The Daily Noggin

Yellowstone National Park is a national park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was the world's first national park, set aside in 1872 to preserve the vast number of geysers, hot springs, and other thermal areas, as well as to protect the incredible wildlife and rugged beauty of the area. The park contains 3,472 sq mi (8,990 km), mostly within the northwest corner of Wyoming, but with portions extending into the states of Idaho and Montana.

Williamsburg is a city in southeast Virginia. Settled in 1632, it was the capital of Virginia from 1699 to 1779 and in 1926, John D. Rockefeller Jr commissioned a restoration project to bring Williamsburg back to its former colonial glory. During this period, 700 modern homes were demolished, colonial buildings were renovated, and more than 400 buildings were reconstructed on their original foundations. Today, the Colonial Williamsburg district in the center of town is a popular tourist center and people visit in droves to immerse themselves in the nation's colonial history.

Door County is a scenic part of the state of Wisconsin on the Door Peninsula in Lake Michigan. The easternmost part of Wisconsin, the scenic beauties of this peninsula along with maritime history makes this peninsula a very popular tourist destination in Wisconsin and the Great Lakes, especially in the Summer. Sturgeon Bay is the largest city in the county, and has its own article.

Considered the Cape Cod of the Midwest, Door County sits on a peninsula on Lake Michigan and is a very popular destination for vacations. The peninsula offers a unique mix of leisure, recreation, and natural beauty. The culture has a rich history of the arts, with more than 80 cultural establishments within the county, including galleries, museums, and theatres. Many offer courses to enjoy while vacationing there. For the nature lovers, Door County offers five state parks, over 300 miles of shoreline, and more than a dozen conservation areas. The ten lighthouses on the peninsula are popular attractions to history and nautical buffs.

Savannah is the fifth largest city in Georgia, at the northern end of the state's coast. It's famous for having one of the largest historic districts in the country.

Savannah, the historic riverside birthplace of Georgia, was settled in 1733 by British colonists led by General James Oglethorpe and Colonel William Bull. In 1864, when General William Tecumseh Sherman and his Union Army marched in, the mayor of Savannah gave Sherman's men run of the city in exchange for leaving it untorched. As a result, Savannah is one of the few major cities in the South with antebellum charm and architecture remaining intact.

Southerners joke that in Atlanta, the first thing locals ask you is your business; in Charleston, they ask your mother's maiden name; and in Savannah, they ask what you want to drink. It's partly that ethos that keeps the city tourism industry flourishing, along with a little help from what locals call "The Book": Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (also a feature film). The local art school, Savannah College of Art and Design, also keeps the city awash in accessible, affordable art.

Climate

Savannah's climate is classified as humid subtropical. Winters are short, and summers are long, hot, and humid. The typical summer heat index averages around 99 °F (37 °C) during the day and 77 °F (25 °C) at night. Periods of high heat and humidity can see heat indexes climb upwards to around 110 °F (43 °C), not going below 81 °F (27 °C) at night.

Watch

• Parts of Forrest Gump were shot in Chippewa Square.

Tourist information

• Visit Savannah website

Lisbon (Portuguese: Lisboa) is the capital of Portugal situated on seven hills at the wide mouth of the river Tagus (Tejo) where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. With 545,000 residents in the city and 3.0 million in the Lisbon Region (2024) and a thriving mix of Portugal's rich history and vivid contemporary culture, Lisbon enchants travellers with its white bleached limestone buildings, intimate alleyways, and an easy going charm that makes it a popular year round destination.

Greater Lisbon comprises many other splendid tourist destinations such as the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Sintra, the seaside resorts of Estoril, Cascais, the world class museums, or Almada famous for its hilltop Cristo Rei statue, all of which are connected with Lisbon by excellent public transportation links.

Lisbon is built on seven hills, so getting around Lisbon can be a workout. Many slopes and few really flat areas is one of Lisbon's trademarks. This is also a city of enchanting contrasts: The elegant squares, broad avenues, monumental buildings and rectangular layout of the lower areas quickly gives way to the hilly, narrow, winding, unpredictable and cramped streets of districts such as Alfama and Bairro Alto. The elegant dining rooms and smart rooftop bars of expensive hotels seems like a different world compared to the excellent restaurants disguised behind an inconspicuous façade in a modest Bairro Alto street. Quality patisseries and restaurants thrive side by side with late night bars and noisy discos. The old, tiny squeaky trams (one of the city's trademarks) are no less of a contrast to the efficient metro network.

