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

Wood consumption — including logging and the production of charcoal — is a leading cause of forest degradation in Africa. In some of Kenya’s coastal regions, recurring droughts have made the problem even worse.  Now, farmers in those regions are planting trees, putting their once-barren land to use in a venture that enables them to earn a living and conserve the environment at the same time. 

At Be Sulubu Tezo, in Kilifi county, Kenya, Kanze Kahindi Mbogo tends to her tree farm. She thins out the trees whose wood is now strong enough for her to sell for home-building and making fences.  

The money she makes is for her six children. 

A better life

Kahindi says she has been able to educate her children, pay a couple of debts and do lots of other things. She adds she was also able to take one of her sons to college and right now he is a driver.

Before growing trees, putting food on the table was difficult in this land where droughts are common and crops often fail.

With the help of NGOs and entrepreneurs, farmers are learning how agroforestry can make them money and at the same time save the environment. One of those firms is Komaza, a Kenyan firm that is working with 14,000 farmers to plant drought-resistant trees for harvest, reducing the drive to deforest. 

Help with the harvest

“Farmers are able to nurture the seedlings into trees, and then the trees become fully grown trees ready to harvest,” said Allan Ongang’a, a manager at Komaza.  “Once they are ready for harvest we have the operations team from the forestry department that identify trees that are ready for harvest, agree with the farmers on a fair price, the trees are marked and harvested.”

The firm trains farmers on cultivation and selective harvesting.  

But not all farmers have the resources to plant a tree and wait for it to grow, so some farm subsistence crops among the trees.  Researchers say this arrangement counters the effects of climate change. 

Everybody benefits

“Trees end up absorbing carbon dioxide when they making their food and therefore essentially the trees are actually getting to bring carbon from the atmosphere into the tree stem and therefore on land,” explained researcher John Recha with the Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security Program, a private entity in Nairobi.. “That means there is the benefit of reducing greenhouse gas emission through more enhanced agroforestry systems.”

For these Kenyan farmers, environmentalism begins to make sense when it starts to translate into a sustainable income. 
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From: MeNeedIt

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was charged Wednesday with tampering with the final audit report into a defunct state investment fund, adding to a long list of corruption allegations against him since his ouster in May elections.

Najib was charged along with Arul Kanda Kandasamy, the former head of the 1MDB fund, which is being investigated in the U.S. and other countries for alleged cross-border embezzlement and money laundering.

Najib pleaded not guilty to abusing power to order the modification of the report in February 2016 before it was presented to the Public Accounts Committee, in order to protect himself from disciplinary and legal action. Kandasamy, who was detained overnight by anti-graft officials, pleaded not guilty to abetting Najib.

​The charges came after the auditor-general revealed last month that some details had been removed from the 1MDB report. Kandasamy led 1MDB from 2015 until he was terminated in June. The two men were released on bail, and face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.

Najib set up 1MDB when he took power in 2009 to promote economic development, but the fund amassed billions in debts. U.S. investigators say Najib’s associates stole and laundered $4.5 billion from the fund, including some that landed in Najib’s bank account. 

Public anger over the scandal led to the defeat of Najib’s long-ruling coalition in May 9 elections and ushered in the first change of power since Malaysia gained independence from Britain in 1957.

The new government reopened the investigations stifled under Najib’s rule. Najib, his wife and several top-ranking former government officials have been charged with multiple counts of corruption, criminal breach of trust and money laundering. 

Najib, 65, has accused the new government of political vengeance.
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From: MeNeedIt

Cash-strapped Avianca Brasil, the country’s fourth-largest airline, on Tuesday sought bankruptcy protection from creditors but reassured passengers that flights will continue.

“Due to resistance from the lessors (of their aircraft) to reaching a friendly settlement, we have filed seeking protection from creditors, to protect clients and passengers,” a company statement said.

Operations are not expected to be affected and “passengers can have complete peace of mind to make reservations and buy tickets, since all sales will be honored and flights will be operating,” it said.

