Dan Kennedy was driving to work Tuesday morning near Salt Lake City when he saw a huge orange bag fall off the back of an armored Brink’s truck.
When he stopped to investigate, he found wads and wads of $50s and $100s — thousands of dollars stacked in “steak-sized” plastic bags.
He tried and failed to chase down the truck after discovering the bag’s contents, according to KSL-TV. Then he took the 75-pound bag with him to work.
The Utah Highway Patrol is praising the honest Samaritan who had not a thought about keeping the money.
“I didn’t really think about anything else,” he told the reporter. “You would do it… you would, too.”
Last October an honest citizen faced the same situation, when a bag with more than $100,000 fell out of another Brink’s truck near Haifa in Israel. “Just like in the movies,” Yarden Ben Ezra was shocked to see a bag of cash tumble off the truck. He said it was clear that he would return the money.
(WATCH the video below or READ the story from KSL News)
One brave little boy just got a surprise from some strangers that he will treasure forever.
This past January, a stray bullet took out the right eye of Donovan Lyles Jr. while he was playing video games in his Detroit home. When a local theater group, Captain Fishbones and the Pirates of the Forgiven, learned that the young survivor would soon be turning five, they decided to don matching eye patches and throw him a pirate-themed party for his birthday.
At first, DJ, as his family affectionately calls him, was startled and shy around his costumed guests, but once he realized the event was just for him, he warmed up and hugged every “matey” in sight. His two sisters, Emory and Eternity, also got in on the bandit action, and were especially thrilled to gather up some treasure-filled gift bags.
His brand new hearties donned him “DJ the Daring,” a title that the Pirates of the Caribbean fan didn’t mind one bit.
“It’s now his official pirate name,” Carole Cross, a theater group member, told ABC News.
DJ, who was the victim of an apparent drive by shooting, has since moved to a safer neighborhood with his family. His mother, Emily Brazelton, sacrificed her job in order to take care of him, and the two remain optimistic.
“When I told him his eye was gone, he said he would ‘just have to become a pirate then,'” said Brazelton.
And so he did. Well done, Captain Fishbones and crew!
(WATCH video of the pirate party from ABC News)
Photo Credits: Captain Fishbones and the Pirates of the Forgiven – Facebook
Two men who saved each other’s lives 30 years apart reunited in California this week to help save even more lives at a charity event.
Their story goes way back–and then back even further.
Four years ago, when a tractor-trailer rig rammed into Dr. Michael Shannon’s SUV. Orange County Paramedic Engine 29 was on the scene within minutes. Firefighters found the pediatrician trapped in a burning vehicle, flames licking his legs and feet. Chris Trokey was among the firefighters using the Jaws of Life in a race to pry open the burning SUV, and successfully helped rescue the doctor before the fire killed him.
Later, at the hospital, when he heard the injured man’s name, Trokey realized the doctor had saved his life 30 years earlier.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Dr. Shannon?’” Trokey told KTLA. “That’s when I found out.”
As a newborn, Trokey faced steep odds. He weighed only a little over three pounds. Doctors gave him only a 50% chance of surviving. But Trokey says Shannon worked around the clock to make sure he beat those odds.
Shannon told KTLA: “It’s amazing to watch them all grow up, but to have one come back in your life, on a day you really need it, that’s really incredible.”
On Sunday, the two joined 28 other people shaving their heads for charity, an effort that raised $12,000 for St. Baldrick’s, which funds research on childhood cancers.
In case you were wondering, no harm will come to your second-largest organ if you’ve got a bean addiction.
Researchers spent 11 years tracking the blood levels of four enzymes that indicate liver function in nearly 28,000 Joe-drinking adults, and the results are good.
The study, published in Hepatology, revealed that those who drank 3 cups of coffee a day had lower levels of abnormal liver enzyme than those who don’t sip coffee on the regular, by about 25%.
To boot, yet another study published by the World Cancer Research Fund found that it may even decrease your risk of liver cancer by 14%.
The jury is still out on decaf—though it has shown to protect against cancer in other studies.
Autism Awareness Day is also Independence Day, thanks to a new line of clothing designed to help autistic teens get dressed more easily—and stay on track.
