Thursday's Positive News
- Editor OGN Daily
- Jul 11, 2024
- 4 min read
Eclectic global round up of positive news stories.
Comedy Sequel
A sequel to hit 2006 comedy The Devil Wears Prada is under way at Disney, with key cast and crew widely expected to return. The storyline reportedly follows Miranda Priestly, the withering fashion mag editor played by Meryl Streep, as she navigates the decline of traditional print publication in the digital space. Her new key adversary is sometime assistant Emily Charlton (played by Emily Blunt in the original), who is now a high-powered executive for a luxury consortium, and who makes the decisions over where to place lucrative advertising contracts.
Gen Z Sobriety
The biggest nonalcoholic beer brand in the U.S. just got more valuable thanks in part to Gen Z’s efforts (those born during the late 1990s and early 2000s) to make sobriety cool. Athletic Brewing nearly doubled its valuation to about $800 million in just two years, the Wall Street Journal reports. More than 60 percent of young people born between 1997 and 2002, up from 40 percent last year, said they plan to cut back on their alcohol consumption this year, according to a survey by NCSolutions. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic...
Forward Thinking
England fans gearing up for the team’s Euro 2024 semi-final clash with the Netherlands last night were able to taste a proper British pint at a Yorkshire pub reconstructed in Germany. Fans staying in Iserlohn, near Dortmund, which is hosting the match, enjoyed generously filled “half-litres” of Newcastle Brown Ale and Yorkshire beer in The New Crown. Paul Moss, the owner, stripped fixtures and fittings from The New Crown in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, and shipped them hundreds of miles to Germany three years ago. The pub is now draped in hundreds of metres of St George’s cross bunting to go alongside a red telephone box in the beer garden and a black cab parked outside - and jubilant fans celebrating England's 2-1 victory over the Dutch late into the night.
Manhattan Modification
Under a new law in New York City that goes into effect this year, buildings more than 25,000 square feet are required to meet certain emissions standards - and they get even stricter in 2030. To meet those standards now rather than waiting until the last minute, a cutting-edge, state-backed project is underway at a 17-story office building that was built in 1931. It’s swapping its fossil-gas boiler for much more efficient electric heat pumps. The state has invested millions in backing the project because they’re hopeful it will serve as a model in decarbonizing over 6,000 other high rises in the city.
Heroic Age
A protection perimeter drawn around Endurance, one of the world's greatest shipwrecks, is being widened from a radius of 500m to 1,500m. The extended zone will further limit activities close to the vessel, which sank in 1915 during an ill-fated Antarctic expedition led by celebrated polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. The measure is part of a newly published conservation management plan. Already, no-one should retrieve or even touch objects in the protected zone. Everything must be left in situ. The perimeter update is a recognition that debris from Endurance - including crew belongings - may be strewn across a larger area of ocean floor than previously thought. The ship lies 3,000m down in the Weddell Sea.
Secret Society
A man in Kelowna, British Columbia, was baffled when his cherished garden gnomes suddenly vanished from his front lawn. Assuming they had fallen victim to thieves, Kelly Blair accepted that his tiny friends were likely lost forever. However, a few days later, Blair answered a knock at his door and was greeted by an elderly woman who handed him a cut-out paper image of a gnome with the words The Gnome Restoration Society inscribed on the back. "The lady wouldn't tell me anything," Blair recounted. The woman insisted she was merely delivering the gnomes and refused to answer any questions about their whereabouts or the mysterious society involved. She then led Blair to her vehicle, where he saw all of his missing gnomes, meticulously restored to pristine condition. "It totally made my day."
Chiquita Liable
Following 17 years of legal proceedings, victims of paramilitary violence in Colombia have obtained justice, as a jury found the banana company Chiquita Brands International liable for financing a paramilitary group. The ruling is historic because it’s the first time an American jury has held a major U.S. corporation liable for complicity in serious human rights abuses in another country. Victims’ families will receive $38.3 million in compensation.
"Carry out a random act of kindness with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you." Princess Diana
On This Day
11 July 1914: George Herman (“Babe”) Ruth played in his first major league baseball game, for the Boston Red Sox.
Today's Articles
Smart Factory: Totally automated, self-improving, and making a high tech smart phone every 3 seconds.
Mood Boosting Video
Galapagos Penguins: Whilst chicks hide in tunnels of volcanic rock to protect them from the heat, the adult penguins opt for a quick dip.