Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:
Fake Sequel of the Day:
Screen Rant’s fan trailer for Frozen 2 pits Elsa against Big Hero 6 villain Yokai and also mashes in characters from Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, The Incredibles and Zootopia:
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Mashup of the Day:
Darth Vader learns about the Millennium Falcon‘s cloaking device during the events of The Empire Strikes Back in this Veep parody sketch from Nerdist:
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Cosplay of the Day:
Speaking of The Empire Strikes Back, this kid’s tauntaun/rider Halloween costume is one of the coolest we’ve ever seen. See additional photos at Geek Tyrant.
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Crowdfunding Project of the Day:
A documentary about the origins of Sesame Street called Street Gang is crowdfunding on Indiegogo. Check out the campaign video:
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Alternate Poster Series of the Day:
Olly Moss created seven amazing posters for the seven Harry Potter stories — the last of which was, of course, two movies (via Olly Moss):
Alternate Ending of the Day:
Watch what might have occurred after the end of X-Men: Apocalypse after the credits were over:
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Movie Takedown of the Day:
Honest Trailers busts the Ghostbusters reboot for not being good enough to quiet all the prejudiced hate against it:
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Vintage Image of the Day:
Klaus Kinski, who was born on this day in 1926, in a famous image choking filmmaker Werner Herzog on the set of the 1987 film Cobra Verde, also used as the poster for the 1999 documentary My Best Fiend:
Movie Trivia of the Day:
The most fittingly titled movie to get a list of seven obscure bits of trivia via CineFix is, of course, Se7en:
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Classic Trailer of the Day:
Today is the 20th anniversary of the theatrical release of Swingers. Watch the original trailer for the indie hit below.
It can cost billions to put on the Olympic games. Those high costs can be a burden to host cities and will be among the topics discussed Tuesday when International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach meets with organizers in Tokyo, home of the 2020 games.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In Tokyo today, the president of the International Olympic Committee says the IOC can work with that city to cut the cost of hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics. Soaring prices have become a constant problem for host cities as the IOC moves its massive sports spectacle around the globe. NPR’s Tom Goldman says the situation is renewing calls for change.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: As far as envelope-opening moments ago, it’s hard to beat the excitement of announcing a winning Olympic bid.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Awarded to the city of Tokyo.
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GOLDMAN: That ecstasy in 2013 has been replaced by anxiety in 2016. A panel studying Tokyo’s finances recently reported it could cost more than $30 billion, four times the initial estimate. The International Olympic Committee refused to call it a crisis meeting today between IOC President Thomas Bach and Tokyo’s governor. But there’s ample reason for concern, and not just in Japan. A week ago, Rome withdrew its bid for the 2024 Summer Games. Rome’s mayor, Virginia Raggi, has been an outspoken critic.
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VIRGINIA RAGGI: (Speaking Italian).
GOLDMAN: “With the Olympics,” Raggi said last month, “we are being asked to take on more debt.”
There’s been a similar message from Boston and Hamburg, Germany. They also pulled out of the 2024 Games. Several other cities pulled out of the 2022 Winter Games. Those that bailed out have to look no further than those that went all in and paid a big price. Sochi 2014 – more than $50 billion. Beijing 2008 – more than $40 billion. Rio 2016 – economist Andrew Zimbalist says it could end up costing more than $20 billion.
ANDREW ZIMBALIST: The IOC’s asking too much. And there has been a general tendency to expect the next Olympic host to outdo the previous host.
GOLDMAN: Here’s Olympic historian Idy Uyoe.
IDY UYOE: The IOC typically demands that for Summer Games you have a stadium that seats about 80,000 people and is within a certain radius of the center of the city.
GOLDMAN: Uyoe says there are huge demands for lodging – 42,000 hotel rooms – for transportation, for city and sports infrastructure. And then there’s the expense of housing IOC members, who don’t exactly stay at the Holiday Inn.
UYOE: Their staff have to be in a certain class of hotel.
GOLDMAN: Andrew Zimbalist, whose book “Circus Maximus” is about the high cost of hosting the Olympics, says many host cities have had cost overruns – massive ones, in fact. There’s the last-minute rush to complete building before the games. And overall, prices go up in the seven years between winning the bid and putting on the games. A growing number of critics, Zimbalist included, say the fix is obvious.
ZIMBALIST: If you had a permanent Olympic host or you had two or three Olympic hosts, you would pick cities not only that were developed cities economically…
GOLDMAN: …But that had the transportation, communication, hospitality and sports infrastructure to support the Olympics, like Los Angeles, which is one of three remaining 2024 bidders. Would the IOC, so dedicated to spreading the games worldwide, go for a permanent host?
ZIMBALIST: Well, probably not.
