Sunny Saturday News
- 37 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Celebrating the start of the weekend with a selection of positive news stories to brighten the day.
Tribal Land Return
Funded by a $5.5m grant and private donations, the Washoe Tribe has purchased more than 10,000 acres of land near Lake Tahoe for conservation in one of the largest tribal land returns in California history. The sprawling property, located 20 miles north of Reno, Nevada, stretches from the Great Basin through the Sierra Nevada and encompasses sagebrush scrublands and juniper and pine forests. It marks a key development for the tribe, which was forcibly removed from its lands and saw its individual allotments stolen, said the tribe’s chairperson, Serrell Smokey. The tribe has named the property, previously known as Loyalton Ranch, the Wélmelti Preserve.
Ireland's Artists
A basic income scheme for artists that launched during the pandemic to kickstart Irish culture was made permanent this week. Offering participants a weekly stipend of €325 ($385), the €25m ($30m) pilot helped more than 2,000 artists, although many more applied. According to an independent study, the scheme generated €100m ($118m) in “social and economic benefits” to Ireland’s economy. Although limited in scope, it’s the world’s first basic income scheme of its kind to be made permanent.
Dark Skies Victory
The darkest, clearest skies in the world will not be damaged after plans for an industrial complex near Chile’s Atacama Desert were abandoned, following a people-powered campaign. Scientists raised the alarm and warned that a proposed large-scale industrial hydrogen project would cause “irreparable damage” to the pristine skies, bringing light pollution to observatories that are located there to peer into space, thanks to the region's unrivalled clarity. According to Dark Sky International, a group that campaigns to tackle light pollution, the win “offers a model for future efforts” to conserve other dark sky sites.
Atacama Desert: home to the darkest and cleanest skies in the world. Take a look via this glorious 5 minute movie.
Red Fox GPS
The Sierra Nevada red fox is one of the nation's rarest and most critically threatened mammals with fewer than 50 believed to remain. And now, for the first time, a specimen has been successfully fitted with a GPS collar and released back into the wild, marking a major victory for conservation efforts to protect it. The species' existence in the Sierra Nevada was confirmed only in 2010 when a motion camera north of Yosemite National Park captured a photo of the elusive vulpine and its white-tipped tail. Researchers previously believed the fox was wiped out from the region in the 1920s. The GPS collar will provide researchers with insights into the seasonal movements and daily lives of the Sierra Nevada red fox, and that can in turn help guide conservation strategies.
Largest Yet
Following OGN's recent article Zero to Hero (about Romania's astonishing recycling success), more good news has come in from this once communist country: workers are about to assemble the largest solar farm in Europe with one million photovoltaic panels, backed by batteries to power homes after sunset. But the 760MW project in southern Romania will not hold the title for long. In the north-west, authorities have approved a bigger plant that will boast a capacity of 1GW that could power approximately 876,000 households for one year.
UK's Clean Energy
The UK government has awarded contracts for a record number of green energy projects in its latest round of auctions. In total, 6.2GW of onshore wind, solar and tidal projects secured contracts, with around 80 percent going to solar. It’s part of the country’s endeavour to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030. The government said that the contracted projects would also drive down bills. Greenpeace agreed.
Driverless Taxis
Waymo is now running its 6th-generation vehicle, without safety drivers, on public roads - marking the beginning of fully autonomous operations. The system, first unveiled in August 2024, is now validated for driverless operations across multiple cities. Waymo describes it as the product of seven years of service and nearly 200 million fully autonomous miles logged across 10+ major U.S. cities. It is now hoping for one million weekly rides.
“Winning doesn’t always mean you get the prize. Sometimes you get progress, and that counts.” Stacey Abrams
On This Day
14 February 1876: Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for the telephone - notoriously narrowly beating rival inventor Elisha Gray to the U.S. Patent Office. Bell was awarded US Patent No. 174,465 less than a month later and successfully transmitted the first intelligible voice message to his assistant, Thomas Watson, three days later.
Today's Articles
Unexpected Plot Twist: Kristen Stewart has become the new owner of the Highland Theatre, the landmark venue in LA.
Mood Boosting Video
Defying Logic: Transformational impact of just 11 beavers reintroduced to Scotland.