The race was supposed to have been a moment of glory for the top runner of a northern California high school track team.
But instead of crossing the finish line ahead of the pack and earning another state championship for the girl’s team, the 16-year-old junior collapsed just feet from that line and stunned onlookers by stubbornly crawling to the end, despite being in obvious pain.
Supporting an initiative to end chronic and veteran homelessness in Los Angeles County within five years, the Conrad Hilton Foundation announced Wednesday a gift of $13 million in grants to fund key components of the campaign.
The grants include: $9 million for the creation of 2,500 new permanent supportive housing units; $3.6 million to identify 4,500 of the most vulnerable people on the streets and provide housing; $330,000 for an innovative pilot program to ease the transition into housing; and $200,000 to engage faith leaders and communities in the campaign.
Today, environmentalists are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the founding of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, but all citizens should take a moment to appreciate the breadth of this federal agency’s achievements over such a short span of time.
EPA has protected — and many times brought back from the brink — the air that we breathe, the water we drink, and the ecosystem that keeps us and our animal friends alive.
President Nixon created the agency that would ban DDT, phase out leaded gasoline, halt the use of cancer-causing PCBs, and launch the Brownfields Program to clean up abandoned, contaminated sites, returning them to productive community use. It curbed Acid Rain and — under George W. Bush — established new regulations requiring truck diesel engines and fuel to be 90 percent cleaner.
President Johnson declared that, “Either we become a nation wearing gas masks, or we clean up the air.”
(Watch an excellent video montage of news headlines that highlights the US environmental movement of the last 40 years.)
Today, environmentalists are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the founding of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, but all citizens should take a moment to appreciate the breadth of this federal agency’s achievements over such a short span of time.
EPA has protected — and many times brought back from the brink — the air that we breathe, the water we drink, and the ecosystem that keeps us and our animal friends alive.
The third busiest Atlantic storm season officially drew to end on Tuesday but the United States shoreline and its key energy producing hubs were mostly untouched by any of the year’s major storms, thwarting meteorologists’ predictions that as many as five storms would strike American coastlines.
(READ the report at Reuters)
Cracker Barrel will soon feature electric vehicle chargers in their parking lots. Their “old country stores” will jettison into the 21st century as part of a pilot project to install ECOtality chargers, at 24 of their restaurants across Tennessee.
Customers can be charged-up within 30 minutes, as part of ECOtality’s bid to bring charging stations to more places around the country.
(READ the AP story at The News Tribune)
African nations can break dependence on food imports and produce enough to feed a growing population within a generation despite extra strains from climate change, according to a study unveiled today.
All it would take is more research into new resistant crops, support for small-scale farmers and greater involvement by national leaders in the sector of transportation.
(READ the story from Reuters)
Few things rile a teacher more than seeing a pupil chewing gum in class, but a primary school in southern Germany is now actively encouraging them to do so — in order to improve their grades.
(READ the AFP story at France24.com)
He’s the city’s newest hero, but Carlos Flores said it didn’t feel real until he was reunited Monday with the man he saved from an oncoming No. 6 train and saw he was okay.
“People kept asking me if I felt like a hero,” Flores said. “I didn’t feel like a hero. But to see you – I feel better now,” Flores, 36, said.
The Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to launch the biggest overhaul of the nation’s food safety laws since the 1930s. The bill passed 73 to 25 and would give new authority to the Food and Drug Administration and — for the first time – sets safety standards for imported foods.
The law would place new responsibilities on agri-business to prevent food contamination, like those which responsible for recent egg and spinach episodes.
Small and local farms may be exempt from the final bill’s provisions.
President Obama is optimistic the House will pass a similar bill.
(READ a report in the Washington Post)
Private sector employers added 93,000 jobs in November, the largest number in three years. Small businesses were responsible for 58% of the hiring, with 54,000 of those jobs offered by businesses with fewer than 50 employees.
(READ more numbers at ABC News, or the small biz gains in CNN)
The former Soviet republic of Belarus announced today that by 2012 it will give up its stockpile of material used to make nuclear weapons.
It is a significant step toward keeping nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists, and follows similar commitments made by other former Soviet republics, including Kazakhstan.
(READ the AP story at NPR)
I had intended for weeks to write on the Editor’s Blog about the significant speed increase we’ve achieved for the Good News Network viewers. Thanks to subscription fees from our fans, even the smallest amount of $2.00 per month, I was able to invest in a new fully dedicated server, which has delivered whizzing speeds since November 1.
It took a full month for me to get here and post this, but, did you notice how fast the site became around the start of November? Now, all the files and processes occur on my very own server, not shared with any other site. . . A terrific improvement.
Thanks to all my supporters! We are busting the myth, proving that Good News really DOES sell!
(Look for a great give-away – offering 25 free Gift Subscriptions – coming in December to social network hubs of Facebook and Twitter.)
xxoo, Geri
You wouldn’t expect a landfill to be a place where you could turn something (with a high yuck factor) into a thing of beauty. But decorative tile maker Paul Burns saw an opportunity. He’s taking discarded porcelain toilets and using them to make lovely tile.
You wouldn’t expect a landfill to be a place where you could turn something (with a high yuck factor) into a thing of beauty. But decorative tile maker Paul Burns saw an opportunity. He’s taking discarded porcelain toilets and using them to make lovely tile.
The Troubled Assets Relief Program, which was widely reviled as a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street titans, is now expected to cost the federal government a mere $25 billion – the equivalent of less than six months of emergency jobless benefits.
A new report released Monday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the cost of TARP has plummeted since its passage in October 2008.
The turnaround is due mostly to the financial success achieved by GM, AIG and the big banks.
(READ the report in the Washington Post)
On November 13, unsuspecting shoppers got a big surprise while enjoying their lunch. More than 100 choir participants joined in this Christmas singing flash mob.
The flash mob was organized at the Welland Seaway Mall by Alphabet Photography to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!
An extraordinary cache of hundreds of works by Pablo Picasso, which were unknown for more than a half century, was introduced to the art world by an unassuming retired French electrician.
Art experts suspected they were forgeries, but on close examination many of them were found to carry a numbering system known only to the painter.
The Obama Administration this week designated more than 187,000 square miles along the north coast of Alaska as “critical habitat” for the polar bear, safeguarding under the Endangered Species Act lands and waters in the U.S. that are vital to the polar bears’ survival.
The habitat rule comes in response to an ongoing lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace against the Department of the Interior on behalf of the threatened species. Under current law, federal agencies are prohibited from taking any actions that may harm or damage critical habitat. The new designation would likely add restrictions to any future offshore drilling for oil and gas.
The Obama Administration this week designated more than 187,000 square miles along the north coast of Alaska as “critical habitat” for the polar bear, safeguarding under the Endangered Species Act land and waters in the U.S. that are vital to the polar bears’ survival.
The habitat rule comes in response to an ongoing lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace against the Department of the Interior on behalf of the threatened species. Under current law, federal agencies are prohibited from taking any actions that may harm or damage critical habitat. The new designation would likely add restrictions to any future offshore drilling for oil and gas.
