Pictured here enjoying jokes and a juice box, Trevor Bergman has now successfully donated his ultra-rare blood at all 85 Australian donation centers.
While on his journey, Bergman donated blood 545 times, helping patients from virtually every corner of the land down under.
The 59-year-old police officer is one of 150 Australians known to carry the anti-D antibody in their blood. Anti-D is given to pregnant mothers whose newborns are at risk of hemolytic disease of the newborn, which arises when the mother’s immune system attacks the developing infant’s blood if the two aren’t compatible.
Bergman, who lives in Melbourne, got the idea for the hemo-marathon while on vacation in Perth, Western Australia.
“When I went past the blood bank there and donated there, I just thought ‘well I’m on holiday here, what a good way to see Australia,'” he told ABC News AU.
“I’ve been able to go all the way up the east coast, all the way over to Western Australia, up to Darwin — places that I probably never would have gotten to see.”
He later said that it was “nice to know” that he’s done a small part in helping the national community, and that his most memorable donation visit came when he arrived in Albany, only to be turned away because he had “a sniffle.”
His final blood donation came in Canberra, where the nation’s representative to the crown, Sam Mostyn, accompanied him to the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood center and gave blood in tandem.
Lifeblood says that 1 in 3 Australians will require donated blood at some point in their life, meaning that donations never cease being important.
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This rolling inspiration is Xie Junwu, an iron-willed wheelchair-bound althlete who’s climbed mountains, completed marathons, and now spends his days skateboarding.
Xie has been breaking records and barriers for years with his wheelchair capabilities, and now in middle age, he is helping others build confidence in their maneuvering with what is almost certainly China’s first wheelchair skateboarding training center.
Xie often says that if you carry on through the storm, you’ll surely see the rainbow, and a storm is exactly what he faced. At age 19, he fell from a tree he was climbing during a geology internship field trip and damaged his thoracic vertebrae, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
Seeing no future, he languished at home for 8 years without ever stepping foot outside alone. His mother had assumed the full responsibility of caring for the paraplegic young man. Though he had always promised her he would develop some form of independence, it was her death in the year 2000 that spurred him on, with the promise taking on a new form of urgency: necessity.
In 2004, he attended a spinal cord injury meetup and saw someone balance their wheelchair on its back wheels alone: a kind of ‘wheelchair wheelie.’ Xie began watching mostly foreign videos online of people performing advanced wheelchair maneuvers, including going up and down stairs, and resolved to mimic them.
Plenty of nasty falls would follow until there was Xie, in 2012, shaking hands with an observer from the Guinness World Records when he completed the longest-ever wheelchair wheelie at 25.8 kilometers, or around 16 miles.
Over the following decade, Xie summited the almost 6,000-foot Mount Huangshan 4 times, and completed 32 marathons, including the New York City Marathon.
In 2014, he first tried skateboarding. He cleverly attached some metal rails onto the board that would keep his wheelchair’s wheels from simply rolling off as he used them to press left and right on the board just as a skater would do with his feet.
Even for this wheelchair ace, it was really difficult, and he put the interest on hold while he pursued marathoning.
Last November, Xie found a new training base in his home city of Nanchang that had the perfect courtyard, with a series of curves and gentle gradients, where he could get back to practicing wheelchair skateboarding.
After getting the hang of it and making a name for himself through viral online videos, he opened a sports rehab clinic called the Nanchang City Hope House for the wheelchair-bound, explaining that these kinds of coordinated activities help build the musculature, strengthen the heart, and fortify one’s immune system.
One day he hopes to hold a wheelchair skateboard competition in China, which would be the first of its kind, admitting it’s a “small goal I’m pursuing.”
WATCH his inspirational life story, as told by him, below…
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A famous mosque and gurudwara stand side by side in Lahore, Pakistani Punjab - credit, the Walled City of Lahore Authority, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A famous mosque and gurudwara stand side by side in Lahore, Pakistani Punjab – credit, the Walled City of Lahore Authority, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
In the Indian state of Punjab, Muslims are watching Sikhs and Hindus organize the rebuilding of old mosques destroyed following Partition.
