2008: March 14 Good News (

Good evening all,
I am sorry this post is so late! I had a 4 hour meeting today that I was not anticipating (well, I knew it was coming, as of yesterday, but I thought it would be only 2 hours).
Anyway, that threw my whole day off, but here I am at 10:30pm, starting to post.

Today's Top 5:
1. Weakness in Economy Isn’t Hurting Charities (New York Times)
2. Baby Sand Dollars Clone Themselves When They Sense Danger (Seattle Times)
3. Postie’s Prize After Delivery of... a Baby! (IC Wales)
4. Schoolgirl Found Alive Against All Odds
5. Dying Ontario Man Gets Last-Wish Acquittal on 33-year-old Murder (CBC Canada)



Honorable Mention:
High-Level al-Qaida Figure Captured (Chicago Tribune)



Top 5:

1. Weakness in Economy Isn’t Hurting Charities
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/us/14charity.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Published: March 14, 2008 By STEPHANIE STROM

Despite the economic downturn and fears of recession, major charities say their fund-raising has not fallen off.
“We’re doing fine,” said Christina Walker, director of development at the Cleveland Orchestra. “We haven’t seen any effect yet.”
In fact, some 64 percent of the organizations that have responded so far to the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ annual survey on fund-raising have reported bringing in more money in 2007 than the year before.
“Our surveys tell us fund-raising has been holding steady,” said Paulette V. Maehara, the association’s president and chief executive, who emphasized that the findings for 2007 were preliminary and that in any case the environment could change over the course of 2008.
Some fund-raisers already see what could be signs of a downturn. Stephen R. Birrell, vice president for alumni relations and development at Williams College, said that the college’s annual fund-raising effort was doing well but that the number of donors was down somewhat.
“I hesitate to single this out,” Mr. Birrell said, “because I don’t know what to make of it.”
The reason for his uncertainty is that a plan that Williams adopted in 2003 to raise $400 million through a special campaign by the end of this year has so far exceeded the goal by more than $50 million, he said, and may have drawn donors away from the annual fund.
One donor to the special campaign, Paul Neely, said he would look at his seven-figure gift differently today, because the value of the stock he donated had since dropped by roughly a third.
“If I wanted to give the same dollar amount today, I would have to give more shares and then worry that they might go back up,” said Mr. Neely, a Williams trustee. “That’s the kind of calculation that I think people are turning over in their minds, which hasn’t noticeably impacted us yet but it may very well by the end of the year.”
Revenue at the March of Dimes rose 4.5 percent in 2007 on an unaudited basis, said Carol Portale, the organization’s senior vice president for customer relationship management and direct response.
Ms. Portale said that there had been a slight decline in the average size of gifts this year but that enrollment and sponsorship for the organization’s annual March for Babies, which accounts for roughly half its annual revenue and is set for next month, were solid.
“It’s too early to say” how the organization will fare over all in 2008, Ms. Portale said. “We’re obviously concerned,” she said, “because the economy does have an effect on us, and so does political fund-raising, which also relies on donated money.”
Darell Hammond, chief executive of KaBOOM!, a nonprofit group that builds and maintains playgrounds, said he and his senior management team were keeping a close eye on revenue to see what effect, if any, the organization would feel from economic weakness. The 12-year-old group has long been a favorite of corporate donors, and declines in corporate donations tend to be steeper during hard times than do reductions in gifts from other sources.
But Mr. Hammond said corporate support had so far remained strong, fortunately. Last year the organization embarked on an effort to diversify its financing sources, reaching out to foundations and individuals. Many foundations, he said, have since told the organization that they are not making any new commitments, and the first foray by KaBOOM! into direct mail, last fall, attracted just $50,000, a quarter of what it had expected.
“Whether that was due to the economy or just a measure of how tired people are of direct mail,” Mr. Hammond said, “I don’t know.”





