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Business September 15, 2019

United Auto Workers Votes For Nationwide Strike Against GM

Tens of thousands of members of the United Auto Workers have voted to go on strike against General Motors. The action could shut down plants nationwide.



SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:

The United Auto Workers union has told more than 49,000 General Motors workers nationwide to walk off the job just before midnight tonight Eastern Time. That’s after the union failed to reach a new deal on a new four-year contract with GM. Michigan Radio’s Tracy Samilton is here to tell us more about it.

Welcome, Tracy.

TRACY SAMILTON, BYLINE: Thank you. Good to be here.

MCCAMMON: And you’ve been here covering these talks between GM and the UAW. How did we get to the point of a strike being just hours away?

SAMILTON: Well, I think this strike has been in the works for some time, especially after GM last year announced it was closing four of its U.S. plants and transferring the workers to other plants and after the UAW increased strike pay in March. And there are a lot more issues beside the plant closings. And the union and GM are really far apart on the – things like wage and profit sharing, health care benefits, permanent jobs for GM’s temporary workers. And we’ve got – at the press conference today, UAW Vice President Terry Dittes said this is something that they just could not get a contract in time. And here he is at the press conference.

(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)

TERRY DITTES: We do not take this lightly. This is our last resort. It represents great sacrifice and great courage on the part of our members and all of us.

MCCAMMON: And, Tracy, assuming that there is no deal before midnight tonight, what would a strike mean?

SAMILTON: Well, 49,000-plus GM workers walking off the job and then basically living on strike pay, which is a lot less than their usual paycheck, and then all of GM’s factory production coming to a halt. It’s probably going to be a short strike. But if it’s protracted, you know, it could be a really big problem for General Motors.

MCCAMMON: And even before the strike announcement, the UAW has been in the news a lot recently. Tell us what else is going on with the union.

SAMILTON: Yeah. That’s kind of like – the only thing you can say about that is oy. Four years ago, the FBI arrested a Fiat Chrysler official who created false tax returns to help some UAW officials to hide bribes. And since then, there have been four UAW officials admitting to taking bribes or kickbacks. And then the FBI recently raided the home of the union’s president, Gary Jones, and the home of the former president, Dennis Williams. So this is a really, really big deal.

MCCAMMON: And very briefly, Tracy, how does that play into this larger labor dispute?

SAMILTON: It is casting a big shadow over the talks and the strike. You know, the UAW says, oh, the rank and file are just focused on getting a good contract. But really, workers are – they’re watching this just as we are, and it may, in fact, make them not trust that whatever deal they do get is a good one.

MCCAMMON: All right. That’s Michigan Radio’s Tracy Samilton.

Tracy, thank you.

SAMILTON: Good to be here.

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 September 15, 2019

Protests Against Ban On Women At Men’s Soccer Games In Iran

NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with former Iranian soccer coach Katayoun Khosrowyar about Sahar Khodayari, a young woman who died after trying to watch a stadium soccer game in Iran.



LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Women in Iran are prohibited from attending men’s soccer games in the national stadium. To get around that, some women dress up as men to go. They risk arrest and worse. Last week, Sahar Khodayari was sentenced to six months in prison for attending a men’s game. At the court, she then set herself on fire in protest and she died. Her death has now sparked worldwide outrage, with calls on FIFA, the sport’s governing body, to intervene. Activists have used the hashtag #bluegirl on Twitter, the color of Khodayari’s favorite Iranian team. That includes Kat Khosrowyar, former coach to Iran’s national under-19 women’s team. She’s now head coach at Seattle’s Reign Academy and she joins us now on the line. Thank you so much.

KATAYOUN KHOSROWYAR: Thank you, Lulu. It’s an honor to be here today.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Why do you think this prompted such a huge outcry and response?

KHOSROWYAR: This has never happened before. I mean, I’ve lived in Iran since 2005. It’s only been a few months that I’ve moved back to the U.S. And, you know, growing up there, there was no women’s soccer. So I helped, you know, pick up and create that platform for women. For me, this is like something that is, you know, completely outrageous – to hear that something so bad has happened to, you know, a fan – a woman who was a huge soccer fan. You know, because I was there for 15 years, and I’ve seen how soccer is ingrained in our DNA. So this has been a really unfortunate event and it’s very difficult to cope with.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Kat, Iran isn’t a hyper-segregated society. Men and women work together. They socialize and mix in public life. So why do authorities separate men and women in stadiums?

