Katrina Kaif sends love, sweet birthday wishes to her fitness partner Yasmin
Bollywood diva Katrina Kaif, who is in self-isolation with sister Isabelle Kaif amid the coronavirus pandemic, penned down a sweet birthday note for her friend, fitness partner and Pilates instructor Yasmin Karachiwala.
Taking to Instagram, the Sooryavanshi actress shared their photo-based video and wrote, “Dear Yasy it’s ur big birthday ….just your presence always make everything seem better, your positivity, your good advice, you always challenge yourself, if I can do it , you can do it better and faster.â€
Katrina further said, “I’m so lucky to have u as my fitness partner and friend. I hope we are together forever.â€
Calling Yasmin her sunshine, the Bharat actress wrote, “I know u call me “ your sunshine †but …… YOU are my sunshine @yasminkarachiwala.â€
On the work front, Katrina Kaif will next be seen in Rohit Shetty’s cop film Sooryavanshi alongside Akshay Kumar.
The film was slated to hit the screens in March, however, it was postponed due to coronavirus pandemic. Now the movie will hit the theatres on Diwali this year.
Donald Trump has taken over from Benedict Arnold as “America’s number one traitor,†according to a group of veterans seeking to vote the president out of office this November.
“No one has betrayed those in uniform like Donald Trump,†said the voiceover in the latest ad released by the VoteVets organization on Friday.
The 65-second spot references Trump’s siding with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and his dismissal of reports that U.S. officials knew Russia allegedly paid Taliban members to kill American troops.
“This July Fourth, Benedict Arnold can step aside, because Benedict Donald is America’s number one traitor,†the voiceover concluded.
The #BenedictDonald and #TRE45ON hashtags trended on Twitter as the ad was seen more than 2 million times in its first 12 hours online.
VoteVets last month tore into Trump over the Russian bounty reports with this scathing video:
It also slammed Trump in May over what it described as “the most inappropriate†Memorial Day comment that a president has ever made:
This is the most inappropriate #MemorialDay comment that a @POTUS has ever made. Self-promotion on a day to remember the fallen, and wishing those remembering their deceased loved ones a “happy†holiday is appalling. #CadetBoneSpurspic.twitter.com/kRse4dnwiu
That will change Saturday, when pubs in England are officially allowed to reopen — a date already dubbed “Independence Day” by many revelers and referred to in the tabloid press as “Super Saturday.”
Pubs in Scotland and Wales are expected to reopen later this month, while they reopened Friday in Northern Ireland.
Bar stools will be dusted off, counters wiped with sanitizer and hearths re-lit, as pubs prepare to open their doors — with many parched pubgoers delighted.
“We want to get back to being human,” Ian Snowball, a bar owner, told NBC News.
“There is a genuine excitement,” he said. “They want to let their hair down.”
Snowball, the proprietor of the Showtime bar in the northern English city of Huddersfield, is wasting no time, reopening early Saturday morning.
His establishment can normally hold around 500 people but due to restrictions, with people needing to stay at least 3ft apart, he expects to squeeze in about 175 customers.
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Drinkers at his family-run establishment, opened in 2018, will need to register their names and addresses with reception on entering — to be tracked and traced should the virus later be detected — and have their temperatures taken before going into the main bar.
They will then be led to a numbered table with floor markings creating clear one-way paths. Although toilets will be open, cameras will be used throughout the building to make sure crowds don’t build up.
Snowball admits the atmosphere may feel “subdued” compared to life before the virus but says he expects people will be happy to be out again.
“There’s going to be a massive demand,” he predicts, cheerfully, adding that the local police had already promised to provide extra patrols in the area over the weekend, should the merriment spill over into anti-social behavior.
Owner Are Kjetil Kolltveit places markers for social distancing on the front of the bar at the Chandos Arms pub in London, Wednesday.Frank Augstein / AP
About 80 percent of the 37,500 pubs in England will likely reopen, according to the British Beer and Pub Association, a trade body.
But despite being venerated within British society, pubs have dwindled in recent years, closing up as rents rise, supermarkets heavily discount beers and health-conscious younger generations turn away from alcohol.
But the pandemic has been fatal for many pubs, with owners across the country forced to pour away and discard at least 70 million pints of beer since the lockdown began, the British Beer and Pub Association estimates.
Meanwhile, as a show of support, Prince William headed to his local pub in Norfolk on Friday, close to the Royal Sandringham Estate, to sip cider and chat to the bar’s staff about their experiences during the pandemic.
The U.K. has one of the highest death tolls from COVID-19 in the world.
While Leicester, a city in the middle of England, has had its lockdown restrictions reimposed after a local flare-up this week, proof that the deadly virus still lurks.
Owner Are Kjetil Kolltveit put signs in place instructing on social distancing at the Chandos Arms pub in London, Wednesday.Frank Augstein / AP
Not all pubs are keen to dip their toes in this weekend.
The Red Lion and Sun, a pub in north London, has decided to keep its doors closed to customers but will serve takeaway drinks.
“No one wants to open pubs more than me, but we must do it safely for you our customers, and our staff,” its owner Heath Ball wrote on Instagram. “We won’t jump back in on the 4th of July … people over pound notes.”
Lawrence Ambrose, 51, is savoring a pint of Guinness at his local London pub. But said he expects Saturday to be “a melee of madness” with large drunken crowds and busy public transport — and still fears the virus.
“I’m not going to rush out on Saturday, it’s going to be bedlam,” he told NBC News.
WASHINGTON — When Michael Pack, a conservative filmmaker and ally of Stephen K. Bannon, recently fired the heads of four U.S. government-funded news outlets, many became alarmed that he would turn the independently operated organizations, as well as the Voice of America, into “Trump TV.â€
But Mr. Pack, the new chief executive of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, also cleaned house last month at the lesser-known Open Technology Fund, an internet freedom group overseen by the agency Mr. Pack now runs.