The Portuguese capital is often perceived as less frantic than other million cities, and traffic and barkers are less aggressive than in many other tourist destinations.

The Blue Ridge Parkway was built for one purpose: to be enjoyed. It runs 469 miles along the crest of the Appalachian Mountains, linking Shenandoah National Park in Virginia with Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. Along the way there are no traffic lights, no billboards and no trucks hauling freight. The speed limit is mostly 45 miles an hour, and most travelers are happy to go slower.

Work on the parkway began in 1935, during the Great Depression, and it gave jobs to thousands of people. Building a road along mountaintops was slow going, and it took more than 50 years to finish. The last piece, the graceful Linn Cove Viaduct, which curves around the side of Grandfather Mountain without disturbing the rocks beneath it, opened in 1987.

The road is marked by mileposts, starting at zero at Rockfish Gap in Virginia, and travelers use them to find their way. At milepost 176 is Mabry Mill, a water-powered gristmill and sawmill that is one of the most photographed places on the parkway. Near Asheville, North Carolina, the Folk Art Center shows and sells traditional Appalachian crafts such as quilts, pottery and woodcarving. Farther south, the road reaches its highest point, 6,053 feet, near Richland Balsam.

Overlooks are spaced all along the way, each with a place to pull over and a view across ridge after ridge of blue mountains. The soft blue haze that gives the Blue Ridge its name comes partly from natural compounds that the forest trees release into the air.

Fall is the most popular season. Color usually begins at the higher elevations in early October and works its way down the mountainsides through the month. Spring brings wildflowers and blooming rhododendron, and summer offers cool air at the overlooks when the valleys below are hot.

A few practical notes: some sections close in winter because of snow and ice, gas stations are found in towns off the parkway rather than on it, and cell phone service can be spotty. Visitor centers along the route have maps and restrooms, and rangers are glad to suggest a short walk to a waterfall or a view.

A suspension bridge crossing the Little Belt strait in Denmark was opened. This bridge, which carries six lanes of the international highway European route E20, serves as a link between Denmark’s portion of the Jutland Peninsula and the Danish island of Funen.

This 5,577.4-foot (1,700-meter)-long bridge was built to reduce ever-growing traffic congestion on the structure now known as the Old Little Belt Bridge, a truss bridge between Jutland and Funen that been opened in 1935. Construction on the New Little Belt Bridge began in 1965. The bridge was formally inaugurated by King Frederik IX (1899-1972), who reigned as Denmark’s monarch from 1947 until his death.

Photo Credit: Karim Pedersen (https://www.flickr.com/people/23063972@N00) – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

For more information on bridges in Denmark, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridges_in_Denmark

Eugenia da Montijo station was opened as an infill station of Line 5 of the Madrid Metro, a rapid transit system serving the metropolitan area of Spain’s capital city. An infill station is a type of passenger rail station that is built on an existing line between two similar stations already in operation. Eugenia da Montijo station was added between Aluche station and Carabanchel station, both of which were opened on February 4, 1961.

Eugenia da Montijo station is specifically located on the border between the districts of Carabanchel and Latina in the southern part of Madrid and on the street known as Calle Nuestra Señora de la Luz (Spanish for “Street of Our Lady of the Light”). This station, however, owes its name to another local street. That street is Calle de Eugenia de Montijo (Spanish for “Street of Eugenia de Montijo”), which is about an eleven-minute walk away.

Eugenia da Montijo (1826-1920) – whose first name is also spelled as Eugénie – was a Spanish noblewoman who started out life in the city of Granada in southern Spain. She became the wife of Napoleon III (1808-1873), a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) and the emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. They were married in 1853, and she subsequently reigned as empress of the French until he was deposed from the throne.

