Janet Jackson joins her brother Michael and the Jackson 5 as members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, earning induction on Thursday along with Stevie Nicks and the top fan vote-getter, Def Leppard.

Radiohead, the Cure, Roxy Music and the Zombies will also be ushered in next spring at the 34th induction ceremony. It will be held March 29 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Jackson’s induction comes after her third time as nominee and many saw it as overdue, given her prowess as a hitmaker with “All For You,” “That’s the Way Love Goes,” “Nasty,” “Together Again” and “What Have You Done For Me Lately.”

Her career suffered from the fallout after the infamous 2004 Super Bowl appearance where her bare breast was briefly exposed by Justin Timberlake; both said it was a mistake.  

Jackson became eligible for the rock hall in 2007 and wasn’t nominated until 2016.

The Roots’ Questlove, in a social media post earlier this year, said her exclusion had been “highly criminal.” He cited the influence of her 1986 album “Control,” which he said set off the New Jack Swing trend.

 “This was no one’s kid sister,” he wrote.

Jackson said on Thursday: “Thank you Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I am truly honored and I am happy to be in there with my brothers.” 

It will be Nicks’ second induction into the rock hall, since she’s already there as a member of Fleetwood Mac. She launched a solo career in 1981 with her duet with the late Tom Petty, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” Other hits followed, including “Edge of Seventeen,” “Stand Back” and “I Will Run to You.”

Def Leppard earned more than half a million votes from fans, which are incorporated into more than 1,000 ballots from artists, historians, industry professionals and past winners in deciding who gets honored. The British heavy metal band with a pop sheen were huge sellers in the 1980s on the back of songs like “Photograph” and “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”

Thanks to Jon Bon Jovi

Frontman Joe Elliott said he was initially ambivalent toward the honor until Jon Bon Jovi suggested it would change his life.

“When I look at the list of who’s in, it’s just obvious you’d want to be in that club, isn’t it?” he told Billboard earlier this year. “When you think that every band that means anything in the world, starting from the Beatles and the Stones and any artist that influenced them — your Chuck Berrys, your Little Richards, etc., etc. — then of course you want to be in. Why wouldn’t you?”

Def Leppard, Nicks and Roxy Music were voted in during their first years as nominees. Other 2019 nominees who didn’t make the cut included LL Cool J, Devo, Rage Against the Machine, MC5, John Prine, Todd Rundgren and Kraftwerk.

There’s some question about whether Radiohead will shrug its collective shoulder as an inductees. The English band seemed like generic grunge rockers on their initial hit “Creep,” but with the album “OK Computer” and beyond have become consistent sonic pioneers. Among its rock hall class, Radiohead has the most impact on the current music scene.

An ‘American thing’

In an interview with Rolling Stone earlier this year, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood said “I don’t care” when asked about the rock hall. Bandmate Ed O’Brien said, “culturally, I don’t understand it. I think it might be a quintessentially American thing.”

The Cure and frontman Robert Smith resist their initial label as goth rockers, champions of fans who like black makeup, black clothes and darkly romantic songs. They have a durable catalog of hits, including “Friday I’m in Love,” “Boys Don’t Cry,” “Pictures of You” and “Let’s Go to Bed.”

Roxy Music came out of the 1970s progressive rock scene and had hits with “Love is the Drug” and “More Than This.” Dapper member Bryan Ferry had a successful solo career and Brian Eno has been an influential producer.

The heyday of British rockers the Zombies’ career was the 1960s, with big sellers “She’s Not There” and “Time of the Season.”

The hall will announce ticket sales for March’s ceremony next month. HBO and SiriusXM will carry the event.
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From: MeNeedIt

Actress and director Sondra Locke, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her first film role in 1968’s “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” and went on to co-star in six films with Clint Eastwood, has died.

Locked died Nov. 3 at her Los Angeles home of cardiac arrest stemming from breast and bone cancer, according to a death certificate obtained by The Associated Press. She was 74. Authorities were promptly notified at the time, but her death was not publicized until RadarOnline first reported it Thursday. It is not clear why it took nearly six weeks to come to light.

