The Westminster Dog Show is where purebreds are shampooed, trimmed and blown dry, where they’re hand-fed steak, dressed in bowties and followed around endlessly, but Maverick is an exception. He was found on Craigslist.
“He was a rescue that was abused and neglected and in terrible shape,” Maverick’s owner, Dan Stallings, told ABC News.
Five months after rescuing Maverick, Stallings started entering him in shows, and Maverick started winning, making it to the biggest stage of all.
General Motors earned its largest profit ever in 2011, two years after it nearly collapsed.
Strong sales in the United States and China helped the automaker turn a profit of $7.6 billion, beating its old record of $6.7 billion set during the pickup and SUV boom of 1997.
GM said 47,500 blue-collar workers in the United States will get $7,000 profit-sharing checks in March.
A French Champagne producer is spreading the wealth with his workers after they discovered nearly $1 million in gold coins stashed away in the building’s rafters, according to Agence France Press (AFP).
“One of the workers (was) attacking the building’s ceiling with a crowbar when gold coins started to rain down on him, followed by sacks of gold,” Francois Lange, head of Alexandre Bonnet in Les Riceys France, told AFP.
(READ the story in the Daily News)
Starbucks has raised more than $7 million by selling ‘Create Jobs’ wristbands. The company expects the program to create 2,300 jobs as the money makes its way to small businesses and nonprofits.
The coffee giant has distributed more than 500,000 red, white and blue “Indivisible” wristbands in the last three months, selling them for $5 each, with proceeds funneled to groups offering loans to small businesses and organizations that will create American jobs.
All his life they told him he wasn’t big enough for basketball. Now, the Asian economics major from Harvard, having been cut by two other pro teams, has become a global sensation driving his once-faltering team, the New York Knicks, to 7 straight wins. His sudden emergence as a New York phenomenon has earned him nicknames like, “Lin-sanity” and “Super Lintendo”.
Until recently, the Taiwanese-American was confined to his team’s bench and sleeping on his brother-in-law’s couch to save money. Since February 4th, however, the 6-foot-3-inch guard has been the hottest thing in American sports, scoring more points in his first five starts (136) than anyone since 1977, topping stars like Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal.
As a Muslim woman who teaches classes about the Holocaust at a Catholic college, I am constantly frustrated by the media coverage of the Middle East which overwhelmingly serves to highlight and entrench national and religious tensions, prejudice and conflict.
A documentary recently aired on Al Jazeera was an extremely heartening exception to the rule. The film, Jerusalem SOS, told the stories of Jews and Muslims saving each other’s lives.
Claims for jobless benefits unexpectedly dropped last week to the lowest level in four years, showing the U.S. job market is on the mend.
Applications for unemployment insurance payments decreased 13,000 in the week ended Feb. 11 to 348,000, the fewest since March 2008, Labor Department figures showed today.
You don’t often find the words “health care” and “good news” in the same sentence, but in a new Public Television documentary, we learn that while groups on all sides argue the merits and limitations of reform initiatives, a few American communities are already getting the job done. Correspondent T.R. Reid reports they are accomplishing what few have been able to do – deliver quality care for reasonable cost, and in some cases cover just about everybody in town.
The hopeful stories profiled in “U.S. Health Care: The Good News,” begin with Mesa County, Colorado, the region of the country with the nation’s lowest health care spending, according to the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care. Outcomes there are just as good as places that spend twice as much.
You don’t often find the words “health care” and “good news” in the same sentence, but in a new Public Television documentary, we learn that while groups on all sides argue the merits and limitations of reform initiatives, a few American communities are already getting the job done. Correspondent T.R. Reid reports they are accomplishing what few have been able to do – deliver quality care for reasonable cost, and in some cases cover just about everybody in town.
The hopeful stories profiled in “U.S. Health Care: The Good News,” begin with Mesa County, Colorado, the region of the country with the nation’s lowest health care spending, according to the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care. Outcomes there are just as good as places that spend twice as much.
