Upbeat News Thursday
Today's smorgasbord of tasty news nuggets from around the globe.
First Time in The US
A collection of more than 700 items belonging to the late Princess Diana, including some of her most memorable clothes, is going on display for the first time in the United States. The exhibit, Diana: Love Life Legacy - A Life of Giving, has just opened at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in California. Among the pieces of Diana's wardrobe on display are the princess's famous Warm & Wonderful black sheep sweater, and a floral dress dubbed the "caring dress," because Diana wore it most often on visits to hospitals. The "caring" dress sold for $500,000 at auction last year. The exhibition runs until 31 May 2027.
Sleep Better
You’re doing everything right at bedtime: you stay away from screens after nine, take a soothing dark shower, sip on that herbal tea cooling on the nightstand, and maintain a reasonably consistent sleep schedule. Yet some nights the ceiling still has your full attention past midnight, and you can’t quite figure out why. If you’ve been treating sleep as mostly a habits problem, a recent nutritional review suggests there’s a variable you might be overlooking: what you eat in the evening. The review, published in the journal Nutrients, made the case for pistachios as a bedtime snack, and the reasoning holds up better than most food-and-sleep claims do. There’s no single magic compound, but what’s unusual is that one ounce of pistachios stacks five separate sleep-relevant nutrients at once, each arriving via a different route. That’s a rare combination to find in a single snack.
Health Benefits of Pistachios: Aside from being delicious, why are they so good for you?
Record Breaker
Godzilla Minus Zero climbed to the top of box office charts last weekend with $31.6 million, a roaring start for a foreign-language epic in North America. Ticket sales for the movie register it as the largest opening for a live-action foreign-language film in North America, shattering the record set by China’s martial arts-inspired Hero with $17.8 million in 2002. The R-rated Godzilla sequel benefited from sterling reviews and strong audience scores.
Exact Spot
Researchers at Northwestern University and UC Santa Barbara have identified a specific contact point on tau proteins where the misfolding that drives Alzheimer’s disease begins. The finding, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests the site could be targeted with drugs designed to slow tau tangle growth in the brain. “If you know where to block its action of misfolding, you could block it to prevent it from propagating.”
Good News From The World Alzheimer Report 2026: “Never before has there been so much focus, investment, and hope in dementia research.”
End of HIV?
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the first generic version of Lenacapavir, a twice-yearly HIV prevention drug administered via injection, considered the closest thing the world has to a vaccine. The approval paves the way for the breakthrough drug to reach millions of people who need it, particularly in the countries hit hardest by the AIDS epidemic.
According to the United Nations, the drug could be the key to ending the AIDS epidemic globally by 2030.
Exclusive Club
Paul McCartney has joined the ranks of the world’s billionaires. Forbes has valued the former Beatle’s net worth at $1.4bn (£1.04bn), making him the world’s third richest musician behind Jay-Z at $2.8bn (£2.01bn) and Taylor Swift at $2bn (£1.49bn). The magazine attributed McCartney’s wealth to his music catalogue, tours and art collection. The 84-year-old derives the bulk of his fortune from MPL Communications, the publishing company he founded in 1969 that manages his own catalogue and those of other artists. McCartney is still an active musician into his 80s, with the release of his most recent album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, earlier this year.
Selling Like Hotcakes
The F-150 Lightning is hard to pass up at 50 percent off sticker price, even used. With new models no longer available, Ford’s electric pickup is suddenly selling like hotcakes on the used market. After the last model rolled off the assembly line last December, CEO Jim Farley said the decision to end production came as the “very high-end EVs, the $50K, 70K, $80,000 vehicles, they just weren’t selling.” Used Ford F-150 Lightnings are selling in about 20 days, less than half the 44-day average for used vehicles in the US.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." George Bernard Shaw
On This Day
11 November 1807: Washington Irving's satirical Salmagundi periodical, the first to associate the name "Gotham" with New York City, is published. The name later inspired comic book writer Bill Finger to use "Gotham City" as the setting for Batman. Washington Irving is most famous for writing the iconic short stories The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, which were published in his 1819 - 1820 collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
Today's Articles
Sahara Stonehenge: Mysterious 7,000-year-old stone circle is the oldest known astronomical observatory on Earth.
Mood Boosting Video
The Invisible Horse: The 2026 Disney holiday short.
