Good News Today
Wrapping up the week with a global collection of upbeat news nuggets.
Peek-a-Boo
"In a quiet, snow-covered landscape, a subtle movement behind a ridge caught my attention. I waited, camera ready, capturing brief, almost accidental glimpses - until a stag lifted his head and met my gaze for an instant before disappearing again. A fleeting encounter of presence and absence, leaving the question: who was observing whom?" This delightful photo was taken near Kitzbühel in Austria by Iris Dahan and won her first place in the Open section of the Minimalist Photography Awards 2026. As Henry David Thoreau, American writer and philosopher, once said: "It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see."
Locking Eyes With Photographer: A wildlife photographer’s stunning series of images from the jungles of India capturing the moment an animal “sees” him as their eyes meet his own.
Looking For Love
More than two million singletons just descended on a temple in Jaipur, India, hoping to “obtain a dollop of henna that could ‘guarantee’ they find a good partner”, said The Times. Crowds gathered outside the Moti Dungri Ganesh temple, whose henna is believed to help the lovelorn. The annual tradition has been embraced by locals for at least two centuries but “numbers appeared to have been swelled by viral social media clips” claiming this year’s batch “had particularly powerful properties”. Let's hope so.
Cycling Success
A combination of e-bike rentals and segregated bike lanes has boosted cycling in Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, to the extent that bikes outnumbered cars during a recent morning rush hour for the first time ever. That's according to a new analysis by the Scottish cycling charity Cycling Scotland.
New German Pledge
Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, has committed to phasing out fossil fuels by 2045. In a roadmap published this week, the German government set out for the first time an explicit promise of “transitioning away” from fossil fuels. Previous pledges were only for “carbon neutrality”. The plans include ramping up renewable energy from 55 percent to 80 percent of electricity generation by 2030. The previously stated target of winding down coal use in the next decade, with a view to an exit from coal in 2038, was also reaffirmed, with the potential for an earlier target of 2035.
Standing Ovation
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted full approval to Rasonque (daraxonrasib), as a first-in-class daily pill for advanced pancreatic cancer. The treatment made headlines in June when initial trial data presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting drew a rare, spontaneous standing ovation from thousands of oncologists. The pill doubles median survival for deadly pancreatic cancer, with some patients living for years. Now the FDA has approved it, compressing a process that normally takes months into weeks because the benefit was so large, and the need so urgent. “We can now envisage a future with no chemotherapy needed.”
Open-Air Sky Gardens
Revery Architecture has completed a 57 story residential tower alongside the restoration and expansion of a century-old Gothic Revival church. The Butterfly residential tower is located in downtown Vancouver and the 605,000-sq-ft (56,200-sq-m) development also includes a seven-story affordable rental building and a range of community facilities. Standing 556 ft (169 m) tall, the tower takes an unusual approach to high-rise circulation by replacing traditional enclosed corridors with open-air sky gardens. Residents step from the elevators directly into naturally ventilated communal spaces planted with deciduous trees, bringing greenery, daylight and fresh air into each residential level. But the really impressive feature is that the development is expected to cut operational carbon emissions by a whopping 68 percent, or up to 85 percent when renewable energy from the district plant is included.
El Niño Blog
Former NOAA scientists are reviving a critical El Niño blog after the U.S. government took it offline. It was pulled last summer, when the Trump administration’s DOGE initiative fired all NOAA staff responsible for overseeing climate.gov. The blog tracked all things El Niño and La Niña, offering newly available data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the public in digestible language. But thanks to a handful of former NOAA employees, the ENSO blog is making a return.
"A wise girl knows her limits, a smart girl knows that she has none." Marilyn Monroe
On This Day
25 September 1789: The First U.S. Congress proposes the Bill of Rights, a set of amendments to the constitution guaranteeing essential liberties, including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right to peaceful assembly. The core purpose was to limit the power of the federal government and protect fundamental individual liberties. It was ratified on 15 December.
Today's Articles
Personal Watersuite: Fancy a change of scene? How about a luxury floating home? It's a new way to live on water.
Serendipitous: Clever pelican in Florida knocks on NOAA door with his beak to ask for help with injury.
Mood Boosting Video
Architectural Digest takes you inside a Pennsylvania workshop full of the world’s rarest wood.
