🌞 Welcome to 2025's good news!

Here’s to 2025 being a year where there’s too much good news in the world to choose from for this newsletter. My goal with this newsletter this year is to try and bring you as many varied, awe-inspiring, heart-warming stories from communities across Australia, all the way through to the massive scale of global shifts.

Last year, the best local good news stories came from you. If you heard a good news tale over the past few months, hit reply to this email and tell me about it. Let’s spread the good.

I couldn’t start this newsletter without covering my favourite good news story from the week, which was the safe discovery of 23-year-old Hadi Nazari.

In case you missed it, Hadi went missing for 13 days in Kosciuszko National Park after, on Boxing Day, he left his group of friends to take photos an, failed to arrive back at their camping ground. A search involving more than 300 people followed, with some of Hadi’s belongings found over the next fortnight.

Finally, on Wednesday, NSW Police confirmed the student had been found by other hikers who were in the area.

According to authorities, he was found in good health, and survived by finding a hut in the mountains and access to water. He also found two muesli bars (left by another hiker in the hut) and foraged berries, which was pretty much all he ate over the two weeks.

Hadi thanked emergency services crews “for their tireless work searching for 13 days in tough conditions” to locate him. He also thanked the public, his friends and family “for their well wishes”. Yesterday, we learned that Hadi had been discharged from hospital, where he was being treated for dehydration. What a journey.

There’s a well-established body of research that demonstrates the strong correlation between school students having access to healthy, consistent meals, and greater health and education outcomes. In fact, a coalition of UN agencies backed a pledge by the World Health Organization in 2021 that every school student around the world had access to a regular healthy meal at school by 2030.

In a step towards that global goal, the Indonesian Government has this week launched a free meal program for school students, particularly those in remote areas.

The Free Nutritious Meals program launched this week at 190 venues, with each venue designed to produce “thousands of portions every day” and empower “local communities as workers”.

Indonesia’s Deputy Primary and Secondary Education Minister said the program aims to “ensure that the younger generation gets sufficient nutrition according to the Nutritional Adequacy Rate.”

The government aims to feed nearly 83 million residents by 2029 with this new program.

As to whether or not the food is good? Well, high school student Fathi Farand Farahmir said: “The food is delicious and nutritious.” We’ll take that!

Researchers from Newcastle University have developed an AI system to predict the trajectory of aggressive skin cancers. The technology can determine how severe certain skin cancers are by using personal and tumour characteristics to predict the result of different treatments.

Researchers believe this technology could be used to help inform treatment decisions for individual skin cancer patients.

Lead Author Dr Tom Andrew said the technology “allows us to understand subtle new patterns and trends in the data which means on an individual level, we are able to provide more accurate predictions for each patient.”

How good is that!

If saving money was one of your goals for the New Year, be inspired by a few ways the TDA Team saved money this week:

Rosa: I've been doing an overhaul of my bank statements over the last year and unsubscribing from subscriptions I no longer use.

Orla: I made a curry with tins that had been at the back of my pantry for longer than I can remember. I'm going to try and do this once a week!

Lucy: I have this little cold-brew maker that makes 15-20 cold brews for every $5 packet of coffee from Aldi, not just one for $6.

Saving money has never been easier with Up! Plus get $20 instantly in your account when you sign up with code TDA20.

Alright, this good news feels particularly personal, because I am someone who hates making phone calls. If any of my friends are reading this, they’ll be shaking their heads because they know full well that I am never going to answer their phone calls.

Turns out I’m not alone. A Uswitch survey of 2,000 people found nearly 70% of people aged 18-34 prefer a text to a phone call, with 23% of the same age group saying they never pick up calls.

That’s why it’s such good news that a program at Nottingham College is now offering coaching sessions on phone etiquette and confidence. The initiative involves mock interviews and making simple calls to test students’ boundaries and build their confidence.

Of course, there’s a big social element to it, but developing this confidence is also really important for job interviews and building a career.

Here’s to dismantling telephobia one call at a time!

Swimming is always the answer, no matter the question. Here, Yu Xiaofeng leaps into a pool carved into the ice of the frozen Songhua River in Harbin, in northeastern China.