2008: May 4th Good News (17 Year Old Gives Birth in Shower and Walks to Hospital!, Kaneohe Marines Help Handicap Children Heal, more...)

Good Morning all,

Today I'd like to point out an intriguing article about a 17 year old girl who kept her pregnancy a secret, had her baby while showering, and WALKED to the emergency room after she pushed her baby out by herself. WOW! Talk about a strong young woman! Her mother, who now knows about the baby is supporting her decision to keep the child.

I hope you enjoy today's 10 articles. I'll be back with more tomorrow. :)

Today's Top 5:
1. Entrepreneur Changes Homeless Man's Life (Chicago Sun Times)
2. Kaneohe Marines Help Handicap Children Heal (Honolulu Star Bulletin)
3. Orphan Seal Pup Found (Honolulu Star Bulletin)
4. World's First Full Service Evaluation and Clinical Research Organization in Jordan (Menafn Press)
5. Asian Development Bank Pledges Aid to Poorest of Asia-Pacific Nations (International Herald Tribune)


Honorable Mentions:
1. California Teen Gives Birth in Shower, Walks to Hospital (Yahoo News)
2. Stock Exchanges Humming in Africa (Delaware Online)
3. Lei Measuring Longer than 1 Mine Strung in Hawaii (Yahoo News)
4. Denzel Washington Says Yes to Science (Seattle Times)
5. Expolartorium Show of Recycled Cyber Clothing (San Francisco Chronicle)


Today's Top 5:
1. Entrepreneur Changes Homeless Man's Life:
In from the cold--and two lives are changed http://www.suntimes.com/news/zimmermann/931167,CST-NWS-homeless04.article
May 4, 2008
BY STEPHANIE ZIMMERMANN Staff Reporter szimmermann@suntimes.com

Pete Kadens, a Chicago entrepreneur, and Troy McCullough, a homeless man, met, by chance, one chilly morning eight days ago.
Kadens had arrived early for a 6:45 a.m. conference in the West Loop. He was sitting in his warm car and noticed a man in a well-worn shirt and tie, outside the offices of StreetWise, the newspaper sold by homeless people.
It was McCullough, waiting for the doors to open at 7 a.m. so he'd be first to get his bundle of papers.
McCullough, 52, looked like "he had a mission," according to Kadens, who invited him in from the cold, to wait in his car.
They started talking. McCullough told Kadens how he'd come to live on the streets. He talked about his wife's death in 1996, about a major stroke he had two years later, and how he'd lost his laborer's job after that. He was in a nursing home a while but, with no long-term care insurance, ended up living in alleys, parks and churches.
He'd had some tough breaks, McCullough said, but he kept selling his papers six days a week, didn't drink or use drugs and always made it to church, not missing a Sunday in the last year.
Kadens listened. He ended up being late for the conference.
What struck him, he said, was, "that every one of us is only a few bad breaks from being like Troy."
Kadens wanted to help. But first he issued McCullough a challenge: Be here tomorrow morning, and I'll see what I can do.
The next day, a Sunday, McCullough was there at 6:45 that morning in suit and tie.
Kadens gave him $200. Then, he went home, set up a Web site -- www.savetroy.com -- and e-mailed about 50 friends and business associates. He asked them to help him raise $10,300 -- what he figured it would cost for a studio apartment, basic furnishings, groceries and medical care for McCullough for a year. If McCullough could bank at least 70 percent of his StreetWise sales, Kadens figured, he'd have $12,480 in a year, enough to cover a second year of expenses.
Maybe it was the way Kadens opened people's eyes with McCullough's story. Maybe it was the way McCullough didn't fit stereotypes about the homeless.
Whatever the reason, the response was overwhelming. In just a week, the Web site raised $15,000, plus $20,000 more in donated items and services. Word spread quickly. Donations came from 32 states, Mexico and Canada.
"It's been unbelievable," said Kadens, who's 30.
Now, he's working to roll the extra money into a not-for-profit fund to help another homeless person.
"I helped one person, but hopefully I challenged people to think a little bit differently about people who live on the street," Kadens said.
McCullough called Kadens "an angel that's sent from heaven.
"Someday," he said, "I'll be there for somebody else, too."



