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KINDNESS • Upworthy
A barista listened for 30 seconds. He got a dollar per second.A mother-daughter duo runs a quiet test at drive-thrus: the daughter starts telling a story, and for every second the worker listens, the tip goes up a dollar. The workers don't know. At a Starbucks window recently, a barista named Dale B. Pirofsky listened as the girl explained her school science project about sugar, her follow-up donut experiment, and her ball python named Frosty. He nodded along, asked questions, seemed genuinely interested. The mother handed him $30. "Oh my gosh! Thank you. Are you sure?" he said. Pirofsky later told Upworthy he didn't suspect a test. "I grew up, and honestly still struggle, with feeling unheard or unacknowledged," he said. "So I always try to make someone who needs to chat feel heard." The video went viral, and the family started a GoFundMe to help Pirofsky, who works two jobs, buy his first car. He split the $30 tip with his coworkers.
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NATURE • Good Good Good
Two orphaned sloths named Taylor and Travis are now inseparableA two-fingered sloth orphaned in the wild last November was rescued by The Sloth Institute of Costa Rica, where staff paired her with another orphan for comfort. The institute named them Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Orphaned sloths are often matched with companions during rehabilitation, a practice that helps reduce stress and improves their chances of eventual release. The two have been inseparable since their introduction, spending most of their time tangled together in the same branch. Staff report that Taylor is the calmer of the pair. Travis, predictably, cannot stop moving.
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PROGRESS • Optimist Daily
No country has eliminated a cancer. Australia might be first.Australia is on track to eliminate cervical cancer by 2035, a milestone no country has reached. "It's the first time that the WHO, and globally, we've said we're going to eliminate a cancer," said Professor Karen Canfell, the epidemiologist whose modeling helped chart the path. "That's actually a new concept for cancer." The strategy began in 2007, when Australia became the first country to launch a national HPV vaccination program using Gardasil, developed at the University of Queensland. Since then, the program has expanded to include boys, replaced traditional pap smears with a more sensitive five-year screening test, and introduced self-collection options for women who find clinical exams difficult. The results have been dramatic. Cervical cancer incidence and mortality have halved since 1982. In 2021, for the first time, no cervical cancer cases were diagnosed in women under 25. Vaccination among girls under 15 now sits above 80 percent. Australia currently has 6.3 cases per 100,000 women; elimination is defined as fewer than four.
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DELIGHT • NPR Stories
Oklahoma's darkest park now shows the center of our galaxyBlack Mesa State Park, at the far tip of Oklahoma's panhandle, has become the state's first internationally recognized dark sky park. The nonprofit DarkSky International granted the designation after park director Polly Kiker spent years eliminating light pollution. She had the street lights turned off and replaced building lights with red bulbs. "When you drove in at night, it would be super dark, and you'd come over the hill, and there was an island of light at the park because of all the street lights," Kiker said. Now visitors can see the Milky Way clearly enough to understand what they're looking at. "I'm looking at the center of our galaxy," said Kinny Tolbert, a photographer who set up his telescope at a recent celebration. "We hear about it, but we don't see it." Cassidy Harris drove six hours from the Oklahoma City suburbs to attend. She thinks everyone should see the stars like this at least once. Tolbert has a different view: "We need about a thousand more of them."
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DELIGHT • NPR Stories
Seville's snail season brings the neighborhood back togetherSeville smells like orange blossoms right now, and the neighborhood bars are packed every night with people eating snails. Caracoles season lasts about two months each spring. The snails are smaller than French escargot, eaten straight from the shell, and cooked in a spiced broth that varies from bar to bar. Every Sevillian claims to know a hidden spot with the best ones. One such place, a breakfast-and-lunch bar the rest of the year, transforms during caracoles season into a nightly gathering spot where the staff greets regulars by name. NPR correspondent Miguel Macias recently ran into an old friend there who had moved away from the neighborhood. She gestured at the crowded tables and said, "These people, they are my tribe." The broth recipe remains a secret. The tribe, apparently, does not.
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Did today's letter lift you? Pass it to someone who'd want the same.
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With love, The Editor
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Honeyletter
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