After Jim Cotter last his wife last year, he set out to paint in his town to help keep him from missing her. He started with a fire hydrant, and then just kept going. Glouster, Ohio, with a population of only 2000, is looking pretty good these days, thanks to Jim. The place was once a thriving coal community but began looking a little rundown. Cotter says he’s always wished someone would fix it up, and so after his wife died, he decided to be that someone.

“I miss her,” he said. “And this just gives me something that keeps  me from missing her more.”

Cotter painted house after house, business after business – all for free.

Read more and watch the video here.

You do not have to stay in a school where you are being bullied. There are other options. Try an online school or if you have several schools in your area check into a transfer. Don’t take no as an answer, either. Tell them if you can’t get that transfer, you will begin homeschooling and go to the news. Read more about the many free online schools here.

Rachel reportedly pleaded with her father not to mention the bullying to school officials, for fear of worsening the situation. A note that her parents found after her death read, “I’m fine = I wish I could tell you how I really feel,” alongside a picture of a broken heart. The 13-year-old seventh grader in Mantorville, Minn., died April 29, 2012, after hanging herself at her home. The months leading up to the tragedy were a whirlwind of peer abuse instances, her parents say.

Two days before Rachel’s death, an anonymous text was sent to other students at the school, KARE reports. “It was pretty explicit. Something to the effect of that Rachel was a slut and to get her to leave the Kasson-Mantorville School, forward this to everyone you know,” parent Chris Flannery told the station.

“We thought she was dealing with it and the school thought she was dealing with it,” said her father, Rick Ehmke, who said Rachel and a friend had been eating lunch in a locker room to get away from her bullies.

Read more here.

Press release: Cedar Point has announced that it is expanding its new Celebration Plaza. As a part of that expansion, Cedar Point will be removing the WildCat roller coaster.

WildCat was coming to the end of its useful life. With the desired expansion of Celebration Plaza, coupled with the low ridership and increased maintenance costs, Cedar Point has decided to accelerate the removal of the ride. WildCat will be removed from the park prior to Opening Day and the materials will be sent to a recycling facility.

This expansion is one of several initiatives that will beautify the park midways and enhance guests’ experiences. Additional improvements include state-of-the-art lighting packages on Giant Wheel, Millennium Force and Power Tower, a new sound and lighting system along the park’s Main Midway and the re-painting of the Millennium Force and Blue Streak roller coasters.

Cedar Point remains committed to being the roller coaster capital of the world.  New roller coasters, rides and attractions will always be a part of Cedar Point’s future.

Cedar Point amusement park is opening its 143rd year with dinosaurs, fireworks and roller coasters along Lake Erie. The big new addition is a $1 million animatronic dinosaur attraction that will feature 50 prehistoric creatures. The attraction carries an extra admission fee that’s not included in the regular ticket price. The park will have a new nighttime show starting in early June that will feature fireworks, lasers and music. Two longtime rides will be missing this year. The park’s riverboat ride was closed to make way for the dinosaurs, and Cedar Point just announced that the WildCat roller coaster is being removed and will no longer operate.

About the Recall:

May 8, 2012 – Solid Gold Health Products for Pets, Inc., El Cajon, California, announced a voluntary recall of one batch of WolfCub Large Breed Puppy Food and one batch of Solid Gold WolfKing Large Breed Adult Dog, both with a Best Before date of December 30, 2012, and an “X” in the 11th digit of the date code.

Precautions:

Always wash your hands after handling pet foods or treats, especially before preparing food or handling a baby bottle. People can also contract a secondary infection if a dog that’s eaten tainted
food then offers its owner a big wet kiss. A cat who eats tainted food can pass on salmonella if the pet grooms himself, then family members pet the cat. Owners should also wash their hands after cleaning up a dog’s droppings outdoors, or
scooping a cat’s litter box. Salmonella can also be excreted through feces.

Symptoms of Pets with Salmonella infection:

May have decreased appetite, fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, pets may be lethargic and have diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, fever and vomiting. Infected but otherwise healthy pets can be  carriers and infect other animals or humans. If your pet has consumed the recalled product and has these symptoms, please contact your veterinarian.

Dangers to Humans:

Pet owners should take precautions to avoid contamination. Individuals handling dry pet food can become infected with Salmonella,  especially if they have not thoroughly washed their hands after having contact with surfaces exposed to this product. People who believe they may have been exposed to Salmonella should monitor themselves for some or all of the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or  bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping and fever. According to the Centers  for Disease Control, people who are more likely to be affected by Salmonella include infants, children younger than 5 years old, organ transplant patients, people with HIV/AIDS and people receiving treatment for cancer.

The products involved in this voluntary recall are:

Solid Gold WolfCub Large Breed Puppy Food, 4 lb, 15 lb, and 33 lb, with a best before date of December 30, 2012 and batch code starting with SGB1201A31X,  4 lb identifying UPC 093766750005, 15 lb identifying UPC 093766750012, 33 lb identifying UPC 093766750029

Solid Gold WolfKing Large Breed Adult Dog Food, 4 lb, 15 lb, and 28.5 lb, with a best before date of December 30, 2012 and batch code starting  with SGL1201A32X,  4 lb identifying UPC 093766750050, 15 lb identifying UPC 093766750067, 28.5 lb identifying UPC 093766750081

Best by dates (lot codes) can be found on the back of the bag in the  bottom right-hand corner of 33 lb, 28.5 lb and 15 lb bags and the bottom of the 4 lb bags.

Other Solid Gold recipes, sizes or brands of food are not impacted by this voluntary recall.

