Sunday, April 7, 2013

Seattle based "Prom Princess Program" brings prom dresses to needy Alaskan students...



SITKA, Alaska -- For girls, proms are all about the dresses. Kayla Wolfe just never imagined what it would take to pick one.
First, there was what felt like a million questions. "What kind of dress was I looking for? What size am I? What kind of color? Long or short?" said the 15-year-old freshman at Mount Edgecumbe High School, a state-run boarding school in Sitka, Alaska.
Her answers gave her passage into a room stocked full of dresses – a bounty that Kayla, or most students, in rural Alaska have never seen.
The dresses were brought to the school by the Seattle-based Prom Princess program, which brings the prom experience to Mount Edgecumbe, where many students don't have the resources or the help from their far-off families to get party dresses, tuxedos and makeup for their big night.
"All of these people are here helping them (the students) out and doing all this stuff, and suddenly they realize they're a lot more important than they ever thought they were," said Ivy Lanthier, project director for the school's dorms. "That's the big thing."

Michael “Mike D” Diamond of the Beastie Boys got involved in Hurricane Sandy relief by serving up some 19,000 meals to people affected by the storm in the Rockaways


The Beastie Boys' Mike D is fighting for more than the right to party -- he's been helping serve Hurricane Sandy victims warm meals from a food truck.
The musician, whose full name is Michael Diamond, spoke to GOOD Magazine on Tuesday about the project. Since the storm, more than 19,000 free meals have been served.
Seeing the damage to Rockaway Beach, he launched the Rockaway Plate Lunchtruck with restauranteur and friend Robert McKinley.
The cooking expertise come from Sam Talbot of 'Top Chef' fame, who is working with teams at New York's Spotted Pig and Fat Radish restaurants, to serve up rice, beans, chicken and vegetables.
In the Vimeo video below, Mike D explains that a food truck allowed easy navigation through the changing post-Sandy landscape. The team feeds anywhere from 200 to 500 people daily.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

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


Angelina Jolie donates $200,000 to the Malala Fund saying, "the brutal attempt to silence her voice made it stronger"


ANGELINA JOLIE has given $200,000 (£131,000) to the charity set up by Malala Yousafzai as the teenager, who was shot in the head by the Taliban, announced her first grant for educating girls in Pakistan.
The actress paid tribute to the 15-year-old campaigner at a star-studded gala for the Women in the World summit in New York last night before a video of Malala was shown in which she revealed her charity was giving $45,000 (£29,500) to an organisation in Pakistan's Swat Valley to help educate 40 girls aged four to 12.
Introducing Malala's video, Jolie said: "All that mattered to Malala was going to school. Here's what they [her attackers] accomplished: they shot her point-blank range in the head — and made her stronger. The brutal attempt to silence her voice made it stronger."
Event organiser Tina Brown later said that Jolie had recently made a personal donation of $200,000 to the Malala Fund, adding to the $50,000 (£33,000) she gave last October after the teenager was shot by the Taliban while on a bus home from school.
Malala had been a vocal campaigner for the right of girls to go to school and was deliberately targeted by extremists.
The organisation which will receive the grant has not been named for security reasons. It will provide a safe place to study as well as financial support for families so that the girls are not forced to work rather than go to school. "Announcing the first grant of the Malala Fund is the happiest moment in my life," the schoolgirl told the audience, which included Hillary Clinton. "I invite all of you to support the Malala Fund and let us turn the education of 40 girls into 40 million girls."
Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been donated to the fund in the wake of the attack, which caused worldwide outrage.
Malala underwent months of treatment and operations at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and last month started school as a pupil at the private Edgbaston High School for Girls, where her fees are being paid by the Pakistan government.

Amy Cervantes and her family start a non-profit called "Bright Blessings" to make sure that homeless kids get to have birthday celebrations too - so far its 10,000 birthdays and counting!



