What Went Right: A Roundup of This Week's Best News

In need of a good news cleanse this weekend to get rid of the doom and gloom? Look no further. From a medical breakthrough to restore vision to a conservation success in Argentina, there were some incredible stories this week to remind us that it isn't all bad. Check out this roundup of some of the best headlines this week!

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Kanneh-Mason Siblings Keep Music In The Family With Violins, Pianos And Cellos

When the Kanneh-Mason kids were little, their parents signed them up for everything — karate, gymnastics, soccer, tennis, even cricket. But it was music that stuck. Today, all seven siblings from Nottingham, England, have become one of classical music’s most celebrated families. They’ve performed around the world, won prestigious awards, and played everywhere from the Royal Albert Hall to Carnegie Hall. Their rise is remarkable not just because of their talent, but because of how they got there — with no famous teachers, no elite private schooling, and no family fortune behind them. Their parents, Kadiatu (Kadie) Kanneh and Stuart Mason, had some musical background from school, but no professional training. When it became clear their children had real talent, they knew they had to support it — even if it meant financial stress and marathon schedules. “They told us this is what they wanted to do,” Kadie said. “So then, we had to be honest to say, ‘Well, if this is what you want to do, then you have to work hard.’ Because the reality is, if you want to be successful at anything, you have to go for it.” They did go for it. Isata, the eldest at 29, started piano lessons at age six. Her younger siblings quickly followed suit: Braimah, now 28, chose the violin; Sheku, now 26, picked up the cello — partly, he joked, because it was “a bigger instrument” than Braimah’s. “It helps [that] it’s objectively a better instrument,” Sheku quipped. “I think the violin is more popular,” Braimah shot back. “There’s more repertoire.” Each child practiced for hours every day while attending public school. On Saturdays, all seven made a two-hour trek to the Royal Academy of Music’s junior program in London. Any spare money the family had went toward instruments and lessons. At times, they nearly defaulted on their mortgage. At home, they created their own version of music school. They held weekly “Sunday Concerts” in the living room, where each child performed for the others and received feedback. “You have to get used to putting yourself under that pressure,” Isata said. “It’s so easy to just crumble under the nerves.” Their musical environment was key, said Jeneba, now 23. “Because our environment was so intensely musical and loving and supportive, it was kind of bound to happen in one way or another.” The Kanneh-Mason kids have never chased fame for its own sake. In 2015, they agreed to appear on “Britain’s Got Talent,” but only on one condition: they would perform classical music, not a pop medley. That same year, Sheku won the BBC Young Musician competition, becoming a household name. In 2018, he performed at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. He went on to become the first cellist to break into the U.K. Top 10 album chart and continues to play to sold-out concert halls around the world. This spring, he will serve as artist in residence at the New York Philharmonic. Still, fame hasn’t fractured the family. The siblings say they deliberately keep competition out of their careers. “We draw the line at music,” Jeneba said. “Because our instruments are such, like, an integral part of ourselves. And it would be like deeply attacking the other person.” Their bond is obvious in performance. Jeneba calls it “unspoken communication” — a kind of musical shorthand that only siblings could pull off. Not all of them are pursuing music full-time. Konya, 25, now focuses on writing fiction. Aminata, 20, took a brief detour into acting school but returned to conservatory. Mariatu, 16, is still in training. But four of the siblings are now professional musicians, recording and touring around the world. And while they made their public debut as a group, they’re now developing as individuals. “I think it’s something that probably gets easier as you get older,” said Isata. “Because you start to just get more confidence and more knowledge about what kind of things you want to be doing.” The Kanneh-Masons haven’t lost their sense of unity — but they’ve proved that even in a family of prodigies, there’s still room for individual voices to shine.

