Inspirational News StoriesExcerpts of Key Inspirational News Stories in Major Media
Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.
For 4.4 billion people, the only water available is unsafe to drink. In the early 1990s, I was working as a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ("Berkeley Lab") when I heard about a devastating cholera outbreak in my home country. I started to study waterborne pathogens with the aim to develop a new way to make water drinkable that would be affordable and effective in rural areas of low income countries. In a short few years, and later on with funding support from the Energy Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, I came up with an invention – the UV Waterworks – that met all my goals. It was inexpensive, efficient, portable and effective. Roughly the size of a microwave, the device sanitizes water using UV light to kill harmful bacteria, viruses and molds. It can purify approximately four gallons of water per minute and provide a year's worth of potable drinking water for just seven cents per person. The University of California, which runs the lab, filed the initial patent. I helped found WaterHealth International, which exclusively licensed the UV Waterworks technology from the university in 1996. In the time since, the invention has benefited tens of million people across India and Africa. Roughly 80% of our customers live below the poverty line in their home countries.
Note: Read about the ecologist who used sunlight, plants, and pond life to turn toxic sewage into clean drinking water–proving that nature can heal what industry has broken. Explore more positive stories like this on technology for good.
Within sight of northern Germany's windswept beaches, specialized clearance teams have been trawling the seafloor for the kind of catch that fishermen in these parts usually avoid–discarded naval mines, torpedoes, stacks of artillery shells, and heavy aerial bombs, all of which have been rusting away for nearly 80 years. For much of September and October 2024, underwater vehicles, fitted with cameras, powerful lights, and sensors, have been hunting for World War II–era explosives purposefully sunk in this region of the Baltic Sea. Tons upon tons of German munitions were hastily dumped at sea under orders from the Allied powers at the end of World War II, who sought to dispose of the Nazis' arsenal. The clearance work last year was part of a first-of-its-kind project to explore ways to clear up this toxic legacy of war. "Conventional munitions are carcinogenic, and the chemical munitions are mutagenic, and also they disrupt enzymes and whatnot–so they are definitely affecting organisms," says Jacek BeĹ‚dowski, a leading expert on underwater munitions dumps. The next stage of the pilot project, also now underway, is building a floating munitions-disposal facility that could incinerate the aging explosives near the dump sites. That would eliminate the need to bring the ordnance above water ... and ship it overland. Longer term, the dream is to have unmanned underwater vehicles map, scan, and magnetically image the seabed to get a sense of what lies where.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the war machine and technology for good.
What if your heating and cooling worked during power outages, and you could count on it becoming more efficient and climate-friendly over time? That's the promise of district heating and cooling or district energy, where entire communities share a heating and cooling system. That allows them to tap into many low-carbon energy sources they couldn't before, more efficiently than any individual building could. As governments look to tackle carbon emissions from buildings – the third largest source in Canada behind the oil and gas industry and transportation – it's an idea that more of them are considering and implementing. Peter Ronson is chief operating officer for Markham District Energy (MDE), a network in a Toronto suburb that heats and cools 14 million square feet in more than 200 buildings, including condo buildings up to 44 storeys tall, a hospital, data centres, hotels and two schools. Some, like the data centres, produce a lot of heat, while others may use lots of hot water. "We got all sorts of stuff on the system," Ronson said. "When [some are] throwing away energy, I can recover and give it to somebody else." That kind of heat-sharing is efficient. Excess heat in the system can also be stored (underground in water or rock, for example) ... and much more cheaply than electricity. All that means converting buildings that burn fossil fuels to district energy can potentially put less strain on the grid than electrifying individual buildings using heat pumps or baseboard heating.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth and technology for good.
