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Entertainment August 15, 2016

Today in Movie Culture: Kylo Ren Watches 'Rogue One,' Kyle Chandler as Cable in 'Deadpool 2' and More

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

Trailer Reaction of the Day:

Watch Kylo Ren watching and commenting on the new Rogue One: A Star Wars Story trailer (via /Film):

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Casting Interpretation of the Day:

Kyle Chandler is rumored to be the choice to play Cable in Deadpool 2, so BossLogic has drawn up what that could look like (via Twitter):

Fan Art of the Day:

Watch artist Chris Charlson create some terrific 3D chalk art of the characters from Kubo and the Two Strings for AWE me:

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Adorable Cosplay of the Day:

Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn shared this very cute baby Groot from Boston Comic Con over the weekend (via io9):

1st still from #GotGVol2.

A photo posted by James Gunn (@jamesgunn) on Aug 13, 2016 at 5:24pm PDT

Film History of the Day:

The Academy shares a fascinating look at their restoration of and dialogue re-creation for the 1932 pre-Code era film Cock of the Air:

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Vintage Image of the Day:

Alfred Hitchcock, Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant on the set of Notorious, which premiered in New York on this date 70 years ago:

Filmmaker in Focus:

Movies in 5 Minutes looks at the ways Terrence Malick uses the four elements in his films (via Cinematic Montage Creators):

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Actor in the Spotlight:

The latest episode of No Small Parts, which highlights unsung character actors, looks into the career of the late Anton Yelchin:

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Supercut of the Day:

Burger Fiction collected all the instances of movie characters asking for the magic word or spouting a magic word for this fun supercut:

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Classic Trailer of the Day:

Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of David Cronenber’s The Fly. Watch the original trailer for the classic horror remake below.

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and

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Sports August 15, 2016

Allyson Felix Wins Silver As The Bahamas' Miller Takes Gold In 400-Meter Final

Shaunae Miller of the Bahamas (left) dives over the finish line to win the gold medal in front of Allyson Felix of the U.S., in the women's 400-meter race. Felix won silver; Shericka Jackson of Jamaica (right) won bronze.

Shaunae Miller of the Bahamas (left) dives over the finish line to win the gold medal in front of Allyson Felix of the U.S., in the women’s 400-meter race. Felix won silver; Shericka Jackson of Jamaica (right) won bronze. Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images

Shaunae Miller of the Bahamas won the women’s 400-meter final at the Summer Olympics Monday, edging America’s star runner Allyson Felix in a time of 49.44 seconds on a damp night in Rio de Janeiro.

Felix closed in on Miller in the closing meters – but she couldn’t get ahead of her, finishing at 49.51. At the finish, Miller dove, or perhaps collapsed, across the line. It was a move that Felix later mirrored, as the toll of the race hit home.

Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson won bronze, in a time of 49.85.

Felix, 30, now has seven Olympic medals, making her the most decorated female athlete in U.S. track and field’s history. She passes Jackie Joyner-Kersee — who is also married to Felix’s coach, Bob Kersee. We’ll note that when the pending milestone was mentioned to her here in Rio last week, Felix noted that Joyner-Kersee had won her six medals in the long jump and heptathlon — individual events — while Felix has won three of her medals as part of a relay.

Another three of Felix’s medals have come in the 200m — a race that she missed qualifying for in Rio. At these games, she has one event left, the 4×400-meter women’s relay.

In a field of eight runners Monday night, Felix was in lane 4 – right next to her U.S. teammate Phyllis Francis, and two over from another teammate, Natasha Hastings.

At the start, Monday night’s race looked similar to Sunday’s semifinal — a race in which Felix pushed across the finish in front of Miller. But tonight, Miller’s pace was too fast for Felix.

Hastings took fourth, in 50.34 seconds, while Francis was fifth in 50.41.

Miller, 22, was an NCAA track and field champion at the University of Georgia. As the Olympics’ bio of Miller tells us, her race in the 400 meters comes 48 years after her grand-uncle Leslie Miller ran it for the Bahamas at the 1968 Olympic Games.

Felix had run the fastest qualifying time for this final, and had not lost either of her preliminary races. Coming into Rio, she also owned the lowest personal best in this event, at 49.26.

The women’s 400-meter race was one of several events that were briefly postponed Monday evening, after a heavy rainstorm drenched Rio. Miller managed to run a personal best in the damp conditions, and Felix pulled out a season-best time, in a year in which she bounced back from an ankle ligament injury.

Earlier in the night, Team USA’s Sydney McLaughlin, at 17 the youngest member of the track and field team, narrowly advanced to the 400-meter semifinals.

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Business August 15, 2016

Larry Wilmore's 'Nightly Show' Will Air For The Last Time Thursday

The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore will end this week, less than two years into its run. Comedy Central announced the cancellation Monday.

The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore will end this week, less than two years into its run. Comedy Central announced the cancellation Monday. Richard Shotwell/AP hide caption

toggle caption Richard Shotwell/AP

Comedy Central is canceling The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore after Thursday’s episode.

The announcement came as a surprise Monday with the network cutting loose the politically conscious show a few months before the presidential election.

In a statement, Comedy Central credited Wilmore and his staff with generating conversations “by addressing social issues of great importance to the country, always challenging people’s attitudes, perceptions and bias.”

Comedy Central president Kent Alterman told Variety that despite high hopes, the show never attracted the audience the network expected.

