May 7, 2017

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Sports May 7, 2017

World-Renowned Rock Climber On Constantly Pushing The Limits

NPR’s Lakshmi Singh talks to Tommy Caldwell, the first to free climb a 3,000 foot “Dawn Wall” granite cliff, about his book The Push: A Climber’s Journey of Endurance, Risk and Going Beyond Limits.

LAKSHMI SINGH, HOST:

For professional musicians, the instrument on which they play is more than just a tool of the trade. It can also be a muse, a partner and a voice. A new book titled “Gone: A Girl, A Violin, A Life Unstrung” shares one artist’s story of finding her inspiration only to have it stolen away. We’ll let the author take it from here.

MIN KYM: My name’s Min Kym, and I play the violin.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KYM: I started playing at the age of 6 and a half. I won my first competition when I was 11. And, yeah, I’ll start it from there.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KYM: It took me until adulthood to be able to say the word child prodigy. Like, when I was a child and people used to sort of, you know, talk about me in that way, I was so mortified. I mean, it was just, you know, you just don’t want to be. I just wanted to have fun.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KYM: From a very young age, I was aware that the most important thing as a violinist and as a musician is to find your voice through the right instrument.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SINGH: And for a professional soloist, that means a top shelf violin worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And for Kym, that meant a Stradivarius. She had saved all of her competition winnings for this purpose. Now she just needed to find the right one.

KYM: The dealer who I was talking to came to my parents’ house. I was 21. And he had a double case with him and two violins. And everybody was sort of pointing towards one of the violins which had a incredibly sonorous and powerful sound, everything that as a soloist you would be looking for. So I picked it up and I drew my bow across it, and, yeah, of course, it sounded magnificent.

But it was like I was wearing an incredibly beautiful gown that didn’t suit me. And so I put it down, and I picked up the other one. And it was smaller. It had been repaired. It got through the walls, and I could see that. However, when I played that first note – just, oh, my goodness – the vibrations of it. I knew this was my voice.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KYM: It had an incredible soprano. It was very bell-like. It had this what I like to call space around the notes.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KYM: You could almost hear (laughter) – this is really going to make me sound like a fruitcake actually, but you could hear an orbit around the note.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KYM: The real true partnership I felt was with this Strad. And I had my violin for 10 years, and I was still getting to know it. Even after 10 years, it was still showing me new things. It was teaching me new ways of playing.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KYM: But that was short lived. Unfortunately, it’s real life. It isn’t a fairytale.

SINGH: What happened next made headlines.

KYM: I remember it like it was just, you know, moments ago. It was a cold November evening. I’d had an asthma attack earlier. So I wasn’t feeling very well, and I had a argument with my boyfriend at the time who was going to look after my violin. And there were only two other people in my life that I’ve ever entrusted my violin. So I was very reluctant not to have it in my possession, but I did agree to let him look after the violin. And one minute it was there, and the next minute it was gone.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SINGH: While Kym and her boyfriend sat in a train station cafe, three thieves snagged her Stradivarius out from under the table.

KYM: I’ve relived that moment – I sort of think if this hadn’t happened, then that wouldn’t have happened. You know, if we hadn’t made this decision, if I hadn’t made that decision, you know, and I went through it, I went through it with such a fine-toothed comb with the detectives. And he just reminded me that he’s a professional. I’m a professional. And they were professional thieves. It’s one of those things that I still find so horribly painful to talk about.

I didn’t know who I was anymore, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I felt as though I was just sort of a shell of a person. You know, when it’s a human relationship, it’s something that everybody can relate to and understand. But I think as a violinist, as a musician, as an artist when, you know, the relationship you have with your particular art, it’s something that lives inside you. And it’s – it has a life of its own. And that’s very difficult to explain or describe. And so, you know, after three years, it was recovered. I was on the train, and I – and the phone rang. And it was Detective Rose (ph), and he said, Min, I have good news for you. So I thought, well, he’s never said that before.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KYM: For three years, my spirits were just on the floor. And in that nanosecond, they just completely lifted again, and I felt human again. I felt like me.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SINGH: Kym wishes her story would have ended with her being reunited with her violin, but unfortunately it didn’t. By the time the Stradivarius was found, Kym had already spent the money she received from the insurance claim on a new violin, so she could continue with her career.

