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Business August 18, 2015

Germany's Big Port Eager For U.S.-EU Trade Deal, But Some Are Skeptical

The Port of Hamburg's trade volume has more than doubled since 1990 and is projected to double again by 2030.
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The Port of Hamburg’s trade volume has more than doubled since 1990 and is projected to double again by 2030. Andrew Schneider for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Andrew Schneider for NPR

Walking alongside the River Elbe, it’s easy to get the sense of Hamburg’s long history as a port. Brick warehouses in the German city date to the mid-19th century, though most of those have been converted to offices or museums.

Business leaders including Corinna Nienstedt of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce strongly back the proposed EU-U.S. trade deal.

Business leaders including Corinna Nienstedt of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce strongly back the proposed EU-U.S. trade deal. Andrew Schneider for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Andrew Schneider for NPR

But walk farther along the river toward the North Sea — and you can see the 21st century global economy in action. Tall cranes hoist cargo on and off massive ships. A lot of the shipments involve finished goods. But much of what moves through this port is big and bulky.

“Here we handle about 10 million tons of iron ore and coal for coal refineries or iron or steel production somewhere in the hinterland,” says Axel Mattern, CEO of the Port of Hamburg Marketing Association.

The hinterland, in Hamburg’s case, means not just inland Germany but all of Central Europe. The coal moving through Hamburg powers the factories that produce the goods that then come back here to be shipped out.

“Imports and exports are relatively balanced,” says Stefan Matz, who heads the international section at the Hamburg Business Development Corp. “We import machinery, we import electronics, we import chemicals, and many other products, and we also export most of [those] products as well.”

The United States is one of the biggest partners in this two-way trade. The Port of Hamburg’s trade volume has more than doubled since 1990 and is projected to double again by 2030.

One way to increase this flow of goods would be to complete a trade pact between the U.S. and the European Union. The Obama administration is pushing just such a deal, called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP.

This year, trade talks with Europeans have been largely overshadowed in the U.S. by controversy over a separate deal with Pacific Rim countries. Negotiations involving that pact are expected to wrap up this year. And then next year, the focus will shift to the European talks.

Here in Hamburg, business leaders strongly back TTIP.

“If we do not do this with one of our biggest partner countries like the U.S., there will be other countries in the world — our big competitors, for example China — who will then set the standards. And those standards may not be the standards that are related to our Western values,” says Corinna Nienstedt, who heads the international department of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce.

Boris Loheide, an activist with the Cologne branch of Attac, a group trying to stop the treaty, says the deal would benefit only multinational corporations.

Boris Loheide, an activist with the Cologne branch of Attac, a group trying to stop the treaty, says the deal would benefit only multinational corporations. Andrew Schneider for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Andrew Schneider for NPR

As popular as TTIP is in Hamburg, polls show that more than a third of Germans oppose it. They fear corporations will use it as a way to slip in lower health and environmental standards.

“It will be only the big multinational corporations that will benefit from this trade,” says Boris Loheide, an activist with the Cologne branch of Attac, a group trying to stop the treaty. “If you hear about the anti-TTIP movement being anti-American, just don’t believe it. It’s not about you. It’s about big companies, and I don’t care where they are from.”

Even if U.S. and European negotiators do reach an agreement on TTIP in 2016, it’s unlikely Congress would vote on it before 2017, under a new administration.

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Sports August 18, 2015

Baseball And Uganda — Two Words That Don't Usually Go Together

They are the champions of Africa (and Europe, too): Uganda's 2015 team will take on the best of the planet in the Little League Baseball World Series that starts Thursday in Williamsport, Pa.

They are the champions of Africa (and Europe, too): Uganda’s 2015 team will take on the best of the planet in the Little League Baseball World Series that starts Thursday in Williamsport, Pa. Courtesy of Uganda Little League hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Uganda Little League

It was a touching story three years ago when a team of Ugandan boys became the first African team to compete in the Little League Baseball World Series, held each August in Williamsport, Pa. The wide-eyed 11- and 12-year-olds charmed the crowds. Their story was told in a poignant documentary, Opposite Field, that aired on ABC. But they bowed out after going 1-2 in the series itself, looking a bit overwhelmed.

Tune in to Morning Edition this Friday for a report on Uganda’s team — and check out Goats and Soda for photos of the East African baseballers.