Emotional to say the least, the inter-faith community building is being led by many old enough to remember the strife which ripped across the state. A portion of this ancient and proud land was allocated to Pakistan and another to India, dividing families and homes—sometimes literally—in two.
Detailed in a Guardian photo essay from the villages of Jakhiwal, Punawal, and Umarpura, these villages are seeing mosques either restored or built from the ground up—across more than one occasion, on land donated by a neighbor of another faith.
In Jakhiwal, it was 77-year-old Sikh Bibi Rajinder Kaur who urged her grandson to donate land for the purpose of building a new mosque. In Punawal, it was 48-year-old Jaspal Sharma, from a family of Hindu priests, that made such a donation. When it was completed in February, he hosted a feast for the entire village to mark the occasion.
While the call to prayer is silenced in Western countries, Sharma said he found it made for “a lively atmosphere” in the village.
“And it wasn’t just us; everyone in the village, Hindus and Sikhs together, contributed what they could,” Sharma told the Guardian‘s Cheena Kapur. “Some gave money; others donated bricks and cement.”
In Umarpura, local Sikhs helped restore an antique Muslim shrine.
“We live as one and no matter what happens in the rest of the country, the mood here is that of love and unity. Punjab’s conscience cannot tolerate cruelty against a being, irrespective of caste and religion,” said Sukhjinder Pander, one of the men who donated his labor to the work.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. India Tomorrow reported 3 years ago on a different group of villagers from a different group of villages performing exactly the same acts of religious tolerance and neighborly support.
India is often held up as one of the strongest examples that democracy works because of the staggering diversity in languages, races, and faiths the country guarantees equal protections for.
Far from the halls of power, these Punjabi residents need no courts or constitution to enact the same policy. It’s woven into the fabric of this diverse landscape, where “Eid and Gurpurab [Sikhs’ most holy festival] are celebrated by both communities with the same fervor,” said Pander.
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Veteran volunteers for polling shift – Vet the Vote
Quote of the Day: “The ballot is stronger than the bullet.” – Abraham Lincoln
Photo by: Vet the Vote
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Veteran volunteers for polling shift – Vet the Vote
70 years ago today,The Wizard of Oz was televised for the first time, and was so successful—with 53% of US television viewers tuning in—that it was destined to become an annual event in American homes. CBS ran it again three years later during the holidays and gained an even larger television audience. READ more about this famous production… (1956)
Northeast Florida’s barrier island describes itself as a natural gem, and a great excuse to visit is happening this weekend in the form of the annual Right Whale Festival.
Held every year since 2009, it celebrates the moment on the calendar when one of the largest whale species migrates back south to its subtropical breeding grounds.
Kicking off Friday morning on Fernandina Beach’s Main Beach Park and running through the end of Sunday, the festival combines conservation education with family-friendly activities, live entertainment. It also offers visitors a chance to connect directly with experts working to protect marine wildlife through workshops from the organizers Clearwater Marine Aquarium and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“The North Atlantic right whale is facing extinction, and our Southeast coast is their only known calving ground,” said Cheryl Munday, Right Whale Festival Coordinator.
“With fewer than 70 reproductive females remaining, we have an incredible responsibility to protect the mothers and calves right here in our backyard.”
Munday is right to highlight the whale’s precarious existence, but as GNN has reported, the creature has demonstrated slow growth in its population numbers. For example, this year’s calving season along the southeast coastline of America has seen the most North Atlantic right whale calves born in a single year since 2009.
The festival will kick off Friday, Nov. 6 at 11:30 a.m. with a lecture on this year’s festival theme, entitled “Their Future, Our Fight.”
This special lecture/luncheon at the Story & Song Center for Arts & Culture highlights grassroots conservation organizations working to protect North Atlantic right whales throughout their migratory range.
Attendees will hear from individuals and organizations from the Southeast making a difference through research, education, outreach and community engagement. Tickets are $25 on the website, including lunch.
This year’s children’s program features a special Right Whale Festival Passport, encouraging young visitors to explore exhibits, interact with conservation organizations, and discover fascinating facts about right whales and their habitat.
