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

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Our partner Rob Brezsny, whose latest book is 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 May 23, 2026
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
When many people reflect on their early years, they focus on the alienation and wounds they endured. Few recall, in vivid detail, the moments of joy, triumph, and breakthrough. It’s a symptom, I suppose, of our era’s compulsive cynicism, and not necessarily an accurate account of the past. So many good things happened, too! This isn’t to dismiss the real pain that shaped us in our tender years. Still, I want you to know that you are in a season when it’s essential to recognize and celebrate the blessings of your beginnings—the fun, guidance, and grace that helped you flourish. Update your gratitude!

CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Of all the zodiac signs, you have the most potential to cultivate robust emotional intelligence that’s helpful in practical situations. More than everyone else, your feelings are less likely to render you vulnerable and fragile and more likely to make you a powerhouse. The coming weeks will be prime time to deploy these talents to the max. I encourage you to summon gleeful exuberance as you provide your sensitive, heartful nurturing. Practice the ingenious art of keeping the world emotionally literate and spiritually alert.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
I am pleased to predict that you will be less egotistical and narcissistic in the coming weeks than you have ever been in your life. In saying that, I don’t mean to imply that you’re any more egotistical and narcissistic than the rest of us. I’m simply saying you can get a liberating reprieve from the excessive pride and selfishness that regularly debilitates us all. Congratulations, Leo! This grace period should enable you to deepen your attunement with your soul’s blueprint, the design of destiny you chose before birth. I bet you will enjoy a period of vibrant, exciting tranquility.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Consider this a friendly heads-up to your inner critic, your gloomy side, and any voice in your head that expects too little from life. Upcoming astrological omens are influencing me to predict a stream of auspicious omens and fortunate events. So if you’d rather cling to tired stories about not being good enough or strong enough, you might want to skip my forecasts for a while. But if you’re ready to vivify your faith in your power to eagerly create what you desire, stay tuned. Karmic blessings are coming.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
To be blunt, dear Libra, I think you need soul medicine that’s most available in frontiers, borderlands, and thresholds. Some of these might be bright, shiny places, and others may be akin to mazes and tunnels. Please keep in mind that your main motivation, as you seek adventures in the outskirts, should be the quest to have fun as you blow your own mind. For the sake of your lust for life and joie de vivre, you really must explore power spots untouched by trivia and pettiness: sanctuaries where vastness, freedom, and raw vitality can wash away at least some of your fixations and habits.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Giant Pacific octopus dens are identifiable by the “gardens” of debris outside. They include shells and bones, arranged like ornamentation around the entrance. Are the creatures trying to decorate? Scientists don’t know. But it’s clear they are leaving evidence of their appetites. The result is distinctive, artistic, and revealing. With this scenario as your metaphorical meditation, Scorpio, I invite you to look at what you have been pursuing and consuming in recent months. Contemplate the stuff piling up in your sphere. What do your finished experiences reveal about your quest for meaning? Does this pattern reflect your deepest intentions? Is this who you want to be? Make sure the story you’re teling about yourself is the right one.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Advising a Sagittarius to be patient is like asking a bonfire to burn slowly and politely. Still, I will give it a try. Because I love you, I will dare to be frank. So here goes: If you want to align yourself with astrological currents, practice being reverently at ease with life’s madness as you watch and wait. See if you can take genuine pleasure in resting within a field of calm trust. Imagine, with fearless delight, the rewards that will find you as you nurture a steady, unhurried confidence in your intuition, which will ultimately tell you exactly what you need to do.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
In 1994, immunologist Polly Matzinger revolutionized her field with a radical theory. She discovered that our immune systems don’t focus on distinguishing “self” from “non-self,” but rather responding to threats. The body puts less emphasis on asking “is this me?” and more on “is this harmful?” Her breakthrough transformed our understanding of immunity, autoimmune disease, and transplant rejection. According to my analysis of the astrological riddles, you Capricorns could benefit from a similar adjustment. Don’t worry about whether any particular influence harmonizes with your identity or aligns with your history. Instead, ask, “Is it nourishing or harmful? Supportive or useless?” As you refresh your approach to guarding and protecting your precious self, new options will become visible.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
According to my interpretation of the astrological signals, you have run into an obstacle to your creative flow, or may soon do so. Though this could feel discouraging at first, I think it’s a promising sign. It indicates that a hidden bug is surfacing. An inner saboteur is no longer operating in the shadows. You’re being given the opportunity to repair an unseen energy leak that has been sapping your vitality. To illuminate this process, consider the wisdom of author Joyce Carol Oates. She says that writer’s block arises when a writer subconsciously believes that what they’re trying to create is false, misguided, or harmful to themselves, which results in a temporary creative paralysis. Be brave and relentless in hunting down the glitch in your self-love, Aquarius.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Maybe you’ve been having thoughts like this: “I’m too scrambled to do what’s necessary to get unscrambled.” Here’s another snag that may be tangling your mind: “I’m too mixed up to know what questions to ask to sort out my confusion.” If this is true, Pisces, I’m here to offer advice. Imagine calling a timeout on the whole noisy world and slipping free of the habitual trance. Consider retreating to a sanctuary where time doesn’t oppress you and complications subside. Let your mind be empty, give your ambitions a rest, and immerse your tender attention in the deepest part of yourself you can find.

