While governments can do important work to promote it, peace, tolerance and understanding come mostly from people. That’s why the South Asian Seeds of Peace participants will be important messengers in countries back home — Afghanistan, India and Pakistan.
This week, teenagers complete a three-week camp program in Maine designed to promote conflict resolution and mutual understanding. They were joined at the camp by Palestinian, Israeli, Egyptian and American teens.
Wealthy Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has taken up his friend Bill Gates’ challenge to publicly pledge the majority of his wealth to philanthropy.
Allen, who is 57, said yesterday that he plans to leave the majority of his $13 billion estate to philanthropy to continue the work of his foundation and to fund scientific research. It was also a way of marking the 20th anniversary of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, which he started in 1990 and has since given 3,000 grants totaling about $400 million.
His total giving over the years has reached about $1 billion, reflecting eclectic interests in science, the arts and education, including nonprofits he founded: the Allen Institute for Brain Science and the Experience Music Project.
(READ more in the Seattle Times)
This afternoon, BP was able to test a containment cap on the blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico, after a series of problems and delays. Now, for the first time in months, there is no oil flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, the company says.
NPR’s Richard Harris said that, half an hour ago, he was watching live footage of the well when “the huge clouds of oil just simply stopped flowing.”
This was part of the test, as BP measures pressure in the well to see how it’s holding. Higher pressure readings mean the well is containing the oil, while lower pressure means some is leaking out. At the moment, it is “too soon” to conclude results, BP said. BP will formally review data from the test with government officials every six hours, Suttles said, so a key time will occur later Thursday night, said CNN on their website.
(READ the story at NPR.org)
An Idaho man envisioned “electric roads” way back in his early childhood. Now, in his own state-of-the-art electronics lab, he is building the panels for a solar roadway he hopes will make petroleum-based asphalt obsolete.
Scott Brusaw’s Solar Roadways company is busy with a prototype incorporating all the best ideas for highway design: Roads and sidewalks embedded with solar cells to collect energy, which could pay for the cost of the panels; heating elements in the surface to eliminate the need for snow plows; and LEDs embedded to provide illuminated road lines that light up the road for safer driving at night.
An Idaho man envisioned “electric roads” way back in his early childhood. Now, in his own state-of-the-art electronics lab, he is building the panels for a solar roadway he hopes will make petroleum-based asphalt obsolete.
Scott Brusaw’s Solar Roadways company is busy with a prototype incorporating all the best ideas for highway design: Roads and sidewalks embedded with solar cells to collect energy, which could pay for the cost of the panels; heating elements in the surface to eliminate the need for snow plows; and LEDs embedded to provide illuminated road lines that light up the road for safer driving at night.
If you have not heard the inspiring story of Team Hoyt, watch this update from NBC about how other families have picked up the baton and started running races with their disabled children.
Feeling the wind in their faces, they experience real participation in sports, from their front row seat in jogging wheel chairs.
WATCH the Making a Difference video below, or at NBC Nightly News…
RELATED: When Doctors Say Your Child Will be ‘a Vegetable’ (Team Hoyt, Oct. 2006, GNN)
Tigers in 13 countries will be safer after a critical meeting this week laid the foundation for world leaders to agree to a historical global plan to double the number of tigers in the wild.
The Tiger Summit in Bali produced solid plans to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022 along with commitments to raise the $356 million to implement the Global Tiger Recovery Program.
“Hosting this meeting in Bali – where the Balinese tiger went extinct in the 1940s – is a symbol of Indonesia’s commitment to help with this global effort to protect tigers and bring them back from the brink of extinction,” said WWF Indonesia CEO Dr. Efransjah.
“Now that these countries have shown their willingness to act, the success of any global plan launched in St. Petersburg will depend on financial support from the international community and the tiger nations themselves,” said Michael Baltzer, leader of WWF’s Tiger Program.
The meeting is a prelude to the Tiger Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia in September.
