President Obama has signed into law one of the most sweeping conservation and public land management bills in years. The legislation will protect 2 million acres of wilderness across the country, including 1,000 miles of wild and scenic rivers, by creating a national system to conserve land held by our Bureau of Land Management.
The bill enacts preservation of some of America’s most special places – from Oregon’s Mount Hood to the dinosaur tracks of New Mexico to Virginia’s wild forests.
In 2003, police in Warwickshire, England, opened a garden shed and found a whimpering, cowering dog. It had been locked in the shed and abandoned. It was dirty and malnourished, and had clearly been abused.
In an act of kindness, the police took the dog, which was a Greyhound female, to the nearby Nuneaton Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary, run by a man named Geoff Grewcock and known as a willing haven for Animals abandoned, orphaned or otherwise in need.
They named her Jasmine, and they started to think about finding her an adoptive home.
But Jasmine had other ideas. No one remembers now how it began, but she started welcoming all Animal arrivals at the sanctuary. It wouldn’t matter if it was a puppy, a fox cub, a rabbit or, any other lost or hurting Animal, Jasmine would peer into the box or cage and, where possible, deliver a welcoming lick.
Great Pet Net has the story and more pictures
Thanks to others who also submitted the story, Shanti and Shannon!
During the 1990s, rebel groups in Africa waged war, funding themselves with diamonds which were often mined by workers held at gunpoint. Such diamonds, known as Conflict Diamonds, or “Blood Diamonds,” once flooded markets around the world. However, changes are happening in the market as honest diamond dealers seek to provide mine-to-market stones for customers seeking higher ethics in diamond trade.
Alex Twersky is the president of Finesse Diamonds, which works on a business model that hires locals in Namibia, Africa and ensures that they are treated fairly. “So the diamonds, instead of being exported to foreign cutting centers as has been the practice for years, are bought and processed locally in Namibia. This has created over 100 jobs, most of them well-paying jobs,” Twersky said.
Venice’s seaport plans to become self-sufficient in its energy needs by building a power plant fueled by algae, in what would be the first facility of its kind in Italy, the port authority said. The plant will be operative in two years.
They’ll just publish the newspaper themselves! When a rural CO weekly folds, volunteers step up to fill void, forming a non-profit and doing anything they can so they don’t lose their paper.
Missouri has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country, thanks in part to its juvenile justice system, which emphasizes rehabilitation in small groups, constant therapeutic interventions and minimal force. When someone becomes unruly, the other youths are trained to talk him down.
Missouri and other states are using these new approaches to try to stem the flow of adults behind bars, and it is working…
Sales of previously owned U.S. homes rose at their fastest pace in nearly six years in February, data showed on Monday, providing some good news for the recession-hit economy.
They rose 5.1 percent for the month: “The buyers are just seeming to come out of nowhere … We’ve had a long dry spell, but it seems to be over.”
(Read more in Reuters)
The lessons learned from the sudden death of Natasha Richardson last week actually saved a little girl in Ohio this week.
The 7-year-old was hit in the temple by a line drive and appeared to be recovering fine. Days later, having seen the reports about Richardson, her father raced her to the doctor after she complained of a head ache. Doctors diagnosed the same injury as Richardson and swept her into surgery.
“Dr. Cohen told us that if we hadn’t brought her in Thursday night, she never would have woken up.”
Read the full article at CNN – including a list of 5 things to do after any head injury – or watch the video below)
Thanks to Sue Massey for the story tip!
From the Acropolis in Greece to the Giza Pyramids to the Empire State Building in New York, illuminated patches of the globe went dark Saturday for Earth Hour, a campaign to highlight the threat of climate change.
Photo: The Empire State Building dims during Earth Hour (c) Jin Lee from WWF
Greg Mortenson has been promoting peace by building schools and purging ignorance in Pakistan and Afghanistan for more than a decade.
“If you fight terrorism, that’s based in fear. But if you promote peace, that’s based in hope,” Mortenson said. “And the real enemy I think is ignorance. It’s ignorance that breeds hatred.”
(Read full story at ABCNews.com)
His Pennies for Peace raises money from American schoolkids by collecting pennies to build his schools. His best-selling book is Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations One School at a Time.
Full story is at the above link – from which all the above intro text was copied.
