October 13, 2016

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Entertainment October 13, 2016

Today in Movie Culture: 'Doctor Strange' Meets 'Stranger Things,' Lego Does 'The Yellow Submarine' and More

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

Mashup of the Day:

Doctor Strange goes up against Eleven from Stranger Things in this mashup trailer for “Doctor Stranger Things”:

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Retro-fied Trailer of the Day:

Darth Blender remade the new Power Rangers trailer using footage from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV show:

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Toy of the Day:

Lego has made a playset based on the animated Beatles movie The Yellow Submarine, complete with little minifigs of John, Paul, George, Ringo and a Blue Meanie (via io9):

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Cosplay of the Day:

Another video of the best cosplay from New York Comic Con, this one from JoBlo.com, includes costumes based on characters from The Fifth Element and Zootopia:

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Vintage Image of the Day:

Melinda Dillon, who turns 77 today, with the late Darren McGavin in a promotional shot for 1983’s A Christmas Story:

Movie Comparison of the Day:

Couch Tomato shows 24 reasons The Legend of Tarzan is the same movie as another featuring Samuel L. Jackson, Jurassic Park:

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Filmmakers in Focus:

This video by Candice Drouet showcases shots from Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence side by side with the shots from Stanley Kubrick movies they pay homage to:

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Actor in the Spotlight:

For Fandor Keyframe, Kevin B. Lee shows why 2016 is the year of Kristen Stewart:

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Movie Trivia of the Day:

Halloween is almost here, so Screen Crush shares some trivia you may not know about Halloweentown and The Nightmare Before Christmas:

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Classic Trailer of the Day:

This week is the 25th anniversary of the initial theatrical release of Jodie Foster’s LIttle Man Tate. Watch the original trailer for the movie below.

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Business October 13, 2016

Treasury Tries Again To Keep American Firms' Taxes In U.S.

The U.S. Treasury Department issued rules Thursday aimed at stemming the practice of “tax inversions.” This is the practice where a company moves its legal home abroad in order to avoid or minimize U.S. taxes.

Bloomberg has a helpful explainer of inversions.

The rules are meant to stem a technique, used after a company moves its legal address to a low-tax country, called earnings stripping. When the company moves abroad or gains a foreign corporate parent, the company minimizes its U.S. taxes by receiving a loan from the foreign-based company and paying deductible interest to that foreign parent or affiliate.

This technique means a company can generate large interest deductions without having to invest in the United States. Getting at this lost tax revenue has been a priority of the Obama administration.

The rules limit those loans that leave the U.S. company owing less to the Treasury. The rules were proposed in April, but have been softened in part because of opposition from business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber reiterated its objections in a statement:

“The U.S. Chamber had significant concerns about the impacts of these rules when proposed, and we’re still examining this final rule. While it appears that Treasury may have attempted to address at least some of the Chamber’s concerns, we continue to believe punitive, one-off changes to the tax law do nothing to address the root of the purported “inversion problem”: our antiquated and anticompetitive (sic) tax code. If we are seeking to make the United States a competitive place to do business, we need to focus on achieving comprehensive tax reform.”

The Chamber had filed suit after the rules were announced. One of the main complaints is that the changes hamper a company’s ability to manage its finances.

The New York Times reports the changes to the tax rules, even their suggestion, had immediate consequences.

“The Treasury’s rules in April also took aim at the $152 billion deal between Pfizer and Allergan. The Treasury prohibited what it called “serial inverters,” or companies that have completed three or more deals with American companies over a short period of time. That broke up the merger between the two pharmaceutical giants, given that Allergan was the product of multiple levels of inversions.

“Thursday’s changes provided exemptions for cash pools and short-term loans, which are used by multinational companies to move cash among their subsidiaries across the world.

“It also said that the regulations made special exceptions of types of entities, including foreign subsidiaries of American corporations, S Corporations, regulated financial and insurance companies and mutual funds and real estate investment trusts. The amendments also made exceptions for ordinary business transactions, such as purchasing stock as part of compensation plans.”

The Associated Press reported on congressional reaction to the new Treasury Department rule changes.

“Republicans quickly criticized the rules. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, warned they “could jeopardize American businesses and the U.S. economy.”

“But Democrats countered.

” ‘If Republicans are serious about reforming our tax code and making it fairer for all Americans,’ said Michigan Rep. Sander Levin, top Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, ‘they should begin by joining with Democrats to pass legislation to close corporate tax loopholes.’ “

Here’s a fact sheet from the Treasury Department about changes to the regulations.

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Sports October 13, 2016

Man Juggles For An Entire Marathon Without A Single Drop

Michal Kapral “joggling” during last weekend’s Chicago Marathon. Andre Anjos/Courtesy of Michal Kapral hide caption

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Andre Anjos/Courtesy of Michal Kapral

For many of us, simply running a marathon is a serious challenge.