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He's the Youngest to Summit the World's 14 Highest Peaks, and he's Redefining Mountaineering Legacy

At just 18 years old, Nima Rinji Sherpa stood atop Annapurna, completing a record that took the previous title-holder nearly a decade: summiting all 14 of the world’s highest mountains. And he did it in a little over two years. It’s a staggering feat for anyone, let alone someone barely out of high school. But Nima is far from a typical teenager. He’s the latest in a long line of Sherpa climbers pushing the limits of what's possible at the top of the world — and trying to redefine what it means to be a Sherpa. Sherpa is a lot of things. It’s an ethnic group, a last name, and a job description. For decades, Sherpas have risked their lives to help foreign climbers reach Himalayan summits. Nima’s family has been at the center of that legacy. His father once became the youngest person to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen. His uncles were the first brothers to climb all 14 of the world’s highest peaks. One of them, Mingma Sherpa, started out as a yak farmer before carrying 90-kilogram loads for $1 a day as a porter. Eventually, Mingma rose through the ranks to become a lead guide — a job he calls a matter of life and death. “Every step is do or die,” he said. “Every step is maybe we are alive or not alive.” Together, Mingma and his brothers built Seven Summit Treks, a Nepalese mountaineering company now responsible for about a third of all Everest expeditions. They see Nima as the next step in a longer mission: to prove that Sherpas aren’t just support crew for Western climbers, but stars in their own right. That goal has deep roots. As a child, Nima was inspired by the story of Tenzing Norgay, the Sherpa who climbed Everest in 1953 with Sir Edmund Hillary. Hillary’s name became legend. Norgay’s didn’t — at least outside Nepal. “I think it was because of him who made the Sherpa a brand today,” Nima said. “For me, he was always a very big motivation.” Nima’s own journey started in 2022, when he summited Mount Manaslu at age 16. While other teens were sitting in classrooms, he was entering the death zone — a stretch above 8,000 meters where oxygen is scarce and the body starts to shut down. He battled muscle cramps, lung pain, even chest pain, but something kept him climbing. “I knew I belong in this industry,” he said. “Everyone has their own reason. And the reason has to be really big so that you don’t give up.” His record-breaking ascent of all 14 peaks wasn’t without risk. He’s witnessed avalanches. He’s seen climbers die. “You have to be more careful when you’re in the mountains,” he said. “Every time you go, you are so energized… then when you see someone pass away, you feel like, ‘OK, this is real.’” In fact, Sherpas make up about one-third of all deaths on Everest. Many bodies are never recovered due to the dangers of retrieving them. In 2023 alone, 18 people died on the mountain. Yet the spotlight still tends to fall on Western climbers — the ones planting flags and posting photos. Conrad Anker, a veteran American mountaineer and one of Nima’s mentors, has seen the imbalance firsthand. “It’s the value of what they do,” Anker said. “A Western climber dies, and the community rallies up. There’s fundraising. Yet for the Nepali climber, it’s not recognized in that same sense.” Anker founded the Khumbu Climbing Center in 2003 to help shift that dynamic, providing technical training to Sherpas to improve safety and recognition. Nima trained there and graduated top of his class. Still, the disparities remain. Nima is hoping for major endorsements but knows they take time. “I don’t want to rush,” he said. “But I know my time is going to come.” In the meantime, Nima and others are embracing innovation to improve safety on Everest. Drones are now being used to transport gear and supplies — ladders, ropes, even trash — to high-altitude camps. “They’re helping the icefall doctors,” Nima said, referring to the elite Sherpas who build and maintain the treacherous route through the Khumbu Icefall. “The job has not gone away. It’s just making the job easier, and safer, and faster.” A porter might take hours to carry a load from Base Camp to Camp One. A drone can do it in minutes. That shift could help prevent some of the deaths and injuries that have long plagued high-altitude expeditions. But recognition — and equality — still feel a long way off. “There’s an invisible community with an invisible center helping invisible people,” Nima’s words echo from a different conversation, but they apply just as well to the Sherpa experience in mountaineering. He may be the youngest to summit the world's tallest peaks, but Nima Rinji Sherpa is climbing for something bigger: to make sure the people who got him there finally get the credit they deserve.

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TV Host Saves Seattle-Area Hygiene Center From Closure, Pledges Support For Community Needs

