Amateur diggers on a trip to the aging North American Emerald Mine in Hiddenite, N.C., struck gold last week — actually, emeralds.
One couple had only been in the mine for five minutes before Kevin Barrieault flipped over a rock to find a 50.5-carat emerald.
The next day, another couple found a pocket of emerald crystals in the mine, which was newly opened to tourists by a man who wanted to earn income by letting people dig for gems.
(READ the story from ABC News)
James McCartney revealed in an interview recently that he has discussed the possibility of uniting with other sons of the Fab Four to form “the Beatles – the Next Generation”.
“I’d be up for it,” the 34-year-old said. “Sean [Lennon] seemed to be into it, Dhani [Harrison] seemed to be into it … I don’t think it’s something that Zak [Starkey] wants to do. Maybe Jason [Starkey, another drummer] would want to do it … I don’t know, you’d have to wait and see.”
President Obama joined a bipartisan group of Congressional leaders in a signing ceremony to enact and praise their STOCK Act (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act) to ban ‘insider trading’ on Capitol Hill.
“The STOCK Act makes it clear that if members of Congress use nonpublic information to gain an unfair advantage in the stock market, then they are breaking the law,” he explained during a rare moment of cooperation between the White House and Capitol Hill.
The law creates new disclosure requirements and new measures of accountability and transparency for thousands of federal employees who previously had been free to use the insider information to benefit financially in the stock market.
Instead of driving through morning rush hour, what if you could fly over it?
Terrafugia Inc. said that it hopes to begin selling its 2-seat flying car with folding wings within the next year. On March 23, its production prototype flew its successful maiden voyage for eight minutes at an altitude of 1,400 feet.
The dual-purpose flying machine, called Transition, carries vital necessities of the road, such as airbags, and a structural cage on its revolutionary flying car, which has a 115 mph cruising speed (in the air).
The Transistion is capable of driving on roads and highways, parking in a single car garage, and flying with unleaded automotive fuel.
CEO and co-founder Carl Dietrich said, “This first flight is a major milestone for Terrafugia. With this flight, the team demonstrated an ability to accomplish what had been called an impossible dream. We look forward to continuing to show that the challenges of bringing a practical street legal airplane to market can be overcome.”
Around 100 people have already put down a $10,000 deposit to get a Transition when they go on sale, and those numbers will likely rise after Terrafugia introduces the Transition to the public later this week at the New York Auto Show.
Terrafugia is Latin for “escape the earth.” The ticket price to do so? $279,000.
(READ more in the AP story in the Washington Post)
WATCH the 2009 video demonstration below and visit Terrafugia’s website for more details…
Instead of driving through morning rush hour, what if you could fly over it?
Terrafugia Inc. said that it hopes to begin selling its 2-seat flying car with folding wings within the next year. On March 23, its production prototype flew its successful maiden voyage for eight minutes at an altitude of 1,400 feet.
The dual-purpose flying machine, called Transition, carries vital necessities of the road, such as airbags, and a structural cage on its revolutionary flying car, which has a 115 mph cruising speed (in the air).
A woman took over the controls mid-flight and landed a small plane in northeastern Wisc., when her husband, the pilot was stricken.
Helen and John Collins were married for 58 years. When visiting family, they often didn’t drive – they flew in a twin engine Cessna.
While flying to see one of their sons Monday afternoon, he suffered a heart attack and his 80-year-old non-pilot wife had to take over.
(READ the story or watch the video at CBS News)
The Baylor University Lady Bears left no doubt last night who reigns as the best team in the country. In fact, they’re perfect.
A dominating victory over Notre Dame (80-61) in the NCAA women’s basketball championship on Tuesday night, capped a 40-0 season for the Waco, Texas team.
They became the first team in NCAA history — women’s or men’s — to win 40 games.
In the Los Angeles community of Pasadena — a suburban mix of nice restaurants and well-tended front lawns — there is a home wedged in among the other houses where the entire front yard is edible.
A man’s little family farm, in the midst of American suburbia, is his way of breaking free without really going anywhere.
His property has became quite beautiful, and the independent family of five sells what it doesn’t eat to local restaurants.
A little over 30 years ago, a teenager in India began burying seeds along a barren sandbar near his birthplace to grow a refuge for wildlife.
“The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover. I sat down and wept over their lifeless forms. I alerted the forest department and asked them if they could grow trees there,” he told the Times of India. “They said nothing would grow there. Instead, they asked me to try growing bamboo.”
Everyone in the UK is being asked to clear out their drawers, wardrobes and cupboards – and take their excess clothing and accessories to the clothing retail chain TK Maxx anytime in April, to contribute towards the fight against kids’ cancer.
Since 2004, the annual campaign, Give up Clothes for Good, has raised a whopping £10 million, with hopes this year to raise an additional £2.5 million for Cancer Research UK.
When Beth Zilbert trained her rescued Golden retriever, Luke, to become a therapy dog, she had no idea that one day he would help her survive her own trauma.
“Luke was found wandering the streets after Hurricane Katrina,” says Zilbert, of Lake Charles, La. The pound that was keeping him sensed he was special and pleaded with Zilbert to adopt him.
The World Trade Center hero who saved thousands of lives on 9/11 will now be remembered each year by the federal government, with the creation of the Rick Rescorla National Award for Resilience that will be given to civilians who respond extraordinarily to disasters.
If you haven’t heard of Rick’s heroics, which were memorialized by documentary films and even an opera, he was Vice President of Security for Morgan Stanley, on September 11, 2001, when he personally led a massive evacuation of that company’s 2,700 employees. All but six of the workers in the South Tower survived. Rick Rescorla was one of those killed and was last seen walking back up the stairs to rescue more people.
