A partnership of states and agencies trying to restore the health of the Chesapeake Bay said that bay grasses increased 12 percent last year, a sign that pollution control efforts are working.
The total area of underwater bay grasses was the highest baywide acreage since 2002, said the Chesapeake Bay Program Tuesday.
Bay grasses are an excellent measure of the Bay’s overall condition because they are not under harvest pressure and their health is closely linked to water quality.
A partnership of states and agencies trying to restore the health of the Chesapeake Bay said that bay grasses increased 12 percent last year, a sign that pollution control efforts are working.
The total area of underwater bay grasses was the highest baywide acreage since 2002, said the Chesapeake Bay Program Tuesday.
Bay grasses are an excellent measure of the Bay’s overall condition because they are not under harvest pressure and their health is closely linked to water quality.
A Detroit-area man lost 365 pounds in the last three and a half years, thanks to a yoga class and its meditative messages.
Weighing 540 pounds in 2006, Larry Sherman said the Yoga Shelter helped him to see that the heart of the problem was in his head.
“Once you understand what is eating at you, your eating will change,” the co-founder explained.
“Today, I’m weighing about 180,” said Sherman. “I feel amazing. I feel like a child released on the playground.”
He cut out flour and sugar from his diet, and eats 3 square meals a day.
(WATCH the video below from CNN)
A Detroit-area man lost 365 pounds in the last three and a half years, thanks to a yoga class and its meditative messages.
Weighing 540 pounds in 2006, Larry Sherman said the Yoga Shelter helped him to see that the heart of the problem was in his head.
“Once you understand what is eating at you, your eating will change,” the co-founder explained.
“Today, I’m weighing about 180,” said Sherman. “I feel amazing. I feel like a child released on the playground.”
He cut out flour and sugar from his diet, and eats 3 square meals a day.
(WATCH the video below, or read the story at WXYZ.com )
At age 7, Meredith Iler wanted to buy a bike, so she opened a lemonade stand in her multimillionaire grandparents’ neighborhood. Through innovative marketing, she earned 20 times more than she needed. Today, the powerful persuader won’t rest until every severely injured hero in uniform who needs a handicapped-accessible home gets one.
Since 2005, as chair of the non-profit organization, Helping a Hero, she’s used her powerful contacts with luminaries in the world of politics and industry to raise money to build 25 custom-built homes.
“I wanted to prove that you could do it as a volunteer and never have paid staff or overhead and just inspire Americans to step up and say ‘thank you’ in a tangible way to our wounded heroes,” she told the Houston Chronicle.
Most veterans don’t want charity, so the homes are titled in their names, and they take on a $50,000 mortgage – with monthly payments usually around $300 – and are responsible for insurance, taxes and upkeep.
(READ the inspiring story at the Houston Chronicle)
Project Rejuvenation is a plan to encourage and invigorate homeless women by giving each participant a complete makeover and turning them into models for a fashion show.
Three charitable organizations hosting the event will transport the women, who are currently in transition and live at local shelters, in chauffeured limousines. They will receive gift bags, new hairstyles and clothes, as well as encouragement to continue to move forward. The models will be pampered from head to toe in an effort to show them that, despite their current situations, they are beautiful.
Their current circumstances by no means define their final destinations. No matter the series of events that may have lead these women to their current situations, a little encouragement truly goes a long way in helping to propel them forward.
“Makeovers could be just the boost they need.”
Photo by mensatic, morguefile.com
The annual RFK Center spring auction is in its final day, with online bidding closing tomorrow. Do you want to meet Oprah, have lunch with Robin Williams, win an internship with a famous magazine, or score a pair of seats atop the Red Sox dugout?
Thirteen pages filled with celebrity donations and enriching experiences have tempted visitors to the Web auction that raises money each spring in support of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. An A-list of athletes, politicians, celebrities and corporations have created items that offer an instant dream-come-true for the highest bidder.
One of the unique opportunities at the online auction (hosted at www.charitybuzz.com/rfk) is the range of internships available. You can launch a new career with an internship at the Huffington Post, National Geographic Society, Esquire or Diane Von Furstenberg.
A walk-on role in the next Ben Stiller movie will cost you more than a meeting with Oprah — both garnering bids over $17,000. The current bid for lunch with Martin Sheen is $2,300, while VIP tickets to Elton John’s Oscar party will top $15,000. 28 people have bid on two tickets to attend a White House Christmas Concert hosted by President Barack Obama and the First Lady, with the current bid at $9,250.
“By bidding on these incredible experiences, people will be supporting cutting-edge human rights defenders from around the world, including those fighting for the right to water and reconstruction in Haiti, the victims who still suffer after Katrina, farmers’ rights in the U.S and much more,” said Kerry Kennedy, founder of the RFK Center’s Speak Truth To Power.