Line 5 of the Madrid Metro has a total of 32 stations and is 14.4 miles (23.2 kilometers) in length. This line was inaugurated in 1968, and it is now the fourth busiest of the Madrid Metro’s thirteen lines.

Photo Credit: Draceane (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Draceane) – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

For more information on Eugenia da Montijo station, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenia_de_Montijo_(Madrid_Metro)

Additional information on Line 5 of the Madrid Metro is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_5_(Madrid_Metro)

Conservation news is not always cheerful, which makes this story worth telling. In October 2025, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the organization that keeps the world’s “Red List” of threatened species, moved the green sea turtle from Endangered to Least Concern. Around the world, there are more green turtles now than there were a few decades ago.

The green turtle is a big, gentle animal. Adults can weigh more than 300 pounds, and they spend much of their lives grazing on seagrass and algae in warm coastal waters. Their name does not come from their shells, which are mostly brown and olive, but from the greenish color of their fat, a result of that leafy diet.

For centuries, green turtles were hunted for their meat and their eggs were gathered by the thousands. By the middle of the twentieth century, many nesting beaches had fallen almost silent. The recovery that followed was not the work of one law or one country. It came from many people doing steady, unglamorous work for a very long time.

Nesting beaches were protected, from Ascension Island in the South Atlantic to Tortuguero in Costa Rica and the beaches of Florida. Volunteers walked the sand at dawn to count and guard nests. Shrimp fishermen began using special openings in their nets, called turtle excluder devices, that let a trapped turtle swim free. Many countries ended the trade in turtle shells and meat.

The results are easy to see. In Florida, biologists counted only a few hundred green turtle nests a year in the late 1980s. In good years now, they count tens of thousands.

The work is not finished. Some regional populations are still struggling, and turtles still face plastic in the sea, bright lights on beaches that confuse hatchlings, and warming sand, which affects whether eggs hatch as males or females. But the green turtle shows what patience can do.

If you visit a nesting beach in summer, you can help with two simple things: keep beach-facing lights off at night, and give any turtle, large or small, plenty of room.

Few buildings are as welcoming as a public library. Anyone may walk in, sit down and read, and with a library card take home armfuls of books for nothing. It seems so natural today that it is easy to forget it was once a bold idea.

In 1731, a young Benjamin Franklin and a group of friends in Philadelphia founded the Library Company of Philadelphia. Books were expensive and scarce in the colonies, so the members pooled their money to buy them and share them. It was a subscription library, open to those who paid, but it showed how much more people could read together than alone. The Library Company still exists today.

Over the following century, many towns had small subscription or social libraries, and some had libraries attached to schools or churches. The great change came with the idea that a library should be paid for by the community and free to every resident. The Boston Public Library, founded in 1848 and opened to readers in 1854, was the first large free municipal library in the United States, and its success inspired cities across the country.

The biggest boost came from Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-born steel industrialist who had arrived in America as a poor boy. As a young telegraph messenger, he had been allowed to borrow books from a private collection, and he never forgot it. In his later years he gave away much of his fortune, and from the 1880s until around 1920 his grants paid for well over two thousand library buildings around the world, more than 1,600 of them in the United States. Towns were asked to provide the land and promise to pay for books and staff, so each library became a partnership with the community.

Many of those Carnegie libraries still stand, with their grand steps and handsome reading rooms, and many are still in use.

Libraries have kept changing with the times. Children's rooms and story hours became common in the early twentieth century. Bookmobiles carried books to farms and small villages. Today's libraries also lend audiobooks and e-books, offer computers and help with forms, and host talks, clubs and classes.

Yet the heart of the idea is the same as it was in Franklin's day: knowledge and stories grow richer when they are shared. Next time you pass your local library, it may be worth stepping inside to say hello.

In the northern part of Michigan, a lighthouse built on Menagerie Island within the northwest corner of Lake Superior was first lit. Menagerie Island is a small island off the southern coast of Isle Royale, which is the largest natural island in Lake Superior, the second largest island in all of the Great Lakes, and the fifth largest lake island in the world.

Construction on the Isle Royale Light – also known as the Menagerie Island Light – was completed a little less than a month before this structure first went into regular service. William Stevens was initially appointed acting head keeper of this lighthouse, and his wife Mary Ann was named acting first assistant keeper.

