Good Week — #10

Hello and welcome to Good Week, the weekly positive-news roundup. This is episode 10, our good-news tour for the week of August 23. Emma here, and Jack, I brought a story that smells like fresh coffee and new paint.

I’ll take both. What’s first?

The Palisades Village shopping center in Pacific Palisades is open again. After that tough 2025 wildfire and a long rebuild, USA Today says the doors swung back open on August 15. It’s not just retail—when a main street comes back, the town gets a heartbeat again.

It’s a practical milestone. The fire in January 2025 forced thousands to evacuate and burned a lot of acres. The reopening is a clear sign of recovery and a base for local jobs and community life.

I picture neighbors running into each other at a bakery, or a bookstore event making a Thursday feel like a mini holiday. There’s something quietly heroic about hanging the “open” sign after a year and a half of paperwork and sawdust.

And confidence. Reopening means the numbers added up for tenants and insurers. It’s a signal that rebuilding wasn’t just hopeful—it was feasible.

If you’re walking there this week with an iced tea and a big grin, we’re cheering you on. It’s the small normal moments we miss most, and they’re the ones worth celebrating loudest.

Speaking of community coming through, AP News reports Shakira pledged to rebuild at least ten schools and support a local technological university in Quibdó, in Colombia’s Chocó region, after a major earthquake. She announced it August 17 during a surprise visit.

I love that she showed up in person. Funding is huge, but presence matters too—especially for kids who’ve seen their classrooms crack and crumble. Ten schools rebuilt is ten hubs of safety and noise and chalk dust, which is exactly what you want for a childhood.

It’s a concrete plan: schools plus support for a university. That’s impact across ages, not just a single ribbon cutting.

And while we’re on people taking care of their own, friends and former co-stars gathered in North Dakota to honor Tyler Duckworth. TMZ says Johnny Bananas shared photos from the memorial on August 22. The loss is hard, but the tribute looked like a celebration of a full-throttle life.

A community ritual. Public figures get headlines for their careers, but memorials remind you of the friendships behind the credits.

Exactly. The hugs, the shared stories, the weird inside jokes—those are the chapters you don’t see on TV but they’re the best ones. To everyone who gathered, thank you for showing how we hold each other up.

Over to another place where people show up for each other—Kyiv. NBC News reports the McDonald’s in the Lukianivka district reopened after multiple bombings. Despite everything, locals kept meeting there, and now it’s open again.

It’s been hit repeatedly since the conflict started, but stayed a de facto community hub. The reopening is a nod to that role: not just fast food, but a familiar safe room with bright lights and free Wi‑Fi.

A lot of life happens in places like that. First dates, job chats, grandmas treating grandkids to fries. When the doors click open again, it says, “We are still here.”

The fact pattern is simple: a frequently hit site, now reopened, and still a gathering point. No need for drama beyond that. Persistence is the news.

Persistence—and the ritual of the everyday. To the staff flipping the lights on in the morning, you’re doing more than a shift. You’re setting the table for community.

Some good news from technology that actually helps people where they are. The FDA cleared an autonomous blood-draw robot called Aletta for clinical use in the United States. It can locate a vein, place a needle, collect blood, and even apply a bandage, with a phlebotomist overseeing.

Somewhere, a person with tiny, shy veins just sighed with relief. If this eases staffing shortages and spares folks from repeat sticks, that’s a win for patients and for overworked nurses.

It’s a clearance, so it can be deployed in clinics. Supervision remains part of the workflow, which answers obvious safety questions.

And access isn’t just about robots—it’s also about getting people to trials. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services started a review of federal rules that currently prevent clinical-trial sponsors from reimbursing participants for travel and lodging. If those barriers come down, more patients can say yes.

That’s a policy review, not a rule change yet. But it targets well-documented obstacles: cost and location.

One more tech-adjacent note from Business Insider: investors named 25 robotics startups they think are poised for growth in 2026. It’s a curated shortlist, not a guaranteed future, but it shows where smart money sees useful machines stepping in—from warehouses to elder care.