A team of researchers searching for safe, sustainable, and biodegradable alternatives to plastics presented a new type of transparent material at the American Chemical Society (ACS) spring meeting. Unlike previous transparent "wood" designs that sacrifice some biodegradability for strength by including certain types of plastics, the team said its eco-friendly see-through material is made with all natural components. Potential applications for the plastic alternative include electronic device screens, wearable sensors, coatings on solar cells, and transparent wood windows. Bharat Baruah, a professor of chemistry ... said his woodworking hobby led him to research efforts to create transparent wood. He quickly discovered that successfully created transparent wood materials were enhanced with epoxy, a type of plastic, to increase its strength, sacrificing some biodegradability. The professor decided he should see if there were better alternatives. After enlisting Ridham Raval, a Kenneshaw State undergraduate student, to help, the duo used a vacuum chamber, sodium sulfite, sodium hydroxide, and bleach to remove lignin and hemicellulose, two of wood's three components, from a sample of balsa wood. What remained was a paper-like layer of cellulose filled with tiny pores. Instead of refilling the pores with epoxy, the team soaked the cellulose layer in a mixture of egg whites and rice extract. They were "left with semi-transparent slices of wood that were durable and flexible."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth and technology for good.
Researchers at ETH Zurich have designed a sustainable method to extract gold from electronic waste using a byproduct of cheese production. Electronic devices, from smartphones to laptops, contain small amounts of gold due to its excellent conductivity and resistance to corrosion. With the rapid turnover of electronic gadgets, e-waste has become the fastest-growing waste stream globally, reaching 62 million tonnes in 2022, and only 22.3 percent of this was formally collected and recycled, leaving vast amounts of valuable materials unused. Professor Raffaele Mezzenga and scientist Mohammad Peydayesh led the ETH Zurich team in developing a method that utilizes "whey", the liquid byproduct of cheese-making. By processing whey proteins into amyloid fibrils, they created a sponge-like aerogel capable of selectively absorbing gold ions from acidic solutions derived from e-waste. Professor Mezzenga stated, "The fact I love the most is that we're using a food industry byproduct to obtain gold from electronic waste. You can't get much more sustainable than that!" In laboratory tests, this aerogel successfully extracted gold from dissolved computer motherboards. The sponge drew out gold that was about 90.8 percent pure, yielding a 22-carat nugget weighing approximately 450 milligrams. The research team is also exploring the use of other food industry byproducts, like pea protein and fish collagen, to diversify the sources of the aerogel. The process is economically viable, with operational costs significantly lower than the market value of the recovered gold, unlike traditional gold extraction techniques that rely on toxic chemicals like cyanide.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth and technology for good.
It is surprisingly quiet inside the construction site of a high school extension in Sickla, a former industrial area in south Stockholm that is set to become part of the "largest mass timber project in the world." "It's a fantastic working environment – no concrete dust, no silica dust issues. It's clean and quiet," said Niklas Häggström, the project area manager at Atrium Ljungberg, and responsible for the realisation of the entire Wood City project, when we walk around the site. In total, 25 neighbourhoods will cover 25 hectares. The first buildings are scheduled for completion in 2025, with the next phase – including 2,000 homes – planned for 2027. It is an enormous project, but with timber Atrium Ljungberg can build 1,000 sq metres a week. In 2022 Atrium Ljungberg set an ambitious goal to become climate neutral by 2030. Just by choosing timber as the structural material, the company has said it reduces its climate impact by about 40%, a claim backed up by researchers at Linköping University. If other companies were to follow suit, one study found that building with wood instead of concrete and steel in 80% of new buildings would help offset half of Europe's construction industry emissions. Another study found that wooden buildings continue to be climate friendly – a four-storey wooden building results in a net uptake of 150 tonnes of carbon dioxide. The hope is that the city will also improve the wellbeing of the people inside the buildings.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in on healing the Earth.
When Rodolfo "Rudy" Reyes went diving in the Cayman Islands in 2015, the experience changed his life. The highly decorated veteran had logged thousands of dives as a Special Ops Force Recon Marine in 18 years of service. But, as Reyes recalls, "As combat divers we operate at night, pushing 200 pounds of equipment, carrying massive weapons. It's very stressful and we focus on the mission – taking on the enemy." In the Caribbean, Reyes dove for the first time during daytime at his own pace, guided by his friend Jim Ritterhoff, who worked with the Central Caribbean Marine Institute. At the time, Reyes was struggling with depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse. "I had a really hard drug habit after all these intense combat tours," he admits, but diving in the Caymans, surrounded by vibrant marine life, reignited a sense of wonder. "It brought me back to life. It inspired the same kind of protective spirit and willingness to go fight in the battlefield that I used in the Marine Corps, but now I wanted to use that passion to fight for ocean conservation." In 2016, Reyes, Ritterhoff and Keith Sahm co-founded Force Blue, a nonprofit that recruits veterans – especially Navy SEALs and Special Operations divers with military dive training – to channel their skills into marine conservation. "We're learning to transfer combat diving expertise into protecting and providing refuge for this incredible aquatic environment," Reyes explains.
