The President declared 2014 the year for action, and called the potential reinstatement of the unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans the starting point.
This will be a year of action. I’ll keep doing everything I can to create new jobs and new opportunities for American families – with Congress, on my own, and with everyone willing to play their part. And that action should begin by extending unemployment insurance for Americans who were laid off in the recession through no fault of their own. This vital economic lifeline helps people support their families while they look for a new job. And it demands responsibility in return by requiring that they prove they’re actively looking for work. But Republicans in Congress just let that lifeline expire for 1.3 million Americans. And if this doesn’t get fixed, it will actually hurt about 14 million Americans over the course of this year. Earlier this week, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate took the first steps toward making this right. But Congress needs to finish the job right away. More than one million Americans across the country will feel a little hope right away.
We think it’s fair to say ninth-grade student Kiara Molina had a great day Thursday.
Not only did the teen introduce President Barack Obama before one of his major speeches, but the president called it “one of the best introductions I’ve ever had.”
Taylor Smith, a 12-year-old girl from Tennessee, died last week of complications from pneumonia.
Family photos courtesy of Tim Smith
She had flu-like symptoms in the days leading up to her death, like achy legs and a sore throat, but according to Taylor’s father Tim, she tested negative.
Family photos courtesy of Tim Smith
“We did the usual flu/cold thing and got her prescription, loaded up on popsicles and soup and brought her back to rest,” Tim said.
After Taylor died, her parents began sorting through her things. And that’s when they found a letter she had written to her future self.
Family photos courtesy of Tim Smith
Tim shared Taylor’s letter with BuzzFeed on Thursday.
The letter, which Tim said is addressed to future Taylor, perfectly captures what kind of girl Taylor was. As he put it, she was awesome.
Family photos courtesy of Tim Smith
“She was random, she was smart,” Tim said. “She was super funny and super fun.”
Family photos courtesy of Tim Smith
Not to mention nerdy. Past Taylor wanted to make sure Doctor Who was still on the air. And if not at least wanted to know what number regeneration they ended on.
Family photos courtesy of Tim Smith
And if it wasn’t on TV anymore, she wanted her future self to go watch it right away. After she finished reading the letter, of course.
Family photos courtesy of Tim Smith
“She liked doing quirky things and she liked doing meaningful things, she always created stuff,” Tim said. “The fact that she wrote this letter wasn’t a surprise, but what she wrote was.”
Family photos courtesy of Tim Smith
Also, attached was a photo her future self could use to explain what a first-generation iPad looked like.
Family photos courtesy of Tim Smith
Earlier this week, Taylor’s classmates were asked to wear blue in her memory. Her family is also setting up a memorial fund in her name.
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) warned that there’s “no such thing as free lunch” for school children in Georgia, but he seems to have enjoyed a few.
An investigation by Georgia’s WSAV channel 3 found that Kingston, who is currently running for Senate and recently suggested students work cleaning cafeterias in exchange for lunch, had expensed as much as $4,182 worth of lunches for his office over the past three years.
“Kingston and his staff expensed nearly $4200 in meals for business purposes to his congressional office, paid for by the American taxpayer,” WSAV 3’s Dan Kartunen reported. The amount could have purchased nearly 2,000 Georgia school lunches.
WSAV also found that Kingston also racked up $4,289 of free meals paid for by third-party groups like the Georgia Bankers Association and the Congressional Institute. Kingston has also travelled to a handful of continents on congressional business racking up $24,313 in costs. Those expenses include more than just meals. What’s more, Kingston also expensed $145,391 worth of meals for campaign events.
In December Kingston, who is against a federal lunch program, also argued that poor students should sweep floors in exchange for lunch.
No, his name is not Jim Jones the second, his name is Pastor Lesego Daniel of Rabboni Centre Ministries, and with a simple command, his congregation runs outside, drops to their knees, lay on the ground and eat grass. His ministries is in South Africa and his ministry is reminiscent of Jim Jones.
His controversial methods have drawn criticism from thousands of people although members of his congregation swear by his methods – he is said to have claimed that humans can eat anything to feed their bodies and survive on whatever they choose to eat.
‘Yes, we eat grass and we’re proud of it because it demonstrates that, with God’s power, we can do anything,’ Rosemary Phetha told South Africa’s Times Live.
