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People Are Paid to Return Coffee Cups in This City–Spoiler Alert, it Worked

By
Andy Corbley
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A Reusable depository in Aarhus - credit Reusable
A Reusable depository in Aarhus – credit Reusable

Three years after the Danish city of Aarhus launched an initiative to cut back on carry-out coffee cups, three-quarters of a million cups have been reused.

This has resulted in €514,000 being paid out in the form of little €70-cent rebates to conscious consumers who return their coffee cups to depositories located around the city.

Reusable is now a government-backed firm that distributes thick plastic coffee cups and lids to local cafes. Large vending machine-like installations dot the city where these large cups can be returned for a rebate on the cost of the coffee.

“Through waste analysis, we discovered that 45% of waste in Aarhus came from takeaway packaging,” Simon Smedegaard Rossau, project manager for circular packaging at Aarhus Municipality, told Euro News. “This finding was a turning point.”

In 2024, hoping to address this waste stream, the company launched a three-year trial with Reusable and a Norwegian company called TOMRA which makes the collection machines.

Similar collection machines and ideas can be found in several cities in Europe, but Aarhus took an open-air approach, putting the machines in popular shopping areas and places that are thick with coffee shops.

45 city cafes were brought under the banner of the initiative upon its launch to try and get the word out as fast as possible to change mindsets. During the city’s week-long festival Aarhus Uke in September, event concession companies agreed to exclusively use the Reusable cups.

By the end of the event, 100,000 cups had been used and returned, an amount that would fill up 1,200 wheeled curbside trash bins. Rossau said it had a big impact.

OTHER DANISH IDEAS: Pick Up Litter and Get Free Stuff in Copenhagen This Summer Through Eco-Conscious Rewards Program

“We now see shifts in behavior. We see people going with bags full of cups, which means they recycle in bulk, like for cans and bottles,” says Rossau. “Now we can see the return rate is 88% which means a cup is reused 44 times.”

14 metric tons of plastic were saved during the program, which saw 235,000 more cups used and deposited in the first year than had been anticipated. The next goal is to see if these cups could be used and deposited 1.5 million times.

MORE INNOVATIVE REUSE PROGRAMS: This Startup Is Using Dead Leaves to Make Paper Without Cutting Trees

Aarhus is a smaller city, and the program’s stakeholders hope to expand outward into suburban communities where Aarhus commuters may live, as well as to add other kinds of food and beverage packaging to the program.

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Runner Completes 268 Mile Race–18 Months After Being Unable to Walk Due to Brain Condition

By
Andy Corbley
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Mel Sykes running the 268-mile Spine Race – SWNS
Mel Sykes running the 268-mile Spine Race – SWNS

A brave podiatrist couldn’t walk in a straight line after being struck down by a rare brain condition 18 months ago, but having just completed a 268-mile ultramarathon in less than a week, it’s safe to say she’s found her feet again.

The inspirational Mel Sykes, 42, was diagnosed with a Chiari malformation after losing her balance and slurring her speech in the summer of 2023.

The condition sees the lower part of the brain push down into the spinal canal and brain stem, often causing double vision and balance problems.

Mel was always a keen runner and had previously taken part in 100-mile foot races—something she wasn’t ready to give up doing. Undergoing surgery to reduce the pressure on her brain, she was told there was a chance that she may never run again.

But she has defied the odds just 18 months after surgery and gone on to complete the coincidentally named Spine Race, which sees participants run 268 miles from Edale, Derbyshire, to Kirk Yetholm, Scotland, in an incredible 132 hours.

“I’m absolutely over the moon,” said Sykes. “It was just amazing to reach the finish. Getting to the start was a win.”

“I enjoyed it. It was tough but I knew it was going to be hard work,” she said, describing sections of the race that required running through snow as particularly difficult.

“The first two days from Edale to Hawes it was going through deep snow drifts, plowing through snow halfway up your thighs, it was really tough going. The north section then ended up not being too bad.”

Mel Sykes resting along the race path – credit SWNS

“The bit when I was at Hadrian’s Wall, the sun was out all day, it was lovely,” she remembered.

Sykes first started suffering from double vision in 2023, and received a glasses prescription. They didn’t help, and soon it was becoming dangerous to drive. After she began experiencing pins and needles in the left side of her face, arm, and hand, she was referred to the specialist neurosurgery team at Leeds General Infirmary where she received the Chiari malformation diagnosis.

