A big lottery winner and mum-of-five wanted to ease the plight of countless starving children in Ethiopia whom she’d seen on television.
So when Jane won a £7.5million jackpot five months ago, she immediately started planning her trip to the African country…
The city of Orlando is hoping a new PR campaign that asks people to “Choose Peace” will help kids and young adults stay out of trouble this summer.
The public safety blitz will saturate the city with thousands of posters, radio commercials and billboards depicting the new logo.
Local radio stations, businesses and faith-based leaders will partner with police and city officials on the initiative, which was unveiled Tuesday.
A 47-year-old who has been behind bars for more than two decades is set to become the latest wrongfully convicted inmate cleared through DNA testing in Dallas County. DNA results proved Jerry Lee Evans’ innocence of the 1986 aggravated sexual assault.
At the Willard, one of Washington, DC’s oldest and most prestigious hotels, the high society guests find recycle waste baskets in their rooms for bottles and cans, the 19th century chandeliers are outfitted with energy-saving bulbs, and the chef features organic and local food while composting all his waste.
All this and more makes the Willard a first class green hotel.
Watch the Video Below, or at Clip Sydicate …
U.S. consumer confidence jumped in May by the most in six years, bolstering indications that the recession will end this year. The 28-point jump in confidence since the end of March is the biggest two-month rally since records began in 1967.
“Psychology plays a big part in the business cycle,” said economist Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research. “When people want to believe that the economy should improve, it usually does. That’s the power of positive thinking.”
Stocks soared on the news yesterday, with major indices up more than 2 percent.
A new reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo will save some of the region’s last pristine forests: ensuring the survival of the embattled bonobo—the least-known of the world’s four great ape species—and protecting a wide variety of biodiversity from the Congo peacock to the dwarf crocodile.
The new Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve covering 1,847 square miles (4,875 sq km) is noteworthy for another reason: every step of its creation—from biological surveys to reserve management—has been run by the local Congolese NGO and villages of Kokolopori.
To succeed, some environmental organizations have learned, give control to the local people.
(Continue reading about bonobos at MongoBay.com)
Thanks to Fred Werner for sending the link!
A nine-year journey ended Tuesday for about 50 high school students who, as fourth-graders at Wallace Elementary, were promised college scholarships if they completed high school.
I Have a Dream, a nationwide nonprofit organization that helps students pay for college, guaranteed tuition assistance to the entire fourth-grade class at Wallace Elementary in 2000 if they graduated from high school.
For Kelso High School senior Katrina Hobbs, the I Have A Dream program and its volunteer mentors helped her become the first high school graduate in her family.
(Continue reading at the Seattle Times)
Thanks to Sandy H. for submitting the link!
A man’s decision not to end his terminally ill bulldog’s life ended up saving his own.
Scott Seymour said his dog, Brittney, awakened him with her barking early Saturday in time for both of them to escape from his burning house in Grand Rapids.
The University of New Hampshire is the first in the nation to receive most of its heat and electricity from landfill gas. It showcased the achievement at the eco-themed graduation ceremony Saturday.
The university has celebrated its efforts to be green by using gas from a landfill to power the loudspeakers at its commencement and turning leftover food from the ceremony into compost.
President Barack Obama is among the Americans observing Memorial Day, a national holiday to honor those who have died in military service to the country.
The president will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Military Cemetery just outside Washington, D.C. The cemetery holds the remains of more than 300,000 people, including veterans from all the nation’s wars.
Parades, ceremonies and motorcycle events are also being held across the United States.
Staff Sgt. Bartek Bachleda spotted a fuel leak during take-off and possibly saved the lives of more than 300 airline passengers in route to Japan last week.
After alerting the aircrew, the ranking pilot made a decision to divert the flight to San Francisco.
The captain said they would have never made it to Japan if it wasn’t for the passenger’s insistence that an emergency situation was developing.
Photo: Staff Sgt Bachleda took this video image showing a fuel leak on a civilian aircraft on a flight from Chicago to Narita airport.
(Read the story in Japan Today)
Chipotle Mexican Grill will expand its local produce program this summer, buying 10 percent more seasonally available produce than last year.
Chipotle expects its program, the first of its kind for any national restaurant chain, to have more than 25 local farms in its network that will supply some of the romaine lettuce, green bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, red onions and/or oregano served at the 860-plus Chipotle restaurants nationwide.
The government reported Wednesday that energy-related carbon dioxide emissions declined by 2.8% last year compared to 2007, the largest annual drop since the government began regular reporting of climate-changing greenhouse gas pollution.
The decline was attributed to a 2.2% drop in energy consumption, largely because of high gasoline and diesel prices last summer and the sharp economic decline in the last half of the year.
The index of leading economic indicators — forecasting conditions in the next three to six months — increased 1.0 percent in April, rising for the first time in seven months.
It was the biggest gain since November 2005, an indication that the world’s biggest economy is poised for modest growth later this year, the Conference Board said Thursday.
Seven of the index’s 10 components were pointing up.
“We expect another sharp increase in the index for May,” said one economist.
In the Dakhla refugee camp in the middle of the Algerian desert, refugees from Western Sahara have found a way to feel less isolated, thanks to multimedia classes and equipment from Spanish filmmakers. New technology allows them to communicate via Internet video with family who’ve fled to Europe and Morocco, which annexed their homeland three decades ago.
Montreal inaugurated North America’s first large-scale bicycle-sharing system this week. 30 times larger than the program in Washington, DC., tourists, shoppers and commuters can jump on bikes like taxis, traveling between 300 stations citywide.
Pay $5 per day, at any of the solar-powered bike stations — or ride 30 minutes for free. Annual memberships are just $78.00 (Canadian).
The program is called BIXI — a word, created by the mayor, using bicycle and taxi. It was inspired by existing public bike systems like the successful program in Paris. Yet BIXI represents a major step forward for bike sharing schemes.
An abandoned depressed former rail line, , officially opened to the public this week as a 1.2-mile biking and walking path and a vision of what Detroit may one day offer throughout the city.
The Dequindre Cut is the latest in a growing network of greenways — nonmotorized community links — that eventually could encompass 100 miles of such trails throughout Detroit.
The president of the nonprofit Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, said the Dequindre Cut’s opening shows reason for hope in Detroit. “Many people didn’t think it would happen. It has,” she said.
(Continue reading in the Detroit Free-Press)
A tiny puppy walking the neighborhood in Omaha, Neb., gets trapped in a storm drain, prompting a full-scale rescue by local animal officials.
Cookie the shitzou ended up safe in his family’s arms.
Watch the video below, or at the News Room…
Troops are emerging unscathed from IED explosion, thanks to the MRAP, a new armored vehicle capable of withstanding very large blasts. The vehicle is one of many innovations the United States military has developed to stay ahead of the insurgents in Afghanistan.
Deaths of children under five years of age have plummeted by almost one third since 1990, the United Nations World Health Organization said yesterday.
28 percent fewer young children worldwide died in 1997 than the number estimated to have died in 1990, according to “World Health Statistics,” WHO’s first progress report on the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – the eight globally-agreed anti-poverty targets with a 2015 deadline.
“The decline in the death toll of children under five illustrates what can be achieved by strengthening health systems and scaling up interventions, such as insecticide-treated mosquito nets for malaria and oral rehydration therapy for diarrhoea, increased access to vaccines and improved water and sanitation in developing countries,” said Ties Boerma, Director of WHO’s Department of Health Statistics and Informatics.
The sharp decline worldwide came as an estimated 9 million young children died in 1997, down from 12.5 million estimated in 1990.
