American International Group Inc. is selling part of its stake in AIA Group Ltd. to raise $6 billion as it continues to repay the government bailout that prevented the company’s collapse during the 2008 financial crisis.
AIG has been steadily paying back its debt and according to a government watchdog, owed U.S. taxpayers $50 billion as of Dec. 31.
Nestlé has become the first major candy manufacturer in the United Kingdom to remove all artificial ingredients from its entire confectionery product line.
The company has replaced artificial colors, flavors and preservatives with natural alternatives in all 79 candy products on the market.
Carrot, hibiscus, radish, and lemon are just some of the natural ingredients Nestlé has used to provide color or flavor in popular products such as Rolo, Kit Kat and Smarties.
Nestlé has become the first major candy manufacturer in the United Kingdom to remove all artificial ingredients from its entire confectionery product line.
The company has replaced artificial colors, flavors and preservatives with natural alternatives in all 79 candy products on the market.
Carrot, hibiscus, radish, and lemon are just some of the natural ingredients Nestlé has used to provide color or flavor in popular products such as Rolo, Kit Kat and Smarties.
Since September 2010, Minecraft — the video game focused on creativity and building — has attracted millions of fans and become a huge hit.
The game’s Swedish creator, Markus “Notch” Persson, paid homage to his 20 employees Thursday by announcing on Twitter that he would pass along his $3 million in dividends to workers at his company, Mojang.
“Every single Mojangsta is a massive part of the reason Mojang is the best place on earth to work at right now,” Notch tweeted.
Since September 2010, Minecraft — the video game focused on creativity and building — has attracted millions of fans and become a huge hit.
The game’s Swedish creator, Markus “Notch” Persson, paid homage to his 20 employees Thursday by announcing on Twitter that he would pass along his $3 million in dividends to workers at his company, Mojang.
“Every single Mojangsta is a massive part of the reason Mojang is the best place on earth to work at right now,” Notch tweeted.
Current Israeli President Shimon Peres told Barbara Walters on Wednesday, “I think our relations with Obama are in a good shape.”
Appearing to disagree with Republican presidential candidates who say President Obama is working against Israel, Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, said, “There are usually a great deal of speculations… but right now, we act together and I think, in full agreement.”
Could “green” be the new black?
While stilettos are hitting the catwalks at Paris Fashion Week, students at London’s Kingston University have taken up the challenge of trying to lower the industry’s carbon footprint by using biodegradable materials to produce luxury clothes, shoes and accessories.
The stilettos from Kingston students are made from pistachio nuts and coffee beans, while apparel is being created out of orange peel, fungi or hemp.
Over a 40 year span, scuba enthusiast Ken Nedimyer watched helplessly as two of the most important corals went into drastic decline. Today, they are on the endangered species list and the reefs of the Florida Keys are among the most threatened in the world.
Reefs are often referred to as the rainforests of the sea. They attract more marine life than anywhere else in the ocean because of the natural shelter they provide. They also provide protection from storms for our coastal areas.
That passion led to Nedimyer starting the Coral Restoration Foundation, which has grown more than 25,000 staghorn and elkhorn corals in underwater nurseries. He and his staff of volunteers work three days a week maintaining the nurseries just off Key Largo, which cover more than an acre of the ocean floor.
Over a 40 year span, scuba enthusiast Ken Nedimyer watched helplessly as two of the most important corals went into drastic decline. Today, they are on the endangered species list and the reefs of the Florida Keys are among the most threatened in the world.
Reefs are often referred to as the rainforests of the sea. They attract more marine life than anywhere else in the ocean because of the natural shelter they provide. They also provide protection from storms for our coastal areas.
That passion led to Nedimyer starting the Coral Restoration Foundation, which has grown more than 25,000 staghorn and elkhorn corals in underwater nurseries. He and his staff of volunteers work three days a week maintaining the nurseries just off Key Largo, which cover more than an acre of the ocean floor.
Seven-time Grammy Award-winning singer and musician John Mayer launches his first U.S. tour in two years on April 9, with 18 concerts that will raise money to benefit US veterans. The tour leads into Mayer’s upcoming fifth album Born and Raised, which will be released in May.
Mayer became passionate about supporting U.S. war veterans following a visit to the Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune in North Carolina four years ago. He has since spent time with active military and veterans while touring, and partnered with the Northern California Institute of Research and Education (NCIRE) to provide veterans with a healthy reintegration into civilian life, helping to heal the battle scars caused by the trauma of war.
Seven-time Grammy Award-winning singer and musician John Mayer launches his first U.S. tour in two years on April 9, with 18 concerts that will raise money to benefit US veterans. The tour leads into Mayer’s upcoming fifth album Born and Raised, which will be released in May.
