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It used to be pretty uncommon to see a headline about suicide. Not so much today. Athletes, celebrities, a lot of famous people, musicians. We keep hearing about people who have died by their own choice. Sometimes it's people we know and people close to us. We often wonder, "Why?"
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I know a teenage guy who's trying to make his dream come true - to have a music group of his own. And so there are four guys spending long evenings - a lot of their weekends - practicing, writing, perfecting, and recording. Their goal is to do a professional recording and see if it can open some doors for them.
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Jennifer and Courtney were three-year-old twins. And they were excited about preschool. In fact, they were so excited they got up in the middle of the night in their Omaha, Nebraska home and walked out of the house to make the six-block walk to school. Well all this while, their parents were sound asleep. You say, "Oh, isn't that cute?" No! See, snow was everywhere that night and the temperature was nine below zero. The girls were reported missing at 4:04 a.m. after family members awoke to find this light on and the door open.
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It was a major turning point in the life of the Hutchcraft family when our firstborn went to college, and it was a major turning point for my checkbook, too! There was a lot of talk before our daughter left for college and even during orientation week about choosing a major. Of course, that's pretty heavy stuff for freshmen; they're lucky just to find their classes, let alone find their major. But they tell you during that orientation week to pick a major that will be useful later on.
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Jessica's all grown up now. She almost didn't make it past eighteen months. You might even remember when, as a curious toddler, little Jessica fell down a deep shaft in her aunt's backyard in Midland, Texas. The shaft was far too narrow for any rescuer to go down, and she was wedged in a position that virtually immobilized her. If you remember that incident, it's because we all watched the drama unfold on television for three nerve-wracking days. By the time it was over, Jessica was like America's little girl! When the rescuers realized there was no easy way, no conventional way to save little Jessica, they devised a whole new way of getting it done: by digging a wider shaft parallel to the one she was trapped in, and then a tunnel connecting those two shafts. That's pretty ingenious! Finally, a rescuer was lowered into that second shaft. Minutes later, we smiled and we cheered as the rescuer emerged from that shaft with an armful of Jessica, holding onto him for dear life.
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I spent my seventh through tenth grade in a small town in Illinois. So I went to junior high there and my first two years of high school. And I hadn't seen my friends from there for 28 years!
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Every New York television station you turned to had the same bold graphic that just said Blizzard of '96. I still remember it. It was barely 1996; we were only six days into the new year when anywhere between 20 to 30 inches of snow unloaded on the Metropolitan New York area. It was like a mega-ton snow bomb.
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Not long ago there were pictures all over the news of these spectacular colors painting a breathtaking scene in the night sky. It was the "northern lights," also known to scientists as the aurora borealis. Now, I'll tell you what! It's worth checking out that view any time you can or at least those pictures. I guess the approach of solar flares from the sun's turbulence sometimes just adds a whole new richness to these lights. Of course, they have amazed people for centuries.
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A Pope's visit to Cuba is not an everyday thing by any means. Pope Francis more recently visited. When Pope John Paul II made the very first visit in 1998, he saw a very different Cuba than Pope Francis saw.
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At first, they were frightened, even bruised faces appearing on Iraqi TV. Early in the Iraq War, there were seven American soldiers and pilots who had been captured by Saddam Hussein's forces and then they were paraded on television for all the world to see. After that, none of us could be sure whether they were hurt or healthy, or dead or alive. Since then, in many wars, there have been too many scenes like that. In this case, retreating enemy soldiers informed American troops of the place where these particular POWs were being held. As the heavily armed soldiers burst into the room, they first shouted for everyone to lie down on the floor. And then, they yelled out an unmistakable command: "If you're an American, stand up!" Seven prisoners stood up, and they were free.
