs for movie double features and Hildebrecht’s ice cream, straight down a typical American Broadway.
Meanwhile, in a stifling arena close to another Broadway — the one in Manhattan — the deadlock continued. The 66th ballot. The 67th. The 68th. The 69th. The 70th.
It took a few more days, but the paralysis — and, perhaps, the fever — eventually broke.
On July 9, on the 103rd ballot, a compromise candidate, John W. Davis, a prominent lawyer and diplomat from West Virginia, secured the exhausted party’s nomination after McAdoo and Smith withdrew. Four months later, Davis lost in a landslide to the incumbent, Coolidge.
William McAdoo went on to serve as a senator from California. Al Smith won the Democratic nomination in 1928, but lost to the Republican, Herbert Hoover, in another landslide tarnished by pervasive anti-Catholicism.
Back in Indiana, James John Brady, the Civil War veteran, recounted his New York adventure to anyone who would listen. “As far as the Ku Klux Klan issue goes,” he would say, “well, the Lord forgive them for they know not what they do.”
His words proved prophetic. This second iteration of the Klan — a third would emerge a generation later in violent backlash to the civil rights movement — would continue strong for another couple of years, but its popularity would plummet amid sex scandals, criminal behavior and internecine quarreling. By decade’s end, it would be a shell of a fraternal organization foundering for relevance.
Within two years of the disastrous convention of 1924, the grand old Madison Square Garden was a memory, knocked down to make room for an insurance building. But its golden goddess, Diana, found a home at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she continues to keep watch. Bow drawn, arrow at the ready, forever at the crossroads.
#Democratic #Convention #Nears #2024s #Divided #America #Rhymes #1924s
Eyewitness footage shows a funnel-shaped column ripping through Shandong province.
Rescue operations are under way, after the tornado killed one person and injured 79 people, according to the Dongming Emergency Management Bureau.
China has seen extreme weather conditions in recent months, from searing heatwaves to torrential rain.
#Debris #flies #air #tornado #hits #China #city
They had won one battle, and then sat to watch a battle of a different kind. Eight Ukrainian National Guard soldiers who had helped stall a Russian offensive in the northern Kharkiv region of Ukraine took the afternoon off on Monday to watch the men’s national soccer team play its first game of the European Championship.
“Football unites — it gives adrenaline and motivates,” said Evhen, 34, a soldier in the 13th National Guard Brigade who asked to be identified by only his first name, in accordance with military protocol.
The soldiers huddled in a bunker with soft drinks and chips to watch Ukraine play Romania in Munich, only to suffer heartbreak when their team lost by 3-0. But like most Ukrainians, they nonetheless take special pride in their sports team during the war.
“We have one team on the field and a million on the front,” said Andriy Shevchenko, a former soccer star who is Ukraine’s most famous player and now heads the national soccer federation. Like all Ukrainians, he said, “soccer players start their day by opening their phones and checking the situation on the battlefield.”
For the National Guard soldiers, who have been fighting together for more than a year, soccer became a chance to bond in the safety of a basement and cheer their national team. Huddled underground, they watched Ukraine quickly fall behind against Romania.
“At war, we look at things differently,” said a commander who uses the nickname Jackson. “Even now, while watching the game, we understand that at any moment we might have to leave and go into the trenches to fight. We are always ready.”
Soccer, he said, is important for Ukrainians, even during the war. “I don’t question it,” he said of people who support soccer players along with the army in wartime. “We are fighting and playing for our country.”
When Russia launched a cross-border attack north of Kharkiv last month, opening a new front in the war, Ukrainian soldiers stopped the advance within about 10 days. In one area of urban fighting, in the town of Vovchansk, they also drove Russian forces back from their leading positions.
With its soccer leagues all but hopelessly disrupted by war and occupation, Ukraine barely qualified for this tournament, needing to beat Iceland in a playoff on March 26 just to get in. That match was played in Wroclaw, Poland, since Ukraine cannot host games on its own territory because of the threat of Russian missiles.