KYM: Too much time had passed, so for financial reasons, I wasn’t able to buy my violin back. One of the most important things that I learned throughout this whole process is that we have such little control over anything, but one thing that we do have control is how you deal with the next steps forward. Writing actually finding this new voice, it helped unblock my musical life. And, you know, for the first time in seven years or so, I felt hopeful again.

SINGH: That was violinist and author Min Kym. Her book “Gone: A Girl, A Violin, A Life Unstrung” is out now.

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 May 7, 2017

Kushner's Sister Suggests Family Can Help Chinese Get U.S. Visas In Business Exchange

Washington Post‘sWilliam Wan talks to NPR’s Lakshmi Singh about accusations that Nicole Meyer, sister to senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, used her family ties to peddle business in Beijing.

LAKSHMI SINGH, HOST:

There’s new scrutiny being directed towards senior Trump adviser Jared Kushner and his family’s business interests overseas. The story flared up because of something that happened in Beijing yesterday. Chinese investors filled a ballroom to listen to Kushner’s sister, Nicole Kushner Meyer. She was asking investors to help finance a real estate project in New Jersey and suggested, in return, investors could get American green cards. We wanted to hear more about the story and what it means, so we called William Wan. He’s a correspondent for The Washington Post, and he’s been reporting on this whole issue stateside.

William, thanks for joining us.

WILLIAM WAN: Great to be with you.

SINGH: So first of all, tell us about this event that got so much attention. I understand journalists were booted from it. What did they hear before they were promptly asked to leave?

WAN: Right. So we had a journalist there from The Washington Post. There was one from The New York Times. The both of them were forced to leave. They got to witness Jared Kushner’s sister, who was kind of the main event, give her pitch for investing into their company in return for a chance to apply for a visa. They also saw some of the promotional materials, for example, the brochure. The tagline for it was invest 500,000 and immigrate to the United States.

SINGH: Now, this all has to do – or all of it’s related to the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program, is that right?

WAN: Yeah, the EB-5 program. It’s this unique kind of program where if you have a lot of money, you’re a foreigner and you want a visa, you just plunk down $500,000. And it gives you a chance to apply for one of these visas outside of the normal kind of visa line.

SINGH: And how big of an issue is this for critics of the Trump administration who’ve long protested conflicts of interest with the Trump White House?

WAN: I tried to ask a few watchdog groups. It’s hard to put in context because so much of the ethics rules, to their mind, are just kind of being thrown out the window. And so to kind of gauge this with all the other ones is hard. But one kind of former ethics lawyer under the George W. Bush administration called it highly inappropriate. I think the exact words he used were incredibly stupid and highly inappropriate.

His point was that there’s the appearance of the Kushners implying that if you invest with us, we’ll make sure to get you a visa because of our connections with the Trump administration. And that, on the face of it, seems pretty inappropriate and a use of the family connection to enrich yourself.

SINGH: And, again, we should note, the Kushners did not explicitly say that they would use their influence in the White House to get these investors green cards. But what do you think the Chinese investors took from this particular meeting?

WAN: Well, in China, you don’t have to spell out any of this. There’s a cultural tradition there where in the modern China, everything is tied together, the rich and the powerful and the ones in charge of the Communist Party. They’re all the same family. So for them, seeing the Kushners come, seeing the Kushners connection to the Trump White House, it’s a very natural association. There’s even a name for a second generation, rich, connected political elites. It’s called (foreign language spoken), the second generation rich. And so, you know, Ivanka and Jared Kushner, in their minds, can fall very squarely into that princeling realm.

SINGH: That is William Wan, a reporter for The Washington Post. Thank you, William.

