Peter Coukoulis may have been trained by the military to be tough as nails – but that didn’t stop him from crying when he unwrapped a furry little Christmas present.
His mother, Dena, wanted to help her son heal – so she got the idea to get him a little beagle pup for Christmas.
His reaction is enough to pluck at the heartstrings of any Scrooge.
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A Muslim businessman has erected the tallest Christmas tree in Baghdad as a way of honoring Iraqi Christians during the holiday season.
MORE: Christians Protect Mosques on Fri., Muslims Guard Churches on Sunday
The $24,000 Christmas tree, measuring in at 85-feet-tall and 35 feet in diameter, was placed at the center of the capital’s amusement park.
“This tree represents love and peace,” teacher Saba Ismael told the Associated Press, as her students took photos with the tree. “I wish all Iraqi Christians could return to Iraq and live normal and peaceful lives.”
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Rio Ferdinand, former captain of the English national football team, announced yesterday that he and his restaurant are donating $626,000 worth of toys and gifts to to Cash for Kids, the official charity of Manchester radio station Key 103.
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“We are totally overwhelmed by Rio’s amazing contribution,” said charity manager Russell Feingold. “This is going to help so many young children. We now need everyone to keep supporting the campaign – the more children we can help, the more lives we can brighten up this Christmas.”
The charity hopes to provide at least 60,000 needy children in the greater Manchester area with a gift on Christmas Day – and thanks to Rio’s donation, they’re going to score big time on that goal.
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The men locked up for drug dealing and crime don’t seem like the ideal candidates to prevent further violence in the community – but this outreach program says otherwise.
Safe Streets is an organization in Baltimore that uses ex-cons to deescalate street conflict in five different neighborhoods. Since no one knows the heartbreak of gang violence better than the ones who were locked up for it in the first place, the program has had groundbreaking success in the community.
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In 2014 alone, outreach workers mediated 880 high-risk encounters that likely would have ended in shootings. Park Heights, one of the neighborhoods monitored by Safe Streets, has experienced a significant decline in fatal encounters.
“I’m a true believer in this program,” Cheo Hurley, executive director of Park Heights Renaissance, told Freep. “Safe Streets is an outside-the-box violence prevention effort. You’ve got to try different ways to make change. This program changes lives. It changes the guys’ lives — they have a job. And they’re saving lives. That’s a double benefit of this program.”
RELATED: Give a Prisoner an Abused Dog and WATCH What Happens, Karmic Connection
The program serves other community purposes as well – whenever there is a shooting in the district, the organization orchestrates public events to raise awareness of gun violence. Safe Streets has hosted barbecues, candlelit vigils, picnics, and peaceful rallies for non-violent conflict resolution.
After suffering governmental budget cuts, Safe Streets is currently looking for a financial sponsor that can help pay their staff and provide office space for their workers in the future, since – as one of their employees so aptly put – “you can’t put a price on saving lives.”
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Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has joined the business advisory team for President-elect Donald Trump, along with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.
After being named to Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum, they joined him for a meeting Wednesday in New York that included more than a dozen tech CEO giants of Silicon Valley offering input on a variety of topics.
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“America has the most innovative and vibrant companies in the world, and the pioneering CEOs joining this forum today are at the top of their fields,” Trump said in a statement. “My administration is going to work together with the private sector to improve the business climate and make it attractive for firms to create new jobs across the United States from Silicon Valley to the heartland.”
Other technology titans in attendance were Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Google co-founder Larry Page.
Elon Musk had publicly expressed doubts about Trump being the best candidate for president, but likely hopes his participation can make a positive difference for the United States moving forward.
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Hearing loss among U.S. adults aged 20 to 69 has declined over the last decade, even as the number of older Americans continues to grow.
These findings, published today in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, also confirm that hearing loss is strongly associated with age and other demographic factors such as sex, race/ethnicity, and education. Noise exposure, which is potentially preventable, was also significant but less strongly associated after adjustment for other factors.
