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Five good things · Three minutes
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KINDNESS • Upworthy
DeDe had nowhere to live. His principal made room.He could keep his job, or the kid. He chose the kid.
Rob Burnside was principal at Lakota East High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, when he learned that a junior named Landerius Hayes had nowhere to live. Hayes, known as DeDe, was sleeping in a car and sometimes in his father's mobile home, and the district had sent a letter saying he could no longer attend school without a permanent home in the area. Burnside pushed back and asked for an exception. He was told no. So he brought Hayes into his own house and kept him enrolled. When the district found out, it gave Burnside a choice: resign or be terminated. He resigned. Hayes offered to leave, not wanting his principal to lose his job. "DeDe, you're part of this family," Burnside recalls telling him. "We're not gonna turn our back on you." A year later, Burnside and his wife, Angel, became Hayes's legal guardians. Hayes graduated in May 2026. He is now training as an aviation mechanic. Burnside is a father of seven, and says he has no regrets. Read the full story → | |||
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MEDICINE • Good News Network
Desert plants inspired a vaccine that survives without refrigerationMost vaccines die without a fridge. This one waits for water.
A powder-based vaccine inspired by desert plants stayed stable for a full year at room temperature, according to trial results from the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Research. The idea comes from resurrection plants, which can sit lifeless for months in African and South American drought, then revive when it rains. Their trick is a sugar called trehalose that protects their cells while they wait. Researchers used the same sugar to turn a liquid tetanus-diphtheria vaccine into a powder that revives with a splash of water. In tests it survived temperature swings from minus 4°F to 104°F, roughly the journey from an aircraft cargo bay to a truck on a rural road. Given to 60 people, it was safe and produced immune responses comparable to refrigerated versions. "This obviously has potential to remove cold chain dependence, reduce wastage and improve access," said Professor Saul Faust of the NIHR facility in Southampton. A 160-person trial starts in the coming months. Read the full story → | |||
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PROGRESS • Optimist Daily
France just made unwanted telemarketing calls illegalNinety-seven percent found it annoying. The government decided that was enough.
Unsolicited telemarketing calls became illegal for businesses operating in France as of early August. The only exceptions are calls tied to an existing contract or made with prior written consent, kept on file with proof. Everything else is now prohibited, regardless of industry. A 2025 parliamentary report described telemarketing as "one of those rare issues that unites people in France," where 97 percent find the calls annoying and 38 percent reported getting them daily on their mobiles. Consumer group Que Choisir Ensemble, which pushed for the change, called it "a small revolution" for the sales industry. Its president, Marie-Amandine Stévenin, has long argued against the assumption that anyone at home is a potential customer. "It cannot be stressed enough that peace and quiet is a right," the group said. France's direct-selling trade association was not impressed, calling the rules an administrative burden. Germany and Austria already restrict cold calling. France now requires an invitation before the phone rings. Read the full story → | |||
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DELIGHT • Upworthy
Hundreds shared the wisest thing a grandparent taught themHundreds answered. One rule kept coming back.
Upworthy asked its Facebook readers a simple question last week: what was the most valuable lesson your grandparents taught you? Hundreds of answers arrived, and they ranged from the practical to the strange. One woman credited her grandmother with two enduring lessons, the value of education and the rule that tomato sauce gets stirred with wood, never metal. "To this day, I keep a drawer with at least 8 wooden spoons," she wrote. Another remembered a grandfather who explained brook trout behavior and taught her how to be quiet and why. Advice on money ran alongside advice on soup. One grandfather said to spend well on whatever sits between you and the earth, meaning shoes, a mattress and tires. One grandmother called every healing dish penicillin, from chicken noodle to green chili. And one lesson turned up more than any other. Love and forgiveness, several readers said, were the foundations of family. One reader had a shorter takeaway. "Don't flip your dentures around to terrify toddlers."
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DELIGHT • Smithsonian Magazine
Look up tonight. The moon turns orange-red for billions.A solar eclipse this month reached a lucky few. This one is for everyone.
A deep partial lunar eclipse will turn the moon orange-red overnight from August 27 into August 28, and unlike this month's total solar eclipse, nearly everyone gets to watch. The peak arrives at 12:13 a.m. Eastern, when 96.3 percent of the moon slips into Earth's umbra, the darkest part of our planet's shadow, according to NASA. Most of the Americas along with western Europe and western Africa will have a view. No equipment required. The reddish glow comes from the same physics behind a good sunset. "It's as if all the world's sunrises and sunsets are projected onto the moon," NASA writes. The exact shade depends partly on how much smoke and haze is floating in Earth's atmosphere that night, which is a strange thing to control the color of the moon. More than three billion people should catch at least part of it. "These eclipses are much more democratic," astronomer Andrew Fraknoi said. Read the full story → | |||
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With love, The Editor
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