When a powerful serve veered toward the ball girl and hit the young woman square in the face at the Australian Open tennis tournament, one of the star players came to her aid.
French tennis great Jo-Wilfried Tsonga stopped play and walked over to the unnamed girl. She had taken a fast moving tennis ball straight to the nose and was stunned and in pain, though trying to be stoic.
Go ahead. Hug someone close to you. It’s National Hugging Day.
You should really ask first, though — that’s the advice of the people who launched the effort 30 years ago today on January 21. Founded by a minister and social services worker in Michigan, the day has since become internationally embraced.
Did you know the health benefits of hugs? Psychology Today reports they have been shown to bolster your feelings of security, positivity, and freedom, while improving your overall health.
Every year the National Hugging Day website names a new “Most Huggable” person. This year they are honoring Tim Harris, a man with Down syndrome and founder of Tim’s Place, an Albuquerque, New Mexico restaurant that has officially offered a free hug with every meal.
Even more perfect is the fact that Tim’s birthday is today. For each of the last two National Hugging Days, Tim has held a two-day “Hugathon” to raise money for Firefighters Random Acts, a local charity letting first responders pay for random acts of kindness around Albuquerque. His hugs have brought in $19,000 for the charity.
The Albuquerque diner is now moving to Denver, Colorado where he and his girlfriend are relocating to open a new Tim’s Place.
In 2013, Scott Van Duzer, owner of the Big Apple Pizza & Pasta Italian Restaurant, won the award for an extremely daring hug.
Months earlier, his shop in Fort Pierce, Florida was visited by a campaigning President Obama and to everyone’s surprise, including the Secret Service, Scott actually picked up the President for an impromptu bear hug that made the news nationwide.
In 2006 an Australian Free Hugs video launched a movement that especially appealed to young people–hold signs and offer “Free Hugs” in public squares. With 70 million YouTube views, this inspiring story about Juan, the hugger became one of the most popular videos ever presented on the Good News Network.
(WATCH the video below about Tim’s charitable hug-a-thon)
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A little village of tiny houses for the homeless is taking shape on a plot of land owned by a Lutheran church in Seattle, Washington.
Volunteers gathered in a weekend to build 14 homes. Each one is insulated and has electricity and oil heat. More importantly, a central building houses restrooms and running water–with showers being installed soon.
Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd put up the land for the village — the first of its kind in Seattle.
Each house cost about $2,200 to build and residents will pay $90 a month for utilities.
They will serve as a model for more tiny house villages, and as an alternative to the Nicklelsville encampment, organized by the city for homeless camping.
The houses will provide temporary housing, until occupants can be housed in permanent homes.
It’s a game of cat and mosque as a Turkish house of worship welcomes some unexpected guests for the winter — whole families of stray cats.
The Iman at the historic Aziz Mahmud Hüdayi Mosque in Istanbul opened its doors to the strays — to the apparent delight of visitors and many of its members.
It’s no Jedi mind trick that this shelter cat, which was recently tagged the #KyloRenCat, bears a weirdly striking resemblance to actor Adam Driver of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Adopted a few days after the Monmouth County SPCA of the Jersey Shore posted a photo of the sith feline to Instagram, the 2-year-old Balinese mix will keep the name he was fondly dubbed– Kylo Ren.
His new owner Emily McCombs said that his personality is far from villainous and you can follow Kylo Ren’s adventures in force-napping and dark side shenanigans on his Instagram page that has already scored over 3,000 followers.
How much would you pay for a date with People magazine’s “Sexiest Doctor Alive?” Well, it only costs $10 to get a chance to glimpse the bedside manner of this attractive bachelor.
Dr. Mike won the title last year and is using it to raise money for his favorite charity — Limitless Tomorrow — which helps underprivileged youth realize their full potential.
The 26-year-old, Russian-born, New Jersey-based medical resident named Mikhail Varshavski is leveraging his title by partnering with a dating app called Coffee Meets Bagel.
It only takes a $10 donation to enter the drawing to win a date with “The Real Life McDreamy” in New York City.
Coffee Meets Bagel will fly the winner to New York for dinner with the doctor at a Michelin Star restaurant and provide a stay at a 4-star hotel.
A baby elephant and retired service dog have become almost inseparable in a friendship that may have saved the elephant’s life.
Ellie the elephant was only a few weeks old when abandoned by his herd.
The Thula Thula Rhino Orphanage in South Africa cares for baby rhinoceroses as its name suggests, but the caretakers couldn’t turn their backs on the pint-sized pachyderm.
Even so, Ellie needed more than just food and medical care. Elephants, being herd animals, need companionship. With no other elephants around, he started losing weight and his health started failing.
That’s when Duma, a former service and sniffer dog, came to the rescue. The two quickly bonded, digging together in a huge sandpile.
