When You Board This Philadelphia Trolley, the Driver Makes Sure You Leave with A Smile – (WATCH)

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Mar 31, 2025

A SEPTA railcar - credit SEPTA, retrieved from Facebook

It’s a wise man or woman who treats strangers with kindness because of the old maxim that you don’t know what kind of day they’re having.

For Tracey Holms-Williams, a Philadelphia trolley operator, that’s more than just a maxim—it’s her Modus Operandi.

Working for the Southeast Philadelphia Transportation Authority (SEPTA) for 26 years, Tracey does her best to help both people and kindness get around the city.

“You’re coming into my house,” Holms-Williams told ABC 6 WPVI in front of her trolley. “So you’re coming into my house, I want to greet you, I want to make you feel good, I want you to have a nice time.”

“Sometimes I’ll say ‘Hold up, don’t get on yet, I’ve got to roll out the red carpet!'”

SEPTA sees an average passenger load of around 750,000 per day, but it’s only a few hundred who will hop on Holms-Williams’ trolley and enjoy all the positive and uplifting quotes and posters pasted on the inside; part of her dedication to inspiring the whole city to keep its chin up.

OTHER PEOPLE LIKE THIS: Florida Man Deploys ‘Subliminal’ Advertising to Incite Happiness Through Viral Sign-Hanging Campaign

Holms-Williams sees herself and her colleagues as being on “the front lines” of civic mindset, and as such, wants to treat everyone to a laugh or a smile.

“I just try to make everybody feel good,” she says. “I put the positive quotes up there to inspire people because you never know what kind of day they’re having.”

WATCH the video below from ABC 7…

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“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Quote of the Day

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Mar 31, 2025

Trees in meadow fields crops-pubdomain Dawid Zawiła qjn-wog02kY-unsplash — Dawid Zawiła – Unsplash

Quote of the Day: “Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Photo by: Polina Kuzovkova / Unsplash+

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

Good News in History, March 31

This Day In History

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Mar 31, 2025

The Meaning of Life theatrical release poster - fair use

42 years ago today, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life was released in the United States to modest box office success and enormous cult acclaim. Less of a continuous film like the comedy troupe’s previous Life of Brain, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail and more of a collection of sketches, The Meaning of Life is divided into various chapters of a human life, but begins when six fish in a restaurant fish tank watch one of their friends get taken for dinner and start wondering “what’s it all for?” READ more about this hilarious film from the comedy masters… (1983)

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Researchers Discover New Mechanism for Rapid Liver Regeneration to Restore Damaged Livers

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Mar 30, 2025

Liver disease transplant doctor Getty Images For Unsplash+ PCcG8ouwzPQ — Getty Images for Unsplash+

Researchers at the National Cancer Research Centre in Spain (CNIO) have discovered a mechanism that is triggered just minutes after acute liver damage occurs—and it could lead to treatments for those with severe liver problems.

The avenues for future treatments of liver damage include a diet enriched with the amino acid glutamate.

“Glutamate supplementation can promote liver regeneration and benefit patients in recovery following hepatectomy or awaiting a transplant,” wrote the authors in a paper published in ‘Nature’.

The liver is a vital organ, crucial to digestion, metabolism, and the elimination of toxins. It has a unique ability to regenerate, which allows it to replace liver cells damaged by the very toxins that these cells eliminate.

However, the liver stops regenerating in cases of diseases that involve chronic liver damage–such as cirrhosis—and such diseases are becoming increasingly prevalent, associated with poor dietary habits or alcohol consumption. So activating liver regeneration is key to treating the disease.

Learning to activate liver regeneration is therefore a priority today, to benefit patients with liver damage and also those who’ve had part of their liver cut out to remove a tumor.

The research has discovered in animal models this previously unknown mechanism of liver regeneration. It is a process that is triggered very quickly, just a few minutes after acute liver damage occurs, with the amino acid glutamate playing a key role.

“Our results describe a fundamental and universal mechanism that allows the liver to regenerate after acute damage,” explained Nabil Djouder, head of the CNIO Growth Factors, Nutrients and Cancer Group and senior author of the study.

ANOTHER BREAKTHROUGH: Edible Carbon Beads Can Reduce Cirrhosis Liver Disease By Restoring Gut Microbiome

A “complex and ingenious” perspective on liver regeneration

Liver regeneration was known to occur through the proliferation of liver cells, known as hepatocytes. However, the molecular mechanisms involved were not fully understood. This current discovery is very novel, as it describes communication between two different organs, the liver and bone marrow, involving the immune system, according to a CINO news release.

The results show that liver and bone marrow are interconnected by glutamate. After acute liver damage, liver cells, called hepatocytes, produce glutamate and send it into the bloodstream; through the blood, glutamate reaches the bone marrow, inside the bones, where it activates monocytes, a type of immune system cell. Monocytes then travel to the liver and along the way become macrophages – also immune cells. The presence of glutamate reprograms the metabolism of macrophages, and these consequently begin to secrete a growth factor that leads to an increase in hepatocyte production.

In other words, a rapid chain of events allows glutamate to trigger liver regeneration in just minutes, through changes in the macrophage metabolism. It is, says Djouder, “a new, complex and ingenious perspective on how the liver stimulates its own regeneration.”

The research also clarifies a previously unanswered question: how the various areas of the liver are coordinated during regeneration. In the liver, there are different types of hepatocytes, organized in different areas; the hepatocytes in each area perform specific metabolic functions. The study reveals that hepatocytes producing a protein known as glutamine synthetase, which regulates glutamate levels, play a key role in regeneration.

