Definition: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Input: 4. Animal activists, specifically People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, aren’t thrilled about the float’s inclusion in the parade though. 
  
 On Oct. 23, a group of PETA supporters protested outside Macy’s Herald Square in New York City, handing out leaflets and setting up a “whale inside a tank” (see above photo) demonstrating the terrible conditions in which it says SeaWorld keeps its animals. 
  
 Ashley Byrne, a campaign specialist who has been with PETA for six years and participated in the Macy’s protest, said that PETA’s demonstration alarmed many people, including Macy’s employees: “We had a couple of Macy’s employees who came out on their lunch break and were so upset when they found out the company they worked for was promoting SeaWorld, that they said they were going to go back inside and complain to their manager.” 
  
 In recent months, treatment of orcas in captivity has been a particularly hot-button issue both in and out of animal activist circles with the release of the controversial documentary Blackfish, which explores SeaWorld’s treatment of its animals after a whale killed a veteran trainer at SeaWorld Orlando in 2010. ||||| Photo 
  
 Coming to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: the float fracas. 
  
 One controversy involves SeaWorld. The other, the rock singer Joan Jett. 
  
 SeaWorld has a float with penguins, swaying kelp and whales. 
  
 But a new documentary, “Blackfish,” contends that SeaWorld has treated killer whales poorly. 
  
 As of Friday, more than 78,000 people had emailed Macy’s asking that SeaWorld be dropped, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which is coordinating a protest campaign. 
  
 The actor Alec Baldwin joined in last week, writing, “Please don’t be part of SeaWorld’s crisis-management plan.” 
  
 (Now Mr. Baldwin has his own crisis to manage. He was just suspended from his MSNBC talk show for making an antigay slur.) 
  
 Ms. Jett was supposed to perform on the South Dakota tourism float. 
  
 But ranchers questioned why Ms. Jett, a vegetarian and PETA ally, was representing their state. 
  
 So on Friday, Macy’s moved her to a different float. 
  
 Macy’s and SeaWorld aren’t budging, though. 
  
 “The parade has never taken on, promoted or otherwise engaged in social commentary, political debate or other forms of advocacy,” Macy’s said. 
  
 SeaWorld said the accusations of mistreatment have “absolutely no basis.” 
  
 Here’s what else you need to know for Monday. 
  
 WEATHER 
  
 Your dreams of thunderstorms were real. But they’re done now. 
  
 Still, an unsettled day. Clearing, gusty, very warm, with highs in the high 60s, then crashing into the 30s. 
  
 COMMUTE 
  
 Subways: Click for latest status. 
  
 Rails: Click for L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status. 
  
 Roads: Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s. 
  
 Alternate-side parking is in effect all week. 
  
 COMING UP TODAY 
  
 • Michelle Obama is in town, attending a luncheon at the Sheraton on Seventh Avenue and 53rd Street, then taping the BET show “106 & Park” at CBS studios on West 57th Street around 3 p.m., says Gridlock Sam. 
  
 • Select Bus Service, where you pay before boarding to speed things up, comes to Brooklyn on the B44, which runs from Williamsburg to Sheepshead Bay. Mayor Bloomberg will be there. 
  
 • First day of the Home Energy Assistance Program, better known as HEAP, which helps low-income New Yorkers pay their heating bills. 
  
 • A protest against a public bathroom? Yes, at 1 p.m. in Brighton Beach, where the city wants to build boardwalk comfort stations in front of a condo complex. Critics say similar units are falling apart. 
  
 • Justice Sonia Sotomayor discusses her memoir and fields questions at City College. 5:30 p.m. [Free] 
  
 • Learn about volunteering opportunities around the world at a fair at the New School. 5 to 8 p.m. [Free] 
  
 • The historian Doris Kearns Goodwin talks about her new book, “Bully Pulpit,” at the Union Square Barnes & Noble. 7 p.m. [Free] 
  
 • Watch the year’s best music videos, as chosen at the Los Angeles Music Video Festival, in a screening at the School of Visual Arts. 7 p.m. [Free] 
  
 • For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide. 
  
 IN THE NEWS 
  
 • The state education commissioner has become a sounding board for everything parents find wrong with public schools in New York. [New York Times] 
  
 • A diver from Brooklyn died in the Bahamas after trying to set a world record for the deepest dive. [New York Times] 
  
 • A retired priest who says that people can “pray away the gay” is speaking at a Catholic high school in the Bronx on Tuesday, stirring protest. [Daily News] 
  
 • Mayor Bloomberg points out that New York is the only one of the country’s 20 biggest cities where poverty has not risen during the 21st century. [Capital New York] 
  
 • A former plumbing store in Bushwick, Brooklyn, is now home to a witching-supplies shop and occult bookstore. [New York Times] 
  
 • A new series in The Times salutes the city’s unofficial “mayors.” 
  
 • Scoreboard: Giants beat Packers, 24-13. Bills slam Jets, 37-14. Kings blank Rangers, 1-0. 
  
 AND FINALLY… 
  
 Some children will be staying home from public schools today. 
  
 Their parents are taking part in a national protest against the federal educational standards known as the Common Core. 
  
 Opponents say the Common Core usurps power from local school boards and overemphasizes testing. 
  
 More than 6,000 people have said on the protest’s Facebook page that they will keep their kids home. 
  
