Category Archives: Viva!

A life unraveled

Heroin and other opioids have devastated Massachusetts families. Over the past year the Globe spent time with Raquel Rodriguez, a heroin addict from East Boston, as she struggled to get clean for her two young daughters. Raquel opened her life to us in hopes that her story might help someone else.

By Jessica Rinaldi
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High on heroin, Raquel Rodriguez reacted as her daughters, Estrella (left) and Mimi, ran back and forth across her small living room. Tomorrow Raquel will go to the clinic and get her first dose of methadone, but tonight she worries that she won’t be able to do it. Raquel has been battling with addiction for the majority of her life. Born to a heroin- addicted mother, she has memories of drug use and sexual abuse by her early teens. She has tried to quit using before, but this time she is determined to get clean for her two young daughters. “I want them both to have a childhood that I never knew existed. Happiness, joy, love,” she said.

(Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff)

China – Beijing-based French reporter told she must leave China

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the Chinese government’s “arbitrary expulsion” of Beijing-based French journalist Ursula Gauthier and its attitude to the media in general.

The correspondent of the French news weekly L’Obs, Gauthier has been told that her visa is not being renewed because of a story last month about Chinese counter-terrorism policies. This means she will have to leave by 31 December.

Published on 18 November and headlined “http://bitly.com/1mjHYb2…‘ class=’spip_out’>After the [Paris] attacks, China’s solidarity is not without ulterior motives,” her article accused the government of using the Jihadi threat and security requirements as pretexts for cracking down on calls for independence in the far-west province of Xinjiang.

As a result of the article, Gauthier was the target of a smear campaign in the government-controlled media as well as a series of online attacks. Some sites went so far as to post photos of Gauthier along with her private address.

We are shocked by the Chinese authorities’ decision to expel this journalist, who has been based in China for several years,” Reporters Without Borders editor in chief Aude Rossigneux said.

The government is yet again putting pressure on journalists who criticize its policies. It is not the job of correspondents to act as mouthpieces of the People’s Republic of China. We urge the government to stop using intimidation to obstruct reporting by foreign journalists.”

Harassment by the authorities, obstruction and intimidation attempts continue to be the lot of foreign journalists and their local fixers in China. Several foreign journalists were manhandled and prevented from working freely after the explosions in the port city of Tianjin in August.

China is ranked 176th out of 180 countries in the 2015 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

Chief Big Foot Memorial – Future Generation Riders Continue Ride Towards Wounded Knee on Christmas

Big Foot Ride 1225 dPublished December 25, 2015

PINE RIDGE INDIAN RESERVATION – Chief Big Foot Memorial – Future Generations riders spent Christmas Day heading towards Kyle, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Big Foot Ride 1225c
Native News Online photos by Diane DuBray.
Big Foot Ride 1225b

A winter storm began delivering snow on the reservation late Christmas afternoon, which caused the riders to decide to travel into Kyle, instead of camping there for the night.

Big Foot Ride 1225

The post Chief Big Foot Memorial – Future Generation Riders Continue Ride Towards Wounded Knee on Christmas appeared first on Native News Online.

[Abraham Lincoln, U.S. President, looking at a photo album with his son, Tad Lincoln, Feb. 9, 1864] (LOC) by The Library of Congress

Berger, Anthony, b. 1832, photographer.

[Abraham Lincoln, U.S. President, looking at a photo album with his son, Tad Lincoln, Feb. 9, 1864]

[Washington, D.C. : Brady National Photographic Art Gallery , 1864]

1 photographic print : albumen ; 8 1/2 x 6 1/2 in.

Notes:
President Lincoln visited the Brady Gallery in Washington, D.C., with his son Tad, on Tuesday, February 9, 1864. "One of the most popular Lincoln portraits, this is the only close-up of him wearing spectacles. It was issued in huge quantities in many variations, with and without Brady’s permission." (Source: Ostendorf, p. 182)

Published in: Lincoln’s photographs: a complete album / by Lloyd Ostendorf. Dayton, OH: Rockywood Press, 1998, p. 182-3.

Title devised by Library staff.
Forms part of: Arthur Wallace Dunn Papers.

Related names:
Brady National Photographic Art Gallery (Washington, D.C.), photographer.

Subjects:
Lincoln, Abraham–1809-1865–Family.
Lincoln, Thomas–1853-1871–Family.
Photograph albums–1860-1870.

Format: Portrait photographs–1860-1870.
Group portraits–1860-1870.
Albumen prints–1860-1870.

Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication.

Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, http://1.usa.gov/1D9d3AE

Persistent URL: http://1.usa.gov/1mEHih5

Call Number: LOT 12255 [item]

via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/5XwhsQ