MORE PROGRESS: Tumor-Destroying Sound Waves Treatment Coming to a Hospital Near You For Liver Cancer

According to the CNIO group, when glutamine synthetase is inhibited, there is more glutamate in circulation, which accelerates liver regeneration. This is what happens when the liver suffers acute damage: glutamine synthase activity decreases, blood glutamate increases, and from there, the connection with the bone marrow is established, reprogramming macrophages and stimulating hepatocyte proliferation.

Possible therapeutic applications

The experiments have been carried out in mice, but the results have been tested with bioinformatics tools, using databases of mouse and human hepatocytes.

According to Djouder, “dietary glutamate supplementation may simply be recommended in the future after liver extirpation, and also to reduce liver damage caused by cirrhosis.”

CAFFEINE ALERT: Coffee is Now Linked to Reduced Risk of Many Ailments, Including Liver Disease, Parkinson’s, Melanoma, Even Suicide

The first author of the paper, CNIO researcher María del Mar Rigual also wants future research to explore using glutamate supplements in humans who have undergone liver resection for tumor removal.

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Neighbors Celebrate 101st Birthday On the Same Day–Living Next Door to Each Other For 4 Decades

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Mar 30, 2025

Neighbors Josie Church (L) and Anne Wallace-Hadrill outside their homes in Oxford will celebrate their 101st birthdays on April 1 - SWNS

Two longtime English neighbors are celebrating their joint 101st birthday, born on the same day in 1924.

Josie Church and Anne Wallace-Hadrill have lived side-by-side in Oxford since the 1980s, and the great-grans have celebrated their birthdays together for years.

“I think life has gone quite quickly,” said Josie. “I don’t think we’ve thought much about the time passing. It’s just passed.”

Both women threw themselves into volunteering and creative activities after their husbands died—and the women have been fast friends ever since.

“Anne was very busy when she was younger—so was I—always very productive and creative.

“She did a lot of painting and tapestry, and she was always busy, and I was always busy doing something else, somewhere else, because that’s the sort of life we live.”

Anne, studied English at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford University, and served in the Women’s Royal Naval Service as a radio mechanic during the Second World War. After graduating, she worked as a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary.

“I was always interested in words. It was my trade.”

She was very proud to receive a medal for her service from the Royal Navy last year, described as “long overdue” by the representative who gave it to her.

Anne Wallace-Hadrill (R) and Josie Church – SWNS

Josie was trained in nursing for three years at Preston Royal Infirmary and remembers the introduction of the National Health Service.

“In those days,” Josie said, “You had to live (on campus) and you couldn’t get married, and it was very strict. People wouldn’t put up with that sort of life now.”

FUN OLDSTERS: 3 Friends All Over 100 Reveal Secrets to Long Life, ‘Happiness, Staying Active and Keep a Boy Toy Nearby’

Her time in nursing during the Second World War included a “chilling” experience of caring for SS German soldiers she described as “very difficult patients who didn’t wish to be taken care of by us.”

She moved with her husband to Oxford so he could continue his degree after the war.

“Oxford was very strange because each college had a large intake of older people who’d gone through the war and were taking up their university places. So you’d get the old men and then the young 18-year-olds coming in from school.”

They don’t remember the moment they discovered they had the same birthday but they especially enjoyed the celebration of their centennial year arranged for 2024.

LOOK: Memories Came Flooding Back When Dementia Patient Gets to Relive his Career in a 1960s Ambulance and Uniform

“We live on the most amazing road. It’s like one big, extended family,” said Josie, mom of three “wonderful” children.

“Everybody knows everybody else. If you have a problem, you just give a shout and somebody will come. I think we are lucky.”

When asked by the SWNS news agency what tips they might give for leading a long life, Josie concluded: “Just live.”

WATCH: Older Gentleman Steals Dance Floor With Flawless Michael Jackson Moves: Age is Just a Number

“You do what seems to be needing doing, and then you do that—and then something else takes its place. You just go on from one thing to another.

“We don’t engineer our lives. I think they’ve just engineered us.”

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76-Year-old Metal Detectorist Discovers Ultra-Rare Roman Coin After 6 Years of Searching in Farmer’s Field

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Mar 30, 2025

Metal detectorist Ron Walters with rare gold Roman coin from 69AD - SWNS — Metal detectorist Ron Walters with rare gold Roman coin from 69AD (SWNS)

A gold Roman coin believed to be the first of its kind ever found in Britain fetched thousands at auction after being unearthed by a devoted metal detectorist.

Ron Walters finally struck gold after six years of searching the same farmer’s field near Dudley, West Midlands, every spring and autumn when the crops weren’t sown.

The retired welder said he stumbled across the rare Roman coin, which dates back to 69AD, on a day when he was almost going to stay home.

“I was going to go one Thursday and decided against it. It was my wife who basically told me to ‘bugger off and get out the house for a bit’,” said the 76-year-old grandfather.

“I was glad I did. I was out for a couple of hours and I picked a signal up. I started digging a bit, but then I lost the signal.

“I managed to get this reading again from a clod of earth about 2ft away from me, I broke it open and then this coin dropped into my hand.”

It is believed to be the first gold aureus of emperor Aulus Vitellius to ever be recorded as a find in the British Isles.

Metal detectorist Ron Walters holds rare gold Roman coin from 69AD – SWNS

“My heart was racing, I just popped it in my pocket and went straight back home.

“In metal detecting circles a Roman coin is probably among the best things you can find—that or Ancient English gold.

MORE FINDS: Metal Detective Finds Farmer’s Rolex–50 Years After it was Eaten by a Cow

“I can only imagine a soldier travelled with it, possibly via France.”

