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Business October 8, 2019

How Electric Cars Will Change Driving And The Economy

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly talks with E&E News reporter David Ferris, who’s part of a team traveling the country in electric cars to learn how the vehicles will change driving as well as the economy.



MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Six thousand miles through 17 states – now, that would be an ambitious road trip for anyone. It’s an especially ambitious undertaking for the team of reporters who are driving that entire route in electric cars. To explain, we’re joined by the leader of the pack. That’s reporter David Ferris of E&E News, an online news site that covers energy and environmental issues David Ferris, how you doing?

DAVID FERRIS: I’m doing well.

KELLY: Good. So I want to get in just a second to where exactly on this road trip we’ve reached you. But start with the why. What is your team hoping to accomplish with this? It’s a two-month-long road trip, is that right?

FERRIS: It is two months.

KELLY: OK.

FERRIS: Well, we’re in an interesting interval with electric cars. I think they’ve been kind of a geeky science project. And now we know that automakers are devoting billions of dollars to building these cars. And we thought it was the right time to inform ourselves, not just to what it’s like to be in the car, not just to what it’s like to fuel to charge the car but actually how it’s going to affect the whole economy – manufacturing, cities, jobs.

KELLY: So your team began this whole journey in Texas about a month ago. Y’all are tag-teaming as you go. I know…

FERRIS: Exactly.

KELLY: …At first, people started through southern states. Then you turned north. You went through Detroit, which I’m sure was fascinating. And then you took over on Sunday. Where exactly have we found you?

FERRIS: You’re talking to me in Dickinson, N.D. This is the single-hardest leg of the trip because North Dakota has less charging, less fueling infrastructure than any place in the country. And so I’ve been learning some hard lessons about how to manage an electric car when there’s almost no place to fuel.

KELLY: That sounds intriguing. Have you had any close calls where you were stranded on the side of the road?

FERRIS: Yes. So I left Minneapolis on Sunday. And I know I’m not going to make my destination to Fargo when I have to stop in this little town called Fergus Falls. And I know I have enough battery to get there. So I’m going down the road enjoying myself, really windy day, and I’m going along and I’m noticing that the cushion, the difference between how many miles the car tells me I can go and the number of miles I actually need to go, it’s narrowing. So I’m like, maybe, I should ease it off. I’ll go to 65. Night’s falling. It’s raining. And I have no other options because there’s just simply – unless I begged with someone to plug into their dryer outlet, there’s nowhere to charge. And so I finally end up limping off the interstate into this town of Fergus Falls and ease into the brewery, which, it turns out, is one of the only two places to charge.

KELLY: The brewery. Wow. OK.

FERRIS: So I was able to charge there, and since the charging is slow – rats. I had to spend three hours at a brewery on a Saturday night.

(LAUGHTER)

KELLY: So now you have the challenge of sobering up before you can get back in your charged up car.

FERRIS: I know. I limited myself to only two beers. I was like, keep it under control.

KELLY: Part of what y’all are calculating is how much cleaner electric cars are than gas cars – right? – because electric vehicles say there’s zero emissions. But, of course, the electricity powering them has to be generated, and that results in carbon emissions. What have you found in terms of how much better for the planet these might be?

FERRIS: Well, we’ve been rigorously calculating the carbon emissions of the charging we’re doing, and that has to do with the power mix in that individual state. If that state uses a lot of coal, the emissions are going to be higher. If it’s a state that uses a lot of hydropower or wind or solar, it’s going to be lower. And in either case, it’s still significantly lower emissions than gas, but it does vary a lot.

KELLY: I gather that one of the things you’ve noted as you’ve been doing this drive across North Dakota is signs for electric vehicles that say powered by coal. Explain this.

FERRIS: Yes. The Lignite Energy Council, which is the advocacy group for North Dakota coal, has embraced electric vehicles as a way to create a market for itself in the future. The writing is on the wall that it’s going to get tougher for coal. And they’ve realized that electric vehicles need to charge and that they could be a good market for coal power.

KELLY: That electric cars will drive the market for electricity, obviously, which then helps coal – fascinating.

FERRIS: Yeah.

KELLY: Have you found it requires a different mindset setting out on such an ambitious journey in an electric car?

FERRIS: It definitely requires a different mindset. I travel a lot more slowly. That’s a part of a battery-conservation thing. And when you stop, you need to stop for longer. And when you make those stops, you might stop a place that you didn’t expect. And it’s – I think it’s possible that because electric vehicles take longer to fuel, they could change the pace of travel, make it more relaxed with longer stops. And I think that’s an intriguing option. That’s the part of travelling along in an electric car I’ve really enjoyed.

