A deployed US airwoman had her Christmas wish fulfilled thanks to a nonprofit that undertook a special holiday delivery—rescuing the stray cat who stole her heart.
US Air Force Technical Sergeant Tracy was stationed in the Middle East when she found a kitten on her base and named it Walter.
The orange tabby offered comfort to the woman so far from home, but as the end of her deployment neared, she couldn’t bear to leave him behind knowing he risked starvation or euthanasia.
So she turned to the veteran-led, New York-based Paws of War to help. They focus on entering countries where US soldiers are deployed and rescuing animals they may have formed bonds with.
The CBS News station in New York reported that it can cost as much as $10,000 to perform these extractions, as they require plane tickets, various medical procedures, and paperwork filings with governments at home and abroad.
But Walter was rescued in time for Christmas, when, after arriving first in New York, Paws of War volunteer and US Army veteran Dereck Cartwright drove the orange tabby to the waiting arms of Sgt. Tracey’s husband all the way in New Hampshire.
“[It’s] the least we can do for these service members who are sacrificing so much, not only their safety—they are going to be away from their families this holiday, they are in a faraway place, a dangerous place,” said Robert Misseri from Paws of War.
WATCH the story below from CBS 2 New York…
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Down on Light St. in Baltimore, a little pizzeria set to shutter by Christmas has received a huge helping hand—a Christmas miracle, one might say.
Each box of pie came with a note saying that unless Little Brick Over Pizzeria received a serious amount of business or donations, it would close on December 25th.
Enter Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy for one of his famous One Bite pizza reviews.
Giving it a “solid 7.9” and describing it as a kind of “thin New York style” his review and publicity means that now, the oven at Tiny Brick Oven is overflowing with pies to satisfy a line out of the door.
Owner Will Fagg, described by one part-time employee as her “guardian angel,” was a big fan and follower of Portnoy, who had followed his work during the COVID-19 lockdowns helping small hospitality businesses stay open.
When Portnoy asked how things were going at Little Brick Oven, he was shocked to hear the prognosis was grim. Owner Will would later tell WJZ 13 News that the problem is the money it costs to get a liquor license, something which the new market across the street has, and which is driving him out of business.
Getting his pie, Portnoy, who had by then heard the whole predicament, insisted on paying for it, joking “you can’t tell me you’ve got no money and then not ask me to pay for it.”
– credit @stoolpresidente via X, screengrab– credit @stoolpresidente via X, screengrab
After his first bites, Portnoy shows the camera the appeal for financial assistance from Fagg, who’s also a veteran, on the box and says succinctly “there’s no way this place should be goin’ out of business.”
Calling Fagg the nicest guy you could hope to meet, Portnoy goes back in to ask how much money Fagg would need to keep the place open for a year, to which the owner replies $60,000 for costs and the liquor license.
– credit @stoolpresidente via X, screengrab
“Done” replies Portnoy.
The review went viral, wracking up 14 million views on X alone; and on Christmas Eve, Tiny Brick Oven had a line out the door and phones ringing non-stop.
“We’ve never had a line like this. We’ve never had a line like this,” Fagg told the KXII news cameras from behind his counter, where he stood in his red chef’s coat and hat rolling dough and splattering sauce.
Fur seals swim off the Faralon Islands - credit: US Fish and Wildlife Service
Fur seals swim off the Farallon Islands – credit: US Fish and Wildlife Service
A historic breeding colony of fur seals has produced record numbers of pups which can be seen splashing and tumbling about in the waters off the Farallon Islands.
The latest population count provides a sight unseen for 150 years when these islands off San Francisco were once home to 150,000 elephant and fur seals, and welcome evidence of the long-term benefits of marine mammal conservation.
The Farallon Islands witnessed overhunting of the seal rookery during a market boom for their blubber and pelts in the late 19th-early 20th century. A conservation treaty signed by the US, Canada, and Russia banned their hunting in 1915, and a second piece of legislation designating the Farallon Islands as a wilderness was passed in 1972.
Over time, these measures ensured that neighboring seals could re-establish their lost colony, which has now grown into the thousands.
