May 25, 2017 – AssociatedNews.info

Entertainment May 25, 2017

Today in Movie Culture: 'Hamilton' Cast Wishes 'Star Wars' Happy Birthday and More 40th Anniversary Tributes

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

Birthday Greeting of the Day:

Watch the cast of Broadway’s Hamilton sing “Happy Birthday” to Star Wars, which turns 40 today, in the below clip from The Star Wars Show:

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Film Score Cover of the Day:

Speaking of musical performances in tribute to Star Wars, here are two guys covering “The Imperial March (Darth Vader’s Theme)” on accordion (via Geekologie):

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Cosplay of the Day:

Another musical performance of Star Wars can be found in this video of pianist Sonya Belousova in costumes playing specially customized Star Wars pianos. The Millennium Falcon one is currently up for auction, as reported by Fashionably Geek.

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Alternate Poster of the Day:

The unused Star Wars poster below was painted by my father, Jim Campbell, for the release of the first movie. Read all about the gig in my old interview with him.

Movie Science of the Day:

Kyle Hill celebrates the anniversary with an explanation of what hyperspace should actually look like:

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Reworked Movie of the Day:

Lego wishes Star Wars a happy 40th with this video of Star Wars scenes redone with the toy bricks:

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Vintage Image of the Day:

Also in honor of the Star Wars anniversary, here’s a look at one of the many massive crowds lined up to see the movie in 1977:

Legend has it George Lucas watched in amazement from across the street at Hamburger Hamlet as this line formed. Happy 40th Star Wars! pic.twitter.com/MSDoAqgb1U

— Don Barrett (@donbarrettmusic) May 25, 2017

Supercut of the Day:

IMDb does their part to celebrate the occasion with this supercut of parodies of the Star Wars trench run from movies and TV:

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Movie Trivia of the Day:

Nerdist gets in on the occasion by presenting 10 Star Wars facts only diehard fans know (are you one of them?):

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Classic Trailer of the Day:

In honor of the anniversary, of course we present the original trailer for the original release of the original Star Wars:

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and

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Sports May 25, 2017

LeBron James' Return To Cleveland Illustrates Remarkable Economic Experiment

Professional sports generate a tremendous amount of money, but it’s tricky to know exactly what part of sports generates that money. LeBron James unintentionally ran a nearly perfect economic experiment by unexpectedly leaving Cleveland and then, three years later, returning with almost no warning. A pair of economists have now used James’ prodigal son data to look at the financial impact a single superstar can have on a local economy.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics tip off tonight. If the Cavs win they’ll go to the NBA finals for the third time in a row. Some economists are among the people watching. They say star player LeBron James has let them run a remarkable experiment. Here’s Kenny Malone from our Planet Money podcast.

KENNY MALONE, BYLINE: Daniel Shoag is a Harvard economist, but also a diehard Cleveland Cavaliers fan.

DANIEL SHOAG: There were some great days and some pretty dark days (laughter).

MALONE: You may recall the heartbreaking career path of LeBron James – started in Cleveland, left Cleveland.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

LEBRON JAMES: And this fall I’m going to take my talents to South Beach.

MALONE: And then four years later came back to Cleveland.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Cleveland is a city of champions once again.

MALONE: Economists have spent decades studying the business of sports. Is a new stadium worth the cost? Does a championship create jobs? But LeBron James allowed them to test something new – the economic impact of a single player, or as the working paper calls it, local externalities from a superstar athlete because here was the same guy in the same city – there, then gone, then there again.

SHOAG: Because he’s returning to the same place – you know, the correct place – there’s one less thing to worry about econometrically.

MALONE: Now, to show you the LeBron effect that Shoag and his co-author found, I visited one of the many, many bars and restaurants in their study.

MIKE MILLER: See how – up here?

MALONE: This is Mike Miller, the owner of a bar called Wilbert’s. It’s about 500 feet from the Cavs arena. And Miller is looking up at the ceiling, squinting at some brownish splatter stains.

MILLER: I would think it looks like beer.