Locke was best known for the six films she made with Eastwood, whom she dated for 13 years, starting with the Western “The Outlaw Josey Wales” in 1976 and ending with the Dirty Harry movie “Sudden Impact” in 1983.

Praised by critics

Born Sandra Louise Smith, she would later take on a stepfather’s last name and take on the stage name Sondra, Locke grew up in Tennessee, where she worked at a radio station and appeared in a handful of plays before winning a nationwide talent search in 1967 to be cast opposite leading man Alan Arkin in the movie adaptation of Carson McCullers’ 1940 novel “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.”

She would win raves for the role along with nominations for a Golden Globe and an Oscar. Both awards went to Ruth Gordon for “Rosemary’s Baby.”

She had a run of unmemorable film and TV roles until meeting Eastwood on the set of “Josey Wales,” which he both directed and starred in.

Her career would mirror his for the next several years. The pair’s hit films also included the 1978 street-fighting and orangutan comedy “Every Which Way But Loose” and its 1980 sequel “Any Which Way You Can.”

Locke also played singer Rosemary Clooney in a 1982 TV biopic, and directed the 1986 film “Ratboy,” which flopped in the U.S. but was popular with critics in Europe.

End of charmed life

In 1989, Locke’s charmed life came to an end as Eastwood broke up with her, she later wrote. The locks were changed and her things were placed outside a home she thought had been a gift from Eastwood.

She sued Eastwood for palimony then later sued him for fraud saying a movie development deal he arranged for her was a sham to get her to drop the palimony suit. They settled the highly publicized lawsuit for an undisclosed amount during jury deliberations in 1996.

The following year she released her memoir, titled “The Good, the Bad and the Very Ugly: A Hollywood Journey,” which also detailed the double mastectomy and chemotherapy that came with her first bout with breast cancer.

She told the AP at the time that the title, a play on one of Eastwood’s films, was “applicable to the story.”

“I try to cover the good years as well as the bad and the ugly,” Locke said. “Also, that in even the worst ugly things there can sometimes be a lot that will make you a better person.’’

Locke had married actor Gordon Anderson in 1967. According to her death certificate, the two were still legally married when she died, and he was the person who reported her death. She described their relationship to the AP in 1997 as just good friends. A phone number listed in Anderson’s name rang without being picked up.
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From: MeNeedIt

Fans of the former Negro League are being asked to help a campaign to create bobbleheads of 30 stars from the league — with a goal of commemorating the league’s upcoming centennial.

Organizers of the effort, which was unveiled Wednesday, have created a team of 30 Negro League stars who would be honored with bobbleheads if the campaign raises enough money. The first bobblehead of pitcher Satchel Paige of the Kansas City Monarchs has already been produced.

The Paige bobblehead stands on a baseball-shaped base in front of a replica of the Kansas City YMCA at 18th Street and the Paseo, where the Negro National League was organized on Feb. 13, 1920, The Kansas City Star reported.

Kickstarter campaign underway

Production of the rest of the licensed, limited-edition bobbleheads will depend on a Kickstarter campaign launched Wednesday by the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum and Dreams Fulfilled, which was formed to promote the Negro League centennial.

“The Negro Leagues Centennial Team series will bring long overdue recognition to players who were not only among the best to play the game, but also early civil rights pioneers who helped pave the way for integration in baseball and the country,” Dreams Fulfilled founder Jay Caldwell said in a statement.

The goal is to raise $10,000 by Jan. 7. Any donation is welcome but those who give $20 or more will get first choice and better pricing for the bobbleheads, which will be individually numbered up to 2,020.

The bobblehead series is licensed by the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. 

Centennial Team

Museum President Bob Kendrick and Caldwell on Wednesday announced the African-American and Hispanic players selected for the Centennial Team. They played between 1895 to 1947, when Jackie Robinson became the first African-American in the major leagues.

“This is really important because not only is it a way to perpetuate the legacy of the Negro leagues but it’s such a tremendous way to educate the public about these legendary athletes who the majority of people have no idea about,” Kendrick said.