A Seattle-area hygiene center that was on the brink of closure has been saved — not by a major institution or a city council vote, but by a surprise donor who turned out to be one of the region’s most well-known residents: travel writer and TV host Rick Steves. Last week, the longtime public television personality revealed himself as the anonymous buyer who had stepped in to purchase the property housing the Lynnwood Hygiene Center, which had been told to vacate after the land was sold to a developer. The center provides hot meals, showers, and a safe indoor space for people without homes — essential services for the 700 individuals who depend on it each year. Steves bought the property for $2.25 million, saying he only learned about the hygiene center’s existence by chance — through a local news story. Despite living nearby, he hadn’t known the facility existed. And like many people, he hadn’t known what a hygiene center even was. “I vividly remember what it's like as a kid backpacking around the world to need a shower, to need a place to wash your clothes,” he told a crowd gathered to celebrate the center's rescue with cake and the words "fait accompli" piped in red icing. Reading about the center’s closure plans, Steves said it hit him just how hard it would be to replace a place like this. “I realized, oh my goodness, there's an invisible community with an invisible center helping invisible people. And it's not right. It needs to be kept alive.” The Lynnwood Hygiene Center had operated rent-free since 2020. But in November, the Jean Kim Foundation — which runs the center — announced it would need to close after the property changed hands. The news sparked deep concern in the community, especially among those who relied on the center for basic needs. Sandra Mears, executive director of the Jean Kim Foundation, said she had been told to plan a farewell event. “I didn’t want a goodbye party,” she said. Now, with the purchase secured and over $400,000 in additional donations from the community, that goodbye party has turned into a celebration of survival. The funds will help renovate the space and expand services. Mears said the center currently provides around 16,000 hot meals and 10,000 showers annually — numbers that are likely to grow. “It’s huge,” she said. Steves called the donation “the best $2.25 million I could imagine spending,” but he also made clear that he doesn’t see this as a long-term solution. Private donors, he said, shouldn't be the ones deciding whether people get access to basic necessities like food and hygiene. “If we don't have [$2.25 million] for a whole county to give homeless people a shower and a place to get out of the rain and a place to wash their clothes, what kind of society are we?” In a series of posts on Bluesky, Steves said he was struck by the idea that a facility providing such critical care had been so easily overlooked — by the public, by local leadership, and even by someone like him, who lives just down the road. “It’s a failure of priorities,” he said. The Lynnwood Hygiene Center is expected to remain free to those who use it. Mears and her team are already planning for the next chapter: renovations, extended hours, and possibly more services, depending on how far the funds can stretch. For Steves, the experience was an unexpected but meaningful detour from his regular work, one that made a lasting impression. “This place is needed,” he said. “And now, it’s here to stay.”

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Breakthrough In Parkinson's Research Alters Understanding Of Dopamine

A groundbreaking study from McGill University is changing how scientists understand the role of dopamine in movement — and it could reshape treatment strategies for Parkinson’s disease. Published in Nature Neuroscience, the research suggests that dopamine doesn’t directly control how fast or forcefully we move, as long believed. Instead, it acts more like a foundation that enables movement to happen at all. “Rather than acting as a throttle that sets movement speed, dopamine appears to function more like engine oil,” said senior author Nicolas Tritsch, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at McGill and a researcher at the Douglas Research Centre. “It’s essential for the system to run, but not the signal that determines how fast each action is executed.” This insight could simplify how Parkinson’s treatments are designed. Levodopa, the most common medication, has long been thought to work by mimicking short dopamine bursts that happen during motion. But the McGill team found that movement improved by simply restoring steady, baseline dopamine levels — not fast spikes. The researchers tested the theory by monitoring brain activity in mice as they performed a strength task. Switching dopamine-producing cells on or off during movement had no effect on how the animals moved. But restoring overall dopamine levels did help, suggesting it’s the presence of dopamine — not its moment-to-moment fluctuation — that matters most. With over 110,000 Canadians living with Parkinson’s, and that number expected to double by 2050, the study opens the door to more targeted, safer treatments that focus on maintaining consistent dopamine support — rather than chasing fleeting dopamine signals.

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Marty Reisman Revolutionizes Table Tennis As Inspiration Behind 'Marty Supreme'