The 21-year-old law student says she had been battling a sore throat for more than a year, but it was healed after she ate the grass.
Doreen Kgatle, 27, of Ga-rankuwa, suffered a stroke two years ago.
‘I could not walk but soon after eating the grass, as the pastor had ordered, I started gaining strength and an hour later I could walk again,’ said Kgatle.
Photos on the Rabboni Centre Ministries Facebook page show the followers eating the grass as well as Mr Daniel walking across them as they spread out on the floor.
Photos that follow show dozens of people getting sick in the toilets – an image of the bathrooms show women clutching their stomach, while the men are vomiting in the sink.
The pastor’s actions during the service prompted a series of online complaints.
One outraged commentator said ‘Is this a scene in a movie…this can’t be real. God created animals to chew grass and made human beings to dominate over animals. Any person who reduces human beings to animals is definitely not of God.’
While another person wrote: ‘Why is he stepping on people? This is inhumane. Shocking.’
The Times Live reported that during a service of at least 1,000 people in a marquee Daniel screamed ‘sleep’ and six people went to sleep.
He ordered other congregants to slap and trample on them, tut the sleepers remain rigid and unresponsive until he ordered them to wake up.
‘You can leave them like this for six months. I love this, I don’t want to be bored. You can even make police go to sleep when they come to arrest you,’ he said.
Although Daniel has not responded to the backlash yesterday he posted on Facebook: ‘God is at work and His people are testifying right now st the farm. TO GOD BE THE GLORY.’
Shaquille O’Neal scored headlines last year when he threw his considerable weight behind Republican Chris Christie in the race for New Jersey governor.
So perhaps it should come as no surprise that the NBA legend is still supporting the embattled would-be presidential contender as he struggles with arguably the greatest crisis of this tenure: ‘Traffic-gate’.
Several members of Christie’s inner-circle allegedly conspired to create bad traffic in Fort Lee, New Jersey, ostensibly as retribution against that city’s mayor, a Democrat who opposed Christie’s re-election.
Christie has vehemently denied any role in or knowledge of the scheme.
Shaq takes Christie as it his word, reportedly telling TMZ, “I believe him.”
“When you have a lot of employees, it’s kind of very difficult to police everybody. Some leaders let people police themselves and some of them micromanage and try to police everybody. One thing I know about Christie: He’s not a micromanager,” O’Neal, also a New Jersey native, said.
“The unfortunate thing about being a leader is that when you’re on a team and a teammate makes a wrong decision, it’s all going to come back on you,” he added.
Baojun Yuan is a member of China Senior Photographers Association. He is highly respected by Chinese people. Why? In the past nine years, Mr. Yuan has repaired more than 2000 old photos for residents for free. Course it is not surprising enough if you have no idea about this great man. Mr. Yuan is 76 years old now. He didn’t know Photoshop until his was 60 years old. Mr. Yuan learned repairing skills from a teacher and was soon skilled in it. Considering that repairing old photos is too expensive for most of the residents to afford, Mr. Yuan himself bought a computer and a scanner and began service people without any charge. In his words “my teacher just taught me how to repair the photos, but he forgot to tell me how to charge”.
Let’s have a look at Mr. Yuan’s works with respect.
A wonderful map created by William Samari, Ray Yamartino, and Rafaan Anvari of DogHouseDiares illustrates what every country does better than every other country.
They collected the information from various sources and sprinkled in some quirkier rankings since many countries led the world in multiple things.
“Myanmar leads the world in ‘Speaking Burmese.’ That’s kind of a silly thing but still true,” Anvari told BI. “UK leads in fascist movements, but that’s all movements in history, not active movements.”
(Some of the categories are hard to read so we published the full list below the map.)
