MEGHAN BARR
The Associated Press
AKRON, Ohio – The mailman finished his afternoon deliveries in an unassuming way, betraying no sign that anything out of the ordinary had occurred save for the blood on his uniform and the cut on his lip. Back at the post office, his actions were greeted with cries of disbelief: “Did you hear? Keith saved another life today.”
Such is a day in the life of Keith McVey, the postal worker with the bronzed skin and the alert blue eyes who can’t walk down the street without being honked at by passing cars filled with his admirers-or, apparently, without saving a life.
“He’s a rock star in our eyes,” says Tina Starosto, a receptionist at King Apartments, where a sign declaring “Keith Our Hero” is prominently tacked to the office wall.
cleveland.com
Flash Mob at the Ohio Union
Jul 22
A laid off paramedic who turned to delivering pizzas to make ends meet is credited with saving the life of a man who went into cardiac arrest just as a pizza was delivered to his door.
Christopher Wuebben, 22, was delivering a pizza late last week to the suburban Denver home of George Linn, when he heard the man’s wife screaming for help, according to Wuebben’s boss, John Keiley.
“Chris told the woman that he was trained in CPR and knew what to do,” Keiley, owner of Johnny’s New York Pizza, said on Tuesday. “He got him on the floor and brought him back to life before the fire department showed up.
montrealgazette.com
EXTREEEEEME parrot action
Jul 21
Pancake batfishes may be getting oiled before they get named
By Susan Milius
Two new fish species — with pancake-flat bodies, wiggling lures on their faces, and elbowed fins for “walking” on the seafloor — have been discovered in the path of spewing Gulf of Mexico oil.
One of these pancake batfishes lives in the northern Gulf where oil is already spreading from the Deepwater Horizon blowout, says ichthyologist Prosanta Chakrabarty of Louisiana State University’s Museum of Natural Sciences in Baton Rouge, a codiscoverer of the species.
Chakrabarty calls this narrowly distributed species the Louisiana pancake batfish.
href=”http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/61109/title/New_walking_fishes_discovered_in_Gulf_oil-spill_zone”>sciencenews.org
by JAMIE STENGLE
MCKINNEY, Texas — Ben Sater had vowed that before he went off to college, he would raise $1 million for the Dallas children’s hospital where he had received free treatments as a child.
After eight years’ worth of fundraising golf tournaments for kids, the soon-to-be Austin College freshman has reached the goal, with nearly $19,000 to spare.
Organizers announced Monday that they’ve raised $1,018,842 for Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, an orthopedic center that treats patients free of charge.
“We got it,” the now 18-year-old told the group of kids gathered in McKinney on Monday for the second KidSwing tournament of the summer.
msnbc.msn.com
Slender loris extinction was widely believed before the rare primate was photographed in central Sri Lanka late last year.
By Krishan Francis, Associated Press
GALLE, Sri Lanka
A nocturnal, forest-dwelling primate with orb-like eyes and short limbs was photographed in central Sri Lanka late last year after being feared extinct, researchers said Monday.
A Horton Plains slender loris was caught on camera after lengthy surveys of the forest by researchers from the Zoological Society of London, the University of Colombo and the Open University of Sri Lanka.
Team leader Saman Gamage said the mammal was not sighted for more than 60 years until in 2002 a researcher reported spotting its eyes during a search — inspiring the effort to view it fully and photograph it to prove the primate existed.
csmonitor.com
Paul Allen, who founded the Microsoft Corporation with Bill Gates, announced on Thursday that he planned to give more than half of his estimated $13.5 billion fortune to philanthropy.
Mr. Allen is among a growing number of wealthy philanthropists who are publicly stating their commitments to giving their money away in response to a call from Mr. Gates and Warren E. Buffett, who last month started a program called The Giving Pledge that aims to get the country’s billionaires to devote half their fortunes to charity. Eli and Edythe Broad, John and Ann Doerr and other wealthy philanthropists have also signed on.
nytimes.com
The United Nations is marking Nelson Mandela International Day for the first time this year in honour of the former South African leader’s contribution to the struggle for peace and freedom.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was most impressed by Mr. Mandela’s humility when he met the former anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Mr. Mandela preferred to talk not about himself but about what other people had done in the struggle for human rights and dignity, Mr. Ban said in a message to a special commemorative ceremony held at UN Headquarters in New York.
“That is just one reason why Nelson Mandela is such an inspiration to millions. He was not backed by money or power. As he constantly reminds us, he is an ordinary man. But he has achieved extraordinary things.
un.org