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Archive for May, 2009

Green Promise Seen in Switch to LED Lighting

May 30

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By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL and FELICITY BARRINGER

To change the bulbs in the 60-foot-high ceiling lights of Buckingham Palace’s grand stairwell, workers had to erect scaffolding and cover precious portraits of royal forebears.

So when a lighting designer two years ago proposed installing light emitting diodes or LEDs, an emerging lighting technology, the royal family readily assented. The new lights, the designer said, would last more than 22 years and enormously reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions — a big plus for Prince Charles, an ardent environmentalist. Since then, the palace has installed the lighting in chandeliers and on the exterior, where illuminating the entire facade uses less electricity than running an electric teakettle.

In shifting to LED lighting, the palace is part of a small but fast-growing trend that is redefining the century-old conception of lighting, replacing energy-wasting disposable bulbs with efficient fixtures that are often semi-permanent, like those used in plumbing.
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Clerk gives robber $40 from own pocket for insulin

May 30

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FORT SMITH, Ark. (AP) — A convenience store clerk wouldn’t open the register for a robber but gave the man $40 from his own pocket after the robber told him he needed the money for insulin.
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‘Kidnapped son’ found on Facebook

May 29

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A mother has been reunited with her son, 27 years after she claims he was kidnapped, after her sister saw him on the social networking site Facebook.

Avril Grube, 62, who lives in Poole, Dorset, says she was given custody of her son Gavin Paros after her marriage to a Hungarian man broke down in 1982.

His father, who died in 2006, had visiting rights but took him to Hungary and Ms Grube has not seen him since.

But Mr Paros, 29, met his mother this week after being found on Facebook.

Ms Grube, who was only discharged from hospital a week ago, said: “I would love it so much to have Gavin back living in Britain.”

She and her sister Beryl Wilson, 59, who lives in Liverpool, had spent years trying to trace their relative, even contacting the Hungarian Embassy and taking their case to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Ms Wilson told BBC Radio Solent: “[Mr Paros' father] had visitation rights, he said he was going to the zoo or somewhere and when he didn’t arrive back we found out he had taken him back to Hungary.

“My sister was devastated, her health suffered.

“I tried everything… but no-one wanted to know.”

In March, Ms Wilson typed her nephew’s name into an internet search engine and could not believe it when his Facebook profile came up correctly showing he had been born in Liverpool and naming his mother.
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Students make up missed days with good deeds

May 29

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By Kimberly Gasuras
Telegraph-Forum

BUCYRUS — Bucyrus High School sophomore Brandy Brown is buying back days she was absent from school by helping others.

“I helped at the Girls Night Out event at the Bucyrus YMCA,” she said. “I am not around little kids very much, so it was a lot of fun. It was a fun way to make up days I missed from school.”

Brown joined four other girls in helping out with the YMCA event.

“We have about 30 students who are participating in the buy-back program,” Bucyrus High School Prevention Specialist Mike McGrady said. “In the past, we have had students make up missed days with things like detentions or Thursday school. We decided we wanted the students to get more out of the time they spend making up missed days.”

Students are allowed to make up three missed days.

“We are having them do community service activities, like the YMCA event, along with things like helping out at the concession stand for sporting events, credit recovery, school service, helping with awards banquets and helping with school maintenance,” McGrady said.
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Woman checks old lottery ticket, wins $10 million

May 28

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(CNN) — Concerned about her family’s finances, a university student in Australia cashed some long-forgotten lottery tickets this week — hoping the money would help her parents.

She discovered their worries are over.

The university student won $10 million (A$13 million) — and helped solve a lottery mystery that has made headlines in Western Australia for 10 months.

“People had been wondering for months, who is this mystery winner? Do they know about this ticket?” said Jodi Eastman, spokeswoman for Lotterywest, the state lottery.

“We have a 12 month expiry on lottery tickets. And people thought it might end up expiring and go unclaimed.”

It would have, too, had the student — who is in her 30s and asked lottery officials to keep her anonymous — not woken up earlier this week, suddenly remembering the bundle of lottery tickets collecting dust in a drawer.

She didn’t know that among them was a gift from her father, who had purchased a ticket to test the family’s luck when the Oz Lotto jackpot climbed to $39 (A$ 50 million) million last July.

“She said she thought, ‘If I can win some money on these tickets, I can possibly help the family out,” Eastman said.

The first couple of tickets yielded small amounts — $16 total.

“She was pretty excited,” Eastman said.

Then the woman had the clerk check the gift from her father.

At first glance, she thought she’d won $10,000 (A$13,000). No, the retail store clerk told her, it’s $10 million (A$13 million).
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Boy saves brother from burning Glen Iris home

May 28

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By Brendan Roberts and Anthony DowsleyHerald Sun

A BOY who carried his toddler brother to safety as their home burnt down around them described it as a scene from a movie.

Mark Saarinen, 12, ran to younger brother Mikey’s room, scooped the two-year-old up and ran to safety as flames roared from the back of his family’s home in the Melbourne suburb of Glen Iris early today.