MORE INSPIRATIONAL RECOVERIES: Man Paralyzed from the Neck Down from Rare Disease Makes Incredible Recovery, Now Back at the Gym

“Mel is a really inspirational patient and has shown huge determination to recover and return to ultrarunning,” said Dr. Ian Anderson, Consultant Neurosurgeon at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, who was on Sykes’ treatment team.

“She had severe symptoms when she came to us and needed surgery urgently. “It’s fantastic to see how well she recovered—completing this race is a truly remarkable achievement.”

MORE RUNNING STORIES: He Raced Against Great-Grandson During his 85th Birthday Event for Viral Community Running Club

When Mel was running in a storm in the Yorkshire Dales, she started to get hypothermic and needed to pause in a mobile toilet to get warm. Later, when she was just a mile and a half from the finish line, she cracked her ribs after falling while running down a hill.

“I’d done the whole race and fell a few times on the ice but not done much damage,” she told the British news media outlet SWNS. “I just got giddy about a mile and a half from the end, I was running down the hill and my foot hit a stone, and I fell forward and cracked my ribs.”

ALSO CHECK OUT: 101-Year-old Breaks World Running Record: “I Missed My Nap for This”

268 miles is around the standard extreme for ultramarathoning. For example in America, one of the most popular ultramarathon routes is called the Moab 240, which runs 240 miles through the Moab Desert.

“I didn’t get one blister but my ankles are really swollen,” said Sykes, who’s still recovering. “I’ve just been falling asleep all the time. All I’ve done is just sleep and eat.”

SHARE This Inspirational Woman’s Triumph Over The Hand Of Fate… 

“That which is not good for the beehive cannot be good for the bees.” – Marcus Aurelius

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Good News Network
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Ales Krivec for Unsplash+

Quote of the Day: “That which is not good for the beehive cannot be good for the bees.” – Marcus Aurelius

Photo by: Ales Krivec for 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?

Ales Krivec for Unsplash+

Good News in History, January 24

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Good News Network
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Lehman Cave in Great Basin NP - credit Dave Bunnell - CC BY-SA 4.0.

103 years ago today, Lehman Caves National Monument was enshrined by presidential decree, protecting the longest-known cave in Nevada which had been used as a refuge by Native Americans. 68 years later, Lehman Caves suddenly found itself lying at the center of 77,000 acres of the newly made Great Basin National Park and was included among many natural treasures, including some of the oldest single trees ever discovered by science. READ more about the park’s features… (1922)

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Aquarium Under Renovation Cheers-up Lonely Sunfish with Cardboard Cutouts of People

By
Andy Corbley
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Photo shared on X by @shimonoseki_aq
Photo shared on X by @shimonoseki_aq

How do you cheer up a lonely fish? Wait, fish don’t get lonely.

Or do they? It’s difficult to know for sure, but one aquarium in Japan seems to think, in fact, they just might.

The Kaikyokan Aquarium in Shimonoseki, southern Japan closed on December 1st, 2024 for renovations. Within a few weeks, their 30-plus kilogram ocean sunfish began exhibiting strange behavior.

It stopped eating its jellyfish meals, and would frequently rub its narrow, lumpy body against the tank. Parasites or digestive problems were suspected.

“We couldn’t figure out the cause and took various measures, but one of the staff members said, ‘Maybe it’s lonely because it misses the visitors?’ We thought 99% chance ‘No way!’” said the aquarium in a post on X.

“But we attached the uniforms of the staff members (to the tank). Then…the next day, it was in good health again!”

Cardboard cutouts of the staff members’ faces were taped onto the tank, while the uniforms hung from suction-cupped hooks. Seems like they’d hardly fool a lion or monkey, but they brought the sunfish back ’round again.

“The sunfish was popular (among visitors) before the renovations. It’s curious and would swim up to visitors when they approached the tank,” Mai Kato, a 26-year-old exhibit staff member, told the English language Mainichi Shimbun.

TAKING CARE OF ANIMALS: Adorable Dutch Webcam of Rescued Seals Is a Big Hit in Japan (WATCH)

Ocean sunfish live in semi-tropical and tropical oceans all over the world. The strange bony fish can grow to behemoth sizes, but the one at Kaikyokan is still a small fry at just shy of three feet long.