A prison work crew baby-sat a 2 1/2-year-old boy who was spotted Friday running along the center lines of a rural Maryland highway, with trucks loaded with gravel rumbling by.
The six minimum-security inmates shared their lunches with the toddler, who apparently wandered away from home, and played with him while authorities located the parents and investigated, said Correctional Officer Gary Kershner, who was overseeing the prisoners.
(Read the full AP story via WTOP News in Washington)
Image courtesy of Sun Star
Pre-eminent specialty game retailer GameStop has announced sales of $3.5 billion for the year to Jan 31st 2009, with increased profits, and is expecting 5-10% growth in new U.S. game sales in 2009.
(Read the details at GamaSutra)
The decision by Lincoln Logs to shut down production late last year as they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection jolted the Adirondack region of Chestertown.
But the 32-year-old company was purchased by a company that was already interviewing former employees for new jobs.
“They are happy this will put people back to work who would otherwise be unemployed.”
The search for a 19th-century slave ship, wrecked on a reef while illegally transporting 561 African slaves, continues in Biscayne National Park but with an new twist. The National Association of Black SCUBA Divers recruited volunteers to join the hunt and “Dive With a Purpose”.
Ken Stewart, the southern regional representative of the association sent an email a few years ago to encourage members to “dive with a purpose.” The response was immediate, and the following April, ten divers gave their own time and money to fly to Biscayne, train under the park’s sole underwater archaeologist, and begin mapping one of the 91 undocumented wrecks on Biscayne’s ocean floor.
Two years ago 5-year-old Annie suffered a massive seizure caused by undiagnosed Addison’s Disease. Inspired by the call to “act as if what you do makes a difference,” Bothell High senior Jenn Lund, 18, organized an auction this year that yielded $14,000 to help pay for treatment of the child’s brain damage.
Photo Bothell High senior Jenn Lund, Annie Sullivan and Jean Sullivan, by Fumiko Yarita / Bothell-Kenmore Reporter
(Read about the inspired teen who created Annie’s Auction at the Bothell Reporter)
Submitted by Andrea Sawyer, Jenn’s mom, in Bothell, WA
The Salvation Army Central Territory-made up of 11 states in the Midwest-announced today that a total of $3.6 million will be distributed to assist newly unemployed persons throughout the Midwest.
The money will be used exclusively for families and individuals who are in crisis as a result of unemployment occurring after Oct. 1, 2008.
Katie Couric talked about the Good News Network in her Notebook segment on the CBS Evening News last night.
“A website devoted to all the good news that’s fit to print…”
“It’s good to know that GOOD news is just a mouse click away.”
Watch the segment below…
(Featured photo by David Shankbone, CC license)
Creating a day of global solidarity, 2848 cities and towns in 83 countries across seven continents have signed up to observe Earth Hour by turning off their lights. (Photo, Sydney turned off its lights in 2008)
From the small island nations of the South Pacific to the densely populated cities of the Americas, millions of people from all walks of life and corners of the world will participate in the third annual Earth Hour, including 66 national capitals and 9 of the10 most populated cities: New York, London, Beijing, Paris, Moscow, Singapore, Berlin, Rome, Athens, Cairo. L.A., and Washington DC.
The Great Pyramids of Giza, the world’s greatest symbol of the power of collective action, head up a list of 829 landmarks around the world switching off their lights for Earth Hour, including, the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Empire State Building, the Acropolis, the Colosseum in Rome, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Arc de Triomphe, Sydney’s Opera House, the Las Vegas Strip, Niagara Falls and the Sears Tower.
The US Environmental Protection Agency this week called for a halt to select mountaintop removal permits, in order to address their impact on water quality.
Two letters were sent to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expressing serious concerns about the need to reduce the potential harmful impacts on water quality caused by certain types of strip mining practices, particularly mountaintop removal, where the top of a mountain is blown off, showering rock and debris into valleys and stream.
A small ad was placed in a Central Illinois newspaper by a local doctor who offered that for the duration of the calendar year, he will treat, free of charge, his regular patients who have lost their jobs or health insurance due to the current recession.
“I didn’t see it as selfless, but just my way to do my part during this economic crisis,” said Dr. Gary Turpin.
(Read more from The Journal Standard) Thanks to Jean Black for the story tip!
(Photo courtesy of Sun Star)