2. Kaneohe Marines Help Handicap Children Heal:
Injured isle Marines clear a horse trail that will help special-needs kids
http://starbulletin.com/2008/05/04/news/story04.html
By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com

Kaneohe Marines healing from combat injuries are helping handicapped isle children heal -- on horses.
The Wounded Warriors Unit at Kaneohe is volunteering at Manawale'a Riding Center, hacking through woods in Waimanalo to create a sensory trail.
"I really like the project," said Lance Cpl. Adrian Dillie, 23, of Phoenix, recovering from surgery on his shoulder since returning from Iraq in October. "I'm not getting yelled at -- 'gunfire.'"
And the project "hits home" because he has a nephew with autism, Dillie said.
Marines recovering from injuries in Iraq or Afghanistan chose the project because they were excited about helping children with special needs, said 1st Lt. Nicholas Perkins, officer in charge of the unit.
The volunteer activity "is an awesome way for Marines who may be wounded or injured to still provide a good service," said Maj. Kurt Schmidhamer, incoming officer in charge of the unit. "The community in Hawaii has been so good to us, it's a way to give back."

The Silvas stood on part of the trail that was just cleared.
Char's wife, Ana, had marked the trail, but the riding center didn't have the resources to clear the brush, said Patti Silva.Silva and her husband, Wayne, are board members and officers of the riding center with the Chars.
"Horses have such fantastic intuitiveness about bonding," she said, adding that they're "a perfect match" with wounded military warriors and physically or developmentally disabled children.
Exercises with movements and stretching can be done on a horse without the rider even realizing it, she said.
Silva said the sensory trail is mostly for visually impaired, autistic and higher-functioning-disabled children. It will have different footings, such as gravel and wood, and be equipped with items hanging from trees or in boxes that the children can feel or reach for, she said.
They might have to stretch or duck to avoid "noodles," bells or beads hanging from a branch, and they can feel their texture, she said. "Balance and tactile things are very stimulating."
The center provides therapeutic riding for children from Easter Seals, Shriners Hospital, Kapiolani Medical Center, Variety School and other organizations. It recently held a camp for 30 kids in the area in first through third grades with self-esteem, bonding or other issues, Silva said.
"They have very, very strong thumbs from playing video games, but they can't do a lot of stretching. ... They can't bend," she said. Many of the children also are nonverbal, she added.
"We try to address the entire body," she said, describing games and exercises to teach posture, balance and leadership skills. They children learned to mount and groom horses and created stick ponies for a rodeo.
Perkins worked with Chris Marvin, veterans outreach coordinator for The Mission Continues, to arrange the trail project. The Mission Continues, a project of the Center for Citizen Leadership, has established relationships with 16 Oahu charitable organizations.
Marvin, who will become national executive director for The Mission Continues this month, said the wounded warriors will go next to the USS Missouri Memorial to refurbish the 5-inch machine gun. Later this summer, they will help the Muscular Dystrophy Association Hawaii with a charitable golf outing.
An Army captain working on the trail with the Marines, Marvin said he has been recovering 3 1/2 years from injuries in a Black Hawk helicopter crash. Both legs, one foot, one arm and the side of his face were broken, he said.
A national association for handicapped riders is developing a national Horses for Heroes program for wounded service personnel and veterans, Silva said, adding that she hopes to get the Marine trailblazers on horses when they finish the project.
"I've been wanting to learn," Dillie said.