2,133 fur seals were recently counted during a population survey by Point Blue Conservation Science, a number that included 1,276 pups, the highest ever.
“I was amazed to see them all piled in there, getting tossed around like they were in a washing machine,” Gerry McChesney, manager of the Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge, told SFGATE in an email. “They looked pretty content and like they were having a good ol’ time.”
The pups can be seen bobbing up and down in the rough waters of coves, inlets, and rocky shallows where the area’s apex predator, the great white shark, can’t reach them. They remain in a big float waiting for their mothers to return from the sea where they can spend several days in a row feeding to bolster their milk supplies.
Returning, the mothers will find their pups using a special call unique to them and identifiable over the din of waves and barking of other pups.
McChesney added that the terrain and various sheltered coves make it difficult to perform a complete estimate of the number of seal pups, “this was a minimal count and there were certainly many more,” he noted.
“It was so much fun to watch,” McChesney said. “And knowing that the sight represents such an amazing comeback for their population made the sight mean so much more.”
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Quote of the Day: “Nothing ever seems too bad, too hard, or too sad when you’ve got a Christmas tree in the living room.” – Nora Roberts
Photo by: Getty Images for Unsplash+
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
1,487 years ago today, the Hagia Sophia was completed. The Eastern Orthodox Church of Holy Wisdom is considered the greatest Byzantine building. It was converted to a mosque in 1453 by the Turks, in 1935 to a museum, and in 2020 to a mosque again. It is considered to have changed the history of architecture, and remained the world’s largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years. It is the third church to occupy the current site, with the first two being destroyed in riots. READ more about this historic building… (537)
An illustration of Proba-3's orbit and function - credit: ESA
An illustration of Proba-3’s orbit and function – credit: ESA
Using a pair of satellites, the European Space Agency is set to be able to create artificial solar eclipses on-demand to study one of the most important features of our Sun.
Lost in the sheer brightness of the star, the corona, or crown of the Sun, is hotter and larger than the Sun itself. Its effects, as well as being more consequential for our society, are extremely difficult to understand due to outstanding problems in imaging the Sun from our planet.
Proba-3, designed across 14 member states, built in Spain, and launched into space by India on December 5th, should allow astrophysicists to gain unparalleled visual insights into the corona by using solar eclipses as inspiration.
Spaced about one and a half football fields apart, Proba-3 orbits the Earth like our Moon and consists of two different satellites called the Occulter and the Coronagraph.
The Occulter, as its name suggests, is the satellite closer to the Sun, and during a six-hour window will perfectly obscure the light of the Sun’s disk. Closer to the Earthling as he views it, the Coronograph then images the corona for 6 full hours, as no Earth-bound telescope can do.
However, Proba-3 mission manager Damien Galano outlines the difficulty in accomplishing this artificial eclipse.
“Now the hard work really begins, because to achieve Proba-3’s mission goals, the two satellites need to achieve positioning accuracy down to the thickness of the average fingernail while positioned one and a half football pitches apart,” said Gelano, who didn’t mention the satellites are flying through space hundreds of miles per hour.
The lighted whisps in this image of a solar eclipse are just a tiny portion of the Sun’s corona – credit: Drew Rae
The corona is like a bubble of gas, heat, and radiation. It’s responsible for the famous ‘solar wind’ from which spacecraft and astronauts need to protect themselves with radiation shields, and also for huge explosions known as coronal mass ejections which can damage or disrupt electronics on Earth.
Andrei Zhukov of the Royal Observatory of Belgium and Principal Investigator for the Proba-3 Coronograph unit, explained in a statement released on the December 5th launch just why this ability to cast eclipses on-demand is so valuable to astronomers.
“At the moment we can image the Sun in extreme ultraviolet to image the solar disc and the low corona, while using Earth and space-based coronagraphs to monitor the high corona,” he said.
“That leaves a significant observing gap, from about three solar radii down to 1.1 solar radii, that Proba-3 will be able to fill. Despite its faintness, the solar corona is an important element of our Solar System, larger in expanse than the Sun itself, and the source of space weather and the solar wind.”