KELLY: Well, David Ferris, we wish you luck with the many miles still to go.

Thanks for catching us up on the road trip so far.

FERRIS: Absolutely. It’s been fun to talk to you.

KELLY: That is David Ferris, reporter with E&E News and leader of E&E’s Electric Road Trip.

Copyright © 2019 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 October 8, 2019

Some Parts Of Trump’s Executive Order On Medicare Could Lead To Higher Costs

President Trump signed an executive order requiring changes to Medicare on Oct. 3. The order included some ideas that could raise costs for seniors, depending how they’re implemented.

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Vowing to protect Medicare with “every ounce of strength,” President Trump spoke last week to a cheering crowd in Florida. But his executive order released shortly afterward includes provisions that could significantly alter key pillars of the program by making it easier for beneficiaries and doctors to opt out.

The bottom line: The proposed changes might make it a bit simpler to find a doctor who takes new Medicare patients, but it could lead to higher costs for seniors and potentially expose some to surprise medical bills, a problem from which Medicare has traditionally protected consumers.

“Unless these policies are thought through very carefully, the potential for really bad unintended consequences is front and center,” says economist Stephen Zuckerman, vice president for health policy at the Urban Institute.

While the executive order spells out few details, it calls for the removal of “unnecessary barriers” to private contracting, which allows patients and doctors to negotiate their own deals outside of Medicare. It’s an approach long supported by some conservatives, but critics fear it would lead to higher costs for patients. The order also seeks to ease rules that affect beneficiaries who want to opt out of the hospital portion of Medicare, known as Part A.

Both ideas have a long history, with proponents and opponents duking it out since at least 1997, even spawning a tongue-in-cheek legislative proposal that year titled, in part, the “Buck Naked Act.” More on that later.

“For a long time, people who don’t want or don’t like the idea of social insurance have been trying to find ways to opt out of Medicare and doctors have been trying to find a way to opt out of Medicare payment,” says Timothy Jost, emeritus professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law in Virginia.

The specifics will not emerge until the Department of Health and Human Services writes the rules to implement the executive order, which could take six months or longer. In the meantime, here are a few things you should know about the possible Medicare changes.

What are the current rules about what doctors can charge in Medicare?

Right now, the vast majority of physicians agree to accept what Medicare pays them and not charge patients for the rest of the bill, a practice known as balance billing. Physicians (and hospitals) have complained that Medicare doesn’t pay enough, but most participate anyway. Still, there is wiggle room.

Medicare limits balance billing. Physicians can charge patients the difference between their bill and what Medicare allows, but those charges are limited to 9.25% above Medicare’s regular rates. But partly because of the paperwork hassles for all involved, only a small percentage of doctors choose this option.

Alternatively, physicians can “opt out” of Medicare and charge whatever they want. But they can’t change their mind and try to get Medicare payments again for at least two years. Fewer than 1% of the nation’s physicians have currently opted out.

What would the executive order change?

That’s hard to know.

“It could mean a lot of things,” says Joseph Antos at the American Enterprise Institute, including possibly letting seniors make a contract with an individual doctor or buy into something that isn’t traditional Medicare or the current private Medicare Advantage program. “Exactly what that looks like is not so obvious.”

Others say eventual rules might result in lifting the 9.25% cap on the amount doctors can balance-bill some patients. Or the rules around fully “opting out” of Medicare might ease so physicians would not have to divorce themselves from the program or could stay in for some patients, but not others. That could leave some patients liable for the entire bill, which might lead to confusion among Medicare beneficiaries, critics of such a plan suggest.

The result may be that “it opens the door to surprise medical billing if people sign a contract with a doctor without realizing what they’re doing,” says Jost.

Would patients get a bigger choice in physicians?

Proponents say allowing for more private contracts between patients and doctors would encourage doctors to accept more Medicare patients, partly because they could get higher payments. That was one argument made by supporters of several House and Senate bills in 2015 that included direct-contracting provisions. All failed, as did an earlier effort in the late 1990s backed by then-Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who argued such contracting would give seniors more freedom to select doctors.

Then-Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., opposed such direct contracting, arguing that patients had less power in negotiations than doctors. To make that point, he introduced the “No Private Contracts To Be Negotiated When the Patient Is Buck Naked Act of 1997.”

The bill was designed to illustrate how uneven the playing field is by prohibiting the discussion of or signing of private contracts at any time when “the patient is buck naked and the doctor is fully clothed (and conversely, to protect the rights of doctors, when the patient is fully clothed and the doctor is naked).” It, too, failed to pass.