The standard clothing features many of us take for granted — zippers, buttons, even tags — can be a challenge for teens with autism to navigate. That’s why Lauren Thierry, a former CNN anchor, eliminated them entirely when she designed her Independence Day line.
The clothes have no front or back, and they’re reversible, in case unsightly stains pop up. There’s also a rechargeable GPS device option in every piece of clothing, in case the child wanders or gets lost.
”The best thing I can do for my child and everyone else’s child is to give them the tools — in my case the clothes — so they can dress themselves and have a fair degree of independence,” Thierry told AM New York. “No matter how you put it on it’s going to be right.”
Theirry was inspired by her son, Liam, who was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder when he was two-years-old. He’s spent the past twelve years learning how to get dressed.
“Autism can affect you cognitively, but also your fine motor skills and dexterity,” Theirry explained.
She worked closely with Dalila Anderson to design the clothing line, which was tested at the New York Child Learning Institute, a school for autistic children in College Point, Queens. As practical as the outfits are, they don’t sacrifice the “style” factor — an important quality for just about any teen. The outfits have a preppy flair inspired by Calvin Klein and Lilly Pulitzer.
The clothes can also benefit teens with other special needs like muscular dystrophy or cerebral palsy.
Here’s to freedom—for both kids and parents alike.
When I was six years old, I was obsessed with my Barbie Workout tape. To this day, I believe that it contributed, in large part, to my industrial-strength calf muscles. If this eight-minute yoga video had existed when I was, say, in preschool or kindergarten, I may not have stayed the type of kid who crawled around and disrupted everyone during naptime because I didn’t know how to just chill.
Here in New York City, it’s easy to find classes teaching kids to do yoga on pint-sized mats. In many parts of the world, however, children aren’t so lucky, and that’s where Jodi the Yogi and her flexible companion, Downward the Dog, come in — making yoga accessible to kids everywhere. Science has confirmed the many emotional benefits of yoga, such as increased ability to focus, reduced stress, and clarity of mind. The physical health benefits, like improved flexibility, coordination, even digestion, are well known. One of the ways children learn best is through music and the repetition it offers, which is why Jodi’s program pairs original music with all of her yoga movement sequences. Some of them literally emulate sun salutations, others focus on a specific posture (like the airplane song), and others are soothing with a focus upon breathing (like crisscross applesauce). It’ll also make ‘em laugh, because Jodi and Downward were “designed” to be funny characters. Your child will have no idea that in reality, they are boosting their immune system and balancing their energy.
If I were a kid, I would have made my parents play this video on a loop every day, much like I did with the Ronald McDonald and Friends tape that nearly melted our car’s cassette player—and, when they eventually cut me off, I would’ve had the skills needed to self-soothe by using my breath. (WATCH Jodi the Yogi below and learn more at her website) SHARE it Forward (below)…
Believe it or not, 38 weddings can be cheaper than one.
Acrobat couple Rhiann Woodyard and Cheetah Platt are on a marital mission to tie the knot in 12 different countries over the course of 83 days. With 21 ceremonies under their belt already, the cost of this international nuptial tour has been less than $10,000.
All the wedding venues are available at no cost, although their family and friends have done back-flips in order to help fund the lodging and travel for each expedition.
Photos by Cheetah Platt and Rhiann Woodyard
“We only had to pay for our flights, lodging, and transportation. We used our credit card airline miles, and our friends and family have helped us tremendously,” Woodyard told Metro U.S. “We asked that if they were planning on giving a gift, that they use our alternative gift registry on honeyfund.com.”
She continued, “They could contribute to our adventure by buying us a night at one of our accommodations in Morocco, or a safari in Kenya”
Photos by Cheetah Platt and Rhiann Woodyard
The couple in their 30’s have already visited Spain, Ireland, Kenya, Egypt, Morocco, India, and Thailand, and are posting their photos on various social media, like Facebook.
Oddly, they’re still planning on having a honeymoon after the weddings…and yes, she wears the same dress every time.
Two days short of his 20th birthday, this young painter reached his goal of donating one million dollars worth of his art to charities.
Impressive, right? We think so. Especially since he’s a cancer survivor, and he’s legally blind.