Children will learn how they can help protect marine mammals through everyday actions, including reducing marine debris, practicing responsible boating and sharing conservation messages with others.
The evacuation underway, with the buses seen on the right which took residents wishing to leave on their way to Kviv via Crimea - credit, Kherson Regional State Administration, CC BY 4.0.
The evacuation underway, with the buses seen on the right which took residents wishing to leave on their way to Kviv via Crimea – credit, Kherson Regional State Administration, CC BY 4.0.
Hundreds of Ukrainian residents stranded in a Russian-occupied city have been evacuated through a humanitarian escort corridor.
In what has been the most significant measure of cooperation between the sides since the war began, Russian and Ukrainian officials coordinated the evacuation of Ukrainian citizens from the city of Oleshky, in Ukraine’s embattled oblast of Kherson, in the south of the country.
The ceasefire came after the city and its population were facing famine conditions as winter approached. The Ukrainian Parliament’s Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets personally thanked the US First Lady Melania Trump for having raised the plight of Oleshky’s population amid ongoing dialogue between the US and Russia, as did Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Her call for a humanitarian ceasefire was later taken up by the Vatican. Pope Leo XIV shared a phone call with Russian President Putin while recovering from treatment of lung cancer, Vatican News reported. The Pontifex stressed the urgent need for a truce to allow food and medical aid to reach civilians and enable their safe and voluntary evacuation.
As reported by the BBC, the first stage of the evacuation was taking people and their pets eastward across the Crimean Peninsula to the Russian city of Anapa, on the northeastern point of the Black Sea.
There, the Ukrainians boarded planes which flew through Russian airspace to Gomel, in Belarus near the border with Ukraine. From Gomel, the evacuees were given a hero’s welcome as they crossed the border heading towards Kyiv.
The Guardian reports that they arrived to lines of villagers waving Ukrainian flags and offering them coffee and snacks.
Aid groups including the Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, and World Central Kitchen also welcomed the evacuees as they arrived at the border.
Lubinets posted online that he hoped the Oleshky truce could be replicated elsewhere.
“We are now working together with Yana Lantratova to explore opportunities for further humanitarian initiatives. It is important to maintain this mechanism of cooperation so that we can continue helping people and saving lives.”
Melania Trump said recently that “all elements of the convoy, including the safe passageway in and out of Oleshky, were established through mutual agreement between Russian and Ukrainian leaders.”
“Everything unfolded without any incidents, and both sides noted the high level of organization,” Russia’s human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova said, according to the BBC.
Indeed, the evacuation was far more than just a question of lowering the guns and allowing people to file out of the city. A ceasefire in and around the area of Oleshky was put into effect by Russia on October 27th in coordination with Ukraine. On the 30th, Lubinets arrived in Crimea for a personal visit to Oleshky with Lantratova. It was the first time a Ukrainian official has been inside the Russian-occupied portions of the country.
750 people are reported to have escaped the city along with a menagerie of animals, including dogs, cats, parrots, and even a raccoon. Ukrainian officials declined to release an official number of evacuees for security reasons.
An unreported number of residents chose to stay behind, as eyewitnesses explained to the Guardian, while Ms. Lantratova said that those who evacuated to Russia were taken to Crimea where hotels provided them with temporary lodging.
Both Lantratova and Lubinets told the media that large numbers of residents had chosen to stay in Oleshky for various reasons, and that further coordination would be needed to supply humanitarian aid to them.
The city is almost no longer livable. Having sustained heavy bombardment and urban fighting, critical infrastructure has been crippled, including gas lines for heating, sewage, potable water, and power. Landmines are a constant menace, and its road network is badly damaged.
Vatican News reported that off the back of the truce, which expired yesterday, fresh negotiations are due to take place in Abu Dhabi in November.
“I hope that the cooperation between the parties, which made this necessary humanitarian act possible, will strengthen the desire for dialogue and lead to new concrete peace initiatives,” the Pope said on X.
CELEBRATE The Survival Of These Hundreds Of Innocents From The Maw Of War…
A dog lover and entrepreneur has created a weather service tailored specifically to dogs.