ARIES (March 21-April 19):
If you’re a professional photographer, now is an ideal moment to invest in the higher-end lens you know would expand your best work. If you’re a committed chef, it’s a perfect time to spring for a precision knife set that elevates your craft. If you’re a devoted yoga or meditation teacher preparing a new series, you might decide to purchase an upgraded sound system to share your vocal offerings more crisply. And if you are none of the above, consider this your sign to obtain a key instrument or tool that will help you move to the next level of professionalism in the work you’re called to do.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
When we hear people described as having fertile imaginations, we may assume they are artists, writers, or musicians. But the truth is that many creative visualizers are engineers, city planners, inventors, and the like: those who design and build functional wonders. Of this group, you Tauruses make up a disproportionately high percentage. Your tribe is often most imaginative when vitalizing concrete details and transforming practical matters. In the coming weeks, this will be a vibrant X-factor in your relationship with the world.

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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“Let the hurt open you instead of closing you.” – Bryant McGill

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Credit: Andrej Lišakov For Unsplash+

Quote of the Day: “Let the hurt open you instead of closing you.” – Bryant McGill 

Photo by: Andrej Lišakov 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?

Credit: Andrej Lišakov For Unsplash+

Good News in History, May 23

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213 years ago today, South American revolutionary leader Simón Bolívar entered Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and was proclaimed El Libertador (“The Liberator”). Credited with leading the fight for independence in areas of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Bolivia, he is revered as a hero in these countries and throughout much of Latin America. A great admirer of the American Revolution (and a critic of the French Revolution), Bolívar described himself in his many letters as a classical “liberal” and defender of the free market economic system. READ more about his philosophy… (1813)

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AI Used to Pinpoint Whale Heat Signatures to Prevent Ship Collisions in San Francisco Bay

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Andy Corbley
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Scientists in California are using heat-sensing AI to save grey whales transiting through San Francisco Bay.

More and more sightings of grey whales, a medium size baleen that can grow to between 40 and 50 feet, are being recorded in the bay, and conservationists are eager to develop methods to more consistently keep them safe from ship strikes—one of the largest causes of whale mortality.

To that end they are employing artificial intelligence to instantly identify the animals’ heat signatures and broadcast that data to passing ships.

“The problem has been getting worse,” Dr. Douglas McCauley, the director of the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory told CBS News. “This is a problem we can solve right now, that this new data and the community came around it can solve.”

CBS San Fran reported that a group of marine mammal experts gathered in the city to launch Whale Spotter. The first of these devices was put on Angel Island, and the second on a routine transit ferry to Vallejo

“About an hour after plugging it in, we saw 180 blows,” said Dr. McCauley. “That’s not 180 whales, but a handful of whales being active in the bay. It blows, it’s a warm breath so the thermal sensing system sees the heat of the breath against the cold ocean.”

Those heat signatures are then uploaded to a digital map which mariners can access almost immediately and ensure their path of navigation will miss the whales.

MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: Rather Than Taking Jobs in Tech, 2 Young Software Engineers Use Talents to Crush Poaching in India

The Benioff Laboratory should be able to know within a few months if the devices are leading to fewer whale deaths. Not every new method for preventing ship strikes does—as evidenced by the continuing need to advance methods of detection for humans and deterrence for whales.

GNN has previously reported on methods to reduce ship strikes, including through powerful imaging satellites in the North Atlantic, and a trio of buoys in the Mediterranean that alerts passing ships to the coordinates of sperm whale clicks.

SHARE This Great Use Of AI To Save These Stunning Marine Mammals…

Police Deputy Praised After ‘Run-of-the-Mill’ Call Turns into Emergency Baby Delivery

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Andy Corbley
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Rancho Cordova police deputies deliver baby (Released)
Rancho Cordova police deputies deliver baby (Released)

A call about suspicious activity saw a California police officer race to save a newborn’s life.

A woman was sitting between two bushes near a business in the Rancho Cordova, and Deputy Foster Tracy described the situation as “routine,” before it became anything but.

“It was zero to a hundred really fast. It was one of those calls you go to, run-of-the-mill,” Deputy Foster Tracy said. “This was definitely not something that I was prepared for at any part of the day.”

