Today's Good Newsz Quote of the Day...

A story of perseverance and courage: Carmen Tarleton, a Vermont woman that was brutally attacked, survived and is now encouraging others in her new book - Overcome "Burned, Blinded and Blessed"

Carmen Tarleton before

A mother-of-two whose estranged husband poured industrial-strength Lye over her in a horrific attack that left her so disfigured she's awaiting a face transplant claims she wouldn't take back what happened to her.

In a captivating new book, Carmen Tarleton, 44, says she is 'more blessed' now than she was before her ex, Herb Rodgers, broke into her home five years ago and unleashed his anger.

'When life gives you a big negative situation like I'd been through, if you can get through that, you can really find all of the blessings and all of the positive things that can come out of that,' she said.

'And I found so much that I would not go back. I'm so much more blessed than I was then.'

While she lay in a hospital bed after surviving what doctors called 'the most horrific injury a human being could suffer,' Tarleton decided it did not have to ruin the rest of her life.

She had vivid dreams, including one where dozens of doors stretched around her and a voice said 'Life is a choice,' before the words appeared one at a time in white across a dark movie screen: LIFE IS A CHOICE.

Tarleton carried that lesson with her through her ongoing, daunting and remarkable recovery from the attack, which also saw Rodgers beat her with a baseball bat.

Tarleton's book, to be published in March, is called 'Overcome: Burned, Blinded and Blessed,' and she hopes it will speak to everyone, not just victims of abuse.

'I think I can help a whole bunch of people, not just domestic violence (victims),' said the woman, who continues to undergo surgeries. 'I think I can help a whole bunch of people wherever you are in your life.'

NY Woman Reports Armored Car Windfall in the Road...Brinks truck loses thousands of dollars of its deposits - what happens next is amazing

When Patty Wesner found herself behind a Brinks armored car on her way to work yesterday morning, her first thought was of a movie-like scenario.

"I was like, 'Oh, a Brinks truck.  Wouldn't it be funny if money fell out of it?,'" Wesner, 53, of Greenwich, NY, told ABCNews.com today.

Her second thought was, this is really happening.

As the Brinks truck in front of her hit a bumpy spot on the road in the rural, upstate New York village, its back door flew open and pennies flew out.

Then, the truck hit a second bump and out came a package of paper bills, followed by thousands of loose dollar bills, seemingly flying down from the sky.

A Routine Screening That Could Save Your Life...March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, and Katie Couric wants you to get screened!

March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, and Katie Couric wants you to get screened! After losing her husband, Jay Monahan, to colon cancer in 1998, Couric co-founded The Jay Monahan Center for Gastrointestinal Health at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City. The clinic focuses on prevention, diagnosis, treatment and support for people suffering from gastrointestinal cancers.

Katie met with the Director of the Jay Monahan Center, Dr. Felice Schnoll-Sussman, to talk about the importance of getting screened, and about the center’s “Make That Call” campaign - which urges people 50 and older to get screened.

Prince William rescues stranded hikers...by helicopter

He may not have come riding in on a white horse, but this prince still came to the rescue, albeit on a different steed altogether.

On Tuesday, Prince William swooped in to help save a pair of hikers via helicopter after the two were reported missing earlier this week while trekking the mountainous north Wales region of Snowdonia.

Per British media reports, the unidentified hikers, who were in their 40s and 50s, made their way to the area's Glyder range but were forced to camp out there on Monday — where freezing temperatures could prove life-threatening — after lacking the necessary gear to get them off the mountain before nightfall.

The two had promised to phone a friend with an update during their trip, but when the call never came, authorities were alerted and a search party was dispatched.

The pair were eventually found by a mountain rescue team aided by rescue dogs, and William and his helicopter crew arrived to take them to safety.

Consider it yet another heroic feather in the royal's increasingly be-feathered cap: Duchess Kate's hubby, who is a trained pilot with the RAF Search and Rescue Force, has been putting those chopper skills to essential use. Over the last six months, he's participated no fewer than four rescue missions, including saving shipwrecked Russians in the Irish Sea and schoolgirls stranded off the Welsh coast.

Looks like this is one prince whose duties to his people transcend mere ceremonial pomp and pageantry. 

Researchers discover 500 million year old sea creature...