Note: Explore more positive human interest stories and stories on healing the Earth.
Rappler, founded by a group of journalists in 2012, has evolved over time to become one of the leading, most trusted news outlets in the Philippines. In December, the organization launched Rappler Communities, a trailblazing mobile app which it had built and connected directly to their news feed. Built on the open source, secure, decentralized Matrix protocol, the app has the potential to become a global independent news distribution outlet, and promises to pave the way for a "shared reality" – a call [founder and Nobel laureate Maria] Ressa has been making to counter "the cascading failures of a corrupted public information ecosystem." "At this moment, if news journalism doesn't come together with communities and civil society that cares about a shared reality, democracy cannot survive," [said Ressa]. "Most important, is that we really have a shared reality. Once our community is set at the matrix protocol chat app, it can then work with other news organizations and become a trusted news distributor. So we will own our distribution, and we could strengthen our communities. Before the end of the year, we aim to have four other new sites, in different parts of the world, federated on this protocol. The matrix protocol is end-to-end encrypted; it is decentralized, similar to the Internet Governance Forum – like having a co-op, it isn't individually owned, or profit-driven. It's, literally, a place where we have a shared reality."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on people-powered alternative systems.
In the final bay of an old, mustard-colored mechanic's garage in the middle of the Hoopa Valley Reservation's main settlement is the headquarters of Acorn Wireless. This small, relatively young Internet service provider is owned and operated by the tribe's public utilities department–an unusual arrangement in the United States, where Internet service is more often the purview of predatory corporations like AT&T and Verizon, whose regional monopolies enable them to charge exorbitant rates for uneven service. Before the launch of Acorn, residents had to choose between a HughesNet satellite connection (more than $100 per month), a bare-bones Starlink kit ($600), unreliable wireless hot spots–or, as was often the case, nothing. Download speeds are nearly 75 percent slower in tribal areas, yet the lowest price for basic Internet service is, on average, 11 percent higher. Acorn's operation is based on the idea that local, democratic ownership can help address the coverage disparity by eliminating the profit motive. Because it is owned by the tribe and administered by the tribe's public utilities department, Acorn can focus on equity instead of revenue. Its premium service package is set at $75 a month, [but] most Acorn customers can get service at no personal cost. Hoopa's experiment in public broadband remains a work in progress, embodying hopes (and facing hurdles) that are shared on tribal lands all over the country.
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In many parts of the world, building a house or farming a field means taking out loans. But in Kenya, a time-tested system of mutual aid ... has long been the foundation of local economies. Now, Grassroots Economics Foundation is bringing this age-old practice into the digital age. At the helm of this transformation is Njambi Njoroge, Operations Director at Grassroots Economics. Grassroots Economics is built on a concept called "commitment pooling," inspired by indigenous economic systems. Traditionally, in Kenyan villages, neighbours would come together to build houses, farm land, or provide childcare, repaying each other in labor rather than money. These informal debts balanced themselves over time, ensuring that no one was left behind. "We're not inventing anything new," Njoroge says. "We're automating what has always existed." Using blockchain, Grassroots Economics formalizes these commitments into digital vouchers–secure, trackable tokens that represent labor, goods, or services. The blockchain-powered system functions as a local exchange, where people contribute their skills and pull from a shared pool of community resources. The technology ensures that every commitment has a unique digital signature, preventing fraud and allowing real-time tracking of transactions. "On our platform, Sarafu.network, you can see all the transactions happening in a village–how many houses were built, how many farms were tilled, how much labor was exchanged," Njoroge explains. With blockchain, communities can see tangible data showing how much work they've accomplished together.
Note: Grassroots Economics won the 2019 Newsweek Blockchain Impact award for its innovative use of blockchain. Watch our 13 minute video on the promise of blockchain technology. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and technology for good.
