Uplifing Friday News
- Jun 13
- 4 min read
Celebrating the end of the week with a global round-up of positive news nuggets.
What I’m Looking At
British artist and designer Freddie Yauner has gone viral for What I’m Looking At, an ongoing art project built around a wearable reflective Mirror Mask that turns the wearer’s face into a live reflection of the world in front of them. In videos shared across social media, Yauner walks through farms, forests, and city streets while the polished stainless steel mask captures and mirrors the surrounding landscape, creating the uncanny illusion that viewers are looking directly through his face and into his point of view. See more on his Instagram
Catalyst For Change
Japan’s youngest female mayor will become the nation’s first elected official to take maternity leave. Shoko Kawata, who plans to take 16 weeks, hopes her decision will be a “catalyst for changing the system.”
World Cup Pitches
With 104 matches in 16 stadiums across Canada, the United States, and Mexico, the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be soccer’s biggest event ever - and FIFA wants those pitches to all feel the same. The scale of this turfing task is unprecedented: three distinct climatic zones, over 3,100 miles between the farthest stadiums, and venues ranging from stadiums open to the heat of Mexico City and Miami to enclosed NFL stadiums in Dallas and Atlanta, to the cooler climates of Boston and Toronto. Despite the unique situations of each stadium, FIFA has a long list of rules for how the fields must be built. The grass has to be real but reinforced so it can handle a lot of games and ceremonies. Each field needs an automatic irrigation system, good drainage, built-in vacuum, and vents to keep the grass and soil aerated, and artificial grow lights to keep the grass healthy. We will soon all know whether they have been successful.
"Incredibly Exciting"
New images from trail cameras reveal three critically endangered antelopes known as mountain bongos wandering through a forest in Kenya. The photographs capture one of Africa’s rarest mammals at a site where it had not been documented for years, offering a ray of hope for a creature that has nearly vanished from the wild. “The excitement in camp was unbelievable when we first looked through the photos,” says Oscar Dyer at the Mountain Bongo Project, the only conservation group dedicated solely to protecting the bongos. “Seeing a bongo here again is incredibly exciting - and it reinforces our determination to continue searching, protecting this forest and finding evidence of more bongos.” The mountain (or eastern) bongo is a chestnut-colored antelope with big ears and vertical white stripes. While zoos and sanctuaries worldwide house about 700 mountain bongos, fewer than 100 exist in the wild. Speaking of rare sightings...
Great Dane Puppy
Scooby-Dooby-Doo, here are you - making your live-action debut. Netflix has revealed a first look at the pup in its live-action Scooby-Doo TV series, which will be the first time in the franchise's history the character will be played by an actual dog. When Scooby-Doo was previously brought to live-action in the 2002 movie and its 2004 sequel, the title dog was a digital creation. Netflix hasn't announced a specific release date for the new series, but says it will premiere sometime in 2027.
Ford’s $30k EV Pickup
Ford is done with the massive electric pickup trucks and SUVs. After discontinuing the electric F-150 Lightning and scrapping plans for a three-row SUV, the American automaker is betting on a new lineup of smaller, more affordable EVs. The first of which will be a four-door midsize EV pickup, due out next year, that Ford promises will have more interior space than a Toyota RAV4 and a lower cost of ownership than a Tesla Model Y. The midsize pickup will be the first to launch on Ford’s new Universal Electric Vehicle (UEV) platform, which the company claims will significantly lower costs and improve efficiency.
Data Center Ban
Residents of California's Monterey Park just made history by passing the country’s first permanent ban on data centers via a ballot initiative. While the official results won’t be certified until July 10, initial results have an overwhelming 86 percent of residents voting in favor of the ban. While city councils have passed moratoriums, this ban is particularly significant since it's the first to be passed via ballot measure. Across the country, there has been widespread public backlash to data centers over legitimate concerns around rising power rates, noise levels, water use and contamination, and more. This vote sets a new precedent that others could follow, ensuring the people impacted by data centers have the power.
“In the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you learn?” Jack Kornfield
On This Day
12 June 1963: Cleopatra, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz and starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, premieres in NYC. It became the most expensive film ever made up to that point, with ballooning costs and reshoots totaling roughly $44 million (equivalent to nearly $450 million in today's money). Interestingly, it holds a unique cinematic record: it was the highest-grossing film of 1963 (earning nearly $58 million at the box office), but still lost money during its initial theatrical run due to its exorbitant marketing and production costs.
Today's Articles
Mood Boosting Video
Official Trailer 2: Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey'. Shot entirely on IMAX cameras - the first feature film ever to do so.