2. Baby Sand Dollars Clone Themselves When They Sense Danger
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004282958_websanddollar14m.htmlFriday,
By Sandi Doughton
March 14, 2008 - Page updated at 03:29 PM

Low tide brings out the shellfish harvesters and exposes some of the most fragile beach residents, like these sand dollars, to foot traffic.
Exposed to cues from fish predators, a sand dollar larva is caught in the act of cloning. The embryo-like "bud" was soon released and developed into a second, smaller sand dollar larva. Scale indicates 1/10 of a millimeter.The odds of growing up aren't good for baby sand dollars.
Smaller than the head of a pin, the larvae drift in the ocean — easy prey for anything with a mouth.
But a University of Washington graduate student has discovered the tiny animal has a surprising survival strategy: Faced with the threat of being gobbled up, it makes like Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies and clones itself.
The resulting "mini-me" may escape hungry fish because it is even teenier than the original — and harder to see."If you are eaten, but the smaller version of you survives, you're still a winner from an evolutionary standpoint," said Dawn Vaughn.Vaughn's discovery is reported in this week's issue of the journal Science, a distinction most researchers rank higher than an appearance on Oprah. It's unusual for a student to make the cut for one of the world's top science publications, but Vaughn's doctoral adviser urged her to aim high."I expected the paper to be rejected in record time," Vaughn said, laughing.
But what editor could resist a tale of fish slime and plucky invertebrates?"They really are cool," said Vaughn, whose fascination with the tango of predator and prey was inspired by nature shows. She never expected to fall in love with creatures so small it takes a microscope to see them.
Familiar inhabitants of Washington's subtidal zone, sand dollars start life though the chance encounter of sperm and egg, simultaneously released into the water by mature adults. The larvae free-float for about six weeks before metamorphosing into miniature sand dollars that settle in colonies and eventually grow to full size."They're so tiny, we call them sand dimes," Vaughn said.
The white shells that wash up on the beach are the creatures' external skeletons. Living sand dollars are covered with velvety, purple spines used to grab food particles.
Vaughn knew many other marine invertebrates shift their shape to avoid being eaten. Colonial animals called bryozoans grow spikes when voracious sea slugs crawl across them. Barnacles take on a bent posture to repel snails.
Vaughn's own previous research showed periwinkle larvae narrow their shell openings to keep out marauding crab larvae. Sand dollar larvae, which look nothing like the adults, have multiple, spiky arms. Vaughn suspected those spikes might lengthen when predators were in the neighborhood.
She set out to test the notion at the UW's Friday Harbor Laboratories on San Juan Island, where sand dollars are in plentiful supply."They are pretty much the lab rats of larval biology," Vaughn explained. "They're really easy to rear."But how to fool the infant sand dollars into thinking a predator was near?
Vaughn decided to add fish slime to the shot glasses where she kept her larvae.
Scraped from the back of a species called Dover sole — or slime sole — the mucus might be a chemical cue the larvae would recognize and respond to, Vaughn reasoned.
Still she was floored when she came into her lab the next day and saw the larvae budding off clones."I remember saying out loud: 'It worked!' "The larvae that were not exposed to fish slime did not clone themselves.
Over the next six weeks, she tracked development of the clones and the original larvae. One of the most startling things was that by creating clones, the larvae were actually shrinking themselves down, instead of trying to look bigger.
"The general assumption is that bigger is safer," said UW marine biologist Richard Strathmann, Vaughn's co-author and adviser. "But on the other hand, if there are a lot of predators out there that need to see their prey to eat it, being smaller might be safer."The theory still needs a lot of work, both researchers agreed.
Thomas Ebert, an expert on marine invertebrates who discovered some sea urchins can live more than 100 years, cautioned against reading too much into the evolutionary significance of the clones."
It could simply be a response to a harsh stimulus in the environment," said Ebert, professor emeritus at San Diego State University.
Vaughn is headed back to her Friday Harbor lab this week, where she'll try to figure out how fast the larvae can bud off clones, and whether the clones really are more likely to escape being eaten by fish.
She'd also like to get out of the lab more to enjoy the splendor of the San Juans. But with so many questions yet unanswered, that may not happen."I spend most of my time looking through a microscope."




