A majestic tract of land in far north Queensland that links wet tropics and world heritage rainforest, and contains headwaters that flow to the Great Barrier Reef, could be bought and protected by Christmas, after a conservation group raised more than $19m in private donations to buy the cattle station.
Wooroora spans more than 20,000 hectares of largely intact wet sclerophyll forest and savanna woodland on the lands of the Jirrbal people about 100km south-west of Cairns – and borders Bush Heritage’s existing 43,575-hectare Yourka Reserve in one of the most biodiverse regions in Australia.
Every autumn, Corvo Island in the Azores turns off its public lighting for a few key days to help fledgling Cory’s shearwaters as they attempt to fly to the ocean guided by the stars
Once a year, Corvo, the smallest and most northerly island of Portugal’s Azores archipelago, goes dark. Since 2019, the island’s 450 or so inhabitants have chosen to switch off the lights every autumn for five nights to tackle the disastrous effects of artificial light on Cory’s shearwaters, a seabird endemic to the Atlantic Ocean.
It began in 1991 when the community noticed huge numbers of deaths among young shearwaters.
Brian Rooney and his late wife, Tina, who died in 2013.
Courtesy of Brian Rooney
Brian Rooney, 60, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2024.
During his late wife's illness, he built up medical and credit-card debt.
After she died, the grief made it difficult for him to sustain his business.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Brian Rooney, the 60-year-old founder of Chapter7Reset.com, who lives in Conroe, Texas. He lost his wife in 2013. The essay has been edited for length and clarity, and the details verified.
When you're grieving, you're not thinking about how to move a business forward, capture new market share, or adapt to new technologies. You're not thinking straight because you're overwhelmed by a cloud of loss, pain, and sorrow. Some days, you're just trying to get through morning to night.
In 2013, I lost my wife, my partner, and my life. I still had to deal with the financial reality. I had underestimated what grief would do to my ability to run a business.
Tina was the yin to my yang
My wife, Tina, and I had 24 great years together. She was the yin to my yang. We met through a mutual friend, got to know each other, and fell in love. She was a strong, independent thinker. She was loving, kept me in check, and was an outstanding mother.
Our five kids were all born close together, and I was very involved in their lives. One of the reasons I started a business was because I wanted to be the dad who could be at home, coach my sons in basketball, and play in recitals with my daughter.
We'd tried both working early on, but Tina stopped early on in our relationship. I was the breadwinner, and she managed the kids.
I launched my email-marketing business in 2000. For a time, it did very, very well.
Brian Rooney and his late wife, Tina, were together for 24 years.
Courtesy of Brian Rooney
My wife was diagnosed with cancer
In 2011, things felt almost too good to be true. Then Tina noticed a little bump in the roof of her mouth. She went to the dentist; they did a biopsy, and we didn't think too much about it. Weeks later, I was sitting in my home office when she came over with the phone. With a very disturbed look, she said, "I have cancer."
Our lives turned upside down.
At first, because the cancer wasn't very aggressive, we tried homeopathic remedies. Then came chemotherapy, radiation, and major surgeries. The treatments were costly, and while the Affordable Care Act covered quite a bit, we still had high deductibles. Some hospitals wouldn't admit her until the deductible had been paid.
I would sit at the table with spreadsheets, trying to work out the finances. I was trying to be strong for my wife, but sometimes I'd go to the corner of the room and cry. The unspeakable thing to consider was that I might lose my wife because I couldn't afford to pay for it all.
Brian and Tina Rooney had five kids.
Courtesy of Brian Rooney
A lot of the medical bills were paid with credit cards, and we ran up a lot of credit-card debt. I had six mouths to feed, for which I relied mostly on credit cards. I sold my music gear, like my guitars and amps. We moved from a beautiful rental house in a nice area of Texas to a much less expensive apartment. We weren't going to shows, basketball games, or on trips. None of that bothered me. The focus was on getting Mama healthy.
Friends and family stepped in here and there to help out. My kids were approaching adulthood, so they didn't need much looking after, but working from home let me adjust my schedule as needed.
I couldn't keep the business moving forward
There were days when I couldn't touch the business. It was mostly automated, but there were things I needed to step in and manage. If a server went down, I'd need to stay up all night to fix it while checking on my wife in the other room.
I wasn't resting or sleeping. I wasn't able to drive the business forward.
During that time, the industry was changing. New technology became available, and we weren't able to keep up. I was so focused on Tina's care that we missed opportunities. We had contractors and a business partner, and I wish I'd outsourced a lot faster. I didn't realize how fast I was losing.