Ukraine also has had no home games since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. Since then, professional soccer players who joined the army have been killed, along with countless soccer fans. Numerous soccer fields and other sports training sites have also been destroyed by the war.
The Sonyachny soccer stadium, which was shelled in May 2022, was badly damaged. While under occupation for a month at the beginning of the war, the soccer field in Borodianka, north of the capital, Kyiv, was defaced by Russian soldiers who dug a trench in the form of a huge “V” across the whole field. Russian soldiers mark the letters “V” and “Z” on their tanks.
Oleksandr Tymchyk, who played in the game against Romania on Monday, lost a brother when he was killed in action in Donetsk Oblast in August 2023.
Since February 2022, FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, and UEFA, the European governing body, have imposed a ban on all Russian clubs and national teams.
The game on Monday began Ukraine’s fourth appearance in the European Championship. The first time, in 2012, Ukraine co-hosted the tournament, with Poland, holding several games in the city of Donetsk, two years before Russia occupied the city.
But this year, most of the nearly one million men in the Ukrainian Army, National Guard, paramilitary police and other units could not watch. Some on the front line watched on screens hooked to batteries and satellite internet links also used to convey artillery coordinates and other military data.
Unlike civilian fans of the game, soldiers are prohibited from drinking.
“Beer is really missing here,” Evhen noted. He said he missed his circle of soccer-fan friends at home. “But I also have a really good team of friends here,” he added. “These are great guys.”
Ukraine hopes to use the tournament to draw international attention to the country’s plight, including that of its sports facilities.
Kharkiv is the region where the biggest number of sports facilities have been destroyed in the war. And ahead of Ukraine’s match on Monday in Munich, the national federation, the Ukrainian Association of Football, displayed part of the badly damaged stand from the Sonyachny stadium on the Wittelsbacherplatz plaza in the city.
Members of the Ukrainian national team also recorded a video showing rocket damage to each of their hometowns. Some are from occupied Donetsk and the surrounding area. The midfielder Mykola Shaparenko is from Velyka Novosilka in the Donetsk region, which is under Ukrainian control but has been destroyed in the war.
Ukrainian sports news media and bars are also using the momentum of the tournament to bring in donations for the army. The Beer Pub Kutovy in Kyiv announced an auction of the soccer player Nazar Voloshyn’s T-shirt to collect the money for the Third Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces.
Ukraine will play its next game, against Slovakia, on Friday. Teams play three matches in a group stage to determine who advances to the knockout rounds. This means Ukraine still has a chance for a victory.
The soldiers lamented the team’s loss against Romania.
“Well, we are all upset,” said Evhen, the soldier in the 13th National Guard Brigade. “But it is good that no one’s life depends on this match.”
Still, they joked, they had plenty of opportunities to vent their frustration.
“We will get some rest with the guys, then go fire mortars until the victory, to let a bit of steam out in this way,” Jackson, the commander, said.
#Ukraines #Soldiers #Cheer #National #Soccer #Team #Euro
Archaeological excavations near the Vatican have unearthed the remains of an ancient garden that likely belonged to the Roman Emperor Caligula (reigned 37-41 AD). This discovery was made during the construction of a pedestrian piazza intended to connect Castel Sant’Angelo to St. Peter’s Basilica and the Via della Conciliazione boulevard, some of the most frequented tourist areas in Rome.
Caligula, Ancient Rome, Roman Entertainment Venues, Roman Baths & Villas, Gardens, Vatican
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Environment Canada has issued heat warnings for parts of Vancouver Island and inland sections of coastal British Columbia as the province braces for a heat wave.
The weather agency says a high-pressure ridge building over the West Coast will bring “very high temperatures” starting Friday and stretching into next week.
The first series of warnings spans eastern Vancouver Island, including Courtenay, Campbell River, Duncan, Nanaimo, Fanny Bay and other nearby communities.