“I hope many people take interest in the sunfish, and when the renovation work is finished, I’d like visitors to wave to it in front of the tank,” Kato added. The aquarium is scheduled to reopen this summer.

CUTE JAPANESE STORIES: Think Kids Are Addicted to Phones? US ‘Stationery Nerds’ Are Fueling a Japanese Notebook Boom

CNN reports that this isn’t the first story of a Japanese aquarium making headlines for cheering up fish. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, staff at the Sumida Aquarium in Tokyo video-called their spotted garden eels, allegedly for the same reason, as they were becoming increasingly recluse without the presence of visitors.

SHARE The Story Of This Poor Lonely Fish And The Caring Staff Who Perked Him Up…

Ichiro Suzuki Continues Crushing Baseball Records with Nearly Unanimous Hall of Fame Election

By
Andy Corbley
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Ichiro Suzuki in 2011 - CC 3.0 Keith Allison
Ichiro Suzuki in 2011 – CC 3.0 Keith Allison

It’s a good thing that the 394 ballots cast in this year’s Baseball Hall of Fame elections were anonymous. If not, one voter would have seen the city of Seattle forever closed to them.

That’s because Seattle Mariners all-star Ichiro Suzuki was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown with 99.7% of the vote—the joint second-highest score ever; short of perfect by the opinion of one single person.

MLB.com’s Daniel Kramer described the entry as a conclusion to “one of the sport’s most remarkable journeys.”

Retired in 2019, this is Ichiro’s first year of eligibility for Cooperstown, and like his debut season—all the way back in 2001—he didn’t worry about needing to make a second impression.

That year he set the tone for the most consistently excellent career in baseball, leading the league in hits, stolen bases, and batting average all whilst shining defensively and collecting both the American League MVP and Rookie of the Year Awards, becoming only the second man to do so.

This deluge of stats, led by Ichiro’s “mystic” bat control, saw him claim the MLB record for best season batting average (.372) and most hits in a season (262)

A release from the Hall of Fame website said that from 2006 through 2010, Ichiro led MLB in hits every season. His 10 straight years with 200 or more hits tied the MLB record. Over his first 10 seasons with the Mariners, he was named to 10 All-Star Games, won an All-Star MVP after scoring the first-ever in-the-park home run, won 10 Gold Glove Awards, and earned AL MVP votes in nine different years.

BASEBALL PLAYERS BEING KIND: Baseball Star Bryce Harper Helps a Random Guy Ask a Girl on a Prom Date

At the close of his career, Ichiro had played 2,653 MLB games, batted .311, and maintained a .355 on-base percentage. He had already totaled 1,278 hits before he ever played for the Mariners, leaving him with 4,367 total hits—which if one includes Nippon Professional Baseball as a ‘major league’ makes him the hittiest baseball player in the sport’s history.

He is one of only seven players in history with at least 3,000 hits and 500 stolen bases in the MLB.

HONORING GREAT MEN: Elton John Just Achieved EGOT Status with Emmy Win–Only 19 People Have Done it in History

Kramer however opts for his impact as a human: a cultural icon and international bridge-builder who played with “a singular focus on perfecting his craft,” and demonstrated a never-before-seen work ethic and professionalism to a new generation of players on both sides of the Pacific.

In Seattle’s T-Mobile Park, every time Ichiro stepped up to the plate it became an event. He played the starring role in the Mariners 2001 MLB record season of 116 wins. Kramer suggested the city will see Ichiro as not just a Hall-of-Famer, but their Hall-of-Famer.

WATCH the perfect tribute montage of the greatest Japanese player ever…

SHARE This Great Story From Baseball With Your Friends For The Love Of The Game…

Volunteer for the National Archives to Translate Cursive Handwriting for Modern Newbies

By
Andy Corbley
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A Revolutionary War pension - credit: National Archives
A Revolutionary War pension – credit: National Archives

On the occasion of America’s quarter millennium, the National Archives has launched a project inviting volunteers to help transcribe and digitize historical documents written in cursive.

The Archives contains millions of documents that have never been transcribed into modern typeface. Written in longhand, many Americans today might have trouble reading them since cursive has fallen out of favor as a topic in schools.

Called the Citizen Archivist project, one of the big goals is to transcribe and digitize a collection of handwritten documents pertaining to the pensions earned by soldiers during the Revolutionary War.

