After three years of political turmoil following the 2011 uprising, business activity in Egypt has finally picked up, expanding at a near-record pace in September.
“Increased output and a sharp rise in new orders last month appeared to suggest that confidence was beginning to return” — and with that, the fastest rate of employment since records began in 2011.
(READ the story from Reuters)
Connecticut principal Desi Nesmith had no idea that the special school assembly he orchestrated to honor an educator with $25,000 was actually a surprise event set-up to honor his own achievements.
First there was shock, and then tears started to flow after his name was announced as the winner of the national Milken Educator Award, which recognized Nesmith for his outstanding leadership at Metacomet Elementary.
“The crowd went wild and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.” (Watch the video, READ more below)
His noted success at shrinking the achievement gap for minority students in Connecticut dates back to 2010 when The Connecticut Association of Schools honored him with the Outstanding First-Year Principal Award for taking risks and overcoming adversity.
His mentor, the man he first hugged in the video, said, “If my own children were just starting elementary school, I would want Desi to be their principal… He’s that good for children.”
As director of elementary education for Hartford Public Schools, M. Leon McKinley first hired Nesmith as a teacher.
A graduate of the University of Connecticut, Mr. Nesmith was a fifth grade teacher at Mayberry School in East Hartford, where he was named Teacher of the Year. He later became a Teacher in Residence in the Connecticut State Department of Education’s School Improvement Unit.
“Comprised of amateur scientists, engineers, ecologists and environmentalists, a San Francisco area collective, Nerds for Nature (N4N), is trying to bridge the gap between techies and nature enthusiasts.
Now with hundreds of members, N4N gathers once a month to discuss new Do-It-Yourself projects, like designing low-cost underwater robots and eco-drones—used to monitor the environment.”
(WATCH the video below, or READ the story from Oakland North)
Story tip from Miri
The Trees That Feed Foundation announced yesterday that in just five years 50,000 food-bearing trees donated by the organization have been planted in Caribbean nations to help combat hunger and develop a sustainable food source based on trees that grow the breadfruit.
The 50,000th breadfruit tree donated by the group was planted by students as part of a school garden project in Haiti.
“This tree is a great milestone as we work toward a sustainable food supply in Haiti, with breadfruit as a major crop,” said Timote Georges, executive director, Smallholder Farmers Alliance, the organization responsible for the school garden. “We are grateful to the Trees That Feed Foundation for their work during the last five years in making breadfruit trees available throughout Haiti.”
About 80 percent of the world’s hungry reside in the tropics, and government officials in the Caribbean are realizing breadfruit’s potential to feed their populations, as an ideal food to replace expensive imported wheat, corn and rice, a large component of local diets.
The native South Pacific tree produces a large, round fruit with green skin, and is larger than a grapefruit. The fruit is cooked and the skin peeled for eating. When cooked, breadfruit tastes similar to unleavened bread, and can serve as a substitute for flour, rice or potatoes.
Mary McLaughlin, a TTFF founder and current chief executive, said tree crops are an answer to world food concerns. “Tree crops are a sustainable food source for tropical countries and have similar nutritional qualities to grains. They require less input of labor, agro chemicals, fertilizers and space. They also restore ecological balance to land damaged by slash-and-burn farming methods, commercial logging, or neglect,” she said.
Breadfruit requires less land than wheat and other cereal grains. By drying and milling breadfruit into flour, which lasts for years and lacks gluten, producers are preserving the quick-spoiling fruit. This saves whole crops and makes breadfruit a lasting, sustainable food source. One fruit from a breadfruit tree easily satisfies the carbohydrate portion of a meal for a family of four. A mature tree can produce up to a half ton of fruit per year.
Since its founding in 2008, www.treesthatfeed.org, has achieved humanitarian success with its objective in Haiti and Jamaica to blanket the country with breadfruit trees in order to preserve the environment.
“We believe that residents will not cut down trees that give them food,” said McLaughlin.
