admin – Page 302 – AssociatedNews.info

Sports April 22, 2017

Saturday Sports: Serena Williams Is Pregnant

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Howard Bryant of ESPN.com and ESPN the Magazine about tennis and Serena Williams’ pregnancy.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

And it’s time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KELLY: Twenty weeks – that was the caption of a photo Serena Williams shared on Snapchat on Wednesday. Her spokeswoman confirmed the news that night. She’s pregnant. I’m joined now by Howard Bryant of ESPN and ESPN The Magazine. Hi there, Howard.

HOWARD BRYANT: Good morning, how are you?

KELLY: I am well, thank you. I’m sitting here doing some back of the envelope math. Serena – she won the Australian Open back in January, less than 20 weeks ago, which means when she won it – when she dominated it, by the way – she didn’t drop a set – she was two months pregnant.

BRYANT: She was, which was – technically, it was a doubles tournament.

(LAUGHTER)

KELLY: On one side of the net at least.

BRYANT: On one side of the net, yes. Who knew that that final between Venus and Serena was actually a family affair – mother, child and aunt.

KELLY: More than we knew. Yeah, I mean…

BRYANT: She’s incredible. It’s absolutely an incredible story for her. And once again, I think when we were on this program, Scott and I talked about this before the Australian Open began, and we took a lot – well, I took a lot of criticism for this because people were asking about what Serena’s prospects for the year were going to be. And I thought that we were going to see a major change. And we were criticized, at least the show was criticized, because she had gotten engaged. And we don’t do that for men.

We don’t say that because a man is being – is about to get married that, suddenly, their entire life is going to change. But if you watch Serena over the past couple of seasons, especially last year, she’d only played eight tournaments. She played the majors. She played the Olympics, and she played a couple of smaller tournaments. And then this year, she gets engaged, and now it turns out that she was pregnant. She has been signaling for a while that there’s a new chapter for her, that this is – that tennis is not forever for her. And she’s made it very clear in a lot of sort of vague ways. But if you’re paying attention to her, you can sort of understand where she’s coming from.

KELLY: OK. But I got to – I’m got a jump on you there because she is 35. As you said, you wouldn’t say this about a man. She’s going to have take maternity leave, but has she said she’s not coming back?

BRYANT: Well, she said she is planning on coming back. However, the difference is that Roger Federer has four children. He never took any time off. Of course, you have to take time off if you want to start a family, and that is the difference. But the one thing that’s been really interesting about Serena is that she hasn’t really hidden the fact that there’s life after tennis for her, and there’s life during tennis for her.

I mean, one of the interesting things for a female tennis player is – Victoria Azarenka is another example who actually did take time off. She had a baby boy, and she’s supposed to come back this year. At 35…

KELLY: Which is what Serena is, yeah.

BRYANT: Which is what Serena’s going to be 36 after having done everything that you could possibly do. Let’s have a little perspective about her, too. She’s been playing tennis since she was four years old. She turned pro in 1995. She’s been doing this her entire life. And my attitude has been that if, indeed, Serena comes back, then it would be an amazing story.

She could be like Kim Clijsters who had a baby at 23, 24 and came back and won two majors. She came back and won the U.S. Open back to back. But if she doesn’t, look at what Serena Williams has done for tennis and for the American story. She has given everybody everything they could ask for and more.

KELLY: We’ve just got a few seconds left. But in those few seconds, Howard, what’s this going to mean for the women’s tour? I mean, Serena has been the ticket – the people – the person people come to see.

BRYANT: Yeah, she’s the main draw, and that’s the big thing. Obviously, Maria Sharapova coming back from suspension – I think the WTA could use that. But let’s face it, both American tennis and the WTA has been dreading the day that Venus and Serena are no longer there because they are what makes the game go. But it’s a great sport.

KELLY: Yeah, we’ll see if there’s baby pics (ph) at the (unintelligible) in a few years. Howard Bryant…

BRYANT: Wouldn’t that be something?

KELLY: Yeah, it would be. Howard Bryant of ESPN, thank you.

BRYANT: Thank you.

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.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Entertainment April 21, 2017

Best of the Week: 'Captain Marvel' Got a Director, 'The Beguiled' Got a Trailer and More

The Important News

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck , The Mummy, I Love You Both, American Assassin, Wakefield and the video game Star Wars: Battlefront II.