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YouTube

“They’d never seen a curveball,” says the current Ugandan coach, Bernard Adei.

Uganda is back this year, but don’t cue the violins. “Oh yeah, they can hit curveballs — and they can throw them, too,” says Richard Stanley, the team’s New York-based benefactor. “These kids can play.”

Oh, can they ever. A month ago, the Ugandan nine torched five European teams. The only Africans at the regional tournament, the Ugandans “mercy ruled” every opponent but one. That means they stomped the competition so soundly that games were stopped out of, well, mercy. Uganda won with scores ranging from 21-1 to 4-0, winning the championship against Spain 16-0.

Uganda and baseball: The combination may surprise fans in the U.S. But get used to it. While the boys were readying for their series this week, a girls’ team from Uganda barely missed making the final four at the Little League Softball World Series in Portland, Ore.

It’s no fluke. Stanley says Uganda is a natural fit for competitive sports. While the nation of 38 million is economically struggling, its capital, Kampala — which sits nearly a mile high in altitude — has temperatures that rarely drop below 60 degrees Fahrenheit or go above the 80s. “The kids can play baseball all year round,” Stanley says.

And they do. Part of his design is a boarding school for around 130 boys and girls, all of whom get a free ride from Stanley. The budding baseballers among them practice daily after studies. In addition, thousands of other Ugandan kids play in the country’s various leagues.

To hear the 72-year-old Stanley tell it, Uganda sports just needed a push. They got it in 2002 from the fast-talking New Yorker. Stanley has since assembled the school, baseball and softball leagues — as well as a health clinic — by working with Ugandan officials and educators. Donations have come from Little League International and Major League Baseball as well as Japan and elsewhere.

And from Stanley’s savings. A chemical engineer by trade, Stanley says he did well with investments and lives modestly on Staten Island. “I don’t drive big, fancy cars, and I rarely eat out,” he says. “This is something I’m able to do.”

He came to Uganda through charity work, which he started after retiring early from Procter & Gamble around 1990. By 2002, he’d made his way to Uganda, which thoroughly charmed him, and was asked to help with sports.

His Ugandan hosts apparently knew that was his weakness. A longtime referee and umpire for high school and college sports, Stanley also was part owner of a minor league baseball team.

The Staten Islander quickly wangled equipment donations from U.S. leagues and paid to ship them to Uganda, where leagues got underway by 2004. As the teams improved, he financed trips to international tournaments, culminating in the World Series appearance in 2012.

Not to say anything is easy in Uganda. Most of the players come from poor backgrounds and from single-parent families, if any parents survive at all. Some early equipment donations were grabbed by corrupt officials. Even now, there aren’t enough fields and equipment — players share gloves, sometimes just one for every three or four kids.

But it isn’t lack of mitts that’s kept Uganda from the World Series since 2012. For several years, the team struck out on getting to international tournaments because of blocked visas or rules that didn’t allow for boarding school residents to participate.

The Little League organization changed its rules — and the team this year again conquered the visa red tape. Parents or guardians had to sign documents, which meant 10-hour bus rides home for some kids. The regional tournament, meanwhile, was in Poland, which has no Ugandan embassy, so kids took other buses to neighboring Kenya for visas.

“Kids have to miss days of school just to get their visas,” says Adei.

Despite his confidence in this year’s team, Stanley’s been around baseball long enough to know anything can happen in a short baseball series. Uganda opens play Thursday against the Dominican Republic, a game with added meaning for Stanley, who notes how Dominican ballplayers are scouted and signed at a young age by major league teams.

“I think Uganda can be the next Dominican Republic,” he says.

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Health August 18, 2015

Medicare Says Doctors Should Get Paid To Discuss End-Of-Life Issues

Jo Ann Farwell, a retired social worker, has a brain tumor; she wanted to make sure her sons were clear about her end-of-life wishes. So, after talking with her doctor, she filled out a form that Oregon provides to ease those family conversations.
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Jo Ann Farwell, a retired social worker, has a brain tumor; she wanted to make sure her sons were clear about her end-of-life wishes. So, after talking with her doctor, she filled out a form that Oregon provides to ease those family conversations. Alan Sylvestre/Kristian Foden-Vencil/Oregon Public Broadcasting hide caption

itoggle caption Alan Sylvestre/Kristian Foden-Vencil/Oregon Public Broadcasting

Remember so-called death panels?