When the administrative chief of a western Kenyan village received an urgent 4 a.m. call that thieves were invading a school teacher’s home, he sent a message on Twitter. Within minutes residents in this village of stone houses gathered outside the home, and the thugs fled.
The tweet from Francis Kariuki was only his latest attempt to improve village life by using the micro-blogging site Twitter. Kariuki regularly sends out tweets that have found missing children and farm animals, showing that the power of social media has reached even into a dusty African village.
Who says science can’t be fun?
At the second annual White House Science Fair last week, President Obama got the chance to shoot a marshmallow across the State Dining Room using 14-year-old inventor Joey Hudy’s “Extreme Marshmallow Cannon.” Hudy designed and built the machine, which can launch the fluffy white confections up to 175 feet away using pressurized air.
“This is great!” exclaimed Obama, as the two pumped up machine using a tire pump. “The Secret Service is not too happy right now.”
The White House Science Fair featured research and inventions from more than 100 students. From robots in the Blue Room to rockets in the Red Room to marshmallow cannons in the State Dining Room, projects showcased the talents of America’s next generation of scientists, engineers, inventors, and innovators. One girl has even designed a targeted cancer treatment using nanotechnology.
Taylor Wilson, 17, of Reno, Nevada (pictured below) showed off his research on novel techniques for detecting nuclear threats and developed an environmentally friendly, cost-effective, and highly sensitive system capable of detecting small quantities of nuclear material.
Hayley Hoverter, a 16 year-old student from Downtown Business Magnet High School in Los Angeles, wants to reduce waste with her idea for a patent-pending dissolvable sugar packet.
After viewing some of the displays and talking with students about their work, the President addressed students, parents, and teachers in the East Room.
“When students excel in math and science, they help America compete for the jobs and industries of the future,” said President Obama. “That’s why I’m proud to celebrate outstanding students at the White House Science Fair, and to announce new steps my Administration and its partners are taking to help more young people succeed in these critical subjects.”
Hudy, from Phoenix, Arizona, maker of the Extreme Marshmallow Cannon — and an LED Cube Microcontroller Shield — has started a small business to sell his inventions.
WATCH the video below, to see the President and Joey firing the cannon. Read about all the science projects in the WhiteHouse.gov press release.
Who says science can’t be fun?
At the second annual White House Science Fair last week, President Obama got the chance to shoot a marshmallow across the State Dining Room using 14-year-old inventor Joey Hudy’s “Extreme Marshmallow Cannon.” Hudy designed and built the machine, which can launch the fluffy white confections up to 175 feet away using pressurized air.
“This is great!” exclaimed Obama, as the two pumped up machine using a tire pump. “The Secret Service is not too happy right now.”
Valentine’s Day can be the bane of any person’s year. It can fling daggers of loneliness, rather than gentle arrows from Cupid. Instead of dreading another February 14th, use the science of mindfulness to make a healthy relationship resolution.
Clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist, Marsha Lucas, PhD, author of Rewire Your Brain for Love: Creating Vibrant Relationships Using the Science of Mindfulness
Luckily, the latest neuroscience – from researchers at Harvard, UCLA, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Cambridge — supports her theory that we can literally rewire our brains.
Here’s Marsha’s advice for any lover just in time for Valentine’s Day.
_____________________________
Valentine’s Day can be the bane of any person’s year. It can fling daggers of loneliness, rather than gentle arrows from Cupid. Instead of dreading another February 14th, use the science of mindfulness to make a healthy relationship resolution.
Clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist, Marsha Lucas, PhD, author of Rewire Your Brain for Love: Creating Vibrant Relationships Using the Science of Mindfulness
Luckily, the latest neuroscience – from researchers at Harvard, UCLA, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Cambridge — supports her theory that we can literally rewire our brains.
Here’s Marsha’s advice for any lover just in time for Valentine’s Day.
_____________________________
McDonald’s Corp., the world’s largest restaurant chain, will require its pork suppliers to get rid of gestation pens that animal-rights groups have long deemed cruel to pigs.