Still, the current executive order might help counter a trend that “more physicians today are not taking new Medicare patients,” says Robert Moffit, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

It also might encourage boutique practices that operate outside of Medicare and are accessible primarily to the wealthy, says David Lipschutz, associate director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy.

“It is both a gift to the industry and to those beneficiaries who are well off,” he says. “It has questionable utility to the rest of us.”

KHN is a nonprofit, editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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Sports October 7, 2019

Houston Rockets Face Backlash After Manager Tweets Support For Hong Kong Protests

The NBA’s Houston Rockets are facing backlash in China after the team’s general manager tweeted out support for protests in Hong Kong.



MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

And the NBA is in the middle of a political firestorm. This started Friday with a tweet from the general manager of the Houston Rockets – a tweet supporting pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. That tweet drew heavy condemnation in China. Then the league issued its own statement, trying to smooth things over, and that has now cranked up criticism of the NBA here in the states. Well, here to fill us in on what is going on here is NPR’s senior business editor Uri Berliner.

Hey, Uri.

URI BERLINER, BYLINE: Hello, Mary Louise.

KELLY: What did this tweet say? Why has it been so controversial?

BERLINER: So Daryl Morey – let’s start with him – general manager of the Rockets, as you said, one of the most highly respected executives in the league. But in this context, what’s important is that the Rockets have really deep ties to China, a huge fan following. China’s first NBA star, Yao Ming, played for the Rockets.

KELLY: I remember.

BERLINER: Yeah. So last week, Morey tweeted an image reading, fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong. And China, obviously, is very sensitive about outside criticism of its policies, especially on democracy and human rights. China responded in a really harsh way.

KELLY: In a really harsh way meaning what? What has China said?

BERLINER: Well, the Chinese Basketball Association, whose president happens to be that Yao Ming, suspended its relationship with the Rockets. Tencent – that’s the big Chinese social media company – said it would stop streaming Rockets games. And the Chinese consulate in Houston put out a statement. It said, we’re deeply shocked by the erroneous comments on Hong Kong made by Mr. Daryl Morey.

KELLY: What about the NBA? I’ve said they put out a statement, trying to calm everything down. It sounds like the exact opposite has happened.

BERLINER: Yeah, the NBA issued one statement in English and another appeared in Mandarin on the league’s social media site there. In English, the statement is kind of vague. It says the league, quote, “supports individuals educating themselves and sharing their views on matters that are important to them.” The English version doesn’t explicitly criticize Morey but says it’s regrettable that Chinese were offended. The Chinese version, translated by my Mandarin-speaking colleagues here, strikes a very different tone. It says, quote, “we are extremely disappointed in the inappropriate views of Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey. He undoubtedly has deeply hurt the feelings of Chinese basketball fans.”

KELLY: Wow. That’s a totally different statement.

BERLINER: It sure sounds different, yeah.

KELLY: The league has said the English version is their official one?

BERLINER: They did say that, yes.

KELLY: OK. But the NBA is now coming under attack from all over the place on Twitter for – people are saying they caved to China.

BERLINER: All over – on the left, on the right. Senator Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, said the NBA is, quote, “shamefully retreating in pursuit of big money.” Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro says the U.S. shouldn’t allow American citizens to be bullied by an authoritarian government. Now, this isn’t likely to be over anytime soon. The NBA is playing preseason games in China this week, and it’ll be interesting to see how the commissioner, Adam Silver, reconciles the league’s business interests with its core values.

KELLY: Are the Rockets going to be there?

BERLINER: No.

KELLY: It’s so fascinating, Uri, because – correct me if I’m wrong here, but the NBA has been much more tolerant of – even encouraging of – players, managers, coaches to speak their mind, whether it’s social issues, political issues, compared to, say, baseball or American football.

BERLINER: Absolutely, that’s true. The NBA has supported its players and coaches when they express their views on things like police violence or guns or whether college athletes should be paid. Now, this situation with Daryl Morey’s tweet is really going to put the league’s commitment to free expression to the test. China is the NBA’s biggest international market. Hundreds of millions of people in China watch the NBA every season.

KELLY: Has Daryl Morey come out and said anything since the tweet?

BERLINER: He’s put out a new tweet kind of backtracking a little bit but not a full-on apology. It kind of reads like it might have been vetted by a bunch of lawyers.

KELLY: (Laughter) OK. NPR’s Uri Berliner.

Thanks, Uri.

