The California Highway Patrol is being lauded for its efforts in rescuing a Chihuahua off Interstate 680 in Walnut Creek Friday.
The Contra Costa CHP posted a photo of the rescue on Twitter saying:
“This little dog needed some help off I-680 freeway today. We’re glad he’s safe.”
(READ the story from NBC-Los Angeles)
Cindy Prettyman, 65, of Glen Dale, West Virginia, (pictured, right) was told she’d have to wait five years to receive an organ transplant – but her son Jeremy posted an ad on Craigslist that read, “Wanted: Kidney”, and found a donor.
Jacklyn Mellott, 56, (left) a resident of Union Port, Ohio, coincidentally the area where Cindy grew up, said she’d always wanted to donate. Her wish was granted after she learned she was a perfect donor match.
(WATCH the video below or READ the story in NY Daily News)
Every year around this time kids perform in their holiday concert. For many schools it is the most well attended event of the year. In years past, my daughter has joined her classmates in singing two or three seasonal songs. This year was different though. This year my daughter had a few speaking parts while dressed as a snowflake.
My daughter was very excited when she heard the news that she had earned one of the speaking parts. Yet with her excitement also came some nervousness. She practiced and practiced her lines until she knew them by heart. And, each day leading up to the concert her class would prepare for what was going to be a special night.
Each day my wife and I would ask her how it was going, and each day she would tell us that she did well but that she was very nervous. She was worried that people would laugh at her if she made a mistake. She was also worried, understandably so, about speaking in front of over a thousand people. We told her not to worry and that she would do great. But, let’s be honest, how many of us wouldn’t be nervous about speaking in front of over a thousand people? And, how many of us have ever actually had to?
When the big night came last week we were all very excited. Because my wife actually teaches at my daughter’s school, she was able to secure us front row seats. This was great for viewing, but tough for my two-year old son who is distracted by anything that moves or is shiny. My daughter’s parts came towards the end of the concert and I was a nervous wreck because I knew how she felt.
Despite the fact that she had just cried on stage. Despite the fact that she was a nervous wreck. Despite the fact that she was in front of over a thousand people. She went back up to the microphone two more times and nailed her lines perfectly. The courage it took to do that, considering all the circumstances, was something I will never forget. I was so proud of her my heart nearly popped out of my chest.
The next time I am nervous about something. The next time I begin to doubt myself. The next time I stumble, I will remember the night the “little snowflake”, my daughter, my hero, went back out on that stage and showed me what real courage looks like.
Twin infants were born in Ohio holding hands.
Sarah Thistlethwaite and her husband, Bill, learned half way through the pregnancy that, not only would they be having twins, but rare “mono mono” twins, who would share the same placenta and amniotic sac.
It only happens once in every 10,000 births, and is considered a high risk birth, because the cords could become entangled or compressed, according to WCPO, who featured the story.
A photo released by Akron Children’s Hospital, where a Caesarean section was performed on Friday, shows daughters Jenna and Jillian at the moment of birth at 33 weeks, holding each other’s hands.
The birth was especially happy for the couple, who were told they would probably never have children.
UPDATE: In an interview on the TODAY show, on May 14, the doctor in the room confirmed that he had never seen anything like it.
“It was something that just really grabs your heart,” said Dr. Anand Kantak,
(READ the story from WCPO)
A comprehensive new study confirms the U.S. teen pregnancy rate is continuing its historic decline. The rate of abortions among women under 20 also has fallen significantly since it peaked in the early 1990s.
The teenage abortion rate in 2010 was the lowest of any year since abortion was legalized, about one-third of what it was at its peak in 1988, according to the Guttmacher Institute report.
The rates have sharply declined among all ethnic and racial groups across regions in the U.S.
Also in 2010, the teenage pregnancy rate reached its lowest point in more than 30 years, down 51% from its peak in 1990. Between 2008 and 2010 alone, the rate dropped 15%.
— Guttmacher Institute report (PDF)
This Mother’s Day, CNN readers pay tribute to women who were not their biological mothers but filled a matriarchal role.
Shawn Fontenot Yujuico, left, was 17 years old when her mom died in a car accident. Stepmother Shirley Fontenot “just flat out loved us. She loved us over our brattiness, our ‘You are not Mother,’ over our heartbreak. She didn’t love us conditionally; she loved us with her whole heart.”
(READ the article in CNN)
I love your page. It’s helpful to me to see so many great deeds performed by other people.
I suffer from chronic anxiety, depression, 3rd degree heart block, and chronic fatigue syndrome. The depression and anxiety, especially so since my mom, who was my best friend, died 12/28/2013.