“‘Excuse me?'” Tracy remembers saying, as it didn’t really register, “‘you’re having a baby?'”

Indeed, the woman had been begging for help for “hours,” CBS News reported. 

Calling for medical backup, Tracy got down on his knees and went to work as he realized there wasn’t time to waste: the baby’s head was already out.

Tracy’s partner arrived moments later and they both saw the problem as the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck. “I was concerned the baby was deceased because it was purple and blue.”

“ROUTINE” CALLS: Little Boy Calls 911 After Mom Ate His Ice Cream: ‘Mommy Is Being Bad’–But Cops Solve the Case

Yet their persistence was rewarded with a healthy baby and a relieved mother, who were both taken to the hospital to recover from the ordeal.

The deputies have been credited with a life-saving intervention, and were praised by the mom, the police chief, and the surprised shop owners whose call had inadvertently saved a life.

WATCH the story below from CBS News… 


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Britain’s Largest Iron Age Hoard on Display for the First Time Includes Evidence of First 4-Horse Carriage

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Andy Corbley
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A detail on the mixing bowl - credit University of Durham
A detail on the mixing bowl – credit University of Durham

5 years after its discovery and 2 years after preservation, the largest collection of Iron age artifacts ever found in Britain is revealing its secrets.

Found in the “rural backwater” of northern England’s county of Yorkshire, the mélange of horse tackle, carriage pieces, weapons, and home goods is proving the region was anything but.

Horse wagon components in situ – credit University of Durham

Now, parts of the hoard will go on display for the first time ever at the Yorkshire Museum for an exhibition entitled: Chariots, Treasure and Power: Secrets of the Melsonby Hoard.

The hoard was discovered in a field near Melsonby by a metal detector in 2021. This unnamed individual immediately alerted archaeologists, to his eternal credit, who arrived and deduced that this was something that had never been seen before.

“Finding a hoard or collection of ten objects is unusual, it’s exciting, but finding something of this scale is just unprecedented,” Tom Moore, Durham’s head of archaeology, told the Guardian’s Mark Brown in 2025. “We were just lost for words.”

The Melsonby hoard consists of two groups of items: the first is a big stack of chariot components and horse tackle, including bridles and bits which look tantalizingly identical to the ones used today.

The second is called “the Block” and it is basically a mass of iron and copper-alloy artifacts fused together after they were probably thrown into a big pit fire. It was then pulled out of the fire, covered in a sheet, and buried nearby.

The Block contains iron spear points, harness pieces, and wagon parts visible on the outside, but what’s inside is largely a mystery, even after conservators at the University of Durham brought the mass down to Southampton for a detailed CT scan.

Part of the Melsonby Hoard’s horse tackle discoveries, exhibited at the Yorkshire Museum – credit, Gareth Buddo / Yorkshire Museum

As for the horse tackle, the excavators’ eyes were drawn to the 28 wagon tire bands made of iron all stacked atop one another. In between were all manner of wagon components, including lynchpins, and elements of yokes and reins that seem to point to a 4-horse-drawn wagon or carriage, the first evidence of such a vehicle in Iron Age Britain.

Without a doubt the hoard’s most compelling objects are those which may point to a complex intercontinental trade route—perhaps with the Roman world, which consisted of a large ornamented cauldron, a wine-mixing bowl, blue glass beads, and a mirror.

“The bowl… is really interesting because it is a very unusual type: not something you’d find in Northern Britain,” said Professor Moore, who was involved in both the excavation and the examination of the artifacts.

“Its decoration combines both Mediterranean and British Iron age styles. It also has elaborate decoration of coral, so whoever owned something like that has probably got a network across Britain and across into Europe and even the Roman world.”

MORE ANCIENT BRITAIN: Archaeologists Discover a ‘Master Blacksmith’s’ Workshop Dating to the Very Dawn of the Iron Age in Britain

Though named after the nearby town of Melsonby, the closest contemporary settlement to the artifacts was a fort called Stanwick populated by a tribe called the Brigantes, who at one point were ruled by a queen called Cartimandua, the first documented female sovereign in the island’s history.

In England, as indeed so many lands the world over, a divide in culture and wealth has existed between north and south, and one of the most important aspects of the hoard has been the end of assumptions that this kind of wealth and, in the case of the horse cart, technology, was only found in the south at the time.

GREAT BRITISH HOARDS: English Teenager Discovers Hoard of 3,300 Year-Old Axes and Becomes Metal Detecting Celebrity

“Chariots, Treasure and Power marks the initial stages of research on the hoard, outlining the current understandings of Iron Age Britain and exploring life before the arrival of the Romans, and asking the questions, why was the hoard buried, why were the objects burnt and destroyed and who might have owned these lavish items,” the Yorkshire Museum advertises.

