It took more than 60 years, but an Army chaplain who died as a prisoner during the Korean War will be awarded the Medal of Honor by President Obama on Thursday.
Capt. Emil Kapaun, who was a Catholic priest serving with the 3rd Battalion, will be honored for “extraordinary heroism”, for bravery and service to others — both on the battlefield and in prison following his capture by enemy troops in November 1950.
Since the November election, 240 California prisoners facing potential life sentences have been set free. That’s because voters changed California’s tough three strikes sentencing law, which sent thousands of people to prison for terms of 25 years to life for minor, nonviolent crimes.
The ballot initiative’s success is due in no small part to Sue Reams. Her son was one of those released, after 17 years in prison.
But she isn’t done fighting having gained her son’s freedom. She believes that the initiative didn’t go far enough.
“For me this has become a way of life,” she says. “People are [still] in [prison] for stealing baby food, for stupid things. And they don’t deserve a life sentence for that.”
(READ the full story from NPR News – WATCH an interview with Sue below)
Seven years ago, Evie Branan suffered a stroke that left her in a semi-coma. In May of 2011, she tumbled out of bed, bumped her head and woke up. Her first words: “I want to go to a Bob Seger concert.”
Tonight in Flint, Michigan, a limousine is going to pull up to her nursing home and take the 79 year-old patient to see Bob Seger. Not only that, she will get to meet him.
Since leaving his job as Microsoft’s China business development director in 1999 and dedicating his life to improving global literacy, New York-based John Wood has put books in the hands of more than 7.8 million children in 10 countries in Asia and Africa.
His charity, Room to Read, has built more than 14,600 libraries and 1,500 schools in 12 years.
So is he happy? “Extremely. Extremely,” he told me recently when he was in Vancouver to promote his new book, Creating Room to Read: A Story of Hope in the Battle for Global Literacy
(READ the story in the Vancouver Sun)
A bipartisan group of senators has struck a deal to expand gun background checks to all commercial sales — whether at gun shows, via the Internet or in any circumstance involving paid advertising, according to Senate aides familiar with the talks.
The amendment to the guns legislation already proposed in the Senate would not cover private transactions between individuals, unless there was advertising or an online service involved. It is more stringent than the current law, which requires checks only when purchases are made through a licensed dealer.
An overwhelmingly majority of American voters — 91 percent — support universal gun background checks, according to a poll from Quinnipiac University released last week, and other similar surveys conducted this year.
(READ the full story in the Washington Post)
An Oregon man pinned by his overturned tractor said his teenage daughters saved his life by miraculously lifting the 3,000-pound machine.
Jeff Smith was pulling a stump from his garden in the rural outskirts of Lebanon last week when his tractor flipped upside down pinning him beneath its steering wheel.
Regular family suppers contribute to good mental health in adolescents, according to a study co-authored by McGill University professor Frank Elgar. Despite the fact that teens may squirm under the barrage of parental questioning, there are benefits to these family meals — regardless of whether or not they can easily talk to their parents.
“More frequent family dinners related to fewer emotional and behavioral problems, greater emotional well-being, more trusting and helpful behaviors towards others and higher life satisfaction,” says Elgar, an associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry, whose research centers on social inequalities in health and family influences on child mental health.
A speedy horse named Metro Meteor won $300,000 over his career on the track. Now he’s picked up a new vocation.
Forced to retire after knee injuries, he was given a new life when adopted by artist Ron Krajewski and his wife, Wendy.
The equine was constantly moving his head around, so Ron put a paintbrush in his mouth. The 9-year-old thoroughbred is now painting to benefit other horses in need.
Twitter and the kindness of strangers brought home an Irish mom with dementia, after her daughter decided to post her photo when she’d gone missing.
Hundreds of people retweeted her message: This is my mum & she’s gone #missing. Help try & bring her home safe #missing #belfast #plsRT #alzheimers.
A kayaker in California is being called a hero for helping to rescue a family after their SUV veered off the road and slammed into a concrete mile marker and tree before coming to rest in the middle of a river near Sacramento.
Mark Divittori happened to be kayaking in that part of the river when the mangled vehicle plunged into the river just yards behind him.
The major Holi festival of India was celebrated last week — a riot of color and and gaiety marking the coming of Spring, the season of hope and joy. Family and strangers rush with excitement down every street corner pouring colored powders on passers by.
Can’t afford a hot meal? Panera will now give you one. It’s the latest in the company’s experiments in letting customers set their own price.
Go to any of the 48 Panera Bread cafés in the St. Louis area and you’ll notice something strange: You can pay whatever you want for your turkey chili. In fact, you could pay nothing at all, and that would be just fine.
Panera’s charitable foundation already operates a cafe in the St. Louis area with its entire menu offered on a “Pay what you want” basis.
Panera isn’t the only restaurant in the U.S. serving food from a menu with no prices. The SAME cafe in Denver serves food “So All Might Eat”. The cafe’s menu has no price structure other than “Pay what you can.”
MORE: Jon Bon Jovi Opens Charity Restaurant in New Jersey (Soul Cafe)
Nearly 82% of airline flights in the U.S. arrived on time in 2012, an improvement of almost 2% over 2011. Air Tran, Delta, US Airways, Alaska, and Hawaiian Air had the best on-time numbers and Virgin Air was judged the best airline overall.
Coral reefs may be more independent and resilient than previously thought.
New research shows that an isolated reef off the northwest coast of Australia that was severely damaged by a period of warming in 1998 has regenerated in a very short time to become nearly as healthy as it was before. What surprises scientists, though, is that the reef regenerated by itself, found a study published Thursday in the journal Science.