Paige’s eldest child, Pamela, who attended the announcement, said she wasn’t aware her father was famous while she was a child.

“When my father came home off the road, it was all about his children and family and we did family things,” Pamela Paige O’Neil said.

If the Kickstarter campaign is successful, bobbleheads of the 30 Centennial Team players, plus a manager and an owner, will be introduced on average of two a month through February 2020.

Available online

The bobbleheads will be available at the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum’s online and retail stores, at the Dreams Fullfilled website and at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum store and other outlets. They are expected to retail for $30 plus $8 shipping.

A portion of the proceeds of each sale will go to relatives of the players and to the Negro Leagues museum.
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From: MeNeedIt

The head of the Maldives delegation to the U.N. climate conference questioned on Thursday the point of the yearly summits, saying they are failing to produce meaningful results. 

Former President Mohamed Nasheed attended the 24th edition of the U.N. talks, being held this year in Poland and set to end Friday. After almost two weeks of talks, negotiators from almost 200 countries have not yet agreed on the rules for implementing the 2015 treaty from Paris on fighting global warming. 

“What’s the point,” Nasheed asked, of having such negotiations if they don’t lead to progress or solutions to problems that are related to the lives of people worldwide? 

“There is a view among many of us that this is failing,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press. 

Nasheed said there is an urgent need to implement the Paris Agreement’s call for keeping global warming at no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) during this century. Without that, he said, the existence of the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, will be threatened. 

He said a lack of agreement in Katowice would only worsen the situation. 

He said the Indian Ocean nations, thousands of years old, want to live “in our own homelands. We want to live with our communities with our culture, with our people.” 

“We don’t think that this is asking for much,” Nasheed said. “We are just only saying: Please do not kill us.”  
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From: MeNeedIt

Apple will build a $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas, break ground on smaller locations in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City, California, and over the next three years expand in Pittsburgh, New York and Colorado.

The tech giant said Thursday that the new campus in Austin, less than a mile from existing Apple facilities, will open with 5,000 positions in engineering, research and development, operations, finance, sales and customer support. The site, according to Apple, will have the capacity to eventually accommodate 15,000 employees.

The three other new locations will have more than 1,000 employees each.

Early this year, Apple said that it would make more than $30 billion in capital expenditures in the U.S. over the next five years. That, the company said in January, would create more than 20,000 new jobs at existing and new campuses that Apple planned to build.

Where U.S. companies open new facilities or plants has always had the potential for public and political backlash.

That potential has intensified under the Trump administration, which has pushed companies to keep more of their operations inside the country’s borders.

While CEO Tim Cook has steered mostly clear President Donald Trump’s ire, Apple did receive some push back three months ago from the White House.

Apple sent a letter to the U.S. trade representative warning that the burgeoning trade war with China and rising tariffs could force higher prices for U.S. consumers.

Trump in a tweet told Apple to start making its products in the U.S., and not China.

Apple uses a lot of facilities overseas to produce components and its products, including China.

Top tech executives from Google, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and Qualcomm gathered at the White House earlier this month to discuss strained ties between the administration and the industry, and trade tensions with China. Cook was not among them, nor was Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

There are already 6,000 Apple employees in Austin, its largest operation outside of company headquarters in Cupertino, California, where 37,000 people are employed.

“Apple has been a vital part of the Austin community for a quarter century, and we are thrilled that they are deepening their investment in our people and the city we love,” said Austin Mayor Steve Adler in a prepared statement Thursday.

Apple said nearly a year ago that it would begin canvassing the U.S. for another campus.

Cities offered incentives to lure the company, but Cook avoided a high-profile competition that pitted them against one another as Amazon did over the last year and a half.

Amazon, too, expands

Amazon announced in November after a 14-month search it had selected Long Island City, Queens, and Arlington, Virginia, as the joint winners. Each site will employ around 25,000 people.

Cities are eager to bring in more tech employers because companies like Apple and Amazon ladle out six-figure salaries to engineers and other skilled workers.

