December 15, 2016

No Image

Today in Movie Culture: Retro 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' Trailer, 'Fantastic Beasts' Holiday Special and More

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

Trailer Remake of the Day:

Here’s your obligatory redo of the Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer by Darth Blender using footage from old TV shows and movies:

[embedded content]

Holiday Special of the Day:

Learn about Hanukah with characters from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in this animated short by Leigh Lahav and Oren Mendez:

[embedded content]

Scene Remake of the Day:

Watch a couple of musical fans in Austin recreate the “A Lovely Night” song and dance number from La La Land (via /Film):

[embedded content]

Alternate Ending of the Day:

With Rogue One out this week, How It Should Have Ended made up a new alternate ending for the first Star Wars:

[embedded content]

Video Essay of the Day:

For Fandor Keyframe, Dominick Nero looks at the sense of humor of the Star Wars franchise:

[embedded content]

Movie Science of the Day:

Why is Chewbacca’s Bowcaster from the Star Wars movies more powerful than blasters? Kyle Hill explains the physics:

[embedded content]

Vintage Image of the Day:

Billy Wilder with a prop from his movie One Two Three, which opened in theaters on this day in 1961:

Fake Commercial of the Day:

If good guy Terminators existed, they’d be the hot gift item this holiday season. CineFix imagines the created the commercial for the man-size toy:

[embedded content]

Movie Comparison of the Day:

Are all Steven Spielberg productions alike? Couch Tomato shows 24 reasons why Gremlins and Transformers are the same:

[embedded content]

Classic Trailer of the Day:

Today is the 40th anniversary of the theatrical release of The Pink Panther Strikes Again. Watch the original trailer for the sequel below.

[embedded content]

and

Let’s block ads! (Why?)


No Image

Turner Sports Broadcaster Craig Sager Dies At 65

Turner Sports NBA court side reporter Craig Sager died Thursday at age 65.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Craig Sager, the longtime NBA courtside reporter for Turner Sports, has died. He was known for his sense of humor, his public battle with cancer and, it must be said, for his style.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Here’s how he described that style in an interview with NPR in 2012.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CRAIG SAGER: Well, let’s see. I’m looking right here. I’ve got a pair of black alligator shoes that actually have the eyeballs in them. I’ve got another pair next to them. These are crocodile, and then I got a pair of ostrich. I don’t know. It’s just something – my personality. I just like lively colors.

SIEGEL: And garish suits, gigantic lapels, clashing patterns – no suit was too loud.

CORNISH: He told us it was a practical decision.

SAGER: I like to wear bright colors. It helps out to spot me in the audience when my camera guys are looking for me to do interviews.

CORNISH: But underneath those clothes was a reporter remembered for his craft. Here’s his former TNT colleague Rachel Nichols remembering him today on her show “The Jump” on ESPN 2.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “THE JUMP”)

RACHEL NICHOLS: I think the suits and the crazy persona sort of hints, in fact, how good he was. I remember so clearly so many times watching Craig do his job and think, that’s what I want to do.

CORNISH: Sager had a long sports reporting career before his courtside gig. He slept in the stall with Seattle Slew before that horse won the Triple Crown.

SIEGEL: He interviewed Hank Aaron after he broke Babe Ruth’s home run record – technically before he broke it. Sager was by Hank Aaron’s side with a microphone as Aaron ran from third base to home plate. When Sager was diagnosed with leukemia in 2014, he continued to work as his health allowed.

CORNISH: He was open about his illness. This year, he received an ESPY Award. Here he is accepting it on ABC, remembering his life and encouraging fellow cancer patients.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SAGER: I’ve wrestled gators in Florida. I have sailed the ocean with Ted Turner. I have swam with the oceans in the Caribbean. And I have interviewed Gregg Popovich…

(LAUGHTER)

SAGER: …Mid-game, Spurs down seven. If I’ve learned anything through all of this, it’s that each and every day is a canvas waiting to be painted.

SIEGEL: In a statement, David Levy, the president of Turner, praised Sager’s talent, work ethic and commitment. There will never be another Craig Sager, he said. Craig Sager died today. He was 65 years old.

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?)


No Image

States Accuse Generic Drugmakers Of Price Fixing

In an emailed statement, Mylan told NPR, “To date, we know of no evidence that Mylan participated in price fixing.” Jeff Swensen/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption

Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

Twenty states are accusing a group of generic drug makers of conspiring to keep the prices on an antibiotic and a diabetes medication artificially high. And the state attorneys general say the lawsuit filed in federal court in Connecticut Thursday may be just the beginning of a much larger legal action.

The lawsuit alleges that the companies, led by New Jersey-based drug maker Heritage Pharmaceuticals, identified competitors and tried to reach agreements on how they could avoid competing for customers on price.

“While the principal architect of the conspiracies addressed in this lawsuit was Heritage Pharmaceuticals, we have evidence of widespread participation in illegal conspiracies across the generic drug industry,” Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said in a written release. “We intend to pursue this and other enforcement actions aggressively.”

The other companies accused of price-fixing were Aurobindo Pharma USA, Inc., Citron Pharma, LLC, Mayne Pharma (USA), Inc., Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc.

The complaint describes Heritage and other drug-company executives meeting at industry conferences and company-sponsored dinners where they would share information about the pricing. It also alleges that, to avoid having to lower prices, the companies would divvy up customers — such as pharmaceutical wholesalers, for example — rather than compete for the business.

