Articles by admin

No Image

Sports July 26, 2015

British Cyclist Chris Froome Wins Tour De France

Team Sky rider Chris Froome of Britain, with the race leader's yellow jersey, celebrates his overall victory on the podium after the 109.5-km (68 mile) final 21st stage of the 102nd Tour de France.

Team Sky rider Chris Froome of Britain, with the race leader’s yellow jersey, celebrates his overall victory on the podium after the 109.5-km (68 mile) final 21st stage of the 102nd Tour de France. Stefano Rellandini/Reuters/Landov hide caption

itoggle caption Stefano Rellandini/Reuters/Landov

British cyclist Chris Froome rode to his second Tour de France win in just three years on Sunday, edging out his toughest rival, Colombian Nairo Quintana.

The Guardian reports: “The final stage was effectively a procession, with Froome enjoying a customary glass of champagne on his bike with around 100km to go. Froome was officially declared the winner of this year’s Tour when the riders came into Paris for the first time, before they embarked on the first of their 10 laps of the Champs-Élysées after the finish was [neutralized] due to bad weather.”

Froome, 30, who was forced to abandon the iconic race last year after falling in treacherous conditions, held the yellow jersey on Stage 4 and again on Stage 7 onward after losing it to Tony Martin.

SB Nation writes: “His signature attack was a furious climb up La Pierre-St. Martin on Stage 10, during which he opened his lead from 12 seconds to 2:52 over Tejay Van Garderen.”

SB Nation reports:

“From that point onward, Froome was a marked man, but any attacks against him fell short. Froome himself was magnificent, of course, but so was [his] Team Sky. During the Stage 12 climb up to Plateau de Beille, Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas successfully closed gap after gap with Froome in tow, allowing Froome to then attack on his own in a show of force to his rivals, ultimately forcing a stalemate.

“The next decisive days came at the very end of the Tour in the Alps. On Stage 19, Froome was perhaps truly vulnerable for the first time, losing his lieutenants to the early climbs and being forced to fend off every offensive himself. Nibali attacked him to win the stage when Froome had a mechanical issue, and Quintana was able to wrest 30 seconds away on the general classification, but Froome was still in strong position heading into the Stage 20 climb up Alpe d’Huez, 2:38 ahead of second-place Quintana.”

The BBC notes:

“Inside the last 10km (6 miles) he had to stop to remove a paper bag that had got caught up in his gears, while moments later he rode over a discarded water bottle. If either had caused him to crash and not cross the finish line his title would have been cruelly taken away.

“However, he stayed upright and rode over the line arm-in-arm with his Team Sky team-mates several seconds behind the main bunch.”

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

No Image

Health July 26, 2015

On A 'Tour De Tacos' With Los Angeles' Eastside Bike Club

The Eastside Bicycle Club on a 35 mile Saturday evening ride with stops for tacos.
5:23

Download

The Eastside Bicycle Club on a 35 mile Saturday evening ride with stops for tacos. Carlos Morales hide caption

itoggle caption Carlos Morales

Decked out in spandex and a yellow and orange racing jersey with Eastside Bicycle Club: Ride To Live on the front, Gabriela Bilich was hanging out at club founder Carlos Morales’ bike shop before a Saturday evening group-ride last weekend, joking with the other cyclists in spanglish.

Bilich says a couple of years ago, she would never have imagined herself riding a bike through the streets of LA. She says the cycling world just didn’t feel welcoming to a 40-something Latina from Southeast LA who struggled with her weight.

“I used to hang out at the Rose Bowl a lot. I used to go walking and I would see the cyclists go by, the whir of the peloton [pack] going by so fast,” she remembers. “All I ever saw were white dudes, tall skinny white dudes on the bikes, middle-age men in Lycra riding around the Rose Bowl and so I was like, ‘Okay, that’s another thing white people do.’ “

But after being introduced to the roughly 400-member Eastside Bike Club, which is mostly Latino, bilingual and bi-cultural, Bilich has found a cycling family where she feels right at home. She’s celebrating her one year bike-a-versary this month and credits cycling for her weight loss, but more importantly, her happiness.