The infusion of thousands of new and highly paid residents can ripple through an economy, with those employees filling restaurants, theaters, buying property and paying taxes.

Annual pay will vary at the new locations, but Apple workers in Cupertino have an average annual salary of about $125,000, according to a report the company submitted to the city.
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From: MeNeedIt

With the New Year just weeks away, New York taxi drivers have prepared their own unique gift to the city, a 2019 calendar featuring themselves. According to statistics, around 90 percent of yellow cab drivers are immigrants, and the calendar, which is a comedic take on the traditional pin-up, draws attention to this fact while being light and entertaining. Nina Vishneva reports from New York in this story narrated by Anna Rice.
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From: MeNeedIt

The dogs were primped, pampered and posed like fashion models before their big moment in front of the camera. A pair of matching, elegant-looking pups decked out with black velvet and rhinestone collars looked like they should belong to the Kardashians. 

About 100 dogs got their pictures taken with Santa Claus by a professional pet photographer at Dogma Gourmet Dog Bakery and Boutique in Arlington, Virginia. From large Golden Retrievers to pint-sized Chihuahuas, the pups were dressed for the holidays.

“I like the ones where you can see the interaction where the dog looks like he’s having a conversation quietly with Santa,” said professional pet photographer, Jeannie Taylor. “They’re part of the family. They should have their Santa photos, just as they should be part of family photos.”

“It’s fun, it’s festive and making memories,” said Sheena Cole who came with her Corgi to the annual event.

Annual event for some

Some people bring their dogs every year, including Brian Rose who arrived with two Schnauzers he calls his kids. 

“We get the girls dressed up in their little ribbons and see all the other dogs in their costumes,” he said.

They included canines wearing a Santa hat or dressed as elves. Alycia Foley wanted the Santa picture with her bulldog Quincy to reflect both Christmas and Hanukkah. 

“I put a yamaka and scarf on him for Hanukkah because I’m Jewish. I celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah, so I wanted him to celebrate both.”

Money to charities

A large portion of the $25 cost for each photo is donated to several local dog rescue groups. Zach Klipple with Vindictive Pit Bull Rescue said the money goes to buy items like food, toys, crates and kennels.

​Many of the dogs at the event were rescues. Melinda Thalor, who calls herself a pet grandparent, asked her daughter’s rescue dog, “to show me your smile.” 

“The support this event gives to the animals is wonderful. We’ve always had rescue dogs and they’re the best kind,” Thalor said.

Say ‘cheese’

During the photo shoots it was a challenge to get the dogs to stay still, so Taylor and her assistant used innovative ways to get their attention, which seemed to do the trick.

“We make sounds that are out of the norm of their daily routine — high pitch squeaky toys, and weird noises with our mouths,” Taylor explained.

While some dogs enjoyed the attention, others tried to make a bolt for the door.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Santa laughing, reflecting on what the dogs must be thinking.

Santa knows

Jim Greer, who for years has played Santa for both children and dogs, said the pups can be like kids, too.

“Some of them will jump up in your lap. Others will run away from you. I get one once in a while that will bark at me. I’ve been nipped at a couple of times, but I haven’t been bitten, and hopefully we can keep it that way,” he said and laughed.

Penny Edwards and her 3-year-old daughter came in their matching pajamas, along with their brown-and-white dog named Blue. The little girl told Santa what she would like for Christmas, and said Blue told Santa he wanted cheese and a ball. 

Pet parent Amy Kessler is looking forward to sending Christmas cards with her cute white dog’s photo to friends and family.

“He’s so happy and smiling and it cheers everyone up, I think, to see a little pup with Santa,” she said with a smile. 
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From: MeNeedIt

Virgin Galactic is preparing for a new flight test Thursday that aims to fly higher and faster than before toward the edge of space.

The U.S. company run by British tycoon Richard Branson is aiming to be the first to take tourists on brief trips into microgravity.

Virgin Galactic’s fourth flight test on the VSS Unity is scheduled for Thursday, weather permitting.