3. Orphan Seal Pup Found
http://starbulletin.com/2008/05/04/news/story02.html
Star-Bulletin Staff

A team of marine experts is working to save a newborn Hawaiian monk seal abandoned by its mother on Kauai."We've never dealt with a seal this young before and are guardedly optimistic," said Charles Littnan of the Monk Seal Research Program in a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration news release. "The animal will be stressed and susceptible to disease so strict quarantine measures will be observed. The male pup, believed to be about three days old, was flown yesterday from Kauai to the NOAA Fisheries Kewalo Research Facility on Oahu on a Coast Guard C-130.A bystander found the animal in a remote area of Kauai's north shore and reported it Friday morning.
A NOAA team went to Kauai and experts tried to reintroduce the pup to its mother, but the female monk seal barked at it and displayed aggressive behavior. She appeared more interested in an adult male seal, said NOAA spokeswoman Wende Goo.
The mother had abandoned another pup at the same location on Kauai last year, Goo said. By the time that pup was found, it was suffering and had to be euthanized, she said.
The Hawaiian monk seal is considered an endangered species with a population estimated at fewer than 1,200.
NOAA is working with the Marine Mammal Center to help save the newborn. In 2006, the two organizations cared for malnourished twin monk seals, which were eventually returned to Midway Atoll.



4. World's First Full Service Evaluation and Clinical Research Organization in Jordan
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=1093195208
MENAFN Press - 04/05/2008 (MENAFN Press)

The Middle East medical technology industry is on the threshold of a major breakthrough with the launch of a world-first in the Philadelphia Biological and Medical Product Development Centre in Jordan, according to Peggy Farley, Managing Director of the General Partner.
She said that the Amman-based centre will be the only healthcare product development hub worldwide that will provide preclinical evaluation, full-service clinical research, core lab facilities, as well as cell engineering and culturing. Farley is also co-founder of the Ascent Medical Technology Funds, which are leveraging the financing for the centre.
"The turnkey output promised by the centre will be key to prompting the establishment of business opportunities in the medical technology industry in Middle East," explained Farley.
"Already, international companies are seeing the possibility of substantial cost savings by transferring their analysis and testing to Ascent for conduct at the Jordan centre."
The centre is geared to meet all of the requirements of the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the European authorities for preclinical and clinical testing of innovative medical products.
Farley predicts that the centre will inspire others to focus on much-needed medical product innovation.
"As a gateway to global markets, the centre's turnkey output and full access to research and development support will spur widespread product development initiatives, which can only be good for healthcare, worldwide.
"We feel that the time is now ripe for the medical industry in the region to achieve recognition from the global marketplace, and Jordan stacks up as the perfect host," she said.
Farley observed that although the United States is the global leader in innovation in medical technology with 42 per cent share of the world market, Jordan has a unique advantage.
She predicts that lower research and development costs and the promise of potentially higher quality coupled with better regulation than other emerging economies, sets Jordan ahead of the game.
"The centre will work closely with associate centres of excellence that it will help establish in Jordan and other countries in the Middle East, as well as with the University of Jordan, Jordan University for Science and Technology, a number of Jordan's hospitals and Jordan's Royal Scientific Society," Farley concluded.
The Ascent Technology Fund II, the main investor in the Philadelphia Biological and Medical Technology Product Development Centre, was established to bring medical technology development and manufacturing infrastructure to the Middle East.




5. Asian Development Bank Pledges Aid to Poorest of Asia-Pacific Nations http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/04/business/04adb.php
Reuters
Published: May 4, 2008

