May 27, 2016

No Image

Entertainment May 27, 2016

Today in Movie Culture: 'Rogue One' Video Game Style, 'X-Men' Character Theories and More

Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:

Remade Trailer of the Day:

The trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has been remade in 8-bit video game type graphics:

[embedded content]

Music Performance of the Day:

Watch Jeff Goldblum and The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra perform an Independence Day: Resurgence themed tune for an Omaze charity sweepstakes promo:

Adorable Cosplay of the Day:

The latest awesome wheelchair-based cosplay is for Ant-Man and his buddy Antony (via Fashionably Geek):

Ant-Man & Antony wheelchair costume in action. #BigSlickKC #AntMan pic.twitter.com/c68Gc8G1c9

— Walkin’ & Rollin’ (@WalkinNRollin) May 23, 2016

Character Commentary of the Day:

See what the MCU Captain America thinks of the new comic book Hydra-allegiant Captain America:

Yup I lol’d #CaptainAmerica pic.twitter.com/imTEbqy0KY

— Jake Lester (@Jake_Lester) May 26, 2016

Fan Theory of the Day:

The Film Theorists analyze the power of Magneto in the X-Men movies and theorize how he could be killed:

[embedded content]

Movie Science of the Day:

Another X-Men character theory has Kyle Hill exploring whether or not Wolverien could get a tattoo:

[embedded content]

Vintage Image of the Day:

Helena Bonham Carter, who turns 50 today, has a seat with director David Fincher on the set of Fight Club in 1998:

Supercut of the Day:

Burger Fiction highlights all the instances in movies where someone says, “Welcome to…” some such setting, including those of The Shawshank Redemption, Good Burger, Fight Club, and Strange Brew:

[embedded content]

Concept Art of the Day:

Check out a page of rare old rejected concept art for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which is being auctioned off next month (via The Hollywood Reporter):

Classic Trailer of the Day:

Today is the 10th anniversary of the release of X-Men: The Last Stand. Watch the original trailer for the sequel below.

[embedded content]

and

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

No Image

Health May 27, 2016

Ship That Breast Milk For You? Companies Add Parent-Friendly Perks

Some companies are offering compensation beyond paid parental leave, covering surrogacy and adoption, or even shipping breast milk home to baby for traveling moms.

Gary Waters/Ikon Images/Getty Images

A handful of companies are offering parental benefits that go way beyond just paid leave, to include things like surrogacy reimbursement, egg freezing or breast milk shipping for traveling mothers.

As competition for talent heats up, companies see it as a relatively cheap way to recruit, retain and motivate their employee base.

This month, Johnson & Johnson extended fertility treatment benefits to same-sex couples and increased coverage to $35,000 for full- and part-time U.S. employees. It upped reimbursements for surrogacy and adoption to $20,000 — and it also ships breast milk.

“We wanted to be a leader in this space,” says Peter Fasolo, Johnson & Johnson chief human resources officer. Taking care of employees in this way costs far less than, say, health insurance, in part because the benefits are used by a minority of workers, and generally on a one-time or short-term basis. “They’re really not that expensive, to be frank with you.”

It may not be a lot of money for the company, but it can be for an individual employee.

Bruce Elliott, manager of benefits for the Society for Human Resource Management, says the amount Johnson & Johnson offers is unusually high. “We don’t see a lot of that. You know, we will see adoption support typically capped at about $5,000,” he says.

Elliott says rich benefits are more common in tech and finance. Ernst & Young has offered breast milk shipping for years, and last year, IBM, Accenture and Twitter added it. Apple and Facebook started covering egg freezing two years ago.

Clif Bar, the energy food company, instituted a breast milk shipping benefit recently that has made a huge difference for Marin Vaughn, a customer manager. Instead of schlepping pumped milk home in suitcases packed with ice when she came home from work travel, she now just requests supplies that allow her to refrigerate and ship the milk back home.

“So it just goes FedEx overnight; it’s super easy. I wish it had been around earlier,” when she had her first child three years ago, she says.

But the companies bolstering their family friendly benefits are largely ones where talent is in short supply. Outside of those rarefied places, it’s still uncommon.

According to SHRM, fewer than a third of employers, 27 percent, cover in vitro fertilization treatment. Adoption and surrogacy benefits are rarer still, and usually take the form of paid leave, not reimbursement. Seventeen percent offer adoption leave; 5 percent offer paid leave for parents having a child through a surrogate, SHRM says.