It broadcasts tens of thousands of reports to users every month with the weather at the level of a dog’s head and paws.
It also includes temperature readings for asphalt, grass, and concrete, and variations based on breeds, body size, and coat length—all of which can help dog owners better plan their walks and excursions.
“This past weekend I stood outside a pet conference in Fort Worth, pointing an infrared thermometer at the asphalt. It read 131°F. The air was 98°F,” Clay Bartlett wrote to GNN in an email, saying that this 33-degree gap could easily result in burned paws even over a short distance.
“That’s why our team of veterinarians, nurses, and dog trainers created Pawcast by Weather.pet—because the temperature that our dogs feel can be wildly different from the way that you or I feel temperature,” he said.
From late-September through October, Pawcast delivered 28,000 alerts to more than 2,000 pet parents across all 50 states and DC. Each one gives a straight temperature reading, as well as “Dog Feel°.”
It’s actually not Bartlett’s first foray into online pet services. He and his veterinary team had spent 8 years building TeleTails, now a leading veterinary telehealth platform providing care for 1.5 million pet parents.
screengrabs taken from Pawcast and weather.pet
“Over the last year, our co-founder and Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr. Hilary Jones, noticed an increase in pet safety questions,” related to the weather, Bartlett said.
“We realized there was a massive information gap, with most veterinary literature on the topic reverting to a stale grid from 1998.”
“So our veterinary team went out and actually did the work researching ground surface temperatures that our dogs experience every day. We took thousands of surface temperature readings across the country over the last year: asphalt, concrete, and grass, in cities, suburbs, and rural areas.”
“Those readings became the foundation for our model of how heat and cold reach a dog at ground level. Together, we’ve produced a dog-focused temperature reading that accounts for each dog’s breed, coat, age, and weight: our Dog Feel°, and route-specific estimates for the walk itself.”
It’s quite the effort, and the website couldn’t be more intuitive. The app is available on the App Store and Google Play Store.
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5 years ago, 18-year-old Kenli Riney suffered a head-on collision on a Texas highway. Her car spun into a ditch and caught fire.
Behind her, the Argote family was driving along and saw the whole thing. Mike Argote and 3 other men ran toward the flames and pulled Riney from the car.
Mike was burned doing it, but it didn’t stop him from beginning CPR. When he tired, his 14-year-old daughter Ema took over. Eventually, she realized that Riney was gone, and the family gathered around the fallen stranger in prayer, right there on the road.
Riney’s family didn’t have many details about the people who were present for the young woman’s final minutes, until one day her uncle found a Facebook post about the rescue, and learned that the people trying to save their daughter were the Argotes.
Eventually, the two families met, and 5 years later they still consider themselves conjoined thanks to this brief moment of heroism.
That’s not all the intervening half-decade has seen. After Kenli’s death, her mother Marjohn and her father Kevin founded the Kenli Foundation in Kerrville, Texas, where the family had moved to support their daughter’s quest for higher education.
The foundation would honor the strangers who ran towards the fire rather than away from it, and resolved to award scholarships to other students who have shown heroism and compassion, displayed “immense character,” or led a faith-rich life, as Kenli had done.
“Strangers ran toward the fire,” Marjohn Riney told GNN. “We exist to find more people like them.”
It has since funded 67 heroes and paid $67,000 directly to recipients for college, trade school, and graduate school, paying homage to Kenli who was preparing to embark on a college journey to become an equine surgeon. The first year saw 4 parties apply, while this year has seen 451 already.
“Ema graduated high school this year, and of course we awarded her the scholarship,” Marjohn told the Hill Country Community Journal. “She’s pursuing a degree at the University of Texas at San Antonio.”
The foundation awards a scholarship to a Tivy High School graduate every year in Kenli’s honor, while this year it also added the Argote Award Scholarship at San Saba High School, in honor of the family that attempted to save her.
Story tip: Marjohn Riney.
