Good Things in the World

[CyclopsWasRight]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3095600/The-emotional-moment-Sikh-Samaritan-removed-turban-comfort-injured-boy-hit-car-receives-free-furniture-modest-apartment.html

 

[Canadian Rider]

America’s Got Talent returned for its 10th season on Tuesday night on NBC. All four judges were back for this landmark season. Howie Mandel, Howard Stern, Heidi Klum, and Mel B were ready to judge, offer their opinions, and decide which acts would advance to the next round. Also back for Season 10 was the golden buzzer, which gives each judge one opportunity to send an act straight to the live show at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. What wowed the judges on the first show of the new season was a stuttering comedian, according to Celeb Dirty Laundry.

KMBZ reported that what stood out on America’s Got Talent was the final act of the night. Before performing, Drew Lynch told the judges that his vocal chords were severely damaged. The 24-year-old comedian was left with a speech impediment after suffering vocal trauma as a result of getting hit in the throat with a softball four years ago. His act included jokes about working at a fast-food drive-through and as the voice for a GPS.

“I want to get to where people start to use my voice as the voice of their GPS. In one thousand feet, make a left… Oh, U-turn.”
​

The judges and audience were very impressed with Drew and his jokes. They gave him a standing ovation even before his act was over. The crowd chanted to put the comedian through. Howie Mandel said performing on America’s Got Talent is hard enough even when a contestant doesn’t have other things going on. Mel B said Drew took his situation and turned it into a positive. She said she was laughing at him laughing at his own jokes.
Howie loved Drew’s act so much that he gave him the show’s golden buzzer. This means Drew was sent straight to the live episodes without having to go through the voting process. Howie says he’s never been moved like this by an act.

“You are worth a million dollars. I want to see you at Radio City Music Hall.”
​

Host Nick Cannon came on stage and said Drew was going straight to the live shows at Radio City Music Hall. Howie said he can’t wait, and he really thinks Drew has a shot at the million-dollar prize. Drew’s girlfriend hugged him backstage, and they both cried.

 

[Canadian Rider]

I don't know how to post the youtube video but it's pretty awesome

 

[Apollo]

Woman wins suit against Abercrombie & Fitch

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us...t-clothing-store/ar-BBkueJ9?ocid=ansnewsreu11

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of a Muslim woman who sued after being denied a job at an Abercrombie & Fitch Co(ANF.N) clothing store in Oklahoma because she wore a head scarf for religious reasons.
On a 8-1 vote, the court handed a victory to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency that sued the company on behalf of Samantha Elauf. She was denied a sales job in 2008 at an Abercrombie Kids store in Tulsa when she was 17.

Groups representing Christians, Jews and Sikhs also filed court papers backing Elauf.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

That's a Very Good Dog

Figo—a very good dog (who’s a very good dog—YOU ARE! YOU ARE! FIIIIGOOOO)—threw himself in front of a bus this weekend to save his blind owner from almost certain death. Imagine being loved that much??

According to witnesses, a mini school bus driver didn’t notice Audrey Stone, who is blind, walking in an intersection until it was too late. Thankfully Figo—her best friend and, literally, such a good dog—was there.

“I don’t know if (the driver) thought (Stone) was going to move faster, but it looks like the dog tried to take most of the hit for her,” a gas station manager who saw the whole thing go down tells the Journal News.

The golden retriever “took a lot of the blow,” suffering a leg injury that cut to the bone, the Brewster police chief tells the paper. Stone broke several ribs, fractured her ankle, and suffered a head injury but she’s expected to make a full recovery.

“And he did not want to leave her side. He stood right with her. He was there to save her.”

SUCH A GOOD DOG.

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/putnam/2015/06/08/guide-dog-leaps-front-oncoming-bus/28702995/

And this is exactly why dogs are better than cats

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Someone at Pixar Built the Most Adorable Peek-a-Boo Playing Robot

Apparently if you work at Pixar, everything you make has to be adorable. So Alonso Martinez, a technical director at the company, designed and built a simple robot called Mira that’s just about the cutest thing you’ve ever seen when it’s playing peek-a-boo.

