A Texas judge this morning freed Cornelius Dupree after more than 30 years of wrongful imprisonment.
DNA evidence cleared him of his conviction after the Innocence Project agreed to help disprove his involvement in the robbery and rape of 1979.
“It’s a joy to be free again,” he told reporters.
Dupree served more time in prison than any other person in Texas who was later cleared through DNA testing. Six other Texans who had been exonerated through such testing joined Dupree at the hearing,
A few lost species thought to be extinct have made miraculous reappearances in 2010, like the Sierra Nevada Red Fox, an earthworm that smells like lillies when handled, a slender loris, and the short tailed albatross, pictured here.
The bird’s population had declined since the beginning of the 20th century, when their were millions, to a suspected extinction in the 1940s. Years later, small nesting populations—thought to be as small as 10 individuals—were found on remote islands in the Pacific. And this year, the first nests on US soil were discovered. (Photo by US Fish and Wildlife)
(View the slideshow of 9 comeback species at Treehugger)
A few lost species thought to be extinct have made miraculous reappearances in 2010, like the Sierra Nevada Red Fox, an earthworm that smells like lillies when handled, a slender loris, and the short tailed albatross, pictured here.
The bird’s population had declined since the beginning of the 20th century, when their were millions, to a suspected extinction in the 1940s. Years later, small nesting populations—thought to be as small as 10 individuals—were found on remote islands in the Pacific. And this year, the first nests on US soil were discovered. (Photo by US Fish and Wildlife)
(View the slideshow of 9 comeback species at Treehugger)
In a holiday message, carried in the official state press, North Korea said confrontation between the two Koreas should be defused as early as possible and called for a more determined campaign to improve inter-Korean relations and reunify the country.
(READ the AP story at WTOP)
While rest of the world was thinking about the gifts they would get from Santa, a 15 year-old boy in San Jose was dreaming of giving his time to suffering and hungry families. While all his friends were busy preparing for finals, Raghav Sehtia was busy baking cookies and pastries to sell in his fundraising effort for Second Harvest Food Bank.
does this fundraising all throughout the year – whenever he can squeeze in time from his hectic academic schedule and after-school activities. He makes fliers by hand, then distributes them in the neighborhood: His guarantee of delivering hot fresh bakery earns him quite a few orders and all proceeds go to the Second Harvest.
This Christmas was no different for him. As soon as he read about the locally famous holiday light display in Sunnyvale pulling in crowds, he immediately contacted the homeowner to ask if he could put up his bake sale table in the front yard. Dave Severns not only happily agreed, but also offered to match the donation amount. And come rain, shine or chill, Raghav has on site every weekend.
This year he has raised $1,500, $530.00 at the Christmas light display and the rest from neighborhood sales, family and friends. He’s baked 400 cookies, 10 marble cakes, 100 pastries, 15 berry cobblers and 50 chocolate muffins to date.
Raghav’s Mom once advised him to raise money for college, to help fulfill his dream of attending Harvard classes or going to Spain to learn Spanish in the summer. Raghav curtly said,”If I raise money for myself, I help only one person. If I raise money for others, many can benefit.”
In Middle School, the earnest boy of 12 years wanted to save the environment; he took a pledge of biking to school every day and kept his word. Rain or shine, chill or scorching heat, Raghav biked to school every single day of the school year.
His other commitments include Vice President of his sophomore class, the San Jose Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (as the youngest member ever), an internship with his Assembly Member Jim Beal, volunteering at local Temple on Sundays, and YMCA.
Whenever we hear a story about wayward youth and crime, we can remember to be proud that we have such youths as Raghav Sehtia.
image by Alex Cube
Separated from his family during the Korean War, Sam Han was sheltered by strangers and eventually was adopted by a Minnesota professor and became a successful business executive.
Now Han is lobbying for legislation by the federal government to help give other overseas orphans a shot at making a life for themselves, but his time is running out.
(READ the AP story at NPR News)
The last decade has been the best for UK rivers since the Industrial Revolution, according to the Environment Agency.
“Rivers in England and Wales are at their healthiest for over a century, with otters, salmon and other wildlife returning to many rivers in record numbers in locations across the country.”
(READ the story in the BBC)
Ever since our three teens became interested in current events, probably when they were in fourth or fifth grade, our family has maintained an annual tradition of reading aloud columnist Dave Berry’s Year in Review. Our raucous laughter carries on for 30 minutes amid the witty and poetic observations of one of the country’s best humorists.
