Placed on the endangered species list in 1966, the largest animals on Earth are making a comeback, from the equator all the way up to the Gulf of Alaska.
Nearly hunted to extinction in the last century, the population of California blue whales, estimated to number around 2200, is now almost as high as it was in the early 1900s—a recovery being hailed as a conservation success story.
(READ more from the BBC)
Story tip from Joel Arellano
Seafood Watch has upgraded 21 species from ‘avoid’ to ‘best choice’ or ‘good alternative,’ including crab, lobster, Pacific cod, grouper and several rockfish species.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation announced on Tuesday a dramatic turnaround for West Coast fisheries, after just 14 years of federal fishery management to restore these economically important fisheries in California, Oregon and Washington.
“This is one of the great success stories about ecological and economic recovery of a commercially important fishery,” said Margaret Spring, vice president of conservation and science for the Monterey Bay Aquarium. “A huge part of the turnaround is reliance on science-based conservation and management practices that Congress endorsed in its 2006 update of U.S. fishery law.”
In June, the global Marine Stewardship Council certified 13 of the trawl-caught groundfish species as coming from a sustainable and well-managed fishery.
“Not long ago many of these species were in collapse,” said Tim Fitzgerald, who manages the sustainable seafood program for the Environmental Defense Fund – one of the organizations that worked with fishermen and fisheries managers on the turnaround. “Thanks to smarter fishing regulations and fishermen’s commitment to conservation, consumers and seafood businesses can now add West Coast groundfish to their list of sustainable choices.”
Frank Lockhart, who led the West Coast groundfish recovery effort for NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries division, pointed out, “Not only has it reduced impacts on the species we need to protect, but it has allowed fishermen increased flexibility to fish more effectively for the species they want – benefiting industry, fishing communities and seafood consumers.”
(READ the report from The Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation)
A Cincinnati Bengals player who was cut from the team after not giving 100 percent on the field had a good reason for being distracted. Devon Still’s daughter, 4-year-old Leah, was diagnosed with stage 4 pediatric cancer in June.
But the defensive tackle learned Saturday that the Bengals decided to re-sign Still to their practice squad, allowing him to earn the funds and medical insurance he needs to pay for his daughter’s treatment.
(READ the story from WGGB – Watch a video that starts playing immediately from ABC)
Photo via Still’s Instagram – Story tip from Stacey Evans
24 global companies on the Fortune 100 list are realizing the many benefits of renewable energy. They are saving big money while building reputations for fighting climate change and supporting environmental sustainability.
Tech companies like Apple and Google are leading the way, but firms in traditional fields are also stepping up to the challenge: Walmart to Whole Foods, Hilton to Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson to Sprint – big firms are implementing big plans for wind energy, solar power, energy efficiency.
Walmart-owned Sam’s Club was the first retailer in the U.S. to mount wind turbines on parking lot light poles to support the energy needs of its store (pictured above, in Palmdale, California in 2010).
(READ more from Renewable Energy World)
Tess and Ryan sent in this photo, saying they LOVE GOOD NEWS!
Thanks, guys! Maybe you will be able to come to our 17th Anniversary Meet and Greet in Chicago on September 28.
Interested in joining us? Get details on my blog.
A North Carolina man spent his 59th birthday standing on the corner at a busy intersection in Winston-Salem giving out a wad of $5 bills.
This is the third year Bob Blackley has held up a sign to cars on September 4 offering money — this time giving away $800 to 160 people.
It’s a big surprise to drivers because it looks like the clean-shaven man is begging for money, holding a cardboard sign. Get a little closer and the sign reads: I HAVE a HOME, I HAVE a JOB, COULD YOU USE an EXTRA $5.00?
Many people think they have enough money and tell him to give to someone who needs it more.
(READ the story w/ photo from Fox-8) – Story tip from Kelly Harrington
RELATED: Reverse Begging: Oklahoma Man Gives Away Money at Intersection (Video)
Photo: An Oklahoma man, Doug Eaton, gives away money in 2012
“The U.S. Agency for International Development said it will spend nearly $100 million in aid for the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, in what is believed to be one of the largest donations yet to combat an escalating humanitarian crisis,” reports the Associated Press.