A federal judge has ruled that the Obama Administration violated the law when it issued oil leases in Monterey County, Calif., without considering the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. The ruling came in response to a suit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, challenging a September 2011 decision by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to auction off about 2,500 acres of land in southern Monterey County to oil companies.
“This is a watershed moment — the first court opinion to find a federal lease sale invalid for failing to address the dangers of fracking,” said Brendan Cummings, senior counsel at the Center, who argued the case for the plaintiffs.
Fracking employs huge volumes of water mixed with sand and chemicals to blast open rock formations and extract oil and gas. The controversial technique is already being used in hundreds — perhaps thousands — of California oil and gas wells. Oil companies are aggressively trying to frack the Monterey Shale, which stretches from the northern San Joaquin Valley into Los Angeles County, and west to the coast.
“We hope this court ruling acts as a wake-up call that steers the federal government away from sacrificing California’s public lands for dangerous oil development,” added Cummings.
The court has asked for a joint recommendation on next steps in the case. The Center and the Sierra Club believe the lease sale should be set aside. At a minimum, no drilling or fracking on the leases will be allowed before the completion of thorough analysis of the environmental risks.
(Source: Center for Biologic Diversity)
I was lifting weights at my New York City community gym when he caught my attention.
His name, I later found out, was Marvin Moster. He stood a few inches over five feet, mostly bald with some white hair on the sides of his head, sporting a mustache, and wearing a light blue shirt and dark blue shorts. In the obvious ways, he was unremarkable. And yet, I couldn’t help noticing him.
He was older — I guessed in his seventies — and he was boxing with a trainer, punching in a rhythm they had obviously practiced before, ducking his head whenever the trainer threw a hook. Two things struck me: he was in excellent shape — evidenced by his balance, his rhythm, and how vigorously he was punching — and he was having fun.
“How old are you?” I asked him when he took a break.
“77,” he told me with a smile.
“I want to be like you when I’m 77,” I said.
His smile broadened. “And I want to be like you now.”
His laugh was infectious. It made me feel good just being around his energy, soaking in his enthusiasm. At least in that moment, he seemed delighted to be himself. That’s when the thought occurred to me.
“I knew something had to be done,” said Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, whose foundation was adrift without a focus.
It began when a co-worker at his foundation told the running back about how her daughter was being bullied at school. The final straw came on Easter Sunday 2012 when a 15-year-old girl in nearby Maryland took her own life after months of cyber-bullying.
“Words killed this person,” Rice said. “It’s become an epidemic.”
The 5-foot-8 running back began his crusade last year with an anti-bullying high school program and a pro-kindness rally at an outdoor amphitheater that attracted 5,000 people.
Then, in November he announced “Ray’s Links Of Kindness,” a campaign to express kind thoughts toward others and wrap those written words in a Tyvek chain to stretch for miles.
You can join him on Facebook and sign up to help make the chain.
(READ the story from the Baltimore Ravens team)
As a boy, Wendell Pierce dreamed of leaving his hometown one day for the world stage. Today, the veteran actor with global credits has returned on a mission: rebuilding neighborhoods, brick by brick, aisle after aisle.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, Pierce seized an opportunity to help his childhood neighborhood. He started a nonprofit with the goal of replacing hundreds of destroyed, 1950s-era homes with new ones.
The next item on his agenda was to solve the food desert problem with a chain of convenient neighborhood grocery stores.
(WATCH the video below from NBC News or READ the story at The Grio)
The owner of a construction company installed an elevator in the home of a family whose 9-year-old daughter Sara has cerebral palsy.
As a result, Sara can have the independence to go outside and play with her friends without asking for help — and her family can stay in the house her great-grandfather built in 1932.
Chris Johnson, founder and CEO of Hollister Construction Services, also established a charitable foundation, Strides for Sara, in 2009, making it his mission to acquire for Sara a wheelchair that would allow her to remain in her local school district. Without the chair, Sara would have been bussed 45 minutes away.
Now, he has achieved a feat above and beyond what most friends would do.
(READ the story in Patch.com)
In Tultitlán, Mexico, where the police officers are considered some of the most corrupt in Latin America, children who are victims of domestic violence, susceptible to drug sales and bullying, are being helped by cops with big smiles and red noses.
Respect for law enforcement officers in recent years has plummeted in the wake of the rampant drug trade. So-called Police Clown Units, “Polipayasos” as they call themselves, have been trying to change that. Aiming to keep the next generation from becoming involved in crime, they visit schools, streets, and hospitals creating a dialogue with children and families about life, its temptations, and how to do the right thing.
In one community on the outskirts of Mexico City, for instance, 5-6 police officers volunteered for the brand new unit last month and began spreading a positive message to children while combatting bullying and violence in homes, schools and neighborhoods. Training in psychology and motivation makes them especially suited for the task.
Dressed in police uniforms but wearing clown make-up and radiant smiles, instead of guns they point balloons and fingers. On their travels around the district they are transforming the image of the “bad police officer”.
“We’re cops, interested in giving talks, workshops and courses in primary and secondary schools to prevent bullying, crime, domestic abuse, and prevent them from falling into drugs,” said one of the Polipayasos, a cop for 15 years who spoke in Spanish. “We believe playing with them will promote a culture of prevention and gain their confidence.”
This latest Polipayasos unit may have modeled its humor strategy on a duo of officers in Monterrey, 8 hours to the north. Going by their clown names, Blossom and Trumpets, these two policemen began a few years ago wearing colorful make-up and blue and green wigs, in their quest to keep young Mexican students on the right track.
Through comic plays and songs, the clowns teach that a wallet found on the street must be returned to its owner. Positive interactions like those mean the next time the kids see police officers they smile instead of run and hide.
The video below features Spanish language, but you can click the translation button [cc] and choose your language. (Video by Florence Leyret-Jeune)
