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It’s a new month, and, as you can see, Nice News has a new look! Leading up to our two-year anniversary on March 3, we’ve launched a full refresh of the Nice News website, including updated sections like tech, sports, and lifestyle, and a mission page where you can learn more about our team. We’ve also added some exciting new sections to your daily email digest — scroll down to explore them and be sure to let us know what you think. It’s been a pleasure sharing positivity with this ever-growing community of over 750,000 readers for the last two years, and we truly can’t wait for the many more to come.
Environment
Route 66 Is Going Electric Ahead of 100th Anniversary: It Will “Bring It Into the Future”
Nearly a century on from its creation, Route 66 is one of the most famous roadways in the United States. “The appeal of driving Route 66 today is being able to have the feeling of stepping back in time, with all the old signs, diners, and gas stations along the route,” Rose Geralds, a guide at the Route 66 Association Hall of Fame & Museum, told National Geographic writer Zoey Goto.
Though there are now faster and more modern highways that can get you from Chicago to Los Angeles, it remains a quintessentially American road trip — and it’s getting a 21st century upgrade ahead of its 100th anniversary in 2026. A network of electric vehicle charging stations is being installed along the 2,448-mile route, so it will soon be possible to drive the entire thing in an EV.
Goto recently journeyed through a portion of Route 66 in an electric car and wrote that her five-day trip from Chicago to the Missouri border and back resulted in about a quarter of the carbon emissions as a traditional fuel-powered vehicle.
Casey Claypool, who operates an old-school soda fountain along Route 66 in Illinois, said she hasn’t seen too many EVs yet, but noted that “it’s only a matter of time.” She added: “I think it’s an exciting development — it will introduce a new generation to Route 66 and bring it into the future.”
Click here to take a (virtual) trip down Route 66.
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Health
Women-Led Tech Aims to Close the Gender Health Care Gap
We plan to feature plenty of trailblazing women, past and present, this Women’s History Month, and we’re starting with some female entrepreneurs who are working to close the gender gap in health care through new tech innovations.
One company, Bloomer Tech, is developing an undergarment device called the Bloomer Bra that tracks heart health information. “We collect data to detect arrhythmia triggers. We also collect breathing patterns, temperature, posture, and movement,” co-founder Alicia Chong Rodriguez told CBS News. “These symptoms might get dismissed or unrecognized.”
According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the U.S., yet they continue to be underrepresented in clinical trials. There are also far fewer women than men in STEM research fields, despite comprising about half of the workforce.
That’s what makes the data collected from the Bloomer Bra, which its founders hope will be approved by the FDA as a medical device, so essential. “Most of the data we’ve always collected has been predominantly male,” Chong Rodriguez said. “We actually needed data from women to build better tools to detect early and treat patients with heart disease.”
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Culture
Hollywood Directors Bought a Historic LA Theater and Plan to Make It a “Community Hub”
What do Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro, Chloé Zhao, and Alfonso Cuarón all have in common? Yes, they’ve all won best director awards at the Oscars, but they’re also now co-owners of a historic Los Angeles movie hub, the Village Theatre.
The filmmakers, along with more than two dozen of their A-list colleagues, recently purchased the theater after it was put up for sale last year. Their ringleader is Juno director Jason Reitman, who told the Los Angeles Times he “immediately put in a bid” and began reaching out to other directors upon seeing the listing.
“The more directors I asked, the more positive feedback I got, and the more I kept hearing the same thing, which was that we unknowingly had a common vision to collectively own a movie theater that could serve as a community hub for everybody who loves movies, a place where you could grab coffee or a bite before or a drink after and love movies in every way,” he explained.
The Village Theatre, known for its iconic art deco tower, opened in 1931 and was named an LA historic-cultural monument in 1988. Going forward, it will feature a mix of new movies and older films handpicked by its new owners. There are also plans to incorporate props and other items from the directors’ collections, and add a restaurant, bar, and gallery.
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In Other News
- The spacecraft Odysseus sent back new images from the moon before powering down during the lunar night. Fear not, though, the operating company plans to wake it back up in a few weeks.
- A California lawmaker introduced legislation that would give wheelchair users the right to have their equipment repaired.
- If you start your day with grains like oats or porridge, you’re in good company. Archeologists found burnt porridge inside a 5,000-year-old pot, offering insight into ancient dietary habits.
- Corpse flowers bloom, and release their pungent odor, only once every seven to 10 years. Crowds lined up at San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences to see one earlier this week.
- A pink albino elephant calf was spotted near a waterhole in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. Watch a video of the rare animal.
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Something We Love
Ries Original Essential Travel Bottle
These reusable 3.4-ounce bottles are a godsend for avid travelers. Pack all your favorite personal care products in a TSA-compliant container without bringing environmentally unfriendly, single-use plastics on your journey. Bonus: Ries has a patented airless pump design, so you can dispense the right amount of product every single time.
Recommendations are independently selected by our team but may result in a commission to Nice News which helps keep our content free.
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Inspiring Story
Meet the “Honey-Do Dude”
After his wife died, Vietnam vet Danny Chauvin found that he missed the small handyman jobs he used to do for her, so the 76-year-old began offering his services to his wider community for free. “If there’s any honey-do jobs that you can’t handle, I’m willing to help,” he wrote on Facebook. Now he’s helping people every day, and he’s made “a lot of friends” in the process.
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Photo of the Day
In more lunar news, this stunning photo features a 94% illuminated waning gibbous moon rising through the clouds behind New York’s Empire State Building on Monday. The iconic building was lit red to celebrate 25 seasons of The Voice.
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Save on Ink With HP
Ditch traditional ink cartridges and join the printing revolution with HP. The company’s Instant Ink offers a smarter, more economical way to print. Your subscription ensures you only pay for the pages you print per month, saving you up to 50% compared to individual cartridges.
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Quote of the Day
“Letting go of the old is part of a new beginning.”
– ANGELA MERKEL
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