Here are some positive stories from around the globe and right here in Backyard Bend to start your week.

From The Good News Network By McKinley Corbley

After a woman with mental health issues hijacked and subsequently crashed Rayden Jones’s car, the delivery driver was suddenly going to be left without a mode of transportation to do his job.

Then, suddenly, a good Samaritan stepped in to save the day. See the INSPIRING VIDEO HERE. 

Jones, who works at Happy’s Pizza in Port Huron, Michigan, says he had taken only two minutes to run some pies into a local school last week when he exited the building and found that someone had stolen his car.

Meanwhile, a man named…

From EcoWatch by Jordan Davidson

An enormous floating device designed by Dutch scientists for the non-profit Ocean Cleanup successfully captured and removed plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the company announced Wednesday, as CNN reported.

Ocean Cleanup has been hard at work on creating a device to attack the plastic waste crisis for seven years, by creating a device that captures plastic in its fold like a giant arm, according to Business Insider. The company announced that it was able to capture and hold debris ranging from large cartons, crates and abandoned fishing gear — or “ghosts nets,” which are a scourge to marine life — to microplastics that are as small as one millimeter, according to an Ocean…

By Douglas Perry | The Oregonian/OregonLive

The makers of a little-known reality-TV series called “Small Business Revolution — Main Street” want to revitalize The Dalles. If, that is, enough people across the country also want to revitalize The Dalles. Read the FULL ARTICLE AND VOTE HERE.

The show, produced by the business-technology company Deluxe, is “on a mission to revitalize small towns, one small business at a time.” Various business owners in each season’s winning town receive “marketing counsel and other assistance.”

Maybe that pitch sounds a little boring. The streaming service Hulu, which airs “Small Business Revolution,” ratchets up the tension with its own description. Its series summary begins: “Small towns across the country are fighting for their…

From The Independent by Andy Gregory

A series of low “seismic hums” detected across the world have been traced back to the birth of an underwater volcano, bringing an extraordinary conclusion to a mystery that baffled the scientific community for months.

On 11 November 2018, a series of more than 400 bizarre pulses lasting up to 40 minutes in length emanated from just off the coast of Mayotte, a small Indian Ocean tucked between Madagascar and Mozambique.While nobody is thought to have felt the tremors, they set off sensors in several East African nations, before reverberating to locations as diverse and far afield as Chile, Hawaii, Canada and some 11,000 miles away in New Zealand.

The impeccably neat structure of…

From The PBS News Hour

Dogs use the Earth’s magnetic field when they’re relieving themselves. Not only that, but canines choose to do so in a north-south axis, a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology says.

The study suggests that dogs are sensitive to small variations in Earth’s magnetic field. After examining 70 dogs — made up of 37 breeds — over two years, 1,893 defecations and 5,582 urinations, researchers found that under “calm magnetic field conditions,” dogs preferred to “excrete with the body being aligned along the north-south axis,” avoiding east-west altogether. Dogs were observed in a free-roaming environment, meaning they were not leashed and not influenced by walls or roads that would influence linear…

Here’s a positive story from Australia to get you through mid-week in #backyardbend.

From Global News By Meaghan Wray

There are many worthy of hero titles who’ve helped during Australia’s bushfires. One of them is a dog named Patsy. See the ARTICLE and VIDEO HERE.

On New Year’s Eve, wildfires took over parts of Upper Murray in Victoria, forcing many of the area’s animals to seek safety quickly. Luckily, the six-year-old pup wasn’t too far behind.

The Kelpie/Border Collie dog spent hours on the morning of Dec. 31 herding 900 sheep to safety, SBS News reported. “I’d have been stuffed without Patsy,” owner Stephen Hill told the broadcast station. Now internet-famous, Patsy’s social media channel is full of photos…

Backyard Bend’s “Positive News” to start your week of January 13, 2020. This first story is one that touches the kid in all of us and reminds us of our friends at Oregon Adaptive Sports (OAS) who make dreams come true for so many in our community.

From the CBS News by Caitlin O’Kane

A 92-year-old man from the U.K. had always dreamed of skiing, but thought he was now too old to pick up the extreme sport. Staff members at the senior home where he lives heard about his wish and encouraged him to dream big. See the INSPIRING VIDEO HERE.

Robert  “Bob” Trulocke made it known at Care UK’s Millers Grange senior living facility that he always wanted to…

From The Good News Network by Andy Corbley

Each year 25 million tons of seaweed is harvested, most of which is in Asia and used for human consumption and cosmetics. But what about using it to power our vehicles?

Danish scientists recently announced they have used a seaweed fuel to power an automobile, achieving speeds of 50 mph (80 kph), using a biofuel created by a Dutch company.

“We’ve looked to see if seaweed fuel works in the same way as ordinary fuel and what its effect is on the motor,” Jaap van Hal, who led the research team, told Noordhollands Dagblad.

One of the largest sources of clean renewable energy used today is biofuels. Produced…

From The Good News Network by Andy Corbley

Senegal is preparing to take a large step in the emerging market of African renewable energy with the construction of the 340 million euro Taliba N’diaye Wind Farm.

Almost all of the 46 wind turbines planned for the site have been completed, with the first trickle of totally renewable energy finally flowing into the capital city of Dakar.

“The first megawatts of energy are today entering Senegal’s grid, giving the country its first taste of clean, renewable wind power,” said Massaer Cisse, General Manager for Senegal at Lekela Power, the farm’s manager.

“This is an exciting time and it brings us a step closer to our ultimate goal of providing power for…

From KABC via MSN Good News

A Riverside bus driver is being called a hero for helping to reunite an elderly man with his family. See the VIDEO HERE. 

Camille Wilson was on her regular route in Perris in November when she was alerted about a missing man who had dementia.

Since Wilson greets everyone who gets on her bus, it didn’t take her long to figure out the man everyone was looking for was one of her passengers.

Wilson said she pulled over to wait for authorities and kept talking to the man to convince him not to leave the bus.

“They gave a description on our device and just me probing, asking questions…they train us on what…