ESPN reporter Jane McManus covered the Ray Rice domestic violence story and was critical of the NFL. She tells NPR’s Rachel Martin that she now thinks Rice may deserve his job back.
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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faces charges of NCAA violations including the existence of sham classes and grade inflation for student-athletes. Gerry Broome/AP hide caption
itoggle caption Gerry Broome/AP
Some college athletes are cheating, and the NCAA is cracking down on universities that enable them to do it. Earlier this year, the NCAA came down hard on Syracuse University for academic fraud. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is awaiting its punishment for guiding athletes to enroll in sham classes, among other infractions.
Will the University of Texas at Austin be next?
A new investigation by Brad Wolverton of The Chronicle of Higher Education describes alleged cases of academic misconduct by former members of the Texas Longhorns men’s basketball team, including cheating by a player who “allegedly took some pictures of some test questions during a final exam for a remedial math class with his phone and sent them to someone outside his math class looking for answers,” Wolverton tells NPR’s Arun Rath.
Wolverton also spoke with a former academic mentor in the Texas athletics department who helped another Texas player finish a paper “that wasn’t really entirely his own.”
Such episodes are significant, Wolverton says, because “the standards that the schools set matter, and they’re supposed to have academic integrity.” Meanwhile, the NCAA tells him it’s investigating 20 schools for allegations of academic misconduct.
How the University of Texas has responded to cheating allegations
Texas has responded in a couple of ways. I did a piece late last year called “Confessions of a Fixer” which was about a former basketball coach who had obtained online test answers … and was selling them to athletes across the country. And a couple of the players in that story were from Texas. In that instance, the university has investigated it. They’ve had some outside investigators look into it. They’ve also started looking into some of these current allegations and they so far have no concerns with how the matters were handled. And they’ve also contacted the NCAA to let them know that they’re looking into these problems.
On how widespread cheating may be
After that story came out, I talked to the head of enforcement at the NCAA, who told me the enforcement group there was investigating 20 schools for allegations of academic misconduct. On the heels of what happened at the University of North Carolina, in particular, where there were widespread allegations of thousands of students cheating, I think that there’s particular scrutiny to this now and schools have got their antennas up about this problem.
The NCAA has issued a notice of infractions [to UNC], which tells the university what they’ve found on them — which shows repeated violations of university employees either doing work for players or allegedly helping them out. It’s unclear as to how the university will be punished but it looks like when they’re alleged to have had a lack of institutional control, that’s one of worst violations that they can have in the NCAA’s vernacular.
On why cheating like this matters
The standards that the schools set matter, and they’re supposed to have academic integrity. And so it really devalues the degree to have students who can get away with things that they’re not supposed to get away with. It makes — the case of UNC in particular, it makes your degree look less valuable if you’ve got classes that are fake classes. And in the case of Texas, if you have the allegation that the athletic department is meddling in academic matters, it’s a problem because athletes aren’t supposed to get special treatment.
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NPR’s Scott Simon and NPR’s sports correspondent Tom Goldman talk women’s soccer and men’s basketball.
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The Important News
Chris Hemsworth joined the Ghostbusters reboot.
Chiwetel Ejiofor will play Doctor Strange villain Baron Mordo.
Matthew Vaughn will write and direct Kingsman 2.
Melissa McCarthy is a bonafide box office star.
Brad Pitt is going to be a Netflix movie star.
The Stand could be a Showtime miniseries that leads into theatrical movies.
The live-action remake of Akira could still be happening.
James Cameron endorsed Terminator: Genisys.
Joe Carnahan might direct Bad Boys 3.
Elizabeth Banks might direct the YA adaptation Red Queen. Meanwhile, Pitch Perfect 3 will again be written by Kay Cannon.
The U.S. military is making Star Wars-inspired laser weapons.
Six minutes of Ant-Man is now playing in theaters.
The Videos and Geek Stuff
New Movie Trailers: The Martian, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Disney’s Zootopia, Regression, Rock the Kasbah, Creep, The Overnight (Red Band), The Program, Weepah Way for Now, A Deadly Adoption and Ricki and the Flash.
And here’s new TV spots for the James Bond movie Spectre, Fantastic Four and Ant-Man.