WATCH Professor Moore and his colleagues explain the hoard… 

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Phone Case Brand Designs Autonomous Floating Plastic Collection Platform to Combat Ocean Waste

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Andy Corbley
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A rendering of the Circular Blue drones deploying from the platform - credit, RHINOSHIELD supplied
The Circular Blue platform at its moorings in Taiwan – credit, supplied by RHINOSHIELD

In a stunning act of corporate responsibility, one of the world’s largest makers of smartphone cases has designed and built a seaborne drone carrier designed to clean up ocean-bound plastic waste.

Already deployed off the coast of Taiwan, the Circular Blue looks a little like an offshore oil or gas platform, but rather than pulling hydrocarbons out of the seabed, its aquatic drone collects plastic floating by.

According to a release from parent company RHINOSHIELD, the pair of AI-driven drones identify pollution hotspots in real time along coastlines before directing solar-powered collection vessels to the highest-impact areas, while onboard filtration captures debris of all sizes.

It took the company 18 months to design and develop and around $2 million to build. An aerial drone launches from the platform to identify floating waste and feed its position to a floating drone which collect it.

Facilities onboard can also accommodate marine research programs, and there are living areas for 4 crewmembers, although the platform doesn’t need any human to operate it.

“I look into ocean plastic a lot, and I realize that not a lot of people are collecting it,” said Eric Wang, the CEO of RHINOSHIELD.

Passionate about recycling, the company under Wang’s leadership has doubled down on monomaterial cases, that is, one single plastic polymer from the flexible interior to the rigid exterior, to make them as easy to recycle as a plastic bottle.

A rendering of the Circular Blue drones deploying from the platform – credit, RHINOSHIELD supplied

“Every year we make about 5 million phone cases, and if everything is made of one material, and everything can be identified, there would be so much less waste in the world,” he said in a video.

Company sources told GNN that a North American expansion of the Circular Blue is expected in the future.

WATCH Eric explain his vision below… 

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“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone—we find it with another.” – Thomas Merton

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Credit: marcos mayer

Quote of the Day: “Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone—we find it with another.” – Thomas Merton

Photo by: marcos mayer

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?

Credit: marcos mayer

Good News in History, May 22

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The AP Building - Alterego, CC BY-SA 3.0. (

180 years ago today, the Associated Press organized in New York City as a nonprofit news cooperative to reduce the cost of covering the events of the Mexican American War. The original AP was agreed upon by senior members and editors of The Sun, the New York Herald, the New York Courier and Enquirer, The Journal of Commerce, and the New York Evening Express. Today, AP operates 235 news bureaus in 94 countries, and covers the news in English, Spanish, and Arabic, winning 59 Poulitzer prizes along the way. READ more about the AP’s long history… (1846)

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Growing Coffee in the World’s Densest City: Hong Kong Roastery Hails Beans That Aren’t Imported

By
Andy Corbley
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Ringo Lam roasting beans at LCC Roastery, Lantau Island - credit, LCC Roastery, retrieved via Facebook
Ringo Lam roasting beans at LCC Roastery, Lantau Island – credit, LCC Roastery, retrieved via Facebook

From CNN’s travel desk comes the story of a miracle passion project that goes down smooth—and tastes great with a bagel.

At the center of Hong Kong, it might seem a preposterous notion that anyone is engaged in agriculture in the world’s densest city, but on the relative frontier of the city-state’s Lantau Island, a remarkable experiment is being undertaken: coffee growing.

Despite lacking altitude and space, some intrepid java jockeys have managed to cultivate an Arabica coffee bean on Lantau Island. The island is about the only place you can find anything describable as “rural” in Hong Kong; it’s also where you will find LCC Roastery, and its owner Ringo Lam.

This rock star of coffee is part of the sales division of the Lantau Coffee Co-Op, an effort to produce something of real value and pride in a city where practically everything is imported. Despite the archipelago’s highest point being less than 1,000 meters, the kind of altitude where premium Arabica is grown, coffee can and does grow.

Katie Chick, assistant director at the University of HK’s Center for Civil Society and Governance, helps run one of the co-op’s coffee farms on Hong Kong itself. The islands sit 22 degrees north of the Equator—perfect coffee latitude. Chick’s farm yields around 50 kilograms of coffee beans from 800 trees.

The operation started when Lam, a former tech entrepreneur, visited Panama and was given 100 coffee seeds. Back on Lantau, he planted them and 80 or so sprouted, after which he began to look for farmers who’d be willing to cultivate them. 5 agreed, which turned into 25, while the 80 seeds would multiply into 400 shrubs.