The Revolutionary War Pension Project is a collaborative effort between the National Park Service and the Archives to transcribe more than 2.3 million pages of pension files from the nation’s first veterans and their widows.

At first, pensions were only available for Continental Army soldiers who served under George Washington. Later acts opened pensions to those who served in militias and to widows. Each document is a gateway in time that allows us to peer into the lives of these founding fighters.

To date, more than 4,000 Revolutionary War Pension Project volunteers have typed up the content of over 80,000 pages of pension files, with upwards of 2,300 records completely transcribed.

MORE FOR THE 250th ANNIVERSARY: Contest Gives Children Chance to Win the Field Trip of a Lifetime to Famous Landmarks–Celebrating America’s 250th

All you have to do to contribute to the project is visit the Citizen Archivist project website and sign up. Once you sign up, just pick a document that hasn’t been transcribed, and follow the Archives’ instructions.

One can select a document in the ‘missions‘ section on the website, which features Archive collections that are yet to be digitized. Available are the Revolutionary War pensions, a legal case involving the Choctaw nation, submarine patrol reports in WWII, and others.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Handwriting Strengthens Brain Connections and Boosts Learning More Than Tapping on a Keyboard

Sarah Kuta at Smithsonian Magazine details how cursive is regaining its place as a mandatory instruction in American schools after a period of decline that saw it replaced by typing skills.

States such as Kentucky and California have passed laws mandating that cursive should be part of the English school curriculum.

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Firefighters Heroically Save Man Trying to Rescue His Dog from Icy Boston Lake in Dramatic Video

By
Andy Corbley
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Wellesley Police Department via YouTube
Wellesley Police Department via YouTube

From Massachusetts comes a double rescue from under the ice of a frozen lake after a man and his dog found themselves trapped.

Walking beside Lake Waban in Wellesley, Ed Berger was enjoying a nippy afternoon with his dogs Tommy and Oscar, when Tommy saw some birds alighting on the lake’s frozen surface and ran out to try and catch them.

The ice gave way, and Tommy plunged into the freezing water. Berger tried to rescue his dog by commandeering a nearby boat. Without explaining how, the Wellesley Fire Department detailed that Berger fell into the water as well.

Fire Department rescuers arrived on scene and got Berger out of the water before going back in for Tommy. Drone footage capturing the rescue shows how the pair of rescue personnel follow the most important rules for thin ice rescues, namely to perform as many actions as possible while lying on the stomach, or at least kneeling down. This helps disperse a human’s weight and prevents the ice from breaking up further.

The second is that the rescuer who was in the water with Berger lifted him up from below so that he could plant his chest flat on the ice before trying to get the rest of his body out of the water. If no rescue is forthcoming, don’t try to lift yourself out of the water as you would in a swimming pool.

The ice is liable to break under the weight you put down through your flat hands. Instead, put the whole of your arms flat on the ice, and hoist your torso up inch by inch, then wriggle like a seal to get your legs out before heading to the shore on your belly.

MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: Harrowing Rescue Saves a Woman Stuck Inside Burning Vehicle–Watch the Heroes

The terrible irony is that Berger is an EMT—and is exactly the person who arrives to help in these situations. He later described the rescue efforts as “hanging out with two guys who knew exactly what they were doing.”

Both dog and owner were taken to medical facilities and treated for hypothermia. Both made full recoveries.

WATCH the rescue below…

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“Love is the only gold.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Love is the only gold.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson

Photo by: Getty Images for 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, January 23

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Good News Network
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In the Conservatory

193 years ago today, the father of impressionism, Edouard Manet, was born in Paris. He grew up rejecting the legal career imagined for him to become the painter that would lead the transition from the realist to the impressionist styles. His early masterworks, The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l’herbe) and Olympia, both from 1863, caused great controversy and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism. Today, these are considered watershed paintings that mark the start of modern art. READ more… (1832)

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Entrepreneur Transforms Old Cement Bags into Solar-Charging Backpacks to Help Children Read at Night

By
Andy Corbley
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Soma Bags - credit UNDP Tanzania
Soma Bags – credit: UNDP Tanzania

A local entrepreneur in Tanzania is clearing two hurdles in one leap by transforming old cement bags into backpacks that include a small solar panel to power a reading light.

By clearing municipal waste and helping rural children study after dark, the bags won the backing of the United Nations Development Program for their problem-solving potential.