Mayer became passionate about supporting U.S. war veterans following a visit to the Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune in North Carolina four years ago. He has since spent time with active military and veterans while touring, and partnered with the Northern California Institute of Research and Education (NCIRE) to provide veterans with a healthy reintegration into civilian life, helping to heal the battle scars caused by the trauma of war.
At a time when many States are facing a power crisis in India, a group of electrical engineering students have taken up an initiative to use solar lamps to light up study centers in remote villages reeled under constant power cuts.
The E Cell initiative team from SSN College of Engineering plans to scale up this social venture. “We plan to rope in our juniors so that they can take it forward. We are also confident of getting in more sponsorship so that we can buy more lamps.”
Archaeologists have long held that North America remained unpopulated until about 15,000 years ago, when Siberian people walked or boated into Alaska and then moved down the West Coast.
But a dark, tapered stone blade, nearly eight inches long and still sharp, found near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, turned out to be 22,000 years old, suggesting that its makers probably paddled from Europe and arrived in America thousands of years ahead of the western migration.
For years, our Golden Retriever, Shakira, had the ability to track an incoming missile – a yellow tennis ball, I mean – better than the air defenses of most of the world’s countries. Her ability to lock on to a target and pull in the prize, coupled with her speed in the 100-yard dash, would have made NFL scouts drool like a Bloodhound, sure they’d found the next hall of fame wide receiver.
Shakira is an athlete, a hard-bodied, golden phenom who never has an off day. If you threw it, she would retrieve it. And beg you to throw it again. And again. My arm would fall off long before my tail-wagging retriever would allow me to put down the ball.
These days, though, she wouldn’t notice if I stopped throwing the ball because she can’t see what I’m doing anymore. In just two days, 12-year-old Shakira went from being able to track an airborne tennis ball at a dead run to not being able to see a spoonful of canned dog food held two feet in front of her nose. (Read more of the article by By Dr. Marty Becker, below)
For years, our Golden Retriever, Shakira, had the ability to track an incoming missile – a yellow tennis ball, I mean – better than the air defenses of most of the world’s countries. Her ability to lock on to a target and pull in the prize, coupled with her speed in the 100-yard dash, would have made NFL scouts drool like a Bloodhound, sure they’d found the next hall of fame wide receiver.
Shakira is an athlete, a hard-bodied, golden phenom who never has an off day. If you threw it, she would retrieve it. And beg you to throw it again. And again. My arm would fall off long before my tail-wagging retriever would allow me to put down the ball.
These days, though, she wouldn’t notice if I stopped throwing the ball because she can’t see what I’m doing anymore. In just two days, 12-year-old Shakira went from being able to track an airborne tennis ball at a dead run to not being able to see a spoonful of canned dog food held two feet in front of her nose. (Read more of the article by By Dr. Marty Becker, below)
Hundreds of volunteers pitched in to help the American communities hit hard by tornadoes that ravaged the Midwest and the South.
Young people worked alongside the very old, strangers helping strangers. Some took time off from their regular jobs to labor for their neighbors.
“It doesn’t matter if you know them or not… It’s a small town; it’s what you do,” said a nurse who hauled debris alongside a retired school teacher.
(WATCH the Making a Difference video below from MSNBC)
Hundreds of volunteers pitched in to help the American communities hit hard by tornadoes that ravaged the Midwest and the South.
Young people worked alongside the very old, strangers helping strangers. Some took time off from their regular jobs to labor for their neighbors.
“It doesn’t matter if you know them or not… It’s a small town; it’s what you do,” said a nurse who hauled debris alongside a retired school teacher.
An architect who uses recycled building materials from historic buildings torn down to make way for China’s megacities has won architecture’s most prestigious international award, the 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize.
Wang Shu, 48, whose Hangzhou-based firm Amateur Architecture Studio has just four permanent staff, was widely regarded as a long shot to win the $100,000 prize that has previously been awarded to celebrity architects such as Norman Foster and Frank Gehry, CNN reported.
“For myself, being an artisan or a craftsman, is being an amateur or almost the same thing,” Wang said in a press release, using the word in its true meaning as one who does something for love rather than money or professional accolades.
Howard Chudacoff, a cultural historian at Brown University, recently published a history of child’s play arguing that for most of human history what children did when they played was roam in packs large or small, engaging in freewheeling imaginative play: “They improvised their own play; they regulated their play; they made up their own rules.”
But, in the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff says, the way that children spend their time has changed. A growing number of psychologists believe that these changes in what children do has also changed kids’ cognitive and emotional development.
Pop star Lady Gaga launched her new foundation with some powerful friends at Harvard Wednesday, a non-profit charity whose mission is to “foster a more accepting society” and help youth “challenge meanness and cruelty”.
The singer was joined by Oprah Winfrey, spiritual leader Deepak Chopra, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to kick off the online Born This Way Foundation.
