The Week in Good News: A Duck in Central Park, Rooftop Gardens, ‘Little Free Libraries’
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Version 0 of 1. Sometimes it seems as if we’re living under a constant barrage of heavy news. But it isn’t all bad out there. This feature is meant to send you into the weekend with a smile, or at least a lighter heart. Want to get The Week in Good News by email? Sign up here. Here are seven great things we wrote about this week: He’s a Mandarin duck, and his species is native to East Asia. He should not be paddling in the Pond in Central Park, and yet there he is. Nobody is sure how he got to Manhattan, but he appears healthy and is getting along well with the local mallards. His glorious plumage is already attracting fans. “As far as the colors are concerned, only nature can provide that,” said Juan Jimenez, a 74-year-old photographer who has been taking pictures of the park for decades. “We could try to paint it, but you won’t be able to.” Welcome to New York, little duck. Read more » Three men who lost the use of their legs after severe spinal injuries are now able to walk without any supports with the help of a pacemaker-like implant. The walking may be brief and awkward, but it’s a breakthrough in treating these life-changing injuries. Several recent studies have restored motion to paralyzed or partially paralyzed patients by applying continuous electronic stimulation to the spinal cord. Read more » The department store Galeries Lafayette in Paris is crowned with a lush farm, filled with marigolds, tomatoes and strawberries. The garden also supplies more than 80 chefs who seek hard-to-find varieties of herbs. Other agricultural start-ups are emerging in Paris, aiming to create community gardens that are tended by professional gardeners and rented to clients who harvest their own fresh produce. It’s all part of a citywide initiative to cover rooftops and walls with almost 250 acres of vegetation by 2020. The concept of lofty, usable green space is cropping up in other major cities, too, like Melbourne, Australia, and Tel Aviv. Read more » The Kingdom Choir stunned millions of viewers at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in May, where it performed a version of “Stand by Me.” Before, the British group was largely unknown. Now, the choir has an album and is set to tour in Britain and the United States. It sang at the Invictus Games in Sydney, Australia, last week. Karen Gibson, the founder, said she was getting somewhat accustomed to fame. During an interview at a South London cafe, a young man stood up to make room. “Your music helped me through a very dark place,” he told her. Read more » “I’m Palestinian, Muslim, I’m a woman of color, I’m disabled,” Maysoon Zayid, who has cerebral palsy, told her audience, before pausing to hang her head, “and I live in New Jersey.” She told this joke during her 2014 TED Talk, and she now has a development deal with ABC to create a semiautobiographical sitcom called “Can-Can.” People with disabilities make up nearly 20 percent of the population, yet they account for only about 2 percent of onscreen characters. “I want to get out there and be the image of the American you don’t think is American, and the Muslim you don’t think of when you think of a Muslim,” Zayid said. Read more » October Books, a store and nonprofit in southern England, needed to move a lot of books to a new building about 500 feet away. The community came to the rescue, forming a chain that passed books down the line, hand-to-hand. “It was a lovely way of including everyone and get the whole community involved,” Jess Haynes, one of the store’s few paid employees, said. “We’ve got a lot of good will in our community.” Read more » They promote a friendly sharing economy. There are no due dates, no fines. You might never return a book. But you might leave another instead. And these tiny libraries are very cute. There are now more than 75,000 “Little Free Libraries,” boxes stuffed with books of all kinds, from Australia to Siberia. They were created by Todd Bol, who died in October at 62. Some boxes bore a white ribbon recently in tribute. Read more » What would you like to see here? Email us at goodnews@nytimes.com. You can enjoy more of this feature at nytimes.com/goodnews. |