The airline has debts of almost 493 million reais ($127 million) with multiple creditors, the business daily Valor reported.

Avianca Brasil, a brand of Oceanair Linhas Aereas SA (Oceanair), is not part of the group Avianca Holdings S.A, based in Colombia.

But both are parts of a holding company led by the same investor, German Efromovich.

Brazilian media said the carrier is in debt to creditors including state oil giant Petrobras and Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos Airport.

Avianca Brasil serves domestic and international routes with 60 jets. The company is facing lawsuits for the return of 26 planes and 52 engines, Valor said.

The airline recorded net losses in the first half of the year of 175.6 million reais, up 24.4 percent from the same period last year.
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From: MeNeedIt

Mining companies have invested at least $5 billion towards gold exploration in West Africa in the last decade but significant reserves are under-exploited, mineral industry experts said on Tuesday.

Delegates at the Ecomof mining and petroleum forum in the Ivory Coast commercial capital Abidjan were told that more must be done to attract international investors to develop mining potential.

“Throughout West Africa there are interesting minerals, gold, iron, nickel, manganese among others,” said Kadjo Kouame, managing director of Sodemi, the Ivory Coast mining development company.

Ivory Coast and Ghana are among the world’s top cocoa producers but are now seeking to diversify their economies by mining precious metals and newly discovered reserves of oil.

“But there is a real job to do to attract investors and diversify projects, too focused on gold,” Kouame added.

Gold is currently attracting the most investment, according to figures shared at the forum, with West Africa now the world’s fourth-largest gold region.

Ghana is Africa’s second largest gold producer after South Africa.

Some 8 million ounces of gold were mined in West Africa 2016, according to figures from the World Trade Council supplied by Endeavour Mining. 

Between 2006 and 2019, new gold deposits of 79 million ounces were discovered in West Africa — the highest in the world. A third was located in Burkina Faso, followed by Ghana, Mali and Ivory Coast, the forum was told.
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From: MeNeedIt

President Donald Trump says he would intervene in the case against Chinese telecom executive Meng Wanzhou if it means reaching a trade deal with China.

“Whatever’s good for the country, I would do,” Trump told Reuters.”If I think it’s good for what will certainly be the largest trade deal ever made, which is a very important thing. What’s good for national security, I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary.”

Trump said while “my people” have spoken with China about the case, he has yet to discuss it with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Canadian police, acting on a U.S. warrant, arrested Meng at the Vancouver airport nearly two weeks ago on allegations of violating U.S. sanctions on Iran.

A judge freed her on bail late Tuesday while she awaits a hearing on extradition to the United States.

Judge William Ehrcke set bail at $7.5 million and imposed several conditions on Meng. They include that she remain in British Columbia, live in a house her husband owns, and not leave that house between 11 at night and six in the morning. Meng will also be under 24 hour-a-day surveillance.

Meng is chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunication giant, Huawei Technologies — a company founded by her father and one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of mobile phones. Her family is worth billions of dollars.

U.S. officials say Meng lied to banks about Huawei’s control of Hong Kong-based Skycom — a company that allegedly sold U.S. goods to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

If convicted in the United States, Meng faces up to 30 years in prison.

Her arrest has infuriated China, calling it “extremely bad.” China summoned the U.S. ambassador Sunday to lodge a formal protest.

Meanwhile, a former Canadian envoy to China, Michael Kovrig, has been arrested in China for reasons that are unclear.

Kovrig is currently the Northeast Asia senior adviser for the International Crisis Group, which researches peaceful solutions to global conflicts.

An International Crisis Group statement said, “We are doing everything possible to secure additional information on Michael’s whereabouts as well as his prompt and safe release.”

Canadian Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said he was “deeply concerned” about Kovrig’s detention, but said there is “no explicit indication at this moment” that his arrest is in reaction to the Meng case.
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From: MeNeedIt