WATCH an explainer video below…
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Diaz Beach, South Africa - credit: José Carlos Babo, CC license via Flickr
Diaz Beach, South Africa – credit: José Carlos Babo, CC license via Flickr
An imperiled swimmer in South Africa recently caught a lifeline when the hook of a nearby cod fisherman snagged on her jeans.
Armed with only a fishing rod and the skill imparted from untold casts into the rich coastal waters of Mossel Bay, the man was able to save the 31-year-old woman when no other help was forthcoming.
Diaz Beach in Cape Town, South Africa, is one beach that is not recommended to swim in due to strong currents that can carry swimmers out to sea—although the scenic coastline is known as a great surfing spot.
At an hour past midnight last Wednesday, a cod (kabeljou) fisherman noticed a woman in the water who seemed to be caught in a strong current that risked carrying her out to sea.
Running into the shallow water, he repeatedly cast his line towards her until the large codfish hook attached to her jeans, local news reports.
“Fishermen, angling from the shoreline, witnessed the lady in the water and a local fisherman cast his fishing rod in her direction, with the fishing line attached to a Kabeljou fishhook,” said National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) spokesman Craig Lambinon.
“The fisherman was able to reel her in towards the beach where once she reached waist-deep water, a local fisherman waded into the water and helped her out the water onto the beach as NSRI and emergency services were arriving on the scene,” he continued. “The local fisherman is commended for his effort that contributed to saving the lady’s life.”
Codfish hooks are about as long as a man’s pinky finger, and it’s no small wonder the fisherman’s cast managed to find her clothes and not her skin.
The fisherman has been hailed as a hero for his skill and quick thinking, local news reported.
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When a young skateboarder saw some kids picking on a feral kitten, he wanted to stop them, although he didn’t stand a chance against so many.
Instead, 8-year-old Zayin Berry used diplomacy—trading his skateboard away for a promise that they would leave the animal alone. It worked, and now the kitten is his “best friend.”
And according to Zayin’s mom, the fortunate feline knew it from the start.
“He just fell in love with it, and you could see it… you could see the cat just loved him,” his mom told CBS 5/AZ Family.
After the Berrys took the cat home they realized he needed urgent medical attention. His breathing came in difficult, congested labors, and he had an eye infection.
Taking him to the Yuma Humane Society, veterinarians told the family that the animal, whom they had called ‘Peaches,’ needed surgery to remove the infected eye. Thankfully, the procedure was a success and Peaches is recovering well.
Lauren Twerdak, speaking for the Humane Society, called Zayin’s compassion and selflessness “outstanding.”
“For Zayin to have that care and that drive at such a young age is honestly outstanding,” Twerdak said.
According to local news, the manager from the Humane Society, along with the retailer Zumiez which sells skateboards, came together to give Zayin a gift card to buy a new skateboard.
He went down to their brick-and-mortar location and designed it to his specifications, proving that kindness pays in its own roundabout way.
Through the Humane Society, the Berrys received community donations that ensured Peaches could go home with his new best friend, Zayin.
“We explained to him that he [Peaches] was going to lose his eye, but he said that was ‘fine as long as he can live because that’s my best friend,’” Mrs. Berry.
WATCH the story below from AZFamily CBS 5…
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James Patterson - credit: Book Authors, CC license via Flickr
James Patterson – credit: Book Authors, CC license via Flickr
Believing that books save lives, international best-selling author James Patterson is taking the reins for dozens of American booksellers this year and giving their employees a $500 holiday bonus.
To protect the beloved industry and its bottom line, Patterson’s donations totaled $300,000 this holiday season, and were divided between 600 different bookshop workers.
According to the American Booksellers Association (ABA) workers either submitted an application for the bonus, or were nominated by their colleagues, friends, or perhaps even an author.
“Booksellers save lives. Period,” Patterson said in a statement to ABC News. “I’m happy to be able to acknowledge them and all their hard work this holiday season.”
People Magazine reports that Alabama’s Thank You Books, Iowa’s The Nook, and San Francisco’s City Lights Books are just some of the locations that have witnessed Patterson’s gifts.