“We’ve been monitoring it closely as for a year and a half now and we haven’t seen the signs we need in ratings or in consumption on digital platforms.” Alterman told the publication. “We’ve been been hoping it would grow.”

The showed premiered in January 2015 at 11:30 p.m. after Jon Stewart’s wildly successful The Daily Show. The coolly analytical Wilmore entered the network’s late-night lineup replacing Stephen Colbert, whose jingoistic blowhard character made The Colbert Report a favorite and eventually landed him David Letterman’s old gig on CBS’ The Late Show.

But Wilmore had trouble repeating Colbert’s success, as Variety goes on to say:

“‘Nightly Show’ premiered less than a month before Stewart announced his plan to step down as ‘Daily Show’ host. Wilmore opened to nearly 1 million viewers but didn’t sustain that audience. After Stewart bowed out on Aug. 6, 2015, ‘Nightly Show’ struggled with the smaller lead-in as Noah took the reins from Stewart.

“In the past few months, ‘Daily Show’ has seen an uptick particularly among the younger viewers that matter most to Comedy Central. In the second quarter of this year, “Daily Show” averaged 278,000 viewers in the adults 18-34 demo, second only to NBC’s ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’ (364,000). ‘Nightly Show’ averaged 153,000 viewers in that demo.

“Given the importance of ‘Daily Show’ franchise to Comedy Central, it’s no surprise that the cabler would devote more energy and resources to promoting Noah rather than ‘Nightly.’

In his own statement, Wilmore thanked the network, Stewart and viewers for the opportunity.

“I’m also saddened and surprised we won’t be covering this crazy election or ‘The Unblackening’ as we’ve coined it,” the statement reads. “I guess I hadn’t counted on ‘The Unblackening’ happening to my time slot as well.”

Before taking on The Nightly Show, Wilmore had a long history in television as a writer for In Living Color and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and as creator of The Bernie Mac Show.

In 2006, Wilmore stepped in front of the camera playing the “Senior Black Correspondent” on Stewart’s Daily Show.

Stewart served as a producer for The Nightly Show.

Most recently, Wilmore hosted this year’s White House Correspondents Association dinner.

Until Comedy Central schedules a permanent replacement, it will move its @Midnight with Chris Hardwick to Wilmore’s former spot.

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Health August 15, 2016

Will Your Prescription Meds Be Covered Next Year? Better Check!

Express Scripts assures patients it has a policy of not putting cancer medicine or mental health drugs on the list of products it excludes from its formulary.

Express Scripts assures patients it has a policy of not putting cancer medicine or mental health drugs on the list of products it excludes from its formulary. Fuse/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Fuse/Getty Images

The battle continues to rage between drug companies that are trying to make as much money as possible and insurers trying to drive down drug prices. And consumers are squarely in the middle.

That’s because, increasingly, prescription insurers are threatening to kick drugs off their lists of approved medications if the manufacturers won’t give them big discounts.

CVS Caremark and Express Scripts, the biggest prescription insurers, released their 2017 lists of approved drugs this month, and each also has long lists of excluded medications. Some of the drugs newly excluded are prescribed to treat diabetes and hepatitis. The CVS list also excludes some cancer drugs, along with Proventil and Ventolin, commonly prescribed brands of asthma inhalers, while Express Scripts has dropped Orencia, a drug for rheumatoid arthritis.

Such exclusions can take customers by surprise, says Lisa Gill, an editor at Consumer Reports‘ “Best Buy Drugs.”

“We’ve talked to dozens and dozens of people who find themselves at the pharmacy counter, shocked to find out that the drug is no longer covered,” she tells Shots. Patients can appeal the decision in individual cases, but that process can be arduous.

CVS Caremark has been the more aggressive of the two prescription insurers, listing roughly 130 drugs on its “we won’t pay” list. Express Scripts lists 85 and has a policy of not banning cancer drugs or mental health medications.

The threat of kicking drugs off their covered lists — which are known as formularies — is a powerful way to drive discounts, says Adam Fein, CEO of the Drug Channels Institute and author of a blog on prescription drug markets.

“Exclusions are one reason why discounts have been growing,” he tells Shots.

Express Scripts and CVS Caremark only started actively using their lists this way in 2012. Both firms claim they’ve already extracted huge savings for their customers: the health insurance companies and private corporations who hire them to manage their prescription drug plans.

CVS says its formulary management will save its customers $9 billion over the next five years.

For 2017, the company has excluded nine drugs that it deems “hyper-inflationary” — defined as “products with egregious cost inflation that have readily available, clinically appropriate and more cost-effective alternatives,” says Carolyn Castel, a spokeswoman for CVS Caremark.

The company specifically looks at drugs whose prices more than triple over three years, Castel says.

Those drugs include three skin creams that combine an over-the-counter ingredient, such as hydrocortisone or aloe, with a generic prescription drug to make a new and expensive brand name medication.

CVS manages prescription coverage for about 75 million people. For the first time in 2017 it is dropping from its list two so-called biologic drugs — the diabetes drug Lantus and Neupogen, a medicine commonly given to patients undergoing chemotherapy to help boost white blood cells and immunity. Instead, the company will pay for alternatives known as biosimilars. It was an important move; because of the way these drugs are made, biosimilars aren’t exact equivalents of the medications they replace.