[YT]A7iAMELA_TY[/YT]

Watching Mira get sad and change colors when Alonso hides his face is a fun trick, but seeing her excitedly bounce and chirp like a real baby when he reveals himself again makes us want one for our own desks. Sadly, there’s no word on when Alonso might make his creation available to the rest of the world, but he does intend to develop her further to help enhance her simulated emotions and make her interactions with humans feel more genuine.

Mira is a desk companion that makes your life better one smile at a time. This project explores human robot interactivity and emotional intelligence. Currently Mira uses face tracking to interact with the users and loves playing the game “peek-a-boo”. As her understanding of the world and people’s emotions get richer so will her ability to interact with people in a more meaningful way.​

http://toyland.gizmodo.com/someone-at-pixar-built-the-most-adorable-peek-a-boo-pla-1717046545

Awww

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

A Lego-Friendly Prosthetic Arm Lets Kids Build Their Own Attachments

Hoping to build the confidence of children living with a missing limb, Carlos Arturo Torres Tovar, of Umeå University in Sweden, has designed a prosthetic arm that’s compatible with Lego so kids can swap its gripping attachment for their own custom creations.

The arm functions very similar to traditional prosthetics, but it features a twist-and-lock modular design that’s easy for kids to assemble. And with a special motorized adapter, its standard three finger gripper can be swapped out for one made entirely of Lego. By essentially turning the prosthetic into one of their toys, Carlos hopes his IKO arm will empower children by improving their every day lives, but also their confidence while interacting with other children who might feel uncomfortable.

[YT]e0ne-XfXtnQ[/YT]

If the child has access to Lego Mindstorms, the attachment they design and build can even be as articulated as the prosthetic’s standard gripper—but movement isn’t essential to the usefulness of the IKO. Kids love Lego because it helps them realize whatever they can imagine, and even if the laser blaster they’ve attached to the end of the arm doesn’t fire, in a child’s mind they will still feel like a super hero.

http://lego.gizmodo.com/a-lego-friendly-prosthetic-arm-lets-kids-build-their-ow-1716989666

This is so awesome it damn near brings a tear to my eye

 

[Evelisse]

This Hero.

http://m.lancasteronline.com/news/l...1d2-a1e0-5019-b0d6-5d030161c900.html?mode=jqm

Temar Boggs had a feeling he'd find the 5-year-old girl who was abducted Thursday in Lancaster Township.

He was right.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: Man charged with kidnapping, sexual offenses in abduction of girl, 5
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Boggs, a McCaskey freshman who lives in Gable Park Woods, had been hanging out with a friend at nearby Lancaster Arms apartments and helping move a couch when a man came by asking if they'd seen a missing girl.

They hadn't, Boggs said, so they went to watch TV.

A short time later, his friend went outside and saw lots of police officers and people from the neighborhood looking for the girl.

Police said that the girl had been taken that afternoon from the 100 block of Jennings Drive.

Boggs and about six friends joined the search.

"We got all of our friends to go look for her. We made our own little search party," Boggs, 15, said Saturday, though he didn't know the girl or her family.

They walked through some nearby woods and along a creek where they were told the girl might have gone.

When Boggs and his friends returned to Lancaster Arms on Jennings Drive, they saw more police officers and TV news crews.

"The whole block was filled," he said.

That's when, Boggs said, "I had the gut feeling that I was going to find the little girl."

A friend asked Boggs to hold his bike. Boggs figured the bike would help him search for the girl.

So he and another friend, Chris Garcia, rode on area streets - Michelle Drive, St. Phillips Drive, Gable Park Road - looking for her.

That's when a maroon car caught his eye. (He had gotten a bit ahead of Garcia.)


The car was on Gable Park and turned around when it got near the top of a hill toward Millersville Pike, where Boggs said several police officers were gathered with the kind of cart used to carry an injured football player off the field.

The driver, an older white man, then began quickly turning onto and out of side streets connecting to Gable Park, Boggs said.