KHOSROWYAR: This is a very good question. It’s a very, very tricky question, as well, because I still don’t know the answers to that. And I don’t know the answer because of this specific stadium – Azadi Stadium is in the capital of Tehran. It holds 100,000 people. It has a lot of security. And I think what is going through, you know, their head is that they don’t know how to, you know, protect the women that go in there with, you know, 100,000 men all over the place. But if you go to, like, the other big cities of Iran, if you go, like, with other sports, there is no problem with it.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: FIFA President Gianni Infantino has previously urged Iranian authorities to take “concrete steps” for women to attend games. Are authorities likely to respond to pressure from FIFA?

KHOSROWYAR: The authorities are responding. I think the government does want this to happen, it just takes time. There has been a lot of talk for the past few years, they just want to test it. For example, last year, with my national team, we were able to go twice, which was very historic. So we only thought that that was going to continue. But the government needs to facilitate opening the stadium for women and, you know, FIFA has demanded it. I do, you know, hope the situation gets resolved quickly for women to come watch their favorite team play and support them.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You’ve seen the hashtag #bluegirl trending on Twitter. You asked in a tweet what sports fans could do to support female soccer fans in Iran. Do you think fans can actually change things?

KHOSROWYAR: Fans are the change-makers in the country. You know, soccer is the national sport. I think that this has to somehow evolve into getting more women involved and men have to, you know, support this cause because we do need, you know, their help. We do need the fact that they’ve been, you know, working in soccer for a much longer time than we have to get involved in helping us progress. So I think men need to either come together to, like, help us or, you know, it’s just going to continue the way it is. And men have a huge role – bigger role than us to help facilitate what what happens next.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That’s Kat Khosrowyar, head coach at Seattle’s Reign Academy. Thank you so much.

KHOSROWYAR: Thank you, Lulu, for having me.

(SOUNDBITE OF HOMAYOUN SHAJARIAN’S “LIBERATION: TASNIF ON KHAYAM QUATRAIN”)

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 September 15, 2019

Understanding Surprise Medical Bills Legislation

There’s legislation in Congress to curb surprise medical billing. NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with Emmarie Huetteman of Kaiser Health News.



LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Maybe this has happened to you or someone you love. You go to the hospital. You have a procedure done. Then comes a nasty surprise – a medical bill for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars not covered by insurance. Now legislation in the House and Senate is inching forward that would roll back that practice, but it’s faced a lot of resistance and millions of dollars in advertising and lobbying. Who’s responsible? Emmarie Huetteman of Kaiser Health News joins me now to explain.

Good morning.

EMMARIE HUETTEMAN: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So we’ve heard about these so-called surprise bills before, but briefly explain to us what is actually going on here. The official term is balance billing, right?

HUETTEMAN: That’s correct. So what’s happening is, in many parts across the country that haven’t banned this yet, patients get a bill that is the difference between what their doctor charged and what the insurance paid. And in many cases, that’s a huge amount of money, and it’s not what people expected to pay.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: How is this legislation we mentioned designed to help fix that problem?

HUETTEMAN: So the legislation that’s being considered right now looks at a practice called benchmarking to try and pay these surprise bills. Benchmarking means that an insurance company would pay a provider basically a fee based on the average of what other providers in the area had been paid for that service. There are a lot of groups that say this is not the right way to go – doctors in particular. They’re worried that they’re going to end up with depressed fees that make it hard for them to continue to cover their administrative and other costs.

And they favor a method called arbitration. Arbitration would basically look like, you know, the provider would offer their quote for what they think they should be paid for the procedure, and the insurance company would offer their quote for what they think they should pay for the procedure. And a third party would mediate, look at the options and say, OK, I select yours. And hey, loser, you get to pay the fees of arbitration. It’s an interesting process. People criticize it by saying this is not going to make things less complex, but it is the argument being put forward by doctors in particular.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I was surprised to learn that private equity firms are behind some of this lobbying, too. Explain their role here.