When Congress debated the Affordable Care Act in 2009, the legislation included a provision that would have allowed Medicare to reimburse doctors when they meet with patients to talk about end-of-life care.

But then Sarah Palin loudly argued that such payments would lead to care being withheld from the elderly and disabled.

Her assertions greatly distressed Dr. Pamelyn Close, a palliative care specialist in Los Angeles.

“It did terrible damage to the concept of having this conversation,” she says.

Amid the ensuing political uproar, Congress deleted the provision. And that, says Close, further discouraged doctors from initiating these talks.

“We just are not having these conversations often enough and soon enough,” Close says. “Loved ones who are trying to always do the right thing end up being weighed with tremendous guilt and tremendous uncertainty without having had that conversation.”

When done right, Close says, these nondirective counseling sessions often delve into end-of-life treatment options and legal documents, such as advance directives and living wills. The issues to be covered are complex and typically require a series of discussions.

Right now, Medicare pays for this sort of advanced care planning only if it happens during the first visit for new Medicare enrollees. But now the government is proposing that Medicare reimburse doctors for including these conversations in their practice, whenever they occur.

Already, some private insurance companies are starting to do just that.

Meanwhile, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian organization, has formally opposed Medicare’s proposal.

“By paying doctors for these conversations, what we’re doing is opening the door to directive counseling and coercion,” says Catherine Glenn Foster, an attorney with the group. Foster says her organization supports end-of-life counseling and planning, but not in a doctor’s office.

“A doctor is not really the person you’d want to be having it with — particularly not a general practitioner who would not be able to advise on the nuances of end-of-life care in the first place,” she says.

But patients do seem to want these talks. A 2012 study by the California HealthCare Foundation found that 80 percent of Californians want to have an end-of-life conversation with their physician, but fewer than one in 10 has done so.

Many doctors who do initiate the discussions often do so on their own dime. More often, they don’t have them at all, says Dr. Daniel Stone, an internist with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

“When a doctor has patients scheduled every 15 minutes, it’s difficult to have a face-to-face conversation about values and goals related to the end of life, which is one of the most sensitive topics that you can possibly discuss with a patient,” Stone says.

Dr. Susan Tolle, an internist with the Center for Ethics in Health Care, at the Oregon Health and Science University, says the informality with which such conversations are held now means that family members may not be included. She’s all for the proposed change.

“What it does is it gives this really important conversation dignity and standing,” she says.

In Oregon, doctors have been squeezing end-of-life discussions into regular medical appointments for decades, under less-than-ideal circumstances. Over the past five years a quarter of a million Oregonians registered their wishes with a state registry. They use what’s known as a POLST form, which stands for Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment. A version been adopted by some other states, including New York and West Virginia.

Jo Ann Farwell, a retired Portland social worker, has completed one such form in Oregon.

“I had surgery and had a prognosis of four to six months to live,” she says, after she was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Farwell talked to her doctor, and then filled out a POLST form to make sure her last hours are as comfortable as possible.

“I wouldn’t want to be on tube-feeding,” she says. “I wouldn’t want to be resuscitated, or have mechanical ventilation, because that would probably prolong my dying, rather than giving me quality of life.”

In the 1990s, health care workers all over Oregon recognized that the wishes of patients weren’t being consistently followed. So the health care establishment worked with the state and with ethicists to prioritize end-of-life talks; the result was the POLST form.

Congressman Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Portland, has introduced the Medicare reimbursement legislation every session since 2009. Until now, he says, the federal government hasn’t placed any value on helping people prepare for death, and he finds that ironic.

“The Medicare program will pay for literally thousands of medical procedures, many of them very expensive and complex, even if the person is at the latest stage of life and it may not do any good,” he says.

From a purely financial point of view, the change could save money. But Blumenauer says that’s not what’s driving him.

“I don’t care what people decide,” he says. “If they want to die in an ICU with tubes up their nose, that’s their choice. What we want is that people know what their choices are.”

Farwell well remembers when her sister was dying from cancer.

“She never talked about death or dying,” she says, “never talked about what she wanted at the end. It was very, very difficult for me to try to plan and give her care.”

Farwell wants her sons to be in a better position when it comes to carrying out her wishes.

The federal government is now accepting public comment on the Medicare reimbursement proposal. It’s expected to make a decision in November.

