A special delivery for one Connecticut mom made for a dramatic snow story with happy ending.
Cynthia Mello was expecting her second child when her water broke 11 days early. It happened during the height of Thursday’s snowstorm.
“I told my husband to start shoveling the driveway. He came back in minutes later and told me there was too much snow.”
(READ the story at MSNBC)
After 7 years, Canadian lottery officials say they’ve finally awarded to the correct people a multimillion-dollar jackpot that authorities say was fraudulently claimed by someone else.
Seven construction workers who played the lottery together in December 2003 were awarded $12.5 million plus $2.35 million in interest after being declared the rightful jackpot winners.
“After more than seven long years, the right prize is going to the right people,” a beaming Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission (OLC) chair Paul Godfrey said before the winners were introduced at a ceremony.
The winners of the Lotto Super 7 were identified through an exhaustive investigation by Ontario Provincial Police, supported by OLG’s own investigative team, and information provided by OLG’s new Data Analysis and Retrieval Technology (DART) system.
“They tracked us down after seven years! The OLG is great,” said James Reaman, one of the group members.
A lottery retailer’s relative claimed to be the winner after the clerk had not disclosed to a buyer that he had won a free ticket, which later turned out to be a winning ticket.
The winning group members, who at one time all worked together, are:
* Adam Barnett, 32 years old, of Grimsby
* Daniel Campbell, 37 years old, of St. Catharines
* Jason Dykema, 34 years old, of Burlington
* Daniel MacGregor, 36 years old, of Burford
* Michael Maddocks, 35 years old, of Beamsville
* James Reaman, 40 years old, of Ridgeville
* Joseph Reaman, 35 years old, of Ridgeville
(SEE the great photo of the 7 winners, and read more at Toronto Star)
After 7 years, Canadian lottery officials say they’ve finally awarded to the correct people a multimillion-dollar jackpot that authorities say was fraudulently claimed by someone else.
Seven construction workers who played the lottery together in December 2003 were awarded $12.5 million plus $2.35 million in interest after being declared the rightful jackpot winners.
“After more than seven long years, the right prize is going to the right people,” a beaming Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission (OLC) chair Paul Godfrey said before the winners were introduced at a ceremony.
Last August, Renee Varela’s 18-year-old son, Anthony, was killed by a drunk driver. His heart was transplanted into the chest of Eric Ford, a husband and father of two in Texas.
After the transplant, Varela held a stethoscope to Ford’s chest and, for the first time, heard her son’s heart beating outside of his body. Varela and Ford met for the first time in Dallas.
After her son’s death, Varela had only seconds to make up her mind whether or not she wanted her son’s organs to be donated. Ford was on his death bed at the time, his kidneys and heart failing.
Tragedy brought the two families together — an extended family now bound by an act of grace.
(WATCH the video below, or read the full story at NBC-Dallas)
Sign up for Organ Donation Today!
View more news videos at: http://www.nbcdfw.com/video.
Last August, Renee Varela’s 18-year-old son, Anthony, was killed by a drunk driver. His heart was transplanted into the chest of Eric Ford, a husband and father of two in Texas.
After the transplant, Varela held a stethoscope to Ford’s chest and, for the first time, heard her son’s heart beating outside of his body. Varela and Ford met for the first time in Dallas.
After her son’s death, Varela had only seconds to make up her mind whether or not she wanted her son’s organs to be donated. Ford was on his death bed at the time, his kidneys and heart failing.
It’s not good news when a major league baseball pitcher hurts his shoulder and misses an entire season, but it is inspiring that he turns down the millions of dollars that his contract would pay for him simply sitting in the dugout all year.
Kansas City Royals pitcher, Gil Meche explained:
Gross domestic product grew at a 3.2 percent annual rate in fourth-quarter 2010, up from a 2.6 percent pace in the third quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis just reported.
This morning’s report shows that GDP has expanded for six straight quarters.
(READ the story at NPR.org)
Ford reported earnings of $6.6 billion last year, its highest net income in more than a decade.
The auto manufacturer’s U.S. sales jumped 20 percent in 2010 as it became the top-selling brand in the nation.
Revenues rose 3 percent to $120.9 billion.
(READ more of the AP report at NPR.org)
The family of a Syracuse-area teenage girl attacked inside Wegmans, issued a statement thanking Mustafa Said and Chris Patino, the two young men who bravely intervened to save her life.
Accolades are also flowing on Facebook along with calls for official recognition of the courageous boys. A donation of $100 reward arrived via telephone to the Sheriff’s office.
“There were people watching and well I don’t have that kind of heart to stand there and watch while a girl gets killed. He was sucking the life out of her and some guy was taking pictures and we were like, we can’t just stand there. It’s time to act.”
