January 6, 2017

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Entertainment January 6, 2017

Best of the Week: The Most Anticipated Movies of 2017, The Future of 'Star Wars' and More

The Important News

Star Wars: Woody Harrelson might play young Han Solo’s mentor. And that young Han Solo movie might be delayed. Rogue One initially had an opening crawl. Obi-Wan Kenobi will return in Star Wars Rebels. Lucasfilm is heavily considering the future of Leia in the Star Wars Saga.

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Doctor Strange will appear in Thor: Ragnarok. Sterling K. Brown joined Black Panther.

DC Extended Universe: Ben Affleck is not totally set on directing The Batman.

X-Men: Hugh Jackman is skeptical there will ever be a Deadpool/Wolverine crossover. James McAvoy might be in The New Mutants and wants to do more X-Men movies.

Extreme Universe: Rob Liefeld’s Extreme Studios comic book franchise will become a movie franchise.

Guillermo del Toro: The Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy director’s next movie is about a fish man during the Cold War.

Action Movies: Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme will reunite for Black Water. Trevante Rhodes joined The Predator.

Horror Movies: Sylvain White will direct The Slender Man.

Box Office: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story helped push the year’s box office to a record high.

Awards: Deadpoool is among the nominees for this year’s Writer’s Guild of America Awards.

Film Festivals: Terrence Malick’s Song to Song will open the 2017 SXSW Film Festival.

The Videos and Geek Stuff

New Movie Trailers: Fifty Shades Darker, Cult of Chucky, Rings, Between Us, Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, The Founder, Lost in London, The Lego Batman and Leap.

TV Spots: Fifty Shades Darker.

New images: Thor: Ragnarok, Fullmetal Activist and Annabelle 2.

FX Breakdowns: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story‘s digital characters and Arrival VFX reel.

Remade Trailers: Captain America: Civil War sweded trailer,

Reimagined Movies: Ryan Gosling’s Doctor Strange, Tim Burton’s Batman & Robin, Home Alone with blood, and Honey I Blew Up the Kid as a Godzilla movie.

Must-See Commercials: Justin Lin reimagined the opening of The Jetsons in live-action for Arconic.

Movie Influences: Rogue One owes a lot to Aliens and WarGames.

Mashups: Star Wars vs. Aliens, Rogue One meets Calvin & Hobbes and John Wick vs. Jason Bourne.

Movie Posters: All of this week’s best new posters.

Our Features

Monthly Movie Calendar: Our guide to all the new releases and anniversaries in January.

2017 Movie Previews: We listed our most anticipated sci-fi movies of 2017 and our most anticipated horror movies of 2017.

Geek Movie Guide: We listed the best geeky movies of 2016.

Comic Book Movie Guide: We argue for why Ben Affleck should get to make the Batman movie he wants.

R.I.P.: We remembered all the reel-important people who died in December.

Home Viewing: Our guide to everything hitting VOD this week.

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Health January 6, 2017

Republicans Prepare Efforts To Defund Planned Parenthood

Republicans are once again threatening to defund Planned Parenthood. They’ve tried and failed before, but they could have new momentum this time around with control of the House, Senate and the White House.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

House Speaker Paul Ryan announced yesterday that Republicans will once again push to cut off federal tax dollars to Planned Parenthood. Republicans have tried and failed to do this in the past. President Obama vetoed a similar bill last January.

Now with a Republican president about to take office, the party has its best chance in more than a decade to get it signed into law. Joining us now to discuss this is NPR’s congressional correspondent Susan Davis. Hey, Sue.

SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.

SHAPIRO: Start with some basic facts. How does Planned Parenthood receive federal funding, and what does it use that money for?

DAVIS: OK, so Planned Parenthood is not funded directly by the federal government. What they do is they provide a number of health services mainly for poor women, and then they’re reimbursed by Medicaid for those services they provided. It’s illegal to use those Medicaid funds to pay for abortions with very few exceptions in federal law. They also get money through a federal grant program that’s known as Title 10. It’s for family planning, but it’s also illegal to use those funds to pay for any abortion services.

Now, Planned Parenthood does provide legal abortions, and they do refer patients to providers that also do. But those are not paid for by taxpayers. And this, Ari, is where the politics come into play on this issue and the divide over access to those abortion rights – not only whether it should be legal but what role the federal government has in all of this.

SHAPIRO: So explain what exactly Republicans are proposing to do here.

