It can be a nuisance when seaweed piles up on the beaches after high tide, but the leafy, brown plants might be the key to helping Galveston survive its next major hurricane.
Galveston officials have agreed to spend $140,000 on a project that will rely on the plant to create “seaweed-enhanced sand dunes” to shore up the island’s beaches.
In 2007 James Bowen had been a homeless heroin addict for more than a decade when he found a stray, injured cat called Bob, who would not leave his doorstep.
Sensing a bond with another lost soul, he nursed the tabby back to health and began traveling with him on the city bus.
Bob became the subject of an international bestseller, “A Street Cat Named Bob: How One Man and His Cat Found Hope on the Streets“.
James still pinches himself about the success of the book, which would go on to become a series and a 2016 movie, and he began saving to get a mortgage, no longer on federal benefits–or drugs.
(WATCH the video below, or READ the story w/ photos in the UK Mirror)
Jacob Barnett didn’t speak for years. Doctors declared that autism would keep him from ever doing simple tasks like reading or tying his own shoes. But after his mother began injecting fun and music and science into his life, he emerged from his cocoon.
Fortunately for Jacob, his mother noticed that when left to play on his own, the 3 year-old created wondrously complex maps and patterns. She yanked him out of “special ed” classes — where he was forced to do things that caused him to fail — and began preparing him for kindergarten herself.
The many forced hours of therapy, trying to persuade him to talk, finger paint, and to do basic physical tasks only frustrated and bored Jacob, making him more withdrawn.
A woman who could be considered Africa’s Oprah Winfrey launched an entertainment network yesterday that will be beamed into nearly every country on the continent with programs showcasing its burgeoning middle class.
Mosunmola “Mo” Abudu, who was born in the UK, wants EbonyLife TV to inspire Africans and the rest of the world, and change how viewers perceive the continent.
Apple Inc said it plans to build a new solar farm with NV Energy Inc for power supply to its new data center in Reno, Nevada, a major step towards its goal of using renewable energy to power its data centers, which use huge amounts of electricity.
14 Year old Will Thomas is not just shooting hoops. He’s using his jump shot, and Operation Hawkeye, to honor and raise money for fallen special operation troops and their families.
The Virginia schoolboy launched Operation Hawkeye in 2011, and his father pledged one penny for each basket he made, as he tried to score 1000 times for fallen soldiers.
Late Night With Jimmy Fallon was celebrating Video Game Week recently and asked the TV show’s fans to record scenes of themselves playing video games with their moms.
Most of the moms had never done any gaming before and were unfamiliar with handheld controllers. Hilarity ensues and the show picked the best moments for this very funny video clip.
After witnessing a close friend suffering through cyber bullying, 14 year old Azariah Brown decided to do something about it. She founded a website for teenage girls called, “Love Share Care”.
She wanted a social online hangout where adolescent girls 13-17 can share photos, post status updates, and send love shouts. They can even get discount tickets to local movies and stores.
The website’s official mission is to build self esteem and create unity within schools, while pushing back the tide of cyber-bullying online.
Fireworks lit the sky and festive crowds gathered on the streets to mark Croatia’s entry into the European Union, a major milestone some 20 years after the country won independence in a bloody civil war.
As the 28th EU member state, Croatia’s achievement seems historic because the small Balkan nation of 4.2 million endured years of carnage after declaring independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.
Croatia’s admission to the fraternity of nations perhaps stands as another reason why the European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012.
(READ the story from the Telegraph)
It’s 4 AM and I am laying awake, feeling unsettled and thinking about how distant and disconnected I feel from my personal life. Not from my beloved, sleeping sweetly at my side, but from myself.
I’ve spent a lot of time and energy focused on everybody else this past month. Caught up in everyone else’s life. Their world. Their family. And there was a sadness stirring in me. I began realizing that I had, once again, wandered, even lost myself. With that awareness, I took a very deep breath and allowed myself to feel as lost and upset as I was.
Chinese officials have lifted a ban on Tibetan monks displaying photographs of the Dalai Lama at a prominent monastery, a rights group said on Thursday, an unexpected policy shift which could ease tensions in the restive region.
The looser restrictions may be introduced into other regions and may signal a policy shift regarding Tibet, three months after President Xi Jinping took office.
Vietnam vet Jim Power is a local celebrity in New York City known for his eclectic and colorful mosaic work on lampposts throughout the East Village.
He started what he calls the “Mosaic Trail,” in 1985. Each light pole is unique.
Dubbed the “Mosaic Man” in 1988, the city eventually gave him permission to continue his work on public property along with thanks from Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2004 for “beautifying the city with distinctful, artful mosaics.”
Construction of the Israeli wall, which has scarred the ancient landscape of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the name of security, has been halted for the first time in years, bringing relief to a Palestinian village with 2,500-year old farm terraces and aqueducts.
Israel’s high court in May gave Batir and its 6,000 residents – famed for its annual yield of aubergines – reason to hope that a way of life preserved through centuries won’t be destroyed.
When Abbey Curran first saw a flyer for a local beauty pageant, she was 16 and walked with a pronounced limp due to cerebral palsy. Despite classmates who dismissed her chances of winning, she was determined to compete.
In 2008, Abbey was crowned Miss Iowa and became the first disabled person ever to compete for the title of Miss USA.
She says she broke the glass ceiling so it would be normal for girls who seem different to be counted among beauty pageant contestants.
In fact, just recently, Nicole Kelly, who was born without her left forearm, was crowned Miss Iowa. As a result, the 23-year-old will find herself competing at the Miss America pageant in September in Atlantic City, N.J.
(WATCH the video below)
A Spanish resort town with sprawling golf courses and tree-lined beaches has added another green site to its attractions: the world’s first plant to convert sewage into clean energy.
The facility in Chiclana de la Frontera on the southwest tip of Spain uses wastewater and sunlight to produce algae-based biofuel as part of a $15.7 million project to pursue alternative energies and reduce reliance on foreign oil.
The State of Homeless in Canada 2013, released this week by the Canadian Homelessness Research Network and the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, showed a 51 percent drop in the number of people living on the streets of Toronto between 2006 and 2011.
Vancouver did better, with a 66 percent decrease over the same period.
Coast to coast, municipalities were turning the tide.
(READ the Editorial in the Toronto Star)
The community of Newtown, Connecticut came together Saturday to show appreciation to the seventy therapy dogs that helped comfort them in the days and months after the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
The four-legged mental health providers and their caretakers belong to the group, Therapy Dogs International.
When the wife of their prime minister came to their orphanage recently, all the children were thrilled when she gifted each one the equivalent of about $12 Cdn.
On Wednesday, those children handed over half the money, saying they wanted to give it to victims of the Alberta floods half a world away.
A life saving project aiming to reduce the number of people who die by suicide across the UK is one of two initiatives to benefit from the Big Lottery Fund, it was announced this week.
Samaritans received £1.4 million to run a pilot project to offer a free-to-caller helpline in ten deprived communities across the UK, targeting hard to reach groups, in particular middle aged men who tend to delay seeking help.
Born with a backward foot, little Buttercup could only walk in great pain — until his owner came up with a novel idea for a duckie prosthetic.
The Feathered Angels Waterfowl Sanctuary in Tennessee amputated his foot and Mike Garey, a software engineer by trade, created a 3D printed mold, used to cast a silicone foot for the lucky duck.