3. Postie’s Prize After Delivery of... a Baby!
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/03/14/postie-s-prize-after-delivery-of-a-baby-91466-20622908/
Mar 14 2008 by Jean Parry, South Wales Echo

A POSTMAN who helped a pregnant mum give birth on her doorstep has been rewarded for his first class actions.
Ryan Davenport, 28, was on his usual round in St Mellons, Cardiff, when he heard the cry from 34-year-old Melanie Newman: “Help, my baby is arriving.”
Guided by a parademic on the phone, he then sprang into different delivery mode – along with Melanie’s neighbour, Tracy Jones – and minutes later 6lb 6oz baby Sophie was born just inside the doorway at Clos Maerun last July.
Ryan’s express delivery has now seen him named as one of the three Welsh winners in the Royal Mail’s First Class People Award to find posties who go above and beyond the call of duty in their everyday lives.
He said: “I’m thrilled to bits and very honoured and I’m looking forward to going to London for the presentation.”
He will receive £500 and a winner’s certificate.
At the time he made his extra-special delivery last year, Ryan, of Clos y Betws, St Mellons and a dad himself, said it was by far the most unusual thing ever to happen to him.
He added: “One minute I was delivering mail, the next I was delivering a baby.”
Melanie said: “I don’t know what I would have done if Ryan hadn’t come along.”




4. Schoolgirl Found Alive Against All Odds
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/Schoolgirl-found-alive-against-all.3881776.jp
14 March 2008

IT BEGAN with a suspicious neighbour and the sound of a child in the flat above. The small home of pale brick in Lidgate Gardens contained a secret.Yesterday, when West Yorkshire Police crashed through the door and opened up the drawers of a divan bed, they discovered the frightened figure of Shannon Matthews, abducted 24 days earlier.
In a separate drawer on the other side of the bed, the police made a more disturbing discovery: a 39-year-old man who was hauled out and arrested on suspicion of abduction. It is understood the man is a relative of Shannon's stepfather. The largest police operation in the area since the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper 30 years ago came to a close with hope triumphing over tragedy, triggering dancing and celebratory drinking in the streets of Dewsbury, Shannon's home town.
The property where she was found, which had a small Pokémon toy in the window, was just a mile from the nine-year-old's home and was understood to be on a police watch-list. When two detectives visited yesterday morning, they grew suspicious and questioned a downstairs neighbour, who told them of hearing a child's footsteps in the property, which was not usual.
The officers called for back-up which arrived in the form of four police vans complete with dogs. Neighbours crowded on to landings and watched as, at 12:30pm, uniformed and plainclothes officers smashed the blue back door of No26 off its hinges and charged inside. Five minutes later, a plainclothes officer emerged carrying a girl in a pink top in his arms.
Christopher Heaps, who lives at No 4, asked: "Is it Shannon?" The officer said "yes", while another officer declared: "We've got her."
Last night, Mr Heaps said: "I was very shocked. I couldn't believe it was on my own doorstep." Mandy Dixon, 37, whose home overlooks the flat, said: "
Officers went inside and seconds later came to out say they had got her. Someone asked, 'Is it Shannon?' and they said, "Yes, she is fine". They came out with her a few moments later and put her in a car and took her away. She looked frightened."
In the tight-knit, working-class community of Batley Carr, where the discovery was made, news travelled swiftly to nearby Dewsbury, where neighbour Peter Brown broke the news to Karen Matthews that her daughter was alive.
Mr Brown said: "She just froze. She was in shock. Then her reaction was crying. After that, she had a phone call from the police liaison officer. They came to pick her up."
Shannon's father, Leon Rose, 29, said he was "over the moon". He said being reunited with his daughter would be like "winning the lottery".
Within minutes of the news of Shannon's discovery, neighbours – who had spent three weeks scouring waste-ground and handing out flyers to assist 300 police officers in the search – were dancing in the street.
A banner was strung up across a window, declaring "Welcome back, Shannon", and bearing the signatures of all her friends. Children returning from school to houses in Shannon's road cried and hugged each other, chanting Shannon's name.
Callie Brown, eight, who is in Shannon's class, said: "We all had to go into the hall for an assembly. I was crying my eyes out. I'm going to give these 22 letters to her from her friends. I have missed her loads."
Last night, specialist officers from West Yorkshire Police were beginning the delicate process of interviewing Shannon to find out what happened to her.
Shannon's mother had raised the alarm at 6:48pm on Tuesday, 19 February. Mrs Matthews said she had said goodbye to her daughter at 8am as Shannon said to her: "I'll see you at teatime, Mum. Love you."
When Shannon did not return at 3:30pm as usual, she went out looking for the youngster, trying first her cousin's home a few hundred yards from her house in Moorside Road. When it became clear Shannon was not at any of her friends' homes, Mrs Matthews dialled 999. Police eventually released a clip of that frantic and tearful call.
The investigation process was complicated by the complex nature of her family relations.
Shannon's natural father, Leon Rose, 29, lives in Kirk-heaton, near Huddersfield. He and Mrs Matthews separated more than five years ago. Shannon's full brother Ian, ten, lives with him. Mr Rose said Shannon may have run away to try to find him, after writing on her bedroom wall that she wanted to live with him. Earlier this week, Mrs Matthews said she believed someone she knew had snatched her daughter "to hurt her".
Some locals were angry that rumours had linked Shannon's stepfather, Craig Meehan, with the young girl's disappearance.
Last night, Peter Brown, the neighbour who broke the good news to her mother, summed up the feeling of the community.
As the bottles of wine were opened and the tops of cans of lager pulled off, Mr Brown said: "We're going to have a party."
Neighbours gathered in Moorside Road, setting up disco lights and letting off fireworks.
TIMELINE
• 25 February: Some 50 specialist police officers are drafted in to check wheelie bins on the route Shannon would have taken home from school.
• 26 February: Friends and neighbours of Shannon hold a vigil to mark one week since her disappearance.
• 1 March: On the eve of Mother's Day, Shannon's mother makes an emotional plea for her daughter's return home.

