Children on almost every continent participated in a video production to foster the importance of global oneness.
The music and dance video, launched last week by a children’s entertainment company, features kids in South Africa, Colombia, Mexico, Togo, France, Costa Rica and the United States.
Learn more about the initiative or download the song by Les Nubians and Bentley Green, on their website: weareallconnected.us
A diner who was celebrating his birthday at The Ginger Man in Albany, N.Y., last week tipped server Michael Shafts $1,000, along with the message, “Pay it forward. My birthday present to me!” ABC News reported.
And pay it forward he did. Shafts shared his gratuity with all the staff members who had worked that night.
The tip was 10 times the amount of the entire bill.
– READ the story from Huff Post
– WATCH the short video below from ABC)
If you’re happy and you know it, you probably live in Louisiana. At least that’s what “Unhappy Cities,” a paper recently released by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research, indicates.
Lafayette, Baton Rouge, Shreveport and Houma landed on the list of top 10 U.S. metropolitan areas with the highest reported happiness. No other state claimed more than one spot.
What are they drinking down there?
“It’s sort of a cliche but Louisiana is a place where people love to have a good time,” says one New Orleans resident.
(READ the story from TODAY)
Photo credit: SARCASTICALIOUS on Flickr, via CC license
“As wind farms march out into coastal waters to meet energy demands, seals are learning to use them like local grocery stores, according to scientists who have been tracking their movements,” says an article in the LA Times.
“These wily individuals have been spotted prowling the grids of turbines, checking for fish congregating around individual pillars and stopping to feast when they find them.”
(READ the story in the LA Times)
Photo credit: Barbara Walsh Photography (CC license via Flickr)
In Istanbul, Turkey, where thousands of stray dogs live on the city streets, a new vending machine aims to dispense foods for these animals while making a dent in the recycling problem at the same time.
Earlier this month the Turkish design company, Pugedon, unveiled the dog-friendly device on an urban sidewalk hoping to increase the recycling of plastic bottles, saving them from the landfill.
The company says the dog food costs are covered by the plastic that is recovered.
SOURCE: Zie.nl – Story tip from Holly S.
I’m not really sure what the average 70 year-old man does every day. . .
Play cards?
Watch TV?
Enjoy retirement?
Carl Blum started a nonprofit to help veterans and their families. It has changed more than 950 lives. An amazing man, who shows you can always make a difference.
(READ the story from BradAronson.com)
Porthcawl residents have honored the sacrifice of the soldiers who died fighting for their country in World War I by getting thousands of Flanders poppies planted on the town’s roundabouts.
The poppies are blooming in the Welsh seaside town as it prepares to mark the centenary of the start of World War I.
The flaming red Flanders poppies are an internationally recognized symbol of remembrance because they bloomed on the battlefields of Belgium and France during the 1914-18 war.
(READ more about the remembrance in WalesOnline)
Photo by Rita M (CC license on flickr)
Iran has completed the conversion of its stock of 20%-enriched uranium into more harmless forms, reports the UN nuclear agency, IAEA.
The US is set to unblock $2.8 billion in frozen Iranian funds in the deal that called for Iran curbing its nuclear program.
(READ the story from the BBC)
Photo credit: IAEA
If you’re feeling stressed these days, the news media may be partly to blame, suggests a national survey conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.
The survey of more than 2,500 Americans found that about 1 in 4 said they had experienced a “great deal” of stress in the previous month. And these stressed-out people said one of the biggest contributors to their day-to-day stress was watching, reading or listening to the news.
(READ the story from NPR)
Thanks to a $10,000 grant from Kind Snacks, five friends are hitting the streets this summer, spreading acts of random kindness to strangers around the country through a nonprofit organization called ARK Project Now.
They’ve traveled 6,000 miles in an RV, left care packages for homeless people, bought coffee for strangers, and cooked dinner for families visiting sick relatives.
(WATCH the video below, or READ the story from TODAY)
A news tip called into KATU-TV in Portland, Oregon brought to light a story of kindness and generosity by a local police officer.
Officer Carlos Ibarra says he deals with a lot of homeless people who could use help, but usually it is just a husband and wife and a kid or two at the most. This dad and seven kids were living in a van.
When none of the local shelters answered their phones on the weekend, he put them up in a hotel and paid the $70 fee from his own pocket. He went and got them a box of food too.
(WATCH the video below, or READ the story from WVEC.com)
Story tip from Stacey Evans
The British royal family released official photos to celebrate Prince George’s first birthday, today, July 22. He is now walking and visiting museums, seen here enjoying the Sensational Butterflies exhibit at the Natural History Museum.
A family gathering will be held at William and Kate’s home with the Queen expected to attend along with Prince Harry and the Middleton family.
Click below to see the photo gallery enlarged.
A 5-year-old Massachusetts boy battling cancer said all he wants for his upcoming birthday is a box of birthday cards.
