sports fans...

• The men’s tournament started back up last night, and women’s March Madness is back underway tonight after a break before the Sweet 16 games, which are already making an economic impact in host cities.
• The outlook is no different for elite women’s sports in general, with revenues officially projected to reach a record $2.35 billion this year.

Clean energy

In 2024, global renewable energy capacity saw the largest expansion ever recorded

In 2024, global renewable energy capacity increased by 15.1% year-over-year, representing the largest expansion ever recorded.

Around 92.5% of new energy capacity added last year came from renewables, with 585 total gigawatts added and bringing the total global capacity to 4,448 GW. Solar and wind accounted for more than 96% of those new renewables additions.

China built nearly 64% of this new renewable capacity, adding 278 GW of solar capacity alone last year.

What’s the nuance? While the progress is remarkable and important, the pace of growth still falls short of what’s needed to meet the COP28 goal of tripling capacity by 2030 — requiring an annual growth rate of 16.6%. Still, the growth of renewable energy is happening exponentially, so experts still project the world is on track to hit renewable energy targets by 2030.

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More Good News

​A t-shirt that monitors vital signs could help cancer patients leave the hospital sooner to recover at home. The wearable technology sends data, for vitals like blood pressure, pulse rate, and blood glucose to an app and web-based software for hospitals to monitor remotely — and users in the test group felt safer and more cared for while recovering at home.

​The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a regulation requiring serial numbers, background checks, and age verification for “ghost guns.” The number of ghost guns found at crime scenes around the country had been soaring, with 27,000 recovered by law enforcement in 2023 — up from fewer than 1,700 in 2017 — and that number had flattened out or declined since the regulation was finalized.

​A federal judge ordered a Colorado school district to return 19 banned books to libraries. The judge also prohibited the district from further restricting access to books “because the district disagrees with the views expressed therein or merely to further their preferred political or religious orthodoxy.”

​After the L.A. wildfires destroyed places of worship, Methodist, Muslim, and Jewish congregations are gathering under one roof. Already a satellite worship space for the Islamic Center of Southern California, First United Methodist church in Pasadena also welcomed the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, whose synagogue burned down in the Eaton fire.

Interesting story

A first-of-its-kind “vehicle-to-everything” program is giving away 100 free chargers to test how EVs can earn money by sending backup power to the grid

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People doing good

High school students in Chicago built a tiny home village for homeless veterans in Georgia

In Brunswick, Georgia, a new tiny home village composed of 30 tiny houses and a community center has just opened to serve local veterans facing homelessness — and it was all built states away by Chicago’s Northwest Suburban High School District 214 students.

A joint effort between the Nine Line Foundation, the organization behind the village, and teachers from area high schools, the project became “a great civics lesson” for Geometry Through Construction students.

The students even raised funds to help pay to send the tiny homes on their 1,052-mile trip to Georgia.

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More Good bits

🐯 We’ve got two words for you: Ugga Mugga! (TikTok)

🥳 Happy 110th birthday, Dorothy!

💊 Big Storytime really wants you to survive your hospital stay.

📚 Russian teens are in the most dangerous book club in the world.

🏳️‍⚧️ Heads up! Monday is Trans Day of Visibility — get ready to celebrate.​

What’s good?

Okay, this technically old news is brand new information to me, so I had to share somewhere: the Philadelphia Union’s Subaru Park is the first zero-landfill stadium in MLS history! They’ve got a fan in me.

Did you know this!?

Please tell me I’m not alone.

— Megan