July 11, 2017

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Entertainment July 11, 2017

Today in Movie Culture: 'Planet of the Apes' History, 'Deadpool' Hearts 'Wonder Woman' and More

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

Franchise History of the Day:

With War for the Planet of the Apes out this week, Distractotron gives us a rundown on the history of the Planet of the Apes franchise:

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Movie Trivia of the Day:

Now do you feel like a Planet of the Apes expert? Well, here’s ScreenCrush with a bunch of obscure trivia about the original 1968 movie:

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Box Office Toast of the Day:

Deadpool tipped his hat to Wonder Woman after the latter’s movie passed the former’s at the box office this weekend:

The Merc may be filthier, but her B.O. is stronger. Congrats #WonderWoman. pic.twitter.com/jhP1hRAKlY

— Deadpool Movie (@deadpoolmovie) July 11, 2017

Cosplay of the Day:

Speaking of whom, Wonder Woman cosplay is not just for women anymore, as seen in the teaser image below. Find more full photos at Fashionably Geek.

Men Get In On The Wonder Woman Cosplay Game https://t.co/FYJ0jX74Ie #WonderWoman #Cosplay pic.twitter.com/1XxSSL2JfK

— Fashionably Geek (@FashionablyGeek) July 3, 2017

Fan Film of the Day:

Check out a feature-length, shot-for-shot, homemade fan redo of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (via Geek Tyrant):

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Vintage Image of the Day:

Yul Brynner, who was born on this day in 1920, with director John Sturges on the set of The Magnificent Seven in 1960:

Movie Takedown of the Day:

Honest Trailers tire-lessly runs through everything wrong with The Fate of the Furious and the tire-d F&F franchise:

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Bad Film Analysis of the Day:

Learn the “hidden meaning” of Clueless from an alien in the future in the latest episode of Earthling Cinema:

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Good Film Analysis of the Day:

Ross Peacock analyzes the action sequences of John Wick: Chapter Two in his latest Rossatron video essay:

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Classic Trailer of the Day:

Today is the 20th anniversary of the release of Contact. Watch the original trailer for the classic sci-fi movie below.

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Sports July 11, 2017

10th-Inning Homer Wins Lower-Stakes All-Star Game For American League

Robinson Cano of the Seattle Mariners blows a bubble as he rounds the bases after hitting a home run in the tenth inning of Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game in Miami. It would be the winning run for the American League.

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

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Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

Seattle Mariners second-baseman Robinson Cano’s home run off a changeup from the Chicago Cubs’ Wade Davis won the Major League Baseball All-Star game Tuesday night in Miami, but that won’t mean as much for the American League as in recent years.

The 2017 game was the first since Major League Baseball ended its 13-season long practice of using the All Star Game to determine World Series home field advantage. That initiative, known as “This Time It Counts,” was a response to a controversial extra-innings tie in 2002. Starting with this season, the team with the best regular-season record will have home field advantage in the Series.

Overall it was a game dominated by the pitchers on both sides, who struck out a combined 23 batters. The only runs before extra innings came on a homer by Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina in the sixth inning for the National League, and a bloop single in the fifth by Miguel Sano of the Minnesota Twins, scoring the Baltimore Orioles’ Jonathan Schoop from second.

Cleveland Indians pitcher Andrew Miller wrapped things up in the bottom of the 10th, with help from a sprinting catch by outfielder Justin Upton of the Detroit Tigers.

The win was the fifth straight for the American League, its 17th win since 1996, and evens the overall record of the games: 43 wins for the National League, 43 for the American League, and two ties.

Cano, playing in his eighth All-Star game, was named MVP — which won him a new Chevrolet Corvette. It had been a half-century since an extra-innings homer in the All-Star Game, the AP noted:

“Cano’s homer came exactly 50 years after the previous extra-inning homer in an All-Star Game, when Tony Perez hit a tiebreaking 15th-inning shot off Catfish Hunter in the NL’s 2-1 win at Anaheim, California. Perez, now a Marlins executive, was among eight Latin-born Hall of Famers who threw out ceremonial first pitches.”

With home field advantage no longer on the line, Tuesday night’s game was a bit looser, including an impromptu home plate photo request by the Seattle Mariners’ Nelson Cruz, who had Molina snap a shot of him and veteran umpire Joe West during his at-bat.

Nelson Cruz has Yadier Molina take a picture of himself and umpire Joe West. An All Star Game first. pic.twitter.com/8Drhyn0l6M

— Baseball Quotes (@BaseballQuotes1) July 12, 2017

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Health July 11, 2017

Delaying August Recess, Senate Republicans To Release Updated Health Care Bill

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell meets with reporters after a closed-door Republican strategy session on Tuesday.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

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J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., plans to release an updated Republican health care bill on Thursday and is delaying the body’s annual August recess by two weeks in an effort to generate momentum for the beleaguered legislation.

“In order to provide more time to complete action on important legislative items and process nominees that have been stalled by a lack of cooperation from our friends across the aisle, the Senate will delay the start of the August recess until the third week of August,” McConnell said in a statement. Originally senators were supposed to head home at the end of July.

