Good-news Friday: Hope, renewables, water, flamboyance
This edition from our friends at Australia’s Fix the News opens: “A landmark longitudinal study of 25,000 Australians over 14 years has found that hope may be one of the most powerful predictors of human flourishing — more so than income, education or intelligence. It’s the first ever large-scale study of its kind, tracking how varying levels of hope correlate with people’s health, earnings, education, social connection and resilience over time.”
Well, fellow Americans, here’s to hope and resilience in difficult times, huh?
Among the items in Fix the News’ section requiring a subscription:
— In the first six months of 2025, global investment in renewables hit a record $386 billion, 10 percent higher than the first half of 2024, reports Canary Media, which describes itself as offering “clean energy journalism for a cooler tomorrow.”
— New insights into the electrical properties of water at the nanoscale (just a few atoms thick) show promise for technologies ranging from advanced batteries to nanoscale electronics and biology, reports Phys.org.
— I love the zaniness of this one: “Hurricane Idalia blew a flamboyance, or flock, of 300-400 flamingos that was likely migrating between the Yucatan Peninsula and Cuba off course in August 2023 and unceremoniously deposited the birds across a wide swath of the eastern United States, from Florida’s Gulf Coast all the way up to Wisconsin and east to Pennsylvania.”
And now, after an absence of 100 years, it appears that flamingos blown in by Idalia may be reestablishing a home in Florida. Decades of efforts to restore the Everglades and Florida’s coastal ecosystems likely have made the state hospitable once again, says estuarine scientist Jerome Lorenz of Florida International University.
Also in the news
Dutch centrist Rob Jetten is confident about forming a government after far-right’s election setback
As Trump skips Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Xi positions China as global trade leader
Trump sets 7,500 annual limit for refugees entering U.S. Most will be white South Africans
Four GOP senators vote with Democrats to pass resolution to repeal Trump global tariffs
Nuclear weapons experts respond to Trump’s proposal to ‘start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis’
Judge questions Trump administration plan to suspend SNAP benefits for first time in the food aid program’s history
Heather Cox Richardson on the government shutdown, SNAP funding, more
D.C. Mayor Bowser says residents will receive SNAP, WIC benefits in November, funded by the city
ICE made expansive request for taxpayer data amid IRS pushback, new court filings show
ProPublica: DHS agreement shows risks of Trump administration use of SSA data for voter citizenship checks
AP: Justice Department is investigating allegations of fraud in Black Lives Matter movement
Federal Reserve’s Bowman plans to cut the agency’s bank-supervision staff by about 30 percent
Some top Trump administration officials living in military housing due to safety concerns, The Atlantic reports
Non-disclosure agreements keeping AI data center details hidden from Americans
Research cuts may widen racial disparities for multiple myeloma (blood cancer)