 A Staten Island mother told The Staten Island Advance that she hoped to “open the eyes of the government.” 
  
 Joseph Burgess contributed reporting. 
  
 New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till about noon. 
  
 What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday. 
  
 Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com. ||||| Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is awash in animal-related protests over its floats, with controversies involving the unlikely pairing of rocker Joan Jett and Shamu the killer whale. 
  
 FILE - In this April 20, 2013 file photo, singer and songwriter Joan Jett is seen in Baltimore. The organizers of the 2013 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade have removed Jett from the South Dakota float... (Associated Press) 
  
 FILE - In this July 2, 1999 file photo, killer whale Kalina, right, and her 10-day-old son Baby Shamu swim at SeaWorld in Orlando, Fla. Floats in the Macy's Thanksgiving parade, which carry celebrities,... (Associated Press) 
  
 Activists plan to line the route of next week's parade to protest a SeaWorld float over accusations in a new documentary that the theme parks treat whales badly. And ranchers succeeded in getting Jett pulled off the South Dakota tourism float after they questioned why the vegetarian and animal-rights ally was representing their beef-loving state. 
  
 The float flaps threaten to shake Macy's traditional position of staying out of politics and soaring silently above the fray, like the massive balloons of Snoopy, Kermit the Frog and SpongeBob SquarePants. 
  
 "The parade has never taken on, promoted or otherwise engaged in social commentary, political debate or other forms of advocacy," Cincinnati-based Macy's Inc. said in a statement this week. 
  
 It was in that spirit that parade executive producer Amy Kule told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the SeaWorld float is staying. "There is no controversy," she said. "Our goal is to entertain and that is their goal as well." 
  
 The SeaWorld float, which depicts rolling waves, tropical fish, penguins and Shamu, comes months after the release of the documentary "Blackfish," which contends that SeaWorld's poor treatment of its killer whales contributed to the aggression of a whale involved in a trainer's death. 
  
 SeaWorld says the accusations have "absolutely no basis" and that "the men and women who care for these animals at SeaWorld are dedicated in every respect to their health and well-being." 
  
 Activists, including members of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, say they plan to stage a protest somewhere along the route during next week's parade. And the group says it has sent Macy's more than 80,000 emails from animal lovers demanding that the store drop the float. 
  
 Among those joining in was actor Alec Baldwin and his wife, Hilaria, who wrote last week that SeaWorld was a "cruel prison for whales" and that the parks "should not be celebrated with a giant Shamu float parading down 34th Street." 
  
 Kenneth Sherrill, professor emeritus of political science at Manhattan's Hunter College and a longtime parade watcher, says the SeaWorld controversy puts Macy's in a tough spot. 
  
 "It's damned if they do, damned if they don't," Sherrill said. "Macy's is making a statement. If there's a political conflict, saying 'I'm not getting involved' means you're supporting the status quo." 
  
 PETA also is connected to the float controversy involving Jett, an animal-rights vegetarian who works with the organization. 
  
 She was scheduled to sing atop South Dakota's tourism float until an outcry from the South Dakota Cattlemen's Association, which said it made no sense to feature an artist who is critical of the state's top economic sector. 
  
 Macy's found a solution: The "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" singer and her Blackhearts band are being moved to a different float as yet to be announced. A parade spokesman said it made the move so attention isn't diverted from the "entertainment mission" of the event, which also features Carrie Underwood, Jimmy Fallon, the Radio City Rockettes and the cast members of the reality show "Duck Dynasty." 
  
 The parade has gone on through previous controversies. 
  
 In 2011, Tim Burton's "B. Boy" balloon took flight despite critics labeling it "creepy" for its depiction of a snaggle-toothed boy made out of old party balloons. 
  
 And last year, Elmo's appearance followed sexual abuse charges against longtime puppeteer Kevin Clash, whose recorded voice was heard on a float. That parade also included confetti made from shredded New York City police documents. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. |||||
Output:
What with the considerable hoopla surrounding Blackfish, the recent documentary about the SeaWorld whale that killed a trainer in 2010, perhaps this was not the best year for SeaWorld to decide to have its first-ever float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Animal activists including PETA are protesting the float's inclusion, BuzzFeed reports. The Float, called "Sea of Surprises," commemorates the park's 50th anniversary, and a PETA rep notes, "It shows orcas swimming in a majestic sea alongside their families, and this couldn’t be further from the truth. SeaWorld deprives them of all these things. They confine them to concrete tanks and take them away from their families. The picture that this float presents is absurdly false." More than 78,000 people had emailed Macy's as of Friday asking that the float be eliminated from the parade, the New York Times reports. (You can do so here.) One high-profile opponent of the float: Alec Baldwin, who calls SeaWorld "a cruel prison for whales." But it doesn't look like Macy's is budging; a spokesperson says the parade is "solely devoted to entertainment," and is not interested in getting involved in any "social commentary, political debate, or other forms of advocacy." And then there are the ranchers upset about PETA spokesperson Joan Jett being featured on the South Dakota tourism float; they actually did manage to get her switched to a different float, the AP reports. In happier news, CBS notes four other new floats were unveiled yesterday, featuring Cirque du Soleil, the minions from Despicable Me, Royal Caribbean, and Lindt Chocolate ... which will have the Goo Goo Dolls aboard.