Scientists have unearthed extraordinarily preserved fossils of a 520-million-year-old sea creature, one of the earliest animal fossils ever found, according to a new study.

The fossilized animal, an arthropod called a fuxhianhuiid, has primitive limbs under its head, as well as the earliest example of a nervous system that extended past the head. The primitive creature may have used the limbs to push food into its mouth as it crept across the seafloor. The limbs may shed light on the evolutionary history of arthropods, which include crustaceans and insects.

Today's Good Newsz Quote of the Day...

Facebook "swap" leads to woman getting her lost engagement ring back after losing it more than 11 years ago...

MONSON, Mass. (WWLP/CNN) - The odds of finding a wedding ring in a bag full of metal pull-tabs is like searching for a needle in a haystack.

A Massachusetts woman beat the odds, though, when it came to her lost engagement ring.

Toni Flowers Perkins had been collecting pull tabs for years, donating them by the bagful to Shriner's hospital. But she never thought that through it she would get something back she lost more than a decade ago.

"I thought it was gone forever," she said.

Carl Donner an underground train announcer at London's Victoria Station brings smiles to commuters faces...

Carl Downer is a train announcer at the London Underground's Victoria Station intent on sharing "positive vibes" with commuters.

Downer, who was born in Jamaica, has spent the last six years cheering up strangers with encouraging phrases about Rastafarianism and positivity.

Time-Saving Tips to Make the Most of Your Day ... planning and learning to say "No" are two of the keys to greater productivity says time management expert Julie Morgenstern in an interview with Katie Couric

If you feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day, you are not alone. But there may be time slipping through your fingers that you can get back each day. All you need is a little organization.

On average, people waste around 40% of their workday due to poor organization. To help you reclaim some of your precious time, Katie Couric spoke with productivity expert Julie Morgenstern who shared her own life preparation kit filled with the tricks of the organization trade. Julie has been dubbed the "queen of putting people's lives in order" by USA Today and is a New York Times bestselling author of five books including Time Management from the Inside Out.

Watch Katie Couric and Julie Morgenstern discuss time management here

Firefighters rally to help baby in need of a heart transplant - "A Change of Heart for Paisley Mae"

Four-month-old Paisley Mae Arnold looked perfect from the outside: chubby cheeks, giant eyes and a wisp of dark blond hair. She would occasionally wheeze, but doctors told her parents not to worry about that.

Then, five days ago, doctors at Loma Linda University Medical Center Children’s Hospital in Loma Linda, Calif., told the baby’s parents, Rick and Charity Arnold, that Paisley Mae wasn’t perfect.

She’d need a heart transplant to survive.

“She’s just a very special little girl, and we’re both looking forward to seeing her grow up, God willing,” Rick Arnold, a paramedic at Fire Station 302 in Hesperia, Calif., told KABC, the ABC-owned station in Los Angeles.

Paisley Mae was born without a left coronary artery, which caused her to have an enlarged heart, according to KABC. There is no cure, and she will eventually need a transplant. The night of the Feb. 21 diagnosis, she had a major bandycardic event, meaning her heart rate dangerously slowed prompting doctors to do chest compressions and put her on a machine called an ECMO, which bypasses the heart to oxygenate the blood.

Never underestimate first-graders. 7 year old, Dylan Siegel, has raised over $30,000 by writing a book called, "Chocolate Bar" to help his sick friend- “I like to help my friends. That is the biggest chocolate bar.”

Never underestimate first-graders.

Jonah Pournazarian, 7, is best friends with Dylan Siegel, 6. Jonah has been diagnosed with glycogen storage disease type 1B , a rare liver disorder that doesn’t have a cure. Dylan decided to raise money for research to help his friend. Late last fall, he hatched a plan and approached his parents.

“We said, ‘Let’s do a lemonade stand, the typical thing,’” David Siegel, Dylan’s dad, told ABCNews.com. “He looked at us and said, ‘I want to write a book.’”

After just two months on the market, sales of the handwritten and illustrated book and chocolate bars have raised $30,000 and counting, David Siegel said.

Turned down by his insurance company Boston student's fraternity brothers step in to raise money for gender surgery

Born a girl but identifying as a boy, Donnie Collins has found his band of brothers in the unlikeliest of places — a college fraternity.

After his insurance company refused to pay for his gender transition surgery, Donnie’s Phi Alpha Tau frat at Emerson College raised the cash in just two days.

