Episode Description This week’s positive news: Arielle talks about an innovative program called BirdReturns that pays local rice farmers to flood their fields to offer pop-up wetlands that give migratory birds a safe place to land, rest, and feed. Then, Karissa shares how Goodwill launched its first store inside Milpitas’ Elmwood Correctional Facility, which offers hands-on retail training to incarcerated women, preparing them for future work opportunities upon release. The Optimist Daily is a project of The World Business Academy. Donate link: https://www.optimistdaily.com/donate-to-support-the-optimist-daily/?gift=Y%20http://   Transcript  Theme music  Arielle  Hello and welcome to the Optimist Daily’s Weekly Round-Up. I’m Arielle.  Karissa  And I’m Karissa, and we’re working hard to put solutions in view and optimism in movement.  Arielle  All right, we’re back again with another episode of our podcast to share the solutions from the Optimist Daily this week. It has been quite the eventful week, right, Karissa?  Karissa  Oh yeah, it’s definitely been eventful here in the United States with the election happening and such. There’s also a three-day weekend this weekend, which is kind of nice because it’s Veterans Day.  Arielle  Oh yes, happy Veterans Day.  Karissa  It’ll be a good end to a chaotic week for sure.  Arielle  Mm-hmm. And when things are chaotic, it’s always a good reason to get straight to the good stuff—all the good news happening in the world. As usual, we’re going over the changemakers we’re covering in our Changemakers series that we have running until Thanksgiving.   This week, we are covering the Lowlander Center, which is a Louisiana nonprofit that supports coastal communities facing climate-driven challenges by providing sustainable, community-focused solutions like portable solar power and environmental advocacy. Their work emphasizes cultural knowledge, traditional ecological practices, and social justice, helping Indigenous and bayou communities achieve resilience. Through projects like their portable solar panel project, the Lowlander Center offers immediate relief and builds long-term sustainability for vulnerable regions, which we love to see here at the Optimist Daily.  Karissa  And this week, in the Changemaker series, we’re also covering Ridwell, a subscription service that makes it easy for households to recycle hard-to-dispose-of items like batteries, plastic films, and textiles through convenient doorstep pickups.   Operating in various U.S. cities, they partner with local organizations to responsibly recycle or upcycle materials that curbside programs often reject. By simplifying recycling, Ridwell helps reduce waste and fosters a greener community, one pickup at a time.  Arielle  If you want to learn more, then I suggest you go check out our Local Changemakers series that we publish every Friday.  Karissa  Cool solutions in our Changemakers series! I’m really optimistic about these, but we also had some other solutions on the Optimist Daily that I’m excited to get into. So, what caught your eye this week, Arielle?  Arielle  Actually, to introduce my solution, I have a little bit of a preamble. Let me tell you something fascinating about migrating birds. Every year, tens of millions of them travel along the Pacific Flyway, which is a major migration route that runs all the way from the Arctic down to South America. Birds like the western sandpiper, for instance, go from Alaska to as far as Peru, making stops along the way to rest and refuel.   But with about 95% of the wetlands in California’s Central Valley gone due to farming and construction, it’s getting harder for these birds to find a safe place to land during this epic journey.  Karissa  Oh yeah, it’s a pretty tough situation for them. It sounds like they need a creative solution or more rest stops on the Pacific Flyway, which I didn’t know was the name—that’s interesting.  Arielle  Yeah, exactly. Luckily, conservationists came up with an innovative program called BirdReturns, and it’s a partnership between groups like The Nature Conservancy and rice farmers in the area.   The idea is simple but brilliant: BirdReturns pays rice farmers to flood their fields at specific times, creating temporary or “pop-up” wetlands. These flooded fields give migratory birds a safe place to land, rest, and feed. That’s what the article “Migrating Birds Find Refuge in Pop-Up Wetlands Thanks to an Innovative Rice Farming Program” is all about.  Karissa  Pop-up wetlands—that’s such a smart way to use farmland. So, it’s kind of like these rice farms are doubling as temporary nature reserves?  