The neighborhood is something of a maze; many of its streets are cul-de-sacs.

Boggs got close enough to the car to see a little girl inside. Garcia was nearby.

The driver looked at Boggs and Garcia, then stopped the car at Gable Park and Betz Farm Road and pushed the girl out of the car. The driver then drove off, Boggs said.

Boggs said he didn't see where the car went.

"She runs to my arms and said, 'I need to see my mommy,' " Boggs said.

Boggs scooped the girl onto his shoulders and began riding the bike toward home, but then decided that wasn't safe, so he carried her and walked back while Garcia pedaled along, guiding the bike Boggs had been using.

Back at Lancaster Arms, when Boggs and Garcia arrived with the girl, someone summoned a firefighter or law enforcement officer.

Boggs said the girl was reluctant to leave him and go to the official.

"She didn't want to leave me because she thought they were going to do something to her. I said, 'No, it's OK,' " he said.

Police said later that the abductor took the little girl for ice cream, and that there were indications of an assault.

Boggs met the girl's family Thursday evening, after he told police his story.

The girl's family members "were just saying that I was a hero, that I was a guardian angel and that it was amazing that I was there and was able to find the girl," he said.

Boggs doesn't see himself as a hero.

"I'm just a normal person who did a thing that anybody else would do," he said.

He described himself as a typical kid.

He plays football, basketball and track (he runs the 100- and 200-meter and the 400-meter relay, and does the high and long jump).

He likes sneakers, and if his hopes of being a professional athlete don't pan out, he'd like to be a clothing or sneaker designer. Or maybe work in the culinary arts.

He's modest, but knows he did something special Thursday.

"It was like fate, it was like meant for me and Chris to be there. If we wouldn't have left (to look for the girl) who knows what would have happened to the little girl," he said.

Boggs did wake up in the middle of the night afterward, though, thinking he might have saved the girl's life.

"It was a blessing for me to make that happen," he said.

His mother, Tamika Boggs, said she's proud of her son.

"You just hope you raise your child the right way. ... He's learning what I tell him, to help others," she said.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Awesome

 

[Teelie]

Walmart to stop selling AR-15s and similar guns

I know some people will not see it this way but to me this is good news. t:

Walmart said Wednesday that it will stop selling military-style semiautomatic rifles, including AR-15s.

Walmart spokesman Kory Lundberg said the move is in response to slumping demand.

Generally speaking, gun sales have been strong this summer. The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted 1.6 million background checks in July for all gun sales, not just semiautomatic weapons. That's up from 1.4 million total checks in July of 2015.

Background checks aren't a direct indicator of gun sales, since they are not required for some sales at trade shows and between individuals. But they are a good barometer for the market.

AR-15s have been used in mass shootings including Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., and gun control advocates have long been fighting to restrict the sale of these weapons.

Walmart made the announcement on the same day that two television journalists were murdered on live television by a man wielding a handgun, but the retailer did not mention the shootings.

Walmart CEO Douglas McMillon had indicated he might do this in a June 23 interview with CNNMoney.

"Our focus in terms of firearms should be hunters and people who shoot sporting clays, and things like that," said McMillon in June. "So the types of rifles we sell, the types of ammunition we sell, should be curated for those things."

When asked at the time if he would curtail sales of semiautomatic guns, McMillon said "yes."

"We want to serve people who hunt and fish and we want to have a great sporting goods department," he said.

CNN

 

[regwec]

I suppose that's progress, but the headline itself is a reminder of how far there is to go.

 

[Teelie]

At this point any kind of progress is good. And WalMart is no small retailer either. They are the top dog so if they are cutting back it must mean something.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Iron Man, Frozen, and Star Wars Prosthetics Will Boost Kids' Confidence

A prosthetic hand is about more than just improving the wearer’s physical capabilities. It’s also about improving their self-confidence. So Open Bionics, makers of low-cost but highly capable prosthetic robotic hands, have teamed up with Disney to realize some very cool designs.

