In a surgical first, Philadelphia doctors have transplanted donor hands and forearms onto an 8-year-old boy whose own hands were amputated when he was a toddler.
Zion Harvey told NBC News that the groundbreaking 10-hour operation performed earlier this month at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia was a dream come true. He can’t wait for the day he holds his little sister with his new hands.
“My favorite thing [will be to] wait for her to run into my hands as I pick her up and spin her around,” he said.
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Courageous Boy Receives World’s First Double Hand Transplant
The Boy Scouts of America voted Monday to lift a long-established ban on gay adults as employees and volunteers within the organization.
The BSA’s full executive board voted 45 to 12 in favor of the change, effective immediately. The vote came after the National Executive Committee unanimously approved a resolution earlier this month stating that “no adult applicant for registration as an employee or non-unit-serving volunteer, who otherwise meets the requirements of the Boy Scouts of America, may be denied registration on the basis of sexual orientation.”
BSA President Robert Gates, the former secretary of defense, had called for an end to the ban.
“For far too long, this issue has divided and distracted us,” Gates said in a video released Monday. “Now it’s time to unite behind our shared belief in the extraordinary power of scouting to be a force for good in the community and in the lives of its youth members.”
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
NASA on Thursday announced the discovery of Kepler-452b, the most Earth-like planet ever found. Located 1,400 light-years from our planet, NASA called it “Earth 2.0,” because it’s the first small, rocky planet discovered in the habitable zone of a G star similar to our sun.
“We can think of Kepler-452b as an older, bigger cousin to Earth, providing an opportunity to understand and reflect upon Earth’s evolving environment,” said Jon Jenkins, the Kepler data analysis lead at NASA’s Ames Research Center.
The planet is 5 percent farther away from its star than Earth is to the sun, making for a slightly longer year of 385 days, but gets similar light because its sun is 20 percent brighter than our own.
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An artist’s concept compares Earth (left) to the new planet, called Kepler-452b, which is about 60 percent larger in diameter. NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle
Three astronauts have successfully completed a trip aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule to the International Space Station in order to reinforce the crew.
NASA’s Kjell Lindgren, Russia’s Oleg Kononenko and Japan’s Kimiya Yui blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:02 a.m. local time (5:02 p.m. ET Wednesday).
It was a textbook launch, with Kononenko declaring everything “nominal,” meaning normal, about 20 minutes after liftoff. The Expedition 44 crew arrived less than six hours later.
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The Soyuz TMA-17M rocket blasts off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, 23 July 2015, carrying members of the expedition 44/45 NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko to the International Space Station (ISS). EPA
Bobbi Kristina Brown, 22, the only daughter of singers Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, died Sunday, nearly six months after she was found unresponsive in a bathtub of her home, her family said.
Brown has been unresponsive in hospitals and hospice care since she was found in her Roswell, Georgia, home on Jan. 31. Her family said she suffered irreversible brain damage.
“She is finally at peace in the arms of God,” her family told NBC News in a statement. “We want to again thank everyone for their tremendous amount of love and support during these last few months.”
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Bobbi Kristina Brown dies at age 22
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As the nation reels from yet another high-profile gun violence tragedy — this time in a movie theater in Louisiana — photographer Joe Quint was, sadly, not surprised.
“We’ve come to accept [gun violence] as tragic and awful and a part of life, but no one expects to be sitting in a movie theater and watching a comedy and someone stands up and starts shooting,” Quint told The Huffington Post Friday. “That’s not normal.”
Despite the abnormality of the experience, Americans “haven’t had the collective shift in consciousness yet to rise up with a unified voice and say ‘enough’.”
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1 photo from article Joe Quint
“A sound came out of me that I don’t ever want to hear again,” says Eric, as he remembers identifying the body of his daughter, who was killed in a mass shooting at Northern Illinois University.
Two teenage brothers are in police custody on suspicion that they killed their parents and three siblings, ranging in ages from 5 to 12 years old, in their Oklahoma home Wednesday night, police said.
A 13-year-old was also wounded and a 2-year-old was found unharmed after police in Broken Arrow responded to a wordless 911 call Wednesday night and discovered the bodies, Broken Arrow Police Cpl. Leon Calhoun said.
The teen suspects, aged 18 and 16, allegedly ran out the back door when officers arrived at the scene in the Tulsa suburb and were taken into custody in a wooded area, police said.
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Two Teen Relatives Detained in Oklahoma Family Murder
Every summer, Selecta opens up a ‘Pop-Up’ shop for design-your-own Magnum ice creams, called Magnum Pleasure Store.
They usually last only for a couple of months.
Last year (2014), they opened their pop-up store in Selfridges in Oxford Circus, and by the time I knew about it, they were already gone… 😦
So now, I am so glad I managed to experience ‘designing’ my own Magnum.
Honestly, I am not a major fan of Magnum ice cream.
I like Ben and Jerry’s more.
I recently had Gelato from Amorino in Paris, and that tasted way better than all my other ice cream experiences.
I remember years ago when Magnum became such a huge trend in the Philippines.
During that time, I hopped on to the bandwagon just because of all the hype and tried a Magnum for the first time…
The question is often asked in the somber aftermath of a shooting massacre: how many deaths will it take before America changes its gun laws?
And while a political solution remains elusive, mass killings such as those in Charleston, Chattanooga and Lafayette continue with alarming frequency across the U.S. — a recent study found one occurs in America every two weeks.
But for Australia, a single massacre changed everything.
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Martin Bryant pleaded guilty to all 35 murders at Port Arthur. Reuters
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
James' World 2 