And I just want to tell someone how much I loved my mom.
I have two nieces and a nephew that me and my mom raised together beginning in 1986…after she had lost my dad and her own mom eighteen months apart.
The children’s dad was fatally shot in 1981 and their mom (my older sister) left without them to live elsewhere.
When mom’s mother died, I promised that I would be with her and help in anyway that I could, for her not to worry about facing the future alone.
And, I did.
I never married or had children of my own, but, that wasn’t what was important to me…it was keeping the promise I made to stand with her through anything that came our way.
In the last few weeks of her life, I stayed with her in hospitals and nursing homes as I watched her slowly slip away from me.
And, it’s killing me to know that my mom and best friend are gone.
So, I just wanted to let someone else know, other than God who already knows, that, as hard as it was….I kept my promise.
Thank you for reading.
After years of giving to her children, one of them gave back on her 70th birthday and now the world knows how happy it made her.
A touchingly doting son decided to show his love by buying the mother who raised him and his five siblings a new Mercedes for her 70th birthday.
“This is such a wonderful present. I can’t accept it.”
WATCH the video above that he posted on YouTube
Chamindu Amarsinghe was speechless this week to hear he will get $81,597 of the cash he found while cleaning the toilets at a Melbourne television station.
The immigrant found a sanitary bin flush stuffed with $100 notes, too many to count, and immediately called his supervisor.
For his honesty, the the cleaner-turned-fast food worker, who’s now studying IT in New Zealand, was rewarded with most of the money.
(READ the story and see a photo in the Herald Sun)
A rejuvenated Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden has meant more visitors and volunteers at a facility that not long ago was on the verge of closing.
Renovations inside the domed conservatory last summer included more than 1,000 new plants; upgrades to the facility’s conference and learning spaces; new programming for adults and children; a new restaurant; and a living, growing wall made up of 1,716 plants that are changed seasonally.
A grand opening is planned for October to include a vast stretch of water and outdoor gardens.
A mixed up cat in County Offaly, about 70 miles from Dublin, has adopted three ducklings and is raising them as her own. In the process she has baffled animal experts.
RTE Radio’s “Mooney Gone Wild” show featured the cat, known as the White Cat, who went missing with the three ducklings after they were born. Ronan and Emma Lally who own the farm feared the worst, but the cat had other ideas rather than having a tasty lunch.
She began mothering them and the ducklings appear to be suckling from the cat along with her regular kittens.
Cats and ducks are usually enemies in the animal kingdom but the cat and ducklings and kittens are all getting along fine.
Animal experts interviewed simply cannot believe it.
“We got some duck eggs from a local lady and put them under a broody hen,” Emma told the show.
“Three of the ducklings survived. But then they disappeared and Ronan blamed the cat.”
Later the feline was seen carrying one of the ducklings in her mouth to the safety of her litter. She has continued raising them since.
(READ more from the Independent)
DON’T Keep the Cat Love to Yourself—Share the Love on Social Media…
In America today, a home or business goes solar every four minutes. That’s what the White House did today as President Obama announced the completion of a solar panel installation on part of the roof.
Thousands of homes will go solar in the next few years, and electricity bills will be lower for more than 1 billion square feet of buildings.
Every component of the White House solar array was made in America.
“Solar is getting cheaper and is getting easier to use,” said the President speaking in California.
President Jimmy Carter also installed solar panels at the White House in the 1970s that provided hot water, but President Ronald Reagan had them removed.
(WATCH the video above from the White House)
She was seven years old in March when she performed in her first audition on Norway´s got talent.
Since then, Angelina Jordan has been asked to appear on other television shows. Always in bare feet, she emulates Billie Holiday and other jazz singers with perfection befitting an old soul.
WATCH her sing Fly Me to the Moon and see her original performance of Gloomy Sunday below. (Turn on the subtitles for translation of judges from Norway’s Got Talent.)
Her website – www.angelinajordanofficial.com – has more videos.
Jared Hill wanted to take his girlfriend Emily Jarrell to her Senior Prom in Manassas, Virginia. The only challenge was that Jared’s immune system was still weak from his recent chemotherapy treatment for cancer.
He was instructed by his doctors to wear a surgical mask for the entirety of the high school dance to be held May 3 at an elegant off campus manor house.
Fortunately, Emily & her Osbourn Park High School Choir friends devised a plan to make Jared (pictured, center, next to Emily in red) feel more comfortable behind the protective mask.
It may not be a new fashion trend but these youths, who all donned protective face masks, showed a sense of unity that the whole community could admire.
