This Month's Good News

Rose Torphy became a junior ranger at Grand Canyon National Park in mid-January when she visited the park for the second time. Torphy was in the park’s gift shop and asked an employee about the junior ranger program. Her inquisitiveness led to her taking the oath as a junior ranger. Torphy said she wants to help preserve the park for her great and great-great grandchildren. The 103-year-old great-great-grandmother is older than the park itself, which celebrates its centennial on Feb. 26. Torphy is a mother of three, grandmother of nine, great-grandmother of 18, and great-great grandmother of 10.

Oklahoma City-based nonprofit Positive Tomorrows has been helping educate homeless children since 1989. When the nonprofit considered constructing a building to accommodate the needs of its students, it sought the design services of MA+ Architecture. The architect also got input from the school’s students. The firm worked with staff and students to develop a design plan to meet the challenges homeless students face. The new building is scheduled to open in September and will serve children from infants to eighth grade with a capacity for 210 children — nearly triple its current capacity.

A cat named Fluffy used one of her nine lives after her owners in Montana found her frozen in a snowbank in 8 degree weather. They took Fluffy to an animal clinic and after several hours of applying warm water and blankets, the feline’s temperature was still low, so they took her to the emergency room, where Fluffy eventually made a full recovery. There is a change in her lifestyle, however. Fluffy in now an indoor cat.

Eighteen-year-old Clay Warner, who is legally blind and has cerebral palsy, is known as “Heart and Soul of North Polk High School.” Warner plays for the school’s basketball team and has suited up for every game this year though he had not played. Earlier this month, he got his chance to get in a basketball game. With a minute left, Warner got the ball in the corner and sunk a basket, and fans from rival Roland-Story as well as North Polk broke into cheers.

In what is being called a medical breakthrough, researchers for the first time have converted human stem cells into insulin-generating cells in an effort to create a cure for type 1 (T1) diabetes. Scientists from the University of California at San Francisco have long sought the ability to replace these cells through regenerative medicine.

T1 diabetes wipes out the cells that produce insulin from the pancreas. This type of diabetes occurs usually in childhood. Destruction of these cells inhibits the ability of insulin to regulate glucose levels in the blood, leading to surges in blood sugar that can damage organs.

Roberto Mendoza, who used to prepare meals for presidents in the White House, now oversees a restaurant and serves food to the homeless in Charlotte, North Carolina. Recently his mother visited him from Guatemala. She told her son she had a lucky feeling and advised him to buy a lottery ticket. Mendoza typically doesn’t participate in the lottery, but he listened to his mother and bought a ticket. He won $250,000 and plans to use the winnings to complete construction of a kitchen that will feed the homeless in the Dominican Republic.

During the recent partial government shutdown there were not as many park rangers to patrol beach and park areas such as Drake Beach at Point Reyes national seashore, about 30 miles north of San Francisco. With fewer humans around, elephant seals swarmed over the beach and at times occupied the parking lot and picnic areas. The shutdown coincided with the nesting season of the seals, which were nearly hunted to extinction in the 19th century. With the shutdown over, the park service has closed the beaches until April, when the seals are expected to leave the beach.

To raise money, members of the Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, fasted during the month of January by giving up using social media, eating junk food, or drinking alcohol. The money was raised to help pay down the debt of 34 students planning to graduate Howard University in Washington, D.C. They raised more than $100,000. The church has asked members of its congregation for the last several years to participate in a fast to help college students pay student loan debt.

Janie’s Fund, a foundation started by Aerosmith vocalist Steven Tyler, contributed $500,000 toward the establishment of Janie’s House, a facility in Memphis, Tennessee, for girls who have been abused or neglected. The foundation was created to raise awareness of abuse of children and to provide medical and therapeutic care and other services to help them overcome their trauma. The facility can accommodate up to 30 girls between ages 12 and 18. The goal is to reunite them with their families or find them a stable home. The house and foundation name come from Aerosmith’s song “Janie’s Got a Gun” about a girl abused by her father.

Second-grader Cameron Simoncic headed home to his father’s house after school and found his dad, who has diabetes, unconscious. He couldn’t call for help because he didn’t know the passcode on his dad’s cell phone. There were no neighbors around, so he jumped on his bike and headed for his grandmother’s house five miles away, dodging traffic on Highway 25. Driving in the same direction was Keller Sutherland, a teacher at Cameron’s school who taught Cameron the previous year. She stopped him on the road and then other motorists pulled over and called 911. Cameron was able to give first responders his address and his father received the injection he needed.

A pit bull named Sadie may have helped prevent a tragedy in Tuckahoe, New York. The animal was outside on the afternoon of Feb. 6 unleashed and barking nonstop. When police responded to a loose, barking dog in the neighborhood, the pit bull led them to her house. The officers saw that the home’s sliding door was open and the fence was broken. As the officers neared the house, which was not occupied, they detected gas odor emanating from an open basement window. Fire and utility crews confirmed there was a gas leak. Closer inspection of the house showed claw marks and blood on the back of the door, and the family thinks Sadie sensed danger and clawed her out of the house to seek help.

