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David House intended to leave a small something after ordering his Pacifico Draft. The tip he accidentally left nearly cleared out his checking account.

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Enjoy winter on one of these New York City rooftops. Find more of our favorite New York rooftop bar picks here.

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A young boy was gifted a new teddy bear from Southwest Airlines after he lost his old one on a flight.

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Koh Libong, Thailand (CNN) — For much of 2019, Thailand’s biggest internet celebrity was an aquatic mammal with a nose resembling a vacuum cleaner nozzle.Marium the infant dugong, from her dolphin-like tail to her stubby snout, was a grey and pink superstar. She went viral after being rescued in April in Thailand’s Krabi province, where she’d been spotted by local residents, drifting near a beach, skeleton-skinny and alone. Veterinarians from Thailand’s Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR) determined that Marium was orphaned, as dugongs usually stay with their mothers until they are 18 months old. Only 200-250 dugongs — which resemble manatees but live in the sea rather than fresh water — live in Thai waters, with the species listed as vulnerable to extinction.The vets, determined to save the rare creature, moved Marium to Koh Libong: an island in the Andaman Sea with around 4,000 largely pro-dugong humans living on it. The water’s abundance of seagrass, the animals’ main food, has resulted in around 70% of Thailand’s dugongs living around the island.Park officials and veterinarians care for Marium in the waters off Koh Libong in southern Thailand. SIRACHAI ARUNRUGSTICHAI/AFP/Getty ImagesWith only a smattering of resorts, alcohol scant due to locals being mainly Muslim, and absolutely no full moon parties, Koh Libong receives far fewer tourists than nearby islands such as Koh Lanta. Ride a scooter over jungle paths to one of its ruggedly beautiful northern beaches, and your only companions are likely to be monitor lizards and macaques.Marium’s presence, though, placed new focus on the area. The vets cared for her 24/7, standing in the ocean in wetsuits to feed her sea grass and milk formula, and encouraging her to swim. Headline variations of “Thailand falls in love with orphaned baby dugong” ran on news sites, as the DMCR set up cameras broadcasting Marium’s splashy antics, declaring her “the nation’s sweetheart”.There was optimism that the attention could prompt authorities to increase funding for dugong conservation across Thailand. Such efforts, it was hoped, might dovetail with the effects of new marine animal-friendly laws such as a ban on Thai retailers giving customers plastic bags, implemented in January 2020.But on August 16 Marium died, with vets finding plastic trash in her stomach. Online mourners replaced heart-eyed emojis with pixelated tears, as Koh Libong faded from the Thai public’s attention.Raised among dugongsFor many Koh Libong residents, dugongs were a big part of life long before Marium showed up. During a visit to the island in August of 2019, locals near a dugong-spotting tower in a rickety fishing village broke into happy chatter when the species was mentioned.”As kids we’d search for snails near the shore and see dugongs every day,” says Suwanee Jiemai, a smiley seafood business manager wearing a blue hijab. “We played with them like they were babies.”As well as their Pokemon character-like appearances, dugongs’ inquisitive instincts helped them bond with the islanders. The animals are covered in tactile hairs, which are believed to make them sensitive to touch and keen to nuzzle. Off Koh Libong, where dugong-watching boat trips are offered and various dugong spotting platforms have been erected, the creatures regularly seek out vessels to give them friendly nudges.”Sometimes dugongs crash into my boat,” says clam diver Wit Jilao, gesticulating excitedly by a coffee stall on the village pier. “Sometimes they crash into me! We name them — one’s called Laai [which translates to ‘Pattern’] because he has patterns on his side.”When we see them in trouble we help, releasing them from nets or taking them back to water when they’re stranded. We feel like they’re friends, and everyone in the village protects them. We feel a bond between humans and dugongs here.”Koh Libong offers dugong viewing platforms and boat tours. Jack TaylorLarge dugongs can weigh over 300 kilograms. Having flippers not equipped to move their bodies without water buoying them, they regularly get stranded on Koh Libong during low tide. Locals have set up messaging app groups where they report sightings of the beached animals to each other, then mobilize teams to carry them to the ocean.Human-dugong relations weren’t always so friendly on the island. Locals used to eat the creatures, which were easy to spear because they approached boats. According to Jiemai, from 1992, when dugongs became legally protected, the islanders largely took them off the menu. Myths such as dugong tears being useful for casting love charms, and their teeth bringing luck, became less prominent.Now evidence of dugong hunting around the island is rarely found, and causes uproar when uncovered. In 2017 rangers there found a dugong corpse in a mangrove, saying it proved that the creatures were still killed for meat and body part trading. Some residents reacted by claiming that the evidence was planted. The suggestion that some locals still killed dugongs was seemingly too offensive to contemplate.The Marium ProjectMarium’s former carers hope that her death will not have been in vain. Despite the good intentions of the Koh Libong residents, dugongs, of which there are believed to be around 7,300 globally, still face many dangers in Thailand. At least 21 dugongs have been found dead in Thai waters in 2019: a record high since records began in the country. Most of the deaths were caused by fishing nets.”Fishing areas often overlap with dugong habitats,” says Nantarika Chansue, director of Chulalongkorn University’s aquatic animal medicine unit in Bangkok. “We’re hoping for change from top to bottom — not only the behavior of people but changing policy, laws and enforcement.”This picture taken in May 2019 shows Marium swiming in the waters around Koh Libong. SIRACHAI ARUNRUGSTICHAI/AFP via Getty ImagesThailand’s government has made noises about positive change since Marium’s death, with a conservation plan dubbed ‘The Marium Project’ awaiting cabinet approval. Varawut Silpa-archa, Thailand’s natural resources and environment minister, said he wanted the country’s dugong population raised to 400. Change could involve banning fishing equipment dangerous to dugongs in zones around in the country beyond Koh Libong’s waters.For now, though, close to the helpful humans living on Koh Libong remains the safest place for a Thai dugong to be. Marium was, says Jiemai, “an ambassador for dugongs. But we feel attached to every dugong in this area. They’re in our hearts.”Getting thereFrom Trang — the closest Thai mainland city to Koh Libong with an airport and railway station — take a taxi to Hat Yao pier (40 minutes, around 550 baht via the Grab app). At the pier catch the longtail ferry to Koh Libong (25 minutes, 40 baht), which leaves when full, usually departing every one to two hours from roughly 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. To avoid waiting hire a private longtail from the pier to the island (around 550 baht).