The 1,955-year-old coin was auctioned this week by Fieldings Auctioneers and fetched $6,000, which the Kingswinford man will split with the field’s landowner.

Mark Hannam, senior coin specialist at Fieldings said the coin was a genuinely amazing find and “a unique piece of history.”

“To find a coin from 69AD is incredibly rare, as most coins we find in this country are from the third and fourth centuries, and we are talking about a time when the gold was at its purest level.

KEEP DIGGING:
• 7th C. Sword With Gold Handle Found by Elderly Lady in Field That Metal Detector Pros Said was Empty
• Despite Faulty Metal Detector, Treasure Hunter Unearths Largest Gold Nugget Ever Found in England

“The fact that this one has escaped ploughing in the ground for over 1,900 years and the coin is still in excellent condition is quite remarkable.”

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Boy Starts Nonprofit and Recycles 625,000 Batteries by Age 15 With Hundreds of Youth Joining in

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Mar 30, 2025

Nihal Tammana-courtesy Recycle My Battery — Nihal Tammana –Recycle My Battery

When Nihal Tammana was just 10 years old, he heard a news report about a lithium-ion battery exploding at a waste disposal plant—and when he learned about the environmental risks of batteries being left in landfills, he decided to do something.

Tammana started the nonprofit, Recycle My Battery, and now, at 15 years old, he has already recycled over 625,000 batteries—and placed over 1,000 battery bins in schools, libraries, and businesses to make recycling easier.

Anyone can now visit RecycleMyBattery.org for instructions on how to make their schools and businesses battery recycling heroes.

The teen from Monroe, New Jersey, has expanded his impact beyond the United States, too. Tammana’s story and mission were recently featured in a German educational textbook, integrating battery recycling advocacy into school curriculums.

He is also teaming up with B-cycle, Australia’s largest battery recycling company, so the country can adopt his initiative to place battery bins in schools nationwide.

Lately, Nihal is working on a Residual Charge Project, developing a prototype (that was confirmed by a University of Waterloo expert) to extract leftover energy from used batteries that could power the battery recycling plants.

Engaging its 1,000 youth volunteers globally, Recycle My Battery is educating the public about the destructive effects of throwing batteries in with your trash. The nonprofit researched the effects of a normal alkaline battery, such as Duracell, on soil quality. The degrading battery dramatically increased salt levels, rendering the soil toxic, with an alarming pH of 13.01—far beyond the range suitable for any vegetation.

With its goal of recycling 1 million batteries by the end of the year through initiatives like The Battery Challenge, which gamifies school participation, Tammana invites communities and organizations to join the effort. From setting up battery bins to spreading awareness, every action contributes to a cleaner, healthier planet.

ANOTHER GREAT KID: 10-Year-old Paramedic Teaches Adults Lifesaving Skills and CPR as ‘The Mini Medic’

“If I can make the Earth a better place to live, you can…. If you can, we all can,” said Tammana.

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“Happy comes from you. No one else can make you happy. You make you happy.” – Beyoncé

Quote of the Day

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Mar 30, 2025

girl happy relax content Polina Kuzovkova For Unsplash+ PT3ElxRQ1VM — Polina Kuzovkova for Unsplash+

Quote of the Day: “Happy comes from you. No one else can make you happy. You make you happy.” – Beyoncé

Photo by: Polina Kuzovkova / Unsplash+

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

Good News in History, March 30

This Day In History

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Mar 30, 2025

Happy 80th Birthday to Eric Clapton, the blues-rock musician, singer, and songwriter that Rolling Stone magazine named the second greatest guitar player of all time. The British rocker was a founding member of the Yardbirds, Derek and the Dominos, and Cream, and produced huge hits like Layla, Crossroads, and Let It Rain. He survived heroin addiction to launch a successful solo career and open his own recovery center for addicts in Antigua, called the Crossroads Centre. READ more about the great guitarist… (1945)

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Neptune’s Long-Hidden Auroras Are Captured for the First Time–While Revealing a New Mystery

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Mar 29, 2025

Neptune auroral activity from NASA Hubble Space Telescope-Released — NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captures Neptune auroral activity, with cyan splotches showing auroral activity with white clouds (released by NASA/ESA/CSA/ STScI

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captures Neptune auroral activity, with green splotches showing auroral activity alongside white clouds (released by NASA/ESA/CSA/ STScI/Heidi Hammel (AURA), Henrik Melin, Leigh Fletcher, and Stefanie Milam, NASA-GSFC)

NASA’s Webb Space Telescope was finally able to capture bright auroras on Neptune—the most distant planet in our solar system.

“In the past, astronomers have seen tantalizing hints of auroral activity on Neptune, for example, in the flyby of NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1989,” said the space agency this week.

“However, imaging and confirming the auroras on Neptune has long evaded astronomers despite successful detections on Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus.”

Auroras occur when energetic particles, often originating from the Sun, become trapped in a planet’s magnetic field and eventually strike the upper atmosphere. The energy released during these collisions creates the signature glow known on Earth as the Northern Lights.

Henrik Melin of Northumbria University, lead author of the paper published in Nature Astronomy, conducted the research while at the University of Leicester.

“It was so stunning to not just see the auroras, but the detail and clarity of the signature really shocked me.”

MORE AMAZING SPACE PICS: Mysterious Rainbow-like ‘Glory Lights’ Observed on Planet Outside Our Solar System for First Time Ever

Actually, imaging the auroral activity on Neptune was only possible with Webb’s near-infrared sensitivity.