Country
Leads World In…
Measure
Afghanistan
opium
total
Albania
–
Algeria
middle paleolithic flake tool techniques
Andorra
reading
rate
Angola
speaking umbundu
Antarctica
emperor penguins
endemic
Antigua and Barbuda
–
Argentina
exporting soccer players
Armenia
–
Australia
deadly animals and melanoma
total and per 100,000 people
Austria
mohnflesserl
Azerbaijan
software piracy
avg per computer
Bahamas
–
Bahrain
–
Bangladesh
peacekeeping
total and per 100,000 people
Barbados
–
Belarus
wisents
Belgium
relaxing
%
Belize
destroying the ozone
per capita
Benin
–
Bhutan
farming
%
Bolivia
brazil nuts
total
Bosnia and Herzegovina
having land mines
total per sq mi
Botswana
diamonds
Brazil
making coffee
total
Brunei
–
Bulgaria
living the american dream
rate
Burkina Faso
illiteracy
rate
Burundi
unsatisfied
index
Cambodia
long alphabet
total
Cameroon
killer lakes
Canada
maple syrup and asteroid impacts
total
Cape Verde
–
Central African Republic
expensive internet
total
Chad
not wasting electricity
per capita
Chile
staying married
crude divorce rate (per capita)
China
co2 emissions and renewable energy
total
Colombia
rain
avg
Comoros
–
Congo, Democratic Republic of
pygmy chimpanzees
endemic
Congo, Republic of
saving energy
Costa Rica
happiness
index
Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
malaria
deaths per 100,000 people
Croatia
–
Cuba
baseball
total
Cyprus
–
Czech Republic
beer consumption
per capita
Denmark
education
index
Djibouti
–
Dominica
–
Dominican Republic
–
Ecuador
endangering plants
total
Egypt
africa cup of nations
total
El Salvador
–
Equatorial Guinea
–
Eritrea
african cycling
Estonia
prevalence of women
sex ratio (total)
Ethiopia
employing children
percent
Federated States of Micronesia
–
Fiji
–
Finland
drinking coffee
per capita
France
tourism
total
Gabon
sun-tailed monkeys
Gambia
not spending money on military
total reserves
Georgia
khachapuri
Germany
almost winning the world cup
total
Ghana
–
Greece
olive oil consumption
per capita
Greenland
personal space
pop per sq mi
Grenada
olympic medals
per capita
Guatemala
–
Guinea-Bissau
–
Guyana
–
Haiti
–
Honduras
homocide
rate
Hong Kong
high IQ
avg
Hungary
canoeing
total and total
Iceland
penetrating the internet
percent
India
movies and low prices
total
Indonesia
volcanoes
total
Iran
brain drain
total
Iraq
not safe for journalists
total
Ireland
quality of life
score
Israel
r&d
% of gdp
Italy
UEFA competitions
total
Jamaica
–
Japan
robots
per 10,000 manufactoring workers
Jordan
large falafel balls
total
Kazakhstan
uranium
total
Kenya
flowers
total
Kiribati
–
Kuwait
highest valued currency
exchange rate
Kyrgyzstan
walnut forests
total
Laos
solar energy
per capita
Latvia
eco-friendly
index
Lebanon
–
Lesotho
mortality
rate
Liberia
–
Libya
heat
avg
Liechtenstein
teachers
per capita
Lithuania
–
Luxembourg
generosity
per capita
Macedonia
–
Madagascar
lemurs
total
Malawi
malawisaurus
Malaysia
caves
total
Maldives
–
Mali
kulicoro firefinches
endemic
Malta
–
Marshall Islands
–
Mauritania
–
Mauritius
–
Mexico
getting struck by lightning, cartels and boxing
total and total
Moldova
alcohol consumption
per capita
Monaco
–
Mongolia
velociraptor bones
Montenegro
–
Morocco
couscous
none
Mozambique
–
Myanmar
speaking burmese
total
Namibia
wealth inequality
wealth gini
Nepal
not killing themselves
per 100,000 people per year
Netherlands
tall people
avg male and female height
New Zealand
sheep and rugby
totaland total
Nicaragua
–
Niger
making babies
births per woman
Nigeria
yams
total
North Korea
censorship
index
Norway
democracy
index
Oman
–
Pacific
white shark cafe
Pakistan
field hockey
total
Palau
swimming with jellyfish
Palestinian Territory
not having cancer
per 100,000 people per year
Panama
defenselessness
total
Papua New Guinea
linguistic diversity
index
Paraguay
drinking tea
per capita
Peru
sandboarding
Philippines
social media
percent
Poland
kielbasa
subjective
Portugal
graduating high school
rate
Puerto Rico
–
Qatar
GDP
per capita
Romania
download speed
Russia
raspberries and nuclear warheads
total
Rwanda
women in parliament
% of seats held
San Marino
–
Sao Tome and Principe
–
Saudi Arabia
oil
total reserves
Senegal
–
Serbia
water polo
Seychelles
–
Sierra Leone
–
Singapore
science
total
Slovakia
making cars
per capita
Slovenia
casinos
