The sterile, ornamental fruit trees of San Francisco will be returned to their “roots”, thanks to a group of urban agriculture activists known as the “Guerrilla Grafters”.
The city’s barren population of apple, plum, and pear trees lining parks and street corners will begin to bear new life—and the fruit they produce will be free for all–if grafters get their way.
Members of Guerrilla Grafters make a simple incision in the tree, splice in a small cutting from a fruit-bearing species, and tape it up. If done correctly, the new branch grows into the tree and eventually starts producing edible fruit.
In total, there are 10,000 public fruit trees throughout San Francisco, which could feed many of the city’s poor.
The alterations to public trees are technically illegal, and the California city will have to deal with possible rotting fruit.
In any case, the group’s founders want their civil disobedience to bear its own fruit– through added attention given to “food deserts” and hunger in the city.
(WATCH the video below from Fair Companies or READ more at Web Urbanist) Photo: Fair Companies video
Photo used with permission of The Trust for Public Land/Brendan Moriarty
Photo used with permission of The Trust for Public Land/Brendan Moriarty
A California landowner is returning his family farm to a neighboring Native American tribe that was forced inland, away from their breathtaking coastline, 150 years ago.
The small, water-poor reservation that became home for the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians has become 18-times larger, and for the first time in more than a century, will reach to the Pacific coast where they and their ancestors once hunted, fished, and roamed free.
Bill Richardson’s family bought the 688-acre property in 1925, which features dense redwood forest, towering coastal bluffs and waterfalls along the Pacific Coast Highway.
After five years of fundraising by the Sonoma County government, The Trust for Public Land, private foundations and groups, the newly established Kashia Coastal Reserve restored ownership of the land to the tribe, after Bill agreed it was time the land was returned to its original inhabitants.
Sonoma County contributed two million dollars for the project, while another six million was raised by the coalition of groups seeking to buy the property for the Kashia. In exchange, the California Coastal Trail will extend north for one mile across their land, giving the public access to a cliff walk overlooking this dramatic stretch of coastline.
The Tribe will manage the land as protected open space, and a demonstration forest for educating and engaging the public about the history and practices of native people in the area.
The Pomo Indians will get to start using the land immediately, the same coastline where their ancestors harvested and lived off of the plentiful abalone.
Richardson will get to live out his days on the mile-long stretch of property—and be buried on a hillside when he passes on.
(WATCH the video below from KNTV) — Photo used with permission of The Trust for Public Land/Brendan Moriarty
When a Cedar Park, Texas police officer came upon a man parked in a truck with an expired registration, he noticed that three small children sitting in the back didn’t have car seats.
Instead of issuing a citation and fining the man, they decided it was better to help, than to make the situation worse.
“If we gave the man a ticket, those kids would still need to be driven somewhere with no car seats,” Officer Justin Gower told KVUE recently.
He learned from other officers that the man in the truck had been living in the vehicle or a motel and trying to save up money for his family.
Gower decided to call for backup and when Officer Cale Hawkins arrived, the two decided to pool their money and visit a local Walmart to buy the car seats themselves.
The cops, both fathers, then personally installed the three pink safety seats for the girls, ages 1, 3, and 4.
President Obama has given standardized tests a failing grade and wants to limit their involvement in U.S. classrooms to no more than 2% of students’ and teachers’ time.
“Learning is about so much more than filling in the right bubble,” he said in a White House video.
A new action plan was released yesterday in response to parents and teachers who have complained for years that students are spending too much time taking too many tests.
American students in major cities take roughly 112 standardized tests during their elementary and secondary school years. Eighth graders are the most heavily tested, spending up to 25 hours during the school year filling in their multiple choice answers.
The administration now believes all the time spent memorizing facts has taken the joy out of learning–not just for kids, but for the teachers who are restricted in their creativity. The president suggests the time could be better used for them to take up a musical instrument, study a new language, or learn computer code.
Obama said the Department of Education intends to work with states and school districts to make sure certain testing principles are put in place so that assessments are not consuming too much instructional time and creating undue stress.
“Tests shouldn’t occupy too much classroom time, or crowd out teaching and learning,” wrote Obama in an open letter. “And, tests should be just one source of information. We should use classroom work, surveys, and other factors to give us an all-around look at how our students and schools are doing.”
No Child Left Behind is currently U.S. law and any major adjustments would require Congressional approval, so the White House has laid out a plan urging legislators to follow the lead of many states by enacting new guidelines.