Soma Bags employs 85 rural workers to satisfy a demand for 13,000 backpacks a month. They can’t meet it, but they do their best.

This backpack craze is all due to Mr. Innocent James, born in the Mwanza region of northern Tanzania, who remembers studying for school by the light of a kerosene lantern. More than 20 years later, many rural households still depend on this antiquated implement for lighting after dark.

Expensive to run and somewhat dangerous to use, many parents can’t afford or don’t trust their children with a kerosene lantern, and so send them to bed without means to read books. James’ solution, CNN reports, was inspired by a university professor he met.

The man carried around a solar panel to charge his phone sewn into the fabric of his jacket, giving James the idea to sew cheap, flexible solar panels onto the outside of bags to power a reading light.

He began making bags himself in 2016, sewing together around 80 per month and selling them for between the equivalent of $4.00 and $8.00 in Tanzanian shillings. This amounted to the same cost as running a kerosene lantern for about 15 days.

James’ fledgling business was supported by the UNDP’s Funguo Innovation Programme, funded by the European Union (EU) and the UK Government which highlights collaborative efforts to promote sustainable solutions and educational opportunities in underserved communities.

ALSO CHECK OUT: Kenyan Physics Teacher Powers E-Motorbikes With Old Laptop Batteries

The impact of Soma Bags has been tremendous, the UNDP reports. The bags have provided children with a reliable source of light that allows them to read at night. This has led to an improvement in academic performance as children are now able to study more effectively. The bags have also provided children with access to information and communication, allowing them to keep in touch with their families and friends.

The company generates revenue through bag sales and exclusive brand partnerships while significantly contributing to environmental conservation by repurposing up to 200,000 cement packing sacks monthly, preventing them from becoming street litter.

MORE AFRICAN SOLUTIONS: Alien Water Hyacinth is Lethal for Lakes–But it’s Being Turned into Biodegradable Plastic Bags and Pots

“There is a crop of young people [in Tanzania] who are coming up, and they have realized that they have to take the future into their own hands,” Joseph Manirakiza of the UNDP, told CNN. “Innocent represents a group of young people using their talent to do something meaningful.”

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After Brush with Rarest Genetic Disorder in the UK Belfast Girl Meets Developmental Milestones

By
Andy Corbley
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Callie McKinney (courtesy photo)
Callie McKinney (courtesy photo)

A toddler in Northern Ireland has survived a harrowing brush with death due to the rarest genetic disease in the UK.

Overcoming months of intensive care and potentially significant brain damage, she is now hitting crucial developmental milestones that her mother described as nothing short of a miracle.

Callie McKinney from County Down seemed for all the world like a normal infant girl, until she went into cardiac arrest, reports Belfast Live in an exclusive story.

The doctors told her parents to expect the worst—that she may not last the next 48 hours, but time and time again the doctors were proven wrong. After a six-month stay in the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, Callie was finally discharged: a defibrillator implanted in her chest, a once-in-a-nation diagnosis, but alive and chippy.

“For the first year of her life, Callie was a healthy and happy baby girl and we never imagined the difficulties that she would face,” said Callie’s mother Caitlin to Belfast Live.

“Callie is the only person in the UK who is currently diagnosed with a very rare genetic condition called PPA2, which will leave her at risk for the rest of her life, especially if she consumes any sort of alcohol. She is also at risk if she ever gets sick and even having the slightest temperature can be very dangerous for her.”

But this little star of the County Down has met critical developmental milestones on time, including sitting up, eating solid food, and learning to walk.

MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: 13-year-old Successfully Undergoes World-First Treatment to Cure Rarer-Than-Rare Wild Syndrome

“We were told that Callie would be severely brain damaged as a result of what she went through and would essentially have no quality of life going forward, but the resilience that she has shown is nothing short of a miracle,” said Caitlin.

Callie’s doctors have used the experience of treating the girl to try and improve the diagnostic accuracy of PPA2. According to Caitlin, similar cases to Callie’s have been put down as “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome,” but being that Callie survived the death part long enough to be diagnosed with the genetic disorder PPA2, it’s possible a number of the SIDS cases were actually PPA2.

SURVIVING RARE DISEASES: After Taking Vitamin B2 Baby Becomes Solitary Case of Recovery from Rare Genetic Disease

“In order to try and raise money for research into PPA2 and the Children’s Heartbeat Trust, later this year I am going to be running the Belfast Marathon and will be donating everything to the incredible charity,” said Caitlin.

