Fire trucks and concrete mixers, semis, heavy-duty pickups and all trucks in between will, for the first time, have to trim fuel consumption and emissions of heat-trapping gases under new efficiency standards announced Tuesday by President Barack Obama.
The White House said the standards, which apply to vehicle model years 2014 to 2018, will save businesses billions of dollars in fuel costs, help reduce oil consumption and cut air pollution.
Following the riots in London, crowds of people turned out Wednesday to help clean up the glass and ashes left on the streets of cities across the country.
Andrew Bayles joined the volunteer army in Clapham Junction. “The riots were shocking and I was really rocked to the core by what was going on.”
Since then, his photograph of brooms raised in the air has become an internet sensation via Twitter, and used by journalists around the world to underscore the decent citizens, which have come out in full force to outnumber the troublemakers.
“The ‘Broom Army’ tag and my photo is something that I think is very special,” Andrew told the BBC. “It is a movement of solidarity to stand up for everything that is good about this country. I am very proud to have been there to help in the clean up and very proud that the image is being used countrywide to inspire further support in the clean-up effort.”
READ the full story about how the photo came to be in the BBC.
And, VIEW these moving photos from Clean-ups in Manchester.
Following the riots in London, crowds of people turned out Wednesday to help clean up the glass and ashes left on the streets of cities across the country.
Andrew Bayles joined the volunteer army in Clapham Junction. “The riots were shocking and I was really rocked to the core by what was going on.”
Since then, his photograph of brooms raised in the air has become an internet sensation via Twitter, and used by journalists around the world to underscore the decent citizens, which have come out in full force to outnumber the troublemakers.
Festival goers at a nationalist, right-wing concert in Germany were taken by surprise when souvenir t-shirts they were given had a secret anti-far right message that emerged only after being washed.
The slogan on the shirts first read “hardcore rebels” along with a skull and nationalist flags. But once washed the slogan turned into a message from a group offering help to right-wing extremists break away from the neo-Nazi scene.
(READ the story in Reuters)
After dedicating her life to the martial arts, 98-year-old, Keiko Fukuda of San Francisco, became the first woman to be promoted to judo’s highest level: 10th degree black belt.
Only three people in the world, all men living in Japan, have ever reached that mark.
The phone call brought the 4-foot-10-inch Sensei to tears at the women’s dojo where she still teaches in Noe Valley.
The Burning Man festival — where people meet once-a-year in the Nevada desert for a hedonistic experiment in self-reliance, innovation and art — has spawned a community that has over the years launched many do-good ventures.
The latest project will work on revitalizing a down-and-out area of San Francisco, Burning Man’s home city — the Central Market Street corridor that’s been pretty much boarded up for 20 years.
The photo shows an art installation going up in May, symbolizing the rebirth of the area.
(READ the story in the Fast Company)
A new leukemia treatment has experts buzzing over a possible cure that may one day change cancer treatment forever.
The experimental treatment delivered extraordinary results to the three leukemia patients who received it. Two of the three are now cancer-free.
Doctors genetically engineered white blood cells from the patients to make the cells kill the cancer.
Money is now pouring in to expand the research.
American Volunteers increased the number of hours they contributed to their communities last year, whether tutoring and mentoring students, fundraising, job training or assisting during natural disasters.
More than 60 million Americans volunteered 8.1 billion hours of their services in 2010 in work valued at nearly $173 billion, according to a new report.
(READ the story from Reuters)
A $500,00 gift from the embassy of the United Arab Emirates to spend on laptops is the latest donation aimed at helping tornado-damaged Joplin, Mo., schools prepare to open next week.
School district officials said on Wednesday the $500,000 will help meet a goal of providing all 2,200 Joplin High School students with a personal laptop, to make up for a the lack of other resources.
The US stock markets rose more than 3 percent in late morning trading today after hearing the latest U.S. economic data on unemployment claims.
The government reported that weekly initial jobless claims fell to their lowest level in four months — the first time that number has dropped below 400,000 since April.
Twitter and Facebook users are harnessing the power of social networking to coordinate a massive clean-up operation in areas affected by the riots across England.