The auroral activity seen on Neptune is also noticeably different from what we are accustomed to seeing here on Earth, or even Jupiter or Saturn. Instead of being confined to the planet’s northern and southern poles, Neptune’s auroras are located at the planet’s geographic mid-latitudes — think where South America is located on Earth.

(Left) Neptune from NASA’s Hubble Telescope (Right) Previous image combined with data from James Webb Space Telescope, with green splotches showing auroral activity along with white clouds – Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Heidi Hammel (AURA), Henrik Melin, Leigh Fletcher, and Stefanie Milam (NASA-GSFC)

This is due to the strange nature of Neptune’s magnetic field, originally discovered by Voyager 2 in 1989 which is tilted by 47 degrees from the planet’s rotation axis. Since auroral activity is based where the magnetic fields converge into the planet’s atmosphere, Neptune’s auroras are far from its rotational poles.

“This observatory has finally opened the window onto this last, previously hidden ionosphere of the giant planets,” said Leigh Fletcher of Leicester University and co-author of the paper.

“As we look ahead and dream of future missions to Uranus and Neptune, we now know how important it will be to have instruments tuned to the wavelengths of infrared light to continue to study the auroras.

But the study also revealed another mystery, as the team measured the temperature of the top of Neptune’s atmosphere for the first time since Voyager 2’s flyby.

“I was astonished — Neptune’s upper atmosphere has cooled by several hundreds of degrees,” Melin said. “In fact, the temperature in 2023 was just over half of that in 1989.”

JUST, WOW! Long Ago The Earth May Have Had a Ring Like Saturn–As Astroids Defied All Odds Hitting Only Around Equator

Through the years, astronomers have predicted the intensity of Neptune’s auroras based on the temperature recorded by Voyager 2, and a substantially colder temperature would result in much fainter auroras. This cold temperature is likely the reason that Neptune’s auroras have remained undetected for so long. The dramatic cooling also suggests that this region of the atmosphere can change greatly even though the planet sits over 30 times farther from the Sun compared to Earth.

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Hummingbird Chicks Observed for the First Time Pretending to be Caterpillars to Avoid Being Eaten

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Mar 29, 2025

White-necked jacobin hummingbird chick -Credit Scott Taylor for CU Boulder — White-necked jacobin hummingbird chick - Credit: Scott Taylor / CU Boulder

White-necked jacobin hummingbird chick – Credit: Scott Taylor / CU Boulder

When Jay Falk and Scott Taylor first saw the white-necked Jacobin hummingbird chick in Panama’s dense rainforest, the bird biologists didn’t know what they were looking at.

The day-old bird, smaller than a pinky finger, had brown fuzz all over its body. When Falk and Taylor walked closer to the nest, the chick began twitching and shaking its head—a behavior they had never seen in birds before. (See the video below…)

It turns out the hummingbird might fend off predators by mimicking a poisonous caterpillar that lives in the same region. In a new paper published March 17 in Ecology, Taylor, associate professor at University of Colorado Boulder, and his team described this unusual mimicry behavior for the first time in hummingbirds.

“We know so little about what nesting birds do in the tropics,” said Falk, the paper’s first author and postdoctoral fellow in Taylor’s lab. “But if we put more effort into observing the natural world, we might discover these kinds of behavior are very common.”

The tropical rainforest is a dangerous place for small birds, said Falk, who’s also a researcher at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Snakes, monkeys, birds, and even insects all prey on them.

So how can tiny hummingbird chicks survive? Falk and his team may have stumbled upon the answer during a trip to Soberanía National Park in Panama last year.

Despite the birds’ frequent visits to Falk’s feeders outside his research station in Panama, Falk had never seen a white-necked jacobin chick or its nest before.

White-necked jacobin hummingbird incubating its eggs –Credit: Michael Castaño-Díaz

But last March, his Smithsonian colleague Michael Castaño and Sebastian Gallan-Giraldo at the University of Antioquia in Colombia (both co-authors on the paper) discovered a female jacobin hummingbird incubating an egg in its nest, not far from a forest trail. The tiny well-camouflaged nest was made of plant parts to blend in perfectly with the surrounding environment.

Over the following month, the team closely monitored the nest and witnessed a chick hatch from the egg. Unlike most hummingbirds that are born naked, the jacobin chick was covered in long brown feathers, looking nearly identical to the nest material.

That’s when the team witnessed the chick’s unusual jerking behavior. Scientists had never reported a similar behavior in any other hummingbird species.

“I started texting a video to people and asking them, ‘What does this look like?’” said Taylor. “And invariably, they said, ‘That looks like a caterpillar.’ It was very exciting.”

On the second day after the egg hatched, the team saw a predatory wasp approach the chick when the mother was away. As the wasp hovered above the nest, the chick started to twitch its body vigorously like it had for the researchers, swinging its head from side to side. A few seconds later, the wasp flew away.

AMAZING: Rare Hummingbird That Sings is Rediscovered in Colombia Cloaked in Iridescent Blue and Green

The jacobin hummingbird chick reminded Falk and Taylor of a paper they’d seen previously reporting that a young cinereous mourner, a songbird native to the Amazonian rainforest, might resemble toxic orange caterpillars from the region by having a bright orange coat and waving its head from side to side when disturbed.

In this region of Panama, it turns out that many caterpillars have brown hairs that can give painful stings to predators and even kill them. Some of these caterpillars also shake their heads when they feel threatened, much like the chick.

Scientists refer to this survival strategy of mimicking a harmful species as Batesian mimicry. For example, some non-venomous milk snakes have developed a pattern of red, yellow and black coloring similar to that of venomous coral snakes to ward off predators.