A California woman enters the new year with renewed health, thanks to a man she had never even met.
Without knowing her name, Jim Claflin of Chico had given Linda Pickens, 57, one of his kidneys, reviving her and saving her from years of dialysis.
The Chico State University geography professor simply wanted to give, deciding last year to donate a kidney without knowing who the recipient would be.
(READ the story in the Times-Herald)
It’s made a world of difference for young patients staying at the Ronald McDonald House to share a special bond with ‘Hero’, the Rottweiler who has been through several surgeries and chemotherapy himself.
Medically and scientifically, therapy dog visits have proven to lower blood pressure and heart rate (and) calm people down.
And, the therapy visits have proven to benefit Hero in his own recovery, as much as they have helped the children.
(READ the story or WATCH the video from Fox 4-KC)
An Australian entrepreneur, Kym Illman, launched his latest Christmas lights extravaganza, this year synching his and his neighbors lights to music — two homes pulsing in time to the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”. And the six hours Illman and his team spent working to erect the display is also for a good cause—he’s hoping to outdo his annual donations to the Perth’s children’s hospital with $30,000 this year.
The show won the city of Perth’s “Best Lights in Dec 2010” and an International award for best synchronized show in March 2010.
Kym’s sensational Christmas lights display features 65,000 LEDs, 7kilometres of cable, 200 individual light channels all synchronized a musical soundtrack.
Donate to the PMH, Perth’s children’s hospital by clicking here – www.pmhfoundation.com.
(Watch the video below, or see a video NEWS REPORT here)
Instead of trying to lose twenty pounds with a New Year’s resolution, what if you decided to give up eleven habits that keep you stuck in a place you don’t want to be. We all have mindsets, habits and behaviors we’d like to change. Here are eleven of them to give up in 2011.
Instead of trying to lose twenty pounds with a New Year’s resolution, what if you decided to give up eleven habits that keep you stuck in a place you don’t want to be. We all have mindsets, habits and behaviors we’d like to change. Here are eleven of them to give up in 2011.
2010 was a year of disasters — Haitian earthquake, Gulf oil spill and Pakistani flooding — yet it was also a year of stunning generosity, technological prowess, and compassion. These are our top ten picks to highlight the seriously good news that deserves pondering as we move into 2011:
The biggest company in the richest country realized a need to tackle the growing hunger problem in the United States and stepped up to donate $2 billion in food and grants to hunger relief organizations. The five-year initiative, “Fighting Hunger Together,” announced in
May pledges $1.75 billion worth of food from Walmart stores, warehouses and Sam’s Club outlets. $250 million in grants will also support hunger relief organizations, including 10 million for children’s lunch programs during the school year and summer months.
A veteran, Lance Orton, part of a brotherhood of 105 disabled veterans who are street vendors in Times Square showed the world in May that they were not just there to sell, but also to help, alerting police to the ticking car bomb parked illegally on a downtown New York street. The device had apparently started to detonate on a Saturday Night in the busy square. “A state law going back to the civil war gives vending licenses to disabled veterans,” reports ABC News.
This year marked a new day for health insurance in America. For the first time, if you or your children get sick and you want to buy health insurance you can no longer be denied coverage due to illness. Ending some of the worst abuses of the insurance industry, a new law makes it illegal for health insurers to place any limits on the amount of medical care you can receive — previously known as “lifetime (or annual) caps”. Additionally, no company can arbitrarily cancel your policy without the burden of proving fraud, or deny your claims without offering options for appeal. Young people can now remain on family insurance policies until age 26.
A transformative study has uncovered both the key cause and an immediate treatment for Parkinson’s disease. Researchers reported their discovery that brain cells in Parkinson’s patients shut down the energy-producing capacity of fuel that powers healthy brain function, resulting in a devastating shortage. The findings, announced in October, indicate that boosting the energy-producing capacity of the mitochondria with current FDA approved drugs early on may prevent or delay the onset of Parkinson’s.
With coins and dollars, and an occasional diamond ring or gold coin, Americans donated a record $139 million to the Salvation Army’s Red Kettle campaign last Christmas, despite a continued economic slump.
The tally represented a seven percent increase over the previous record announced last year, and came at a time when demand for social services had skyrocketed. Charitable donations in the UK that year similarly rose by £400 million to total of £10.6 billion.