As Amy Cervantes watched her son Alex marvel at his gifts while surrounded by friends and family on his third birthday, she felt a twinge of sadness. The mother of three thought about the thousands of homeless kids who wouldn’t get to celebrate in such a joyous way and decided in that moment to do something about it.
Since making her resolution in 2005, Cervantes – along with her husband and three sons –- has enabled more than 10,000 homeless children to properly revel on their birthdays, TODAY.com reports. The North Carolina family’s efforts have evolved into a full on nonprofit, Bright Blessings, and the organization is developing affiliates in a number of other states.
“We believe that birthdays are a celebration of life -- a time to emphasize that your life has purpose, that you are a gift,” the Cervantes family told the Charlotte Observer.“For children who were already struggling with issues of poverty and homelessness, we couldn’t imagine how much worse they might feel waking up on their birthday and knowing there would be no celebration or special attention.”
The generous family launched their mission by throwing a luau party at a local shelter, according to People. They’ve since elicited the help of a crew of volunteers to throw monthly cupcake-filled parties at shelters, housing programs and domestic violence shelters for all the kids who celebrate their birthdays in the month, according to the organization’s website. They make sure to balance the sugar highs with some educational activities, too.
“When I get there the kids light up when we're unloading gifts," Alex Cervantes, who’s now 10 years old, told People.com. "When they hear the [birthday] song, they just get so excited, their faces light up."

15 year old Malala Yousafzai announces the first grant from the Malala Fund the international fund set up in her name


Malala Yousafzai, the teenaged Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban in 2012 because of her activism for girls’ education, has announced the first grant in an international fund set up in her name.
The $45,000 grant will go to supporting the education of 40 girls in the Swat Valley in Pakistan, where Ms. Yousafzai grew up, through an organization and a community that is not being named because of security reasons, a press statement said.

Ms. Yousafzai made the announcement through a video message broadcast at the start of the Women in World Summit in New York City:
Announcing the first grant of the Malala Fund is the happiest moment in my life. I invite all of you to support the Malala Fund and let us turn the education of 40 girls into 40 million girls.
Last October, Taliban attackers shot Ms. Yousafzai in the head. The teenagerreceived medical care in Britain and recently resumed her studies there.
After the shooting, the Malala Fund was established by Vital Voices Global Partnership, a non-government organization that works for the empowerment of girls and women, as well as other international organizations and individuals.
The fund’s first grant will help to support education for the girls, aged 5 to 12, who would otherwise be forced to work to support their families or who might be at risk of entering the labor force instead of going to school. It will provide uniforms, shoes, learning materials and a stipend for their families, the statement said.
Ms. Yousafzai spoke about the start of the fund in February in a video, and inanother she encouraged people to raise their voices for girls’ education.

Injured swan shows its appreciation to compassionate rescuer...


Despite their beauty, wild swans aren't typically the nicest or most approachable creatures.
"On one hand, everyone says they're very beautiful animals," "Born to Explore" television show host, Richard Wiese, told ABCNews.com. "But on the other hand, when people have been around them, they can be vicious. Wild swans can peck the heck out of you."
But when Wiese was in England last fall visiting the Abbotsbury Swannery, the largest collection of wild swans in the world, he experienced a remarkably touching moment.
"When I put it next to me I could feel its heart beating and it just relaxed its neck and wrapped it around mine," Wiese explained. "It's a wonderful moment when an animal totally trusts you."

