Peace Corps Worldwide

  By Kevin Shea | For NJ.com    Thomas Baranyi, the Mercer County man who gave a TV interview after storming the U.S. Capitol last year and showed blood on his hand from a rioter who’d been shot, pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C. Baranyi, 30, who’d been charged with four crimes for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, pleaded guilty to one count of entering and remaining in a restricted building. He’ll be sentenced in May, and faces up to six months in prison. Born and raised in Hamilton, and now living in Ewing, Baranyi was candid in the local TV news interview, which made headlines nationwide and went viral online. He introduced himself as “Thomas Baranyi from New Jersey,” and proceeded to narrate his role. “We tore through the scaffolding, through flash bangs and tear gas and blitzed our way in through all the chambers just trying to get . . .

  Entrepreneurs and animal advocates bring a cause closer to home By LISA CRAWFORD WATSON | newsroom@montereyherald.com |  February 1, 2022    Maybe it was while getting her master’s degree at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, which included joining the Peace Corps, or when she went to Botswana with local artist Mary Beth Harris and became both enchanted by elephants and devastated by their plight, that Carmel’s Susie Bauer (Central Africa Republic 1982-84) decided to establish a nonprofit organization.Tuesday, she and Harris opened “Mopane” at The Crossroads in Carmel, named after a tree in Southern Africa. Known as the “tree of life,” its foliage feeds elephants, and its grubs become tribal cuisine. This boutique will carry custom jewelry, fabrics, art, and vessels — primarily fair trade products from Africa. Half the proceeds will go to Elephant Havens Wildlife Foundation, a nonprofit rescue organization in Botswana, and the other half will benefit various . . .

  A data scientist and former Peace Corps Volunteer has joined the North Carolina State House, filling out the term of  longtime Rep. Susan Fisher of Asheville. Rep. Caleb Rudow (Zambia 2012-2015) was the choice of Buncombe County Democratic activists to serve out the remainder of Fisher’s two-year term. Gov. Roy Cooper then appointed Rudow, as state law required. Rudow was sworn in on Feb. 1. Rudow is the son of an Asheville attorney, Marc Rudow, and his wife Deborah Miles, is the founder and long-time Executive Director of the UNC Asheville Center for Diversity Education. A 2005 graduate of Asheville High School, Rudow majored in philosophy at UNC-Chapel Hill and later earned an MA in Public Policy from the LBJ School of Government at UT-Austin (TX). Rudow learned Spanish under Señora Castro at Asheville High and then spent a full semester in Costa Rica—after several other trips to Central . . .

  New Castle News by Renée Gendreau, Jan 28, 2022 • It wasn’t the way Michael Hassett wanted people to learn about Tonga. A 2007 graduate of Laurel High School, Hassett served for two years with the Peace Corps (Tonga 2012-14) in the South Pacific kingdom, which was devastated by a tsunami earlier this month. Together with his wife, Chiara Collette, a fellow Peace Corps volunteer who also served in Tonga, Hassett founded Friends of Tonga in 2018 to provide educational opportunities for the island nation’s children. Last summer, in partnership with Schools for Children of the World, the non-profit dedicated its first school in Ta’anga on the island of ‘Eua. Located northwest of New Zealand, Tonga is a constitutional monarchy comprised of 176 islands, of which 36 are inhabited by the nation’s 109,000 residents. When forming the organization, Hassett noted that one of the difficulties in raising funds was the . . .

  Rob Schmitz is NPR’s international correspondent based in Berlin, where he covers the human stories of a vast region reckoning with its past while it tries to guide the world toward a brighter future. From his base in the heart of Europe, Schmitz has covered Germany’s levelheaded management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of right-wing nationalist politics in Poland and creeping Chinese government influence inside the Czech Republic. Prior to covering Europe, Schmitz provided award-winning coverage of China for a decade, reporting on the country’s economic rise and increasing global influence. His reporting on China’s impact beyond its borders took him to countries such as Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand. Inside China, he’s interviewed elderly revolutionaries, young rappers, and live-streaming celebrity farmers who make up the diverse tapestry of one of the most fascinating countries on the planet. He is the author of the critically . . .