Last year, the Center’s 2009 spring auction raised a record amount for vital human rights work. The auction is closes tomorrow. (Visit CharityBuzz to see the auction.)
The annual RFK Center spring auction is in its final day, with online bidding closing tomorrow. Do you want to meet Oprah, have lunch with Robin Williams, win an internship with a famous magazine, or score a pair of seats atop the Red Sox dugout?
Thirteen pages filled with celebrity donations and enriching experiences have tempted visitors to the Web auction that raises money each spring in support of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. An A-list of athletes, politicians, celebrities and corporations have created items that offer an instant dream-come-true for the highest bidder.
One of the unique opportunities at the online auction (hosted at www.charitybuzz.com/rfk) is the range of internships available. You can launch a new career with an internship at the Huffington Post, National Geographic Society, Esquire or Diane Von Furstenberg.
In an ideal world, everyone would have first aid training. But according to St John Ambulance, the British first aid charity, up to 150,000 people die needlessly in Britain every year; from the 29,000 killed by heart attacks to the 2,500 victims of asphyxiation. That’s why the charity has launched a campaign to remind us how to cope in common situations.
Do you believe that If an arm or leg is bleeding heavily, you should tie a tight tourniquet above the injury?
That is just one of the 10 widespread misconceptions about first aid that often stop us from doing the right thing to help save a life.
(READ the 10 myths in the Guardian)
In an ideal world, everyone would have first aid training. But according to St John Ambulance, the British first aid charity, up to 150,000 people die needlessly in Britain every year; from the 29,000 killed by heart attacks to the 2,500 victims of asphyxiation. That’s why the charity has launched a campaign to remind us how to cope in common situations.
Do you believe that If an arm or leg is bleeding heavily, you should tie a tight tourniquet above the injury?
That is just one of the 10 widespread misconceptions about first aid that often stop us from doing the right thing to help save a life.
(READ the 10 myths in the Guardian)
It was moving day recently for dozens of families in Oak Island, Texas. Their new homes are gifts from a stranger.
In September of 2008, Hurricane Ike splintered Oak Island – ruining 345 out of 350 homes. Esther Nelson slept in her car or a tent for months. “I thought I’d never be able to overcome this,” she said.
Then, a stranger came to town to see the devastation. The gentleman was music star Neil Diamond, who had a concert in nearby Houston right after the hurricane.
“You couldn’t help but be moved by this terrible situation,” Diamond said. “I just decided that I would do whatever I could do to help.”
He donated profits from his concert merchandise, raised $1.7 million and re-built a dozen homes on Oak Island.
(READ the full story at CBS News)
School kids demonstrated a “can-do” attitude in this season’s Aluminum Can Recycling National School Challenge. 133 schools, representing more than 70,000 students, joined with aluminum suppliers and beverage can manufacturers in the competition. Collectively, over the 12-week period they raised over $53,000 and recycled more than 48,094 pounds of used aluminum beverage cans.
The top three schools collecting the most cans per student were awarded a $250 prize on Earth Day by the Aluminum Can Council. The winning schools are:
Almost half of the participating schools have elected to incorporate beverage can recycling as a year-round activity and we encourage others to follow their lead in creating a sustainable future.
“In the spirit of Earth Day, we are celebrating the outstanding recycling achievements by these students and the lessons about environmental awareness and action that will last a lifetime,” said Robert Budway, President of the Can Manufacturers Institute.
The ACC’s National School Challenge is a friendly, intra-industry contest where beverage can manufacturers Ball Corporation, Metal Container Corporation and Rexam and aluminum suppliers Alcoa Inc., Arco Aluminum and Novelis Inc. partner with schools to see which facility/school team can recycle the most aluminum cans per student.
A body of research is emerging that suggests that there’s little risk to carrying a few extra pounds. And there may even be some benefit:
(READ the story in the Wall Street Journal)
The iconic sign on the hill above Hollywood was at risk of being lost to development. A conservation group was trying to raise $12.5 million to save it but was $1 million short. Then another Hollywood icon stepped in.
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner donated $900,000, and the Trust for Public Land declared its fundraising campaign a success: The Hollywood sign had been rescued from urban sprawl.
(READ or listen to the story from NPR’s Morning Edition)
An energy company serving the Dallas-Fort Worth area announced in February that it had paired up with the SolarCity company to launch a groundbreaking residential solar energy program that doesn’t require homeowners to put up any money in advance.
There is no upfront cost for installation, and homeowners can instead make monthly lease payments on the solar panels. The savings on electric bills generally can be expected to exceed the monthly lease cost, TXU Energy and SolarCity officials say.