Governments also agreed to elements for a Leader’s Declaration. Calling the Tiger Summit “unprecedented,” the Declaration will include:
World tiger experts and representatives from other NGOs, including the Global Tiger Initiative, also are in attendance this week.
The Bali meeting is a follow up to earlier governmental meetings on tiger conservation, including one in Thailand in January where the goal of doubling the number of wild tigers was adopted.
Tigers are in a dire situation. The global wild population is reduced to an estimated 3,200 individuals. From nine tiger sub-species, six exist today — the Sumatran, Bengal, Amur, Indochinese, South China and Malayan tiger. Threats to the tiger include poaching and illegal trade, massive habitat fragmentation and destruction.
With an estimated 400 Sumatran tigers left, or 12 percent of the global tiger population Indonesia has a key role to play in the global tiger recovery program.
(Source: WWF)
It was the worst oil spill ever. And it happened in the Persian Gulf, fewer than 20 years ago. What clues does the 1991 Gulf War oil spill hold for the recovery from the continuing blowout of BP’s Gulf well?
On January 22, Iraqi soldiers occupying Kuwait began opening valves at the Sea Island oil terminal. Up to 11 million barrels of oil poured into the Gulf, compared with between 2.8-4.8 million barrels from BP’s well.
Clean-up operations were impossible at first due to continuing fighting and the risk of mines. But eventually 1.5 million barrels of it were skimmed up by Saudi ships and winds drove the rest southwards until it beached along the Kuwaiti and Saudi coast.
The initial impact was devastating with calm salt marshes suffering the most, but recovery was in places encouraging.
Two recent sporting events have netted the Boys and Girls Club of America around $3 million dollars thanks to the attractive power of great athletes.
People may complain about the excess hubris surrounding the Lebron James announcement last week when the basketball star created a torrent of media buzz around which city he would choose to play for next year. The Boys and Girls Clubs were not among them.
The venerable non-profit organization expected to reap $2.5 million from a deal crafted by James with ESPN to donate all advertising revenue generated from a portion of the much-anticipated show.
The windfall for Boys and Girls Clubs (BGCA) did not stop there, however. Major League Baseball’s annual Home Run Derby raised $573,000 for the kids’ clubs last night.
Two recent sporting events have netted the Boys and Girls Club of America around $3 million dollars thanks to the attractive power of great athletes.
People may complain about the excess hubris surrounding the Lebron James announcement last week when the basketball star created a torrent of media buzz around which city he would choose to play for next year. The Boys and Girls Clubs were not among them.
The venerable non-profit organization expected to reap $2.5 million from a deal crafted by James with ESPN to donate all advertising revenue generated from a portion of the much-anticipated show.
The windfall for Boys and Girls Clubs (BGCA) did not stop there, however. Major League Baseball’s annual Home Run Derby raised $573,000 for the kids’ clubs last night.
For one day — July 13, 1985 — an unprecedented charity telethon called Live Aid mesmerized an estimated 1.4 billion of the planet’s 5 billion people, in one of the biggest, most ambitious concert events ever staged.
Simultaneous shows from two continents at one point attracted 95 percent of the world’s television viewers — an even more incredible statistic when you consider that it happened before the Internet, cell phones, e-mail, text messaging, streaming video and Twitter.
The musical telethon ended up raising more than 200 million dollars for starving people in Ethiopia and around Africa and inspired future shows like Farm Aid and Live 8.
READ a 25th anniversary article from MTV...
For one day — July 13, 1985 — an unprecedented charity telethon called Live Aid mesmerized an estimated 1.4 billion of the planet’s 5 billion people, in one of the biggest, most ambitious concert events ever staged. Simultaneous shows from two continents at one point attracted 95 percent of the world’s television viewers — an even more incredible statistic when you consider that it happened before the Internet, cell phones, e-mail, text messaging, streaming video and Twitter.
