Welcome back to the Monday Good News Roundup, where me and the team at the GNR newsroom (Killer300 and Bhu) bring you good news to get your week started.

Its October! My favorite time of the year. The leaves are turning brown, they’re layering pumpkin spice into every food under the sun, and oh yeah, scary movies every day till the 31st (which is my mom’s birthday btw). Of course, eyes on the prize, since the election is next month, its gonna be hard work but we’re gonna win hard and show the  GOP that we wont go back. LETS GO BLUE WAVE! PINK WAVE! WAVE TO THE CAMERA! That last one makes no sense WHO CARES?

Indeed, bills to restrict the freedom to teach and learn have sparked outrage — and organizing — on campuses throughout the country. In addition to increased COVID-inspired health and safety concerns and an ever-increasing spike in the number of low-paid contingent laborers, it is not surprising that campus workers are mobilizing in every region of the U.S. and pushing for a New Deal for Higher Education. The effort is being led by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), two groups that entered into a permanent affiliation agreement that took effect on August 1.

The GOP have been trying to mess with education, and now they’ve awakened a slumbering giant. And this one has two heads.

On this year’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day, while the country’s major leaders were dining with indigenous elites in Taipei’s Grand Hotel, hundreds of community heads, youth organizers, and activists from the Paiwan indigenous people assembled on the southern edge of the island. There they announced a new effort: the Paiwan National Assembly. Not content with token representation, the group will pursue concerted political action.

Taiwan’s indigenous population numbers 600,000, representing nearly 3 percent of the country’s population. They mostly live in the mountains and eastern coast of the island, a physical isolation that mirrors their material marginalization. Indigenous people’s life expectancy is eight years lower than the national average. They are nearly five times more likely to live in poverty, earning only 75 percent of the average monthly wages of nonindigenous people in Taiwan. UNESCO has designated five of Taiwan’s sixteen indigenous languages as critically or severely endangered, with the rest deemed vulnerable.

I hope they get the recognition they seek. As we have seen, when people organize and stick together, they win.

The internet has been shut off in parts of Iran and access to platforms such as WhatsApp and Instagram blocked after seven days of protest in cities across Iran.

The uprisings were sparked on 16 September by the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, who had been detained by the morality police for wearing her hijab in an “improper” way. Iranian state television has said 17 people have died, though the number could be higher.

Here, five Iranians share their experiences of the past few days, and tell us what they make of this latest protest movement.

And of course the big story is what is happening in Iran right now. Our heart goes out to the brave people in Iran fighting for their freedom after years of harsh oppression.

Russia continues to lose in Ukraine. A dramatic Ukrainian counteroffensive, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, has recaptured about 2,000 square miles of territory and sent Russian forces reeling. Putin, like many authoritarians, relies on an image of personal invulnerability, and so he rightly fears the political risks of military defeat. At home, even his most loyal sycophants are demanding that he do something to stem the losses in Ukraine.

Putin has answered this call by making two foolish moves. First, he is now getting personally involved in some of the operational decisions in Ukraine; second, he has begun a conscription drive that is supposed to mobilize an additional 300,000 men into the Russian military. Both of these decisions will speed up the clocks on the many growing threats to his regime, including sanctions, social unrest, and military collapse, among others.

Remember when everyone thought Putin was some untouchable evil  mastermind? Yeah me neither, and now no one ever will again.

The space probe came barreling in at thousands of miles per hour, its mechanical eyes locked on its target—an asteroid named Dimorphos.

About an hour out, the asteroid looked to the probe’s cameras like nothing more than a faint speck in the darkness of space, slightly larger than a single pixel on your screen. A few minutes out, it began to look distinctly asteroid-like, lumpy and gray. Three seconds out, the asteroid filled the whole view—bright and beautiful, the landscape so rich with texture that you could almost feel the craggy rock against your fingertips.