The frequently turbulent weather conditions in that region of the Great Lakes were well-documented by William Stevens in a logbook entry that he wrote a week after the inauguration of the Isle Royale Light. “Damp and cloudy,” he noted. “The East northeast gale increased almost to hurricane. At 6 AM the sea went clear over tower, rocks and broke the window sashes on south side of the house. Washed away everything loose, lumber, wood, rocks off the island.”

On November 18 of that year, William and Mary Ann Stevens each received permanent appointments to their respective positions at Isle Royale Light. They continued their shared tour of duty at this lighthouse until the summer of 1878, when John H. Malone took over as head keeper. Malone, who was a bachelor when he began his longtime service at Isle Royale Light, married Julia Shea in 1880. They ultimately had a total of twelve children, all of whom grew up there on Menagerie Island.

John H. Malone ended up working as head keeper of Isle Royale Light for 32 years altogether. The surrounding waters of Lake Superior, however, were no less rough during his tenure than they had been when his predecessor was in charge. In his logbook entry for October 1, 1884, for example, Malone recounted how ferocious waves had battered the island so severely that the boathouse was torn apart from its foundations and carried away out into the lake.

The Isle Royale Light, which has been automated since 1914, remains in operation today. This lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

Photo Credit: Public Domain

For more information on the Isle Royale Light, please check out https://archives.uslhs.org/places/isle-royale and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_Royale_Light

In the autumn of 1621, the English colonists at Plymouth, in what is now Massachusetts, gathered their first harvest. They had come through a terrible first winter in which about half of those who sailed on the Mayflower died. A good harvest was reason to give thanks.

About 90 Wampanoag men, led by their leader Massasoit, joined the colonists for a celebration that lasted three days. One of the few written accounts tells us the Wampanoag brought five deer, and the colonists went out hunting wildfowl. There is no mention of pumpkin pie. The colonists had no ovens for baking one and little or no sugar.

For more than two centuries afterward, days of thanksgiving came and went. Governors and presidents declared them from time to time, often on different dates in different states. New England families kept the custom most faithfully, with roast turkey, pies and long tables of relatives.

The person who changed that was Sarah Josepha Hale. She edited Godey’s Lady’s Book, one of the most popular magazines in the country, and she is also remembered as the author of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” For about 17 years she wrote editorials and sent letters to governors and presidents, asking for one national Thanksgiving Day shared by the whole country.

In 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln agreed. His proclamation set aside the last Thursday of November as a national day of thanksgiving, and presidents repeated the proclamation every year after that. In 1941, Congress made the holiday permanent and fixed it on the fourth Thursday in November, where it remains.

Many of the traditions we know came later. Macy’s held its first Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City in 1924, with animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. The giant balloons arrived three years later. The Detroit Lions have played football on Thanksgiving almost every year since 1934.

Turkey suited the holiday well. It was native to North America, it was large enough to feed a crowd, and most farm families could raise their own. By the late 1800s, roast turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce had become the dinner most Americans pictured when they thought of Thanksgiving.

Whatever is on your table this year, the heart of the day is the same as it was in 1621: a good harvest, good company and a moment to be grateful.

The longest-lived people in the world didn’t live in a world free of stress. They found daily routines to help them downshift from the stressors of everyday life.
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The longest-lived people in the world didn’t live in a world free of stress. They found daily routines to help them downshift from the stressors of everyday life. They laughed with their friends (which can reduce stress and lower your risk of cardiovascular disease), they took naps, they went for evening walks, and they generally had positive outlooks on life. If you’re in need of a laugh, a break from the doomscrolling, or a boost of positivity, we’ve curated our favorite recent feel-good videos to help you pause, take a break, and maybe share with your moai to connect over a laugh.

