SHREVE  Last year, a friend confided in Anderson “Andi” Musser that she wished she had some girls’ clothing to wear to school.

The student had brothers and was used to wearing their hand-me-downs, Andi said.

“I went to my closet and got the clothes (and shoes) that I had outgrown,” the Shreve Elementary fifth-grader recalled. “I gave them to her at school the next day. And she was really happy.”

The warm gesture – and her friend’s happy tears – sparked Andi’s idea for a Kindness Closet, a place students can visit during the school day to “shop” for a few new or gently worn garments. Andi, 10, is working to stock and organize the closet for students from families with limited incomes or simply in need of essentials.

Burnett “Burnie” Sutter is the proud grandfather of three and the great-grandfather of eight.

While India’s efforts and struggles to conserve tiger population has been known, here is one of India’s most successful conservation stories: the population of one-horned rhinos has grown manifold over the years.

Inhabitat

From a population of barely 75 in 1905, there were over 2,700 Indian rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) by 2012, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature–India (WWF-India), a global wildlife advocacy. The figure has now gone well past 3600 in 2020.

Greater one-horned, or Indian, rhinoceros once roamed from Pakistan to the Indo-Burmese border, and in parts of Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. But by the beginning of the 20th century, hunting and habitat loss had reduced the species to fewer than 200 individuals in northern India and Nepal. Thanks to strict protection implemented by Indian and Nepalese authorities, the population has rebounded to more than 3,600 today.

In 2012, more than 91 per cent of Indian rhinos lived in Assam, according to WWF-India data. Within Assam, rhinos are concentrated within Kaziranga national park, with a few in Pobitara wildlife sanctuary. Kaziranga is home to more than 91 per cent of Assam’s rhinos – and more than 80 per cent of India’s count — with a 2015 population census by Kaziranga park authorities revealing 2,401 rhinos within the park.

IRV

SBSK has grown into one of the largest disability platforms in the world, with over two billion views across social media. It is a space where disabled and neurodiverse people of all backgrounds share their story. This was not my original intention, however.  SBSK started as a classroom project when I was a teacher of children with various disabilities; including autism, traumatic brain injury, speech apraxia, and agenesis of the corpus callosum.

Steve Harrison was headed to Costco from his Issaquah home the other week when he spotted some papers fluttering in the road and pulled over to investigate.

It was money. Lots of it. One $100 bill after another, spread across the pavement, some in small stacks. Harrison snatched them up in a bit of a frenzy, and then found something that stopped him short.

A wallet containing a license with the name and address of the man who was surely missing something: Michael King, who lived just a mile away.

Green, leafy vegetables are good for overall health, but new research shows that they could also boost muscle strength. The study from Edith Cowan University (ECU) found that people who consume a nitrate-rich diet had significantly better muscle function in their lower limbs. Many older adults suffer from poor muscle function, leading to a greater risk of falls and fractures. It can also be considered a key indicator of general health. With around one in three seniors suffering a fall each year, it’s essential to find alternative ways to prevent these events, as they can sometimes have serious consequences. 12-Year Study Researchers analyzed data from 3,759 Australians who took part in Melbourne’s Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute for the study. Over the 12 years of the study, it was found that those with the highest regular nitrate consumption had 11 percent stronger lower limb strength than those with the lowest …

MEXICO CITY – Scientists at a leading global grains research institute expect to sharply ramp up new wheat varieties enriched with zinc that can boost the essential mineral for millions of poor people with deficient diets, the institute’s head told Reuters. Martin Kropff, director-general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), said he…

Many Americans are asking how to set aside their anxiety. Sometimes, it’s okay to put away the news for an hour, a day, a week and just enjoy the goodness this world can provide. When elections are improperly run, riots seem to be never ending and illness seems to be knocking on our door like a biblical plague, it can seem as if goodness doesn’t exist. Music can ground us while lifting our spirits. Do not despair. There is always hope. . .

“Once in every life … someone comes along,
And you came to me … it was almost like a song.”

by Christopher Roach

Every day, we are bombarded with information. A police shooting under questionable circumstances. A tense encounter between people of different races. A flood of statistics on COVID-19 cases, mortality, and vaccine effectiveness.

We receive the data in the form of easily digested soundbites and a never-ending reel of videos. We are supposed to respond by taking a stand and making a judgment. If there is any doubt as to what that stand should be, the mood music on the news and the explicit narratives on social media make it plain what we are supposed to feel and think.

Objectively speaking, these videos present as many questions as they present answers. Maybe it’s grainy and fast moving. Maybe the lens is distorting perspective. With YouTube, we can slow it down, rewind, and enhance the color. Ah ha! See! The kid dropped the gun a tenth of a second before the officer’s shot went off, says the know-it-all.

We are ill equipped to make these judgments. In fact, too much data can result in worse decision-making. To make sense of information in general, background knowledge, moral sense, personal life experience, empathy, contemplation, and critical thinking are needed. Do we know what happened before the video started? Do we see what’s happening away from the camera? Do we know how fast humans can react, without the benefit of slow motion, rewinding, and all the rest? Do we know if the person claiming, “I didn’t do nothing,” is credible?

Times are tense. The pace of life fuels that tenseness. All of this information is being dumped upon people increasingly unable to make good use of it. Indeed, those with an agenda, benefit from this information dump. They tell you what to think, and they tell you what you are seeing. Before you have time to explore what just happened, some new story is coming at you and your assent with the prevailing narrative is demanded.