On Wednesday, more than six decades after their service, the nation’s first “fly girls” were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony in the U.S. Capitol.
The highest honor Congress can give civilians was awarded to the women who made history signing up to serve in the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP.
(READ More in the Milwaukee Journal)
Two-wheeled travelers across the U.S. got some good news today: Google is adding bicycling directions to its popular Maps site. Now, riders in 150 cities will be able to identify bike lanes, quieter streets and off-road trails before heading out on their morning commutes or pleasure rides.
(READ More in the Toronto Star)
Yoga instructors were spared from state regulators in Virginia, thanks to a measure offered by two Northern Virginia lawmakers.
The bill protects yoga training programs from being regulated as “higher education” on the grounds the regulations would add too much cost and interference in a recreational activity that is already governed by consumer protection laws.
It will also exempt Pilates, karate and other such activities from state regulations that would force too many of the instructors out of business.
(READ the full news story in the Wash. Post)
Tomorrow, Natalie Randolph is scheduled to be named the head football coach at Coolidge High School in Washington, DC, making her what is believed to be the only woman coaching boys’ varsity high school football in the United States.
Randolph, a former sprinter at the University of Virginia, is hardly a football newbie. She was a receiver for the Divas of the Independent Women’s Professional League from 2004 to 2008 and an assistant coach at H.D. Woodson high school in 2006 and ’07.
(READ More in the Washington Post)
Now there’s another kind of prowess achieved by women in their 40s that men peak at earlier in life. Math. Not only do female math students outperform men at Ontario’s community colleges, but it’s the 40-something female multi-taskers juggling jobs, families and mortgages who edge out their classmates of either sex at any age, new research shows.
(READ the report at the Toronto Star)
The five greenest cities in the world aren’t necessarily those with nothing but trees and parks.
Being a green city is all about sustainability and improving your carbon footprint, and these five are putting themselves on the fast track to becoming sustainable-carbon neutral.
The five greenest cities in the world aren’t necessarily those with nothing but trees and parks.
Being a green city is all about sustainability and improving your carbon footprint, and these five are putting themselves on the fast track to becoming sustainable-carbon neutral.
Pond scum is a type of algae that makes water unsafe for drinking, swimming, fishing or watering crops. It’s a big problem in the developing world, and algal blooms are becoming more common.
Now, genetically engineered tobacco plants could offer a solution. The tobacco’s powers came from implanted genes that produce antibody proteins, which bind to toxins and make them less dangerous.
The technique could be an efficient way to clean up all sorts of environmental pollutants.
(READ More in Discovery News)
A survey of business leaders and supply managers in nine Midwest and Plains states suggests the region’s economy is set to grow in the coming months.
From employment to confidence, the figures have improved. Inventory rose, new orders and sales increased.
(READ the AP report at the Greeley Tribune)
HSBC boss Michael Geoghegan has confirmed that he will hand over 6 million dollars of his bonus money (£4mil) to charity. The bank said it made 13.3 billion US dollars (£8.8 billion) in underlying pre-tax profits last year.
The chief executive said he would pass on his £4 million bonus payment – which will be paid in deferred shares – to charities around the world over the next three years.
HSBC chairman Stephen Green has also waived his entitlement to annual bonus shares.
(READ More at the UK Metro)
A species of frog thought to have been extinct for 30 years has been found in rural Australian farmland, officials said last week.
A fisheries conservation officer stumbled across one of the frogs and has since identified a colony of around 100 yellow-spotted bell frogs.
The discovery is ‘as significant in the amphibian world as it would be to discover the Tasmanian tiger, said Frank Sartor, minister for environment and climate change.
(READ More of the AP story at the Wash. Post)
Since their comeback from the brink of extinction in the 1960’s, bald eagles have been flocking to this park every winter, attracting bird-watchers by the bus load.
300 to 1,000 eagles from California, Oregon and as far as the Northwest Territories of Canada arrive at Trinity Lake to rest and feed among old-growth ponderosa pines and Douglas firs.
The number of tourists to the Klamath Basin area swells during Presidents Day weekend and the annual Winter Wings Festival in January and February. They come to watch the national symbol, one of the most successful environmental comebacks of all time.
