Euro News

Bordeaux, France just surpassed Paris in a new ranking of the world's most beautiful cities, with Europe dominating nine out of the top 10 spots. The rankings are based on buildings that adhere to the 'golden ratio' for balanced and harmonious structures. Venice takes the lead as the most beautiful city, followed by Rome and Barcelona in second and third place respectively. Despite iconic landmarks, Paris lands at 12th place. In fifth place is the only non-European city to make the top 10: New York City.

9 Out of 10 of the World’s Most Beautiful Cities Are in Europe, Says New Ranking

Talker News

For Spencer Pratten, slowing down did not mean stepping away from soccer.

The 71-year-old grandfather from Great Waltham, near Chelmsford in Essex, has been named walking soccer's top international player after captaining England's over-60s side to three major titles. Pratten, a semi-retired chartered surveyor and lifelong West Ham fan, has also led Chelmsford City and says he would like to see the sport reach the Olympics.

Pratten played semi-professional soccer for more than 20 years and carried on in veterans soccer until he was about 60. He turned to walking soccer about 10 years ago after finding 11-a-side too physical.

"11-a-side was getting a bit physical by that time," Pratten said.

"But walking soccer is nothing like people portray. They think it's old men stumbling around, but it's energetic and fun. All I wanted to do was carry on playing soccer, albeit at a slower pace."

He joined the England squad in 2018 and captained the team in its first match that year at the Amex Stadium in Brighton against Italy.

Pratten then led England to victory in the first European Nations Cup in about 2021, before the team won the first World Cup at St George's Park with a 3-1 win over France in the final. In October last year, England beat Ireland 1-0 in Spain to win a second World Cup.

"There's only been three major competitions and we've won all three," Pratten said.

He has now captained England over-60s in 55 matches and scored 44 goals.

Pratten was compared with Lionel Messi after receiving the player award, but he said the resemblance starts and ends with height. He joked that he and the Argentina great are both about 170 centimetres tall.

"I'm still getting my head around it," he said.

"I'm definitely Messi, that's what my partner Claire says I'm like around the house, anyway. I'm also a short arse... Both Lionel Messi and me are 5 feet 7 inches, so I'm more like Messi than Ronaldo. It is a nice label to have, though."

The Walking Football Association divides players into age groups by decade, including people in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Matches are played on pitches about a quarter the size of a full soccer field.

The sport has three main rules. Players must walk and not run, there is no physical contact, and the ball must stay below head height.

Pratten spent eight years with Chelmsford City's over-60s team and has recently moved into the over-70s side. He said that squad still includes five players in their 80s.

The game has grown quickly. England has more than 1,200 walking soccer clubs, and it is now played in 88 countries. Pratten said England had an early lead because the sport started there.

"Because it started in England, we were probably three or four years ahead of the game," he said.

"It's an incredible sport, but it's the camaraderie and health, both mental and physical, that's just brilliant for people in their 60s and 70s. It's a very inclusive game. It's like being back at school, with the banter and ribbing, which is what we miss most about soccer."

"Soccer has been a huge part of my life and now it continues to be."

Pratten said walking soccer gave him a way back into the game after he had to stop playing.

"Walking soccer has changed my life. Everybody's got something they loved but you get to an age where it fades out," he said.

"Soccer is my real love and when I had to stop playing, it was a real shock."

"But walking soccer came along and has opened up a whole new spectrum for people like me. My advice to anybody who's missing the game and wants to get back into fitness is to go on the WFA website, find a club and give them a ring. If you're over 50, you've got 20 or 25 years more soccer ahead of you."

He also believes the sport could one day make it to the Olympics.

"It's not an Olympic sport yet, but looking at some Olympic sports, I wouldn't be surprised if it did become one," Pratten said. I would like to see it as an Olympic sport."

Paul Carr, founder and president of the Federation of International Walking Football Associations, said Pratten stood out at the recent World Nations Cup. 

"Having seen a number of excellent walking footballers at the recent World Nations Cup, our view was that Spencer by far was the best," Carr said.

