August 8, 2017

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Entertainment August 8, 2017

'Avatar' Villain Stephen Lang Returning for All Four Sequels, Says James Cameron

Avatar

James Cameron’s Avatar was greatly enlivened by the presence of Stephen Lang (above). Millions of people saw the sci-fi adventure during its theatrical release and/or later on home video, but if you need a reminder, Lang portrayed Colonel Miles Quaritch, the leader of the military force on the planet Pandora.

Initially, Colonel Quaritch appears to be tough but fair. Eventually, though, he becomes quite a villainous character, never hesitating to kill anyone he views as a threat to his overall mission. After an epic battle with the heroic Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), he’s apparently left for dead.

Back in 2013, we heard that Lang had signed up for the three Avatar sequels planned at the time. Cameron said: “His character will evolve into really unexpected places across the arc of our new three-film saga.”

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The sequel plans have expanded to four installments and now director James Cameron confirms that Lang will appear in all of them. He tells Empire (via Collider): “The interesting conceit of the Avatar sequels is it’s pretty much the same characters. There are new characters and a lot of new settings and creatures, so I’m taking characters you know and putting them in unfamiliar places and moving them on this greater journey. But it’s not a whole bunch of new characters every time. There’s not a new villain every time, which is interesting. Same guy. Same motherf***** through all four movies.”

Cameron also credits director Peter Jackson for inspiration: “I said ‘It’s your fault I’m doing this, motherf*****!'” He recalls. “It’s one big story. But I would say a little bit different from The Lord Of The Rings, which you knew was a trilogy and that allowed you to accept a sort of truncated ending for movies one and two and then a fulfilment. This is a greater narrative broken up into four complete stories.”

The first of the four Avatar sequels is currently scheduled for release on December 18, 2020.

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Business August 8, 2017

'Financial Times' Issues 103-Year-Old Correction

A 1915 poster urged the British public to buy war bonds. The previous year, the Bank of England had concealed the failure of the first round of bond-selling.


Thomas Bert/Library of Congress
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Thomas Bert/Library of Congress

On Nov. 23, 1914, the Financial Times ran a piece about the wild success of British efforts to fund World War I.

War Loans were “oversubscribed,” the paper said; applications were “pouring in”; the public “has offered the Government every penny it asked for — and more.” The “amazing result” showed “how strong is the financial position of the British nation.”

On Aug. 8, 2017, the paper had a follow-up. A “clarification.”

“We are now happy to make clear that none of the above was true,” the FT wrote.

The announcement came after researchers at the Bank of England, poring over aged ledgers, exposed a 103-year-old cover-up.

It turns out the first British effort to fund-raise for the war by selling bonds was not, in fact, wildly successful. It was “a spectacular failure,” the researchers wrote on a blog for Bank of England employees.

The government wanted to raise £350 million, but brought in less than a third of that. Officials worried that revealing the shortfall would hurt future capital-raising efforts, and help Germany.

So instead of allowing the disappointing truth to come out, the Bank of England secretly funneled money to hide the gap.

The cover-up was uncovered by an employee at the bank’s archive, along with a PhD. student and two faculty members at the Queen Mary University of London. They describe what they found in the old ledgers:

“To cover its tracks, the Bank made advances to its chief cashier, Gordon Nairn, and his deputy, Ernest Harvey, who then purchased the securities in their own names with the bonds then held by the Bank of England on its balance sheet. To hide the fact that the Bank was forced to step in, the bonds were classified as holdings of ‘Other Securities’ in the Bank of England’s balance sheet rather than as holdings of Government Securities.”

John Maynard Keynes, the economist who famously advocated for public spending to stimulate economies during recession, knew about the deception, the researchers say. In a memo marked “Secret” he called it “a masterly manipulation,” while also warning that it was not sustainable in the long run.

But it wasn’t the last time the Bank of England drew on its own reserves to fund the war, the researchers write: “The long-held laissez-faire principles of the Liberal and Conservative parties were thus sacrificed to raise the capital upon which the War’s outcome depended.”

The shock of the failed bonds sale, and the subterfuge that followed, drew attention to the complexity of the national debt and contributed to the eventual transition of the Bank of England from privately owned to centrally owned, the researchers suggest.

The Financial Times, for its part, notes that the original “piece” looks more like an ad than an article, while acknowledging that the publication “played a role in convincing the public that the sale was a success.”

Along with its correction, the paper adds this note:

“The same edition of the paper also demonstrated a good understanding of the FT’s readership, noting with ‘interest’ and ‘encouragement’ that champagne production had not been affected by the Great War effort.”

For the record, all of NPR’s corrections can be found here.

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Health August 8, 2017

First Responders Spending More On Overdose Reversal Drug

Battalion Chief Mark St. Laurent, seen here at the Franklin Square firehouse in Washington, D.C., says sometimes multiple doses of naloxone are needed to stop an overdose.

Shelby Knowles/NPR

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In Prince George’s County, Md., every first responder carries naloxone, the drug that can reverse an opioid overdose.

