Washington, DC commuters are experiencing a smoother ride to work these days. Since the year began, almost 12,000 potholes have been filled, thanks to the district’s new Twitter program that allows citizens to ‘tweet a pothole’.
Last year only 2,912 potholes were filled during the first 78 days.
The “Potholepalooza” campaign continues through the month of March.
(Twitter info at FamousDC.com)
At the age of 29, Andrew Shelley sat stuck in the same predictable 9 to 5 job as his father. Looking back on his life he realized that over the years he had been watching the man he wanted to be drift away.
His diagnosis at birth of a muscular degenerative disease predetermined a large portion of his life, including the need for a wheelchair before the age of 25. His career also was inherited. Coming from a family of engineers (both grandfathers, all uncles, his father, and brother) he naturally fell into the trade with no consideration of personal happiness.
Life in a cubicle meant exchanging the extreme adventurous life he had pictured as a child, for settling with fleeting weekend getaways. It appeared that his life was whittling away day by day, along with his now-90 lb body.
Every person reaches a crossroad of whether to continue down the path on which they finding themselves or discover the courage to start down a new path that leads to somewhere better. For Andrew that time was last year when he decided to set out on a backpacking journey around the world — to New Zealand, Cambodia, India, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates — places where a wheelchair had never been before.
The new feature length documentary, Beyond the Chair, follows Andrew and his 260-pound power chair specially equipped for off-road use.
WATCH the inspiring film trailer below… (Thanks to Jesse Gros for submitting the link!)
At the age of 29, Andrew Shelley sat stuck in the same predictable 9 to 5 job as his father. Looking back on his life he realized that over the years he had been watching the man he wanted to be drift away.
His diagnosis at birth of a muscular degenerative disease predetermined a large portion of his life, including the need for a wheelchair before the age of 25. His career also was inherited. Coming from a family of engineers (both grandfathers, all uncles, his father, and brother) he naturally fell into the trade with no consideration of personal happiness.
Life in a cubicle meant exchanging the extreme adventurous life he had pictured as a child, for settling with fleeting weekend getaways. It appeared that his life was whittling away day by day, along with his now-90 lb body.
A West Virginia county board of supervisors has approved the development of an ecologically friendly cemetery.
A special-use permit approved this week allows for a funeral home to establish the 8-acre Duck Run Natural Cemetery on a former dairy farm in Penn Laird.
Bodies will be buried without embalming fluid, concrete vaults or gravestones. Bodies could be placed in a biodegradable casket but people may choose to be wrapped and buried without one.
The U.S. Department of Labor is trying some new strategies to fight the 20 percent unemployment rate for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. One strategy made its national debut in Washington D.C. yesterday.
A jobs summit for female veterans was organized with employers who were matched with the veterans who registered and their particular skill sets.
Seventy-five women registered for the event — and the Department of Labor says the summit will be duplicated around the country if more than half the women here find jobs.
The Obama administration launches another program to attack the foreclosure crisis, by spending TARP funds from the emergency bailout program for the financial system, and requiring lenders to slash or eliminate monthly mortgage payments for the unemployed for between 3-6 months..
Economist Mark Zandi estimates it would be a significant boost to the US economy.
Banks and other lenders would have to reduce the payments to no more than 31 percent of a borrower’s income, which would typically be the amount of unemployment insurance, for three to six months. In some cases, administration officials said, a lender could allow a borrower to skip payments altogether.
(READ the good news for unemployed homeowners in the Washington Post)
Local unemployment is down and job creation is better than usual for this time of year in Houston, Texas.
Houston-area employers added 10,300 jobs from January to February, above the average 8,000 to 8,500 jobs added during the same one-month period.
Jamie Oliver is not a doctor, but tomorrow he will launch a public revolution to heal the “Most Unhealthy City in America”. Jamie is a reknown chef who transformed the British school food system. Now, he takes his Food Revolution to Huntington, W.Va., where half of residents are obese, and local elementary school lunches are mostly fat, with breakfasts consisting of pizza.
Friday night, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, a new television reality show premiers on ABC. His aim is to use information and education to reduce the epidemic of obesity in Huntingon, and across America. The show, a 2-hour premiere, airs at 7:00 PM Eastern and 8 o’clock Central time. Find full episodes, recipes and more at the website. Check out Jamie’s biograpy on ABC.
Jamie Oliver is not a doctor, yet he is launching a revolution to heal the “Most Unheathy City in America”. Jamie is a reknown British chef who transformed the British school food system. Recently, he took his Food Revolution on the road to Huntington, West Virginia, where half of residents are obese, and local elementary school lunches are mostly fat, with breakfasts consisting of pizza.
