OGN Wednesday
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Eclectic mid-week collection of upbeat news stories from around the globe.
Apollo Gallery Reopens
For the first time since thieves shocked the world by brazenly stealing crown jewels worth some $100 million from the Louvre last autumn, the museum has reopened the scene of the crime to the public. The ornate space was conceived by Louis XIV more than 360 years ago, and officials say they hope visitors will appreciate the gilded Apollo Gallery, now devoid of display cases, as a work of art in and of itself. “It will be an opportunity for visitors to better realize that they are inside a palace,” Christophe Leribault, the Louvre’s new director, told journalists. “It’s a bit strange to see it empty in this way, but that was actually its function. It was a grand state reception gallery.”
New Home For Leonardo's Mona Lisa: Visitors will be able to view the masterpiece without touring the rest of the Louvre, enabling visitor traffic at the museum to increase by up to three million people annually.
Seeing The Funny Side
You will no doubt recall that the jewellery heist from the Louvre left people horrified and captivated in equal measure. Much attention focused on their slick getaway plan, which saw a not-so-subtle cherry picker positioned next to a museum window. Videos and photos of the thieves descending down the basket lift with their hoard were viewed millions of times. Böcker Maschinenwerke, the company that manufactured it, seized on the marketing opportunity, using images from the heist in an advert captioned: "If you're in a hurry." The ad goes on to say the machinery "carries your treasures up to 400kg", and works "quiet as a whisper thanks to its 230V electric motor".
Speciality Plate
Florida’s second-most popular specialty license plate, which features a sea turtle on a sandy beach crawling towards the water, has provided an estimated $8 to $10 million in support for the state’s sea turtle conservation programs since it debuted in 1998. In 1995, the Sea Turtle Conservancy campaigned to establish the sea turtle design. They began appearing on roads in 1998, and now more than 100,000 can be spotted on Florida’s streets every year.
Handing Over The Keys
The quiet city of Monticello, Georgia, a bit over an hour’s drive from Atlanta, has some big news. A 25-year-old Monticello native, Evan Newton, has purchased his hometown newspaper, The Monticello News, which was founded in 1881 - making Newton one of the youngest newspaper owners in the nation. “It is the greatest honor of my professional career to become the new owner of The Monticello News,” Newton said in a statement. “From growing up as an avid reader, to getting my professional start as an intern, to becoming the owner, it’s truly a full-circle moment.” Adding: "I’m here to make sure that The News not only survives, but thrives for years to come.”
Female Governors
There are 85 women major-party candidates running for governor across 36 states this year, significantly exceeding the previous record of 69, set in 2022. Fifty-one of those women are Democrats, another record, and 34 are Republicans.
Baltic Power
Poland’s first Baltic Sea wind farm officially tested its onshore power route to an inland substation. The Baltic Power project is expected to generate enough to power more than 1.5 million Polish households.
Keeping Track
There’s something oddly calming about gazing up at a train station departure board. Maybe it’s the pixelated glow from the lights, the regularly revolving stream of information, or the knowledge that you’re about to sit back and let the rails take you to your destination. Sadly, that specific type of info is usually only found in the stations themselves. Not content to leave it at that, DIY YouTuber Jon Morris Smith recently designed a homebrew version of a departure board. The final result isn’t a cool-but-useless replica, either. With a little bit of coding work, Smith got his LED matrix setup to display all of the info for his own travels. “Being a life-long train fan I’ve always wanted my own departure board, and as a regular commuter one which shows my usual route,” he wrote on his website, Another Partial Success.
“The path from dreams to success does exist.” Kalpana Chawla
On This Day
29 July 1954: Publication of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, by George Allen & Unwin in London. The trilogy has now sold over 150 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling novels ever written.
Today's Articles
Ambitious Experiment: Young couple give $150 million in no-strings-attached cash transfers directly to Malawi’s poorest.
Not So Fast: EU bans fashion companies from destroying unsold clothes in order to reduce waste and emissions.
Common Traits: SuperAgers defy the odds and succeed in maintaining memory performance on par with those at least three decades younger.
Mood Boosting Video
Peter's Journey: Final trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.