Good Week — #5

Hey there, and welcome to Good Week, the good-news roundup for the week of July 20 — episode 5. Let’s ease in with something that feels very human: building things together, on purpose, for a living.

Apprenticeships. Real skills, real jobs. JPMorgan and its chief executive Jamie Dimon announced a 24 million dollar investment to support a new submarine manufacturing facility and expand apprenticeship programs at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

It’s the kind of news that lands quietly but changes lives. Training up electricians, welders, all the people who quite literally keep the world wired and watertight. Jack, I love that this is about opening doors for hands-on careers.

He also underscored the need for hundreds of thousands of skilled tradespeople across the country. That is a big pipeline challenge, and this is a concrete step to meet it.

Concrete, steel, and a steady paycheck — not a bad combination. Here’s to the mentors, the apprentices, and the places that get built because someone decided to teach someone else how to do it.

And here’s to programs that give people a first rung on the ladder. Sometimes the most optimistic story is simply, “We’re hiring and training.”

Speaking of everyday wins, there’s a pocketbook headline with cautious good vibes. Some forecasts say the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment could raise average benefits by around a hundred dollars.

Key word: forecast. The estimate depends on upcoming inflation data and possible changes to Medicare premiums. Different outlets floated different percentage figures, so let’s stay with the part everyone agrees on — it’s a projection, not a final number.

Meanwhile, there’s also bipartisan movement in the Senate around Social Security’s future. The PROMISE Act was introduced by Senators Dick Durbin, Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn, Tim Kaine, Angus King and Thom Tillis — a notably mixed group.

According to reports, the bill would establish a seven-member advisory board to draft legislation to keep the program on a stable path. It’s a process step, but a useful one: get experts around a table and mandate actual proposals.

Emma here is all for adults in a room, sketching out real fixes. It’s not flashy, but it’s the sort of “do the work” news that makes tomorrow feel steadier.

“Steadier” is underrated. I’ll take steady any day.

Over to technology that helps people in the most direct way possible: movement, touch, life. In New York, researchers at the Feinstein Institutes implanted a double neural bypass that let a paralyzed patient, Keith Thomas, regain hand strength, dexterity, and even tactile sensation.

The setup created a direct communication pathway between his motor signals and the muscles, and between sensors and his brain. It’s a brain-computer interface tailored to rebuild function. For one person, it’s already changing daily living.

That’s extraordinary. Imagine feeling a loved one’s hand again, or holding a cup without fear. It’s the sort of breakthrough that reads like science fiction and lands like a family miracle.

And in another medical advance, Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., reported that a Phase 1 trial of a multi-target CAR T-cell therapy showed durable remissions with an acceptable safety profile in children with aggressive brain tumors.

Early stage, but that phrase “durable remissions” is such a bright light.

It is. Phase 1 means small and preliminary, so we should temper expectations. Still, it signals that the approach may be doing what it’s designed to do — and safely enough to keep going.

For any family watching a child fight a brain tumor, progress is priceless. Hope backed by data — that matters.

Public-health beat, quick tour. The United Kingdom authorized a Phase I trial of an Oxford-developed Ebola vaccine with 50 healthy volunteers, and doses for the study are being made by the Serum Institute of India.

That’s a classic early-safety-and-immune-response step. The sooner we test new vaccines, the quicker we learn what’s ready for real-world protection.

Headaches next — and not the metaphorical kind. Researchers at the University of Birmingham clarified migraine mechanisms and highlighted new CGRP-targeting drug classes. Translation for your smart friend: they’re sharpening the map of what triggers the pain and pointing to medicines designed to intercept it.

Also in the “know earlier, plan better” category, researchers reported that high levels of the blood protein p-tau217 predicted a 38 percent chance of cognitive impairment within five years and a 78 percent chance within ten years in older adults without symptoms. Those figures came via coverage drawing on a multinational analysis.

Early warning is not a diagnosis — but it can open doors to planning, trials, care. That’s a humane kind of progress.

One quick health PSA while we’re here: doctors noted that bowel incontinence can be a sign of late-stage colorectal cancer — although they emphasized it’s more often caused by non-cancerous conditions. The practical takeaway is simple: if something changes, talk to your doctor.

Knowledge is power, especially when it’s paired with a calm, timely checkup.

Let’s look up, out, and a little wild. Astronomers reported detecting a helium-rich atmosphere around a rocky exoplanet called LHS 1140 b, about 48 light-years away in the habitable zone of a red dwarf. They saw the telltale fingerprints of helium in the starlight that passed through the planet’s air.

It’s a good reminder that even small, dim stars can host intriguing worlds — and we now have tools sensitive enough to sniff out what those worlds are wrapped in.

Closer to home, but still delightfully far, NASA’s New Horizons probe has woken from its longest hibernation and resumed science in the Kuiper Belt. The spacecraft, roughly 5.9 billion miles from Earth, spent ten months conserving power before controllers at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab brought it back online.