TV Spots: Baywatch.

Behind the Scenes Videos: Han Solo Set Tour and Josh Brolin preparing for Deadpool 2.

Movie Clips:Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

Movie Pics: First look at the new A Star is Born and behind the scenes of Mission: Impossible 6.

Movie Posters:This week’s best new posters.

Fake Movie Posters: Fast 9.

Movie Poster Parodies: Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Mashups:Darth Vader watches the Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer, Batman and Superman watch the Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer and The Big Lebowski meets The Matrix.

Reworked Trailers: Star Wars: The Last Jedi in Lego, Justice League animated and The Silence of the Lambs as a romantic comedy.

Easter Eggs: Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story music Easter eggs.

Supercuts: Architecture in cinema.

Casting Renderings:Rob Liefeld draws Josh Brolin as Cable.

Our Features

Interview: Ben Wheatley on the origins and violence of Free Fire.

Comic Book Movie Guide: We suggested ways for readers to introduce their friends to Marvel comic books.

Home Viewing: Our guide to everything hitting VOD this week.

and

MORE FROM AROUND THE WEB:

ZergNet

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Business April 21, 2017

Episode 766: Georgetown, Louisiana, Part One

Enlarge this image

Healy Hall, the flagship building of Georgetown University’s main campus in Washington, DC.

MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images

There’s a running joke in Maringouin, Louisiana, a town of 1,100, that everyone is related. It’s funny because, as people in Maringouin will tell you, it’s true. Everyone calls each other ‘cuz’ or ‘cousin,’ and they mean it. People run into each other on the street, recognize a last name, start talking about people they know in common, then discover they’re related.

For a long time, no one knew exactly why. It wasn’t like there was a founding family that had moved there.

Maxine Crump, who grew up in Maringouin, always wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery. People in Maringouin were just… different from many of their neighbors. For one, there were a lot of black Catholics who didn’t speak any French.

“People used to say: You’re from the bayou area where a lot of people speak French. Do you? And it was like: No,” she’d say. “No, none of the black people speak French.” There were rumors and theories, but she never got an answer.

Then one day, Maxine got a call that answered her question about Maringouin’s past.

Today on the show, we tell the story of what happens when people in this little town in Louisiana figure out how they got to Louisiana. The answer put Maringouin and thousands of other people with roots in Maringouin, at the center of a fight over how to pay a very old and very complicated debt.

Music: “Lead Me Away” and “Bad Scene.” Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.

Subscribe to our show on iTunes or PocketCast.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Sports April 21, 2017

Soccer Team Bus Bombing Was Part Of Stock Option Plot, German Prosecutors Say

Enlarge this image

On Tuesday, police investigators work on a reconstruction of the April 11 bombing of the Borussia Dortmund team bus in Dortmund, Germany. Three bombs detonated as the bus was pulling away from a nearby hotel.

Lukas Schulze/Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Lukas Schulze/Getty Images

German federal prosecutors say the bombing of a soccer team’s bus in Dortmund, Germany, was carried out by a man apparently attempting to manipulate the team’s stock for profit. The 28-year-old man has been arrested and charged with attempted murder, among other things.

Three explosions went off near the Borussia Dortmund team bus on April 11, as it was pulling out of the hotel where the players were staying. One player was injured and needed surgery on his wrist.

Authorities say letters claiming responsibility for the blasts — and identifying the motivation as Islamic or right-wing extremism — appear to be specious.

Instead they say a man with German and Russian citizenship, identified only as Sergej W., planted the bombs, apparently to make money.

On April 11, before the blast, the suspect purchased a “put option” that allowed him to make a profit if Borussia Dortmund’s stock value fell. Put options are like short selling — the more value the stock lost, the more money he would make.

The Guardian notes Borussia Dortmund is the only professional soccer team in Germany that’s listed on the stock market. Most pro sports teams worldwide are privately owned.

The accused man was staying in the same hotel as the Borussia Dortmund team, the German federal prosecutor’s office said. He’d booked rooms at the hotel for two time periods, both of which spanned match days. When he arrived on April 9, he is said to have switched rooms to choose one with a view of the location of the attack.

Prosecutors accused Sergej W. of using an unknown explosive to target the bus.

If players had been seriously injured or killed, a “significant drop” in the team’s stock price would be expected, the prosecutor’s office says.