Many worry that the move could have an even greater effect.
In less than a decade, the Open Technology Fund has quietly become integral to the world’s repressed communities. Over two billion people in 60 countries rely on tools developed and supported by the fund, like Signal and Tor, to connect to the internet securely and send encrypted messages in authoritarian societies.
After Mr. Pack was confirmed for his new post on June 4, following a personal campaign of support by President Trump, Mr. Pack fired the technology group’s top officials and board, an action now being fought in the courts. The move was a victory for a lobbying effort backed by religious freedom advocates displeased with the fund’s work and who are often allied with conservative political figures.
This battle revolves around software developed by Falun Gong, the secretive spiritual movement persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party.
Some Falun Gong members have become notable players in American politics. The Epoch Times, a newspaper started by Falun Gong practitioners, has spent millions of dollars on pro-Trump ads, including conspiratorial ones, on Facebook and YouTube — and was even banned by Facebook last year from buying more ads because it had tried to evade advertising rules.
Now, allies of Falun Gong are making a big push for the Open Technology Fund and the State Department to give money to some of the group’s software, notably Ultrasurf, developed about a decade ago by a Falun Gong member.
Their thinking is that if enough Chinese citizens have this software to bypass the Great Firewall of government censorship, the citizens will see news about repression by the Communist Party.
But pieces of circumvention software like Ultrasurf are considered old, and they are not widespread in China, according to cybersecurity experts. Just as important, Chinese patriots or nationalists who have access to reports critical of the Communist Party — including students in the United States — often do not change their views.
“Anyone who has studied China’s information control regimes and the evolution of Chinese technology knows that funding a set of circumvention tools is not going to bring down the Chinese Communist Party,†said Rebecca MacKinnon, a former Beijing bureau chief for CNN who directs an internet freedom program at the New America Foundation.
Critics also warn that if lobbyists get their way and shift the fund’s focus toward solely supporting software like Ultrasurf, it could set back the fight for internet freedom by decades.
Republicans are also worried. Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina wrote to Mr. Pack in a letter on Wednesday with five other senators expressing their “deep concern†about his staff cuts, saying the moves raised “serious questions about the future of the U.S. Agency for Global Media†under his leadership. Other Republican members of Congress said earlier that they were concerned about the Open Technology Fund.
The group started in 2012 as a pilot program within Radio Free Asia. It was founded by Libby Liu, then the president of the broadcasting outlet. Seven years later, Congress allowed it to become an independent nonprofit grantee of the Agency for Global Media. Lawmakers appropriated $20 million to the group for its 2020 fiscal year.
The bulk of the money goes to incubating new technology that promotes human rights and open societies. The group supports projects such as widely popular encrypted messaging tools like Signal and technology like Pakistan’s first 24/7 hotline for confidentially reporting sexual harassment.
The Open Technology Fund also looks to create and train a community of technical experts who can fend off sophisticated cyberattacks against internet freedom.
One of the bedrock principles of the Open Technology Fund is to support open-source technology. Creating and funding tools that are open source means a worldwide collective of programmers can examine the products to ensure they are safe and secure for people in repressed societies to use, cybersecurity experts say.
“Imagine a teenager in a country where being L.G.B.T.Q. is illegal, and they just want to have a normal social life,†said Isabela Bagueros, the executive director of the Tor Project, a nonprofit digital privacy group. “The internet enables that, and if you provide the security for them to do so, it is extremely important as a part of life.â€
At the heart of lobbying efforts supporting the Falun Gong developers are Michael J. Horowitz, a Reagan administration budget official, and Katrina Lantos Swett, the daughter of the former congressman Tom Lantos, Democrat of California and a noted champion for human rights.
During the time Mr. Pack assumed his role, they have worked to advance their agenda.
On June 13, three days after Mr. Pack took office, Mr. Horowitz was a guest on a talk show hosted by Mr. Bannon, who was formerly Mr. Trump’s chief strategist. Mr. Horowitz denounced Ms. Liu, who was the chief executive of the technology fund. Ms. Liu happened to be tendering her resignation to the board that day, effective in July. Mr. Pack fired her on June 17 and dismissed the board.
Ms. Swett has been vocal about her displeasure with leadership at the fund because they have shied away from focusing most of the group’s funding toward programs like Ultrasurf. She claims it is one of the most effective tools to fight against China’s firewall, despite criticism from experts who warn that since Ultrasurf is closed source, there is no way to independently verify its performance or assure end users that they are not being tracked.
“Open source versus closed source we don’t get hung up on those things,†Ms. Swett said.
Many internet freedom experts disagree with this approach.
“There is no person in their right mind who should be advocating for closed-source applications,†said Nima Fatemi, the founding director of Kandoo, an internet freedom nonprofit. “When we’re talking about people inside Iran, China and Russia who are already facing so much oppression, using these tools don’t guarantee safety or security; they actually put them in more danger.â€
The day after Mr. Pack assumed office, Ms. Swett sent him and officials at the State Department a letter requesting that $20 million in funding be steered toward firewall circumvention programs like Ultrasurf. The State Department declined to comment.
And one day after Mr. Pack fired Ms. Liu, National Security Council officials received communication from the Lantos Foundation advocating the funding of programs like Ultrasurf.
Ms. Swett denied contacting the National Security Council herself, but she said she could not rule out whether someone on her foundation’s staff reached out to the organization. The National Security Council did not return an email seeking comment.
Current and former officials at the fund were also alarmed when Mr. Pack froze much of the organization’s funding a day after being sworn in.