Ten states have already conducted assessments or streamlined statewide and local standardized tests. New York has limited the amount of time that can be spent on state – and district – level standardized tests to just 2% of class time. Since 2010, New Mexico has reduced the time spent every year on the tests by an average of a half-hour each year – with some districts cutting the time by three hours.
North Carolina, Rhode Island, Delaware, Florida, Tennessee, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and DC have all taken some steps toward the improvements the president is calling for — to make tests worthwhile, to enhance learning in the classroom, and to limit the tests as only one measure of a student’s performance.
(WATCH the White House video below – only on Facebook)
If our kids had more free time at school, what would you want them to do with it? A) Learn to play a musical instrument?B) Study a new language?C) Learn how to code HTML?D) Take more standardized tests?Take the quiz, then watch President Obama's message about smarter ways to measure our kids’ progress in school.
Kids lucky enough to step up to this house are in for tricks and treats.
Children throughout this mysteriously unnamed California neighborhood have been dragging their parents to see the “Monster House,” an eight-eyed, multi-fanged Victorian house belonging to the parents of Christine McConnell, an artist, photographer, and year-round Halloween fan.
Inspired by the movie, Monster House she spent four days converting her childhood home into a haunted mansion that comes to life.
“It came out even neater than I had planned,” McConnell told TODAY. “It was a bit of a madhouse once the eyes were up. Tons of people were stopping their cars to take pictures.
Believe it or not, the entire project only cost $250 for paint and materials — the green lights being the most expensive part.
A photo posted by Christine McConnell (@christinehmcconnell) on
This isn’t the first time McConnell has scared up attention for her creations: she’s also a baker who’s gained Instagram notoriety for horror-themed treats.
This is definitely the kind of playtime we can get behind.
In the video below, hidden cameras have been set up to capture adults’ reactions when tiny career women are dropped right into their dream jobs—a museum tour guide, a veterinarian, a college professor.
It’s not until the end—and many chuckles later—that we realize it’s all pretend.
For now.
(WATCH the video below)
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Six months after radically raising pay for all its employees, both revenue and profits have doubled at Gravity Payments in Seattle, Washington.
CEO Dan Price announced in April he would cut his own $1.1 million annual salary to help make sure everyone in the company earned at least $70,000 a year. Within a week, he was swamped with new customers and flooded with resumes from people who wanted to work for him.
Half a year later, he’s added ten new positions at his small business to handle all the extra work coming in. Old customers are sticking with him; his customer retention rate has risen from 91% to 95%, which is 37 points better than the national average.
The raises are being phased in over three years — with a current $50,000 minimum wage this year and $10,000 increases in each of the next two. Price’s own pay cut – to the same $70,000 level – is covering most of the transition.
The CEO is investing everything he has into the company. He is convinced that higher productivity from his better-paid employees is going to pay off in the long run, in the form of higher profits.
(WATCH the KING News video of the original announcement below and READmore at Slate) — Photo: KING video
When a tourist’s car rolled, out of control, toward a watery end in the Bosphorus Strait, some quick-thinking locals in Istanbul, Turkey sprang into action — and sat down.
Four men jumped onto the hood of the car as it teetered on the edge of a stone pier, just feet above the water, using their body weight as counterbalance. They sat calmly atop the see-sawing car, waiting for help to arrive.
The Canadian tourist forgot to set the parking brake, and the empty rental car rolled backward, across sidewalks, down steps — not stopping until its rear half was dangling over the edge of the pier.
Credits: Ervins Strauhmanis (CC BY 2.0 on Flickr) and Peter Burka (CC BY 2.0 on Flickr) – cropped
When a two million dollar lottery ticket accidentally ended up in the trash, a pair of store owners had to become detectives to reunite it with the customer who bought it.
The unidentified winner routinely buys $200 worth of lottery tickets at a time from Yogi Patel and his wife, Vilsa, who own Leprechaun News in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
Recently, a glitch in their lottery machine almost cost their regular customer a huge jackpot.
Usually, he’ll scratch off the covers and hand the tickets to Yogi or Vilsa to scan as he moves on to the next ticket. At the end, he collects his winnings while the store owners drop the losing tickets into a collection box.
For some reason, the two million dollar ticket didn’t set off any alarms when scanned and ended up in a trash box for losing tickets.
