A village tribesman was offered one million euros to drive Saif al-Islam Gaddafi to the Libyan border. Instead, he drove the dictator’s brutal son into a trap and now is being feted as a national hero.
“I was offered millions but all the money they had would not buy a pebble of our sand or one drop of our martyrs’ blood.”
Yusef Saleh al-Hotmani, from Berqan deep in the Sahara, said Saif was due to be picked up at the border with Algeria and Niger and from there, driven into exile.
Aids-related deaths are at the lowest level since their 2005 peak, down 21%, according to the UNAids 2011 report.
Additionally, the number of new HIV infections globally declined 21% from the record set in 1997.
“We are on the verge of a significant breakthrough,” said Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.
After global apparel companies like Gap and Adidas censured the Indian apparel industry for engaging in child labor, the nation’s Apparel Export Promotion Council has decided to adopt a zero tolerance policy and cleanse the supply chain.
The extensive auditing of the supply chain will make garments from India more expensive by 5%, but will ensure that India avoids trade barriers due to its lack of compliance.
US Marine Matthew Rodgers just wanted to surprise his parents by coming home a little early for Thanksgiving. But a bigger surprise awaited him: His sister threw him a parade.
Matthew’s parents were the only two people in town who hadn’t assembled for the festivities. Police and fire fighters were awaiting word of the lance corporal’s arrival, along with marching band and mayor.
For municipalities, such events can take months to plan. It took the Gaithersburg, MD teenager and her friend fewer than 10 days.
(SEE the full story with photos in the Washington Post)
Kohl’s Department Stores has won its third Green Power Partner of the Year Award by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy for its extensive efforts at creating Earth-friendly stores and operations that focus on energy efficiency, renewable power, and LEED building standards.
Kohl’s has distinguished itself in 2011 by purchasing 1.4 billion kilowatt-hours of renewable energy, offsetting more than 100 percent of the company’s purchased electricity use. According to EPA, Kohl’s current green power purchase is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide emissions of more than 192,000 passenger vehicles per year, or 122,000 American homes. The company joined EPA’s Green Power Partnership in 2006 and made an initial purchase of more than 80 million kwh of renewable energy credits in 2007.
A year ago he was working in a car wash in Logan, West Virginia, and then he stepped on the audition stage for America’s Got Talent.
Up against thousands of other contenders, Landau Eugene Murphy Jr., with his long dreadlocks and wide toothy smile, looked like a hip hop, reggae or Motown singer — anything but the Sinatra crooner he turned out to be.
Over the course of the show’s five performances he wowed the audience and judges with old standards like Fly Me to the Moon, I’ve Got You Under My Skin and Ain’t That a Kick in the Head.
A year ago he was working in a car wash in Logan, West Virginia, and then he stepped on the audition stage for America’s Got Talent.
Up against thousands of other contenders, Landau Eugene Murphy Jr., with his long dreadlocks and wide toothy smile, looked like a hip hop, reggae or Motown singer — anything but the Sinatra crooner he turned out to be.
Over the course of the show’s five performances he wowed the audience and judges with old standards like Fly Me to the Moon, I’ve Got You Under My Skin and Ain’t That a Kick in the Head.
A team of engineers claims to have created the world’s lightest material.
The substance, 100 times lighter than Styrofoam with “extraordinarily high energy absorption” properties, is made out of series of tiny hollow metallic tubes arranged into a criss-crossing diagonal pattern.
Potential uses include next-generation insulation, batteries, sound dampening and shock absorbers.
“Passengers on Ottawa buses were breaking into song Friday to show their support for a silenced singing bus driver.
The transit sing-song was organized by passengers who were upset when driver Yves Roy was told earlier this month to stop belting out songs along his route. OC Transpo management told him the singing had provoked about a dozen complaints.
A Facebook campaign was launched, drawing the support of nearly 1,200 people who promised to croon in support of Roy’s singing when they took the bus on Friday.” – CBC News
(READ the story from CBC News)
“A new concept for marine solar cells could harness energy from both the sun and the waves at the same time.
His design calls for floating dome-shaped solar cells to be linked together in web-like patterns. Wave energy will be captured as the buoyant floats bob up and down in the water, Pauley said. Waves will also act like mirrors to bounce sunlight back on the floating cells and increase solar capture by 20 percent, he estimated.”
The holidays are upon us and the spirit of giving is already in full swing in Minnesota.