Gabriela “Gabby” Bilich never thought she’d end up riding a bike as her main source of exercise. “All I ever saw were middle-aged men in Lycra riding around,” she says. Shereen Marisol Meraji/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Shereen Marisol Meraji/NPR

“I was never an athletic person in my life,” she says. “This is the first time that I’ve ever found anything that I liked and that I’m completely addicted to, you know? It’s my therapy.”

In fact, weight loss is what initially pushed Carlos Morales, the founder of the club, to get on a bike in 2008, after a years-long battle with obesity. At age 48, he was 400 pounds and on a dozen different medications. A sobering discussion with his doctor convinced him that if he didn’t get in shape, he’d die.

Morales loved basketball, but was carrying too much weight to play. The next best thing: riding a bike. He remembered he loved biking around his East LA neighborhood as a kid and hoped it would bring him the same satisfaction as an adult. He spent months swimming to lose enough weight that he felt comfortable balancing on the old bike collecting dust in his garage.

When that day came, he called up eight friends from his largely Mexican-American neighborhood in East LA to ride with him. The only time that worked for everyone was Tuesday night at 7 p.m. He’s been riding every Tuesday night at 7 p.m. for the past seven years.

As word of the ride spread, the number of cyclists grew from eight to 20 to 60. People in the neighborhood would come out and clap, Morales recalls. “They thought we were doing something special, and we were just having fun.”

Now there are hundreds of active Eastside Bike Club members in on the fun, and Morales has turned cycling from a recreational activity into his life’s work. A few years ago, he bought a high-end bike shop that had been catering to customers that could buy fancy bikes for thousands of dollars. He kept the name, Stan’s Monrovia Bicycles, but changed things up a bit. Morales brought in more affordable models, and made the shop into a place where both a Hollywood producer and a day laborer could be comfortable, and where Spanish is spoken as freely as English.

Around 6 p.m., Bilich and nearly two dozen other riders headed out from Morales’s bike shop parking lot and onto the unusually wet Southern California city streets. A tropical storm surprised the riders, but they decided to brave the weather and continue what Morales calls the “tour de tacos,” a 35-mile trek with half a dozen stops at taco trucks along the way.

Morales says the Eastside Bike Club is about exercising — he calls the streets of LA his gym — but adds the social aspect is just as important. Having gotten so much from cycling, Morales wants his club to be a place where anyone interested can do the same. It’s free to join; all you need is a bike that works and the will to make the wheels turn. The rest will take care of itself.

All summer, Code Switch is reporting stories on R&R: Race and Outdoor Recreation. Recently, we hung out with Korean and Korean-American hardcore hikers to find out how hiking has remained such a big part of Korean heritage.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

No Image

Entertainment July 26, 2015

The Guitar In The Window: How One Instrument Steered Sir Richard Bishop's Life

To create his album Tangier Sessions, Sir Richard Bishop had to learn to love a mysterious and temperamental acoustic guitar.
6:09

Download

To create his album Tangier Sessions, Sir Richard Bishop had to learn to love a mysterious and temperamental acoustic guitar. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of the artist

Some musicians argue that instruments have souls. Guitarist Richard Bishop says he felt a relationship forming the moment he saw a mysterious acoustic guitar in a secondhand store in Switzerland. He’s known for playing electric guitar in the improvisational rock trio Sun City Girls, but something told Bishop the acoustic had to be his.

Bishop was in Geneva last year, going from shop to shop looking for a secondhand acoustic guitar that was small, light and easy to travel with. Finally, a shopkeeper led him to a back room, handed him a guitar with no name on it, and walked away. Bishop started to play, and the earth moved.

“It was instant. It was like there was something about this guitar. You know, it had a power,” Bishop remembers. “You have to get this guitar because this is your one and only chance.”