Arielle  Exactly, and what’s really cool is that these wetlands are tailored to the birds’ migration schedule. So, when the birds need a stopover, the fields are ready for them. Plus, I just really like the name pop up wetlands. It’s like “pop-up restaurant” or like “pop-up shop.” Something kind of trendy to stop by. Karissa  Right?! That’s exactly what was in my head too.   Arielle  Conservationists even use data from a platform called eBird, where birdwatchers report sightings—we love citizen scientists! This data, combined with satellite images showing where there’s water, helps pinpoint the areas and times when birds are likely to need these habitats the most. So, they’re essentially renting habitat space on demand for these birds.  Karissa  That’s so high-tech! But how do they get these farmers on board with the program?  Arielle  They actually set up a reverse auction. Farmers bid on contracts to flood their fields, and the lowest bid wins. This makes the program efficient and affordable, plus it gives farmers a nice income boost. And some studies suggest that the birds might even be helping out the farmers by breaking down leftover rice stalks in the fields, which is a bonus benefit for participants.  Karissa  Oh yeah, that’s so cool. And I love the idea of birds helping with the cleanup. So how effective has the program been so far?  Arielle  Since BirdReturns started, it’s created over 120,000 acres of these temporary wetlands. Of course, that’s still a fraction of the original 4 million acres of natural wetlands that used to be in the Central Valley. But studies show these pop-up wetlands are effective—they attract two to three-and-a-half times more shorebirds than regular rice fields.  Karissa  But with droughts getting worse, especially in California, isn’t water availability a big issue?  Arielle  Yeah, absolutely. Water is becoming scarcer, especially with climate change making California’s droughts longer and more intense. During dry years, flooding fields is more expensive, and some farmers just don’t have enough water to participate. Timing can also be tricky—sometimes migration doesn’t really line up with the farming calendar.  Karissa  That makes sense. So how do they keep the program going with all these challenges?  Arielle  It’s kind of an evolving process, so they’re adapting. BirdReturns has started working with tomato farmers, for instance, whose season wraps up earlier in the year. That way, they can set up pop-up wetlands for birds arriving as early as July. And the program itself is constantly developing—they’re always using fresh data and feedback from farmers to improve, making sure they’re meeting both the birds’ needs and the farmers’ constraints.  Karissa  Yeah, BirdReturns isn’t just a quick fix; it’s more of an evolving partnership.  Arielle  Exactly. It’s a flexible, data-driven model that benefits both birds and farmers. It’s one of those rare conservation programs that shows we don’t have to choose between agriculture and wildlife. As climate change and habitat loss continue to impact migratory bird populations, BirdReturns is setting a hopeful example of how collaboration and adaptation can make a real difference.  Karissa  I hope to see it in more places. And I mean, you mentioned, Arielle, that tomato farmers are stepping in too, so there could be crossover between other crops or even helping other animals.  Arielle  Yeah, it’ll definitely spark some ideas for others working in this field… no pun intended I guess (laughs). I’m inspired and feeling optimistic about this, but it’s not the only solution coming out of California this week.  Karissa  Exactly. I have another story from California, too. Maybe I’m a little biased since I submitted these solutions to the Optimist Daily, but I was feeling inspired by my home state. So, here’s my solution: Goodwill’s new store inside the Silicon Valley jail offers hope and job skills.   Goodwill of Silicon Valley started an initiative by launching its first store inside Milpitas’ Elmwood Correctional Facility. This innovative program offers hands-on retail training to incarcerated women, preparing them for future work opportunities after their release. Participants receive training in cash handling, inventory management, and customer service twice a week. Myra, a 30-year-old inmate and one of the first trainees, said, “I’ll be released with a lot of work experience,” and this is actually her first job.  Arielle  Oh wow, that sounds like such a great initiative. How did this idea come about?  Karissa  Goodwill’s collaboration with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office started after discussions on how to better support people returning to society. With experience at the county’s Reentry Resource Center, Goodwill was well-positioned to develop this program. Trish Dorsey, Goodwill’s VP of Mission Services, suggested establishing a store to provide both training and clothing for women leaving incarceration.  