The week's good news: September 5, 2019

(Image credit: The Associated Press)

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1. Creative teen surprises little brother at bus stop wearing new costume every day
2. To fight climate change, Ireland will plant 440 million trees by 2040
3. 8th-grader creates closet so classmates can have new clothes and supplies
4. 96-year-old World War II veteran breaks his own scuba diving record
5. Panda delivers two cubs in Germany

published 5 September 2019

1. Creative teen surprises little brother at bus stop wearing new costume every day

Rain or shine, Noah Tingle greets his little brother at the bus stop every day after school, wearing a funny costume. Noah, 17, is a senior at Central High School in Central, Louisiana, and surprised his brother Max, 12, on the first day of school in early August. Wanting to give Max some fun memories before he goes to college next year, Noah decided to keep this up, and gets creative, wearing a Santa outfit one day, a Chewbacca costume another. It doesn't matter what costume Noah is wearing — as soon as Max is off the bus, he always gives him a big hug. Max told WAFB he thought the whole thing was bizarre at first, but "now, I think it's cool." Noah records all of the greetings, and posts them to a Facebook page called The Bus Brother.

Ireland should be very, very green by 2040. In June, the government released its climate action plan, which proposed the planting of new trees to capture carbon emissions. The Irish Times reported over the weekend that the government has an ambitious target: to plant 22 million trees a year over the next two decades, for a total of 440 million trees by 2040. The government is asking farmers to join the cause and let Dublin use some of their farmland for future tree planting. The government's plan also calls for more people to use electric vehicles, with the goal of having almost one million on the road by 2030.

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Whether it's a new dress shirt or a pack of pencils, students at Port Allen Middle School in Port Allen, Louisiana, just have to head over to PAMs Pantry to pick up what they need. Chase Neyland-Square, 13, is an eighth-grader at Port Allen Middle School, and came up with the idea for PAMs Pantry while participating in the Student Program for Arts, Recreation, and Knowledge. Neyland-Square wanted to help those in need, and set up PAMs Pantry in the gym. It is filled with donated dresses, pants, shirts, jackets, and stacks and stacks of school supplies and hygiene items. PAMs Pantry has not only assisted students, but also a local family that lost everything in a house fire. Giving back comes naturally to Neyland-Square, his mom, Amanda, told Good Morning America; he hosts dinners for senior citizens and has donated 700 pairs of socks to area homeless people.

For the past three years, Ray Woolley has celebrated his birthday by breaking the diving record he set 12 months earlier. Woolley turned 96 years old on Aug. 28, and on Saturday, he went down with 47 other divers to explore the Zenobia shipwreck off the coast of Cyprus. He has held the title of world's oldest acting scuba diver since 2017, and last year, he plunged to a record depth of 40.6 meters for 44 minutes. This year, he went farther, making it to 42.4 meters for 48 minutes. "It's just unbelievable," Woolley told Reuters. "I've been doing diving now for 59 years and these are the sort of dives that you remember because there are so many divers with you." Originally from England, the World War II veteran now lives in Cyprus, and he's looking forward to 2020. "If I can still dive and my buddies are willing to dive with me, I hope I can do it again next year," he said.

Meng Meng made history on Saturday, becoming the first panda to give birth in Germany. Meng Meng lives at the Berlin Zoo, and welcomed two cubs on Saturday night — one weighed in at nearly five ounces, and the other at a little over six-and-a-half ounces. Andreas Knieriam, director of the Berlin Zoo, announced on Monday that Meng Meng and her cubs are all in good health. The zoo does not yet know the sexes of the cubs. There are about 1,864 pandas in the wild, and roughly 400 in zoos, and since the endangered animal is so hard to breed, the birth of twins is celebrated. Meng Meng and a male panda, Jiao Qing, are on loan from China for 15 years, and have lived at the Berlin Zoo since June 2017. The cubs will stay in Berlin for the next four years or so, before being returned to China.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.