A story of hope and promise for blind Sudanese boy Keer Deng who now makes his home at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown

By all accounts, 19-year-old Keer Deng should be a frightened, angry, almost feral young man, given that the early years of his life were filled with slavery, starvation, and torture in his native Republic of South Sudan.
But watch him navigate the grounds of the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, and his movements paint a different picture. He’s demonstrably happy — ebullient, in fact — high-fiving peers and cracking jokes as he passes faculty and classmates in the hallways. He only gets annoyed, it seems, when people ask him why he’s always smiling.
“The answer is that I have been given a chance to live, to be grown up,” he says. “That is all.”
That isn’t really all.
Deng’s is a story of pain and tragedy, reinvention and hope, all born on a journey that started 13 years ago when his then-slave master, who had beaten him for years, blinded him as punishment. It’s a journey with layovers in refugee camps and an orphanage, a journey that has brought him to the United States and now to Boston, thanks to a veteran journalist whom Deng calls “Momma Chicken,” and her brother who happens to be an owner of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, whom Deng simply calls “Uncle Bruce.”
Keer Deng, 19, underwent eye surgery two years ago and now lives at the Perkins School for the Blind.
ELLEN RATNER
Keer Deng, 19, underwent eye surgery two years ago and now lives at the Perkins School for the Blind.
Keer Deng grew up in the southern part of Sudan, before the country split into two.
His family were South Sudanese Christians, reportedly the smallest, weakest, and most bullied sect in a region dominated by warring factions of indigenous black and Arab Muslims.
“I believe I was about 5 when I became a slave,” Deng says.
He was the child of an era when an estimated 200,000 South Sudanese Christians were, according to the human rights group Christian Solidarity International, kidnapped and sold into slavery to warlords and wealthier Arab families in the northern and western parts of Sudan, near the Darfur region.

Friday, April 5, 2013

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


Brothers Nick and David Pereira Become Fathers 82 Minutes Apart at the Same Hospital


One family grew two sizes yesterday when New 
York brothers Nick and David Pereira became fathers within 82 minutes of each other at the same hospital. Today the families are resting at Winthrop University Hospital on Long Island, only two doors away from each other. Nick Pereira told ABC News the brothers are leaning on each other for support and even got a break for dinner last night.
“We talked about how amazing this is, that it actually happened on the same day and the whole procedure of the wives’ giving birth,” Pereira said. “We talked about how amazing it was to go through it at the same time and how amazing women are that they can do this. We think men wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
Nick and his wife Beth went to the hospital yesterday, not knowing his brother David and wife Claudia were already there. They found out their wives were both giving birth through text messages, and the cousins were delivered within 82 minutes of each other. Nick and Beth welcomed their second child, Nathaniel, and later David and Claudia welcomed their first child, Gwyneth. The moms did not have the same due date; Nathaniel arrived nine days early and Gwyneth one day early.

Second Missing California Hiker Kyndall Jack Found Clinging to Cliff and Shouting for Help



A teenage girl who has been lost in a California canyon since Sunday was found today clinging to the side of a steep cliff and shouting for help, authorities said.

Kyndall Jack, 18, was located a day after her male companion, Nicholas Cendoya, had been found wandering and disoriented in Cleveland National Forest.

Rescue crews rappelled to rescue Jack and she was airlifted to University of California - Irvine hospital, where was being treated for severe dehydration, authorities said.

"The most important thing is that she has been found and Nicholas has been found and they are well," siad Orange County Sheriff's Lt. Jason Park.

Kyndall and Cendoya disappeared Easter Sunday while hiking near Trabuco Canyon, Calif.

Mom surprised when realizes she's going to be a "Grand-Ma" for the first time...


The first national online free public library is set to launch in Boston...Digital Public Library of America

The beginnings of the first public, national, on-line library will soon be unveiled in Boston – home to the country’s first publicly supported municipal library.
A prototype of the Digital Public Library of America, or DPLA, will launch during a two-day event, which will include a series of events April 18 and 19 at the Boston Public Library, according to leaders of the digital library.
The project’s primary focus is to make materials from the United States available through its on-line platform. Initially, the project will concentrate on written records – books, magazines, manuscripts, digital text – and eventually hopes to include other media, like images, movies and audio.
Over the past couple of years, much of the work to create the digital library has been happening nearby, at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
The project has been likened to Google’s efforts to digitize print through Google Books, which in recent years has been criticized for, and settled lawsuits over, alleged copyright infringement.
DPLA leaders have said their effort is different because it will be run as a public, not-for-profit endeavor.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