per 1,000 inhabitants
Solomon Islands
–
Somalia
pirates
total
South Africa
ostrich
total
South Korea
workaholics
hrs per year per person
South Sudan
inflation
rate
Spain
organ donation
rate
Sri Lanka
cinnamon
Sudan
–
Suriname
forests
percent
Swaziland
–
Sweden
atheism
total
Switzerland
employment
rate
Syria
–
Taiwan
–
Tajikistan
–
Tanzania
national parks and wildlife
Thailand
rice exports
Timor-Leste
–
Togo
bad driving
road death per 100,000 cars
Tonga
–
Trinidad and Tobago
–
Tunisia
gun control
per capita
Turkey
apricots
total
Turkmenistan
corruption
index
Uganda
young people
median age
Ukraine
population control
percent
United Arab Emirates
prevalence of men
sex ratio (total)
United Kingdom
fascist movements
total
Uruguay
eating beef
USA
falling off beds and chairs, getting killed by lawnmowers, nobel laureates and eating hot dogs
As much as we try to fight it, most people have a very stereotypical image come to mind when they think of coders and software entrepreneurs: pale, unshaven, twenty-something males.
Lyndsey Scott is none of those things. Though passionate about acting, she majored in computer science in college and then went on to become a model for brands such as Victoria’s Secret, Gucci, and Prada.
We first learned about Lyndsey and her surprising workload from her profile on Stack Overflow, a site that lets programmers ask questions about their code and get helpful responses from other members of the community with expertise on specific topics.
She’s something of a celebrity on the site: users gain reputation points for providing helpful answers and the site keeps track of the number of views each profile attracts. To date, she’s gained over 1,000 reputation points and her profile has been viewed over 38,000 times.
Earlier this week, Lyndsey and I had a chat about her modeling and coding careers. Read on for her thoughts on developing for iOS over Android, being a “lurker” on a coding forum, and what it takes to get young women into coding and computers.
In this infographic you’d find everything you need to know about headaches. Almost all of us have had a headache at some time with different causes . Besides medication options, you can find 8 easy remedies for headache in this infographic.
Also this poster shows the common locations of headaches.
A 34-year-old Washington woman who sadistically and systematically tortured her 13-year-old brother-in-law by beating him with a baseball bat, slicing his skin with a heated knife and forcing him to remain tied naked to a dog house without food and water has been sentenced to 31-years in jail.
Silverdale mother Viviana Gunn was sentenced on Monday after she pleaded guilty in August to hanging 13-year-old Jordan Gunn from the rafters of her house for gruesome hours long ‘sessions’ of abuse according to court proceedings.
Torturing the teen over the course of last year, Gunn once clamped the boys hand in a bench vise, tightened the jaws and drove a nail through his hand with a hammer. The teen told the shocked court that he could see the nail coming out the other side of his hand. Sickening: Viviana Gunn, 34, was sentenced today to more than 31 years in prison after pleading guilty to torturing a 13-year-old boy last year with a variety of tools and methods
Gunn’s husband and the teen’s brother, Brandon P. Gunn, 27, is also scheduled to be sentenced on January 17 for the same crime. Brave escape: Jordan Gunn – was 13-years-old when he escaped sister-in-law Viviana Gunn and his own 27-year-old brother Brandon in August last year
Vicious: Brandon Gunn, 27, has also been found guilty of beating and torturing his younger brother and will receive 30-years
Horrific: A picture of the 13-year-old reveals the deep wounds criss-crossed on his arms where he was cut, stapled and beaten
Torture: The child was reportedly kept locked up in a dog cage for days and only escaped by chewing through restraints
House of horror: Neighbors reported hearing cries come from the home in Silverdale, Washington
We use cookies to improve your experience on our site. By agreeing to this, we can analyze browsing behavior and unique IDs on this site. Declining or revoking consent may affect certain features.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
