Just Good News Friday
- Editor OGN Daily
- Jul 18
- 4 min read
Celebrating the end of the week with a global round up of positive news stories.
Grand Hotel Reopens
Waldorf Astoria New York, one of the city’s grandest hotels, closed for renovations in 2017. After almost eight years and billions of dollars, it returns, reborn for the 21st century. “The Waldorf has always been a reflection of New York,” said David Freeland, a historian and the author of American Hotel: The Waldorf-Astoria and the Making of a Century. “I’d like to think that its reopening symbolizes the return of a great public space within the life of the city.” The hotelier Conrad Hilton long aspired to own the Waldorf-Astoria, calling it “the greatest of them all,” and in 1972, his company acquired the property. In 2014, Hilton sold it to the Chinese firm Anbang Insurance Group for $1.95 billion, still the most expensive hotel sale in history, says the New York Times. Hilton retained a 100-year contract to continue managing it.
Chimp Fashion Trend
A group of chimpanzees in Zambia have resurrected an old fashion trend with a surprising new twist. Fifteen years after a female chimpanzee named Julie first stuck a blade of grass into her ear and started a hot new craze among her cohort at the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage, an entirely new group of chimps at the refuge have started doing the same thing. "We were really shocked that this had happened again," says Jake Brooker, a psychologist and great apes researcher at Durham University in England. "We were even more shocked that they were doing their own spin on this by also inserting the grass and sticks in a different orifice." The chimps, he says, have been putting blades of grass and sticks into their ears and anuses, and simply letting them dangle there for no apparent reason. The study, published in the journal Behaviour, sheds new light on how social-cultural trends spread and change among our primate cousins, much like they do among humans.
Sticking to the subject of fashion in Zambia, take a look at Legendary Glamma: Zambian Grandma Fashion Inspiration.
Super-Super Fast
Live Science reports that researchers in Japan have set a new world record for the fastest internet speed - by developing new fiber optics - transmitting over 125,000 gigabytes of data per second over 1,120 miles (1,802 km). That's about 4 million times the average internet speed in the U.S. and would allow you to download the entire Internet Archive in less than four minutes, according to some rough estimates. This is also more than twice the previous world record.
"Serendipitous"
An ancient Moon rock that fell to Earth is rewriting what we know about lunar volcanoes. The rare meteorite with its unique chemical makeup bridges a billion-year gap in lunar rock samples. The 2.35 billion-year-old meteorite was discovered in Africa in 2023 and reveals that the Moon was volcanically active far longer than previously thought. Its rare geochemical profile sets it apart from those returned by previous Moon missions, with chemical evidence indicating it likely formed from a lava flow that solidified after emerging from deep within the Moon. Dr. Joshua Snape - who presented the research to delegates at the world’s foremost geochemistry gathering, the Goldschmidt Conference in Prague - called the sample serendipitous. “It just happened to fall to Earth and reveals secrets about lunar geology without the massive expense of a space mission,” he said in a media release.
Drug Dealer?
A property developer in Cleveland, Ohio, has defended placing advertising billboards around the city on which he proudly proclaims "Yes! I buy crack houses". Locals have complained that John Williams' signs are "in poor taste", said a local news broadcaster, but Williams said the slogan "gets attention" and that the dilapidated properties he renovates increase the city's stock of affordable housing. Another billboard featuring Williams promises potential sellers: "Your house is trash? We pay cash."
Apple Doubles Down
Apple had a box-office hit with F1, the car-racing movie starring Brad Pitt. Now it looks like it's going to double down on the sport, with a likely deal to stream Formula 1 races. The tech company appears to be the leading bidder for the US rights to show F1 races - which are currently held by Disney's ESPN. Apple has submitted a bid worth at least $150 million a year to stream the races starting in 2026. And ESPN isn't going to try to match or beat that, according to Business Insider. So, barring a last-minute change, it looks like Apple, which already has deals to stream some pro baseball games, and all of Major League Soccer's games, will have a third sports streaming offering next year.
"The greatest gift is not being afraid to question." Ruby Dee
On This Day
18 July 1976: For her performance in the uneven parallel bars at the Olympic Games in Montreal, 14 year old Nadia Comăneci of Romania became the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event.
Today's Articles
Literary Giant: New exhibitions on both sides of the pond are celebrating Jane Austin's 250th birthday.
Trailblazing Women: You may never have heard of the 'Harvard Computers', but they were 80 women who helped to build the foundations of modern astronomy.
Mood Boosting Video
A clever fox hunts for prey hidden beneath the snow in Yellowstone – but will luck be on his side?
