A billionaire hedge fund manager has given $10 million of his own money to pay for pre-school programs that would have shut down October 1 with the US Government shutdown. Laura and John Arnold tapped into their personal fortune to reopen Head Start programs for one month to benefit 7000 children in poor families in six states.
Over the last two weeks Americans have seen the worst in partisan politics, but the government shutdown has also triggered the generosity of ordinary citizens. Americans have stepped in to fill some of the needs that the government normally fulfills. From Colorado to Atlanta, Arizona to Florida, let's take a look at America at its best.
The Iranian government will no longer issue permits for animal acts in circuses, becoming the ninth country in the world to ban them.
A giant swath of desert half the size of Connecticut has just received permanent protection - creating a migratory superhighway for endangered animals.
Since the November election, 240 California prisoners facing potential life sentences have been set free. That's because voters changed California's tough three strikes sentencing law, which sent thousands of people to prison for terms of 25 years to life for minor, nonviolent crimes. The campaign's success is due in no small part to Sue Reams. Her son was one of those released, after 17 years in prison.
Typically, post office lines breed anger and frustration. But at the head of this queue on the campus of Penn State University in State College, Pa., you'll find nothing but joy. My mission is to make them have a little bit of levity on the way out and say, 'Hey, it's not so bad after all,' says Mike Herr. To that end, Mike lives by a simple motto: if you can't say something nice about someone, you're just not looking hard enough.
Former surgeon general C. Everett Koop died Monday in New Hampshire at age 96. Koop is justly renowned for spearheading the war on tobacco in the 1990s. But Koop was also pivotal, and saved just as many lives, because he forced the Republican Party to address the rampaging AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.
Former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, congratulated President Barack Obama on Inauguration day in a statement saying in part, Our best wishes and prayers on this historic day.
Every now and then, during this era of heated partisanship, an event emerges that brings both sides together in the U.S. Congress. When news broke yesterday tributes began pouring in for a beloved member, Hawaiian Senator Daniel Inouye, who died yesterday at the age of 88. The most senior member of the Senate, Inouye was also a World War II hero, having receiving the Medal of Honor for bravery after losing his arm while charging machine guns atop a ridge in Italy. His heroics were the stuff of legend.
Not only is she one of the historic class of 2012 women elected to the US Congress this week. Not only is she the first Thai-American woman to be sent to Capitol Hill. Tammy Duckworth is an Iraq War veteran, a U.S. Army helicopter pilot who lost both of her legs in combat. The impressive Duckworth was born in Bangkok, Thailand, to an American father, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who traced his family's roots in America back to before the Revolutionary War.
George McGovern, the former U.S. senator from South Dakota, is nearing the end of his dignified life at age 90. As his family and friends say their final goodbyes, we remember and rejoice a life extraordinaire; a bona fide war hero imbued with compassion, humility, integrity, and faith in America.
In high school Hillary Rodham was voted Most Likely To Succeed. Today, the beloved Secretary of State is being hailed by people around the world wishing a Happy 65th Birthday to Hillary Clinton. On the occasion, the Huffington Post has compiled a list of reasons to love and admire her -- from the small things -- like, she's not afraid to go outside without makeup -- to the long list of firsts that she has accomplished as a pioneering woman and lawyer.
In an election year when it seems that the two political parties have become hopelessly divided, a former Republican presidential candidate has published a loving tribute to recently deceased Democratic presidential candidate, George McGovern. Despite their differences, former Senator Bob Dole struck up a friendship with McGovern and together they worked to create good in the world.
A needle-in-a-haystack search by a New York City Parks Department worker willing to go the extra mile turned up a diamond ring lost in Battery Park. On the verge of giving up hope, a married couple searching the grounds spotted a city trash truck on the edge of the park and decided to leave a note asking that day's driver to help.
The World Trade Center hero who saved thousands of lives on 9/11 will now be remembered each year by the federal government, with the creation of the Rick Rescorla National Award for Resilience that will be given to civilians who respond extraordinarily to disasters. If you haven't heard of Rick's heroics, which were memorialized by documentary films and even an opera, he was Vice President of Security for Morgan Stanley, on September 11, 2001, when he personally led a massive evacuation of that company's 2,700 employees.
In a country blessed with an abundance of extraordinary educators, what does it take to stand out as the Teacher of the Year? According to President Obama, who honored Rebecca Mieliwocki, a 7th grade English teacher from Los Angeles County, it is passion that makes great teachers go above and beyond.
Some people give back to their community. Then there's Fresno County School Superintendent Larry Powell, who's giving up $800,000 — his own salary for the next three years — in hopes his act of generosity will help restore faith in the government he once taught students to respect.
It took only a walk with Sargent Shriver to learn how deeply loved and loving he was. Countless people approached him: people whose lives were changed because of the anti-poverty programs that Shriver started in the Johnson administration, or because they joined the Peace Corps, under Shriver's leadership.
School officials made sure a dying father was able to see his daughter graduate –and did it with an official ceremony organized in only a matter of hours.
Today a high-level daylong special session on Happiness will be hosted in the United Nations General Assembly by the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, a nation judged by some to be the happiest in the world.
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