(READ the story in the Contra Costa Times)
Salt is precious in poverty-stricken coastal West Africa, but conservation experts say efforts to extract it are laying waste to mangrove swamps, causing erosion and ravaging fish stocks.
In Sierra Leone, one of Africa’s poorest nations still recovering from a 1991-2002 civil war, lawmakers are preparing a bill to join a seven-nation charter to protect the region’s mangrove forests.
Environmental groups are trying to encourage salt producers to use other methods of extracting the salt, including solar drying, to reduce the strain on mangroves.
(READ More at Reuters)
Shoppers returned to the nation’s malls last month, buying a surprising amount of spring clothing and other items and helping stores post the strongest retail sales since November 2007, a month before the recession began.
The better-than-expected 3.7 percent gain was reported Thursday.
(READ the AP report at NPR.org)
Marcia Merrick says helping is simple. With her two kids grown up now, she still makes lunches every morning — 400 of them — for Kansas City’s homeless. 400 paper bags are each filled with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a bean burrito, chips, fruit, and two homemade cookies. She also includes a note of encouragement.
As the founder of Reaching Out, Inc., she starts every day (Christmas and other holidays included) at 4:30 a.m. so she can finish her preparations and make the 15-minute drive to downtown Kansas City by 6 a.m., the time when most homeless shelters close and their overnight guests are turned out. She also makes stops at homeless encampments tucked away in secluded spots around the fringes of the city, under bridges and highway overpasses, and along the banks of the Missouri River.
(READ more in the CS Monitor)
ALSO, Watch a video report from KMBC on YouTube…
Israel and the Palestinians agreed to begin indirect, American-brokered talks, the U.S. Mideast envoy announced Monday — ending a 14-month deadlock in peacemaking and representing the Obama administration’s first substantive diplomatic achievement here.
The announcement, however, came just hours after Israel enraged Palestinians by announcing new West Bank settlement construction on the same day U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden landed in the region to promote negotiations.
(READ More from AP via NPR)
In a remote corner of Ethiopia, a single dilapidated bridge had been critical to the lives of hundreds of thousands of Amhara highlanders who live without running water or electricity and depend on footpaths for their commerce and well-being. “If this bridge is broken, their lives are broken…”
Ken Frantz, a former builder from Virginia, is the founder of Bridges To Prosperity, a nonprofit group that constructs and repairs bridges in Asia, Africa, and South America. He formed the organization after seeing a photo of that bridge showing villagers crossing the swollen river by looping themselves and their cattle to a frayed rope held by 10 men on each side of the broken span.
(CONTINUE reading in Parade.com)
There have been plenty of Hollywood leading ladies honored during Oscar night — Hepburn, Streep, Mirren — but this year, the big Oscar buzz comes from a woman who works behind the camera.
Kathryn Bigelow is set to become the first female to win an Academy Award for Best Director. Her film, Hurt Locker, is tied with Avatar each leading the pack with nine Oscar nominations, including best picture and best director, an intriguing contest between Bigelow and her ex-husband James Cameron, the creator of “Avatar.”
“All eyes are on the David v Goliath battle between the low-budget ‘The Hurt Locker’ — made for around 11 million dollars — and ‘Avatar,’ which cost around 500 million dollars and is the highest-grossing movie in history with earnings of more than 2.5 billion dollars to date,” according to the AFP Oscar countdown story.
Watch the Kathryn Bigelow story below, or on MSNBC… And, watch the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony tonight on ABC.
The United States and Brazil signed a memorandum of understanding to work together to slash greenhouse gas emissions from tropical deforestation, one of the main drivers of global climate change. The deal, signed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Brasilia on Wednesday, marks the first time the two countries have formally agreed to work together on deforestation.
In the past, Brazilian leaders have been wary of foreign interference in the Amazon, Earth’s largest tropical forest.
(READ More in the LA Times)
The U.S. Senate approved legislation to encourage canceling Haiti’s $1 billion debt to international organizations. Passed without objection, the legislation directs the Obama administration to advocate for debt cancellation before such international agencies as the International Monetary Fund.