It’s the quiet, steady kind of exploration that keeps paying scientific dividends long after launch day headlines fade.

And on the “new neighbors” front, scientists identified a new colobus monkey species in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Lomami National Park. It’s named Colobus congoensis and has these striking orange lips — a distinctive calling card in the forest.

New species discoveries are a vote of confidence for protected areas — proof that there’s still so much to find when habitats are intact.

Sports time. At Royal Birkdale, New Zealand’s Ryan Fox claimed his first major with a dramatic birdie on the 18th to win the Open Championship. He finished at 10 under par, one shot clear of Cameron Young. That’s an “ice in the veins” finish if ever there was one.

In the WNBA, Caitlin Clark put up 45 points and 10 assists for Indiana in a 110–107 win over Dallas — the first time any player has recorded at least 40 and 10 in a WNBA game. It drew nods from across the sports world, including LeBron James highlighting the performance.

Hoops history on a summer night. Love it. And world football’s big show is set: Spain and Argentina meeting in the World Cup final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Early afternoon kickoff Eastern Time, on Fox in the U.S., and forecasts had clear skies. The defending champs are chasing back-to-back titles; Spain’s after a second.

Both reached the final with decisive semifinal wins — Argentina over England, and Spain over France. It’s a heavyweight pairing, so enjoy that one.

And a spin through the peloton: a shortened Stage 9 went to Mathieu van der Poel in Ussel, Tadej Pogacar took Stages 10 and 14, Tim Merlier sprinted to Stage 12, and Remco Evenepoel won Stage 15.

The race also saw a major contender crash out and a sprinter withdraw. Big shifts, big efforts, and a reminder that stage racing is equal parts art and survival.

Over to the culture corner. In London, Heartstopper Forever premiered — the final Netflix film in the series. It brings together the novella and the graphic novel into a two-hour wrap-up, and stars Kit Connor and Joe Locke were there talking about closing the story and portraying young queer relationships with care.

A finish that sounds true to the spirit of the original, and a last chapter for a lot of fans.

And there’s a celebrity headline swirling — key word: swirling. Early reports claimed Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce had a private ceremony at Madison Square Garden, with paperwork and some big-name performers whispered.

Emphasis on “early reports.” That’s in the rumor pile until something official lands. Fun to speculate, sure, but we’ll keep it parked under “claimed, not confirmed.”

Agreed. If and when it’s real, we’ll toast it properly. Until then, file under “maybe.”

Tech-and-planet time. Researchers from UCLA’s Samueli School of Engineering and Ewha Womans University demonstrated a low-temperature process that turns mixed plastic waste — think PET, polyethylene, polypropylene — into high-purity hydrogen, while trapping the carbon as a solid carbonate.

In plain terms: a way to pull useful hydrogen out of messy plastic streams at lower heat, and lock up the carbon so it doesn’t go into the air. It’s a lab advance, but it aims squarely at two problems at once.

Meanwhile, in the software trenches, Beijing-based startup Moonshot said its Kimi K3 model topped Arena’s front-end coding benchmark, ahead of some well-known U.S. systems.

Benchmarks are tests, not the whole world, but it shows rapid progress. Healthy competition tends to lift the whole field.

And a small nudge with a big upside: a new study found that speeding in the U.S. saves only about a minute per day on average, while adding noticeable fuel costs and emissions. Translation: if you ease off the pedal, your wallet and the air both win.

One minute isn’t even a decent song. Coasting might be the move.

Around the world and around the block. Meta announced a major expansion of its data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana, scaling up to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity. It’s a 50 billion dollar investment, expected to create more than a thousand jobs.

The plan also includes funding for local infrastructure projects, and there are scholarships in the mix. Big builds with community ties — that counts.

On the macro side, U.S. labor productivity rose at its fastest pace in two decades, with tight labor markets, digitization, and remote work doing the heavy lifting. Interestingly, reports said artificial intelligence played a secondary role here.

It’s a reminder that better tools and better matching of people to work can move the needle — sometimes before the buzziest tech shows up.

One quick international development with a practical tilt: the United States began the licensing process to allow Ukraine to produce Patriot missile interceptors, with Lockheed Martin backing the move.

That was reported via a senior Ukrainian official to the Kyiv Independent, with Lockheed’s support noted. It’s about enabling local production capacity — a policy lever with industrial ripple effects.

That’s our lap around the bright side for this week. If you want more stories like these, head to factslane.com or grab the app in the App Store or Google Play. There’s even a calm Zen mode — just the positive stuff, like we do here.

Thanks for spending part of your day with us. If something good crossed your path this week, tell someone — good news travels best person to person.

I’m Emma, he’s Jack, and this was Good Week. Have a great week, take care of each other, and we’ll see you next time.

Be well, everyone.