She added that breadfruit tress planted by TTFF in Jamaica eventually could produce enough flour to replace the 350,000 tons of flour and cornmeal imported into the country each year.
– Featured photo credit: TTFF
The Victoria Police reported Thursday that an elderly man of 87 was reunited with a bag of cash containing $6000 after he lost it in a Melbourne suburb.
The bag was found by an unknown elderly lady in a car park and handed in to staff at a nearby hardware store, who turned it over to Cranbourne Police.
“He has been saving for a trip to go back to his native Holland.”
(Source: Vic Police News)
Story tip from Mari-Anna Reiljan-Dillon
Nearly 50% of people who develop heart failure die within 5 years of diagnosis.
Citing a new published study doctors are calling an experimental device a “potential breakthrough” in the treatment of heart failure patients. In a clinical trial, the C-Pulse device was tested in 20 patients and was able to slow or, in some cases, actually reverse the symptoms of heart failure. It could represent a new treatment option for many of the 5 million Americans with heart failure.
The research team, led by Dr. William Abraham of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, publish their findings in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) Heart Failure.
“We saw remarkable improvements in how these patients felt and their quality of life was substantially improved,” said Dr. William Abraham, the director of the center’s Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and lead author of the study. “Some patients went from very advanced cases of heart failure to having only mild symptoms, or none at all. In a couple of instances, patients were actually able to be removed from the pump,” he said.
In the case of Richard Jacob (pictured above and in the video), who had a massive heart attack and could barely walk down the hall, the C-Pulse helped him survive until he could receive a heart transplant.
(WATCH the video below and READ the full story from Medical News Today)
Story tip from Mal Maru at Facebook.com/HeartAssist
Citing the “fraternity between nations” which Alfred Nobel mentioned as one of the criteria for the award, a Muslim Pakistani, Malala Yousafzay, and an Indian Hindu, Kailash Satyarthi, two champions of children’s rights, were named the winners of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.
The youngest person to be honored with a Nobel Prize, Malala, 17, was a schoolgirl who began promoting education for all in Pakistan when she was 11. Two years ago she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman which gained her and her cause attention worldwide.
Giving up a career as an electrical engineer in 1980, Satyarthi, 60, has led a global movement “in the Gandhi’s tradition” to reform “the grave exploitation of children” who are forced into labor. Showing great personal courage as a grassroots activist, he has freed tens of thousands of child slaves, reports the Associated Press.
In addition, he established Rugmark (now known as Goodweave) as the first voluntary labeling, monitoring and certification system of rugs manufactured without the use of child-labour in South Asia, raising consumer awareness for the accountability of global corporations.
In their announcement, The Nobel Committee explained their choice this way: “(We) regard it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism.”
In a time of anti-Islamic sentiment in Britain, especially since Parliament voted for military action in Iraq on September 26, it is important to remember our history.
“In the last century alone, hundreds of thousands of Muslims volunteered to fight for Britain — in notably large numbers during World Wars I and II — with many sacrificing their lives.”
Historian Dr Dominic Selwood wrote in the Telegraph, “This year marks the 70th anniversary of the death of one British war hero — who happened to be a woman and a Muslim.”
He thinks this is a good time to tell the story of Noor Inayat Khan, an Indian princess — a direct descendant of Tipu Sultan and a non-violent Sufi — who became one of the Special Operations Executive’s bravest agents to be deployed behind enemy lines.
(READ the fascinating story from the Telegraph)
When Detective Ryan Salmon happened upon the scene of an accident in Takoma, Washington, he found the service dog for a wheelchair bound girl lying injured after being hit by a car that fled.
The policeman brought the dog, named Spice, which had leg fractures, to the veterinary hospital.
So he “did the right thing” and told the vet to send him the $200 bill.
The girl’s mother was astounded that a total stranger would do such a wonderful thing.
(WATCH the video below, or READ the story from KIRO-7)
Since his infant son Sam was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes 23 years ago, Harvard scientist Doug Melton has dedicated his career to finding a cure for the disease. Today he announced that he and his colleagues have taken a giant leap forward, for the first time producing massive quantities of human insulin-producing beta cells.