A self-described “accidental artist,” Jeffrey Hanson needed a distraction while undergoing chemotherapy for a tumor that had attacked his optic nerve. His mother, Julie, gave the 12-year-old some watercolors to paint note cards. The results were so beautiful, her friends clamored for cards of their own.
Photo Credits: JeffreyOwenHanson.com
Though his sight continued to deteriorate after the treatment, his passion for art grew, and he developed a unique painting process that helped him literally feel his way around the canvas. By applying “plastic goop” to create peaks and valleys and painting them black, he’s able to find guidance along their hard ridges. After that, he applies brilliant colors, the trademark of his vibrant 3D paintings.
At the age of 17, the Overland Park, Kansas native founded “Jeffrey Owen Hanson LLC,” and began devoting his life to creating artwork that would support philanthropic causes. His original paintings now sell for about $4,000, but can earn up to $20,000 at charity auctions. He has donated more than 1,300 paintings.
“I thought it would be good to give back to the world and not use it for myself,” he told USA Today.
Jeffrey’s art can be found lining the walls of celebrities like Elton John and Warren Buffet and he’s even designed gowns for fashion shows.
This 21-year-old is now facing six months of backlogged orders.
“My art makes people happy,” he said with a smile.
(WATCH the video below or READ the story from CBS News) *NOTE auto-playing audio, adjust your speakers
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Packing peanuts may protect your fragile shipments, but they can damage a fragile environment. Now, scientists have found a way to crush them, bake them and recycle them into fast-charging, long-lasting batteries.
Vilas Pol, a scientist at Purdue University in Indiana, came up with the idea while he was unpacking equipment for a new lab.
“We were getting a lot of packing peanuts in all these boxes,” Pol said.
He found out that only about 10% of the polystyrene and starch peanuts were recycled in the U.S. The rest rot in landfills, leaking harmful chemicals and detergents into the environment.
Pol put his team to work on finding a new use for the pesky peanuts.
The Purdue team crushed the peanuts and cooked them with other chemicals at 1,100 degrees. This created carbon microsheets and nanoparticles. These are similar to the graphite used to make parts of most rechargeable batteries — only better.
It’s much thinner, allowing batteries to store more electricity.
In tests, the packing peanut batteries showed at least 13% higher storage capacity than most commercial batteries on the market today— and they charged faster, too.
“The process is inexpensive, environmentally benign and potentially practical for large-scale manufacturing,” Vinodkumar Etacheri told a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Denver, where their findings were unveiled.
The team built coin cell batteries— similar to watch batteries — for their tests. But they say they can easily scale up the process to build bigger ones and could have their products on the market in as little as two years.
A passenger’s note to an airline flight crew, thanking them for a safe flight, is going viral in the aftermath of the Germanwings crash in the French Alps.
“Thank you for taking me home. Thank you for doing so safely,” the woman, identified only as Bethanie, says in the handwritten note. “Thank you for allowing me to live the life I do in Spain and split my time with my family in England too. You make the excitement I feel now to see my family possible.”
Pilot Jai Dillon tweeted a photo of the letter, with the caption: A letter given to a colleague from a passenger onboard his aircraft… Providing proof that we’re all in this together.
The writer wanted to “extend a compassionate hand,” in the wake of the Germanwings crash that killed 150 people.
Photos by Jai Dillon, via Twitter (click to enlarge)
“I understand an event so horrific as this one affects those with your responsibility more than others,” the note reads. “And maybe sometimes a kind word, random but heartfelt, can make a difference.”
The out-of-the-blue thank-you note is a welcome message to pilots, who rarely have a chance to see or interact with the people whose lives they’re responsible for, especially in the post-9/11 security environment.
“You’re making a massive difference and you’re the reason I can smile tonight,” Bethanie’s note concludes. “Take care and spread love.”
The love is spreading across the world. Dillon’s Tweet alone has been retweeted more than 3,000 times.
Before her death, Margarita Suarez of Cuernavaca, Mexico, had established a daily routine of feeding 20 local stray dogs and cats. It earned her a loving reputation that continued days after her death.
In return for her kindness, a pack of those dogs assembled outside of the funeral home and trailed behind her coffin as she was carried in, holding vigil throughout the ceremony.