This story is part of NPR’s reporting partnership with KPCC, Oregon Public Broadcasting and Kaiser Health News.

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Entertainment August 17, 2015

Today in Movie Culture: 'Star Wars' Travel Posters, How to Use Fake Products in Movies and More

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

Filmmaking Tip of the Day:

Not into product placement? Elliot Grove of Raindance instructs on how to use fake products in your movie with a link to some free labels and designs to use (via Filmmaker IQ):

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Movies in Real Life:

Photographer Francois Dourlen mashes pictures from movies with images of the real world. Here is one with characters from Finding Nemo, appropriate for D23 time. See more at Design Taxi:

Oldies but goodies

A photo posted by @francoisdourlen on Aug 10, 2015 at 6:34am PDT

Supercut of the Day:

Montages of the best bad guys in the movies are always enjoyable, so here’s another one (via Cinematic Montage Creators):

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Vintage Image of the Day:

John Wayne gives Maureen O’Hara a little gift in The Quiet Man, appropriate for today being O’Hara’s 95th birthday.

Star Wars of the Day:

Here is a pretend poster advertising Tatooine as a travel destination. See more posters for other Star Wars locations at Design Taxi.

Video Essay of the Day:

With Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation still going strong in theaters, here’s a video essay on auteurism and the Mission: Impossible franchise (via The Playlist):

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Cosplay of the Day:

After Disney‘s bit event weekend, it’s essential that we share a favorite cosplayer dressed Robin Hood from this year’s D23 Expo (via Da7e Gonzalez):

Movie Takedown of the Day:

Roland Emmerich‘s Stonewall is already earning a lot of criticism, just from its first trailer. Here’s a parody of that trailer focused on the movie’s whitewashing of the true events and highlighting Emmerich’s reputation for disaster movies (via Film Drunk):

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Fan Art of the Day:

We shared one piece of fan art of depicting Ronda Rousey as Captain Marvel, but now here are five more, shared by Rousey herself (via Geek Tyrant):

Classic Trailer of the Day:

25 years ago today, My Blue Heaven hit theaters with Steve Martin as a mobster hiding out in suburbia under the watch of Rick Moranis and a very phenomenal Joan Cusack. Watch the original trailer below.

[embedded content]

Send tips or follow us via Twitter:

and

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Business August 17, 2015

Bloomberg Columnist: Report On Amazon's Work Culture Not Surprising

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NPR’s Audie Cornish speaks with Justin Fox, columnist for Bloomberg View, about Amazon’s work culture, following a scathing article in The New York Times.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

If the reviews are so mixed, why do people continue to seek work at Amazon? Justin Fox is a business columnist for Bloomberg View, and he’s written about Amazon on and off for 20 years. Welcome to the program.

JUSTIN FOX: Thank you for having me.

CORNISH: You write in the end that this hiring approach feels a little like traditional law or consulting firm set up, where you kind of bring in people knowing that, like, most of them won’t stick around by the time you get to partner level, right?

FOX: Yeah, and that’s sort of the bargain at those places. Really smart, really ambitious young people come in, and they know from the beginning that it’s pretty unlikely that they’ll make partner, but it’s worth it anyway ’cause they learn a lot. They meet important people. They get useful skills that they can use somewhere else. And it feels a little that way at Amazon, too – that, you know, if you stick around long enough in all your stock vests, you can make a whole lot of money. But the people who only stay for a couple years really don’t. They actually get less than you would at other tech companies.

CORNISH: Right, so that doesn’t sound good. And then, as you point out, this arrangement has been unraveling lately in the law, right? So is this a model that you think is sustainable?

FOX: Well, it’s unraveling in the law because the growth stopped in the law. I mean, it’s this model that’s predicated on continuing to grow. And, you know, you look at how big Amazon is now and how giant its market capitalization is, and it’s enough to make you scratch your head. At the same time, people have been expressing doubts about this company from the very beginning, and it has kept confounding most of them. I mean, occasionally it screws up in a big way, but it sort of plows through and has kept finding ways to get bigger and become a more central part of our economy. And so I’m not going to predict that it’s unraveling anytime soon.

CORNISH: But you’re asking the question of how long can Amazon keep this up? I mean, is it really doing something so different from Google, Apple, Facebook, right – all places where I’m sure, you know, in the world of tech, there’s high turnover?

