Inside a training center in southern China, more than 100 humanoid robots stand in neat rows. A dozen human trainers wearing headsets guide some of them through simple tasks – sorting crates, packaging noodles, making coffee.

The humanoids are slow and awkward. A novice trainer might get them to produce one usable movement in 300 attempts; an experienced trainer, one in 50.

The facility captures a central tension in China’s humanoid push: Government funding and manufacturing investment are racing ahead of the robots’ ability to operate outside of choreographed demonstrations – like the kung fu routines, dances and boxing matches that have made the machines internet sensations.

Dolly Parton, the trailblazing country music icon, songwriter and actress who died on Tuesday at age 80, was so much more to millions around the world.

She was a symbol of generosity, whose philanthropic work spanned literacy, disaster relief, medical research and support for marginalized communities and racial justice, transcending the political and cultural divides that reshaped the world around her.

Her charitable efforts were ‌informed by an upbringing in profound poverty in rural Tennessee, which later became as central to her public legacy as the songs that made her famous.