Thessy Mehrain founded the Women in Blockchain community in 2016. One of Mehrain's most consistent messages is that gender equity in blockchain–and tech in general–isn't a women's issue. "Men become allies once they understand the benefits," she says. "Most companies, especially in the early blockchain days, were run by men." ETHDenver ... hosted a session featuring Njambi Njoroge, Operations Director of Grassroots Economics Foundation in Kenya. The organization has been pioneering community-driven economies by digitizing traditional mutual-aid systems with blockchain. "Njambi talked about how collaboration has always been at the core of Kenyan communities," Mehrain explains. "For centuries, people have come together to build houses, till land, and share resources. Now, with blockchain, they can track these commitments and scale them beyond their immediate community. In the West, our economies are increasingly relying on central authorities–where â€trusted middlemen' own everyone's data and hold the power. But in many places, economies are rooted in collaboration. One of the features of technologies like blockchain is to add a trust infrastructure that allows to remove central entities, and create cooperative economies." "It's not about gender–it's about mindset," she explains. "The masculine principle is about domination–the winner is who gets there first at any price. The feminine principle is about collaboration–winning is defined by getting there first as well but accounts also for the impact on others. You only win together.
Note: Watch our 13 minute video on the promise of blockchain technology. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and technology for good.
On July 7, 2022, days after Chad LaVia was freed from a year of incarceration at the jail in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, the county sent him a bill for $14,320 in "room and board" fees – $40 for each of the 358 days he'd spent inside. The invoice also reminded LaVia that he owed another $2,751.46 in fees from previous jail stints there, which brought his total debt to just over $17,000. LaVia had only two months to pay off the debt, the invoice warned, until it would be turned over to a collection agency. In September, Dauphin County's commissioners voted to forgive the nearly $66 million in pay-to-stay debt looming over formerly incarcerated people and their families. The move, championed by a commissioner who won in 2023 after running on jail reform, followed a 2022 decision by the commission that ended pay-to-stay fees but had not erased people's previous debts for jail stays. LaVia Jones said the decision to finally forgive the outstanding jail debt will help her son move on with his life, calling it "a huge relief." "The longer you sat in jail, the more debt you incurred, the more debt your family incurred. People sit there pretrial for one year, two years. It's so wrong," she said. "So this really helps him to move on with his life." Local groups ... argued for years that the pay-to-stay scheme worked against efforts at successful re-entry for people released from jail, who are typically poor and who are almost always more concerned with basic survival and staying free than with settling debts.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on repairing criminal justice.
Emerging in the 1950s, preppers were animated by a variety of often overlapping fears: some were troubled by the increasingly networked, and therefore fragile, nature of contemporary life. Early adopters ... went off-grid; hoarded provisions, firearms and ammunition, and sometimes constructed hidden bunkers. They championed individual fortitude over collective welfare. Not all of them are conservatives. Liberals make up about 15% of the prepping scene, according to one estimate, and their numbers appear to be growing. Some ... [are] steeped in the mutual aid framework of the anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin: a rejection of individualism and an emphasis on community building and mutual aid. The question is less whether we survive than how we maintain our humanity in the face of calamity, how we cope with loss, and how we use the time we have. Elizabeth Doerr, co-host of the Cramming for the Apocalypse podcast, agreed: "Researchers talk a lot about how your ability to survive a disaster or thrive post-disaster is contingent on really knowing your neighbors – because when they don't see you, they're gonna come check on you." Rather than an effort to defend ... against a nightmare future, it's a part of a commitment to living meaningfully in the present. Genuine prepping requires not only "outer resilience", as [community organizer David] Baum puts it, but an inner kind as well. "Survival is not the goal," he told me afterward. "The relationship and the wisdom and the love that one discovers by approaching nature with respect – that's the goal."
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on climate change and healing social division.
