Latest news with #adoption
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
North Texas family helps to raise 62 foster children in 10 years
The Brief Sandy and Win Heinrich, along with their three biological children, helped to raise 62 babies in foster care. They have a wall of photos featuring all of their foster children, along with baby books that document each child's time with the family. The couple encourages other families to get involved with fostering, which they say they got so much more out of than they gave. FORT WORTH, Texas - A Fort Worth family that has opened its home to 62 foster children over the years is being recognized during National Foster Care Awareness Month. The backstory Sandy and Win Heinrich have been parents to 62 foster children. The couple has three biological children of their own. But in 1987, they took in their first newborn, who they still keep in touch with. "We had seen a baptism at our church and there was a couple that was just beaming. And we met them afterwards when we were congratulating the family. And they were foster parents," Sandy said. That moment gave birth to a decade of fostering. "We decided God was touching our hearts to do something with our children and not wait," she said. "You can look at it easier after the fact, but we knew we wanted to do ministry, as she said, and this was a ministry we did for ten years and loved it," Win added. The Heinrich's fostered newborns from about 36 hours old to keeping some as long as six months before they were adopted. Sandy created a book for each child she mothered about their beginnings. "And it started from the moment I brought the baby home from the hospital to placement day," she said. "There's a daily log that she wrote out. What's something special that happened that day. It may have been one of our kids holding the baby, cherishing it to going to Easter Sunday or whatever it may be that was special," Win said. The couple and their three children made it their mission to give each newborn a loving start in life. "It was important for us because this was a major part of our life with our family. It was a family ministry and our children were so involved. They've grown from doing this," Sandy said. What you can do The Heinrich's now call the Stevenson Oaks Senior Living Center their home. While the sounds of crying babies are gone, the love they felt is still part of their home in a wall of family portraits. For National Foster Care Awareness Month, they're encouraging others to become foster parents so that they may experience the same joy they did. "We never knew how it would touch our lives either, because we got back so much more than we gave," Sandy said. The Source FOX 4's Shaun Rabb gathered information for this story by interviewing Sandy and Win Heinrich.
TechCrunch
11 hours ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
It's not your imagination: AI is speeding up the pace of change
If the adoption of AI feels different from any tech revolution you may have experienced before — mobile, social, cloud computing — it actually is. Venture capitalist Mary Meeker just dropped a 340-page slideshow report — which used the word 'unprecedented' on 51 of those pages — to describe the speed at which AI is being developed, adopted, spent on, and used, backed up with chart after chart. 'The pace and scope of change related to the artificial intelligence technology evolution is indeed unprecedented, as supported by the data,' she writes in the report, called 'Trends — Artificial Intelligence.' There's a certain poetic history to this person writing this kind of report. Meeker is the founder and general partner at VC firm Bond, and was once known as Queen of the Internet for her previous annual Internet Trends reports. Before founding Bond, she ran Kleiner Perkins' growth practice, from 2010-2019, where she backed companies like Facebook, Spotify, Ring, and Block (then Square). She hasn't released a trends report since 2019. But she dusted off her skills to document, in laser detail, how AI adoption has outpaced any other tech in human history. ChatGPT reaching 800 million users in 17 months: unprecedented. The number of companies and the rate at which so many others are hitting high annual recurring revenue rates: also unprecedented. The speed at which costs of usage are dropping: unprecedented. While the costs of training a model (also unprecedented) is up to $1 billion, inference costs — for example, those paying to use the tech — has already dropped 99% over two years, when calculating cost per 1 million tokens, she writes, citing research from Stanford. Techcrunch event Save now through June 4 for TechCrunch Sessions: AI Save $300 on your ticket to TC Sessions: AI—and get 50% off a second. Hear from leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Khosla Ventures, and more during a full day of expert insights, hands-on workshops, and high-impact networking. These low-rate deals disappear when the doors open on June 5. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you've built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | REGISTER NOW The pace at which competitors are matching each other's features, at a fraction of the cost, including open source options, particularly Chinese models: unprecedented. For example, she points out that Nvidia's 2024 Blackwell GPU uses 105,000x less energy per token than the company's 2014 Kepler GPU predecessor. Meanwhile chips from Google, like its TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) and Amazon's Trainium are being developed at scale for their clouds — that's moving quickly, too. 'These aren't side projects — they're foundational bets,' she writes. The one area where AI hasn't outpaced every other tech revolution is in financial returns. While VCs are pouring money on the AI fire as fast as they can, AI companies and cloud service providers are also burning though cash. AI requires massive investments in infrastructure. That's good for consumers and enterprises, the beneficiaries of fast improvements while competition lowers costs, Meeker points out. But the jury is still out over which of the current crop of companies will become long-term, profitable, next-generation tech giants. 'Only time will tell which side of the money-making equation the current AI aspirants will land,' she writes. As of for the rest of us: Just hold onto your hats.