When Yogi went over the lottery receipts for the day, the printout showed a two million dollar ticket had been sold, but no one had claimed the prize.
Some quick detective work let him zero in on the winner.
Few customers played the Double Diamond game because of the expensive $20 tickets, but he knew a regular customer who did. Vilsa realized he had been in the store about the time the winning ticket went through the scanner.
Yogi dug through the collection box and found the winning ticket, and called the customer at home, asking him to come to the store because of an “emergency.”
In a house boat in Holland’s capital city of Amsterdam, there is a Dutchman whose ability to control his bodily functions with his mind has reformed what scientists have long believed was possible. He insists everyone has this ability–even those with debilitating diseases.
Auto-immune disorders, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease or arthritis can easily take control of one’s life, making any sort of physical activity challenging. Even something as simple as being on your feet for prolonged periods can easily result in pain. So climbing a mountain must certainly be out of reach for people with these conditions, right?
Wim Hof, who believes that he is not an exception and anyone can do what he can, led a group of eighteen people without any previous mountaineering experience to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in January. The oldest was sixty-five, and some of them had conditions such as asthma, Crohn’s, and rheumatoid arthritis. After only four days of training his climbers, the goal was to reach the nearly 20,000-foot summit in three days, wearing nothing but shorts and shoes. The Marangu route traditionally takes 5 or 6 days– they got there in two.
During the four days of preparation, Hof’s trekkers practiced primarily two things–extreme breathing techniques and cold water immersion.
“Iceman” as he is known to many, currently holds twenty world records, including the longest time spent in an ice bath, at one hour and 44 minutes. The feat was all the more amazing because his core body temperature did not change. He broke his own record twice, adding a cool 41 minutes to his previous time. The 56-year-old has also climbed mount Everest in his shorts, and completed marathons in both arctic temperatures (4°F / -15 °C ) in Finland, and scorching heat (104 °F / 40 °C) in Namibia.
The Beginning of His Love Affair With Cold
It all started for him as a troubled seventeen-year-old, when Wim was “attracted’’ to jump into a pond of freezing cold water, and in it he experienced an “awakening”. As a result, he began to develop a method of physiological control, which allowed him to accomplish seemingly superhuman feats involving the cold. Part of his method uses a forced breathing technique practiced in Tibetan yoga called tummo, or “inner fire”, that has been shown to increase body temperature.
In research done by Radboud University in the Netherlands in 2012, Hof trained a group of 12 volunteers to show that they could modulate their immune system, after already demonstrating the ability to do it himself. They documented his skill to not only control his immune system at will, but also the endocrine (hormonal) system, and autonomic nervous systems. Put simply, using his breathing techniques, The Iceman in a laboratory setting was capable of consciously influencing his immune system, even circumventing disease using the power of his mind–something scientists thought to be impossible.
“Because we wear clothes and control the temperatures at home and work, we have changed the stimulation on our body, and thus the old mechanisms related to survive and function,” says Hof, who claims not to be able to cure disease, but to provide strategies that will make you “stronger, more resilient, and healthy… to help prevent and reduce disease.”
The father of four decided to bring his method to the public after his wife’s tragic 1995 death by suicide following her battle with depression. His mission became clear. With the help of his son Enahm, Wim began to get his message out, promising control over happiness, strength, and health, to any who practice his techniques.
Particularly for people suffering with depression, Wim offers a “very simple” way that he believes can fix chemical imbalances by manually altering serotonin and melatonin hormone levels.
A new group of believers will be tackling Kilimanjaro again in January of 2016–a trek that normally leaves more than half of climbers with acute mountain sickness due to extreme elevation levels. His goal is to prove once again, that the human mind, body, and spirit, are capable of truly remarkable things, even while wearing nothing but shorts.
(WATCH the videos below for more persuasive info) – Photos via InnerFire on Facebook
A retired bricklayer’s act of kindness four years ago has won him a penguin friend for life.
When João Pereira de Souza found an oil-soaked bird on the beach near his southeast Brazilian home in 2011, he cleaned off the penguin, fed him some sardines, and when it was strong enough, took the bird to the beach, expecting it to swim away.
But the black and white Magellanic penguin, now known as Jingjing, refused to leave.
De Souza even took him out in a boat, far from land and turned him loose in the ocean. When he got home, Jingjing was already waiting for him.