With human embryonic stem cells as a starting point, the new cells are equivalent in most every way to normally functioning beta cells.
He hopes to be underway with human transplantation trials using the cells within a few years.
“We are now just one pre-clinical step away from the finish line,” said Melton, whose daughter Emma also has type 1 diabetes, a condition that affects an estimated 3 million Americans at a cost of about $15 billion annually.
A report on the new work has today been published by the journal Cell.
“You never know for sure that something like this is going to work until you’ve tested it numerous ways,” said Melton, co-scientific director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and the University’s Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. “We’ve given these cells three separate challenges with glucose in mice.” The results were clear and fast, Melton told NPR news. “We can cure their diabetes right away — in less than 10 days.”
The stem cell-derived beta cells are presently undergoing trials in animal models, including non-human primates, Melton said.
Elaine Fuchs, the Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor at Rockefeller University, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator who is not involved in the work, hailed it as “one of the most important advances to date in the stem cell field… a remarkable achievement.”
“For decades, researchers have tried to generate human pancreatic beta cells that could be cultured and passaged long term under conditions where they produce insulin. Melton and his colleagues have now overcome this hurdle and opened the door for drug discovery and transplantation therapy in diabetes,” Fuchs said.
“Doug Melton has put in a lifetime of hard work in finding a way of generating human islet cells in vitro,” said Jose Oberholzer, MD, Associate Professor of Surgery, Endocrinology and Diabetes, and Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “He made it. This is a phenomenal accomplishment.”
“It was gratifying to know that we could do something that we always thought was possible, but many people felt wouldn’t work,” Melton said. “If we had shown this was not possible, then I would have had to give up on this whole approach. Now I’m really energized.”
READ more on the research from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute
File photo by Public Library of Science / Nissim Benvenisty, CC license
Leatherback turtle nesting reached a new record this year in Florida while the number of loggerhead sea turtle nests remained high, according to Fish and Wildlife Research Institute scientists.
“Sea turtles face many important threats at sea and on land, which need to be addressed for the recovery of these charismatic and endangered species, but the results of the 2014 nesting season in Florida are encouraging and provide a positive outlook for the future”, said Dr. Simona Ceriani, FWC research scientist.
Green turtle nesting trends show an exponential increase over the last 26 years, although counts in 2014 were much lower than last year. This was expected because green turtle nesting patterns tend to follow a two-year cycle with wide year-to-year fluctuations. Green turtle nest counts set two consecutive high records in 2011 and 2013.
The trend in leatherback nesting also shows an exponential increase over the last 26 years.
For more information about trends in sea turtle nest counts, visit MyFWC.com/Research, click on “Wildlife,” then click on “Nesting” under the “Sea Turtle” heading. To purchase a sea turtle license plate to help fund FWC’s efforts, visit BuyaPlate.com.
A special camp in Park County, Colorado is offering disabled children a chance to connect with all the fun and wonder of experiencing the great outdoors.
Photojournalist Bryant Van Der Weerd and anchor Boris Sanchez show us Wilderness on Wheels, which offers a unique experience.
(WATCH the video from KDVR below)
Call it flourishing. It’s a movement beyond traditional notions of corporate sustainability, demanding more than just doing less harm. The vision for flourishing companies builds on best practices toward a higher purpose than profits. It’s about creating a world where enterprises prosper, people excel, and nature thrives.
Business thought-leaders are joining together on October 15-17 to co-create these possibilities at the Third Global Forum For Business as an Agent of World Benefit. The theme for the gathering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland is “Fourish and Prosper.”
“After 30 years of exposing corporate misconduct, what a radical change to discover and support corporate innovation,” said Roberta Baskin, Chief Communications Officer for the Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit at Case Western Reserve University. “I’m eager to meet the visionaries and celebrate business leaders who recognize there’s profit in doing good.”