Pet owners who are unsure if the product they purchased is included in the recall, would like replacement product or have additional questions, may call us at (800) 364-4863 (Monday – Friday, 8:00 AM through 5:00 PM  Pacific time).

Related:

Latest pet food recalls deal with human illness

FDA page on recalls linked to animal health

Pet food recalls back in the news

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

It’s unclear whether the teens knew each other, or had communicated, but at least some of them were distilling the hand sanitizer products, which typically contain at least 60 percent ethyl alcohol, using salt to separate the alcohol. The result is a powerful 120 proof shot, about 50 percent more potent than vodka or tequila, says Dr. Cyrus Rangan, medical toxicologist with the California Poison Control System.

“If a person has never had alcohol before, they can get drunk almost instantaneously,” Dr. Calvin Lowe told NBC Los Angeles. “It’s very, very dangerous.”

Using hand sanitizer to get drunk is just the latest get-wasted fad, similar to young people downing mouthwash or cough syrup, also known as robo-tripping. In 2010 a Food and Drug Adminstration panel weighed whether to require a prescription to buy products containing ?dextromethorphan, the ingredient found in numerous over-the-counter cough and cold medicines. The FDA panel voted against the proposal.

“Teens have always been looking for things around the house to get high, so they don’t have to go to a drug dealer,” says Rangan.

According to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, the substances most frequently involved in teen poisonings in 2010 (the most recent data available) were:

Ibuprofen — 10,030 calls
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (Antidepressants such as Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft) — 8,419 calls
Acetaminophen (adult formula) — 7,995 calls
Atypical Antipsychotics (Ablify, Risperdal) — 7,319 calls
Benzodiazepines (Valium, Xanax) — 7,192
Alcohol — 5,061 calls
Source: AAPCC

While there have been prior cases of people drinking hand sanitizer, the salt procedure is relatively new, ?Helen Arbogast, injury prevention coordinator-Trauma Program at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, said in a statement. Although the emergency room cases appear limited to Los Angeles county for now, experts are concerned the trend could go viral as more teens discover how to distill the liquid sanitizer on websites or in YouTube videos.

Children’s Hospital is recommending that concerned parents treat hand sanitizer like liquor or medications. Another alternative for parents is to switch to non-gel based foam sanitizers, suggests Rangan.

NBC News contributed to this report

The infected cow, the fourth ever discovered in the U.S., was found as part of an Agriculture Department surveillance program that tests about 40,000 cows a year for the fatal brain disease.

No meat from the cow was bound for the food supply, said John Clifford, the department’s chief veterinary officer.

“There is really no cause for alarm here with regard to this animal,” Clifford told reporters at a hastily convened press conference.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is fatal to cows and can cause a fatal human brain disease in people who eat tainted beef. The World Health Organization has said that tests show that humans cannot be infected by drinking milk from BSE-infected animals.

Read more here.

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Gareth Oates died instantly a month after his 18th birthday when he was hit by a train after travelling to Marsden Station, near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.

A three-day inquest in Bradford heard how he was bullied while he studied at West Suffolk College, in Bury St Edmunds, with some students routinely calling him ‘suicide boy’. The inquest heard that Gareth was diagnosed with high functioning Autistic Spectrum Disorder when he was five and had specialist help throughout his pre-16 schooling, often on a one-to-one basis.

The bullying was also targeted by youths on the train and in other public places. She said her son found the transition to college from school difficult for a range of reasons. In the summer of 2009 the taunting caused Gareth to run out of college into a wood and phone his mother her saying: ‘Mum, I’m going to kill myself’.

His mother described how he became obsessed with the 1985 action film The Runaway Train – which ends with one of the main characters killing himself in front of the locomotive. Mrs Oates said she believed some of the details of her son’s death mirrored that in the film.

She told the coroner she believed her son travelled to the Huddersfield area because he had once been obsessed with a DVD about the last days of steam engines in the Pennines, which featured the spot where he died.

Bradford Coroner Paul Marks heard how Gareth’s mother, Glenys Oates, mounted a desperate battle to get appropriate mental health intervention for her son in the run up to his death on March 2, 2010.

He had already tried to kill himself once and had talked of suicide from the age of 11.

Yesterday, Professor Marks said Gareth was failed by a number of agencies including those dealing with mental health, social services and education.

He said it was probable that treatment with certain drugs or the appropriate use of the powers under the Mental Health Act would have ‘averted his death’.

The coroner said there was a clear gap in provision in psychiatric care for young people between 16 and 18 years old who were too old for child services but too young to benefit from adult interventions.

Read more here.

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“It was a miracle,” said Ruth Torres.

Torres got separated from her beloved Irish Wolfhound, Dusty, three weeks ago, when her brother took the dog. Torres didn’t realize Dusty was actually lost until she saw TODAY Friday morning.

That’s when animal advocate Jill Rappaport and Center for Animal Care and Control official Richard Gentles were introducing an Irish Wolfhound in the recurring “Bow to Wow” segment.

read more here.

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Check out their website: http://www.acearchers.org/

Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games has helped Archery become popular again in Central Ohio. Chris Worthen, a 20-year archer and the president of the Ace Archers club, has welcomed 10 new members recently as a result of Hunger Games mania. The all-ages group, which practices twice weekly in Johnstown, is open to newcomers.

The archery expertise displayed by Katniss Everdeen throughout the young-adult novel and the film The Hunger Games, in which the resourceful teenager employs a bow and arrow for survival, has prompted a surge in the number of people testing their aim in the swift, self-directed sport.

Just for fun, of course.

Official Ace Archers Club Website

Read more here.

Watch the news video here.

Dana Elementary School