Kids can be bullied for something as innocuous as wearing the wrong shirt; imagine what life is like for a child missing a limb. So not only has Open Bionics designed what it’s claiming is the world’s smallest bionic hand, the company has also joined forces with Disney to create three versions featuring designs and glowing LED features inspired by Iron Man, Frozen, and Star Wars.

Led by Joel Gibbard, who’s best known for the open source 3D-printable Open Hand Project, Open Bionics is part of Techstars’ Disney Accelerator program. That means they have royalty-free access to these three properties, and worked with Lucasfilm’s ILMxLAB on the Star Wars hand.

The company’s goal is to produce a commercially viable prosthetic using the same 3D-printing production techniques as the open source version, to keep the cost highly affordable. But with an increased focus on aesthetics and design so the prosthetics are as much a fashion accessory the wearer can be proud of, as they are a boost to their capabilities and an improvement of every day life.

http://gizmodo.com/iron-man-frozen-and-star-wars-prosthetics-will-boost-1735687867

This is just so awesome

 

[Teelie]

What, they don't think adults would like them too?

 

[Teelie]

Body cam footage clears cops in Cleveland shooting death
"The evidence shows the officers showed remarkable restraint."

For once there is a positive story about the police doing something on camera. This man was determined to die by police shooting and even after shooting one of the cops (who was wearing a vest), that cop still did not open fire on the shooter and attempted to keep him from getting shot to death.

Unfortunately he still ended up getting what he wanted when he attempted to open fire again on the police and was killed but these officers showed they can use restraint and did their best not to end someone's life.

We've written a lot here at Ars about how video surveillance has captured cops doing bad things. We cover this area because the technology of body cams, Taser cams, dash cams, and even images taken by bystanders has changed our perspective on police behavior that would likely have been swept under the rug previously.

But this surveillance technology also captures officers who, in the words of a local Cleveland county prosecutor, have acted with "remarkable restraint." In this instance, body cam footage of several Cleveland patrol officers shows them doing everything they could to convince a man to put down his weapon.

Police came to visit Theodore Johnson's Cleveland residence after his wife claimed he threatened to kill her. The man had already shot one officer, striking the chest of a patrolman David Muniz's ballistic vest. "I know you shot me, but I'm not going to shoot you," Muniz tells the 64-year-old Johnson, according to police body cam footage taken at the scene.

Johnson replies, "Do what you do, man," according to the video.

According to the tape, Muniz tells Johnson, "Put the gun down. We don't want to kill you. Just drop the gun."

"I wanna die," Johnson replies, according to the tape.

"No, you don't want to die," Muniz replies, according to the tape.

Officers are overheard telling Johnson they will get him some help. He says he doesn't want it, according to the tape. He raises his weapon, and the police open fire, killing Johnson on March 11.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty released the tape Wednesday. The day before, a grand jury concluded that the shooting was justified.

"The evidence shows the officers showed remarkable restraint and went above and beyond the call of duty to seek a peaceful conclusion,” McGinty said in a statement. "These Officers are commended for responding with courage and for heroically fulfilling their duty to protect the public."

Ars Technica

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Awesome find of officers doing the right thing. Sad the man wanted to go out like that but they did what they had to do

 

[Teelie]

World poverty rate to fall below 10% for the first time

It's good news on a global scale even if some countries are still very much in the extreme poverty zone.

For the first time ever, the number of people living in extreme poverty is set to fall to below 10% of the global population in 2015, the World Bank said.

"This is the best story in the world today -- these projections show us that we are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty," Jim Yong Kim, World Bank's president, said.

The World Bank projects that the number of people living in poverty fell to 702 million people in 2015, or about 9.6% of the global population. That compares to 2012, when 902 million people lived below the poverty line, which was around 12.8% of the population at the time.

The organization defines living in poverty as anything less than $1.90 a day.

Global poverty rates are improving thanks to investments in education, health, and social safety nets that help keep people from falling back into poverty, the bank said in a report.

Kim said the world is moving closer to the "historic goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030."

