good news

Five-year-old William Evertz Jr. spent several months saving up his allowance to hopefully purchase a Power Wheels police car. But in the end, he decided to use the money he made doing odd chores around the house to give back to police officers in his local South New Jersey community. [1]
The little boy was inspired after seeing a YouTube video in which someone helped homeless people, and he decided he could put his money to better use than his coveted police car.

Five-year-old Katelyn Vincik was born without a fully formed left arm. The young girl, whom her parents describe as “very determined,” had been waiting for a functional prosthetic arm for quite a long time, after trying a cosmetic one that just wasn’t a good fit for her. [1]
And while her parents insist that Katelyn’s arm has never held her back, they were still fed up with waiting for a prosthetic arm and decided to seek help in an unlikely place: a local public library.

Mikey Brannigan of Team USA may have autism, but that hasn’t stopped him from setting a record during the Paralympic qualifiers.
During the qualifiers, the 19-year-old Brannigan finished 7th in the mile run with a time of 3:57.58, shaving 5 seconds off of his previous personal best record. But it wasn’t only himself that he beat: he became the first runner with a T20 paralympic classification (also known as an intellectual disability with an IQ under 75) to break the 4 minute mile. He is currently a favorite to snag the gold medal in his division. [1]

A 30-year-old named Jessika Baldwin decided to skip out on a traditional bachelorette party, and instead use her special day as a moment to give back to her community. Instead of pampering herself and her best friends, she decided to create a day for the women of a local Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania homeless shelter.
Baldwin says of her motivation to offer a treat to others instead of herself:

Studies show being good is hot; A teacher started a book hunters club where kids capture, read and release; Community disaster relief saves NOLA before the state tries.

Studies show being good is hot; A teacher started a book hunters club where kids capture, read and release; Community disaster relief saves NOLA before the state tries.

On August 26, President Obama created the largest ecologically protected area on earth by expanding a national marine monument in Hawaii, his home state, to encompass more than half a million square miles. It’s called the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. [1]
The area of remote Pacific waters known for both extraordinary marine life and importance to native cultures is twice the size of Texas. [2]

Noting how much Americans love their sugary drinks, Virginia Tech took to studying the health-compromising beverages. What the researchers found was that cutting out just one sugary drink per day can give you a noticeable overall health boost.
The study shows that extra calories coming from these highly sweetened drinks can be a big risk factor for obesity and type 2 diabetes, as many of us probably realize. Cutting out just one per day reduces the amount of calories ingested from added sugars, making more room for more healthful drinks, like water.

A new study, published in the journal Genome Biology, suggests that despite a pre-disposition to a variety of health issues, Latinos age much more slowly than their counterparts of other races. This is partly due, scientists say, to their shared ancestry with the Native American population, who also age a bit more slowly than others.

Corps can’t void the warranty for jailbreaking your phone; an Italian chef shows what can be done with Olympics-sized waste; and one city is divesting from a company that tortures people.