“A lot of these really classic examples of Batesian mimicry involve butterflies mimicking other butterflies, or snakes mimicking other snakes. But here, we have a bird potentially mimicking an insect, a vertebrate mimicking an invertebrate,” Taylor said.

WATCH AND LISTEN: 2000 Microphones Unlock the Mystery of Why Hummingbirds Hum: ‘Like a Beautifully-tuned Instrument’

While the study described a single observation, the researchers hope to test their theory in the future through experiments like placing artificial chicks with different looks and behaviors in nests to see which are more likely to be attacked by predators. They also hope to encourage birdwatchers and citizen scientists to document more hummingbird nests.

(Source: Science writer Yvaine Ye / University of Colorado Boulder)

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Dad Drove Around With 1M Lottery Ticket in His Car for 4 Months–Until He Needed Chips

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Mar 29, 2025

Greenskeeper Darren Burfitt and wife Gemma won 1M lottery – SWNS

A lottery player has been driving around with the EuroMillions winning ticket in his car for over four months, until it was so crumpled it was unscannable.

Darren Burfitt finally claimed his jackpot after checking multiple tickets that had been left in his unlocked vehicle the entire time.

He only retrieved them when his four-year-old son wanted some chips, which he also had in the car.

“I didn’t want to open a new bag,” said the 44-year-old from Swansea, Wales. “He often ends up with half-open bags and I knew there was a packet which he hadn’t finished in the car so I told him I would pop out and get that one for him.”

“I decided to grab my National Lottery tickets at the same time, and started to scan each one on the lottery app on my phone.”

For months, Darren’s family and friends had repeatedly teased him to check his tickets after an appeal went out across the city to find a missing millionaire from the EuroMillions draw last year.

The greens-keeper at Langland Bay Golf Club told reporters he had a few tickets in the central console of his grey Citroen. “I just hadn’t got round to checking them.”

He perked up when one of the tickets pinged as he scanned it and discovered he had won almost five dollars.

“One of the tickets was particularly creased so I thought I would leave that one until the end. It was so crumpled it wouldn’t scan, so I had to bring up the draw details and read the results.”

The father of two was stunned to discover he had become an instant millionaire.

“I couldn’t quite believe it…. In fact, I still cannot believe it now. I just kept looking at the date and then the matching Millionaire Maker code – and then the date and the code again. I just could not comprehend what I was seeing.”

LOTTERY LOVER: Lottery Winner Pledges Part of $328 Million Prize to Nonprofits, Winning Ticket Seller Does the Same

As the news sunk in, it dawned on Darren that because he leaves his car unlocked anyone could have run off with his jackpot winner.

“My car is honestly a shed on wheels, held together with mud. It has almost no value, so I never bother to lock it! I dread to think what could have happened to that winning ticket.”

Darren’s wife, Gemma, a teaching assistant, was away overnight when he discovered his win.

“When I called Gemma my voice was shaking so much, she was convinced something had happened to one of the children.

The couple, who also have a six-year-old daughter, are now excitedly planning their future and have their sights set on buying their first home. Darren also wants a new pick-up truck to replace his car which is proving unreliable for the family.

“The kids will love the pick-up and it will enable us to go on even more adventures as a family.”

GOOD KARMA: 5-Year-old Who Emptied Piggybank for Earthquake Relief Now Wins $48Mil Lottery Jackpot at 18

In fact, he bought the ticket on their drive to a family vacation.

“I literally have to keep pinching myself, says Gemma. “thinking it is a dream which I will wake up from.

“It changes everything and we can finally buy a home of our own. It is going to give us so much security for our future and our children’s future.

The couple talked to reporters ahead of a record-breaking EuroMillions jackpot that saw history made on Friday, as a man from Austria, Kronen Zeitung, claimed the biggest-ever total to date—an astounding £209 million ($250M)—after buying a single $10 ticket.

CHANGED HER LIFE: Irish Woman Who Won $145M Lottery Has Given Away Over Half: ‘I’m Addicted to Helping People’

Your Weekly Horoscope from ‘Free Will Astrology’ by Rob Brezsny

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Mar 29, 2025

Our partner Rob Brezsny, who has a new book out, Astrology Is Real: Revelations from My Life as an Oracle, provides his weekly wisdom to enlighten our thinking and motivate our mood. Rob’s Free Will Astrology, is a syndicated weekly column appearing in over a hundred publications. He is also the author of Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How All of Creation Is Conspiring To Shower You with Blessings. (A free preview of the book is available here.)

Here is your weekly horoscope…

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY – Week of March 29, 2025
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com

ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Ancient Rome’s emperor Julius Caesar undertook a radical move to fix the calendar, which had become increasingly inaccurate as the centuries passed. He added three months to the year 46 BCE, which as a result was 445 days long. I’m thinking that 2025 might seem equally long for you, Aries. Your destiny may feel like it’s taking forever to unfold. APRIL FOOL! I totally lied. In fact, I think 2025 will be one of your briskest, crispest years ever. Your adventures will be spiced with alacrity. Your efforts will be efficient and expeditious. You may sometimes be amazed at how swiftly progress unfolds.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Guilt and fear are always useless distractions from what’s really happening. Right? APRIL FOOL! The fact is that on rare occasions, being anxious can motivate you to escape from situations that your logical mind says are tolerable. And guilt may compel you to take the right action when nothing else will. This is one time when your guilt and fear can be valuable assets.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
The German word Flüsterwitze means “whisper jokes.” These jests make taboo references and need to be delivered with utmost discretion. They may include the mockery of authority figures. Dear Gemini, I recommend that you suppress your wicked satire and uproarious sarcasm for a while and stick to whisper jokes. APRIL FOOL! I lied. The truth is that the world needs your outspokenness. Your ability to call out hypocrisies and expose corruption—especially with humor and wit—will keep everyone as honest as they need to be.