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Quote of the Day: “Bad officials are the ones elected by good citizens who do not vote.” – George Jean Nathan
Photo by: Element5 Digital
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Jersey Joe Walcott in 1937. CC 3.0. The Ring Boxing
65 years ago today, Jersey Joe Walcott, the Hall of Famer heavyweight boxer and three-time organization champ, became the first African American to be elected as a Sheriff in the United States. Elected on Tuesday, November 2 by a two-to-one margin, he ran as a Democrat and said he wanted to use the position to “help people and rehabilitate them.” READ a little more… (1971)
Each autumn, during the last five nights in October, there is a blackout on Corvo island—but it’s not by accident.
On the small island in the Portuguese Azores, more than 400 residents are protecting some of the world’s most vulnerable birds, while setting an example for the region.
Last week, the public lighting on Corvo was completely turned off at 9:00pm, until 4:00am, for five nights during a critical period for young seabirds.
At this time of year, birds like Cory’s Shearwater are leaving the nest and heading out to sea. To avoid predators, they do so at night, but the lights from our towns and cities often blind them, and the disoriented birds end up grounded, not only in the Azores but also in Madeira and the Canary islands, for instance.
But, the Azores archipelago is an absolutely critical habitat for this species, hosting roughly 65% to 75% of the entire world’s breeding population.
Since 2019, the Portuguese Society for the Study of Birds (known as SPEA) has partnered with the local governing body, Câmara Municipal do Corvo, for the week-long blackouts.
And, dozens of volunteers help the lost birds get back to sea every year, even using cardboard boxes.
Cory’s Shearwater at nest site on Selvagem Pequena Island – Credit: Coimbra68 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
“Locals and authorities have increasingly recognized the impact of light pollution on birds and the importance of an energy efficiency policy to protect these species,” said the group.
“Since 2017 the municipality has turned off public lighting during the most critical periods of the SOS Cory’s Shearwater campaign.”
“The blackout, which garnered unanimous support in a SPEA survey of 207 Corvo inhabitants, is part of two projects—Interreg LuMinAves, which aims to mitigate the impact of light pollution on seabirds, and Interreg EElabs, which focuses on sustainable use of artificial lighting.
“SPEA and our partners on these projects hope that other towns and islands throughout the region will follow Corvo’s example, turning off the lights at crucial times.”
The Guardian reports—in a beautiful photo essay—that more than 30,000 Cory’s shearwater fledglings have been rescued in the Azores since 2015, thanks to the campaign—including about 6,000 of them on Corvo alone.
Other seabird rescue campaigns promoted by SPEA-BirdLife are currently underway and will continue until November 5th, mobilizing volunteers to rescue seabirds that fall ashore.
The group also organized a blackout on Madeira Island last Thursday to help more Cory’s shearwaters reach the sea safely, and also to educate the population, businesses, and institutions to be aware of unnecessary outdoor lighting for the sake of juvenile seabirds in Madeira and Porto Santo.
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The Atlanta-based nonprofit that launched an Eviction Relief Fund during the COVID pandemic has now assisted over 5,500 families so they could stay in their apartments.
Marjy Stagmeier, a landlord of affordable housing in the Georgia capital city, is helping ease the burden on tenants through fundraising for the nonprofit she founded, the Star-C Program.
What started as a $50,000 GoFundMe campaign has now surpassed $16.5 million for rent payments to help bridge the gap for those in need.
“Many renters are stable residents, but they can experience temporary challenges and can’t pay rent,” says Ms. Stagmeier, who has over 30 years of experience as an apartment landlord.
“While the eviction assistance during COVID was helpful, monthly rent increases and inflation on household essentials have outpaced salary increases, creating a financial burden on tenants who are now making tough choices between food, rent, and utilities.”
Stagmeier and her partners studied the eviction crisis in Atlanta and determined lack of payment is not only an income issue.
Marjy Stagmeier, founder of the Star-C nonprofit
“In one instance, we had a long-term legacy tenant, and her pension check was stolen,” Stagmeier says. “Evicting her and her grandchildren made no sense, but eviction is the mindset of many property owners to cure rent default. But no one ‘wins’ in those scenarios.”
Other examples of assistance happened during the federal government shutdown where Star-C was able to assist Atlanta TSA employees while their paychecks were suspended.
