Kenya’s biggest mobile phone company, Safaricom Ltd., launched the nation’s first solar-charged phone this month. The handset comes with a regular electrical charger and a solar panel that charges the phone using the sun’s rays.
Retailing at about $35, Safaricom plans to make 100,000 of the phones available in the first wave, and expects to sell out in a week.
Image by Sun Star
The nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia has received a $500,000 grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to expand its effort to make educational information freely accessible.
“The enormous popularity of Wikipedia and its collaborative premise make the Wikimedia Foundation an ideal vehicle for spreading the open educational resources movement,” Barbara Chow, director of the education program at Hewlett, said in a statement.
Talk Talk, a British phone and broadband provider, has hired a team of 20 ex-pickpockets to put money into Londoners pockets on the sly. They call it Put-Pocketing, the act of secretly putting money into someone’s pocket without them noticing.
The video below illustrates the game. On the tube or on the street, money – ranging from a £5 to a £20 note – is placed in the pocket with an attached note from the project sponsors, TalkTalk.
Former pickpocket and now “Head of Put-Pocketing”, Chris Fitch, said: “It feels good to give something back for a change – and Britons certainly need it in the current economic climate. Every time I put money back in someones pocket I feel less guilty about the fact I spent many years taking it out. Put-Pocketing is just as much of a challenge, and requires all the same stealth and skills.”
Mark Schmid of TalkTalk said “with so many scams out there, Britons have become very sceptical of companies giving money away so we have turned to Put-Pocketing to give something back. Whilst unconventional, we dont think anyone is going to mind finding a crisp £20 in their pocket courtesy of the activity.”
Put-Pockets are given a specific ID to show to public if caught in the act, and have plain-clothed minders who will intervene to calm and explain the situation if spotted. In addition, the Metropolitan police have been briefed on the activity so Put-Pockets aren’t arrested. However, to date, no-one has been caught red-handed.
The Put-Pocketing initiative has been piloted in London since July 1st, and will continue until the end of August before being rolled out nationwide to major UK cities. (Talk Talk blog)
Tillamook Cheddar is one talented canine, showing off his talents, painting up a storm in a New York studio and making a pretty penny to boot.
Watch video (with ad) below, or at ClipSyndicate …
A South Florida businessman Frank Kelly learns that homeless people are not unworthy of good jobs, they simply have lost hope.
Through mock interviews, speaker training, and clothing makeovers, Kelly’s Project Vacant Streets prepares homeless citizens for new jobs. Dozens of success stories prove his method and highlight the goals of the Community Partnership for Homeless in Miami.
2,200 people are back to work at General Motors’ Lordstown Assembly Plant in northeast Ohio, the result of a surge in sales at least partly due to the government’s “Cash for Clunkers” incentive program. GM announced this week that they will be joined by nearly 1,100 more this fall. (Continue reading or listen to the story at NPR)
Elsewhere, Hyundai is bringing 3,000 workers back to an Alabama plant, and Ford is increasing production of its vehicles.
A cancer drug that destroys the deadly cells which give birth to tumours 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.
The Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency created in 1993 to engage Americans in service, today announced grants to eight organizations including funds to hire 553 new AmeriCorps members.
The additional staff will teach and tutor at-risk youth, construct homes, promote health in rural and immigrant communities, expand parental involvement in schools, provide elder services, and mobilize and manage other volunteers.
Yesterday’s announcement puts AmeriCorps on track to support nearly 75,000 members, the largest class in its 16-year existence.
The eight grants, which total more than two million dollars, will support national service work as well as local programs in Alaska, Maryland, Ohio, and Wisconsin that were selected in a nationwide competition after being recommended by Governor-appointed commissions.
Dozens of children in San Francisco played a life-sized board game to celebrate Candy Land’s 60th birthday, along a quarter mile of the famous zig-zagging Lombard Street.
It was also a trip down memory lane for adults. The winners took home, what else, candy.
Watch the video below, or at TheNewsRoom.com…
U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry traveled to a place that offers a vision of a different future for Afghanistan, peaceful and prosperous: the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
Governor Atta Mohammad is the man who is credited with making this entire province secure enough to prosper after he helped drive out the Taliban. He is one of the most successful examples of a warlord, turned politician. An educated man, striding through the bazaar in a well-tailored suit alongside the American ambassador.
“There’s prosperity. There’s hope. There’s order there,” said Eikenberry. “And yes, it should give us confidence that if we can get the government up and running in parts of the country where there is insecurity right now, yeah, I’d leaved a place like Mazar-e-Sharif saying that it’s possible to get things quite right in this country.”
Autism is a poorly understood brain condition which affects the way people communicate and interact with others. In the PEERS class (Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relationship Skills) autistic teens are learning to work around their challenge.