Around $2 million was budgeted to train Hong Kong residents in fighting Chinese cyberattacks. Stopping it would have dealt a potential blow to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. More than $7 million was allocated to fund technology that could fight attempts to block access to news provided by U.S. government-funded broadcasting outlets like Voice of America.
The agency unfroze the nonprofit’s funding on Friday, according to an email obtained by The New York Times. The U.S. Agency for Global Media did not return a request for comment.
An initial pitch for funding Ultrasurf reached its peak around 2009 and 2010, during the first Obama administration. Mr. Horowitz, a religious freedom advocate, was a leader in those efforts. The company has received at least $8.4 million in funding from the U.S. government since 2013, according to records reviewed by The Times.
It stopped receiving money in 2017 after an internal analysis by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a precursor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, showed that the program’s “cancellation had no impact†on allowing Chinese citizens to circumvent the country’s firewall to access news sites like Voice of America Mandarin, according to documents reviewed by The Times.
Ultrasurf estimates that it has over six million users in places like China, Iran and Russia, according to unverified analysis provided by Clint Jin, the company’s founder and a member of Falun Gong.
Multiple cybersecurity experts raised doubts about the company’s numbers.
“It’s a myopic, single-tool solution to a very complex, diverse problem,†Nathan Freitas, the founder of the Guardian Project, a collective of cybersecurity experts, said of firewall circumvention software like Ultrasurf. “It’s showing up with a hammer to solve everything.â€
The best things about paper airplanes are that they allow you to be creative and that paper is easily accessible. You can use any type of paper — like this newspaper. That allows you to try lots of things and see what happens — opening the door to creativity and seeing science fly.
Newspaper is most likely the most produced paper product on Earth, but few paper airplanes are made of it. You are about to change that. Together we are combining the world’s most popular paper with the world’s most common paper airplane — the Dart. Follow the folding directions and make a great paper airplane.
There are a few secrets to making a paper airplane that flies well. People tend to focus on the folding pattern and the throw. These two things are important, but what is often overlooked are the fine-tuning adjustments.
Adjustment 1: Bend the back edge of the wing up a little bit; this prevents nose dives. Just pinch the back edge between your fingertips and bend upward to create a small flap. The amount varies plane to plane; you have to watch its flight and bend up more if your plane dives and reduce the amount if it climbs too much.
Adjustment 2: The wingtips should be higher than the middle of the airplane, just like on real airplanes and birds. This is called dihedral, and it keeps the plane from entering a death spiral and helps it fly better also.
Don’t be afraid to experiment! Try different size wingtips or try angling the wingtips more out or in. Try different flap settings or different throwing speeds or throwing angles. Try making the folds in a slightly different location. Try to have a contest at home to see who lands closest to the center of the room, who takes the fewest throws to land once in each room in the house, or who can get an airplane the farthest down the hall.
1. Start with a single sheet of newspaper, cut in half through the middle and turned sideways.
2. Fold in half vertically.
3. Unfold so that your paper is creased.
4. Flip paper over; fold top corners down to the center crease.
5. Fold corner on left side down to center crease.
6. Repeat on right side.
7. Fold in half vertically along center crease.
8. To make the wings, fold angled side of paper past the straight edge. Leave some space from nose of plane to top of fold.
9. Flip plane over and repeat.
10. For wingtips, fold corner of wings back on each side.
11. Make sure wingtips are higher than the middle of the airplane body. You can experiment with wingtip size.
Tip: To keep paper from unfolding, add a small piece of transparent tape to the underside of plane midway between the nose and tail.
This article was originally published by Michael Lange on Clean Fleet Report, a publication that gives its readers the information they need to move to cars and trucks with best fuel economy, including electric cars, fuel cells, plug-in hybrids, hybrids and advanced diesel and gasoline engines.
The electric motorcycle has reignited an optimism in design the likes of which we haven’t seen in over a century. The very structure of the motorcycle we’ve come to know is largely rooted in its function, a fuel tank gravity feeding gasoline to an internal combustion engine. As is often the case, the evolution of technology is redrawing the boundaries of expression and those of us who love the motorcycle are enjoying our front row seat of the renaissance.
A blast from the past
Nearly a century ago, a designer named Georges Roy set out to revolutionize two-wheeled transportation with a motorcycle called the Majestic. It was meant to usher in a new era of elegance and comfort–evolving the motorcycle from its bicycle heritage to be more like the automobile.
Its design was unconventional, incorporating a low, square-perimeter type chassis, its body acting as a cosmetic covering for the motor and drivetrain, while at the same time covering the front and rear wheel. A hub-centric steering configuration allowed the fork to be eliminated and the controls to be routed cleanly through the body. The rider could remain protected from the oily components, astride a pan-style, coil-sprung saddle.
While Roy’s Art Deco masterpiece would prove too extravagant for riders of its day, it continues to inspire the imagination of builders like Brian Fuller. In a small shop outside of Atlanta, Fuller recently introduced a truly one of a kind electric motorcycle–the 2029 Majestic.
An electric expression
The 2029 project was commissioned by the Haas Moto Museum and Sculpture Gallery, a collection of more than 200 motorcycles located in Dallas, Texas. Owner Bobby Haas’ 1929 Majestic would serve as the muse for Fuller’s creation.
The foundation is a chassis sourced from a Zero FXS electric motorcycle. Sharing similar dimensions as the original Majestic, the frame was inverted to keep the batteries and motor in a low position, in line with the 23-inch polycarbonate wheels.
Fuller, a metal worker by trade, hand-formed the individual parts of the fully enclosed aluminum body.