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



Eye drops containing cholesterol busting drugs could help combat one of the most common forms of blindness - Age-related macular degeneration (AMD



Eye drops containing cholesterol-busting drugs could combat one of the most common causes of blindness, according to new research.
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a painless condition which leads to the gradual loss of the central vision.
It is thought that aging, smoking and genetics can all increase a person’s chance of developing the condition.
However, it is also thought to be triggered by harmful blood fats.
Experiments on mice have found that deposits of this cholesterol contribute to the development of the condition.
Patients who have hardened arteries – which are also caused by harmful blood fats - often are prescribed medications to lower cholesterol and keep arteries clear.
Now, a study published in the journal Cell Metabolism suggests that some of those same drugs could be used to treat patients with macular degeneration.
Professor Rajendra Apte said: ‘Based on our findings, we need to investigate whether vision loss caused by macular degeneration could be prevented with cholesterol-lowering eye drops or other medications that might prevent the build-up of fats beneath the retina.’
An estimated 500,000 people in the UK suffer from AMD, and 40 per cent are over the age of 75.
The new research centres on immune cells known as macrophages that remove cholesterol and fats from tissues.

President Obama announces bold initiative to map the brain with the "Brain Research through Advancing Neurotechnologies" or BRAIN project


President Barack Obama on Tuesday unveiled an intrepid plan to develop tools that can better map the human brain, furthering scientists' understanding of how it works and how it can be healed when damaged. The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies initiative, or BRAIN, will begin with a $100 million investment in Obama's 2014 budget.
The White House is hopeful that BRAIN will result in the development of neural imaging technologies that will give scientists an unprecedented look at how different sections of the human brain interact in real-time speeds, potentially paving the pay for treatments for debilitating disorders such as Alzheimer’s and epilepsy.
"These technologies will open new doors to explore how the brain records, processes, uses, stores, and retrieves vast quantities of information, and shed light on the complex links between brain function and behavior," reads a White House press release on the BRAIN initiative.

Random Act of Kindness: Ice cream store gives away free ice cream to calm the jitters of a shaken community in Boston, MA



Kindness came in a variety of flavors this afternoon in Dorchester’s Savin Hill neighborhood — two free scoops of ice cream to bring together a community shaken by the bloody ambush Monday of a young mother out walking her baby in a stroller.
“It’s really good to see people come out, be here, and support each other,” said Joe Conway, the owner of Savin Scoop at 107 Savin Hill Ave.
Conway and his store manager scooped out Maple Walnut, Monster Mash, and other flavors for as many as 70 people who stopped by his shop for the free ice cream. The event had been previously planned as a “Cash Mob,” a grass-roots effort organized through Facebook or other social media that sends crowds to local businesses to stimulate patronage, but with the stabbing of the 21-year-old mother, it was also dubbed “A Random Act of Kindness.”

Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton makes the day of young 10 year old fan Isabella Clarkson




Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton may be just a duchess, according to royal titles, but she's a queen in the mind of one loyal subject, thanks to a simple act of kindness.
Middleton, 31, drew thousands of fans to her March 5 appearance in the town of Grimsby, but lost among them was one of her biggest supporters, 10-year-old Isabella Clarkson.
Isabella and her siblings, 8-year-old sister, Alice, and 4-year-old brother, Reuben, traveled with their school to try to meet the duchess but because of bad weather and huge crowds only got a brief glimpse of her car and her waving hand, the Grimsby Telegraph first reported.
Upset by her family's missed opportunity to see a real-life royal, Isabella took her disappointment to paper and wrote a letter to Middleton, who's pregnant with her and Prince William's first child.
"I'd spent ages making a glittery banner to hold the night before, but I don't think she saw it," Isabella told the paper. "I wrote a letter to her afterwards saying how disappointed we all were not to get to meet her."