MALONE: It’s a dark beer, though.

MILLER: Yeah.

MALONE: Booze on the ceiling, it turns out, a leading indicator of the LeBron effect. The study found that bars and restaurants like this, right next to the stadium, they got crushed when LeBron James left.

MILLER: And I think it ended up cutting close to 80.

MALONE: Eighty percent?

MILLER: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was bad.

MALONE: Miller was writing resumes, looking for a new job, but then LeBron James came home.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: As we come up on a minute remaining…

MALONE: The first time that booze ceiling thing happened at Wilbert’s it was a Sunday when the bar typically would have been closed. But it was packed with Cavs fans watching LeBron win the team’s first championship.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: It’s over. It’s over.

MILLER: Oh, my God, there was alcohol flying everywhere. I couldn’t believe it.

MALONE: I mean, how high up is that, 10 feet?

MILLER: Yeah, that’s got to be 10 feet. Yeah.

MALONE: Sign of success.

MILLER: I guess so.

MALONE: The LeBron study found a nearly 25 percent increase in employment for businesses like Wilbert’s near the stadium. And the LeBron economists give the credit to LeBron coming back. They know this because of the natural experiment of leaving and coming back. And it takes something like this to really study the economic impact of sports because unfortunately, they don’t just hand billion-dollar sports franchises over to academics.

BRAD HUMPHREYS: Now, we – I mean, ideally they would put me in charge as the sports czar of the country and I would just randomly move teams around.

MALONE: You would be a cruel czar.

HUMPHREYS: Well, fans would hate me, right.

MALONE: Brad Humphreys is a sports economist at West Virginia University and says LeBron is a great example of one of these naturally occurring experiments. Another is from 2004 and 2005, when the National Hockey League had a lockout. Because of a labor dispute, there suddenly was no professional hockey for people to spend their money on.

HUMPHREYS: But those people who would’ve gone to NHL games went to minor league baseball games. They went to the movies. They went to a bowling alley. They went to an art gallery.

MALONE: In other words, hockey wasn’t creating new spending. It was attracting money people were already going to spend. Humphreys says that’s almost certainly the case with the LeBron effect as well. Daniel Shoag, the co-author of that LeBron paper, says that one of the lessons here is that we tend to focus a lot on the financial impact of a stadium, but it really does matter who’s playing in that stadium. That’s his lesson, at least, as an economist. His lesson as a Cavaliers fan…

SHOAG: I guess this just shows that LeBron should never leave again.

MALONE: Is that your conclusion?

SHOAG: I think that’s a pretty reasonable conclusion, yeah (laughter). I’m not sure I needed the data to show me that.

MALONE: Kenny Malone, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF HOT 8 BRASS BAND’S “IT’S REAL – LACK OF AFRO REMIX”)

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 25, 2017

LeBron James' Return To Cleveland Illustrates Remarkable Economic Experiment

Professional sports generate a tremendous amount of money, but it’s tricky to know exactly what part of sports generates that money. LeBron James unintentionally ran a nearly perfect economic experiment by unexpectedly leaving Cleveland and then, three years later, returning with almost no warning. A pair of economists have now used James’ prodigal son data to look at the financial impact a single superstar can have on a local economy.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics tip off tonight. If the Cavs win they’ll go to the NBA finals for the third time in a row. Some economists are among the people watching. They say star player LeBron James has let them run a remarkable experiment. Here’s Kenny Malone from our Planet Money podcast.

KENNY MALONE, BYLINE: Daniel Shoag is a Harvard economist, but also a diehard Cleveland Cavaliers fan.

DANIEL SHOAG: There were some great days and some pretty dark days (laughter).

MALONE: You may recall the heartbreaking career path of LeBron James – started in Cleveland, left Cleveland.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

LEBRON JAMES: And this fall I’m going to take my talents to South Beach.

MALONE: And then four years later came back to Cleveland.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Cleveland is a city of champions once again.