“We carry it in our first-in bags,” says Bryan Spies, the county’s battalion chief in charge of emergency services. “So whenever we arrive at a patient’s side, it’s in the bag, along with things like glucose, aspirin and oxygen.”

The first responders in Prince George’s County are pulling the drug out of the bag more than ever. Last year they administered 877 doses to people who had overdosed. This year, they’re on track to administer 1,230 doses, Spies says. That averages out to more than three doses a day in just one county.

In Washington, D.C., it’s the same story.

“Depending on the strength [of the opioid], you may see that we’d use two of these,” says Battalion Chief Mark St. Laurent, holding up a 2-milligram vial of naloxone.

If the patient has taken fentanyl — a particularly potent opioid — he says, “sometimes it takes 10 milligrams just to get them to breathe.”

Opioid addiction has reached crisis levels across the country. Overdose deaths from prescription painkillers and heroin totaled about 33,000 in 2015, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

Naloxone reverses the progress of an overdose and revives the victim so they start breathing again. It’s been around since the 1960s but has become so ubiquitous in the emergency response arena in recent years that even the bomb squad in Prince George’s County carries it — to safeguard their bomb-sniffing dogs.

“Obviously, they’re sniffing a lot of things in a lot of different places,” Spies says. “So if they come across white powder or any type of the drug, the bomb team does have the naloxone readily available to give to the canines.”

Prince George’s County will spend about $45,000 of its $600,000 equipment budget this year on naloxone. Spies says the price of the drug had been rising but has leveled off in recent years.

The Washington, D.C., fire department confirms this. The city paid about $6 for a prefilled syringe of naloxone in 2010, says spokesman Vito Maggiolo. This year, that same syringe runs about $30. Maggiolo says the fire department spent about $170,000 on naloxone in the last 10 months.

That worries Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who last week sent letters to four pharmaceutical companies that make naloxone, asking them to provide details about the discount programs they offer to emergency management and public health agencies. It’s part of an ongoing inquiry she launched last year with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, into rising drug prices.

First responders in Washington, D.C., bring naloxone on every emergency call.

Shelby Knowles/NPR

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Shelby Knowles/NPR

“The rise in costs associated with acquiring naloxone has caused significant accessibility issues for those on the front lines of this epidemic,” she wrote in the letters. The letters were following up on an earlier request about naloxone costs, in which the companies responded by saying they had donated doses and offered discounts on naloxone to first responders.

The prices of some brands of naloxone have risen in recent years, according to an analysis by the investment research firm SSR Health for NPR. The price of a vial of generic naloxone made by the company Amphastar rose from about $4 in 2009 to about $16 this year, according to SSR.

McCaskill was particularly concerned about a naloxone auto-injector called Evzio, made by Kaleo Pharmaceuticals, whose price rose from $288 per dose when it hit the market in 2014 to more than $2,000 this year. McCaskill sent the company a separate letter asking it to justify its price in February.

Kaleo CEO Spencer Williamson said in a statement that no customers actually pay that much because of all the discounts and rebates the company offers.

The company says it has donated more than 250,000 of the devices to nonprofit groups, fire departments and public health agencies. It says 3,600 lives have been saved by those donated devices.

Not all prices are rising. Narcan is probably the best-known brand of naloxone. It’s made by Adapt Pharma and comes in a nasal spray. The list price has been $125 since it went on sale in 2015, according to the company and SSR. Company spokesman Thomas Duddy says Adapt sells Narcan to emergency responders and other public agencies for $75 for a two-pack.

“You get a sense of the premium being charged for the unique delivery mechanism,” says Richard Evans, general manager at SSR. But Evans says the higher prices for those specialty products have also driven up the price of generic naloxone.

Last week, President Trump’s opioid commission, chaired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, issued a report that included a recommendation to declare the opioid epidemic a national emergency. Doing so would give the Department of Health and Human Services the power to negotiate lower prices for naloxone, the report said.

Today, HHS Secretary Tom Price said the administration believes they already have the resources and focus they need to tackle the problem without needing an emergency declaration, but he did add that “all things are on the table for the president.”

The report also asked the president to require every law enforcement officer in the country to carry naloxone.

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Sports August 8, 2017

Is The NFL Colluding Against Kaepernick?

NFL pre-season is halfway over and Colin Kaepernick still hasn’t been signed to a team.

Baltimore and Miami both passed on the quarterback, who gained attention outside of sports circles when he declined to stand in protest during the pre-game national anthem.

Now, the fact that Kaepernick remains without a team has raised questions about coaches’ and owners’ motives. Writing for the The Undefeated, William C. Rhoden called the situation “a disgrace.”

Kaepernick’s unemployment has been explained away — and, in some corners, justified — as a reaction to his political protests beginning last fall when he and others knelt during the playing of the national anthem.

But the issue here is not one player’s politics; it’s possible collusion among 32 NFL owners. Collusion, not politics, is what the players and the players’ association should vehemently be pushing back against.

Are NFL teams too afraid to take on an activist athlete?

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