“We appreciate Mr. Patterson’s financial generosity as well as his generosity of spirit. We all continue to be awed by, and grateful for, Mr. Patterson’s continuing support of independent booksellers,” Allison Hill, CEO of the ABA, also said in a statement.
“It means everything to have him recognize and reward the valuable role booksellers play in the industry.”
This is just one of many large donations offered by Patterson to bookstores, totaling over $1.5 million of personal wealth over the last 20 years. This included a $500,000 donation during the opening salvos of the COVID-19 pandemic, when enforced lockdowns and business closures threatened small businesses in many states.
“The White House is concerned about saving the airline industry and big businesses — I get that. But I’m concerned about the survival of independent bookstores, which are at the heart of main streets across the country,” Patterson said in a statement at the time.
“I believe that books are essential. They make us kinder, more empathetic human beings. And they have the power to take us away-even momentarily-from feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and scared.”
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With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
56 years ago today, the inaugural Dakar Rally Raid was staged, with the course stretching from Paris, France, to Dakar, Senegal. 182 vehicles took the start of the inaugural rally in Paris, with 74 surviving the 10,000-kilometer (6,200 mi) trip to Dakar while crossing terrains such as sand dunes, mud, camel grass, hamada rock desert, and more. The race is split into motorbikes, cars, trucks, and quads, and is much tougher than a regular rally championship track, which is usually run by modified road cars. READ more about the competition’s history… (1978)
Don Lambert worked at a small newspaper in Kansas nearly 50 years ago when an example of Christmas Eve kindness made its way onto the front page. He submitted the story to GNN in 2020, saying, “It has a message that is important to us every single day. Kindness is all around us.”
Here is Don’s recollection of the events from December 24, 1973.
I was a cub reporter at the time—not yet seasoned enough to have learned that an act of kindness, whether large or small, is sometimes found in the most unlikely of places and at the most needed of times.
On Christmas Eve, ‘The Boss’ had made this deal. If we all got our work done early, he would put the paper “to bed” a few hours early, giving us employees a few extra hours to be with our families.
Since I had the police beat, my main task was to check in at the local police department to learn whether there had been a crime such as a bank robbery or jail break to inform the public about.
“Nope, nothing here,” the police chief said anticipating my first question, adding with a chuckle, “It is too cold for the local criminals.”
As he did every morning, he handed me the police blotter, a hand-written list of the calls made to the police department. With my finger, I went down the list. Mostly piddily, as usual. There was, however, one entry which caught my attention from the North side, the poor part of town. A husband called to report his family’s clothes had been stolen.
How terrible, I thought, especially on this day. The next day, an entry from the same man, reporting that all of their clothes had been found. I had a hunch there might be a story there. I asked the officer, “You know the scoop?”
“Nope,” he replied. “In that neighborhood, you never know.”
I hopped into my Volkswagen Beetle and made a beeline to the neighborhood in search of the crime scene. With a notepad in one hand and lead pencil in the other, I knocked on the door.
I said I was hoping to write a story about her “incident.” She was holding a baby in her arms, two little boys were hiding behind her skirt.
She explained that this had not been a good time for her family. Her husband had been ill and lost his job. Preparing for Christmas, she washed all their clothes. The dryer was on the fritz again, the landlord hadn’t gotten around to fixing it. She could have taken the wet clothes to the laundromat on the other side of town. “But,” she whispered, “that costs money.” Instead, she hung them on the clothesline behind the house.
When she checked a short time later, she discovered that all of the clothes were gone. Stolen! That was when she called the police for the first time. A couple of hours later, there was a knock at her door. By the time she got there, no one was there. Instead, there was a large cardboard box at the front door. In it were all the clothes: dried, pressed and folded. And there was a note: “Wish we could do more. Merry Christmas.”
Arriving back at the newspaper office, I hollered out for the first—and only—time in my career, “Hold the presses!”
“Since your story is late,” the crabby layout person said, “best I can do is try to squeeze it into page 7.”
“Page 7,” I shrieked. “The obituary page? No way!” I insisted, “My Christmas story goes on Page 1—and put it above the fold.”