In a smoky dive bar in 1940s Manhattan, a teenage Marty Reisman slapped table tennis balls with the speed and flair of a street magician. He wasn’t just playing for fun—he was hustling college kids and tourists for money, all while dreaming of becoming a world champion. Decades later, that electric underworld of spin shots and side bets is coming to the big screen. Opening in U.S. theaters this Christmas, Marty Supreme stars Timothée Chalamet as Marty Mauser, a fictional character loosely based on Reisman, one of America’s most flamboyant—and misunderstood—table tennis legends. The film is the brainchild of director Josh Safdie (Uncut Gems), who saw in Reisman’s life a chaotic, high-stakes world rarely depicted in sports movies. Fast-talking, fashion-forward, and ferociously talented, Reisman wasn’t just a player. He was a performer. A Life Built on Spin and Swagger Born in 1930 in New York, Reisman took up Ping-Pong (as it was still called then) at age 9, using the game to calm his nerves after a childhood breakdown. By his teens, he was playing nightly at Lawrence’s, a gangster-run bar where the best players in the country traded money, insults, and smashes. That scrappy upbringing, filled with danger and swagger, infuses every scene of Marty Supreme. Director Safdie was fascinated by what he calls a “subculture of misfits” who bet big and lived on reflexes. While the film invents its own plotline—Mauser juggles a pregnant girlfriend, debt collectors, and a dream of going pro—it draws heavily from the energy and misadventures of Reisman’s early life, down to real events like his one-day stint as a shoe salesman and living in a hotel with his gambling-addicted father. Reisman himself was a magnet for stories. He famously tried to place a $500 bet on himself at a national tournament—only to accidentally offer the wager to the head of the U.S. Table Tennis Association. He was escorted out by police. That didn't stop him: over the next five decades, he racked up 22 major titles, performed with the Harlem Globetrotters, and became a staple of late-night television, smashing cigarettes in half with pinpoint shots on The Tonight Show. A Paddle, A Cigarette, and a Comeback What set Reisman apart wasn’t just his skill, but his flair. He played in tailored suits and fedora hats. He could charm a crowd as easily as he could dismantle an opponent. But when table tennis was revolutionized in the 1950s by sponge paddles—which added blistering speed and spin—Reisman pushed back. “The sponge made the game too fast,” he once said. “Before, there was a dialogue between two players… Today, a point is made or lost with an imperceptible twist of the wrist.” Despite falling out of step with the changing game, Reisman remained a force. In 1997, at age 67, he won the first U.S. national hardbat championship, using the old-school paddle he never abandoned. He challenged then–top-ranked American Jimmy Butler to a match—and nearly won. ‘Marty Supreme’ Is Not a Biopic—But It’s Full of Truth Safdie’s Marty Supreme isn’t a direct retelling of Reisman’s life. “It has its own engine,” says filmmaker Leo Leigh, who made the 2014 documentary The Life and Times of a Ping-Pong Hustler. But the film’s spirit mirrors Reisman’s—raw, funny, tense, and full of improvisation. Key moments are pulled from real events: the underground hustle games, brushes with violence, and a high-stakes showdown with a fictionalized Japanese rival, inspired by Reisman’s infamous loss to Hiroji Satoh at the 1952 World Championships. Satoh, armed with a sponge paddle, blew past Reisman, changing the sport forever. Reisman would later get his revenge in a rematch—but by then, the era of the hardbat was fading. Legacy of a Showman Reisman died in 2012, but his influence remains. His club in Manhattan once hosted Dustin Hoffman, Bobby Fischer, and David Mamet. His style, showmanship, and relentless hustle made him a larger-than-life figure in a sport often overlooked in America. “He was the one who attracted crowds to the game,” says Larry Hodges, a longtime table tennis coach and author. “He was a good talker, and he said witty things—even if he exaggerated.” If Reisman were alive today, friends say, he would have hijacked Marty Supreme’s press tour with outrageous stunts and charm. “He would have been such a pain,” laughs Leigh. “It would have been hilarious.” But there’s little doubt: Marty Reisman would have loved seeing a bit of himself, however fictionalized, taking center stage. As Chalamet’s Marty Mauser says in the film, “Table tennis is the only place I ever feel like I’m in control.” That, perhaps more than anything, is true to the real Marty.

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How Music Therapy is Bringing Joy and Healing to Hospital Patients Through Vinyl Records