The bulletin says daytime highs are expected to hit the low 30s C in those areas with nighttime lows of around 16 C.
Another warning covers inland sections of the north and central coast, including Kitimat and Terrace, where the weather agency says daytime temperatures near 30 C are expected to persist from Saturday until Tuesday night.
Environment Canada says the heat poses a “moderate risk” to public health before the forecast returns to more seasonal temperatures later next week.
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“Right now, it looks like (next) Wednesday is the day for a change in the airmass,” said Armel Castellan, a warning preparedness meteorologist with the agency.
He said the province is divided into five regions based on their typical climatology, and each region is subject to different criteria for triggering a heat warning.
In the northwest, it’s two days or more with daytime highs of 28 C or higher and overnight temperatures of 13 C, Castellan said in an interview.
But temperatures in parts of the southern Interior must hit 35 C for two days with an overnight low of 18 C to trigger a heat warning.
B.C. evening weather forecast: July 4
“Vancouver itself would be at 29 degrees for two days and 16 degrees overnight,” Castellan said of the heat warning criteria in the province’s most populous city.
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A special weather statement is also in effect for Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, where above-average temperatures are expected well into next week.
The forecast for Vancouver projects daytime highs of 26 C on Sunday and Monday.
Environment Canada’s forecast says the mercury in Kamloops, B.C., is expected to hit 40 C on Monday and Tuesday, followed by 39 C on Wednesday.
In the northern community of Fort Nelson, B.C., daytime highs between 28 C and 30 C are expected from Sunday to next Wednesday. The entire community was evacuated for more than two weeks in the spring due to the threat of an early-season wildfire.
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B.C.’s heat alert and response system is the result of work by a committee struck in January 2022 to help the province respond to extreme heat events.
It followed the deadly heat dome event of summer 2021, when temperatures soared above 40 C in many communities between June 25 and July 1.
The BC Coroners Service reported 619 heat-related deaths that summer.
Castellan said the current heat wave will be different because temperatures aren’t expected to surpass the heat warning criteria by such large margins.
He said Wednesday that he expects Environment Canada will issue additional warnings as the heat moves from west to east across the province.
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The agency says risks associated with heat are elevated for older adults and people with conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and mental health challenges.
The heat warnings encourage people to watch for signs of heat illness including heavy sweating, rashes and fainting, and also to check in on friends and neighbours who may be at greater risk, especially if they live by themselves.
The BC Centre for Disease Control says heat waves are expected to “become more frequent, longer, and hotter” in the province due to climate change.
Special weather statement issued with heat in B.C. forecast
© 2024 The Canadian Press
Heat Wave, BC weather, Environment, Health, Weather
#Moderate #risk #Warnings #issued #B.C #braces #incoming #heat #wave
With the immense popularity of Fallout 76 following the live-action television series, more players than ever are flocking to post-apocalyptic Appalachia. But they’re spread far and wide across multiple systems. With that in mind, is Fallout 76 crossplay?
Unfortunately, Fallout 76 does not support crossplay completely. There’s a caveat, of course, because it shouldn’t be too simple to play with your friends cross-platform, right?
You can play Fallout 76 crossplay between PC and Xbox Series X|S, but only when playing on the Game Pass version of the multiplayer wasteland adventure.
If you purchased a digital copy from the Xbox Store and your pal purchased a copy through Steam, you cannot play together.
Will the game ever receive crossplay support? There’s no telling. Microsoft is making a huge push to put its games on every platform imaginable, and that often means cross-platform support to some extent. However, the most significant blockage preventing crossplay from moving forward successfully is usually Sony.
I hope you’re ready for a little more disappointment, sadly. You cannot transfer save files between systems in Fallout 76. If you previously created a character on the PC version but went out and bought an Xbox Series S on sale, you must start an entirely new save file on the console.
At the very least, it’s an opportunity to test out a new build!