BERLINER: You’re welcome.

Copyright © 2019 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 October 7, 2019

New Study Finds Parents Pay Kids An Allowance Of $30 A Week On Average

A recent study found that the average allowance for kids is $30 a week. NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly talks with certified public accountant Michael Eisenberg about that number.



MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

It happens every week in my household. My kids hunt me down, hold out their palms and ask, may I please get my allowance? They are supposed to do regular chores. I’m supposed to hand over pocket money, but how much? Well, a new study by professional CPAs asked parents and found $30 is the weekly average. Joining us now is Michael Eisenberg from the American Institute of CPAs, which commissioned the study.

Mr. Eisenberg, welcome.

MICHAEL EISENBERG: Thank you.

KELLY: First off, just your top line reaction to that number – 30 bucks a week. Did that strike you as high, low? What did you think?

EISENBERG: It was a shocker to me because my kids are a bit older, and they certainly didn’t get $30 a week when they were growing up. That’s for sure.

KELLY: So what number did your study find in terms of how many – what percentage of American parents do tie the chores to the allowance?

EISENBERG: It’s a pretty high percentage. I would say that more than half of the people surveyed were saying that yes, there should be chores associated with the money.

KELLY: Another number that jumped out at me was that just 3% said that their kid put anything aside for savings, and I guess that jumped out at me because one of the goals of giving children an allowance is supposed to be teaching them fiscal responsibility and the value of money. Is that a big disconnect there?

EISENBERG: I think it is a big disconnect, and you see that as the kids grow older. Whether they’re in high school or college or getting out of college, their knowledge of financial literacy is very low, unfortunately, because they’re not always getting this information at home. They’re certainly not getting it at schools, but the place to really start giving this information is with the parents at home.

KELLY: So do these findings point us toward some better way of handling allowance or some better way to take allowance out of the equation completely, some better way to teach kids about money?

EISENBERG: Well, you know, I think the other thing that parents can do is – and I know this is old-fashioned, but it’s certainly still true today, and it works – take the young person into the bank themselves. And if you set up a savings account with them and you make deposits into the child’s account, you can show them it’s getting bigger and bigger. They can see it in black and white, and that’s what happens when you start to save.

KELLY: Yeah. Did you get an allowance?

EISENBERG: I didn’t get an allowance, but as I got a little bit older in high school, I actually went to work with my dad on weekends. He had a dry cleaning store in New York at the time, and he would have me in the store working.

KELLY: Yeah.

EISENBERG: And my dad, you know, he gave me some money. That was part of it, but he also taught me the other social skills that somebody needs when they’re out in the real world.

KELLY: What about families who are not in a position financially to be able to give allowance of any amount? What is your advice to them?

EISENBERG: What that family can do is sit down and talk with the kids and show them. We have a little budget, and we’re spending money here and here and here. But the other thing the parents can do which I think is really important is – you start to talk to the children and say, you know what? Here it is in May or June, and, you know, we’re going to be going back to school in August or September, and you would love to have that new backpack. How about we sit down and we say we’re going to put away X amount of dollars each week or each month towards the purchase of that backpack or pair of sneakers or whatever it’s going to be? So the child has this goal that he or she are reaching for, and the parents are not overextending themselves and also trying to – and will accomplish getting something for the kid when they go back to school, which they would have done anyway.

KELLY: Yeah. It sounds like what you’re describing is – it’s not the amount that matters. It’s the talking to your kids so that they understand the value of money. That’s the important thing here.

EISENBERG: That is so true, and the parents shouldn’t be ashamed that they don’t know that much about finances to talk to their kids. They can talk in very simplistic terms to the child, and the child will get it.

KELLY: That is Michael Eisenberg. He is on the financial literacy commission of the American Institute of CPAs talking there about weekly allowance.

Michael Eisenberg, thank you.

EISENBERG: Thank you.

Copyright © 2019 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 October 7, 2019

Lawmakers Seek Protections For Workers Against Lung Damage Tied To Making Countertops

A colored X-ray of the lungs of a patient with silicosis, a type of pneumoconiosis. The yellow grainy masses in the lungs are areas of scarred tissue and inflammation.

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Lawmakers in Congress are calling on the Department of Labor to do more to protect workers who may be unsafely cutting “engineered stone” used for countertops.

The material contains high levels of the mineral silica, and breathing in silica dust is dangerous. While silica is found in natural stones, like granite, engineered stone made of quartz can be more than 90% silica.

This type of artificial stone has become increasingly popular among Americans for kitchen and bathroom countertops in recent years.

