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LOTD for April 5

Fascinating and really, really sad story about parents whose children die after being left in the car:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022701549.html?sid=ST2009030602446


The Exxon Valdez oil spill has prompted oil companies to replace single-hulled supertankers with supertankers with two hulls, to avoid spills from occurring. Despite almost all of the rest of the world switching, Exxon still insists on using single-hulled ships, using more single-hulled ships than the rest of its competitors combined! Exxon says that single-hulled ships saves them $18 million per year...but they made $45+ billion in profit last year and the Valdez spill hurt their brand image significantly:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a5vsMTT0Ywuk


It is great to hear about how the department heads at this hospital are donating a significant amount of money in order to reduce the number of staff layoffs that will be needed, and they are leading an effort to get doctors to donate enough to minimize layoffs:
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/03/20/to_stave_off_layoffs_beth_israel_doctors_agree_to_give_350k/


The CEO at that hospital led the effort to reduce layoffs, with he and other senior personnel taking large pay cuts, and they ended up reducing the layoffs from 600 to 150. Here is an article about the CEO;
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/03/12/a_head_with_a_heart/


Dog with 3 legs was scheduled to be euthanized, but a Florida couple adopted him and made it their quest to find an artificial leg. The dog got a prosthetic leg in a pioneering procedure that actually used part of his body. The procedure used on the dog might someday be used on humans. Now the dog is happy and can walk for hours, which is great!
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2009/03/29/a1b_cassidy_0330.html


Oregon woman was caught going 103 mph in a 45 zone--she told police that she was trying to teach her 10-year-old grandson that he shouldn't drive that fast because it was dangerous:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/grandma_hits_103_mph_to_show_y.html


That Oregon grandmother actually was already on paid leave from the DMV for work-related issues and her arrest could affect her job with the DMV:
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20090402/NEWS/904020367/1149/oregon150


Italian court sentenced a Tunisian pilot (plus his co-pilot and 5 other Tunisair employees) to 10 years in jail because the pilot stopped to pray instead of following emergency procedures and then deciding to crash-land the plane instead of trying to reach the nearest airport. 16 people died in the 2005 crash:
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090324/odds/odd_us_crash


13-year-old bit 11 kids at his Middle School--his father says that the boy loves the vampire movie Twilight:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090327/NEWS01/903270358/1001/NEWS


Cool technology that brings sunlight to the inside of office buildings and homes via fiber optics:
http://www.aip.org/dbis/stories/2006/15242.html


Interesting to read about how some public schools are doing away with grade levels, instead being group by what they know on a particular subject:
http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/151941.html?p=1

http://www.parade.com/news/intelligence-report/archive/the-end-of-grade-levels.html
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