Saturday's bundle of only good news snippets.
It's been a good few months for Amanda Gorman, the 23-year-old American poet who drew widespread acclaim for her reading at Joe Biden’s inauguration. She says she's turned down around $17m in endorsements because the companies do not “speak to” her. However, she accepted the offer from Vogue US to be May's cover star. Writing about the cover on Twitter, Gorman said she was “honoured to be the first poet EVER on the cover of Vogue”.
Good news for the Palestinians as the US announces it will restore more than $200m in aid, reversing massive funding cuts under the Trump administration that left humanitarian groups scrambling to keep people from plunging into poverty.
Discovery in Yorkshire: Archaeologists have unearthed a 5,750 year old salty tale - with big implications for British prehistory.
For the first time ever, scientists have demonstrated that animal DNA can be collected from the air - a breakthrough that could revolutionize forensics, conservation, and even epidemiology. “The use of eDNA (environmental DNA) has become a topic of increasing interest within the scientific community particularly for ecologists or conservationists looking for efficient and non-invasive ways to monitor biological environments,” said Dr. Elizabeth Clare, Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University London and lead author of the study.
There are around 330 brown bears in northern Spain. As winters are warmer now, they come out of hibernation earlier than usual, and struggle to find the food they need to survive. So, the Spanish government is planting 150,000 native trees and shrubs across 155 hectares of their territory to provide the endangered species with more readily available food.
Now that the Moderna vaccine has started its roll out in the UK, Brits can also look forward to the Novavax jab, which showed nearly 90 percent efficacy in trials. It's not yet approved for use in the UK, but is already being made at a Fujifilm facility in Stockton-on-Tees, and will be bottled and packaged at GSK’s facility in Barnard Castle - the second time the location has shot to fame during the pandemic.
Speaking of Barnard Castle, and since the Masters is currently underway at Augusta, it's amusing to recall that a certain Dominic Cummings (chief adviser to Boris Johnson last year) unintionally added a new name to the golfing lexicon. What's a Dominic Cummings? A long drive that goes out of bounds.
Great golf quotes: On a similar theme, you may enjoy reading some wise and some amusing golf quotes.
The Spanish government has sought to calm tensions over its strict new outdoor face mask rules, after they were interpreted by many as meaning they must be worn on the beach at all times. Officials now say that face coverings would not have to be donned while sunbathing or swimming, if beachgoers were careful. So, there won't be thousands of Homer Simpson lookalikes afterall. Doh!
New broom at EPA provides hope: It's great news that the acronym for the US environmental agency once again stands for what it's meant to.
Need some new dance moves? How about adding a northern soul shuffle to your repertoire?