Watch an honest trailer for Jurassic Park.
Watch an animated version of the Mad Max: Fury Road trailer. Now read about the real love story that happened during the making of Mad Max: Fury Road. Now learn how to make your own flame-throwing ukelele inspired by Mad Max: Fury Road.
See how you can watch movies with a pizza box.
Watch a video highlighting the sound design of Jurassic Park.
Now watch a Sesame Street parody of Jurassic Park. Now watch Jurassic Park starring pugs.
Check out some new Batmobile and Wonder Woman previews for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Watch a video proving Bryce Dallas Howard and Jessica Chastain are different people.
See Wolverine vs. Deadpool in fan art inspired by the upcoming Deadpool movie.
Watch a version of Blade Runner made up of deleted scenes.
See some fan tributes to Christopher Lee.
Check out this week’s best new movie posters.
Our Features
Movie Guide: The Martian could be one of the best movies of 2015.
Interview: We talked to director Dean Israelite about Project Almanac, time travel and Power Rangers.
R.I.P.: We remembered cinema icon Christopher Lee.
Home Viewing: Here’s our guide to everything hitting VOD this week. And here’s our guide to all the best new indie and foreign DVD releases.
and
MORE FROM AROUND THE WEB:
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NPR’s Robert Siegel talks to Helene Elliott of the Los Angeles Times about the Stanley Cup. The series is tied 2-2, as the Chicago Blackhawks and Tampa Bay Lightning prepare for game five on Saturday.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
LeBron James and Steph Curry, step aside. There is another series that is tied up 2-2 – the Stanley Cup final. Remember hockey, played on ice with a puck? Well, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Tampa Bay Lightning sure do. They’ll be playing game five tomorrow in Florida. And Helene Elliott, sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times, joins us from Tampa. Welcome to the program.
HELENE ELLIOTT: Thank you very much.
SIEGEL: Tied up 2-2, but you’ve written that it’s even closer than that. Explain that.
ELLIOTT: It’s just been remarkable. They’ve – every game has been decided by one goal. The teams have scored the identical number of goals. They’ve blocked the identical number of shots, and they’ve had identical problems in getting goals from their top goal scorers. Steven Stamkos of Tampa Bay has not scored a goal in the final. Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks hasn’t scored a goal in the final. So the big guns are having equal amounts of trouble on each side, and some of the lesser players have stepped up and played big roles for each team.
SIEGEL: And how do you describe the styles of these two teams?
ELLIOTT: It’s interesting because throughout the regular season, the Tampa Bay Lightning developed a reputation that’s kind of a high-scoring, fast-paced, run-and-gun kind of team. I guess maybe you can make an analogy to the Golden State Warriors. It’s just kind of, you know, up and back and lots of action, lots of speed, lot of skill. But in the playoffs, Tampa Bay has shown a lot of defensive skill. They just won the last game in Chicago 2-1 in a very hostile Chicago stadium, and it’s been interesting to see how they’ve evolved and recognized what it takes to win in the playoffs and made the kind of sacrifices that winning in the Stanley Cup playoffs requires of hockey players.
SIEGEL: What’s the word on Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender, Ben Bishop? Will he play tomorrow?
ELLIOTT: (Laughter). The word is undisclosed injury, and the other phrase is, we don’t know. The coach was very good today – Jon Cooper is his name – saying that he honestly does not know. And I tend to believe him in the sense that, you know, hockey players are known for their grit and playing through incredible amounts of pain. And for a player to kind of rule himself out of a game as Bishop did the other day in game four must mean he’s in a lot of pain. The kid who came in, a 20-year-old Russian kid named Andrei Vasilevskiy, was very poised, very calm, played extremely well, only his teammates didn’t score enough goals to support them in order for him to win. So at this point, nobody knows, and that’s part of the intrigue of this Stanley Cup final.
SIEGEL: Helene, as Stanley Cup finals go, how does this one rank?
