For Parisians who cannot make it to the beach, the city is bringing the beach to them. For the eighth year in a row, “Paris Plage” (Paris Beach) has imported sandy shores, chaise longues and a decidedly more relaxed feel to the banks of the Seine river.
Live tall palm trees wave in the breeze, taken out of storage for their eighth year of service.
Watch the AFP video below, or at Clip Syndicate…
A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that dogs and cats can sniff out cancer. What about blood clots?
When a Maltese poodle began furiously licking Mary Phillips’ right temple as though it had been smeared with bacon grease, it was a clear sign to the hospice nurse that her headache was serious.
The unlikely gesture, Phillips said, convinced her to go to the emergency room where doctors discovered a brain aneurysm the size of a walnut.
She’s been a hospice nurse for 14 years and has seen animals behave in peculiar ways as death drew near, she said.
(Read the full story in the St. Louis Post Dispatch)
READ RELATED Good News Network Stories:
It’s starting to get crowded in the 100-year-olds’ club. The number of centenarians has jumped from a few thousand in 1950 to more than 340,000 worldwide today. Their numbers are projected to grow at more than 20 times the rates of the total population by 2050, making them the fastest growing age segment.
Demographers attribute booming long-livers to decades of medical advances and improved diets, which have reduced heart disease and stroke.
(Continue reading in the Toronto Star)
Photo courtesy of Sun Star
In the next year or so, after only a century or so of trying, the electric car may break free of the lunatic fringe and become a mainstream transportation option for everyday drivers.
The next step forward for electric cars will come on Aug. 2, when Nissan is expected to unveil the first of three electric models in three vehicle segments that the automaker will reportedly sell en masse by 2013 in the United States, Japan and Europe.
In fact, fanatics (aka “early adopters”) have been gutting regular car cars and packing them with a thousand pounds of golf cart batteries for years. But very soon it will be possible for drivers other than those who already have a home-brewed solar array atop their home to have a chance to whir quietly to work using household electric current for propulsion. (Photo, Canadian electic vehicle, the Maya 300)
Two red panda cubs abandoned by their mother shortly after birth at a north China zoo are now healthy and content thanks to the milk and care given by a dog that was brought in from a nearby farm, zoo workers said Thursday. The dog had given birth three days before the mother panda.
Highlight of some of the bright spots in the world’s economies:
Asian stocks jumped Thursday after China’s brisk economic growth quickened and U.S. companies posted stronger-than-expected quarterly results, boosting faith in a global recovery. European stock markets closed higher on Thursday as Wall Street saw three straight days of gains after better than expected U.S. jobless claims data fed into the prevailing view of an imminent U.S. economic recovery. New applications for unemployment insurance plunged by a seasonally adjusted 47,000, surprising experts who expected a surge of jobless claims. (Read more from AP)
U.S. Housing Starts, Permits Jump in JuneNew U.S. housing starts and permits jumped in June, propelled by a rise in ground-breaking for single-family homes and suggesting the battered housing sector was beginning to stabilize, a government report showed on Friday. Housing starts unexpectedly climbed 3.6 percent in June, Commerce Department data showed. (Contine Reading in Reuters)
The worst of the US credit crisis is over, and high-yield bonds are poised for modest gains in the second half of 2009, according to a veteran high-yield bond analyst. ‘Certainly what the market is saying is that we are well past the worst of the credit crisis,’ Martin Fridson, chief executive officer of Fridson Investment Advisors in New York told Reuters on Thursday. (Continue reading in Reuters)
Canada’s painful recession appears close to an end after the economy received two key votes of confidence Monday suggesting the turnaround is just around the corner: A summer survey of businesses revealed an upbeat mood among Canada’s leading executives, with 39 percent planning to start hiring in the upcoming 12 months. The Conference Board of Canada also predicted the recession would finally end this summer.
In a related development, home sales are up in June, with the largest markets of Toronto and Vancouver posting strong gains. (Continue reading in the Canadian Press)
I want to share my favorite summer recipe for lunches or picnics: Oriental Peanut Chicken Salad.
In this dish, chicken, red peppers, asparagus and scallions are caressed by a peanut dressing with terrific Asian ginger zing, a much simplified version of the Ina Garten recipe, Chinese Chicken Salad, featured in the book, Barefoot Contessa Parties.