MADRID: The Asian Development Bank on Saturday called for immediate action from global governments to combat soaring food prices and pledged fresh financial aid to help feed the poorest nations in the Asia-Pacific region.
"The food crisis calls for immediate response of governments and the international community," the ADB concluded in a 15-page report detailing its planned response to soaring global food prices, which have jumped 43 percent in the year through March.
"The ADB's short-term response will include targeted interventions to protect the food entitlements of the most vulnerable groups and income and livelihood programs for the poor to mitigate the immediate impacts of the crisis," the report said.
"The ADB will also consider budget support to hardest-hit countries to alleviate the fiscal pressures and assist imports of food grains and agricultural inputs," said the report, which gave no details or figures on the size of the support program.
The president of the ADB, Haruhiko Kuroda, said at a news conference in Madrid, where the bank is holding its four-day annual meeting, that total lending "could be sizeable, but not enormous" and would depend on the scale of requests it received for help.
Today in Business with ReutersMicrosoft abandons Yahoo bidAmid rally in global stocks, investors look to EuropeAging baby boomers stoke growth in industry for 'brain exercise'"We are getting in touch with potential recipients of this kind of assistance and we will soon come up with appropriate figures," Kuroda said, citing Bangladesh and Tajikistan as being among several countries that appear to be seriously affected by rising food prices.
The call came as ministers from Southeast Asian nations agreed at a meeting in Indonesia to cooperate to tackle rice prices that have almost tripled this year and as the African Development Bank pledged to add $1 billion to its loan program to address the food crisis in African countries.
The Asia-Pacific region is home to two-thirds of the world's poor, with 1.5 billion people — three times the population of Europe — living on less than $2 a day.
The five mainland Southeast Asian nations produce a combined 60 million tons of milled rice each year, or about 14 percent of world output. But only Thailand, the world's top rice exporter, and Vietnam have major surpluses.
Countries including India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Brazil have imposed curbs on food exports in a bid to secure domestic supplies and limit inflation.
The ADB report blamed such market interventions for increasing price volatility, arguing that they had reduced current supply and increased uncertainty about future supplies.
Global food prices, based on United Nations records, rose 35 percent in the year to the end of January, markedly accelerating an upturn that began, gently at first, in 2002. Since then, prices have risen 65 percent.
Waves of discontent have been felt. Violent protests hit Cameroon and Burkina Faso in February. Protesters rallied in Indonesia recently and media reported deaths by starvation. In the Philippines, fast-food chains were urged to cut rice portions to counter a surge in prices.
John Bruton, the European Union's Ambassador to the United States, predicts that the world faces 10 to 15 years of steep rises in food costs. And it is the poor in Africa and, increasingly, Southeast Asia, who will be most vulnerable.
The food crisis has donor countries scrambling to help the United Nations' World Food Program fill a financing gap of $755 million and keep aid donations on track this year.
The United States has already released aid from a crop trust, and last week announced $770 million in new food aid and farm development funds for next year.
The ADB, which is based in Manila, is holding its annual meeting in Spain, one of 67 countries — 48 from the Asia-Pacific region, 19 from elsewhere — that finance the institution's program of low-interest loans and other support to fight poverty in Asia.
Donor nations on Friday pledged $11.3 billion for the 2009-2012 period to replenish the multilateral body's key poverty alleviation fund for Asia's poorest countries, a 60 percent increase from the 2005-2008 level.
The ADB approved a total of $10.1 billion in low-cost loans in 2007 for projects and technical assistance in poorer countries. Pakistan was the largest borrower, followed by Vietnam, India, China and Indonesia.




Honorable Mentions:
1. California Teen Gives Birth in Shower, Walks to Hospital
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/teen_birth
Sun May 4, 12:26 AM ET

LONG BEACH, Calif. - A 17-year-old girl gave birth secretly at home, then walked four blocks to a hospital with the baby still attached by its umbilical cord.
"I was just a little nervous" when the labor began, Xochitl Parra said Friday from St. Mary Medical Center as she cradled her 8-pound, 3-ounce son, Alejandro.
The boy was normal and "eating like a champ," said Dr. Jose Perez, director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
The teenager said she was alone and taking a shower around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday to get ready for school. Then the contractions took over.
"I felt his head coming, so I sit down and pushed so he could come out," she said.
Parra did not call 911 because the home phone was disconnected, and she did not want to wake the neighbors because it was so early. Instead, she wrapped the baby, got dressed and went to the hospital on foot.
"I started walking and jogging to the hospital," she said.
The teen came into the hospital lobby and asked for help, Perez said.
"She still had the placenta and the baby was still attached, so of course everyone said, 'Don't move!'" he said.
Perez praised the girl for taking quick action.
"They could have bled to death; thank God that didn't happen," the doctor said. "She was very clever. She knew what to do. She wrapped the baby up and walked over here."
Parra, a sophomore at Long Beach Poly High, said she had kept her pregnancy a secret because she was afraid her mother would "kick me out of the house." Her mother has now accepted the situation and is going to help the teen care for the baby so she can continue attending school, Parra said.
Perez called the outcome "heartwarming."
"We hear so much negative with teenagers throwing their babies in the Dumpsters," he said. "This baby is fine, and hopefully there will be a happy ending with the extended family."