GOLDMAN: But if potential bid cities keep dropping out, if corporate sponsors start saying the Olympic brand is tarnishing us instead of burnishing our products, perhaps. Until then, the IOC, which declined two interview requests for this story, is talking change. The committee is considering reforms that include countries sharing host duties and costs. With Tokyo, the IOC appears to have a put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is moment. Today, IOC President Bach said he’s confident there will be, quote, “a significant reduction in the cost of the next Summer Games.” Tom Goldman, NPR News.
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.
Once-a-day HIV pills that combine multiple medicines, such as Truvada, are easier to take, but they can be more expensive than pills that contain only one active ingredient. Justin Sullivan/Getty Imageshide caption
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The Affordable Care Act prohibits insurers from discriminating against people with serious illnesses, but some marketplace plans sidestep that taboo by making the drugs that people with HIV need unavailable or unaffordable, complaints filed recently with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights allege.
The effect may be to discourage people with HIV from buying a particular health plan or getting the treatment they need, according to the complaints.
The complaints – brought by Harvard Law School’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation – charge that plans offered by seven insurers in eight states are discriminatory because they don’t cover drugs that are essential to the treatment of HIV or require high out-of-pocket spending by patients for covered drugs.
The center filed complaints against Humana plans in six states: Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Tennessee and Texas. Cigna plans were targeted in three states: Georgia, Tennessee and Texas. The group filed complaints against five other insurers: three in Pennsylvania, including Highmark, Independence Blue Cross and UPMC Health Plan; a complaint against Community Health Choice in Texas and a complaint against Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield in Wisconsin.
“What’s most important to us is that there’s a robust enforcement mechanism around the promises … in the [Affordable Care Act] and its regulations, especially the anti-discrimination provisions,” said Kevin Costello, director of litigation at the health law center.
Although the center’s focus is on HIV drugs, the complaints may help people with other chronic illnesses who may face similar hurdles on access to drugs, Costello said.
The HHS Office for Civil Rights investigates and enforces violations of civil rights and health information privacy. The Harvard center complaints were filed in September.
Federal rules prohibit marketplace plans from adopting benefit designs — such as coverage rules or reimbursement rates — that discriminate based on age, illness, race, gender or sexual orientation, among other things. But federal regulators have declined to define discriminatory plan design, noting that they will examine the facts on a case-by-case basis.
They’ve hinted, however, at some specifics in the regulations. They say, for example, that refusing to cover a single-tablet drug regimen, which is often associated with better compliance because a number of different drugs are combined in one pill, or placing most or all of the drugs that treat a specific condition in the highest cost tiers are examples of “potentially discriminatory practices.”
Working with local AIDS groups in several states, the Harvard center examined hundreds of silver-level plans sold on the marketplaces to gauge whether their formularies would allow access to six treatment regimens that are the current standard of care for treating people who are newly diagnosed with HIV. In addition, they looked at the plans’ cost-sharing requirements, Costello said.
They found, for example, that this year Anthem silver plans in Wisconsin cover only four of the 16 drugs or combination products that are recommended to meet the current standard of care, and they fail to cover any single-tablet regimens. In Illinois, the center charged that Humana’s silver plans place 16 of the 24 most commonly prescribed HIV drugs in the highest cost-sharing tier, which requires patients to pay 50 percent of the cost. With estimated monthly costs ranging from $377 to $684 for different drug regimens, enrollees in the Illinois Humana plans would have to pony up between 8 and 14 percent of their average monthly income, according to the complaint.
“All Humana health insurance plans offered through the Health Insurance Marketplace fully comply with state and federal laws and regulations,” said Alex Kepnes, Humana’s director of corporate communications. He added, “Humana shares the concerns of HIV/AIDS organizations regarding the high cost of HIV/AIDS drugs and we are committed to working with them to lower prescription drug costs.”
Similarly, Anthem spokesman Scott Larrivee said, “Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield is committed to providing all of our members with access to the care and services they need, including appropriate coverage of medications for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin covers more than a dozen medications for the treatment of HIV/AIDS and all required therapeutic drug categories are included on our formulary/drug list which is compliant with (marketplace) requirements.”
Cigna spokesman Mark Slitt said his company doesn’t comment on pending legal matters.
The center’s work builds on an earlier discrimination complaint filed in 2014 with the Office for Civil Rights by two advocacy groups, the AIDS Institute and the National Health Law Program, against four Florida insurers that were selling marketplace plans. That complaint, against some of the same insurers highlighted by the Harvard center, charged that the insurers placed all the HIV drugs in the highest cost-sharing tier. The Florida insurance commissioner reached agreements with the four plans to move the HIV drugs to generic tiers and reduce cost sharing, and the same arrangement will continue in 2017, said Carl Schmid, deputy executive director of the AIDS Institute.
“We’ve been talking about these issues for years now,” Schmid said. “These things need to be addressed, and it could be through enforcement” by the Office for Civil Rights.