The Majestic’s hub-centric steering system is key to its unconventional appearance. The wheel’s hub serves as the pivot point rather than the traditional headstock and is connected to the steering column through a tie rod. Fortunately for Fuller’s team, Bimota had used a similar configuration on its Tesi model, which would serve as a basis for the hub on the 2029.
From lightsabers to laser beds
One of the most interesting aspects of the project was its use of 3D metallic printing. Bryan Heidt, Fuller’s lead metal fabricator, created the general design of the components, then sent them over to Nick Pugh, a transportation designer who’s done quite a bit of work in the movie business, most recently creating vehicles for the latest Star Wars installment.
Pugh’s artistic interpretations were translated into print-ready, 3D CAD models. A company by the name of Oerlikon went to work creating the titanium alloy parts using a process known as Laser Powder Bed Fusion of Metals (PBF-LB). It truly is 3D printing for metals–just plug in the design, select the alloy of your choice and layer by layer a strong, functional part is created just as the designer imagined it.
A modern masterpiece
A true piece of rolling art, the 2029 Majestic is also a fully functional electric motorcycle. Its 34 kilowatt motor is good for 78 pound-feet of torque with a 100-mile range before needing a plug in. While the 2029 may never leave its display stand, it’s nice to know it has more than enough juice to make a cruise to the local drive-in a memorable one.
In a pre-coronavirus world, hundreds of editors, clients, stylists and celebrities would have converged on Paris this weekend, clacking over the cobblestones in their kitten heels for the couture shows. Those singular displays of fashion art — handmade clothes custom-ordered by the very few — represent equal parts creative laboratory, artisanal expertise and visual extravaganza. For many, they are also a major employment opportunity.
You may see models in gowns on Instagram, and hear of the famous names responsible for the updos and cat eyes, but making that perfect 20 minutes happen also demands an army of independent contractors, largely unknown. And, now that the shows have gone digital, largely unemployed.
Here, a scattering of these men and women describe their lives in the absence of shows. They are but a fraction of the lighting technicians, manicurists, photographers, caterers, florists, drivers, security guards, seamstresses, dressers and musicians whose labor creates the dream.
These interviews have been edited.
Yesmin O’Brien, 53, hairstylist
“I’ve worked with the hairstylist Sam McKnight as part of his freelancer team for 13 years. Usually I’m a director for a group of hair salons in and around London, but whenever Sam has been booked for a fashion show, then off I go to that city, be it for cruise, couture or ready-to-wear.
There are probably around 40 stylists on Sam’s backstage team at a fashion show. We come from all over the world to work in Paris for couture. Often, for the biggest shows, you work in pairs on one model with a stylist and a ‘watcher,’ who makes sure the look is absolutely perfect and to the specifications of Sam or the brand.
Until you reach the very top, you don’t do it to make money. You do it for career experience with Sam and out of love for the theater of fashion and being a part of it all. It is only after you establish yourself over many years that you make any cash.
But for me it has been worth it for the experiences I’ve had. I still pinch myself. We do all the Chanel couture shows, of course, which are always very special. And last July, for the Fendi couture show in Rome that paid tribute to Karl Lagerfeld, we color-coordinated wigs to each of the clothes for the finale, which just looked spectacular. But this year, there is nothing at all.
I’ve been trying to use the time to think creatively about possible hair pieces and ideas, but I really miss the atmosphere.â€
Jacques Negrit, 56, security guard
“Fashion weeks in Paris make up 60 percent of my annual income, so not having couture this season is a big loss. Don’t forget, it is not just the shows — it is the presentations, fittings, private celebrity work and cocktail parties, too.
I’ve been a security guard at fashion weeks in Paris for 20 years and built my business around it. I have almost 200 freelance guys working on my books during couture week. Security is hard work — you’ll be up at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m., securing the set and backstage, planning the entrance and exit strategies for huge crowds in very short spaces of time and often with a number of shows taking place all over town.
In what would have been couture, I’ll be thinking about what might happen in terms of physical shows in September. For whatever events take place, security — and maintenance of new safety regulations — will be more important than ever before. Whatever happens, we will do what we always do: Get the job done.â€
For us, couture week is very intense. We could be doing the flowers in Mademoiselle Chanel’s apartment in the morning, then for the Lutetia hotel, then a dinner for a brand. Or Chanel calls and says they want 100 bouquets of flowers delivered to clients who are coming to their show in the next 24 hours. And maybe they want only white roses one season. Or another brand wants only pink roses. I will normally start my day at 4 a.m. at the market, buying the flowers.
Now it’s all mostly stopped, though. There are some orders — enough to keep our staff, but not for anyone extra. I am hoping that because so much of fashion is on Instagram now, there will be a need for flowers to animate the sets and the looks, to bring some humanity to the digital world. And that in September, life will begin again.â€
Eny Whitehead, 38, makeup artist
How long have you been doing makeup?
I started in 2003. Then, in 2005, I got very lucky and met Pat McGrath, and she brought me along to do the makeup for a Galliano show. It was so creative, such an exciting time. Then I started doing shows for Milan and Paris fashion weeks, and that led to me getting an agent.
How big a part of your business are the shows?
I do ad campaigns and magazine shoots, but the shows are such a big thing here in Paris. Because it’s not just the catwalks, it’s also all the V.I.P.s that fly in for them. During couture, I might have three clients call me in a single day to do their makeup to go to a show, or an event after a show, and then the next day I will be backstage for the couture.
I also get last-minute calls to fill in for other makeup artists, and then I just hop on my scooter, and the next thing, I am on the other side of Paris, getting Cindy Bruna, the French model, ready for an after-party, or Golshifteh Farahani, the Iranian-French actress. I generally work with Peter Philips now during show time. In January, we did Dior and Viktor & Rolf.
How does this compare to your normal professional life?