FOX: The main difference from Amazon is that there’s a lot less in the way of perks, like the free food and the great benefits that you sometimes will get at a Google or a Facebook. And then they do seem to just ratchet up the intensity another level.

CORNISH: Although the difference, I would think, is also profits, right? I mean, Amazon isn’t making what a Google or Apple is.

FOX: No, it’s not. And in a lot of ways, its main competitive advantage is its ability to keep going without making much in the way of profits and get continued support from Wall Street and investors. And I think the reason for that continued support is because of the company’s ambition. I mean, Jeff Bezos makes it very clear that they’re planning to be a lot more than they are right now. And, I mean, early on, when it was just a bookstore, it didn’t take long before he was making clear that they wanted to be doing more than just selling books that you couldn’t find at Barnes and Noble.

CORNISH: So is this report as sort of damning as people are implying?

FOX: I didn’t see it as damning. There’s really nothing in this report that surprises you. This is this sort of intense culture that Jeff Bezos has been pushing at this company for two decades. Obviously, when you read about people getting forced out because they have thyroid cancer, that’s pretty gross, and clearly Jeff Bezos acknowledged that, too. He didn’t say that this had never happened. He simply wrote in his memo to employees, if you see something like that happening, send me an email.

CORNISH: But are people being dismissive of this because it’s white-collar workers, right? I mean, there was outcry when Amazon was accused of building a distribution center in Pennsylvania with no air conditioning, right, and having paramedics outside instead of air conditioning. Now, here’s this report about the conditions for white-collar workers, and in this environment and in this economy, is this any more fair?

FOX: Well, I mean, I think what Amazon did in the warehouse in Pennsylvania and elsewhere was horrible, and they were shamed into putting in air conditioners after the Morning Call newspaper wrote about it. Most of this stuff in this article doesn’t come to this level – that level. These are well-educated, white-collar workers who could get jobs in other places talking about what an intense work environment they work in. If I were were someone considering employment at Amazon, I would pay a lot of attention to it. I think it’s a bit much, as a customer, to say that this is the thing that’s going to turn you off from the company if, you know, forcing workers into heat prostration in Pennsylvania was not enough already.

CORNISH: Columnist Justin Fox – he writes for Bloomberg View. Thank you so much for speaking with us.

FOX: Thank you for having me, Audie.

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Sports August 17, 2015

Northwestern Football Players Lose Bid To Form First Union For Athletes

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The National Labor Relations Board announced Monday it dismissed a previous ruling by a Chicago regional office in favor of the Northwestern University athletes.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

College football players cannot unionize – at least for now. Today, the National Labor Relations Board dismissed a case brought by football players at Northwestern University. They had argued that student athletes are actually employees who should be able to join a union. NPR’s Cheryl Corley has the story.

CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: It could have been the first union for college athletes – the College Athletes Players Association, or CAPA. Last year, a regional director of the NLRB in Chicago ruled that Northwestern University football players on scholarship are employees. The university and the NCAA appealed that decision. Today, the full NLRB board dismissed the case. It said it did not have jurisdiction over state-run schools. Those schools make up the majority of the football schedules in which Northwestern, a private university, participates.

JOHN ADAM: Well, the NLRB, you know, to use a legal term, punted.

CORLEY: That’s John Adam, attorney for CAPA.

ADAM: They decided not to decide the question on the merits.

CORLEY: What the NLRB did say was that a union in college sports would not promote uniformity and stability in labor relations, and the board did not want to single out just one team. Northwestern University spokesman Alan Cubbage said the university was both surprised and pleased with the decision.

ALAN CUBBAGE: Northwestern considers its students who participate in sports, including those who receive scholarships, to be students, first and foremost. They are not employees. They are students.

CORLEY: The NCAA prohibits players from earning income beyond their academic scholarships and any nominal stipends to cover the cost of college attendance. At a news conference last year, former Northwestern University quarterback Kain Colter said that he and other student athletes were employees who worked more than 40 hours a week practicing and playing games, work that can earn millions for universities.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

KAIN COLTER: We are not taking these measures out of any mistreatment from Northwestern. However, we recognize that we need to eliminate unjust NCAA rules that create physical, academic and financial hardships for college athletes across the nation.

