April 11, 2019 – AssociatedNews.info

Business April 11, 2019

One Man’s Quest To Protect A Rare Kind Of Hazelnut Tree

The hazelnut business is in a bind. Demand is rising, supply is tight, and a deadly fungal disease is constraining production. But one man may have found a solution.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Demand for hazelnuts is on the rise globally. That’s due in no small part to the popularity of products like Nutella. But the U.S. has remained a relatively small player in the global hazelnut industry. Darius Rafieyan and Stacey Vanek Smith of the podcast The Indicator From Planet Money brings us this story of one man’s decades-long quest to change that.

DARIUS RAFIEYAN, BYLINE: I first met biologist Tom Molnar in his office at the Rutgers University Ornamental Field Lab. He was surrounded by these big plastic bins just filled with thousands upon thousands of hazelnuts.

TOM MOLNAR: For example, here’s one that has ridges and lumps. And to me, that’s kind of an ugly looking hazelnut.

STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: Hazelnuts have a problem. More than 70 percent of the world’s hazelnuts come from one place – come from Turkey. And that, of course, leaves Nutella lovers everywhere very vulnerable.

RAFIEYAN: The United States does have a small hazelnut industry in Oregon, but that doesn’t come close to meeting global demand. The East Coast would be perfect for growing these trees, but there’s one big problem.

MOLNAR: We would have had a hazelnut industry in the northeast if it wasn’t for Eastern filbert blight.

RAFIEYAN: Eastern filbert blight – it’s a fungal disease. It’s native to North America. And it grows beneath the bark of hazelnut trees.

MOLNAR: So as we look down in here, you’ll see that there’s little pustules. So those are like little mushrooms. Those are the fruiting bodies, where the spores will actually be ejected from and spread to other trees.

RAFIEYAN: This fungus has been Tom’s sworn nemesis for 23 years.

VANEK SMITH: Hazelnuts are this kind of miracle crop. They can grow without irrigation, without chemical fertilizers or pesticides. The only problem they needed to solve was Eastern filbert blight.

RAFIEYAN: And so Tom figured that somewhere out there the gene for disease resistance that he needed was hiding. So he set out to find that gene. For seven years, Tom traveled all over the native hazelnut range collecting specimens. And this was not your typical horticultural fieldwork. Once, while crossing into Ukraine with 80 pounds of nuts in his suitcase, he even got shaken down by the local police.

MOLNAR: They start screaming at me. They have guns. And this is silly, but at the same time, I had a suitcase full of all the nuts that I so desperately did not want to lose.

RAFIEYAN: But you were more worried about the nuts than the money.

MOLNAR: I was very nervous about the nuts. Those were my babies.

RAFIEYAN: After years of collecting all this genetic material, he came back to New Jersey, and he got to work breeding.

VANEK SMITH: Eventually, after years of failures, Tom did it. He created a tree strong enough to resist the blight.

RAFIEYAN: Does he have a name?

MOLNAR: Seven twenty-five (laughter). This is H3RZP25. So we call him 725.

VANEK SMITH: Tom sees this as the start of a whole new industry on the East Coast.

RAFIEYAN: If it takes off, that could make Tom a very, very rich man. But, you know, he says he didn’t spend 20 years of his life sifting through hazelnuts just for the money.

MOLNAR: Ever since I was young, I wanted to do something that had a positive impact beyond just my individual life. And I think that’s what drew me to tree breeding. Plants can sort of live on forever. So if you select the right variety, that could be around way after you’re gone. But maybe your grandchildren can grow that in your yard and think about that, you know, their grandfather actually selected that plant.

RAFIEYAN: Darius Rafieyan.

VANEK SMITH: Stacey Vanek Smith, NPR News

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 April 11, 2019

The Issue Of Medicare For All Is Dominating The 2020 Democratic Field

Several 2020 Democratic candidates support Medicare for All, but what would that proposal look like in action?

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

If there’s a single issue that’s defining the Democratic field of 2020 presidential candidates, it’s health care, Medicare for All, to be precise.