Eric Moger gets his life and face back thanks to a 3D printer...


Britain: When restaurant manager Eric Moger surprised his girlfriend by proposing over Christmas dinner, he could have no idea that less than a year later his life and appearance would be changed beyond recognition.
As he started to make plans for his wedding to Karen Hunger four years ago, doctors discovered an aggressive tumour the size of a tennis ball growing beneath the skin of his face.
Emergency surgery to deal with the cancer removed almost the entire left side of his face, including his eye, his cheek bone and most of his jaw, leaving a gaping hole where his features had once been.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

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



Renee Vance dreams of one day becoming a nurse - she gets a real life chance to see what it's like when she saves a man's life at the Waffle House


COBB COUNTY, Ga. -Quick action from a Waffle House server helped save a customer's life.

It all started last Sunday morning when someone noticed a 76-year-old man slumped over at the counter of a Waffle House on Barrett Highway in Cobb County.

"Someone yelled, ‘He's having a stroke -- call 911," said Renee Vance.

Renee was directly across from the customer. She says she recognized that it was not a stroke but that the man was going into diabetic shock.

"I stood behind him and pulled his head up this way and just started pouring orange juice and making him drink," Vance said.

Pilots N Paws makes another successful delivery of a new puppy to two unsuspecting and suddenly very happy kids...


Check out more on the Pilots N Paws non-profit here:

"Rocky" - the dog - to the rescue of 9 year old Samara Wagner on Easter Sunday in Edmonton, Alberta

(CNN) -- Rocky's been a fictional hero for decades, but in Edmonton, Alberta, today there's a hero named Rocky who is definitely real -- only he's 8 years old and has four legs.
This Rocky, a Labrador retriever-husky mix, is being hailed for pulling a 9-year-old girl from an icy river on Easter Sunday. His owner, Adam Shaw, 27, is getting similar praise.
"If that man and dog weren't there -- I just try not to think of it," Miranda Wagner, the mother of Samara, 9, and her 10-year-old sister, Krymzen, said in an interview with CNN affiliate CTV.
"I just want to give him a big hug and tell him he's my hero. If he wasn't there I wouldn't have my girls," Wagner said. "Doctors said two more minutes and Samara would have been gone."
Rocky and Shaw's heroics played out on the icy North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton on Sunday afternoon. The girls were tobogganing in a riverside park when they ended up on ice extending from the riverbank, their father, Corey Sunshine, told CNN affiliate CBC.
"From what I was told was, one of the toboggans came off the snowbank and onto the ice and they were trying to come back and the ice broke," he said.
Shaw said he was walking on a bridge over the river when he heard screams. Looking down on the river he saw one girl in the icy water and her sister trying to pull her out.
By the time he and Rocky sprinted down to the river, both girls were in the water.

Check out pro golfer Bubba Watson's new golf cart - think Jetson's on the golf course.


This is the stuff nerd-golfer dreams are made of.
Meet the BW1, a golf-cart-turned-hovercraft that's the brainchild of PGA star Bubba Watson and his sponsor Oakley. The YouTube video above, which details the BW1 in all its amazing awesomeness, has been spreading like wildfire on the social web. It's a clever Oakley ad at heart — so we probably won't see the old school cart die out anytime soon — but rest assured that there's at least one functioning prototype out there roaming the manicured wilds.
But why a hovercraft, other than just the general cool factor?
"Golf carts haven't changed much over the years," the video's description explains. "They look and feel the same. What if there was a way to improve the traditional golf cart concept and take away some of the limitations? That is what Bubba Watson and Oakley set out to do."


Weekend train from Boston to Cape Cod to start up again for the first time in 25 years on May 24th.