But Kim also stressed that slowing global economic growth is now making the goal a "highly ambitious target." The bank has warned the progress is still too uneven, with some regions lagging behind. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the global poverty hotspot, with roughly a half of the global poor living in the region. Poverty rates in the region declined more slowly than elsewhere, falling from an estimated 56 percent in 1990 to a projected 35 percent in 2015.

The bank said that reducing poverty in the East Asia and the Pacific regions has been crucial to the global progress.

The 2015 numbers are only projections, because of the delay in getting accurate poverty data from the world's least developed countries.

The report said poverty is becoming more entrenched in countries that are either conflict ridden or too dependent on commodity exports.

"There is some turbulence ahead," said World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu. "The economic growth outlook is less impressive for emerging economies in the near future, which will create new challenges in the fight to end poverty and attend to the needs of the vulnerable, especially those living at the bottom 40 percent of their societies," he added.

CNN Money

 

[Teelie]

Cop delays telling children of parents' death, takes care of them on Halloween

Some bittersweet good. These children were orphaned when their parents were killed in a car wreck on Halloween so the officer did the best thing he could for them and delayed ruining their Halloween by taking them out for food and giving them a tour of his police station.

Also set up a fund to help the kids out which unsurprisingly got a huge amount of donations. The original goal was $7,000 to cover funeral expenses but the donations topped $150,000.

Faced with the somber task of informing four children that their parents had been killed in a car wreck on Halloween, a big-hearted Georgia state trooper opted to do things a little differently.

Rather than just announce the devastating news there and then, Trooper Nathan Bradley decided to take the costume-clad kids under his wing for the evening and allow them to enjoy Halloween. He also started an online fundraising campaign to help the family.

Bradley has recounted the heartbreaking moment when he and two other officials arrived at the family home in Morgan County to deliver the news.

"The door hesitantly opened and there behind the locked screen door stood four children in full costume -- a 13-year-old Freddy Krueger, 10-year-old daughter of a Dracula, 8-year-old wizard and a 6-year-old that appeared to be a firefighting ninja turtle," he wrote on the GoFundMe page he set up.

He and his colleagues were speechless. They'd hoped to find an adult among the family members in the house, but the eldest boy, Justin Howard, told them no one was home.

"My parents went to the store to get more face paint. They told us not to open the door for anybody, but they should be back soon," he told the officials, according to Bradley.

'I wanted to preserve these kids' Halloween'

The officials found out that the closest relative of the dead parents, Donald and Crystal Howard, was the children's paternal grandmother, who lives seven hours away in Florida.

Bradley says he couldn't bear the thought of the kids being told they were orphans and then having to spend the rest of Halloween waiting in a county jail for their grandmother to arrive. So he put the distressing announcement on hold.

"I wanted to preserve these kids' Halloween and the ones to come," he wrote in the GoFundMe statement, which was also shared on Facebook by the Georgia Department of Public Safety.

He took the children to get burgers, fries and milkshakes before giving them a tour of the troopers' post. Other people who had heard what happened brought over candy, toys and Disney movies to watch.

The children were put to bed in rooms at the post, still uninformed of the terrible news.

"You turned an F-Minus day into an A-Plus night!" the little girl told him at bedtime -- words he found difficult to take in.

Their grandmother arrived just before dawn and agreed with Bradley and others that it would be better to tell the children what had happened the following day.

"We hoped that they would then relate the tragedy to November 1st, rather than Halloween," Bradley wrote.

Fundraiser soars above initial goal

On Tuesday, he said he heard from the eldest son that the transportation of the parents' remains and other funeral costs would amount to $7,000. That's when he decided to set up the fundraising page, with any additional money going toward the children's future education.

Thanks to a huge response, the amount raised has soared far above his initial goal, with other offers of help pouring in. By early Thursday, the GoFundMe had raised more than $150,000 from thousands of people.

"I'm am astonished by the support of this family," Bradley wrote as the donations flooded in. "You all are responsible for this success. The family wants to thank each and every one of you."

Still in his early 20s, the trooper says he plans to stay in touch with the four children.

