All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Brent Green is one of those guys who makes me realize I don't do nearly enough for my community.

He had an idea so simple, it’s transformational.

When he turned 30 he decided he wanted to give something back to his hometown of Los Angeles. So, this landscaper planted 30 trees.

Every year since then, Brent has planted his age in trees. This year that’s 42 trees.

His efforts have done more than add shade to the streets. His neighbors have taken Brent’s advice on how to spruce up their front yards, started a block watch group, and convinced the city to paint the dilapidated fire hydrants in their area.

Now, crime is down 30 percent as police officers say criminals tend to avoid areas where neighbors take care of their properties. Better looking neighborhoods often means more watchful neighbors. All this began with a shovel, a tree, and a simple act of gratitude.

Be sure to catch Brent Green's story tonight on the CBS Evening News.

Seventeen-year-old Kalief Rollins isn't just a salesman, he's a relentless salesman. I don't know if he could sell ice cubes to Eskimos, but from personal experience I know he can sell a $20 T-shirt that says "Caution: Educated African American" to a lilly-white CBS News correspondent.

Obviously, it's hard to say "no" to Kalief.

Kelief lives in Compton, CA where he runs the "Phree Kountry Clothing" company out of his mom's garage. "I've wanted to be an entrepreneur since birth," he told me. His mother confirmed. She says in first grade he used to spend his lunch money on candy -- not for himself, but for resale to his fellow classmates. He would sell a 50 cent bag of Skittles for a buck. The kid knew his price-points from the get-go. In junior high he sold jewelry and today - T-shirts.

He started the shirt business as part of the National Youth Entrepreneurship Competition. More than 20,000 students enter this contest every year. Judges pick a winner based on the student's business plan and presentation and this year the prize went to Kalief.

He won $10,000 dollars and a trip to Washington D.C. to meet President Obama.

Our viewers will also have a chance to meet Kalief tonight in my Assignment America segment on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

A friend of mine told me about these guys in Florida who were working on a way to fill a need - using something that we routinely throw away in the United States.

I was curious to know more and looked into their organization "Clean the World."

Little Soaps Satisfy Big Demand in Haiti
I thought it would make for a good story for us because I've always wondered what happened to those little bars of hotel soap (they're thrown in the garbage) and secondly, I've always felt a little bit guilty about the whole thing.

More importantly, the story connects us to Haiti and is a good way to look into the much bigger issue of water and sanitation (and the lack thereof) in a country like Haiti.

The program seems to benefit a lot of folks from the hotel maids who collect the soap and feel like they're making a difference, to men from a local shelter who get jobs disinfecting the soap, to people in Haiti who cannot afford it.

Most of the soap is shipped by boat because it is a much cheaper mode of transport but we landed and met up with thousands of bars of soap that had been flown in. After we cleared customs, I got my first sense of just how valuable this commodity is in a place like Haiti...when the guys helping to load the soap into the trucks were "tipped" - not in cash - but with soap.

Check out the piece and see just how desperate folks are for something as simple as a tiny bar of soap, and how washing hands can save lives.

A lot of people ask me what I look for in an Assignment America story.

Typically, I'm looking for something heartwarming or humorous. But sometimes a story doesn't have to be either. Sometimes a story just has to be fun to watch.

In the TV news business we pitch those kinds of stories to our bosses by saying they have "great visuals." If a story has "great visuals," we'll make up any reason to call it news and put it on the air.

Last night's 60 Minutes was a perfect example. If you saw the piece about people jumping off of cliffs wearing bird suits, that was epitomy of "great visuals." The story won't win them another Emmy for investigative journalism, but it was wonderful eye-candy.

Likewise, tonight's Assignment America won't win me any Cronkite comparisons, but it'll be a heck of a lot of fun to watch.

It's about a group of college students who set out to make the most amazing basketball shots ever caught on camera. No, it won't make you laugh or cry, but I guarantee it'll keep you glued to the screen.

As a follow-up, I'm hoping they next try to make a basket while jumping off a cliff wearing a bird suit! Of course, I'd have to fight 60 Minutes for that story.

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Kelly Wallace is a CBS News Correspondent based in New York.

Ask almost anyone about “The Wizard of Oz” and they immediately recount their favorite scene or the first time they watched it during childhood. I remember seeing the movie year after year with my mom and my two sisters in Brooklyn, New York, always eagerly anticipating my favorite scene when Dorothy clicks the heels of her fabulous ruby red slippers and says, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”

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Admit it, we've likely all either succumbed to the temptation or watched someone else do it: check an e-mail or text message or talk on the phone while driving. We've convinced ourselves we're master multi-taskers and can handle any number of distractions from a screaming kid to changing the address in a GPS device to thumb-typing "honeee ill b home l8 2nite."