The flight will take off from a spaceport in Mojave, California.

The vessel does not launch from Earth but is carried to a higher altitude — about nine miles (15 kilometers) high — attached to an airplane.

Then, two pilots on the VSS Unity fire the engines toward the frontier of space, typically defined as an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers).

In July, after burning the rocket motor for 42 seconds, the VSS Unity reached a height of 32 miles, a part of the atmosphere called the mesosphere.

Commercial airplanes typically fly at an altitude of about six miles.

The VSS Unity reached a top speed of over 1,530 miles per hour, or beyond Mach 2.

“Overall the goal of this flight is to fly higher and faster than previous flights,” said a statement from Virgin Galactic.

“If all goes to plan our pilots will experience an extended period of microgravity as VSS Unity coasts to apogee, although — being pilots — they will remain securely strapped in throughout.”

Another U.S. rocket company, Blue Origin, founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is also racing to be the first to send tourists to space, but using a small rocket to get there.

Virgin’s first flight date has been pushed back multiple times, following a test flight accident that killed a co-pilot in 2014.

Branson told CNN in November he hoped to send people to space “before Christmas.”

More than 600 clients have already paid $250,000 for a ticket.
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From: MeNeedIt

Wall Street stocks finished higher on Wednesday due to improved hopes for the US-China trade talks.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.6 percent at 24,527.27.

The broad-based S&P 500 advanced 0.5 percent to 2,651.07, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 1.0 percent to 7,098.31.

Wall Street stocks have been volatile in recent weeks in part due to unpredictable and ambiguous events connected to the Beijing-Washington trade negotiations.

The latest indicators have been more upbeat, with a Chinese Huawei executive granted bail in a Canadian court in a closely-watched legal case and confirmation from Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in a television interview that Beijing had offered to cut tariffs on autos imported from the United States and resume soybean purchases.

Unlike the last two sessions, there were no major gyrations lower on Wednesday. But stocks still finished well below their session highs, with the Dow falling about 300 points from its peak in the last three hours of trading.

Gainers included some equities that have been seen as vulnerable to a trade war with China. Boeing advanced 1.5 percent, Caterpillar 1.7 percent and Deere 0.8 percent.

Tech shares were also upward-bound, with Google parent Alphabet winning 1.1 percent, Amazon 1.2 percent and Netflix 3.6 percent.

Tencent Music, in its first session after going public, jumped 7.7 percent a day after the music streaming company raised $1.1 billion in an initial public offering.
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From: MeNeedIt

Sports, disaster and death were among the top searches on Google last year.

Each December, the technology company releases it’s top trending searches of the year. Topics that drew the interest of Americans included the World Cup, Hurricane Florence and three people who died in 2018 — rapper Mac Miller, designer Kate Spade and TV host and author Anthony Bourdain.

Google does not come up with its lists based on the number of total searches. Instead, the company looks at the search terms that enjoyed the highest spike compared to the previous year.

“Black Panther” topped the list of most searched movies, while rising stars in the Democratic party dominated the list of most searched politicians.

Here are the Top 10:

1. World Cup

2. Hurricane Florence

3. Mac Miller

4. Kate Spade

5. Anthony Bourdain

6. Black Panther

7. Mega Millions Results

8. Stan Lee

9. Demi Lovato

10. Election Results

Other categories include:

News

1. World Cup

2. Hurricane Florence

3. Mega Millions

4. Election Results

5. Hurricane Michael

People

1. Demi Lovato

2. Meghan Markle

3. Brett Kavanaugh

4. Logan Paul

5. Khloe Kardashian

Politicians

1. Stacey Abrams

2. Beto O’Rourke

3. Ted Cruz

4. Andrew Gillum

5. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Movies

1. Black Panther

2. Incredibles 2

3. Deadpool 2

4. Avengers: Infinity War

5. A Quiet Place

All of the 2018 Google top trending search lists can be found here.
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From: MeNeedIt

Twitter chief executive officer Jack Dorsey is under fire for failing to address the humanitarian crisis involving the Rohingya Muslims during his recent meditation retreat in Myanmar.