Ellen Bravo, executive director of advocacy group Family Values@Work, says 60 percent of women work in places without lactation rooms.

“For them it means squeezing into a bathroom stall, the most unsanitary place to pump milk,” Bravo says. And some employers won’t even allow pumping in bathrooms. She cites a discrimination suit filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission this month by four female Frontier Airlines pilots alleging, in part, insufficient support for breast-feeding moms.

A Frontier Airlines spokesman says accommodations are made where possible, but allowing pilots to pump in flight could disrupt service, embarrass crew members or pose a security risk.

Though there are exceptions, most employment experts say there’s a big generational and cultural shift toward parent-friendly policies.

Kate Torgersen founded Milk Stork, a company that handles the logistics of breast milk shipping, and says she thinks young parents are demanding more of employers.

“They’re ambitious about their parenting,” she says. “They know about the value of breast-feeding, they’re incredibly informed and they’re vocal about what their needs are.”

Milk Stork launched less than a year ago. Since then, Torgersen says, the company has signed on a dozen corporate clients and is talking to many more.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

No Image

Business May 27, 2016

Ship That Breast Milk For You? Companies Add Parent-Friendly Perks

Some companies are offering compensation beyond paid parental leave, covering surrogacy and adoption, or even shipping breast milk home to baby for traveling moms.

Gary Waters/Ikon Images/Getty Images

A handful of companies are offering parental benefits that go way beyond just paid leave, to include things like surrogacy reimbursement, egg freezing or breast milk shipping for traveling mothers.

As competition for talent heats up, companies see it as a relatively cheap way to recruit, retain and motivate their employee base.

This month, Johnson & Johnson extended fertility treatment benefits to same-sex couples and increased coverage to $35,000 for full- and part-time U.S. employees. It upped reimbursements for surrogacy and adoption to $20,000 — and it also ships breast milk.

“We wanted to be a leader in this space,” says Peter Fasolo, Johnson & Johnson chief human resources officer. Taking care of employees in this way costs far less than, say, health insurance, in part because the benefits are used by a minority of workers, and generally on a one-time or short-term basis. “They’re really not that expensive, to be frank with you.”

It may not be a lot of money for the company, but it can be for an individual employee.

Bruce Elliott, manager of benefits for the Society for Human Resource Management, says the amount Johnson & Johnson offers is unusually high. “We don’t see a lot of that. You know, we will see adoption support typically capped at about $5,000,” he says.

Elliott says rich benefits are more common in tech and finance. Ernst & Young has offered breast milk shipping for years, and last year, IBM, Accenture and Twitter added it. Apple and Facebook started covering egg freezing two years ago.

Clif Bar, the energy food company, instituted a breast milk shipping benefit recently that has made a huge difference for Marin Vaughn, a customer manager. Instead of schlepping pumped milk home in suitcases packed with ice when she came home from work travel, she now just requests supplies that allow her to refrigerate and ship the milk back home.

“So it just goes FedEx overnight; it’s super easy. I wish it had been around earlier,” when she had her first child three years ago, she says.

But the companies bolstering their family friendly benefits are largely ones where talent is in short supply. Outside of those rarefied places, it’s still uncommon.

According to SHRM, fewer than a third of employers, 27 percent, cover in vitro fertilization treatment. Adoption and surrogacy benefits are rarer still, and usually take the form of paid leave, not reimbursement. Seventeen percent offer adoption leave; 5 percent offer paid leave for parents having a child through a surrogate, SHRM says.

Ellen Bravo, executive director of advocacy group Family Values@Work, says 60 percent of women work in places without lactation rooms.

“For them it means squeezing into a bathroom stall, the most unsanitary place to pump milk,” Bravo says. And some employers won’t even allow pumping in bathrooms. She cites a discrimination suit filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission this month by four female Frontier Airlines pilots alleging, in part, insufficient support for breast-feeding moms.

A Frontier Airlines spokesman says accommodations are made where possible, but allowing pilots to pump in flight could disrupt service, embarrass crew members or pose a security risk.

Though there are exceptions, most employment experts say there’s a big generational and cultural shift toward parent-friendly policies.

Kate Torgersen founded Milk Stork, a company that handles the logistics of breast milk shipping, and says she thinks young parents are demanding more of employers.

“They’re ambitious about their parenting,” she says. “They know about the value of breast-feeding, they’re incredibly informed and they’re vocal about what their needs are.”