My late-breaking story had delayed everything about an hour. By the time the press was warming up, the carrier boys were arriving, some with shiny new Schwinn bicycles, others with beat-up hand-me-downs. Each boy would fold about a hundred newspapers and tuck them into a canvas bag over his shoulder, to be tossed onto awaiting front porches.
When the printing began, The Boss and I were the only staff members remaining. He pulled the first one off the press. There it was, My Christmas story on page 1—above the fold.
“Good job,” The Boss said with a rare smile and even rarer pat on the back. “Because of your story the whole town will have a better Christmas—and so will I.”
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A retired couple amusingly recreate their friends’ Christmas card photo every year—by posing in place of their young children.
68-year-old Carol and 72-year-old Michael Whalen started the tradition after receiving a greetings card showing their pals’ then one-year-old son in his toy car.
They have been remaking Ryan and Samantha Dominik’s cards ever since, now featuring two adorable tots of five and two.
Michael said, “My wife and I received the original Christmas card, they had taken their son out to get a Christmas tree.
“My wife was looking at it she said you know we ought to replicate it—she has a red car, and I have a knit sweater.
“We just sort of re-enacted the photos and it received such a warm response from our group, next year we just continued the tradition.
“It was just something that caught our attention because we have three children and were still waiting for a grandchild.
The parents have roped in their eldest son Christopher to take the photos for them.
SWNS
Writer and filmmaker Christopher said “I love the tradition. I got a real kick out of it when I first saw it.
“We’re essentially family, and it was a real cute rendition for us all.”
SWNS
Ryan, Christopher, and Christopher’s two siblings all grew up in the same neighbourhood, with the eldest becoming the godfather to Ryan’s son.
33-year-old Samantha said, “Mike and Carol have been like parents to Ryan, and he has lived with them on three different occasions growing up.
“They have always played a huge role in his life, and our kids are lucky to have a third set of grandparents.”
SWNS
In 2017, the Dominiks sent out an adorable Christmas card featuring their son dragging a tiny Christmas tree and driving his toy car.
One week later, Ryan got a text from Carol telling him to check his emails—and there was the images of Mike posing as his son outside their log cabin in Otis, Massachusetts.
SWNS
Mike is pictured in a cable knit sweater hauling a full-size Christmas tree, and driving his Ford Escape with the tree on the roof.
Mom-of-two Samantha said, “We all got a huge kick out of it and we called them right away to praise their work and laugh about it.
“The rest is history! Every year we mail our cards around Thanksgiving and we wait to see what they will respond with.
“It has become such a fun tradition to look forward to, and I always have them in my mind when choosing the photo I will take each Christmas.”
Carol and Michael call up the Dominiks every year to check when they will be sending out their cards so they have time to prepare their own.
SWNS
The Whalen parents have donned full length Christmas PJs, and posed wearing Christmas lights outside in the snow.
Samantha, an office manager, said, “Ryan always jokes with them that things are going to get more complicated this year, making remarks like ‘I hope you have access to a hot air balloon’.
“I almost felt bad for making it a little more elaborate this year, and I even offered to let them borrow the cocoa stand for their recreation, but Carol was very sweetly insulted by my offer.
“They do everything themselves, getting nearly identical pyjamas, props, and so on.
SWNS
“We were so impressed that they built their own cocoa stand, but not at all surprised.
“Their attention to detail is spot on and they always seem to top themselves every year, it never ceases to amaze us.
“They always send their photos to us with funny captions, such as ‘we stole their Christmas card idea.’
SWNS
“This year they undercut our cocoa prices and we all got a kick out of that.”
Ryan added, “I don’t think our two-year-old understands as much, but our five-year-old loves it as much as we do!”
Christopher thinks as his parents are retired teachers, they both have a lot of time on their hands for their annual stunt.
Reprinted with permission and alterations from World at Large, an independent news outlet covering world news, conflicts, travel stories, conservation, and science news.
The smells of cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove have different uses around the world, but when the scent of these South Asian spices wafts through an American kitchen, it almost invariably means one thing—it’s the most wonderful time of the year.
Mulled wine, gingerbread cookies, and pumpkin spice lattes are just some of the holiday season treats that include these super aromatic spices, but where tradition has relegated them to seasonal cooking in Europe and North America, their historic use in Asia has been medicine.
Cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves perfectly classify as “nutraceuticals,” a scientific shorthand for foods so rich in fitness-promoting compounds that they mirror the pharmacological potential of synthetic drugs and medicines. Multiple studies have looked at the effects of the cocktails of antioxidants and other nutrients present in these Christmas spices and found they demonstrate potent protection against pathogens through their antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal effects.
They are commonly cited as potent antioxidants, which bears some explaining. Antioxidants get their name from their function of donating a spare electron to molecules produced as the billions of mitochondria in our bodies generate energy. These molecules are known as free radicals, or reactive oxygen species, and are one of the key drivers of aging, and numerous other diseases—a pathology known as oxidative stress.
However not all antioxidants are created equally, and the potency of some, for example oranges, pale in comparison to the potency of others, for example garlic.
Scientists at the National Institute for Aging at the NIH have developed a scale to measure the antioxidant potential of foods, known as ORAC Values. Looking among the highest-ranked compounds, caloric food is noticeably absent from the top 50. Ground clove is the 8th highest in the world, and is probably one of two or three ingredients in the top 10 you’ll have even heard of. Cinnamon sits at number 16, and nutmeg at 34.
With an ORAC value of 290,000, ground clove is 10 times more potent than cranberries, nearly 19 times more potent than raspberries, and nearly 30 times more potent than an orange.
Cloves by Amitha A R
Oxidative stress was once believed to be the reason we aged at all, which highlights the tremendous importance of including high-quality antioxidants in the diet.
In a literature review published at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Vanderbilt, spices were shown to have high value as functional medicines. Some of the items highlighted in the review, such as garlic or turmeric, aren’t universally enjoyed, which is where the Christmas spices come in.
Cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves are roundly enjoyed for their pleasant smells and the warm sensation they confer, making them an easier suggestion for someone who doesn’t cook with herbs and spices quite often.
Cinnamon has been found to slow gastric emptying, reducing the rise in post-prandial blood glucose. The volatile oils in cinnamon, called cinnamic acid, show antifungal and antibacterial effects, and they can even help with type 2 diabetes patients after being shown to cause a .83% decrease in hemoglobin A1C levels. Cinnamon is a key ingredient in what is known in America as spicy chai tea, and makes for a perfect after-dinner drink for these reasons. Cinnamon is also a great to add to yogurt, sweet potatoes, squash, and baked bread.
Ground cloves are one of the most important spices in Ayurvedic medicine in India, and just a tiny amount of the oils contained within have been shown to kill B tuberculosis. The oils have been investigated for the potential similarities to the common drug paracetamol—to reduce inflammation via Cox-2.
Clove also acts as an iron chelator and is effective at clearing hydroxy radicals. It’s been theorized as a treatment for breast cancer and prevents the breakdown of the eye’s retina. As mentioned before, apart from sumac, a spice commonly eaten in Turkish cuisine, and a few other things you’ve probably never heard of, ground clove is the most powerful, edible, antioxidant we know of.
Nutmeg has been investigated, like the other two, for a variety of therapeutic effects. Essential nutmeg oil was found to clear gram-positive pathogenic bacteria species Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermis, and gram-negative bacteria Shigella Dysenteriae, and Salmonella Typhi. Continuing on the theme of medicine, nutmeg has been recorded as a constituent ingredient in treatments for rheumatism, sciatica, malaria, dysentery, nausea, and even the early stages of leprosy.
In India and China, nutmeg is an important and proven antidiarrheal agent, and has also been identified as a potential antidepressant, while another literary review found that nutmeg’s composition of phytonutrients contains compounds known to improve anabolic action in the metabolism of bone, allergenic reactions, and enhance the repressing of lipid peroxidation.
One study found that nutmeg alcohol extract remarkably decreased liver function indexes, blood glucose, lipid accumulation, cholesterol levels, and inflammation levels in mice.
Two studies also found that nutmeg can or might be able to aid in treating colon cancer, breast cancer, and skin papilloma, while a third found that in vitro non-small-cell lung cancer was suppressed with a multi-herb formula containing nutmeg.