There is one thing that practically everyone can agree on: politics has become bitterly divided. Yet what if it doesn't need to be this way? For the last five years, Taiwan has been blending technology with politics to create a new way of making decisions. And with certain limits, it has found consensus where none seemed to exist. Taiwan's burgeoning scene of civic hackers ... were invited to join the government. Their creation was called vTaiwan - with the "v" standing for virtual - a platform where experts and other interested parties can deliberate contentious issues. It works by first seeking to crowdsource objective facts from those involved. Then users communicate with each other via a dedicated social media network called Pol.is, which lets them draft statements about how a matter should be solved, and respond to others' suggestions by either agreeing or disagreeing with them. Once a "rough consensus" has been reached, livestreamed or face-to-face meetings are organised so that participants can write out specific recommendations. Pol.is lifted everyone out of their echo chambers. It churned through the many axes of agreements and disagreements and drew a map to show everyone exactly where they were in the debate. There was no reply button, so people couldn't troll each other's posts. And rather than showing the messages that divided each of the four groups, Pol.is simply made them invisible. It gave oxygen instead to statements that found support across different groups as well as within them. "Change the information structure," Colin Megill, one of its founders, told me, "and you can tweak power". Rather than encourage grandstanding or the trading of insults, it gamified finding consensus. "People compete to bring up the most nuanced statements that can win most people across," Tang told me. "Invariably, within three weeks or four ... we always find a shape where most people agree on most of the statements, most of the time."
Note: Dozens of laws have been passed from this process. For more along these lines, read our inspiring summaries of news articles on tech for good.
In 2016, a coalition of media, tech, and community organizations launched the Equitable Internet Initiative, a project that will result in the construction of wireless broadband internet networks across three underserved Detroit neighborhoods. Leading the initiative is the Detroit Community Technology Project, a digital justice project sponsored by Allied Media Projects. "During the economic and housing crisis, communities had to fend for themselves," [executive director of DCTP Diana] Nucera says. That's why, she explains, "we developed this approach called community technology." The coalition raised just under $1 million from local and national foundations. Funds were used to hire employees, buy equipment, and internet bandwidth. They purchased three discounted wholesale gigabit connections from Rocket Fiber, a Detroit-based high-speed internet service provider. Their contract with Rocket Fiber allows the coalition to share its connection with the community–a provision not allowed by other companies. Each neighborhood is represented by a partnering organization, whose locale is used as the central connection hub for service. The community members are responsible for installation. DCTP trains a representative of the partnering organization, who then trains five to seven neighbors to install the equipment. "Being a digital steward was completely out of the range of what I usually do," [neighbor and digital steward Roston] says. "I was so used to using the internet ... but I didn't know how internet networks work." So far, he's helped with getting 19 of the 50 designated households in the Islandview neighborhood online. The bottom-up approach ... strengthens community relationships, increases civic engagement, and redistributes political and economic power to otherwise marginalized neighborhoods. "If the community has ownership of the infrastructure, then they're more likely to participate in its maintenance, evolution, and innovation," [Nucera] explains. "That's what we believe leads to sustainability."
Note: More than 750 American communities have built their own internet networks. For more, read about the rural Indigenous communities building their own internet networks.
More communities than ever are embracing building their own broadband networks as an alternative to the Comcast status quo. According to a freshly updated map of community-owned networks, more than 750 communities across the United States have embraced operating their own broadband network, are served by local rural electric cooperatives, or have made at least some portion of a local fiber network publicly available. The map was created by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit that advocates for local economies. These networks have sprung up across the nation as a direct reflection of the country's growing frustration with sub-par broadband speeds, high prices, and poor customer service. They've also emerged despite the fact that ISP lobbyists have convinced more than 20 states to pass protectionist laws hampering local efforts to build such regional networks. The Institute's latest update indicates that there's now 55 municipal networks serving 108 communities with a publicly owned fiber-to-the-home internet network. 76 communities now offer access to a locally owned cable network reaching most or all of the community, and more than 258 communities are now served by a rural electric cooperative. Many more communities could expand their local offerings according to the group's data. A recent study by Harvard University researchers indicated that community broadband networks tend to offer notably lower pricing than their private-sector counterparts. The study also found that community broadband network pricing tends to be more transparent and less intentionally confusing than offers from incumbent ISPs like Comcast or AT&T.
Note: Read about the rural Indigenous communities building their own internet networks.