CANCER (June 21-July 22):
In the lead-up to the Paris-hosted 2024 Summer Olympics, the iconic Eiffel Tower was repainted gold. This was a departure from tradition, as the usual colors had been brown on the bottom and red on the top. The $60-million job took 25 painters 18 months. I recommend that you undertake an equally monumental task in the coming months, Cancerian. APRIL FOOL! I lied. In fact, I do hope you undertake a monumental task—but one that’s more substantive than changing the surfaces of things. Like revisioning your life story, for example—reinterpreting your past and changing the way it informs your future. I think you are ready to purge inessential elements and exorcize old ghosts as you prepare for a re-launch around your birthday.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
When I worked on the Duke University grounds crew years ago, I did the work I was assigned as quickly as possible. Then I would hide in the bushes, taking unauthorized breaks for an hour or two, so I could read books I loved. Was that unethical? Maybe. But the fact is, I would never have been able to complete my assigned tasks unless I allowed myself relaxation retreats. If there is an equivalent situation in your life, Leo, I urge you to do as I did. APRIL FOOL! I half-lied. The truth is that I think you should be a little less extravagant than I was—but only a little—as you create the spaciousness and slack you need.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
In his film Fitzcarraldo, Virgo director Werner Herzog tells an epic story. It includes the task of hauling a 320-ton steamship up a hill and over land, moving it from one river to another. Herzog could have relied on special effects to simulate this almost impossible project, but he didn’t. With a system of pulleys and a potent labor force, he made it happen. I urge you to try your equivalent of Herzog’s heroic conquest, Virgo. You will be able to summon more power and help than you can imagine. APRIL FOOL! I half-lied. While it’s true that you will be able to summon more power and help than you can imagine, I still think you should at least partially rely on the equivalent of special effects.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Researchers discovered that Egyptian fruit bats engage in extensive communication with each other while nesting in their roosts. Surprisingly, they talk about their problems a lot. In fact, they quarrel 60 percent of the time. Areas of disagreement include food allocation, positions within the sleep cluster, and males initiating unwanted mating moves. Let’s make these bats your power creatures. The astrological omens say it’s time for you to argue more than you have ever argued. APRIL FOOL! I was not entirely truthful. The coming weeks will be a good time to address disagreements and settle disputes, but hopefully through graceful means, not bitter arguing.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Unlike many modern poets, Scorpio-born Alice Notley rejects the notion that she must be part of any poetic lineage. She aspires “to establish or continue no tradition except one that literally can’t exist—the celebration of the singular thought sung at a particular instant in a unique voice.” She has also written, “It’s necessary to maintain a state of disobedience against everything.” She describes her work as “an immense act of rebellion against dominant social forces.” I invite you to enjoy your own version of a Notley-like phase, Scorpio. APRIL FOOL! I lied. In fact, I encourage you to enjoy a Notley-like phase beginning May 1. But for now, I invite you to be extra attentive in cultivating all the ways you can benefit from honoring your similarities and connections with others.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is a standardized test that many American high school students take to prove their worth to colleges. The highest possible score is achieved by fewer than one percent of test-takers. We might imagine that earning such a premium grade must guarantee admission to any school, but it doesn’t. During one five-year period, for example, Stanford University rejected 69 percent of applicants with the highest possible score. I’m sorry to predict that a comparable experience might be ahead for you, Sagittarius. Even if you are your best and brightest self, you may be denied your rightful reward. APRIL FOOL! I totally lied. Here’s my real, true prediction: In the coming weeks, I believe you will be your best and brightest self—and will win your rightful reward.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
The visible part of an iceberg is typically just 10 percent of its total size. Most is hidden beneath the sea’s surface. References to “the tip of the iceberg” have become a staple metaphor in many cultures, signifying situations that are not what they seem. Of all the zodiac tribes, Scorpios are renowned for their expertise in discerning concealed agendas and missing information. The rest of us tend to be far less skillful. APRIL FOOL! I fibbed. These days, you Capricorns are even more talented than Scorpios at looking beyond the obvious and becoming aware of the concealed roots and full context.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
In the coming weeks, I advise you to be like the 19^th-century poet Emily Dickinson. She lived in quiet seclusion, corresponding through letters instead of socializing. She seemed content to write her poems all alone in her home and be unconcerned about trying to get them published. APRIL FOOL! I lied. Here’s my real horoscope: Now is a highly favorable time for you to shmooze with intensity at a wide range of social occasions, both to get all the educational prods you need and to advance your ambitions.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Some systems and situations improve and thrive in response to stress and errors. Indeed, some things need strain or irregularity to be fully healthy. For example, human bodies require a certain amount of stress to develop a resistance to infection. In reading the astrological omens, I conclude you now need stimulation like that. APRIL FOOL! I lied. Here’s the truth: August of 2025 will be a great time for you to harvest the benefits of benevolent stress. But for now, your forte will be the capacity to avoid and resist stress, confusion, and errors.