49 4 March: As the search enters its third week, Shannon's parents together with her headteacher, Krystyna Piatkowski, hold a joint press conference to repeat their call for information.
• 5 March: The police team releases a recording of the 999 call made by Shannon's mother in the hope it will prompt witnesses to come forward.
• 11 March: Three weeks to the day since Shannon's disappearance, police teams stress there will be no let-up in the search for the nine-year-old. Almost half of the UK specialist search dogs are involved in the operation, they say.
• 12 March: Shannon's mother says in a radio interview that she believes someone she knows snatched her daughter to hurt her.
• 14 March: Shannon is found alive in Batley Carr – just a mile from her home – 24 days after going missing.
A 39-year-old man is arrested in relation to her disappearance.




5. Dying Ontario Man Gets Last-Wish Acquittal on 33-year-old Murder
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/national/080314/n031461A.html
Published: Friday, March 14, 2008 5:39 PM ET

FREDERICTON - A dying Ontario man has been granted a last, great wish: to be acquitted of a murder he was wrongly convicted of almost 33 years ago in New Brunswick.
Erin Walsh, who is in the final stages of terminal colon cancer, cried and hugged his wife and his lawyers Friday after a panel of judges with the province's Appeal Court quashed his murder conviction and entered an acquittal.
Erin Walsh, escorted by his lawyer Sean MacDonald, arrives at court in Fredericton, N.B. on Friday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan Walsh shakily stood up from his wheelchair and thanked the three high court judges.
"Please accept my heartfelt gratitude on behalf of my family and myself," he said, leaning heavily on a cane. "This is a tremendous relief for me."
The Appeal Court moved with uncharacteristic speed in considering Walsh's case.
The unorthodox hearing, expedited because of Walsh's illness, came about after both federal and New Brunswick justice officials agreed there likely had been a miscarriage of justice.
Walsh, 59, of Kingston, Ont., was convicted in October 1975, of using a sawed-off shotgun to fatally shoot Melvin (Chi Chi) Peters in Saint John, N.B.
He served 10 years in prison before getting parole and has been in and out of custody since for parole violations.
Walsh has never claimed to be an angel, but has always maintained he was innocent of the murder. He desperately wanted the stain of that conviction removed from his life.
The acquittal came about after Walsh himself uncovered information and documents relating to his case that had not been presented to the jury during the trial. The information included evidence suggesting another person had actually shot Peters.
"This means I'm a free man," a euphoric Walsh told reporters outside the courthouse.
"Freedom now means something to me. It's not just a word. It's something I'm going to wear every day of my life just like I wore my captivity."
Walsh's lawyer, James Lockyer of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, said the acquittal is a great ending to a difficult story.
"Erin has spent a lot of time in prison, as did so many of the others," Lockyer said of the wrongly convicted.
"He was in less time than David Milgaard and longer than Donald Marshall. They're all tragedies in their own way but they are also great endings to all the stories. Today was a tremendous ending to Erin's case."
Walsh has filed a lawsuit against the prosecutor from his 1975 trial, as well as police officials. But he didn't have much to say Friday about the civil case.
"It's not something I'm thinking about right now," he said. "It will be pursued vigorously but I can't say anything more.
"My focus has been on vindication."
The man who prosecuted Walsh, William McCarroll, is now a provincial court judge in Saint John.
Peters was shot to death in a car jammed with five people, including Walsh, after a long day of drinking and carousing in Saint John.
Walsh, who was transporting illegal drugs in his car, said the men he had been drinking with tried to rob him.
There was a gun, a struggle and the gun went off, killing Peters. Walsh insisted he didn't pull the trigger, but police and prosecutors treated it like an open-and-shut case.
It took a jury only four hours to convict Walsh.
Walsh got a break in 2005 when he asked for and received documents from the New Brunswick Archives relating to his case.
Included in the material was a jail cell conversation between two of the men who had been in the car. One asked the other why he shot Peter, but the two ended up fingering Walsh for the crime and testifying for the prosecution.
McCarroll has defended his decision to ignore the information, saying it was "the jabbering of drunks."
But the Appeal Court judges said the jail house talk and other evidence should have been presented because it could have raised reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors.
Walsh said his family, his lawyers and his strong faith in God helped him keep fighting to clear his name.
"This is the best day of my life," he said. "I've been working hard towards it for 33 years and finally it's here.
"I want to thank God who has kept me strong throughout this ordeal, and my family and my lawyers."





