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.
Ian Brennan wasn’t satisfied.
Even after helping his local food bank setup a new computer database, he wanted to do more. That’s why he and some friends created an annual food drive for the center and delivered over 2,500 pounds of food as a down payment.
Ian’s efforts have helped feed thousands of families.
He never would have auditioned if it weren’t for his girlfriend, but Travis Pratt was glad he did after he received a standing ovation.
No one expected him to sing like he did—but in the end, the person who was most shocked in the audience was his girlfriend.
Travis proposed marriage while on stage during America’s Got Talent two weeks ago.
An Arab-Jewish hockey team has become an unlikely icebreaker in this remote corner of northern Israel, overcoming barriers of language, culture and conflict.
The team was created to play in the Canada Centre, which was erected in Metulla on the Lebanon border in the 1990s and includes an Olympic-sized ice rink, by Canadian Jews.
Peter Eisenberger, a distinguished professor of earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University, has build two machines in Menlo Park, Calif., to pull carbon dioxide out of the air, like your car’s catalytic converter, only giant-sized.
The challenging part was figuring out what to do with the CO2 once it was captured.
A hero fisherman has saved the life of his injured mate after an epic three-hour swim through freezing waters off the Gold Coast of Australia.
A freak wave struck the men’s dinghy on Tuesday, leaving one of them with two dislocated shoulders and a dislocated hip.
They had just enough time to grab their lifejackets before the boat went under.
The streets of London were abuzz recently when the magician Dynamo, appeared to levitate alongside an iconic red bus as it circled the sights of London.
The stunt, captured on film by Pepsi, shows the 30 year-old appearing to defy gravity, floating 15 feet in the air with feet dangling and moving around.
We live in a world where digital information is exploding. Some 90% of the world’s data was generated in the past two years. The obvious question is: how can we store it all?
A new technique has been developed to enable the data capacity of a single DVD to increase from the current 4.7 gigabytes to an astonishing 1,000 terabytes — the equivalent of 50,000 full high-definition movies.
At the end of a nightmare day of airline delays, Jessie Frank, who was in route to join her 12-year-old daughter for the girl’s last day of diabetes camp, received a last-minute reprieve on an overbooked flight thanks to a caring CEO.
“I was 8th on the standby list, showing 0 seats left. I was about to give up, but the counter agent stopped me from leaving.”
Delta Air Lines CEO Richard Anderson had given up his seat in the cabin so Frank would able to catch the last flight to Atlanta. The Delta staff was not even aware of the mother’s desperate wish to see her daughter shining at a camp where all the kids were just like her.
With the help of the community and a Kool-Aid stand, an 8-year-old boy has reached his goal of $5,000 to help pay for his grandmother’s funeral.
Michael Diamond overheard his parents in Garfield Heights, Ohio discussing how to cover the funeral cost and took action, according to WEWS News.
What would you do if you won $1,000 in a sporting tournament? Would you go on a shopping spree, plan a vacation?
16-year-old Kevin Chung, who won the championship of a chess competition, gave it all away — to the Renown Institute for Cancer in Reno, Nevada.
A man whose personal mission is to clean up the rivers of the United States has removed more than 7 million pounds of trash. By 2010, he had already pulled 775 refrigerators and 55,000 tires from American waterways. But the work also yielded some treasure — 64 messages in bottles.
He calls it the world’s largest collection.
Chad Pregracke and the volunteers with his nonprofit, Living Lands & Waters, began unearthing the bottles in 1997 during his first clean-up, after a flood on the Mississippi River.
(WATCH the video below, or READ the story at CNN)
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