A former CBS News employee and his wife had just moved to Haiti two weeks before the earthquake hit. Gillian, working for a Christian aid group there, was trapped overnight under the rubble of her building before Frank was able to arrive at her side, following a frantic 100 mile dash across Haiti to save her.
With Gillian freed, they sought treatment at the US embassy. But instead of fleeing back to the US, they’re determined to stay and help the people of Haiti.
Watch the news report at CBS …
50 Arab and Jewish chefs have served up a world record for cooking hummus in the name of Middle East peace.
Cooks from both sides of Israel’s religious divide filled an eight-meter-wide satellite dish with four tons of the dip, nearly doubling the Guinness world record set in Lebanon.
The man behind this latest idea, Jawdat Ibrahim, an Israeli multimillionaire, has devoted his life to promoting co-existence since winning an American lottery years ago. His message seems to be: “Give chickpeas a chance”. (Read his inspiring story here.)
Yesterday the U.S. military began a massive relief effort in Port-au-Prince, Haiti after a devastating 7.0-magnitute earthquake struck Tuesday.
Two C-130 transport planes flew in with military engineers and communications specialists. Restoring communications is vitally important for aid groups to coordinate relief efforts.
A Coast Guard cutter arrived, while an aircraft carrier – the USS Carl Vinson – is expected to arrive by Friday. As many as 5,500 U.S. troops are expected within days.
A Coast Guard helicopter had already MedEvaced four badly injured Americans to Guantanamo, Cuba, CBS News correspondent David Martin reported yesterday.
(Continue reading at CBS News)
100 years ago, the founder of Hershey chocolate, Milton Hershey, decided to leave his entire $60 million fortune to open a school for underprivileged kids.
Today, the 1,800 kids living on campus create a strong family, and learn valuable life lessons inside and out of the classroom.
Tuition for the sprawling 2,600-acre campus totals $75,000 dollars per student per year – but the kids pay nothing. It’s all paid for by the Hershey Trust – with a portion of each Hershey chocolate bar going to fund this unique institution.
Watch the video below, or read the story at CBS News.
The ups and downs of the last 10 years have been marked by dozens of generous acts that have inspired others, helped those in need and set a standard for celebrities, the wealthy and the rest of us to live by.
Here is a slide show of the Huffington Post’s 10 most generous moments of the decade.
Among the ten are these:
Dave Eggers’ 826 Valencia
Alex’s Lemonade Stand
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt Housing Katrina Victims
Iowa Town Gives Clean Water to African Town
Foreclosure Angel Buys Home for Stranger
Oprah Winfrey Builds Girls’ School in S. Africa
Warren Buffett Gives Away Fortune
Bono’s work on behalf of Africa
From New York to Los Angeles, murders and other violent crimes are at a 50-year low. In Los Angeles, that’s partly because police and ex-gang members are working together to make the streets safer.
In 1990, people wouldn’t dare stand in the alleyways of 77th Street in South Central L.A.
Today, it’s a different story, says Lorna Hawkins, who lost two sons to gang violence in 1988 and 1992. “They say the streets haven’t been this safe for 50 years.”
Read the good news, or listen to the story, at NPR.org – Thanks to Priscilla in France for submitting the link!
Miep Gies, the last surviving member of the group who helped protect Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis, has died in the Netherlands aged 100.
She and other employees of Anne Frank’s father Otto supplied food to the family as they hid in a secret annex above the business premises in Amsterdam.
Anne’s diary of their life in hiding, which ended in betrayal, is one of the most famous records of the Holocaust.
It was rescued by Mrs Gies, who kept it safe until after the war.
(Read more in the BBC)
Drummers from Pink Floyd, Radiohead and The Police joined percussionists around the globe to jam for peace in Sudan.
Sudan365.org launched a video this week to spearhead an international campaign to press world leaders for the prevention of more bloodshed in Africa’s largest nation, just one year before a key referendum.
The North American Muslim community has taken practical steps to counter radicalization, with its leadership recently offering additional encouraging developments.
For example, the Council on American-Islamic Relations announced that they plan to set up a website specifically aimed at countering extremist interpretations of the Qur’an, 20 North American Imams this week issued a Fatwa Against Terrorists, and, this week when the “underwear bomber” was arraigned in court there were about 150 American Muslims and Arabs rallying outside in the frigid cold. The demonstrators held signs saying “Not in the name of Islam”, “We are Americans,” and “Islam is Against Terrorism.”
(Read about these and more activities in The American Muslim)
Photo: Largest US mosque is found in Dearborn, Michigan
When Sarah Gall was crippled by arthritis, the powerful painkilling drugs prescribed by her doctor brought no relief.
Yet the 55-year-old church organist now claims to be completely pain-free thanks to a simple but startlingly effective cure she found in her kitchen cupboard – vinegar.
After being left in constant agony and having to give up her beloved music, Mrs Gall began taking a mixture of cider vinegar and honey four times a day.
Her daughter found the vinegar cure on the internet, first proposed by a nurse called Margaret Hills in 1961.