Fan Lau peninsula – credit, Geographer CC 3.0. BY-SA

Last year, these 400 shrubs yielded 10 kilograms of coffee, or 22 pounds, the largest harvest yet. CNN reports the coffee they thusly produce lacks the depth and nuance of Arabica coffee grown at altitude, but was still smooth and enjoyable.

Lam and Chick routinely meet with other growers and brainstorm ways about how to refine and evolve growing techniques, including through different washing methods that might stimulate changes in the plants which result in more complex flavor.

COFFEE GAZETTE:

They’ve also come up with interesting ways of using the coffee to improve lives and attitudes.

One grower uses her coffee farm as a sort of gardening therapy service; another enters it in tasting contests around the city’s 700 coffee shops to show that coffee can grow in Hong Kong. Lam actually runs workshops on producing Lantau beans for roasting, which gives residents a taste of the sweaty, dirty labor involved in producing the product they drink every day.

“We won’t have enough land to [grow coffee at scale], but at least after going through this workshop and exercise, they will be more connected to the origin,” Lam told CNN.

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Louvre Announces Mona Lisa Will Have Her Own Building in Major Redesign to Ease Tourist Scrum

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Andy Corbley
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A rendering of the Grande Colonnade redesign - credit French Ministry of Culture and Louvre
A rendering of the Grande Colonnade redesign – credit French Ministry of Culture and Louvre

The world’s most visited museum has made the wise decision to move the world’s most famous painting to a separate wing, where clamoring hordes pushing for a glimpse can stay separate from the rest of the art-loving public.

In a statement announcing major structural changes to the Louvre in Paris, administrators revealed that the Mona Lisa will have her own 33,000 square-foot exhibition space.

It means that people looking to see the famous Giocanda will not necessarily have to pass through or even visit the rest of the Louvre. They will be spared the extra time waiting in line, and can get in, take their selfies, and get out.

Meanwhile, those who wish to see the hundreds of thousands of other pieces among the galleries, will be spared the extra waiting time in line from those queuing only for the purpose of seeing the Mona Lisa.

It’s a superb compromise, and one that will also come with a $1 billion renovation aimed at reducing congestion all over the Louvre and modernizing the massive building’s infrastructure.

The Mona Lisa attracts roughly 20,000 admirers alone, day in and day out, and it’s not uncommon for visitors to leave feeling a sense of uneasiness and claustrophobia in the crush that pushes as much as polite society can handle to get close enough for a glimpse of the rather small portrait.

“Every day, this very room is the scene of intense agitation,” Laurence des Cars, the museum’s former director, said at the press conference announcing the renovations.

The Colonnade’s “esplanade” which will be redone with greenery, footpaths, and two new underground entrances – credit, French Ministry of Culture and the Louvre

The Louvre has been a source of several high-profile failures, including the heist of the French crown jewels and an earlier water leak that damaged some 400 artworks.

PARIS BITES: First Ever Cheese Museum Opens in Paris: ‘It’s Gouda Brie a Delicious Visit’

Selldorf Architects, a New York-based firm, was offered the contract out of 5 finalists whose designs and submissions were picked from a pool of 100 firms. Selldorf will partner with Studios Architecture Paris on the project which is centered around the expansion of the Grande Colonnade, the museum’s eastern facade, which was built in the 17th century in the classical tradition.

The contest-winning design addresses existing challenges to foot traffic by adding two new underground entrances, new, separate dining areas and gift shops, as well as expanded gallery space.

MORE MUSEUM NEWS: Visitors Can Now Watch the Restoring of a Masterpiece Bellini in Venice (Check out the Video)

“New pathways and greenery connecting the museum with the rest of Paris aim to solve the museum’s growing foot traffic problem by accommodating an estimated three million more visitors per year,” Smithsonian reports.

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Man Gathers Up Family Acres Home to Moose and Mountain Lion and Returns Them to Indian Tribe

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Andy Corbley
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A bull moose passing through Gary Verbrugge's yard - credit, supplied by Verbrugge to the Spokesman-Review
A bull moose passing through Gary Verbrugge’s yard – credit, supplied by Verbrugge to the Spokesman-Review

Early in May, GNN reported how Australia and USA citizens have amassed 85 million acres of private land specifically for conservation.

From the Spokesman-Review comes the story of a man in Washington state who’s about to make it 85,000,885 by donating his own patch to the Kalispel Indian Tribe.

Having spent his whole working life in urbanity during a 30-year career with the Social Security Administration, Gary Verbrugge longed for the natural world he remembered from his youth, where he lived on land that was bought by his relatives after moving from Iowa in the early 20th century.

After taking an early retirement to help with his parents’ ailing health, he bought some more land and a cabin owned by a neighbor and went home to see what had happened to his father and uncles’ forest.