But that’s part of the strategy of formulary exclusions. The managers of pharmacy benefits pit brand-name drugs that treat the same condition against each other, rather than waiting for generic drugs to come on the market and drive prices down.

Express Scripts covers about 85 million people, according to a recent investor presentation. Spokesman David Whitrap says the company tried to avoid excluding drugs; he recognizes the exclusions are an inconvenience to patients.

“Express Scripts will only ask members to switch their medication if there is a clinically equivalent alternative,” he tells Shots, “and only if that switch delivers a significant cost savings for their employer.”

For patients, the inconvenience can be minor, or it can be a real medical issue.

“From a consumer standpoint, you can wind up with a much bigger headache, with a lot more time invested in trying to sort out your prescriptions,” says Gill.

That’s because when the excluded medications don’t have generic alternatives that pharmacists can substitute automatically, patients have to go back to their doctor to get a prescription for a new drug.

“It’s a tricky trade-off,” says Jack Hoadley, a professor and researcher at Georgetown University’s Institute for Health Policy. “Am I getting enough of a discount to offset the inconvenience?”

Sometimes the drug on the approved list doesn’t work as well for some patients as the one that’s been kicked off.

“You end up having to switch to a drug that your prescriber thinks is less than optimal for treating your particular health condition,” Hoadley says.

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Sports August 14, 2016

Chinese Divers Get Engaged On Medals Podium At Rio Olympics

Chinese diver Qin Kai proposes marriage to He Zi, who had just received a silver medal in the women's diving 3m springboard final in Rio Sunday.

Chinese diver Qin Kai proposes marriage to He Zi, who had just received a silver medal in the women’s diving 3m springboard final in Rio Sunday. Clive Rose/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Clive Rose/Getty Images

Call it the Summer (Olympics) of love: He Zi of China was standing on the podium after receiving a silver medal for diving in Rio Sunday when her boyfriend, fellow diver Qin Kai, pulled out a ring and proposed marriage. It’s the second proposal of the Rio Games.

Moments before Sunday’s proposal, He had been dueling teammate and world champion Shi Tingmao for the gold medal in the 3m springboard final. It was shortly after the medal presentation that Qin – who owns gold medals from previous Olympics and has won bronze here in Rio – seized the moment.

“We are dating now for over 6 years and I didn’t know he would do this proposal,” He said, according to the Federation Internationale de Natation, which oversees diving.

With tears and a hug, He accepted Qin’s proposal.

We’ve seen another version of events from He, a 25-year-old who lives in Beijing, that’s a bit more lively. Here it is, from Reuters:

“I’ve forgotten most of what he’s said (during the proposal), but it’s largely what you can expect like promises, but what touched me the most is that he said he was willing to be bullied by me for life.”

The proposal took place at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre in Rio. If you’re wondering how the dramatic moment struck the other athletes on the podium with He – her teammate Shi, along with bronze medalist Tania Cagnotto of Italy – it turns out they already knew.

Shi said, “They have passed through a lot of things over the last years, and this is the perfect moment to do this proposal. I am very happy for both of them.”

Cagnotto says, “Shi Tingmao knew about the surprise before the medal ceremony and told me, so I was informed. Anyway, it was a very nice moment.”

The proposal is the second that we’ve heard about at the Rio Summer Olympics. Last week, Marjorie Enya, the girlfriend of Brazilian rugby player Isadora Cerullo asked Cerullo to marry her after a match between New Zealand and Australia.

Marjorie Enya (left) and rugby player Isadora Cerullo of Brazil smile after Enya proposed marriage following the Rugby Sevens gold medal match between Australia and New Zealand.

Marjorie Enya (left) and rugby player Isadora Cerullo of Brazil smile after Enya proposed marriage following the Rugby Sevens gold medal match between Australia and New Zealand. Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images

On that occasion, Enya, who’s part of the staff at the games, coordinated the moment with friends who held heart-shaped balloons as she and Cerullo embraced.

“As soon as I knew she was in the squad I thought I have to make this special,” Enya told BBC Sport afterwards. “I know rugby people are amazing and they would embrace it.”

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Business August 14, 2016

How Gig Economy Workers Make A Living

NPR’s Rachel Martin speaks with economics professor Alan Krueger of Princeton University about how people participate in the gig economy — particularly as Uber drivers — to supplement their incomes.

Transcript

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: I think most people hate to think of themselves as middle class.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Have what you need but maybe not everything you want?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: We have a car, but we live in an apartment. That’s middle class.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: If you add a boat, then you’re not middle class anymore. That’s what changes it right there.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: The middle class are families who are earning six-figures.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: Thirty thousand, $35,000 probably.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: That means me (laughter). And it means I’m in trouble (laughter).

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is Hanging On, our series about the economic pressures of American life. This week – the online gig economy, a growing sector built by people who want to be their own bosses, make their own schedules and sometimes set their own prices. Uber, Lyft, TaskRabbit, Seamless – these companies allow people to do just that. For some, it’s a critical supplemental income. For others, it’s just a way to add flexibility to their lives.

Alan Krueger is an economics professor at Princeton University and the former chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. He’s been studying the gig economy and Uber drivers, in particular. He tells us who’s benefiting.

ALAN KRUEGER: Some workers do it full time, but most do it on a part-time basis. And most do it on an intermittent basis, where they don’t do it every week. They choose their own schedule from day to day. And they have the opportunity to decide whether they want to work on any particular day and what hours they want to work.

