After Rob Summers was paralyzed below the chest in a car accident in 2006, his doctors told him he would never stand again. They were wrong.
After three years of unsuccessful physical therapy, doctors implanted an electrical stimulator onto his spinal cord to try waking up his damaged nervous system. Within days, Summers, 25, stood without help. Months later, he wiggled his toes, moved his knees, ankles and hips, and was able to take a few steps on a treadmill.
Judy Pugh rushed to her hallway with her three cats when she saw debris spinning in the air on April 27th. As the roof blew away a wall fell on top of her.
Two of her cats survived, one hasn’t been seen since the storm.
Unbelievably, during an on-camera interview, Judy’s shaggy friend of 10 years came out of nowhere.
Becky Fawcett learned firsthand the exorbitant amount of money it takes to adopt a child when she and her husband spent more than $100,000 adopting two children. Becky realized that many loving and fit parents could live childless lives because they did not have large lump sums of cash for adoption costs.
In 2007, she started Helpusadopt.org to provide grant money to adoptive parents — regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. Since its start, HelpUsAdopt.org has awarded more than $300,000 in grant money, and helped build 43 families.
Tech job openings rose 82% in Detroit, with companies like Google and Ford hiring engineers in droves.
And, college grads in Detroit say they are set on an immediate career path upon graduation.
The Detroit founder of Quicken Loans, for instance, is currently making 1,200 new hires.
Over the last year, Michigan’s unemployment rate has dropped by almost 3 percent, the biggest over-the-year decrease, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
Tech job openings rose 82% in Detroit, with companies like Google and Ford hiring engineers in droves.
And, college grads in Detroit say they are set on an immediate career path upon graduation.
The Detroit founder of Quicken Loans, for instance, is currently making 1,200 new hires.
Over the last year, Michigan’s unemployment rate has dropped by almost 3 percent, the biggest over-the-year decrease, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
The math and social studies teacher at Camp David Gonzales, a juvenile probation camp in California, worked tirelessly with a group of incarcerated young men to turn a kit of wooden planks into a solar-powered boat, able to compete against vessels built by high school students from across Southern California.
In the Ninth Annual Solar Cup boat race, the scrappy teen underdogs exceeded expectations.
(READ the story in the LA Times)
A friend once said that Harmon Killebrew was his only hero that never let him down.
For a generation-plus of Minnesota Twins baseball fans, Killebrew was a larger-than-life hero on the field.
But despite the long shadow he cast on the diamond during his Hall of Fame career, Killebrew was an even greater man off the field. He rarely let people down. That’s why so many Twins and baseball fans were grieving this week after the slugger passed away on Tuesday at age 74 due to cancer.
What is the reason that money doesn’t always correlate with happiness? New research shows that most people make lousy spending choices.
A trio of researchers — Elizabeth Dunn of the University of British Columbia, Daniel Gilbert of Harvard and Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia — have identified eight practical ways that shopping and spending can increase happiness.
What is the reason that money doesn’t always correlate with happiness? New research shows that most people make lousy spending choices.
A trio of researchers — Elizabeth Dunn of the University of British Columbia, Daniel Gilbert of Harvard and Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia — have identified eight practical ways that shopping and spending can increase happiness.
Hovering in the sky, this rainbow cloud over Mount Everest took an astonished astronomer by surprise.
Oleg Bartunov, 51, caught the spectacle on camera during a Himalayas expedition in Nepal.
His two images show almost the whole spectrum of the rainbow in a natural event rarely recorded at Mount Everest.
The full story appeared a few years ago on Animal Planet. The lioness ended up adopting six oryx calves within a year. She never ate any of them. She even mourned the first one’s death who was eaten by a male lion 16 days after she had adopted it. After that year though, they never saw her again. They called her Kamunyak, meaning Blessed One.
It was a moment of historic healing as Queen Elizabeth this week laid a wreath and bowed her head in a “hugely symbolic act of reconciliation between Ireland and Britain”.
The first ruling British monarch to visit the country in a century paid tribute at the Garden of Remembrance to the Irish rebels who died resisting British rule — a move that impressed even the cynics.
It was a moment of historic healing as Queen Elizabeth this week laid a wreath and bowed her head in a “hugely symbolic act of reconciliation between Ireland and Britain”.
The first ruling British monarch to visit the country in a century paid tribute at the Garden of Remembrance to the Irish rebels who died resisting British rule — a move that impressed even the cynics.
Oprah Winfrey has made a career our of surprising people but on Tuesday night, the tables were turned as hundreds of her celebrity friends surprised her to say goodbye.
From Maria Shriver to Aretha Franklin to Tom Cruise, stars paid tribute to Winfrey during the taping of two shows leading up to the talk show queen’s grand finale next week. 13,000 fans crowded a Chicago arena to witness the spectacular farewell.
Forty finalists were chosen in the ‘Doodle 4 Google’ contest from more than 107,000 entries, and when public voting concluded, a 7-year-old took home the top prize with his drawing, ‘Space Life’.
Matteo Lopez won a $15,000 college scholarship, a netbook computer and a $25,000 technology grant for his school. He’ll also get his doodle on the Google homepage all day May 20. Not bad for a 7-year-old artist.
(SEE more winners in the Washington Post)
A year ago, she had a good job at a bank in the suburbs. Her 10-year-old son had a safe home.
But then the world came crashing down when she lost her job and, afterward, her house. Soon, they were living in her car.
That’s when a knight in shining armor showed up — a homeless man who wanted to repay the woman’s previous kindness to him. With money he collected from pedestrians, he started paying for a hotel room, so she and her son could stay off the streets.
He’s collected thousands of dollars since September and donated it all to her.
She is grateful that, after years of giving her own money to charities and treating homeless panhandlers with respect and dignity, “an angel was waiting for me” in the end.
The wild hat worn by Princess Beatrice to the recent Royal Wedding is proving to be worth a bundle for charity.
Beatrice, 22, put the hat up for auction on eBay – and the current bid now tops $30,000 (£20,200).
“I’ve been amazed by the amount of attention the hat has attracted,” Beatrice wrote on the eBay listing.
The British government on Tuesday pledged to cut the country’s carbon emissions in half by 2025 — part of its legally mandated commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2030, and 80 percent by 2050.
Energy Secretary Chris Huhne characterized it as a massive boost to the country’s green technology companies.
A South Korean golfer, K.J. Choi is giving $200,000 from his win at The Players Championship to help victims of the tornados that ravaged the southeastern United States.
The money will be given through his K.J. Choi Foundation, which he started to help unprivileged children around the world.
(Read the AP story in Golf.com)
A donkey that wandered up to the Marine camp in Anbar province soon became such a part of the unit that he received his own care packages and cards. Marines took care of him for a year until 2009 when they left the area.
One of the Marines formed a bond with the animal named Smoke he used to walk daily, and continued to worry about the donkey’s fate.
