Looking on the bright side with a collection of good news nuggets.
Rewilding effort sees jaguars return to Argentina's Iberá wetlands, a 1.7 million acre wilderness, for first time in 70 years. “We see rewilding as the future of conservation; with so much at stake, we need active stewardship. After working to rewild jaguars for ten years, it’s incredibly fitting that it should happen in tandem with the start of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration,” said one of the conservationists involved.
Almost 5 million people in the UK have now had a first vaccine dose, close on 10% of the adult population.
Amongst his flurry of activity signing Executive Orders to reverse some of Trump's worst decisions, there are three interesting actions Joe Biden has taken that you may not be aware of.
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach has just declared that the Tokyo Olympic Games will go ahead as scheduled this year, reiterating that there is no plan B. “We have, at this moment, no reason to believe that the Olympic Games in Tokyo will not open on 23 July,” Bach told Kyodo News just days ahead of the six-month countdown toward the games.
The world spent a record $501.3 billion in 2020 on renewable power, electric vehicles and other technologies to cut the global energy system’s dependence on fossil fuels. The investments in the transition to a low-carbon economy marked a 9 percent increase over 2019 and came despite disruptions from the pandemic, according to Bloomberg.
Court strikes down Trump's coal-friendly climate rule: With so much going on in the USA at the moment, it's possible you missed an important US court ruling just before Joe Biden's inauguration.
A website has been launched to help people with dementia reconnect with their memories via music. Evidence suggests that music can access parts of the brain that other forms of communication cannot. With the help of music and dementia charity Playlist for Life, the BBC has created Music Memories. The site, which encourages people and their families to put together playlists, features songs from 1920 through to 2017.
Google has long sought to deny French publishers payment for previews of news in its search tools. However, a court ruling has now paved the way for the internet giant to make copyright payments for re-use of news content online. That's very good news for French publications, some of which have seen revenues drop dramatically.
Who would have guessed that President Xi Jinping was a fashion influencer? His choice of a cobalt blue parka to protect himself against the cold this week sharply boosted the stock price of the Chinese company that owns the Canadian outdoor clothing brand by a whopping 10 percent. The president wore the Arc’teryx coat while inspecting venues of the 2022 Winter Olympics in the mountains north of Beijing. The parkas are advertised on Arc’teryx’s international website for US$1,000.
Talking of cold conditions: Icy showers are part of the daily curriculum for children in Siberia.
Song of the Open Road: Enjoy this magical Walt Whitman poem, written in 1856, that resonates beautifully in today's world, and the world we are soon to enjoy again.