PHOTOS: Gaza recovery begins

Palestinian girls, whose house was destroyed during Israel's 22-day offensive, look out of a tent in Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip January 29, 2009. Along the 45 km (30-mile) strip of Mediterranean coastline, half-finished construction sites stand silent, and, amid the ruins left by this month's violence, families are building makeshift wood-and-plastic shelters to escape the cold. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem ( GAZA) More photos from Reuters

Source: AlertNet

Pakistani Taliban free 29 police and soldiers

Source: Reuters (Recasts with Taliban free captured police, soldiers) By Junaid Khan MINGORA, Pakistan, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Pakistani Taliban released on Wednesday 29 paramilitary soldiers and policemen they had ... Full Story

Thanksgiving Day honors American Indian contributions

For the first time, federal legislation has set aside the day after Thanksgiving — for this year only — to honor the contributions American Indians have made to the United States.

Frank Suniga, a descendent of Mescalero Apache Indians who lives in Oregon, said he and others began pushing in 2001 for a national day that recognizes tribal heritage.

Suniga, 79, proposed his idea to a cultural committee that is part of the Portland-based Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians. The organization took on the cause of a commemorative day, as did the National Congress of American Indians and other groups.

Congress passed legislation this year designating the day as Native American Heritage Day, and President George W. Bush signed it last month.

The measure notes that more Americans Indians than any other group, per capita, serve in the U.S. military. It also cites tribes’ artistic, musical and agricultural contributions.

“The Indians kept the Pilgrims alive with turkeys and wild game,” Suniga said. “That’s the reason it was attached to the Thanksgiving weekend.”

After the Thanksgiving weekend, Suniga said, he and other advocates plan to lobby to place the Native American Heritage Day on the nation’s calendar annually.

The date and location of the first Thanksgiving celebration is a topic of modest contention. Though the earliest attested Thanksgiving celebration was on September 8, 1565 in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida, the traditional “first Thanksgiving” is venerated as having occurred at the site of Plymouth Plantation, in 1621.

Sources: AP, Wikipedia

Poll Suggests Cell Phones Strengthen Family Ties

Parents and children might rush through their days in different directions, but the American family is as tight-knit as in the last generation — or more so — because of the widespread use of cellphones and the Internet, according to a new poll.

In what was described as the first detailed survey of its kind researchers reported that family life has not been weakened, as many had feared, by new technology.  Rather, families have compensated for the stress and hurry of modern life with cellphone calls, e-mail and text messages and other new forms of communication.

“There had been some fears that the Internet had been taking people away from each other,” said Barry Wellman, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto and one of the authors of the report, published by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. “We found just the opposite.”

In the poll, 60 percent of adults said that the new technologies did not affect the closeness of their family, while 25 percent said cellphones and online communication made their families closer and 11 percent said that the technology had a negative effect.

Wellman said families appreciated the innovations because “they know what each other is doing during the day.” This, he said, comports with his other research, which shows that technology “doesn’t cut back on their physical presence with each other. It has not cut down on their face time.”

The findings were based on a nationally representative poll of 2,252 people, which explored technology use and profiled a group of 482 adults who were married or living together with minor children. These “traditional nuclear families” have been of particular scholarly interest, the report’s authors said. They tried to examine trends in single-parent families, too, but the poll numbers were too small to be valid, they said.

Cellphones and Internet use were widespread in two-parent households, regardless of education, income, employment, race and ethnicity, with 94 percent saying at least one adult used the Internet and 84 percent saying children were using the Internet.

This marks a large change in short order. Only since the start of the decade has a majority of Americans been Internet and cellphone users, researchers said.

Where technology has changed family life, those polled said it was for the good.

Forty-seven percent of adults said cellphones and the Internet had improved the quality of family communication.

Another 47 percent said there was no effect, and 2 percent said there had been a decrease in quality.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Beautiful Art Can Reduce Physical Pain

Want to get rid of a headache without taking pills? Ditch the Motrin and visit the Met instead: according to new research, concentrating on beautiful art can be a great way to suppress physical pain.

City Uses DNA Tests to Help Dog Owners Behave

In an Israeli city, officials are collecting DNA samples from all area dogs, and using their database to track down who’s been good or bad.

Boy Wins ‘Extreme Train Makeover’

A 12-year-old recently won an 'Extreme Train Makeover' to make rail cars accessible to people with handicaps.

Dog Calls 911 to Help Sick Owner

Joe Stalnaker’s German shepherd, Buddy, seems like the kind of dog you’d love to have around whenever emergency strikes. This intelligent service dog is trained to help his owner in all sorts of ways - including calling 911 when Stalnaker has an accident.