DAVIS: OK, so Republicans are looking to add a defund provision into a bigger budget bill they’re working on to repeal parts of Obamacare. We’ll probably see that bill by late February. And that bill is protected by special budget rules, so it can’t be filibustered in the Senate. And the filibuster is what Democrats have used in the past to block these similar defund efforts. And they don’t have that tool in their tool kit this year.

Also what’s motivating Republicans at this particular time – the why-now question. There was also a report out this week by a Republican-led House committee that was heavily critical of Planned Parenthood on a number of issues but particularly the role they play in not only abortion services but facilitating the transfer of fetal tissue that’s used for medical research. This is also a very controversial debate and Republicans are very much against it. But this latest defund effort is just part of a very big, broad debate over abortion and Planned Parenthood and what services they can and should be allowed to provide.

SHAPIRO: Donald Trump has a mixed record on Planned Parenthood. During the campaign, he praised the organization, saying they do very good work for millions of women. But he has also said sometimes in the same breath that he supports cutting off federal funding. So which Donald Trump do you think Republicans will be dealing with here?

DAVIS: You know, I can’t say for sure, but I do know that his inner circle is very much for this. A key player in all of this is Vice President-elect Mike Pence. He offered legislation to defund Planned Parenthood when he was a member of the House, and it passed then. But it fizzled in the Senate because of that filibuster I mentioned, and it was tried – it was done in a different way then. Pence has been a leader in this movement his entire political career. There is zero ambiguity of where he is on this issue. And he’s the Trump administration’s top liaison on Capitol Hill.

I do have to say, Ari. One person who could be interesting to watch in all of this – Ivanka Trump. You know, she’s been this moderating force for her dad on this and other issues mainly affecting women. Now, of course we don’t know if she’s going to weigh in on this, but if she does, it’s going to be interesting to watch. And we don’t know what Trump’s going to do until he says it or tweets about it.

SHAPIRO: (Laughter) And what have we heard from Planned Parenthood and the group’s allies in Congress?

DAVIS: Shortly after Paul Ryan said on Thursday that they were going to move fund with this – move forward with this, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards tweeted, not without one hell of a fight. This is going to be a really pitched battle.

Two interesting people to watch – Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. They are Republican senators, but in the past, they have opposed similar efforts, and they could be allies of Democrats on this. Also, public polling has shown that a majority of Americans oppose cutting off all funds. So this is a risk here for Republicans but one at this moment they are ready to take.

SHAPIRO: NPR’s Susan Davis, thanks a lot.

DAVIS: Thanks, Ari.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAURA VEIRS SONG, “IKARIA”)

Copyright © 2017 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.

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Business January 6, 2017

A Detroit Urban Farm Preserves Black History In Jam Form

On the north side of Detroit, a community farm teamed up with a local arts and culture nonprofit to put its summer harvest to best use — while also honoring the legacy of the city’s black families. Their answer: Afro Jam, a line of preserves based on old family recipes. Martina Guzman for NPR hide caption

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Martina Guzman for NPR

In the kitchen at Oakland Avenue Urban Farm, just north of downtown Detroit, Linda Carter and Shawnetta Hudson are in the final stages of making their newest jam creation: cranberry-apple preserves. Carter is meticulously wiping down tables while Hudson seals the lids on jars. Then comes the logo — a beautiful graphic of a black woman with afro hair made of strawberries. The kitchen is small and basic, but for the past year it has served as the hub of a community-based product called Afro Jam.

“The name Afro Jam and the logo are empowering, independent and strong,” Carter says. “That’s what we want our community to be.”

Carter, the food safety manager at the farm, recruited Hudson from the local community to help her keep up with making and selling the product. Strawberry, peach and blueberry are Afro Jam’s best sellers.

“Strawberry jam, that’s my thing,” says Hudson. “And when Linda and I work together, we’re on point at all times.”

Staying “on point” is a goal of Carter’s. The jam venture has to be profitable. So in the past year the small group of about a half-dozen women, rotating volunteers and three paid employees has made an aggressive push to sell the spreads at summer festivals and farmers markets.

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Afro-Jam is a product of One Mile, a neighborhood arts and culture organization, and Oakland Avenue Urban Farm, a nonprofit dedicated to cultivating healthy local food sources for the surrounding community. The farm is a project of Northend Christian Community Development Corporation — both are managed by Jerry Hebron. It has a vegetable garden and an apple orchard. Hebron also oversees a weekly farmers market in the summer.

Roughly 83 percent of Detroit’s population is black, an aftereffect of white flight that began in the 1950s. As the people left Detroit, so did the supermarkets — especially in poorer, blacker neighborhoods.