It’s turned into a social media sensation for the 20-year-old sophomore.

“I never thought of myself as a person who could join a fraternity,” said the screenwriting major. “I just remember thinking, ‘I’ve never seen so many people in one room that I wanted to have in my life.’ ”

Toss out the stereotypes of beer-guzzling frat initiations. Phi Alpha Tau welcomed the transgender pledge a week ago and posted a YouTube appeal to a fund-raising page for their new brother almost immediately. As of last night, the frat had raised $14,000-plus for “top surgery” for Donnie. He needs only $8,000 for the chest reconstruction. The rest will be donated to help others like Donnie.

Today's Good Newsz Quote of the Day...

Ohio man with advanced lung cancer takes the Polar Plunge to help others battling the disease...son says, "You only get one dad and I got a great one."

More than two years into his fight against stage 3B lung cancer, Robert Litten did something courageous, altruistic -- and a little downright crazy to help others with the disease.

The 59-year-old from Cleveland, who has undergone almost 30 radiation treatments, different kinds of chemotherapy and other medical procedures, recently took part in a Polar Bear Plunge, going knee-deep into icy waters to raise money for the American Lung Association. His son Charlie Litten, 23, later posted the photo on Reddit.

“He’s a normal dad who likes sports with a terrible sense of humor,” Litten told the Huffington Post, adding that his father has remained positive and continues to go to work everyday throughout his battle with the disease.

Former Trader Joe's President Doug Rauch aims to make healthy meals for low income consumers with his Urban Food initiative

Doug Rauch, the former president of Trader Joe’s who made millions of dollars marketing cheap but chic groceries across America, plans to sell meals prepared with food that is edible but has passed its sell-by date to low-income consumers in Boston.

Rauch said he knows the concept may at first sound unpalatable, maybe even objectionable, but he’s convinced that his Urban Food Initiative has merit. The idea is to take food “waste” — perishables at, near, or past their expiration date that supermarkets throw out daily — and turn it into healthy meals priced like a McDonald’s Big Mac. Rauch compares the nonprofit’s mission to the work of Goodwill, which resells donated clothing at affordable prices.

Rauch, who is negotiating to open a 10,000-square-foot store in a building owned by the Codman Square Health Center in Dorchester, said the Urban Food Initiative emerged from his research into hunger while studying as a fellow at Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative from 2010 to 2012.

Although most people have access to enough food, he said, many inexpensive meals are unhealthy, contributing to obesity, diabetes, and other medical conditions that have reached epidemic proportions.

Cape Air gets a new Captain ... Linda Markham becomes the only woman President of a North American airline.

When Linda Markham takes over as president of Cape Air in a few weeks, she will assume a much bigger role than overseeing 1,000 employees and planning growth strategies for one of the largest independent regional carriers in the country. She will also be the only woman president of a North American airline — and among only a few worldwide.

Markham, 49, took an unusual path to get there, rising from human resources director to chief administrative officer before being named president. Typically, the top executive posts go to pilots or maintenance managers, jobs traditionally held by men, aviation industry specialists said.

Life hasn't been the same since this Maine author got to read his poem at President Obama's inauguration.

BETHEL, Maine — The doorman at the Washington, D.C., hotel wanted a big hug. “Gimme some love!” he demanded.

The nation’s capital was full of people eager to embrace Richard Blanco after he read his poem “One Today” for President Obama’s second inauguration last month. When he got home to Bethel, Maine, the letters started pouring in. One, from a woman living in a senior center, said “it felt like the atoms were all rearranged” as he read.

“That’s what I wanted the poem to do,” Blanco said recently. “I wanted everyone to breathe.”

When this entrepreneur was hiding his potato chips under his sandwich he knew something was wrong - eventually the light bulb went off and healthy snack Popchips was born... Katy Perry, Heidi Klum and Jillian Michaels are now part of the team.

Keith Belling quit his job as a corporate lawyer at age 27 and spent the next 15 years running a series of businesses, including a restaurant chain and a website for small businesses.

In 2005, he set out to create a new snack with one of his former employees, and after four months, the pair stumbled upon a rice cake manufacturing plant outside of Los Angeles. Mr. Belling observed how a high-pressure cooking technique popped the rice like popcorn, and he realized that popping was the way to create a healthy chip that still had flavor.

