Innovative backyard wind turbines are the result of years of Silicon Valley research, yet they are being manufactured in former auto plants by former auto workers, in the heart of the rust belt.
The old skills have been applied to new products, resuscitating a city in Michigan and establishing a model for job retraining in the 21st century.
Watch the video, or read more from ABC News and 20/20 …
US Stocks rose 2.1% to close at 9,069.29 today as bright reports on home sales and corporate earnings bolster beliefs that the recession is lifting.
The Dow Jones industrial average jumped above 9,000 today for the first time since early January as favorable home sales data combined with another round of encouraging earnings reports to boost optimism about the economy.
Investors were buoyed by news that sales of previously owned homes rose 3.6% in June — more than expected. (Read more in LA Times)
More than 2,500 acres of coastal wetlands have been restored and enhanced in Port Arthur, Texas, as a result of a cooperative agreement between Chevron, the polluter, and federal and state natural resource agencies. The clean-up efforts not only provide beneficial habitats for the fish and wildlife of the area, but also will expand outdoor recreation areas for the public.
Chevron Corporation was forced to restore the habitats after toxic releases from its refinery operations decades ago. They cooperated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and the Texas General Land Office to fund the 4 square miles (1000 hectares) of restoration.
Healthy coastal wetlands are particularly valuable in providing a buffer as tropical storms and hurricanes move onshore.
Solar panel makers have suffered this year from a falloff in demand due to a lack of available financing for projects but the U.S. market for solar power has improved dramatically in the last six weeks, says the head of solar panel maker Yingli Green Energy.
“Increasingly attractive returns on solar projects have attracted more debt financing from banks in recent weeks, while the Obama administration earlier this month unveiled guidelines that will allow companies to apply for $3 billion in government grants for renewable energy projects.”
He also said that residential sales of solar panels have remained “rather robust” throughout the economic downturn. (Continue reading in Reuters)
As a little girl in Venice, Giorgia Boscolo was forever bugging her father to let her ride with him in his gondola. While her sisters played with dolls, she would beg him for a turn with the oar.
Now, the 23-year-old mother of two calmly took her place in one of Venice’s storied gondolas and gently steered the sleek black boat straight into the annals of history.
(Continue reading in the L.A. Times)
(Photo: Venice gondolier, GNU free license)
California Democrat Judy Chu became the first Chinese-American woman elected to the U.S. Congress, winning a largely Hispanic district with 61 percent of the vote in a special election to replace Hilda Solis who was appointed as Labor Secretary.
In an audio interview with NPR, the newly-minted Congresswoman talked about her journey from school board member to Capitol Hill and winning a district of majority Hispanic voters in the 32nd Congressional District of California. (Listen here)
The recipient of the world’s first complete double arm transplant scratched his head and back and beamed at his doctors Wednesday, saying he was on the path to independence a year after the pioneering operation.
Farmer Karl Merk lost his arms just below the shoulder in a 2002 combine harvester accident.
Hollywood actor and producer Tyler Perry was so disturbed after hearing that 65 Pennsylvania children were refused pool privileges at a swim club that he decided to treat them all to a Disney World vacation.
“He wanted to do something nice for them and let them know that for every negative experience, there are people out there who want them to succeed regardless of the color of their skin,” said Keleigh Thomas, Perry’s publicist.
Mr. Perry is paying for a 3-day holiday in Florida for all the kids from the day care center near Philadelphia, including all transportation, hotel, admissions and food costs.
The death toll from three of the UK’s most common cancers has dropped to its lowest level in almost 40 years, according to new figures released by Cancer Research UK this month.
Mortality rates for breast, bowel, and male lung cancer are at their lowest since 1971.
The latest figures from 2007 showed breast cancer deaths plummeting 36 percent since their peak in 1989.
From a high in 1992, bowel cancer deaths dropped 31 percent.
As more people have given up smoking, the number of men dying each year from lung cancer since 1979 has dropped dramatically to 19,637 deaths in 2007 – an improvement in mortality rates of 53 percent.
The world’s largest chipmaker will invest $4.3 billion in R&D and facilities development to make the South Korean company a leading eco-friendly company by 2013.
More than half the investment will be spent to develop products which cause less damage to the environment, and the remainder on energy-saving technologies and the environmental improvement of manufacturing facilities, Samsung Electronics said in a statement.
Watch the video below, or read the story from Reuters.
Despite budgets ravaged by the recession, at least 13 states have invested millions of dollars this year to cover 250,000 more children with subsidized government health insurance.
The expansions have come in the five months since Congress and President Obama used the reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program to vastly increase its funding and encourage states to increase enrollment. The federal government covers the vast majority of the cost.
(Continue reading in the New York Times)
True bliss is on tour.
Get a hug from spiritual leader Amma – one of more than 26 million she’s given throughout her adult life – and, according to her followers, it has the power to change your life.
Amma’s reach is unquestionable. Known as South India’s “hugging saint,” she has raised millions, having pledged $1 million to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund and another $46 million to victims of the 2004 tsunami. The hugs are free, and all in a day’s work.
“It’s an expression of my love for people,” says Amma through her Swami interpreter at one of her tour appearances in a Toronto hotel.
