As Emma Kessler headed to her first half marathon, her boyfriend's running shoes were in the trunk, and a surprise was in the works.

Kessler, a 22-year-old, had been anxious for weeks. Running 13 miles is no easy task—especially for a rookie.

Emma kept looking for a running partner as race day approached, someone to help boost her pace and her confidence during the Rockin' Riverfest Half Marathon in St. Charles, Missouri. She kept badgering her boyfriend, Jason Burns, but in conversations, Jason never wavered in his response.

No, I can't. Sorry. 

Behind the scenes, though, Jason was planning something big. He was a competitive powerlifter and Emma had perfect attendance at his events. This was his chance to return the support.

"Ever since we met, she has been to every one of my competitions and supported me no matter how far away they were, or how much they cost," Jason told USA Today. "I didn't really think it's fair if I sit on the side of the

81 years ago today, Animal Farm was published by George Orwell. Though most famous for his seminal dystopian fiction work, Nineteen Eighty-Four, this satirical novella carries similar socio-political allegorical heft. Centered around anthropomorphic farm animals rebelling against their human farmer in hopes to create a society where all animals can be equal, free, and happy away from human interventions, things go wrong in a very human way. READ more about this great book… (1945)

According to Orwell, Animal Farm reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. As the Soviets fought on the side of the allies, the manuscript was initially rejected by several British and American publishers, including one of Orwell's own, Victor Gollancz, which delayed its publication.

When it was released, it became a great commercial success as the allegiance of WWII gave way to the Cold War. Stylistically, the work shares many similarities with some of Orwell's other works, most notably Nineteen Eighty-Four. 

Orwell was committed to communicating straightforwardly, given the way that he felt words were commonly used in politics to deceive and confuse. For this reason, he

After winning a million euros, a woman mistakenly tossed the lucky lottery ticket into a trash bin.

But the local sanitation company in southern Italy launched an hours-long search through an entire truck of trash.

Waste management company SANB administrator Roberto Nicola Toscano told AFP news agency that the ticket was found "miraculously still in one piece."

The story begins with a simple misunderstanding. When the woman went to redeem her ticket at the machine inside her local tobacconist, she did so without checking the numbers.

It told her that the ticket was "non-payable." Funnily (and almost tragically) enough, this can mean one of two things: either there are no winnings on the ticket, or the winnings are too substantial to be redeemed by the small shop.

The woman threw the ticket away thinking it was the former case, but a family member noticed the winning numbers were the ones she always played—associated as they were with a loved one—and called her to ask if she'd bought a ticket.

Realizing her mistake, the pair rushed to the shop only to be told that the trash had already been taken away.

SANB received the woman's frantic phone call

As one of the most isolated landmasses on Earth, residents of Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, rely on the bounty of the ocean more than most.

It's as good a place as any to institute marine environment protections, and indeed the island's famous stone heads, or moai, now gaze out upon one of the largest marine protected areas (MPAs) on Earth at more than a quarter-million square miles.

Moreover, the indigenous people of the island will maintain a voting majority on a "sea council" established to govern the massive area, holding 6 seats compared to 5 held by elected officials from Chile, the sovereign of Rap Nui.

It will be one of the largest indigenous-managed reserves on land or sea anywhere in the world, and reflects the rich Polynesian heritage that saw this seafaring race make an unprecedented trip across the open ocean to settle the island.

"This partnership is about ensuring that Rapa Nui's marine protected areas are not only designated, but also effectively managed and sustained for generations to come," said Jose Luis Cabello,

From the Wall Street Journal comes the story of a goldilocks discovery: a potential replacement for wood fiber that goes into making tissues, toilet paper, and paper towels.

It's called hesperaloe, and like the namesake of its last 4 letters, presents as a long-leaved succulent that grows in arid environments.

Kimberly-Clark, the American firm which made the R&D breakthrough, produces brand names like Scott paper towels, Huggies diapers, and Cottonelle toilet paper—all of which use wood fiber from trees.

Speaking to the Journal, Craig Slavtcheff, the company's top research-and-development officer described it as a "Goldilocks discovery" and alternatively as a "moonshot," but had also to warn that commercial-scale testing was still underway.

The potential benefits are manifold, including reduced reliance on deforestation and logging for paper products, lower costs, and maintenance of arboreal environments.

Additional downstream effects could come from hesperaloe cultivation in arid environments, including less water consumption in a warming climate, and a way to economically counter desertification. At the same time, fewer acres logged could

The production of cement ranks as one of the world's largest industrial sources of CO2, but now a new study shows how in the future it could be used to remove, rather than produce the greenhouse gas.

Every year, around 4 billion metric tons of CO2 are produced through an energy-intensive process, and particularly during the thermal decomposition of limestone, the most important natural raw material for cement.

In a new study, researchers at ETH Zurich, one of the top engineering schools worldwide, have shown that these emissions could be significantly reduced if cement production were combined with a technology known as Direct Air Capture (DAC).

For the study, the researchers collaborated with the US company Heirloom Carbon Technologies which utilizes a DAC method called calcium looping.

Calcium looping and cement production are both very similar, as they rely on the heating of limestone to separate CO2 and quicklime, a process known as calcination. ETH Zurich's research team, led by PhD student Vittoria Bolognaro, determined that 78% of a cement kiln's carbon emissions could be cancelled out if the kiln ran electrically rather

88 years ago today, the Thousand Islands Bridge connecting the US with Canada over the Saint Lawrence Seaway was dedicated by F.D. Roosevelt. The complex contains 5 bridges spanning 8.5 miles, with each bridge section anchored on a separate island in the middle of the waterway. This remarkable feat of engineering took just 16 months to build. One span is a suspension bridge, while another section is a truss bridge, and the two are divided by a stretch supported solely by arches. READ more from this day in history… (1938)

MORE Good News on this Day:

• Ringo Starr made his debut with The Beatles at a horticultural society dance– the first appearance of John, Paul, George, and Ringo playing together in public (1962)
• The Police played live for the first time as a three-piece band in Birmingham, England, in a style influenced by punk, reggae, and jazz that made them one of the first New Wave groups to achieve mainstream success (1977)
• Canada's 'highway to the Arctic' opened (Dempster Highway), from Dawson, Yukon, to Inuvik, Northwest Territories, stretching 457 miles/736 km
  Good News Network

Former Premier of the People's Republic of China, Zhu Rongji, passed away on last week at the age of 97, with the country raising its flags to half-mast in commemoration of one of its wisest custodians.

His term as the head of state was not a long one—merely 5 years from 1998 to 2003—but his work was paramount to transform the country from the example that American mothers used to convince their children to eat all their dinner, to the economic powerhouse it is today.

This work began in earnest during his role as Vice Premier, a position of much greater power than an American Vice President. Under Premier Deng Xiaoping, Zhu executed critical market reforms in areas of banking, taxation, and government employment.

This included allowing thousands of government-owned businesses to fail, trusting a new private sector to support employment as the state sought to get tens of millions of workers off of the so-called "iron rice bowl" of cradle-to-grave welfare. As VP, Zhu also saw a