“It immediately cheered the elephant up,” Karen Trendler, a rehabilitation expert at the orphanage told Earth Touch. “He suddenly started getting a little bit of interest in life again.”
Dogs and elephants display much different instincts and behavior, but sometimes they do create strong bonds, as seen in this video from 2011.
Thanks to Duma, Ellie has steadily improved and the team at the orphanage are already looking at conditioning him for a return to his herd, or to one at an elephant refuge one day.
(WATCH the video from Earth Touch below) — Photo: Karen Trendler, Video
When children go to the hospital for cancer treatments, these monkeys save their seats back at school.
“Monkey in My Chair” is the national program that places the stuffed monkeys at kids’ desks to maintain a connection with their classmates. The huggable animal is a reminder for students of what their classmate is going through, and helps them remember their friend.
Children eagerly take the monkey with them on their daily routines around the classroom, and to recess and lunch throughout the school.
Each monkey comes with its own backpack, to send classwork, as well as encouraging messages to the little patient. There’s also a book to help teachers answer questions from their students.
(WATCH the video below from KING-5 News) — Photo: KING video
I realized the other day while rehashing a memory with a friend of mine that our “truths” about what happened were not the same.
It could be that one of us has a better memory or pays closer attention, but there is something greater at play happening here.
As the behavioral science of human beings becomes clearer, we’ve learned that we each individually believe that our reality is the true reality. This is no longer a fact.
We can all be in the same room when an experience happens, but the experience will be defined by how it is occurring for each of us – not as the experience itself. Depending upon our attitudes, beliefs, thought systems, stories, and biases, every single experience will simply be a state of mind.
Don’t believe me?
Recall a time that you were with the most negative person you know and you experienced something with that person that you thought was fun, but when he or she retold the experience to someone in front of you, he or she found reason after reason to find the experience was sad or boring.
And so it is true for extremely positive people as well. It’s not that optimistic people are fake or don’t live in reality. Life experiences are occurring differently to them.
This is happening all of the time. Even right now while you’re reading this. This blog post is occurring differently for you than it is for someone else reading the same blog post.
Your experiences aren’t really the truth of what is happening in reality, but the truth of how they are occurring for your reality. Think of reality as a blank canvas and you’re the artist designing your experience on it.
You have the ability to change your artwork to create new perspectives and stories to believe in.
The power of true reality is that you can create a happier truth for your life right now.
Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx was cast as a real-life super hero after a pick-up truck crashed and caught fire outside his house.
Brett Kyle lost control of his truck Monday night, which ran through a drainage ditch and rolled several times before catching fire outside Foxx’s home northwest of Los Angeles, California.
The star of “Ray” and “Django Unchained” heard the noise and, along with another, unnamed witness, rushed to the crash. Foxx smashed a window, cut a seatbelt, and dragged Kyle 30 feet away as flames engulfed the truck.
Ventura County firefighters arrived in the Hidden Valley neighborhood shortly after the rescue, putting out the fire and taking Kyle to the hospital where he’s expected to recover from his injuries.
“Met the father of the young man from last night,” Foxx wrote. “This is all that matters. That a man, a son, a brother’s life was spared last night. God had his arms wrapped around all of us…No heroes…Just happy fathers.”
(WATCH the video from KCBS News below) — Photo: Prayitno, CC
A water-level trashcan has been designed to catch pollution close to shore before it can make its way into rivers, lakes and oceans.
The Seabin is something of an industrial-scale swimming pool cleaner —designed to collect trash like plastic bottles and bags, and even floating fuel at the edges of marinas and harbors. Simply attach it to the end of the pier so that it sits just below the waterline.
Debris and liquids are sucked into the bin where a natural fiber “catch bag” filters the water. A user can then dispose of or recycle the pollution properly.
The water is continually pumped out through a pipe and into a device that separates oil, fuel, and other liquids before releasing the water.
In the four years of testing their invention, Andrew Turton and Pete Ceglinski have never caught or harmed any fish with the device. They’re working with a marine biologist to see how it may affect microscopic sea life.
The sea-loving surfers recently raised nearly $268,000 in a successful Indiegogo campaign to bring their product to market. They plan to have the first Seabins ready for delivery next month.
At $3,800 each, they’re designed for large scale operations like Yacht Clubs and Marinas.
(WATCH the video from Seabin Project below) — Photo, Seabin Project
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A small band of musicians, on their way to a gig in Eureka, were among those stranded.
After about an hour-and-a-half, they decided to put on a concert for the stranded travelers. A video shows the mud still flowing behind the musicians as they play.
“I was ridiculously excited and told them that this was the coolest thing ever,” said Mary Vellutini. “Within minutes they had set up and started playing.”
As small crowd of admirers surrounded them, the Trinity Alps Chamber Players also handed out flyers inviting their captive audience to their concert later.
(WATCH the video below or READ more from Kym Kemp) — Photo: Kym Kemp
They stripped overgrowth from fences and vacant lots and fashioned the vines and other plants into decorative wreaths.