Indeed, the heartwarming story was highlighted by a Northern Virginia newspaper and the local FOX News affiliate in Washington DC.
“It’s great to see our youth care for one another and to help out a friend in need,” said Emily’s father, David Jarrell. “Kudos to a great group of kids!”
InsideNova lists the students in the Jarrell photo, from left to right, to be: Lilly Sanusi, Malik Moultrie, Megan Onyundo, Ciarra Crowe, Kyra Davis, Niamat Sekhon, Cierah Frederick, Sabine Stewart, Jared Hill, Emily Jarrell, Traci Hurt, Simone Beaty, Scott Rhodes, Matthew Thatcher, Jackie Fleming, Deanna Knox, Alex Powell, and Noah Rhodes.
(WATCH the video below or READ the story from Fox-5)
Longwood University may rate as one of the best colleges in the South, but that doesn’t mean the faculty thinks itself too fancy to extend a little Southern hospitality to a family in need.
The 175 year-old college heard that the father of one of their students was dying of lung cancer, and doctors feared he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his final wish — to experience his daughter’s graduation. But Brittany Inge received a call from the provost of the school with an offer that gave the family a special day to remember forever.
Monday morning the family gathered in a stately room on the Farmville, Virginia campus and watched Brittany receive her diploma from Longwood University President W. Taylor Reveley IV. The graduate who majored in elementary and middle school education wants to work as a teacher.
“I had no idea Longwood would go out of their way,” Bob told WRIC the Richmond television station. “It takes special people and special organizations to make this happen.”
Source: WRIC-TV
A Boston-area family is bringing happiness to the elderly, the sick — and now to good friends battling cancer.
Their organization, Catching Joy, has delivered more than 2,000 of cards to their young friend, Bennett, who is battling leukemia. For his tenth birthday, Catching Joy asked people around the world to send hand made cards.
(WATCH the video below to see the surprise)
As a new grandmother, Abigail Lowe wanted to be around for her growing family but knew her health was on the decline given her sedentary lifestyle and 238 pound frame.
She took action in 2006 and after gastric bypass surgery lost a hundred pounds. She has been able to maintain a healthy weight of 160 pounds for more than two years.
Her own daughter, inspired by Lowe’s success was motivated to also undergo weight loss surgery last September. She’s lost 146 pounds so far and now eats so much healthier.
“Coming from 343 pounds I feel like a whole new woman,” said Maile Daly, a mom of three.
Because they live an ocean apart, the TODAY show surprised the mom, who hasn’t seen her daughter since the surgery. As a Mother’s Day gift, they brought out the now-healthy daughter in a sweet reunion moment. The also gave the pair new clothes to fit their new sizes.
(WATCH the video below or READ the story at TODAY)
Sixty-four-year-old Glory Rigsby felt her life was missing a meaningful achievement, so she decided to do something about it. This week , the Gulfport woman will don a cap and gown and walk across the stage at the Coast Coliseum to celebrate earning her GED.
“I enjoyed the experience,” said the former maid. “I always started and stopped…I finally accomplished what I set out to do.”
(READ the story and see the photos from the Sun Herald)
Deputies said things could have been much worse for a missing autistic child if their K9 hadn’t been able to track him down.
Maverick led them to the missing child who was knee-deep in freezing cold Ward Creek surrounded by thick bushes and downed trees.
(WATCH the video below, or READ the article from KPTV)
In return for a $5 Starbucks gift card, commuters in a Chicago area train station were asked to participate in an experiment. Instead of remaining isolated, like most commuters do, they agreed to talk to the stranger next to them.
The behavioral scientists, Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder, report that by the end of the train ride, commuters who talked to a person nearby reported having a more positive experience than those who had sat in solitude.
The New York Times reported, “Most people imagined it would be difficult to start a conversation. They estimated that fewer than half of their fellow commuters would want to talk to them. But in fact, not a single person reported having been snubbed. And the conversations were consistently pleasant.”
“People enjoy connecting with others,” wrote the researchers in the Chicago Tribune. “The pleasure of conversation was not just restricted to friendly people; we found the same results among introverts and extroverts.”
“If connecting with others is more pleasant than sitting alone,” ask the authors, “why the strong preference for quiet cars, silent cabs and empty rows on airplanes?”
Psychologist Jeremy McCarthy, author of The Psychology of Spas & Wellbeing: A Guide to the Science of Holistic Healing
In a University of California study, commuting is associated with fewer positive emotions than any other common daily activity. If we learn from psychologists and their many studies, which say that connecting with others is the most important determinant of happiness, maybe we will start more conversations in subway cars.
(READ the article in the New York Times)
