Blog Posts by Nadine Kalinauskas

A homeless Calgary woman who returned a purse holding more than $10,000 to an Edmonton couple has moved into her own apartment.Last fall, a 62-year-old Calgary homeless woman turned in a purse she found to the police. Inside it was $10,400.

"I was never sure what I would do in a situation like that and I found out I did the right thing and I really like myself for it," she told CBC News.

Her good deed was named Calgary's most heartwarming story of the year by CBC viewers.

The owners of the purse, a couple from Edmonton, were so moved by her honesty that they gave her a $500 reward. A trust fund was set up in her name at a local bank.

And while donations didn't pour in — "they kept coming in a trickle," the National Post reports — two weeks ago the woman learned she had enough cash to enable her to rent an apartment at a subsidized seniors' complex.

Thanks to the generosity of strangers, the woman, who chooses to not be named in the press, recently moved from a homeless shelter into her own apartment, and has even been reunited with her cat.

"I love it. It's great being here and of course to get my cat back

This week, a pink equal sign on a red background has been popping up as profile pics for Facebook and Twitter users.

The image is a modification of the Human Rights Campaign's logo, which is usually blue and yellow, intended as symbol of support for equality as the Supreme Court gay-marriage hearings continue in Washington, D.C.

The Human Rights Campaign is the largest advocacy group in America for for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals.

"Today the Supreme Court will hear argument on the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which forbids the federal government from recognizing the marriages of same-sex couples entered into in states with marriage equality," the group writes on its website.

Read about the two cases being deliberated, the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Prop 8, here.

Since the Human Rights Campaign posted the equal sign yesterday, the group's Facebook post received more than 19,000 likes and saw their image shared more than 66,900

A young family dining at Olive Garden were recipients of a compassionate gesture by the restaurant's manager recently.

"My brother, wife, 3 year-old daughter and I went to Olive Garden after a recent house fire at my parents. When the manager asked how everything was my daughter said "Grandpa's house burned down," redditor Tanek42 wrote.

"Here's how we received the check:"

(Photo Courtesy imgur.com)

The meal was on the house.

"It was a great gesture and should be admired. It obviously meant a lot to this guy and his family and made them feel better after a crises. I say, way to go Olive Garden," redditor CrocanoirZA wrote.

While some skeptical redditors believe the entire story to be an impressive marketing ploy, generosity from dining establishments isn't unprecedented:

A Turkish restaurant in Saudi Arabia offers free meals for "hungry" people in exchange for their prayers.

A waiter's decision to stand up for a young diner with Down syndrome made him an online hero. He then used the donations of strangers to

If you're an animal lover, grab the tissues. This story is a real tearjerker.

An adorable pup named Tessa was dropped off at a Los Angeles shelter in early January. Thin, malnourished, blind and unable to walk, she was scheduled to be euthanized.

Then Annie Hart came to her rescue.

Hart, the executive director of the Beverly Hills-based rescue organization the Bill Foundation, heard about Tessa, a Havanese mix, from a shelter worker and took her into her own home.

As part of her rehabilitation, Tessa underwent a variety of tests and scans, including an MRI which determined that the pup had hydrocephalus, or "water on the brain," which led to her blindness. It also likely led to Tessa developing vertical nystagmus, an ophthalmological condition that causes dizziness. These conditions combined could explain why Tessa couldn't walk.

"The initial prognosis was very grim," Hart told the Huffington Post. "Her doctors agreed that it was very likely a hospice situation."

Hart was determined

The Regina Police Service has temporarily shut down its main Facebook page after a series of abusive, hateful comments were posted on it.

"We support your right to express opinions, even dissenting ones. We require that to be done without profanity, hate speech, or posts inciting violence. In the future please ensure your comments, opinions, and concerns are expressed in a manner safe for all users," police service officials posted before removing the site.

The majority of the profane comments popped up in the wake of a weekend dog-shooting incident, CBC News reports. There were even threats directed at the officers involved.

On Saturday evening, a Regina police officer shot a dog.

According to the Regina Police Service, the officer, accompanied by a canine unit, was trying to locate suspects of an assault when his search led him to a backyard of a residence.

[ Related: Officers shoot, kill pit bull in Regina backyard ]

In that backyard was a pit bull. The pit bull attacked

After the public outrage following CNN's sympathizing-with-the-rapists coverage of the Steubenville, Ohio, rape trial, Barbara Amiel wrote a Maclean's article on society's "sexual landscape" that has many readers confused and angry, and some questioning why the magazine allowed it to be published in the first place.

Perhaps her most offending paragraph comes halfway through her piece about the "anything-goes sexual society" we apparently now live in, when she discusses the Steubenville rape case as though it were an overreaction, writing that all involved "behaved appallingly" and that the victim "couldn’t remember a thing except that she didn’t have sex as we once understood it."

"In a normal society, the girl’s mother would have locked her up for a week and all boys present would have been suspended from school and their beloved football team. Instead we had a trial and media circus: two boys out of the many were declared juvenile delinquents guilty of rape (by inserting a finger in

Since 2009, a pair of bald eagles have been nesting on both the north and south shores of Cootes Paradise Nature Sanctuary at the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) near Hamilton.

Now that they've reached maturity, the eagles have hatched their first young, the first bald eaglets to be born on Lake Ontario's north shore in decades.

"We actually saw a little one poke its head up out of the nest," the RBG’s Head of Natural Lands, Tys Theysmeyer, told CBC News. "No one really knows when the last ones were born in this area. That's how long it has been."

The first eaglet was spotted on March 22. The second was spotted the following day. Officials are unsure if other unhatched eggs are in the nest. Theysmeter told the Hamilton Spectator that bald eagles can lay up to four eggs at a time.

[ Related: Rare bird gets new leg after B.C. golf ball injury ]

The eagles' nest had been closely monitored from a nearby trail since mid-February, after Theysmeyer observed that one of the eagles was "squatting

A rare sandhill crane lost its leg after being hit by a stray golf ball at a Richmond, B.C., golf course.

The bird is standing up once again, thanks to a peg leg provided by a wildlife rehabilitation centre.

"The crane was brought in because he was hit by a golf ball and his lower leg was shattered, so the vet, Dr. Ken MacQuisten, tried to see if it would work possibly with surgery," Elizabeth Melnick, who runs Elizabeth's Wildlife Centre in Abbotsford, told CBC News.

"It just wasn't a go. So [MacQuisten] decided to amputate the lower leg and now he's getting a prosthesis put in."

The crane was fitted with a temporary limb. Once the stump is fully healed, a permanent prosthesis will be attached.

There are very few sandhill cranes in the Lower Mainland. Melnick told CBC News that in the 27 years she's been running her wildlife centre, this is the first one she has come across.

"This is a very unusual patient," MacQuisten said in a video interview. "He's unusual in the sense that there