Magellanics are known to migrate thousands of miles between breeding grounds in Patagonia and feeding grounds farther north, but Jingjing seems to have adopted the warmer climate of Rio de Janeiro, where de Souza lives on the beach.
Jingjing will head out to sea for days, or even months, at a time, but he always returns. The penguin spends roughly eight months every year with de Souza in Brazil.
(WATCH the Wall Street Journal video below) — Image from WSJ video
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An Indian company’s new $30-million-dollar factory will make new car parts while repairing lives in the beleaguered Motor City.
Sakthi Automotive Group has officially broken ground on a Detroit, Michigan factory that will actively recruit former convicts for many of the 350 jobs it will create.
The Indian company has already hired 25 former inmates through its partnership with Focus: HOPE, a nonprofit that trains ex-convicts for manufacturing jobs.
“Everything about this city’s recovery starts with jobs,” Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said during the groundbreaking ceremony October 19. “This city is not going to be what it should be unless everybody’s included in that comeback, and if you look at what’s happening here, it’s remarkable.”
The company builds suspension and steering parts for Ford and General Motors. The new plant will supply parts for two GM cars.
Sakthi expects to open the 180,000 square foot, $30 million plant in March.
Hoping to encourage a love of reading in children whose resources are limited, a man has enlisted the help of his horse.
Three times each week he takes his tiny library of donated books to children living in the Purbalingga Regency of Indonesia on the back of his favorite horse, Luna.
He believes Luna is instrumental to the operation in ways more important than just transporting books. The animal creates a bond with the youngsters that is hard to resist.
“In my opinion, the horse attracts children,” Ridwan Sururi told Reuters.
(WATCH the video below from Reuters) – Image: Reuters, via YouTube
Gary Neville, the Manchester United football star who recently welcomed 30 young homeless men to stay in a landmark building he owns, must have liked how it felt to be generous toward the most needy. He has now taken two more giant steps this month to make their winter stay more comfortable in the northern English city.
The old Stock Exchange building in Manchester is set to be turned into a boutique hotel and will undergo major renovation beginning February.
Manchester Angels, the homeless advocates who led the squatters to first occupy the uninhabited building, were telephoned by the owners, Neville and another “Man U” football legend, Ryan Giggs, and told they were welcome to stay the winter.
On Wednesday, the group posted a heartwarming update about the latest kindness from Neville on Facebook.
“He is paying for electricians; plumbers; builders and other tradesmen to come and install temporary shower units; bathrooms; toilets; lighting etc so that the building is habitable over the winter period.”
Later in the week, they also reported:
“Gary Neville is arranging for Hotel Football Old Trafford to make an evening meal for the homeless men on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays so that they get a well-balanced nutritious meal three times a week from his chefs. Thank you Gary.”
Another post on October 22 heaps praise on Gary Neville’s brother-in-law for “all he is doing to make this work.”
“In 5 days he’s gone from being a property developer to a counsellor; psychiatrist; housing advisor; negotiator; caterer; and recovery worker. Such a genuine down-to-earth bloke who’s not intimidated by pressure and handles situations perfectly.”
Did you hear the recent tragic news that a pharmaceutical company CEO who bought the rights to a drug immediately jacked up the price 5,000 percent?
Well, guess who just came to the rescue for thousands of patients who were being forced to pay $750, instead of the earlier $13?
A rival drug company CEO who just announced his company would begin to offer the pill for just a dollar.
Martin Shkreli, 32, an American hedge fund manager and founder of Turing Pharmaceuticals, purchased the marketing rights to the life-saving drug called Daraprim for $55 million this summer. There were virtually no competing manufacturers for the drug, which is used to treat patients with toxoplasmosis, some cancers, and AIDS, when Turing became the sole supplier in August and raised the price.
Following public outrage over the apparent price-gouging, Imprimis Pharmaceuticals CEO Mark Baum on October 22 announced his company would start selling a competing drug for just a dollar per pill.
Part of Imprimis’s mission statement is to battle skyrocketing drug prices in the U.S. and to create compounded drugs at a cheaper price for consumers.
Baum said he would also be looking at the rest of the FDA’s 7,800 approved generic drugs on the market and see if they could create cheaper alternatives for others as part of a program called Imprimis Cares.
Imprimis’ alternative isn’t the exact same drug as Daraprim, but will contain the same active ingredient — pyrimethamine.
