I’m a teacher and I try to leave a meaningful message in my one Good News Roundup a month. This message seems to be what we need right now.
I don’t know if you’ve seen or remember the Pixar animated film A Bug’s Life. It came out when I was a kid and I saw it again recently. I immediately thought of the resistance in Minneapolis. It doesn’t line up perfectly but there are enough parallels for it to work here. This is a brief synopsis from Wikipedia if you need to get up to speed. The grasshoppers and especially Hopper are the Trump regime in the movie and the ants are the budding resistance. There are two key clips that I want to show from the movie.
The first is Hopper pressing to return to the island because the ants will rebel with their superior numbers if not kept in line.
.
The second clip is another key moment in the film. Flik (the main character) and the ants finally stood up to the grasshoppers and just like bullies everywhere... the grasshoppers wilt.
.
The scenes in Minneapolis and across the nation of regular people standing up to the regime and especially ICE are commendable. The grasshoppers have finally awoken the sleeping giant with their thuggish tactics. As they sowed the wind so shall they reap the whirlwind! (Hosea 8:7)
A quick way of standing up is pooling our resources together to help elect Democrats to Congress. GoodNewsRoundup and I have two combined fundraisers that show the might of the Good News Roundup community. One is for the Senate and the other is for the House of Representatives.
Of course, there are other actions people can take. Here are some of them for Minneapolis! (🎩 chloris creator) Many sections of this GNR cover more actions that help others. Remember, TOGETHER WE ARE MIGHTY!
We at the Good News Roundup choose hope instead of fear, good news instead of doomscrolling, and love instead of hate. We’re not naïve — we know that the forces of evil are strong and currently have power in the halls of Washington, D.C. However, we also know that the forces for good are strong too!
Here goes my February Good News Roundup…
😊Oops… They Did It Again!😊
If you want a good place to stay away from people, Melania may be just the film for you!
Tesla is cooked. Only “AI” and SpaceX are keeping the Muskrat afloat.
x
Elon made the world's most un-sellable "truck." He hasn't developed a new car in years. He just shut down production of two models and he can barely sell the cars he is making. So now it's the pipe dream of "automation" keeping his meme stock afloat 🙄 #TeslaTakedown
www.theverge.com/transportati...
[image or embed]
— #TeslaTakedown (@teslatakedown.com) January 31, 2026 at 5:34 PM
Looks like “Eagle Ed” is now a fledgling once more.
😡 We’re Not Gonna Take It Anymore! 😡
It is heartening to see people come together.
Things are getting interesting with Trump 2.0
WOW. Springfield, OH is in a red county and isn’t a blue area by any stretch.
This woman is amazing.
💪 Not Afraid To Take a Stand 💪
(paywalled) Just like me, another person who considered himself a Republican left the party.
Rep. Mike Lawler Heckled at Town Hall Meeting
Republican Congressman Mike Lawler faced frequent heckling from the audience during a town hall meeting he held at Rockland Community College on the evening of Feb. 1. Lawler said that he has focused on issues such as housing and has met with numerous local groups during his tenure in Congress.
Lawler accused many in the audience of prejudging what happened in Minneapolis where two citizens were shot to death by federal agents. He said that he will wait for a thorough investigation before passing judgment on what happened there. Lawler said that the replacement of ICE leader Greg Bovino with Trump’s border czar Tom Homan should be welcomed. He also defended ICE agents, saying they should not be called the Gestapo. Lawler said he is opposed to sanctuary city laws.
This is Wyoming. The state that Trump won by the most in the nation.
Monks’ Peace Walk Across the Country Draws Huge Crowds
Buddhist monks walking from Texas to Washington to promote peace have become a surprise popular hit as they near the US capital -- attracting crowds of thousands who line the route or join in for a few miles.
At a time of strife and political tension in the United States, the monks offer a change of tone on their 2,300-mile (3,700-kilometer) odyssey across eight states through freezing temperatures and along ice-covered roads.
Bhikkhu Pannakara (L), leading Buddhist monks in a "Walk for Peace," receives a flower from a child as they walk in Richmond, Virginia© Aaron Mathes
On Tuesday, north of Virginia's capital Richmond, Louella Glessner stood on a mound of plowed snow, flowers in hand, hoping the robed monks and their mission might somehow begin to heal America's toxic divisions.
"I am a Christian, but this whole concept, I think it's great," Glessner, a 62-year trust administrator, told AFP ahead of the monks' arrival at a Buddhist temple where people gathered on the roadside and in the pagoda grounds.
Americans have been captivated by a band of Buddhist monks who are on a mission to spread compassion, unity, and non-violence on their 'Walk for Peace,' a 2,300 mile trek from Texas to the US capital Washington© Aaron Mathes
"It's what the country needs. We need to have peace and we need to find commonality between all people," she said.