Dorsey published a thread on his Twitter page Sunday praising Myanmar’s people as “full of joy,” and heaping equal praise on the nation’s cuisine.

Critics angrily accused Dorsey of ignoring the plight of more than 700,000 Rohingyas who fled from northern Rakhine state into neighboring Bangladesh to avoid a scorched earth campaign launched by the military in response to a series of attacks by Rohingya militants on security outposts.

A special United Nations fact-finding mission said the military acted “with genocidal intent” against the Rohingyas, based on interviews with hundreds of Rohingyas, who revealed numerous atrocities, including gang rapes, the torching of entire villages and extrajudicial killings.

Dorsey responded Wednesday that he was “aware of the human rights atrocities and suffering in Myanmar,” and that he did not “intend to diminish them by not raising the issue.” But he conceded that he “could have acknowledged that I don’t know enough and need to learn more.”

Critics have also pointed the finger at Twitter for allowing virulent anti-Rohingya hate speech onto the site during the height of the crackdown. Dorsey said people can use Twitter “to share news and information about events in Myanmar, as well as to bear witness to the plight of the Rohingya and other peoples and communities.”

This is not the first time the Twitter boss has gotten into hot water during his overseas travels. Dorsey caused a stir in India last month when a photograph emerged of him holding a poster that read “Smash Brahminical patriarchy,” a reference to India’s highest Hindu caste.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

The United Nations secretary-general flew back to global climate talks in Poland Wednesday to appeal to countries to reach an agreement, as some observers feared the meeting might end without a deal.

U.N. chief Antonio Guterres opened the talks last week, telling leaders to take the threat of global warming seriously and calling it “the most important issue we face.”

But as the two-week meeting shifted from the technical to political phase, with ministers taking over negotiations, campaign groups warned of the risks of failure in Katowice.

Harjeet Singh of ActionAid International said the main holdouts were the United States, Australia and Japan, while the European Union was “a mere spectator.”

“A new leadership must step up,” said Vanessa Perez-Cirera of the environmental group WWF. “We cannot afford to lose one of the twelve years we have remaining.”

She was referring to a recent scientific report by a U.N.-backed panel that suggested average global warming can only be halted at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) if urgent action is taken by 2030, including a dramatic reduction in use of fossil fuels.

Endorsing the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change became a crunch issue over the weekend, with the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait opposing the move.

Jean-Pascal Ypersele, a former deputy chair of the panel, said whether or not countries believe the conclusions of the report was irrelevant because the science was clear.

“Nobody, even the so-called superpowers, can negotiate with the laws of physics,” he said.

Ypersele called for the 1.5-degree target — already mentioned in the 2015 Paris accord — to be recognized in the final text.

“It’s a question of survival for a large part of humanity, and many other species,” he said.

Poland, which is chairing the talks, was expected to circulate a condensed draft text Wednesday running to about 100 pages, down from about 300 at the start of the talks.

The Dec. 2-14 meeting is supposed to finalize the rules that signatories of the Paris accord need to follow when it comes to reporting their greenhouse gas emissions and efforts to reduce them.

Li Shuo, a climate expert at Greenpeace, warned that the current text was riddled with loopholes. “A Swiss cheese rulebook is unacceptable,” he said.

Poor countries also want assurances on financial support to tackle climate change.

A third objective of the talks is getting governments to make a firm commit to raising ambitions in the coming two years, albeit without any precise figures.

One issue that has risen to the fore at the talks is the proposal by Poland for countries to back the idea of a “just transition” for workers in fossil fuel industries facing closure from emissions-curbing measures.

Germany’s environment minister, Svenja Schulze, told reporters that her country is committed to phasing out the use of coal, though the exact deadline has yet to be determined.

But in a nod to the recent protests in France over fuel prices, Schulze warned against governments forcing through measures, saying they would lose public support “faster than you can spell climate protection, and then people pull on yellow vests.”
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From: MeNeedIt