Arielle  Wow, that sounds like an empowering plan.   Karissa  It really is. The store sells essentials ranging from shirts to socks, giving women a fresh start as they prepare to reenter society. For 46-year-old Sinica, one of the participants, the opportunity is unprecedented. She said, “To get that experience while in jail, it’s unheard of.” Plus, those who work in the store can later interview for positions at Goodwill stores after they’re released.  Arielle  That’s great—a nice pipeline for them to follow. Not only do they get work experience, but they also have a potential job waiting once they’re out. That’s so important for reducing recidivism.  Karissa  Absolutely. It’s all part of a broader vision for rehabilitation and reintegration. But the program’s impact goes beyond job training—it also builds confidence and a sense of purpose. Jessica Costello, Goodwill Silicon Valley’s VP of Retail, said, “Not only are we giving them work skills, but we’re also showing them that they matter.” Costello hopes this program will inspire similar initiatives around the country, describing it as “priceless” for how it teaches dignity and prepares women for life outside.  So, it’s really just awesome because Goodwill and the Elmwood Correctional Facility have developed a pioneering program that not only meets immediate reintegration needs, but also encourages wider discussions about recovery.  Arielle  I can imagine that being incarcerated for so long, it must be intimidating as much as it is liberating to reintegrate into society. And with a criminal record, it’s already difficult to find jobs. This is, as you said, not only good for their training in terms of skills but also giving them that confidence to just start a new chapter of their lives. I guess we should thank you, Karissa, for submitting these stories to the editorial team (laughs).  Karissa  Yeah (laughs), it was so fun to share these stories today. But we also had some other great solutions this week that you can find on our website, optimistdaily.com, including…  Arielle  Out-of-Body Pop creates safe spaces for neurodivergent music fans, How micro-meditations help reduce stress anytime, anywhere, Brazil fines meat producers $64 million over ties to deforested Amazon land, and How to spot a moon ring—a guide to lunar halos and other moonlight phenomena. What else do we have?  Karissa  Melting Antarctic glacier raises alarm, but Arctic sea ice project offers hope, Tips to unlock charisma for every personality, Native American Heritage Month and how to be an ally this Thanksgiving, and of course, the Changemakers of the week—the Lowlander Center and Ridwell.  Arielle  If you want to start your day off right, make sure to subscribe to our free daily newsletter to get our solutions straight to your inbox.    Karissa  Yeah, and we also have more on our social channels. You can find us @OptimistDaily on all major platforms, including Threads and Pinterest. The only difference is on X, where we are known as @OdeToOptimism.    Arielle  We’re a small team of optimists working hard to bring you positive news. If you want to support our mission of putting optimism into the world, click on the link in the show notes to find out how you can do that.  Karissa  And support doesn’t always have to be financial. Even just recommending our podcast to a friend, leaving a positive review on Apple or Spotify, forwarding a link, or sharing a solution on your socials—anything helps get optimism out there.  Arielle  All right. Well, thank you so much, Karissa, for sharing your time and energy and optimism with me today. It’s always a pleasure to go over the solutions that we have on the Optimist Daily each week.  Karissa  Yeah, most definitely. I’m looking forward to being back next week with some more solutions for everybody. Until then, bye!   The post Podcast Transcript November 8, 2024: Pop-Up Wetlands and Silicon Valley Jail’s Store first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.

Elon Musk also opposes gain-of-function experiments

'A painful and abusive marriage to Martha'

'My assistant, god bless him, he peed his pants'

'We don’t need her talking points'

A breakthrough in understanding how and why some cancer tumors are particularly aggressive and non-responsive to treatments has placed blame on breakaway strands of roguish DNA. The discovery implicates several documented forms of cancer, including of the breasts, lungs, and brain, and also offered hope for identifying and treating these tumors in future patients. The […] The post Study Raises Hopes of Treating Aggressive Cancers by Identifying Fragments of Rogue DNA appeared first on Good News Network.