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KAMALA HARRIS: I believe the solution – and I’m – and I’m – actually feel very strongly about this – is that we need to have Medicare for All

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ELIZABETH WARREN: Medicare for All is all about…

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BETO O’ROURKE: The best way to get there is by having Medicare for All.

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BERNIE SANDERS: The strengths of a Medicare for All program…

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KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND: That’s why I am for Medicare for All.

SHAPIRO: When Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders unveiled his 2020 Medicare plan for all this week, several other Democratic presidential candidates stood alongside him.

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SANDERS: The American people want and we are going to deliver a Medicare for All single-payer system.

SHAPIRO: So what would that system look like? NPR’s health policy correspondent Alison Kodjak is here to talk us through that. Hi, Alison.

ALISON KODJAK, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.

SHAPIRO: Start with a bit of history. Where did the idea of Medicare for All begin?

KODJAK: So the idea of, like, a government-funded, universal health coverage goes way back to the Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt convened a committee on economic security in the midst of that economic crisis, and they advocated not only Social Security, but they wanted to include national health insurance in the system. That program failed because of opposition mostly from doctors.

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FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT: We can never insure 100 percent of the population against 100 percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection.

KODJAK: Thirty years later, Medicare was passed into law.

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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: President and Mrs. Johnson and Vice President Humphrey arrive for ceremonies that will make the Medicare bill a part of Social Security coverage.

KODJAK: It didn’t cover everybody either. It only covered retirees.

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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The new bill expands the 30-year-old Social Security program to provide hospital care, nursing home care, home nursing service and outpatient treatment for those over 65.

KODJAK: So universal coverage, the idea of it, has been on the table for, in one form or another, ever since the 1930s.

SHAPIRO: So, in the present day, when we hear all these Democratic presidential candidates talk about Medicare for All, what does that proposal they’re talking about right now mean?

KODJAK: That proposal that came out this week, it would eliminate private health insurance altogether, have the government be the single payer for people’s health care. Everybody would get coverage. Hospitals, if they’re private now, would stay private. Doctors would remain in the private sector. But the government would be the sole payer of health care, and everybody would get insurance.

SHAPIRO: And what would that mean for patients, especially people like you and I who get coverage through our employer right now?

KODJAK: Well, we’d no longer get coverage through our employer. We’d get it through this government health insurance plan. The benefits might be much more generous than we have now. We wouldn’t have to pay part of the premium. There would be no copayments under this plan.

But that’s a big sticking point. How do you pay for that? It would have to be through tax increases of some sort because it would increase government spending. The one thing to keep in mind is that we already pay a huge amount for health care in this country, almost $4 trillion a year.

So you’re paying one way or another. Your private insurance is expensive. An average family plan provided through employers is about $20,000 dollars a year. And that often includes copayments and deductibles.

SHAPIRO: That’s a lot of money going to the insurance companies.

KODJAK: Sure is.

SHAPIRO: What happens to them under this plan?

KODJAK: Well, that’s the big question. Senator Sanders was asked about it earlier today on CBS.

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SANDERS: Under Medicare for All, we cover all basic health care needs. I suppose if you want to make yourself look a little bit more beautiful, you want to work on that nose, your ears, they can do that.

ED O’KEEFE: So basically Blue Cross Blue Shield would be reduced to nose jobs.

SANDERS: Something like that.

KODJAK: Yeah. So if that’s the case, the insurance industry, as it stands now, would shrink quite a lot. Today, about 540,000 people work in health insurance. Now, some of those people would probably get jobs with the government, but it would be a big disruption.

SHAPIRO: Yeah. And health care is about 18 percent of the U.S. GDP. So we’re talking about a huge shake-up for the economy. What are the implications of that drastic of a change to the system?

KODJAK: Yeah, it is a huge part of the economy. Most economists don’t really see that as a good thing, that we shouldn’t be spending that much on health insurance and health care in this country. So one goal of moving to a single-payer plan like this would be to make the system less expensive. There’d be no profit motive. There’d be fewer administrative costs. Perhaps we would pay doctors or hospitals less for procedures and care. And so if that succeeded, it might cut costs, which economists would applaud. But again, there would be losers, and it would be hugely disruptive to the economy.

