Good News Tuesday

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Today's smorgasbord of tasty, uplifting news nuggets from around the world.

Three walruses, including a nursing baby, sit on an iceberg in Norway. — Richard Rothstein | 2026 Ocean Conservancy Photo Contest

Walrus Nursing

Richard Rothstein had never encountered a walrus before. But as he floated in a skiff among icebergs in Arctic Norway, he noticed two female walruses in a seemingly protective stance. In the middle was a baby, nursing from one of the adults. “The walruses seemed to completely tolerate our presence, as there appeared to be no alteration of their natural behavior,” says Rothstein. “It was truly an experience of a lifetime.” The photograph he took of the moment, Walrus Nursing, achieved the top prize in this year’s Ocean Conservancy Photo Contest. “I loved the calm moment, the reflection and the connection between the walruses,” one of the contest judges said. “It feels very natural, honest and emotional.”

Cyclists in Nyhavn, Copenhagen, on an overcast day — Cyclists in Nyhavn, Copenhagen

Most Liveable Cities

It started life as a Viking fishing village, has more bikes than people in it, and has once again been crowned the world’s most liveable city. Copenhagen, the Danish capital has retained its place atop the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual Global Liveability Index. It assesses 173 cities across five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. The top 10, in order, are: Copenhagen, Vienna, Melbourne, Sydney, Zurich, Geneva, Osaka, Adelaide, Vancouver, Tokyo. Find out where your city ranks.

collage featuring Harry Kane, Bukayo Saka and Jude Bellingham — Heroes on and off the field

It All Goes to Charity

Ever wondered how much stars such as Harry Kane, Bukayo Saka or Jude Bellingham make every time they put on an England shirt? Well, the Three Lions each receive a match fee of £2,000 for appearing in a national team game - which is pocket change when compared to the insane salaries Premier League stars take home every week. But players actually walk away with nothing - as each player kindly donates all of their match fees to charity. The money goes to the England Footballers Foundation (EFF), a charity founded in 2007 by senior national team stars such as David Beckham and Gary Neville. The funds are then distributed amongst chosen charity partners such as Bobby Moore Fund, Help for Heroes and UNICEF. So far the charity has raised a whopping £15 million.

Swimmers in the Seine near the Eiffel Tower — Swimming in the Seine

Joyful Parisiens

The Seine in Paris has stayed clean enough since the Olympics to welcome bathers back for a second summer with a refreshing dip - and did so last week. For the first time in more than a century, the once-polluted river was made swimmable in 2025 following a years-long clean-up and a major upgrade to the city’s sewage system. Bathers are flocking to cool down in three swimming areas - one near Notre Dame Cathedral, another near the Eiffel Tower and a third in eastern Paris.

Spectacular Results

How’s this for permaculture on a whole new level? Adding fish to rice paddies fights a horrible parasitic disease. In a schistosomiasis hotspot in Senegal, researchers from Stanford stocked rice fields with two native species, African bonytongue and Nile tilapia, that eat or outcompete the freshwater snails carrying the parasite. Fields with both fish held fewer snails, and yields rose more than 25 percent, with the harvested fish offering a second stream of income. The team now wants to scale it across endemic rice-growing regions.

Three-Wheelers

While the West obsesses over electric cars, the developing world is electrifying all its smaller vehicles. India leads: nearly 70 percent of three-wheelers (rickshaws, mopeds) sold there in 2025 ran on batteries, up from 20 percent in 2020. The shift is spreading, sales in Southeast Asia doubled last year. That's very good news, as almost everyone drives a three-wheeler or a moped.

Centaurus A as seen by the JWST | Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Crash Site

July 2026 marks four years since NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images were first revealed to the general public, marking a new era for astronomy. To celebrate this anniversary of the most powerful space telescope ever launched, NASA has released a stunning image of this strangely shaped galaxy called Centaurus A. Located around 11 million light-years away, Centaurus A owes its unusual structure to a collision between two galaxies around 2 billion years ago. This merger provided the galaxy with an abundance of gas and dust, the raw material for intense star formation. It also supplied the supermassive black hole at the heart of this galaxy with an abundant supply of the same matter to feed upon and power a bright and violent central region, or active galactic nucleus, as that central area blasts out powerful, high-speed jets of plasma.

"The summer night is like a perfection of thought." Wallace Stevens

On This Day

Mary Todd Lincoln wearing a white dress and flowers in her hair

14 July 1870: The United States Congress grants Mary Todd Lincoln a life pension. The widow of the assassinated President struggled with significant financial anxiety and petitioned Congress for compensation, which lawmakers eventually passed by a narrow margin. As noted by Britannica: “As the widow of an assassinated president - the first in the nation's history - she received public sympathy, and in 1870 Congress responded by granting her an annual pension of $3,000 (about $76,000 in today's equivalent), raising it to $5,000 in 1881.