Question: What could be better than a trip to Cape Cod?
Answer: A trip to Cape Cod with no traffic.
And that’s exactly what some Cape travelers will experience this summer — as weekend passenger rail service between Boston and the Cape will resume for the first time in nearly 25 years.
From May 24 through Sept. 2, customers will be able to purchase one-way tickets between Boston and Hyannis for $20, and round-trip tickets for $35, a Massachusetts Department of Transportation and MBTA statement said. The DOT, which will operate the rail service in conjunction with the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority, said it hoped the return of swift public transit will draw tourists to the Cape and reduce pollution.
“The reintroduction of rail service to Cape Cod during the summer will not only give visitors a more relaxing, enjoyable journey but is a project focused on smart economic development and MassDOT’s GreenDOT goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting healthy transportation options for the Commonwealth,” said MassDOT Secretary Richard A. Davey during a news conference at South Station.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

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


Courageous Hiker Mary Owen Survived 6 days in Snow Cave at Oregon's Mt. Hood...“It’s hard to give up hope when there’s so much life inside you,”


A hardy and determined woman celebrated Easter in the hospital recuperating after spending six nights stranded and injured on Oregon’s Mount Hood.
Mary Owen, 23, said her faith in God got her through those six excruciating days alone in the cold on Mount Hood before a National Guard helicopter spotted her Saturday morning, at an elevation of about 4,600 feet. She was flown to a Portland, Ore., hospital and treated for frostbite on her toes.
“It’s hard to give up hope when there’s so much life inside you,” Owen told ABC News Sunday from her hospital bed.
Owen was last heard from on Sunday and was reported missing Thursday evening, ABC News affiliate KATU reported. Owen slipped and cut her leg badly after a whiteout last Sunday.
“The first thing I did was pound out a snow cave because you want to get protection from wind and the elements,” Owen said.

Hal Hargrave Jr. was paralyzed at age 17 and says, "call me crazy, but I have been given a gift" - starts the "Be Perfect Foundation" to help others.



CLAREMONT, Calif. -- As he rolls through the front door of the sprawling Claremont Club fitness center and shouts a friendly hello here and there, for just a moment it's as if nothing has changed since Hal Hargrave Jr. was the big, friendly teenage gym rat who haunted this place.
The burly Hargrave's head was filled with dreams of playing college baseball as he strode into the gym, stretched out on a bench and pressed 300 pounds above his body. Again and again.
He's still big and burly, his arms still muscular and he still works out nearly every day. Only these days Hargrave uses that strength to move his wheelchair in and out of the gym, where he still works out 20 hours a week and knows just about everybody in the place.
These days, though, Hargrave's goal is to get walking again, something he lost the ability to do on July 26, 2007, when he swerved his truck to avoid debris in the road. It flipped four times, the cab collapsing on him and snapping his spine. It left him paralyzed from the neck down.
The irony is never lost on Hargrave that he was delivering handicapped-accessible bathroom doors as part of a summer job. If it was a sign to a strapping 17-year-old athlete that his life was headed in the wrong direction, it would seem to have been a particularly harsh one, but Hargrave doesn't see it that way.
"Some people call me crazy for putting it this way, but I have been given a gift," the talkative, friendly 23-year-old says with a smile over lunch at the gym's small cafe. "They see this as an ailment. I don't."

Teacher Liz Byron is literally going the extra mile for her students by running 155 miles in the Marathon des Sables in the Sahara Desert