I became a widower at 47
Tina Rooney died at 49.
Courtesy of Brian Rooney
Tina died in November 2013. She was 49, and I was a 47-year-old widower.
Those first few weeks, I'd wake up, roll over, realize she wasn't there, and know that she never would be again. I would talk myself out of bed, one body part at a time.
The business was still there. My business partner was focused on the technical side, but I had the marketing and entrepreneurial mindset. A lot of things that needed to get done didn't get done. Honestly, at that point, I didn't care. It was a dark time for me
I wanted a clean slate
The business was declining, and meanwhile, I'd built up hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit-card and medical debt. I thought I could put everything on my credit cards, turn things around, and pay it down. Things never turned around, and as the business continued to decline, there was less money to draw from it.
In 2021, I got remarried. My second wife knew about the financial mess I was in. The interest and penalties were compounding so quickly. There was constant pressure from phone calls, letters, and demands for payment. I wanted relief and a clean slate.
In early 2024, after speaking with my business partner, we decided to dissolve the business. Later that year, I filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
I felt both relief and shame after filing for bankruptcy
When I filed for bankruptcy, I had no assets because I'd sold them all to pay my bills. When the debt was wiped out, I felt relief and shame, but the relief took over once I stopped getting phone calls and letters.
It was time to rebuild. I got a sales job, which I hadn't had in decades. I did AI certification training and started rebuilding my credit with credit-rebuilding cards. I launched ChapterSevenReset.com, a free guide to help people in a similar position.
One of the hardest lessons was that we didn't have a life-insurance policy on Tina. It never dawned on me because she wasn't contributing financially. I never considered how caring for her and my grief would take away from my generating income. My second wife and I both have life insurance policies for each other.
Nowadays, my friends say the "old Brian" is back. I've made peace, as best you can, with the fact that Tina is gone. I'm like an amputee. There's a part of me that's missing, and that part will always be missing. It itches. It's always there.
In states like Florida, officers who hand out fishing citations and inspect produce have been deputized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, expanding the reach of President Trump’s deportation campaign.
A canal in Dania Beach, Fla., in September. The canal was the site of an encounter that led Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers to contact federal immigration authorities.
Amelia Quest, a 27-year-old Instagram star with over a million followers, says she can climax in just 90 seconds. To top it off, she said she can do it without a man too
The Cali Fund, set up to raise $1bn a year for biodiversity from drug companies, remains near empty
Big pharmaceutical companies have been accused of “free-riding on nature”, after a landmark biodiversity fund that invites businesses to put some of their profits back into conservation was left virtually empty.
The Cali Fund set out to raise $1bn (£750m) annually, by asking companies that profit from nature’s genetics to contribute towards conservation in low-income countries. But more than 18 months after the fund was launched, it remains far below this target.
With the A.I. boom driving up prices, the city is subsidizing child care for households with high incomes. Even with the help, families say they are struggling.
Natsumi Makiyama and John Marman, a married couple in San Francisco, together make just under $235,000, qualifying them for free child care under a city program.
In 2022, I helped push through the international agreement to protect biodiversity. Wars and economic pressures can make nature seem like a ‘nice-to-have’. But it is a critical asset, and Cop17 must deliver real action
When I was five, property developers came to cut down the woods behind my home in La Tuque, Quebec. My mother encouraged me to climb one of the trees in protest, then told the developers, straight-faced, that there was nothing she could do when they asked her to get me down. A few days later, the tree was cut down anyway.
I thought about that tree in the early hours of a freezing Montreal morning in December 2022, as the gavel came down on a global agreement between nearly 200 countries to halt and reverse the loss of nature by 2030. I thought about how important nature is for our health, our food security and our economies, but also how much passion there is around protecting it, and how it has the power to inspire people all around the world.
As Cop17 kicks off, records since 1921 show more bee species declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alps
Most of Europe’s wild bee species and about half of its hover fly species have declined over the last century, a study has found, as a UN biodiversity summit begins in Armenia.
Records since 1921 show more bee species are declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alpine region. The richness of bee and hover fly species suffered a persistent drop in the Atlantic and Continental regions, the study found, though trends in other regions were mixed or even positive.
Dutch MEP says government is trying to avoid EU environmental rules as protests over luxury development turn violent
MEPs have accused Albania of deploying “sneaky” practices to fast-track a proposed Trump-linked luxury resort in the country amid protests that have turned increasingly violent.
As the prime minister, Edi Rama, pledged to “listen to the voices of young people” taking to the streets, there was mounting criticism of his failure to address demonstrators who had long opposed the controversial project peacefully.
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