CELEBRATE This Girl’s Survival And Homecoming On Social Media…

Researchers Identify Grooves and Indents in Cave Floor as World’s Oldest 3D Map

By
Andy Corbley
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The Segnole 3 Rock Shelter floor map - Credit: Dr Médard Thiry
The Segnole 3 Rock Shelter floor map – Credit: Dr Médard Thiry

In a proud moment for our heritage, researchers have found evidence that Stone Age humans carved a map of their territory into the floor of a cave, located in modern France.

Chipping away to create indentations for basins, these pioneering cartographers then cut grooves into the cave floor to represent rivers and gullies, all of which accurately depict a low-lying river system in the Esssone Department of the Iles-de-France Region.

Before this discovery, the oldest known three-dimensional map was understood to be a large portable rock slab engraved by people of the Bronze Age around 3,000 years ago.

Identified in the Segnole 3 rock shelter originally found in the 1980s, this 3D map could be 13,000 years old, if it corresponds to other activity in the cave.

“This completely new discovery offers a better understanding and insight into the capacity of these early humans,” Dr. Médard Thiry from the Mines Paris—PSL Centre of Geosciences, told the University of Adelaide press, whose researchers contributed to the discovery.

Segnole 3 is well known for containing the artistic engraving of two female horses on either side of another depiction of an equine sex organ. Rainwater infiltration into the cave caused it to spill out onto the cave floor through what is perceived as the vulva.

However, once the water reaches the floor, after a few meters it begins to run through a series of sharp grooves and around little humps protruding up from the floor. The research team from PSL and Adelaide, revisiting the cave after initial research in 2017, believe concretely that the grooves and humps are a model of the surrounding ecosystem, and are connected with the horse carving.

The Segnole 3 Rock Shelter floor map and topographical map of the area – Credit: Dr Médard Thiry

“What we’ve described is not a map as we understand it today—with distances, directions, and travel times—but rather a three-dimensional miniature depicting the functioning of a landscape, with runoff from highlands into streams and rivers, the convergence of valleys, and the downstream formation of lakes and swamps,” Adelaide’s Dr. Anthony Milnes explains.

EARLY MAN’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Early Man Was Building Lincoln Log-like Structures 500,000 Years Ago, New Preserved Wood Shows

“For Palaeolithic peoples, the direction of water flows and the recognition of landscape features were likely more important than modern concepts like distance and time.”

In the depiction, a shadowed depression represents a large flat basin caused by the bend of in the River École. The sharp well-defined line on the right represents the point where the valley slope begins, and the fainter lines in the center of the image represent the course of the École, and where its overflow channels are.

OUR ANCESTORS’ STUNNING ACHIEVEMENTS: 13,000 Years Ago, These Ancient Builders Carved a Calendar into Stone to Mark Destructive Occasion

“Our study demonstrates that human modifications to the hydraulic behavior in and around the shelter extended to modeling natural water flows in the landscape in the region around the rock shelter,” Milnes continues. “These are exceptional findings and clearly show the mental capacity, imagination, and engineering capability of our distant ancestors.”

“The fittings probably have a much deeper, mythical meaning, related to water. The two hydraulic installations—that of the sexual figuration and that of the miniature landscape—are two to three meters from each other and are sure to relay a profound meaning of conception of life and nature, which will never be accessible to us,” concludes Dr. Thiry.

SHARE This Unbelievable Discovery With Your Friends On Social Media… 

Guitar Center is Replacing Instruments Lost in L.A. Wildfires With New Initiative

By
Andy Corbley
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A Guitar Center in West Los Angeles - credit: Cbi62 CC 3.0. BY-SA
A Guitar Center in West Los Angeles – credit: Cbi62 CC 3.0. BY-SA

While organized sports, celebrities, and businesses have been rushing to try and make Los Angeles County whole again after the recent spate of wildfires, Guitar Center is playing its part, offering to replace lost musical instruments.

Trying to make a living as a musician is famously challenging, and if one were to lose a $2,000 guitar or a $6,000 piano in the recent blaze, one can only imagine what that might do to them.

Through the Guitar Center Music Foundation, the instrument supplier is inviting working musicians to apply for a special one-time grant to replace instruments and gear destroyed by the fires up to $1,500.