It turns out that the forester they entrusted the management of their land to was more interested in making money from timber sales than ensuring the health of the woodland.

A year later, in 2007, Verbrugge partnered with the Inland Northwest Land Conservancy to turn 605 wooded acres he owned into a conservation easement. In 2025, he bought another 280 acres directly abutting his own land from his nieces and nephews, and added them to the package.

The idea, explained by the INLC’s conservation director Michael Crabtree, is that the Conservancy acts “kind of like the third party that makes sure the rules are being followed,” on behalf of the owner, who has stipulated he wants to see the land preserved in a natural state.

MORE MERITFUL DONATIONS:

Though Verbrugge, who lives alone at 72 years old in the forest, has no heirs to pass the property to, he found a suitable inheritor in the Kalispel Indians, who said they would carry the responsibility of keeping the land in good health forward with “profound gratitude.”

As to the land itself, the Little Spokane River runs through it, along with several creeks home to bull trout. In a subdivided and developed area, Verbrugge’s woodland is a haven for elk, deer, moose, wolves, cougar, bobcat, and eagles.

“To see the wildlife, where they’re not aggressive, they’re not scared, they’re just at home, is the reward,” Verbrugge told the Spokesman-Review, who enjoys catching glimpses of his sylvan neighbors with trail cams.

SHARE This Man’s Honorable Gesture To Save Some Of Natural America, However Small…

With Every Free Clean, Window Washer Influencer Spotlights Great, Struggling Restaurants in Kansas City

By
Andy Corbley
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With every pass of his squeegee, a window washer in Kansas City reveals the personal story behind his favorite local businesses through his popular social media channel.

Davis Roethler is co-owner of Window Wolf, KC’s most trusted window washer, but that’s hardly all there is to his story.

With experience as a social media content manager, Roethler often offers free window cleanings to the great, struggling, or unique restaurants and businesses in the metropolitan area.

For the business owners, the free clean is a welcome relief to high costs and low margins of running a restaurant, but what they don’t know is that behind Roethler’s Meta glasses that record everything he sees is a master plan to send their bottom line sky high.

“When you just look at the data, opening up a restaurant, from a business standpoint, it’s a terrible idea. It’s a huge risk. The numbers are not on your side,” Roethler told Kansas City Star’s Rashad Alexander.

“When you realize that, you realize that there’s so much opportunity in KC to help out these small businesses to make sure that they’re not part of that statistic of closing down.”

Window Wolf has 8,700 followers on Instagram, and it’s growing every day. Followers tune in to see Roethler “flip” the traditional food content strategy—to tell the story of the people preparing the food which other influencers just nom and noise about.

Dunn Deal BBQ, run by pitmaster Gerald Dunn, who is also the director of entertainment at the American Jazz Museum in KC, is just one beneficiary of the Roethler recommendation. Tasty African Food KC, Kolaches and Coffee, and Simply Grand Kitchen and Creamery have all enjoyed the same.

Many of these longer-form video reviews receive tens of thousands of views, and in the case of Kolaches and Coffee, may have saved the business altogether.

KANSAS CITY STORIES: Hotel Honors Honeymoon Gift Certificate it Gave to Kansas City Newlyweds 40 Years Ago

Dunn Deal and Simply Grand Kitchen are located practically next to each other, and each have lines around the block on Roethler’s recommendation.

In many of these cases, the content doesn’t stop, as Roethler will come back to keep washing—and keep talking, to the owners, cooks, and families—to keep pulling out the personal stories of struggle, passion, and triumph that make up the recipes served up at each location.

MORE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR GOOD: Polish Influencer Raises $67 Million for Cancer Research During 9-day Livestream

And it all started with a window cleaning, which for all the impact of the food review channel, is still the principle activity of Window Wolf, which hopes to expand its offerings from gutter cleanings, window cleanings, and pressure washing to high rise window washing as well.

WATCH the Dunn Deal review below… 

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“Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.” – Bo Jackson

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Good News Network
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Credit: Getty Images For Unsplash+

Quote of the Day: “Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.” – Bo Jackson

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?

Credit: Getty Images For Unsplash+

 

Good News in History, May 21

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Good News Network
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55 years ago today, Marvin Gaye released What’s Going On, a landmark LP in pop music history. The concept album flowed with songs written from the point of view of a Vietnam veteran returning to the US, and seeing only hatred, suffering, and injustice.