Comments on the news website revealed at least one person who “learned a lesson” about stereotypes after seeing the heroes, who were young men of color, juxtaposed against the photo of the white attacker, which the viewer assumed at first glance would have been that of the victim.
(READ the story at WHEC.com)
According to the Afghanistan education minister, the Taliban’s leadership is prepared to drop its ban on girls’ schools, having undergone an “attitudinal and cultural change.”
Farooq Wardak said the Taliban’s leadership had undergone a profound change since losing power after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and was prepared to scrap its policy on girls being educated.
Dr. Roseanna Means is bringing quality medical care — for free — to women in Boston’s homeless shelters. She and her nonprofit organization, Women of Means, have helped 2,500 women and children each year since 1999.
Dr. Means gave up a lucrative medical career to work with Boston’s homeless population, and along with 17 volunteer doctors have together donated $500,000 in services annually.
WATCH the video below, or read the story at CNN Heroes…
Native-American Alaskans hosted a traditional potlatch on Tuesday for about 400 soldiers and officers getting ready to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Donations of moose meat and fish came from throughout the area. Although food was a highlight, the troops also enjoyed traditional songs and dances.
“The food is awesome. It just keeps coming,” said Staff Sgt. Jose Perez, 27, of the 6th Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment. “I think it is outstanding to see this type of culture.”
(READ the story at Anchorage Daily News)
This week, the Kennedy Center is celebrating 50 years of American promotion of the arts.
People forget how much goodness is fostered in society by culture and entertainment.
In Charles Dickens’ “Hard Times”, one of his shorter novels often taught in schools, Mr. Sleary, who runs a circus, says people need to be amused. They can’t always be working or learning. They’re not built that way. By the end of the story, we know Sleary is right.
The first shipment of donated hay made its way to a Yellowstone County ranch to help save hundreds of starving horses in what could be one of the largest animal abuse cases in Montana history.
Hay — 100 tons — was donated by the Valley M Ranch in Red Lodge and hauled to the Home Place Ranch where investigators say horses were left without food, water or veterinary care by the ranch’s former owner.
Offers to help the horses were pouring in from around the world.
(READ the KULR story at MSNBC)
That crazy idea simmering on the back your brain could nab you a bag full of cash.
If it’s awesome.
The newly formed Toronto Chapter of the Awesome Foundation is now accepting wild ideas and crackpot schemes. The best of the bunch will get a paper bag stuffed with $1,000.
“It’s about turning random flashes of half-baked genius into reality,” says Matt Thompson, the Toronto chapter’s Trustee of Awesome.
(READ the story in the Toronto Star)
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has once again topped 12,000 — a level not seen since the summer of 2008, when the deepening financial crisis was on the verge of bringing the bull market to its knees. Stock analysts say it can provide investors with a much-needed psychological boost.
Also more confident, the American consumer may have resolved to be more optimistic about the U.S. economy this year. The consumer confidence index shot up this month to its highest level in 8 months.
(READ stock news at SmartMoney.com and consumer report at The Atlantic)
An original grant of $30 million made by the U.S. Agency for International Development back in 1995 to assist the economic transition in Albania after the fall of the Soviet Union has born fruit — enough so that in a ceremony last week, half the money was returned to the U.S. Treasury with thanks to the American people.
The Albanian-American Enterprise Fund (AAEF) used the money to promote private sector development in Albania by investing in a wide array of private enterprises and providing management advice, training, and best practices to companies. The Fund has completed approximately 62 investment transactions with over 32 Albanian companies, contributing an estimated $725 million to the GDP and creating over 3,500 jobs.
An original grant of $30 million made by the U.S. Agency for International Development back in 1995 to assist the economic transition in Albania after the fall of the Soviet Union has born fruit — enough so that in a ceremony last week, half the money was returned to the U.S. Treasury with thanks to the American people.
The Albanian-American Enterprise Fund (AAEF) used the money to promote private sector development in Albania by investing in a wide array of private enterprises and providing management advice, training, and best practices to companies. The Fund has completed approximately 62 investment transactions with over 32 Albanian companies, contributing an estimated $725 million to the GDP and creating over 3,500 jobs.
Volunteers from across the country are rebuilding oyster reefs along the Gulf of Mexico shoreline, hoping to revive oyster beds weakened by the BP oil spill and decades of overharvesting and human encroachment.
Donning boots and gloves, 550 volunteers descended on Mobile Bay over the weekend with 16,000 bags of oyster shells, reef building material to complete the first in a series of shoreline habitat projects aimed at restoring Alabama’s Gulf coast.