Watch the video below or at TheNewsRoom.com…
A tiny Chihuahua’s yapping is credited with waking up neighbors in an Oregon apartment complex on Tuesday as a fire broke out.
“Jack started barking and I told him, ‘Go back to sleep,’ but he wouldn’t give up and I saw all the flames and woke my husband up.”
In the past, credit card companies could raise your rate without any notice. But not any more. As of yesterday, the rules have changed in your favor, thanks to the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act passed by Congress.
Credit card issuers now must give borrowers at least three weeks to make their payments, as well as 45 days’ advance notice of any rate change. During that time, consumers can search for a better deal, or close their accounts and pay off the balance at the old rate.
When the 8th World Games open in Taiwan on Thursday, the event will inaugurate a new solar-powered stadium designed not only to power, cool and water itself, but also to withstand the island’s typhoons and earthquakes.
Best of all, it looks like dragon’s tail!
Video below may take moment to load, or at the NewsRoom. ..
These teens are making vehicles that run on everything from solar to soy!
– Luke Laborde turned a 32 mpg gas-burning Bradley GT II kit car into a fully electric ride for just about $10,000.
– Five kids from West Philly’s high school auto shop class, ex-gang members and high school dropouts built a soybean-powered race car that gets 50+ mpg.
– An 8th-grader built a solar-powered 4-wheeled bike with GPS and iPod dock.
– Andrew Angelloti, after saving up $6,000 as a part time lifeguard, converted his Mazda truck to be an electric plug-in.
The devastating tsunami that hit Indonesia so hard in December 2004 had three positive effects: it pushed the population to reflect and improve its mechanisms for managing catastrophes, it caused a new early warning detection system to be launched, and it led to the end of a conflict in the country’s Aceh province, one that had lasted 70 years.
Caused by an earthquake off the coast of Aceh in western Indonesia, the tsunami sent waves reaching as high as 30 meters surging over all the lands within its reach including as far as Africa. Nearly 230,000 people in 11 countries were killed.
“After the tsunami, Indonesia’s Parliament and civil society worked together to put in place a law on the management of catastrophes, something that had never happened before,” said Titi Moektijasih, from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
As a tsunami victim herself and the sole survivor of three OCHA staff in the area, Titi, spoke today on World Humanitarian Day, explaining that even two years ago it was very difficult for her to recount her experience.
Yet another inspiring story of an expensive violin or viola left in a NYC cab, but recovered after helpful taxi service kindness. (I wonder if violinists are a bit scatter-brained? This must be the third or fourth story published over 12 years on the Good News Network with identical outcome…links below.)
“22-year-old Hahn-Bin, who is set to make his debut at Carnegie Hall this October, left his 184-year-old violin, worth a half million dollars in a Manhattan taxi on Sunday night. He was on his way home to Chinatown at 1:00 a.m. after a tiring day on Long Island, where he had just performed with famed violinist Itzhak Perlman.”
Watch the video below, or read the story at CBS News
RELATED Good News Network Stories: 18th-Century Viola Left in Cab Returned to Owner;
Violinist Reunited with $4M Stradivarius Left In Back of NJ Cab
As food bank shelves quickly empty during the recession and more people need help to feed their families, prisons are providing a partial solution.
The AP reports, “Several states are sending inmates into already harvested fields to collect millions of pounds of leftover potatoes, berries and other crops that otherwise would go to waste.”
Prisoners with garden hoes are also planting and harvesting their own vegetables to fill the need at local food banks.
Today we spent the morning going through our personal belongings. We were looking for items to give away, free, at a local park. Not just any items but things people really needed. We came up with blankets, soaps, food, and clothing. Not things we no longer wanted, but things we use everyday. Some of the items we needed, but split the amounts in half. A contact list of local agencies that help people was included. Small new toys were sent along.
Inside the boxes a simple letter was placed. It read in part…..
“Please take these items and know that your life is important. Times are difficult but these days will pass. We share what we have believing that it will matter. Use the food to nurture your body, use the blankets to stay warm. Be safe and know that the human spirit can overcome anything. Someday please do the same when you can.”
Who knows where these gifts of compassion will go. We have seen homeless people at the park, where we left the belongings.
I noticed that my wife had put into one of the boxes her favorite green coat. I asked if she was sure about it and she replied that it had a hood. Her answer told me why it is I love her. She liked the coat but knew the hood could shelter the rain.
How many uses can a blanket serve other than what it was designed for? We never go back and see what happens. Its unimportant. The right things will find the right people and that is all that counts.
On the way my wife started to cry. When I asked why she said because some things felt so right.
Read more stories at thesequoiaproject.blogspot.com.
In recognition of the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, a group of 50 underprivileged kids were treated to a three week summer camp in Northern France. The kids, from the Palestinian territories and other conflict zones, said they felt finally free.
Video below may take a moment to load…