The program is already full, with a lengthy waiting list for next year.
(READ more at the Star-Telegram)
Ford Motor Co. said Tuesday it earned $2.1 billion in the first quarter, another sign that the economy is improving as people spend more on big-ticket items like cars.
That’s an about-face from the same period last year when it lost $1.4 billion at the height of the recession. It was Ford’s highest quarterly profit in six years.
The increase could mean additional hiring, but Ford said it was too early to tell.
(READ more from AP via NPR.org)
Have you been secretly wanting to learn to speak Italian? How about Czech, Hebrew, or Swahili? The US Foreign Service has now made available 42 language courses online for free. From Fula to Finnish, from Hini to Hungarian, the language courses developed by the Foreign Service Institute may have you chatting up a new language quickly and easily.
Some languages, like Italian, offer a quick course with easy-to-use audio recordings via Quicktime, as well as full courses with multiple units available for download. There are also worksheets downloadable in PDF for most of the offerings.
Go to the website – fsi-language-courses.org – and start learning Cambodian today!
Have you been secretly wanting to learn to speak Italian? How about Czech, Hebrew, or Swahili? The US Foreign Service has now made available 42 language courses online for free. From Fula to Finnish, from Hini to Hungarian, the language courses developed by the Foreign Service Institute may have you chatting up a new language quickly and easily.
Some languages, like Italian, offer a quick course with easy-to-use audio recordings via Quicktime, as well as full courses with multiple units available for download. There are also worksheets downloadable in PDF for most of the offerings.
Go to the website – fsi-language-courses.org – and start learning Cambodian today!
Masooma Habibi remembers her hands bleeding after weaving carpets with her mother in Iran when she was 5. Now she is part of a delegation of entrepreneurs chosen to take part in President Obama’s Summit on Entrepreneurship starting today in Washington. She is proving that women can build businesses in traditional Muslim societies — and succeed if they never give up.
Masooma finished high school with top grades in Iran, but when her father became sick, her family went back to Afghanistan where women were unwelcome in the business world.
Habibi spoke decent English and had computer skills, but, as a woman, she couldn’t get a job in the city where men looked down on women. So Habibi decided to move to Kabul where attitudes toward women are not as harsh.
A breakthrough in her career came when Habibi was accepted into 10,000 Women, a business management program sponsored by investment company Goldman Sachs at American University in Afghanistan. (The goal of 10,000 Women is to provide 10,000 underserved women around the world with a business and management education.) She graduated from it with new skills and a valuable trait — self-confidence.
In 2007, Habibi decided to start her own business and enlisted her two brothers, who studied electrical engineering, as partners. Together they launched Check Up Company to provide consulting services in electrical engineering. Habibi hoped to seize opportunities in the power market, where many people lack access to electricity or have to endure frequent outages. She faced competition from experienced international companies.
Habibi launched her business after she persuaded two private investors to give her capital in exchange for company shares. It wasn’t a smooth ride. Many Afghani businessmen didn’t want to deal with her because she was a woman, despite the fact she co-runs the company with three male executives. Her parents didn’t want her to be a businesswoman either because relatives and neighbors kept asking: Why is she working like a man instead of getting married?
“Sometimes, I wanted to stop and quit,” she said.
But she hasn’t. “Something in my heart said: ‘Don’t stop! Try harder!’” Habibi said. She appeals to the self-interest of distrustful businessmen, citing examples of companies that had benefited from Check Up’s advice. Sometimes she urges them to provide more job opportunities to women in their own businesses. Some grudgingly have acted on her exhortations. And even a few who first objected to a woman-run business, have called her back and hired her company.
Check Up, which employs 22 people, hasn’t broken even yet. But it presses ahead. Recently, it has worked on building projects in Mazar-e-Sharif and a hospital project in Herat. Eventually, Habibi, who will attend the April 26-27 Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship in Washington, wants Check Up to become the number 1 power company in Afghanistan and create many jobs. But for now, she wants Check Up to gain more experience, upgrade its services and wait for security to improve.
“We Afghans are patient people,” she said.
As Washington tries to regulate Wall Street’s newfangled derivatives, government officials in at least a dozen states are considering a North Dakota solution: a 100 percent state-run bank.
Since 1919, North Dakota has operated the nation’s only depository of this kind, a genuinely socialist enterprise that spins tax revenues into loans for in-state farmers, students, and small-business owners. Unlike other banks, the Bank of North Dakota (BND) plows about half its profits into the state budget and that is one of the reasons the state fourished during the recession, with the nation’s lowest unemployment rate (about 4 percent) and one of the largest budget surpluses (more than$1 billion).
(READ the story in Newsweek)