One month later, when the world heard the news of the devastating January Haitian earthquake, donations began to pour in. For the first time, mobile phone donations of $10 each racked up huge totals — in excess of $30 million by month’s end. Even the homeless were contributing to the Haitian disaster and by year’s end, $3.5 billion in funds or in-kind contributions had been raised, with more pledges not yet delivered.
No one know why, but violent crime and property crime rates continued to fall across the US and Canada, despite continued joblessness. Reports of violent crime decreased 6.2 percent, dropping for the fourth straight year and property-crime reports were down 2.8 percent across the United States in the first six months of 2010, compared with the same period a year earlier. This follows a three-year trend of decreasing crime rates, with property crimes hitting a 20-year low.
Also notable, the level of crime in England and Wales had fallen to its lowest since records began in 1981. The annual British Crime Survey showed offenses fell by 9 percent in 2009-10, allaying fears that a deep recession would cause a jump in criminality.
A retiring CEO gave his entire company to the workers who have made his natural food company a success. Founder of Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods, Bob Moore, turned 81 on Feb. 15 and announced the news to his employees in Oregon.
With everyone at his birthday celebration, Bob announced the new Employee Stock Ownership Plan that would transform Red Mill, which generates revenues exceeding $20 million a year, into an employee-owned company.
Despite the global economic downturn, the world is still on track to meet a key U.N. goal of halving the number of people living in poverty by 2015, according to a report released in June. The UN confirmed that the overall poverty rate is expected to fall to 15 percent by 2015, which is half the number seen in 1990, with the U.N. meeting its Millennium Development Goal.
More than 50 of the wealthiest families and individuals in the United States have committed to giving away the majority of their wealth to charitable causes before they die, by joining the “Giving Pledge”, launched this summer by billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
The United States has roughly 400 billionaires, about 40 percent of the world’s total, according to Forbes. The 57 signatories who have pledged to date could generate $600 billion dollars for charity.
Everyone remembers the number one feel-good story of the year: the rescue of 33 Chilean miners in October.
The world sat in awe of the technological wizardry of rescuers who freed the trapped miners from more than 2,000 feet of rock, through a narrow makeshift escape shaft. The unprecedented and complex rescue operation utilized expertise and materials donated from around the world, helping to free men who had been underground for 69 days — more than anyone on record. They emerged, each riding in a tiny capsule for 15 minutes, to the cheers of rescuers, officials and family members. Large video screens were set up in public places across Chile to let people watch and cheer as each miner was hauled to the surface and freed.
2010 was a year of disasters — Haitian earthquake, Gulf oil spill and Pakistani flooding — yet it was also a year of stunning generosity, technological prowess, and compassion. These are our top ten picks to highlight the seriously good news that deserves pondering as we move into 2011:
Impassable roads following New York City’s near record snowfall shut down many businesses. Fortunately, the owners of FreshDirect, a grocery delivery service, took action to donate the 72,000 pounds that would otherwise have gone to waste.
The food rescue organization City Harvest posted photos showing 1,000 pounds being dropped off at Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in Chelsea, where 1,250 hungry New Yorkers eat lunch every day.
(From the Village Voice)
It’s the rumor that won’t go away, despite multiple investigations by fact-checking groups that declare it bogus: the claim that President Obama was not born in the US, and is therefore ineligible to be president.
Now, the newly elected governor of Hawaii, Neil Abercrombie, says he wants to end the debate once and for all. He wants to enact a new state law that allows disclosure of additional proof, saying he was acting because of his personal disgust with the claims. He knew Obama’s parents back in college when Obama was born and is deeply offended at claims he knows to be false.
(READ the story in the CS Monitor)
Good news for American households: No need to keep digging for one- and two-cent stamps after a postal rate hike.
The US Postal Service has announced that all new first-class stamps will be “Forever Stamps” beginning next month — meaning, they will hold sufficient postage for a first-class letter, no matter when they are used.
(READ the good news at CNN Money)
Between 2002 and 2007, women created almost twice as many businesses as men, according to data from the Census Bureau — and they continue to open start-ups in the post-recession era.
The tendency of women entrepreneurs to take out fewer loans and grow more slowly is well known and that may be the right strategy for this era: Those businesses that right now are taking on less debt are going to be those that are much stronger coming out of the recession.
Here are some examples…
(READ the story in the CS Monitor)
Blessed with a brilliant blanket of early winter snow, California’s snowpack is double its average for this time of year — and the deepest it’s been in 17 years.
State officials delivered the good news for California’s water supply Tuesday after the first official monthly snowpack measurement of the season.
(READ more at MercuryNews.com)