MARTIN: Do they usually have other, what we would consider to be more traditional, jobs that they do for maybe eight hours during the day and then they’re just filling out a 24-hour period with a couple of gig-economy jobs?

KRUEGER: Again it’s a mixture. Almost a third of the Uber drivers have a full-time job. And they’re driving for Uber in addition to their full-time job. About a third have a part-time job. And a little over a third have no other work that they’re doing, and they may have other activities in their daily life like watching children or going to school. And they’re using part of their time to drive for Uber.

MARTIN: How has the online gig economy affected our recovery as a country from the recession?

KRUEGER: Well, I think the online gig economy is really separate from the recovery. I think it’s being driven by technology and entrepreneurship, which are providing new opportunities for workers. What we saw in studying Uber is that workers are more likely to provide services in the online gig economy when they have a drop in income from other sources. So it helps them to smooth their income volatility, which, I think, is an indication of the new ways in which the opportunity can help people to adjust for income losses in other areas.

MARTIN: Is this whole space being regulated? I mean, there are some risks associated with diving into this world, right, if you’re a worker?

KRUEGER: Absolutely. And I think it’s very important that we look closely at the labor protections in this area. I think it’s important that we try to maintain the flexibility that this new development affords. But I think it’s also important that we extend as much of our social safety net as we can to this group of workers. And for the most part, the courts and the companies have defined the workers as independent contractors, which means that they don’t have many of the protections that traditional employees have.

MARTIN: Professor Alan Krueger talking to us about the gig economy.

Thanks so much for your time.

KRUEGER: Thanks for having me.

Copyright © 2016 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 August 13, 2016

Rio Highlights: Phelps Ends With 23 Golds; Jamaicans Maintain Sprint Dominance

Elaine Thompson of Jamaica (right) celebrates as she wins the women's 100-meter final ahead of Tori Bowie of the United States, who took silver, and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica, who got bronze.

Elaine Thompson of Jamaica (right) celebrates as she wins the women’s 100-meter final ahead of Tori Bowie of the United States, who took silver, and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica, who got bronze. Ian Walton/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Ian Walton/Getty Images

Michael Phelps went out on top, wrapping up the greatest Olympic career ever with one last gold — his 23rd — on Saturday night. It came on a day when Rio was filled with dramatic performances as swimming wrapped up and track kicked into high gear.

On the track, Jamaica maintained its stranglehold on the women’s 100-meter title, but this time it was Elaine Thompson taking gold in 10.71, while her teammate Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the winner in 2008 and 2012, had to settle for bronze. American Tori Bowie took the silver.

In the men’s sprints, where Jamaican men are equally strong, Usain Bolt coasted to victory in his heat as he seeks to become the first man to win three 100-meter titles in a row. The final is set for Sunday at 9.25 p.m.

Also, Britain’s Mo Farah unleashed his trademark kick to pull away in the final straightway of the 10,000 meters, winning in a time of 27 minutes, 5:17 seconds, and defending the gold he captured in London four years ago.

His win was all the more impressive because 11 minutes into the race he got tangled up with American Galen Rupp and tumbled to the track. Farah popped up immediately, losing only a couple of seconds, and was soon back at full speed. Rupp, the silver medalist in London, hung with a small pack of frontrunners throughout the 6.2-mile race, but couldn’t match their final kicks and placed 5th.

Mo Farah of Great Britain celebrates after winning the men's 10,000 meters on Saturday, defending his title from the 2012 London Games. Farah stumbled and fell during the race, but recovered to win with a blistering kick on the final straightaway.

Mo Farah of Great Britain celebrates after winning the men’s 10,000 meters on Saturday, defending his title from the 2012 London Games. Farah stumbled and fell during the race, but recovered to win with a blistering kick on the final straightaway. Buda Mendes/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Buda Mendes/Getty Images

In the pool, the focus was on Phelps’s final race, the 4×100-meter medley relay. Yet it was American Ryan Murphy who set a world record in the 100-meter backstroke as he swam the leadoff leg. That set the stage for Phelps, who handled the third leg, the butterfly, in a memorable and triumphant conclusion to his fifth — and he says final — Olympic Games. Phelps won five gold and a silver in Rio, raising his total to 23 gold and 28 overall medals.

Simone Manuel, who became the first African-American to win an individual gold on Thursday, in the 100-meter freestyle, got another gold Saturday as she swam the freestyle leg to anchor the 4×100 medley relay.

She also captured a second silver when she finished second in the bang-bang finish of the 50-meter freestyle. Manuel was just .02 seconds behind the winner, Denmark’s Pernille Blume, in a race where the top six finishers were all within .12 seconds of each other.

Overall, the Americans won 33 medals, including 16 golds, one of their best Olympic performances ever.

You can see our full swimming story here.

Here are the other highlights from Saturday:

U.S. Women Rowers Take Third Straight Gold

(Left to right) Emily Regan, Kerry Simmonds, Amanda Polk, Lauren Schmetterling, Tessa Gobbo, Meghan Musnicki, Eleanor Logan, Amanda Elmore and Katelin Snyder of the U.S. pose with their gold medals on the podium of the Women's Eight final rowing competition on Saturday.

(Left to right) Emily Regan, Kerry Simmonds, Amanda Polk, Lauren Schmetterling, Tessa Gobbo, Meghan Musnicki, Eleanor Logan, Amanda Elmore and Katelin Snyder of the U.S. pose with their gold medals on the podium of the Women’s Eight final rowing competition on Saturday. Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty Images

The American eight delivered as expected, winning their third straight Olympic gold and extending their perfect record at the Olympics and the world championships to 11 straight years.