Smile! ... Its Good for your Health.

Smiling could be good for your health.

Researchers are finding that wearing a smile brings certain benefits, like slowing down the heart and reducing stress. This may even happen when people aren't aware they are forming a smile, according to a recent study. The work follows research that established that the act of smiling can make you feel happier.

Some research suggests only a full and genuine smile affects the body in positive ways. Other studies, though, indicate even a polite smile may be beneficial. Frowning also may have a health effect: Preventing people from frowning, such as with the use of Botox, can help alleviate depression, a recent study found.

"You can influence mental health by what you do with your face, whether you smile more or frown less," says Eric Finzi, a dermatologic surgeon and co-author of the study on frowning.

Today's Good Newsz Quote of the Day...

Making a difference one picture at a time ... "Flashes of Hope"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A program is capturing a moment in time for sick children in our local hospitals.  For one teenager, Flashes of Hope put a smile on her face on a very special day, and gave her family a priceless memory that will live on forever.

"It feels weird cause I have eyelashes right now."

Celina Cook just turned Sweet 16, celebrating with balloons and presents.  Today she's getting more special gifts:  A makeover and studio-quality portraits with her mom, Susie.  They haven't done this since she was seven years old.”

But this is not your typical portrait studio. It's the seventh floor of All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Celina's home for the last three months. She's getting treatments for acute myeloid leukemia. “On my toughest days I've been to the ICU with heart problems. The less tough days I've been sick in bed and unable to do anything.”

Forget about old fashioned desk chairs these teachers use yoga balls for their students...

Robbi Giuliano thinks ditching students' desk chairs in favor of yoga balls is one of the best decisions she ever made in 11 years of teaching.

Replacing stationary seats with inflatable bouncers has raised productivity in her fifth-graders at Westtown-Thornbury Elementary School, helping students focus on lessons while improving their balance and core strength, she said.

"I have more attentive children," Giuliano said. "I'm able to get a lot done with them because they're sitting on yoga balls."

The giant rubber spheres, also called stability balls, come in different sizes, colors and degrees of firmness. By making the sitter work to stay balanced, the balls force muscle engagement and increased blood flow, leading to more alertness.

The exercise gear is part a larger effort to modernize schools based on research linking physical activity with better learning, said John Kilbourne, a professor of movement science at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich.

Tiny 5th grade phenom making waves as starting point guard on Florida high school basketball team...

It’s one thing for a freshman to start on a varsity basketball team, an accomplishment which is notable but  not completely unique. What Julian Newman has accomplished is quite a bit more out of the ordinary: He’s starting on a varsity basketball squad while still in elementary school.

As first noted by MaxPreps, Orlando (Fla.) Downey Christian High’s basketball team features an 11-year-old, 4-foot-5 point guard who is only in the fifth grade. As alluded to above, his name is Julian Newman, and he can flat-out play.

If you're still on the fence about Newman (who is nicknamed "Handles") after seeing the highlight reel above, his stats can help sway opinion as well. The youngster currently leads the state of Florida in assists-per-game average with 11.5 per contest, a rate which is also the 19th best in the entire country on MaxPreps' statistical standings. He is average 13.5 points per game. On Wednesday he finished just two assists short of a double-double against Orlando (Fla.) Agape Christian School, totaling 14 points, eight assists and three steals in a 79-65 loss.

95 year old woman unexpectedly leaves $27 Million to Alzheimers Organization

After a modest Orange County woman died at age 95, the county’s chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association was shocked to find that she left it the entirety of her $27 million estate.

The donor, Helen F. Banas, died Aug. 22, 2012. She received information and referrals from the association in the mid-80s while she was taking care of her mother, who had dementia.

Jim McAleer, president and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association in OC, said if he could personally thank Banas, he would want her to know the magnitude of her donation.

"I would make sure she understood how many lives she was going to change," McAleer said. "We serve 23,000 people, 50,000 including caregivers, in Orange County, and she will allow us to double. I’d want to make sure she knew just how important this gift was."

Do-It-Yourself at home tests to detect cancer and other diseases are almost here...

Mode Diagnostics Ltd. wants to bring the medical laboratory into your bathroom -- with a mobile phone-size device that can detect signs of cancer right before your eyes.