Danny Nickerson, of Foxboro, Massachusetts, will turn six on July 25. He was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor this past October — one of the most chemotherapy-resistant cancers.
The boy gets lonely from time to time because he stopped going to kindergarten, so friends began a campaign to send cards for his birthday on July 25.
“He always loves getting cards with his name written on them,” said his mom. “I gave him to key to the P.O. box, and he was so excited when he opened it.”
Send letters or cards to this Lego and Super Mario lover herre:
Danny Nickerson
P.O. Box 212
Foxboro, MA, 02035
(READ more in WVEC.com)
Lilica was abandoned at a junkyard in San Carlos, Brazil. Instead of becoming heartless and homeless, the dog became beloved by the resident woman and her children, who responded to Lilica’s positive attitude, and willingness to risk her life for other animals.
After she bore eight pups (which were later adopted), Lilica began to search for food at night, walking four miles each way. She found a caring, compassionate school teacher who became accustomed to feeding the dog every night outside her home.
The woman, who feels she has made a special pact with the dog, always ties up the bag of food after Lilica is finished, so she can carry the food back across busy roads, to provide for the other animals in the poor neighborhood.
WATCH the beautiful story from 2013 below…
Everyone can agree that Miss Idaho is beautiful when she takes a stroll down the pageant runway for the swimsuit competition — even with an insulin pump attached to her bikini bottom. Wearing that in public has made her a social media star and role model for children.
“There it is,” Sierra Sandison wrote on Instagram of the pic taken by photographer Susan Hessing during the July 12 Miss Idaho competition.
Since posting the photo of her courageous walk on social media last week, insulin pumps and diabetes devices are now a symbol of community. Sandison has become a new Type 1 hero, with the hashtag #showmeyourpump spurring people to share photos showing off their diabetes devices.
KevW tweeted a photo of his adolescent daughter displaying a hot pink pump, and calling Sierra “a great role model.”
@sierra_anne93 you're a great role model for my 13yo daughter who shows her pump with pride: http://t.co/q6WAELIP4i #showmeyourpump
— Oceantragic / KevW (@OceanTragic) July 19, 2014(READ the full story from NPR)
Photo copyright Susan Hessing, posted under Fair Use provision
Conservationists have achieved success in their three-year effort to re-introduce Mexican gray wolves to a habitat where it disappeared three decades ago. Mexican officials have reported that the first known litter of Mexican gray wolves has been born in the wild. According to Mexico’s National Commission for Natural Protected Areas, a team of researchers spotted the wolf pups in the western Sierra Madre Mountains in June.
“This first litter represents an important step in the recovery program, because these will be individuals that have never had contact with human beings, as wolves bred in captivity inevitably do”, said the commission in a statement.
(READ the full story from the Austrian Tribune)
PHOTO credit: Mexican Gray Wolf by JT Palmer (for National Geo, via CC license on Flickr)
Cruz Riojas came from a troubled home: He was reportedly beaten by his stepfather, lived in a decrepit one-room lean-to with six other family members, and wore the same clothes to school every day.
His anger flared up in classrooms where he was known as a “holy terror.” Teachers loathed him.
Linda Hooper, a teacher who first encountered Cruz in the early ’80s, when he was 12 years old, came to love him.
He began coming for visits at her home, and eventually stayed.
(READ the story from the USA today)
Photo by Aaron Tait (via Flickr with CC license) – Story tip from Julia Frerichs
A resident spotted a car that had suddenly started rolling downhill towards a busy rush hour street in Bradford, England. She yelled to a gardener who chased down the vehicle and steered it into a lamp post through the open window before it reached a busy road.
“It was also lucky I’d turned the hedge cutter off as it came rolling down hill,” said David Robson, 48, who had been pruning shrubs in Heaton and wouldn’t have heard the call of alarm.
(READ the story from the Telegraph and Argus)
Two seventh-graders at Chicago Jewish Day School, Marc Luban and Ariana Handelman, wanted their B’nai Mitzvahs to stand out — but not for the opulent festivities that some have planned for them, featuring celebrities like Beyonce, 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg.
Instead of a huge bash, the 12-year-olds’ ventures into Jewish adulthood will be marked by designing and building a playground for the public.
Through Thursday afternoon, more than $18,000 had been donated to the cause.
(LEARN more from DNA info Chicago)
Story tip from Justin Breen
A fast-acting 3-year-old came to an elderly man’s rescue in Tennessee after he spotted the man trapped inside a hot car as temperatures inside the vehicle reached over 120 degrees.
While waiting for his wife to come back from an event at the Vestal Baptist Church in Knoxville last Saturday, Bob King, 68, found himself trapped in his car after the doors automatically locked.
When the toddler, Keith Williams, tried to tell a nearby adult, he was ignored in the beginning. But he kept repeating, “Locked, locked,” and “hot, hot”, until he finally persuaded the man to follow the boy to the parking lot.
(WATCH the video below or READ the story at Yahoo)