An account on Twitter called @riotcleanup has so far attracted more than 70,000 followers and is helping people to co-ordinate efforts in the London.
But, the effort, started by artist Dan Thompson, 37, has taken on a life of its own with local clean-up projects organized around the country.
For folks living in West Chicago, it is hard to find fresh fruits and vegetables for sale, which is why one man took it upon himself to transport fresh produce into the neighborhood.
Steve Casey bought a bus and spent four years raising the $50,000 to turn it into a produce market on wheels that travels to the people. The Fresh Moves program now visits six locations that are described as food deserts twice a week.
Eight-year-old April Sanity was gathering golf balls in her California backyard when she found a diamond. At first the family thought it was fake, but it passed all the tests. She now has a one carat diamond to sell for a thousand dollars and plans to keep it until she needs the money.
A remote control toy truck sent to a soldier in Afghanistan helped to save six of his friends after the toy triggered a bomb meant for the Americans.
In 2007, to help keep his brother safe, Ernie Fessenden teamed up with a hobby store owner in Rochester, Minnesota to create a radio-controlled model truck outfitted with a wireless video camera to check for bombs under trucks and along roadsides.
That souped-up toy ended up preventing the potential deaths of six soldiers two weeks ago in Afghanistan, after Sgt. Chris Fessenden lent the truck to a group going out on patrol.
Ernie learned about his invention’s success via email.
“At first I was just absolutely shocked,’’ Ernie told TODAY.com in a phone interview. “It could have been [Chris] out there. Then after that it was, ‘Do you need another truck?’’’
A remote control toy truck sent to a soldier in Afghanistan helped to save six of his friends after the toy triggered a bomb meant for the Americans.
In 2007, to help keep his brother safe, Ernie Fessenden teamed up with a hobby store owner in Rochester, Minnesota to create a radio-controlled model truck outfitted with a wireless video camera to check for bombs under trucks and along roadsides.
That souped-up toy ended up preventing the potential deaths of six soldiers two weeks ago in Afghanistan, after Sgt. Chris Fessenden lent the truck to a group going out on patrol.
Ernie learned about his invention’s success via email.
“At first I was just absolutely shocked,’’ Ernie told TODAY.com in a phone interview. “It could have been [Chris] out there. Then after that it was, ‘Do you need another truck?’’’
Another micro-finance initiative is improving the economic outlook for poor families around the world, this time through the financing of college tuition for students.
Although microfinancing usually raises funds for small businesses, the Seattle-based non-profit Vittana has been helping students around the world graduate from post-secondary schools by asking donors to pay for their tuition. Like the business loans, money for education can immediately steer a family out of poverty. And, so far, the Vittana record has been stellar.
Another micro-finance initiative is improving the economic outlook for poor families around the world, this time through the financing of college tuition for students.
Although microfinancing usually raises funds for small businesses, the Seattle-based non-profit Vittana has been helping students around the world graduate from post-secondary schools by asking donors to pay for their tuition. Like the business loans, money for education can immediately steer a family out of poverty. And, so far, the Vittana record has been stellar.
Frustrated employees are voluntarily quitting their jobs at the highest level in almost three years as confidence rises that they will be able to find another, even with unemployment at about 9 percent for more than two years.
Almost 2 million Americans quit their jobs in May, a 35 percent rise from the lowest level in January 2010, according to the Department of Labor.
The Measles Initiative this week announced it has vaccinated one billion children in more than 60 developing countries, making significant gains in the global effort to stop measles.
The child who received the history-making measles vaccination was one of 3.5 million immunized in Mozambique this May. The Measles Initiative began in 2001 with five founding partners – the American Red Cross, United Nations Foundation, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF, and World Health Organization. In 1980, before such vaccination programs, measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year.
Kinetic sculptor and artist Theo Jansen builds free roaming beasts powered only by the wind using yellow plastic tubing readily available in his native Holland.
The graceful creatures evolve over time as Theo adapts their designs to harness the wind more efficiently. Some even store some of the wind’s energy in plastic bottle ‘stomachs’ to be used when there is no wind.
