Good morning #backyardbend. We hope you had a great Valentines day and Presidents holiday. Let’s get this week off to a positive start with these stories of good things happening in the world. Make it a great week!

From The Good News Network

The group from Eindhoven whose prototype car won the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge for three years, just introduced the world’s first long-range solar car—the four-passenger all-electric vehicle called Lightyear One. CLICK THE IMAGE TO WATCH THE VIDEO.

The prototype, which has already sold 100 orders to be filled in 2021, was presented to a select audience of investors, customers, partners, and press last week at the break of dawn in the Netherlands.

“This moment represents a new…

A heartwarming tale of “True and Lasting Love” is always nice to hear -right?

From NBC Today By Scott Stump

In the same year that “Gone With the Wind” first hit theaters, another timeless love story from the South was also beginning.

Texas couple John and Charlotte Henderson will celebrate their 80th Valentine’s Day together on Friday after having already been recognized by Guinness World Records last year as the oldest living couple on Earth.

John, 107, and Charlotte, 105, celebrated their 80th wedding anniversary in November. They have actually been Valentine’s Day sweethearts for 85 years if you count the time they were together before they were married in 1939.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long,” John…

BEDFORD, Va. (WDBJ7) By Michael Alachnowicz

Imagine walking into school and seeing sticky notes all over the walls.

Well, that’s exactly what’s happening – and for good reason – at Liberty High School. “We all have a purpose,” said Braxton Brawley.

This is just one of many messages Brawley has spread across this campus. Messages of kindness even hang from the ceilings, and all down the hallways.

This begs the question – “Do you know how many notes you’ve wrote?” “It has to be pretty close to about 200 to 300,” said Brawley.

It’s about the kind of culture Brawley wants to make. Liberty High principal Shawn Trosper says the initiative Brawley is taking is affecting others in a great…

From The Good News Network By Andy Corbley

If you ever wanted to help dwindling honeybee populations, ecologists are encouraging that you “learn to love weeds” and leave the dandelions alone this coming spring.

At the start of her tenure as the new president of the oldest ecological society in the world, Jane Memmott reminded everyone last week that working to live in harmony with nature can be as simple as keeping your lawn pollinator-friendly.

The Bristol University professor admitted she mows around the dandelions and buttercups when she cuts her grass because “you can’t personally help tigers, whales and elephants, but you really can do something for the insects, birds, and plants that are local to you.”

“Think about…

From CNN By Francisco Guzman and Brian Ries

A 5-year-old Georgia boy awoke to flames in the bedroom. But he didn’t panic, and his actions helped save his entire family. See the VIDEO HERE.

Noah Woods is being named an honorary firefighter and will receive a rare lifesavers award for his heroics on Friday.

Noah was one of eight family members asleep in their home in Bartow County, Georgia, on Sunday when he woke up to smoke and flames in the bedroom he shared with his 2-year-old sister.

He jumped out of bed, grabbed his sister and got out of the house through the only exit available, an open window.

But Noah didn’t stop there — he went back…

From Reuters By By Canice Leung, Reuters

What a better way to start your week off than with 33 adorable photos of animal babies and their mothers. It is sure to warm your heart and get you in a positive mood. So click the link and enjoy this gallery of nature and the love shared by mother and offspring. Photo GALLERY HERE. 

From The Good News Network By Andy Corbley

Germany has just launched its first public test system for using overhead lines to power electric trucks.

The 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) stretch of overhead lines, which runs through a crucial portion of the Hessen autobahn from Frankfurt airport, will be tested by a fleet of electrical trucks until late 2022.

The overhead line hybrid trucks (OH trucks) that are being tested on the road are equipped with electric motors, batteries, and diesel engines. When the trucks drive underneath of the power line at speeds of up to 90 kilometers per hour, the charging system automatically connects to the overhead lines for charging.

While the truck is connected to the overhead line, it drives…

From The Good News Network By Andy Corbley

Carbon capturing and carbon sequestering, meaning the uptake and storage of CO2 molecules in a solid object, like a building or a tree which it can’t escape from, is one of the many tools for entrepreneurs, manufacturers, and businessmen, who want to do their part to combat the climate crisis.

Similarly, a startup working in Israel is eradicating one environmental toxin by placing it inside of another. UBQ Materials is taking household waste that would normally end up in landfills, and embedding it in liquefied recycled plastic to create “a thermoplastic, composite, bio-based, sustainable, climate-positive material”.

The trash is sorted, passed over a magnet to remove metals, before being dried and shredded…

From CBS News By Janet Shamlian

Waynesboro, Georgia — A police sergeant in Waynesboro, Georgia, is being hailed as a hero after a newly released body camera video shows him saving a baby who couldn’t breathe. Harold Drummond jumped into action when he saw 6-month-old AJ Sherrod outside a Dollar General store last month.

“When I looked down at that baby AJ, I looked down into my son’s face. I looked down into my grandson’s face” Drummond told CBS News. See the VIDEO HERE.

His knowledge of two-finger infant CPR saved AJ, who was suffering from a respiratory infection. AJ’s family was headed to a children’s hospital on January 18 when he stopped breathing, so they pulled over to…

From The Good News Network

You may have cheered some of the many GNN reports of critically-endangered species rebounding after human intervention—like, declining numbers of humpback whales, green sea turtles, and bald eagles entirely reversed by conservation heroes.

Another area of environmental degradation that is now turning around in the right direction is the surprising recovery of fish stocks.

In the most comprehensive review of fisheries’ management and fishing management on a per region basis, to date, an international team of researchers concluded that fish stocks are mostly increasing in these world waters.

In their paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research team gathered data from 50% of the world’s fish stocks, which include…