But it was way too expensive, and rationality prevailed — for a while. He couldn’t stop thinking about the guitar. He kept going back to look at it and deciding he couldn’t afford it. The instrument showed up in his dreams, like a jealous lover sending him messages through his subconscious, and he worried someone else would get it first.

“I mean, I literally had those thoughts,” he says. “You don’t question that. You just do it.”

Bishop raided his savings and bought the guitar. And when he played it again, the earth did not move.

“I’ve played a lot of guitars in my life,” he says. “I’ve been playing for almost 40 years. But this guitar, because it was so small, and it was so old and somewhat fragile, at first the results that came out of it were just … crazy. It just wasn’t really that great.”

For example, when he played high notes up the neck (which he does a lot), they were out of tune. Ted Drozdowski has been there — he’s a guitarist who’s just released an album of his own, as well as a journalist who interviewed Bishop for a guitar magazine. He says that sometimes, an unfamiliar instrument can teach its owner something new.

“He had to learn how to fingerstyle pick … which he hadn’t done before,” Drozdowski says of Bishop. “So I think the guitar forced Richard to grow in certain ways.”

Back home in Portland, Ore., a few months into their relationship, Bishop and the guitar were getting along better. Still, as he prepared for a trip to Morocco to play a show in Tangier, his rational side was telling him to pack an electric and leave the new guitar behind. At the eleventh hour, he resisted.

“I decided at the very last minute, I’m gonna take this new acoustic guitar, ’cause why not?” he says. “I’ll do the show with it just to see what happens.”

The guitar didn’t do so well. Bishop decided it was because he’d tried to play his older material on it, so he spent some time fooling around with the instrument. He went into a room with tiled walls in the building where he was staying and started to improvise, with a digital audio recorder rolling. What it captured became his latest album, Tangier Sessions.

[embedded content]

Bishop has been listening to music from the Middle East and North Africa since he was a child. One of his grandfathers was an immigrant from Lebanon, and Bishop and his brother would beg him to play them Arabic pop from his collection of cassette tapes. When the brothers later formed their band Sun City Girls, they incorporated some of those sounds into its music. Bishop says he doesn’t know the theory behind it — he just knows where to put his fingers. Drozdowski says Tangier Sessions proves that Bishop doesn’t need to know much else.

“The notes are so beautifully carved, and they’re so distinct and rich and evocative of the place they were recorded as well,” Drozdowski says. “That command is something he innately possesses without having all those other intellectual processes to filter it through.”

The identity of Bishop’s new love remains a mystery. Experts who’ve examined it believe it was built in the 1850s, but have no idea where, or who built it. A luthier put a tiny camera inside and found writing, but nobody’s been able to make out what it says, or even what the language is.

Bishop, however, says his intense reaction to the guitar isn’t a mystery anymore — it led to the album. And now that he knows how to play the instrument, he’s in love again.

“I think our little relationship together is just beginning, so who knows what kind of mysteries it still has?” he says. “Who knows what kind of power it will have over me next year, or the year after?”

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

No Image

Business July 25, 2015

Britain's Pearson In Talks To Sell Stake In The Economist Group

Georg Kapsch, President of the Federation of Austrian Industry, holds an issue of The Economist during a news conference in Vienna last year. Britain's Pearson PLC says it's in talks to sell its 50 percent share in The Economist Group.

Georg Kapsch, President of the Federation of Austrian Industry, holds an issue of The Economist during a news conference in Vienna last year. Britain’s Pearson PLC says it’s in talks to sell its 50 percent share in The Economist Group. Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters/Landov hide caption

itoggle caption Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters/Landov

Updated at 1:15 p.m. ET

Britain’s Pearson PLC — just days after announcing it would sell The Financial Times — has made public that it is engaged in talks to dump its 50 percent stake in The Economist Group.

“Pearson confirms it is in discussions with The Economist Group Board and trustees regarding the potential sale of our 50 percent share in the group,” the company said in a statement on Saturday. “There is no certainty that this process will lead to a transaction.”