My work is generally up and down — I don’t work every day, but during shows I do. For some shows, I might have to arrive at 5 a.m. to get the models ready, and then that night, I might have to get a private client ready for a dinner. The only other time that’s remotely comparable, where I might have four jobs in one day, is the Cannes Film Festival.
But what is it like now?
For three months, everything stopped. I was lucky, because as a self-employed person, I qualified for the government assistance. They gave everyone 1,500 euros [about $1,700] if they had lost 70 percent of their income, and I lost 100 percent.
Ad campaigns that were postponed during lockdown are happening, and since no one can fly in, they are asking local teams. And we are lucky, in that clients have not used the excuse of Covid to lower the rates. I had an option on a video that one of the brands was going to do instead of a couture show, but it didn’t work out.
The problem with the videos is they involve very small teams. They really only need one artist, or maybe one and an assistant, whereas a show like Dior might use up to 40 makeup artists. So it’s a big loss for my income. And also my creativity.
What do you mean, creativity?
What I miss most, I think, is watching the creative process of a show, because that inspires me a lot, especially when it comes to trends for the next season. And I miss my colleagues.
“Since I first started working, I’ve never experienced this downtime, and I find I’m really missing work — missing traveling for jobs, exploring the world. I think about losing the momentum. You don’t want to be away for two long, By the time you come back, your clients are looking for a new sensation.â€
“I had a cleaning company with my wife for 20 years, but at the end of last year we split up, and I founded an eco-cleaning company. We are responsible for cleaning the whole venue wherever a show is held: floors, windows, walls. Everything. And because so many shows are in strange, industrial places, or building sites under construction, it can be very dirty, very dusty and very complicated.
With my wife, we used to do Chanel in the Grand Palais, and we would start two weeks before the show, with two people cleaning. On the day of the show we would have up to 12.
In January, for my first season on my own, we did Dior, YSL, where the whole set was an enormous white rug — I made about 80,000 [about $90,000] euros that season, and I was budgeting 120,000 to 150,000 euros for men’s and couture in July, assuming we would do seven or eight shows in each week.
We are still getting a little work because some brands are doing photography or video, and also because everyone is very scared about safety, but it is much, much less. So now I am planning for only 15,000 to 20,000 euros this season. I feel lucky because I only have one person on staff. Otherwise we would really be in trouble.â€
Nicolas Ouchenir, calligrapher
You help create invitations for some of the biggest shows. But this summer, there are no shows.
It’s a nightmare. Because it’s not even the shows — you have all the parties and all the buyers’ presents, and all the events.
Normally how many invitations do you address in one day?
It depends on the material, the papers — or I can have the leather used by Rick Owens, and that’s super-hard, or the glass used at Margiela. So it depends, but you can have something like 2,000 in one day. I have around 60,000 by fashion week.
Are you worried?
We are waiting for the buyers. If we do not have any buyers, fashion shows cannot be done. At the same time, all the communications directors for the maisons are super-confident. They call and tell me: ‘You’re part of the family.’ That’s why I’m still positive.
Alexis Bourin, 30, freelance technical director, Bureau Betak
“Basically, my job is to oversee the technical jobs — lighting, video, audio, safety — and make sure everything is going well during the preparation so we can deliver on time.
This was supposed to be my year. I quit school when I was 17 — I came from nothing, and now I’m producing some of the biggest shows in Paris for the best agency in the world. My producer and I were supposed to have three shows for couture and six or seven for men’s ready-to-wear. From March to October, I’ll have lost around 100,000 euros [about $112,500].
During lockdown, I trained myself to do 3-D lighting design. You want to progress and train yourself, but at the same time, you’re losing all of your jobs. As a freelancer, the government gave me 1,000 euros. That’s not even my rent, you know?
I think it’s never going to go back to normal. It’s great to be optimistic, but let’s be honest: The economy is going to decide. It’s not going to be us.â€
“Normally, I would be shooting backstage for American Vogue, and between the shows I’d shoot street style.
Last year, I was traveling nonstop, shooting from one fashion week to another. So it’s very strange to be at home right now. I took this time for myself and to study, to improve myself, to reflect. I’m still licensing my pictures to publications, like British Vogue or Glamour Germany.
I’ve been invited to Copenhagen Fashion Week in August, so that will be my first fashion week since the start of the Covid-19 crisis. I think it will be an interesting test case for how these kinds of events can be organized in a safe and practical way. And I wonder what kind of outfits there will be — more simple and practical? Will everyone be wearing masks?â€
“I’ve been thinking a lot about where I am now,†said Romaine Dixon, one of the true breakout stars of recent years. Discovered after a friend dared him to send his photo to a modeling agency, Mr. Dixon rocketed to the front ranks of models, walking in Kim Jones’s first show for Dior Men and then a full roster of other major labels.
A billboard several stories high featuring his image now covers a facade of the Printemps department store in Paris, but Mr. Dixon has not seen it in person. That he may never do so weighs on him, as he said while driving through his hometown, Kingston, Jamaica.
“I haven’t done any work since the quarantine started. I haven’t done any Zoom shoots. It’s a real blow to my social media profile. Because I have savings, I’ll be all right for some time. But I need to get back to work.â€
Charly Lavado, 33, freelance patternmaker and dressmaker
“For the past eight years I have worked part-time for Dior couture in Paris. Usually, I will work in the atelier for four to five months of the year, with two full months before the January shows and then two full months in the run-up to the shows in July. This year, I am doing nothing at all.
It has been a big shock. After lockdown was declared in March, Dior (and all the French fashion houses) canceled all temporary contracts for the foreseeable future, and there was no clarity on whether there would be a summer couture show or even a collection.