Article continues after sponsorship

The two drugs — a delayed release version of the antibiotic doxycycline hyclate and the diabetes drug glyburide — saw enormous price increases during the time of the alleged conspiracy, the legal complaint says.

A separate congressional investigation into generic drug prices shows that the price of doxycycline rose more than 8,000 percent from October 2013 to April 2014.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as several industry trackers also noted shortages of various types of doxycycline during 2013.

The states’ lawsuit comes a day after the U.S. Justice Department filed criminal charges against Jeffrey Glazer, Heritage’s former CEO and Jason Malek, the company’s former president. It accuses the two men of conspiring with companies to manipulate drug prices.

Heritage fired the two men in August after an internal investigation, the company said in an email to NPR Thursday. The company also sued the men last month, accusing them of embezzlement.

A Heritage spokeswoman says the company is cooperating with both the federal and state investigations.

Mylan reported, in an emailed statement, “To date, we know of no evidence that Mylan participated in price fixing.” A Teva spokeswoman told NPR, “We have not found evidence that would give rise to any civil or criminal liability.”

In a filing Nov. 4 at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mayne said it had received subpoenas from the Justice Department regarding doxycycline and potassium chloride powders, and said the company is cooperating with the investigation and “continues to believe these investigations will not have a material impact on its future earnings.” Mayne did not immediately comment on the states’ lawsuit.

Aurobindo and Citron did not immediately respond to requests from NPR for comment.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)


No Image

Facebook Details Its New Plan To Combat Fake News Stories

Facebook users will be warned before sharing a story that’s actually fake news, the social media giant says. Bogus news sites — such as these stories from “USA Daily News 24,” a site that’s registered in Veles, Macedonia — have been blamed for the spread of misinformation online. Raphael Satter/AP hide caption

toggle caption

Raphael Satter/AP

Providing new details about how it’s trying to counter the spread of fake news on its services, Facebook says it’s working with fact-checking groups to identify bogus stories — and to warn users if a story they’re trying to share has been reported as fake.

Facebook also says it will let users report a possible hoax by clicking the upper right hand corner of a post and choosing one of four reasons they want to flag it — from “It’s spam” to “It’s a fake news story.”

If a story is deemed false, it will be tagged with an alert message saying it’s been “disputed by 3rd party fact-checkers.”

A mockup provided by Facebook shows the screens it will use to allow users to report a potential hoax or fake news story. Facebook hide caption

toggle caption

Facebook

The social media giant was sharply criticized after the Nov. 8 election, as false stories were blamed for adding confusion to a dynamic campaign season. Since then, fake news and conspiracy theories were also identified as a motivating factor in a man’s assault on a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C.

In the wake of that and other stories, some called for Facebook to hire editors to vet news stories; in today’s update from Facebook’s vice president in charge of its News Feed feature, Adam Mosseri, the company could be seen to be effectively outsourcing that job to third-party groups that it says have signed on to Poynter’s International Fact Checking Code of Principles.

Article continues after sponsorship

The update to Facebook’s plan to cope with bogus information comes nearly one month after CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that Facebook had “much more work” to do in how it handles false stories.

Today’s news touches on four of the seven areas that Zuckerberg listed as part of his company’s fight against misinformation. It remains to be seen whether the moves will satisfy Facebook’s critics — both inside and outside the company’s ranks — who’ve faulted the way it deals with controversial, offensive and/or fake posts. As NPR’s Aarti Shahani reported in November, that effort has grown to include thousands of overseas subcontractors.

In a news release outlining how Facebook’s new reporting and flagging process will work, Mosseri said the company will rely on its users to report a story as potentially bogus, “along with other signals.” The story would then be sent to fact-checkers.

“If the fact-checking organizations identify a story as fake,” Mosseri said, “it will get flagged as disputed and there will be a link to the corresponding article explaining why. Stories that have been disputed may also appear lower in News Feed.”

Mosseri added, “It will still be possible to share these stories, but you will see a warning that the story has been disputed as you share.”

The flagged story will also be rejected if anyone tries to turn it into a promoted ad, Facebook says.

While fake news created a stir because of its intersection with U.S. politics, many of the people behind the sites say they’re mainly in it for the money.

Here’s how Craig Silverman of BuzzFeed News described what he found in researching the phenomenon, Wednesday’s Fresh Air:

“Facebook directly doesn’t really earn them a lot of money. But the key thing about Facebook — and this is true whether you’re running a politics site out of Macedonia or whether you run a very large website in the U.S. — Facebook is the biggest driver of traffic to, you know, news websites in the world now. You know, 1.8 billion people log into Facebook every month.”

Today, Facebook says it has “found that a lot of fake news is financially motivated” — and that it’s taking steps to remove some of that incentive.

“On the buying side we’ve eliminated the ability to spoof domains, which will reduce the prevalence of sites that pretend to be real publications,” Mosseri says. “On the publisher side, we are analyzing publisher sites to detect where policy enforcement actions might be necessary.”

Let’s block ads! (Why?)


No Image

Watch Angélique Kidjo Perform 'Shango Wa' Live For KCRW

Angélique Kidjo is a force to be reckoned with. She is one of Africa’s most internationally celebrated female musicians and continues to break new ground with each release. For her Morning Becomes Eclectic session, she lit up our studio with her tireless energy — and her dance moves.

SET LIST
  • “Shango Wa”

Photo: Larry Hirshowitz/KCRW.

Watch Angélique Kidjo’s full Morning Becomes Eclectic session at KCRW.com.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)