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As human beings, we are complex and difficult to understand. But sometimes, looking back at where we came from and discovering the successes, struggles and sacrifices of our ancestors can make that puzzle a bit more complete.For young black people, that discovery can mean the world. “National Black History Month often focuses on the past, but this is about creating an infrastructure so that we can help people transform their futures,” Birthright AFRICA co-founder Diallo Shabazz told CNN.”This isn’t about validating black identity. It’s about providing an opportunity for people to explore their ancestry. “An education you can’t find at schoolOne of Birthright AFRICA’s most important goals is giving young scholars the knowledge that the American school system often fails to provide.Those who go on the trip visit cultural sites, museums, universities, and organizations managed and led by people of African descent to learn about the “historic and present-day resilience and brilliance of their heritage often lacking in our school curriculums,” according to Birthright AFRICA co-founder and CEO Walla Elsheikh.While it’s been more than a half a century since the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling found that “separate but equal” has no place in US public schools, true racial equality in our education system has yet to exist.Schools with more black students are less likely to provide counselors, offer advanced classes, and hire teachers with proper licenses. Consequently, black students are more likely to be absent from school and get suspended. Although black students in colleges have more access (and freedom) to choose their own courses, when it comes to study abroad programs, the lack of diversity and equal opportunities continues.”Only 6% of study abroad students are black or of African descent. And only 2% of US managers, leaders, and entrepreneurs are of African descent,” Elsheikh said.”To address this gap in diversity and talent, Birthright AFRICA is creating the next generation of global leaders and entrepreneurs that are proud of their African heritage, confident in their innovative aspirations and connected to the African continent.””My life will never be the same”While tourists visiting Africa are more likely to remember the food or safaris, those who have taken the birthright trip have something else to cherish.For Shaina Louis, a 23-year-old Haitian student born and raised in New York, her birthright trip to Ghana in 2018 as a student at the City University of New York gave her one thing she’d never expected to find: closure. “Prior to Birthright Africa, I had a lot of pent up resentment and antagonism due to a history that I felt my people had no say in. For those of us in the diaspora, our history, according to the textbooks, starts with slavery. I was doubtful and kind of cynical about what the future held not only for me as an individual, but also for black people as a whole,” Louis told CNN.After years of wondering where she fit in in a world where her ancestors were “stifled” and doubting the connection between Africa and those whose were forced to leave, Louis finally got the answers to all of her unspoken questions.”We may not speak the same language, but the foods we eat, the way we carry ourselves, the way we relate to one another, and our deeply ingrained spirituality reflect a bond that is still there,” she said. “There is a sense of inner peace and ease I now have, that wasn’t there before. I can move forward with my life, with intention behind everything I do.”Kareem Williams, a 26-year-old scholar who went to Ghana on his birthright trip in 2019 as a participant of community-based GrowHouse NYC, said he felt extremely disconnected from his Jamaican roots while growing up in New York. What surprised Williams the most, he said, was the kindness he received from people in the country. Unlike the “feeling of separation” he’s experienced in the US, for once, he felt like he belonged. “Before I had even touched down in Ghana, the energy I felt as I got closer to Africa, I felt a rush, a vibration, and it was so strong,” Williams said. “It felt like something was pulling me towards the country. It felt surreal.”Visiting Ghana, he said, made him feel that he had a place where he didn’t have to “constantly face resistance,” an environment — and a system — that would help him thrive instead of hold him back.”It has to do with the American system. There’s so much prejudice and micro aggressions that I didn’t feel in Ghana. I felt so connected to my ancestors for the first time. When I came back to the US, I realized how much it changed me. Like my life will never be the same.”Now, Williams says he plans to someday return to Africa in hopes of getting into a position where he can become a global leader with the ability to influence reform, economic decisions, and infrastructure to collaboratively strengthen African businesses and communities. What it takes to take a birthright trip to AfricaTo take a birthright trip to Africa, you have to be a US citizen and between 13 to 30 years old.You also have to be of African descent; this includes African American, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Europeans, Afro-Asian and Afro-Latinx, according to Elsheikh.”We consider all black people of African descent,” Elsheikh said. “Our target groups are those who have been negatively impacted by the traumatizing enslavement and colonization of black people.”Birthright AFRICA collaborates with high school, college, or community-based organization who are then considered “partners.” These educational partners select the participants and the country they will visit as part of the Birthright AFRICA program.Anyone who isn’t already a part of one of these education partners can register through the Birthright AFRICA website which will then redirect them to a partner in their area with available spaces where they can apply. Those who take the trip to Africa get to go for free — flights, hotels, food, and costs of museums are covered by Birthright AFRICA and the educational partners.For those who aren’t interested in a trip but would like to help fund them, Birthright AFRICA heavily relies on donations to make these life-changing trips possible.CNN’s Saeed Ahmed contributed to this report.

