Category: Uncategorized

  • Couple Marries at U.S.-Canada Border So 96-Year-Old Grandmother Can Attend
  • Traveling between the U.S.-Canada border is usually pretty common, but Covid-19 restrictions have made this much more difficult. Karen Mahoney, who now lives in New York state but is from Quebec, used to cross the border to visit her family in Canada every week.  Mahoney was preparing to marry Brian Ray, who grew up just across the border from her in New York. The couple met as kids when Ray taught Mahoney how to ski — 35 years later, their friendship blossomed to something more and Ray proposed to Mahoney on the ski slope. "We didn't want to wait and have a long engagement. We are so much in love that we couldn't wait another day to be married," Mahoney told CBS News. "So, we planned it for September in hopes the border would be open." On Aug. 21, the pair found out that the border would still be closed on their wedding date of Sept. 25. “COVID has hit hard. Without being able to hug them for 18 months, it hurts,” said Mahoney. A few weeks ago, their friend “Border Brian” — who got his nickname due to his job as a border patrol agent — said he could help the couple secure a special location for their nuptials. "I've known him longer than I know her," said Ray. "He was more than accommodating and willing to be there for us." "He was off-duty at the time and ... let the other agents who were on duty know what was going to transpire," Mahoney said. "He arranged so that it would be uninterrupted." Border Brian organized the vows on the Jamieson Line Border Crossing between Burke, New York and Quebec, Canada. The couple had their planned wedding the next day, in front of the rest of their friends and family. “I got to marry the most beautiful woman in the world two days in a row,” said Ray. Image source: CBS News
  • Blink-182 Bassist and Vocalist Mark Hoppus Announces He is ‘Cancer Free’
  • Mark Hoppus announced via social media Wednesday that he is now cancer-free, just three months after revealing he was battling an aggressive form of lymphoma.   The Blink-182 bassist and vocalist alerted fans in June of his diagnosis, halfway through his six-month chemotherapy treatment. “It sucks and I’m scared, and at the same time I’m blessed with incredible doctors and family and friends to get me through this,” he wrote at the time. “I still have months of treatment ahead of me but I’m trying to remain hopeful and positive. Can’t wait to be cancer free and see you all at a concert in the near future. Love to you all.”
     
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    A post shared by Mark Hoppus (@markhoppus)

    His most recent Instagram post was much more cheerful. “Just saw my oncologist and I’m cancer free!!” Hoppus wrote in an Instagram post. “Thank you God and universe and friends and family and everyone who sent support and kindness and love. Still have to get scanned every six months and it’ll take me until the end of the year to get back to normal but today is an amazing day and I feel so blessed. Can I get a W in the chat?” Hoppus was battling diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, but remained optimistic through the entire process, even performing again through intimate livestreams. Image source: NME
  • Vancouver Charity Rescues Food, Opens ‘Pay What You Feel’ Surplus Food Market to Help Combat Food Insecurity
  • An estimated 35.5 million tons of food is thrown out each year in Canada, but this Canadian nonprofit is working to divert some of that food to those in need. The Food Stash Foundation is opening the doors to the Rescued Food Market Friday, Oct. 1, and customers are able to pay what they want. Food Stash executive director Carla Pellegrini says that the pay-what-you-feel design gets rid of any stigma associated with people not being able to afford the rising costs of food. “So you can use the weight of the food to gauge an appropriate donation amount if you wanted to, or you can donate whatever you feel or not donate at all,” Pellegrini explains. “It’s really about getting people easy access to rescued food.”