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The researchers found that the overall annual prevalence of hearing loss dropped slightly, from 16 percent to 14 percent, or 28 million adults, in the 1999-2004 period versus 27.7 million in the 2011-2012 period. This decline in absolute numbers was observed despite an increase in the population generally, and in the relative number of adults aged 50 to 69 in the more recent time period. The new results are consistent with previous findings showing improvements in hearing over time, when researchers compared NHANES data from 1999 to 2004 with data from 1959 to 1962.
“Our findings show a promising trend of better hearing among adults that spans more than half a century,” said Howard J. Hoffman, M.A., first author on the paper and director of the NIDCD’s Epidemiology and Statistics Program. “The decline in hearing loss rates among adults under age 70 suggests that age-related hearing loss may be delayed until later in life. This is good news because for those who do develop hearing loss, they will have experienced more quality years of life with better hearing than earlier generations.”
The researchers do not know the reason why hearing loss prevalence is declining but speculate possible factors could include fewer manufacturing jobs, increased use of hearing protectors, less smoking, and advances in health including better medical care to manage risk factors associated with hearing loss.
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Researchers found that age was the strongest predictor of hearing loss, with the greatest amount of hearing loss in the oldest age group surveyed (aged 60 to 69). Across all ages, men were about twice as likely as women to have hearing loss. In addition, lower education level and heavy use of firearms were associated with hearing loss. Non-Hispanic white adults were more likely to have hearing loss than adults in other ethnic groups, with non-Hispanic black adults having the lowest risk.
The researchers also found that age- and sex-adjusted hearing loss declined over the years for the averaged high frequencies (3-6 kilohertz) in both ears, and for speech frequencies (0.5-4 kilohertz) in one ear. People aged 70 and above, although not studied in this report, have the highest prevalence of hearing loss of any age group, according to the authors.
(Source: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders)
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A mysterious holiday letter attached to a ballon was found lying in a Scotland field – and it has triggered a community-wide search for its author.
The note – addressed to a deceased father in heaven – contains a Christmas list written by a loving child.
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“Oh ya before I go here’s my dream and xmas list: my dream is for you my daddy to put under my pillow that you wrote. My xmas list: boots/studs, Astros, rebounder net, new Premier League ball, Real Madrid kit.”
The letter was found by Stuart McColl in a field of Balmule House, north of Townhill. He posted a photo of the note to social media asking for information on its writer so he could surprise the child with his Christmas gifts and make his dreams come true.
“This was just too sad to ignore. I’ve never done anything like this before but it’s a really tragic story so it would be great to do something to help this person who is having such a tough time,” Stuart told the Dunfermline Press.
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A 79-year-old Donald Trump supporter who was caught on video sucker-punching a young protestor finally came face-to-face with the man earlier this week – and he was given the chance to apologize.
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Though the case carried on until July to continued investigation of McGraw, the sentencing took place yesterday in the Cumberland County courtroom. The senior was given one year of unsupervised probation.
McGraw apologized, said his attack was not racially motivated, and stated that he and Jones were unfortunately just caught up in a “political mess”.
“It just felt good being able to shake his hand…and face him,” Jones told WNCN.
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According to a newly-released study, the USA solar market has surged past all previous records set by installing 4,143 megawatts of solar power in it’s third quarter – 191% more than the fourth quarter of 2015.
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The report released by the Greentech Media Research Team projects that 2016’s last quarter will show even more continuous growth, leading to 88% more growth than 2015.
“Coming off our largest quarter ever and with an extremely impressive pipeline ahead, it’s safe to say the state of the solar industry here in America is strong,” said Tom Kimbis, SEIA’s interim president. “The solar market now enjoys an economically winning hand that pays off both financially and environmentally, and American taxpayers have noticed. With a 90 percent favorability rating and 209,000+ jobs, the U.S. solar industry has proven that when you combine smart policies with smart 21st century technology, consumers and businesses both benefit.”
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This 6-year-old Afghan boy went from wearing a homemade Lionel Messi sports jersey out of plastic bags to being his number one sidekick during an exhibition game.
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Then on Tuesday, when Messi’s team FC Barcelona was in Qatar for the exhibition match, Ahmadi was brought onto the field alongside the football legend.
Ahmadi got to hold Messi’s hand, take a photo with the team, place the game ball on the field, and even throw the coin toss.