MALONE: Economists have spent decades studying the business of sports. Is a new stadium worth the cost? Does a championship create jobs? But LeBron James allowed them to test something new – the economic impact of a single player, or as the working paper calls it, local externalities from a superstar athlete because here was the same guy in the same city – there, then gone, then there again.

SHOAG: Because he’s returning to the same place – you know, the correct place – there’s one less thing to worry about econometrically.

MALONE: Now, to show you the LeBron effect that Shoag and his co-author found, I visited one of the many, many bars and restaurants in their study.

MIKE MILLER: See how – up here?

MALONE: This is Mike Miller, the owner of a bar called Wilbert’s. It’s about 500 feet from the Cavs arena. And Miller is looking up at the ceiling, squinting at some brownish splatter stains.

MILLER: I would think it looks like beer.

MALONE: It’s a dark beer, though.

MILLER: Yeah.

MALONE: Booze on the ceiling, it turns out, a leading indicator of the LeBron effect. The study found that bars and restaurants like this, right next to the stadium, they got crushed when LeBron James left.

MILLER: And I think it ended up cutting close to 80.

MALONE: Eighty percent?

MILLER: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was bad.

MALONE: Miller was writing resumes, looking for a new job, but then LeBron James came home.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: As we come up on a minute remaining…

MALONE: The first time that booze ceiling thing happened at Wilbert’s it was a Sunday when the bar typically would have been closed. But it was packed with Cavs fans watching LeBron win the team’s first championship.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: It’s over. It’s over.

MILLER: Oh, my God, there was alcohol flying everywhere. I couldn’t believe it.

MALONE: I mean, how high up is that, 10 feet?

MILLER: Yeah, that’s got to be 10 feet. Yeah.

MALONE: Sign of success.

MILLER: I guess so.

MALONE: The LeBron study found a nearly 25 percent increase in employment for businesses like Wilbert’s near the stadium. And the LeBron economists give the credit to LeBron coming back. They know this because of the natural experiment of leaving and coming back. And it takes something like this to really study the economic impact of sports because unfortunately, they don’t just hand billion-dollar sports franchises over to academics.

BRAD HUMPHREYS: Now, we – I mean, ideally they would put me in charge as the sports czar of the country and I would just randomly move teams around.

MALONE: You would be a cruel czar.

HUMPHREYS: Well, fans would hate me, right.

MALONE: Brad Humphreys is a sports economist at West Virginia University and says LeBron is a great example of one of these naturally occurring experiments. Another is from 2004 and 2005, when the National Hockey League had a lockout. Because of a labor dispute, there suddenly was no professional hockey for people to spend their money on.

HUMPHREYS: But those people who would’ve gone to NHL games went to minor league baseball games. They went to the movies. They went to a bowling alley. They went to an art gallery.

MALONE: In other words, hockey wasn’t creating new spending. It was attracting money people were already going to spend. Humphreys says that’s almost certainly the case with the LeBron effect as well. Daniel Shoag, the co-author of that LeBron paper, says that one of the lessons here is that we tend to focus a lot on the financial impact of a stadium, but it really does matter who’s playing in that stadium. That’s his lesson, at least, as an economist. His lesson as a Cavaliers fan…

SHOAG: I guess this just shows that LeBron should never leave again.

MALONE: Is that your conclusion?

SHOAG: I think that’s a pretty reasonable conclusion, yeah (laughter). I’m not sure I needed the data to show me that.

MALONE: Kenny Malone, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF HOT 8 BRASS BAND’S “IT’S REAL – LACK OF AFRO REMIX”)

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 25, 2017

Do You Know What Red Nose Day Is?

Enlarge this image

Mindy Kaling is one of many celebrities who have put on a red nose for Red Nose Day, raising the question: Huh, what?

NBC Universal

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NBC Universal

May 25 is Red Nose Day in the United States.

And millions of people are probably going, “huh, what?”

The short explanation: It’s a campaign to raise money to fight child poverty.

But how does buying a red foam nose at a drugstore for a buck help the cause? And does this charity with the silly name really do good work?

We did some reporting, and here’s what we learned.

