Category Archives: Viva!

A River of Rain Connecting Asia and North America

The clearest picture of how connected we are and how you can visualize why climate change is real

A River of Rain Connecting Asia and North America
Long, narrow bands of moisture—atmospheric rivers—bring the Pacific Northwest much of its rain and snow.

Texas girl, 10, with cerebral palsy faces deportation after trip to hospital

No heart!

4392.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&f

Rosa Maria Hernandez, who was brought to US when she was three months old, was stopped at a checkpoint and escorted to hospital by border agents

A 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy is at risk of deportation after being stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint and accompanied to hospital by officers who waited outside her room as she recovered from surgery.

Rosa Maria Hernandez was born in Mexico but has lived in the US since she was three months old. She was being taken from the Texas border city of Laredo to Corpus Christi for a gallbladder operation, travelling in an ambulance with a relative who is a US citizen.

Continue reading…

Actor Natassia Malthe accuses Harvey Weinstein of rape

Try him for rape!

4997.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&f

  • Malthe said Weinstein forced himself on her in London hotel room in 2008
  • Malthe says she rejected Weinstein’s advances: ‘It was not consensual’

Actor Natassia Malthe alleged on Wednesday that Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein raped her in a London hotel room in 2008 and continued to harass her while she pursued her acting career.

Malthe, who has appeared in several films, is the latest woman to accuse Weinstein of sexual assault.

Continue reading…

Breaking: Rock and Roll legend Fats Domino dies at age 89

The American rock and roll artist was best known for his songs Ain’t That A Shame and Blueberry Hill.

The New Orleans singer sold more than 65 million records, outselling every 1950s rock and roll act except Elvis Presley.

His million-selling debut single, The Fat Man, is credited by some as the first ever rock and roll record.

An official from New Orleans coroner’s office confirmed the death, which was earlier announced by Domino’s daughter to a local television station.

Fats Domino was one of the first rhythm and blues artists to gain popularity with a white audience and his music was most prolific in the 1950s.

Domino’s music has been credited as a key influence on artists during the 1960s and 70s. Elvis Presley introduced Fats at one of his Las Vegas concerts by saying “this gentleman was a huge influence on me when I started out”.

Paul McCartney reportedly wrote the Beatles song Lady Madonna in emulation of Domino’s style.

In 1986 he was among the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but by his later life Domino would no longer leave New Orleans – even to accept the award.

New Orleans-born musician and actor Harry Connick Jr is among those who have paid tribute to Domino on Twitter, saying he had “helped pave the way for New Orleans piano players”.

Antoine “Fats” Domino Jr was born in New Orleans on 26 Feb 1928, the son of a violinist. His parents were of Creole origin, and French Creole was spoken in the family.

He was musically inclined from an early age and learned piano from his brother in law, the jazz banjo player, Harrison Verrett.

He was given his nickname by bandleader Bill Diamond for whom he was playing piano in honky-tonks as a teenager. He said the youngster’s technique reminded him of two other great piano players, Fats Waller and Fats Pichon.

Domino left school at the age of 14 to work in a bedspring factory by day, and play in bars by night. He was soon accompanying such New Orleans luminaries as Professor Longhair and Amos Milburn.

In the mid-1940s, he joined trumpeter Dave Bartholomew’s band, and the two co-wrote Domino’s first hit The Fat Man. Suddenly, the New Orleans sound became popular nationwide.

“Jane Doe” Case Exposes Trump’s Total Disregard for the Constitution

Star Chamber (NON) Justice – aka- crime against personal freedom and our system of law! Tags:

Access Denied

The administration threw every obstruction at the pregnant 17-year-old refugee in Texas from having an abortion, not on legal but “religious freedom” grounds. Next time they may not fail.

Google wants to run your city. That’s not a world we should live in | Jathan Sadowski

Robocop City – no!

2000.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&f

A new initiative will see Alphabet – the parent company of Google – take charge of redeveloping a waterfront district in Toronto. Here’s why that’s troubling

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, does not suffer from a lack of ambition. Its subsidiaries are tackling topics ranging from autonomous vehicles to smart homes, artificial intelligence to biotech life extension. So perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that Alphabet has decided it will plan, build, and run a city, too – well, part of a city. It’s a bit more surprising that a major city is happily handing Alphabet a neighborhood of prime real estate to call their own.

The project announced last week is a partnership between Sidewalk Labs, an Alphabet subsidiary focused on urban technology, and Toronto. Sidewalk Labs will be in charge of redeveloping a waterfront district called Quayside.

Continue reading…

Michael Bloomberg: Brexit is stupidest thing any country has done besides Trump

3974.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&f

Exclusive: Billionaire media mogul says it is ‘hard to understand why a country doing so well wanted to ruin it’

Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire media mogul and former mayor of New York, has said Brexit is the “single stupidest thing any country has ever done” apart from the election of Donald Trump as US president.

Bloomberg argued that “it is really hard to understand why a country that was doing so well wanted to ruin it” with the Brexit vote, in a series of outspoken remarks made at a technology conference in Boston a fortnight ago.

Continue reading…