"The sport was only invented 13 years ago, but it's now being played in 88 countries, which is pretty amazing."

📸 credit: Talker News

Walking Soccer Granddad, 71, Compared to Lionel Messi for Remarkable Skills

Even with a moon mission on the clock, Reid Wiseman had time for a dad photo.

The NASA astronaut posed with his two daughters, Ellie and Katherine, in front of the SLS rocket that is expected to be launched this evening. Wiseman is commander of the Artemis II mission.

Wiseman lost his wife to cancer in 2020 and raised his teenage daughters while training for the mission.

In a post shared on Tuesday, he wrote: "Dad, we can’t leave the rocket without a .5 together!!” I love these two ladies, and I’m boarding that rocket a very proud father."

A ".5" is a type of image taken with the ultra-wide-angle lens on a smartphone or camera, usually at 0.5x zoom. It captures a broader field of view than a standard photo.

NASA said on Monday: "The countdown for NASA’s Artemis II test flight is underway at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with members of the launch team arriving at their consoles inside the Rocco Petrone Launch Control Center.

Artemis II is the first crewed launch of NASA’s SLS, or Space Launch System, rocket and Orion spacecraft.

The test flight will take Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialist Christina Koch from NASA, along with Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency, around the Moon and back to Earth.

NASA Astronaut Shares Family Selfie Before Today's Lunar Mission

Science Alert

Water gets stranger the colder it gets, and researchers now say they have pinned down a hidden turning point in supercooled water that refuses to freeze.

In a new study, an international team reports more direct evidence that water can split into two liquid phases under extreme conditions, one high-density liquid and one low-density liquid. The researchers also found evidence of a critical point beyond which those two phases give way to a single liquid state with highly unstable molecular structure.

Scientists have long theorised about this behaviour in supercooled water, liquid water kept well below its usual freezing point through pressure and temperature controls. But getting a clear look at it has been difficult because these states sit right at the edge of freezing. The study describes that region as a kind of “no man’s land” for measurements.

“What was special was that we were able to X-ray unimaginably fast before the ice froze and could observe how the liquid-liquid transition vanishes and a new critical state emerges,” said chemical physicist Anders Nilsson, from Stockholm University in Sweden.

“For decades there has been speculations and different theories to explain these remarkable properties and one theory has been the existence of a critical point. Now we have found that such a point exists.”

To capture the changes, the team used rapid heating with infrared lasers and ultra-fast X-ray snapshots. The researchers engineered ice, then pushed it through the liquid-liquid state, across the critical point, and into the fluctuating single-liquid state while tracking what happened on extremely short timescales.

The exact location of the critical point still has not been pinned down, but the new work narrows the search. The researchers think it sits around minus 63 degrees Celsius and about 1,000 atmospheres of pressure.

The study also found that the critical point behaves in a way the researchers compared to a black hole. As water gets closer to that point, the liquid’s internal dynamics slow down and changes in structure take much longer. According to the researchers, that means the liquid cannot avoid the transition.

The findings add to a long list of odd behaviour in water. One familiar example shows up in a glass. Most matter shrinks and becomes denser as it cools, but water does not behave that way, which is why ice cubes float instead of sinking.

The researchers say this latest work gives physicists a stronger basis for explaining those unusual properties. It also points to wider questions, because water is involved in physical, chemical, biological, geological, and climate-related processes.

“Researchers studying the physics of water can now settle on the model that water has a critical point in the supercooled regime,” Nilsson said.

“The next stage is to find the implications of these findings on water's importance in physical, chemical, biological, geological, and climate-related processes.”

The study also points to another reason water keeps attracting attention. The researchers said water differs from other liquids not only because of its unusual physics, but also because it is essential to life, as far as we know.

“I find it very exciting that water is the only supercritical liquid at ambient conditions where life exists and we also know there is no life without water,” said chemical physicist Fivos Perakis, from Stockholm University.

The research has been published in Science.