No cash is handed out, and applications will require information on the kind of equipment that was lost and an approximate value before a replacement can be furnished.

Applicants must be from the LA area. Also invited to apply are music programs and institutions.

OTHER GNN FIRE COVERAGE: 

According to NME, applying institutions must conduct “in-school music classes in which the students make music, after-school music programs that are not run by the school, community music programs which offer music instruction to the community or music therapy programs in which the participants actively make music.”

Now valued at over $2 billion, Guitar Center was founded 66 years ago in Hollywood. Its first 8 locations were all located in LA and San Francisco.

SHARE This With Any Working Musicians You Know In Los Angeles… 

“A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is strong.” – Chief Tecumseh

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Quote of the Day: “A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is strong.” – Chief Tecumseh

Photo by: Courtney Smith (cropped)

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, January 22

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Good News Network
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Milwaukee Bucks

57 years ago today, the Phoenix Suns and the Milwaukee Bucks were awarded franchise licenses by the National Basketball Association, creating teams for the two cities and their millions of fans. The Suns are the NBA’s ultimate nearly men, having the second-highest franchise win percentage of any team never to win the championship, while the Bucks also had a contest among fans to choose a name; the Bucks were chosen over the much more popular ‘Robins’. READ some highlights of the two teams’ franchise history… (1968)

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Over the Last 3 Decades, Nearly Everyone in Bangladesh Gained Access to Basic Electricity

By
Andy Corbley
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Dhaka in April - credit: ASaber91, CC 2.0.
Dhaka in April – credit: ASaber91, CC 2.0.

In one of the more remarkable marches of human progress, Bangladesh has reached the point of near-universal electricity access for its citizens.

Coupled with the rapid electrification has been one of the greatest single declines in the poverty rate of a nation ever seen, falling from 44.2% in 1991 to 18.7% in 2022.

In 1991, only 14% of the nation had access to electricity. By 2021, 99% had access.

Granted, half of these households are considered according to Our World in Data to have lower tier access, which accounts for home lighting and charging mobile phones at least 4 hours a day, but the other half are considered as having higher tier access, defined as the added capacity to power high-load appliances (such as fridges) for more than eight hours a day.

Bangladesh is the world’s most densely populated large country with a density of 3,020 per square mile. As the twelfth densest country in the world, the 11 above Bangladesh are all microstates whose combined land area would not even equal half the size of the smallest state in Bangladesh.

To put this into perspective, (a rather silly perspective) if one wanted to reduce the population density of Bangladesh to that of Mongolia, its borders would have to include both all of Africa and all of Eurasia. That’s how crowded Bangladesh is, and what these amazing reductions in poverty truly mean to global human flourishing.

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Teen Rescuer Bravely Rides Scared Horse 14 Miles Out of Burning Canyon – WATCH

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Andy Corbley
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screengrab from KKF-eq via TikTok
screengrab from KKF-eq via TikTok

Dozens of stories and videos have come out showing heroic actions taken across Los Angeles County where 5 separate wildfires recently broke out in a single short period and burned thousands of homes down.

With the fires originating in the canyon systems north of the city, Kalyna Fedorowycz, a 16-year-old equestrian, was faced with a frightening ordeal as she and the other hands at a stable had to load the horses up into trailers and get them out of the path of the fire.

Famously ‘spookable,’ there was inevitably one horse that just wouldn’t get onto the transport.

Fedorowycz, not willing to leave the black mare behind, led the animal 14 miles along the road in front of the horse transport, sometimes riding, sometimes walking, sometimes jogging, but all the while coaxing the recalcitrant horse along.

In a stunning video taken by Fedorowycz’s father from the vehicle behind her, one sees her negotiating fallen trees and power lines, flaming debris, columns of smoke, powerful winds, constant loud, sharp noises like sirens, all while doing whatever it took to get the mare to continue on.

Posted on TikTok, the video vent viral, with commenters overwhelmed with the young woman’s love and determination.

MORE GNN WILDFIRE COVERAGE:

“I don’t think most people realize how challenging something like this is 😳 as someone who’s worked with other people’s horses I say this was so brave and I have mad respect for you ❤️” said one. 

“Some of these shots are absolutely breathtaking. I’m so sorry you had to go through this. The bond you have with that beautiful animal is palpable,” said another, named Rachel.

