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A grieving dad wrote the most heartbreaking Grammy-nominated album of the year.

Jazz saxophonist Jimmy Greene was nominated for two Grammys at the awards show airing tonight. The nominations were his first.

Jimmy Greene in 2001. Photo by Gabe Palacio/Getty Images.


It was bittersweet moment for Greene, whose nominated album, titled "Beautiful Life," has its roots in tragedy.

Greene and his wife, Nelba Marquez-Greene, embrace. Photo by Don Emmert/Getty Images.

Greene's daughter, Ana, was one of 20 students killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in December 2012.

Photo by Don Emmert/Getty Images.

In January, Greene told CBS News that recording the album was his way of coming to terms with the enormous grief that followed his daughter's death:

"One of his songs from his album, 'Seventh Candle,' symbolizes the candle he'd never get to put on Ana's next birthday cake. She was just six — and a "half," as she would always emphasize to her parents — when she was killed.

Greene wrote the song around the time of her seventh birthday in 2013, playing it specifically on soprano saxophone because that is the closest range to his daughter's voice."

Since the Sandy Hook shooting, over 550 American children have died from gunshots.

Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.

Between 1999 and 2014, there were over 6,400 gun-related deaths of children age 14 and younger. Mosts of these were homicides, according to an NBC News analysis of CDC data.

One of them was Ana Marquez-Greene.

After Ana's death, Greene felt he didn't have a choice but to channel his feelings into his music. In a video interview, he told The Recording Academy that the music he composed "felt very much so like it needed to be documented" in the months after his daughter's death.

"I want the music to reflect the way that Ana lived," he wrote on his website.

In a "special message" on his website, Greene asks fans to urge their representatives in Congress to write common sense into America's gun laws to help prevent the next Sandy Hook.


Greene, center, with fellow Sandy Hook parents, President Barack Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.

"There has been much debate in Washington D.C. and in state legislatures nationwide about gun control policy in response to the Sandy Hook School murders," Greene wrote. "Your voice and your vote count! Let your elected leaders know you want to make our schools and communities safer. Write them, call them, email them, but please don't remain silent."

Until that happens, Greene's nominations are a testament to the power music has to express what words and data often can't.

Photo by Gabe Palacio/Getty Images.

While Greene says he's "thankful" and "humbled" by the honor, his wife, Nelba Marquez-Greene, believes his nominations and his music are most importantly a lesson in how we can move on from the worst moments in life.

"They say after a trauma, there's three normal responses. You know, fight, flight or freeze," Marquez-Greene told CBS. "And I think what Jimmy did is he showed and he is showing people that there's another way and that's create."

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

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Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

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A woman looking at her phone while sitting on the toilet.


One of the most popular health trends over the last few years has been staying as hydrated as possible, evidenced by the massive popularity of 40-oz Stanely Quencher cups. The theory among those who obsess over hydration is that, when you pee clear, you’ve removed all the waste in your body and are enjoying the incredible benefits of being 100% hydrated. Congratulations.

However, according to Dr. Sermed Mezher, an NHS doctor in the UK, peeing clear isn’t always a sign of being healthy.

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Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

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Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

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An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

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