Instead, Bloomberg writes, the stock held steady. The options that the suspect purchased “give the right to sell Borussia Dortmund shares at 5.20 euros,” the financial news site writes, and his investment would pay off only if the value fell markedly below that.

“The shares closed at 5.61 euros that afternoon, shortly before the attack took place, and fell as low as 5.50 euros the next day,” Bloomberg reports. “The stock hasn’t traded below 5.20 euros since February.”

Prosecutors say three letters were found at the site of the blast, each claiming responsibility for the attack and citing radical Islamist motivations.

Islamic scholars have examined the letters and there is “considerable doubt” that they’re of radical Islamist origin, prosecutors say.

A right-wing extremist letter claiming responsibility for the attacks was sent to the press after the bombing, prosecutors say. They say it was filled with “contradictions and inconsistencies” and that there’s “no indication” it was sent by the suspect.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Health April 21, 2017

Republicans Take On Health Care, Again

House Republicans say they are putting the “finishing touches” on a new health care overhaul proposal. A previous effort fell apart.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

You know, Steve, as you said, we don’t know what French voters are going to do but President Trump seems to think that he knows what might happen. He tweeted this morning, as you said, that this attack is going to have a huge effect on this presidential campaign. So I want to bring NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith into the conversation here. And, Tam, what do you make of that from Trump?

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: You know, there’s a long-standing tradition of American presidents staying out of other country’s elections. One thing that I would note about this tweet from President Trump is that he doesn’t mention any candidate by name.

GREENE: Right.

KEITH: He isn’t explicitly saying who he thinks would benefit from this.

GREENE: Well, let’s turn to politics in this country. I mean, we have Republicans releasing a health care proposal. And I feel like I have said those words before because it’s happened before. President Trump is behind it and he said he would – he says he really never gave up on the last one that failed.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is a great bill. This is a great plan. And this will be great health care. It’s evolving, you know, there was never a give-up. The press sort of reported there was, like, a give-up. There’s no give-up, we started. Remember, it took Obamacare 17 months.

GREENE: Tam, wasn’t there a give-up?

KEITH: Well, we reported there was a give-up because the president said he was moving on. He said he was moving on to tax reform. And House Speaker Paul Ryan, at the time that this bill was pulled without a vote, said Obamacare is the law of the land for the foreseeable future. However, there have been a number of recent, like, bubbles, things that have bubbled up where Republicans in Congress or the White House have said, oh, it’s not really dead. It is totally not really dead.

We’re still working on it, we swear – like right before they went home for the congressional recess because there were going to be all of these town halls and they wanted to be able to say that they were working on something. Now, there’s some other deadline that’s coming up. And it’s, you know, sort of an artificial deadline but the 100 days mark in the Trump presidency is coming up at the end of next week.

GREENE: Right.

KEITH: The Trump administration is seemingly feeling some pressure there. And, you know, there are a lot of polls that are being done to mark that time. And there’s a new Politico Morning Consult poll that asked people to grade President Trump on various things, including health care. Only 9 percent of people would give him an A for how he’s handled health care.

GREENE: Only 9 percent. But, I mean, if he is hoping to get that grade up, you would think that the White House and Republican leaders think that there would be something different in this new bill that would bring some of those conservatives in the party to their side to support it. I mean, I know we haven’t seen any draft legislation yet but what could be different here?

KEITH: Yeah. There are some bullet points. And the basic idea here is that the Conservative Freedom Caucus has been negotiating with some members of the more moderate, what’s called a Tuesday Group, to make changes to the bill that died but didn’t totally die. And those changes would allow states to waive some of the requirements like covering various preexisting conditions and essential health benefits and some of these other things that would allow states to seek waivers.

The idea is that this would sort of split the difference. The challenge is that that is something that is – has been a hang-up for some Republicans in Congress. But the bigger hang-up for many moderates is Medicaid, that the repeal and replace legislation would ditch the expansion of Medicaid. And there are a lot of moderates who say that would simply hurt their constituents.

GREENE: Well, and speaking of deja vu…

KEITH: Yes.

GREENE: …There’s another deadline coming. And that is a deadline to keep the federal government funded. Could we be heading for another federal government shutdown?

