Billionaire businessman Warren Buffett is getting into the solar business by buying one of the world’s largest solar PV plants — the $2 billion Topaz project under development in southern California.
Buffet’s utility, MidAmerican Energy Holdings, is making the acquisition – the 550 megawatt project, due online in 2015, is being developed by First Solar using its thin-film solar panels.
Paralympic silver medallist Monique van der Vorst has miraculously become an able-bodied Olympic hopeful after a crash reversed her paralysis.
Paralysed from the hip down since she was 13, the 27-year-old handcyclist was hit by a bicycle last year while training in her wheelchair for the 2012 London Paralympics.
While recovering from the trauma, van der Vorst’s feet started to tingle and miraculously she began to move them again.
Over the past three decades, gold and silver coins have turned up during the holidays in the Salvation Army’s red kettles in at least 10 states, including Illinois, Colorado, Texas and Florida.
While some people drop a few dollars into The Salvation Army’s iconic red kettles at this time of year, others emerge and discreetly share diamond rings, real silver and rare gold coins — and many choose to do so anonymously.
So far this year, a diamond ring wrapped up in a dollar bill and valued at $5,000 was left by an anonymous donor in Spokane, Wash. and in Bloomington, Ill. a serial giver has left another gold coin in a habit lasting 20 years.
Also in Spokane, a silver coin wrapped inside a note that read: “I’ve saved this ounce of silver for twenty years, I’m unemployed for 13 months, my house is in foreclosure, I’m filing for bankruptcy and at 61 my retirement is shot but I still know there are families in worse shape.” (The coin’s estimated value is $30. Salvation Army officials stressed how much they cherish both the donation and its message.)
(WATCH the video below, or read more of the story at MSNBC)
Over the past three decades, gold and silver coins have turned up during the holidays in the Salvation Army’s red kettles in at least 10 states, including Illinois, Colorado, Texas and Florida.
While some people drop a few dollars into The Salvation Army’s iconic red kettles at this time of year, others emerge and discreetly share diamond rings, real silver and rare gold coins — and many choose to do so anonymously.
So far this year, a diamond ring wrapped up in a dollar bill and valued at $5,000 was left by an anonymous donor in Spokane, Wash. and in Bloomington, Ill. a serial giver has left another gold coin in a habit lasting 20 years.
You can’t put a price on the importance of medical innovation, but $100,000 will do nicely for a Cupertino, California high school senior.
Angela Zhang was among the top scientific students in the finals of the 2011 Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology last weekend at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Competition judges compared Zhang’s created microscopic nanoparticle to a “Swiss Army knife of cancer treatment”.
(READ the full story at Mercury News)
Mayan experts want to dispel any belief that the ancient Mayan calendar predicted a world apocalypse next year.
“We have to be clear about this. There is no prophecy for 2012,” said Erik Velasquez, an etchings specialist in Mexico. “It’s a marketing fallacy.”
One of two remaining leaders of the Shining Path guerrilla group in Peru said his troops will cease attacks and is calling for a truce to start peace negotiations with the government.
Known as Comrade Artemio, Jose Flores Hala told journalists Friday in his jungle hideout that he ‘isn’t going to deny’ that the government won.
Jay-Z didn’t graduate from high school, but he’s encouraging others to value their education.
The rapper announced Thursday that he will perform two shows at New York’s Carnegie Hall in February to benefit the Shawn Carter Scholarship Foundation and the United Way of New York City.
“Education is super important,” Jay-Z said.
Yesterday marked the 70th anniversary of the attack on the US Navy base at Pearl Harbor, and “a day that will live in infamy”.
It is augustly remembered by Roger Hare as the day his father survived, along with many of his shipmates aboard the badly torpedoed USS West Virginia, because of the quick-thinking actions of a single sailor named Sylvester Puccio. And Hare wants everyone to hear the story.
“Typical of that generation, Puccio stayed silent about his heroics out of respect for the piles of heroes he witnessed — the boys who never returned,” wrote Hare in an anniversary column in the Auburn Citizen. “(Puccio’s) daughter, Pam Selden, did not know her dad saved many lives, including my father. So I used old Navy records to prove his action was crucial.”
Determined to spread this story of the man who saved his family — and generations of families, Hare wrote the story for publication. The dramatic rescue of a battleship appears online here under the headline, An Angel Sent By History.
The story now adorns the wall of a museum in Rome, New York where Mr. Puccio still lives.
Heartwarming tributes to Syl Puccio have occurred thanks to Hare’s publicizing of the story, including a high school in Phillips, Wisonsin that raised money to buy a memorial to the hero…
(READ the story at AuburnPub.com)
Syl appears in this local News tribute to the vets of Pearl Harbor (with advertisement)…
Yesterday marked the 70th anniversary of the attack on the US Navy base at Pearl Harbor, and “a day that will live in infamy”.
It is augustly remembered by Roger Hare as the day his father survived, along with many of his shipmates aboard the badly torpedoed USS West Virginia, because of the quick-thinking actions of a single sailor named Sylvester Puccio. And Hare wants everyone to hear the story.
“Typical of that generation, Puccio stayed silent about his heroics out of respect for the piles of heroes he witnessed — the boys who never returned,” wrote Hare in an anniversary column in the Auburn Citizen. “(Puccio’s) daughter, Pam Selden, did not know her dad saved many lives, including my father. So I used old Navy records to prove his action was crucial.”