CORLEY: Colter and others argued that players, even with scholarships, struggled to pay for basic living expenses, and some suffer severe injuries. The players voted secretly on whether to join the union. Today’s decision to dismiss the case means those votes will not be counted. CAPA attorney John Adam agrees there was no particular problem with Northwestern, but this push was to make sure that student athletes had a voice. He says that’s an issue that CAPA will continue to pursue.

ADAM: You need a check and balance of some sort, and right now it’s not there.

CORLEY: Adam said the fight isn’t over, and the NLRB said it could reconsider the issue in the future. Cheryl Corley, NPR News, Chicago.

Copyright © 2015 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 a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

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Health August 17, 2015

Microbe Mix May Play Role In Preterm Birth Risk

Microbial diversity could be a factor in premature births.

Microbial diversity could be a factor in premature births. iStockphoto hide caption

itoggle caption iStockphoto

The assortment of microbes in a pregnant woman’s vagina appears to play a role in her chances of giving birth prematurely, new research suggests.

The study of 49 pregnant women, published in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that those who had a diverse array of microbes were more likely to give birth prematurely.

Though the study is small, the findings are the latest in a flood of new insights into the roles that microbes may play in human health.

In the latest study, David Relman, a professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology at Stanford University and his colleagues, took samples from 49 women weekly during their pregnancies and monthly after they had their babies.

Fifteen of the women ended up giving birth prematurely. Most of the women had microbes dominated by lactobacillus bacteria, which has previously been associated with better health. Those whose microbes were more diverse — having high levels of gardnerella and ureaplasma microbes and low levels of lactobacillus — were at increased risk for giving birth more than three weeks early, the researchers found.

In addition, all the women’s microbes tended to change significantly after they had their babies, becoming significantly more diverse. That shift could help explain why women who have babies close together are more likely to have the subsequent baby prematurely, the researchers said.

Babies born prematurely are at increased risk for a host of health problems. While the findings need to be confirmed in a bigger study, the researchers say the findings may eventually help doctors identify women at risk for giving birth prematurely and find ways to prevent that from happening. For example, researchers may be able to find probiotics women could take to reduce their risk for premature births.

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Business August 16, 2015

The Trademark Woes Of Michael Jordan (And Many Others) In China

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A Chinese court says that Qiaodan Sports’ logo of a basketball player’s silhouette does not infringe on Air Jordan’s famous “jumpman.” Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images

Copyright law is complicated to begin with.

But many American companies have run into extra trouble trying to do business in China, where trademark laws are completely different than they are here in the United States.

Take a chain of shoe and athletic wear stores in China, where things might look a little familiar. Looming above the columns of shoes and rows of clothes is the store’s logo: a silhouette of a basketball player, mid-air, his outstretched arm holding a basketball.

There are nearly 6,000 Qiaodan Sports stores around China.

There are nearly 6,000 Qiaodan Sports stores around China. John Pasden (jpasden)/Flickr hide caption

itoggle caption John Pasden (jpasden)/Flickr

The name of the chain is Qiaodan (pronounced cheow-dahn). It’s the Chinese transliteration of Jordan — as in Michael Jordan, the six-time NBA champ who has a famous line of shoes called Air Jordans.

But the Chinese company Qiaodan Sports has no relation whatsoever to Nike’s Air Jordan brand. They are totally separate.

One store employee says people who come in usually know the difference, and if they don’t, they just have to ask and the staff will explain.

But many people don’t think to ask — because they assume the companies are connected.

Outside of a store in Shanghai, two customers told NPR that they didn’t know about the difference until the lawsuit hit the news.

“We used to buy Qiaodan because we thought it had something to do with Michael Jordan,” Alex Kong says. Now, he buys them a little less often.

Another customer asked the big questions when we spoke with her: “Why do they use the same name? Are they allowed to use it?”

As for why they use the same name, we can’t speculate. But they are indeed allowed to use it. Here’s how.

Air Jordan VIIs like these were originally released in 1992. In the years since, they've inspired retro releases from Nike — and unsanctioned imitators, like this pair of Qiaodan Sports' women's basketball shoes.

Air Jordan VIIs like these were originally released in 1992. In the years since, they’ve inspired retro releases from Nike — and unsanctioned imitators, like this pair of Qiaodan Sports’ women’s basketball shoes. Christopher Robert Allah (killachris)/Flickr hide caption

itoggle caption Christopher Robert Allah (killachris)/Flickr

When Nike expanded the Air Jordan brand to China back in the 1990s, they only registered the English version of “Jordan.”