The do-it-yourself test market, estimated at $2 billion to $3 billion globally, is expanding 20 percent a year as new checks for colon and prostate cancer, HIV, chlamydia, stomach ulcer, sperm count and drug abuse take their place on pharmacy shelves alongside standards such as blood-sugar monitors for diabetics and pregnancy tests, according to Alan Hirzel, a London-based partner at consulting company Bain & Co.

Behind the growth is a shift in behavior as consumers become more aware of the signs and symptoms of disease and scour websites for tools to diagnose themselves. That trend may benefit Mode and boost shares of IP Group Plc (IPO), which owns 45.7 percent of the closely held Scottish company.

“Up until this point, medicine and health have been either treatment at the hospital or at the physician’s office,” Mode Chief Executive Officer Paul J. Heaney said in an interview. “The third place is now the home.”

Mode expects to begin selling its colon-cancer test, the first in a series of do-it-yourself medical checks it’s developing, directly to patients for about 25 pounds ($38) through online retailers such as Amazon.com Inc. in the second half of the year, Heaney said. The company is awaiting European regulatory permission this year, Heaney said.

Volunteers in Newton, CT taking the time to personally respond and thank the many well wishers from around the world that have written to the community...

HARTFORD, Conn. — Some letters come from church groups, others from parents who've lost children of their own. One came from a police officer who responded to the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

They're some of the estimated 175,000 cards and letters of support and condolences that have poured into Newtown from around the world since December's massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school, and volunteers are working to preserve them and say thank you to as many senders as they can, one handwritten note at a time.

The archiving project is the brainchild of resident Yolie Moreno, who said she was floored to see the trays and trays of letters lining the walls of the town's municipal building after the mass shooting, many containing artwork or the thoughts of schoolchildren.

Today's Good Newsz Quote of the Day...

Play any game with this much sportsmanship and both teams will always win - team manager with developmental disability gets his shot at glory.

(CBS News) EL PASO, Texas -- Coach Peter Morales of the Coronado High School Thunderbirds in El Paso, Texas, makes no qualms about it: he has a favorite on this team.

Team manager Mitchell Marcus has a developmental disability, but he far surpasses everyone here when it comes to love of the game.

"He's just an amazing person that our basketball team loves being around," Morales says.

Mitchell's mom, Amy, says he's always been that way.

"Mitchell always had a basketball, that was always what he wanted for his birthday," she says.

And because basketball is that important to him, on the last game of the regular season, the coach told Mitchell to suit up.

"I was very happy," Mitchell says of what it was like to put on the team's uniform.

Just wearing a jersey was enough for Mitchell, but what he didn't know -- what no one knew at the time -- was that the coach planned to play him at the end, no matter what the score.

Stranded airline passengers treated to a concert by United Express Pilot Billy Hock

As wicked winter weather moves over the Midwest this week, naturally a slew of airline passengers have found themselves faced with interminable delays at the airport. At Kansas City International Airport, all flights were canceled for Thursday night and in St. Louis, more than 320 flights at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport were canceled, the Associated Press reported.

But, according to KSDK in St. Louis, Billy Hock, a captain for United Express, took it into his own hands (or fingers?) to help passengers stuck at Lambert Airport pass the time by giving an impromptu piano concert Thursday. By the way, Captain Hock composes all of his music, and while passengers were tired he did bring smiles to their faces. He played in terminal one for about three hours as a mixture of snow and sleet covered the runway.Check it out in the video above.

Grandma named Dorothy gets her final wish - to fly over her home in Kansas.

It looks like Dorothy finally got to fly over the rainbow.

In an incredibly touching video, a family grants 92-year-old grandmother Dorothy Ellis her final wish: to fly over her Kansas home in a motorized parachute.

Posted on Youtube Thursday, Holly Ellis explained in the video's description that her grandmother revealed her wish to family members about six weeks before her death.

"It shocked the hell out of all of us," Ellis told The Huffington Post of the sudden request. She also recalled that her grandmother said, "I figured I'm going one way or another by now."

Last shuttered town in New Jersey is reopened after devastating Hurricane Sandy ... "It was almost like Christmas, you know, when you're expecting a good gift...You can't sleep. You keep waking up hoping it's daytime"

MANTOLOKING, N.J. — For the first time in almost four months, residents are living again in Mantoloking, a well-off New Jersey beach town that suffered some of the worst of Superstorm Sandy's wrath.