The eviction-intervention model inspired the board of Star-C to work with other like-minded landlords. The program was rolled out to the greater Atlanta community as part of Star-C’s mission.
To date, over 330 apartment communities representing 64,000 apartment units have signed into the Star-C platform.
Star-C partners with conscientious apartment owners who are committed to keeping rents affordable for families living on incomes at the poverty level or up to 80% of area median income.
PLEASE NOTE: Currently, the nonprofit is not accepting new applications for rental assistance, because it has “reached its maximum capacity for the current funding cycle”.
But the Eviction Relief Fund also connects tenants with other resources—like after school programs, summer camps, medical services, Cub Scouts, playgrounds, and food assistance.
“Many children have come through the Star-C after-school program, who are now doctors, plumbers, and school teachers, earning good wages that moved them out of poverty,” Stagmeier told GNN back in 2021.
Football field full of food bank donations in New Jersey – Credit: Tommy Pantaleo for Dermer Dreams
Football field full of food bank donations in New Jersey – Credit: Tommy Pantaleo for Dermer Dreams
Hundreds of New Jersey students collected over a quarter million pounds of food during the second annual 100-Yard Food Drive Challenge last week.
Thousands of bright yellow donation bags covered Howell High School’s football field from end zone to end zone—with the extraordinary effort marking the largest food drive in the nonprofit Dermer Dreams’ history.
“These students did more than collect food: They united communities and demonstrated the power of working together,” said Dan Dermer, Co-Founder of Dermer Dreams.
What began with students collecting food in their neighborhoods grew into a powerful demonstration of community generosity, uniting schools, businesses, families, and volunteers across New Jersey.
“All the food collected is now at 30 food banks and will help families across the state.”
The Howell High School football team joined volunteers to carry all the bags to rented trucks for transporting to food bank partners, including Lunch Break, Fulfill, Howell Food Bank, and Open Door in Freehold.
Howell HS football players help with food bank donations in NJ – Credit: Tommy Pantaleo / Dermer Dreams
Field of Dreams
“Every bag represents a young person who chose to make a difference in someone’s life,” said Dan’s wife Alyse, who also works with the nonprofit started in 2019 when the New York City-raised property manager moved to New Jersey.
There, they launched the Dermer Dreams‘ Neighborhood Captain Program, after realizing that high school students were searching everywhere to find needed community service hours.
This year’s event builds on the inaugural 2025 challenge at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School, where teens organized and recruited volunteers—while developing leadership skills at the same time.
“Not only will we feed people who are food insecure, but we will inspire young students to take action and make a difference in this world,” said Dan, who has dedicated over a decade to working with students to eradicate the hunger problem.
All while serving as the CEO of Dermer Management, Inc. which manages Manhattan-based properties, including co-ops, condos, and rental properties.
Howell HS Football Team w/ yellow-shirted volunteers filling trucks with food – Credit Tommy Pantaleo for Dermer Dreams
You can join their mission in the Garden State, “Fighting Hunger, One Bag at a Time”, by visiting their website, or reaching out on social media at @DermerDreams.
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Gary with support dog named Storm – Credit: Chambers Photographic / SWNS
Gary with support dog named Storm – Credit: Chambers Photographic / SWNS
A deaf woman says her support dog saved her husband’s life after he fell down the stairs—by waking her from a dead sleep to insist something was wrong.
Sandra Donally was alerted by her clever pup after husband Gary tumbled down the stairs in the middle of the night and was left bleeding and unconscious.
She had been fast asleep when Storm suddenly leapt onto her bed shortly after midnight, startling her awake.
Sandra noticed the landing light was on and guessed that Gary had simply gone to the bathroom, but the dog’s strange behavior set alarm bells ringing.
“She just sat ramrod straight at the other end of the bed, staring out towards the landing,” said the 62-year-old from Staffordshire, England.
“I told her that Gary was in the bathroom and asked her to go back to bed, but she wouldn’t move.”
Moments later, she found Gary lying crumpled at the bottom of the staircase.
Paramedics rushed him to Royal Stoke Hospital, where he remained for 24 days undergoing reconstructive surgery on his broken jaw.