Marketplace coverage of drugs to treat HIV and other serious conditions have improved somewhat in recent years, according to research by Avalere Health, a consulting company. An analysis found that in the case of five classes of drugs that treat cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis, fewer silver plans in 2016 placed all the drugs in the class in the top tier with the highest cost sharing or charged patients more than 40 percent of the cost for each drug in the class.
Speaking about HIV drugs, Caroline Pearson, a senior vice president at Avalere, said that while access and costs in marketplace plans are improving, they vary widely from plan to plan. Employer plans tend to offer better coverage, she said.
The new complaints may put more pressure on the Office for Civil Rights to address this issue, said Katie Keith, a steering committee member for Out2Enroll, a health insurance advocacy group for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
“It’s smart to do this in multiple states,” she said. “People are really pushing for more concrete guidance.”
Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.Michelle Andrews is on Twitter:@mandrews110.
Ronny Marty, who’s from the Dominican Republic, came to the U.S. with the promise of a job. He ended up living in a tiny apartment with three men, with most of his earnings going back to his employer. Ben de la Cruz/NPRhide caption
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Ben de la Cruz/NPR
The U.S Advisory Council on Human Trafficking issued its first-ever report on Tuesday. This group was founded last year when President Obama appointed 11 people, all of whom are survivors of human trafficking themselves, to run the council.
This council is the first organization of its kind that allows survivors to directly recommend policy to government agencies. The first report offers 15 recommendations on five topics, ranging from seeking and allocating grant funding for survivor services to training law enforcement agents to recognize the signs of human trafficking.
We spoke to Ronny Marty, a victim of labor trafficking who came to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic in 2009. Though today he’s an activist against human trafficking and a member of the advisory council, back then, he just wanted the hotel job he’d been promised.
What did you find when you got to the U.S.?
Everything changed. It was nothing they promised me. I was supposed to work in a hotel, but they said they only had jobs in a DVD manufacturing company. I didn’t have any other options, because I had borrowed so much money to pay the $4,000 I needed to come here.
[The five of us working together] were making so little money because of all the deductions. They were deducting for visa extensions, housing, transportation to move us from Kansas City to Huntsville. They put three of us in a one-bedroom apartment with three tiny beds and made us each pay the employer $300 a month. But the employer was only paying $400 a month for the apartment. They told us if we left, they would call immigration and we’d be sent back home. They told us we needed them to extend our work visas to stay legally. They told us they knew where our families lived and they’d go after them.
How did you escape that situation?
Once the employer stopped paying rent I had to talk to the landlord, because I was the only one of us who spoke English. She looked at my pay stubs and knew that something was wrong, [because of the deductions] so she got me to talk to the local newspaper. Then, that helped us [move and] find other jobs in Biloxi, Mississippi. In Biloxi, we talked to [federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents. They put us in touch with NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] that gave us food, housing, everything we needed. Everything started going for the better.
My story is kind of odd compared to most of the cases because everything worked out pretty good at the end. I got the services that I needed at the time that I needed them. Most of the survivors I talk to now had a much worse time. No one would help them and they were very scared to ask for help. That’s why we’re so glad survivors are part of this report because we know about how bad this can be.
How is this report different because it was written by survivors?
Our involvement is essential in this movement to end human trafficking. We went through the tough time. We have the expertise, because of our time in the field, you could say. So with that role, we can help. The government, NGOs, any organization that wants to really fight human trafficking should be asking survivors. We know, for example, why people don’t report their experiences with human trafficking, because they’re scared of the police and their trafficker told them they’re going after their families if they report.
What recommendations do you have for law enforcement?
We need agencies to understand what a survivor goes through to report their case, so the agencies can approach the survivors properly. It’s how you can make a case successful or not. It’s all about trust, because the trafficker has probably told them that the police are just going to take your information and kick you out.
At the point that I went to see [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], I didn’t trust anyone but I had nothing to lose so I went. [ICE agent] Julie Gray was so kind and professional that I started believing in people again. In 2014, when I came to my first survivor forum, I was in shock when I heard all the survivors and what they went through with the police.
Most people associate human trafficking with women and girls, but clearly, men are affected as well. Does that get enough attention?
This is a problem I face when I go to do a training or talk about human trafficking. People talk mainly just about sex trafficking, because that’s the idea that people have. But that’s why it’s important to bring the message and make them understand that the problem includes child slavery, forced labor, migrant labor. It can happen to anyone.
This report focuses mostly on how government agencies can address human trafficking. Can everyday people help?
Learn as much as you can about the signs. If they have the information, if they know what it is, if they know how to identify human trafficking, they can report it. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, it could be right next to you and you don’t know it. When my landlord saw that something was going on with me and my pay stub, she was the first person who started helping me. That changed everything.
Now, your recommendations go to the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. What do you hope will come of this report?
This report is like a victory for us, just to get it out there. It’s the first step and now we’re going to be following up with the agencies to make sure that things are happening. We want to collaborate and follow up to help make these goals achievable before the 2017 report.