KEITH: Yeah. So the hundred days mark also happens to be the day that the deadline for passing a – some sort of a stopgap spending measure to keep the government funded and open, you know, talk about deja vu, as you say. So going along for weeks now, it seemed like there was going to be – this was going to be a no-drama situation.

The appropriators, Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been working on this very quietly for weeks. Republican leaders didn’t want to push a fight on something like funding for the border wall that President Trump wants. Well, now all of a sudden, the White House is saying we need this border funding, we need this wall funding. And suddenly, it’s starting to look much more dramatic than it did even a couple of days ago.

GREENE: All right, lots to follow in Washington as well as Paris this morning. NPR’s White House correspondent Tamara Keith. Thanks so much, Tam.

KEITH: You’re welcome.

(SOUNDBITE OF TRENTEMOLLER SONG “CANDY TONGUE”)

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.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Entertainment April 20, 2017

Today in Movie Culture: 'Passengers' Fixed, 'Rogue One' and 'Inglourious Basterds' Parallels and More

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

Reworked Movie of the Day:

Nerdwriter’s latest video essay shows how rearranging the plot of Passengers makes it a better movie:

[embedded content]

Movie Comparison of the Day:

Couch Tomato shows us 24 reasons Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is like a remake of Inglourious Basterds:

[embedded content]

Cosplay of the Day:

Speaking of Rogue One, here’s an awesome cosplayer with a partially puppeteered K-2SO costume he made (via Fashionably Geek):

[embedded content]

Trailer Reaction of the Day:

Watch Batman and Superman discuss the trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi in the new Super Cafe cartoon:

[embedded content]

Remade Trailer of the Day:

Speaking of Batman in animated form, here’s a redo of the Justice League using footage from the old Super Friends cartoon:

[embedded content]

Vintage Image of the Day:

Jessica Lange, who turns 67 today, poses with a miniature version of her costar during the making of King Kong in 1976:

Actors in the Spotlight:

This British Film Institute video celebrates the supporting ensemble of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the careers the movie spawned:

[embedded content]

Craftwork of the Day:

For Fandor Keyframe, Philip Brubaker celebrates the work of focus pullers:

[embedded content]

Movie Trivia of the Day:

Did you see The Fate of the Furious? Think you know everything about it? Here’s some ScreenCrush trivia you might not know:

[embedded content]

Classic Trailer of the Day:

Today is the 40th anniversary of the release of Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. Watch the original trailer for the rom-com classic below.

[embedded content]

and

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Entertainment April 20, 2017

Les Amazones D'Afrique Envision A World Of Gender Equality

Enlarge this image

Les Amazones d’Afrique’s new album is called République Amazone.

Tiago Augusto/Courtesy of the artist

hide caption

toggle caption

Tiago Augusto/Courtesy of the artist

Les Amazones d’Afrique is a collective of female West African singers. They each have careers of their own, but came together to collaborate on République Amazone, an album that envisions a world of gender equality.

Even if you’ve never heard the voice of Rokia Koné, one of the artists featured on the album, you may recognize the searing, dry passion of a young diva from the West African sahel — savannah blues with a techno-pop makeover. This musical mashup of tradition and technology echoes the larger goal here: to make a big noise for women in a world run by men.

This album is not out to showcase individual talents. There are some stars involved, like Benin’s Grammy-winning Angélique Kidjo and Mariam of the Malian duo Amadou & Mariam. But the overall feeling here is plural: voices from different musical backgrounds not so much harmonizing as convening a rowdy town hall on the dance floor.

[embedded content]

YouTube

République Amazone draws from many genres, but adheres to none. Instruments, sounds and voices warble in and out of the mix. Most of the grooves are upbeat and clubby, but there are introspective moments, like on “La Dame Et Ses Valises” (“The Woman And Her Suitcases”), an elegant song by the Nigerian alternative-pop singer Nneka.

There’s a lot going on within this spirited collection of styles and agendas — maybe too much. But there’s no mistaking the talent and vision these spectacular vocalists share. Bring this party of musician-activists into your home and there’s a good chance you’ll want to get to know them individually. And that might be the biggest payoff of all.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Business April 20, 2017

Lawyer Behind West Virginia County Lawsuit Against Opioid Distributors

Pharmaceutical distributors — the middle men in the opioid epidemic — have already been paying out millions to federal and state law enforcement officials for the companies’ role in the crisis. But a new front in the legal battle against opioids has opened. One personal injury lawyer in small-town West Virginia has come up with a creative legal theory to go after these distributors so that small, ravaged communities can collect too.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

A lawyer in a small West Virginia town is taking on the wealthy middleman in the opioid crisis, the pharmaceutical distribution industry. It’s a $400 billion business that’s built on moving drugs from manufacturers to pharmacies, and these distributors are supposed to flag any unusually large orders of opioids.

