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.”
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
A 92-year-old great-grandma has written more than two thousand letters to troops over the past two years. Each letter is four pages long and unique to each soldier.
Her letter-writing to servicemen began more than one half century ago.
With a sharp decline in inmate population over the past month, Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway plans to devote a portion of the county jail to save dogs’ lives.
The jail will serve as a foster home for the Society of Humane Friends, a pet rescue agency.
The dogs will have access to a fenced grassy area for exercise, Conway said, and trainers will come in to work with the inmates on grooming and training the animals.
“These dogs will be the dogs that would have been put down,” Conway said. “They will be saved at the last minute.”
Here are the Top Ten Innovations from 2009 that will lead us, with chin up, into the next decade. From new technologies that strip pollution from our oceans and air, to household devices that cut carbon emissions; from a possible cure for honeybee colony collapse, to a breakthrough on Alzheimer’s, these bright innovations will ignite hope in even the most cynical. All these stories appeared on the Good News Network in 2009:
A biotech firm in Washington recently announced an overwhelmingly positive response to compounds from a rain forest botanical for treating Alzheimer’s Disease, along with its intention to safeguard the very forests that provide such a remarkable pharmacopeia. In talking with Advana Science CEO Peter Leighton, I realized he just might have the hoped-for promise that millions were seeking — a natural compound that could disrupt the amyloid proteins and prevent them from binding. What’s more, nature was pulling off what drugs could not. The plant compound was so complex in its polysaccharide constituents that it could never be duplicated by any drug. (www.megjordan.com)
An Israeli company has developed a revolutionary new drug that could solve the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder, the disturbing syndrome that has been wiping out bee communities and threatening agricultural production all over the world. The drug, Remembee, which was developed by Beeologics, has completed successful clinical trials on millions of bees in North America. Not only has it proved effective in maintaining bee health, but it also improved the longevity of bees and increased the honey in the hives. Based on Nobel prize-winning RNAI technology, the drug helps bees overcome IAVP virus, which has been associated with colony collapse.
Inventor and water-treatment expert Michael Pritchard was inspired after the devastating Asian tsunami and hurricane Katrina, which left so many without clean drinking water, to develop the Lifesaver bottle. The revolutionary water-filtration method could drastically reduce the suffering worldwide due to the lack of access to clean water.
The Dow Chemical Company today unveiled its line of DOW Powerhouse Solar Shingles, revolutionary photovoltaic solar panels in the form of solar shingles that can be integrated into rooftops with standard asphalt shingle materials. Putting the power of solar electricity generation directly and conveniently in the hands of homeowners, Dow will distribute the shingles in limited quantities by mid-2010, and broaden their availability in 2011.
Sir James Dyson, the inventor who revolutionized the bagless vacuum cleaner, revealed his latest invention: a fan with no blades. The Dyson fan works very differently to conventional fans. With no blades or grill, it’s completely safe, effortless to clean. It uses Air Multiplier™ technology to draw in air and amplify it 15 times, producing an uninterrupted stream of smooth air that doesn’t cause unpleasant buffeting. (Video)
A variety of new technologies are gearing up to grab climate-warming carbon right out of the air. This is different from trapping carbon dioxide as it comes out of pollution sources like factories and power plants. University of Calgary climate change researchers say they are close to figuring out how to commercialize the capture of carbon dioxide directly from the air with a simple system that could be set up anywhere in the world. Chemicals giant BASF and glass and ceramics firm Corning are also working with a team at Columbia University on a company called Global Thermostat to develop a similar device.
An innovative new anti-pollution ship has hit the high seas off western France. The ‘Catamar’ can collect debris and more importantly help clean up oil slicks, straining several hundred cubic meters of oil per hour from the water.
More than 40 smaller boats have already been purchased to help clean up lakes. The company hopes larger boats will soon be mopping up the open seas. (AFP Video)
Trials by companies including Panasonic and Toyota are underway at 3,000 homes throughout Japan, to bring mini hydrogen power plants into backyards that will provide heat and power while emitting a fraction of the carbon dioxide of normal energy sources by using a hydrogen fuel cell to convert natural gas into electricity. It’s called a fuel cell cogeneration system.
A cancer drug that destroys the deadly cells which give birth to tumors has been developed by U.S. scientists. It has already worked against breast cancer and offers hope to those with cancer of the prostate, skin or bowel. The drug selectively kills cancer stem cells which help tumors grow and spread the disease through the body. Unlike other cancer cells, stem ‘mother’ cells are resistant to radiotherapy and chemotherapy, allowing cancer to return after treatment. In laboratory tests, the new drug, salinomycin, was 100 times more effective at destroying stem cells than the powerful chemo treatment Taxol. The U.S. researchers believe dozens of drugs with similar properties could be developed over the next few years. The treatment is around a decade away from the market.