The GOP will also release an updated version of their Better Care Reconciliation Act, which so far has drawn opposition from both moderate Republicans who say it goes too far in reducing Medicaid funding and conservatives who argued the bill doesn’t go far enough to fully repeal regulations and subsidies in the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

McConnell had wanted to have a vote on the bill before the July 4th recess, but he didn’t have the votes he needed to pass it after at least five GOP lawmakers came out against the current version. There are currently 52 Republicans in the Senate and 50 need to support it to pass.

A revised Congressional Budget Office score, showing the costs and impact on coverage of the new version of the bill, is expected on Monday or Tuesday of next week. The CBO score of the first version found that the BCRA would leave 22 million more people uninsured by 2026.

A vote on a motion to proceed on the revised bill is expected by the end of next week. If that preliminary procedural measure passes, there will be debate on the bill that could go on for days.

Some Senators have already begun offering alternatives which could make it into the revised bill. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, have an amendment which would let insurance companies sell any health insurance plan they wish as long as they also offer at least one plan that is compliant with all of the coverage mandates outlined in Obamacare.

That would allow insurers to offer plans that do not comply with ACA regulations, like providing so-called “essential health benefits,” and would therefore provide less robust coverage and cost less. Critics say it will cause costs for people with pre-existing conditions who need more services to rise sharply, undermining protections in place for them.

The White House supports the amendment, and Cruz told reporters on Tuesday that he believes that plan is the key to a deal.

“I think the reason is that it is the necessary ingredient to getting the votes that we have to have to follow through on our commitment to repeal Obamacare,” Cruz said. “I believe we can get there. It remains challenging. More work remains to be done. But there is a path forward.”

GOP senators are already warning that failure to uphold their seven-year campaign promise to repeal and replace Obamacare could have reverberations with their base.

“We should not be surprised if people are irritated with the Republican majority when we have been promising, and we do not deliver,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said on Fox News Tuesday. “I am very pessimistic.”

However, the bill overall has little support with the American public. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll earlier this month found just 17 percent support the Senate GOP bill, and that even GOP support for it is soft.

Ultimately, if this doesn’t work, Republicans may need to find a way to bring Democrats to the table, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has hinted he’s working on a way to do just that in the coming days.

“We’re not there yet, but we’re working with governors, and we may be taking some of the critics of the current bill and converting them to supporters,” Graham told reporters on Tuesday.

NPR’s Susan Davis contributed to this report.

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Business July 11, 2017

Documents Show Backpage.com Controls Sex-Related Ads

NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks with Washington Post reporter Tom Jackman about the discovery of new documents showing that Backpage.com, a website with classified ads, controls sex-related ads on its site. The company has claimed it does not control the ads people post.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The website backpage.com has been controversial for years. It’s been the subject of lawsuits. And the National Association of Attorneys General calls it a hub for human trafficking.

TOM JACKMAN: It’s a classified ad website just like Craigslist.

SHAPIRO: That’s Tom Jackman of The Washington Post.

JACKMAN: But it’s also a place that has ads for adult services. Some might say prostitution.

SHAPIRO: The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says almost three quarters of the child sex trafficking reports it receives from the public involve ads from Backpage. An investigative piece out today by Tom Jackman and a Washington Post colleague describes documents that show the website seeking out paying advertisers who sell sex. When I spoke with Jackman earlier today, he told me backpage.com has stayed out of trouble up until now by saying they are not actively involved in the content on their site.

JACKMAN: They cite a law that was passed in 1996 called the Communications Decency Act which says if you’re a website and you are merely hosting content – you’re not creating the content; you’re merely the bulletin board – you’re not liable for the content that’s posted on your site by third parties.

SHAPIRO: So these documents that The Post has obtained shine a new light on Backpage’s claims that they have nothing to do with this. What do the documents show?

JACKMAN: The documents show that they use a company in the Philippines to actively solicit – we’ll call them advertisers – sex advertisers, people who have posted ads on other sites. They make a copy of that ad and recreate it in the Backpage template. We’d like to offer you the same ad on Backpage, and if you let me email you a link, I can show you because we’ve already created it for you – what your ad will look like on Backpage. And with one click, you can be there.

SHAPIRO: How does this change our understanding of Backpage’s role in the sex trafficking business?

JACKMAN: Well, this would seem to be contradictory to the argument they’ve made for years and years that, we’re simply a host; we’re a passive vessel here that – you know, that people come to. And they post on our website, but we don’t dictate the content. But here they are seemingly creating the content.

SHAPIRO: You showed some of these documents to the company and asked for a response. What did they say?

JACKMAN: They declined to comment. But they’ve made arguments in the past which have carried the day legally that this is protected content under the First Amendment, that even if they are copying from another site, they’re merely copying, and that’s protected and that they aren’t breaking any laws by what they’re doing. Their content may be offensive to some. But it’s the Internet, and it should remain free.

SHAPIRO: What about members of Congress who have been going after Backpage for years? How did they respond to these documents?

JACKMAN: They felt like this is another step in their push to try to get some control over this. They want to amend the Communications Decency Act so that there’s some way that the Internet can still be free and yet there can be some way to protect children from being trafficked. There are some very powerful First Amendment forces out there who want to keep the Internet untethered, untouched, unedited. And so they would like to use this as further ammunition to try to amend the Communications Decency Act.

SHAPIRO: Tom Jackman of the Washington Post, thank you very much.

JACKMAN: You’re very welcome.

(SOUNDBITE OF PRETTY LIGHTS’ “REEL 6 BREAK 4”)

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