The American rowers were trailing at 1,000 meters, the halfway point, but steadily powered their way into the lead and finished in 6 minutes, 1:49 seconds, more than two seconds ahead of runner-up Great Britain.

“We feel so fortunate to be part of this team,” said Eleanor Logan, who was also part of the gold medal teams in 2008 and 2012. “The hunger to be the best they can be every day has pushed us to a new level. We’re not really comparing, we just had to look every day to be better ourselves.”

The scenery for the rowing competition in Guanabara Bay is spectacular. The rowers are surrounded by mountains with a view of the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue.

But the traditional victory celebration lacked one key element — the American women did not toss coxswain Katelin Snyder into the heavily polluted water out of concern it could make her ill.

Monica Puig gives Puerto Rico its first gold

Monica Puig won Puerto Rico's first gold medal ever with a three-set victory over Germany's Angelique Kerber in women's singles on Saturday.

Monica Puig won Puerto Rico’s first gold medal ever with a three-set victory over Germany’s Angelique Kerber in women’s singles on Saturday. Javier Soriano/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Javier Soriano/AFP/Getty Images

Puerto Rico has had its own Olympic team since 1948 and has won eight medals, but never a gold until Saturday, when Monica Puig battled her way to a three-set victory over Germany’s Angelique Kerber.

The fans supporting Puig were so enthusiastic that the chair umpire requested silence several times, then simply shushed the audience.

Puig won the first set 6-4, then dropped the second 6-4. She then took the final set decisively, 6-1.

“I never imagined in my wildest dreams that this would happen,” said Puig.

You can see our full story on Puig’s victory here.

Dutch equestrian cuts short competition to protect ailing horse

Adelinde Cornelissen of Netherlands and her horse, Parzival, competes in the Dressage Individual Grand Prix event at the Olympic Equestrian Center on Wednesday. Cornelissen dropped out of the competition because her horse was ill.

Adelinde Cornelissen of Netherlands and her horse, Parzival, competes in the Dressage Individual Grand Prix event at the Olympic Equestrian Center on Wednesday. Cornelissen dropped out of the competition because her horse was ill. Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

Dressage rider Adelinde Cornelissen came to Rio with her horse Parzival and high hopes — they won individual silver and team bronze in London.

But the horse fell ill earlier this week.

“I saw the right side of his head was swollen, he had been kicking the walls. I took his temperature: he had a fever of over 40 degrees Celcius (104 Fahrenheit),” she wrote on her Facebook page, adding that she thought he was bitten by a spider or a mosquito.

Parzival’s temperature returned to normal and veterinarians cleared him to compete. But “he didn’t feel very powerful,” she wrote.

“Being the fighter he is, he never gives up,” she added. “But in order to protect him, I gave up … My buddy, my friend, the horse that has given everything for me his whole life does not deserve this…. So I saluted and left the arena.”

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Business August 13, 2016

Activists Gather To Push For $15 Federal Minimum Wage

As activists gather in Richmond, Va. for a rally in support of a $15 minimum wage, stakeholders on both sides of the debate speak about how best to raise wages across the country.

Transcript

ALLISON AUBREY, HOST:

This week, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both gave speeches highlighting their economic policies, and we wanted to spotlight one policy that hasn’t gotten too much attention this political season – raising the minimum wage. The federal minimum wage stands at $7.25 an hour. But polls show that most Americans think it needs to go up.

So far, some states have moved to increase the minimum wage, including California, New York, Oregon, and some big cities have passed wage hikes, too, such as Seattle, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Now, one thing is clear. The next president has said he or she will support a minimum wage increase. Here’s Donald Trump a few weeks back talking about his plan.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DONALD TRUMP: So I would like to raise it to at least $10. And what I’m going to do is I’m going to bring jobs back to this country, so that people can start working again so that the $10 and the $15 and the numbers you’re talking about are going to be literally – they’re going to be peanuts compared to what people can make in the country.

AUBREY: Hillary Clinton has said she would support a blanket hike of the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour and would consider as much as 15 an hour if it worked like the hike in New York, where an increase is phased in over several years and wages for workers in the city, where cost of living is highest – are higher than wages in parts of the state where it’s not as expensive to live. Here’s Clinton speaking on Thursday.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HILLARY CLINTON: Raising the federal minimum wage won’t just put more money in the pockets of low-income families. It also means they will spend more at the businesses in their neighborhoods.

AUBREY: The debate is front and center today as thousands are gathering in Richmond, Va. at a union-backed convention calling for a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour. We wanted to check in on that rally, so we called Reid Snider who has been talking to advocates there. Hey, Reid.

REID SNIDER, BYLINE: Hi, Allison. How are you?

AUBREY: I’m fine. So tell us what is the scene there?

SNIDER: Well, it’s a very hot day in Richmond with temperatures hovering around 95 to 96 degrees. The crowd was very hot, but they were very vocal in their vision on this rally. The mood is very energetic, I might add. I would say probably about five to 8,000 people in general – it’s hard to tell. They’re very spread out. And they left from the Monroe Park down near the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University and moved up the very famous Monument Avenue to the Robert E. Lee Memorial, where they say they are making the case that in the current minimum wage situation and the oppression that they live in is a result of the Civil War and racism.