His uphill fight is the subject of a new weekly ABC-TV show airing Friday nights. The aim is to use information and education to reduce the epidemic of obesity in Huntingon — and across America. The show airs at 7:00 PM Eastern and 8 o’clock Central time. Find full episodes, recipes and more at the website. Check out Jamie’s biograpy on ABC.
Nearly 21 years ago, Patty Webster landed her dream job as an adventure tour guide in the Amazon jungles of Peru. But as she shared the area’s beauty and culture with tourists, she realized there was no medical service to native people in this rainforest paradise.
Since 1993, Webster has been bringing medical relief to some of Peru’s poorest and most remote areas through her nonprofit, now known as Amazon Promise.
WATCH the video below, or read at CNN Heroes…
Courtney joined the bone marrow registry as an undergrad at Georgia Tech. It was a quick process, a swab to her cheek. Two years later, she found out she was the only match out of 13 million donors on the registry for a father in his 50’s who would otherwise die of leukemia.
Courtney underwent the simple two-hour procedure, which she described as easy as giving blood. The hardest part for Scott, was finding the words to say thank you to a stranger who saved his life..
The bone marrow donor system is the only way to beat the horrific disease of leukemia. The story of a dying man and a grad student half a world away, who gave ten minutes of her time as a donor, illustrates how easy it would be to successfully treat leukemia and other blood diseases if everyone registered as a bone marrow donor.
Go to www.marrow.org to sign-up to be a marrow donor.
Watch the video below, or read the story at 11-Alive Atlanta…
Even a staid men’s choir can step out once in a while.
Watch as the Cottontown Chorus surprises their audience by belting out ‘Fat-Bottomed Girls” by Queen.
The chorus was formed in 1979 and has been the British Barbershop Champions three times in the last five years.
(Thanks to Nic DePalma for the link!)
Even a staid men’s choir can step out once in a while.
Watch as the Cottontown Chorus surprises their audience by belting out ‘Fat-Bottomed Girls” by Queen.
The chorus was formed in 1979 and has been the British Barbershop Champions three times in the last five years.
(Thanks to Nic DePalma for the link!)
A college student received an honor Tuesday night for her selfless actions after receiving a phone call that according to authorities helped save the life of an elderly Richmond woman.
While the student didn’t know the woman who rang her in the middle of the night from hundreds of miles away last month, the two people are now forever linked by the fateful call.
(WATCH the video below, or READ the story at KTVU.com)
More than 170,000 troubled homeowners are breathing a lasting sigh of relief now that they’ve received permanent modifications under the Obama administration’s foreclosure prevention program.
Another 835,000 people are currently in trial modifications, a review period during which banks check whether borrowers can make the reduced payments.
The number of people receiving permanent help has been steadily rising as the administration increases the pressure on mortgage servicers to make decisions on those in the trial phase.
(READ the story at CNN.money)
In Honduras, Ana Carolina Ebanks was a public defender. But when she immigrated to the United States six years ago, the career did not come with her. Today, she has a job on the campus of American University, a short walk from its law school. She works in the student dining hall, making burritos, because of her lack of English-speaking skills.
But now Ebanks has help in her bid to resume her law career. Through a program called Community Learners Advancing in Spanish and English, or CLASE, AU students are teaching English to the workers who clean their dorm rooms and cook their meals. Students meet the employees where they work, or in dorm lounges and conference rooms, to eat, drink and conjugate.
(READ the story in the Washington Post)
The World Bank on Thursday approved a record $1.05 billion line of credit to help get more children into schools in India, the largest ever investment in education by the poverty-fighting institution.
“This is going to be a game-changer for a number of the poorest households in India, who until now have been out of the system,” Carlson told Reuters.
Since that program’s launch in 2002, school enrollments have increased significantly.
(READ the story in Reuters)
Cheetahs have returned to a national park in Angola, after a three-decade civil war devastated their former habitat, according to a conservation group based in Namibia.
The cheetah’s prey of deer and oryx have also returned to the 3.8 million acre reserve in the years since peace was declared in 2002.
(READ AP story in Huffington Post)
Federal workers Lisa Grimm and Brian Norton were honored Monday by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association for guiding Doug White and his family to safety on April 12, 2009, when the pilot of their plane died during a flight.
Talking on the radio was the one bit of knowledge that may have saved White’s life — and the lives of his wife and two daughters who were with him. The controllers could hear the panic in his voice.
(READ the story in the Washington Post)
For the first time in twenty-three years, a religious Sikh was allowed to complete officer training for the U.S. Army after he was issued an individual exemption.
Capt. Tejdeep Singh Rattan, 31, was allowed to serve without sacrificing the turban and full beard mandated by his faith. An immigrant from India who arrived in New York as a teenager, Rattan said it was important for him to serve a country that has given him so many opportunities.
(READ More in the Huffington Post)
