Month: July 2021

A man who traveled cross-country to mine diamonds for his girlfriend’s engagement ring dug up a 2.2-carat diamond.

Christian Liden from Washington always dreamt of finding a raw diamond to create his one-of-a-kind engagement ring for his future spouse, and now, his dream has turned into reality.

Liden imagined mining his own gems for an engagement ring since he was in middle school, but as he grew older, he didn’t know how difficult it would be to find the raw gems in America.

It was until three years ago that Liden’s coworker told him about Crater of Diamonds State Park, located in Arkansas, that he could possibly mine a raw diamond and create an engagement ring for his girlfriend of two years, Desirae.

He watched videos of those who were successful in finding diamonds at the park and built as much information as he could before deciding to plan his trip.

“That’s when I started really planning the trip and planning to actually go out and do this – finding out it was possible to actually do it – so I started doing research on diamonds,” Liden told CNN.

When planning the trip, his girlfriend knew he was going on a road trip, but she didn’t know the real reason behind it.

“I told her we would be visiting some state parks and some national parks, but other than that, she didn’t know we were going to find gemstones,” he said.

When Liden and his friend Josh arrived in Arkansas, they began digging. They were unsuccessful for two days of being in Arkansas and tried a different approach to just mine the surface of the gravel.

When he flipped his tool towards the end of the day, he saw a yellow diamond weighing over two carats.

“I started shaking right away – I was shaking so bad. I waved my buddy over…and I moved my hand and he saw it,” Liden told CNN.

His friend took the 2.20-carat gem and put it in a Ziplock, and the two began their road back to the city.

According to a news release from Diamond Crater Skate Park, this is the largest gem that’s been found since last October, when a visitor from Fayetteville, Arkansas, discovered a 4.49-carat yellow diamond.

A day after Liden arrived back in Washington, he took his girlfriend out to hunt some mushrooms in the woods, and that’s when he pulled out the diamond and proposed to her. She said yes.

He says they are now looking for someone to design and build the ring, but aren’t in any rush.

RIP Medical Debt is partnering with Ballad Health to pay off $278 million of pending hospital bills. In the process, the New York-based charity will free approximately 82,000 people from debt they owe to hospitals.

According to the Wall Street Journal, many who owed money to Ballad Health — which operates hospitals in Virginia and Tennessee — qualified for free care under its policy, but didn’t apply for it.

In addition to its partnership with Ballad, RIP Medical Debt hopes to reach deals with other medical facilities, helping remove the burden of medical bills for low-income families.

Since the founding of RIP Medical Debt in 2014, it’s relieved more than $4.5 billion in outstanding bills. According to their website, their efforts have helped over 2.6 million families so far.

RIP Medical Debt executive director Allison Sesso told ABC News the charity does not individually select which patients get their debt forgiven. “It’s blind,” she said.

However, to qualify, patients must not earn above 200% of the poverty line, or about $43,000.

A college student from Florida has gone viral on TikTok after a bystander caught him giving some of his belongings away to a homeless man.

In the video below, Jabari Richardson, a senior student from Florida A&M University, can be seen opening his trunk and handing clothes and shoes to a man holding a sign reading, “Anything helps,” and “God Bless.”

This moment was captured and posted on TikTok on Friday, with the song, “The Good Ones” by country singer Gabby Barrett playing over it. The driver was stopped behind Richardson, off a local I-10 exit, and the user added the caption “I don’t know this young man but he deserves to go viral.”

Richardson told ABC’s WTXL Tallahassee that he was in the process of moving, and rather than selling his clothes he wanted to give them to someone who needed them.

“Not everyone’s blessed as I am. My mom always had clothes and shoes on my back. I can definitely take that for granted. Anything can be gone in the blink of an eye,” he told the news outlet.

The video has now gained more than six million views.

A 12-year-old from North Carolina has graduated not only from high school but he’s also graduated from college in the same week.

Mike Wimmer, 12, increased his academic workload over the pandemic since not having to commute to school gave him extra time to pick up some extra classes.

“It was like, well, we’re sitting here doing nothing, right? So might as well take a few extra classes and get some stuff knocked out,” he told TODAY’s, Morgan Radford.

Back in December, Mike finished his high school requirements and focused on his community college work during the spring semester.

During his interview with Radford, Mike said he’s always been an advanced student. His love for learning made it easier to study, but sometimes he did find it difficult to be taken seriously and get access to the classes he wanted to take.

“There’s a lot of people, the minute they see my age, they’re like ‘Oh, well, you can’t do this curriculum,’ or ‘It’s too rigorous for you,’ those kinds of things,” Mike said. “So really, just gaining credibility and finding educators that wanted to foster my abilities was the hardest part.”

In addition to Mike’s academics, he’s devoted his free time to extracurriculars, including starting two technology companies. He started his first company Next Era Innovations, just when he was 7 years old.

He says even though he’s dedicated his time to his academics and entrepreneurship, he also keeps time to still being a kid. “You know, if you look around my room, there’s Hot Wheels cars along the wall, tracks on the floor, and Legos all over the place,” he said.

He also wants to encourage other kids to follow their dreams, even if there are any hurdles that come their way.

“When one door closes, there’s always another door, even a window you can crawl through,” he said.

When Avery Sanford, a high school senior from Virginia, saw a man in an SUV pulling up in front of her house, she did not expect to see him dump 80,000 pennies on her lawn.

Security cameras caught the moment when Avery’s dad dumped it all, and when Avery’s mom went outside to check who the man was, he told her those 80,000 pennies were for “your final child support payment.”

Avery was disappointed by her father’s behavior. But she and her mother decided to use those pennies for a beautiful purpose.

The two collected the pennies using a snow shovel and donated all 80,000 of them (a total of $800) to Safe Harbor, a domestic abuse shelter.

“Turning around and donating that money to moms and children in need – I feel like that just really turns the situation into a positive one,” Avery told ABC 7. “You can learn a lesson from it.”

When the story spread, many were inspired to donate.

“Our online donation page just blew up. And we’ve gotten over $47,000 worth of donations from locally, nationally, internationally – as far as England and beyond,” said Mary Maupai, Safe Harbor’s development director.

A 65-year-old grandma is graduating high school this week, but that’s not the only thing she’s accomplished this year. Twyanna Williams was also the valedictorian of her class at Philadelphia’s South Philadelphia High School. She’s among the many students enrolled in the city’s Educational Options Program, which enables students to earn a degree as well as their high school diploma.

“I was so ecstatic and excited and couldn’t believe that I did that. I made it that far? I was really excited. It was exciting for me and I felt important. I felt special,” Williams told TODAY.

She says she hopes to inspire other people her age to go back to school.

When Williams was 15, she dropped out of school to get a job. She was trying to help her mother pay some bills after she divorced Williams’ father. She’s now a grandmother of four and retired, but she remained focused on completing her education.

“That was always in the back of my head, to get my diploma,” she said.

For Williams, 2020 seemed like the “right time” to go back to school through the EOP. It was in early 2020 that schools adjusted to offer online learning, but completing her diploma from home suited Williams just fine.

“I was like, ‘This is a good chance to pass the time away.’ I’m retired. I’m 65, I’m not working anymore. I’m on a fixed income. So I was like, let me go back to school, this is my time to go back to school, get my diploma.”

She was provided with a computer by her school and didn’t miss any days. “I was there every day. I was set up every day in front of that computer,” she said.

Williams worked in factories, hotels, fast-food restaurants, and hospitals for 40 years before retiring, and believes that there is always time to go back to school, no matter who you are.

“I would like for the whole world to know that it’s never too late to go back to school, no matter what age you drop out,” she said. “Education is very important.”