HUETTEMAN: So private equity firms come into the picture because there are at least a few of them that own physician staffing companies. Now, a lot of people don’t really know what a physician staffing company is.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I have to say I hadn’t heard of it.

HUETTEMAN: Not surprising. Basically, a company will hire a doctor, and then you get hired out to hospitals, and they help you with a lot of the administrative tasks that really, like, take up a lot of doctors’ time. These groups are owned by private equity in many cases. Some of the biggest ones are that provide a lot of the emergency room doctors in this country, for instance. And so you see those physician staffing groups really pushing back against this legislation in Congress right now. And you have to look at it and say, you’re owned by private equity, which, ultimately, you’re interested in profits…

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Profit.

HUETTEMAN: …For your investors. Yeah.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And you cite, actually, something very interesting. Research from 2017 shows that when a physician staffing company owned by private equity entered a market, out-of-network billing rates went up between 81 and 90%. And when you see other groups working with a hospital, rates increased by 33 percentage points, which sort of suggests that these groups coming in are going to naturally raise costs. And maybe the pushback isn’t so much about how much these fees are, but more about, actually, these private equity firms.

HUETTEMAN: It’s possible. At the very least, they’re involved in this fight, and the fight has been a deep-pocketed fight, let’s say. There’s a lot of money being thrown around, and it makes sense that some of that money would be coming from these groups that have a lot to lose.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It would seem like an easy win for legislators to say, people don’t want bills; people don’t want surprise bills. Why isn’t this getting more traction?

HUETTEMAN: You’re right to ask. And even though there are Democrats and Republicans who agree that surprise billing should be fixed, as I said, there was a lot of money that’s been thrown around recently into attack ads. There’s a lot of lobbyists wandering Capitol Hill and a lot of doctors wandering Capitol Hill. And even though it’s the year before the election, it’s close enough to Election Day that a lot of members of Congress are worried about taking a hard vote.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That’s Emmarie Huetteman of Kaiser Health News. Thank you very much.

HUETTEMAN: 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 September 14, 2019

Not My Job: We Quiz WNBA Star Tina Charles, A Former UConn Husky, On Huskies

New York Liberty's Tina Charles plays in a WNBA basketball game on Aug. 12, 2018 in New York.

Gregory Payan/AP

Tina Charles has won two Olympic golds, the WNBA Rookie of the Year and MVP awards, and now is the starting center for the New York Liberty.

As a University of Connecticut alum, she’s a proud Husky, so we’ll ask her three questions about actual huskies — you know, the dogs that pull sleds through the snow.

Click the audio link above to find out how she does.

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Business September 13, 2019

Appeals Court Reinstates Lawsuit Against Fox News Over Seth Rich Story

A federal appeals court is allowing a lawsuit by Seth Rich’s parents against Fox News and two other defendants to proceed.

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Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

A federal appeals court Friday reinstated a lawsuit against Fox News and two other defendants over its coverage of the death of Seth Rich, a 27-year-old Democratic Party aide who was murdered in July 2016.

The suit was filed by Rich’s parents over a Fox News story from May 2017. The story reported that Rich had been linked to the leak of thousands of Democratic Party emails to WikiLeaks and suggested his death might be related to the release of those emails. The police department in Washington, D.C., believes Rich’s shooting death was the result of a botched robbery. Fox retracted its story a week later, saying “the article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all of our reporting.”

The suit by Seth Rich’s parents, Joel and Mary Rich, was dismissed last year by Judge George B. Daniels, of the Southern District of New York. Now, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York has overturned that ruling on the suit surrounding Fox News’ reporting about Rich’s death.

The Riches have sued Fox News and Malia Zimmerman, the reporter on the story, and Ed Butowsky, a Texas investment manager and former unpaid Fox News commentator, for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Lenny Gail, an attorney for the Riches, said Friday’s decision “clears the way for a thorough investigation into the facts. We will now obtain documents from Fox News and other parties and take testimony under oath from those involved.”

Fox News, in a statement, said that “while we extend the Rich family our deepest condolences for their loss, we believe that discovery will demonstrate that FOX News did not engage in conduct that will support the Riches’ claims. We will be evaluating our next legal steps.”