CBS News
a day ago
- General
- CBS News
Riverside County promises more funding and staff for animal shelters
Riverside County leaders boldly pledged to hire more staff and add more funding to animal shelters to help them become "no-kill" facilities. Currently, over a thousand dogs lack the space to comfortably live while waiting to find loving homes. "When there's overcrowding like that, there's high stress. The barking levels go up," said Daylin Valenica, a programs manager at the Riverside County Department of Animals. "It limits the staff's ability to maintain a safe, enriching, caring environment for the animals." Valencia said the county's shelters are 220% over capacity, meaning four or more dogs are forced to be housed in kennels meant for just one or two. "We really need the community to help us with volunteering, with fostering, with adopting," he said. Without the help, some of the dogs would be euthanized. The county said it's a last resort they're desperately trying to avoid by temporarily waiving adoption fees and extending shelter hours. "Save more lives," Valencia said. "That's the goal. That's the ultimate goal." To alleviate the situation, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution committing to the goal of becoming a no-kill community for shelter animals. The department is expected to ask the county for $5 million for more staff, space and programs. The main issue is the disparity between adoptions and abandoned pets admitted into shelters. Valencia said it's critical for people to give shelter dogs, who have already been through a lot, time to acclimate to their new environment and relax into their personality. "They have the ability to love again and trust again," he said.
BBC News
a day ago
- General
- BBC News
Vietnamese orphan celebrates 50 years in Oxfordshire
A family is marking the 50th year since a personal tragedy led to them adopting a baby from officer Mike Pritchard and his wife Jacquie - from Chalgrove in Oxfordshire - lost their baby son Steven to cot death while they were in Singapore in a tragic twist, Mrs Pritchard had been to hospital that same day for a sterilisation operation. During the grief that followed they decided to do something positive. Knowing that the war in Vietnam had created many orphans, they made enquiries about adoption."A photograph was sent to us saying 'this is the baby you can have'," said Mrs Pritchard. Mr Pritchard flew to Saigon to collect the boy, who they named Matthew. "I held Matthew for the first time. His little eyes, I said 'you're the one for us'. Great, rubber stamped, done," explained Mr Pritchard. But there was a snag. The paperwork would take six weeks, so Mr Pritchard had to fly back to Singapore without Matthew and wait. Shortly afterwards, the couple heard news that a transport plane carrying orphan babies to America for safety had crashed with great loss of life. They feared Matthew might have been on board. Mr Pritchard flew back to Saigon and learned that Matthew was safe. But he had been flown on a different plane to Sydney, Australia. It was then that Mr Pritchard saw another opportunity. "I said 'look I know I'll get out of here somehow. Do you want me to take some babies?" he said. "I was asked, would I also take a 10-year-old blind boy?"I said yes of course! We headed for Hong Kong. All my babies in front of me in cardboard boxes. "A lot of people say I was very brave to do that. I just think I did what I needed to do." The babies were eventually flown to Britain where they were collected by their new parents. "Once I knew that these babies were safe with their adoptive families I thought 'this is where you step back'," said Mr Pritchard. Back in Singapore, the couple waited for the plane that brought Matthew to them. "We saw this woman walking along carrying this baby, she popped him in my arms and it was amazing," said Mrs Philip and Matthew grew up together, attending boarding school and university in England. Matthew remembers that as a child he attracted some attention. "Looking back, I can understand people's curiosity. I'm Vietnamese and I've got British parents. But I just felt like a normal child that was loved and brought up", he said. "The aspect of being rescued from a war zone never really crossed my mind. I feel very British. But I'm also very proud of my heritage and culture."Matthews parents reflect with mixed emotions on the events of 1974. "The tragedy of Steven dying. He didn't die in vain," said Mr Pritchard. "Good always comes out of bad."
Bloomberg
a day ago
- General
- Bloomberg
How China's One-Child Policy Led to a Wave of Forced Adoptions
One morning in the late 1990s while on a reporting trip in China, I went down for breakfast in my hotel, the White Swan. It was the swankiest in Guangzhou, the bustling capital of Guangdong province, and was usually jammed with foreign and Chinese businessmen. But when I stepped into the café, I seemed to have been teleported to a Howard Johnson's in Toledo, Ohio. Instead of besuited businessmen doing deals over eggs and congee, the room was packed with middle-aged Caucasian couples wearing New Balance sneakers and jeans. Even more surprising, many of them were carrying tiny Chinese babies.