Reuters reports that Italian holding company Exor, which now has a 4.72 percent stake in The Economist Group, is in talks with Pearson to increase its share.

The venerable Economist, a weekly news magazine that calls itself a newspaper, is known for its cogent analysis of international affairs and a wry wit.

Politico reports:

“Existing Economist shareholders led by John Elkann, heir to the Italian Agnelli industrial fortune and a member of the magazine’s board, are working on a potential buyout of Pearson’s stake, according to people familiar with the talks.

“Mr. Elkann was not immediately available for comment, an aide said.

“Sources said that Pearson could get as much as £500 million for its stake, although the price is subject to ongoing negotiations.”

The Wall Street Journal adds:

“The publisher makes most of its revenue from educational services underpinned by its operations in North America. It has a 50% non-controlling stake in The Economist Group which publishes The Economist, a weekly business and international news publication with a paid circulation of 1.6 million.

“The group’s businesses include data research firm Economist Intelligence Unit as well as other related assets such as The Economist Events and The Economist Corporate Network.”

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

No Image

Sports July 25, 2015

Athletes Make News On Social Issues: The Week In Sports

4:34

Download

The big question in sports this week has been: Will Zack Greinke pitch for the Dodgers on Saturday night? And the U.S. men’s soccer team competes for third place in the Gold Cup.

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

I look forward all week to saying it’s time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SIMON: This week, two expectant fathers were on the mound; reach for the Pampers. Also a new coach makes her mark in the NBA, and why can’t the U.S. men play more like women? We’re joined now by NPR’s special sports correspondent, Tom Goldman. Tom, thanks so much for being with us.

TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: My pleasure.

SIMON: Let’s hit baseball first. Two great pitchers – I’ve been savoring this phrase for a few days now – two great pitchers are on California rolls. Ha. Get it? Sorry.

GOLDMAN: Good one.

SIMON: Thank you.

GOLDMAN: Really good. And not to one up you, but may I add that L.A. Dodgers Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw are wasabi hot.

SIMON: (Laughter) OK. You win. Yes, two great rolls of scoreless- two great streaks of scoreless innings, right?

GOLDMAN: But before we talk about Zack Greinke and the 43 in two-thirds straight scoreless innings he has pitched, we need to talk about Zack Greinke the new father. He was scheduled to pitch last night versus the Mets. He missed the start so he could be with his wife for the birth of his first child. Now, amazingly, the Mets scheduled starter, Jon Niese, also was about to become a papa for the second time. He chose to pitch, watched the birth on FaceTime. You think Greinke’s kid will hold it over Niese’s someday?

SIMON: The two of them will meet in spring training a few years from now and say, well, my dad was there. What about yours? Well, my dad won the game. Yeah.

GOLDMAN: And happy to say, both mothers delivered healthy baby boys. Now, I’m not going to put a value judgment on what either pitcher did or didn’t do, Scott, but the Dodgers did crush the Mets 7-2.

SIMON: Well, all right. God bless both families. That’s best. And Zack will be on the mound against the Mets, right?

GOLDMAN: Tomorrow. And try to keep that streak going. He’s chasing another Dodger great, Orel Hershiser. He holds the record for consecutive innings pitched without giving up a run – 59 straights in 1988 – Greinke, with 43 and two-thirds straight. He’s been fantastic. He was – you know, he has an impossibly low earned run average of 1.30. Although, some opposing batters have grumbled that umpires are giving him a really big strike zone by umpires. Now, amazingly, Clayton Kershaw is kind of a secondary story on the Dodgers, something to say, considering…

SIMON: Winner, yeah.

GOLDMAN: Yeah, three of the last four national league Cy Young Awards. With his shutout win versus the Mets Thursday, Kershaw – in his last three games – has thrown 38 strikeouts, has not given up a walk. And now he’s at 29 straight scoreless innings. So the talk in L.A. is about the second coming of Koufax and Drysdale.