SHAPIRO: You mentioned Senator Sanders. Which other 2020 candidates support this and which are not so sure?

KODJAK: Well, at his side in the announcement were Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Senator Elizabeth Warren. Cory Booker has been behind it. So has Kamala Harris. Amy Klobuchar, who’s running, has said that she would rather see incremental progress on the Affordable Care Act, protect what we have now and make it better. And there are a lot of others who stand with her and say we should just stick with what we have and improve it.

SHAPIRO: NPR health policy correspondent Alison Kodjak, thank you.

KODJAK: Thanks, Ari.

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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Sports April 11, 2019

Fans Boo Baseball Umpire Who Did Bat Dog’s Job

Finn, a black lab, is a bat dog for the Minor League Las Vegas Aviators. Finn was dashing to the plate, but an umpire beat him there and tossed the bat aside. Fans were not happy and booed the ump.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning. I’m David Greene. Finn the Bat Dog got off to a slow start the other night. The black lab’s job is to clear baseball bats from home plate for the minor league Las Vegas Aviators. He was dashing to the plate, but then an umpire beat him there and tossed the bat aside. The crowd – not happy.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: Gone.

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Booing).

GREENE: Finn did chase that bat down. Way to stay paws-itive (ph), Finn.

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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Entertainment April 11, 2019

First Listen: Angélique Kidjo, ‘Celia’

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Angelique Kidjo’s Celia is out April 19 on Decca Records.

Laurent Seroussi/Courtesy of the artist

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Laurent Seroussi/Courtesy of the artist

Angélique Kidjo now has a pair of albums that are essentially covers of other artists, but interpreted with an African sensibility so majestic as to render the originals almost as source material.

On 2018’s Remain In Light, Kidjo made the implicit African influences of Talking Heads’ original vision explicit. Kidjo didn’t channel New Wave, or even rock and roll, as a starting point; instead, she used West African polyrhythms to reinterpret the band’s take on then-modern life in America. It was one of my favorite albums of last year.

Courtesy of the artist

Celia comes out April 19 via Decca Records.

Somehow Kidjo had the time to record a second tribute album, this time dedicated to an individual artist.

Celia refers to Celia Cruz, perhaps the most well-known vocalist to come from Cuba during any era. The ten tracks span several decades of Cruz’s career, from before she left Cuba in 1960 to her groundbreaking recordings for the celebrated Fania Records label in New York in the 1970s, to “La Vida Es Un Carnaval,” the 1998 song that became her late career hit and anthem. Kidjo’s reinterpretations rearrange the molecules of songs that many of us know by heart. The results are glorious.

The tongue twister “Cucala” becomes a rhythmic pattern for both guitar and hand drums as Kidjo sings the Spanish-language lyric that is an ode to joy of dancing. It’s a brilliant take on a song that I honestly thought couldn’t get any better.

Cruz never shied away from the island’s African culture, especially on songs like”Yemaya” and “Elegua.” These two tracks on Celia strip away the classic, horn-driven guaracha feel of La Sonora Matancera’s 1950s-era orchestrations and become deeply emotional prayers to the two Afro-Cuban deities.

“Quimbara,” one of Cruz’s most well-known anthems, serves as Celia‘s mission statement. The original was based on guaguancó, which was a bold move at the the time. Why? Mambo and cha-cha-cha were the ruling Latin dance rhythms of the day, and here was an Afro-Cuban folkloric beat. On Celia, Angélique Kidjo changes the rhythm from a solid 4/4 to a languid, yet powerful 6/8. Afrobeat-style guitar approximates the West African koraand punctuates it all with a funky, horn driven, stop-time statement of its massive chorus.

What puts the song over the top is the call-and-response improvisation of the title. It’s done at twice the speed of the rhythm underneath (what musicians call double time) and it never clashes. Kidjo has so expertly tied the original guaguanco to her 6/8 that it serves as a point of cultural pride that Africa could claim Celia Cruz as one of their own. And that is the point of every track of this album.

Celia Cruz’s music and her entire being was a reminder of the presence of Africa in Cuba. Angélique Kidjo’s Celia musically closes that circle with reverence and more than a little love.

Courtesy of the artist