Ingredients for 12 servings (party size)
– 8 split chicken breasts (bone-in, skin-on)
**or substitute boneless chicken, boiled until just cooked, then, cooled
– 1 pound asparagus, ends removed, and cut in 2 1/2 ” diagonals
– 2 red bell peppers seeded and thinly sliced in 3″ strips
– 4 to 6 scallions (white and green parts), sliced diagonally (save some for the top)
Walter Cronkite, once called the “most trusted man in America” has died at the age of 92.
As a journalist he covered all the major events of his lifetime; landing with the Allied troops on the beaches at Normandy on D Day; speechless with amazement, like every American, when a man first landed on the moon; telling the nation the news that President John F. Kennedy had been shot dead.
He called himself a liberal, saying, “I define liberal as a person who is not doctrinaire. That is a dictionary definition of liberal…open to change, constantly, not committed to any particular creed or doctrine, or whatnot, and in that respect I think that news people should be liberal.”
The famed CBS news anchor died at his home in New York after a long illness with his family by his side.
These videos look back at his career, and also feature thoughts from his admirers as well as his own thoughts about the news business and his life…
The largest onion processor in the nation began this week to convert 100 percent of its onion waste — 300,000 pounds per day — into ultra-clean electrical energy to power its entire factory, reducing its greenhouse-gas emissions by up to 30,000 tons per year.
By extracting the juice out of onion waste and letting it ferment, Gills Onions creates biogas — enough to completely power its factory, the equivalent of 460 homes — saving the company $700,000 in annual electricity costs. It saves another $400,000 in shipping costs which used to be used to carry away the onion waste.
The company’s onion juice-fueled Advanced Energy Recovery System debuted Thursday at its Oxnard, Calif., headquarters. After extracting the juice from onion waste, it is allowed to ferment in a special processing system. The methane gas produced is sent to fuel cells which create heat and water and a tiny amount of CO2. The little bit of pulp left over is trucked out to California’s central valley and fed to cows, completing the virtual zero-waste process.
Great Lakes water levels are rebounding after a decade-long slump that hammered the maritime industry.
The three biggest lakes — Superior, Huron and Michigan — have risen steadily since fall 2007, when for a couple of months Superior’s levels were lowest on record and the others nearly so. Erie, shallowest of the lakes, actually exceeded its long-term average in June... (Continue reading in Detroit Free Press)
And, though chemical toxins remain in the Great Lakes, Lake Huron fish are less contaminated, says a new report. In 36 categories of fish for Lake Huron, 11 became safer to eat over the last four-years.
Lake Huron had the greatest improvement of any of the Great Lakes. (Read more in Canada’s Observer)
Finally, king salmon seem to be back on the rise in Lake Michigan. The anecdotal evidence from Lake Michigan’s charter captains, according to a Detroit Free-Press column, seems to support a recovery of the king salmon (also known as chinook salmon) over the past several years, likely due to a rebound of their forage base, or food supply.
Thanks to GNN supporter Gisele up in Canada for submitting the link!
Katherine Cornthwaite’s Grade 10 class went silent when she read aloud a small story about a garbage collector’s kindness, from the newspaper.
Her class’s focus on the story prompted a 20-minute discussion about acts of kindness. “I thought,`I can’t leave this,'” she says.
She passed out red, yellow and green blank sticky notes and asked them to jot down their own kindnesses. “I told them if they filled my bulletin board, I’d give them a pizza party.”
Last month, she anted up six pizzas and a student in the class provided the soft drinks.
More people have gone into space than have sailed solo around the world. But the obvious maritime dangers didn’t stop 16 year-old Zac Sunderland from reaching for his dream. He set off from California 13 months ago in his 36-foot sloop, Intrepid, before he even had a license to drive.
He met storms, maybe pirates, and barely slept, but today the homeschooler has achieved his goal – one that can never be taken away. He became the first person under the age of 18 to sail solo-circumnavigating around the globe.
Watch the video below, and read the extensive feature story in the LA Times…
Visit his website, where you can buy DVDs documenting his adventure.
Flowers help clean the sewage at Europe’s first organic waster water installation in Findhorn, a Scottish community with the lowest ecological footprint on record in the industrialized world.
The spiriually centered village even has its own environmentally-conscious currency, the Eko.
Watch the AFP video below, or at Clip Syndicate …
The White House proposed a massive effort to retrain workers on Tuesday by strengthening our nation’s community colleges and creating five million additional college graduates by 2020.
Speaking at Macomb Community College in Michigan, President Obama stressed the importance of education to America’s prosperity, and announced the American Graduation Initiative which seeks to help an additional 5 million Americans earn degrees and certificates in the next decade by increasing Pell Grant scholarships and funneling $12 billion into the aging 2-year college system.