Regarded as one of the greatest albums of the 20th century, the artist himself produced it—a first for Motown which had resisted any protest themes—yet they finally released it, and it became Motown’s best-selling album to date. WATCH a segment from the Biography documentary, What’s Going On… (1971)

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Florida Man Spends Days Searching for Owner of Lost $30,000 He Found: ‘it wasn’t mine to take’

By
Andy Corbley
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Mr. Salazar watches as the owner counts his money at police headquarters - credit, released by Riviera Beach Police Department
Mr. Salazar watches as the owner counts his money at police headquarters – credit, released by Riviera Beach Police Department

From Riviera Beach in Florida comes the story of a man returning $30,000 to a poor soul who’d misplaced it, saying “it wasn’t mine to take.”

The story is simple, yet powerful, and a reminder that there are good people all over the country; all over the world.

It starts with Luis Salazar walking into the bathroom of a Wawa convenience store and finding a fanny pack hung on the handrail inside the stall.

Salazar asked around inside the store to see if anyone had forgotten it, with no avail. His next thought was to open it up to look for an ID, but his mind went “numb” from what he saw inside: several huge wads of cash.

Yet being the good person prefaced in this story, Salazar never thought of taking a dime, and instead spent several days trying to locate the person who owned it. Eventually, the fanny pack’s owner contacted Riviera Beach police to report it missing, who used security camera footage to identify Salazar.

They told him the owner was waiting at the Riviera Beach Police Station, and Salazar went right over.

“So, I give him his bag. ‘This is yours.’ And he was crying. And he hugged me,” Salazar said.

MORE GREAT DEEDS LIKE THIS: 

“I was pretty astonished that anybody would have done that,” said the owner, who chose not to be identified. “Think about it. That’s life-changing money. People would kill for that kind of money.”

For his part, Salazar didn’t seem astonished.

“It’s not my money to take. I was not raised that way,” Salazar said.

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Free Ice Cream Gift for One Child Prompts Donations to Fund Free Sweets For Kids the Entire Summer

By
Andy Corbley
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Madyson Silvagnoli - via Instagram @ maddytheicecreamlady_
Madyson Silvagnoli – via Instagram @ maddytheicecreamlady_

A heartwarming, brain-freezing story comes now from the streets of Massachusetts, where a woman who offered free ice cream to a penniless child sparked a McFlurry of giving.

Madyson Silvagnoli can be found in her truck—Maddy’s Ice Cream and More—along the streets of Gardner on hot summer days.

Silvagnoli says her ice cream truck is a symbol of childhood and nostalgia for her customers, and is as much about spreading joy as turning a profit.

So perhaps it should not have surprised anyone when, confronted with a teary-eyed child explaining he had “no dollars” to buy ice cream, Silvagnoli dolloped a single scoop in a small cup, added some whipped cream and sprinkles, and handed it to the boy.

“We don’t turn kids away when they don’t have money,” Silvagnoli can be heard in a video that went deliciously viral. “You want an ice cream from Maddy, you get an ice cream from Maddy.”

“Buddy, you can always come up to the ice cream truck,” Silvagnoli tells him.

Shared on Instagram, the response to Maddy and her kindness was immense, with many praising her to the high heavens. The comment section coalesced around the idea of donating to a sort of fund that can pay for free ice cream to other children without pocket money.

FOOD TRUCK TALES: Viral Video Sparks $20,000 in Donations for Ice Cream Vendor Who Walks Miles in the Florida Heat

Silvagnoli put up a product on her website called the No More Tears fund, and also launched a line of merchandise where the proceeds go to do just that—funding free ice cream giveaways.

It features happy smiling cartoon ice cream cones and cups with a tagline “kindness is always free” which was taken from the caption of the viral video that was viewed 9 million times.

OTHER SWEET STORIES: Toy Story Character Talks with Deaf Girl in Heartwarming ASL Moment That Went Viral

Speaking with Today, Silvagnoli said she “empathizes” with every child who comes up to the ice cream truck.

“The world is getting so scary, and I have three daughters, and nieces and nephews and all that, and I want them to have a bright future,” she adds. “I feel like, if I start something so small they can see my kindness, pay it forward, and it just spreads.”

WATCH the video below… 

Give Your Friends The SCOOP On This Sweet Woman’s Gesture On Social Media…

Instead of Arresting Indigenous Fishermen, Australia Begins to Pay Them to Control Sea Urchin Plague

By
Andy Corbley
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Many reefs on New South Wales are described as urchin barrens - credit, Great Southern Reef Foundation, supplied to ABC News
Many reefs on New South Wales are described as urchin barrens – credit, Great Southern Reef Foundation, supplied to ABC News

Native coastal Australians are experiencing a dramatic reversal of fortunes—from facing jail time over fishing to being trained to lead a whole new fishing industry.

Documented in a feature piece at Australia’s ABC News, young people from the Walbunja indigenous community are reconnecting to traditional fishing practices in order to suppress a very yummy plague of long-spined sea urchins devasting southern Australia’s reefs, seagrass, and kelp forests.