Whether you jump in-game with a friend or not, you’ll likely want to start accumulating resources for crafting and construction. Here is how to get Gold Scrap in Fallout 76! Before you boot up the game, however, why not sign up for the Insider Gaming Newsletter?
#Fallout #Crossplay #Answered
If you scroll through the average student’s digital textbook or reading, you will probably see multi-colored streaks scattered everywhere. However, new research reveals that excessive highlighting may do more harm than good.
Researchers at Waterloo excel at creating new technologies, investigating human-technology interactions, and exploring how to mitigate harm. That’s why it’s no surprise that two computer scientists from Waterloo investigated whether technology controlling the number of words a user can highlight could affect their reading comprehension.
The work earned the duo the Best Paper Award at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2024) one of the top-ranked conferences in computer science and the leading international HCI conference.
The research, “Constrained Highlighting in a Document Reader Can Improve Reading Comprehension,” was published in the Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
“There are lots of theories in psychology that show having constraints is really beneficial, especially for encouraging creativity,” says Nikhita Joshi (MMath ’20), a Ph.D. student specializing in human-computer interaction (HCI) research at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science.
“Traditionally, software constraints were mainly used for error-proofing. However, my research focuses on using constraints to influence positive outcomes for users, which I call ‘bounded interactions.'”
These theories inspired Joshi and her supervisor Dr. Daniel Vogel to recruit 127 participants to read a short story. After 24 hours, they completed a reading comprehension test, answering 20 multiple-choice questions within five minutes. The participants were divided into three groups: no highlights, limited highlights of 150 words and unlimited highlights.
The duo chose this restraint after running a similar experiment where participants were assigned different conditions such as 50 words, 150 words and 250 words. The group capped at 150 words had the highest test results, leading to promising research directions.
For this study, Joshi designed a web-based document reader using React JS in JavaScript, which hosted the reading and test interfaces. This tool can notify how many words a user highlights and if they are exceeding the limit.
Notably, the group with limited highlights scored the highest on the reading comprehension test, with scores 11% higher than the unlimited highlights, and 19% higher than the no highlights groups. This difference is equivalent to one to two letter grades. There were also no noticeable differences in each group’s reading time, showing that highlighting restraints does not impede a user’s mental demand, effort or frustration.
This research was the first to prove that restricted highlighting can boost reading comprehension. It is also the first to explore user interface constraints for text marking. Excessive highlighting has been a long-standing problem in pedagogy. Although many researchers have proposed solutions such as in-person self-regulation training, it can be time-consuming and strenuous. As a result, this innovative technology may be a faster and easier solution for better study habits.
In a follow-up questionnaire, most of the participants stated that the cap prompted them to concentrate on the most important parts of the story. Their highlights were shorter and focused on keywords like nouns, which are strategies recommended by some university learning centers.
What surprised the researchers the most was that some participants were reluctant to delete highlights despite having the option. Instead, they were more mindful, adopting different tactics like “highlighting a noun at the beginning of the sentence and using this as a bookmark to refer to later in the document,” Joshi shares.
This research comes at a time when literacy scores are declining across the globe. “There are concerns that the development of students’ cognitive skills may be declining, especially with the development of tools like ChatGPT,” Joshi says. “Reading is core to other cognitive skills like self-reflection, self-regulation, and critical thinking. All of that is super important to human intelligence.”
In the future, the group may launch a prototype of their current work. Joshi also wants to conduct a similar experiment but with non-fiction documents like academic papers or news articles. However, she would investigate and impose a different condition since 150 words may be too restrictive for long and complex reading.
One idea is to have a limit relative to the document structure. “Instead of having this one encompassing limit for the entire research paper, we would split the limit into different sections,” she says. “Perhaps the related work section can have a lower highlight limit, but the result sections could be higher since that’s the most important part of the paper.”