In a statement, Joel and Mary Rich said, “We would not wish what we have experienced upon any other parent – anywhere. We appreciate the appellate court’s ruling and look forward to continuing to pursue justice.”

Editor’s note: Ed Butowsky has filed a defamation suit against NPR and NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik for their reporting on Fox News’ story about Seth Rich. NPR has said it stands by its reporting and will defend the case vigorously.

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Health September 12, 2019

Democratic Debate Exposes Deep Divides Among Candidates Over Health Care

Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden debate onstage during the Democratic presidential debate at Texas Southern University on Thursday in Houston.

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Once again, health care took up a large chunk of a Democratic primary debate. Once again, there were fights over costs, coverage and whether the party is growing too extreme.

But this time, all of the front-runners were onstage together, providing the first opportunity for all of them to take direct aim at each other and their vastly differing health care plans. It made for some heated exchanges, putting “Medicare for All” supporters on defense. But it also showed clearly that some candidates are cautious not to criticize others’ proposals too harshly.

Thursday night’s debate featured two stalwart supporters of the single-payer “Medicare for All” health care plan: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who introduced the bill, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, one of the bill’s co-sponsors. And from the start, former Vice President Joe Biden came out swinging at them.

“How are we going to pay for it? I want to hear tonight how that’s happening,” he said, making the case that his public option proposal would cost less.

One of the main arguments against “Medicare for All” is that it would mean much higher government spending. Supporters counter that it would lead to overall less health care spending than the current system. (Studies have been mixed on this question of whether costs would be higher or lower.)

What would change, they argue, is that the spending would be done by the government, with taxpayer dollars, rather than via copays and premiums, for example.

Warren drove at this point when moderator George Stephanopoulos asked about the potential for higher taxes for everyday Americans. In her answer, she did not give a flat yes or no — and avoided giving an endlessly sound-bite-able answer about the potential for higher taxes for everyday Americans.

“Instead of paying premiums into insurance companies and then having insurance companies build their profits by saying no to coverage, we are going to do this by saying everyone is covered by ‘Medicare for All,’ every health care provider is covered,” she said. “And the only question here in terms of difference is where to send the bill.”

There are also many Democrats, such as Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who stress that “Medicare for All” would virtually eliminate private insurance.

“While Bernie wrote the bill, I read the bill,” she said. “And on Page 8 of the bill, it says that we will no longer have private insurance as we know it. And that means that 149 million Americans will no longer be able to have their current insurance in four years.”

Polling has shown that many Americans don’t understand that private insurance would largely disappear under “Medicare for All”; polling has also shown that the idea of eliminating private insurance makes the plan much less popular.

Altogether, eight candidates on Thursday’s stage support either a public option or some other sort of overhaul that would still maintain a substantial role for private insurance.

Polling shows that a public option is far more popular than single-payer health care. A July NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found that 90% of Democrats, as well as 70% of all adults, support a public option. Meanwhile, 64% of Democrats (and 41% of all adults) support “Medicare for All.”

That’s less support, but still a majority of Democrats support Sanders’ single-payer plan, some of them passionately.

Perhaps with that in mind, even candidates who support other plans refrained from attacking the proposal — or its author — too hard.

For example, while Klobuchar slammed “Medicare for All,” she made sure to praise Sanders himself for working with her on trying to bring down prescription drug prices.

California Sen. Kamala Harris, who co-sponsored Sanders’ bill, sold her plan as a ” ‘Medicare for All’ plan,” though it is substantially different from what Sanders has proposed. (It would, for example, retain a significant role for private insurance.) She also took care to praise Sanders, even while she supports a different plan.

“I want to give credit to Bernie,” she said. “Take credit, Bernie. You know, you brought us this far in ‘Medicare for All.’ “

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who also co-sponsored Sanders’ plan, said Thursday, “I believe in ‘Medicare for All,’ ” but he also proposed a more incremental approach. Indeed, in past debates, when asked, he did not indicate that he would be willing to get rid of private insurance, which Sanders’ bill would largely do.

In responding to Biden’s attacks, Warren made sure to praise former President Barack Obama, saying, “We all owe huge debt to President Obama” for the Affordable Care Act. Likewise, Biden hugged Obama tightly in promoting his own plan, saying that it would build on Obamacare.