The money will pay for shipments of protective suits for doctors, chlorine bleach, and other resources to combat the outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea
(READ the AP article via the Wall Street Journal)
Concerned about the wide achievement gap that affects children of color, a South Bronx school teacher, Gary Simons, with the support of Columbia University’s Teachers College, made it his mission to help ensure that young lives are no longer predetermined by the zip code in which they live.
He launched Prep for Prep in 1978, an organization that has prepared more than 4,400 students in New York City to study law, medicine and business at prestigious schools like Yale, Brown, Oxford and New York University.
(READ the “Making a Difference” story from CS Monitor)
The brain can be trained to prefer healthy food over unhealthy high-calorie foods, using a diet which does not leave people hungry, suggests a study from the US.
Scientists from Tufts University used brain scans to determine that such addictions were conditioned over a long period of time and can be changed through those same reward centers.
The MRI scans showed that food preferences had changed.
(READ the story from BBC News)
Photo credits: (front) TheFoodJunk, (top) Sal Falko, via CC licenses
While on his day off so no one would know, Morris Froscher replaced an 8-year-old boy’s piggy bank. The Florida sheriff’s deputy (pictured above, center) also topped it off with $20.
“The child was very upset so I just wanted to do something that would make him feel better,” said the Volusia county deputy in a recent interview.
His boss got a note from the boy and discovered it wasn’t the first time Froscher had helped while off duty.
Froscher’s file was full of numerous commendations from citizens for deeds like, mentoring an out-of-control child and placing a confused 88-year-old man in a hotel room and calling his family instead of charging him for not having a driver’s license.
(READ the feature story from the Daytona Beach News-Journal)
Story tip from Chrissy Daugherty – Sheriff’s Department Photo
Megan Bratten is not pressing charges against an apologetic thief who stole her van while she was shopping in a K-Mart.
She knew there was a phone in the vehicle so began texting the thief describing how she needed the van for work so she could provide for her five children.
For three hours Bratten continued texting, reports KCTV-5 who interviewed the woman. On her final text, she desperately pleaded.
“OMG car thief people can you just give me my van back!,” she wrote. “It would be epic, the miracle I need right now.”
Then, Bratten was given specific directions to pick up the van, a vehicle she described as leaking transmission fluid.
When she found the van, there was an empty bottle of transmission fluid in the van that had been used to fill it up.
She didn’t have the heart to go to police, saying that “in the end, he really did the right thing.
(WATCH the video below or READ the story from KCTV-5)
When 14-year-old Victoria Czech competes in shows with her horse, Skip, spectators are amazed to learn that Skip is completely blind. They’re even more surprised to learn that it was Victoria herself who trained Skip to live and thrive without his sight — long before he lost it.
When Victoria was 10 years old, her parents gave in to her pleas for her own horse. They found Skip, a former show horse, through a vet near their home in Chippewa Falls, Wis. The family knew the friendly horse was special. “He was supercool, with lots of spunk,” remembers Victoria.
But, two years after the golden palomino came to live with them, the Czechs noticed that one of Skip’s eyes was cloudy and swollen. After a series of vet visits, the 23-year-old horse was diagnosed with primary glaucoma and, his vet warned, would eventually lose his sight in both eyes. The family was faced with a choice: daily medications to help Skip keep his sight as long as possible, and most likely eventual surgical removal of his eyes, or put Skip down.
Over the next two years the family spent thousands of dollars on Skip’s medical care. They worked to keep Skip’s eyes healthy and pain-free, with Victoria religiously delivering drops and ointment into Skip’s eyes three times a day.
But within a year Skip lost vision in one eye so the vet removed it.
While Skip could still see with his other eye, Victoria trained him to be ready for complete blindness. “She knew she had to bond with him even more,” says Mary. “She rode with him every day, building more and more trust. We didn’t know how long it could be before he lost his sight.”
Victoria says she and her parents read up on how to care for blind horses and brainstormed ways to prepare Skip. They reconfigured the horse’s stall to be easier to navigate, and even bought a horse named Zipper to be Skip’s “pasture buddy.” Zipper wore a bell so he could lead Skip around once he could no longer see. To teach Skip where the edges of the field were, Victoria put paper bags on fence posts so the horse could hear them crinkle in the wind and know where the fence was located.
Above Skip’s trough, Victoria hung wind chimes so he’d know where his water would be.