SIMON: Yeah. Basketball – Becky Hammond of the San Antonio Spurs, the NBA’s first assistant coach who happens to be female is really making a mark in the summer leagues, isn’t she?

GOLDMAN: Yeah. She led the Spurs to the summer league title, which is only the summer league title. Your top players aren’t playing. But, you know, someone’s got to win it, and Hammond was impressive – the way she handled her team. She was in the huddles talking tough to the men, chewing them out when they got a bit too cavalier in their approach. Kudos to the Spurs, you know, another feather in the cap of head coach Gregg Popovich for hiring Hammond as an assistant, giving her the head-coaching opportunity with the summer league. She made the most of it.

SIMON: And is that the kind of record teams look for when they look for – begin to look for a head coach in a couple years?

GOLDMAN: Well, you know, again it is just the summer league. But you know, Adam – NBA Commissioner Adam Silver did talk about the real likelihood that a woman could coach at some point in the NBA. Remember, the league has blazed gender trails before. In the late 1990s, Violet Palmer became the first official – female official – to officiate at the highest level of any major pro sport.

SIMON: Just last summer, U.S. men’s national soccer coach Jurgen Klinsmann was being applauded for what his team did in the World Cup. This summer – big loss against Jamaica – what’s changed?

GOLDMAN: Yeah, in the Gold Cup this week – against Jamaica ranked 76th in the world – major upset. Yeah, there are rumblings about Klinsmann. He was applauded for last summer’s World Cup, although he was also criticized for what some believe are his tactical deficiencies as a coach. You know, there’s concern that the U.S. men’s team hasn’t grown, hasn’t had consistent success that was promised when Klinsmann took over in 2011. So we’ll watch that. The U.S. men still trying to catch up with the success and popularity of the women’s team.

SIMON: God bless. NPR’s Tom Goldman. Thanks so much.

GOLDMAN: You’re welcome, Scott.

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.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

No Image

Entertainment July 24, 2015

Best of the Week: New 'Spectre' and 'Hunger Games' Trailers, 'Jurassic World' Breaks a Record and More

The Important News

Franchise Fever: The next Jurassic Park sequel is scheduled for 2018 with Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard returning. Bryan Singer confirmed plans for an X-Men and Fantastic Four crossover. Emojis will be at the center of the next big animated film franchise.

Casting Net: Benicio Del Toro might be the main vilain in Star Wars Episode VIII. Michael Sheen joined the sci-fi film Passengers. The Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync will star in a zombie apocalypse movie. Amy Poehler will star in a basketball comedy. Russell Crowe and Brie Larson might join Kong: Skull Island.

Remake Report: Disney hired a Game of Thrones writer for its live-action remake of The Sword in the Stone. The King of Comedy will become a Broadway musical. Simon Kinberg is taking over the Logan’s Run remake.

New Directors/New Films: David Gordon Green will direct the Boston Marathon bombing movie Stranger. Rob McElhenney will make the Minecraft movie. Brad Peyton will direct Dwayne Johnson again in the Rampage movie.

First Looks: Charlie Hunnam as King Arthur in King Arthur.

Score Board: James Horner secretly composed the score for The Magnificent Seven before he died.

Box Office: Ant-Man was the top-grossing movie last weekend. Jurassic World became the third-highest-grossing movie of all time.

The Videos and Geek Stuff

New Movie Trailers: Spectre, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, The Good Dinosaur, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, Freeheld, Queen of Earth, One and Two, Mississippi Grind and Before We Go.

Movie Clips: Dark Places, Big Significant Things and The Gift.

Watch: A fake trailer for a special “high heels edition” box set of the Jurassic Park franchise.

See: An infographic guide to all of Disney Animation’s planned live-action remakes and sequels.

Watch: A video essay about the films of Lars von Trier. And a supercut of the films of Christopher Nolan.

See: New Star Wars characters and vehicles revealed through Lego playsets.