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Quote of the Day: “The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.” – Burton Hills
Photo by: Kateryna Hliznitsova for Unsplash+
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Happy 75th Birthday to Sissy Spacek. She won an Academy Award for her starring role in the 1980 biographical film Coal Miner’s Daughter, about country music singer Loretta Lynn, for which she performed all the vocals. Born in Quitman, Texas, she initially gained fame for her breakthrough performance in the 1976 Stephen King-inspired horror film Carrie. She also earned Oscar nominations for her roles in five films, Carrie,Missing, The River, Crimes of the Heart, and In the Bedroom. WATCH her break down her most iconic roles… (1949)
An Indian man transports bamboo, related to the story - credit Matthieu Aubry, CC 2.0. via Flickr
An Indian man transports bamboo, unrelated to the story – credit Matthieu Aubry, CC 2.0. via Flickr
From India comes the story of a tribal community who gained ownership of a lush bamboo forest and used it to brighten the futures of the otherwise poverty-stricken inhabitants.
According to a monumental piece of legislation passed in 2006, any indigenous community can apply for ownership of federally-owned land on which they have a traditional claim. Called the Forest Rights Act, its effectiveness has been spotty, since many indigenous forest dwellers are unaware that it exists, and few are willing to litigate on their behalf.
But for the dwellers of Pachgaon in the Indian state of Maharashtra, three years of persistent inquiries and form-filing rewarded them with ownership over a 2,500-acre bamboo forest which they have turned into a community silviculture business that takes care of the whole community.
It also stymied migration to the urban centers of Gujurat and Karnataka, keeping community members in the region of their ancestors, while making a not-insignificant profit of around $41,000 a year for the village.
“The day we got the papers was a festival,” says Vinod Ramswaroop Tekam, a 35-year-old villager. “We were overwhelmed that we had won this right, that our [nonviolent protest] had paid off. We were now 100% assured that the forest was really ours.”
At a depot on the outskirts of Pachgaon, stacks of bamboo lie neatly cut and sorted into various sizes. Across Asia, bamboo is used in construction for scaffolding and aiding the correct setting of concrete. Because of this, hundreds of thousands of long sections are needed every day, and can generate a land owner millions of rupees.
The village’s bamboo business made a profit of 34 million rupees in the last 10 years, or $400,000, according to a special feature in the Guardian.
Not too dissimilar to a Western co-op, a village assembly called a gram sabha runs the bamboo lumber business. There are no foremen or CEOs, just one person designated to handle the paperwork.
The bamboo thrives even throughout the difficult monsoon years, when villagers from Pachgaon would often watch their crops flooded and destroyed in the rains, and, left thusly destitute, migrate to cities to perform odd jobs for low pay.
The profits made are spread through the gram sabha and address things like higher education for the community’s children, infrastructural improvements, and the acquisition of neighboring land to expand the business.
When the monsoons come and the bamboo cutting ceases, profits are used to pay villagers to perform work like digging drainage ditches and filling potholes.
“It’s simple,” says Gajanan Themke, 43, a worker-manager at the gram sabha. “If we don’t create jobs, people will migrate. More people in the village means better work and better execution of work.”
The dream of the gram sabha and Pachgaon is simple: keep the next generation here and keep their traditions alive.
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Brian Clegg during an October 2024 trip to Coney Island - credit, SWNS.
Brian Clegg during an October 2024 trip to Coney Island – credit, SWNS.
Stories of personal triumphs don’t always start with success—they often start with setbacks and failure. For an obese New Yorker, it was being told in front of everyone that he was too big to get on a roller coaster.
39-year-old Brian Clegg says he has struggled with his weight his whole life.
Brian Clegg in an image from 2023.
At his heaviest, he weighed 409 lbs. and endured significant pain just walking around. Describing himself as a “stress eater,” he would often relegate meal times to a bag of fast food or sugary snacks.
But years of suffering from the consequences of overeating, a poor diet, and a sedentary life couldn’t compare to the disappointment he felt last year on a trip to Coney Island when he was told he couldn’t get on a roller coaster because of his massive size.