ELLIOTT: It ranks pretty high. And I’m – was curious to see that the television ratings have been good as well. I think a lot of people thought, well, you know, Tampa Bay isn’t considered a traditional hockey market. The ratings will be low. But there’s been a good amount of interest. The Chicago Blackhawks, of course, are one of the so-called original six NHL teams. They have a very large fan base. They’re pursuing their third Stanley Cup in six seasons, so they have a lot of fans all over the country and all over North America, really. So having a large amount of viewership from the Chicago market was kind of a given. But the ratings have been good in a lot of different places, and it’s been a lot of fun to cover.
SIEGEL: Well, Helene Elliott of the LA Times, thanks for talking with us.
ELLIOTT: Thank you.
SIEGEL: Sports columnist Helene Elliott who’s in Tampa for game five of the Stanley Cup final tomorrow.
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Pam Marrone (right), founder and CEO of Marrone Bio Innovations, inspects some colonies of microbes. Marrone has spent most of her professional life prospecting for microbial pesticides and bringing them to market. Dan Charles/NPR hide caption
itoggle caption Dan Charles/NPR
What if farmers, instead of picking up some agricultural chemicals at their local dealer, picked up a load of agricultural microbes instead?
It’s something to contemplate, because some big names in the pesticide business — like Bayer and Monsanto — are putting money behind attempts to turn soil microbes into tools that farmers can use to give their crops a boost.
It’s a symptom of the soaring interest in the ways microbes affect all of life. In our bodies, they help fight off disease. In the soil, they help deliver nutrients to plants, and perhaps much more.
The most direct way to take advantage of microbes in farming — an approach that’s been around for decades, in fact — is to deploy them as weapons against insects or weeds.
Pam Marrone, founder of Marrone Bio Innovations, in Davis, Calif., has been spent most of her professional life looking for such microbial pesticides and bringing them to market.
She shows me a few of her newest candidates: colonies of microorganisms growing in little round petri dishes. Some are fuzzy; some are slimy. Marrone thinks they’re beautiful. “They’re all different colors,” she points out. “You’ve got orange, blue, purple, black, boring tan and magenta.”
Petri dishes filled with colonies of microorganisms at Marrone Bio Innovations, in Davis, Calif. Dan Charles/NPR hide caption
itoggle caption Dan Charles/NPR
The real test of their value, though, will be seeing whether they can kill a few other living creatures in this laboratory: crop-eating insects. The company maintains a collection of cabbage loopers, beet army worms, corn rootworms, green peach aphids, spider mites and a few others.
Marrone is also looking for microbes that kill weeds — and she thinks she may have found one. The company’s scientists discovered it in soil collected from the garden of a Buddhist temple in Japan. It doesn’t harm insects, but it kills many plants. Marrone thinks that it might eventually be a weedkiller that organic farmers can use. She says there’s huge demand for such a thing.
“I can go into a chemical distributor in the Central Valley of California and say, ‘What’s your greatest unmet need?’ and honest to God, this chemical dealer will tell me it’s organic weed control,” she says. “It’s remarkable.”
Marrone is hoping to submit a pile of data to the Environmental Protection Agency later this year, asking for approval to sell this microbe-produced herbicide to farmers.
Biopesticides have long been popular in small corners of agriculture, like organic farming.
Now big chemical companies are jumping in. That’s partly because organic farming is growing. But even conventional farmers are under pressure to use fewer toxic chemicals.
And the search for useful microbes has now expanded to include a whole new way to use microbes on the farm. Some call it “probiotics for crops.” There are microbes that somehow seem to give crops a boost.
“We don’t know how they work, necessarily,” says Matthew Ashby, the founder and chief scientist of a tiny startup company called Taxon Biosciences, in Tiburon, Calif.
On the wall at Taxon there’s a computer printout that reaches from ceiling to floor. It’s a list of all the microbes Taxon found in about a hundred different soil samples. Each microbe was identified through its DNA sequence. The sheer number of microbes on the list is astounding.
Matthew Ashby, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Taxon Biosciences. Dan Charles/NPR hide caption
itoggle caption Dan Charles/NPR
“I asked our sequencing manager to print out eight feet of this, so it would fit on the wall,” Ashby says. “If we printed out the entire data set, it would be over a mile long.”
Ashby says if you take a close look at this overwhelming list, you find clues about what the microbes are doing. For instance, some microbes show up consistently in soil samples from fields that produce bumper harvests of corn.