Even though adequate dust control can completely eliminate the risk of silica-related disease, at least 18 workers in California, Colorado, Texas and Washington who cut slabs of this material to order have recently suffered severe lung damage, according to physicians and public health officials.

Two of the workers died of their silicosis, a lung disease that can be progressive and has no treatment except for lung transplant. That has occupational safety experts worried about the nearly 100,000 people who work in this industry.

And it’s gotten the attention of the House Committee on Education and Labor. Its chairman, Bobby Scott, and Alma Adams, who chairs a subcommittee on workforce protections, have now written to Labor Department Secretary Eugene Scalia.

The lawmakers say the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration needs to create a new National Emphasis Program that will make it easier to for the agency to inspect workplaces that cut engineered stone, to make sure levels of silica dust are within allowable limits.

“We are calling on OSHA to issue, without delay, a new NEP that focuses on engineered stone fabrication establishments,” the lawmakers write. “Absent timely action, OSHA will be failing these stone finishing workers and failing in its mission.”

Without this new program, they say, “it is difficult for OSHA to enter a workplace without a worker complaint, injury, or referral.”

The two lawmakers also call on OSHA to work with the CDC and state health departments to improve surveillance for silica-related diseases. They say they want an update on the plans to protect workers in the engineered stone fabrication industry by Oct. 21.

A trade organization for makers of engineered stone, A.St.A. World-Wide, has told NPR that “these risks are not specific to engineered stone” and that dust related diseases “preceded the invention of engineered stone by many decades.”

The group said engineered stone surfaces “are totally safe in their fabrication and installation if it is performed according to the recommended practices,” and that manufacturers have been working to educate fabricators about these practices.

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Sports October 6, 2019

Simone Biles Has 2 More Signature Moves Under Her Name After World Championships

Simone Biles has two more signature moves named for her after she nailed them during performances at the world championships.

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After yet another standout performance, star gymnast Simone Biles can now add two more signature moves that bear her name to her already lengthy list of accomplishments.

In order for a gymnast to have a move named after them, they must submit it for consideration and successfully land it at a major competition, such as the world championships or the Olympics.

On Saturday, Biles began her floor routine at the 2019 gymnastic world championships in Stuttgart, Germany by landing a triple-double, composed of a double backflip with three twists. That move will now be known as the “Biles II.”

The gymnast also nailed her double-double dismount from the balance beam. The move, which consists of a double-twisting double backflip, will now be named the “Biles.”


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“I feel like I’m pretty pleased just because that’s how I train beam, and it finally felt good to go out there and hit a beam routine like I train because I feel like every time I go up to compete beam, I just bomb it,” Biles told the Olympic Channel. “So it felt really good to just nail it.”

Biles said she thinks that she can still do better, but was happy with what she accomplished at the tournament.

“My goal going into tonight was to not be great … it wasn’t to do great, but just to do well, and I feel like I accomplished that,” she said.

Biles has two other moves named after her, one on vault and the other on floor.

In addition to her individual success, Team USA came in first place in the qualifying standings with a total score of 174.205, followed by China and Russia.

Biles also came out on top in qualifying for all-around, beam and floor. She was second on vault and seventh on uneven bars.

At 22-years-old, Biles has 20 worlds medals, just three behind the record held by Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo. Her performance at this year’s world championships has the potential to make her the most decorated gymnast in the history of the competition.

More of Biles’ performance at the world competition can be seen here.


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Health October 6, 2019

Illinois Lawmaker Discusses New Planned Parenthood Facility

NPR’s Michel Martin speaks with Illinois State Rep. Katie Stuart about a secret Planned Parenthood built in her district that will expand reproductive health services in the area.



MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

One of the states that have passed new laws restricting access to abortion is Missouri. Parts of the law there have been blocked from going into effect by a federal judge. But other restrictions have prompted speculation that the state’s only abortion clinic in St. Louis may have to close soon. Meanwhile, just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis in Illinois, a large, new Planned Parenthood clinic has been under construction in secret for more than a year. Illinois passed a law earlier this year expanding abortion rights at a time when demand for the procedure in the state is surging.

Katie Stuart is an Illinois state representative. She co-sponsored the Reproductive Health Care Act (ph) and represents the district where the new Planned Parenthood facility was built. And she’s with us now from the studios of St. Louis Public Radio.

Representative Stuart, thank you so much for talking with us.

KATIE STUART: Thank you so much for having me.

MARTIN: First, can you just explain why Planned Parenthood wanted to keep construction of this facility a secret?

