The U.S. preterm birth rate dropped for the fifth consecutive year in 2011 to 11.7 percent, the lowest in a decade, giving thousands more babies a healthy start in life and saving billions in health and social costs.
“These results demonstrate that many premature births can be prevented with the right policies and bold leadership,” said March of Dimes President Dr. Jennifer L. Howse. “Our national progress in reducing premature births over the past five years shows that when infant health becomes a priority, babies benefit. We must implement proven interventions and accelerate our investment in new research to prevent preterm birth so one day every baby will get a healthy start in life.”
To view Multimedia News Release, go to http://www.multivu.com/mnr/58942-march-of-dimes-2012-premature-birth-report-card
Each generation of tablet PCs and projectors seems to offer an ever-widening range of applications. Many of this year’s devices are cordless, water and impact resistant. This is great news for consumers. They are getting products that are more versatile and better at coping with the challenges of everyday life as well as extreme work environments.
Fifteen-year-old Chengo Chewe from Lusaka, Zambia, has turned his life around through the Children International Youth Program. Raised in an extremely volatile community, he lost his father at a young age; few expected him to escape this terrible cycle of poverty and violence. Yet, in 2009, 12-year-old Chengo participated in the United Nations International Youth Day in New York City. Today, Chengo is in high school and plans to study political science in college. His biggest dream? Returning to the United Nations as a diplomat.
Chengo credits Children International for the positive track his life has taken. “I would like to say thank you to Children International for the opportunities they have given me, the opportunities that have opened in my life.”
To view Multimedia News Release, go to http://www.multivu.com/mnr/52276-children-international-impoverished-youth-learn-to-give-back
Wonder if I gave an OREO to the big bad wolf, what might happen? In its newest campaign, which debuted with a 90-second TV spot on Sunday evening, the World’s Favorite Cookie answers this question by exploring how something as small as sharing an OREO cookie can create a positive change in perspective. The campaign, featuring the OREO WONDERFILLED anthem, will come to life in New York City today with 500 a cappella singers performing the new song and sharing OREO cookies with New Yorkers. The wonder and singing will then spread coast-to-coast, with visits to Chicago and Los Angeles as the launch week unfolds.
To view Multimedia News Release, go to http://www.multivu.com/mnr/61667-oreo-wonderfilled-campaign-see-the-world-with-openness-curiosity
When Kayla Dehnert tells friends and family in Northern California about life as a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital patient, she pulls out a string of beads taller than she is.
Kayla, 8, of Novato, Calif., is one of hundreds of St. Jude patients who have participated in the hospital’s Legacy Bead program since its launch in 2009. The program offers patients and their families a tangible way to illustrate their journeys using 55 glass beads as unique as the children who collect them. Patients receive vivid green cylindrical beads for blood transfusions; sapphire round beads for lumbar punctures; tear-drop beads in assorted colors for homesickness; and blue, triangle-shaped beads for clinic visits. Other beads mark triumphs such as the completion of radiation or chemotherapy or challenges ranging from cancer’s return to the death of a friend.
To view Multimedia News Release, go to http://www.multivu.com/mnr/58137-st-jude-legacy-bead-program-treatment-milestones-for-children
In Texas, football and those Friday night lights are true to people’s hearts – but the importance of hydration may not always be top of mind. Representatives from Nestlé® Pure Life® recently visited a local Texas youth and football cheer practice to help inspire the coaches and parents to make healthy choices for their families and join the Nestlé Pure Life Hydration Movement. To encourage the kids to drink water and stay hydrated during practice, Nestlé Pure Life donated more than 12,000 bottles of water to the League.
To view Multimedia News Release, go to http://www.multivu.com/mnr/59066-nestle-pure-life-donates-water-to-encourage-healthy-hydration
At 104 years old, Edythe Kirchmaier has been serving others for more than a century, 40 years of which have been as a volunteer with Direct Relief International. As Edythe approaches her 105th birthday, she hopes to inspire the world to make a difference, as she has, by raising awareness for the charity to which she’s dedicated much of her life, Direct Relief. To honor Edythe and celebrate her milestone birthday on January 22, 2013, Direct Relief has created the world’s largest (virtual) birthday cake, a Facebook application called Edythe’s 105th Birthday Challenge, which will enable the world to light a candle and wish Edythe a happy birthday.
To view Multimedia News Release, go to http://www.multivu.com/mnr/59741-direct-relief-international-105-year-old-volunteer-birthday-wish
Adults over the age of 60 are at the greatest risk of atrial fibrillation (AF), a potentially life-threatening heart rhythm disorder. Yet, according to a recent survey conducted by the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS), more than 25 percent of Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 have never heard of AF. Today marks the kick-off of HRS’ second annual “A-Fib Feels Like” campaign to help educate Americans about the symptoms and warning signs associated with AF and encourage those who suffer from the disorder to talk to their doctors about their risks and potential treatment options.
To view Multimedia News Release, go to http://www.multivu.com/mnr/57735-a-fib-feels-like-campaign-warning-signs-atrial-fibrillation
Admittedly, there’s a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum. And what then—when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we’re retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he’s heard voices pleading for “peace at any price” or “better Red than dead,” or as one commentator put it, he’d rather “live on his knees than die on his feet.” And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us.
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it’s a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, “There is a price we will not pay.” “There is a point beyond which they must not advance.” Winston Churchill said, “The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we’re spirits—not animals.” And he said, “There’s something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”