But Michal Kapral, a 44-year-old editor from Toronto, had a more difficult goal in mind. He wanted to run a marathon … while juggling … without dropping a ball even once.

And he did it at the Chicago Marathon on Sunday, at the brisk clip of 2 hours and 55 minutes. That’s a pace of about 6:40 per mile.

Kapral tells The Two-Way that he’s an old hand at “joggling” (juggling while jogging, naturally). In fact, this is his eighth joggling marathon. He holds the world record for the “fastest marathon while joggling three objects,” which he has set multiple times, most recently in 2007 in Toronto. He ran that marathon 5 minutes faster, he says, but dropped the ball twice.

This is the first time that he’s managed to complete the race without a single drop. He says the pressure was building as he neared the end of the race: “I’ve never felt so much stress in my life.” During the last 400 meters, he says he “literally looked at every toss.”

VIDEO by @wendyalas: Running the #ChicagoMarathon while juggling in 2:55 without a drop. Here are 10 catches out of 50,000+ #joggling pic.twitter.com/9W6ypaXouv

— Michal Kapral (@mkapral) October 11, 2016

Kapral started joggling when he was 11, after flipping through the Guinness Book of World Records for records he might be able to break. He had just learned to juggle, he says, and was a part of his school’s cross country team.

About 20 years later, after completing a number of marathons, he thought he’d try joggling one of the races while raising money for charity.

“When I first started I just assumed people would just make fun of me, and I started off training running in the dark before dawn while I figured out what I was doing,” he says.

But now he’s far bolder, and routinely joggles on his commute home or through downtown Toronto.

“I think the most common reaction is people stop and just stare. They just stop in their tracks and then their jaw kind of drops, and they get the look of like, ‘What did I just see?’ ” Kapral says. “It cracks me up.”

There’s a worldwide community of jogglers, including dozens who contacted him when he first set the world record for marathon joggling in 2005. “Ever since then, I hear from someone maybe every two weeks who’s in some part of the world who does this,” he adds.

Kapral manages to make juggling while running sound like a very natural motion: “Every step you take, every stride forward, as your arm swings you toss the ball up to the other side so the juggling cascade pattern matches perfectly with the running stride.”

That grows more challenging over the course of 26.2 miles. He explains:

“So the beginning, the first few miles, it’s kind of relaxing, it’s this meditative, kind of zen feeling, with this pattern floating around in front of your face. And it helps keep the rhythm, the juggling. And then after a while, your arms start to tire, and everything gets tired, and then it’s just absolute agony the last few miles. It takes this incredible amount of focus. Suddenly you have to focus on every toss.”

After experimenting with plastic balls, he says he prefers juggling with handmade beanbags, filled with millet.

Kapral says he wants to try doing a steeplechase while juggling — that’s a challenging long-distance race involving multiple barriers and water jumps.

Feeling klutzy by comparison? This tweet might provide some solace:

Three days ago: Ran 26.2 miles while juggling and never dropped a ball.
Today: Dropped my phone and cracked it, broke an expensive glass.

— Michal Kapral (@mkapral) October 13, 2016

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Health October 13, 2016

Breast Cancer Death Rates Are Down, But Racial Disparities Persist

Lack of access to quality medical care remains a major factor in higher breast cancer death rates among African-Americans. Deborah Jaffe/Getty Images hide caption

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Deborah Jaffe/Getty Images

Women are less likely to die of breast cancer than they were a decade ago, but not all women are benefiting from that trend.

White women saw more of a drop in death rates than black women — 1.9 percent a year from 2010 to 2014, compared to a 1.5 percent decrease for black women, according to a report published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And while the death rates for women under 50 declined regardless of race, older black women are more likely to die of breast cancer than are white women.

That’s especially troubling because 40 years ago, black women were less likely to get breast cancer. That’s changed. Black women’s breast cancer risk is now the same as that of white women’s, and black women are 41 percent more likely to die of the disease.

There can be some good reasons for the rise in the number of black women being diagnosed with breast cancer, like more women getting screening mammograms. But there are bad reasons, too.

The CDC report cites calorie-dense foods, lack of exercise and increasing rates of obesity as potential reasons.

And while this report found similar reductions in deaths among younger black and white women, older white women saw their death rates drop by 2 percent a year, compared to 1 percent in black women.

Access to care is one big reason why, according to Otis Brawley, chief medical and scientific officer for the American Cancer Society.

“Forty to 50 percent of black women get less than optimal care for breast cancer, whether it’s mammography or treatment,” Brawley says.

They’re not alone in that; poor white women are also much less likely to get adequate care, and more likely to die as a result.

“We need to focus on getting good care, high-quality care to everybody,” Brawley adds. “We need to realize that in the United States of America in 2016 a substantial proportion of Americans with cancer get absolutely atrocious care.”

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