I still remember walking into the Dior atelier for the very first time. It was like a dream come true. Some people dream of Chanel, others of Givenchy, but not me. It was always Dior. Some of my friends have been working at Chanel on a very reduced couture collection and on client orders made in January. Now, all those pieces are ready for fittings. But none of the clients are able to travel.
I have some money saved, but I am taking stock now. I have always loved the flexibility of being a freelancer. I have turned down studio jobs and fixed contracts at other houses as generally you don’t make as much money.
But if things don’t change in another few months, I may have to reconsider — if there are even jobs.
Philippe Cerceau, 60, lighting designer
“After the clothes themselves, lighting is the most important thing at a fashion show. With bad lighting, the audience can’t see any of the beautiful details or the finish of a collection. You can also get bad photographs. I’ve been designing lighting for shows for 25 years, and nowadays fashion-week work makes up about two thirds of the income for my business, Clair Obscur.
The first couture show I did was for Giorgio Armani — it was his first couture show. too. In January, my clients for couture were Dior, Valentino, Elie Saab and Viktor & Rolf. For July, there are none.
The last few months have been so quiet, so I painted my house instead. We’ve started to get some inbound now for the September shows in Paris, but it is still early days.â€
Sandrine Jolly, 40, construction, Jaulin
“We work in the shadow of the industry — with the fashion show production agency, to create the temporary installations. We do the furniture and layout and the decoration of the space: the backstage, the carpet, the fabric on the wall, the construction of benches.
We should be really busy in June and July — last July, we had 20 to 25 shows — but we’re not. It’s a very bad situation because we love fashion shows.â€
SEOUL, South Korea — On New Year’s Day, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, called for a “frontal breakthrough to foil the enemies’ sanctions.†The strategy meant finding new sources of income, legal or illegal, and mainly from China.
Sending North Korean workers to China. Bringing more tourists from there. Smuggling banned cargo, like coal or oil, across the border at night or between ships on high seas.
But there was one thing Mr. Kim did not foresee: the coronavirus.
Barely three weeks after Mr. Kim unveiled his New Year’s resolution, North Korea shut down ​its border with China to protect itself against the emerging outbreak in the city of Wuhan. It was no ordinary border​ closure.
China accounted for 95 percent of the North’s trade. Consumer goods, raw materials, fuel and machine parts smuggled into the North across their 870-mile border kept North Korean markets and factories sputtering along, despite United Nations sanctions designed to curb the Kim regime’s nuclear ambitions.
With the border sealed, the North’s official exports to China, already hobbled by the sanctions, have crashed even further. In March, they were worth just $610,000, according to Chinese customs data — down 96 percent from a year earlier. The North’s newly opened ski and spa resorts are empty of Chinese tourists, and its smuggling ships sit idle in their ports.
The virus has isolated the North Korean economy as no sanctions could. It has devastated the regime’s ability to bring in money through legal and illegal trade, leaving it scrambling to protect the country’s diminishing foreign currency reserves.
“To North Korea, Covid-19 is a black swan, none of its policymakers saw it coming,†said Go Myong-hyun, an analyst at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.
​North Korea claims it has had no coronavirus cases. But it was one of the first countries to shut its border, aware that its woefully underequipped public health system made it particularly vulnerable to mass infection.
The pandemic could hardly have come at a worse time for Mr. Kim, whose attempts to win sanctions relief in talks with President Trump have been fruitless. North Korea’s recent acts of hostility toward South Korea, including the destruction of the inter-Korean liaison office in the North, have been seen in part as acts of economic desperation.
“If you peel North Korea’s problem like an onion, at the core is its economy, and its economic trouble comes down to whether it can lift sanctions,†said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul.
The North Korean economy has languished for decades, hobbled by communist mismanagement, a famine in the late 1990s and the gradually tougher sanctions imposed by the United Nations since 2006, when the North carried out its first nuclear test.
Mr. Kim has tried to boost the economy with domestic reforms, aimed at creating a “socialist system of responsible business operation.†Factories and collective farms were given more incentives to increase productivity, including the right to keep surpluses.
Mr. Kim also ramped up exports of coal, iron ore, textiles and seafood to China, achieving economic growth of 3.9 percent in 2016, the highest since the late 1990s, according to South Korea’s central bank.
But the North also rapidly expanded ​its weapons ​programs, testing three intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2017, as well as what it said was a hydrogen bomb. In response, the United Nations Security Council tightened the noose around the North’s economy by banning all of its major exports.​
The economy shrank by 3.5 percent in 2017. It contracted by 4.1 percent the following year, with its exports to China plummeting 86 percent.
By February 2019, when Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump held their second summit meeting, in Vietnam, the North Korean leader was desperate ​for relief​. The Security Council had required China, Russia and other countries to expel all North Korean workers by ​December, which threatened to deprive the North of another key source of income, estimated at $500 million to $1 billion a year.
But Mr. Kim’s hopes of easing the sanctions ended when the Vietnam talks collapsed.
In his ​grim New Year’s message​, Mr. Kim seemed determined to slog through the sanctions, asking North Koreans to prepare to “tighten our belts†again. He also vowed to boost his nuclear weapons program further, hoping that a more advanced nuclear arsenal would give him more leverage with Mr. Trump or his successor. He threatened to end his moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests, warning that ​the world would soon witness ​his “new strategic weapon​.â€
State-run television echoed that sentiment later in January, in a broadcast about Mr. Kim’s brief meeting with Mr. Trump last summer on the inter-Korean border. “We don’t intend to sell our pride and national power for some spectacular economic transformation,†Mr. Kim was quoted as telling Mr. Trump, after the American leader promised the North a better economic future if it gave up its nuclear weapons first.
At the time, Mr. Kim had reason to be so defiant.