📸 credit: POSTECH University, South Korea

Water Has a Hidden Critical Point Just Before Freezing, Scientists Find

ABC17 Pheonix

For 11-year-old Miles Boyd, a Florida vacation meant boats, beaches and buckets of fun. It also gave him something he had never had before, his first trip to the ocean and a close look at baby sea turtles on the beach at night.

"I had never been to the ocean before," Miles said to ABC17 Phoenix. "So seeing that just wowed me. It was amazing!"

Miles said the experience stayed with him.

"The ocean is so mysterious," says Miles. "It's such a big place, and the fact that these turtles can move but are so tiny, and when they go in the ocean, they get to hundreds of pounds."

The trip to Palm Beach County, Florida, came through Make-A-Wish Arizona. For Miles and his family, it was a dream vacation after what his mother described as a living nightmare.

"I couldn't imagine losing him," Miles' mom, Natasha, said.

Natasha said that fear hit when she learned her son had a cancerous brain tumor.

"The world just stopped," Natasha says about the moment she found out the devastating news. "I just sat on the floor and cried."

Miles said he was scared too.

"I'm just a kid, you know what I mean?" he says. "It's a lot to handle all at once."

Miles went through three brain surgeries, countless hours of therapy and rehab, and he had to take a chemo medication twice daily. After all of that, his family’s trip to Florida became a break they said meant much more than a getaway.

The vacation gave Miles a chance to do things he had not done before, including seeing the ocean for the first time and watching baby sea turtles on the beach at night. He said it also changed how he looked at what he had been through.

"It showed me that... I can keep going," he says. "I started at the lowest of lows, and now, I'm on a beach - it just gave me confidence and motivated me that I could keep going."

The trip was granted through Make-A-Wish Arizona, which fulfilled 476 wishes last year alone. Since it was founded in 1980, the organization has granted more than 8,500 wishes.

Across the globe, Make-A-Wish has granted more than 650,000 wishes since 1980.

Miles is now set to help the group that helped him. He and Nick Ciletti will co-host Make-A-Wish Arizona's Wish Ball on Saturday.

"It showed me that... I can keep going," he says. "I started at the lowest of lows, and now, I'm on a beach - it just gave me confidence and motivated me that I could keep going."

📸 credit: ABC17 Phoenix

Make-A-Wish Arizona Creates Sea Turtle Adventure for San Tan Valley Boy

Frontier

A legged robot that can size up several rocks in one go, instead of waiting for humans to guide every step, has passed an early test for future Moon and Mars missions.

Dr Gabriela Ligeza, a former PhD student at the University of Basel who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the European Space Agency, recently tested a semi-autonomous exploration system with colleagues. The team equipped a quadrupedal robot with measurement tools designed to investigate multiple targets quickly and collect mineralogical data.

The results, published in Frontiers in Space Technologies, showed the system could quickly investigate several targets, identify promising rocks, and return data useful for astrobiology and in-situ resource utilization, or “living off the land”.

Ligeza said the work tested a different model from current planetary surface missions, which tend to operate cautiously. On Mars, communication delays between Earth and rovers are typically between four and 22 minutes. Limits on uplink and downlink data transfer also mean scientists must plan operations in advance.

Rovers are also built to save energy, stay safe, and move slowly across hazardous terrain. That limits exploration to a small part of the landing site. According to the article, rovers typically travel up to a few hundreds of meters per day, making it harder to collect geologically diverse data.

The team instead tested a semi-autonomous robotic explorer that could investigate multiple targets one by one and collect data without constant human intervention. Their results showed that semi-autonomous robots fitted with compact instruments could speed up resource prospecting and the search for “biosignatures”, meaning evidence of life, on planetary surfaces.

Rather than stopping to investigate a single rock under continuous supervision, the robot could move to multiple targets and perform measurements at each location on its own.

The researchers asked a simple question: could a robot with a relatively simple scientific payload quickly study several targets and still produce meaningful scientific results? Their answer was yes. The study found that compact instruments could still meet the full scientific objective of identifying rocks relevant for astrobiology and resource exploration.