Months ago, it looked like Walbunja youth John Carriage was going to face jail time for diving for abalone and lobster, something his ancestors would have done for thousands of years.

It was the fourth time, he told ABC, he has been in court defending the right to practice his cultural heritage of free diving for dinner.

As it turns out, his was the most recent in a string of dropped charges against traditional fishermen, as the state of New South Wales has decided to close this chapter of indigenous prosecution.

And for good reason: NSW needs their help. Decades of overharvesting predatory fish, and a rise in average sea temperatures have created a suite of unbalanced conditions that have proven to be like steroids for the long-spined sea urchin, an endemic species, but one whose destructive tendencies used to be kept under control by these other factors.

Today, legions of these little invertebrates march across the NSW seabed devouring any vegetation they find. Fortunately for human civilization that disrupted the balance in their ecosystem, a simple solution presents itself—lunch.

Now, Walbunja members are training to establish the first Aboriginal-led fishing industry in New South Wales by unleashing their traditional diving practices against the urchins to the end of harvesting thousands annually for the Australasian seafood markets.

John Carriage and his brother Denzel are among those training to dive for urchins professionally under a program organized by the Joonga Land and Water Aboriginal Corporation and helped by an AUD$1.48 million grant offered by the government that once sought to imprison them.

MORE INDIGENOUS STORIES: Salt Water Restores Native Queensland Ecosystems After Dozens of Tidal Gates Removed

“Every time we’re taking a sea urchin out, we’re allowing the weed to regrow,” Carriage told ABC. “We should be able to have more fish, more lobster, more abalone, and better quality sea urchins.”

“The urchin industry is relatively new in Australia, and there’s a real opportunity for traditional custodians to be at the center of this industry, rather than at the margins of it as we’ve seen with other fisheries in the past,” said marine biologist Cayne Layton, who explained that urchin gathering can have demonstrable, positive impacts on marine vegetation richness.

URCHIN CONTROL: Smashing 6 Million Sea Urchins with Hammers Saved a California Kelp Paradise Thanks to Volunteer Divers

As part of their training with Joonga Corp. the Denzels will learn how to pilot boats, dive with supplied oxygen, and select the best urchins for harvesting, cleaning, and export.

Elders are thrilled their youth are having the chance to forge a relationship with their “sea country” as they did when they were young—they called it a necessary step to healing the land, even if it’s land that’s underwater.

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India’s New ‘Good Samaritan Laws’ Reward Any Citizen Who Stops to Help with Traffic Injuries

By
Andy Corbley
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The chaos of an Indian roadway - credit Fuseviews
The chaos of an Indian roadway – credit Fuseviews

In India, where more people are injured or killed on the roads than almost anywhere else, a recently created program is aiming to save lives by leveraging the largest source of capital the country possesses: human capital.

The Rah-Veer program will reward Good Samaritans with 25,000 Indian rupees—about $250—for stopping to assist victims of road accidents during the first 60 minutes post injury.

First aid during this “golden hour” substantially improves the chances any patient will survive, but the problem is convincing people to get on their knees among the blood and bones and help.

In India, where traffic can be abominable, in particular on rural roads, ambulances are routinely required to cover large distances and may not arrive within this golden hour. In such circumstances, a badly injured motorist could fall beyond the point of no return if no one is there to apply a tourniquet, a splint, or even just to be placed in the recovery position.

Open to all citizens, those with medical training or not, Rah-Veer rewards will be given to anyone who stops to help, and will be shared if multiple stop.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways wrote that Rah-Veer ensures that citizens who help accident victims are shielded from legal complexities. There is no requirement to disclose personal information, and no one will be detained. Their privacy is protected, and if a statement is required, it is done quick, simply, and at a time and place of the witness’s choosing.

GOOD SAMARITAN STORIES: 

Every year, the Ministry awards the 10 most vital or courageous Rah-Veer interventions with a bonus $1,000 and a certificate of appreciation.

In the same legislation that created the Rah-Veer program, a new tweak to hospital funding will ensure that no victim of a road collision will be refused due to the inability to pay upfront. Cashless treatment is guaranteed for the first 7 days; hospitals cannot demand upfront payment and cannot refuse admission.

The expenses are expected to be covered under a new payment stream from general insurance companies in insured cases, and by a government fund in the case of uninsured vehicles or hit-and-runs.

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“Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.” – Frank Lloyd Wright

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Good News Network
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Credit: Thomas Depenbusch (CC license)

Quote of the Day: “Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.” – Frank Lloyd Wright

Photo by: Thomas Depenbusch (CC license)

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?

Credit: Thomas Depenbusch (CC license)
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