An anonymous good Samaritan paid it forward Thursday giving free fares to every bus rider for the day.
The man from Duluth experienced good fortune when a lost wallet made it’s way back to him with everything accounted for.
He was so overjoyed after it was mailed back to him that he decided to bring some happiness to strangers on their commutes.
(WATCH the video below, or read the story in the Northlands News Center)
The holidays are upon us and the spirit of giving is already in full swing in Minnesota.
An anonymous good Samaritan paid it forward Thursday giving free fares to every bus rider for the day.
The man from Duluth experienced good fortune when a lost wallet made it’s way back to him with everything accounted for.
He was so overjoyed after it was mailed back to him that he decided to bring some happiness to strangers on their commutes.
A woman’s frantic search for her daughter’s “irreplaceable” teddy bear left on a Ryanair flight to Lanzarote at the start of November ended on Wednesday night after the bear, called Besta, was found and flown home to be reunited with its owner.
The teddy was given to the girl years ago by a close relative who has since died.
The drought-induced famine crisis in Somalia has eased somewhat, United Nations officials said on Friday, with the number of people facing imminent starvation dropping to nearly 250,000 from 750,000 because of rainfall and increased aid deliveries.
“Substantial humanitarian assistance has mitigated the most extreme food deficits and reduced mortality levels.”
A courageous boy battling life-threatening brain tumors received a Miracle Makeover from a designer who makes it her business to give back to suffering cancer patients. This boy was especially deserving. He started an annual toy drive—Charlie Santa Day—where he collects toys from family and friends and distributes them to kids at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. “Charlie believes he was put here on this earth to help others.
Kara and John Grady weren’t normally daunted by challenges. They were a Navy family, after all. They held fast to their faith and forged on.
That’s how they’d managed during John’s deployments in Iraq. That’s how they coped with their youngest child’s Neurofibromatosis-1, a disorder that causes tumors in the tissue surrounding the nerves.
At age five, Charlie had developed an inoperable brain tumor that grew around the optic nerve and made him blind in his right eye. After fifteen months of chemotherapy, Kara and John hoped their son was in the clear.
But the doctors said his next MRI scan showed three new brain tumors. Charlie, now 7, needed 50 more weeks of chemo. This time, even the Gradys were shaken. Nothing dimmed Charlie’s spirit, but the chemo sessions required him to spend a lot of time in bed. His family wanted to do something to brighten his room, but couldn’t afford to remodel.
So Charlie’s grandmother Carol, who’d read in Guideposts about the “Miracle Makeovers” I’d done for others, e-mailed me. I’m an interior designer, and I do these inspirational projects free of charge, with the help of generous donations and hard-working volunteers (see my blog, Design Gives Back).
“The last time Charlie did chemo, his daddy installed a train track around his bedroom because he knew how happy it would make him,” Carol wrote. “But the train can’t run anymore because the plastic track supports have warped. We all feel like we’ve had the wind knocked out of us after hearing about the new tumors. I don’t know if we’re up to getting Charlie’s train running again. Do you think you could help?”
A new train track? I could do that. I asked them to e-mail me pictures of Charlie’s train tracks. When I saw what his bedroom looked like—chipped paint on the walls, old roller shades, worn-down furniture—I knew I had to do more than get his train running again.
I called the Gradys and found out more about the Missouri family. Kara and John told me Charlie has an 8-year-old brother, Liam, who shares his room, and a sister, Katie, 13.
“It’s Charlie who keeps our family upbeat,” Kara said.
I said to my staff, “We could totally remake his room, don’t you think?”
To make it a space that’s positive and fills him with hope, I asked Charlie, “What do you like best?”
Turned out Charlie also loves trucks. All kinds—dump trucks, Hummers, garbage trucks—anything big and noisy that rumbles on four wheels. His dream, he confided, was to run his own truck-repair shop. Maybe we can create some kind of theme that connects trucks and trains, I thought.
Charlie could really help bring his room to life by telling us which colors spoke to his heart. I sketched out a cartoon, called Charlie’s Repair Shop, about a mechanic’s shop that fixed huge trucks, all delivered by a freight train.
“Color it in for me,” I said. I didn’t tell him how I planned to use it. Quickly he handed me the finished product, our template for the redo. I don’t think I’ve ever left a design meeting so inspired!
