Many of you know I used to be the head writer of CNN’s 5 Things newsletter (subscribe here!). The toughest part of that gig was opening my computer in the wee hours every morning and having my face melt off, Ark-of-the-Covenant-style, from the onslaught of intense news. It's felt like that a lot recently, hasn't it? So I will repeat, for the hundredth time, one of my favorite pieces of news advice for hard times: Don’t read it! Don’t watch it! Close your Facebook and Twitter feeds. Take a walk outside. Sit down with a good book. Laugh with a friend. You do NOT have to be constantly plugged in to be a well-informed, responsible citizen. There may be plenty to worry about, but that doesn't mean you need to be worrying all the time. You need to unplug to keep going. The news will be there when you get back.
If there's something you'd like to see here, drop us a line. Know someone who could use a little Good Stuff? Send them a copy! We hope you love it as much as we do.
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Our favorites this week
Get going with some of our most popular good news stories of the week
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Image credit: vladislav333222/Adobe Stock |
March of the penguins
Yellow-eyed penguins may be cute, but don't let that fool you! According to the staff at Penguin Place in the Otago Peninsula, New Zealand, they can be a little, well, aggressive. Locals call them hoiho, which means "noise shouter" in Māori. But that doesn't stop New Zealanders from trying to take care of them however they can. Yellow-eyed penguins are one of the most endangered penguin species in the world, with an estimated 3,000 adults left in the wild. Organizations like Penguin Place, a wildlife rehabilitation center, help combat the effects of pollution and starvation on these precious birds. After some mending and fattening up, injured or ill penguins there are added to a breeding program, where more generations of screaming, antisocial little hoiho can begin.
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The ocean is for everybody
Today will be a Great Day in the Stoke! That's the name of a new event being held today in Huntington Beach, California. Billed as one of the largest gatherings of Black surfers, "A Great Day in the Stoke" aims to challenge perceptions of surfing communities. Even the name pays homage to Black greatness, evoking moments like "A Great Day in Harlem," a photograph of 57 jazz musicians in Harlem, New York, taken in 1958 by Art Kane, and "A Great Day in Hip-Hop," a photograph of 177 hip-hop artists and producers taken by Gordon Parks in 1998. The event was founded by Nathan Fluellen (above) and will feature a surfing competition, yoga, wetsuit repair and free surf lessons.
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A relaxing retirement (?!)
People are wild, y'all. My neighbor retired and now we always see him in his yard throwing axes or halfway up a tree. Japanese sailor Kenichi Horie hit his 80's and thought, "You know what? I'm going to sail across the Pacific in one go!" If all goes well, Horie will set a record this weekend and become the world's oldest solo yachtsman to sail non-stop across the Pacific Ocean. Horie set sail on his 19-foot-long sailboat, the Suntory Mermaid III, from San Francisco on March 27. He'll come home to an arrival ceremony in Nishinomiya city in Hyogo prefecture. This isn't the first time Horie's made maritime history. In 1962, at 23 years old, he became the first person to successfully make a non-stop journey across the Pacific Ocean -- from Japan to California. "Don't let your dreams just stay as dreams. Have a goal and work towards achieving this and a beautiful life awaits," Horie told CNN. Perhaps that dream could even be something a bit safer, say, quilting?
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Harini Logan, the winner of the 2022 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Nothing can quite match the exquisite agony of competing in a spelling bee, so every kid that participates gets a gold star in my book. But Harini, 14, took it a step further and secured her victory by winning the Bee’s first-ever spell-off! In that format, she went head-to-head with another contestant to see how many words they could each spell correctly in 90 seconds. Harini nailed 21 out of 26 words, nabbing the title, a trophy and a check for $50,000. Fun fact: This year’s bee was hosted by actor and education icon Levar Burton!
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Molecular biologist David Sinclair and his team at Harvard Medical School have made sci-fi dreams come true: They have apparently found a way to reverse aging in mice using proteins that can turn an adult cell into a stem cell. Their first breakthrough came in 2020 when they treated old mice with poor vision. Miraculously, the mice regained their good eyesight. If it all seems a little too dystopian once you start considering human applications, that's understandable. But Sinclair is focusing on what, exactly, can be improved if we can turn back our own clocks. Diseases like cancer and dementia are often brought on by the aging process itself, so de-aging, as it were, could be a key to preventing them. "I believe that in the future, delaying and reversing aging will be the best way to treat the diseases that plague most of us,” Sinclair says.
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The United Kingdom is in the middle of its celebration of Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee, and her face is everywhere. Even Stonehenge! English Heritage, a charity that manages historic sites around the country, organized the temporary installation, and said it brings "two British icons together." While some have found the display powerful, others have enjoyed, as our British friends say, "taking the piss." One person said it looked like a "collection of commemorative pound shop lighters." Someone else called it "unhenged." Either way, it is certainly ... something to behold!
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Lucie Fink has created a supportive community of new moms through her TikTok account, and now she’s helping out in a very real-life crisis. When Fink’s son Milo was born last November, she shared everything — delivery, postpartum, you name it. Her next big challenge was breastfeeding, something she admittedly had trouble with in the beginning. But through a series of “Pump With Me Videos,” she helped demystify the process — and provided comfort to other moms who may have been similarly lost. With the current formula shortage in the US, Fink is now donating her extra breast milk and encouraging her followers to do the same. She surmises people may not even know they can donate breast milk at all. "It's important to recognize that the milk sitting in your freezer is better served going to a child that's in need right now, especially those really young babies in the NICU that are compromised because of their size and age," she said.
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I can't overstate the biggest joy, which is really seeing yourself.
- Elliot Page, in an essay for "Esquire" about his experience as a transgender man. "I know I look different to others, but to me I'm just starting to look like myself," the actor wrote. We love all our LGBTQ members of The Good Stuff family, and we're looking forward to sharing some great Pride stories this month (and year 'round, of course).
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What's the world's largest living plant? A patch of algae? One of those trimmer-proof bushes that seems to have no beginning or end? Think ... wider. According to scientists, the title belongs to a patch of seagrass that stretches more than 112 miles off the coast of Western Australia. The seagrass is a marine flowering plant known as Posidonia australis, and it multiples by cloning itself, creating genetically identical offshoots. This process of reproduction is rare among living things, but it's one of the reasons this meadow is so massive. (It's also a tender 4,500 years old!)
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Rec of the week
Brought to you by CNN Underscored
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Shameless animal video
There's always time for cute animal videos. That time is now.
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Raccoon hands are fascinating. Perhaps even more fascinating when they are clearly communicating in some raccoon form of sign language! (Click here to view) |
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A newsletter for the good in life
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