The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

TakePart Gang:

Ocean Dead Zone Getting Bigger by Wendy Cohen

Top 10 Ways to Green Up Your Kids by Martin Musatov

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Nicole Hughes:

2008 Olympic Games: Top 10 Stories from TakePart

Happy Meals: 5 More Organic Alternatives to Fast Food

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Andy Kondrat:

China’s Pollution Affects Alaska’s Air Quality

JetBlue CEO Cuts His Pay In Half

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Jon Popham:

Yet Another Reason to Get Off Oil…Russia

Detroit Home Sells for $1

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Gina Telaroli:

Synchronized Swimming Gets Olympic Treatment in “Sync Or Swim”

Parting the Murky Waters of Race in the Swimming Pool

Olympics Olympics Olympics! We love the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between when it comes to the 2008 Beijing Olympics here at TakePart.   It’s reason enough not to miss our Top 10 Stories about the Olympic Games, which we’ve been reporting on in the months leading up to now. Catch the best in TakePart Olympic news below:

1) 2008 Olympic Torch Relay Will Create 11 Million Pounds of CO2 by Nicole Hughes

The 2008 Olympic torch relay hasn’t galvanized a lot of warm fuzzy feelings and hand holding this year. Opposition to China’s treatment of Tibet has inspired international protests, with some dissenters even managing to snuff out the torch and delay the tour… [click here for the full story]

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

TakePart Gang:

Arrested in Development by Wendy Cohen

Is Google Making Us Dumber? by Blair Golson

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Nicole Hughes:

Top 5 Ways to Green Your July 4th

Greenopia: Eco-Guides For Your City

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Andy Kondrat:

Hypermiling Contest Winner Gets 124 Miles to the Gallon

Rise in Fuel Prices May Lead to Dirtier Energy Sources

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Jon Popham:

Red Tide in Yellow Sea Threatens Olympics

Mercedes-Benz Ditching Gasoline Cars by 2015

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Giulia Rozzi:

46664 Concert: Happy Birthday Nelson Mandela

Denise Richards Likes to Share

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Gina Telaroli:

Top 10 Movies for the 4th of July: For Patriots and Cynics!

The Radical and Beautiful Journey of Wall-E

A red tide in the Yellow Sea off the coast of China is threatening events planned for the 2008 summer Olympics.   The massive algae bloom, shown left, threatens to prevent the scheduled Olympic sailing regatta from taking place as scheduled less than six weeks from now.   Chinese state media has reported that a third of the waters needed for the competition are currently covered with algae.

Residents of the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao (home of Tsingtao beer) are being mobilized by the government to try and clean up the mess before the coming Olympic games.   An estimated 20,000 citizens have either volunteered or been drafted to clean up the shoreline while more than 1,000 boats are pulling algae out of the Yellow Sea.  

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It’s May 16th, I’m Gina Telaroli and this is TakePart.com’s look at the week in social action…

Central China was hit with a devastating earthquake today measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale. The quake is the worst to strike the world’s most populous country in decades. The state-run Xinhua News Agency currently estimates over 8,500 people have perished as a result of the disaster, tragically including 900 students who were trapped under the rubble of their collapsed school.

The epicenter of the quake was in Sichuan province, in the hilly region of the Middle Kingdom leading up to the Tibetan plateau, but its force caused skyscrapers in Shanghai and Taipei to sway. The shockwaves were felt as far away as Thailand and Vietnam. You can view video of the quake shot by a student in Sichuan province after the jump:

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