Social media posts after the presidential election were abuzz about the disparity in the vote tally from 2020 to 2024.  Preliminary counts show President-elect Donald Trump with almost as many votes as he got in 2020, when he came up short in his reelection effort against Joe Biden. Trump appears to have 73.3 million votes now; in 2020, he won 74.2 million.  But Vice President Kamala Harris appears to have won about 12 million fewer votes than Biden did against Trump in 2020. Biden won 81.2 million votes in 2020; Harris so far has 69 million votes.  This prompted many on the left to claim that “Trump cheated,” while some on the right insisted the results prove that the 2020 election really was rigged. Harris’ vote total this time, they note, was in line with the totals for Democratic presidential nominees Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.  There is no reason to think a decline in Democrats’ voter turnout should raise a red flag, said Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation.  “Turnout of voters can vary greatly from election to election, from race to race, and from state to state,” von Spakovsky told The Daily Signal. “In a typical national election, turnout in different states can also vary greatly. It depends entirely on the candidates, the issues, and the interest voters have in the candidates or the extent of their concern over issues like the economy. When they don’t like their choices, they don’t turn out.” It’s easier to register today and then vote than at any other time in recent history, he noted.   “There have been absolutely zero reports of anyone being kept from voting and certainly if 20 million people were somehow being kept from voting, that is not something you could keep secret,” von Spakovsky said.   With votes still being counted in several states, turnout for 2024 is on track to be about 62.25% of registered voters, with a total of 152.9 million voters, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida. That would be down from a 66.38% turnout in 2020, when 159.7 million voters cast ballots. Who’s the election deniers now? Idiots talking about 20million missing votes. Thats because they never existed in the first place. People are literally brain dead. https://t.co/JraVo3YmfZ— Yates (@Jyates5) November 8, 2024 Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington are among states that tend to be slower at reaching a final count, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the UVA Center for Politics, a think tank at the University of Virginia.   “There could be 10 million votes that haven’t been counted,” Kondik told The Daily Signal.  However, he stressed this doesn’t “prove” anything.  “The 2020 election was the highest voter turnout in modern times. When you have a record-breaking election, the turnout in following years won’t always follow that record,” Kondik said.  “A lot of voters who voted for Biden in 2020 changed their vote to Trump in 2024. Or some didn’t vote. This doesn’t mean there was any voter suppression or voter fraud or anything nefarious. One candidate wins. That’s how it works.” Once all votes are tallied, Trump could have more votes than he received in 2020, or about the same. This is the first of three presidential elections where Trump won the popular vote as well as the Electoral College.  The 69 million votes tallied for Harris is more than Clinton’s 65.8 million votes in 2016 when she lost to Trump. It’s on par with Obama’s 69.4 million votes in 2008, and higher than Obama’s 65.9 million when he won a second term in 2012.  The COVID-19 pandemic was likely a key factor in driving up voter participation in 2020, since mail-in voting skyrocketed during the lockdowns, said Jacob Neiheisel, a professor of political science at the State University of New York at Buffalo who specializes in voter turnout.  He cautioned that the final vote tally isn’t yet known, and that more information will be clear after the release of the Cooperative Election Study, a Harvard analysis based on pre-election and post election surveys. “It seems like COVID may have just been an unusual year. Another likely culprit might include voter ambivalence or alienation,” Neiheisel told The Daily Signal in an email. “It is often the case that voters who don’t find much to like about either candidate will simply stay home on Election Day.” “Similarly,” he said, “those who feel like their party has ‘left them’ will often do the same, with the hopes of ‘punishing’ their party for not representing their preferred policy positions.” The post Why Kamala Harris Got So Many Fewer Votes Than Biden appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A federal court upheld four female high school track athletes’ challenge to a Connecticut policy allowing male participation in female sports. U.S. District Court Judge Robert N. Chatigny, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, ruled in favor of allowing the athletes’ case against the Connecticut Association of Schools to proceed, rejecting the request of state officials to dismiss it. The athletes—Selina Soule, Alanna Smith, Chelsea Mitchell, and Ashley Nicoletti—all say they lost races to male athletes identifying as female. The women argue allowing biological males to compete in girls’ sports is unfair and violates federal Title IX, which protects female school sports by prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex. “Women’s rights matter,” Mitchell said in a statement to The Daily Signal. “I’m proud to fight for not just my rights, but also those of women athletes across the country who deserve to compete on a level playing field. I hope the court protects the integrity of women’s sports now and for the foreseeable future.” Alliance Defending Freedom is representing the women in Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools. “Selina, Chelsea, Alanna, and Ashley—like all female athletes—deserve access to fair competition,” Alliance Defending Freedom legal counsel Rachel Rouleau said in a statement. “The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s policy degraded each of their accomplishments and scarred their athletic records, irreparably harming each female athlete’s interest in accurate recognition of her athletic achievements.” The 2nd Circuit Court rightly rejected the state’s request to dismiss the case, according to Rouleau. “This ruling creates one fewer obstacle for high school girls to face as they pursue their athletic dreams,” she said. Track athlete Soule said she is encouraged by the court’s order allowing the case to continue. “Female athletes like myself deserve fairness and safety in our sports,” Soule said. “I hope the court will uphold common sense and Title IX’s guarantee that women’s sports stay just for women.” Almost three-quarters of voters say they believe medals awarded to biological men who beat females in sports should be given instead to the women who lost. Female athletes worldwide have lost nearly 900 medals to transgender-identifying rivals competing against them in women’s sporting categories, according to a United Nations report. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to “ban” transgender-identifying biological males from competing in women’s sports. “I’ve never met a person that came up to me and they say, ‘We want men to play in women’s sports,’” Trump said during his successful campaign. “Somehow, they’re pushing it. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve been talking about this for a while, because I’m ending it. On Day One, I’m ending it.” The post Female Athletes Who Challenged Connecticut Trans Policy Score Win for Women’s Sports appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The Misinformation and Disinformation (MAD) Bill was adopted by Australia’s House of Representatives earlier in the week and is now headed to the Senate for approval. While noted “censorship warrior” in the current Australian government, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, as well as others behind the push to get this and similar legislation through parliament, praises it as a way to at once preserve democratic processes, and hold tech companies to task – opponents are slamming it as “Orwellian.” This criticism is tied to MAD and other moves of this kind undermining online users’ privacy and free speech in new, more dangerous ways, and a debate around this has been raging between rights advocates and opposition politicians, and representatives of the authorities. An MP, Keith Pitt, was the one who slammed the draft bill as moving the country in the direction of “an Orwellian surveillance state.” Under the proposed law, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will oversee “monitoring” how online platforms are dealing with what is decided to be treated as “misinformation.” One of the envisaged requirements of compliance is for the tech companies to retain records of this alleged activity happening on their platforms. The concern expressed by Pitt and other opponents is that while declaratively pushing back against online misinformation, the bill gives this, or any future government, room for abuse, “1984”-style, where political dissent rather than false content, will suffer. But interestingly, this MP at the same time doesn’t see as another “Orwellian” step the unmasking (and therefore exposure to the will and whim of the government) of all internet users. Namely, Pitt has endorsed the idea of social media identity verification as a “better” way to deal with misinformation and other true or perceived online harms and wouldn’t mind forcing internet users to reveal their real identities (via a new brand of “verified accounts”) before being allowed to post online. This is just another episode showing confusion and controversy accompanying Australia’s ongoing shift toward censorship and mass surveillance. That includes age verification proposals, but also what many see as impending moves to usher a digital ID system in the country. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Critics Slam Australia’s “MAD” Censorship Bill as a Major Threat to Free Speech appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Among the investigations currently carried out by the US House Committee on the Judiciary and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is the one into a case involving UK-based “censorship group” – the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). In a letter dated November 7, Committee chairman Jim Jordan is asking CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed to, by November 21, comply with a subpoena issued on August 30, 2023. We obtained a copy of the letter for you here. According to Jordan, it covers the group’s activities as well, including documents showing the Biden-Harris administration’s alleged collusion with Big Tech to censor Americans’ lawful online speech. Another point the letter makes is the plan to “kill Musk’s Twitter” – which communications recently revealed suggest was being hatched by CCDH. And Jordan reminds Ahmed that this, too, is with the subpoena’s scope. On August 3, 2023, the Committee asked CCDH to present it with communications it had had with the US government as well as third parties regarding “moderation of online content” – and what role the government played in this (by exerting pressure on social platforms). The letter then cites internal CCDH documents that recently came to light – particularly emails that show “killing Musk’s Twitter” was made a priority for the group this year. Prior to that, the letter notes, CCDH in 2020 communicated with Twitter – then under its previous ownership – to identify content and accounts that should be censored, while earlier this year, CCDH “held a private event tat included (US) Executive Branch personnel.” Last month, UK media reported about CCDH’s effort against X, as well as a formal request from then presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign suggesting the ruling Labour party was essentially interfering in US elections. Not only were Labour advisers dispatched to the US to help Kamala Harris’ effort to remain in the White House – it was also revealed that CCDH has ties to UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer’s party. Namely, Paul Thacker and Matt Taibbi’s Disinformation Chronicle named Stramer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney as the (co) founder of CCDH. And it just so happened that “strengthening ties with senior Democrats” features as one of the controversial group’s priorities, right along with, “killing Musk’s Twitter.” If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post US Lawmakers Investigate Biden White House-Affiliated UK Censorship Group’s Plot To “Kill” Elon Musk’s X appeared first on Reclaim The Net.