Since launching their ambitious trek 101 days ago from a Buddhist center in Fort Worth, Texas, the group of about 20 monks have spread a message of unity, compassion, mindfulness, healing and peace.
It has resonated in unexpectedly dramatic fashion, with thousands of people turning up to share in the experience. Last month, 20,000 well-wishers greeted them in Columbia, South Carolina.
The mission's Facebook page tops 2.5 million followers and its videos have garnered over 100 million views.
The group's peace dog Aloka, a former stray from India that has accompanied the monks on the trip, has also become a celebrity in its own right.
The monks, who often stay overnight at churches or university campuses, hail from Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
🐈🐕Pootie/Woozle Video Break 🐈🐕
We need to be fearless just like these pooties in the face of the predators in the Trump regime.
⚖ Trump Fought the Law and the Law WON! ⚖
x
BREAKING: Judge Cobb has barred DHS from preventing members of Congress from visiting immigration detention facilities without notice, saying the administration's policy likely violated the law requiring their unfettered access. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
[image or embed]
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney.bsky.social) February 2, 2026 at 11:56 AM
x
A federal judge on Monday struck down the Interior Department’s order to halt work on a multibillion-dollar wind farm off the coast of New York State, the fifth time the courts have ruled against the Trump administration’s efforts to throttle the country’s offshore wind industry.
[image or embed]
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) February 2, 2026 at 2:05 PM
x
BREAKING: Judge Ana Reyes, in DC, issues a stay of DHS Sec. Noem’s decision to end Haiti’s temporary protected status (TPS) designation, a decision that was to go into effect on Tuesday and could have ended legal status for up to 350,000 people overnight. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
[image or embed]
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) February 2, 2026 at 7:42 PM
x
🚨BREAKING: Federal Court DISMISSES Republican lawsuit challenging the U.S. Census Bureau’s statistical methods used for the 2020 Census. A big victory for my law firm's clients and everyone who cares about an accurate Census! www.democracydocket.com/cases/florid...
[image or embed]
— Marc Elias (@marcelias.bsky.social) February 3, 2026 at 12:55 PM
❎The Times They Are a Changing ❎
If you’ve made it this far, don’t forget to donate to the Win the Majority 2026 AND Take the House in 2026 fundraising pages!
Guys, Trump is very unpopular and is getting more so over time.
That generic ballot lead:
🌍What a Wonderful World🌍
EVs have lower lifetime emissions than everything else. As they improve I bet it will get even better!
x
🚗🔋A new look at 2023 US vehicles finds electric vehicles have lower life‑cycle greenhouse‑gas emissions than similar gas, diesel, and hybrid models, across all grid, climate, and battery‑lifetime scenarios. #EVs
🧪@ucdavisresearch.bsky.social@natureportfolio.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s44...
[image or embed]
— Communications Sustainability (@commssustain.nature.com) January 30, 2026 at 12:39 PM
China leading the way on renewable energy.
x
When you install renewables, you reduce global demand for fossil fuels. In the 1st half of 2025, China installed 2x more solar than the rest of the world combined. China is also exporting most of the solar that the rest of the world is installing. 🧪🔌💡☀️💨💧🔋 a 🧵 electrek.co/2025/09/02/h...
[image or embed]
— Joseph D. Ortiz (@earthsciinfo.bsky.social) February 2, 2026 at 7:02 AM
China at a tipping point for EV adoption.
Protecting wildlife is always good news to me!
🎶Song of the Day🎶
“They will not force us.
They will stop degrading us.
They will not control us.
WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS!”
🧪Don’t Stop Believing (in Science) 🧪
The description in the post says it. This could make offshore wind farms that much better!
Breakthrough Filtration Method Removes PFAS 100x Faster
This new filtration method uses a layered double hydroxide (LDH) material that combines copper and aluminum with nitrate.
"This LDH compound captured PFAS more than 1,000 times better than other materials," Chung says. "It also worked incredibly fast, removing large amounts of PFAS within minutes, about 100 times faster than commercial carbon filters."
The material's unique structure emerges from layers of copper and aluminum with a slight imbalance in their charge, sucking in PFOA molecules, which bind tightly with the filter.
Once the adsorption material was saturated with PFOA, the team heated the material and added calcium carbonate, which allowed them to 'clean' the LDH for reuse and strip the PFOA of its fluorine backbone, effectively destroying it.
The remaining fluorine-calcium material can be disposed into landfill safely, Rice engineer Michael Wong told The Guardian.
"We are excited by the potential of this one-of-a-kind LDH-based technology to transform how PFAS-contaminated water sources are treated in the near future," Wong says.