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(CNN) — When a little boy accidentally left his stuffed bear named Teddy on a flight from Dallas to New Orleans over the Thanksgiving holiday, he was crushed. Grayson and his teddy bear did everything together. His mom, Christina Mulligan, did what any mom would do. She tried to get Teddy back.”I was in contact with all of the baggage claim, TSA, I think I called the lost and found repeatedly,” she told CNN. “Every time I called, they were like, ‘Is this about the bear?'”She posted on the Southwest Airlines Facebook page asking for help. Maybe a flight attendant had seen him or another passenger on the plane had picked him up. What she didn’t know at the time was that the New Orleans airport was overwhelmed with calls from employees and strangers. Everyone just trying to find Teddy. “I freaked out,” Grayson Mulligan told CNN affiliate KTVT. “I play with him a lot,” he said. “I carry him around a lot.”A month went by and still — nothing. That’s until the end of December when Christina received a call from a corporate employee at Southwest Airlines, who told her that her post caught a lot of attention on private Southwest pages and even made its way to some executives. Christina told CNN that apparently a flight attendant found Teddy on the plane and handed him off to somebody at the airport but after that he was nowhere to be found. Teddy never made it to the Lost and Found. But Southwest had something else in store: a new bear with a story all his own. “They said, ‘We’d love to give Grayson a new bear,’ and I was on board with it,” she said.”I felt happy because I know they cared a lot about me,” Grayson told KTVT. “And I have some flight attendant bears too.”Southwest AirlinesHe named his new bear Jack. “Because he looked like a Jack to me,” he said.And Jack had quite an adventure before getting to Grayson.Christina shared the photos that Southwest sent to Grayson on her Facebook page. They showed Jack working on the tarmac at Dallas Love Field, inspecting cockpits, preparing the cabin for passengers, booking the flight, and yes, even standing in line. “We love connecting people to what’s important in their lives, and our employees put their servant’s heart on display to help make Grayson’s day. We are proud to have played a small role in bringing Grayson and Jack together,” Southwest Airlines said in statement to CNN.”This is his favorite airline,” she said. “Grayson’s even been to the facility with a pilot friend and has been in one of the flight simulators when he was four or five.” When Grayson read Jack’s story, he cried. “He said, ‘I’m getting a new bear,’ it was just so sweet,” Christina said. “He’s always wanted to be a Southwest pilot,” she added. “They don’t even know that part.”

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