One Boston public school teacher is going to the ends of the earth for her students — literally.
Frustrated by the lack of technological resources in her sixth-grade classroom, Gardner Pilot Academy teacher Liz Byron will take on a 155-mile ultra-marathon through the Sahara desert starting Sunday in the hopes of raising money for laptop computers for the Allston school.
“It’s an extreme race,” the 29-year-old Byron said, “but it’s for an extreme cause.”
Marathon des Sables might be considered the toughest foot race on earth, but tackling the challenge is worth the effort, according to Byron — as long as it pays dividends in the classroom.
“While the race is crazy and absurd, there’s a gap (in education) that’s more absurd — that middle-schoolers don’t have access to technology in a (technology-driven) society,” Byron said, “I’m just trying to fill in monetary gaps that exist in a small school with a highly dedicated staff.”
The teacher is using the six-day race as teaching tool, too. During recess, students can join Byron and run a 1-mile lap around the school, which gives them a sense of what their teacher is aiming to accomplish. Byron said her students appreciate her dedication and write thank-you letters to everyone who donates to their classroom.
“They think it’s crazy, but they also appreciate it and they see it as all these people are trying to help us improve their education,” Byron said.
Byron’s biggest concern going into the race will not be the snakes crawling across the desert, but the heat of the Sahara, which Byron said is something she cannot prepare for while training in Boston’s climate.
“It will come down to mental fortitude,” she said.
Byron is encouraged by the support the school has received.
“It has been so inspirational,” she said, “and it motivates me to go on longer runs and work harder as a teacher.”
To donate to Byron’s fundraising campaign, go to www.crowdrise.com/lizbyron.



Cape Cod sisters Kate and Lizzy Escher open "ARTichoke" a fashion bus on wheels...



Like other young entrepreneurs with an interest in fashion, Kate and Lizzy Escher wanted to find a way to market unique designs by independent artists.

But establishing a store right off the bat didn't appeal to their sense of adventure. So, after a brief stint selling at fairs and festivals, the sisters took their business on the road—literally.

They have created their own "mobile boutique," transforming an old bus into a shop on wheels that brings silk-screened clothes and other artists’ designs to the SoWa open market in the South End, as well as other locations.

“We came up with the bus idea as a means to follow our dreams of owning a boutique and exposing our apparel line -- without the headaches of owning an actual brick-and-mortar (location),” said Kate. “We want to travel and explore. Owning the bus allows us to do that and work, all at the same time.” The sisters said they were inspired by the rising food truck industry and decided to piggyback on that idea.

Kate, 27, and Lizzy, 25, who live on Cape Cod, make frequent trips to Boston in the spring and summer. They previously lived in Allston, where the idea for their company, ARTichoke, was born. They held their first sale at a festival in Wellfleet in June 2011, then launched the mobile business in 2012.

Injured Louisville basketball player Kevin Ware is in good spirits and already up and walking according to Coach Rick Pitino...

Kevin Ware is already up and walking, and he’s got a nice souvenir to keep him company until he’s cleared to return to Louisville.
Cardinals coach Rick Pitino brought the Midwest Regional championship trophy when he visited Ware, the sophomore guard who remains hospitalized in Indianapolis after surgery to repair a gruesome fracture in his leg.
‘‘He was real excited about [the trophy],’’ Pitino said after visiting Ware again Monday morning. ‘‘I said to him, ‘You want me to bring it back or stay with you?’ He said, ‘It’s staying with me.’ I said, ‘All right, just make sure you don’t lose it.’ ’’
Ware’s right leg snapped in the first half of Sunday’s regional final against Duke when he landed awkwardly after trying to contest a 3-point shot in a game played at Lucas Oil Stadium. During a two-hour surgery Sunday night, doctors reset Ware’s broken tibia and inserted a rod into the bone. Because the bone broke through the skin, Pitino said doctors are monitoring Ware to make sure no infection develops. If there are no complications, he should be released on Tuesday.
The Cardinals plan to leave for the Final Four in Atlanta on Wednesday night, and Pitino said they expect to have Ware with them. Ware is originally from New York City, but he moved to the Atlanta area before high school.
Pitino said he expects Ware “to make a full recovery.’’