It took our construction team three days to transform Charlie’s room. Most of the volunteers came from McCarthy Building Companies, a national commercial construction firm where Charlie’s dad works. “McCarthy Heart Hats” they called themselves, and I saw why. They put heart and skill into their work. We ripped up the old carpet and replaced it with new wood flooring, so Charlie’s beloved dachshund Hauns could stay with him (easier to clean up the aging dog’s accidents). On the wall, ceiling and furniture we painted using Charlie’s “heart colors” and we put up a Thomas the Tank Engine mural.
Between the windows, we hung a sign: Charlie’s Repair Shop. To make the room look like a real repair shop, we used a mechanic’s tool chest for a dresser. We installed a pair of corrugated aluminum panels as window awnings. We made a desk with a tabletop set on sawhorses.
The key elements were the bed designed as a huge truck and the Thomas the Tank Engine train high above on its track.
It’s perfect!” Charlie said when he and his family walked into the finished room for the first time. His bed was fitted inside what looked like a giant dump truck, complete with a steering wheel, rearview mirror and odometer.
“Crawl underneath,” I said. Charlie got down on his hands and knees, climbed upon an authentic mechanic’s dolly and shimmied beneath. “Awesome,” he said.
High above his head, almost to the ceiling, a freight train ran and whistled around the room on a sturdy metal track. Charlie grinned like a kid without a care in the world.
Liam and Katie were grinning too. Not only for Charlie. We’d remodeled their rooms as well. Their brother’s illness had been hard on them. They deserved a feel-good present of their own. Liam’s favorite movie is Tron, so we built him a loft bed with his own “Tron station” underneath, including a futuristic, half-moon-shaped white chair on rollers. For Katie, who was born in Italy when her parents were stationed there and loves all things Renaissance, we installed a dreamy four-poster canopy bed with pleated white curtains, soft pillows and shelves for all her books on music and art.
That first night in his redone room Kara and John asked me to tuck Charlie in. He lay back in his bed and I smoothed the comforter around him. Charlie looked up at me and said, “I love my new room. Thank you so much.”
Really I should have thanked him. All I did was make his room as bright and inspiring as he is.
A courageous boy battling life-threatening brain tumors received a Miracle Makeover from a designer who makes it her business to give back to suffering cancer patients. This boy was especially deserving. He started an annual toy drive—Charlie Santa Day—where he collects toys from family and friends and distributes them to kids at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. “Charlie believes he was put here on this earth to help others.”
Kara and John Grady weren’t normally daunted by challenges. They were a Navy family, after all. They held fast to their faith and forged on.
That’s how they’d managed during John’s deployments in Iraq. That’s how they coped with their youngest child’s Neurofibromatosis-1, a disorder that causes tumors in the tissue surrounding the nerves.
A group called Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength came to Washington this week to ask the debt reduction “Super Committee” to raise taxes on millionaires so that everyone can pay their fair share.
Emphasizing community responsibility over greed, 200 millionaires signed a letter that calls for the Bush-era tax cuts to end for those earning more than a million dollars a year, leaving behind the Clinton-era rate of 39% that coincided with strong job growth and a revenue surplus.
“Private jets shouldn’t have been tax deductible in the first place,” said the group in a statement.
A group called Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength came to Washington this week to ask the debt reduction “Super Committee” to raise taxes on millionaires so that everyone can pay their fair share.
Emphasizing community responsibility over greed, 200 millionaires signed a letter that calls for the Bush-era tax cuts to end for those earning more than a million dollars a year, leaving behind the Clinton-era rate of 39% that coincided with strong job growth and a revenue surplus.
“Private jets shouldn’t have been tax deductible in the first place,” said the group in a statement.
An ever-growing network of burly alpha males are transporting abused dogs, cats, and even bunnies to loving homes located hundreds of miles down American highways and away from their neglected environments.
Since 2005, the network of volunteers called Operation Roger has been powered by truckers, regional and long-haul drivers who transport pets in the cabs of their trucks as they deliver freight all across the country.
The effort was started after Hurricane Katrina left an estimated 250,000 pets stranded and struggling to survive.
(READ the story from TODAY at MSNBC)
A second experiment at the European facility that reported subatomic particles zooming faster than the speed of light — stunning the world of physics — has reached the same result, scientists said late Thursday.
The “positive outcome of the [second] test makes us more confident in the result,” said Fernando Ferroni, president of the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics, in a statement released late Thursday.