If you’re in need of a laugh, a break from the doomscrolling, or a boost of positivity, we’ve curated our favorite recent feel-good videos to help you pause, take a break, and maybe share with your moai to connect over a laugh.
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Videos to Share with Your Moai

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@erikarischko oops, my husband nearly missed his turn we love this trend shake it… #dancetok #spreadhappiness #oldpeopleontiktok #spreadjoy #springbreak @Dieter Rischko ♬ original sound – Bryant

Videos to Save for When You Need Inspiration

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@cheful6 Green vegetable plants are always a beautiful sight. #homegarden #naturelovers #garden #vegetablegarden ♬ suara asli – cheful

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Aislinn Kotifani is Senior Manager, Digital, Social & Editorial at Blue Zones and has been a member of the Blue Zones team since 2015, boasting a decade of dedicated service as a driving force behind the content strategies, engagement, voice, and vision of the organization.

It’s September and 2026 has already been defined by wildfires spanning across the globe. Driven by the heat and dryness of the climate crisis, outbursts on the edge of Bordeaux, France have forced 200,000 from their homes and led to deaths in Spain. Smoke has billowed across the Canada-U.S. border, covering cities in smog.

Fires are expected to continue as seasons transition in the Southern Hemisphere, with a severe El Niño phenomenon that the United Nations warns will add pressure to an already scorching globe, risking similar conditions to those that — back in 2024 — drove the worst Amazonian wildfires in two decades.

With fire and drought risks set to increase in the coming months, Indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest are stepping up to take on new roles as fire brigade members, protecting both their homes and a key natural resource in the fight against climate change.  

Ahead of this year’s El Niño weather pattern, Indigenous people from Peru’s Cutivireni and Oviri communities approached Cool Earth: they wanted to ensure they were equipped to fight any fires this coming season. The organization’s long-established relationship with the two Indigenous groups and experience working with the Central Asháninka of the Ene River to create the Paamari programme, made it easier to establish four fire crews across communities that were already springing into action.

In Cutivireni, the newly formed Chullachaqui fire crew have faced multiple blazes. Named after an Amazonian forest spirit, the crew understand the critical role they play in protecting the land, their homes, and their livelihoods. In early August came one of the first tests of their training: alerted by people in the Tsyapo and Pajonal communities, community brigade members joined up with their partners in Central Cutivireni to tackle the fire, which they successfully put out.

Julio Acosta, Cool Earth’s Forest Data Manager, said that the organization really admires and appreciates how the communities have been making the best use of what they have been building with them, adding, “This early action taken in Tsyapo and Pajonal demonstrates how effectively they put into practice what they’ve learned in the workshops.”

The training was taken directly from concepts in the Paamari programme. Similar to Paamari, the Cool Earth initiative with Cutivireni and Oviri works around three key concepts: the increased monitoring of satellite fire weather alerts, the introduction of a flag-based system regarding safe times to conduct traditional fire practices, and practical training to contain small blazes and prevent them from causing devastation to the Indigenous people in the rainforest.

The communities themselves often act as the brigade’s eyes, alerting them to smoke or flames. Working in close coordination with local authorities, brigade members first assess the wildfires and try to tame the blazes in their initial stage, before they require a more complex response by the authorities.

Acosta stressed the importance of highlighting the fact that the main work of these brigades lies in prevention, rather than initial response. “This tends to be less visible,” he explained, {but the measures they take, such as the flag system, help reduce the occurrence of these fires. Seeing the initiative and eagerness to learn more from the brigade members motivates us to expand and improve the work we’ve been implementing together.”

Along with protecting their homes, the Indigenous communities act as custodians of the rainforest — a vital global asset for fighting the climate crisis. According to the World Resources Institute, rainforests provide 23 percent of the climate mitigation needed to help stabilise global temperatures. Their destruction from wildfires depletes the world’s natural carbon stores and also releases tons of carbon back into the atmosphere.

At the moment, not every fire can be tackled. August saw a fire in Cutivireni that reached a score of three out of five on Peru’s national disaster response. When interviewed, onlookers noted that there was “little that’s left or [that] survived.” The fire raged for four days and went on to destroy 50 hectares of land – about the size 70 football pitches.

With communities set to come under more strain, Cool Earth hopes to establish further training, turning the initiative into a fully fledged project. Providing Indigenous people with more finance and training capabilities, they hope to meet the ever-growing demand for wildfire training in the Peruvian Amazon.