Working with the Hantz Foundation — committed to enhancing the lives of Detroit’s people “one square mile at a time,” the students were able to attract the attention of Carhartt, an international clothing brand, which offered to sell the wreaths in its flagship store.
Students who thought the project would be boring were surprised at the excitement of building and running their own business. Those who thought they’d be wasting their time were amazed at how quickly their complete inventory sold out.
All learned to believe in themselves as capable business people.
“People say Detroit is run-down and dirty, but this is a project that’s cleaning up [the city] and starting a business,” Mi’Cole Owens, one of the students, said. “It shows that teenagers from Detroit do have business skills and know how to keep their own city clean.”
Oxford University students created the ad which will generate ad revenue each time it’s played. The proceeds will be donated to refugee relief groups Save the Children and Refugee Council.
Rickman agreed to voice it with the idea that his star-power could help it go viral and raise even more money. It has more than three million views on YouTube currently.
The beloved actor who played Professor Snape in the blockbuster Harry Potter series, among other notable roles, will also appear in at least two movies that finished filming before his death January 14 at the age of 69.
“Eye in the Sky,” a thriller that also stars Helen Mirren and “Breaking Bad’s” Aaron Paul, hits theaters in March. He will also be the voice of the Caterpillar in Disney’s “Alice Through the Looking Glass” coming in May.
(WATCH “This Tortoise Could Save a Life” above, and the two other trailers below)
Eye in the Sky
Alice Through the Looking Glass
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Early risers are going to have a heavenly view starting Wednesday. All five visible planets will be aligned — forming a straight line across the sky — for the first time in 11 years.
From the horizon, extending upward, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter will be visible in that order just before dawn.
The full set will only be visible for 10 minutes on January 20, but the window will widen to an hour by February 20. Exact times vary from depending on where in the world you are viewing the sky.
An added event to the sky show will be the position of the moon during the alignment. It will pass by each planet beginning Jupiter on January 28 and ending with Mercury on February 7.
Working to help a friend who was paralyzed in a skiing accident, engineer Kevin Halsall spent four years modifying a Segway to become a wheelchair.
The user simply leans in the direction they want to go — no need for even a joy-stick to make it move. The steering involves a lot of core muscles, leading Halsall to say it’s “got the occupational therapists very excited.”
The two powered wheels can be changed quickly for all-terrain tires, allowing a user to race down a sandy beach at 12 mph — the average adult running speed or twice as fast as most people jog.
The Ogo won the National Innovators Award in New Zealand and Halsal has started a company to bring his invention to market. His company, Ogo Technology, hasn’t set a price or delivery date yet but he wants to make it as affordable as possible.
(WATCH the video from Ogo Technology below) — Photo: Ogo Technology
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When it opens in the spring of 2017, the show will be the first new production of “Hello, Dolly!” on Broadway since the original opened fifty years ago. The original, starring Carol Channing, won 10 Tony Awards.
Midler, who turned 70 on December 1, made her broadway debut in “Fiddler on the Roof” in 1967 and as a singer has since sold 35 million albums. She has also won a Tony, three Grammys and twice been nominated for an Oscar.
Rudin says she has the “outsized personality for a 21st Century Dolly.”
“I am looking forward to portraying one of the most beloved characters in all of American musical comedy,” Midler said. “I know I’m going to have the time of my life.”
(WATCH a great video of Bette spontaneously singing for Barbara Walters) –Photo: Alan Light, CC
A photographer has made it possible for a Texas couple who lost three children, to be able to see their youthful presence every day.
Recently, when Laura McBride came across a touching photo in which photographer Brandy Angel included the spirit-like image of a son lost to cancer in a woman’s wedding photos, she decided to get one made that would honor the two sons and a daughter she and her husband Tony lost in childbirth.
The Texas woman reached out to the Atlanta, Georgia-based photo wizard for an “Angel” picture of her own, especially so she could surprise her husband.
Tony thought they were just having outdoor portraits of the two of them made. But when he saw the finished photos, there were the images of three kids — portrayed as young children — walking alongside them.
“What you see is our family. Me, Tony, our two sons, Christopher and Tyler, and our baby girl, Kieran Shane. This picture shows that although not here physically, I believe they are with us every day,” Laura told WAGA News.
When the groom got cold feet, the bride did something that will warm your heart — she turned her luxurious wedding reception into a party for homeless women and children.
Just six weeks before her dream wedding, Dana Olsen’s fiancee decided he no longer wanted to get married.
Too late to cancel plans and get her family’s money back, Olsen and her mother decided to donate it all to a good cause. What better way to begin erasing the sad memories.
They partnered with Mary’s Place Shelter in Seattle, Washington to treat 150 women and children living there to a grand night out.
A stylist will be on hand to do hair and makeup and others have donated jewelry and dresses for the 42 women.