Honorable Mention:

High-Level al-Qaida Figure Captured
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-pentagon-al-qaida,0,482222.story
7:54 PM CDT, March 14, 2008

WASHINGTON - After secret interrogations, the CIA transferred to U.S. military custody a high-level al-Qaida figure who helped Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan in 2001, the Pentagon announced Friday.
Mohammad Rahim was captured last summer in Lahore, Pakistan, according to a diplomatic official who spoke on condition of anonymity because intelligence matters are involved. Rahim was later handed over to the CIA, which after interrogating him, turned him over to the U.S. military this week. In a message to agency employees Friday, CIA Director Michael Hayden said it was the first such transfer from his agency's interrogation program since April 2007.
Rahim is now being held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Hayden said.
"Rahim's detention in the summer of 2007 was a blow to more than one terrorist network," Hayden told agency employees in a memo obtained by The Associated Press. "He gave aid to al-Qaida, the Taliban and other anti-coalition militants."
Since early in the global war on terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks by al-Qaida, the CIA has held captured suspects in secret prisons and interrogated them. Rahim became the 16th "high-value" suspect handed over to the military by the CIA and held at Guantanamo.
The CIA has held and interrogated fewer than a hundred prisoners since 2001.
Although U.S. officials refused to say where Rahim was captured, an Aug. 2 report in Pakistan's The Nation newspaper said he was one of two al-Qaida and Taliban aides picked up by authorities. Rahim was arrested in Lahore a few days before publication of the article, the report said.
"Rahim is a tough, seasoned jihadist," Hayden said. "His combat experience, which dates back to the 1980s, includes plots against U.S. and Afghan targets."
Rahim is a close associate of bin Laden and has ties to al-Qaida organizations throughout the Middle East, according to Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman. Officials said Rahim helped arrange the al-Qaida hide-out at Tora Bora -- a mountain area full of warrens used by bin Laden during the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
He assisted al-Qaida's escape from the area during the U.S. operation to try to catch the al-Qaida leader, officials said.
"In 2001, as the terrorist haven in Afghanistan was collapsing, Rahim helped prepare Tora Bora as a hide-out," Hayden said. "When al-Qaida had to flee from there, Rahim was part of that operation, too."
Officials allege that he sought chemicals for one attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan and tried to recruit individuals with access to American military facilities there.
"While that record alone would justify Rahim's capture, it does not fully describe his place in the terrorist infrastructure," Hayden said. "Proficient in several languages and familiar with the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, he was also an extremist facilitator and courier with high-level contacts."
Rahim is perhaps best known in counterterror circles as a personal facilitator and translator for bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders, Hayden said.
Hayden said the most powerful tool against terror suspects "is good intelligence work, including cultivation of the partnerships overseas that were so critical to ending the terrorist career of Mohammad Rahim."