Learn: How Mission: Impossible II changed the course of movie history.

Watch: An honest trailer for Super Mario Bros. And a 1960s style trailer for the 2006 Casino Royale.

See: Why Garrett Morris had a cameo in Ant-Man.

Watch: A mash-up of Batman v Superman and The Social Network.

Learn: How to make your own Back to the Future Part II hoverboard replica.

Watch: A fake trailer imagining a Wonder Woman movie by John Cassavetes.

Learn: How Michael Jackson almost played Jar Jar in the Star Wars prequels.

See: This week’s best new movie posters.

Our Features

Horror Movie Guides: See the program for the Bruce Campbell Horror Film Festival. And find out our favorite horror movie priests.

Sci-Fi Movie Guide: Why Annihilation is the perfect next project for Alex Garland.

Home Viewing: Here’s our guide to everything hitting VOD this week.

and

MORE FROM AROUND THE WEB:

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

No Image

Health July 24, 2015

California Judge Throws Out Lawsuit On Medically Assisted Suicide

Christy O'Donnell, who has advanced lung cancer, is one of several California patients suing for the right to get a doctor's help with prescription medicine to end their own lives if and when they feel that's necessary.

Christy O’Donnell, who has advanced lung cancer, is one of several California patients suing for the right to get a doctor’s help with prescription medicine to end their own lives if and when they feel that’s necessary. YouTube hide caption

itoggle caption YouTube

Three terminally ill patients lost a court battle in California Friday over whether they should have the right to request and take lethal medication to hasten their deaths.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Gregory Pollack said he would dismiss the case, adding that the issues were beyond his role as a judge to decide and should instead be put to the California state legislature or voters to establish new law.

Plaintiffs vowed to appeal the ruling.

“This is certainly frustrating, but it’s a temporary setback,” said Elizabeth Wallner, a plaintiff in the case, who has been diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. “I am optimistic that we’ll prevail in the end. It’s too big of an issue to leave uncovered.”

Wallner began a series of treatments for her cancer in 2011, including surgeries to remove her colon and parts of her liver, radiation, and numerous rounds of chemotherapy. In the midst of this, when her son was 16, she realized that she wanted to have control over her own death.

“I was throwing up in the bathroom and my son was taking care of me,” she said. “I looked over at his face and I saw him absolutely stricken, watching his mother experience this. I thought, that’s enough — my son doesn’t need to see this. I should have the right to make that decision when it’s time.”

The case she and others brought to the court seeks to challenge current California law (Section 401 of the state penal code), which makes it a crime to deliberately aid or advise another person to commit suicide. Wallner and the other patients say the law prohibits their doctors from discussing or prescribing medications that could end their lives; and that prohibition, they say, violates their rights to privacy, liberty, and free speech under the California Constitution.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs — the three patients and a physician — argue that the option to hasten death is an extension of previously recognized legal rights to make end-of-life decisions, including the right to refuse life-sustaining treatments, like a feeding tube or ventilator.

“When you’re suffering, and you know you’re going to die anyway, it should be up to you to decide when enough is enough,” said Kevin Diaz, an attorney and director of legal affairs for the advocacy group Compassion & Choices, which is representing the plaintiffs. “We’ll keep trying anyway we can to make sure this is an option.”

But California Attorney General Kamala Harris, one of the defendants in the case, argued that there is no right to assisted suicide embedded in California law. Health statutes that protect patients’ rights to withdraw treatment, Harris said, do not include a right to provide proactive assistance to end someone’s life.

“No court has ever extended the right to privacy to encompass an affirmative medical intervention to kill oneself,” Julie Trinh, deputy attorney general, wrote in a legal brief.

She wrote that while the court has sympathized in the past with the plight of the terminally ill, it concluded that the question of allowing physician-assisted suicide is a legislative matter, rather than a judicial one.

The judge in this case agreed. He said he would issue a formal ruling on Monday.

