CHRISTMAS IN MANILA

Swimmers wear Christmas outfits as they wave from inside a huge aquarium during a show at the Manila Ocean Park on Tuesday, December 22, 2009. (AP)

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2nd baby beluga born at Chicago aquarium in a week

CHICAGO — Chicago's Shedd Aquarium has welcomed a new baby beluga whale for the second time in a week.

The aquarium announced Monday that beluga whale Naya (NY'-ah) gave birth Sunday afternoon to a 5-foot, 6-inch male calf that weighs 152 pounds. Beluga whale Puiji (poo-EE-jee) had given birth to a male baby last week that weighed in at 162 pounds and was 5-feet, 4-inches long.

Shedd senior vice president Ken Ramirez says Naya needed some assistance during her birth. He says the newborn and his mother were briefly separated for observation but are now reunited.

He says the Shedd remains "cautiously optimistic" as officials watch for the pair to bond and nurse.

The calf's father is Naluark, who also sired the baby born to Puiji last week.

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‘Angels’ doing kind deeds this Christmas season

By Dale Huffman, Contributing columnist

As Christmas day approaches some evidence has come to my attention that supports the theory that there are angels among us. And stories about them seem to surface during the season of goodwill.

Rosemary Dillon, and her friend, feel that is true.

Rosemary, who lives in the Twin Towers Place neighborhood east of downtown shared this story of what they call angelic behavior.

“My friend had just opened her new bank account,” Rosemary said. “She did not have her regular bank books with her name printed on the checks delivered yet.”

She said she and her friend were shopping for groceries at a Walmart. “The clerk explained that she was not able to accept one of those temporary checks,” Rosemary said. “My friend had selected over a hundred dollars worth of groceries which she needed and she was upset, and perplexed over what to do.”

Rosemary said her friend had all but given up, and was prepared to leave the store. She hoped to return at a later date to get her groceries and supplies for holiday meals.

“All of a sudden this stranger standing behind my friend very politely, and quietly, offered to pay for the groceries,” Rosemary said. “My friend was embarrassed and said she appreciated the offer but would feel uncomfortable accepting a gesture so generous.”

Rosemary said the woman insisted, and she took the check Rosemary’s friend had written and replaced it with one on her own account.

The two women thank the woman they called an “angel” and headed home with the groceries.

“There is still another chapter to the generous story,” Rosemary said. “When we got to my friend’s apartment, she realized she had left behind one of the bags of groceries during the nervous excitement.

“Then we looked up and this kind woman had followed us in her car, and delivered the bag my friend left behind.”

Rosemary said, “It was an marvelous gesture of goodwill and kindness and we both thank the angel lady who brightened our holiday season with her caring gift from the heart.”

Cassano family treasure

Mary Cassano Bockrath wants to thank the stranger who helped preserve what she calls “family treasures beyond belief.”

The Cassano family is well known in the Dayton area as the owners of an Italian restaurant franchise.

“We had an estate sale at the home of my aunt and uncle, Ann and Vic Cassano,” Mary said. “There was a box of undeveloped movie film among the items that were sold. It was mistakenly put on sale.”

Mary said that someone realized it could be important to the family.

“A stranger dropped off the box at a Cassano store,” Mary said. “We had it developed and it included movies of our entire family at a 1954 reunion. This stranger delivered a tattered box to our family, and in doing so also delivered family history that could have disappeared forever. We thank this lady for the kind gesture. May God bless her.”

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Annette Marcum: Handing out hope for the future

By LAURA COPELAND

A beat-up doll sits on a shelf in the back of Annette Marcum's office in Ben Lomond -- motivation for the senior during the 14-hour days she often works in December.

As a poverty-stricken 7-year-old, Marcum received a damaged doll from a charity similar to the one she runs today. Her mother repaired the doll's missing leg with an old sock, washed its dirty hair and put a bandage over its eye.

"She handed it to me and said, You have to take extra care of this doll because she's really sick,'" Marcum recalls. The moment pushed Marcum to become a foster mother and lifelong volunteer, beginning with writing letters for the blind and selling poppies to benefit war veterans.

The 71-year-old hasn't taken a day off since September -- nor has she ever collected a paycheck since she founded Valley Churches United Missions in 1985. Her year-round charity pairs needy children with new, personalized Christmas gifts.

Marcum puts Angelina Jolie to shame with her medley of 10 children, nine adopted. Out of the five special needs children she took care of, two are developmentally disabled and continue to require her care.

A photo of Marcum shows her grinning wildly in Jamaica -- a hint at a life outside the long shifts and loads of laundry. Marcum's late husband, whom she met when he was an usher at their church, "took the kids on as his own" but still insisted the couple take an annual two-week vacation by themselves.

The Irish woman loves dancing

"I don't like to sit at home and watch television," says Marcum, who quit high school as a sophomore to start working at a bookkeeping firm.

She's "too Irish to handle the bureaucracy" of receiving government funds, so she operates her nonprofit solely on donations. Her grassroots response to the Loma Prieta earthquake earned her a FEMA award in 1989. She keeps exhaustive scrapbooks that chronicle the hundreds of news articles and letters mentioning her work; the most recent is from Rep. Anna Eshoo.

Marcum's disaster preparedness came in especially handy when a friend -- a Vietnamese refugee whose journey to America was sponsored by Marcum -- went into labor. Marcum attempted to drive the woman to Stanford hospital, eventually pulling over on the freeway to assist in the baby's delivery.

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