“When you always find a microbe there when a plant is doing well, there might be something to that,” he says.
Maybe those microbes are making corn more productive. Maybe farmers could add those beneficial microbes to their fields, and see an effect.
A year and a half ago, DuPont, the giant multinational that sells pesticides and seeds, among many other things, paid a visit to Taxon. Frank DeGennaro, director of DuPont Biologicals, was on that trip. He says the delegation was really impressed; the car ride home was filled with excited chatter about possibilities, “and I said, ‘I think there’s something here. I think we should have another discussion.’ “
In April, Dupont announced it was buying Taxon. This summer, at thousands of small plots across the Midwest, it’s carrying out trials to see whether Taxon’s microbes really do boost corn yields.
Other big companies that sell pesticides and seeds — like Monsanto, Bayer Cropscience , Syngenta — have made similar deals to boost their microbe-discovery capacity. Some, in fact, are much bigger than the Taxon deal. All of these companies are betting that the next great tool that farmers use to grow more food may be found in the soil under our feet.
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U.S. forward Sydney Leroux controls the ball during a Group D match with Australia on Monday during the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada. The U.S. won, 3-1. Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
itoggle caption Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images
The second-ranked U.S. Women’s National Soccer team is back in action today at the World Cup. The U.S. has a critical game against fifth-ranked Sweden in Winnipeg, Canada. It’s perhaps the marquee match-up of the opening round.
Not only are both teams highly-ranked and expected to do well, there’s added intrigue and drama. Consider the intrigue:
Pia Sundhage led the U.S. women to Olympic gold in 2008 and 2012 before leaving to coach the Swedish team. Anne M. Peterson/AP hide caption
itoggle caption Anne M. Peterson/AP
The drama came in a bit of trash talk about some of Sundhage’s former players. In a New York Times profile, the beloved coach (by players and fans) criticized several key U.S. starters.
The comments became media fodder the next day during a U.S. Soccer news conference with current head coach Jill Ellis. As my colleague Shereen Marisol Meraji reported today on Morning Edition:
“Ellis says, yeah, she was briefed about Sundhage’s comments. ‘I think I’ve made it pretty clear that distractions don’t really creep into my mind when I’m trying to prepare my players and my team for the game.’ “
Defender Lori Chalupny brushed off the suggestion that Sundhage’s comments provide the U.S. added incentive to beat Sweden. “When you’re at a World Cup, there’s no extra motivation needed,” Chalupny said.
If the U.S. defeats Sweden, it would all but guarantee the U.S. would advance to the knockout stage. Sweden is looking for a win following its disappointing 3-3 tie with Nigeria on Monday.
Playing conditions at the six host cities across Canada have generally been delightful, with highs in the 60s and 70s. But down on the pitch, it’s like being at a different latitude. The artificial turf, made of rubber and plastic, radiates heat. In at least two games, the field temperatures reportedly soared above 120 degrees. The U.S. coaches have asked FIFA to water the turf to cool it down.
The television audience for this World Cup is booming. FIFA says the opening games have attracted more viewers than those in 2011. While that’s true, attendance at some stadiums has been lackluster. At a double-header in Montreal featuring Brazil and star player Marta, only 10,000 fans showed up. The games with the biggest attendance have involved host country Canada and the first U.S. game (which given its proximity is almost like a “home” game).
The U.S.-Sweden game begins at 8 p.m. ET and will be televised on Fox Sports 1 and NBC Universo.
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President Obama walks with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, as he visits Capitol Hill on Friday. Carolyn Kaster/AP hide caption
itoggle caption Carolyn Kaster/AP
Dealing a big blow to President Obama’s agenda, the House of Representatives failed to pass a key element of a package of bills that would have given Obama the ability to fast-track a trade deal with Pacific-Rim nations.
In a sign of just how important the bill was for the White House, President Obama made a rare personal visit to the U.S. Capitol to lobby for the bill. But his overtures proved insufficient.
The House began by voting on a bill that would provide funding for training Americans who would lose their jobs because of the trade deal. When that bill failed by a wide margin, it became clear that the bill giving Obama fast-track powers is also in jeopardy.
The White House had made the case that the president needed fast-track authority to put the finishing touches on the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which some analysts believe would be the most significant international trade deal in decades.