David Cooperrider, founder of the Center, will lead the Summit using his signature Appreciative Inquiry method of strength-based dialogue. Through interactive mini-design workshops, and connections with tomorrow’s game-changers, heads and hearts will come together to co-create the world we all want.
Follow the discussion on Twitter at the hashtag, #BAWBflorum. Registration for the “Flourish & Prosper” forum is open at both the corporate and student levels here: GlobalForumBAWB.com.
(WATCH their updated 2015 video below)
A high school student from West Frankfort, Illinois is being hailed a hero after pulling a grandmother off the railroad tracks in the path of an oncoming train, when “there was no time to think.”
“I had an obligation to help and if I wouldn’t have made it there in time, I couldn’t really live with myself,” Colton Essary told KFVS-12 News. “Seeing that happen right in front of me and knowing I didn’t do anything to help.”
(READ the story, w/ photos, from KFVS-12)
Story tip from Tonya Brown Wright – Photo of train by jazzowl2003, via CC license
Life expectancy in the US is at an all-time high of 78 years and 9 ½ months, according to a report released today by the CDC. (ABC)
“Landowners typically trap or kill beavers that block irrigation canals and flood homes in the Yakima Valley. But biologists are using the skills of nature’s best engineers, relocating the troublemaking creatures to the headwaters of the Yakima River, where their talent for chewing willows and constructing lodges can be put to use, helping to restore streams and salmon habitat,” the AP reports.
(READ the AP story via the Detroit News)
The Utah Jazz signed 5 year-old JP Gibson, who is suffering from leukemia, to a one-day contract and brought him on the court to play with the big boys.
On their NBA website, the Utah Jazz announced Monday that the team signed the little boy from Layton as free agent guard. (They chose not to disclose his salary.)
“When he was just over a year old, he would sit with my husband Josh watching games,” said his mom, Megan Gibson. “He started insisting on shooting hoops for an hour each night before bedtime when he was just 15 months old.”
“He knows he has to be six before he can play Junior Jazz, and he reminds us all the time that he can’t wait until he’s six.”
(WATCH the beautiful video below, or READ the story here)
Story tip from Owen West – Photo from Utah Jazz video
“Washington, D.C. has one of the highest concentrations of graduate degrees in the country. It’s a place full of smart, wealthy and educated people. It also has the highest poverty rate of any U.S. city, and the youth feel it especially badly.”
Some D.C. startups and local organizations have stepped forward, filling in the gaps where government stops short, according to a CNN “Most Innovative Cities” report.
One example is the Young Doctors Project. Founded in 2012, it trains African-American high school freshman through intensive summer programs and Saturday academies at Howard University, to provide things like blood pressure screenings and vision exams to underserved communities.
After the first summer these “young doctors” work at free health clinics under the supervision of YDDC staff doctors. Through their own initiative, the teens also conduct nutrition seminars and educate their families and communities about healthy lifestyle options.
(READ the story from CNN Money)
About a year and a half ago, the life I was living ceased to exist. I was diagnosed with stage 2a Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare pediatric bone cancer. The harrowing experience that came after that fateful day has transformed not only my body but also my emotional and mental identities.
My existence up until that terrible announcement was carefully planned and under my control as much as it could be. I was finally taking strides to become the person I had always envisioned for myself: I was intently focused on my schoolwork and was on track to become a valedictorian, I had just earned my first job as a sales associate at LUSH, I was watching what I ate, and in addition to going to the gym more often, I was, for the first time in my life, becoming happy with my body image. I played men’s volleyball for my state championship high school team and for the number one club team in Las Vegas. It seemed as if everything in my life was going the way I wanted.
Everything around me ground to a halt. His words seemed to hang in the air like a suffocating gas and reverberated in my brain so fiercely that any cognizant thought was unachievable.
Life after that quickly turned into a blur. One of the only ways I could envision making order of all of the confusion and chaos was to let all of my friends and family know what had happened. The best way to do that, I decided, was to upload a photo of my bandages to Instagram, the photo sharing application.