AUBREY: So that’s the symbolism of marching along those monuments.

SNIDER: Absolutely. That’s why it ended at the Robert E. Lee Memorial to raise awareness that this is a straggler of that old system of oppression in government, they say.

AUBREY: So what are you hearing from people at this convention?

SNIDER: Well, by and large, they are in favor, of course, of higher minimum wages. Many of them that I talked to work in industries that are based on a minimum wage, and they say they really can’t afford to live at the current 7.25 rate here in the mid-Atlantic region in general.

AUBREY: I guess the movement is pushing for $15 an hour. Is there a sense there among people you talk to that that’s realistic?

SNIDER: Well, it’s interesting you should ask, Allison, I asked some of the folks that I stopped along the march up to the Robert E. Lee Monument about that. And they said, well, it is a tough situation, but, you know, as a civilization, we’re just going to have to move that way so that many people can afford to live, buy insurance, feed their children and they would also like a union.

AUBREY: That’s Reid Snider of WCVE at the Fight for 15 Convention in Richmond, Va. Thanks, Reid.

SNIDER: Thanks, Allison.

AUBREY: Now, to get a fuller picture, we reached out to people who have a lot at stake in this debate. We start with a story of longtime restaurant worker and Fight for 15 organizer Terrence Wise. He lives in Kansas City. He’s 37 years old and the father of three. We reached him in Richmond ahead of the rally.

TERRENCE WISE: I actually started working at 16. I got my first job at Taco Bell. I can remember minimum wage back then was 4.25 an hour. And I’ve been working in the industry for nearly two decades now. I currently work at a McDonald’s and Burger King, and despite my experience and years on the job, I only make $9 an hour at both jobs – no benefits, no vacation, no paid time off.

AUBREY: Wise has pretty much always worked minimum-wage jobs, and he says it’s always a struggle to make ends meet. He and his family rely on food stamps and other public benefit programs.

WISE: Nothing’s ever fully paid. It’s like always you put this much on the light bill or you put this much on the gas bill, and you just pray that a disconnect notice doesn’t come.

AUBREY: Now, at one point, he told us that his life spiraled out of control. It was after his fiance got sick.

WISE: It was the second time that me and my fiance and my three little girls – we experienced homelessness. Anytime you’re working in our industries – or are working without benefits or anything of that nature, one little illness – a week off for the flu or you get hurt or something – and you miss that paycheck, you’re struggling. You’re behind right there.

And we lost our home, and we were sleeping in our minivan – me and my fiance and my three little girls. And I can recall the morning we woke up and me and my fiance were getting ready for work in the front seat. I’m putting on my Burger King uniform. She’s putting on her CNA scrubs, and in the back of the minivan the girls are getting ready for school, getting backpacks on, putting socks on.

And that just really hit me. We’re in America, the richest nation on Earth. And here you have two working parents getting ready for work in the front seat of their minivan while their three daughters are getting ready for school in the back of it, homeless. Something’s terribly wrong in this country when you have a family that is working doubly hard. We’re working triple hard, and things just aren’t getting better.

AUBREY: And so Terrence Wise says it didn’t take much to convince him to join the union movement fighting for a higher minimum wage.

WISE: It was a Sunday. I was at Burger King, and I was mopping the lobby, I remember. And I can remember a McDonald’s worker and a Domino’s worker. They came in the Burger King I was working and they had started talking about how workers around Kansas City were now organizing to demand a living wage, and they asked me and my co-workers a set of questions that day when they came in. I’m like OK.

And then they’re like, do you guys think you need a living wage? And I’m like living wage? What’s that? Sounds like money to live off. Yeah, that sounds good. And they’re just like do you think you deserve benefits to go see the dentist or whatever? And I’m like, yeah, that would be really nice. I haven’t been to a dentist in 18 years. And do you think you deserve a vacation? Shouldn’t all working Americans have a vacation once a year? I’m like yeah. I haven’t seen my mom in 10 years. That would be nice. So…

AUBREY: You hadn’t seen your mother in 10 years?

WISE: Oh, definitely not, definitely not. I’m in Kansas City, Mo. I’m from South Carolina, and that’s where my mom lives at now. And I don’t get time off of work, really, to go see her or have the resources to travel and see her, not even once a year.

AUBREY: So Terrence Wise got involved with the Fight for 15. The movement has gained a lot of traction over the last two years staging rallies in dozens of U.S. cities and grabbing headlines and TV coverage around the nation. But not everyone feels that a higher minimum wage is the answer.

Robert Mayfield owns nine Dairy Queen franchises in the Austin, Texas, area. He says hiking the minimum wage will lead to higher prices on his menus and job losses.

ROBERT MAYFIELD: I’m opposed to any time the government gets involved and meddles in the marketplace.

AUBREY: Mayfield says if the minimum wage is pushed much higher, some small business owners would stop hiring people, and he says that’s already happened to some extent.

MAYFIELD: People that are listening to your program will remember the times they used to go into a fast food restaurant and one of the employees would give them a drink before the time they ordered. Now it’s all self-service, and that’s because when labor becomes so expensive, you do what you can to eliminate some of it. And that’s a job that no longer even exists in fast food – somebody pouring the drinks and giving them to you. You make your own drink, and that’s the reason.

AUBREY: So people would be replaced by machines, by automation?