And then, nothing. The spacecraft crashed into the asteroid, its fancy cameras and all the rest of its delicate machinery smashed to bits.

I mean its not Bruce Willis with an Aerosmith soundtrack but I’ll take it.

Just a newsletter of good news stories. Some I’ve already covered here.

LOS YUNGAS, Bolivia, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Bolivia's decision to open an alternate route to its historic 'Death Road' - a serpentine dirt path across the towering Andes hills known for its deadly cliffs - has led to a resurgence of wildlife in the area, according to an environmental group.

The route was once a key road frequented by heavy trucks connecting Bolivia's capital La Paz to the country's Amazon rainforest. But its deadliness earned it the nickame the 'Death Road.' Between 1999 and 2003 hundreds of Bolivians died trying to navigate it.

By 2007, Bolivia opened an alternate route, leaving the original road as mostly an attraction for cyclists. That not only saved lives but also helped nature, according to a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

Like, that “Nature is healing” meme, but not facetiously

The popular Roomba robot vacuum has a new trick: mopping. iRobot's Roomba Combo j7 Plus is the first model built for homes with carpets, rugs and hardwood or tile floors, and it can tell the difference between the two so as not to get water all over your carpet, the company announced Tuesday.

However, you'll have to pay for those smarts: The Roomba Combo j7 Plus will retail for $1,099, far more expensive than our other picks for best robot vacuums (though none of those include a built-in mop). It's available for presale today on iRobot.com , and will ship starting Oct. 4.

Cool, but can it do windows? ;p

But cold cuts may soon be replaced as the frontline weapon of choice. At the Providence Regional Medical Center, in meth-hit Everett, north of Seattle, Robey has been treating patients with new monoclonal antibodies designed to glom onto methamphetamine and keep it from accessing the brain, Facher reported.

It’s one of a new — albeit small — wave of meth therapies and interventions being developed in the midst of need; the drugs naltrexone and buproprion have shown promise for treating methamphetamine use disorder as well.

Good, its nice to know those poor people will get the help they need soon.

If you see more electric vehicles across the southern United States, it’s not just you. According to the annual Transportation Electrification in the Southeast report, EV market share in the region doubled from last year with Tesla and Hyundai leading the way. And, perhaps more important, the industry’s growth is bringing new jobs to the region.

The Southeast (Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee) has grown to become a significant auto manufacturing hub. Several prominent automakers, including Mercedes-Benz, Ford, and BMW, call the Southeast home for some of their operations.

Automakers are transitioning from the motor city to the sun belt because of the regions benefits. It’s closer to the coast, making it easier to export; it offers vast space; and it tends to be less costly.

EV startups and legacy automakers are both investing heavily in the region. In fact, the Southeast has garnered almost $33 billion in planned investments and expects eventually to house one third of the nation’s EV manufacturing jobs.

So EV’s are doing well it seems. Sounds good to me.

I don’t know what’s going to happen on the battlefield in Ukraine. And while I’ve read a bunch of interesting stuff about Europe’s prospects for weathering the coming winter without Russian natural gas, my main takeaway is that reasonably well-informed people seem to disagree.

But I wanted to step back and make a broader point that I think too often gets lost in the shuffle: everything Russia has been doing has been incredibly counterproductive from the standpoint of Russian interests.

Following the lead of most western analysts, I initially underrated Ukraine’s ability to stall Russia’s advance on Kyiv and buy enough time for western arms shipments to start making a difference. But despite getting that crucial question wrong, I said from the beginning that invading Ukraine was a terrible idea. That’s only become clearer as we’ve seen what actually transpired on the road to Kyiv and, more recently, Ukraine regaining some of its lost territory.

And the same is true of Russia using gas shutoffs as a tool of coercion.

I think one day soon Russia  is going to be free of Putin and his oligarch buddies. And Russia, and the world, will be better for it.