Miss Hills believed that the vinegar’s alkaline qualities could counter the acid that builds up in joints causing the painful swelling associated with arthritis.
(Read more at the UK’s Daily Mail)
40 local Muslims participated in the metro-Detroit’s Jewish community’s annual Mitzvah Day, the volunteer program held every Christmas to enable Christians to stay home and enjoy the holiday, while those not celebrating help with social-service projects, like soup kitchens and food pantries.
It was the first time Muslims joined the 18-year-old effort, invited by the Jewish Community Relations Council to create an interfaith opportunity.
(Continue Reading the story in Detroit Free-Press)
With the frigid cold weather gripping the usually-warm South, animals are finding themselves in need of help. Here is how some of our four-legged, feathered, and finned friends are coping, and how some humans are lending a hand.
Watch the video below, or at MSNBC…
When auto manufacturing left Kenosha, Wis., the city did not want to stare at empty, worn-out buildings. So it embarked on a massive redevelopment effort that has transformed the landscape into a community space with museums, sailboats, condos and parks.
Watch the AP video below, or at Clip Synidicate.
The Sierra Club, its volunteers, supporters, and petitions, helped demand progress in conservation policies across the U.S. in 2009.
Here are some of the big successes by the numbers:
* 26 coal-fired power plants were abandoned or defeated
* Congress protected two million acres of new parks, wilderness areas, and wild rivers
* The grizzly bear earned greater protection
* Tens of thousands of actions were taken leading to key climate-change rulings in DC, like tougher auto efficiency standards.
* The Obama administration ruled that greenhouse gases threaten public health and should be regulated
* The Sierra Club held nearly 1,000 house parties for the Coal Country documentary, and called for an end to mountaintop-removal coal mining.
* The Sierra Club took 90,000 kids fishing, thanks to partnerships with the Federation of Fly Fishers and Trout Unlimited.
Watch the Sierra Club celebrate the 2009 successes in this video via YouTube…
A southern California solar startup has become the first company to sign a deal with China to build solar thermal power plants — and it’s a huge deal: 2,000 megawatts, or enough to power several million Chinese homes.
ESolar Inc. of Pasadena signed an agreement Friday to build a series of solar thermal power plants for China, in one of the largest renewable energy deals of its kind.
Coming four months after an Arizona company, First Solar, secured a contract to build an equally large photovoltaic power plant in China, the ESolar project with a total capacity of 2,000 megawatts, signals China’s emergence as a major market for renewable energy.
“They’re moving very fast, much faster than the state and U.S. governments are moving.”
(Continue reading in the LA Times)
South Sudan on Saturday marked five years of peace as it pushed for full implementation of the deal that ended 21 years of war.
Sudan is expected to hold its first democratic elections in 25 years in April to be followed by a referendum in January 2011 to decide on whether south Sudan should become an independent country.
South Sudan Head of Mission to Kenya John Andruga Duku said south Sudan had achieved a lot in the political, economic and cultural fields since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed.
(Continue reading in Kenya’s Daily Nation)
Photo credit: Sudanese Gather to Organize After 2004 Peace Agreement- USAID
Former students at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands are transforming incinerator waste into marketable and eco-friendly raw materials.
Incinerator ash consists of metals—copper, aluminum, zinc, iron, lead, tin and gold—which, if properly recovered, retain their value.
The two are perfecting a technology that sorts out these precious metals for recycling into construction materials. Incineration firms pay them for the recycling services, sell the recovered metals to the contruction industry and voila, a waste stream becomes a revenue stream.
(Continue reading in Ode magazine)
Fierce as they are, Tasmanian devils cannot beat a contagious cancer that threatens to wipe them out. Now scientists think they’ve found the disease’s origin, good news in the race to save Australia’s snarling marsupial.
The furry black animals spread a fast-killing cancer when they bite each other’s faces. Since the disease’s discovery in 1996, their numbers have plummeted by 70 percent. Last spring, Australia listed the devils as an endangered species.
An international research team picked apart the cancer’s genes, and discovered that it apparently first arose in cells that protect the animals’ nerves.
(Continue reading AP story from CBS News)
Hollywood actor Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith are raising funds to help the United Nations World Food Program tackle hunger in Haiti by auctioning a special piece of art decorated and signed by musical artists and the Smith family at the Nobel Peace Prize concert they co-hosted in Oslo last month.
The artwork selling on eBay, is a colorful map of world hunger decorated with personalized silhouettes drawn by Will, his family, and the artists who performed at the concert.
The auction, with five days left, currently shows a top bid of $200. All proceeds will go towards providing meals to school children in Haiti, where WFP already provides food to more than 500,000 school children.
Gary Ribble would not be able to read this story if not for people like you. Ribble, who has chronic lymphocytic leukemia, needed new eyeglasses last spring but couldn’t afford them after losing a job he’d held for more than 40 years.
Then he found out about the Modest Needs Foundation. The grass-roots charity pools thousands of small donations to help people get through short-term financial crises. Donors direct their dollars to the requests they want to fund.
(Continue reading at CNN.com)