Getting my port put in and starting chemotherapy only six days later, allowed no time for me to process all of the ramifications that came with a cancer diagnosis at seventeen. My left femur had been so badly deformed that I was wheelchair bound all of summer. After eleven weeks of chemotherapy, I had my left hip replaced in order to resect the riddled femur being eroding ferociously by the cancer.
With a surgery as major and invasive as a hip replacement, I was given a list of limitations I would have to live with for the remainder of my life: never again could I run or jump, and every ten to fifteen years, I would have to get the replacement replaced. After that surgery I then completed 27 more weeks of chemotherapy.
Throughout this time, it was important to me to remain connected with the outside world. As an outlet for my creativity and calling on the skills and passion that I discovered in photography class in high school, I turned to Instagram. Before this time, I was an avid Instagram user, but through my diagnosis and entire experience, I learned the real power of Instagram—the power to connect. I have enjoyed many followers and messages of encouragement and support and have had the honor in giving first-hand advice to other teens that are going through similar things.
In addition to having access to a creative outlet and connecting with others, I was also able to retain my sense of agency over how my story was received—to tell my story the way I wanted. Because I lost control in many ways over my own body, it was important for me to have control of what I put out into the world. I wanted control over my own narrative and my story. I was also attracted to the platform because it allowed me to keep a photo journal and track my progress and change throughout this experience. I can, at any time, go back and look at the memories I felt and shared.
Moving forward with my life has a completely new definition now. I have to be much more judicious in my lifestyle choices. Living has been redefined for me, and even though I am still getting used to this new homeostasis, I have learned through this experience that I have the strength to get through whatever life can throw my way.
[Editor’s Note: Michael received the good news from his doctor that he is in recovery with no evidence of disease. He is attending the University of Texas in Austin studying environmental chemistry. When his hair grows back he plans to dye it lavender. ]
LoadingToday marks the end of a long journey; for the past 10 months I have been constantly redefining my state of normalcy. This is no different; except now my normal will look a lot like everybody else's. Through this experience, I have learned a lot, including the strength that can come from a loving and supportive community. So for any of you who said kind words either to me, my family, or in private, I thank you. The collective positive attitudes make all the difference. I can't wait to make this just a part of my story and no longer a defining characteristic.
Lexi DeLorenzo knew she could have been fined for letting her five-year-old ride in a car without a car seat. But her car had been repossessed with the booster seat still inside, after the family fell on hard times and couldn’t pay their bills. When she and her friend were pulled over, with her daughter secured only in a seat belt, she feared the worst.
But, instead of giving her a ticket, Emmett Township Public Safety Officer Ben Hall led her to a nearby Walmart in Battle Creek, Michigan and bought the family a car seat to keep her safe.
“A ticket wouldn’t have solved the problem,” said the kind-hearted officer later.
“As soon as I can afford it, I will be paying forward,” she added.
Officer Hall said he was not looking to be paid back. “It’s a pay-it-forward situation completely,” he told a WXMI-17 news reporter.
UPDATE: “The only the reason the photo was put on Facebook was the little girl wanted to get a photo of the officer and her new car seat,” Lt. Tony Geigle told Good News Network Wednesday. “The only one of them with a camera at Walmart was the ‘loss prevention officer’ on duty. She snapped a few photos, emailed them to the family and sent them to the Department… The little girl was really happy,”
One of the officers at headquarters told Geigle, ‘I just got this picture from Amanda at Walmart.’
When other officers in the department heard about it they were pulling out their wallets to help pitch in and reimburse him. But, Hall refused any contributions telling them, “I wanted to do it, it made me feel good.”
“It has been pretty overwhelming for him,” said Geigle, referring to all the media attention. “For the most part, it has been very positive.”
The Emmett Township runs all their police, fire and EMTs out of a single office with everyone training together. “We are very community oriented and created our Facebook page to provide info to our public, to let people see what we are doing. We even post all our calls.”
(WATCH the video below or READ more from WXMI-17 News)
Photos courtesy of Emmett Township Public Safety Department Facebook Page
