Does it make sense to design homes to cater to the enjoyment of cat and dog pet owners?
The demand is there, at least in Japan, where Fauna Plus DeSIGN created a custom home for 16 cats. The heart of the home features a cat-climbing tree that serves as a spiral staircase leading up to a catwalk on the second floor of the unit.
Hospitals that discontinued distributing industry-sponsored infant formula sample packs to new mothers doubled from 2007 to 2010, but many continue the practice despite criticism that it discourages breastfeeding.
A follow-up study to determine how the practice of handing out free formula sample packs had changed among 1,200 U.S. maternity hospitals showed the number of facilities curtailing the practice increased from 14% in 2007 to 28% in 2010.
His life was changed forever on a trip to Africa during the World Cup where he learned about the heartbreaking famine and widespread deaths from hunger there. Now 50 Cent has partnered to launch an energy drink whose proceeds will feed one child with every bottle sold.
Since its debut earlier this month, the product has already provided 2.5 million meals toward his goal of feeding a billion children through the UN’s World Food Program.
This energy drink, called Street King, comes with its own good news right on the label:
His life was changed forever on a trip to Africa during the World Cup where he learned about the heartbreaking famine and widespread deaths from hunger there. Now 50 Cent has partnered to launch an energy drink whose proceeds will feed one child with every bottle sold.
Since its debut earlier this month, the product has already provided 2.5 million meals toward his goal of feeding a billion children through the UN’s World Food Program.
This energy drink, called Street King, comes with its own good news right on the label:
Discovered in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been available for viewing only in a museum in Israel…until now.
Thanks to some expert digital photography and a project set up by Google, high-resolution photos of five of the seven original Dead Sea Scrolls can now be seen online.
The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls Web site offers a peek into the distant past, allowing people to view and examine the scrolls in fine detail, with accompanying text describing the scroll, its history, and its meaning.
A study of 50,000 American women showed that those who drank two or more cups of coffee a day were less likely to get depressed.
It is not clear why it might have this effect, but the authors believe caffeine in coffee may alter the brain’s chemistry — it is known to enhance feelings of wellbeing and energy.
The retailer Macy’s announced Monday that it plans to hire 78,000 temporary workers for the holiday season — an increase of 4% over last year.
Although these seasonal workers would be temporary, Macy’s said that in “some cases” they could lead to year-round jobs.
Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist who went on to become the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize, died of cancer at the age of 71. Tributes from leaders around the world in the press praise her as one of the most widely respected women on the continent.
She founded a movement in 1977 to plant trees across Kenya that would fight erosion while creating firewood for fuel and jobs for women. Her Green Belt Movement spead across the continent planting more than 30 million trees and helping nearly 900,000 women.
She won the Peace Prize in 2004 for what the Nobel committee called “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.” It was a moment of immense pride in Kenya and across Africa.
Her ideas for promoting sustainability and community-building inspired similar environmental efforts in other countries.
READ the full story in the New York Times and WATCH this 2 minute video to get a sense of the woman in her own words…
CNN announced its Top 10 CNN Heroes for 2011, while opening online voting that will determine the winner of the $250,000 grand prize. All ten heroes will be featured on the 5th annual celebrity-filled award gala airing in December.
Culled from hundreds of submitted names, these ten heroes will each receive $50,0000 to continue their world-changing work. Their stories have been featured by the news network in videos throughout the year. Now the public is set to determine the top prize winner by voting online.
CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute hosted by Anderson Cooper will air on Sunday evening, December 11, 2011. The ten finalists, listed below, will each have their story told by a celebrity.
Votes accumulated in online voting through December 7 will determine who will be named on the show as top “CNN Hero of the Year”. Voting continues through December 7 at at www.cnnheroes.com.
Here are the finalists, some of which have been featured on the Good News Network:
* Amy Stokes from Yonkers, NY founded Infinite Family to help kids in sub-Saharan Africa, orphaned by HIV/AIDS. She uses the internet to connect hundreds of teen ‘Net Buddies’ with adult mentor volunteers from around the world.