STUART: I think it’s because we know that there are protesters. For safety reasons, they don’t want people in the way of the construction process. They want to stay on schedule and on time to complete the medical facility they were working on.

MARTIN: And why this location? Because, as I understand it, it’s about 15 miles from the last remaining Planned Parenthood in Missouri and another abortion provider in Illinois. Why put this facility so close to the other two?

STUART: Well, I think that was a decision made based on the needs of the patients that Planned Parenthood serves. The location specifically is very close to interstate access, so it’s easy for people who unfortunately are needing to travel from our other neighboring states as well – not just Missouri but Indiana and all around. So I think it was really a matter of patient access.

MARTIN: And do you have a sense of how many women come from out-of-state to get service?

STUART: I know that the whole clinic has said that just over 50% of their patients come from out of state, and I think the bulk are from Missouri. I do think we could possibly see an upsurge. I think a lot of women are just confused, you know, day by day whether the St. Louis facility is actually open or not. So they’re just opting to come across to our state, where we have said, you can be guaranteed that you can make an appointment and see a doctor.

MARTIN: Critics are claiming that this facility is this – is a business move, really, and that the intention is to draw in more patients and make more money with a bigger facility. Can you speak to that?

STUART: Planned Parenthood provides access to cancer screenings and contraception and just – you know, it’s not only an abortion provider. It’s a full spectrum of medical care that’s vital for women, and it provides that at a cost that women can afford. So if that’s what they’re trying to do is to be able to serve more patients, I think that’s great.

MARTIN: And looking ahead, again, to the upcoming Supreme Court term, if you don’t mind – and forgive me if I’m asking you to speculate. Are you concerned that this court will restrict access to abortion around the country? I mean, that seems to be the issue here of whether this remains – access to abortion remains something that can be accessed nationwide as opposed to in certain states. Is that a concern of yours? Do you think that that’s what’s coming?

STUART: I do think it’s a possibility I do think that was a big reason why we had some – I don’t want to say trouble, but the Reproductive Health Act started early in our session but didn’t really pick up steam until the end, when we saw other states enacting these very restrictive policies. And I think a lot of the reason why we saw the necessity to get the Reproductive Health Act passed in Illinois was counter in place for if this court is to go more conservative.

MARTIN: That was Illinois state representative Katie Stuart. She represents Illinois’s 112th District and co-sponsored the Reproductive Health Care Act.

Representative Stuart, thank you so much for talking to us today.

STUART: Thank you.

Copyright © 2019 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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Sports October 5, 2019

Saturday Sports: Baseball Playoffs

Major League Baseball playoffs are underway. Additionally, one-game wild card playoffs can rob the season of drama. Scott Simon talks with ESPN’s Howard Bryant.



SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

It’s time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SIMON: Baseball playoffs have begun. What else could be going on in the world? And four out of the eight teams have won more than 100 games this season. So we’re pleased to be joined – rejoined by our friend Howard Bryant of ESPN, who returns to us after a few weeks of recuperation from surgery. Howard, so good to have you back.

HOWARD BRYANT: Hey, Scott. As I said, there’s a lot of ways to emulate Peyton Manning, but a…

SIMON: (Laughter).

BRYANT: …Having a double neck fusion is not one I recommend. But it’s really good to be back. Thank you.

SIMON: So how’s your forward pass now? I mean…

BRYANT: I can’t do anything until Thanksgiving. We’ll see.

SIMON: All right. Let’s start with the National League. The Nats came back against the Dodgers last night to tie the series 1-1. Cards and Braves are tied too after the Braves won yesterday. Looking like it might be a couple of good series.

BRYANT: Yeah. This is great. This is great stuff. I think that you’re looking at in the National League, where the Dodgers have been the best team all year. But the Nationals have been really good. They started out this season 19 and 31. No one thought that they were even going to come close to the playoffs. And they were pretty much the hottest team in baseball. Huge win last night for Stephen Strasburg to come in and calm things down, had a no hitter through five innings. And for him to bring the series back 1-1, the Nationals have two home games. And who knows, we could get one of the big upsets.

I mean, let’s not forget what the Dodgers are trying to do. They’re trying to go to the World Series for the third straight year. And, you know, you got to go back…

SIMON: Yeah.

BRYANT: …You got to go back to 1942 to ’44, the St. Louis Cardinals, to be the – to see the – the last National League team to win three straight pennants. So they’re on the verge of making some history. But the Nationals, who have never been to the World Series, whether in Washington or as the Montreal Expos. So they’re trying to stand in the way and do something special themselves.