Milk Stork launched less than a year ago. Since then, Torgersen says, the company has signed on a dozen corporate clients and is talking to many more.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

No Image

Sports May 27, 2016

Baylor Demotes President, Fires Football Coach Amid Sexual Assault Scandal

Baylor University demoted its president and fired the head football coach for their handling of allegations of sexual assault by members of the school’s football team. NPR’s Audie Cornish talks to Paula Lavigne of ESPN’s Outside the Lines, who reported on the cases and how Baylor officials failed to investigate the allegations and violated Title IX federal law.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Administrators at Baylor University didn’t do anything to protect students when they learned of a potential pattern of sexual violence by multiple football players. Coaches and school leaders sometimes treated alleged victims with hostility. Those are just two of the scathing conclusions and an independent review of how Baylor University handles sexual assault cases. Baylor’s football Coach Art Briles was fired this week and university President Kenneth Starr was demoted – and yes, it’s that Ken Starr, the former prosecutor who investigated the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal. Paula Lavigne is an investigative reporter with ESPN’s “Outside The Lines.” They’ve done some of the most extensive reporting on allegations against Baylor players.

Welcome to the program.

PAULA LAVIGNE: Thank you.

CORNISH: Ken Starr will still teach law and serve as chancellor at Baylor. And, of course, he actually helped commission the “Outside” review which led to his removal as president. What does the review say he did exactly?

LAVIGNE: The review doesn’t actually name anyone in particular, but it outlines quite a pattern of inaction from the very root of who these women were reporting to all the way up. And it was saying that there wasn’t a system set up, people didn’t know where to report, cases fell through the cracks. And at Baylor, Ken Starr is the ultimate decision-maker in these cases. That’s what their policy says and, you know, at the end of the day, he’s the one who needs to be accountable.

CORNISH: Now, the most critical portions of the review focus on the football leadership. Coach Art Briles helped turn the team around athletically, helped bring in millions of dollars in revenue, but how did the report describe his role in these allegations?

LAVIGNE: Well, the overall report, as I just mentioned, talks about just sort of this pattern of inaction, this pattern of not having appropriate reporting and response set up. But what sets the football department apart is that it describes deliberate actions by football officials of trying to circumvent the process – talking about dissuading complaints from going up to the proper channels from getting student athletes transferred out of the school when something came up instead of keeping them around and dealing with it and addressing the problem. And I think that’s what stood out is that, you know, there was inaction everywhere, but within the football department, there was a real deliberate attempt to try to sweep these things under the rug.

CORNISH: After all the reporting you’ve done, was there anything in this independent review from this Philadelphia law firm that surprised you?

LAVIGNE: What surprised me was how bad it really was. I mean, we knew from talking to the victims and even talking to the student athletes themselves and parents and others that this was happening, that people were coming and asking for help or they were hoping to get justice and they weren’t getting either. What we didn’t realize was how bad and how deliberate it really was.

CORNISH: Is there anything in the report that could allow for criminal prosecutions that would help make those cases?

LAVIGNE: Well, I think that’s going to be kind of an interesting next question is whether or not any of these women will be able to take this and try to use it, you know, not only to try to pursue criminal charges, but also there is a pending civil case right now involving one of the women. And, you know, the violations outlined in this report I would think would certainly advance her cause. You know, they’re going to run into some other, you know, logistical issues in terms of statute of limitations and so forth, but that’s definitely on the table.

CORNISH: To your mind, how does what’s been uncovered at Baylor fit into this larger conversation about sexual assault on campus, about athletic programs that operate as if they’re above the rules?

LAVIGNE: Well, we’re focusing on Baylor today, right, but this is a problem at so many college campuses across the country. I mean, what sort sets Baylor apart is the fact that we have so many cases. I mean, it’s – I think we had five individuals, and that doesn’t even count the domestic violence and the other cases that we’re aware of that, you know, haven’t come forward. But I think that this needs to send a message to those schools that they need to do a better job with this. I mean, I would’ve thought that by now they would’ve already gotten the word that, you know, you can’t sweep these things under the rug. Well, if this case doesn’t do that, if the firing of a coach and the demotion of a president doesn’t send enough – a big enough signal then I don’t know what will.

CORNISH: Paula Lavigne. She’s an investigative reporter with ESPN’s “Outside The Lines.”

Thank you so much for speaking with us.

LAVIGNE: You’re welcome.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)