A time of 11 years, two months isn’t much to brag about if you’re running the Boston Marathon. It’s pretty good if you’re on Mars.
NASA’s “Opportunity” rover has finally traveled 26.2 miles from its landing site — the length of a standard marathon race — across the surface of Mars.
“This is the first time any human enterprise has exceeded the distance of a marathon on the surface of another world,” John Callas, Opportunity’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement.
Blasted daily by cosmic radiation, plugging along in 175 degree heat and riding out the blinding, red sands of Martian dust storms, Opportunity has been slowly roaming the Martian surface since January, 2004. Not bad, considering it was originally designed for a short, 90-day mission.
Beagle Crater on Mars, Exploration Rover (Cornell, JPL, NASA)
The rover has reached the edge of Endeavor Crater, a place dubbed “Marathon Valley” in honor of Opportunity’s endeavor.
And even though it took 11 years, it’s still a world record time for a marathon. If the world you’re talking about is Mars.
It all started with one good deed that led to an even bigger one, which resulted in a life-changing one, all in the name of helping homeless people with pets, who aren’t allowed in shelters because of their animal companions.
Break.com, an online site that showcases funny videos, planned to surprise the Louisville pet hero Beth Green. She has been giving dog food and blankets to these human-pup families throughout the sub-zero winter. While preparing to donate a year’s supply of dog food to the Kentucky do-gooder, the video team heard a heart-breaking tale and decided to go big on their “prank”, just in time for April Fools Day.
While the show’s host Tom Mabe, was collecting footage of Beth’s volunteer organization, My Dog Eats First, he was introduced to a homeless man named Ricky who sacrifices everything for his 12-year-old dog Buddy. “I’ll do without”, said Ricky. “I’ll feed him before I feed myself.”
Ricky and Buddy had been living together for years in a car, but were forced to separate once Ricky was hospitalized for cancer. After hearing he only had six months to live — and against the recommendations of the hospital staff — Ricky discharged himself to live again with Buddy on the streets.
Beth’s group did her best to keep the pair in a pet-friendly motel, but the money ran out.
After hearing the sad story, Mabe pulled some strings and with his video crew recording it all, brought Ricky to an apartment and announced that the newly-furnished place was to be his — a warm home for the companions to rest during their final chapter.
Tom Mabe learned something during this latest prank, too.
“I used to get really upset when I would see a homeless person with a dog. I would think, ‘You can’t take care of yourself, how are you going to take care of a dog?'” he said. “But after spending a lot of time with them I realize they take great care of the dogs and it gives them something to be accountable for…it really gives a homeless person purpose.”
“We are keeping in touch with Ricky,” Mabe told the Good News Network, “and he has a tough road ahead of him, but he and Buddy are in a comfortable environment now.”
When seven-year-old Alyx Delaloye left chemotherapy for a Winnipeg Jets hockey game earlier this month, she couldn’t have known that an entire city was about to rally around her, including one particularly generous boy named Keaton.
Earlier this year, Alyx was given a standing ovation when her family was shown on the Jumbotron screen during a game. She and her mother had been holding up a sign that read, “Chemo by day, Jets by night,” and once players on both the Jets and Dallas Stars saw them up on screen, they began banging their sticks on the ice. The crowd, too, gave a standing ovation.
Two weeks ago, the Jets invited Alyx and her family back, and that’s when nine-year-old Keaton Hamin chose his own moment to shine.
When one of the players handed Keaton an autographed hockey stick, Alyx promptly ran down the aisle to take a look. Moments later, after she returned to her seat, Keaton went in search of Alyx and handed her his prize.
Alyx, who was clearly shocked, thanked Keaton with a big hug.
The boy told the CBC, “It was really exciting when I got the stick, but right away my instinct knew I had to give it to Alyx.”
Keaton’s dad, Ken Hamin said his son’s actions made him feel good and “super proud.” Not to be outdone, Mr. Hamin gave the whole Delaloyes family tickets to another Jets game that would follow Alyx’s next round of chemo, and the two families attended together.