The CTA has been under a lot of heat lately, and rightly so. While service gaps caused by COVID-19 related staffing shortages are somewhat understandable, customers are fed up with unpredictable waits for buses and trains, and Transit Tracker arrival times that often have no basis in reality. That frustration was evident in the I’m Late protest in front of the transit agency’s headquarters on September 14, which drew about 60 demonstrators. Adding insult to injury, later that day CTA president Dorval Carter Jr. failed to show up for a City Council hearing on poor service, which further annoyed advocates and alderpersons.

So the CTA could clearly use some good news to help change the narrative. Today the agency provided that in the form of encouraging bus and rail ridership numbers. The figures show more people have been using the system recently than at any time before the pandemic reached Chicago in March 2020. According to the CTA, the weekday ridership average has been breaking 900,000 trips, compared to about 1.6 million journeys in pre-pandemic times. Moreover, downtown ridership has doubled as people have been returning to offices and other activities in the central city.

As someone who uses the bus, I am glad to hear this (even if I like having the bus mostly to myself).

Experts have urged the Nigerian government to be more proficient on waste management. Baliqees Salaudeen, a climate, social and environmental activist, urged that “collaboration across stakeholder sectors” would help in tackling climate and environmental issues. Although Nigeria and Africa at large contribute very little to global emissions and climate problems, the effect of climate change would have a great impact on the continent.

“Tackling climate or environmental issues is not only the work of the government, but every one of us because we as the citizens, our health is also at stake. And it is always health over wealth, no matter what,” Baliqees said in an interview. Baliqees herself had led a group of young people and initiated a social movement called “Pick That Trash” when she was based in Ilorin, Kwara State. Every morning, Baliqees would lead young people like herself into neighborhoods to collect used bottles, nylon bags, and polythene bags and do public awareness-raising with the local residents about why waste management is important.

So its not only helping the environment, its helping Nigeria’s economy, that’s so cool.

On May 5, under a scorching Boston afternoon sun, a motley group of Central American immigrant leaders and their families were strewn across the steps under the towering, ornate cast iron gates of the Massachusetts State House. Joined by mostly younger, non-immigrant allied organizers, the air was charged with nervous anticipation. An eclectic mix of Latin-American music, from traditional mariachi to Bad Bunny, boomed over a mobile PA system. Spontaneous chants of “Que queremos? Licencias! Cuando? Ahora!”  or “What do we want? Licenses! When? Now!” broke out amongst ongoing laughter and chatter.

Sometime around 2 p.m. the news was finally announced: in a veto-proof majority, the state senate voted 32-8 to pass the Work and Family Mobility Act, a bill that would allow undocumented people to apply for a driver’s liscense. Through hugs, tears and unabashed dancing, a unified chant of “Si se pudo!” or “Yes we did!” emerged.

A big win  in Massachusetts. No person is illegal and they deserve the same rights and considerations as anyone else.

Under Mayor Hidalgo, Paris has done as much as any city in the world to wage a war on cars amid a growing awareness of the damaging impact they have on cities.

Passenger cars emit huge amounts of pollution and are an inefficient use of finite public space. They are Europe’s second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and the leading killer of children . Copenhagen has calculated that for each kilometer cycled by a resident, society reaps a benefit of €0.64 ($0.64), whereas each kilometer driven costs us €0.71 in impacts on health, safety and the environment.

But over recent years, Paris has implemented an array of measures to prioritize pedestrians, cyclists and transit while bringing car use screeching to a halt. In addition to pedestrianizing the Seine’s quayside, the French capital has banned heavily polluting diesel cars through the creation of a low-emission zone (which will become progressively more stringent from now until 2030), reduced drivers’ access to major streets, expanded green areas, and promoted other ways getting around the city. (During the pandemic, 50 kilometers of cycle routes were added to the existing 700 kilometer network ).

One of the most beautiful cities in the world becomes even more beautiful.

And on that note I’m out of articles and feeling sleepy, so see you guys all next week. Stay strong and stay hopeful.