Monday, April 1, 2013

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


"The Devoted Husband"


Gabriel Wilson a 9-Year-Old boy with Autoimmune Disease, gets Magical Harry Potter Gift in the mail




The package may have been delivered by the U.S.P.S. instead of an owl -- but for its recipient, it was nothing short of magical.
A 9-year-old boy named Gabe, who suffers from an autoimmune disease on the PANDAS spectrum, received a box full of goodies from Universal Orlando's Wizarding World Of Harry Potter on Thursday. It was a gift from Redditor TheAdster, who wasn't aware of the boy's medical condition, but knew the boy's mother via the social sharing site.
It all started nine days ago, with a discussion of the novelty shops at Orlando's Potter-themed park. Gabe's mother, who goes by pandas_mom , said her family found the stores too small and crowded on a recent trip to Universal -- so TheAdster offered to send souvenirs, including the chocolate frogs, Gabe had wanted.

Billy Ray Harris, the homeless man that returned an engagement ring, gets the biggest surprise of all - a family reunion!


There were rumors that he was dead, but former homeless man Billy Ray Harris, 55, showed his family he was very much alive and thrilled to see them in a reunion Sunday on TODAY.
"I never would've thought this," Harris said as his family gathered around him. "This was a total shock." 
Harris hadn't seen his family in 16 years, but his sister recognized him after his story of returning an engagement ring went viral earlier in March. Harris, who had been holding out his cup on the street for donations in Kansas City, Mo., didn't know that passersby Sarah Darling had accidentally dropped her engagement ring in his cup until he packed up for the day. 
After discovering the ring, Billy Ray took it to a local jeweler, who offered him $4,000 on the spot. He considered taking the money but held onto the ring and waited for Darling to return. A couple days later, she did.
The story hit headlines across the globe and Harris was soon back in touch with his family. They had planned a family reunion for the summer, but TODAY didn't want them to have to wait that long.
"It means the world," said Harris' sister, Robin Harris Williams, of having her big brother back in her life.
She was the first to get in touch, after seeing his face in the news. "I knew it was my brother as soon as I saw the picture, and automatically I just started yelling," Williams said. She lived 490 miles away, in Texas, but eventually tracked him down and called to alert the rest of the family. The rest of the family joined in on the reunion, including brother Edwin Harris and sisters Elsie “EJ” Johnson and Nellie E. Vaughn.
Vaughn told TODAY's Erica Hill that she knew her sister had been looking for him all this time.
"It's good, It's really good news," Vaughn said.

Tufts University Student Maximus Thaler, Wants To Open Cafe That Serves Discarded Food For Free

Turkey meatballs, organic Greek yogurt, fair trade coffee. It sounds like the makings of a persnickety shopper’s grocery list. But it’s just one batch of fresh food that Maximus Thaler retrieved from a dumpster outside of a Massachusetts supermarket.
According to the National Resources Defense Council, supermarkets throw away on average, $2,300 worth of out-of-date, but still consumable, food every night. It’s a wasteful practice Thaler hopes to put an end to by raising $1,500 to open a café that gives away discarded grub.
“We believe food is a fundamental right, and should be shared freely with all,” the Tufts University student wrote on his Kickstarter page.
The cafe, the Gleaners Kitchen, will offer concerts, poetry readings, lectures and one meal a day for the hungry, according to his Kickstarter page.

Carol Sutor of Pennsylvania finds $30,000 in a donated bag of clothes...returns it.


A woman who took donated clothes from a relative returned the favor—with a vengeance: She gave back the $30,000 she found inside the hand-me-downs.
Carol Sutor of Bristol, Pa., was going through the clothes—which had belonged to her cousin’s daughter’s 85-year-old mother-in-law, who had recently died—when she came across a canvas bag on a hanger. In the bag was cash that had been stuffed into envelopes and wrapped in layers of plastic bags.
Sutor told the website Phillyburbs.com, “I unwrapped the bag, and there was another bag in another bag in another bag, one of those deals, you know?” Inside of them she found stacks of hundred dollar bills.
Sutor, owner of Advantage Insurance in Levittown, told the website, "Things are tight. You struggle in your business, like everybody’s struggling. But when you struggle you think, oh, wow, if only I had money, my troubles would be solved. And so all this money shows up, but it’s the wrong way for it to come. It wasn’t mine and I knew it.”