Time magazine said graduates of 2-year programs earn 30% more compared to high school grads and give “a 16% return on every dollar state and local governments invest, making them one of the best tools we have to pull ourselves out of the recession”.
Has the recession cut heart-healthy seafood and leafy greens out of your budget?
There are healthy, cheap eats, and new research shows how to get the most nutrition out of every buck.
Indiana waste water treatment plants along the Blue River are choosing to use UV light instead of chlorine to treat their sewage, producing clean water while saving plants and animals from toxic chemical exposure. The Nature Conservancy spearheaded the use of the UV lights and is paying for the additional cost of this process.
Watch the Assignment Earth video on Yahoo News
South Africa’s anti-apartheid hero, Nelson Mandela, spent 67 years making the world a better place, starting with nothing more than a prison uniform and his own two hands. Now a day has been set aside for inspiring the rest of the world to “Make an Imprint”, creating a new humanity using their own two hands.
Mandela Day, Saturday, July 18, marks the former president’s 91st birthday, a day to bring together people around the world to fight poverty and promote peace and reconciliation. Mandela Day celebrates the idea that each individual has the power to transform the world and the ability to make an imprint. It asks everyone to take 67 minutes to serve someone else, representing the 67 years Mandela spent as an activist.
Celebrities and movie stars have contributed “their two hands” to an inspiring music video made by the Mandela Foundation. (Watch the video below.) The Mandela Day website even offers the ability to cut yourself and your friends into the film, choosing your favorite celebs to make your own unique version.
Mandela Day was launched by the 46664 campaign, named after the prison ID number Mandela wore for 27 years, to raise awareness about Mandela’s broader humanitarian work. All funds raised from Mandela Day activities, like the Gala Dinner and Auction hosted for dignitaries last night by Bill Clinton, will support the ongoing work of 46664 and the Nelson 
Mandela charitable organizations, raising funds for children and AIDS causes.
At the dinner auction Wednesday, Clinton was joined by actor Morgan Freeman, who portrays Mandela in an upcoming film directed by Clint Eastwood; US actors Forest Whitaker and Matt Damon; and singers Harry Belafonte, Beyonce and Jay-Z.
Auction items included handwritten messages by Mr Mandela and a framed print featuring a collection of photos showing celebrities holding up their hands honoring the logo of Mandela Day.
Mandela Day 2009 will conclude with a special evening concert in New York City’s Radio City Music Hall hosted by Whoopi Goldberg. Performers will include Stevie Wonder, Wyclef Jean, Aretha Franklin, Josh Groban, Will.I.Am and the Soweto Gospel Choir. Livestream will offer free or premium (for $4.99) online streaming that lets viewers anywhere in the world take part in the concert. Tickets are priced from 40 dollars and are still available.
“New York City was busy with other Mandela-related projects this week, including volunteer park clean-ups, used book drives, a free performance of a play about HIV/AIDS prevention, and a free exhibit dedicated to Mandela’s life and values inside Grand Central terminal,” reported the Earth Times.
(Read more in Earth Times)
School’s out and young job seekers across the country have less than a 30 percent chance of finding work. For disadvantaged youth and high school dropouts the odds are worse.
Since the recession many of the low-wage jobs have been snatched up, leaving even fewer summer opportunities for young people.
But thanks to a $1.2 billion federal stimulus fund, states are revitalizing summer youth programs that have languished over the past decade because of declining federal funding. Allocated to states over a two-year period and then distributed through local workforce agencies, the stimulus program allows states to subsidize jobs and create training programs for 14-to-24-year-olds who come from low-income families and have one or more risk factors, such as foster care, homelessness or teen pregnancy.
Starting this month, states are using the new money to hire young people for jobs as varied as cleaning state parks, scrubbing the decks of docked battleships, assisting in underwater environmental studies and working in offices and hospitals. In addition, most programs squeeze in time for academic assistance, particularly for kids struggling to finish high school.
A British teenager lost for 12 days while hiking in Australia’s Blue Mountains was found alive and well yesterday, just hours before his father – who had all but given up hope of seeing him again – planned to fly back to England.
An innovative new anti-pollution ship has hit the high seas off western France. The ‘Catamar’ can collect debris and more importantly help clean up oil slicks, straining several hundred cubic meters of oil per hour from the water.
More than 40 smaller boats have already been purchased to help clean up lakes. The company hopes larger boats will soon be mopping up the open seas.
Video may take a moment to load… or see it at Clip Syndicate.