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Chef and restaurant owner Bruno Serato realized that many of the kids at his local Boys and Girls Club often go to bed hungry. They are “motel kids” – children whose families stay one step ahead of homelessness by living week-to-week in cheap motels. Serato’s “Caterina’s Club” started serving them pasta dinners, and now he feeds nearly 200 children seven nights a week. (GNN Story – subscription only)
* Derreck Kayongo of Atlanta couldn’t get over the fact that so much soap was being wasted every day in hotels across America. In 2009, the Ugandan war refugee created the Global Soap Project which has collected 100 tons of partially used hotel soap and reprocessed it into more than 100,000 bars to help fight the spread of child diseases in Africa and Haiti. (GNN Story – subscription only)
* In one of Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods, Diane Latiker, a grandmother has opened her door and invited gang members to come inside. She hoped that by providing them with support and a place to go, she would ensure that her own daughter and other kids would be safe and able to focus on their future instead of gangs. (See the GNN story)
* Elena Durón Miranda is the founder of “P.E.T.I.S.O.S.” (Prevention and Eradication of Child Labor) to get Argentinian children out of the garbage dump and into school. Today P.E.T.I.S.O.S. provides free after school programs and access to education, counseling and medical care to about 200 children.
* After Patrice Millet was diagnosed with cancer, he dedicated his life to helping needy kids in his native Haiti. In 2007, he sold his business and started the “FONDAPS” youth soccer program, which has provided free equipment, coaching and food to hundreds of children from the slums of Port-au-Prince and aims to help teach participants to become responsible citizens. (GNN story – subscription only)
* Arizona-born Robin Lim is helping Indonesian women who are 300 times more likely to die in childbirth after her youngest sister died from pregnancy complications there. Lim became a professional midwife and dedicated her life to offering free prenatal and birthing services to thousands of low-income women in Bali and Aceh.
* Raised in poverty, Sal Dimiceli vowed when he was 12 years old that he’d always help people in need, and he’s spent nearly all of his adult life making good on that promise in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Through a local newspaper column, Sal invites people who’ve fallen on hard times to write him letters, describing their situation. His nonprofit assists about 500 people a year with food, rent, utilities and other necessities. (See the GNN story)
* Taryn Davis’ husband died in Iraq when she was 21. Unable to find a community that could honor her husband’s memory in a spirit she could relate to, she created one. Since 2007, her American Widow Project has connected 900 young military widows in a sisterhood that helps them honor their husbands while celebrating life.
Last year’s “Hero of the Year”, Anuradha Koirala, was honored for her efforts to end human trafficking. CNN’s 2009 “Hero of the Year”, Efren Peñaflorida, saw his pushcart classroom model replicated more than 50 times by different organizations and institutions across the Philippines. He can also be seen hosting his own search for heroes on a Philippine television show, which features people working in the Philippines to better the lives of others.
“Over the past five years, the CNN Heroes Initiative has profiled more than 150 heroes and honored 50 everyday men and women from around the world for their tireless efforts to improve the lives of others,” said Jim Walton, President of CNN Worldwide. “We hope to empower these selfless individuals to persevere in their humanitarian efforts.”
Submit your own suggested hero at their website.
CNN announced its Top 10 CNN Heroes for 2011, while opening online voting that will determine the winner of the $250,000 grand prize. All ten heroes will be featured on the 5th annual celebrity-filled award gala airing in December.
Culled from hundreds of submitted names, these ten heroes will each receive $50,0000 to continue their world-changing work. Their stories have been featured by the news network in videos throughout the year. Now the public is set to determine the top prize winner by voting online.
CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute hosted by Anderson Cooper will air on Sunday evening, December 11, 2011. The ten finalists, listed below, will each have their story told by a celebrity.
The highest-scoring American-born player in National Hockey League history officially bid adieu to the game on Friday.
In a tearful speech, Mike Modano announced his retirement having scored 1,374 points, as the all-time goal-scoring and points leader of all American-born players.