    Pellegrini also says their charity rescues more than 30,000 kilograms — or nearly 67,000 tons — of food each month.  The Rescued Food Market complements the foundation’s new community fridge, which sits in front of the building and is stocked with food that people can access at all times. The market is located at 340 West 2nd Ave. in Vancouver. Pellegrini says donations and volunteers are always welcome. Image source: BC Business
  • All 39 Trapped Canadian Miners Rescued Successfully
  • Last Sunday, workers at the Totten mine in Sudbury, Ontario became trapped after a heavy scoop bucket crashed into the lift system and blocked the shaft, according to Vale Chief Executive Officer Eduardo Bartolomeo. After the accident, the miners gathered at refuge stations, where they had access to food and water and remained in touch with their families and staff outside of the mine. The workers used a secondary ladder system to climb out of the mine — a journey that measured between 1,800 feet to 4,000 feet, depending how deep underground they were — with rest stops along the way. Approximately 58 responders from Vale’s Mine Rescue team and Ontario Mine Rescue helped with the efforts that lasted two and a half days. All 39 miners were rescued successfully and are in good health, according to Vale, the company responsible for the mine. Each of them will continue to be checked in the coming days. “We do need to move into a number of other steps to understand why this happened and make sure that we put measures in place to ensure that it never happens again, which is a process that will take time and cooperation through a joint investigation,” said Gord Gilpin, the head of mining operations for Vale in Ontario, at a press conference Wednesday. Vale spokesperson Jeff Lewis said the final four workers who climbed to the top are in “good spirits” and “happy to be back with loved ones.” Totten mine employs around 200 people to produce copper, nickel and precious metals. Image source: NBC News
  • Dutch Supermarket Chain Opens ‘Chat Registers’ for Elderly and Lonely Customers
  • Dutch supermarket chain, Jumbo, will introduce 200 “chat registers” in its stores so that customers will be able to have a conversation while checking out in the otherwise digitized shopping experience. The initiative is meant to combat loneliness, especially among the country’s elderly population.  According to government organization Statistics Netherlands, 26 percent of those older than 15 feel at least some sort of loneliness, while the rate rises to 33 percent for those over 75. Jumbo piloted the first chat register (“kletskassa” in Dutch) in 2019 and received positive feedback. The decision to implement them permanently is part of the government-sponsored “One Against Loneliness” program, which looks to alleviate feelings of loneliness in the country — even establishing a 24-hour hotline for those wishing to speak to someone. “The Kletskassa is a checkout especially for people who are not in a hurry and feel like having a chat,” a Jumbo representative wrote in an email to Motherboard. “Many people, especially the elderly, sometimes feel lonely. It’s a small gesture, but a very valuable one, especially in a world that is digitizing and getting faster and faster.”  Jumbo said it will “carefully consider areas where loneliness is a major issue” as it picks locations for the chat registers across the Netherlands and Belgium. The company will also open some “cozy chat corners,” where customers can have a cup of coffee and converse with one another. Large supermarkets in the Netherlands and Belgium have become increasingly digitized over the last decade with everything from self-checkout to facial recognition surveillance cameras. So, the chat registers will provide a human touch to those that need it. Image source: Jumbo
  • ‘You Made My Day’: 11-Year-Old Has Emotional Surprise Reunion With Best Friend After Pandemic Separation
  • An emotional video shows the touching reunion between two boys who were separated due to the pandemic.  Three years ago, an 11-year-old boy from Chicago, Owen, moved to Missouri with his family and had to leave his best friend, Stevie, behind. “The separation compounded by COVID has been hard on both boys,” Diane Stroud, Stevie’s mother, told NBC Chicago. Stevie had a bad day at school last week, so he asked to be picked up early and had no idea that his best friend traveled from Missouri to Chicago on a business trip with his dad and was waiting in the backseat of the car. In the video, Stevie walks to the car with his backpack on and basketball in hand. He opens the door and is in disbelief when he sees Owen, even dropping the basketball. Stevie immediately starts crying tears of joy as his mom explains why Owen is there. “What are you doing here?!” exclaimed Stevie, between sobs. “You just made my day. I’ve had the worst day ever. What are you doing here?” Owen replied, “I’m visiting you in Chicago! That’s what I’m doing here.” “I feel like I’m dreaming,” said Stevie. Image source: NBC News
  • Laundry Angels: Texas Nonprofit Partners with Homeless Shelters to Provide Mobile Laundry Services
  • Ebonie Trice grew up in Gary, Indiana, where she was raised in a church that ran a shelter and food pantry for those in need, so, a love for serving the community was instilled in her at a young age.  After moving to Texas a decade ago, Trice wanted to get involved in helping those in her new community as she had at home. As the homelessness crisis increased in Austin, Trice looked for ways to provide basic necessities to those who were lacking them. “I started personally thinking about how often I can wash [clothes],” she told KXAN. “I have a washer and dryer in my home, and it’s easy if I wanted to wash every day or every other day. But something as simple as that, we take for granted.” That’s when the idea for Mission Accomplished came to her. When the organization began in 2014, Trice and her volunteers would go to homelessness camps to collect dirty clothes and take them to a laundromat to wash them. Then, the group evolved to creating laundry kits to give to those in need, partnering with local churches and their in-house washers and dryers. When the pandemic hit, the group had to pivot once more. “You’re trying to keep your volunteers safe but you also want to still help, and so it became a real big challenge,” she said. “But then we started running into where [laundromat] owners didn’t want that look in their facilities, and so they didn’t want us to have — to have an overload of individuals experiencing homelessness in their facility. So then we had to take a pause. And it was like, OK, what do we do?”  Trice partnered with Lighter Loads ATX and its founders, James and Laura Rice, and created the Laundry Angels on Wheels program — a mobile laundry trailer that travels to shelters to provide services and meet people exactly where they are at. In addition to laundry services, Mission Accomplished provides food and water, 24-hour bus passes, gift cards, clothing and toiletry items.  Trice is thankful she is able to meet people face-to-face more often now. “It’s such a different impact right now because we get to, like, talk to them,” she said, adding: “It’s just like, the realness of it, and then you get to see them all the time.” Image source: Spectrum News