Obamacare is popular among Democrats — 84% have a favorable view of it — and it has grown in popularity among all Americans since Donald Trump’s election. However, all Democrats in this field agree that it needs an overhaul. The balancing act that many are trying to do is pushing their own plans without slamming others’ too hard.

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Business September 12, 2019

MIT To Settle Suit Alleging It Hurt Workers In 401(k) Plan

MIT is agreeing to settle a lawsuit that claimed it allowed its workers to be hit with big fees in their retirement accounts.

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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has reached an agreement in principle to settle a lawsuit that alleged that MIT, one of the nation’s most prestigious universities, hurt workers in its retirement plan by engaging in an improper relationship with the financial firm Fidelity Investments.

Just days ahead of the start of the trial, MIT and the plaintiffs said in a court filing that they had reached the deal and are asking the court for 45 days in order for the details to be finalized and prepared for consideration by the court.

The lawsuit alleged that MIT went against the advice of its own consultants and allowed Fidelity to pack the university’s retirement plan with high-fee investment funds that ended up costing employees tens of millions of dollars. In return, the lawsuit said, MIT leveraged millions of dollars in donations from Fidelity.

MIT and Fidelity have said the allegations have no merit.

The lawsuit said Fidelity executives took MIT officials on lavish outings, including an NBA Finals game. Court documents show that in 2015, when the university considered other options, an MIT dean emailed the head of an MIT committee overseeing the plan: “If we’re not switching to Vanguard or TIAA Cref, I am going to expect something big and good coming to MIT,” according to the court records.

Jerry Schlichter, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said that soon afterwards, “Fidelity donated $5 million to MIT.”

In a court filing, MIT said the dean who wrote that email “never had any fiduciary responsibility for the plan.”

In a letter to faculty and staff Thursday, MIT Provost Martin Schmidt wrote: “Although MIT believes firmly that it has managed the 401(k) Plan in careful compliance with the law and in the best interests of its participants, the continued cost and distraction of litigation are likely to be significant. In order to avoid that continued drain of MIT resources, we have reached an agreement to settle the dispute.”

Schlichter has made a career of suing big company and university retirement plans, claiming they charge excessive fees and hurt workers. He sues to try to force the companies and universities to offer better plans. That has earned him the nickname “the 401(k) Lone Ranger.”

Given that history, assuming the settlement deal holds together and is approved by the court, it could include agreements from the university to change the way it manages its retirement plan.

In his letter, MIT’s Schmidt says, “We are proud of the retirement benefits offered to our employees and the processes in place to oversee those benefits. MIT is unique among our peers in offering employees both a supplemental 401(k) plan, with an MIT contribution match up to the first 5% of an employee’s pay, and a traditional defined-benefit pension plan, paid in full by the Institute.”

Fidelity, which is a financial supporter of NPR, is not named in the case. The company has said that the assertions in the lawsuit “are completely fictional and wholly irresponsible.”

Experts say lawsuits like this one have made big companies and universities much more aware of their legal duty to protect their workers’ interests in retirement accounts. They say that has helped reduce fees that workers pay in retirement plans at the largest companies. But they say many smaller organizations still have very high fees and bad investment options.

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Business September 11, 2019

Female CEOs Blast ‘Forbes’ List Of Innovative Leaders That Includes Only One Woman

Anne Wojcicki, chief executive officer and co-founder of 23andMe, speaks during the TechCrunch Disrupt 2018 summit in San Francisco in September 2018.

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“We blew it.”

That was Forbes editor Randall Lane’s assessment on Twitter after his publication released a list of America’s 100 most innovative leaders that included only a single woman.

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and Tesla’s Elon Musk tied for the top spot. The only woman on the list, Barbara Rentler, CEO of Ross Stores, clocked in at 75.

The reaction to the glaring lack of women was swift and sharp.

1 woman + 99 men

Since @Forbes failed to include the incredible women changing the world every single day, reply to this with the most innovative women you knowhttps://t.co/gKwJ1vxkHO

— Reshma Saujani (@reshmasaujani) September 9, 2019

Replies to Resma Saujani’s tweet include politician Stacey Abrams, makeup brand Glossier founder Emily Weiss, Kimberly Bryant of Black Girls Code, Refugee Coffee Company CEO Kitti Murray, Spanx inventor Sara Blakely, Rihanna and Serena Williams.