At Dell Seton Medical Center in Austin, Texas, the warm crackle of a spinning record is doing something no pill or procedure can: it’s helping patients feel human again. Pamela Mansfield, 64, knows this firsthand. Recovering from a string of neck surgeries, she lies in her hospital bed swaying her feet to George Jones’ She Thinks I Still Care. Her hands are numb, her ankles stiff — but her smile grows with each verse. “Music makes everything better,” she says. The music is part of ATX-VINyL, a volunteer-led program dreamed up by Dr. Tyler Jorgensen, an emergency medicine physician turned palliative care fellow, who saw something profound happen when he wheeled a record player into a patient’s room three years ago. “I think of this record player as a time machine,” Jorgensen said. “An old, familiar song starts spinning — and now you're back at home, you're with your family, you're out of the hospital.” That first moment of clarity came with Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back in Town, played for a patient who’d been shut down and struggling. The shift was immediate: he opened up, shared stories, and connected in a way that nothing else had sparked. Since then, ATX-VINyL has grown into a full program with a collection of over 60 records — and counting. The most requested album? Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. Willie Nelson, Etta James, and John Denver are also frequent requests. During the holidays, A Charlie Brown Christmas spins on repeat. Each visit begins with a conversation — nurses recommend patients who might benefit, and a volunteer carefully selects a few records from the cart. Then the turntable rolls in. “There’s just something inherently warm about the friction of a record — the pops, the scratches,” Jorgensen said. “It just feels different.” Mansfield’s pick was country — the music she grew up listening to with her parents. “I have great taste in music. Men, on the other hand… ehhh,” she jokes, laughing as the needle drops. She’s one of many patients helped by the small, intimate power of vinyl. Some are in palliative care, facing the final stages of life. Others, like Mansfield, are fighting to get better. After six surgeries since a serious fall in April, she recently stood for a full three minutes — her best yet. “It’s motivating,” she said. “Me and my broom could dance really well to some of this stuff.” For Daniela Vargas, a UT Austin pre-med student and head of the volunteer team, the program is personal. She discovered music’s therapeutic value while playing violin for isolated patients during the pandemic. “Being able to interact with the patient in the beginning and at the end can be really transformative,” she said. “Even though we’re not there the whole time, it’s a really intimate experience for them.” The idea isn’t to distract from pain or avoid difficult conversations, Jorgensen says. It’s to create new memories — something positive that families and patients can share together, even at the end. “Let’s play something for Mom. Let’s play something for Dad,” he said. “And suddenly, you are creating a new, shared experience in a setting that can otherwise be very sad, very heavy.” Back in her room, Mansfield lets the music drift around her as her feet sway to the rhythm. “Music,” she says again, “makes everything better.”

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Brazil’s rare red-bellied toad survived devastating floods, and its giving scientists new hope

In the quiet forests of southern Brazil, a tiny, brilliantly colored amphibian has once again captured the attention of scientists — and this time, it's for surviving a disaster that nearly erased its only known home. The admirable red-bellied toad, Melanophryniscus admirabilis, is found nowhere else on Earth but a small stretch of the Forqueta River in Arvorezinha, a town nestled in Rio Grande do Sul. Measuring just a few centimeters, the toad made headlines in 2014 when its discovery halted the construction of a hydroelectric dam that would have destroyed its fragile habitat. Fast forward to 2025, and the species faced a different kind of threat: record-breaking floods that swept across the region in 2024, part of a growing pattern of extreme weather events linked to climate change. River flows in southern Brazil are projected to increase by 20 percent, with major floods expected to become up to five times more frequent, according to Brazil’s National Water and Basic Sanitation Agency. Amid fears that the floods might have wiped out the toads or disrupted their breeding cycle — which depends on very specific rainfall conditions — a team of researchers led by biologist Michelle Abadie returned to the toads’ last known habitat, a forested canyon known as Perau de Janeiro. What they found surprised them. Despite the changed landscape — one local described it as “unrecognizable” — the team found more than 100 individual toads over two days, including both adults and juveniles. Tadpoles were also spotted, a sign that reproduction had not been disrupted as feared. “The landscape changed so much that it didn’t even look like the same place,” said Graziela Civa, a local resident and longtime partner in the toad monitoring project. She witnessed the Forqueta River rise by over 20 meters during the floods. The toad’s survival, scientists say, is nothing short of remarkable. Described formally in 2006, Melanophryniscus admirabilis belongs to the Bufonidae family and is known for its striking green back and vividly red belly — markings that serve both as camouflage and a warning. The species uses a toxic defense mechanism known as aposematism to ward off predators, and its unique coloration allows researchers to identify individual toads much like fingerprints. Abadie and her team have spent years trying to locate other habitats that could support the species, but none match the delicate combination of rocky outcrops, forest cover, and constant moisture that make Perau de Janeiro viable. “We looked for places with similar conditions, but didn’t find anything that matched,” Abadie explained. Climate change isn’t the only threat. The toad’s habitat is also under pressure from expanding monocultures and the illegal wildlife trade, which targets exotic-looking species like this one. That makes the need for habitat protection urgent. Today, Melanophryniscus admirabilis is listed as critically endangered and is part of Brazil’s National Action Plan for Conservation, coordinated by the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation. Long-term efforts now include monitoring, predictive modeling, and field surveys aimed at protecting this rare species and its unique environment. Despite the good news from the recent fieldwork, researchers warn that the toad’s survival is far from guaranteed without formal protections in place. Currently, the Perau de Janeiro site lies outside any officially designated conservation area. It’s not included in Key Biodiversity Areas or Alliance for Zero Extinction sites, despite meeting criteria for both. Even so, the toad’s continued presence is a symbol of hope — and a call to action. “It’s proof that with the right focus, even species hanging by a thread can still surprise us,” said Abadie. In a world grappling with environmental upheaval, the survival of this little red-bellied toad is a reminder that resilience can still be found — even in the smallest, most unlikely places.