To test the concept, the team used the quadrupedal robot ANYmal. It carried a robotic arm fitted with two instruments: the microscopic imager MICRO and a portable Raman spectrometer developed for the ESA-ESRIC Space Resources Challenge.

The work involved the Robotic Systems Lab at ETH Zurich, ETH Zurich | Space, the University of Zurich, and the University of Bern.

The experiments took place in the “Marslabor” facility at the University of Basel. The site simulates planetary surface conditions using analogue rocks, regolith materials, and analog lighting conditions. In the tests, the robot autonomously approached selected targets, positioned its instruments with the robotic arm, and sent back images and spectra for analysis.

The system identified a range of rock types relevant to planetary exploration, including gypsum, carbonates, basalts, dunite, and anorthosite.

The article said many of those rocks are scientifically significant. It pointed to lunar-analog rocks such as dunite, which is rich in olivine and oxides, and anorthosite, which contains anorthite, along with oxides such as rutile, as possible signs of valuable resources for future space missions.

The team then compared two ways of working. One was a traditional single-target approach closely guided by scientists. The other was a semi-autonomous multi-target strategy in which the robot carried out measurements at several locations in sequence.

The semi-autonomous missions were faster. Multi-target missions took between 12 and 23 minutes. A human-guided mission took 41 minutes to complete comparable analyses.

The faster pace did not stop the robot from producing strong results. In one test run, all selected targets were correctly identified.

The study said this approach could let future missions survey large areas of planetary surfaces more quickly. Scientists could then review the incoming data and choose the most promising locations for closer study.

It also argued that future missions may not need to rely only on large, complex instrument suites. Agile robots using relatively simple instruments could rapidly scan the environment and flag promising targets for detailed investigation.

As space agencies prepare missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond, the study said semi-autonomous systems could help scientists survey larger areas in less time, while supporting resource prospecting and the search for possible signs of past life.

Here's How These 4-Legged Robots Could Speed Mars and Moon Exploration

Fox News 29 San Antonio

She arrived with the clothes she was wearing and little else. Three months later, Tina Gomez says her apartment has furniture, kitchen items and some of the dignity she felt she had lost.

Gomez, 60, showed Fox SA's Ryan Wolf around her apartment at a Tarry Towne property on Vance Jackson Road, part of Opportunity Home San Antonio. The visit was emotional for her.

“I felt sad because I was coming to a place with nothing,” she told Fox News 29.

After being forced to leave her previous rental, Gomez said she had to start over without furniture, kitchen items or stability. She turned to a social worker for help, and that led her to Maria Ramos, a resident coordinator at the complex.

Gomez said Ramos did far more than she expected.

“She said, ‘Give me two, three days,’” Gomez recalled. “And sure enough, within those days, she had everything for me.”

Gomez said Ramos helped fill the apartment with a full kitchen set, living room and bedroom furniture, rugs, dishes and silverware. Some of those items, Gomez said, were bought by Ramos with her own money.

“I wish that there were more people like her,” Gomez said.

Ramos has worked with Opportunity Home San Antonio for nearly 30 years, helping residents in need rebuild their lives, according to Fox SA. Gomez wanted to thank her, but Fox SA had another surprise planned.

As part of the station’s Cash for Kindness contest, Ramos was surprised at her office. Gomez used the moment to tell her what the help had meant.

“I just want you to know I’m so grateful,” Gomez told her. “You’ve been a blessing.”

Then Wolf revealed the award.

“This $1,000 represents the Cash for Kindness prize on behalf of our new sponsors, Manuel & Sons A/C and Heating and FOX SA,” he said.

Ramos said she was stunned by the recognition.

“It just feels amazing. Thank you. I feel great,” she said. “Giving goes a long way. Even if it’s me using my own personal funds it pays off.”

Ramos said she plans to use part of the money to keep helping other people, something Fox SA said she has done for decades. She believes she has helped hundreds of residents like Gomez.

For Gomez, the help came at a time when she said she had almost nothing.