And in case Forbes needed more names, dozens of female CEOs — 46 at last count, including designer Stella McCartney; Mariam Naficy, founder and CEO of Minted; and Sarah Leary, co-founder of NextDoor — signed an open letter to Forbes. Written by journalist Diana Kapp, author of the book Girls Who Run The World, the letter calls on the magazine to “overhaul the criteria that determines who makes the cut.”

Anne Wojcicki, CEO and co-founder of genetic testing company 23andMe, signed Kapp’s letter in hopes that it would encourage better representation.

“People are just acutely aware now of the importance of diversity,” Wojcicki tells All Things Considered. “And when something is so blatantly missing — a whole population — it’s really surfaced and it comes to the attention of everyone now.”

And she says such titles aren’t just about bragging rights.

“People do think about these lists,” she says. “They go online and think about board members or advisers and who it is that can help solve a problem. I think there are real ripple effects when this kind of press dominates. It’s not just one article. It’s how in general women are perceived.”

Wojcicki says she’s glad Forbes has admitted fault and is forming a task force to make sure this mistake isn’t repeated. But at its root, she sees this as a problem with oversight.

“It’s kind of shocking that this actually got through,” she says. “I would love to see their editorial policy of diversity represented at the top when they’re starting to think about ‘what are the lists we’re going to put out?'”

When asked who she would put on that list of innovative leaders, she immediately mentioned her sister, Susan Wojcicki, a co-founder of Google and current CEO of YouTube.

“There’s just a tremendous number of women out there who are phenomenal leaders.”

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Sports September 11, 2019

New England Patriots Antonio Brown Accused Of Rape In A Lawsuit

New England Patriots wide receiver Antonio Brown has been accused of rape in a federal lawsuit in Florida.



AILSA CHANG, HOST:

New England Patriots wide receiver Antonio Brown has been accused of rape in a federal lawsuit in Florida. From member station WGBH in Boston, Esteban Bustillos has more.

ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS, BYLINE: Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is known for his short, to-the-point answers when it comes to dealing with the press. Earlier today, the coach held his first media availability since the story broke last night. Star receiver Antonio Brown, who the team acquired earlier this week, is being accused of raping his former trainer in a civil lawsuit. Belichick answers were even more terse than usual.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Bill, were you aware of the lawsuit when you signed Antonio Brown?

BILL BELICHICK: I’m not going to be expanding on the statements that have already been given.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Don’t you think the fans deserve to hear a little more from on…

BELICHICK: When we know more, we’ll say more.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: …Such a major development that, you know, could impact the team?

BELICHICK: Yeah, I just said that.

BUSTILLOS: The whole thing lasted less than four minutes. It’s the latest troubling incident for a team that prides itself on toning down on distractions and doing your job. Last month, safety Patrick Chung was indicted on charges of cocaine possession in New Hampshire. And earlier this year, Patriots owner Robert Kraft was charged with soliciting prostitution in South Florida.

The details in this case, which is civil and not criminal, are disturbing. Brown’s former trainer, Britney Taylor, claims he sexually assaulted her twice in 2017 and raped her last year. The two first met as college students at Central Michigan University. Brown hasn’t spoken yet, but earlier today on ESPN, Brown’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, came to his client’s defense.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DREW ROSENHAUS: These allegations are false. He denies every one of them.

BUSTILLOS: What happens now is murky. In a statement, the Patriots said the league is investigating the allegations. And the Washington Post reports that the NFL is considering placing Brown on the commissioner’s exempt list, which would essentially put him on paid leave. A spokesperson for the NFL Players Association wouldn’t comment on the case but said that a player can challenge that designation. Brown did practice with the team for the first time today, but Bill Belichick was mum with reporters on if he’ll suit up for the next game.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: Are you preparing for him to play on Sunday?

BELICHICK: We’re taking it one day at a time.

BUSTILLOS: The Patriots will head to Miami for Sunday’s game against the Dolphins.

For NPR News, I’m Esteban Bustillos in Boston.

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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