  • Girl Spent Months in Hospital Fighting Cancer as a Child, Can Now See Old Hospital Room from College Dorm Window
  • When Martin Dorey dropped his 18-year-old daughter, Maggie, off at college at the University of West England, he opened her dorm room to an emotional surprise — from the dorm window, he could see her former room at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. “It felt like we had come full circle,” Dorey told The Washington Post. “It was a significant moment in Maggie’s life.” When Maggie was a toddler, she spent six months battling acute myeloblastic leukemia, a cancer that is found in the bone marrow and blood. She endured several months of chemotherapy and intensive treatment. “It was just awful,” said Dorey. “I just remember feeling numb.” But, Maggie was a fighter. “Maggie never really let it get a hold of her,” he said. Dorey said that, throughout her hospital stay, “everyone was absolutely phenomenal.” One evening in particular, Maggie was given a new chemo drug that sent her into anaphylactic shock, meaning her airways began to close. Two young nurses, Charlotte and Charlie, immediately sprang into action and saved Maggie’s life. “They acted really quickly and got adrenaline into her and, basically, saved her life,” Dorey said, adding that she is now healthy and in remission. At the time, Maggie’s mother was pregnant with their second child, who they named “Charlotte” after the nurses that saved their daughter’s life. Seventeen years later, Charlotte Higby, one of the nurses that evening, found a tweet from Dorey.  The tweet went viral after Higby commented, “Wow — that gives me goosebumps! As a nurse who looked after Maggie all those years ago, I can’t tell you how much this post means. Have an amazing time Maggie.” Dorey responded and told Higby that she is the reason his second daughter is named Charlie. Higby said that she has never forgotten that night, and called the name choice “lovely.” With the attention that the Twitter exchange brought on, Dorey has decided to raise money for several organizations that support children with life-threatening illnesses. “It’s an opportunity and we shouldn’t miss it, because there are kids who are still being diagnosed and parents who are going through awful things,” Dorey said. His daughter’s illness taught him to “never take anything for granted” and “be grateful for everything you have.” Image source: BBC
  • Man Delivers Donated RVs to Wildfire Victims That Were Left With Nothing
  • A father-daughter duo, Woody and Luna Faircloth, have successfully delivered 95 motorhomes to wildlife victims who may otherwise wait months for emergency housing.  “We’re grassroots; we can move a lot faster than that. It’s people helping people. … We can get there almost immediately,” he told Associated Press. Faircloth first got the idea after seeing the destruction that took place in 2018 in his home state of Colorado. “We were watching some of what’s going on out there and talking about what if that was us and what would we do,” Faircloth said. “And I told (my daughter) what the idea was and she was 100 percent on board. She said, ‘God and Santa Claus would be really proud of us for this.’” Thousands of wildfires have devastated parts of California and the U.S. West this year as historic droughts make the flames difficult to manage. The Faircloths spent Thanksgiving 2018 on the road, in a $2,500 motorhome they found on Craigslist. They delivered the vehicle the day after the holiday to a victim of the Camp Fire, which almost destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 85 people. Social media posts about the trip spread, and donors began pouring in, offering Faircloth their RVs. Some even offered to deliver the vehicles themselves, but Faircloth makes many of the deliveries personally. Faircloth just delivered his 95th RV, and he hopes to expand the volunteer effort. He would like to stage RVs in hurricane and fire zones in the future to respond even faster when needed. To donate an RV or join the waitlist, visit EmergencyRV.org for more information. Image source: Associated Press
  • President of China Declares End to Coal Use
  • At the United Nations General Assembly, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China is pledging to stop building new coal-fired power plants overseas. He said China will support other developing countries to move toward green and low-carbon energy. Jin Liqun, president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, said that Beijing has been struggling to balance the demand from other countries for coal-fired power plants with its climate commitments. Last year, Jinping said that China plans to become carbon neutral by 2060.  China is the world’s largest consumer of coal, accounting for 54% of the world’s coal-created electricity. Jinping is expected to remain President for life, which will hopefully allow him to see the full eradication of coal from China’s energy supplies. This news has been welcomed by many, as the people of China, Mongolia and South Korea suffer greatly from the smog created by coal. One study suggested that over one million people die each year as a result of air pollution in China. “Finally: No more overseas coal with China’s support”, said Dr. Christoph Nedopil Wang, Associate Professor and DirectorGreen Finance & Development Center. “This was a much anticipated statement and an important step to fight climate change across the World.” Image source: Reuters