“I just looked up and saw the fire come and I told (brother) Jamie to get out and I got Mikey. I grabbed him and ran out,” he told the Herald Sun.

“It was like the movies … all of the windows exploded and the flames were big.”

In a dramatic chain-reaction, the family’s dog, Bella, began giving birth, surrounded by flames.

“She was giving birth during the fire and two of the puppies died but we got her outside and into a truck and she started giving birth again, we didn’t expect that,” Mark said.

Both Bella and her puppy are in the care of a vet and are said to be doing well.
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An angel to her soldiers

May 28

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By GRETYL MACALASTER
Union Leader Correspondent

BOW – Carol Cricenti calls it her “7-Eleven” room. The table is filled with candy, Kool-Aid packets, baby wipes, hotel samples, Cheez-Its, dogs treats and postcards.

The soldiers who receive the monthly packages made from the items in the 7-Eleven room call it Christmas.

Two years ago, Cricenti became a member of “Soldiers’ Angels.” Since then, she has officially “adopted” 41 soldiers from all branches of the military and helped bring support to many more.

Each day, Cricenti spends between two and four hours writing letters and e-mails to her soldiers. Each morning she sends out a joke of the day and reads through hundreds of e-mail responses.

A table in her kitchen is overflowing with letters she has received from all over the world.

“You are the light that makes me stay focused amidst the darkness,” Cricenti’s first adopted solider, Army Staff Sgt. Mabon “Rick” Briola of Guam wrote on the back of a photograph of him and his wife. “It’s your prayer, your kindness, your letters that give me the strength to continue.”

Cricenti said a mail clerk she has become friendly with in Iraq told her morale starts with the first piece of mail.

She said some of her soldiers will ask if she can send letters to their buddies who haven’t received any mail, or do not have support from their families.

“These guys are just so lonely. So, so lonely,” Cricenti said.
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States unleash goats to keep grass trimmed

May 28

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CNN) — Forget lawn mowers. Maryland officials have found a natural way to combat brush while protecting a threatened species.

Forty bearded goats have been dispatched by the State Highway Administration to control plant growth in the area. They have been munching in an enclosed area for a week; they will stay until September, but will be put back to work next spring.

The project is part of Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s “Smart, Green and Growing” legislative package, aimed at reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020.

The pilot program will be evaluated at the end of two years, and officials will determine whether to send goats to other grazing projects on state highways, according to David Buck, a spokesman for the highway administration.

The goats are reducing the state’s carbon footprint and protecting the area’s bog turtles, listed as threatened. In addition, he said, the animals are much cheaper than a mowing program: State costs are about $10,000 for two years, most of that for delivery and veterinary services.

But the decision to utilize goats was not an easy one. Other herbivorous (plant-eating) animals were considered.

Cows were ruled out because they are too heavy, and their hooves could stomp the small, colorful-shelled bog turtles.

Sheep? Well, they just aren’t goats.

“Goats were just a viable solution,” Buck said. “They do not eat moving things. They will not crush [the turtles] out there.”
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I’m sharing my £7.5m Lotto win with orphans in Ethiopia

May 28

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By SHARON HENDRY

SINGLE mum Jane Surtees certainly has a Lotto heart.

Like millions of others, the mum-of-five had dreamed of winning the Lottery and buying cars, houses and designer clothes.

But she also had another wish — to help the plight of countless starving children in Ethiopia she had seen on television over the years.

So when Jane scooped a £7.5million jackpot five months ago, she immediately started planning her trip to the African country.

“I’ll never forget seeing the faces of so many beautiful children left poor and starving by events in Ethiopia and I wanted to go and see how I could help.

“In the end life is all about luck. Because of my good fortune, I will never have to worry about money again but these children have been left vulnerable and orphaned by problems that aren’t their fault.”

Jane travelled to Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa last week and headed straight to the Kidane Mehret Children’s Home, which cares for 120 orphans. The youngest is three days old, the oldest 17 years.
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Man cleared by DNA tests freed after serving 23 years for 1985 Richardson rape, burglary

May 28

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By JENNIFER EMILY / The Dallas Morning News

Thomas Clifford McGowan Jr. walked out of a Dallas County courtroom Wednesday a free man after DNA tests proved he did not commit a rape and burglary more than two decades ago.
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Mr. McGowan is the 16th Dallas County inmate to be cleared through DNA testing since 2001, the most of any county in the nation. Like almost all of the other wrongful convictions, Mr. McGowan’s was based primarily on the victim selecting his photograph from a police lineup.

Richardson police obtained his photograph from a traffic arrest two days after the 1985 rape. The 19-year-old victim picked his photo from a group of seven, some in color, others black-and-white photocopies.
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When she tentatively picked Mr. McGowan’s picture, she said Detective Mike Corley, now the assistant chief, told her, “I had to make a positive ID. I had to say yes or no.”

One of Mr. McGowan’s attorneys, Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project in New York, said he does not believe the officer intentionally did anything wrong. He said that’s just how lineups were done.
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