Sandra Donally with her support dog, Storm – Credit: Chambers Photographic / SWNS
The couple later worked out that Gary had come out of the bathroom, lost his footing and fell down the stairs after missing the handrail.
Sandra said she couldn’t bear to imagine what would have happened if Storm had not alerted her—believing the pooch saved his life.
“When she wouldn’t look at me, I knew something was wrong.
“We usually get up at half past six, so that’s when I would’ve noticed Gary wasn’t in bed—he’d have lain there for six hours, losing blood and with a broken jaw.
“I’ll always be so grateful to her for alerting me.”
Quote of the Day: “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure.” – Theodore Roosevelt
Photo by: Carl Izbicki
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
69 years ago today, the Mackinac Bridge opened to connect the Upper and Lower peninsulas of Michigan over the Straits of Mackinac. Nicknamed the “Mighty Mac” when it was built, it’s still the longest suspension bridge “between anchorages” in the Western Hemisphere. Stretching 26,372 feet (8,038 meters) shore-to-shore, it was designed by David B. Steinman, who grew up in the Brooklyn Bridge’s shadow, and hoped to rival its greatness. READ more about Mighty Mac… (1957)
Courtesy of Maren Douglass @TeacherandTraveler / T&T Creative Media
Courtesy of Maren Douglass (left) @TeacherandTraveler / T&T Creative Media
Florida teachers Maren and David Douglass went viral for some heartwarming acts of kindness shown to a young schoolgirl whose bus stop was assigned to the end of their driveway. (See her sitting in the top-left of the photo above…)
People magazine reported the couple first saw the girl sitting on the ground through their surveillance camera.
Without a sidewalk to protect her from traffic, they decided to install a bench for the middle schooler, who, literally, jumped for joy the morning she first noticed it.
“It was just the cutest reaction, her little jumps—and it just got sweeter from there,” Maren told People.
Soon, they received a thank you note:
“Hello, this is from the kid that waits for the bus at your house. Thank you so much for putting that bench there! Now I don’t have to worry about dirt and bugs, I appreciate it a ton!”
And, the kindness felt so good, the couple created more joy around the new bus stop.
Courtesy of Maren Douglass @TeacherandTraveler / T&T Creative Media
They erected a Mini Free Library next to the bench—and stocked it—so she’d always have books to read. Since then, other neighborhood kids have borrowed and returned the community books.
The grateful student gleefully left flowers for the 44-year-old woman—and the TikTok videos from their doorbell camera have delighted millions at @teacherandtraveler.
Skin psoriasis (before after) Credit: 2026 Cao at State Key Laboratory of Biomedical Analysis via SWNS
Skin psoriasis (before and after) Credit: 2026 Cao at State Key Laboratory of Biomedical Analysis via SWNS
New research suggests a common skin disease with no cure could be treated with nutritional supplements.
The B vitamin derivative showed “encouraging” results for reducing psoriasis symptoms in studies with both humans and mice.
Psoriasis causes a rash with itchy, scaly patches, most often on the knees, elbows, and around the waist—and the autoimmune condition has no cure.
Now researchers in China have discovered that the vitamin B5 derivative called pantethine limits the activity of immune cells that are key contributors to autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis.
Their findings, published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), show that pantethine helped alleviate the symptoms of psoriasis in a small human trial—and also entirely prevented its development \in mice.
The Beijing team explained that dendritic cells are specialized immune cells that help to coordinate the different parts of the immune system.
They can engulf and present foreign antigens to activate highly-specific T-cells, as well as secrete a range of immune signaling molecules to recruit other types of immune cells, promoting inflammation.
Because of their central role in directing immune responses, aberrant activation of dendritic cells is believed to underlie several autoimmune diseases, including psoriasis. But strategies around inflammatory diseases remain under-explored, says study co-lead author Dr. Wei-Na Zhang.
“Metabolic pathways and their associated metabolites play vital roles in regulating immune cell function and autoimmune progression.
The levels of metabolic enzymes known as Vanins are elevated in the dendritic cells of patients with psoriasis and several other autoimmune diseases.
