She started with a lemonade stand. She just hit $5 million

Happy Tuesday! A teenager who received a single teddy bear from a charity when she was 18 months old just channeled $5 million worth of kindness back into the world, one lemonade stand at a time. A Texas family walked away from a fortune to give 650 acres of lake shoreline to the people of their state forever. Giant tortoises are thriving in the Indian Ocean in numbers no one has seen in decades.

And if your knees have been giving you trouble, there is a drug-free, surgery-free answer that is getting real attention from researchers at Stanford, NYU, and Utah.

Let's go.

—Stephanie S

When Payton Obert was 18 months old, a charity sent her a teddy bear while she was going through a difficult time. She kept that bear. And when she turned 8, she decided it was time to return the kindness. She set up a lemonade stand in Cincinnati, Ohio, raised $768, and spent every dollar on toys for children in hospitals.

That was the beginning. By 2020, Payton had launched Payton's Pals, a network of eight stands across Cincinnati and Kentucky that raised $35,000 in a single season. The following year she registered Payton's Lemonade Stand as a nonprofit, and about 100 young people ran 30 stands, raising $60,000. The totals kept climbing: $80,000, then $100,000, then $125,000, then $150,000 raised in about three hours from 100 stands across three states in 2025, and $170,000 in 2026 with stands now reaching West Virginia, Baltimore, and New Mexico.

To date, Payton's Lemonade Stand has channeled $5 million in toys, food, clothing, books, and school supplies to children facing illness or hardship and their families. All of it traces back to one teddy bear and one little girl who never forgot what it felt like to receive it.

Watch Payton tell her story in her own words.

For nearly 80 years, the Pollard family has held onto 650 acres of pine woods, wetlands, bluffs, and pecan orchards along Lake Palestine in East Texas. Sam Pollard, who runs the family's Texas Pecan Nursery on the property, put it simply: "This land is part of my soul." Now he's making sure it stays protected forever.

The family sold the property for $1 million to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation, a nonprofit that will hold the land until the state can formally acquire it in late 2027, when funding from the Centennial Parks Conservation Fund becomes available. The parcel is the longest remaining contiguous stretch of Lake Palestine's shoreline, making it one of the most ecologically significant pieces of lakefront left in the region.

The land is home to white-tailed deer, bobcats, waterfowl, and dozens of woodland and water-dependent birds. Lake Palestine itself, which reaches depths of 58 feet, is a beloved spot for boating, paddling, swimming, and fishing for bass, catfish, and sunfish. Once the park opens in phases, it will include hiking and biking trails, campsites, day-use areas, and direct lakefront access.

The Pollards didn't have to sell. They chose to, because some things matter more than what land is worth on paper. Read how one family's love for the land is becoming a gift for generations.

Two centuries ago, hunters reduced the giant tortoises of Aldabra Atoll to fewer than 1,000 animals. Today, a new survey puts their population at nearly 183,000, the highest number ever recorded, far outnumbering the entire human population of the Seychelles, the island nation where Aldabra sits in the Indian Ocean. The count was led by the Seychelles Islands Foundation and the University of Exeter, drawing on five years of field surveys and published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

The recovery traces directly to long-term protection. Aldabra earned strict nature reserve status in 1981 and UNESCO World Heritage status the following year, and the commitment has held. The previous widely cited estimate from the late 1990s was around 100,000, making this the largest population ever documented at one of only two places on Earth where giant tortoises still live in the wild.

Threats remain, including climate-driven drought and invasive cats and rats that prey on eggs and hatchlings. But as Dr. Frauke Fleischer-Dogley of the Seychelles Islands Foundation put it, the results are "proof of what long-term commitment to conservation can achieve," and conservationists now have a real baseline to track change and act early. Read about the tortoise comeback that's rewriting the record books.

Nearly a quarter of people over 40 live with painful knee osteoarthritis, and the options have long been limited: medication, cortisone shots, and eventually joint replacement. But a new study published in The Lancet Rheumatology suggests something far simpler may offer real relief, just changing the angle of your foot when you walk.

Researchers from the University of Utah, NYU, and Stanford ran a year-long randomized controlled trial with 68 participants who had mild-to-moderate osteoarthritis on the inside of the knee. Using pressure-sensitive treadmills and motion-capture cameras, they determined a personalized foot angle, either slightly toed-in or toed-out, that would reduce load on the damaged joint. Participants then trained for six weekly sessions using a small vibrating shin device for real-time feedback, and practiced at least 20 minutes a day on their own.

The results were striking. Pain relief was comparable to medication, falling between over-the-counter ibuprofen and a prescription painkiller, according to lead researcher Scott Uhlrich. MRI scans also showed slower cartilage degradation in the intervention group than in the control group, a meaningful finding given that cartilage damage currently cannot be reversed. The team is now working to make the retraining simple enough to prescribe in standard physical therapy clinics. Read how a small shift in your step could make a big difference for your knees.

🇪🇺 Europe: EVs outsold gas and diesel cars combined for the first time in August, making up 29% of all new car sales.

🇨🇭 Switzerland: The country became the first in the world to ban both fur imports and fur product sales.

🇺🇸 USA: Teen mental health is improving, with the share of teens reporting persistent sadness falling from 42% in 2021 to 33%, per new CDC data.

🌍 Global: The world's first enhanced geothermal power plant was completed in just 23 months and is now online.

🇨🇦 Canada: Michael J. Fox received the Order of Canada for his Parkinson's advocacy, after his foundation funded more than $3 billion in research.

On this day 95 years ago, one of the most iconic landmarks on Earth opened its arms to the world. Christ the Redeemer was unveiled on Mount Corcovado above Rio de Janeiro, standing 98 feet tall with arms spanning 92 feet. The largest Art Deco sculpture in the world, it took nine years to build and was named one of the Seven Wonders of the World in 2001.

What most people don't know: the original design had Christ holding a globe and a cross. The outstretched arms came later, and became one of the most recognizable silhouettes in human history.

Other notable October 13 events:

1792: The cornerstone of the White House was laid in Washington, DC.

1983: Ameritech Mobile launched the first cellular network in the United States, in Chicago.

2000: South Korean President Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work toward reconciliation with North Korea.

2016: Bob Dylan, at 75, won the Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming the first songwriter ever to receive it.

— Jean Toomer

Every day brings amazing advances and uplifting moments that remind us just how wonderful the world can be. Here are five reasons why today is the best time ever to be alive:

🌿 Seaweed Plastic: Researchers developed a biodegradable plastic made from seaweed that dissolves harmlessly in water within weeks.

🩸 Cancer Detection: A single blood test can now screen for more than 50 types of cancer from one draw, and could be available to patients soon.

🛰️ Methane Watch: A new satellite can now pinpoint methane leaks at individual oil and gas facilities anywhere on Earth in real time.

🦷 Lab-Grown Teeth: Scientists have grown human teeth in a lab for the first time, opening the door to biological replacements for fillings and implants.

⚡ Clean Energy: The world's first enhanced geothermal power plant was completed in just 23 months and is now powering homes.

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