2. Stock Exchanges Humming in Africa
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080504/BUSINESS/805040322/1003/rss01
By JOSEPH J. SCHATZ
Associated Press
May 4, 2008

LUSAKA, Zambia -- Tucked away on the third floor of a modern office building in downtown Lusaka, Zambia's tiny stock market has only 16 listed companies. Clerks write orders in a logbook, only later entering them into a computer, as street vendors eke out a living outside selling mangoes and bootleg Chinese DVDs.
In short, it's a long way from Wall Street. But these days, that's not such a bad thing. The Lusaka Stock Exchange is growing by more than 40 percent and racking up an overall market return of 102 percent in 2007. That makes it one of Africa's top-performing stock markets on a continent where Western investors are increasingly bullish.
Thanks in part to high commodity prices, economic growth, debt-relief initiatives and recent market-friendly economic policies, so-called "frontier" stock markets throughout Africa, from bigger players such as Nigeria to Ghana and tiny Malawi, have been yielding big gains for investors.
The Nigerian Stock Exchange posted some of the highest gains in the world in 2007, its all share index growing by nearly 75 percent that year, propelled by banking stocks that tripled or quadrupled in just six months -- rare good economic news in a country plagued by graft, poverty and lack of development despite its oil wealth.
"Even the dead can hear the sound of something happening in this market now," said Kene H. Okafor, the Nigerian Stock Exchange's head of research and information technology.
The continent's bull market is being driven in part by a growing African middle class seeking new investment opportunities. And American and European investment funds are taking an increased interest in Africa, buying bargain-priced shares of undiscovered companies.
Foreigners are even eyeing the stock market in politically isolated Zimbabwe, should president Robert Mugabe step down.
Most African stock markets aren't affected by global trends, argues Joseph Rohm, a London-based vice president and analyst at investment firm T. Rowe Price International. The company created an Africa and Middle East fund last September.
Rohm, who travels extensively in Africa, is particularly interested in Nigerian banks, infrastructure companies and consumer-oriented African stocks such as mobile-phone companies and Zambeef Products PLC, a Zambian food supplier whose stock price grew by 146 percent last year.
Only five sub-Saharan African countries had stock markets in 1989, according to the International Monetary Fund. Now, the number has risen to 16. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange is the largest and most developed. Swaziland has the smallest, with only eight companies. Ethiopia just opened a new commodity exchange in Addis Ababa.
In Kenya, long lines formed outside brokerages after the government announced plans to sell almost half of its shares in the country's largest mobile-phone service company, Safaricom Ltd. Coming in the wake of Kenya's post-election violence, it will be the largest share offer in the history of the 54-year-old Nairobi Stock Exchange.
Brad Durham, managing director of EPFR Global, a Boston-based company that tracks frontier and emerging markets, says the African funds EPFR follows saw a net inflow of $256 million in the first 11 weeks of 2008.
The surge, analysts say, is being driven by high global prices for commodities like copper, oil and uranium, which has sparked economic growth in resource-rich countries like Nigeria and Zambia. China's massive investment in the continent has also helped.

3. Lei Measuring Longer than 1 Mile Strung in Hawaii
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080502/ap_on_fe_st/odd_long_lei
Fri May 2, 4:37 PM ET

HONOLULU - May Day was Lei Day in Hawaii. Volunteers hoping to set a record for the world's longest lei strung together flowers that stretched for more than a mile at Kapiolani Park in Waikiki on Thursday, organizers said. Video, photos and witness statements documenting the lei, which measured 5,336 feet in length, will be sent to Guinness World Records, organizers said.
Success seems all but certain, because organizers say there currently isn't a Guinness record for the world's longest lei.
Mayor Mufi Hannemann is expected to announce within a few weeks whether the record is official.



