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In the headlines...

🇨🇦 Canada ended sperm donor restrictions for gay and bisexual men, a “precedent-setting” move toward “ending decades-long discrimination.”

🎟️ New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a plan to give 2,000 free Broadway tickets to high school students in the city, joking that it was “justice for the theater kids who have watched City Hall roll out lotteries for major sporting events all summer long.”

People doing good

A group of amateur archivists is documenting national park signs to preserve US history

After the Trump administration began ordering National Park Service rangers to remove signs about slavery, Indigenous history, and the climate crisis at locations around the country, a Minnesota librarian launched an effort to preserve the information.

Jenny McBurney and several colleagues launched Save Our Signs to document every sign in the more than 400 national parks and historic sites around the U.S. before they’re removed.

The crowdsourced project is made up of mostly anonymous volunteers who submit photos of national signage to the archive — so far, over 17,000 photos have been submitted, at least one from every national park and historic site. Some have even captured “before” and “after” photos of changes that had been made.

Why is this good news? The public deserves to know the country’s history — not just “sanitized” or select parts of it. Save Our Signs is a way for everyday citizens to mobilize to fight back against the erasure of critical historical information.

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More Good News

​A mass evacuation drill weeks before fires broke out helped save residents of Spokane. More than 950 vehicles participated, nearly three times the number that took part in the city’s first drill the previous year, making it one of the largest neighborhood evacuation exercises of its kind in the region.

​Scientists are using spider webs to develop materials that can treat burns and reverse nerve damage. Spiders produce silk from a specialized gland and use it to build incredible web structures, and scientists are figuring out how to replicate this biological feat.

​New Jersey passed a new “big tech” law to regulate kids’ social media use. The law will limit social media platforms’ use of children’s data, restrict algorithmic content recommendations to minors, block notifications during school hours, and more.

​The world’s first seahorse hospital is fighting to save them from extinction. In Europe and countries like Indonesia, seahorses are being poached in the millions for sale to a traditional medicine market where they are consumed as an aphrodisiac and alleged cure for impotence, asthma, and kidney problems.

​After decades of drought, water is rising in the African Sahel again. The news is nuanced, as erratic but extreme rains are returning to the semi-arid region, both causing lethal floods and replenishing rivers, filling desert depressions, and restoring water to dried riverbeds.

​Noah Kahan announced his second annual “Folk and Fairways” golf and concert charity event. All proceeds from the two-day event will benefit Kahan’s organization, the Busyhead Project, which promotes mental-health awareness and provides resources to local communities.

Animals

Man saves otter strangled by fishing net using mouth-to-mouth CPR

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good progress

Five decades of research show solar will be the world’s dominant energy source

While today’s models continue to underestimate it, two studies showed solar consistently at the top of the world’s energy systems.

Crucially, the studies synthesized decades' worth of research from independent teams and methodologies to reach their conclusion: solar will provide an estimated 61% of the world’s electricity by 2050.

​​Solar has emerged faster than any electricity source in human history, driven by dramatic reductions in cost, being almost universally available, and a diverse range of applications.

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More Good bits

🐢 And that’s why you turn the lights off for sea turtles.

💕 We’re all so happy.

🐾 Your dog knows exactly how you’re feeling.

🇺🇸 Pretty epic way to become a U.S. citizen.

🛟 TV lifeguards know a real hero when they see one.

🍕 If you need a slice, just check the “Meal Wall.”​

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