Throughout the event, however, the little fan was reluctant to let go of his hero’s hand.
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“Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.” — Desiderius Erasmus
“I need the Christmas lights up earlier than usual this year,” I announced the first week of December.
My Jewish husband does a good job with Christmas lights, though I can’t say he looks forward to it. On the contrary, he puts off the job as long as possible until a critical mass of houses on our street are plugged in for the holiday season.
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After only a little bit of grumbling, he unearthed the lights from the basement, tested the strings, and headed outside. His system of wrapping the dogwood trunks and branches with lights has become more challenging over the past twenty-plus years, as the trees have grown taller but the ladder hasn’t.
Indoor illumination is my purview, starting with the Christmas tree lights. I twist more strings of tiny bulbs around garland draped over the stair banister and yet more to frame the kitchen window. Candles are interspersed everywhere, including on the fireplace mantel, where they bookend the menorahs and Christmas décor sharing the space.
My husband and I each have one Jewish and one Christian parent. But because Judaism is passed down through the mother’s line, he is “officially” Jewish, while I am not.
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Labels don’t concern me. We embrace the breadth of our heritage by celebrating all of it. While we display an array of Jewish and Christian symbols in our home this time of year, the lights are what tie it all together.
The lights point to the commonality of the message.
And I’m not only talking about Judaism and Christianity. Festivals of light have been around since pagan times and continue to this day across religions and cultures. Hinduism’s festival of light, Diwali, celebrates the triumph of light over darkness with lamps and fireworks. The Lunar New Year, Kwanzaa, and Santa Lucia Day are other examples of holidays celebrating light during the darkest time of the year in the northern hemisphere.
WATCH: Wes Anderson’s Adorable New Christmas Short w/ Train Conductor Adrian Brody
Indeed, it’s “the light”⎯in every meaning of the word⎯that we celebrate around the winter solstice. The website Souled Out puts it this way:
I’d go further than that. Light is one of the oldest and most meaningful symbols around. No matter what our religious or cultural background (unless you are of the vampire persuasion), we all love light. In literature and paintings throughout history, light represents not only wisdom, but also rebirth, goodness, purity, hope, the Holy Spirit, faith, Jesus (“the light of the world”), life-giving energy, well being, and joy.
We need the light more than ever this holiday season.
I’ve made a conscious decision to turn up the voltage of the winter holidays this year. Christmas carols loop on my playlist; It’s a Wonderful Life is the first item on the agenda when my college kid gets home; and I’m soaking in the holiday lights with full gratitude and an open heart.
WATCH: Adorable Corgis Spread Holiday Cheer With Their Ugly Xmas Sweater Party
Though so much is out of our hands during this tumultuous time in our history, our personal energy is contagious. Some may view my holiday lights obsession as frivolous. I like to think of it as a subversive means to counteract darkness.
I will honor and nurture the joyful feeling in my heart that Christmas lights bring. It’s an easy action to take, to be followed by other types of action down the road.
For today, though, I will follow the advice of Somebody Important who once said, let there be light!
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Two drunk men were exposed as potential-crooks after they were betrayed by a surprising snitch: their cell phone.
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Police Chief Tony Gray, who happened to be dining inside the restaurant in question at the time of the call, tracked the caller’s location. As fate would have it, the perps were right outside.
The men are currently only being charged with public intoxication, but officials still plan on further investigating the call’s recording.
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United States officials announced on Tuesday that 75% of ISIS fighters have been defeated – at least 50,000 soldiers altogether.
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According to CNN, President Obama addressed the current crisis in Aleppo by ”directing his team to take all steps, in concert with allies and partners, to deescalate the violence, push for humanitarian access, and for an opportunity for those trapped in the besieged city to be allowed a safe egress, if desired,” said a description of his meeting released by the White House.
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The slaughter of canines has officially been banned in South Korea’s largest dog meat market, starting as early as next week.
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“Starting off with the removal of slaughtering facilities and cages in the market, we will ultimately stop the dog meat trade in Moran Market,” Seongnam city official Kang Won-gu told The Korea Herald.