It’s investor opinion, so treat it as a map, not a destination. Still, the through-line today is practical: tools that solve real bottlenecks.

Let’s take a breath and talk health in the most encouraging way—what we can actually change. The World Health Organization says its new guidelines identify up to 45% of dementia risk as modifiable. That’s a jaw-dropper.

The emphasis is on prevention: regular exercise, blood-pressure control, hearing care, and reduced pollution exposure. Those are actionable in clinics and in city planning.

Hearing care as brain care is one of those “of course, why didn’t we connect that sooner” insights. Protect the inputs, protect the system.

And clarity helps. A number like “up to 45% is modifiable” doesn’t promise miracles. It points to worthwhile effort.

For very common aches and pains, orthopedic surgeon Abby Cheng at Washington University in St. Louis laid out options for knee osteoarthritis. She talked risk factors, non-surgical interventions, and dietary changes that can relieve symptoms and lower the odds of disease progression.

It’s a menu, not a mandate. The takeaway is variety—there isn’t only one path to relief.

And a note for women’s heart health—cardiologists including Holly Andersen, Marla Mendelson, Erin Michos, and Jennifer Wong stressed that symptoms can be subtle. Extreme fatigue can be a red flag. If something feels off, take it seriously and get checked.

The message is watchfulness. Subtle doesn’t mean harmless.

Deeper into the lab for some fascinating research. A team led by Kosuke Hashimoto at Osaka University studied supercentenarians—people 110 and older—and found unusually high levels of a rare kind of killer T cell. In their sample of 28 participants, including ten supercentenarians, these CD4 cytotoxic T cells made up roughly 18% of total T cells—far above typical.

It’s a small cohort, but the signal is striking. It doesn’t claim a magic bullet, but it gives immunologists a line to follow on what robust aging might look like.

On treatment frontiers, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is launching a multi-site trial of semaglutide for alcohol use disorder. Recruitment will run across 18 VA medical centers, led by psychiatrist David Oslin at the Philadelphia VA, to assess safety and efficacy.

That’s a formal clinical trial. It tests a GLP‑1 drug already known in other contexts, now studied for AUD. Outcome unknown—study first, headlines later.

And in oncology, Yahoo Finance noted that Moderna reported its personalized mRNA melanoma vaccine met the primary endpoints in a Phase 3 trial with 1,137 high-risk patients, presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.

Markets aside, “met primary endpoints” in Phase 3 is the key phrase. It means the trial achieved the main goals it set out to test.

One more science note on responsibility: Shinya Yamanaka, who co-discovered induced pluripotent stem cells, urged careful development of iPS therapies in Kyoto—patient safety and equitable access front and center, as the field marks its twentieth anniversary and first clinical applications.

A timely reminder: progress plus guardrails beats speed alone.

Space had a busy, quietly historic week. A Chinese private company, LandSpace, successfully recovered the first stage of its ZhuQue‑3 reusable launch vehicle on land in northwestern China on August 19. AP reports it’s the first ground recovery of an orbital-class booster in the country.

That’s a national first. Ground recovery is an engineering and operations milestone that supports reusability economics.

The White House also released a new U.S. space transportation policy via presidential memorandum. It targets more than 1,000 rocket launches and re-entries per year by 2030 and calls for more federal spaceports, greater range transparency, and faster launch capability to handle a projected commercial and national-security surge.

It’s a policy framework, not a launch schedule. But the direction is explicit: scale up infrastructure and coordination.

SpaceX, meanwhile, towed the Starship Ship 40 upper stage to shore near Christmas Island on August 18 after it floated for 24 days in the Indian Ocean. The stage had landed intact during a July 24 test, and they plan to bring it back to Texas for analysis.

Recovery after an ocean landing gives engineers a close look at how hardware held up. It’s data you can’t get from a splash and sink.

And a human note: the White House says the President is scheduled to present the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis II in Houston on August 28, recognizing their record-breaking lunar flyby.