In addition to his skill with a stick, Modano is the founder of the Mike Modano Foundation, which raises money for education and assistance to children and families affected by child abuse.
Women in Saudi Arabia will be given the right to vote and run in future municipal elections, King Abdullah announced yesterday. He also intends to appoint women to the all-male national advisory council.
Prominent Saudi women have been lobbying for political empowerment since 2007.
Women in Kuwait gained the right to vote and run for local office in 2005. The first woman to run for a seat on that country’s national assembly was finally elected four years later in 2009.
Saudi women still are not allowed to congregate in public with men or drive a car. Earlier this year some defied the ban by getting behind the wheel, having learned to drive while in foreign countries.
(READ more in the Vancouver Sun)
Photo of Saudi women by Jake Brewer on Flickr – Thanks to Andrew N. and Barry Stevens for sending the link!
Women in Saudi Arabia will be given the right to vote and run in future municipal elections, King Abdullah announced yesterday. He also intends to appoint women to the all-male national advisory council.
Prominent Saudi women have been lobbying for political empowerment since 2007.
Women in Kuwait gained the right to vote and run for local office in 2005. The first woman to win a seat on that country’s national assembly was finally elected four years later in 2009.
A trial of a new cancer drug, which accurately targets tumors, has been so successful it has been stopped early.
Doctors at London’s Royal Marsden Hospital gave prostate cancer patients a powerful alpha radiation drug and found that they lived longer, and experienced less pain and side effects.
The medics then stopped the trial of 922 people, saying it was unethical not to offer all of them the treatment.
An art auction Thursday night for relief efforts in Haiti raised nearly $14 million and set records, including highest total ever for a Christie’s charity auction.
The sale, co-organized by actor Ben Stiller’s Stiller Foundation, featured 27 works by 26 contemporary artists. All proceeds will go toward Haitian relief in the areas of education and health care.
Rwanda won a United Nations-backed gold award for its forest promotion policies, an event that former US track and field star Carl Lewis, a nine-time Olympic gold winner, called more important than any athletic medals he garnered.
Policies from the US and Gambia were runners-up, beating out entries from 20 countries to win joint silvers in the Future Policy Awards for forestry, announced this week by the World Future Council.
Despite continuing population and land pressures, Rwanda has achieved a major reversal of its trend of declining forest cover and is on course to reach its goal of increasing forests to 30% of total land area.
Forest cover has already increased by 37% since 1990. Massive reforestation and planting activities to promote indigenous species and involve the local population were undertaken, along with new agro-forestry and forest management education.
Ireland’s economic rebound continued in the second quarter with some of the strongest growth in Europe.
Gross Domestic Product jumped 1.6 percent in the second quarter, far exceeding expectations for a 0.25 percent increase, and marking the first time in five years that the battered economy has achieved two straight quarters of growth.
An age old mating ritual that is rarely glimpsed by humans, plays out in the most desolate reaches of the arctic-circle, as Narwhals on the hunt for a mate, joust with their stunning tusks above the icy water.
Male narwhals, which weigh up to 3,500 pounds, are known for the long conspicuous sword-like tusk that can measure up to 3 meters (10 feet) long. (Females have tusks also jetting from their jaw, but they are shorter.)
NASA said a fond farewell to the first satellite dedicated to studying the science of the stratosphere.
The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery 20 years ago plummeted finally toward its demise in the Pacific early this morning. It delivered several scientific breakthroughs over its two decades.
The seven-ton spacecraft, designed to operate for only three years, actually showed itself to be a workhorse, measuring chemicals, winds and temperatures in the upper atmosphere for 14 years, and orbiting the Earth more than 78,000 times.
Britain’s first recycling plant for disposable diapers is opening in a bid to reduce the huge amounts sent to landfills every year.
The facility at West Bromwich in the West Midlands promises to process a number of personal hygiene products and recover materials which can be used to make plastic components such as roof tiles and commercial tubes.