"I care a lot about them and I want to watch them succeed," he said, according to CNN affiliate WSB. "I don't want this tragedy to shadow the rest of their lives."

The Georgia Department of Public Safety praised his efforts.

"Compassion is a core value of our Department," it said in a Facebook post. "Trooper Bradley is a true example of that value."

CNN

 

[Silvermoon]

Lily, the 2 year old spoken of (and the one pictured in the Rapunzel wig at the link), is actually my cousin's daughter (she's doing really well now ) I'm glad that this idea of Ms. Christensen's is gaining steam. I also know that on their facebook page they've talked of trying to come up with ideas for wigs for boys as well. Please consider supporting them if you are able (even if it's something as simple as following their facebook page or spreading the word)

People Are Making Disney Princess Wigs Out Of Yarn For The Best Reason

People Are Making Disney Princess Wigs Out Of Yarn For The Best Reason
The Magic Yarn Project brings a 'little magic and sparkle' into pediatric cancer patients' lives.
by deepa lakshmin 11/11/2015

Holly Christensen and Bree Hitchcock are making the lives of pediatric cancer patients a little bit easier. The two mothers founded The Magic Yarn Project, which knits Disney princess-inspired wigs for children undergoing cancer treatment.

“This project was first inspired when I found out last fall that the daughter of one of my college friends was diagnosed with cancer at the tender age of 2,” Christensen, a nurse who’s worked with cancer patients, told BuzzFeed. “Knowing how sick she would get and how difficult it would likely be for her to lose her long, blonde, curly hair, and knowing that the chemotherapy would make her bare scalp too sensitive and tender to wear a traditional wig, I made her a Rapunzel yarn wig on a soft crocheted beanie and sent it to her.”

The girl was so thrilled with the gift that Christensen was inspired to continue creating wigs. Soon word of the project spread, with people across the globe offering to send supplies and make wigs themselves. So, Christensen and Hitchcock organized two workshops for nearby volunteers to help out with the wig-making process.

Over 80 wigs have been knitted thus far. They will be donated to childhood cancer patients so that they can “see a little magic and sparkle come into their lives during such a hard time.”


“I can’t take the horrible disease away,” Christensen continued, “but I can do something. I can bring some light into cancer patients’ lives and help provide a magical escape during an otherwise dark and difficult time.”

For more info about The Magic Yarn Project, visit their Facebook page. You can also support the cause on their GoFundMe page.

 

[Teelie]

Handgun jams after man wounds student trying to help crime victim

This thread could use another bump. The good samaritan was shot but not fatally thanks to the gun jamming. Had it not jammed the robber might have killed him and the woman who was being robbed.

A man who tried to help a New Orleans crime victim was shot in the stomach and would have been shot again had the assailant's handgun not jammed, security camera video released by police shows.

Peter Gold, 25, a Tulane University medical student, survived. He is listed in guarded condition at a hospital, New Orleans police said.

The video was shot at 4 a.m. Friday and opens with a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt dragging a woman down the sidewalk to a parked SUV in the 1000 block of St. Mary Street, New Orleans police said in a press release.

A few seconds later, a car turns the corner and parks. Gold gets out and approaches the man outside camera range.

Gold steps back into camera range with his hands up. There's no audio, but police said he was explaining that he didn't have any cash. The gunman fires once into Gold's stomach. The student falls to the sidewalk and curls into a ball.

The gunman points the weapon at Gold's head but the gun doesn't fire. He fiddles with the gun and tries two more times to shoot Gold. He steps out of the camera range and a light-colored SUV drives away.

Police said the robber grabbed the woman's purse and left. She was not injured.

Gold is a fourth-year medical student who did his undergraduate work at the school, Tulane University President Mike Fitts said. His parents and sister attended Tulane.

"He is an outstanding student who represents the best of Tulane in every possible way," Fitts said.

His family issued a statement asking for privacy as they help Gold recover.

"While we deeply appreciate everyone's concern, support and prayers as our family faces this crisis, our sole focus at this time is on Peter's recovery," the statement said.

