TASK DEFINITION: Given a document and an entity the task is to select the author's sentiment towards the entity. Sentiments can be Positive, Neutral and Negative. Select Positive if the article expresses a positive view towards the given entity or praises its quality or skills. Select Neutral if the document expresses no clear view towards the entity or has equal amounts of positive and negative statements or expressing some fact/quote by someone else. Select Negative if the article expresses a negative view towards like harsh remarks, criticizing entities action/decision etc. Note that URLs in the text have been replaced with [Link].
PROBLEM: What is the sentiment of the following document towards the entity Mariah Carey ? Mariah Carey  undeterred by last yearâs performance  will take to the stage once again in Times Square to ring in the new year on live TV.
The star  along with Dick Clark Productions  issued a joint statement on Friday announcing  Carey  as the headliner for âDick Clarkâs New Yearâs Rockinâ Eve with Ryan Seacrestâ broadcast.
Careyâs manager blamed the production and technical difficulties that producers knowingly failed to fix. Dick Clark Productions called the accusations âoutrageous and frankly absurd.â  Carey  eventually broke her silence on the troubled performance  saying she was âmortifiedâ and that she intended to take a break from social media.
Now it seems as though everyone is ready to put the messy past behind them.  Carey  will join the likes of Britney Spears  Nick Jonas  Kelly Clarkson and Shawn Mendes as the world rings in 2018.
 Careyâs  forthcoming New Yearâs Eve performance will top an already merry holiday season for the star. In addition to performing her annual Christmas tour   Careyâs  famous single âAll I Want For Christmas Is Youâ has been played more than 100 million times this month alone  according to Forbes.

SOLUTION: Positive

PROBLEM: What is the sentiment of the following document towards the entity Darren Woods ? Exxon Mobil Chairman and CEO Darren Woods  made the announcement in a blog post on Monday (full text below).
"At ExxonMobil   we  plan to invest more than $50 billion over the next five years to expand  our  business in the United States " writes  Woods . "These investments are underpinned by the unique strengths of our company and enhanced by the historic tax reform recently signed into law."
 Woods  notes the Exxon is not alone in its plans to reinvest in America and American workers in response to the massive corporate tax cut  which Republicans slashed from 35% to 21%.
 Woods  goes on to detail ways  his  company will invest those tens of billions in the U.S.:

SOLUTION: Positive

PROBLEM: What is the sentiment of the following document towards the entity Daniel Graham MacCormick ? Nelson DeMilleâs new novel  The Cuban Affair  takes us on a hard-hitting adventure through modern-day Cuba and makes some memorable points about todayâs tense political situation along the way. DeMille has an incredible gift for perfectly capturing a characterâs voice and unique personality. His protagonist in The Cuban Affair is 35-year-old former US Army infantry officer Daniel Graham MacCormick  or Mac for short.
Originally from Portland  Maine  we meet  Mac  once  he âs become a charter fishing boat captain in Key West  Florida. We never fully hear about  Mac âs tour in Afghanistan except for some traumatic combat memories  but weâre told  he  has a Silver Star  two Purple Hearts  and shrapnel wounds  so DeMille makes it clear that  Mac  saw heavy action.
DeMille reintroduces Mac into some abrupt  heart-racing action in The Cuban Affair. The story is told from the first-person point of view and is an action-packed  rollicking tale. After heâs approached by a group of mysterious Cuban expats in Key West   Mac  gets talked into a top-secret mission to recover $60 million in U.S. cash and property deeds from a cave in Cuba that were hidden during Castroâs violent overthrow of Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
 Mac  feels like thereâs something fishy about the whole operation  but eventually signs on  enticed in part by a beautiful Cuban-American woman  Sara  who will be his partner for the mission. DeMille showcases his humor throughout the book  such as when Sara is talking  Mac  into accepting the mission. Theyâre out on  Mac âs charter boat and Sara tries to appeal to his sense of adventure and his sense of right and wrong  with mixed results:
âDonât talk yourself out of this   Mac . Thereâs a sayingââ Iâd rather regret the things I did than the things I didnât do.â â
 Mac   of course  ends up taking on the mission and getting  himself  in hot water after traveling to Cuba under the cover of a Yale educational tour then breaking away to get the hidden money. Things donât go as planned and the book ends up taking a few sharp zigs and zags as it rockets to its conclusion  but this refreshing  zany  and cynical sense of humor is a great recurring feature throughout the book.
Demille also doesnât shy away from the hard topics. Heâs uncompromising in his look at the sadness of modern Cuba and the empty rhetoric of its socialist revolution.  Mac  doesnât really care about what happened in Cuba and comes across as basically apolitical: He just wants to get the money and the girl.
There are complications  naturally. The money is buried in a rural cave in a heavily armed police state full of citizen informants and the girl has a boyfriend. Nonetheless  despite his focus on the basics and disinterest in politics   even Mac  starts to feel disillusioned after arriving in Havana and looking around at the state of things. âRevolutions usually replace one group of incompetent autocratic assholes with another  and the real losers are everyone else  â Mac  ponders at one point.
When  he  finds out about the food situation in Cuba itâs even more sobering. Sara explains to  him  that Cuba is basically half starving as they look around an organic farm:
Even as Sara and Mac traverse Cuba and get into big trouble  DeMille keeps the laughs coming. Itâs quite funny that DeMille puts a character called Richard Neville (clearly a humorous stand-in for himself) into the book. Neville is a bestselling adventure author traveling with  Mac âs tour group in Cuba to research a book and Mac notices Nevilleâs highly attractive wife (a real âlookerâ). Not believing she could really be into the grouchy writer   Mac  surmises she must be attracted to Neville for âthe bulge in his pants â his wallet  not his crotch.â
Neville and  Mac  also have a bit of a rivalry for Sara and a competing inside joke about Ernest Hemingway that is hilarious. As Neville takes photos in front of Hemingwayâs house in Cuba:
As  Mac  and Sara work to get the money they run into a citizen informer  or chivato. He tries to buy them off in return for his silence that he suspects they are up to funny business and explains how things really work in the Communist paradise:
In another part  Mac  and Sara walk through the nicest neighborhood of Havana and are shocked at what they see  which is outright hypocrisy:
In the end  The Cuban Affair manages to combine just the right amount of sassy and sad. It doesnât focus all on doom and gloom  nor does it pretend that everything is merely a joke. At its most profound âteachable moment â  Mac  concludes that life is messy and the truth about humanity lies somewhere in between optimism and blackpill nihilism.  He  concludes that human affairs are complex and paradoxical  alternately bringing out the best and worst in different individuals.
In  his  acknowledgements  DeMille mentions that  he  did personally go on a Yale educational tour of Cuba to prepare for the bookâRichard Neville  indeed.  He  also thanks various friends  family  and colleagues who helped and advised  him  on the book. One is especially telling  because it shows that this book comes from the source:
Iâd like to thank a man who I met in Cuba  and who gave it to  me  straight about contemporary Cuban politics  culture  and life. He wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons  but heâs given himself the code name âLola.â Thank you  Lola  wherever you are  and take care.

SOLUTION:
Neutral