OGN Friday

Editor OGN Daily
Jul 11
4 min read

Wrapping up the week with a global collection of positive news stories.

a 50cm-wide Fiat Panda — Credit: tutti pazzi per marazzi

Ultra-Slim

An Italian mechanic has been hailed as a visionary, for creating a 50cm-wide "Panda for one" - a razor-thin version of Fiat's classic car. Andrea Marazzi unveiled the model at a rally of over a thousand fans of the car in Cremona. Marazzi's model was made in his father's scrapyard and is powered by a scooter engine. He hand-built the vehicle using "99 percent of the original parts" from a 1993 model. "There have been Pandas with bathtubs, Pandas made of wood," he said, "but nobody has made one this thin."

Lisbon Leads

Portugal’s capital city launched a citywide reusable cup scheme to reduce plastic waste. With the potential to remove 25,000 discarded cups every night, Lisbon is the first European capital to implement an initiative that aims to combat plastic waste, reduce emissions, and introduce a smart reuse model in the city’s restaurant sector and bustling nightlife.

Here's How Norway Achieves Almost 100% Plastic Bottle Recycling

An art nouveau Paris metro entrance — A Paris metro entrance

Art Nouveau Métro

The “forgotten” designer of Paris’s most iconic Métro station entrances and art nouveau buildings is to be given his rightful place in the city’s history with a museum dedicated to his work. Hector Guimard left a distinctive mark across the French capital in the early 1900s, creating elaborate and monumental Métro entrances whose fans of iron and glass resembling unfurled insect wings were nicknamed dragonflies. “It may be surprising to foreign visitors but the French have never really liked art nouveau,” said Fabien Choné, head of Hector Guimard Diffusion, a company involved in establishing the new museum. “There was great opposition to Guimard’s Métro entrances. While visitors saw them as marvellous symbols of the belle époque Métro, Parisians criticised it as what they called spaghetti style and couldn’t understand why tourists liked them.” The Guimard Museum will be established at the Hôtel Mezzara, a four-storey building in Paris’s 16th arrondissement designed by Guimard in 1910 and which features much of his signature ironwork, including a spectacular glass skylight and chandeliers.

Man installing a solar panel on a balcony — Domestic solar soars in Germany

Balcony Solar

Germany hits a new milestone in renewable energy. The country's market register now shows over one million balcony solar installations in operation, producing free, clean energy. The number of installations has doubled in one year, from 500,000 in June 2024 to over one million in June 2025. The initial spark for the popularity of balcony power plants traces back to the high electricity prices following the start of Russia's war against Ukraine.

Supreme Court

In a 6-3 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to uphold a program, active since 1996, that provides “subsidized telephone and internet services to rural healthcare providers, schools and libraries, and low-income Americans.”

First of Its Kind

Swiss regulators have approved the first malaria treatment specifically designed for babies and small children under 10 pounds. Rollout in African countries where malaria incidence is highest will begin as soon as possible.

a yellow Chevy Vega — Credit: Seward County Chamber & Development Partnership | Facebook

Time Capsule

In 1975, a 45-ton treasure trove dubbed the “world’s largest time capsule” was sealed in a small town in Nebraska. It was the year the Vietnam War ended, Microsoft was founded, and the movie Jaws was released. Fast forward five decades, and the artifacts have been unveiled to the public, drawing hundreds of people from across the country to see a slice of life from the ’70s. “This is the culmination of 50 years of planning on the part of my father,” Trish Davisson Johnson, whose father spearheaded the project in hopes of giving his grandchildren a glimpse of another era, told NBC News. Of the thousands of items, the contents included handwritten letters, a wedding invitation, voice recordings, pet rocks, a yellow Chevy Vega, and a teal suit. “It’s not about what’s inside of it. It’s about what’s inside of us and who we were back in ’75 and who we are today.”

“Instead of looking at things, look between things.” John Baldessari

On This Day

Harper Lee photographed in 1960 by Truman Capote — Harper Lee photographed in 1960

11 July 1960: American author Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird was published and became a classic, noted for its sensitive treatment of a child's awakening to racism and prejudice in the South. The novel follows the Finch children, Scout and Jem, as they mature and confront the harsh realities of racial injustice in their small Alabama town during the 1930s. It was widely praised for its sensitive and nuanced portrayal of these issues and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961.