🌞 Notre Dame reopens

How’s this for a good news story to start your Sunday?

16-year-old Australian sprinter Gout Gout has broken the nation's longest-standing record in athletics, running 200m in 20.04 seconds. This means he is quicker than Usain Bolt was at the same age (his fastest time in 200m at 16 was 20.13 seconds).

The race was at the Australian All Schools Athletics Championships in Brisbane on Saturday. If that’s not enough, the achievement comes one day after Gout Gout produced a time of 10.04 in the 100m heats, although the tailwind during that race meant it wasn't officially counted.

I have a feeling we’ll be hearing Gout Gout’s name a lot over the coming years!

A shout-out to three young men from New Zealand - Tane Tarlton, Ben Reeve and Alex Smith - who this week finished a challenge to walk across the length of the country in a straight line to raise $10,000 for Movember.

The trend of walking across a country in a straight line (yes, apparently it is a trend!) started in 2019 when YouTuber Tom Davis walked in a straight line across Wales.

As part of the rules, those attempting to walk in a straight line across a country can’t deviate more than 100m of the direct straight line, no matter if it’s rivers, mountains or anything else in their way. So while it’s only a 60km walk (easy, right?!) the three men had to cross bodies of water, mountains and everything in between.

The trio raised money for Movember, which is a charity that raises awareness for men's health issues, including prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and suicide. It was personal for one of the men, Alex, who lost his mother to suicide as a child and his father to prostate cancer earlier this year.

They’ve asked people to stick around on socials so that they can we can all watch the journey “highs, lows and wipeouts included”.

A museum in the U.S. city of Milwaukee has received an anonymous $US3.54 million gift to support the free admission of children to the museum forever.

According to the Milwaukee Art Museum, “the anonymous donor… shared fond memories of visiting the Museum with their family throughout their life. They expressed their wish for the endowment to foster similar experiences for future generations of families.”

The museum said that this donor has previously supported a range of education and outreach programs.

Effective immediately, the donation will allow free access for kids 12 and under to all parts of the museum and will allow them to “apply their critical thinking and imagination, and to build their visual literacy skills”.

This week, five Hawaiian crows were released on Maui for the first time as part of an effort to return the species to its home. The Hawaiin crow (or alala) went extinct in the wild in 2002, mostly due to habitat loss and disease introduced by mosquitos.

According to San Diego Zoo, who collaborated on the conservation project, this news “represents hope for the future of Hawaiʻi—for its wildlife, for its people, and for their shared ecosystems”.

I was reading up on the birds, and apparently, their cries are interpreted as “warning signs by local communities” and are sometimes included in sacred chants. San Diego Zoo says that to Hawaiians, these birds are family.

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Notre Dame in Paris has just reopened, five years after a fire tore through the 850-year-old cathedral.

On 15 April 2019, a fire engulfed the building, destroying most of the wood and metal roof and the spire. While the specific cause of the fire was never established, investigators believe it to have been accidental.

Immediately after the fire, French President Emmanuel Macron said the church would be restored “more beautiful than ever” within five years.

Overnight, the reconstructed cathedral reopened, in what Macron said had given the world a “shock of hope”.

While entry to the cathedral will remain free, French authorities are expecting a high volume of attendees, so people hoping to visit are encouraged to book ahead.