The British charity Comic Relief started Red Nose Day in England in 1985 as a way to raise money to fight child poverty. Why Red Nose Day and not, say, Fight Child Poverty Day? It’s hard to get a definitive answer. But it appears the organizers wanted a symbol that would make people laugh. Everyone from the Spice Girls to Hugh Grant have put on red noses to promote the fundraising effort.

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Red Nose Day is held every two years in the U.K. and has raised $1.4 billion, which is distributed to charities that fight child poverty.

Three years ago, the event crossed over to the U.S., where it’s become an annual event. Although it hasn’t yet become a household word. Last year, Comic Relief USA surveyed 1,000 Americans and found that “60 percent didn’t quite understand what we did,” says Janet Scardino, CEO of the group.

In the weeks leading up to Red Nose Day and on the day itself, money is raised in all sorts of ways. Of the dollar people pay to buy a red nose at Walgreens and Duane Reade drugstores, 50 cents goes to charity (the other half covers the cost of producing the nose). The public can also make direct donations on the Red Nose Day telethon airing Thursday night on NBC.

According to the organization’s 2015 tax filings, 85 percent of the proceeds go to a handful of charity partners that support children in need around the world. In the U.S., that includes multiyear grants to groups like Feeding America, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Save the Children and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a supporter of NPR, is also backing Red Nose Day in the U.S. by matching donations to the cause made on Facebook up to total of $1 million.

Charity Navigator, which rates nonprofits using a four-star evaluation system, has found that most of Red Nose Day’s charity partners have a three or four-star rating.

But Comic Relief has been criticized in the past for its controversial investments. In the U.K, some funds raised by Red Nose Day are invested in various ways, with the returns going toward the cost of the campaign. In 2013, the BBC program “Panorama” reported that around $816,000 was invested in the arms company BAE Systems while $3.5 million was invested in tobacco companies.

A spokesperson from Comic Relief U.K. told NPR that the group stopped investing in those companies in 2014.

And then there’s the question of the goofiness of it all. Part of the appeal of Red Nose Day is that it makes people feel good, says David Bishai, a professor who specializes in economics and public health at Johns Hopkins University. “The red nose doesn’t drag you into the dark side of the poor, showing you children with swollen bellies. That’s not fun,” he says. “The [campaigners] say: We understand there’s terrible suffering in the world and we’re doing something about it.”

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But it’s a tricky line to toe. This year’s BBC telethon for Red Nose Day in the U.K., on March 24, garnered 150 complaints for profanity and lewd comments from the celebrity entertainers. There was a skit showing a bounty of biscuits followed by footage of a starving infant in Liberia. One viewer tweeted: “Comic Relief … painful.” Asked to comment on the controversy, a spokesperson for Comic Relief U.K. did not address the issue specifically but told NPR: “The broadcast was a live studio event enjoyed by a peak audience of 7.6 million. The amazing British public yet again dug deep to raise over 73 million pounds [about $94 million] so far.”

U.S. campaigns haven’t brought in quite as much: more than $60 million in the first two years. Still,“that’s nothing to sneeze at,” says Sandra Miniutti of Charity Navigator.

But the name might be an obstacle, suggests Miniutti. “Stand Up For Cancer, I know I’m giving to cancer,” she says. “Red Nose Day doesn’t have that attribute.”

So on Red Nose Day the group devotes a lot of effort to explaining what kinds of projects it supports. Tonight, for example, Julia Roberts guest stars on a Red Nose Day episode of the TV series Running Wild with Bear Grylls. Grylls and Roberts head out to delivervaccines from Wamba Hospital in Kenya to children in the a remote community. The challenge? They must keep the vaccines cold the whole time — while avoiding crocodiles and hippos.

Tonight’s Red Nose Day TV marathon also features a reunion of the cast of the 2003 movie Love Actually.

It sounds gimmicky, but academics who study charitable giving don’t seem to mind. “I could have been holy about it — but they’re helping Americans think about those less well-off in other countries,” says Bishai. “Give them a break.”

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