She has been at the bedside of over 1,000 people globally in their last moments of life–from her home in the U.S. to Thailand and Zimbabwe. O'Brien, a registered nurse, had an impulse to move into hospice care over two decades ago and has since worked as an oncology nurse and a death doula, supporting those at the end of life. O'Brien's recent book, The Good Death, aims to normalize the realities of death and the need to plan for the end. At the end of life, many people share what they didn't do but knew they always wanted to do, O'Brien says."We all are here for a purpose, and we all have gifts, and when we don't share them and act upon those, that's where the huge regret comes," O'Brien says. Not "dipping into the unknown" or trying something new is a factor of having an abundance mindset, she says. When we consider our time sacred and limited, we are less afraid to take action on something that may excite us. "One of the things we don't know is how many days we have," she says. "When you get that feeling, or you have something that you want to do, don't let your ego, the fear part of you, shut it down." Many people at the end of life regret not being vulnerable enough to let themselves be loved and give love. They often share that they could not reach a level of forgiveness with someone else or themselves, O'Brien says. It's essential to extend ourselves grace, know when to take ownership, and release guilt, she says. O'Brien encourages patients to envision the time they're struggling to let go of and ask themselves if they did what they could in the moment with the information and resources they had.
Note: Explore more positive human interest stories and meaningful lessons from near-death experiences.
A new study from Canadian researchers reveals that near-death experiences transform not just how people view mortality, but how they approach their 9-to-5s. The research, published in the Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, found that after brushing against death, employees frequently reprioritize their professional lives. Many shift away from pursuing money, status, and career advancement toward seeking meaningful work and authentic relationships with colleagues and clients. Near-death experiences (NDEs) are deeply personal experiences that some people report after almost losing their lives. These experiences can include sensations such as floating above one's body, reviewing moments from one's life, encountering spiritual beings, and feeling a profound sense of unity and love. Many participants reported that traditional career achievements and financial success plummeted in importance following their close call with death. The researchers identified six major themes: insights and new realizations, personal transformations, reprioritization of work, job changes, motivation, and changed relationships. Most participants reported profound spiritual insights following their NDEs. These weren't just abstract philosophical ideas but deeply felt revelations that reshaped their identities. Common realizations included beliefs that consciousness continues after death, that there exists a "collective oneness" among all people, and that life has an underlying purpose.
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Since 2014, [French choreographer and dancer Alice Chauchat] has been conducting choreographic research on human togetherness amid all our differences. The result are several choreographic scores that activate paradoxical relationships: distant intimacy, attentive autonomy, impersonal engagement, pleasure and unknown play. Chauchat's work takes place in dance studios, in exhibition spaces, on stages ... and increasingly dance gatherings in public spaces in Copenhagen, Barcelona, and of course Berlin, sprawled across the neighborhoods around where she lives. Strangers invite each other to dance as a practice of being with oneself and being with one another "without thinking about dance as self-expression, but instead thinking of dancing as relating." I ask Chauchat what dancing means to her. "Dancing is a space where we can practice life. Because dancing is observing and being active at the same time. You perceive a situation, and you take part of it. I chose to see dancing as a form of relating. So for me it is never just dancing but always dancing with." She sees dance as a way to offer something to someone, as a form of productive confusion, as a structure of unexamined trust. The dance gatherings, she says, give people a frame and therefore a safe space and opportunity to experience what dance can do: "You are not exposed to being a great dancer or a bad dancer. You are busy with something that relieves emotional pressure."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division.
Benjamin Ree's "The Remarkable Life of Ibelin" ... is a rare and beautiful thing: a moving documentary that excavates the question of the "real" in a profoundly humanistic and unconventional way. [The film] is about Mats Steen, a Norwegian man who died in 2014 at the age of 25. Mats lived out his final years nearly immobilized, the result of being born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Mats left behind something for his family to find: the password to his blog. Robert and Trude, Mats's mother, logged in to leave a note for any readers about his passing. What happened shocked them: They began to receive emails from people all over Europe, an outpouring of love and tribute to Mats, whom everyone called "Ibelin." They were players in World of Warcraft, members of the same guild – or "community of friends," as one participant puts it – which called itself Starlight. Mats played as a burly, friendly man he called Ibelin. Mats, as Ibelin, was involved in other players' lives. A significant friend is Lisette, who lives in the Netherlands and met Mats in the game when they were both teenagers. Another is Xenia-Anni, a Danish mother who struggled to connect with her son Mikkel, in part because of his autism, until they met Mats in the game. Gaming wasn't a distraction, but a life, a place where [Mats] could express all the complex parts of his personality that the physical world couldn't accommodate. All of these people and many others tell Ree that they received wise advice from Ibelin that changed their lives. They built real friendships and had real fights and worried about one another.
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Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.