SIMON: In the American League, the Yankees thumped the Twins yesterday to take a 1-0 lead. Lots of homers in that game, no surprise. The Astros are a game up on the Rays. Houston has been compared to the 1927 Yankee lineup.

BRYANT: They’re amazing. And not just the ’27 lineup, but they’ve also got the pitching. They’ve got Zack Greinke. They’ve got him in the trade in midseason now. You know, they’ve got Gerrit Cole. They’ve got Justin Verlander, who was terrific last night. They’ve got everything. They won the World Series. They beat the Dodgers in 2017, stumbled a little bit against the Red Sox in the playoffs last year. But this is a fantastic baseball team that pretty much does everything right. It’s very funny. I feel old watching them because their manager, AJ Hinch, I covered him with the Oakland A’s when he was a rookie back in 1998. They are one terrific team. And then, of course, they’re going to go up against one – the Tampa Bay Rays, who nobody thinks this is ever going to be…

SIMON: Yeah.

BRYANT: …Any good. But they’ve got no payroll. And they won 96 games. So hopefully they can make a series out of this. But the matchup that I think everyone’s looking for is going to be Yankees and Houston. These two teams, they’ve been the two best teams in the league all season. And that would be a pretty epic clash.

SIMON: Howard, as you know in these parlous times of much public controversy, I try and keep my opinion on the urgent matters of state to myself.

BRYANT: (Laughter).

SIMON: But I think, speaking as a citizen – OK? – I think China, Russia and Ukraine, if they’re listening – and we know they are – ought to investigate the scandal of one-game playoffs in Major League Baseball, the wild-card playoff game. I don’t like them at all.

BRYANT: You know, Scott, I lose this battle all the time, every time, and I’m sure when I go down to the World Series again this year. I talked to Commissioner Bud Selig when he was the commissioner. I talked to Rob Manfred about it and a lot of the baseball players, too. They seem to like this integrity of the regular season by forcing the wild-card teams to play one game. To me, I hate it. I don’t think that if you’re a baseball team and you go the entire 162 games and you win a playoff spot, you should play a series. You should play…

SIMON: Yeah.

BRYANT: …Best two out of three. Or you should play a best three out of five. You shouldn’t be the Oakland A’s, and you win 97 games back-to-back years. And you get nine innings. And you lose, and then that’s it. I just don’t think it’s very fair. I don’t like – you don’t like baseball being turned into the NCAA tournament.

But on the other hand, you have the old-school traditionalists say, listen; if you want to series, then let’s keep the regular season intact. And you go out and you win your division. But I really have to say I don’t like baseball being the only sport where you’re essentially penalized for making the playoffs.

SIMON: Yeah. I agree. ESPN’s Howard Bryant, good to have you back, my friend.

BRYANT: Thank you.

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Business October 4, 2019

What To Know About The Ukrainian Company At The Heart Of Trump’s Biden Allegations

Burisma Group, a Ukrainian energy company, keeps a low profile. This building, which houses the offices of a Burisma subsidiary, is located in a residential part of the country’s capital of Kyiv.

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Burisma Group, the Ukrainian energy company where former Vice President Joe Biden’s son once served on the board of directors, keeps a low profile. Although the company advertises itself as one of Ukraine’s largest private natural gas producers, it is almost impossible to find.

On its website, Burisma lists an address in Cyprus, and in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, the company’s offices are ensconced inside a nondescript, five-story business center in a residential neighborhood.

The company has come into focus following President Trump’s repeated requests to Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden for possible “corruption” during his five years as a Burisma director. Trump has also accused Joe Biden of having used his position as vice president to fire the Ukrainian prosecutor in charge of investigating Burisma.

The revelation last week that Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open an investigation into one of his top political rivals led Democratic lawmakers to launch a presidential impeachment inquiry.

In fact, Burisma and its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, did not get any exceptional treatment. The prosecutor Biden singled out in 2016, Viktor Shokin, failed to make any high-level corruption convictions — as did Yuriy Lutsenko, his successor. At the time, Ukrainian anti-corruption activists and other Western governments joined Biden in his criticism of Shokin, and Ukrainian prosecutors have said there is no indication that Hunter Biden did anything wrong.

On Friday, Ruslan Ryaboshapka, Ukraine’s newly appointed chief prosecutor, told reporters his office will review all investigations shelved by his predecessors, including those involving Burisma and Zlochevsky. Those investigations were into activities that took place before Hunter Biden joined the board in 2014.

“It’s more about ethics. If the son of a top politician receives some payments from a company for whatever reason, there’s always a conflict of interests,” says Alexander Paraschiy, the head of research at Concorde Capital, an investment firm in Kyiv.