A True ChampionAs expected, the day came when Skip lost sight in his other eye and it, too, was removed, leaving him completely blind. But he was ready; Victoria had seen to that.
Skip rebounded quickly from his surgery and began exploring his new world without sight. “He didn’t seem like anything had really changed that much,” says Victoria. Within a week, she climbed on Skip’s back to see how he would respond to a rider. “The first time I rode him, I knew he’d be just fine,” she says.
And he was. As Skip and Victoria grew accustomed to a new way of life together, Skip proved he was still a show horse, and then some.
Victoria began training Skip to compete again. She introduced him to Trail Class, which is an obstacle course competition. “Most horses spook with stuff like this,” says Mary. “But he can’t spook. He has to trust you.” And he trusts Victoria. Today, Skip and Victoria are winning championships in the trail class and leaving spectators incredulous.
“He goes through the obstacles like no tomorrow,” Mary says. “And people are floored when they discover he has no eyes.”
Victoria expects a lot from Skip and doesn’t let his disability get in the way. “I don’t let him get away with anything,” she says with a chuckle.
Mary believes the experience has helped Victoria mature and learn important life lessons. “It’s taught her to follow through on commitments. You made a commitment to this animal, and you follow through on that at all costs.”
Vetstreet.com is a pet website written by top veterinarians, pet health experts and professional journalists dedicated to giving you the most accurate information possible, so you can keep your dogs and cats healthy. The author, Caroline Golon, blogs about cats and raises money for rescue groups.
More Stories from Vetstreet:
How Our Dog Lost Her Sight — But Kept Her Love of Life
Miracle Workers: Therapy Horses at Work
10 Things Your Pet Won’t Tell You
A century and a half after Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, one of the most fabled attacks in American history, a 22-year-old Union officer whose heroics helped stop the rebels and turn the tide of the Civil War will finally receive the Medal of Honor.
One woman’s persistence in nominating the young man finally paid off.
The White House has announced that Lt. Alonzo Cushing will receive the award, ending a near three-decade campaign begun by a Wisconsin woman, now in her 90s, who lives on what had been the family farm where Cushing was born.
(READ the story from NPR News)
On Labor Day, 17 years ago, I first hit the UPLOAD button to offer my new website to the world. (In 1997, “blogs” weren’t even invented yet!)
We are celebrating the Anniversary later this month with a midday Meet and Greet in Chicago, Illinois on Sunday Sept. 28.
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Contact us if you would like to be informed of the Chicago details by email. I’ll have some gifts for those in attendance.
Have you been eager to support the Good News Network, but waiting for the right time? This may be it! We are giving away FREE BUMPER STICKERS to everyone who buys a $24 membership. Choose from 3 cool designs. That equals $2 per month for the good news you receive every day. Also included are the inspiring free downloads on the MEMBERS page, once you’ve signed up.
Check out my blog for details.
Thank you for your love and generosity!
A Pittsburgh man whose wedding was called off decided to turn the lemons he was dealt into “LemonAID”, a charity fundraiser for an organization that provides free surgery in developing countries.
32-year-old Phil Laboon, who is a marketer by trade, sold tickets to his pre-paid reception for $75. He expected to raise about $50,000 from the sold-out Saturday event, and from raffle ticket sales on items donated to the cause — all for the benefit Surgicorps International.
(WATCH the video or READ the story from the NY Daily News)
60 veterans stood as honor guard at a cemetery in the town of Gardiner, Washington during a ceremony to replace three special military coins that were stolen from veteran Marvin G. Shields’ graveside earlier this month.
Bill Pletcher led the effort to replace the ornate brass medallions earned during the Vietnam War, even securing a new admiral’s coin, a request expedited by the Pentagon.
Other visitors to the cemetery left coins before the ceremony, and now there are more than two dozen challenge coins, which bear various military insignias, resting on Marvin’s headstone.
Shields earned a Medal of Honor for saving lives during a 1965 battle in South Vietnam, that claimed his life.
(WATCH the video below or READ the story from KOMO-TV)
Daily fruit consumption cuts the risk of cardiovascular disease by up to 40%, according to Oxford researchers. The findings from the seven year follow-up study of nearly a half million people in China found that the more fruit people ate, the more their risk of cardiovascular disease declined.