A bill that aims to legalize physician-assisted suicide in California (SB 128) has been tabled for the rest of the year, after stalling in the Assembly Health Committee. Several attempts in other states to pass a similar bill this year have failed.

The practice is legal in five states: The courts authorized the practice in Montana and New Mexico; Vermont passed a law in its legislature; and voters approved ballot measures in Washington and Oregon.

There is one other lawsuit pending in California.

The three patients who are plaintiffs in the case dismissed Friday are worried that the legal process will be too slow to provide relief for them. Christy O’Donnell, a single mother from Santa Clarita, Calif., who is dying from lung cancer, explains her situation in the video below, released earlier this year.

[embedded content]

O’Donnell broke down in tears after Friday’s hearing. “I don’t have much time left to live,” she said. “These options are urgent for me.”

This story was produced by State of Health, KQED’s health blog.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

No Image

Business July 24, 2015

Struggling Greek Businesses Choked By Money Controls

A shop owner arranges his goods in central Athens on Monday. Greek banks have reopened, but capital controls remain in place.
3:22

Download

A shop owner arranges his goods in central Athens on Monday. Greek banks have reopened, but capital controls remain in place. Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images

This week the Greek Parliament approved a set of reforms it hopes will lead a new bailout. The country remains under strict capital controls that bar people from sending money abroad. In a country that imports much of what it uses and eats, that’s having a debilitating effect on the economy.

The past few years have been tough for the merchants in Athens Central Market. But the closing of the banks earlier this month made a bad situation much worse.

“Under the capital controls people are limited to a certain amount of money a day so they have to prioritize what they need,” says Mateos Tsoupakis, who runs a fruit and vegetable store. “When they come in here they don’t buy a lot. They don’t want to spend all the money they have.”

Over the past five years, about 250,000 businesses have folded in Greece out of a total of 900,000. And Ioannis Chatzitheodosiou, who heads the Athens Chamber of Tradesmen, says many of those that remain are deep in debt.

“These businesses are already hurting,” he says. “Now these capital controls are doing even more damage because people are consuming less and income is falling.”

But poor sales aren’t the only problem Greek businesses face. Excluding the food sector, Greece imports about 70 percent of what it sells.

Apostolos Kosmidis runs a bird store. The brightly colored canaries and parakeets he sells are bred in the Netherlands and imported into Greece. He buys bird feeders from Poland and pet food from Austria. Since the capital controls, he has been unable to send money to those countries so he can’t buy anything for his store.

“It’s simple. If we keep going like this we’re going to close,” he says. “Our business will close. It’s that simple.”

While the banks reopened this week, the government hasn’t said when capital controls will be lifted, and most people expect it will take months. So businesses are stumbling along in the dark, unsure of how to proceed.

Kiriakos Kaplanoglou runs a company that provides materials used in metal plating for things like doorknobs and jewelry. He’s not allowed to send money to his suppliers in places such as Germany and Italy.

“Some of them have already sent the materials to us and after that the capital controls were imposed to Greece so we cannot pay them,” he says. “And of course they don’t sell anything else to us.”

Kaplanoglou is trying to get around the controls by asking his foreign customers to make payments into a new account he’s set up in Cyprus. Meanwhile, to keep his stockpile of materials from running low, he sells his customers only what they need right away. And he no longer gives them months to pay.

“It’s not a rule; it depends on the customer, but basically the payment terms have been changed,” he says. “They’re almost cash.”

Kaplanoglou says he can survive for a while, but a lot of companies aren’t so fortunate. The Athens Chamber of Tradesmen estimates that about 15 percent of Greek businesses will close by September if the controls aren’t lifted — and that number will grow with each passing month.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

No Image

Sports July 24, 2015

Searching For The Golden Snitch At First European Quidditch Games

3:36

Download

NPR’s Melissa Block talks to tournament director Karen Kimaki about the inaugural Quidditch European Games, taking place this weekend in Sarteano, Italy.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.