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Teen Activist Against Segregation Honored With Statue at U.S. Capitol

Seventy-three years after she led a student walkout that helped dismantle school segregation in America, 16-year-old Barbara Johns is now forever enshrined in bronze — standing tall in the U.S. Capitol. On December 16, lawmakers gathered in Emancipation Hall to unveil an 11-foot statue of Johns, a teenager whose protest against injustice changed the course of American history. The figure, crafted by Maryland artist Steven Weitzman, shows Johns mid-speech, holding a book aloft beside a lectern. At its base are two quotes: one from the Book of Isaiah — “And a little child shall lead them” — and another from Johns herself: “Are we going to just accept these conditions, or are we going to do something about it?” The statue replaces that of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, which Virginia removed from the Capitol in 2020. Under the National Statuary Hall Collection, each U.S. state is permitted to place two statues in the Capitol. Virginia's other is of George Washington. “To pair her with George Washington is a really, really powerful juxtaposition,” said Cainan Townsend, director of the Moton Museum, which is housed in the former school Johns attended. Virginia’s choice to honor Johns over a Confederate figure reflects a broader effort to acknowledge overlooked chapters of its past. “I think Virginia is trying to correct some of its inequities,” said Johns’ sister, Joan Johns Cobbs, earlier this year. “The fact that they chose her was one way they are trying to rectify what happened in the past.” Born in 1935, Johns was just 16 when she organized a school-wide strike on April 23, 1951, at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. The school’s all-Black students attended class in tar-paper shacks with no heat, no plumbing, no cafeteria, and no gym. Teachers were severely underpaid compared to their white counterparts. Students wore coats in class to stay warm. Meanwhile, students at the all-white school in Prince Edward County had modern facilities, working buses, and new books. Johns rallied all 450 students to walk out in protest. They stayed out for two weeks. The NAACP took notice and filed a federal lawsuit: Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County. That case became one of five combined into Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case that ruled school segregation unconstitutional. But the struggle didn’t end there. In defiance of the ruling, Prince Edward County shut down its public schools for five years rather than integrate. Full integration didn’t happen until 1964. Johns’ boldness came at a cost. Her family feared for her safety, and she was sent to Alabama to finish high school. She later attended Spelman College and Drexel University and worked as a librarian in Philadelphia. She died in 1991 at age 56. At the statue unveiling, her daughter Terry Harrison reflected on the quiet strength behind her mother’s public courage. “We knew her as Barbara Powell: minister's wife, mother, librarian,” Harrison said. “But the core of who she was as a 16-year-old remained. She was brave, bold, determined, strong, wise, unselfish, warm and loving.” Harrison added, “We’re truly grateful that this magnificent monument to her story... may continue to inspire and teach others that no matter what, you too can reach for the moon.”