Critics of the deal — including a large contingent of Obama’s own caucus — are opposed to it partly because they believe it will drive American jobs overseas.
Just how contentious is this issue? Right before the House voted on the Trade Adjustment Assistance bill, House Minority Leader and Obama ally Nancy Pelosi said she would not vote in favor of it.
She said this trade deal was not a good deal for American workers and she would not accept giving up the power to make amendments to the trade deal crafted by Obama.
“I will be voting to slow down the fast track,” Pelosi said.
NPR’s Marilyn Geewax will be live-tweeting the action. We’ve embedded her tweets below:
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“Nearly 1 in 3 uninsured Americans have already been covered — more than 16 million people -– driving our uninsured rate to its lowest level ever,” President Obama told a cheering crowd at the Catholic Health Association’s annual conference Tuesday. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/Landov hide caption
itoggle caption Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/Landov
Almost no one disputes that the implementation of the federal health law has helped Americans who were previously uninsured gain coverage. But exactly how much has the uninsured rate dropped?
A whole lot, says President Obama.
“Nearly 1 in 3 uninsured Americans have already been covered — more than 16 million people -– driving our uninsured rate to its lowest level ever,” he told a cheering crowd at the Catholic Health Association’s annual conference Tuesday. “Ever,” he added for emphasis.
But is the uninsured rate really the lowest ever? Maybe, say experts. But you can’t really tell.
Many pundits and others have been citing periodic polling by the Gallup organization. The 11.9 percent uninsured rate (among adults) it reported in April for this year’s first quarter is the lowest measured since it’s been keeping track. But Gallup has been measuring only since 2008.
A survey with a longer history – the one conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – also found an uninsured rate of 11.9 percent for the first three-quarters of 2014. That was down from 16 percent in 2010, the year the Affordable Care Act became law.
But even that survey changed its methodology back in 1997, which was well after employers had begun shedding coverage for workers and families.
“I would say that we have definitive evidence that the uninsured rate for the nonelderly is the lowest it has been since 1997,” said Genevieve Kenney, a policy researcher at the Urban Institute and co-director of its Health Policy Center. (Most surveys only measure the nonelderly because nearly everyone over age 65 has Medicare.) “Before that we are on less solid ground because of data limitations.”
“Some of the surveys being used now to determine the rate weren’t even around or weren’t asking health insurance questions a decade ago,” agreed Paul Fronstin, who’s been studying the uninsured at the Employee Benefit Research Institute since 1993. “The surveys that have been around have changed.”
Indeed, the administration’s own numbers suggest that in the 1970s and 1980s, the uninsured rate might have been almost the same as it is now or even lower. A December report by the President’s Council of Economic Advisers noted that that the uninsured rate at the end of 2014 was “at or near historic lows.”
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Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:
Mash-Up of the Day:
If the original Jurassic Park is too scary for you, try this version starring pugs:
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Parody of the Day:
Imperator Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road is so popular, she’s begun starring in commercials, fake ones (via Geek Tyrant):
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Vintage Image of the Day:
He was best known for frightening roles, but Christopher Lee deserves to also be remembered for his more jovial self. Here he is having a laugh with Sammy Davis Jr. and regular collaborator Peter Cushing on the set of the comedy One More Time.
Daily Dose of Star Wars:
Of course, Christopher Lee also has to be the focus of today’s Star Wars dose.
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Cosplay of the Day:
It’s also necessary that we randomly highlight guys dressed as Saruman and Dooku in tribute to Christopher Lee:
Fan Art of the Day:
Christopher Lee also gets to take over this part of the culture with an excellent look at his many characters:
Supercut of the Day:
Roman Holiday collects shots of movie characters opening the refridgerator, film from inside the refridgerator:
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Movie Analysis of the Day:
For The Onion, Peter K. Rosenthal humorously considers the message of The Goonies for its 30th anniversary:
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Filmmaker in Focus:
The image of Alfred Hitchcock in this painting isn’t technically “in focus,” but it sure is a cool poster (via Design Taxi):
Today’s Anniversary:
Robert Altman‘s musical masterpiece Nashville opened in New York City on this date 40 years ago. Watch the original trailer below.
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