Photo courtesy of Amma.org
Firefighting brothers John and Joel Rechlitz arrived on the scene within minutes of the accident which flipped the SUV on its side. A group of good Samaritans were already at work, struggling to free the family from the blazing vehicle — but it took guts and a combined 29 years of firefighting experience to save the life of the 4-year-old boy trapped inside by his car seat.
They took turns trying to wrest the child free from his seat restraint, both burning their hands badly in the process. Another quick-thinking neighbor had a garden hose at the ready to douse the boy in cold water to stop the burning.
He is in critical condition in an area hospital.
“It just shows the true spirit of this city,” Milwaukee Police Lt. Mark Wroblewsk said. “Everybody’s willing to help.”
(Continue reading and see the brothers at NBC’s Today)
Photo courtesy of John Stone, eyeclectic.net
Almost half a million Albanian students now have access to modern computer laboratories, high-speed Internet and training in information technology skills thanks to a new United Nations-backed initiative aimed at improving their employment prospects.
As a result of the “e-School” program, some 379 high schools and 800 elementary schools across Albania have been equipped with up-to-date computer technology, benefiting some 450,000 students and 25,000 teachers. (UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis greets Albanian students, UNDP photo)
For Parisians who cannot make it to the beach, the city is bringing the beach to them. For the eighth year in a row, “Paris Plage” (Paris Beach) has imported sandy shores, chaise longues and a decidedly more relaxed feel to the banks of the Seine river.
Live tall palm trees wave in the breeze, taken out of storage for their eighth year of service.
Watch the AFP video below, or at Clip Syndicate…
A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that dogs and cats can sniff out cancer. What about blood clots?
When a Maltese poodle began furiously licking Mary Phillips’ right temple as though it had been smeared with bacon grease, it was a clear sign to the hospice nurse that her headache was serious.
The unlikely gesture, Phillips said, convinced her to go to the emergency room where doctors discovered a brain aneurysm the size of a walnut.
She’s been a hospice nurse for 14 years and has seen animals behave in peculiar ways as death drew near, she said.
(Read the full story in the St. Louis Post Dispatch)
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It’s starting to get crowded in the 100-year-olds’ club. The number of centenarians has jumped from a few thousand in 1950 to more than 340,000 worldwide today. Their numbers are projected to grow at more than 20 times the rates of the total population by 2050, making them the fastest growing age segment.
Demographers attribute booming long-livers to decades of medical advances and improved diets, which have reduced heart disease and stroke.
(Continue reading in the Toronto Star)
Photo courtesy of Sun Star
In the next year or so, after only a century or so of trying, the electric car may break free of the lunatic fringe and become a mainstream transportation option for everyday drivers.
The next step forward for electric cars will come on Aug. 2, when Nissan is expected to unveil the first of three electric models in three vehicle segments that the automaker will reportedly sell en masse by 2013 in the United States, Japan and Europe.
In fact, fanatics (aka “early adopters”) have been gutting regular car cars and packing them with a thousand pounds of golf cart batteries for years. But very soon it will be possible for drivers other than those who already have a home-brewed solar array atop their home to have a chance to whir quietly to work using household electric current for propulsion. (Photo, Canadian electic vehicle, the Maya 300)
Two red panda cubs abandoned by their mother shortly after birth at a north China zoo are now healthy and content thanks to the milk and care given by a dog that was brought in from a nearby farm, zoo workers said Thursday. The dog had given birth three days before the mother panda.
Highlight of some of the bright spots in the world’s economies:
Asian stocks jumped Thursday after China’s brisk economic growth quickened and U.S. companies posted stronger-than-expected quarterly results, boosting faith in a global recovery. European stock markets closed higher on Thursday as Wall Street saw three straight days of gains after better than expected U.S. jobless claims data fed into the prevailing view of an imminent U.S. economic recovery. New applications for unemployment insurance plunged by a seasonally adjusted 47,000, surprising experts who expected a surge of jobless claims. (Read more from AP)
U.S. Housing Starts, Permits Jump in JuneNew U.S. housing starts and permits jumped in June, propelled by a rise in ground-breaking for single-family homes and suggesting the battered housing sector was beginning to stabilize, a government report showed on Friday. Housing starts unexpectedly climbed 3.6 percent in June, Commerce Department data showed. (Contine Reading in Reuters)
The worst of the US credit crisis is over, and high-yield bonds are poised for modest gains in the second half of 2009, according to a veteran high-yield bond analyst. ‘Certainly what the market is saying is that we are well past the worst of the credit crisis,’ Martin Fridson, chief executive officer of Fridson Investment Advisors in New York told Reuters on Thursday. (Continue reading in Reuters)
Canada’s painful recession appears close to an end after the economy received two key votes of confidence Monday suggesting the turnaround is just around the corner: A summer survey of businesses revealed an upbeat mood among Canada’s leading executives, with 39 percent planning to start hiring in the upcoming 12 months. The Conference Board of Canada also predicted the recession would finally end this summer.
In a related development, home sales are up in June, with the largest markets of Toronto and Vancouver posting strong gains. (Continue reading in the Canadian Press)
