Each week in the 250 days leading up to America’s 250th birthday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been “highlighting the incredible wildlife that calls this beautiful country home.” Last week’s batch of seven included the Baltimore oriole and painted lady butterfly — check out this week’s.
Must Reads
What to do next time you wake up in the middle of the night
NASA released an exquisite image of a spiral galaxy that “outshines everything within sight”
Humanity
Majority of Americans Believe People in the US Are Kind, Gallup Survey Finds
Nikada—E+/Getty Images
Although some (non-Nice News) headlines may suggest otherwise, the majority of Americans believe their fellow residents are kind, according to the results of a Gallup survey released last month. The paper — titled “Americans Think Kindness Prevails in the U.S.” — notes that nearly three-quarters of the 2,000-plus participants believe adults in the country are either “very” or “somewhat” kind.
Roughly 65% of Americans reported experiencing kindness from someone in their community in the past week alone and 60% said they’d seen people treating others with kindness and respect either “very often” or “often.”
And kindness really seems to be contagious:Those who received acts of kindness more often reported higher comfort in initiating kind acts toward others and were more likely to view people in the U.S. as kind.
In the spirit of being kind and celebrating the country’s big 2-5-0 coming up, the United States of Kindness initiative is encouraging everyone to perform 250 acts of kindness. Get some inspo here.
Together With Incogni
The Truth About Scam Calls
Scammers don’t just pick phone numbers at random — they buy your data from brokers. And once your data is out there, you’re at risk of phishing, impersonation, and identity theft. But there are ways to reduce your risk, and that’s why we recommend Incogni.
The subscription service deletes your personal info from the web, monitors and follows up automatically, and continues to erase data as new risks appear. Try Incogni today and get 55% off your subscription with code NICENEWS.
California Will Give a Month of Free Diapers to Many Newborn Parents
Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images for Baby2Baby
Starting this summer, many California parents leaving the hospital with their newborns will have one less item on their long list of things to worry about. In partnership with the nonprofit Baby2Baby, the Golden State is set to be the first in the nation to offer families 400 free diapers (about a month’s worth) when they are discharged after birth.
“Every baby born in California deserves a healthy start in life — and that means making sure parents have the basics they need from day one,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement released just ahead of Mother’s Day.
During the first year of the program, free diapers in sizes for newborns and babies up to 14 pounds will be offered at 65-75 hospitals that handle about 25% of births in the state and largely serve low-income patients, per the governor’s office. The plan is to expand it to more hospitals across the state in the following years.
Kim Johnson, the state’s health secretary, added: “The first days at home with a newborn should be focused on the love, connection, and joy of an expanded family, not stress about affording diapers. This program helps ensure families can begin that journey with greater stability and peace of mind.”
Culture
Birmingham, Alabama, Ranked Best City for Young College Grads
halbergman/iStock
It’s that time of year again: A new crop of college graduates are navigating employment and looking to make their homes in cities with prime job prospects. And according to a report published last week by the payroll and HR firm ADP, they may want to set their sights beyond the usual suspects of New York and Los Angeles.
To find large metro areas that offer young college grads the best mix of pay, affordability, and opportunity, ADP analyzed payroll data of more than 409,000 people aged 20 to 29 at over 20,000 U.S. employers from January 2025 to January 2026. The firm then used metrics on wages, hiring, and cost of living to rank 53 U.S. areas with at least 1 million residents.
Birmingham, Alabama, took the No. 1 spot from Raleigh, North Carolina, which came in first the past two years. The report credited the southern city’s “strong hiring and rapid wage growth,” noting the hiring rate rose by 2.8% and median annual wages surged by more than 16% to $59,004.
The rest of the list spans coast to coast — Raleigh fell to fourth, preceded by California’s greater San Jose area andthe Tampa Bay area in Florida. Take a look at the full ranking.
In Other News
Midnight sun: Time-lapse footage captured the final sunrise for 84 days in the northernmost U.S. town (read more)
Hear from the first woman to win the Cocodona 250, deemedone of the hardest ultramarathons in North America (read more)
An 11,000-carat ruby was unearthed in Myanmar, the second-largest ever found in the country by weight (read more)
Even small increases in EV adoption can make the air cleaner on the neighborhood level, a study found (read more)
Casper the owl has taken more than 500 foster owlets under her wing at a Canadian rescue center (read more)
Inspiring Story
For Paula
Everyone has their reasons for donating blood — for Paula Off, it was witnessing her father’s and daughter’s needs for life-saving transfusions. The Arizona woman donated blood more than 300 times over her lifetime before she died of pancreatic cancer last year. “She was giving [blood] up until the very last minute of her life,” said her husband, Philip. “One thing she was most sad about was that she couldn’t give blood anymore.” So, locals recently honored her legacy in the most fitting way: a blood drive, where her husband was first in line.
Photo of the Day
Abdullah Asiran—Anadolu/Getty Images
Last weekend wasn’t just for the moms, it was also for the mills. The Netherlands celebrated the 53rd edition of National Windmill Day, during which hundreds of windmills across the country opened their doors to the public for free. Take a look inside one here, courtesy of beloved travel expert Rick Steves.
Stop Drowning in AI Info Overload and Read The Deep View
Your inbox is flooded with newsletters. Your feed is chaos. Somewhere in that noise are the insights that could transform your work — but who has time to find them? The Deep View solves this. The team reads everything, analyzes what matters, and delivers only the intelligence you need. No duplicate stories, no filler content, no wasted time. Just the essential AI developments that impact your industry, explained clearly and concisely.
No comments:
Post a Comment