Town officials allowed residents to return Friday to stay. It's the last New Jersey community to hit that milestone since the storm.

Fisherman jumps into freezing waters to save stranded dog...

A brave fisherman jumped into the Siberian sea to save a dog which got stranded on a floating ice floe in freezing temperatures.

The black dog was seen shivering on a block of ice in waters off Magadan Port, Siberia, in the Okhotsk Sea in snowy weather.

The Russian fisherman jumped into the water, which can drop to temperatures of -24C in winter, to save the terrified pooch.

Video footage shows the dog floating around 20ft away from the nearest boat in the port, which is covered in a thick blanket of snow. It is unclear how it originally got stuck on the ice originally.

Mom and daughter rescued by anonymous good samaritan

A U.S. Border Patrol mechanic rescued a woman and her toddler after the woman lost control of her car and went into a canal near Interstate 8 and Bowker Road on Wednesday morning.

Willie Sandoval said his wife was driving south on Bowker Road when she lost control of her car and veered into the canal. She managed to get on top of the submerged car with her 2-year-old daughter.

A Border Patrol mechanic, as yet unidentified, was driving on Bowker Road when he saw the car nearly submerged in the canal.

Today's Good Newsz Quote of the Day...

Man loses 245 pounds and has Facebook to thank!

Matthew Briggs received the wakeup call he needed from Facebook.

Or more specifically, Facebook’s photo-tagging feature. In December of 2009, Briggs attended a Christmas party, returned home, checked Facebook and saw that he’d been tagged in a photo taken at the party of himself and his father.

He was stunned.

“I’d fooled myself into thinking I wasn’t that much bigger than him,” says Briggs, 30. “The truth is, I was actually twice his size.”

Briggs had ballooned to 434 pounds without really being aware of it. That night after the party, his dad asked him a simple question: “Are you happy?”

“I had to admit that I wasn’t,” he says.

Mystery woman finds engagement ring on the train and turns it in ... “I told my kids that night about the ring. I wanted them to know the importance of returning something that didn’t belong to them.”

A Brooklyn bride-to-be unknowingly lost her three-carat diamond engagement ring at a subway station — then got it back two months later thanks to a kindhearted stranger.

Hager Elsayed, a teacher assistant who got engaged last May, was convinced she had lost the princess-cut ring for good in November and was considering buying a replacement.

“I felt so bad,” she said.

She was riding the N train when she noticed the ring wasn’t on her finger. She thought she’d left it at home, but after tearing the place apart, she concluded it must have slipped off her finger.

Watch the "Kid Oscars" as these kids reenact scenes from this years popular movies

Take "Zero Dark Thirty," "Lincoln" and a handful of other Oscar-nominated movies, subtract the suspense, historical drama and controversy, and add a couple of cherubic little faces reciting lines they can't quite pronounce.

Voilà: you have this video above of kids recreating movies in the running for 2013's Best Picture Academy Award. It's too late to make it into this year's Best Short Film category -- but there's always 2014.

Facebook to the rescue...missing elderly man found after daughter posts messages on Facebook

Around 8 p.m. on a Wednesday, my mother called me in a panic from Florence, S.C. She said my 74-year-old father, Warren Baird, was missing. It was December 12, the day the Mayans predicted would be the end of the world.

My mom, June, had come home that afternoon to an open garage door and no sign of my dad or his car. Typically this wouldn't be a big deal, but over the past few years my dad had begun to show signs of memory loss. When he hadn't turned up by dinnertime, she knew something was wrong.

I live about five hours away in Ball Ground, Ga., just outside of Atlanta. I arrived in Florence around 3 a.m. and entered the living room to find my mom and sister, Nikki, quietly staring at one another and crying. They had called the police and filed a report, but because of the late hour and limited resources, the police could not conduct a full missing persons search until the morning. We felt so helpless.

Everyday Hero: 4 year old rescues her baby 2 year old sister after horrible accident

KPTV - FOX 12

NASELLE, WA (KPTV) -

A 4-year-old girl dragged her sister from the wreckage of a car crash that killed their mother and huddled up in some nearby brush until they were discovered hours later.