“It is indisputable that generic drug prices have soared recently,” Baum said in a release from Imprimis. “While we have seen an increase in costs associated with regulatory compliance, recent generic drug price increases have made us concerned and caused us to take positive action to address an opportunity to help a needy patient population.”
Doctors are now free to prescribe the Imprimis version for patients — potentially saving them thousands of dollars.
“Some drug prices are simply out of control and we believe we may be able to help control costs by offering compounded alternatives, which is aligned to our corporate mission of making novel and customizable medicines available to physicians and patients today at accessible prices.”
Photo by Bill Brooks, CC – Prescribe Some Good News for Your Friends, Share It…
Every year between June and October, millions of wildebeest migrate from the Serengeti in Tanzania to Kenya in search of food. The annual migration also includes half a million gazelle and 200,000 zebra.
In the past it has been difficult to plan a trip to ensure a front row seat for the dramatic display. But now, a mapping app called HerdTracker is making that easier, and bringing LIVE video streaming to people at home around the world via the web.
This is the second year that experts in the field have added commentary and video streaming to live Twitter feeds from locations along the great migration.
Carel Verhoef, who developed the app, is a safari guide who has lived in Tanzania for ten years. He led hundreds of tours to see the wildebeest migration and has developed a deep understanding of (and appreciation for) the animals.
Wildebeests, also called gnus, are a genus of antelopes native to Africa, belonging to the family which also includes cattle, goats, sheep and other even-toed horned animals.
The migration has just completed for 2015 but take a look at one of the best videos of the year that was sent in by Kevin Twiddy who captured the crossing of the Mara River at the Main Crossing Point on October 5. On the annual trek, the animal risk death by drowning, especially after heavy rainfall, or from crocodiles that await their next meal.
Seven years after Bernie Madoff defrauded his investors out of billions, the majority of his scam victims are going to get the rest of their money back, reports CNBC news.
More than 1,200 people with valid claims who invested up to $1.16 million “will get it back,” following a new bankruptcy filing Tuesday morning.
His defrauded clients, which included the elderly and charities, have already been paid back with $7.6 billion, thus far.
Madoff himself is serving a 150-year sentence at a federal prison in North Carolina.
Good News Network has just debuted new APPs that deliver non-stop ‘good news’ stories from around the world.
Our FREE apps – released for iPhone and iPad this week, and for Android earlier this month – give you nothing but the good stuff, stories about the environment, health, animals, charities, governments, kindness and do-gooders.
Navigate the fast interface of this completely “native” app wherever you are—even in an airplane or on the subway without cell service, since the articles are automatically cached.
You can opt for push notifications so the latest good news pops right up, and share the stories on your social media apps with a single tap. Readers can also save their favorite articles to come back to read them later.
I’ve wanted to make a Good News Network app for years… Now people can easily keep up with ‘what’s going right’ in our world.
Please help spread the “good news” about this app, by sharing the links with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and wherever you hang out. And you would do us a BIG favor if you LEAVE A REVIEW at the links below. (We are averaging near 5-stars, so far.)
After 16 years of hosting “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart and his family said goodbye to New York City–and ‘hello,’ to life on a farm.
The Stewart family now includes four dogs, two pigs, rabbits and guinea pigs, among numerous other pets.
Jon’s wife Tracey is promoting her first book called Do Unto Animals, How We Can Make Their Lives Better, which extols the virtues of every creature, including bugs and bats, and living a vegan lifestyle.
But what has Jon been doing for the last two months?
Besides basking in the string of victories that landed his beloved NY Mets in the baseball championships, his new rural rhythm, 50 miles outside the Big Apple, in New Jersey, includes driving the kids to school, taking them to the car wash, and stopping for smoothies.
“He has become the mayor of the smoothie bar,” Tracey told CBS–and, she wasn’t joking.
“I don’t miss it for a moment,” said the happy, bearded former fake-news host.
“The joy is in creating it, in growing it, and evolving it,” said Stewart, of his life on the Daily Show. “When it becomes rote or redundant, then you feel like, ‘I’m not really adding a lot of value to this anymore.’”
He admits he still works and gets to write and feel creative, but with a flexible schedule–and no suits, ties, or shaving, anymore.
To keep up with life on the Stewarts’ farm, check out their Facebook page, “The Daily Squeal” named after the little piglets who live there.
(WATCH the pair videos below from CBS This Morning) – Photo by Jo-Anne McArthur, via CBS video