The Winnipeg club had a surprise waiting for young Keaton. Before the game, he was handed a brand new, autographed hockey stick from the Jets — a way of saying thanks for his generosity.
(WATCH the full story below, from CBC’s The National) – Photos via JetsTV
The Purple Door Coffee shop, celebrated on Yelp for its stellar French espresso and unique house blends, is considered one of Denver’s best—and not just because of the beans.
Here’s the scoop: the shop’s owners, Madison Chandler and Mark Smesrud, opened their “royal” purple doors two years ago with the intention of employing and supporting homeless youth.
“We believe that every human being has incredible value,” says Smesrud in their company video. “And it’s not defined by their successes or failures.”
Once the teens are hired, they are also taught job skills like customer service, financial skills like budgeting, and coping techniques to manage their emotions.
Now in their second year serving fair trade coffee at 2962 Welton St., Chandler and Smesrud continue to learn along with their pupils.
“The hardest part of this job for me has been how to balance pushing someone to become better and being gracious to them when they fail,” Chandler told KUSA-TV in Denver.
Their success in creating a nurturing environment has empowered Purple Door employee Jenna Williams, 23, who had been struggling with homelessness and drug abuse since age 15. Thanks to the experience gained at the coffee shop, she’s been able to secure a full-time job at Starbucks.
“The Purple Door Coffee family gave me a chance no one else would,” Williams told KUSA.. “It’s all about love. We’re not just a business. We’re not just a coffee shop. We are a family.”
Not only is the Easter egg (below) impressive in its size, but every inch of this seven-foot chocolate wonder is being sold to benefit a UK charity.
Britons love their chocolate Easter eggs. They eat about 80 million of them a year, accounting for almost 10% of chocolate consumed all year in the UK.
One week before Easter, a Lincolnshire chocolatier created the 350-pound egg using the equivalent of 16,000 king-sized candy bars.
“A four-year-old lad who saw it just couldn’t take it in,” said the maker, Jan Hansen. “He couldn’t understand you could have an Easter egg so big.”
Hansen plans to break up the giant egg after Sunday and sell pieces to raise money for a local hospice in memory of his late brother.
Until then, it’s taking up a corner of his shop, towering over customers and the curious. People are traveling to Hansen’s shop in the tiny village of Folkingham to take a look, and to take in the aroma.
“The smell’s amazing,” an unnamed visitor told the BBC. “When you come in, the chocolate hits you.”
Oversized Easter eggs are something of a UK tradition, particularly at Betty’s, a Yorkshire bakery and chocolatier that has been constructing twelve-pound hollow chocolate eggs since 1919.
At a foot-and-a-half tall, with hand decorated flowers, these sweet treats could feed several families of chocolate lovers. A new video shows how they are lovingly constructed.
(WATCH the videos below) – Story tip from Kelly Harrington
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Could this be the end of old-school fire extinguishers? These college kids seem to think so.
A pair of engineering students at George Mason University in Virginia have built a device that puts out fires by literally “dropping the bass” on blazes. The sound waves create pressure that robs a fire of oxygen, snuffing it out.
Scientists have been experimenting for years with the idea of using sound to fight fires, but these two students have figured out how to build a lightweight and portable device that makes “sonic firefighting” practical.
“It’s low-frequency sounds—like the thump-thump bass in hip-hop that works,” Viet Tran said, adding that rappers may soon be called to put out fires in the future.
Tran, along with his friend, Seth Robertson, spent $600 of their own money building a sonic fire extinguisher. The cylindrical prototype uses low-frequency sounds to put out fires, and Tran thinks the device could be built into stovetop hoods to put out kitchen fires.
“Eventually, I’d like to see this applied to swarm robotics,” he said in a YouTube video. “It’d be attached to a drone and that would be applied to forrest fires or building fires where you wouldn’t want to sacrifice a human life.”
Beyond that, the sky’s not even the limit: the engineering students see their device as standard issue on space missions.
“In space, extinguisher contents spread all over. But you can direct sound waves without gravity,” Robertson points out.
The two college seniors have applied for a provisional patent which gives them a year to talk up the invention and test market.
In the meantime, please continue to call 911 in the event of an emergency— don’t just crank up the tunes.