At the tenth anniversary commemoration in NYC last Fall, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said “Since the 9/11 attacks, we have seen exceptional models of resilience all around us.” To honor those exceptional efforts, she unveiled the Department’s plan to create a national award inspired by the actions and resilience of Rick Rescorla.
The Rick Rescorla National Award for Resilience will honor superior leadership and innovation by a non-governmental individual or organization, emphasizing leadership in effective preparation, response, and recovery in the face of disasters. It will be awarded for the first time starting September 2012. (See information below about how to nominate someone.)
Nominees for the new National Award for Resilience need only be non-governmental individuals residing legally in the United States or its territories or a US organization that has demonstrated outstanding response to a natural or human caused incident during the previous year, saving lives or property because of planning and preparation. Nominees can expect to be used to illustrate excellence in the area of disaster preparedness and response.
The nomination period ends on May 15, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. All nominations must be submitted by email to the following DHS email address: [email protected]. Nomination forms (downloaded .doc) — as well as Frequently Asked Questions — can be found on the web site, dhs.gov.
See the Rick Rescorla tribute website at RickRescorla.com
At first glance, today’s high-level event in the United Nations General Assembly would appear to confirm the worst suspicions of UN skeptics. The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is hosting a daylong special session on “Happiness.”
What the heck is going on? More than meets the eye, in fact.
One of the hottest fields in development economics has been, believe it or not, happiness research. And it turns out that the government in Thimpu may have something wise to say on the subject.
Kyle De Souza created the first Masaai night school in East Africa, where he spent seven months building solar and wind infrastructure that could power the lights for villagers who must work in the fields during daylight hours in one of the most impoverished communities in the world.
The mining engineer who graduated from the Curtin University Western Australian School of Mines volunteered his skills in Africa last year to help build a new classroom for orphans who had been abandoned or whose parents had died from AIDS or starvation.
Mr. De Souza, from Perth, said after a month at the orphanage, he received a phone call from community members requesting his skills in woodwork, engineering and project management to assist the building and completion of a school in the Maasai Land where people still live a traditional farming life.
“We started the first Maasai men’s education program which allows men who herd cattle during the day to get an education at night,” said De Souza. “We run classes for them during the day, and night classes between 6pm and 10pm, and currently have more than 40 students enrolled in the program.”
“When the challenge was set to start a school dedicated to Maasai men, I thought to myself, ‘if I can start a mine, I can start a school’.”
The school is already in session with two full time teachers. Practical aspects of the school construction are being used to teach students how to cut wood, use a ruler, as well as teaching them addition and subtraction to calculate the measurements.
“Some of the students have to walk up to 2.5 hours each way to get to school, but regardless of that, they always show up; they are that keen on learning and making something of their lives.”
“We have also started a women’s program which seeks to empower women by giving them the skills to sell their crafts online. The women normally do bead work all day, so we are working on starting a website, called United Maasai, where we help to market the products produced by these women internationally.”
The Maasai school is expected to be fully completed before the end of the year, and will include essentials such as electricity, a library extension, concreted floors, windows, lockable doors, tables, chairs and hygienic areas for children to eat.
Kyle De Souza’s family immigrated to Australia from India in 1995 and share a long-standing involvement in charity work
WATCH a video from Kyle De Souza below…
Thanks to Andrea Barnard for submitting the story, first published on the Curtin University news website.
Kyle De Souza created the first Masaai night school in East Africa, where he spent seven months building solar and wind infrastructure that could power the lights for villagers who must work in the fields during daylight hours in one of the most impoverished communities in the world.
The mining engineer who graduated from the Curtin University Western Australian School of Mines volunteered his skills in Africa last year to help build a new classroom for orphans who had been abandoned or whose parents had died from AIDS or starvation.
Mr. De Souza, from Perth, said after a month at the orphanage, he received a phone call from community members requesting his skills in woodwork, engineering and project management to assist the building and completion of a school in the Maasai Land where people still live a traditional farming life.
Low-cost carrier AirTran had best performance last year among 15 airlines that carry at least 1 percent of domestic passenger volume, according to an annual report released Monday.
Overall, airlines improved their performance last year as judged by four measures — passengers who endured lost bags, delayed flights, lousy service or bumpings from full flights.
An announcement by WestJet on Sunday seemed too good to be true, especially for parents traveling with little kids.
And considering it was made on April 1, it was.
On April Fools Day, the airline issued a statement saying it would start introducing child-free cabins on certain flights with an exciting VIP area for kids beneath the plane called, “Kargo Kids”.
“I believe that the greatest truths of the universe don’t lie in the study of the stars and planets. They lie deep within us, in the magnificence of our heart, mind, and soul.”
So begins the new book by Anita Moorjani, the true account of one woman’s journey to the edge of death and her medically miraculous healing that followed. (Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer to Near Death to True Healing
“I believe that the greatest truths of the universe don’t lie in the study of the stars and planets. They lie deep within us, in the magnificence of our heart, mind, and soul.”
So begins the new book by Anita Moorjani, the true account of one woman’s journey to the edge of death and her medically miraculous healing that followed. (Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer to Near Death to True Healing
Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy has claimed a landslide victory in a series of election contests which hold the key to Burma’s return from international isolation.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner, Ms. Suu Kyi, along with other leading NLD figures spent much of the last two decades under arrest, but was freed in 2010 in a surprise move by the regime, followed by a series of political reforms.
Suu Kyi won her own election contest with 99 percent of voter support in the poor Kawhmu township she sought to represent.