Natural insecticides? May be what we need!
“Chemical Sponge” Sucks Up Valuable Minerals in Wastewater
So-called rare earth elements aren’t actually rare. It’s just difficult to refine them into the purified forms that are needed for making things like electronics or clean energy tech. The standard processes are also toxic, which is one reason that the world has outsourced production to China.
Supra, a startup that spun out of the University of Texas at Austin, is taking a different approach that’s clean, low-cost, and makes it possible to capture some of the billions of dollars’ worth of critical minerals that are trapped in waste in the U.S.
The company’s technology uses supramolecular receptors, “a string of molecules built to grab specific molecules like a baseball glove,” says CEO Katie Durham. Jonathan Sessler, a chemistry professor at UT Austin, first designed receptors like these to target cancer cells. Then he realized that they could also be designed to target critical minerals.
“My original analogy was we were going to be making a chemical sponge,” Sessler says. “It would go in and capture these elements and we would pick it up and wring it out.”
Interesting that the oil that makes oranges smell can also eat away microplastics.
😷I Will Survive (Good Medical News)😷
Anything that could tackle antibiotic resistance is a source of good news!
x
CMU researchers have uncovered a bacterial vulnerability that could lead to a new class of treatments for antibiotic-resistant infections. Instead of killing bacteria, their approach targets pathways that control behavior. 🧪 #Biology #MolecularBiology
www.cmu.edu/mcs/news-eve...
[image or embed]
— CMU Mellon College of Science (@cmuscience.bsky.social) January 30, 2026 at 3:55 PM
Life Expectancy in the USA Highest Ever After 2025
US life expectancy rose to 79 years in 2024 – the highest mark in American history.
It's the result of not only the dissipation of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also waning death rates from all the nation's top killers, including heart disease, cancer, and drug overdoses.
What's more, preliminary statistics suggest a continued improvement in 2025.
"It's pretty much good news all the way around," said Robert Anderson, of the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which released the 2024 data on Thursday.
Huntington’s Disease is nasty. Anything that can help is good news.
Helping Grandkids Gives a Brain Boost to Grandparents
Grandparents affect their grandchildren's lives in many ways, but a new study suggests seniors might benefit from this caregiving, too.
"Many grandparents provide regular care for their grandchildren – care that supports families and society more broadly," says PhD student and lead researcher Flavia Chereches, of Tilburg University in the Netherlands.
"An open question, however, is whether caregiving for grandchildren may also benefit grandparents themselves. In this research, we wanted to see if providing grandchild care might benefit grandparents' health, potentially slowing down cognitive decline."
Chereches and her colleagues analyzed data from nearly 3,000 grandparents, which had initially been collected for the English Longitudinal Study of Aging.
Between 2016 and 2022, the grandparents, all over the age of 50, completed surveys about whether they had a caregiver role for their grandchildren, and if so, how frequently and in what form. They also underwent cognitive testing three times across the period.
Grandparents who were involved in caring for their grandchildren performed higher in scores of verbal fluency and episodic memory than grandparents who were not actively involved in their grandchildren's lives.
For caregiving grandmothers in particular, the benefits included a slower rate of cognitive decline across time, compared to grandmothers who weren't active caregivers.
While the study didn't compare younger and older grandparents, there were no significant differences between grandparents who gave care more or less frequently: being involved to any degree appeared to have a similar effect.
Good gnus in mice. Hope it translates to humans.
x
Cancer might protect against Alzheimer’s: this protein helps explain why 🧪 Interesting article even for a non-biologist like me! Hopefully a start to being some way closer to improved treatments for Alzheimer's disease www.nature.com/articles/d41...
[image or embed]
— Nessa Carson (@supersciencegrl.co.uk) February 2, 2026 at 3:55 AM
Training the Less-Impaired Arm Leads to Better QoL for Stroke Survivors
As neuroscientists who study how the brain controls movement after stroke, these findings led us to a simple question: Could training the less-impaired arm help it work better?
In a clinical trial of over 50 patients, we studied people living with chronic stroke who had severe impairments in one arm, making it unusable for everyday tasks. These individuals depended almost entirely on their less-impaired arm to manage daily life.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of two rehabilitation groups: one that trained their most-impaired arm, and one that trained their less-impaired arm. Both received five weeks of therapy that involved challenging, goal-directed hand movements, including virtual reality tasks designed to improve coordination and timing.
Compared to those who trained their most-impaired arm, we found that participants who conditioned their less-impaired arm became faster and more efficient at everyday hand tasks, such as picking up small objects or lifting a cup. These improvements remained six months after training ended.
We believe the lasting benefit of training the less-impaired arm may come from a simple feedback loop: When their arm works better, people naturally use it more, and that extra practice in daily life helps lock in those gains.