Fresh fruits and vegetables became much harder to come by for many city residents. As a result, gardens started popping up in Detroit, which currently has roughly 1,500 urban farms. Some are large and operate at an industrial scale; others are single lots that have been turned into vegetable gardens for a few families.

The idea for Afro Jam was born out of a need to generate revenue year round while also keeping the community involved, says Hebron. “The community is at the root of everything we do,” she says.

So Hebron began spreading the word at the farmers market: They wanted to start a new line of jams using old family recipes. Recipes for making preserves poured in – including some that had been handed down for generations.

Constance King, 67, heard the call and was excited to share her mother’s recipe with the folks from Afro Jam.

“My mother brought her jam recipe [from the South] with her — it belonged to her mother and to her mother’s mother,” King says. “I felt proud about being able to share that recipe. It’s a beautiful way of keeping my mother alive.”

A lifelong resident of Detroit, King loves the city’s rich African-American history. Making biscuits and jam, she says, was part of the Southern black experience – they’ve been a staple at the Southern supper table since at least the mid-18th century.

“This [growing fruits and vegetables] is a good idea, it’s something we can do with all of this empty land,” King says. “Our neighborhood used to be full of families — there was not a vacant block. There were hardware stores, delis and grocery stores. It was a Jewish/Black community.”

King’s family is originally from Georgia but moved to Detroit in the 1940s during the Great Migration, when millions of African-Americans left their homes in the rural South in search of better jobs and an escape from harsh segregationist laws.

Hebron says that among black Detroiters, the tradition of making homemade jams has largely fallen by the wayside in the modern era.

Oakland Avenue Urban Farms used heritage recipes from seven different families – unearthing them from hiding places in attics and long-forgotten recipe boxes.

In the fall of 2015, the ladies of the farm set out to make their first batch of jam. Some of the recipes they received took days to make and weren’t practical for production.

Carter and Hebron settled on strawberry jam as their first batch, which took several days and four people to make. “We bonded over making jam, laughing and sharing old family stories,” Hebron says.

“Gathering is what it’s all about,” Carter says. “There is nothing greater than bringing people together over food.”

Proceeds from the jam venture go to Northend Christian CDC, a nonprofit that’s aimed at revitalizing Detroit’s North End historic district, where One Mile and Oakland Avenue Urban Farm are based.

For Hebron, Carter and the rest of the women who make Afro Jam, this is a way to preserve the legacy of Detroit’s black families.

“It’s one of the most amazing projects I’ve ever worked on,” Hebron says.

Martina Guzman is a journalist based in Detroit. She’s currently the race and justice journalism fellow at the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University.

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Sports January 6, 2017

Alway Have A Bathing Suit In The Winter, Ice Swimmer Says

Nuala Moore always has her bathing suit with her in January and other winter months. She is participating in the second International Ice Swimming Association World Championships.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

So if you happen to visit Bavaria in January, you might not think of packing a bathing suit. Then again, you might be Nuala Moore from Dingle, Ireland.

NUALA MOORE: One should always have their bathing suit in the winter.

GREENE: Moore travelled to Burghausen, Germany, to compete in the 2nd International Ice Swimming Association World Championships being held today. Yes, you heard that right – ice swimming.

MOORE: It’s like putting your entire body into your freezer (unintelligible). It’s extremely painful.

GREENE: Yeah, that just doesn’t sound fun. So this eight-lane competition pool has actually been carved out of the frozen Salzach River. That’s near Austria. It sits at the foot of a hulking stone castle. And the water hovers just above 32 degrees. Competition organizers promise no icebergs in the pool. Moore, who is swimming the 1-kilometer event, says she was terrified the first time she took a dip in frosty waters.

MOORE: Absolutely terrified, and I think that’s one of the most amazing things. You get to see how fragile you actually are – that moment where you really are not everything that you believe you are.

GREENE: So it took Moore two years to warm up to the cold, so to speak, to stay in for the 20-some minutes it takes to swim a kilometer. To get started, she devised a curious training method – dunking in buckets of ice at a local fish factory. OK. Since then, she has swum in Siberian pools carved out of the ice with chainsaws. She’s paddled across the Bering Strait and also circumnavigated Ireland on a relay.

MOORE: For me, my journey has not been about racing or getting quicker. My journey has just been about understanding the body and how we can achieve these amazing things and what we as individuals need to do to present 100 percent each time.

GREENE: When Moore is not dog paddling with polar bears, she runs her own bed linens shop in Ireland. More power to her for not spending her time there and forgetting these icy waters. So she probably spends a lot of time buried beneath blankets after races, I would imagine.

Copyright © 2017 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.

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