CNN

 

[Teelie]

Five rescued in Tanzania after 41 days trapped in gold mine

This should be represented in the news more often. Instead it barely made a blip in the media.

Five people were rescued after spending 41 days trapped by a landslide in a small-scale gold mine in northwest Tanzania and one body was recovered, the mining ministry said on Tuesday.

The incident occurred at Kahama district, Shinyanga region, near the licensed Bulyanhulu and Buzwagi gold mines, which are owned by Acacia Mining Ltd, formerly African Barrick Gold Plc.

"Five out of six miners who were trapped in the landslide ... were rescued alive," Badra Masoud, spokesperson of the energy and minerals ministry said in a statement.

"The miners were trapped since Oct. 5 ... Rescue operations succeeded in freeing them from the collapsed mine some 100 meters underground on Nov. 15."

The miners survived by eating roots. "The miners used their helmets to collect water that was seeping through the landslide," the ministry said.

Unsafe and unregulated illegal mining is widespread in Tanzania, which is Africa's fourth-largest gold producer after South Africa, Ghana and Mali.

An illegal gold mine collapsed in the same district in April killing 19 people.

Reuters

 

[Teelie]

After Dropbox finds a child porn collector, a chess club stops his knife attack

Another piece of under represented good deeds the media couldn't care less about, despite the child porn angle.

Dustin Brown wanted a secure grip on the two knives he had selected to slaughter the children.

Before leaving his Morton, Illinois, home on the afternoon of October 13, the 19-year-old wrapped each knife's handle carefully with duct tape. He then pulled on a pair of grippy gloves. The one-mile journey to the public library gave Brown one final chance to rehearse the plan he had contemplated for the last two weeks. Five-inch blades jingled together in his backpack all the while.

Hanging over everything, child pornography charges threatened to ruin Brown's life. Despite some rudimentary precautions, his online cache of videos had been unearthed by investigators earlier in the year. Searched, arrested, and eventually expelled from Morton High School, Brown felt he had nothing left to live for. In this lowest of moments, he wanted only to destroy the lives of others before turning his duct-taped knives on himself.

Morton, a 17,000-person village just outside of Peoria along I-74, bills itself as the "pumpkin capital of the world." Its claim to fame lies in its thousands of acres of pumpkin farms, along with an enormous Nestlé plant that cans Libby's puréed pumpkin. Directly behind the Nestlé plant, across the railroad tracks, sits the town's single-story brick library. At 3:25pm, Brown walked inside and sat down at a table. He looked around. A chess club was meeting in the library conference room, and Brown watched the 16 children—some as young as seven—with rising rage. Furious at the legal charges against him, Brown saw a way to exact a twisted form of revenge against children. He opened his backpack and pulled out the knives.

Inside the conference room, 75-year-old instructor James Vernon looked up from a chess board and saw Brown running toward him. Brown held a knife in each hand; as he entered the conference room, he screamed out, "I'm going to kill some people!"

Though Vernon had spent his career in IT at the local Caterpillar plant, he had taken knife-fight training in the Army many decades before. He immediately stepped forward into Brown's path, trying to distract the young man—but also hoping to see which hand he might use to attack. Local newspaper reporter Michael Smothers spoke to Vernon afterward about what happened:

“I tried to settle him down,” [Vernon] said. “I didn’t, but I did deflect his attention” from the children “and calmed him a bit. I asked him if he was from Morton, did he go to high school. I asked what his problem was. He said his life 'sucks.' That’s a quote.”

As Vernon spoke, he stepped closer to Brown. “He backed away when I’d get closer.” With a few steps, Vernon put himself between Brown and the room’s door, with the children under the tables behind him.

“I gave them the cue to get the heck out of there, and, boy, they did that! Quick, like rabbits,” Vernon said...

Vernon watched what Brown did with his knives and learned.

“I knew he was right-handed. He was whittling on his left arm” with the one in that hand, “making small cuts. He was trying to scare me, and he did.” But if Brown attacked, “I knew which hand it was coming from.”

