16 • Saturday, July 15, 2017 • Daily Corinthian
New Olympic network set for TV debut BY DAVID BAUDER AP Television Writer
NEW YORK — While too early in the morning for a torch lighting, a new television network designed to highlight Olympic sports and American athletes chasing gold medal dreams is set to debut today. The Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA network launches at 5 a.m. in some 35 million American homes with NBC’s Mike Tirico previewing the live sports, archival footage and documentaries that will make up most of its programming. The show will repeat several times over the weekend for those sleeping in. World championships in track and field, swimming and diving and beach volleyball will fill considerable airtime during the infant network’s first two months. A lengthy tribute to the 1992 United States “Dream Team” in men’s basketball will lead into Labor Day. The launch comes at a time of cord-cutting and contraction in the cable business; NBC Universal shuttered its Esquire network earlier this year. But NBC Universal is sharing costs and control with the International Olympic Committee and United States Olympic Committee, although representatives wouldn’t outline how that responsibility is divided. The network’s unwieldy name is to avoid confusion with the IOC’s digital Olympic Channel. Multiple ownership situations can also be
unwieldy in creative operations. But promoting the Olympics is the IOC’s and USOC’s business. NBC Universal also wants to build interest in the Olympics because it has the rights to broadcast summer and winter Games through 2032. Many fans follow Olympic sports and athletes for only a couple of weeks every four years. “The Olympic Games will now have a home between these Games being played,” Tirico said. A big part of the network’s appeal for NBC is to give viewers the chance to build relationships with athletes as they qualify for the games, said Jim Bell, executive producer of NBC’s Olympics telecasts. The Dream Team programming is expected to be a draw. Over eight nights, the new Olympic channel will fully air the games played by the team that featured Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing and other Hall of Famers. The games were such blowouts, with USA never winning by less than 30 points, that NBC never televised all of them in full when they happened. A 2012 documentary on the team will be featured and the games will be rebroadcast in a Labor Day marathon. Operators are also setting a goal of establishing a sports documentary franchise along the lines of ESPN’s “30 for 30.” One film already in the works is about Cuban boxers.
Snapshot Saturday mystery photo What is the answer to Lisa Lambert’s Snapshot Saturday mystery photo presented on July 1? Where was this photo taken? The answer is ... a new sign at Dogwood Cemetery.
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Snapshot Saturday Melissa Henderson captured this image of her daughter, Anna Reese Henderson, the cutest little shopper at Walmart with her own little shopping cart. She was delighted to push it through the parking lot and through the store. She happily filled it with a few school supplies, including crayons, binder and notebook -- and she even tried to sneak in a few other items she didn’t need. This act may seem common to most 6-year-olds, but not for Anna Reese. She was born with a severe heart defect and has had many medical complications, including a major stroke that led to hemiplegia. Her shopping experience was an act of elated mobility, according to her mother. The little cart was a Christmas present from her parents, Melissa and Doug Henderson. Have a photo you want to share? Send it and related information to editor@dailycorinthian.com.
Russia’s ban on U.S. adoptions gets snarled in new melodrama BY DAVID CRARY AP National Writer
NEW YORK — More than four years after it was imposed, Russia’s ban on adoptions by Americans is back in the news, rekindling frustration and sadness among some of those affected by it. Chuck Johnson, CEO of the National Council for Adoption, worries that any efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to get the ban lifted might now be more complicated because of revelations regarding Donald Trump Jr. The younger Trump, explaining a meeting last year with a Russian lawyer, initially issued a statement saying the subject was the adoption ban, but later released emails showing his motive was to obtain negative information about Hillary Clinton. “Because Russia is so much in the news, it’s now made lifting the ban even more awkward and difficult,” Johnson said. “You’d have Democrats and the hawkish Republicans who would see it as further collusion.” The ban has had “disastrous results” for orphans in Russia, said Johnson, a leading advocate of international adoption. Signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December 2012, the ban served as retaliation for a U.S. law targeting alleged Russian human-rights violators. It also reflected resentment over the 60,000 Russian children adopted by Americans in the previous two decades, about 20 of whom died of abuse, neglect or other causes while in the care of their adoptive parents. More than 200 U.S. families were in the pro-
cess of trying to adopt children from Russia when the ban took effect. Many of those children have now been placed in Russian homes; the fate of other children remains unknown to their wouldbe adoptive families. That’s the case for a Minneapolis-area couple who adopted a boy from Russia in 2008 and were trying to adopt his biological brother, Nikolai, when the ban was imposed. The wife, Renee Carlson — who is now divorced and remarried — campaigned relentlessly for an exception to be made for her family. She even traveled to Moscow in early 2014 and made an emotional appeal on Russian television, but the second adoption never went through. In an email this week, Carlson said she was told by some of her Russian contacts that Nikolai may have been adopted in Russia, but that she has been unable to confirm that. “The Russian people I met with were just like us as Americans, good people, just perhaps had their hands tied by their administration’s direction,” she wrote. “I respect and understand, as we face similar politics in the U.S.” Resumption of adoptions from Russia has been a goal of the Trump administration, as it had been for the Obama administration. But there was no movement until Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov agreed in April to include the matter in high-level talks aimed at resolving festering conflicts that have hindered
cooperation on broader strategic and security issues. Those talks, between the third-ranking U.S. diplomat, Tom Shannon, and Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, were suspended by Moscow last month after the Treasury Department hit Russia with new sanctions for its actions in Ukraine. But the State Department now says a new round of talks between Shannon and Ryabkov will take place in Washington on Monday. Estimates of the number of orphans in Russia vary widely, but the country has been trying to place more of the orphans with Russian families through an expansion of domestic adoption. A U.S.-based organization, Kidsave, has been assisting in those efforts, arranging for hundreds of orphans to visit Russian families during weekends and holidays with the aim of encouraging the families to consider adoption. According to Kidsave, more than 1,000 children in the Smolensk region found homes outside the orphanages or established long-term connections with mentors. Tatiana Stafford, who oversees Kidsave’s Russia program , said the adoption ban was unfortunate but didn’t affect the program. “A lot of families who were in the process of adoption — they suffered, the children suffered,” she said. “But at the same time, it gave momentum to domestic adoption.” This will be the last full year of Kidsave’s Russia operation. It plans to transfer the program to a Russian nonprofit next year.