A few years later, a family-owned shoe company from Fujian province came along and registered “Qiaodan,” the Chinese version. Since then, Qiaodan Sports has registered dozens of other trademarks that seem related to Michael Jordan, including their own silhouette logo and the names of Jordan’s two sons in both Chinese and English.

Qiaodan Sports has since expanded to about 6,000 locations across China. They do hundreds of millions of dollars in in business each year.

Jordan sued the company in 2012. In a video explaining his take on the case, he emphasizes how much his name means to him.

“It’s something that I own. When someone takes advantage and misrepresents that, I think it’s left up to me to protect that,” he says. “I have no other choice but to turn to the courts.”

Qiaodan counter-sued in 2013, saying Jordan’s original suit had prevented them from going public.

An on-brand Michael Jordan at the 2012 Ryder Cup, a few months after he sued Qiaodan Sports for the first time.

An on-brand Michael Jordan at the 2012 Ryder Cup, a few months after he sued Qiaodan Sports for the first time. David Cannon/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption David Cannon/Getty Images

The first rulings came down in April. The Beijing High People’s Court found Jordan’s claims against Qiaodan to be insufficient. Jordan asked for a retrial; earlier this summer, he lost that too.

Attorney Dan Harris has dealt with this time and again. He says Michael Jordan ran into a problem that’s common among American companies.

“Most countries, including China, give trademarks to whomever files for it first,” he explains. “But [in] the United States, it’s whoever uses it first.”

His firm Harris Moure specializes in helping American companies wade the waters of Chinese law. His firm gets a call or two a month about this exact issue.

“They become very unhappy when we have to tell them that instead of hiring us to sue that company, they should hire us to negotiate with that company,” Harris says. “That is not what they want to hear.”

Many American companies have run into this problem, including Gucci, New Balance and Tesla. Apple had to pay $60 million to a Chinese screen maker called Proview for the trademark to the iPad. Some companies aren’t even planning to sell their product in China — but even manufacturing product there can result in issues if the company hasn’t secured the trademark.

Since 2001, China has had a law that protects international trademarks that are very well-known in China. Starbucks won a case this way, against a Chinese coffee shop chain called Xingbake (xing means “star” in Chinese, and “bake” sounds similar to “bucks”). But victories for American companies are still rare.

Jordan’s camp say they plan to appeal to China’s Supreme Court. Harris thinks the superstar has a long row to hoe.

But maybe that persistence shouldn’t be a surprise coming from the guy who’s famous for saying, “I can accept failure … but I can’t accept not trying.”

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Health August 16, 2015

When Rehab Might Help An Addict — But Insurance Won't Cover It

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Cris and Valerie Fiore hold one of their favorite pictures of their sons Anthony (with the dark hair) and Nick. Anthony died from a heroin overdose in May 2014 at the age of 24. Cris Fiore’s eulogy described his son’s death as a shock, but “not a surprise.” Anthony had been addicted to heroin for years. Ben Allen/WITF hide caption

itoggle caption Ben Allen/WITF

The latest numbers show that deaths from heroin-related overdose more than tripled nationally between 2002 and 2013. Opiate addiction touches every demographic: white, black, Hispanic, rural, suburban and urban.

Proposed solutions nationally include more government funding for treatment, tougher penalties for dealers, and proactive interventions to stop people before they start.

Now, a couple of parents who lost their son to a heroin overdose are pointing out that drug addiction doesn’t tend to be treated like a disease in the United States — which means that when drug users want to get treatment, health insurance coverage often comes up short.

And until the prevailing thinking changes, these parents say, progress will only be made on the edges.

‘Your Insurance Will Not Cover Any More’

Growing up in the Philadelphia suburb of Warrington, Anthony Fiore checked all the boxes for a typical American guy. He’d go to the gym, play video games and watch football — in his case, the Eagles. His mom, Valerie Fiore, was proud of him.

“Anthony was very intelligent,” she says. “He breezed through his high school, Central Bucks South — he never studied. He aced his SATs. He got right into Penn State’s main campus.”

But before he could get to Penn State, the powerful painkiller Oxycontin got hold of him. Soon afterward, he moved on to heroin.