A new solar-powered stadium designed not only to power, cool and water itself, but also to withstand the island’s typhoons and earthquakes. The world’s first completely solar-powered stadium, located in Taiwan, is set to be completed in time for July’s World Games. Every inch of the massive roof is covered in solar panels — enough to power the structure’s 3,300 lights, two huge TV screens, and maybe sell some electricity back to the grid. It even incorporates the ancient art of Feng Shui. (AP Video)
Here are the Top Ten Innovations from 2009 that will lead us, with chin up, into the next decade. From new technologies that strip pollution from our oceans and air, to household devices that cut carbon emissions; from a possible cure for honeybee colony collapse, to a breakthrough on Alzheimer’s, these bright innovations will ignite hope in even the most cynical. All these stories appeared on the Good News Network in 2009:
A biotech firm in Washington recently announced an overwhelmingly positive response to compounds from a rain forest botanical for treating Alzheimer’s Disease, along with its intention to safeguard the very forests that provide such a remarkable pharmacopeia. In talking with Advana Science CEO Peter Leighton, I realized he just might have the hoped-for promise that millions were seeking — a natural compound that could disrupt the amyloid proteins and prevent them from binding. What’s more, nature was pulling off what drugs could not. The plant compound was so complex in its polysaccharide constituents that it could never be duplicated by any drug. (www.megjordan.com)
An Israeli company has developed a revolutionary new drug that could solve the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder, the disturbing syndrome that has been wiping out bee communities and threatening agricultural production all over the world. The drug, Remembee, which was developed by Beeologics, has completed successful clinical trials on millions of bees in North America. Not only has it proved effective in maintaining bee health, but it also improved the longevity of bees and increased the honey in the hives. Based on Nobel prize-winning RNAI technology, the drug helps bees overcome IAVP virus, which has been associated with colony collapse.
Inventor and water-treatment expert Michael Pritchard was inspired after the devastating Asian tsunami and hurricane Katrina, which left so many without clean drinking water, to develop the Lifesaver bottle. The revolutionary water-filtration method could drastically reduce the suffering worldwide due to the lack of access to clean water.
The Dow Chemical Company today unveiled its line of DOW Powerhouse Solar Shingles, revolutionary photovoltaic solar panels in the form of solar shingles that can be integrated into rooftops with standard asphalt shingle materials. Putting the power of solar electricity generation directly and conveniently in the hands of homeowners, Dow will distribute the shingles in limited quantities by mid-2010, and broaden their availability in 2011.
Sir James Dyson, the inventor who revolutionized the bagless vacuum cleaner, revealed his latest invention: a fan with no blades. The Dyson fan works very differently to conventional fans. With no blades or grill, it’s completely safe, effortless to clean. It uses Air Multiplier™ technology to draw in air and amplify it 15 times, producing an uninterrupted stream of smooth air that doesn’t cause unpleasant buffeting. (Video)
A variety of new technologies are gearing up to grab climate-warming carbon right out of the air. This is different from trapping carbon dioxide as it comes out of pollution sources like factories and power plants. University of Calgary climate change researchers say they are close to figuring out how to commercialize the capture of carbon dioxide directly from the air with a simple system that could be set up anywhere in the world. Chemicals giant BASF and glass and ceramics firm Corning are also working with a team at Columbia University on a company called Global Thermostat to develop a similar device.
An innovative new anti-pollution ship has hit the high seas off western France. The ‘Catamar’ can collect debris and more importantly help clean up oil slicks, straining several hundred cubic meters of oil per hour from the water.
More than 40 smaller boats have already been purchased to help clean up lakes. The company hopes larger boats will soon be mopping up the open seas. (AFP Video)
Trials by companies including Panasonic and Toyota are underway at 3,000 homes throughout Japan, to bring mini hydrogen power plants into backyards that will provide heat and power while emitting a fraction of the carbon dioxide of normal energy sources by using a hydrogen fuel cell to convert natural gas into electricity. It’s called a fuel cell cogeneration system.
A cancer drug that destroys the deadly cells which give birth to tumors has been developed by U.S. scientists. It has already worked against breast cancer and offers hope to those with cancer of the prostate, skin or bowel. The drug selectively kills cancer stem cells which help tumors grow and spread the disease through the body. Unlike other cancer cells, stem ‘mother’ cells are resistant to radiotherapy and chemotherapy, allowing cancer to return after treatment. In laboratory tests, the new drug, salinomycin, was 100 times more effective at destroying stem cells than the powerful chemo treatment Taxol. The U.S. researchers believe dozens of drugs with similar properties could be developed over the next few years. The treatment is around a decade away from the market.
A new solar-powered stadium designed not only to power, cool and water itself, but also to withstand the island’s typhoons and earthquakes. The world’s first completely solar-powered stadium, located in Taiwan, is set to be completed in time for July’s World Games. Every inch of the massive roof is covered in solar panels — enough to power the structure’s 3,300 lights, two huge TV screens, and maybe sell some electricity back to the grid. It even incorporates the ancient art of Feng Shui. (AP Video)
Fifty-five percent of U.S. teenagers volunteered during a recent year, led by the nation’s education system where 68 percent of kindergarten through 12th-grade schools now offer or recognize community service opportunities for students.
Want to encourage your own kids to volunteer?
It’s not just people in need who benefit: Experts say helping others can offer young people a host of rewards, from a stronger sense of community to improved self-esteem. Plus, volunteering can help bulk up a college application or a résumé.
So how can you persuade your children to volunteer? Here are some tips from the Huggable Heroes program, via the North American Precis Syndicate.
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.
New Technologies Suck Carbon Right Out of Air 