The vendors will receive financial support from the city until they have the resources to pursue other jobs and careers as part of the districts efforts to reform the market.
This announcement has been a long time coming since the vendor’s association has been receiving constant pressure from animal rights activists over the unusual cruelty.
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This professional Santa Claus has spread a lot of Christmas cheer in his time – but his most recent visit, though it was definitely the hardest to make, was also the most important of all.
Eric Schmitt-Matzen of Knoxville, Tennessee had just gotten home from work when he got a call from the local hospital saying that a terminally ill 5-year-old boy was asking for Santa Claus.
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When he arrived, he introduced himself to the family members who explained the situation accordingly. They handed Eric a wrapped present to give to their son and sent him into the room.
“He was more concerned about missing Christmas, than dying,” Schmitt-Matzen recalled to WBIR 10News. “When I got there, it was my job to make sure he got Christmas.”
The two talked for a little while about Christmas and heaven until the boy asked “how can I tell when I get to where I’m going?” Eric responded by telling the boy that whenever he got there, he should just say that he was Santa’s number one elf and he would be just fine.
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The boy reached out to give Santa a hug – and after giving one last embrace, he passed away in Eric’s arms.
Eric reportedly has had a hard time getting over the incident, but he says that he will not hang up his Santa suit in the future. Instead, he’s going to continue working to spread Christmas cheer to those who need it most.
[Note: due to a lack of second source, Eric’s story has been called into question – however, the Santa impersonator stands by his story and insists on its accuracy.]
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What started out as a seemingly normal bout of flu symptoms actually turned out to be carbon monoxide poisoning – and if Lonnie Wimmers hadn’t noticed the suspicious activity early on, dozens of people could have died.
Several adults looked ill and kept making trips to the restrooms.
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Though these symptoms could have been written off, Wimmers thought it to be because of carbon monoxide – a colorless, odorless, tasteless poisonous gas. If someone is breathing the chemical for too long, it can lead to death.
Wimmers called in several ambulances and an ambulance bus. 32 people showed symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning while 12 were taken to the nearby hospital. Thanks to Lonnie’s quick-thinking, however, no one was killed.
The gas leak had reportedly come from a faulty heating unit in the restaurant.
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My parents went back to college together and they graduated today. Together. #salute https://t.co/wq48VRHc1K pic.twitter.com/3aRb7EjKEy
— Charles Cole, III (@ccoleiii) December 4, 2016
Charles Cole III is now the proud son of two college graduates who succeeded at their addiction recovery so they could get their Bachelor’s degrees.
Renate and Charles Sr. earned their Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies from the Sacramento Theological Seminary with the hopes of continuing their education and getting doctorates so they can open their own church and help the homeless.
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The two have been sober for two decades ever since they gave up their education to raise three kids.
“Well, if he can do it, we can do it too,” the father told ABC News. “We embedded this in him.”
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Kiah the pit bull rose from being an abused pup in a grocery store parking lot to the top dog on the K9 police squad.
LOOK: Rescued Pit Bull is Showered with Love From the Police Who Saved Her
Brad Croft, director of operations for Universal K9, says that police dogs usually consist of purebreds trained specifically for the purpose of law enforcement. Kiah, however, had such enthusiasm and energy, he knew she was right for the job.
Universal K9 and Austin Pets Alive! organized the Detection Dogs Program that helps rescue pit bulls from shelters. Using a grant from the Animal Farm Foundation, Kiah was given the proper training to join the force.
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This moose might have been toast if the local fire department heroes hadn’t showed up.
The mammal was struggling to keep his head above water when the firefighters of Shediac, New Brunswick brought out the axes to hack away the ice.
RELATED: Baby Deer Refused To Leave Side of Man Who Rescued It
Finally, the moose was able to use its front legs to hoist itself out of the freezing Canadian River.
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These unlikely friends aren’t horsing around – they’re totally inseparable.
Dolly the 5-year-old horse is blind, and Caesar the camel have become best buddies since they were paired up at the Pony X-Press Zoo in Winslow, Maine.
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Caesar helps Dolly make her way around, and if he ever wanders too far, they yell for each other until they’re reunited.
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