Ailsa Chang of NPR’s PLANET MONEY podcast reports on a new spate of lawsuits in West Virginia that uses a creative legal theory against the distributors.

AILSA CHANG, BYLINE: In Cabell County, W.Va., a personal injury lawyer is going after Fortune 500 drug distribution companies like they were dilapidated buildings. Paul Farrell has declared these companies a public nuisance, and he’s hoping to make them pay billions of dollars to several counties. As he recalls it, the battle plan was hatched months ago at his dad’s house in Huntington at breakfast.

PAUL FARRELL: He’s a judge in town. But he puts on this apron, and he stands at the grill. And he cooks bacon and eggs, and it’s kind of a Sunday morning tradition for my family.

CHANG: And on this particular Sunday morning, the family’s just sitting around, talking about a news story about how drug distributors dumped truckloads of opioid pills into their small county for years without ever reporting suspicious orders as they’re supposed to. At one point, Farrell’s mom speaks up.

FARRELL: She made some offhand comment to the rest of the family that somebody in our community should do something about it. And that’s when my – one of my brothers looked at me and said, isn’t that what you do for a living? And everybody kind of looked at me. And I said, well, what am I supposed to do?

CHANG: What was he supposed to do? The Drug Enforcement Administration was already fining these distributors millions of dollars. The state attorney general extracted millions more, but very little of that money was filtering down to the counties most devastated by the opioid epidemic, counties still struggling to pay for jails, hospitals, police and recovery programs. So Farrell wanted to figure out a way his county could sue these companies directly. That’s when he started flipping through some books he keeps mostly for display behind the reception desk at his law office. It’s the West Virginia Code.

FARRELL: Then I get to one particular statue, and it has a simple heading and one sentence.

CHANG: What was the sentence?

FARRELL: And the sentence was, the West Virginia Legislature hereby gives authority to the county commission to eliminate hazards to public health and safety and to abate or cause to be abated public nuisances. It was pow. It hit me right in the nose. This is exactly what I need.

CHANG: Pow.

FARRELL: Pow.

CHANG: Public nuisance. Farrell starts pitching this idea around, and one night he’s explaining to Kent Carper, a county commissioner in Kanawha County, how he’s going to use the public nuisance law in the opioid fight.

KENT CARPER: The interesting thing about that is, I helped write this statute.

CHANG: Oh.

Kent Carper helped write the state public nuisance law about 20 years ago to go after what he calls illegal dumps.

CARPER: Where people would have a dump in their backyard and just have it piled up with trash 12 feet high, tires, refrigerators.

CHANG: After illegal dumps, he used the statute to close down unsightly strip clubs and then meth houses. So when Farrell suggested using the statute against opioids, Carper said it was like a bell went off in his head.

CARPER: They had no idea that I had been involved in this statute so intensely. So when he started talking about the statute, he starts talking about it, and I’m going like, yeah. I love it when people tell me I’m right.

CHANG: (Laughter).

CARPER: So I was very receptive to that. I’m thinking, how clever that is.

CHANG: Farrell has now filed these public nuisance suits for seven counties along the coal belt, the areas hardest hit by opioids. Right now the distributors are trying to get these suits dismissed. They say they’re just scapegoats, that a lot of other people are in the supply chain, and they are not the ones who actually put the pills into the hands of addicts. John Parker’s the spokesman at the trade association for drug distributors.

JOHN PARKER: Distributors don’t write prescriptions. We don’t dispense medicines to patients, and we don’t regulate the practice of medicine or pharmacy in any way.

CHANG: The next three months will determine whether Farrell’s strategy will live or die.

FARRELL: So what’s happened now is I’ve penetrated the lines. And they’ve circled the wagons, and they’re going to do their best to try to eliminate me.

CHANG: And if they don’t, Farrell says he is ready to replicate his battle plan in other counties across the country. Ailsa Chang, 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.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Health April 20, 2017