The apartment she showed Wolf was the same place she had entered three months earlier with no furniture and no household basics. Gomez said the change in that short time came from Ramos stepping in after she asked for help.

Gomez’s account of those first days was simple. She said she had nowhere else to turn after losing her previous rental and arriving at the new apartment empty-handed. Ramos asked for a few days, Gomez said, and then followed through.

The support covered the basics of daily life, from furniture for the bedroom and living room to dishes, silverware, rugs and a full kitchen set. Gomez said that gave her a home she could live in again.

“Giving goes a long way. Even if it’s me using my own personal funds it pays off,” she said.

A Stranger Helped Furnish a New Apartment for a Woman Who Moved In With Nothing

WFAA Reasons to Smile

For Jennifer Sturges, the last gig before surgery was never going to feel like a normal night.

The Irving musician, who performs solo and with her band Ex-Regrets, told the crowd after a show at Fort Worth nightclub The Cicada that she was stepping away from the stage for surgery, surgery to donate a kidney to her mother.

"Tonight's set is super special,” Sturges told WFAA, "because it's the last time I'm going to be playing before I have surgery.”

Her mother, Shirley Sturges, has lived with failing kidneys for years. In the bedroom of her Irving home, she showed the tubes and supplies she uses each night for peritoneal dialysis.

"These are all the tubes that go on,” Shirley Sturges said.

"One for each bag. I put them in order every night,” she said.

Traditional hemodialysis, where patients go to a clinic multiple times a week to have their blood cleaned for several hours, proved too painful for Shirley Sturges, who is in her 70s and in delicate health. One attempt led to serious heart problems.

Peritoneal dialysis became her other option. For 10 hours every night at home, she is connected to a machine that circulates fluid through her abdomen, then drains it, to do the work her kidneys no longer can.

"I either do this, or I choose not to live anymore,” she said.

Jennifer Sturges said her mother repeatedly told her she could change her mind about donating.

"And mom's told me several times I can back out,” Jennifer Sturges said. “And I said that's not an option, what are you talking about?"

Jennifer and her sister were both tested as possible donors. Jennifer was the closest match.

"The fact that they would offer me part of them to keep me healthier, more active, happier for the rest of my life, you know, it's amazing,” Shirley Sturges said of her children.

Jennifer Sturges said the decision came down to something simple.

"I'm doing it because she would do it for me. It's as simple as that,” Jennifer said. "If you can make someone's miracle happen, why would you not want to do that?"

That transplant took place on January 30 at Baylor Scott & White Health in Dallas. Doctors said it was a success. Both mother and daughter said they are recovering well.

Before the operation, Jennifer Sturges grew emotional talking about her mother.

"Because my mom's just amazing,” Jen said as she began to cry during our pre-transplant interview. "She's a great person. She's been very giving all her life. She's been a great mom. I think that the world needs more people like my mom. So, I want to keep her here."

Shirley Sturges is a retired educator and assistant principal in Irving ISD. She is also a three-time cancer survivor. Eight years ago, she lost her husband to prostate cancer.

"Life has thrown me so many things that, yes, I cry in private. I don't cry in public,” Shirley Sturges said.

"Tough as nails,” Jen said of her mom.

Back at The Cicada before the surgery, Jennifer Sturges performed two songs about motherhood, songs inspired by her young daughter.

"Trying to create the best life possible for the life you brought into the world,” she said of the lyrics. "No matter what the circumstances are, no matter what hand you've been dealt, the goal is to make her the best human being possible. And that's what I got from Mom."

When told she was now doing that in reverse for her own mother, Jennifer Sturges answered with one word.

"Trying,” she said.

“You are,” she was told.

“Yeah, you are,” Shirley agreed.

The mother and daughter now wear matching necklaces, small chains with a tiny silver kidney. In Shirley Sturges's living room, a sign above the fireplace mantle reads: “family is everything.”

Jennifer Sturges said she hopes their experience leads other people to look into becoming living donors.

"To keep living and living a better life than what we've had so far,” Jen said.