MAYFIELD: They already have been. They already are in my stores. It’s a self-service drink.

AUBREY: Mayfield says the market should determine the wages, and in his case in Austin, Texas, he already pays higher than the minimum wage. We start out at $12 an hour.

MAYFIELD: And we don’t do that because we’re nice guys, we do that ’cause there is a labor market, and we do that to get the best people because the best people are what we’ve got to have.

AUBREY: Robert Mayfield says he’s moved by stories he hears from people like Terrence Wise, but he’s skeptical of the Fight for 15 movement.

MAYFIELD: I’m empathetic to hear the story. The first thing I would tell that individual is to see if you can find another job with another company where your skills might be better utilized. What I do know about the so-called Fight for 15 is that it’s sponsored by labor unions that are losing members all over the country, as I understand it, and those are the ones that I’ve read in several sources that are behind that whole so-called movement or demonstrations. It’s the service unions, labor unions hoping to get more members, best as I can tell.

AUBREY: Labor unions are, in fact, organizing the Fight for 15 movement, and while raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour is unlikely given the current political landscape, supporters say the movement has already changed the conversation. McDonald’s and Walmart are two of the major companies that have raised starting salaries by some amount since the Fight for 15 took off. Both companies have come under a lot of pressure from labor groups to boost wages. Terrence Wise says he’s optimistic.

WISE: The way out, I tell you, is what we’re doing now. If you look back in this country in the paths and what workers are doing now, it’s always been movements that have changed the country. We know that even our elected leaders and politicians – they don’t just come up with their own great ideas. They go with whatever the people push them.

And we know with this presidential election cycle the main topic is wage inequality and racial inequality in this country. You hear it on so many platforms, and I think that’s been brought about by what workers have been doing across the country. And that’s been organizing and coming together and telling their stories and fighting to win better pay and union rights at the job, and I think that’s truly the way out.

AUBREY: That’s fast food worker and organizer Terrence Wise. He’s attending today’s Fight for 15 convention in Richmond, Va.

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Entertainment August 13, 2016

Weekend LISTening: 7 Medal-Worthy Collaborations With Brazilian Artists

Brazilian artists Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil have collaborated with each other — and, as you'll hear in this playlist, with other international artists.

Brazilian artists Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil have collaborated with each other — and, as you’ll hear in this playlist, with other international artists. Marcos Hermes/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

toggle caption Marcos Hermes/Courtesy of the artist

Right now, the world’s focus is on Rio for the 2016 Olympics. Brazil is on our minds, too, so we’ve made a weekend playlist filled with international collaborations between Brazilian artists and other musicians from around the globe. These are some extraordinary duets, from bossa nova to tropicalia and beyond. No Olympic competition here — just collaboration!

Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz

“The Girl From Ipanema” was the height of bossa nova, and it’s still the song everyone conjures when they think of Rio. The song was inspired by a real person, Helô Pinheiro, who would pass by the bar-café where composers Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius De Moraes sat and sought inspiration. Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz‘s version was a worldwide smash in 1964.

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Seu Jorge and Beck

A remix of Beck‘s song “Tropicalia” with the Brazilian singer Seu Jorge appeared on the second Red Hot + Rio compilation, which was released in 2011 to benefit HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention.

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Caetano Veloso and David Byrne

The Brazilian superstar Caetano Veloso played a concert with David Byrne at Carnegie Hall in 2014. They mostly performed Veloso’s music, along with this Talking Heads classic, “(Nothing But) Flowers”.

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Vinicius Cantuária and Bill Frisell

The renowned guitarist Bill Frisell and the Brazilian singer-songwriter Vinicius Cantuária finish each other’s musical sentences on the 2011 album Lágrimas Mexicanas, which features Cantuária’s gorgeous compositions. The two performed “Calle 7” live on WNYC’s Soundcheck.

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Gilberto Gil and Jimmy Cliff

There’s no question as to Bob Marley’s influence throughout the world — and certainly in Brazil. Here, the Jamaican reggae star Jimmy Cliff and Brazil’s musical ambassador Gilberto Gil pay tribute to Marley with “No Woman No Cry”.

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Luis Bonfa and Perry Como

This video is from 1963, when the bossa nova craze was heating up in the U.S. It’s a wonderful document: Como sheepishly confesses that he doesn’t speak “Brazilian,” and Bonfa zings him back a moment later. (I also recommend this great Smithsonian Folkways reissue of the guitarist’s solo work, recorded in 1958.)

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Olodum and Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson and director Spike Lee had to go to court in Rio to be allowed to shoot this video in the Dona Marta favela — but the residents didn’t seem to have a problem. The power of the drum corps Olodum helps convey Jackson’s message as they all dance through the streets of Salvador, the group’s hometown.

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Sports August 12, 2016

Alex Rodriguez Ends Yankees Career After 6-3 Victory Over Rays

New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez does an interview following his final baseball game as a Yankee player, against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium in New York, Friday.

New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez does an interview following his final baseball game as a Yankee player, against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium in New York, Friday. Kathy Willens/AP hide caption

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Alex Rodriguez returned to the infield, hugged a reception line of teammates and was handed the final ball from his final game with the New York Yankees. He walked to the area behind third base, leaned down and grabbed a handful of dirt.

Baseball’s most notorious star of the last two decades then headed back to the dugout after a Yankee Stadium finale Friday night that included a pregame ceremony punctuated by thunder cracks and cut short by a downpour, a first-inning RBI double and a surprising ninth-inning return to third base.