Researchers in England have developed a “Trojan horse” cancer treatment that gets inside tumor cells. The drug is called tisotumab vedotin, or TV, and it releases a toxic substance that eradicates cancer cells from within. The results have been encouraging and the drug has moved forward to phase II trials in cervical cancer and will be tested in other cancers. A team at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust led a clinical trial of about 150 patients with various cancers who had stopped responding to standard treatments.

Data from NASA satellites showed Earth is a greener planet than it was 20 years ago, and the lion’s share of the credit for the increased foliage goes to China and India, the two most populous nations in the world. The reason for the increased green is because of robust tree planting programs in China and India. In 2017, India broke its own world record for tree plantings when volunteers planted 66 million saplings in 12 hours. Researchers using satellite data first noticed the greening change in the mid-1990s but were not sure whether human activity was causing the phenomenon.

Construction crews demolishing a building to make way for a new school in Jeffersonville, Indiana, found a purse belonging to Martha Ina Ingham, who left it there 65 years ago while attending high school. The former building had been a high school and the purse was found in late January when workers were removing cabinets in a science classroom. The purse served as something of a time capsule. It contained a 1953-54 Jeffersonville High School basketball schedule, lipstick, identification cards, and a letter asking Ingham to prom. The school district posted a picture of the purse online and a family member saw it and got the purse to Ingham.

Members of both parties put partisanship aside to pass a major public lands measure, the biggest such package in a decade. By a vote of 92-8, the Senate passed a 662-page bill that designates more than 1.3 million acres as nationally protected wilderness and creates four national monuments. The bill also expands the boundaries of six national parks, including Death Valley and the Mojave. The bill is expected to pass the House and be signed into law by President Donald Trump.

The elusive black leopard was photographed in Kenya by British wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas. The images were taken with a Camtraptions Camera Trap and were taken at Laikipia Wilderness Camp in Kenya. Burrard-Lucas said that though his were not the first photos taken of a black leopard in the last century, his images, along with footage taken by the San Diego Zoo, are the first confirmed scientific documentation of the leopard in more than 100 years.

Ninety-one-year-old mailman Jack Lund has retired after 69 years of service. He started delivering mail in 1949 and forged a reputation for reliability. Over the years, Lund delivered the mail, overcoming severe mountain weather, vehicle mechanical failures, and other problems. A ceremony was held in his honor, where he was given an American flag, some postal service art, and, and a letter of commendation and thanks.

Tori Nelson might be the ultimate multitasker. The single mom of two children has held jobs as a waitress at IHOP, a cafeteria worker and a school bus driver; she’s a grandmother; and Nelson is a professional boxer. Nelson, 42, has a professional record of 17 wins, one loss, and three draws. She got into boxing in 2007 as a way to lose weight between pregnancies. It was from her exposure to the “sweet science” that she realized she was a fighter. Nelson had been undefeated until she lost to two-time Olympic gold medalist Claressa Shields in January for the WBC and IBF super middleweight titles.

Several different outdoor recreational groups have united to create a coalition that will take action to combat climate change in order to save the nation’s ski areas from rising temperatures. What is at stake for these groups is the threat climate change poses to the multi-billion dollar outdoor recreation industry. The coalition, called the Outdoor Business Climate Partnership, is the first such collaboration among these trade groups. The group advocates the passage of bipartisan climate legislation in Congress, adopting market-based solutions to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and supporting state and utility initiatives to remove carbon from the energy grid.

For the first time in his life, David Alianiello heard applause, and he heard it was on his wedding day. Alianiello, born with congenital hearing loss, received a cochlear implant in his ear and was able to hear the response from the guests at his wedding. The 34-year-old Baltimore teacher got his implant at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

After a father accidentally locked his keys in his car with his 1-year-old daughter in it, a group of inmates doing road work volunteered to help. Five non-violent offenders got permission from their supervisor to try and open the door. While the father comforted his daughter on the other side of the car window, the inmates forced open the SUV’s door just enough for another inmate to slip in a coat hanger that he was used to activate the electronic lock and open the door.

Samantha Savitz is an outgoing 2-year-old, who is also deaf. This has been obstacle for her neighbors trying to get to know her better, so they did something about it. Samantha’s neighbors in Newton, Massachusetts, started attending sign language classes so they could communicate with her.

A living member of a tortoise species that had not been seen for more than 112 years and was considered extinct has been found on the Galápagos island of Fernandina. The giant tortoise, also known as Chelonoidis phantasticus, was seen by an expedition of the Galápagos National Park and the Galapagos Conservancy, according to Ecuador’s environment ministry. Researchers think more tortoises of this species will be found because of tracks and fecal evidence. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the Fernandina giant tortoise as critically endangered and possibly extinct. The group said the only other living specimen was found in 1906.