More information:
Nikhita Joshi et al, Constrained Highlighting in a Document Reader can Improve Reading Comprehension, Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2024). DOI: 10.1145/3613904.3642314
Citation:
Study finds limited highlighting boosts reading comprehension (2024, July 5)
retrieved 5 July 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-07-limited-highlighting-boosts-comprehension.html
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#Study #finds #limited #highlighting #boosts #reading #comprehension
MSI Crosshair 16 HX Monster Hunter Edition has been launched by the company in India, and the gaming laptop is available to purchase alongside the MSI Claw, the company’s first handheld gaming console that was launched in India back in March. The gaming laptop runs on a 14th Gen Intel Core i7 processor paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card. Meanwhile, the MSI Claw is available for purchase at a lower price that the one announced by the company earlier this year.
MSI Crosshair 16 HX Monster Hunter Edition price in India is set at Rs. 1,67,990 and the gaming laptop is available for purchase in a single Core Black colourway via the company’s website, Amazon, Flipkart, and authorised retailers.
Meanwhile, the company also says that the MSI Claw — launched in India in March — is available for purchase at Rs. 78,990 for the base model with an Intel Core Ultra 5 chipset and 512GB of storage. The Core Ultra 7 model is available in two variants with 512GB and 1TB of storage, priced at Rs. 86,990 and Rs. 89,990, respectively.
These prices are lower than the ones announced by the company earlier this year. However, the company says that the MSI Claw will be available at even lower prices — Rs. 10,000 off on all three models — for an unspecified period.
The MSI Crosshair 16 HX Monster Hunter Edition features a 16-inch Quad-HD+ (2,560×1,600 pixels) IPS screen with a 240Hz refresh rate. It is powered by an Intel Core i7-14700HX CPU with 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU with 8GB of GDDR6 memory.
You get up 1TB of NVMe SSD storage on the MSI Crosshair 16 HX Monster Hunter Edition laptop and the laptop runs on Windows 11 Home out-of-the-box. It is equipped with two 2W speakers tuned by Nahimic, a microphone array, and a webcam that can record video at 720p/30fps.
Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, three USB 3.2 Gen 1Type-A ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and a 3.5mm audio port. The laptop has a 4-cell 90Wh battery and can be charged at 240W with the included adapter. It measures 359 x 266.4 x 27.9 mm and weighs 2.5kg.
The MSI Claw runs on the same version of Windows as the Crosshair 16 HX Monster Hunter Edition laptop, and sports a 7-inch Full-HD (1,920×1080 pixels) IPS touchscreen display with a 120Hz refresh rate. It is equipped with up to Intel Core Ultra 7 (155H) processors, paired with 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and Intel Arc graphics and up to 1TB of NVMe SSD storage that can be expanded via a MicroSD card slot.
You get support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity on the MSI Claw, while the device also has a Thunderbolt 4 port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Like other handheld gaming consoles, this device features RGB ABXY buttons and thumb sticks, a D-pad, triggers, and bumpers. The device has a fingerprint scanner and packs a 6-cell 54Wh battery that supports 65W fast charging with a USB PD 3.0 adapter. It measures 294 x 117 x 21.2mm in size and weighs 675g.
