Celebrating the start of the weekend with a global round up of positive news nuggets.
Once in a blue moon, a photographer captures an image so stunning it stops social media in its tracks. In Arizona photographer Andrew McCarthy's case, his subject was an actual blue moon. During last week's super blue moon - the last one we'll see until January 2037, says NASA - McCarthy used three telescopes and two cameras to get the perfect shot of the rare astronomical sight. A JetBlue flight traveling from San Diego to Fort Lauderdale made an accidental cameo.
If you love great photography, don't miss the winners of this year's Bird Photography Awards in tomorrow's OGN Sunday Magazine.
Second Chance at Life
One of the world's rarest turtles is returning home to Texas after washing up 4,000 miles away in north Wales. Tally - as the turtle became known after being found on a beach - is a Kemp's ridley turtle, a species mainly found in the Gulf of Mexico and off eastern North America. But young Kemp's ridley turtles can sometimes be swept across the Atlantic by the Gulf Stream. After being nursed back to health, Tally is being flown home to Texas and will be released from Galveston into the Gulf of Mexico in this month for what the US Fish and Wildlife Service called "a second chance at life".
Kindness Packages
A mysterious person is leaving kindness packages for people to find to brighten up their day. 'Miss Busy' is leaving handmade packages in England on popular walking routes in Calne, Wiltshire, for people to pick up. The packages include stickers, small books, cards and messages. One man who found one of the kindness packages said: "I was taking Lottie my puppy out for a walk and it was right there, it was hanging from a tree. I opened it up and it made me smile."
Battery Recycling
Another US EV-battery recycler just raised a massive funding round. Ascend Elements attracted $542 million in investment to make cathodes from spent EV batteries - that's in addition to the $480m it has already received from the DOE - just a week after Redwood Materials raised $1 billion. That's good news as recycled battery materials could be a vital source of supply for the fast-growing U.S. lithium-ion battery and EV industries and, of course, keeps 'dead' batteries out of landfills.
Swift Bricks
Writer and campaigner Hannah Bourne-Taylor has led a campaign for 'swift bricks' (hollow bricks the birds can use for nesting) to become mandatory in all new housing in England, providing a home for thousands of the birds, who are preparing to migrate over the Saharas to their winter grounds in Africa. A petition she organised was signed by 110,000 people and was debated in parliament in July. Now, an amendment to make swift bricks mandatory as part of the housing bill will be debated in the House of Lords this week. Momentum continues to build.
Alaska Oil Cancelled
In a significant move for both climate action and protecting biodiversity, the U.S. Interior Department just announced it is officially canceling all remaining oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. This will protect 1.5 million acres of coastal plain - both a critical ecosystem for wildlife and an area seen as sacred to the Indigenous Gwich’in since it's where caribou they rely on migrate to give birth. The leases were part of a sale held in the remaining days of the Trump administration.
EU Beats Solar Targets
Recent data reveals that most EU countries are likely to achieve their 2030 renewable energy targets earlier than expected, thanks to a significant expansion in solar power, writes Politico. 23 EU nations are projected to meet their solar installation goals by 2027. That's partly thanks to 41 gigawatts of new solar capacity added in 2022, marking a 40 percent increase from 2021.
“Love me like Saturday night, like three glasses of champagne, like the room is spinning, like you’re drunk on my love.” C.J. Carlyon
On this Day
9 September 1908: Orville Wright makes the first one hour airplane flight in Fort Myer, Virginia.
Patagonia founder has built his 'better version' suburban California home out of straw bales to spread the gospel of a green build. Waste not...
Mood Booster
Monkey Opera: Animals Say the Wildest Things.