This year Brian made it his mission to shed the weight, and has since lost 135 lbs. in 11 months, mostly by cutting out sugar and fast food, and starting an exercise program at the gym even though it was just 5 minutes per day.
“I couldn’t live life,” said the native of New Windsor, NY.
“I had things that I wanted to accomplish but I was wondering how long I was going to live. I started going to the gym three times a week,” he told SWNS. “I was only able to do the StairMaster for five minutes on level one.”
In the last 11 months, Clegg has gone from wearing XXXXXL shirts to XXL, from a 52-inch waist to just 42 inches, and from 5 minutes at level 1 to one hour on level 10 on the StairMaster.
He was even able to fulfill his dream of getting on a roller coaster at Coney Island in October 2024.
From Greece comes the discovery of the first-ever portrait of the last-ever Byzantine Emperor, Constantine XI Phalaiologos.
Discovered at a monastery Constantine’s brothers once patronized, it dates to the 15th-century fall of the great empire and offers a vision of the man painted according to his likeness, rather than according to Imperial custom.
credit – Greek Ministry of Culture, released
Located in Aigialeia in the Achaea region of Western Greece, Constantine grew up in or near a town called Mystras, south of the monastery, which he governed for 5 years until he took the throne in the year 1449.
In a statement, the Greek Ministry of Culture said that as a portrait, it is not idealistic or standardized.
“It is an authentic portrait, which accurately reflects the physiognomic characteristics of the last Byzantine emperor. He is an earthly figure, a mature man, with a slender face and personalized features, who exudes calmness and kindness,” it reads.
The statement describes further how his raiment would have likely been purple with gold embroidery and decorated with medals, on which are depicted double-headed eagles with a crown between their heads—insignia of the members of the Palaiologos family.
The Phalaiologos household produced rulers of Byzantium for around 200 years, and Constantine the XI was not only the last of its house to rule in Constantinople, but also the last Byzantine royal of any house to rule, as Constantine disappeared from history during the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks.
One of the least respected but most important ecosystems on Earth are seagrass meadows, and a pioneering robotic solution is helping marine scientists restore these underwater gardens.
The ReefGen Grasshopper can plant dozens of seagrass seeds per minute. Not only is this faster than a human diver, but much safer as well.
It works by injecting a tiny slurry of sediment wrapped around the seagrass seed into the seafloor. After covering a growing plot of four seeds, the robot ‘hops’ about 30 centimeters away and starts again.
Despite covering a minuscule portion of the seafloor, seagrass meadows are estimated to hold 35-times more carbon than terrestrial forests—amounting to around 18% of the total carbon stock of the world’s oceans.
ReefGen’s founder Tom Chi dreamed up the idea after watching the degradation of coral reefs on his home island in Hawaii. The first iteration of the robot set coral ‘plugs’ onto existing reefs to help regrow them, but the technology was prohibitively expensive for wide-scale use.
Now however, broader selections of off-the-shelf parts have driven down the costs of manufacturing and maintaining underwater robots, according to Chris Oakes, CEO of ReefGen.
“Manual planting works, but robots are really good when things are dull, dirty, dangerous, or distant—the four Ds,” Oakes told CNN, adding that at the moment, Grasshopper is piloted with a controller by a human on the surface.
“Right now, we’re focused on the planting, the biology, and the mechanical aspects, once we’re confident that that’s all designed the right way, we will overlay more semi-autonomous features like navigation, so you don’t actually have to pilot it,” he said.
ReefGen has been able to not only expand into restoration of seagrass meadows, but also see its robots used in oceans around the world. This July, Grasshopper planted 25,000 seeds in Wales. In October, ReefGen teamed up with the University of North Carolina (UNC) Institute of Marine Sciences to test various seed replanting methods out on the state’s declining seagrass meadows.
Oakes says that as cool and “flashy” as a robotic solution might seem, the most important factor in its success will be the long-term monitoring of the fields it’s replanting. Are they growing to maturity, are the seedlings dying off before then, will they live long enough to seed and germinate fields of their own, how do fields it plants compare to fields planted by hand?
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