In the spirit of full disclosure, I'll raise my hand as a guilty party, too. But ever since I did a story last year on the serious accidents and even deaths associated with the hazards of talking or texting while driving I've really managed to curb my bad habits. Still, on a larger scale, the problem isn't getting much better. In fact, it might be getting worse.

This week, people from government, car makers, insurance companies, safety groups and more will meet in Washington, DC, at the Distracted Driver Summit. The purpose-- the find ways to educate people about the dangers, better enforce existing laws or create new ones (maybe on a nationwide level that could include banning all handheld use), and discuss technologies that could prevent people from using their devices while driving.

Today, we tagged along with about 40 teenagers as they took part in a safe driving course that put them in the driver's seat while being bombarded by distractions. For 17-year-old Joseph James, it was an eye-opening experience. Before getting in the car he was pretty confident about his performance. But after mowing down more than a few cones he came away humbled.

I hope you'll watch our story tonight on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and maybe generate some discussion with your fellow loved ones (aka drivers). Of course, we can all agree there's a lot to be said for simple common sense in this case, but aren't we all a little guilty of forgetting that sometimes?

Over the last 20 years, The Love Me Tender animal rescue in central Tennessee has rounded-up more than a thousand abandoned dogs. And although most are timid and untrusting, recently a volunteer couldn’t help but notice when one dog shattered the mold.

“I could just tell right away she was somebody’s baby,” said Kathy Wilkes Meyers. “She just didn’t act like a stray dog to me.”

Myers found the dog a few months ago. It was emaciated and drinking from a drainage ditch along an empty stretch of highway about 30 miles south of Nashville.

Kathy says it’s typical for people to dump unwanted pets in the middle of nowhere like that – but again, the dog’s demeanor convinced her there was more to the story.

So she did some detective work and eventually found out what really happened to this dog.

It’s an amazing story that will surely bring tears to even the most grizzled animal rescue worker.

Be sure to check out our story tonight on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

Have you ever felt like David when going up against the Goliath that is most major banks?

Well, some customers fed up with high banking fees and interest rate hikes are taking to the internet to rail against their banks.

Ann Minch of California posted this YouTube video after Bank of American raised the interest rate on her credit card from 13 percent to 30 percent.

She vowed not to pay them one more cent until they changed her rate back.

More than 250,000 people viewed her video and many posted their own complaints against their banks.

Bank of America called her and changed her rate back.

How’s that for results? Watch the CBS Evening News tonight and we will show you how consumers are being heard and how two major banks are lowering fees because of it.

I used to think of myself as a generous person. If somebody drops a glove in an airport, assuming I’m not in a rush, I’ll often pick it up for them. When I’m in a convenience store I’ll usually leave a penny rather than take a penny. Or if somebody wants the shirt off my back, I’m always willing to sell it to them for a fair price.

Steve Hartman's Full Story Here

But this week I learned what it really means to be generous. In fact, I don’t think I’ve met a more generous, empathetic man in all my life.

Friday, I get the pleasure of telling, and you get the pleasure of watching, the story of Tom Chappell. I just finished putting his story together and I’ve already watched it a dozen times myself. I may watch it a dozen more times before the broadcast on the Evening News with Katie Couric. I do that sometimes when a story really makes me feel good and Tom Chappell makes me feel good.

Tom lives in a trailer in Phoenix, Arizona. He squeaks out a living driving a cab for V.I.P. taxi. His story began a few months ago when a cranky woman got in his cab and immediately started scolding him for being late. Most cab driver’s would have probably barked right back, but not Tom. Tom listened to her vent, found out the real reason she was so irritable, and eventually offered her his kidney. And no, I don’t mean that metaphorically. He really offered her his kidney! Obviously, that gesture alone makes for a great story.

But this tale is just getting started. So please make an appointment to be a near a TV Friday so you can meet this remarkable cab driver. That’s my tip for the day.

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When we started working on a story about resume fraud and whether more people were lying on their resumes now because the job market is so tight, our biggest challenge was finding someone who would admit he or she lied on their resume. No easy task.

I called some of the big names who made news when their stretching of the truth became public, like George O'Leary, the former Notre Dame Coach who lied about his education and college football career and David Edmondson, the former CEO of Radio Shack who lied about a college degree on his resume. Maybe they'd want to talk to us and provide a cautionary tale to any job seeker who might be thinking of embellishing or outright lying in these recessionary times. Not a chance. They weren't interested or didn't return my calls.