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Some key inflation readings in the week ahead could bolster the case for a September interest rate cut, as investors deliberate how long stocks can sustain their rally to record highs. After a rocky start to the year, a recently improving inflation picture has investors hopeful the Federal Reserve could soon start to lower rates. While the central bank indicated in its latest “dot plot” of individual projections that it will cut just one quarter percentage point in 2024, markets are currently pricing in two, with the first coming in September, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. Those hopes have only grown recently amid signs of a cooling — but not breaking — labor market. On Friday, the June nonfarm payrolls report , for example, showed the U.S. economy added more jobs than economists were anticipating. But it also showed an unexpected rise in the unemployment rate, to 4.1% from 4%, or its highest level since October 2021. Next week’s inflation data is generally expected to show that that narrative remains intact. If the consumer and producer price indices, due out Thursday and Friday respectively, continue to show easing pricing pressures, that could further cement the likelihood the central bank can start to ease up on monetary policy. That would be a bullish development for investors concerned the stock rally will soon run out of steam. “Any positive moves obviously would have a very strong impact on the market,” said Mark Malek, chief investment officer at SiebertNXT. “Everyone’s looking for [a] continued trend, downward trend, in inflation. So, that’s going to be something that we’re going to be watching very, very closely.” .SPX YTD mountain S & P 500 On Friday, the S & P 500 was higher by 2% for the week, posting its fourth winning week in the last five. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had gained 0.7%, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 3.5%. Stubborn inflation patches The June consumer price index is expected to show a slight improvement in the headline number. Economists polled by FactSet anticipate CPI to have risen 3.1% last month on a year-over-year basis, down from the 3.3% gain it registered in the prior month. But investors will pay special attention to any improvement in core services, specifically shelter costs, where inflation has remained particularly sticky — even as other more frequent housing data outside CPI has indicated softness. In May, for example, shelter inflation rose 0.4% on the month and 5.4% on the year, while other key items declined. “I think there’s been some surprise with how slowly the moderation in a lot of the real-time housing indicators has kind of filtered into the CPI measures with shelter inflation,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird. “If there’s a catch down where the shelter CPI, owners-equivalent rent, kind of catches down to what we’re seeing in Zillow or Apartment List or any of the other real-time rent indicators, there could be some downward or unexpected downward pressure to CPI.” “I don’t know if it’ll be this month, but I think there will be a month where that occurs,” Mayfield added. “If you [get] CPI under 3%, I think it’s going to be a real kind of risk-on moment for the markets.” Investors will also parse through Friday’s producer price index, which bolstered equities last month after the most recent reading showed unexpected signs of disinflation. The PPI is a measure of wholesale prices received by domestic producers and can be taken as a leading indicator of where inflation is headed. The June PPI is expected to show a slight increase. Economists polled by FactSet expect it to have risen 2.3% in June, up from 2.2% in the previous reading. Elsewhere, the University of Michigan sentiment indicator due out next Friday will give investors insight into how consumers are feeling about the economy, including their expectations around inflation. Stick to winners or diversify Next week’s busy calendar will come as the S & P 500 continues to post all-time highs, albeit during a holiday-shortened trading week typically defined by lower trading volume. The broader index has now registered a more than 16% advance in 2024. Investors are concerned that a sell-off is on the horizon, but many differ on how to position their portfolios from here. Some expect this is the time to stick to the market leaders, the mega-cap tech stocks that boast both rosy growth expectations thanks to optimism around artificial intelligence, as well as fortress balance sheets that make them defensive plays in an uncertain economic outlook. However, others say it’s time for investors to start diversifying their bets in the event of a pullback, especially for those with a long-term time horizon concerned about current valuations. “Markets have gotten concentrated, but also a lot of portfolios have gotten concentrated. So, it’s important to be diversified,” David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Friday. “Not because we see some imminent threat, but because eventually something will go wrong.” Also next week, the second-quarter earnings season will kick off with some major bank results. Citigroup, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase are each set to report. PepsiCo and Delta Air Lines will also give investors insight into the consumer on Thursday. Week ahead calendar All times ET. Monday, July 8 3 p.m. Consumer Credit (May) Tuesday, July 9 6 a.m. NFIB Small Business Index (June) Wednesday, July 10 10 a.m. Wholesale Inventories final (May) Thursday, July 11 8:30 a.m. Consumer Price Index (June) 8:30 a.m. Initial Claims (07/06) 2 p.m. Treasury Budget (June) Earnings: Delta Air Lines , PepsiCo , Conagra Friday, July 12 8:30 a.m. Producer Price Index (June) 10 a.m. Michigan Sentiment preliminary (July) Earnings: Citigroup , Wells Fargo , JPMorgan Chase , Fastenal , Bank of New York Mellon
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