With the financial backing of a California winery owner, activists on Saturday purchased all 174 stray horses up for sale at a state-sanctioned auction in Nevada to keep the horses from going to the slaughterhouse.
A spokesperson for the Livesavers Wild Horse Rescue group said activists purchased the horses for $31,415.
“We’re excited so many people came together to save the horses,” she said. “This is amazing, and we all feel joyful.”
(READ the AP story from CBS News)
Debt-stricken Greece said today it has made huge progress in restoring its finances to health in the six months to June, cutting its public deficit by some 46%, well ahead of target.
The fall of 46% outpaced the target of 39.5% set by the government in order to slash the public deficit to 8.1% of GDP, more in line with EU rules and a first step toward economic recovery.
(READ more in RTE Business)
Hi folks! You might have noticed the site looks different!
Today we launched the BETA version of the new Good News Network — the fourth version since the site launched in 1997. This update was urgently needed, because we were hacked twice last year, which was quite disturbing… This software is much more secure.
Let me know what you think. We are still tweaking, adding some things, finding the bugs…
Are there problems? Are you missing anything? Let me know in the comments below. (The FORUM isn’t working yet, so don’t try to go there!) Or, you can always send me an email — although someone called this morning saying the security code wasn’t working on the CONTACT US page, so her message wasn’t being sent.
The BIG video near the top is a “place holder” for a new video player that we hope to launch soon. We need to find the proper software that will gather all the videos from the site in one place, on a single player/page. We MAY need luck to fulfill that intention… ; )
Hoping you will be patient and help us to improve. I want ALL your comments, so please take a moment if you have a comment.
P.S. It is running very slow for me, and we hope to fix that soon.
Tens of thousands of people sang and danced on a broad beach Sunday in Alabama at a free Jimmy Buffett concert meant to show not all the tourists are covered in oil on the Gulf Coast.
The show, which was telecast live on the CMT cable channel, came on a particularly good day: The skies were mostly clear and only a little oil was washing in on the white sand about 100 miles north of the Deepwater Horizon site.
(READ the AP story, with photos, at CBS News)
A city ordinance will help building inspectors identify the banks that own abandoned homes and — with the threat of stiffer fines — encourage them to keep them clean and safe.
A dilapidated South Los Angeles home with tall weeds, a fallen fence, broken windows and graffiti was chosen to serve as the backdrop for a news conference Saturday as city officials announced a crackdown against derelict, bank-owned homes under a new city ordinance.
(READ the story in the LA Times)
Entrepreneur Ward Shepherd has brought free wi-fi broadband access to a dirt-poor South Carolina town.
“Knowledge is what sets you free,” says Shepherd. “Knowledge is what give you an opportunity to excel.”
WATCH the video below, or at MSNBC...
When 14-year-old Larry Wang heard about the local school district cutting the fourth-grade band program, he knew he had to try to save the music.
Fourth grade is the level at which Larry, as a public school student, got his first chance to learn an instrument.
“Fourth grade really inspired me, and if you took that away that would be really tough,” Larry said.
In January, the teen approached the school principal, and before long the teen was recruiting mini-Mozarts, as well as a handful of other eighth-graders to help teach them.
READ the full story at Contra Costa Times…
1) Books in the home correlate powerfully with student success, and, 2) young students can lose 1 ½ years of their reading achievement over the summer.
That’s why school districts across the country are partnering with non-profit programs to make sure that underprivileged students leaving school for the summer are bringing home an armful of new books.
A new 3-year study by reading researcher Richard Allington at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville shows that when these kids return to school they will have “significantly” higher reading scores and less ‘summer back-sliding’ than peers who didn’t get books. In fact, the kids who took books home not only kept up their reading skills, but actually improved them.
Dentists could soon hang up their drills. A new peptide, embedded in a soft gel and placed next to a cavity, encourages cells inside teeth to regenerate in about a month. The new research could make a trip to the dentist’s office more pleasant, said Berkirane-Jessel. Instead of a drill, a quick dab of gel or a thin film against an infected tooth could heal teeth from within.
(READ more of the Discovery News story at MSNBC)
Rapper 50 Cent has a message for kids: Get off your butts.
The platinum-selling superstar hosted a day of games and healthy snacks at a Queens park Saturday to encourage kids from his old ‘hood to put down the video games and get some exercise.