Hunter Biden was paid about $50,000 a month as a Burisma director, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“It usually is a good investment for any Ukrainian businessman to hire some reputable guy or the relative of a reputable guy. It definitely paid off for Mr. Zlochevsky,” says Paraschiy.

Zlochevsky expanded Burisma at the same time when he was Ukraine’s environment minister, whose duties included issuing drilling licenses. After the bloody revolution on Kyiv’s streets five years ago, Zlochevsky — like disgraced President Viktor Yanukovych — fled Ukraine.

Amid the political turmoil in Kyiv, Russia annexed Crimea and fomented an armed insurgency in eastern Ukraine. But hopes were high that the new Ukrainian government would at least start uprooting endemic corruption.

Burisma faced a money-laundering investigation and questions over how it had obtained some of its licenses to drill for natural gas. In spring 2014, the company appointed Hunter Biden and a former Polish president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, to its board. Three years later, Burisma added Cofer Black, a former CIA official and foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, to the board.

“I believe the only reason Burisma and Zlochevsky were inviting people with such names was to whitewash their reputation and to present themselves as a company doing legitimate business in Ukraine,” says Daria Kaleniuk, head of the nongovernmental Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv.

The Zlocci shop features collections of flashy men’s shoes made from crocodile and caiman skins arranged on two polished marble tables. In 2015, investigative reporters traced the ownership of the business to Zlochevsky.

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As a privately owned company, Burisma is not required to publicize its annual results. In a recent presentation for investors, it says it more than doubled its hydrocarbon production since 2013 and paid more than $240 million in taxes over the previous two years.

In an upbeat 2017 promotional video, Burisma presents itself as an energy company looking to expand beyond Ukraine’s borders. Photographs of Hunter Biden and the other four board members appear over the company’s “key corporate governance principles: leadership, efficiency, remuneration and transparency.”

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But for a company with global ambitions, Burisma is hardly transparent in dealing with media. Reporters’ requests for comment are summarily ignored. Alexander Gorbunenko, the chief financial officer at Burisma when Hunter Biden served on the board, declined to comment to NPR, saying to do so would be “unethical.”

Zlochevsky’s whereabouts are unknown, and he and his company are invisible in Kyiv. One of the few signs of the elusive energy tycoon is a boutique on the ground floor of an upscale apartment building on the Dnieper River.

The Zlocci shop features collections of flashy men’s shoes made from crocodile and caiman skins arranged on two polished marble tables. A pair of low-cut crocodile boots goes for more than $3,700, while blue pony-hair sneakers cost almost $800. An attentive salesman offers a 30% discount and home delivery.

Even though the Zlocci website says the outfitter is Spanish, a journalistic investigation in 2015 traced the ownership to Zlochevsky. A promotional video — in Ukrainian — shows a model wearing Zlocci shoes in the port of Monaco, where Zlochevsky has been hosting an annual international energy conference since 2016.

“One of the reasons that I am proud to be a member of the board at Burisma is that I believe we are trying to figure out the way to create a radical change in the way we look at energy,” Hunter Biden says in undated remarks on the conference website.

Zlochevsky’s event has featured such speakers as Prince Albert II of Monaco; Romano Prodi, a former Italian prime minister; Joschka Fischer, a former German foreign minister; and other past and present luminaries from European and U.S. politics.

Zlochevsky also continues to buy favor with his support for the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.

Kurt Volker, who resigned last week as the Trump administration’s special representative for Ukraine, is a senior adviser to the Atlantic Council. Volker’s role in the administration’s communications with Ukraine’s new government is now under scrutiny in Congress.

In September 2018, Vadym Pozharskiy, an adviser to Burisma’s board, attended Atlantic Council events in New York and met with Volker and former State Department officials, according to the company’s website. Pozharskiy did not reply to repeated requests for comment by NPR.

Hunter Biden, for his part, no longer works for Burisma.

He left the company earlier this year as his father was launching his presidential campaign.

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Business October 4, 2019

News Roundup – Domestic

In another development in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, House investigators pressed the former envoy to Ukraine, Kurt D. Volker, regarding whether President Trump pressured the country’s president into investigating a political rival.

Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was hospitalized on Wednesday due to a heart issue as many of his Democratic rivals released third-quarter fundraising totals.

And the ACLU said it will challenge the Trump administration’s plans to collect and store more DNA from migrants who have come across the southern border.

We cover these stoies and more on the domestic portion of the News Roundup.

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