In May 2011, Anthony tried a 21-day rehabilitation stint in Florida. About a year later, he checked in to another facility, but only for 11 days. By the third attempt at inpatient rehab, Anthony said he really wanted to get help and would stick it out.

“That was a 21-day treatment. And that’s when I had Premera Blue Cross,” Fiore says. She begged the staff at the rehab-center to keep treating her son at their facility for longer than 21 days. “And that gentleman said to me, ‘Your insurance will not cover any more.’ “

The family couldn’t afford to foot the bill for a longer stay, Valerie Fiore says. So Anthony left that facility in November 2013. Six months later, he was dead of a heroin overdose.

In a written response to the case, Premera Blue Cross said that its medical policies are informed by national experts.

Every case is different, but for most severe addiction problems, many treatment professionals recommend a sober inpatient stay of three to six weeks, plus intensive outpatient treatment that can include drugs like suboxone or methadone to ease the effects of cravings.

Clare Krusing with the trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans says that when making a decision about whether or not to pay for a particular treatment, insurance plans are looking at effectiveness.

“It’s taking into account the patient’s health and how they respond to those treatments,” she says. “There are many cases where, if patients need additional care and support, that is provided to them.”

Valerie Fiore is skeptical; she says Anthony met the criteria for a longer stay.

Do Insurers Treat Addiction Like Other Illnesses, As Required?

Deb Beck, who represents the Drug and Alcohol Service Providers Organization of Pennsylvania, says she hears stories like Anthony’s all the time. Facilities battle insurers to cover longer stays for patients, she says.

“The whole thing about who is worthy to have insurance coverage gets tangled into this,” Beck says. “But if I had a heart problem, and I didn’t do everything I was supposed to, I would not be denied coverage. In fact, if I got sicker, you would increase the coverage for me.”

Under a 2008 federal law, insurers have to consider drug and alcohol addiction the same as any other medical problem, as far as access to treatment goes. The Department of Labor says it has investigated at least 140 claims in which a patient’s parity rights were violated. All those claims have been resolved through discussions with the insurers, the agency says.

But advocates say the information isn’t public, and no fines have been issued.

Krusing, with the insurance industry’s trade group, says when treatment for addiction is so different from treatments for medical issues, it’s hard to figure out exactly what parity looks like.

“When you’re comparing those treatment plans, it’s essentially comparing apples and oranges,” she says. “And that’s an inherent challenge for health plans, and for patients and for their providers.”

But Sam Ball, the CEO of CASAColumbia, a substance abuse and addiction research organization, says insurance companies should recognize a longer inpatient stay that allows people to break away from bad influences.

“[It] … gives more time for planning about where they should be living after they get out of treatment,” he says. “It also gives more time to be doing more extensive training on coping skills that they’ll need once they leave the hospital or the program.”

Meanwhile, Valerie Fiore is trying to cope with her son’s death from overdose. She says she cries herself to sleep every night. Sometimes she sleeps in his bed. “I don’t know,” she says. “It maybe just makes me feel closer to him.”

She says she’s pushing for a change to the Affordable Care Act that would require insurance firms to offer at least 90 days of inpatient treatment in similar cases of drug addiction.

So far, Fiore has collected more than 30,000 signatures online. Many of the petitioners say they’re endorsing the change on behalf of a relative, or a friend or themselves.

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Entertainment August 15, 2015

Check Out the Cool Concept Art for Disney's Massive New 'Star Wars' Theme Parks

Star Wars Land concept art

Disney’s D23 expo naturally has a huge focus on their movies, but we all know the actual movies are only just one aspect of Disney’s ever-expanding empire. They’re also a theme park giant and today CEO Bob Iger announced that Disneyland in Anaheim, California and Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida are both getting a bit bigger with dedicated Star Wars expansions.

Each park is going to be getting a dedicated Star Wars area that will take up 14-acres at each location. Those big chunks of land promis to transport “guests to a never-before-seen planet, a remote trading port and one of the last stops before wild space where Star Wars characters and their stories come to life.”

It won’t just be Tattooine-themed cantinas, either. Iger has said that there will be at least two signature attractions. The first will allow you to pilot the Millennium Falcon on a secret mission customized to the visitor, while the other will plant guests right in the middle of an epic Star Wars adventure.

We don’t know exactly how, or even when, Disney will be pulling off both of those feats, but we at least have some concept art to see what the areas will look like.

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