4. Denzel Washington Says Yes to Science
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2004391164_eye04.html
People
Sunday, May 4, 2008 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

Denzel Washington and his wife, Pauletta, who annually award scholarships to college students for neuroscience research, visited Mount Vernon High School in Westchester County, N.Y., Friday to remind students that scientists are more important than entertainers or pro athletes. Washington, 53, whose film "The Great Debaters" is based on the real-life victories of a black-college debating team in the 1930s, said that actors, rappers and NBA stars got more attention, but that a doctor was far more vital to people's lives.



5. Expolartorium Show of Recycled Cyber Clothing
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/04/LVD110EGLT.DTL
Amy Moon, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, May 4, 2008

"Second Skin: Imaginative Designs in Digital & Analog Clothing," at San Francisco's Exploratorium on April 25, promised to fuse science and technology with art and fashion.
In fact, it fused so much more.
"I felt like I was a 21st century miner who struck gold," said Pamela Winfrey, Exploratorium senior artist and the event's curator.
The original idea for the show was about wearable art and wearable computing. Once the ball got rolling, Winfrey said, "I realized there were four major things we were at the crossroads of: the DIY movement, like Maker Faire, which is a big movement in this area, in conjunction with that green thing - recycle, reuse, repair; wearable computing, of course, with all these new materials like soft circuitry - new materials that artists grab and use in interesting ways. The other one is that this whole energy is driven by women."
The eclectic runway fashion show was emceed by Steven Rasko, local events producer extraordinaire, who believes that the Bay Area is uniquely positioned to be a showcase for this type of creativity. "This confluence between tech, science, art and philosophy, that is what makes this an epicenter for this kind of work," he said.
"It's a sense of play and imagination combined with a shift in values. In the city, people question, do I really need a brand-new product? Or in a recession it becomes, 'Can I afford it?' "
The artists' works, as well as "the clothesline project," which shows off creative works by visitors, will be on display at the science museum through Sept. 7.
The recycled-materials part of the show featured work by Alyce Santoro, whose clothing is made from fabric woven from 50 percent polyester thread and 50 percent recorded audiotape. Not only does it catch the light beautifully, but if you run a cassette tape head across it, it plays sounds.
Local self-described clothing architect Domini presented "Coppelia," a wearable-art ballet with extravagant one-of-a-kind costumes inspired by characters from "Swan Lake" and "Nutcracker" and made from recycled materials such as CDs, plastic, tape and paper.
Other designers who worked with recycled materials included Karen Wilkinson, whose jackets and hats were made of layers of plastic bags and danger tape, and Anna Rochester, who created a Snickers wrappers dress.
Notable, too, were Jay Silver's "OK to touch," in which a jacket transforms the wearer's body into a musical instrument when touched, and Stephanie Sandstrom's "Woman in the City," featuring a dress that reacts to air pollution. The skirt wrinkles up when air quality is poor and smooths out when the air is clean.
Local fabric sculptor and performer Anastazia Louise of Bad Unkl Sista described her one-of-a-kind pieces as "Victorian Japanese alien insect." Twice during the evening, Bad Unkl Sista performed an opera that could best be described as Butoh meets "Angels in America" meets goth fantasy.
The second part of the show involved fashions from regular folks who strutted their stuff on the runway. There were also people wandering around in homemade costumes: a man in a bubble wrap suit, another in LED-studded overalls who called himself the Green Man and another in an outfit crocheted from brightly colored EL (electroluminescent) wire.
Of the show's moniker, Winfrey said, "It's kind of tongue-in-cheek - you (put on) a second skin (clothing) or you're going to get arrested." She expressed nothing short of amazement at the artists' inventiveness. "What I realize is that these artists and designers are using [clothing] as personal mobile palettes of creativity," she said. "The way they're thinking of clothing has taken it to a new level."