WANT MORE? Listen to Rob’s EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES, 4-5 minute meditations on the current state of your destiny — or subscribe to his unique daily text message service at: RealAstrology.com

(Zodiac images by Numerologysign.com, CC license)

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“The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.” – L.R. Knost

Quote of the Day

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Good News Network

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Mar 29, 2025

heart light sunbeam sunset ocean love forgiveness-pubdomain Jay Antol — Jay Antol

Quote of the Day: “The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.” – L.R. Knost

Photo by: Jay Antol

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Good News in History, March 29

This Day In History

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Good News Network

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Mar 29, 2025

The Royal Albert Hall as seen from Prince Consort Road - credit Diego Delson, CC 4.0. BY SA

154 years ago today, the Royal Albert Hall opened in London and quickly became one of the world’s most prestigious concert spaces. It hosts more than 390 shows in the main auditorium annually, including classical, rock and pop concerts, ballet, opera, film screenings with live orchestral accompaniment, sports, awards ceremonies, school and community events, and charity performances and banquets, with another 450 shows in the secondary halls and spaces. READ more about this famous venue’s historical highlights… (1871)

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Green Startup Boston Metal Now Has All the Ingredients Needed to Make Steel Without Emitting Too Much CO2

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Andy Corbley

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Mar 28, 2025

Molten iron pours from Boston Steel's electical reactor - credit, Boston Steel, screengrab

Molten iron pours from Boston Steel’s electrical reactor – credit, Boston Steel, screengrab

An MIT-startup has found a way to commercialize steel production by the ton using electricity rather than a CO2-emitting blast furnace, promising the beginning of decarbonization in one of humanity’s most carbon-intensive industries.

Called Boston Metal, their industrial-scale production facility can make a ton of steel per month using a technique called molten oxide electrolysis (MOE), which if powered by renewable energy would suddenly make the process a carbon-neutral one, since MOE produces oxygen, not CO2, as emissions.

Human civilization produces around 2 billion tons of steel, accompanied by 3 billion tons of CO2 every year. It’s safe to say that if industries like steel and concrete production don’t see significant amelioration in their carbon footprint, existing climate mitigation efforts will be meaningless.

To that end, Boston Metal was founded in 2013 to scale up and eventually commercialize MOE, a process that was itself developed at MIT.

Steelmaking typically involves a blast furnace, which uses a coal-based fuel called coke to drive the reactions needed to turn iron ore into iron. The carbon in coke combines with oxygen pulled out of the iron ore, which gets released as carbon dioxide.

Inside Boston Metal’s industrial-scale plant, MOE relies on reactors containing multiple large anodes which run an electrical current through the reactor chamber loaded with iron ore. The current raises temperatures to 2,900° Fahrenheit, turning the iron molten.

MORE MATERIALS NEWS: New Low-Carbon Concrete Outperforms Today’s Highway Material While Cutting Costs in Minnesota

The electrical demands are significant, and MIT Tech Review reporting on Boston Metal’s efforts notes that solar, wind, or nuclear would be needed for the process to be decarbonized, however, considering the larger output, nuclear would be the only viable power source for the kinds of green steel production needed to push out blast furnaces—the kind that can produce billions of tons per annum.

DECARBONIZING RAIL TRAVEL: Hitachi Rail Develops Battery Unit Set to Decarbonize Rail Travel on Retrofitted Trains

Boston Metal has been at this for 12 years, and the brains behind it admit that 1 ton of steel per month is not economically feasible. Instead, a demonstration plant that can produce 1 ton per day should come online in late 2026 and begin operation in 2027, at which point they believe they’ll be able to license their technology to manufacturers.

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‘Exceptional’ Hoard of 800 Iron Age Artifacts Found Mysteriously Burned and Buried in UK Field

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Andy Corbley

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Mar 28, 2025

Over 800 artifacts from the early Iron Age were included in the hoard - credit Durham University

One of the “largest and most important” hoards of Iron Age artifacts ever found in England has recently been cleaned, studied, and presented to the media.

It demonstrates a previously unknown level of wealth and trading connections typically associated with the southern Britons at this time, but not generally thought of to be present in the north.

Called the Melsonby Hoard after the name of the town in which it was found, it was discovered in North Yorkshire by a metal detective named Peter Heads who secured permission from a landowner to survey a field.

After he discovered the items, Mr. Heads contacted the government as is done in England according to the Treasure Act. Tom Moore, a professor and head of the Department of Archaeology at Durham University and part of the team that excavated and examined the hoard, called it “exceptional for Britain and probably even Europe.”

“Whoever originally owned the material in this hoard was probably a part of a network of elites across Britain, into Europe and even the Roman world,” he said in a statement.

The items are varied, and include two iron cauldrons, over 20 iron wagon wheel components from chariots, horse bridles and bits, ceremonial spearheads, and a large iron mirror.

The cauldron bears some similarities to examples from Leicestershire in the Midlands of England, and from Wiltshire in southern England. However, those finds are not as large as the Melsonby cauldron, which retains unique features including elaborate fish motifs depicted in the base, that are very unusual for the period.

BEST OF IRON AGE BRITAIN: Archaeologists Discover a ‘Master Blacksmith’s’ Workshop Dating to the Very Dawn of the Iron Age in Britain

The wine-mixing bowl has parallels in Etruscan vessels and is decorated with coral beads or studs and two cast copper alloy masks of human faces.

“It was only really when we went back to excavate the hoard and we opened up a much larger area that I think Peter and I, and all of the team, realized we were on to something really exciting,” Moore recalled.

MORE HOARDS: Archaeologists Discover Huge Iron Age ‘Weapon Sacrifice’ – A Curious Custom Predating Vikings

Many of the items were destroyed in what could be considered a ceremonial fashion before being buried, a curious and very European method of demonstrating wealth and perhaps honoring gods and or ancestors.