The statement, released yesterday in coordination with the Humane Society of the U.S., said the company will require its suppliers to submit plans by May to phase out the tiny metal cages.
More than 65 years ago, Evan Kaufmann’s great-grandparents were murdered in the Auschwitz death camp. Now he is taking the ice for the German national hockey team.
Being chosen to play for the national team carried with it mixed emotions for Kaufmann, a Jew, but “Germany is so different today than it was back then,” he said. “I wish more people could come over here today so they wouldn’t have to carry that stereotype forever.”
“I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett …”
So begins the first love letter to 19th century poet Elizabeth Barrett from her future husband, fellow poet Robert Browning.
Now, in honor of Valentine’s Day, their 573 love letters, which capture their courtship, their blossoming love and their forbidden marriage, are available online for the first time as part of a digitization collaboration between Wellesley and Baylor University in Texas.
(READ the AP story in the Guardian – See the letters online here)
[Editor’s Note: The website of digital letters may be very busy today and may not be working optimally.]
With a parade of tributes to Whitney Houston saturating the news this week, in the wake of her untimely death Saturday at age 48, one video caught our eye.
In Dubai, outside the world’s tallest building, the fountains were synchronized with Whitney’s signature hit, I Will Always Love You.
After many years of searching for his life’s purpose, James Smith, 22, of Hickory, N.C., finally discovered his passion in the world of art. Last November he started using spray paint, ink and acrylics in combination with black lights to create neon explosions of color on canvas or clothing. He found a niche and the future looked as bright as his paintings.
He booked live painting performances and won a competition for the chance to display in a local art gallery. But the opportunities before him required an infusion of cash to keep up with the demand for more artwork and supplies.
Last Wednesday, his mother, the Rev. Susan Smith, asked what more she could do to help. Her son had moved back in with her recently and she could see his intense desire to succeed. James replied, “Pray that things get better.” And, that very night, things did get better.
He knew his mom had done all she could as a single parent. His father, Michael Smith, passed away suddenly in 2007 and it had been a tough time for her during the recession, and beyond, with financial struggles continuing in the non-profit agency for which she worked.
In the middle of the night James woke her up exclaiming, “Mom! You won’t believe what I found!”
He had been in the basement looking through old books that had been packed up years ago when the family downsized to a smaller home after Michael passed away. James’s father had always loved picture books, and had a habit of tucking special items like pressed flowers, holiday cards, pictures, and personal notes between the pages in their library.
James was looking through a box of books where many had molded from the damp basement. The last book in the box was a gift from his dad to his mom. It was a 1926 fairy tale book called “Tales Told From Holland”. Between the pages he found 30 crisp $100 bills — three thousand dollars.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. His father had left no explanation about where the money came from, but surely it was meant to bless his family in the same way the other items tucked away would be found and enjoyed one day.
James immediately shared some of the money with his mother and sent some to his sister in Charlotte.
He is now able to lease studio space where he will be able to produce much larger works, and take more orders for commissioned pieces. He is planning to fly to Texas in March to do live performance painting with one of his favorite musicians, Ernest Gonzalez of San Antonio. He is buzzing with excitement about executing his ideas, purchasing supplies in bulk, and realizing his lifelong vision for starting his own business.
When asked what finding this money from his father means to him, he said, “I am fortunate that my dad continues to impact my life, even after he is gone.”
After many years of searching for his life’s purpose, James Smith, 22, of Hickory, N.C., finally discovered his passion in the world of art. Last November he started using spray paint, ink and acrylics in combination with black lights to create neon explosions of color on canvas or clothing. He found a niche and the future looked as bright as his paintings.
He booked live painting performances and won a competition for the chance to display in a local art gallery. But the opportunities before him required an infusion of cash to keep up with the demand for more artwork and supplies.
Last Wednesday, his mother, the Rev. Susan Smith, asked what more she could do to help. Her son had moved back in with her recently and she could see his intense desire to succeed. James replied, “Pray that things get better.” And, that very night, things did get better.