Washington troopers said an Astoria woman, identified as Jessica Rath, 26, was driving along the Washington coastline to pick up her fisherman husband near Long Beach Tuesday night.

At some point on the drive, she talked to her husband on the phone and learned he was actually arriving into the Port of Portland. 

She turned the car around and began driving toward Portland.

Investigators said the last phone contact between husband and wife consisted of him telling her not to worry about driving to Portland and instead just to head back home to Astoria.

Rath, police said, told him she was OK to drive to Portland.

Sorority girl loses more than 100 pounds ... "Once you start, don't give up. The hardest thing to do is to continue. If you have a bad day, don't make it a bad week."

(CNN) -- Brittni Garcia's family didn't go out for walks; they went out for dinner. And when they were at home, they enjoyed watching movies, playing board games and eating big Mexican-style home-cooked meals.

This lazy lifestyle led Garcia to weigh more than 200 pounds by the eighth grade.

"My mom always said, 'You are a big girl. You are just big-boned,'" said the 25-year-old information specialist. "So I just accepted it."

Through high school and college, her weight continued to rise. But even at 235 pounds, Garcia didn't think her weight was a problem -- until she couldn't fit into her "fat shorts" anymore.

That was December 2009.

It was a typical night for Garcia. She was studying for finals in her sorority house at Eastern Illinois University and wanted to change into some comfortable clothing. She found her red pajama XXL shorts that she normally wore to bed.

As she struggled to pull them up, she realized they were too tight and uncomfortable -- her "big, comfy shorts" no longer fit.

"Tons of emotions ran through my head," she said. "I was afraid that was the way my life was going to be."

U.S. Soldier arrives home early from his duty and surprises his sons at their schools after being away for more than a year!

Watch as a cheerleader makes an amazing half-court shot at basketball game

Ashlee Arnau, a cheerleader from Hattiesburg, finally made the half-court shot in the last home game of the season.

Today's Quote of the Day...

WWII medals missing for 70 years found in laundry room and returned to soldiers family...

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. (KABC) -- Hyla Merin gladly accepted a Purple Heart, a Silver Star and six other war medals at her home Sunday. But she is no war vet. The honors were earned by a man she's never met.

"It's such an honor to do this in his memory," Merin said in tears. "I was named after him that's how my name Hyla comes from Hyman which was his name."

It was May of 1945 when 2nd Lt. Hyman Markel was killed in a gunfight while fighting German troops in Italy during WWII. If not for pictures Merin would have no idea what he look like. The Army officer died before she was born. Her mother didn't speak about her father much. He died while she was seven months pregnant with Merin.

"We had a few pictures, not many, a few pictures in the house up," Merin said. "My mother was kind of stoic. It was hard for her always to talk about it. A lot of what I know I know from my aunts and other family members who would tell me stories."

Man plays slot machine in memory of his friend that had recently passed away and hits the jackpot for $7.2M!

BILOXI -- A Michigan man who played penny slots after his friend's funeral Friday hit a $7.2 million progressive jackpot at the Palace Casino.

Tyler Morris of Montague won $7,217,175.15 playing The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship, said Lisa Quirch, Palace Casino advertising and PR manager.

Morris typically plays craps, but felt compelled to try his luck on the penny slot machine in memory of a friend whose funeral he'd attended earlier in the day, she said.

One heart heals two families...recipient of new heart falls in love with donor's sister.

A heart has two functions in the human experience. There is the physical side (the engine that pumps blood throughout our bodies) and the less-scientifically bound belief that our hearts guide us in love.

In this rare case, the heart’s two functions have merged.

It’s the story of a young West Seattle man named Kellen Roberts who left his family too soon, passing away at the age of 22 in 2005.

Halfway across the country, a 17-year-old boy named Connor Rabinowitz was going through high school in Minnesota, well on his way to receiving a full ride baseball scholarship to college when he went to the doctor for a medical exam, and everything changed.

Connor was told he was in dire need of a heart transplant due to a genetic disease that enlarged and weakened his most crucial of organs. He needed a new heart, the doctors said, or he would not survive.

A top-rated high school catcher, Connor’s dream of playing professional baseball was finished.

“I had been such a strong, healthy young man who’d never been sick, on the verge of a baseball scholarship to the Division 1 school of my choice and one week later doctors were telling me I could die if I don’t receive a life saving heart transplant,” Connor said.