“Our data clearly shows that eating fresh fruit can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, including heart disease and stroke,” said Dr. Huaidong Du. “And not only that, the more fruit you eat the more your CVD risk goes down.”
Over the seven year follow up period there were 19,300 cases of heart disease and 19,689 strokes. The researchers found that compared to people who never ate fruit, those who ate fruit daily cut their CVD risks by 25-40%.
The researchers also found that people who consumed fruit more often had significantly lower blood pressure.
In a separate analysis, the researchers examined the association of fruit consumption with risk of death in more than 61,000 patients from China who had CVD or hypertension. They found that compared to those who never ate fruit, daily consumers of fruit cut their overall risk of death by 32%. They also reduced their risks of dying from heart disease by 27% and from stroke by around 40%.
Professor Zhengming Chen, the principal investigator of the China Kadoorie Biobank, said: “Patients with CVD and hypertension should also be encouraged to consume more fresh fruit. Many western populations have experienced a rapid decrease in CVD mortality during the past several decades, especially stroke mortality since the early 1950s, for reasons that are not yet fully explained. Improved access to fresh fruit may well have contributed importantly to that decline.”
The researchers concluded that policies are needed to “promote the availability, affordability and acceptability of fresh fruit through educational and regulatory measures.”
Source: European Society of Cardiology
Photo (c) Sun Star
It wasn’t just the rooftop pool, the indoor basketball court or the 24-hour concierge that made Mara Pillinger want to sign a lease at 2M, a new apartment building in Washington, D.C.
Rather, one wrinkly, adorable four-legged tenant was “95 percent of the reason I moved in,” says Pillinger, a 29-year-old Ph.D. candidate in international relations at George Washington University.
Emmy, a nearly 1-year-old English Bulldog, is the building’s communal pup.
“I spend time with Emmy twice a day every day — it’s study breaks,” says Pillinger. “I just go in and plop down on the floor and play with her.”
Assistant property manager Kaitlyn Luper says at least one resident a day comes by to take the pooch for a walk in the pet park.
Pillinger first heard about the building when her friends sent her news stories about the communal dog.
“A lot of our residents either saw information on Emmy through various media outlets or met her when they toured the building,” says Luper. “While it might not be the deciding factor for them to move into 2M, she has definitely given the building a lot of attention.”
For Pillinger, Emmy provides the perfect balance of enjoying the company of a dog without the responsibility of caring for her own pet while she’s busy with her studies.
“She’s the sweetest thing ever. She’s always happy to see you, always wants to play. She’s always sort of puzzled when she’s not the center of attention — not that that happens very often for her,” Pillinger laughs.
Like Pillinger, new resident Carolyn Belcher, 22, would like to get a dog of her own someday. But she and her boyfriend just moved to the area from North Carolina and know it will take a while to establish their schedules so they know they’ll be home to take care of a dog.
When her boyfriend’s brother told them about Emmy, they thought a building dog was the next best thing.
“It’s kind of nice because it’s like having a dog without having to take care of a dog every day,” Belcher says. “So you have all the benefits of the dog without all the responsibility.” And if Belcher and her boyfriend decide to get a pet of their own, their new addition will be welcome in 2M’s pet-friendly environment.
More From VetStreet.com:
10 Brainiest Dog Breeds
5 Shelter Pet Myths Debunked
Hero Dog Defends Owner Against Bear
Vetstreet.com is a pet website written by top veterinarians, pet health experts and professional journalists dedicated to giving you the most accurate information possible, so you can keep your dogs and cats healthy. The key is a well-informed owner and an expert veterinary care team.
Photos via Instagram: 2Mpup
Tommy Bensko went on the road to primarily in low-income neighborhoods, fixing kids’ bikes for free and giving them a hands-on education about bike repair.
“It’s been amazing,” said 12-year-old Eric Austin, who hasn’t been able to ride for months since his bike’s tire popped. “It’s been like the best feeling I’ve had for a long time.”
He feels pride too, because now he knows how to fix the flat himself.
(WATCH the lovely video above or READ the story from the San Francisco Chronicle)
Story tip from Mike McGinley
At the Elephant Nature Park juveniles regularly engage in cute behavior. Watch Faa Mai enjoying her playtime with a steaming ribbon.
The action starts at 35 seconds into this precious video.
For more information: www.saveelephant.org