A sellout crowd of 46,459 gave him standing ovations and chanted his name, admiration and perhaps even affection coming out after more than a decade of trouble and tension.

“I’ve given these fans a lot of headaches over the years and I’ve disappointed a lot of people,” he said after the 6-3 victory over Tampa Bay, his voice sounding hoarse over the public-address system in one of baseball’s most unusual farewells. “But like I’ve always said, you don’t have to be defined by your mistakes. How you come back matters, too, and that’s what New York’s all about.”

He will be cut Saturday by a Yankees team pivoting to youth. The 41-year-old designated hitter isn’t sure whether he will play again.
A-Rod drove a 96 mph fastball from Chris Archer into the right-center field gap in the first inning, ending an 0-for-11 slide. Rodriguez then grounded out, struck out and bounced out again on the first pitch in his last at-bat. The 1-for-4 night left him with a .200 average, nine homers and 31 RBIs in his 12th and final Yankees season.

With the sellout crowd of 46,459 chanting “We want A-Rod!” Yankees manager Joe Girardi sent him to third base for the first time in 15 months at the start of the ninth inning as the organist played “Thanks for Memory.”
Rodriguez had criticized Girardi for benching him for most of the past month.
“If this is the last time he plays,” Girardi said softly, pausing for 10 seconds and sniffling as his voice cracked and his eyes teared, “I wanted it to be something he never forgot.”

Girardi offered to leave him in the field for two outs, but Rodriguez opted to leave after Mikie Mahtook’s leadoff strikeout. Fans applauded, many of whom never warmed to a player who in 2009 admitted using performance-enhancing drugs, then served a yearlong drug suspension in 2014.

Rodriguez raised his cap and an arm before walking into the dugout, sitting down and holding a white towel to his face as he tried to hold back tears.
‘With all that I’ve been through, and for them to show up on a night like tonight and show me that type love is something that I’ll never forget. It was overwhelming,” he said during a news conference, perfectly coifed in a gray suit and silver necktie.

Dark clouds rolled in from the northwest as his ceremony began. Rodriguez’s family was on the field and public address announcer Paul Olden said: “Alex, you spent 12 of your 22 seasons with the Yankees” when a loud thunder crack shook the ballpark, as if ordered by a film director.

Rain started to fall during a video message from Lou Piniella, Rodriguez’s first big league manager, and the festivities ended awkwardly after 10 minutes when a downpour began.

Ten minutes later, the clouds started to clear, symbolic of A-Rod’s time in New York, and a rainbow came out shortly before the first pitch.

“It was certainly like Biblical. Did you hear the thunder crackle?” he said. “You can’t make that up. I guess we went out with a bang.”

With the Bleacher Creatures chanting his name during the traditional roll call and the rest of the fans joining in, Rodriguez raised his cap toward them from the dugout.

Fans gave him a 30-second ovation when he walked up to the plate in the bottom half and stood and took photos and videos during his at-bats. Rodriguez clapped as he came out of the batter’s box and pumped both arms in triumph as he reached second base without a throw.

“Take it easy on the old man,” Rodriguez told the 27-year-old Archer before the game.

Starlin Castro had four RBIs for the Yankees, hitting a tiebreaking, two-run homer in the sixth off Archer (6-16) that gave CC Sabathia (7-9) his second win since mid-June.

Rodriguez had slept late, ate his egg whites, stretched and took one final trip to the ballpark as a New York player.

“The last time I drive up Broadway and through Harlem and through the neighborhoods that have brought so much comfort to me,” he said.

In a 4-for-47 funk, Rodriguez started for just the third time in 19 games, the 2,784th and perhaps final regular-season appearance in a career that started with Seattle in 1994, moved on to Texas in 2001 and then New York three years later. Admitting to plenty of errors in a life that has included the 2009 World Series title, a divorce, celebrity girlfriends, high-stakes poker games and what seemed to be as many photos on tabloid fronts as backs, he leaves without establishing his own era. Rodriguez was a supporting actor in the Derek Jeter-Mariano Rivera epoch, and when the stars left the cast he could not carry the show.

He has 696 home runs, fourth on the career list behind Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714). But owner Hal Steinbrenner told him on Aug. 3 the end was at hand, and Rodriguez said last Sunday he had accepted an offer to play one final home game and then become a team adviser through 2017, tasked with mentoring young players.

“With all my screw-ups and how badly I acted, the fact that I’m walking out the door, Hal wants me as part of the family, that’s hitting 800 home runs for me,” Rodriguez said.

New York will owe him $7,103,825 for the rest of this year and $20 million for next, the final season of his $275 million, 10-year contract.

Having seen his lights go down on Broadway, is Miami 2017 in his future?
He has not said he is retiring.

“I’m going to need a long nap and recover and I want to see where life takes me,” he said, “but right now I think I value wearing this uniform, and for me the Yankees pinstripes is enough.”

A 14-time All-Star and three-time AL MVP, A-Rod has a .295 batting average, 3,115 hits and his 2,086 RBIs, second to Aaron’s 2,297 since RBIs became an official statistic. Earlier this week in Boston, as A-Rod watched the offensive exploits of 23-year-old teammate Gary Sanchez, a realization dawned.

“I can’t do that anymore,” Rodriguez remembered telling him. “And I was happy about it. I’m at peace.”

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