Concerned citizens are helping out dwindling bee colonies by installing hives in their backyards or on rooftops.
It only costs a couple hundred dollars to become an urban beekeeper and requires about a half hour of time each week.
WATCH the video below, or at CNN.com…
Cuba has promised the Roman Catholic Church it will free 52 political prisoners, slashing the number held by nearly a third in what would be the communist-led island’s largest release of dissidents since Pope John Paul II visited in 1998.
“This opens a new era in Cuba with hope of putting aside differences once and for all on matters of prisoners,” the Spanish Embassy declared in a statement.
(READ more of the AP story at CBS News)
Few places are more deserving of their name than Death Valley at the height of summer.
Incredibly, it is into this furnace of sand and peril that a 75-year-old grandfather from England will run next week in an effort to raise money for Cerebral Palsy Care in Kent.
He already holds the record as the oldest man to compete in the world’s toughest foot race, securing it as a sprightly 70-year-old back in 2005.
Jack Denness — also known as Death Valley Jack after completing the race no less that 14 times — will run 135 stamina-sapping miles in just 3 days, with little sleep, for the last time.
He credits his fitness to his slim frame and taking cod liver oil since he was a boy. As for relaxing once the race is over, Denness says he’ll crack open a few beers… After that he will get ready for a run through the Sahara.
Jack wants our help to get 5,000 fans on Facebook to win 3000 for Cerebral Palsy Care. All Facebook users should click now and become a fan.
Check back for future Updates on GNN…
(WATCH the video below, and READ more in the Independent)
Few places are more deserving of their name than Death Valley at the height of summer.
Incredibly, it is into this furnace of sand and peril that a 75-year-old grandfather from England will run next week in an effort to raise money for Cerebral Palsy Care in Kent.
He already holds the record as the oldest man to compete in the world’s toughest foot race, securing it as a sprightly 70-year-old back in 2005.
Jack Denness — also known as Death Valley Jack after completing the race no less that 14 times — will run 135 stamina-sapping miles in just 3 days, with little sleep, for the last time.
He credits his fitness to his slim frame and taking cod liver oil since he was a boy. As for relaxing once the race is over, Denness says he’ll crack open a few beers… After that he will get ready for a run through the Sahara.
President Obama announced today that the Department of Veterans Affairs will begin on Monday to make it easier for veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to receive the benefits they need.
Until now, veterans with PTSD have been stymied from receiving benefits by tedious regulations requiring them to produce evidence that a specific event caused the disorder.
Streamlining the process will help not just the veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, but VietNam veterans too.
President Obama announced today that the Department of Veterans Affairs will begin on Monday to make it easier for veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to receive the benefits they need.
Until now, veterans with PTSD have been stymied from receiving benefits by tedious regulations requiring them to produce evidence that a specific event caused the disorder.
Streamlining the process will help not just the veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, but VietNam veterans too.
Researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands have tested pollution-eating concrete on about 1,000 square meters of roads in the town of Hengelo.
We already knew it worked in the lab, but this was a real-world test and the results are pretty impressive: a 25 to 45% reduction in oxides of nitrogen (NOx) over the special roads.
This could mean that someday our roads and other concrete structures could be used to clean up the air. How does it work?
READ the story in Treehugger…
The College of William and Mary is turning fish-killing algae into biodiesel fuel for cars and other gas-guzzling machines.
The project is too small scale to solve the nation’s energy woes, but it will help scientists learn a more cost-effective way to convert algae to biodiesel — and a pollution-marred lake on the edge of campus will get a much needed cleaning, as well.
(WATCH the video below, and READ the longer report at the Daily Press)
Celebrating his birthday with raucous applause at New York’s Hard Rock Café on Wednesday, the oldest Beatle proved he’s still young at heart, asking everyone around the world to flash a peace sign at noon in honor of his 70th.
WATCH the video below (NOTE: music removed by NBC), or see it on MSNBC…
UPDATE: Also, read this tribute at Zeitgeist Report
An aerospace firm is working to turn rocket nozzle technology into a novel method for pulling carbon dioxide from the smokestacks of coal-burning power plants.
The idea is to use aerodynamic force, rather than chemicals, to separate out carbon dioxide from a power plant’s air before it is released into the atmosphere, a technique that should be 50 percent cheaper than currently available systems.
(READ more in Discovery.com)
