We Ate the Dark by Mallory Pearson

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment

“The floor creaked down the hall, the kind of sound her mom would have told her was settling. Cass found it to have the opposite effect.”

Frankie’s twin sister Sofia disappeared years ago. Now, her body has finally been discovered inside a tree in an old abandoned house. Frankie reconnects with her old friends Poppy and Cass and new friend Marya to investigate what happened to her sister. Since the body doesn’t provide any additional clues, it’s not clear why Frankie didn’t investigate Sofia’s disappearance sooner, but whatever.

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Good News Friday

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment
  • Colombia’s multidimensional poverty rate has dropped from 29.7% in 2010 to 9.9% last year. Colombia Reports.
  • Violent crime rates continue to plunge in America’s big cities. Axios.
  • Australia, the first ever country to roll out a national HPV vaccination program, is now seeing zero cervical cancer in women under 25. BBC.
  • Mariska Hargitay’s Joyful Heart Foundation has successfully achieved rape kit reform in all 50 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. People.
  • Wind and solar have saved UK from gas imports worth £1.7bn since Iran war began. CarbonBrief.

For more good news, check out Fix the News and The Progress Network.

Good News Friday

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment
  • Maternal and neonatal tetanus eliminated in South Sudan and Sudan. Unicef.
  • Jamaica’s murder rate dropped 40% compared to the previous year. The Gleaner.
  • The worldwide teen pregnancy rate has fallen by over one-third since 2000. Our World in Data.
  • European Parliament backs EU-wide conversion therapy ban. Washington Blade.
  • India went from 15% to 70% Internet access in a decade, mostly through mobile phones. Our World in Data.
  • AI finds signs of pancreatic cancer up to three years before tumors develop. NBC News.

For more good news, check out Fix the News and The Progress Network.

Good News Friday

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment
  • Australia becomes the 30th country to eliminate trachoma as a public health problem. WHO.
  • In Burkina Faso between 2024 and 2025 malaria cases fell by 32% and malaria‑related deaths by 44% thanks to vaccines. Gavi.
  • The rate of suicides among young people in the United States dropped 11 percent thanks to new 988 hotline. The New York Times.
  • By reducing electricity prices, solar has saved Europe over €3 billion since March. Euronews.
  • CATL claims 6-minute charge and 1,500km range for new electric vehicle batteries. Financial Times.
  • High school student’s low-cost teabag solution for millions threatened by arsenic passes peer review. IFL Science.
  • New research finds pressurized iron-rich brine beneath Taylor Glacier powers Antarctica’s mysterious Blood Falls. The Science Times.

For more good news, check out Fix the News and The Progress Network.

Good News Friday

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment
  • Nearly 20 million lives saved in Africa through measles vaccinations. WHO.
  • In the last 20 years, poverty in Paraguay has plummeted from over 50 percent to only 16 percent in 2025. World Bank.
  • Teen births plummet in the United States to 11.7 births per 1,000 in 2025, down from 61.8 in 1991. NPR.
  • Mexico’s president to roll out universal healthcare for 120 million people. Novara Media.
  • The share of renewables in global power generation hit nearly 34% in 2025, overtaking coal for the first time. Ember.
  • Man unexpectedly cured of HIV after stem cell transplant. Tech Fixated.
  • This 13-year-old has earned nearly half a million followers by cooking meals for his unhoused neighbors. Good Good Good.

For more good news, check out Fix the News and The Progress Network.

Good News Friday

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment
  • The global suicide rate has fallen 40% since the 1990s. Our World in Data.
  • In a first, renewables beat natural gas on US grid last month. Canary Media.
  • Five “missing” bird species rediscovered in 2025. Mongabay.
  • Researchers have found that even a short break from your phone yields substantial benefits: improved attention equivalent to erasing a decade’s worth of age-related cognitive decline and a more significant effect on depression than that produced by antidepressants. The Washington Post.

For more good news, check out Fix the News and The Progress Network.

The Simpsons Season 11

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment

“Beyond Blunderdome” (S11, E1) features Mel Gibson who was presented as beloved at the time with Robert Downey Jr. and Hugh Grant presented as degenerates. Just goes to show how easy it is for actors to go from being loved to despised to loved again. Since I’m keeping track of presidential references, I’ll mention an unnamed monocle-wearing president is decapitated in the movie Mel Gibson and Homer make together.

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Good News Friday

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment
  • Argentina’s poverty rate dropped to just 28% at the end of 2025, down from 53% in early 2024. Semafor.
  • Pedestrian deaths in the United States fell 10.9% in the first half of 2025, the biggest recorded drop since national tracking began 15 years ago. GHSA.
  • Uruguay built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. Forbes.
  • Battery costs have declined by 99% in the last three decades, making electrified transport a reality. Our World in Data.
  • The ampurta, a blond or brown guinea pig-sized marsupial, once endangered, has made a big comeback. Mongabay.

For more good news, check out Fix the News and The Progress Network.