The attack came with a sudden slash. Vernon threw up an arm in defense, taking cuts to two arteries in his hand and wrist, before shoving Brown hard toward the tables. Brown landed with his bodyweight pinning his left arm beneath him, rendering the second knife ineffective. Vernon, bleeding profusely, grabbed Brown's right wrist with one hand and punched Brown repeatedly in the right shoulder until the assailant dropped the first knife.

Library staff rushed in to disarm Brown, holding him until police arrived minutes later. According to prosecutors, while Brown was being led out to a waiting ambulance, he told police and paramedics, "I failed my mission to kill everyone."

The violent conclusion to the story was unusual, but the child pornography investigation that set Brown off was not. Increasingly, such investigations aren't simply spurred by agents monitoring file-sharing networks or infiltrating the paranoid world of online communities dedicated to child sex abuse. While those investigations continue, cases today can commonly arise from tips lodged by Internet companies, especially those that provide cloud storage.

And in this case, Brown's case was set in motion by one of the most popular of cloud storage providers around: Dropbox.

The rest of the story can be read on Ars Technica

 

[Teelie]

Penis transplants being planned for wounded veterans
Doctors expect recipients to regain urinary and sexual function.

It's definitely weird news but it's also good news for those men who lost that part of themselves and has a possible future in transgender surgery.

A group of doctors at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore are gearing up to offer military men injured in war the country’s first penis transplants. The surgeries could start within a year, and recipients could regain sensation, along with urinary and sexual function, within months, doctors said.

Though it’s unrealistic that they would regain all function, the hope of fathering a child “is a realistic goal,” Dr. W. P. Andrew Lee, the chairman of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Johns Hopkins, told The New York Times. The transplants would only involve the penis, not the testes, so any sired children would be genetically related to recipients.

The group of doctors felt compelled to offer the transplants because of the psychological toll of such injuries, particularly feelings of shame, stigma, and loss of identity. “I think one would agree it is as devastating as anything that our wounded warriors suffer, for a young man to come home in his early 20s with the pelvic area completely destroyed,” Lee said. Another doctor quoted by the Times said that in his experience young veterans would rather lose both legs and an arm than suffer a genital injury.

From 2001 to 2013, 1,367 men, nearly all under the age of 35, returned home from Iraq and Afghanistan with genital injuries, according to the Department of Defense Trauma registry, the Times noted.

Penis transplants have been performed twice before: an unsuccessful 2006 transplant in China, and a successful surgery in South Africa last year. The South African recipient, who suffered a botched circumcision, recently became a father.

Doctors at Johns Hopkins are optimistic that the surgeries in the US will be just as successful. Johns Hopkins has given the doctors permission to perform 60 transplants, and one candidate is far along in the evaluation process.

The transplant surgery is expected to take 12 hours and involves connecting two to six nerves, and six or seven veins and arteries. Nerves from the recipient will likely grow into the transplanted penis at a rate of about an inch a month. Doctors expect recipients will regain urinary function within weeks and sexual functions within a few months.

Johns Hopkins will cover the cost of the first transplant, estimated to be around $200,000 to $400,000. And doctors have asked the Defense Department for money to cover more.

So far, the doctors are only considering wounded veterans, not patients seeking gender reassignment. But that could change in time.

Ars Technica

 

[Silvermoon]

This Christmas Video of a Little Girl Asking Santa for Presents Is Going Viral: Santa Signing to a Child

Get ready to feel all the feels, because this heartwarming moment between a mall Santa and a little girl with a hearing impairment is basically the best thing to ever happen.

The little girl and her family were getting their turn to sit with Santa at a U.K. mall over the weekend when mom cautioned Santa that her daughter might not be able to speak to him.

...Santa has the perfect response: He asks her family if she can sign.

That's when Santa turns to the girl and speaks to her, in sign language, about what she wants for Christmas. The look on her face when she realizes Santa can sign is enough to turn even the grinchiest Grinch into a total holiday believer.

https://youtu.be/RPcTB86aT0Y

 

[blueharvest]

That's cool. I saw the .gif version on Reddit a couple of days ago.