WAN: Thanks for having me.

SINGH: We should note that Jared Kushner’s lawyer tells NPR that Kushner is not involved in the building project that was discussed, and he is recusing himself from matters involving the EB-5 visa program.

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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Health May 7, 2017

Democrats Promise A Bruising Senate Battle Over Health Care

NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro asks Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan about her plans to oppose the GOP’s health care bill.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

The Senate is now the center of the fight over health care in America. That’s where the House bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act is headed, and it’s already sowing deep divisions among Republicans. Several Senate Republicans have said they will ignore the House version of the bill and write their own instead. And for their part, Democrats are promising a bruising battle. On the line now is Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.

Good morning, Senator.

DEBBIE STABENOW: Well, good morning.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You’ve announced you’ll, quote, “strongly oppose this Republican plan in the Senate.” Can you tell me how?

STABENOW: Well, no question. And let me just say that in your news report you were just talking about Warren Buffett – that big tax cut that he would get under this plan would be paid for by taking away nursing home care for seniors, raising dramatically the prices on insurance for other seniors that were below age 65 – that’s why AARP is so strongly opposed to it. It would, in Michigan, affect over 2.3 million people who now are able to take their children to the doctor because of Medicaid insurance rather than into the emergency room. And I’m…

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Senator…

STABENOW: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: …There clearly are problems with the bill. The Republican senators have said that they will make changes. But what exactly will you do to oppose this bill?

STABENOW: Well, I’m going to speak out like I am today. All of my colleagues are. We’re going to do what we did the first time around. You know, they – the day after we were sworn in in January, they started this process. And the good news is, is that even though they passed a resolution saying that they would do the repeal by January 27, they haven’t been able to do it, and that’s because of Women’s Marches and people speaking out and town hall meetings and everything that’s happened. So we’re going to continue to speak out and to engage the public, let them know what this is really all about, funding big tax cuts on the backs of people that need medical care.

And at the same time, I do want to stress that we want – if the Republicans are willing to just put this in the garbage can, we are willing and want to sit down and talk about how to make insurance better, how to lower costs. There are premiums and co-pays that are too high. Certainly there are drug prices that are too high. So we need to sit down together and focus on ways to make health care more affordable and more available but not rip apart the entire health care system and put more than 24 million people in a situation where they can’t get health care and health insurance.

So bottom line, I mean, we’re going to speak out – we know that if they want to, they’ve set up a process. It only takes 51 votes, and the Republicans can pass this in the Senate if they want to. They can. They can pass it this week if they want to. But we’re going to speak out in the loudest way possible. On Wednesday, I am chairing a hearing that we’ve put together through a Democratic policy committee to hear directly from citizens as well as a CEO in Michigan who is the CEO of a small world hospital…

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Senator…

STABENOW: …That would likely close.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Senator, just briefly – we don’t have much more time – but when your Republican colleagues were in the minority, Democrats complained that they were just obstructionists, always blocking everything. Now that your party is in the minority, Republicans say that you’ve adopted the same tactic. I’m just curious, how long is the Senate going to let American health care – the American health care system just limp along? I mean, is there something that…

STABENOW: Well, first of all…

GARCIA-NAVARRO: …We can do?

STABENOW: First of all, let me say, you’re buying the assumption that it’s limping along when we have tens of millions of more people today that can get health insurance. Do you know because of passing Obamacare, 97 percent of the children in Michigan can now see a doctor? That’s actually a really good thing. Our state, because they expanded Medicaid, health care is going to save over $400 million in their budget because people are going to the doctor, not the emergency room.

So their premise – and they’ve done everything they can to undermine the reimbursements to insurance companies, to scare insurance companies off, to do everything they can to undermine this system – I don’t – I wish they’d put half that energy into helping us make it better. But it is not true that we are looking at a situation that is completely, you know, unraveling. They’re unraveling it. Let’s work together to make it better.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Thank you, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan.

STABENOW: Thanks.

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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