The two things that have brought Michael and Roslyn Lieb closer together couldn’t be more different: Parkinson’s disease and dance, one slowly taking away, the other giving back in ways they never imagined.
Once a week, they head to an unusual Chicago dance class tailored for Parkinson’s patients.
Their disease is checked at the door as they lose themselves in the slow and graceful movement.
The free classes are offered by an internationally known troupe whose performances blend modern dance, jazz and ballet.
New cancer studies published yesterday are generating considerable excitement and anticipation among cancer specialists, who said in interviews that the results are some of the strongest data seen in years for new breast cancer therapies.
“This is an exciting time; it’s a crazy time, e-mails flowing one way and another,’’ he said. “We’re all talking. We have not been so active in a long time.”
Vermont has again been named the healthiest state in the nation, topping the list for a fifth straight year thanks in part to a high rate of high school graduation and low incidence of infectious disease.
New Hampshire, Connecticut, Hawaii and Massachusetts rounded out the rest of the top five healthiest states, according to United Health Foundation’s 2011 America’s Health Rankings, released on Monday.
All the hard-to-recycle packaging that keeps new Dell computers snug in their cartons but ends up in landfills is being replaced by environmentally-friendly bamboo material.
Not just good for the Earth, as with most eco-friendly upgrades, the step is easily taken for the computer giant because of its money-saving benefit for Dell’s bottom line.
Dell estimates that the decision to switch to sustainable bamboo will save about 70,000 trees this year alone. Because of this switch, Dell’s packaging is now easier to recycle as well as less expensive to produce.
All the hard-to-recycle packaging that keeps new Dell computers snug in their cartons but ends up in landfills is being replaced by environmentally-friendly bamboo material.
Not just good for the Earth, as with most eco-friendly upgrades, the step is easily taken for the computer giant because of its money-saving benefit for Dell’s bottom line.
Dell estimates that the decision to switch to sustainable bamboo will save about 70,000 trees this year alone. Because of this switch, Dell’s packaging is now easier to recycle as well as less expensive to produce.
Just eight months ago, a one-acre plot at the Denver Green School was an unused athletic field, but now that land has come to life with food-bearing vegetation.
“We have harvested over 3,000 pounds of produce from this ground,” said Megan Caley, a coordinator for Sprout City Farms, which partnered to create the garden.
“Kids are eating healthier,” said Frank Coyne, of the public school. “They are excited to eat the tomatoes on the salad bar, they are excited to eat the cucumbers.”
Just eight months ago, a one-acre plot at the Denver Green School was an unused athletic field, but now that land has come to life with food-bearing vegetation.
“We have harvested over 3,000 pounds of produce from this ground,” said Megan Caley, a coordinator for Sprout City Farms, which partnered to create the garden.
“Kids are eating healthier,” said Frank Coyne, of the public school. “They are excited to eat the tomatoes on the salad bar, they are excited to eat the cucumbers.”
Instead of handing counterfeit designer clothes to customs or trading standards to be destroyed, they are being donated to a charity for redistribution to the homeless and vulnerable.
A huge pile of fake Tommy Hilfiger jeans is now in the custody of the His Church charity, which will patch over their labels with the His Church logo.
A businessman has taken charge of local slum children in New Delhi, including some as young as two years old whose impoverished parents sent them out begging on the streets.
He envisioned a brighter future for the youngsters outside his door and agreed to be their daily caretaker, giving them food and hiring tutors to teach them to read.
Over the past decade, he and his wife have brought about 150 children under their wing, eventually operating as the Sunshine Project.
It all began in 2002 when a tailor named Kuku Arora met a tiny toddler called Roshni (right) on his way to work. She had only one hand and was in a state of absolute neglect.
Kuku and his wife Priti started bringing her a bit of food every day, until one morning she had disappeared. The couple missed the girl and started looking for her. They found the two-year-old begging in a very busy main street.
They visited the parents and volunteered to look after the child during the day, providing food, healthcare and education. As the discussion with Roshni’s parents, who lived on the street, became rather heated, more and more children came close to listen and began asking eyes wide open whether they could come, too.
The Sunshine Project was born. It was the very next day that Kuku and Priti began their day care center, helping no less than 17 children.
They rented a room to care for the children between 9 am and 6 pm. The group received tutoring for school, played and danced, visited a nearby park and even watch TV together. They received the gift of a “normal” childhood.
New young children are tutored by older ones, who learn to assume responsibility.
Kuku’s own family has to live without some of the “luxuries” they might otherwise enjoy so they can provide the kids with their community home and one meal a day — often no more than one banana and a biscuit.
But looking into the faces of all the grateful children provides a reward all its own.
To donate or sponsor a child visit the Sunshine Project website.
(READ more about Kuku’s story in CS Monitor)
A businessman has taken charge of local slum children in New Delhi, including some as young as two years old whose impoverished parents sent them out begging on the streets.
He envisioned a brighter future for the youngsters outside his door and agreed to be their daily caretaker, giving them food and hiring tutors to teach them to read.
Over the past decade, he and his wife have brought about 150 children under their wing, eventually operating as the Sunshine Project.
It all began in 2002 when a tailor named Kuku Arora met a tiny toddler called Roshni (right) on his way to work. She had only one hand and was in a state of absolute neglect.