If you can deplete those enzymes, you can inhibit dendritic cell activation and limit their ability to activate T-cells. (In fact, treating mice with a drug that inhibits Vanins prevented the animals from developing psoriasis.)
Pantethine is a widely available nutritional supplement often used to lower cholesterol levels due to its ability to inhibit cholesterol synthesis.
Dr. Zhang said Vanin enzymes convert the metabolite pantethine into vitamin B5, an essential nutrient required for cellular energy production.
His team at the State Key Laboratory of Biomedical Analysis said cholesterol had previously been shown to promote the activation of dendritic cells, and high blood cholesterol is a ‘major risk factor for the development of psoriasis’.
They determined that increased Vanin activity in dendritic cells reduces panthetine levels, leading to increased cholesterol synthesis and dendritic cell hyperactivation.
Replenishing pantethine levels reversed the process, lowering the accumulation of cholesterol and suppressing dendritic cell activation.
“Insufficient pantethine levels may be the crucial contributor to hyperactivation of dendritic cells, and autoimmune inflammation following the up-regulation of Vanins,” said Zhang.
The small ‘proof-of-concept’ trial treated 24 psoriasis patients with ointment, but half of the patients also received pantethine tablets.
Over the course of 12 weeks, patients given the additional pantethine treatment showed improved symptoms, particularly if they had elevated blood cholesterol levels to begin with.
“Our investigator-initiated clinical trial demonstrated encouraging therapeutic efficacy of pantethine as an adjunctive therapy in psoriasis, providing a foundation for therapeutic strategies targeting dendritic-mediated autoimmune diseases.”
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Barbara Thompson and Fred Jenkins – ExtraCare Charitable Trust / SWNS
Barbara Thompson and Fred Jenkins found love at the gym – ExtraCare Charitable Trust via SWNS
A pair of retirees who both lost their partners have fallen in love again at age 88—after meeting among the barbells at the gym.
Now widowed, Barbara Thompson and Fred Jenkins said they’d never expected to find love again after their long-term partners both passed away.
Barbara moved into the Oscott Retirement Village in Birmingham ten years ago after losing her husband to cancer.
Fred, a former Army PT instructor whose wife died three years ago, met Barbara in the gym during a workout session with her friend.
The friend stopped going, but Barbara kept turning up—and Fred began coaching her.
Before long, the pair were inseparable and their romance blossomed, bringing companionship, laughter, and a whole new adventure.
“When my wife passed away, I just thought that that’s the end of the world now,” said Fred. “You marry, you’ve got a partner, if they pass, that’s it, done and dusted and you’re on your own.
“I never ever thought in my wildest dreams that I would ever have another partner and neither did Barbara.
“We were lonely and then we found each other… It’s a whole new ball game.”
Barbara Thompson and Fred Jenkins working out – By ExtraCare Charitable Trust / SWNS
Barbara started going to the gym when a friend asked her to come along for moral support. Fred, a former physical training instructor with a lifelong passion for weights and exercise, began coaching them.
Though her friend stopped going, Barbara showed up every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and their friendship grew.
Barbara, who turned 89 last week, said, “We laughed a lot and we joked a lot and I started looking forward to going to the gym.”
Now the lovebirds spend almost every day side by side, hitting the gym three times a week, playing darts and dominoes, gardening together, and dancing whenever music comes on.
Recently, they traveled on their first vacation together as a couple.
“We had our courtship with our partners and our marriages, but this seems a totally different thing.
“Fred’s done a lot of different things he never did before since he’s been with me.”
Despite finding love, the pair have no plans to tie the knot or move in together.
Barbara Thompson and Fred Jenkins – ExtraCare Charitable Trust / SWNS
Instead, they continue living in their own apartments and enjoy the best of both worlds—spending most of their time together while keeping their independence.
Barbara believes their heartwarming love story proves it’s never too late for a second shot at happiness.
“Sometimes it’s hard. People live in the past, they’ve been married, they’ve lost a partner. It’s easy to give up sometimes, isn’t it?
“But we’ve suddenly found a new lease of life.”
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