The musical telethon ended up raising more than 200 million dollars for starving people in Ethiopia and around Africa and inspired future shows like Farm Aid and Live 8.
WATCH their 25th anniversary report or read the article from MTV...
With the financial backing of a California winery owner, activists on Saturday purchased all 174 stray horses up for sale at a state-sanctioned auction in Nevada to keep the horses from going to the slaughterhouse.
A spokesperson for the Livesavers Wild Horse Rescue group said activists purchased the horses for $31,415.
“We’re excited so many people came together to save the horses,” she said. “This is amazing, and we all feel joyful.”
(READ the AP story from CBS News)
Debt-stricken Greece said today it has made huge progress in restoring its finances to health in the six months to June, cutting its public deficit by some 46%, well ahead of target.
The fall of 46% outpaced the target of 39.5% set by the government in order to slash the public deficit to 8.1% of GDP, more in line with EU rules and a first step toward economic recovery.
(READ more in RTE Business)
Hi folks! You might have noticed the site looks different!
Today we launched the BETA version of the new Good News Network — the fourth version since the site launched in 1997. This update was urgently needed, because we were hacked twice last year, which was quite disturbing… This software is much more secure.
Let me know what you think. We are still tweaking, adding some things, finding the bugs…
Are there problems? Are you missing anything? Let me know in the comments below. (The FORUM isn’t working yet, so don’t try to go there!) Or, you can always send me an email — although someone called this morning saying the security code wasn’t working on the CONTACT US page, so her message wasn’t being sent.
The BIG video near the top is a “place holder” for a new video player that we hope to launch soon. We need to find the proper software that will gather all the videos from the site in one place, on a single player/page. We MAY need luck to fulfill that intention… ; )
Hoping you will be patient and help us to improve. I want ALL your comments, so please take a moment if you have a comment.
P.S. It is running very slow for me, and we hope to fix that soon.
Tens of thousands of people sang and danced on a broad beach Sunday in Alabama at a free Jimmy Buffett concert meant to show not all the tourists are covered in oil on the Gulf Coast.
The show, which was telecast live on the CMT cable channel, came on a particularly good day: The skies were mostly clear and only a little oil was washing in on the white sand about 100 miles north of the Deepwater Horizon site.
(READ the AP story, with photos, at CBS News)
A city ordinance will help building inspectors identify the banks that own abandoned homes and — with the threat of stiffer fines — encourage them to keep them clean and safe.
A dilapidated South Los Angeles home with tall weeds, a fallen fence, broken windows and graffiti was chosen to serve as the backdrop for a news conference Saturday as city officials announced a crackdown against derelict, bank-owned homes under a new city ordinance.
(READ the story in the LA Times)
Entrepreneur Ward Shepherd has brought free wi-fi broadband access to a dirt-poor South Carolina town.
“Knowledge is what sets you free,” says Shepherd. “Knowledge is what give you an opportunity to excel.”
WATCH the video below, or at MSNBC...
When 14-year-old Larry Wang heard about the local school district cutting the fourth-grade band program, he knew he had to try to save the music.
Fourth grade is the level at which Larry, as a public school student, got his first chance to learn an instrument.
“Fourth grade really inspired me, and if you took that away that would be really tough,” Larry said.
In January, the teen approached the school principal, and before long the teen was recruiting mini-Mozarts, as well as a handful of other eighth-graders to help teach them.
READ the full story at Contra Costa Times…
1) Books in the home correlate powerfully with student success, and, 2) young students can lose 1 ½ years of their reading achievement over the summer.
That’s why school districts across the country are partnering with non-profit programs to make sure that underprivileged students leaving school for the summer are bringing home an armful of new books.
A new 3-year study by reading researcher Richard Allington at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville shows that when these kids return to school they will have “significantly” higher reading scores and less ‘summer back-sliding’ than peers who didn’t get books. In fact, the kids who took books home not only kept up their reading skills, but actually improved them.