“The destruction of so many high-status objects, evident in this hoard, is also of a scale rarely seen in Iron Age Britain and demonstrates that the elites of northern Britain were just as powerful as their southern counterparts,” Moore said in a statement.

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This Painting of Lounging Lions Was Hanging in a Family’s Living Room. It Turned Out to Be an Original Delacroix

By

Andy Corbley

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Mar 28, 2025

A section of Eugène Delacroix's Study of Reclining Lions - credit Hôtel Drouot

Up for auction today at a swanky Parisian auction house will be a slightly lazy paint sketch of some lions.

But these relaxed beasts are more than they appear. As it turns out, the work entitled Study of Reclining Lions was a lost creation from one of Paris’ greatest ever modern painters: Eugène Delacroix.

The man whose hand wielded the brush that gave the world Liberty Leading the People, Delacroix also painted these 7 lions in a swirl of brown and ochre savannah, but after a 1830 sale following his death, the work disappears from records.

It turned up during an appraisal at a home in France’s central region of Touraine conducted by Malo de Lussac.

“The owners were not sure that it was a Delacroix,” de Lussac tells Agence France-Presse. “When I arrived in the living room, my gaze was attracted by his magnetism. It was very moving. Delacroix’s works are seen very regularly in museums but very little in private hands.”

Sophia Anderson at the Smithsonian Magazine reports that Delacroix loved very much to observe the tigers and lions kept in the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.

“How necessary it is to … stick one’s head out of doors and try to read from creation, which has nothing in common with cities and the works of man,” Delacroix once wrote, and Anderson shared.

OTHER LOST PAINTINGS FOUND:

Up for auction at Hôtel Drouot auctioneers, the estimate is between €200,000 and €300,000.

“Over the course of his career, Eugène Delacroix produced numerous studies of fauves [wild animals] either for their own sake or for inclusion in a scene with figures,” writes Lee Johnson in The Paintings of Eugène Delacroix: A Critical Catalogue, 1816-1831. “In 1829, he considered a composition on this theme for the Salon, hesitating whether to paint lions or tigers at rest, in contrast to the academic subjects of fighting and hunting. He finally opted for the latter, and exhibited a Young Tiger Playing with its Mother.“

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Rainforest Oil Exploration Stopped as Court Rules Uncontacted Tribes Have Right to Remain in Isolation

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Andy Corbley

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Mar 28, 2025

Penti Baihua, a Waorani Indigenous man, appears before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on August 23, 2022 - credit Inter-American Court of Human Rights

A recent court ruling from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights marks the first time an international judicial body has decided that indigenous peoples living in “voluntary isolation” have a right to do so, and that governments must act to ensure that right.

The ruling comes off the back of 20 years of activism challenging the Ecuadorian government’s encroachment on indigenous lands for oil drilling, and this, as well as other extractive activities like logging, were ruled to be intolerably disruptive to three groups living in voluntary isolation in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

International treaties protecting the rights of indigenous peoples have long been ratified at both the UN and the Organization of American States (OAS), but a case specifically determining whether a group living in voluntary isolation, which used to be called “uncontacted,” were guaranteed protection to allow them to continue doing so has never been ruled on.

While the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2009 and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2013 introduced guidelines and recommendations that included a right to choose self-isolation, neither were put into writing under international law, nor included in any treaty amendments.

As such, the Costa Rica-based court’s decision that nation-states, in this case Ecuador, must follow a “precautionary principle” when making decisions about future oil operations that may impede a group’s ability to live in self-isolation.

“This principle means that, even in the absence of scientific certainty regarding oil exploration and exploitation projects’ impacts on this territory, effective measures must be adopted to prevent serious or irreversible damage, which in this case would be the contact of these isolated populations,” said the court opinion, written in Spanish, and translated by Inside Climate News.

The three groups in question are the Tagaeri, Taromenane, and Dugakaeri, who are part of the overall Waorani peoples since they share cultural traditions and language.

Testimony was heard from a community leader of the Waorani, Penti Baihua, and two young women who at the ages of 2 and 6 were survivors of violent encroachment by oil workers who killed members of the girls’ group, forcibly introduced them to modernity, and displaced them to different parts of the Amazon.

MORE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL QUESTIONS: Tribe in Panama Wins Landmark Case Granting Them Stewardship of 400,000 Acres of Pristine Ancestral Forests

In the current case, the court ruled that a protected area the size of Delaware that was established in the early 2000s to guarantee indigenous Waorani (and others) rights was created in such a way as to leave oil exploration areas outside protection, despite being the ancestral home of Baihua and his people.

A 6-mile deep buffer zone surrounding the heart of the Tagaeri, Taromenane, and Dugakaeri’s territory called the “Intangible Zone,” has been repeatedly penetrated by extractive industries, which have built roads and other “colonial” infrastructure.

INDIGENOUS VICTORIES: Canada Agrees 200 Islands Belong to the Indigenous Haida Nation

The court ruled that Ecuador must honor the results of a 2023 referendum, in which voters chose to stop oil operations in that region indefinitely.

The court used the term “living in voluntary isolation” to reflect that fact that there are no unconctacted tribes on Earth, but perhaps as many as 200 who have seen evidence of modernity, and received minimal contact—perhaps from a related tribe that doesn’t live in isolation—and chose to remain without any interaction with the modern world either out of fear or self-interest.

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“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. With consistent hard work greatness will come.” – Dwayne Johnson

Quote of the Day

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Good News Network

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Mar 28, 2025

success climb confidence passion-pubdomain Joshua Earle — Joshua Earle

Quote of the Day: “Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. With consistent hard work greatness will come.” – Dwayne Johnson

Photo by: Joshua Earle

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?