After hitting bottom in 2018, his country’s trade with China grew 15 percent last year, according to data compiled by the Korea International Trade Association. It exported practically anything not banned by United Nations sanctions: cheap watches assembled with Chinese components; artificial eyelashes; wigs, mannequins, soccer balls and tungsten.
China also sent more tourists to the North after Mr. Kim’s third summit meeting with its leader, Xi Jinping, in June 2018. Tourism was one North Korean industry that had not been affected by the sanctions, and Mr. Kim has been busy building massive new resort towns.
The North also continued to circumvent the sanctions. Last year, it exported $370 million worth of coal in illicit ship-to-ship transfers to Chinese barges, according to the United Nations. And despite the ban on work permits for North Koreans, China allowed many to be employed on short-term tourist or student visas, according to analysts and news reports​ in South Korea​.
But the trade imbalance with China created its own concerns.
Even as the sanctions hit the North’s exports hard, the country continued to buy cooking oil, flour, sugar and other consumer goods, as well as construction materials, from China. The imports were needed to keep its industries going, as well as the unofficial markets that have helped many people to survive, as the North’s food rationing system fails to meet the population’s needs.
Since 2017, North Korea has reported a trade deficit of more than $2 billion every year. In comparison, the North’s total exports last year were $260 million.​
“The clock is ticking and the bomb could explode any time,†Kim Byung-yeon, a​ Seoul National University​ economist​, wrote in December, predicting that the North’s foreign currency reserves would shrink by $1 billion a year, leading inexorably to a crisis.
North Korea has tried to replenish its coffers with revenues from illegal smuggling and cybertheft, as well as “loyalty donations†from ​what are known as donju — tradespeople with political connections, who have hoarded foreign currency obtained through smuggling​ and other enterprises.
Mr. Kim’s government also runs shops in Pyongyang, the capital, where the moneyed class spends foreign currency on imported goods. And it has profited by selling Chinese smartphones to an estimated six million cellphone subscribers in the country.
“The debate has been about how quickly or slowly the North’s foreign currency would diminish,†Mr. Go said. “But there is no doubt now that Covid-19 has accelerated the speed.â€
​Recently, signs have emerged of growing stress on the North’s economy, especially its foreign currency reserves.
The government recently issued public bonds for the first time in 17 years, reported Daily NK, a Seoul-based website that uses informants inside ​the ​North. Mr. Kim tested the elites’ loyalty by asking them to buy bonds with foreign currency, it said.
The authorities have also cracked down harder on the use of foreign currency in markets in an effort to shore up the won, the local currency, said Jiro Ishimaru, a chief editor at Asia Press International in Japan, who has monitored the North Korean economy for years with the help of correspondents there.
To save on foreign currency, ​Mr. Kim has encouraged his people to produce more goods at home, like snacks, cosmetics and beverages. But Covid-19 has hit those sectors as well, because they depended on Chinese raw materials to produce the goods.
“Kim Jong-un thought he could survive with tourism revenues, smuggling and Chinese help,​ but his plans have crumbled because of the coronavirus,†said Mr. Ishimaru​. “If the virus has taught him anything, it is how dependent his economy is on China.â€
“You see the convention go to another state and you know they’re going to reap the benefits, and we desperately needed that,†said Elaine Wordsworth, whose husband, Steve Wordsworth, is a North Carolina businessman who has donated generously to Mr. Trump’s re-election fund.
Indeed, when Jacksonville was selected as the host city for the convention in June, the news was seen by leaders there as a huge financial shot in the arm for a second-tier city that would never have been considered for such a role under normal circumstances. The average economic impact of hosting a convention for the local economy is about $200 million, and officials in Jacksonville initially estimated that even a hurried version of the Republican event would bring in at least half of that.
But now, many of the people involved in the process in Jacksonville are beginning to feel like the dog that caught the car. About 58 percent of registered voters in Duval County, which encompasses Jacksonville, say they are opposed to the city hosting the mass gathering, according to a new poll from the University of Florida, which also showed that 71 percent of voters said they were at least somewhat concerned about transmission of coronavirus.
For Republican officials, untangling the financial knot from the Charlotte convention remains a work in progress. Given the contracts that had been signed and the many parties around the table — including the local host committee, the R.N.C. and the city itself, among others — concerns about potential legal action have figured into managing the fallout, several people connected to the process said.
Patrick Baker, Charlotte’s city attorney, said in an interview that the city itself had spent roughly $14 million preparing for the convention. Much of that went toward insurance and security costs, he said, and the city expected to be reimbursed in full through a federal grant from the Justice Department.
“The focus of the City Council has been to make sure, at a minimum, that we’re made whole and not left holding the bag,†Mr. Baker said.
The Charlotte program has been scaled back to the bare minimum. Only the 168 national committeemen are expected to visit Charlotte. While there, they will attend meetings at one hotel and then take a bus together to the airport, where they will board a chartered plane and fly to Jacksonville for the remainder of the convention, according to someone briefed on the plans.
There will be blood tests. Interrogations about junior high. An analysis of tax returns.
It is an experience Joseph R. Biden Jr. knows all too well from his time on the vice-presidential short list 12 years ago.
Much about Mr. Biden’s own search for a running mate has been nontraditional. He has publicly mused about his criteria. He is not considering men. Above all, his choice could be the most important in years: At 77, Mr. Biden has said he views himself as a “transition candidate.†Left unsaid: His vice president could very well end up being the president next.
Yet as much as Mr. Biden’s process is unique, its contours are familiar. Late last month, he told a local television station that his campaign had begun “doing the background checks†— the latest sign that he is moving toward a short list of candidates.