Without living donors, people in the United States who need a kidney transplant often wait more than four years for a kidney from a deceased donor.

According to UNOS, the United Network for Organ Sharing, about 90,000 to 100,000 people in the United States are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. UNOS says 11 to 14 people die each day while waiting. More than 25,000 kidney transplants are performed each year, but thousands still die waiting because of organ shortages, including more than 3,800 deaths reported in 2023.

📸 Credit: WFAA

After Years of Kidney Failure, This Mother Got a Transplant From Her Daughter

Denver 7 - abc news

A parking lot project at Dinosaur National Monument ended up hitting something a lot older than asphalt.

The National Park Service said on Jan. 16 that construction near the monument’s Quarry Exhibit Hall revealed dinosaur fossils, the first fossils excavated from that spot since 1924.

The fossils were found on Sept. 16, 2025. Construction paused so paleontologists could examine and excavate them. Park staff, a Utah Conservation Corps crew, volunteers and on-site construction crews all helped with the work.

Scientists now believe the fossils belong to Diplodocus, according to the National Park Service. It said Diplodocus was a large, long-necked dinosaur that measured about 80 feet, or about 24 metres, long and likely traveled in small herds.

The park service said three of the most complete Diplodocus skeletons ever found were preserved in the Carnegie Quarry at Dinosaur National Monument.

Between mid-September and mid-October, about 3,000 pounds, or about 1,360 kilograms, of fossils and rock were removed during the project, the National Park Service said. The material is being held at the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum, where it will be cleaned and studied. Some pieces are also on display at the Quarry Exhibit Hall.

The area around Quarry Exhibit Hall had not been excavated for fossils since 1924, according to the National Park Service. It said earlier excavations there were led by the Carnegie Museum from 1909 to 1922, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in 1923, and the University of Utah in 1924.

The parking lot construction has now been completed. The work included accessibility improvements around Quarry Exhibit Hall.

The National Park Service said the area, also known as the Wall of Bones, is the most popular place in the park. Visitors can see about 1,500 dinosaur fossils encased in rock there.

The fossils on display include dinosaurs from the Late Jurassic period, the park service said. Those remains include Allosaurus, Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus, Diplodocus and Stegosaurus, among others.

The National Park Service announced the new discovery while highlighting that Dinosaur National Monument continues to add to the fossil record tied to its name and history.

Some of the newly recovered pieces are now on display at the Quarry Exhibit Hall.

 📸credit: NPS/ReBecca Hunt-Foster

Massive Dinosaur Fossils Were Just Found During a Parking Lot Construction Site

For some older Coloradans, a little help starts with yard work or a vacuum. It turns into something else.

Nearly one in four Coloradans age 65 and older struggles with loneliness, according to recent U.S. Census Bureau data. A local nonprofit, A Little Help, is working to change that statistic one week at a time.

The group connects volunteers with older adults for yard work, home projects, technology assistance and companionship.

Each week, seniors from Rock Canyon High School in Ken Caryl visit retired teacher Jacquie Cupich at her home. The meetings begin with conversation, then move on to chores like vacuuming, cleaning or raking leaves.

“I love being with the kids and building a relationship with them,” Cupich said to Denver 7. “A lot of my friends are afraid of teenagers. This program shows the exact opposite; there’s so much hope for the future because of what I’ve experienced with these guys.”

Cupich first contacted A Little Help because she needed help with yard work, house maintenance and technology. She said the physical support mattered, but the regular visits became something deeper.

“It’s not about the help, really,” Cupich said. “It’s about someone else saying, you matter. I see you. I care about you. Just because you’re older and starting to lose physical capabilities, you still have purpose, and we still care about you.”

Cupich said consistency is what makes the connection work.

“If it was different every week, I think it’d be harder,” she said. “It’s consistency that brings a level of trust and the relationship.”

Student volunteers Brodie Lyle and Caroline Watts said the program matters to them, too.

“I really like listening to people who have a lot more experience than me,” Lyle said.

Watts said spending time with an older generation brings lessons that go beyond school credit.