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For 25 years, this Ottawa cobbler has kept government shoes — and hopes — in good repair

Graeme Parker has worn the same pair of Blundstone boots for almost a decade. He credits their long life not to the manufacturer, but to a man working in the basement of his downtown Ottawa office building. That man is Muhamad Merhi, the soft-spoken cobbler behind Merhi Quality Shoe Repair, who has quietly spent the past 24 years keeping the city’s civil servants walking — one sole at a time. “Some magic thing,” Parker says, describing a recent fix that stopped a pair of new shoes from giving him blisters. Years earlier, Merhi had crafted him a new suitcase handle from leather. “It looks and feels better than the original.” Parker isn’t the only one singing Merhi’s praises. Around 75 percent of Merhi’s clientele are public servants working in and around the C.D. Howe Building, where his shop is tucked into the lower-level concourse. Since opening there during the Chrétien years, Merhi has seen staff — and styles — come and go. But his shop has stayed. “I don’t think I would have survived outside,” Merhi admits. “Whenever government is not working, we’re very slow.” Still, the shop endured through government layoffs, seemingly endless construction and a global pandemic. Next year, in 2026, it will mark 25 years in business. A trade learned in wartime, carried into peace Merhi learned shoemaking from his father in Lebanon, alongside his brothers. In the 1980s, as the Lebanese Civil War raged, his family of 11 fled to Canada. He can track his life here by prime ministers: Mulroney was in power when they arrived; Chrétien when he launched his business. Now, decades later, Merhi has become a quiet fixture in Ottawa’s downtown core, even as his trade steadily fades. He calls it “a dying trade.” But he’s not done yet. “I think I’ll keep going another 10 years.” A front-row seat to the shoes of government Merhi’s shop is part workshop, part observation deck. From his small counter, he’s seen the full arc of Ottawa’s fashion choices. Blundstones are still going strong. Zippered half-boots, not so much. “Some people don’t wear a suit and their shoes are beautiful,” he says. “And some people wear a suit and the shoes don’t go with the suit.” And nothing, he says, ruins a good pair of shoes faster than Ottawa’s sidewalk salt. Merhi’s seen it all — including photos of Listerine-blue salt piles outside downtown stores. “That’s like paving the sidewalk,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s a waste of salt. That will kill your shoes.” Knowing when to say goodbye Sometimes, Merhi’s job is as much about honesty as it is about craft. “They bring me shoes that they love, they don’t want to let go, but they’re falling apart,” he says. If he can fix them, he will. But if the repair won’t last? “I tell them it’s not worth it.” He refuses to take someone’s money for a job that might buy them only “a month or two.” That kind of integrity has built him a loyal following. And it’s also what keeps him going. “I like the fact that when somebody brings me something that somebody else told them, ‘That can’t be done,’ they bring it to me and challenge me with it,” he says. Merhi doesn’t expect to get rich fixing shoes. But it’s a good living. And after four decades in Canada, he’s proud of the life he’s built — and the boots he’s helped keep walking. As Parker puts it: “We live in turbulent times, and it’s good to know that no matter what happens, I can get my shoes taken care of.”

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NASA Launches First Scientific Balloon Of 2025 Antarctica Campaign To Study Cosmic Antimatter

While most eyes are on space telescopes, NASA has quietly kicked off another kind of mission — one that floats, not flies. At 5:30 a.m. New Zealand time on Dec. 16 (11:30 a.m. Dec. 15 U.S. Eastern), NASA launched its first scientific balloon flight of the 2025 Antarctic Balloon Campaign from its base near McMurdo Station. The helium-filled balloon reached an altitude of roughly 120,000 feet — about 36 kilometers up — and is now carrying a high-tech instrument called GAPS, the General AntiParticle Spectrometer. The mission’s goal? Find antimatter particles that may hold the key to one of the biggest cosmic mysteries: dark matter. At the edge of space, above most of Earth’s atmosphere, NASA’s high-altitude balloons can carry instruments to do serious science without the cost and complexity of a full satellite mission. The Antarctic summer offers an ideal launch window, thanks to its nearly constant daylight and stable polar wind patterns that allow balloons to float in circles around the continent for weeks at a time. GAPS is hunting for extremely rare cosmic particles — antideuterons, antiprotons, and antihelium — that have never been clearly seen in nature. Detecting just one of these, especially an antideuteron, could point to the existence of dark matter particles, something scientists have theorized about for decades but still haven’t directly observed. The GAPS instrument works using two main systems: a time-of-flight setup that measures the speed of incoming particles, and a tracker that records how they interact. Together, these allow scientists to identify antimatter signatures in the cosmic rays that bombard Earth’s atmosphere. If the mission is successful, it could offer clues about how dark matter behaves, how it might decay, or even what it’s made of — insights that would reshape our understanding of the universe. For now, the balloon is quietly circling high above the icy expanse of Antarctica. But the science it could unlock is anything but quiet.

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