WATCH the video below… 

@kkf_eq

I thought I would post some of the videos my dad took as he drove behind me. I can’t thank everybody enough for all of the love and support. I hope everyone stays safe! 💞🔥

♬ Outro - M83

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Man Leaves Fortune of 10 Million to a Tiny French Town He Never Visited

By
Andy Corbley
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Saint Taurin's church in Thiberville - credit: havangl, public domain
Saint Taurin’s church in Thiberville – credit: havangl, public domain

From France comes a story of blind philanthropy when a wealthy Parisian left his €10 million fortune to a tiny Normandy town he had never visited before.

Heir to his parents’ fortune made in the vinting business, Roger Thiberville, a meteorologist shared but one thing with the town of 1,800 residents: its name.

Thiberville is a typical Norman town, writes Euro News, including a 19th-century chateau, but little else that would find it among either headlines or tourist trails.

Describing the endowment as “beyond imagination” the local mayor said the money would help clear a €400K debt from the municipal balance sheet, before funding a variety of projects including a bowling green and a synthetic soccer pitch.

“It’s an exceptional sum of money,” said Guy Paris, the mayor of 28 years. “Obviously the amount is beyond imagination. We don’t yet know what we will do with it.”

“We won’t spend it all. We’re going to manage this dowry as we have always done with our municipal budget—with prudence and responsibility,” he told the radio station France Bleu.

SIMILAR STORIES LIKE THIS: Stranger Who Gave $125,000 Inheritance to Neighbors, Left Impact That Is ‘Out of this world’

Thiberville the man was born in Mantes-la-Jolie, located in a wine-growing region 50 kilometers west of Paris. The inheritance of his parents was originally intended for his sister, who died without heirs, meaning it passed to him.

He also died without heirs, and requested only that his ashes and a plaque with his name be installed in the town cemetery.

EUROPEAN PHILANTHROPY: Austrian Heiress Appoints Fifty Citizens to Give Away Her €25 Million Fortune

Other projects in mind for the money include a park shaded with PV solar panels and additional recreation areas at the local primary school.

SHARE This Man’s Blind Generosity With Your Friends…

Community Praises Contractor for Free Construction Work Since Hurricane Helene Hit

By
Andy Corbley
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Jarvis testing out a new bridge - credit: courtesy of Jake Jarvis
Jarvis testing out a new bridge – credit: courtesy of Jake Jarvis

Hurricane Helene ripped through North Carolina 3 months ago, but the 24-hour news cycle has gone well beyond the scenes of quaint mountain towns obliterated by the flooding.

One man though has not moved on to newer and fresher topics, and he’s being hailed by one NC community as a “godsend.”

Jake Jarvis runs Precision Grading construction and demolition, and since Helene, has been completing tens of thousands of dollars in construction work pro bono, including demolishing houses, building bridges, and clearing river crossings.

“I couldn’t give them an estimate, so I just said: ‘Well, I’ll just do it,’ you know,” Jarvis said, remembering one job on which he worked long into the January night.

The residents of Bat Cave, North Carolina see destruction everywhere they look. Many would like to move on, but as great an emotional toil as saying goodbye to a family home is, often they can’t—because the house is still there, wrecked, but standing.

“It’s hard on you mentally because you see devastation every single day and I have definitely experienced the struggle with that,” Jarvis said.

Jarvis told ABC 13 that he has a list of 29-30 people who need help immediately. An elderly couple was walking half a mile every day to town because the river crossing was impassable in their vehicle. Jarvis flattened it out, accepting only donations to fund the work.

Another, grandmother-age resident needed her house demolished; Jarvis took care of it, but not before salvaging precious remnants of a life swept away; a charming chandelier; a copy of The Little Prince. 

HURRICANE RECOVERY: North Carolina Sports Come Together to Support Victims of ‘Unprecedented’ Hurricane Helene

Bat Cave Fire Department Chief Steve Freeman said Jarvis has been an invaluable asset to the community.

“He was a Godsend coming down through. He opened the roads up so you could get through,” he said.

MORE CAROLINA HEROES: Young Woman Returns Family Photos Lost in Hurricane Helene Using Social Media to Find Owners

He’s also built several bridges, financing the work through his personal savings and donations.

ABC 13 WLOS writes that Jarvis accepts donations through checks, mailed to 99 Polaris Drive, Saluda NC, 28773.

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