“It’s just really the little things that make a huge difference,” Watts said.

For A Little Help, that kind of trust is the goal. Weekly visits give older adults regular reminders that they are seen and valued, while giving students a different perspective on aging and community.

The nonprofit is looking for more volunteers and school partners to help older adults across the Denver metro area. More information is available at A Little Help’s website.

A Little Help Connected Colorado Seniors With Student Volunteers to Fight Loneliness

Kare11 NBC

When Zarina Sementelli walked back into Booth Brown House, the memories came fast.

At 15, Sementelli moved into the Salvation Army shelter for homeless youth in St Paul after her family was evicted. Eleven years later, she returned as a newly minted attorney, revisiting the room where she lived for two and a half years and the people who helped her get through it.

“Sometimes things can be so far removed that when you come back, you're like, ‘Wow, this really happened?” Zarina says reflectively to Kare11. “I really did make it from here.”

Sementelli, now 26, said her childhood was shaped by instability. Her father was mostly absent, and her mother struggled with mental illness.

“She has severe mental health issues, so she didn't work,” Zarina says.

She remembered moving “every year” and changing schools often. When she was 15, her family was evicted.

“We got evicted from our house when I was 15,” she says.

When her mother said the family would move to Seattle, Sementelli decided to stay behind. She said she knew her mother did not have a job or a place to live, and she believed the family would end up in a shelter there.

School gave her one steady place, so she stayed in Minnesota and spent time couch surfing at the homes of her Como Park High School basketball coaches and teammates. Eventually, she arrived at Booth Brown House.

“This was really the first place that I felt like home,” Zarina says.

Returning to her old room for the first time since leaving, Sementelli described what that small space meant to her. The room held a bed, a small counter, a sink, a stove and a refrigerator.

“When you go from living on someone else's couch,” Zarina says, “I cannot articulate how important this space was for me.”

While living there, she took city buses or the light rail to school, work and the grocery store. At night, she studied in her room. One moment still stands out.

“I remember being right here opening up my Spelman acceptance letter and just feeling so blessed,” Zarina says.

After high school, Sementelli attended Spelman College in Georgia, a historically Black women’s college. She graduated debt-free after applying for hundreds of scholarships.

“I applied for hundreds of scholarships,” Zarina says.

The Dell Foundation awarded her a $20,000 scholarship. The Horatio Alger Association awarded her another $10,000.

She was not finished after Spelman. Sementelli attended California Western School of Law, graduated last spring and passed the bar exam on her first try a few months later.

Asked how she kept going, she pointed to faith.

“When I didn't have parents to call, I got on my knees and prayed.” she says. “I didn't grow up in the church, and a lot of people doubt God. But when I needed God, God was always there for me.”

During her visit back to Booth Brown House, Sementelli met Kaiden Waxlax, the 18-year-old now living in her old room. She became emotional speaking with him.

“What makes me emotional,” Zarina tells Kaiden in a trembling voice, “is to see you as a young person just trying to make a way.”

She then told him, “It's really important for you to believe in yourself.”

Sementelli also stopped by the office once used by her former case manager, Natalie Bogden. In that office, Bogden helped her set goals and connect with tutors, health insurance and food assistance.

In a recent letter, Sementelli thanked Booth Brown House and asked if her appreciation could be passed along to Bogden. Instead, the Salvation Army arranged a surprise reunion during an interview with KARE 11.

“Ah!” Zarina exclaimed when Natalie walked into the room.

“When I graduated and I passed the bar, I'm like, 'Wow, I wish I could just tell Natalie,'” Zarina tells her mentor.

“Oh, my goodness,” Natalie responds with hands over her cheeks. “I was proud of you then, and I'm very proud of you now.”

This summer, Sementelli will begin Air Force officer training at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, as she works toward her goal of becoming a military judge advocate general, or JAG.

No one gets there alone, she said.

“The mentors in my community, they didn't just see a homeless youth that had no future, they saw a person who needed help.”

  📸 Credit: Kare11

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