This 2015 calendar, called Pleasant View, Pleasant Point is stocked with photos of lovely ladies like Dottie Rutter, pictured enjoying a bubble bath and chocolates, with lingerie close at hand. At 87 years old, she’s the youngest of all the Pleasant Point models.
Earlier this month, she and several other residents at the nursing home just outside of Akron, Ohio got together and decided to strip down to their skivvies in the name of charity—and fun.
“I had a lot of fun doing it, something to make everybody laugh and everybody happy. I enjoyed it very much,” Velda Vogt, a resident of Pleasant Pointe Assisted Living, told Fox 8 Cleveland.
The calendars sell for $12 and all proceeds will be donated to the Magic City Kiwanis Esther Ryan Shoe Fund, an organization that helps provide shoes for children in need.
Other seniors who participated said they found the experience “exhilarating” and it helped them feel young again.
“I was October, and I’m 90; I’ll be 91 in May,” Regina Genet, a resident at the Barberton facility, told Fox 8.
“It seems like everything we do is involving around being old and everything…This just made me feel, ‘Oh, here I am young, having a good time, and I don’t care about anything else.’”
Larry WhiteEagle-Fisher is certain that his Native American heritage is the source of his passion for birds of prey, and every day he cares for the injured ones like they’re family.
“They’re our brothers,” he told the Good News Network. “You can’t just leave them lying on the side of the road; you wouldn’t leave your brother or sister if they were injured.”
“Squirt” their educational barred owl
At his farm about an hour southwest of Richmond, Virginia, Larry and his wife Karen are the rarest sort of wildlife rehabilitators, taking in owls, hawks and eagles — most of them injured by cars. Their non-profit organization, Thunder Eagle Wildlife, is currently caring for seven owls, six of which were hit by cars.
Administering medical care to animals with such sharp talons and beaks, requires a lot of patience and tolerance. Even though Larry has been handling owls since he was five or six years old — taught by his grandmother to care for them whenever they fell out of nests or appear injured — he has been cut and bitten many times.
“There’s always a risk when dealing with claws and talons,” he said with a chuckle. “You can’t get mad about it, because they don’t always know you’re trying to help them.”
Going to Mouse School
The youngest fledglings that come to the farm eventually need to be put through “Mouse School” so they can gain hunting skills. They are placed in an enclosed area with a live mouse.
There are no lessons or grades in this school, Larry said. “Their mothers and fathers don’t teach them how to hunt — it’s Nature.”
They raise mice at the farm and also get donations from a lab in Maryland that gives them the “control group” mice.
Teaching Humans, too
Larry is amazed by the number of people who have never seen a live hawk, owl or eagle. One of the missions of Thunder Eagle Wildlife is to take live owls to schools and libraries and conduct educational programs. From their base in Mckenney they traveled to 26 locations around the state last year showing off three different owls native to Virginia.
“We had an adult at one of our programs ask how many teeth the owl had,” admitted Larry.
“If we paid more attention to animals, it makes life less complicated,” said the Army veteran who is of Apache and Cheyenne heritage. “They are all messengers.”
The couple’s goal for Thunder Eagle Wildlife, which also rescues songbirds, small mammals and waterfowl, is to expand their facilities to include extra large raptor cages, but for that they need funding.
On their website’s Wish List they’ve listed needed supplies for those who want to give in-kind donations— everything from used towels to gauze sponges to fencing lumber. And the Paypal donation button at the bottom will except tax-deductible cash donations.
Hashtag Lunchbag, a nonprofit that began with a few brown-bag lunches for the homeless on Skid Row, has spread to 100 cities and five continents.
#HashtagLunchbag was born on Christmas Day 2012 in a Los Angeles apartment with just a small group of friends. The intent was simple, to prepare and deliver a hearty and well-balanced meal to our local homeless community.
“We all chipped in a few bucks before taking a quick trip to the grocery store and purchasing a few goodies. We invited over a few more friends to help assemble the lunch bags, blasted some music, and then hit the streets.”
“Before we knew it, other friends starting requesting invites to the next outing,” says their website, www.hashtaglunchbag.org.
(WATCH the video below from NBC) – Photo #HashtagLunchbag via Facebook