Oh WOW. This could be groundbreaking.
x
CMU chemists have developed a precise approach to target RNA, opening the door to potential new treatments for myotonicdystrophy type 1 — the most common adult‑onset muscular dystrophy — and other RNA‑repeat expansion disorders. 🧪 #ChemSky
www.cmu.edu/mcs/news-eve...
[image or embed]
— CMU Mellon College of Science (@cmuscience.bsky.social) February 3, 2026 at 3:40 PM
😁Oh Happy Day😁
The rest of the world is moving on from us. Europe is looking to cooperate which is good news for them.
French Police Raid Elon Musk "X" HQ
Prosecutors have raided the French headquarters of Elon Musk’s social media platform X and summoned the tech billionaire and the company’s former chief executive for questioning as part of an investigation into alleged cybercrime.
“A search is under way by the cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor’s office, the national police cyber unit and Europol,” the Paris prosecutors’ office said in a post on X on Tuesday, adding that it would no longer be publishing on the network.
It added in a statement that Musk and Linda Yaccarino had been summoned for voluntary questioning “in their capacity as de facto and de jure managers of the X platform at the time of the events”. Yaccarino resigned as CEO of X in July last year.
The prosecutor’s office said it was examining “alleged complicity” in offences related to the platform, including the spreading of child abuse images and sexually explicit deepfakes, the denial of crimes against humanity and manipulation
We’re soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo close!
😆Wednesday Wheezes 😆
Thank you to Denise Oliver Velez for posting humorous cartoons every day in the APR.
💖We Are the World💖
PO-TA-TOES. Boil ‘em, Mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew.
Again, it is amazing what the Twin Cities have been able to do under siege.
x
Businesses across Minneapolis have fundamentally changed their mission in the weeks since ICE descended on Minnesota. That new mission — to care for those too afraid to leave their homes and for those protesting on their behalf — has only intensified in the days since Alex Pretti was killed.
[image or embed]
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) February 2, 2026 at 4:00 PM
👍 Hey Hey What Can I Do? 👍
Don’t try to do all of these! Pick something you are passionate about and stay in that lane. I know this is overwhelming but it is meant to be.
Actions to save education:
- If you want to help teachers that desperately need funds, DonorsChoose is the site to hook you up! Another one is Adopt a Classroom!
- Support the Inoculation Project! This is a Daily Kos effort to fund STEM and literacy projects in classrooms!
- Volunteer in a classroom! It can be something as structured and formal as Citizen Schools or as informal as inquiring at a local school district. Be prepared for a background check though!
- Build a Little Free Library! I use these all the time and you never know what you’ll read next. Bonus points for distributing books banned by MAGA! Or convert one into a Little Food Pantry!
Actions to save democracy:
- 50501 is the group that sparked the protests against the Trump regime. The next huge day for protests will be March 28th. Be there or be square!
- Calling your representatives matters. 5calls.org makes the process much simpler and more efficient for you! Make it a goal to call their offices once a week or so!
- Support the Hope Springs from Field group (follow snowbored) or Postcards to Voters (follow Progressive Muse) in order to better reach voters!
- Donate to Take Back the House in 2026 or Win the Majority 2026! We really need to recapture Congress in order to stop the Trump regime in its tracks!
- Join or support the ACLU. They aren’t perfect but protecting our rights isn’t ever going to be like that.
Actions to combat racism/Sexism/Bigotry:
Note: as always when donating to any charity or group, do a background check on who you give your funds to in order to make sure they aren’t skimming funds or don’t align with your values. Thank you to dabug for helping build parts of this database and GoodNewsRoundup and arhpdx for boosting it!
Actions to Address Poverty:
- End Poverty USA has a compilation of THOUSANDS of organizations working to help the poor. I’m sure there will be one to help with any situation and that aligns with your values.
- Here are 12 specific organizations working to alleviate poverty. They range from Habitat for Humanity to CARE to Save the Children. Given cuts to USAID and the safety net, this is an urgent need!
- Feeding America helps with hunger and poverty issues across the USA. It lists food banks to volunteer or donate to and gives options for assistance for those who need it.
Actions to Help the Environment:
📖About the Author📖
Well, I am almost there.
This is my third day on the new job of being a building substitute teacher. Basically, I work every day in the same school now. I have guaranteed work which is a step up from my day-to-day existence. It is the next stepping stone to getting my own classroom. It provides me with a pay rise (the pay still sucks btw) and guaranteed income. There isn’t as much pressure (but it still exists) to make the jump to full-time classroom teacher due to fear of getting stuck as a sub or due to finances.
With that, my February Good News Roundup is open! Feel free to contribute more in the comments and especially help make next month’s edition better!