If history is a guide, Mr. Biden’s top contenders should expect to submit themselves to a process that veterans liken to a series of graphic medical procedures. Extraneous? Maybe. But, well, sometimes that’s the vice presidency, too.
“They basically are disassembling your entire life,†said Kathleen Sebelius, a former Democratic governor of Kansas who, along with Mr. Biden, was vetted extensively by the Obama campaign in 2008. “It was as intrusive and probing as anything I’ve ever been through or would hope to ever go through again.â€
Evan Bayh, a former Democratic senator from Indiana and a repeat vice-presidential contestant, somewhat famously compared the vetting process to a colonoscopy — “except they use the Hubble telescope on you.â€
Indeed, when Barack Obama called Mr. Biden in June 2008 to request permission to vet him, Mr. Biden initially said no. Finally, he wrote in his 2017 memoir, “I agreed to go through the vetting process, but not with a whole lot of enthusiasm.â€
Ms. Sebelius said Mr. Obama had called her when she was at a hotel for a meeting. Like Mr. Biden, she tried to persuade him not to vet her. “I spent a little bit of time telling him why that was a terrible idea,†she recalled. He was undeterred: A member of his vetting team was waiting to speak to her in a room downstairs.
One of the cardinal rules of the process is secrecy, and nearly everyone obeys. Most potential running mates do not speak about the search, if they acknowledge they are being vetted at all. Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska senator who was vetted by Bill Clinton in 1992, said he flew on a friend’s private plane to the governor’s mansion in Little Rock, Ark., for a meeting so almost no one would know where he was.
Presidential candidates consider many factors when selecting their running mates. They are not always political. Mr. Kerrey, for instance, said he suspected early on he wasn’t getting the job. For one, he wasn’t married at the time and he worried that the optics in a photograph would be off.
“You need to have Bill and Hillary and somebody and somebody,†Mr. Kerrey said. “You don’t want Bill and Hillary and Bob.â€
Vetting procedures have become increasingly rigorous, in part because campaigns are wary of what can happen if details are overlooked. More recently, the availability of potentially incriminating details on the internet has made vetting seem more imperative than ever lest anyone dig up a surprise. (Of course, the election of President Trump showed that voters might also shrug off what might once have been disqualifying information.)
Tim Pawlenty, a former Minnesota governor, recalled scrambling with his wife, Mary, in 2008 to provide all the information John McCain requested as part of his vetting.
“At one point during the process, our entire living room was covered with documents as Mary and I organized them, typed up answers to the lengthy questionnaire and organized it all into 3-ring binders,†he said in an email. They stayed up late and subsisted on pizza as they raced to meet the campaign’s deadlines.
Julián Castro, whom Mrs. Clinton vetted extensively in 2016, said her campaign had given him a survey seeking answers to more than 120 questions about his personal, political and financial history.
At one point during the interview to go over the responses, one of the questioners spotted Mr. Castro’s cellphone. What would the questioner find, he asked, if he were to take Mr. Castro’s phone and go through it right now? (No, Mr. Castro did not provide the answer to The New York Times.)
“You recognize the gravity of this process,†he said. “But it still has this spy thriller, cloak-and-dagger aspect to it all.â€
With the global pandemic sidelining much of Mr. Biden’s in-person presidential campaign, his veepstakes has become a welcome throwback to normal post-primary political activity.
Already, one of Mr. Biden’s top contenders, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, has formally withdrawn from contention. In an interview with MSNBC last month, she referred to the calls for racial justice that have swept the country since the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police, saying she believed “that this is a moment to put a woman of color on that ticket.â€
Faux modesty is also part of the game: Everyone whose name is on a list almost always declares themselves honored just to be thought of at all. When Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada said in May she was withdrawing from consideration, she said that it was “an honor to be considered†but that she wanted to keep her focus on her home state.
A brief survey of short-listed names over the years reveals some perennial participants. Mr. Pawlenty, for instance, was vetted by both Mr. McCain and Mitt Romney. Mr. Bayh was seriously considered by Al Gore and Mr. Obama.
Mr. Biden has also at times mentioned some familiar names, including Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, who was one of Mr. Gore’s finalists. (Ms. Shaheen, however, reportedly told Mr. Biden she was not interested in serving as his vice president.) But his pledge to choose a woman has eliminated most of the usual names from contention.
Mr. Obama called Mr. Biden to tell him he had gotten the job as Mr. Biden was waiting at a dentist’s office while his wife, Jill, was having a root canal. Despite Mr. Biden’s reluctance just weeks earlier, he was delighted. “I accepted without hesitation,†Mr. Biden said. “It felt good to say yes.â€
But as it most often does, the process for most of Mr. Biden’s prospects will likely end in disappointment — and possibly some relief.
James Stavridis, a retired admiral who was vetted by Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, said it had been so intrusive and secretive that he jokingly told a friend, the former C.I.A. spokesman Bill Harlow, that he hoped he was really providing all the information to the Clinton campaign and not Russian intelligence.
When he was not chosen, he and Mr. Harlow decided to write a “humorous novel about the Russians penetrating the U.S. V.P. selection process.†In the proposal for the book, called “The Veepstakes,†they described the tone as “stylistically, an ‘entertainment’ à la Chris Buckley or Elmore Leonard.â€
The proposal was widely rejected, Mr. Stavridis said. The premise was too implausible.
Mr. Castro professed to being disappointed when Mrs. Clinton ultimately selected Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia but said he was “glad that all of that speculation was over.â€
The experience also came with an unexpected benefit. As part of his vetting, Mr. Castro had to get a blood test, forcing him to confront a phobia he had harbored since he was a young child.
“The best thing was that I had to get over that fear,†he said. “It certainly wasn’t that I got the job, because I didn’t.â€
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