Scheduled is the key word, but the intent is clear—honor a significant achievement.

Over in entertainment, a director with a thing for big canvases just set a record. USA Today reports Christopher Nolan’s historical epic “The Odyssey” is now the highest-grossing R‑rated film worldwide, with box office above one point three five billion dollars, edging past “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

Multiple outlets tracked it crossing that threshold; the point is the global total now leads for that rating category.

And U.S. theater chains say this summer delivered the strongest box-office revenues since 2019, with a diverse slate ahead for fall. Approaching pre‑pandemic levels means they can plan boldly again—fewer empty auditoriums, more popcorn sold, more jobs on the concession line.

Operators also said the strong summer gave them confidence to schedule new releases. That matters for distribution pipelines, not just opening-weekend vibes.

The movies are back doing the job they do best—getting us out of the house, into the same room, and collectively gasping at a plot twist. I’ll take that over another lonely scroll.

We can still scroll in the lobby. Quietly.

I’ll allow it.

A few civic and legal steps that nudge the world toward fairer rules. NPR reports a federal judge in New York declared a Trump‑era policy barring immigrant visas for citizens of 75 countries unlawful, finding it violated the Immigration and Nationality Act’s prohibition on nationality discrimination.

That’s a court ruling on statutory grounds—the INA’s text on discrimination by nationality. It blocks the policy.

Representation got a bright spot too. Progressive state Senator Aisha Wahab won a special election in California’s 14th congressional district on August 18, and House Democratic leaders—including Representative Zoe Lofgren—congratulated her. Earlier reporting noted she became the first Afghan‑American member of Congress.

Confirmation of the result plus acknowledgment from party leadership. A first is a first; that visible change matters.

And in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a law that would suspend sentences and halt prosecutions of PKK members—but only if the National Security Council confirms the group’s complete disarmament. Parliament passed it the week before, and a monitoring committee will oversee the process.

Conditional is the operative word. It establishes a legal off‑ramp tied to verifiable disarmament, with a body slated to monitor.

Steps like these aren’t fireworks, but they move the rails a few inches toward inclusion and de‑escalation. That’s how you change a map.

Quick wins for everyday life and the economy. Target reported comparable sales up three point eight percent in the second quarter and raised its full‑year outlook. BBC noted a nine hundred ninety‑four million dollar pre‑tax tariff reimbursement boosted the quarter as well.

That’s a consumer bellwether signaling shoppers are still buying—and the company feels confident enough to guide higher.

California also voted in phased standards for low rolling‑resistance replacement tires. Yes, your tires just got nerdy, but the payoff is lower fuel costs over time. The commission had already set the first tier of limits earlier this year.

It will limit available models in the state to those that meet the efficiency thresholds. Policy leans toward savings at the pump.

And a big digital housecleaning: TikTok finalized a four hundred million dollar settlement with the Department of Justice over alleged violations of child‑privacy rules. They’ll pay three hundred million now and one hundred million after a court order.

The DOJ announced it; settlement terms are clear. It’s accountability for alleged COPPA violations wrapped in one number.

Before we go, a pair of closures with dignity. AP says LandSpace’s landing was a first for China, and COLlive reports the IDF and Mossad recovered the remains of Staff Sergeant Yekutiel Yehuda Nachman Katz near Sultan Yacoub, decades after he went missing in 1982. Bringing someone home matters.

Facts noted: recovery identified, location given, and it resolves the last unidentified casualty from that battle.

If you felt a shoulder drop just hearing that, same here.

Agreed.

That’s our show. For more good news, head to factslane.com, or grab the app on the App Store or Google Play. Try the calm Zen mode—only positive stories, like this show, when you want a gentle scroll.

And if you want a deeper dive, check out Science Week and Tech Week—weekly roundups in those worlds, same calm tone.

Thanks for spending part of your Sunday with us. We covered the week behind us, and we’re rooting for the one ahead. Have a great week, take good care, and we’ll see you next time.

See you next week.